nor, as the shepherd of Ettrick says, "knees and elbows an" a","--still she fought with the instruments with which nature had endowed her, with her bill and her little claws, and she fought it most vigorously. O Nature! thou art a fearful mystery of wisdom--thou makest the meekest and most timid natures bold as lions when their progeny are concerned.
Look at the hen--poor chucky, that sc.r.a.pes her pittance from the doorway or dunghill, whom the veriest whelp which can bark and tumble over will scare into wing and screech--put the hen on eggs, give her an infant brood, show her danger from dog, man, bear, or lion--who"s afraid? Not she at least; she will dance on the nose of the mastiff, she will fly in the face of humanity, whether in the shape of man, woman, boy, or child.
The warrior looks fierce in his regimentals and armour; but what cares she for guns, bayonets, swords, and pistols? Not a peppercorn! Her young ones are behind her, and she will meet the armed monster, with foot, bill, wing, and with a fearful intonation of terrifying sounds. No Highland regiment, even at Prestonpans, ever set up a more alarming battle shout. She is never conquered--like Achilles, she is "invincible;" but so soon as her progeny need no more her care or her protection--so soon as they have been pecked into estrangement, and sent to sc.r.a.pe and provide for themselves--she resumes all her mild and feminine qualities--she is plain "chucky" again! The linnet"s nest is covered with scales of a silky whiteness--the fine thin _laminae_ which cover the bark of the oak, of that very tree in the cleft of whose branches her nursery is fixed. Inside of this little nicely-proportioned cup, there are five beautifully-spotted eggs--a white ground with a grey spot, flung over the whole sh.e.l.l with a most charming regularity. And there is a nest in that stone wall which surrounds the plantation--it is that of the stone-chatter--filthy, unsonsy bird, fit companion for the yellow yeldring, which conceals her treasure "neath a tuft of gra.s.s on the bent, and is trodden under foot. They are both deserving of all detestation; the one for drinking every May morning of the devil"s-blood, and the other for many an impertinent jest and chatter.
Let them perish in one day--let their eggs be blown, and hung up as ornaments in strings along the brow of the household looking-gla.s.s, or smashed to atoms by the stroke of an urchin previously blinded.
"For he ne"er would be true, she averred, That would rob a poor bird."
It was whilst engaged in robbery of this kind, that I was first checked by the tears and entreaties of Mary--of my dear cousin, Mary Morison.
Alas! poor Mary! thou wast mild, beautiful, kind, merciful; yet thy days have been numbered, and thou art gone--
"Unde negant redire quenquam;"
and I, a lubber fiend in comparison with thy beauty and gentleness--I, a personification of cruelty and horror in comparison with thee--I am still alive, and thinking of thee--whilst thou art not even _dust_--"_etiam periere ruinae_." Forty-five years confound even dust, and reduce to a fearful nonent.i.ty all that smiled, and charmed, and inspired. But of this enough--this way madness lies.
That was a terrible conflagration at Miramichi. I think I hear it crashing, thundering, crackling on; before it the wild beasts, the serpents, the cattle--man! poor, houseless, helpless, smoke-enveloped, and perishing man. The reason why I can conceive so vividly of this awful and comparatively recent visitation is this--I was accustomed to "set muirburn" when a boy of nine or ten. The primeval heath of our mountains was strong, bushy; and, when dry in spring, exceedingly inflammable. I was a mountain child; for, on one side of my dwelling the heather withered and bloomed up to the door; and when one thinks of the "bonny blooming heather," it is quite refreshing; it blooms when all things around it are withering, during the later months of harvest; but then, oh, then, it puts on such a russet robe of beauty--a dark evening cloud tipped and tinged with red--a mantle of black velvet spangled with gold; and its fragrance is honey steeped in myrrh. Yet when withered in March and April, it is an object of aversion to the sheep farmer, who prefers green gra.s.s and tender sward; and he issues to impatient boyhood the sentence of destruction. Peat follows peat, kindled at one end, and held by the other; the hillside or the level muir swarm with matches; carefully is the ignition communicated to the dry and widespread heath; from spot to spot--in lines and in circles--it extends and unites--the wind is up, and one continuous blaze is the almost immediate consequence. It is night, dark night--the clouds above catch and reflect the uncertain gleam. The heathfowl wing their terrified flight--through, above, and beneath the rolling and outspreading smoke. The flame gathers into a point; and, at the more advanced part of the curvature, the force and blaze is terrible. A thousand tongues of fire shoot up into the density, and immediately disappear. Who now so venturous as to dash headlong through the hottest flame, and to recover from beneath the choking night his former position? There goes--a hat--a cap--a bonnet!
They have taken up their position in the pathway of the devouring flood of fire--and who so brave, so daring, as to extricate his own property from instant destruction? Hurrah! hurrah! from a score of throats, mixes with the thunder, the crackle, the roll--all is power, novelty, ecstasy; bare heads and bare feet dance and show conspicuously upon the still smoking turf. Here an adder is seen writhing and twisting in the agonies of death. There a half-burned hat evinces the fun and the folly of its owner. But, oh, horrible! what is that on the edge of vision, in the dim and hazy distance; it comes forward, bounding, turning, and bellowing, fearful and paralysing; it is the bull himself escaped from his fold, and maddened by the smoke and blazing atmosphere. He comes down upon the charge, tail erect, and head down, tossing all that is solid under his feet, and looking through the scattered earth with eyes glaring as well as reflecting fire. Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon, Wallace, Wellington, never entered a field of battle with such a terrific presence. He seems as if he had just escaped from a Roman or Spanish arena. He is desperately infuriated; and woe be to him who shall be overtaken by this muscular tornado in his weakness and his fears! We are off!
_diffugimus_! We are nowhere to be found. One has made for a distant wall surrounding the heather park, and is in the act of climbing it. The bull is in full chase, armed with two short but powerful horns. The fugitive has just laid hold of an upper stone to a.s.sist his ascent; but the faithless help has given way; stone and he are lying alongside of the d.y.k.e. The bull is in full scent. The noise has directed him. He nears--he nears--he nears! My G.o.d! the urchin"s life is not worth two minutes" purchase.
"Now, do thy speedy, Arnot Wull-- "Twill take it all to clear the bull!"
Bravo! the summit is gained; the feet of the pursued are seen flying in mid air; he has sprung from the summit at least twenty feet; but the whole weight of the pursuing brute is upon the crazy structure; it gives way with a crash, and down rush stones over stones, and the poor maimed, bruised brute over all. What! Mr. Bull! are you satisfied?--why not continue the sport? But the game is up; Will has regained his mother"s dwelling, and now lives to record this wonderful, this all but miraculous escape. Catch me setting muirburn again!
I was very unwilling, at the age of nine, to be sent to school--I had formed for myself a home society with which I was perfectly satisfied; but the decree had gone forth, and to school I must go, to learn Latin, conducted by a scholar of some standing. I had three miles to walk, but I would have wished them ten. Shakspeare shows the characters with whom time gallops, and, amongst others, with a thief who is to be hanged on a certain day--he might have mentioned a schoolboy, with shiny morning face, going unwillingly to school. When I came within sight of the large, many-windowed building, my heart beat sorely with alarm. All was new to me--the boys, the masters, the house, the grounds around it; in fact, I was about to pa.s.s into a new state of being. I was bursting the sh.e.l.l, and coming forth into real life. Hitherto I had seen n.o.body but the herd-callan, the Gibson family, my mother and _her_ aunts. I was exceeding smart and mischievous, no doubt; but my sphere of operations was confined; now it was about to be enlarged--I must face three hundred boys and girls in the park or school play-ground of Wallacehall. All eyes would be turned upon me; my very dress would undergo a scrutiny; nor would I easily escape the seasoning welcome, a hearty drubbing: all this I antic.i.p.ated, and all this and more I soon experienced. When I set up my face in the play-ground about half-past eight (nine being the school hour), all was commotion. Alas! how many are now motionless who were then active--_still_, who were then vociferous--_cold_, whose hearts were then beating warm and buoyant! When the disk of my countenance appeared at the entrance into the park or play-ground, I was immediately smoked. One fellow came up with the most affected good-nature, and hoped my _mither_ was with me. I would be in great danger, he said, without her. A second one bid me tie my shoe, and, whilst I was stooping, hauled me heels over head. I had not fairly recovered my natural position, when I was. .h.i.t on the side of my head with a ball, till my eyes glanced fire; anon, the drive, the crowd, the scramble carried me along with it completely off my feet. I was pelted, bruised, buffeted, and even kicked. Human nature could stand it no longer--my spirit, even that of the Devil, was awakened within me--I struck out around me with all my might, and at random--somebody"s nose happened to come in the way of my knuckles, and it bled; he struck back again, and the blood sprang from my lips. A ring was formed--to it we went--I, running in upon him head and shoulders, "knees and elbows an"
a"," laid him flat; unfair play was proclaimed--my antagonist was raised; but he was pale and breathless; he said he was _hearted_, and had almost fainted; so I got a cheap victory, and eternal glory! I took my place amongst the boys, unmolested and respected in future. I would twaddle through a pretty decent volume, about public and private education, and everybody but my bookseller would think I was speaking sense; but I will spare my reader and myself, and only add, in one sentence, that a public seminary, well conducted, is the best of all schools _for the world_--preparation for the buffetings, kickings, and jostlings of life.
THE SUICIDE"S GRAVE.
The suicide"s grave--where is it? It is at the meeting or crossing of three public roads; the body has been thrust down, under the darkness of night, into a coffinless grave. The breast, formerly torn and lacerated by pa.s.sions, has lately been mangled into horrid deformity by the pointed stake; and the traveller, as he walks, rides, or drives along, regards the spot with an eye of suspicion, and blesses his stars that he is a living man. The suicide"s grave--where is it? On the bare and cold top of that mountain which divides Lanark from Dumfriesshire. There you may see congregated the hoody craw, and the grey gled, and the eagle--but they are not congregated in peace and in friendship; they are fearful rivals, and terrible notes do they utter as they contend over the body of her who was fair, and innocent, and happy. Alas, for Alice Lorimer! Her story is a sad one, and it would require the pen of a Sterne or a Wilson to do it justice. But the circ.u.mstances are of themselves so full of mournful interest, that, even though stated in the most simple language, they cannot fail, I should think, to interest--nay, I will say it at once, to excite sympathy and pity; for why should we not pity the unhappy and unfortunate? They are pitied in poverty, in obscurity, in sickness, in death. Why should not we even pity the guilty and abandoned? They are pitied in prison, on the day of trial, and, most of all, in the hour of execution. There--even there--on that platform, the murderer himself obtains that sympathy which we refuse to the suicide. He who has only ruined, destroyed himself, is held in greater abhorrence than the man who has ruined innocence, and even murdered the unhappy mother and unborn babe. Away with such unjust and ungenerous distinctions! Away, and to the highway and to the mountain top, and to the raven, and the falcon, and the eagle, with the seducer and the murderer; and let the poor suicide"s grave, in future, be in consecrated ground, where remembrance may soon overlook his woes and his very existence. Let him sleep unknowing and unknown in the churchyard of his fathers. Alice Lorimer, I myself knew--I was intimately acquainted with her--I was a companion and a favourite. In frosty weather we have frequented the same slides, and, when Alice was in danger of falling, I have caught her in my arms; we have hopped together for hours, playing at beds, and I even made Alice privy to all my birds" nests. Hers was indeed a playful, but a gentle nature. Her heart was light, her voice clear and cheerful, and her whole affections were engrossed by an only surviving parent, a widowed father. Alice was his first-born and his last. Her mother had given her life at the expense of her own; and her father, a shoemaker in the village of Croalchapel, devoted his whole spare time to the education of Alice.
Often have I seen him, with the shoe on the last, and the elshun in his hand, pursuing his daily labours; but listening attentively all the while to Aly"s readings. It was thus the child was taught to read the Bible, to say her prayers, and ultimately to make her father"s dinner and her own. Their cottage stood at what was termed the "_head_ of the town," on a sunny eminence looking to the west; behind it were the shade and the shelter of many trees, of the widespread oak, the tall ash, and the sweetly-scented birch. On Sabbath afternoons, John Lorimer might be seen with his beloved child, clean and neatly dressed, ascending to the top of the Bormoors braes; and, from the green summit of the eminence, looking abroad over a landscape, certainly not surpa.s.sed by any which has yet come under the writer"s observation. On his one hand lay the worn and silver-clasped Bible, from which portions of the gospels were occasionally read, and on the other reposed Poodle, a little wire-haired dog of uncommon natural parts, which had been greatly improved by education. Poodle could bark, and do all manner of things. His eyes would "glisten in friendship, or beam in reply." His nose was a platform, from which many little pieces of bread had been tossed up into the air, and afterwards snapped. He was all obedience to little Alice in particular; and, at her bidding, would do anything but swim--he had, somehow or other, contracted an aversion for the water, probably referable to some mischievous boys having one day thrown him into Closeburn Loch.
Alice and I went to school together. Her father"s cottage lay directly in my way, and I called daily for the sweet girl. The other boys laughed at me, and made a fool of me, and asked me if I had seen Alice this morning. I could not stand this; for I reverenced the little innocent lamb--so I hit the Mr. Impertinence a blow in the stomach, which sent him reeling over several benches. I was no more taunted about Alice Lorimer. There were a number of older and less feminine girls at the school at this time. At play-hours these congregated by themselves behind the school, whilst the boys occupied the play-ground in front.
Alice was one day severely handled by a neighbour"s daughter, who had fixed a quarrel on her, and then beat her severely, calling her all manner of names, and, amongst others, honouring her with my own. I found the poor child--for I was a few years older--in tears, as we met in the Castle-wood on our way home. It was with difficulty that I drew, bit by bit, the whole truth from her; and I resolved to punish, in one way or other, the rude and ill-hearted aggressor in this matter. I could not think of punishing her myself; but I got Jean Watson, the servant-maid of the factor"s clerk--a kind of haverel, who sometimes threw me an apple over the hedge in pa.s.sing--I got her to catch the culprit after dark, and to chastise her in her own way. I know not how it was effected, but it produced loud screams, and much merriment to me; for I was lying all the while _perdu_ on the other side of the hedge. Tibby Murdoch was a most revengeful person--quite the antipodes to sweet Alice Lorimer. She was the daughter of a quarryman, who had come, only a few years before, to reside in the place, and work at the Laird of Closeburn"s lime-works. How difficult it is for poor blind mortals to see the consequences of their actions! Had I then fully perceived what this act of retaliation was to lead to--what dismal consequences were to follow--I would rather have sunk at once into perdition than have been concerned in the affair. Tibby Murdoch"s father was a brutal and a pa.s.sionate man; and, understanding from his daughter how matters stood, and that poor Alice Lorimer had been the cause of his daughter"s disaster, he left his work at mid-day, and, taking a horse-whip in his hand, entered the shoemaker"s shop, and not finding Alice, without more ado, he proceeded to apply it to John Lorimer"s shoulders. John Lorimer was a little, but a strong and well-made man, and, though the other was tall, bull-headed, and extremely athletic, John immediately threw aside his instruments of labour, which he felt it was dangerous to use on the occasion, and closed at once with the enemy. The struggle was severe; but John Lorimer, having got a hold of Murdoch about the middle, fairly lifted him off his feet, and dashed him down on the floor. Murdoch"s strength, however, was superior to John"s; and he contrived to roll over upon his enemy, and at last to thrust his head immediately under a grate, which stood in a corner of the shop, containing live coals for melting some rosin which was about to be used. The crucible, with the melted and boiling rosin was upturned; and, unfortunately, the whole contents were spread over John Lorimer"s face. He was dreadfully burned; but, what was worst of all, he lost the sight of one eye by the accident, and was very materially injured in the other. On an investigation by the proper authorities, Murdoch was convicted of the a.s.sault, and imprisoned for twelve calendar months. During his imprisonment, revenge upon poor Lorimer was his constant theme; and, when the time expired, he removed to the parish of Keir, and found employment in a lime-work belonging to Dr. Hunter of Barjarg. He was still, unfortunately, within an hour"s walk of Croalchapel, and lay, like a cat in a corner, watching his prey. In the meantime, John Lorimer, though greatly deformed in his countenance, recovered the use of one eye, and pursued his quiet and useful labour as formerly. As his daughter Alice advanced in years, she grew in loveliness and virtue. At twelve years of age she became her father"s housekeeper; and conducted herself in that capacity with surprising sense and prudence. It was at this time that I left school for college; and I spent the last night with Alice Lorimer. I was then a lad of sixteen, and she, as I have said, was twelve. What had I to do in the Castle-wood, by moonlight, and late after her father had gone to rest, with Alice Lorimer! Gentle reader, have a little patience, and exercise a little Christian charity, and, upon my honour, I will tell you all! But, in the first place, I must know your s.e.x, and whether or not you have ever been sixteen years old. If your s.e.x corresponds with my own, and your information on the other subject is equal to my own, then you will understand the thing completely. I was then as innocent as it is possible for a youth of sixteen to be; nay, I was absolutely shy and bashful to a great degree, and would have shrunk from any advances, even to innocent familiarity, with the other s.e.x. But I was not in love with Alice Lorimer. True, she preferred my company to that of any other person, save her dearly-beloved father; true, she sat on my knee, as she did on that of her parent, unconscious of any different feeling in the two positions; but we never talked of love; I would as soon have thought of talking of our being king and queen; and as to Alice, her friendship for me was as pure as the love of angels. She could not think of parting with me--of perhaps (and she burst into tears) never seeing me again. I must write to her--and I must come back and see her, and talk funnily to her father, who liked a joke--and I must--I forget how many "musts" there were; but they lasted till half-past one o"clock. I parted with her at her father"s door. I never saw her again!
I was coming down Enterkin late in a fine moonlight night in the spring of 1806. I was on my way to join a family in Galloway, where I long acted in the capacity of tutor. I had then attained my twenty-first year; and I chanced to be calculating--as I expected seeing Alice Lorimer on the following day--what her age must be. Let me see, said I, so audibly that I started at my own utterance, as did a little pony I rode; and what followed was the sum of my reflections. I calculated, by the common rule of proportion, that if Alice was twelve when I was sixteen, she would be seventeen now that I was twenty-one. Seventeen! I repeated, just seventeen!--and I urged on the pony instinctively, as if hastening towards Croalchapel. But I had been five years at Edinburgh at College. What a change had come over the spirit of my dreams during that period! I had had to contend with fortune in many ways; had been often disappointed, and sometimes driven almost to despair; again I had prospered, got into lucrative employment, become a member of speaking societies, distinguished myself by talking sense and nonsense right and left. I had spent many merry evenings in Johnie Dowie"s; and had seen Lady Charlotte Campbell and Tom Sheridan in a box at the theatre. In fact, I was not now the same being I was when I left for College; and I felt that, however fair and faultless Alice Lorimer might be, she could never be mine--I could never be hers; our fortunes were separated by a barrier which, when I went to College, I did not clearly perceive. In fact, my ambition now taught me to aim at the bar or the church; and I knew that, for years to come, I must be contented with a single life, which, in Edinburgh in particular, I had learned to endure without murmuring. Yet I thought of poor Alice with most kindly feelings, and had some secret doubts upon the propriety of exposing myself in her presence to a revival of old times and former feelings. In this tone of mind I was jogging on, with half a bottle of Mrs. Otto"s (of Lead-hills) best port wine under my belt, and endeavouring to collect some rhymes to the word Lorimer; but either the muse was unpropitious, or the word, like that mentioned in Horace, refused to stand in verse; it so happened that I had given up the effort, and was about to dismiss the subject altogether, when I discovered, near the bottom of the pa.s.s, a number of figures advancing upon me in an opposite direction. As they came up the pa.s.s, under a meridian moon, I could discover that they carried something on a barrow, which, on nearer inspection, I found to be a coffin. I drew my pony to the side of the road, lifted my hat reverentially, and the party, consisting of upwards of twenty, pa.s.sed in solemn silence. The incident was a little startling, and somewhat unnatural, not to say superhuman; for, why were these people carrying a coffin up the long and narrow pa.s.s which separates Lanark from Dumfriesshire, so late at night, and in such mysterious silence? A thought struck me, which contributed not a little to ease my mind in regard to supernaturals; were they a company of smugglers from Bowness, taking this method of carrying forward their untaxed goods to Lanark and Glasgow? Ruminating on this subject, and laughing inwardly at my own ingenuity and discernment, I arrived at last at Thornhill, where I remained for the night. Next morning I reached Croalchapel, on my way to my birthplace. I went up to that very door at which I had parted with Alice, some five years before, and endeavoured to open it; but it was shut and locked. I looked in at the end-window, above the fire-place; but there was neither fire nor inhabitant--all was silence. My heart sank within me; and a neighbour, who saw my ignorance and mistake, advertised me that both parent and child were no more; and that Alice Lorimer was _buried_!--here he hesitated, and seemed to retract the expression--"at least," said he, "committed to the earth last night!"
"Was she not buried by her father in the burial-ground of the Lorimers of Closeburn?" said I, hastily, and in an agitated tone. The man looked me in the face attentively, and, probably then for the first time recognising me, waved his hand, burst into tears, and left me. I hastened to the home of my fathers, half distracted. My mother still lived and enjoyed good health--from her I learned the following particulars.
John Lorimer"s sight, she said, served him for a time, during which he wrought as usual, and his daughter grew to be a tall and handsome woman; but at last it began to fail, and he would put the elshun into a wrong place, or thrust it into his hand. Alice perceived this, and was most anxious to provide for her father under this irremediable calamity. She took in linen and bleached it on the bonny knowe among the gowans; she span yarn, and sold it at Thornhill fairs; in short, she did all she could to support herself and her father in an honest and honourable way.
But it was a severe struggle to make ends meet. In the meantime she had several offers of marriage; but refused them all, as she could not think of leaving her poor blind parent alone and helpless, and none of her lovers were rich enough to present a home to a supernumerary inmate. One evening, whilst, after a severe day"s labour, she was sitting with old Poodle (her constant companion, but now likewise blind) by the fire, Mr.
John Murdoch made his appearance. Her father had gone early to bed in the shop end of the house, and did not know of the man"s visit. He came, he said, as a repentant sinner to relieve her necessities. He had occasioned her father"s blindness, and he was glad to be made the instrument of bringing some pecuniary relief. Thus saying, he put into her hands a five-pound note, and, without waiting for a reply, took his departure. This startled poor Alice not a little; she looked at the money, then thought of the man, and again listened to see if her father was sleeping--at last, she put it into her chest, determined not to make use of it unless in case of necessity. The factor, who had hitherto been lenient, became urgent for the rent. There were two years due, and the five-pound note exactly covered the debt; away therefore it went into the factor"s hands, and poor Alice returned thanks on her knees to Heaven, that had sent her the means of keeping from her father the knowledge of their situation.
In a few days Murdoch found her at the washing-green, and entered more particularly into the history of the money. He said it had been sent by one who had seen and admired her. He was on a visit at Barjarg, the proprietor being his uncle. He was the son and heir of a very rich man, not expected to live many months. He was determined to please himself in marrying, having observed great misery arise from adopting a contrary plan and he wished, in fine, to cultivate a further acquaintance with Alice, to whom he had sent another five-pound note in the meantime. In short, after exhibiting great reluctance to agree to a secret interview, and after having again and again tried to get words to communicate the whole matter to her father, a young gentleman of gaudy and genteel appearance made his way out of the adjoining wood, and was introduced by Murdoch as young Johnstone of Westerhall. Few words pa.s.sed--poor Alice was quite nonplussed--she felt that she was not equal to this awful trial, and yet there was something fearfully pleasant in it. A young man, handsome and rich--her father blind and helpless--her hand quite at her own disposal--and independence and comfort brought to the good man"s house for life. Her lover, however, did not press the thing further that time; he took his departure along with Murdoch, and Alice was a second time left to her own reflections. These, however, soon informed her that she was on the brink of perdition. She ran at once to her father, and, in a paroxysm of feeling, informed him of all that had pa.s.sed. He reproved her, but gently, for her having devoted the money to the purpose which she mentioned; informed her that he was richer than she supposed, for he had just five pounds which her sainted mother had put into his hand on the marriage day; and that he was keeping, and had kept it sacred against the expenses of his funeral. He would now willingly give it to recover their house, and to free her from all temptation to sin. Alice wept; but she felt comforted in the a.s.surance that, by repaying the money, and breaking off all connection with Murdoch and Johnstone, she was doing the right and the safe thing.
Accordingly, she went to bed with a satisfied mind, determined next day to find out Murdoch"s dwelling, and have everything settled to her father"s advice and her own wish. She dressed herself in her best; and set out, soon after breakfast, for Barjarg Castle, never to see her father again. She was betrayed by the revengeful Murdoch to a dissipated, a heartless debauchee; was carried by force betwixt Murdoch and him in a chaise to Dumfries; was lodged by Johnstone in convenient quarters. Every art was used to reconcile her to her situation: but all in vain; she stood her trials n.o.bly; detected the old game of a private marriage; and afterwards refused to be united to Johnstone on any terms whatever. But in the meantime, poor John Lorimer missed his daughter, and immediately guessed the cause of it. Tibby Murdoch took care to inform him, for his comfort, that Alice had run away with the young Laird of Westerha", and, giggling and laughing all the while, that they were living very comfortably and lovingly in Dumfries. The blind man knew this to be all a lie, but he knew enough to kill him; he knew that his daughter was young and beautiful--that a villain had been endeavouring to inveigle her--that a still greater villain, Murdoch, had betrayed her--and that, in a word, she was now a poor dishonoured woman.
He knew, or thought he knew, all this, and was found dead next morning in his bed. The doctors said he died of apoplexy! If it was, it was a mental apoplexy. Tired with fruitless efforts to gain his purpose, Johnstone at last permitted Alice to depart. In a few hours she was at her father"s house; but it was desolate and silent. A paper, which was put into my hands, was evidently written by Alice. She expressed her determination to follow her dear father into another and a better world, and hoped Heaven would forgive her. It was her funeral I met at Enterkin. Hers was
"The poor suicide"s grave."
THE SALMON-FISHER OF UDOLL.
In the autumn of 1759, the Bay of Udoll, an arm of the sea which intersects the southern sh.o.r.e of the Frith of Cromarty, was occupied by two large salmon wears, the property of one Allan Thomson, a native of the province of Moray, who had settled in this part of the country a few months before. He was a thin, athletic, raw-boned man, of about five feet ten, well nigh in his thirtieth year, but apparently younger; erect and clean-limbed, with a set of handsome features, bright intelligent eyes, and a profusion of dark-brown hair, curling round an ample expanse of forehead. For the first twenty years of his life, he had lived about a farm-house, tending cattle when a boy, and guiding the plough when he had grown up; he then travelled into England, where he wrought about seven years as a common labourer. A novelist would scarcely make choice of such a person for the hero of a tale; but men are to be estimated rather by the size and colour of their minds, than the complexion of their circ.u.mstances; and this ploughman and labourer of the north was by no means a very common man. For the latter half of his life, he had pursued, in all his undertakings, one main design. He saw his brother rustics tied down by circ.u.mstance--that destiny of vulgar minds--to a youth of toil and dependence, and an old age of dest.i.tution and wretchedness; and, with a force of character which, had he been placed at his outset on what may be termed the table-land of fortune, would have raised him to her higher pinnacles, he persisted in adding shilling to shilling and pound to pound, not in the sordid spirit of the miser, but in the hope that his little h.o.a.rd might yet serve him as a kind of stepping-stone in rising to a more comfortable place in society. Nor were his desires fixed very high; for, convinced that independence and the happiness which springs from situation in life lie within the reach of the frugal farmer of sixty or eighty acres, he moulded his ambition on the conviction; and scarcely looked beyond the period at which he antic.i.p.ated his savings would enable him to take his place among the humbler tenantry of the country.
Our firths and estuaries at this period abounded with salmon--one of the earliest exports of the kingdom; but from the low state into which commerce had sunk in the northern districts, and the irregularity of the communication kept up between them and the sister kingdom, by far the greater part caught on our sh.o.r.es were consumed by the inhabitants. And so little were they deemed a luxury, that it was by no means uncommon, it is said, for servants to stipulate with their masters that they should not have to diet on salmon oftener than thrice a-week. Thomson, however, had seen quite enough, when in England, to convince him, that, meanly as they were esteemed by his countryfolks, they might be rendered the staple of a profitable trade; and, removing to the vicinity of Cromarty, for the facilities it afforded in trading to the capital, he launched boldly into the speculation. He erected his two wears with his own hands; built himself a cottage of sods on the gorge of a little ravine, sprinkled over with bushes of alder and hazel; entered into correspondence with a London merchant, whom he engaged as his agent; and began to export his fish by two large sloops, which plied, at this period, between the neighbouring port and the capital. His fishings were abundant, and his agent an honest one; and he soon began to realize the sums he had expended in establishing himself in the trade.
Could any one antic.i.p.ate that a story of fondly-cherished, but hapless attachment--of one heart blighted for ever, and another fatally broken--was to follow such an introduction?
The first season of Thomson"s speculation had come to a close; winter set in; and, with scarcely a single acquaintance among the people in the neighbourhood, and little to employ him, he had to draw for amus.e.m.e.nt on his own resources alone. He had formed, when a boy, a taste for reading; and might now be found in the long evenings, hanging over a book, beside the fire; by day, he went sauntering among the fields, calculating on the advantages of every agricultural improvement; or attended the fairs and trysts of the country, to speculate on the profits of the drover and cattle-feeder, and make himself acquainted with all the little mysteries of bargain-making.
There holds, early in November, a famous cattle market in the ancient barony of Ferntosh; and Thomson had set out to attend it. The morning was clear and frosty, and he felt buoyant of heart and limb, as pa.s.sing westwards along the sh.o.r.e, he saw the huge Ben-Nevis towering darker and more loftily over the Frith as he advanced; or turned aside, from time to time, to explore some ancient burying-ground or Danish encampment.
There is not a tract of country of equal extent in the three kingdoms, where antiquities of this cla.s.s lie thicker than in that northern strip of the parish of Resolis which bounds on the Cromarty Frith. The old castle of Craig House, a venerable, time-shattered building, detained him, amid its broken arches, for hours; and he was only reminded of the ultimate object of his journey, when, on surveying the moor from the upper bartizan, he saw that the groups of men and cattle which, since morning, had been mottling in succession the track leading to the fair, were all gone out of sight; and that, far as the eye could reach not a human figure was to be seen. The whole population of the country seemed to have gone to the fair. He quitted the ruins, and, after walking smartly over the heathy ridge to the west, and through the long birch-wood of Kinbeakie, he reached about mid-day the little straggling village at which the market holds.
Thomson had never before attended a thoroughly Highland market; and the scene now presented was wholly new to him. The area it occupied was an irregular opening in the middle of the village, broken by ruts, and dung-hills, and heaps of stone. In front of the little turf-houses on either side, there was a row of booths, constructed mostly of poles and blankets, in which much whisky, and a few of the simpler articles of foreign merchandise, were sold. In the middle of the open s.p.a.ce, there were carts and benches, laden with the rude manufactures of the country--Highland brogues and blankets; bowls and platters of beech; a species of horse and cattle harness, formed of the twisted twigs of birch; bundles of split fir, for lath and torches; and hair tackle and nets, for fishermen. Nearly seven thousand persons, male and female, thronged the area bustling and busy, and in continual motion, like the tides and eddies of two rivers at their confluence. There were countrywomen, with their s.h.a.ggy little horses, laden with cheese and b.u.t.ter; Highlanders from the far hills, with droves of sheep and cattle; shoemakers and weavers, from the neighbouring villages, with bales of webs and wallets of shoes; farmers and fishermen, engaged as it chanced in buying or selling; bevies of bonny la.s.ses, attired in their gayest; ploughmen and mechanics; drovers, butchers, and herd-boys. Whisky flowed abundantly, whether bargain-makers bought or sold, or friends met or parted; and, as the day wore later, the confusion and bustle of the crowd increased. A Highland tryst, even in the present age, rarely pa.s.ses without witnessing a fray; and the Highlanders, seventy years ago, were of more combative dispositions than they are now; but Thomson, who had neither friend nor enemy among the thousands around him, neither quarreled himself, nor interfered in the quarrels of others. He merely stood and looked on, as a European would among the frays of one of the great fairs of Bagdad or Astracan.
He was pa.s.sing through the crowd, towards evening, in front of one of the dingier cottages, when a sudden burst of oaths and exclamations rose from within, and the inmates came pouring out pell-mell at the door, to throttle and pummel one another, in inextricable confusion. A grey headed old man, of great apparent strength, who seemed by far the most formidable of the combatants, was engaged in desperate battle with two young fellows from the remote Highlands, while all the others were matched man to man. Thomson, whose residence in England had taught him very different notions of fair play and the ring, was on the eve of forgetting his caution and interfering; but the interference proved unnecessary. Ere he had stepped up to the combatants, the old man, with a vigour little lessened by age, had shaken off both his opponents; and, though they stood glaring at him like tiger cats, neither of them seemed in the least inclined to renew the attack.
"Twa mean pitiful kerns," exclaimed the old man, "to tak odds against ane auld enough to be their faither! an that, too, after burning my loof wi" the het airn! But I hae noited their twa heads thegither! Sic a trick!--to bid me stir up the fire, after they had heated the wrang end o" the poker! Deil but I hae a guid mind to gie them baith mair o"t yet!"
Ere he could make good his threat, however, his daughter, a delicate-looking girl of nineteen, came rushing up to him through the crowd. "Father!" she exclaimed, "dearest father! let us away. For my sake, if not your own, let these wild men alone; they always carry knives; and, besides, you will bring all of their clan upon you that are at the tryst, and you will be murdered."
"No muckle danger frae that, Lillias," said the old man. "I hae little fear frae ony ane o" them; an" if they come by twasome, I hae my friends here to. The ill-deedy wratches, to blister a" my loof wi" the poker!
But come awa, la.s.sie; your advice is, I daresay, best after a"."
The old man quitted the place with his daughter; and, for the time, Thomson saw no more of him. As the night approached, the Highlanders became more noisy and turbulent; they drank, and disputed, and drove their very bargains at the dirk"s point; and, as the salmon-fisher pa.s.sed through the village for the last time, he could see the waving of bludgeons, and hear the formidable war-cry of one of the clans, with the equally formidable, "Hilloa! help for Cromarty!" echoing on every side of him. He kept coolly on his way, however, without waiting the result; and while yet several miles from the sh.o.r.es of Udoll, daylight had departed, and the moon at full had risen, red and huge in the frosty atmosphere, over the bleak hill of Nigg.
He had reached the burn of Newhall--a small stream, which, after winding for several miles between its double row of alders, and its thickets of gorse and hazel, falls into the upper part of the bay--and was cautiously picking his way, by the light of the moon, along a narrow pathway which winds among the bushes. There are few places in the country of worse repute among believers in the supernatural than the burn of Newhall; and its character seventy years ago was even worse than it is at present. Witch meetings without number have been held on its banks, and dead lights have been seen hovering over its deeper pools.
Sportsmen have charged their fowling-pieces with silver when crossing it in the night-time; and I remember an old man who never approached it after dark without fixing a bayonet on the head of his staff. Thomson, however, was but little influenced by the beliefs of the period; and he was pa.s.sing under the shadow of the alders, with more of this world than of the other in his thoughts, when the silence was suddenly broken by a burst of threats and exclamations, as if several men had fallen a-fighting, scarcely fifty yards away, without any preliminary quarrel; and, with the gruffer noises, there mingled the shrieks and entreaties of a female. Thomson grasped his stick and sprang forward. He reached an opening among the bushes, and saw in the imperfect light the old robust Lowlander of the previous fray attacked by two men armed with bludgeons, and defending himself manfully with his staff. The old man"s daughter, who had clung round the knees of one of the ruffians, was already thrown to the ground and trampled under foot. An exclamation of wrath and horror burst from the high-spirited fisherman, as, rushing upon the fellow like a tiger from its jungle, he caught the stroke aimed at him on his stick, and with a sidelong blow on the temple, felled him to the ground. At the instant he fell, a gigantic Highlander leaped from among the bushes, and raising his huge arm, discharged a tremendous blow at the head of the fisherman, who, though taken unawares and at a disadvantage, succeeded, notwithstanding, in transferring it to his left shoulder, where it fell broken and weak. A desperate but brief combat ensued. The ferocity and ponderous strength of the Celt, found their more than match in the cool, vigilant skill, and leopard-like agility of the Lowland Scot; for the latter, after discharging a storm of blows on the head, face, and shoulders of the giant, until he staggered, at length struck his bludgeon out of his hand, and prostrated his whole huge length by dashing his stick end-long against his breast. At nearly the same moment the burly old farmer, who had grappled with his antagonist, had succeeded in flinging him, stunned and senseless, against the gnarled root of an alder; and the three ruffians--for the first had not yet recovered--lay stretched on the gra.s.s. Ere they could secure them, however, a shrill whistle was heard echoing from among the alders, scarcely a hundred yards away. "We had better get home," said Thomson to the old man, "ere these fellows are reinforced by their brother ruffians in the wood." And, supporting the maiden with his one hand, and grasping his stick with the other, he plunged among the bushes in the direction of the path, and, gaining it, pa.s.sed onward, lightly and hurriedly, with his charge; the old man followed more heavily behind; and, in somewhat less than an hour after, they were all seated beside the hearth of the latter, in the farm-house of Meikle Farness.
It is now more than forty years since the last stone of the very foundation has disappeared; but the little gra.s.sy eminence on which the house stood may still be seen. There is a deep-wooded ravine behind, which, after winding through the table-land of the parish, like a huge crooked furrow--the bed evidently of some antediluvian stream--opens far below to the sea; an undulating tract of field and moor--with here and there a thicket of bushes, and here and there a heap of stone--spreads in front. When I last looked on the scene, "twas in the evening of a pleasant day in June. One half the eminence was bathed in the red light of the setting sun--the other lay brown and dark in the shadow. A flock of sheep were scattered over the sunny side; the herd-boy sat on the top, solacing his leisure with a music famous in the pastoral history of Scotland, but now well-nigh exploded--that of the _stock_ and _horn_; and the air seemed filled with its echoes. I stood picturing to myself the appearance of the place, ere all the inmates of this evening, young and old, had gone to the churchyard, and left no successors behind them; and as I sighed over the vanity of human hopes, I could almost fancy I saw an apparition of the cottage rising on the knoll. I could see the dark turf walls; the little square windows, barred below and glazed above; the straw roof, embossed with moss and stone-crop; and, high overhead, the row of venerable elms, with their gnarled trunks and twisted branches that rose out of the garden wall. Fancy gives an interest to all her pictures--yes, even when the subject is but a humble cottage; and when we think of human enjoyment--of the pride of strength and the light of beauty--in connection with a few mouldering and nameless bones hidden deep from the sun, there is a sad poetry in the contrast which rarely fails to affect the heart. It is now two thousand years since Horace sung of the security of the lowly, and the unfluctuating nature of their enjoyments; and every year of the two thousand has been adding proof to proof that the poet, when he chose his theme, must have thrown aside his philosophy. But the inmates of the farm-house thought little this evening of coming misfortune--nor would it have been well if they had; their sorrow was neither heightened nor hastened by their joy.
Old William Stewart, the farmer, was one of a cla.s.s well-nigh worn out in the southern Lowlands, even at this period; but which still comprised in the northern districts no inconsiderable portion of the people; and which must always obtain in countries only partially civilized and little amenable to the laws. Man is a fighting animal from very instinct; and his second nature, custom, mightily improves the propensity. A person naturally courageous, who has defended himself successfully in half-a-dozen different frays, will, very probably, begin the seventh himself; and there are few who have fought often and well for safety and the right, who have not at length learned to love fighting for its own sake. The old farmer had been a man of war from his youth. He had fought at fairs, and trysts, and weddings, and funerals; and, without one ill-natured or malignant element in his composition, had broken more heads than any two men in the country side. His late quarrel at the tryst, and the much more serious affair among the bushes, had arisen out of this disposition; for, though well-nigh in his sixtieth year, he was still as warlike in his habits as ever. Thomson sat fronting him beside the fire, admiring his muscular frame, huge limbs, and immense structure of bone. Age had grizzled his hair and furrowed his cheeks and forehead; but all the great strength, and well-nigh all the activity of his youth, it had left him still. His wife, a sharp-featured, little woman, seemed little interested in either the details of his adventure or his guest, whom he described as the "brave, hardy chield, wha had beaten twasome at the cudgel--the vera littlest o" them as big as himsel."
"Och, guidman," was her concluding remark, "ye aye stick to the auld trade, bad though it be; an" I"m feared that, or ye mend, ye maun be aulder yet. I"m sure ye ne"er made your ain money o"t."
"Nane o" yer nonsense," rejoined the farmer--"bring b.u.t.t the bottle an"
your best cheese."
"The guidwife an" I dinna aye agree," continued the old man, turning to Thomson. "She"s baith near-gaun an" new-fangled; an" I like aye to hae routh o" a" things, an" to live just as my faithers did afore me. Why sould I bother my head wi" _improvidments_, as they ca" them? The country"s gane clean gite wi" pride, Thomson. Naething less sairs folk noo, forsooth, than carts wi" wheels to them; an" it"s no a fortnight syne sin" little Sandy Martin, the trifling cat, jeered me for yoking my owsen to the plough by the tail. What ither did they get tails for?"
Thomson had not sufficiently studied the grand argument of design in this special instance, to hazard a reply.
"The times hae gane clean oot o" joint," continued the old man. "The law has come a" the length o" Cromarty noo; an" for breaking the head o" an impudent fallow, ane runs the risk o" being sent aff to the plantations.
Faith, I wish oor Parliamenters had mair sense. What do they ken aboot us or oor country? Diel haet difference do they mak atween the shire o"
Cromarty an" the shire o" Lunnon; just as if we could be as quiet beside the red-wud Hielanmen here, as they can be beside the queen. Na, na--naething like a guid cudgel;--little wad their law hae dune for me at the burn o" Newhall the nicht."