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TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 : 
 
 BY HUGH MILLER, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'THE OLD RED SANDSTONE,' ' MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS, 
 'THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS,' ETC. 
 
 EDITED, WITH A PREFACE, BY MRS. MILLER. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 WILLIAM P. NIMMO, 
 
 I 869. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 n/t > 
 
 The following "Tales and Sketches" were written at an 
 early period of the author's career, during the first years 
 of his married life, before he had attempted to carry any 
 part of the world on his shoulders in the shape of a public 
 newspaper, and found it by no means a comfortable burden. 
 Yet possibly the period earlier still, when he produced his 
 " Scenes and Legends," had been more favourable for a kind 
 of writing which required in any measure the exercise of 
 the imagination. The change to him was very great, from 
 a life of constant employment in the open air, amid the 
 sights and sounds of nature, to " the teasing monotony of 
 one which tasked his intellectual powers without exercising 
 them." Hence, partly, it may be imagined, the intensity of 
 his sympathy with the poet Ferguson. The greater number 
 of these Tales were composed literally over the midnight 
 lamp, after returning late in the evening from a long day's 
 work over the ledger and the balance-sheet. Tired though 
 
VI. PREFACE. 
 
 he was, his mind could not stagnate : he must write. I do 
 not mention these circumstances at all by way of apology. 
 It has struck me, indeed, that the Tales are nearly all of 
 a pensive or tragical cast, and that in congenial circum- 
 stances they might have had a more joyous and elastic 
 tone, in keeping with a healthier condition of the nervous 
 system. Yet their defects must undoubtedly belong to 
 the mind of their author. I am far from being under 
 the delusion that he was, or was ever destined to be, a 
 Walter Scott or Charles Dickens. The faculties of plot and 
 drama, which find their scope in the story and the novel, were 
 among the weakest, instead of the strongest, of his powers. 
 Yet I am deceived if the lovers and students of Hugh 
 Miller's works will not find in the "Tales and Sketches" some 
 matter of special interest. In the first three there are, I think, 
 glimpses into his own inner life, such as he, with most men 
 of reserved and dignified character, would choose rather to 
 personify in another than to make a parade of in their own 
 person, when coming forward avowedly to write of them- 
 selves. And, then, if he could have held a conversation 
 with Robert Burns, so that all the world might hear, I 
 think there are few who would not have listened with 
 some curiosity. In his " Recollections of Burns" we have 
 his own side of such conversation ; for it seems evident that 
 it is himself that he has set a travelling and a talking in 
 the person of Mr Lindsay. 
 
 But of Burns' share in the dialogue the reader is the best 
 
PREFACE. Vii. 
 
 judge. Some may hold that he is too like Hugh Miller 
 himself, — too philosophic in idea, and too pure in senti- 
 ment. In regard to this, we can only remind such, that 
 Bums' prose was not like his poetry, nor his ideal like his 
 actual life. 
 
 Unquestionably my husband had a very strong sympathy 
 with many points in the character of Burns. His tho- 
 rough integrity, — his noble independence, which disdained 
 to place his honest opinions at the mercy of any man or set 
 of men, — his refusal to barter his avowal of the worth and 
 dignity of man for the smiles and patronage "of the great, 
 even after he had tasted the sweets of their society, which 
 is a very different matter from such avowal before that time, 
 if any one will fairly think of it, — all this, with the 
 acknowledged sovereignty of the greater genius, made an 
 irresistible bond of brotherhood between Miller and Burns. 
 But to the grosser traits of the poet's character my hus- 
 band's eyes were perfectly open ; and grieved indeed should 
 I be if it could for a moment be supposed that he lent the 
 weight of his own purer moral character to the failings, and 
 worse than failings, of the other. Over these he mourned, 
 he grieved, — I believe he would at any time have given the 
 life of his body for the life of his brother's soul. Above all, 
 he deplored that the all-prevailing power of Christian love 
 was never brought to bear on the heart of this greatest of 
 Scotland's sons. If Thomas Chalmers had been in the 
 place of Russell, who knows what might have been ? But, 
 
Vlll. PREFACE. 
 
 doubtless, God in his providence had wise purposes to serve. 
 It is often by such instruments that he scourges and purifies 
 his Church. For, let us not forget, that scenes such as are 
 depicted in the " Holy Fair," however painful to our better 
 feelings, were strictly and literally true. This I have myself 
 heard from an eye-witness, who could not have been swayed 
 by any leanings towards the anti-puritan side : and, doubt- 
 less, many others are aware of testimony on the same side 
 of equal weight. 
 
 We may hope that the time is passing away when the 
 more exceptionable parts of Burns' character and writings 
 are capable of working mischief, at least among the higher 
 and middle classes. It is cause of thankfulness, that in re- 
 gard to such, and with him as with others, there is a sort 
 of purifying process goes on, which leaves the higher and 
 finer elements of genius to float buoyantly, and fulfil their 
 own destiny in the universal plan, while the grosser are 
 left to sink like lead in the mighty waters. Thus it is 
 in those portions of society already refined and elevated. 
 But there is yet a portion of the lower strata where mid- 
 night orgies continue to prevail, and where every idea of 
 pleasure is connected with libertinism and the bottle ; and 
 there the worst productions of Burns are no doubt still rife, 
 and working as a deadly poison. Even to a superior class of 
 working-men, who are halting between two opinions, there 
 is danger from the very mixture of good and evil in the cha- 
 racter and writings of the poet. They cannot forget that he 
 
PREFACE. IX. 
 
 who wrote " The cock may craw, the day may daw, yet 
 still we'll taste the barley bree," wrote likewise the immortal 
 song, " A man's a man for a' that ;" and they determine, 
 or are in danger of determining, to follow the object of their 
 worship with no halting step. Doubtless, political creed 
 and the accidents of birth do still colour the individual 
 estimate of Burns and his writings. It is but of late that 
 we have seen society torn, on occasion of the centenary of 
 the poet, by conflicting opinions as to the propriety of ob- 
 serving it ; and many would fain have it supposed that the 
 religious and anti-religious world were ranged on opposite 
 sides. But it was not so. There were thoroughly good 
 and religious men, self-made, who could not forget that 
 Burns had been the champion of their order, and had helped 
 to win for them respect by the power of his genius; while 
 there were others, — religious men of old family, — who could 
 remember nothing but his faults. I remember spending one 
 or two evenings about that time in the society of a well-born, 
 earnestly religious, and highly estimable gentleman, who re- 
 probated Burns, and scoffed at the idea that a man could be 
 a man for a' that. He might belong to a limited class ; for 
 well I know that among peers there are as ardent admirers 
 of Burns as among peasants. All I would say is, that even 
 religious feelings may take edge and bitterness from other 
 causes. But to the other class, — those who from loyalty 
 and gratitude are apt to follow Burns too far, — well I know 
 that my husband would have said, " Receive all genius as 
 
X. PREFACE. 
 
 the gift of God, but never let it be to you as God. It ought 
 never to supersede the exercise of your own moral sense, nor 
 can it ever take the place of the only infallible guide, — the 
 Word of God. 1 ' 
 
 But I beg the reader's pardon for digressing thus, when I 
 ought to be pursuing the proper business of a preface, which 
 is, to state any explanatory circumstances that may be neces- 
 sary in connection with the work in hand. 
 
 The " Recollections of Ferguson" are exquisitely painful 
 — so much so, that I would fain have begun with something 
 brighter ; but these two contributions being the most import- 
 ant, and likewise the first in order of a series, they seemed 
 to fall into the beginning as their natural place. I have 
 gone over the Life of Ferguson, which the reader may do for 
 himself, to see whether there is any exaggeration in the 
 " Recollections." I find them all perfectly faithful to the 
 facts. The neglected bard, the stone cell, the straw pallet, 
 the stone paid for by a brother bard out of his own strait- 
 ened means, are not flattering to the " Enibro' Gentry;" 
 but amid a great deal of flattery, a little truth is worth 
 remembering. On the other hand, it rejoices one to think 
 that Ferguson's death-bed, on the heavenward side, was 
 not dark. The returning reason, the comforts of the Word 
 of Life, are glimpses of God's providence and grace that 
 show gloriously amid the otherwise outer darkness of those 
 depths. 
 
 The sort of literature of superstition revived or retained 
 
PREFACE. XI. 
 
 in " The Lykewake," there are a great many good people 
 who think the world would be better without. 
 
 It chanced to me some three years ago, when residing in 
 a sea-bathing village, and sitting one day on a green turf 
 bank overlooking the sea, to hear a conversation in which 
 this point was brought very prominently forward. A party, 
 consisting of a number of young people, accompanied by their 
 papa, a young French lady who was either governess or 
 friend, and a gentleman in the garb of a clergyman, either 
 friend or tutor, seated themselves very near me ; and it was 
 proposed by the elder gentleman that a series of stories 
 should be told for the amusement and edification of the young 
 people. A set of stories and anecdotes were accordingly 
 begun, and very pleasingly told, chiefly by the clergyman, — 
 friend or tutor. Among others was a fairy tale entitled 
 " Green Sleeves," to which the name of Hugh Miller was 
 appended, and which evoked great applause from the younger 
 members of the party, but regarding which, the verdict 
 of papa, very emphatically delivered, was, "I approve of 
 fairies neither in green sleeves nor white sleeves. However," 
 — after a pause, during which he seemed to be revolving in 
 his mind any possible use for the like absurdities, — " they 
 may serve to show us the blessings of the more enlightened 
 times in which we live, when schools for the young, and 
 sciences for all ages, have banished such things from the 
 world." So, with this utilitarian view of the subject let 
 us rest satisfied, unless we are of those who, feeling that the 
 
xil. PREFACE. 
 
 human mind is a harp of many strings, believe that it is none 
 the worse for having the music of even its minor chords 
 awaked at times by a skilful hand. 
 
 I am unable to say whether "Bill Whyte" be a real 
 story, ever narrated by a bona fide tinker of the name, or 
 no. I am rather inclined to think that it is not, because 
 I recognise in it several incidents drawn from " Uncle 
 Sandy's" Experiences in Egypt, such as the hovering of the 
 flight of little birds, scared and terrified, over the smoke and 
 noise of battle, the encampment in the midst of a host of 
 Turks' bones, &c. 
 
 With the "Young Surgeon" I was myself acquainted. 
 It is a sketch, strictly true. 
 
 Owing to a mistake, there are three stories which find 
 themselves in this volume, which the reader will likewise 
 find in " Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland." 
 These are, " The Widow of Dunskaith," the story of " George 
 Ross the Scotch Agent," and that of " M'Culloch the Me- 
 chanician." When the plan of the "Tales and Sketches" 
 occurred to me, I was thinking over the five or six opening- 
 tales, which were written for "Wilson's Tales of the Bor- 
 ders," during, as I have said, the first two years of their 
 author's married life. I remembered that he had likewise 
 written a number of shorter stories for " Chambers' Jour- 
 nal" at the same period ; and as the " Scenes and Legends" 
 had been written before our marriage, it did not occur to 
 me that there could possibly be any repetition. I found, 
 
PREFACE. Xlll. 
 
 however, when the printing had gone somewhat too far, 
 that, by the kind permission of the Messrs Chambers, the 
 greater part of what had appeared in their "Journal" had 
 been incorporated with the "Scenes and Legends" in a later 
 edition. Had I not overlooked or forgotten this, I would 
 have found a place for " Letters on the Herring Fishery," 
 which are, in fact, a series of sketches, and, in the opinion 
 of many, equal to anything my husband ever wrote. This 
 will be done, God willing, in another edition ; and, in the 
 meantime, it is hoped that such readers as prefer the useful 
 to the imaginative will be not unwelcomely reminded of two 
 very excellent models for those who wish to rise and those 
 who have risen. Of the same character is " The Story of the 
 Scotch Merchant of the Eighteenth Century," written origi- 
 nally at the request of a near relative of Mr Forsyth, for 
 private circulation among a few friends, and now for the 
 first time given to the public by the kind consent of the sur- 
 viving relatives. 
 
 LYDIA MILLER. 
 
 December 23, 1862. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Recollections of Ferguson ..... 1 
 
 Recollections of Burns . . 53 
 
 The Salmon-Fisher of Udoll . . . .118 
 
 The Widow of Dunskaith . . . . .147 
 
 The Ltkewake . • . . • • 169 
 
 BillWhtte ....... 206 
 
 The Young Surgeon . . . • . .242 
 
 George Ross, the Scotch Agent . . . .261 
 
 m'culloch the mechanician . . . . .273 
 
 A True Story of the Life of a Scotch Merchant of the 
 
 Eighteenth Century . . . . .283 
 
■Library. 
 
 ° r California 
 
 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 « 
 
 Of Ferguson, the bauld and slee. — Burns. 
 
 I have, T believe, as little of the egotist in my composition 
 tis most men ; nor would I deem the story of my life, though 
 by no means unvaried by incident, of interest enough to re- 
 pay the trouble of either writing or perusing it, were it the 
 story of my own life only ; but, though an obscure man my- 
 self, I have been singularly fortunate in my friends. The 
 party-coloured tissue of my recollections is strangely inter- 
 woven, if I may so speak, with pieces of the domestic history 
 of men whose names have become as familiar to our ears as 
 that of our country itself ; and I have been induced to struggle 
 with the delicacy which renders one unwilling to speak much 
 of one's self, and to overcome the dread of exertion natural 
 to a period of life greatly advanced, through a desire of pre- 
 serving to my countrymen a few notices, which would other- 
 wise be lost to them, of two of their greatest favourites. I 
 
 A 
 
2 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 could once reckon among my dearest and most familiar friends, 
 Robert Burns and Robert Ferguson. 
 
 It is now rather more than sixty years since I studied for 
 a few weeks at the University of St Andrews. I was the 
 son of very poor parents, who resided in a seaport town on 
 the west coast of Scotland. My father was a house-car- 
 penter, — a quiet, serious man, of industrious habits, and great 
 simplicity of character, but miserably depressed in his cir- 
 cumstances, through a sickly habit of body. My mother was 
 a warm-hearted, excellent woman, endowed with no ordinary 
 share of shrewd good sense and sound feeling, and indefati- 
 gable in her exertions for my father and the family. I was 
 taught to read at a very early age, by an old woman in the 
 neighbourhood, — such a person as Shenstone describes in his 
 " Schoolmistress ;" and, being naturally of a reflective turn, 
 I had begun, long ere I had attained my tenth year, to de- 
 rive almost my sole amusement from books. I read inces- 
 santly ; and, after exhausting the shelves of all the neigh- 
 bours, and reading every variety of work that fell in my way, 
 — from the "Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan, and the " Gospel 
 Sonnets' ' of Erskine, to a "Treatise on Fortification' ' by Vauban, 
 and the " History of the Heavens" by the Abbe Pluche, — 
 1 would have pined away for lack of my accustomed exer- 
 cise, had not a benevolent baronet in the neighbourhood, for 
 whom my father occasionally wrought, taken a fancy to me, 
 and thrown open to my perusal a large and well-selected 
 library. Nor did his kindness terminate until, after having 
 secured to me all of learning that the parish school afforded, 
 he had settled me, now in my seventeenth year, at the Uni- 
 vcrsitv. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 3 
 
 Youth is the season of warm friendships and romantic 
 wishes and hopes. We say of tiie child, in its first attempts 
 to totter along the wall, or when it has first learned to rise 
 beside its mother's knee, that ic is yet too weak to stand 
 alone ; and we may employ the same language in describing 
 a young and ardent mind. It is, like the child, too weak to 
 stand alone, and anxiously seeks out some kindred mind on 
 which to lean. I had had my intimates at school, who, 
 though of no very superior cast, had served me, if I may so 
 speak, as resting-places, when wearied with my studies, or 
 when I had exhausted my lighter reading ; and now, at St 
 Andrews, where I knew no one, I began to experience the 
 unhappiness of an unsatisfied sociality. My schoolfellows 
 were mostly stiff, illiterate lads, who, with a little bad Latin, 
 and worse Greek, plumed themselves mightily on their 
 scholarship ; and I had little inducement to form any inti- 
 macies among them ; for of all men the ignorant scholar is 
 the least amusing. Among the students of the upper classes, 
 however, there was at least one individual with whom I 
 longed to be acquainted. He was apparently much about my 
 own age, rather below than above the middle size, and rather 
 delicately than robustly formed ; but I have rarely seen a 
 more elegant figure or more' interesting face. His features 
 were small, and there was what might perhaps be deemed a 
 too feminine delicacy in the whole contour ; but there was 
 a broad and very high expansion of forehead, which, even in 
 those days, when we were acquainted with only the phreno- 
 logy taught by Plato, might be regarded as the index of a 
 capacious and powerful mind ; and the brilliant light of his 
 large black eyes seemed to give earnest of its activity. 
 
4 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 11 Who, in the name of wonder, is that 1 " I inquired of a 
 class-fellow, as this interesting-looking young man passed me 
 for the first time. 
 
 11 A clever but very unsettled fellow from Edinburgh," re- 
 plied the lad ; " a capital linguist, for he gained our first bur- 
 sary three years ago ; but our Professor says he is certain he 
 will never do any good. He cares nothing for the company 
 of scholars like himself; and employs himself — though he 
 excels, I believe, in English composition — in writing vulgar 
 Scotch rhymes, like Allan Ramsay. His name is Robert 
 Ferguson." 
 
 I felt from this moment a strong desire to rank among 
 the friends of one who cared nothing for the company of such 
 men as my class-fellow, and who, though acquainted with the 
 literature of England and Rome, could dwell with interest 
 on the simple poetry of his native country. 
 
 There is no place in the neighbourhood of St Andrews 
 where a leisure hour may be spent more agreeably than among 
 the ruins of the cathedral. I was not slow in discovering 
 the eligibilities of the spot ; and it soon became one of my 
 favourite haunts. One evening, a few weeks after I had 
 entered on my course at college, I had seated myself among 
 the ruins, in a little ivied nook fronting the setting sun, and 
 was deeply engnged with the melancholy Jaques in the forest 
 of Ardennes, when, on hearing a light footstep, I looked up, 
 and saw the Edinburgh student whose appearance had so 
 interested me, not four yards away. He was busied with 
 his pencil and his tablets, and muttering, as he went, in a 
 half-audible voice, what, from the inflection of the tones, 
 seemed to be verse. On seeing me, he started, and, apolo- 
 
REUOLLECTiOXS OF FERGUSON. 5 
 
 ^izinsr in a few hurried but courteous words for whit he 
 
 © o 
 
 termed the involuntary intrusion, would have passed, but, on 
 my rising and stepping up to him, he stood. 
 
 " I am afraid, Mr Ferguson," I said, 'tis I who owe you 
 an apology : the ruins have long been yours, and I am but 
 an intruder. But you must pardon me : I have often heard 
 of them in the west, where they are hallowed, even more than 
 they are here, from their connection with the history of some 
 of our noblest Reformers ; and, besides, I see no place in 
 the neighbourhood where Shakspeare can be read to more 
 advantage." 
 
 " Ah," said he, taking the volume out of my hand, — " a 
 reader of Shakspeare and an admirer of Knox ! I ques- 
 tion whether the heresiarch and the poet had much in com- 
 mon." 
 
 " Nay, now, Mr Ferguson," I replied, " you are too true 
 a Scot to question that. They had much, very much, in 
 common. Knox was no rude Jack Cade, but a great and 
 powerful-minded man, — decidedly as much so as any of the 
 nobler conceptions of the dramatist, — his Caesars, Brutuses, 
 or Othellos. Buchanan could have told you that he had 
 even much of the spirit of the poet in him, and wanted only 
 the art. And just remember how Milton speaks of him in his 
 * Areopagitica.' Had the poet of ' Paradise Lost' thought 
 regarding him as it has become fashionable to think and 
 speak now, he would hardly have apostrophized him as 
 Knox, the reformer of a nation, — a great man animated by 
 the Spirit of God" 
 
 " Pardon me," said the young man ; " I am little acquainted 
 with the prose writings of Milton ; and have, indeed, picked 
 
6 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 up most of my opinions of Knox at second-hand. But I have 
 read his merry account of the murder of Beaton, and found 
 nothing to alter my preconceived notions of him from either 
 the matter or manner of the narrative. Now that I think 
 of it, however, my opinion of Bacon would be no very ade- 
 quate one, were it formed solely from the extract of his his- 
 tory of Henry VII. given by Karnes in his late publication. 
 Will you not extend your walk V 
 
 We quitted the ruins together, and went sauntering along 
 the shore. There was a rich sunset glow on the water, and 
 the hills that rise on the opposite side of the Frith stretched 
 their undulating line of azure under a gorgeous canopy of 
 crimson and gold. My companion pointed to the scene. 
 " These glorious clouds," he said, " are but wreaths of vapour; 
 and these lovely hills, accumulations of earth and stone. And 
 it is thus with all the past, — with the past of our own little 
 histories, that borrows so much of its golden beauty from the 
 medium through which we survey it, — with the past, too, of 
 all history. There is poetry in the remote : the bleak hill 
 seems a darker firmament, and the chill wreath of vapour 
 a river of fire. And you, Sir, seem to have contemplated the 
 history of our stern Reformers through this poetical medium, 
 till you forget that the poetry was not in them, but in that 
 through which you surveyed them." 
 
 " Ah, Mr Ferguson," I replied, " you must permit me to 
 make a distinction. I acquiesce fully in the justice of your 
 remark : the analogy, too, is nice and striking; but I would 
 fain carry it a little further. Every eye can see the beauty 
 of the remote; but there is a beauty in the near, — an interest 
 at least, which every eye cannot see. Each of the thousand 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 7 
 
 little plants that spring np at our feet has an interest and 
 beauty to the botanist : the mineralogist would find some- 
 thing to engage him in every little stone. And it is thus 
 with the poetry of life : all have a sense of it in the remote 
 and the distant ; but it is only the men who stand high in 
 the art — its men of profound science — that can discover it in 
 the near. The mediocre poet shares but the commoner gift, 
 and so he seeks his themes in ages or countries far removed 
 from his own ; whilst the man of nobler powers, knowing 
 that all nature is instinct with poetry, seeks and finds it in 
 the men and scenes in his immediate neighbourhood. As to 
 
 our Reformers" 
 
 " Pardon me," said the young poet ; " the remark strikes 
 me, and, ere we lose it in something else, I must furnish you 
 with an illustration. There is an acquaintance of mine, a 
 lad much about my own age, greatly addicted to the study 
 of poetry. He has been making verses all his life-long : he 
 began ere lie had learned to write them even ; and his judg- 
 ment has been gradually overgrowing his earlier composi- 
 tions, as you see the advancing tide rising on the beach, and 
 obliterating the prints on the sand. Now, I have observed 
 that in all his earlier compositions he went far from home : 
 he could not attempt a pastoral without first transporting 
 himself to the vales of Arcadia ; or an ode to Pity or Hope 
 without losing the warm, living sentiment in the dead, cold 
 personification of the C4reek. The Hope and Pity he ad- 
 dressed were, not the undying attendants of human nature, 
 but the shadowy spectres of a remote age. Now, however, I 
 feel that a change has come over me. I seek for poetry 
 among the fields and cottages of my own land. I — a — a — 
 
8 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 the friend of whom I speak But I interrupted your re- 
 mark on the Reformers." 
 
 " Nay," I replied, " if you go on so, I would much rather 
 listen than speak. I only meant to say that the Knoxes and 
 Melvilles of our country have been robbed of the admiration 
 and sympathy of many a kindred spirit, by the strangely 
 erroneous notions that have been abroad regarding them for 
 at least the last two ages. Knox, I am convinced, would 
 have been as great as Jeremy Taylor, if not even greater." 
 
 We sauntered along the shore till the evening had dark- 
 ened into night, lost in an agreeable interchange of thought. 
 '•'Ah !" at length exclaimed my companion, "I had almost 
 forgotten my engagement, Mr Lindsay ; but it must not part 
 us. You are a stranger here, and I must introduce you to 
 s.rnie of my acquaintance. There are a few of us, — choice 
 spirits, of course, — who meet every Saturday evening at John 
 Hogg's ; and I must just bring you to see them. There 
 may be much less wit than mirth among us ; but you will 
 find us all sober when at the gayest ; and old John will be 
 quite a study for you." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Say, ye red gowns, that aften here 
 Hae toasted cakes to Katie's beer, 
 Gin e'er tliir days hae had their peer, 
 
 Sae blythe, sae daft ! 
 \ e '11 ne'er again in life's career 
 
 Sit half sae saft. 
 
 Elegy on John Hogg. 
 
 We returned to town ; and, after threading a few of the 
 narrower lanes, entered by a low door into a long dark 
 room, dimly lighted by a fire. A tall thin woman was em- 
 ployed in skinning a bundle of dried fish at a table in a 
 corner. 
 
 " Where's the gudeman, Kate t M said my companion, 
 changing the sweet pure English in which he had hitherto 
 spoken, for his mother tongue. 
 
 " John's ben in the spence," replied the woman. " Little 
 Andrew, the wratch, has been makin' a totum wi' his faither's 
 a'e razor; an' the puir man's trying to shave himsel' yonder, 
 an' girnan like a sheep's head on the tangs." 
 
 " Oh, the wratch ! the ill-deedie wratch ! " said John, stalk- 
 ing into the room in a towering passion, his face covered 
 with suds and scratches, — " I might as weel shave mysel' wi' 
 a mussel shillet, Rob Ferguson, man, is that you ?" 
 
 " Wearie warkl, John," said the poet, " for a' oor philo- 
 sophy." 
 
 " Philosophy ! — it's but a snare, Rab, — just vanity an' 
 
10 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 vexation o' speerit, as Solomon says. An' isna it clear hete- 
 rodox besides ? Ye study, an' study, till your brains gang 
 about like a whirligig; an' then, like bairns in a boat that 
 see the land sail in', ye think it's the solid yearth that's turnin' 
 roun'. An' this ye ca' philosophy ; as if David hadna tauld 
 us that the warld sits coshly on the waters, an' canna be 
 moved." 
 
 " iloot, John," rejoined my companion; "it's no me, but 
 Jamie Brown, that differs wi' you on thae matters. I'm a 
 Hoggonian, ye ken. The auld Jews were, doubtless, gran' 
 Christians; an' wherefore no glide philosophers too ? But it 
 was cruel o' you to unkennel me this mornin' afore six, an' 
 I up sae lang at my studies the nicht afore." 
 
 " Ah, Rob, Rob !" said John, — " studying in Tarn Duns 
 kirk. Ye'll be a minister, like a' the lave." 
 
 " Mendin' fast, John," rejoined the poet. " I was in your 
 kirk on Sabbath last, hearing worthy Mr Corkindale. What- 
 ever else he may hae to fear, he's in nae danger o' ' thinking 
 his ain thoughts? honest man." 
 
 "In oor kirk!" said John : " ye' re dune, then, Avi' pre- 
 centin' in yer ain : an' troth, nae wonder. What could hae 
 possessed ye to gie up the puir chield's name i' the prayer, 
 an' him sittin' at ver lujr '?" 
 
 I was unacquainted with the circumstance to which he 
 alluded, and requested an explanation. " Oh, ye see," said 
 John, " Rob, amang a' the ither gifts that he misguides, has 
 the gift o' a sweet voice ; an' naething less would ser' some o' 
 oor professors than to hae him for their precentor. They 
 micht as weel hae thocht o' an organ, — it wad be just as de- 
 vout ; but the souu's everything now, laddie, ye ken, an' the 
 
KECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 11 
 
 heart naething. Weel, Rob, as ye may think, was less than 
 pleased wi' the job, an' tauld them he could whistle better 
 than sing ; but it wasna that they wanted, and sae it behoved 
 him to tak' his seat in the box. An' lest the folk should be 
 no pleased wi' a'e key to a'e tune, he gied them, for the first 
 twa or three days, a hale bunch to each ; an' there was never 
 sic singing in St Andrews afore. Weel, but for a' that, it 
 behoved him still to precent, though he has got rid o' it at 
 last ; for what did he do twa Sabbaths agane, but put up 
 drunken Tarn Moffat's name in the prayer, — the very chield 
 that was sittin' at his elbow, though the minister couldna 
 see him. An' when the puir stibbler was prayin' for the 
 reprobate as weel's he could, a'e half o' the kirk was need- 
 cessitated to come oot, that they micht keep decent, an' the 
 ither half to swallow their pocket-napkins. But what think 
 ye" 
 
 " Hoot, John, now leave oot the moral," said the poet. 
 " Here's a' the lads." 
 
 Half-a-dozen young students entered as he spoke ; and, 
 after a hearty greeting, and when he had introduced me to 
 them one by one, as a choice fellow of immense reading, the 
 door was barred, and we sat down to half-a-dozen of home- 
 brewed, and a huge platter of dried fish. There was much 
 mirth, and no little humour. Ferguson sat at the head of 
 the table, and old John Hogg at the foot. I thought of 
 Eastcheap, and the revels of Prince Henry ; but our Falstaff 
 was an old Scotch Seceder, and our Prince a gifted young 
 fellow, who owed all his influence over his fellows to the 
 force of his genius alone. 
 
 " Pry thee, Hall," I said, " let us drink to Sir John." 
 
12 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " Why, yes," said the poet, " with all ray heart. Not quite 
 so fine a fellow, though, 'bating his Scotch honesty. Half 
 Sir John's genius would have served for an epic poet, — half 
 his courage for a hero." 
 
 " His courage !" exclaimed one of the lads. 
 
 " Yes, Willie, his courage, man. Do you think a coward 
 could have run away with half the coolness 1 With a tithe 
 of the courage necessary for such a retreat, a man would have 
 stood and fought till he died. Sir John must have been a 
 fine fellow in his youth." 
 
 "In mony a droll way may a man fa' on the drap drink," 
 remarked John ; " an' meikle ill, dootless, does it do in takin' 
 aff the edge o' the speerit, — the mair if the edge be a fine 
 razor edge, an' no the edge o' a whittle. I mind, about fifty 
 years ago, when I was a slip o' a callant," 
 
 " Losh, John !" exclaimed one of the lads, " hae ye been 
 fechtin wi' the cats? Sic a scrapit face !" 
 
 " Wheesht," said Ferguson ; " we owe the illustration to 
 that ; but dinna interrupt the story." 
 
 " Fifty years ago, when I was a slip o' a callant," continued 
 John, " unco curious, an' fond o' kennin everything, as cal- 
 lants will be," 
 
 " Hoot, John," said one of the students, interrupting him, 
 " can ye no cut short, man ? Rob promised last Saturday to 
 gie us, ' Fie, let us a' to the Bridal,' an' ye see the ale an' the 
 nicht's baith wearin' dune." 
 
 " The song, Rob, the song !" exclaimed half-a-dozen voices 
 at once ; and John's story was lost in the clamour. 
 
 " Nay, now," said the good-natured poet, " that's less than 
 kind : the auld man's stories are ave worth the hearing, an' 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 13 
 
 he can relish the auld-warld fisher song wi' the best o' ye. 
 But we maun hae the story yet" 
 
 He struck up the old Scotch ditty, " Fie, let us a' to the 
 Bridal," which he sung with great power and brilliancy; for 
 his voice was a richly-modulated one, and there was a ful- 
 ness of meaning imparted to the words, which wonderfully 
 heightened the effect. " How strange it is," he remarked 
 to me when he had finished, " that our English neighbours 
 deny us humour ! The songs of no country equal our Scotch 
 ones in that quality. Are you acquainted with ' The Gude- 
 wife of Auchtermuchty 1'" 
 
 u Well," I replied ; " but so are not the English. It strikes 
 me that, with the exception of Smollett's novels, all our 
 Scotch humour is locked up in our native tongue. No man 
 can employ in works of humour any language of which he 
 is not a thorough master; and few of our Scotch writers, 
 with all their elegance, have attained the necessary command 
 of that colloquial English which Addison and Swift employed 
 when they were merry." 
 
 " A braw redd delivery," said John, addressing me. " Are 
 ye gaun to be a minister too ?" 
 
 " Not quite sure yet," I replied. 
 
 "Ah," rejoined the old man, "'twas better for the Kirk 
 when the minister just made himsel' ready for it, an' then 
 waited till he kent whether it wanted him. There's yourg 
 Rob Ferguson beside you," 
 
 " Setting oot for the Kirk," said the young poet, inter- 
 rupting him, " an' yet drinkin' ale on Saturday at e'en wi' 
 old John Hogg." 
 
 " Weel, weel, laddie, it's easier for the best o' us to find 
 
14 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 fault wi' ithers than to mend oorsels. Ye have the head, 
 onyhow ; but Jamie Brown tells me it's a doctor ye're gaun 
 to be, after a'." 
 
 " Nonsense, John Hogg : I wonder how a man o' your 
 standing" 
 
 " Nonsense, I grant you," said one of the students : " but 
 true enough for a that, Bob. Ye see, John, Bob an' I were 
 at the King's Muirs last Saturday, and ca'ed at the pendicle, 
 in the passing, for a cup o' whey, when the gudewife tell't us 
 there was ane o' the callants, who had broken into the milk- 
 house twa nichts afore, lying ill o' a surfeit, ' Dangerous 
 case,' said Bob ; ' but let me see him : I have studied to 
 small purpose if I know nothing o' medicine, my good 
 woman.' Weel, the woman was just glad enough to bring 
 him to the bed-side ; an' no wonder : ye never saw a wiser 
 phiz in your lives ; — Dr Dumpie's was naething till't ; an', 
 after he had sucked the head o' his stick for ten minutes, 
 an' fand the loon's pulse, an' asked mair questions than 
 the gudewife liked to answer, he prescribed. But, losh ! sic 
 a prescription ! A day's fasting an' twa ladles o' nettle kail 
 was the gist o't ; but then there went mair Latin to the tail 
 o' that than oor neebour the doctor ever had to lose." 
 
 But I dwell too Ions* on the conversation of this evening. 
 I feel, however, a deep interest in recalling it to memory. 
 The education of Ferguson was of a twofold character, — he 
 studied in the schools and among the people ; but it was in 
 the latter tract alone that he acquired the materials of all his 
 better poetry ; and I feel as if, for at least one brief evening, 
 I was admitted to the privileges of a class-fellow, and sat with 
 him on the same form. The company broke up a little after 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 15 
 
 ten ; and I did not again Lear of John Hogg till I read his 
 elegy, about four years after, among the poems of my friend. 
 It is by no means one of the happiest pieces fn the volume, 
 nor, it strikes me, highly characteristic; bat I have often 
 perused it with an interest very independent of its merits. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 But he is weak ; — both man and boy 
 
 Has been an idler in the land. — Words worth. 
 
 I WAS attempting to listen, on the evening of the following 
 Sunday, to a dull, listless discourse, — one of the discourses 
 so common at this period, in which there was fine writing 
 without genius, and fine religion without Christianity, — when 
 a person who had just taken his place beside me tapped me 
 on the shoulder, and thrust a letter into my hand. It was 
 my newly-acquired friend of the previous evening ; and we 
 shook hands heartily under the pew. 
 
 " That letter has just been handed me by au acquaintance 
 from your part of the country," he whispered : " I trust it 
 contains nothing unpleasant." 
 
 I raised it to the light ; and, on ascertaining that it was 
 sealed and edged with black, rose and quitted the church, 
 followed by my friend. It intimated, in two brief lines, that 
 my patron, the baronet, had been killed by a fall from his 
 horse a few evenings before ; and that, dying intestate, the 
 allowance which had hitherto enabled me to prosecute my 
 
1 6 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 studies necessarily dropped I crumpled up the paper in my 
 hand. 
 
 " You have learned something very unpleasant," said Fer- 
 guson. " Pardon me, — I have no wish to intrude ; but, if at 
 all agreeable, I would fain spend the evening with you." 
 
 My heart filled, and, grasping his hand, I briefly intimated 
 the purport of the communication ; and we walked out to- 
 gether in the direction of the ruins. 
 
 " It is perhaps as hard, Mr Ferguson," I said, " to fall 
 from one's hopes as from the place to which they pointed. I 
 was ambitious, — too ambitious, it may be, — to rise from that 
 level on which man acts the part of a machine, and tasks 
 merely his body, to that higher level on which he performs 
 the proper part of a rational creature, and employs only his 
 mind. But that ambition need influence me no longer. My 
 poor mother, too, — I had trusted to be of use to her." 
 
 "Ah ! my friend," said Ferguson, " I can tell you of a 
 case quite as hopeless as your own, — perhaps more so. But 
 it will make you deem my sympathy the result of mere self- 
 ishness. In scarce any respect do our circumstances differ." 
 
 We had reached the ruins. The evening was calm and 
 mild as when I had walked out on the preceding one; but 
 the hour was earlier, and the sun hung higher over the hill. 
 A newly-formed grave occupied the level spot in front of the 
 little ivied corner. 
 
 '' Let us seat ourselves here," said my companion, " and 
 I will tell you a story, — I am afraid, a rather tame one ; for 
 there is nothing of adventure in it, and nothing of incident ; 
 but it may at least show you that I am not unfitted to be 
 your friend. It is now nearly two years since I lost my 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSOX. 17 
 
 father. He was no common man, — common neither in in- 
 tellect nor in sentiment ; but, though he once fondly hoped 
 it should be otherwise, — for in early youth he indulged in all 
 the dreams of the poet, — he now fills a grave as nameless as 
 the one before us. He was a native of Aberdeenshire ; but 
 held latterly an inferior situation in the office of the British 
 Linen Company in Edinburgh, where I was born. Ever 
 since I remember him, he had awakened too fully to the 
 realities of life, and they pressed too hard on his spirits, to 
 leave him space for the indulgence of his earlier fancies ; but 
 he could dream for his children, though not for himself ; or, 
 as I should perhaps rather say, his children fell heir to all 
 his more juvenile hopes of fortune, and influence, and space 
 in the world's eye ; and, for himself, he indulged in hopes 
 of a later growth and firmer texture, which pointed from the 
 present scene of things to the future. I have an only brother, 
 my senior by several years, — a lad of much energy, both phy- 
 sical and mental ; in brief, one of those mixtures of reflection 
 and activity which seem best formed for rising in the world. 
 My father deemed him most fitted for commerce, and had in- 
 fluence enough to get him introduced into the counting-house 
 of a respectable Edinburgh merchant. I was always of a 
 graver turn, — in part, perhaps, the effect of less robust health, 
 — and me he intended for the Church. I have been a dreamer, 
 Mr Lindsay, from my earliest years, — prone to melancholy, 
 and fond of books and of solitude • and the peculiarities of 
 this temperament the sanguine old man, though no mean 
 judge of character, had mistaken for a serious and reflective 
 disposition. You are acquainted with literature, and know 
 something, from books at least, of the lives of literaryjuen. 
 
 B 
 
18 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Judge, then, of his prospect of usefulness in any profession, 
 who has lived ever since he knew himself among the poets. 
 My hopes from my earliest years have been hopes of celebrity 
 as a writer, — not of wealth, or of influence, or of accomplish- 
 ing any of the thousand aims which furnish the great bulk 
 of mankind with motives. You will laugh at me. There is 
 something so emphatically shadowy and unreal in the object 
 of this ambition, that even the full attainment of it provokes 
 a smile. For who does not know 
 
 How vain that second life in others' breath, — 
 The estate which wits inherit after death ! 
 
 And what can be more fraught with the ludicrous than an 
 union of this shadowy ambition with mediocre parts and at 
 tainments ? But I digress. 
 
 " It is now rather more than three years since I entered 
 the classes here. I competed for a bursary, and was fortu- 
 nate enough to secure one. Believe me, Mr Lindsay, I am 
 little ambitious of the fame of mere scholarship, and yet I 
 cannot express to you the triumph of that day. I had seen 
 my poor Hither labouring far, far beyond his strength, for my 
 brother and myself, — closely engaged during the day with 
 his duties in the bank, and copying at night in a lawyer's 
 office. I had seen, with a throbbing heart, his tall wasted 
 frame becoming tremulous and bent, and the gray hair thin- 
 ning on his temples ; and I now felt that I could ease him 
 of at least part of the burden. In the excitement of the mo- 
 ment, I could hope that I was destined to rise in the world, 
 — to gain a name in it, and something more. You know how 
 a slight success grows in importance when we can deem it 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 19 
 
 the earnest of future good fortune. I met, too, with a kind 
 and influential friend in one of the professors, the late Dr 
 Wilkie, — alas ! good, benevolent man ! you may see his 
 tomb yonder beside the wall ; and on my return from St An- 
 drews at the close of the session, I found my father on his 
 deathbed. My brother Henry, who had been unfortunate, 
 and, I am afraid, something worse, had quitted the count- 
 ing-house, and entered aboard of a man-of-war as a common 
 sailor ; and the poor old man, whose heart had been bound 
 up in him, never held up his head after. 
 
 " On the evening of my father's funeral I could have lain 
 down and died. I never before felt how thoroughly I am 
 unfitted for the world, — how totally I want strength. My 
 father, I have said, had intended me for the Church ; and in 
 my progress onward from class to class, and from school to 
 college, I had thought but little of each particular step, as it 
 engaged me for the time, and nothing of the ultimate objects 
 to which it led. All my more vigorous aspirations were di- 
 rected to a remote future and an unsubstantial shadow. But 
 I had witnessed beside my father's bed, what had led me 
 seriously to reflect on the ostensible aim for which I lived 
 and studied ; and the more carefully I weighed myself in the 
 balance, the more did I find myself awanting. You have 
 heard of Mr Brown of the Secession, the author of the 
 ' Dictionary of the Bible." He was an old acquaintance of 
 my father's ; and, on hearing of his illness, had come all the 
 way from Haddington to see him. I felt, for the first time, 
 as, kneeling beside his bed, I heard my father's breathings 
 becoming every moment shorter and more difficult, and lis- 
 tened to the prayers of the clergyman, that I had no business 
 
20 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 in the Church. And thus I still continue to feel. 'Twere 
 an easy matter to produce such things as pass for sermons 
 among us, and to go respectably enough through the mere 
 routine of the profession ; but I cannot help feeling that, 
 though I might do all this and more, my duty as a clergy- 
 man would be still left undone. I want singleness of aim, 
 — I want earnestness of heart. I cannot teach men effec- 
 tually how to live well ; I cannot show them, with aught of 
 confidence, how they may d^e safe. I cannot enter the Church 
 without acting the part of a hypocrite ; and the miserable part 
 of the hypocrite it shall never be mine to act. Heaven help 
 me ! I am too little a practical moralist myself to attempt 
 teaching morals to others. 
 
 " But I must conclude my story, if story it may be called. 
 I saw my poor mother and my little sister deprived, by my 
 father's death, of their sole stay, and strove to exert myself 
 in their behalf. In the day-time I copied in a lawyer's office ; 
 my nights were spent among the poets. You will deem it 
 the very madness of vanity, Mr Lindsay ; but I could not 
 live without my dreams of literary eminence. I felt that 
 life would be a blank waste without them ; and I feel so still. 
 Do not laugh at my weakness, when I say I would rather 
 live in the memory of my country than enjoy her fairest lands, 
 — that I dread a nameless grave many times more than the 
 grave itself. But I am afraid the life of the literary aspi- 
 rant is rarely a happy one ; and I, alas ! am one of the weakest 
 of the class. It is of importance that the means of living 
 be not disjoined from the end for which we live ; and I feel 
 that in my case the disunion is complete. The wants and 
 evils of life are around me ; but the energies through which 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 21 
 
 those should be provided for, and these warded off, are other- 
 wise employed. I am like a man pressing onward through 
 a hot and bloody fight, his breast opeu to every blow, and 
 tremblingly alive to the sense of injury and the feeling of 
 pain, but totally unprepared either to attack or defend. And 
 then, those miserable depressions of spirits to which all men 
 who draw largely on their imagination are so subject, and 
 that wavering irregularity of effort which seems so unavoid- 
 ably the effect of pursuing a distant and doubtful aim, and 
 which proves so hostile to the formation of every better habit, 
 — alas ! to a steady morality itself. But I weary you, Mr 
 Lindsay : besides, my story is toll. I am groping onward, 
 I know not whither • and in a few months hence, when my 
 last session shall have closed, I shall be exactly where you 
 are at present." 
 
 He ceased speaking, and there was a pause of several 
 minutes. I felt soothed and gratified. There was a sweet 
 melancholy music in the tones of his voice, that sunk to my 
 very heart ; and the confidence he reposed in me flattered 
 my pride. " How was it," I at length said, " that you were 
 the gayest in the party of last night ?' 
 
 " I do not know that I can better answer you," he re- 
 plied, " than by telling you a singular dream which I had 
 about the time of my father's death. I dreamed that I had 
 suddenly quitted the world, and was journeying, by a long 
 and dreary passage, to the place of final punishment. A blue, 
 dismal light glimmered along the lower wall of the vault; and, 
 from the darkness above, where there flickered a thousand 
 undefined shapes, — things without form or outline, — I could 
 hear deeply-drawn sighs, and long hollow groans, and convul- 
 
22 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 sive sobbings, and the prolonged moanings of an unceasing 
 anguish. I was aware, however, though I know not how, 
 that these were but the expressions of a lesser misery, and 
 that the seats of severer torment were still before me. I 
 went on, and on, and the vault widened, and the light in- 
 creased, and the sounds changed. There were loud laughters 
 and low mutterings, in the tone of ridicule ; and shouts of 
 triumph and exultation ; and, in brief, all the thousand 
 mingled tones of a gay and joyous revel. Can these, I ex- 
 claimed, be the sounds of misery when at the deepest *? ' Be- 
 think thee,' said a shadowy form beside me, — ' bethink thee 
 if it be not so on earth.' And as I remembered that it was 
 so, and bethought me of the mad revels of shipwrecked sea- 
 men and of plague-stricken cities, I awoke. But on this sub- 
 ject you must spare me." 
 
 " Forgive me," I said; " to-morrow I leave college, and not 
 with the less reluctance that I must part from you. But I shall 
 yet find you occupying a place among the literati of our country, 
 and shall remember with pride that you were my friend." 
 
 He sighed deeply. " My hopes rise and fall with my spi- 
 rits," he said ; " and to-night I am melancholy. Do you ever 
 go to buffets with yourself, Mr Lindsay ] Do you ever 
 mock, in your sadder moods, the hopes which render you 
 happiest when you are gay % Ah ! 'tis bitter warfare when 
 a man contends with Hope ! — when he sees her, with little 
 aid from the personifying influence, as a thing distinct from 
 himself, — a lying spirit, that comes to flatter and deceive him. 
 It is thus I see her to-night. 
 
 See'st thou that grave ? — does mortal know 
 Auffht of the dust that lies below ? 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSOX. 23 
 
 Tis foul, 'tis damp, 'tis void of form, — 
 A bed where winds the loathsome worm ; 
 A little heap, mould'ring and brown, 
 Like that on flowerless meadow thrown 
 By mossy stream, when winter reigns 
 O'er leafless woods and wasted plains : 
 And yet, that brown, damp, formless heap 
 Once glowed with feelings keen and deep ; 
 Once eyed the light, once heard each sound 
 Of earth, air, wave, that murmurs round. 
 But now,- ah ! now, the name it bore, 
 Sex, age, or form, is known no more. 
 This, this alone, O Hope ! I know, 
 That once the dust that lies below 
 Was, like myself, of human race, 
 And made this world its dwelling-place. 
 Ah ! this, when death has swept away 
 The myriads of life's present day, 
 Though bright the visions raised by thee, 
 Will all my fame, my history be ! 
 
 We quitted the ruins, and returned to town. 
 
 " Have you yet formed," inquired my companion, " any 
 plan for the future 1" 
 
 " I quit St Andrews," I replied, " to-morrow morning. I 
 have an uncle the master of a West Indiaman, now in the 
 Clyde. Some years ago I had a fancy for the life of a sailor, 
 which has evaporated, however, with many of my other boyish 
 fancies and predilections ; but I am strong and active, and it 
 strikes me there is less competition on sea at present than on 
 land. A man of tolerable steadiness and intelligence has a 
 better chance of rising as a sailor than as a mechanic. I shall 
 set out therefore with my uncle on his first voyage." 
 
24: 
 
 TALES AXD SKETCHES. 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 At first I thought the swankie didna ill,— 
 
 Again I glowr'd, to hear him better still ; 
 
 Bauld, slee, an* sweet, his lines mair glorious grew, 
 
 G-low'd round the heart, an' glanc'd the soul out through. 
 
 Alexander Wilsox. 
 
 I had seen both the Indies and traversed the wide Pacific, 
 ere I again set foot on the eastern coast of Scotland. My 
 uncle, the shipmaster, was dead, and I was still a common 
 sailor ; but I was light-hearted and skilful in my profession, 
 and as much inclined to hope as ever. Besides, I had begun 
 to doubt, — and there cannot be a more consoling doubt when 
 one is unfortunate, — whether a man may not enjoy as much 
 happiness in the lower walks of life as in the upper. In one 
 of my later voyages, the vessel in which I sailed had lain for 
 several weeks at Boston, in North America, — then a scene 
 of those fierce and angry contentions which eventually sepa- 
 rated the colonies from the mother country ; and when in this 
 place, I had become acquainted, by the merest accident in the 
 world, with the brother of my friend the poet, I was passing 
 through one of the meaner lanes, when I saw my old col- 
 lege friend, as I thought, looking out at me from the window 
 of a crazy wooden building, — a sort of fencing academy, much 
 frequented, I was told, by the Federalists of Boston. I 
 crossed the lane in two huge strides. 
 
 " Mr Ferguson," I said, — "Mr Ferguson," — for he was 
 withdrawing his head, — " do you not remember me ?" 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 25 
 
 " Not quite sure," he replied ; " I have met with many- 
 sailors in my time ; but I must just see." 
 
 He had stepped down to the door ere I had discovered my 
 mistake. He was a taller and stronger-looking man than my 
 friend, and his senior apparently by six or eight years ; but 
 nothing could be more striking than the resemblance which 
 he bore to him, both in face and figure. I apologized. 
 
 " But have you not a brother, a native of Edinburgh," I 
 inquired, " who studied at St Andrews about four years ago 1 
 Never before, certainly, did I see so remarkable a likeness" — 
 
 — " As that which I bear to Eobert F he said. " Happy 
 to hear it. Robert is a brother of whom a man may well be 
 proud, and I am glad to resemble him in any way. But you 
 must go in with me, and tell me all you know regarding him. 
 He was a thin, pale slip of a boy when I left Scotland, — a 
 mighty reader, and fond of sauntering into by-holes and cor- 
 ners : I scarcely knew what to make of him ; but he has 
 made much of himself. His name has been blown far and 
 wide within the last two years." 
 
 He showed me through a large waste apartment, furnished 
 with a few deal seats, and with here and there a fencing foil 
 leaning against the wall, into a sort of closet at the upper 
 end, separated from the main room by a partition of un- 
 dressed slabs. There was a charcoal stove in the one corner, 
 and a truckle bed in the other ; a few shelves laden with 
 books ran along the wall ; there was a small chest raised on 
 a stool immediately below the window, to serve as a writing- 
 desk, and another stool standing beside it. A few cooking 
 utensils scattered round the room, and a corner cupboard, 
 completed the entire furniture of the place. 
 
20 
 
 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " There is a certain limited number born to be rich, Jack," 
 said my new companion, " and I just don't happen to be 
 among them ; but I have one stool for myself, you see, and, 
 now that I have unshipped my desk, another for a visitor, 
 and so get on well enough." 
 
 I related briefly the story of my intimacy with his brother ; 
 and we were soon on such terms as to be in a fair way of 
 emptying a bottle of rum together. 
 
 "You remind me of old times," said my new acquaint- 
 ance. " I am weary of these illiterate, boisterous, longsided 
 Americans, who talk only of politics and dollars. And yet 
 there are first-rate men among them too. I met, some years 
 since, with a Philadelphia printer, whom I cannot help re- 
 garding as one of the ablest, best-informed men I ever con- 
 versed with. But there is nothing like general knowledge 
 among the average class : a mighty privilege of conceit, how- 
 ever." 
 
 " They arc just in that stnge," I remarked, " in which it 
 needs all the vigour of an able man to bring his mind into 
 anything like cultivation. There must be many more faci- 
 lities of improvement ere the mediocritist can develop him- 
 self. He is in the egg still in America, and must sleep 
 there till the next age. — But when last heard you of your 
 brother ?" 
 
 " Why," he replied, " when all the world heard of him, — 
 with the last number of " Buddiman's Magazine." Where 
 can you have been bottled up from literature of late ? Why, 
 man, Robert stands first among our Scotch poets." 
 
 " Ah ! 'tis long since I have anticipated something like 
 that for him," I said; "but for the last two years I have 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 27 
 
 seen only two books, — Shakspeare and the ' Spectator.' 
 Pray, do show me some of the magazines." 
 
 The magazines were produced • and I heard for the first 
 time, in a foreign land, and from the recitation of the poet's 
 brother, some of the most national and most highly-finished 
 of his productions. My eyes filled, and my heart wandered 
 to Scotland and her cottage homes, as, shutting the book, he 
 repeated to me, in a voice faltering with emotion, stanza after 
 stanza of the " Farmer's Ingle." 
 
 " Do you not see it 1 — do you not see it all V exclaimed 
 my companion; "the wide smoky room, with the bright 
 turf-fire, the blackened rafters shining above, the straw- 
 wrought settle below, the farmer and the farmer's wife, and 
 auld grannie and the bairns. Never was there truer paint- 
 ing; and, Oh, how it works on a Scotch heart ! But hear 
 this other piece." 
 
 He read " Sandy and Willie." 
 
 " Far, far ahead of Ramsay," I exclaimed, — " more ima- 
 gination, more spirit, more intellect, and as much truth and 
 nature. Robert has gained his end already. Hurra for poor 
 old Scotland ! — these pieces must live for ever. But do re- 
 peat to me the ' Farmer's Ingle' once .more." 
 
 We read, one by one, all the poems in the Magazine, 
 dwelling on each stanza, and expatiating on every recollec- 
 tion of home which the images awakened. My companion 
 was, like his brother, a kind, open-hearted man, of superior 
 intellect ; much less prone to despondency, however, and of 
 a more equal temperament. Ere we parted, which was not 
 until next morning, he had communicated to me all his plans 
 for the future, and all his fondly-cherished hopes of return- 
 
28 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 ing to Scotland with wealth enough to be of use to his 
 friends. He seemed to be one of those universal geniuses 
 who do a thousand things well, but want steadiness enough 
 to turn any of them to good account. He showed me a trea- 
 tise on the use of the sword, which he had just prepared for 
 the press, and a series of letters on the stamp act, which had 
 appeared from time to time in one of the Boston newspapers, 
 and in which he had taken part with the Americans. 
 
 " I make a good many dollars in these stirring times," he 
 said. " All the Yankees seem to be of opinion that they 
 will be best heard across the water when they have got arms 
 in their hands, and have learned how to use them ; and I 
 know a little of both the sword and the musket. But the 
 warlike spirit is frightfully thirsty, somehow, and consumes 
 a world of rum ; and so I have not yet begun to make rich." 
 
 He shared with me his supper and bed for the night ; and, 
 after rising in the morning ere I awoke, and writing a long 
 letter for Bobert, which he gave me in the hope I might soon 
 meet with him, he accompanied me to the vessel, then on the 
 eve of sailing, and we parted, as it proved, for ever. I know 
 nothing of his after-life, or how or where it terminated ; but 
 I have learned that, shortly before the death of his gifted 
 brother, his circumstances enabled him to send his mother a 
 small remittance for the use of the family. He was evidently 
 one of the kind-hearted, improvident few who can share a 
 very little, and whose destiny it is to have only a very little 
 to share. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 29 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 O, Ferguson ! thy glorious parts 
 111 suited law's dry, musty arts ! 
 My curse upon your whunstane hearts, 
 
 Ye Embrugh gentry ! 
 The tithe o' what ye waste at cartes 
 
 Wad stow'd his pantry ! — Burns. 
 
 I visited Edinburgh for the first time in the latter part of 
 the autumn of 1773, about two months after I had sailed 
 from Boston. It was on a fine calm morning, — one of those 
 clear sunshiny mornings of October when the gossamer goes 
 sailing about in long cottony threads, so light and fleecy that 
 they seem the skeleton remains of extinct cloudlets, and 
 when the distant hills, with their covering of gray frost rime, 
 seem, through the clear close atmosphere, as if chiselled in 
 marble. The sun was rising over the town through a deep 
 blood-coloured haze, — the smoke of a thousand fires ; and the 
 huge fantastic piles of masonry that stretched along the ridge 
 looked dim and spectral through the cloud, like the ghosts 
 of an army of giants. I felt half a foot taller as I strode on 
 towards the town. It was Edinburgh I was approaching, — 
 the scene of so many proud associations to a lover of Scot- 
 land ; and I was going to meet, as an early friend, one of the 
 first of Scottish poets. I entered the town. There was a 
 book-stall in a corner of the street ; and I turned aside for 
 half a minute to glance my eye over the books. 
 
 " Ferguson's Poems ! " I exclaimed, taking up a little 
 
30 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 volume. " I was not aware they had appeared in a separate 
 form. How do you sell this ?" 
 
 " Just like a' the ither booksellers," said the man who 
 kept the stall, — " that's nane o' the buiks that come doun in 
 a hurry, — just for the marked selling price." I threw down 
 the in one}-. 
 
 " Could you tell me anything of the writer ?" I said. " I 
 have a letter for him from America." 
 
 " Oh, that'll be frae his brother Henry, I'll wad ; a clever 
 chield too, but ower fond o' the drap drink, maybe, like 
 Rob himsel'. Baith o' them fine humane chields though, 
 without a grain o' pride. Rob takes a stan' wi' me some- 
 times o' half an hour at a time, an' we clatter ower the 
 buiks ; an', if I'm no mista'en, yon's him just yonder, — the 
 thin, pale slip o' a lad wi' the broad brow. Ay, an' he's 
 just comin' this way." 
 
 "Anything new to-day, Thomas?" said the young man, 
 coming up to the stall. " I want a cheap second-hand copy 
 of Ramsay's ' Evergreen ;' and, like a good man as you are, 
 you must just try and find it for me." 
 
 Though considerably altered, — for he was taller and thin- 
 ner than when at college, and his complexion had assumed 
 a deep sallow hue, — I recognised him at once, and presented 
 him with the letter. 
 
 " Ah, from brother Henry," he said, breaking it open, 
 and glancing his eye over the contents. " What ! old college 
 chum, Mr Lindsay /" he exclaimed, turning to me. " Yes, 
 sure enough ; how happy I am we should have met ! Come 
 this way ; — let us get out of the streets." 
 
 We passed hurriedly through the Canongate and along 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 31 
 
 the front of Holy rood House, and were soon in the King's 
 Park, which seemed this morning as if left to ourselves. 
 
 " Dear me, and this is you yourself! — and we have again 
 met, Mr Lindsay!" said Ferguson: "I thought we were 
 never to meet more. Nothing, for a long time, has made 
 me half so glad. And so you have been a sailor for the last 
 four years. Do let us sit down here in the warm sunshine, 
 beside St Anthony's Well, and tell me all your story, and 
 how you happened to meet with brother Henry." 
 
 We sat down, and I briefly related, at his bidding, all 
 that had befallen me since we had parted at St Andrews, 
 and how I was still a common sailor ; but, in the main, per- 
 haps, not less happy than many who commanded a fleet. 
 
 " Ah, you have been a fortunate fellow," he said ; " you 
 have seen much and enjoyed much; and I have been rust- 
 ing in unhappiness at home. Would that I had gone to sea 
 along with you !" 
 
 " Nay, now, that won't do," I replied. " But you are 
 merely taking Bacon's method of blunting the edge of envy. 
 You have scarcely yet attained the years of mature man- 
 hood, and yet your name has gone abroad over the whole 
 length and breadth of the land, and over many other lands 
 besides. I have cried over your poems three thousand miles 
 away, and felt all the prouder of my country for the sake of 
 my friend. And yet you would fain persuade me that you 
 wish the charm reversed, and that you were just such an 
 obscure salt-water man as myself!" 
 
 "You remember," said my companion, "the story of the 
 half-man, half-marble prince of the Arabian tale. One part 
 was a living creature, one part a stone ; but the parts were 
 
32 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 incorporated, and the mixture was misery. I am just such 
 a poor unhappy creature as the enchanted prince of the 
 story." 
 
 " You surprise and distress me," I rejoined. " Have 
 you not accomplished all you so fondly purposed, — realized 
 even your warmest wishes 1 And this, too, in early life. 
 Your most sanguine hopes pointed but to a name, which 
 you yourself perhaps was never to hear, but which was to 
 dwell on men's tongues when the grave had closed over 
 you. And now the name is gained, and you live to enjoy 
 it, I see the living part of your lot, and it seems instinct 
 with happiness ; but in what does the dead, the stony part, 
 consist ?" 
 
 He shook his head, and looked up mournfully in my face : 
 there was a pause of a few seconds. " You, Mr Lindsay," 
 he at length replied, — " you, who are of an equable, steady 
 temperament, can know little from experience of the un- 
 happiness of the man who lives only in extremes, — who is 
 either madly gay or miserably depressed. Try and realize 
 the feelings of one whose mind is like a broken harp, — all 
 the medium tones gone, and only the higher and lower left ; 
 of one, too, whose circumstances seem of a piece with his 
 mind, who can enjoy the exercise of his better powers, 
 and yet can only live by the monotonous drudgery of copy- 
 ing page after page in a clerk's office ; of one who is con- 
 tinually either groping his way amid a chill melancholy fog 
 of nervous depression, or carried headlong by a wild gaiety 
 to all which his better judgment would instruct him to 
 avoid ; of one who, when he indulges most in the pride of 
 superior intellect, cannot away with the thought that that 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 33 
 
 intellect is on the eve of breaking up, and that he must yet 
 rate infinitely lower in the scale of rationality than any of 
 the nameless thousands who carry on the ordinary concerns 
 of life around him." 
 
 I was grieved and astonished, and knew not what to 
 answer. " You are in a gloomy mood to-day," I at length 
 said ; — " you are immersed in one of the fogs you describe ; 
 and all the surrounding objects take a tinge of darkness from 
 the medium through which you survey them. Come, now, 
 you must make an exertion, and shake off your melancholy. 
 1 have told you all my story as I best could, and you must 
 tell me all yours in return." 
 
 " Well," he replied, " I shall, though it mayn't be the 
 best way in the world of dissipating my melancholy. I 
 think I must have told you, when at college, that I had a 
 maternal uncle of considerable wealth, and, as the world 
 goes, respectability, who resided in Aberdeenshire. He was 
 placed on what one may term the table-land of society : and 
 my poor mother, whose recollections of him were limited to 
 a period when there is warmth in the feelings of the most 
 ordinary minds, had hoped that he would willingly exert his 
 influence in my behalf. Much, doubtless, depends on one's 
 setting out in life ; and it would have been something to 
 have been enabled to step into it from a level like that occu- 
 pied by my relative. I paid him a visit shortly after leaving 
 college, and met with apparent kindness. But I can see 
 beyond the surface, Mr Lindsay, and I soon saw that my 
 uncle was entirely a different man from the brother whom 
 my mother remembered. He had risen, by a course of slow 
 industry, from comparative poverty, and his feelings had 
 
 c 
 
34 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 worn out in the process. The character was case-hardened 
 all over j and the polish it bore — for I have rarely met a 
 .smoother man — seemed no improvement. He was, in brief, 
 one of the class content to dwell for ever in mere decencies, 
 with consciences made up of the conventional moralities, 
 who think by precedent, bow to public opinion as their god, 
 and estimate merit by its weight in guineas." 
 
 " And so your visit," I said, " was a very brief one V 
 
 " You distress me," he replied ; — " it should have been 
 so ; but it was not. But what could I do 1 Ever since my 
 father's death I had been taught to consider this man as 
 my natural guardian, and I was now unwilling to part with 
 my last hope. But this is not all. Under much apparent 
 activity, my friend, there is a substratum of apathetical in- 
 dolence in my disposition : I move rapidly when in motion; 
 but when at rest, there is a dull inertness in the character, 
 which the will, when unassisted by passion, is too feeble to 
 overcome. Poor, weak creature that I am ! I had sitten 
 clown by my uncle's fireside, and felt unwilling to rise. Pity 
 me, my friend, — I deserve your pity; but Oh! do not despise 
 me." 
 
 " Forgive me, Mr Ferguson," I said ; " I have given you 
 pain, but surely most unwittingly." 
 
 " I am ever a fool," he continued. " But my story lags ; 
 and, surely, there is little in it on which it were pleasure to 
 dwell. I sat at this man's table for six months, and saw, 
 day after day, his manner towards me becoming more con- 
 strained, and his politeness more cold ; and yet I staid on, 
 till at last my clothes were worn threadbare, and he began 
 to feel that the shabbinesss of the nephew affected the re- 
 
RECOLLECTIOXS OF FEKGUSOX. 35 
 
 spectability of the uncle. His friend the soap-boiler, and 
 his friend the oil-merchant, and his friend the manager of 
 the hemp manufactory, with their wives and daughters, — all 
 people of high standing in the world, — occasionally honoured 
 his table with their presence ; and how could he be other 
 than ashamed of mine ? It vexes me that I cannot even 
 yet be cool on the subject, — it vexes me that a creature so 
 sordid should have so much power to move me; but I can- 
 not, I cannot master my feelings. He — he told me — and 
 with whom should the blame rest, but with the weak, spirit- 
 less thing who lingered on in mean, bitter dependence, to 
 hear what he had to tell 1 — he told me that all his friends 
 were respectable, and that my appearance was no longer 
 that of a person whom he could wish to see at his table, or 
 introduce to any one as his nephew. And I had staid to 
 hear all this ! 
 
 " I can hardly tell you how I got home. I travelled, 
 stage after stage, along the rough dusty roads, with a weak 
 and feverish body, and almost despairing mind. On meeting 
 with my mother, I could have laid my head on her bosom, 
 and cried like a child. I took to my bed in a high fever, 
 and trusted that all my troubles were soon to terminate ; 
 but when the die was cast, it turned up life. I resumed 
 my old miserable employments, — for what could I else 1 — 
 and, that I might be less unhappy in the prosecution of 
 them, my old amusements too. I copied during the day 
 in a clerk's onice that I might live, and wrote during the 
 night that I might be known. And I have in part, perhaps, 
 attained my object. I have pursued and caught hold of the 
 shadow on which my heart had been so long set ; and if it 
 
36 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 prove empty, and untangible, and unsatisfactory, like every 
 other shadow, the blame surely must rest with the pursuer, — 
 not with the thing pursued. I weary you, Mr Lindsay; but 
 one word more. There are hours when the mind, weakened 
 by exertion, or by the teasing monotony of an employment 
 which tasks without exercising it, can no longer exert its 
 powers, and when, feeling that sociality is a law of our 
 nature, we seek the society of our fellow-men. With a 
 creature so much the sport of impulse as I am, it is of these 
 hours of weakness that conscience takes most note. God 
 help me ! I have been told that life is short ; but it stretches 
 on, and on, and on before me ; and I know not how it is to 
 be passed through." 
 
 My spirits had so sunk during this singular conversation, 
 that I had no heart to reply. 
 
 " You are silent, Mr Lindsay," said the poet ; "I have 
 made you as melancholy as myself; but look around you, 
 and say if ever you have seen a lovelier spot. See how 
 richly the yellow sunshine slants along the green sides of 
 Arthur's Seat ; and how the thin blue smoke, that has come 
 floating from the town, fills the bottom of yonder grassy 
 dell, as if it were a little lake ! Mark, too, how boldly the 
 cliffs stand out along its sides, each with its little patch of 
 shadow. And here, beside us, is St Anthony's "Well, so 
 famous in song, coming gushing out to the sunshine, and 
 then gliding away through the grass like a snake. Had the 
 Deity purposed that man should be miserable, he would surely 
 never have placed him in so fair a world. Perhaps much of 
 our unhappiness originates in our mistaking our proper scope, 
 and thus setting out from the first with a false aim." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 61 
 
 " Unquestionably," I replied, " there is no man who has 
 not some part to perform ; and if it be a great and uncom- 
 mon part, and the powers which fit him for it proportionably 
 great and uncommon, nature would be in error could he 
 slight it with impunity. See, there is a wild bee bending 
 the flower beside you. Even that little creature has a capa- 
 city of happiness and misery : it derives its sense of pleasure 
 from whatever runs in the line of its instincts, — its experience 
 of unhappiness, from whatever thwarts and opposes them ; 
 and can it be supposed that so wise a law should regulate 
 the instincts of only inferior creatures 1 No, my friend; it 
 is surely a law of our nature also." 
 
 "And have you not something else to infer 1 ?" said the 
 poet. 
 
 " Yes," I replied; " that you are occupied differently from 
 what the scope and constitution of your mind demand, — 
 differently both in your hours of employment and of relaxa- 
 tion. But do take heart ; you will yet find your proper place, 
 and all shall be well." 
 
 " Alas ! no, my friend," said he, rising from the sward. 
 " I could once entertain such a hope ; but I cannot now. 
 My mind is no longer what it was to me in my happier days, 
 — a sort of terra incognita, without bounds or limits. I can 
 see over and beyond it, and have fallen from all my hopes 
 regarding it. It is not so much the gloom of present cir- 
 cumstances that disheartens me, as a depressing knowledge 
 of myself, — an abiding conviction that I am a weak dreamer, 
 unfitted for every occupation of life, and not less so for the 
 greater employments of literature than for any of the others. 
 I feel that I am a little man and a little poet, with barely 
 
38 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 vigour enough to make one half-effort at a time, but wholly 
 devoid of the sustaining will, — that highest faculty of the 
 highest order of minds, — which can direct a thousand vigo- 
 rous efforts to the accomplishment of one important ob- 
 ject. Would that I could exchange my half-celebrity, — and 
 it can never be other than a half-celebrity, — for a temper as 
 equable and a fortitude as unshrinking as yours ! But I 
 weary you with my complaints : I am a very coward : and 
 you will deem me as selfish as I am weak." 
 
 We parted. The poet, sadly and unwillingly, went to 
 copy deeds in the office of the commissary-clerk ; and I, 
 almost reconciled to obscurity and hard labour, to assist in 
 unlading a Baltic trader in the harbour of Leith. 
 
 CHAPTEPv YI. 
 
 Speech without aim, and without end employ. — Ceabbe. 
 
 After the lapse of nine months, I again returned to Edin- 
 burgh. During that period I had been so shut out from 
 literature and the world, that I had heard nothing of my 
 friend the poet ; and it was with a beating heart I left the 
 vessel, on my first leisure evening, to pay him a visit. It 
 was about the middle of July. The clay had been close and 
 sultry, and the heavens overcharged with gray ponderous 
 clouds ; and as I passed hurriedly along the walk which leads 
 from Leith to Edinburgh, I could hear the newly-awakened 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 39 
 
 thunder, bellowing far in the south, peal after peal, like the 
 artillery of two hostile armies. I reached the door of the 
 poet's humble domicile, and had raised my hand to the 
 knocker, when I heard some one singing from within, in a 
 voice by far the most touchingly mournful I had ever listened 
 to. The tones struck on my heart ; and a frightful suspicion 
 crossed my mind, as I set down the knocker, that the singer 
 was no other than my friend. But in what wretched cir- 
 cumstances ! — what fearful state of mind ! I shuddered as I 
 listened, and heard the strain waxing louder and yet more 
 mournful, and could distinguish that the words were those 
 of a simple old ballad, — 
 
 O, Marti'mas wind, when wilt thou blaw, 
 An' shake the green leaves aff the tree ? 
 
 0, gentle death, when wilt thou come, 
 An' tak a life that wearies me V 
 
 I could listen no longer, but raised the latch and went in. 
 The evening was gloomy, and the apartment ill-lighted ; 
 but I could see the singer, a spectral-looking figure, sitting 
 on a bed in the corner, with the bed-clothes wrapped round 
 his shoulders, and a napkin deeply stained with blood on his 
 head. An elderly female, who stood beside him, was striving 
 to soothe him, and busied from time to time in adjusting the 
 clothes, which were ever and anon falling off as he nodded 
 his head in time to the music. A young girl of great beauty 
 sat weeping at the bed-foot. 
 
 " Oh, dearest Robert," said the woman, " you will destroy 
 your poor head ; and Margaret, your sister, whom you used 
 to love so much, will break her heart. Do lie down, dearest, 
 and take a little rest. Your head is fearfully gashed ; and if 
 
40 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 the bandages loose a second time, you will bleed to death. 
 Do, dearest Robert, for your poor old mother, to whom you 
 were always so kind and dutiful a son till now, — for your 
 poor old mother's sake, do lie down." 
 
 The song ceased for a moment, and the tears came burst- 
 ing from my eyes as the tune changed, and he again sang, — 
 
 0, mither dear, make ye my bed, 
 
 For my heart it's fiichterin' sair ; 
 An', Oh ! gin I've vex'd ye, mither dear, 
 
 I'll never vex ye mair. 
 I've staid ar'out the lang dark nicht, 
 
 I' the sleet an' the plashy rain ; 
 But, mither dear, make ye my bed, 
 
 An' I'll ne'er gang out again. 
 
 " Dearest, dearest Robert," continued the poor, heart- 
 broken woman, " do lie down, — for your poor old mother's 
 sake, do lie down." 
 
 " No, no," he exclaimed, in a hurried voice, " not just now, 
 mother, not just now. Here is my friend Mr Lindsay come 
 to see me, — my true friend, Mr Lindsay the sailor, who 
 has sailed all round and round the world ; and I have much, 
 much to ask him. A chair, Margaret, for Mr Lindsay. I 
 must be a preacher like John Knox, you know, — like the 
 great John Knox, the reformer of a nation, — and Mr Lind- 
 say knows all about him. A chair, Margaret, for Mi- 
 Lindsay." 
 
 I am not ashamed to say, it was with tears, and in a voice 
 faltering with emotion, that I apologized to the poor woman 
 for my intrusion at such a time. Were it otherwise, I might 
 well conclude my heart grown hard as a piece of the nether 
 millstone. 
 
^COLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 41 
 
 " I had known Robert at college," I said, — " had loved 
 and respected him ; and had now come to pay him a visit, 
 after an absence of several months, wholly unprepared for 
 finding him in his present condition." And it would seem 
 that my tears pled for me, and proved to the poor afflicted 
 woman and her daughter by far the most efficient part of 
 my apology. 
 
 " All my friends have left me now, Mr Lindsay," said the 
 unfortunate poet, — " they have all left me now ■ they love 
 this present world. We were all going down, down, down ; 
 there was the roll of a river behind us ; it came bursting 
 over the high rocks, roaring, rolling, foaming, down upon us ; 
 and, though the fog was thick and dark below, — far below, 
 in the place to which we were going, — I could see the red 
 fire shining through, — the red, hot, unquenchable fire ; and 
 we were all going down, down, down. Mother, mother, tell 
 Mr Lindsay I am going to be put on my trials to-morrow. 
 Careless creature that I am : life is short, and I have lost 
 much time ; but I am going to be put on my trials to-mor- 
 row, and shall come forth a preacher of the Word." 
 
 The thunder which had hitherto been muttering at a 
 distance, — each peal, how r ever, nearer and louder than the 
 preceding one, — now began to roll over-head, and the light- 
 ning, as it passed the window, to illumine every object within. 
 The hapless poet stretched out his thin, wasted arm, as if ad- 
 dressing a congregation from the pulpit. 
 
 "There were the flashings of lightning," he said, "and 
 the roll of thunder ; and the trumpet waxed louder and 
 louder. And around the summit of the mountain were the 
 foldings of thick clouds, and the shadow fell brown and dark 
 
■i'2 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 over the wide expanse of the desert. And the wild beasts 
 lay trembling in their dens. But, lo ! where the sun breaks 
 through the opening of the cloud, there is the glitter of tents, 
 — the glitter of ten thousand tents, — that rise over the sandy 
 waste, thick as waves of the sea. And there, there is the 
 voice of the dance, and of the revel, and the winding of horas, 
 and the clash of cymbals. Oh, sit nearer me, dearest mother, 
 for the room is growing dark, dark ; and, Oh, my poor head ! 
 
 The lady sat on the castle wa', 
 
 Looked owre baifch dale and down, 
 And then she spied Gil-Morice head 
 
 Come steering through the town. 
 
 Do, dearest mother, put your cool hand on my brow, and do 
 hold it fast ere it part. How fearfully, — Oh, how fearfully 
 it aches ! — and Oh, how it thunders !" He sunk backward 
 on the pillow, apparently exhausted. "Gone, gone, gone,"' 
 he muttered, — " my mind gone for ever. But God's will be 
 done." 
 
 I rose to leave the room ; for I could restrain my feelings 
 no longer. 
 
 " Stay, Mr Lindsay," said the poet, in a feeble voice ; " I 
 hear the rain dashing on the pavement ; you must not go 
 till it abates. Would that you could pray beside me ! But 
 no ; you are not like the dissolute companions who have 
 now all left me, but you are not yet fitted for that ; and, 
 alas ! I cannot pray for myself. Mother, mother, see that 
 there be prayers at my lykewake ; for, — 
 
 Her lykewake, it was piously spent 
 
 In social prayer and praise, 
 Performed by judicious men, 
 Who stricken were in days. 
 
KEC0LLECTI0NS OF FERGUSON". 43 
 
 And many a heavy, heavy heart, 
 
 Was in that mournful place ; 
 And many a weary, weary thought, 
 
 On her who slept in peace. 
 
 They will come all to my lykewake, mother, won't they ? 
 Yes, all, though they have left me now. Yes, and they will 
 come far to see my grave. I was poor, very poor, you know, 
 and they looked down upon me ■ and I was no son or cousin 
 of theirs, and so they could do nothing for me. Oh, but 
 they might have looked less coldly ! But they will all come 
 to my grave, mother : they will come all to my grave ; and 
 they will say, — ' Would he were living now, to know how 
 kind we are ! ' But they will look as coldly as ever on the 
 living poet beside them, — yes, till they have broken his heart ; 
 and then they will go to his grave too. Oh, dearest mother, 
 do lay your cool hand on my brow." 
 
 He lay silent and exhausted, and in a few minutes I 
 could hope, from the hardness of his breathing, that he had 
 fallen asleep. 
 
 " How long," I inquired of his sister, in a low whisper, 
 " has Mr Ferguson been so unwell, and what has injured 
 his head 1" 
 
 " Alas ! " said the girl, " my brother has been unsettled in 
 mind for nearly the last six months. We first knew it one 
 evening on his coming home from the country, where he had 
 been for a few days with a friend. He burnt a large heap 
 of papers that he had been employed on for weeks before, — 
 songs and poems that, his friends say, were the finest things 
 he ever wrote ; but he burnt them all, for he was going to 
 be a preacher of the Word, he said, and it did not become 
 
44 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 a preacher of the Word to be a writer of light rhymes. And 
 Oh, Sir ! his mind has been carried ever since ; but he has 
 been always gentle and affectionate, and his sole delight has 
 lain in reading the Bible. Good Dr Erskine, of the Gray- 
 friars, often comes to our house, and sits with him for hours 
 together : for there are times when his mind seems stronger 
 than ever ; and he says wonderful things, that seem to hover, 
 the minister says, between the extravagance natural to his 
 present sad condition, and the higher flights of a philosophic 
 genius. And we had hoped that he was getting better ; 
 but Oh, Sir, our hopes have had a sad ending. He went out, 
 a few evenings ago, to call on an old acquaintance ; and, in 
 descending a stair, missed footing, and fell to the bottom ; 
 and his head has been fearfully injured by the stones. He 
 has been just as you have seen him ever since ; and Oh, I 
 much fear he cannot now recover. Alas ! my poor brother ! 
 — never, never was there a more affectionate heart." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A lowly muse ! 
 She sings of reptiles yet in song unknown. 
 
 I returned to the vessel with a heavy heart ; and it was 
 nearly three months from this time ere I again set foot in 
 Edinburgh. Alas for my unfortunate friend ! He was 
 now an inmate of the asylum, and on the verge of dissolu- 
 tion. I was thrown by accident, shortly after my arrival 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 45 
 
 at this time, into the company of one of his boon com- 
 panions. I had gone into a tavern with a brother sailor, 
 
 a shrewd, honest skipper, from the north country ; and find- 
 ing the place occupied by half-a-dozen young fellows, who 
 were growing noisy over their liquor, I would have imme- 
 diately gone out again, had I not caught, in the passing, a 
 few words regarding my friend. And so, drawing to a side- 
 table, I sat down. 
 
 " Believe me," said one of the topers, a dissolute-looking 
 young man, " it's all over with Bob Ferguson, — all over ; 
 and I knew it from the moment he grew religious. Had 
 old Brown tried to convert me, I would have broken his 
 face." 
 
 What Brown?" inquired one of his companions. 
 " Ts that all you know ?" rejoined the other. " Why, 
 John Brown of Haddington, the Seceder. Bob was at Had- 
 dington last year at the election ; and one morning, when in 
 the horrors, after holding a rum night of it, who should he 
 meet in the churchyard but old John Brown. He writes 
 you know, a big book on the Bible. Well, he lectured Bob 
 at a pretty rate about election and the call, I suppose ; and 
 the poor fellow has been mad ever since. Your health, 
 Jamie. For my own part, I'm a freewill man, and detest 
 all cant and humbug." 
 
 "And what has come of Ferguson now?" asked one of 
 the others. 
 
 " Oh, mad, Sir, mad," rejoined the toper, — " reading the 
 Bible all day, and cooped up in the asylum yonder. 'Twas 
 I who brought him to it. But, lads, the glass has been 
 standing for the last half-hour. 'Twas I and Jack Robinson 
 
46 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 who brought him to it, as I say. He was getting wild; and 
 so we got a sedan for Mm, and trumped up a story of an 
 invitation for tea from a lady, and lie came with us as quietly 
 as a lamb. But if you could have heard the shriek he gave 
 when the chair stopped, and he saw where we had brought 
 him ! I never heard anything half so horrible ; it rung in 
 my ears for a week after ; and then, how the mad people in 
 the upper rooms howled and gibbered in reply, till the very 
 roof echoed ! People say he is getting better ; but when I 
 last saw him, he was as religious as ever, and spoke so much 
 about heaven, that it was uncomfortable to hear him. Great 
 loss to his friends, after all the expense they have been at 
 with his education." 
 
 " You seem to have been intimate with Mr Ferguson," T 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, intimate with Bob !" he rejoined ; " we were hand 
 and glove, man. I have sat with him in Lucky Middle- 
 mass's almost every evening for two years ; and I have 
 given him hints for some of the best things in his book. 
 'Twas I who tumbled down the cage in the Meadows, and 
 began breaking the lamps. 
 
 Ye who oft finish care in Lethe's cup, — 
 Who love to swear and roar, and l-ccp it up,— 
 List to a brother's voice, whose sole delight 
 Is sleep all day, and riot all the night. 
 
 There's spirit for you ! But Bob was never sound at bot- 
 tom ; and I have told him so. ' Bob,' I have said, — ' Bob, 
 you're but a hypocrite after all, man, — without half the 
 spunk you pretend to. Why don't you take a pattern by 
 me, who fear nothing, and believe only the agreeable 1 But, 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERCU80N. 47 
 
 poor fellow, he had weak nerves, and a church-going pro- 
 pensity that did him no good; and you see the effects. 
 "Twas all nonsense, Tom, of his throwing the squib into 
 the Glassite meeting-house. Between you and I, that was 
 a cut far beyond him in his best days, poet as he was. 
 'Twas I who did it, man ; and never was there a cleaner 
 row in Auld Beekie." 
 
 " Heartless, contemptible puppy ! " said my comrade the 
 sailor, as we left the room. " Your poor friend must be ill 
 indeed if he be but half as insane as his quondam companion. 
 But he cannot : there is no madness like that of the heart. 
 What could have induced a man of genius to associate with 
 a thing so thoroughly despicable?" 
 
 " The same misery, Miller/' I said, " that briDgs a man 
 acquainted with strange bed-fellows? 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 0, thou, my elder brother in misfortune, 
 
 By far my elder brother in the muses, 
 
 With tears I pity thy unhappy fate ! — BuENS. 
 
 The asylum in which my unfortunate friend was confined, — 
 at this time the only one in Edinburgh, — was situated in an 
 angle of the city wall. It was a dismal-looking mansion, 
 shut in on every side by the neighbouring houses, from the 
 view of the surrounding country, and so effectually covered 
 up from the nearer street by a large building in front, that 
 
48 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 it seemed possible enough to pass a lifetime in Edinburgh 
 without coming to the knowledge of its existence. I shud- 
 dered as I looked up to its blackened walls, thinly sprinkled 
 with miserable-looking windows, barred with iron ; and 
 thought of it as a sort of burial-place of dead minds. But 
 it was a Golgotha which, with more than the horrors of the 
 grave, had neither its rest nor its silence. I was startled, 
 as I entered the cell of the hapless poet, by a shout of 
 laughter from a neighbouring room, which was answered from 
 a dark recess behind me by a fearfully-prolonged shriek, 
 and the clanking of chains. The mother and sister of Fer- 
 guson were sitting beside his pallet, on a sort of stone-settle, 
 which stood out from the wall ; and the poet himself, — weak, 
 and exhausted, and worn to a shadow, but apparently in his 
 right mind, — lay extended on the straw. He made an at- 
 tempt to rise as I entered ; but the effort was above his 
 strength, and, again lying down, he extended his hand. 
 
 " This is kind, Mr Lindsay," he said ■ " it is ill for me 
 to be alone in these days ; and yet I have few visitors, save 
 my poor old mother and Margaret. But who cares for the 
 unhappy V 
 
 I sat down on the settle beside him, still retaining his 
 hand. " I have been at sea, and in foreign countries," I 
 said, " since I last saw you, Mr Ferguson, and it was only 
 this morning I returned ; but, believe me, there are many, 
 many of your countrymen who sympathize sincerely in your 
 affliction, and take a warm interest in your recovery." 
 
 He sighed deeply. " Ah," he replied, " I know too well 
 the nature of that sympathy. You never find it at the bed- 
 side of the sufferer : it evaporates in a few barren expres- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 49 
 
 sions of idle pity ; and yet, after all, it is but a paying the 
 poet in kind. He calls so often on the world to sympathize 
 over fictitious misfortune, that the feeling wears out, and 
 becomes a mere mood of the imagination ; and with this 
 light, attenuated pity, of his own weaving, it regards his own 
 real sorrows. Dearest mother, the evening is damp and 
 chill. Do gather the bed-clothes around me, and sit on my 
 feet : they are so very cold, and so dead, that they cannot be 
 colder a week hence." 
 
 " Oh, Robert, why do you speak so T said the poor woman, 
 as she gathered the clothes around him, and sat on his feet. 
 " You know you are coming home to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow !" he said : "if I see to-morrow, I shall have 
 completed my twenty-fourth year, — a small part, surely, of 
 the threescore and ten ; but what matters it when 'tis 
 pastf 
 
 " You were ever, my friend, of a melancholy tempera- 
 ment," I said, "and too little disposed to hope. Indulge in 
 brighter views of the future, and all shall yet be well." 
 
 " I can now hope that it shall," he said. " Yes ; all shall 
 be well with me, — and that very soon. But Oh, how this 
 nature of ours shrinks from dissolution ! — yes, and all the 
 lower natures too. You remember, mother, the poor star- 
 ling that was killed in the room beside us ? Oh, how it 
 struggled with its ruthless enemy, and filled the whole place 
 with its shrieks of terror and agony! And yet, poor little 
 thing, it had been true, all life long, to the laws of its na- 
 ture, and had no sins to account for, and no Judge to meet. 
 There is a shrinking of heart as I look before me ; and yet I 
 can hope that all shall yet be well with me, and that very 
 
 D 
 
50 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 soon. Would that I had been wise in time ! Would that 
 I had thought more and earlier of the things which pertain 
 to my eternal peace ! — more of a living soul, and less of a 
 dying name ! But Oh ! 'tis a glorious provision, through which 
 a way of return is opened up, even at the eleventh hour." 
 
 We sat round him in silence. An indescribable feeling of 
 awe pervaded my whole mind ; and his sister was affected to 
 
 tears. 
 
 " Margaret," he said, in a feeble voice, — " Margaret, you 
 will find my Bible in yonder little recess : 'tis all I have to 
 leave you; but keep it, dearest sister, and use it, and in 
 times of sorrow and suffering, that come to all, you will know 
 how to prize the legacy of your poor brother. Many, many 
 books do well enough for life ; but there is only one of any 
 value when we come to die. 
 
 " You have been a voyager of late, Mr Lindsay," he con- 
 tinued, "and I have been a voyager too. I have been 
 journeying in darkness and discomfort, amid strange un- 
 earthly shapes of dread and horror, with no reason to direct, 
 and no will to govern. Oh, the unspeakable unhappiness of 
 these wanderings ! — these dreams of suspicion, and fear, and 
 hatred, in which shadow and substance, the true and the 
 false, were so wrought up and mingled together, that they 
 formed but one fantastic and miserable whole. And Oh, the 
 unutterable horror of every momentary return to a recollec- 
 tion of what I had been once, and a sense of what I had 
 become ! Oh, when I awoke amid the terrors of the night, 
 — when I turned me on the rustling straw, and heard the 
 wild wail, and yet wilder laugh, — when I heard, and shud- 
 dered, and then felt the demon in all his might coming over 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF FERGUSON. 51 
 
 me, till I laughed and wailed with the others, — Oh, the 
 misery ! the utter misery ! But 'tis over, my friend, — 'tis 
 all over. A few, few tedious days, — a few, few weary nights, 
 — and all my sufferings shall be over." 
 
 I had covered my face with my hands, but the tears came 
 bursting through my fingers. The mother and sister of the 
 poet sobbed aloud. 
 
 " Why sorrow for me, sirs ?" he said ; " why grieve for 
 me ? I am well, quite well, and want for nothing. But 
 'tis cold ; Oh, 'tis very cold, and the blood seems freezing at 
 my heart. Ah, but there is neither pain nor cold where 
 I am going, and I trust it shall be well with my soul ! 
 Dearest, dearest mother, I always told you it would come to 
 this at last." 
 
 The keeper had entered, to intimate to us that the hour 
 for locking up the cells was already past ; and we now rose 
 to leave the place. I stretched out my hand to my unfor- 
 tunate friend. He took it in silence ; and his thin, attenuated 
 fingers felt cold within my grasp, like those of a corpse. 
 His mother stooped down to embrace him. 
 
 " Oh, do not go yet, mother," he said, — " do not go yet, — 
 do not leave me. But it must be so, and I only distress you. 
 Pray for me, dearest mother, and Oh, forgive me. I have 
 been a grief and a burden to you all life long ; but I ever 
 loved you, mother ; and, Oh, you have been kind, kind, and 
 forgiving ; and now your task is over. May God bless and 
 reward you ! Margaret, dearest Margaret, farewell !" 
 
 We parted, and, as it proved, for ever. Robert Ferguson 
 expired during the night ; and when the keeper entered 
 the cell next morning, to prepare him for quitting the 
 
52 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 asylum, all that remained of this most hapless of the chil- 
 dren of genius was a pallid and wasted corpse, that lay 
 stiffening on the straw. I am now a very old man, and the 
 feelings wear out ; but I find that my heart is even yet sus- 
 ceptible of emotion, and that the source of tears is not yet 
 dried up. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 53 
 
 EECOLLECTIONS OF BUBNS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Wear we not graven on our hearts 
 The name of Eobert Burns ? — American Poet. 
 
 The degrees shorten as we proceed from the higher to the 
 lower latitudes : the years seem to shorten in a much greater 
 ratio as we pass onward through life. We are almost dis- 
 posed to question whether the brief period of storms and 
 foul weather that floats over us with such dream-like rapi- 
 dity, and the transient season of flowers and sunshine that 
 seems almost too short for enjoyment, be at all identical with 
 the long summers, and still longer winters, of our boyhood, 
 when day after day, and week after week, stretched away 
 in dim perspective, till lost in the obscurity of an almost in- 
 conceivable distance. Young as I was, I had already passed 
 the period of life when we wonder how it is that the years 
 should be described as short and fleeting; and it seemed 
 as if I had stood but yesterday beside the deathbed of the 
 unfortunate Ferguson, though the flowers of four summers 
 and the snows of four winters had now been shed over his 
 
54 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 My prospects in life had begun to brighten. I served in 
 the capacity of mate in a large West India trader, the master 
 of which, an elderly man of considerable wealth, was on the 
 eve of quitting the sea ; and the owners had already deter- 
 mined that I should succeed him in the charge. But fate 
 had ordered it otherwise. Our seas were infested at this 
 period by American privateers, — prime sailors and strongly 
 armed ; and, when homeward bound from Jamaica with a 
 valuable cargo, we were attacked and captured, when within 
 a day's sailing of Ireland, by one of the most formidable of 
 the class. Yain as resistance might have been deemed, — for 
 the force of the American was altogether overpowering, — 
 and though our master, poor old man ! and three of the crew, 
 had fallen by the first broadside, we had yet stood stiffly by 
 our guns, and were only overmastered when, after falling 
 foul of the enemy, we were boarded by a party of thrice our 
 strength and number. The Americans, irritated by our re- 
 sistance, proved on this occasion no generous enemies : we 
 were stripped and heavily ironed, and, two days after, were 
 set ashore on the wild coast of Connaught, without a single 
 change of dress, or a single sixpence to bear us by the way. 
 
 I was sitting, on the following night, beside the turf-fire 
 of a hospitable Irish peasant, when a seafaring man, whom I 
 had sailed with about two years before, entered the cabin. 
 The meeting was equally unexpected on either side. My 
 acquaintance was the master of a smuggling lugger then on 
 the coast ; and on acquainting him with the details of my 
 disaster, and the state of destitution to which it had reduced 
 me, he kindly proposed that I should accompany him on his 
 voyage to the west coast of Scotland, for which he was then 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BUHNS. 55 
 
 on the eve of sailing. " Yon will run some little risk," he 
 said, "as the companion of a man who has now been thrice 
 outlawed for firing on his Majesty's flag ; but I know your 
 proud heart will prefer the danger of bad company, at its 
 worst, to the alternative of begging your way home." He 
 judged rightly. Before daybreak we had lost sight of land ; 
 and in four days more, we could discern the precipitous 
 shores of Carrick stretching in a dark line along the horizon, 
 and the hills of the interior rising thin and blue behind, like 
 a volume of clouds. A considerable part of our cargo, which 
 consisted mostly of tea and spirits, was consigned to an Ayr 
 trader, who had several agents in the remote parish of 
 Kirkoswald, which at this period afforded more facilities 
 for carrying on the contraband trade than any other on the 
 western coast of Scotland ; and in a rocky bay of the parish 
 we proposed unlading on the following night. It was neces- 
 sary, however, that the several agents, who were yet ignorant 
 of our arrival, should be prepared to meet with us ; and on 
 volunteering my service for the purpose, I was landed near 
 the ruins of the ancient castle of Turnberry, once the seat 
 of Robert the Bruce. 
 
 I had accomplished my object. It was evening, and a 
 party of countrymen were sauntering among the cliffs, wait- 
 ing for nightfall and the appearance of the lugger. There 
 are splendid caverns on the coast of Kirkoswald ; and, to 
 while away the time, I had descended to the shore by a 
 broken and precipitous path, with a view of exploring what 
 are termed the Caves of Colzean, by far the finest in this 
 part of Scotland. The evening was of great beauty : the sea 
 spread out from the cliffs to the far horizon, like the sea of 
 
56 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 gold and crystal described by the prophet; and its warm 
 orange hues so harmonized with those of the sky, that, pass- 
 ing over the dimly-defined line of demarcation, the whole 
 upper and nether expanse seemed but one glorious firmament, 
 with the dark Ailsa, like a thunder-cloud, sleeping in the 
 midst. The sun was hastening to his setting, and threw 
 his strong red light on the wall of rock which, loftier and 
 more imposing than the walls of even the mighty Babylon, 
 stretched onward along the beach, headland after headland, 
 till the last sank abruptly in the far distance, and only the 
 wide ocean stretched beyond. I passed along the insulated 
 piles of cliff that rise thick along the bases of the precipices, 
 — now in sunshine, now in shadow, — till I reached the open- 
 ing of one of the largest caves. The roof rose more than 
 fifty feet over my head ; a broad stream of light, that seemed 
 redder and more fiery from the surrounding gloom, slanted 
 inwards; and, as I paused in the opening, my shadow, length- 
 ened and dark, fell athwart the floor, — a slim and narrow bar 
 of black, — till lost in the gloom of the inner recess. There 
 was a wild and uncommon beauty in the scene, that power- 
 fully affected the imagination ; and I stood admiring it, in 
 that delicious dreamy mood in which one can forget all but 
 the present enjoyment, when I was roused to a recollection 
 of the business of the evening by the sound of a footfall 
 echoing from within. It seemed approaching by a sort of 
 cross passage in the rock ; and in a moment after, a young- 
 man, — one of the country people whom I had left among the 
 cliffs above, — stood before me. He wore a broad Lowland 
 bonnet, and his plain homely suit of coarse russet seemed to 
 bespeak him a peasant of perhaps the poorest class ; but as 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 57 
 
 he emerged from the gloom, and the red light fell full on his 
 eountenanee, I saw an indescribable something in the expres- 
 sion, that in an instant awakened my curiosity. He was 
 rather above the middle size, of a frame the most muscular 
 and compact I have almost ever seen ; and there was a 
 blended mixture of elasticity and firmness in his tread, that, 
 to one accustomed, as I had been, to estimate the physical 
 capabilities of men, gave evidence of a union of immense per- 
 sonal strength with great activity. My first idea regarding 
 the stranger, — and I know not how it should have struck 
 me, — was that of a very powerful frame, animated by a double 
 portion of vitality. The red light shone full on his face, 
 and gave a ruddy tinge to the complexion, which I afterwards 
 found it wanted, for he was naturally of a darker hue than 
 common ; but there was no mistaking the expression of the 
 large flashing eyes, the features, that seemed so thoroughly 
 cast in the mould of thought, and the broad, full, perpen- 
 dicular forehead. Such, at least, was the impression on my 
 mind, that I addressed him with more of the courtesy 
 which my earlier pursuits had rendered familiar to me, than 
 of the bluntness of my adopted profession. " This sweet 
 evening," I said, " is by far too fine for our lugger : I ques- 
 tion whether, in these calms, we need expect her before 
 midnight. But 'tis well, since wait we must, that 'tis in a 
 place where the hours may pass so agreeably." The stranger 
 good-hum ouredly acquiesced in the remark; and we sat down 
 together on the dry, water-worn pebbles, mixed with frag- 
 ments of broken shells and minute pieces of wreck, that 
 strewed the opening of the cave. 
 
 'Was there ever a lovelier evening!" he exclaimed. 
 
58 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " The waters above the firmament seem all of a piece with 
 the waters below. And never, surely, was there a scene of 
 wilder beauty. Only look inwards, and see how the stream 
 of red light seems bounded by the extreme darkness, like a 
 river by its banks, and how the reflection of the ripple goes 
 waving in golden curls along the roof!" 
 
 " I have been admiring the scene for the last half-hour," 
 I said. " Shakspeare speaks of a music that cannot be heard ; 
 and I have not yet seen a place where one might better learn 
 to comment on the passage." 
 
 Both the thought and the phrase seemed new to him. 
 
 " A music that cannot be heard !" he repeated; and then, 
 after a momentary pause, "You allude to the fact," he con- 
 tinued, " that sweet music, and forms, such as these, of silent 
 beauty and grandeur, awaken in the mind emotions of nearly 
 the same class. There is something truly exquisite in the 
 concert of to-night." 
 
 I muttered a simple assent. 
 
 " See," he continued, " how finely these insulated piles 
 of rock, that rise in so many combinations of form along the 
 beach, break and diversify the red light; and how the glossy 
 leaves of the ivy glisten in the hollows of the precipices 
 above ! And then, how the sea spreads away to the far ho- 
 rizon, — a glorious pavement of crimson and gold ! and how 
 the dark Ailsa rises in the midst, like the little cloud seen 
 by the prophet ! The mind seems to enlarge, the heart to 
 expand, in the contemplation of so much of beauty and 
 grandeur. The soul asserts its due supremacy. And Oh, 
 'tis surely well that we can escape from those little cares of 
 life which fetter down our thoughts, our hopes, our wishes, 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 59 
 
 to the wants and the enjoyments of our animal existence ; 
 and that, amid the grand and the sublime of nature, we may- 
 learn from the spirit within us that we are better than the 
 beasts that perish ! " 
 
 I looked up to the animated countenance and flashing eyes 
 of my companion, and wondered what sort of a peasant it 
 was I had met with " Wild and beautiful as the scene is," 
 I said, " you will find, even among those who arrogate to 
 themselves the praise of wisdom and learning, men who re- 
 gard such scenes as mere errors of nature. Burnet would 
 have told you that a Dutch landscape, without hill, rock, or 
 valley, must be the perfection of beauty, seeing that Paradise 
 itself could have furnished nothing better." 
 
 " I hold Milton as higher authority on the subject," said 
 my companion, " than all the philosophers who ever wrote. 
 Beauty in a tame unvaried flat, where a man would know 
 his country only by the milestones ! A very Dutch Para- 
 dise, truly !" 
 
 " But would not some of your companions above," I 
 asked, " deem the scene as much an error of nature as 
 Burnet himself ? They could pass over these stubborn rocks 
 neither plough nor harrow." 
 
 " True," he replied ; " there is a species of small wisdom 
 in the world, that often constitutes the extremest of its 
 folly, — a wisdom that would change the entire nature of 
 good, had it but the power, by vainly endeavouring to ren- 
 der that good universal. It would convert the entire earth 
 into one vast corn-field, and then find that it had ruined the 
 species by its improvement." 
 
 " We of Scotland can hardly be ruined in that way for an 
 
CO TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 age to come," I said. " But I am Dot sure that I under- 
 stand you. Alter the very nature of good in the attempt to 
 render it universal ! How V 
 
 " I daresay you have seen a graduated scale," said my 
 companion, " exhibiting the various powers of the different 
 musical instruments, and observed how some of limited 
 scope cross only a few of the divisions, and how others 
 stretch nearly from side to side. 'Tis but a poor truism, 
 perhaps, to say that similar differences in scope and power 
 obtain among men, — that there are minds who could not 
 join in the concert of to-night, — who could see neither beauty 
 nor grandeur amid these wild cliffs and caverns, or in that 
 glorious expanse of sea and sky ; and that, on the other 
 hand, there are minds so finely modulated, — minds that 
 sweep so broadly across the scale of nature, — that there is no 
 object, however minute, no breath of feeling, however faint, 
 that does not awaken their sweet vibrations; — the snow-flake 
 falling in the stream, the daisy of the field, the conies of the 
 rock, the hysop of the wall. Now, the vast and various 
 frame of nature is adapted, not to the lesser, but to the larger 
 mind. It spreads on and around us in all its rich and mag- 
 nificent variety, and finds the full portraiture of its Proteus- 
 like beauty in the mirror of genius alone. Evident, how- 
 ever, as this may seem, Ave find a sort of levelling principle 
 in the inferior order of minds, and which, in fact, constitutes 
 one of their grand characteristics, — a principle that would 
 fain abridge the scale to their own narrow capabilities, — 
 that would cut down the A^astness of nature to suit the 
 littleness of their own conceptions and desires, and con- 
 vert it into one tame, uniform, mediocre good, which would 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. Gl 
 
 be good but to themselves alone, and ultimately not even 
 that" 
 
 " I think I can now understand yon," I said : " you de- 
 scribe a sort of swinish wisdom, that would convert the world 
 into one vast stye. For my own part, I have travelled far 
 enough to know the value of a blue hill, and would not wil- 
 lingly lose so much as one of these landmarks of our mother 
 land, by which kindly hearts in distant countries love to re- 
 member it." 
 
 " I daresay Ave are getting fanciful," rejoined my compa- 
 nion ; " but certainly, in man's schemes of improvement, 
 both physical and moral, there is commonly a littleness, and 
 want of adaptation to the general good, that almost always 
 defeats his aims. He sees and understands but a minute 
 portion ; — it is always some partial good he would introduce ; 
 and thus he but destroys the just proportions of a nicely re- 
 gulated system of things, by exaggerating one of the parts. 
 I passed of late through a richly-cultivated district of coun- 
 try, in which the agricultural improver had done his utmost. 
 Never were there finer fields, more convenient steadings, 
 crops of richer promise, a better regulated system of produc- 
 tion. Corn and cattle had mightily improved ; but what 
 had man, the lord of the soil, become 1 Is not the body 
 better than food, and life than raiment 1 If that decline for 
 which all other things exist, it surely matters little that all 
 these other things prosper. And here, though the corn, the 
 cattle, the fields, the steadings, had improved, man had sunk. 
 There were but two classes in the district; — a few cold- 
 hearted speculators, who united what is worst in the cha- 
 racter of the landed proprietor and the merchant; — these 
 
62 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 were young gentlemen farmers : and a class of degraded 
 helots, little superior to the cattle they tended ; — these were 
 your farm -servants. And for two such extreme classes, — 
 necessary result of such a state of things, — had this unfor- 
 tunate though highly eulogized district parted with a moral, 
 intelligent, high-minded peasantry, — the true boast and true 
 riches of their country." 
 
 " I have, I think, observed something like what you de- 
 scribe," I said. 
 
 " I give," he replied, " but one instance of a thousand. 
 But mark how the sun's lower disk has just reached the line 
 of the horizon, and how the long level rule of light stretches 
 to the very innermost recess of the cave. It darkens as the 
 orb sinks. And see how the gauze-like shadows creep on 
 from the sea, film after film ; and now they have reached 
 the ivy that mantles round the castle of the Bruce. Are 
 you acquainted with Barbour ?" 
 
 " Well," I said ; — " a spirited, fine old fellow, who loved his 
 country, and did much for it. I could once repeat all his 
 chosen passages. Do you remember how he describes King 
 Robert's rencounter with the English knight V 
 
 My companion sat up erect, and, clenching his fist, began 
 repeating the passage, with a power and animation that 
 seemed to double its inherent energy and force. 
 
 " Glorious old Barbour !" ejaculated he, when he had 
 finished the description ; " many a heart has beat all the 
 higher, when the bale-fires were blazing, through the tutor- 
 age of thy noble verses ! Blind Harry, too, — what has not 
 his country owed to him !" 
 
 " Ah, they have long since been banished from our popu- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. Go 
 
 lar literature," I said ; " and yet Blind Harry's ' Wallace,' 
 as Hailes tells us, was at one time the very Bible of the 
 Scotch. But love of country seems to be getting old- 
 fashioned among us \ and we have become philosophic 
 enough to set up for citizens of the world." 
 
 " All cold pretence," rejoined my companion, — " an effect 
 of that small wisdom we hav r e just been decrying. Cosmo- 
 politism, as we are accustomed to define it, can be no virtue 
 of the present age, nor yet of the next, nor perhaps for cen- 
 turies to come. Even when it shall have attained to its 
 best, and when it may be most safely indulged in, it is ac- 
 cording to the nature of man that, instead of running 
 counter to the love of country, it should exist as but a wider 
 diffusion of the feeling, and form, as it were, a wider circle 
 round it. It is absurdity itself to oppose the love of our 
 country to that of our race." 
 
 " Do I rightly understand you ?" I said. " You look for- 
 ward to a time when the patriot may safely expand into the 
 citizen of the world ; but in the present age he would do 
 well, you think, to confine his energies within the inner circle 
 of country." 
 
 " Decidedly," he rejoined : "man should love his species 
 at all times ; but it is ill with him if, in times like the pre- 
 sent, he loves not his country more. The spirit of war and 
 aggression is yet abroad : there are laws to be established, 
 rights to be defended, invaders to be repulsed, tyrants to be 
 deposed. And who but the patriot is equal to these things ? 
 We are not yet done with the Braces, the Wallaces, the Tells, 
 the Washingtons, — yes, the Washingtons, whether they fight 
 for or against us, — we are not yet done with them. The 
 
G4 TALES A^D SKETCHES. 
 
 cosmopolite is but a puny abortion, — a birth ere the natural 
 time, — that at once endangers the life and betrays the weak- 
 ness of the country that bears him. Would that he were 
 sleeping in his elements till his proper time ! But we are 
 getting ashamed of our country, of our language, our man- 
 ners, our music, our literature ; nor shall we have enough 
 of the old spirit left us to assert our liberties or fight our 
 battles. Oh for some Barbour or Blind Harry of the present 
 day, to make us once more proud of our country !" 
 
 I quoted the famous saying of Fletcher of Salton, — " Al- 
 low me to make the songs of a country, and I will allow you 
 to make its laws." 
 
 " But here," I said, " is our lugger stealing round Turn- 
 berry Head. We shall soon part, perhaps for ever ; and I 
 would fain know with whom I have spent an hour so agree- 
 ably, and have some name to remember him by. My own 
 name is Matthew Lindsay. I am a native of Irvine." 
 
 " And I," said the young man, rising and cordially grasp- 
 ing the proffered hand, " am a native of Ayr. My name is 
 Robert Burns." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 If friendless, low, we meet together, 
 
 Then, Sir, your hand, — my friend and brother. 
 
 Dedication to G. Hamilton. 
 
 A light breeze had risen as the sun sank, and our lugger, 
 with all her sails set, came sweeping along the shore. She 
 had nearly gained the little bay in front of the cave, and 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. G5 
 
 the countrymen from above, to the number of perhaps 
 twenty, had descended to the beach, when, all of a sudden, 
 after a shrill whistle, and a brief half-minute of commotion 
 among the crew, she wore round and stood out to sea. I 
 turned to the south, and saw a square-rigged vessel shooting- 
 out from behind one of the rocky headlands, and then bear- 
 ing down in a long tack on the smuggler. " The sharks are 
 upon us," said one of the countrymen, whose eyes had 
 turned in the same direction : " we shall have no sport to- 
 night." We stood lining the beach in anxious curiosity. 
 The breeze freshened as the evening fell : and the lugger, 
 as she lessened to our sight, went leaning against the foam 
 in a long bright furrow, that, catching the last light of 
 evening, shone like the milky way amid the blue. Occa- 
 sionally we could see the flash and hear the booming of 
 a gun from the other vessel ; but the night fell thick 
 and dark ; the w r aves, too, began to lash against the rocks, 
 drowning every feebler sound in a continuous roaring ; and 
 every trace of both the chase and the chaser disappeared. 
 The party broke up, and I was left standing alone on the 
 beach, a little nearer home, but in every other respect in 
 quite the same circumstances as when landed by my Ameri- 
 can friends on the wild coast of Connaught. " Another of 
 Fortune's freaks !" I ejaculated ; but 'tis well she can no 
 longer surprise me." 
 
 A man stepped out in the darkness, as I spoke, from be- 
 side one of the rocks : it was the peasant Burns, my ac- 
 quaintance of the earlier part of the evening. 
 
 "I have waited, Mr Lindsay," he said, "to see whether 
 some of the country folks here, who have homes of their own 
 
 E 
 
66 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 to invite you to, might not have brought you along with 
 them. But I am afraid you must just be content to pass the 
 night with me. I can give you a share of my bed and 
 my supper, though both, I am aware, need many apologies. 1 ' 
 I made a suitable acknowledgment, and we ascended the 
 cliff together. " I live, when at home, with my parents," 
 said my companion, " in the inland parish of Tarbolton ; but 
 for the last two months I have attended school here, and 
 lodge with an old widow-woman in the village. To-morrow, 
 as harvest is fast approaching, I return to my father." 
 
 "And I," I replied, "shall have the pleasure of accom- 
 panying you in at least the early part of your journey, 
 on my way to Irvine, where my mother still lives." 
 
 We reached the village, and entered a little cottage, that 
 presented its gable to the street, and its side to one of the 
 narrower lanes. 
 
 " I must introduce you to my landlady," said my com- 
 panion, — "an excellent, kind-hearted old woman, with a fund 
 of honest Scotch pride and shrewd good sense in her com- 
 position, and with the mother as strong in her heart as 
 ever, though she lost the last of her children more than 
 twenty years ago." 
 
 \Ye found the good woman sitting beside a small but 
 very cheerful fire. The hearth was newly swept, and the 
 floor newly sanded ; and, directly fronting her, there was an 
 empty chair, which seemed to have been drawn to its place 
 in the expectation of some one to fill it. 
 
 " You are going to leave me, Robert, my bairn," said the 
 woman, " an' I kenna how I sail ever get on without you. 
 I have almost forgotten, Bin? you came to live with me, that 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. G7 
 
 I have neither children nor husband." On seeing me she 
 stopped short. 
 
 " An acquaintance," said my companion, " whom I have 
 made bold to bring with me for the night ; but you must 
 not put yourself to any trouble, mother : he is, I daresay, 
 as much accustomed to plain fare as myself. Only, how- 
 ever, we must get an additional pint of yill from the clachan ; 
 you know this is my last evening with you, and was to be 
 a merry one at any rate." The woman looked me full in 
 the face. 
 
 " Matthew Lindsay !" she exclaimed, — " can you have 
 forgotten your poor old aunt Margaret ! I grasped her 
 hand. 
 
 " Dearest aunt, this is surely most unexpected ! How 
 could I have so much as dreamed you were within a hun- 
 dred miles of me '?" Mutual congratulation ensued. 
 
 " This," she said, turning to my companion, " is the 
 nephew I have so often told you about, and so often wished 
 to bring you acquainted with. He is, like yourself, a great 
 reader and a great thinker, and there is no need that your 
 proud, kindly heart should be jealous of him ; for he has 
 been ever quite as poor, and maybe the poorer of the two." 
 After still more of greeting and congratulation, the young 
 man rose. 
 
 " The night is dark, mother," he said, " and the road 
 to the clachan a rough one. Besides, you and your kinsman 
 will have much to say to one another. I shall just slip 
 out to the clachan for you ; and you shall both tell me, on 
 my return, whether I am not a prime judge of ale." 
 
 "The kindest heart, Matthew, that -ever lived," said my 
 
68 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 relative, as he left the house. " Ever since he came to Kirk- 
 oswald he has been both son and daughter to me, and I shall 
 feel twice a widow when he goes away." 
 
 " I am mistaken, aunt," I said, " if he be not the strongest 
 minded man I ever saw. Be assured he stands high among 
 the aristocracy of nature, whatever may be thought of him 
 in Kirkoswald. There is a robustness of intellect, joined to 
 an overmastering force of character, about him, which I have 
 never yet seen equalled, though I have been intimate with 
 at least one very superior mind, and with hundreds of the 
 class who pass for men of talent, I have been thinking, 
 ever since I met with him, of the William Tells and Wil- 
 liam Wallaces of history, — men who, in those times of 
 trouble which unfix the foundations of society, step out from 
 their obscurity to rule the destiny of nations." 
 
 " I was ill about a month [ago," said my relative, — " so 
 very ill, that I thought I was to have done with the world 
 altogether ; and Robert was both nurse and physician to me. 
 He kindled my fire, too, every morning, and sat up beside 
 me sometimes for the greater part of the night, What 
 wonder I should love him as my own child 1 Had your 
 cousin Henry been spared to me, he would now have been 
 much about Robert's age." 
 
 The conversation passed to other matters ; and in about 
 half an hour my new friend entered the room, when we sat 
 down to a homely but cheerful repast. 
 
 " I have been engaged in argument for the last twenty 
 minutes with our parish schoolmaster," he said, — "a shrewd, 
 sensible man, and a prime scholar, but one of the most de- 
 termined Calvinists I ever knew. Now, there is some- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 
 
 60 
 
 thine, Mi- Lindsay, in abstract Calvinism that dissatisfies 
 and distresses me ; and yet, I must confess, there is so much 
 of good in the working of the system, that I would ill like 
 to see it supplanted by any other. I am convinced, for in- 
 stance, there is nothing so efficient in teaching the bulk of a 
 people to think as a Calvinistic church." 
 
 " Ah, Robert," said my aunt, " it does meikle mair nor 
 that. Look round you, my bairn, an' see if there be a kirk 
 in which puir sinful creatures have mair comfort in their 
 sufferings, or mair hope in their deaths." 
 
 " Dear mother," said my companion, " I like well enough 
 to dispute with the schoolmaster, but I must have no dis- 
 pute with you. I know the heart is everything in these 
 matters, and yours is much wiser than mine." 
 
 " There is something in abstract Calvinism," he continued, 
 " that distresses me. In almost all our researches we arrive 
 at an ultimate barrier, which interposes its wall of darkness 
 between us and the last grand truth in the series, which we 
 had trusted was to prove a master-key to the whole. We 
 dwell in a sort of Goshen ; there is light in our immediate 
 neighbourhood, and a more than Egyptian darkness all 
 around : and as every Hebrew must have known that the 
 hetlge of cloud which he saw resting on the landscape was 
 a boundary, not to things themselves, but merely to his view 
 of things, — for beyond there were cities, and plains, and 
 oceans, and continents, — so we in like manner must know 
 that the barriers of which I speak exist only in relation to the 
 faculties which we employ, — not to the objects on which we 
 employ them. And yet, notwithstanding this consciousness 
 that we are necessarily and irremediably the bound prisoners 
 
70 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 of ignorance, and that all the great truths lie outside our 
 prison, we can almost be content that in most cases it 
 should be so ; not, however, with regard to those great un- 
 attainable truths which lie in the track of Calvinism. They 
 seem too important to be wanted, and yet want them we 
 mast ; and we beat our very heads against the cruel barrier 
 which separates us from them." 
 
 " I am afraid I hardly understand you," I said. " Do 
 assist me by some instance or illustration." 
 
 "You are acquainted," he replied, " with the Scripture 
 doctrine of predestination ; and in thinking over it in con- 
 nection with the destinies of man, it must have struck you 
 that, however much it may interfere with our fixed notions 
 of the goodness of Deity, it is thoroughly in accordance with 
 the actual condition of our race. As far as we can know of 
 ourselves and the things around us, there seems, through the 
 will of Deity, — for to what else can we refer it 1 — a fixed, 
 invariable connection between what we term cause and effect. 
 Nor do we demand of any class of mere effects, in the inani- 
 mate or irrational world, that they should regulate themselves 
 otherwise than the causes which produce them have deter- 
 mined. The roe and the tiger pursue, unquestioned, the 
 instincts of their several natures ; the cork rises, and the 
 stone sinks ; and no one thinks of calling either to account 
 for movements so opposite. But it is not so with the family 
 of man ; and yet our minds, our bodies, our circumstances, 
 are but combinations of effects, over the causes of which we 
 have no control. We did not choose a country for ourselves, 
 nor yet a condition in life ; nor did we determine our modi- 
 cum of intellect, or our amount of passion ; we did not im- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 71 
 
 part its gravity to the weightier part of our nature, or give 
 expansion to the lighter ; nor are our instincts of our own 
 planting. How, then, being thus as much the creatures of 
 necessity as the denizens of the wild and forest, — as tho- 
 roughly under the agency of fixed, unalterable causes as the 
 dead matter around us, — why are we yet the subjects of a 
 retributive system, and accountable for all our actions V 
 
 " You quarrel with Calvinism," I said ; " and seem one cf 
 the most thoroughgoing necessitarians I ever knew." 
 
 " Not so," he replied : " though my judgment cannot dis- 
 prove these conclusions, my heart cannot acquiesce in them ; 
 though I see that I am as certainly the subject of laws that 
 exist and operate independent of my will as the dead matter 
 around me, I feel, with a certainty quite as great, that I am 
 a free, accountable creature. It is according to the scope of 
 my entire reason that I should deem myself bound; — it is 
 according to the constitution of my whole nature that I 
 should feel myself free. And in this consists the great, the 
 fearful problem, — a problem which both reason and revela- 
 tion propound ; but the truths which can alone solve it seem 
 to lie beyond the horizon of darkness, and we vex ourselves 
 in vain. 'Tis a sort of moral asymptote ; but its lines, in- 
 stead of approaching through all space without meeting, seem 
 receding through all space, and yet meet." 
 
 " Robert, my bairn," said my aunt, " I fear you are wast- 
 ing your strength on these mysteries, to your ain hurt. Did 
 ye no see, in the last storm, when ye staid out among the 
 caves till cock-crow, that the bigger and stronger the wave, 
 the mair was it broken against the rocks ? It's just thus 
 wi' the pride o' man's understanding, when he measures it 
 
72 TALES AXD SKETCHES. 
 
 against the dark things o' God. An' yet it's sae ordered, 
 that the same wonderful truths which perplex an' cast down 
 the "proud reason should delight an' comfort the humble 
 heart. I am a lone, puir woman, Robert. Bairns and hus- 
 band have gone down to the grave, one by one ; an' now, 
 for twenty weary years, I have been childless an' a widow. 
 But trow ye that the puir lone woman wanted a guard, an' 
 a comforter, an' a provider, through a' the lung mirk nichts 
 aiKha' the cauld scarce winters o' these twenty years ? No, 
 my bairn, — I kent that Himser was wi' me. I keut it by 
 the provision He made, an' the care He took, an' the joy 
 He gave. An' how, think you, did He comfort me maist '? 
 Just by the blessed assurance that a' my trials an' a' my sor- 
 rows were nae hasty chance matters, but dispensations for 
 my gude, and the gude o' those He took to Himsel', that, 
 in the perfect love and wisdom o' his nature, He had or- 
 dained frae the beginning." 
 
 " Ah, mother," said my friend, after a pause, " you under- 
 stand the doctrine far better than I do. There are, I find, 
 no contradictions in the Calvinism of the heart." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled sliore, 
 
 O'erhung with wild woods tbick'ning green ; 
 Tbe fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar 
 
 Twined, amorous, round the raptured scene ; 
 The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, 
 
 The birds sang love on every spray, — 
 Till too, too soon, the glowing west 
 
 Proclaim'd the speed of winged day. 
 
 To Mary in Heaven. 
 
 We were early on the road together. The day, though, some- 
 what gloomy, was mild and pleasant ; and we walked slowly- 
 onward, neither of us in the least disposed to hasten our 
 parting by hastening our journey. We had discussed fifty 
 different topics, and were prepared to enter on fifty more, 
 when we reached the ancient burgh of Ayr, where our roads 
 separated. 
 
 " I have taken an immense liking to you, Mr Lindsay," 
 said my companion, as he seated himself on the parapet of 
 the old bridge, " and have just bethought me of a scheme 
 through which I may enjoy your company for at least one 
 night more. The Ayr is a lovely river, and you tell me you 
 have never explored it. We shall explore it together this 
 evening for about ten miles, when we shall find ourselves at 
 the farm-house of Lochlea. You may depend on a hearty 
 welcome from my father, whom, by the way, I wish much 
 to introduce to you as a man worth your knowing ; and as 
 I have set my heart on the scheme, you are surely too 
 
74 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 good-natured to disappoint me." Little risk of that, I 
 thought. I had, in fact, become thoroughly enamoured of 
 the warm-hearted benevolence and fascinating conversation 
 of my companion, and acquiesced with the best good-will in 
 the world. 
 
 We had threaded the course of the river for several miles. 
 It runs through a wild pastoral valley, roughened by thickets 
 of copse wood, and bounded on either hand by a line of 
 swelling, moory hills, with here and there a few irregular 
 patches of corn, and here and there some little nest-like cot- 
 tage peeping out from among the wood. The clouds, which 
 during the morning had obscured the entire face of the 
 heavens, were breaking up their array, and the sun was look- 
 ing down in twenty different places through the openings, 
 chequering the landscape with a fantastic though lovely 
 carpeting of light and shadow. Before us there rose a thick 
 wood, on a jutting promontory, that looked blue and dark in 
 the shade, as if it wore mourning ; while the sunlit stream 
 beyond shone through the trunks and branches like a river 
 of fire. At length the clouds seem to have melted in the 
 blue, — for there was not a breath of wind to speed them 
 away; and the sun, now hastening to the west, shone in 
 unbroken effulgence over the wide extent of the dell, light- 
 ing up stream and wood, and field and cottage, in one con- 
 tinuous blaze of glory. We had walked on in silence for the 
 last half-hour ; but I could sometimes hear my companion 
 muttering as he went; and when, in passing through a thicket 
 of hawthorn and honeysuckle, we started from its perch a 
 linnet that had been filling the air with its melody, I could 
 hear him exclaim, in a subdued tone of voice, " Bonny, bonny 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 75 
 
 birdie 1 why hasten frae me ? — I wadna skaith a feather o' 
 yer wing." He turned round to me, and I could see that 
 his eyes were swimming in moisture." 
 
 " Can he be other," he said, "than a good and benevolent 
 God who gives us moments like these to enjoy? Oh, my 
 friend, without these Sabbaths of the soul, that come to re- 
 fresh and invigorate it, it would dry up within us ! How 
 exquisite," he continued, " how entire, the sympathy which 
 exists between all that is good and fair in external nature, 
 and all of good and fair that dwells in our own ! And Oh, 
 how the heart expands and lightens ! The world is as a 
 grave to it, — a closely-covered grave ; and it shrinks, and 
 deadens, and contracts all its holier and more joyous feelings 
 under the cold earth-like pressure. But amid the grand and 
 lovely of nature, — amid these forms and colours of richest 
 beauty, — there is a disinterment, a resurrection, of sentiment; 
 the pressure of our earthly part seems removed; and those 
 senses of the mind, if I may so speak, which serve to connect 
 our spirits with the invisible world around us, recover their 
 proper tone, and perform their proper office." 
 
 " Senses of the mind!" I said, repeating the phrase; " the 
 idea is new to me ; but I think I catch your meaning." 
 
 " Yes ; there are, — there must be such," he continued, 
 with growing enthusiasm. " Man is essentially a religious 
 creature, — a looker beyond the grave, — from the very consti- 
 tution of his mind ; and the sceptic who denies it is untrue, 
 not merely to the Being who has made and who preserves 
 him, but to the entire scope and bent of his own nature be- 
 sides. Wherever man is, — whether he be a wanderer of the 
 wild forest, or still wilder desert, — a dweller in some lone 
 
76 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 isle of the sea, or the tutored and full-minded denizen of 
 some blessed land like our own ; — wherever man is, there is 
 religion, — hopes that look forward and upward, — the belief 
 in an unending existence and a land of separate souls." 
 
 I was carried away by the enthusiasm of my companion, 
 and felt for the time as if my mind had become the mirror 
 of his. There seems to obtain among men a species of moral 
 gravitation, analogous in its principles to that which regu- 
 lates and controls the movements of the planetary system. 
 The larger and more ponderous any body, the greater its 
 attractive force, and the more overpowering its influence over 
 the lesser bodies which surround it. The earth we inhabit 
 carries the moon along with it in its course, and is itself 
 subject to the immensely more powerful influence of the sun. 
 And it is thus with character. It is a law of our nature, as 
 certainly as of the system we inhabit, that the inferior should 
 yield to the superior, and the lesser owe its guidance to the 
 greater. I had hitherto wandered on through life almost 
 unconscious of the existence of this law ; or, if occasionally 
 rendered half aware of it, it was only through a feeling that 
 some secret influence was operating favourably in my behalf 
 on the common minds around me. I now felt, however, 
 for the first time, that I had come in contact with a mind 
 immeasurably more powerful than my own : my thoughts 
 seemed to cast themselves into the very mould, — my senti- 
 ments to modulate themselves by the very tone, — of his. 
 And yet he was but a russet-clad peasant, — my junior by at 
 least eight years, — who was returning from school to assist his 
 father, an humble tacksman, in the labours of the approach- 
 ing harvest. But the law of circumstance, so arbitrary in 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 77 
 
 ruling the destinies of common men, exerts but a feeble con- 
 trol over the children of genius. The prophet went forth 
 commissioned by heaven to anoint a king over Israel, and 
 the choice fell on a shepherd boy who was tending his father's 
 flocks in the field. 
 
 We had reached a lovely bend of the stream. There was 
 a semicircular inflection in the steep bank, which waved 
 over us, from base to summit, with hawthorn and hazel; and 
 while one half looked blue and dark in the shade, the other 
 was lighted up with gorgeous and fiery splendour by the sun, 
 now fast sinking in the west. The effect seemed magical. 
 A little glassy platform that stretched between the hanging 
 wood and the stream was whitened over with clothes, that 
 looked like snow-wreaths in the hollow ; and a young and 
 beautiful girl watched beside them. 
 
 " Mary Campbell !" exclaimed my companion; and in a 
 moment he was at her side, and had grasped both her hands 
 in his. " How fortunate, — how very fortunate, — I am !" he 
 said ; " I could not have so much as hoped to have seen you 
 to-night, and yet here you are ! This, Mr Lindsay, is a loved 
 friend of mine, whom I have known and valued for years, — 
 ever, indeed, since we herded our sheep together under the 
 cover of one plaid. Dearest Mary, I have had sad forebod- 
 ings regarding you for the whole last month I was in Kirk- 
 oswald ; and yet, after all my foolish fears, here you are, 
 ruddier and bonnier than ever/' 
 
 She was, in truth, a beautiful, sylph-like young woman,— 
 one whom I would have looked at with complacency in any 
 circumstances ; for who that admires the fair and the lovely 
 in nature, whether it be the wide-spread beauty of sky and 
 
78 TALES AXD SKETCHES. 
 
 earth, or beauty in its minuter modifications, as we see it in 
 the flowers that spring up at our feet, or the butterfly that 
 flutters over them, — who, I say, that admires the fair and 
 lovely in nature, can be indifferent to the fairest and loveliest 
 of all her productions 1 As the mistress, however, of by far 
 the strongest-minded man I ever knew, there was more of 
 scrutiny in my glance than usual, and I felt a deeper interest 
 in her than mere beauty could have awakened. She was 
 perhaps rather below than above the middle size; but formed 
 in such admirable proportion, that it seemed out of place to 
 think of size in reference to her at all. Who, in looking at 
 the Yenus de Medicis, asks whether she be tall or short ? 
 The bust and neck were so exquisitely moulded, that they 
 reminded me of Burke's fanciful remark, viz., that our 
 ideas of beauty originate in our love of the sex, and that 
 we deem every object beautiful which is described by soft 
 waving lines, resembling those of the female neck and bosom. 
 Her feet and arms, which were both bare, had a statue -like 
 svmmetry and marble-like whiteness. But it was on her ex- 
 pressive and lovely countenance, now lighted up by the glow 
 of joyous feeling, that nature seemed to have exhausted her 
 utmost skill. There was a fascinating mixture in the ex- 
 pression, of superior intelligence and child-like simplicity ; a 
 soft, modest light dwelt in the blue eye ; and in the entire 
 contour and general form of the features there was a nearer 
 approach to that union of the straight and the rounded, — 
 which is found in its perfection in only the Grecian face, — 
 than is at all common, in our northern latitudes, among the 
 descendants of either the Celt or the Saxon. I felt, how- 
 ever, as I gazed, that when lovers meet, the presence of a 
 
BECOLLECTIOXS OF BUBNS. 79 
 
 third person, however much the friend of either, must always 
 be less than agreeable. 
 
 " Mr Burns," I said, " there is a beautiful eminence a few 
 hundred yards to the right, from which I am desirous to 
 overlook the windings of the stream. Do permit me to 
 leave you for a short half-hour, when I shall return ; or, lest 
 I weary you by my stay, 'twere better, perhaps, you should 
 join me there." My companion greeted the proposal with a 
 good-humoured smile of intelligence ; and, plunging into the 
 wood, I left him with his Mary. The sun had just set as 
 he joined me. 
 
 " Have you ever been in love, Mr Lindsay V he said. 
 
 " Xo, never seriously," I replied. "lam perhaps not 
 naturally of the coolest temperament imaginable ; but the 
 same fortune that has improved my mind in some little degree, 
 and given me high notions of the sex, has hitherto thrown 
 me among only its less superior specimens. I am now in my 
 eight-and-twentieth year, and I have not yet met with a 
 woman whom I could love." 
 
 " Then you are yet a stranger," he rejoined, " to the 
 greatest happiness of which our nature is capable. I have 
 enjoyed more heartfelt pleasure in the company of the young- 
 woman I have just left, than from every other source that 
 has been opened to me from my childhood till now. Love, 
 my friend, is the fulfilling of the whole law." 
 
 " Mary Campbell, did you not call her ?" I said. " She is, 
 I think, the loveliest creature I have ever seen ; and I am 
 much mistaken in the expression of her beauty if her mind 
 be not as lovely as her person." 
 
 " It is, it is," he exclaimed, — " the intelligence of an aDgel. 
 
80 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 with the simplicity of a child. Oh, the delight of being tho- 
 roughly trusted, thoroughly beloved, by one of the loveliest, 
 best, purest-minded, of all God's good creatures! — to feel 
 that heart beating against my own, and to know that it beats 
 for me only ! Never have I passed an evening with my Mary 
 without returning to the world a better, gentler, wiser man. 
 Love, my friend, is the fulfilling of the whole law. What 
 are we without it 1 — poor, vile, selfish animals ; our very vir- 
 tues themselves so exclusively virtues on our own behalf as to 
 be well-nigh as hateful as our vices. Nothing so opens and 
 improves the heart, — nothing so widens the grasp of the 
 affections, — nothing half so effectually brings us out of our 
 crust of self, — as a happy, well-regulated love for a pure- 
 minded, affectionate-hearted woman !" 
 
 "There is another kind of love of which we sailors see 
 somewhat," I said, " which is not so easily associated with 
 good." 
 
 Love !" he replied : " no, Mr Lindsay, that is not the 
 name. Kind associates with kind in all nature ; and love — 
 humanizing, heart-softening love — cannot be the companion 
 of whatever is low, mean, worthless, degrading, — the asso- 
 ciate of ruthless dishonour, cunning, treachery, and violent 
 death. Even independent of its amount of evil as a crime, 
 or the evils still greater than itself which necessarily accom- 
 pany it, there is nothing that so petrifies the feeling as illi- 
 cit connection." 
 
 "Do you seriously think so?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes, and I see clearly how it should be so. Neither 
 sex is complete of itself, — each was made for the other, that, 
 like the two halves of a hinge, they may become an entire 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 81 
 
 whole when united. Only think of the Scriptural phrase, 
 one flesh : it is of itself a system of philosophy. Refine- 
 ment and tenderness are of the woman; strength and dig- 
 nity, of the man. Only observe the effects of a thorough 
 separation, whether originating in accident or caprice. You 
 will find the stronger sex lost in the rudenesses of partial 
 barbarism ; the gentler wrapt up in some pitiful round of 
 trivial and unmeaning occupation, — dry-nursing puppies, or 
 making pin-cushions for posterity. But how much more 
 pitiful are the effects when they meet amiss, — when the 
 humanizing friend and companion of the man is converted 
 into the light, degraded toy of an idle hour, — the object of a 
 sordid appetite that lives but for a moment, and then ex- 
 pires in loathing and disgust ! The better feelings are iced 
 over at their source, chilled by the freezing and deadening 
 contact, where there is nothing to inspire confidence or so- 
 licit esteem ; and if these pass not through the first, the 
 inner circle, — that circle within which the social affections 
 are formed, and from whence they emanate, — how can they 
 possibly flow through the circles which lie beyond 1 But 
 here, Mr Lindsay, is the farm of Lochlea; and yonder brown 
 cottage, beside the three elms, is the dwelling of my pa- 
 rents." 
 
82 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
 That makes her lov'd at home, revered abroad, 
 
 Cottars Saturday Night. 
 
 There was a wide and cheerful circle this evening round the 
 hospitable hearth of Lochlea. The father of my friend, — a 
 patriarchal-looking old man, with a countenance the most 
 expressive I have almost ever seen, — sat beside the wall, on 
 a large oaken settle, which also served to accommodate a 
 young man, an occasional visitor of the family, dressed in 
 rather shabby black, whom I at once set down as a pro- 
 bationer of divinity. I had my own seat beside him. The 
 brother of my friend (a lad cast in nearly the same mould 
 of form and feature, except perhaps that his frame, though 
 muscular and strongly set, seemed in the main less formid- 
 ably robust, and his countenance, though expressive, less de- 
 cidedly intellectual) sat at my side. My friend had drawn 
 in his seat beside his mother, a well-formed, comely brunette, 
 of about thirty-eight, whom I might almost have mistaken 
 for his elder sister ; and two or three younger members of 
 the family were grouped behind her. The fire blazed cheerily 
 within the wide and open chimney, and, throwing its strong 
 light on the faces and limbs of the circle, sent our shadows 
 flickering across the rafters and the wall behind. The con- 
 versation was animated and rational, and every one contri- 
 buted his share. But I was chiefly interested in the remarks 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURKS. 83 
 
 of the old man, for whom I already felt a growing venera- 
 tion, and in those of his wonderfully gifted son. 
 
 " Unquestionably, Mr Burns," said the man in black, 
 addressing the farmer, " politeness is but a very shadow, as 
 the poet hath it, if the heart be wanting. I saw to-night, 
 in a strictly polite family, so marked a presumption of the 
 lack of that natural affection of which politeness is but the 
 portraiture and semblance, that truly I have been grieved in 
 my heart ever since." 
 
 " Ah, Mr Murdoch !" said the farmer, " there is ever more 
 hypocrisy in the world than in the church, and that, too, 
 among the class of fine gentlemen and fine ladies who deny 
 it most. But the instance" 
 
 " You know the family, my worthy friend," continued 
 Mr Murdoch : " it is a very pretty one, as we say vernacu- 
 larly, being numerous, and the sons highly genteel young 
 men, — the daughters not less so. A neighbour of the same 
 very polite character, coming on a visit when I was among 
 them, asked the father, in the course of a conversation to 
 which I was privy, how he meant to dispose of his sons ; 
 when the father replied, that he had not yet determined. 
 The visitor said that, were he in his place, seeing they were 
 all well-educated young men, he would send them abroad : 
 to which the father objected the indubitable fact, that many 
 young men lost their health in foreign countries, and very 
 many their lives. ' True,' did the visitor rejoin ; ' but, as 
 you have a number of sons, it will be strange if some one of 
 them does not live, and make a fortune.' Now, Mr Burns, 
 what will you, who know the feelings of paternity, and the 
 incalculable, and assuredly, I may say, invaluable, value of 
 
84 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 human souls, think when I add, that the father commended 
 the hint, as showing the wisdom of a shrewd man of the 
 world !" 
 
 " Even the chief priests," said the old man, " pronounced 
 it unlawful to cast into the treasury the thirty pieces of silver, 
 seeing it w T as the price of blood ; but the gentility of the 
 present day is less scrupulous. There is a laxity of prin- 
 ciple among us, Mr Murdoch, that, if God restore us not, 
 must end in the ruin of our country. I say laxity of prin- 
 ciple ; for there have ever been evil manners among us, and 
 waifs in no inconsiderable number broken loose from the 
 decencies of society, — more, perhaps, in my early days than 
 there are now. But our principles at least were sound ; and 
 not only was there thus a restorative and conservative spirit 
 among us, but, what was of not less importance, there was a 
 broad gulf, like that in the parable, between the two grand 
 classes, the good and the evil, — a gulf which, when it secured 
 the better class from contamination, interposed no barrier to 
 the reformation and return of even the most vile and profli- 
 gate, if repentant. But this gulf has disappeared, and we 
 are standing unconcernedly over it, on a hollow and dan- 
 gerous marsh of neutral ground, which, in the end, if God 
 open not our eyes, must assuredly give way under our feet." 
 
 " To what, father," inquired my friend, who sat listening 
 with the deepest and most respectful attention, " do you at- 
 tribute the change ?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly," replied the old man, " there have been 
 many causes at work ; and, though not impossible, it would 
 certainly be no easy task to trace them all to their several 
 effects, and give to each its due place and importance. But 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 85 
 
 there is a deadly evil among us, though you will hear of it 
 from neither press nor pulpit, which I am disposed to rank 
 first in the number, — the affectatiou of gentility. It has a 
 threefold influence among us : it confounds the grand, eternal 
 distinctions of right and wrong, by erecting into a standard 
 of conduct and opinion that heterogeneous and artificial 
 whole which constitutes the manners and morals of the 
 upper classes ; it severs those ties of affection and goodwill 
 which should bind the middle to the lower orders, by dis- 
 posing the one to regard whatever is below them with a too 
 contemptuous indifference, and by provoking a bitter and in- 
 dignant, though natural jealousy in the other, for being so 
 regarded ; and, finally, by leading those who most entertain 
 it into habits of expense, torturing their means, if I may so 
 speak, on the rack of false opinion, disposiug them to 
 think, in their blindness, that to be genteel is a first consi- 
 deration, and to be honest merely a secondary one, it has 
 the effect of so hardening their hearts, that, like those Car- 
 thagenians of whom we have been lately reading in the 
 volume Mr Murdoch lent us, they offer up their very chil- 
 dren, souls and bodies, to the unreal, phantom-like necessities 
 of their circumstances." 
 
 " Have I not heard you remark, father," said Gilbert, 
 " that the change you describe has been very marked among 
 the ministers of our Church V 
 
 " Too marked and too striking," replied the old man ; 
 "and, in affecting the respectability and usefulness of so im- 
 portant a class, it has educed a cause of deterioration distinct 
 from itself, and hardly less formidable. There is an old pro- 
 verb of our country, — ' Better the head of the commonalty 
 
86 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 than the tail of the gentry.' I have heard you quote it, 
 Robert, oftener than once, and admire its homely wisdom. 
 Now, it bears directly on what I have to remark : the 
 ministers of our Church have moved but one step during 
 the last sixty years ; but that step has been an all-important 
 one; — it has been from the best place in relation to the 
 people, to the worst in relation to the aristocracy." 
 
 "Undoubtedly, worthy Mr Burns," said Mr Murdoch, 
 ". there is great truth, according to mine own experience, in 
 that which you affirm. I may state, I trust, without over, 
 boasting or conceit, my respected friend, that my learning is 
 not inferior to that of our neighbour the clergyman ; — it is 
 not inferior in Latin, nor in Greek, nor yet in French litera- 
 ture, Mr Burns, and probable it is he would not much court 
 a competition ; and yet, when I last waited at the Manse 
 regarding a necessary and essential certificate, Mr Burns, he 
 did not so much as ask me to sit down." 
 
 " Ah !" said Gilbert, who seemed the wit of the family, 
 " he is a highly respectable man, Mr Murdoch : he has a 
 tine house, fine furniture, line carpets, — all that constitutes 
 respectability, you know ; and his family is on visiting terms 
 with that of the Laird. But his credit is not so respectable, 
 I hear." 
 
 " Gilbert," said the old man, with much seriousness, " it 
 is ill with a people when they can speak lightly of their 
 clergymen. There is still much of sterling worth and 
 serious piety in the Church of Scotland ; and if the influ- 
 ence of its ministers be unfortunately less than it was once, 
 w T e must not cast the blame too exclusively on themselves. 
 Other causes have been in operation. The Church eighty 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 87 
 
 years ago was the sole guide of opinion, and the only source 
 of thought among us. There was, indeed, but one way in 
 which a man could learn to think. His mind became the 
 subject of some serious impression ; he applied to his Bible ; 
 and, in the contemplation of the most important of all con- 
 cerns;, his newly awakened faculties received their first exer- 
 cise. All of intelligence, all of moral good in him, all that 
 rendered him worthy of the name of man, he owed to the 
 ennobling influence of his Church ; and is it wonder that 
 that influence should be all-powerful from this circumstance 
 alone 1 But a thorough change has taken place ; — new 
 sources of intelligence have been opened up ; we have our 
 newspapers, and our magazines, and our volumes of miscel- 
 laneous reading ; and it is now possible enough for the most 
 cultivated mind in a parish to be the least moral and the 
 least religious ; and hence necessarily a diminished influence 
 in the Church, independent of the character of its ministers/' 
 I have dwelt too long, perhaps, on the conversation of 
 the elder Burns ; but I feel much pleasure in thus develop- 
 ing, as it were, my recollections of one whom his powerful- 
 minded son has described, — and this after an acquaintance 
 with our Henry M'Kenzies, Adam Smiths, and Dugald 
 Stewarts, — as the man most thoroughly acquainted with the 
 world he ever knew. Never, at least, have I met with 
 auy one who exerted a more wholesome influence, through 
 the force of moral character, on those around him. We sat 
 down to a plain and homely supper. The slave-question had 
 about this time begun to draw the attention of a few of the 
 more excellent and intelligent among the people, and the 
 elder Burns seemed deeply interested in it. 
 
88 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " This is but homely fare, Mr Lindsay," he said, pointing 
 to the simple viands before us, " and the apologists of slavery 
 among us would tell you how inferior we are to the poor 
 negroes, who fare so much better. But surely ' man liveth 
 not by bread alone !' Oar fathers who died for Christ on 
 the hill-side and the scaffold were noble men, and never, 
 never shall slavery produce such ; and yet they toiled as 
 hard, and fared as meanly, as we their children." 
 
 I could feel, in the cottage of such a peasant, and seated 
 beside such men as his two sons, the full force of the remark. 
 And yet I have heard the miserable sophism of unprin- 
 cipled power against which it was directed, — a sophism so 
 insulting to the dignity of honest poverty, — a thousand 
 times repeated. 
 
 Supper over, the family circle widened round the hearth ; 
 and the old man, taking down a large clasped Bible, seated 
 himself beside the iron lamp which now lighted the apart- 
 ment. There was deep silence among us as he turned over 
 the leaves. Never shall I forget his appearance. He was 
 tall and thin, and, though his frame was still vigorous, con- 
 siderably bent. His features were high and massy ; the 
 complexion still retained much of the freshness of youth, 
 and the eye all its intelligence ; but the locks were waxing 
 thin and gray round his high, thoughtful forehead ; and the 
 upper part of the head, which was elevated to an unusual 
 height, was bald. There was an expression of the deepest 
 seriousness on the countenance, which the strong umbry 
 shadows of the apartment served to heighten ; and when, 
 laying his hand on the page, he half-turned his face to the 
 circle, and said, " Let us worship God," I was impressed by 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 89 
 
 a feeling of awe and reverence to which I had, alas ! been 
 a stranger for years. I was affected, too, almost to tears, as 
 I joined in the psalm ; for a thousand half-forgotten associa- 
 tions came rushing upon me ; and my heart seemed to swell 
 and expand as, kneeling beside him when he prayed, I lis- 
 tened to his solemn and fervent petition, that God might 
 make manifest his great power and goodness in the salvation 
 of man. Nor was the poor solitary wanderer of the deep 
 forgotten. 
 
 On rising from our devotions, the old man grasped me by 
 the hand. " I am happy," he said, " that we should have 
 met, Mr Lindsay. I feel an interest in you, and must take 
 the friend and the old man's privilege of giving you an ad- 
 vice. The sailor, of all men, stands most in need of religion. 
 His life is one of continued vicissitude, — of unexpected suc- 
 cess or unlooked-for misfortune ; he is ever passing from 
 danger to safety, and from safety to danger ; his dependence 
 is on the ever-varying winds, — his abode on the unstable 
 waters. And the mind takes a peculiar tone from what is 
 peculiar in the circumstances. With nothing stable in the 
 real world around it on which it may rest, it forms a rest- 
 ing-place for itself in some wild code of belief. It peoples 
 the elements with strange occult powers of good and evil, 
 and does them homage, — addressing its prayers to the genius 
 of the winds and the spirits of the waters. And thus it be- 
 gets a religion for itself; for what else is the professional 
 superstition of the sailor 1 Substitute, my friend, for this, 
 — (shall I call it unavoidable superstition f) — this natural 
 religion of the sea, — the religion of the Bible. Since you 
 must be a believer in the supernatural, let your belief be 
 
90 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 true; let your trust he on Him who faileth not, — your an- 
 chor within the vail ; and all shall be well, be your destiny 
 for this world what it may." 
 
 We parted for the night, and I saw him no more. 
 
 Next morning, Robert accompanied me for several miles 
 on my way. I saw, for the last half-hour, that he had 
 something to communicate, and yet knew not how to set 
 about it ; and so I made a full stop. 
 
 "You have something to tell me, Mr Burns," I said: 
 " need I assure you I am one you are in no danger from 
 trusting ?" He blushed deeply, and I saw him, for the first 
 time, hesitate and falter in his address. 
 
 "Forgive me," he at length said ; "believe me, Mr Lind- 
 say, I would be the last in the world to hurt the feelings of 
 a friend, — a — a — but you have been left among us penni- 
 less, and I have a very little money which I have no use 
 for, — none in the least. Will you not favour me by ac- 
 cepting it as a loan 1 ?" 
 
 I felt the full and generous delicacy of the proposal, and, 
 with moistened eyes and a swelling heart, availed myself of 
 his kindness. The sum he tendered did not much exceed a 
 guinea ; but the yearly earnings of the peasant Burns fell, 
 at this period of his life, rather below eight pounds. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 01 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Corbies an' clergy are a shot right kittle. — Brigs of Ayr. 
 
 The years passed, and I was again a dweller on the sea ; 
 but the ill fortune which had hitherto tracked me like a 
 bloodhound seemed at length as if tired in the pursuit, and 
 I was now the master of a West India trader, and had 
 begun to lay the foundation of that competency which has 
 secured to my declining years the quiet and comfort which, 
 for the latter part of my life, it has been my happiness to 
 enjoy. My vessel had arrived at Liverpool in the latter 
 part of the year 1784; and I had taken coach for Irvine, to 
 visit my mother, whom I had not seen for several years. 
 There was a change of passengers at every stage ; but I saw 
 little in any of them to interest me, till within about a score 
 of miles of my destination, when I met with an old respect- 
 able townsman, a friend of my father's. There was but 
 another passenger in the coach, a north-country gentleman 
 from the West Indies. I had many questions to ask my 
 townsman, and many to answer, and the time passed lightly 
 away. 
 
 " Can you tell me aught of the Burnses of Lochlea ?" I 
 inquired, after learning that my mother and my other rela- 
 tives were well " I met with the young man Robert about 
 h've years ago, and have often since asked myself what 
 special end Providence could have in view in making such 
 a man." 
 
 " I was acquainted with old William Burns," said my 
 
92 
 
 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 companion, "when he was gardener at Denholni, an' got in- 
 timate wi his son Robert when he lived wi' us at Irvine a 
 twalmonth syne. The faither died shortly ago, sairly strait- 
 ened in his means, I'm fear'd, an' no very square wi' the laird; 
 an' ill wad he hae liked that ; for an honester man never 
 breathed. Robert, puir chield, is no very easy either." 
 
 " In his circumstances V I said. 
 
 " Ay, an waur. He gat entangled wi' the kirk on an 
 unlucky sculduddery business, an' has been writing bitter, 
 wicked ballads on a' the gucle ministers in the country ever 
 sinsyne. I'm vexed it's on them he suld hae fallen; an' yet 
 they hae been to blame too." 
 
 " Robert Burns so entangled, so occupied ! " I exclaimed ; 
 " y ou grieve and astonish me." 
 
 " We are puir creatures, Matthew," said the old man ; 
 " strength an' weakness are often next door neighbours in 
 the best o' us ; nay, what is our vera strength ta'en on the a'e 
 side, may be our very weakness ta'en on the ither. Never 
 was there a stancher, firmer fallow than Robert Burns ; an', 
 now that he has ta'en a wrang step, puir chield, that vera 
 stanchness seems just a weak want o' ability to yield. He 
 has planted his foot where it lighted by mishanter, and 
 a' the gude an' ill in Scotland wadna budge him frae the 
 spot," 
 
 " Dear me ! that so powerful a mind should be so fri- 
 volously engaged ! Making ballads, you say \ With what 
 success'?" 
 
 " Ah, Matthew, lad, when the strong man puts out his 
 strength," said my companion, " there's naething frivolous in 
 the matter, be his object what it may. Robert's ballads are 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 93 
 
 far, far aboon the best things ever seen in Scotland afore. 
 We auld folk dinna ken whether maist to blame or praise 
 them ; but they keep the young people laughing frae the a'e 
 nuik o' the shire till the ither." 
 
 " But how," I inquired, " have the better clergy rendered 
 themselves obnoxious to Burns 1 The laws he has violated, 
 if I rightly understand you, are indeed severe, and somewhat 
 questionable in their tendencies ; and even good men often 
 press them too far." 
 
 " And in the case of Robert," said the old man, " our 
 clergy have been strict to the very letter. They're gude 
 men an' faithfu' ministers ; but ane o' them at least, an' he 
 a leader, has a harsh, ill temper, an' mistakes sometimes the 
 corruption o' the auld man in him for the proper zeal o' the 
 new ane. Nor is there ony o' the ithers wha kent what 
 they had to deal wi' when Hobert cam' afore them. They 
 saw but a proud, thrawart ploughman, that stood uncow'ring 
 under the glunsh o' a haill Session ; and so they opened on 
 him the artillery o' the kirk, to bear down his pride. Wha 
 could hae tauld them that they were but frushing their straw 
 an' rotten wood against the iron scales o' Leviathan ? An' 
 now that they hae dune their maist, the record o' Hobert's 
 mishanter is lying in whity-brown ink yonder in a page o' 
 the Session-buik ; while the ballads hae sunk deep, deep intil 
 the very mind o' the country, and may live there for hunders 
 and hunders o' years." 
 
 " You seem to contrast, in this business," I said, " our 
 better with what you must deem our inferior clergy. You 
 mean, do you not, the Higher and Lower parties in our 
 Church ? How are they getting on now V 
 
94 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " Never worse," replied the old man ; an' Oh, it's surely 
 ill when the ministers o' peace become the very leaders o' con- 
 tention ! But let the blame rest in the right place. Peace 
 is surely a blessing frae heaven, — no a gude wark demanded 
 frae man ; an' when it grows our duty to be in war, it's an 
 ill thing to be in peace. Our Evangelicals are stan'in', puir 
 folk, whar their faithers stood ; an' if they maun either fight 
 or be beaten frae their post, why, it's just their duty to fight. 
 But the Moderates are rinnin' mad a'thegither amang us ; 
 signing our auld Confession just that they may get intil the 
 kirk to preach against it ; paring the New Testament doun 
 to the vera standard o' heathen Plawto; and sinking a'e doc- 
 trine after anither, till they leave ahint naething but Deism 
 that might scunner an infidel. Deed, Matthew, if there 
 comena a change amang them, an' that sune, they'll swamp 
 the puir kirk a'thegither. The cauld morality, that never 
 made ony ane mair moral, tak's nae hand o' the people ; an' 
 patronage, as meikle's they roose it, winna keep up either 
 kirk or manse o' itsel'. Sorry I am, sin' Robert has entered 
 on the quarrel at a', it suld hae been on the wrang side." 
 
 " One of my chief objections," I said, " to the religion of 
 the Moderate party is, that it is of no use." 
 
 " A gey serious ane," rejoined the old man ; " but maybe 
 there's a waur still. I'm unco vexed for Robert, baitli on 
 his worthy faither's account and his ain. He's a fearsome 
 fellow when ance angered, but an honest, warm-hearted chield 
 for a' that ; an' there's mair sense in yon big head o' his than 
 in ony ither twa in the country." 
 
 " Can you tell me aught," said the north-country gentle- 
 man, addressing my companion, " of Mr R , the chapel 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 95 
 
 minister in K ? I was once one of Lis pupils in the 
 
 far north ; but I have heard nothing of him since he left 
 Cromarty." 
 
 " Why," rejoined the old man, " he's just the man that, 
 mair nor a' the rest, has borne the brunt o' Robert's fearsome 
 waggery. Did ye ken him in Cromarty, say ye 1" 
 
 " He was parish schoolmaster there," said the gentleman, 
 " for twelve years ; and for six of these I attended his school. 
 I cannot help respecting him ; but no one ever loved him. 
 Never, surely, was there a man at once so unequivocally ho- 
 nest and so thoroughly unamiable." 
 
 " You must have found him a rigid disciplinarian," I said. 
 
 " He was the most so," he replied, " from the days of 
 Dionysius at least, that ever taught a school. I remember, 
 there was a poor fisher boy among us named Skinner, who, 
 as is customary in Scottish schools, as you must know, blew 
 the horn for gathering the scholars, and kept the catalogue 
 and the key; and who, in return, was educated by the mas- 
 ter, and received some little gratuity from the scholars be- 
 sides. On one occasion the key dropped out of his pocket ; 
 and when school-time came, the irascible dominie had to 
 burst open the door with his foot. He raged at the boy 
 with a fury so insane, and beat him so unmercifully, that 
 the other boys, gathering heart in the extremity of the case, 
 had to rise en masse and tear him out of his hands. But 
 the curious part of the story is yet to come. Skinner has 
 been a fisherman for the last twelve years ; but never has 
 he been seen disengaged for a moment, from that time to 
 this, without mechanically thrusting his hand into the key 
 pocket." 
 
96 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Our companion furnished us with two or three other anec- 
 dotes of Mr R . He told us of a lady who was so over- 
 come by sudden terror on unexpectedly seeing him, many 
 years after she had quitted his school, in one of the pulpits 
 of the south, that she fainted away ; and of another of his 
 scholars, named M'Glashan, a robust, daring fellow of six 
 feet, who, when returning to Cromarty from some of the 
 colonies, solaced himself by the way with thoughts of the 
 hearty drubbing with which he was to clear off all his old 
 scores with the dominie. 
 
 " Ere his return, however," continued the gentleman, 
 
 " Mr E, had quitted the parish ; and, had it chanced 
 
 otherwise, it is questionable whether M'Glashan, with all 
 his strength and courage, would have gained anything in an 
 encounter with one of the boldest and most powerful men 
 in the country." 
 
 Such were some of the chance glimpses which I gained 
 at this time of by far the most powerful of the opponents of 
 Burns. He was a good, conscientious man ; but unfortu- 
 nate in a harsh, violent temper, and in sometimes mistaking, 
 as my old townsman remarked, the dictates of that temper 
 for those of duty. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 9 J 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 It's hardly in a body's pow'r 
 To keep at times frae being sour, 
 
 To see how things are shar'd, — 
 How best o' chiels are whiles in want, 
 While coofs on countless thousands rant, 
 
 And kenna how to wair't. 
 
 Epistle to Davie. 
 
 I visited my friend, a few days after my arrival in Irvine, 
 at the farm-house of Mossgiel, to which, on the death of 
 his father, he had removed, with Ins brother Gilbert and 
 his mother. I could not avoid observing that his manners 
 were considerably changed : my welcome seemed less kind 
 and hearty than I could have anticipated from the warm- 
 hearted peasant of five years ago ; and there was a stern and 
 almost supercilious elevation in his bearing, which at first 
 pained and offended me. I had met with him as he was 
 returning from the fields after the labours of the day : the 
 dusk of twilight had fallen ; and, though I had calculated 
 on passiDg the evening with him at the farm-house of Moss- 
 giel, so displeased was I, that after our first greeting I had 
 more than half-changed my mind. The recollection of his 
 former kindness to me, however, suspended the feeling, and 
 I resolved on throwing myself on his hospitality for the 
 night, however cold the welcome. 
 
 "I have come all the way from Irvine to see you, Mr 
 Burns," I said. " For the last live years I have thought 
 
 G 
 
98 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 more of my mother and you than of any other two persons 
 in the country. May I not calculate, as of old, on my 
 supper and a bed?" 
 
 There was an instantaneous change in his expression. 
 
 " Pardon me, my friend," he said, grasping my hand : 
 " I have, unwittingly, been doing you wrong. One may 
 surely be the master of an Indiaman, and in possession of 
 a heart too honest to be spoiled by prosperity !" 
 
 The remark served to explain the haughty coldness of 
 his manner which had so displeased me, and which was but 
 the unwillingly assumed armour of a defensive pride. 
 
 " There, brother," he said, throwing down some plough 
 irons which he carried; " send ivee Davoc with these to the 
 smithy, and bid him tell Rankin I won't be there to-night. 
 The moon is rising, Mr Lindsay : shall we not have a stroll 
 together through the copice ?!' 
 
 " That of all things," I replied j and, parting from Gil- 
 bert, we struck into the wood. 
 
 "The evening, considering the lateness of the season, for 
 winter had set in, was mild and pleasant. The moon at 
 full was rising over the Cumnock Hills, and casting its faint 
 light on the trees that rose around us, in their winding- 
 sheets of brown and yellow, like so many spectres, or that, 
 in the more exposed glades and openings of the wood, 
 stretched their long naked arms to the sky. A light breeze 
 went rustling through the withered grass ; and I could see 
 the faint twinkling of the falling leaves, as they came shower- 
 ing down on every side of us. 
 
 "We meet in the midst of death and desolation," said 
 my companion ; " we parted when all around us was fresh 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OP BURNS. 99 
 
 and beautiful. My father was with me then, and — and 
 Mary Campbell ; and now" 
 
 " Mary ! your Mary !" I exclaimed, — " the young, — the 
 beautiful, — alas ! is she also gone V 
 
 " She has left me," he said, — " left me. Mary is in her 
 grave !" 
 
 I felt my heart swell as the image of that loveliest of 
 creatures came rising to my view in all her beauty, as I had 
 seen her by the river side ; and I knew not what to reply. 
 
 " Yes," continued my friend, " she is in her grave. We 
 parted for a few days, to re-unite, as we hoped, for ever ; 
 and ere those few days had passed she was in her grave. 
 But I was unworthy of her, — unworthy even then ; and 
 now But she is in her grave !" 
 
 I grasped his hand. "It is difficult," I said, "to bid 
 the heart submit to these dispensations j and Oh, how ut- 
 terly impossible to bring it to listen ! But life, — your life, 
 my friend, — must not be passed in useless sorrow. I am 
 convinced, — and often have I thought of it since our last 
 meeting, — that your's is no vulgar destiny, though I know 
 not to what it tends." 
 
 " Downwards !" he exclaimed, — " it tends downwards ; — 
 I see, I feel it ; — the anchor of my affection is gone, and 
 I drift shoreward on the rocks." 
 
 " 'Twere ruin," I exclaimed, " to think so !" 
 
 " Not half an hour ere my father died," he continued, 
 '' he expressed a wish to rise and sit once more in his 
 chair ; and we indulged him. But, alas ! the same feeling 
 of uneasiness which had prompted the wish remained with 
 him still, and he sought to return again to his bed. ' It is 
 
100 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 not by quitting the bed or the chair,' he said, ' that I need 
 seek for ease : it is by quitting the body.' I am oppressed, 
 Mr Lindsay, by a somewhat similar feeling of uneasiness, 
 and at times would fain cast the blame on the circumstances 
 in which I am placed. But I may be as far mistaken as my 
 poor father. I would fain live at peace with all mankind ; 
 nay, more, I would fain love and do good to them all ; but 
 the villain and the oppressor come to set their feet on my 
 very neck, and crush me into the mire ; and must I not re- 
 sist ? And when, in some luckless hour, I yield to my pas- 
 sions, — to those fearful passions that must one day over- 
 whelm me, — when I yield, and my whole mind is darkened 
 by remorse, and I groan under the discipline of conscience, — 
 then comes the odious, abominable hypocrite, — the devourer 
 of widows' houses and the substance of the orphan, — and 
 demands that my repentance be as public as his own hollow, 
 detestable prayers. And can I do other than resist and ex- 
 pose him ? My heart tells me it was formed to bestow ; 
 why else does every misery that I cannot relieve render me 
 wretched ? It tells me, too, it was formed not to receive ; 
 why else does the proffered assistance of even a friend fill 
 my whole soul with indignation 1 But ill do my circum- 
 stances agree with my feelings. I feel as if I were totally 
 misplaced in some frolic of Nature, and wander onwards in 
 gloom and unhappiness, for my proper sphere. But, alas ! 
 these efforts of uneasy misery are but the blind gropings of 
 Homer's Cyclops round the walls of his cave." 
 
 I again began to experience, as on a former occasion, the 
 o'crmastering power of a mind larger beyond comparison 
 than my own ; but I felt it my duty to resist the influence. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 101 
 
 " Yes, you are misplaced, my friend/' I said, — " perhaps 
 more decidedly so than any other man I ever knew ■ but 
 is not this characteristic, in some measure, of the whole 
 species ? We are all misplaced ; and it seems a part of the 
 scheme of Deity that we should work ourselves up to our 
 proper sphere. In what other respect does man so differ 
 from the inferior animals as in those aspirations which lead 
 him through all the progressions of improvement, from the 
 lowest to the highest level of his nature ?" 
 
 " That may be philosophy, my friend," he replied, " but 
 a heart ill at ease finds little of comfort in it. You knew 
 my father : need I say he was one of the excellent of the 
 earth, — a man who held directly from God Almighty the 
 patent of his honours % I saw that father sink broken- 
 hearted into the grave, the victim of legalized oppression : 
 yes, saw him overborne in the long contest which his high 
 spirit and his indomitable love of the right had incited him 
 to maintain, — overborne by a mean, despicable scoundrel, — 
 one of the creeping things of the earth. Heaven knows, I 
 did my utmost to assist in the struggle. In my fifteenth 
 year, Mr Lindsay, when a thin, loose-jointed boy, I did the 
 work of a man, and strained my unknit and overtoiled 
 sinews, as if life and death depended on the issue, till oft, in 
 the middle of the night, I have had to fling myself from my 
 bed to avoid instant suffocation, — an effect of exertion so 
 prolonged and so premature. Nor has the man exerted him- 
 self less heartily than the boy. In the roughest, severest 
 labours of the field I have never yet met a competitor. But 
 my labours have been all in vain : I have seen the evil be- 
 wailed by Solomon, — the righteous man falling down before 
 
102 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 the wicked." I could answer only with a sigh. " You are 
 in the right," he continued, after a pause, and in a more sub- 
 dued tone : " man is certainly misplaced : the present scene 
 of things is below the dignity of both his moral and intel- 
 lectual nature. Look around you" — (we had reached the 
 summit of a grassy eminence which rose over the wood, and 
 commanded a pretty extensive view of the surrounding coun- 
 try); — " see yonder scattered cottages, that in the faint light 
 rise dim and black amid the stubble-fields. My heart warms 
 as I look on them, for I know how much of honest worth, 
 and sound, generous feeling, shelters under these roof-trees. 
 But why so much of moral excellence united to a mere ma- 
 chinery for ministering to the ease and luxury of a few of 
 perhaps the least worthy of our species, — creatures so spoiled 
 by prosperity, that the claim of a common nature has no force 
 to move them, and who seem as miserably misplaced as the 
 myriads whom they oppress ?" 
 
 If I'm designed yon lording's slave, — 
 
 By nature's law designed, — 
 Why was an independent wish 
 
 E'er planted in my mind 1 
 If not, why am I subject to 
 
 His cruelty and scorn ? 
 Or why has man the will and power 
 
 To make his fellow mourn ? 
 
 " I would hardly know what to say in return, my friend," 
 I rejoined, " did not you yourself furnish me with the reply. 
 You are groping on in darkness, and, it may be, imhappi- 
 ness, for your proper sphere ; but it is in obedience to a great 
 though occult law of our nature, — a law general, as it affects 
 the species, in its course of onward progression, — particular, 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OP BURSS. 1C3 
 
 and infinitely more irresistible, as it operates on every truly 
 superior intellect. There are men born to wield the desti- 
 nies of nations, — nay, more, to stamp the impression of their 
 thoughts and feelings on the mind of the whole civilized 
 world. And by what means do we often find them roused 
 to accomplish their appointed work 1 At times hounded on 
 by sorrow and suffering, and this, in the design of Providence, 
 that there may be less of sorrow and suffering in the world 
 ever after : at times roused by cruel and maddening oppres- 
 sion, that the oppressor may perish in his guilt, and a whole 
 country enjoy the blessings of freedom. If Wallace had not 
 suffered from tyranny, Scotland would not have been free." 
 
 " But how apply the remark ?" said my companion. 
 
 " Robert Burns," I replied, again grasping his hand, 
 " your's, I am convinced, is no vulgar destiny. Your grief--, 
 your sufferings, your errors even, the oppressions you have 
 seen and felt, the thoughts which have arisen in your mine'', 
 the feelings and sentiments of which it has been the sub- 
 ject, are, I am convinced, of infinitely more importance in 
 their relation to your country than to yourself. You are, 
 wisely and benevolently, placed far below your level, that 
 thousands and ten thousands of your countrymen may be 
 the better enabled to attain to theirs. Assert the dignity 
 of manhood and of genius, and there will be less of wron^ 
 and oppression in the world ever after." 
 
 I spent the remainder of the evening in the farm-house 
 of Mossgiel, and took the coach next morning for Liverpool. 
 
 <i- ■ ■ : • * 
 
 Library 
 
104 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 His is that language of the heart 
 
 In which the answering heart would speak, — 
 Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, 
 
 Or the smile light up the cheek ; 
 And his that music to whose tone 
 
 The common pulse of man keeps time, 
 In cot or castle's mirth or moan, 
 
 In cold or sunny clime.— American Poet. 
 
 The love of literature, when once thoroughly awakened in a 
 reflective mind, can never after cease to influence it. It 
 first assimilates our intellectual part to those fine intellects 
 which live in the world of books, and then renders our con- 
 nection with them indispensable, by laying hold of that social 
 principle of our nature which ever leads us to the society of our 
 fellows as our proper sphere of enjoyment. My early habits, 
 by heightening my tone of thought and feeling, had tended 
 considerably to narrow my circle of companionship. My 
 profession, too, had led me to be much alone ; and now that 
 I had been several years the master of an Indiaman, I was 
 quite as fond of reading, and felt as deep an interest in what- 
 ever took place in the literary world, as when a student at 
 St Andrews. There was much in the literature of the period 
 to gratify my pride as a Scotchman. The despotism, both 
 political and religious, which had overlaid the energies of 
 our country for more than a century, had long been removed; 
 and the national mind had swelled and expanded under a 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BUfiNS. 105 
 
 better system of things, till its influence had become co-ex- 
 tensive with civilized man. Hume had produced his inimi- 
 table history, and Adam Smith his wonderful work, which 
 was to revolutionize and new-model the economy of all the 
 Governments of the earth. And there, in my little library, 
 were the histories of Henry and Robertson, the philosophy 
 of Karnes and Reid, the novels of Smollett and M'Kenzie, 
 and the poetry of Beattie and Home. But if there was no 
 lack of Scottish intellect in the literature of the time, there 
 was a decided lack of Scottish manners ; and I knew too 
 much of my humble countrymen not to regret it. True, I 
 had before me the writings of Ramsay and my unfortunate 
 friend Ferguson ; but there was a radical meanness in the 
 first, that lowered the tone of his colouring far beneath the 
 freshness of truth j and the second, whom I had seen perish, 
 — too soon, alas ! for literature and his country, — had given 
 us but a few specimens of his power when his hand was 
 arrested for ever. 
 
 My vessel, after a profitable, though somewhat tedious 
 voyage, had again arrived at Liverpool. It was late in 
 December 1786 ; and I was passing the long evening in my 
 cabin, engaged with a whole sheaf of pamphlets and maga- 
 zines, which had been sent me from the shore. " The 
 Lounger" was at this time in course of publication. I had 
 ever been an admirer of the quiet elegance and exquisite 
 tenderness of M'Kenzie ; and though I might not be quite 
 disposed to think, with Johnson, that " the chief glory of 
 every people arises from its authors," I certainly felt all the 
 prouder of my country from the circumstance that so accom- 
 plished a writer was one of my countrymen. I had read 
 
106 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 this evening some of the more recent numbers, — half-dis- 
 posed to regret, however, amid all the pleasure they afforded 
 me, that the Addison of Scotland had not done for the man- 
 ners of his country what his illustrious prototype had done 
 for those of England, — when my eye fell on the ninety- 
 seventh number. I read the introductory sentences, and ad- 
 mired their truth and elegance. I had felt, in the contem- 
 plation of supereminent genius, the pleasure which the writer 
 describes, and my thoughts reverted to my two friends, — the 
 dead and the living. " In the view of highly superior talents, 
 as in that of great and stupendous objects," says the Essayist, 
 " there is a sublimity which fills the soul with wonder and 
 delight, — which expands it, as it were, beyond its usual 
 bounds, — and which, investing our nature with extraordinary 
 powers and extraordinary honours, interests our curiosity and 
 flatters our pride." 
 
 I read on with increasing interest. It was evident, from 
 the tone of the introduction, that some new luminary had 
 arisen in the literary horizon; and I felt somewhat like a 
 schoolboy when, at his first play, he waits for the drawing 
 up of the curtain. And the curtain at length rose. " The 
 person," continues the Essayist, " to whom I allude," — and 
 he alludes to him as a genius of no ordinary class, — " is 
 Robert Burns, an Ayrshire ploughman." The effect on my 
 nerves seemed electrical. I clapped my hands, and sprung 
 from my seat. " Was I not certain of it ! Did I not fore- 
 see it!" I exclaimed. "My noble-minded friend, Robert 
 Burns !" I ran hastily over the warm-hearted and generous 
 critique, — so unlike the cold, timid, equivocal notices with 
 which the professional critic has greeted, on their first ap- 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 107 
 
 pearance, so many works destined to immortality. It was 
 M'Kenzie, the discriminating, the classical, the elegant, who 
 assured me that the productions of this " heaven- tanght 
 ploughman were fraught with the high-toned feeling, and the 
 power and energy of expression, characteristic of the mind 
 and voice of a poet," — with the solemn, the tender, the sub- 
 lime ; that they contained images of pastoral beauty which no 
 other writer had ever surpassed, and strains of wild humour 
 which only the higher masters of the lyre had ever equalled ; 
 and that the genius displayed in them seemed not less ad- 
 mirable in tracing the manners, than in painting the pas- 
 sions, or in drawing the scenery of nature. I flung down 
 the essay, ascended to the deck in three huge strides, leaped 
 ashore, and reached my bookseller's as he was shutting up 
 for the night. 
 
 " Can you furnish me with a copy of ' Burns' Poems,'" I 
 said, " either for love or money ?" 
 
 " I have but one copy left," replied the man, " and here 
 it is." 
 
 I flung down a guinea. " The change," I said, " I shall 
 get when I am less in a hurry." 
 
 'Twas late that evening ere I remembered that 'tis cus- 
 tomary to spend at least part of the night in bed. I read 
 on and on with a still increasing astonishment and delight, 
 laughing and crying by turns. I was quite in a new world : 
 all was fresh and unsoiled, — the thoughts, the descriptions, 
 the images, — as if the volume I read were the first that had 
 ever been written ; and yet all was easy and natural, and 
 appealed with a truth and force irresistible to the recollec- 
 tions I cherished most fondly. Nature and Scotland met 
 
108 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 me at every turn. I had admired the polished compositions 
 of Pope, and Grey, and Collins ; though I could not some- 
 times help feeling that, with all the exquisite art they dis- 
 played, there was a little additional art wanting still. In 
 most cases the scaffolding seemed incorporated with the 
 structure which it had served to rear ; and though certainly 
 no scaffolding could be raised on surer principles, I could 
 have wished that the ingenuity which had been tasked to 
 erect it had been exerted a little further in taking it down. 
 But the work before me was evidently the production of a 
 greater artist: not a fragment of the scaffolding remained, — 
 not so much as a mark to show how it had been constructed. 
 The whole seemed to have risen like an exhalation, and 
 in this respect reminded me of the structures of Shakspeare 
 alone. I read the inimitable " Twa Dogs." Here, I said, 
 is the full and perfect realization of what Swift and Dry den 
 were hardy enough to attempt, but lacked genius to accom- 
 plish. Here are dogs — bona fide dogs — endowed, indeed, 
 with more than human sense and observation, but true to 
 character, as the most honest and attached of quadrupeds, in 
 every line. And then those exquisite touches which the poor 
 man, inured to a life of toil and poverty, can alone rightly 
 understand ! and those deeply-based remarks on character, 
 which only the philosopher can justly appreciate ! This is 
 the true catholic poetry, which addresses itself, not to any 
 little circle, walled in from the rest of the species by some 
 peculiarity of thought, prejudice, or condition, but to the 
 whole human family. I read on. " The Holy Fair, " Hal- 
 lowe'en," " The Vision," the " Address to the Deil," engaged 
 me by turns ; and then the strange, uproarious, unequalled 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 109 
 
 " Death and Doctor Hornbook." This, I said, is something 
 new in the literature of the world. Shakspeare possessed 
 above all men the power of instant and yet natural transi- 
 tion, — from the lightly gay to the deeply pathetic, — from the 
 wild to the humorous ; but the opposite states of feeling 
 which he induces, however close the neighbourhood, are ever 
 distinct and separate : the oil and the water, though con- 
 tained in the same vessel, remain apart. Here, however, for 
 the first time, they mix and incorporate, and yet each retains 
 its whole nature and full effect. I need hardly remind the 
 reader that the feat has been repeated, and with even more 
 completeness, in the wonderful " Tarn o' Shanter." I read 
 on. " The Cottars Saturday Night" filled my whole soul : 
 my heart throbbed, and my eyes moistened ; and never be- 
 fore did I feel half so proud of my country, or know half so 
 well on what score it was I did best in feeling proud. I 
 had perused the entire volume, from beginning to end, ere I 
 remembered I had not taken supper, and that it was more 
 than time to go to bed. 
 
 But it is no part of my plan to furnish a critique on the 
 poems of my friend. I merely strive to recall the thoughts 
 and feelings which my first perusal of them awakened, and 
 this only as a piece of mental history. Several months 
 elapsed from this evening ere I could hold them out from 
 me sufficiently at arms' length, as it were, to judge of their 
 more striking characteristics. At times the amazing amount 
 of thought, feeling, and imagery which they contained, — 
 their wonderful continuity of idea, without gap. or interstice, 
 — seemed to me most to distinguish them. At times they 
 reminded me, compared with the writings of smoother poets, 
 
110 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 of a collection of medals, which, unlike the thin polished 
 coin of the kingdom, retained all the significant and pictorial 
 roughnesses of the original dye. But when, after the lapse 
 of weeks, months, years, I found them rising up in my heart 
 on every occasion, as naturally as if they had been the ori- 
 ginal language of all my feelings and emotions, — when I felt 
 that, instead of remaining outside my mind, as it were, like 
 the writings of other poets, they had so amalgamated them- 
 selves with my passions, my sentiments, my ideas, that they 
 seemed to have become portions of my very self, — I was led 
 to a final conclusion regarding them. Their grand distin- 
 guishing characteristic is their unswerving and perfect truth. 
 The poetry of Shakspeare is the mirror of life, — that of 
 Burns the expressive and richly-modulated voice of human 
 nature. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Burns was a poor man from his birth, and an exciseman from necessity ; 
 but — I will say it !— the sterling of his honest worth poverty could not 
 debase ; and his independent British spirit oppression might bend, but 
 could not subdue. — Letter to Mr Graham. 
 
 I have been listening for the last half-hour to the wild music 
 of an iEolian harp. How exquisitely the tones rise and fall ! 
 now sad, now solemn, — now near, now distant. The nerves 
 thrill, the heart softens, the imagination awakes as we listen. 
 What if that delightful instrument be animated by a living 
 soul, and these finely-modulated tones be but the expression 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. Ill 
 
 of its feelings ! What if these dying, melancholy cadences, 
 -which so melt and sink into the heart, be — what we may so 
 naturally interpret them — the melodious sinkings of a deep- 
 seated and hopeless unhappiness ! Nay, the fancy is too 
 wild for even a dream. But are there none of those fine 
 analogies which run through the whole of nature and the 
 whole of art, to sublime it into truth 1 Yes, there have been 
 such living harps among us, — beings, the tones of whose 
 sentiments, the melody of whose emotions, the cadences of 
 whose sorrows, remain to thrill, and delight, and humanize 
 our souls. They seem born for others, not for themselves. 
 Alas for the hapless companion of my early youth ! Alas 
 for him, the pride of his country, the friend of my maturer 
 manhood ! But my narrative lags in its progress. 
 
 My vessel lay in the Clyde for several weeks during the 
 summer of 1794 ; and I found time to indulge myself in a 
 brief tour along the western coasts of the kingdom, from 
 Glasgow to the borders. I entered Dumfries in a calm, 
 lovely evening, and passed along one of the principal streets. 
 The shadows of the houses on the western side were stretched 
 half-way across the pavement ; while on the side opposite, 
 the bright sunshine seemed sleeping on the jutting irregular 
 fronts and high antique gables. There seemed a world of 
 well-dressed company this evening in town; and I learned, 
 on inquiry, that all the aristocracy of the adjacent country, 
 for twenty miles round, had come in to attend a county ball. 
 They went fluttering along the sunny side of the street, gay 
 as butterflies, group succeeding group. On the opposite 
 side, in the shade, a solitary individual was passing slowly 
 along the pavement, I knew him at a glance. It was the 
 
112 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 first poet, perhaps the greatest man, of his age and country. 
 But why so solitary ? It had been told me that he ranked 
 among his friends and associates many of the highest names 
 in the kingdom, and yet to-night not one of the hundreds 
 who fluttered past appeared inclined to recognise him. He 
 seemed, too, — but perhaps fancy misled me, — as if care-worn 
 and dejected, — pained, perhaps, that not one among so many 
 of the great should have humility enough to notice a poor 
 exciseman. I stole up to him unobserved, and tapped him 
 on the shoulder. There was a decided fierceness in his man- 
 ner as he turned abruptly round ; but, as he recognised me, 
 his expressive countenance lighted up in a moment, and I 
 shall never forget the heartiness with which he grasped my 
 hand. 
 
 "We quitted the streets together for the neighbouring 
 fields, and, after the natural interchange of mutual congratu- 
 lations, — " How is it," I inquired, " that you do not seem 
 to have a single acquaintance among all the gay and great 
 of the country ?" 
 
 " I lie under quarantine," he replied ; " tainted by the 
 plague of Liberalism. There is not one of the hundreds we 
 passed to-night whom I could not once reckon among my 
 intimates." 
 
 The intelligence stunned and irritated me. " How inn- 
 nitely absurd ! " I said. " Do they dream of sinking you into 
 a common man ?" 
 
 " Even so," he rejoined. " Do they not all know I have 
 been a gauger for the last five years V 
 
 The fact had both grieved and incensed me long before. 
 I knew, too, that Pye enjoyed his salary as poet laureate of 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 113 
 
 the time, and Dibdin, the song writer, his pension of two 
 hundred a-year; and I blushed for my country. 
 
 " Yes," he continued, — the ill-assumed coolness of his 
 manner giving way before his highly-excited feelings, — " they 
 have assigned me my place among the mean and the degraded, 
 as their best patronage ; and only yesterday, after an official 
 threat of instant dismission, I was told it was my business to 
 act, — not to think. God help me ! what have I done to pro- 
 voke such bitter result 1 I have ever discharged my miser- 
 able duty, — discharged it, Mr Lindsay, however repugnant to 
 my feelings, as an honest man ; and though there awaited 
 me no promotion, I was silent. The wives or sisters of those 
 whom they advanced over me had bastards to some of the 
 
 family, and so their influence was necessarily greater 
 
 than mine. But now they crush me into the very dust. I 
 take an interest in the struggles of the slave for his freedom ; 
 I express my opinions as if I myself were a free man ; and 
 they threaten to starve me and my children if I dare so much 
 as speak or think." 
 
 I expressed my indignant sympathy in a few broken sen- 
 tences ; and he went on with kindling animation. 
 
 " Yes, they would fain crush me into the very dust ! They 
 cannot forgive me, that, being born a man, I should walk 
 erect according to my nature. Mean-spirited and despicable 
 themselves, they can tolerate only the mean-spirited and the 
 despicable ; and were I not so entirely in their power, Mr 
 Lindsay, I could regard them with the proper contempt. 
 But the wretches can starve me and my children, — and they 
 know it ; nor does it mend the matter that I know, in turn, 
 what pitiful, miserable, little creatures they are. What care 
 
 H 
 
114 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 I for the butterflies of to-night % They passed me without 
 the honour of their notice ; and I, in turn, suffered them to 
 pass without the honour of mine, and I am more than quits. 
 Do I not know that they and I are going on to the fulfilment 
 of our several destinies 1 They to sleep, in the obscurity of 
 their native insignificance, with the pismires and grasshoppers 
 of all the past ; and I to be whatever the millions of my un- 
 born countrymen shall yet decide. Pitiful little insects of 
 an hour ! What is their notice to me ! But I bear a heart, 
 Mr Lindsay, that can feel the pain of treatment so unworthy j 
 and I must confess it moves me. One cannot always live 
 upon the future, divorced from the sympathies of the present. 
 One cannot always solace one's self, under the grinding des- 
 potism that would fetter one's very thoughts, with the con- 
 viction, however assured, that posterity will do justice both 
 to the oppressor and the oppressed. I am sick at heart ; and, 
 were it not for the poor little things that depend so entirely 
 on my exertions, I could as cheerfully lay me down in the 
 grave as I ever did in bed after the fatigues of a long day's 
 labour. Heaven help me ! I am miserably unfitted to struggle 
 with even the natural evils of existence ; how much more so 
 when these are multiplied and exaggerated by the proud, ca- 
 pricious inhumanity of man !" 
 
 "There is a miserable lack of right principle and right 
 feeling," I said, " among our upper classes in the present 
 day ; but, alas for poor human nature ! it has ever been so, 
 and, I am afraid, ever will. And there is quite as much of 
 it in savage as in civilized life. I have seen the exclusive 
 aristocratic spirit, with its one-sided injustice, as rampant in 
 a wild isle of the Pacific as I ever saw it among ourselves." 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURNS. 115 
 
 "'Tis slight comfort," said my friend, with a melancholy 
 
 smile, " to be assured, when one's heart bleeds from the 
 
 cruelty or injustice of our fellows, that man is naturally cruel 
 
 and unjust, and not less so as a savage than when better 
 
 taught. I knew you, Mr Lindsay, when you were younger 
 
 and less fortunate ; but you have now reached that middle 
 
 term of life when man naturally takes up the Tory, and lays 
 
 down the Whig ; nor has there been aught in your improving 
 
 circumstances to retard the change ; and so you rest in the 
 
 conclusion that, if the weak among us suffer from the tyranny 
 
 of the strong, 'tis because human nature is so constituted; and 
 
 the case therefore cannot be helped '?" 
 
 "Pardon me, Mr Burns," I said; "I am not quite so 
 finished a Tory as that amounts to." 
 
 " I am not one of those fanciful declaimers," he continued, 
 " who set out on the assumption that man is free-born. I 
 am too well assured of the contrary. Man is not free-bom. 
 The earlier period of his existence, whether as a puny child 
 or the miserable denizen of an uninformed and barbarous 
 state, is one of vassalage and subserviency. He is not born 
 free; he is not born rational; he is not born virtuous ; he is 
 born to become all these. And woe to the sophist who, with 
 arguments drawn from the unconfirmed constitution of his 
 childhood, would strive to render his imperfect because im- 
 mature state of pupilage a permanent one ! We are yet far 
 below the level of which our nature is capable, and possess, 
 in consequence, but a small portion of the liberty which it is 
 the destiny of our species to enjoy. And 'tis time our mas- 
 ters should be taught so. You will deem me a wild Jacobin, 
 Mr Lindsay; but persecution has the effect of making a man 
 
116 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 extreme in these matters. Do help me to curse the scoun- 
 drels ! My business to act, — not to think !" 
 
 We were silent for several minutes. 
 
 " I have not yet thanked you, Mr Burns," I at length said, 
 " for the most exquisite pleasure I ever enjoyed. You have 
 been my companion for the last eight years." 
 
 His countenance brightened. 
 
 " Ah, here I am, boring you with my miseries and my ill- 
 nature," he replied ; but you must come along with me, and 
 see the bairns and Jean, and some of the best songs I ever 
 wrote. It will go hard if we hold not care at the staffs end 
 for at least one evening. You have not yet seen my stone 
 punch-bowl, nor my Tam o'Shanter, nor a hundred other fine 
 things besides. And yet, vile wretch that I am, I am some- 
 times so unconscionable as to be unhappy with them all. 
 But come along." 
 
 "VVe spent this evening together with as much of happiness 
 as it has ever been my lot to enjoy. Never was there a 
 fonder father than Burns, a more attached husband, or a 
 warmer friend. There was an exuberance of love in his 
 large heart, that encircled in its flow relatives, friends, asso- 
 ciates, his country, the world ; and, in his kindlier moods, the 
 sympathetic influence which he exerted over the hearts of 
 others seemed magical. I laughed and cried this evening by 
 turns. I was conscious of a wider and warmer expansion of 
 feeling than I had ever experienced before. My very imagi- 
 nation seemed invigorated, by breathing, as it were, in the 
 same atmosphere with his. "We parted early next morning ; 
 and when I again visited Dumfries, I went and wept over 
 his grave. Forty years have now passed since his death ; and 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF BURKS. 117 
 
 in that time, many poets have arisen to achieve a rapid and 
 brilliant celebrity; but they seem the meteors of a lower 
 sky : the flush passes hastily from the expanse, and we see 
 but one great light looking steadily upon us from above. It 
 is Burns who is exclusively the poet of his country. Other 
 writers inscribe their names on the plaster which covers for 
 the time the outside structure of society ; — his is engraved, 
 like that of the Egyptian architect, on the ever-during granite 
 within. The fame of the others rises and falls with the un- 
 certain undulations of the mode on which they have reared 
 it ; — his remains fixed and permanent, as the human nature 
 on which it is based. Or, to borrow the figures Johnson 
 employs in illustrating the unfluctuating celebrity of a 
 scarcely greater poet, — " The sand heaped by one flood is 
 scattered by another; but the rock always continues in its 
 place. The stream of time, which is continually washing 
 the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes by, without injury, 
 the adamant of Shakspeare." 
 
118 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 THE SALMON-FISHEB OF UDOLL. 
 
 In the autumn of 1759, the Bay of Ucloll, an arm of the sea 
 which intersects the southern shore 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 in- 
 telligent eyes, and a profusion of dark brown hair curling 
 around 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 circumstances; 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 circumstance — that destiny 
 
THE SALMON-FISHER OF UDOLL. 119 
 
 of vulgar minds — to a youth of toil and dependence, and an 
 old age of destitution 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 hoard 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 years, he moulded his 
 ambition on the conviction, and scarcely looked beyond the 
 period at which he anticipated his savings would enable him 
 to take his place among the humbler tenantry of the country. 
 Our friths 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 shores were consumed by the in- 
 habitants. And so little were they deemed a luxury, that it 
 was by no means uncommon, it is said, for servants to stipu- 
 late with their masters that they should not have to diet on 
 salmon often er 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. 
 
120 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 He erected Lis 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 anticipate 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 acquaint- 
 ance among the people in the neighbourhood, and little to 
 employ him, he had to draw for amusement on his own re- 
 sources alone. He had formed, when a boy, a taste for read- 
 ing ; 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 agri- 
 cultural 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 mys- 
 teries of bargain-making. 
 
 There holds early in November a famous cattle-market in 
 the ancient barony of Ferintosh ; and Thomson had set out to 
 attend it. The morning was clear and frosty, and he felt 
 buoyant of heart and limb, as, passing westwards along the 
 shore, he saw the huge Ben Wevis towering darker and more 
 loftily over the Frith as he advanced, or turned aside, from 
 
THE SALMOX-FISHER OF UDOLL. 121 
 
 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 
 class lie thicker than in that northern strip of the parish of 
 Eesolis which hounds 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 re- 
 minded of the ultimate object of his journey when, on sur- 
 veying the moor from the upper bartizan, he saw that the 
 groupes 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 merchandize, were sold. In the middle of the open 
 space there were carts and benches, laden with the rude ma- 
 nufactures 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 
 
122 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 fir, for lath and torches ; and hair tackle and nets for fisher- 
 men. Nearly seven thousand persons, male and female, 
 thronged the area, hustling and busy, and in continual mo- 
 tion, like the tides and eddies of two rivers at their conflu- 
 ence. There were countrywomen, with their shaggy little 
 horses, laden with cheese and butter ; 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 lasses, 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 passes with- 
 out 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 quarrelled himself nor inter- 
 fered 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 Astrakan. 
 
 He was passing 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 pum- 
 mel one another, in inextricable confusion. A gray-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, 
 
THE SALMON-FISIIER OF UDOLL. 123 
 
 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 un- 
 necessary. 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 ; and 
 that, too, after burning my loof wi the het aim ! 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 too. The ill-deedy wratche?, 
 to blister a' my loof wi' the poker ! But come awa, lassie ; 
 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 ap- 
 
124 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 proached, 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 passed 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 shores 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 su- 
 pernatural 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 re- 
 member 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 passing 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 
 
THE SALMON-FISHER OF UDOLL. 12 J 
 
 exclamations, as if several men had fallen a-lighting, scarcely 
 fifty yards away, without any preliminary quarrel ; and with 
 the gruffer voices there mingled the shrieks and entreaties 
 of a female. Thomson grasped his stick, and sprang for- 
 ward. He reached an opening among the bushes, and saw 
 in the imperfect light the old robust Lowlander of the pre- 
 vious 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 side-long blow on the temple, felled 
 him to the ground. At the instant he fell, a gigantic High- 
 lander leaped from among the bushes, and, raising his huge 
 arm, discharged a tremendous blow at the head of the fisher- 
 man, 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, vigi- 
 lant 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 lie 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 far- 
 mer, who had grappled with his antagonist, had succeeded 
 in flinging him, stunned and senseless, against the gnarled 
 
126 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 root of an alder ; and the three ruffians, — for the first had 
 not yet recovered, — lay stretched on the grass. Ere they 
 could secure them, however, a shrill whistle was heard echo- 
 ing 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, passed 
 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 Earness. 
 
 It is now more than forty years since the last stone of the 
 very foundation has disappeared ; but the little grassy emi- 
 nence 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 nock 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 ap- 
 
THE SALAI0X-FIS1IEK OF UDOLL. 127 
 
 pearance of the place ere all the inmates of this evening 
 
 e' 
 
 young and old, had gone to the churchyard, and left no suc- 
 cessors 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 over head, 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 an humble cottage ; and 
 when we think of human enjoyment, — of the pride of strength 
 and the light of beauty, — in connection with a few moulder- 
 ing 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 com- 
 ing 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 class well- 
 nigh worn out in the southern Lowlands, even at this period, 
 but which still comprised in the northern districts no incon- 
 siderable portion of the people, and which must always ob- 
 tain in countries only partially civilized and little amenable 
 to the laws. Man is a fighting animal from very instinct ; 
 
128 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 and his second nature, custom, mightily improves the pro- 
 pensity. 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 safetv 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 compo- 
 sition, had broken more heads than any tw T o 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, wdiom he described as the " brave, hardy chield, 
 wha had beaten twasome at the cudgel, — the vera littlest o' 
 them as big as himsel'." 
 
 " Och, gudeman," 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 oV 
 
 " Nanc o' yer nonsense," rejoined the farmer : " bring butt 
 the bottle an' your best cheese." 
 
 " The gudewife an' I dinna aye agree," continued the old 
 
THE SALMON-FISHER OF UDOLL. 129 
 
 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' improvldments, as they ca' them 1 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 "rand 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 1 Deil haet difference doo they mak' 
 atween the shire o' Cromarty an' the shire o' Lunnon ; just 
 as if we could be as quiet beside the red-wud Hielanman 
 here, as they can be beside the Queen. ISTa, na, — naething 
 like a guid cudgel : little wad their law hae dune for me at 
 the Burn o' Newhall the nicht," 
 
 Thomson found the character of the old man quite a study 
 in its way ; and that of his wife, — a very different, and, in 
 the main, inferior sort of person, for she was mean-spirited 
 and a niggard, — quite a study too. But by far the most in- 
 teresting inmate of the cottage was the old man's daughter, 
 — the child of a former marriage. She was a pale, delicate, 
 blue-eyed girl, who, without possessing much positive beauty 
 of feature, had that expression of mingled thought and ten- 
 
 i 
 
130 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 derness which attracts more powerfully than beauty itself. 
 She spoke but little : that little, however, was expressive 
 of gratitude and kindness to the deliverer of her father. 
 Sentiments which, in the breast of a girl so gentle, so timid, 
 so disposed to shrink from the roughnesses of active courage, 
 and yet so conscious of her need of a protector, must have 
 mingled with a feeling of admiration at finding in the power- 
 ful champion of the recent fray, a modest, sensible young 
 man, of manners nearly as quiet and unobtrusive as her own. 
 She dreamed that night of Thomson ; and her first thought, 
 as she awakened next morning, was, whether, as her father 
 had urged, he was to be a frequent visitor at Meikle Ear- 
 ness. But an entire week passed away, and she saw no more 
 of him. 
 
 He was sitting one evening in his cottage, poring over a 
 book ; a huge fire of brushwood was blazing against the 
 earthen wall, filling the upper part of the single rude cham- 
 ber of which the cottage consisted with a dense cloud of 
 smoke, and glancing brightly on the few rude implements 
 which occupied the lower, when the door suddenly opened, 
 and the farmer of Meikle Farness entered, accompanied by 
 his daughter. 
 
 u Ha ! Allan, man," he said, extending his large hand, 
 and grasping that of the fisherman ; " if you winna come 
 an' see us, we maun just come and see you. Lillias an' my- 
 sel' were afraid the gudewife had frichtened you awa, — for 
 she's a near-gaun sort o' body, an' maybe no owre kind 
 spoken ; but ye maun just come an' see us whiles, an' no 
 mind her. Except at counting-time, I never mind her my- 
 sel'." Thomson accommodated his visitors with seats. " Yer 
 
THE SALMON-FISHER OF UDOLL. 131 
 
 life maim be a gay lonely ane here, in this eerie bit o' 
 a glen," remarked the old man, after they had conversed 
 for some time on different subjects ; " but I see ye dinua 
 want company a'thegither, such as it is," — his eye glancing, 
 as he spoke, over a set of deal shelves, occupied by some sixty 
 or seventy volumes. "Lillias there has a liking for that 
 kind o' company too* an' spends some days mair o' her time 
 amang her books than the gudewife or mysel' would wish." 
 
 Lillias blushed at the charge, and hung down her head : 
 it gave, however, a new turn to the conversation ; and 
 Thomson was gratified to find that the quiet, gentle girl, 
 who seemed so much interested in him, an4 whose gratitude 
 to him, expressed in a language less equivocal than any 
 spoken one, he felt to be so delicious a compliment, pos- 
 sessed a cultivated mind and a superior understanding. She 
 had lived under the roof of her father in a little paradise of 
 thoughts and imaginations, the spontaneous growth of her 
 own mind ; and as she grew up to womanhood, she had re- 
 course to the companionship of books ; for in books only 
 could she find thoughts and imaginations of a kindred cha- 
 racter. 
 
 It is rarely that the female mind educates itself. The 
 genius of the sex is rather fine than robust ; it partakes 
 rather of the delicacy of the myrtle than the strength of the 
 oak j and care and culture seem essential to its full develop- 
 ment. Who ever heard of a female Bums or Bloomfield % 
 And yet there have been instances, though rare, of women 
 working their way from the lower levels of intellect to well- 
 nigh the highest, — not wholly unassisted, 'tis true, — the age 
 must be a cultivated one, and there must be opportunities of 
 
132 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 observation ; but, if not wholly unassisted, wiih helps so 
 slender, that the second order of masculine minds would find 
 them wholly inefficient. There is a quickness of perception 
 and facility of adaptation in the better class of female minds, 
 — an ability of catching the tone of whatever is good from 
 the sounding of a single note, if I may so express ni} r self, 
 — which Ave almost never meet with in the mind of man. 
 Lillias was a favourable specimen of the better and more in- 
 tellectual order of women ; but she was yet very young, and 
 the process of self-cultivation carrying on in her mind was 
 still incomplete ; and Thomson found that the charm of 
 her society arose scarcely more from her partial knowledge 
 than from her partial ignorance. The following night saw 
 him seated by her side in the farm-house of Meikle Farness ; 
 and scarcely a week passed during the winter in which he 
 did not spend at least one evening in her company. 
 
 Who is it that has not experienced the charm of female 
 conversation, — that poetry of feeling which developes all of 
 tenderness and all of imagination that lies hidden in our 
 nature ? When following the ordinary concerns of life, or 
 engaged in its more active businesses, many of the better fa- 
 culties of our minds seem overlaid : there is little of feeling, 
 and nothing of fancy ; and those sympathies which should 
 bind us to the good and fair of nature lie repressed and in- 
 active. But in the society of an intelligent and virtuous 
 female there is a charm that removes the pressure. Through 
 the force of sympathy, we throw our intellects for the time 
 into the female mould ; our tastes assimilate to the tastes of 
 our companion ; our feelings keep pace with hers ; our sen- 
 sibilities become nicer, and our imaginations more expan- 
 
THE SALMON-FISHER OF UDOLL. 133 
 
 sive ; and, though the powers of our mind may not much 
 excel, in kind or degree, those of the great bulk of mankind, 
 we are sensible that for the time we experience some of the 
 feelings of genius. How many common men have not female 
 society and the fervour of youthful passion sublimed into 
 poets 1 I am convinced the Greeks displayed as much sound 
 philosophy as good taste in representing their muses as beau- 
 tiful women. 
 
 Thomson had formerly been but an admirer of the poets, 
 — he now became a poet ; and had his fate been a kindlier 
 one, he might perhaps have attained a middle place among 
 at least the minor professors of the incommunicable art. 
 He was walking with Lillias one evening through the wood- 
 ed ravine. It was early in April, and the day had combined 
 the loveliest smiles of spring with the fiercer blasts of winter. 
 There was snow in the hollows ; but where the sweeping 
 sides of the dell reclined to the south, the violet and the 
 primrose were opening to the sun. The drops of a recent 
 shower were still hanging on the half-expanded buds, and the 
 streamlet was yet red and turbid ; but the sun, nigh at his 
 setting, was streaming in golden glory along the field, and 
 a lark was caroling high in the air, as if its day were but 
 begun. Lillias pointed to the bird, diminished almost to 
 a speck, but relieved by the red light against a minute 
 cloudlet. 
 
 " Happy little creature !" she exclaimed : " does it not 
 seem rather a thing of heaven than of earth 1 Does not its 
 song frae the cloud mind you of the hymn heard by the 
 shepherds ! The blast is but just owre, an' a few minutes 
 syne it lay cowering and chittering in its rest ; but its sor- 
 
134 TALES AND SKETCHES.. 
 
 rows are a' gane, an' its heart rejoices in the bonny blink, 
 without a'e thought o' the storm that has passed, or the night 
 that conies on. Were you a poet, Allan, like ony o' your 
 twa namesakes, — he o' " The Seasons," or he o' " The Gentle 
 Shepherd," — I would ask you for a song on that bonny 
 burdie." Next time the friends met, Thomson produced 
 the following verses : — 
 
 TO THE LARK. 
 
 Sweet minstrel of the April cloud, 
 
 Dweller the flowers among, 
 Would that my heart were formed like thine, 
 
 And tun'd, like thine, my song ! 
 Not to the earth, like earth's low gifts, 
 
 Thy soothing strain is given : 
 It comes a voice from middle sky, — 
 
 A solace breath'd from heaven. 
 
 Thine is the morn ; and when the sun 
 
 Sinks peaceful in the west, 
 The mild light of departing day 
 
 Purples thy happy breast. 
 And ah ! though all beneath that sun 
 
 Dire pains and sorrows dwell, 
 Earely they visit, short they stay, 
 
 Where thou hast built thy cell. 
 
 When wild winds rave, and snows descend, 
 
 And dark clouds gather fast, 
 And on the surf-encircled shore 
 
 The seaman's barque is cast, 
 Long human grief survives the storm ; 
 
 But thou, thrice happy bird ! 
 No sooner has it passed away, 
 
 Than, lo ! thy voice is heard. 
 
THE SALMON-FISHER OF UDOLL. 135 
 
 When ill is present, grief is thine ; 
 
 It flies, and thou art free ; 
 But ah ! can aught achieve for man 
 
 What nature does for thee ? 
 Man grieves amid the bursting storm ; 
 
 When smiles, the calm he grieves ; 
 Nor cease his woes, nor sinks his plaint, 
 
 Till dust his dust receives. 
 
 As the latter month of spring came on, the fisherman 
 again betook himself to his wears, and nearly a fortnight 
 passed in which he saw none of the inmates of the farm- 
 house. Nothing is so efficient as absence, whether self-im- 
 posed or the result of circumstances, in convincing a lover 
 that he is truly such, and in teaching him how to estimate 
 the strength of his attachment. Thomson had sat night 
 after night beside Lillias Stewart, delighted with the deli- 
 cacy of her taste and the originality and beauty of her ideas, 
 — delighted, too, to watch the still partially-developed fa- 
 culties of her mind shooting forth and expanding into bud 
 and blossom under the fostering influence of his own more 
 matured powers. But the pleasure which arises from the 
 interchange of idea and the contemplation of mental beauty, 
 or the interest which every thinking mind must feel in 
 marking the aspirations of a superior intellect towards its 
 proper destiny, is not love ; and it was only now that 
 Thomson ascertained the true scope and nature of his feel- 
 ings. 
 
 "She is already my friend," thought he : "if my schemes 
 prosper, I shall be in a few years what her father is now ; 
 and may then ask her whether she will not be more. Till 
 then, however, she shall be my friend, and my friend only. 
 
13G TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 I find I love her too well to make her the wife of either a 
 poor, unsettled speculator, or still poorer labourer." 
 
 He renewed his visits to the farm-house, and saw, with a 
 discernment quickened by his feelings, that his mistress had 
 made a discovery with regard to her own affections some- 
 what similar to his, and at a somewhat earlier period. She 
 herself could have perhaps fixed the date of it by referring 
 to that of their acquaintance. He imparted to her his 
 scheme, and the uncertainties which attended it, with his 
 determination, were he unsuccessful in his designs, to do 
 battle with the evils of penury and dependence without a 
 companion ; and, though she felt that she could deem it a 
 happiness to make common cause with him even in such a 
 contest, she knew how to appreciate his motives, and loved 
 him all the more for them. Never, perhaps, in the whole 
 history of the passion, were there two lovers happier in their 
 hopes and each other. But there was a cloud gathering over 
 them. 
 
 Thomson had never been an especial favourite with the 
 stepmother of Lillias. She had formed plans of her own for 
 the settlement of her daughter, with which the attentions 
 of the salmon-fisher threatened materially to interfere ; and 
 there was a total want of sympathy between them besides. 
 Even William, though he still retained a sort of rough regard 
 for him, had begun to look askance on his intimacy with 
 Lillias. His avowed love, too, for the modern gave no little 
 offence. The farm of Meikle Farness was obsolete enough 
 in its usages and modes of tillage to have formed no uninte- 
 resting study to the antiquary. Towards autumn, when the 
 fields vary most in colour, it resembled a rudely-executed 
 
THE SALMON-FISHEB OF UDOLL. 137 
 
 chart of some large island, — so irregular were the patches 
 which composed it, and so broken on every side by a sur- 
 rounding sea of moor, that here and there went winding into 
 the interior in long river-like strips, or expanded within into 
 friths and lakes. In one corner there stood a heap of stones, 
 in another a thicket of furze ; here a piece of bog ; there a 
 broken bank of clay. The implements with which the old 
 man laboured in his fields were as primitive in their appear- 
 ance as the fields themselves : there was the one stilted plough, 
 the wooden-toothed harrow, and the basket-woven cart, with 
 its rollers of wood. With these, too, there was the usual 
 misproportion on the farm, to its extent, of lean, inefficient 
 cattle, four half-starved animals performing with, incredible 
 effort the work of one. Thomson would fain have induced 
 the old man, who was evidently sinking in the world, to have 
 recourse to a better system, but he gained wondrous little by 
 his advice. And there was another cause which operated 
 still more decidedly against him. A wealthy young farmer 
 in the neighbourhood had been for the last few months not 
 a little diligent in his attentions to Lillias. He had lent 
 the old man, at the preceding term, a considerable sum of 
 money ; and had ingratiated himself with the stepmother, 
 by chiming in on all occasions with her humour, and by a 
 present or two besides. Under the auspices of both parents, 
 therefore, he had now paid his addresses to Lillias ; and, on 
 meeting with a repulse, had stirred them both up against 
 Thomson. 
 
 The fisherman was engaged one evening in fishing his 
 nets : the ebb was that of a stream tide; and the bottom of 
 almost the entire bay lay exposed to the light of the setting 
 
138 
 
 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 sun, save that a river-like strip of water wound through the 
 midst. He had brought his gun with him, in the hope of 
 finding a seal or otter asleep on the outer banks ; but there 
 were none this evening ; and, laying down his piece against 
 one of the poles of the wear, he was employed in capturing 
 a fine salmon that went darting like a bird from side to side 
 of the inner enclosure, when he heard some one hailing him 
 by name from outside the nets. He looked up, and saw 
 three men, one of whom he recognised as the young farmer 
 who was paying his addresses to Lillias, approaching from 
 the opposite side of the bay. They were all apparently much 
 in liquor, and came staggering towards him in a zig-zag 
 track along the sands. A suspicion crossed his mind that 
 he might find them other than friendly ; and, coming out of 
 the enclosure, where, from the narrowness of the space and 
 the depth of the water, he would have lain much at their 
 mercy, he employed himself in picking off the patches of sea- 
 weed that adhered to the nets, when they came up to him, 
 and assailed him with a torrent of threats and reproaches. 
 He pursued his occupation with the utmost coolness, turning 
 round, from time to time, to repay their abuse by some cut- 
 ting repartee. His assailants discovered they were to gain 
 little in this sort of contest; and Thomson found, in turn, 
 that they were much less disguised in liquor than he had at 
 first supposed, or than they seemed desirous to make it ap- 
 pear. In reply to one of his more cutting sarcasms, the 
 tallest of the three, a ruffian-looking fellow, leaped forward 
 and struck him on the face ; and in a moment he had re- 
 turned the blow with such hearty good-will, that the fellow 
 was dashed against one of the poles. The other two rushed 
 
THE SALMON- FISHER OF UDOLL. 139 
 
 in to close with him. He seized his gun, and, springing out 
 from beside the nets to the open bank, dealt the farmer with 
 the butt-end a tremendous blow on the face, which prostrated 
 him in an instant ; and then, cocking the piece and present- 
 ing it, he commanded the other two, on peril of their lives, 
 to stand aloof. Odds of weapons, when there is courage to 
 avail one's-self of them, forms a thorough counterbalance to 
 odds of number. After an en<ras;ement of a brief half-mi- 
 nute, Thomson's assailants left him in quiet possession of the 
 field ; and he found, on his way home, that lie could trace 
 their route by the blood of the young farmer. There went 
 abroad an exaggerated and very erroneous edition of the 
 story, highly unfavourable to the salmon-fisher ; and he re- 
 ceived an intimation shortly after that his visits at the farm- 
 house were no longer expected. But the intimation came 
 not from Lillias. 
 
 The second year of his speculation had well-nigh come to 
 a close, and, in calculating on the quantum of his shipments 
 and the state of the markets, he could deem it a more suc- 
 cessful one than even the first. But his agent seemed to be 
 assuming a new and worse character : he either substituted 
 promises and apologies for his usual remittances, or neglected 
 writing altogether ; and as the fisherman was employed one 
 day in dismantling his wears for the season, his worst fears 
 were realized by the astounding intelligence that the embar- 
 rassments of the merchant had at length terminated in a final 
 suspension of payments ! 
 
 " There," said he, with a coolness which partook in its 
 nature in no slight degree of that insensibility of pain and 
 injury which follows a violent blow, — " there go well-nigh 
 
140 TALES AXD SKETCHES. 
 
 all my hard-earned savings of twelve years, and all my hopes 
 of happiness with Lillias !" He gathered up his utensils 
 with an automaton-like carefulness, and, throwing them over 
 his shoulders, struck across the sands in the direction of the 
 cottage. " I must see her," he said, " once more, and bid 
 her farewell." His heart swelled to his throat at the thought ; 
 but, as if ashamed of his weakness, he struck his foot firmly 
 against the sand, and, proudly raising himself to his full 
 height, quickened his pace. He reached the door, and, 
 looking wistfully, as he raised the latch, in the direction of 
 the farm-house, his eye caught a female figure coming to- 
 wards the cottage through the bushes of the ravine. " 'Tis 
 poor Lillias !" he exclaimed. " Can she already have heard 
 that I am unfortunate, and that we must part ?" He went 
 up to her, and, as he pressed her hand between both his, she 
 burst into tears. 
 
 It was a sad meeting. Meetings must ever be such when 
 the parties that compose them bring each a separate grief, 
 which becomes common when imparted. 
 
 " I cannot tell you," said Lillias to her lover, " how un- 
 happy I am. My stepmother has not much love to bestow 
 on any one ; and so, though it be in her power to deprive 
 me of the quiet I value so much, I care comparatively little 
 for her resentment. Why should 1 1 She is interested in 
 no ou e but herself. As for Simpson, I can despise with- 
 out hating him : wasps sting just because it is their nature; 
 and some people seem born, in the same way, to be mean- 
 spirited and despicable. But my poor father, who has been 
 so kind to me, and who has so much heart about him, — his 
 displeasure has the bitterness of death to me. And then he 
 
THE SALMOX-FISHER OF UDOLL. 141 
 
 is so wildly and unjustly angry with you. Simpson has <*ot 
 him, by some means, into his power, — I know not how : my 
 stepmother annoys him continually ; and from the state of 
 irritation in which he is kept, he is saying and doing the 
 most violent things imaginable, and making me so unhappy 
 by his threats." And she again burst into tears. 
 
 Thomson had but little of comfort to impart to her. In- 
 deed, he could afterwards wonder at the indifference with 
 which he beheld her tears, and the coolness with which he 
 communicated to her the story of his disaster. But he had 
 not yet recovered his natural tone of feeling. Who has not 
 observed that, while in men of an inferior and weaker cast, 
 any sudden and overwhelming misfortune unsettles their 
 whole minds, and all is storm and uproar, — in minds of a su- 
 perior order, when subjected to the same ordeal, there takes 
 place a kind of freezing, hardening process, under which they 
 maintain at least apparent coolness and self-possession 1 Grief 
 acts as a powerful solvent to the one class, — to the other it 
 is as the waters of a petrifying spring. 
 
 "Alas, my Lillias !" said the fisherman, " we have not 
 been born for happiness and each other. We must part, — 
 each of us to struggle with our respective evils. Call up all 
 your strength of mind, — the much in your character that 
 has as yet lain unemployed, — and so despicable a thing as 
 Simpson will not dare to annoy you. You may yet meet 
 with a man worthy of you ; some one who will love you as 
 well as, — as one who can at least appreciate your value, and 
 who will deserve you better." As he spoke, and his mistress 
 listened in silence and in tears, William Stewart burst in 
 upon them through the bushes; and, with a countenance 
 
142 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 flushed, and a frame tremulous with passion, assailed the 
 fisherman with a torrent of threats and reproaches. He 
 even raised his hand. The prudence of Thomson gave way 
 under the provocation. Ere the blow had descended, he 
 had locked the farmer in his grasp, and, with an exertion 
 of strength which scarcely a giant would be capable of in 
 a moment of less excitement, he raised him from the earth, 
 and forced him against the grassy side of the ravine, where 
 he held him despite of his efforts. A shriek from Lillias 
 recalled him to the command of himself. " William Stew- 
 art," he said, cuiitting his hold and stepping back, " you are 
 an old man, and the father of Lillias." The farmer rose 
 slowly and collectedly, with a flushed cheek but a quiet eye, 
 as if all his anger had evaporated in the struggle, and, turn- 
 ing to his daughter 
 
 " Come, Lillias, my lassie," he said, laying hold of her arm, 
 (i I have been too hasty, — I have been in the wrong." And 
 so they parted. 
 
 Winter came on, and Thomson was again left to the soli- 
 tude of his cottage, with only his books and his own thoughts 
 to employ him. He found little amusement or comfort in 
 either : he could think of only Lillias, that she loved and 
 was yet lost to him. 
 
 " Generous, and affectionate, and confiding," he has said, 
 when thinking of her, " I know she would willingly share 
 with me in my poverty ; but ill would I repay her kindness 
 in demanding of her such a sacrifice. Besides, how could I 
 endure to see her subjected to the privations of a destiny so 
 humble as mine % The same heaven that seems to have 
 ordained me to labour, and to be unsuccessful, has given me 
 
THE SALMOX-FISHEE OF VDOLL. 14;} 
 
 a mind not to be broken by either toil or disappointment ■ 
 but keenly and bitterly would I feel the evils of both were 
 she to be equally exposed. I must strive to forget her, or 
 think of her only as my friend." And indulging in such 
 thoughts as these, and repeating and re-repeating similar 
 resolutions, — only, however, to find them unavailing, win- 
 ter, with its long, dreary nights, and its days of languor and 
 inactivity, passed heavily away. But it passed. 
 
 He was sitting beside his fire, one evening late in Fe- 
 bruary, when a gentle knock was heard at the door. He 
 started up, and, drawing back the bar, William Stewart en- 
 tered the apartment. 
 
 ' w Allan," said the old man, " I have come to have some 
 conversation with you, and would have come sooner, but 
 pride and shame kept me back. I fear I have been much 
 to blame." 
 
 Thomson motioned him to a seat, and sat down beside 
 him. 
 
 " Farmer," he said, " since we cannot recall the past, we 
 had perhaps better forget it." 
 
 The old man bent forward his head till it rested almost 
 on his knee, and for a few moments remained silent. 
 
 "I fear, Allan, I have been much to blame," he at length 
 reiterated. " Ye maun come an' see Lillias. She is ill, 
 very ill, — an', I fear, no very like to get better. Thomson 
 was stunned by the intelligence, and answered he scarcely 
 knew what. " She has never been richt hersel'," continued 
 the old man, " sin' the unlucky day when you an' I met in 
 the burn here ; but for the last month she has been little 
 out o ; her bed. Since mornin' there has been a great change 
 
144 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 on her, an she wishes to see you. I fear we havena meikle 
 time to spare, an' had better gang." Thomson followed him 
 in silence. 
 
 They reached the farm-house of Meikle harness, and en- 
 tered the chamber where the maiden lay. A bright fire of 
 brushwood threw a flickering gloom on the floor and rafters ; 
 and their shadows, as they advanced, seemed dancing on the 
 walls. Close beside the bed there was a small table, bearing 
 a lighted candle, and with a Bible lying open upon it, at 
 that chapter of Corinthians in which the apostle assures us 
 that the dead shall rise, and the mortal put on immortality. 
 Lillias half-sat, half-reclined, in the upper part of the bed. 
 Her thin and wasted features had already the stiff rigidity 
 of death; her cheeks and lips were colourless; and, though 
 the blaze seemed to dance and flicker on her half-closed eyes, 
 they served no longer to intimate to the departing spirit the 
 existence of external things. 
 
 " Ah, my Lillias !" exclaimed Thomson, as he bent over 
 her, his heart swelling with an intense agony. " Alas ! has 
 it come to this !" 
 
 His well-known voice served to recall her as from the 
 precincts of another world. A faint melancholy smile passed 
 over her features, and she held out her hand. 
 
 " I was afraid," she said, in a voice sweet and gentle as 
 ever, though scarcely audible, through extreme weakness, — "I 
 was afraid that I was never to see you more. Draw nearer; 
 there is a darkness coming over me, and I hear but imper- 
 fectly. I may now say with a propriety which no one will 
 challenge, what I durst not have said before. Need I tell 
 you that you were the dearest of all my friends, — the only 
 
THE SALMON-FISHER OF UDOLL. 145 
 
 man I ever loved, — the man whose lot, however low and 
 unprosperous, I would have deemed it a happiness to be in- 
 vited to share 1 I do not, however, I cannot, reproach you. 
 I depart, and for ever ; but Oh ! let not a single thought of 
 me render you unhappy. My few years of life have not been 
 without their pleasures, and I go to a better and brighter 
 world. I am weak, and cannot say more ; but let me hear 
 you speak. Bead to me the eighth chapter of Romans." 
 
 Thomson, with a voice tremulous and faltering through 
 emotion, read the chapter. Ere he had made an end, the 
 maiden had again sunk into the state of apparent insensibi- 
 lity out of which she had been so lately awakened ; though 
 occasionally a faint pressure of his hand, which she still re- 
 tained, showed him that she was not unconscious of his pre- 
 sence. At length, however, there was a total relaxation of 
 the grasp; the cold damp of the stiffening palm struck a chill 
 to his heart ; there was a fluttering of the pulse, a glazing 
 of the eye ; the breast ceased to heave, the heart to beat ; 
 the silver cord parted in twain, and the golden bowl was 
 broken. Thomson contemplated for a moment the body of 
 his mistress, and, striking his hand against his forehead, 
 rushed out of the apartment. 
 
 He attended her funeral ; he heard the earth falling heavy 
 and hollow on the coffin-lid ; he saw the green sod placed 
 over her grave; he witnessed the irrepressible anguish of 
 her father, and the sad regret of her friends ; and all this 
 without shedding a tear. He was turning to depart, when 
 some one thrust a letter into his hand : he opened it almost 
 mechanically. It contained a considerable sum of money, 
 and a few lines from his agent, stating that, in consequence 
 
 K 
 
146 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 of a favourable change in his circumstances, he had been 
 enabled to satisfy all his creditors. Thomson crumpled up 
 the bills in his hand. He felt as if his heart stood still in 
 his breast ; a noise seemed ringing in his ears ; a mist-cloud 
 appeared, as if rising out of the earth, and darkening around 
 him. He was caught, when falling, by old William Stewart; 
 and, on awakening to consciousness and the memory of the 
 past, found himself in his arms. He lived for about ten 
 years after, a laborious and speculative man, ready to oblige, 
 and successful in all his designs ; and no one deemed him 
 unhappy. It was observed, however, that his dark-brown 
 hair was soon mingled with masses of gray, and that his tread 
 became heavy and his frame bent. It was remarked, too, 
 that when attacked by a lingering epidemic, which passed 
 over well-nigh the whole country, he of all the people was 
 the only one that sank under it. 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUNSKAITH. 147 
 
 r ■— * ^ 
 
 Library. 
 
 ° r California- 
 
 DUfSKAITH 
 
 " Oh, mony a shriek, that waefu' night, 
 
 Rose frae the stormy main ; 
 An' mony a bootless row was made, 
 
 An' mony a prayer vain ; 
 An' mithers wept, an' widows mourned, 
 
 For mony a weary day ; 
 An' maidens, ance o' blithest mood, 
 
 Grew sad, an' pined away." 
 
 The northern Sutor of Cromarty is of a bolder character than 
 even the southern one, abrupt, and stern, and precipitous as 
 that is. It presents a loftier and more unbroken wall of rock : 
 and, where it bounds on the Moray Frith, there is a savage 
 magnificence in its cliffs and caves, and in the wild solitude 
 of its beach, which we find nowhere equalled on the shores 
 of the other. It is more exposed, too, in the time of tempest. 
 The waves often rise, during the storms of winter, more than 
 a hundred feet against its precipices, festooning them, even 
 at that height, with wreaths of kelp and tangle; and for 
 miles within the bay we may hear, at such seasons, the sa- 
 vage uproar that maddens amid its cliffs and caverns, coming- 
 booming over the lashings of the nearer waves, like the roar 
 of artillery. There is a sublimity of desolation on its shores, 
 the effects of a conflict maintained for ages, and on a scale so 
 
148 TALES AND SKETCHES, 
 
 gigantic. The isolated, spire-like crags that rise along its 
 base are so drilled and bored by the incessant lashings of the 
 surf, and are ground down into shapes so fantastic, that they 
 seem but the wasted skeletons of their former selves j and we 
 find almost every natural fissure in the solid rock hollowed 
 into an immense cavern, whose very ceiling, though the head 
 turns as we look up to it, owes evidently its comparative 
 smoothness to the action of the waves. One of the most re- 
 markable of these recesses occupies what we may term the 
 apex of a lofty promontory. The entrance, unlike that of 
 most of the others, is narrow and rugged, though of great 
 height ; but it widens within into a shadowy chamber, per- 
 plexed, like the nave of a cathedral, by uncertain cross lights, 
 that come glimmering into it through two lesser openings, 
 which perforate the opposite sides of the promontory. It is 
 a strange, ghostly-looking place : there is a sort of moonlight 
 greenness in the twilight which forms its noon, and the denser 
 shadows which rest along its sides ; a blackness so profound 
 that it mocks the eye hangs over a lofty passage which leads 
 from it, like a corridor, still deeper into the bowels of the 
 hill j the light falls on a sprinkling of half-buried bones, the 
 remains of animals that in the depth of winter have creeped 
 into it for shelter and to die ; and when the winds are up, 
 and the hoarse roar of the waves comes reverberated from its 
 inner recesses, or creeps howling along its roof, it needs no 
 over-active fancy to people its avenues with the shapes of 
 beings long since departed from every gayer and softer scene, 
 but which still rise uncalled to the imagination, in those by- 
 corners of nature which seem dedicated, like this cavern, to 
 the wild, the desolate, and the solitary. 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUXSKAITH. 149 
 
 There is a little rocky bay a few hundred yards to the west, 
 which has been known for ages to all the seafaring men of the 
 place as the Cova Green. It is such a place as we are some- 
 times made acquainted with in the narratives of disastrous 
 shipwrecks. First, there is a broad semicircular strip of beach, 
 with a wilderness of insulated piles of rock in front ; and so 
 steep and continuous is the wall of precipices which rises 
 behind, that, though we may see directly over head the grassy 
 slopes of the hill, with here and there a few straggling firs, 
 no human foot ever gained the nearer edge. The bay of the 
 Cova Green is a prison, to which the sea presents the only 
 outlet ; and the numerous caves which open along its sides, 
 like the arches of an amphitheatre, seem but its darker 
 cells. It is in truth a wild, impressive place, full of beauty 
 and terror, and with none of the squalidness of the mere 
 dungeon about it. There is a puny littleness in our brick 
 and lime receptacles of misery and languor, which speaks as 
 audibly of the feebleness of man as of his crimes or his inhu- 
 manity ; but here all is great and magnificent ; and there is 
 much, too, that is pleasing. Many of the higher cliffs, which 
 rise beyond the influence of the spray, are tapestried with 
 ivy. We may see the heron watching on the ledges beside her 
 bundle of withered twigs, or the blue hawk darting from her 
 cell. There is life on every side of us, — life in even the wild 
 tumbling of the waves, and in the stream of pure water which, 
 rushing from the higher edge of the precipice in a long white 
 cord, gradually untwists itself by the way, and spatters cease- 
 lessly among the stones over the entrance of one of the caves. 
 Nor does the scene want its old story to strengthen its hold 
 on the imagination. 
 
150 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 I am wretchedly uncertain in my dates ; but it must have 
 been some time late in the reign of Queen Anne, that a fish- 
 ing yawl, after vainly labouring for hours to enter the bay of 
 Cromarty, during a strong gale from the west, was forced at 
 nightfall to relinquish the attempt, and take shelter in the 
 Cova Green. The crew consisted of but two persons, — an old 
 fisherman and his son. Both had been thoroughly drenched 
 by the spray, and chilled by the piercing wind, which, accom- 
 panied by thick snow-showers, had blown all day through the 
 opening, from off the snowy top of Ben Wyvis ; and it was 
 with no ordinary satisfaction that, as they opened the little 
 bay on their last tack, they saw the red gleam of a fire flicker- 
 ing from one of the caves, and a boat drawn upon the beach. 
 
 "It must be some of the Tarbet fishermen," said the old 
 man, "wind-bound, like ourselves, but wiser than us in having 
 made provision for it. I shall feel willing enough to share 
 their fire with them for the night." 
 
 " But see," remarked the younger, "that there be no un- 
 willingness on the other side. I am much mistaken if that 
 be not the boat of my cousins the Macinlas, who would so 
 fain have broken my head last Bhorichie Tryst. But, hap 
 what may, father, the night is getting worse, and we have no 
 choice of quarters. Hard up your helm, or we shall barely 
 clear the skerries. There, now; every nail an anchor." He 
 leaped ashore, carrying with him the small hawser attached 
 to the stern, which he wound securely round a jutting crag, 
 and then stood for a few seconds, until the old man, who 
 moved but heavily along the thwarts, had come up to him. 
 All was comparatively calm under the lee of the precipices ; 
 but the wind was roaring fearfully in the woods above, and 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUNSKAITH. 151 
 
 whistling amid the furze and ivy of the higher cliff; and the 
 two boatmen, as they entered the cave, could see the flakes 
 of a thick snow shower, that had just begun to descend, cir- 
 cling round and round in the eddy. 
 
 The place was occupied by three men, who were sitting 
 beside the fire on blocks of stone which had been rolled from 
 the beach. Two of them were young, and comparatively 
 commonplace-looking persons ; the third was a gray-headed 
 old man, apparently of great muscular strength, though long 
 past his prime, and of a peculiarly sinister cast of countenance. 
 A keg of spirits, which was placed end up in front of them, 
 served as a table ; there were little drinking measures of tin 
 on it; and the mask-like, stolid expressions of the two younger 
 men showed that they had been indulging freely. The elder 
 was apparently sober. They all started to their feet on the 
 entrance of the fishermen, and one of the younger, laying 
 hold of the little cask, pitched it hurriedly into a dark corner 
 of the cave. 
 
 " His peace be here !" was the simple greeting of the elder 
 fisherman as he came forward. " Eachen Macinla," he con- 
 tinued, addressing the old man, " we have not met for years 
 before, — not, I believe, since the death o' my puir sister, when 
 we parted such ill friends ; but we are short-lived creatures 
 oursels, Eachen; surely our anger should be short-lived 
 too ; and I have come to crave from you a seat by your 
 fire." 
 
 " William Beth," replied Eachen, "it was no wish of mine 
 we should ever meet; but to a seat by the fire you are wel- 
 come." 
 
 Old Macinla and his sons resumed their seats ; the two 
 
152 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 fishermen took their places fronting them ; and for some time 
 neither party exchanged a word. 
 
 A fire, composed mostly of fragments of wreck and drift- 
 wood, threw up its broad cheerful flame towards the roof; but 
 so spacious was the cavern, that, except where here and there 
 a whiter mass of stalactites, or bolder projection of cliff, stood 
 out from the darkness, the light seemed lost in it. A dense 
 body of smoke, which stretched its blue level surface from 
 side to side, and concealed the roof, went rolling outwards 
 like an inverted river. 
 
 " This is but a gousty lodging-place," remarked the old 
 fisherman, as he looked round him ; " but I have seen a 
 worse. I wish the folk at hame kent we were half sae snug j 
 and then the fire, too ; — I have always felt something com- 
 panionable in a fire, — something consolable, as it were : it ap- 
 pears, somehow, as if it were a creature like ourselves, and 
 had life in it." The remark seemed directed to no one in 
 particular, and there was no reply. In a second attempt 
 at conversation, the fisherman addressed himself to the old 
 man. 
 
 " It has vexed me," he said, " that our young folk shouldna, 
 for my sister's sake, be on more friendly terms, Eachen. They 
 hae been quarrelling, an' I wish to see the quarrel made up." 
 The old man, without deigning a reply, knit his gray shaggy 
 brows, and looked doggedly at the fire. 
 
 " Nay, now," continued the fisherman, " we are getting auld 
 men, Eachen, an' wauld better bury our hard thoughts o' ane 
 anither afore we come to be buried ourselves. What if we 
 were sent to the Cova Green the night, just that we might 
 part friends !" 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUNSKAITH. 153 
 
 Eachen fixed his keen scrutinizing glance on the speaker; 
 — it was but for a moment : there was a tremulous motion of 
 the under lip as he withdrew it, and a setting of the teeth, — 
 the expression of mingled hatred and anger; but the tone of 
 his reply savoured more of sullen indifference than of passion. 
 
 " William Beth," he said, "ye hae tricked my boys out o' 
 the bit property that sulci hae come to them by their mother; 
 it's no lang since they barely escaped being murdered by your 
 son. What more want you ? But ye perhaps think it better 
 that the time should be passed in making hollow lip-profes- 
 sions of good will, than that it suld be employed in clearing 
 off an old score." 
 
 " Ay," hiccuped out the elder of the two sons; " the houses 
 might come my way then ; an', besides, gin Helen Henry 
 were to lose her a'e jo, the ither might hae a better chance. 
 Kise, brither, — rise, man, an' fight for me an' your sweet- 
 heart." The younger lad, who seemed verging towards the 
 last stage of intoxication, struck his clenched fist against his 
 palm, and attempted to rise. 
 
 " Look ye, uncle," exclaimed the younger fisherman, — a 
 powerful-looking and very handsome stripling, — as he sprang 
 to his feet; "your threat might be spared. Our little pro- 
 perty was my grandfather's, and naturally descended to his 
 only son ; and as for the affair at Bhorichie, I dare either of 
 my cousins to say the quarrel was of my seeking. I have no 
 wish to raise my hand against the sons or the husband of my 
 aunt ; but if forced to it, you will find that neither my father 
 nor myself are wholly at your mercy." 
 
 " Whisht, Earnest," said the old fisherman, laying his hand 
 on the hand of the young man ; sit down, your uncle maun 
 
154 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 hae ither thoughts. It is now fifteen years, Eachen," he 
 continued, " since I was called to my sister's deathbed. You 
 yoursel' canna forget what passed there. There had been 
 grief, an' cauld, an hunger, beside that bed. I'll no say you 
 were willingly unkind ; — few folk are that, but when they hae 
 some purpose to serve by it, an' you could have none : but 
 you laid no restraint on a harsh temper, and none on a craving 
 habit, that forgets everything but itsel'; and so my puir 
 sister perished in the middle o' her days, a wasted, heart- 
 broken thing. It's no that I wish to hurt you. I mind how 
 we passed our youth thegither among the wild buccaneers : 
 it was a bad school, Eachen ; an' I owre often feel I havena 
 unlearned a' my ain lessons, to wonder that you shouldna hae 
 unlearned a' yours. But we're getting old men, Eachen, an' 
 we have now what we hadna in our young days, the advan- 
 tage o' the light. Dinna let us die fools in the sight o' Him 
 who is so willing to give us wisdom ; dinna let us die ene- 
 mies. We have been early friends, though maybe no for 
 good : we have fought afore now at the same gun j we have 
 been united by the luve o' her that's now in the dust ; an' 
 there are our boys, — the nearest o' kin to ane anither that 
 death has spared. But what I feel as strongly as a' the rest, 
 Eachen, we hae done meikle ill thegither. I can hardly 
 think o' a past sin without thinking o' you, an' thinking, too, 
 that if a creature like me may hope he has found pardon, you 
 shouldna despair. Eachen, we maun be friends." 
 
 The features of the stern old man relaxed. "You are 
 perhaps right, William," he at length replied ; " but ye were 
 aye a luckier man than me, — luckier for this world, I'm sure, 
 an' maybe for the next. I had aye to seek, an' aften with- 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUNSKAITH. 155 
 
 out finding, the good that came in your gate o' itsel'. Now 
 that age is coming upon us, ye get a snug rental frae the 
 little houses, an' I hae naething ; an' ye hae character an' 
 credit; but wha would trust me, or cares for me 1 Ye hae 
 been made an elder o' the kirk, too, I hear, an' I am still a 
 reprobate ; but we were a' born to be just what we are, an' 
 sae maun submit. An' your son, too, shares in your luck : 
 he has heart an' hand, an' my whelps hae neither ; an' the 
 girl Henry, that scouts that sot there, likes him ; but what 
 wonder o' that 1 But you are right, William; we maun be 
 friends. Pledge me." The little cask was produced ; and, 
 filling the measures, he nodded to Earnest and his father. 
 They pledged him, when, as if seized by a sudden frenzy, he 
 filled his measure thrice in hasty succession, draining it each 
 time to the bottom, and then flung it down with a short 
 hoarse laugh. His sons, who would fain have joined with 
 him, he repulsed with a firmness of manner which he had 
 not before exhibited. "Ko, whelps," he said; "get sober 
 as fast as ye can." 
 
 " We had better," whispered Earnest to his father, " not 
 sleep in the cave to-night." 
 
 " Let me hear now o' your quarrel, Earnest," said Eachen : 
 "your father was a more prudent man than you; and, how- 
 ever much he wronged me, did it without quarrelling." 
 
 " The quarrel was none of my seeking," replied Earnest, 
 " I was insulted by your sons, and would have borne it for 
 the sake of what they seemed to forget; but there was 
 another whom they also insulted, and that I could not bear." 
 
 " The girl Henry. And what then P 
 
 " Why, my cousins may tell the rest. They were mean 
 
156 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 enough to take odds against me, and I just beat the two 
 spiritless fellows that did so." 
 
 But why record the quarrels of this unfortunate evening ? 
 An hour or two passed away in disagreeable bickerings, dur- 
 ing which the patience of even the old fisherman was worn 
 out, and that of Earnest had failed him altogether. They 
 both quitted the cave, boisterous as the night was, and it was 
 now stormier than ever; and, heaving off their boat till she 
 rode at the full length of her swing from the shore, sheltered 
 themselves under the sail. The Macinlas returned next 
 evening to Tarbet ; but, though the wind moderated during 
 the day, the yawl of William Beth did not enter the Bay of 
 Cromarty. Weeks passed away, during which the clergyman 
 of the place corresponded regarding the missing fishermen 
 with all the lower parts of the Frith, but they had disappeared, 
 as it seemed, for ever. 
 
 Where the northern Sutor sinks into the low sandy tract 
 that nearly fronts the town of Cromarty, there is a narrow 
 grassy terrace raised but a few yards over the level of the 
 beach. It is sheltered behind by a steep undulating bank ; 
 for, though the rock here and there juts out, it is too rich in 
 vegetation to be termed a precipice. To the east the coast 
 retires into a semicircular rocky recess, terminating seawards 
 in a lofty, dark-browed precipice, and bristling, throughout all 
 its extent, with a countless multitude of crags, that at every 
 heave of the wave break the surface into a thousand eddies. 
 Towards the west there is a broken and somewhat dreary 
 waste of sand. The terrace itself, however, is a sweet little 
 spot, with its grassy slopes, that recline towards the sun, par- 
 tially covered with thickets of wild rose and honeysuckle, 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUXSKA1TII. 157 
 
 and studded in their season with violets, and daisies, and the 
 delicate rock-geranium. Towards its eastern extremity, with 
 the bank rising immediately behind, and an open space in 
 front, which seemed to have been cultivated at one time as a 
 garden, there stood a picturesque little cottage. It was that 
 of the widow of "William Beth. Five years had now elapsed 
 since the disappearance of her son and husband, and the cot- 
 tage bore the marks of neglect and decay. The door and 
 window, bleached white by the sea-winds, shook loosely to 
 every breeze ; clusters of chickweed luxuriated in the hollows 
 of the thatch, or mantled over the eaves j and a honeysuckle, 
 that had twisted itself round the chimney, lay withering in a 
 tangled mass at the foot of the wall. But the progress of 
 decay was more marked in the widow herself than in her 
 dwelling. She had had to contend with grief and penury, — 
 a grief not the less undermining in its effects from the cir- 
 cumstance of its being sometimes suspended by hope, — a 
 penury so extreme, that every succeeding day seemed as if 
 won by some providential interference from absolute want. 
 And she was now, to all appearance, fast sinking in the 
 struggle. The autumn was well-nigh over. She had been 
 weak and ailing for months before, and had now become so 
 feeble as to be confined for days together to her bed. But, 
 happily, the poor solitary woman had at least one attached 
 friend in the daughter of a former of the parish, a young and 
 beautiful girl, who, though naturally of no melancholy tem- 
 perament, seemed to derive almost all she enjoyed of pleasure 
 from the society of the widow. Helen Henry was in her 
 twenty-third year, but she seemed older in spirit than in 
 years. She was thin and pale, though exquisitely formed ; 
 
158 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 there was a drooping heaviness in her fine eyes, and a cast of 
 pensive thought on her forehead, that spoke of a longer ex- 
 perience of grief than so brief a portion of life might be sup- 
 posed to have furnished. She had once lovers, but they had 
 gradually dropped away in the despair of moving her, and 
 awed by a deep and settled pensiveness, which, in the gayest 
 season of youth, her character hud suddenly but permanently 
 assumed. Besides, they all knew her affections were already 
 engaged, and had come to learn, though late and unwillingly, 
 that there are cases in which no rival can be more formidable 
 than a dead one. 
 
 Autumn, I have said, was near its close. The weather had 
 given indications of an early and severe winter ; and the 
 widow, whose worn-out and delicate frame was affected by 
 every change of atmosphere, had for a few days been more 
 than usually indisposed. It was now long past noon, and she 
 had but just risen. The apartment, however, bore witness 
 that her young friend had paid her the accustomed morning 
 visit : the fire was blazing on a clean comfortable-looking 
 hearth; and every little piece of furniture it contained was 
 arranged with the most scrupulous care. Her devotions 
 were hardly over when the well-known tap was again heard 
 at the door. 
 
 " Come in, my lassie," said the widow ; and then lowering 
 her voice, as the light foot of her friend was heard on the 
 threshold, " God," she said, " has been ever kind to me, — far, 
 very far, aboon my best deservings ; and Oh, may He bless 
 and reward her who has done so meikle, meikle for me !" 
 The young girl entered and took her seat beside her. 
 
 " You told me, mother," she said, " that to-morrow is 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUNSKAITH. 159 
 
 Earnest's birthday. I have been thinking of it all last night 
 and feel as if my heart were turning into stone. But when 
 I am alone it is always so. There is a cold, death-like 
 weight at my breast, that makes me unhappy, though, when 
 I come to you, and we speak together, the feeling passes away, 
 and I become cheerful." 
 
 "Ah, my bairn," replied the old woman ; " I fear I'm no 
 your friend, meikle as I love you. We speak owre, owre 
 often o' the lost, for our foolish hearts find mair pleasure in 
 that than in anything else; but ill does it fit us for being alone. 
 Weel do I ken your feeling, — a stone deadness o' the heart, — 
 a feeling there are no words to express, but that seems as it 
 were insensibility itself turning into pain ; and I ken, too, 
 my lassie, that it is nursed by the very means ye tak to flee 
 from it. Ye maun learn to think mair o' the living, and less 
 o' the dead. Little, little does it matter how a puir worn- 
 out creature like me passes the few broken days o' life that 
 remain to her ; but ye are young, my Helen, an' the world 
 is a' before you ; and ye maun just try an' live for it." 
 
 "To-morrow," rejoined Helen, "is Earnest's birthday. 
 Is it no strange that, when our minds make pictures o' the 
 dead, it is always as they looked best, an' kindest, an' maist 
 life-like. I have been seeing Earnest all night long, as when 
 I saw him on his last birthday ; an' Oh, the sharpness o' the 
 pang, when, every now an' then, the back o' the picture is 
 turned to me, an' I see him as he is, — dust !" 
 
 The widow grasped her young friend by the hand. 
 "Helen," she said, "you will get better when I am taken 
 from you ; but so long as we continue to meet, our thoughts 
 will aye be running the one way. I had a strange dream 
 
160 . TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 last night, an' must tell it you. You see yon rock to the 
 east, in the middle o' the little bay, that now rises through 
 the back draught o' the sea, like the hull o' a ship, an' is now 
 buried in a mountain o' foam ? I dreamed I was sitting on 
 that rock, in what seemed a bonny summer's morning ; the 
 sun was glancin' on the water ; an' I could see the white 
 sand far down at the bottom, wi' the reflection o' the little 
 wavies running o'er it in long curls o' goud. But there was 
 no way o' leaving the rock, for the deep waters were round 
 an' round me ; an' I saw the tide covering one wee bittie 
 after another, till at last the whole was covered. An' yet I 
 had but little fear ; for I remembered that baith Earnest an* 
 William were in the sea afore me ; an' I had the feeling that 
 I could hae rest nowhere but wi' them. The water at last 
 closed o'er me, an' I sank frae aff the rock to the sand at the 
 bottom. But death seemed to have no power given him to 
 hurt me ; an' I walked as light as ever I hae done on a 
 gowany brae, through the green depths o' the sea. I saw 
 the silvery glitter o' the trout an' the salmon shining to the 
 sun, far, far aboon me, like white pigeons in the lift ; an' 
 around me there were crimson star-fish, an' sea-flowers, an' 
 long trailing plants, that waved in the tide like streamers ; 
 an' at length I came to a steep rock, wi' a little cave like a 
 tomb in it. ' Here,' I said, ' is the end o' my journey : 
 William is here, an' Earnest.' An', as I looked into the 
 cave, I saw there were bones in it, an' I prepared to take my 
 place beside them. But, as I stooped to enter, some one 
 called me, an', on looking up, there was William. ' Lillias,' 
 he said, ' it is not night yet, nor is that your bed : you are 
 to sleep, not with me, but with Earnest. Haste you home, 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUNSKAITH. 1 Q \ 
 
 for he is waiting you.' ' Oh, take me to him !' I said ; an' 
 then all at once I found myself on the shore, dizzied an' 
 blinded wi' the bright sunshine ; for at the cave there was 
 a darkness like that o' a simmer's gloamin' ; an' when I 
 looked up for William, it was Earnest that stood before 
 me, life-like an handsome as ever; an' you were beside 
 him." 
 
 The day had been gloomy and lowering, and, though there 
 was little wind, a tremendous sea, that, as the evening ad- 
 vanced, rose higher and higher against the neighbouring 
 precipice, had been rolling ashore since morning. The wind 
 now began to blow in long hollow gusts among the cliffs, and 
 the rain to patter against the widow's casement. 
 
 " It will be a storm from the sea," she said j " the scarts 
 an' gulls hae been flying landward sin' daybreak, an' I hae 
 never seen the ground-swell come home heavier against the 
 rocks. Wae's me for the puir sailors !" 
 
 " In the lang stormy nights," said Helen, " I canna sleep 
 for thinking o' them, though I have no one to bind me to them 
 now. Only look how the sea rages among the rocks, as if it 
 were a thing o' life an' passion ! That last wave rose to the 
 crane's nest. An' look, yonder is a boat rounding the rock 
 wi' only a'e man in it. It dances on the surf as if it were 
 a cork j an' the wee bittie o' sail, sae black an' weet, seems 
 scarcely bigger than a napkin. Is it no bearing in for the 
 boat-haven below !" 
 
 " My poor old eyes," replied the widow, " are growing dim, 
 an' surely no wonder ; but yet I think I should ken that 
 boatman. Is it no Eachen Macinla o' Tarbet f 
 
 " Hard-hearted, cruel old man !" exclaimed the maiden, 
 L 
 
1G2 TALES AXD SKETCHES. 
 
 " what can be takin' him here 1 Look how his skiff shoots 
 in like an arrow on the long roll o' the surf ! — an' now she 
 i.s hi^h on the beach. How unfeeling it was o' him to rob 
 you o' your little property in the very first o' your grief ! But 
 see, he is so worn out that he can hardly walk over the rough 
 stones. Ah me ! he is down : wretched old man, I must run 
 to his assistance. But no, he has risen again. See, he is 
 coming straight to the house ; an now he is at the door." In 
 a moment after, Eachen entered the cottage. 
 
 " I am perishing, Lillias," he said, " with cold an' hunger, 
 an' can gang nae farther ; surely ye'll no shut your door on 
 me in a night like this." 
 
 The poor widow had been taught in a far different school. 
 She relinquished to the w T orn-out fisherman her seat by the 
 fire, now hurriedly heaped with fresh fuel, and hastened 
 to set before him the simple viands which her cottage af- 
 forded. 
 
 As the night darkened, the storm increased. The wind 
 roared among the rocks like the rattling of a thousand car- 
 riages over a paved street ; and there were times when, after 
 a sudden pause, the blast struck the cottage as if it were a 
 huge missile flung against it, and pressed on its roof and 
 walls till the veiy floor rocked, and the rafters strained and 
 shivered like the beams of a stranded vessel. There was a 
 ceaseless patter of mingled rain and snow, — now lower, now 
 louder ; and the fearful thunderings of the waves, as they 
 raged among the pointed crags, were mingled with the hoarse 
 roll of the storm along the beach. The old man sat beside 
 the fire, fronting the widow and her companion, with his head 
 reclined nearly as low as his knee, and his hands covering his 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUXSKAITH. 163 
 
 face. There was no attempt at conversation. He seemed 
 to shudder every time the blast yelled along the roof ; and, 
 as a fiercer gust burst open the door, there was a half-mut- 
 tered ejaculation. 
 
 " Heaven itsei' hae mercy on them ! for what can man do 
 in a night like this f ' 
 
 " It is black as pitch," exclaimed Helen, who had risen 
 to draw the bolt j " an' the drift flies sae thick, that it feels 
 to the hand like a solid snaw wreath. An' Oh, how it 
 lightens !" 
 
 " Heaven itsel' hae mercy on them !" again ejaculated the 
 old man. " My two boys," said he, addressing the widow, 
 " are at the far Frith ; an' how can an open boat live in a 
 night like this ?" 
 
 There seemed something magical in the communication, — 
 something that awakened all the sympathies of the poor 
 bereaved woman ; and she felt she could forgive him every 
 unkindness. 
 
 " Wae's me !" she exclaimed, " it was in such a night as 
 this, an' scarcely sae wild, that my Earnest perished." 
 
 The old man groaned and wrung his hands. 
 
 In one of the pauses of the hurricane there was a gun heard 
 from the sea, and shortly after a second. " Some puir vessel 
 in distress," said the widow ; but, alas ! where can succour 
 come frae in sae terrible a night % There is help only in Ane. 
 Wae's me ! would we no better light up a blaze on the floor, 
 an', dearest Helen, draw off the cover frae the window ? My 
 puir Earnest has told me that my light has aften showed him 
 his bearing frae the deadly bed o' Dunskaith. That last gun," 
 — for a third was now heard booming over the mingled roar 
 
164 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 of the sea and the wind, — " that last gun cam' frae the very 
 rock edge. Wae's me, wae's me ! maun they perish, an' sae 
 near !" Helen hastily lighted a bundle of more fir, that threw 
 up its red, sputtering blaze half-way to the roof, and, drop- 
 ping the covering, continued to wave it opposite the win- 
 dow. Guns were still heard at measured intervals, but ap- 
 parently from a safer offing ; and the last, as it sounded 
 faintly against the wind, came evidently from the interior of 
 the bay. 
 
 " She has escaped," said the old man : " it's a feeble hand 
 that canna do good when the heart is willing. But what has 
 mine been doin' a' life lang V He looked at the widow, and 
 shuddered. 
 
 Towards morning the wind fell, and the moon, in her last 
 quarter, rose red and glaring out of the Frith, lighting the 
 melancholy roll of the waves, that still rose like mountains, 
 and the broad white belt of surf that skirted the shores. The 
 old fisherman left the cottage, and sauntered along the beach. 
 It was heaped with huge wreaths of kelp and tangle, uprooted 
 by the storm ; and in the hollow of the rocky bay lay the 
 scattered fragments of a boat. Eachen stooped to pick up a 
 piece of the wreck, in the fearful expectation of finding some 
 known mark by which to recognise it, when the light fell full 
 on the swollen face of a corpse that seemed staring at him 
 from out a wreath of weed. It was that of his eldest son. 
 The body of the younger, fearfully gashed and mangled by 
 the rocks, lay a few yards farther to the east. 
 
 The morning was as pleasant as the night had been bois- 
 terous ; and, except that the distant hills were covered with 
 snow, and that a heavy swell still continued to roll in from 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUNSKAITH. 165 
 
 the sea, there remained scarce any trace of the recent teni- 
 j)est. Every hollow of the neighbouring hill had its little 
 runnel, formed by the rains of the previous night, that now 
 splashed and glistened to the sun. The bushes round the 
 cottage were well-nigh divested of their leaves ; but their 
 red berries, — hips and haws, and the juicy fruit of the honey- 
 suckle, — gleamed cheerfully to the light ; and a warm steam 
 of vapour, like that of a May morning, rose from the roof and 
 the little mossy platform in front. But the scene seemed to 
 have something more than merely its beauty to recommend 
 it to a young man, drawn apparently to the spot, with many 
 others, by the fate of the two unfortunate fishermen, and 
 who now stood gazing on the rocks, and the hills, and the 
 cottage, as a lover on the features of his mistress. The 
 bodies had been carried to an old storehouse, which may still 
 be seen a short mile to the west ; and the crowds that, dur- 
 ing the early part of the morning, had been perambulating 
 the beach, gazing at the wreck, and discussing the various 
 probabilities of the accident, had gradually dispersed. But 
 this solitary individual, whom no one knew, remained behind. 
 He was a tall and swarthy, though very handsome man, of 
 about five-and-twenty, with a slight scar on his left cheek : 
 his dress, which was plain and neat, was distinguished from 
 that of the common seaman by three narrow stripes of gold lace 
 on the upper part of one of the sleeves. He had twice stepped 
 towards the cottage-door, and twice drawn back, as if influ- 
 enced by some unaccountable feeling, — timidity, perhaps, or 
 bashfulness ; and yet the bearing of the man gave little indi- 
 cation of either. But at length, as if he had gathered heart, 
 he raised the latch and went in. 
 
166 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 The widow, who had had many visitors that morning, 
 seemed to be scarcely aware of his entrance. She was sitting 
 on a low seat beside the fire, her face covered with her hands ; 
 while the tremulous rocking motion of her body showed that 
 she was still brooding over the distresses of the previous night. 
 Her companion, who had thrown herself across the bed, was 
 fast asleep. The stranger seated himself beside the fire, 
 which seemed dying amid its ashes ; and, turning sedulously 
 from the light of the Avindow, laid his hand gently on the 
 widow's shoulder. She started and looked up. 
 
 " I have strange news for you," he said. " You have long 
 mourned for your husband and your son • but, though the 
 old man has been dead for years, your son Earnest is still 
 alive, and is now in the harbour of Cromarty. He is lieu- 
 tenant of the vessel whose guns you must have heard during 
 the night." 
 
 The poor woman seemed to have lost all power of reply. 
 
 " I am a friend of Earnest's," continued the stranger, " and 
 have come to prepare you for meeting with him. It is now 
 five years since his father and he were blown off to sea by a 
 strong gale from the land. They drove before it for four 
 days, when they were picked up by an armed vessel then 
 cruising in the North Sea, and which soon after sailed for 
 the coast of Spanish America. The poor old man sank under 
 the fatigues he had undergone ; though Earnest, better able, 
 from his youth, to endure hardship, was little affected by them. 
 He accompanied us on our Spanish expedition • indeed, he 
 had no choice, for we touched at no British port after meet- 
 ing with him ; and, through good fortune, and what his com- 
 panions call merit, he has risen to be the second man aboard, 
 
THE WIDOW OF DUXSKAITII. 1C7 
 
 and has now brought home with him gold enough from the 
 Spaniards to make his old mother comfortable. He saw your 
 light yester-evening, and steered by it to the roadstead, bless- 
 ing you all the way. Tell me, for he anxiously wished me 
 to inquire of you, whether Helen Henry is yet unmarried/' 
 
 "It is Earnest, — it is Earnest himself!'' exclaimed the 
 maiden, as she started from the widow's bed. In a moment 
 after, she was locked in his arms. But why dwell on a scene 
 which I feel myself unfitted to describe ? 
 
 It was ill before evening with old Eachen Macinla. The 
 fatigues of the previous day, and the grief and horror of the 
 following night, had prostrated his energies, bodily and mental ; 
 and he now lay tossing, in a waste apartment of the store- 
 house, in the delirium of a fever. The bodies of his two sons 
 occupied the floor below. He muttered unceasingly, in his 
 ravings, of William and Earnest Beth. They were standing 
 beside him, he said ; and every time he attempted to pray 
 for his poor boys and himself, the stern old man laid his cold 
 swollen hand on his lips. 
 
 "Why trouble me?" he exclaimed. "Why stare with 
 your white dead eyes on me 1 Away, old man : the little 
 black shells are sticking in your gray hairs : away to your 
 place ! Was it I who raised the wind on the sea 1 — was it 
 1 1 — was it I ? Uh, u ! — no — no ; you were asleep, — you 
 were fast asleep, — and could not see me cut the swing ; and, 
 besides, it was only a piece of rope. Keep away ; touch me 
 not ; I am a free man, and will plead for my life. Please 
 your Honour, I did not murder these two men j I only cut 
 the rope that fastened their boat to the land. Ha ! ha ! 
 ha ! he has ordered them away, and they have both left me 
 
168 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 unskaithed." At this moment Earnest Beth entered the 
 apartment, and approached the bed. The miserable old man 
 raised himself on his elbow, and, regarding him with a hor- 
 rid stare, shrieked out, — "Here is Ernest Beth come forme 
 a second time I" and, sinking back on the pillow, instantly 
 expired. 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 169 
 
 THE LYKEWAKE. 
 
 I know no place where one may be brought acquainted 
 with the more credulous beliefs of our forefathers at a less 
 expense of inquiry and exertion than in a country lyke- 
 wake. The house of mourning is naturally a place of sombre 
 thoughts and ghostly associations. There is something, too, 
 in the very presence and appearance of death that leads one 
 to think of the place and state of the dead. Cowper has 
 finely said, that the man and the beast who stand together 
 side by side on the same hill-top are, notwithstanding their 
 proximity, the denizens of very different worlds. And I 
 have felt the remark to apply still more strongly when sit- 
 ting beside the dead. The world of intellect and feeling in 
 which we ourselves are, and of which the lower propensities 
 of our nature form a province, may be regarded as including, 
 in part at least, that world of passion and instinct in which 
 the brute lives ; and we have but to analyze and abstract a 
 little, to form for ourselves ideas of this latter world from 
 even our own experience. But by what process of thought 
 can we bring experience to bear on the world of the dead 1 
 It lies entirely beyond us, — a terra incognita of cloud and 
 darkness ; and yet the thing at our side, — the thing over 
 
170 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 which we can stretch our hand, — the thing dead to us, but 
 living to it, — has entered upon it ; and, however uninformed 
 or ignorant before, knows more of its dark, and to us in- 
 scrutable mysteries, than all our philosophers and all our 
 divines. Is it wonder that we would fain put it to the ques- 
 tion, that we would fain catechise it, if we could, regarding 
 its newly-acquired experience, — that we should fill up the 
 gaps in the dialogue which its silence leaves to us, by im- 
 parting to one another the little we know regarding its state 
 and its place, — or that we should send our thoughts roaming 
 in long excursions, to glean from the experience of the past 
 all that it tells us of the occasional visits of the dead, and 
 all that in their less taciturn and more social moments they 
 have communicated to the living 1 And hence, from feelings 
 so natural, and a train of associations so obvious, the cha- 
 racter of a country lykewake, and the cast of its stories. I 
 say a country lykewake ; for in at least all our larger towns, 
 where a cold and barren scepticism has chilled the feelings 
 and imaginations of the people, without, I fear, much im- 
 proving their judgments, the conversation on such occasions 
 takes a lower and less interesting range. 
 
 I once spent a night with a friend from the south, — a man 
 of an inquiring and highly philosophic cast of mind, — at a 
 lykewake in the upper part of the parish of Cromarty. I 
 had excited his curiosity by an incidental remark or two of 
 the kind I have just been dropping ; and, on his expressing 
 a wish that I should introduce him, by way of illustration, 
 to some such scene as I had been describing, we had set out 
 together to the wake of an elderly female who had died that 
 morning. Her cottage, an humble erection of stone and 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 171 
 
 lime, was situated beside a thick fir- wood, on the edge of the 
 solitary Mullbuoy, one of the dreariest and most extensive 
 commons in Scotland. We had to pass in our journey over 
 several miles of desolate moor, sprinkled with cairns and 
 tumuli, — the memorials of some forgotten conflict of the 
 past ; we had to pass, too, through a thick, dark wood, with 
 here and there an intervening marsh, whitened over with 
 moss and lichens, and which, from this circumstance, are 
 known to the people of the country as the white bogs. Nor 
 was the more distant landscape of a less gloomy character. 
 On the one hand there opened an interminable expanse of 
 moor, that went stretching onwards, mile beyond mile, bleak, 
 dreary, uninhabited and uninhabitable, till it merged into 
 the far horizon. On the other there rose a range of blue, 
 solitary hills, towering, as they receded, into loftier peaks and 
 bolder acclivities, till they terminated on the snow-streaked 
 Ben Weavis. The season, too, was in keeping with the 
 scene. It was drawing towards the close of autumn ; and, 
 as we passed through the wood, the falling leaves were eddy- 
 ing round us with every wind, or lay in rustling heaps at 
 our feet. 
 
 " I do not wonder," said my companion, " that the su- 
 perstitions of so wild a district as this should bear in their 
 character some marks of a corresponding wildness. Night 
 itself, in a populous and cultivated country, is attended with 
 less of the stern and the solemn than mid-day amid solitudes 
 like these. Is the custom of watching beside the dead of 
 remote antiquity in this part of the country T 
 
 " Far beyond the reach of either history or tradition," I 
 said. " But it has gradually been changing its character, as 
 
172 
 
 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 the people have been changing theirs ; and is now a very 
 different thing from what it was a century ago. It is not 
 yet ninety years since lykewakes in the neighbouring High- 
 lands used to be celebrated with music and dancing ; and 
 even here, on the borders of the low country, they used inva- 
 riably, like the funerals of antiquity, to be the scenes of wild 
 games and amusements never introduced on any other occa- 
 sion. You remember how Sir Walter describes the funeral 
 of Athelstane? The Saxon ideas of condolence were the 
 most natural imaginable. If grief was hungry, they supplied 
 it with food ; if thirsty, they gave it drink. Our simple an- 
 cestors here seem to have reasoned by a similar process. 
 They made their seasons of deepest grief their times of 
 greatest merriment j and the more they regretted the de- 
 ceased, the gayer were they at his wake and his funeral. A 
 friend of mine, now dead, a very old man, has told me that 
 he once danced at a lykewake in the Highlands of Suther- 
 land. It was that of an active and very robust man, taken 
 away from his wife and family in the prime of life ; and the 
 poor widow, for the greater part of the evening, sat discon- 
 solate beside the fire, refusing every invitation to join the 
 dancers. She was at length, however, brought out by the 
 father of the deceased. ' Little, little did he think,' he said, 
 ' that she would be the last to dance at poor Rory's lyke- 
 wake.' " 
 
 We reached the cottage, and went in. The apartment in 
 which the dead lay was occupied by two men and three 
 women. Every little piece of furniture it contained was 
 hung in white, and the floor had recently been swept and 
 sanded ; but it was on the bed where the body lay, and on 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 173 
 
 the body itself, that the greatest care had been lavished. 
 The curtains had been taken down, and their place supplied 
 by linen white as snow ; and on the sheet that served as a 
 counterpane the body was laid out in a dress of white, fan- 
 tastically crossed and re-crossed in every direction by scal- 
 loped fringes, and fretted into a species of open work, at 
 least intended to represent alternate rows of roses and tulips. 
 A plate, containing a little salt, was placed over the breast 
 of the corpse. As we entered, one of the women rose, and, 
 filling two glasses with spirits, presented them to us on a 
 salver. We tasted the liquor, and sat down on chairs placed 
 for us beside the fire. The conversation, which had been 
 interrupted by our entrance, began to flow apace ; and an 
 elderly female, who had lived under the same roof with the 
 deceased, began to relate, in answer to the queries of one of 
 the others, some of the particulars of her last illness and 
 death. 
 
 THE STORY OF ELSPAT M'CULLOCH. 
 
 "Elspat was aye," she said, "a retired body, wi' a cast 
 o' decent pride aboot her ; an', though bare and puirly aff 
 sometimes in her aulcl days, she had never been chargeable 
 to onybody. She had come o' decent, 'sponsible people, 
 though they were a' low enough the day ; ay, an' they 
 were God-fearing people too, wha had gien plenty in their 
 time, an' had aye plenty to gie. An' though they had 
 been a' langsyne laid in the kirkyarcl, — a' except hersel', 
 puir body, — she wouldna disgrace their gude name, she said, 
 
174 TALES AXD SKETCHES. 
 
 by takin' an alms frae ony ane. Her sma means fell oot o' 
 her hands afore her last illness. Little had aye dime her 
 turn, but the little failed at last ; an' sair, sair thocht did it 
 <->ie her for a while what was to come o' her. I could hear 
 her, in the butt- end o' the hoose a'e mornin', mair earnest 
 an' langer in her prayers than usual ; though she never ne- 
 glected them, puir body ; an' a the early part o' that day 
 she seemed to be no weel. She was aye up and down ; an 
 I could ance or twice hear her gaunting at the fireside ; but 
 when I went ben to her, an' asked what was the matter wi' 
 her, she said she was just in her ordinar'. She went oot for 
 a wee ; an' what did I do, but gang to her amry, for I 
 ialoused a' wasna right there ; an' Oh ! it was a sair sicht to 
 see, neebors ; for there was neither a bit o' bread nor a grain 
 o' meal within its four corners, — naething but the sealed-up 
 graybeard wi' the whisky that for twenty years an' mair 
 she had been keepin' for her lykewake ; an', ye ken, it was 
 oot o' the question to think that she would meddle wi' it. 
 "Weel did I scold her, when she cam' in, for being sae close - 
 minded. I asked her what harm I had ever done to her, 
 that she wad rather hae died than hae trusted her wants to 
 me 1 But though she said naething, I could see the tears in 
 her e'e ; an' sae I stopped, an' we took a late breakfast the- 
 gither at my fireside. 
 
 " She tauld. me that mornin' that she weel kent she 
 wouldna lang be a trouble to onybody. The day afore had 
 been Sabbath ; an every Sabbath morning, for the last ten 
 years, her worthy neeboor the elder, whom they had buried 
 only four years afore, used to call on her, in the passing on 
 his way to the kirk. l Come awa, Elspat,' he would say ; 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 175 
 
 an' she used to be aye decent an' ready, for she liked his 
 conversation ; an' they aye gaed thegither to the kirk. She 
 had been contracted, when a young lass, to a brither o' the 
 elder's, a stout, handsome lad j but he had been ca'ed sud- 
 denly awa atween the contract an' the marriage, an' Elspat, 
 though she had afterwards mony a gude offer, had lived 
 single for his sake. Weel, on the very mornin' afore, just 
 sax days after the elder s death, an' four after his burial, 
 when Elspat was sitting dowie aside the fire, thinkin' o' her 
 gude auld neebor, the cry cam' to the door just as it used to 
 do ; but, though the voice was the same, the words were a 
 wee different. ' Elspat,' it said, ' mak' ready, an' come awa.' 
 She rose hastily to the window, an' there, sure enough, was 
 the elder, turning the corner in his Sunday's bonnet an' his 
 Sunday's coat. An' weel did she ken, she said, the mean- 
 ing o' his call, an' kindly did she tak' it. An' if it was but 
 God"s wull that she suld hae enough to put her decently under 
 the ground, without going in debt to any one, she would be 
 weel content. She had already the linen for the dead-dress, 
 she said ; for she had spun it for the purpose afore her con- 
 tract wi' William ; an' she had the whisky too, for the wake ; 
 but she had naething anent the coffin an' the bedral. 
 
 " Weel, we took our breakfast, an' I did my best to com- 
 fort the puir body j but she looked very down-hearted for 
 a' that. About the middle o' the day, in cam' the ministers 
 boy wi' a letter. It was directed to his master, he said ; 
 but it was a' for Elspat ; an' there was a five-pound note 
 in it. It was frae a man who had left the country mony, 
 mony a year afore, a good deal in her faither's debt. You 
 would hae thought the puir thing wad hae grat her een 
 
176 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 out when she saw the money ; but never was money mair 
 thankfully received, or ta'en mair directly frae heaven. It 
 set her aboon the warld, she said ; an' coming at the time 
 it did, an estate o' a thousand a-year wadna be o' mair use 
 to her. Next morning she didna rise, for her strength had 
 failed her at once, though she felt nae meikle pain ; an' she 
 sent me to get the note changed, an' to leave twenty shil- 
 lings o't wi' the wri^ht for a decent coffin like her mither's, 
 an' five shillings mair wi' the bedral, an' to tak' in neces- 
 saries for a sick-bed wi' some o' the lave. Weel, I did that ; 
 an' there's still twa pounds o' the note yonder in the little 
 cupboard. 
 
 " On the fifth morning after she had been taken sae ill, I 
 cam' in till ask after her ; for my neebor here had relieved 
 me o' that night's watchin', an' I had gotten to my bed. 
 The moment I opened the door I saw that the haill room 
 was hung in white, just as ye see it now; an' I'm sure it staid 
 that way a minute or sae ; but when I winked it went awa\ 
 I kent there was a change no far off; an' when I went up 
 to the bed, Elspat didna ken me. She was wirkin' wi' her 
 han' at the blankets, as if she were picking off the little 
 motes; an' I could hear the beginning o' the dead rattle in 
 her throat. I sat at her bedside for a while wi' my neebor 
 here : an' when she spoke to us, it was to say that the bed 
 had grown hard and uneasy, and that she wished to be 
 brought out to the chair. Weel, we indulged her, though we 
 baith kent that it wasna in the bed the uneasiness lay. Her 
 mind, puir body, was carried at the time : she just kent that 
 there was to be a death an' a lykewake, but no that the 
 death an' the lykewake -were to be her ain ; an' whan she 
 
THE LYKEWAKS. 177 
 
 looked at the bed, she bade us tak' down the black curtains 
 an' put up the white ; an' tauld us where the white were to 
 be found. 
 
 " ' But where is the corp V she said ; ' it's no there. Where 
 is the corp V 
 
 " ' Oh, Elspat, it will be there vera soon,' said my neebor; 
 an' that satisfied her.' 
 
 " She cam' to hersel' an hour afore she departed. God 
 had been very gude to her, she said, a' her life lang, an' He 
 hadna forsaken her at the last. He had been gude to her 
 whan He had gien her friens, an' gude to her when He took 
 them to Himsel' ; an' she kent she was now going to baith 
 Him an' them. There wasna such a difference, she said, 
 atween life an' death as folk were ready to think. She was 
 sure that, though William had been ca'ed awa suddenly, he 
 hadna been ca'ed without being prepared • au' now that her 
 turn had come, an' that she was goin' to meet wi' him, it 
 was maybe as weel that he had left her early ; for, till she 
 had lost him, she had been owre licht an' thochtless ; au' 
 had it been her lot to hae lived in happiness wi' him, she 
 micht hae remained light an' thoctless still. She bade us 
 baith fareweel, an' thanked an' blessed us ; an' her last breath 
 went awa' in a prayer no half an hour after. Puir, decent 
 body ! But she's no puir now." 
 
 " A pretty portrait," whispered my companion, " of one 
 of a class fast wearing away. Nothing more interests me 
 in the story than the woman's undoubting faith in the su- 
 pernatural : she does not even seem to know that what she 
 believes so firmly herself is so much as doubted by others. 
 Try whether you can't bring up, by some means, a few other 
 
178 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 stories furnished with a similar machinery, — a story of the 
 second sight, for instance." 
 
 " The only way of accomplishing that," I replied, " is by 
 contributing a story of the kind myself." 
 
 " The vision of the room hung in white," I said, " re- 
 minds me of a story related, about a hundred and fifty years 
 a«-o, by a very learned and very ingenious countryman of ours, 
 
 George, first Earl of Cromarty. His Lordship, a steady 
 
 Royalist, was engaged, shortly before the Restoration (he 
 was then, by the way, only Sir George Mackenzie), in raising 
 troops for the King on his lands on the western coast of 
 Ross-shire. There came on one of those days of rain and 
 tempest so common in the district; and Sir George, with 
 some of his friends, were storm-bound in a solitary cottage, 
 somewhere on the shores of Lochbroom. Towards evening, 
 one of the party went out to look after their horses. He 
 had been sitting beside Sir George, and the chair he had 
 occupied remained empty. On Sir George's servant, an 
 elderly Highlander, coming in, he went up to his master, 
 apparently much appalled, and, tapping him on the shoulder, 
 urged him to rise. ' Rise !' he said, ' rise ! There's a dead 
 man sitting on the chair beside you.' The whole party im- 
 mediately started to their feet ; but they saw only the empty 
 chair. The dead man was visible to the Highlander alone. 
 His head was bound up, he said, and his face streaked with 
 blood, and one of his arms hung broken by his side. Next 
 day, as a party of horsemen were passing along the steep 
 side of a hill in the neighbourhood, one of the horses stum- 
 bled, and threw its rider ; and the man, grievously injured 
 by the fall, was carried in a state of insensibility to the cot- 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 179 
 
 tage. His head was deeply gashed, and one of his arms 
 was broken, though he ultimately recovered ; and on being 
 brought to the cottage, he was placed, in a death-like swoon, 
 in the identical chair which the Highlander had seen occu- 
 pied by the spectre. Sir George relates the story, with many 
 a similar story besides, in a letter to the celebrated Robert 
 Boyle." 
 
 " I have perused it with much interest," said my friend, 
 " and wonder our booksellers should have suffered it to be- 
 come so scarce. Do you not remember the somewhat similar 
 story his Lordship relates of the Highlander who saw the 
 apparition of a troop of horse ride over the brow of a hill, 
 and enter a field of oats, which, though it had been sown 
 only a few days before, the horsemen seemed to cut down 
 with their swords ? He states that, a few months after, a 
 troop of cavalry actually entered the same field, and carried 
 away the produce for fodder to their horses. He tells, too, 
 if I remember aright, that on the same expedition to which 
 your story belongs, one of his Highlanders, on entering a cot- 
 tage, started back with horror : he had met in the passage, 
 he said, a dead man in his shroud, and saw people gathering 
 for a funeral. And, as his Lordship relates, one of the in- 
 mates of the cottage, who was in perfect health at the time 
 of the vision, died suddenly only two days after." 
 
180 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 THE STORY OF DONALD GA1R. 
 
 " The second sight," said an elderly man, who sat beside 
 me, and whose countenance had struck me as highly expres- 
 sive of serious thought, " is fast wearing out of this part of 
 the country. Nor should we much regret it perhaps. It 
 seemed, if I may so speak, as something outside the ordinary 
 dispositions of Providence ; and, with all the horror and mi- 
 ll appiness that attended it, served no apparent good end. I 
 have been a traveller in my youth, masters. About thirty 
 years ago, I served for some time in the navy. I entered 
 on the first breaking out of the Revolutionary war, and was 
 discharged during the short peace of 1801. One of my chief 
 companions on shipboard for the first few years was a young 
 man, a native of Sutherland, named Donald Gair. Donald, 
 like most of his countrymen, was a staid, decent lad, of a 
 rather melancholy cast; and yet there were occasions when 
 he could be quite gay enough too. We sailed together in 
 the Bedford, under Sir Thomas Baird ; and, after witnessing 
 the mutiny at the Nore, — neither of us did much more than 
 witness it, for in our case it merely transferred the command 
 of the vessel from a very excellent captain to a set of low 
 Irish Doctor's-list men, — we joined Admiral Duncan, then 
 on the Dutch station. We were barely in time to take 
 part in the great action. Donald had been unusually gay 
 all the previous evening. We knew the Dutch had come 
 out, and that there was to be an engagement on the morrow; 
 and, though I felt no fear, the thought that I might have 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 181 
 
 to stand in a few brief hours before my Maker aud my 
 Judge had the effect of rendering me serious. But my 
 companion seemed to have lost all command of himself : he 
 sung, and leaped, and shouted, not like one intoxicated, — 
 there was nothing of intoxication about him, — but under 
 the influence of a wild irrepressible flow of spirits. I took 
 him seriously to task, and reminded him that we might both 
 at that moment be standing on the verge of death and judg- 
 ment. But he seemed more impressed by my remarking 
 that, were his mother to see him, she would say he was/ey. 
 
 " We had never been in action before with our captain, 
 Sir Thomas. He was a grave, and, I believe, God-fearing 
 man, and much a favourite with at least all the better sea- 
 men. But we had not yet made up our minds on his cha- 
 racter ; indeed, no sailor ever does with regard to his officers 
 till he knows how they tight ; and we were all curious to see 
 how the parson, as we used to call him, would behave himself 
 among the shot. But truly we might have had little fear 
 for him. I have sailed with Nelson, and not Nelson himself 
 ever showed more courage or conduct than Sir Thomas in 
 that action. He made us all lie down beside our guns, and 
 steered us, without firing a shot, into the very thickest of 
 the fight ; and when we did open, masters, every broadside 
 told with fearful effect. I never saw a man issue his com- 
 mands with more coolness or self-possession. 
 
 " There are none of our Continental neighbours who make 
 better seamen, or who fight more doggedly, than the Dutch. 
 We were in a blaze of flame for four hours. Our rigging 
 was slashed to pieces ; and two of our ports were actually 
 knocked into one. There was one fierce, ill-natured Dutch- 
 
182 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 man, in particular, — a fellow as black as night, without so 
 much as a speck of paint or gilding about him, save that he 
 had a red lion on the prow, — that fought us as long as he 
 had a spar standing ; and when he struck at last, fully one- 
 half the crew lay either dead or wounded on the decks, and 
 all his scupper-holes were running blood as freely as ever they 
 had done water at a deck-washing. The Bedford suffered 
 nearly as severely. It is not in the heat of action that we 
 can reckon on the loss we sustain. I saw my comrades fall- 
 ing around me, — falling by the terrible cannon shot, as they 
 came crashing in through our sides ; I felt, too, that our gun 
 wrought more heavily as our numbers were thinning around 
 it; and at times, when some sweeping chain-shot or fatal 
 splinter laid open before me those horrible mysteries of the 
 inner man which nature so sedulously conceals, I was con- 
 scious of a momentary feeling of dread and horror. But in 
 the prevailing mood, an unthinking anger, a dire thirsting 
 after revenge, a dogged, unyielding firmness, were the chief 
 ingredients. I strained every muscle and sinew ; and amid 
 the smoke, and the thunder, and the frightful carnage, fired 
 and loaded, and fired and loaded, and, with every discharge, 
 sent out, as it were, the bitterness of my whole soul against 
 the enemy. But very different were my feelings when vic- 
 tory declared in our favour, and, exhausted and unstrung, I 
 looked abroad among the dead. As I crossed the deck, my 
 feet literally splashed in blood ; and I saw the mangled frag- 
 ments of human bodies sticking in horrid patches to the 
 sides and the beams above. There was a fine little boy 
 aboard, with whom I was an especial favourite. He had 
 been engaged, before the action, in the construction of a toy 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 1S3 
 
 ship, which he intended sending to his mother ; and I used 
 sometimes to assist hira, and to lend him a few simple tools ; 
 and, just as we were bearing down on the enemy, he had 
 come running up to me with a knife, which he had borrowed 
 from me a short time before. 
 
 " ' Alick, Alick,' he said, ' I have brought you your knife : 
 we are going into action, you know, and I may be killed, 
 and then you would lose it.' 
 
 " Poor little fellow ! The first body I recognised was his. 
 Both his arms had been fearfully shattered by a cannon shot, 
 and the surgeon's tourniquets, which had been fastened be- 
 low the shoulders, were still there ; but he had expired ere 
 the amputating knife had been applied. As I stood beside 
 the body, little in love with war, masters, a comrade came 
 up to me, to say that my friend and countryman, Donald 
 Gair, lay mortally wounded in the cockpit. I went instantly 
 down to him. But never shall I forget, though never may 
 I attempt to describe, what I witnessed that day, in that 
 frightful scene of death and suffering. Donald lay in a low 
 hammock, raised not a foot over the deck ; and there was no 
 one beside him, for the surgeons had seen at a glance the 
 hopelessness of his case, and were busied about others of 
 whom they had hope. He lay on his back, breathing very 
 hard, but perfectly insensible ; and in the middle of his fore- 
 head there was a round little hole, without so much as a speck 
 of blood about it, where a musket bullet had passed through 
 the brain. He continued to breathe for about two hours ; 
 and when he expired, I wrapped the body decently up in a 
 hammock, and saw it committed to the deep. The years 
 passed ; and, after looking death in the face in many a storm 
 
184 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 and many a battle, peace was proclaimed, and I returned to 
 my friends and my -country. 
 
 " A few weeks after my arrival, an elderly Highland 
 woman, who had travelled all the way from the farther side 
 of Loch Shin to see me, came to our door. She was the 
 mother of Donald Gair, and had taken her melancholy jour- 
 ney to hear from me all she might regarding the last moments 
 and death of her son. She had no English, and I had not 
 Gaelic enough to converse with her; but my mother, who 
 had received her with a sympathy all the deeper from the 
 thought that her own son might have been now in Donald's 
 place, served as our interpreter. She was strangely inquisi- 
 tive, though the little she heard served only to increase her 
 grief; and you may believe it was not much I could find 
 heart to tell her ; for what was there in the circumstances of 
 my comrade's death to afford pleasure to his mother 1 And 
 so I waived her questions regarding his wound and his burial 
 as I best could. 
 
 " 'Ah,' said the poor woman to my mother, ' he need not 
 be afraid to tell me all. I know too, too well, that my Do- 
 nald's body was thrown into the sea ; I knew of it long ere 
 it happened ; and I have long tried to reconcile my mind to 
 it, — tried when he was a boy even ; and so you need not be 
 afraid to tell me now.' 
 
 " 'And how,' asked my mother, whose curiosity was ex- 
 cited, ' could you have thought of it so early T 
 
 " 'I lived,' rejoined the woman, c at the time of Donald's 
 birth, in a lonely shieling among the Sutherland hills, — a 
 full day's journey from the nearest church. It was a long, 
 weary road, over moors and mosses. It was in the winter 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 1S5 
 
 season too, when the days are short; and so, in bringing 
 Donald to be baptized, we had to remain a night by the way, 
 in the honse of a friend. We there found an old woman of 
 so peculiar an appearance, that, when she asked me for the 
 child, I at first declined giving it, fearing she was mad, and 
 might do it harm. The people of the house, however, as- 
 sured me she was incapable of hurting it ; and so I placed it 
 on her lap. She took it up in her arms, and began to sing- 
 to it ; but it was such a song as none of us had ever heard 
 before. 
 
 " ' Poor little stranger !' she said, ' thou hast come into the 
 world in an evil time. The mists are on the hills, gloomy 
 and dark, and the rain lies chill on the heather ; and thou, 
 poor little thing, hast a long journey through the sharp, 
 biting winds, and thou art helpless and cold. Oh, but thy 
 long after-journey is as dreary and dark. A wanderer slialt 
 thou be over the land and the ocean j and in the ocean shalt 
 thou lie at last. Poor little thing, I have waited for thee 
 long. I saw thee in thy wanderings, and in thy shroud, ere 
 thy mother brought thee to the door ; and the sounds of the 
 sea, and of the deadly guns, are still ringing in my ears. Go, 
 poor little thing, to thy mother. Bitterly shall she yet weep 
 for thee, and no wonder • but no one shall ever weep over 
 thy grave, or mark where thou liest amid the deep green, 
 with the shark and the seal. 
 
 " ' From that evening,' continued the mother of my 
 friend, ' I have tried to reconcile my mind to what was to 
 happen Donald. But Oh, the fond, foolish heart ! I loved 
 him more than any of his brothers, because I was to lose him 
 soon ■ and though, when he left me, I took farewell of him 
 
18G TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 for ever, — for I knew I was never, never to see him more, 
 — I felt, till the news reached me of his fall in battle, as if 
 he were living in his coffin. But Oh ! do tell me all you 
 know of his death. I am old and weak, but I have travelled 
 far, far to see you, that I might hear all ; and surely, for the 
 regard you bore to Donald, you will not suffer me to return 
 as I came.' 
 
 " But I need not dwell longer on the story. I imparted 
 to the poor woman all the circumstances of her son's death, 
 as I have done to you ; and, shocking as they may seem, I 
 found that she felt rather relieved than otherwise." 
 
 " This is not quite the country of the second sight," said 
 my friend ; " it is too much on the borders of the Lowlands. 
 The gift seems restricted to the Highlands alone, and it is 
 now fast wearing out even there." 
 
 " And weel it is," said one of the men, " that it should 
 be sae. It is surely a miserable thing to ken o' coming evil, 
 if we just merely ken that it is coming, an' that come it 
 must, do what we may. Hae ye ever heard the story o' the 
 kelpie that wons in the Conon V 
 My friend replied in the negative. 
 
 THE STOEY OF THE DOOMED EIDER. 
 
 " The Conon," continued the man, " is as bonny a river 
 as we hae in a' the north country. There's mony a sweet 
 sunny spot on its banks ; an' mony a time an' aft hae I 
 waded through its shallows, when a boy, to set my little 
 scantling-line for the trouts an' the eels, or to gather the big 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 187 
 
 pearl-mussels that lie sae thick in the fords. But its bonny 
 wooded banks are places for enjoying the day in, — no for pass- 
 ing the nicht. I kenna how it is : it's nane o' your wild 
 streams, that wander desolate through a desert country, like 
 the Avon, or that come rushing down in foam and thunder, 
 owre broken rocks, like the Foyers, or that wallow in dark- 
 ness, deep, deep in the bowels o' the earth, like the fearfu' 
 Auldgraunt \ an' yet no ane o' these rivers has mair or 
 frightfuler stories connected wi' it than the Conon. Ane 
 can hardly saunter owre half-a-mile in its course, frae where 
 it leaves Contin till where it enters the sea, without passing 
 owre the scene o' some frightful auld legend o' the kelpie or 
 the water-wraith. And ane o' the maist frightful looking 
 o' these places is to be found among the woods o' Conon 
 House. Ye enter a swampy meadow, that waves wi' flags 
 an' rushes like a corn-field in harvest, an' see a hillock 
 covered wi' willows rising like an island in the midst. There 
 are thick mirk woods on ilka side ; the river, dark an' awe- 
 some, an' whirling round and round in mossy eddies, sweeps 
 away behind it j an' there is an auld burying-ground, wi' the 
 broken ruins o' an auld Papist kirk, on the tap. Ane can 
 still see among the rougher stanes the rose- wrought mullions 
 of an arched window, an' the trough that ance held the holy 
 water. About twa hunder years ago, — a wee mair, maybe, 
 or a wee less, for ane canna be very sure o' the date o' thae 
 auld stories, — the building was entire ; an' a spot near it, 
 whar the wood now grows thickest, was laid out in a corn- 
 field. The marks o' the furrows may still be seen amang 
 the trees. A party o' Highlanders were busily engaged a'e 
 day in harvest in cutting down the corn o' that field ; an' 
 
188 TALES A3D SKETCHES. 
 
 just aboot noon, when the sun shone brightest, an' they were 
 busiest in the work, they heard a voice frae the river ex- 
 claim, — ' The hour, but not the man, has come.' Sure 
 enough, on looking round, there was the kelpie standin' in 
 what they ca' a fause ford, just foment the auld kirk. There 
 is a deep, black pool baith aboon an' below, but i' the ford 
 there's a bonnie ripple, that shows, as ane might think, but 
 little depth o' water ; an' just i' the middle o' that, in a 
 place where a horse might swim, stood the kelpie. An' it 
 again repeated its words, — ' The hour, but not the man, has 
 come ;' an' then, flashing through the water like a drake, it 
 disappeared in the lower pool. When the folk stood won- 
 dering what the creature might mean, the} r saw a man on 
 horseback come spurring down the hill in hot haste, making 
 straight for the fause ford. They could then understand her 
 words at ance ; an' four o' the stoutest o' them sprang oot 
 frae amang the corn, to warn him o' his danger, an' keep him 
 back. An' sae they taulcl him what they had seen an' 
 heard, an' urged him either to turn back an' tak' anither 
 road, or stay for an hour or sae where he was. But he just 
 wadna hear them, for he was baith unbelieving an' in haste, 
 an' would hae taen the ford for a' they could say, hadna the 
 Highlanders, determined on saving him whether he would 
 or no, gathered round him an' pulled him frae his horse, an' 
 then, to mak' sure o' him, locked him up in the auld kirk. 
 Weel, when the hour had gone by, — the fatal hour o' the 
 kelpie, — they flung open the door, an' cried to him that he 
 might noo gang on his journey. Ah, but there was nae 
 answer, though ; an' sae they cried a second time, an' there 
 was nae answer still ; an' then they went in, and found him 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 189 
 
 lying stiff an' canld on the floor, wi' his face buried in the 
 water o' the very stane trough that we may still see anion g 
 the ruins. His hour had come, an' he had fallen in a fit, as 
 'twould seem, head foremost among the water o' the trough, 
 where he had been smothered ; an' sae, ye see, the prophecy 
 o' the kelpie availed nothing." 
 
 " The very story," exclaimed my friend, " to which Sir 
 "Walter alludes, in one of the notes to ' The Heart of Mid- 
 Lothian.' The kelpie, you may remember, furnishes him 
 with a motto to the chapter in which he describes the 
 gathering of all Edinburgh to witness the execution of 
 Porteous, and their irrepressible wrath on ascertaining that 
 there was to be no execution, — ' The hour, but not the 
 man, is come.' " 
 
 " I remember making quite the same discovery," I re- 
 plied, " about twelve years ago, when I resided for several 
 months on the banks of the Conon, not half-a-mile from the 
 scene of the story. One might fill a little book with legends 
 of the Conon. The fords of the river are dangerous, espe- 
 cially in the winter season ; and about thirty years ago, be- 
 fore the erection of the fine stone bridge below Conon House, 
 scarcely a winter passed in which fatal accidents did not 
 occur ; and these were almost invariably traced to the mur- 
 derous malice of the water-wraith." 
 
 " But who or what is the water-wraith?" said my friend : 
 " we heard just now of the kelpie, and it is the kelpie that 
 Sir Walter quotes." 
 
 u Ah," I replied, " but w r e must not confound the kelpie 
 and the water-wraith, as has become the custom in these days 
 of incredulity. No two spirits, though they were both spirits 
 
190 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 of the lake and the river, could be more different. The kel- 
 pie invariably appeared in the form of a young horse ; the 
 water-wraith in that of a very tall woman, dressed in green, 
 with a withered, meagre countenance, ever distorted by a 
 malignant scowl. It is the water-wraith, not the kelpie, 
 whom Sir Walter should have quoted ; and yet I could tell 
 you curious stories of the kelpie too." 
 
 " We must have them all," said my friend, " ere we part. 
 Meanwhile, I should like to hear some of your stories of the 
 Conon. 
 
 "As related by me," I replied, "you will find them rather 
 meagre in their details. In my evening walks along the river, 
 I have passed the ford a hundred times, out of which, only a 
 twelvemonth before, as a traveller was entering it on a moon- 
 light night, the water-wraith started up, not four yards in 
 front of him, and pointed at him with her long skinny fin- 
 gers, as if in mockery. I have leaned against the identical 
 tree to which a poor Highlander clung, when, on fording the 
 river by night, he was seized by the goblin. A lad who ac- 
 companied him, and who had succeeded in gaining the bank, 
 strove to assist him, but in vain : the poor man was dragged 
 from his hold into the current, where he perished. The spot 
 has been pointed out to me, too, in the opening of the river, 
 where one of our Cromarty fishermen, who had anchored his 
 yawl for the night, was laid hold of by the spectre when lying 
 asleep on the beams, and almost dragged over the gunwale 
 into the water. Our seafaring men still avoid dropping anchor, 
 if they possibly can, after the sun has set, in what they term 
 the fresh, — that is, in those upper parts of the Frith where 
 the waters of the river predominate over those of the sea. 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 191 
 
 " The scene of what is deemed one of the best authenti- 
 cated stories of the water-wraith lies a few miles higher up 
 the river. It is a deep, broad ford, through which horsemen 
 coming from the south pass to Brahan Castle. A thick wood 
 hangs over it on the one side ; on the other it is skirted by 
 a straggling line of alders and a bleak moor. On a winter 
 night, about twenty-five years ago, a servant of the late Lord 
 Seaforth had been drinking with some companions till a late 
 hour, in a small house in the upper part of the moor ; and 
 when the party broke up, he was accompanied by two of them 
 to the ford. The moon was at full, and the river, though 
 pretty deep in flood, seemed noway formidable to the ser- 
 vant : he was a young, vigorous man, and mounted on a 
 powerful horse ; and he had forded it, when half a yard 
 higher on the bank, twenty times before. As he entered the 
 ford, a thick cloud obscured the moon ; but his companions 
 could see him guiding the animal. He rode in a slanting 
 direction across the stream, until he had reached nearly the 
 middle, when a dark, tall figure seemed to start out of the 
 water, and lay hold of him. There was a loud cry of distress 
 and terror, and a frightful snorting and plunging of the horse. 
 A moment passed, and the terrified animal was seen straining 
 towards the opposite bank, and the ill-fated rider struggling 
 in the stream. In a moment more he had disappeared." 
 
 THE STORY OF FAIRBURN'S GHOST. 
 
 u I suld weel keen the Conon," said one of the women, who 
 had not yet joined in the conversation. " I was born no a 
 
192 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 stane's cast frae the side o't. My mother lived in her last 
 days beside the auld Tower o' Fairburn, that stands sae like 
 a ghaist aboon the river, an' looks down on a' its turns and 
 windings frae Contin to the sea. My faither, too, for a twelve- 
 month or sae afore his death, had a boat on ane o' its ferries, 
 for the crossing, on week days, o' passengers, an' o' the kirk- 
 going folks on Sunday. He had a little bit farm beside the 
 Conon ; an' just got the boat by way o' eiking out his means, 
 — for we had aye aneugh to do at rent-time, an' had maybe 
 less than plenty through a' the rest o' the year besides. 
 Weel, for the first ten months or sae, the boat did brawiy. 
 The Castle o' Brahan is no half a mile frae the ferry, an' 
 there were aye a hantle o' gran' folk comin' and gangin' frae 
 the Mackenzie, an' my faithei* had the crossin' o' them a'. 
 An', besides, at Marti'mas, the kirk-going people used to send 
 him firlots o' bear an' pecks o' oatmeal ; an' he soon began to 
 find that the bit boat was to do mair towards paying the rent 
 o' the farm than the farm itsel'. 
 
 " The Tower o' Fairburn is aboot a mile and a half aboon 
 the ferry. It stands by itsel' on the tap o' a heathery hill, 
 an there are twa higher hills behind it. Beyond, there 
 spreads a black dreary desert, where ane micht wander a lang 
 simmer's day withoot seeing the face o' a human creature, or 
 the kindly smoke o' a lum. I daresay nane o' you hae heard 
 hoo the Mackenzies o' Fairburn an' the Chishohns o' Strath- 
 glass parted that bit o' kintra atween them. Nane o' them 
 could tell where the lands o' the ane ended or the ither be- 
 gan, an' they were that way for generations, till they at last 
 thocht them o' a plan o' division. Each o' them gat an auld 
 wife o' seventy-five, an' they set them alf a'e Monday at the 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 193 
 
 same time, the ane frae Ercliless Castle, an' the ither frae 
 the Tower, warning them aforehand, that the braidness o' 
 their maisters' lands depended on their speed j for where the 
 twa would meet amang the hills, there would be the boun- 
 dary. An' you may be sure that neither o' them lingered 
 by the way that morning. They kent there was mony an e'e 
 on them, an' that their names would be spoken o' in the kin- 
 tra-side lang after themsels were dead an' gane ; but it sae 
 happened that Fairbum's carline, wha had been his nurse, 
 was ane o' the slampest women in a' the north o' Scotland, 
 young or auld ; an', though the ither did weel, she did sae 
 meikle better, that she had got owre twenty lang Highland 
 miles or the ither had got owre fifteen. They say it was a 
 droll sicht to see them at the meeting, — they were baith tired 
 almost to fainting ; but no sooner did they come in sicht o' 
 ane anither, at the distance o' a mile or sae, than they began 
 to run. An' they ran, an' better ran, till they met at a little 
 bumie ; an' there wad they hae focht, though they had ne'er 
 seen ane anither atween the een afore, had they had strength 
 eneugh left them ; but they had neither pith for fechtin' nor. 
 breath for scoldin', an' sae they just sat down an' girned at 
 ane anither across the stripe. The Tower o' Fairburn is nae- 
 thing noo but a dismal ruin o' five broken storeys, — the ane 
 aboon the ither, — an' the lands hae gane oot o' the auld 
 family ; but the story o' the twa auld wives is a weel-kent 
 story still. 
 
 " The laird o' Fairburn, in my faither's time, was as fine 
 an open-hearted gentleman as was in the haill country. He 
 was just particular gude to the puir ; but the family had ever 
 been that ; ay, in their roughest days, even whan the Tower 
 
 N 
 
19-1 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 had neither door nor window in the lower storey, an' only a 
 wheen shot-holes in the storey aboon. There wasna a puir 
 thing in the kintra but had reason to bless the laird ; an' at 
 a'e time he had nae fewer than twelve puir orphans living 
 about his house at ance. Nor was he in the least a proud, 
 haughty man : he wad chat for hours thegither wi' ane o' his 
 puirest tenants ; an' ilka time he crossed the ferry, he wad 
 tak' my faith er wi' him, for company just, maybe half a mile 
 on his way out or hame. "Weel, it was a'e nicht about the 
 end o' May, — a bonny nicht, an hour or sae after sun-down, 
 — an' my faither was mooring his boat, afore going to bed, to 
 an auld oak tree, whan wha does he see but the laird o' Fair- 
 burn coming down the bank 1 Od, thocht he, what can be 
 takin' the laird frae hame sae late as this ? I thocht he had 
 been no weel. The laird cam' steppin' into the boat, but, 
 instead o' speakin' frankly, as he used to do, he just waved 
 his hand, as the proudest gentleman in the kintra micht, an' 
 pointed to the ither side. My faither rowed him across ; 
 but, Oh ! the boat felt unco dead an' heavy, an' the water 
 stuck around the oars as gin it had been tar ; an' he had just 
 eneugh ado, though there was but little tide in the river, to 
 mak' oot the ither side. The laird stepped oot, an' then 
 stood, as he used to do, on the bank, to gie my faither time 
 to fasten his boat, an' come alang wi' him ; an' were it no for 
 that, the puir man wadna hae thocht o' going wi' him that 
 nicht ; but as it was, he just moored his boat an' went. At 
 first he thocht the laird must hae got some bad news that 
 made him sae dull, and sae he spoke on, to amuse him, aboot 
 the weather an' the markets ; but he found he could get very 
 little to say, an' he felt as arc an' eerie in passin through 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 195 
 
 the woods as gin lie had been passin' alane through a kirk- 
 yard. He noticed, too, that there was a fearsome flichtering 
 an' shriekin' amang the birds that lodged in the tree-taps 
 aboon them ; an' that, as they passed the Talisoe, there was 
 a collie on the tap o' a hillock, that set np the awfulest yowl- 
 ing he had ever heard. He stood for a while in sheer con- 
 sternation, but the laird beckoned him on, just as he had done 
 at the river side, an' sae he gaed a bittie farther alang the 
 wild rocky glen that opens into the deer-park. But Oh, the 
 fright that was amang the deer ! They had been lyin' asleep 
 on the knolls, by sixes an' sevens; an' up they a' started at 
 ance, and gaed driving atf to the far end o' the park, as if 
 they couldna be far eneugh frae my faither an' the laird. 
 Weelj my faither stood again, an' the laird beckoned an' 
 beckoned as afore ; but, Gude tak' us a' in keeping ! whan 
 my faither looked up in his face, he saw it was the face o' a 
 corp : it was white an' stiff, an' the nose was thin an' sharp, 
 an' there was nae winking wi' the wide open een. Gude 
 preserve us ! my faither didna ken where he was stan'in, — 
 didna ken what he was cloin' ; an', though he kept his feet, 
 lie was just in a kind o' swarf, like. The laird spoke twa or 
 three words to him, — something about the orphans, he thocht; 
 but he was in such a state that he couldna tell what ; an' 
 whan he cam' to himsel' the apparition was awa'. It was a 
 bonny clear nicht whan they had crossed the Conon; but 
 there had been a gatherin' o' black cluds i' the lift as they 
 gaed, an' there noo cam' on, in the clap o' a han', ane o' the 
 fearsomest storms o' thunder an' lightning that was ever seen 
 in the country. There was a thick gurly aik smashed to 
 shivers owre my faither's head, though nane o' the splinters 
 
.196 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 steered him ; an' whan he reached the river, it was roarin^ 
 frae bank to brae like a little ocean ; for a water-spout had 
 broken amang the hills, an' the trees it had torn doun wi' it 
 were darting alang the current like arrows. He crossed in 
 nae little danger, an' took to his bed ; an', though he raise 
 an' went aboot his wark for twa or three months after, he was 
 never, never his ain man again. It was found that the laird 
 had departed no five minutes afore his apparition had come 
 to the ferry ; an' the very last words he had spoken, — but his 
 mind was carried at the time, — was something aboot my 
 faithei\" 
 
 THE STORY OF THE LAND FACTOR, 
 
 "There maun hae been something that weighed on his 
 mind," remarked one of the women, " though your faither 
 had nae power to get it frae him. I mind that, whan I was ; 
 a lassie, there happened something o' the same kind. My 
 faither had been a tacksman on the estate o' Blackball ; an* 
 as the land was sour an' wat, an' the seasons for a while back- 
 ward, he aye contrived — for he was a hard-working, carefu' 
 man — to keep us a' in meat and claith, and to meet wi' the 
 factor. But, waes me ! he was sune ta'en frae us. In the 
 middle o' the seed-time, there cam' a bad fever intil the coun- 
 try ; an' the very first that died o't was my puir father. My 
 mither did her best to keep the farm, an' baud us a' thegither. 
 She got a carefu', decent lad to manage for her, an' her ain 
 e'e was on everything ; an', had it no been for the cruel, cruel 
 factor, she micht hae dune gey weel. But never had the puir 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 197 
 
 tenant a waur friend than Ranald Keilly. He was a toun 
 writer, an' had made a sort o' living, afore he got the factor- 
 ship, just as toun writers do in ordinal"'. He used to be 
 gettin' the haud o' auld wives' posies when they died ; an' 
 there were aye some litigeous, troublesome folk in the place, 
 too, that kept him doing a little in the way o' troublin' their 
 neebors ; an' sometimes, when some daft, gowked man, o' 
 mair means than sense, couldna mismanage his ain affairs 
 eneugh, he got Keilly to mismanage them for him. An' sae 
 he had picked up a bare livin' in this way ; but the factor- 
 ship made him just a gentleman. But, Oh, an ill use did he 
 mak' o' the power that it gied him owre puir, honest folk ! 
 Ye maun ken that, gin they were puir, he liked them a' the 
 waur for being honest ; but, I dare say, that was natural 
 eneugh for the like o' him. He contrived to be baith writer 
 an' factor, ye see ; an' it wad just seem that his chief aim in 
 the a'e capacity was to find employment for himsel' in the 
 ither. If a puir tenant was but a day behind-hand wi' his 
 rent, he had creatures o' his ain that used to gang half-an'- 
 half wi' him in their fees ; an' them he wad send aff to poind 
 him • an' then, if the expenses o' the poinding werena forth- 
 coming, as weel as what was owing to the master, he wad 
 hae a roup o' the stocking twa or three days after, an' anither 
 account, as a man o' business, for that. An when things 
 were going dog-cheap, — as he took care that they should 
 sometimes gang, — he used to buy them in for himsel', an' 
 pairt wi' them again for maybe twice the money. The laird 
 was a quiet, silly, good-natured man; an', though he was 
 tauld weel o' the factor at times, ay, an' believed it too, he 
 just used to say, — 'Oh, puir Keilly, what wad he do gin I 
 
198 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 were to pairt wi 5 him 1 He wad just starve.' An' Oh, 
 sirs, his pity for him was bitter cruelty to mony, mony a puir 
 tenant, an' to my mither aniang the lave. 
 
 " The year after my faither's death was cauld and wat, an' 
 oor stuff remained sae lang green, that we just thocht we 
 wouklna get it cut ava. An' when we did get it cut, the 
 stacks, for the first whilie, were aye heatin' wi' us ; an' when 
 Marti'mas came, the grain was still saft an' milky, an' no fit 
 for the market. The term cam' round, an' there was little 
 to gie the factor in the shape o' money, though there was 
 baith corn and cattle ; an' a' that we wanted was just a little 
 time. All, but we had fa' en into the hands o' ane that never 
 kent pity. My mither hadna the money gin, as it were, the 
 day, an' on the morn the messengers cam' to poind. The 
 roup was no a week after ; an' Oh, it was a grievous sicht 
 to see how the crop an' the cattle went for just naething. 
 The formers were a' puirly aff with the late ha'rst, an' had 
 nae money to spare ; an' sae the factor knocked in ilka thing 
 to himsel', wi' hardly a bid against him. He was a rough- 
 faced, little man, wi' a red, hooked nose, — a gude deal gi'en 
 to whisky, an' very wild an' desperate when he had ta'en a 
 glass or twa aboon ordinar' ; an' on the day o' the roup he 
 raged like a perfect madman. My mither spoke to him 
 again an' again, wi' the tear in her e'e, an' implored him, for 
 the sake o' the orphan an' the widow, no to hurry hersel' an' 
 her bairns ; but he just cursed an' swore a' the mair, an' 
 knocked down the stacks an' the kye a' the faster ; an' whan 
 she spoke to him o' the ane aboon a', he said that Providence 
 gied lang credit an' reckoned on a lang day, an' that he wald 
 tak' him intil his ain hands. AVeel, the roup cam' to an end, 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 199 
 
 an' the sum o' the whole diclna come to meikle mair nor the 
 rent, an' clear the factor's lang, lang account for expenses ; 
 an' at nicht my mither was a ruined woman. The factor 
 staid up late an' lang, drinkin' wi' some creatures o' his ain ; 
 an' the last words he said on going to his bed was, that he 
 hadna made a better day's wark for a twelvemonth. But, 
 Gude tak' us a' in keeping ! in the morning he was a corp, 
 — a cauld, lifeless corp, wi' a face as black as my bonnet. 
 
 " Weel, he was buried, an' there was a grand character o' 
 him putten in the newspapers, an' we a' thocht we were to 
 hear nae mair aboot him. My mither got a wee bittie o' a 
 house on the farm o' a neebor, an' there we lived dowie 
 enengh ; but she was aye an eident, workin' woman, an' she 
 now span late an' early for some o' her auld friends, the far- 
 mers' wives • an' her sair-won penny, wi' what we got frae 
 kindly folk wha minded us in 1 better times, kept us a' alive. 
 Meanwhile, strange stories o' the dead factor began to gang 
 aboot the kintra. First, his servants, it was said, were hear- 
 ing arc, curious noises in his counting-office. The door was 
 baith locked an' sealed, waiting till his friends would cast up, 
 for there were some doots aboot them ; but, locked an' sealed 
 as it was, they could hear it opening and shutting every 
 nicht, an' hear a rustlin' among the papers, as gin there had 
 been half-a-dozen writers scribblin' among them at ance. 
 An' then, Gude preserve us a' ! they could hear Keilly him- 
 sel', as if he were dictating to his clerk. An', last o' a, they 
 could see him in the gloamin', nicht an' mornin', ganging 
 aboot his house, wringing his hands, an' aye, aye muttering 
 to himsel' aboot roups an' poindings. The servant-girls left 
 the place to himsel' \ an' the twa lads that wrought his farm, 
 
200 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 an' slept in a hay-loft, were sae disturbed nicht after niclit, 
 that they had just to leave it to himsel' too. 
 
 " My mither was a'e nicht wi' some o' her spinnin' at a 
 neeborin' farmer's, — a worthy God-fearing man, an' an elder 
 o' the kirk. It was in the simmer time, an' the nicht was 
 bricht an' bonny ; but, in her backcoming, she had to pass 
 the empty house o' the dead factor, an' the elder said that he 
 would tak' a step hame wi' her, for fear she michtna be that 
 easy in her mind. An' the honest man did sae. Naething 
 haj^pened them in the passin', except that a dun cow, ance 
 a great favourite o' my mither's, cam' up lowing to them, 
 puir beast, as gin she would hae better liked to be gaun 
 hame wi' my mither than stay where she was. But the 
 elder didna get aff sae easy in the backcoming. He was 
 passin' beside a thick hedge, whan what does he see, but a 
 man inside the hedge, takin' step for step wi' him as he gaed ? 
 The man wore a dun coat, an' had a huntin' whip under his 
 arm, an' walked, as the elder thocht, very like what the 
 dead factor used to do whan he had gotten a glass or twa 
 aboon ordinar. "YVeel, they cam' to a slap in the hedge, an' 
 out cam' the man at the slap ; an', Glide tak' us a' in keepin ! 
 it was, sure eneugh, the dead factor himsel'. There were his 
 hook nose, an his rough, red face, — though it was maybe 
 bluer noo than red ; an' there were the boots an' the dun 
 coat he had worn at my mither's roup, an' the very whip he 
 had lashed a puir gangrel woman wi' no a week afore his 
 death. He was mutterin' something to himsel' ; but the 
 elder could only hear a wordie noo an' then. ' Poind an' 
 roup,' he would say, — ' poind an' roup ;' an' then there would 
 come out a blatter o' curses, — ' Hell, hell ! an' damn, damn !' 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 201 
 
 The elder was a wee fear-stricken at first, — as wha wadna 1 
 but then the ill words, an' the way they were said, made him 
 angry ; for he could never bear ill words without checking 
 them ; an 1 sae he turned round wi' a stern brow, an asked 
 the appearance what it wanted, an' why it should hae come 
 to disturb the peace o' the kintra, and to disturb him 1 It 
 stood still at that, an' said, wi' an awsome grane, that it 
 couldna be quiet in the grave till there were some justice 
 done to Widow Stuart. It then tauld him that there were 
 forty gowd guineas in a secret drawer in his desk, that hadna 
 been found, an' tauld him where to get them, an that he 
 wad need gang wi' the laird an' the minister to the drawer, 
 an gie them a' to the widow. It couldna hae rest till then, 
 it said, nor wad the kintra hae rest either. It willed that 
 the lave o' the gear should be gien to the puir o' the parish ; 
 for nane o' the twa folk that laid claim to it had the shadow 
 o' a right. An' wi' that the appearance left him. It just 
 went back through the slap in the hedge ; an', as it stepped 
 owre the ditch, vanished in a puff o' smoke. 
 
 " Weel, but to cut short a lang story, — the laird and the 
 minister were at first gay slow o' belief : no that they mis- 
 doubted the elder, but they thocht that he must hae been 
 deceived by a sort o' wakin' dream. But they soon changed 
 their minds, for, sure enough, they found the forty guineas 
 in the secret drawer. An' the news they got frae the south 
 about Keilly was just as the appearance had said ; — no ane 
 mair nor anither had a richt to his gear, for he had been a 
 foundlin', an' had nae friends. An' sae my mither got the 
 guineas, an' the parish got the rest, an' there was nae mair 
 heard o' the apparition. We didna get back oor auld farm ; 
 
202 TALES AXD SKETCHES. 
 
 but the laird gae us a bittie that served oor turn as weel ; 
 an', or my mither was ca'ed awa frae us, we were a settled 
 in the warld, an' doin' for oorsels/' 
 
 THE STORY OF THE MEALMONGER. 
 
 " It is wonderful," remarked the decent-looking, elderlv 
 man who had contributed the story of Donald Gair, — " it is 
 Avonderful how long a recollection of that kind may live in 
 the memory without one's knowing it is there. There is no 
 possibility of one taking an inventory of one's recollections. 
 They live unnoted and asleep, till roused by some likeness of 
 themselves, and then up they start, and answer to it, as 
 'face answereth to face in a glass.' There conies a story 
 into my mind, much like the last, that has lain there all un- 
 known to me for the last thirty years, nor have I heard any 
 one mention it since ; and yet when I was a boy no stoiy 
 could be better known. You have all heard of the dear 
 years that followed the harvest of '40, and how fearfully 
 they bore on the poor. The scarcity, doubtless, came mainly 
 from the hand of Providence, and yet man had his share in 
 it too. There were forestalled of the market, who gathered 
 their miserable gains by heightening the already enormous 
 price of victuals, — thus adding starvation to hunger ; and 
 among the best known and most execrated of these was one 
 M'Kechan, a residenter in the neighbouring parish. He was 
 a heard-hearted, foul-spoken man ; and often what he said 
 exasperated the people as much against him as what he did. 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 203 
 
 When, on one occasion, he bought up all the victual in a 
 market, there was a wringing of hands among the women, 
 and they cursed him to his face ; but when he added insult 
 to injury, and told them, in his pride, that he had not left 
 them an ounce to foul their teeth, they would that instant 
 have taken his life, had not his horse carried him through. 
 He was a mean, too, as well as a hard-hearted man, and used 
 small measures and light weights. But he made money, and 
 deemed himself in a fair way of gaining a character on the 
 strength of that alone, when he was seized by a fever, and 
 died after a few days' illness. Solomon tells us, that when 
 the wicked perish, there is shouting : there was little grief 
 in the sheriffdom when M'Kechan died ; but his relatives 
 buried him decently ; and, in the course of the next fort- 
 night, the meal fell twopence the peck. You know the 
 burying-ground of St Bennet's : the chapel has long since 
 been ruinous, and a row of wasted elms, with white skeleton- 
 looking tops, run around the enclosure, and look over the 
 rielcls that surround it on every side. It lies out of the way 
 of any thoroughfare, and months may sometimes pass, when 
 burials are unfrequent, in which no one goes near it. It was 
 in St Bennet's that M'Kechan was buried ; and the people 
 about the farm-house that lies nearest it were surprised, for 
 the first month after his death, to see the figure of a man, 
 evening and morning, just a few minutes before the sun had 
 risen, and a few after it had set, walking round the yard 
 under the elms three times, and always disappearing when 
 it had taken the last turn beside an old tomb near the gate. 
 It was of course always clear daylight when they saw the 
 figure ; and the month passed ere they could bring them- 
 
204 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 selves to suppose that it was other than a thing of flesh and 
 blood like themselves. The strange regularity of its visits, 
 however, at length bred suspicion ; and the farmer himself, 
 — a plain, decent man, of more true courage than men of 
 twice the pretence, — determined one evening on watching 
 it. He took his place outside the wall a little before sunset ; 
 and no sooner had the red light died away on the elm tops, 
 than up started the figure from among the ruins on the 
 opposite side of the burying-ground, and came onward in 
 its round, muttering incessantly as it came, — ' Oh, for merc}^ 
 sake ! for mercy sake ! a handful of meal : I am starving ; I 
 am starving : a handful of meal !' And then, changing its 
 tone into one still more doleful, — ' Oh,' it exclaimed, ' alas 
 for the little lippie and the little peck ! alas for the little 
 lippie and the little peck !' As it passed, the farmer started 
 up from his seat ; and there, sure enough, was M'Kechan, 
 the corn-factor, in his ordinary dress, and, except that he 
 was thinner and paler than usual, like a man suffering from 
 hunger, presenting nearly his ordinary appearance. The 
 figure passed with a slow, gliding sort of motion ; and, 
 turning the farther corner of the burying-ground, came on- 
 ward in its second round ; but the farmer, though he had 
 felt rather curious than afraid as it went by, found his heart 
 fail him as it approached the second time, and, without wait- 
 ing its coming up, set off homeward through the corn. The 
 apparition continued to take its rounds evening and morn- 
 ing for about two months after, and then disappeared for 
 ever. Meal mongers had to forget the story, and to grow a 
 little less afraid, ere they could cheat with their accustomed 
 coolness. Believe me, such beliefs, whatever may be thought 
 
THE LYKEWAKE. 205 
 
 of them in the present day, have not been without their use 
 in the past." 
 
 As the old man concluded his story, one of the women 
 rose to a table in the little room, and replenished our 
 glasses. We all drank in silence. 
 
 " It is within an hour of midnight," said one of the men, 
 looking at his watch : "we had better recruit the fire, and 
 draw in our chairs. The air aye feels chill at a lykewake or 
 a burial. At this time to-morrow we will be lifting the 
 corpse." 
 
 There was no reply. We all drew in our chairs nearer 
 the fire, and for several minutes there was a pause in the 
 conversation ; but there were more stories to be told, and 
 before the morning many a spirit was evoked from the 
 grave, the vast deep, and the Highland stream. 
 
206 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 BILL WHYTE. 
 
 I had occasion, about three years ago, to visit the ancient 
 burgh of Fortrose. It was early in winter : the days were 
 brief, though pleasant, and the nights long and dark ; and, 
 as there is much in Fortrose which the curious traveller deems 
 interesting, I had lingered amid its burying-grounds and its 
 broken and mouldering tenements till the twilight had fairly 
 set in. I had explored the dilapidated ruins of the Chanonry 
 of Ross ; seen the tomb of old Abbot Boniface, and the bell 
 blessed by the Pope ; run over the complicated tracery of 
 the Runic obelisk, which had been dug up, about sixteen 
 years before, from under the foundations of the old parish 
 church ; and visited the low, long house, with its upper win- 
 dows buried in the thatch, in which the far-famed Sir James 
 Mackintosh had received the first rudiments of his education. 
 And in all this I had been accompanied by a benevolent 
 old man of the place, — a mighty chronicler of the past, who, 
 when a boy, had sat on the same form with Sir James, and 
 who on this occasion had seemed quite as delighted in meet- 
 ing with a patient and interested listener as I had been in 
 finding so intelligent and enthusiastic a storyist. There was 
 little wonder, then, that twilight should have overtaken me 
 in such a place, and in such company. 
 
BILL WHYTE. 207 
 
 There are two roads which ran between Cromarty and 
 Fortrose ; the one, the king's highway ; the other, a narrow 
 footpath that goes winding for several miles under the im- 
 mense wall of cliffs which overhangs the northern shores of 
 the Moray Frith, and then ascends to the top by narrow and 
 doubtful traverses along the face of an immense precipice 
 termed the Scarfs Crag. The latter route is by far the more 
 direct and more pleasant of the two to the day-traveller; 
 but the man should think twice who proposes taking it by 
 night. The Scarf's Crag has been a scene of frightful acci- 
 dents for the last two centuries. It is not yet more than 
 twelve years since a young and very active man was precipi- 
 tated from one of its higher ledges to the very beach, — a 
 sheer descent of nearly two hundred feet ; and a multitude 
 of little cairns which mottle the sandy platform below bear 
 witness to the not unfrequent occurrence of such casualties in 
 the remote past. With the knowledge of all this, however, 
 I had determined on taking the more perilous road. It is 
 fully two miles shorter than the other ; and, besides, in a life 
 of undisturbed security, a slight admixture of that feeling 
 which the sense of danger awakens is a luxury which I have 
 always deemed worth one's while running some little risk to 
 procure. The night fell thick and dark while I was yet hur- 
 rying along the footway which leads under the cliffs ; and, 
 on reaching the Scarf's Crag, I could no longer distinguish 
 the path, nor even catch the huge outline of the precipice 
 between me and the sky. I knew that the moon rose a 
 little after nine ; but it was still early in the evening ; and, 
 deeming it too long to wait its rising, I set myself to grope 
 for the path, when, on turning an abrupt angle, I was dazzled 
 
208 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 by a sudden blaze of light from an opening in the rock. A 
 large fire of furze and brushwood blazed merrily from the in- 
 terior of a low-browed but spacious cave, bronzing with dusky 
 yellow the huge volume of smoke which went rolling out- 
 wards along the roof, and falling red and strong on the face 
 and hands of a thick-set, determined-looking man, well-nigh in 
 his sixtieth year, who was seated before it on a block of stone. 
 I knew him at once, as an intelligent, and, in the main, 
 rather respectable gipsy, whom I had once met with about 
 ten years before, and who had seen some service as a soldier, 
 it was said, in the first British expedition to Egypt. The 
 sight of his fire determined me at once. I resolved on pass- 
 ing the evening with him till the rising of the moon ; and, 
 after a brief explanation, and a blunt, though by no means 
 unkind invitation to a place beside his fire, I took my seat, 
 fronting him, on a block of granite which had been rolled 
 from the neighbouring beach. In less than half an hour we 
 were on as easy terms as if we had been comrades for years ; 
 and, after beating over fifty different topics, he told me the 
 story of his life, and found an attentive and interested au- 
 ditor. 
 
 Who of all my readers is unacquainted with Goldsmith's 
 admirable stories of the sailor with the wooden leg, and the 
 poor half-starved Merry-Andrew ? Independently of the ex- 
 quisite humour of the writer, they are suited to interest us 
 from the sort of cross vistas which they open into scenes of 
 life where every thought, and aim, and incident, has at once 
 all the freshness of novelty and all the truth of nature to 
 recommend it. And I felt nearly the same kind of interest 
 in listening to the narrative of the gipsy. It was much 
 
BILL WHYTE. 209 
 
 longer than either of Goldsmith's stories, and perhaps less 
 characteristic ; but it presented a rather curious picture of a 
 superior nature rising to its proper level through circumstances 
 the most adverse ; and, in the main, pleased me so well, that 
 I think I cannot do better than present it to the reader. 
 
 " I was born, master," said the gipsy, " in this very cave, 
 some sixty years ago, and so am a Scotchman like yourself. 
 My mother, however, belonged to the Debateable-land ; my 
 father was an Englishman ; and of my five sisters, one first 
 saw the light in Jersey, another in Guernsey, a third in 
 Wales, a fourth in Ireland, and the fifth in the Isle of Man. 
 But this is a trifle, master, to what occurs in some families. 
 It can't be now much less than fifty years since my mother 
 left us, one bright sunny day, on the English side of Kelso, 
 and staid away about a week. We thought we had lost her 
 altogether; but back she came at last; and when she did come, 
 she brought with her a small sprig of a lad, of about three 
 summers or thereby. Father grumbled a little. We had 
 got small fry enough already, he said, and bare enough and 
 hungry enough they were at times ; but mother showed him 
 a pouch of yellow pieces, and there was no more grumbling. 
 And so we called the little fellow Bill Whyte, as if he had 
 been one of ourselves ; and he grew up among us, as pretty a 
 fellow as e'er the sun looked upon. I was a few years his 
 senior ; but he soon contrived to get half a foot ahead of me ; 
 and when we quarrelled, as boys will at times, master, I al- 
 ways came off second best. I never knew a fellow of a 
 higher spirit : he would rather starve than beg, a hundred 
 times over, and never stole in his life ; but then for gin-set- 
 ting, and deer-stalking, and black-fishing, not a poacher in 
 
 o 
 
210 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 the country got beyond him; and when there was a smuggler 
 in the Solway, who more active than Bill? He was barely 
 nineteen, poor fellow, when he made the country too hot to 
 hold him. I remember the night as well as if it were yes- 
 terday. The Cat-maran lugger was in the Frith, dye see, a 
 little below Caerlaverock; and father and Bill, and some half- 
 dozen more of our men, were busy in bumping the kegs 
 ashore, and hiding them in the sand. It was a thick smuggy 
 night : we could hardly see fifty yards around us ; and on our 
 last trip, master, when we were down in the water to the 
 gunwale, who should come upon us, in the turning of a hand- 
 spike, but the revenue lads from Kirkcudbright ! They 
 hailed us to strike, in the devil's name. Bill swore he 
 wouldn't Flash went a musket, and the ball whistled 
 through his bonnet. Well, he called on them to row up, 
 and up they came ; but no sooner were they within half-oar's 
 length, than, taking up a keg, and raising it just as he used 
 to do the putting-stone, he made it spin .through their bot- 
 tom, as if the planks were of window glass ; and down went 
 their cutter in half a jiffy. They had wet powder that night, 
 and fired no more bullets. Well, when they were gathering 
 themselves up as they best could, — and, goodness be praised ! 
 there were no drownings amougst them, — we bumped our 
 kegs ashore, hiding them with the others, and then fled up 
 the country. We knew there would be news of our night's 
 work ; and so there was ; for before next evening there 
 were advertisements on every post for the apprehension of 
 Bill, with an offered reward of twenty pounds. 
 
 " Bill was a bit of a scholar, — so am I, for that matter, — 
 and the papers stared him on every side. 
 
BILL WHYTE. 211 
 
 " i Jack,' he said to me, — ' Jack Whyte, this will never 
 do : the law's too strong for us now ; and if I don't make 
 away with myself, they'll either have me tucked up, or sent 
 over seas to slave for life. I'll tell you what I'll do. I 
 stand six feet in my stocking-soles, and good men were never 
 more wanted than at present. I'll cross the country this 
 very night, and away to Edinburgh, where there are troops 
 raising for foreign service. Better a musket than the gal- 
 lows !' 
 
 " ' Well, Bill,' I said, ' I don't care though I go with you. 
 I'm a good enough man for my inches, though I ain't so tall 
 as you, and I'm woundily tired of spoon-making.' 
 
 " And so off we set across the country that very minute, 
 travelling by night only, and passing our days in any hiding 
 hole we could find, till we reached Edinburgh, and there 
 took the bounty. Bill made as pretty a soldier as one could 
 have seen in a regiment ; and, men being scarce, I wasn't 
 rejected neither • and after just three weeks' drilling, — and 
 plaguey weeks they were, — we were shipped off, fully finished, 
 for the south. Bonaparte had gone to Egypt, and we were 
 sent after him to ferret him out ; though we weren't told so 
 at the time. And it was our good luck, master, to be put 
 aboard of the same transport. 
 
 " Nothing like seeing the world, for making a man smart. 
 We had all sorts of people in our regiment, — from the 
 broken-down gentleman to the broken-down lamplighter; 
 and Bill was catching from the best of them all he could. 
 He knew he wasn't a gipsy, and had always an eye to get- 
 ting on in the world ; and as the voyage was a woundy long 
 one, and we had the regimental schoolmaster aboard, Bill 
 
212 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 was a smarter fellow at the end of it than he had been at 
 the beginning. Well, we reached Aboukir Bay at last. You 
 have never been in Egypt, master ; but just look across the 
 Moray Frith here, on a sunshiny day, and you will see a 
 picture of it, if you but strike off the blue Highland hills 
 that rise behind ? from the long range of low sandy hillocks 
 that stretches away along the coast between Findhorn and 
 Nairn. I don't think it was worth all the trouble it cost 
 us ; but the King surely knew best. Bill and I were in the 
 first detachment, and we had to clear the way for the rest. 
 The French were drawn up on the shore, as thick as flies on 
 a dead snake, and the bullets rattled round us like a shower 
 of May hail. It was a glorious sight, master, for a bold 
 heart. The entire line of sandy coast seemed one unbroken 
 streak of Are and smoke ; and we could see the old tower of 
 Aboukir rising like a fiery dragon at the one end, and the 
 straggling village of Rosetta, half-cloud half-flame, stretching 
 away on the other. There was a line of launches and gun- 
 boats behind us, that kept up an incessant fire on the enemy, 
 and shot and shell went booming over our heads. We rowed 
 shore wards, under a canopy of smoke and flame ; the water 
 was broken by ten thousand oars ; and never, master, have 
 you heard such cheering ; it drowned the roar of the very 
 cannon. Bill and I pulled at the same oar ; but he bade 
 me cheer, and leave the pulling to him. 
 
 " ' Cheer, Jack,' he said, ' cheer ! — I am strong enough to 
 pull ten oars, and your cheering does my heart good.' 
 
 " I could see, in the smoke and the confusion, that there was 
 a boat stove by a shell just besides us, and the man imme- 
 diately behind me was shot through the head. But we just 
 
BILL WHYTE. 213 
 
 clieered and pulled all the harder ; and the moment our keel 
 touched the shore, Ave leaped out into the water, middle deep, 
 and, after one well-directed volley, charged up the beach with 
 our bayonets fixed. I missed footing in the hurry, just as 
 we closed, and a big-whiskered fellow in blue would have 
 pinned me to the sand, had not Bill struck him through the 
 wind-pipe, and down he fell above me ; but when I strove to 
 rise from under him, he grappled with me in his death agony, 
 and the blood and breath came rushing through his wound 
 in my face. Eue I had thrown him off, my comrades had 
 broken the enemy, and were charging up the side of a sand- 
 hill, where there were two field-pieces stationed, that had 
 sadly annoyed us in the landing. There came a shower of 
 grape-shot whistliDg round me, that carried away my canteen, 
 and turned me half round ; and when I looked up, I saw, 
 through the smoke, that half my comrades were swept awav 
 by the discharge, and that the survivors were fighting despe- 
 rately over the two guns, hand-to-hand with the enemy. Ere 
 I got up to them, however,-^and, trust me, master, I didn't 
 linger, — the guns were our own. Bill stood beside one of 
 them, all grim and bloody, with his bayonet dripping like an 
 eaves-spout in a shower. He had struck down five of the 
 French, besides the one he had levelled over me ; and now, 
 all of his own accord, — for our serjeant had been killed, — he 
 had shotted the two pieces, and turned them on the enemy. 
 They all scampered down the hill, master, on the first dis- 
 charge, — all, save one brave, obstinate fellow, who stood firing 
 upon us, not fifty yards away, half under cover of a sand- 
 bank. I saw him load thrice ere I could hit him, and one 
 of his balls whisked through my hat ; but I catched him at 
 
214 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 last, and clown he fell. My bullet went right through his 
 forehead. We had no more fighting that day. The French 
 fell back on Alexandria; and our troops advanced about three 
 miles into the country, over a dreary waste of sand, and then 
 lay for the night on their arms. 
 
 " In the morning, when we were engaged in cooking our 
 breakfasts, master, making what fires we could with the 
 withered leaves of the date-tree, our colonel and two officers 
 came up to us. The colonel was an Englishman, — as brave 
 a gentleman as ever lived, — ay, and as kind an officer too. 
 He was a fine-looking old man, as tall as Bill, and as well 
 built too j but his health was much broken. It was said he 
 had entered the army out of break-heart on losing his wife. 
 "Well, he came up to us, I say, and shook Bill by the hand 
 as cordially as if he had been a colonel like himself. He 
 was a brave, good soldier, he said, and, to show him how 
 much he valued good men, he had come to make him a Ser- 
 jeant, in room of the one we had lost. He had heard he 
 was a scholar, he said, and he trusted his conduct would not 
 disgrace the halberd. Bill, you may be sure, thanked the 
 colonel, and thanked him, master, very like a gentleman ; 
 and that very day he swaggered scarlet and a sword, as pretty 
 a serjeant as the army could boast of, — ay, and for that mat- 
 ter, though his experience was little, as fit for his place. 
 
 " For the first fortnight we didn't eat the King's biscuit 
 for nothing. We had terrible hard fighting on the 13th; 
 and, had not our ammunition failed us, we would have beaten 
 the enemy all to rags ; but for the last two hours we hadn't 
 a shot, and stood just like so many targets set up to be fired 
 at. I was never more fixed in my life than when I saw my 
 
BILL WKYTE. 21-5 
 
 comrades falling around me, and all for nothing. Not only 
 could I see them falling, but, in the absence of every other 
 noise, — for we had ceased to cheer, and stood as silent and 
 as hard as foxes, — I could hear the dull, hollow sound of the 
 shot as it pierced them through. Sometimes the bullets 
 struck the sand, and then rose and went rolling over the level, 
 raising clouds of dust at every skip. At times we could see 
 them coming through the air like little clouds, and singing 
 all the way as they came. But it was the frightful smoking 
 shot that annoyed us most ; — these horrid shells. Sometimes 
 they broke over our heads in the air, as if a cannon charged 
 with grape had been fired at us from out the clouds. At times 
 they sank into the sand at our feet, and then burst up like 
 so many Yesuviuses, giving at once death and burial to hun- 
 dreds. But we stood our ground, and the day passed. I re- 
 member we got, towards evening, into a snug hollow between 
 two sand-hills, where the shot skimmed over us, not two feet 
 above our heads ; but two feet is just as good as twenty, mas- 
 ter j and I began to think, for the first time, that I hadn't 
 got a smoke all day. I snapped my musket and lighted my 
 pipe ; and Bill, whom I hadn't seen since the day after the 
 landing, came up to share with me. 
 
 " ' Bad day's work, Jack,' he said ; ' but we have at least 
 taught the enemy what British soldiers can endure, and, ere 
 long, we shall teach them something more. But here comes 
 a shell ! Nay, do not move,' he said ; ' it will fall just ten 
 yards short.' And down it came, roaring like a tempest, 
 sure enough, about ten yards away, and sank into the sand. 
 1 There now, fairly lodged,' said Bill ; ' lie clown, lads, lie 
 down.' We threw ourselves flat on our faces ; the earth 
 
21 G TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 heaved under us like a wave of the sea ; and in a moment 
 Bill and I were covered with half a ton of sand. But the 
 pieces whizzed over us ; and, save that the man who was 
 across me had an ammunition bag carried away, not one of 
 us more than heard them. On getting ourselves disinterred, 
 and our pipes re-lighted, Bill, with a twitch on the elbow — ■ 
 so — said he wished to speak with me a little apart ; and we 
 went out together into a hollow in front. 
 
 " ' You will think it strange, Jack,' he said, ' that all this 
 day, when the enemy's bullets were hopping around us like 
 hail, there was but just one idea that filled my mind, and 
 T could find room for no other. Ever since I saw Colonet 
 Westhope, it has been forced upon me, through a newly- 
 awakened dream, like recollection, that he is the gentleman 
 with whom I lived ere I was taken away by your people; 
 for taken away I must have been. Your mother used to 
 tell me that my father was a Cumberland gipsy, who met 
 with some bad accident from the law ; but I am now con- 
 vinced she must have deceived me, and that my father was 
 no such sort of man. You will think it strange ; but, when 
 putting on my coat this morning, my eye caught the silver 
 bar on the sleeve, and there leaped into my mind a vivid 
 recollection of having worn a scarlet dress before, — scarlet 
 bound with silver ; and that it was in the house of a gentle- 
 man and lady whom I had just learned to call papa and 
 mamma. And every time I see the colonel, as I say, I am 
 reminded of the gentleman. Now, for heaven's sake, Jack, 
 tell me all you know about me. You are a few years my 
 senior, and must remember better than I can myself under 
 what circumstances I joined your tribe.' 
 
BILL WHYTE. 
 
 217 
 
 " ' Why, Bill,' I said, ' I know little of the matter, and 
 'twere no great wonder though these bullets should confuse 
 ine somewhat in recalling what I do know. Most certainly 
 we never thought you a gipsy like ourselves ; but then I am 
 sure mother never stole you ; she had family enough of her 
 own ; and, besides, she brought with her for your board, she 
 said, a purse with more gold in it than I have seen at one 
 time either before or since. I remember it kept us all com- 
 fortably in the creature for a whole twelvemonth; and it 
 wasn't a trine, Bill, that could do that. You were at first 
 like to die among us. You hadn't been accustomed to sleep- 
 ing out, or to food such as ours. And, dear me ! how the 
 rags you were dressed in used to annoy you ; but you soon 
 got over all, Bill, and became the hardiest little fellow among 
 us. I once heard my mother say that you were a love-begot, 
 and that your father, who was an English gentleman, had to 
 part from both you and your mother on taking a wife. And 
 no more can I tell you, Bill, for the life of me.' 
 
 '• We slept that night on the sand, master, and found 
 in the morning that the enemy had fallen back some miles 
 nearer Alexandria, Next evening there was a party of us 
 despatched on some secret service across the desert. Bill 
 was with us ; but the officer under whose special charge we 
 were placed w r as a Captain Turpic, a nephew of Colonel 
 Westhope, and his heir. But he heired few of his good 
 qualities. He was the son of a pettifogging lawyer, and 
 was as heartily hated by the soldiers as the colonel was be- 
 loved. Towards sunset, the party reached a hollow valley in 
 the waste, and there rested, preparatory, as we all intended, 
 for passing the night. Some of us were engaged in erecting 
 
218 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 temporary huts of brandies, some in providing the necessary 
 materials ; and we had just formed a snug little camp, and 
 were preparing to light our fires for supper, when we heard 
 a shot not two furlongs away. Bill, who was by far the most 
 active among us, sprang up one of the tallest date-trees to 
 reconnoitre. But he soon came down again. 
 
 " ' We have lost our pains this time,' he said : ' there is 
 a party of French, of fully five times our number, not half 
 a mile away. The captain, on the news, wasn't slow, as 
 you may think, in ordering us off; and, hastily gathering up 
 our blankets and the contents of our knapsacks, we struck 
 across the sand just as the sun was setting. There is scarce 
 auy twilight in Egypt, master : it is pitch dark twenty 
 minutes after sunset. The first part of the evening, too, is 
 infinitely disagreeable. The days are burning hot, and not 
 a cloud can be seen in the sky ; but no sooner has the sun 
 gone down, than there comes on a thick white fog, that 
 covers the whole country, so that one can't see fifty yards 
 around ; and so icy cold is it, that it strikes a chill to the 
 very heart. It is with these fogs that the dews descend ; 
 and deadly things they are. Well, the mist and the dark- 
 ness came upon us at once : we lost all reckoning ; and 
 after floundering on for an hour or so among the sandhills, 
 our captain called a halt, and bade us burrow as we best 
 might among the hollows. Hungry as we were, we were 
 fain to leave our supper to begin the morning with, and 
 huddled all together into what seemed a deep, dry ditch. 
 We were at first surprised, master, to find an immense heap 
 of stone under us : we couldn't have lain harder had we lain 
 on a Scotch cairn ; and that, d'ye see, is unusual in Egypt, 
 
BILL WHYTE. 219 
 
 where all the sand has been blown by the hot winds from 
 the desert, hundreds of miles away, and where, in the course 
 of a few days' journey, one mayn't see a pebble larger than 
 a pigeon's egg. There were hard, round, bullet-like masses 
 under us, and others of a more oblong shape, like pieces of 
 wood that had been cut for fuel ; and, tired as we were, their 
 sharp points, protruding through the sand, kept most of us 
 from sleep. But that was little, master, to what we felt 
 afterwards. As we began to take heat together, there broke 
 out among us a most disagreeable stench, — bad at first, and 
 unlike anything I had ever felt before, but at last altogether 
 overpowering. Some of us became dead sick, and some, to 
 show how much bolder they were than the rest, began to 
 sing. One-half the party stole away one by one, and lay 
 down outside. For my own part, master, I thought it was 
 the plague that was breaking out upon us from below, and 
 lay still, in despair of escaping it. I was wretchedly tired 
 too; and, despite of my fears and the stench, I fell asleep, 
 and slept till daylight. But never before, master, did I see 
 such a sight as when I awoke. We had been sleeping on 
 the carcases of ten thousand Turks, whom Bonaparte had 
 massacred about a twelvemonth before. There were eyeless 
 skulls grinning at us by hundreds from the side of the ditch, 
 and black, withered hands and feet sticking out, with the 
 white bones glittering between the shrunken sinews. The 
 very sand, for roods around, had a brown ferruginous tinge, 
 and seemed baked into a half-solid mass resembling clay. It 
 was no place to loiter in ; and you may trust me, master, we 
 breakfasted elsewhere. Bill kept close to our captain all that 
 morning. He didn't much like him, even so early in their 
 
220 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 acquaintance as this, — no one did, in fact ; but he was anxious 
 to learn from him all he could regarding the colonel. He 
 told him, too, something about his own early recollections ; 
 but he would better have kept them to himself. From that 
 hour, master, Captain Turpic never gave him a pleasant look, 
 and sought every means to ruin him. 
 
 " We joined the army again on the evening of the 20th 
 March. You know, master, what awaited us next morning. 
 I had been marching, on the day of our arrival, for twelve 
 hours under a very hot sun, and was fatigued enough to 
 sleep soundly. But the dead might have awakened next 
 morning. The enemy broke in upon us about three o'clock. 
 It was pitch-dark. I had been dreaming, at the moment, 
 that I was busily engaged in the landing, fighting in the 
 front rank beside Bill ; and I awoke to hear the enemy out- 
 side the tent struggling in fierce conflict with such of my 
 comrades as, half-naked and half-armed, had been roused by 
 the first alarm, and had rushed out to oppose them. You 
 will not think I was long in joining them, master, when I 
 tell you that Bill himself was hardly two steps ahead of me. 
 Colonel Westhope was everywhere at once that morning, 
 bringing his men, in the darkness and the confusion, into 
 something like order, — threatening, encouraging, applauding, 
 issuing orders, — all in a breath. Just as we got out, the 
 French broke through beside our tent, and we saw him 
 struck down in the throng. Bill gave a tremendous cry of 
 1 Our colonel ! our colonel !' and struck his pike up to the 
 cross into the breast of the fellow who had given the blow. 
 And hardly had that one fallen than he sent it crashing 
 through the face of the next foremost, till it lay buried in 
 
BILL WHYTE. 221 
 
 the brain. The enemy gave back for a moment ; and as he 
 was striking down a third, the colonel got up, badly wounded 
 in the shoulder ; but he kept the field all day. He knew 
 Bill the moment he rose, and leant on him till he had some- 
 what recovered. ' I shall not forget, Bill,' he said, ' that you 
 have saved your colonel's life.' We had a fierce struggle, 
 master, ere we beat out the French ; but, broken and half- 
 naked as we were, we did beat them out, and the battle 
 became general. 
 
 " At first the fiare of the artillery, as the batteries blazed 
 out in the darkness, dazzled and blinded me ; but I loaded 
 and fired incessantly ; and the thicker the bullets went 
 whistling past me, the faster I loaded and fired. A spent 
 shot, that had struck through a sand-bank, came rolling on 
 like a bowl, and, leaping up from a hillock in front, struck 
 me on the breast. It was such a blow, master, as a man 
 might have given with his fist ; but it knocked me down, 
 and ere I got up, the company was a few paces in advance. 
 The bonnet of the soldier who had taken my place came 
 rolling to my feet ere I could join them. But alas ! it was 
 full of blood and brains ; and I found that the spent shot 
 had come just in time to save my life. Meanwhile, the 
 battle raged with redoubled fury on the left, and we in the 
 centre had a short respite. And some of us needed it. For 
 my own part, I had fired about a hundred rounds ; and my 
 right shoulder was as blue as your waistcoat. 
 
 "You will wonder, master, how I should notice such a 
 thing in the heat of an engagement ; but I remember nothing 
 better than that there was a flock of little birds shrieking 
 and fluttering over our heads for the greater part of the 
 
222 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 morning. The poor little things seemed as if robbed of their 
 very instinct by the incessant discharges on every side of 
 them ; and, instead of pursuing a direct course, which would 
 soon have carried them clear of us, they kept fluttering in 
 helpless terror in one little spot. About mid-day, an aide- 
 de-camp went riding by us to the right. 
 
 " ' How goes it ? how goes it f asked one of our officers. 
 
 " ' It is just who will,' replied the aide-de-camp, and passed 
 by like lightning. Another followed hard after. 
 
 " ' How goes it now V inquired the officer. 
 
 " ' Never better, boy !' said the second rider. ' The forty- 
 second have cut Bonaparte's invincibles to pieces, and all 
 the rest of the enemy are falling back !' 
 
 " We came more into action a little after. The enemy 
 opened a heavy fire upon us, and seemed advancing to the 
 charge. I had felt so fatigued, master, during the previous 
 pause, that I could scarcely raise my hand to my head ; but, 
 now that we were to be engaged again, all my fatigue left 
 me, and I found myself grown fresh as ever. There were 
 two field-pieces to our left that had done noble execution 
 during the day; and Captain Turpic's company, including 
 Bill and me, were ordered to stand by them in the expected 
 charge. They were wrought mostly by seamen from the ves- 
 sels, — brave, tight fellows, who, like Nelson, never saw fear ; 
 but they had been so busy, that they had shot away most of 
 their ammunition ; and as we came up to them, they were 
 about despatching a party to the rear for more. 
 
 "'Right,' said Captain Turpic ; 'I don't care though I 
 lend you a hand, and go with you.' 
 
 " ' On your peril, Sir !' said Bill Whyte. 'What ! leave 
 
BILL WHYTE. 223 
 
 your company in the moment of the expected charge ! I 
 shall assuredly report you for cowardice and desertion of quar- 
 ters if you do.' 
 
 " ' And I shall have you broke for mutiny,' said the captain. 
 1 How can these fellows know how to choose their ammuni- 
 tion without some one to direct them V 
 
 " And so off he went to the rear with the sailors \ but 
 though they returned, poor fellows, in ten minutes or so, we 
 saw no more of the captain till evening. On came the French 
 in their last charge. Ere they could close with us, the sailors 
 had fired their field-pieces thrice ; and we could see wide 
 avenues opened among them with each discharge. But on 
 they came. Our bayonets crossed and clashed with theirs 
 for one half-minute ; and in the next they were hurled head- 
 long down the declivity, and we were fighting among them 
 pell-mell. There are few troops superior to the French, mas- 
 ter, in a first attack ; but they want the bottom of the Bri- 
 tish ; and, now that we had broken them in the moment of 
 their onset, they had no chance with us, and we pitched our 
 bayonets into them as if they had been so many sheaves in har- 
 vest. They lay in some places three and four tiers deep, — for 
 our blood was up, master j — just as they advanced on us, we 
 had heard of the death of our general ; — and they neither 
 asked for quarter, nor got it. Ah, the good and gallant Sir 
 Balph ! We all felt as if we had lost a father ; but he died 
 as the brave best love to die. The field was all our own ; 
 and not a Frenchman remained who was not dead or dying. 
 That action, master, fairly broke the neck of their power in 
 Egypt. 
 
 " Our colonel was severely wounded, as T have told you, 
 
224 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 early in the morning ; but, though often enough urged to re- 
 tire, he had held out all day, and had issued his orders with 
 all the coolness and decision for which he was so remark- 
 able ; but now that the excitement of the fight was over, his 
 strength failed him at once, and he had to be carried to his 
 tent. He called for Bill to assist in bearing him off. I be- 
 lieve it was merely that he might have an opportunity of 
 speaking to him. He told him that, whether he died or 
 lived, he would take care that he should be provided for. He 
 gave Captain Turpic charge, too, that he should keep a warm 
 side to Bill. I overheard our major say to the captain, as we 
 left the tent, — ' Good heavens ! did you ever see two men 
 liker one another than the colonel and our new Serjeant?' 
 But the captain carelessly remarked that the resemblance 
 didn't strike him. 
 
 " We met outside with a comrade. He had had a cousin 
 in the forty-second, he said, who had been killed that morn- 
 ing, and he was anxious to see the body decently buried, and 
 wished us to go along with him. And so we both went. It 
 is nothing, master, to see men struck down in warm blood, 
 and when one's own blood is up; but Oh, 'tis a grievous 
 thing, after one has cooled down to one's ordinary mood, to 
 go out among the dead and the dying. We passed through 
 what had been the thick of the battle. The slain lay in 
 hundreds and thousands, — like the ware and tangle on the 
 shore below us, — horribly broken, some of them, by the shot ; 
 and blood and brains lay spattered on the sand. But it was 
 a worse sight to see, when some poor wretch, who had no 
 chance of living an hour longer, opened his eyes as we passed, 
 and cried out for water. We soon emptied our canteens, 
 
BILL WI1YTE. 225 
 
 and then had to pass on. In no place did the dead lie 
 thicker than where the forty-second had engaged the invin- 
 cibles j and never were there finer fellows. They lay piled 
 in heaps, — the best men of Scotland over the best men of 
 France ; and their wounds, and their number, and the pos- 
 tures in which they lay, showed how tremendous the struggle 
 had been. I saw one gigantic corpse, with the head and 
 neck cloven through the steel cap to the very brisket. It was 
 that of a Frenchman ; but the hand that had drawn the blow 
 lay cold and stiff not a yard away, with the broadsword still 
 firm in its grasp. A little farther on we found the body we 
 sought. It was that of a fair vounsr man : the features were 
 as composed as if he were asleep ; there was even a smile on 
 the lips j but a cruel cannon-shot *had torn the very heart 
 out of the breast. Evening was falling. There was a little 
 dog whining and whimpering over the body, aware, it would 
 seem, that some great ill had befallen its master ; but yet 
 tugging from time to time at his clothes, that he might rise 
 and come away. 
 
 " ' Ochon, ochon ! poor Evan M 'Donald !' exclaimed our 
 comrade ; ' what would Christy Ross, or your good old mother, 
 say to see you lying here !' 
 
 " Bill burst out a-crying, as if he had been a child ; and I 
 couldn't keep dry-eyed neither, master. But grief and pity 
 are weaknesses of the bravest natures. We scooped out a 
 hole in the sand with our bayonets and our hands, and, bury- 
 ing the body, came away. 
 
 " The battle of the 21st broke, as I have said, the strength 
 of the French in Egypt ; for though they didn't surrender to 
 us until about five months after, they kept snug behind their 
 
 p 
 
226 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 walls, and we saw little more of them. Our colonel had 
 gone aboard of the frigate, desperately ill of his wounds, — so 
 ill, that it was several times reported he was dead ; and most 
 of our men were suffering sadly from sore eyes ashore. But 
 such of us as escaped had little to do, and we contrived to 
 while away the time agreeably enough. Strange country, 
 Egypt, master. You know, our people have come from there ; 
 but, trust me, I could find none of my cousins among either 
 the Turks or the Arabs. The Arabs, master, are quite the 
 gipsies of Egypt • and Bill and I — but he paid dearly for 
 them afterwards, poor fellow — used frequently to visit such 
 of their straggling tribes as came to the neighbourhood of our 
 camp. You and the like of you, master, are curious to see 
 our people, and how we get on ; and no wonder ; and we 
 were just as curious to see the Arabs. Toward evening they 
 used to come in from the shore or the desert in parties of ten 
 or twelve ; and wild-looking fellows they were, — tall, but not 
 very tall, — thin, and skinny, and dark j and an amazing pro- 
 portion of them blind of an eye, — an effect, I suppose, of the 
 disease from which our comrades were suffering so much. In 
 a party of ten or twelve, — and their parties rarely exceeded 
 a dozen, — we found that every one of them had some special 
 office to perform. One carried a fishing-net, like a herring- 
 have ; one, perhaps, a basket of fish, newly caught ; one a 
 sheaf of wheat ; one a large copper basin, or rather platter ; 
 one a bundle of the dead boughs and leaves of the date-tree ; 
 one the implements for lighting a fire ; and so on. The first 
 thing they always did, after squatting down in a circle, was 
 to strike a light ; the next, to dig a round pot-like hole in the 
 sand, in which they kindle their fire. When the sand had 
 
BILL WHYTE. 227 
 
 become sufficiently hot, they threw out the embers, and 
 placing the fish, just as they had caught them, in the bottom 
 of the hole, heaped the hot sand over them, and the fire over 
 that. The sheaf of wheat was next untied, and each taking 
 a handful, held it over the flame till it was sufficientlyscorched, 
 and then rubbed out the grain between their hands into the 
 copper plate. The fire was then drawn off a second time, and 
 the fish dug out ; and, after rubbing off the sand, and taking- 
 out the bowels, they sat down to supper. And such, master, 
 was the ordinary economy of the poorer tribes, that seemed 
 drawn to the camp merely by curiosity. Some of the others 
 brought fruit and vegetables to our market, and were much 
 encouraged by our officers. But a set of greater rascals never 
 breathed. At first several of our men got flogged through 
 them. They had a trick of raising a hideous outcry in the 
 market-place for every trifle, — certain, d'ye see, of attracting 
 the notice of some of our officers, who were all sure to take 
 part with them. The market, master, had to be encouraged 
 at all events ; and it was some time ere the tricks of the ras- 
 cals were understood in the proper quarter. But, to make 
 short, Bill and I went out one morning to our walk. We 
 had just heard, — and heavy news it was to the whole regi- 
 ment, — that our colonel was despaired of and had no chance 
 of seeing out the day. Bill was in miserably low spirits. 
 Captain Turpic had insulted him most grossly that mornino-. 
 So long as the colonel had been expected to recover, he had 
 shown him some degree of civility ; but he now took every 
 opportunity of picking a quarrel with him. There was no 
 comparison in battle, master, between Bill and the captain ; 
 for the captain, I suspect, was little better than a coward ; 
 
228 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 but then there Avas just as little on parade the other way ; 
 for Bill, you know, couldn't know a great deal, and the cap- 
 tain was a perfect martinet. He had called him vagrant and 
 beggar, master, for omitting some little piece of duty. Now, 
 lie couldn't help having been with us, you know ; and as for 
 beggary, he had never begged in his life. "Well, we had 
 walked out towards the market, as I say. 
 
 " ' It's all nonsense, Jack,' says he, ' to be so dull on the 
 matter • I'll e'en treat you to some fruit, I have a Sicilian 
 dollar here. See that lazy fellow with the spade lying in 
 front, and the burning mountain smoking behind him : we 
 must see if he can't dig out for us a few pram' worth of 
 dates.' 
 
 " Well, master, up he went to a tall, thin, rascally-look- 
 ing Arab, with one eye, and bought as much fruit from him 
 as might come to one-tenth of the dollar which he gave him, 
 and then held out his hand for the change. But there was 
 no change forthcoming. Bill wasn't a man to be done out of 
 his cash in that silly way, and so he stormed at the rascal ; 
 but he, in turn, stormed as furiously, in his own lingo, at him, 
 till at last Bill's blood got up, and, seizing him by the breast, 
 he twisted him over his knee, as one might a boy of ten years 
 or so. The fellow raised a hideous outcry, as if Bill were 
 robbing and murdering him. Two officers, who chanced to 
 be in the market at the time, came running up at the noise. 
 One of them was the scoundrel Turpic ; and Bill was laid 
 hold of, and sent off under guard to the camp. Poor fellow, 
 he got scant justice there. Turpic had procured a man-of- 
 war's-man, who swore, as he well might, indeed, that Bill 
 was the smuggler who had swamped the Kirkcudbright cus- 
 
BILL WHYTE. 229 
 
 tom-house boat. There was another brought forward, who 
 swore that both of us were gipsies, and told a blasted rigma- 
 role story, without one word of truth in it, about the stealing 
 of a silver spoon. The Arab had his story too, in his own 
 lingo ; and they received every word ; for my evidence went 
 for nothing. I was of a race who never spoke the truth, they 
 said, — as if I weren't as good as a Mohammedan Arab. To 
 crown all, in came Turpic's story about what he called Bill's 
 mutinous spirit in the action of the 21st. You may guess 
 the rest, master. The poor fellow was broke that morning, 
 and told that, were it not in consideration of his bravery, he 
 would have got a flogging into the bargain. 
 
 " I spent the evening of that day with Bill outside the camp, 
 and we ate the dates together that in the morning had cost 
 him so dear. The report had gone abroad, — luckily a false 
 one, — that our colonel was dead ; and that put an end to all 
 hope with the poor fellow of having his case righted. We 
 spoke together for, I am sure, two hours, — spoke of Bill's 
 early recollections, and of the hardship of his fate all along. 
 And it was now worse with him, he said, than it had ever 
 been before. He spoke of the strange, unaccountable hos- 
 tility of Turpic j and I saw his brow grow dark, and the veins 
 of his neck swell almost to bursting. He trusted they might 
 yet meet, he said, where there would be none to note who 
 was the officer and who the private soldier. I did my best, 
 master, to console the poor fellow, and we parted. The first 
 thing I saw, as I opened the tent-door next morning, was 
 Captain Turpic, brought into the camp by the soldier whose 
 cousin Bill and I had assisted to buiy. The captain was 
 leaning on his shoulder, somewhat less than half alive, as it 
 
230 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 seemed, with four of his front teeth struck out, and a stream 
 of blood all along his vest and small clothes. He had been 
 met with by Bill, who had attacked him, he said, and, after 
 breaking his sword, would have killed him, had not the sol- 
 dier come up and interfered. But that, master, was the 
 captain's story. The soldier told me afterwards that he saw 
 the captain draw his sword ere Bill lifted hand at all ; and 
 that, when the poor fellow did strike, he gave him only one 
 knock-down blow on the mouth, that laid him insensible at 
 his feet ; and that, when down, though he might have killed 
 him twenty times over, he didn't so much as crook a finger 
 on him. Nay, more : Bill offered to deliver himself up to 
 the soldier, had not the latter assured him that he would to 
 a certainty be shot, and advised him to make off. There was 
 a party despatched in quest of him, master, the moment Tur- 
 pic had told his story ; but he was lucky enough, poor fellow, 
 to elude them ; and they returned in the evening just as they 
 had gone out. And I saw no more of Bill in Egypt, master. 
 " Never had troops less to do than we had, for the six 
 months or so we afterwards remained in the country ; and 
 time hung wretchedly on the hands of some of us. Now that 
 Bill was gone, I had no comrade with whom I cared to asso- 
 ciate ; and, as you may think, I often didn't know what to 
 do with myself. After all our fears and regrets, master, our 
 colonel recovered, and one morning, about four months after 
 the action, came ashore to see us. Wo were sadly pestered 
 with flies, master. I have seen, I am sure, a bushel of them 
 on the top of our tent at once. They buzzed all night by 
 millions round our noses, and many a plan did we think of 
 to get rid of them ; but, after destroying hosts on hosts, they 
 
BILL WHYTE. 231 
 
 still seemed as thick as before. I had fallen on a new scheme 
 this morning. I placed some sugar on a board, and sur- 
 rounded it with gunpowder ; and, when the flies had settled 
 hv thousands on the sugar, I fired the powder by means of a 
 train, and the whole fell dead on the floor of the tent. I had 
 just got a capital shot, when up came the colonel, and sat 
 down beside me. 
 
 " ' I wish to know,' he said, ' all you can tell me about 
 Bill Whyte. You were his chief friend and companion, I 
 have heard, and are acquainted with his early history. Can 
 you tell me aught of his parentage 1 
 
 " ' Nothing of that, Colonel,' I said ; ' and yet I have 
 known Bill almost ever since he knew himself 
 
 " And so, master, I told him all that I knew : how Bill 
 had been first taken to us by my mother ; of the purse of 
 gold she had brought with her, which had kept us all so 
 merry ; and of the noble spirit he had shown among us when 
 he grew up. I told him, too, of some of Bill's early recol- 
 lections ; of the scarlet dress trimmed with silver, which had 
 been brought to his mind by the Serjeant's coat the first day 
 he wore it ; of the gentleman and lady, too, whom he remem- 
 bered to have lived with ; and of the supposed resemblance 
 he had found between the former and the colonel. The 
 colonel, as I went on, was strangely agitated, master. He 
 held an open letter in his hand, and seemed every now and 
 then to be comparing particulars ; and when I mentioned 
 Bill's supposed recognition of him, he actually started from 
 off his seat. 
 
 " ' Good Heavens !' he exclaimed, ' why was I not brought 
 acquainted with this before !' 
 
Zo'Z TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " I explained the why, master, and told him all about 
 Captain Turpic ; and he left me with, you may be sure, no 
 very favourable opinion of the captain. But I must now 
 tell you, master, a part of my story, which I had but from 
 hearsay. 
 
 " The colonel had been getting over the worse effects of 
 his wound, when he received a letter from a friend in Eng- 
 land, informing him that his brother-in-law, the father of 
 Captain Turpic, had died suddenly, and that his sister, who 
 to all appearance was fast following, had been making strange 
 discoveries regarding an only son of the colonel's, who was 
 supposed to have been drowned about seventeen years before. 
 The colonel had lost both his lady and child by a frightful 
 accident. His estate lay near Olney, on the banks of the 
 Ouse ; and the lady one day, during the absence of the colo- 
 nel, who was in London, was taking an airing in the carriage 
 with her son, a boy of three years or so, when the horses took 
 fright, and, throwing the coachman, who was killed on the 
 spot, rushed into the river. The Ouse is a deep, sluggish 
 stream, dark and muddy in some of the more dangerous pools, 
 and mantled over with weeds. It was into one of these the 
 carriage was overturned ; assistance came late, and the un- 
 fortunate lady was brought out a corpse ; but the body of the 
 child was nowhere to be found. It now came out, however, 
 from the letter, that the child had been picked up unhurt by 
 the colonel's brother-in-law, who, after concealing it for nearly 
 a week during the very frenzy of the colonel's distress, had 
 then given it to a gipsy. The rascal's only motive — he was 
 a lawyer, master — was, that his own son, the captain, who 
 was then a boy of twelve years or so, and not wholly ignorant 
 
BILL WHYTE. 233 
 
 of the circumstance, might succeed to the colonel's estate. 
 The writer of the letter added that, on coming to the know- 
 ledge of this singular confession, he had made instant search 
 after the gipsy to whom the child had been given, and had 
 been fortunate enough to find her, after tracing her over half 
 the kingdom, in a cave near Eortrose, in the north of Scot- 
 land. She had confessed all ; stating, however, that the lad, 
 who had borne among the tribe the name of Bill Whyte, and 
 had turned out a fine fellow, had been outlawed for some 
 smuggling feat, about eighteen months before, and had en- 
 listed, with a young man, her son, into a regiment bound for 
 Egypt. You see, master, there couldn't be a shadow of doubt 
 that my comrade Bill Whyte was just Henry Westhope, the 
 colonel's son and heir. But the grand matter was where to 
 find him. Search as we might, all search was in vain : we 
 could trace him no further than outside the camp, to where 
 he had met with Captain Turpic. I should tell you, by the 
 way, that the captain was now sent to Coventry by every 
 one, and that not an officer in the regiment would return his 
 salute. 
 
 "Well, master, the months passed, and at length the 
 French surrendered ; and, having no more to do in Egypt, 
 we all re-embarked, and sailed for England. The short peace 
 had been ratified before our arrival ; and I, who had become 
 heartily tired of the life of a soldier now that I had no one 
 to associate with, was fortunate enough to obtain my dis- 
 charge. The colonel retired from the service at the same 
 time. He was as kind to me as if he had been my father, 
 and offered to make me his forester, if I would but come and 
 live beside him ; but I was too fond of a wandering life for 
 
234 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 that. He was corresponding, he told me, with every British 
 consul within fifteen hundred miles of the Nile ; but he had 
 heard nothing of Bill, master. Well, after seeing the colo- 
 nel's estate, I parted from him, and came north, to find out 
 my people, which I soon did ; and, for a year or so, I lived 
 with them just as I have been doing since. I was led in 
 the course of my wanderings to Leith, and was standing one 
 morning on the pier among a crowd of people, who had 
 gathered round to see a fine vessel from the Levant that was 
 coming in at the time, when my eye caught among the 
 sailors a man exceedingly like Bill. He was as tall, and even 
 more robust, and he wrought with all Bill's activity ; but 
 for some time I could not catch a glimpse of his face. At 
 length, however, he turned round, and there, sure enough, 
 was Bill himself. I was afraid to hail him, master, not 
 knowing who among the crowd might also know him, and 
 know him also as a deserter or an outlaw ; but you may 
 be sure I wasn't long in leaping aboard and making up 
 to him. And we were soon as happy, master, in one of 
 the cellars of the Coal Hill, as we had been all our lives 
 before. 
 
 " Bill told me his history since our parting. He had left 
 the captain lying at his feet, and struck across the sand in 
 the direction of the Nile, one of the mouths of which he 
 reached next day. He there found some Greek sailors, who 
 were employed in watering ; and, assisting them in their 
 work, he was brought aboard their vessel, and engaged as a 
 seaman by the master, who had lost some of his crew by the 
 plague. As you may think, master, he soon became a prime 
 sailor, and continued with the Greeks, trading among the 
 
BILL WHYTE. 
 
 235 
 
 islands of the Archipelago for about eighteen months, when. 
 growing tired of the service, and meeting with an English 
 vessel, he had taken a passage home. I told him how much 
 ado we had all had about him after he had left us, and how 
 we were to call him Bill Whyte no longer. And so, in short, 
 master, we set out together for Colonel Westhope's. 
 
 " In our journe}^ we met with some of our people on a 
 wild moor of Cumberland, and were invited to pass the 
 night with them. They were of the Curlit family ; but you 
 will hardly know them by that. Two of them had been 
 with us when Bill swamped the custom-house boat. They 
 were fierce, desperate fellows, and not much to be trusted by 
 their friends even ; and I was afraid that they might have 
 somehow come to guess that Bill had brought some clinkers 
 home with him. And so, master, I would fain have dis- 
 suaded him from making any stay with them in the night 
 time ; for I did not know, you see, in what case we might 
 find our weasands in the morning ; but Bill had no fears of 
 any kind, and was, besides, desirous to spend one last night 
 with the gipsies ; and so he staid. The party had taken up 
 their quarters in a waste house on the moor, with no other hu- 
 man dwelling within four miles of it. There was a low, stunted 
 wood on the one side, master, and a rough, sweeping stream 
 on the other : the night, too, was wild and boisterous ; and, 
 what between suspicion and discomfort, I felt well-nigh 
 as drearily as I did when lying among the dead men in 
 Egypt. We w r ere nobly treated, however, and the whisky 
 flowed like water ; but we drank no more than was good for 
 us. Indeed, Bill was never a great drinker ; and I kept on 
 my guard, and refused the liquor, on the plea of a bad head. 
 
236 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 I should have told you that there were but three of the 
 Curlits, — all of them raw-boned fellows, however, and all of 
 them of such stamp, that the three have since been hung. I 
 saw they were sounding Bill ; but he seemed aware of them. 
 
 "'Ay, ay,' says he, 'I have made something by my 
 voyaging, lads, though, mayhap, not a great deal. What 
 think you of that there now, for instance V — drawing, as 
 lie spoke, a silver -mounted pistol out of each pocket : ' these 
 are pretty pops, and as good as they are pretty ; the worst 
 of them sends a bullet through an inch-board at twenty 
 yards.' 
 
 " ' Are they loaded, Bill V asked Tom Curlit, 
 
 " ' To be sure,' said Bill, returning them again, each to its 
 own pouch. 'What is the use of an empty pistol V 
 
 " ' Ah, replied Tom, ' I smell a rat, Bill. You have given 
 over making war on the King's account, and have taken the 
 road to make war on your own. Bold enough, to be sure.' 
 
 " From the moment they saw the pistols, the brothers 
 seemed to have changed their plan regarding us, — for some 
 plan I am certain they had. They would now fain have taken 
 us into partnership with them ; but their trade was a woundy 
 bad one, master, with a world more of risk than profit. 
 
 "'Why, lads,' said Tom Curlit to Bill and me, 'hadn't 
 you better stay with us altogether 1 The road won't do in 
 these days at all. No, no ; the law is a vast deal over strong 
 for that, and you will be tucked up like dogs for your very 
 first affair. But if you stay with us, you will get on in a 
 much quieter way on this wild moor here. Plenty of game, 
 Bill ; and sometimes, when the nights are long, we con- 
 trive to take a purse with as little trouble as may be. We 
 
BILL WHYTE. 237 
 
 had an old pedlar only three weeks ago, that brought us 
 sixty good pounds. By the way, brothers, we must throw a 
 few more sods over him, for I nosed him this morning as I 
 went by. And, lads, we have something in hand just now, 
 that, with, to be sure, a little more risk, will pay better still. 
 Two hundred yellow boys in hand, and five hundred more 
 when our work is done. Better that, Bill, than standing to 
 be shot at for a shilling per day." 
 
 " c Two hundred in hand, and five hundred more when you 
 have done your work !' exclaimed Bill. ' Why, that is sure 
 enough princely pay, unless the work be very bad indeed. 
 But come, tell us what you propose. You can't expect us to 
 make it a leap-in-the-dark matter.' 
 
 " ' The work is certainly a little dangerous,' said Tom, 
 1 and we of ourselves are rather few ; but if you both join 
 with us, there would be a vast deal less of danger indeed. 
 The matter is just this. A young fellow, like ourselves, has 
 a rich old uncle, who has made his will in his favour \ but 
 then he threatens to make another will that won't be so fa- 
 vourable to him by half; and you see the drawing across of 
 a knife — so — would keep the first one in force. And that 
 is all we have to do before pocketing the blunt. But then, 
 the ©Id fellow is as brave as a lion ; and there are two ser- 
 vants with him, worn-out soldiers like himself, that would, I 
 am sure, be rough customers. With your help, however, we 
 shall get on primely. The old boy's house stands much alone ; 
 and we shall be five to three.' 
 
 " ' Well, well,' said Bill ; ' we shall give your proposal a 
 night's thought, and tell you what we think of it in the 
 morning. But remember, no tricks, Tom ! If we engage 
 
238 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 in the work, we must go share and share alike in the 
 booty.' 
 
 " ' To be sure,' said Tom ; and so the conversation closed. 
 " About eight o'clock or so, master, I stepped out to the 
 door. The night was dark and boisterous as ever, and there 
 had come on a heavy rain. But I could see that, dark and 
 boisterous as it was, some one was approaching the house 
 with a dark lantern. I lost no time in telling the Curlits so. 
 "'It must be the captain,' said they, 'though it seems 
 strange that he should come here to-night. You must away, 
 Jack and Bill, to the loft, for it mayn't do for the captain to 
 find you here ; but you can lend us a hand afterwards, should 
 need require it.' 
 
 " ' There was no time for asking explanations, master ; and 
 so up we climbed to the loft, and had got snugly concealed 
 amono 1 some old hay, when in came the captain. But what 
 captain, think you % Why, just our old acquaintance, Cap- 
 tain Turpic ! 
 
 " ' Lads,' he said to the Curlits, ' make yourselves ready ; 
 get your pistols. Our old scheme is blown, for the colonel 
 has left his house at Olney, on a journey to Scotland ; but 
 he passes here to-night, and you must find means to stop 
 him, — now or never ! 
 
 " ' What force and what arms has he with him, captain V 
 asked Tom. 
 
 " ' The coachman, his body servant, and himself,' said the 
 captain ; ' but only the servant and himself are armed. The 
 stream outside is high to-night : you must take them just as 
 they are crossing it, and thinking of only the water ; and, 
 whatever else you may mind, make sure of the colonel' 
 
BILL WHYTE. 239 
 
 it t 
 
 Sure as I live,' said Bill to me, in a low whisper, ' 'tis 
 a plan to murder Colonel "Westhope ! And, good Heavens !' 
 lie continued, pointing through an opening in the gable, 
 ' yonder is his carriage, not a mile away. You may see the 
 lantern, like two fiery eyes, coming sweepiug along the moor. 
 We have no time to lose ; let us slide down through the open- 
 ing, and meet with it.' 
 
 " As soon done as said, master ; we slid down along the 
 turf gable; crossed the stream, which had risen high on its 
 banks, by a plank bridge for foot-passengers; and then dashed 
 along the broken road in the direction of the carriage. We 
 came up to it as it was slowly crossing an open drain. 
 
 " ' Colonel Westhope !' I cried, ' Colonel Westhope ! — 
 stop ! — stop ! — turn back ! Yon are waylaid by a party of 
 ruffians, who will murder you if you go on.' 
 
 The door opened, and the colonel stepped out, with his 
 sword under his left arm, and a cocked pistol in his hand. 
 
 " 'Is not that Jack Whyte T he asked. 
 
 " ' The same, noble colonel,' I said ; ' and here is Henry, 
 your son.' 
 
 " It was no place or time, master, for long explanations ; 
 there was one hearty congratulation, and one hurried em- 
 brace ; and the colonel, after learning from Bill the number 
 of the assailants and the plan of the attack, ordered the car- 
 riage to drive on slowly before, and followed, with us and his 
 servant, on foot, behind. 
 
 " ' The rascals,' he said, i will be so dazzled with the flare 
 of the lanterns in front, that we will escape notice till they 
 have fired, and then we shall have them for the picking- 
 down.' 
 
2-iO TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " And so it was, master. Just as the carriage was enter- 
 ing the stream, the coachman was pulled down by Tom 
 Ciuiit ; at the same instant, three bullets went whizzing 
 through the glasses, and two fellows came leaping out from 
 behind some furze to the carriage-door. A third, whom I 
 knew to be the captain, lagged behind. I marked him, 
 however ; and when the colonel and Bill were disposing of 
 the other two, — and they took them so sadly by surprise, 
 master, that they had but little difficulty in throwing them 
 down, and binding them, — I was lucky enough to send a 
 piece of lead through the captain. He ran about twenty 
 yards, and then dropped down, stone dead. Tom escaped 
 us ; but he cut a throat some months after, and suffered for 
 it at Carlisle. And his two brothers, after making a clean 
 breast, and confessing all, were transported for life. But 
 they found means to return in a few years after, and were 
 both hung on the gallows on which Tom had suffered before 
 them. 
 
 " I have not a great deal more to tell you, master. The 
 colonel has been dead for the last twelve years, and his son 
 has succeeded him in his estate. There is not a completer 
 gentleman in England than Henry Westhope, master, nor a 
 hner fellow. I call on him every time I go round, and 
 never miss a hearty welcome ; though, by the by, I am quite 
 as sure of a hearty scold. He still keeps a snug little house 
 empty for me, and offers to settle on me fifty pounds a-year, 
 whenever I choose to give up my wandering life, and go and 
 live with him. But what's bred in the bone won't come out 
 of the flesh, master, and I have not yet closed with his offer. 
 And really, to tell you my mind, I don't think it quite re- 
 
BILL WIIYTE. 241 
 
 spectable. Here I am, at present a free, independent tinker, 
 — no man more respectable than a tinker, master, — all allow 
 that ; whereas, if I go and live with Bill, on an unwrought- 
 for fifty pounds a-year, I will be hardly better than a mere 
 master-tailor or shoemaker. No, no, that would never do ! 
 Nothing like respectability, master, let a man fare as hard 
 as he may." 
 
 I thanked the gipsy for his story, and told him I thought 
 it almost worth while putting into print. He thanked me, 
 in turn, for liking it so well, and assured me I was quite at 
 liberty to put it in print as soon as I chose. And so I took 
 him at his word. 
 
 " But yonder," said he, " is the moon rising, red and 
 huge, over the three tops of Belrinnes, and throwing, as it 
 brightens, its long strip of fire across the Frith. Take care 
 of your footing, just as you reach the top of the crag : there 
 is an awkward gap there on the rock edge, that reminds me 
 of an Indian trap ; but as for the rest of the path, you will 
 find it quite as safe as by day. Good-bye." 
 
 I left him, and made the best of my way home, where, 
 while the facts were fresh in my mind, I committed to paper 
 the gipsy's stoiy. 
 
242 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 THE YOUNG SUBGEON. 
 
 There is a little runnel in tlie neighbourhood of the town 
 
 of , which, rising amid the swamps of a mossy 
 
 hollow, pursues its downward way along the bottom of a 
 deep-wooded ravine ; and so winding and circuitous is the 
 course which, in the lapse of ages, it has worn for itself 
 through a subsoil of stiff diluvial clay, that, ere a late pro- 
 prietor lined its sides with garden -flowers, and pathways 
 covered with gravel, and then willed that it should be named 
 the " Ladies' Walk," it was known to the town's-people as 
 the Crook Burn. It is a place of abrupt angles and sudden 
 turns. We see that, when the little stream first leaped from 
 its urn, it must have had many a difficulty to encounter, and 
 many an obstacle to overcome ; but they have all been long- 
 since surmounted ; and when in the heat of summer we 
 hear it tinkling through the pebbles with a sound so feeble 
 that it hardly provokes the chirp of the robin, and see that, 
 even where it spreads widest to the light, it presents a too 
 narrow space for the gambols of the water-spider, we marvel 
 how it could ever have scooped out for itself so capacious a 
 bed. But what will not centuries of perse verance accom- 
 plish ! The tallest trees that rise beside it, — and there are 
 
THE YOUNG SURGEON. 243 
 
 few taller in the country, — scarcely overtop its banks ; and, as 
 it approaches the parish burying-ground, — for it passes close 
 beside the wall, — we may look down from the fields above on 
 the topmost branches, and see the magpie sitting on her nest. 
 This little stream, so attenuated and thread-like during the 
 droughts of July and August, and which, after every heavier 
 shower, comes brawling from its recesses, reddened by a few 
 handfuls of clay, has swept to the sea, in the long unreckoned 
 succession of ages, a mass mighty enough to have furnished 
 the materials of an Egyptian pyramid. 
 
 In even the loneliest windings of the Crook Burn we find 
 something to remind us of the world. Every smoother trunk 
 bears its inscription of dates and initials ; and to one who has 
 resided in the neighbouring town, and mingled freely with 
 the inhabitants, there is scarcely a little cluster of characters 
 he meets with that has not its story. Human nature is a 
 wonderful thing, and interesting in even its humblest ap- 
 pearances to the creatures who partake of it ; nor can the 
 point from which one observes it be too near, or the obser- 
 vations themselves too minute. It is perhaps best, however, 
 when we have collected our materials, to combine and arrange 
 them at some little distance. We are always something more 
 than mere observers; — we possess that which we contemplate, 
 with all its predilections and all its antipathies ; and there is 
 dimness or distortion in the mirror on which we catch the 
 features of our neighbours, if the breath of passion has passed 
 over it. Do we not see that the little stream beside us gives 
 us a faithful picture of what surrounds it only when it is at 
 rest 1 And it is well, if we desire to think correctly, and in 
 the spirit of charity, of our brother men, that we should be 
 
244 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 at rest too. For our own part, we love best to think of the 
 dead when their graves are at our feet, and our feelings are 
 chastened by the conviction that we ourselves are very soon 
 to take our place beside them. We love to think of the 
 living, not amid the hum and bustle of the world, when 
 the thoughts are hurried, and perhaps the sterner passions 
 aroused ; but in the solitude of some green retreat, — by the 
 side of some unfrequented stream, — when drinking largely of 
 the beauty and splendour of external things, and feeling that 
 we ourselves are man, — in nature and destiny the being whom 
 we contemplate. There is nought of contempt in the smile to 
 which we are provoked by the eccentricities of a creature so 
 strange and wilful, nor of bitterness in the sorrow with which 
 we regard his crimes. 
 
 In passing one of the trees, a smooth-rinded ash, we see a 
 few characters engraved on it, which at the first glance we 
 deem Hebrew, but which we find, on examination, to belong 
 to some less known alphabet of the east. There hangs a story 
 of these obscure characters, which, though little chequered by 
 incident, has something very interesting in it. It is of no 
 distant date ; — the characters, in all their minuter strokes, 
 are still unfilled ; but the hand that traced them, and the eye 
 that softened in expression as it marked the progress of the 
 work, — for they record the name of a lady-love, — are now 
 mingled with the clods of the valley. 
 
 Early in an autumn of the present century, — and we need 
 not be more explicit, for names and dates are no way essen- 
 tial to what we have to relate, — a small tender entered the 
 
 bay of , and cast anchor in the roadstead, where 
 
 she remained for nearly two months. Our country had been 
 
THE YOUNG SURGEON. 245 
 
 at peace with all the world for years before, and the arts 
 which accompany peace had extended their softening influ- 
 ence to our seamen, — a class of men not much marked in the 
 past, as a body at least, — though it had produced a Dampier 
 and a Falconer, — for aught approaching to literary acquire- 
 ment, or the reflnement of their manners. And the officers 
 of this little vessel were no unfavourable specimens of the 
 more cultivated class. They were in general well read ; and 
 possessing, with the attainments, the manners of gentlemen, 
 were soon on terms of intimacy with some of the more intel- 
 ligent inhabitants of the place. There was one among them, 
 however, whose society was little courted. He was a young 
 and strikingly handsome man, with bright speaking eyes, and 
 a line development of forehead ; but the higher parts of his 
 nature seemed more than balanced by the lower ; and, though 
 proud-spirited and honourable, he was evidently sinking into 
 a hopeless degradation, — the slave of habits which strengthen 
 with indulgence, and which already seemed too strong to be 
 overcome. 
 
 He accompanied, on two or three occasions, some of his 
 brother officers when engaged in calling on their several ac- 
 quaintances of the place. The grosser traits of his character 
 had become pretty generally known, and report had, as usual, 
 rather aggravated than lessened them. There was some- 
 thing whispered of a low intrigue in which he was said to 
 have been engaged, — something, too, of those disreputable 
 habits of solitary indulgence in which the stimulating agent 
 is recklessly and despairingly employed to satisfy for the 
 moment the ever-recurring cravings of a depraved appetite, 
 and which are regarded as precluding the hope of reform ; 
 
246 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 and he seemed as if shunned by every one. His high spirit, 
 however, though it felt neglect, could support him under it : 
 he was a keen satirist, too, like almost all men of talent, who, 
 thinking and feeling more correctly than they live, wreak on 
 their neighbours the unhappiness of their own remorse ; and 
 he could thus neutralize the bitterness of his feelings by the 
 bitterness of his thoughts. But with every such help one 
 cannot wholly dispense with the respect of others, unless one 
 be possessed of one's own ; and when a lady of the place, 
 who on one occasion saw and pitied his chagrin, invited him 
 to pass an evening at her house with a small party of friends, 
 the feeling awakened by her kindness served to convince him 
 that he was less indifferent than he could have wished to 
 the coldness of the others. His spirits rose in the company to 
 which he was thus introduced ; he exerted his powers of 
 pleasing, and they were of no ordinary description, — for, to 
 an imagination of much liveliness, he added warm feelings 
 and an exquisite taste ; and, on rising to take his leave for 
 the evening, his hostess, whose interest in him was heightened 
 by pity, and whose years and character secured her from the 
 fear of having her motives misconstrued, kindly urged him 
 to repeat his visit every time he thought he could not better 
 employ himself, or when he found it irksome or dangerous to 
 be alone. And her invitation was accepted in the spirit in 
 which it was given. 
 
 She soon became acquainted with his story. He had lost 
 his mother when very young, and had been bred up under 
 the care of an elder brother, with an eye to the Church ; but 
 his inclinations interfering as he grew up, the destination 
 was altered, and he applied himself to the study of medicine. 
 
THE YOUNG SURGEON. 247 
 
 He had passed through college in a way creditable to his 
 talents, and on quitting it he seemed admirably fitted to 
 rise in the profession which he had made choice of; for, 
 to very superior acquirements, and much readiness of re- 
 source, he added a pleasing address, and a soft, winning man- 
 ner. There seemed, however, to be something of a neutra- 
 lizing quality in the moral constitution of the man. He was 
 honest, and high-spirited, and ready to oblige ; but there was 
 a morbid restlessness in his feelings, which, languishing after 
 excitement as its proper element, rendered him too indif- 
 ferent to those ordinary concerns of life which seem so tame 
 and little when regarded singly, but which prove of such 
 mighty importance in the aggregate. There was, besides, an 
 unhappy egotism in the character, which led him to regard 
 himself as extraordinary, the circumstances in which he 
 was placed as common, and therefore unsuited, and which, 
 instead of exciting him to the course of legitimate exertion 
 through which men of talent rise to their proper sphere, spent 
 itself in making out ingenious cases of sorrow, and apologies 
 for unhappiness, from very ordinary events, and a condition 
 of life in which thousands attain to contentment. One 
 might almost suppose that that sense of the ludicrous,— be- 
 stowed on the species undoubtedly for wise ends, — which 
 finds its proper vocation in detecting and exposing incon- 
 gruities of this kind, could not be better employed than in 
 setting such a man right. It would have failed in its object, 
 however ; and certain it is, that geniuses of the very first 
 order, who could have rendered us back our ridicule with 
 fearful interest, have been of nearly the same disposition 
 with the poor surgeon, — creatures made up of idiosyncrasies 
 
248 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 and eccentricities. A similar turn was attended with un- 
 happiness in Byron and Bousseau ; and such is the power 
 of true genius over the public mind, however fantastic its 
 vagaries, that they had all Europe to sympathize with them. 
 The poor surgeon experienced no such sympathy. The 
 circumstances, too, in which he had been reared were well- 
 nigh as unfavourable as his disposition ; nor had they at all 
 improved as he grew up. The love of a mother might have 
 nursed the feelings of so delicate a mind, and fitted them 
 for the world ; for, as in dispositions of a romantic cast, 
 the affections are apt to wander after the unreal and the 
 illusive, and to become chilled and crippled in the pursuit, 
 it is well that they should be prepared for resting on real 
 objects, by the thousand kindlinesses of this first felt and 
 tenderest relation. But his mother he had lost in infancy. 
 His brother, though substantially kind, had a way of saying 
 bitter things, — not unprovoked, perhaps, — which, once heard, 
 were never forgotten. He was now living among strangers, 
 — who, to a man of his temper, were likely to remain such, — 
 without friends or patron, and apparently out of the reach 
 of promotion. And, to sum up the whole, he was a tender 
 and elegant poet, for he had become skilful in the unconi- 
 municable art, and had learned to give body to his emo- 
 tions and colour to his thoughts ; but, though exquisitely 
 alive to the sweets of fame, he was of all poets the most 
 obscure and nameless. With a disposition so unfortunate 
 in its peculiarities, — with a groundwork, too, of strong 
 animal passion in the character, — he strove to escape from 
 himself by means revolting to his better nature, and which 
 ultimately more than doubled his unhappiness. To a too 
 
THE YOUNG SURGEON. 249 
 
 active dislike of his brother men, — for lie was infinitely more 
 successful in finding enemies than friends, — there was now 
 added a sickening disgust of himself : habit produced its 
 usual effects ; and he found he had raised to his assistance 
 a demon which he could not lay, and which threatened to 
 destroy him. 
 
 "We insert a finished little poem, the composition of this 
 stage, in which he portrays his feelings, and which may serve 
 to show, were any such proof needed, that gross habits and 
 an elegant taste are by no means incompatible. 
 
 Fain would I seek in scenes more gay, 
 
 That pleasure others find, 
 And strive to drown in revelry 
 
 The anguish of the mind. 
 
 But still, where'er I go, I bear 
 
 The marks of inward pain ; 
 The lines of misery and care 
 
 Are written in my brain. 
 
 I cannot raise the cheerful song, 
 
 Nor frolic with the free, 
 Nor mingle in the dance among 
 
 The sons of mirth and glee. 
 
 For there's a spell upon my soul, 
 
 A secret anguish there, 
 A grief which I can not control, 
 
 A deep corroding care. 
 
 And do not ask me why I sigh, — 
 
 Draw not the veil aside ; 
 Though dark, 'tis fairer to the eye 
 
 Than that which it would hide. 
 
 The downward progress of the young surgeon, ere it re- 
 ceived the ultimate check which restored him to more than 
 
250 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 the vantage-ground of his earliest years, was partially arrested 
 by a circumstance more efficient in suspending the influence 
 of the grosser habits than any other which occurs in the ordi- 
 nary course of things. When in some of the southern ports 
 of England, he had formed an attachment for a young and 
 beautiful lady of great delicacy of sentiment, and a highly cul- 
 tivated mind, and succeeded in inspiring her with a correspond- 
 ing regard. Who is not acquainted with Dryden's story of 
 Cymon? It may be a harder matter, indeed, to unfix deeply- 
 rooted habits than merely to polish the manners ; but we are 
 the creatures of motive ; and there is no appetite, however un- 
 conquerable it may appear when opposed by only the dictates 
 of judgment or conscience, but what yields to the influence 
 of a passion more powerful than itself. To the young sur- 
 geon his attachment for this lady proved for a time the guid- 
 ing motive and the governing passion • the effect was a 
 temporary reform, a kind of minor conversion, which, though 
 the work of no undying spirit, seemed to renovate his whole 
 moral nature ; and had he resided in the neighbourhood of 
 his lady-love, it is probable that, during at least the term of 
 his courtship, all his grosser appetites would have slept. But 
 absence, though it rather strengthens than diminishes a true 
 attachment, frequently lessens its moral efficiency, by form- 
 ing, as it were, a craving void in the heart, which old habits 
 are usually called upon to fill. The philosopher of Rousseau 
 solaced himself with his bottle when absent from his mistress ; 
 — the poor fellow whose story I attempt to relate returned 
 in a similar way to most of his earlier indulgences when se- 
 parated from his. And yet never was there lover more 
 thoroughly attached, or whose affection had less of earth in 
 
THE YOUNG SURGEON. 251 
 
 it. His love seemed rather an abstraction of the poet than 
 based on the passions of the man • and, coloured by the 
 taste and delicacy of his intellectual nature, it might be con- 
 ceived of as a sort of religion, exquisitely fervent in its wor- 
 ship, and abounding in gorgeous visions, — the phantoms of a 
 vigorous fancy, conjured up by a too credulous hope. Nor did 
 it lack its dedicatory inscriptions or its hymns. Almost the 
 only cheerful verses he ever wrote were his love ones ; the 
 others were filled with a kind of metaphysical grief — shall 
 we call it 1 — common to our literature since the days of 
 Byron and Shelley, but which seems to have been unknown 
 to either Burns or Shakspeare. The surgeon, however, was 
 no mere imitator, — no mere copyist of unfelt and impossible 
 sorrows. His pieces, like all the productions of the school 
 to which they belonged, included nearly the usual amount 
 of false thought and sentiment; but the feeling which had 
 dictated them was not a false one. Had he lived better, he 
 would have written more cheerfully. It is with the mind 
 often as with the body : it is not always in the main seat of 
 disease that the symptoms proper to the disease are exhibited ; 
 nor does it need any very extensive acquaintance with our 
 nature to know that real remorse often forms the groundwork 
 of an apparently fictitious sorrow. 
 
 Another poem, of somewhat the same stamp as the former, 
 we may insert here. It is in the handwriting of the young 
 surgeon, among a collection of his pieces, but is marked 
 "Anonymous." We have never met with it elsewhere ; and 
 as it bears upon it the impress of this singular young man's 
 mind, and is powerfully expressive of the gloom in which he 
 loved to enshroud himself, and of the deep bitterness which 
 
252 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 is the only legitimate fruit of a life of sinful pleasure, we may 
 shrewdly guess that it can be the production of no one else. 
 It is entitled 
 
 THE MOURNEE. 
 
 I do not sigh 
 That I catch not the glance of woman's eye : 
 I am weary of woman : I know too well 
 How the pleasant smiles of the love-merchant sell, 
 To waste one serious thought on her, 
 Though I've been, like others, a worshipper. 
 I do not sigh for the silken creature : 
 The tinge of good in her milky blood 
 Marks not her worth, but her feebler nature. 
 
 I do not pine 
 That the treasures of India are not mine : 
 I have feasted on ail that gold could buy ; 
 I have drain'd the fount men call pleasure dry, 
 And I feel the after-scorch of pain 
 On a lip that would not drink again. 
 Oh ! wealth on me were only wasted : 
 I am far above the usurer's love ; 
 And all other love on earth I've tasted. 
 
 I do not weep 
 That apart from the noble my walk I keep, — 
 That the name I bear shall never be set 
 'Mid the gems of fame's sparkling coronet ; 
 That I shall slink, with the meanest clay, 
 To a hasty grave as mean as they. 
 Oh ! the choice of a sepulchre does not grieve me : 
 I have that within a name might win, 
 And a tomb,— if such things could deceive me. 
 
 I do not groan 
 That I life's poison-plant have known, — 
 That in my spirit's drunkenness 
 I ate of its fruit of bitterness, 
 
THE YOUNG SURGEON. 253 
 
 Nor knew, until it was too late, 
 The ills that on such banquet wait. 
 'Tis not for this I cherish sadness : 
 I've taught my heart to endure the smart 
 Produced by my youth's madness. 
 
 But I do sigh, 
 And deeply, darkly pine, weep, groan, — and why ? 
 Because with unclouded eye I see 
 Each turn in human destiny, 
 The knowledge of which will not depart, 
 But lingers and rankles in my heart ; — 
 Because it is my chance to know 
 That good and ill,— that weal and woe, — 
 Are words that Nothing mean below ; — 
 Because all earth can't buy a morrow, 
 Or draw from breath, or the vital breath, 
 Aught but uncertainty and sorrow. 
 
 This strange poem he read to his elderly friend, with the 
 evident purpose of eliciting some criticism. While admit- 
 ting its power, she protested against its false philosophy, — 
 the result of a distorted vision, in its turn the result of a 
 perverted life. By way of attempting to strike out a healthier 
 vein of sentiment, she begged him to furnish her with an 
 answer. "With this request he complied ; but the production, 
 although with glimpses of true poetry, and with the same 
 power over rhythm, has, as might be expected, the air of some- 
 thing made to order. It is as follows : — 
 
 ANSWER TO THE MOURNER. 
 
 I daily sigh 
 That I meet not the glance of my lady's eye. 
 I am weary of absence : I know too well 
 How lonely and tiresome the dull hours tell, 
 
254 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Not to wish every moment to be with her 
 Of whom I have long been the worshipper. 
 Oh, how I long for the lovely creature ! 
 The olive bud at the general Flood 
 To the patriarch sailor was not sweeter. 
 
 I often pine 
 That the gifts of fortune are not mine, 
 Yet covet not wealth from the wish to taste 
 The enervating sweets of thoughtless waste. 
 The slave of pleasure I scorn to be, 
 And the usurer's love has no charms for me. 
 I wish but an easy competence, 
 With a pound to lend to a needy friend, 
 Bat I care not for splendid affluence. 
 
 I sometimes weep 
 That I with the lowly my walk must keep : 
 I would that my humble name were set 
 In the centre of Fame's bright coronet, 
 That my tomb might be decked with a gorgeous stone, 
 And the tears of the virtuous shed thereon. 
 Oh ! the thoughts of death should never grieve me, 
 Could I stamp my name with a spotless fame, 
 And a garland of deathless roses weave me. 
 
 I deeply groan 
 When I think on the follies my youth has known, — 
 When the still small voice of conscience brings 
 Before me the mem'ry of bygone things, 
 And its softest whisper appals me more 
 Than the earthquake's crash or the thunder's roar ; 
 And my sorrow is deeper, because I know 
 That neither from chance nor from ignorance, 
 But with open eyes, I have wandered so. 
 
 I murmur not 
 That the volume of fate to man is shut,— 
 That he is forbidden with daring eye 
 Into its mysteries to pry. 
 
THE YOUNG SCRGEON. 255 
 
 Content with the knowledge that God has given, 
 I seek not to fathom the plans of Heaven ; 
 I believe that good may be found below ; 
 And that evil is tasted, alas ! I know : 
 Yet I trust there's a balm for every woe, — 
 That the saddest night will have a morrow ; 
 And I hope through faith to live after death, 
 In a world that knows nor sin nor sorrow. 
 
 The truest answer to the mourner was, however, yet to 
 come. 
 
 It is not the least faulty among men that are most suc- 
 cessful in interesting us in their welfare. A ruin often 
 awakens deeper emotions than the edifice, however noble, 
 could have elicited when entire ; and there is something in 
 a broken and ruined character, if we can trace in it the 
 lineaments of original beauty and power, that inspires us 
 with similar feelings. The friend of the young surgeon felt 
 thus : he was in truth a goodly ruin, in which she saw much 
 to admire and much to regret ; and, impressed by a serious 
 and long-cherished belief in the restorative efficacy of reli- 
 gion, her pity for him was not unmixed with hope. She 
 had treated him on every occasion with the kindness of a 
 mother ; and now, with the affection and freedom proper to 
 the character, she pressed on his consideration the important 
 truths which she knew concerned him most deeply. He 
 listened with a submissive and respectful attention, — the 
 effect, doubtless, of those feelings with which he must have 
 regarded one so disinterestedly his friend ; for the subject 
 could not have been introduced to his notice under circum- 
 stances more favourable. The sense of obligation had soft- 
 ened his heart : the respectful deference which he naturally 
 
256 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 paid to the sex and character of his friend prepared him 
 rather to receive than to challenge the truths which she urged 
 on his acceptance : the conviction that a heartfelt interest in 
 his welfare furnished her only motive, checked that noiseless 
 though fatal under-current of objection which can defeat in 
 so many cases an end incontrovertibly good, by fixing on it 
 the imputation of sinister design • and, above all, there was 
 a plain earnestness in her manner, the result of a deep-seated 
 belief, which, disdaining the niceties of metaphysical specu- 
 lation, spoke more powerfully to his conscience than it could 
 have done had it armed itself with half the arguments of the 
 schools. Rarely does mere argument bring conviction to an 
 ingenious mind, fertile in doubts and objections. Conscience 
 sleeps when the rationative faculty contends for victory, — a 
 thing it is seldom indifferent to ; and a few perhaps inge- 
 nious sophisms prove the only fruits of the contest. 
 
 The little vessel lay in , as I have said, for about 
 
 two months, when she received orders to sail for the south 
 of England : a storm arose, and she was forced by stress of 
 weather into Aberdeen. From this place the surgeon first 
 wrote to his friend. His epistolary style, like his poetiy, was 
 characterized by an easy elegance ; and there was no inci- 
 dent which he related, however trifling in itself, which did 
 not borrow some degree of interest from his pen. He re- 
 lates, in one of his earlier letters, that, in a solitary ramble 
 in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen, he came to a picturesque 
 little bridge en the river Don. He had rarely seen a prettier 
 spot : there were rocks, and trees, and a deep dark stream ; 
 and he stood admiring it till there passed a poor old beggar, 
 of whom he inquired the name of the bridge. " It is called," 
 
THE YOUNG SURGEOX. 257 
 
 said the mendicant, " the brig of Don ; but in ray young 
 days it was better known as the brig of Balgownie ; and if 
 you be a Scotchman, perhaps you have heard of it, for there 
 are many prophecies about it by Thomas the Rhymer. " 
 " Ah," exclaimed the surgeon, " ' Balgownie brig's black wa !' 
 And so I have been admiring, for its own sake, the far-famed 
 scene of Byron's boyhood. I cannot tell you," he adds, 
 " what I felt on the occasion. It was perhaps lucky for me 
 that I had not much money in my pocket, but the little that 
 I had made the old man happy." 
 
 Our story hastens abruptly to its conclusion. During the 
 following winter and the early part of spring, the little ten- 
 der was employed in cruising in the English Channel and 
 the neighbourhood of Jersey ; and from the latter place most 
 of the surgeon's letters to his friend were addressed. They 
 relate the progress of an interesting and highly-important 
 change in a mind of no ordinary character. There was an 
 alteration effected in the very tone of his intellect ; it seemed, 
 if I may so express myself, as if strung less sharply than be- 
 fore, and more in accordance with the realities of life. Even 
 his love appeared as if changed into a less romantic but 
 tenderer passion, that sought the welfare of its object even 
 more than the object itself. But it was in his moral nature, 
 — in those sentiments of the man which look forward and up- 
 ward, — that the metamorphosis seemed most complete. When 
 a powerful mind first becomes the subject of serious impres- 
 sions, there is something in Christianity suited to take it by 
 surprise. When viewed at a distance, and with that slight 
 degree of attention which the great bulk of mankind are con- 
 tented to bestow on the religion which God revealed, there 
 
 E 
 
258 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 seems a complex obscurity in its peculiar doctrines, which 
 contrasts strongly with the simplicity of its morals. It seems 
 to lie as unccmforrnahly (if we may employ the metaphor) as 
 some of the deductions of the higher sciences, to what is 
 termed the common sense of mankind. It seems at first 
 sight, for instance, no very rational inference that the white- 
 ness of light is the effect of a harmonious mixture of colour, or 
 that the earth is confined to its orbit by the operations of the 
 same law which impels a falling pebble towards the ground. 
 And to the careless because uninterested observer, such doc- 
 trines as the doctrine of the Fall and the Atonement appear 
 rational in as slight a degree. But when Deity himself inter- 
 poses, — when the heart is seriously affected, — when the Divine 
 Law holds up its mirror to the conscience, and we begin to 
 examine the peculiar doctrines in a clearer light, and from a 
 nearer point of observation, — they at once seem to change their 
 character, — to assume so stupendous a massiveness of aspect, 
 — to discover a profundity so far beyond every depth of a 
 merely human philosophy, — to appear so wonderfully fitted 
 to the nature and to the wants of man, — that we are at once 
 convinced their author can be no other than the adorable 
 Being who gave light and gravitation to the universe which 
 he willed to exist. The young surgeon had a mind capacious 
 enough to be impressed by this feeling of surprise. He be- 
 gan to see, and to wonder he had missed seeing it before, 
 that Christianity is in keeping, if we may so speak, with the 
 other productions of its Author ; that to a creature solely in- 
 fluenced by motive, no moral code, however perfect, can be 
 efficient in directing or restraining, except through its con- 
 nection with some heart-influencing belief, — that it is essen- 
 
THE YOUNG SURGEON. 259 
 
 tial to his nature as man that lie meet with a corresponding 
 nature in Deity, — a human nature like his own, — and that 
 he must be conscious of owing to Him more than either his 
 first origin or his subsequent support, or any of the minor 
 gifts which he shares in common with the inferior animals, 
 and which cost the Giver a less price than was paid on Cal- 
 vary. It is unnecessary to expatiate on the new or altered 
 feelings which accompanied the change, or to record the 
 processes of a state of mind described by so many. The 
 surgeon, in his last letter to his friend, dwelt on these with 
 an earnest yet half-bashful delight, that, while it showed 
 how much they engrossed him, showed also how new it was 
 to him either to experience or describe them. 
 
 The next she received regarding him recorded his death. 
 It was written at his dying request by a clergyman of 
 Jersey. He had passed a day, early in April, in the cabin 
 of the little vessel, engaged with his books and his pen ; to- 
 wards evening he went on deck ; and, in stepping on the 
 quay, missed his footing and fell backwards. The spine sus- 
 tained a mortal injury in the falL He was carried by the 
 unskilful hands of sailors to lodgings in the town of St 
 Helier's, a distance of five miles. During this long and 
 painful transport, he was, as he afterwards said, conscious, 
 although speechless, and aware that, if he had been placed 
 in an easier position, with his head better supported, he 
 might have a chance of recovery. Yet he never gave ex- 
 pression to a single murmur. Besides the clergyman, he 
 was fortunate enough to be assiduously attended by some 
 excellent friends whom he had made on occasion of a former 
 visit of his vessel to the same port. These he kept employed 
 
260 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 in reading the Scriptures aloud by night and by day. As 
 he had formerly drunk deeply of the fount men call pleasure, 
 he now drank insatiably at the pure Fount of Inspiration. 
 " It is necessary to stop," one of his kind attendants would 
 say ; " your fever is rising." " It is only," he would reply 
 with a smile, " the loss of a little blood after you leave." He 
 lingered thus for about four weeks in hopeless suffering, but 
 in the full possession of all his mental faculties, till death 
 came to his relief, and he departed full of the hope of a happy 
 immortality. The last tie that bound him to the world was 
 his attachment to the lady whose name, so obscurely recorded, 
 has introduced his story to the reader. But as death neared, 
 and the world receded, he became reconciled to the necessity 
 of parting from even her. His last request to the clergyman 
 who attended him was, that after his decease he should write 
 
 to his friend in , and say, " that if, as he trusted, 
 
 he entered, a sinner saved, into glory, he would have to 
 bless her, as being, under God, the honoured instrument of 
 mercy." 
 
GEORGE ROSS, THE SCOTCH AGENT. 261 
 
 GEOBGE EOSS, THE SCOTCH AGENT. 
 
 In the letter in which Junius accuses the Duke of Grafton 
 of having sold a patent place in the collection of customs to 
 one Mr Hine, he informs the reader that the person employed 
 by his Grace in negotiating the business " was George Ross, 
 the Scotch Agent and worthy confidant of Lord Mansfield. 
 And no sale by the candle," he adds, " was ever conducted 
 with greater formality." Now, slight as this notice is, there 
 is something in it sufficiently tangible for the imagination to 
 lay hold of. If the reader thinks of the Scotch ao-ent at all, 
 he probably thinks of him as one of those convenient crea- 
 tures so necessary to the practical statesman, whose merit 
 does not consist more in their being ingenious in a great de- 
 gree, than in their being honest in a very small one. So 
 mixed a thing is poor human nature, however, that, though 
 the statement of Junius has never yet been fairly contro- 
 verted, no possible estimate of character could be more un- 
 just. The Scotch Agent, whatever the nature of his services 
 to the Duke of Grafton, was in reality a high-minded, and, 
 what is more, a truly patriotic man, — so good a person, in- 
 deed, that, in a period of political heats and animosities, 
 his story, fairly told, might teach us a lesson of charity and 
 
262 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 moderation. I wish I could transport the reader to where 
 his portrait hangs, side by side with that of his friend the 
 Lord Chief Justice, in the drawing-room of Cromarty House. 
 The air of dignified benevolence impressed on the features 
 of the handsome old man, with his gray hair curling round 
 his temple?, would secure a fair hearing for him from even 
 the sturdiest of the class who hate their neighbours for the 
 tfood of their country. Besides, the very presence of the 
 noble-looking lawyer, so much more like the Murray eulo- 
 gized by Pope and Lyttelton than the Mansfield denounced 
 by Junius, would of itself serve as a sort of guarantee for 
 the honour of his friend. 
 
 George Ross was the son of a petty proprietor of Easter- 
 Ross ', and succeeded, on the death of his father, to the few 
 barren acres on which, for a century or two before, the family 
 had been ingenious enough to live. But he possessed, besides, 
 what was more valuable than twenty such patrimonies, — an 
 untiring energy of disposition, based on a substratum of the 
 soundest good sense ; and, what was scarcely less important 
 than either, ambition enough to turn his capacity of employ- 
 ment to the best account. Ross-shire a century ago was no 
 place for such a man ; and as the only road to preferment at 
 this period was the road that led south, George Ross, when 
 very young, left his mother's cottage for England, where he 
 spent nearly fifty years amongst statesmen and courtiers, and 
 in the enjoyment of the friendship of such men as President 
 Forbes and Lord Mansfield. At length he returned, when 
 an old gray-headed man, to rank among the greatest capi- 
 talists and proprietors of the county, and purchased, with 
 other lesser properties in the neighbourhood, the whole 
 
GEORGE ROSS, THE SCOTCH AGENT. 263 
 
 estate of Cromarty. Perhaps lie had come to rest him ere 
 he died ; but there seems to be no such thing as changing 
 ones natural bent, when confirmed by the habits of half a 
 lifetime ; and the energies of the Scotch Agent, now that 
 they had gained him fortune and influence, were as little dis- 
 posed to fall asleep as they had been forty years before. As 
 it was no longer necessary, however, that they should be em- 
 ployed on his own account, he gave them full scope in behalf 
 of his poorer neighbours. The country around him lay dead. 
 There were no manufactories, no trade, no knowledge of 
 agriculture, no consciousness that matters were ill, and, con- 
 sequently, no desire of making them better ; and the Hercu- 
 lean task imposed upon himself by the Scotch Agent, now 
 considerably turned of sixty, was to animate and revolu- 
 tionize the whole. And such was his statesman-like sagacity 
 in developing the hitherto undiscovered resources of the coun- 
 try, joined to a high-minded zeal, that could sow liberally in 
 the hope of a late harvest for others to reap, that he fully 
 succeeded. 
 
 He first established in the town an extensive manufactory 
 of hempen cloth, which has ever since employed about two* 
 hundred persons within its walls, and fully twice that num- 
 ber without. He next built an ale brewery, which, at the 
 time of its erection, was by far the largest in the north of 
 Scotland. He then furnished the town, at a great expense, 
 with an excellent harbour, and set on foot a trade in pork, 
 which for the last thirty years has been carried on by the 
 people of the place to an extent of from about fifteen to 
 twenty thousand pounds annually. He set himself, too, to 
 initiate his tenantry in the art of rearing wheat ; and find- 
 
264: TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 iiig theni wofully unwilling to become wiser on the subject, 
 lie tried the force of example, by taking an extensive farm 
 under his own management, and conducting it on the most 
 approved principles of modern agriculture. He established 
 a nail and spade manufactory ; brought women from Eng- 
 land to instruct the young girls in the art of working lace ; 
 provided houses for the poor ; presented the town with a 
 neat substantial building, the upper part of which serves for 
 a council-room, and the lower as a prison ; and built for the 
 accommodation of the poor Highlanders, who came throng- 
 ing into the town to work on his land and in his manufac- 
 tories, a handsome Gaelic chapel. He built for his own re- 
 sidence an elegant house of hewn stone ; surrounded it with 
 pleasure-grounds, designed in the best style of the art; planted 
 many hundred acres of the less improveable parts of his pro- 
 perty ; and laid open the hitherto scarcely accessible beauties 
 of the hill of Cromarty, by crossing and re-crossing it with 
 well-nigh as many walks as there are veins in the human 
 body. He was proud of his exquisite landscapes, and of his 
 own skill in heightening their beauty, and fully determined, 
 he said, if he but lived long enough, to make Cromarty worth 
 an Englishman's while coming all the way from London to 
 see it. 
 
 When Oscar fell asleep, says the old Irish bard, it was 
 impossible to awaken him before his time, except by cutting 
 off one of his fingers, or flinging a rock at his head ; and wo 
 to the poor man who disturbed him! The Agent found it 
 every whit as difficult to awaken a sleeping country, and in 
 some respects almost as unsafe. I am afraid human nature 
 is nearly the same thing in the people that it is in their 
 
GEORGE ROSS, THE SCOTCH AGENT. 2G5 
 
 rulers, and that both are alike disposed to prefer the man 
 who natters thern to the man who merely does them good. 
 George Ross was by no means the most popular of proprie- 
 tors : he disturbed old prejudices, and unfixed old habits. 
 The farmers thought it hard that they should have to break 
 up their irregular map-like patches of land, divided from 
 each other by little strips and corners not yet reclaimed 
 from the waste, into awkward-looking rectangular fields, and 
 that they durst no longer fasten their horses to the plough 
 by the tail, — a piece of natural harness evidently formed for 
 the express purpose. The towns-people deemed the hempen 
 manufactory unwholesome ; and found that the English lace- 
 women, who to a certainty were tea-drinkers, and even not 
 very hostile, it was said, to gin, were in a fair way of teach- 
 ing their pupils something more than the mere weaving of 
 lace. What could be more heathenish, too, than the little 
 temple covered with cockle-shells which the laird had just 
 reared on a solitary corner of the hill, but which they soon 
 sent spinning over the cliff into the sea, a downward journey 
 of a hundred yards ? And then, his odious pork trade ! 
 There was no prevailing on the people to rear pigs for him ; 
 and so he had to build a range of offices in an out-of-the-way 
 nook of his lands, which he stocked with hordes of these ani- 
 mals, that he might rear them for himself. The herds in- 
 creased in size and number, and, voracious beyond calcula- 
 tion, almost occasioned a famine. Even the great wealth of 
 the speculatist proved insufficient to supply them with food, 
 and the very keepers were in danger of being eaten alive. 
 The poor animals seemed departing from their very nature, 
 for they became long and lank, and bony as the griffins of 
 
266 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 heraldry, until they looked more like race-horses than pigs ; 
 and as they descended with every ebb in huge droves to 
 browse on the sea-weed, or delve for shell-fish among the 
 pebbles, there was no lack of music befitting their condition, 
 when the large rock-crab revenged with his nippers on their 
 lips the injuries inflicted on him with their teeth. Now, all 
 this formed a fine subject for joking to people who indulged 
 in a half-Jewish dislike of the pig, and who could not guess 
 that the pork trade was one day to pay the rents of half the 
 widows' cottages in the country. But no one could lie more 
 open than George Ross to that species of ridicule which the 
 men who see farther than their neighbours, and look more 
 to the advantage of others than to their own, cannot fail to 
 encounter. He was a worker in the dark, and at no slight 
 expense ; for, though all his many projects were ultimately 
 found to be benefits conferred on his country, not one of 
 them proved remunerative to himself. But he seems to have 
 known mankind too well to have expected a great deal from 
 their gratitude, though on one occasion at least his patience 
 gave way. 
 
 The town in the course of years had so entirely marched 
 to the west, that the town's cross came at length to be fairly 
 left behind, with a hawthorn hedge on the one side, and a 
 garden fence on the other ; and when the agent had com- 
 pleted the house which was to serve as council-room and 
 prison to the place, the cross was taken down from its stand 
 of more than two centuries, and placed in front of the new 
 building. That people might the better remember the cir- 
 cumstance, there was a showy procession got up ; healths were 
 drunk beside the cross in the Agent's best wine, and not a 
 
GEORGE ROSS, THE SCOTCH AGENT. 267 
 
 little of his best crystal broken against it ; and the evening 
 terminated in a ball. It so happened, however, through some 
 cross chance, that, though all the gentility of the place were 
 to be invited, three young men, who deemed themselves quite 
 as genteel as the best of their neighbours, were passed over ; 
 — the dignified manager of the hemp manufactory had re- 
 ceived no invitation, nor the clever superintendent of the 
 nail-work, nor yet the spruce clerk of the brewery ; and as 
 they were all men of spirit, it so happened that, during the 
 very next night, the cross was taken down from its new pe- 
 destal, broken into three pieces, and carried still farther to 
 the west, to an open space where four lanes met ; and there 
 it was found in the morning, — the pieces piled over each 
 other, and surrounded by a profusion of broken ale bottles. 
 The Agent was amazingly angry, — angrier, indeed, than his 
 acquaintance had deemed him capable of becoming ; and in 
 the course of the day the town's crier went through the streets 
 proclaiming a reward of ten pounds in hand, and a free room 
 in Mr Ross's new buildings for life, to any one who would 
 give such information as might lead to the conviction of the 
 offenders. 
 
 In one of his walks a few days after, the Agent met with 
 a poor miserable-looking Highland woman, who had been 
 picking a few withered sticks out of one of his hedges, and 
 whose hands and clothes seemed torn by the thorns. " Poor 
 old creature," he said, as she dropped her curtsey in passing, 
 " you must go to my manager, and tell him I have ordered 
 you a barrel of coals. And stay, — you are hungry : call at 
 my house in passing, and the servants will find you some- 
 thing to bring home with you." The poor woman blessed 
 
268 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 hiro, and looked up hesitatingly in his face. She had never 
 betrayed any one, she said ; but his honour was so good a 
 gentleman, — so very good a gentleman ; and so she thought 
 she had best tell him all she knew about the breaking of the 
 cross. She lived in a little garret over the room of Jamie 
 Banks, the nailer ; and having slept scarcely any all the night 
 in which the cross was taken down, — for the weather was 
 bitterly cold, and her bed-clothes very thin, — she could hear 
 weighty footsteps traversing the streets till near morning, 
 when the house-door opened, and in came Jamie, with a tot- 
 tering, unequal step, and disturbed the whole family by stum- 
 bling over a stool into his wife's washing-tub. Besides, she 
 had next day overheard his wife rating him for staying out 
 to so untimeous an hour, and his remark, in reply, that she 
 would do well to keep quiet, unless she wished to see him 
 hanged. This was the sort of clue the affair required ; and 
 in following it up, the unlucky nailer was apprehended and 
 examined ; but it was found that, through a singular lapse 
 of memory, he had forgotten every circumstance connected 
 with the night in question, except that he had been in the 
 very best company, and one of the happiest men in the world. 
 Jamie Banks was decidedly the most eccentric man of his 
 day, in at least one parish, — full of small wit and small 
 roguery, and famous for a faculty of invention fertile enough 
 to have served a poet. On one occasion, when the gill of 
 whisky had risen to three-halfpence in Cromarty, and could 
 still be bought for a penny in Avoch, he had prevailed on a 
 party of his acquaintance to accompany him to the latter place, 
 that they might drink themselves rich on the strength of the 
 old proverb ; and as they actually effected a saving of two sliil- 
 
GEORGE ROSS, THE SCOTCH AGENT. 2G9 
 
 lings in spending six, it was clear, he said, that, had not their 
 money failed them, they would have made fortunes a- piece. 
 Alas for the littlenesses of that great passion, — the love of 
 fame ! I have observed that the tradespeople among whom 
 one meets with most instances of eccentricity are those whose 
 shops, being places of general resort, furnish them with space 
 enough on which to achieve a humble notoriety, by render- 
 ing themselves unlike everybody else. To secure to Jamie 
 Banks due leisure for recollection, he was committed to jail. 
 
 He was sitting one evening beside the prison fire, with one 
 of his neighbours and the jailor, and had risen to exclude the 
 chill night air by drawing a curtain over the open-barred 
 window of the apartment, when a man suddenly started 
 from behind the wail outside, and discharged a large stone 
 with tremendous force at his head. The missile almost 
 brushed his ear as it sung past, and, rebounding from the 
 opposite wall, rolled along the floor. " That maun be Rob 
 Williamson," exclaimed Jamie, " wanting to keep me quiet. 
 Out, neebor Jonathan, an' after him." Neebor Jonathan, 
 an active young fellow, sprung to the door, caught the sounds 
 of retreating footsteps as he turned the gate, and, clashing 
 after like a grayhound, succeeded in laying hold of the coat- 
 skirts of Rob Williamson, as he strained onwards through 
 the gate of the hemp manufactory. He was immediately 
 secured, and lodged in another apartment of the prison ; and 
 in the morning Jamie Banks was found to have recovered 
 his memory. 
 
 He had finished working, he said, on the evening after 
 the ball, and was just putting on his coat preparatory to 
 leaving the shop, when the superintendent called him into 
 
270 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 his writing-room, where he found three persons sitting at a 
 table half-covered with bottles. Rob Williamson, the weaver, 
 was one of these ; the other two were the clerk of the brewery 
 and the manager of the hemp manufactory ; and they were 
 all arguing together on some point of divinity. The mana- 
 ger cleared a seat for him beside himself, and tilled his glass 
 thrice in succession, by way of making up for the time he 
 had lost. Nothing could be more untrue than that the ma- 
 nager was proud. They then all began to speak about morals 
 and Mr Ross. The clerk was certain that, with his harbour, 
 and his piggery, and his heathen temples, and his lace-women, 
 he would not leave a ray of morality in the place ; and Rob 
 was quite as sure he was no friend to the gospel. He a 
 builder of Gaelic kirks, forsooth ! Had he not yesterday 
 put up a Popish dagon of a cross, and made the silly mason 
 bodies worship it for the sake o' a dram 1 And then, how 
 common ale-drinking had become in the place ! — in his young 
 days they drank naething but gin ; — and what would their 
 grandfathers have said to a ivhigmaleerie o' a ball ! "I 
 sipped and listened," continued Jamie, " and thought the 
 time could not have been better spent at an elder's meeting 
 in the kirk ; and as the night wore later, the conversation 
 became still more edifying, until at length all the bottles 
 were emptied, when we sallied out in a body, to imitate the 
 old reformers by breaking the cross. ' We may suffer, Jamie, 
 for what we have done,' said Rob to me, as we parted for the 
 night ; ' but, remember, it was duty, Jamie, it was duty : we 
 have been testifying wi' our hands, an' when the hour o' trial 
 comes, we maunna be slow in testifying wi' our tongues too.' 
 He wasna slack, the deceitfu' body !" concluded Jamie, ' : in 
 
GEORGE ROSS, THE SCOTCH AGENT. 271 
 
 trying to stop mine." And tlms closed the evidence. The 
 Agent was no vindictive man : he dismissed his two managers 
 and the clerk, to find for themselves a more indulgent mas- 
 ter ; but the services of Jamie Banks he still retained ; and 
 the first employment which he found for him after his release 
 was the fashioning of four iron bars for the repair of the 
 cross. 
 
 The Agent, in the closing scene of his life, was destined 
 to experience the unhappiness of blighted hope. He had an 
 only son, a weak and very obstinate young man, who, with- 
 out intellect enough to appreciate his well-calculated schemes, 
 and yet conceit enough to sit in judgment on them, was ever 
 showing his spirit by opposing a sort of selfish nonsense that 
 aped the semblance of common sense, to the expensive and 
 benevolent philosophy of his father. But the old man bore 
 patiently with his conceit and folly. Like the great bulk of 
 the class who attain to wealth and influence through their 
 own exertions, he was anxiously ambitious to live in his pos- 
 terity, and be the founder of a family ; and he knew it was 
 quite as much according to the nature of things that a fool 
 might be the father, as that he should be the son, of a wise 
 man. He secured therefore his lands to his posterity by the 
 law of entail \ did all that education and example could do 
 for the young man ; and succeeded in getting him married to 
 a sweet, amiable Englishwoman, the daughter of a bishop. 
 But, alas ! his precautions, and the hopes in which he in- 
 dulged, proved equally vain. The young man, only a few 
 months after his marriage, was piqued, when at table, by some 
 remark of his father regarding his mode of carving, — some 
 slight allusion, it is said, to the maxim, that little men cannot 
 
2 I Z TALES AXD SKETCHES. 
 
 afford to neglect little matters • and rising, with much appa- 
 rent coolness, from beside his wife, he stepped into an adjoin- 
 ing room, and there blew out his brains with a pistol. The 
 stain of his blood may still be seen in two large brownish- 
 coloured blotches on the floor. 
 
 George Ross survived his son for several years; and he 
 continued, though a sadder and a graver man, to busy him- 
 self with all his various speculations as before. It was ob- 
 served, however, that he seemed to care less than formerly 
 for whatever was exclusively his own, — for his fine house 
 and his beautiful lands ; and that he chiefly employed him- 
 self in maturing his several projects for the good of his coun- 
 try-folks. Time at length began to set its seal on his labours, 
 by discovering their value ; though not until death had first 
 affixed his to the character of the wise and benevolent pro- 
 jector. He died full of years and honour, mourned by the 
 poor, and regretted by every one ; and even those who had 
 opposed his innovations with the warmest zeal were content 
 to remember him, with all the others, as " the good laird."' 
 
m'culloch the mechanician. 273 
 
 M'CDLLOCH THE MECHANICIAN. 
 
 In the "Scots Magazine" for May 1789, there is a report 
 by Captain Philip d'Anvergne of the Narcissus frigate, on 
 the practical utility of Kenneth M'Culloch's sea compasses. 
 The captain, after an eighteen months' trial of their merits, 
 compared with those of all the other kinds in use at the time, 
 describes them as immensely superior, and earnestly recom- 
 mends to the Admiralty their general introduction into the 
 navy. In passing, on one occasion, through the Race of 
 Alderney in the winter of 1787, there broke out a frightful 
 storm; and so violent was the opposition of the wind and tide, 
 that while his vessel was sailing at the rate of eleven miles 
 on the surface, she was making scarce any headway by the 
 land. The sea rose tremendously, — at once short, high, and 
 irregular; and the motions of the vessel were so fearfully 
 abrupt and violent, that scarce a seaman aboard could stand 
 on deck. At a time so critical, when none of the compasses 
 supplied from his Majest} r 's stores ivoidd stand, but vacillated 
 more than three points on each side of the Pole, " it com- 
 manded," says the captain, " the admiration of the whole 
 crew, winning the confidence of even the most timorous, — 
 to see how quickly and readily M'Culloch's steering compass 
 
274 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 recovered the vacillations communicated to it by the motion 
 of the ship and the shocks of the sea, and how truly, in every 
 brief interval of rest, it pointed to the Pole." It is further 
 added, that on the captain's recommendation, these compasses 
 were tried on board the Andromeda, commanded at the time 
 by Prince William Henry, our late king; and so satisfied was 
 the Prince of the utility of the invention, that he, too, became 
 a strenuous advocate for their general introduction, and tes- 
 tified his regard for the ingenious inventor by appointing him 
 Lis compass-maker. M'Culloch, however, did not long sur- 
 vive the honour, dying a few years after ; and we have been 
 unable to trace with any degree of certainty the further his- 
 tory of his improved compass. But, though only imperfectly 
 informed regarding his various inventions, — and they are said 
 to have been many, and singularly practical, — we are toler- 
 ably well acquainted with the story of his early life ; and, as 
 it furnishes a striking illustration of that instinct of genius, 
 if we may so express ourselves, which leads the possessor to 
 exactly the place in which his services may be of most value 
 to the community, by rendering him useless and unhappy in 
 every other, we think we cannot do better than communicate 
 it to the reader. 
 
 There stood, about forty years ago, on the northern side 
 of the parish of Cromarty, an old farm-house, — one of those 
 low, long, dark-looking erections of turf and stone which still 
 survive in the remoter districts of Scotland, as if to show how 
 little man may sometimes improve, in even a civilized coun- 
 try, on the first rude shelter which his necessities owed to 
 his ingenuity. A worn-out barrel, fixed slantwise in the 
 ridge, served as a chimney for the better apartment (the spare 
 
m'culloch the mechanician - . 275 
 
 room of the domicile), which was furnished also with a glazed 
 window; but the smoke was suffered to escape from the 
 others, and the light to enter them, as chance or accident 
 might direct. The eaves, overhung by stonecrop and bunches 
 of the houseleek, drooped heavily over the small blind win- 
 dows and low door ; and a row of ancient elms, which rose 
 from out the fence of a neglected garden, spread their gnarled 
 and ponderous arms over the roof. Such was the farm-house 
 of Woodside, in which Kenneth M'Cullock, the son of the 
 farmer, was born, some time in the early half of the last 
 century. The family from which he sprung, — a race of ho- 
 nest, plodding tacksmen, — had held the place from the pro- 
 prietor of Cromarty for more than a hundred years ; and it was 
 deemed quite a matter of course, that Kenneth, the eldest 
 son, should succeed his father in the farm. Never was there 
 a time, in at least this part of the country, in which agricul- 
 ture stood more in need of the services of original and inven- 
 tive minds. There was not a wheeled cart in the parish, nor 
 a plough constructed on the modern principle. There was 
 no changing of seed to suit the varieties of soil, no green 
 cropping, no rotatory system of production • and it seemed 
 as if the main object of the farmer had been to raise the least 
 possible amount of grain at the greatest possible expense of 
 labour. The farm of Woodside was primitive enough in its 
 usages and modes of tillage to have formed a study to the 
 antiquary. Towards autumn, when the fields vary most in 
 colour, it resembled a rudely-executed chart of some large 
 island, — so irregular were the patches which composed it, 
 and so broken on every side by a surrounding sea of brown 
 sterile moor that here and there went winding into the in- 
 
276 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 terior in long river-like strips, or expanded within into friths 
 and lakes. In one corner there stood a heap of stones, — in 
 another a thicket of furze, — here a piece of bog, — there a 
 broken bank of clay. The implements, too, with which the 
 fields were laboured were quite as uncouth in their appear- 
 ance as the fields themselves. There was the single stilted 
 plough, that did little more than scratch the surface ; the 
 wooden-toothed harrow, that did hardly so much ; the cum- 
 brous sledge, — no inconsiderable load of itself, — for carrying 
 home the corn in harvest ; and the basket-woven conical cart, 
 with its rollers of wood, for bearing out the manure in spring. 
 With these, too, there was the usual misproportion to the 
 extent and produce of the farm, of lean, inefficient cattle, — 
 four half-starved animals performing with incredible labour 
 the work of one. And yet, now that a singularly inventive 
 mind had come into existence on this very farm, and though 
 its attentions had been directed, as far as external influence 
 could direct them, on the various employments of the farmer, 
 the interests of husbandry were to be in no degree improved 
 by the circumstance. Nature, in the midst of her wisdom, 
 seems to cherish a dash of the eccentric. The ingenuity of 
 the farmer's son was to be employed, not in facilitating the 
 labours of the farmer, but in inventing binnacle lamps, which 
 would yield an undiminished light amid the agitations of a 
 tempest, and in constructing mariners' compasses on a new 
 principle. There are instances of a similar character fur- 
 nished by the experience of almost every one. In passing 
 some years since over a dreary moor in the interior of the 
 country, our curiosity was excited by a miniature mast, fur- 
 nished, like that of a ship, with shrouds and yards, bearing 
 
m'culloch the mechanician. 277 
 
 a-top a gaudy pinnet, which we saw beside a little Highland 
 cottage ; and on inquiring regarding it at the door, we were 
 informed that it was the work of the cottager's son, a lad 
 who, though he had scarcely ever seen the sea, had taken "a 
 strange fancy to the life of a sailor, and who had left his 
 father only a few weeks before, to serve aboard a man-of-war. 
 Kenneth's first employment was the tending of a flock of 
 sheep, the property of his father; and wretchedly did he 
 acquit himself of the charge. The farm is bounded on the 
 eastern side by a deep bosky ravine, through the bottom of 
 which a scanty runnel rather trickles than flows ; and when 
 it was discovered on any occasion that Kenneth's flock had 
 been left to take care of themselves, and of his father's corn 
 to boot, — and such occasions were wofully frequent, — Ken- 
 neth himself was almost invariably to be found in this 
 ravine. He would sit for hours among the bushes, engaged 
 with his knife in carving uncouth faces on the heads of 
 walking-sticks, or in constructing little water-mills, or in 
 making Lilliputian pumps of the dried stalks of the larger 
 hemlock, and in raising the waters of the runnel to basins 
 dug in the sides of the hollow. Sometimes he quitted his 
 charge altogether, and set out for a meal-mill about a quarter 
 of a mile from the farm, where he would linger for half a 
 day at a time, watching the motion of the wheels. His 
 
 father complained that he could make nothing of him ; 
 
 "the boy," he said, " seemed to have nearly as much sense 
 as other boys of his years, and yet for any one useful pur- 
 pose he was nothing better than an idiot." His mother, as 
 is common with mothers, and who was naturally an easy, 
 kind-hearted woman, had better hopes of him. Kenneth, 
 
278 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 she affirmed, was only a little peculiar, and would turn out 
 well after all. He was growing up, however, without im- 
 proving in the slightest; and when he became tall enough for 
 the plough, he made a dead stand. He would go and be a 
 tradesman, he said, — a mason, or smith, or house-carpenter, 
 — anything his friends chose to make him ; but a farmer he 
 would not be. His father, after a fruitless struggle to over- 
 come his obstinacy, carried him with him to an acquaintance 
 in Cromarty, an ingenious cabinetmaker, named Donald 
 Sandison; and, after candidly confessing that he was of no 
 manner of use at home, and would, he was afraid, be of little 
 use anywhere, he bound him by indenture to the mechanic 
 for four years. 
 
 Kenneth's new master, — a shrewd, sagacious man, who 
 had been actively engaged, it was said, in the Porteous mob 
 about twenty years before, — was one of the best workmen 
 in his profession in the north of Scotland. His scrutoires 
 and wardrobes were in repute up to the close of the last 
 century ; and in the ancient art of wainscot carving he had 
 no equal in the country. He was an intelligent man, too, 
 as well as a superior mechanic. He was a general reader, as 
 a little old-fashioned library in the possession of his grand- 
 son still remains to testify ; and he had studied Paladio in 
 the antique translation of Godfrey Richards, and knew a 
 little of Euclid. With all his general intelligence, however, 
 and all his skill, he failed to discover the latent capabilities 
 of his apprentice. Kenneth was dull and absent, and had 
 no heart to his work ; and though he seemed to understand 
 the principles on which his master's various tools were used, 
 and the articles of his trade constructed, as well at least as 
 
MCULLOCH THE MECHANICIAN. 279 
 
 any workman in the shop, there were none among them who 
 used the tools so awkwardly, or constructed the articles so 
 ill. An old botching carpenter who wrought in a little shop 
 at the other end of the town was known to the boys of the 
 place by the humorous appellation of " Spull (i. e. spoil) the 
 Wood," and a lean-sided, ill-conditioned boat which he had 
 built, as " the Wilful Murder." Kenneth came to be re- 
 garded as a sort of second " Spull the Wood," — as a fashioner 
 of rickety tables, ill-fitted drawers, and chairs that, when sat 
 upon, creaked like badly-tuned organs ; and the boys, who 
 were beginning to regard him as fair game, sometimes took 
 the liberty of asking him whether he, too, was not going to 
 build a boat % Such, in short, were his deficiencies as a 
 mechanic, that in the third year of his apprenticeship his 
 master advised his father to take him home with him, and 
 set him to the plough, — an advice, however, on which the 
 farmer, warned by his previous experience, sturdily refused 
 to act. 
 
 It was remarked that Kenneth acquired more in the last 
 year of his apprenticeship than in all the others. His skill 
 as a workman still ranked a little below the average ability ; 
 but then it was only a little below it. He seemed, too, to 
 enjoy more, and become less bashful and awkward. His 
 master on one occasion took him aboard a vessel in the 
 harbour," to repair some injury which her bulwarks had sus- 
 tained in a storm ; and Kenneth, for the first time in his life, 
 was introduced to the mariner's compass. The master, in 
 after days, when his apprentice had become a great man, 
 used to relate the circumstance with much complacency, and 
 compare him, as he bent over the instrument in wonder and 
 
280 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 admiration, to a negro of the Kanga tribe worshipping the 
 elephant's tooth. On the close of his apprenticeship he left 
 this part of the country for London, accompanied by his mas- 
 ter's eldest son, a lad of a rather thoughtless disposition, but, 
 like his father, a first-rate workman. 
 
 Kenneth soon began to experience the straits and hard- 
 ships of the inferior mechanic. His companion found little 
 difficulty in procuring employment, and none at all in retain- 
 ing it when once procured. Kenneth, on the contrary, was 
 tossed about from shop to shop, and from one establishment 
 to another ; and for a full twelvemonth, during the half of 
 which he was wholly unemployed, he did not work for more 
 than a fortnight together with any one master. It would 
 have fared worse with him than it did, had it not been for his 
 companion, Willie Sandison, who generously shared his earn- 
 ings with him every time he stood in need of his assistance. 
 In about a year after they had gone to London, however, 
 Willie, an honest and warm-hearted, but thoughtless lad, was 
 inveigled into a bad, disreputable marriage, and lost, in con- 
 sequence, his wonted ability to assist his companion. We 
 have seen one of Kenneth's letters to his old master, written 
 about this time, in which he bewails Willie's mishap, and 
 dwells gloomily on his own prospects. How these first began 
 to brighten we are unable to say, for there occurs about this 
 period a wide gap in his story, which all our inquiries regard- 
 ing him have not enabled us to fill ; but in a second letter to 
 his mother, now before us, which bears date 1772, just ten 
 years after the other, there are the proofs of a surprising im- 
 provement in his circumstances and condition. 
 
 He writes in high spirits. Just before sitting down to his 
 
m'culloch the mechanician. 281 
 
 desk, he Lad heard from his old friend Willie, who had gone 
 out to one of the colonies, where he was thriving in spite of 
 his wife. He had heard, too, by the same post, from his 
 mother, who had been so kind to him during his luckless 
 boyhood ; and the old woman was well. He had, besides, 
 been enabled to remove from his former lodging to a fine airy 
 house in Duke's Court, opposite St Martin's Church, for 
 which he had engaged, he said, to pay a rent of forty-two 
 pounds per annum, — a very considerable sum sixty-eight 
 years ago ; and he had entered into an advantageous con- 
 tract with Catherine of Russia, for furnishing all the philo- 
 sophical instruments of a new college then erecting in St 
 Petersburg, — a contract which promised to secure about two 
 years' profitable employment to himself and seven workmen. 
 In the ten years which had intervened between the dates of 
 his two letters, Kenneth M'Culloch had become one of the 
 most skilful and inventive mechanicians in London, perhaps 
 in the world. He rose gradually into affluence and celebrity, 
 and for a considerable period before his death his gains were 
 estimated at about a thousand a-year. His story, however, 
 illustrates rather the wisdom of nature than that of Kenneth 
 M'Culloch. We think all the more highly of Franklin for 
 being so excellent a printer, and of Burns for excelling all 
 his companions in the labours of the field ; nor did the skill 
 or vigour with which they pursued their ordinary employ- 
 ments hinder the one from taking his place among the first 
 philosophers and first statesmen of the age, nor prevent the 
 other from achieving his wide-spread celebrity as at once the 
 most original and most popular of modern poets. Be it re- 
 membered, however, that there is a narrow and limited cast 
 
ZS'J, TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 of genius, unlike that of either Burns or Franklin, which, 
 though of incalculable value in its own sphere, is of no use 
 whatever in any other ; and to precipitate it on its proper 
 object by the pressure of external circumstances, and the ge- 
 neral inaptitude of its possessor for other pursuits, seems to 
 be part of the wise economy of Providence. Had Kenneth 
 M'Culloch betaken himself to the plough, like his father and 
 grandfather, he would have been, like them, the tacksman of 
 Woodside, and nothing more : had he found his proper voca- 
 tion in cabinet-making, he would have made tables and chairs 
 for life, like his ingenious master, Donald Sandison. 
 
A TRUE STORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 LIFE OF A SCOTCH MERCHANT 
 
 OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUEY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 General Remarks — Trade of the North of Scotland about the beginning 
 of the last Century — James Forsyth, a Native of Moray, settles in 
 Cromarty as a Shopkeeper — His Eldest Son William — The Old 
 Parish School — Scheme of Education pursued at the Period — Its 
 Origin and Effects— Education of William Forsyth. 
 
 It is according to the fixed economy of human affairs that 
 individuals should lead, and that masses should follow ; for 
 the adorable Being who wills that the lower order of minds 
 should exist by myriads, and produces the higher so rarely, 
 has willed also, by inevitable consequence, that the many 
 should be guided by the few. On the other hand, it is not 
 less in accordance with the dictates of his immutable justice, 
 that the interests of the few should be subordinate to the 
 more extended interests of the many. The leading minds 
 are to be regarded rather as formed for the masses, than the 
 masses for them. True it is, that while the one principle 
 acts with all the undeviating certainty of a natural law, the 
 
284 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 other operates partially and interruptedly with all the doubt- 
 ful efficiency of a moral one ; and hence those long cata- 
 logues of crimes committed against the species by their na- 
 tural leaders, which so fill the pages of history. We see 
 man as the creature of destiny conforming unresistingly to 
 the one law, — as a free agent, accountable for all his actions, 
 yielding an imperfect and occasional obedience to the other. 
 And yet his duty and his true interest, were he but wise 
 enough to be convinced of it, are in every case the same. 
 The following chapters, as they contain the history of a mind 
 of the higher order, that, in doing good to others, conferred 
 solid benefits on itself, may serve simply to illustrate this im- 
 portant truth. They may serve, too, to show the numerous 
 class whose better feelings are suffered to evaporate in idle 
 longings for some merely conceivable field of exertion, that 
 wide spheres of usefulness may be furnished by situations 
 comparatively unpromising. They may afford, besides, occa- 
 sional glimpses of the beliefs, manners, and opinions of an 
 age by no means remote from our own, but in many respects 
 essentially different from it in spirit and character. 
 
 The Lowlanders of the north of Scotland were beginning, 
 about the year 1700, gradually to recover the effects of that 
 state of miserable depression into which they had been plunged 
 for the greater part of the previous century. There was a 
 slow awakening of the commercial spirit among the more en- 
 terprising class of minds, whose destiny it is to move in the 
 van of society as the guides and pioneers of the rest. The 
 unfortunate expedition of Darien had dissipated well-nigh 
 the entire capital of the country only a few years before, and 
 ruined almost all the greater merchants of the large towns. 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 285 
 
 But the energies of the people, now that they were no longer 
 borne down by the wretched despotism of the Stuarts, were 
 not to be repressed by a single blow. Almost every seaport 
 and larger town had its beginnings of trade. Younger sons of 
 good family, who would have gone, only half a century before, 
 to serve as mercenaries in the armies of the Continent, were 
 learning to employ themselves as merchants at home. And 
 almost every small town had its shopkeeper, who, after pass- 
 ing the early part of his life as a farmer or mechanic, had set 
 himself, in the altered state of the countiy, to acquire the 
 habits of a new profession, and employed his former savings 
 in trade. 
 
 Among these last was James Forsyth, a native of the pro- 
 vince of Moray. He had spent the first thirty years of his 
 life as a mason and builder. His profession was a wandering 
 one, and he had received from nature the ability of profiting 
 by the opportunities of observation which it afforded. He 
 had marked the gradual introduction among the people of 
 new tastes for the various articles of foreign produce and ma- 
 nufacture which were beginning to flow into the kingdom, 
 and had seen how large a proportion the profits of the trader 
 bore, — as they always do in the infancy of trade, — to the 
 amount of capital employed. Resigning, therefore, his old 
 profession, he opened a small shop in the town of Cromartv, 
 whose lucrative herring-fishery rendered it at this period one 
 of the busiest little places in the north of Scotland. And 
 as he was at once steady and enterprising, rigidly just in his 
 dealings, and possessed of shrewd good sense, he had acquired, 
 ere the year 1722, when his eldest son, William, the subject 
 of the following memoir, was born to him, what at that pe- 
 
28 G A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 riod was deemed considerable wealth. His marriage Lad 
 taken place, somewhat late in life, little more than a twelve- 
 month before. 
 
 William received from nature what nature only can bestow, 
 — great force of character, and great kindliness of heart. The 
 town of Cromarty at the time was singularly fortunate in its 
 schoolmaster, Mr David M''Culloch, — a gentleman who ter- 
 minated a long and very useful life, many years after, as the 
 minister of a wild Highland parish in Perthshire ; and Wil- 
 liam, who in infancy even had begun to manifest that restless 
 curiosity which almost always characterizes the dawn of a 
 superior intellect, was placed at a very early age under his 
 care. The school, — one of Knox's strongholds of the Refor- 
 mation, — was situated in a retired wooded corner behind the 
 houses, with the windows, which were half-buried in the 
 thatch, opening to the old, time-worn Castle of Cromarty. 
 There could not be a more formidable spectre of the past than 
 the old tower. It had been from time immemorial the seat 
 of the hereditary sheriffs of the district, whose powers at this 
 period still remained entire ; and its tall narrow front of blind 
 vail, its embattled turrets, and hanging bartizans, seemed as- 
 sociated with the tyranny and violence of more than a thou- 
 sand years. But the low, mean-looking building at the foot 
 of the hill was a masked battery raised against its authority. 
 which was to burst open its dungeon-door, and to beat down 
 its gallows. There is a class, — the true aristocracy of nature, 
 — which have but to arise from among the people that the 
 people may be free ; and the humble old school did its part in 
 separating its due proportion of these from the mass. Of two 
 of the boys who sat at the same form with William Forsyth, 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 2^7 
 
 one, the son of tlie town-clerk, afterwards represented the 
 county in Parliament j and the other, of still humbler parent- 
 age, attracted, many years after, when librarian of the Uni- 
 versity of Edinburgh, and Professor of Oriental Languages, 
 the notice of the far-known Dr Samuel Johnson. 
 
 The scheme of tuition established in our Scotch schools of 
 this period was exactly that which had been laid down by 
 Knox and Craig, in the Book of Discipline, rather more than 
 a century and a-half before. Times had altered, however; 
 and, though still the best possible, perhaps, for minds of a 
 superior order, it was no longer the best for intellects of the 
 commoner class. The scheme drawn up by our first Reform- 
 ers was stamped by the liberality of men who had learned 
 from experience that tyranny and superstition derive their 
 chief support from ignorance. Almost all the knowledge 
 which books could supply at the time was locked up in the 
 learned languages. It was appointed, therefore, " that young 
 men who purposed to travill in some handicraft or other pro- 
 fitable exercise for the good of the commonwealth should first 
 devote ane certain time to grammar and the Latin tongue, 
 and ane certain time to the other tongues and the study of 
 philosophy." But what may have been a Avise and conside- 
 rate act on the part of the ancestor may degenerate into 
 merely a foolish custom on the part of the descendant. Ere 
 the times of Mr M'Culloch, we had got a literature of our 
 own ; and if useful knowledge be learning, men might have 
 become learned through an acquaintance with English read- 
 ing alone. Our fathers, however, pursued the course which 
 circumstances had rendered imperative in the days of their 
 great-grandfathers, merely because their great-grandfathers 
 
288 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 had pursued it ; and the few years which were spent in school 
 by the poorer pupils of ordinary capacity were absurdly frit- 
 tered away in acquiring a little bad Latin and a very little 
 worse Greek. So strange did the half-learning of our common 
 people, derived in this way, appear to our southern neigh- 
 bours, that there are writers of the last century who, in de- 
 scribing a Scotch footman or mechanic, rarely omit making 
 his knowledge of the classics an essential part of the character. 
 The barber in "Koderick Random" quotes Horace in the 
 original j and Foote, in one of his farces, introduces a Scotch 
 valet, who, when some one inquires of him whether he be a 
 Latinist, indignantly exclaims, " Hoot awa, man ! a Scotch- 
 man and no understand Latin !" 
 
 The school of Cromarty, like the other schools of the king- 
 dom, produced its Latinists who caught fish and made shoes ; 
 and it is not much more than twenty years since the race 
 became finally extinct. I have heard stories of an old house- 
 painter of the place, who, having survived most of his school- 
 fellows and contemporaries, used to regret, among his other 
 vanished pleasures, the pleasure he could once derive from 
 an inexhaustible fund of Latin quotation, which the ignorance 
 of a younger generation had rendered of little more value to 
 him than the paper-money of an insolvent bank ; and I re- 
 member an old cabinetmaker, who was in the practice, when 
 his sight began to fail him, of carrying his Latin New Testa- 
 ment with him to church, as it chanced to be printed in a 
 clearer type than any of his English ones. It is said, too, of 
 a learned fisherman of the reign of Queen Anne, that, when 
 employed one day among his tackle, he was accosted in Latin 
 by the proprietor of Cromarty, who, accompanied by two 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 289 
 
 gentlemen from England, was sauntering along the shore, 
 and that, to the surprise of the strangers, he replied with 
 considerable fluency in the same language. William Forsyth 
 was a Latinist, like most of his school-fellows ; but the natu- 
 ral tone of his mind, and the extent of his information,- were 
 in keeping with the acquirement ; and while there must have 
 been something sufficiently grotesque and incongruous, as the 
 satirists show us, in the association of a classic literature with 
 humble employments and very ordinary modes of thought 
 and expression, nothing, on the other hand, could have seemed 
 less so than that an enterprising and liberal-minded merchant 
 should have added to the manners and sentiments of the 
 gentleman the tastes and attainments of the scholar. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 William Forsyth, on quitting School, is placed in a Counting-House in 
 London — Returns again to Cromarty on the Death of his Father — 
 Depressed State of Trade in the Place— Apatbetical Indolence of the 
 People— Failure of the Herring Fishery, and the means taken by Mr 
 Forsyth to Restore it — Originates a Bounty on Herrings — Imports 
 and Exports of the Period — First Introduction of Coal into the Place 
 — Rebellion of 1745 — Mr Forsyth brought a Prisoner to Inverness by 
 the Rebels. 
 
 William Forsyth, in his sixteenth year, quitted school, and 
 waa placed by his father in a counting-house in London, 
 where he formed his first acquaintance with trade. Circum- 
 stances, however, rendered the initiatory course a very brief 
 one. His father, James Forsyth, died suddenly in the fol- 
 
 T 
 
290 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 lowing year, 1739 ; and, leaving London at the request of 
 his widowed mother, whose family now consisted of two 
 other sons and two daughters, — all of them, of course, younger 
 than himself, — he entered on his father's business at the early 
 age of seventeen. In one interesting instance I have found 
 the recollection of his short stay in London incidentally con- 
 nected with the high estimate of his character and acquire- 
 ments formed by one of the shrewdest and most extensively 
 informed of his mercantile acquaintance. " I know," says 
 a lady who has furnished me with some of the materials of 
 these chapters, " that Mr Forsyth must have spent some 
 time in a London counting-house, from often having heard 
 my father repeat, as a remark of the late Henry Davidson 
 of Tulloch, that ' had the Cromarty merchant remained in 
 the place where he received his first introduction to business, 
 he would have been, what no Scotchman ever was, Lord 
 Mayor of London.'" I need hardly add, that the remark is 
 at least half a century old. 
 
 The town of Cromarty, at the time of Mr Forsyth's settle- 
 ment in it, was no longer the scene of busy trade which it 
 had been twenty years before. The herring-fishery of the 
 place, at one time the most lucrative on the eastern coast of 
 Scotland, had totally failed, and the great bulk of the inhabi- 
 tants, who had owed to it their chief means of subsistence, 
 had fallen into abject poverty. They seemed fast sinking, 
 too, into that first state of society in which there is scarce 
 any division of labour : the mechanics in the town caught 
 their own fish, raised their own corn, tanned their own 
 leather, and wore clothes which had employed no other ma- 
 nufacturers than their own families and their neighbour the 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 291 
 
 weaver. There was scarce any money in the district : even 
 the neighbouring proprietors paid their tradesmen in kind ; 
 and a few bolls of malt or barley, or a few stones of flax or 
 wool, settled the yearly account. There could not, therefore, 
 be a worse or more hopeless scene for the shopkeeper ; and 
 had William Forsyth restricted himself to the trade of his 
 father, he must inevitably have sunk with the sinking for- 
 tunes of the place. Young as he was, however, he had 
 sagacity enough to perceive that Cromarty, though a bad 
 field for the retail trader, might prove a very excellent one 
 for the merchant. Its valuable though at this time neglected 
 harbour seemed suited to render it, what it afterwards be- 
 came, the key of the adjacent country. The neighbouring 
 friths, too, — those of Dingwall, Dornoch, and Beauly, which 
 wind far into the Highlands of Boss and Sutherland, — 
 formed so many broad pathways leading into districts which 
 had no other roads at that period ; and the towns of Tain, 
 Dornoch, Dingwall, Campbelton, and Fortrose, with the 
 seats of numerous proprietors, are situated on their shores. 
 The bold and original plan of the young trader, therefore, 
 was to render Cromarty a sort of depot for the whole, — to 
 furnish the shopkeepers of the several towns with the com- 
 modities in which they dealt, — and to bring to the very doors 
 of the proprietors the various foreign articles of comfort 
 and luxury with which commerce could alone supply them. 
 And, launching boldly into the speculation at a time when 
 the whole country seemed asleep around him, he purchased 
 a freighting boat for the navigation of the three friths, and 
 hired a large sloop for trading with Holland and the com- 
 mercial towns of the south. 
 
292 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 The failure of the herring-trade of the place had been 
 occasioned by the disappearance of the herrings, which, after 
 frequenting the Frith in immense shoals for a long series of 
 years, had totally deserted it. It is quite according to the 
 nature of the fish, however, to resume their visits as suddenly 
 and unexpectedly as they have broken them off, though not 
 until after the lapse of so many seasons, perhaps, that the 
 fishermen have ceased to watch for their appearance in their 
 old haunts, or to provide the tackle necessary for their cap- 
 ture ; and in this way a number of years are sometimes 
 suffered to pass, after the return of the fish, ere the old trade 
 is re-established. To guard against any such waste of oppor- 
 tunity on the part of his town's-people was the first care of 
 William Forsyth, after creating, as it were, a nevj- and busy 
 trade for himself; and, representing the case to the more in- 
 telligent gentlemen of the district, and some of the wealthier 
 merchants of Inverness, he succeeded m forming them into 
 a society for the encouragement of the herring -fishery, which 
 provided a yearly premium of twenty marks Scots for the 
 first barrel of herrings caught every season in the Moray 
 Frith. The sum was small ; but as money at the time was 
 very valuable, it proved a sufficient inducement to the fisher- 
 men and trades-people of the place to fit out a few boats 
 about the beginning of autumn every year, to sweep over 
 the various fishing banks for the herrings ; and there were 
 few seasons in which some one crew or other did not catch 
 enough to entitle them to the premium. At length, how- 
 ever, their tackle wore out j and Mr Forsyth, in pursuance 
 of his scheme, provided himself, at some little expense, with 
 a complete drift of nets, which were carried to sea each sea- 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 293 
 
 son by his boatmen, and the search kept up. His exertions, 
 however, could only merit success, without securing it. The 
 fish returned for a few seasons in considerable bodies, and 
 several thousand barrels were caught ; but they soon de- 
 serted the Frith as entirely as before ; and more than a 
 century elapsed from their first disappearance, ere they re- 
 visited their old haunts with such regularity and in such 
 numbers as to render the trade remunerative to either the 
 eurers or the fishermen. 
 
 Unlike the herring speculation, however, the general trade 
 of William Forsyth was eminently successful. It was of a 
 miscellaneous character, as became the state of a country so 
 poor and so thinly peopled, and in which, as there was scarce 
 any division of labour, one merchant had to perform the 
 work of many. He supplied the proprietors with teas, and 
 wines, and spiceries, with broad cloths, glass, delft ware, 
 Flemish tiles, and pieces of japanned cabinet-work : he fur- 
 nished the blacksmith with iron from Sweden, the carpenter 
 with tar and spars from Norway, and the farmer with flax- 
 seed from Holland. He found, too, in other countries mar- 
 kets for the produce of our own. The exports of the north 
 of Scotland at this period were mostly malt, wool, and 
 salmon. Almost all rents were paid in kind or in labour, 
 the proprietors retaining in their own hands a portion of 
 their estates, termed demesnes or mains, which was culti- 
 vated mostly by their tacksmen and feuars, as part of their 
 proper service. Each proprietor, too, had his storehouse or 
 girnel, — a tall narrow building, the strong-box of the time, 
 which at the Martinmas of every year was filled from gable 
 to gable with the grain-rents paid to him by his tenants, and 
 
294 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 the produce of his own farm. His surplus cattle found their 
 way south, under charge of the drovers of the period ; but 
 it proved a more difficult matter to dispose to advantage of 
 his surplus corn, mostly barley; until some one, more skilful 
 in speculation than the others, originated the scheme of con- 
 verting it into malt, and exporting it into England and 
 Flanders. And to so great an extent was this trade carried 
 on about the middle of the last century, that in the town 
 of Inverness, the English under Cumberland, in the long- 
 remembered year of Culloden, found almost every second 
 building a malt-barn. 
 
 The town of Cromarty suffered much at this period, in at 
 least the severer winters, from scarcity of fuel. The mosses 
 of the district were just exhausted; and as our proprietors 
 had not yet betaken themselves to planting, there were no 
 woods, except in some of the remoter recesses of the country, 
 where the remains of some of the ancient forests were still 
 suffered to survive. Peats were occasionally brought to the 
 town in boats from the opposite side of the Frith ; but the 
 supply was precarious and insufficient, and the inhabitants 
 were content at times to purchase the heath of the neigh- 
 bouring hill in patches of an hundred square yards, and at 
 times even to use for fuel the dried dung of their cattle. 
 " A Cromarty fire" was a term used over the country to 
 designate a fire just gone out; and some humorist of the 
 period has represented a Cromarty farmer, in a phrase which 
 became proverbial, as giving his daughter the key of the 
 peat chest, and bidding her take out a peat and a-half, that 
 she might put on a good fire. It was the part of Mr For- 
 syth to divest the proverb of its edge, by opening up a trade 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 295 
 
 with the northern ports of England, and introducing to the 
 acquaintance of his town's-people the " black stones'' of 
 Newcastle, which have been used ever since as the staple 
 fuel of the place. To those who know how very dependent 
 the inhabitants are on this useful fossil, there seems an in- 
 tangible sort of strangeness in the fact, that it is not yet a 
 full century since Mr Forsyth's sloop entered the bay with 
 the first cargo of coal ever brought into it. One almost ex- 
 pects to hear next of the man who first taught them to rear 
 corn, or to break in from their state of original wildness the 
 sheep and the cow. 
 
 Mr Forsyth had entered on his twenty-fourth year, and 
 had been rather more than six years engaged in business 
 when the rebellion broke out. There was an end to all 
 security for the time, and, of course, an end to trade ; but 
 even the least busy found enough to employ them in the 
 perilous state of the country. Bands of marauders, the 
 very refuse of the Highlands, — for its better men had gone 
 to the south with the rebel army, — went prowling over the 
 Lowlands, making war with all alike, whether Jacobites or 
 Hanoverians, who were rich enough to be robbed. Mr For- 
 syth's sloop, in one of her coasting voyages of this period, 
 when laden with a cargo of Government stores, was forced 
 by stress of weather into the Dornoch Frith, where she was 
 seized by a party of Highlanders, who held her for three 
 days in the name of the Prince. They did little else, how- 
 ever, than consume the master's sea-stock, and joke with the 
 ship-boy, a young but very intelligent lad, who for many 
 years after, when Mr Forsyth had himself become a ship- 
 owner, was the master of his vessel. He was named Robert- 
 
296 A TRUE STOIli" OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 son ; and as there were several of the Robertsons of Struan 
 among the party, he was soon on very excellent terms with 
 them. On one occasion, however, when rallying some of 
 the Struans on their undertaking, he spoke of their leader as 
 " the Pretender." " Beware, my boy," said an elderly High- 
 lander, " and do not again repeat that word : there are men 
 in the ship who, if they heard you, would perhaps take your 
 life for it; for, remember, we are not all Robertsons." An- 
 other party of the marauders took possession of the town of 
 Cromarty for a short time, and dealt after the same manner 
 with the stores of the towns-people, whether of food or 
 clothing, as the other had done with the stores of the ship- 
 master. Rut they were rather mischievous thieves than 
 dangerous enemies ; and, except that they robbed a few of 
 the women of their webs and yarn, and a few of the men of 
 their shoes and bonnets, they left them no very grave cause 
 to regret their visit. 
 
 It so chanced, however, that Mr Forsyth was brought 
 more seriously into contact with the rebels than any of his 
 townsmen. The army of the Prince, after the failure of 
 the attempt on England, fell back on the Highlands ; and 
 a body of sixteen hundred King's troops, which had occupied 
 Inverness, had retreated northwards, on their approach, into 
 the county of Sutherland. They had crossed by the Ferry 
 of Cromarty in the boats of the town's fishermen; and these, 
 on landing on the northern side, they had broken up, to pre- 
 vent the pursuit of the rebels. Scarcely had they been gone 
 a day, however, when an agent of Government, charged with 
 a large sum of money, the arrears of their pay, arrived at 
 Cromarty. He had readied Inverness only to find it in 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 297 
 
 possession of the rebels ; and after a perilous journey over a 
 tract of country where almost every second man had declared 
 for the Prince, he found at Cromarty his further progress 
 northward arrested by the Frith. In this dilemma, with 
 the sea before him and the rebels behind, he applied to 
 William Forsyth, and, communicating to him the nature 
 and importance of his charge, solicited his assistance and 
 advice. Fortunately Mr Forsyth's boat had been on one 
 of her coasting voyages at the time the Kings troops had 
 broken up the others, and her return was now hourly ex- 
 pected. Refreshments were hastily set before the half-ex- 
 hausted agent; and then, hurrying him to the feet of the 
 precipices which guard the entrance of the Frith, Mr For- 
 syth watched with him among the cliffs until the boat came 
 sweeping round the nearer headland. The merchant hailed 
 her in the passing, saw the agent and his charge safely 
 embarked, and, after instructing the crew that they should 
 proceed northwards, keeping as much as possible in the 
 middle of the Frith, until they had either come abreast of 
 Sutherland or fallen in with a sloop-of-war then stationed 
 near the mouth of the Spey, he returned home. In the 
 middle of the following night he was roused by a party of 
 rebels, who, after interrogating him strictly regarding the 
 agent and his charge, and ransacking his house and shop, 
 carried him with them a prisoner to Inverness. They soon 
 found, however, that the treasure was irrecoverably beyond 
 their reach, and that nothing was to be gained by the further 
 detention of Mr Forsyth. He was liberated, therefore, after 
 a day and night's imprisonment, just as the rebels had learned 
 that the army of Cumberland had reached the Spey ; and he 
 
298 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 returned to Cromarty in time enough to witness from the 
 neighbouring hill the smoke of Culloden. In after-life he 
 used sometimes to amuse his friends by a humorous detail 
 of his sufferings in the cause of the Ivino:. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Important Results of the Rebellion— Hereditary Jurisdictions Abolished 
 — Justices of the Peace — Old Session Record — Tyranny of the Here- 
 ditary Judges— Black Andrew Monro of Newtarbat. 
 
 By far the most important event of the last century to the 
 people of Scotland was the rebellion of 1745. To use an 
 illustration somewhat the worse for the wear, it resembled 
 one of those violent hurricanes of the tropics which overturn 
 trees and houses, and strew the shores with wreck, but which 
 more than compensate for the mischiefs they occasion by dis- 
 sipating the deadly vapours of plague and pestilence, and re- 
 storing the community to health. Previous to its suppression 
 the people possessed only a nominal freedom. The Church 
 for which they had done and suffered so much had now been 
 re-established among them for nearly sixty years ; and they 
 were called, as elders, to take a part in its worship, and 
 to deliberate in its courts. The laws, too, especially those 
 passed since the Union, recognised them as free. More de- 
 pends, however, on the administration of law than on even 
 the framing of it. The old hereditary jurisdictions still re- 
 mained entire ; and the meanest sheriff or baron of Scotland, 
 after holding a court composed of only himself and his clerk, 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 299 
 
 might consign the freest of his vassals to his dungeon, or hang 
 him up at his castle-door. But the Rebellion showed that 
 more might be involved in this despotism of the chiefs and 
 proprietors of the country than the oppression of individuals, 
 and that the power which they possessed, through its means, 
 of calling out their vassals on their own behalf to-day, might 
 be employed in precipitating them against the Government 
 on the morrow. In the year 1747, therefore, hereditary ju- 
 risdictions were abolished all over Scotland, and the power 
 of judging in matters of life and death restricted to judges 
 appointed and paid by the Crown. To decide on such mat- 
 ters of minor importance as are furnished by every locality, 
 justices were appointed ; and Mr Forsyth's name was placed 
 on the commission of the peace, — a small matter, it may be 
 thought, in the present day, but by no means an unimportant 
 one ninety years ago, to either his town's-people or himself. 
 
 Justices of the peace had been instituted about a century 
 and a-half before. But the hereditary jurisdictions of the 
 kingdom leaving them scarce any room for the exercise of 
 their limited authority, the order fell into desuetude ; and 
 previous to its re-appointment, on the suppression of the 
 Rebellion, the administration of the law seems to have been 
 divided, in at least the remoter provinces, between the here- 
 ditary judges and the Church. The Session records of Cro- 
 marty during the establishment of Episcopacy are still extant, 
 and they curiously exemplify the class of offences specially 
 cognizable by the ecclesiastical courts. They serve, too, to 
 illustrate, in a manner sufficiently striking, the low tone of 
 morals which obtained among the people. Our great-great- 
 grandfathers were not a whit wiser, nor better, nor happier, 
 
300 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 tli an ourselves; and our great-great-grandm others seem to have 
 had quite the same passions as their descendants, with rather 
 less ability to control them. There were ladies of Cromarty, 
 in the reign of Charles II., "maist horrible cussers," who 
 accused one another of being " witches and witch getts, with 
 all their folk afore them" for generations untold, — gentlemen 
 who had to " stand at the pillar" for unlading the boats of a 
 smuggler at ten o'clock on a Sabbath night, — " maist scanda- 
 lous reprobates," who got drunk on Sundays, "and abused 
 decent folk ganging till the kirk," — and "ill-conditioned 
 royit loons, who raisit disturbances, and faugh t i' the scholar's 
 loft," in the time of Divine service. Husbands and their 
 wives do penance in the church in this reign for their do- 
 mestic quarrels : boys are whipped by the beadle for return- 
 ing from a journey on the Sabbath : men are set in the jtmgs 
 for charging elders of rather doubtful character with being 
 drunk : boatmen are fined for crossing the ferry with pas- 
 sengers "during church-time f and Presbyterian farmers are 
 fined still more heavily for absenting themselves from church. 
 Meanwhile, when the Session was thus employed, the Sheriff 
 was amusing himself in cutting oiT men's ears, starving them 
 in his dungeon, or hanging them up by the neck on his gal- 
 lows. A few dark traditions, illustrative of the intolerable 
 tyranny of the period, still survive ; and it is not yet more 
 than nine years since a quantity of human bones, found in 
 digging on an eminence a little above the harbour, which in 
 the reign of Charles is said to have been a frequent scene of 
 executions, served as an attestation to their general truth. 
 It is said that the last person sentenced to death on the 
 gallows-hill of Cromarty was a poor Highlander who had 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 301 
 
 insulted the Sheriff, and that, when in the act of mounting 
 the ladder, he was pardoned at the request of the Sheriff's 
 lady. 
 
 There is much of interest in catching occasional glimpses 
 of a bygone state of society through the chance vistas of tra- 
 dition. They serve to show us, in the expressive language 
 of Scripture, "the rock whence we were hewn, and the hole 
 of the pit whence we were dug." They serve, too, to dissi- 
 pate those dreamy imaginings of the good and happiness of 
 the past in which it seems an instinct of our nature to in- 
 dulge ; and enable us to correct the exaggerated estimates of 
 that school of philosophy which sees most to admire in so- 
 ciety the farther it recedes from civilization. I am enabled 
 to furnish the reader with one of these chance glimpses. 
 
 An old man, who died about ten years ago, has told me 
 that, when a boy, he was sent on one occasion to the manse 
 of a neighbouring parish, to bring back the horse of an elderly 
 gentleman of the place, a retired officer, who had gone to 
 visit the minister with the intention of remaining with him 
 for a few days. The officer was a silver-headed, erect old 
 man, who had served as an ensign at the battle of Blenheim, 
 and who, when he had retired on half-pay about forty years 
 after, was still a poor lieutenant. His riding days were well- 
 nigh over j and the boy overtook him long ere he had reached 
 the manse, and just as he was joined by Mr Forsyth, who 
 had come riding up by a cross-road, and then slackened bridle 
 to keep him company. They entered into conversation. Mr 
 Forsyth was curious in his inquiries, the old gentleman com- 
 municative, and the boy a good listener. The old man spoke 
 much of the allied army under Marlborough. By far the 
 
302 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 strongest man in it, he said, was a gentleman from Ross- 
 shire, — Munro of Newmore. He had seen him raise a piece 
 of ordnance to his breast which Mackenzie of Fairburn, an- 
 other proprietor of the same district, had succeeded in raising 
 to his knee, but which no other man among more than eighty 
 thousand could lift from off the ground. Newmore was con- 
 siderably advanced in life at the time, — perhaps turned of 
 fifty ; for he had arrived at mature manhood about the middle 
 of the reign of Charles II. ; and being a singularly daring as 
 well as an immensely powerful man, he had signalized him- 
 self in early life in the feuds of his native district. Some of 
 his lands bordered on those of Black Andrew Monro, the last 
 Baron of Newtarbat, one of the most detestable wretches that 
 ever abused the power of pit and gallows. But as at least 
 their nominal politics were the same, and as the Baron, though 
 by far the less powerful man, was in perhaps a corresponding 
 degree the more powerful proprietor, they had never come to 
 an open rupture. Newmore, however, by venturing at times 
 to screen some of the Baron's vassals from his fury, — at times 
 by taking part against him in the quarrel of some of the 
 petty landholders, whom the tyrant never missed an occasion 
 to oppress, — was by no means one of his favourites. All the 
 labours of the Baron's demesnes were, of course, performed 
 by his vassals as part of their proper service. A late wet 
 harvest came on, and they were employed in cutting down 
 his crops when their own lay rotting on the ground. It is 
 natural that in such circumstances they should have laboured 
 unwillingly. All their dread of the Baron even, who re- 
 mained among them in the fields, indulging in every caprice 
 of a fierce and cruel temper, aggravated by irresponsible 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 303 
 
 power, proved scarcely sufficient to keep them at work ; and, 
 to inspire them with deeper terror, an elderly female, who 
 had been engaged during the night in reaping a little field 
 of her own, and had come somewhat late in the morning, 
 was actually stripped naked by the savage, and sent home 
 again. In the evening he was visited by Munro of New- 
 more, who came, accompanied by only a single servant, to 
 expostulate with him on an act so atrocious and disgraceful. 
 Newmore was welcomed with a show of hospitality; the Baron 
 heard him patiently, and, calling for wine, they sat down and 
 drank together. It was only a few weeks before, however, 
 that one of the neighbouring lairds, who had been treated 
 with a similar show of kindness by the Baron, had been 
 stripped half-naked at his table, when in a state of intoxica- 
 tion, and sent home with his legs tied under his horse's belly. 
 Kewmore, therefore, kept warily on his guard. He had left 
 his horse ready saddled at the gate, and drank no more than 
 he could master, which was quite as much, however, as would 
 have overcome most men. One after one the Baron's re- 
 tainers began to drop into the room, each on a separate pre- 
 tence; and, as the fifth entered, Newmore, who had seemed 
 as if yielding to the influence of the liquor, affected to fall 
 asleep. The retainers came clustering round him. Two 
 seized him by the arms, and two more essayed to fasten him 
 to his chair ; when up he sprang, dashed his four assailants 
 from him as if they had been boys of ten summers, and, rais- 
 ing the fifth from off the floor, hurled him headlong against 
 the Baron, who fell prostrate before the w eight and momen- 
 tum of so unusual a missile. In a minute after, ISTewmore 
 had reached the gate, and, mounting his horse, rode away. 
 
304 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 The Baron died during the night, a victim to apoplexy, 
 induced, it is said, by the fierce and vindictive passions 
 awakened on this occasion ; and a Gaelic proverb still cur- 
 rent in the Highlands of Ross-shire shows with what feelings 
 his poor vassals must have regarded the event. Even to the 
 present day, a Highlander will remark, when overborne by 
 oppression, that " the same God still lives who killed Black 
 Andrew Monro of Newtarbat/ 5 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 Character of Mr Forsyth as a Magistrate — Quarrels of the Town's- folks 
 — The Boys and the Pease — Mr Forsyth's Marriage — Better Society 
 of the Place — Remarks on the Character of the People — Death of 
 Mrs Forsyth. 
 
 It was no unimportant change to the people of Cromarty, 
 which transferred them from the jurisdiction of hereditary 
 judges to the charge of a justice such as Mr Forsyth. For 
 more than thirty years after his appointment he was the only 
 acting magistrate in the place ; and such was the confidence 
 of the towns-people in his judgment and integrity, that dur- 
 ing all that time there was not in a single instance an appeal 
 from his decisions. In office and character he seems to have 
 closely resembled one of the old landammans of the Swiss 
 cantons. The age was a rude one : man is a fighting animal 
 from very instinct, and his second nature, custom, mightily 
 improves the propensity : and nine-tenths of the cases brought 
 before Mr Forsyth were cases of quarrels. With the more 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 305 
 
 desperate class of brawlers he could deal at times with pro- 
 per severity. In most instances, however, a quarrel cost him 
 a few glasses of his best Hollands, and cost no one else any- 
 thing. The disputants were generally shown that neither of 
 them had been quite in the right ; that one had been too 
 hasty, and the other too ready to take offence ; that the first 
 blow had been decidedly a wrong, and the second unques- 
 tionably a misdemeanour ; and then, after drinking one 
 another's health, they parted, wonderfully pleased with the 
 decision of Mr Forsyth, and resolved to have no more fight- 
 ing till their next difference. He was much a favourite, too, 
 with the town's-boys. On one occasion, a party of them 
 were brought before him on a charge of stealing green pease 
 out of a field. Mr Forsyth addressed them in his sternest 
 manner. There was nothing, he said, which he so abhorred 
 as the stealing of green pease ; — it was positively theft. He 
 even questioned whether their parents did right in providing 
 them with pockets. Were they again to be brought before 
 him for a similar offence, they might depend, every one of 
 them, on being locked up in the Tolbooth for a fortnight. 
 Meanwhile, to keep them honest, he had resolved on sowing 
 a field of pease himself, to which he would make them all 
 heartily welcome. Accordingly, next season the field was 
 sown, and there could not be a more exposed locality. Such, 
 however, was the spirit of the little men of the place, all of 
 whom had come to a perfect understanding of the decision, 
 that not one pod of Mr Forsyth's pease was carried away. 
 
 Before the close of 1752, when he completed his thirtieth 
 year, Mr Forsyth had succeeded in settling his two brothers 
 in business, the one as a shopkeeper in Dingwall, the other 
 
 u 
 
306 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 as a merchant in Newcastle. Botli gained for themselves. 
 in their respective circles of acquaintance, the character of 
 worthy and intelligent men ; and their descendants still 
 occupy respectable places in society. They had acquired 
 their education, and formed their habits of business, under 
 the eye of "William ; and now, in the autumn of this year, 
 after he had thus honourably acquitted himself of the charge 
 devolved upon him by the death of his father, he found him- 
 self at liberty to gratify an attachment formed several years 
 before, by marrying a young lady of great worth and beauty. 
 Miss Margaret Russell, a native of Morayshire. She was 
 the daughter of Mr Russell of Earlsmill, chamberlain to the 
 Earl of Moray. 
 
 I shall indulge, with leave of the reader, in a brief view 
 of the society to which Mr Forsyth introduced his young 
 wife. The feudal superior of the town, and proprietor of the 
 neighbouring lands, formed, of course, its natural and proper 
 head. But the proprietor of this period, a Captain William 
 Urquhart of Meldrum, had thrown himself so fairly beyond 
 its pale, that on his own estate, and in his own village, there 
 were none to court favour or friendship at his hands. He 
 was a gentleman of good family, and had done gallant service 
 to the Spaniards of South America against the buccaneers. 
 He was, however, a stanch Catholic, and he had joined issue 
 with the town's-people, headed by Mr Forsyth, in a vexatious 
 and expensive lawsuit, in which he had contended, as patron 
 of the parish, for the privilege of presenting them with a 
 useless, time-serving clergyman, a friend of his own. And 
 so it was, that the zeal, so characteristic at the time, of the 
 people of Scotland, — a zeal for religion and the interests of 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 307 
 
 the Kirk, — had more than neutralized in the minds of the 
 towns-people their scarcely less characteristic feelings of re- 
 spect for the laird. His place, therefore, in the society of the 
 town was occupied by persons of somewhat less influence 
 than himself! There was a little circle of gentility in it, 
 rich iu blood, but poor in fortune, which furnished a sort of 
 reposing place for the old prejudices of the people in favour 
 of high descent, — of ladies who were " real ladies/' and gen- 
 tlemen with coats of arms. Whenever there was auo-ht to 
 be done or resisted, however, the whole looked up to Mr 
 Forsyth as their man of thought and action. 
 
 At the head of this little community there was a dowager 
 lady, the many virtues of whose character have found a warm 
 encomiast in the judicious and sober-minded Doddridge. The 
 good Lady Ardoch has been dead for the last seventy years, 
 and yet her name is scarcely less familiar in the present day, 
 to at least the more staid town's-people, than it was half a 
 century ago. She was a daughter of the Fowlis family, — 
 one of the most ancient and honourable in Scotland : the 
 ninth baron of Fowlis was slain fighting under the Bruce at 
 Bannockburn. Her three brothers, — men wdiose heroism 
 of character and high religious principle have drawn forth 
 the very opposite sympathies of Philip Doddridge and Sir 
 "Walter Scott, — she had lost in the late rebellion. The 
 eldest, Sir Robert Munro, the chief of his clan, died, with his 
 youngest brother, at the battle of Falkirk • the third was 
 shot about nine months after by an assassin, who had mis- 
 taken him for another by whom he had been deeply injured, 
 and whose sorrow and remorse on discovering that he had 
 unwittingly killed one of the best of his countrymen, are 
 
308 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 well described by Sir Walter in his " Tales of a Grand- 
 father." Next in place to the good Lady Ardoch was the 
 good Lady Scotsburn (the widow of a Ross-shire proprietor), 
 who derived her descent from that Archibald, Marquis of 
 Argyle, who acted so conspicuous a part during the troubles 
 of the times of Charles I., and perished on the scaffold on 
 the accession of Charles II. In excellence of character and 
 the respect with which she was regarded, she very much re- 
 sembled her contemporary, Lady Ardoch. There were, be- 
 sides, a family of ladies in the place, the daughters of 
 TJrquhart of Greenhill, — a merchant of the times of the 
 herring-drove, and a scion of the old Urquharts of Cro- 
 marty ; and another much-respected family, the descendants 
 of one of the old clergymen of the place, a Mr Gordon. A 
 few ladies more of rather lower pretensions, whom the kind- 
 ness of relatives in the south enabled to be hospitable and 
 genteel, some on fifty pounds a-year, and some on thirty ; 
 and a few retired half-pay ensigns and lieutenants, one of 
 whom, as we have seen, had fought in the wars of Marl- 
 borough, — completed what was deemed the better society of 
 the place. They had their occasional tea-parties, at which 
 they all met ; for Mr Forsyth's trade with Holland had in- 
 troduced, ere now, about eight tea-kettles into the place. 
 They had, too, what was more characteristic of the age, — 
 their regular prayer-meetings ; and at these, — for Chris- 
 tianity, as the equalizing religion of free men, has ever been 
 a breaker down of casts and fictitious distinctions, — the 
 whole graver people of the town met. The parlour of Lady 
 Ardoch was open once a fortnight to the poorest inhabitant 
 of the place ; and the good lady of thirty descents knelt in 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 309 
 
 her silks at the same form with the good fisherwonian in her 
 curch and toy. 
 
 It is not, however, by notices such as these that adequate 
 notions of the changes which have taken place within the 
 last century in the very framework of Scottish society can be 
 conveyed to the reader. " The state of things is so fast 
 changing in Scotland," says Dr Johnson, in one of his letters 
 to Boswell, " that a Scotchman can hardly realize the times 
 of his grandfather." 
 
 Society was in a transition state at the time. The old 
 adventitious bonds which had held it together in the past 
 still existed ; but opinion was employed in forging others of 
 a more natural and less destructible character. Among 
 these older ties, the pride of family, — a pride which must 
 have owed its general diffusion over Scotland to the clans 
 and septs of the feudal system, — held by far the most im- 
 portant place. There was scarce an individual, in at least 
 the northern counties, whose claim to self-respect was not 
 involved in the honour of some noble family. There ran 
 through his humble genealogy some silver thread of high 
 descent; — some great-great-grandfather or grandmother con- 
 nected him with the aristocracy of the country ; and it was 
 his pride and honour, not that he was an independent man, 
 but that he was in some sort a dependent gentleman. 
 Hence, that assumption of gentility on the part of the 
 Scotch so often and so unmercifully lashed by the English 
 satirists of the last century. Hence, too, in no small mea- 
 sure, the entire lack of political Whiggism among the people. 
 Under the influence of the feeling described, a great family 
 might be compared to one of those fig-trees of the East 
 
310 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 which shoot their pendulous branches into the soil, and, de- 
 riving their stability from a thousand separate roots, defy the 
 tornado and the hurricane. Be it remembered, too, that 
 great families included in this way the whole of Scottish 
 society, from its upper to its lower extreme. 
 
 Now, one. of the objections to this kind of bond was the 
 very unequal measure of justice and protection which it 
 secured to the two grand classes which it united. It de- 
 pressed the people in the one scale in the proportion in 
 which it raised the aristocracy in the other. It did much 
 for Juggernaut, but little for Juggernaut's worshippers. 
 Though well-nigh as powerful at this time in the north of 
 Scotland as it had been at any previous period, it was fast 
 losing its influence in the southern districts. The persecu- 
 tions of the former age had done much to lessen its efficacy, 
 by setting the aristocracy, who, in most instances, held by 
 the court politics and the court religion, in direct and hostile 
 opposition to the people. And the growing commerce of the 
 larger towns had done still more to lower it, by raising up 
 from among the people that independent middle class, the 
 creators and conservators of popular liberty, without which 
 the population of any country can consist of only slaves and 
 their masters. Even in the northern districts there were 
 causes coming into operation, which were eventually to anni- 
 hilate the sentiment in at least its more mischievous ten- 
 dencies. The state of matters in the town of Cromarty at 
 this time, where a zealous Catholic was struggling to obtrude 
 a minister of his own choosing on a Protestant people, fur- 
 nishes no bad illustration of the nature of some of these, and 
 of their mode of working. The absurd and mischievous law 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 311 
 
 of patronage was doing in part for the Lowland districts of 
 the north what the persecutions of the Stuarts had done for 
 those of the south an age before, and what the large sheep- 
 farm system, and the consequent ejection of the old occu- 
 pants of the soil, has done for the Highlands an age after. 
 And the first two were causes admirably suited to awaken a 
 people who had derived their notions of rational liberty solely 
 through the medium of religious belief. Their Whiggism 
 was a Whiggism not of this world, but of the other ; and as 
 the privilege of preparing themselves for heaven in what 
 they believed to be exclusively the right way was the only 
 privilege they deemed worth while contending for, their 
 first struggle for liberty was a struggle that their consciences 
 might be free. The existence, too, of such men among them 
 as Mr Forsyth, — men who had risen from their own level, — 
 had a twofold influence on the contest. They formed a sort of 
 aristocracy of the people, that served to divide the old feel- 
 ings of respect which had been so long paid exclusively to 
 the higher aristocracy; and they were enabled, through their 
 superior intelligence, to give a weight and respectability to 
 the popular party which it could not otherwise have pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 William Forsyth was singularly unfortunate in his mar- 
 riage. Towards the close of the first year, when but learn- 
 ing fully to appreciate the comforts of a state to which so 
 many of the better sentiments of our nature bear reference, 
 and to estimate more completely the worth of his partner, 
 she was suddenly removed from him by death, at a time 
 when he looked with most hope for a further accession to his 
 happiness. She died in childbed, and the fruit of her womb 
 
312 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 died with her. Her husband, during the long after-course 
 of his life, never forgot her, and for eleven years posterior to 
 the event he remained a widower for her sake. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Early Struggles of a Poor Scholar — Visits his Old Schoolfellow, Air 
 Forsyth — Originates the Kelp Trade— Story of two of Mr Forsyth's 
 Kelp-Burners — Original Trade of British Linen Company — Exertions 
 of Mr Forsyth as their Agent for the North of Scotland. 
 
 Among the schoolfellows of William Forsyth there was a 
 poor orphan boy named Hossack, a native of the landward 
 part of the parish. He had lost both his parents when an 
 infant, and owed his first knowledge of letters to the charity 
 of the schoolmaster. His nearer relatives were all dead, and 
 he was dependent for a precarious subsistence on the charity 
 of a few distant connections, not a great deal richer than 
 himself, — among the rest, on a poor widow, a namesake of 
 his own, who earned a scanty subsistence by her wheel, but 
 who had heart enough to impart a portion of her little to 
 the destitute scholar. The boy was studious and thoughtful, 
 and surpassed most of his schoolfellows; and, after passing 
 with singular rapidity through the course pursued at school, 
 he succeeded in putting himself to college. The struggle 
 was arduous and protracted : sometimes he wrought as a 
 common labourer, sometimes he ran errands, sometimes he 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 313 
 
 taught a school : he deemed no honest employment too 
 mean or too laborious, that forwarded his scheme j and thus 
 he at length passed through college. His town's-people 
 then lost sight of him for nearly twenty years. It was un- 
 derstood, meanwhile, that some nameless friend in the south 
 had settled a comfortable annuity on poor old widow Hos- 
 sack, and that a Cromarty sailor, who had been attacked by 
 a dangerous illness when at London, had owed his life to the 
 gratuitous attentions of a famous physician of the place, who 
 had recognised him as a townsman. No one, however, 
 thought of the poor scholar ; and it was not until his car- 
 riage drove up one day through the main street of the town, 
 and stopped at the door of William Forsyth, that he was 
 identified with " the great Doctor" who had attended the 
 seaman, and with the benefactor of the poor widow. On 
 entering the cottage of the latter, he found her preparing 
 gruel for supper, and was asked, with the anxiety of a 
 gratitude that would fain render him some return, " Oh, Sir, 
 will ye no tak' brochan f He is said to have been a truly 
 excellent and benevolent man, — the Abercromby of a former 
 age ; and the ingenious and pious Moses Browne (a clergy- 
 man who, to the disgrace of the English Church, was suf- 
 fered to languish through life in a curacy of fifty pounds per 
 annum) thus addresses him in one of his larger poems, 
 written immediately after the recovery of the author from a 
 long and dangerous illness. 
 
 The God I trust, with timeliest kind relief, 
 
 Sent the beloved physician to my aid, 
 
 (Generous, humanest, affable of soul, 
 
 Thee, dearest Hossack ; Oh ! long known, long lov'd, 
 
314 A TRUE STORV OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 Long proved ; in oft found tenderest watching cares, 
 The Christian friend, the man of feeling heart !) 
 And in his skilful, heaven-directed hand, 
 Put his best pleasing, only fee, my cure. 
 
 Sunday Thoughts, part iv. 
 
 To this gentleman Mr Forsyth owed a very useful hint, 
 which he did not fail to improve. They were walking to- 
 gether at low ebb along the extensive tract of beach which 
 skirts, on the south, the entrance of the Frith of Cromarty. 
 ' The shore everywhere in this tract presents a hard bottom 
 of boulder stones and rolled pebbles, thickly covered with 
 marine plants ; and the doctor remarked that the brown 
 tangled forests before them might be profitably employed in 
 the manufacture of kelp, and, at the request of Mr Forsyth, 
 described the process. To the enterprising and vigorous- 
 minded merchant the remark served to throw open a new 
 field of exertion : he immediately engaged in the kelp 
 trade ; and, for more than forty years after, it enabled him 
 to employ from ten to twelve persons during the sum- 
 mer and autumn of each year, and proved remunerative to 
 himself. 
 
 There is a story of two of Mr Forsyth's kelp-burners, 
 which, as it forms a rather curious illustration of some of the 
 wilder beliefs of the period, I shall venture on introducing 
 to the reader. The Sutors of Cromarty were known all over 
 the country as resorts of the hawk, the eagle, and the raven, 
 and of all the other builders among dizzy and inaccessible 
 cliffs; and a gentleman of Moray, a sportsman of the old 
 school, having applied to a friend in this part of the country 
 to procure for him a pair of young hawks, of a species prized 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 315 
 
 by the falconer, Tam Poison, an unsettled eccentric being, 
 remarkable chiefly for his practical jokes, and his constant 
 companion Jock Watson, a person of nearly similar cha- 
 racter, were entrusted with the commission, and a promise 
 of five pounds Scots, no inconsiderable sum in these days, 
 held out to them as the reward of their success in the exe- 
 cution of it. They soon discovered a nest, but it was 
 perched near the top of a lofty cliff, inaccessible to the 
 climber ; and there was a serious objection against descend- 
 ing to it by means of a rope, seeing that the rope could not 
 be held securely by fewer than three or four persons, who 
 would naturally claim a share of the reward. It was sug- 
 gested, however, by Tam, that by fastening the rope to a 
 stake, even one person might prove sufficient to manage it 
 when the other warped himself down ; and so, providing 
 themselves with the stay-rope of one of their boats, and the 
 tether-stake of one of their cattle, — for, like most of the 
 town's-people, they were both boatmen and croft-renters, — 
 they set out for the cliff early on a Monday morning, ere the 
 other members of the kelp party with whom they wrought 
 were astir. The stake was driven into the stiff diluvial clay 
 on the summit of the cliff; and Tarn's companion, who was 
 the lighter man of the two, cautiously creeping to the edge, 
 swung himself Over, and began to descend ; but, on reaching 
 the end of the stay-rope, he found he was still a few feet 
 short of the nest ; and, anxious only to secure the birds, he 
 called on his companion to raise the stake, and fix it a little 
 nearer the brink. The stake was accordingly raised ; but 
 the strength of one man being insufficient to hold it on such 
 broken ground, and far less than sufficient to fasten it clown 
 
316 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 as before, Tam, in spite of his exertions, staggered step after 
 step towards the edge of the precipice. " Oh Jock ! Oh 
 Jock! Oh Jock!" he exclaimed, straining, meanwhile, every 
 nerve in an agony of exertion, " Ye' 11 be o'er like a pock o' 
 weet fish." " Gae a wee bittie down yet," answered the 
 other. " Down ! down ! deil gae down wi' ye, for I can 
 gae nae farther," rejoined Tain ; and, throwing off the rope, 
 — for he now stood on the uttermost brink, — a loud scream, 
 and, after a fearful pause of half a minute, a deep hollow 
 sound from the bottom, told all the rest. " Willawins for 
 poor Jock "Watson," exclaimed Tarn Poison ; " win the gude 
 five pounds wha like, they'll no be won, it seems, by either 
 him or me." 
 
 The party of kelp-burners were proceeding this morning 
 to the scene of their labours through a heavy fog ; and as 
 they reached the furnace one by one, they sat down fronting 
 it, to rest them after their walk, and wait the coming up of 
 the others. Tarn Poison had already taken his place among 
 the rest ; and there were but two amissing, — the man whose 
 dead body now lay at the foot of the cliff, and a serious 
 elderly person, one of his neighbours, whose company he 
 sometimes courted. At length they were both seen as if 
 issuing out of a dense cloud of mist. 
 
 " Yonder they come," said one of the kelp-burners ; " but, 
 gudesake ! only look how little Jock Watson looms through 
 the fog as mickle's a giant." 
 
 "Jock Watson!" exclaimed Poison, starting to his feet, 
 and raising his hands to his eyes, with a wild expression of 
 bewilderment and terror, "Ay, murdered Jock W T atson, as 
 sure's death !" 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 317 
 
 The figure shrank into the mist as he spoke, and the old 
 man was seen approaching alone. 
 
 "What hae ye done to Jock Watson, Donald ?" was the 
 eager query put to him, on his coming up, by half-a-dozen 
 voices at once. 
 
 "Ask Tarn Poison there," said the old man : " I tapped at 
 Jock's window as I passed, and found he had set out wi' Tarn 
 half an hour afore daybreak." 
 
 " Oh," said Tarn, " it was poor murdered Jock Watson's 
 ghaist we saw j — it was Jock's ghaist." And so he divulged 
 the whole story. 
 
 The British Linen Company had been established in Edin- 
 burgh about the year 1746, chiefly with a view, as the name 
 implies, of forwarding the interests of the linen trade ; and in 
 a few years after, Mr Forsyth, whose character as an active 
 and successful man of business was beginning to be appreciated 
 in more than the north of Scotland, was chosen as the Com- 
 pany's agent for that extensive tract of country which inter- 
 venes between the Pentland Frith and the Frith of Beauly. 
 The linen trade was better suited at this time to the state of 
 the country and the previously-acquired habits of the people 
 than any other could have been. All the linens worn in Scot- 
 land, with the exception, perhaps, of some French cambrics, 
 were of home manufacture. Every female was skilled in spin- 
 ning, and every little hamlet had its weaver, who, if less a mas- 
 ter of his profession than some of the weavers of our manufac- 
 turing towns in the present day, was as decidedly superior to 
 our provincial weavers. A knowledge of what may be termed 
 the higher departments of the craft was spread more equally 
 over the country than now ; and, as is. always the case before 
 
318 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 the minuter subdivisions of labour take place, if less could 
 be produced by the trade as a body, the average ability ranked 
 higher in individuals. In establishing the linen trade, there- 
 fore, as the skill essential to carrying it on already existed, it 
 was but necessary that motives should be held out sufficiently 
 powerful to awaken the industry of the people ; and these 
 were furnished by Mr Forsyth, in the form of remunerative 
 prices for their labour. The town of Cromarty, from its 
 central situation and excellent harbour, was chosen as the 
 depot of the establishment. The flax was brought in vessels 
 from Holland, prepared for the spinners in Cromarty, and 
 then distributed by the boats of Mr Forsyth along the shores 
 of the Friths of Dornoch, Dingwall, and Beauly, and north- 
 wards as far as Wick and Thurso. At the commencement 
 of the trade the distaff and spindle was in extensive use all 
 over the north of Scotland, and the spinning-wheel only par- 
 tially introduced into some of the towns ; but the more pri- 
 mitive implement was comparatively slow and inefficient ; 
 and Mr Forsyth, the more effectually to supplant it by the 
 better machine, made it an express condition with all whom 
 he employed for a second year, that at least one wheel should 
 be introduced into every family. He, besides, hired skilful 
 spinners to go about the country teaching its use ; and so 
 effectual were his measures, that in about ten years after the 
 commencement of the trade, the distaff and spindle had almost 
 entirely disappeared. There are parts of the remote High- 
 lands, however, in which it is still in use ; and the writer, 
 when residing in a wild district of western Ross, which bor- 
 ders on the Atlantic, has repeatedly seen the Highland women, 
 as they passed to and from the shore, at once bending under 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 319 
 
 he weight of the creel with which they manured their lands, 
 ::iid ceaselessly twirling the spindle as it hung beneath the 
 staff. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Mr Forsyth becomes a Shipowner— Tarn Eeid and the Turpentine Bottle 
 — Character of an Extinct Class of Seamen — The Crew of Mr For- 
 syth's Sloop the Elizabeth — Anecdote of one of his Shipmasters — 
 Story of Old Saunders M'lvor and the Minister of Kilmuir — The 
 Two Boatmen. 
 
 About five years after the establishment of the linen trade, 
 Mr Forsyth became a shipowner ; and as he had made it a 
 rule never to provide himself from other countries with what 
 could be produced by the workmen of his own, his first ves- 
 sel, a fine large sloop, was built at Fortrose. There had been 
 ship-builders established at Cromarty at a much earlier pe- 
 riod. Among the designations attached to names, which we 
 find in the older records of the place, there is none of more 
 frequent occurrence than that of ship-carpenter. There are 
 curious stories, too, connected with ship-launches, which serve 
 to mark the remote period at which these must have oc- 
 curred. An occasion of this kind, at a time when the know- 
 ledge of mechanics was more imperfect and much less general 
 than at present, was always one of great uncertainty. Acci- 
 dents were continually occurring ; and superstition found 
 room to mingle her mysterious horrors with the doubts and 
 
320 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 fears with which it was naturally attended. Witches and 
 the Evil Eye were peculiarly dreaded by the carpenter on 
 the day of a launch ; and it is said of one of the early Cro- 
 marty launches, that the vessel having stopped short in the 
 middle of her course, the master carpenter was so irritated 
 with a reputed witch among the spectators, to whom he at- 
 tributed the accident, that he threw her down and broke her 
 arm. A single anecdote, though of a lighter cast, preserves 
 the recollection of Mr Forsyth's ship-building at Eortrose. 
 The vessel was nearly finished, and a half-witted knave, named 
 Tarn Keid, who had the knack of tricking everbody, — even 
 himself at times, — was despatched by Mr Forsyth with a 
 bottle of turpentine to the painters. Tam, however, who 
 had never more than heard of wine, and who seems to have 
 taken it for granted that the bottle he carried contained 
 nothing worse, contrived to drink the better half of it by 
 the way, and was drugged almost to death for his pains. 
 When afterwards humorously charged by Mr Forsyth with 
 breach of trust, and urged to confess, truly, whether he had 
 actually drunk the whole of the missing turpentine, he is 
 said to have replied, in great Avrath, that he " widna gie a'e 
 glass o' whisky for a' the wine i' the warld." 
 
 Mr Forsyth's vessels were at first employed almost exclu- 
 sively in the Dutch trade ; but the commerce of the country 
 gradually shifted its old channels, and in his latter days they 
 were engaged mostly in trading between the north of Scot- 
 land and the ports of Leith, London, and Newcastle. There 
 are curious traditionary anecdotes of his sailors still afloat 
 among the people, which illustrate the credulous and imagi- 
 native character of the age. Stories of this class may be 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 321 
 
 regarded as the fossils of history ; — they show the nature arid 
 place of the formation in which they occur. The Scotch 
 .sailors of ninety years ago were in many respects a very dif- 
 ferent sort of persons from the sailors of the present day. 
 They formed one of the most religious classes of the commu- 
 nity : there were even founders of sects among them. The 
 too famous John Gibb was a sailor of Borrowstounness ; and 
 the worthy Scotchman who remarked to Peter Walker that 
 " the ill of Scotland he found everywhere, but the good of 
 Scotland nowhere save at home," was a sailor too. Mr For- 
 syth was much attached to the seamen of this old and vene- 
 rable class, and a last remnant of them might be found in 
 his vessels when they had become extinct everywhere else. 
 On the breaking out of the revolutionary war, his sloop the 
 Elizabeth was boarded when lying at anchor in one of our 
 Highland lochs by a press-gang from a Kings vessel, and the 
 crew-, who chanced to be all under hatches at the time, weie 
 summoned on deck. First appeared the ancient weather- 
 beaten master, a person in his grand climacteric ; then came 
 Saunders M'lver, the mate, a man who had twice sailed 
 round the world about half a century before; then came 
 decent Thomas Grant, who had been an elder of the kirk for 
 more than forty years ; and last of all came old, gray-headed 
 Robert Hossack, a still older man than any of the others. 
 " Good Heavens !" exclaimed the officer who commanded the 
 party, "here, lads, are the four sailors who manned the aik 
 alive still." I need hardly add, that on this occasion he left 
 all her crew to the Elizabeth. 
 
 Some of the stories of Mr Forsyth's sailors may serve to 
 enliven my narrative. The master of the Elizabeth, in one 
 
222 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 of his Dutch voyages, when on the eve of sailing for Scot- 
 land, had gone into a tavern with the merchant from whom 
 he had purchased his cargo, and was shown by mistake into 
 a room in which there lay an old woman ill of a malignant 
 fever. The woman regarded him with a long and ghastly 
 stare, which haunted him all the evening after ; and during 
 the night he was seized by the fever. He sent for a physi- 
 cian of the place. His vessel was bound for sea, he said, and 
 the crew would be wholly unable to bring her home without 
 him. Had he no medicine potent enough to arrest the pro- 
 gress of the disease for about a week % The physician replied 
 in the affirmative, and prescribed with apparent confidence. 
 The master quitted his bed on the strength of the prescrip- 
 tion, and the vessel sailed for Cromarty. A storm arose, and 
 there was not a seaman aboard who outwrought or outwatched 
 the master. He began to droop, however, as the weather 
 moderated, and his strength had so failed him on reaching 
 Cromarty, that his sailors had to carry him home in a litter. 
 The fever had returned, and more than six weeks elapsed 
 after his arrival ere he had so far recovered from it as to be 
 able to leave his bed. The story is, I believe, strictly true ; 
 but in accounting, in the present day, for the main fact which 
 it supplies, we would perhaps be inclined to attribute less 
 than our fathers did to the skill of the physician, and more 
 to the force of imagination, and to those invigorating ener- 
 gies which a sense of danger awakens. 
 
 Old Saunders M'Tver, the mate of the Elizabeth, was one 
 of the most devout and excellent men of the place. There 
 was in some degree, too, a sort of poetical interest attached 
 to him, from the dangers which he had encountered, and the 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 323 
 
 strange sights which he had seen. He had seen smoke and 
 flame bursting out of the sea in the far Pacific, and had twice 
 visited those remote parts of the world which lie directly 
 under our feet, — a fact which all his townsmen credited, for 
 Saunders himself had said it, but which few of them could 
 understand. In one of his long voyages, the crew with whom 
 he sailed were massacred by some of the wild natives of the 
 Indian Archipelago, and he alone escaped by secreting him- 
 self in the rigging, and from thence slipping unobserved into 
 one of the boats, and then cutting her loose. But he was 
 furnished with neither oars nor sail ; and it was not until he 
 had been tossed at the mercy of the tides and winds of the 
 Indian Ocean for nearly a week that he was at length picked 
 up by a European vessel. So powerfully was he impressed 
 on this occasion, that it is said he was never after seen to 
 smile. He was a grave and somewhat hard-favoured man, 
 powerful in bone and muscle even after he had considerably 
 turned his sixtieth year, and much respected for his inflexible 
 integrity and the depth of his religious feelings. Both Saun- 
 ders and his wife (a person of equal worth with himself) were 
 especial favourites with Mr Porteous of Kilmuir, — a minister 
 of the same class with the Pedens, Renwicks, and Oargills of 
 a former age ; and on one occasion, when the sacrament was 
 held in his parish, and Saunders was absent on one of his 
 Dutch voyages, Mrs M'lver was an inmate of the manse. A 
 tremendous storm burst out in the night-time ; and the poor 
 woman lay awake, listening in utter terror to the fearful roar- 
 ings of the wind, as it howled in the chimneys, and shook the 
 casements and the door. At length, when she could lie still 
 no longer, she arose and creeped along the passage to the 
 
324 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 door of the minister's chamber. " Oh, Mr Porteons !" she 
 said, " Mr Porteous, do ye no hear that, — and poor Saunders 
 on his way back fra Holland ! Oh, rise, rise, and ask the 
 strong help o' your Master. The minister accordingly rose, 
 and entered his closet. The Elizabeth, at this critical mo- 
 ment, was driving onwards through the spray and darkness, 
 along the northern shore of the Moray Frith. The fearful 
 skerries of Shandwick, where so many gallant vessels have 
 perished, were close at hand, and the increasing roll of the 
 sea showed the gradual shallowing of the water. M'Tver, and 
 his old townsman Robert Hossack, stood together at the bin- 
 nacle. An immense wave came rolling behind, and they had 
 but barely time to clutch to the nearest hold, when it broke 
 over them half-mast high, sweeping spars, bulwarks, cordage, 
 all before it in its course. It passed, but the vessel rose not. 
 Her deck remained buried in a sheet of foam, and she seemed 
 settling down by the head. There was a frightful pause. 
 First, however, the bowsprit and the beams of the windlass 
 began to emerge • next the forecastle, — the vessel seemed as 
 if shaking herself from the load ; and then the whole deck 
 appeared, as she went tilting over the next wave. " There 
 are still more mercies in store for us," said M'lver, address- 
 ing his companion ; " she floats still." " Oh Saunders ! 
 Saunders !" exclaimed Robert, "there was surely some God's 
 soul at work for us, or she would never have cowed yon." 
 
 There is a somewhat similar story told of two of Mr For- 
 syth's boatmen. They were brothers, and of a much lighter 
 character than Saunders and his companion ; but their 
 mother, who was old and bed-ridden, was a person of singular 
 piety. They had left her, when setting out on one of their 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 325 
 
 Caithness voyages, in so low a state, that they could scarce 
 entertain any hope of again seeing her in life. On their 
 return they were wrecked on the rocky coast of Tarbat, and 
 it was with much difficulty that they succeeded in saving 
 their lives. " Oh brother, lad !" said the one to the other, 
 on reaching the shore, " our poor old niither is gone at last, 
 or yon widna have happened us. We maun just be learning 
 to pray for ourselves." And the inference, says the story, 
 was correct, for the good old woman had died about half an 
 hour before the accident occurred. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Mr Forsyth's Second Marriage — Chai'acterof his Wife— His usual round 
 of Occupation — Meggie o' the Shore — The late Mr Charles Grant — 
 Hymn. 
 
 Unmarried men of warm affections and social habits begin 
 often, after turning their fortieth year, to feel themselves too 
 much alone in the world for happiness, and to look forward 
 with more of fear than of desire to a solitary and friendless 
 old age. William Forsyth, a man of the kindliest feelings, 
 on completing his forty-first year was still a widower ; his 
 mother had declined into the vale of life ; his two brothers 
 had settled down, as has been already related, in distant parts 
 of the country. There were occasional gaps, too, occurring 
 in the circle in which he moved. Disease, decay, and acci- 
 dent, kept up the continual draught of death ; friends and 
 
326 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 familiar faces were dropping away and disappearing ; and lie 
 began to find that he was growing too solitary for his own 
 peace. The wound, however, which his affections had sus- 
 tained rather more than ten years before had been gradually 
 closing under the softening influence of time. The warmth 
 of his affections and the placidity of his temper fitted him 
 in a peculiar manner for domestic happiness ; and it was his 
 great good fortune to meet, about this period, with a lady 
 through whom, all unwittingly on her own part, he was 
 taught to regard himself as no longer solitary in the present, 
 nor devoid of hope for the future. He was happy in his at- 
 tachment, and early in 1764 she became his wife. 
 
 Miss Elizabeth Grant, daughter of the Rev. Patrick Grant 
 of Duthel, in Strathspey, and of Isabella Kerr of Ruthven 
 Manse, was born in Duthel in the year 1742, and removed 
 to Nigg, in Ross-shire, about twelve years after, on the in- 
 duction of her father into that parish. Her character was 
 as little a common one as that of Mr Forsyth himself. Seldom 
 indeed does nature produce a liner intellect, — never a warmer 
 or more compassionate heart. It is rarely that the female 
 mind educates itself. The genius of the sex is rather fine 
 than robust ; it partakes rather of the delicacy of the myrtle 
 than the strength of the oak, and care and culture seem es- 
 sential to its full development. There have been instances, 
 however, though rare, of women working their almost unas- 
 sisted way from the lower to the higher levels of intelligence ; 
 and the history of this lady, had she devoted her time more 
 to the registration of her thoughts than to the duties of her 
 station, would have furnished one of these. She was, in the 
 best sense of the term, an original thinker, — one of the few 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 327 
 
 whose innate vigour of mind cany them in search of truth 
 beyond the barriers of the conventional modes of thought. 
 But strong good sense, rising almost to the dignity of philo- 
 sophy, a lively imagination, and a just and delicate taste, 
 united to very extensive knowledge and nice discernment, 
 though these rendered her conversation the delight of the 
 circle in which she moved, formed but the subordinate excel- 
 lencies of her character. She was one of the truly good, — 
 the friend of her species and of her God. A diary, found 
 among her papers after her death, and now in the possession 
 of her friends, shows that the transcript of duty which her 
 life afforded was carefully collated every day with the perfect 
 copy with which Revelation supplied her, and her every 
 thought, word, and action, laid open to the eye of Omni- 
 science. In the expressive language of Scripture, she was, 
 one of those "who walk with God." There was nought, 
 however, of harshness or austerity in her religion : it formed 
 the graceful and appropriate garb of a tender-hearted and' 
 beautiful woman of engaging manners and high talent. With 
 this lady Mr Forsyth enjoyed all of good and happiness that 
 the married state can afford, for the long period of thirty-six 
 years. 
 
 His life was a busy one : his very pleasures were all of 
 the active kind ; and yet, notwithstanding his numerous en- 
 gagements, it was remarked that there were few men who 
 contrived to find more spare time than Mr Forsyth, or who 
 could devote half a day more readily to the service of a 
 friend or neighbour. But his leisure hours were hardly and 
 fairly earned. He rose regularly, winter and summer, be- 
 tween five and six o'clock, lighted his office fire if the weather 
 
328 A TEUE STOEY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 was cold, wrote out his letters for the day, and brought up 
 his books to the latest period. Ere the family was summoned 
 to breakfast he was generally well-nigh the conclusion of his 
 mercantile labours. The family then met for morning prayer ; 
 for, like the Cottar in Burns, Mr Forsyth was the priest of 
 his household, and led in their devotions morning and even- 
 ing. An hour or two more spent in his office set him free 
 for the remainder of the day from labour on his own behalf : 
 the rest he devoted to the good of others and his own amuse- 
 ment. Once a month he held a regular Justice of Peace 
 Court, in which he was occasionally assisted by some of the 
 neighbouring proprietors, whose names, like his own, were 
 on the Commission of the Peace. But the age was a rude 
 one ; and differences were so frequently occurring among the 
 people, that there were few days in which his time was not 
 occupied from twelve till two in his honoured capacity of 
 peace-maker for the place. The evening was more his own. 
 Sometimes he superintended the lading or unlading of his 
 vessels ; sometimes he walked out into the country to visit 
 his humble friends in the landward part of the parish, and 
 see how they were getting on with their spinning. There 
 was not a good old man or woman within six miles of Cro- 
 marty, however depressed by poverty, that Mr Forsyth did 
 not reckon among the number of his acquaintance. 
 
 Of all his humble friends, however, one of the most re- 
 spected, and most frequently visited by him, was a pious, 
 though somewhat eccentric, old woman, who lived all alone 
 in a little solitary cottage beside the sea, rather more than 
 two miles to the west of the town, and who was known to 
 the people of the place as Meggie o' the Shore. Meggie was 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 329 
 
 one of the truly excellent, — a person in whom the Durhains 
 and Rutherford's of a former age would have delighted. There 
 was no doubt somewhat of harshness in her opinions, and of 
 credulity in her beliefs ; but never were there opinions or 
 beliefs more conscientiously held j and the general benevo- 
 lence of her disposition served wonderfully to soften in prac- 
 tice all her theoretical asperities. She was ailing and poor ; 
 and as she was advancing in years, and her health became 
 more broken, her little earnings — for she was one of Mr 
 Forsyth's spinners — were still growing less. Meggie, how- 
 ever, had " come of decent people," though their heads had 
 been all laid low in the churchyard long ere now ; and though 
 she was by far too orthodox to believe, with the son of Sirach, 
 that it "is better to die than to beg," it was not a thing to 
 be thought of that she should do dishonour to the memory 
 of the departed by owing even a single meal to the charity of 
 the parish. She toiled on, therefore, as she best could, con- 
 tent with the merest pittance, and complained to no one. Mr 
 Forsyth, who thoroughly understood the character, and ap- 
 preciated its value, and who knew, withal, how wretchedly 
 inadequate Meggie's earnings were to her support, contrived 
 on one occasion to visit her early, and to stay late, in the 
 hope of being invited to eat with her • for in her more pro- 
 sperous days there were few of her visitors suffered to leave 
 her cottage until, as she herself used to express it, they had 
 first broken bread. At this time, however, there was no sign 
 of the expected invitation ; and it was not until Mr Forsyth 
 had at length risen to come away that Meggie asked him 
 hesitatingly whether he would "no tak' some refreshment 
 afore he went ?" 
 
330 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 " I have just been waiting to say yes," said the merchant, 
 sitting down again. Meggie placed before him a half-cake 
 of barley bread and a jug of water. 
 
 " It was the feast of the promise," she said : " thy bread 
 shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure." 
 
 The merchant saw that, in her effort to be hospitable, she 
 had exhausted her larder ■ and without remarking that the 
 portion was rather a scanty one, partook with apparent relish 
 of his share of the half-cake ; but he took especial care, 
 from that time forward till the death of Meggie, which did 
 not take place till about eight years after, that her feasts 
 should not be so barely and literally feasts of the promise. 
 
 Mr Forsyth, in the midst of his numerous engagements, 
 found leisure for a few days every year to .visit his relatives 
 in Moray. The family of his paternal grandfather, a farmer 
 of Elginshire, had been a numerous one ; and he had an 
 uncle settled in Elgin as a merchant and general dealer, who 
 was not a great many years older than himself. For the 
 judgment of this gentleman Mr Forsyth entertained the 
 highest respect, and he rarely engaged in any new under- 
 taking without first consulting him. Indeed, a general 
 massiveness of intellect and force of character seemed cha- 
 racteristic of the family, and these qualities the well-known 
 work of this gentleman's son, " Forsyth's Italy," serves hap- 
 pily to illustrate. There is perhaps no book of travels in 
 the language in which the thoughts lie so closely, or in the 
 perusal of which the reader, after running over the first few 
 chapters, gives himself up so entirely to the judgment of the 
 author. The work is now in its fourth edition ; and a bio- 
 graphical memoir of the writer, appended to it by his younger 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 331 
 
 brother, Mr Isaac Forsyth of Elgin, shows how well and 
 pleasingly the latter gentleman could have written, had he 
 employed in literature those talents which have rendered 
 him, like his father and his cousin, eminently successful in 
 business. 
 
 When on one of his yearly visits, Mr Forsyth inquired of 
 his uncle whether he could not point out to him among his 
 juvenile acquaintance in Elgin, some steady young lad of 
 good parts, whom he might engage as an assistant in his 
 business at Cromarty. Its more mechanical details, he said, 
 were such as he himself could perhaps easily master ; but 
 then, occupying his time as they did, without employing his 
 mind, they formed a sort of drudgery of the profession, for 
 which he thought it might prove in the end a piece of eco- 
 nomy to pay. His uncle acquiesced in the remark, and 
 recommended to his notice an ingenious young lad who had 
 just left school, after distinguishing himself by his attain- 
 ments as a scholar, and who was now living unemployed 
 with some friends at Elgin. The lad was accordingly intro- 
 duced to Mr Forsyth, who was much pleased with his ap- 
 pearance and the simple ingenuousness of his manners, and 
 on his return he brought him with him to Cromarty. 
 
 Charles Grant, for so the young man was called, soon 
 became much a favourite with Mr Forsyth and his family, 
 and was treated by them rather as a son than a dependent. 
 He had a taste for reading, and Mr Forsyth furnished him 
 with books. He introduced him, too, to all his more intel- 
 ligent and more influential friends, and was alike liberal in 
 assisting him, as the case chanced to require, with his purse 
 and his advice. The young man proved himself eminently 
 
332 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 worthy of the kindness he received. He possessed a mind 
 singularly well balanced in all its faculties, moral and intel- 
 lectual ; he added great quickness to great perseverance ; 
 much warmth and kindliness of feeling to an unyielding- 
 rectitude of principle; and strong good sense to the poetical 
 temperament. He remained with Mr Forsyth for about five 
 years, and then parted from him for some better appointment 
 in London, which he owed to his friendship. It would be 
 no unprofitable or uninteresting task to trace his after-course; 
 but the outlines of his history are already known to most of 
 my readers. His extensive knowledge and very superior 
 talents rendered his services eminently useful ; his known 
 integrity procured him respect and confidence ; the good- 
 ness of his disposition endeared him to an extensive and 
 ever-widening circle of friends. He rose gradually through 
 a series of employments, each, in progression, more important 
 and honourable than the one which had preceded it. He 
 filled for many years the chair of the Honourable East India 
 Company's Court of Directors; and represented the county of 
 Inverness in several successive Parliaments ; and of two of 
 his sons, one has had the dignity of knighthood conferred 
 upon him for his public services, and the other occupies an 
 honourable because well-earned place among the British 
 peerage. Mr Grant continued through life to cherish the 
 memory of his benefactor, and to show even in old age the 
 most marked and assiduous attentions to the surviving mem- 
 bers of his family. He procured writerships for two of his 
 sons, John and Patrick Forsyth ; and, at a time when his 
 acquaintance extended over all the greater merchants of 
 Europe, he used to speak of him as a man whose judgment 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 333 
 ► 
 
 and probity, joined to his singularly liberal views and truly 
 generous sentiments, would have conferred honour on the 
 magisterial chair of the first commercial city of the world. 
 It was when residing in the family of William Forsyth that 
 Mr Grant first received those serious impressions of the vital 
 importance of religion which so influenced his conduct 
 through life, and to which he is said to have given expres- 
 sion, when on the verge of another world, in one of the 
 finest hymns in the language. Need I apologize to the 
 reader for introducing it here 1 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 With years oppressed, with sorrows worn, 
 Dejected, harassed, sick, forlorn, 
 
 To thee, O God ! I pray ; 
 To thee these withered hands arise ; 
 To thee I lift these failing eyes ; — 
 
 0, cast me not away. 
 
 Thy mercy heard my infant prayer ; 
 Thy love, with all a mother's care, 
 
 Sustained my childish days ; 
 Thy goodness watched my ripening youth, 
 And formed my soul to love thy truth, 
 
 And filled my heart with praise. 
 
 0, Saviour, has thy grace declined ? 
 Can years affect the Eternal Mind, 
 
 Or time its love decay % 
 A. thousand ages pass thy sight, 
 And all their long and weary flight 
 
 Is gone like yesterday. 
 
 Then, even in age and grief, thy name 
 Shall still my languid heart inflame, 
 And bow my faltering knee. 
 
334 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 0, yet this bosom feels the fire, 
 This trembling hand and drooping lyre 
 Have yet a strain for thee. 
 
 Yes, broken, tuneless, still, Lord ! 
 This voice, transported, shall record 
 
 Thy bounty, tried so long ; 
 Till, sinking slow, with calm decay, 
 Its feeble murmurs melt away 
 
 Into a seraph's song. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 George Boss of Cromarty — Active Benevolence of his Character — 
 Schemes for the Improvement of the People — Finds in Mr Forsyth 
 a Man after his own Heart — The Merchant engages in Agriculture. 
 
 The year 1772 was a highly important one to the people of 
 Cromarty. By far the greater part of the .parish is occupied 
 by one large and very valuable property, which, after re- 
 maining in the possession of one family for nearly a thousand 
 years, had passed in little more than a century through a full 
 half-dozen. It was purchased in the latter part of this year 
 by George Ross, a native of Ross-shire, who had realized an 
 immense fortune in England as an army agent. He was one 
 of those benefactors of the species who can sow liberally in 
 the hope of a late harvest for others to reap ; and the towns- 
 people, even the poorest and least active, were soon made to 
 see that they had got a neighbour who would suffer them to 
 be idle or wretched no longer. 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 335 
 
 He found in William Forsyth a man after his own heart, 
 — one with whom to concert and advise, and who entered 
 warmly into all his well-laid schemes for awakening the 
 energies and developing the yet untried resources of the 
 country. The people seemed more than half-asleep around 
 them : the mechanic spent well-nigh two-thirds of his time 
 in catching fish and cultivating his little croft ; the farmer 
 raised from his shapeless party-coloured patches, of an acre 
 or two a-piece, the same sort of half-crops that had satisfied 
 his grandfather. The only trade in the country was that 
 originated and carried on by Mr Forsyth, and its only manu- 
 facture the linen one which he superintended. In this state 
 of things, it was the part assigned to himself by the bene- 
 volent and patriotic Agent, now turned of seventy, to revo- 
 lutionize and give a new spirit to the whole ; and such was 
 his untiring zeal and statesmen-like sagacity, that he fully 
 succeeded. 
 
 One of his first gifts to the place was a large and commo- 
 dious pier for the, accommodation of trading vessels. He 
 then built an extensive brewery, partly with the view to 
 check the trade in smuggling, which prevailed at this time 
 in the north of Scotland to an enormous extent, and partly 
 to open a new market to the farmers for the staple grain of 
 the country. The project succeeded ; and the Agent's excel- 
 lent ale supplanted in no small measure, from Aberdeen to 
 John 0' Groat's, the gins and brandies of the Continent. He 
 then established a hempen manufactory, which has ever since 
 employed about two hundred people within its walls, and 
 fully twice that number without ; and set on foot a trade in 
 pork, which has paid the rents of half the widows' cottages 
 
336 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 in the country for the last forty years, and is still carried on 
 by the traders of the place to an extent of from fifteen to 
 twenty thousand pounds annually. He established a nail 
 and spade manufactory ; brought women from England to 
 instruct the young girls in the art of working lace, provided 
 houses for the poor, presented the town with a neat, sub- 
 stantial building, the upper part of which serves as a council- 
 room, and the lower as a prison ; and built for the accom- 
 modation of the poor Highlanders, who came thronging 
 into the town to work on his lands or in his manufac- 
 tories, a handsome Gaelic chapel. He set himself, too, to 
 initiate his tenantry in the art of rearing wheat ; and finding 
 them wofully unwilling to become wiser on the subject, he 
 tried the force of example by taking an extensive farm under 
 his own management, and conducting it on the most ap- 
 proved principles of modern agriculture. It is truly won- 
 derful how much may be effected by the well-directed 
 energies of one benevolent and vigorous mind : it is to indi- 
 viduals, not masses, that the species owe their advancement 
 in the scale of civilization and rationality. George Ross was 
 a man far advanced in life when he purchased the lands of 
 Cromarty, and he held them for but fourteen years, for he 
 died in 1786, at the great age of eighty-five; and yet in 
 these few years, which might be regarded as but the fag-end 
 of a busy life, he did more for the north of Scotland thau had 
 been accomplished by all its other proprietors put together 
 since the death of President Forbes. 
 
 Mr Forsyth was ever ready to second the benevolent and 
 well-laid schemes of the Agent. He purchased shares in his 
 hempen manufactory, — for Mr Ross, the more widely to ex- 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 337 
 
 tend its interests, had organized a company to carry it on; and 
 took a fine snug farm in the neighbourhood of the town into 
 his own hands, to put into practice all he had learned of the 
 new system of farming. Agriculture was decidedly one of 
 the most interesting studies of the period. It was still a 
 field of experiment and discovery ; new principles, little 
 dreamed of by our ancestors, were elicited every year ; and 
 though there were hundreds of intelligent minds busy in ex- 
 ploring it, much remained a sort of terra incognita notwith- 
 standing. Mr Forsyth soon became a zealous and successful 
 farmer, and spent nearly as much of his evenings in his fields 
 as he did of his mornings in his counting-house. The farmers 
 around him were wedded to their old prejudices ; but the 
 merchant had nothing to unlearn ; and though his neighboui'8 
 smiled at first to see him rearing green crops of comparatively 
 little value from lands for which he paid a high rent, or, more 
 inexplicable still, paying the rent, and suffering the lands to 
 lie fallow, they could not avoid being convinced at last that 
 he was actually raising more corn than any of themselves. 
 Though essentially a practical man, and singularly sober and 
 judicious in all his enterprises, his theoretical speculations 
 were frequently of a bolder character • and he delighted in 
 reasoning on the causes of the various phenomena with which 
 his new study presented him. The exhaustive properties of 
 some kinds of crop, the restorative qualities of others, the 
 mysteries of the vegetative pabulum, its well-marked distinct- 
 ness from the soil which contains it, — how, after one variety 
 of grain has appropriated its proper nourishment, and then 
 languished for lack of sustenance, another variety continues 
 to draw its food from the same tract, and after that, perhaps, 
 
 Y 
 
338 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 yet another variety more, — how, at length, the productive 
 matter is so exhausted that all is barrenness, until, after the 
 lapse of years, it is found to have accumulated again ; — all 
 these, with the other mysteries of vegetation, furnished him 
 with interesting subjects of thought and inquiry. One of the 
 best and largest of his fields was situated on the edge of that 
 extensive tract of table-land which rises immediately above 
 the town, and commands so pleasing a prospect of the bay 
 and the opposite shore ; and from time immemorial the foot- 
 path which skirts its lower edge, and overlooks the sea, had 
 been a favourite promenade of the inhabitants. What, how- 
 ever, was merely a footpath in the early part of each season 
 grew broad enough for a carriage-road before autumn ; and 
 much of Mr Forsyth's best braird was trampled down and 
 destroyed every year. His ploughman would fain have 
 excluded the walkers, and hinted at the various uses of traps 
 and spring-guns, — at any rate, he said, he was determined 
 to build wp the sty); but the merchant, though he com- 
 mended his zeal, negatived the proposal; and so the slap 
 was suffered to remain unbuilt. On sometimes meeting with 
 parties of the more juvenile saunterers, he has gravely cau- 
 tioned them to avoid his ploughman, Donald M'Candie. 
 Donald, he would say, was a cross-grained old man, as they 
 all knew, and might both frighten them and hurt himself in 
 running after them. Mr Forsyth retained the farm until his 
 death ; and it shows in some little degree the estimation in 
 which he was held by the people, that his largest field, though 
 it has repeatedly changed its tenant since then, still retains 
 the name of Mr Forsyth's Park. 
 
 Shortly after he had engaged with the farm, Mr Forsyth 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 339 
 
 built for himself a neat and very commodious house, which, 
 at the time of its erection, was beyond comparison the best 
 in the place, and planted a large and very fine garden. Both 
 serve to show how completely this merchant of the eighteenth 
 century had anticipated the improvements of the nineteenth. 
 There are not loftier nor better-proportioned rooms in the 
 place, larger windows, nor easier stairs ; and his garden is 
 such a one as would satisfy an Englishman of the present 
 day. These are perhaps but little matters : they serve, how- 
 ever, to show the taste and judgment of the man. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Library^ 
 
 Arnueernents of the Place— Golf -Playing— A General Taste for the Ludi- 
 crous Characteristic of one of the Transition Stages of Society— The 
 Town's Fishermen — Anecdote. 
 
 I AM not of opinion that the people of the north of Scotland 
 are less happy in the present age than in the age or two 
 which immediately preceded it ; but I am certain they are 
 not half so merry. We may not have less to amuse us than 
 our fathers had ; but our amusements somehow seem less 
 hearty, and are a great deal less noisy, and, instead of inte- 
 resting the entire community, are confined to insulated par- 
 ties and single individuals. A whole hecatomb of wild games 
 have been sacrificed to the genius of trade and the wars of 
 the French Revolution. The age of holidays is clean gone 
 by j the practical joke has been extinct for the last fifty 
 
340 A TKUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 years ; and we have to smuggle the much amusement which 
 we still contrive to elicit from out the eccentricities of our 
 neighbours, as secretly as if it were the subject of a tax. 
 
 In the early and more active days of Mr Forsyth, the na- 
 tional and manly exercise of golf was the favourite amuse- 
 ment of the gentlemen ; and Cromarty, whose links furnished 
 a fitting scene for the sport, was the meeting-place of one of 
 the most respectable golf-clubs in the country. Sir Charles 
 Ross of Balnagown, Sheriff M'Leod of Geanis, Mr Forsyth, 
 and the Lairds of Newhall, Pointzfield, and Braelanguil, were 
 among its members. Both the Sheriff and Sir Charles were 
 very powerful men, and good players. It was remarked, 
 however, that neither of them dealt a more skilful or more 
 vigorous blow than Mr Forsyth, whose frame, though not 
 much above the middle size, was singularly compact and 
 muscular. He excelled, too, in his younger days, in all the 
 other athletic games of the country. Few men threw a longer 
 bowl, or pitched the stone or the bar farther beyond the ordi- 
 nary bound. Every meeting of the golf-players cost him a 
 dinner and a dozen or two of his best wine ; for invariably, 
 when they had finished their sport for the day, they adjourned 
 to his hospitable board, and the evening passed in mirth and 
 jollity. Some of the anecdotes which furnished part of their 
 laughter on these occasions still survive ; and, with the as- 
 sistance of the wine, they must have served the purpose won- 
 derfully well. All the various casks and boxes used by Mr 
 Forsyth in his trade were marked with his initials W.F., that 
 he might be the better able to identify them ; they were 
 sometimes suffered so to accumulate in the outhouses of the 
 neighbouring proprietors, that they met the eye at every 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 341 
 
 turning ; and at no place was this more the case than at 
 Pointzfield. On one occasion a swarm of Mr Forsyth's bees 
 took flight in the same direction : they flew due west along 
 the shore, followed by a servant, and turned to the south at 
 the Pointzfield woods, where the pursuer lost sight of them. 
 In about half an hour after, however, a swarm of bees were 
 discovered in the proprietor's garden, and the servant came 
 to claim them in the name of his master. 
 
 " On what pretence I" demanded the proprietor. 
 
 " Simply," said the man, " because my master lost a swarm 
 to-day, which I continued to follow to the beginning of the 
 avenue yonder; and these cannot be other than his." 
 
 "Nonsense," replied the proprietor; "had they belonged 
 to your master, they would have been marked by the W.F., 
 every one of them." 
 
 Eventually, however, Mr Forsyth got his bees ; but there 
 were few golf-meetings at which the story was not cited 
 against him by way of proof that there were occasions when 
 even he, with all his characteristic forethought, could be as 
 careless as other men. 
 
 It was chiefly in his capacity of magistrate, however, that 
 Mr Forsyth was brought acquainted with the wilder humours 
 of the place. Some of the best jokes of the townsmen were 
 exceedingly akin to felonies ; and as the injured persons were 
 in eveiy case all the angrier for being laughed at, they ge- 
 nerally applied for redress to their magistrate. There is a 
 transition stage in society, — a stage between barbarism and 
 civilization, — in which, through one of the unerring instincts 
 of our nature, men employ their sense of the ludicrous in 
 laughing one another into propriety ; and such was the stage 
 
342 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 at which society had arrived in the north of Scotland in at 
 least the earlier part of Mr Forsyth's career. Cromarty was, 
 in consequence, a merry little place, though the merriment 
 was much on the one side, and of a wofully selfish character. 
 The young, like those hunting parties of Norway that band 
 together for the purpose of ridding their forests of the bears, 
 used in the long winter evenings to go prowling about the 
 streets in quest of something that might be teazed and laughed 
 at ; the old, though less active in the pursuit, — for they kept 
 to their houses, — resembled the huntsmen of the same coun- 
 try who lie in wait for the passing animal on the tops of 
 trees. Their passion for the ludicrous more than rivalled 
 the Athenian rage for the new ; and while each one laughed 
 at his neighbour, he took all care to avoid being laughed at 
 in turn. 
 
 The poor fishermen of the place, from circumstances con- 
 nected with their profession, were several degrees lower in 
 the scale of civilization than most of their neighbours. The 
 herring fishery had not yet taught them to speculate, nor 
 were there Sabbath schools to impart to them the elements 
 of learning and good manners ; and though there might be, 
 perhaps, one of fifty among them possessed of a smattering 
 of Latin, it was well if a tythe of the remaining forty-nine 
 had learned to read. They were, however, a simple, inoffen- 
 sive race of people, whose quarrels, like their marriages (for 
 they quarrelled often, though at a small expense) were re- 
 stricted to their own class, and who, though perhaps little 
 acquainted with the higher standards of right, had a code of 
 foolish superstitions, which, strange as it may seem, served 
 almost the same end. They respected an oath, in the belief 
 
SCOTCII MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 343 
 
 that no one had ever perjured himself and thriven ; regarded 
 the murderer as exposed to the terrible visitations of his 
 victim, and the thief as a person doomed to a down look ; 
 reverenced the Bible as a protection from witchcraft, and 
 baptism as a charm against the fairies. Their simplicity, 
 their ignorance, their superstition, laid them open to a thou- 
 sand petty annoyances from the wags of the town. They had 
 a belief, long since extinct, that if, when setting out for the 
 fishing, one should interrogate them regarding their voyage, 
 there was little chance of their getting on with it without 
 meeting with some disaster ; and it was a common trick with 
 the youngsters to run down to the water's edge, just as they 
 were betaking themselves to their oars, and shout out, " Men, 
 men, where are you going V They used, too, to hover about 
 their houses after dark, and play all manner of tricks, such 
 as blocking up their chimney with turf, and stealthily filling 
 their water-stoups with salt water, just as they were about 
 setting on their brochan. One of the best jokes of the period 
 seems almost too good to be forgotten. 
 
 The fairies were in ill repute at the time, and long before, 
 for an ill practice of kidnapping children, and annoying 
 women in the straw ; and no class of people could dread 
 them more than fishers. But they were at length cured of 
 their terrors by being laughed at. One evening, when all 
 the men were setting out for sea, and all the women engaged 
 at the water's edge in handing them their tackle or launch- 
 ing their boats, a party of young fellows, who had watched 
 the opportunity, stole into their cottages, and, disfurnishing 
 the cradles of all their little tenants, transposed the children 
 of the entire village, leaving a child in the cradle of every 
 
344 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 mother, but taking care that it should not be her own child. 
 They then hid themselves amid the ruins of a deserted hovel 
 to wait the result. Up came the women from the shore ; 
 and, alarmed by the crying of the children, and the strange- 
 ness of their voices, they went to their cradles, and found a 
 changeling in each. The scene that followed baffles descrip- 
 tion. They shrieked, and screamed, and clapped their hands ; 
 and, rushing out to the lanes like so many mad creatures, 
 were only unhinged the more to find the calamity so univer- 
 sal Down came the women of the place to make inquiries 
 and give advices, — some recommending them to have recourse 
 to the minister, some to procure baskets and suspend the 
 changelings over the fire, — some one thing, some another ; 
 but the poor mothers were regardless of them all. They 
 tossed their arms, and shrieked, and halooed; and the children, 
 who were well-nigh as ill at ease as themselves, added, by 
 their cries, to the confusion and the uproar. A thought 
 struck one of the townswomen. "I suspect, neighbours," 
 she said, " that the loons are at the bottom of this. Let's 
 bring all the little ones into one place, and see whether every 
 mother cannot find her own among them." No sooner said 
 than done ; and peace was restored in a few minutes. Mis- 
 chievous as the trick was, it had this one effect, that the 
 fairies were in less repute in Cromarty ever after, and were 
 never more charged with the stealing of children. A popu- 
 lar belief is in no small danger when those who cherished 
 learn to laugh at it, be the laugh raised as it may. 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 345 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Hospitality of Mr Forsyth — His Benevolence extended to even the 
 Bodies of the Dead— Anecdote — Character of his Guests — Employ- 
 ments in behalf of his Town's-people — Mrs Forsyth. 
 
 There were two classes of men who had no particular cause 
 of gratitude to Mr Forsyth. Lawyers, notwithstanding his 
 respect for the profession, he contrived to exclude from the 
 place, for no case of dispute or difference ever passed him- 
 self, nor was there ever an appeal from his decisions ; and 
 inn-keepers found themselves both robbed of their guests by 
 his hospitality, and in danger of losing their licenses for the 
 slightest irregularity that affected the morals of their neigh- 
 bours. For at least the last twenty years of his life, his 
 house, from the number of guests which his hospitality had 
 drawn to it, often resembled a crowded inn. Did he meet 
 with a young man of promising talent, however poor, who 
 belonged in any degree to the aristocracy of nature, and 
 bade fair to rise above his present level, he was sure of 
 being invited to his table. Did he come in contact with 
 some unfortunate aspirant who had seen better days, but who 
 in his fall had preserved his character, he was certain of 
 being invited too. Was there a wind-bound vessel in the 
 port, Mr Forsyth was sure to bring the passengers home 
 with him. Had travellers come to visit the place, Mr For- 
 syth could best tell them what all deserved their notice, and 
 nowhere could he tell it half so well as at his own table. 
 Never was there a man who, through the mere indulgence 
 
346 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 of the kindlier feelings of our nature, contrived to make 
 himself more friends. The chance visitor spent perhaps a 
 single day under his roof, and never after ceased to esteem 
 the good and benevolent owner. His benevolence, like that 
 of John of Calais, in the old romance, extended to even the 
 bodies of the dead ; an interesting instance of which I am 
 enabled to present to the reader. 
 
 Some time in the summer of 1773 or 1774, a pleasure 
 yacht, the property of that Lord Byron who immediately pre- 
 ceded the poet, cast anchor in the bay of Cromarty, having, 
 according to report, a dying lady on board. A salmon-fisher 
 of the place, named Hossack, a man of singular daring and 
 immense personal strength, rowed his little skiff alongside in 
 the course of the day, bringing with him two fine salmon for 
 sale. The crew, however, seemed wild and reckless as that 
 of a privateer or pirate; and he had no sooner touched the 
 side, than a fellow who stood in the gangway dealt his light 
 skiff so heavy a blow with a boat-hook, that he split one of 
 the planks. Hossack seized hold of the pole, wrenched it 
 out of the fellow's grasp, and was in the act of raising it to 
 strike him down, when the master of the yacht, a native of 
 Orkney, came running to the gunwale, and, apologizing for 
 the offered violence, invited the fisherman aboard. He 
 accordingly climbed the vessel's side, and disposed of his 
 fish. 
 
 Lord Byron, a good-looking man, but rather shabbily 
 dressed, was pacing the quarter-deck ; two proprietors of 
 the country, who had known him in early life, and had come 
 aboard to pay him their respects, were seated on chairs near 
 the stern. But the party seemed an unsocial one : his 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 347 
 
 Lordship continued to pace the deck, regarding his visitors 
 from time to time with an expression singularly repulsive, 
 while the latter had the blank look of men who, expecting 
 a kind reception, are chilled by one freezingly cold. The 
 fisherman was told by the master, by way of explanation, 
 that his Lordship, who had been when at the soundest a 
 reserved man, of very eccentric habits, was now unsettled in 
 mind, and had been so from the time he had killed a gentle- 
 man in a duel ; and that his madness seemed to be of a kind 
 which, instead of changing, deepens the shades of the natural 
 character. He was informed further, that the sick lady, a 
 Miss Mudie, had expired that morning ; that she had had 
 no connection whatever with his Lordship, but was merely 
 an acquaintance of the master's, and a native of Orkney, who, 
 having gone to Inverness for the benefit of her health, and 
 becoming worse, had taken the opportunity, in the absence 
 of any more eligible conveyance, of returning by Lord Byron's 
 yacht. The master, who seemed to be a plain, warm-hearted 
 sailor, expressed much solicitude regarding the body. The 
 unfortunate lady had been most respectable herself, he said, 
 and most respectably connected ; and he was anxious that the 
 funeral should be of a kind befitting her character and station ; 
 but then, he had scarce anything in his own power, and his 
 Lordship would listen to nothing on the subject. " Ah," 
 replied Hossack, " but I know a gentleman who will listen 
 to you, and do something more. I shall go ashore this 
 moment, and tell Mr Forsyth." 
 
 The fisherman did so, and found he had calculated aright, 
 Mr Forsyth sent town's-women aboard to dress the corpse, 
 who used to astonish the children of the place for years after, 
 
348 A TKUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 by their descriptions of the cabin in which it lay. The days 
 of steam-boats had not yet come on, to render such things 
 familiar ; and the idea of a room panelled with mirrors, and 
 embossed with flowers of gold, was well suited to fill the 
 young imagination. The body was taken ashore, and, con- 
 trary to one of the best-established canons of superstition, 
 was brought to the house of Mr Forsyth J from which, on 
 the following day, when he had invited all the better inha- 
 bitants of the place to attend the funeral, it was carried to 
 his own burying-ground, and there interred. And such was 
 the beginning of a friendship between the benevolent mer- 
 chant and the relatives of the deceased, which terminated 
 only with the life of the former. Two of his visitors during 
 the summer of 1795 were a Major and Mrs Mudie from 
 Orkney. 
 
 I may mention, in the passing, a somewhat curious circum- 
 stance connected with Lord Byron's yacht. She actually sat 
 deep in the water at the time with a cargo of contraband 
 goods, most of which were afterwards unloaded near Sin- 
 clair's Bay, in Caithness. Hossack, ere he parted from the 
 master, closed a bargain with him for a considerable quantity 
 of Hollands, and, on being brought astern to the vessel's peak 
 on the evening she sailed from Cromarty, he found the place 
 filled with kegs, bound together by pairs, and heavy weights 
 attached to facilitate their sinking, in the event of their being 
 thrown overboard. It is a curious, but, I believe, well au- 
 thenticated fact, that one of the most successful smuggling 
 vessels of the period, on at least the eastern coast of Scot- 
 land, was a revenue cutter provided by Government for the 
 suppression of the trade. 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 349 
 
 Besides the chance visitors entertained at the hospitable 
 board of the merchant, there were parties of his friends and 
 relatives who spent, almost every summer, a few weeks in 
 his family. The two daughters of his brother, who had 
 removed to England so long before, with the son and 
 daughter of the other brother, who had settled in Dingwall, 
 — the brother of his first wife, a Major Russell, with the 
 brother and sisters of his second, — his relatives from Elgin, — 
 a nephew, who had married into a family of rank in Eng- 
 land, — and some of his English partners in the hempen ma- 
 nufactory, — were among the number of his annual visitors. 
 His parties were often such as the most fastidious would 
 have deemed it an honour to have been permitted to join. 
 He has repeatedly entertained at his table his old townsman 
 Duncan Davidson, Member of Parliament at the time for the 
 shire of Cromarty, the late Lord Seaforth, Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh, and his old protege Charles Grant, with the sons of the 
 latter, Charles and Robert. The merchant, when Mr Grant 
 had quitted Cromarty for London, was a powerful and active 
 man, in the undiminished vigour of middle life ; when he re- 
 turned, after his long residence in India, he found him far 
 advanced in years, indeed considerably turned of seventy, 
 and, in at least his bodily powers, the mere wreck of his 
 former self. And so affected was the warm-hearted Director 
 by the contrast, that on grasping his hand he burst into 
 tears. Mr Forsyth himself, however, saw nothing to regret 
 in the change. He was still enjoying much in his friends 
 and his family, for his affections remained warm as ever, and 
 he had still enough of activity left to do much good. His 
 judgment as a magistrate was still sound : he had more time, 
 
350 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 too, than before to devote to the concerns of his neighbours ; 
 for, with the coming on of old age, he had been gradually 
 abridging his business, retaining just enough to keep up his 
 accustomed round of occupation. Had a townsman died in 
 any of the colonies, or in the army or navy, after saving some 
 little money, it was the part of the merchant to recover it for 
 the relatives of the deceased. Was the son or nephew of 
 some of his humble neighbours trepanned by a recruiting 
 party, — and there were strange arts used for the purpose 
 fifty years ago, — the case was a difficult one indeed if Mr 
 Forsyth did not succeed in restoring him to his friends. He 
 acted as a sort of general agent for the district, and in every 
 instance acted without fee or reward. The respect in which 
 he was held by the people was shown by the simple title by 
 which he was on every occasion designated. They all spoke 
 of him as " the Maister." " Is the Maister at home V 3 or 
 " Can I see the Maister f were the queries put to his ser- 
 vants by the town' s-f oiks perhaps ten times a-day. Masters 
 were becoming somewhat common in the country at the 
 time, and es v quires not a great deal less so ; but the " Maister" 
 was the designation of but one gentleman only, and the people 
 who used the term never forgot what it meant. 
 
 In all his many acts of kindness the merchant was well 
 seconded by his wife, whose singularly compassionate disposi- 
 tion accorded well with his own. She had among the more 
 deserving poor a certain number to whom she dealt a regular 
 weekly allowance, and who were known to the towns-people 
 as " Mrs Forsyth's pensioners." Besides, rarely did she suffer 
 a day to pass without the performance of some act of charity 
 in behalf of the others who were without the pale ; and when 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 351 
 
 sickness or distress visited a poor family, she was sure to visit 
 it too. Physicians were by no means so common in the 
 country at the time as they have since become; and, that she 
 might be the more useful, Mrs Forsyth, shortly after her 
 marriage, had devoted herself, like the ladies of an earlier 
 period, to the study of medicine. Her excellent sense more 
 than compensated for the irregularity of her training; and 
 there were few professors of the art of healing in the district 
 whose prescriptions were more implicitly or more successfully 
 followed, or whose medicine-chest was oftener emptied and 
 replenished. Mr Forsyth was by no means a very wealthy 
 man, — his hand had been ever too open for that ; and, besides, 
 as money had been rapidly sinking in value during the whole 
 course of his career as a trader, the gains of his earlier years 
 had to be measured by a growing, and therefore depreciating, 
 standard. It is a comfortable fact, however, that no man or 
 family was ever ruined by doing good under the influence of 
 right motives. Mr Forsyth's little fortune proved quite 
 sufficient for all his charities and all his hospitality. It 
 wore well, like the honest admiral's; and the great bulk of it, 
 though he has been nearly forty years dead, is still in the 
 hands of his descendants. 
 
352 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Progress of Opinion— Extremes— Political Changes invariably of a Mixed 
 Character — Hence the Folly of too Sanguine Expectations— Sum- 
 mary of important Changes in the Condition and Character of the 
 People of the North of Scotland which have taken place within the 
 last Fifty Years. 
 
 There are few things more interesting in either biography or 
 history than those chance tide-marks, if I may so express 
 myself, which show us the ebbs and flows of opinion, and how 
 very sudden its growth when it sets in on the popular side. 
 Mr Forsyth was extensively engaged in business when the 
 old hereditary jurisdictions were abolished, not in conij)liance 
 with any wish expressed by the people, but by an unsolicited 
 act on the part of the Government. Years passed, and he 
 possessed entire all his earlier energies, when he witnessed 
 from one of the windows of his house in Cromarty the pro- 
 cession of a Liberty and Equality Club. The processionists 
 were afterwards put down by the gentlemen of the county ; 
 and their leader, a young man of more wit than judgment, 
 sent to the jail of Tain ; but the merchant took no part either 
 for or against them. He merely remarked to one of his 
 friends, that there is as certainly a despotism of the people 
 as of their rulers, and that it is from the better and wiser, 
 not from the lower and more unsettled order of minds, that 
 society need look for whatever is suited to benefit or adorn 
 it. He had heard of the Dundees and Dalziels of a former 
 age, but he had heard also of its Jack Cades and Massaniellos ; 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OP THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. OOO 
 
 and, after outliving the atrocities of Robespierre and Danton, 
 he found no reason to regard the tyranny of the many with 
 any higher respect than that which he had all along enter- 
 tained for the tyranny of the few. 
 
 The conversation of Mr Forsyth was rather solid than 
 sparkling ; — he was rather a wise than a witty man. Such, 
 however, was the character of his remarks, that it was the 
 shrewdest and best informed who listened to them with mo.^t 
 attention and respect. His powers of observation and reflec- 
 tion were of no ordinary kind. His life, like old Nestor's, 
 was extended through two whole generations, and the greater 
 part of a third, and this, too, in a century which witnessed 
 more changes in the economy and character of the people of 
 Scotland than any three centuries which had gone before. 
 It may not be uninteresting to the reader rapidly to enume- 
 rate a few of the more important of these, with their mixed 
 good and evil. A brief summary may serve to show us, that 
 while we should never despair of the improvement of society 
 on the one hand, seeing how vast the difference which ob- 
 tains between the opposite states of barbarism and civilization, 
 there is little wisdom in indulging, on the other, in dreams 
 of a theoretical perfection, at which it is too probable our 
 nature cannot arrive. Few great changes take place in the 
 economy of a country without removing some of the older 
 evils which oppressed it ; few also without introducing into 
 it evils that are new. 
 
 It was in the latter days of Mr Forsyth that the modern 
 system of agriculture had begun to effect those changes in the 
 appearance of the country and the character of the people by 
 which the one has been so mightily improved, and the other 
 
354 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 so considerably lowered. The clumsy, inefficient system 
 which it supplanted was fraught with physical evil. There 
 was an immense waste of labour. A large amount of the 
 scanty produce of the country was consumed by a dispropor- 
 tion ably numerous agricultural population ; and, from the 
 inartificial methods pursued, the harvest, in every more back- 
 ward season, was thrown far into the winter ; and years of 
 scarcity, amounting almost to famine, inflicted from time to 
 time their miseries on the poorer classes of the people. It 
 was as impossible, too, in the nature of things, that the 
 system should have remained unaltered after science had 
 introduced her innumerable improvements into every other 
 department of industry, as that night should continue in all 
 its gloom in one of the central provinces of a country after 
 the day had arisen in all the provinces which surrounded it. 
 Nor could the landed interests have maintained their natural 
 and proper place had the case been otherwise. There were 
 but two alternatives, — advance in the general rush of im- 
 provement, or a standing still to be trampled under foot. 
 With the more enlightened mode of agriculture the large- 
 farm system is naturally, perhaps inevitably, connected ; at 
 least, in no branch of industry do we find the efficient adop- 
 tion of scientific improvement dissevered from the extensive 
 employment of capital. And it is this system which, within 
 the last forty years, has so materially deteriorated the charac- 
 ter of the people. It has broken down the population of the 
 agricultural districts into two extreme classes. It has anni- 
 hilated the moral and religious race of small farmers, who in 
 the last age were so peculiarly the glory of Scotland, and of 
 whom the Davie Deans of the novelist, and the Cottar of 
 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH. CENTURY. 355 
 
 Burns, may be regarded as the fitting representatives; and 
 has given us mere gentlemen-farmers and farm-servants in 
 their stead. The change was in every respect unavoidable ; 
 and we can only regret that its physical good should be so 
 inevitably accompanied by what must be regarded as its moral 
 and political evil. 
 
 It was during the long career of Mr Forsyth, and in no 
 small degree under his influence and example, that the various 
 branches of trade still pursued in the north of Scotland were 
 first originated. He witnessed the awakening of the people, 
 from the indolent stupor in which extreme poverty and an 
 acquiescent subjection to the higher classes were deemed 
 unavoidable consequences of their condition, to a state of 
 comparative comfort and independence. He saw what had 
 been deemed the luxuries of his younger days placed, by the 
 introduction of habits of industry, and a judicious division of 
 labour, within the reach of almost the poorest. He saw, too, 
 the first establishment of branch banks in the north of Scot- 
 land, and the new life infused, through their influence, into 
 every department of trade. They conferred a new ability of 
 exertion on the people, by rendering their available capital 
 equal to the resources of their trade, and gave to character a 
 money-value which even the most profligate were compelled 
 to recognise and respect. Each of these items of improve- 
 ment, however, had its own peculiar drawback. Under the 
 influence of the commercial spirit, neighbours have become 
 less kind, and the people in general less hospitable. The 
 comparative independence of the poorer classes has separated 
 them more widely from the upper than they had ever been 
 separated before; and mutual jealousies and heartburnings 
 
356 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 mark, in consequence, the more ameliorated condition. The 
 number of traders and shopkeepers has become clispropor- 
 tionably large ; and while a few succeed and make money, 
 and a few more barely maintain their ground at an immense 
 expense of care and exertion, there is a considerable portion 
 of the class who have to struggle on for years, perhaps in- 
 volved in a labyrinth of shifts and expedients that prove alike 
 unfavourable to their own character and to the security of 
 trade in general, and then end in insolvency at last. The 
 large command of money, too, furnished at times by impru- 
 dent bank accommodation, has in some instances awakened a 
 spirit of speculation among the people, which seems but too 
 much akin to that of the gambler, and which has materially 
 lowered the tone of public morals in at least the creditor and 
 debtor relation. Bankruptcy, in consequence, is regarded 
 with very different feelings in the present day from what it 
 was sixty years ago. It has lost much of the old infamy 
 which used to pass downwards from a man to his children, 
 and is now too often looked upon as merely the natural close 
 of an unlucky speculation, or, worse still, as a sort of specu- 
 lation in itself. 
 
 There is one branch of trade, in particular, which has been 
 suffered to increase by far too much for the weal of the 
 country. More than two thousand pounds are squandered 
 yearly in the town of Cromarty in spirituous liquors alone, — 
 a larger sum than that expended in tea, sugar, coffee, soap, 
 and candles, put together. The evil is one of enormous mag- 
 nitude, and unmixed in its character ; nor is there any part 
 of the country, and, indeed, few families, in which its influ- 
 ence is not felt. And yet in some of the many causes which 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 357 
 
 have led to it we may trace the workings of misdirected 
 good, natural and political. A weak compassion on the part 
 of those whose duty it is to grant or withhold the license 
 without which iDtoxicating liquors cannot be sold, has more 
 than quadrupled the necessary number of public-houses. Has 
 an honest man in the lower ranks proved unfortunate in 
 business, — has a labourer or farm-servant of good character 
 met with some accident which incapacitates him from pur- 
 suing his ordinary labours, — has a respectable, decent woman 
 lost her husband, — all apply for the license as their last re- 
 source, and all are successful in their application. Each of 
 their houses attracts its round of customers, who pass through 
 the downward stages of a degradation to which the keepers 
 themselves are equally exposed ; and after they have in this 
 way irremediably injured the character of their neighbours, 
 their own, in at least nine cases out of ten, at last gives way ; 
 and the fatal house is shut up, to make way for another of 
 the same class, which, after performing its work of mischief 
 on a new circle, is to be shut up in turn. Another great 
 cause of the intemperance of the age is connected with the 
 clubs and societies of modern times. Many of these institu- 
 tions are admirably suited to preserve a spirit of independ- 
 ence and self-reliance among the people, exactly the reverse 
 of that sordid spirit of pauperism which has so overlaid the 
 energies of the sister kingdom ; and there are few of them 
 which do not lead to a general knowledge of at least the 
 simpler practices of business, and to that spread of intelli- 
 gence which naturally arises from an intercourse of mind 
 in which each has somewhat to impart and somewhat to 
 acquire. But they lead also, in too many instances, to the 
 
358 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 formation of intemperate habits among the leading members : 
 there is the procession and the ball, with their necessary 
 accompaniments : the meeting begun with business ends 
 too often in conviviality ; and there are few acquainted with 
 such institutions who cannot assign to each its own train of 
 victims. 
 
 Another grand cause of this gigantic evil of intemperance, 
 — a cause which fortunately exists no longer, save in its 
 effects, — was of a political nature. On the breaking out of 
 the revolutionary war, almost every man in the kingdom fit 
 to bear arms became a soldier. Every district had its em- 
 bodied yeomanry or local militia, — every town its volunteers. 
 Boys who had just shot up to their full height were at once 
 metamorphosed into heroes, and received their monthly pay; 
 and, under an exaggerated assumption of the military cha- 
 racter, added to an unwonted command of pocket-money, 
 there were habits of reckless intemperance formed by thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands among the people, which have 
 now held by them for more than a quarter of a century after 
 the original cause has been removed, and which are passiug 
 downwards, through the influence of example, to add to the 
 amount of crime and wretchedness in other generations. 
 
 In no respect does the last age differ more from the pre- 
 sent than in the amount of general intelligence possessed by 
 the people. It is not yet seventy years since Burke estimated 
 the reading public of Great Britain and Ireland at about 
 eighty thousand. There is a single Scotch periodical of the 
 present day that finds as many purchasers, — and on the 
 lowest estimate twice as many readers, — in Scotland alone. 
 There is a total change, too, in the sources of popular intel- 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 359 
 
 ligence. The press has supplanted the Church : the news- 
 paper and magazine occupy the place once occupied by the 
 Bible and the Confession of Faith. Formerly, when there 
 were comparatively few books and no periodicals in this 
 part of the country, there was but one way in which a man 
 could learn to think. His mind become the subject of some 
 serious impression, he applied earnestly to his Bible and the 
 Standards of the Church ; and in the contemplation of the 
 most important of all concerns his newly-awakened faculties 
 received their first exercise. And hence the nature of his 
 influence in the humble sphere in which he moved, — an in- 
 fluence which the constitution of his Church, from her ad- 
 mission of lay members to deliberate in her courts and to 
 direct her discipline, tended powerfully to increase. It was. 
 not more intellectual than moral, nor moral than intellectual- 
 He was respected not only as one of the best, but also as one* 
 of the most intelligent, men in his parish, and impressed the- 
 tone of his own character on that of his contemporaries- 
 Popular intelligence in the present age is less influential, and. 
 by far less respectable, in single individuals ; and, though of 
 a humanizing tendency in general, its moral effects are less, 
 decided. But it is all-potent in the mass of the people, and 
 secures to them a political power which they never possessed 
 before, and which must prove for the future their effectual 
 guard against tyranny in the rulers ; unless, indeed, they 
 should first by their own act break down those natural bar- 
 riers which protect the various classes of society, by becom- 
 ing tyrants themselves. There is a medium point beyond 
 which liberty becomes license, and license hastens to a des- 
 potism which may, indeed, be exercised for a short time by 
 
360 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 the many, but whose inevitable tendency it is to pass into 
 the hands of the few. 
 
 A few of the causes which have tended to shut up to so 
 great an extent the older sources of intelligence may be briefly 
 enumerated. Some of them have originated ivithin, and some 
 without the Church. 
 
 The benefits conferred on Scotland by the Presbyterian 
 Church, during at least the two centuries which immediately 
 succeeded the Reformation, were incalculably great. Some- 
 what of despotism there might, nay, must have been, in 
 the framework of our ecclesiastical institutions. The age 
 was inevitably despotic. The Church in which the Reformers 
 had spent the earlier portion of their lives was essentially 
 and constitutionally so. Be it remembered, too, that the 
 principles of true toleration have been as much the discovery 
 of later ages as those principles on which we construct our 
 steam-engines. But whatever the framework of the institu- 
 tions of our Church, the soul which animated them was es- 
 sentially that spirit "wherewith Christ maketh his people 
 free." Nay, their very intolerance was of a kind which de- 
 lighted to arm its vassals with a power before which all 
 tyranny, civil or ecclesiastical, must eventually be over- 
 thrown. It compelled them to quit the lower levels of our 
 nature for the higher. It demanded of them that they should 
 be no longer immoral or illiterate. It enacted that the 
 ignorant Baron should send his children to school, that they, 
 too, might not grow up in ignorance ; and provided that the 
 children of the poor should be educated at the expense of 
 the State. A strange despotism truly, which, by adding to 
 the knowledge and the virtue of the people among whom it 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 361 
 
 was established, gave them at once that taste and capacity 
 for freedom without which men cannot be other than slaves, 
 be the form of government under which they live what it 
 may. 
 
 Be it remembered too, that, whatever we of the present 
 age may think of our Church, our fathers thought much of 
 it. It was for two whole centuries the most popular of all 
 establishments, and stamped its own character on that of the 
 people. The law of patronage, as re-established by Oxford 
 and Bolingbroke, first lowered its efficiency, — not altogether 
 so suddenly, but quite as surely, as these statesmen had in- 
 tended. From being a guide and leader of the people, it 
 sunk, in no small degree, into a follower and dependent on 
 the Government and the aristocracy. The old Evangelical 
 party dwindled into a minority, and in the majority of its 
 members the Church of Scotland became essentially unpopu- 
 lar and un influential. More than one-half our Church stood 
 on exactly the same ground which had been occupied by the 
 curates of half a century before • and the pike and musket 
 were again employed in the settlement of ministers who pro- 
 fessed to preach the gospel of peace. A second change for 
 the worse took place about fifty years ago, when the modern 
 system of agriculture was first introduced, and the rage for 
 experimental farming seemed to pervade all classes, — minis- 
 ters of the Church among the rest. Many of these took 
 large farms, and engaged in the engrossing details of business. 
 Some were successful, and made money, — some were unfor- 
 tunate, and became bankrupt. Years of scarcity came on ; 
 the price of grain rose beyond all precedent ; and there were 
 thousands among the suffering poor who could look no higher 
 
362 A TRUE 6T0RY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 in the chain of causes than to the great farmers, — clerical and 
 lay, — who were thriving on their miseries. It is a fact 
 which stands in need of no comment, that the person in the 
 north of Scotland who first raised the price of oatmeal to 
 three pounds per boll was a clergyman of the Established 
 Church. A third change which has militated against the 
 clergy is connected with that general revolution in manners, 
 dress, and modes of thinking, which, during the last forty 
 years, has transferred the great bulk of our middle classes 
 from the highest place among the people to the lowest among 
 the aristocracy, — the clergymen of our Church, with their 
 families, among the rest. And a fourth change, not less disas- 
 trous than even the worst of the others, may be traced to 
 that recent extension of the political franchise which has had 
 the effect of involving so many otherwise respectable ministers 
 in the essentially irreligious turmoil of party. There is still, 
 however, much of its original vigour in the Church of Scot- 
 land, — a self-reforming energy which no radically corrupt 
 Church ever did or can possess; and her late efforts in 
 shaking herself loose from some of the evils which have long 
 oppressed her give earnest that her career of usefulness is 
 not hastening to its close. 
 
 There is certainly much to employ the honest and en- 
 lightened among her members in the present age. At no 
 time did that gulf which separates the higher from the lower 
 classes present so perilous a breadth, — at no time did it 
 threaten the commonwealth more ; and if it be not in the 
 power of the equalizing influence of Christianity to bridge it 
 over, there is no other power that can. It seems quite as 
 certain that the spread of political power shall accompany 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 363 
 
 the spread of intelligence, as that the heat of the sun shall 
 accompany its light. It is quite as idle to affirm that the 
 case should be otherwise, and that this power should not be 
 extended to the people, as to challenge the law of gravitation, 
 or any of the other great laws which regulate the government 
 of the universe. The progress of mind cannot be arrested ; 
 the power which necessarily accompanies it cannot be les- 
 sened. Hence the imminent danger of those suspicions and 
 dislikes which the opposite classes entertain each of the 
 other, and which are in so many instances the effects of 
 mistake and misconception. The classes are so divided, that 
 they never meet to compare notes, or to recognise in one 
 another the same common nature. In the space which sepa- 
 rates them, the eavesdropper and the tale-bearer find their 
 proper province ; and thus there are heart-burnings produced, 
 and jealousies fostered, which even in the present age destroy 
 the better charities of society, and which, should the evil re- 
 main uncorrected, must inevitably produce still sadder effects 
 in the future. Hence it is, too, that the mere malignancy 
 of opposition has become so popular, and that noisy dema- 
 gogues, whose sole merit consists in their hatred of the higher 
 classes, receive so often the support of better men than them- 
 selves. It is truly wonderful how many defects, moral and 
 intellectual, may be covered by what Dryden happily terms 
 the "all-atoning name of patriot," — how creatures utterly 
 broken in character and means, pitiful little tyrants in their 
 fields and families, the very stuff out of which spies and in- 
 formers are made, — are supported and cheered on in their 
 course of political agitation by sober-minded men, who would 
 never once dream of entrusting them with their private con- 
 
364 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 cerns. We may look for the cause in the perilous disunion 
 of the upper and lower classes, and the widely-diffused bit- 
 terness of feeling which that disunion occasions. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Mr Forsyth as an Elder of the Kirk— Family Afflictions— Consolations 
 amid the Infirmities of Old Age — Nice Adaptation of the Christian 
 Keligion to the Nature of Man— Last Illness of Mr Forsyth— His 
 Death— Brief Notice of his Family— Epitaph. 
 
 Mr Forsyth was for about forty years an elder of the 
 Church, and never was the office more conscientiously or 
 more consistently held. It was observed, however, that, 
 though not less orthodox in his belief than any of his brother 
 elders, and certainly not less scrupulously strict in his morals, 
 he was much less severe in his judgments on offenders, and 
 less ready in sanctioning, except in extreme cases, the em- 
 ployment of the sterner discipline of the Church. On one 
 occasion, when distributing the poor's funds, he set apart a 
 few shillings for a poor creature of rather equivocal charac- 
 ter, who had lately been visited by the displeasure of the 
 Session, and who, though in wretched poverty, felt too much 
 ashamed at the time to come forward to claim her customary 
 allowance. 
 
 " Hold, Mr Forsyth," said one of the elders, a severe and 
 rigid Presbyterian of the old school, — " hold : the woman is 
 a bad woman, and doesn't deserve that." 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 365 
 
 "Ah," replied the merchant, in the very vein of Hamlet, 
 "if we get barely according to our deservings, Donald, who 
 of us all shall escape whipping 1 We shall just give the poor 
 thing these few shillings which she does not deserve, in con- 
 sideration of the much we ourselves enjoy which we deserve, 
 I am afraid, nearly as little." 
 
 " You are a wiser man than I am, Mr Forsyth," said the 
 elder, and sat down rebuked. 
 
 No course in life so invariably smooth and prosperous in 
 its tenor, that the consolations of religion, — even regarding 
 religion as a matter of this world alone, — can be well dis- 
 pensed with. There are griefs which come to all ; and the 
 more affectionate the heart, and the greater its capacity of 
 happiness, the more keenly are these felt. Of nine children 
 which his wife bore to him, William Forsyth survived six. 
 Four died in childhood ; not so early, however, but that they 
 had first engaged the affections and awakened the hopes of 
 their parents. A fifth reached the more mature age at which 
 the intellect begins to open, and the dispositions to show 
 what they are eventually to become, and then fell a victim 
 to that insidious disease which so often holds out to the last 
 its promises of recovery, and with which hope struggles so 
 long and so painfully, to be overborne by disappointment in 
 the end. And a sixth, a young man of vigorous talent and 
 kindly feelings, after obtaining a writership in India through 
 the influence of his father's old protege Mr Charles Grant, 
 fell a victim to the climate in Ins twentieth year. Mr For- 
 syth bore his various sorrows, not as a philosopher, but as a 
 Christian, — not as if possessed of strength enough in his 
 own mind to bear up under each succeeding bereavement, 
 
366 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 but as one deriving comfort from the conviction that the 
 adorable Being who cared for both him and his children 
 does not afflict his creatures willingly, and that the scene of 
 existence which he saw closing upon them, and which was 
 one day to close upon himself, is to be succeeded by another 
 and a better scene, where God himself wipeth away all tears 
 from all eyes. His only surviving son, John, the last of 
 four left him, as he himself had left his father more than 
 fifty years before, for a house of business in London, which 
 he afterwards quitted for India, on receiving an appointment 
 there through the kindness of Mr Grant. Mr Forsyth 
 accompanied him to the beach, where a boat manned by six 
 fishermen was in waiting to carry him to a vessel in the 
 offin^. He knew too surely that he was parting from him 
 for ever ; but he bore up under the conviction until the final 
 adieu, and then, wholly overpowered by his feelings, he burst 
 into tears. Nor was the young man less affected. It was 
 interesting to see the effects of this scene on the rude boat- 
 men : they had never seen " the Maister" so affected before ; 
 and as they bent them to their oars, there was not a dry eye 
 among them. 
 
 A<*e brought with it its various infirmities, and there were 
 whole weeks in which Mr Forsyth could no longer see his 
 friends as usual ; nor even when in better health, — in at 
 least what must often pass for health at seventy-seven, — 
 could he quit his bed-room before the middle of the day. 
 He now experienced how surely an affectionate disposition 
 draws to itself, by a natural sympathy, the affection of others. 
 His wife, who was still but in middle life, and his two sur- 
 viving daughters, Catherine and Isabella, were unwearied in 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 3G7 
 
 their attentions to him, — anticipating every wish, and secur- 
 ing to him every little comfort which his situation required, 
 with that anxious ingenuity of affection so characteristic of 
 the better order of female minds. His sight had so much 
 failed him, that he could no longer apply to his favourite 
 authors as before ; but one of his daughters used to sit and 
 read beside him a few pages at a time, for his mind was less 
 capable than formerly of pursuing, unfatigued, long trains of 
 thought. At no previous period, however, did he relish his 
 books more. The state of general debility which marked his 
 decline resembled that which characterizes the first stage of 
 convalescence in lingering disorders. If his vigour of thought 
 was lessened, his feelings of enjoyment seemed in proportion 
 more exquisitely keen. His temper, always smooth and 
 placid, had softened with his advance in years, and every new 
 act of attention or kindness which he experienced seemed 
 too much for his feelings. He was singularly grateful, — 
 grateful to his wife and daughters, and to the friends who 
 from time to time came to sit beside his chair, and communi- 
 cate to him any little piece of good news ; above all, grate- 
 ful to the Great Being who had been caring for him all life 
 long, and who now, amid the infirmities of old age, was still 
 giving him so much to enjoy. In the prime of life, when 
 his judgment was soundest and most discriminative, he had 
 given the full assent of his vigorous understanding to those 
 peculiar doctrines of Christianity on which its morals are 
 founded. He had believed in Jesus Christ as the sole 
 Mediator'between God and man ; and the truth which had 
 received the sanction of his understanding then, served to 
 occupy the whole of his affections now. Christ was all with 
 
368 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 him, and himself was nothing. The reader will perhaps 
 pardon my embodying a few simple thoughts on this import- 
 ant subject, which I offer with all the more diffidence that 
 they have not come to me through the medium of any other 
 mind. 
 
 It will be found that all the false religions of past or of 
 present times, which have abused the credulity or nattered 
 the judgments of men, may be divided into two grand 
 classes, — the natural and the artificial. The latter are ex- 
 clusively the work of the human reason, prompted by those 
 uneradicable feelings of our nature which constitute man a 
 religious creature. The religion of Socrates and Plato, of 
 the old philosphers in general, with perhaps the exception 
 of the sceptics, and a few others, — of Lord Herbert of Cher- 
 bury, Algernon Sidney, and Dr Channing, of all the better 
 Deists, of the Unitarians too, and the Socinians of modern 
 times, — belong to this highly rational but unpopular and 
 totally inefficient class. The God of these religions is a mere 
 abstract idea, — an incomprehensible essence of goodness, 
 power, and wisdom. The understanding cannot conceive of 
 him, except as a great First Cause, — as the incomprehensible 
 source and originator of all things ; and it is surely accord- 
 ing to reason that he should be thus removed from that 
 lower sphere of conception which even finite intelligences 
 can occupy to the full. But in thus rendering him intan- 
 gible to the understanding, he is rendered intangible to the 
 affections also. Who ever loved an abstract idea ? or what 
 sympathy can exist between human minds and an intelligent 
 essence infinitely diffused % And hence the cold and barren 
 inefficiency of artificial religions. They want the vitality of 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 309 
 
 life. The)'' want the grand principle of motive, for they can 
 lay no hold on those affections to which this prime mover in 
 all human affairs can alone address itself. They may look 
 well in a discourse or an essay, for, like all human inven- 
 tions, they may be easily understood and rationally defended; 
 but they are totally unsuited to the nature and the wants of 
 man. 
 
 The natural religious are of an entirely different character. 
 They are wild and extravagant ; and the enlightened reason, 
 when unbiassed by the influences of early prejudice, rejects 
 them as monstrous and profane. But, unlike the others, 
 they have a strong hold on human nature, and exert a 
 powerful control over its hopes and its fears. Men may 
 build up an artificial religion as they build up a house, and 
 the same age may see it begun and completed. Natural 
 religions, on the contrary, are, like the oak and the chestnut, 
 the slow growth of centuries ; — their first beginnings are lost 
 in the uncertainty of the fabulous ages ; and every addition 
 they receive is fitted to the credulity of the popular mind, 
 ere it can assimilate itself to the mass. The grand cause of 
 their popularity, however, consists in the decidedly human 
 character of their gods ; for it is according to the nature of 
 man as a religious creature that he meets with an answering 
 nature in Deity. The gods of the Greek and Roman were 
 human beings like themselves, and influenced by a merely 
 human favouritism : the devotion of their worshippers was 
 but a more reverential species of friendship ; and there are 
 perhaps few men of warm imaginations who have become 
 acquainted in early life with the iEneid of Virgil, or the 
 Telemaque of Fenelon, who arc not enabled to conceive, in 
 
 •1 A 
 
370 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 part at least, how such a friendship could be entertained. 
 The Scandinavian mythology, with the equally barbarous 
 mythologies of the East, however different in other respects, 
 agree in this main principle of popularity, — the human cha- 
 racter of their gods. The Virgin Mother and the many saints 
 of the Romish Church, with its tangibilities of pictures and 
 images, form an indispensable compensation for its lack of the 
 evangelical principle ; and it is undoubtedly to the well-de- 
 fined and easily-conceived character of Mohammed that Allah 
 owes the homage of the unreckoned millions of the East. 
 
 Now, it is according to reason and analogy that the true 
 religion should be formed, if I may so express myself, on a 
 popular principle, — that it should be adapted with all the 
 litness which constitutes the argument of design, to that 
 human nature which must be regarded as the production of 
 the common author of both. It is indispensable that the 
 religion which God reveals should be suited to the human 
 nature which God has made. Artificial religions, with all 
 their minute rationalities, are not suited to it at all, and 
 therefore take no hold on the popular mind : natural reli- 
 gions, with all their immense popularity, are not suited to 
 improve it. It is Christianity alone which unites the popu- 
 larity of the one class with the rationality, and more than 
 the purity, of the other, — that gives to the Deity, as man, his 
 strong hold on the human affections, and restores to him, in 
 his abstract character as the Father of all, the homage of the 
 understanding. 
 
 The change which must come to all was fast coming on 
 William Forsyth. There was a gradual sinking of his powers, 
 bodily and intellectual, — a thorough prostration of strength 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 371 
 
 and energy ; and yet, amid the general wreck of the man, 
 the affections remained entire and unbroken ; and the idea 
 that the present scene of things is to be succeeded by another 
 was as continually present with him as when, in the posses- 
 sion of his whole mind, he had first felt the influence of 
 bodily decay. Weeks had passed in which he could no longer 
 quit his bed. On the day he died, however, he expressed a 
 wish to be brought to a chair which stood fronting a window, 
 and the wish was complied with. The window commands a 
 full view of the main street of the place ; but though his face 
 was turned in that direction, his attendants could not suppose 
 that he took note any longer of the objects before him : the 
 eyes were open, but the sense seemed shut. The case, how- 
 ever, was otherwise. A poor old woman passed by, and the 
 dying man recognised her at once. " Ah, yonder," he said, 
 addressing one of his daughters who stood by him, "is poor old 
 Widow Watson, whom I have not seen now for many weeks : 
 take a shilling for her out of my purse, and tell her it is the 
 last she will ever get from me." And so it was ; and such 
 was the closing act of a long and singularly useful life ; for his 
 death, unaccompanied apparently by aught of suffering, took 
 place in the course of the evening, only a few hours after. 
 He had completed his seventy-eighth year. All the men of 
 the place attended his funeral, and many from the neigh- 
 bouring country j and there were few among the assembled 
 hundreds who crowded round his grave to catch a last glimpse 
 of the coffin, who did not feel that they had lost a friend. 
 He was one of nature's noblemen ; and the sincere homage 
 of the better feelings is an honour reserved exclusively to the 
 order to which he belonged. 
 
372 A TRUE STORY OF THE LIFE OF A 
 
 Mrs Forsyth survived her husband for eight years. And 
 after living in the continued exercise of similar virtues, she 
 died in the full hope of the same blessed immortality, leaving 
 all who knew her to regret her loss, though it was the poor 
 that mourned her most. Their three surviving children proved 
 themselves the worthy descendants of such parents. There 
 is a time coming when families of twenty descents may be 
 regarded as less noble, and as possessing in a much less de- 
 gree the advantages of birth ; for, partly, it would seem, 
 through that often marked though inexplicable effect of the 
 organization of matter on the faculties of mind, which trans- 
 mits the same character in the same line from generation to 
 generation, and partly, doubtless, from the influence of early 
 example, they all inherited in no slight or equivocal degree 
 the virtues of their father and mother. A general massive- 
 ness and force of intellect, with a nice and unbending recti- 
 tude of principle, and great benevolence of disposition, were 
 the more marked characteristics. Catherine, the eldest of 
 the three, was married in 1801 to her cousin Isaac Forsyth, 
 banker, Elgin, the brother and biographer of the well-known 
 tourist ; and, after enjoying in a singular degree the affection 
 of her husband and family, and the respect of a wide circle 
 of acquaintance, she died in the autumn of 1826, in her fifty- 
 seventh year. Isabella continued to reside in her father's 
 house at Cromarty, which maintained in no small degree its 
 former character, and there cannot well be higher praise. 
 None of Mrs Forsyth's old pensioners were suffered to want 
 by her daughter ; and as they dropped off one by one, their 
 places were supplied by others. She was the effective and 
 active patroness, too, of every scheme of benevolence origi- 
 
SCOTCH MERCHANT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 373 
 
 natecl in the place, whether for the benelit of the poor or of 
 the young. She was married in 1811 to Captain Alexander 
 M'Kenzie, RM., of the Scatwell family, and died in the 
 spring of 1838, in her sixty-eighth year, bequeathing by will 
 three hundred pounds, to be laid out at interest for the be- 
 half of three poor widows of the place. John, the youngest 
 of the family, quitted his father's house for India, as has 
 been already related, in 1792. He rose by the usual steps 
 of promotion as resident at various stations, became a senior 
 merchant, and was appointed to the important charge of 
 keeper of the Company's warehouse at Calcutta, with the 
 near prospect of being advanced to the Board of Trade. His 
 long residence in India, however, had been gradually under- 
 mining a constitution originally vigorous, and he fell a victim 
 to the climate in 1823, in the forty-fifth year of his age. 
 He had married an English lady in Calcutta, Miss Mary 
 Ann Farmer, a few years before, and had an only daughter 
 by her, Mary Elizabeth Forsyth, who now inherits her grand- 
 father's property in Cromarty. His character was that of 
 the family. For the last fifteen years of his life he regularly 
 remitted fifty pounds annually for the poor of Cromarty, and 
 left them a thousand pounds at his death. The family 
 burying-ground fronts the parish church. It contains a 
 simple tablet of Portland stone, surmounted by a vase of 
 white marble, and bearing the following epitaph, whose rare 
 merit it is to be at once highly eulogistic and strictly true. 
 
374 A TRUE STOJIY OF THE LIFE, ETC. 
 
 WILLIAM FORSYTH, ESQUIRE, 
 
 Died 
 
 the 30th January 1800, in the 78th year of his age ; 
 
 A Man loved for his benevolence, 
 
 Honoured for his integrity, and 
 
 revered for his piety. 
 
 He was religious without gloom ; 
 
 Cheerful without levity ; 
 
 Bountiful without ostentation. 
 
 Rigid in the discharge of his own duties, he was 
 
 charitable and lenient in his judgment of others. 
 
 His kindness and hospitality were unbounded ; 
 
 and in him the Destitute found a Friend, 
 
 the Oppressed a Protector. 
 
 On the 7th August 1808, at>-ed sixty-six, died 
 
 ELIZABETH, 
 
 His beloved Wife, 
 
 In obedience to whose last desire 
 
 this Tablet is inscribed to his Memory, 
 
 which she ever cherished with tender affection, 
 
 and adorned by the practice of similar virtues. 
 
 With characteristic humility 
 
 she wished that merely her Death should be recorded 
 
 on this stone ; 
 
 and to those who knew her no other memorial was wanting, 
 
 nor is it necessary, even if it were possible, 
 
 to delineate to the passing Stranger 
 
 the beauty of her deportment, 
 
 the strength of her understanding, 
 
 and the benignity of her heart ; 
 
 but rather 
 
 to admonish him, from such bright examples, 
 
 that the paths of godliness and virtue lead 
 
 to happiness on earth, 
 and the assurance of joys beyond the Grave. 
 
 Of their children they survived Patrick, who died at the age of 20 in 
 the East Indies ; and James, Isabella, Margaret, William, and 
 Elizabeth, who, with their Parents, were buried in this place. 
 
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 "The author, in his or her former work, "Heaven our Home," portrayed a 
 
 SOCIAL HEAVEN, WHERE SCATTERED FAMILIES MEET AT LAST IN LOVING INTER- 
 COURSE and in possession of perfect recognition, to spend a never-ending 
 eternity of peace and love. In the present work the individual state of the chil- 
 dren of God is attempted to be unfolded, and more especially the state of proba- 
 tion which is set apart for them on earth to fit and prepare erring mortals for the 
 society of the saints The work, as a whole, displays an originality of con- 
 ception, a flow of language, and a closeness of reasoning rarely found in religious 
 
 publications The author combats the pleasing and generally accepted belief, 
 
 that death will effect an entire change on the spiritual condition of 
 our souls, and that all who enter into bliss will be placed on a common level.'— 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 A Cheap Edition of 
 
 MEET FOR HEAVEN, 
 
 In crown 8vo, cloth limp, price Is. 6d., is also published. 
 
1 8 gfftJu pMisbeb- bg WUiam f . ghnma. 
 
 "Works by the Author of ' Heaven our Home ' — continued. 
 
 ill. 
 TWENTY-FIKST THOUSAND. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth, antique, price 3s. 6d., 
 
 LIFE IN HEAVEN. 
 
 There, Faith is changed into Sight, and Hope is passed into 
 blissful Fruition. 
 
 'This is certainly one of the most remarkable works which have been issued 
 from the press during the present generation; and we have no doubt it will prove 
 as acceptable to the public as the two attractive volumes to which it forms an 
 appropriate and beautiful sequel.' — Cheltenham Journal. 
 
 ' We think this work well calculated to remove many erroneous ideas respecting 
 our future state, and to put before its readers such an idea of the reality of our 
 existence there, as may tend to make a future world more desirable and more 
 sought for than it is at present.' — Cambridge University Chronicle. 
 
 ' This, like its companion works, " Heaven our Home," and " Meet for Heaven," 
 needs no adventitious circumstances, no prestige of literary renown, to recommend 
 it to the consideration of the reading public, and, like its predecessors, will no 
 doubt circulate by tens of thousands throughout the land.' — Glasgow Examiner. 
 
 A Cheap Edition of 
 
 LIFE IN HEAVEN, 
 
 In crown 8vo, cloth limp, price Is. 6d., is also published. 
 
 IV. 
 SEVENTH THOUSAND. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth antique, price 3s. 6d., 
 
 CHRIST'S TRANSFIGURATION; 
 
 Or, Tabor's Teachings. 
 
 4 The work opens up to view a heaven to be prized, and a home to be sought for, 
 and presents it in a cheerful and attractive aspect. The beauty and elegance of 
 the language adds grace and dignity to the subject, and will tend to secure to it 
 the passport to public favour so deservedly merited and obtained by the author's 
 former productions.'— Montrose Standard. 
 
 ' A careful reading of this volume will add immensely to the interest of the New 
 Testament narrative of the Transfiguration, and so far will greatly promote our 
 personal interest in the will of God as revealed in his word.' — Wesley an Times. 
 
 A Cheap Edition of 
 
 CHRIST'S TRANSFIGURATION, 
 
 In crown 8vo, cloth limp, price Is. 6d., is also published. 
 
 %* Aggregate Sale of the above Popular Works, 157,000 copies. 
 In addition to this, they have been reprinted and extensively circu- 
 lated in America. 
 
gjooks $MitfyiQ bg Milium $. gimme. 19 
 
 Uniform with ' Heaven our Home.' 
 
 Third Edition, just ready, price 3s. 6d., 
 
 THE SPIRIT DISEMBODIED. 
 
 WHEN WE DIE WE DO NOT FALL ASLEEP: 
 WE ONLY CHANGE OUR PLACE. 
 
 BY HERBERT BROUGHTON. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 ' This book will be read by thousands. It treats on all-important 
 subjects in a simple and attractive style.' — Chronicle. 
 
 ' This is a book of very considerable merit, and destined, ere long, 
 to attract attention in the literary world. The subject of which it 
 treats is one of surpassing interest.' — Berwick Warder. 
 
 ' This is a remarkable work, and well worth the study of all inquir- 
 ing minds.' — Renfrew Independent. 
 
 ' The last chapter supplies us with a few more instances of the deaths 
 of pious men, in proof that angels do attend the deathbed scenes of the 
 saints of God, to carry the disembodied spirit to heaven.' — Pall Mall 
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 ' The author shows as conclusively as it can be shown, not only that 
 the soul is an immortal part of our being, but that there are mysterious 
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 upon " with immortality, we shall "recognise each other and be together 
 in eternity." ' — Exeter Post. 
 
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 AND GUIDE TO THE INHERITANCE. 
 
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 SHADOW OVER THE SUNSHINE: 
 
 BEING LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS EDMONSTON, 
 
 Naturalist on board H.M.S. 'Herald.' 
 
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24 Joohs publisbcb- bg SEtilttam <|3. jjftmnur. 
 
 COMPLETION OF THE COPYRIGHT EDITION OF 
 
 WI L S ON'S 
 TALES OF THE BORDERS, 
 
 Edited by ALEXANDER LEIGHTON, 
 One of the Original Editors and Contributors. 
 
 In announcing the completion of the Copyright Edition of the Boe- 
 der Tales, the Publisher does not consider it necessary to say anything 
 in recommendation of a work which has stood the test of a general com- 
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 Equally suited to all classes of readers, it has been received with delight 
 in the school-room, the drawing-room, the parlour, and the vdlage read- 
 ing-room. Many of the Tales have been publicly read. The high tone 
 of its morality renders it an admirable small library for young members 
 of the family. 
 
 The new Copyright Edition will contain four additional Volumes, 
 now first published, which will complete the work. It will be issued 
 in Twenty-four Monthly Volumes, price Is. each, sewed in elegant 
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 plete, or any separate volume thereof — can be supplied at once. Each 
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 The work may also be had in Twelve Double Volumes, handsomely 
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 Those who already possess the first twenty Volumes are recommended 
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 butor, Alexander Leighton, with a copious Glossary. 
 
 In square 8vo, richly bound in cloth and gold, price 3s., 
 
 THE LOVES OF ROSE PINK AND SKY BLUE, 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES TOLD TO CHILDREN. 
 
 By William Francis Collier, LL.D., 
 Author of ' Tales of Old English Life,' etc. etc. 
 
 Profusely Illustrated with Original humorous Illustrations on Wood. 
 
S5 OF CAlTfOTNIA LIBKAEY 
 U BERKELEY 
 
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 STAMPED BELOW 
 
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