A: 
 
 
 <= 
 
 a; 
 
 ^^^= - 
 
 i 
 
 — 5 
 
 | 
 
 ^^^^= 33 
 
 ! 
 
 
 3 ! 
 
 ———— ~ 
 
 7 ! 
 
 
 3 i 
 
 _^^^ 55 
 
 33333= 33 
 
 8 
 
 — 33 
 
 4 i 
 
 
 
 ' ;y , c v v , 
 
 ■iz ■vv 
 
 
 *q 
 
 •*• 
 
 *<■. A-< 
 
 * ^ 
 
 W 
 
 *!<**' 
 
 {*% 
 
 ft 
 
 % 
 
 !R 
 
 *■ 
 
 ft 
 
 ^^fiLau.-iM'Sitet 
 
 «ai*jifc&&w 
 
 " V* ttj 
 
 r^4 
 
 /^2J 
 
 
 «u 
 
 ftfiM 
 
 *A. 
 
 if%' 
 
 fSl' *J 
 
 
 KKd 
 
 Ml 
 
 *■>. ••*& 
 
 ^TOyg^f^.^i 
 
 ■ 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 VQflg 
 
 
 'Wife 1
 
 Ci 
 
 
 y 
 
 / 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 ] ' . • ' ' 
 
 
 
 1 ■ 1 
 
 fj 6. All •"> 
 
 
 J. 
 
 , ml, nil 1»- |»eri.il!l.-l <'> I " 
 
 . I -.i i In- 
 
 •;.- Ili.r.- 
 
 I 
 
 ,,„,, i« |..r Injuring Buch I 
 
 itli- 
 
 or 
 
 tion, »u I me 
 
 ,-,■ -I tli.- I' 
 
 ■ 
 
 I 
 
 »TT9, 91 \rr. PB1STI R
 
 7 

 
 ■> 
 
 BOGLE CORBET; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE EMIGRANTS. 
 
 I 
 
 " Truth severe by fairy fiction dressed." 
 
 9 
 
 BY JOHN GALT, Esq. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " LAWRIE TODD," " THE LIFE OF LORD BYRON," 
 
 &C. &C. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON- 
 HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, 
 NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 I'RIN I ! r> I'.V SAMl'l I l;l s I I 1 V 
 
 Dorset Strrrr, F1t( Street.
 
 FK 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The object of this work has been to give 
 expression to the probable feelings of a charac- 
 ter upon whom the commercial circumstances 
 of the age have had their natural effect, and to 
 show what a person of ordinarily genteel habits 
 has really to expect in emigrating to Canada. 
 
 Information given as incidents of personal 
 experience is more instructive than opinion. 
 The author's opportunities to acquire know- 
 ledge of the kind which he has here prepared, 
 have been, at least, not common, and it was 
 studiously gathered to be useful to others. 
 
 The author had proposed to offer the result 
 of his observations in a regularly didactic form, 

 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 hut upon reflection, a theoretic biography seem- 
 ed better calculated t<> ensure the effect desired. 
 We disguise medicine, and he but mixes truth 
 with fiction. 
 
 Whatever, therefore, shall l>e thought of his 
 attempt, the book will, perhaps, be considered 
 a.s possessing in some degree a redeeming qua- 
 lity, inasmuch as it contains instruction that 
 may help to lighten the anxieties of those whom 
 taste or fortune prompts to quit their native 
 land, and to seek in the wilderness new objects 
 of industry, enterprise, and care. 
 
 •20th April, 1831. 
 
 N. B. The view in the Appendix of more 
 
 than two-thirds of the Provinces will probably 
 be esteemed valuable.
 
 BOGLE CORBET; 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE EMIGRANTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PROLOGUE. 
 
 I HAVE led but a rigmarole life, and in pre- 
 paring to give the world some account of it, I 
 feel myself considerably embarrassed. If I com- 
 mence with my childhood and school-boy days, 
 assuredly it will oblige me to repeat many things 
 that have been a hundred times better told 
 by as many others ; so much alike is the early 
 history of all men. Only monsters and princes 
 are objects of wonder at their birth ; and I 
 happen to be neither the one nor the other ; but 
 in capacity and in all my characteristics a very 
 ordinary man, distinguished, however, I must 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 BOOLE CORBET. 
 
 Bay, by a few Btrange adventures, and, without 
 having an eye in my neck, a little able to dis- 
 cern something within the bosoms of others. 
 I will in consequence properly begin the his- 
 tory of myself about the period when I attained 
 the years of discretion. Perhaps it may be 
 thought in that case it will be a short work, 
 and that I should have better consulted the 
 innate modesty of my nature, had I merely 
 said, leaving all the tale of pleasing sports 
 and boyish days behind, I intend to commence 
 with the aera at which, according to our Scottish 
 law, I exercised the rights of judgment, and 
 chose my curators — those worthies who are 
 known in vernacular parlance by the style and 
 title of doers. But to do so abruptly would 
 perplex my task, and therefore, although I 
 propose to relate only the moving accidents 
 which checquered my fortune from the age of 
 fourteen to the present time, it is still necessary 
 that 1 should inform the courteous reader that 
 both my parents died early, and that I inherited 
 a small modicum of money, which obliged my 
 friends to advise me, at the legal epoch, to 
 place myself under the care of wise and prudent
 
 THE PROLOGUE. 3 
 
 persons, chosen by myself, when possessed of 
 the usual wisdom and knowledge of the world 
 commonly enjoyed by boys of that age. 
 
 How early other people may date their re- 
 collections is a matter of perfect indifference to 
 me ; my own remembrance does not distinctly 
 extend farther back than the close of my second 
 year — I mean a clear remembrance of dates and 
 epochal events; for undoubtedly I enjoy a hazy 
 reminiscence of anterior occurrences. I recol- 
 lect, for example, the sight of a great water, of 
 men who made a loud noise, and of a narrow 
 bed in a dark place. I think also, when at 
 times in the solitariness of the twilight I recall 
 the past, that a dim and distant vision of bright 
 faces smile from the other side of a cold rough 
 wave, and that there is one among them lovely. 
 Oh, how sadly that lovely face still wistfully 
 looks on me ! 
 
 There was another kind one of a different 
 hue ; methinks I see her, blithe and carolling, 
 with large good-natured eyes, and though she 
 be black, she has such cheerful teeth, every 
 one of them is a smile in ivory. Her name 
 rings to my heart like a note of the musical 
 
 B 2
 
 ! bogi.i: < okltl-T. 
 
 glasses'— It was Baba. More than fifty event- 
 ful years have passed away since the downy- 
 hearted creature left me, and the wound of our 
 parting is still fresh and painful. 
 
 She had been my ourse on Plantagenet estate, 
 in Jamaica, and was sent with me to this 
 country to see me safely consigned to the care 
 of Mrs. Uusbv, a relation of my mother. But 
 never was I in arms more fond and kind than in 
 thine, my dear, my dark, but comely Baba ' 
 
 It is just fifty years, a month, a week, and 
 a day, counting backwards from this very night, 
 that Baba left me. It was a beautiful evening, 
 hallowed in my memory by many caresses, 
 and the tears are yet warm on my neck with 
 which she fondled over me, and then depart- 
 ed. From the window I saw her embark in a 
 chaise ; I stretched out my hands tow r ards her ; 
 the sun was setting; in a little time the carriage 
 moved away, and the sun disappeared behind 
 the mountains; — but the only sun that set to 
 me that night, and it never rose again, was the 
 singing and ever-caressing Baba. Many an 
 evening after, as I have since been told, did I 
 stand watching at the window, and as often as
 
 THE PROLOGUE. 5 
 
 the sun sank behind the hills I stretched out 
 my hands and wept, because she would come 
 no more. 
 
 Strange ! that I should be thus so senti- 
 mental — I, who have so often been deemed but 
 indifferently furnished with the gentler feelings. 
 But so I fancy it is with most men ; the out- 
 ward gladness and the inward grief are often 
 in harsh discord with one another. They have 
 through life been so with me — and with others. 
 — Alas ! man is less a hypocrite than Fortune; 
 she it is that makes us wear a mask — a smiling 
 countenance with a weeping heart, and to as- 
 sume a virtue when we have it not. — But to 
 return : — 
 
 I once knew an old man, a man of genius 
 too, as those who are endowed above the com- 
 monalty of humankind are said to be, and in 
 speaking with him, as I am now to the reader, 
 he incidentally observed, that were it in his 
 power to live his life again, and had a choice of 
 fate, he would ask for no other than that life and 
 lot with which Providence had been pleased to 
 favour him. It struck me, as he said so, it was 
 with the cunning of age, to ascertain if in my
 
 C, BOGLE OORBBT. 
 
 youth and prosperity — for then I was young and 
 prosperous — I anticipated the fruit which my 
 hopes have not yet produced. 
 
 I Looked at him steadily and replied, " Then 
 wou must have passed a youth of anguish." 
 
 He was an artist, one of great reputation in 
 bis Line ; his pencil dropped from his hand as he 
 Looked on me and replied : 
 
 " Young man, you observe too curiously." 
 
 " Nay," I rejoined, " I have but said what 
 my experience teaches ; no man had ever a 
 happier childhood than mine. It was a morn- 
 ing dew-drop glittering to the rising sun, and 
 only so gentlv shaken on the blade at which it 
 hung as to make its sparkling brighter." 
 
 He stopped me, and half earnestly half jocu- 
 larly said, 
 
 " You will be happier if you think less of 
 the past; but you have guessed shrewdly of the 
 condition of my early life. It was one scene of 
 unvaried wretchedness; the wherewithal was 
 scant in my father's house, and poverty begat 
 grudges : my happiness began when that of 
 most men ends.' 1 
 
 " What say you ?" cried I, as if moved by
 
 THE PROLOGUE. 7 
 
 misanthropy. " Your happiness began when 
 that of most men ends! Is such indeed the 
 gold that the alchymist, Age, obtains from the 
 crucibles and ingredients of experience P 11 
 
 " It is not wise," was his thoughtful answer, 
 " to tell the world what Age teaches; nor is it ju- 
 dicious to reckon too confidently on the results of 
 experience. But though pain was my portion, 
 I would yet live it over again ; and all those 
 who write their own biography, even where it 
 tells but of sorrows, are of the same opinion, 
 and delight, by reflection, in their sufferings." 
 
 The recollection of this incident reminds 
 me, that in speaking of my life I should not 
 speak of all my actions, and should only let 
 my motives be occasionally disclosed : My 
 intention is to describe frankly, to tell no- 
 thing but the truth, not however all the truth ; 
 what is not related, the ingenious will be at no 
 loss to discover ; and it is only to those able to 
 understand me that the story is addressed. I 
 shall speak as a ghost would relate the tale of 
 its mortal adventures, without fully disclosing 
 the entire motives by which, in that previous 
 state of being, it was actuated. My natural
 
 H BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 character, variegated as it has been by many 
 vicissitudes — and sudden haps and surprising 
 chances, — will not be concealed. I do not, 
 however, intend to write my confessions, but 
 only so much about tilings seen and known as 
 will serve to show why I have resolved to seek 
 another world. In doing this I may be deemed 
 a little eccentric — all my days I have been so — 
 and I suspect emigrants are generally of that 
 description. Impatient under the circumstances 
 of the old world, how wretched would the pre- 
 sent generation have been, had not an asylum 
 opened for so many of us across the Atlantic !
 
 MY CURATORS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MY CURATORS. 
 
 It was during the spring of the year 1789, 
 that I was instructed to choose my curators. 
 Two gentlemen were proposed to me by Mrs. 
 Busby, the richest, and, of course, the most re- 
 spectable in the village and its immediate neigh- 
 bourhood. Had I followed the bent of my own 
 inclinations, I would have made a far different 
 election — I would have preferred Mr. Rhomboid, 
 the schoolmaster, one of the most learned men 
 I ever knew — in his own opinion. There was 
 no fathoming the depths of his knowledge, and 
 I was then beginning mathematics under his 
 erudite tuition. Captain Gorget would also 
 have been my other choice, for he possessed 
 a surprising number of the queerest stories 
 
 B 5
 
 1(1 BOOLE CORBET. 
 
 n specting exploits in camps and quarters, and 
 other adventures of subaltern enterprise. I 
 shall never forget how he used to place me on , 
 a chest, and talk to me as if I had been King 
 Solomon, comforting me with apples. But I 
 well remember, that although I had not a will 
 in the election, I was yet greatly commended 
 for my prudence, in soliciting the guardianship 
 of the only two gentlemen, who, for many miles 
 around, could in the slightest degree he useful 
 to me in my orphan condition : all their other 
 good qualities and fitness for the office were 
 never mentioned, nor was I ever able to dis- 
 cover them. 
 
 Mr. Macindoe deserves to be first described ; 
 not that he was superior to his colleague, hut 
 he was not second to any body — at hast he 
 thought so. He had in early life been a 
 merchant, and made, as it is called, some 
 money ; when his uncle, an officer in the 
 * Indies, happened to die, and left him a 
 purse that would not flutter in an ordinary 
 breeze. With it and his own savings he bought 
 a farm adjoining to the village, where, having 
 closed his ledger, he built a handsome house,
 
 MY CURATORS. 11 
 
 and lived at his ease. He had a Glasgow 
 weekly newspaper brought to him regularly ; 
 sometimes he got a letter by the post, and was 
 withal a talkative, hearty, sly, and shrewd re- 
 tired organization of good humour and corpu- 
 lency. 
 
 In so far as the man was concerned, there 
 was certainly no just cause for much objection. 
 To me he had uniformly been both kind and 
 civil : while I was yet a child he often bestowed 
 on me nuts and sweeties ; and once he gave 
 me a gingerbread lady, with a golden watch 
 by her side, and two black currants for her 
 eyes : she was actually more than two entire 
 hours in my admiring possession before I bit 
 off her head. 
 
 Having himself been in trade, he had a great 
 reverence for that way of life ; and he was in 
 the practice of going often to Glasgow, to hear, 
 as he said, what news King William had gotten. 
 This King William is a statue of his Orange 
 Majesty of that name, and is about as intelli- 
 gent in his intellectual speculations, as many of 
 those in their mercantile, who study the Lon- 
 don Prices Current at his feet.
 
 1_' HOOLE OOBBBT. 
 
 But at the period of which I am speaking 
 affairs of commerce did not trouble me ; I was 
 busy with Mr. Rhomboid among the stars, and 
 thought a swaggering comet no less than a planet 
 in the tadpole state, and one of the finest wonders 
 in Nature. To such heights Mr. Macindoc could 
 not aspire. The chief cause of my dislike to him 
 arose from an assurance of his, when I spoke of 
 the heavenly bodies rolling through space mil- 
 lions of miles away, that falling stars were only 
 a kind of scowthers that somehow or another 
 dropped out of the air ; I pitied his supreme ig- 
 norance. But nevertheless, upon Mrs. Ikisby's 
 kind admonitions and maternal hopes that he 
 would be of great use to me, I chose him for 
 one of my curators. 
 
 The other was Dr. Leach, the surgeon and 
 physician of the village and its vicinity : of him 
 I knew but little previously ; he had attended 
 me during the measles, and visited his patients 
 on an old horse as pale as the Courser 'of Death 
 in the Revelation. 
 
 He was a lean, tall personage, with a white 
 head, a pigtail tie, and had inspected wounds 
 and given physic in the State of New York
 
 MY CURATORS. 13 
 
 during the American war. The exact reason 
 for which he was recommended to me by Mrs. 
 Busby was not very clear ; but I think it was 
 because he read pamphlets, and could speak of 
 the improvements in the trade of the world, and 
 the circumstances of man. I do not repeat her 
 precise words, I only give the sense of them in 
 that phraseology with which time has taught me 
 to invest similar ideas. He was, in short, con- 
 sidered an economic philosopher. He knew 
 more of what was then going on among man- 
 kind than any of his neighbours ; and he had 
 good connexions, in the royal city of Glasgow, 
 not only with gentlemen belonging to the Col- 
 lege, but with his brethren of the faculty, and 
 many of the principal merchants. 
 
 Him also I did not much relish. He was 
 arid in his address — a dried alligator — spoke 
 what he said with the emphasis appropriated to 
 wisdom, and though his sentences were few and 
 brief, they were like the mint and other sweet 
 herbs that hung from the lines across the ceil- 
 ing of his study, not eminent for their substance. 
 He had but one fault, and had Mrs. Busby 
 possessed the discernment of the Queen of
 
 1 1 BOO LB CORHI I . 
 
 Sheba, she would have BeeD that, although the 
 Doctor bo Ear resembled Solomon, that he could 
 probably talk of the hyssop which grew on the 
 wall, he was never, with all his characteristic 
 taciturnity, solid sentences, and learned pamph- 
 lets, able to refuse obedience to the opinions of 
 
 those w h<> had do pretence to so much know- 
 ledge as himself. 
 
 I doubt if the courteous reader, after this 
 account of my worthy guardians, will be quite 
 satisfied that they were so fit for the trust as the 
 friends of Mrs. Busby thought; so much do 
 station, wealth, and manners govern the notions 
 of society both in town and country. For my- 
 self, I look back in vain to discover, if I can, 
 in what their qualifications consisted. Their 
 chiefest excellence, probably, lay in their 
 wives; Mrs. Leach made delicious tea some- 
 times, and treated her guests with marmalade, 
 of which Mrs. Busby occasionally partook ; and 
 there was not a milder, more submissive lady in 
 the three adjoining parishes than Mrs. Macindoe; 
 but I am not quite sure if her meekness came 
 of nature, or was an effect of her obstreperous, 
 bustling, and good-humoured husband. How-
 
 MY CURATORS. 15 
 
 ever this may be, I am inclined now to think 
 that the preference for the gentlemen originated 
 in some partiality for their ladies, who indeed 
 were ever particularly kind to me. 
 
 It beins; resolved that I should choose the 
 two, Mrs. Busby and myself were invited to 
 take tea in the evening after with the Doctor 
 and his wife— well do I remember the occasion, 
 it was an aera in my existence. The civili- 
 ties I received from Mrs. Leach would not 
 be credited if I attempted to describe them, but 
 by those who have undergone the same ordeal. 
 She promised that I should find her a mother, 
 and all that ; while the Doctor showed me a 
 new book of singular merit. It was the first 
 time I had heard the term ; and he told me a 
 still more abstruse fact, that things in France 
 were in a crisis, for man was evidently in a 
 state of perfectability. Altogether, when we 
 came home at night, Mrs. Busby congratulated 
 me on having made so sage a choice, and I only 
 wondered how it was that I could not feel nor 
 see any thing in it to cause rejoicing. 
 
 Next day, hearing to what trust and honour 
 he had been called, — for he was on one of his
 
 1G BOGLB CORBET. 
 
 wonted visits to King William, in Glasgow, 
 when the appointment was made — Mr. Maciodoe 
 came himself, and invited Mrs. Busby to bring 
 nir with her to dinner; and at dinner it is 
 impossible to describe how much he said and 
 had to Bay. He talked to me of trade in 
 general, and I replied most pertinently about 
 the wonders of the solar system. Tambouring, 
 be informed me, was making great progress 
 in Glasgow, and was a Godsend to industrious 
 women. Looms were elattering, as he said, 
 and shuttles flving; so that he could not ad- 
 vise me to a trade that was so likely to be a 
 good one as a manufacturer. 
 
 This dinner, and the tea-drinking of the 
 preceding evening, with the previous impor- 
 tant event of choosing my Curators, assured 
 me that some great ehange had come upon me. 
 New cares, new hopes, a thousand feelings 
 without name took possession of my breast; I 
 became instantly, as it were, a part of the world, 
 and Mrs. Busby, though I had but turned my 
 fourteenth year, said as we were on the road 
 from Weebeild, the residence of Mr. Maeindoe, 
 that I really looked that afternoon like a man.
 
 THE CHOICE OF LIFE. 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CHOICE OF LIFE. 
 
 For some time after the choice of my Cu- 
 rators had been determined, no particular occur- 
 rence took place in my life. I went to school 
 as before, and heard the evening lectures of Mr. 
 Rhomboid on astronomy as usual — of which, to 
 say the least, they remain in my young remem- 
 brance as dissertations on mathematical in- 
 struments, interspersed with anecdotes of the 
 planets. A little change was, however, made 
 in the course of my studies ; instead of geo- 
 metry I was, on the advice of Mr. Macindoe, 
 advised to learn book-keeping, as he could not 
 see in what way geometry, or indeed any kind 
 of mathematics, could ever serve a merchant, 
 as I was destined to be, especially too as
 
 151 BOOLE CORBET. 
 
 land-surveying was, in his opinion, but a poor 
 trade, and my fortune justified me to look for 
 something hitter. This was tin- first inroad on 
 m\ favourite study of the stars and those 
 hidden influences that move between the seasons 
 of thi' earth and the orbs of time. 
 
 Dr. Leach did not quite agree with him 
 that education should be directed exclusively, 
 as he expressed it, to the departments of prac- 
 tical knowledge, and strenuously urged, till 
 overborne by his colleague's resolute will, that I 
 should persevere a little longer in my classical 
 studies; but towards them my mind never lay. 
 I got my lessons, it is very true, about as well 
 as the other schoolboys, but I never understood 
 them. Grammar was to me the most inexpli- 
 cable mystery ; like Jack Cade of old, I held a 
 verb to be an abomination, and the parts of 
 speech as trammels on the human understanding. 
 
 When I had gone through my first course 
 of book-keeping, I waited with the proofs of 
 my proficiency, first on Dr. Leach, who, 
 when he had looked at the writing and com- 
 mended its fairness, apprised me that in the 
 course of a few days he and Mr. Macindoe were
 
 THE CHOICE OF LIFE. 19 
 
 to have some serious conversation respecting my 
 future destinies, and among other things he 
 informed me that a new light of exceeding splen- 
 dour had burst upon France ; which intelligence 
 set me much a wondering if the comet, which 
 Mr. Rhomboid had told his class was then 
 expected, had appeared there. 
 
 I then proceeded with the books under my 
 arm to Weebield, where my other doer dwelt, 
 and whom I found with both a letter and his 
 weekly newspaper on a table before him. His 
 lady sat opposite, with domestic cares intent, 
 darning a stocking, a mean employment, pre- 
 meditating poverty. He received me with his 
 wonted blithe garrulity, and as he was turn- 
 ing over the books, not seemingly greatly satis- 
 fied with the penmanship, he talked of what 
 he had just been reading, and occasionally, 
 as it were by marginal notes or parenthesis, 
 addressed himself to me, much in the following 
 manner. 
 
 " You don't hold your pen firm enough, — very 
 extraordinary ! — Double the quantity of cotton 
 come into Liverpool, — Yes, right enough ; — the 
 French are really a flighty people. — Is not this
 
 90 BOGLE GORBBT. 
 
 wrong? Sundries, debtor to cash; it should be 
 Indigo to Bills Receiveable.— Only think of six 
 looms in James Aird's back closs ! — that beats 
 print. — Talking of weaving, that *8 a good trade, 
 'twill just suit you, Bogle < orbet, — this Mon- 
 sieur Necker," — and so forth. 
 
 Having thus spoken at some length, he closed 
 the books, and subjoined. 
 
 " 'Tie full time you were looking about you, 
 Bogle Corbet ; I have appointed Monday next 
 for Dr. Leach to take a bit of beef with me, 
 you will come, and we shall then settle what you 
 are to be. My mind's made up that you should 
 be a manufacturer ; — bairns must creep before 
 they walk, — you '11 begin with being a weaver 
 — Dr. Leach thinks it not genteel enough, 
 but I say there was no such trade in my younger 
 years. Cotton "s another word for blessing. 
 No, no — I 'm determined you shall be a weaver 
 first, and then elevate yourself into a muslin 
 manufacturer — a fine thing that, nothing like it 
 in former days. Only think of John Aird, that 
 lived in the thatchcd-house behind my spirit 
 cellars, has bigget a shop for six looms, and 
 will give me an heritable bond over the whole,
 
 THE CHOICE OF LIFE. 21 
 
 for two hundred pounds to buy cotton ; such 
 is the thriving and the thrift of this new trade. 
 Odds ! I almost wish I had not left business. 
 Bogle Corbet, my man, ye '11 be a weaver — 
 Phoo ! about gentility ; 1 11 insist on't ; King 
 David himself, was at first but a herd laddie. 
 And does not the Scriptures talk of a weaver's 
 beam. No, no, Bogle Corbet, ye'll be a weaver, 
 as the song sings, 
 
 " ' If it was not for the weavers what should we do, 
 We would lie in our beds and go naked too, 
 If it was not for the honourable weavers.' 
 
 " No, no, Bogle Corbet, though I wonder 
 how we should get blankets more than clothes, 
 but for the honourable weavers." 
 
 After he had spoken some time in this his 
 customary rattling, I at last understood that 
 Dr. Leach was inclined to make me genteel 
 and professional, but that Mr. Macindoe, with 
 a sharper eye, looked into the state of the 
 world, and seeing the evident progress of the 
 cotton-trade, had resolved to make a weaver of 
 me, as a preliminary to establishing me as a 
 partner in some respectable manufacturing 
 house in Glasgow.
 
 22 BOOLE en if m I 
 
 " Paisley," said he, " Til never think of, for 
 it> but an operational place; Glasgow is the 
 
 town of tile trade. They were clever at silk 
 gauze in Paisley, 1 own that, and by it they 
 are wonderful at the fine muslin; but Glasgow's 
 
 the place for you. So ye see, prepare yourself: 
 ye '11 wear a green apron, and may he in course 
 of time, grow lank and lantern-jawed; — hut its 
 all in the way of business, Bogle Corbet. By 
 and by, ve'll strut on the plain Btones, cheek 
 by jowl with King William, and I hope in 
 time to sec you with as big a belly and as 
 heavy a purse as the best of them ; — my word, 
 Bogle Corbet, ye '11 be my Lord Provost I' 1 
 
 It was thus manifest that the meeting on 
 Monday next was only pro forma, for my doom 
 was already decided by the firmness of Mr. 
 Macindoe. Whether, however, it was altoge- 
 ther judicious to determine a point of so much 
 importance, without consulting the tastes or 
 bias of the pupil himself, may admit of some 
 doubt ; mine certainly never were, nor indeed 
 had I any predilection on the subject. I was 
 the most docile of wards ; labour, I perceived, 
 of some kind or other, was the doom of man,
 
 THE CHOICE OF LIFE. 23 
 
 and that I must take my portion ; it therefore 
 little disturbed me of what kind it was, pro- 
 vided only it was not wet or dirty, for these 
 two qualities, inherent in the nature of some 
 things necessary to the comfort of man, I loath- 
 ingly disliked ; neither do I think was weaving 
 in much estimation with me ; but there was a 
 sort of plausibility in the manner in which it 
 was recommended to me, that my slight repug- 
 nance was subdued. 
 
 •The choice of business was certainly the 
 second event in my life by which I was to 
 any influential degree affected ; and the cour- 
 teous reader will see that the line proposed by 
 the more worldly of my two curators was just 
 exactly the one which might have been expect- 
 ed from his character. Had Mr. Rhomboid 
 and Captain Gorget been chosen, the pro- 
 bability is, that instead of a manufacturer, I 
 should have been made a military engineer. 
 But in what would it have been better for 
 me ? During the war I might have been a little 
 more gay and insolent, and at the peace be- 
 come as humble as soldier-officers in general, 
 when Birmingham blades are seen in pawnbroker's
 
 iil BOGLB CORB1 I 
 
 windows. However, let my tale tell its own 
 moral. I was ductile in the hands of my guar- 
 dians, and although Mrs. Busby, when some- 
 times slu' was not quite pleased with me, used 
 to say that I was as odd and obstinate as a 
 philosopher, I am certain it was a calumnious 
 ebullition of passion. That I may have had 
 something of the oddity of humour ascribed to 
 the lovers of truth, perhaps was not altogether 
 matter of suspicion. When flourishing in my 
 May of trade, it was called wit, and curious 
 shrewdness ; but now, in my sear and yellow 
 leaf, the October of my days, the old phraseo- 
 logy has come up again, and more than once I 
 have overheard it said of myself, he had always 
 something odd about him. This, however, is 
 unmerited disparagement, for, in my own opi- 
 nion, I have been as wise as my neighbour- ; 
 and perhaps now and then saw as far into a 
 millstone as the sharpest sighted of them all.
 
 THE DELIBERATION. 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DELIBERATION. 
 
 The courteous reader cannot expect, after 
 the lapse of so many years, that I should be 
 able to recollect exactly the conversation which 
 took place between my curators on the ever- 
 memorable Monday. The substance, however, 
 can never fade from my mind ; it was prospec- 
 tive to an event that was to bias and colour all 
 my future life, and it made an indelible im- 
 pression. I do not, therefore, hesitate in giving 
 the dialogue in its original form ; soothing any 
 reluctance which may happen to arise in my 
 conscience for doing so, by recalling to mind 
 that it will not be erroneous in the most im- 
 portant particulars. Indeed, on this occasion 
 I have no alternative, for without the dramatic 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 Hi B0GL1 OOBBBT. 
 
 style, I should fail to convey a just and fail 
 idea of the two gentlemen — now long departed 
 and " remembered only for their virtues,"" — 
 in amiable clergyman, who here shall hi' 
 aameless — says as of ten as any, even the least 
 correct in. conduct of his parishioners, passes the 
 Rubicon of eternity. 
 
 The affair was dignified to the household 
 Mr. Macindoe, with what in common talk 
 is called, a company. Besides the Doctor and 
 Mrs. Leach, Mrs. Busby and myself, the afore- 
 said Mr. Aird with his spouse from Glasgow 
 wire invited to dinner, and judiciously too, for 
 it mhs with him that I was destined to be 
 placed, if the Doctor should be consenting, and 
 of his consent Mr. Macindoe made no bones, but 
 with the habitual indulgence ever vouchsafed 
 to his own intentions, he had previously de- 
 termined it should come to pa 
 
 Of the feast I shall not describe the particu- 
 lars ; it no doubt consisted of all the delicacies 
 of the season within the compass of OUT host's 
 means, and the extent of the village. I only 
 recollect that we had an exepuisite Florentine
 
 THE DELIBERATION. 27 
 
 pie, from which I deduce that it was holden 
 sometime about the end of the year ; I have 
 not, however, a clear remembrance of any other 
 circumstance. The Florentine alone still lin- 
 gers sweet in my memory. 
 
 As soon as the cloth was removed, according- 
 to the custom of those days, the wine decanters 
 were placed on the table, and with them a 
 punch bowl of the size commonly called a cob- 
 ble, with a square bottle of old rum, an article 
 for which Glasgow has been always famous, 
 and which has procured for it the almost 
 poetical epithet of the rum antique city, ever 
 since. Walter Scott called Edinburgh his own 
 romantic town. Beside the bottle was placed a 
 sugar-basin, and a plate with a knife on it. 
 
 " Shusy," said Mr. Macindoe to the sari. 
 winking at the same time to the Doctor, " if 
 thou 'It look in the cupboard, I must give the 
 gentlemen — and the ladies will be none the 
 worse of another of the same, according to the 
 Psalms of David appointed by the General 
 Assembly and so forth — thou 'It see a few testi- 
 monials, six yellow bonny things, that it is not 
 
 c 2
 
 28 BOGLE CORBBT. 
 
 always for nothing I pay my devoirs to King 
 William — wilt thou bring them hither, and set 
 the granny jug at my foot." 
 
 Shusy did ;^ she was desired, and produced 
 six limes in a tea-saucer, and placed at the 
 same time near her master's feet a pitcher of 
 the purest from the coolest corner of the well. 
 
 1 should here mention, to account for the 
 
 almost English tongue of Mr. Macindoe, that he 
 
 had in his youthful years been some time in the 
 West Indies, where he had learned to speak in 
 a manner intelligible to Christians, for it was 
 not then the fashion to consider Scotch as a 
 classical language and worthy of acquiring, to 
 enable all the world to understand the works of 
 the Border Minstrel. 1 may as well add, that 
 Docter Leach, having passed his early life in 
 the Army, spoke in the emphatic language of 
 the service, a brief decisive and energetic ver- 
 nacular, more like English than is the American 
 dialect, but something of a broader sound, with 
 less of cadency, than may be uniformly heard 
 in London. As for Mr. Aird, his speech was 
 genuine Trongate. 
 
 Whilst the bowl was brewing, two glasses
 
 THE DELIBERATION. 29 
 
 of the wine circulated, but before a third was 
 filled, it was discerned by the Avhole party 
 that the punch was ready. Accordingly they 
 all drained their glasses, and sent them in to 
 receive the new beverage, for in those frugal 
 times it was not the usage in such houses as 
 Mr. Macindoe's to furnish the guests with more 
 than a single glass each. However, that was 
 no obstacle to convivial munificence in other 
 respects. 
 
 The punch being ready and the glasses 
 charged, — the King and Constitution were pre- 
 viously drank in the wine, — Mr. Macindoe turn- 
 ed himself to me, then about seventeen years of 
 age, and said, 
 
 " Bogle Corbet, my lad, this is an occasion 
 made on purpose for you, and may you never 
 get a worse dinner, though certainly the broth 
 might have been better boiled, — ahem ! gude 
 wife, do ye hear that ! — well, Bogle Corbet, we 
 are here met, and I have duly considered what 
 the Doctor has often said to me — ahem ! — or 
 ought to have said, — That there is nothing 
 now-a-days like the manufacturing line.*" 
 
 " Mr. Macindoe," interposed the Doctor, " I
 
 ."J!) BOOLE CORBBT. 
 
 do not recollect that I ever emitted an opinion 
 on the subject. " 
 
 " Well, well, Doctor, well not east out 
 about that; but if ye did not, no man could 
 better than yourself prove all its advantages 
 However, we can defer the consideration of that 
 particularity till another time, and keep to the 
 matter in hand, which, Bogle Corbet, as I was 
 saying, is a lucky thing for you ; ye have only 
 to put your heel in your neck and whirl your- 
 self into Mr. Aird's loom-shop; — I hope, James, 
 yell not object to take him; but how is the 
 punch? don't you think it would stand a leetle 
 squeeze of the lime ?" 
 
 " I am of opinion,"'' replied the Doctor, ' ; that 
 we should consult the predilections of our ward 
 himself. It has not been the custom for many 
 years — " 
 
 " You are quite right, 1 ' interrupted my other 
 curator, " and I think it smacks too much of 
 the souring; a small nob of sugar will mend all. 
 Ladies, this is real prime; takeoff your heel- 
 tops and send me your glasses. No doubt, Mr. 
 Aird, yell have some notion where Bogle Cor- 
 bet, poor fellow, should be boarded. Don"tyou
 
 THE DELIBERATION. 31 
 
 think, Doctor, that Mrs. Wadset, if she could 
 be persuaded to take him, would make a capital 
 Landlady ? Oh ! such an alteration it is, to even 
 her, to taking lodgers. There was not a more 
 topping merchant than her husband in all the 
 Virginia trade, before the war. Bogle Corbet, 
 would not you like to bide with Mrs. Wadset ?" 
 
 " He never heard of her before," said my 
 most worthy Mrs. Busby. " If ye had riddled 
 with a riddle, the whole tot of the widows of 
 Glasgow, ye could na hae chosen from the leav- 
 ings a more discreet woman. 11 
 
 " But, 11 said Dr. Leach, " are we not pro- 
 ceeding too fast ? I beg to observe " 
 
 " Ay, ay, 1 ' cried Mr. Macindoe, " I should 
 have given the toast first ; this is Bogle Corbet's 
 health, and good luck to him, both as a weaver, 
 and as a manufacturer ! — I'm thinking, gude 
 wife, your teakettle's boiling; — Bogle Corbet, 
 here's your health, my lad. 11 
 
 " Really, Mr. Macindoe," interposed the 
 Doctor, " we ought not to be in such haste ; I 
 was not aware that the matter had been decided 
 before I came here. 11 
 
 " Doctor, Doctor, if ye had been a man of
 
 32 BOGLB CORBET. 
 
 business, ye would have known that matters of 
 trade are best managed by settling them at 
 
 once, and consulting about them after. How- 
 ever, it is a great satisfaction to me, to find 
 vmir opinion so conjunct with mine. Take off 
 your glass, Doctor; and, Mr. Aird, ye 're no' 
 feared for the road. It's no 1 the length but the 
 breadth of it that should trouble you when ye 
 go from my house. 1 
 
 " Deed, Mr. Maeindoc, I'll ne'er deny that 
 your drink 's worth the taking away wi 1 us. It - 
 no 1 the first time that I hae stagger'd aneath the 
 burden ; but Til gie you a sentiment : ' Let 
 (Uasgow flourish by the weaving of cotton.' 
 Bogle Corbet, ye canna but cock your wee 
 linger aboon your neb to that." 
 
 At this crisis the ladies rose and went away. 
 Aw end was removed from the table, which 
 was wheeled towards the lire, and after sonic 
 other adjustments the deliberation was resumed. 
 
 " Well,' 1 said Mr. Macindoe, after he had 
 again filled the gentlemen's glasses, " this has 
 been a highly satisfactory conversation, and 1 
 must here before my colleague frankly declare, 
 that in all the three years we have acted toge-
 
 THE DELIBERATION. 33 
 
 ther as Bogle Corbet's doers, we have never 
 once differed. Is not that true, Doctor ? Indeed, 
 considering your experience, I have had but to 
 bow my head to the suggestions of your prac- 
 tical understanding, and to follow in the right 
 course.' 1 
 
 " I am much obliged to you, Mr. Macin- 
 doe,"" said Dr. Leach, " but in this matter — " 
 
 " There could indeed be no difference of opi- 
 nion. The cotton trade presents a great open- 
 ing, and we could not shut our eyes to the mani- 
 fest advantage it is to Bogle Corbet. Don't you 
 think we would be the better of a biscuit, a slice of 
 tongue, or a capling ? Bogle Corbet, touch the 
 bell ; we'll have it to the next bowl. A cobble 
 is but a small boat ; I wish the gude wife had 
 thought better of the occasion, and given me 
 the bigger bowl ; but women will have their 
 own way sometimes, though I must allow Mrs. 
 Macindoe is one of the best of her kind ; but, 
 Mr.Aird, will ye see to Mrs. Wadset ? It was 
 a happy thought to think on her." 
 
 "And are ye really resolved, Mr. Macin- 
 doe ?" inquired the Doctor, in a tone that be- 
 tokened compliance. 
 
 c 5
 
 .;l BOGLB CORBBT 
 
 11 Not if there is any tiling to be alleged 
 against the fitness of the lady ; and it will help 
 her — she's cousin to inv wife — and you know 
 the old saying 'a friend in need, is a friend in- 
 deed; 1 wr'll make it our sentiment." 
 
 Tims was it decided, that I waa to be a ma- 
 nufacturer. The courteous reader will discern 
 how ably and fully all points of the question 
 Mere discussed, and with what hilarity it was 
 so unanimously arranged.
 
 THE WORKSHOP. 35 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WORKSHOP. 
 
 After some necessary preparations had been 
 made, a day was appointed when I should leave 
 my rural haunts, and take up my abode as an 
 operative in the workshop of Mr. Aird. This 
 was to enter life ; an event, the first which 
 makes youth thoughtful, and is equally impor- 
 tant to young men, as marriage to the gentler 
 sex ; I felt it to be of great importance to me. 
 
 The few remaining lessons which I receiv- 
 ed from Mr. Rhomboid went in at the one 
 ear, and out at the other. Thev were like the 
 flight of migratory birds, and left no trace be- 
 hind. All around the village became more and 
 more interesting, but there was an apathy, as I 
 thought, in the aspect of every scene which
 
 BOGLE UORBOT. 
 
 made me feel as if Bullenness had touched Na- 
 ture, and she was ungrateful for the adoration 
 with which, in my simplicity, I had worshipped 
 at her Bhrines. The Btars too, that had ever 
 been my darling study, lust much of their in- 
 fluence, and my whole imagination was filled 
 with shuttles and looms. 
 
 It could not, however, be justly said, al- 
 though the workshop did Bupplj my mind with 
 the furniture of many images, that they were 
 selected with much solicitude; quite the re- 
 verse. I had submitted to the proposition of 
 Mr. Macindoe as I learned the lessons of the 
 school at the request of Mr. Rhomboid, merely 
 from a habit of acquiescence, a little elevated 
 by a vague conception that I might find a use 
 them hereafter. Thus it happened, that the 
 event of sending me into (ilasgow, while the 
 contemplation of it eclipsed all previous records 
 in my memory, and gave rise to strange and 
 even fantastical trains of reflection, was in itself 
 far from being the most alluring that might at 
 the time have come to pass. It was not, how- 
 ever, disagreeable, for it presented a change of 
 scene and of occupation, and that to a boj of
 
 THE WORKSHOP. 37 
 
 seventeen is, if not always a pleasure, some- 
 thing in which there is much enjoyment. 
 
 But if my head was plenished with the appa- 
 ratus of my trade, I had formed no very correct 
 idea of many other things which make the 
 weaver's shop initiate to the world. Looms, 
 yarn, and pirns, a whirring noise, and men with 
 pale lank faces, made up the sum of all I 
 thought of. The cares and anxieties that 
 many suffered, the light-hearted gaiety which 
 prompted others to sing, the murmurings of 
 spirits uneasy with their fortunes, the carkings 
 of discontent, and the arrogance of ambition, 
 which were all there, I had not imagined, and 
 they burst upon me as if I had been plunged 
 into a new element. 
 
 At first, from the village notions of the con- 
 dition of a weaver, and the ribaldry of my 
 school companions, I did not much expect to 
 meet with beings altogether equal in degree to 
 myself, but I was mistaken ; the majority of 
 Mr. Aird's men consisted of voung; o-entlemen. 
 the younger sons of neighbouring lairds, des- 
 tined like myself to be settled in due time in 
 warehouses, and to have workshops of their
 
 BOOLE CORBET. 
 
 own. There was in consequence, perhaps, more 
 of decorum amongst us than in the common 
 factories, and, undoubtedly, we regarded our 
 tasks more as lessons than ^ real business. Still 
 there was a necessary proportion of men who 
 followed weaving as a trade, sedate and consi- 
 derate, who looked to no higher station in the 
 world, and were habitually reconciled to their 
 lot. The contrast between these and the no- 
 vices, if I may so call those who were like 
 myself, was, soon after my initiation, very ob- 
 vious. Day after day the true operatives 
 worked in an even tenour — they were punctual 
 in their attendance, industrious and uniform in 
 their manners ; but the young gentlemen were 
 in almost every respect different. They seldom 
 observed punctuality as to time; often yawned 
 over their looms; and some grew irritated in tying 
 broken threads. 1 remember an irascible lad 
 who in a passion flung himself headlong through 
 his web, and hurrying from the shop, enlisted 
 for a soldier ; his friends obtained his discharge 
 with difficulty, but were ultimately obliged to 
 buy him a commission. These, however, were 
 rather exceptions to the general rule amongst
 
 THE WORKSHOP. 39 
 
 us ; without question, however, the distinction 
 between the weavers by profession, and those 
 destined for another and a higher sphere, was 
 very obvious. 
 
 Mr. Aird in the mean time continued to 
 thrive ; the trade became every day more and 
 more prosperous, and he repaired other pre- 
 mises for the reception of additional looms. I 
 could not boast of any extraordinary proficiency 
 neither with him nor when I had been at school; 
 nor was I always the steadiest among my 
 fellows ; but it so happened that when the new 
 workshop was ready, I was, on the peremptory 
 advice of Mr. Macindoe, given in a jocose style, 
 placed in it, chiefly on account of the tainting 
 example of the irregularities in which my other 
 companions indulged. 
 
 In this new shop a different scene presented 
 itself. The men were all equals and compa- 
 nions in humble life ; I was the only one there 
 that could in any measure aspire to the rank of 
 a gentleman, and a certain constitutional pen- 
 siveness restrained me from mixing in their 
 familiarities. My disposition, however, to ob- 
 serve was now awakened ; at least it was in
 
 < (l BOO LB CORBBT. 
 
 that shop I first became conscious of receiving 
 pleasure by remarking the harmony between 
 conduct and character. 
 
 Among the nun, a great diversity in their 
 predilections was obvious. They were gene- 
 rally young, dependant solely on their own 
 earnings, and in consequence were much freer 
 in their humour and actions than even the 
 more irregular youths from whom I had been 
 removed. The gentlemen were self-controlled 
 by some regard to their connexions and stations, 
 and the mature and steady workmen, among 
 whom they were plaeed, had families to provide 
 for, and were brought up in quieter times, and 
 lived as if their lot admitted of no considerable 
 vicissitude. My companions were a race of an- 
 other kind; they consisted chiefly of those sort 
 of reckless young men by whom the ranks of the 
 army are tilled ; clever, industrious, though in 
 the latter quality not equal, and, like others 
 entering the world, prone to speculation, and 
 often discussing questions that but little per- 
 tained to their condition. 
 
 At this time the doctrines of the early PVench 
 Revolution were making rapid progress, and
 
 THE WORKSHOP. 41 
 
 Mr. AircTs weavers caught the epidemic. Sonic 
 of the gentlemen, not however many, became 
 tainted, and, to a man, every one of the ordi- 
 nary weavers was infected. The shop was 
 actually a jacobine club. A subscription by a 
 small sum was raised to buy a democratical 
 newspaper for the use of the members ; sedi- 
 tious pamphlets were eagerly bought and bor- 
 rowed ; a man was actually hired to read to 
 those who were either not good at the art them- 
 selves, or were solicitous to work and be in- 
 structed at the same time. 
 
 Still, though the French example, and the 
 crude and ill-digested philosophy of the pam- 
 phlets ministered to the dissatisfaction of the 
 men, and intoxicated their sanguine fancies with 
 unattainable hopes, there was nothing like a 
 combination among them. A few wild and in- 
 temperate spirits no doubt entertained insane 
 projects of reform in the Government and the 
 state of man ; but undoubtedly the far greater 
 part were actuated in their schemes for the im- 
 provement of society, as it was deemed among 
 them, by motives of good- will and fair deal- 
 ing, undeserving, in many instances, of the
 
 IS BOOLE CORiii i 
 
 contumely with which they were regarded by 
 the higher ranks and those attached to the ex- 
 isting order of things. This is but justice, and 
 without the truth of it be admitted and borne 
 iu mind, it will be difficult to account for many 
 of the phenomena that I saw in the morning 
 horizon of my life.
 
 A PROPOSITION. 43 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A PROPOSITION. 
 
 During the winter of , I was one day 
 
 warming myself at the workshop fire, in the 
 interval when the men were all absent at break- 
 fast, except one Eric Pullicate, with whom I 
 happened to fall into conversation concerning the 
 French affairs. Something extraordinary had 
 occurred in them, and formed a prominent fea- 
 ture in the London Newspapers, received that 
 morning. The accident of his being there 
 alone, I am unable to explain, but it excited 
 my attention ; it seemed as if it had been in- 
 tentional, and a slight air of studied careless- 
 ness visibly perplexed the freedom of his accus- 
 tomed manner. I made, however, no remark 
 on his appearance ; I was indeed but slightly
 
 I t BOOLB CORBBT. 
 
 acquainted with him, knowing him only as one 
 belonging to the establishment, and possessed 
 of considerable influence over the other men. 
 
 Eric Pullicate was about thirty, hut a gra- 
 vity of demeanour made him look older. He 
 was of very humble origin, and yet his educa- 
 tion was much above his station ; for he had been 
 the poor scholar of a grammar-school, in which 
 all tin- ordinary branches of instruction were 
 taught, with mathematics and geography. In 
 stature, he might be rather under the middle 
 size ; he was sturdily built, and though his 
 complexion was pale, the effect of his sedentary 
 vocation, his countenance indicated vigour, and 
 possessed a singular cast of expression, which I 
 cannot better describe than by saying it was 
 the dawn of an inward intelligence. He stoop- 
 ed ; and although his dark eyes were at once 
 bright and inquisitive, he had a sinister way of 
 looking from under his brows occasionally, which 
 materially impaired the general fortitude of his 
 features. This peculiarity, with a high fore- 
 head approaching to baldness, and oily black 
 hair, gave him a puritanical austerity of ap- 
 pearance, which often caused him to be observed,
 
 A PROPOSITION. 45 
 
 and even to prompt the spectator to inquire 
 who he was. In a word, without being at all 
 prepossessing, he was undoubtedly an interest- 
 ing person ; and yet I must confess that he in- 
 spired me with something like the antipathy 
 entertained for Doctor Fell, 
 
 I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, 
 
 The reason why, I cannot tell; 
 But 'tis a thing I know full well, 
 
 I do not like thee, Doctor Fell. 
 
 However, as we were standing together in a 
 cold morning at the fire, it would have been 
 sullenness not to have spoken with him, and 
 accordingly, as I have said, we entered into a 
 kind of political conversation ; for all sedentary 
 tradesmen are curiously disposed to be poli- 
 ticians. 
 
 " I 'm thinking, Mr. Bogle Corbet," said he, 
 " that yell soon be quitting the shop ? It's well 
 for the like of you that have friends to do for 
 you. I have been now, since I left the tailor's 
 board, five years a weaver, and I see no better 
 opening than I did at first." 
 
 There was so much of biography and of dis- 
 content in this address, that it surprised me,
 
 Hi BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 .uhI 1 \\i>t not very well what to Bay, bo I only 
 answered to his preliminary interrogation. 
 
 " I believe it is intended that I shall be re- 
 moval in the course of the summer." 
 
 "Have vou any notion where they mean to 
 place vou -" was his reply, looking at me with 
 one of those shrewd >idelong knavish glances 
 which I have noticed as one of his remarkable 
 peculiarities; without hesitation, I at once said, 
 
 "To Mr. Thrums* warehouse; or to Pirns, 
 Treadle's, and Co.*" 
 
 " Two very different sort of places/" re- 
 plied Erie ; " Thrums is a natural high-flyer, 
 and Treadles is a real equitable man. If 1 
 wire you, I would put in a word myself for his 
 warehouse. * 
 
 This might not have been the first occasion 
 in which I heard political partialities spoken 
 of as qualities which enhanced the good or bad 
 of character; but it is the earliest instance I 
 now recollect, and it was imprinted on me by 
 what followed and engrained by after rumina- 
 tion. 
 
 " Thrums," said I, " has always been eon 
 sidered a true gentleman ; and Treadles, I have
 
 A PROPOSITION. 47 
 
 heard, carries his black nebbit-notions beyond 
 good manners. 1 ' 
 
 " Gentleman !" replied my companion, with 
 a soft sneer; "that's fast becoming a poor 
 trade. Thrums looks as he were made of pipe- 
 clay, and all his men of common mud. He has 
 not a heart for a fellow-creature's rights ; the 
 like o' me, — he maybe easier to you — he regards 
 with widened nostrils. But the day's dawning 
 — we '11 be upsides soon with him and his." 
 
 Whether there was any alteration in the ac- 
 cent with which this was said from Pullicate's 
 usual manner, and that it implied a threat, it 
 is impossible at this distant period to say, but 
 the words are still all clear in my memory, 
 and I well remember that I inquired with 
 so much force what harm Thrums had done 
 to him, that he surveyed me with a glance 
 from head to foot, and then eyed me suspi- 
 ciously for a moment. 
 
 " Harm ! the man has done no harm to me,' 1 
 was the reply ; " but he's one of the crew that 
 thinks the world was made for them, and all 
 of a lower degree for toil and servitude. But 
 the time's coming when justice will evenly rule
 
 M BOGLE OORBKT. 
 
 the earth, and Thrums be taught that lir's 
 qo better than Eric Pullicate. It's the dutj 
 of us all to help it forward. Will ye no' Lend 
 a hand in the good work p" 
 
 "What work'"' was the simple question 
 
 with which I replied. 
 
 At that time the republican spirit of the 
 French revolution was wide abroad, and I had. 
 in common with the whole nation, heard of the 
 secret machinations of the democrats, who wen- 
 then shaking the very foundations of society. 
 I had therefore no doubt from the preceding 
 strictures on Mr. Thrums, that the good work 
 was to assist in some evil design on him 
 and his party ; my answer, in consequence, 
 ought more properly to be considered as an 
 interjection of wonder than as an inquiry : Eric 
 Pullicate did not, however, so receive it ; but 
 coming nearer to me, and lowering his voice, 
 he said in a whispering tone : — 
 
 " It's a shame, Mr. Bogle Corbet, to keep 
 
 vmi longer in the dark — all of us in the shop 
 
 are of the same mind, and when you go from 
 
 us at night, though others seem to leave the 
 
 house also, they come back, and debate con-
 
 A PROPOSITION. . 49 
 
 cerning the rights of man. We have twice 
 considered about letting you into the secret, 
 and last night I was authorized to break the 
 ice. There's no harm in it, only the time's 
 not ripe in this country for us to come forward 
 as we will do.'" 
 
 It had not then been acknowledged by any 
 measure of the Government, at least it was 
 not thought so by the weavers, that there could 
 be much danger in discussing points of poli- 
 tics ; the exposition of Pullicate did not there- 
 fore greatly surprise me ; on the contrary, my 
 self-love inhaled flattery from what he said, 
 conceiving that, as I was the only individual 
 of the gentle class in the shop, the other work- 
 men had been backward merely from bashful- 
 ness in asking me to join in their deliberations. 
 Accordingly I expressed my thanks to Pulli- 
 cate for inviting me to their nocturnal sittings, 
 and that same evening I was regularly ad- 
 mitted as a member, for they had constituted 
 themselves into a club, and held a correspond- 
 ence with several others of the same kind. 
 
 In this manner I was drawn into the demo- 
 cratic connexion. It could not be said that 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 1J0GLK COKlii . 
 
 I was naturally inclined to the doctrines of tin. 
 
 sect — my inclinations lay the other way — and 
 my curiosity, always strong, had perhaps more 
 to do in the business than my judgment. The 
 nary observations on the respective politics of 
 Thrums and Treadles had struck me as singu- 
 lar, and the plausible insinuation to the preju- 
 dice of the former ; above all. the secret sittings 
 of a debating society, combined to interest me. 
 But I was not fit to be a distinguished orator 
 among them ; my nature was, if not modest, 
 nervous and shy; I was too easily agitated ever 
 to deliver myself with the equanimity so essen- 
 tial to a speaker, and had imbibed in the 
 course of my juvenile reading and the tra- 
 ditions of our village, an enterprising pre- 
 dilection for the olden and adventurous. It 
 was one of my boyish fancies to dream of 
 making myself famous.
 
 THE CLUB. 51 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CLUB. 
 
 Without doubt the deliberations of the 
 club assisted to enlarge my understanding, 
 for we discussed all subjects, never deter- 
 red by ignorance from investigating the most 
 abstruse. At last, however, the progress of 
 events in Paris beojan to affect our delibera- 
 tions in Glasgow ; general philosophy, religion, 
 morality, and metaphysics, gradually declin- 
 ed amongst us, and the rights of the human 
 race became more and more our most impres- 
 sive topic. 
 
 Out of doors, Alarm began to shake himself, 
 and to rouse the kingdom with his baying. A 
 wall of partition was erected, and every day 
 strengthened, between the defenders of social 
 order, and the friends of the human race. The 
 
 D 2
 
 52 BOOLE COKBBT. 
 
 Aristocrats mounted their pedestals, and then 
 adversaries shouldered the pickaxes of destruc- 
 tion ; Government girded its loins for war, and 
 my curators somehow heard of our nightly 
 meetings, and deemed it their duty to interpose 
 for my Balvation, as it was calk-d in the strong 
 language of the time. There was, however, 
 but little reason, had they correctly estimated 
 my character, to apprehend that my principles 
 would suffer any taint ; for I had been always, 
 from constitutional bias, though in manners soft 
 and pliant, one who indulged his own imagina- 
 tion, and was not greatly susceptible of im- 
 pressions from others. 
 
 When I look back at our nightly meetings 
 through the haze of many years, diminished in 
 their importance by the later knowledge of 
 greater things, I can scarcely imagine by 
 what enchantment they should have ever ap- 
 peared otherwise than ludicrous ; and yet they 
 were managed with a degree of decorum that 
 -< tined to want but the illumination of a brass 
 chandelier, and a wig on the president, to have 
 been as dignified as those of the noblest senate 
 
 ■ 
 
 on the whole earth.
 
 THE CLUB. 53 
 
 The fire was lighted up anew. Two cross 
 sticks, suspended by a string from a rafter, 
 presented four lights ; Eric Pullicate, the 
 chairman, with his hat on, sat at a lame table, 
 one foot of which was supported by a brick ; 
 on this table stood a halfpenny glass inkstand, 
 and a boy's copy-book for the minutes of the 
 proceedings, with several pens and sheets of 
 paper, lay before him, and a candle in a bottle 
 served to reveal the holes under his arms, and 
 other emblems or realities of democracy at his 
 elbows. Still, though at the recollection of 
 these circumstances a smile will rise, I cannot 
 disguise that I have tasted there the pith and 
 marrow of sweet eloquence, and listened to oc- 
 casional exclamations of natural energy that 
 will ever ring in my remembrance. 
 
 One evening, as we were thus assembled in 
 conclave, a smart rapping on one of the win- 
 dows disturbed the session. It happened that 
 I was nearest the door, and in consequence 
 went to open it. No sooner had I done so, 
 than a rude hand roughly drew me out, while 
 the authoritative voice of Mr. Macindoe com- 
 manded me to leave that den of sedition, and
 
 $4 BOGLK CORBET. 
 
 crane with him. A slight rustle within fol- 
 lowed this boisterous order, but no attempt :it 
 
 hindrance was made, and I submissively did as 
 I was desired. Mr. Madndoe, as he walked in 
 the moonlight before me, appeared expanded 
 to a magisterial magnitude, and flourished his 
 
 whip like one in indignation. 
 
 He passed on with stately strides to the 
 Black-bull Inn, looking every now and then 
 behind to see that I was coming, giving as 
 often an emphatic swing with his whip-arm, but 
 never condescending to speak. On our arrival, 
 he walked straight up-stairs, desiring me to 
 follow ; and, without questioning the Highland 
 waiter, who was then standing on the landing- 
 place, proceeded to a parlour at the west end 
 of a long passage. On entering it, there was 
 J)r. Leach, seated with another gentleman, 
 whom I soon learned was Mr. Thrums, who 
 had, during the American war, been a member 
 of the Town Council, and cherished some ex- 
 pectation of being soon so again. 
 
 " I catched them in the fact !" were the first 
 words that Mr. Macindoc uttered; "a fine 
 story ; such a set of state coblcrs ! but I did not
 
 THE CLUB. 55 
 
 stop to ask any question, for this great Mira- 
 beau of the convention came himself to the 
 door, and I snatched him forth, a brand pluck- 
 ed from the burning : my word ! but yon is a 
 gunpowder-plot. 1 ' 
 
 " Hey, hey !" said Mr. Thrums, " then it 
 is a 1 true, and we 're on the eve of a 1 French 
 work." 
 
 " True ! I never thought that things had 
 come to such a pitch ; they had all on bloody 
 caps of liberty." 
 
 This happened to be the fact, but only in 
 one instance ; for an elderly man, who was 
 a visitor, being troubled with the rheumatism 
 in his head, had brought his red kilmar- 
 nock in his pocket, and actually had it on, but 
 the intelligence was astounding. Dr. Leach de- 
 clared it was monstrous ! adding — 
 
 " Things were bad enough in the American 
 war, but the Yankees never were so bad as to 
 wear red night-caps ; though on the night when 
 the King's statue was destroyed at New York" — 
 
 " Don't talk of Yankee-doodle doings. They 
 never had a Bastille to take" — and turning to 
 me, he added, shaking his head, " No more of
 
 56 BOGLB GORBBT. 
 
 yon, — no, no, neither Dr. Leach nor 1 
 would be answerable for the consequence. The 
 morn's morning you shall go to the warehouse 
 of Mr. Thrums and eschew the evil one. 1 
 could see him as I looked in at the window, 
 sitting yonder like Lord Braxfield in the Court 
 ol* Session, — ' A tousy tyke, black grim and 
 large,' as Robin Burns has said of auld Nick." 
 
 " I thought,"" said I meekly, " that it was 
 meant to send me to the warehouse of Mr. 
 Treadles ?" 
 
 " What you thought, and what your mother 
 thought when you were born, are two different 
 things, young man ;" replied Mr. Macindoe. 
 " But that freewill doctrine conies of your 
 concoctions yonder. 1 ' 
 
 " I must say," interposed Dr. Leach, " that 
 I also did think we had spoken of Mr. Trea- 
 dles — no offence, Mr. Thrums — men of more 
 credit than you and—" 
 
 " I should be sorry if put to the necessity 
 of differing in opinion with you," replied 
 Mr. Macindoe ; " but this is a case of speed. 
 Mr. Treadles is full-handed at present; trade 
 has been slackening, and, no other of my
 
 THE CLUB. 51 
 
 friends Avill have an opening in his warehouse 
 before Midsummer ; that comes of the lower 
 orders growing political. I 'm sure both of us 
 are much obliged to Mr. Thrums here for his 
 readiness to oblige us. I would not wish my 
 worst enemy a heavier judgment than the cares 
 of a doer, especially a democratic genius like 
 this scoundrel here. How durst you, Sir, to 
 meddle with liberty and equality without the 
 leave of me and Dr. Leach ? — However, this 
 is dry work, gentlemen — we "re no' without the 
 need of a solacium ; touch the bell and order 
 the where-with-all ; — well, well, but yon was a 
 jobicine club ; I saw a blackaviced one, with an 
 eagle's neb, and a wide mouth, was he your 
 Robin Spiers ? — Such parley voo doings were 
 never seen in Glasgow." 
 
 Thus my transit from the workshop to the 
 warehouse was as sudden as from the school- 
 desk to the loom ; for Mr. Macindoe was one 
 of those men who pride themselves on the rapi- 
 dity and decision of their actions. He affected 
 in every movement as my guardian to consult 
 his colleague, and I am inclined to think that 
 he really believed he did so, but the result 
 
 D 5
 
 58 BOOLE COKBET. 
 
 uas uniformly according as he had himself alone 
 predetermined. And thus it happened) even 
 when he had calmed from the agitation occa- 
 sioned bv the haste with which he acted in his 
 duties, that the Doctor's endeavours to slip in a 
 
 word of tendency to expostulation, as he did on 
 
 that evening, were always without efiect The 
 business was then settled, and happily too, and 
 so completely in accordance with what the 
 Doctor had advised on the subject, that he was 
 never able to offer an opinion at all. He would 
 in fact have been quite safe in conceiving him- 
 self to have really directed the whole course of 
 my wardship, though he never once suggested 
 or could take a part in any proceeding; all was 
 the work and plan of his coadjutor, and vet I 
 remain to this hour verily of opinion that Mr. 
 Macindoe persuaded himself, in whatever he 
 did, that he was swayed by the advice of Doctor 
 Leach.
 
 THE WAREHOUSE. 59 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE WAREHOUSE. 
 
 I HAD not been long placed in the ware- 
 house when I perceived that the agitations of 
 the world were increasing : perhaps being then 
 more in the public than when at the loom I 
 only saw more of them. We often deceive 
 ourselves, by imagining an augmentation of 
 affairs, when we but sink deeper among the 
 narrower and more rapid circles of the vortex. 
 Of one fact, however, I certainly soon became 
 sensible, a fast-widening breach between the 
 higher and the lower classes. This produced 
 a vague apprehension that the latter would in 
 the end prevail ; and as I had, during my 
 attendance in the warehouse, rather too much 
 solitary leisure, it filled me with many odd and
 
 (><) BOOLE CORBBT. 
 
 strange speculations respecting society and the 
 destinies of mankind. It would have been 
 wiser had my reflections been directed to the 
 craft and mysteries <>f trade j hut I have never 
 
 vet been wise. 
 
 I could sell cotton cloths and muslins 
 adroitly at the juices fixed upon them j no 
 clerk could make neater bills; but it never hap- 
 pened in all the time I was with Mr. Thrums, 
 that I was required to purchase a single arti- 
 cle — and it is in buying that the whole craft of 
 trade consists — yet my steadiness assiduity, 
 and neat penmanship begat for me a reputa- 
 tion of some distinction, as a promising young 
 man of business. I was thought to enjoy the 
 light of the full orb of fortune, while only the 
 half of its disk was revealed. It is necessary 
 to request a special remembrance of this, for 
 without doubt my one-eyed knowledge had 
 an important influence on my subsequent 
 career. 
 
 I had not, however, been long in the ware- 
 house, when the different interests which I had 
 observed arising in the world, received a sud- 
 den shock. The French had rushed to such
 
 THE WAREHOUSE. 61 
 
 extremities in their haste to mend the state of 
 things, that it was deemed necessary, for the 
 security of the old institutions of the neigh- 
 bouring nations, to make war. Commerce, in 
 consequence, was suddenly driven back — much 
 mercantile distress ensued — the orators and 
 philosophers of the workshop were thrown into 
 idleness — their meetings were disturbed and 
 broken up — many looms stood still, and the 
 weavers in hundreds enlisted. Mr. Thrums 
 was among the sufferers, and was in the 
 course of the year obliged to declare himself 
 a bankrupt. 
 
 In that crisis, Mr. Macindoe again inter- 
 posed. Naturally shrewd in matters of busi- 
 ness, and wary to a degree, almost seemingly 
 inconsistent with the garrulity which formed 
 the most remarkable of his peculiarities, he 
 pointed out to me the dislocation of the times, 
 and advised me to see a little of the world, 
 before thinking of forming any new connexion. 
 I did so ; I went to the neighbouring mart of 
 muslins, Paisley, and prolonged my journey to 
 Greenock, savory with shipping, herrings, and 
 tar. Edinburgh was my next excursion, and I
 
 62 BOO LI CORBET. 
 
 returned home by the way of Fife, passing 
 through Dundee, Perth, and sterling. 
 
 When I had thus improved my understand- 
 ing, and acquired, as Mr. Madndoe said, a 
 correet knowledge of the world — some idea of 
 the value of which may be conjectured by the 
 two Beveral journeys having occupied thirteen 
 days, — I felt myself in the enjoyment of great 
 advantages. Few then of the young men of 
 Glasgow had in so short a space of time seen 
 so many strange places : travelling for informa- 
 tion was indeed, at that period, not much 
 accounted among them ; I was therefore fully 
 justified in holding my travelled head conside- 
 rably above those of my neighbour.-. Dr. 
 Leach, whom I first visited — for at the time 
 Mr. Macindoe was with his wife at Gourock, 
 dabbling in the salt water — did not, I freely 
 acknowledge-, very highly appreciate my at- 
 tainments during the tour; and there was per- 
 haps some degree of justice in the coolness 
 with which he seemed to listen to the marvels 
 I had witnessed : but this was to be pardoned 
 in a man who had been at New York, and 
 seen so much of the world among soldiers in
 
 THE WAREHOUSE. 63 
 
 a transport. When Mr. Macindoe returned 
 home the case was far different. He received 
 me as one considerably augmented in impor- 
 tance; treated me with the respectfulness due 
 to a man and a traveller : he even condescended 
 to joke with me as an equal, and made me 
 sensible that the epoch of my boyhood was 
 passed. 
 
 To him I was most minute in my descrip- 
 tions, which he enjoyed as a feast of fat things. 
 I had kept a journal, I lent it to him, and he 
 declared, when he returned it, that he did not 
 think there was such another entertaining book 
 out of print — it might be so. He was, how- 
 ever, much delighted, above all, with one word. 
 In speaking of undulatorated Edinburgh*, I 
 described it as a city, in which the inhabitants 
 were distinguished over those of many capitals 
 by the variety of their genuflections. These 
 he chose to make a bad pun upon, and when- 
 ever he became a little tosy after dinner and 
 over the punch-bowl, he used to tell his cronies 
 when I happened to be there, how much I 
 had been jocose with the Edinburgh Jenny 
 Flections.
 
 64 BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 The autumn after my Bummer tour was un- 
 doubtedly the first sabbath of my life. School 
 I always hare thoughl was one of the most 
 drudging of workshops ; and a> for Sunday 
 with Mrs. Busby, who was a sincerely pious 
 lady, and had a Bister married to a minister 
 of the Gospel, it was remarkable as the hea- 
 viest day of labour in the whole week — what 
 with getting the Catechism and the Mother's 
 Courages by heart, Psalms of David, and read- 
 ing chapters ; sometimes the Pilgrim's Pro- 
 gress, and Visions of Heaven and Hell, but, 
 above all, Woderow's Church History, box's 
 Book of Martyrs, and such other legends of 
 Scottish Presbytery — Jesu Maria ! it was to me 
 truly a serious and a solemn day ! 
 
 But as I was saying, that idle autumn 
 was the first time of rest I had ever en- 
 joyed, and I made the most of it. I doubt, 
 however, if the reader will greatly approve 
 of my manner of doing so, especially if he 
 be a sober, pains-taking man, and prudently 
 considers that his chief end is to make money 
 and to feast neighbours a little more topping 
 than himself.
 
 THE WAREHOUSE. 65 
 
 Mr. Macindoe had, after my return, held 
 with me, in the presence of Dr. Leach, a very 
 satisfactory deliberation on my affairs, in which 
 of course he carried every thing his own way. 
 At that deliberation it was determined I should 
 have the interval at my own disposal till the 
 spring, by which time the ravelled skein of 
 trade and manufactures, it was expected, would 
 be disentangled and cast into clues again, when 
 he would look out for a sedate young man 
 of business, with a little money, to begin the 
 world with me as a manufacturer ; for in the 
 ensuing January I was to become of age, after 
 which, as he very sagaciously observed, I would 
 be of a legal capacity to do for myself. Well 
 do I remember his speech on the occasion when 
 at last it did come to pass. 
 
 He was naturally a jolly-hearted man, free 
 of the best he had in cupboard and larder, and 
 fond of holding high days and festivals, when 
 he could stir his biggest bowl and tell his queer- 
 est stories. Accordingly, on the anniversary of 
 my birth-day, there was a gathering at his house 
 to dinner of all my kith and kin within what he 
 called the bounds of invitation. The fatted
 
 GG BOOLE OORBBT. 
 
 calf was killed. It was indeed a plum-pudding 
 day, and he acknowledged to Dr. Leach before 
 
 dinner that he had himself* taken a salutary j)ill 
 that morning to coax his digestive organs and 
 
 to palliate the interloeutors of his inside. 
 
 Having filled all the glasses after dinner, he 
 rapped the brim of the bowl with the punch- 
 ladle, and silence being obtained, addrec I 
 himself to me. 
 
 " Mr. Bogle Corbet," said he, " the day is 
 at last come that we have long looked forward 
 to with the anxiety of parents for the welfare 
 of a son — Have we not, Dr. Leach ? — and our 
 
 : I cannot recollect the law term here, 
 
 but he is in every particular there where he 
 sits a purpose-like young man, able to do for 
 himself, to marry a wife, beget sons and daugh- 
 ters, to make a will and testament when he 
 chooses, and to do all the other et ceteras that 
 belong to the ordinances of the realm, as it was 
 called in the time of the olden kings, the king- 
 rik of Scotland. For this, gentlemen and ladies, 
 I have drawn you together, to drink, as it were, 
 the dirgie of the young man's minority, in a
 
 THE WAREHOUSE. 67 
 
 bumper of no bad stuff, made of the best auld 
 Jamaica, flavoured with pine-apple Antigua, 
 and an infusion of the grace of a lemon, for 
 I could get no limes. — But to speak more to 
 the purpose : this day our ward, Mr. Bogle 
 Corbet, has come of age — Is he not, Dr. 
 Leach ? — therefore let us be merry ; it is my 
 lady's holy day, and so forth, — and ye see both 
 Dr. Leach and myself, — for I must bring in 
 that, unworthy as I am, it being a conjunct 
 trust jointly and severally with heirs assigns, &c. 
 — We have done our best for the young man's 
 behoof — for your advantage, Bogle Corbet — 
 and, though I say it myself that have no right 
 to say any such ostentatious thing in the pre- 
 sence of the Doctor there, where will ye hear of 
 a better behaved young man ? He 's a credit 
 to you, Doctor, and for that we'll by-and-by 
 have a bumper ; but, in the mean time, I '11 no' 
 say in the lad's face what I might, but I hope 
 he is not ordained to be a flower to blush un- 
 seen — nay, nay, hold up your head, Bogle 
 Corbet, ye have no cause to think shame, 
 and I '11 put my thumb on the Jenny Flections
 
 68 BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 of the dosses about the Luchenbooths of auld 
 reeky. However, from this day ye are your 
 own master, and it's mv duty to give, in our 
 old Scotch custom, by way of a propine, 'Suc- 
 cess and understanding in life and trade to Mr. 
 Bogle Corbet P"
 
 THE INTERIM. 69 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE INTERIM. 
 
 But I have been digressing a little too far 
 and fast, for I ought, before giving such a full, 
 true, and particular account of the obsequies of 
 my minority — to have told the benign reader 
 of the manner in which I spent the interval 
 between my summer tour, for the benefit of 
 my hopes in trade, and that event. It was a 
 most felicitous period ; the season was propi- 
 tious ; more sunny days than usual blessed 
 the holms and fields, and if the blight that had 
 fallen on the industry of the city, in some mea- 
 sure thinned the canopy of smoke that overhung 
 its spires and chimney-tops, the spirit of those 
 who could afford to have nothing to do revelled 
 lighter ; and that of those who could find no
 
 70 BOO LB CORBBT. 
 
 work, undoubtedly breathed a freer air, which, 
 under a great variety of circumstances, is the 
 best sort of medicine. 
 
 I generally rose betimes, and having bun 
 bred amidst rural scenery, and inheriting from 
 Nature a taste for her fields and flowers, and 
 other imagery of country freedom and calm, I 
 solaced myself with a walk, sometimes on the 
 Green, but oftener on the banks of the Molin- 
 dinar and the environs of the cathedral, where. 
 in the dewy stillness of the morning, and the 
 ancient aspect of the building, I always found an 
 innocent inexplicable delight. After breakfast 
 I visited, sometimes the muslin warehou>es of 
 my acquaintances, examined new patterns, and 
 was sedulous about prices. ( Occasionally, how- 
 ( ver, 1 forgot business, talked of field* of bat- 
 tle, the last news from France, and other topics, 
 which, compared with the sacred themes of the 
 manufacturing line, may well deserve the epithet 
 of secular. 
 
 In the course of the forenoon, I invariably. 
 by some strange instinct or reminiscence at- 
 tracted, went to Mr. Aird's workshop, and a> 
 Eric Pullicate still languished there, I as re-
 
 THE INTERIM. 71 
 
 gularly had some conversation with him. His 
 democratic propensities were none abated, on 
 the contrary, it may be justly said, that the tem- 
 porary interruption which had made so many 
 flying shuttles halt in the web, had exasperated 
 his enmity against those who considered the 
 comforts of the world their birthright, and la- 
 bour as his. In these conversations, I was much 
 interested by the wild and bold fancies which 
 they never failed, on reflection, to afterwards 
 suggest ; but, now and then, our talk was of 
 looms, for, notwithstanding his mangled philo- 
 sophy, he was a shrewd man, and endowed with 
 a zealous and penetrating spirit which he ma- 
 naged with uncommon equanimity. 
 
 From the workshop I went to the Tontine 
 coffee-room, where I read the newspapers till 
 the hour when the Sample-room was opened, to 
 which I regularly adjourned, and heard the 
 West India merchants, then the gorgeous and 
 grand of the town, talking of sugars, the Lon- 
 don market, and the merits of coffee-beans. 
 When the time of sale was over, I frequently 
 strolled by myself to the Green, where I might 
 have been often discovered in a ruminating
 
 72 ROGLE CORBJ I 
 
 mood, and with brows as firmly knotted as if 
 I had many rich argosies in peril on the ocean. 
 The regularity of t lii> life, my daily -visits to 
 warehouses and workshops, together with tin- 
 constancy of my attendance in the focus of bu- 
 siness and the unbroken uniformity of my soli- 
 tary walks, with the reputation I had acquired 
 by m\ neatness and punctuality during the no- 
 viciate with Mr. Thrums, established forme a 
 character, that I would some day make a figure 
 among the mcrehants. There were, however, 
 a few meddling and intrusive persons, who, in 
 mere contradiction to this opinion, mentioned 
 that I had something about me that they 
 thought was not just the right thing for a mer- 
 chant, and though I seemed to be a most dis- 
 creet lad, an example to the^oung men of the 
 age, I did not just think as 1 ought to do, which 
 made them doubt if I would ever properly 
 adorn the plain stones; in short, they did me at 
 once honour and disparagement, in saying that 
 I was better fitted for the College than the Ex 
 change. 
 
 The opinion of these invidious observers did 
 not much affect me, indeed I had some suspi-
 
 THE INTERIM. 73 
 
 cion myself that their notions were not errone- 
 ous, for I must honestly declare, that although 
 I was ever at the proper time in the thorough- 
 fare of trade, and daily at the places where 
 the knowledge of business could be best ac- 
 quired, I made no proficiency. When I heard 
 the merchants talk of their West Indian arti- 
 cles, I used to speculate, not in them, but on 
 what, in time, would become of the islands 
 when the Negroes got understanding ; and when 
 I heard the proud things in the coffee-room 
 which the king's men talked in their newspaper 
 politics, about heroes and glory, I could never 
 help thinking that soldiering was only a trade, 
 and that the man who was paid for carrying a 
 musket, was but little different from the pale 
 weaver that earned his living by driving a shut- 
 tle. Whether this feeling arose from any taint 
 imbibed from the doctrines of Eric Pullicate, 
 or was the effect of some moral secretion of my 
 own mind, I have never been studious to ascer- 
 tain ; but reflections of that kind were neither 
 favourable to the making of money, nor to the 
 attainment of eminence in Glasgow ; yet still my 
 character was estimable in the mouths of many, 
 VOL. i. e
 
 74 BOOLE OOR&ET. 
 
 and tht' wariness, as it was considered, of my 
 
 not entering too hastily in those times into bu- 
 siness, redounded greatly to my respectability. 
 
 In the mean time Mr. Maeindoe was not 
 negligent of his charge, nor of my interests, but 
 he found more difficulty in discovering a partner 
 suitable for me than he had at first supposed. 
 Young men, of quiet business habits, with a 
 little money, the most important qualification 
 of all, were not so plentiful as blackberrit ■>. 
 On the contrary, they were very scarce ; for 
 although there was undoubtedly a relaxation 
 in the ancient habits of the country, and Lairds 
 began here and there to stoop from their dig- 
 nity to pick up commercial money, still the 
 practice had not yet become common. Their 
 eldest sons were still the inheritors of their 
 estates, and the younger espoused their own 
 fortunes as adventurers, either by becoming 
 lawyers in Edinburgh, who need but little ca- 
 pital beyond their brains, and even of them 
 they generally somehow contrive to do with a 
 small amount ; or by going into the army as 
 subalterns, or as cadets to India. At last he
 
 THE INTERIM. 75 
 
 alighted on what he deemed a prize, — the cock 
 when he found the diamond on the dung-hill 
 was not so elated. This was in a Mr. Possy, 
 the only relation of an old officer, who had be- 
 queathed to him his gathering, a pinching and 
 paring of some six or seven thousand pounds. 
 
 The old gentleman had died when his heir 
 was young, and the boy had been brought up 
 as a godsend by a country clergyman, who en- 
 deavoured to save all he was allowed for keep- 
 ing him, and to live on his stipend, which was 
 one of the smallest in the whole Synod of Glas- 
 gow and Air. 
 
 Possy was but slenderly furnished with men- 
 tal talent ; he was soft, gawky, and credulous, 
 and his education, by the tuition he received, 
 evolved all these qualities to their utmost. 
 But he had the money, — even something more 
 than I possessed, and Mr. Macindoe discerned 
 that he would do well enough for a partner. 
 
 " He is not bright, 1 '' said he ; " and he has 
 not been brought up at the foot of Gamaliel ; 
 for yon minister 's but a stot, like many more 
 of the black cattle ; but ye must look out for a 
 
 E 2
 
 7fi BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 clever, sober, well-doing, and well-spoken fore- 
 man, and with bifl help, you and Mr. P088) 
 
 need not seek to call the King your cousin." 
 
 As he said these words, my whole frame gave 
 a tingle, and I thought of Eric Pullicate. The 
 situation was one which he of all men, I had 
 then known, was the best qualified to fill well; 
 and though there might have been some objec- 
 tion to him, on account of what were called his 
 jacobine principles, still he was in conduct and 
 intelligence an honest man. 
 
 I spoke of him, and mentioned what I had 
 seen of his sagacity and address ; Mr. Macindoe 
 clapped his hands, and taking up his hat and 
 stick which he had placed in a corner of the 
 room, bade me follow him, and instantly post- 
 ed off to Mr. Ami's workshop, flourishing his 
 stick as he went along with rapid strides, evi- 
 dently animated with some important project.
 
 THE CO-PARTNERY. 77 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CO-PARTNERY. 
 
 The first sentence Mr. Macindoe addressed 
 to Eric Pullicate, showed that in the course of 
 his vehement journey to the workshop, he had 
 convinced himself that Eric was the most eligi- 
 ble person who could be chosen. People are not 
 sensible how often this sort of election prevails, 
 even when they persuade themselves that they 
 are marvellously circumspect. It is true, that 
 Pullicate was a man of far superior natural en- 
 dowment to my curator, and that after all the dis- 
 cernment the latter could exercise, there must 
 still have remained much of his character which 
 Mr. Macindoe was unable topenetrate, while 
 he considered himself, by the difference of con- 
 dition, so much above him ; at least I am in-
 
 78 BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 dined to adopt this opinion, in consequence of 
 the result subsequent to our connexion. But 
 to let the matter speak for itself, Mr. Macindoe 
 applauded the choice I had suggested, and by 
 his clever handling a partnership was soon in 
 due form arranged between Mr. Possy and me, 
 to which Eric Pullicate was engaged at a liberal 
 salary to be foreman and factotum. 
 
 Though much could not be said for the bril- 
 liancy of Mr. Possy's parts, yet my reputation 
 for talent in business was generally applauded, 
 especially when it came to be known that we 
 had made so judicious a choice for an assistant 
 as Eric Pullicate, for he had not been long in 
 our warehouse till his ability made itself con- 
 spicuous; his intelligence, assiduity, and above 
 all a sedate tenour of respectful manners, 
 served to ingratiate him not only with our cus- 
 tomers, but with the friends of the partners. 
 
 At the period when our co-partnery was form- 
 ed, the shock which the commerce of the country 
 had suffered by the declaration of war had, in a 
 great measure, subsided, so that it may be said we 
 commenced auspiciously. Our capital enabled 
 us to go with ready money into the market,
 
 THE CO-PARTNERY. 79 
 
 and as the purchases were to be made by me, 
 who was really ignorant of that branch of trade, 
 my unskilfulness was not much observed. Our 
 opening was therefore in all respects prosperous, 
 and Mr. Possy, considering himself as settled 
 in the world, resolved to take a wife, to which 
 I certainly had no objections, for it was chiefly 
 on account of his money that he was made my 
 partner, and as he had neither head nor hands 
 for business, I thought but little of what he 
 did for his amusement. 
 
 Soon after his marriage, however, as I was 
 indulging myself in one of those reflective per- 
 ambulations which have already been described, 
 I fell into a reverie, or rather a mood of remi- 
 niscence, during which I recalled to mind se- 
 veral items in the conduct of Eric Pullicate 
 that collectively at the moment were not satis- 
 factory, although separately considered they 
 were each of a trivial character, so much indeed 
 so that it would be difficult to specify one of 
 them deserving alone of the slightest conside- 
 ration. How they had become classed together 
 unconsciously in my memory, a better meta- 
 physician than I can pretend to be might per-
 
 HO BOOLE CORHRT. 
 
 haps, after due study, be able to explain. I 
 only know the fact that they were so, and that 
 the occasion on which they occurred to me, 
 may, without exaggeration, be regarded a- B 
 new sera in my life. 
 
 I remember the time well ; it was a calm 
 afternoon in September, and the place was the 
 hanks of the Clyde, below the Kioomilaw, and 
 a cargo of cotton was landing from a gaubart 
 on the quay as I passed. The incident was no 
 otherwise remarkable than that I have no doubt 
 it was shrewdly supposed by the wiseacres who 
 watched my plodding steps, that the visit to 
 that part of the river was to take a sly peep at 
 the quality of the cotton. Heaven knows that 
 cottons of all kinds, and all that make ware- 
 houses rich, and shops as well as ladies gay, 
 had noplace in my ruminations; I was think- 
 ing only of improbabilities as I passed along, 
 glancing backward, as I have said, with my 
 mind's eye, and neither cogitating wisely nor 
 deeply, when suddenly, like a ray of creative 
 light, it Hashed on my understanding that Eric 
 Pullicate, without being in any obvious degree 
 remiss in his duties to me, was beginning
 
 THE CO-PARTNERY. 81 
 
 to pay more than usual deference to Mr. 
 Possy. 
 
 It would be extremely difficult to describe 
 the feelings with which this suggestion at the 
 moment affected me — I had no precise cause — 
 few thoughts could be more justly described as 
 the progeny of fancy, but with it came a sus- 
 picion that Eric was secretly playing a game 
 for his own advancement. I do not know if he 
 was under any awe of me, but if he were, he 
 had dexterity enough to conceal his cards. 
 However, not to reason either too finely or phi- 
 losophically, I could not from that moment 
 hide from myself that he apprehended he could 
 not make an instrument of me for his purposes, 
 and in consequence was directing his ingenuity 
 to gain the ascendancy over my partner, whom, 
 I may venture to say without boasting, was a 
 more ductile subject. My attention being thus 
 awakened, I watched the progress of the plot, 
 more from curiosity to see how it would end, 
 than with the solicitude due to my own interest. 
 
 When he had fairly entangled his bird in the 
 snare an accident finished the work. 
 
 One day I had occasion to leave the ware- 
 
 E 5
 
 BOG LB CORBBT. 
 
 house while he was in attendance, but some 
 cause or anotber, wbich I have now forgotten, 
 obliged me unexpectedly to return, and I found 
 the door open ; a momentary business having 
 called him to the flat above. By this occur- 
 rence, wholly unsought, I entered unknown 
 to him. 
 
 The place we bad for writing was inclosed 
 by a railing and screen off one end of one of 
 the rooms where our goods principally lay, so 
 that strangers coming on business could not see 
 the person at the desk. I went straight into 
 this place, and immediately began to employ 
 myself, as my wonted custom was when not 
 busy, by drawing houses and landscapes with 
 mv pen on the blotting paper. While thus em- 
 ployed Eric came in, followed by Mrs. Possy, 
 who had called in expectation of finding her 
 husband. By the nature of her question per- 
 ceiving she was not likely to remain long, and 
 having a fine vision in my imagination, I did 
 not disclose myself, but remained quiet. 
 
 Just as she was on the point of leaving the 
 room, she happened to cast her eyes on a piece 
 of tamboured muslin of a tasteful pattern, and
 
 THE CO-PARTNERY. 83 
 
 which had only that morning been sent home. 
 For the same reason that Eve was attracted to 
 the rose bush in Paradise, Mrs. Possy went to 
 the muslin, and, after a few interjections about 
 its beauty, she remarked to Pullicate, that she 
 thought, for all the business she saw us doing, 
 Mr. Possy might manage it very well himself 
 without me, and that he had money enough, 
 she was sure, to do so. Eric, with considerable 
 delicacy, fostered this notion ; and as listeners, 
 according to the proverb, seldom hear much 
 good of themselves, I heard, before the lady 
 took her leave, that it was a pity the con- 
 tract of co-partnership was for seven years, 
 for undoubtedly Mr. Possy would lose during 
 that time the half of the profit he might himself 
 make but for me. Friend Eric was decidedly 
 of the same opinion. 
 
 My ears tingled while this conversation last- 
 ed ; but fortunately Pullicate went out at the 
 same time with the notable young madam, and 
 locked the door. This afforded me an oppor- 
 tunity to escape unnoticed by my own key, but 
 such was my perturbation at the moment, that 
 although it was the wonted hour at which I
 
 :; t BOGLE COR HI I . 
 
 daily went to read the newspaper, I turned 
 my steps towards the Green. It is not easy 
 
 to say what else I ought to have done, but 
 it so happened that in going down the Salt- 
 market, I met three successive hands of my 
 acquaintance, who observed my troubled coun- 
 tenance, and whom I had reason afterwards to 
 know, thought they could perceive in it symp- 
 toms of the most judicious resolution to rup- 
 ture my connexion with Mr. Possy, who was 
 commonly known among them by the nickname 
 of " dressing," his brains being esteemed by 
 them as equally intellectual with the substance 
 employed in preparing the warp for the shuttle.
 
 EXTENDED PROSPECTS. 85 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EXTENDED PROSPECTS. 
 
 The suspicion so miraculously engendered 
 of the drift and aim of Eric Pullicate's name- 
 less courtesies to Mr. Possy, with the auri- 
 cular confirmation received from his plausible 
 remarks to the lady, had, I may safely say, 
 a painful effect on me. I felt for the first time 
 that I stood in the way of the welfare of 
 others; and had I consulted my own feelino-s, 
 I would have instantly proposed a dissolution 
 of our co-partnery : but a man does not live 
 long in the world, till he discovers that there 
 is something more like chance in the fortunes 
 of men than is quite consistent with philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 On going to the Green, I encountered Mr.
 
 8G BOOLS CORBET. 
 
 Rapier, a friend of Macindoe, who was es- 
 teemed a person of DO ordinary capacity. He 
 had but one fault, in the eyefl of the merchants 
 who knew him — an early disappointment in 
 love, made him determine, without taking any 
 ill-will at the world, to lead a retired life, and 
 to remain free from trade, contented with his 
 paternal patrimony. This was his fault, and 
 for this they condemned him. Often had I 
 heard their animadversions on his alleged apa- 
 thy, and I was among the number who thought, 
 with respect to him, that it is of no use to 
 possess sharp tools, if we will not or cannot 
 use them. From his rescrvedncss, and the 
 prejudice which I had been led to entertain 
 against him, there had not been much inter- 
 course between us, but we were known to each 
 other ; he knew me from my childhood, and 
 from an early period I had always thought 
 him a morose man — still, wherever we met, he 
 appeared glad to see me — and occasionally, 
 when we dined together with Mr. Macindoe, 
 he seemed desirous of cultivating my regard 
 by the civility of his attentions. 
 
 Whether on that day he had noticed any
 
 EXTENDED PROSPECTS. 87 
 
 symptoms of mental infelicity about me, or 
 that the atmosphere, which was calm and 
 balmv, had softened him to a congenial tern- 
 perament, profounder sages may determine ; 
 but when he saw me enter the Green, he came 
 towards me, and with unusual cordiality, he 
 requested leave to join me in my walk. At 
 the moment I would have been pleased had 
 he asked almost any other thing, but I con- 
 sented, and we went up along the river's bank 
 together, chatting of indifferent subjects — the 
 state of trade, the prospects of the country, 
 and many other of those topics which are still 
 dear, and long may they continue so, to the 
 generous community of Glasgow. 
 
 This desultory talk led him to make some 
 observations on the rapidly-increasing manu- 
 factures of the kingdom, and to point out 
 to me the signs of inevitable progress arising 
 from the wars and rumours of wars on the Con- 
 tinent ; he added : — 
 
 " I am surprised you should not think of 
 extending your concerns. Here you wait for 
 customers, or merchants that deal in distant 
 markets ; why do not you think of trying
 
 88 BOOLE (ORHET. 
 
 London ? Mr. Possy, with that clever foreman 
 of yours, could very well manage here, and, 
 if I am not mistaken, from what I have heard 
 of yourself) the metropolis is your proper 
 sphere — the business is growing — it is the 
 only trade that will thrive in these troublesome 
 times, and you should reflect that you are 
 still an unincumbered young man." 
 
 This speech produced a deep impression on 
 me at the time. It banished the hasty in- 
 tention I had almost formed of dissolving my 
 co-partnery with Mr. Possy; it tended to miti- 
 gate my resentment towards Eric Pullicate, 
 and it opened to myself an avenue, which led 
 to a greater eminence than I had ever before 
 contemplated. I disclosed, however, to him 
 nothing of what agitated me, but simply re- 
 marked that his hint came most opportunely, 
 for I had myself thought that by dividing the 
 business with Mr. Possy, adding other mer- 
 cantile-looking ideas, that a bright chance was 
 started to us which we might advantageously 
 pursue. 
 
 This was the first time that the thought 
 of removing myself to London entered my
 
 EXTENDED PROSPECTS. 89 
 
 head ; I perceived all the benefits that might 
 accrue from it, and that it was easily prac- 
 ticable and honourable to all concerned to 
 make such a separation of our affairs. Ac- 
 cordingly, next day, after having reflected well 
 on it in the night, I spoke to Mr. Possy of 
 it as a scheme which had occurred to myself, 
 and asked his advice, though I knew very 
 well he had none to give, until he had con- 
 sulted his wife or Eric Pullicate. 
 
 In the course of the forenoon he had no 
 opportunity of conversing with his right hand, 
 for so may our foreman be justly called. He 
 was at the time busy making up goods for 
 America ; I still recollect very well, it was a 
 shipment for the house of Sham and Co. to 
 be sent by the Fanny Daniel, H. Braine, 
 Master ; the only trader then between Greenock 
 and New- York. But he went home to his 
 wife, and by what took place in the evening, 
 there can be no doubt that the project re- 
 ceived her most hearty approbation, for much 
 to my surprise, but which from the altered 
 frame of my mind, was not greatly impressive, 
 Pullicate was invited to take tea with them —
 
 90 BOOLE CORBET. 
 
 no doubt to talk over the affair. This I heard 
 next morning from Mr. Possy himself, with 
 many commendations to the honour of Eric's 
 sense and sagacity. But not to lose time, I 
 must cram spare with a multitude of small 
 matters; it \\;i> speedily arranged that I should 
 proceed to London to manage an establishment 
 
 there, and that the business in Glasgow should 
 be placed under the joint care of Mr. Possy 
 and now Mister Pullicate. 
 
 The only thing not perfectly agreeable in 
 this arrangement, was the reluctance of Pulli- 
 cate to accept a share in the business, but 
 he received a handsome addition to his salary 
 in so much that he was well satisfied, and 
 his friends accounted him a lucky fellow : Mr. 
 Possy was delighted with the whole scheme, 
 for he was a little averse to receive a servant 
 on the footing and equality of a partner, such 
 things among the Glasgow manufacturers of 
 those days not being common. And as Mrs. 
 Possy said to myself, " though Mrs. Pullicate 
 was a genteel and well-behaved young woman, 
 yet she was not just of a degree to be her coeval, 
 except in the way of a dish of tea."
 
 EXTENDED PROSPECTS. 91 
 
 I certainly agreed so far with Mrs. Possy ; 
 but I was not quite so sure, that the diffidence 
 which Eric had, or pretended to have of him- 
 self as a partner, was the offspring of true mo- 
 desty. It was evident that he saw through 
 and through Mr. Possy, and, that when I was 
 out of the way, he thought means might be 
 found for better feathering his own nest than 
 by being in partnership. But when I say this 
 let it be taken with reservation ; I do not im- 
 pute any thing derogatory to his integrity, 
 for he was without question an honest man, 
 although some think it is the very nature of 
 the democratical to consider the rich and great 
 as usurpers and the enjoyers of usurpations, 
 and to feel less compunction in plucking their 
 plumage, than if mankind were all on an 
 equality. But while I say this to his prejudice, 
 I would go no farther ; he was ambitious it is 
 true, and if he had a concealed reason for pre- 
 ferring a salary to a share, still in no trust was 
 he ever found wanting; and so long as he con- 
 tinued with Mr. Possy, he constantly main- 
 tained the rectitude and prudence of his early 
 character. I am, however, proceeding a little
 
 <)2 B06LB COBBBT. 
 
 too fa>t, and anticipating events long afterwards 
 accomplished, but which flowed naturally from 
 tin premises. When they did come to pass, 
 they were to me of great importance, but their 
 consequences wore foreseen, and in the occur- 
 rence they were regarded as things expected. 
 It is weak now to repine that I had not been 
 better prepared for them. 

 
 A DEPARTURE. 93 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A DEPARTURE. 
 
 Among other judicious habits and Scottish 
 maxims, which my early and excellent friend 
 Mrs. Busby took great pains to teach me, 
 were, to observe the utmost orderliness in my 
 apparel, and to keep my wardrobe at the lowest 
 possible minimum. By these means she as- 
 sured me I would be ever neat in my appearance, 
 and always in fashion at the least cost ; nor was 
 her opinion so much the result of theory as of 
 practice, for she had been throughout life ac- 
 customed to a genteel economy, and had in the 
 course of long administering a narrow jointure, 
 acquired all the respectable methods of fruga- 
 lity without meanness; a study of no easy ap- 
 plication, and which is generally huddled over
 
 94 uocilk coiiin.r. 
 
 in an alternate feast and famine way, by those 
 who have the misfortune to be pressed by 
 straitened circumstances. It thus came to pass 
 that the preparations for removing myself 
 to London were soon and easily accomplished, 
 for I had learned to appreciate the benefits of 
 her prudent instruction, and was at all times 
 ready, on a short notice, to undertake the longest 
 journeys ; not that travelling had been much in 
 my business, but her lessons remain with me 
 still; and I am in mentioning my departure for 
 the metropolis, speaking rather of what I have 
 always been, than of my conduct on that oc- 
 casion. 
 
 I am the more induced to record it, particu- 
 larly because among my acquaintances, not- 
 withstanding saving is so much of an old Scot- 
 ch custom, I have observed many weak devi- 
 ations from the rule. Among the industrious 
 classes the outfitting of a young adventurer for 
 the world is matter of vast importance. The 
 utmost stretch of endeavour is employed to 
 provide becoming clothes, and to pack the at- 
 tendant trunk with many articles, of which, 
 though the use may not be obvious, are sup-
 
 A DEPARTURE. 95 
 
 plied to meet unforeseen casualties. This in 
 their circumstances is perhaps wise, and doubt- 
 less the fruit of reported experience, but among 
 those who enjoy affluence, the practice of Mrs. 
 Busby is more applicable, especially when the 
 transit is to such an emporium as London. 
 
 About two or three months before the idea 
 of an establishment in the capital had been 
 suggested to me, I remember an acquaintance, 
 whom his relations had resolved to send to a 
 counting-house in Liverpool preparatory to his 
 being fixed in business. His absence from 
 Glasgow was limited to twelve months, and he 
 was going to a larger town. But his mother, one 
 of the most bustling and notable matrons within 
 the barony, and all its contiguous parishes, 
 thought she could not do enough, or get sufficient 
 for this extraordinary Exodus ; shirts of more 
 than common delicacy of texture, fit in number 
 for an East Indian voyage, were got ready, and 
 a daily forenoon visit to the seamstress, to see 
 how she proceeded, was indispensable ; neck- 
 cloths, coats, waistcoats, the nameless, and 
 stockings, with all those other manifold et ce- 
 teras of habiliment which could have been pur-
 
 96' BOOLE CORBET. 
 
 chased much cheaper aiul better in Liverpool, 
 were provided in huge quantities, together with 
 BUch ran- articles as bundles of tape, balls of 
 thread, and the do less unattainable appurte- 
 nances, papers of needles and pins. This 1 had 
 witnessed, and in consequence, was instructed: 
 bo that when the period was determined for my 
 departure, what with the knowledge and wiser 
 economy of Mrs. Busby, I went lightly to the 
 mail coach, with only a small leathern port- 
 mantua dangling at the finger of our ware- 
 house porter; nor was it altogether filled with 
 linen cravats and stockings, for in the one end 
 a plentiful packet of introductory letters was 
 stowed, to say nothing of those that were to 
 pave the way to the credit and consequence of 
 the concern to be formed. 
 
 Of my business Letters I shall say nothing, 
 farther than that they were like all of the 
 kind, concise and to the point effective. The 
 other* wire more miscellaneous ; some were 
 from the dominies of the college to learned 
 men; others from mercantile gentlemen to plea- 
 sant persons of whom they knew something; 
 and I was assured by an old lady who favoured
 
 A DEPARTURE. 97 
 
 me with one to her nephew, that I might be 
 proud of it. Few and far between we're those 
 she thought deserving of the honour. For he 
 was no ordinary personage, being a Deputy of 
 the Common Council. I had many others, big 
 ones too, from ladies of different degrees, who 
 advised me, if I could not deliver them myself, 
 to put them into the twopenny post-office, and* 
 no doubt their friends would find me out, as I 
 would naturally be found at the coffee-house. — 
 Oh, innocent daughters of Glasgow ! novice 
 as I even then was, I could not repress a smile 
 at such Trongate simplicity ! 
 
 But in that mail of recommendations, there 
 was a note from a respectable old woman who 
 lived in the garret above our warehouse, and 
 with whom I had made some acquaintance, by 
 speaking to her on the stairs, and paying her a 
 few slight civilities. She was of the venerable 
 maiden gender, and had a small income payable 
 half-yearly by drawing on London, and I was 
 of some occasional use in passing her bills. She 
 had been the daughter of a country minister, 
 and being educated with uncommon care, spent 
 her time chiefly in reading, for she was too old 
 
 VOL. I. f
 
 «)}{ BOGLE CORB1 I 
 
 stoop over the tambouring frame, and bei 
 little stipend was adequate to her moderate 
 
 wants. 1 have said she was respectable but I 
 speak more of her manners and conduct, than of 
 her condition in a mercantile community. Na- 
 turally mild and recluse, Bhe had but few viait- 
 ors : I am not Bure that I ever >au one, save 
 •on the Bacramental occasions, when now and 
 then an elderly country clergyman knocked with 
 hi-* knuckle at our warehouse door, inquiring 
 if Miss Leezy Eglesham was within. 
 
 There was an air of sober meekness in her 
 demeanour that I have never seen equalled, a 
 resignation to her lot which greatly interested 
 me, for it seemed less the effect of habit than 
 of resolution. Had she been a carl in a ca 
 she would have merited the praise of being a 
 pious hermit ; and yet there was no austerity 
 about her, but in all her way- a gentle con- 
 tentedness, that even while it pleased, engen- 
 dered compassion. From all I could learn be- 
 fore I left Glasgow, she had never suffered ad- 
 versity, but her pale cheek and calm pathetic 
 eves were unaccountably subduing. She look- 
 ed like one of those lowly spirits who are pre-
 
 A DEPARTURE. 99 
 
 destined to become the companions of thought- 
 fulness and sorrow. 
 
 Her note was addressed to Sir Neil Eccles, 
 Bart, on whom she drew for her income. She 
 said nothing even of the degree of relationship 
 in which I had supposed he stood to her, but 
 in giving me the letter, she requested with an 
 emphatic earnestness, that I would deliver it 
 myself, or send it to him under a cover, telling 
 him where I should be found. 
 
 " You must do that," said she, " for I think 
 he "11 maybe like to speak to you about me. 
 You may tell him what you have observed 
 of me, and that I have no wishes," — at these 
 words she sighed deeply, and her eye glistened 
 for a moment; and then she added, with a 
 smile, " They say he lives in a grand way, 
 and has many servants, but he 11 be greatly 
 altered, if for my sake he does not treat you 
 well. Be sure and tell him how I live, and 
 how I am wearing away." 
 
 This little scene took place on the morning 
 of my departure, and served to lend a pen- 
 sive grace to the event ; without it, I might 
 have bade adieu to my early friends, and 
 
 F 2
 
 ]()() BOGLE CORB1 l 
 
 the haunt- of my youth, without experiencing 
 the slightest sentiment of that sadness which, 
 u -ucli a time, should wait upon farewell. I 
 had tin' preceding afternoon gone out to see 
 Mrs. Busby for the Last time; Dr. Leach had 
 bade God Mesa me with much kindness; Mr. 
 Rhomboid, the schoolmaster, with parental af- 
 fection, exhorted me to resume the study of 
 tin- Btars in London, to which I had once been 
 SO addicted, as soon as I found leisure; — leisure! 
 it i- as far off as ever ; — and Mr. Macindoe, with 
 hi- wonted heartiness, joked, advised, and talk- 
 ed a thousand things, besides making a cobble 
 bowl of punch; for knowing his humour, I had 
 carried to him half a dozen lime-. Still all af- 
 fected me not like the patient Badness of the soli- 
 tary spinster, and as the coach drove along the 
 street, I felt that my thoughts were melancholy 
 concerning her. It was a melancholy, how- 
 ever, not accompanied with any pain, but a 
 remembrance like the fragrancy that scents the 
 vase when the gathered rose has been.
 
 A JOURNEY. 101 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A JOURNEY. 
 
 It would afford but small pleasure to the 
 reader were I to describe the journey by the 
 mail-coach to London, and yet it was not with- 
 out incidents which I still recollect with cheer- 
 fulness. The company consisted of three others 
 besides myself; two of them were seated, before 
 I reached the coach-office, on the back seat. 
 One, an elderly, corpulently-inclined drysalter, 
 Mr. Fustick, bent on some occasion of business 
 to Carlisle. When he saw me at the door he 
 made an apology for not resigning the back 
 seat, by saying that when he was driven with 
 his back to the horses he was always troubled 
 with sea-sickness. His neighbour was a Gree- 
 nock skipper, hastening to Liverpool to look
 
 1<)2 BOGLE OORBBT. 
 
 after a vessel which had been cast away on the 
 Calf of Man, the remains of which he was 
 authorized to sell, as he informed us, for tin- 
 benefit of the underwriters. The third had not 
 
 yel come, but I was scarcely seated when he 
 appeared at the door, attended by Mr. Spreul, 
 
 an old Tontine acquaintance of mine, with 
 half boots, the ears hanging out, and cotton 
 stockings of "heavenly blue, 1 '' a stall" under his 
 arm, and in his best snuff -colon red coat and 
 swandown waistcoat. He was attended by his 
 handmaid Girzie, with a portmanteau under her 
 arm, and a paper with comfits in her hand. 
 The passenger, however, was his English re- 
 lation, the afterwards justly renowned Mr. Cyril 
 Thornton, then a smartly well-dressed young 
 man, of a calm, engaging physiognomy, with a 
 sly, or, what is a better term, a pawky devil 
 lurking in the corner of his eye. After many 
 hearty shakings of the hand, and injunctions to 
 " be sure and write, 1 " Mr. Spreul bade him 
 adieu ; he took his seat, and Girzie, giving the 
 portmanteau to the guard, bent into the coach 
 and said, 
 
 •■ Mr Sell, ye hae forgotten something
 
 A JOURNEY. 103 
 
 ye ""11 be none the waur of — there 's twa three 
 peppermint draps to raise the wind under cloud 
 o 1 night." 
 
 I could discern by the smile with which he 
 good-naturedly accepted her little present, that 
 he was above the ordinary Trongate ; — not that, 
 there is any want of true feeling there, but it 
 is not always that the homages of lowly affec- 
 tion are so delicately received by those whose 
 business is so much in the retail line. 
 
 This little incident a good deal prepossessed 
 me in favour of my fellow-traveller, and soon 
 after the coach got underweigh the impression 
 was deepened by an observation he made as we 
 drove along the Gallowgate. It happened just 
 as we were passing up towards the barracks, a 
 sudden shower burst in at the near-side window, 
 and on the face of the worthy Mr. Fustick ; 
 it, perhaps, also smote the visage of Captain 
 Breezes, but he being Greenock, and habituated 
 to such things, winced nothing at the assault, 
 while his companion drew up the glass with 
 great vehemence. 
 
 " We 're in luck," said Mr. Thornton, whis- 
 pering to me : " our friends here have not
 
 10-t BOGLF, <(,|;i>l I 
 
 been much used to night travelling, <>r they 
 would not have taken the back seat. 11 
 
 This led on to farther conversation, and 
 the time passed as swiftly as if it were like 
 Cuchullin's car, borne on wheels as rapid as those 
 of the vehicle that carried us. Our opposite 
 neighbours had also their conversational amuse- 
 ment, but it did not exactly lit the- calibre 
 cither of Mr. Thornton or myself. An inquiry, 
 however, of the Drysalter\, certainly amused us 
 both, and was a fair specimen of the intelligence 
 which pervaded the minor Glasgow merchants 
 of that time. " Captain," said he, " it canna 1 
 be possible that logwood grow> with its roots 
 in the sea ?" 
 
 " ( >h no," replied his companion, none sur- 
 prised at the question, "it only grows on the 
 water's edge, and that 's the cause of its dyeing 
 yellow." 
 
 •• Nay, hooly hooly Captain,' 1 said Mr. 
 Fustick, "you sea-faring folk are no" just in 
 the way of knowing much. Logwood does not 
 do for yellow at all, but it *s one of the condi- 
 ments of black.' 1 
 
 Whether this was correct chymistry or not
 
 A JOURNEY. 105 
 
 I shall not undertake to say ; for any thing 
 that I knew to the contrary it might, but Mr. 
 Thornton gave me a nefarious wink at the 
 knowledge displayed by both. 
 
 Nothing more particular occurred to interest 
 my attention till we reached Carlisle, about the 
 dawn of day, when we were treated with the 
 coarseness, haste, and hurry so animating in an 
 English inn to stage-coach passengers. 
 
 At Carlisle we changed coaches ; the Dry- 
 salter left us, the Greenock Skipper proceeded 
 to Liverpool, and Mr. Thornton took his seat 
 onlv to Penrith, whence he intended to cross 
 the country ; but their places were supplied by 
 three others, one of whom, notwithstanding that 
 the weather was chill and raw, accommodated 
 himself, under the pretext of being obliging to 
 the other two passengers, by riding outside till 
 he could get Mr. Thornton's seat. He was a 
 young Edinburgh advocate going to London 
 for the first time, with a single brief in his bag, 
 on the celebrated appeal case concerning the 
 firkin of butter, which was pleaded with so 
 much ability before the Lords of Session, sound- 
 ing the depths of the whole Scottish bar — a 
 
 F 5
 
 100 BOOirB CORBIT. 
 
 tribunal before which plaintiffs go not in qui ft 
 of justice, but for the mere patriotic purpose 
 of settling points of law. 
 
 The two insides which Mr. Gledde, the advo- 
 cate, so amiably insinuated he so obliged, only 
 because he saw they were not used to travel- 
 linn-, \ V;l > an old Highland gentleman, the Laird 
 of Glengowl, and a Mrs. Peerie, who had a 
 sister in some great way about Nightingale- 
 lane, near Wapping, who was thought to have 
 made, as she said, " a bit gathering," and had 
 written to her, that being in a bad state of 
 health, she was thinking of leaving a morti- 
 fication of the best part of it to the parish 
 of St. George in the East — which, as Mrs. 
 Peerie most cogently observed, would be a 
 thing, " horridible in a Christian land, where 
 she had her own blood relations !" 
 
 What motive drew the Glengowl from his 
 misty hills and heaths was not rendered to us 
 at all; but Mr. Thornton wormed out of him, 
 that at the recent Falkirk cattle fair, in conse- 
 quence of the rising demands ef the war, black 
 cattle had sold well, and that the mountains, 
 which in ancient times rung with the warlike
 
 A JOURNEY. 107 
 
 notes of the pibroach, were, as the ci-devant 
 
 sans-culotte said — " AY quaiking with the goot 
 prices." 
 
 Our conversation, consisting of these inter- 
 esting topics, continued without any material 
 pause till we reached Penrith, where Mr. 
 Thornton took his leave, and I was rather 
 agreeably surprised at the cordiality with which 
 he shook me by the hand, and expressed his 
 hope that chance would afterwards make us 
 better acquainted. 
 
 I much regretted his departure, for his many 
 agreeable qualities, his easy politeness, and 
 gentlemanly frankness, together with his gene- 
 ral appearance and unstudied manners — for I 
 am one of those who think that virtue is not 
 deteriorated in combination with the blandish- 
 ments of a winning nature. It was not so, how- 
 ever, with the venerable chief of Glengowl, be- 
 tween whom and Mrs. Peerie, before the advo- 
 cate had taken his place, a zealous controversy 
 had arisen concerning him. The lady extolled 
 him as one of the most capturing young gen- 
 tlemen that ever she had set eyes on ; and the 
 Celt, with equal ardency, affirming that he was
 
 10H liO(JLE COKIII 1 
 
 nothing but an astronom, i>r something else no 
 
 intelligible. Tlic hones being harnessed, 
 their dispute was abruptly concluded ; and Mr. 
 Gledde, the Athenian, took his place alongside 
 of the chieftain, who evinced a kind of selvatic 
 joy at seeing him again ; for they had come 
 from Edinburgh to Carlisle in the same coach, 
 and during the journey Mr. (iledde had ex- 
 plained to him, in the most accomplished man- 
 ner, how a defunct is precognition to an heir, or 
 some other legal preliminary.
 
 MAIL TRAVELLING. 109 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MAIL TRAVELLING. 
 
 After leaving Penrith, the remainder of 
 the journey was performed much in the same 
 .state of discomfort as travelling in those distant 
 days was usually accomplished. The hedges 
 and trees flew past us as fast as the coach went 
 forward, and the Advocate's tongue was not 
 slower. The chief was more taciturn, speaking 
 in a voice hoarse and constipated ; and the 
 old lady, Mrs. Peerie, was only occasionally 
 loquacious. 
 
 From GlengowPs inquiries and Mr. Gledde's 
 interlocutors, I could gather that there was 
 some secret understanding between them, rela- 
 tive to a cousin of the former, who had died 
 in England, leaving him a considerable legacy ;
 
 110 HOGLE GOftBBT. 
 
 which, with the good prices of black cattle, 
 was one of the causes of his journey to London. 
 as for some time their discourse was of stirk- 
 and inheritances. It did not, however, appear 
 that the old gentleman knew much of the 
 matter ; and I am not sure, as he lived in 
 the misty Morven, that law had in those days 
 reached farther than Inverary. 
 
 Mrs. Peerie distinguished herself, much to 
 my amusement, by some of her observations, 
 and occasional touches of shrewd humour. 
 < >nee, for example, when we happened to halt 
 for a moment, a peasant spoke something to 
 the guard, which was not the best of English, 
 being in the broad dialect of the district : ;i- 
 soon as we were again underweigh, giving a 
 wink to me, she said to Glengowl in her most 
 mellifluous and merriest manner, " No doubt 
 the young man was speaking Gaelic.' 1 In re- 
 ply to which the old gentleman gave an em- 
 phatic grumph, at the same time also winking 
 to me in marvel at her ignorance. 
 
 The weather was raw and humid, and the 
 remainder of the day was spent with drawn-up
 
 MAIL TRAVELLING. Ill 
 
 windows and silent mouths. When we stopped 
 to dine, only Mr. Gledde and myself partook 
 of the refreshment ; Glengowl cheered him- 
 self with a gill of brandy and a biscuit, but 
 Mrs. Peerie did not alight. She had a paper 
 of biscuits and sandwiches in her basket, and 
 recruited in the coach, so that neither of the 
 two were in any degree incommoded by the 
 haste and hurry of the mail-coach. 
 
 In the evening, the dull haze of the day 
 lowered in clouds; the wind rose, and the glass 
 of the windows was uncomfortably gemmed 
 with large drops of rain. The aspect of the 
 country was gloomy, and every object betoken- 
 ed a dreary night, but the spirits of Mrs. 
 Peerie were lively ; she spoke of the anticipated 
 felicity of a nice cup of tea and a fine fire ; 
 nor was the chieftain less animated on the 
 enjoyments to come, and which we were rapidly 
 approaching. 
 
 At last we reached the house, one of those 
 small, pert-looking inns, which had originally 
 been constructed for a roadside alehouse, but 
 which, by the improvements of society and
 
 1 12 BOG LB COHBBT. 
 
 the progress of stage-coaches, had been elevated 
 
 into a baiting stoppage for the mail. Here 
 we all alighted. 
 
 (ilengowl was gruffly pleased with what hi' 
 ealled the heelarity of the house; and .Mr-. 
 Peerie also acknowledged that it was like a 
 place where they were used to the civility of 
 boiling a tea-kettle. .Mr. Gledde looked at 
 them both with blended humour and pathos. 
 
 As the outside and newly-whitened walls and 
 fresh painted sign and window sled us toexpeet, 
 we were shown into a neat parlour with a roar- 
 in" 1 fire, a tea-tray and table before it plentifully 
 garnished. A smart maiden, with the height of 
 discretion, as Mrs. Peerie judiciously observed 
 at the time, spared her from the trouble of 
 making tea, so she plaeed herself at the one 
 side of the lire, and Glengowl, quite as cosily 
 inclined, seated himself at the other. 
 
 The old lady, who had two or three times in 
 the course of the journey complained of cold 
 feet, took oil' her shoes and plaeed them snugly 
 on the grate against the wall to toast; and Glen- 
 gowl, equally erudite in the mysteries of tra- 
 velling, untied a shawl which he wore over his
 
 MAIL TRAVELLING. 113 
 
 neckcloth. Never did a couple appear to set 
 themselves in more happily for a snug hour or 
 two, than these worthy passengers ; for myself 
 and Mr. Gledde we were irreverently voracious, 
 for we at once began to devour, and before the 
 tea was half ready to drink. Mrs. Peerie saw, 
 as she delicately remarked, that the cold weather 
 had given us an appetite ; she would, however, 
 wait till the tea was better masket. But many 
 things happen between the cup and the lip ; 
 even with all our speed, before the gentleman 
 learned in the law and myself had poured out 
 our second cup, the guard winded his horn, to 
 the inexpressible astonishment and indignation 
 of the lady and gentleman so snugly enjoying 
 the lire. Then there was anarchy and con- 
 fusion, like as among the French nobles, when 
 the Revolution, with the wild ringing of the 
 tocsin, disturbed that state of things which was 
 so calculated for their particular solace. The 
 wrathful Glengowl threatened, if the coach ran 
 away before he was ready, that he would 
 pursue it in a post-chaise at the expense of the 
 proprietors. The lady was no less disconcert- 
 ed ; however, without wasting time in idle talk,
 
 11 I BOGLH COBBBT. 
 
 the gathered up her gear, and was speedily in 
 
 the coach. The maid followed her in rather a 
 Hurry, and said, 
 
 * k Mem, you have left nothing for the waiter." 
 kk All is left for the waiter," was the alert 
 reply; " and I "11 thank you, my leddy, to shut 
 the door." 1 
 
 This perilous adventure afforded various 
 animated topics for much of the rest of the 
 journey. Glengowl was not altogether in the 
 sweetest contentment; but Mrs. Peerie, having 
 still both biscuits and sandwiches remaining, 
 could talk of the fright with considerable jocu- 
 larity. The chieftain, however, vowed that he 
 would have revenge ; and accordingly, with true 
 Celtic resolution, when we again halted to take 
 supper, where the hurry was equally alert. 
 Glengowl, on being again " put to the horn, 
 as Mr. Gledde described it, seized a leg of mut- 
 ton by the shank, and carried it along with a 
 piece of bread into the coach. This outrage 
 was, however, as the lawyer justly remarked to 
 him, not altogether legitimate, though it might 
 be Highland, the inn from which the mutton 
 had been taken, belonging to another man. 

 
 MAIL TRAVELLING. 115 
 
 " It's al' one for the benefit of a reforma- 
 tion," said Glengowl ; " they '11 have a remem- 
 brance for the good of their posterity, how I 
 lifted the black mail in the shape of this leg of 
 sheep." 
 
 Unfortunately, however, we live in an age 
 when even Highland chieftains are used to 
 knives and forks, and Glengowl, after being 
 properly seated, and about to eat, found him- 
 self much at a loss to begin, having come abroad 
 without his dirk or these implements. It was 
 dark, and we could not see, but we heard him 
 growl in soliloquy at this embarrassment, and 
 wondering what he should do. His condition 
 was exceedingly diverting; the Edinburgh ad- 
 vocate in vain essayed to suggest an expedient, 
 and descanted on the force of habit, and how 
 much a man, by the influence of society, was 
 now rendered unfit for a state of nature. 
 
 " Ne'er trouble your head, Sir, 1 ' said Mrs. 
 Peerie, " naebody sees you in the dark ; just 
 take a bite from the bone, like a dog, and make 
 yourself comfortable." 
 
 Next day we had indisputable evidence that 
 man is perfectible in travelling as well as in
 
 1 16 BOO LB GORBBT. 
 
 intellectua] and moral knowledge. There was 
 qo longer any attempt at such a barbarous 
 practice as toasting shoos, or untying Bhawl 
 
 cravats, but the utmost celerity in every ac- 
 tion, and the most strenuous endeavours to 
 masticate and swallow tin- greatest quantity of 
 food in the least possible time, so that we 
 reached the Bull and Mouth Inn, so renowned 
 among the visitors to the metropolis, without 
 meeting with any other occurrence. Mrs. Peerie 
 was, however, greatly disappointed at the ap- 
 pearance of the house, as it showed itself at 
 break of day, in a windy and wet morning. 
 She had even doubts if such a disjasket look- 
 ing inn was na? one of the abominations of 
 London, ' ; into which her innocence was sin- 
 fully betrayed." 
 
 As it happened that the whole of that morn- 
 ing's immigration by the mail were entire 
 strangers to each other, and to London, we 
 were not cjuite so clever in getting ourselves 
 ready to proceed to our respective places of 
 intended abode. The Edinburgh limb of the 
 law was the first ready; he came well instruct- 
 ed, called a coach, leaped in with his portman-
 
 MAIL TRAVELLING. ] 17 
 
 teau, bade us good morning, and was driven off 
 to some hotel in Parliament Street. Gleno-owl 
 was the next, for, although he was encumbered 
 with a most un travelling-like hairy box trunk, 
 he also at last got himself hoisted into a hack- 
 ney coach, and was conveyed to No. 1 20, King- 
 street. The rogue of a coachman never in- 
 quired which King-street, but with knavery in 
 his eyes, drove him away in the civilest and 
 slowest style possible. Mrs. Peerie being fru- 
 gal and methodical, did not choose to be at the 
 expense of a coach to take her to Nightingale- 
 lane, Wapping, but engaged a porter to carry 
 her trunk to her cousin's there, she following 
 through the dirt, glad of being so near her jour- 
 ney's end. I was as green as herself, and not 
 knowing the latitude and longitude of Night- 
 ingale-lane, saw her depart in the rain, with- 
 out offering any advice. For myself, being 
 advised to that effect, 1 went to bed at the 
 Bull and Mouth, until the day was far enough 
 advanced to enable me to deliver one of my 
 most particular letters, preparatory to fixing 
 my domicile.
 
 ] \V, BOCLE OORBBT. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 LONDON 
 
 The metropolis to a stranger is most un- 
 comfortable. The crowd that fills the stn 
 is more friendless than the sands of the Arabian 
 desert, or the trees of the American woods. I 
 felt this the moment that I left the inn, for I 
 went unattended. The map with which I had 
 provided myself, showed that a^ my destination 
 was Cheapside, I had not far to walk ; but in the 
 course of that short journey, the unrecognising 
 earnest looks of the passengers, Bmote me with 
 that peculiar destitute feeling, which is alone 
 experienced by the stranger when he first enters 
 London. However, this was soon dissipated 
 when I entered the counting-house of our cor- 
 respondent Mr. Patterns, who, in consequence
 
 LONDON. 119 
 
 of my previous letters, was well aware of my 
 intention, and expressed himself pleased to 
 make my personal acquaintance with more 
 warmth than I expected ; for our business was, 
 as we thought in Glasgow, no bad spoke in 
 his wheel, and I could hardly persuade myself 
 that he could be sincere in the cordiality he 
 expressed at seeing me. 
 
 Among his earliest questions was, where I 
 lodged ? my answer was, " at the Bull and 
 Mouth." 
 
 " That will not do," said he, frankly ; " the 
 first thing a man should do who comes to 
 town, is to provide himself with proper lodg- 
 ings, that he may be able to give his address 
 to his friends. If you call on any one before 
 that, you will have to pay two visits — come, 
 I'll spare a few minutes, and see you properly 
 suited somewhere in this neighbourhood." 
 
 In saying this, he took his hat from a peg, 
 and locking his desk, went out with me. This 
 brevity considerably surprised me, for, although 
 in Glasgow we do not waste much time in use- 
 less conversation, we are not quite so alert. In 
 the course of a short walk down a lane near
 
 120 line 1. 1 < i > in: i:t. 
 
 his bouse, we found convenient but dark Lodg- 
 ings in Budge Row." 
 
 "Now," said he, "you will, I doubt not, 
 find yourself comfortable here. Fetch your 
 Luceaee at once from the inn, and then look 
 out in this neighbourhood for suitable premises, 
 and at lour o'clock I shall expect you to go 
 with me to dinner. It is onl) tljose who arc 
 connected with the shipping and foreign trade 
 that so to 'Change: 1 have no occasion to be 
 ever there." 
 
 With these words he left me, and 1 proceed- 
 ed for my portmanteau to the Bull and Mouth, 
 marvelling and pleased at the decision of Mr. 
 Patterns. I thought it then only character] 
 of himself, but I soon discovered it was a 
 customary effect of the just estimate which the 
 
 Londoners have Formed of time. 
 
 When I had deposited my luggage, which I 
 brought from the inn in a coach, agreeably to 
 his advice, I went immediately in search of a 
 domicile for my business, and in the course of 
 a few minutes, found a very eligible warehouse 
 in Cannon-street, which I immediately rented, 
 so that before twelve o'clock I was fairly set-
 
 LONDON. 121 
 
 tied in London, much to my own amazement, 
 and no less to the astonishment of Mr. Possy 
 my partner, whom I advised of what was done 
 by the post of that evening. 
 
 The celerity of my proceedings on the day 
 of my arrival, has always been recollected with 
 pleasure. It awoke in myself energies unfelt 
 before, and the report of what I had so soon ac- 
 complished, obtained for Mr. Possy, as he wrote 
 by return of post, the congratulations of his 
 friends, that I had settled in London, the best 
 sphere for so active a person. His fortune was 
 considered as made. 
 
 Not calculating on being able to accommo- 
 date myself so speedily, some time elapsed be- 
 fore our goods came to hand, and I had leisure 
 to amuse myself with the lions of the metropo- 
 lis. In this business, having the anxiety of my 
 commercial prospects constantly before me, I 
 was not less assiduous than in seeking for the 
 warehouse. I soon saw every thing deemed 
 curious by the stranger, and I was treated with 
 many invitations to dinner in the mean while, 
 by those to whom I had brought letters : but I 
 know not from what cause arising, a continual 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 122 BOGLE cor I! I I . 
 
 feeling of loneliness took possession of me; mj 
 leisure was dead rime, for I was too deep!) 
 affected by the novelty of the seem - around to 
 dapt my mind to reading, and was too much 
 in a flurry, by the anxieties inseparable from mj 
 situation, to be able to indulge my wonted habit 
 of observation. The first three months were in 
 consequence the must irksome, and yet the most 
 rapid of my life. 
 
 When, however, that epoch, as I may justly 
 call it, had elapsed, I became gradually ninn 
 composed ; I grew as insensible to all as the 
 of the multitude, and even when some of 
 my old acquaintance from the North visited 
 the metropolis, I amused myself with pretend- 
 ing sometimes more indifference than I really 
 experienced, merely to enjoy their wonder. 
 
 I have always been an eager amateur of fires 
 ami other public sights and pageants. One 
 . when walking with two Glasgow friends, 
 we happened to pass a lane in which several 
 houses win- delightfully burning. It would 
 have been at night a spectacle equivalent to 
 King Crispianus, or a real coronation. I had 
 in my heart a longing to stop and look at it.
 
 LONDON. 123 
 
 My friends were petrified at the roaring de- 
 vastation ; " What are you gazing at ?" said I, 
 " it is only a fire ;" and walked forward without 
 evincing the slightest emotion. They looked at 
 me, and reciprocally communed with their eyes 
 concerning my apathy ; nor could they con- 
 ceive how, in so short a time, I should have 
 been so hardened to metropolitan indifference. 
 I was, however, but altered in my outward 
 seeming, for even to this day, a conflagration, 
 especially if women and children are seen 
 screaming at the windows in the utmost jeo- 
 pardy, is to me much more interesting than the 
 tragedy of Macbeth. 
 
 This little anecdote is important in several 
 ways, but my object in introducing it here is, 
 not so much to explain the effect which the 
 local genius of London had on me, as to show 
 how readily, and with what little effort, I could 
 adapt myself to situation, at least appear as if 
 I did so — for, in truth, I was never much 
 changed at heart — my spirit delighted in the 
 country. The wild, the beautiful, and the 
 grand of Nature, have ever been the objects of 
 its homage, and I never was less myself than 
 
 g 2
 
 ] 24 BOGLB OORBBT. 
 
 when engaged in the turmoils of trade, and 
 moat applauded for discernment and dexterity 
 as a merchant. My case, however, is not ex- 
 traordinary ; few men, if they would venture 
 to confess the fact, ever have any real enjoy- 
 ment in the diplomacies of commerce — and the 
 judicious practice which so much prevails in 
 England, of retiring from bu-im ss as -non as 
 a competency is earned, confirms this opinion. 
 
 I have already mentioned how the great art 
 of the merchant, purchasing, happened never to 
 be learned by me. My situation in London 
 was as little favourable to acquire it as when I 
 was in Glasgow ; but the increasing commerce 
 of the country made me nevertheless an expert 
 salesman, and that was all I had to do. Every 
 season was more prosperous than the foregoing. 
 The war raged upon the Continent, but trade 
 flourished in England. Our connections in- 
 creased ; the house in Glasgow, under the shrewd 
 management of Kric Pullicate, was an example 
 to every other ; it was the earliest in every 
 new fashion, and my warehouse in Cannon- 
 street had the best assortment of goods in our 
 line. But still, I was not altogether satisfied
 
 LONDON. 125 
 
 that our wonderful success was sound. I had 
 often strange doubts, and never could reconcile 
 my mind to believe that the reasons which 
 induced Eric Pullicate to decline a partnership 
 •with us, were his true motives. 
 
 I had not been much more than twelve 
 months settled, when I wrote to himself, pro- 
 posing to him a handsome share of our profits ; 
 urging how much more respectable it would 
 make him in the world, than to be dependant 
 on a salary ; but he was as steady to his pur- 
 pose as ever, and Mr. Possy informed me, that 
 my proposal had only served to animate his 
 diligence in our service. Less therefore could 
 not be done to reward his uncommon assiduity, 
 than to augment his income, and we did it 
 liberally. But still, his moderation as to rank 
 in society was perplexing ; for, I had observed, 
 that the democrats were ever the most ambi- 
 tious, and the republicans the most arbitrary. 
 The conduct of Eric Pullicate was an exception 
 to the rule, and to human nature an anomaly. 
 From what can it proceed ? was a question 
 I so often put to myself, that it at last in- 
 fected me with an aimless suspicion, I knew
 
 1:26 BOGLB 0ORB1 
 
 not wlu' re fore, for in do one transaction could 
 the slightest blemish be imputed to his in- 
 tegrity; on the contrary, as Mr. Possy ;is- 
 Btired me, in reply to some inquiries dictated 
 by i:i\ uneasy fancy, bis assiduity for the in- 
 terests of his employers was the theme of 
 general admiration. 

 
 LETTERS OP INTRODUCTION. 127 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But before I proceed to the regular cur- 
 rent of my narrative, I should mention an in- 
 cident of some importance, which occurred soon 
 after my arrival in London ; indeed, it cannot 
 be said that I very strictly confine myself to 
 any regular story. The course of my biogra- 
 phy is like the character of my life, somewhat 
 desultory, and the events seem to arise from 
 causes apparently inadequate to their conse- 
 quences. I ever felt that I was out of my road ; 
 not in peril, but the events when they came 
 to pass were somehow uniformly untoward. 
 The course was like those wild American 
 streams, sometimes dividing their force into 
 different channels, occasionally on the one side
 
 128 BOO LB UOBBBT. 
 
 of the island that Bends the How in different 
 
 directions, passing onward in a sober current] 
 while on the other they are hurried into tur- 
 bulent rapids. 
 
 On the day immediately following my arrival, 
 1 took out my Letters and arranged them indif- 
 ferent clas» S to be ill that order delivered. Those 
 
 that 1 expected would facilitate nfy business 
 
 arrangements were placed in the first class, and 
 received priority of attention. Those of the 
 second, that were to bespeak for me the friend- 
 ship of private gentlemen, constituted the second. 
 The third were more miscellaneous, consisting 
 of introductions to persons of public note, but 
 I had only one that was not specific, — the one 
 from Lcezy Kglesham to Sir Neil Eccles: it seem- 
 ed to me the hast particular, and ought in con- 
 sequence to be made an object of curiosity de- 
 serving no ordinary attention. 1 laid it therefore 
 aside by itself, with the design of being made 
 of more consideration than most of the others. 
 It thus happened that the proverb, out of sight 
 out of mind, was verified with respect to it ; 
 it lay in the drawer of my Pembroke table 
 unheeded several months, and it was only on
 
 LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION. 129 
 
 accidentally pulling out the drawer, that I was 
 rebuked by its presence in beholding it there. 
 
 I have ever regarded letters of general in- 
 troduction merely as dinner tickets, and the 
 lonerer I have lived the more have I been con- 
 vinced, that in that early opinion I did not un- 
 derrate their value : mine were numerous, and 
 in general obtained for me both hospitality and 
 civility; but about a guinea was the worth of 
 most of them. They showed me handsome 
 dinners, enabled me to partake of elegant fare, 
 and that was all. By some of them I flattered 
 myself that I was an object of solicitude, I 
 could not tell why ; but I soon discovered that 
 there was a secret in this ; I was only so for a 
 decent time, until I had probably written home 
 how well I had been received, and then there 
 was an end of all farther kindness. This, how- 
 ever, was a discovery in the way of the world 
 that it was some time before I made ; it was only 
 after hearing how much others in similar cir- 
 cumstances had been by the same parties so 
 flattered, that I acquired a judicious notion of 
 the worth of letters of introduction to persons 
 famed for their attention to young strangers 
 
 G 5
 
 L30 BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 lint to return to the original intention of this 
 
 chapter. 
 
 By the Bimple casualty described, it so lia| »- 
 pened that Sir Neil Eccles 1 letter fell aside, and 
 months having elapsed after it ought to have 
 been delivered, I irason the point of thro wing it 
 into the fire, with some chagrin at niv own negli- 
 gence. Fortunately I arrested my hand, and 
 the time being a Saturday evening, 1 preserved 
 it, and resolved that the next forenoon I would 
 take it home, and ajxjlogize for the delay, by 
 recounting the simple fact. 
 
 The Sunday morning opened with unusual 
 sunshine; London was blessed by the appear- 
 ance of the weather, and her streets quickened 
 with rejoicing myriads, hastening to and fro 
 to partake of the holiday. It was a day when 
 no one grudges to dress himself in bis gayest, 
 and when an exulting sympathy makes the 
 human breast share- in the brightness of Nature. 
 
 Soon after breakfast I sallied out. Sir Neil 
 Eccles, by the address on the letter, lived in 
 Harley-street, and I went there by the New- 
 road, knowing scarcely more than the direction 
 in which it lay- But on approaching the num-
 
 LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION. 131 
 
 ber, I was astonished to see that the house was 
 one of the most considerable in that torrid zone 
 of commercial fashion. However, I knocked 
 with a rap that would have been most impudent 
 in Glasgow, and a smart, but respectable elder- 
 ly footman answered the summons. His master 
 was from home, he was in the country ; but he 
 civilly requested me to leave the letter with 
 my card, and I might rely that it should be 
 regularly delivered. 
 
 The appearance of the man, his becoming 
 manner, and the respectfulness of his assurances, 
 interested me. The letter with the card was 
 left, and I went away wondering by what 
 strange accident Miss Leezy Eglesham conceived 
 herself to be on a footing to introduce a stran- 
 ger to one so far beyond her condition of life, 
 and evidently in the possession of great opu- 
 lence. In walking along, I repeated the old 
 proverb— like master like man— and concluded 
 from what I had seen, that Sir Neil Eccles was 
 no ordinary character : nor was he ; for, be- 
 sides being an India Director, he was a Member 
 of Parliament, and, as Dr. Johnson said to Mr. 
 Perkins, in taking an inventory of the stock
 
 132 BOGLE OOKBBT. 
 
 of old Thrale, it was no inventory, but a poten- 
 tiality to become rich beyond the dreams of 
 
 Avarice. 
 
 Some days passed away, in each of which, 
 as they passed consecutively, I heard nothing 
 of my letter, and began to account it as no- 
 thing; when one morning Sir Ts'cil Bccles was 
 announced — an old ruddy-faced gentleman, 
 whose white colourless hair announced that lie 
 had spent years in a warmer climate. I received 
 him in my counting-house, and after a few 
 general observations respecting the delay in 
 delivering the letter, for I told him frankly 
 how it happened, he invited me to dinner ; an 
 invitation which I accepted with unaffected 
 pleasure; for there was something exceedinglj 
 prepossessing in his address, and a warmth in 
 the manner of his invitation that was no less 
 interesting. 
 
 The invitation was for a Saturday, and on 
 my arrival at his town-residence, the general 
 style of his establishment, and the composed 
 splendour of the house, without being strikingly 
 uncommon, struck me as even above the opu- 
 lence which he evidently enjoyed. An intel-
 
 LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION. 133 
 
 lectual charm was diffused over all, and I 
 could not sufficiently admire the sober har- 
 mony which at once pervaded the domestics, 
 the furniture, and the elegance of the mansion. 
 
 He received me politely — perhaps, I should 
 say, with something like distinction — at least 
 I felt it as such, and I could see when he 
 thought himself unobserved, that he glanced 
 his eye towards me, as if I were his study. 
 
 The dinner was served in the best style. 
 The company consisted of elderly persons, who 
 were seemingly but little interested in the 
 events of Europe. Their talk was of Bengal, 
 and the politics of the Peishwa, but neither 
 distinguished by any brilliancy of wit, nor the 
 substance of much wisdom. The entertain- 
 ment, if not the feast of reason nor the flow 
 of soul, was becoming to the ample fortune 
 of the giver. I do not recollect, however, that 
 in leaving the house, I had any wish to be 
 re-invited ; I was in no way interested in what 
 1 had witnessed. There was evidently more 
 wealth than talent in the company ; and un- 
 doubtedly, although it was impossible for a 
 king to provide a table better furnished, for
 
 l.il BOOLE roRBET. 
 
 the same aumber <>f guests, a j i i-i - r i n^- vulgarity 
 showed that some <>f them had not been long 
 used to such refinement* Yet I had enjoy- 
 ed an excellent dinner, with delicious wines; 
 and in walking home, I reckoned that Sir Neil 
 Eccles 1 ticket was worth a trifle more than a 
 guinea. I counted, however, that I had re- 
 ceived all it was destined to procure lor me, 
 and the incident was soon forgotten. Still, 
 I could not refrain from wondering how the 
 letter from Miss Leezy Kglesham had obtain- 
 ed for me such an invitation, nor the cause of 
 those occasional glances which Sir Xiel Keel' a 
 often threw at me, in which there was evidently 
 as much of sorrow a- of curiosity, with now 
 and then the gathered brow of cogitation.
 
 CHARACTERS. 135 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CHARACTERS. 
 
 About a month or five weeks after my first 
 visit to Sir Neil Eccles, I received a second 
 invitation. The party was greatly different : 
 it consisted principally of young men of my 
 own age, lively scions of rank and fortune ; 
 some of them possessed of more various ability 
 than I had ever before met with in company : 
 but I remarked that our host seemed to regard 
 his entertainment with the constraint that marks 
 the performance of a duty. I looked, however, 
 in vain around, to discover, if I could, for whom 
 the banquet was made. The entertainment 
 was not at all inferior in elegance and propriety 
 to that I had previously enjoyed ; and from 
 the more juvenile character of the company, 
 I relished it more; still, I could clearly see
 
 13G BOOLB CORBBT. 
 
 that more was meant by it than met either the 
 eye or the ear. What can it Ik- ? was a ques- 
 tion repeated to myself an hundred times as 
 I walked homeward. 
 
 One day, it might be rather more than a 
 week after, Sir Neil called at my counting-house 
 — I was not at the time within, but he left his 
 compliments, and begged that I would take a 
 part of his Sunday dinner. The invitation was 
 alike unexpected and surprising ; for by this 
 time I had been informed that he was, notwith- 
 standing the general respect in which he was 
 held, considered a pompous Oriental, and prided 
 himself on the excellence of his table. The 
 invitation was, however, flattering to me; it 
 was indeed the kind of thing winch I most 
 wished for; of show dinners I had enough, 
 and those promiscuous assemblages of guests, 
 which have not been inaptly compared to meet- 
 ings of creditors, being chiefly composed of per- 
 sonages to whom dinners are due for value 
 received. These I never could abide, because, 
 somehow, such was the number of good things 
 commonly at them, that there was no need of 
 any intellect.
 
 CHARACTERS. 137 
 
 The party on this occasion consisted of only 
 four persons, two guests besides the landlord 
 and myself, and I have rarely spent a pleasanter 
 day. Sir Neil appeared altogether a different 
 man. Instead of the staid and regulated method 
 of his ordinary manners, he was simple, face- 
 tious, and amusing. I thought his conversation 
 more highly flavoured with literary allusions 
 than usual, though it was always rich in that 
 respect, far beyond the common talk of most 
 men, and it had the effect of deepening the 
 interest which I began to take in his character. 
 There was evidently an enigma and a mystery 
 about him ; he was visibly actuated by other 
 motives than those which influenced the conduct 
 of mankind in general ; for in the midst of a 
 remarkable air of natural candour, I could dis- 
 cern an abyss in his bosom, in which some 
 secret of sorrow or of passion lay as in a hiding 
 place. 
 
 Dr. Lembeck, one of the guests, seemed to be 
 on a footing of more familiarity with Sir Neil 
 than any other person I had seen in his com- 
 pany ; it was not, however, the familiarity 
 which begins in youthful life, and mellows into
 
 '.;:: HOGLE <JOKi:i I 
 
 the friendship of riper age, but that easy habit 
 which springs from the intimacy of a mutual 
 good understanding cemented by reciprocal 
 favours. It required no superior perspicacity 
 to perceive that they had been useful to one 
 another, and had encountered difficulties to- 
 gether. The Doctor had been a physician in 
 India, and had not walked the world with his 
 eyes unemployed. What may have been his 
 professional talent I had never the means of 
 knowing, but his mind was of the best and 
 shrewdest quality, without any of that peculiar 
 garnish which contributes to individual dis- 
 tinction. He was what is known in society as 
 the most valuable of its members, a sensible 
 and judicious man. All he uttered bore the 
 mintage of prudence, and was ever so discreetly 
 applied, that it passed for its just value. Like 
 his friend, he could boast of no striking accom- 
 plishment, but he had been so long alone at 
 his station in India, that he had made many 
 curious observations on the inhabitants and the 
 country, by which his conversation, without 
 being brilliant in phraseology, was often highly 
 interesting. His facts and anecdotes were better
 
 CHARACTERS. 139 
 
 than wit, inasmuch as they often added to the 
 knowledge of his auditors. I am speaking of 
 him after an acquaintance of many years, for 
 I have no distinct recollection of the impression 
 he made on me when we first met at dinner. 
 
 The other gentleman, Mr. Woodrife, was a 
 being of a different element. He was empha- 
 tically a man of genius, but the force of his 
 mind was expended on intentions. To hear 
 him speak, no doubt could be entertained that 
 he was either already, or destined to be of great 
 note in the world ; and yet the bud never blos- 
 somed. He seemed capable of effecting what- 
 ever he would undertake ; his mind was truly 
 a winged spirit, all sight and activity, but it 
 only ever prepared to fly. At the period of 
 which I am speaking he was well advanced in 
 life, turned of fifty, and he had literally done 
 nothing. He was the only man I ever met 
 with of whom it could be justly said, that he 
 
 For all things was able, for nothing was fit. 
 
 Like the herb his name resembled, which yields 
 no fragrance until dried, his wonderful en- 
 dowments were not fully appreciated by his
 
 140 BOGLK CORBET. 
 
 friends until after his death; it was only 
 
 when that event made it no longer possible to 
 enjoy the affluence and glory of his conver- 
 sation, that all those who knew him in life were 
 sensible he had left a vacuum in the world. 
 He had inherited a small fortune, was tho- 
 roughly educated, but he spent his time and 
 income in projecting plans which, had he Bought 
 the means of carrying into effect, would have 
 raised him to the pinnacle of renown and for- 
 tune. He could only, however, be compared 
 to a torch, illuminating .all around, but con- 
 suming itself. 
 
 This gentleman and Dr. Lembeck were the 
 two earliest acquaintances 1 made in London, 
 out of the circle of my commercial associates : 
 it is unnecessary to inform the reader that I 
 could not but account myself fortunate in them. 
 They were neither, it is true, exactly congenial 
 to my taste, but the freshness of the knowledge 
 possessed by the one, and the inexhaustible 
 originality continually scintillating from the 
 other, I have no doubt tended to stir the 
 latent elements of my own character. 
 
 I dwell on the event of mv introduction to
 
 CHARACTERS. 141 
 
 these gentlemen the more particularly, because, 
 while I performed my duties in business with 
 exemplary carefulness, I experienced the in- 
 fluence of their respective peculiarities gra- 
 dually affecting my reflections, not, however, 
 to the prejudice of the mercantile responsibility 
 I had incurred to my partner, but in teaching 
 me to consider mankind with a jealous and 
 inquisitive eye. In truth, all kinds of business 
 are much the same ; the details of dealing furnish 
 no adventures, whatever the line may be, if 
 fortune be favourable. One day after another 
 came and went in my affairs for several years 
 so much alike, that my life, but for the addi- 
 tions which, through the means of Sir Neil, 
 I was enabled from time to time to make to 
 my society, would have been the most mono- 
 tonous possible ; the sameness was unalleviated 
 by a single incident that I can recall to mind. 
 But I must check my desultory pen, and return 
 back to the immediate results of the dinner. 
 
 In leaving the house, Dr. Lembeck's course 
 lay in a different direction from mine, but Mr. 
 Woodrife had occasion to come part of the way 
 with me. Our conversation, like that which
 
 1 li> BOOLE CORB1 I 
 
 commonly takes place when guests leave the hos- 
 pitable board together, was at first of our bosf ; 
 we both agreed in thinking highly of him, and 
 were equally convinced that he was one of those 
 men who have two characters — one for the 
 world and another for his friends 
 
 "He is," said Mr. Woodrife, "not in his 
 place; he may be prosperous, but he pays dear 
 for it." 
 
 I requested him to explain what he meant ; 
 but his reply was perplexing. 
 
 " I have no reason to know that Sir Neil is 
 not happy in his thriving circumstances, but 
 still, as often as I have the gratification to be 
 with him, he seems as if be had on a new suit 
 of clothes:" he then added briskly, " the feel- 
 ing he excites, I apprehend, can only be ex- 
 perienced after Borne study of mankind; or ra- 
 ther, the rule of judging of others must be a 
 result of experience. The principle on which 
 it is founded is, however, very simple. I 
 formed it young, and it has never misled me; 
 it is nothing more than to observe attentively 
 the respective conditions of men, and to ask
 
 CHARACTERS. 143 
 
 myself if the individual, with whom at the 
 time I happen to be interested, is in circum- 
 stances above or below the rank of his mind ; 
 when I find a disparity, I then say, if I think 
 him higher than his fortune seems to befit — 
 his progress in life will be advancement, but 
 if otherwise, he will sink in the scale of society. 
 There may be exceptions to this rule, for it 
 cannot be denied, that good and bad luck 
 sometimes occur in human affairs, but gene- 
 rally speaking, I rely upon the rule ; for even 
 in instances of good and bad luck, it will be 
 found that the sagacity of the individual, who 
 is the subject of either, has a material influence 
 in producing it." 
 
 I thought the observation curious at the 
 time, and was on the point of saying so, when 
 he subjoined. " But perhaps you will say, the 
 power of accurately discerning in what the dis- 
 cord and harmony between character and cir- 
 cumstances consist, is itself an endowment. It 
 may be so, but I am not sensible that it is 
 original in me." 
 
 " Then,' 1 said I, a little puzzled by his
 
 1 I4 BOOLE CORBJ l 
 
 metaphysics, " you imagine that there is soon 
 
 thins not well assorted between Sir Neil Eccli- 
 anil his opulence." 
 
 " There is," was the reply ; " but it docs not 
 regard the progress of his fortune. He is in 
 unison with bis circumstances — he has acquired 
 riches, and knows the wise use of them, but he 
 has paid dearly for them ; for, as often as I 
 dine with him, I observe that he uniformly 
 sighs, as he surveys his splendid table, and his 
 physiognomy is overcast for a moment with a 
 shade of regret. Do you know, that I suspect 
 you are somehow connected with the cause, for 
 I noticed him this evening once or twice look- 
 ing at you with the same expression of coun- 
 tenance. " 
 
 By this time we had come to the street where 
 we were obliged to part, and he bade me good 
 night, but the remark with which he left me, 
 occasioned many a long rumination,
 
 TROUBLES. J 45 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 TROUBLES. 
 
 The success which attended my commercial 
 establishment in London was gratifying; in 
 fact, I had every prospect of realizing a large 
 and rapid fortune, when one morning, without 
 any previous intimation, I received a letter 
 from my partner Mr. Possy, informing me that 
 Eric Pullicate had given him notice to provide 
 a substitute, as he intended to go into busi- 
 ness for himself. His savings in our service 
 were considerable, and to do him only justice, 
 his conduct quite deserved our liberality. But 
 the information puzzled me. Had we not of- 
 fered to advance him, there could have been 
 no surprise at his determination ; we had, how- 
 ever, pressed him to accept a share with us, 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 BOCLB 0ORB1 I 
 
 and his refusal had never ceased to excite rny 
 wonder. 
 
 My partner, in communicating the news, 
 made light of it. He even considered Ki 
 desertion, — the wary and far-forecasting Erie — 
 as an effect of self-will, and only the common 
 ingratitude of man for the sincerity of the re- 
 Bpect we entertained for him, at tin same time 
 assuring me, that although indeed he hail been 
 a praiseworthy servant, yet he was not so rare 
 as such that his place could not be easily 
 supplied. 
 
 Mr. Possy expressed himself in the custo- 
 mary language of the world, but his letter 
 contained not one reflection from his own mind. 
 It was all made up of the opinions of others, 
 and filled with the commonplaces of vulgar 
 confidence. On me, however, it had a great 
 (fleet ; I felt as if an amputation had been per- 
 formed, and one of my limbs lopped off. I had 
 no faith in the judgment or sagacity of my 
 partner : in a word, I suffered an internal fear; 
 a kind of prophetic conviction, that the secret 
 canker of decay had attacked the roots of our 
 prosperity. Another such as Pullicate might
 
 TROUBLES. 147 
 
 no doubt be obtained, but why did he quit our 
 service? Did he see any thing amiss in our 
 foundations ? He could scarcely hope to attain, 
 with his small capital, in many years, profit 
 equivalent to the share we would willingly have 
 given him ? It was an event that surprised and 
 grieved me, but like other griefs incidental to 
 the ilot of man, it wore away into a mere 
 recollection of the fact, and our business still 
 continued to thrive, and chiefly from an event 
 which, a short time before, had taken place. 
 
 Our profits had enabled us to accumu- 
 late the means of extending our dealings, and 
 agency was added to our own business. We 
 received ffoods similar to those we sold for 
 ourselves, and made advances of money to the 
 manufacturers. It was just when we had adopt- 
 ed this change in the nature of our establish- 
 ment, that Eric Pullicate suddenly withdrew ; 
 but he became among the earliest of our con- 
 stituents. He did not, however, adhere very 
 long to us ; and, in the increase of our busi- 
 ness, in consequence of the agency, I soon lost 
 sight of him. 
 
 It is not my intention to relate all the his- 
 
 H 2
 
 148 BOO LB CORBBT. 
 
 tory of our mercantile transactions; I shall 
 only, therefore-, occasionally allude to them 
 when they happen to influence the colour or 
 the current of my life. Singular, however, as 
 
 it may seem, the retreat of Eric Pullicate from 
 our employment, was perhaps the most im- 
 portant incident that befell my commercial pur- 
 suits, and 1 may as well explain here at once how 
 it was so, although 1 write from conjecture, and 
 from subsequent long and intricate rumination. 
 
 I am persuaded, from the natural talent of 
 the man, that he soon perceived the inherent 
 commercial defects, not only obvious in my 
 partner, but in myself. This is a humiliating 
 acknowledgment, but unless it be frankly con- 
 fessed, and freely explained, this work will 
 neither produce the effect intended, nor be 
 easily understood. I shall therefore first speak 
 of those things which he could not but ob- 
 serve in me, and secondly of his probable mo- 
 tives. 
 
 I have already said enough of my partner, 
 to convey a fair idea of the danger of my con- 
 nection with him ; we were both but the crea- 
 tures of that amazing internal prosperity which
 
 TROUBLES. 149 
 
 resulted to the country from the French revo- 
 lution and the war; and although it was im- 
 possible to trace any degree of our success to 
 me, yet such was the consistency of my con- 
 duct, that much of it was ascribed, among our 
 acquaintance, to my skill and sedate habits of 
 business. Eric Pullicate could not, however, 
 avoid observing that all the inclinations of my 
 character were averse to trade. His necessary 
 constant attendance in the warehouse must have 
 disclosed to him, before I left for London, that I 
 was, to a most unfitting degree, prone to the 
 indulgence of a meditative disposition, fan- 
 tastical notions, and other follies of thought 
 which, though they resemble philosophy, are 
 in reality but the froth of the mind. While 
 money enough for our own concerns was among 
 my hands, — while my task was but to su- 
 perintend sales, and while all those modifica- 
 tions of address and expediency which consti- 
 tute the vis of trade, were not required, I was 
 competent to perform well the part assigned 
 to me ; but when the case was otherwise, as 
 it soon became by the growth of our agency, 
 no uncommon sagacity was necessary to per-
 
 150 HOG Mi CORBET. 
 
 v ive that I should be found wanting, and this, 
 I have no doubt, Eric Pullicate was wide 
 awake to. 
 
 It may, however, be supposed that he was 
 chiefly guided in his decision by the character 
 of Mr. Possy, and doubtless he was; for our 
 agency, which I regard as the main cause of 
 it, placed the very vitals of our commercial 
 tence in that weak person's incapable hands. 
 The process was this : — 
 
 In consigning the goods of our constituents 
 to me, he became the judge alike of their suit- 
 ableness to the market and of their value, and 
 made his advances by drawing on me, accord- 
 ing to the invoices rendered with them. In 
 this, as I afterwards too late discovered, he 
 exercised no discretion, which was indeed all 
 that he ever possessed ; and, in consequence, 
 made advances far above what prudence could 
 approve, and often on articles unfit for their 
 destination. The inevitable consequences could 
 rot escape the shrewd Eric ; but the catas- 
 trophe, partly owing to the stability of our 
 credit, and to the public events which from 
 time to time opened new markets, was post-
 
 TROUBLES. 151 
 
 poned for several years. It was not until I 
 happened now and then to find myself per- 
 plexed for funds to meet the draughts of my 
 partner, that I apprehended any hazard ; even 
 then I could not but be pleased with the 
 nominal increase of our gains, and it was natu- 
 ral that I should become so far infected with 
 the vapour of the time, as to ascribe my occa- 
 sional difficulties to the irregularities of winds 
 and convoys, which so often deceived the mer- 
 chants of that period. 
 
 From the temporary loans, the earliest indi- 
 cations of my jeopardy, I was obliged at last, 
 in order to provide for impending payments, 
 to buy cotton at first, and gradually afterwards 
 other merchandise, apparently on speculation, 
 but in truth to sell again — to raise the wind ; 
 and in this practice I almost always suffered loss. 
 One year the losses amounted to more than our 
 commissions. In the methods I pursued, my 
 wonted character sustained no injury ; my life 
 was steady, my personal expenditure moderate, 
 and my company agreeable to my acquaint- 
 ance ; but I had no distinct perception of what 
 I was doing. I knew not how to buy, and
 
 \.r2 BOGLE COKBKT. 
 
 suffered more from my ignorance) both a-> 
 respected the quality of the goods I bought, 
 and my prospective estimates of the teaaoni 
 when they would come into demand, than from 
 the haste in which the necessities of my busi- 
 ness obliged me to >ell again. I never look 
 back on this epoch of my life, without marvel- 
 ling at many things which need irresistibly im- 
 pelled me to do, and in which my native in- 
 tegrity was drawn aside by some inscrutable 
 attraction; an infatuation which hurried me 
 on to the ruin I was so struggling to avert, 
 and which day after day I represented to my- 
 self as but a passing cloud. 
 
 Having thus described the causo which 
 were undermining my prosperity, I may be 
 pardoned for seeking to fly from the recollec- 
 tion of many an anxious incident, but it was 
 not among the speculations to which the im- 
 prudent bills of Mr. Possj so often obliged 
 me to have recourse, that I married.
 
 LOVE. 153 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Some ten or twelve days after I had par- 
 taken with Sir Neil Eccles of one of his 
 familiar Sunday dinners, at which Dr. Lembeck 
 and Mr. Woodrife were commonly present, 
 he came to my counting-house, and inquired 
 if I happened to be engaged for that afternoon, 
 for if not, as he would be detained late in 
 the India-house, he would dine with me. 
 
 The frank style of this self-invitation was 
 flattering, and I gladly acceded to the pro- 
 posal ; but although by that time I was fami- 
 liar with him, there was ever something about 
 his manner, as often as I chanced to see him 
 in any new circumstance, that more or less 
 
 H 5
 
 ITih B06LB CORNET. 
 
 mysteriously interested my curiosity. On this 
 occasion I felt it particularly. 
 During tin- few minutes he remained with 
 
 me, nothing in any degree could justly be said 
 to have attracted my attention, saving only 
 that unaccountable sidelong-look which 1 had 
 so often before noticed ; but when he went 
 away, one of my fits of reverie came on, in 
 which 1 began to think on that look and hi> 
 remarkable visit. 
 
 " It is evident/ 1 said I, in soliloquy, " that 
 there is some strange method in the civilities 
 of Sir Neil. He has some purpose to promote 
 by the manner in which he uniformly treats 
 me. What can it be? And how has it arisen r 
 All he knows of me is by the introduction 
 of Miss Lcezy, and yet he regards me with 
 more than common distinction : — It must h 
 some persona] motive, for he never speak 
 of my business — he may not even know its 
 nature — his attention is to myself alone !" 
 
 The afternoon became damp and humid, the 
 streets were, what the Cockneys call, greasy, 
 and a lowering of the atmosphere, a dullness, 
 between a fog and clouds, a muddiness of the
 
 LOVE. 155 
 
 air, rendered the evening uncomfortable. As 
 Sir Neil expected to be late, I ordered my 
 bachelor's dinner half an hour after the usual 
 time, and a fire to be lighted that would be 
 social when it broke out ; but to my own sur- 
 prise and the cook's displeasure, he made his 
 appearance considerably before the anticipated 
 hour, while the parlour was chilly, and the 
 fire still ineffectually kindled. This incident 
 sharpened my curiosity. 
 
 We talked lightly of the topics of the day ; 
 nevertheless the preceding frame of my thoughts 
 led me, from the pauses into which his dis- 
 course often suddenly fell, to conjecture that he 
 had some communication to make. Nothing, 
 however, of the kind took place ; but in the 
 course of conversation he said, in an appa- 
 rently negligent manner, that he had never 
 been at Canterbury, where some business 
 obliged him to go in the course of a few days, 
 and asked me, as if he did not care much 
 whether I consented or not, to take a corner 
 of his carriage on the following Sunday to 
 Rochester, where he would dine and stop for 
 the night.
 
 lo6 BOGLli GOBBET. 
 
 I have always been fond of marking my 
 
 reverence- for the institution of the Sabbath, 
 by spending the day in some short excursion. 
 His proposal was in unison with this habit, 
 and, accordingly, soon after breakfast I WW 
 seated by his side, and on the Kent-road : 
 nothing out of ver\ commonplace observation 
 took place between us till the carriage arrived 
 at Rochester, where, having ordered dinner 
 at the Crown, we walked out together. 
 
 Going in the direction of the Cathedral, 
 as he passed, along he recollected, as it were 
 accidentally, that the daughter of an old Cal- 
 cutta acquaintance was then staying with a 
 widow lady in that neighbourhood, and, by 
 way of consuming the time, he proposed that 
 we should visit her. 
 
 On enterin"- the room where Anella was - 
 ting alone, I was struck with the cordiality of 
 their meeting, but chiefly with the affectionate 
 earnestness with which he embraced her. Their 
 conversation then principally turned on the 
 manner in which she passed her time ; and 
 his inquiries had a parental gentleness which 
 evinced more softness of heart than any thing
 
 LOVE. 157 
 
 I, had ever seen about him. Anella herself 
 was, indeed, worthy of that care ; with eminent 
 mildness, the aspect of her character, she was 
 calmly beautiful. There was, if I may use the 
 expression, a benignity in her manner that in 
 itself was an indescribable charm, in addition 
 to the exquisite sweetness of her nature, which 
 was as the hue on the plumb, or the down on 
 the peach. 
 
 I felt myself smitten with this delightful 
 vision. The rich full tones of her musical voice 
 thrilled through me, and her unequalled taste 
 in the choice of her words, and the intelligence 
 which glowed in all she uttered, awoke in me 
 feelings of homage and admiration before un- 
 known ; and yet, saving in the extraordinary 
 influence of the spell in her conversation, 
 when examined fastidiously, she could only 
 be described as invested with elegance, but 
 it was of that fascinating kind which is more 
 enchanting than beauty. 
 
 Sir Neil saw that I was deeply interested 
 by the appearance of his ward, — for so he spoke 
 of her in adverting to some bills of expense 
 which he authorized Mrs. Evelyn, the lady
 
 158 BOG LB OORBBT. 
 
 with whom she lived, to discharge ; but I wsi 
 
 at the time so much engaged that 1 paid no 
 attention to what they were saying. In re- 
 turning to the inn, he, however, jocularly in- 
 sinuated that I reemed to be caught. 
 
 "Who IB she?" I exclaimed: " rarely have 
 I seen so much of that inexpressible charm 
 about any other which is her peculiar beauty." 
 
 He did not immediately reply, but looked 
 for a moment suspiciously, as I thought, and 
 then said, while a faint and momentary blush 
 gleamed over his features, 
 
 " She is the daughter of Major Tuffins" 
 widow, an old Indian friend of mine. 11 
 
 " Her mother, is she — " 
 
 He hastily interrupted me, saying with pre- 
 cipitancy, " She is no more."' 
 
 " I thought that her mother was still alive, 
 by what you said. 1 ' 
 
 He made no reply in words, but again threw 
 at me one of those sudden javelin glances, which 
 never failed to rouse my most vivid wonder. 
 He then, as if unexpectedly struck with some 
 beauty in the landscape of the Medway, which 
 he had not previously observed, abruptly
 
 LOVE. 159 
 
 changed the discourse, and, with visible care- 
 fulness, during the remainder of the day, never 
 once alluded to Anella. 
 
 Perhaps I had before noticed the extreme 
 anxiety, if it may be so called, with which he 
 regulated himself in every thing. His most 
 simple and seemingly accidental actions, yea, 
 the very inadvertencies of his conversations, 
 were all the progeny of method. I do not now, 
 however, remember that I had previously even 
 desired to search, but only to wonder at the 
 cause by which he was actuated ; but the change 
 that came upon him in the way described, flash- 
 ed upon me a wish to discover whence it pro- 
 ceeded. Our reciprocal behaviour at dinner 
 would in consequence have probably amused a 
 stranger. I was all eye and ear, and he, per- 
 haps observing my solicitude, was as carefully 
 on his guard. In the midst of this embarrass- 
 ment, for it deserves no lighter name, we each 
 forgot the object which had brought us to Ro- 
 chester : he, that he had business at Canterbury, 
 or the pretence that was couched in it, and I, 
 that I had accompanied him only so far for a 
 Sunday excursion, intending to return by one
 
 160 BOGLB CORBET. 
 
 of the coaches in the course of the night: but 
 
 o 7 
 
 still, although there was undoubtedly too much 
 ingenious thinking between us, at least on my 
 part, the recollection of the evening will always 
 be bright and pleasant. 
 
 As we >at over our wine, he explained some 
 details of his early Hfe, and although they were 
 perhaps not uncommon, they were to me greatly 
 romantic. His father had been a country 
 schoolmaster, and had bestowed hi* best can 
 on his education. A youthful attachment had. 
 prior to his departure for India, been fostered 
 between him and Leezy Eglesham, and, with 
 the young simplicity of fond and early passion, 
 they betrothed themselves to each other. The 
 tale, however, should be told as he related it, 
 and I cannot do more for the reader"* amuse- 
 ment than to give it as nearly as possible in 
 his own words. It is one of worldliness and 
 love, in which the word of promise was truly 
 kept to the ear, but sadly broken to the hope.
 
 AFFECTION WITHOUT INTEREST. 161 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 AFFECTION WITHOUT INTEREST. 
 
 "The story," said he, ''is in its incidents 
 not remarkable. My father was the parish 
 schoolmaster of Kilravoch, of which Mr. Egle- 
 sham was the minister. We were the only two 
 children in the village nearly on a footing with 
 each other, for, although the difference in de- 
 gree between the domine and the clergyman 
 was, if I may say so, naturally wide, yet a 
 legacy which my mother had received made the 
 income of their respective families almost equal ; 
 for Kilravoch, as you probably know, was then 
 one of the poorest stipends in the west of Scot- 
 land ; indeed, perhaps, of the two, my father's 
 means were the freest. 
 
 " Between Leezy and myself an early affec-
 
 L62 BOO LB CORBET. 
 
 tion grew into passion, and when I received 
 my Indian appointment, we agreed that as soon 
 as I found in y self justified by my circumstance a 
 to return, I should come back and marry her. 
 In the sincerity of inexperienced youth, we 
 pledged ourselves to each other, and we have 
 faithfully kept our vow. But you will be sur- 
 prised that it should never have been consum- 
 mated, and that poor Leezy should be living 
 in so humble a manner in obscurity at Glasgow, 
 while I am in the enjoyment of so many more 
 comforts ; but you shall hear, for in that lies 
 the romance of our lives. 
 
 " Soon after my arrival in India, a gradual 
 prospect of wealth was suddenly opened to me, 
 and, with sanguine hopes and unabated love, I 
 wrote with delight of my situation to Leezy ; 
 but in that chance of fortune there was an in- 
 sensible bane to the happiness of both. It was 
 part of the duty of my new situation to be 
 often in attendance on the Governor-Gene- 
 ral, and frequent invitations to his table were 
 the consequence, by which higher tastes and 
 different habits and manners were induced ; but 
 still I thought my heart remained unharmed
 
 AFFECTION WITHOUT INTEREST. 163 
 
 by the change, and my correspondence with 
 Leezy was continued with undiminished warmth, 
 and the cement of our attachment on her seem- 
 ed to be equally unalterable. 
 
 " In the course of a very few years I had 
 realized fully the amount prescribed as the 
 sum with which I should return to redeem my 
 pledge, and actually was about to carry my 
 intention into effect ; but when I spoke of it 
 to a friend, he remonstrated against my im- 
 prudence in so soon thinking, with untainted 
 health, to quit an appointment, in which I had 
 the happiest assurances of opulence and repu- 
 tation. It happened at the same time, the self 
 same day, that I received letters from Europe, 
 and among them one from Leezy, in reply to 
 an account I had given her of my hopes and 
 condition, in which she advised me, not for her 
 sake to mar the prospects too rashly which Pro- 
 vidence had prepared for us both. In this 
 advice I discovered for the first time a modest 
 peering of latent ambition, and my own in- 
 clinations seconded her suggestions. To this 
 cause I ascribe my long residence in Bengal : 
 had I come away when I first intended, how
 
 1G4 BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 different, perhaps, had been our lots — perhaps, 
 however, not much happier. 
 
 " Year after year served to foster our early 
 hopes, and the promise of returning; hut in the 
 
 same time, unconscious to myself, I was becom- 
 ing another man; increase of fortune, and the 
 
 society into which I was thrown, led to the ac- 
 quisition of ideas beyond the frugal fancies of 
 my youth, and an accident completed the moral 
 metamorphosis. 
 
 " My friend Captain Tuffins had married a 
 lady from England ; she had been sent to a rela- 
 tion, as one of those common consignments which 
 supply the matrimonial markets of India, as that 
 of Constantinople is supplied with Circassian 
 slaves. The connexion was not very fortunate; 
 he was naturally a grave, and, perhaps, except 
 in his marriage, the most prudent of men. 1 1 i.-> 
 lady was the reverse : possessed of singular- 
 beauty, animated with the liveliest gaiety, and 
 devoted to company, she was in every point a 
 contrast to his sober character. The accident 
 to which I alluded was his death : we were then 
 at war with Hyder Ali, and he died of a wound 
 received in a skirmish with a detachment of
 
 AFFECTION WITHOUT INTEREST. 165 
 
 that intrepid tyrant's army. Mrs. Tuffins, still 
 in the bloom and grace of youth, was committed 
 to my care, with many requests to afford her 
 my friendship and protection." 
 
 Sir Neil reddened a little at this part of his 
 story, but after a momentary pause he resumed. 
 
 " Notwithstanding that her beauty and gaiety 
 interested my admiration, I remained still faith- 
 ful to the promise I had contracted with the 
 confiding, patient, and gentle Leezy Eglesham. 
 
 " But I need not enter into the particulars of 
 what followed : you behold me still a bachelor, 
 and in all things truly attached to my first 
 love; our mutual passion was never impetu- 
 ous ; it was an even quiet flow, and she knows 
 that she may command my fortune as freely 
 as if she were my wedded wife. 
 
 " About twelve months after the death of 
 her husband, Mrs. Tuffins found it convenient 
 to return to England, when, in little more 
 than a month after her arrival, she died." 
 
 It seemed to me, as he thus spoke of her, 
 that a visible embarrassment clouded his coun- 
 tenance, but he speedily passed on to his own 
 story.
 
 lGf) BOGLK COR BUT. 
 
 " In the mean time,* 1 said lie, " I continued 
 in India, until I had accumulated a fortune 
 equal even to my enlarged wishes. But when 
 I came back to England, ami hastened to Kil- 
 ravoch with ardour to fulfil my youthful en- 
 gagement, I soon found that, although only a 
 slight tinge of yean had mingled with the com- 
 plexion of Leezy, I was no longer the same 
 youth to whom her affections had been pledged: 
 well do I remember our inciting, and the pang 
 of disappointment which both suffered. 
 
 "It was early in the forenoon that I drove 
 in a post-chaise to the manse-door. The ad- 
 jacent hedges were covered with newly-washed 
 linen, and cords drawn across the little path, 
 which led from the highway to the house, were 
 so hung with other articles of household thrift, 
 that I was obliged to stoop as I approached 
 the door. This scene of domestic housewifery 
 was not at variance with my reminiscences; but 
 there was a meanness, I thought, in it, not agree- 
 able to my feelings ; and all about the Minister's 
 residence seemed much deteriorated in neatness 
 and propriety from what I thought it had once 
 been.
 
 AFFECTION WITHOUT INTEREST. 167 
 
 " I was readily admitted by the old gentle- 
 man himself, and kindly received. Leezy was 
 up-stairs, but the moment she was informed 
 who had come, she came rushing down, all 
 heart and gladness, and in no disturbing degree 
 changed. But as I eagerly approached her, 
 some strange impulse obliged me to retire back- 
 wards; she paused abruptly, looked at me — 
 and suddenly bursting into tears, without the 
 expression of any welcome, quitted the room 
 followed by her father. 
 
 "In vain did I attempt, in the painful inter- 
 val which ensued before we again met, to soothe 
 my own feelings, and to palliate the inadver- 
 tency of my action ; but the die was cast; and 
 yet I w r as not greatly to blame ; for, instead of 
 being dressed with her former neatness, the 
 drudgery of the washing-day had dishevelled 
 her appearance, and in the hurry of her joy she 
 had flown towards me in the ungarnished gar- 
 ments of the bed-chamber. Her hair, which I 
 remembered so affluent and so neatly braided, 
 was covered with a coarse and common bed-cap. 
 She wore a calico short gown, and her petticoat, 
 of scanty longitude, showed her limbs with
 
 H)8 HOGLli CORBET. 
 
 stockings, it is true, but her slippers, according 
 to the economy of her father's narrow income, 
 were made of cast-off Bhoes. She was in all 
 things scarcely one degree more respectable in 
 her appearance than a common maid-of-all- 
 work. It was this sight that occasioned my 
 involuntary revolt as she entered. 
 
 " I was myself very different ; throughout life 
 I have been always particular in my dress: I 
 had, on my arrival in London, equipped myself 
 in the best style, and I had that morning, before- 
 leaving Glasgow, apprehensive that the Indian 
 climate had made some unfavourable impression 
 on me, taken more than my usual care in dress- 
 ing myself. I stood before her a gayer man 
 than her fancy had formed, and with a world I \ 
 air, as she afterwards told me, which, as a 
 stroke of lightning, smote her heart, that I 
 could not be the one for whom she had so long 
 nourished her faithful patience. 
 
 " A considerable time elapsed before her 
 father returned, and when he did his face was 
 saddened, I may almost say darkened. But he 
 
 'J * 
 
 came kindly to me, and said : — 
 
 " ' Mr. Eccles, I am sorry for what has hap-
 
 AFFECTION WITHOUT INTEREST. 169 
 
 pened. Your meeting with Leezy has not 
 been such as I believe both anticipated, and she 
 is a good deal afflicted by the disappointment ; 
 but perfect bliss in nothing of this world should 
 be looked for. By and by, however, she will 
 be calmer, and she bids me say, although she 
 has fled from you, that I must detain you 
 until she is able to come again.' 
 
 " I made the best answer I could to this 
 speech, which, though expressed with tones of 
 kindness, was accompanied with looks of sorrow: 
 but how wayward is the heart of man ! It gave 
 me, yes — I must say all — pleasure ; I felt as if 
 a burden had fallen from my shoulders, and 
 chains of bondage from my hands.— What was 
 there in the scene to give me such relief?" 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 170 BOG LB coin; i I 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A TURN IN LIFE. 
 
 I remember that at the time when Sir Neil 
 Eccles expressed how much he was liberated 
 by the intelligence of the grieved father, I was 
 struck with a pang as if a sudden infection of 
 some unpleasant fear had tainted my mind, and 
 I observed by the look he cast at me, that he 
 had noticed its effect on my countenance. He 
 was faithful, but his love was gone : I must, 
 however, continue the story. 
 
 " The old man, when Miss Eglesham returned, 
 im mediately retired. In the interval, she had 
 dressed herself with her wonted neatness, but 
 there was a calm solemnity in her eyes that 
 silently told of heartfelt resolution. She spoke 
 first. 'Let us not, 1 she said, ' waste words:
 
 A TURN IN LIFE. 171 
 
 this is the most important hour in the lives of 
 both, and perhaps calls for our utmost forti- 
 tude. You, Neil, were surprised at something 
 different about me from what you had expected. 
 Alas ! Neil, I was no less at the change which 
 has taken place in you. We have long looked 
 forward with anxiety for this meeting — at least 
 I have — and your faithfulness to your promise 
 with this early visit, is an assurance that you 
 have done so too. But — ' and her lips quivered, 
 and her eyes glistened with tears as she added, 
 * it is a meeting to part — Yes,, to part ! My 
 retired way of life, a village recluse, I have un- 
 dergone no variation, save that of time. But 
 your active and grand pursuits have made you 
 a different man : I can no longer be fit, under 
 so great a change, to be what I once thought.' 
 
 " She wept as she said this, but I seized her 
 hand, and, though I felt less then than I did 
 afterwards and now, I assured her that my 
 heart and affections were still faithful. 
 
 " ' True,' she sadly exclaimed, ' you may 
 yourself think so, but your fortune and appear- 
 ance witness how much you deceive yourself. 
 No, Neil ; I am not insensible to the cause 
 
 i 2
 
 172 BOOLE COBBB i 
 
 which made you start at my homely garb and 
 household drudgery. These hands, roughened 
 as they arc with our Decessary thrift, are not 
 
 such as you would like to sec paddling on a 
 
 spinnet. 1 
 
 " I assured her that it was not for such tri- 
 fling that I had so long cherished my constant 
 
 a fleet ion. 
 
 "'Oh, Neil!' she replied, and I felt myself 
 
 melted, as it were, with sorrow; 'Neil, you 
 do not understand me. I complain not of you; 
 the change has been worked upon you by far 
 scenes and strange faces ; but, as I cannot be 
 your wife, I wished to prove to you the sincerity 
 of my undecaying regard. 1 am no longer 
 the woman that can add to your comforts: 
 my lowly lot and inexperience have prevented 
 me from acquiring those fashions and accom- 
 plishments which your wife ought to possess. 1 
 
 "'Good Heavens!' I exclaimed, 'what do 
 you mean T 
 
 " ' I am not one of those blind women who 
 cannot discern how much of mutual feeling 
 enters into the happiness of married life. Alas ! 
 I cannot bring a fit companion to your success.
 
 A TURN IN LIFE. 173 
 
 Often and often, when in imagination looking 
 forward to this day, have I said to myself, 
 ' There is a guilty selfishness in the love of her 
 that sees not the hazard she runs when she ven- 
 tures to contend with habits and feelings not 
 congenial to her own. 1 I love you still, and 
 these many years of patient and humble endu- 
 rance show how dearly ; but from this hour I 
 am a widow.' 
 
 u There was a greatness of mind, and a sad- 
 ness in the way she uttered this, that smote 
 my very heart with a strange coldness, and ren- 
 dered me unable to speak. She smiled, and, 
 withdrawing her hand, added, ' I see you are 
 affected ; but let us not play the hypocrite to 
 each other. You make no remonstrance against 
 my determination, — a proof that in the secret 
 places of your bosom, unknown it may be even 
 to yourself, it gratifies some lurking wish. 
 Now, Mr. Eccles, I have told you my decision ; 
 from this time we shall be only as ordinary 
 friends — more we can never be ; but I will 
 yet do justice to your generosity. My father's 
 narrow stipend ends with himself; the death 
 of my mother cuts me off from any share of
 
 174 BOGLK CORBET. 
 
 that pension she might have enjoyed from the 
 Widows 1 fund. If I survive my father, I shall 
 be very poor; I therefore ask, as a token of 
 what we once hoped to be together, that you 
 will settle on me an income equal to what my 
 mother would have received from the Fund. 1 
 
 " ' You shall have half my fortune; vou de- 
 serve it all ;' and I again would have seized 
 her hand, but she moved gently away. 
 
 " ' No, Mr. Eccles, 1 was her firm answer j 
 ' give no more than what I ask ; I am now 
 a widow ; and what would have been deemed 
 sufficient for my father's wife should satisfy 
 his daughter. I will accept as my own what 
 I have requested, but not one farthing more : 
 no present, no gift more, must you ever offer — 
 thirty pounds a year is enough, and you, from 
 the day you fix it, must seek to know me no 
 more. 1 
 
 " I sometimes," added the old gentleman, 
 much affected, " think I hear her yet — but I 
 hasten to conclude. The settlement was made, 
 and, saving her bills, and the letter she wrote 
 by you, soliciting me to pay vou some atten- 
 tion for the civility you had shown to her, 
 is all that I have since ever known of he r
 
 A TURN IN LIFE. 175 
 
 existence : but her example has not been barren 
 — I am a solitary bachelor, and it somehow 
 seems to me that I should be, on her account, 
 more than a common friend to you. 11 
 
 This disclosure of the early events of his 
 life, partly explained the mystery I had ob- 
 served about him, and at the same time the 
 seeming art and wariness with which he had 
 cultivated an intimacy with me, insomuch that 
 from that time he treated me more as a son 
 than a friend. I never, however, entirely pos- 
 sessed his confidence, as the sequel will serve 
 to show ; and perhaps owing to that circum- 
 stance, the current of my subsequent life be- 
 came so often troubled. 
 
 This conversation, of which I have only 
 been able to give an imperfect outline, became 
 so interesting, that before it was finished, the 
 coach for London was allowed to proceed with- 
 out me, and in consequence, I was obliged 
 to remain all night at Rochester, expecting 
 that in the morning he would resume his jour- 
 ney to Canterbury. But I was agreeably dis- 
 appointed ; whether his business admitted of 
 delay, or his disclosure had made him, as he 
 said, unfit for it, will be seen hereafter; we,
 
 170 BOG LB CORBET. 
 
 however, came back to town in his carriage, 
 and, to use the phrase befitting mv condition, 
 
 my heart was undoubtedly left behind with 
 Anella. I was not, however, so much at that 
 time sensible of the impression she had left on 
 nit. .-is I bood after experienced. I am not, 
 indeed, Bure, if in the course of the" journey I 
 thought much of her, and I perfec-tl} recollect 
 that her name was never once mentioned. But 
 in the course of the week her image too often 
 molested my thoughts, and I was endowed 
 with a strange faculty of perceiving some sur- 
 prising resemblance to her most remarkable 
 features in the particular beauties of other 
 females : sometimes I saw the soft blue of her 
 eyes where the rest of the countenance was 
 dissimilar — now and then, the fairness of her 
 gentle complexion — and, curiouslv enough, I 
 have thought that there was often more than 
 one sound of her voice in the notes of a street- 
 organ, — for lovers are as fanciful as poets; — 
 before Sunday came, I had all the symptoms 
 of an ardent passion. 
 
 Sir Neil invited me on the Sunday to 
 dine with him, and indeed requested me to 
 come every Sunday; but I rarely went, for it
 
 A TURN IN LIFE. 177 
 
 so happened that the weather was each suc- 
 ceeding day seducingly beautiful, and my con- 
 finement all the week amidst the smoke of the 
 city, made it highly proper, at least I thought 
 so, that I should avail myself of such weather 
 to inhale a little country air. The only thing 
 I did not observe myself, was the direction my 
 excursions took ; for it happened that either 
 the tide or the coaches were regularly conve- 
 nient for going to Gravesend ; and that I was 
 always of opinion it was more suitable to my 
 health to go down the river, than to Richmond 
 or Hampton Court. This might be the case ; 
 and it was also the most natural thing in the 
 world, that as often as I went to Rochester, 
 I should always accidentally call to inquire 
 if Anella had any commands for Sir Neil. 
 But the most surprising thing in all those un- 
 accountable journeys, was my never once men- 
 tioning to him where I had been, nor whom 
 I had seen, even though once or twice he some- 
 what particularly threw out the question, and 
 certainly I had no reason for evading it in the 
 manner I did. 
 
 i 5
 
 17U BOOLE OORBBT. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 AN EVENT. 
 
 When those judicious anticipations of ill 
 health had been several times repeated, and my 
 excursions to Rochester had become as regular 
 as the Sunday, I was surprised one day, the 
 first in which Anclla had accompanied me in 
 a walk to the castle, by the apparition of Sir 
 Neil Eccles' carriage coining over the bridge. 
 I say apparition, for had it been the Flying 
 Dutchman in full sail, it could not have dis- 
 concerted me more : to escape discovery was 
 impossible, and my thoughts fell into utter 
 confusion ; while my fair companion was scarce- 
 ly less moved. Before either had time to pre- 
 pare an excuse for the accident which brought 
 us so strangely together, the carriage drew near,
 
 AN EVENT. 179 
 
 but to our immediate relief, although it passed 
 within a yard of us, Sir Neil happened at the 
 time to have his eyes directed towards some 
 object in the view up the river, and he did not, 
 in consequence, as we feared, observe us. 
 
 In the belief that we had been unnoticed, we 
 hastened back to the house, and having taken a 
 by-path, reached it before Sir Neil arrived. I 
 would have gone in with Anella, but some un- 
 accountable indecision induced me to hesitate, 
 and I left her ; but just as I chanced to turn 
 round, there, awful before me, was Sir Neil; 
 his smile was terrific. However, not to make 
 more ado of the matter, I may sum up the 
 whole in a few words, — I returned with him 
 into the house, and from the date of that adven- 
 ture, I was admitted as a thriving wooer to his 
 ward, and learned, to my inexpressible astonish- 
 ment, that he had been apprised of all my visits 
 after the second, and exulted in the feigned in- 
 difference which he had maintained towards me 
 concerning them. 
 
 Anella having no relations nor friends, but 
 only Sir Neil to consult, a day was in due time 
 fixed for our marriage. Farther than her sur-
 
 1H0 BOGLE CORlil i 
 
 Dame I never inquired, it was the common one 
 
 of Smith, and it was only by bearing her alwaj - 
 spoken of by her baptismal, that I was under 
 the necessity of asking- even that. Sir Neil, 
 indeed, superseded all inquiry respecting her 
 family and connexions, by early informing me, 
 that her relations were very remote, and that 
 she was entirely dependant on him, as her 
 father's friend. 
 
 " The regard," said he, " that I must ever 
 cherish for the memory of her beautiful mother, 
 gives her, besides the rights founded on her 
 own merit, a strong claim upon me ; I intend 
 that her children shall inherit the best half of 
 my fortune." 
 
 " I thought her father had also been your 
 particular friend : was it not he that per- 
 suaded vou to remain in India r" 
 
 This interrogation was said in the innocence 
 of a lover's simplicity ; but I observed that a 
 momentary shadow passed over his face, like 
 the overcoming of a summer cloud on the 
 sunny fields, and he immediately smiled, adding, 
 " Her father has, I believe, been, if not my 
 best, undoubtedly my best beloved associate."
 
 AN EVENT. 181 
 
 " I thought," was my eager reply, " that he 
 had been long dead of his wounds." 
 
 " But," said he, — " but let us not now talk 
 of him. Anella's children shall come to a 
 good fortune, nor shall you and she be for- 
 gotten." 
 
 I believe this is all that ever passed be- 
 tween us concerning my bride. I was too 
 happy on any terms to receive the hand of 
 Anella, and although the extent of my com- 
 mercial transactions were, as I have already 
 described, often the cause of much annoyance, 
 still my income was liberal, and not a shade 
 of blemish or imprudence could be imputed to 
 the marriage. Sir Neil gave her away at the 
 ceremony, with the interest of an affectionate 
 father, and immediately after presented her with 
 a casket, of jewels that would have gratified a 
 duchess. They were indeed too splendid for a 
 merchant's wife of my station, and I said so to 
 himself; but he repressed my remarks, by say- 
 ing it was the only occasion on which he had 
 ever indulged his fancy in things of that kind. 
 " I bought them," he added, " in India, and 
 they were intended for her mother. Let her
 
 182 HUG LB GORKI I . 
 
 wear them as an earnest of what shall be done 
 hereafter." 
 
 The liberality, or, more properly speaking, 
 the magnificent generosity of Sir Neil to mv 
 wife on her wedding-day, astonished us both, 
 and he continued ever after to treat us as his 
 children. In his own establishment he made 
 no change, but his home was with us, and his 
 attention devoted to promote the felicity which 
 we enjoyed in no unenviable degree. 
 
 The first five or six months subsequent to 
 the marriage were indescribably blessed ; doubt- 
 less, during the time, I had, like other mer- 
 chants, my anxieties, but there was more of 
 pure and unmingled pleasure in my cup, than 
 is often enjoyed in the uncertain fortunes of 
 men. 
 
 Somewhere about the seventh month, several 
 severe disasters happened among our corre- 
 spondents, and my partner, sanguine that al- 
 though they molested our arrangements, the 
 effect would soon pass off, suggested that I 
 should raise a permanent loan, to render, as he 
 said, our hands easy. He spoke of the pro- 
 posal as of easy accomplishment, and dwelt
 
 AN EVENT. 183 
 
 much more on the prospects of our business 
 increasing, than on this fatal suggestion, for 
 fatal it proved. It was like a shot in my heart. 
 I know not why it so overwhelmed me; why 
 the sober image of Eric Pullicate flashed upon 
 my recollection ; why I suffered, as it were, an 
 inward sense of ruin ; but the proposal touched 
 my spirit with suspicion and dread. An 
 awful vision of Anella in penury rose before 
 me, and I actually was so far shaken from 
 my habitual equanimity, that I read the letter 
 again, and, being alone, gave way to tears of 
 apprehension. 
 
 I was alone, and still deeply distressed by 
 the prophetic effect of the letter, when Sir Neil 
 Eccles came in. He saw that some misfortune 
 had befallen me, and, with the wonted art and 
 delicacy so finely blended in his character, in- 
 quired what had happened. I could make him 
 no answer, but, lifting the letter, which lay on 
 the table, presented it open, and requested him 
 to give me his advice. 
 
 He received it with agitation ; I saw his 
 hand tremble as he took his spectacles from his 
 pocket, but he said nothing. Having finished
 
 lttt BOOLE OORBBT 
 
 the perusal, he replaced it on the table, removed 
 his glasses, and restored them to his waistcoat- 
 
 pocket without uttering a word. 
 
 After a pause of several minutes he said 
 calmly, " This certainly does not look like sound 
 prosperity, but your credit is still in a healthy 
 state. I am amazed, however, to see how, in 
 the same breath, Mr. Possy talks of increasing 
 advantages, and yet suggests the expediency <>f 
 raising a loan — a loan for some time. I will 
 readily assist yourself with a few thousands, if 
 that will be enough, but you must previously 
 go to Scotland and ascertain the real state of 
 your affairs there, and if you find them in the 
 condition you fear they are, separate at oner 
 from Mr. Possy, and form another connexion 
 with some more judicious man." 
 
 As lu- uttered these words, which have ever 
 remained engraven on my memory, the image 
 of Eric Pullicate, his sedate aspect and bright 
 shrewd eye, peering sidelong, again came across 
 my mind, and in the same instant I resolved to 
 set off by that evening's mail to investigate the 
 circumstances of our transactions in Glasgow. 
 Sir Neil, who was himself an alert and decisive
 
 AN EVENT. 185 
 
 character, applauded the promptness of my 
 determination, which, however, was not formed 
 without a pang ; for Anella was several months 
 advanced in that interesting state in which all 
 good ladies wish to be who love their Lords, 
 and it was with an exquisitely painful reluc- 
 tance that I left her. I wish not, however, to 
 indulge my feelings here. The consequences 
 that ensued supply materials for a sad tale, but 
 I shall try to speak with cheerfulness, and to 
 tell my story as the events came to pass. — Vain 
 attempt ! it is not in my power ; my paper is 
 blistered with the tears of remembrance, and I 
 must pause.
 
 186 BOGLE GOBBET. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 GLASGOW. 
 
 My journey to Glasgow was probably not 
 much different in its incidents from that to 
 London, but my mind was so engrossed with 
 cares, that I retain no recollection of them. An 
 oblivion like this, is the surest proof that a man 
 in subsequent life can possess of the anxiety he 
 has suffered at a former time. I have remarked 
 the same thing on other occasions, and as often 
 as memory is at fault, when it seeks to recover 
 a remembrance, I am persuaded that the cir- 
 cumstance had occurred in some crisis of intensi 
 solicitude or passion. 
 
 My partner, Mr. Possy, was greatly surprised 
 when I came suddenly upon him, and still more
 
 GLASGOW. 187 
 
 when I described how much his letter had 
 alarmed me. He assured me that I had con- 
 ceived a false notion of the condition of our 
 affairs, for that every thing was flourishing to 
 which he had put his hand, and that in advis- 
 ing the loan, he was only actuated by a wish to 
 keep me easy in our pecuniary transactions, and 
 that we might be the better able to meet our 
 increasing business. Still this assurance did 
 not satisfy me ; my fears were awakened, and I 
 could not reason myself out of an apprehension 
 that the business which obliged me to have re- 
 course to such expedients to raise money as I 
 had been subjected to, could not be in a sound 
 state. It even struck me, as we were in conver- 
 sation, that he seemed to be under a spell of in- 
 fatuation in what he said, for during my resi- 
 dence in the metropolis, the impression which 
 I had originally received of the natural defects 
 of his understanding, had in a considerable 
 degree been worn away, and his letters, filled 
 with plausibilites, absorbed from others, appa- 
 rently indicated both thought and observation. 
 However, as the purpose of my journey was
 
 1JW5 BOGLB COBBBT. 
 
 to investigate, I did not resl satisfied with liis 
 hopes and convictions, but immediately applied 
 
 myself to ascertain the facts of the case. 
 
 Nothing could be inure flattering than the 
 first results. We had received vast consign- 
 ments, and sold prodigious quantities to mer- 
 chants trading to different parts of the globe, 
 especially to North and South America, and 
 the West India Islands, neutral as well as 
 British ; and although our advances were heavy, 
 yet, when the returns would come in, our pro- 
 fits would indemnify us richly. I had every 
 reason therefore to be pleased, and became 
 vexed at my own want of confidence. I wrote 
 in this spirit to Sir Neil Kccles, and alluded to 
 the assistance which he had given me cause t<« 
 expect; but I was astonished at his reply, and 
 felt inexpressibly chagrined at the haste I had 
 been in to give a premature opinion. 
 
 He expressed the warmest satisfaction at the 
 statement I had made, but he reminded me how 
 much our prosperity was dependant on that of 
 others, and that the universal opinion of his 
 most sagacious friends was, that the trade in 
 which I was deepest interested was overdone;
 
 GLASGOW. 189 
 
 urging me rather to contract than to think of 
 extending our dealings. I could not resist the 
 force of his counsel, seconded as it was by my 
 own latent fears ; I saw at once, that instead of 
 consulting the arithmetical figures in our books, 
 I should turn my attention principally to as- 
 certain the true state of our correspondents; 
 and this secret inquiry, known only to myself, 
 the more it was prosecuted proved the less en- 
 couraging. 
 
 It is necessary to explain so much, to account 
 for my stay in Glasgow having been prolonged 
 far beyond what was required by the examina- 
 tion of our own books, and at a time too, when 
 my wife was in the most interesting situation. 
 I heard that something like wonder was now 
 and then expressed at my apparent apathy, and 
 I was also two or three times troubled with 
 questions by old gentlemen whom I respected, 
 uttered in a kind of condoling tone, expressive 
 of their hope, that I found all things in the best 
 state with Mr. Possy. These friendly interro- 
 gatories had something oracular in them ; and I 
 use not language too strong, when I say they 
 exasperated my hidden anxieties.
 
 190 BOGLE CORBBT. 
 
 I speak of my commercial concerns thus 
 seriously, both because at the time they greatly 
 affected me, and led to the vicissitudes which 
 have since overcast my prospects; for in other 
 respects my visit to Glasgow was one of much 
 enjoyment. All my early friendships were re- 
 newed : Dr. Leach still continued as common- 
 place and erudite as ever; Mr. Macindoc, ac- 
 cording to lii> own intimations, had more affairs 
 on hand than a first minister of state. But 
 little change had indeed taken place in the vil- 
 lage, and the only person in Glasgow, of all 
 those I formerly numbered as my intimates, to 
 whom any very eminent change could be im- 
 puted, was Eric Pullicate; and upon him a 
 metamorphosis both moral and commercial had 
 taken place to an extraordinary degree. 
 
 From the period when he quitted the em- 
 ployment of our house, the world had gone 
 well with him. He was become distinguished, 
 had made a great deal of money, and was cau- 
 tiously and constantly thriving. He still, how- 
 ever, wore the same plain shrewd appearance as 
 formerly ; but from a democrat of the very 
 jacobine order he had evolved into a temperate
 
 GLASGOW. 191 
 
 Whig. Had he acquired an estate, he would 
 undoubtedly have been a Tory. Just before 
 my arrival he had purchased an elegant house, 
 and aspired, much in the usual way of the 
 topping citizens, to give costly dinners; but 
 his wife, with a competent share of good sense, 
 could never cast off her early habits ; nor him- 
 self, with increasing fortune, acquire the de- 
 meanour of a gentleman— and yet it would be 
 far from truth to insinuate that he was either 
 a coarse or a vulgar man. The husband and 
 wife, on the contrary, were judiciously paired, 
 if the expression may be allowed, and it was 
 only when they imagined that they should 
 emulate the weak splendour of their neighbours, 
 whom they conceived were not richer than 
 themselves, that they did not both merit the 
 praise of carrying their full cup with a steady 
 hand. Nothing could be better suited to their 
 circumstances than their domestic habitudes. 
 Their attempts at style and fashion were, how- 
 ever, extremely absurd and ridiculous. Of 
 course there were a few whom the rank prospe- 
 rity of the early cotton trade occasionally so 
 inflated— but it serves to alleviate the uniform
 
 192 BOGLE CORB1 I 
 
 simplicity of my narrative, to introduce an 
 ception now and then to the general burgees 
 sobriety which has always been so sedulously 
 cultivated by the Glasgow manufacturers! 
 
 During the period thai I remained in the 
 Royal city, listening with open cars to all the 
 intelligence 1 could possiblj have access to, 
 concerning the circumstances, the character, 
 and the prospects of those with whom our 
 affairs were ravelled, I had many opportu- 
 nities of seeing Eric Pullicate when he was 
 seen best, in a quiet chat with himself by his 
 own hearth. I also was regularly invited to 
 his show-banquets, and though I never felt 
 myself comfortable at them, they were still 
 scenes from which a species of exquisite plea- 
 sure was derived — enjoyment, mingled with re- 
 gret, at seeing a man in all respects bo superior 
 to the commonalty in discernment, prudence, 
 and information, making an exhibition of him- 
 self, and to no advantage— merely because his 
 purse enabled him, now and then, to set out 
 a gorgeous table. One occasion of this sort 
 ought really to be described ; it was remarkable, 
 not only as the greatest banquet he had evei
 
 GLASGOW. 193 
 
 given, but was distinguished by an incident, 
 of which no probable augury could have been 
 discovered in his previous life. The demo- 
 crat entertained a Lord ! The details, how- 
 ever, furnish materials for another chapter, and 
 I must beseech the indulgence of the reader 
 while I try to recollect them, for it took place 
 while I was suffering from anxiety, and I have 
 already explained, that in such a time, passing 
 events make but little impression upon me : 
 indeed, I cannot account to myself how it has 
 happened that I retain any remembrance of the 
 affair at all ; for, independently of the cares 
 with which I was then environed, an event 
 came to pass, that, in the energy of the an- 
 guish, which still bursts out afresh when it is 
 recalled, I feel as if all lighter things should 
 have been washed out with tears from the 
 tablet of my brain. 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 1!H HOG LI. C0RBB1 
 
 ( IIAPTER XXIV 
 
 A NEW MAN'S PBA61 
 
 My friend Cyril Thornton lias lately, in hi^ 
 very admirable autobiography, told us of a 
 dinner with which he was entertained by one ol 
 the Magistrates of Glasgow, but it seems to 
 have been an ordinary genteel affair, what in 
 common Trongate parlance is called a beefer, or 
 pot-luck, compared with the high and solemn 
 banquet to which I was invited with the Lord. 
 
 English peers, as it is well known, beyond the 
 Tweed, are not at all so respectable as those of 
 Scottish growth ; but the Karl of Moorheatiui 
 was of the best blood in the Highlands, and, 
 commanding the regiment then quartered in the 
 city, was justly entitled to all manner of cere- 
 mony. Accordingly, Mr. Pullicate being re-
 
 A NEW man's feast. 195 
 
 cently chosen into the town council, could do no 
 less, as his lady told me, than be civil to him, 
 like the rest of the magistrates. 
 
 " 'Deed, 1 ' said she, " Mr. Bogle Corbet, it 's 
 far from our line o' life to think of making any 
 occasion of the sort ; the gude man, however, 
 cannot weel be off testifying his respect for my 
 Lord, but the thought o 't takes away my 
 night's rest." 
 
 I sympathized with her sincerely, and sub- 
 joined, " That gentlemen in public trusts are 
 obliged to do many things exceedingly dis- 
 agreeable to themselves." 11 
 
 " That 's very true," was the reply, " and so 
 I said to Eric, — I have not got my tongue yet 
 used to call him Mr. Pullicate, — when he was 
 obligated, by course of dignity, to see the man 
 hanged : but this is a real great hanging. How- 
 somever, if I can get through 't with credit to 
 the gude man, pains shall not be wanting. I 
 have ordered every thing o' the best ; for on an 
 occasion like this we must put our hand in our 
 pouch." 
 
 I cordially assented to the propriety of her 
 opinion This conversation took place during a 
 
 K 2
 
 !!>() BOGLB OORBRT. 
 
 morning visit which I happened to make, much 
 to her inconvenience. May I add the motive? 
 
 — to see how her preparations were proceeding, 
 for I, too, was interested in the event. 
 
 In the afternoon, when I went a little before 
 tin.' exact time, to be the first of the party, 
 all had gone on prosperously. The drawing- 
 room chimney, however, not being often in use, 
 smoked a little, and the air of the apartment 
 was still cold and raw, one of the windows 
 being opened until the fire properly kindled. 
 
 " I "m glad to see you," said Mrs. Pullicate, 
 dressed inordinately in her gayest. " The gude 
 man will be down-stairs presently ; yell sit next 
 to him at dinner, for hell need the help and 
 council of a friend." 
 
 At this juncture he came into the room, and 
 almost immediately after the guests began to 
 arrive, respectable elderly gentlemen with white 
 waistcoats and big bellies. Then the parish 
 minister, a venerable person, habitually more 
 grave than naturally so. One of the other 
 guests, at the moment, looking out at the 
 window, said, 
 
 " There's the Principal, in his cocket hat, a
 
 A NEW man's feast. 197 
 
 sign that he expects a long cork will be drawn 
 the day." 
 
 To the Principal succeeded the Lord Provost, 
 two of the Bailies, Mr. Aird, as an old friend, 
 and anon came the Earl, a douce, bald-headed 
 carl in regimentals, which, not having been put 
 on till late in life, did not seem to sit easily 
 upon him. He was received of course, with 
 great elaboration of homages, and Mr. Aird, 
 as well as our host, appeared to be much in- 
 commoded with their hands. Mrs. Pullicate, 
 having bare arms, which were tinged into a 
 deeper red by her household visits to the 
 kitchen fire, placed them a-kimbo, and taking 
 hold of each elbow made a lowly curtsey, like 
 a miss of old at a minuet, as his Lordship ap- 
 proached towards her. Saving the profound- 
 ness of her sinking, nothing remarkable took 
 place before dinner. 
 
 On the feast neither pains nor cost had been 
 spared. Plate and china were gorgeously in- 
 termingled, and lamps to warm the dishes, 
 lighted with oil of cinnamon, would have breath- 
 ed all Arabia — but for the fragrance of the 
 meat. I remarked, however, that the use of
 
 BOGLE I ORB! ,1 
 
 the lamps had not been disclosed, no 
 cither from ignorance or bashfulness, ventured 
 to touch them. 
 
 •• He's very plain," whispered Mr. Pullii 
 (o me; " he s only eating the salmon with com- 
 mon vinegar just like an ordinary man.'' 
 
 I Looked towards the Earl, and ii was so. 
 
 " Lord, will I help you? 1 ' said Mrs. Pulli- 
 cate to bis Lordship, as if she had some diffi- 
 culty in uttering the freedom of such an in- 
 quiry. — 1 must not, however, relate, if 1 could, 
 all the particular details. 
 
 Just at this juncture a servant filled a goblet 
 to one of the guests near me with champagne ; 
 I saw him drink it, and wring his lips, deli- 
 ciously after, but he made no immediate re- 
 mark ; he then drained the dregs, and turning 
 to me, said, "That's no an ill brewst;" and 
 extending his voice, he added, " Mr. Pullicate. 
 i~ Strothcrs or Carruthers your brewer?* 1 
 
 This suggested me to challenge my old 
 friend, our host, to champagne. 
 
 "It's the first time," said he, "ever such 
 costly drink has been in my house, and there-
 
 THE NEW MANS FEAST. 199 
 
 fore I '11 no 1 make an objection for a ploy to 
 taste it." 
 
 Accordingly the wine was poured out, and 
 he added, 
 
 " Well, let it bide a wee till the bizzing's 
 o'er." 
 
 " Very proper. — Well, Eric, how do you like 
 it ?" 
 
 He held up his glass and looked' through it, 
 adding wisely, 
 
 " It 's surely a fine wine for a flam ; but, 
 in my opinion, port's a better liquor — as a 
 liquor." 
 
 " Lord, will ye be served," said Mrs. Pulli- 
 cate, " with one of yon round bonny-things, 
 forenent Mr. Bogle Corbet ? They call them 
 French patties : they 're made o' oysters, and 
 are real fine." 
 
 My attention was thus drawn to his Lord- 
 ship, but he preferred the mutton, and every 
 guest whispered to his neighbour, with a face 
 of admiring piety, " It was indeed wonderful 
 that a Lord should eat mutton !" 
 
 However, dinner was at last concluded; and
 
 200 BOG LB COBB! I 
 
 making due allowance for a few little inadver- 
 tences, it was a sumptuous feast, and did credit 
 
 to the opulence and liberality of the entertainer 
 and his indefatigable lady; but, just as the 
 cloth was removed, I was summoned from the 
 
 table. " Mr. Possy wished to see me particu- 
 larly,'' said the messenger. 
 
 IK- was during the day at Paisley on Bonu 
 matter of business, arid although I had opened 
 
 the letters by the post in the morning, there 
 had been one for him untouched when I left 
 the counting-house. I doubted not, therefore, 
 that although this letter was addressed to him- 
 self, it had some relation to our common affairs. 
 The urgency with which he had sent for me I 
 ascribed to his wonted folly, and on hearing the 
 message, was on the point of returning back 
 into the dining-room. But the person who had 
 come for me, arrested eagerly my arm, say- 
 ing— 
 
 " Sir, ye had better go home."' 
 
 "I "11 go to the warehouse, 11 was my answer, 
 observing something more serious than common 
 in the looks of the messenger.
 
 THE NEW MAN'S FEAST. 201 
 
 " Mr. Possy is at your lodgings, waiting for 
 you." 
 
 " In the name of Heaven ! what has hap- 
 pened ?" 
 
 " Nothing very uncommon, but ye 11 hear 
 the worst of it from himself." 
 
 " The worst ! — has there been any failure ?" 
 
 "He's in sore affliction; I could not have 
 thought Mr. Possy would have felt so much, 
 had it concerned himself." 
 
 " Does it not then concern him ?" and in the 
 same moment I put on my hat to accompany 
 the man. 
 
 " Sir," he added respectfully, " would you 
 not be the better of the assistance of Dr. Por- 
 teous, the minister ?" 
 
 " Why ?" cried I, halting. 
 
 The man looked at me compassionately, and 
 said, " Mr. Possy has had a sad letter anent 
 your leddy — It 's all over." 
 
 I heard no more ; for a moment the whole 
 house appeared as if it had been crushed in 
 around me, and I fainted. 
 
 K 5
 
 ■20-2 BOOLE CORBE1 
 
 ( I1APTEK XXV. 
 
 A RESOLUTION. 
 
 \\ men reach fifty without having expe- 
 
 rienced that there are accidents in life which, 
 as it were, transmute the very nature of the 
 mind. I have felt this change more than once, 
 but never to so great a degree as when I 
 recovered to the full sense of my loss. Under 
 any circumstances, the calamity would have 
 been unspeakable; my first love was no more, 
 and all the expectations I had cherished oi 
 coming a father, utterly quenched. It set . 
 to me as if a mort-cloth had been thrown upon 
 the future, and that I was doomed, for the re- 
 mainder of my days, to mourn by the bier of 
 departed happiness, forlorn beside the coffin of
 
 A RESOLUTION. 203 
 
 my hopes. But the indulgent reader will spare 
 me from describing the agony of grief with 
 which I felt the blow ; I only recollect the 
 tidings, and that I awoke in my bed-chamber 
 from a hideous dream, which left no image 
 on the memory, but a dark and formless 
 omen of woe, and the long black shadow of 
 something that had passed never to come 
 again. 
 
 Fortunately, in the dreadful interval, the 
 troubles of our mercantile affairs began to show 
 themselves ; — yes, fortunately, for had it not so 
 come to pass, such v/as the consternation whicli 
 had fallen upon me, that the faculties of my 
 mind must have withered. I could think only of 
 the void made by Providence in my lot, and 
 ponder why it had been so suddenly permitted. 
 But after ten days of vacuity and sorrow, I was 
 roused by an early visit from my partner, en- 
 treating me to think of our affairs, which were 
 in great jeopardy, in consequence of the capture 
 of a ship with a consignment of dollars unin- 
 sured, belonging to one of our correspondents ; 
 a disappointment which rendered it necessary
 
 904 BOO LB COB i;i . I . 
 
 that the loan he had spoken of should be 
 raised without delay. 
 
 During niyabstraction, several letters had come 
 to me from Sir Neil Eccles, condoling with the 
 most touching kindness on the loss I had Buffer- 
 ed, and filled with such grief for the virtue and 
 beauty extinguished in Anclla, that many of his 
 pathetic expressions surprised me even then l>\ 
 their tenderness. In the alarm which the news 
 of the capture inspired, it naturally occurred to 
 me, to represent what had taken place, and to 
 entreat his temporary aid until I should feel 
 myself in a better condition to attend to busi- 
 ness. His answer was characteristic; he la- 
 mented that such an untoward event, at such a 
 time, should have come to me ; reminded me 
 that he had advised me to abridge our transac- 
 tions, and in a remote manner, but in language 
 which could not be misunderstood, compassion- 
 ately apprised me that Heaven had been pleased 
 to sever the tie which united our mutual in- 
 terests. 
 
 The letter from Sir Neil left me no hope of 
 obtaining the aid which our concern so suddenly
 
 A RESOLUTION. 205 
 
 required ; and the thickening disasters of the 
 time clearly pointed out, that in order to do 
 justice to our creditors and to ourselves, we 
 ought to suspend payments, and seek permis- 
 sion to wind up our affairs. Never shall I for- 
 get the weak amazement with which Mr. Possy 
 heard me when I proposed that measure. He 
 had never looked beyond the arithmetical signs 
 in our books for any other proof of our pros- 
 perity. These certainly showed that great pro- 
 fits were due to us, and that in our ruin were 
 still riches, but they lay afar off*. His lady, at 
 the mere idea of the suspension, became wild ; 
 she upbraided me for having led him to de- 
 struction, and gave vent to every expression 
 of accusation and distraction, for the poverty I 
 had brought upon them. But neither his infa- 
 tuated astonishment, nor her frenzy, could sup- 
 ply a remedy. We had no alternative ; I re- 
 solved to make my unavoidable determination 
 public ; but, before doing so, I consulted seve- 
 ral gentlemen in whose judgment I had great 
 confidence, and among others, Mr. Pullicate, 
 whom I was desirous to engage in superintend-
 
 206 BOOLE CORBET. 
 
 mg the settlement of our business. It was due 
 also to the sincerity with winch Mr. Macindoe 
 had ever interested himself in my affairs, that I 
 should early disclose my situation to him; ac- 
 cordingly, when I had spoken with my other 
 friends, I rode out to Weebeild for that pur- 
 pose. 
 
 For sour, weeks previously he had been 
 lightly unwell; his wonted active exercise was 
 too much for his strength, and he had in con- 
 sequence been obliged to confine his rambles to 
 the garden. As I approached the house he was 
 sitting on the lawn in front, in an arm-chair 
 brought from the parlour; beside his right 
 shoulder stood a claw-footed table; a daily 
 paper, which had long supplanted the weekly 
 journal, lay on it, carelessly thrown from him. 
 and over tin- paper lay several letters, and ;i 
 number of the Edinburgh Review, then in all 
 the plenitude of its original acumen and acri- 
 mony, with his spectacles in it, marking the 
 page where he had been reading. 
 
 At the time he was engaged in discussing 
 some horticultural topic with his gardener, an
 
 A RESOLUTION. 207 
 
 old man with a fustian coat and a blue shalloon 
 apron, who, as he listened to what his master 
 said, leaned with his elbow on the top of his 
 spade-handle, while his right foot was placed 
 on the blade, as if in the act of shoving it into 
 the ground. 
 
 Whether it was an effect of what had be- 
 fallen myself, or that there really was some- 
 thing in the appearance of the group which set 
 the current of my fancies in a gloomy direction, 
 is of no consequence to ascertain ; but when I 
 opened the gate I felt myself sensibly touched 
 with dejection at the sight. 
 
 Mr. Macindoe, without being very seriously 
 indisposed, had about him many ensigns of ill 
 health ; among others, he wore a white cotton 
 night-cap, and a staff stood between his legs : 
 his complexion was also pale, and at the mo- 
 ment he seemed as if old age had made greater 
 inroads upon him than I had anticipated ; while 
 the rustic simplicity of the ancient gardener 
 with his spade, reminded me of the attitude 
 and action of a village sexton opening a grave. 
 
 Mr. Macindoe himself was not, however,
 
 208 B06LE COEBJ I 
 
 aware of the associations which hi^ appearance 
 had awakened. On seeing me at the gate, he 
 called in a languid, an affected hollow voice, 
 
 and, without rising from his scat, desired 
 the gardener to fetch another chair from the 
 house.
 
 A CONSULTATION. 209 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 A CONSULTATION. 
 
 When James Sybo, the gardener, had 
 brought out the chair and placed it on the 
 opposite side of the table, I sat down to recount 
 the particulars of my case. In the mean time, 
 while the old servant was fetching; it, I had 
 inquired into the indisposition of his master, 
 whom I found depressed in spirit, and who, 
 unable to give any other name to his disease, 
 described it as a sort of " alloverishness." 
 
 As I related to him the crisis which had 
 overcome the affairs of Corbet and Possy, he 
 patiently listened. Contrary to his wonted im- 
 petuosity, he heard me to the conclusion, and 
 when I had made an end, he was apparently 
 seized with a violent fit of coughing, and not
 
 210 .i.i. CORBBT. 
 
 ready with any reply. He was evidently per- 
 plexed, but in this taciturnity I could discern 
 a gathering of thought, and I waited quietl) 
 till it grew to words. 
 
 Prom the time of my becoming a partnei 
 with Mr. Possy, he had uniformly styled m< 
 Mister, 01 Mister Bogle ('orl)et, but on this 
 
 occasion, stretching his hand to me across the 
 
 table, he said kindly, 
 
 " Bogle, my lad, this cannot be called glad 
 tidings; it's no' the song of the shepherds of 
 Bethlem watching by night. Man ! I 'm con- 
 cerned for you. Well, I never thought that 
 simple Possy was a golden guinea — I had ay 
 a suspicion that he was worth no more than 
 twenty shillings, — made of paper, to the bargain. 
 However, what is ordained will be; and ye 
 neither to be a Provost nor a Lord Mayor, 
 but only a broken merchant Have ye seen 
 Dr. Leach anent it? ponder well as ye take 
 the loup — poor man, he will be a grieved com- 
 modity. To think after all his care and pains, 
 how I plucked you by his counselling from the 
 miry clay of Mr. Aird's democratic shop, and 
 how we placed you in poor Archibald Thrum's 
 warehouse, and finally set you up as a manu-
 
 A CONSULTATION. 211 
 
 facturer, establishing your way. Really, Bogle 
 Corbet, you have brought me bad news, and a 
 gazette of your own for the same. What is to 
 be done? — no advice can I give — demented 1 
 am — no, none, Bogle Corbet.'" 
 
 He appeared so seriously affected, that, con- 
 sidering his indisposition, I was sorry to have 
 grieved him so much, and in order to lighten 
 his depression a little, I directed his attention 
 to the large balance, the fortune that would 
 remain to the partners when the business was 
 finally closed. 
 
 "Heh, man Bogle ! ye're speaking of a shelled 
 peas-cod,' 1 was his doubtful reply; "I see 
 nothing in what ye say, but a galravitching 
 Christmas dinner to the Jamaica cockroaches. 
 They 11 eat up a' ye call your balance of assets; 
 stoop and roop, will they eat it before Christ- 
 mas comes — and it comes but once a year." 
 
 I did not apprehend, certainly, the danger 
 which he did from the cockroaches, and I could 
 not refrain from smiling at the vivacity of his 
 fear. Without, however, noticing that glimpse 
 which brightened for a moment my features, he 
 continued — 
 
 " And the fashions of your goods will soon
 
 -1 2 bdGLB COR HI I 
 
 become said, when they lie in b dark damp 
 cellar at Kingston, in the way of Niggers rolling 
 
 sugar hogsheads, and piling up t'u-t it- and log- 
 wood. Many a 'Dam e tings of Massa Bogle 
 what-em-call,' will be their baptism by the 
 
 black fellows, and then the remainder to be 
 
 sold at Vendee! M y heart aches at th. enor- 
 mity of your balance; it will sink you to — I 
 must not say where, being a sick man, and 
 troubled with desperate cramps in my legs ; 
 but — but — you know if I had the heart what 
 I could say." 
 
 I endeavoured to persuade him that his ill 
 health darkened his mind, and caused him to 
 see our prospects too gloomily. 
 
 " Not a jot, not a jot," as John Cummel the 
 play-actor says, in the Blackamoor's part But 
 it's a feedum, an omen, that in such a jeopardy 
 I can give no advice. It bodes ill for my re- 
 covery. Heh, heh ! Bogle Corbet — I thought 
 ye were a green bay-tree, 
 
 Near planted by a river, 
 Which in its season yields his fruit, 
 And his leaf fadeth never. 
 
 What a blessing it is to have the consolation
 
 A CONSULTATION. 213 
 
 in the dark hour and season of despair ; read, 
 Bogle Corbet, and meditate upon the statutes 
 in the watches of the night." 
 
 I expressed my extreme grief at being the 
 cause to him of such affliction, and assured him, 
 that although it was exceedingly humiliating 
 to be obliged to stop payment, yet I considered 
 it but temporary. 
 
 "My man, my man," he rejoined, "it's a 
 period — it's a full stop — and what says that 
 pawkie get of Belzeebub, Eric Pullicate, to all 
 this ? I have had my fears that he has long 
 seen what was coming to pass. He is a supple 
 serpent, and they tell me, as he waxes rich, he 
 grows loyal. Shall I live to see him, your 
 foreman ! the Lord Provost after all ? How 
 little do we know what is ordained ! Man is 
 born to trouble, as the sparks fly into their 
 eyes — I mean upwards. This, Bogle Corbet, is 
 a sore calamity — woe, woe, that I can give no 
 advice !" 
 
 Surely there must be a great mass of ingra- 
 titude somewhere about my heart, for the more 
 Mr. Macindoe continued to utter his jeremiad 
 the less did I feel myself obliged by his com-
 
 214 BOGLB CORBET. 
 
 passion, and, strangely enough, the Less too did 
 my misfortune seem deserving of such exces- 
 sive condolence. 
 
 " Then, Sir," said I, after a brief pause, 
 "you are of opinion that I do wisely in re- 
 solving to stop payment." At these words he 
 Btarted from his chair, and flourishing hi- night- 
 cap round his head, exclaimed — 
 
 •• And have ye not vet done that ? — thanks be 
 and praise ; now I can advise. Richard 's him- 
 self again! Keep your thumb on all you have 
 been telling me, and never let wot to Robin 
 Carrick, and the likes of him, of your straits 
 as being more than a pinch by the lazy packet-. 
 Life in a muscle ! carry on, carry on ! you know 
 not how the sails will fill, nor what nor how 
 a dav may bring forth ; and if at la-t 
 must fail, and I misdoubt ye must, what does 
 it -ignify whether ye pay a crown or a pound, 
 — is it not all in the way of trade?" 
 
 Teasing and even vexatious as his absurd 
 lamentation had been, this suggestion was still 
 more disagreeable. It had been part of my 
 self-instruction to cherish high sentiments, and 
 the advice troubled my very hearing. But
 
 A CONSULTATION. 215 
 
 some restraint at the very moment checked my 
 resentment, and I only remarked that once in 
 difficulties, there was no knowing to what they 
 might lead ; adding, that I thought that such 
 was the condition of Corbet and Possy's con- 
 cern, that they could not go one step farther 
 
 without 
 
 " Snuffs of tobacco !" cried he ; " faint heart 
 never won fair leddy. Ye have only just to 
 slip out from the corner of your mouth into 
 Robin Carrick's long lug a wee bit innocent 
 white lee anent the packets, and so forth, and 
 he '11 make your bills bank notes by the way 
 of squint." 
 
 " But where are the bills ?" said I, dryly. 
 " Make them — just go among your friends, 
 tell them that ye have been a thought disap- 
 pointed, and I warrant they '11 come to you like 
 flakes in a snow-shower." 
 
 This proposal absolutely passed like a barbed 
 arrow through me, but I was enabled to say 
 sarcastically, 
 
 " Will you assist me?" 
 
 " Me !" was his exclamation, " that has been 
 out of trade these two-and-twenty years, and
 
 ■2\C> BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 never raised the wind in my life ! It would be 
 going far afield to try that now. But ye 're in 
 good credit and rich in many friends. '" 
 
 I could Buffer no more, hut snatching up m\ 
 hat, I wished him good morning, and leaving 
 him in astonishment, hastened to the home of 
 ni\ childhood — the dwelling of Mrs. Busby.
 
 AN OLD FRIEND. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 AN OLD FRIEND. 
 
 It is not the circumstances in which the in- 
 cidents of life take place, but the feeling they 
 excite, that makes one occurrence more than 
 another, important. The crisis of fortune at 
 which I had now arrived was destined to influ- 
 ence all my subsequent days, but there appear- 
 ed no augury in the time to make me sensible 
 that it was fraught with such consequences. 
 
 The distance from Weebeild to the house of 
 Mrs. Busby in the village, was little more than 
 a mile. It was a road I had often travelled — I 
 will not say with a lighter heart, for the school- 
 boy-cares of lessons to learn, and the anxieties 
 attendant on fishing or nesting excursions, were 
 
 vol. I. L
 
 J18 BOGLi: OOEBBT. 
 
 not less heavy than the burthen which then 
 weighed upon my ^j >i ri t .-. 
 
 During the major part of the walk I was irri- 
 tated and resentful. I thought, however, li n 
 of the impending ruin than of the manner in 
 
 whirh Mr. Macindoe had discussed it; and 
 grieved an immeasurably deal more at tin- nature 
 
 of the advice lie gave me how to meet my diffi- 
 culties, than with apprehension of th« desolation 
 I must soon encounter; saying, as I thought- 
 fully plodded along, " Can such be the way, in- 
 deed, of the world ?" 
 
 When the flutter had subsided into a gentler 
 vexation, and my thoughts grew calmer, per- 
 haps from some unconscious sympathy with 
 the peacefulness of the day and the repose of 
 the landscape around, I began to reflect more in 
 detail on my conversation with Mr. Macindoe. 
 His composed attention to my recital was sure 
 1\ at variance with the habits of his character. 
 From what cause could it proceed ? The 
 strange abruptness too, with which he leaped 
 at once from inability to advise me, into an 
 alacrity to recommend what I thought a dis- 
 honest course, was also perplexing. Agitated
 
 AN OLD FRIEND. 219 
 
 with these unsettled and veering reflections, I 
 reached the door ; but so much had I been ab- 
 sorbed in meditation, that notwithstanding the 
 distance, as I have said, was not above a mile, 
 I had taken nearly an hour to walk it. It could 
 not have been owing to any slowness in my 
 steps, for, several times, so rapid were my 
 paces, that I was obliged to halt with breath- 
 less haste ; at others, however, I found myself 
 standing on the road-side, as if suddenly trans- 
 ported thither in a dream. 
 
 On entering the parlour, I found Mrs. Bus- 
 by dressed for the afternoon, with a black lace 
 cap over her snow-white cambric hood, in 
 which, after having finished her household 
 cares for the day, she always appeared before 
 dinner. With the delicacy of her economy, 
 she then usually knitted the net of a purse, or 
 occupied herself in some light labour of the 
 needle or the wires, and laid aside the coarser 
 thrift on which she had been engaged in the 
 morning ; but on that occasion she was differ- 
 ently employed, having on the floor at her feet 
 a piece of muslin, which she was dividing into 
 neckcloths. 
 
 L 2
 
 2 SO BOGLE COR It I l. 
 
 She >au on my entrance that I was disturb* 
 
 ed, l)ut she made no remark <»n it until 1 had 
 rested myself some time, when Laying down the 
 muslin, and taking off her spectacles, she in- 
 quired with more than her wonted kindliness how 
 I was, and encouraged me not to be dejected. 
 
 " Misfortune and disappointment," said she. 
 "■ are the followers of all the children of nun. 
 Hut this blight has suddenly overtaken you, 
 and I ought not to be surprised that you feel it 
 
 severely." 
 
 " What blight do you speak of?" cried I, 
 astonished at her remark, yet sensible of its 
 justness; for although I had disclosed onl) 
 that morning in confidence the brink on which 
 Corbet and Possy stood, I was conscious that 
 their danger had some outward sign upon my- 
 self; but how she should so aptly conjecture 
 from what particular cause it arose, seemed 
 discernment beyond the reach of ordinary 
 
 sagacity. 
 
 Instead, however, of immediately answering 
 my question, she looked at me anxiously for 
 a short time, and said,
 
 AN OLD FRIEND. 221 
 
 " Is it possible, then, that things are not so 
 bad with you ? I was told that you and Mr. 
 Possy had stopped payment, and that the 
 creditors intended to send you to Jamaica, to 
 look after the stock of goods on hand there." 
 
 I was thunderstruck. It had never once 
 occurred to me that our situation could be 
 so publicly known. I ought, however, to have 
 been aware how much the necessity of prying 
 into the circumstances of their neighbours is 
 a mercantile duty, and that to obtain informa- 
 tion, as to the credit and character of their 
 friends, is so often the true object of social 
 feasts among merchants. However, I soon 
 learned from her that our bankruptcy, in con- 
 sequence of our disappointment in remittances, 
 was so well known, that the stoppage was told 
 to Mrs. Busby as an event which had already 
 happened. 
 
 The news, when communicated, rather al- 
 layed than excited me, and saved me from the 
 unhappy task of relating them to her : but my 
 amazement may be imagined, when I heard 
 that Mr. Macindoe had been her informant —
 
 222 BOG LI! UORHKT. 
 
 be whom I had Conceived to be so utterly igno- 
 rant of my unavoidable fate. 
 
 The patience with which he bad listened to 
 me w.i> explained, and also the secret motive of 
 his inability to assist me with advice. Why 
 the knowledge of this should have moved in 
 me any feeling of resentment, the reader can 
 best determine; but it came over me, as if 
 unhappiness were waited as an infected air, 
 and I was seized with a momentary loathing of 
 misanthropy. 
 
 Mrs. Busby perceiving how much I was 
 disposed to resent the ludicrous cunning, ;h 
 it seems now, of my quondam curator, but 
 which at the time was felt to be insulting, 
 insisted on my spending the afternoon with her, 
 and partaking once more of her frugal dinner. 
 
 " From all that I can discern, Bogle Cor- 
 bet," 1 said she, " an afternoon can now be 
 neither here nor there to your affairs ; nor in 
 the condition in which ye stand, can the advice 
 of a weak old widow-woman, that needs coun- 
 sel so much herself, be of any effectual service. 
 But ye have a public duty to perform on the
 
 AN OLD FRIEND. 223 
 
 morrow, and a little quiet will not mar you 
 in the difficulty; it's as useful as a sleep 
 before a journey : and moreover, Bogle Corbet, 
 my dear boy, if I may judge not uncharitably 
 of Mr. Macindoe, maybe the principles I in- 
 stilled when you were but a bairn, will not 
 be the worse of being refreshed, after having 
 been so many years sullied by the world. I 
 cannot advise you as to your affairs more than 
 he, but keep a fast hold of your integrity, and 
 let no glimpse of hope lure you to forget, that, 
 to attempt stepping a wide ditch, in a miry 
 place, is seldom done with clean feet. 1 ' 
 
 As she said this, I could perceive her sup- 
 press the sensibility which had brought tears 
 into her eyes, for she suddenly smiled, adding, 
 
 " Guess what I am about with this muslin ; 
 you will see in the work a remnant of that old 
 providence which you sometimes jeered me for, 
 when there was then no cloud in the sky. I am 
 making cravats for your Jamaica voyage ; as 
 you told me, when ye came to Glasgow, that 
 you still observed my counsels concerning your 
 clothes. It appears I have been a little too
 
 _'_'l BOGLB OORBBT. 
 
 ready in Betting about the work, as Mr. Macin- 
 doe was not well-informed. But the event is 
 
 to l)i-, and readiness is not heinous." 
 
 After dinner, as I had resolved not to return 
 to the city till the moon rose in the evening, I 
 went into the garden alone. It would be wrong 
 
 to say I was not sorrowful, but it was with :i 
 
 sorrow still and calm in its anguish. I wander- 
 ed heedlessly, but now and then I noticed a 
 shrub, which I had planted in my boyhood, 
 carefully preserved by Mrs. Busby, and other 
 silent green monuments of the affection she had 
 so uniformly cherished for me. I have often 
 since experienced, that in the aeras of grief and 
 care, the heart derives an unspeakable consola- 
 tion from contemplating former scenes of east 
 and innocence. It is this which draws the un- 
 fortunate back to the haunts of their childhood, 
 as the frightened and afflicted babe clings in 
 fondness to its mother's bosom.
 
 A SCENE. 225 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 A SCENE. 
 
 On my return in the evening to Glasgow, I 
 went straight to the house of Mr. Possy, to 
 announce my final determination that we should 
 stop payment. It might perhaps have been in 
 some respects more prudent, had I postponed 
 the execution of this resolution till the morn- 
 ing, but there Avas always so much of incal- 
 culable weakness disclosed by him when sud- 
 denly thrown into perplexity, that I considered 
 it as well to have this trial over. 
 
 On reaching the door, I felt myself consider- 
 ably disturbed ; I was the bearer of evil tidings, 
 and I had an unpleasant impression from the 
 appearance of the house, that I was to be wit- 
 ness to some scene of extravagant distress. Un-
 
 6 
 ( 
 
 22G BOOLB DORSET. 
 
 usual lights seemed to shine from the windows, 
 and the curtains being down, they had each, as 
 I thought at the moment, a cast of* something 
 that reminded me of a sick chamber. But I 
 rallied mv fortitude, and the door was imme- 
 diately opened by one of the maids, a simple 
 country girl, who, when she saw who was there, 
 raised her hand in a tragedy attitude, and 
 baking, it said, 
 
 ' Wheest, wheest ! speak laigh." 
 I stepped, in consequence of this mysterious 
 admonition, softly forward, and paused as she 
 gently closed the door : when she turned round 
 she was in tears. 
 
 " What has happened P M said I ; " who is ill ? 
 Has Mr. Possy, or your mistress, or any of tin 
 children met with an accident? 11 
 
 " Oh, oh, hoch hone P was all the answer 
 she could make, wiping her eyes with the 
 corner of her apron. 
 
 I was on the point of retiring, conceiving 
 the family already afflicted by some severe 
 disaster, and that my communication would 
 only increase their distress, when the poor lass
 
 A SCENE. 227 
 
 turned round, and with an accent of great ear- 
 nestness inquired, 
 
 " Hae ye no heard the news ?" 
 
 " News ! what news ? I have heard no 
 news I' 1 
 
 " Oh dear ! oh dear ! that it should be my 
 lot to tell them !" 
 
 Seeing the vehemence of her grief, I began 
 to imagine the most improbable horrors, and 
 exclaimed, 
 
 " Has Mr. Possy shot himself?" 
 
 " It 's waur, it 's far waur." 
 
 " In the name of all that is good, tell me I'" 
 
 " Well, if ye will ken, I may put you at once 
 out of pain, Sir. Hoch hone, Sir, he 's a broken 
 merchant, and they say he's to be "questered. 
 My mistress is a woful woman.'" 
 
 The news coming from such a quarter, sur- 
 prised me almost as much as the information 
 of Mrs. Busby. I said, however, nothing in 
 reply, but walked into a dark parlour, the door 
 of which was open, and desired her to tell her 
 master that I was most anxious to see him. 
 
 Presently he came to me with a candle in
 
 226 BOQLB OORBBT. 
 
 the one hand, and ;i pair of snuffers with the 
 tray in the other. Without Bpeaking, he pi. iced 
 them on the table, and in a ceremonious solemn 
 voice requested me to be seated. 
 
 I accordingly sat down in a chair opposite, 
 and, wondering what Buch unaccustomed dig- 
 nity could pot tend, waited for his speech in 
 silence. I did not wait Long. 
 
 •• Mr. Corbet,* 1 said be in a suitable accent, 
 • : you sec at last what your wild speculations 
 have brought upon us; my family is ruined, 
 and, saving her marriage articles, Mrs. Possy, 
 who brought me a good fortune, has not a 
 black bawbee left to rub the sides of another. 
 
 But 1 "11 no upbraid, — I bow the head of resig- 
 nation ; and yet, when I think of Mrs. Poss J 
 and her helpless babies that your mad and 
 wanton schemes have brought to a morsel, 
 human nature will rise. Sir, you ought to be 
 ashamed of yourself to put your foot within the 
 door of this house of mourning that ye have 
 desolated, and to look in the face of him ye 
 have made no better than a beggar man." 
 
 it is impossible to describe the emotion with 
 which this address affected me. Sometimes I
 
 A SCENE. 229 
 
 was on the point of laughing outright at the 
 absurdity of the reproaches ; at others I was 
 inflamed with indignation, as if my veins had 
 been filled with kindled gunpowder, and almost 
 at the same time I was touched with inexpres- 
 sible pity and contempt to hear the unhappy 
 man give vent to such nonsense. Under these 
 conflicting feelings, I said dryly, 
 
 " Explain yourself, Mr. Possy ; I am not 
 come here to recriminate ; we have both a man- 
 lier part to perform : But what has happened 
 since the morning ?" 
 
 " A pretty-like partner, - " he replied, " to 
 be obliged to ask such a question when his 
 house is in ruins. Sir, if you do not know 
 that ought to know, I must tell you, that Cor- 
 bet and Possy are the causeway talk as broken 
 merchants Y' and with these word she began to 
 weep and sob — yes, desperately, I can find no 
 other word to describe the ridiculous sorrow 
 of his weakness. 
 
 I inquired how the state of our affairs had 
 so unexpectedly been divulged, adding with 
 vexation, that we ought ourselves to have been 
 the first to publish the tale.
 
 290 BOGLB OORBBT. 
 
 He could give no satisfactory explanation, 
 but that Mrs. Poasy had heard of it from 
 
 several of her intimates, and that they had at 
 lir>t supposed me the author, believing I had 
 shunned the warehouse and kept myself from 
 them. 
 
 In this crisis Mrs. Possy came into the 
 room, and seated herself in the obscdresl cor- 
 ner ; having composed her appearand . Bhe 
 searched first in one pocket and then in the 
 other, and having at last pulled out her hand- 
 kerchief, shook it with both her hands by two 
 corners, and began an audible tune of weeping 
 — roaring and greeting I ought to call it, for 
 the English language, affording no adequate 
 phrase to describe it properly, obliges me to 
 have recourse to the Scottish. 
 
 1 had knit up niv firmness for a scene of dis- 
 tress and natural grief, but I was not prepared 
 for such an exhibition as this. The folly of 
 Mr. Possy was in itself trying enough, and it 
 affected me with mingled feelings; but the 
 passion of his lady touched only one cord ; — 
 so formal, and yet so energetic was her extra- 
 vagance, that I could not restrain myself from
 
 A SCENE. 231 
 
 giving way to the effect it had upon me, by 
 bursting into an immoderate fit of mirthless 
 laughter. 
 
 Mr. Possy gazed at me with alarm, and his 
 lady taking the handkerchief from her eyes, 
 looked not less amazed. 
 
 The fit continued with me ; and, while he 
 sat in increasing consternation, she bounced 
 from her chair with ungovernable rage, and 
 coming close to where I was sitting, lifted the 
 candle, held it to my face, and stared at me 
 curiously, as if she thought I was indeed de- 
 lirious. 
 
 The eager astonishment of this inquisition 
 arrested the convulsion — for that term better 
 describes than laughter, the excess of titillation 
 which seemed, and sounded so like it, that I 
 started up in indignation, and my head acci- 
 dentally knocking the light from her hand, 
 produced instant darkness.
 
 232 BOGLH CORBET. 
 
 CHAPTKIJ XXIX. 
 
 A CRISIS. 
 
 I have no distinct recollection of any thing 
 that passed in the mean time between the ab- 
 surd scene at Mr. Possy's, and the public meet- 
 ing of our creditors. I fancy nothing, however, 
 occurred much different from what generally 
 takes place on Mich occasions. Novelists, and a 
 few writers not ill at penning pretty sentena s, 
 say that their heroes and heroines Bametimee 
 live an age in a second ; but I have never had 
 any experience of such a condensation ; on the 
 contrary, I know full well, that in times of agi- 
 tation, many seconds may be expanded into 
 days, and that a striking fact will so engross 
 the subsequent recollection, that a whole cycle 
 of events will pass from the memory, and only 
 that one fact be remembered
 
 a crisis. 233 
 
 As far, however, as I may trust the testi- 
 mony of my feelings, I was in the interval ac- 
 tuated by the most resolute determination to 
 prove myself cool and collected ; and, if I may 
 judge by the compliments of my friends, I was 
 not altogether unsuccessful. But to talk of 
 the lofty sentiments of heroism in any degree 
 influencing the conduct of a mercantile man, 
 even in the midst of disasters and ruin, is per- 
 haps ridiculous : such magnanimity may be 
 only safely practised by play-actors, and the 
 dealers in life and limb. The knit-up nerve, 
 and the riveted thought, are things that should 
 never be mingled with the accidents of trade. 
 They are of high concernment, and consecrated, 
 forsooth, to the service of those who scorn to 
 adventure with fortune, and batten upon the 
 prodigality of their country ! 
 
 I must, however, make a short tale of the 
 incidents of that time. The conclusion came 
 to pass much as Mrs. Busby had reported it to 
 have taken place. A forerunning judgment 
 had decided for Corbet and Possy what they 
 ought to do. Their affairs were to be closed 
 at once in Glasgow by Mr. Possy, under the
 
 2.'H ItOGLK OORBBT. 
 
 direction of Eric Pullicate, and two of the 
 creditors, and I was appointed to proceed to 
 Kingston, Jamaica, to investigate the Btate of 
 things there — taking my way 1>\ London, to 
 
 put matters in a train in that city also for 
 conclusion. All this was judicious ; Mr. Possy, 
 
 wIki had not a teaspoonful of brain-, was gene- 
 rally regarded as an easy and unfortunate man, 
 destroyed by a hold and too speculative partner. 
 
 A liberal allowance was made for his family, 
 and it was but my duty to do what I could for 
 the interests of our common creditors. 
 
 To the amazement of all, I had not one word 
 of objection to offer. I might, it is true, have 
 told another tale as to the sources of our ruin, 
 but of what use would it have served ? I had 
 only in the core of my bosom an irksome 
 thought at the idea of being probably penny- 
 less, and grudged at being compelled to begin 
 life again as a Bankrupt. However, I said 
 nothing — the path of duty lay open before me, 
 I resolved to walk no other, and to trace it to 
 the end; but I also resolved, when all was done 
 that could be required of me, to cast myself 
 upon a course of my own choosing. Nothing
 
 a crisis. 235 
 
 of this intention, however, escaped my lips. I 
 appeared throughout only as a young man 
 possessed of some fortitude, and anxious to 
 evince that the many wise advices he received 
 from those friends who had never tasted adver- 
 sity — for such are always the most free in giving 
 counsel — did not enter at the one ear and fly 
 out at the other. In one sentence, I felt my- 
 self destined to be an adventurer, thrown on 
 my own resources, and that although I had 
 imperative duties to perform before I could be 
 at liberty, the time was not far off that would 
 see me my own master. 
 
 Accordingly, when the necessary arrange- 
 ments were made, I left Glasgow, bearing with 
 me only the new cravats, and the regrets of 
 Mrs. Busby. I paid, however, visits to all 
 my former friends; they were leave-takings. 
 But my adieus both to Dr. Leach and Mr. 
 Macindoe might lack something of any other 
 feeling than civility. I am even afraid, that, in 
 parting with the Doctor, I yielded to some im- 
 pulse of contempt. I recollected too minutely 
 his easy compliance with the headstrong deter- 
 minations of his colleague, and that if he had
 
 •23G BOGLB CORBET. 
 
 possessed the courage to assert his own reflec- 
 tions, concerning the destination of my youth, 
 the humiliation of the result of the connection 
 with Possy might have been averted. But 
 still, I went through the formal Bcene of hom- 
 age to him with decency — 1 dare not call my 
 behaviour by any other name, for at heart I 
 despised him on reflection as a thing inade- 
 quate to his trusts. 
 
 Mr. Macindoe was a little out of counte- 
 nance, when I called at his house : the sharp 
 manner in which I had parted from him when 
 I rejected his counsel, had left a rankling 
 wound. He felt that he had made an error 
 in his calculations respecting me. But I took 
 no other notice of the advice he offered on that 
 occasion, than merely to say, he would see 1>\ 
 what hail taken place, that I did not think the 
 state of our affairs justified the stratagem he 
 had recommended. I laid particular emphasis 
 on the word stratagem as I pronounced it, for I 
 was human enough to think he deserved a sting, 
 and I showed, as I took my leave, that I could 
 not recollect him with any cordial feelings. 
 
 To him and to Dr. Leach, the two men to
 
 a crisis. 237 
 
 whom all the world believed me to be the most 
 indebted — I certainly acted at that time more 
 meanly than I would do now ; for although 
 they had hurried me into circumstances that 
 were far from being congenial to my nature, 
 they were both honest men, and animated with 
 the best intentions to serve me. 
 
 In the fervour of youth we do not discrimi- 
 nate so accurately as in after-life. What is felt 
 below thirty, as treatment that should be re- 
 sented ; above forty, claims indulgence, and is 
 remembered at most with but a pale cast of 
 thought. The grey-headed angel of Forgive- 
 ness applies his sponge to the record of early 
 offences. 
 
 As, however, I am in this instance on my 
 confession, something more may be said— some- 
 thing that smacks of the infirmity to which hu- 
 man nature will occasionally yield. I bade Mr. 
 Pullicate farewell, with a feeling I can only de- 
 scribe as an ugly aversion, for all in his charac- 
 ter was undoubtedly respectable. His manners 
 still remained vulgar, the spirit of the workshop 
 controversies still clung to him, and a careful- 
 ness of self, that I can find no other name for
 
 238 BOGLE CO RBET. 
 
 than democratic egoism, i clipsed his good quali- 
 ties. In my heart, t<> use ;i familiar term, I cul 
 him; but the nature of our commercial inter- 
 course obliged me to treat him outwardly ae a 
 friend. 1 have sometimes thought in doing bo, 
 I acted less in consequence of the prompting of 
 an hypocrisy within myself, than from a reflex 
 effect of his own sinister character. 
 
 In another instance, I freely confess that I 
 condemn myself for a poor littleness. Possy and 
 his loquacious wife had not slept in their en- 
 deavours to represent me as the cause of their 
 misfortunes. I knew too well tin- truth, and 
 despised these weak inventions; but I left Glas- 
 gow without bidding them farewell, expecting 
 that such marked incivility would convince 
 them that their malice was duly appreciated; 
 but I afterwards heard that such was their in- 
 dustry in detraction, that this step of offended 
 dignity was attributed to shame for the wrong 
 I had caused them to suffer, and served to 
 justify the accusation of imprudence in which 
 others indulged against me.
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 239 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 
 
 My first intention on reaching London was 
 to go directly to my own house, but I felt as I 
 proceeded towards it, that I had not fortitude 
 enough remaining. The direful event that had 
 taken place there, was remembered with all its 
 original anguish ; I had the recollection also 
 to think, that a great and speedy duty was de- 
 manded of me by the living, and that the flat- 
 tery of fond affection could not soothe the dull 
 cold ear of death. 
 
 I was in a hackney-coach with my portman- 
 teau, and the time was the humid dawn of a 
 grey October morning. 
 
 I pulled the check-string, the coach halted, 
 and immediately after the driver opened the
 
 240 BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 door; he held it open, expecting me to alight, 
 hut a Budden absence <>f mind had fallen upon 
 me, and I noticed not his movement until he 
 had roused me l>\ asking my pleasure. Almost 
 unconscious, I bade him set me down at an ho- 
 tel in the Adelphi. I am no1 Bure of having 
 ever since experienced so chill a pang of desola- 
 tion as I did when I reached the house ; hut it 
 was only momentary. Fatigue made the Bleep 
 of the morning sound, and I felt, when I awoke, 
 as if I had undergone some transmutation by 
 which my anxieties, griefs, and cares, were re- 
 moved as dross and alloy, and my nature be- 
 come of a purer substance. 
 
 I rose to breakfast more a man of the world 
 than it seemed possible I should ever be, and 
 as my clerks in Cannon-street were apprised of 
 
 all that had happened, I resolved to make my 
 first visit to Sir Neil Eccles, a visit to my 
 counting-house being no longer so urgent as in 
 other circumstances it might have been. 
 
 This resolution, entirely the effect of impulse, 
 proved one of the most conclusive events of 
 my life. It chanced when some inconceivable 
 energy had taken possession of my spirit, — an
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 241 
 
 earlier day, and it would have come too soon, on 
 the morrow it should have been too late — let 
 me, however, restrain this rapidity. Strange ! 
 that the sudden accidents of that time should, 
 after so many years, still fire, as it were, the 
 wheels of thought with such vehemence! 
 
 It was late in the morning; before I reached 
 Harley- street, where Sir Neil Eccles resided; 
 his footman told me, as I was admitted, that he 
 had breakfasted some time, but that he believ- 
 ed he had no intention of going out for that 
 forenoon. 
 
 " He is an altered man," said the lad, 
 " since " 
 
 He paused, and I guessed at once to what 
 event he alluded ; my wife had .been always a 
 cherished favourite with his master, a circum- 
 stance which all the servants well knew. I 
 took, however, no notice of his embarrassment, 
 but walked with my usual freedom into- the li- 
 brary, where, from his habitual custom, I knew 
 Sir Neil would then be. Nor was I mistaken, 
 for there he sat, seated by the table opposite the 
 fire, with the newspaper of the morning lying 
 upon his knee, as if he had been engaged in 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 •212 BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 reading it. It was evident, however, that it 
 was only spread to dry. 
 
 \~- I entered the apartment his eyes turned 
 towards me, sparkled for a moment, but in the 
 same instant I observed them turned aside, 
 and when he looked at me again they were dull, 
 abstracted, and altered. 
 
 In his usual manner he requested me to take 
 a seat, and when I had placid myself in a chair 
 mar him, he said, and, ! thought, not exacth 
 with the cordiality I had expected, 
 
 " Well, Mr. Bogle Corbet, your trial is over, 
 I am sorry to hear the result. It is, however, 
 honourable to your own character that you had 
 not raised the loan : you have done well in 
 bringing your affairs to a conclusion. By all 
 accounts your partner Mr. Possy was not at 
 iirst judiciously chosen ; old heads, however, do 
 not grow on young shoulders. What do you 
 propose to do now ? 
 
 So many topics were touched in this brief 
 speech, and the question was asked in a tone so 
 different from his former manner towards me, 
 that I replied, 
 
 " Really, Sir Neil, I have thought as yet
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 243 
 
 nothing of the future. My whole intent at 
 present is to wind up the affairs of Corbet and 
 Possy ; when that is done, perhaps I may then 
 be able to speak of the future." 
 
 Much as I had been previously accustomed 
 to the dry yet disinterested manner of Sir Neil 
 Eccles, it struck me that on this occasion he 
 was more than usually so, and without being 
 able to account for the feeling, I would gladly 
 have avoided any farther conversation at that 
 time relative to my own concerns ; but he 
 replied, 
 
 " The difficulties of business multiply. You 
 will find it a harder matter hereafter to get into 
 business than you did at first, your means di- 
 minished, perhaps gone, and with the taint of 
 failure upon you." 1 ' 
 
 " I am not certain,"" said I a little proudly, 
 " that I ought to be greatly anxious on that 
 subject. No man can complain that he 
 has been in any degree whatsoever led astray 
 by Corbet and Possy ; and although I may 
 have suffered something in opinion, yet surely 
 it cannot be alleged that I have forfeited any 
 friendship. 1 " 
 
 M 2
 
 24 1 BOGLE c<> Kill. I . 
 
 " No doubt,*' replied sir Neil, looking Ml 
 tin.- newspaper <>n his knee, and not lifting Ids 
 eyelids, " your remark i- just ; but events alter 
 circumstances, and your good sense must have 
 prepared you for a change in your own.* 1 
 
 • I am not certain how that should be, 1 
 \\a> my answer, wondering to what be speci- 
 fically alluded. " 1 never counted on anj 
 thing but the prospect in my prosperity — and 
 I added, not well knowing what to say, "at 
 the time of my marriage. A dreadful event 
 blasted all that was happy and encouraging 
 there — but it is now of no use either to refer to 
 it, or to the motives by which in it I was 
 actuated. 11 
 
 " J)id you then, in your marriage — excuse 
 the plainness of my question — count on acquir- 
 ing some claim on me?" 
 
 " None," 1 said I, perhaps with a sentiment 
 vergii g towards indignation; "my affection for 
 my wife was sincere: what claim could I have 
 on you ? So entire was my esteem for her, 
 that to this hour I remain as ignorant of her 
 family, as when you first made me known to 
 herself. But let us talk no farther at present
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 245 
 
 on this subject ; my wound is still green, and 
 a slight touch offends it painfully.' 1 
 
 " Am I to understand, by what you have 
 said, that you know nothing of your late wife's 
 relations ?" 
 
 " I have said it," was my reply, seriously 
 angry ; and I added, with an intenser accent, 
 " Excuse me, Sir Neil, I am not aware, 
 though she was a favourite of yours, that the 
 questions you have been pleased to put to 
 me, are precisely those that you have any pri- 
 vilege to ask." 
 
 He reddened as I said this, and rising from 
 his seat, threw the newspaper as it were with 
 an emphasis on the table, and walked to the 
 window. This air and gesture surprised me, 
 but without rising I waited his answer. 
 
 " Now I think of it," said he, " you never 
 had many acquaintances with my Indian 
 friends." 
 
 " I never had any," was my self-collected 
 answer ; " occasionally I have dined in this 
 house with your friends, but the beat of 
 their business lay in a different direction from 
 mine."
 
 •216 BOQLB cor in i 
 
 " I thouglit you bad known more of them." 
 " Had there been any cause for me to culti- 
 vate their intimacy, do doubt I should have 
 
 done it." 
 
 " I wish you bad." said be; "it might have 
 Bayed us both from an unpleasant explanation." 
 
 " Indeed !" exclaimed I ; " indeed ! why 
 should there be any explanation at all between 
 us? I seek none — I wish for none." 
 
 " Do you not regard me as your particular 
 friend P r 
 
 I paused before answering: — his manner was 
 estranged towards me — his dialogue had not 
 been particularly marked by courtesy — I was 
 in an inferior condition to that in which I 
 had parted from him, and not unlikely to be 
 thought to have come to him for assistance — all 
 this flew flickeringly across my mind. But the 
 fortitude with which I felt myself animated in 
 the morning came to mv immediate assistance, 
 and I replied with great coolness and serenity — 
 there may have even been some tinge of sedate 
 sarcasm in my manner, for I was by this time 
 really fervent — 
 
 " Upon my word, Sir Neil Eccles, you amaze
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 247 
 
 me. I was pleased with the civilities you paid 
 me — delighted with the attentions shown to my 
 wife — and I did think that you were no com- 
 mon friend; but, if I may judge by the free- 
 dom you have thought yourself justified in 
 using towards me this morning, I frankly con- 
 fess that I have discovered my error." 
 
 k ' Who was your wife? 11 was his reply, in a 
 low troubled voice. 
 
 I made no answer, but stood in expectation 
 of hearing more. After waiting a minute or 
 two, during which he was much agitated, he 
 added, — 
 
 " We have been both mistaken, Mr. Corbet : 
 I thought you had known all, from the con- 
 fidence you seemed to repose in me ; nor was I 
 displeased in thinking so ; nor, had she lived, 
 would you have had cause to repent that con- 
 fidence. Your wife was my daughter.'" 
 
 " Yours !" cried I, in astonishment. 
 
 " Yes, mine ; and had she lived, her offspring 
 should have inherited my fortune. That hope 
 has expired ; we are now as strangers, but still 
 I shall be always happy to consider you as a 
 friend. 11
 
 248 BOGLE CORBBT. 
 
 For Bome minutes I \\;is unable to ipeak; 
 an unaccountable resentment took possession of 
 
 my bosom. Why should it have done bo, f'oi- 
 my wife had been the most beautiful and ami- 
 able of her sex? But my nature was overborne 
 by a feeling of the moment, and I abruptly 
 
 left the room.
 
 REFLECTIONS. 249 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 REFLECTIONS. 
 
 Often and often have I said to myself since 
 the last interview with Sir Neil Eccles, for it was 
 the final one, — what had there been in our inter- 
 course that should have made me so easily 
 offended ? and why did I separate from him 
 under a feeling of indignant resentment, as if 
 he had been a party to some deception against 
 me ? The reader, perhaps, can solve this mystery 
 more to his own satisfaction than I can ; but 
 the sentiment mingled Avith my mourning, and 
 I could not divest myself of thinking that there 
 had been something sordid in the love which 
 he undoubtedly cherished for his undivulged 
 daughter. However, though the disclosure 
 
 m 5
 
 '250 BOGLE COBBBT. 
 
 \sas a most painful occurrence — there was i ven 
 a degree of mortification in it — it happened 
 at a fortunate period, and 1 went straight to 
 the duties of my business, that they might l>< 
 finished with celerity. 
 
 The precise effect <>}' the explanation which 
 
 had taken place with Sir Neil I took no pains 
 t<> ascertain. In the evening my own servant 
 brought me an invitation to dinner tor two or 
 three days afterwards, but I declined it, and 
 added to the apology for so doing, with the de- 
 cision which I then experienced, that I thought 
 we should not meet. " My feelings," said I, 
 " are lacerated by unhappy events, and their 
 anguish easily exasperated.*" Ik- never after- 
 wards invited me to his house. 
 
 During my absence from England he died, 
 and, as I understood on my return, left all his 
 fortune to endow a di>tant relation, to whom 
 he procured a continuation of his title, with the 
 exception of the small annuity which had been 
 settled on the firm, patient, and gentle old 
 Leezy Eglesham. 
 
 She did not, however, survive him many 
 yea s, but sank into the grave, an affecting in-
 
 REFLECTIONS. 25] 
 
 stance of faithful love, and a proud, but a ten- 
 der heart. 
 
 Nothing in her life bore outwardly the slight- 
 est indication of a romantic spirit ; but, in 
 what bosom could exist a purer and a lovelier 
 mind ? Sometimes, as I have thought of her 
 solitary fate, it has seemed to me that she 
 ought not to have asked for the little pittance ; 
 but in moments of higher enthusiasm, I con- 
 demned myself for conceiving that an affection 
 so holy as hers could have had any other origin 
 than a wish not to expose to the profane world, 
 which had forgotten their pledged troth, the 
 necessity of remarking that she had fallen to 
 want, and that he had forgotten his faith. It 
 was a sad, though a beautiful tale of passion, 
 and can never be thought of without sympathy 
 and sorrow. 
 
 But in adverting to that little story, which 
 so well illustrates the poet's pathetic remark, 
 that 
 
 " The course of true love never did run smooth," 
 
 I forget my own history. Did I write for the 
 applause of critics, and to the judgment of the 
 world, I should, perhaps, have avoided it alto-
 
 252 lioCLK CORHBT. 
 
 gether; but, as I am more anxious to record 
 whal 1 have Been, as wrell as what I have ex- 
 perienced, than to please, I could not pa>s it 
 in silence Sometimes, indeed, it has occurred 
 
 to me, when I have seen tin- meek aspect of 
 patient maidenhood, pale in the solitude of 
 fading years, that the case of poor Leezj has 
 not been singular, and that the success of many 
 a gorgeous adventurer is an index to where in 
 secret may be found the endearing faithfulness 
 of similar unrequited love — 
 
 However, to resume my narrative. 
 
 My rupture with Sir Neil Kccles, after the 
 first inexplicable irritation had subsided, not 
 only became comparatively of little moment, hut 
 was remembered almost as a release from an 
 uneasy tie. Affairs of business for some time 
 engaged my attention, and prevented me from 
 falling into that lassitude of mind, which per- 
 haps, in other circumstances, would have in- 
 creased the oppression of misfortune; when 
 these were arranged, I was ready to proceed to 
 .hunaica. 
 
 I will not say that the prospect of my de- 
 parture from England was pleasant, but un-
 
 REFLECTIONS. 253 
 
 doubtedly it was far from painful. I felt as if 
 I had weighed the anchor of my spirit, and was 
 afloat on uncertainty, like the swimmer when 
 he first spurns the ground with his elastic foot : 
 my thoughts were, however fluttered, and my 
 imagination on the wing without aim or goal. 
 One moment the idea of being disentangled 
 from trade was enjoyed with the buoyancy as- 
 cribed to liberty ; at another, I sank with a 
 leaden burden of anxieties concerning my future 
 prospects, my fortune being in all probability 
 lost, and so many of my best days gone I 
 must not, however, attempt to describe my 
 state of mind at that period. It was a chaos 
 of recollections and fancies, in which there was 
 but little of hope, and much of disquietude 
 and fear. 
 
 I was glad to escape the affected condolence 
 of those who seem, when we are in misfortune, 
 to haunt the thoroughfares of society, led as it 
 were by an invidious instinct to afflict us with 
 their sympathy ; and this sentiment was height- 
 ened by a vague feeling, that I was only re- 
 turning home. For, although not a creole born, 
 and I had been sent back to Scotland in that
 
 25 ! BOGLE Co Kiu i . 
 
 condition of infancy when existence is but sen- 
 sation, Mill I looked towards Jamaica as my Da- 
 tive land. And yet I had nothing there of that 
 which makes home dear to the heart. Man\ 
 years had passed since the decease of my pa- 
 rents, and except the name of Plantagenet 
 estate, where they had resided, I retained scarce- 
 ly any memorial that they had ever been. <M 
 the country itself I had no distinct idea. Of 
 sugar-canes and negroes, snakes and the yel- 
 low fever, I might, perhaps, have possessed 
 knowledge enough to qualify me to understand 
 what was said when they were spoken of; but 
 in all respects beyond the mere terms, I say not 
 too strongly of myself, that I was utterly igno- 
 rant. I looked forward in consequence to the 
 packet in which I was to sail from Falmouth, 
 as the shade of an antient to the boat of Cha- 
 ron. It was to convey me to a new world, of 
 which I could only conjecture that it might in 
 some things be like the old. 
 
 Such was the vagueness, the fluctuation, and 
 the comfort Less state in which I bade adieu to 
 London, or rather, such are the terms by which 
 it can only be fitly described, for all I now
 
 REFLECTIONS. 255 
 
 remember of the event, is a mingled hurry and 
 confusion — many images in agitation, and no 
 one clearly impressed. Disgusted, dejected, 
 my being, as it were, shattered, — would, as the 
 retrospect now affects me, be phrases too im- 
 passioned. I doubt, however, if at the time 
 they would have been strong enough. But the 
 advantage of advanced life consists in enabling 
 us to derive an indemnification from past suf- 
 fering ; and doubtless the same inscrutable 
 cause to which we owe that enjoyment, has 
 mitigated my recollection of the disquiet, the 
 passion, and the pain of those unhappy days.
 
 256 BOGLB OORBR I , 
 
 ( HAPTKIl XXXII. 
 
 AN MIVKNTURK. 
 
 I left London l>v one of the early E\< i< c 
 coaches, and the first free taste of the untainted 
 air, with the contentment which gladdens on 
 the aspect of the country in a fine morning, 
 had soon ;i sympathetic influence on my spirits. 
 My imagination was filled with pleasing antici- 
 pations, in which the anxieties of trade had no 
 place; and all day I enjoyed an inward calm, 
 almost as delightful as the pleasures of earnest 
 activity. In descending, however, a hill in the 
 twilight, this serenity was abruptly disturbed, 
 by the coach coming in contact with a pon- 
 derous waggon, which was slowly groaning up- 
 ward, and disastrously overset — I emphatically 
 say disastrously ; for, although no injury was
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 257 
 
 sustained by any of the other passengers, my 
 
 forehead was so cut by the glass of one of the 
 
 windows, that I was obliged to be left behind ; 
 
 and this accident coloured the tissue of ray 
 
 subsequent life. 
 
 The place at which the accident happened 
 
 was near a respectable house, something in 
 appearance like those of the better order of 
 farms, but not altogether of that character, for 
 
 the offices betokened a small establishment ; 
 no ricks were in the yard, and the little plat 
 of ground between the door and the highway, 
 was rather more trimly dressed and planted 
 than the farmers are in the habit of doing to 
 the environs of their premises. 
 
 It was genteel but not manorial, and too 
 new and bare of trees, unless a row in front 
 of those greyhounds of the grove, Lombardy 
 poplars, merit the name, and it was too remote 
 from any church to be a parsonage. Not hav- 
 ing a sign, it was also plainly neither inn nor 
 academy, but in all respects a wealthy trades- 
 man's comfortable box — one who had set him- 
 self down near the road-side, where stages often
 
 258 BOGLE CORBET. 
 
 pass, tn enjoy rural prospects and his retired 
 Leisure, with as little inconvenience a> a distance 
 from the market-town would admit 
 
 In this conception I was not far wrong : for 
 the house had originally been intended f<>r nich 
 a character, hut at that time it was re-occupied 
 by a very different inhabitant. 
 
 Mr. Ascomy was a philosophical invalid : be 
 had been educated for the bar. but infirm 
 health prevented him from following out his 
 profession, though not from marrying, nor from 
 indulging an eceentric imagination in abstruse 
 pursuits. It will, however, be perhaps better 
 to reserve the description of his character, until 
 I shall have occasion to speak of him in closer 
 connexion with my own circumstances ; all, 
 therefore, that need be said at present is, that 
 he then lived a widower at Green-down, as the 
 place was called, with two grown-up daughters, 
 who were not distinguished for any particular 
 grace in their persons and accomplishments ; 
 plain, respectable-looking, young women, house- 
 hold in their appearance and manners, evidently 
 seeking no distinction by any extraordinary
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 259 
 
 taste or lady-like discernment in the proprieties 
 of dress, and yet in harmony with their appa- 
 rent condition. 
 
 The whole family, on seeing the accident 
 which had happened to the coach, came to the 
 gate, and Mr. Ascomy himself warmly invited 
 me to stop with them for the night, as my 
 wound bled so profusely that I ought not, 
 as he said, to proceed until it was dressed. I 
 gladly availed myself of his hospitality, and 
 taking my trunk from the coach, allowed it 
 to proceed without me. 
 
 Miss Urseline, one of the young ladies, with 
 the help of linen rags and some domestic bal- 
 sam, soon appeased the bleeding, and made me 
 in a condition to partake of their tea. The 
 old gentleman did not, however, join us, but 
 after a few sentences of congratulation that my 
 wound, which might have been " cadaverous, 11 
 was only a " stimulation, 11 he resumed his easy- 
 chair, and replacing his nightcap, closed his 
 eyes, and seemed to fall asleep, saying, how- 
 ever, as he composed himself into the posture, 
 
 " Take no note of me; I was ruminating
 
 •i(i() BOGLE < ORBBT. 
 
 when tin- vehicle lost its equilibrium, and must 
 endeavour to overtake the association." 
 
 His language surprised me, for when he in- 
 vited me into the house it was nmple and gen- 
 tlemanly, and the- general cast of his manners 
 polite and worldly; but the paleness of his 
 complexion, and the augury of the night-cap, 
 with a huge pile of ancient folios and various 
 books at hi- side, seemed to bespeak respect for 
 research and eccentricity. My attention was. 
 however, almost immediately drawn from him 
 to the ladies and the tea-table, and 1 imagine 
 he fell asleep, for he never once spoke until 
 the evening was far advanced, and the servant 
 brought in the supper-tray; but the interval 
 was not idle time with me. I rninformed of Mr. 
 Ascomy's humour and history, I speculated 
 concerning both, and could not avoid noticing 
 how much the equipage of the tea-table, and 
 the style of his daughters, as well as himself, 
 were at variance with the furniture of the apart- 
 ment, which was neat, new, and had evidently 
 been sent in by one more accustomed to the 
 usages of society.
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 261 
 
 The young ladies, as I have already ob- 
 served, were not distinguished by their dress. 
 It was perhaps well enough, considering their 
 country residence ; but it was not exactly in 
 the fashion, and consisted of too many strong 
 colours, not well assorted to produce the most 
 pleasing effect, a circumstance that never fails 
 to indicate a lack of delicacy ; and certainly in 
 the course of the evening they tended to con- 
 firm that notion ; not, however, in any eminent 
 degree, for they were sensible, and perhaps, 
 on the whole, better informed than most young 
 women, without being interesting. They were 
 indeed otherwise ; and I could perceive a latent 
 dogmatism about them more contributory to 
 controversy than conversation. 
 
 Though the reader smile at the remark on 
 the tea-equipage — and had I been very solici- 
 tous to be esteemed a personage eminent for 
 wisdom and decorum, I ought not to have 
 made it, — yet it serves to elucidate that pecu- 
 liarity of character which has led me so often 
 to important conclusions from trifling things, 
 and may help him to understand me better
 
 262 BOG li < ORBBT. 
 
 hereafter. It was a curious heterogeneous 
 assemblage of odd articles. No two cups were 
 
 of one si/i or pattern: the ewer was broken 
 in the 1 spout; the sugar-basin \\;is silver, and 
 the tea-pot of red, unvarnished japan-china, 
 ornamented with green, blue, and yellow 
 branches and flowers, but the lid had been 
 broken, and was mended with clasps. A po- 
 sitive demonstration to me, th.it the young la- 
 dies were negligent of those little attentions in 
 manners, on which, with many, so much of do- 
 mestic happiness depends. To their style of 
 dress, it was an additional proof that they min- 
 gled little with the world, learned little from 
 example, either by precept or sympathy, and 
 consulted themselves with too high an opinion 
 of their own understanding, than i> consistent 
 with that mutual forbearance and reciprocity 
 which constitute the object and essence of the 
 minor morals. 
 
 I am the more particular in saying so much, 
 for the reader will hear with some astonishment 
 that Miss Urseline, several years after, was se- 
 lected for my second wife. It is only, however, 
 necessary, here to apprise him of the fact, for.
 
 AN ADVENTURE. 263 
 
 although I do now very vividly recall all the 
 circumstances of my first acquaintance with the 
 family, many things happened to lessen their 
 impression afterwards, and my voyage to Ja- 
 maica, with all its adventures, intervened. 
 
 When Mr. Ascomy awoke from his sleep, or 
 reverie at supper-time, he appeared at first 
 much in the same pedantic humour in which he 
 had composed himself to hunt his association; 
 but gradually he became more natural, and was 
 even a cheerful companion. 
 
 He had been evidently an extensive reader, 
 but loose and desultory in his reflections on 
 every subject of which I had any knowledge; 
 he could speak amusingly, for, without regard 
 to the utility of what he had learned, he had 
 picked out some fact or anecdote which pro- 
 founder students would have overlooked, but 
 to which he curiously ascribed an infinitude of 
 consequence, illustrating his opinion with ar- 
 guments possessed of every ingredient of eru- 
 dition and ingenuity but common sense. In 
 this respect he was equally singular and inte- 
 resting, and the deference which he received or 
 exacted from his daughters, confirmed him in the
 
 26 I BOGLB CORB] I 
 
 notion he bad formed of himself — a philosopher 
 of no ordinary calibre- For the present, how- 
 ever, I need say no more; chance made un- 
 known to the family, l>nt at that time my 
 visil was necessarily limited, for I only remain- 
 ed with them until the mail passed in the 
 morning.
 
 A LESSON. 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 A LESSON. 
 
 The accident which brought me acquainted 
 with Mr. Ascomy's family, was the only in- 
 fluential event that befell me before my em- 
 barkation at Falmouth. But during two days 
 that I was obliged to wait there for a fair wind, 
 another interesting incident occurred. 
 
 Every body who has ever been at Falmouth, 
 knows that it is a long, lane-like, one-streeted 
 town, irregularly built on the western side of 
 a fine natural harbour; and that between it 
 -and the promontory, crowned with the Castle 
 of Pen Dennis, which protects the communi- 
 cation with the ocean, there is a pleasant open 
 walk, but which, except on Sunday evening, 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 266 BOGLB CORBET 
 
 when the weather happens to be fine, u little 
 frequented 1>\ the inhabitants. 
 
 I was there mi a Sunday, and walking l>\ 
 myself, in that sort of lethargy of mind which 
 most people waiting for a fair wind to bear 
 them to a foreign land experience, when I 
 met a private <>f the garrison, who suddenly 
 halted, and after eying me Bteadily, drew hi- 
 tiand across his eyes, and hastily passed. 
 
 Had my mind at the time been more engaged, 
 1 should probably not have observed his action, 
 but having nothing particular to think of, it 
 struck me as singular, and turning abruptly 
 round, I requested him to come back, he how- 
 ever only halted. 
 
 He was a stout man, of a weather-tanned 
 complexion, erect, and of a veteran aspect- His 
 air betokened considerable energy of characti r, 
 tempered with a sedate and respectful de- 
 meanour. 
 
 " Why," said I, " did you look so earnestly 
 at me, and pass so hastily, and appear so agi- 
 tated .'"" 
 
 " Because you did not mind me, Sir, but I
 
 A LESSON. 267 
 
 did you at once ;" was his reply, with a strong- 
 Scottish accent. 
 
 This was one Hugh Cairns, who had been a 
 weaver with Mr. Aird, and was a member of 
 the democratic club, from which, according to 
 Mr. Macindoe, I had been snatched as a brand 
 from the burning. He had enlisted early in 
 the preceding war, when the first shock of the 
 declaration so dislocated the manufacturing con- 
 nections, and had from that period seen much 
 service, but, save with the army in Egypt, never 
 met, as he said himself, with " a kent face.'" 
 The sudden sight of me had so affected him 
 with the remembrance of days past, that, albeit, 
 unused to the melting mood, seeing that I did 
 not recollect him, he could not command his feel- 
 ings, nor, indeed, could I discover in him after 
 he had given me this explanation, the same 
 Hugh Cairns whom I had formerly known. 
 
 In those days of looms and liberty, the re- 
 collection of which had so unexpectedly re- 
 turned upon the poor fellow, he was a gaunt 
 rawboned lad, lank in the features and lathy as 
 a Yankee, with a familiarity not many degrees 
 
 N 2
 
 268 BOGLE CORBBT. 
 
 below insolence, and was one of the most 
 Jacobinical democrats in the club. But the 
 army had wrought a great change upon him; 
 his figure was grown manly, his air firm and 
 self-collected ; his meagre limbs filled up, and 
 without being handsome, strikingly athletic; 
 the emaciated wanness <>f his visage, the effect 
 of his sedentary employment, and which had 
 looked so like malady, was become of a camp 
 bronze — so much, indeed, was he in every ex- 
 terior point .altered, that his original lineament- 
 could not be easily discovered. 
 
 But I was still more struck by the change 
 which had taken place in his modes of think- 
 ing. I reminded him of our old deliberation-. 
 at which he shook his head, saying, 
 
 " Every man must be a fool some time or 
 another. 1 ' 
 
 " Then you think, Cairns, that we were all 
 fools then ?" 
 
 " Surely, 11 he replied, " we could be no 
 better. The world 's like a regiment, we cannot 
 be all officers.' 1 
 
 " Thin you are content with being a soldier ?" 
 
 " Sometimes not, 11 said he ; " at times I
 
 A LESSON. 269 
 
 would again be at the weaving, especially when 
 on a cold post by night, and the wind wet and 
 easterly. 1 ' 
 
 " I wonder you have not been promoted. 1 ' 
 
 " Sometimes, too, I wonder myself ; but I 
 fancy I 'm not fit, or that it is not my lot " 
 
 " Is there any thing I can do to serve you ?*" 
 but at the moment recollecting the state of my 
 own affairs, I added, " there is, however, no- 
 thing in my power." 
 
 " I want nothing," said he; " had I been fit 
 to be promoted, I would have been so long- 
 before, for I have always been lucky in my 
 officers.' 1 
 
 " You make me wonder at hearing you speak 
 so contentedly ; is that feeling common in the 
 army? 11 
 
 " Not among young soldiers ; they are all 
 for a time lower than their merits ; but the old 
 ones have a home in their regiments, and after 
 a few years of service, they think of little else 
 but their duty." 
 
 He then inquired for some of his old ac- 
 quaintances, and among others, for Eric Pul- 
 licate, at whose success he appeared pleased.
 
 270 BOGLB OOKBBT. 
 
 ■• Bui be could not miss," said he ; " he had 
 always three eyes, two for to-dav, and one for 
 
 to-morrow. He'll have no regard for me 
 
 now ? 
 
 " Why so r" wafe my answer, surprised at his 
 observation. 
 
 " The chap was ever looking to Dumber one. 
 Me was not a right democrat after all, but 
 was only vexed because he had superiors.* 
 
 Not, however, to encroach too far on the 
 reader's time, I have only to say, that this con- 
 versation greatly interested me, for it gave me 
 the first clear idea of a professional character, 
 and what habitude discipline is calculated to 
 effect To my own self-consequence it was 
 humiliating ; for, up to that day, I hail con- 
 sidered myself as trammelled with a natural in- 
 aptitude for trade, and even partly ascribed the 
 disastrous result of my co-partnery with Mr. 
 Possy to that innate cause, never having once 
 reflected how much the habits of business would 
 in time have been ingrained. 
 
 It is thus that casualties generally teach the 
 best lessons of self-knowledge. Prior to this 
 little accidental incident, I had felt no very
 
 A LESSON. 271 
 
 painful regret at being released from my com- 
 mercial pursuits. Like most young men under 
 similar clouds, I had an irksome feeling of 
 mortification when I reflected on what had 
 happened, and sometimes I mistook the feeling 
 for the grief of misfortune. But in parting 
 from Cairns, a more correct sense of the injury 
 I was suffering awakened within me, and for 
 the first time, I became truly alive to the blight 
 I had sustained. I saw that the world was 
 become a desert around me — that the path 
 which might again lead me to its active scenes 
 was obliterated — and that with only a scanty 
 experience, deteriorated in the reception by an 
 education not judiciously conducted, I was to 
 seek my guideless way across the waste. 
 
 What blind things we are! and how common 
 it is among the young, to imagine themselves 
 better qualified for other pursuits than those 
 in which they are engaged, until this discon- 
 tent with friends or with destiny is corrected 
 by habit, in which all entirely consists, that 
 the wise regard as practical wisdom ! Youth is 
 but the raw material, of which habit makes the 
 man
 
 272 BOGLB tor in I . 
 
 Bui I am tailing into one of niv moralising 
 fits, when I ought to be proceeding with the 
 details of the voyage. The indulgent reader 
 
 will, however, pardon tin- digression. The ne- 
 
 cessarj recollection of mj departure Prom Eng- 
 land brines hack the feelings associated with 
 the circumstances in which it took place, and 
 it is the nature of my imagination to make un- 
 live over again even the most trivial occur- 
 rences, as often as the keys of memory, by 
 chance or effort, happen to be touched. At 
 this moment I am, as it were, standing on the 
 sea shore between Falmouth and Pen Dennis ; 
 I see the signal for sailing hoisted in the packet, 
 and all the rush of troubled thought ever con- 
 nected with that time and place, conies again 
 upon me with undiminished \iolence.
 
 THE PASSAGE. 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE PASSAGE. 
 
 Hitherto accustomed to an inland life, I 
 had no previous correct notion of a voyage on 
 the sea. Before my departure from Falmouth, 
 I might truly say that the only idea possessed 
 by me on the subject, consisted of waves and 
 breakers, a hurly-burly of thunder, the noise 
 of many waters, dismal skies, drenched mari- 
 ners, and a constant sense of danger. I had, it 
 is true, an imperfect remembrance of a wide 
 water, and of fair faces looking over the waves ; 
 a mingled and hazy reminiscence, something 
 between a drowsy dream and a waking fancy. 
 But when the packet weighed anchor, I felt 
 myself immersed, as it were, in a soft and so- 
 lemn harmony, and we passed into the ocean 
 
 n 5
 
 JT I BOO LB OORUT. 
 
 soothingly wafted by an almost insensible tide 
 and breeze; the sky was without a cloud, and 
 all the stars as brightly sparkling a> it' theii 
 wicks had been newly trimmed. The beautiful 
 
 J 
 
 >n shone as a lamp at the gate of heaven. 
 
 The otlur passengers bad retired, and the 
 
 captain had his own affairs to mind. I was tlni- 
 
 left to my own meditations, and before break 
 of day — for I remained in calm contemplation 
 all night on deck, I saw the gems of the Lizard 
 light-house beaming in the horizon like stars, 
 and brightening as they neared. In the dim 
 dawning of the morning, they seemed as the 
 eves of a friend looking out at his window to 
 bid ns farewell and good morrow. 
 
 The liveliest enjoyment of liberty is certainly 
 felt when you feel yourself free at sea; you east 
 off, as a cumbrous garment, all dry-land anx- 
 ieties, and with a mind that has composed itself 
 to have no anticipations, you fine! a sympathetic 
 companionship in the gambols of the wave-. 
 and the fickle playfulness of the winds. I am 
 well aware that the sailors but little like that 
 flickering of the breeze, which was to me so de- 
 lightful, but no matter; the most intense revel
 
 THE PASSAGE. 275 
 
 of the spirit I ever partook of was during that 
 sunny summer passage. Throughout the whole, 
 no chance came to pass that did not minister 
 to the inhaling of an innocent satisfaction. It 
 was altogether a mild and serene reverie — a 
 dream which left few incidents on the memory, 
 but impressed the heart with a wide and deep 
 sensation, as if Happiness herself had put her 
 warm and genial hand into the bosom. 
 
 The entire voyage was different from all my 
 preconceived notions; the felicity of the wea- 
 ther ; an exceedingly gentle but fair wind, and 
 a succession of marine duties, in which amuse- 
 ment was predominant, all united to sweeten 
 the time, even when the sunny air gladdend into 
 a breeze, it was like the effervescence of some 
 delicious wine : the captain smiled when he saw 
 me unbutton my vest to its blandishments. 
 
 I have now but an imperfect recollection of 
 the little amusements which varied the even 
 tenour of those leisure days, like the dew spark- 
 ling on the grass in a May morning. But I 
 watched by day the passing of the purple nau- 
 tilus, which the sailors call the " Portugee man- 
 of-war;" and at night, the shooting meteors
 
 L'Tb BOG LB ('<i|{i!i I 
 
 which suggested the pleasing poesi of angel 
 visits, and were emblems of those bright cha- 
 racters who gloriously shine in their career, 
 
 and shortly pass away. 
 
 One evening, when the sun had sunk in a 
 hank of fog, and the captain apprehended we 
 might before morning have a change of wind, 
 and perhaps a storm, I perfectly still enjoy the 
 wonder with which 1 studied a pale phosphoric 
 gleam on every mast-head, and a lambient flame 
 that wandered like a dim ii re-fly amidst the rig- 
 ging ; and of others that sat bright, and bodiless, 
 like cherubs, on the yards ; but the day, how- 
 ever, dawned, the clouds made themselves thin 
 air, and the omens proved as harmless as the 
 apprehensions that sometimes unaccountably 
 sadden the purest breast. 
 
 That day, however, was not without its own 
 phenomena ; we passed a dead whale, over which 
 a number of sea birds, though far at sea, were 
 collected, fluttering like legatees from a distance 
 at a funeral. And during the afternoon, an- 
 other came close to the ship, and ogled her with 
 the wantonness of a widower. It is with no 
 fancy, I aver, that I could discern a good-na-
 
 THE PASSAGE. 277 
 
 tured playfulness in its target-like eyes as it 
 dived and spouted, and played the lover in 
 the crystalline waves. The sailors prepared to 
 shoot it with one of the cannon, but at my in- 
 tercession they desisted, and I am sure they 
 had ten times more pleasure in looking at its 
 knowing, leering glances and gallantry, than 
 fifty butts of oil could have procured. 
 
 Although I had never been at sea before, I 
 happily escaped the malady, but the other pas- 
 sengers were not so fortunate, and it was not 
 until we had passed the longitude of forty, that 
 the last of them was able to come on deck. 
 She was an old lady returning to Kingston, 
 where she had long been settled ; she had been 
 to England to see her friends, perhaps with the 
 intention of spending the remainder of her days 
 there, but few she found alive, and every thing 
 so changed, that, as she said herself, " It was 
 no longer her native land — Jamaica was more 
 homely.'" 
 
 She had several cages of singing birds, to 
 which, notwithstanding her sickness, she was 
 every morning attentive ; and as she believed 
 she never could survive the sickness to look
 
 278 BOOLE CORBBT. 
 
 after them, she constantly lamented them as if 
 dead, hoping, however, if it was so ordered 
 that she and they were to die, it would take 
 place before we reached Jamaica, for there the 
 Cruel sharks would then have them all ; generally 
 concluding her elegies with an imprecation on 
 the black steward, whom sin' denounced a Nig- 
 ger of tin seed of Cain, that detested race w bich 
 had skulked into Noah's Ark among the unclean 
 beasts. However, as we sailed along in the 
 pleasant trade-wind, she gradually recovered, 
 and with the birds, reached her destination in 
 safety. 
 
 Our other two passengers were gentlemen, 
 but of no particular character. One of them 
 was bound for the Main of Spanish Anieri< a j 
 but who he was, and why he was going there, 
 \\as never discovered. The other was a Major 
 going to join his regiment, a well-bred man, with 
 not a little of the hunt fftut of the mess-room 
 
 O 
 
 about him. Neither of the two, however, in- 
 terested me on board the ship, and I parted 
 from them with as much indifference as if we had 
 been all outsides on a Greenwich stage. But I 
 should describe the remainder of our passai
 
 THE PASSAGE. 279 
 
 Having despatches from Government on 
 board, we touched at Barbadoes to land 
 them. It was not deemed necessary that the 
 packet should come to anchor, but while the 
 boat was sent on shore with the captain and 
 the letter-bag, she tacked in Carlisle Bay. I, 
 however, was allowed to go with the boat, and 
 received an ample indemnification, in the no- 
 velty of the scene, for the five-and-twenty days 
 and nights of a monotonous passage, if any 
 epithet insinuating dullness can be applied to 
 one of the finest voyages ever made across the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 We reached Carlisle Bay during the night, 
 but as soon as 
 
 " The bright morning star, day's harbinger," 
 
 appeared, I was roused to go on shore. The 
 dark contour of the land — or if I may be allow- 
 ed to use an appropriate but odd expression — 
 the negro visage of the island, as it then lay in 
 the starlight of a brilliant tropical night, did 
 not so much interest me by the beauty of any 
 particular feature, as by that inexpressible sen- 
 sation which the first sight of land gives to
 
 ■2H0 BOO LB GORBBT. 
 
 1 1 1« > — «. - who have become weary of the ocean. 
 But before we reached the mole, the dawn had 
 brightened over all the east with that rapidity 
 which glows in the torrid climate with the lud- 
 denness of a maiden's blush, and the sun looked 
 over the horizon jusl as we reached the landing- 
 ]>lace. 
 It was at that moment I felt myself in a 
 
 strange land ; and a scene around me, not, how- 
 ever, greatly different from what I expected, 
 though far other than England — a fleet in the 
 bay, men-of-war and merchant-men, boats 
 glancing to and fro, were all British; but the 
 liveliness of the town, the shops and houses 
 without windows, and the feathery green palms, 
 which fringed the shore in many places, with 
 the extraordinary transparency of the air, were 
 vivid with beauty. My attention was, however, 
 chiefly excited by the multitude of negroes 
 who had gathered on the strand, smiling to- 
 wards us with that blitheness which the ebony 
 countenance can alone express. In the crowd 
 I saw a few white men, with nankeen jackets 
 and broad straw-hats; their appearance re- 
 minded me of the argument for the emanci-
 
 THE PASSAGE. 281 
 
 pation of the slaves, then raging in England ; 
 and when I compared the few Europeans with 
 the throng of Africans, I could not help saying 
 to myself, " If there were not some other tie 
 that binds them mutually together, would the 
 Negroes look so pleased, or submit to be so 
 treated, as they are said to be treated by the 
 philanthropists of England ?"
 
 282 uoglk CORBET. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 C \ IMUHBEAN SEA. 
 
 As we had only to deliver the letter-bag, our 
 stay on shore did not occupy many minutes: 
 before we had breakfasted, Barbadoes was far 
 behind and sinking in the horizon, and the heat 
 of the day was excessive ; not a flake of cloud 
 stained the azure of the skies, and the univer- 
 sal ocean, like molten sapphire, as it brilliantly 
 sparkled before the favouring breeze, appeared 
 as if sprinkled with strings of the purest pearls. 
 I had no idea that there could have been such 
 a difference in beauty between the West-Indian 
 waters and the sunniest of our British seas. 
 
 Towards noon the breeze, which had increas- 
 ed from the morning, began to slacken, much 
 to the surprise of the captain, and different
 
 CARRIBBEAN SEA. 283 
 
 from the regularity which we had experienced 
 from the day we entered the current of the 
 trade-wind. I should not, perhaps, have re- 
 marked this phenomenon, which is not com- 
 mon, but my attention was drawn to it, and to 
 another circumstance still rarer. The atmo- 
 sphere, which had all the morning been sur- 
 prisingly clear, lending additional brightness 
 to the intolerable splendour of the sun, gra- 
 dually became less transparent, as if a white 
 smoke were ■ insensibly diffused throughout. 
 At last the breeze died away, the sea grew as 
 still as silver, and the air so dim that the bow- 
 sprit was hardly visible from the quarter-deck. 
 The sailors were evidently disturbed, and 
 often spoke superstitiously to each other, as 
 they eyed the loose and empty sails hanging 
 idly from the yards. Among them, I noticed 
 a boy, about twelve or fourteen years of age, 
 who stood aloof by himself, with a dejected 
 countenance, and that pale vacuity which gene- 
 rally indicates disease. I inquired if he was 
 ill, and offered him an orange, which I had 
 brought from Bridgetown ; but he declined it, 
 and folding his arms, walked away.
 
 •2JU BOGLB UORBBT. 
 
 Some little time after, I observed him seated 
 on the windlass, with Ins arms still folded, 
 Bteadih eyeing the deck. I pointed him out to 
 the captain, expressing my fear that he was 
 unwell ; hut when the captain went to inquire, 
 he -till refused to acknowledge that any thing 
 was the matter with him, and again shifted his 
 place. 
 
 There was no sullenness in his manner hut 
 rather sadness, the more remarkable, as be 
 seemed in the previous voyage of a cheerful 
 temperament, and fond of pranks and practical 
 jokes on his companions, which the felicity of 
 the weather and the easy fair wind often allow- 
 ed. It was only after leaving Carlisle Bay that 
 he became so unsocial, and seemed so pensive 
 and depressed. 
 
 The dullness of the da\ continued to deepen, 
 until a universal gloom seemed to pervade and 
 overspread every object, and yet the form of no 
 cloud could be seen in the obscurity which 
 filled the welkin. The sun, however, was still 
 visible, but like a globe of red fire : no shadow 
 fell from me as 1 stood in his ineffectual beams ; 
 — such was the aspect around us when we went
 
 CARR1BBEAN SEA. 285 
 
 down to dinner at the usual hour, about three 
 o'clock. The captain spoke to the major, who 
 had made several voyages, as if the phenomenon 
 was ominous of wind ; but it was not the hur- 
 ricane season, the sails were, however, ordered 
 to be taken in, and every preparation made for 
 some dreadful change. 
 
 We sat a shorter time at table than common ; 
 we spoke less, and the old lady remarked that 
 her birds were shivering and sitting with their 
 heads under their wings, and yet they were not 
 sleeping, for their eyes were open. We were 
 all impressed with an apprehension of some- 
 thing extraordinary coming to pass : the gen- 
 tleman bound for the Spanish Main had a Bible, 
 with which he silently retired to a corner of the 
 cabin to read. 
 
 When I went on deck the poor boy had 
 again changed his seat, and was standing at 
 the gunwale looking over at the sea, while the 
 ship stood, as Coleridge says in " The Antient 
 Mariner, 1 ' 
 
 " As steady as a painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean.'' 
 
 I asked kindly how he felt, for his face
 
 •JiUi BOGLE OORBBT. 
 
 I»\ this time had assumed an c\pi v-sion almost 
 
 cadaverous, and he was evidently very unwell; 
 
 he returned me no answer, but burst into tears 
 ami unit to another place t an( ^ looked at the 
 tea, as it' lie saw something in it which middenly 
 roused liis attention. 
 
 " Take that poor fellow below,* 1 cried one of 
 the men, an old rough sailor. " The calenture 
 has come upon him j* 1 but before he could be 
 touched he threw himself overboard ; one of the 
 crew instantly plunged after him, and rescued 
 him from self-destruction. Whether the freshen- 
 ing influence of the cool water, or the violence 
 of the shock with which his preserver snatched 
 him as he sank, contributed most to recall him to 
 a sense of himself I know not, but when brought 
 again on deck, he wept with an uncommon pro- 
 fusion of tears, and at last became calm and 
 soon after cheerful, even with something like 
 derision at his infirmity. He told us that he had 
 been all the day thinking of home, until he had 
 persuaded himself that he saw his mother's cot- 
 tage in the wave, and the trees and green fields 
 all glittering in the sunshine around it, and
 
 CARR1BBEAN SEA. 287 
 
 could not resist the desire to leap to them 
 again. 
 
 I had often heard of this curious marine ma- 
 lady, and how it sometimes mounts to a melan- 
 choly delirium, and with my habitual curiosity, 
 endeavoured to sift the patient, to get some clue 
 to the cause ; the fit, however, had passed, and 
 before sunset he was himself ; but the old boat- 
 swain, who had noticed the passion working, 
 told me that while it is on, there is always a 
 slight fever, and the boy himself acknowledged 
 that he did not that morning relish his break- 
 fast. 
 
 This was the only effect of that singular 
 day, if to its influence it could be ascribed ; 
 for soon after the sun disappeared, the at- 
 mosphere began to thin, the stars looked out, 
 and the light of the rising moon glanced along 
 the rippling surface of the ocean, while a gentle 
 breeze again distended all the loosened sails, 
 and softly urged us forward. 
 
 But the remainder of the voyage to Jamaica 
 from Barbadoes was, I understand, longer 
 than common, with the single exception of that
 
 ■2HH BOGLB UORBB1 , 
 
 heart-sickening day -it was to me full of satis- 
 faction. Wehad not, however, any proper view 
 of the other islands as we passed ; those to the 
 
 left ami southward were more like dark blue 
 clouds resting in the horizon, and a faint dim 
 outline, discovered on our right one evening, 
 was pointed out to us as Porto Rico. I took. 
 however, no interest in things so distant ; they 
 seemed to me like names in chronology, .1 
 elated with no image in the mind. Jamaica 
 became gradually uppermost in my thoughts ; 
 the cares of business, which had slept all the 
 passage, began to rouse and waken, and with 
 them the painful assurance, that when I had 
 fulfilled all the duties which my creditors ex- 
 pected from me, I had again to begin life. 
 
 In that frame of mind, as I was sitting on a 
 hencoop one afternoon looking wot ward to the 
 sun, which had nearly fulfilled his daily best, 
 my attention was suddenly excited by a faint 
 outline of land under his lower limb. " It is 
 Jamaica, 11 said the captain, in the same moment 
 pointing to it ; and the effect on me was elec- 
 trical. 
 
 Why it should have been so, or wherefore, I
 
 CARRIBBEAN SEA. 289 
 
 should have been agitated more than with the 
 prospect of any other land, is still inconceiva- 
 ble. Had it been the first after the passage 
 from England, I can imagine that it might have 
 so affected me; butBarbadoes had softened my 
 curiosity in some degree, and the sight of the 
 other islands ought to have made me less 
 susceptible of emotion from it. But, perhaps, 
 I only experienced a modification of a constitu- 
 tional disposition, with which I have been from 
 my earliest recollection ever beset. I never went 
 from home without being obliged to make an 
 effort to drive away the most absurd fears and 
 fancies ; and after a short absence, never return- 
 ed but they forced themselves back upon me 
 like boding birds croaking unutterable things. 
 In despite of all my endeavours to encourage 
 more pleasant ideas, I approached the island 
 with a feeling somewhat allied to that reluc- 
 tance with which the trembling, fascinated bird 
 drops into the serpent's mouth. 
 
 VOL. 1. o
 
 290 BOGLR CORBI I 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 PRUDENCE. 
 
 I shall neither attempt to describe what I 
 felt nor what I imagined as we approached 
 Kingston from Port Royal : my whole mind was 
 bent on getting away from the place as soon u 
 possible. I had no reason for this impatience, 
 but it belonged to the condition of my feelings, 
 and the courteous reader may, perhaps, guess 
 at the impulses that moved me. 
 
 An accident as we entered the harbour had 
 nearly been fatal to the packet. It was night, 
 and the breeze blew strong off the land, in 
 a direction by which she was obliged to go so 
 close to the shore that she grounded for a few 
 minutes. Our anxiety occasioned by this ac-
 
 PRUDENCE. 291 
 
 cident did not, however, last long, though at 
 the time it was alarming. But I was less in- 
 terested in the consequences than by the ap- 
 pearance of the land around. 
 
 I had somehow supposed that the country 
 was widely and richly cultivated. I expected 
 no gentlemanly residences nor pleasant villas, 
 but lively rural scenery filled my imagination. 
 Judge then of my disappointment, when, in- 
 stead of an open and gay country, I beheld only 
 patches of cultivation, distant mountains, and a 
 rankness of vegetable production every where. 
 I had prepared myself for a luxuriant profu- 
 sion, and counted on green and tufty trees and 
 shrubs thickly clothed with foliage, but I was 
 not in expectation of seeing that, around the 
 capital, cultivation bore a small proportion to 
 the wild affluence and native vesture of the soil. 
 I do not exaggerate my feelings when I say 
 the disappointment was painful, and when 
 instead of the rich and beautiful land I had 
 been taught to expect, I saw only a savage 
 woody country, and in the habitations of man 
 only the expedients of a temporary possession. 
 
 O 2
 
 292 BOGLB CORBB I '. 
 
 The general aspect of the island afforded me 
 do pleasure; still it was picturesque. The Ear 
 Blue Mountains rose in magnificent pyramids, 
 not, however, so detached from each other as 
 to give the impression of those everlasting 
 buildings ; and the luxuriance of the forest 
 scenery displayed ;i power of vegetation ra- 
 pidly working every where, of which it was 
 impossible I could have formed any adequate 
 
 notion. 
 
 Prom the instant I beheld Kingston from 
 the boat in which I went on shore with the 
 captain, I saw that I had been deceived, either 
 by a misconception of the accounts given to me, 
 or by some phantasy of my own mind; perhaps 
 both were involved in the deception ; but de- 
 ceived I was, and the aspect of the country, 
 which I had believed to present only opulence, 
 splendour, and luxury, was mean in the ex- 
 treme, and bore in all its features the marks of 
 Servitude and inferiority. 
 
 I am speaking only of the island — the hos- 
 pitality of the inhabitants was of the most 
 generous description. Nothing that their 
 means could afford was wanting to conciliate
 
 PRUDENCE. 293 
 
 the stranger to a region where primeval nature 
 still asserted supreme dominion ; and though 
 my experience had for several years taught 
 me the enjoyment of more elegance than was to 
 be found amidst the hasty opulence of Kings- 
 ton, I could not deny that the will to contri- 
 bute generously to make up for defects in the 
 detail was certainly not wanting at their tables. 
 But I should prevaricate with truth if I did 
 not acknowledge, that with all the attention 
 with which I was treated, and of which 1 
 must ever entertain a grateful remembrance, 
 a coarser tact in manners was obvious than 
 prevailed in England, and society in a lower 
 and less intellectual state. 
 
 If however this was indisputable, I received a 
 happier impression from another cause ; I wit- 
 nessed nothing of that restless humour of which 
 I had heard so much as characteristic of the 
 planters, nor of that degradation which I wa> 
 taught to expect in the condition of the slaves. 
 But this is rather a general recollection of 
 the country than of the particular inhabitants 
 of Kingston, for in that city the white com- 
 munity may be described as commercial, and
 
 _'!)}• BOGLB CORBET. 
 
 the negroes as domestic servants and mercantile 
 labourers; moreover, »i iy residence there was 
 but <>i" short duration. 
 
 I soon perceived that my voyage was mi- 
 gratory, and that our correspondents, the 
 high] v respectable firm of (rooks, Bullion, 
 and Co., were in every respect, both in means 
 and integrity, capable of doing ample jus- 
 tiee to the interests of our creditors. This 
 discoverv, if I may use the term, was soon 
 made, and from that moment I determined not 
 to interfere with them, but to return to Eng- 
 land and apply myself to some new pursuit ; 
 previously, however, to so doing, I was led by 
 natural curiosity to examine how far the Euro- 
 pean world had formed erroneous conceptions 
 of West Indian society ; for that all we fancy- 
 on this side of the Atlantic respecting it is con- 
 ceived in error, I had, from the hour I placed 
 my foot on Barbadoes, been thoroughly con- 
 vinced. Accordingly, I availed myself of the 
 opportunity to correct my own notions, and 
 resolved, in consequence, to visit the principal 
 parts of the island, and particularly the North 
 side, on which Plantagenet estate is situated ;
 
 PRUDENCE. 29-5 
 
 for, although that estate was not my home, 
 still it was endeared to me as the residence of 
 my parents, and upon it my little fortune had 
 been originally mortgaged. My father and 
 mother had died there ; my affectionate and 
 joyous Baba had belonged to it, and it was the 
 property of a relation ; it had, therefore, many 
 claims on my attention and best sensibilities ; 
 nor am I sure that there was any desire mingled 
 with the intention to visit it which the world 
 can condemn ; but if there were, I felt it not. 
 
 Of my parents I knew nothing, but they were 
 always spoken of with respect ; of Baba, my 
 nurse, I had long heard she was dead, but 
 still a craving to see the spot that was so en- 
 riched to my affections merited the pilgrimage. 
 I had not, however, fortitude enough to dis- 
 close the true motive of the journey to my 
 friends in Kingston. It seemed sentimental — 
 and I have ever been averse to let it be imagined 
 of me that I was at all disposed to indulge in 
 the foibles of the heart— but after the vessel 
 had sailed in which I ought properly to have 
 gone back to England, I promulgated my in- 
 tention of proceeding to see my relations on the
 
 L >()G BOOLE CORBBT. 
 
 North Bide, and, with more address than he- 
 Longs to my character, resolved to Bel ofr on 
 the journey before the next ship could be ready. 
 1 have since often reflected ow the ingenuity 
 
 made use of on that occasion, and I begin to 
 think, though it is now late in life, that in the 
 art to which I then had recourse, I acted a wise 
 and discreet part; my acquaintance at Least 
 thought I did wisely; and we have no better 
 criterion to measure the imprudence or dis- 
 cretion of our conduct by, than the opinion of 
 those around, when they approve or condemn 
 what we do.
 
 A JOURNEY. 297 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 A JOURNEY. 
 
 Instead of adopting the advice of my 
 friends in Kingston, particularly that of Mr. 
 Bullion, whom I oftenest consulted, an accident 
 induced me to prefer crossing the island by a 
 road which had been trodden out by the Ma- 
 roons, instead of the more frequented tract. 
 
 The Maroons originally were fugitive slaves, 
 — a bold and savage race, who, except in 
 their occasional insurrections against their mas- 
 ters, lived in the fastnesses of the mountains 
 in indolent tranquillity, satisfied with the fruit- 
 of the forest, and the wild prey that chance or 
 artifice occasionally bestowed. In their Avay of 
 life, and in the paroxysms of passion to which 
 they sometimes abandoned themselves, they 
 
 o 5
 
 298 notJLi: corhkt. 
 
 afforded afflicting exhibitions to civilised man 
 of the state that awaits tin' Negroes when the 
 
 control of their proprietors shall have been 
 withdrawn. To sec something of what yet sur- 
 vived of these self-emancipated slaves, was one 
 of the motives which led me by the mountain- 
 
 road. 1 was, however, disappointed; for, saw 
 a grandmother with three little ebony imp- 
 with white eyes, sitting in the shadow of a 
 rock, as I passed with the black boy, who was 
 lent to me as a groom, none of them happened 
 to appear in our path. The old woman was, 
 however, a sight worthy of all the journey ; 
 for, had not the children who were playing 
 round her been there, I should have hesitated 
 to believe she was really human. 
 
 Old age had bent her actually into a hoop, and 
 but for a brief petticoat formed of two handker- 
 chiefs, she was entirely naked, displaying how 
 severely Time can inflict his meagre touch even on 
 the hue of the Negro's skin ; for, instead of being 
 black and sleek, she was rather of a dark dingy 
 bronze colour, withered like a mummy. Round 
 her neck, which resembled a dried alligator's 
 limb, hung several rows of red beads, made of
 
 A JOURNEY. 209 
 
 the crabs-eye peas, and all the bust of woman- 
 hood beneath was as shrivelled and shrunk as 
 beggar's purses ; her visage was something hor- 
 rible, between a toad's and a baboon's — her 
 eyes bleared and far sunk, her forehead super- 
 naturally flat, and her lips, which odiously 
 protruded, revealed a ghastly grin of four or 
 five long unequal yellow teeth ; a deformity 
 even in age, seldom seen among the better shel- 
 tered slaves. Her hair was white, and reminded 
 me of a black-faced sheep's head ; and yet this 
 hideous Sycorax was not void of human kind- 
 ness, for she was amusing the three black mar- 
 ble Cupids that lay laughing on the ground 
 beside her, and could mouth and gibber some 
 wild mockery of language, which, after a 
 few sentences, I discovered, to my inexpressible 
 amusement, was Negro Scotch, learned about 
 three-score years before, when she had been 
 Dulcinea to a Scottish overseer, whom she had 
 assisted an African lover one night to murder 
 and burn with his house. From that time she 
 had lived with the Maroons, but in the last 
 hostilities with them, her " guda man," as she 
 called him, was worried by one of the blood-
 
 300 UOGLE CORI1KT. 
 
 hounds imported from Cuba to extirpate tin 
 race. 
 
 This w;is the only adventure we met with in 
 that journey, but some of the landscapes which 
 opened from time to time, as our path winded 
 through tin' passes of the mountains, and amidst 
 the most romantic- scenery, far surpassed the 
 power of description. Here enormous rocks, 
 plied in toppling cairns by ancient earthquakes, 
 and basketed together by the roots of beautiful 
 tires growing out from among them, fanta-ti- 
 cally overhung our path — and there streams of 
 the purest water, leaping from the precipices, 
 and glittering in the sunshine as they came 
 rushing from the hills, were heard dashing, a^ 
 it were, with a musical freshness around. 
 
 We rode forty odd miles with unexpected 
 facility the first day, and reached before sun- 
 down the residence of an aged Lieutenant of the 
 navy, to whom I brought a bundle of old news- 
 papers, with a letter from a friend in King- 
 ston. He had retired from the service, and 
 with the propensities of another Robinson Cru- 
 soe, had constructed a cottage for himself on 
 one of the most picturesque points of the cen-
 
 A JOURNEY. 301 
 
 tral ridge of mountains, where the road from 
 the interior comes out on the lower range of 
 hills that front the north, commanding an ex- 
 tensive view of the island, and a boundless 
 prospect of the ocean. Mr. Cutwater, for that 
 was his name, received me not only with joyful 
 heartiness, but with something like the exulta- 
 tion of one who has found again a precious va- 
 luable that he had lost. I staid with him dur- 
 ing the night, and as I had but a ride of fif- 
 teen miles to the house of another gentleman 
 to whom I had a letter likewise, I agreed not 
 to leave him till the afternoon of next day, 
 and had thus an opportunity of inspecting his 
 improvements, which, considering that every 
 thing was the work of his own hands, were ad- 
 mirable proofs of what the industry of an in- 
 dividual may accomplish. 
 
 The spot he had chosen was, as he said, with 
 respect to its temperature, in the same latitude 
 as Leghorn, and he had cultivated with success 
 many plants and shrubs, similar to those which 
 grow in the south of Europe. He had two an- 
 telopes which he had brought from Malta, but, 
 unfortunately, they were both males ; one of
 
 302 BOOLE CORB1 P. 
 
 tlirir gazelles had died on the voyage, and the 
 other was killed by a sailor with a stave, who, 
 Bl it was standing on the beach at the village of 
 Green Island, whin' it had been landed, thought 
 it a wild animal of Jamaica. 
 
 The evening in the Main-top, as he called the 
 place, uas so eool, as almost to be chilly ; and 
 as we sat together in his little viranda, contem- 
 plating the magnificent scene which the rising 
 full-moon disclosed, I may safely say, both as 
 to the altitude and the delight enjoyed, I had 
 never been so near Heaven before. 
 
 I parted from him with regret, and promised 
 to visit him again ; but it was never in my 
 power, nor would it have been wise to have 
 done so, according to those philosophers who 
 are of opinion, that when a man meets with ex- 
 quisite excellence, he should never seek from it 
 a repetition of the ecstasy, but cherish the me- 
 mory and beatitude of the first enjoyment. 
 
 Early next morning, I reached Prospect Cof- 
 fee Pen, the residence of Mr. Beans, a pleasant 
 rural grange, with more of an air of perma- 
 nency than is commonly seen in the houses of
 
 A JOURNEY. 303 
 
 the Jamaica planters. He was a cheerful old 
 man, with an only daughter, who had recently 
 returned from England, where she had been for 
 her education, accompanied by another young 
 lady, the daughter of a neighbouring Planter. 
 My reception was with the off-handed hos- 
 pitality of the island, and they were pleased 
 to regard my visit as fortunate, especially as 
 Mr. Canes, the gentleman whose daughter 
 was the companion of Miss Beans, intended 
 in a few nights to give a ball and supper, 
 in honour of her return, and it was not often 
 that they had it in their power to treat a stran- 
 ger with so gay a doing as it promised to be. 
 
 " I cannot, however," said Miss Beans, ad- 
 dressing herself to her father, " imagine what 
 has come of the spirits of Louisa, since we 
 arrived. They have quite fled, and she looks 
 as if she wished she had not come back to 
 Jamaica." 
 
 " It is natural," replied the old gentleman, 
 " that she should be sad. Her mother died 
 soon after she was sent to London, and some of 
 the changes in her father's house cannot be
 
 •'Wf BOOLE OORBBT. 
 
 what she, perhaps, expected. Betsy, the Quad* 
 
 roon, whom he has taken to live with him, i- 
 -aid to hi' ;i capricious and foolish shit."" 
 
 My European ideas were a Little disturbed 
 at the freedom with which .Mr. Beans spoke of 
 this arrangement to his daughter, and I could 
 
 observe a blush overspread her countenance : 
 but it was evident that he was not aware of ;mv 
 delieiency of delicacy in what he said, perhaps 
 owing to the commonness of such domestic con- 
 nections. His own house was in every respect 
 regulated with scrupulous decorum ; it was the 
 only house that I met with where the females 
 wore the bosom covered ; and though the 
 servants were all negroes, they were orderly, 
 and rcallv, in manners, not without a compe- 
 tency of good breeding. It was the likest esta- 
 blishment to that of a plain English gentle- 
 man of any I saw in the island ; indeed, I have 
 always since thought that the coffee planta- 
 tions arc the only good specimens of rural life 
 which the country affords. The works on the 
 sujrar estates are too much like factories, and 
 have a character of trade about them inconsis- 
 tent, as it seemed to me, with the income -
 
 A JOURNEY. 305 
 
 derived from them, many of which were then 
 lordly. But the more I saw of Jamaica, it ap- 
 peared only a scene of temporary possession. 
 There was an activity, so like haste, in all af- 
 fairs, which seemed unconsciously to betray ap- 
 prehension for the possession. The buildings 
 had an appearance of fragility, as if every 
 thing were prepared for a sudden abandon- 
 ment : grain was not cultivated. Verily, not 
 only the villages, but Kingston itself, showed 
 how much the proprietors calculated, insensi- 
 bly, perhaps, to themselves, that in Jamaica 
 they had no continual city.
 
 ;50(j BOG LB 0ORB1 I 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 A DIALOGUE. 
 
 Although Mr. Beans, in the habits of his 
 conversation, partook of the coarse morality of 
 the country, he yet possessed both talent and 
 intelligence. He had read a great deal, and 
 having an inclination to the antiquarian litera- 
 ture and manners of the middle ages, would in 
 any society have been regarded as embued With 
 literary taste. He had been in Jamaica from 
 the declaration of the American independence, 
 but he preserved, by importing new books and 
 most of the periodical publications, an intimate 
 acquaintance with the eventful transactions of 
 France and Europe. On the changes in the 
 state of society, his reflections were often in- 
 genious, and if not always profound, were un- 
 doubtedly curious. The feudal system was,
 
 A DIALOGUE. 307 
 
 however, his principal theme, and although 
 sensible that its institutions were no longer 
 suitable to the variety of modern employments, 
 it was with him a constant topic of admiration. 
 During the few days I remained at his house, 
 we had several interesting discussions on the 
 tendency to change in the state of property 
 arising from the growth of commerce and ma- 
 nufactures, and in the evening which I first 
 spent with him, he was particularly eloquent, 
 not only with reference to his favourite subject, 
 but with respect to the effect which the aboli- 
 tion of the Slave Trade would have on West 
 India property. 
 
 " The earth,"''' said he, " is divided into so 
 many nations, often at war with each other, that 
 in those barbarous ages, when the feudal system 
 originated, and domestic feuds were household 
 thrift, it became necessary for communities to 
 provide political means of defence, and to be 
 always ready for war. But although no man 
 can more freely admit than I do that the here- 
 ditary restraints in the descent of property have 
 now become obsolete, they were yet requisite 
 in those rude times to preserve together the
 
 908 BOOLI < ORB] i 
 
 masaec of property which the security of king- 
 doms rendered necessary among each other; 
 nor would it have been easy to devise a more 
 effectual plan for having always ready the 
 soldiery and officers requisite to constitute 
 an army, the sole end and object of the 
 feudal distribution of property; The whole 
 system was so perfect for its purposes, that it 
 could not have been the invention of human 
 genius, but must have resulted from the natural 
 exigencies of warlike society; a provision of the 
 same Providence which gives strength and cou- 
 rage to the beasts of the field, and wings and 
 talons to the birds of the air." 
 
 I could offer no opinion in answer to thi>. 
 but observed, that mankind wen- now acquiring 
 clearer ideas of their natural rights. 
 
 "Natural rights!" he exclaimed, "when 
 are they ? When society was formed, were not 
 they cancelled, and social privileges substituted ? 
 From the earliest concentration of society, 
 man has been continually laying aside his inhe- 
 ritance from Nature, and investing himself with 
 the dispositions induced by the wants created 
 by living in community. The more refined and
 
 A DIALOGUE. 309 
 
 intelligent man becomes, the farther he recedes 
 from a state of nature; but in opposition to this 
 truth, it would seem as if the progress of know- 
 ledge should lead us round a circle back to 
 that state ; and yet, what are all natural rights 
 but the ramifications of one right ? An equal 
 claim to an equal portion of the productions of 
 the earth. ,, 
 
 " The economists say no more," replied I. 
 
 " True ! they say no more ; but, forgetting 
 that there is a community of nations as well as 
 of men, they claim more, and see not, that in 
 society, privilege has superseded right. Indi- 
 viduals are endowed with different powers, ca- 
 pacities, and predilections, and the equality of 
 their natural right is modified by the laws of 
 society to protect these inalienable endow- 
 ments. The weak has the same right to food 
 as the strong, but the strong has the power to 
 wrest his share from him ; hence the origin of 
 that institute in which all the other members of 
 society concur, and which says to the strong, 
 if you oppress the weak, we shall punish you. 
 Thus it is, that the sole object of the social 
 state is mutual protection ; and to protect
 
 •*ilO BOOLE OORBBT. 
 
 individuals in tlir exercise of their respective 
 endowments, is the end of all government." 
 
 " I do not exactly perceive the tendency of 
 your observation,' 1 said I, diffidently, for I had 
 hut an imperfect conception of the subject. 
 
 "No!' 1 replied he; "do you not see that 
 all property rests upon that principle? The 
 natural endowments of individuals, constitute 
 the means hy which they arc- enabled to acquire 
 property. In all respects, hut in those which 
 are injurious to the welfare of others, society 
 permits the individual to enjoy the exercise of 
 his faculties, and whatever results to him from 
 that exercise, it acknowledges to be his own ; 
 to deprive him of it in any way, is a violation 
 of the social compact." 
 
 " Then you are opposed to the Moravian B) B- 
 tem of living in community — the co-operative 
 system P" 
 
 " I am." was his calm, hut brief answer — " it 
 is incompatible with human nature, for we have 
 all our several endowments, different alike in 
 degree and quality. The individual, who in a 
 state of nature exercises his strength or his 
 cunning to gratify his own desires, has a right
 
 A DIALOGUE. 311 
 
 in himself to do so, but society requires that he 
 shall abdicate that right before he can receive 
 its protection. In a, word, to protect the indivi- 
 dual members of society in the several proper- 
 ties which they acquire by the exercise of their 
 respective natural powers, cannot be denied 
 by minds capable of understanding principles. 
 It is consecrated to them by all the most revered 
 expedients that legislative wisdom can invent. 
 Men are armed against their fellows for its se- 
 curity ; police and constablery are instituted 
 for its safety; governments, judges, and magis- 
 trates are invested with prerogatives that it may 
 be held sacred ; and all dogmas, opinions, and 
 actions, which imply that man can be deprived 
 without compensation of his acknowledged pro- 
 perty, cannot, however holily, be urged by 
 other means than those of the nature of crime." 
 
 " Upon my honour," said I, smiling at his 
 vehemence, " I did not expect to hear such 
 philosophy in Jamaica." 
 
 " I believe you," he alertly replied : " we 
 don't here think much of these things, and yet 
 our very existence depends on a right under- 
 standing of them : for our property consists
 
 • SI:? BOOLE I ORBBT. 
 
 of slaves; and if there be one thing more thai 
 another which can be described as a natural 
 right, it is surely liberty ; and yet nothing is 
 
 more certain than that it is the very first thing 
 
 of which society strips man when he becomes 
 a social being. The moment that property is 
 
 recognised, in the same instant the claim of 
 
 man over man is acknowledged. In a general 
 
 view, the labourer for his necessaries con- 
 ies bis submission to masterdom ; but in a 
 stricter sense, what security can the man who 
 ha- no property give the other from whom he 
 buvs it, but a right over his person — all law as- 
 sents to this — and the man in debt is a sl.p 
 
 I found myself no match for Mr. Beans; 
 but his opinions have ever remained with me. 
 
 * I) OF THE FIRST VOLl M I 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENT LEY, 
 
 1 oisei Street, Fleet Street.
 
 UN1W KM 1 Y OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 i bii imok la DL'E on the last < l .1 1 c- rtamped below, 
 
 £ ULC 2 9 1S7U 
 INTERLIBRARY 
 
 DEC 14 1970 
 
 THREE WEEKS FROM DATE 
 NON-RENEWABLE -JO 
 
 OF RECQOl 
 
 JAN 14 137) 
 
 Form L9-32m-8,'57(.C86«0s4)444
 
 4FRN REGIONAL 
 
 LIBRARY FACILE 
 
 AA 000 373 844 
 
 <%
 
 !$vw»«wi. v , 
 
 :W*WlM* 
 
 :?Kh*, 
 
 
 
 
 fW 
 
 fcVW*. w -'~ 
 
 
 ^^^v v W Ft ^Afv'v 
 
 *• T ' * " ji y*y*5u 
 
 
 
 (Iv 
 
 w ^ 
 
 
 ?|viy;3^^f^*^ 
 
 'IP* 
 
 :l$tf 
 
 **4 
 
 
 J h 
 
 'iv 
 
 V 
 
 £ 
 
 ; ^a 
 
 i 
 
 ?S$*;^