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The Shepherd's Calendar. Volume I (of II)

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Title: The Shepherd's Calendar. Volume I (of II)

Author: James Hogg


        
Release date: March 3, 2011 [eBook #35474]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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  THE

  SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.

  BY JAMES HOGG,

  AUTHOR OF "THE QUEEN'S WAKE," &c. &c.

  IN TWO VOLUMES.

  VOL. I.

  WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH;
  AND T. CADELL, LONDON.
  MDCCCXXIX.



ADVERTISEMENT.


The greater number of the Tales contained in these volumes appeared
originally in BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. They have been revised
with care; and to complete the Collection, several Tales hitherto
unpublished have been added.




                   CONTENTS OF VOL I.


                                               PAGE.

  CHAP. I. Rob Dodds,                              1

       II. Mr Adamson of Laverhope,               33

      III. The Prodigal Son,                      69

       IV. The School of Misfortune,             112

        V. George Dobson's Expedition to Hell,   131

       VI. The Souters of Selkirk,               148

      VII. The Laird of Cassway,                 176

     VIII. Tibby Hyslop's Dream,                 212

       IX. Mary Burnet,                          247

        X. The Brownie of the Black Haggs,       285

       XI. The Laird of Wineholm,                311





THE

SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR.




CHAPTER I.

ROB DODDS.


It was on the 13th of February 1823, on a cold stormy day, the snow
lying from one to ten feet deep on the hills, and nearly as hard as
ice, when an extensive store-farmer in the outer limits of the county
of Peebles went up to one of his led farms, to see how his old
shepherd was coming on with his flocks. A partial thaw had blackened
some spots here and there on the brows of the mountains, and over
these the half-starving flocks were scattered, picking up a scanty
sustenance, while all the hollow parts, and whole sides of mountains
that lay sheltered from the winds on the preceding week, when the
great drifts blew, were heaped and over-heaped with immense loads of
snow, so that every hill appeared to the farmer to have changed its
form. There was a thick white haze on the sky, corresponding exactly
with the wan frigid colour of the high mountains, so that in casting
one's eye up to the heights, it was not apparent where the limits of
the earth ended, and the heavens began. There was no horizon--no blink
of the sun looking through the pale and impervious mist of heaven; but
there, in that elevated and sequestered _hope_, the old shepherd and
his flock seemed to be left out of nature and all its sympathies, and
embosomed in one interminable chamber of waste desolation.--So his
master thought; and any stranger beholding the scene, would have been
still more deeply impressed that the case was so in reality.

But the old shepherd thought and felt otherwise. He saw God in the
clouds, and watched his arm in the direction of the storm. He
perceived, or thought he perceived, one man's flocks suffering on
account of their owner's transgression; and though he bewailed the
hardships to which the poor harmless creatures were reduced, he yet
acknowledged in his heart the justness of the punishment. "These
temporal scourges are laid upon sinners in mercy," said he, "and it
will be well for them if they get so away. It will teach them in
future how to drink and carouse, and speak profane things of the name
of Him in whose hand are the issues of life, and to regard his
servants as the dogs of their flock."

Again, he beheld from his heights, when the days were clear, the
flocks of others more favourably situated, which he interpreted as a
reward for their acts of charity and benevolence; for this old man
believed that all temporal benefits are sent to men as a reward for
good works; and all temporal deprivations as a scourge for evil ones.

"I hae been a herd in this hope, callant and man, for these fifty
years now, Janet," said he to his old wife, "and I think I never saw
the face o' the country look waur."

"Hout, gudeman, it is but a clud o' the despondency o' auld age come
ower your een; for I hae seen waur storms than this, or else my sight
deceives me. This time seven and thirty years, when you and I were
married, there was a deeper, and a harder snaw baith, than this. There
was mony a burn dammed up wi' dead hogs that year! And what say ye to
this time nine years, gudeman?"

"Ay, ay, Janet, these were hard times when they were present. But I
think there's something in our corrupt nature that gars us aye trow
the present burden is the heaviest. However, it is either my strength
failing, that I canna won sae weel through the snaw, or I never saw it
lying sae deep before. I canna steer the poor creatures frae ae
knowe-head to another, without rowing them ower the body. And
sometimes when they wad spraughle away, then I stick firm and fast
mysell, and the mair I fight to get out, I gang aye the deeper. This
same day, nae farther gane, at ae step up in the Gait Cleuch, I
slumpit in to the neck. Peace be wi' us, quo' I to myself, where am I
now? If my auld wife wad but look up the hill, she wad see nae mair o'
her poor man but the bannet. Ah! Janet, Janet, I'm rather feared that
our Maker has a craw to pook wi' us even now!"

"I hope no, Andrew; we're in good hands; and if he should e'en see
meet to pook a craw wi' us, he'll maybe fling us baith the bouk and
the feathers at the end. Ye shouldna repine, gudeman. Ye're something
ill for thrawing your mou' at Providence now and then."

"Na, na, Janet; far be't frae me to grumble at Providence. I ken ower
weel that the warst we get is far aboon our merits. But it's no for
the season that I'm sae feared,--that's ruled by Ane that canna err;
only, I dread that there's something rotten in the government or the
religion of the country, that lays it under His curse. There's my
fear, Janet. The scourge of a land often fa's on its meanest creatures
first, and advances by degrees, to gie the boonmost orders o' society
warning and time to repent. There, for instance, in the saxteen and
seventeen, the scourge fell on our flocks and our herds. Then, in
aughteen and nineteen, it fell on the weavers,--they're the neist
class, ye ken; then our merchants,--they're the neist again; and last
of a' it has fallen on the farmers and the shepherds,--they're the
first and maist sterling class of a country. Na, ye needna smudge and
laugh, Janet; for it's true. They _are_ the boonmost, and hae aye been
the boonmost sin' the days o' Abel; and that's nae date o' yesterday.
And ye'll observe, Janet, that whenever they began to fa' low, they
gat aye another lift to keep up their respect. But I see our downfa'
coming on us wi' rapid strides.--There's a heartlessness and apathy
croppen in amang the sheep-farmers, that shows their warldly hopes to
be nearly extinct. The maist o' them seem no to care a bodle whether
their sheep die or live. There's our master, for instance, when times
were gaun weel, I hae seen him up ilka third day at the farthest in
the time of a storm, to see how the sheep were doing; and this winter
I hae never seen his face sin' it came on. He seems to hae forgotten
that there are sic creatures existing in this wilderness as the sheep
and me.--His presence be about us, gin there be nae the very man come
by the window!"

Janet sprung to her feet, swept the hearth, set a chair on the
cleanest side, and wiped it with her check apron, all ere one could
well look about him.

"Come away, master; come in by to the fire here; lang-lookit-for comes
at length."

"How are you, Janet?--still living, I see. It is a pity that you had
not popped off before this great storm came on."

"Dear, what for, master?"

"Because if you should take it into your head to coup the creels just
now, you know it would be out of the power of man to get you to a
Christian burial. We would be obliged to huddle you up in the nook of
the kail-yard."

"Ah, master, what's that you're saying to my auld wife? Aye the auld
man yet, I hear! a great deal o' the leaven o' corrupt nature aye
sprouting out now and then. I wonder you're no fear'd to speak in that
regardless manner in these judgment-looking times!"

"And you are still the old man too, Andrew; a great deal of cant and
hypocrisy sprouting out at times. But tell me, you old sinner, how has
your Maker been serving you this storm? I have been right terrified
about your sheep; for I know you will have been very impertinent with
him of evenings."

"Hear to that now! There's no hope, I see! I thought to find you
humbled wi' a' thir trials and warldly losses; but I see the heart is
hardened like Pharaoh's, and you will not let the multitude of your
sins go. As to the storm, I can tell you, my sheep are just at ane
mae wi't. I am waur than ony o' my neighbours, as I lie higher on the
hills; but I may hae been as it chanced, for you; for ye hae never
lookit near me mair than you had had no concern in the creatures."

"Indeed, Andrew, it is because neither you nor the creatures are much
worth looking after now-a-days. If it hadna been the fear I was in for
some mishap coming over the stock, on account of these hypocritical
prayers of yours, I would not have come to look after you so soon."

"Ah, there's nae mense to be had o' you! It's a good thing I ken the
heart's better than the tongue, or ane wad hae little face to pray
either for you, or aught that belangs t'ye. But I hope ye hae been nae
the waur o' auld Andrew's prayers as yet. An some didna pray for ye,
it wad maybe be the waur for ye. I prayed for ye when ye couldna pray
for yoursell, and had hopes that, when I turned auld and doited, you
might say a kind word for me; but I'm fear'd that warld's wealth and
warld's pleasures hae been leading you ower lang in their train, and
that ye hae been trusting to that which will soon take wings and flee
away."

"If you mean riches, Andrew, or warld's wealth, as you call it, you
never said a truer word in your life; for the little that my forbears
and I have made, is actually, under the influence of these long
prayers of yours, melting away from among my hands faster than ever
the snow did from the dike."

"It is perfectly true, what you're saying, master. I ken the extent o'
your bits o' sales weel enough, and I ken your rents; and weel I ken
you're telling me nae lee. And it's e'en a hard case. But I'll tell
you what I would do--I would throw their tacks in their teeth, and let
them mak aught o' them they likit."

"Why, that would be ruin at once, Andrew, with a vengeance. Don't you
see that stocks of sheep are fallen so low, that if they were put to
sale, they would not pay more than the rents, and some few arrears
that every one of us have got into; and thus, by throwing up our
farms, we would throw ourselves out beggars? We are all willing to put
off the evil day as long as we can, and rather trust to long prayers
for a while."

"Ah! you're there again, are you?--canna let alane profanity! It's
hard to gar a wicked cout leave off flinging. But I can tell you,
master mine--An you farmers had made your hay when the sun shone, ye
might a' hae sitten independent o' your screwing lairds, wha are
maistly sair out at elbows; and ye ken, sir, a hungry louse bites
wicked sair. But this is but a just judgment come on you for your
behaviour. Ye had the gaun days o' prosperity for twenty years! But
instead o' laying by a little for a sair leg, or making provision for
an evil day, ye gaed on like madmen. Ye biggit houses, and ye plantit
vineyards, and threw away money as ye had been sawing sklate-stanes.
Ye drank wine, and ye drank punch; and ye roared and ye sang, and
spake unseemly things. And did ye never think there was an ear that
heard, and an ee that saw, a' thae things? And did ye never think that
they wad be visited on your heads some day when ye couldna play paw to
help yoursells? If ye didna think sae then, ye'll think sae soon. And
ye'll maybe see the day when the like o' auld Andrew, wi' his darned
hose, and his cloutit shoon; his braid bannet, instead of a baiver;
his drink out o' the clear spring, instead o' the punch bowl; and his
good steeve aitmeal parritch and his horn spoon, instead o' the draps
o' tea, that costs sae muckle--I say, that sic a man wi' a' thae, and
his worthless prayers to boot, will maybe keep the crown o' the
causeway langer than some that carried their heads higher."

"Hout fie, Andrew!" quoth old Janet; "Gudeness be my help, an I dinna
think shame o' you! Our master may weel think ye'll be impudent wi'
your Maker; for troth you're very impudent wi' himsell. Dinna ye see
that ye hae made the douce sonsy lad that he disna ken where to look?"

"Ay, Janet, your husband may weel crack. He kens he has feathered his
nest off my father and me. He is independent, let the world wag as it
will."

"It's a' fairly come by, master, and the maist part o't came through
your ain hands. But my bairns are a' doing for themsells, in the same
way that I did; and if twa or three hunder pounds can beet a mister
for you in a strait, ye sanna want it, come of a' what will."

"It is weel said of you, Andrew, and I am obliged to you. There is no
class of men in this kingdom so independent as you shepherds. You have
your sheep, your cow, your meal and potatoes; a regular income of from
sixteen to thirty pounds yearly, without a farthing of expenditure,
except for shoes; for your clothes are all made at home. If you would
even wish to spend it, you cannot get an opportunity, and every one of
you is rich, who has not lost money by lending it. It is therefore my
humble opinion, that all the farms over this country will soon change
occupants; and that the shepherds must ultimately become the
store-farmers."

"I hope in God I'll never live to see that, master, for the sake of
them that I and mine hae won our bread frae, as weel as some others
that I hae a great respect for. But that's no a thing that hasna
happened afore this day. It is little mair than a hundred and forty
years, sin' a' the land i' this country changed masters already; sin'
every farmer in it was reduced, and the farms were a' ta'en by common
people and strangers at half naething. The Welshes came here then, out
o' a place they ca' Wales, in England; the Andersons came frae a place
they ca' Rannoch, some gate i' the north; and your ain family came
first to this country then frae some bit lairdship near Glasgow. There
were a set o' MacGregors and MacDougals, said to have been great
thieves, came into Yarrow then, and changed their names to Scotts; but
they didna thrive; for they warna likit, and the hinderend o' them
were in the Catslackburn. They ca'd them aye the Pinolys, frae the
place they came frae; but I dinna ken where it was. The Ballantynes
came frae Galloway; and for as flourishing folks as they are now, the
first o' them came out at the Birkhill-path, riding on a haltered
pony, wi' a goat-skin aneath him for a saddle. The Cunninghams,
likewise, began to spread their wings at the same time; they came a'
frae a little fat curate that came out o' Glencairn to Ettrick. But
that's nae disparagement to ony o' thae families; for an there be
merit at a' inherent in man as to warldly things, it is certainly in
raising himsell frae naething to respect. There is nae very ancient
name amang a' our farmers now, but the Tweedies and the Murrays; I
mean of them that anciently belanged to this district. The Tweedies
are very auld, and took the name frae the water. They were lairds o'
Drummelzier hunders o' years afore the Hays got it, and hae some o'
the best blood o' the land in their veins; and sae also have the
Murrays; but the maist part o' the rest are upstarts and
come-o'-wills. Now ye see, for as far out-bye as I live, I can tell ye
some things that ye dinna hear amang your drinking cronies."

"It is when you begin to these old traditions that I like to listen to
you, Andrew. Can you tell me what was the cause of such a complete
overthrow of the farmers of that age?"

"Oh, I canna tell, sir--I canna tell; some overturn o' affairs, like
the present, I fancy. The farmers had outher lost a' their sheep, or
a' their siller, as they are like to do now; but I canna tell how it
was; for the general change had ta'en place, for the maist part, afore
the Revolution. My ain grandfather, who was the son of a great farmer,
hired himsell for a shepherd at that time to young Tam Linton; and
mony ane was wae for the downcome. But, speaking o' that, of a' the
downcomes that ever a country kenn'd in a farming name, there has
never been ought like that o' the Lintons. When my grandfather was a
young man, and ane o' their herds, they had a' the principal
store-farms o' Ettrick Forest, and a part in this shire. They had,
when the great Mr Boston came to Ettrick, the farms o' Blackhouse,
Dryhope, Henderland, Chapelhope, Scabcleuch, Shorthope, Midgehope,
Meggatknowes, Buecleuch, and Gilmanscleuch, that I ken of, and likely
as mony mae; and now there's no a man o' the name in a' the bounds
aboon the rank of a cow-herd. Thomas Linton rode to kirk and market,
wi' a liveryman at his back; but where is a' that pride now?--a'
buried in the mools wi' the bearers o't! and the last representative
o' that great overgrown family, that laid house to house, and field to
field, is now sair gane on a wee, wee farm o' the Duke o' Buecleuch's.
The ancient curse had lighted on these men, if ever it lighted on men
in this world. And yet they were reckoned good men, and kind men, in
their day; for the good Mr Boston wrote an epitaph on Thomas, in
metre, when he died; and though I have read it a hunder times in St
Mary's kirk-yard, where it is to be seen to this day, I canna say it
ower. But it says that he was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame,
and that the Lord would requite him in a day to come, or something to
that purpose. Now that said a great deal for him, master, although
Providence has seen meet to strip his race of a' their worldly
possessions. But take an auld fool's advice, and never lay farm to
farm, even though a fair opportunity should offer; for, as sure as He
lives who pronounced that curse, it will take effect. I'm an auld man,
and I hae seen mony a dash made that way; but I never saw ane o' them
come to good! There was first Murray of Glenrath; why, it was
untelling what land that man possessed. Now his family has not a furr
in the twa counties. Then there was his neighbour Simpson of Posso: I
hae seen the day that Simpson had two-and-twenty farms, the best o'
the twa counties, and a' stockit wi' good sheep. Now there's no a drap
o' _his_ blood has a furr in the twa counties. Then there was Grieve
of Willenslee; ane wad hae thought that body was gaun to take the
haill kingdom. He was said to have had ten thousand sheep, a' on good
farms, at ae time. Where are they a' now? Neither _him_ nor _his_ hae
a furr in the twa counties. Let me tell ye, master--for ye're but a
young man, and I wad aye fain have ye to see things in a right
light--that ye may blame the wars; ye may blame the Government; and ye
may blame the Parliamenters: but there's a hand that rules higher than
a' these; and gin ye dinna look to that, ye'll never look to the right
source either o' your prosperity or adversity. And I sairly doubt that
the pride o' the farmers has been raised to ower great a pitch, that
Providence has been brewing a day of humiliation for them, and that
there will be a change o' hands aince mair, as there was about this
time hunder and forty years."

"Then I suppose you shepherds expect to have century about with us,
or so? Well, I don't see any thing very unfair in it."

"Ay, but I fear we will be as far aneath the right medium for a while,
as ye are startit aboon it. We'll make a fine hand doing the honours
o' the grand mansion-houses that ye hae biggit for us; the cavalry
exercises; the guns and the pointers; the wine and the punch drinking;
and the singing o' the deboshed sangs! But we'll just come to the
right set again in a generation or twa; and then, as soon as we get
ower hee, we'll get a downcome in our turn.--But, master, I say, how
will you grand gentlemen tak wi' a shepherd's life? How will ye like
to be turned into reeky holes like this, where ye can hardly see your
fingers afore ye, and be reduced to the parritch and the horn spoon?"

"I cannot tell, Andrew. I suppose it will have some advantages--It
will teach us to say long prayers to put off the time; and if we
should have the misfortune afterwards to pass into _the bad place_
that you shepherds are all so terrified about, why, we will scarcely
know any difference. I account that a great advantage in dwelling in
such a place as this. We'll scarcely know the one place from the
other."

"Ay, but oh what a surprise ye will get when ye step out o' ane o'
your grand palaces into hell! And gin ye dinna repent in time, ye'll
maybe get a little experiment o' that sort. Ye think ye hae said a
very witty thing there: but a' profane wit is sinfu'; and whatever is
sinfu' is shamefu'; and therefore it never suits to be said either
afore God or man. Ye are just a good standing sample o' the young
tenantry o' Scotland at this time. Ye're ower genteel to be devout,
and ye look ower high, and depend ower muckle on the arm o' flesh, to
regard the rod and Him that hath appointed it. But it will fa' wi' the
mair weight for that! A blow that is seen coming may be wardit off;
but if ane's sae proud as no to regard it, it's the less scaith that
he suffer."

"I see not how any man can ward off this blow, Andrew. It has gathered
its overwhelming force in springs over which we have no control, and
is of that nature that no industry of man can avail against
it--exertion is no more than a drop in the bucket: and I greatly fear
that this grievous storm is come to lay the axe to the root of the
tree."

"I'm glad to hear, however, that ye hae some Scripture phrases at your
tongue-roots. I never heard you use ane in a serious mode before; and
I hope there will be a reformation yet. If adversity hae that effect,
I shall willingly submit to my share o' the loss if the storm should
lie still for a while, and cut off a wheen o' the creatures, that ye
aince made eedals o', and now dow hardly bide to see. But that's the
gate wi' a things that ane sets up for warldly worship in place o'
the true object; they turn a' out curses and causes o' shame and
disgrace. As for warding off the blow, master, I see no resource but
throwing up the farms ilk ane, and trying to save a remnant out o' the
fire. The lairds want naething better than for ye to rin in arrears;
then they will get a' your stocks for neist to naething, and have the
land stockit themsells as they had lang-syne; and you will be their
keepers, or vassals, the same as we are to you at present. As to
hinging on at the present rents, it is madness--the very extremity of
madness. I hae been a herd here for fifty years, and I ken as weel
what the ground will pay at every price of sheep as you do, and I
daresay a great deal better. When I came here first, your father paid
less than the third of the rent that you are bound to pay; sheep of
every description were dearer, lambs, ewes, and wedders; and I ken
weel he was making no money of it, honest man, but merely working his
way, with some years a little over, and some naething. And how is it
possible that you can pay three times the rent at lower prices of
sheep? I say the very presumption of the thing is sheer madness. And
it is not only this farm, but you may take it as an average of all the
farms in the country, that _before the French war began, the sheep
were dearer than they are now--the farms were not above one-third of
the rents at an average, and the farmers were not making any money_.
They have lost their summer day during the French war, which will
never return to them; and the only resource they have, that I can see,
is to abandon their farms in time, and try to save a remnant. Things
will come to their true level presently, but not afore the auld stock
o' farmers are crushed past rising again. And then I little wat what's
to come o' ye; for an we herds get the land, we _winna_ employ you as
our shepherds,--that you may depend on."

"Well, Andrew, these are curious facts that you tell me about the land
having all changed occupiers about a certain period. I wish you could
have stated the causes with certainty. Was there not a great loss on
this farm once, when it was said the burn was so dammed up with dead
carcasses that it changed its course?"

"Ay, but that's quite a late story. It happened in my own day, and I
believe mostly through mischance. That was the year Rob Dodds was lost
in the Earney Cleuch. I remember it, but cannot tell what year it was,
for I was but a little bilsh of a callant then."

"Who was Rob Dodds? I never heard of the incident before."

"Ay, but your father remembered it weel; for he sent a' his men mony a
day to look for the corpse, but a' to nae purpose. I'll never forget
it; for it made an impression on me sae deep that I couldna get rest
i' my bed for months and days. He was a young handsome bonny lad, an
honest man's only son, and was herd wi' Tam Linton in the Birkhill.
The Lintons were sair come down then; for this Tam was a herd, and had
Rob hired as his assistant. Weel, it sae happened that Tam's wife had
occasion to cross the wild heights atween the Birkhill and Tweedsmuir,
to see her mother, or sister, on some express; and Tam sent the young
man wi' her to see her ower Donald's Cleuch Edge. It was in the middle
o' winter, and, if I mind right, this time sixty years. At the time
they set out, the morning was calm, frosty, and threatening snaw, but
the ground clear of it. Rob had orders to set his mistress to the
height, and return home; but by the time they had got to the height,
the snaw had come on, so the good lad went all the way through
Guemshope with her, and in sight of the water o' Fruid. He crossed all
the wildest o' the heights on his return in safety; and on the
Middle-End, west of Loch-Skene, he met with Robin Laidlaw, that went
to the Highlands and grew a great farmer after that. Robin was
gathering the Polmoody ewes; and as they were neighbours, and both
herding to ae master, Laidlaw testified some anxiety lest the young
man should not find his way hame; for the blast had then come on very
severe. Dodds leugh at him, and said, 'he was nae mair feared for
finding the gate hame, than he was for finding the gate to his mouth
when he was hungry.'--'Weel, weel,' quo' Robin, 'keep the band o' the
hill a' the way, for I hae seen as clever a fellow waured on sic a
day; and be sure to hund the ewes out o' the Brand Law Scores as ye
gang by.'--'Tammy charged me to bring a backfu' o' peats wi' me,' said
he; 'but I think I'll no gang near the peat stack the day.'--'Na,'
quo' Robin, 'I think ye'll no be sae mad!'--'But, O man,' quo' the
lad, 'hae ye ony bit bread about your pouches; for I'm unco hungry?
The wife was in sic a hurry that I had to come away without getting
ony breakfast, and I had sae far to gang wi' her, that I'm grown unco
toom i' the inside.'--'The fient ae inch hae I, Robie, my man, or ye
should hae had it,' quo' Laidlaw.--'But an that be the case, gang
straight hame, and never heed the ewes, come o' them what will.'--'O
there's nae fear!' said he, 'I'll turn the ewes, and be hame in good
time too.' And with that he left Laidlaw, and went down the
Middle-Craig-End, jumping and playing in a frolicsome way ower his
stick. He had a large lang nibbit staff in his hand, which Laidlaw
took particular notice of, thinking it would be a good help for the
young man in the rough way he had to gang.

"There was never another word about the matter till that day eight
days. The storm having increased to a terrible drift, the snaw had
grown very deep, and the herds, wha lived about three miles sindry,
hadna met for a' that time. But that day Tam Linton and Robin Laidlaw
met at the Tail Burn; and after cracking a lang time thegither, Tam
says to the tither, just as it war by chance, 'Saw ye naething o' our
young dinnagood this day eight days, Robin? He gaed awa that morning
to set our gudewife ower the height, and has never sin' that time
lookit near me, the careless rascal!'

"'Tam Linton, what's that you're saying? what's that I hear ye saying,
Tam Linton?' quo' Robin, wha was dung clean stupid wi' horror. 'Hae ye
never seen Rob Dodds sin' that morning he gaed away wi' your wife?'

"'Na, never,' quo' the tither.

"'Why then, sir, let me tell ye, you'll never see him again in this
world alive,' quo' Robin; 'for he left me on the Middle-End on his way
hame that day at eleven o'clock, just as the day was coming to the
warst.--But, Tam Linton, what was't ye war saying? Ye're telling me
what canna be true--Do ye say that ye haena seen Rob Dodds sin' that
day?'

"'Haena I tauld ye that I hae never seen his face sinsyne?' quo'
Linton.

"'Sae I hear ye saying,' quo' Robin again. 'But ye're telling me a
downright made lee. The thing's no possible; for ye hae the very staff
i' your hand that he had in his, when he left me in the drift that
day.'

"'I ken naething about sticks or staves, Robin Laidlaw,' says Tam,
looking rather like ane catched in an ill turn. 'The staff wasna
likely to come hame without the owner; and I can only say, I hae seen
nae mair o' Rob Dodds sin' that morning; and I had thoughts that, as
the day grew sae ill, he had hadden forrit a' the length wi' our wife,
and was biding wi' her folks a' this time to bring her hame again when
the storm had settled.'

"'Na, na, Tam, ye needna get into ony o' thae lang-windit stories wi'
me,' quo' Robin. 'For I tell ye, that's the staff Rob Dodds had in his
hand when I last saw him; so ye have either seen him dead or
living--I'll gie my oath to that.'

"'Ye had better take care what ye say, Robin Laidlaw,' says Tam, very
fiercely, 'or I'll maybe make ye blithe to eat in your words again.'

"'What I hae said, I'll stand to, Tam Linton,' says Robin.--'And mair
than that,' says he, 'if that young man has come to an untimely end,
I'll see his blood required at your hand.'

"Then there was word sent away to the Hopehouse to his parents, and ye
may weel ken, master, what heavy news it was to them, for Rob was
their only son; they had gien him a good education, and muckle muckle
they thought o' him; but naething wad serve him but he wad be a
shepherd. His father came wi' the maist pairt o' Ettrick parish at
his back; and mony sharp and threatening words past atween him and
Linton; but what could they make o't? The lad was lost, and nae law,
nor nae revenge, could restore him again; sae they had naething for't,
but to spread athwart a' the hills looking for the corpse. The haill
country rase for ten miles round, on ane or twa good days that
happened; but the snaw was still lying, and a' their looking was in
vain. Tam Linton wad look nane. He took the dorts, and never heeded
the folk mair than they hadna been there. A' that height atween
Loch-Skene and the Birkhill was just moving wi' folk for the space o'
three weeks; for the twa auld folk, the lad's parents, couldna get ony
rest, and folk sympathized unco muckle wi' them. At length the snaw
gaed maistly away, and the weather turned fine, and I gaed out ane o'
the days wi' my father to look for the body. But, aih wow! I was a
feared wight! whenever I saw a bit sod, or a knowe, or a grey stane, I
stood still and trembled for fear it was the dead man, and no ae step
durst I steer farther, till my father gaed up to a' thae things. I
gaed nae mair back to look for the corpse; for I'm sure if we had
found the body I wad hae gane out o' my judgment.

"At length every body tired o' looking, but the auld man himsell. He
travelled day after day, ill weather and good weather, without
intermission. They said it was the waesomest thing ever was seen, to
see that auld grey-headed man gaun sae lang by himsell, looking for
the corpse o' his only son! The maist part o' his friends advised him
at length to give up the search, as the finding o' the body seemed a
thing a'thegither hopeless. But he declared he wad look for his son
till the day o' his death; and if he could but find his bones, he
would carry them away from the wild moors, and lay them in the grave
where he was to lie himsell. Tam Linton was apprehended, and examined
afore the Sheriff; but nae proof could be led against him, and he wan
off. He swore that, as far as he remembered, he got the staff standing
at the mouth o' the peat stack; and that he conceived that either the
lad or himsell had left it there some day when bringing away a burden
of peats. The shepherds' peats had not been led home that year, and
the stack stood on a hill-head, half a mile frae the house, and the
herds were obliged to carry them home as they needed them.

"But a mystery hung ower that lad's death that was never cleared up,
nor ever will a'thegither. Every man was convinced, in his own mind,
that Linton knew where the body was a' the time; and also, that the
young man had not come by his death fairly. It was proved that the
lad's dog had come hame several times, and that Tam Linton had been
seen kicking it frae about his house; and as the dog could be nowhere
all that time, but waiting on the body, if that had no been concealed
in some more than ordinary way, the dog would at least have been seen.
At length, it was suggested to the old man, that dead-lights always
hovered over a corpse by night, if the body was left exposed to the
air; and it was a fact that two drowned men had been found in a field
of whins, where the water had left the bodies, by means of the
dead-lights, a very short while before. On the first calm night,
therefore, the old desolate man went to the Merk-Side-Edge, to the top
of a high hill that overlooked all the ground where there was ony
likelihood that the body would be lying. He watched there the lee-lang
night, keeping his eye constantly roaming ower the broken wastes
before him; but he never noticed the least glimmer of the dead-lights.
About midnight, however, he heard a dog barking; it likewise gae twa
or three melancholy yowls, and then ceased. Robin Dodds was convinced
it was his son's dog; but it was at such a distance, being about twa
miles off, that he couldna be sure where it was, or which o' the hills
on the opposite side of the glen it was on. The second night he kept
watch on the Path Know, a hill which he supposed the howling o' the
dog cam frae. But that hill being all surrounded to the west and north
by tremendous ravines and cataracts, he heard nothing o' the dog. In
the course of the night, however, he saw, or fancied he saw, a
momentary glimmer o' light, in the depth of the great gulf immediately
below where he sat; and that at three different times, always in the
same place. He now became convinced that the remains o' his son were
in the bottom of the linn, a place which he conceived inaccessible to
man; it being so deep from the summit where he stood, that the roar o'
the waterfall only reached his ears now and then wi' a loud _whush!_
as if it had been a sound wandering across the hills by itsell. But
sae intent was Robin on this Willie-an-the-wisp light, that he took
landmarks frae the ae summit to the other, to make sure o' the place;
and as soon as daylight came, he set about finding a passage down to
the bottom of the linn. He effected this by coming to the foot of the
linn, and tracing its course backward, sometimes wading in water, and
sometimes clambering over rocks, till at length, with a beating heart,
he reached the very spot where he had seen the light; and in the grey
o' the morning, he perceived something lying there that differed in
colour from the iron-hued stones, and rocks, of which the linn was
composed. He was in great astonishment what this could be; for, as he
came closer on it, he saw it had no likeness to the dead body of a
man, but rather appeared to be a heap o' bed-clothes. And what think
you it turned out to be? for I see ye're glowring as your een were
gaun to loup out--Just neither more nor less than a strong mineral
well; or what the doctors ca' a callybit spring, a' boustered about
wi' heaps o' soapy, limy kind o' stuff, that it seems had thrown out
fiery vapours i' the nighttime.

"However, Robin, being unable to do ony mair in the way o' searching,
had now nae hope left but in finding his dead son by some kind o'
supernatural means. Sae he determined to watch a third night, and that
at the very identical peat stack where it had been said his son's
staff was found. He did sae; and about midnight, ere ever he wist, the
dog set up a howl close beside him. He called on him by his name, and
the dog came, and fawned on his old acquaintance, and whimpered, and
whinged, and made sic a wark, as could hardly hae been trowed. Robin
keepit haud o' him a' the night, and fed him wi' pieces o' bread, and
then as soon as the sun rose, he let him gang; and the poor
affectionate creature went straight to his dead master, who, after
all, was lying in a little green spritty hollow, not above a
musket-shot from the peat stack. This rendered the whole affair more
mysterious than ever; for Robin Dodds himself, and above twenty men
beside, could all have made oath that they had looked into that place
again and again, so minutely, that a dead bird could not have been
there without their having seen it. However, there the body of the
youth was gotten, after having been lost for the long space of ten
weeks; and not in a state of great decay neither, for it rather
appeared swollen, as if it had been lying among water.

"Conjecture was now driven to great extremities in accounting for all
these circumstances. It was manifest to every one, that the body had
not been all the time in that place. But then, where had it been? or
what could have been the reasons for concealing it? These were the
puzzling considerations. There were a hunder different things
suspectit; and mony o' them, I dare say, a hunder miles frae the
truth; but on the whole, Linton was sair lookit down on, and almaist
perfectly abhorred by the country; for it was weel kenn'd that he had
been particularly churlish and severe on the young man at a' times,
and seemed to have a peculiar dislike to him. An it hadna been the
wife, wha was a kind considerate sort of a body, if Tam had gotten his
will, it was reckoned he wad hae hungered the lad to dead. After that,
Linton left the place, and gaed away, I watna where; and the country,
I believe, came gayan near to the truth o' the story at last:

"There was a girl in the Birkhill house at the time, whether a
daughter o' Tam's, or no, I hae forgot, though I think otherwise.
However, she durstna for her life tell a' she kenn'd as lang as the
investigation was gaun on; but it at last spunkit out that Rob Dodds
had got hame safe eneugh; and that Tam got into a great rage at him,
because he had not brought a burden o' peats, there being none in the
house. The youth excused himself on the score of fatigue and hunger;
but Tam swore at him, and said, 'The deil be in your teeth, gin they
shall break bread, till ye gang back out to the hill-head and bring a
burden o' peats!' Dodds refused; on which Tam struck him, and forced
him away; and he went crying and greeting out at the door, but never
came back. She also told, that after poor Rob was lost, Tam tried
several times to get at his dog to fell it with a stick; but the
creature was terrified for him, and made its escape. It was therefore
thought, and indeed there was little doubt, that Rob, through fatigue
and hunger, and reckless of death from the way he had been guidit,
went out to the hill, and died at the peat stack, the mouth of which
was a shelter from the drift-wind; and that his cruel master,
conscious o' the way in which he had used him, and dreading skaith,
had trailed away the body, and sunk it in some pool in these
unfathomable linns, or otherwise concealed it, wi' the intention, that
the world might never ken whether the lad was actually dead, or had
absconded. If it had not been for the dog, from which it appears he
had been unable to conceal it, and the old man's perseverance, to
whose search there appeared to be no end, it is probable he would
never have laid the body in a place where it could have been found.
But if he had allowed it to remain in the first place of concealment,
it might have been discovered by means of the dog, and the intentional
concealment of the corpse would then have been obvious; so that Linton
all that time could not be quite at his ease, and it was no wonder he
attempted to fell the dog. But where the body could have been
deposited, that the faithful animal was never discovered by the
searchers, during the day, for the space of ten weeks, baffled a' the
conjectures that ever could be made.

"The two old people, the lad's father and mother, never got over their
loss. They never held up their heads again, nor joined in society ony
mair, except in attending divine worship. It might be truly said o'
them, that they spent the few years that they survived their son in
constant prayer and humiliation; but they soon died, short while after
ane anither. As for Tam Linton, he left this part of the country, as I
told you; but it was said there was a curse hung ower him and his a'
his life, and that he never mair did weel.--That was the year, master,
on which our burn was dammed wi' the dead sheep; and in fixing the
date, you see, I hae been led into a lang story, and am just nae
farther wi' the main point than when I began."

"I wish from my heart, Andrew, that you would try to fix a great many
old dates in the same manner; for I confess I am more interested in
your lang stories, than in either your lang prayers, or your lang
sermons about repentance and amendment. But pray, you were talking of
the judgments that overtook Tam Linton--Was that the same Tam Linton
that was precipitated from the Brand Law by the break of a
snaw-wreath, and he and all his sheep jammed into the hideous gulf,
called the Grey Mare's Tail?"

"The very same, sir; and that might be accountit ane o' the first
judgments that befell him; for there were many of his ain sheep in the
flock. Tam asserted all his life, that he went into the linn along
with his hirsel, but no man ever believed him; for there was not one
of the sheep came out alive, and how it was possible for the carl to
have come safe out, naebody could see. It was, indeed, quite
impossible; for it had been such a break of snaw as had scarcely ever
been seen. The gulf was crammed sae fu', that ane could hae gane ower
it like a pendit brig; and no a single sheep could be gotten out,
either dead or living. When the thaw came, the burn wrought a passage
for itself below the snaw, but the arch stood till summer. I have
heard my father oft describe the appearance of that vault as he saw it
on his way from Moffat fair. Ane hadna gane far into it, he said, till
it turned darkish, like an ill-hued twilight; and sic a like arch o'
carnage he never saw! There were limbs o' sheep hinging in a'
directions, the snaw was wedged sae firm. Some entire carcasses hung
by the neck, some by a spauld; then there was a haill forest o' legs
sticking out in ae place, and horns in another, terribly mangled and
broken; and it was a'thegither sic a frightsome-looking place, that he
was blithe to get out o't again."

After looking at the sheep, tasting old Janet's best kebbuck, and
oatmeal cakes, and preeing the whisky bottle, the young farmer again
set out through the deep snow, on his way home. But Andrew made him
promise, that if the weather did not amend, he would come back in a
few days and see how the poor sheep were coming on; and, as an
inducement, promised to tell him a great many old anecdotes of the
shepherd's life.




CHAPTER II.

MR ADAMSON OF LAVERHOPE.


One of those events that have made the deepest impression on the
shepherds' minds for a century bygone, seems to have been the fate of
Mr Adamson, who was tenant in Laverhope for the space of twenty-seven
years. It stands in their calendar as an era from which to date summer
floods, water spouts, hail and thunder-storms, &c.; and appears from
tradition to have been attended with some awful circumstances,
expressive of divine vengeance. This Adamson is represented, as having
been a man of an ungovernable temper--of irritability so extreme, that
no person could be for a moment certain to what excesses he might be
hurried. He was otherwise accounted a good and upright man, and a
sincere Christian; but in these outbreakings of temper he often
committed acts of cruelty and injustice, for which any good man ought
to have been ashamed. Among other qualities, he had an obliging
disposition, there being few to whom a poor man would sooner have
applied in a strait. Accordingly, he had been in the habit of
assisting a less wealthy neighbour of his with a little credit for
many years. This man's name was Irvine, and though he had a number of
rich relations, he was never out of difficulties. Adamson, from some
whim or caprice, sued this poor farmer for a few hundred merks, taking
legal steps against him, even to the very last measures short of
poinding and imprisonment. Irvine paid little attention to this,
taking it for granted that his neighbour took these steps only for the
purpose of inducing his debtor's friends to come forward and support
him.

It happened one day about this period, that a thoughtless boy,
belonging to Irvine's farm, hunted Adamson's cattle in a way that gave
great offence to their owner, on which the two farmers differed, and
some hard words passed between them. The next day Irvine was seized
and thrown into jail; and shortly after, his effects were poinded, and
sold by auction for ready money. They were consequently thrown away,
as the neighbours, not having been forewarned, were wholly unprovided
with ready money, and unable to purchase at any price. Mrs Irvine came
to the enraged creditor with a child in her arms, and implored him to
put off the sale for a month, that she might try what could be done
amongst her friends to prevent a wreck so irretrievable. He was at
one time on the very point of yielding; but some bitter recollections
coming over his mind at the moment, stimulated his spleen against her
husband, and he resolved that the sale should go on. William Carruders
of Grindiston heard the following dialogue between them; and he said
that his heart almost trembled within him; for Mrs Irvine was a
violent woman, and her eloquence did more harm than good.

"Are ye really gaun to act the part of a devil, the day, Mr Adamson,
and turn me and thae bairns out to the bare high-road, helpless as we
are? Oh, man, if your bowels binna seared in hell-fire already, take
some compassion; for an ye dinna, they _will_ be seared afore baith
men and angels yet, till that hard and cruel heart o' yours be nealed
to an izle."

"I'm gaun to act nae part of a devil, Mrs Irvine; I'm only gaun to
take my ain in the only way I can get it. I'm no baith gaun to tine my
siller, and hae my beasts abused into the bargain."

"Ye sall neither lose plack nor bawbee o' your siller, man, if ye will
gie me but a month to make a shift for it--I swear to you, ye sall
neither lose, nor rue the deed. But if ye winna grant me that wee wee
while, when the bread of a haill family depends on it, ye're waur than
ony deil that's yammering and cursing i' the bottomless pit."

"Keep your ravings to yoursell, Mrs Irvine, for I hae made up my mind
what I'm to do; and I'll do it; sae it's needless for ye to pit
yoursell into a bleeze; for the surest promisers are aye the slackest
payers. It isna likely that your bad language will gar me alter my
purpose."

"If that _be_ your purpose, Mr Adamson, and if you put that purpose in
execution, I wadna change conditions wi' you the day for ten thousand
times a' the gear ye are worth. Ye're gaun to do the thing that ye'll
repent only aince--for a' the time that ye hae to exist baith in this
world and the neist, and that's a lang lang look forrit and ayond. Ye
have assisted a poor honest family for the purpose of taking them at a
disadvantage, and crushing them to beggars; and when ane thinks o'
that, what a heart you must hae! Ye hae first put my poor man in
prison, a place where he little thought, and less deserved, ever to
be; and now ye are reaving his sackless family out o' their last bit
o' bread. Look at this bit bonny innocent thing in my arms, how it is
smiling on ye! Look at a' the rest standing leaning against the wa's,
ilka ane wi' his een fixed on you by way o' imploring your pity! If ye
reject thae looks, ye'll see them again in some trying moments, that
will bring this ane back to your mind; ye will see them i' your
dreams; ye will see them on your death-bed, and ye will _think_ ye
see them gleaming on ye through the reek o' hell,--but it winna be
them."

"Haud your tongue, woman, for ye make me feared to hear ye."

"Ay, but better be feared in time, than torfelled for ever! Better
conquess your bad humour for aince, than be conquessed for it through
sae mony lang ages. Ye pretend to be a religious man, Mr Adamson, and
a great deal mair sae than your neighbours--do you think that religion
teaches you acts o' cruelty like this? Will ye hae the face to kneel
afore your Maker the night, and pray for a blessing on you and yours,
and that He will forgive you your debts as you forgive your debtors? I
hae nae doubt but ye will. But aih! how sic an appeal will heap the
coals o' divine vengeance on your head, and tighten the belts o'
burning yettlin ower your hard heart! Come forrit, bairns, and speak
for yoursells, ilk ane o' ye."

"O, Maister Adamson, ye maunna turn my father and mother out o' their
house and their farm; or what think ye is to come o' us?" said Thomas.

No consideration, however, was strong enough to turn Adamson from his
purpose. The sale went on; and still, on the calling off of every
favourite animal, Mrs Irvine renewed her anathemas.

"Gentlemen, this is the mistress's favourite cow, and gives thirteen
pints of milk every day. She is valued in my roup-roll at fifteen
pounds; but we shall begin her at ten. Does any body say ten pounds
for this excellent cow? ten pounds--ten pounds? Nobody says ten
pounds? Gentlemen, this is extraordinary! Money is surely a scarce
article here to-day. Well, then, does any gentleman say five pounds to
begin this excellent cow that gives twelve pints of milk daily? Five
pounds--only five pounds!--Nobody bids five pounds? Well, the stock
must positively be sold without reserve. Ten shillings for the
cow--ten shillings--ten shillings--Will nobody bid ten shillings to
set the sale a-going?"

"I'll gie five-and-twenty shillings for her," cried Adamson.

"Thank you, sir. One pound five--one pound five, and just a-going.
Once--twice--_thrice_. Mr Adamson, one pound five."

Mrs Irvine came forward, drowned in tears, with the babe in her arms,
and patting the cow, she said, "Ah, poor lady Bell, this is my last
sight o' you, and the last time I'll clap your honest side! And hae we
really been deprived o' your support for the miserable sum o'
five-and-twenty shillings?--my curse light on the head o' him that has
done it! In the name of my destitute bairns I curse him; and does he
think that a mother's curse will sink fizzenless to the ground? Na,
na! I see an ee that's looking down here in pity and in anger; and I
see a hand that's gathering the bolts o' Heaven thegither, for some
purpose that I could divine, but daurna utter. But that hand is
unerring, and where it throws the bolt, there it will strike.
Fareweel, poor beast! ye hae supplied us wi' mony a meal, but ye will
never supply us wi' another."

This sale at Kirkheugh was on the 11th of July. On the day following,
Mr Adamson went up to the folds in the hope, to shear his sheep, with
no fewer than twenty-five attendants, consisting of all his own
servants and cottars, and about as many neighbouring shepherds whom he
had collected; it being customary for the farmers to assist one
another reciprocally on these occasions. Adamson continued more than
usually capricious and unreasonable all that forenoon. He was
discontented with himself; and when a man is ill pleased with himself,
he is seldom well pleased with others. He seemed altogether left to
the influences of the Wicked One, running about in a rage, finding
fault with every thing, and every person, and at times cursing
bitterly, a practice to which he was not addicted; so that the
sheep-shearing, that used to be a scene of hilarity among so many
young and old shepherds, lads, lasses, wives, and callants, was that
day turned into one of gloom and dissatisfaction.

After a number of other provoking outrages, Adamson at length, with
the buisting-iron which he held in his hand, struck a dog belonging
to one of his own shepherd boys, till the poor animal fell senseless
on the ground, and lay sprawling as in the last extremity. This
brought matters to a point which threatened nothing but anarchy and
confusion; for every shepherd's blood boiled with indignation, and
each almost wished in his heart that the dog had been his own, that he
might have retaliated on the tyrant. At the time the blow was struck,
the boy was tending one of the fold-doors, and perceiving the plight
of his faithful animal, he ran to its assistance, lifted it in his
arms, and holding it up to recover its breath, he wept and lamented
over it most piteously. "My poor little Nimble!" he cried; "I am
feared that mad body has killed ye, and then what am I to do wanting
ye? I wad ten times rather he had strucken mysell!"

He had scarce said the words ere his master caught him by the hair of
the head with the one hand, and began to drag him about, while with
the other he struck him most unmercifully. When the boy left the
fold-door, the unshorn sheep broke out, and got away to the hill among
the lambs and the clippies; and the farmer being in one of his "mad
tantrums," as the servants called them, the mischance had almost put
him beside himself; and that boy, or man either, is in a ticklish case
who is in the hands of an enraged person far above him in strength.

The sheep-shearers paused, and the girls screamed, when they saw their
master lay hold of the boy. But Robert Johnston, a shepherd from an
adjoining farm, flung the sheep from his knee, made the shears ring
against the fold-dike, and in an instant had the farmer by both
wrists, and these he held with such a grasp, that he took the power
out of his arms; for Johnston was as far above the farmer in might, as
the latter was above the boy.

"Mr Adamson, what are ye about?" he cried; "hae ye tint your reason
a'thegither, that ye are gaun on rampauging like a madman that gate?
Ye hae done the thing, sir, in your ill-timed rage, that ye ought to
be ashamed of baith afore God and man."

"Are ye for fighting, Rob Johnston?" said the farmer, struggling to
free himself. "Do ye want to hae a fight, lad? Because if ye do, I'll
maybe gie you enough o' that."

"Na, sir, I dinna want to fight; but I winna let you fight either,
unless wi' ane that's your equal; sae gie ower spraughling, and stand
still till I speak to ye; for au ye winna stand to hear reason, I'll
gar ye lie till ye hear it. Do ye consider what ye hae been doing even
now? Do ye consider that ye hae been striking a poor orphan callant,
wha has neither father nor mother to protect him, or to right his
wrangs? and a' for naething, but a bit start o' natural affection? How
wad ye like sir, an ony body were to guide a bairn o' yours that
gate? and ye as little ken what they are to come to afore their
deaths, as that boy's parents did when they were rearing and fondling
ower him. Fie for shame, Mr Adamson! fie for shame! Ye first strak his
poor dumb brute, which was a greater sin than the tither, for it didna
ken what ye were striking it for; and then, because the callant ran to
assist the only creature he has on the earth, and I'm feared the only
true and faithfu' friend beside, ye claught him by the hair o' the
head, and fell to the dadding him as he war your slave! Od, sir, my
blood rises at sic an act o' cruelty and injustice; and gin I thought
ye worth my while, I wad tan ye like a pellet for it."

The farmer struggled and fought so viciously, that Johnston was
obliged to throw him down twice over, somewhat roughly, and hold him
by main force. But on laying him down the second time, Johnston said,
"Now, sir, I just tell ye, that ye deserve to hae your banes weel
throoshen; but ye're nae match for me, and I'll scorn to lay a tip on
ye. I'll leave ye to Him who has declared himself the stay and shield
of the orphan; and gin some visible testimony o' his displeasure dinna
come ower ye for the abusing of his ward, I am right sair mista'en."

Adamson, finding himself fairly mastered, and that no one seemed
disposed to take his part, was obliged to give in, and went sullenly
away to tend the hirsel that stood beside the fold. In the meantime
the sheep-shearing went on as before, with a little more of hilarity
and glee. It is the business of the lasses to take the ewes, and carry
them from the fold to the clippers; and now might be seen every young
shepherd's sweetheart, or favourite, waiting beside him, helping him
to clip, or holding the ewes by the hind legs to make them lie easy, a
great matter for the furtherance of the operator. Others again, who
thought themselves slighted, or loved a joke, would continue to act in
a different manner, and plague the youths by bringing them such sheep
as it was next to impossible to clip.

"Aih, Jock lad, I hae brought you a grand ane this time! Ye will clank
the shears ower her, and be the first done o' them a'!"

"My truly, Jessy, but ye hae gi'en me ane! I declare the beast is woo
to the cloots and the een holes; and afore I get the fleece broken up,
the rest will be done. Ah, Jessy, Jessy! ye're working for a mischief
the day; and ye'll maybe get it."

"She's a braw sonsie sheep, Jock. I ken ye like to hae your arms weel
filled. She'll amaist fill them as weel as Tibby Tod."

"There's for it now! there's for it! What care I for Tibby Tod, dame?
Ye are the most jealous elf, Jessy, that ever drew coat ower head. But
wha was't that sat half a night at the side of a grey stane wi' a
crazy cooper? And wha was't that gae the poor precentor the whiskings,
and reduced a' his sharps to downright flats? An ye cast up Tibby Tod
ony mair to me, I'll tell something that will gar thae wild een reel
i' your head, Mistress Jessy."

"Wow, Jock, but I'm unco wae for ye now. Poor fellow! It's really very
hard usage! If ye canna clip the ewe, man, gie me her, and I'll tak
her to anither; for I canna bide to see ye sae sair put about. I winna
bring ye anither Tibby Tod the day, take my word on it. The neist
shall be a real May Henderson o' Firthhope-cleuch--ane, ye ken, wi'
lang legs, and a good lamb at her fit."

"Gudesake, lassie, haud your tongue, and dinna affront baith yoursell
and me. Ye are fit to gar ane's cheek burn to the bane. I'm fairly
quashed, and daurna say anither word. Let us therefore hae let-a-be
for let-a-be, which is good bairns's greement, till after the close o'
the day sky; and then I'll tell ye my mind."

"Ay, but whilk o' your minds will ye tell me, Jock? For ye will be in
five or six different anes afore that time. Ane, to ken your mind, wad
need to be tauld it every hour o' the day, and then cast up the
account at the year's end. But how wad she settle it then, Jock? I
fancy she wad hae to multiply ilk year's minds by dozens, and divide
by four, and then we a' ken what wad be the quotient."

"Aih wow, sirs! heard ever ony o' ye the like o' that? For three
things the sheep-fauld is disquieted, and there are four which it
cannot bear."

"And what are they, Jock?"

"A witty wench, a woughing dog, a waukit-woo'd wedder, and a pair o'
shambling shears."

After this manner did the gleesome chat go on, now that the surly
goodman had withdrawn from the scene. But this was but one couple;
every pair being engaged according to their biasses, and after their
kind--some settling the knotty points of divinity; others telling
auld-warld stories about persecutions, forays, and fairy raids; and
some whispering, in half sentences, the soft breathings of pastoral
love.

But the farmer's bad humour, in the meanwhile was only smothered, not
extinguished; and, like a flame that is kept down by an overpowering
weight of fuel, wanted but a breath to rekindle it; or like a barrel
of gunpowder, that the smallest spark will set in a blaze. That spark
unfortunately fell upon it too soon. It came in the form of an old
beggar, ycleped Patie Maxwell, a well-known, and generally a welcome
guest, over all that district. He came to the folds for his annual
present of a fleece of wool, which had never before been denied him;
and the farmer being the first person he came to, he approached him,
as in respect bound, accosting him in his wonted obsequious way.

"Weel, gudeman, how's a' wi' ye the day?"--(No answer.)--"This will be
a thrang day w'ye? How are ye getting on wi' the clipping?"

"Nae the better o' you, or the like o' you. Gang away back the gate ye
came. What are ye coming doiting up through amang the sheep that gate
for, putting them a' tersyversy?"

"Tut, gudeman, what does the sheep mind an auld creeping body like me?
I hae done nae ill to your pickle sheep; and as for ganging back the
road I cam, I'll do that whan I like, and no till than."

"But I'll make you blithe to turn back, auld vagabond! Do ye imagine
I'm gaun to hae a' my clippers and grippers, buisters and binders,
laid half idle, gaffing and giggling wi' you?"

"Why, then, speak like a reasonable man, and a courteous Christian, as
ye used to do, and I'se crack wi' yoursell, and no gang near them."

"I'll keep my Christian cracks for others than auld Papist dogs, I
trow."

"Wha do ye ca' auld Papist dogs, Mr Adamson?--Wha is it that ye mean
to denominate by that fine-sounding title?"

"Just you, and the like o' ye, Pate. It is weel kenn'd that ye are as
rank a Papist as ever kissed a crosier, and that ye were out in the
very fore-end o' the unnatural Rebellion, in order to subvert our
religion, and place a Popish tyrant on the throne. It is a shame for a
Protestant parish like this to support ye, and gie you as liberal
awmosses as ye were a Christian saint. For me, I can tell you, ye'll
get nae mae at my hand; nor nae rebel Papist loun amang ye."

"Dear sir, ye're surely no yoursell the day? Ye hae kenn'd I professed
the Catholic religion these thretty years--it was the faith I was
brought up in, and that in which I shall dee; and ye kenn'd a' that
time that I was out in the Forty-Five wi' Prince Charles, and yet ye
never made mention o' the facts, nor refused me my awmos, till the
day. But as I hae been obliged t'ye, I'll haud my tongue; only, I wad
advise ye as a friend, whenever ye hae occasion to speak of ony
community of brother Christians, that ye will in future hardly make
use o' siccan harsh terms. Or, if ye will do't, tak care wha ye use
them afore, and let it no be to the face o' an auld veteran."

"What, ye auld profane wafer-eater, and worshipper of graven images,
dare ye heave your pikit kent at me?"

"I hae heaved baith sword and spear against mony a better man; and, in
the cause o' my religion, I'll do it again."

He was proceeding, but Adamson's choler rising to an ungovernable
height, he drew a race, and, running against the gaberlunzie with his
whole force, made him fly heels-over-head down the hill. The old man's
bonnet flew off, his meal-pocks were scattered about, and his mantle,
with two or three small fleeces of wool in it, rolled down into the
burn.

The servants observed what had been done, and one elderly shepherd
said, "In troth, sirs, our master is no himsell the day. He maun
really be looked to. It appears to me, that sin' he roupit out yon
poor family yesterday, the Lord has ta'en his guiding arm frae about
him. Rob Johnston, ye'll be obliged to rin to the assistance of the
auld man."

"I'll trust the auld Jacobite for another shake wi' him yet," said
Rob, "afore I steer my fit; for it strikes me, if he hadna been ta'en
unawares, he wad hardly hae been sae easily coupit."

The gaberlunzie was considerably astounded and stupified when he first
got up his head; but finding all his bones whole, and his old frame
disencumbered of every superfluous load, he sprung to his feet, shook
his grey burly locks, and cursed the aggressor in the name of the Holy
Trinity, the Mother of our Lord, and all the blessed Saints above.
Then approaching him with his cudgel heaved, he warned him to be on
his guard, or make out of his reach, else he would send him to
eternity in the twinkling of an eye. The farmer held up his staff
across, to defend his head against the descent of old Patie's piked
kent, and, at the same time, made a break in, with intent to close
with his assailant; but, in so doing, he held down his head for a
moment, on which the gaberlunzie made a swing to one side, and lent
Adamson such a blow over the neck, or back part of the head, that he
fell violently on his face, after running two or three steps
precipitately forward. The beggar, whose eyes gleamed with wild fury,
while his grey locks floated over them like a winter cloud over two
meteors of the night, was about to follow up his blow with another
more efficient one on his prostrate foe; but the farmer, perceiving
these unequivocal symptoms of danger, wisely judged that there was no
time to lose in providing for his own safety, and, rolling himself
rapidly two or three times over, he got to his feet, and made his
escape, though not before Patie had hit him what he called "a stiff
lounder across the rumple."

The farmer fled along the brae, and the gaberlunzie pursued, while the
people at the fold were convulsed with laughter. The scene was highly
picturesque, for the beggar could run none, and still the faster that
he essayed to run, he made the less speed. But ever and anon he stood
still, and cursed Adamson in the name of one or other of the Saints or
Apostles, brandishing his cudgel, and stamping with his foot. The
other, keeping still at a small distance, pretended to laugh at him,
and at the same time uttered such bitter abuse against the Papists in
general, and old Patie in particular, that, after the latter had
cursed himself into a proper pitch of indignation, he always broke at
him again, making vain efforts to reach him one more blow. At length,
after chasing him by these starts about half a mile, the beggar
returned, gathered up the scattered implements and fruits of his
occupation, and came to the fold to the busy group.

Patie's general character was that of a patient, jocular, sarcastic
old man, whom people liked, but dared not much to contradict; but that
day his manner and mien had become so much altered, in consequence of
the altercation and conflict which had just taken place, that the
people were almost frightened to look at him; and as for social
converse, there was none to be had with him. His countenance was grim,
haughty, and had something Satanic in its lines and deep wrinkles; and
ever and anon, as he stood leaning against the fold, he uttered a kind
of hollow growl, with a broken interrupted sound, like a war-horse
neighing in his sleep, and then muttered curses on the farmer.

The old shepherd before-mentioned, ventured, at length, to caution him
against such profanity, saying, "Dear Patie, man, dinna sin away your
soul, venting siccan curses as these. They will a' turn back on your
ain head; for what harm can the curses of a poor sinfu' worm do to our
master?"

"My curse, sir, has blasted the hopes of better men than either you or
him," said the gaberlunzie, in an earthquake voice, and shivering with
vehemence as he spoke. "Ye may think the like o' me can hae nae power
wi' Heaven; but an I hae power wi' hell, it is sufficient to cow ony
that's here. I sanna brag what effect my curse will have, but I shall
say this, that either your master, or ony o' his men, had as good have
auld Patie Maxwell's blessing as his curse ony time, Jacobite and
Roman Catholic though he be."

It now became necessary to bring into the fold the sheep that the
farmer was tending; and they were the last hirsel that was to shear
that day. The farmer's face was reddened with ill-nature; but yet he
now appeared to be somewhat humbled, by reflecting on the ridiculous
figure he had made. Patie sat on the top of the fold-dike, and from
the bold and hardy asseverations that he made, he seemed disposed to
provoke a dispute with any one present who chose to take up the
cudgels. While the shepherds, under fire of the gaberlunzie's bitter
speeches, were sharping their shears, a thick black cloud began to
rear itself over the height to the southward, the front of which
seemed to be boiling--both its outsides rolling rapidly forward, and
again wheeling in toward the centre. I have heard old Robin Johnston,
the stout young man mentioned above, but who was a very old man when I
knew him, describe the appearance of the cloud as greatly resembling a
whirlpool made by the eddy of a rapid tide, or flooded river; and he
declared, to his dying day, that he never saw aught in nature have a
more ominous appearance. The gaberlunzie was the first to notice it,
and drew the attention of the rest towards that point of the heavens
by the following singular and profane remark:--"Aha, lads! see what's
coming yonder. Yonder's Patie Maxwell's curse coming rowing and
reeling on ye already; and what will ye say an the curse of God be
coming backing it?"

"Gudesake, haud your tongue, ye profane body; ye mak me feared to hear
ye," said one.--"It's a strange delusion to think that a Papish can
hae ony influence wi' the Almighty, either to bring down his blessing
or his curse."

"Ye speak ye ken nae what, man," answered Pate; "ye hae learned some
rhames frae your poor cauldrife Protestant Whigs about Papists, and
Antichrist, and children of perdition; yet it is plain that ye haena
ae spark o' the life or power o' religion in your whole frame, and
dinna ken either what's truth or what's falsehood.--Ah! yonder it is
coming, grim and gurly! Now I hae called for it, and it is coming,
let me see if a' the Protestants that are of ye can order it back, or
pray it away again! Down on your knees, ye dogs, and set your mou's up
against it, like as many spiritual cannon, and let me see if you have
influence to turn aside ane o' the hailstanes that the deils are
playing at chucks wi' in yon dark chamber!"

"I wadna wonder if our clipping were cuttit short," said one.

"Na, but I wadna wonder if something else were cuttit short," said
Patie; "What will ye say an some o' your weazons be cuttit short?
Hurraw! yonder it comes! Now, there will be sic a hurly-burly in
Laverhope as never was sin' the creation o' man!"

The folds of Laverhope were situated on a gently sloping plain, in
what is called "the forkings of a burn." Laver-burn runs to the
eastward, and Widehope-burn runs north, meeting the other at a right
angle, a little below the folds. It was around the head of this
Widehope that the cloud first made its appearance, and there its
vortex seemed to be impending. It descended lower and lower, with
uncommon celerity, for the elements were in a turmoil. The cloud laid
first hold of one height, then of another, till at length it closed
over and around the pastoral group, and the dark hope had the
appearance of a huge chamber hung with sackcloth. The big clear drops
of rain soon began to descend, on which the shepherds covered up the
wool with blankets, then huddled together under their plaids at the
side of the fold, to eschew the speat, which they saw was going to be
a terrible one. Patie still kept undauntedly to the top of the dike,
and Mr Adamson stood cowering at the side of it, with his plaid over
his head, at a little distance from the rest. The hail and rain
mingled, now began to descend in a way that had been seldom witnessed;
but it was apparent to them all that the tempest raged with much
greater fury in Widehope-head to the southward.--Anon a whole volume
of lightning burst from the bosom of the darkness, and quivered
through the gloom, dazzling the eyes of every beholder;--even old
Maxwell clapped both his hands on his eyes for a space; a crash of
thunder followed the flash, that made all the mountains chatter, and
shook the firmament so, that the density of the cloud was broken up;
for, on the instant that the thunder ceased, a rushing sound began in
Widehope, that soon increased to a loudness equal to the thunder
itself; but it resembled the noise made by the sea in a storm. "Holy
Virgin!" exclaimed Patie Maxwell, "What is this? What is this? I
declare we're a' ower lang here, for the dams of heaven are broken
up;" and with that he flung himself from the dike, and fled toward the
top of a rising ground. He knew that the sound proceeded from the
descent of a tremendous water-spout; but the rest, not conceiving
what it was, remained where they were. The storm increased every
minute, and in less than a quarter of an hour after the retreat of the
gaberlunzie, they heard him calling out with the utmost earnestness;
and when they eyed him, he was jumping like a madman on the top of the
hillock, waving his bonnet, and screaming out, "Run, ye deil's
buckies! Run for your bare lives!" One of the shepherds, jumping up on
the dike, to see what was the matter, beheld the burn of Widehope
coming down in a manner that could be compared to nothing but an
ocean, whose boundaries had given way, descending into the abyss. It
came with a cataract front more than twenty feet deep, as was
afterwards ascertained by measurement; for it left sufficient marks to
enable men to do this with precision. The shepherd called for
assistance, and leaped into the fold to drive out the sheep; and just
as he got the foremost of them to take the door, the flood came upon
the head of the fold, on which he threw himself over the side-wall,
and escaped in safety, as did all the rest of the people.

Not so Mr Adamson's ewes; the greater part of the hirsel being
involved in this mighty current. The large fold nearest the burn was
levelled with the earth in one second. Stones, ewes, and sheep-house,
all were carried before it, and all seemed to bear the same weight. It
must have been a dismal sight, to see so many fine animals tumbling
and rolling in one irresistible mass. They were strong, however, and a
few plunged out, and made their escape to the eastward; a greater
number were carried headlong down, and thrown out on the other side of
Laver-burn, upon the side of a dry hill, to which they all escaped,
some of them considerably maimed; but the greatest number of all were
lost, being overwhelmed among the rubbish of the fold, and entangled
so among the falling dikes, and the torrent wheeling and boiling
amongst them, that escape was impossible. The wool was totally swept
away, and all either lost, or so much spoiled, that, when afterwards
recovered, it was unsaleable.

When first the flood broke in among the sheep, and the women began to
run screaming to the hills, and the despairing shepherds to fly about,
unable to do any thing, Patie began a-laughing with a loud and hellish
guffaw, and in that he continued to indulge till quite exhausted. "Ha,
ha, ha, ha! what think ye o' the auld beggar's curse now? Ha, ha, ha,
ha! I think it has been backit wi' Heaven's and the deil's baith. Ha,
ha, ha, ha!" And then he mimicked the thunder with the most outrageous
and ludicrous jabberings, turning occasionally up to the cloud
streaming with lightning and hail, and calling out,--"Louder yet,
deils! louder yet! Kindle up your crackers, and yerk away! Rap, rap,
rap, rap--Ro-ro, ro, ro--Roo--Whush."

"I daresay that body's the vera deevil himsell in the shape o' the
auld Papish beggar!" said one, not thinking that Patie could hear at
such a distance.

"Na, na, lad, I'm no the deil," cried he in answer; "but an I war, I
wad let ye see a stramash! It is a sublime thing to be a Roman
Catholic amang sae mony weak apostates; but it is a sublimer thing
still to be a deil--a master-spirit in a forge like yon. Ha, ha, ha,
ha! Take care o' your heads, ye cock-chickens o' Calvin--take care o'
the auld Coppersmith o' the Black Cludd!"

From the moment that the first thunder-bolt shot from the cloud, the
countenance of the farmer was changed. He was manifestly alarmed in no
ordinary degree; and when the flood came rushing from the dry
mountains, and took away his sheep and his folds before his eyes, he
became as a dead man, making no effort to save his store, or to give
directions how it might be done. He ran away in a cowering posture, as
he had been standing, and took shelter in a little green hollow, out
of his servants' view.

The thunder came nearer and nearer the place where the astonished
hinds were, till at length they perceived the bolts of flame striking
the earth around them, in every direction; at one time tearing up its
bosom, and at another splintering the rocks. Robin Johnston, in
describing it, said, that "the thunnerbolts came shimmering out o'
the cludd sae thick, that they appeared to be linkit thegither, and
fleeing in a' directions. There war some o' them blue, some o' them
red, and some o' them like the colour o' the lowe of a candle; some o'
them diving into the earth, and some o' them springing up out o' the
earth and darting into the heaven." I cannot vouch for the truth of
this, but I am sure my informer thought it true, or he would not have
told it; and he said farther, that when old Maxwell saw it, he
cried--"Fie, tak care, cubs o' hell! fie, tak care! cower laigh, and
sit sicker; for your auld dam is aboon ye, and aneath ye, and a' round
about ye. O for a good wat nurse to spean ye, like John Adamson's
lambs! Ha, ha, ha!"--The lambs, it must be observed, had been turned
out of the fold at first, and none of them perished with their dams.

But just when the storm was at the height, and apparently passing the
bounds ever witnessed in these northern climes; when the embroiled
elements were in the state of hottest convulsion, and when our little
pastoral group were every moment expecting the next to be their last,
all at once a lovely "blue bore," fringed with downy gold, opened in
the cloud behind, and in five minutes more the sun again appeared, and
all was beauty and serenity. What a contrast to the scene so lately
witnessed!

The most remarkable circumstance of the whole was perhaps the
contrast between the two burns. The burn of Laverhope never changed
its colour, but continued pure, limpid, and so shallow, that a boy
might have stepped over it dry-shod, all the while that the other burn
was coming in upon it like an ocean broken loose, and carrying all
before it. In mountainous districts, however, instances of the same
kind are not infrequent in times of summer speats. Some other
circumstances connected with this storm, were also described to me:
The storm coming from the south, over a low-lying, wooded, and
populous district, the whole of the crows inhabiting it posted away up
the glen of Laverhope to avoid the fire and fury of the tempest.
"There were thoosands and thoosands came up by us," said Robin, "a'
laying theirsells out as they had been mad. And then, whanever the
bright bolt played flash through the darkness, ilk ane o' them made a
dive and a wheel to avoid the shot: For I was persuaded that they
thought a' the artillery and musketry o' the haill coontry were loosed
on them, and that it was time for them to tak the gate. There were
likewise several colly dogs came by us in great extremity, binging out
their tongues, and looking aye ower their shouthers, rinning straight
on they kenn'dna where; and amang other things, there was a black
Highland cow came roaring up the glen, wi' her stake hanging at her
neck."

When the gush of waters subsided, all the group, men and women, were
soon employed in pulling out dead sheep from among rubbish of stones,
banks of gravel, and pools of the burn; and many a row of carcasses
was laid out, which at that season were of no use whatever, and of
course utterly lost. But all the time they were so engaged, Mr Adamson
came not near them; at which they wondered, and some of them remarked,
that "they thought their master was fey the day, mae ways than ane."

"Ay, never mind him," said the old shepherd, "he'll come when he
thinks it his ain time; he's a right sair humbled man the day, and I
hope by this time he has been brought to see his errors in a right
light. But the gaberlunzie is lost too. I think he be sandit in the
yird, for I hae never seen him sin' the last great crash o' thunner."

"He'll be gane into the howe to wring his duds," said Robert Johnston,
"or maybe to make up matters wi' your master. Gude sauf us, what a
profane wretch the auld creature is! I didna think the muckle horned
deil himsell could hae set up his mou' to the heaven, and braggit and
blasphemed in sic a way. He gart my heart a' grue within me, and dirle
as it had been bored wi' reid-het elsins."

"Oh, what can ye expect else of a Papish?" said the old shepherd, with
a deep sigh. "They're a' deil's bairns ilk ane, and a' employed in
carrying on their father's wark. It is needless to expect gude
branches frae sic a stock, or gude fruit frae siccan branches."

"There's ae wee bit text that folks should never lose sight o'," said
Robin, "and it's this,--'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' I think,"
remarked Robin, when he told the story, "I think that steekit their
gabs!"

The evening at length drew on; the women had gone away home, and the
neighbouring shepherds had scattered here and there to look after
their own flocks. Mr Adamson's men alone remained, lingering about the
brook and the folds, waiting for their master. They had seen him go
into the little green hollow, and they knew he was gone to his
prayers, and were unwilling to disturb him. But they at length began
to think it extraordinary that he should continue at his prayers the
whole afternoon. As for the beggar, though acknowledged to be a man of
strong sense and sound judgment, he had never been known to say
prayers all his life, except in the way of cursing and swearing a
little sometimes; and none of them could conjecture what was become of
him. Some of the rest, as it grew late, applied to the old shepherd
before oft mentioned, whose name I have forgot, but he had herded with
Adamson twenty years--some of the rest, I say, applied to him to go
and bring their master away home, thinking that perhaps he was taken
ill.

"O, I'm unco laith to disturb him," said the old man; "he sees that
the hand o' the Lord has fa'en heavy on him the day, and he's humbling
himsell afore him in great bitterness o' spirit, I daresay. I count it
a sin to brik in on sic devotions as thae."

"Na, I carena if he should lie and pray yonder till the morn," said a
young lad, "only I wadna like to gang hame and leave him lying on the
hill, if he should hae chanced to turn no weel. Sae, if nane o' ye
will gang and bring him, or see what ails him, I'll e'en gang mysell;"
and away he went, the rest standing still to await the issue.

When the lad went first to the brink of the little slack where Adamson
lay, he stood a few moments, as if gazing or listening, and then
turned his back and fled. The rest, who were standing watching his
motions, wondered at this; and they said, one to another, that their
master was angry at being disturbed, and had been threatening the lad
so rudely, that it had caused him to take to his heels. But what they
thought most strange was, that the lad did not fly towards them, but
straight to the hill; nor did he ever so much as cast his eyes in
their direction; so deeply did he seem to be impressed with what had
passed between him and his master. Indeed, it rather appeared that he
did not know what he was doing; for, after running a space with great
violence, he stood and looked back, and then broke to the hill
again--always looking first over the one shoulder, and then over the
other. Then he stopped a second time, and returned cautiously towards
the spot where his master reclined; and all the while he never so much
as once turned his eyes in the direction of his neighbours, or seemed
to remember that they were there. His motions were strikingly erratic;
for all the way, as he returned to the spot where his master was, he
continued to advance by a zigzag course, like a vessel beating up by
short tacks; and several times he stood still, as on the very point of
retreating. At length he vanished from their sight in the little
hollow.

It was not long till the lad again made his appearance, shouting and
waving his cap for them to come likewise; on which they all went away
to him as fast as they could, in great amazement what could be the
matter. When they came to the green hollow, a shocking spectacle
presented itself: There lay the body of their master, who had been
struck dead by the lightning; and, his right side having been torn
open, his bowels had gushed out, and were lying beside the body. The
earth was rutted and ploughed close to his side, and at his feet there
was a hole scooped out, a full yard in depth, and very much resembling
a grave. He had been cut off in the act of prayer, and the body was
still lying in the position of a man praying in the field. He had
been on his knees, with his elbows leaning on the brae, and his brow
laid on his folded hands; his plaid was drawn over his head, and his
hat below his arm; and this affecting circumstance proved a great
source of comfort to his widow afterwards, when the extremity of her
suffering had somewhat abated.

No such awful visitation of Providence had ever been witnessed, or
handed down to our hinds on the ample records of tradition, and the
impression which it made, and the interest it excited, were also
without a parallel. Thousands visited the spot, to view the
devastations made by the flood, and the furrows formed by the
electrical matter; and the smallest circumstances were inquired into
with the most minute curiosity: above all, the still and drowsy embers
of superstition were rekindled by it into a flame, than which none had
ever burnt brighter, not even in the darkest days of ignorance; and by
the help of it a theory was made out and believed, that for horror is
absolutely unequalled. But as it was credited in its fullest latitude
by my informant, and always added by him at the conclusion of the
tale, I am bound to mention the circumstances, though far from
vouching them to be authentic.

It was asserted, and pretended to have been proved, that old Peter
Maxwell _was not in the glen of Laverhope that day_, but at a great
distance in a different county, and that it was the devil who
attended the folds in his likeness. It was farther believed by all the
people at the folds, that it was the last explosion of the whole that
had slain Mr Adamson; for they had at that time observed the side of
the brae, where the little green slack was situated, covered with a
sheet of flame for a moment. And it so happened, that thereafter the
profane gaberlunzie had been no more seen; and therefore they
said--and here was the most horrible part of the story--there was no
doubt of his being the devil, waiting for his prey, and that he fled
away in that sheet of flame, carrying the soul of John Adamson along
with him.

I never saw old Pate Maxwell,--for I believe he died before I was
born; but Robin Johnston said, that to his dying day, he denied having
been within forty miles of the folds of Laverhope on the day of the
thunder-storm, and was exceedingly angry when any one pretended to
doubt the assertion. It was likewise reported, that at six o'clock
afternoon a stranger had called on Mrs Irvine, and told her, that John
Adamson, and a great part of his stock, had been destroyed by the
lightning and the hail. Mrs Irvine's house was five miles distant from
the folds; and more than that, the farmer's death was not so much as
known of by mortal man until two hours after Mrs Irvine received this
information. The storm exceeded any thing remembered, either for its
violence or consequences, and these mysterious circumstances having
been bruited abroad, gave it a hold on the minds of the populace,
never to be erased but by the erasure of existence. It fell out on the
12th of July, 1753.

The death of Mr Copland of Minnigapp, in Annandale, forms another era
of the same sort. It happened, if I mistake not, on the 18th of July,
1804. It was one of those days by which all succeeding thunder-storms
have been estimated, and from which they are dated, both as having
taken place so many years before, and so long after.

Adam Copland, Esquire, of Minnigapp, was a gentleman esteemed by all
who knew him. Handsome in his person, and elegant in his manners, he
was the ornament of rural society, and the delight of his family and
friends; and his loss was felt as no common misfortune. As he occupied
a pastoral farm of considerable extent, his own property, he chanced
likewise to be out at his folds on the day above-mentioned, with his
own servants, and some neighbours, weaning a part of his lambs, and
shearing a few sheep. About mid-day the thunder, lightning, and hail,
came on, and deranged their operations entirely; and, among other
things, a part of the lambs broke away from the folds, and being in
great fright, they continued to run on. Mr Copland and a shepherd of
his, named Thomas Scott, pursued them, and, at the distance of about
half a mile from the folds, they turned them, mastered them, after
some running, and were bringing them back to the fold, when the
dreadful catastrophe happened. Thomas Scott was the only person
present, of course; and though he was within a few steps of his master
at the time, he could give no account of any thing. I am well
acquainted with Scott, and have questioned him about the particulars
fifty times; but he could not so much as tell me how he got back to
the fold; whether he brought the lambs with him or not; how long the
storm continued; nor, indeed, any thing after the time that his master
and he turned the lambs. That circumstance he remembered perfectly,
but thenceforward his mind seemed to have become a blank. I should
likewise have mentioned, as an instance of the same kind of
deprivation of consciousness, that when the young lad who went first
to the body of Adamson was questioned why he fled from the body at
first, he denied that ever he fled; he was not conscious of having
fled a foot, and never would have believed it, if he had not been seen
by four eye-witnesses. The only things of which Thomas Scott had any
impressions were these: that, when the lightning struck his master, he
sprung a great height into the air, much higher, he thought, than it
was possible for any man to leap by his own exertion. He also thinks,
that the place where he fell dead was at a considerable distance from
that on which he was struck and leaped from the ground; but when I
inquired if he judged that it would be twenty yards or ten yards, he
could give no answer--he could not tell. He only had an impression
that he saw his master spring into the air, all on fire; and, on
running up to him, he found him quite dead. If Scott was correct in
this, (and he being a man of plain good sense, truth, and integrity,
there can scarce be a reason for doubting him,) the circumstance would
argue that the electric matter by which Mr Copland was killed issued
out of the earth. He was speaking to Scott with his very last breath;
but all that the survivor could do, he could never remember what he
was saying. Some melted drops of silver were standing on the case of
his watch, as well as on some of the buttons of his coat, and the body
never stiffened like other corpses, but remained as supple as if every
bone had been softened to jelly. He was a married man, scarcely at the
prime of life, and left a young widow and only son to lament his loss.
On the spot where he fell there is now an obelisk erected to his
memory, with a warning text on it, relating to the shortness and
uncertainty of human life.




CHAPTER III.

THE PRODIGAL SON.


"Bring me my pike-staff, daughter Matilda,--the one with the head
turned round like crummy's horn; I find it easiest for my hand. And do
you hear, Matty?--Stop, I say; you are always in such a hurry.--Bring
me likewise my best cloak,--not the tartan one, but the grey marled
one, lined with green flannel. I go over to Shepherd Gawin's to-day,
to see that poor young man who is said to be dying."

"I would not go, father, were I you. He is a great reprobate, and will
laugh at every good precept; and, more than that, you will heat
yourself with the walk, get cold, and be confined again with your old
complaint."

"What was it you said, daughter Matilda? Ah, you said that which was
very wrong. God only knows who are reprobates, and who are not. We can
judge from nought but external evidence, which is a false ground to
build calculations upon; but He knows the heart, with all our motives
of action, and judges very differently from us. You said very wrong,
daughter. But women will always be speaking unadvisedly. Always rash!
always rash!--Bring me my cloak, daughter, for as to my being injured
by my walk, I am going on my Master's business; my life and health are
in his hands, and let him do with me as seemeth good in his sight; I
will devote all to his service the little while I have to sojourn
here."

"But this young man, father, is not only wicked himself, but he
delights in the wickedness of others. He has ruined all his
associates, and often not without toiling for it with earnest
application. Never did your own heart yearn more over the gaining of
an immortal soul to God and goodness, than this same young
profligate's bosom has yearned over the destruction of one."

"Ah! it is a dismal picture, indeed! but not, perhaps, so bad as you
say. Women are always disposed to exaggerate, and often let their
tongues outrun their judgments. Bring me my cloak and my staff,
daughter Mat. Though God withdraw his protecting arm from a
fellow-creature for a time, are we to give all up for lost? Do you not
know that his grace aboundeth to the chief of sinners?"

"I know more of this youth than you do, my dear father; would to
Heaven I knew less! and I advise you to stay at home, and leave him to
the mercy of that God whom he has offended. Old age and decrepitude
are his derision, and he will mock at and laugh you to scorn, and add
still more pangs to the hearts of his disconsolate parents. It was he,
who, after much travail, overturned the principles of your beloved
grandson, which has cost us all so much grief, and so many tears."

"That is indeed a bitter consideration; nevertheless it shall be got
over. I will not say, The Lord reward him according to his works,
although the words almost brooded on my tongue; but I will say, in the
sincerity of a Christian disposition, May the Lord of mercy forgive
him, and open his eyes to his undone state before it be too late, and
the doors of forgiveness be eternally shut! Thanks to my Maker, I now
feel as I ought! Go bring me my cloak, daughter Matilda; not that
tartan one, with the gaudy spangles, but my comfortable grey marled
one, with the green flannel lining."

"Stay till I tell you one thing more, father."

"Well, what is it? Say on, daughter, I'll hear you. Surely you are not
desirous that this young man's soul should perish? Women's prejudices
are always too strong, either one way or another. But I will hear you,
daughter--I will hear you. What is it?"

"You knew formerly somewhat of the evil this profligate youth did to
your grandson, but you do not know that he has most basely betrayed
his sister, your darling Euphemia."

Old Isaac's head sunk down, while some tears involuntarily dropped on
his knee; and to conceal his emotion, he remained silent, save that he
uttered a few stifled groans. Natural affection and duty were at
strife within him, and for a time neither of them would yield. His
daughter perceived the struggle, and contented herself with watching
its effects.

"Where is my cloak, daughter Matilda?" said he, at length, without
raising his head.

"It is hanging on one of the wooden knags in the garret, sir," said
she.

"Ay. Then you may let it hang on the knag where it is all day. It is a
weary world this! and we are all guilty creatures! I fear I cannot
converse and pray with the ruthless seducer of both my children."

"Your resolution is prudent, sir. All efforts to regain such a one are
vain. He is not only a reprobate, and an outcast from his Maker, but a
determined and avowed enemy to his laws and government."

"You do not know what you say, daughter," said old Isaac, starting to
his feet, and looking her sternly in the face. "If I again hear you
presume to prejudge any accountable and immortal being in such a
manner, I shall be more afraid of your own state than of his. While
life remains, we are in a land where repentance is to be had and
hoped for, and I will not hear the mercy of God arraigned. Bring me my
cloak and my staff instantly, without another word. When I think of
the country beyond the grave, and of the eternal fate that awaits this
hapless prodigal, all my injuries vanish, and my trust in the Lord is
strengthened anew. I shall at least pray with him, and for him; if he
will not hear me, my Father who is in heaven may hear me, and haply He
will open the victim's eyes to the hope that is set before him; for
the hearts of all the children of men are in his hands, and as the
rivers of water He turneth them whithersoever He pleaseth."

So old Isaac got his staff in his hand that had the head turned round
like the horn of a cow, and also his cloak round his shoulders, not
the tartan one with its gaudy spangles, but the grey marled one lined
with green flannel. Well might old Isaac be partial to that cloak, for
it was made for him by a beloved daughter who had been removed from
him and from her family at the age of twenty-three. She was the mother
of his two darlings, Isaac and Euphemia, mentioned before; and the
feelings with which he put on the mantle that day can only be
conceived by those who have learned to count all things but loss save
Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and how few are the number who attain
this sublime and sacred height!

"The blessing of him that is ready to perish shall light on the head
of my father," said Matilda, as she followed with her eye the bent
figure of the old man hasting with tottering steps over the moor, on
the road that led to Shepherd Gawin's; and when he vanished from her
view on the height, she wiped her eyes, drew the window screen, and
applied herself to her work.

Isaac lost sight of his own home, and came in view of Shepherd Gawin's
at the same instant; but he only gave a slight glance back to his own,
for the concern that lay before him dwelt on his heart. It was a
concern of life and death, not only of a temporal, but of a spiritual
and eternal nature; and where the mortal concerns are centred, on that
place, or towards that place, will the natural eye be turned. Isaac
looked only at the dwelling before him: All wore a solemn stillness
about the place that had so often resounded with rustic mirth; the
cock crowed not at the door as was his wont, nor strutted on the top
of his old dunghill, that had been accumulating there for ages, and
had the appearance of a small green mountain; but he sat on the
kail-yard dike, at the head of his mates, with his feathers ruffled,
and every now and then his one eye turned up to the sky, as if
watching some appearance there of which he stood in dread. The
blithesome collies came not down the green to bark and frolic half in
kindness and half in jealousy; they lay coiled up on the shelf of the
hay-stack, and as the stranger approached, lifted up their heads and
viewed him with a sullen and sleepy eye, then, uttering a low and
stifled growl, muffled their heads again between their hind feet, and
shrouded their social natures in the very depth of sullenness.

"This is either the abode of death, or deep mourning, or perhaps
both," said old Isaac to himself, as he approached the house; "and all
the domestic animals are affected by it, and join in the general
dismay. If this young man has departed with the eyes of his
understanding blinded, I have not been in the way of my duty. It is a
hard case that a blemished lamb should be cast out of the flock, and
no endeavour made by the shepherd to heal or recall it; that the poor
stray thing should be left to perish, and lost to its Master's fold.
It behoveth not a faithful shepherd to suffer this; and yet--Isaac,
thou art the man! May the Lord pardon his servant in this thing!"

The scene continued precisely the same until Isaac reached the
solitary dwelling. There was no one passing in or out by the door, nor
any human creature to be seen stirring, save a little girl, one of the
family, who had been away meeting the carrier to procure some
medicines, and who approached the house by a different path. Isaac was
first at the door, and on reaching it he heard a confused noise
within, like the sounds of weeping and praying commingled. Unwilling
to break in upon them, ignorant as he was how matters stood with the
family, he paused, and then with a soft step retreated to meet the
little girl that approached, and make some inquiries of her. She tried
to elude him by running past him at a little distance, but he asked
her to stop and tell him how all was within. She did not hear what he
said, but guessing the purport of his inquiry, answered, "He's nae
better, sir."--"Ah me! still in the same state of suffering?"--"Aih
no,--no ae grain,--I tell ye he's nae better ava." And with that she
stepped into the house, Isaac following close behind her, so that he
entered without being either seen or announced. The first sounds that
he could distinguish were the words of the dying youth; they had a
hoarse whistling sound, but they were the words of wrath and
indignation. As he crossed the hallan he perceived the sick man's
brother, the next to him in age, sitting at the window with his elbow
leaning on the table, and his head on his closed fist, while the tints
of sorrow and anger seemed mingled on his blunt countenance. Farther
on stood his mother and elder sister leaning on each other, and their
eyes shaded with their hands, and close by the sick youth's bedside;
beyond these kneeled old Gawin the shepherd, his fond and too
indulgent father. He held the shrivelled hand of his son in his, and
with the other that of a damsel who stood by his side: And Isaac
heard him conjuring his son in the name of the God of heaven. Here
old Isaac's voice interrupted the affecting scene. "Peace be to this
house,--may the peace of the Almighty be within its walls," said he,
with an audible voice. The two women uttered a stifled shriek, and the
dying man a "Poh! poh!" of abhorrence. Old Gawin, though he did not
rise from his knees, gazed round with amazement in his face; and
looking first at his dying son, and then at old Isaac, he drew a full
breath, and said, with a quivering voice, "Surely the hand of the
Almighty is in this!"

There was still another object in the apartment well worthy of the
attention of him who entered--it was the damsel who stood at the
bedside; but then she stood with her back to Isaac, so that he could
not see her face, and at the sound of his voice, she drew her cloak
over her head, and retired behind the bed, sobbing so, that her bosom
seemed like to rend. The cloak was similar to the one worn that day by
old Isaac, for, be it remembered, he had not the gaudy tartan one
about him, but the russet grey plaid made to him by his beloved
daughter. Isaac saw the young woman retiring behind the bed, and heard
her weeping; but a stroke like that of electricity seemed to have
affected the nerves of all the rest of the family on the entrance of
the good old man, so that his attention was attracted by those
immediately under his eye. The mother and daughter whispered to each
other in great perplexity. Old Gawin rose from his knees; and not
knowing well what to say or do, he diligently wiped the dust from the
knee-caps of his corduroy breeches, even descending to the minutiae of
scraping away some specks more adhesive than the rest, with the nail
of his mid finger. No one welcomed the old man, and the dying youth in
the bed grumbled these bitter words, "I see now on what errand Ellen
was sent! Confound your officiousness!"

"No, Graham, you are mistaken. The child was at T----r to meet the
carrier for your drogs," said old Gawin.

"Poh! poh! all of a piece with the rest of the stuff you have told me.
Come hither, Ellen, and let me see what the doctor has sent."--The
girl came near, and gave some vials with a sealed direction.

"So you got these at T----r, did you?"

"Yes, I got them from Jessy Clapperton; the carrier was away."

"Lying imp! who told you to say that? Answer me!"--The child was mute
and looked frightened.--"Oh! I see how it is! You have done very well,
my dear, very cleverly, you give very fair promise. Get me some
clothes, pray--I will try if I can leave this house."

"Alas, my good friends, what is this?" said Isaac; "the young man's
reason, I fear, is wavering. Good Gawin, why do you not give me your
hand? I am extremely sorry for your son's great bodily sufferings, and
for what you and your family must suffer mentally on his account. How
are you?"

"Right weel, sir--as weel as may be expected," said Gawin, taking old
Isaac's hand, but not once lifting his eyes from the ground to look
the good man in the face.

"And how are you, good dame?" continued Isaac, shaking hands with the
old woman.

"Right weel, thanks t'ye, sir. It is a cauld day this. Ye'll be
cauld?"

"Oh no, I rather feel warm."

"Ay, ye have a comfortable plaid for a day like this; a good plaid it
is."

"I like to hear you say so, Agnes, for that plaid was a Christmas
present to me, from one who has now been several years in the cold
grave. It was made to me by my kind and beloved daughter Euphy. But
enough of this--I see you have some mantles in the house of the very
same kind."

"No; not the same. We have none of the same here."

"Well, the same or nearly so,--it is all one. My sight often deceives
me now."--The family all looked at one another.--"But enough of this,"
continued old Isaac, "I came not thus far to discuss such matters.
The sick young man, from what I heard, I fear, is incapable of
spiritual conversation?"

"Yes, I am," said he, from the bed, with a squeaking voice; "and I
would this moment that I were dead! Why don't you give me my clothes?
Sure never was a poor unfortunate being tormented as I am! Won't you
have pity on me, and let me have a little peace for a short time? It
is not long I will trouble you. Is it not mean and dastardly in you
all to combine against an object that cannot defend himself?"

"Alack, alack!" said old Isaac, "the calmness of reason is departed
for the present. I came to converse a little with him on that which
concerns his peace here, and his happiness hereafter: to hold the
mirror up to his conscience, and point out an object to him, of which,
if he take not hold, all his hope is a wreck."

"I knew it! I knew it!" vociferated the sick man. "A strong and great
combination: but I'll defeat it,--ha, ha, ha! I tell you, Father
Confessor, I have no right or part in the object you talk of. I will
have no farther concern with her. She shall have no more of me than
you shall have. If the devil should have all, that is absolute--Will
that suffice?"

"Alas! he is not himself," said old Isaac, "and has nearly been guilty
of blasphemy. We must not irritate him farther. All that we can do is
to join in prayer that the Lord will lay no more upon him than he is
able to bear, that he will heal his wounded spirit, and restore him to
the use of reason; and that, in the midst of his wanderings, should he
blaspheme, the sin may not be laid to his charge."

Gawin was about to speak, and explain something that apparently
affected him; the dying youth had likewise raised himself on his
elbow, and, with an angry countenance, was going to reply; but when
the old man took off his broad-brimmed hat, and discovered the
wrinkled forehead and the thin snowy hair waving around it, the sight
was so impressive that silence was imposed on every tongue. He sung
two stanzas of a psalm, read a chapter of the New Testament, and then
kneeling by the bedside, prayed for about half an hour, with such
fervency of devotion, that all the family were deeply affected. It was
no common-place prayer, nor one so general that it suited any case of
distress; every sentence of it spoke home to the heart, and alluded
particularly to the very state of him for whom the petitions were
addressed to heaven. Old Gawin gave two or three short sighs, which
his wife hearing, she wiped her eyes with her apron. Their fair
daughter made the same sort of noise that one does who takes snuff,
and the innocent youth, their second son, who leaned forward on the
table instead of kneeling, let two tears fall on the board, which he
formed with his fore-finger into the initials of his name; the little
girl looked from one to another, and wondered what ailed them all,
then casting down her eyes, she tried to look devout, but they would
not be restrained. The dying youth, who at the beginning testified the
utmost impatience, by degrees became the most affected of all. His
features first grew composed, then rueful, and finally he turned
himself on his face in humble prostration. Isaac pleaded fervently
with the Almighty that the sufferer's days might be lengthened, and
that he might not be cut off in the bloom of youth, and exuberance of
levity--at that season when man is more apt to speak than calculate,
and to act than consider, even though speech should be crime, and
action irretrievable ruin. "Spare and recover him, O merciful Father,
yet for a little while," said be, "that he may have his eyes opened to
see his ruined state both by nature and by wicked works; for who among
us liveth and sinneth not, and what changes may be made in his
dispositions in a few years or a few months by thy forbearance? Thou
takest no pleasure in the death of sinners, but rather that all should
repent, and turn unto thee, and live; therefore, for his immortal
soul's sake, and for the sake of what thy Son hath suffered for ruined
man, spare him till he have time and space to repent. Should his
youthful mind have been tainted with the prevailing vice of
infidelity, so that he hath been tempted to lift up his voice against
the most sacred truths; and should he, like all the profane, have been
following his inclinations rather than his judgment, how is he now
prepared to abide the final result? or to be ushered into the very
midst of those glorious realities which he hath hitherto treated as a
fiction? And how shall he stand before thee, when he discovers, too
late, that there is indeed a God, whose being and attributes he hath
doubted, a Saviour whom he hath despised, a heaven into which he
cannot enter, and a hell which he can never escape? Perhaps he hath
been instrumental in unhinging the principles of others, and of
misleading some unwary being from the paths of truth and holiness; and
in the flush of reckless depravity, may even have deprived some
innocent, loving, and trusting being of virtue, and left her a prey to
sorrow and despair; and with these and more grievous crimes on his
head,--all unrepented and unatoned,--how shall he appear before thee?"

At this part of the prayer, the sobs behind the bed became so audible,
that it made the old man pause in the midst of his fervent
supplications; and the dying youth was heard to weep in suppressed
breathings. Isaac went on, and prayed still for the sufferer as one
insensible to all that passed; but he prayed so earnestly for his
forgiveness, for the restoration of his right reason, and for health
and space for repentance and amendment, that the sincerity of his
heart was apparent in every word and every tone.

When he rose from his knees there was a deep silence; no one knew what
to say, or to whom to address himself; for the impression made on all
their minds was peculiarly strong. The only motion made for a good
while was by the soft young man at the table, who put on his bonnet as
he was wont to do after prayers; but remembering that the Minister was
present, he slipped it off again by the ear, as if he had been
stealing it from his own head. At that instant the dying youth
stretched out his hand. Isaac saw it, and looking to his mother, said
he wanted something. "It is yours--your hand that I want," said the
youth, in a kind and expressive tone. Isaac started, he had judged him
to be in a state of delirium, and his surprise may be conceived when
he heard him speak with calmness and composure. He gave him his hand,
but from what he had heard fall from his lips before, knew not how to
address him. "You _are_ a good man," said the youth, "God in heaven
reward you!"

"What is this I hear?" cried Isaac, breathless with astonishment.
"Have the disordered senses been rallied in one moment? Have our
unworthy prayers indeed been heard at the throne of Omnipotence, and
answered so suddenly? Let us bow ourselves with gratitude and
adoration. And for thee, my dear young friend, be of good cheer; for
there are better things intended towards thee. Thou shalt yet live to
repent of thy sins, and to become a chosen vessel of mercy in the
house of him that saved thee."

"If I am spared in life for a little while," said the youth, "I shall
make atonement for some of my transgressions, for the enormity of
which I am smitten to the heart."

"Trust to no atonement you can make of yourself," cried Isaac
fervently. "It is a bruised reed, to which, if you lean, it will go
into your hand and pierce it; a shelter that will not break the blast.
You must trust to a higher atonement, else your repentance shall be as
stubble, or as chaff that the wind carrieth away."

"So disinterested!" exclaimed the youth. "Is it my wellbeing alone
over which your soul yearns? This is more than I expected to meet with
in humanity! Good father, I am unable to speak more to you to-day, but
give me your hand, and promise to come back to see me on Friday. If I
am spared in life, you shall find me all that you wish, and shall
never more have to charge me with ingratitude."

In the zeal of his devotion, Isaac had quite forgot all personal
injuries; he did not even remember that there were such beings as his
grandchildren in existence at that time; but when the young man said,
that "he should find him all that he wished, and that he would no more
be ungrateful," the sobs and weeping behind the bed grew so audible,
that all farther exchange of sentiments was interrupted. The youth
grasped old Isaac's hand, and motioned for him to go away; and he was
about to comply, out of respect for the feelings of the sufferer, but
before he could withdraw his hand from the bed, or rise from the seat
on which he had just sat down, the weeping fair one burst from behind
the bed; and falling on his knees with her face, she seized his hand
with both hers, kissed it an hundred times, and bathed it all over
with her tears. Isaac's heart was at all times soft, and at that
particular time he was in a mood to be melted quite; he tried to
soothe the damsel, though he himself was as much affected as she
was--but as her mantle was still over her head, how could he know her?
His old dim eyes were, moreover, so much suffused with tears, that he
did not perceive that mantle to be the very same with his own, and
that one hand must have been the maker of both. "Be comforted," said
old Isaac; "he will mend--He will mend, and be yet a stay to you and
to them all--be of good comfort, dear love."

When he had said this, he wiped his eyes hastily and impatiently with
the lap of his plaid, seized his old pike-staff; and as he tottered
across the floor, drawing up his plaid around his waist, its purple
rustic colours caught his eye, dim as it was; and he perceived that
it was not his tartan one with the gaudy spangles, but the grey marled
one that was made to him by his beloved daughter. Who can trace the
links of association in the human mind? The chain is more angled, more
oblique, than the course marked out by the bolt of heaven--as
momentarily formed, and as quickly lost. In all cases, they are
indefinable, but on the mind of old age, they glance like dreams and
visions of something that have been, and are for ever gone. The
instant that Isaac's eye fell on his mantle, he looked hastily and
involuntarily around him, first on the one side and then on the other,
his visage manifesting trepidation and uncertainty. "Pray what have
you lost, sir?" said the kind and officious dame. "I cannot tell what
it was that I missed," said old Isaac, "but methought I felt as if I
had left something behind me that was mine." Isaac went away, but left
not a dry eye in the dwelling which he quitted.

On leaving the cottage he was accompanied part of the way by Gawin, in
whose manner there still remained an unaccountable degree of
embarrassment. His conversation laboured under a certain restraint,
insomuch that Isaac, who was an observer of human nature, could not
help taking notice of it; but those who have never witnessed, in the
same predicament, a home-bred, honest countryman, accustomed to speak
his thoughts freely at all times, can form no conception of the
appearance that Gawin made. From the time that the worthy old man
first entered his cot, till the time they parted again on the height,
Gawin's lips were curled, the one up, and the other down, leaving an
inordinate extent of teeth and gums displayed between them; whenever
his eyes met those of his companion, they were that instant withdrawn,
and, with an involuntary motion, fixed on the summit of some of the
adjacent hills; and when they stopped to converse, Gawin was always
laying on the ground with his staff, or beating some unfortunate
thistle all to pieces. The one family had suffered an injury from the
other, of a nature so flagrant in Gawin's eyes, that his honest heart
could not brook it; and yet so delicate was the subject, that when he
essayed to mention it, his tongue refused the office. "There has a
sair misfortune happened," said he once, "that ye aiblins dinna ken
o'.--But it's nae matter ava!" And with that he fell on and beat a
thistle, or some other opposing shrub, most unmercifully.

There was, however, one subject on which he spoke with energy, and
that was the only one in which old Isaac was for the time interested.
It was his son's religious state of mind. He told Isaac, that he had
formed a correct opinion of the youth, and that he was indeed a
scoffer at religion, because it had become fashionable in certain
college classes, where religion was never mentioned but with ridicule;
but that his infidelity sprung from a perverse and tainted
inclination, in opposition to his better judgment, and that if he
could have been brought at all to think or reason on the subject, he
would have thought and reasoned aright; this, however, he had avoided
by every means, seeming horrified at the very mention of the subject,
and glad to escape from the tormenting ideas that it brought in its
train.--"Even the sight of your face to-day," continued Gawin, "drove
him into a fit of temporary derangement. But from the unwonted
docility he afterwards manifested, I have high hopes that this visit
of yours will be accompanied by the blessing of Heaven. He has been a
dear lad to me; for the sake of getting him forret in his lair, I hae
pinched baith mysell and a' my family, and sitten down wi' them to
mony a poor and scrimpit meal. But I never grudged that, only I hae
whiles been grieved that the rest o' my family hae gotten sae little
justice in their schooling. And yet, puir things, there has never ane
o' them grieved my heart,--which he has done aftener than I like to
speak o'. It has pleased Heaven to punish me for my partiality to him;
but I hae naething for it but submission.--Ha! do ye ken, sir, that
that day I first saw him mount a poopit, and heard him begin a
discourse to a croudit congregation, I thought a' my pains and a' my
pinching poverty overpaid. For the first quarter of an hour I was sae
upliftit, that I hardly kenn'd whether I was sitting, standing, or
flying in the air, or whether the kirk was standing still, or rinning
round about. But, alake! afore the end o' his twa discourses, my heart
turned as cauld as lead, and it has never again hett in my breast
sinsyne. They were twa o' thae cauldrife moral harangues, that tend to
uplift poor wrecked, degenerate human nature, and rin down divine
grace. There was nae dependence to be heard tell o' there, beyond the
weak arm o' sinfu' flesh; and oh, I thought to mysell, that will
afford sma' comfort, my man, to either you or me, at our dying day!"

Here the old shepherd became so much overpowered, that he could not
proceed, and old Isaac took up the discourse, and administered comfort
to the sorrowing father: then shaking him kindly by the hand, he
proceeded on his way, while Gawin returned slowly homeward, still
waging war with every intrusive and superfluous shrub in his path. He
was dissatisfied with himself because he had not spoken his mind to a
person who so well deserved his confidence, on a subject that most of
all preyed on his heart.

Matilda, who sat watching the path by which her father was to return
home, beheld him as soon as he came in view, and continued to watch
him all the way with that tender solicitude which is only prompted by
the most sincere and disinterested love.--"With what agility he
walks!" exclaimed she to herself; "bless me, sirs, he is running! He
is coming pacing down yon green sward as if he were not out of his
teens yet. I hope he has been successful in his mission, and prevailed
with that abandoned profligate to make some amends to my hapless
niece."

How different are the views of different persons! and how various the
objects of their pursuit! Isaac thought of no such thing. He rejoiced
only in the goodness and mercy of his Maker, and had high hopes that
he would make him (unworthy as he was) instrumental in gaining over an
immortal soul to Heaven and happiness. He sung praises to Heaven in
his heart, and the words of gratitude and thankfulness hung upon his
tongue. His daughter never took her eye from him, in his approach to
his little mansion. Her whole dependence was on her father--her whole
affection was centred in him: she had been taught from her infancy to
regard him as the first and best of men; and though she had now lived
with him forty years, he had never in one instance done an action to
lessen that esteem, or deface that pure image of uprightness and
sincerity, which her affectionate heart had framed. When he came in,
her watchful kindness assailed him in a multitude of ways--every thing
was wrong; she would have it that his feet were damp, although he
assured her of the contrary--his right-hand sleeve was wringing wet;
and there was even a dampness between his shoulders, which was
exceedingly dangerous, as it was so nearly opposite the heart. In
short, old Isaac's whole apparel had to be shifted piecemeal, though
not without some strong remonstrances on his part, and the
good-natured quotation, several times repeated, from the old song:

    "Nought's to be won at woman's hand,
      Unless ye gie her a' the plea."

When she had got him all made comfortable to her mind, and his feet
placed in slippers well-toasted before the fire, she then began her
inquiries. "How did you find all at Gawin's to-day, now when I have
gotten time to speir?"

"Why, daughter Matty, poorly enough, very poorly. But, thanks be to
God, I think I left them somewhat better than I found them."

"I am so glad to hear that! I hope you have taken Graham over the
coals about Phemy?"

"Eh! about Phemy?"

"You know what I told you before you went away? You were not so
unnatural as to forget your own flesh and blood, in communing with the
man who has wronged her?"

"I did not think more of the matter; and if I had, there would have
been no propriety in mentioning it, as none of the family spoke of it
to me. And how was I assured that there was no mis-statement? Women
are always so rash-spoken, and so fond of exaggeration, that I am
afraid to trust them at the first word; and besides, my dear Matty,
you know they are apt to see things double sometimes."

"Well, my dear father, I must say that your wit, or raillery, is very
ill timed, considering whom it relates to. Your grand-daughter has
been most basely deceived, under a pretence of marriage; and yet you
will break your jokes on the subject!"

"You know, Matty, I never broke a joke on such a subject in my life.
It was you whom I was joking; for your news cannot always be depended
on. If I were to take up every amour in the parish, upon the faith of
your first hints, and to take the delinquents over the coals, as you
recommend, I should often commit myself sadly."

Matilda was silenced. She asked for no instances, in order to deny the
insinuation; but she murmured some broken sentences, like one who has
been fairly beat in an argument, but is loath to yield. It was rather
a hard subject for the good lady; for ever since she had bidden adieu
to her thirtieth year, she had become exceedingly jealous of the
conduct of the younger portion of her sex. But Isaac was too
kind-hearted to exult in a severe joke; he instantly added, as a
palliative, "But I should hold my tongue. You have many means of
hearing, and coming to the truth of such matters, that I have not."

"I wish this were false, however," said Matilda, turning away her face
from the fire, lest the flame should scorch her cheek; "but I shall
say no more about it, and neither, I suppose, will you, till it be out
of time. Perhaps it may not be true, for I heard, since you went away,
that she was to be there to-day, by appointment of his parents, to
learn his final determination, which may be as much without foundation
as the other part of the story. If she had been there, you must have
seen her, you know."

"Eh?" said Isaac, after biting his lip, and making a long pause; "What
did you say, daughter Matty? Did you say my Phemy was to have been
there to-day?"

"I heard such a report, which must have been untrue, because, had she
been there, you would have met with her."

"There was a lass yonder," said Isaac. "How many daughters has Gawin?"

"Only one who is come the length of woman, and whom you see in the
kirk every day capering with her bobbs of crimson ribbons, and looking
at Will Ferguson."

"It is a pity women are always so censorious," said Isaac--"always
construing small matters the wrong way. It is to be hoped these little
constitutional failings will not be laid to their charge.--So Gawin
has but one daughter?"

"I said, one that is a grown-up woman. He has, besides, little Ellen;
a pert idle creature, who has an eye in her head that will tell tales
some day."

"Then there was indeed another damsel," said old Isaac, "whom I did
not know, but took her for one of the family. Alake, and wo is me!
Could I think it was my own dear child hanging over the couch of a
dying man! The girl that I saw was in tears, and deeply affected. She
even seized my hand, and bathed it with tears. What could she think of
me, who neither named nor kissed her, but that I had cast her off and
renounced her? But no, no, I can never do that; I will forgive her as
heartily as I would beg for her forgiveness at the throne of mercy. We
are all fallible and offending creatures; and a young maid, that grows
up as a willow by the water-courses, and who is in the flush of youth
and beauty, ere ever she has had a moment's time for serious
reflection, or one trial of worldly experience--that such a one should
fall a victim to practised guilt, is a consequence so natural, that,
however deeply to be regretted, it is not matter of astonishment. Poor
misguided Phemy! Did you indeed kneel at my knee, and bathe my hand
with your affectionate tears, without my once deigning to acknowledge
you? And yet how powerful are the workings of nature! They are indeed
the workings of the Deity himself: for when I arose, all unconscious
of the presence of my child, and left her weeping, I felt as if I had
left a part of my body and blood behind me."

"So she was indeed there, whining and whimpering over her honourable
lover?" said Matilda. "I wish I had been there, to have told her a
piece of my mind! The silly, inconsiderate being, to allow herself to
be deprived of fair fame and character by such a worthless profligate,
bringing disgrace on all connected with her! And then to go whimpering
over his sick-bed!--O dear love, you must marry me, or I am undone! I
have _loved_ you with all my heart, you know, and you must make me
your wife. I am content to beg my bread with you, now that I have
_loved_ you so dearly! only you must marry me. Oh dear! Oh dear! what
shall become of me else!"

"Dear daughter Matilda, where is the presumptuous being of the fallen
race of Adam who can say, Here will I stand in my own strength? What
will the best of us do, if left to ourselves, better than the erring,
inexperienced being, whose turning aside you so bitterly censure? It
is better that we lament the sins and failings of our relatives, my
dear Matty, than rail against them, putting ourselves into sinful
passion, and thereby adding one iniquity to another."

The argument was kept up all that evening, and all next day, with the
same effect; and if either of the disputants had been asked what it
was about, neither could have told very precisely: the one attached a
blame, which the other did not deny; only there were different ways of
speaking about it. On the third day, which was Friday, old Isaac
appeared at breakfast in his Sunday clothes, giving thus an intimation
of a second intended visit to the house of Gawin the shepherd. The
first cup of tea was scarcely poured out, till the old subject was
renewed, and the debate seasoned with a little more salt than was
customary between the two amiable disputants. Matilda disapproved of
the visit, and tried, by all the eloquence she was mistress of, to
make it appear indecorous. Isaac defended it on the score of
disinterestedness and purity of intention; but finding himself hard
pressed, he brought forward his promise, and the impropriety of
breaking it. Matty would not give up her point; she persisted in it,
till she spoiled her father's breakfast, made his hand shake so, that
he could scarcely put the cup to his head, and, after all, staggered
his resolution so much, that at last he sat in silence, and Matty got
all to say herself. She now accounted the conquest certain, and
valuing herself on the influence she possessed, she began to
overburden her old father with all manner of kindness and teasing
officiousness. Would he not take this, and refrain from that, and wear
one part of dress in preference to another that he had on? There was
no end of controversy with Isaac, however kind might be the intent.
All that he said at that time was, "Let me alone, dear Matty; let me
have some peace. Women are always overwise--always contrary."

When matters were at this pass, the maid-servant came into the room,
and announced that a little girl of shepherd Gawin's wanted to speak
with the Minister. "Alas, I fear the young man will be at his rest!"
said Isaac. Matilda grew pale, and looked exceedingly alarmed, and
only said, "she hoped not." Isaac inquired of the maid, but she said
the girl refused to tell her any thing, and said she had orders not to
tell a word of aught that had happened about the house.

"Then something _has_ happened," said Isaac. "It must be as I feared!
Send the little girl ben."

Ellen came into the parlour with a beck as quick and as low as that
made by the water ouzel, when standing on a stone in the middle of the
water; and, without waiting for any inquiries, began her speech on the
instant, with, "Sir--hem--heh--my father sent me, sir--hem--to tell ye
that ye warna to forget your promise to come ower the day, for that
there's muckle need for yer helping hand yonder--sir; that's a',
sir."

"You may tell your father," said Isaac, "that I will come as soon as I
am able. I will be there by twelve o'clock, God willing."

"Are you wise enough, my dear father, to send such a message?"
remonstrated Matilda. "You are not able to go a journey to-day. I
thought I had said enough about that before.--You may tell your
father," continued she, turning to Ellen, "that my father cannot come
the length of his house to-day."

"I'll tell my father what the Minister bade me," replied the girl.
"I'll say, sir, that ye'll be there by twall o'clock;--will I, sir?"

"Yes, by twelve o'clock," said Isaac.

Ellen had no sooner made her abrupt curtsey, and left the room, than
Matilda, with the desperation of a general who sees himself on the
point of being driven from a position which it had cost him much
exertion to gain, again opened the fire of her eloquence upon her
father. "Were I you," said she, "I would scorn to enter their door,
after the manner in which the profligate villain has behaved: first,
to make an acquaintance with your grandson at the College--pervert all
his ideas of rectitude and truth--then go home with him to his
father's house, during the vacation, and there live at heck and
manger, no lady being in the house save your simple and unsuspecting
Phemy, who now is reduced to the necessity of going to a shepherd's
cottage, and begging to be admitted to the alliance of a family, the
best of whom is far beneath her, to say nothing of the unhappy
individual in question. Wo is me, that I have seen the day!"

"If the picture be correctly drawn, it is indeed very bad; but I hope
the recent sufferings of the young man will have the effect of
restoring him to the principles in which he was bred, and to a better
sense of his heinous offences. I must go and see how the family fares,
as in duty and promise bound. Content yourself, dear daughter. It may
be that the unfortunate youth has already appeared at that bar from
which there is no appeal."

This consideration, as it again astounded, so it put to silence the
offended dame, who suffered her father to depart on his mission of
humanity without farther opposition; and old Isaac again set out,
meditating as he went, and often conversing with himself, on the
sinfulness of man, and the great goodness of God. So deeply was he
wrapt in contemplation, that he scarcely cast an eye over the wild
mountain scenery by which he was surrounded, but plodded on his way,
with eyes fixed on the ground, till he approached the cottage. He was
there aroused from his reverie, by the bustle that appeared about the
door. The scene was changed indeed from that to which he introduced
himself two days before. The collies came yelping and wagging their
tails to meet him, while the inmates of the dwelling were peeping out
at the door, and as quickly vanishing again into the interior. There
were also a pair or two of neighbouring shepherds sauntering about the
side of the kail-yard dike, all dressed in their Sunday apparel, and
every thing bespeaking some "occasion," as any uncommon occurrence is
generally denominated.

"What can it be that is astir here to-day?" said Isaac to
himself.--"Am I brought here to a funeral or corpse-chesting, without
being apprised of the event? It must be so. What else can cause such a
bustle about a house where trouble has so long prevailed? Ah! there is
also old Robinson, my session-clerk and precentor. He is the true
emblem of mortality: then it is indeed all over with the poor young
man!"

Now Robinson had been at so many funerals all over the country, and
was so punctual in his attendance on all within his reach, that to see
him pass, with his staff, and black coat without the collar, was the
very same thing as if a coffin had gone by. A burial was always a good
excuse for giving the boys the play, for a refreshing walk into the
country, and was, besides, a fit opportunity for moral contemplation,
not to say any thing of hearing the country news. But there was also
another motive, which some thought was the most powerful inducement of
any with the old Dominie. It arose from that longing desire after
preeminence which reigns in every human breast, and which no man
fails to improve, however small the circle may be in which it can be
manifested. At every funeral, in the absence of the Minister, Robinson
was called on to say grace; and when they were both present, whenever
the Parson took up his station in one apartment, the Dominie took up
his in another, and thus had an equal chance, for the time, with his
superior. It was always shrewdly suspected, that the Clerk tried to
outdo the Minister on such occasions, and certainly made up in length
what he wanted in energy. The general remarks on this important point
amounted to this, "that the Dominie was langer than the Minister, and
though he was hardly just sae conceese, yet he meant as weel;" and
that, "for the maist part, he was _stronger on the grave_." Suffice
it, that the appearance of old Robinson, in the present case,
confirmed Isaac in the belief of the solemnity of the scene awaiting
him; and as his mind was humbled to acquiesce in the Divine will, his
mild and reverend features were correspondent therewith. He thought of
the disappointment and sufferings of the family, and had already begun
in his heart to intercede for them at the throne of Mercy.

When he came near to the house, out came old Gawin himself. He had
likewise his black coat on, and his Sunday bonnet, and a hand in each
coat-pocket; but for all his misfortune and heavy trials, he strode
to the end of the house with a firm and undismayed step.--Ay, he is
quite right, thought Isaac to himself; that man has his trust where it
should be, fixed on the Rock of Ages; and he has this assurance, that
the Power on whom he trusts can do nothing wrong. Such a man can look
death in the face, undismayed, in all his steps and inroads.

Gawin spoke to some of his homely guests, then turned round, and came
to meet Isaac, whom he saluted, by taking off his bonnet, and shaking
him heartily by the hand.--The bond of restraint had now been removed
from Gawin's lips, and his eye met the Minister's with the same
frankness it was wont. The face of affairs was changed since they had
last parted.

"How's a' w'ye the day, sir?--How's a' w'ye?--I'm unco blythe to see
ye," said Gawin.

"Oh, quite well, thank you. How are you yourself? And how are all
within?"

"As weel as can be expectit, sir--as weel as can be expectit."

"I am at a little loss, Gawin--Has any change taken place in family
circumstances since I was here?"

"Oh, yes; there has indeed, sir; a material change--I hope for the
better."

Gawin now led the way, without further words, into the house, desiring
the Minister to follow him, and "tak' care o' his head and the bauks,
and no fa' ower the bit stirk, for it was sure to be lying i' the
dark."

When Isaac went in, there was no one there but the goodwife, neatly
dressed in her black stuff gown, and check apron, with a close
'kerchief on her head, well crimped in the border, and tied round the
crown and below the chin with a broad black ribbon. She also saluted
the Minister with uncommon frankness--"Come away, sir, come away.
Dear, dear, how are ye the day? It's but a slaitery kind o' day this,
as I was saying to my man, there; Dear, dear, Gawin, says I, I wish
the Minister may be nae the waur o' coming ower the muir the day. That
was joost what I said. And dear, dear, sir, how's Miss Matty, sir? Oh,
it is lang sin' I hae seen her. I like aye to see Miss Matty, ye ken,
to get a rattle frae her about the folk, ye ken, and a' our
neighbours, that fa' into sinfu' gates; for there's muckle sin gangs
on i' the parish. Ah, ay! I wat weel that's very true, Miss Matty,
says I. But what can folk help it? ye ken, folk are no a' made o' the
same metal, as the airn tangs,--like you----"

--"Bless me with patience!" said Isaac in his heart; "this poor
woman's misfortunes have crazed her! What a salutation for the house
of mourning!" Isaac looked to the bed, at the side of which he had so
lately kneeled in devotion, and he looked with a reverent dread, but
the corpse was not there! It was neatly spread with a clean
coverlid.--It is best to conceal the pale and ghostly features of
mortality from the gazer's eye, thought Isaac. It is wisely done, for
there is nothing to be seen in them but what is fitted for corruption.

"Gawin, can nae ye tak' the Minister ben the house, or the rest o' the
clanjamphery come in?" said the talkative dame.--"Hout, ay, sir, step
your ways ben the house. We hae a ben end and a but end the day, as
weel as the best o' them. And ye're ane o' our ain folk, ye ken. Ah,
ay! I wat weel that's very true! As I said to my man, Gawin, quo' I,
whenever I see our Minister's face, I think I see the face of a
friend."

"Gudewife, I hae but just ae word to say, by way o' remark," said
Gawin; "folk wha count afore the change-keeper, hae often to count
twice, and sae has the herd, wha counts his hogs afore Beltan.--Come
this way, sir; follow me, and tak' care o' your head and the bauks."

Isaac followed into the rustic parlour, where he was introduced to one
he little expected to see sitting there. This was no other than the
shepherd's son, who had so long been attended on as a dying person,
and with whom Isaac had so lately prayed, in the most fervent
devotion, as with one of whose life little hope was entertained. There
he sat, with legs like two poles, hands like the hands of a skeleton;
yet his emaciated features were lighted up with a smile of serenity
and joy. Isaac was petrified. He stood still on the spot, even though
the young man rose up to receive him. He deemed he had come there to
see his lifeless form laid in the coffin, and to speak words of
comfort to the survivors. He was taken by surprise, and his heart
thrilled with unexpected joy.

"My dear young friend, do I indeed see you thus?" he said, taking him
kindly and gently by the hand. "God has been merciful to you, above
others of your race. I hope, in the mercy that has saved you from the
gates of death, that you feel grateful for your deliverance; for,
trust me, it behoves you to do so, in no ordinary degree."

"I shall never be able to feel as I ought, either to my deliverer or
to yourself," said he. "Till once I heard the words of truth and
seriousness from your mouth, I have not dared, for these many years,
to think my own thoughts, speak my own words, or perform the actions
to which my soul inclined. I have been a truant from the school of
truth; but have now returned, with all humility, to my Master, for I
feel that I have been like a wayward boy, groping in the dark, to find
my way, though a path splendidly lighted up lay open for me. But of
these things I long exceedingly to converse with you, at full length
and full leisure. In the meantime, let me introduce you to other
friends who are longing for some little notice. This is my sister,
sir; and--shake hands with the Minister, Jane--And do you know this
young lady, sir, with the mantle about her, who seems to expect a word
from you, acknowledging old acquaintance?"

"My eyes are grown so dim now," said old Isaac, "that it is with
difficulty I can distinguish young people from one another, unless
they speak to me. But she will not look up. Is this my dear young
friend, Miss Mary Sibbet?"

"Nay, sir, it is not she. But I think, as you two approach one
another, your plaids appear very nearly the same."

"Phemy! My own child Phemy! Is it yourself? Why did you not
speak?--But you have been an alien of late, and a stranger to me. Ah,
Phemy! Phemy! I have been hearing bad news of you. But I did not
believe them--no, I _would not_ believe them."

Euphemia for a while uttered not a word, but keeping fast hold of her
grandfather's hand, she drew it under her mantle, and crept
imperceptibly a degree nearer to his breast. The old man waited for
some reply, standing as in the act of listening; till at length, in a
trembling whisper, scarcely audible, she repeated these sacred
words--"Father, forgive me, for I knew not what I did!" The expression
had the effect desired on Isaac's mind. It brought to his remembrance
that gracious petition, the most fully fraught with mercy and
forgiveness that ever was uttered on earth, and bowed his whole soul
at once to follow the pattern of his great Master. His eye beamed with
exultation in his Redeemer's goodness, and he answered, "Yes, my
child, yes. He whose words you have unworthily taken, will not refuse
the petition of any of his repentant children, however great their
enormities may have been; and why should such a creature as I am
presume to pretend indignation and offence, at aught further than his
high example warrants? May the Almighty forgive you as I do!"

"May Heaven bless and reward you!" said the young man. "But she is
blameless--blameless as the babe on the knee. I alone am the guilty
person, who infringed the rights of hospitality, and had nearly broken
the bonds of confidence and love. But I am here to-day to make, or
offer at least, what amends is in my power--to offer her my hand in
wedlock; that whether I live or die, she may live without dishonour.
But, reverend sir, all depends on your fiat. Without your approbation
she will consent to nothing; saying, that she had offended deeply by
taking her own will once, but nought should ever induce her to take it
unadvisedly again. It was for this purpose that we sent for you so
expressly to-day, namely, that I might entreat your consent to our
union. I could not be removed from home, so that we could not all
meet, to know one another's mind, in any other place. We therefore
await your approbation with earnest anxiety, as that on which our
future happiness depends."

After some mild and impressive reprehensions, Isaac's consent was
given in the most unqualified manner, and the names were given in to
the old Dominie's hand, with proper vouchers, for the publication of
the bans. The whole party dined together at old Gawin's. I was there
among the rest, and thought to enjoy the party exceedingly; but the
party was too formal, and too much on the reserve before the Minister.
I noted down, when I went home, all the conversation, as far as I
could remember it, but it is not worth copying. I see that Gawin's
remarks are all measured and pompous, and, moreover, delivered in a
sort of bastard English, a language which I detest. He considered
himself as now to be nearly connected with the _Manse Family_, and
looking forward to an eldership in the church, deemed it incumbent on
him to talk in a most sage and instructive manner. The young shepherd,
and an associate of his, talked of dogs, Cheviot tups, and some
remarkably bonny lasses that sat in the west gallery of the church.
John Grierson of the Hope recited what they called "lang skelps o'
metre," a sort of homely rhymes, that some of them pronounced to be
"far ayont Burns's fit." And the goodwife ran bustling about; but
whenever she could get a little leisure, she gave her tongue free
vent, without regard either to Minister or Dominie. She was too well
trained in the old homely Scotch, to attempt any of the flights, which
to Gawin, who was more sparing in his speech, were more easy to be
accomplished. "Dear, dear, sirs, can nae ye eat away? Ye hae nae the
stamacks o' as mony cats. Dear, dear, I'm sure an the flesh be nae
good, it sude be good, for it never saw either braxy or breakwind,
bleer-ee nor Beltan pock, but was the cantiest crock o' the Kaim-law.
Dear, dear, Johnie Grierson, tak' another rive o't, and set a good
example; as I said to my man there, Gawin, says I, it's weel kenn'd
ye're nae flae-bitten about the gab; and I said very true too."

Many such rants did she indulge in, always reminding her guests that
"it was a names-gieing-in, whilk was, o' a' ither things, the ane
neist to a wedding," and often hinting at their new and honourable
alliance, scarcely even able to keep down the way in which it was
brought about; for she once went so far as to say, "As I said to my
gudeman, Gawin, says I, for a' the fy-gae-to ye hae made, it's weel
kenn'd faint heart never wan fair lady. Ay, weel I wat, that's very
true, says I; a bird in the hand is worth twa on the bush.--Won a' to
and fill yoursells, sirs; there's routh o' mair where that came frae.
It's no aye the fattest foddering that mak's the fu'est aumry--and
that's nae lee."

Miss Matilda, the Minister's maiden daughter, was in towering
indignation about the marriage, and the connexion with a shepherd's
family; and it was rumoured over all the parish that she would never
countenance her niece any more. How matters went at first it is
perhaps as well for Miss Matilda's reputation, in point of
good-nature, that I am not able to say; but the last time I was at the
Manse, the once profligate and freethinking student had become Helper
to old Isaac, and was beloved and revered by all the parish, for the
warmth of his devotion, and soundness of his principles. His amiable
wife Euphemia had two sons, and their aunt Matty was nursing them with
a fondness and love beyond that which she bore to life itself.

In conclusion, I have only further to remark, that I have always
considered the prayers of that good old man as having been peculiarly
instrumental in saving a wretched victim, not only from immediate
death, but from despair of endless duration.




CHAPTER IV.

THE SCHOOL OF MISFORTUNE.


The various ways in which misfortunes affect different minds, are
often so opposite, that in contemplating them, we may well be led to
suppose the human soul animated and directed in some persons by
corporeal functions, formed after a different manner from those of
others--persons of the same family frequently differing most widely in
this respect.

It will appear, on a philosophic scrutiny of human feelings, that the
extremes of laughing and crying are more nearly allied than is
sometimes believed. With children, the one frequently dwindles, or
breaks out into the other. I once happened to sit beside a negro, in
the pit of the Edinburgh theatre, while the tragedy of Douglas was
performing. As the dialogue between Old Norval and Lady Randolph
proceeded, he grew more and more attentive; his eyes grew very large,
and seemed set immovably in one direction; the tears started from
them; his features went gradually awry; his under-lip curled and
turned to one side; and just when I expected that he was going to cry
outright, he burst into the most violent fit of laughter.

I have a female friend, on whom unfortunate accidents have the
singular effect of causing violent laughter, which, with her, is much
better proportioned to the calamity, than crying is with many others
of the sex. I have seen the losing of a rubber at whist, when there
was every probability that her party would gain it, cause her to laugh
till her eyes streamed with tears. The breaking of a tureen, or set of
valuable china, would quite convulse her. Danger always makes her
sing, and misfortunes laugh. If we hear her in any apartment of the
farm-house, or the offices, singing very loud, and very quick, we are
sure something is on the point of going wrong with her; but if we hear
her burst out a-laughing, we know that it is past redemption. Her
memory is extremely defective; indeed she scarcely seems to retain any
perfect recollection of past events; but her manners are gentle, easy,
and engaging; her temper good, and her humour inexhaustible; and, with
all her singularities, she certainly enjoys a greater share of
happiness than her chequered fortune could possibly have bestowed on a
mind differently constituted.

I have another near relation, who, besides being possessed of an
extensive knowledge in literature, and a refined taste, is endowed
with every qualification requisite to constitute the valuable friend,
the tender parent, and the indulgent husband; yet his feelings, and
his powers of conception, are so constructed, as to render him a
constant prey to corroding care. No man can remain many days in his
company without saying, in his heart, "that man was made to be
unhappy." What others view as slight misfortunes, affect him deeply;
and in the event of any such happening to himself, or those that are
dear to him, he will groan from his inmost soul, perhaps for a whole
evening after it first comes to his knowledge, and occasionally, for
many days afterwards, as the idea recurs to him. Indeed, he never
wants something to make him miserable; for, on being made acquainted
with any favourable turn of fortune, the only mark of joy that it
produces is an involuntary motion of the one hand to scratch the other
elbow; and his fancy almost instantaneously presents to him such a
number of difficulties, dangers, and bad consequences attending it,
that though I have often hoped to awake him to joy by my tidings, I
always left him more miserable than I found him.

I have another acquaintance whom we denominate "the Knight," who falls
upon a method totally different to overcome misfortunes. In the event
of any cross accident, or vexatious circumstance, happening to him, he
makes straight towards his easy chair--sits calmly down upon
it--clenches his right hand, with the exception of his fore-finger,
which is suffered to continue straight--strikes his fist violently
against his left shoulder--keeps it in that position, with his eyes
fixed on one particular point, till he has cursed the event and all
connected with it most heartily,--then, with a countenance of perfect
good-humour, he indulges in a pleasant laugh, and if it is possible to
draw a comical or ridiculous inference from the whole, or any part of
the affair, he is sure to do it, that the laugh may be kept up. If he
fails in effecting this, he again resumes his former posture, and
consigns all connected with the vexatious circumstance to the devil;
then takes another good hearty laugh; and in a few minutes the affair
is no more heard or thought of.

John Leggat is a lad about fifteen, a character of great singularity,
whom nature seems to have formed in one of her whims. He is not an
entire idiot, for he can perform many offices about his master's
house--herd the cows, and run errands too, provided there be no dead
horses on the road, nor any thing extremely ugly; for, if there be,
the time of his return is very uncertain. Among other anomalies in his
character, the way that misfortunes affect him is not the least
striking. He once became warmly attached to a young hound, which was
likewise very fond of him, paying him all the grateful respect so
often exhibited by that faithful animal. John loved him above all
earthly things--some even thought that he loved him better than his
own flesh and blood. The hound one day came to an untimely end. John
never got such sport in his life; he was convulsed with laughter when
he contemplated the features of his dead friend. When about his
ordinary business, he was extremely melancholy; but whenever he came
and looked at the carcass, he was transported with delight, and
expressed it by the most extravagant raptures. He next attached
himself to a turkey-cock, which he trained to come at his call, and
pursue and attack such people as he pointed out for that purpose. John
was very fond of this amusement; but it proved fatal to his
favourite--an irritated passenger knocked it dead at a stroke. This
proved another source of unbounded merriment to John; the stiff
half-spread wing, the one leg stretched forward, and the other back,
were infinitely amusing; but the abrupt crook in his neck--his
turned-up eye and open bill were quite irresistible--John laughed at
them till he was quite exhausted. Few ever loved their friends better
than John did while they were alive; no man was ever so much delighted
with them after they were dead.

The most judicious way of encountering misfortunes of every kind, is
to take up a firm resolution never to shrink from them when they
cannot be avoided, nor yet be tamely overcome by them, or add to our
anguish by useless repining, but, by a steady and cheerful
perseverance, endeavour to make the best of whatever untoward event
occurs. To do so, still remains in our power; and it is a grievous
loss indeed, with regard to fortune or favour, that perseverance will
not, sooner or later, overcome. I do not recommend a stupid insensible
apathy with regard to the affairs of life, nor yet that listless
inactive resignation which persuades a man to put his hands in his
bosom, and saying, It is the will of Heaven, sink under embarrassments
without a struggle. The contempt which is his due will infallibly
overtake such a man, and poverty and wretchedness will press hard upon
his declining years.

I had an old and valued friend in the country, who, on any cross
accident happening that vexed his associates, made always the
following observations: "There are just two kinds of misfortunes,
gentlemen, at which it is folly either to be grieved or angry; and
these are, things that can be remedied, and things that cannot be
remedied." He then proved, by plain demonstration, that the case under
consideration belonged to one or other of these classes, and showed
how vain and unprofitable it was to be grieved or angry at it. This
maxim of my friend's may be rather too comprehensive; but it is
nevertheless a good one; for a resolution to that effect cannot fail
of leading a man to the proper mode of action. It indeed comprehends
all things whatsoever, and is as much as to say, that a man should
never suffer himself to grow angry at all; and, upon the whole, I
think, if the matter be candidly weighed, it will appear, that the man
who suffers himself to be transported with anger, or teased by regret,
is commonly, if not always, the principal sufferer by it, either
immediately, or in future. Rage is unlicensed, and runs without a
curb. It lessens a man's respectability among his contemporaries;
grieves and hurts the feelings of those connected with him; harrows
his own soul; and transforms a rational and accountable creature into
the image of a fiend.

Impatience under misfortunes is certainly one of the failings of our
nature, which contributes more than any other to imbitter the cup of
life, and has been the immediate cause of more acts of desperate
depravity than any passion of the human soul. The loss of fortune or
favour is particularly apt to give birth to this tormenting sensation;
for, as neither the one nor the other occurs frequently without some
imprudence or neglect of our own having been the primary cause, so the
reflection on that always furnishes the gloomy retrospect with its
principal sting.

So much is this the case that I hold it to be a position almost
incontrovertible, that out of every twenty worldly misfortunes,
nineteen occur in consequence of our own imprudence. Many will tell
you, it was owing to such and such a friend's imprudence that they
sustained all their losses. No such thing. Whose imprudence or want of
foresight was it that trusted such a friend, and put it in his power
to ruin them, and reduce the families that depended on them for
support, from a state of affluence to one of penury and bitter regret?
If the above position is admitted, then there is, as I have already
remarked, but one right and proper way in which misfortunes ought to
affect us; namely, by stirring us up to greater circumspection and
perseverance. Perseverance is a noble and inestimable virtue! There is
scarcely any difficulty or danger that it will not surmount. Whoever
observes a man bearing up under worldly misfortunes, with undaunted
resolution, will rarely fail to see that man ultimately successful.
And it may be depended on, that circumspection in business is a
quality so absolutely necessary, that without it the success of any
one will only be temporary.

The present Laird of J--s--y, better known by the appellation of Old
Sandy Singlebeard, was once a common hired shepherd, but he became
master of the virtues above recommended, for he had picked them up in
the severe school of misfortune. I have heard him relate the
circumstances myself, oftener than once. "My father had bought me a
stock of sheep," said he, "and fitted me out as a shepherd; and from
the profits of these, I had plenty of money to spend, and lay out on
good clothes; so that I was accounted a thriving lad, and rather a
dashing blade among the lasses. Chancing to change my master at a
term, I sold my sheep to the man who came in my place, and bought
those of the shepherd that went from the flock to which I was engaged.
But when the day of payment came, the man who bought my sheep could
not pay them, and without that money, I had not wherewith to pay mine
own. He put me off from week to week, until the matter grew quite
distressing; for, as the price of shepherds' stock goes straight
onward from one hand to another, probably twenty, or perhaps forty
people, were all kept out of their right by this backwardness of my
debtor. I craved him for the money every two or three days, grumbled,
and threatened a prosecution, till at last my own stock was poinded.
Thinking I should be disgraced beyond recovery, I exerted what little
credit I had, and borrowed as much as relieved my stock; and then,
being a good deal exasperated, resorted immediately to legal measures,
as they are called, in order to recover the debt due to me, the
non-payment of which had alone occasioned my own difficulties.
Notwithstanding every exertion, however, I could never draw a farthing
from my debtor, and only got deeper and deeper into expenses to no
purpose. Many a day it kept me bare and busy before I could clear my
feet, and make myself as free and independent as I was before. This
was the beginning of my misfortunes, but it was but the beginning;
year after year I lost and lost, until my little all was as good as
three times sold off at the ground; and at last I was so reduced, that
I could not say the clothes I wore were my own.

"This will never do, thought I; they shall crack well that persuade me
to sell at random again.--Accordingly, I thenceforth took good care of
all my sales that came to any amount. My rule was, to sell my little
things, such as wool, lambs, and fat sheep, worth the money; and not
to part with them till I got the price in my hand. This plan I never
rued; and people finding how the case stood, I had always plenty of
merchants; so that I would recommend it to every man who depends for
procuring the means of living on business such as mine. What does it
signify to sell your stock at a great price, merely for a boast, if
you never get the money for it? It will be long ere that make any one
rich or independent! This did all very well, but still I found, on
looking over my accounts at the end of the year, that there were a
great many items in which I was regularly taken in. My shoemaker
charged me half-a-crown more for every pair of shoes than I could have
bought them for in a market for ready money; the smith, threepence
more for shoeing them. My haberdasher's and tailor's accounts were
scandalous. In shirts, stockings, knives, razors, and even in
shirt-neck buttons, I found myself taken in to a certain amount. But I
was never so astonished, as to find out, by the plain rules of
addition and subtraction, assisted now and then by the best of all
practical rules--(I mean the one that says, 'if such a thing will
bring such a thing, what will such and such a number bring?')--to
find, I say, that the losses and profits in small things actually come
to more at the long-run, than any casual great slump loss, or profit,
that usually chances to a man in the course of business. Wo to the man
who is not aware of this! He is labouring for that which will not
profit him. By a course of strict economy, I at length not only
succeeded in clearing off the debt I had incurred, but saved as much
money as stocked the farm of Windlestrae-knowe. That proved a fair
bargain; so, when the lease was out, I took Doddysdamms in with it;
and now I am, as you see me, the Laird of J--s--y, and farmer of both
these besides. My success has been wholly owing to this:--misfortune
made me cautious--caution taught me a lesson which is not obvious to
every one, namely _the mighty importance of the two right-hand columns
in addition_. The two left-hand ones, those of pounds and shillings,
every one knows the value of. With a man of any common abilities,
those will take care of themselves; but he that neglects the pence and
farthings is a goose!"--

Any one who reads this will set down old Singlebeard as a miser; but I
scarcely know a man less deserving the character. If one is present to
hear him settling an account with another, he cannot help thinking him
niggardly, owing to his extraordinary avidity in small matters; but
there is no man whom customers like better to deal with, owing to his
high honour and punctuality. He will not pocket a farthing that is the
right of any man living, and he is always on the watch lest some
designing fellow overreach him in these minute particulars. For all
this, he has assisted many of his poor relations with money and
credit, when he thought them deserving it, or judged that it could be
of any benefit to them; but always with the strictest injunctions of
secrecy, and an assurance, that, if ever they hinted the transaction
to any one, they forfeited all chance of farther assistance from him.
The consequence of this has always been, that while he was doing a
great deal of good to others by his credit, he was railing against the
system of giving credit all the while; so that those who knew him not,
took him for a selfish, contracted, churlish old rascal.

He was once applied to in behalf of a nephew, who had some fair
prospects of setting up in business. He thought the stake too high,
and declined it; for it was a rule with him, never to credit any one
so far as to put it in his power to distress him, or drive him into
any embarrassment. A few months afterwards, he consented to become
bound for one half of the sum required, and the other half was made up
by some less wealthy relations in conjunction. The bonds at last
became due, and I chanced to be present on a visit to my old friend
Singlebeard, when the young man came to request his uncle's quota of
the money required. I knew nothing of the matter, but I could not help
noticing the change in old Sandy's look, the moment that his nephew
made his appearance. I suppose he thought him too foppish to be
entirely dependent on the credit of others, and perhaps judged his
success in business, on that account, rather doubtful. At all events,
the old Laird had a certain quizzical, dissatisfied look, that I never
observed before; and all his remarks were in conformity with it. In
addressing the young man, too, he used a degree of familiarity which
might be warranted by his seniority and relationship, and the
circumstances in which his nephew stood to him as an obliged party;
but it was intended to be as provoking as possible, and obviously did
not fail to excite a good deal of uneasy feeling.

"That's surely a very fine horse of yours, Jock?" said the
Laird.--"Hech, man, but he is a sleek ane! How much corn does he eat
in a year, this hunter of yours, Jock?"

"Not much, sir, not much. He is a very fine horse that, uncle. Look at
his shoulder; and see what limbs he has; and what a pastern!--How much
do you suppose such a horse would be worth, now, uncle?"

"Why, Jock, I cannot help thinking he is something like Geordy Dean's
daughter-in-law,--nought but a spindle-shankit devil! I would not
wonder if he had cost you eighteen pounds, that greyhound of a
creature?"

"What a prime judge you are! Why, uncle, that horse cost eighty-five
guineas last autumn. He is a real blood horse that; and has won a
great deal of valuable plate."

"Oh! that, indeed, alters the case! And have you got all that valuable
plate?"

"Nay, nay; it was before he came to my hand."

"That was rather a pity now, Jock--I cannot help thinking that was a
great pity; because if you had got the plate, you would have had
something you could have called your own.--So, you don't know how much
corn that fellow eats in a year?"

"Indeed I do not; he never gets above three feeds in a day, unless
when he is on a journey, and then he takes five or six."

"Then take an average of four: four feeds are worth two shillings at
least, as corn is selling. There is fourteen shillings a-week:
fourteen times fifty-two--why, Jock, there is L36, 8s. for horse's
corn; and there will be about half as much, or more, for hay, besides:
on the whole, I find he will cost you about L50 a-year at livery.--I
suppose there is an absolute necessity that a manufacturer should keep
such a horse?"

"O! God bless you, sir, to be sure. We must gather in money and
orders, you know. And then, consider the ease and convenience of
travelling on such a creature as that, compared with one of your vile
low-bred hacks; one goes through the country as he were flying, on
that animal."

Old Sandy paddled away from the stable, towards the house, chuckling
and laughing to himself; but again turned round, before he got
half-way.--"Right, Jock! quite right. Nothing like gathering in plenty
of money and orders. But, Jock, hark ye--I do not think there is any
necessity for _flying_ when one is on such a commission. You should go
leisurely and slowly through the towns and villages, keeping all your
eyes about you, and using every honest art to obtain good customers.
How can you do this, Jock, if you go as you were flying through the
country? People, instead of giving you a good order, will come to
their shop-door, and say--There goes the Flying Manufacturer!--Jock,
they say a rolling stone never gathers any moss. How do you think a
flying one should gather it?"

The dialogue went on in the same half-humorous, half-jeering tone all
the forenoon, as well as during dinner, while a great number of
queries still continued to be put to the young man; as--How much his
lodgings cost him a-year? The answer to this astounded old Sandy. His
comprehension could hardly take it in; he opened his eyes wide, and
held up his hands, exclaiming, with a great burst of breath, "What
enormous profits there must be in your business!" and then the Laird
proceeded with his provoking interrogatories--How much did his
nephew's fine boots and spurs cost? what was his tailor's bill yearly?
and every thing in the same manner; as if the young gentleman had come
from a foreign country, of which Sandy Singlebeard wished to note down
every particular. The nephew was a little in the fidgets, but knowing
the ground on which he stood, he answered all his uncle's queries but
too truly, impressing on his frugal mind a far greater idea of his own
expenditure than was necessary, and which my old friend could not help
viewing as utterly extravagant.

Immediately on the removal of the cloth, the young gentleman withdrew
into another room, and sending for his uncle to speak with him, he
there explained the nature of his errand, and how absolutely necessary
it was for him to have the money, for the relief of his bond. Old
Sandy was off in a twinkling. He had no money for him--not one
copper!--not the value of a hair of his thin grey beard should he have
from him! He had other uses for his money, and had won it too hardly
to give it to any one to throw away for him on grand rooms and
carpets, upon flying horses, and four-guinea boots!

They returned to the parlour, and we drank some whisky toddy together.
There was no more gibing and snappishness. The old man was civil and
attentive, but the face of the young one exhibited marks of anger and
despair. He took his leave, and went away abruptly enough; and I began
to break some jests on the Flying Manufacturer, in order to try the
humour of my entertainer. I soon found it out; old Singlebeard's shaft
was shot; and he now let me know he had a different opinion of his
nephew from what had been intimated by the whole course of his
conversation with the young man himself. He said he was a good lad; an
ingenious and honest one; that he scarcely knew a better of his years;
but he wanted to curb a little that _upsetting spirit_ in him, to
which every young man new to business was too much addicted.

The young gentleman went to his other friends in a sad pickle, and
represented himself to them as ruined beyond all redress; reprobating
all the while the inconsistency of his uncle, and his unaccountable
and ill-timed penury.

The most part of the young gentleman's relations were in deep dismay,
in consequence of the Laird's refusal to perform his engagement. But
one of them, after listening seriously to the narration, instead of
being vexed, only laughed immoderately at the whole affair, and said
he had never heard any thing so comic and truly ludicrous. "Go your
ways home, and mind your business," said he; "you do not know any
thing of old uncle Sandy: leave the whole matter to me, and I shall
answer for his share of the concern."

"You will be answerable at your own cost, then," said the nephew. "If
the money is not paid till he advance it, the sum will never be paid
on this side of time.--You may as well try to extract it from the rock
on the side of the mountain."

"Go your ways," said the other. "It is evident that you can do nothing
in the business; but were the sum three times the amount of what it
is, I shall be answerable for it."

It turned out precisely as this gentleman predicted; but no man will
conceive old Sandy's motive for refusing that which he was in fact
bound to perform: He could not bear to have it known that he had done
so liberal and generous an action, and wished to manage matters so,
that his nephew might believe the money to have been raised in some
other way attended with the utmost difficulty. He could not put his
nephew to the same school in which he himself had been taught, namely,
the School of Actual Adversity; but he wanted to give him a touch of
Ideal Misfortune; that he might learn the value of independence.




CHAPTER V.

GEORGE DOBSON'S EXPEDITION TO HELL.


There is no phenomenon in nature less understood, and about which
greater nonsense is written, than dreaming. It is a strange thing. For
my part, I do not understand it, nor have I any desire to do so; and I
firmly believe that no philosopher that ever wrote knows a particle
more about it than I do, however elaborate and subtle the theories he
may advance concerning it. He knows not even what sleep is, nor can he
define its nature, so as to enable any common mind to comprehend him;
and how, then, can he define that ethereal part of it, wherein the
soul holds intercourse with the external world?--how, in that state of
abstraction, some ideas force themselves upon us, in spite of all our
efforts to get rid of them; while others, which we have resolved to
bear about with us by night as well as by day, refuse us their
fellowship, even at periods when we most require their aid?

No, no; the philosopher knows nothing about either; and if he says he
does, I entreat you not to believe him. He does not know what mind is;
even his own mind, to which one would think he has the most direct
access: far less can he estimate the operations and powers of that of
any other intelligent being. He does not even know, with all his
subtlety, whether it be a power distinct from his body, or essentially
the same, and only incidentally and temporarily endowed with different
qualities. He sets himself to discover at what period of his existence
the union was established. He is baffled; for Consciousness refuses
the intelligence, declaring, that she cannot carry him far enough back
to ascertain it. He tries to discover the precise moment when it is
dissolved, but on this Consciousness is altogether silent; and all is
darkness and mystery; for the origin, the manner of continuance, and
the time and mode of breaking up of the union between soul and body,
are in reality undiscoverable by our natural faculties--are not
patent, beyond the possibility of mistake: but whosoever can read his
Bible, and solve a dream, can do either, without being subjected to
any material error.

It is on this ground that I like to contemplate, not the theory of
dreams, but the dreams themselves; because they prove to the
unlettered man, in a very forcible manner, a distinct existence of the
soul, and its lively and rapid intelligence with external nature, as
well as with a world of spirits with which it has no acquaintance,
when the body is lying dormant, and the same to the soul as if
sleeping in death.

I account nothing of any dream that relates to the actions of the day;
the person is not sound asleep who dreams about these things; there is
no division between matter and mind, but they are mingled together in
a sort of chaos--what a farmer would call compost--fermenting and
disturbing one another. I find that in all dreams of that kind, men of
every profession have dreams peculiar to their own occupations; and,
in the country, at least, their import is generally understood. Every
man's body is a barometer. A thing made up of the elements must be
affected by their various changes and convulsions; and so the body
assuredly is. When I was a shepherd, and all the comforts of my life
depended so much on good or bad weather, the first thing I did every
morning was strictly to overhaul the dreams of the night; and I found
that I could calculate better from them than from the appearance and
changes of the sky. I know a keen sportsman, who pretends that his
dreams never deceive him. If he dream of angling, or pursuing salmon
in deep waters, he is sure of rain; but if fishing on dry ground, or
in waters so low that the fish cannot get from him, it forebodes
drought; hunting or shooting hares, is snow, and moorfowl, wind, &c.
But the most extraordinary professional dream on record is, without
all doubt, that well-known one of George Dobson, coach-driver in
Edinburgh, which I shall here relate; for though it did not happen in
the shepherd's cot, it has often been recited there.

George was part proprietor and driver of a hackney-coach in Edinburgh,
when such vehicles were scarce; and one day a gentleman, whom he knew,
came to him and said:--"George, you must drive me and my son here out
to----," a certain place that he named, somewhere in the vicinity of
Edinburgh.

"Sir," said George, "I never heard tell of such a place, and I cannot
drive you to it unless you give me very particular directions."

"It is false," returned the gentleman; "there is no man in Scotland
who knows the road to that place better than you do. You have never
driven on any other road all your life; and I insist on your taking
us."

"Very well, sir," said George, "I'll drive you to hell, if you have a
mind; only you are to direct me on the road."

"Mount and drive on, then," said the other; "and no fear of the road."

George did so, and never in his life did he see his horses go at such
a noble rate; they snorted, they pranced, and they flew on; and as the
whole road appeared to lie down-hill, he deemed that he should soon
come to his journey's end. Still he drove on at the same rate, far,
far down-hill,--and so fine an open road he never travelled,--till by
degrees it grew so dark that he could not see to drive any farther. He
called to the gentleman, inquiring what he should do; who answered,
that this was the place they were bound to, so he might draw up,
dismiss them, and return. He did so, alighted from the dickie,
wondered at his foaming horses, and forthwith opened the coach-door,
held the rim of his hat with the one hand, and with the other demanded
his fare.

"You have driven us in fine style, George," said the elder gentleman,
"and deserve to be remembered; but it is needless for us to settle
just now, as you must meet us here again to-morrow precisely at twelve
o'clock."

"Very well, sir," said George; "there is likewise an old account, you
know, and some toll-money;" which indeed there was.

"It shall be all settled to-morrow, George, and moreover, I fear there
will be some toll-money to-day."

"I perceived no tolls to-day, your honour," said George.

"But I perceived one, and not very far back neither, which I suspect
you will have difficulty in repassing without a regular ticket. What a
pity I have no change on me!"

"I never saw it otherwise with your honour," said George, jocularly;
"what a pity it is you should always suffer yourself to run short of
change!"

"I will give you that which is as good, George," said the gentleman;
and he gave him a ticket written with red ink, which the honest
coachman could not read. He, however, put it into his sleeve, and
inquired of his employer where that same toll was which he had not
observed, and how it was that they did not ask toll from him as he
came through? The gentleman replied, by informing George that there
was no road out of that domain, and that whoever entered it must
either remain in it, or return by the same path; so they never asked
any toll till the person's return, when they were at times highly
capricious; but that the ticket he had given him would answer his
turn. And he then asked George if he did not perceive a gate, with a
number of men in black standing about it.

"Oho! Is yon the spot?" says George; "then, I assure your honour, yon
is no toll-gate, but a private entrance into a great man's mansion;
for do not I know two or three of the persons yonder to be gentlemen
of the law, whom I have driven often and often? and as good fellows
they are, too, as any I know--men who never let themselves run short
of change! Good day.--Twelve o'clock to-morrow?"

"Yes, twelve o'clock noon, precisely;" and with that, George's
employer vanished in the gloom, and left him to wind his way out of
that dreary labyrinth the best way he could. He found it no easy
matter, for his lamps were not lighted, and he could not see an ell
before him--he could not even perceive his horses' ears; and what was
worse, there was a rushing sound, like that of a town on fire, all
around him, that stunned his senses, so that he could not tell whether
his horses were moving or standing still. George was in the greatest
distress imaginable, and was glad when he perceived the gate before
him, with his two identical friends, men of the law, still standing.
George drove boldly up, accosted them by their names, and asked what
they were doing there; they made him no answer, but pointed to the
gate and the keeper. George was terrified to look at this latter
personage, who now came up and seized his horses by the reins,
refusing to let him pass. In order to introduce himself, in some
degree, to this austere toll-man, George asked him, in a jocular
manner, how he came to employ his two eminent friends as assistant
gate-keepers?

"Because they are among the last comers," replied the ruffian,
churlishly. "You will be an assistant here, to-morrow."

"The devil I will, sir?"

"Yes, the devil you will, sir."

"I'll be d--d if I do then--that I will."

"Yes, you'll be d--d if you do--that you will."

"Let my horses go in the meantime, then, sir, that I may proceed on my
journey."

"Nay."

"Nay?--Dare you say nay to me, sir? My name is George Dobson, of the
Pleasance, Edinburgh, coach-driver, and coach-proprietor too; and no
man shall say _nay_ to me, as long as I can pay my way. I have his
Majesty's license, and I'll go and come as I choose--and that I will.
Let go my horses there, and tell me what is your demand."

"Well, then, I'll let your horses go," said the keeper; "but I'll keep
yourself for a pledge." And with that he let go the horses, and seized
honest George by the throat, who struggled in vain to disengage
himself, and swore, and threatened, according to his own confession,
most bloodily. His horses flew off like the wind, so swift, that the
coach seemed flying in the air, and scarcely bounding on the earth
once in a quarter of a mile. George was in furious wrath, for he saw
that his grand coach and harness would all be broken to pieces, and
his gallant pair of horses maimed or destroyed; and how was his
family's bread now to be won!--He struggled, threatened, and prayed in
vain;--the intolerable toll-man was deaf to all remonstrances. He once
more appealed to his two genteel acquaintances of the law, reminding
them how he had of late driven them to Roslin on a Sunday, along with
two ladies, who, he supposed, were their sisters, from their
familiarity, when not another coachman in town would engage with them.
But the gentlemen, very ungenerously, only shook their heads, and
pointed to the gate. George's circumstances now became desperate, and
again he asked the hideous toll-man what right he had to detain him,
and what were his charges.

"What right have I to detain you, sir, say you? Who are you that make
such a demand here? Do you know where you are, sir?"

"No, faith, I do not," returned George; "I wish I did. But I _shall_
know, and make you repent your insolence too. My name, I told you, is
George Dobson, licensed coach-hirer in Pleasance, Edinburgh; and to
get full redress of you for this unlawful interruption, I only desire
to know where I am."

"Then, sir, if it can give you so much satisfaction to know where you
are," said the keeper, with a malicious grin, "you _shall_ know, and
you may take instruments by the hands of your two friends there,
instituting a legal prosecution. Your redress, you may be assured,
will be most ample, when I inform you that you are in HELL! and out at
this gate you pass no more."

This was rather a damper to George, and he began to perceive that
nothing would be gained in such a place by the strong hand, so he
addressed the inexorable toll-man, whom he now dreaded more than
ever, in the following terms: "But I must go home at all events, you
know, sir, to unyoke my two horses, and put them up, and to inform
Chirsty Halliday, my wife, of my engagement. And, bless me! I never
recollected till this moment, that I am engaged to be back here
to-morrow at twelve o'clock, and see, here is a free ticket for my
passage this way."

The keeper took the ticket with one hand, but still held George with the
other. "Oho! were you in with our honourable friend, Mr R---- of
L----y?" said he. "He has been on our books for a long while;--however,
this will do, only you must put your name to it likewise; and the
engagement is this--You, by this instrument, engage your soul, that you
will return here by to-morrow at noon."

"Catch me there, billy!" says George. "I'll engage no such thing,
depend on it;--that I will not."

"Then remain where you are," said the keeper, "for there is no other
alternative. We like best for people to come here in their own
way,--in the way of their business;" and with that he flung George
backward, heels-over-head down hill, and closed the gate.

George, finding all remonstrance vain, and being desirous once more to
see the open day, and breathe the fresh air, and likewise to see
Chirsty Halliday, his wife, and set his house and stable in some
order, came up again, and in utter desperation, signed the bond, and
was suffered to depart. He then bounded away on the track of his
horses, with more than ordinary swiftness, in hopes to overtake them;
and always now and then uttered a loud Wo! in hopes they might hear
and obey, though he could not come in sight of them. But George's
grief was but beginning; for at a well-known and dangerous spot, where
there was a tan-yard on the one hand, and a quarry on the other, he
came to his gallant steeds overturned, the coach smashed to pieces,
Dawtie with two of her legs broken, and Duncan dead. This was more
than the worthy coachman could bear, and many degrees worse than being
in hell. There, his pride and manly spirit bore him up against the
worst of treatment; but here, his heart entirely failed him, and he
laid himself down, with his face on his two hands, and wept bitterly,
bewailing, in the most deplorable terms, his two gallant horses,
Dawtie and Duncan.

While lying in this inconsolable state, some one took hold of his
shoulder, and shook it; and a well-known voice said to him, "Geordie!
what is the matter wi' ye, Geordie?" George was provoked beyond
measure at the insolence of the question, for he knew the voice to be
that of Chirsty Halliday, his wife. "I think you needna ask that,
seeing what you see," said George. "O, my poor Dawtie, where are a'
your jinkings and prancings now, your moopings and your wincings?
I'll ne'er be a proud man again--bereaved o' my bonny pair!"

"Get up, George; get up, and bestir yourself," said Chirsty Halliday,
his wife. "You are wanted directly, to bring in the Lord President to
the Parliament House. It is a great storm, and he must be there by
nine o'clock.--Get up--rouse yourself, and make ready--his servant is
waiting for you."

"Woman, you are demented!" cried George. "How can I go and bring in
the Lord President, when my coach is broken in pieces, my poor Dawtie
lying with twa of her legs broken, and Duncan dead? And, moreover, I
have a previous engagement, for I am obliged to be in hell before
twelve o'clock."

Chirsty Halliday now laughed outright, and continued long in a fit of
laughter; but George never moved his head from the pillow, but lay and
groaned,--for, in fact, he was all this while lying snug in his bed;
while the tempest without was roaring with great violence, and which
circumstance may perhaps account for the rushing and deafening sound
which astounded him so much in hell. But so deeply was he impressed
with the idea of the reality of his dream, that he would do nothing
but lie and moan, persisting and believing in the truth of all he had
seen. His wife now went and informed her neighbours of her husband's
plight, and of his singular engagement with Mr R----of L----y at
twelve o'clock. She persuaded one friend to harness the horses, and go
for the Lord President; but all the rest laughed immoderately at poor
coachy's predicament. It was, however, no laughing to him; he never
raised his head, and his wife becoming at last uneasy about the
frenzied state of his mind, made him repeat every circumstance of his
adventure to her, (for he would never believe or admit that it was a
dream,) which he did in the terms above narrated; and she perceived,
or dreaded, that he was becoming somewhat feverish. She went out, and
told Dr Wood of her husband's malady, and of his solemn engagement to
be in hell at twelve o'clock.

"He maunna keep it, dearie. He maunna keep that engagement at no
rate," said Dr Wood. "Set back the clock an hour or twa, to drive him
past the time, and I'll ca' in the course of my rounds. Are ye sure he
hasna been drinking hard?"--She assured him he had not.--"Weel, weel,
ye maun tell him that he maunna keep that engagement at no rate. Set
back the clock, and I'll come and see him. It is a frenzy that maunna
be trifled with. Ye maunna laugh at it, dearie,--maunna laugh at it.
Maybe a nervish fever, wha kens."

The Doctor and Chirsty left the house together, and as their road lay
the same way for a space, she fell a-telling him of the two young
lawyers whom George saw standing at the gate of hell, and whom the
porter had described as two of the last comers. When the Doctor heard
this, he stayed his hurried, stooping pace in one moment, turned full
round on the woman, and fixing his eyes on her, that gleamed with a
deep, unstable lustre, he said, "What's that ye were saying, dearie?
What's that ye were saying? Repeat it again to me, every word." She
did so. On which the Doctor held up his hands, as if palsied with
astonishment, and uttered some fervent ejaculations. "I'll go with you
straight," said he, "before I visit another patient. This is
wonderfu'! it is terrible! The young gentlemen are both at rest--both
lying corpses at this time! Fine young men--I attended them both--died
of the same exterminating disease--Oh, this is wonderful; this is
wonderful!"

The Doctor kept Chirsty half running all the way down the High Street
and St Mary's Wynd, at such a pace did he walk, never lifting his eyes
from the pavement, but always exclaiming now and then, "It is
wonderfu'! most wonderfu'!" At length, prompted by woman's natural
curiosity, Chirsty inquired at the Doctor if he knew any thing of
their friend Mr R---- of L----y. But he shook his head, and replied,
"Na, na, dearie,--ken naething about him. He and his son are baith in
London,--ken naething about him; but the tither is awfu'--it is
perfectly awfu'!"

When Dr Wood reached his patient, he found him very low, but only a
little feverish; so he made all haste to wash his head with vinegar
and cold water, and then he covered the crown with a treacle plaster,
and made the same application to the soles of his feet, awaiting the
issue. George revived a little, when the Doctor tried to cheer him up
by joking him about his dream; but on mention of that he groaned, and
shook his head. "So you are convinced, dearie, that it is nae dream?"
said the Doctor.

"Dear sir, how could it be a dream?" said the patient. "I was there in
person, with Mr R---- and his son; and see, here are the marks of the
porter's fingers on my throat."--Dr Wood looked, and distinctly saw
two or three red spots on one side of his throat, which confounded him
not a little.--"I assure you, sir," continued George, "it was no
dream, which I know to my sad experience. I have lost my coach and
horses,--and what more have I?--signed the bond with my own hand, and
in person entered into the most solemn and terrible engagement."

"But ye're no to keep it, I tell ye," said Dr Wood; "ye're no to keep
it at no rate. It is a sin to enter into a compact wi' the deil, but
it is a far greater ane to keep it. Sae let Mr R---- and his son bide
where they are yonder, for ye sanna stir a foot to bring them out the
day."

"Oh, oh, Doctor!" groaned the poor fellow, "this is not a thing to be
made a jest o'! I feel that it is an engagement that I cannot break.
Go I must, and that very shortly. Yes, yes, go I must, and go I will,
although I should borrow David Barclay's pair." With that he turned
his face towards the wall, groaned deeply, and fell into a lethargy,
while Dr Wood caused them to let him alone, thinking if he would sleep
out the appointed time, which was at hand, he would be safe; but all
the time he kept feeling his pulse, and by degrees showed symptoms of
uneasiness. His wife ran for a clergyman of famed abilities, to pray
and converse with her husband, in hopes by that means to bring him to
his senses; but after his arrival, George never spoke more, save
calling to his horses, as if encouraging them to run with great speed;
and thus in imagination driving at full career to keep his
appointment, he went off in a paroxysm, after a terrible struggle,
precisely within a few minutes of twelve o'clock.

A circumstance not known at the time of George's death made this
singular professional dream the more remarkable and unique in all its
parts. It was a terrible storm on the night of the dream, as has been
already mentioned, and during the time of the hurricane, a London
smack went down off Wearmouth about three in the morning. Among the
sufferers were the Hon. Mr R---- of L----y, and his son! George could
not know aught of this at break of day, for it was not known in
Scotland till the day of his interment; and as little knew he of the
deaths of the two young lawyers, who both died of the small-pox the
evening before.




CHAPTER VI.

THE SOUTERS OF SELKIRK.


I have heard an amusing story of a young man whose name happened to be
the same as that of the hero of the preceding chapter--George Dobson.
He was a shoemaker, a very honest man, who lived at the foot of an old
street, called the Back Row, in the town of Selkirk. He was upwards of
thirty, unmarried, had an industrious old stepmother, who kept house
for him, and of course George was what is called "a bein bachelor," or
"a chap that was gayan weel to leeve." He was a cheerful happy fellow,
and quite sober, except when on the town-council, when he sometimes
took a glass with the magistrates of his native old borough, of whose
loyalty, valour, and antiquity, there was no man more proud.

Well, one day, as George was sitting in his _shop_, as he called it,
(though no man now-a-days would call that a shop in which there was
nothing to sell,) sewing away at boots and shoes for his customers,
whom he could not half hold in whole leather, so great was the demand
over all the country for George Dobson's boots and shoes--he was
sitting, I say, plying away, and singing with great glee,--

    "Up wi' the Souters o' Selkirk,
      And down wi' the Earl o' Hume,
    And up wi' a' the brave billies
      That sew the single-soled shoon!
    And up wi' the yellow, the yellow;
      The yellow and green hae doon weel;
    Then up wi' the lads of the Forest,
      But down wi' the Merse to the deil!"

The last words were hardly out of George's mouth, when he heard a
great noise enter the Back Row, and among the voices one making loud
proclamation, as follows:--

    "Ho yes!--Ho yes!
    Souters ane, Souters a',
    Souters o' the Back Raw,
    There's a gentleman a-coming
    Wha will ca' ye _Souters_ a'."

"I wish he durst," said George. "That will be the Earl o' Hume wha's
coming. He has had us at ill-will for several generations. Bring my
aik staff into the shop, callant, and set it down beside me here--and
ye may bring ane to yoursell too.--I say, callant, stop. Bring my
grandfather's auld sword wi' ye. I wad like to see the Earl o' Hume,
or ony o' his cronies, come and cast up our honest calling and
occupation till us!"

George laid his oak staff on the cutting-board before him, and leaned

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