happiness and each other. We must part--each of us to struggle with our
respective evils. Call up all your strength of mind--the much in your
character that has as yet lain unemployed--and so despicable a thing as
Simpson will not dare to annoy you. You may yet meet with a man worthy
of you; some one who will love you as well as--as one who can at least
appreciate your value, and who will deserve you better." As he spoke,
and his mistress listened in silence and in tears, William Stewart burst
in upon them through the bushes; and with a countenance flushed, and a
frame tremulous with passion, assailed the fisherman with a torrent of
threats and reproaches. He even raised his hand. The prudence of Thomson
gave way under the provocation. Ere the blow had descended, he had
locked the farmer in his grasp, and with an exertion of strength which
scarcely a giant would be capable of in a moment of less excitement, he
raised him from the earth, and forced him against the grassy side of the
ravine, where he held him despite of his efforts. A shriek from Lillias
recalled him to the command of himself. "William Stewart," he said,
quitting his hold and stepping back, "you are an old man, and the father
of Lillias." The farmer rose slowly and collectedly, with a flushed
cheek but a quiet eye, as if all his anger had evaporated in the
struggle, and, turning to his daughter--
"Come, Lillias, my lassie," he said, laying hold of her arm, "I have
been too hasty--I have been in the wrong." And so they parted.
Winter came on, and Thomson was again left to the solitude of his
cottage, with only his books and his own thoughts to employ him. He
found little amusement or comfort in either; he could think of only
Lillias--that she loved and was yet lost to him.
"Generous, and affectionate, and confiding," he has said, when thinking
of her, "I know she would willingly share with me in my poverty; but ill
would I repay her kindness in demanding of her such a sacrifice.
Besides, how could I endure to see her subjected to the privations of a
destiny so humble as mine? The same heaven that seems to have ordained
me to labour and to be unsuccessful, has given me a mind not to be
broken by either toil or disappointment; but keenly and bitterly would I
feel the evils of both, were she to be equally exposed. I must strive to
forget her, or think of her only as my friend." And, indulging in such
thoughts as these, and repeating and re-repeating similar
resolutions--only, however, to find them unavailing--winter, with its
long, dreary nights, and its days of languor and inactivity, passed
heavily away. But it passed.
He was sitting beside his fire, one evening late in February, when a
gentle knock was heard at the door. He started up, and, drawing back the
bar, William Stewart entered the apartment.
"Allan," said the old man, "I have come to have some conversation with
you, and would have come sooner, but pride and shame kept me back. I
fear I have been much to blame."
Thomson motioned him to a seat, and sat down beside him.
"Farmer," he said, "since we cannot recall the past, we had, perhaps,
better forget it."
The old man bent forward his head till it rested almost on his knee, and
for a few moments remained silent.
"I fear, Allan, I have been much to blame," he at length reiterated. "Ye
maun come an' see Lillias. She is ill, very ill--an' I fear no very like
to get better." Thomson was stunned by the intelligence, and answered he
scarcely knew what. "She has never been richt hersel," continued the old
man, "sin' the unlucky day when you an' I met in the burn here; but for
the last month she has been little out o' her bed. Since mornin there
has been a great change on her, an' she wishes to see you. I fear we
havena meikle time to spare, an' had better gang." Thomson followed him
in silence.
They reached the farm-house of Meikle Farness, and entered the chamber
where the maiden lay. A bright fire of brushwood threw a flickering
gloom on the floor and rafters, and their shadows, as they advanced,
seemed dancing on the walls. Close beside the bed there was a small
table, bearing a lighted candle, and with a Bible lying open upon it, at
that chapter of Corinthians in which the Apostle assures us that the
dead shall rise and the mortal put on immortality. Lillias half sat,
half reclined, in the upper part of the bed. Her thin and wasted
features had already the stiff rigidity of death, her cheeks and lips
were colourless, and, though the blaze seemed to dance and flicker on
her half-closed eyes, they served no longer to intimate to the departing
spirit the existence of external things.
"Ah, my Lillias!" exclaimed Thomson, as he bent over her, his heart
swelling with an intense agony. "Alas! has it come to this!"
His well-known voice served to recall her, as from the precincts of
another world. A faint melancholy smile passed over her features, and
she held out her hand.
"I was afraid," she said, in a voice sweet and gentle as ever, though
scarcely audible through extreme weakness, "I was afraid that I was
never to see you more. Draw nearer--there is a darkness coming over me,
and I hear but imperfectly. I may now say with a propriety which no one
will challenge, what I durst not have said before. Need I tell you that
you were the dearest of all my friends--the only man I ever loved--the
man whose lot, however low and unprosperous, I would have deemed it a
happiness to be invited to share? I do not, however--I cannot reproach
you. I depart and for ever; but, oh, let not a single thought of me
render you unhappy; my few years of life have not been without their
pleasures, and I go to a better and brighter world. I am weak and cannot
say more; but let me hear you speak. Read to me the eighth chapter of
Romans."
Thomson, with a voice tremulous and faltering through emotion, read the
chapter. Ere he had made an end, the maiden had again sunk into the
state of apparent insensibility out of which she had been so lately
awakened; though, occasionally, a faint pressure of his hand, which she
still retained, shewed him that she was not unconscious of his presence.
At length, however, there was a total relaxation of the grasp--the cold
damp of the stiffening palm struck a chill to his heart--there was a
fluttering of the pulse, a glazing of the eye--the breast ceased to
heave, the heart to beat--the silver cord parted in twain, and the
golden bowl was broken. Thomson contemplated, for a moment, the body of
his mistress, and, striking his hand against his forehead, rushed out of
the apartment.
He attended her funeral--he heard the earth falling heavy and hollow on
the coffin-lid--he saw the green sod placed over her grave--he witnessed
the irrepressible anguish of her father, and the sad regret of her
friends--and all this without shedding a tear. He was turning to depart,
when some one thrust a letter into his hand; he opened it almost
mechanically. It contained a considerable sum of money, and a few lines
from his agent, stating that, in consequence of a favourable change in
his circumstances, he had been enabled to satisfy all his creditors.
Thomson crumpled up the bills in his hand. He felt as if his heart stood
still in his breast; a noise seemed ringing in his ears; a mist cloud
appeared as if rising out of the earth and darkening round him. He was
caught, when falling, by old William Stewart, and, on awakening to
consciousness and the memory of the past, found himself in his arms. He
lived for about ten years after, a laborious and speculative man, ready
to oblige, and successful in all his designs. And no one deemed him
unhappy. It was observed, however, that his dark brown hair was soon
mingled with masses of grey, and that his tread became heavy and his
frame bent. It was remarked, too, that, when attacked by a lingering
epidemic, which passed over well-nigh the whole country, he of all the
people was the only one that sank under it.
THE LINTON LAIRDS, OR EXCLUSIVES AND INCLUSIVES.
In no part of her Majesty's widespread dominions does mighty Aristocracy
rear its proud head with greater majesty than at Linton. There are, or
were, in the neighbourhood of that ancient borough, no fewer than
forty-five lairds, all possessing portions of the soil; and from the
soil it is that the big genius of aristocratic pride derives, like the
old oak, the pith of her power. It is of no avail to say--and we, being
ourselves of an ancient family, as poor as the old dark denizens of the
soil who were displaced by the Norwegian brown species, despise the
taunt--that fifteen out of the whole number of Linton lairds were, at
one period, on the poor's box. Gentry, with old noble blood in their
veins, are not a whit less to be valued that they are beggars, for it is
the peculiar character of gentle blood, that it never gets thinner by
poor meat. A low marriage sometimes deteriorates it; and hence the
horror of the privileged species at that kind of degradation; but the
tenth cousin of a scurvy baronet will retain the purity of the noble
fluid, in spite of husks, acorns, and onions. All the efforts of the
patriots called radicals--even if they should have recourse to the
starving system, by taking the properties of their masters--will never
be able to bring down to a proper popular equal consistency the blood of
the old stock; and so long as they dare not, for the spilling of their
own thin stuff, _let out_ the life stream of their lords, they must
submit to see it running in the old channels as ruby and routhy as it
did in the reign of Malcolm Canmore.
But you may say that Laird Geddes of Cauldshouthers was no Linton laird,
and was never on the poor's box. Take it as you please, we will not
dispute with you if you come from Tweeddale. You are, perhaps, of the
old Hamiltons of Cauldcoats, or the Bertrams of Duckpool, or the Hays
of Glenmuck, or the old tory lairds of Bogend, Hallmyre, or Windylaws,
and may challenge us, like a true knight, for endeavouring to reduce the
grandeur of your compeers; and therefore, to keep peace, we will be
contented with the admission that Gilbert Geddes was the thane, or, as
Miss Joanna Baillie would have it, according to the distinction
indicated in the line, "the _thanies_ drinking in the hall," the
thanie--that is, the lesser Thane of Cauldshouthers, in the shire of
Peebles. True, there was in that county, properly only one thane, viz.,
he of Drumelzier, whose castle, now in ruins, may still be seen near
Powsail; but of the lesser order there were many; and, if any
gutter-blooded burgher of Linton had, in his cups at Cantswalls, alleged
anything to the contrary, he might have been set down as a leveller. The
property of Cauldshouthers was of that kind comprehending a mixture of
bog, mire, and moss, which is indicated by its name. Indeed, almost all
the estates in that shire bore names no less appropriate; and, though
some proprietors, such as Montgomerie, Veitch, Keith, and Kennedy, have
endeavoured to impart a gentility to their possessions by rechristening
them, they did so, we shrewdly suspect, to conceal the fact that they
were new comers, and not of the noble old Hallmyres, Bogends, Blairbogs,
and Cauldcoats. Not so, however, Gilbert Geddes, for the laird was of
the good ancient stock of Cauldshouthers, and gloried in the name as he
did in the old blood that had come down through honourable veins,
unadulterated and unobstructed--save probably by a partial congelation,
the effect of the cold barren lands--until it landed, with an
accumulation of dignity, in his own arteries, and those of his sister,
Miss Grizelda.
Nothing in the world could have been more natural than that one of so
old a family should endeavour to keep up the stock by marriage; yet it
was true, and as lamentable as true, that Mr. Gilbert had not been
able--though the fiftieth summer had shone on Cauldshouthers since he
was born in the old house--to get matters so arranged as to place
himself within the noose in a manner befitting his dignity. Somehow or
another, the other proprietors around, such as Bogend and Glenmuck,
pretended to discover that their blood was thicker than that of the
Geddeses, and not a scion of their stocks would they allow to be
engrafted on the good old oak of Cauldshouthers. It is, however, an old
saying, that fortune favours the brave in marriage as in war, and the
adage seemed fair to be realized, for, one day, the laird came from
Linton a walking omen of prospective success, and the very first words
he said to his sister Grizelda boded good.
"Ken ye the dame Shirley, wha lives at the east end o' Linton?" said he,
as he sat down on the big oak chair in the mansion of Cauldshouthers.
"Better than you do, Gilbert," rejoined the sister. "Her maiden name is
Bertram; but wha her husband was is no easy tauld. They say he was a
captain in England, but I canna say she has ony o' the dignity o' a
captain's widow. Report says naething in her favour, unless it be that
she's a descendant o' the Bertrams o' Duckpool."
"Ah, Grizel!" ejaculated Gilbert, "if ye could mak out that pedigree, a'
her fauts would be easily covered, especially with the help of the five
thousand she has got left her by a cotton-spinner in St. Mungo's. Ye
maun try and mak out the pedigree, Grizel. Set about it, woman; mair
depends on't than ye wot."
"What depends on't?" replied the sister.
"Maybe the junction o' the twa ancient families," rejoined he.
"Are ye serious, brother?" said Grizel, as she stroked down her boddice,
and sat as upright as the dignity of the family of Cauldshouthers
required.
"Indeed am I," rejoined the laird. "I want to be about with Bogend and
Glenmuck, who refused me their dochters. Ken ye the antiquity o' the
Bertrams?"
"Brawly," was the reply of the stiff Grizelda. "They count as far back
as the fifth James, who, passing through Tweeddale, was determined to
pay nae court to the Thane of Drumelzier; and yet he couldna mak his
way--in a country where hill rides upon hill, and moss joins moss, frae
Tweedscross to the Cauldstane-slap--without some assistance, the mair by
note that he stuck in the mire, and might have been there yet, had it no
been for Jock Bertram, a hind, who got the royal traveller and his men
out, and led them through the thane's lands, to Glenwhappen. John got
the mire whar the king stuck, which was called Duckpool, as a free gift
to him and his heirs. But we o' Cauldshouthers are aulder, I ween, than
even that, and we maun keep up our dignity."
"So we maun, Grizel; but you've forgot the best part o' the story, how
the Thane o' Drumelzier having heard that a stranger had passed through
his lands without paying him homage, rode with his men, mounted on white
horses, after the rebels, and cam up with them just as the king was
carousing after his journey. The thane, I wot, was sune on his knees.
But we're aff the pin o' the wheel, Girz. The question is, could the
family o' Geddes o' Cauldshouthers stand the shock o' a marriage wi' a
doubtfu' descendant o' Jock Bertram, with five thousand in her pouch?"
"We're sae _very, very_ ancient, ye see Gib," replied the sister, as she
looked meditatingly, and twirled her two thumbs at the end of her rigid
arms. "Indeed, we're a'thegither lost in mist, and, for aught we ken, we
may be as auld as the Hunters o' Polmood, wha got a grant o' the twa
Hopes frae Malcolm Canmore. Duckpool is a mere bairn to Cauldshouthers,
and this woman mayna be a real Bertram after a'. There were English
Bertrams, ye ken--Bertram the Archer was o' them, and he followed the
trade o' robbery."
"And what auld honourable family about the Borders ever got their lands
in ony other way, Girz!" replied the brother.
"Nane, of course," rejoined Grizel; "but maybe Mrs. Shirley comes frae
the real Bertrams, and five thousand might be laid out in draining the
lands. Nae doubt she wad jump at ye, Gib!"
"That makes me laugh, Girz!" rejoined the brother. "The legatee o' a
cotton-spinner jump at the Laird o' Cauldshouthers! Ay, if he wad stoop
to let her--that's the question, sister; and there's nae other, for I
was wi' the dame this very day, within an hour after Rory Flayem, the
Linton writer, gave me the hint o' her gude fortune. I cam on her wi' a'
the force o' the dignity o' our family, and the very name o' our lands
made her shiver in tory veneration. She was thunderstruck at the
honour."
"I dinna wonder at that," replied Grizel. "I mysel hae aften wondered at
the ancientness o' our house, and pity the silly fools wha change the
names o' their properties. Ha, ha! I fancy if the Duke o' Argyle had
been ane o' the auld Blairbogs, he wadna hae changed the name o' their
auld inheritance to that o' 'The Whim.'"
"Na, faith he, Girz!"
"And, by my troth," continued the sister, "I think the guidwife o'
Middlebie, wha bade us change Cauldshouthers to Blinkbonny, was a wee
envious, and deserved a catechising for her pains."
"There's nae doubt o't," added the brother. "But we're aff the wire
again, Girz. Is it really your honest opinion that our honour would
stand the shock o' the connection wi' the Widow Shirley?"
"The Emperor o' Muscovy," replied the sister, with a toss of her head,
"didna lose a jot o' his greatness by marrying the cottager. The eagles
o' Glenholme stoop to pick up the stanechaffers and fatten on them; and,
really, I think, a'thing considered, that Cauldshouthers might, without
a bend o' the back, bear up a burgher."
"The practice is, at least, justified by the aristocracy," added
Gilbert; "and, ye ken, that's enough for us. It wad tak a guid drap o'
burgher bluid, and mair, I wot, if there's ony o' the Duckpool sap in't,
to thin that o' the Geddeses."
"And even if our honour was a wee thing damaged," rejoined the sister,
"that might be made up by our lands being changed frae bog to arable,
though, I believe, the bog, after a', is the auldest soil o' the
country. Even the sad fate o' Nichol Muschet didna a'thegither destroy
the respectability o' the Bogha's. There's great ancientness in bogs,
yet as there's a kind o' fashion now-a-days about arable, I wadna be
against the change to a certain limited extent. Ye hae now my opinion on
this important subject, Gilbert, and may act according to the dictates
o' the high spirit o' our auld race."
The door opened, and Rory Flayem entered.
"Weel, hae ye made the inquiry?" said the laird. "Has Mrs. Shirley
really got a legacy o' the five thousand?"
"I have seen the cotton-spinner's will!" replied the writer, "and there
can be nae doubt of the legacy."
Why more?--Next day the spruce laird was rapping at the door of the
widow heiress. He entered with the cool dignity of his caste; and might
have come out under the influence of the same cool prudence, had not his
honourable blood been fired by the presence of one of those worthies
already hinted at--a Linton laird--who could have been about nothing
else in the world than trying to get a lift from off the poor's box, by
the assistance of the Widow Shirley.
"Your servant, sir," said the Linton portioner; "I did not think you had
been acquainted here. Ane might rather hae expected to hae seen you
about Bogend or Glennmuck, where there are still some braw leddies to
dispose of."
The remark was impertinent, doubtless, and horribly ill-timed, because
Cauldshouthers had been rejected by Bogend, and he was here a suitor
competing with one who desecrated the term he gloried in, and whom,
along with the whole class of Linton lairds, he hated mortally and he
had a good right to hate them, for some of them with no more than ten
pounds a-year, were still heritors, and not only heritors, but ancient
heritors, not much less ancient than the Geddeses themselves, so that
they were a species of mock aristocrats, coming yet so near the real
ones in the very attributes which the latter arrogated to themselves,
that it required an effort of the mind to distinguish the real from the
false. But Mr. Gilbert admitted of no such dubiety, and marked the
difference decidedly and effectually. He did not return the Linton
aristocrat an answer, but, drawing himself up, turned to the window as
if to survey his competitor's estate, which consisted of a rood or two
of arable land, and to wait till the latter took his hat. The Linton
aristocrat very soon left the room; and however unimportant this slight
event may appear, it was in fact decisive of the higher aristocrat's
fate, for the blood of the Geddeses was up, and the heat of tory blood
is a condition of the precious fluid not to be laughed at.
"Ye'll hae nae want o' thae sma' heritor creatures after ye, dame," said
he, as he condescended to sit down by the blushing widow.
"Yes," answered she, with great simplicity. "Fortune, Mr. Geddes, brings
friends, or, at least, would-be friends, and one who has few relations
requires to be on her guard."
"It is everything in thae matters," said the proprietor, "to look to
respectability and station. Thae Linton bodies ca' themselves lairds,
because they are proprietors o' about as muckle ground as would mak guid
roomy graves to them. A real laird is something very different. And it's
a pity when it becomes necessary that _we_ should shew them the
difference."
"Ah, you are of an ancient and honourable family, Mr. Geddes," said the
widow. "Cauldshouthers is a name as familiar to me as Oliver Castle, or
Drochel, or Neidpath, or Drumelzier."
"I see ye hae a proper estimate o' the degrees o' dignity, dame," said
he; "and, doubtless, ye'll mak the better use o' the fortune that has
been left ye; but I could expect naething less frae ane o' the
Duckpools. I'm thinking ye're o' the right Bertrams."
"Yes," replied she; "and then my husband was descended from the
Shirleys, Earl Ferrars, and Baron Ferrars of Chartley. His arms were the
same as the Beauchamps, at least he used to say so. What are your's, Mr.
Geddes?"
"Maybe ye dinna ken heraldry, dame!" replied the laird. "Our arms are
vert, _three peat bags_, argent--the maist ancient o' the bearings in
Tweeddale; as, indeed, may be evinced frae the description--peat land
being clearly the original soil. Would it no be lamentable to think that
sae ancient a family should end in my person."
"It is in your own power to prevent that, Mr. Geddes!" answered she.
"Say rather in your power, dame Shirley!" rejoined he, determined to cut
out the Linton heritor by one bold stroke.
"O Mr. Geddes!" sighed the widow, holding her head at the proper angle
of _naivete_.
"Nae wonder that she's owrepowered by the honour," muttered the suitor,
as he took breath to finish what he had so resolutely begun. "I am
serious, madam," he continued. "To be plain wi' ye, and come to the
point at ance, I want a mistress to Cauldshouthers; and you are the
individual wham I hae selected to do the honours o' that important
situation."
"Oh--O Mr. Geddes!" again cried the dame. "You have _such_ a winning way
of wooing!"
"I fancy there canna be the slightest breath o' objection," again said
he, in his consciousness of having ennobled her in an instant by the
mere hint of the honour.
"She would be a bold woman, besides a fool, that would reject so good an
offer," replied she, burying her face in a napkin.
"That she would," rejoined Gilbert--"baith bauld and an idiot; and now,
since ye hae received the honour wi' suitable modesty and gratitude,
there is just ae condition that I wad like satisfied; and that is, that
ye wad do your best to support the dignity o' the station to which you
are to be elevated. Your ain pedigree, ye see, is at best but a dubious
concern; and, therefore, it will require a' your efforts to comport
yoursel in such a way as to accord suitably wi' the forms and punctilios
o' aristocracy. It is just as weel, by the by, that ye hae few
relatives; because, while the honour o' our ancient house may retain its
character, in spite o' a match maybe in nae sma' degree below it, it
might become a very different affair in the case o' a multitude o' puir
beggarly relations."
"I am nearly the last of my race, Mr. Geddes," replied she. "Is it not
strange that we should be so very like each other?"
"Ay, in _that_ particular respect," added the laird, as a salvo of their
inequality.