The storms of life before thee fled;
The glory and the guiding light,
That onward cheer'd and upward led;
From boyhood to this very hour,
For me, and only me, thy flower
Its fragrance seem'd to shed.
IV
Dark though the world for me might show
Its sordid faith and selfish gloom,
Yet 'mid life's wilderness to know
For me that sweet flower shed its bloom,
Was joy, was solace:--thou art gone--
And hope forsook me, when the stone
Sank darkly o'er thy tomb.
V
And art thou dead? I dare not think
That thus the solemn truth can be;
And broken is the only link
That chain'd youth's pleasant thoughts to me!
Alas! that thou couldst know decay,
That, sighing, I should live to say
"The cold grave holdeth thee!"
VI
For me thou shon'st, as shines a star,
Lonely, in clouds when Heaven is lost;
Thou wert my guiding light afar,
When on misfortune's billows tost:
Now darkness hath obscured that light,
And I am left in rayless night,
On Sorrow's lowering coast.
VII
And art thou gone? I deem'd thee some
Immortal essence--art thou gone?--
I saw thee laid within the tomb,
And turn'd away to mourn alone:
Once to have loved, is to have loved
Enough; and, what with thee I proved,
Again I'll seek in none.
VIII
Earth in thy sight grew faery land;--
Life was Elysium--thought was love,--
When, long ago, hand clasp'd in hand,
We roam'd through Autumn's twilight grove;
Or watch'd the broad uprising moon
Shed, as it were, a wizard noon,
The blasted heath above.
IX
Farewell!--and must I say farewell?--
No--thou wilt ever be to me
A present thought; thy form shall dwell
In love's most holy sanctuary;
Thy voice shall mingle with my dreams,
And haunt me, when the shot-star gleams
Above the rippling sea.
X
Never revives the past again;
But still thou art, in lonely hours,
To me earth's heaven,--the azure main,--
Soft music,--and the breath of flowers;
My heart shall gain from thee its hues;
And Memory give, though Truth refuse,
The bliss that once was ours!
After this, Mr Batter read over to us a great many other curiosities,
about foreign things wonderful to hear, and foreign places wonderful to
behold. Moreover, also, of divers adventures by sea and land. But the
time wearing late, and Tammie Bodkin having brought ben the shop-key,
after putting on the window-shutters, Nanse and I, out of
good-fellowship, thought we could not do less than ask the honest man,
whose cleverality had diverted us so much, to sit still and take a chack
of supper;--James being up in the air, from having been allowed to ride
on his hobby so briskly, made only a show of objection; so, after a
rizzard haddo, we had a jug of toddy, and sat round the fire with our
feet on the fender--Benjie having fallen asleep with his clothes on, and
been carried away to his bed. Poor bit mannikin!
I never remember to have heard James so prime either on Boston or
Josephus; but as his heart warmed with the liquor and the good fire, for
it was a cold rawish night,--he returned to Taffy with the pigtail's
master; and insisted, that as we had heard about his foreign sweetheart's
death, which he appeared to have taken so much to heart, we should just
bear with him once more, as he read over what he called her dirgie, which
was written on a half-sheet of grey mouldy paper--as if handed down from
the days of the Covenanters. It jingles well; and both Nanse and me
thought it gey and pretty; but eh! if ye only had heard how James Batter
read it. It beat cock-fighting.
DIRGE
I
Weep not for her!--Oh she was far too fair,
Too pure to dwell on this guilt-tainted earth!
The sinless glory, and the golden air
Of Zion, seem'd to claim her from her birth;
A Spirit wander'd from its native Zone,
Which, soon discovering, took her for its own:
Weep not for Her!
II
Weep not for her!--Her span was like the sky,
Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright;
Like flowers that know not what it is to die;
Like long-linked, shadeless months of Polar light;
Like music floating o'er a waveless lake,
While Echo answers from the flowery brake:
Weep not for Her!
III
Weep not for her!--She died in early youth,
Ere hope had lost its rich romantic hues;
When human bosoms seem'd the homes of truth,
And earth still gleam'd with beauty's radiant dews.
Her summer prime waned not to days that freeze;
Her wine of life was run not to the lees:
Weep not for Her!
IV
Weep not for her!--By fleet or slow decay,
It never grieved her bosom's core to mark
The playmates of her childhood wane away,
Her prospects wither, or her hopes grow dark;
Translated by her God with spirit shriven,
She pass'd as 'twere in smiles from earth to heaven.
Weep not for Her!
V
Weep not for her!--It was not hers to feel
The miseries that corrode amassing years,
'Gainst dreams of baffled bliss the heart to steel,
To wander sad down age's vale of tears,
As whirl the withered leaves from friendship's tree,
And on earth's wintry wold alone to be:
Weep not for Her!
VI
Weep not for her!--She is an angel now,
And treads the sapphire floors of paradise:
All darkness wiped from her refulgent brow,
Sin, sorrow, suffering, banish'd from her eyes;
Victorious over death, to her appear
The vista'd joys of heaven's eternal year;
Weep not for Her!
VII
Weep not for her!--Her memory is the shrine
Of pleasant thoughts, soft as the scent of flowers,
Calm as on windless eve the sun's decline,
Sweet as the song of birds among the bowers,
Rich as a rainbow with its hues of light,
Pure as the moonshine of an autumn night:
Weep not for Her!
VIII
Weep not for her!--There is no cause for woe;
But rather nerve the spirit that it walk
Unshrinking o'er the thorny paths below,
And from earth's low defilements keep thee back:
So, when a few, fleet, severing years have flown,
She'll meet thee at heaven's gate--and lead thee on!
Weep not for Her.
[Picture: The first day I got my regimentals on]
Having right and law on my side, as any man of judgment may perceive with
half an eye, nothing could hinder me, if I so liked, to print the whole
bundle; but, in the meantime, we must just be satisfied with the
foregoing curiosities, which we have picked out. All that I have set
down concerning myself, the reader may take on credit as open and
even-down truth; but as to whether Taffy's master's nick-nackets be true
or false, every one is at liberty, in this free country, to think for
himself. Old sparrows are not easily caught with chaff; and unless I saw
a proper affidavit, I would not, for my own part, pin my faith to a
single word of them. But every man his own opinion,--that's my motto.
In the Yankee Almanack of Poor Richard, which, besides the Pilgrim's
Progress and the Book of Martyrs, I whiles read on the week-days for a
little diversion, I see it is set down with great rationality, that "we
should never buy for the bargain sake." Experience teaches all men, and
I found that to my cost in this matter; for, cheap as the coat and
waistcoat seemed which I had bought from the auld-farrant Welsh flunkie
with the peaked hat and the pigtail, I made no great shakes of them after
all. Neither the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, nor any other of the grand
public characters, ever made me an offer for them, as some had led me to
expect; and the play house people lay all as quiet as ducks in a storm.
After hanging at my window for two or three months, collecting all the
idle wives and weans of the parish to glour and gaze at them from morn
till night, during which time I got half of my lozens broken, by their
knocking one another's heads through, I was obliged to get quit of them
at last, by selling them to a man and his son, that kept dancing dogs,
Pan's pipes, and a tambourine; and that made a livelihood by tumbling on
a carpet in the middle of the street, the one playing "Carle now the
King's come," as the other whummled head over heels, and then jumped up
into the air, cutting capers, to show that not a bone of his body had
been broken.
Knowing that the raiment was not for everybody's wear, and that the like
of it was not to be found in a country side, I put a decent price on it,
"foreign birds with fair feathers" aye taking the top place of the
market. When I mentioned forty shillings to the dancing-dog man and his
son, they said nothing, but, putting their tongues in their cheeks, took
up their hats, wishing me a good day. Next forenoon, however, a
sleight-of-hand character having arrived, together with a bass drum and a
bugle horn, that was likely to take the shine out of them, and maybe also
purchase my article--which was capital for his purpose, having famous
wide sleeves--they came back in less than no time, asking the liberty,
before finally concluding with me, of carrying them home to their
lodgings for ten minutes to see how they would fit; and, in that case,
offering me thirty-five shillings and an old flute. The old flute was
for next to no use at all, except for wee Benjie, poor thing, too-tooing
on, to keep him good, and I told them so, myself being no musicianer; but
would take their offer not to quarrel. It would not do unless some of us
were timber-tuned; men not being meant for blackbirds.
Home went the man, and home went the son, and home went my grand coat and
waistcoat over his arm; and putting my hands into my breeches pockets, as
if I had satisfactorily concluded a great transaction, I marched ben to
the back shop, and took my needle into play, as if nothing in the world
had happened; but where their home lay, or whether the raiment fitted or
not, goodness knows, having never to this blessed hour heard word or
wittens of either of them. Such a pair of blacks! It just shows us how
simple we Scotch folk are. The London man swindled me out of my lawful
room-rent and my Sunday velveteens; the Eirishers, as will be but too
soon seen, made free with my hen-house, committing felonious robbery at
the dead hour of night; and here a decent-looking old Welshman, with a
pigtail tied with black tape, palmed a grand coat and waistcoat upon me,
that were made away with by a man and his son, a devilish deal too long
out of Botany Bay.
Benjie, poor doggie, was vastly proud of the flute, which he fifed away
on morning, noon, and night; and, for more than a fortnight, would not go
to his bed unless it was laid under his pillow. But for me I could not
bide the sight of it, knowing whose hands it had been in, and reminding
me as it did of the depravity of human nature.
Verily, verily, this is a wonderfully wicked world. To find out the two
vagabonds would have been hopeless; unless I could have followed them to
the Back of Beyond, where the mare foaled the fiddler.
CHAPTER TWELVE--MANSIE ON THE OLD VOLUNTEERING DAYS
The sough of war and invasion flew over the face of the land, at this
time, like a great whirlwind; and the hearts of men died within their
persons with fear and trembling. The accounts that came from abroad were
just dreadful beyond all power of description. Death stalked about from
place to place, like a lawless tyrant, and human blood was spilt like
water; while the heads of crowned kings were cut off; and great dukes and
lords were thrown into dark dungeons, or obligated to flee for their
lives into foreign lands, and to seek out hiding-places of safety beyond
the waves of the sea. What was worst of all, our trouble seemed a
smittal one; the infection spread around; and even our own land, which
all thought hale and healthy, began to show symptoms of the plague-spot.
Losh me! that men, in their seven senses, could have ever shown
themselves so infatuated. Johnny Wilkes and liberty was but a joke to
what was hanging over the head of the nation, brewing like a dark tempest
which was to swallow it up. Bills were posted up through night, by hands
that durst not have been seen at the work through day; and the agents of
the Spirit of Darkness, calling themselves the Friends of the People,
held secret meetings, and hatched plots to blow up our blessed King and
Constitution.
Yet the business, though fearsome in the main, was in some parts almost
laughable. Everything was to be divided, and every one made alike:
houses and lands were to be distributed by lot; and the mighty man and
the beggar--the auld man and the hobble-de-hoy--the industrious man and
the spendthrift--the maimed, the cripple, and the blind, the clever man
of business and the haveril simpleton, made all just brethren, and alike.
Save us! but to think of such nonsense!!--At one of their meetings, held
at the sign of the Tappet Hen and the Tankard, there was a prime fight of
five rounds between Tammy Bowsie the snab, and auld Thrashem the dominie
with the boulie-back about their drawing cuts which was to get Dalkeith
Palace, and which Newbottle Abbey. Oh, sic riff-raff!!!
What was worst of all, it was an agreed and determined on thing among
them, these wise men of Gotham, to abolish all kings, clergy, and
religion, as havers. No, no--what need had such wise pows as theirs of
being taught or lectured to? What need had such feelosophers of having a
king to rule over, or a Parliament to direct them? There was not a
single one among their number, that did not think himself, in his own
conceit, as wise as Solomon or William Pitt, and as mighty as King
Nebuchadnezzar.
It was full time to put a stop to all such nonsense. The newspapers told
us what it had done abroad; and what better could we expect from it at
home? Weeds will not grow into flowers anywhere, and no man can handle
tar without being defiled; the first of which comparisons is I daresay
true, and the latter must be--for we read of it in Scripture. Well, as I
was saying, it was a brave notion of the king to put the loyalty of his
land to the test, that the daft folk might be dismayed, and that the
clanjamphrey might be tumbled down before their betters, like
windle-straes in a hurricane:--and so they were.
Such a crowd that day, when the names of the volunteers came to be taken
down! No house could have held them, even though many had not stepped
forward who thought to have got themselves enrolled. Losh me! did they
think the government was so far gone, as to take characters with deformed
legs, and thrawn necks, and blind eyes, and hashie lips, and grey hairs
on their pows? No, no, they were not put to such straits; though it
showed that the right spirit was in the creatures, and that, though their
bodies might be deformed, they had consciences to direct them, and souls
to be saved like their neighbours.
I will never forget the first day that I got my regimentals on; and when
I looked myself in the bit glass, just to think I was a sodger, who never
in my life could thole the smell of powder, and had not fired anything
but a penny cannon on a Fourth of June, when I was a haflins callant. I
thought my throat would have been cut with the black corded stock; for,
whenever I looked down, without thinking like, my chaff-blade played
clank against it, with such a dunt that I mostly chacked my tongue off.
And, as to the soaping of the hair, that beat cock-fighting. It was
really fearsome; but I could scarcely keep from laughing when I glee'd
round over my shoulder, and saw a glazed leather queue hanging for half
an ell down the braid of my back, and a pickle horse-hair curling out
like a rotten's tail at the far end of it. And then the worsted taissels
on the shoulders--and the lead buttons--and the yellow facings,--oh, but
it was grand! I sometimes fancied myself a general, and giving the word
of command. Then the pipeclayed breeches--but that was a sore job; many
a weary arm did they give me--beat-beating camstane into them.
The pipeclaying of the breeches, I was saying, was the most fashious job,
let alone courtship, that ever mortal man put his hand to. Indeed, there
was no end to the rubbing, and scrubbing, and brushing, and fyling, and
cleaning; for to the like of me, who was not well accustomed to the
thing, the whitening was continually coming off and destroying my red
coat or my black leggings. I had mostly forgot to speak of the birse for
cleaning out the pan, and the piker for clearing the motion-hole. But
time enough till we come to firing.
Big Sam, who was a sergeant of the Fencibles, and enough to have put five
Frenchmen to flight any day of the year, whiles came to train us; and a
hard battle he had with more than me. I have already said, that nature
never intended me for the soldiering trade; and why should I hesitate
about confessing, that Sam never got me out of the awkward squad? But I
had two or three neighbours to keep me in countenance. A weary work we
made with the right, left--left, right,--right-wheel, left-wheel--to the
right about,--at ease,--attention,--by sections,--and all the rest of it.
But then there is nothing in the course of nature that is useless; and
what was to hinder me from acting as orderly, or being one of the
camp-colour-men on head days?
We all cracked very crouse about fighting, when we heard of garments
rolled in blood only from abroad; but one dark night we got a fleg in
sober earnest.
There were signal-posts on the hills, up and down all the country, to
make alarms in case of necessity; and I never went to my bed without
giving first a glee eastward to Falside-brae, and then another westward
to the Calton-hill, to see that all the country was quiet. I had just
papped in--it might be about nine o'clock--after being gey hard drilled,
and sore between the shoulders, with keeping my head back and playing the
dumb-bells; when, lo and behold! instead of getting my needful rest in my
own bed, with my wife and wean, jow went the bell, and row-de-dow gaed
the drums, and all in a minute was confusion and uproar. I was seized
with a severe shaking of the knees, and a flang at the heart; but I
hurried, with my nightcap on, up to the garret window, and there I too
plainly saw that the French had landed--for all the signal posts were in
a bleeze. This was in reality to be a soldier! I never got such a
fright since the day I was cleckit. Then such a noise and hullabaloo in
the streets--men, women, and weans, all hurrying through ither, and
crying with loud voices, amid the dark, as if the day of judgment had
come, to find us all unprepared; and still the bells ringing, and the
drums beating to arms. Poor Nanse was in a bad condition, and I was well
worse; she, at the fears of losing me, their bread-winner; and I, with
the grief of parting from her, the wife of my bosom, and going out to
scenes of blood, bayonets, and gunpowder, none of which I had the least
stomach for. Our little son, Benjie, mostly grat himself blind, pulling
me back by the cartridge-box; but there was no contending with fate, so
he was obliged at last to let go.
Notwithstanding all that, we behaved ourselves like true-blue Scotsmen
called forth to fight the battles of our country; and if the French had
come, as they did not come, they would have found that to their cost, as
sure as my name is Mansie. However, it turned out as well, in the
meantime, that it was a false alarm, and that the thief Buonaparte had
not landed at Dunbar, as it was jealoused: so, after standing under arms
for half the night, with nineteen rounds of ball-cartridge in our boxes,
and the baggage carts all loaden, and ready to follow us to the field of
battle, we were sent home to our beds; and, notwithstanding the awful
state of alarm to which I had been put, never in the course of my life
did I enjoy six hours sounder sleep; for we were hippet the morning
parade, on account of our gallant men being kept so long without natural
rest. It is wise to pick a lesson even out of our adversities; and, at
all events, it was at this time fully shown to us the necessity of our
regiment being taught the art of firing--a tactic to the length of which
it had never yet come.
Next day, out we were taken for the whilk purpose; and we went through
our motions bravely. Prime--load--handle cartridge--ram down
cartridge--return bayonets--and shoulder hoop--make ready--present--fire.
Such was the confusion, and the flurry, and the din of the report, that I
was so flustered and confused, thinking that half of us would have been
shot dead, that--will ye believe it?--I never yet had mind to pull the
tricker. Howsomever, I minded aye with the rest to ram down a fresh
cartridge at the word of command; and something told me I would repent
not doing like the rest (for I had half a kind of notion that my piece
never went off); so, when the firing was over, the sergeant of the
company ordered all that had loaded pieces to come to the front. I
swithered a little, not being very sure like what to do; but some five or
six stept out; and our corporal, on looking at my piece, ordered me with
the rest to the front. It was just by all the world like an execution;
we six, in the face of the regiment, in a little line, going through our
manoeuvres at the word of command; and I could hardly stand upon my feet,
with a queer feeling of fear and trembling, till at length the terrible
moment came. I looked straight forward--for I durst not jee my head
about, and turned to the hills and green trees, as if I was never to see
nature more.
Our pieces were cocked; and at the word--Fire!--off they went. It was an
act of desperation to draw the tricker, and I had hardly well shut my
blinkers, when I got such a thump in the shoulder, as knocked me
backwards head-over-heels on the grass. Before I came to my senses, I
could have sworn I was in another world; but, when I opened my eyes,
there were the men at ease, holding their sides, laughing like to spleet
them; and my gun lying on the ground two or three ell before me.
When I found myself not killed outright, I began to rise up. As I was
rubbing my breek-knees, I saw one of the men going forward to lift up the
fatal piece; and my care for the safety of others overcame the sense of
my own peril,--"Let alane--let alane!" cried I to him, "and take care of
yoursell, for it has to gang off five times yet."
The laughing was now terrible; but being little of a soldier, I thought,
in my innocence, that we should hear as many reports as I had crammed
cartridges down her muzzle. This was a sore joke against me for a length
of time; but I tholed it patiently, considering cannily within myself,
that knowledge is only to be bought by experience, and that, if we can
credit the old song, even Johnny Cope himself did not learn the art of
war in a single morning.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN--MANSIE IN SEARCH OF A CURE FOR CHINCOUGH
Some folks having been bred up from their cradle to the writing of books,
of course naturally do the thing regularly and scientifically; but that's
not to be expected from the like of me, that have followed no other way
of life than the shaping and sewing line. It behoves me, therefore, to
beg pardon for not being able to carry my history aye regularly straight
forward, and for being forced whiles to zig-zag and vandyke. For
instance, I clean forgot to give, in its proper place, a history of one
of my travels, with Benjie in my bosom, in search of a cure for the
chincough.
My son Benjie was, at this dividual time, between four and five years
old, when--poor wee chieldie!--he took the chincough, and in more
respects than one was not in a good way; so the doctor recommended his
mother and me, for the change of air, first to carry him down a coal-pit,
and syne to the limekilns at Cousland.
The coal-pit I could not think of at all; to say nothing of the danger of
swinging down into the bowels of the earth in a creel, the thing aye put
me in mind of the awful place, where the wicked, after death and
judgment, howl, and hiss, and gnash their teeth; and where, unless Heaven
be more merciful than we are just--we may all be soon enough. So I could
not think of that, till other human means failed; and I determined, in
the first place, to hire Tammie Dobbie's cart, and try a smell of the
fresh air about the limekilns.
It was a fine July forenoon, and the cart, filled with clean straw, was
at the door by eleven o'clock; so our wife handed us out a pair of
blankets to hap round me, and syne little Benjie into my arms, with his
big-coatie on, and his leather cappie tied below his chin, and a bit red
worsted comforterie round his neck; for, though the sun was warm and
pleasant withal, we dreaded cold, as the doctor bade us. Oh, he was a
fine old man, Doctor Hartshorn!