MY FATHER’S LAST HOURS.
It was late at night when I reached Glasgow, and I travelled on to my
father’s house, my mind filled with a fearful anxiety that he was not
in life, and I knocked at the door with a palpitating heart—a light
beamed across the hall window—I heard a low moan—another—then my
mother’s voice inquiring, ‘Who is there?’
‘It is me,’ replied I.
The door opened—‘Thank God,’ said she, ‘that you have arrived, for
your poor father has been anxiously expecting you, and was beginning
to despair of seeing you before his eyes were closed for ever.’
‘Is he so ill? Oh! let me see him.’
A hectic flush tinged her pale cheek, while she motioned me to be
silent, and leading me into another room—‘My child,’ said she, ‘you
may prepare yourself for the worst, for little hope remains of his
recovery. He has been confined to bed—no, not to bed, for the nature
of his malady will not allow him to lie; but he has sat in his
arm-chair, with his head resting on a pillow before him, for three
weary months—no interval of rest—no cessation of pain; but he is calm
and resigned, no murmur passes his lips, and his only wish is, that
he may be permitted to see his child and die. He is now so weak that
I think it would be imprudent for you to see him, without preparing
him for the meeting.’ But her precautions were unavailing—he had
heard my voice when I entered, and he now called upon her. The
next minute I was at his side, bedewing his hand with my tears—he
attempted to speak, but his voice was choked in the utterance. I
looked up in his face, the hue of death was upon it—he gasped for
breath, and fell back in his chair. The agony I felt at that moment
was indescribable, for I thought he was dead. My mother having used
the necessary means for his recovery, a long low moan succeeded her
endeavours; he slowly unclosed his eyes, and she motioned me to leave
the room. When I next saw him, he was prepared for the meeting; a
flush of joy animated his wasted features while he said, ‘My dear
boy, I begged that I might see you once more before I closed my eyes
in death. That prayer has been granted: I can now say, “Lord, now
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.”’
‘And can you forgive all my folly and ingratitude—forget all the
distress I have occasioned you?’
‘Forgive you? oh, yes! you little know a parent’s feelings. But there
is One whom you have offended, whose pardon I hope you desire and
ask—One who delights to forgive—ah! cling to Him, my child, He will
never forsake you. I will soon have crossed “that bourne from whence
no traveller returns.” In a short time you will have no father;
but it would smooth my passage to the tomb, to think that you felt
inclined to throw yourself into the hands of the living God, and beg
his assistance to curb that unstable spirit, which has caused you and
us so much misery; and that we shall yet meet, no wanderer lost, a
family in heaven—there is joy in the thought.’
I felt my heart softened more than it had been in all my misery;
surely adversity is no tamer of the human heart—at least, I never
felt it so. I am of opinion that it is calculated rather to draw
forth the darker passions of our nature, and shut up all the holy
avenues of the soul. I wished to sit up with my father that night,
but my mother urged me to retire to rest. I did so, but I could
not sleep; I lay ruminating on my past life, and on my father’s
situation, my mind stung with remorse. I had learned that his
distress of mind, when I first went abroad, had been great, and
that insensibly his health had sunk, and that his disorder (which
proved eventually to be a cancer of the stomach) had been lingering
on him for some years—I therefore could not but consider that I had
contributed to the state he was now in.
He grew rapidly worse; he was never satisfied when I was out of his
presence, and I generally sat up with him at night. His malady caused
him the most excruciating pain, but he bore it with the greatest
patience and fortitude. He had always been remarkable for his piety,
but it was that unostentatious kind of it which shows itself more in
actions than words: the world was receding from his view, but he did
not feel or feign those ecstasies which we often have described in
the obituary of religious people; his was an humble confidence, alike
removed from despondency and presumption. It was remarkable that
this gave offence to some of his more enthusiastic brethren. One, in
particular, having called upon him, seemed to feel disappointed that
he was relating no heavenly raptures or beatific visions, and very
anxiously endeavoured to draw him into some confession of this kind.
‘My friend,’ said my father, ‘you seem disappointed that I do not
speak in certain and rapturous terms of my future state; but if we
consider that when we have done our utmost, we are but unprofitable
servants, we ought to beware of presumption, and not give the reins
to a wild imagination, on the verge of a solemn eternity, and on the
point of entering the presence of the Judge of all the earth. I feel
a confidence in my Almighty Creator—I know he is a God of truth, and
I rely on his promise—I know he is a God of love and mercy, and I
have given up my all into his hands; more than this I dare not say.’
The stranger felt reproved, and urged the subject no farther.
All his affairs had been previously settled—he arranged every
particular concerning his funeral, and counselled me on my conduct
after his decease, with the utmost calmness; but I could not listen
to it, although I was persuaded that he would not recover: there
was something so heart-rending, and to me so premature, in the
contemplation of his death, that I could not bring myself to reply to
any of his suggestions.
He was now near his end; but the more his body wasted, his intellect
grew clearer—his soul seemed to wax strong in the anticipation of its
freedom, and rejoice in the prospect of shuffling off its mortal coil.
It was nearly three weeks since I had returned home; my mother and I
were sitting beside him, when he expressed a wish to lie down in his
bed. This he had attempted before I came home, but from the excessive
pain it produced, he was obliged to abandon the idea. He now,
however, felt assured that he could lie, and we carried him to the
bed, but it was in vain; the horizontal posture caused him such agony
that we were obliged to raise him, when he fainted in our arms. I
thought he was dead—we placed him on a sofa—he recovered—one bright
flash of intellect pervaded his features—for a few minutes he seemed
as if perfectly well; and observing us weeping, he was surprised, and
asked the reason. He appeared neither to feel pain, nor to remember
that he had felt any; a gleam of hope shot across our minds that he
might yet recover.—Ah no! his soul was on the threshold, pluming
her wing for an eternal flight!—She fled—the celestial fire that
animated his features, gave place to the cold damp of death—his lip
quivered—one convulsive gasp, and he was no more!
The day arrived on which I was to follow my father’s remains to the
tomb. A torpid feeling had pervaded my mind since his death, nor did
I feel any of those emotions which people in such circumstances are
said to feel—he was even consigned to the grave, and the last sod
smoothed over it, and yet I waked not to sensibility. When I returned
home, our relations and friends were assembled, and although there
was much commonplace expression of grief, and just encomiums passed
on his character as a man and a Christian, still my heart was like a
fountain sealed up. The last friend had departed, and I sat on the
sofa on which my father had breathed his last, absorbed in the same
melancholy stupor. The day had been stormy, and the pattering rain
dashed against the windows, while the wind, sweeping along in sullen
gusts, whistled through the casement, now wild and irregular—now low
and mournful! There was something in this that struck a kindred chord
within my bosom, and melted my whole soul. Oh! there are answering
tones in nature, responsive to every feeling of humanity, from the
light note of gladness, to the dying accents of despair!
I awakened, as it were, from a dream, to all that desolateness of
heart, which those only who have felt can understand, and looking
round the room, became conscious that I was alone in every sense of
the word—bereft of my best friend—he who had centred all his care
and solicitude in me—he whom I had repaid with ingratitude—he who,
had he lived, would have been my director and friend, was gone for
ever, and I was left alone in the world, ‘a wretch unfitted with an
aim.’
It was my father’s wish that I should procure my discharge, and
settle at home in some business, to which I was by no means averse: I
therefore lost no time in taking the necessary step for that purpose,
and procured my freedom. Previous to my being emancipated, I had
looked forward to the event as the consummation of all my wishes. I
thought that when I could once breathe freely, all other good things
would follow, and I indulged in many Utopian dreams; but when the
much desired object was accomplished, I found myself surrounded by
difficulties. I had gone into the army a mere boy, my service had
been principally abroad. The life of a soldier is not one where
people learn worldly wisdom, and I now felt myself as much a child
in that respect, as when I first left my native home to seek for
reputation in the wars.
I was acquainted with no business to which I could turn my attention,
and I endeavoured to procure a situation of some kind; but here
my boyish sins and military life were visited upon me. The cool
calculating people of my native city felt no inclination to employ
one who had manifested so much unsteadiness in his early days; and
besides this, they considered an individual who had been in the
army the very worst person they could employ—they were all lazy,
good-for-nothing fellows; in short, there exists an insurmountable
objection to such men—the moral character of the individual is
nothing—he has been guilty of being in the army, and that is
sufficient. My father’s arrangements in my favour, that might have
secured me against these evils, were set aside, for want of some
formality of law, and my bark was thrown on the ocean of life, to be
driven along by the current, without compass or chart to guide its
course—He who would have been my pilot,
—— had reach’d the shore,
Where tempests never beat, nor billows roar
My own efforts were of little avail to combat the difficulties that I
had to encounter. My father’s friends and acquaintances, remembering
all my childish follies, and the greater number of them being dull,
thorough-paced men of business, whose blood had glided through its
icy channel in the same even current from the time they came into the
world, could not believe that a warm imagination might lead a boy
astray from the path of prudence, without his heart being depraved.
They saw nothing in me but the blackguard boy, who had ran away from
his parents; and they rung eternal cautions in my ears, accompanied
by wise shakes of the head, and doubts lavishly expressed of my
steadiness. They could ill dissemble the thorough contempt they had
for my capacity for business: no wonder, they had all outstripped
me in the necessary qualifications of chicanery and selfishness—I
acted from natural impulse, and often wrong; but it was myself that
suffered—they acted systematically, their eyes fixed steadily on
their own interest, ready to take advantage of the follies of those
around them. I speak from experience. I have found individuals who
hypocritically deplored my want of wisdom, while in the act of taking
advantage of my folly: while others, on the pretence of caring for
my soul’s salvation, wished to embue my mind with their religious
prejudices, and cramp my conscience within the narrow bounds marked
out by their particular sect; and when I claimed a right to think
for myself on these matters, they shunned me as a reprobate, or
decried me as an infidel. I have found many things to disgust me in
my passage through life; but never anything equal to the hypocritical
cant of many professing sectarians.
Thus, as it were, cut off from society, and my place filled up in
it, I did not possess the necessary courage to force through these
difficulties, and I remained in an undecided state for some time. My
manners had not been framed in the world’s school, and I felt all
that _mauvaise honte_ that people of a sensitive mind generally feel
in such a situation, which, along with a proud feeling that caught
fire at the slightest look, or word indicative of contempt, rendered
my progress in the world almost a thing impossible.
This feeling induced me to decline the assistance of those who wished
to afford me an opportunity of mixing with it, and I retired within
myself, unknowing and unknown, affecting to feel contempt for those
whom I was afraid to mix with. I was in danger of sinking into a
complete misanthrope, and I confined myself so much to the house and
my books, that my health began to be impaired. My mother, seeing the
apathy and torpid state into which I was fast sinking, endeavoured
to arouse me to some exertion, and her arguments had so much effect,
that it made me resolve to try some business; but nothing could
induce me to do so in Glasgow. I accordingly set about removing
to a different part of the country—embarked in a business that I
knew nothing about—neglected all the necessary caution which a more
intimate knowledge of the world would have taught me—became the dupe
of those who chose to take the trouble to deceive me—looked forward
to results without calculating the intermediate steps, and in a short
time had the pleasure of being as poor as ever. But here let me pay
a tribute of gratitude to individuals, who, in a strange place, came
generously forward with their advice and purse to assist me, when I
needed assistance—who, though truly religious people, did not ask me,
before they offered it, what church I sat in, or what my early life
had been.—The effects of my ignorance of business could not then be
rectified; but I shall ever retain a grateful remembrance of their
disinterested goodness.
It is useless to go through all the circumstances that induced me
to resume the uniform of a soldier; suffice it to say, that it was
the result. My only consolation now is, that in spite of my folly,
and the untoward circumstances which have occasionally thwarted my
passage through life, I can look back on my errors with a conviction
that they were more of the head than the heart.
GLASGOW:
PRINTED BY S. AND T. DUNN.
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 25 Changed: colour it shed over their countenaces
to: colour it shed over their countenances
pg 27 Changed: no longer a pleasant birth
to: no longer a pleasant berth
pg 32 Changed: the tears flowing down her checks
to: the tears flowing down her cheeks
pg 42 Changed: we crossed the Frith of Forth
to: we crossed the Firth of Forth
pg 50 Changed: to be seperated from your husband
to: to be separated from your husband
pg 81 Changed: he made a lounge at me
to: he made a lunge at me
pg 81 Changed: seemed to be a jealous-minded, vindicative
to: seemed to be a jealous-minded, vindictive
pg 94 Changed: by seperate routes during the night
to: by separate routes during the night
pg 100 Changed: with a lable in its mouth
to: with a label in its mouth
pg 114 Changed: a buglar of the 83d regiment
to: a bugler of the 83d regiment
pg 134 Changed: seing the danger to which they were exposed
to: seeing the danger to which they were exposed
pg 142 Changed: every regiment of the division were promiscously mixed
to: every regiment of the division were promiscuously mixed
pg 189 Changed: the fate of the brave follow
to: the fate of the brave fellow
pg 195 Changed: and quiting also their position and works
to: and quitting also their position and works
pg 216 Changed: which an ethusiastic Irishwoman can throw
to: which an enthusiastic Irishwoman can throw
pg 274 Changed: questioning her with childish simplicty
to: questioning her with childish simplicity
pg 284 Changed: conscious of his own error in the pronunication
to: conscious of his own error in the pronunciation
pg 292 Changed: had opportunites of knowing them more
to: had opportunities of knowing them more
pg 312 Changed: The conseqence was, that during the short time
to: The consequence was, that during the short time
pg 319 Changed: a sergeant in the ninty-fourth
to: a sergeant in the ninety-fourth
pg 328 Changed: But her precautions were unaviling
to: But her precautions were unavailing