"At first, I thought the swankie didna ill--
Again I glowr'd, to hear him better still;
Bauld, slee, an' sweet, his lines mair glorious grew,
Glow'd round the heart, an' glanc'd the soul out through."
ALEXANDER WILSON.
I had seen both the Indies and traversed the wide Pacific, ere I again
set foot on the Eastern coast of Scotland. My uncle, the shipmaster, was
dead, and I was still a common sailor; but I was light-hearted and
skilful in my profession, and as much inclined to hope as ever. Besides,
I had begun to doubt, and there cannot be a more consoling doubt when
one is unfortunate, whether a man may not enjoy as much happiness in the
lower walks of life as in the upper. In one of my later voyages, the
vessel in which I sailed had lain for several weeks at Boston in North
America--then a scene of those fierce and angry contentions which
eventually separated the colonies from the mother country; and when in
this place, I had become acquainted, by the merest accident in the
world, with the brother of my friend the poet. I was passing through one
of the meaner lanes, when I saw my old college friend, as I thought,
looking out at me from the window of a crazy wooden building--a sort of
fencing academy, much frequented, I was told, by the Federalists of
Boston. I crossed the lane in two huge strides.
"Mr. Ferguson," I said--"Mr. Ferguson," for he was withdrawing his head,
"do you not remember me?"
"Not quite sure," he replied; "I have met with many sailors in my time;
but I must just see."
He had stepped down to the door ere I had discovered my mistake. He was
a taller and stronger-looking man than my friend, and his senior
apparently by six or eight years; but nothing could be more striking
than the resemblance which he bore to him, both in face and figure. I
apologized.
"But have you not a brother, a native of Edinburgh," I inquired, "who
studied at St. Andrew's about four years ago?--never before, certainly,
did I see so remarkable a likeness."
--"As that which I bear to Robert?" he said. "Happy to hear it. Robert
is a brother of whom a man may well be proud, and I am glad to resemble
him in any way. But you must go in with me, and tell me all you know
regarding him. He was a thin pale slip of a boy when I left Scotland--a
mighty reader, and fond of sauntering into by-holes and corners; I
scarcely knew what to make of him; but he has made much of himself. His
name has been blown far and wide within the last two years."
He showed me through a large waste apartment, furnished with a few deal
seats, and with here and there a fencing foil leaning against the wall,
into a sort of closet at the upper end, separated from the main room by
a partition of undressed slabs. There was a charcoal stove in the one
corner, and a truckle bed in the other; a few shelves laden with books
ran along the wall; there was a small chest raised on a stool
immediately below the window, to serve as a writing desk, and another
stool standing beside it. A few cooking utensils scattered round the
room, and a corner cupboard, completed the entire furniture of the
place.
"There is a certain limited number born to be rich, Jack," said my new
companion, "and I just don't happen to be among them; but I have one
stool for myself, you see, and, now that I have unshipped my desk,
another for a visitor, and so get on well enough."
I related briefly the story of my intimacy with his brother; and we were
soon on such terms as to be in a fair way of emptying a bottle of rum
together.
"You remind me of old times," said my new acquaintance. "I am weary of
these illiterate, boisterous, longsided Americans, who talk only of
politics and dollars. And yet there are first-rate men among them too. I
met, some years since, with a Philadelphia printer, whom I cannot help
regarding as one of the ablest, best-informed men I ever conversed with.
But there is nothing like general knowledge among the average class; a
mighty privilege of conceit, however."
"They are just in that stage," I remarked, "in which it needs all the
vigour of an able man to bring his mind into anything like cultivation.
There must be many more facilities of improvement ere the mediocritist
can develop himself. He is in the egg still in America, and must sleep
there till the next age.--But when last heard you of your brother?"
"Why," he replied, "when all the world heard of him--with the last
number of _Ruddiman's Magazine_. Where can you have been bottled up from
literature of late? Why, man, Robert stands first among our Scotch
poets."
"Ah! 'tis long since I have anticipated something like that for him," I
said; "but, for the last two years, I have seen only two books,
Shakspeare and 'The Spectator.' Pray, do show me some of the magazines."
The magazines were produced; and I heard, for the first time, in a
foreign land and from the recitation of the poet's brother, some of the
most national and most highly-finished of his productions. My eyes
filled and my heart wandered to Scotland and her cottage homes, as,
shutting the book, he repeated to me, in a voice faltering with emotion,
stanza after stanza of the "Farmer's Ingle."
"Do you not see it?--do you not see it all?" exclaimed my companion;
"the wide smoky room, with the bright turf fire, the blackened rafters
shining above, the straw-wrought settle below, the farmer and the
farmer's wife, and auld grannie and the bairns. Never was there truer
painting; and, oh, how it works on a Scotch heart! But hear this other
piece."
He read "Sandy and Willie."
"Far, far ahead of Ramsay," I exclaimed. "More imagination, more spirit,
more intellect, and as much truth and nature. Robert has gained his end
already. Hurra for poor old Scotland!--these pieces must live for ever.
But do repeat to me the 'Farmer's Ingle' once more."
We read, one by one, all the poems in the magazine, dwelling on each
stanza, and expatiating on every recollection of home which the images
awakened. My companion was, like his brother, a kind, open-hearted man,
of superior intellect; much less prone to despondency, however, and of a
more equal temperament. Ere we parted, which was not until next morning,
he had communicated to me all his plans for the future, and all his
fondly cherished hopes of returning to Scotland with wealth enough to be
of use to his friends. He seemed to be one of those universal geniuses
who do a thousand things well, but want steadiness enough to turn any of
them to good account. He showed me a treatise on the use of the sword,
which he had just prepared for the press; and a series of letters on the
stamp act, which had appeared, from time to time, in one of the Boston
newspapers, and in which he had taken part with the Americans.
"I make a good many dollars in these stirring times," he said. "All the
Yankees seem to be of opinion that they will be best heard across the
water when they have got arms in their hands, and have learned how to
use them; and I know a little of both the sword and the musket. But the
warlike spirit is frightfully thirsty, somehow, and consumes a world of
rum; and so I have not yet begun to make rich."
He shared with me his supper and bed for the night; and, after rising in
the morning ere I awoke, and writing a long letter for Robert, which he
gave me in the hope I might soon meet with him, he accompanied me to the
vessel, then on the eve of sailing, and we parted, as it proved, for
ever. I know nothing of his after life, or how or where it terminated;
but I have learned that, shortly before the death of his gifted brother,
his circumstances enabled him to send his mother a small remittance for
the use of the family. He was evidently one of the kind-hearted,
improvident few, who can share a very little, and whose destiny it is to
have only a very little to share.