"Speech without aim and without end employ."--CRABBE.
After the lapse of nine months, I again returned to Edinburgh. During
that period, I had been so shut out from literature and the world, that
I had heard nothing of my friend the poet; and it was with a beating
heart I left the vessel, on my first leisure evening, to pay him a
visit. It was about the middle of July; the day had been close and
sultry, and the heavens overcharged with grey ponderous clouds; and, as
I passed hurriedly along the walk which leads from Leith to Edinburgh, I
could hear the newly awakened thunder, bellowing far in the south, peal
after peal, like the artillery of two hostile armies. I reached the door
of the poet's humble domicile, and had raised my hand to the knocker,
when I heard some one singing from within, in a voice by far the most
touchingly mournful I had ever listened to. The tones struck on my
heart; and a frightful suspicion crossed my mind, as I set down the
knocker, that the singer was no other than my friend. But in what
wretched circumstances! what fearful state of mind! I shuddered as I
listened, and heard the strain waxing louder and yet more mournful, and
could distinguish that the words were those of a simple old ballad:--
"O Marti'mas wind, when wilt thou blaw,
An' shake the green leaves aff the tree?
O gentle death, when wilt thou come,
An' tak a life that wearies me?"
I could listen no longer, but raised the latch and went in. The evening
was gloomy, and the apartment ill lighted; but I could see the singer, a
spectral-looking figure, sitting on a bed in the corner, with the
bedclothes wrapped round his shoulders, and a napkin deeply stained
with blood on his head. An elderly female, who stood beside him, was
striving to soothe him, and busied from time to time in adjusting the
clothes, which were ever and anon falling off, as he nodded his head in
time to the music. A young girl of great beauty sat weeping at the
bedfoot.
"O dearest Robert," said the woman, "you will destroy your poor head;
and Margaret your sister, whom you used to love so much, will break her
heart. Do lie down, dearest, and take a little rest. Your head is
fearfully gashed, and if the bandages loose a second time, you will
bleed to death. Do, dearest Robert, for your poor old mother, to whom
you were always so kind and dutiful a son till now--for your poor old
mother's sake, do lie down."
The song ceased for a moment, and the tears came bursting from my eyes
as the tune changed, and he again sang:--
"O mither dear, make ye my bed,
For my heart it's flichterin' sair;
An' oh, gin I've vexed ye, mither dear,
I'll never vex ye mair.
I've staid ar'out the lang dark nicht,
I' the sleet an' the plashy rain;
But, mither dear, make ye my bed,
An' I'll ne'er gang out again."
"Dearest, dearest Robert," continued the poor, heart-broken woman, "do
lie down; for your poor old mother's sake, do lie down."
"No, no," he exclaimed, in a hurried voice, "not just now, mother, not
just now. Here is my friend, Mr. Lindsay, come to see me--my true
friend, Mr. Lindsay, the sailor, who has sailed all round and round the
world; and I have much, much to ask him. A chair, Margaret, for Mr.
Lindsay. I must be a preacher like John Knox, you know--like the great
John Knox, the reformer of a nation--and Mr. Lindsay knows all about
him. A chair, Margaret, for Mr. Lindsay."
I am not ashamed to say it was with tears, and in a voice faltering with
emotion, that I apologized to the poor woman for my intrusion at such a
time. Were it otherwise, I might well conclude my heart had grown hard
as a piece of the nether millstone.
"I had known Robert at College," I said--"had loved and respected him;
and had now come to pay him a visit, after an absence of several months,
wholly unprepared for finding him in his present condition." And it
would seem that my tears pled for me, and proved to the poor afflicted
woman and her daughter, by far the most efficient part of my apology.
"All my friends have left me now, Mr. Lindsay," said the unfortunate
poet--"they have all left me now; they love this present world. We were
all going down, down, down; there was the roll of a river behind us; it
came bursting over the high rocks, roaring, rolling, foaming down upon
us; and though the fog was thick and dark below--far below, in the place
to which we were going--I could see the red fire shining through--the
red, hot, unquenchable fire; and we were all going down, down, down.
Mother, mother, tell Mr. Lindsay I am going to be put on my trials
to-morrow. Careless creature that I am--life is short, and I have lost
much time; but I am going to be put on my trials to-morrow, and shall
come forth a preacher of the word."
The thunder which had hitherto been muttering at a distance--each peal,
however, nearer and louder than the preceding one--now began to roll
overhead, and the lightning, as it passed the window, to illumine every
object within. The hapless poet stretched out his thin wasted arm, as if
addressing a congregation from the pulpit:--
"There were the flashings of lightning," he said, "and the roll of
thunder; and the trumpet waxed louder and louder. And around the summit
of the mountain were the foldings of thick clouds, and the shadow fell
brown and dark over the wide expanse of the desert. And the wild beasts
lay trembling in their dens. But, lo! where the sun breaks through the
opening of the cloud, there is the glitter of tents--the glitter of ten
thousand tents that rise over the sandy waste, thick as waves of the
sea. And there, there is the voice of the dance and of the revel, and
the winding of horns and the clash of cymbals. Oh, sit nearer me,
dearest mother, for the room is growing dark, dark; and, oh, my poor
head!
'The lady sat on the castle wa',
Look'd ower baith dale and down,
And then she spied Gil-Morice head
Come steering through the town.'
Do, dearest mother, put your cool hand on my brow, and do hold it fast
ere it part. How fearfully--oh, how fearfully it aches!--and oh, how it
thunders!" He sunk backward on the pillow, apparently exhausted. "Gone,
gone, gone," he muttered; "my mind gone for ever. But God's will be
done."
I rose to leave the room; for I could restrain my feelings no longer.
"Stay, Mr. Lindsay," said the poet, in a feeble voice; "I hear the rain
dashing on the pavement; you must not go till it abates. Would that you
could pray beside me!--but, no--you are not like the dissolute
companions who have now all left me, but you are not yet fitted for
that; and, alas! I cannot pray for myself. Mother, mother, see that
there be prayers at my lykewake; for--
'Her lykewake, it was piously spent
In social prayer and praise,
Performed by judicious men,
Who stricken were in days.
'And many a heavy, heavy heart
Was in that mournful place;
And many a weary, weary thought
On her who slept in peace.'
They will come all to my lykewake, mother, won't they?--yes, all, though
they have left me now. Yes, and they will come far to see my grave. I
was poor, very poor, you know, and they looked down upon me; and I was
no son or cousin of theirs, and so they could do nothing for me. Oh, but
they might have looked less coldly! But they will all come to my grave,
mother; they will come all to my grave; and they will say--'Would he
were living now to know how kind we are!' But they will look as coldly
as ever on the living poet beside them--yes, till they have broken his
heart; and then they will go to his grave too. O dearest mother, do lay
your cool hand on my brow."
He lay silent and exhausted, and, in a few minutes, I could hope, from
the hardness of his breathing, that he had fallen asleep.
"How long," I inquired of his sister, in a low whisper, "has Mr.
Ferguson been so unwell, and what has injured his head?"
"Alas!" said the girl, "my brother has been unsettled in mind for nearly
the last six months. We first knew it one evening on his coming home
from the country, where he had been for a few days with a friend. He
burnt a large heap of papers that he had been employed on for weeks
before--songs and poems that his friends say were the finest things he
ever wrote; but he burnt them all, for he was going to be a preacher of
the word, he said, and it did not become a preacher of the word to be a
writer of light rhymes. And, O sir! his mind has been carried ever
since; but he has been always gentle and affectionate, and his sole
delight has lain in reading the Bible. Good Dr. Erskine, of the
Greyfriars, often comes to our house, and sits with him for hours
together; for there are times when his mind seems stronger than ever,
and he says wonderful things, that seem to hover, the minister says,
between the extravagance natural to his present sad condition, and the
higher flights of a philosophic genius. And we had hoped that he was
getting better; but, O sir, our hopes have had a sad ending. He went
out, a few evenings ago, to call on an old acquaintance; and, in
descending a stair, missed footing, and fell to the bottom; and his head
has been fearfully injured by the stones. He has been just as you have
seen him ever since; and, oh! I much fear he cannot now recover. Alas!
my poor brother!--never, never was there a more affectionate heart."