“To a mysteriously consorted pair
This place is consecrate, to Death and Life,
And to the best affections that proceed
From their conjunction.”--WORDSWORTH.
[Sidenote: THE ITINERANT SCULPTOR.]
Were I to see a person determined on becoming a hermit, through a
disgust of the tame aspect of manners and low tone of feeling which
seem characteristic of what is termed civilized society, I should be
inclined to advise that, instead of retiring into a desert, he should
take up his place of residence in a country churchyard.
Perhaps no personage of real life can be more properly regarded as a
hermit of the churchyard than the itinerant sculptor, who wanders from
one country burying-ground to another, recording on his tablets of
stone the tears of the living and the worth of the dead. If possessed
of an ordinary portion of feeling and imagination, he can scarce fail
of regarding his profession as a school of benevolence and poetry. For
my own part, I have seldom thrown aside the hammer and trowel of the
stone-mason for the chisel of the itinerant sculptor, without receiving
some fresh confirmation of the opinion. How often have I suffered
my mallet to rest on the unfinished epitaph, when listening to some
friend of the buried expatiating, with all the eloquence of grief, on
the mysterious warning--and the sad deathbed--on the worth that had
departed--and the sorrow that remained behind! How often, forgetting
that I was merely an auditor, have I so identified myself with the
mourner as to feel my heart swell, and my eyes becoming moist! Even
the very aspect of a solitary churchyard seems conducive to habits of
thought and feeling. I have risen from my employment to mark the shadow
of tombstone and burial-mound creeping over the sward at my feet, and
have been rendered serious by the reflection, that as those gnomons
of the dead marked out no line of hours, though the hours passed as
the shadows moved, so, in that eternity in which even the dead exist,
there is a nameless tide of continuity, but no division of time. I
have become sad, when, looking on the green mounds around me, I have
regarded them as waves of triumph which time and death have rolled over
the wreck of man; and the feeling has deepened, when, looking down with
the eye of imagination through this motionless sea of graves, I have
marked the sad remains of both the long-departed and the recent dead
thickly strewed over the bottom. I have grieved above the half-soiled
shroud of her for whom the tears of bereavement had not yet been dried
up, and sighed over the mouldering bones of him whose very name had
long since perished from the earth.
[Sidenote: KIRK-MICHAEL.]
Not long ago I wrought for about a week in the burying-ground of
Kirk-Michael, a ruinous chapel in the eastern extremity of the parish
of Resolis, distant about six miles from the town of Cromarty. It is
a pleasant solitary spot, lying on the sweep of a gentle declivity.
The sea flows to within a few yards of the lower wall; but the beach
is so level, and so little exposed to the winds, that even in the time
of tempest there is heard within its precincts only a faint rippling
murmur, scarcely loud enough to awaken the echoes of the ruin. Ocean
seems to muffle his waves in approaching this field of the dead. A row
of elms springs out of the fence, and half encircles the building in
the centre. Standing beside the mouldering walls, the foreground of the
scene appears thickly sprinkled over with graves and tablets; and we
see the green moss creeping round the rude sculptures of a primitive
age, imparting lightness and beauty to that on which the chisel had
bestowed a very opposite character. The flake-like leaves and gnarled
trunks of the elms fill up what a painter would term the midground of
the picture; and seen from between the boughs, the Bay of Cromarty,
shut in by the Sutors so as to present the appearance of a huge lake,
and the town beyond half enveloped in blue smoke--the windows sparkling
through the cloud like spangles on a belt of azure--occupy the distance.
The western gable of the ruin is still entire, though the very
foundations of part of the walls can no longer be traced on the
sward, and it is topped by a belfry of hewn stone, in which the _dead
bell_ is still suspended. From the spires and balls with which the
cornice is surmounted, the moss and lichens which bristle over the
mouldings, and the stalks of ragweed which shoot out here and there
from between the joints, the belfry, though designed in a barbarous
style of architecture, is rich in the true picturesque. It furnished
me, when the wind blew from the east, with an agreeable music, not,
indeed, either gay or very varied, but of a character which suited well
with that of the place. I wrought directly under it, and frequently
paused in my labours to hearken the blast moaning amid its spires, and
whistling through its apertures; and I have occasionally been startled
by the mingling deathlike tones produced by the hammer, when forced
by the wind against the sides of the bell. I was one day listening
to this music, when, by one of those freaks which fling the light of
recollection upon the dark recesses of the past, much in the manner
that I have seen a child throwing the gleam of a mirror from the
sunshine into the shade, there were brought before me the circumstances
of a dream, deemed prophetic of the death of him whose epitaph I was
then inscribing. It was one of those auguries of contingency which,
according to Bacon, men mark when they hit, and never mark when they
miss.
[Sidenote: THE APPRENTICE’S DREAM.]
In the latter part of 1822 a young lad, a mason’s apprentice,
was employed with his master in working within the policies of
Pointzfield--a gentleman’s seat about a mile from the burying-ground.
He wished much to visit the tombs and chapel, but could find no
opportunity; for the day had so shortened that his employments engaged
him from the first peep of light in the morning until half an hour
after sunset. And perhaps the wish was the occasion of the dream.
He had no sooner fallen asleep, after the fatigues of the day, than
he found himself approaching the chapel in one of the finest of
midsummer evenings. The whole western heavens were suffused with the
blush of sunset--the hills, the woods, the fields, the sea, all the
limbs and members of the great frame of nature, seemed enveloped in
a mantle of beauty. He reached the burying-ground, and deemed it the
loveliest spot he had ever seen. The tombs were finished after the most
exquisite designs, chastely Grecian, or ornately Gothic; and myriads
of flowering shrubs winded around the urns, and shaded the tablets
in every disposition of beauty. The building seemed entire, but it
was so encrusted with moss and lichens as to present an appearance of
extreme antiquity; and on the western gable there was fixed a huge
gnomon of bronze, fantastically carved like that of an antique dial,
and green with the rust of ages. Suddenly a low breeze began to moan
through the shrubs and bushes, the heavens became overcast, and the
dreamer, turning towards the building, beheld with a sensation of fear
the gnomon revolving slowly as on an axis, until the point rested
significantly on the sward. He fled the place in deep horror, the
night suddenly fell, and when floundering on in darkness and terror,
through a morass that stretches beyond the southern wall of the chapel,
he awoke, and lo! it was a dream. Only five weeks elapsed from this
evening, until he followed to the burying-ground the corpse of a
relative, and saw that the open grave occupied the identical spot on
which the point of the gnomon had rested.
During the course of the week which I spent in the burying-ground, I
became acquainted with several interesting traditions connected with
its mute inhabitants. There are some of these which show how very
unlike the beliefs entertained in the ages which have departed, are
to those deemed rational in the present; while there are others which
render it evident that though men at different eras think and believe
differently, human nature always remains the same. The following
partakes in part of the character of both.
[Sidenote: THE WILD WIFE.]
There lived, about a century ago, in the upper part of the parish of
Cromarty, an elderly female of that disposition of mind which Bacon
describes as one of the very errors of human nature. Her faculties of
enjoyment and suffering seemed connected by some invisible tie to the
fortunes of her neighbours; but the tie, unlike that of sympathy, which
binds pleasure to pleasure, and sorrow to sorrow, united by a strange
perversity the opposite feelings; for she was happy when the people
around her were unfortunate, and miserable when they prospered. So
decided a misanthropy was met by a kindred feeling in those acquainted
with her; nor was she regarded with only that abhorrence which attaches
to the evil wish, and the malignant intention, but also with the
contempt due to that impotency of malice which can only wish and intend.
Her sphere of mischief, however, though limited by her circumstances,
was occupied to its utmost boundary; and she frequently made up
for her want of power by an ingenuity, derived from what seemed an
almost instinctive knowledge of the weaknesses of human nature. It
was difficult to tell how she effected her schemes, but certain it
was that in her neighbourhood lovers became estranged, and families
divided. Late in the autumn of her last year, she formed one of a
band of reapers employed in cutting down the crops of a Cromarty
farmer. Her partner on the ridge was a poor widow, who had recently
lost her husband, and who, though wasted by grief and sickness, was
now toiling for her three fatherless children. Every person on the
field pitied her but one; and the malice of even that one, perverted
as her dispositions were, would probably have been disarmed by the
helplessness of its object, had it not chanced, that about five years
before, when the poor woman and her deceased husband were on the eve of
their marriage, she had attempted to break off the match, by casting
some foul aspersions on her character. Those whom the wicked injure,
says the adage, they never forgive; and with a demoniac abuse of her
knowledge of the dispositions of the people with whom she wrought,
she strained beyond her strength to get ahead of them, knowing that
a competition would necessarily take place, in which, she trusted,
the widow would have either to relinquish her employment as above her
strength, or so exhaust herself in the contest as to relapse into
sickness. The expected struggle ensued, but, to the surprise of every
one, the widow kept up her place in the foremost rank until evening,
when she appeared less fatigued than almost any individual of the
party. The wretch who had occasioned the contest, and who had fallen
behind all the others, seemed dreadfully agitated for the two last
hours it continued; and she was heard by the persons who bound up the
sheaves, muttering, during the whole time, words apparently of fearful
meaning, which were, however, drowned amid the rustling of the corn,
and the hurry and confusion of the competition. Next morning she alone
of all the reapers was absent; and she was found by the widow, who
seemed the only one solicitous to know what had become of her, and who
first entered her hovel to inquire after her, tossing in the delirium
of fever. The poor woman, though shocked and terrified by her ravings
and her agony, tended her till within half an hour of midnight, when
she expired.
At that late hour a solitary traveller was passing the road which winds
along the southern shore of the bay. The moon, in her last quarter,
had just risen over the hill on his right, and, half-veiled by three
strips of cloud, rather resembled a heap of ignited charcoal seen
through the bars of a grate, than the orb which only a few nights
before had enabled the reaper to prosecute his employments until near
morning. The blocks of granite scattered over the neighbouring beach,
and bleached and polished by the waves, were relieved by the moonshine,
and resembled flocks of sheep ruminating on a meadow; but not a single
ray rested on the sea beyond, or the path or fields before;--the
beam slided ineffectually along the level;--it was light looking at
darkness. On a sudden, the traveller became conscious of that strange
mysterious emotion which, according to the creed of the demonologist,
indicates the presence or near approach of an evil spirit. He felt his
whole frame as if creeping together, and his hair bristling on his
head; and, filled with a strange horror, he heard, through the dead
stillness of the night, a faint uncertain noise, like that of a sudden
breeze rustling through a wood at the close of autumn. He blessed
himself, and stood still. A tall figure, indistinct in the darkness,
came gliding along the road from the east, and inquired of him in a
voice hollow and agitated, as it floated past, whether it could not
reach Kirk-Michael before midnight? “No living person could,” answered
the traveller; and the appearance, groaning at the reply, was out of
sight in a moment. The sounds still continued, as if a multitude of
leaves were falling from the boughs of a forest, and striking with a
pattering sound on the heaps congregated beneath, when another figure
came up, taller, but even less distinct, than the former. It bore the
appearance of a man on horseback. “Shall I reach Kirk-Michael before
midnight?” was the query again put to the terrified traveller; but
before he could reply, the appearance had vanished in the distance, and
a shriek of torment and despair, which seemed re-echoed by the very
firmament, roused him into a more intense feeling of horror. The moon
shone out with supernatural brightness; the noise, which had ceased for
a moment, returned, but the sounds were different--for they now seemed
to be those of faint laughter, and low indistinct murmurings in the
tone of ridicule; and the gigantic rider of a pale horse, with what
appeared to be a female shape bent double before him, and accompanied
by two dogs, one of which tugged at the head and the other at the feet
of the figure, was seen approaching from the west. As this terrible
apparition passed the traveller, the moon shone full on the face of
the woman bent across the horse, and he distinctly perceived, though
the features seemed convulsed with agony, that they were those of the
female who, unknown to him, had expired a few minutes before. None of
the other stories are of so terrible a character.
[Sidenote: GORDON OF NEWHALL.]
Attached to the eastern gable of the ruin, there is a tomb which
encloses several monuments; among the rest a plain slab of marble
bearing an epitaph, the composition of which would reflect honour
on the pen even of Pope. Like most of the other tablets of the
burying-ground, it has its history. Somewhat more than fifty years
ago, the proprietor of Newhall, an estate in the neighbourhood, was a
young man of very superior powers of mind, and both a gentleman and a
scholar. When on a visit at the house of his uncle, the proprietor of
Invergordon, he was suddenly taken ill, and died a few hours after,
leaving behind him a sister, who entertained for him the warmest
affection, and the whole of his tenants, who were much attached to him,
to regret his loss. He was buried in the family vault of his uncle, who
did not long survive him; and whose estate, including the vault, was
sold soon after by the next of kin--a circumstance which aggravated, in
no slight degree, the grief of his sister. There was one gloomy idea
that continually occupied her mind--the idea that even the dust of her
brother had, like the earth and stones of his cemetery, become the
property of a stranger. Sleeping or waking, the interior of the vault
was continually before her. I have seen it. It is a damp melancholy
apartment of stone, so dimly lighted that the eye cannot ascertain its
extent, with the sides hollowed into recesses, partly occupied by the
dead, and with a few rusty iron lamps suspended from the ceiling, that
resemble in the darkness a family of vampire bats clinging to the roof
of a cavern. A green hillock, covered with moss and daisies, would have
supplied the imagination of the mourner with a more pleasing image, and
have associated better with the character of the dead.
His sister was the wife of a gentleman who was at that time the
proprietor of Braelanguil. One evening, about half a year after the
sale of her uncle’s property, she was prevailed upon by her husband to
quit her apartment, to which she had been confined for months before,
and to walk with him in a neighbouring wood. She spoke of the virtues
and talents of the deceased, the only theme from which she could derive
any pleasure; and she found that evening in her companion a more deep
and tender sympathy than usual. The walk was insensibly prolonged,
and she was only awakened from her reverie of tenderness and sorrow,
by finding herself among the graves of Kirk-Michael. The door of her
husband’s burying-ground lay open. On entering it, she perceived that a
fresh grave had been added to the number of those which had previously
occupied the space, and that one of the niches in the wall was filled
up by a new slab of marble. It was the grave and monument of her
brother. The body had been removed from the vault, and re-interred in
this place by her consort; and it would perhaps be difficult to decide
whether the more delicate satisfaction was derived by the sister or the
husband from the walk of the evening. The epitaph is as follows:--
What science crown’d him, or what genius blest,
No flattering pencil bids this stone attest;
Yet may it witness with a purer pride,
How many virtues sunk when Gordon died.
Clear truth and nature, noble rays of mind,
Open as day, that beam’d on all mankind;
Warm to oblige, too gentle to offend,
He never made a foe nor lost a friend.
Nor yet from fortune’s height, or learning’s shade,
It boasts the tribute to his memory paid;
But that around, in grateful sorrow steep’d,
The humble tenants of the cottage wept;
Those simple hearts that shrink from grandeur’s blaze,
Those artless tongues that know not how to praise,
Feel and record the worth that hallow here
A friend’s remembrance, and a sister’s tear.[11]
Half-way between the chapel and the northern wall of the
burying-ground, there is a square altar-like monument of hewn ashlar,
enclosing in one of its sides a tablet of grey freestone. It was
erected about sixty years ago by a baronet of Fowlis to the memory of
his aunt, Mrs. Gordon of Ardoch, a woman whose singular excellence of
character is recorded by the pen of Doddridge. She was the only sister
of three brothers--men who ranked among the best and bravest of their
age, and all of whom died in the service of their country--two in the
field of battle, the third when pursuing a flying enemy.
[Sidenote: SIR ROBERT MUNRO.]
The eldest son of the family was Sir Robert Munro, twenty-seventh
baronet of Fowlis, a man whose achievements, as recorded by the sober
pen of Doddridge, seem fitted to associate rather with ideas derived
from the high conceptions of poetry and romance, than with those
which we usually acquire from our experience of real life. He was a
person of calm wisdom, determined courage, and unassuming piety. On
quitting the university, which he did when very young, he passed into
Flanders, where he served for several years under Marlborough, and
became intimate with the celebrated James Gardiner, then a cornet of
dragoons. And the intimacy ripened into a friendship which did not
terminate until death; perhaps not even then. On the peace of 1712 he
returned to Scotland; and the Rebellion broke out three years after.
At the head of his clan, the Munros, in union with the good Earl of
Sutherland, he so harassed a body of three thousand Highlanders, who,
under the Earl of Seaforth, were on the march to join the insurgents at
Perth, that the junction was retarded for nearly two months--a delay
which is said to have decided the fate of the Stuarts in Scotland. In
the following year he was appointed one of the commissioners of inquiry
into the forfeited estates of the attainted; and he exerted himself
in this office in erecting parishes in the remote Highlands, which
derived their stipends from the confiscated lands. In this manner, says
his biographer, new presbyteries were formed in counties where the
discipline and worship of Protestant Churches had before no footing. It
is added, that by his influence with Government he did eminent service
to the wives and children of the proscribed. He was for thirty years a
member of Parliament, and distinguished himself as a liberal consistent
Whig--the friend both of the people and of the king. In the year 1740,
when the country was on the eve of what he deemed a just war, though
he had arrived at an age at which the soldier commonly begins to think
of retiring from the fatigues of the military life, he quitted the
business of the senate for the dangers of the field, and passed a
second time into Flanders. He now held the rank of lieutenant-colonel,
and such was his influence over the soldiers under him, and such
their admiration of his character, that his spirit and high sense of
honour seemed to pervade the whole regiment. When a guard was granted
to the people of Flanders for the protection of their property, they
prayed that it should be composed of Sir Robert’s Highlanders; and the
Elector-Palatine, through his envoy at the English court, tendered to
George I. his thanks for this excellent regiment; for the sake of whose
lieutenant-colonel, it was added, he would for the future always esteem
a Scotchman.
The life of Sir Robert resembled a well-wrought drama, whose scenes
become doubly interesting as it hastens to a close. In the battle of
Fontenoy he was among the first in the field, and having obtained
leave that his Highlanders should fight after the manner of their
country, he surprised the whole army by a display of extraordinary yet
admirable tactics, directed against the enemy with the most invincible
courage. He dislodged from a battery, which he was ordered to attack,
a force superior to his own, and found a strong body of the enemy,
who were stationed beyond it, preparing to open on him a sweeping
fire. Commanding his regiment to prostrate itself to avoid the shot,
he raised it when the French were in the act of reloading, and, sword
in hand, rushed at its head upon them with so irresistible a charge
as forced them precipitately through their lines. Then retreating,
according to the tactics of his country, he again brought his men to
the charge as before, and with similar effect. And this manœuvre of
alternate flight and attack was frequently repeated during the day.
When after the battle had become general, the English began to give
ground before the superior force of the enemy, Sir Robert’s regiment
formed the rearguard in the retreat. A strong body of French horse came
galloping up behind; but, when within a few yards of the Highlanders,
the latter turned suddenly round, and received them with a fire so well
directed and effectual, that nearly one-half of them were dismounted.
The rest, wheeling about, rode off, and did not again return to the
attack. It was observed, that during the course of this day, when
the Highlanders had thrown themselves on the ground immediately as
the enemy had levelled their pieces for firing, there was one person
of the regiment who, instead of prostrating himself with the others,
stood erect, exposed to the volley. That one was Sir Robert Munro.
The circumstances of his death, which took place about eight months
after, at the battle of Falkirk, were adapted to display still more
his indomitable heroism of character. He had recently been promoted
to the command of a regiment, which, unlike his brave Highlanders at
Fontenoy, deserted him in the moment of attack, and left him enclosed
by the enemy. Defending himself with his half-pike against six of their
number, two of whom he killed, he was not overpowered, though alone,
until a seventh coming up shot him dead with a musket. His younger
brother, who accompanied the regiment, and who had been borne along by
the current of the retreat, returned in time only to witness his fate
and to share it.
It has been told me by a friend, who, about forty years ago,
resided for some time in the vicinity of Fowlis, that he could have
collected, at that period, anecdotes of Sir Robert from among his
tenantry sufficient to have formed a volume. They were all of one
character:--tints of varied but unequivocal beauty, which animated into
the colour and semblance of life the faint outline of heroism traced by
Doddridge. There was an old man who used to sit by my friend for hours
together narrating the exploits of his chief. He was a tall, upright,
greyhaired Highlander, of a warm heart and keen unbending spirit, who
had fought at Dettingen, Fontenoy, Culloden, and Quebec. One day, when
describing the closing scene in the life of his almost idolized leader,
after pouring out his curse on the dastards who had deserted him, he
started from his seat, and grasping his staff as he burst into tears,
exclaimed in a voice almost smothered by emotion, “Ochon, ochon, had
his ain folk been there!!”
The following anecdote of Sir Robert, which I owe to tradition, sets
his character in a very amiable light. On his return from Flanders
in 1712, he was introduced to a Miss Jean Seymour, a beautiful
English lady. The young soldier was smitten by her appearance, and
had the happiness of perceiving that he had succeeded in at least
attracting her notice. So happy an introduction was followed up into
an intimacy, and at length, what had been only a casual impression on
either side, ripened into a mutual passion of no ordinary warmth and
delicacy. On Sir Robert’s quitting England for the north, he arranged
with his mistress the plan of a regular correspondence, and wrote to
her immediately on his arrival at Fowlis. After waiting for a reply
with all the impatience of the lover, he sent off a second letter
complaining of her neglect, which had no better success than the first,
and shortly after a third, which shared the fate of the two others.
The inference seemed too obvious to be missed; and he strove to forget
Miss Seymour. He hunted, fished, visited his several friends, involved
himself in a multiplicity of concerns, but all to no purpose; she
still continued the engrossing object of his affections, and, after
a few months’ stay in the Highlands, he again returned to England, a
very unhappy man. When waiting on a friend in London, he was ushered
precipitately into the midst of a fashionable party, and found himself
in the presence of his mistress. She seemed much startled by the
rencounter; the blood mounted to her cheeks; but, suppressing her
emotion, she turned to the lady who sat next her, and began to converse
on some common topic of the day. Sir Robert retired, and beckoning on
his friend, entreated him to procure for him an interview with Miss
Seymour, which was effected, and an explanation ensued. The lady had
not received a single letter; and forming at length, from the seeming
neglect of her lover, an opinion of him similar to that from which she
herself was suffering in his esteem, she attempted to banish him from
her affections;--an attempt, however, in which she was scarcely more
successful than Sir Robert. They were gratified to find that they had
not been mistaken in their first impressions of each other, and parted
more attached, and more convinced that the attachment was mutual, than
ever. And in less than two months after Miss Seymour had become Lady
Munro.
Sir Robert succeeded in tracing all his letters to one point, a kind of
post-office on the confines of Inverness-shire. There was a proprietor
in the neighbourhood, who was deeply engaged in the interests of the
Stuarts, and decidedly hostile to Sir Robert, the scion of a family
which had distinguished itself from the first dawn of the Reformation
in the cause of civil and religious liberty. There was, therefore,
little difficulty in assigning an author to the contrivance; but Sir
Robert was satisfied in barely tracing it to a discovery; for, squaring
his principles of honour rather by the morals of the New Testament than
by the dogmas of that code which regards death as the only expiation of
insult or injury, he was no duellist. An opportunity, however, soon
occurred of his avenging himself in a manner agreeable to his character
and principles. On the breaking out of the Rebellion of 1715, the
person who had so wantonly sported with his happiness joined the Earl
of Mar, and, after the failure of the enterprise, was among the number
of the proscribed. Sir Robert’s influence with the Government, and
the peculiar office to which he was appointed, gave him considerable
power over the confiscated properties, and this power he exerted to its
utmost in behalf of the wife and children of the man by whom he had
been injured. “Tell your husband,” said he to the lady, “that I have
now repaid him for the interest he took in my correspondence with Miss
Seymour.”
[Sidenote: BABBLE HANAH.]
Sir Robert’s second brother (the other, as has been related, died with
him at Falkirk) was killed, about seven months after the battle, in
the Highlands of Lochaber. His only sister survived him for nearly
twenty years, “a striking example (I use the language of Doddridge)
of profound submission and fortitude, mingled with the most tender
sensibility of temper.” She was the wife of a Mr. Gordon of Ardoch (now
Pointzfield), whom she survived for several years; and her later days
were spent in Cromarty, where there are still a few elderly people who
remember her, and speak of her many virtues and gentle manners with a
feeling bordering on enthusiasm. There was a poor half-witted girl who
lived in her neighbourhood, known among the town’s-people by the name
of _Babble_ Hanah. The word in italics is a Scottish phrase applied to
persons of an idiotical cast of mind, and yet though poor Hanah had
no claim to dispute the propriety of its application in her own case,
her faint glimmering of reason proved quite sufficient to light her
on the best possible track of life. She had learned from revelation
of the immortality of the soul, and the two states of the future;
and experience had taught even her, what indeed it would teach every
one, did every one but attend to its lessons, that there is a radical
depravity in the nature of man, and a continual succession of evil
in the course of life. She had learned, too, that she was one of the
least wise of a class of creatures exceedingly foolish at best, and
that to escape from evil needed much wisdom. She was, therefore earnest
in her prayers to the Great Spirit who was so kind to her--and to even
those feeble animals who, though they enjoy no boon of after life, have
a wisdom to provide for the winter, and to dig their houses in the
rocks--that in this world He would direct her walk agreeably to His own
will, and render her wiser in the world to come. Socrates could have
taught all this to Xenophon and Plato, but God only could have taught
it to Hanah. The people of the place, with dispositions like those
of the great bulk of people in every place, were much more disposed
to laugh at the poor thing for what she wanted, than to form right
estimates of the value of what she had. Not so Lady Ardoch;--Hanah
was one of her friends. The lady’s house was a place where, in the
language of Scripture, “prayer was wont to be made;” and no one was
a more regular attendant on the meetings held for this purpose, than
her friend the half-witted girl. The poor thing always sat at her
feet, and was termed by her, her own Hanah. Years, however, began to
weigh down the frame of the good lady; and after passing through all
the gradations of bodily decay, with a mind which seemed to brighten
and grow stronger as it neared to eternity, she at length slept with
her fathers. Hanah betrayed no emotion of grief; she spoke to no one
of the friend whom she had lost; but she moped and pined away, and
became indifferent to everything; and a few months after, when on her
deathbed, she told a friend of the deceased who had come to visit her,
that she was going to the country of Lady Ardoch.