Pentapolin with the naked arm, to advance in person to the charge of
the flock of sheep, stood more confounded than Oldbuck at this sudden
escapade of his nephew.
“Is the devil in him,” was his first exclamation, “to go to disturb
the brute that was never thinking of him!”--Then elevating his voice,
“Hector--nephew--fool--let alone the Phoca--let alone the Phoca!-- they bite,
I tell you, like furies. He minds me no more than a post. There--there
they are at it--Gad, the Phoca has the best of it! I am glad to see it,”
said he, in the bitterness of his heart, though really alarmed for his
nephew’s safety--“I am glad to see it, with all my heart and spirit.”
In truth, the seal, finding her retreat intercepted by the light-footed
soldier, confronted him manfully, and having sustained a heavy blow
without injury, she knitted her brows, as is the fashion of the animal
when incensed, and making use at once of her fore-paws and her unwieldy
strength, wrenched the weapon out of the assailant’s hand, overturned
him on the sands, and scuttled away into the sea, without doing him any
farther injury. Captain M’Intyre, a good deal out of countenance at
the issue of his exploit, just rose in time to receive the ironical
congratulations of his uncle, upon a single combat worthy to be
commemorated by Ossian himself, “since,” said the Antiquary, “your
magnanimous opponent has fled, though not upon eagle’s wings, from the
foe that was low--Egad, she walloped away with all the grace of triumph,
and has carried my stick off also, by way of spolia opima.”
M’Intyre had little to answer for himself, except that a Highlander
could never pass a deer, a seal, or a salmon, where there was a
possibility of having a trial of skill with them, and that he had forgot
one of his arms was in a sling. He also made his fall an apology for
returning back to Monkbarns, and thus escape the farther raillery of his
uncle, as well as his lamentations for his walking-stick.
“I cut it,” he said, “in the classic woods of Hawthornden, when I did
not expect always to have been a bachelor--I would not have given it for
an ocean of seals--O Hector! Hector!--thy namesake was born to be the prop
of Troy, and thou to be the plague of Monkbarns!”
CHAPTER TENTH.
Tell me not of it, friend--when the young weep,
Their tears are luke-warm brine;--from your old eyes
Sorrow falls down like hail-drops of the North,
Chilling the furrows of our withered cheeks,
Cold as our hopes, and hardened as our feeling--
Theirs, as they fall, sink sightless--ours recoil,
Heap the fair plain, and bleaken all before us.
Old Play.
The Antiquary, being now alone, hastened his pace, which had been
retarded by these various discussions, and the rencontre which had
closed them, and soon arrived before the half-dozen cottages at
Mussel-crag. They had now, in addition to their usual squalid and
uncomfortable appearance, the melancholy attributes of the house of
mourning. The boats were all drawn up on the beach; and, though the day
was fine, and the season favourable, the chant, which is used by the
fishers when at sea, was silent, as well as the prattle of the children,
and the shrill song of the mother, as she sits mending her nets by the
door. A few of the neighbours, some in their antique and well-saved
suits of black, others in their ordinary clothes, but all bearing an
expression of mournful sympathy with distress so sudden and unexpected,
stood gathered around the door of Mucklebackit’s cottage, waiting till
“the body was lifted.” As the Laird of Monkbarns approached, they made
way for him to enter, doffing their hats and bonnets as he passed, with
an air of melancholy courtesy, and he returned their salutes in the same
manner.
In the inside of the cottage was a scene which our Wilkie alone could
have painted, with that exquisite feeling of nature that characterises
his enchanting productions.
The body was laid in its coffin within the wooden bedstead which the
young fisher had occupied while alive. At a little distance stood the
father, whose rugged weather-beaten countenance, shaded by his
grizzled hair, had faced many a stormy night and night-like day. He was
apparently revolving his loss in his mind, with that strong feeling
of painful grief peculiar to harsh and rough characters, which almost
breaks forth into hatred against the world, and all that remain in it,
after the beloved object is withdrawn. The old man had made the most
desperate efforts to save his son, and had only been withheld by main
force from renewing them at a moment when, without the possibility
of assisting the sufferer, he must himself have perished. All this
apparently was boiling in his recollection. His glance was directed
sidelong towards the coffin, as to an object on which he could not
stedfastly look, and yet from which he could not withdraw his eyes. His
answers to the necessary questions which were occasionally put to him,
were brief, harsh, and almost fierce. His family had not yet dared to
address to him a word, either of sympathy or consolation. His masculine
wife, virago as she was, and absolute mistress of the family, as she
justly boasted herself, on all ordinary occasions, was, by this great
loss, terrified into silence and submission, and compelled to hide from
her husband’s observation the bursts of her female sorrow. As he had
rejected food ever since the disaster had happened, not daring herself
to approach him, she had that morning, with affectionate artifice,
employed the youngest and favourite child to present her husband with
some nourishment. His first action was to put it from him with an angry
violence that frightened the child; his next, to snatch up the boy
and devour him with kisses. “Yell be a bra’ fallow, an ye be spared,
Patie,--but ye’ll never--never can be--what he was to me!--He has sailed the
coble wi’ me since he was ten years auld, and there wasna the like
o’ him drew a net betwixt this and Buchan-ness.--They say folks maun
submit--I will try.”
And he had been silent from that moment until compelled to answer the
necessary questions we have already noticed. Such was the disconsolate
state of the father.
In another corner of the cottage, her face covered by her apron, which
was flung over it, sat the mother--the nature of her grief sufficiently
indicated by the wringing of her hands, and the convulsive agitation
of the bosom, which the covering could not conceal. Two of her gossips,
officiously whispering into her ear the commonplace topic of resignation
under irremediable misfortune, seemed as if they were endeavouring to
stun the grief which they could not console.
The sorrow of the children was mingled with wonder at the preparations
they beheld around them, and at the unusual display of wheaten bread
and wine, which the poorest peasant, or fisher, offers to the guests on
these mournful occasions; and thus their grief for their brother’s death
was almost already lost in admiration of the splendour of his funeral.
But the figure of the old grandmother was the most remarkable of the
sorrowing group. Seated on her accustomed chair, with her usual air of
apathy, and want of interest in what surrounded her, she seemed every
now and then mechanically to resume the motion of twirling her spindle;
then to look towards her bosom for the distaff, although both had been
laid aside. She would then cast her eyes about, as if surprised at
missing the usual implements of her industry, and appear struck by the
black colour of the gown in which they had dressed her, and embarrassed
by the number of persons by whom she was surrounded. Then, finally, she
would raise her head with a ghastly look, and fix her eyes upon the bed
which contained the coffin of her grandson, as if she had at once,
and for the first time, acquired sense to comprehend her inexpressible
calamity. These alternate feelings of embarrassment, wonder, and grief,
seemed to succeed each other more than once upon her torpid features.
But she spoke not a word--neither had she shed a tear--nor did one of the
family understand, either from look or expression, to what extent she
comprehended the uncommon bustle around her. Thus she sat among the
funeral assembly like a connecting link between the surviving mourners
and the dead corpse which they bewailed--a being in whom the light of
existence was already obscured by the encroaching shadows of death.
When Oldbuck entered this house of mourning, he was received by a
general and silent inclination of the head, and, according to the
fashion of Scotland on such occasions, wine and spirits and bread
were offered round to the guests. Elspeth, as these refreshments were
presented, surprised and startled the whole company by motioning to the
person who bore them to stop; then, taking a glass in her hand, she rose
up, and, as the smile of dotage played upon her shrivelled features, she
pronounced, with a hollow and tremulous voice, “Wishing a’ your healths,
sirs, and often may we hae such merry meetings!”
All shrunk from the ominous pledge, and set down the untasted liquor
with a degree of shuddering horror, which will not surprise those who
know how many superstitions are still common on such occasions among the
Scottish vulgar. But as the old woman tasted the liquor, she suddenly
exclaimed with a sort of shriek, “What’s this?--this is wine--how should
there be wine in my son’s house?--Ay,” she continued with a suppressed
groan, “I mind the sorrowful cause now,” and, dropping the glass from
her hand, she stood a moment gazing fixedly on the bed in which the
coffin of her grandson was deposited, and then sinking gradually into
her seat, she covered her eyes and forehead with her withered and pallid
hand.
At this moment the clergyman entered the cottage. Mr. Blattergowl,
though a dreadful proser, particularly on the subject of augmentations,
localities, teinds, and overtures in that session of the General
Assembly, to which, unfortunately for his auditors, he chanced one year
to act as moderator, was nevertheless a good man, in the old Scottish
presbyterian phrase, God-ward and man-ward. No divine was more attentive
in visiting the sick and afflicted, in catechising the youth, in
instructing the ignorant, and in reproving the erring. And hence,
notwithstanding impatience of his prolixity and prejudices, personal or
professional, and notwithstanding, moreover, a certain habitual contempt
for his understanding, especially on affairs of genius and taste,
on which Blattergowl was apt to be diffuse, from his hope of one
day fighting his way to a chair of rhetoric or belles lettres,--
notwithstanding, I say, all the prejudices excited against him by these
circumstances, our friend the Antiquary looked with great regard and
respect on the said Blattergowl, though I own he could seldom, even by
his sense of decency and the remonstrances of his womankind, be hounded
out, as he called it, to hear him preach. But he regularly took shame to
himself for his absence when Blattergowl came to Monkbarns to dinner,
to which he was always invited of a Sunday, a mode of testifying his
respect which the proprietor probably thought fully as agreeable to the
clergyman, and rather more congenial to his own habits.
To return from a digression which can only serve to introduce the honest
clergyman more particularly to our readers, Mr. Blattergowl had no
sooner entered the hut, and received the mute and melancholy salutations
of the company whom it contained, than he edged himself towards the
unfortunate father, and seemed to endeavour to slide in a few words of
condolence or of consolation. But the old man was incapable as yet of
receiving either; he nodded, however, gruffly, and shook the clergyman’s
hand in acknowledgment of his good intentions, but was either unable or
unwilling to make any verbal reply.
The minister next passed to the mother, moving along the floor as
slowly, silently, and gradually, as if he had been afraid that the
ground would, like unsafe ice, break beneath his feet, or that the first
echo of a footstep was to dissolve some magic spell, and plunge the hut,
with all its inmates, into a subterranean abyss. The tenor of what he
had said to the poor woman could only be judged by her answers, as,
half-stifled by sobs ill-repressed, and by the covering which she still
kept over her countenance, she faintly answered at each pause in his
speech--“Yes, sir, yes!--Ye’re very gude--ye’re very gude!--Nae doubt, nae
doubt!--It’s our duty to submit!--But, oh dear! my poor Steenie! the pride
o’ my very heart, that was sae handsome and comely, and a help to his
family, and a comfort to us a’, and a pleasure to a’ that lookit on
him!--Oh, my bairn! my bairn! my bairn! what for is thou lying there!--and
eh! what for am I left to greet for ye!”
There was no contending with this burst of sorrow and natural affection.
Oldbuck had repeated recourse to his snuff-box to conceal the tears
which, despite his shrewd and caustic temper, were apt to start on such
occasions. The female assistants whimpered, the men held their bonnets
to their faces, and spoke apart with each other. The clergyman,
meantime, addressed his ghostly consolation to the aged grandmother.
At first she listened, or seemed to listen, to what he said, with the
apathy of her usual unconsciousness. But as, in pressing this theme,
he approached so near to her ear that the sense of his words became
distinctly intelligible to her, though unheard by those who stood more
distant, her countenance at once assumed that stern and expressive cast
which characterized her intervals of intelligence. She drew up her head
and body, shook her head in a manner that showed at least impatience,
if not scorn of his counsel, and waved her hand slightly, but with a
gesture so expressive, as to indicate to all who witnessed it a marked
and disdainful rejection of the ghostly consolation proffered to her.
The minister stepped back as if repulsed, and, by lifting gently and
dropping his hand, seemed to show at once wonder, sorrow, and compassion
for her dreadful state of mind. The rest of the company sympathized, and
a stifled whisper went through them, indicating how much her desperate
and determined manner impressed them with awe, and even horror.
In the meantime, the funeral company was completed, by the arrival of
one or two persons who had been expected from Fairport. The wine
and spirits again circulated, and the dumb show of greeting was anew
interchanged. The grandame a second time took a glass in her hand, drank
its contents, and exclaimed, with a sort of laugh,--“Ha! ha! I hae tasted
wine twice in ae day--Whan did I that before, think ye, cummers?--Never
since”--and the transient glow vanishing from her countenance, she set
the glass down, and sunk upon the settle from whence she had risen to
snatch at it.
As the general amazement subsided, Mr. Oldbuck, whose heart bled to
witness what he considered as the errings of the enfeebled intellect
struggling with the torpid chill of age and of sorrow, observed to the
clergyman that it was time to proceed with the ceremony. The father was
incapable of giving directions, but the nearest relation of the family
made a sign to the carpenter, who in such cases goes through the duty of
the undertaker, to proceed in his office. The creak of the screw-nails
presently announced that the lid of the last mansion of mortality was in
the act of being secured above its tenant. The last act which separates
us for ever, even from the mortal relies of the person we assemble to
mourn, has usually its effect upon the most indifferent, selfish, and
hard-hearted. With a spirit of contradiction, which we may be pardoned
for esteeming narrow-minded, the fathers of the Scottish kirk rejected,
even on this most solemn occasion, the form of an address to the
Divinity, lest they should be thought to give countenance to the rituals
of Rome or of England. With much better and more liberal judgment, it
is the present practice of most of the Scottish clergymen to seize this
opportunity of offering a prayer, and exhortation, suitable to make an
impression upon the living, while they are yet in the very presence
of the relics of him whom they have but lately seen such as they
themselves, and who now is such as they must in their time become. But
this decent and praiseworthy practice was not adopted at the time of
which I am treating, or at least, Mr. Blattergowl did not act upon it,
and the ceremony proceeded without any devotional exercise.
The coffin, covered with a pall, and supported upon hand-spikes by the
nearest relatives, now only waited the father to support the head, as is
customary. Two or three of these privileged persons spoke to him, but he
only answered by shaking his hand and his head in token of refusal. With
better intention than judgment, the friends, who considered this as
an act of duty on the part of the living, and of decency towards the
deceased, would have proceeded to enforce their request, had not
Oldbuck interfered between the distressed father and his well-meaning
tormentors, and informed them, that he himself, as landlord and master
to the deceased, “would carry his head to the grave.” In spite of the
sorrowful occasion, the hearts of the relatives swelled within them at
so marked a distinction on the part of the laird; and old Alison Breck,
who was present among other fish-women, swore almost aloud, “His honour
Monkbarns should never want sax warp of oysters in the season” (of
which fish he was understood to be fond), “if she should gang to sea and
dredge for them hersell, in the foulest wind that ever blew.” And such
is the temper of the Scottish common people, that, by this instance
of compliance with their customs, and respect for their persons, Mr.
Oldbuck gained more popularity than by all the sums which he had yearly
distributed in the parish for purposes of private or general charity.
The sad procession now moved slowly forward, preceded by the beadles, or
saulies, with their batons,--miserable-looking old men, tottering as if
on the edge of that grave to which they were marshalling another, and
clad, according to Scottish guise, with threadbare black coats, and
hunting-caps decorated with rusty crape. Monkbarns would probably have
remonstrated against this superfluous expense, had he been consulted;
but, in doing so, he would have given more offence than he gained
popularity by condescending to perform the office of chief-mourner. Of
this he was quite aware, and wisely withheld rebuke, where rebuke
and advice would have been equally unavailing. In truth, the Scottish
peasantry are still infected with that rage for funeral ceremonial,
which once distinguished the grandees of the kingdom so much, that a
sumptuary law was made by the Parliament of Scotland for the purpose of
restraining it; and I have known many in the lowest stations, who have
denied themselves not merely the comforts, but almost the necessaries
of life, in order to save such a sum of money as might enable their
surviving friends to bury them like Christians, as they termed it;
nor could their faithful executors be prevailed upon, though equally
necessitous, to turn to the use and maintenance of the living the money
vainly wasted upon the interment of the dead.
The procession to the churchyard, at about half-a-mile’s distance, was
made with the mournful solemnity usual on these occasions,--the body was
consigned to its parent earth,--and when the labour of the gravediggers
had filled up the trench, and covered it with fresh sod, Mr. Oldbuck,
taking his hat off, saluted the assistants, who had stood by in
melancholy silence, and with that adieu dispersed the mourners.
The clergyman offered our Antiquary his company to walk homeward; but
Mr. Oldbuck had been so much struck with the deportment of the fisherman
and his mother, that, moved by compassion, and perhaps also, in some
degree, by that curiosity which induces us to seek out even what gives
us pain to witness, he preferred a solitary walk by the coast, for the
purpose of again visiting the cottage as he passed.
CHAPTER ELEVENTH
What is this secret sin, this untold tale,
That art cannot extract, nor penance cleanse?
--Her muscles hold their place;
Nor discomposed, nor formed to steadiness,
No sudden flushing, and no faltering lip.--
Mysterious Mother.
The coffin had been borne from the place where it rested. The mourners,
in regular gradation, according to their rank or their relationship
to the deceased, had filed from the cottage, while the younger male
children were led along to totter after the bier of their brother, and
to view with wonder a ceremonial which they could hardly comprehend.
The female gossips next rose to depart, and, with consideration for
the situation of the parents, carried along with them the girls of the
family, to give the unhappy pair time and opportunity to open their
hearts to each other and soften their grief by communicating it. But
their kind intention was without effect. The last of them had darkened
the entrance of the cottage, as she went out, and drawn the door softly
behind her, when the father, first ascertaining by a hasty glance that
no stranger remained, started up, clasped his hands wildly above his
head, uttered a cry of the despair which he had hitherto repressed,
and, in all the impotent impatience of grief, half rushed half staggered
forward to the bed on which the coffin had been deposited, threw
himself down upon it, and smothering, as it were, his head among the
bed-clothes, gave vent to the full passion of his sorrow. It was in vain
that the wretched mother, terrified by the vehemence of her husband’s
affliction--affliction still more fearful as agitating a man of hardened
manners and a robust frame--suppressed her own sobs and tears, and,
pulling him by the skirts of his coat, implored him to rise and
remember, that, though one was removed, he had still a wife and children
to comfort and support. The appeal came at too early a period of
his anguish, and was totally unattended to; he continued to remain
prostrate, indicating, by sobs so bitter and violent, that they shook
the bed and partition against which it rested, by clenched hands which
grasped the bed-clothes, and by the vehement and convulsive motion of
his legs, how deep and how terrible was the agony of a father’s sorrow.
“O, what a day is this! what a day is this!” said the poor mother, her
womanish affliction already exhausted by sobs and tears, and now almost
lost in terror for the state in which she beheld her husband--“O, what an
hour is this! and naebody to help a poor lone woman--O, gudemither, could
ye but speak a word to him!--wad ye but bid him be comforted!”
To her astonishment, and even to the increase of her fear, her husband’s
mother heard and answered the appeal. She rose and walked across
the floor without support, and without much apparent feebleness, and
standing by the bed on which her son had extended himself, she said,
“Rise up, my son, and sorrow not for him that is beyond sin and sorrow
and temptation. Sorrow is for those that remain in this vale of sorrow
and darkness--I, wha dinna sorrow, and wha canna sorrow for ony ane, hae
maist need that ye should a’ sorrow for me.”
The voice of his mother, not heard for years as taking part in the
active duties of life, or offering advice or consolation, produced its
effect upon her son. He assumed a sitting posture on the side of the
bed, and his appearance, attitude, and gestures, changed from those of
angry despair to deep grief and dejection. The grandmother retired to
her nook, the mother mechanically took in her hand her tattered Bible,
and seemed to read, though her eyes were drowned with tears.
They were thus occupied, when a loud knock was heard at the door.
“Hegh, sirs!” said the poor mother, “wha is that can be coming in that
gate e’enow?--They canna hae heard o’ our misfortune, I’m sure.”
The knock being repeated, she rose and opened the door, saying
querulously, “Whatna gait’s that to disturb a sorrowfu’ house?”