where the child had been deposited. Menie's step was quick as they
approached it, her eyes were averted from the spot, and they passed it
in silence. We need not record the spoken sentiments of lovers in the
situation of this couple. They parted, after it was arranged that their
marriage should take place in the following week.
In the interval, the most prudent and effectual means were taken to
clear up the mystery of the old story. The written statements of several
individuals, who had heard the broken confessions of the woman, were
taken. Wallace and his father added theirs, and there was soon a
reaction in favour of Menie, much stronger than the original imputation.
Every one believed her innocent; and the marriage, which took place a
short time after, confirmed all.
THE PROFESSOR'S TALES.
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF IDIOTS.
The very foundation of idiocy is peculiarity; whatever this unfortunate
class may want, they do not want those features by which they are
distinguishable from the ordinary ranks of mankind. Hence the interest
which idiocy has ever exerted, and the splendid creations which, under
the name of asylums, quiet, country residences, &c., have been made for
their accommodation. The great mass of society--with the exception,
perhaps, of a kingdom, which shall, for the present, be nameless--have
nothing _idiotical_, that is, peculiar, belonging to them exclusively.
They move as others move, dress as others dress, think as others think,
and worship God as others do and as others did. Were it not for
_idiots_, in the extended sense of the word, there were an end of plays,
novels, and all works of fiction. Very few women, if we may credit Pope,
are idiots: for he says--
"Nothing so true as what you once let fall--
Most women have no character at all;
Matter too soft a standing mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair."
But, although the original meaning and enlarged sense of the term might
carry us into a field thus almost boundless, we shall at the present
limit ourselves to two classes of idiots, comprehending, as they do, a
great variety of species. First, the natural idiot, or the simply
fatuous: of these there are _two_ varieties--the peaceable and the
frantic. Secondly, the unnatural or rational idiot; of these the
varieties are infinite, and a selection only is in the present instance
either desirable or attainable.
We return then to the purely fatuous, or peaceable idiot.
Poor innocent! as he is uniformly and kindly named by the neighbourhood.
There he walks about, along that stream, or across that meadow, from
morn to night, and from night to morning, his hand at his cheek, and his
lips muttering incoherence, such as, "Johnnie, quo' he, lad; ah, ha,
Willie lad, Willie lad, Willie lad." He is so biddable, that a child may
make him lie down, or rise up, enlarge or shorten his step. He will
carry a peat-barrow when peats are a-casting, ted hay, or lift a child
safely over a fence; yet, for all that, he is not always to be
trusted--for there are times when his countenance gets flushed, his
frame nervously convulsed, and then he utters dreadful things, and
becomes violent and unmanageable. These are, however, only aberrations,
not continued character; and, by watching the symptoms of the
approaching storm, the effects may be easily avoided. Idiots, even of
this peaceable and innocuous kind, are now abstracted from their natural
and kindly hearths, and concealed in asylums and private residences. Not
so--it was not indeed so--in the olden times. The hereditary possession
of at least one "innocent" in a family was deemed a blessing. "There
never will be wanting," said the pious parent, "a bit for thy
helplessness, poor Johnnie." Good luck took up her residence under the
roof where such a one resided; and the parent was doubly attached to
_the object_, as he was sometimes called. To hurt him, or injure him in
any manner of way, was domestic treason; and even the schoolboy, on his
harvest rambles, only pelted him with nuts and brambleberries. Poor
Johnnie! he was missed one day; he had wandered beyond his ordinary
reach, and all the town was in motion searching for him. The night came
on, dark, and even drifty; and the poor helpless object could nowhere be
found. Shouts were raised, dogs were dismissed on errands of inquiry,
herd-boys ran, and servant lads greatly hastened their pace. At last,
he was discovered on the brink of a precipice, over which he was
suspended, by the coat-tails, which a strong shepherd's dog was holding
fast in its teeth. But for the powerful sagacity of this brute, the
helpless being had been dashed to pieces. When he was rescued from his
dangerous position, he was repeating, in his usual manner, "Johnnie's
a-caul quo' he, lad." He was never suffered to be in such danger again.
These eyes saw him on his death-bed; and, at the instant of his
departure, it was indeed a most affecting scene.
"The soul's dark cottage, shatter'd and decay'd,
Let _in_ new light through chinks which time had made."
As the pulse ebbed and the feet swelled, reason seemed to resume her
long-deserted seat. He actually raised himself upon his elbow, drew the
back of his hand twice across his brow, as if clearing away some
obstruction from his eyes, and, looking around with an eye unusually
bright and beaming, lambent like an expiring taper--
"Oh, what a dream! what a dream! But I see you all now; yes--yes--I see
my kind mother, my dear father, my sister! Yes--yes--I am now well. I am
awake--I live." Hereupon the fatal and well-known struggle in the throat
stopped his speech; he fell back, gave one deep sigh, and was at rest.
Poor Johnnie! if a tear of gratitude can gratify anything that lives,
bearing the most distant relationship to thee, that tear has now been
shed. Heaven has long been merciful to the poor Innocent.
But the frantic idiot who now struggles against the chain and the
strait-waistcoat in yonder cell. He too, at one time, roamed at large,
to the great alarm, but seldom to the injury, of the lieges. "His bark,"
as the people said, "was waur than his bite;" and, if at any time he
required to be confined by force, a few kindly words and soothing
accents threw oil on the troubled sea, and restored comparative
serenity. Daft Will Gibson rises before me; his long rung or kent by
way of staff, his Kilmarnock night-cap, and shoes of many patches, his
aversion to all manner of trick or nickname, and his furious onset when
pursued by schoolboys: all these circumstances rise again from the dark
past, and glare before me like the shades in "Macbeth." Yet, though
occasionally furious, and even dangerous, he was kind-hearted, and not
unobservant of character. The timid he rejoiced to terrify, whilst he
passed by the bold and firm unmolested. Though he often threw large
stones at those who assailed him, he took special care always to throw
short of his object. But one day a little child, unobserved by him, had
crossed the pathway of his missile after it had been delivered,
altogether unobserved by poor Will. The child was knocked down and
greatly injured--it bled profusely. Will seemed horrorstruck, and roared
aloud--
"It was I! It was me! It was daft Will Gibson!"
From that day he never lifted another stone, but always exhibited the
greatest liking for this child--of which the following anecdote is
sufficient proof. A little boy was playing in the channel of a mountain
torrent, then almost dry. There was thunder in the distance, and
Queensberry had put on her inky robe of darkness. All at once, the burns
began to emit a loud, roaring, rattling sound, and down came the Caple
Water--as my informant, who witnessed the scene, said--like "corn
sacks." The boy, owing to his eagerness in pursuing a trout (which he
was endeavouring to catch) from stone to stone, did not hear or see the
approaching danger, till the mighty flood was upon him. My informant--a
shepherd--threw aside plaid and staff, and ran to the rescue; but the
red and roaring flood was before him; and a fine boy of seven or eight
years old would undoubtedly have lost his life, had it not been for the
poor maniac, who chanced to be pulling rushes hard by. He rushed into
the flood just as it was oversetting the helpless victim, and, with a
tremendous jerk, threw him clean upon the green bank of the torrent. He
then endeavoured himself to clear the bank; but the treacherous and
hollow earth, under the pressure of the water, gave way, and down
tumbled brow and man into the raging whirlpool--the man underneath, the
brow above him. The boy, by means of his heels, escaped; but poor Will
Gibson's body was next day found some miles lower down, sadly disfigured
and mangled. Thus did this grateful maniac expiate the inadvertent
injury which he had done this very boy when a mere child, by saving his
life at the expense of his own.
We now pass, in prosecution of our history, from darkness into light,
from the irresponsible and irrational agent, to the responsible and
foolish. Our guide here, in this _mare magnum_ of idiocy, shall be _the
use_ of language in discussing the various merits of the different
classes. We shall make use of no new phraseology, but be guided to our
purpose by the acknowledged and recognised use and meaning of terms. Why
the word "idiot" is retained in conversational language in particular,
when its original and more legitimate meaning is lost, we have already
pointed at; it is owing to analogy and resemblance that in this case, as
in many others, such terms are legitimate and expressive.
There is, then, in the first place, to come at once to the point--there
is
"THE HAVERING IDIOT."
Horace gives a most correct idea of this class in these well-known
lines:--
"Hunc neque dira venena, nec hosticus auferet ensis
Nec laterum dolor, aut tussis aut tarda podagra,
_Garrulus hunc quando consumet_."
Galt, too, has hit off the character, under a feminine aspect, in his
"Wearifu Woman;" but we have no occasion to ask Horace for his
spectacles, or Galt for his microscope, in order to discover the
features of this most numerous and annoying class. Midges, in a new-mown
meadow, are terribly teasing; so are peas in one's shoes--particularly
if unboiled. There is a certain cutaneous disease which is said to give
exercise at once to the nails and to patience. Who would not fret if
placed naked, all face over, in a whin bush? To be teased and tormented
with grammar rules is vastly provoking; and to get the proof questions
by heart cannot be deemed anything but annoying. A showery day, when you
have set out on a long-meditated "pic-nic," will vex the most patient
soul into spleen; and marriage-settlements are frequently great sources
of heartburnings and delays. To be told that your house is on fire, when
your messenger is on his way to effect an insurance, may possibly give
pain; and to find that every pipe is frozen, so that there is not a drop
of water for the engine, may probably add to your chagrin. All these,
and a thousand other miseries to which human flesh is heir, may, nay
must, be borne; but the torment of coming into ear-shot of a "havering
idiot" is a thousand and a thousand times more insupportable. You are
placed beside him at table, and in a mixed company of men of literature
and science, whom probably you may never see again. A subject is
started, which, from peculiar reasons, happens to be not only of itself
curious, but exceedingly interesting to you, professionally in
particular. Professor Pillans is discussing education, or Combe is
manipulating heads; Sir David Brewster is describing the polarisation of
light, or Tom Campbell is thrilling every heart with poetic
quotations;--no matter, you are unfortunately in juxtaposition to a
"havering idiot," and about five removes from the focus of general
conversation. He will not let you rest for a moment, but is ever
whispering into your ear some grand thing which he said last evening at
Lady Whirligig's ball. You push your dish forward, and fix your eyes
upon the intelligent speaker. He observes, and mistakes, or seems to
mistake, your movement and your motive, and immediately hopes he may
help you to the dish you are after. You are fairly _dished_; and unless
you knock him down with your fist in the first place, and shoot him
afterwards, you have no resource but to repeat the lines of Horace,
already quoted, and submit to your fate.
His stories are infinite and inextricable; but, unlike the epic, they
have neither a beginning, a middle, nor an end. When he starts with
"I'll tell you a good thing," you listen for an instant, but immediately
perceive that you are on the wrong scent; and, as he advances, he is
ever admonishing you with his elbow of the many _hits_ he is making; and
having heard him out--if that be possible!--you immediately exclaim,
"Well!" thinking assuredly the cream of the joke is yet awaiting you.
"But, sir, you are making no meal at all. You must try some of that fine
honeycomb; it is most excellent; it is of our own making; for, I may
say, we have almost everything within ourselves. The bees, last season,
did not do well at all; but they have done better this, sir. You are a
natural philosopher, sir--can you tell me how the bees see their way
back again to their houses, when they go far away in search of flowers
and honey?"
"Just the way, I suppose, ma'am, that they see their way a-field."
"Oh, ay--I ken that; but I hae a book here--(go away, Jeanie, and bring
me the book on natural history; the Cyclopaedia, ye ken). Now, sir, this
book tells me that, from the shape of their eye, the bees canna see an
inch before them--how then do they travel miles and miles, and never
lose their road?--but bless me, sir, you're no making a meal at no rate.
Ay, here's 'the article,' as it is called. Read that, sir, just at the
bottom of the 196th page," &c. &c.
"THE BLETHERING IDIOT"
is manifestly twin-brother to the haverer, with this small difference,
however, that the bletherer is a mere repeater or reporter of havers.
The one is the importer, as it were, of the article wholesale, and the
other retails the article thus imported. They are raw commodity and
manufactured goods--they are original and copy--cause and effect. Burns
was quite aware of this when he wrote--
"And baith a yellow George to claim,
And thole their blethers."
These blethers were not original inventions, but merely varnished
repetitions. The blethering idiot is most dangerous as well as most
disagreeable. In this respect, he even surpasses the haverer, whose
annoyances terminate in themselves, in the irritations and
inconveniences of the moment. But the bletherer is a dangerous friend,
an inveterate foe, and a most unsafe neighbour. Will Webster was the
intimate friend of poor James Johnston. James was a lad of honest
intentions, fair talents, and warm feelings. He was educated as an
engineer, and had already acquired a certain status and character in
that capacity. His friend Webster had been accidentally a school
companion, from the proximity of their dwellings and the intimacy of
their parents. Webster had studied law, and was about to pass advocate,
when he came to meet his friend, and spend a harvest vacation with him
at Castledykes, in the parish of Tynron, Dumfries-shire. The two young
men were in the bloom and strength of youth, being both some months
under twenty-one. Georgina Gordon was the daughter of a small
neighbouring proprietor (a Dunscore laird), an only daughter, her
father's prop (her mother having died at her birth), and the admiration
of everybody who merely saw her at church on Sunday, or who knew her
intimately. I should have mentioned before, that this beautiful flower
had been named Georgina, with the view of perpetuating the name of a
brother whose fate had been involved in obscurity. He had betaken
himself early to sea, and the vessel in which he sailed had never more,
during several years before Georgina's birth, been heard of. All
possible inquiries had been made, but without effect. The Thunderer,
Captain Morris, had been seen off the coast of South America; but no
more was known. James Johnston was already in the way of making
reasonable proposals to any one; but his heart had long been fixed at
Castledykes. He used to wander for hours and days along the glen of the
cairn, and within sight of the old family abode. Georgina, however, had
already many lovers, and was reported to have, in fact, made a
selection. It was again and again reported by Will Webster to his friend
Johnston, and to everybody who took any interest in the report, that he
had seen Georgina enter the Kelpie Cave in company with a lover, and
that he had even seen them fondly embracing each other. At first
Johnston gave no heed to Will's _blethers_; but still they gradually
made an impression upon him. He became, at last, decidedly jealous,
when, led and guided by his friend Will, he beheld with his own eyes a
male figure, closely wrapped up in a plaid, holding secret converse with
the lovely Miss Gordon. What will not jealousy, goaded on by officious
and injudicious friendship, do? Unknown to any one, he met and accosted
the figure in the dark: a struggle and a contest with lethal weapons
took place, and the stranger fell. No sooner had the deed been done,
than James saw and repented of his rashness. The wound which he had
inflicted was bound up, and the fainting man, help being procured,
conveyed to Castledykes. James Johnston was not the man to fly, even
should death prove the consequence of his rashness. A curious denouement
now took place: the person whom James had wounded was no other than the
long-lost George Gordon. The vessel in which he had sailed had not been
wrecked, as was supposed, but had been taken, scuttled, and sunk, by
Spanish privateers, who then infested the Leeward Islands. He had been
bound and fettered in the hold, till he came under a solemn promise
neither to desert nor abandon his colours in the hour of battle. Under
such discipline, it was no wonder that, in a few years, George Gordon
(now taking the Spanish name of Joan Paraiso) should be habituated to
all manner of rapine and bloodshed. From less to more, by acts of
heroism, he became second, and ultimately first, in command of a Spanish
privateer.
England, having viewed this growing evil with a suitable indignation,
sent out her armaments to the west; and the Don Savallo, Joan Paraiso,
commander, was taken. The prisoners were conveyed to Britain; and it
being discovered that Paraiso was originally a British subject, he was
thrown into prison to abide his trial. From this he escaped, almost by a
miracle, and wandering over the kingdom in another domino, or assumed
name, he came at last, as if by the law of force and attraction, to his
native glen. But he durst not yet discover himself, for he was an
outlaw, and the papers were filled with rewards for his apprehension. In
this situation he discovered himself, under the most dreadful oaths of
secresy, even from his own father (at least for a time), to his sister.
The rest, up to the period of his wound, which was by no means
dangerous, is easily understood. What follows will be necessary to
complete the narrative:--James Johnston having learned all this from
Georgina, who, in a moment of excitement, discovered that it was not a
lover but a brother over whom she hung, he again met his blethering
friend Webster--acquainted him with the history, and, in a few days,
Joan Paraiso was arrested in his bed, and carried to Plymouth, to
undergo his trial. The grief and horror of all may be easily conceived.
All, save the origin of the evil, were thunderstruck and overpowered
with grief and vexation. "But for your long tongue and empty head,"
said Johnston, taking him one day by the throat, "my dear Georgina had
been mine--her brother had lived, and all had been well." The guilty man
struggled, and was dashed against a stone wall with tremendous violence.
A concussion of the brain followed, and poor unhappy James Johnston was
himself on trial for murder. It is true that he was acquitted, as the
surgeon would not positively affirm that the dead person had not died
from a natural stroke of apoplexy; and it is likewise true, that Joan
Paraiso, _alias_ George Gordon, was acquitted, as he had been compelled,
from fear of death, to act as he had done. But Georgina was no longer an
heiress, and the mercenary laird of Clatchet-Knowe, who had all but
obtained her consent to a marriage, became suddenly cooled in his
fervour. Johnston hearing of this, and having, after some months,
recovered his spirits, made his addresses, and was accepted. Georgina
Johnston is now, or was lately, a happy wife and mother. Her husband has
purchased the farm of Kirkcudbright, in that neighbourhood, and they
live in comfort and respectability. So much as a specimen of the
achievements and fate of a bletherer. But who waits there?
"THE AFFECTED IDIOT.
Let him enter. What a thing! But it is not with the tailor-work that we
have to deal; we leave that to the titter and ridicule of every sensible
person in the company, and to the compassion of the rest.
"In man or woman, but far most in man,
I hate all affectation."
So says good-hearted Cowper. But, hating affectation, he must in some
degree hate a large section of the male, and a still larger proportion
of the female sex. In fact, we are all more or less affected--I in
writing this article in such an easy, off-hand, after-dinner manner, and
the publisher of the "Border Tales" in affecting not to be affected by
so many favourable notices in so many papers. I don't like the word--I
hate it ever since Lord Brougham (who once was so great) made use of the
one half of it, when speaking of Sugden; but, notwithstanding, I must
out with it--"_humbug_" is the go, and everybody knows it, and yet
everybody does it. Was there ever such a queer world, ma'am? I
_wish_--well, I will tell you, madam, what I wish--I wish I had a new
tack of "this world," with all its nonsense. This thing we call "life"
is to me exceeding amusing; but I am off, on the very velocipede of
affectation, and must "'bout ship."
The affectation of no affectation is the most unsupportable of all.
Simple Johnnie comes into the room, throwing about, from side to side,
both his elbows. He immediately, in the simplicity of his nature, lets
you know that he never was up to the ordinary methods of society; in
testimony of which he sits down beside you on a sofa--plaits his legs,
and passes his hand along his leg, from heel to knee, and _vice versa_.
You talk of anything and everything. He is sure you are right. He never
could remember anything. He is sure you are right; but he cannot say, it
is so long since he read about it. He tells you at once that people call
him "Simple Johnnie;" that he once tumbled into a river, whilst reading
a book; that he is _so_ absent, you have no notion; that he has
forgotten his own name, and only remembered it, after having given a
penny to a boy, saying, "Now, my boy, do you know who gave you that?" He
puts on a blue stocking and a grey, and wonders that people observe it;
he pushes through the market, snuffing, snorting, and repeating almost
aloud, Thomson's "Seasons;" he is called a good sort of a body, and
tells you so; but he knows in reality that he is an excellent classical
scholar, and a writer of no mean degree. Affectation, however, hangs
over him, like a mist; and his real merits, which are great, are greatly
obscured by the medium through which they are seen.
Let us change the sex!--A farmer's daughter married to an earl--no, not
an earl--a laird--a country gentleman. She is all _gentility_--talks of
nothing beneath dukes and marquises; asks you if there is anybody of
note in India; never saw fish eaten without a silver fork; and considers
that Queen Victoria has never seen good company! After a', wha cares?
This is a precious rag of feminality; nobody can hurt her feelings, or
destroy her equanimity. You mention, in her company, that Lady Louisa
Russell, her most intimate friend, of whom she talks daily, and to
everybody, has left the town without calling; she assumes an air of
supreme indifference, and exclaims--"Well! after a', wha cares?"