Donaldson had not only to part with the small remnant that was left him
of his fifteen thousand, but take a heavy mortgage upon Lottery Hall.
Again he was compelled to put his hand to the spade and to the plough;
and his wife, deprived of her daughters, again became her own servant.
Sorrow, shame, and disappointment gnawed in his heart. His garments of
pride, now worn threadbare, were cut off for ever. The persecution, the
mockery of his neighbours increased. They asked each other "if they had
seen the Member of Parliament with the spade in his hand again?" They
quoted the text, "A haughty spirit goes before a fall;" and they
remembered passages of the preacher's lecture against pride and vanity
on the day when Andrew appeared in his purple coat. He became a solitary
man; and, on the face of this globe which we inhabit, there existed not
a more miserable being than Andrew Donaldson.
Peter was generally admitted to be a young man of great talents, and
bade fair to rise to eminence in his profession as an artist. There was
to be an exhibition of the works of living artists in Edinburgh; and
Peter went through to it, taking with him more than a dozen pictures, on
all subjects and of all sizes. He had landscapes, sea pieces, historical
paintings, portraits, fish, game, and compositions, the grouping of
which would have done credit to a master. In size, they were from five
feet square to five inches. His brother Paul, who was still at the
college, and who now supported himself by private teaching, was
surprised when one morning Peter arrived at his lodgings, with three
cadies at his back, bearing his load of pictures. Paul welcomed him
with open arms, for he was proud of his brother; he had admired his
early talents, and had heard of the progress he had made in his art.
With a proud heart and a delighted eye, Peter unpacked his paintings,
and placed them round the room for the inspection of his brother; and
great was his brother's admiration.
"What may be their value, Peter?" inquired Paul.
"Between ourselves, Paul," replied Peter, "I would not part with the lot
under a thousand guineas."
"A thousand guineas!" ejeculated the student, in surprise; "do you say
so?"
"Yes, I say it," answered the painter, with importance. "Look ye,
Paul--observe this bridal party at the alter--see the blush on the
bride's cheek, the joy in the bride-groom's eye--is it not natural? And
look at the grouping! observe the warmth of the colouring, the breadth
of effect, the depth of shade, the freedom of touch! Now, tell me
candidly, as a brother, is it not a gem?"
"It is certainly beautiful," answered Paul.
"I tell you what," continued the artist--"though I say it who should not
say it--I have seen worse things sold for a thousand guineas."
"You don't say so!" responded the astonished student, and he wished that
he had been an artist instead of a scholar.
"I do," added Peter; "and now, Paul, what do you think I intend to do
with the money which this will bring?"
"How should I know, brother?" returned the other.
"Why, then," said he, "I'm resolved to pay off the mortgage on our
father's property, that the old man may spend the remainder of his days
in comfort."
Paul wept, and taking his brother's hand, said, "And if you do, the
property shall be yours, Peter."
"Never, brother!" replied the other--"rather than rob you of your
birth-right I would cut my hand off."
The pictures were again packed up, and the brothers went out in quest of
the secretary to the exhibition, in order to have them submitted to the
committee for admission. The secretary received them with politeness; he
said he was afraid that they could not find room for so many pieces as
Mr Donaldson mentioned, for they wished to give every one a fair chance;
but he desired him to forward the pictures, and he would see what could
be done for them. The paintings were sent, and Peter heard no more of
them for a week, when a printed catalogue and perpetual ticket were sent
to him, with the secretary's compliments. Peter's eyes ran over the
catalogue--at length they fell upon "_No. 210. A Bridal Party--P.
Donaldson_," and again, "_No. 230. Dead Game--P. Donaldson_;" but his
name did not again occur in the whole catalogue. This was a
disappointment; but it was some consolation that his favourite piece had
been chosen.
Next day the exhibition opened, and Peter and Paul visited it together.
The _Bridal Party_ was a small picture with a modest frame, and they
anxiously sought round the room in which it was said to be placed; but
they saw it not. At length, "Here it is," said Paul--and there indeed it
was, thrust into a dark corner of the room, the frame touching the
floor, literally crushed and overshadowed beneath a glaring battle
piece, six feet in length, and with a frame seven inches in depth. It
was impossible to examine it without going upon your knees. Peter's
indignation knew no bounds. He would have torn the picture from its
hiding-place, but Paul prevented him. They next looked for No. 230: and,
to increase the indignation of the artist, it, with twenty others, was
huddled into the passage, where, as Milton saith, there
"No light, but rather darkness visible;"
or, as Spenser hath it--
"A little gloomy light, much like a shade."
For fourteen days did Peter visit the exhibition, and return to the
lodgings of his brother, sorrowful and disappointed. The magical word
SOLD was not yet attached to the painting which was to redeem his
father's property.
One evening, Paul being engaged with his pupils, the artist had gone
into a tavern, to drown the bitterness of his disappointment for a few
moments with a bottle of ale. The keenness of his feelings had rendered
him oblivious; and in his abstraction and misery he had spoken aloud of
his favourite painting, the _Bridal Party_. Two young _gentlemen_ sat in
the next box; they either were not in the room when he entered, or he
did not observe them. They overheard the monologue to which the artist
had unconsciously given utterance, and it struck them as a prime jest to
lark with his misery. The words "Splendid piece, yon _Bridal
Party_!"--"Beautiful!"--"Production of a master!"--"Wonderful that it
_sold_ in such a bad light and shameful situation!" fell upon Peter's
ears. He started up--he hurried round the box where they sat--
"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, eagerly, "do you speak of the painting No.
210 in the exhibition?"
"Of the same, sir," was the reply.
"I am the artist--I painted it," cried Peter.
"You, sir--you!" cried both the gentlemen at once. "Give us your hand,
sir, we are proud of having the honour of seeing you."
"Yes, sir," returned one of them; "we left the exhibition to-day just
before it closed, and had the pleasure of seeing the porter attach the
ticket to it."
"Glorious!--joy! joy!" cried Peter, running in ecstasy to the bell, and
ringing it violently; and, as the waiter entered, he added, "A bottle of
claret! claret, boy!--claret!" And he sat down to treat the gentlemen
who had announced to him the glad tidings. They drank long and deep,
till Peter's head came in contact with the table, and sleep sealed up
his eyelids. When aroused by the landlord, who presented his bill, his
companions were gone; and, stupid as Peter was, he recollected for the
first time that his pocket did not contain funds to discharge the
reckoning; and he left his watch with the tavern-keeper, promising to
redeem it the next day, when he received the price of his picture. I
need not tell you what a miserable day that next day was to him, when,
with his head aching with the fumes of the wine, he found that he had
been duped--that his picture was not sold. The exhibition closed for the
season; he had spent his last shilling--and Paul was as poor as Peter:
but the former borrowed a guinea, to pay his brother's fare on the
outside of the coach to----.
Andrew Donaldson continued to struggle hard; but, struggle as he would,
he could not pay the interest of the mortgage. Disappointment, sorrow,
humbled vanity, and the laugh of the world, were too much for him; and,
shortly after Peter's visit to Edinburgh, he died, repenting that he had
ever pursued the phantom Fashion, or sought after the rottenness of
wealth.
"And what," inquired I, "became of Mrs Donaldson, and her sons Paul and
Peter?"
"Peter, sir," continued the narrator, "rose to eminence in his
profession; and, redeeming the mortgage on Lottery Hall, he gave it as a
present to his brother Paul, who opened it as an establishment for young
gentlemen. His mother resides with him; and, sir, Paul hath spoken unto
you--he hath given you the history of Lottery Hall."
THE DOMINIE AND THE SOUTER.
THE DOMINIE'S COURTSHIP.
"Weel, I dinna ken how it is, Richard," said a Selkirk dominie to his
friend Richard Blackwell, a souter of the same royal borough--"I dinna
ken how it is, but there's naething pleases me mair than some o' them
Border Tales--they're so uncommonly natural. I've often thought, indeed,
in my ain mind, that the writers must get silly, stupid folk to sit doun
and repeat their little histories to them in their ain language; for I
can hardly believe that such true delineations o' character, and such
remarkable instances o' the ups and downs o' human affairs, are mere
inventions. Frequently, when I finish a tale, I exclaim, 'I ken the man
that's meant for;' and for a that, though the picture may be as like him
as your ain face to its reflection in a looking-glass, it's ten to ane
if the author is aware o' such a character being in existence. This is
what puzzles me, Richard. The 'Henpecked Man,' for instance, was a _dead
hit_; but unfortunately every village on the Borders claimed the
bickermaker as well as Birgham; while ilk guidwife might hae been heard
bawling to her next-door neighbour, as she shook the tale in her
clenched hand, 'Filthy fallow! that's our John or your Ned he's been
taking aff.'"
"It wadna be worth their while putting ony o' us twa into prent,"
rejoined the souter.
"I differ with you there, neighbour," replied the dominie; "for there is
no calculating the value that clever and skilly hands can give to rude
materials. Would ye believe, now, to use a funny illustration, that a
farthing's worth o' pig-iron, made into steel chains, rises to mair than
twa hundred times its value? Ye stare incredulously, Richard; but it's
the truth I'm telling you;--so it follows that out o' the raw material
o' our lives, value o' anither kind may be gotten by a proper adaptation
o' incidents and the like: and it often occurs to me, there is that
about my courtship that would make no that ill a story, were it a wee
thocht embellished. Ye shall hear it, however, as it is, and judge for
yoursel:"--
Love, ye must be informed, Richard, did not communicate itself to my
heart till I was well up in years--probably when I was seven-and-twenty,
or thereabouts--nor did it blaze up a' at once, like a sudden flame--for
it seemed at first but a sma' sma' spark, which often threatened to go
out o' its ain accord, like coals kindled with green sticks--till
Margery Johnson--that's my wife's maiden name--would have come across my
path again like a bonny blink o' sunshine, and presently the dying
embers would grow het once more at the heart, and burn away for a' the
world like a blown-up fire. Now, though Margery, when I went a-courting
her, didna possess ony great personal attractions to make a sang
about--like the feck o' your grand romance leddies--yet she had that
life and buoyancy about her, and blowsy healthiness o' countenance,
which can make a deeper impression on the heart, at least, according to
my liking, than a' the fine complexions, blue een, and artificial forms
in the world. Margery was a little above the middle height--a plump,
robust, guid-looking lass--the apple o' her faither's eye, and the pride
o' her mother--whom everybody spoke well o'. And it was not without
either choice or reflection that my passion for Margery Johnson was
imbibed. Her faither, who is as guid a man as ever broke the world's
bread, attended the Rev. Mr Heslop as weel as mysel; and as the seat
which I occupied gave me a full command o' him and his family--for they
only sat about an arm's-length from me--I had the pleasure o' seeing
Margery, with the lave, every returning Sabbath. I dinna ken rightly
how it was, but when she slipped along the aisle, I felt like a
shortness o' breath, and a queer tingling sensation steal owre my whole
body. In the time o' the singing, too, I could not help from keeking off
the psalm-book, had it been to save me, to see if she were looking at
me; and when our glances happened to encounter, I would have instantly
reddened to the bottom o' the haffets, and impudently pretended, by
casting my eyes carelessly up to the big front window, that it was
merely a casual contact. I cannot take upon me to say how far this was
sinful; but I ken that at such times I sat in a sort o' religious
fervour, on terms o' kindness with my bitterest enemy--for weel can love
teach a moral to the mind--while my heart seemed rinning owre with
gratitude to the Deity for this new proof o' his benevolence and
goodness, in the provision made for puir erring mankind.
I'm no sure whether I have mentioned that Margery was in the service o'
the minister--if no, ye must understand that she was his housemaid; and
the manse, ye may weel conceive, Richard, was not the best place in the
world for carrying on a courtship. I happened to be muckle thought on,
however, by the minister and his wife--for my learning, ye see, brought
me within a very little o' the minister himsel--indeed, we were nearly a
buckle; and I, accordingly, had frequent invitations from him on a
week-day night, to drink tea and spend the evening. On those occasions,
unfortunately, I only saw Margery when she brought in and carried out
the tea things; but one night, when the minister and I were indulging
ourselves after the four-hours was owre (I may mention, for your
edification, Richard, that _four-hours_ signifies the time o' drinking
tea,--_four_, according to Watson, being the ancient _hour_ for the
afternoon beverage)--it was after our tea was done, as I was saying,
that the minister and I sat down to a glass o' whisky-toddy; and, as we
both got very cracky, the minister says to me, jocularly, for he was a
pleasant, agreeable man, Mr Heslop--
"I wonder, James, ye never think o' changing your life!"
Now, it did not just strike me, at first, what he meant; so I bluntly
replied, "Yes, sir; I am weel aware, as the heathen philosopher has
beautifully observed, _Proba vita est via in coelum_--which signifies,
A good life is the way to heaven."
With that the minister and his wife kinked and laughed a guid ane; and
the latter at last cried out to me--
"Mr Heslop means, James, that you should get married."
"Oh, is that what he's driving at?" says I, colouring at my ain want o'
gumption--"truly it's no a slight matter to get married, though I'll no
be after denying that, could I fall in with a likely, serious young
woman, I should have no great objections to make her my wife."
"What think you o' Margery, my housemaid?" says Mrs Heslop, archly--"I
think she would make you a guid wife."
Had I been convicted o' the theft o' a silver spoon, I could not have
felt more confused than I did at this moment--I found the very
perspiration, Richard, oozing out in large drops from every pore o' my
frame; while Mr Heslop, in the midst o' my embarrassment, chimed in--
"You forget, dear, that James must have a learned lady--one who has
attained the _tongues_.--What say you, Mr Brown, to a _bluestocking_?"
"White lamb's-wool, sir, or blue jacey, are both alike to me," says I,
laughing at his drollery. "I'm no particular to a shade."
Another loud laugh from the minister and his wife followed up this
sally, and, at the same minute, the parlour-door opened, and in capered
Margery, with an ash-bucketful o' coals, to mend the fire. Mrs Heslop,
at the same time, went out, and left the minister and me owre our second
tumbler. I thought I never saw Margery look half so interesting as she
did that night; and I was so passionately struck with her appearance,
that, without minding the presence o' the minister, I leaned back on my
chair, and, taking the glass o' spirits into my hand, and looking owre
my left shouther--
"My service to you, Margery," says I, and drank it off.
"I daresay the man's gyte!" says Margery, staring me in the face like an
idiot, as she gaed tittering out o' the room.
I was not to be beaten in any such way, however; and on the afternoon o'
the following Sabbath, I contrived, when the kirk scaled, to get into
the loaning before Margery, and sauntering till her and her neighbour
overtook me, I turned round just as they were passing my side, and, says
I, keeping up with them at the same time--
"Here's a braw afternoon, lassies."
"It's a' that," says her neighbour.
Now, had it been to crown me King o' England, I did not ken what next to
say, for I felt as if I had been suddenly tongue-tacked; and, without
the word o' a lee, Richard, I'm certain we walked as guid as two hundred
yards without uttering another syllable.
"How terrible warm it is!" says I, at last, removing my hat, and wiping
the perspiration from my brow with my India silk napkin.
"So I think," says Margery, jeeringly. And the next minute she and her
neighbour doubled the corner o' the loaning, and struck into the path
which led down to the minister's, without so muckle as saying, "Guid
e'en to ye, sir!"
I made the best o' my way back through droves o' the kirk folk, who kept
speering at one another as I passed, quite loud enough for me to hear
them--
"There now, what a world this is!--isna that the light-headed dominie?
Whar can he hae been stravagin on the Lord's-day afternoon? He can hae
been after nae guid."
This, as ye may weel suppose, was but a puir beginning, Richard; but
still I was determined to hold out and persevere. My next step was to
mool in with Margery's faither; and, as I knew him to be a great
snuffer, I bought a box and got it filled, though I did not care a
button-tap for the snuff mysel, which I used to rax owre to him during
the sermon. Nor did I forget her mother--for it's an important thing in
courting, Richard, to gain owre the auld folk--but day after day I used
to strip my coat-breast o' the bit "mint" and "southernwood" that I was
in the habit o' sticking in my button-hole on a Sabbath-day, and present
them to her, to keep her up in the afternoon service, when the heat was
like to overcome her. I invited Margery's brother, too, twice or thrice,
on a Sunday afternoon, to his tea; and contrived, in seeing him home, to
walk aye within a stone's-cast o' his faither's house, when he could not
for mense's sake but ask me in. On such occasions, the auld man and I
used to yoke about religion, and my clever knack in conversation and
argument did not fail to impress him with a high sense o' my abilities.
Margery's mother was equally taken with my particular mode o'
expression--for schule-maisters, Richard, have to watch owre the
smallest _particle_; and frequently when I have delivered mysel o' a few
long-nebbed words, she would have slapped me on the shoulder, and cried
out--
"It's worth a body's while listening to the likes o' you, Maister Brown;
for to hear ye speak is like hearing a Latin scholar reading aloud frae
a prented book--such braw words, truly, are no found in every head; and
the mair's the pity that your ain is no waggin in a pulpit. Now, what
would I no gie, could ony o' mine acquit themselves in such a manner."
This pleasant intercourse went on for some time, till, one everyday
night, being down at tea with Margery's brother, her mother
says--meaning, no doubt, for me to take the hint--
"Ye mustna sit there, Robert"--that was to her son--"for ye ken your
sister is down at Greystone Mill, and has to come hame hersel the night,
which is far frae being chancy, seeing that there are sae mony o' thae
Irish fallows upon the road."
"I will take a step doun," says I; "it will be a pleasant walk."
"That wad be such a thing!" says the auld woman, "and _him_ sitting
there! Now, I'm vexed at mysel for having mooted it before ye."
"I feel a pleasure," says I, "in going; and it's o' no use Robert tiring
himsel, as he was thrashing aneugh through the day."
"But ye're sae kind and considerate, Maister Brown," says she--"it's
just imposing on your guid nature athegither. Hurry her hame, sir, if ye
please, afore the darkening; but, to be sure, we needna fret, kenning
she's in such excellent company."
I accordingly set off for the Greystone Mill; and when I came in front
o' the premises, I began to see that it was rather an awkward business I
was out on; for I didna ken but Margery might hae somebody o' her ain to
see her hame; and to go straight up to an unco house, and speer for a
female that I had only spoken twice till, and that in a dry
"how-do-ye-do" kind o' manner, was rather a trying affair, Richard, for
one that was naturally bashful, as ye may weel conceive. Into the house
I went, however, and meeting auld _mooter-the-melder_ in the entry--
"How's a' wi' ye, freend?" says I, in guid braid Scotch, shooting out my
hand, at the same time, to give him a hearty shake.
"Ye hae the advantage o' me," says he, drawing back and puckering up
his mealy mouth. "I dinna ken ye."
"I'm the schulemaister o' Selkirk," says I.
"And what may the schulemaister o' Selkirk be wanting wi' me?" says he,
gruffly, still keeping me standing like a borrowed body in the passage.
"I'm seeking a young woman," says I.
"Oh," says he, "ye'll be Margery Johnson's sweetheart, Ise warrant--come
awa ben."
"He's no my sweetheart," says Margery, as I was stalking into the bit
parlour. "I wonder what's brought the randering _fool_ here."
This, I confess, was rather a damper; and had I not been weel versed in
a woman's pawky ways, and kent that she was aye readiest to misca' them
for whom she had the greatest regard, before folk, I'm not so sure,
Richard, what might have been the upshot. I sat doun, however, as if I
had not overheard her, and chatted awa to the miller's twa gaucy
daughters, keeping a watchful eye on Margery a' the time, who did not
seem to relish owre weel the attention I was bestowing on them. I saw
plainly, indeed, that she was a little mortified, for she gaunted twice
or thrice in the midst o' our pleasantry--no forgetting to put her hand
before her mouth, and cast her eyes up to the watch that stood on the
mantelpiece, as muckle as to say--"It's time we were stepping, lad." I
kept teasing her, nevertheless, for a guid bit; and when at last we left
the mill, and got on to the road that leads down to the Linthaughs, I
says to her, "Will ye tak my arm, Margery dear?"
"Keep your arms," says she, "for them ye mak love till."
"That's to you, then," says I.
"Ye never made love to me in your life," says she.
"Then I must not ken how to mak it," says I; "but aiblins ye'll teach
me."
"Schulemaisters dinna need to be taught," says she; "ye ken nicelies how
to mak love to Betty Aitchison--at least to her siller."
This was the miller's youngest daughter.--"What feck o' siller has
Betty?" says I.
"Ye can gang and ask her," says she.
"Hoot, what serves a' this cangling?" says I, taking hold o' her arm,
and slipping it into mine--"you are as het in the temper as a
jenny-nettle, woman."
"Ye're the first that said it," says she.
"And I hope I'll be the last," says I. And on we joggit, as loving-like
as if we had been returning from the kirk on our bridal.
It might be four weeks after this meeting, that Margery and I were out,
on an autumn evening, in the lang green loaning that leads down to the
Linthaughs. It was as bonny a night as man could be abroad in: the moon,
nearly full, was just rising owre the Black Cairn, and the deep
stillness that prevailed was only broken by the low monotonous murmur o'
the trees, or interrupted by our own footsteps. I dinna ken how long we
might have sauntered in the loaning--aiblins, two hours--and though
inclined a' the time to confess to Margery that I loved her, I could not
bring mysel to out with it, for aye as I was about to attempt it, I felt
as if something were threatening to choke me. At last I thought on an
expedient. And what was it, think ye? No--you'll not guess, Richard; but
you'll laugh when you hear. I had recently got by heart the affecting
ballad that had been written by a freend o' my ain, on Willie Grahame
and Jeanie Sanderson o' Cavers, a little before Jeanie's death; and,
thinks I--as I was a capital hand at the Scotch--Ise try what effect the
reciting o' it will have upon Margery; for wha kens but it may move her
heart to love and pity? This scheme being formed, I says to her--
"Margery, did you ever hear the waesome ballad about Jeanie Sanderson
and her sweetheart?"