a rich planter, to act as clerk on his plantations--in other words, to
keep a large and terrible whip in constant employ. Our voyage was
tempestuous; I frequently felt as if the ship, in her lurches into the
trough of the sea, would never reascend, but would go down head foremost
to the bottom of the Atlantic. But our captain was a skilful seaman,
kept his men in heart, had his orders promptly obeyed, and we weathered
the storm. Landing at Kingston, I was received in, what was termed, a
warehouse by an overseer, who, after reading Mr Watson's letter, cursed
me as a supernumerary, and said I might go where I liked, but I could
not be there; they had too many of my sort already. Watson he called an
old superannuated fool, who was determined, seemingly, to ruin the
estate by the mere expense of working it. In a little, however, the
storm blew over. Having drunk pretty deeply from a tumbler of rum and
water--at least so he called it, though for my part I never could
discover any trace of the water, and think this element might easily
have proved an alibi in any court of justice--he made me partake of his
beverage, and tumble into a corner of a counting-room, beyond a number
of chairs, desks, and old ledgers. My bed was none of the best, but the
weather was exceedingly warm, and I contrived to sleep pretty soundly
till morning. Next day I was roused betimes by a black slave, naked to
the middle, and instructed in my day's work. I was to join some four or
five slave-drivers at a common rendezvous, and with them to march
a-field, suitably provided for my task. I saw the poor slaves hard at
work--digging the soil, and planting slips of cane, under a most
oppressive sun; I saw, likewise, my hardened and inhuman associates
applying the scourge to mothers with children at the breast, to the old,
and to the infirm. I could not stand it; my heart sank within me. Oh,
how I sighed for my own native land, with all its advantages and
endearments!--and how I cursed my ambition, that had been kindled at the
wheels of the chariot of Mr Watson, who, though born poor as I was, had
realised an immense fortune in Jamaica!"
Hereupon he burst out into an eulogy on Britain, and the administration
which had given liberty to the slaves, and at the same time remunerated
the unhallowed proprietors; but, after a short pause, during which I
expressed my anxiety to hear the sequel of his story, he proceeded:--
"Well, custom will reconcile one to anything. You will scarcely believe
me when I tell you that, though shy at first, and backward in the active
discharge of my duty, I came at last to regard it as a matter of course,
and to imagine that the poor blacks did not feel as I did, or experience
the pain which such an infliction would have occasioned to myself. I was
one day chastising a fellow, who absolutely refused to labour, on the
score of indisposition, which I knew or believed to be put on, when a
little child, of the African breed, came up to me, and, with a look of
perfect nature and simplicity, said--
"'Ah, massa, you no have father--you never know father--you no black
man's boy--you no born at all, massa--you made of stone--you have no
pity for poor black boy's pa!'
"The speech struck me exceedingly. I immediately ordered the father into
the sick-house, and, patting the boy on the head, said he was a good,
kind-hearted boy, and I would look after him for this. All this was
repeated at head-quarters, and I was represented as neglecting my duty,
and conniving at the idle and the dissolute amongst the slaves; and
being summoned into the overseer's presence, I was examined, confessed
the truth, and was immediately dismissed the estate.
"Where was I to turn?--Without a character, no other plantation would
admit my services. The heavens over my head were iron, the earth was
brass. I could get no employment, and to beg I was ashamed. I wandered
down to the sea-shore, and in my excursion met with several ladies and
gentlemen, riding on beautiful chargers, talking and laughing loudly all
the while--and I wished to be one of them. It was this stimulus which
had set me in motion, made me cross the Atlantic, and submit to great
indignities--and yet here I was, an outcast less valuable than the
wrecks which lined the bay. No one of the various cavalcades took the
least notice of me; and I seated myself, at last, on a rock, and began
to plunge little water-worn pebbles into the smooth bay. After a
considerable interval of most poignant despair, the little black boy
made his appearance, and told me that he had just heard of my dismissal,
and that his father wished to see me in the hospital. I went with the
boy half-stupified, and almost unconscious of either motive or motion.
The poor, grateful creature wished me to take some money, which he had
accumulated by his Sabbath-afternoon industry; but I refused it at once,
though I did so with tears of gratitude in my eyes. He then informed me
that he had formerly slaved on an adjoining plantation, and that his
former master was of a more kindly disposition than the present one. He
had just heard of the death of one of his clerks, and, if I would
present myself immediately, ere the next fleet should arrive with a
fresh supply of slave-drivers, he had no doubt but, from my appearance,
and my good hand of writing, I might find employment. I took the honest
creature's advice; and, accompanied by little Ebony, made the best of my
way to Hillside plantation, about a mile and a-half from Kingston. The
kind-hearted boy went before me, and, chancing to meet Mr Ferguson, the
proprietor of Hillside estate, he threw himself on his knees before him,
in the most imploring manner:--
"'Young gentleman dismissed; but he no ill--he kind to poor father--he
very kind to black man when sick. Massa know poor Gabby.'
"Ere the boy had risen from his knees, I had presented myself to Mr
Ferguson, and told my own story precisely as it stood. Luckily for me,
Mr Ferguson and my former employer were upon the worst terms possible;
so I found no difficulty in getting a temporary appointment on trial. It
is said somewhere that despotism is the best of all governments, when
the despot is a good man. This is truly verified in these islands.
Nothing can differ more than does the usage of the slaves in different
plantations. The overseer, Mr Handy, on Watson's plantation, he whom I
had just left, was a brutal person, almost constantly under the
excitement or reaction of rum, and his slaves were constantly beaten and
ill used in every way; whereas the Hillside slaves were allowed all
possible indulgences, and really seemed quite happy. They used to go
about, on the fine Jamaica evenings, singing, dancing, and playing upon
instruments, visiting and returning visits, and enjoying all the
happiness of which their state was susceptible. I lived two years on
this plantation, and was handsomely paid as a clerk. I now, for the
first time, began to think of accumulating money, with the view of
purchase or partnership. But an incident occured to me at this stage of
my fortunes which gave them an unforeseen turn. I was kidnapped, whilst
walking on the sea-shore, rather late one evening, and immediately
carried on board a vessel, which sailed ere morning. This had been done,
as I afterwards understood, under the direction of Handy; who, having
heard of my good fortune and prosperity, persuaded a brother of his, who
traded to Hudson's Bay, in the fur trade, to carry me there, and keep me
out of his sight. He could not bear to think that I might possibly one
day come to effect an establishment in his immediate neighbourhood.
Captain Handy was a cruel, despotic, weatherbeaten piece of mortality;
he carried me in a few months to Hudson's Bay, and had me introduced
into a great house in the fur trade. In vain, when I got ashore, did I
remonstrate against the violence which had been used in regard to me; I
was immediately clothed in warm garments, armed with a musket, and
marched overland, along with about ten or twelve copper-faced Indians,
towards the upper lakes of the St. Lawrence. Our ultimate destination
was Lake Superior. There we were commissioned to trade with the Indians,
exchanging muskets, spirits, and various kinds of cutlery, for
fur-skins. There was a small settlement in the centre of the lake, but
there were not sufficient provisions for the additional numbers during
winter; so we were expected to return on land to the settlement on
Hudson's Bay ere the winter set in. But this year the American winter
commenced a month earlier than usual, and with unprecedented severity.
We had nothing but one log-house to accommodate upwards of thirty
people; but this erection was of considerable extent, and leaned against
several growing trees. Our situation became immediately all but
desperate. You can have no idea of an American winter in such
latitudes." (Hereupon I stirred the fire, and helped myself to a glass
of toddy.) "The snow comes on at once, and the atmosphere is so loaded
and thickened with drift, that you may cut it into cubes with a knife.
And then the snow, which in a few hours accumulates over your dwelling
to the very roof, penetrates everywhere through your wooden erection. In
spite of a blazing hearth, you are shivering almost in the midst of the
flame. The horrors of that winter I can never forget; we were, long ere
New Year's-day, reduced to our daily shifts for our daily food. Had it
not been for our Indian friends, we should have perished of hunger to a
man; but their skill in archery and even in ball-shooting is altogether
incredible. Nothing borne on wings over our heads escaped them. The bow
was lifted immediately to the eye, the arrow was pointed, and followed
for a small space the course of the bird; it flew, but apparently not
straight for the object, but greatly in advance of it; but, ere it had
gained its utmost ascent, the winged and the feathered objects had
crossed on their courses, and the prey fell immediately, transfixed by
the arrow. We broke the ice, too, of the lake, which was often three
feet in thickness, and, with bait prepared by the Indians, of the seeds
of trees, decoyed occasionally some half-starved fish to our lines. But,
with all appliances and means to boot, we became perfect skeletons;
several died of various complaints, all brought on by cold, and spare as
well as unwholesome diet. Oh, what would I then have given for a dinner
such as we have enjoyed this day! But, not to fatigue you with
exclamations and with representations of suffering which to you must
seem incredible, the winter gave way at last, and its departure was
agreeably unexpected with its approach; the thaw came as much earlier as
the frost had anticipated its average approach. Our boats were again on
the lake, and we were enabled to ship off our skins for their ultimate
destination, Montreal. As I had shown considerable talents, and what
they termed mettle, during the winter trials, the commander of the party
had me boated off, along with the skins, for Mr Syme's warehouse, at
Montreal. Here I met with a friend, in a cousin of my mother. He
immediately took me into his warehouse.
"By this time I was sufficiently tired of a moving life; like the
rolling stone of the proverb, I had gathered no fog--'_movebam, sed nil
promovebam_.' I was very happy, therefore, when Mr Syme proposed my
remaining at least some time with him in the capacity mentioned.
Montreal, as everybody knows, is situated upon an island in the St
Lawrence, and few places could be more advantageous for trade, or more
picturesque in appearance. In the centre of the island there rises a
beautiful eminence, still covered with trees of the primeval American
forests; and towards the eastern skies lies the town itself, upper and
lower, adorned with public buildings, and presenting, as you approach
it, a very prepossessing aspect. Mr Syme had a warehouse, at a place
called Chine, about eight miles up, and immediately upon the river. Here
the furs were shipped for Europe, and Britain in particular, and here it
was my duty to remain, except on Sundays, when I constantly dined with
my kind relative. Mr Syme had an only daughter, two sons having died,
and the mother likewise, whilst being delivered of the last. This
daughter was now a young woman of nineteen, and sufficiently handsome
for matrimony, considering that she was to inherit her father's wealth
and business, which was itself a mine of gain. Her father, who in many
respects was a kind-hearted and a prudent man, was as obstinate as an
old oak-trunk when he took it into his head to be so. Most people have
some weak side or other--and this was his. He had determined, from the
time when Samuel Horseman, the rich merchant (the richest, it was
supposed, in the island), had rocked his Nancy in the cradle, and had
suffered himself to be scorned with the child, that Nancy should one day
or other be Mrs Horseman; and that thus, by the union of their families
and their fortunes, there should not be a firm in Montreal that would
once be spoken of in the same day with Horseman, Syme, & Co. This idea
had grown with the growth of the child, and had strengthened with her
strength--it was never twenty-four hours out of his head. But, one
dreadful afternoon, Horseman arrived from Quebec with a little pretty
French milliner, whom he had married. This was death to Syme's plans and
prospects, and so he set immediately about cutting Horseman, and looking
out for some other advantageous way of disposing of his _article_, which
had now seen some fourteen summers. But before he could settle upon any
particular individual, he was relieved from his disappointment, and
restored to his intercourse with Horseman, by a gallant serjeant, who
claimed Mrs Horseman as his lawful and married wife; in fact, there were
several claimants; but one was as good as a hundred to Horseman, who by
this time was heartily tired of his partner, and would have willingly
seen her attempting a voyage of discovery over the Falls of Niagara.
Syme soon redoubled his diligence, and gave his daughter to understand
that, so soon as she had attained the age of nineteen, the age of her
mother when she became a bride, she should be exalted to all the honours
and privileges of Mrs Horseman.
"There are two, it is said, at a bargain-making; but that is merely the
_minimum_: in this case, there were three, and ultimately four. Miss
Syme had been exceedingly annoyed by her father's unreasonable
arrangement; she, of course, disliked Horseman, as she did everything
old, ugly, snuffy, and bandylegged; but her father was incessant in his
importunities, or rather commands, and matters were in this state when
the friend now addressing you made his appearance, and took up his
principal residence at Chine. It was not long before Miss Syme and I
came to understand each other. I do not know how it was--I was not
romantically in love--perhaps it is not in my nature; but I was willing
to hear the poor girl's story, and to mingle tears with hers. We never
talked of love; but yet, somehow or other, it made an inroad upon the
debateable territory on both sides, till we felt that we were assuredly
over head and ears, from the circumstance that, like Darby and Joan,
'we were ever uneasy asunder.' The father began to smell a rat, as they
say--at least you and I have often said whilst at school--and he was in
a furious passion, threatened dismissal to me and imprisonment to Nancy.
In the meantime, death, in the shape of an ague, carried Horseman beyond
the reach of matrimony--he went to that land where there is neither
marrying nor giving in marriage; and I became every day more and more
useful to my employer. It was manifest to all that his heart had now
softened, and that he had come to see the utter folly of human schemes
when controverted by the decrees of Heaven. One day he was up at Chine,
seeing some furs shipped for London; when in passing from the shore to
the ship, he slipped a foot and fell into the water. There was no one
who observed this but myself, as all the men were busily engaged. I
immediately plunged headlong into the somewhat rapid stream. He was not
to be found. The current had borne him downwards, and a water-dog, which
was kept on purpose on board, was in the act, as I perceived, of
dragging the body ashore. I assisted the animal, and got the credit of
saving my friend.
"I need not delay you longer. I married Mr Syme's daughter, and
succeeded, at his death, to the whole concern, which I have just wound
up; and, having left my wife and an only daughter in London, I am on my
way to visit, by surprise, my aged mother, who still lives in the place
of my birth, and to purchase, if possible, a property in the
neighbourhood, there to spend, in peace, and affection, and domestic
love, the evening of my days.--Will you go with me to Lastcairn?"
I agreed. We drove up the glen, by Croalchapel; and my friend was all
absence, and inward rumination, and anticipated delight. But the
footsteps of death were on the threshold. His aged parent was still
alive and sensible, but manifestly fast going. She was made sensible
that her long-lost Charlie, who had been so kind to her in her old age,
was before her. She tried to stretch forth her withered arm, but it was
scathed by death. She received the last embrace of her son, said
something about "depart in peace," and fell asleep.
THE POOR SCHOLAR.
Reader, if ever thou hast been in "Babylon the Great," or, in other
words, in the overgrown metropolis of the southern portion of these
kingdoms, peradventure you have observed melancholy-looking men, their
countenances tinged with the "pale cast of thought," in suits of
well-worn black, "a world too wide," creeping, edging, or shuffling
along the streets, each belike with a bundle of papers peering from his
pocket. In nine cases out of ten, these neglected-looking men are the
poor scholars who instruct or amuse the world. You may also find them,
with anxiety in their eyes, and hunger sitting at home upon their
cheeks, wandering in the most secluded corners of the parks, enjoying,
by way of a substitute for dinner, the apology which the air in the
parks offers for the pure and unadulterated breath of heaven. Daily,
too, they may be seen in the library of the Museum, poring over an old
volume, and concealing their shoes beneath the table, lest they should
"prate" of the scholar's "whereabouts," and ask of the venerable volume,
"Are you or we oldest?" Or you may find them in the corner of some
obscure coffee-house, poring intently over the periodicals of the day,
at intervals slowly sipping and mincing the cup of coffee and half slice
of bread before them. But, in speaking of poor scholars generally, I
keep you from the tale of our Poor Scholar.
You have heard of Longtown, which is a neat, respectable-looking, and
remarkably clean little town in Cumberland, on the banks of the Esk,
near to what is called Solway Moss, and sometimes spoken of as the first
or last town in England, in the same manner as Coldstream is mentioned
as the first or last town in Scotland. Well, there dwelt in Longtown a
respectable widow, named Musgrave. She derived an income of about eighty
pounds a-year from a property that had been bequeathed to her in the
West Indies. She had an only son, whose name was Robert, and who, after
a respectable education in his native place, was bound as an apprentice
to a medical practitioner in Carlisle. He afterwards attended the
classes in Edinburgh; but, before he had taken out all the necessary
tickets, and before he had obtained the diploma or qualification which
was to enable him to use the word "surgeon" after his name, something
went wrong about the property that was bequeathed to his mother in the
West Indies; her remittances ceased, and, after a tedious lawsuit, it
was swallowed up altogether.
She was left in poverty--in utter destitution. The misfortune fell upon
her heavily; she drooped, pined, mourned, and died; and Robert Musgrave,
still under twenty, was left without money and without friends. His
talents, however, had excited the notice of several of the professors
under whom he had studied; and they, acquiring a knowledge of his
circumstances, and feeling an interest in his fate, enabled him to take
out his certificate as a member of the College of Surgeons.
He now, with high hopes, and, I need not say, a low pocket, commenced
practice as a country surgeon in a small village on the Borders. It was
a young man's dream. A surgeon in a country village, and especially a
young one, is generally the worst paid man in it. The war between
poverty and the necessity of appearing respectable never ceases. The
clergyman, be he churchman or dissenter, has a certain income, be it
less or more; but the surgeon lives between the hand and the mouth; and
he can hardly, considering his avocation, in Christian benevolence, pray
for "daily bread." Such a prayer would be something akin to a
gravedigger's for an east wind or a "green Christmas," which, as the
adage hath it, "maketh a fat kirkyard."
Now, Robert Musgrave was a young man, possessed not only of what may be
called talent, but, what is more, of strong and ardent genius; while,
young as he was, his professional skill would have done honour to a
court physician. But, buried in the obscurity of a poor and secluded
village, struggling between gentility and penury, shut out from all
society congenial to his taste, education, and former habits, he became
heartless and callous, if not slovenly; and, eventually, he sank into a
sceptic from the _force of appearance_. For, be assured, gentle reader,
if ye will study mankind closely, and examine into their outgoings and
their incomings, and think of the _why_ for every _wherefore_, ye will
find that the reasoning of a shabby coat produces more converts to
everyday free-thinking or infidelity, than the philosophy of Hobbes, the
rhetoric of Shaftesbury, the wit of Voltaire, the sophistry of Hume, and
the blackguard ribaldry of Paine, united. The neighbouring farmers
admitted Doctor Musgrave, as they called him, to be clever; but they
despised his poverty, and invited him to their tables only for
amusement. Deprived of books, and without society, while his temperament
was framed for both, and feeling himself slighted, he gradually lost his
respectability, and became a tippler, if not a drunkard.
I shall here follow out a portion of his history, in a conversation
which he had with a Cumberland farmer, one Peter Liddell, whom he met in
London about three years after he had left his country practice on the
Borders:--
"The longer I remained in----," said he, "my situation became the more
painful. I felt I was becoming something less than the equal of society
I despised. I found that I had gradually sunk into the odious vice of
drunkenness; that I was the companion only of the ignorant and the
worthless; and poverty, eternal poverty and obscurity, were all that
appeared before me. But the dormant ambition of boyhood, the dreams that
delighted my early years, did not wholly forsake me. I had long
determined to leave the village, and try my fortune in the world; but
want of means prevented me. I resolved to tear adversity by the beard,
and face every obstacle. With difficulty I gathered in as many debts as
enabled me to proceed to Newcastle, and take a passage to London, where
I arrived on the first of February, without friends, and almost without
money--in fact, with not five shillings in my pocket."
"Poor fellow!" said Peter; and they were sitting together in a tavern in
Fleet Street, which is called a north-country house; for Peter was in
London on business, and having met the doctor on the street, they went
into the tavern to talk of their native hills, and the "old familiar
faces." "Poor fellow!" added Peter; and, with a sort of sigh, added,
"_Ah_, sirs! it is really well said that the one half of the world
doesn't know how the other lives. It would take planning to lay out
those five shillings."
"It certainly did," said the scholar. "You are aware that my practice in
the village, from a prejudice against what some called my religion, or
rather my no religion, was exceedingly limited. In fact, I was a
persecuted man, for principles of which I was as ignorant as themselves;
and disdaining to accommodate my habits and conversation to their rules,
the persecution increased, and the payments made to me became more
limited than my practice. I bade fair to become an actual representative
of Shakspere's apothecary; and would assuredly have thought myself
'passing rich with forty pounds a-year.' But the one-half of my practice
would not pay the expense of wrapping the powders in paper. On sending
to our village tobacconist's, I have had my own accounts returning as
snuff-paper; and, though my success was not, I believe, inferior to most
in the profession, my patients regarded paying me as throwing money
away, or as an unnecessary charity; and never did the payments, taking
one year with another, exceed thirty pounds."
"Poor fellow! do ye really say so?" responded Peter; "thirty pounds
a-year!--and was that a'? And was ye really not an atheist or a deist,
doctor, as the people gied ye out to be?"
"Whatever I and the mass of mankind are in our practice, Mr Liddell," he
replied, "I am neither, when the small still voice of conscience
speaks."
"Gie's your hand--gie's your hand, doctor," cried Peter; "I ask your
pardon for onything I ever thought or said respecting ye, as sincerely
as ever man did. Conscience is, as ye say, a sma still voice; but I
doubt it is one that many will hear aboon the sough o' friends at a
death-bed, the thunders o' the day o' judgment, and the roaring and
raging o' the bottomless pit. But ye say that ye had barely five
shillings in your pocket when ye arrived in London here. How, in a' the
world, did ye manage to lay it out?'
"Sixpence," replied the scholar, "went in treating the captain to a
glass of grog, when we came on shore, including one for myself."
"That was very foolishly spent, however," interrupted Peter.
"And it being night when we landed," added the doctor, "another shilling
was spent in the public-house for a bed."