almost a limitless city; but, sir, it is too small for the bounds of
misery. Often have I wandered from Knightsbridge to Mile End, yea, from
Cheswick to the East India Docks, and slowly returned the way I came
thinking that daylight would never break, and wondering how people spoke
of London as a great city. They, sir, who would really know the limits
of London, must shake hands with misery as I have done. They must
wander its streets by night, without food and without hope, and they
will marvel how short they are. People talk of losing themselves amongst
the intricacies and many turnings of this city. It is nonsense,
sir--sheer stupidity. Let them once be lost in misery, in penniless,
houseless wretchedness, and should a purse show itself at their feet,
they would discover where they were in a moment. The man who has no
money never loses himself in London--none do but fools who have it to
lose. But, sir, it was on the very night after I had attempted to sleep
in Billingsgate, beneath the comfortable covering of a fishmonger's
sign, and dreamed by the side of an artist in a drayman's cart, that I
was wandering on the borough side of the river, and had proceeded nearly
three miles beyond the Elephant and Castle, when cries for assistance
roused me from my waking dream. I rushed forward. A gentleman in an open
carriage, with his servant, were attacked by four footpads, armed with
knives and bludgeons. I took up a stone from the road, and, hurling it
at the head of one of the robbers, when within a few yards of them,
stretched him on the ground. We were then man to man. I sprang upon
another--I grappled with him, overpowered him, and wrenched the bludgeon
from his hands, but not until he had plunged his knife into my side. It
was a bad wound, but not a dangerous one. With the bludgeon which I had
wrenched from the hand of the robber, I rushed upon another of his
associates, who, I found, had that moment overcome the gentleman to
whose rescue I had providentially arrived. I dealt him a heavy and a
hearty blow upon his busiest arm, which causing him to find that he had
only his limbs left, he took to his heels and ran. The two whom I had
already overthrown, had anticipated him in his flight, and, on seeing
him run, the fourth followed their example. I attempted to run after
them, but fell upon the ground from loss of blood. The gentleman was
himself wounded, but slightly; and he, with his servant, raising me
from the ground, and placing me in his carriage, conveyed me to the
nearest inn. There, after a surgeon had been sent for, and my wound
dressed, he requested to know who I was, and to whom he was indebted for
his liberty and his life. But in all that concerned myself I was silent;
and, in answer to all questions as to whom or what I was, I was dumb. My
wound was deep, though not dangerous; and all that I regretted was, that
I should be left an invalid in an inn, while I had nothing to recompense
those who attended on me. After earnestly entreating to know who I was,
or what was my name--though I have reason to believe that, from my
dejected appearance, he entertained a most sorry idea of me--the
gentleman whom I had rescued proceeded onwards to London. But I was
silent to all his inquiries. Pride sealed up my tongue, and I shook my
head and said nothing. I could not speak--shame and poverty tortured me
more than my wound.
"Within an hour he proceeded on his journey; and, on the following day,
he returned with a medical gentleman to visit me. It was with difficulty
that I could sit up in my bed to welcome them. The man of surgery began
by asking many questions, which I answered like a true Scotsman, by
asking others which startled him; and I heard him whisper to him whom I
had rescued--
"'Sir, he is, without doubt, a member of my profession.'
"The gentleman--I mean him whom I rescued from the ruffians--came
forward to me; he took my hand in his--most earnestly he took it--and,
as he held it, there was something like a tear--a tear of
gratitude--rolling in his eyes.
"'Sir,' said he, 'to your courage I owe my life. Allow me to ask by what
name I shall call my deliverer. It is evident that you are not, or that
you have not always been, what your present appearance bespeaks. Let me
know, therefore, how I am to thank you--how I can reward you as I
ought.'
"'Sir,' answered I, 'you are a stranger to me; so am I to you. Let us
remain so. If you speak of reward, you will cause me to regret what I
did in attempting your rescue. Whatever I am, whatever I have been,
matters not. I saw a fellow-man attacked and overpowered, and I
attempted to deliver him. The humblest animal, prompted by its instinct,
would have done the same. I am entitled to no thanks for what I have
done--and, above all, I wish no questions asked of me.'"
"Faith, doctor, ye answered nobly, and just as ye ought to have, if ye
had had a hundred pounds in your pocket; but, man, ye stood in your ain
light. There is nae saying what he might have done for you. It might hae
been the king or the prime minister for onything ye kenned."
"He might," resumed the scholar; "but he rejoined, 'Sir, I admire the
independence of your spirit, but wherefore should you, without cause,
reject the acquaintance of one who seeks your friendship? You have
endangered your life to save mine--what stronger claim could you have on
my everlasting gratitude? If common feeling prompted you to rescue me,
suffer me not to leave you until I have testified that I am actuated by
such feelings, in common with yourself. You refuse to tell me your name;
mine is William Forster, a colonel in the service of the East India
Company.'
"At the mention of his name my heart leaped within me. The brother of my
Bertha, and of whom I have spoken, was in the service of the East India
Company. I dreaded that he and the individual I had saved might be the
same person; and I resolved, more determinedly than before, to conceal
from him my name and circumstances. But, finding he could learn nothing
from me, he offered me money. O sir! at that time I could have taken
his life--I could have taken my own. To what have I sunk, I thought, or
what am I now, that I should be treated as the veriest beggar that
crawls upon the streets! 'Sir,' I exclaimed, wildly, 'keep your
gold--your dross--your insulting dross. I did not assist you in your
hour of need, that you should insult my situation by a mendicant's
reward. I, sir, have the feelings of a gentleman as well as you,
whatever I may now seem--therefore torment me not.' He informed me that
he had to leave London on the following day; and he entreated that I
would tell him who I was, that he might show that he was grateful for
what I had done, in a way that might not be painful to my feelings. But
the thought that he was the brother of my Bertha haunted me, maddened
me, and I waved my hand to him and cried, 'Away! away!' His countenance
bespoke him to be a man to whom I could have poured forth my whole soul;
but even in that countenance I read her lineaments, and my soul moved
like an agitated thing that I could feel within me, as I gazed on them.
"'Go, sir,' I exclaimed; 'and if you will be grateful, be so to one who
rejoices in having been instrumental in assisting you. Leave me. I ask
no more, for your questions torture me, and your pecuniary offers insult
me.'
"He left me, but never did I behold a man part from another more
reluctantly, or one who was more under the influence of strong emotion.
My wound confined me to the inn for five weeks, and, during much of that
time, my thoughts were distracted regarding the bill of the innkeeper.
But one day he came to me and said--
"'Sir, I don't know how you and the gentleman whom you rescued from the
highwaymen stand; but one thing I know, he is a gentleman every inch of
him. He has paid for all that you have had, or may have for a month to
come; and here, master, are fifty pounds which he left me to give to you
in as delicate a way as I could, for, as he said, you were rather
proud-spirited. Now, master, here is the money, and he was as safe in
trusting it in my hands as if he had put it in the bank.'
"I knew not what to do; but, after a struggle, and a severe one, I
accepted the money. You may despise me for what I did----"
"Me despise you!" cried the farmer; "for what, I would like to ken? It
is the only wiselike action I have heard you say that you did. The man
that would despise another for taking fifty pounds where it was
deserved, is a being that doesna understand what money is, or what it
was made for. They may despise ye that like, doctor, upon that account,
but it winna be me."
"Well, sir," resumed Musgrave, "with the fifty pounds in my pocket, I
again appeared upon the streets of London. But a change had passed over
me. Even the policemen who before had ordered me to 'walk on' knew me
not. I was another man--I was as one on whom fashion shed its sunning
influence. I again endeavoured to obtain a situation as an
assistant-surgeon, but the attempt was unsuccessful. I should have told
you that it was owing to being confined with my wound that I was unable
to meet my 'brother in misfortune,' the artist of whom I have spoken. I
now tried my fortune as a writer for the magazines, and was paid for
what I wrote even liberally, as I considered it. But there was one
drawback attending this liberality: though I could write an article for
which I received three, four, or seven guineas, in a day (for authors
always calculate in guineas, though they are paid in pounds), yet it was
not every day, neither was it every month, that I could get such an
article accepted; and it was not every magazine that admitted me as a
contributor. But by such writing I managed to live; and, as my name
became known, I felt less of the misery which I endured when I first
embarked in the precarious trade of authorship. Yet a precarious trade I
still found it to be. I was enabled to live, but I lived between the
hand and the mouth.
"The publisher whom I have already mentioned as having given a guinea
towards the publishing of my works by subscription, engaged me to
translate a novel from the French, and a small work from the Italian, of
which language I had but a scanty knowledge. But it does not require the
perfect knowledge of a language to be a translator which many consider
necessary."
"I canna say," said Peter; "I must confess ye are out o' my depths
there--but get on wi' your story, for I'm not sure but I may have
something to tell ye."
"Well, sir," resumed the scholar, "after the translations had appeared,
and when the seductions of a literary life, notwithstanding all its
privations and all its uncertainty, had induced me to abandon all
thoughts of pursuing my own profession, I determined to write for the
stage. It would be tedious for me to tell you of all the difficulties I
had to encounter before I could obtain an audience of the theatrical
managers, or what was called the committee of management. I found them
more difficult of access than the Cham of Tartary. As well might I have
undertaken a mission to Pekin, with the intent of pulling the celestial
emperor by the button. But at length my object was attained. A tragedy
that I had written was accepted, and announced for representation. The
eventful night came. The new drama--my drama--was to be performed. The
first scene went off in silence--in utter silence; and often the actors
mangled the lines most miserably. They forgot Hamlet's advice. But, as
the first act was concluded, pit, boxes, and gallery burst into a tumult
of applause. I was seated in the pit. The sweat broke upon my brow.
Vanity wrought triumphantly in my bosom. I was the greatest man in
London. The second, the third, the fourth, the fifth acts concluded in
the same manner. The curtain fell, and the audience shouted, 'The
author! the author!' For this tribute of public approbation I was not
prepared. The stage-manager came to me, and still the audience in the
gallery kept thundering and shouting, 'The author! the author!' He
insisted that I should appear upon the stage, and before the audience.
Vain as I was, I sickened at his words; but he took my hand, and led me
forth. I became as a thing that moves, without a consciousness of, or a
power over, its moving. I had become pale as death. They led me to what
they call the green-room, and they put rouge upon my face. But it was in
vain, and the cold sweat swept it away, and left my countenance as if
covered with wounds. I was led upon the stage as a sheep is led to the
slaughter. The lights flashed on me, and I beheld twice a thousand eyes
fixed upon me. I knew not how to act. I trembled--bowed--threw my eyes
in bewilderment over the multitude; but, as I was about to address them,
on whom amongst that mixed assembly should my eyes fall, but on my
Bertha! I started. A frenzy came upon me. I sprang towards the pit. Yet
it is in vain for me to tell you, for I knew not what I did. She sat in
a box immediately facing me. I heard a woman's scream; I knew it came
from where she was. The multitude seemed rising, and moving around me,
and every eye was on me. But I cannot describe to you what I felt or
what I saw. I became unconscious. I knew only that I had seen her--that
she was somewhere. There was a noise like that of many waters in my
ears. My head went round--my eyes were blind. When I recovered, I was
seated in the green-room, and the actors in their strange dresses
surrounded me. They endeavoured to restore me to consciousness, as
though I had been a sickly maiden that had fainted in their arms; and
when I did recover from the sickness and insanity that came over me--
"'Where--oh, where,' I cried, 'is my Bertha?'
"I remember not of having done so; but I have been told that I did. You
may think, sir, that I acted wildly, as a madman, or as a fool; but,
before you condemn, think of what I had endured--of my recent misery,
and of my vanity when shout rose on shout, and the cry from the
assembled thousands was--'The author! the author!' Such changes, sir,
were enough to turn a steadier head than mine."
"For my part, doctor," said Peter, "I have no notion o' plays; I never
saw one in my life, and I canna say that I a'thegither comprehend ye.
But let me hear about Miss Bertha."
"All that I could learn concerning her was," resumed Musgrave, "that a
young lady in the boxes had uttered a sudden scream as she beheld me and
the strange bewilderment that came over me, but that she had immediately
been conveyed away by her friends in a coach. This only have I been able
to learn. But it was she. Though all else that took place is as a wreck
upon my memory, I see her before me now as I at that moment beheld her;
I see still her one wild look that entered my soul, and I yet hear her
heart-piercing cry, which brought delirium upon me, and rendered me dead
to every other sound. But, from that night, I have been able to hear no
more concerning her. I have sought her in church and in chapel, in the
theatres and in the public walks, but never again have I beheld her.
Often also have I written to Cumberland; but my letters have remained
unanswered or been returned. She had forsaken me, or she has been
compelled to forsake me; for, when I last beheld her, her face still
beamed with affection, and her wild and sudden cry was the offspring of
an old but a still living affection."
"I hear, by what ye say, doctor," rejoined the farmer, "that ye are as
fond o' Miss Bertha as ever. Now, as I said to ye before, I am not
certain but what I have something that ye might wish to hear, to
communicate to ye; and, before doing so, with your permission, I would
just ask you one or two plain questions. Ye have told me a great deal of
the miserable state ye was in after ye came to London, and I would just
like to ask ye if ye are bettor off now, and how and in what respect ye
are so? I trust, therefore, that ye will by no means think the question
impertinent; for I assure you, it is for your sake that I ask it, and
not for any gratification to mysel."
"Well, sir," answered the scholar, "to be as plain with you as you
desire, I have shaken hands with privation, and left it upon the road,
to form the acquaintance of those who may follow me; or, to be more
plain with you, I found that literature was a good staff but a bad
crutch; and, as I began to gather my feet, I used it accordingly. In a
word, as my name became known amongst men, my labours became more and
more profitable; and, three years ago, thinking that I had obtained the
means of doing so, I made an attempt to resume my profession as a
surgeon. For many months, it was but an attempt, and a hopeless one,
too; but gradually practice dawned or crept upon me. I am now employed
as well as other members of my profession are; and, with the assistance
of my literary labours, I look back upon the penury with which I
struggled, and wish it to remain where I left it. But, though I have
known something of the moonshine of fame as it has scattered its rays
upon my head, and felt also the influence of the warmer beams of profit
as I began to bask in the sun of popularity, yet there was, and there
is, one dark and unsunned spot in my heart--and that is, the remembrance
of my Bertha. Still does imagination conjure up her sudden glance, her
one wild cry and look of agony, as I came forward to receive the
plaudits of the multitude, when, as the bay-leaves were circling my
brow, the prickly brier was rudely drawn across my bosom."
"Well, doctor," said Peter, "ye have not just spoken so plain as I could
have wished; but I dare to say that I comprehend ye. When ye eat a meal
now, ye ken where the next is to come from; and if Miss Bertha still
thinks o' ye, and were to gie you her hand, there would be no likelihood
o' her being brought in contact with the privations with which ye have
manfully struggled, and which, I am happy to hear (and, I may say, more
happy to perceive--for a person's own eyes are excellent witnesses), ye
have overcome. Now, sir, hearken to me, for I have something to tell ye.
I had always a sort of liking for ye, doctor; and though I did see ye
foolish and stupid in many things, yet I was sorry for ye, and I said I
believed that ye was a lad o' real genius, and of a right heart at the
bottom. More than that, I said, that, if ye minded your hand, ye would
be heard tell of in the world--and I have not been mistaken, for, even
down in Cumberland, we have seen your name in the papers; and a hundred
times have I said to my neighbours--'I always told ye that lad would
rise to something.' But now, sir--now to the main subject, the one in
which you will feel the greatest interest. Ye say that ye again and
again wrote to Miss Bertha to Cumberland, and never got an answer. I am
in no way surprised at that at all; and for this simple reason, that old
Colonel Forster left Eskside five years ago, and went to reside near a
place they call Elstree, about ten miles from this city. Now, the way in
which I am acquainted with the circumstance is this:--About a year after
ye left, the old nabob, as we used to ca' him, bought the farm that I
rented, and became my landlord. Therefore, when he came to live in this
quarter, I had to send my rents here. But, sir, he understands that I am
in London--for I just handed him my rent, being here, the other day--and
he has invited me to dine wi' him at his house to-morrow. Now, sir, if
ye hae nae objections, I will just tak you out wi' me as an old friend;
and if ye're not made welcome, I shall not be welcome either. So, say
the word--will ye go wi' me, or will ye not?"
"I will--yes, yes, I will!" answered Mr Musgrave, eagerly.
"Well, well," said Peter, "there need be no more about it, then--say
that I meet you at this house to-morrow at two o'clock."
"Agreed," replied the other.
"But," returned Peter, "there is one thing I forgot to tell ye, and that
is, that I understand Miss Bertha is on the eve of being married, and
highly married, too, they say wi' us. Therefore, ye will not be
surprised if ye find your former acquaintance forgotten, or seemingly
forgotten, which, in such matters, amounts to somewhat about the same
thing."
On the following day, Mr Peter Liddell and Robert Musgrave entered a cab
in Fleet Street together, and proceeded towards Elstree.
"Now," said Peter, as they approached the residence of his landlord, "I
believe that I may be running my head against a wall; for I am well
aware that the old colonel never liked ye. Ye are one who would be
unwelcome at any time, but doubly so at a time like this, when his
daughter is on the point of being married. But I will tell ye what it
is--I am just as independent as he is. I am as able to live without the
help o' the landlord, as the landlord is to live without the help o' the
tenant. Therefore, if he puts down his brows at you when we are
introduced, I will show him the back o' my coat, and so good-day to
him."
"I believe, then," said Musgrave, "that with him I shall be no welcome
guest; but, if Bertha welcome me, it is enough. You have spoken to me of
her intended marriage--be it so. If she has forgotten me, if she has
ceased to care for me, I will look upon her and bless her, in
remembrance of days which have passed away as the shadow of a cloud
passeth over the earth. But with that blessing hope will depart; for,
sir, it was the remembrance of her that sustained me in all my
struggles. It was the hope that she might, would one day be mine, that
induced me to hope against hope, to wrestle with despair. For her sake
only have I sought for fame, as a miser would seek after hidden
treasure; and when it began to throw its light and its sunniness over
me, she was the flower that rendered sunlight beautiful--for what is
there lovely in light but as a thing which maketh the face of the earth
fair to look upon?"
They drew up at the door of the colonel's residence, and were ushered
into a room where he and a party of his friends sat. Peter, who was what
people in the south would call a '_cute_ man, was beginning to make an
apology, saying--
"I beg your pardon, colonel, for the liberty I have taken; but meeting
with my old friend, Doctor Musgrave, yesterday, I prevailed on him to
come out wi' me, as we were a' Cumberland folk together; and though he
is a great man now----"
But, while Peter spoke, one of the company started forward. He grasped
our hero by the hand, and exclaimed--
"My deliverer! Long and anxiously have I sought for you; but, until this
hour, nothing have I been able to learn respecting you. Father," he
added, "this is the gentleman of whom a hundred times you have heard me
speak, as having at the peril of his own life saved mine. I have never
known or met him again until now. Thank him with me." And, as he spoke,
he held the doctor's hand between his.
The old man rose. He evidently laboured to speak to the stranger; but
other feelings obtained the mastery. He stretched out his hand. He
touched Robert Musgrave's--he coldly bowed to him. The blood left his
face.
"Father," exclaimed the son, "you are ill. Hath gratitude----" But he
paused as he beheld the expression of his father's features. They
betrayed anger and agony at the same moment.
"Son," said he, "I would speak with you: that man--that man;" and he
pointed to the scholar impatiently, and, beckoning to his son, rose to
leave the room.
"Sir," said Musgrave, proudly, "if my presence trouble you, I can
withdraw."
"My friend, what mean you?--what means my father?" asked the brother of
Bertha, who was, indeed, the same individual that the scholar had
rescued.
"I dinna ken," answered Peter Liddle; "but, if Doctor Musgrave go the
door, I go to the door too."
The father and the son looked at each other. The glance of the latter
sought from the former an explanation.
At that instant the door opened, and the much-talked-of Bertha entered
the room.
"Bertha!" exclaimed Musgrave, and stepped forward, as if unconscious of
what he did.
"Robert!" she rejoined, clasping her hands together. She started--she
fell back; her brother supported her in his arms.
"Bertha!--father!--friend!" he exclaimed, hastily glancing to each as he
spoke, "what means this?"
A man of middle age rose, and, as he hurried from the room, said--
"Farewell, Forster," addressing the old man; "you have deceived, you
have insulted me. The man who is to be your daughter's husband is with
her now."
It was the intended husband of Bertha that so spoke, and left the
apartment. The old colonel rose to follow him.
"Stay, father," said his son; "what I have now witnessed requires an
explanation. This stranger, to whom I owe my life, you have seen
before--my sister has seen him--and there is something connected with
your acquaintance with each other that I must understand."
"Yes," cried the old man, "I have seen him before--I have--I have."
"Bertha?" said his son; but she raised her hands before her face and
wept.
"Sir," said the younger Forster, "I can be grateful. Though I am not
acquainted with you, my sister is. Let me call my deliverer _brother_!"
And he took the hand of his weeping sister and placed it in that of
Robert Musgrave.
The old man started; but his son soothed him. And Robert Musgrave stood
with the hand of Bertha Forster locked in his; and within a few weeks he
called that hand his own, and was happy--and the sufferings that the
Poor Scholar had endured became as a tale that is told.
THE LAIRD OF DARNICK TOWER.[12]