Salathiel Secundus, "doomed for a term," like the ghost of Hamlet's
papa, "to walk the earth," whether I will or not. Here, however, the
simile stops; for his aforesaid ghostship could traverse, if he
chose, amid climes far away, while the circuit of my peregrinations
is, has for sometime been, and must, for some short time more,
necessarily be confined to the northern extremity of "our tight
little island"--_vulgo vocato_--Scotland. In my day I have seen many
strange sights, and met with many strange faces--made several
hairbreadth 'scapes, and undergone innumerable perils by flood and
field. On the wings of the wind--that is, on the top of a
stage-coach--I have passed through many known and unknown towns and
villages; have visited, on foot and on horseback, for my own special
edification and amusement, various ancient ruins, foaming cataracts,
interesting rocks, and dismal-looking caves, celebrated in Scottish
story. But better far than that, and dearer to my soul, my foot has
trod the floors of, I may say, all the haberdashers' shops north of
the Tweed: in short, most patient reader, I am a travelling bagman.
In this capacity, I have, for years, perambulated among the chief
towns of Scotland, taking orders from those who were inclined to give
them to me, and giving orders to those who were not inclined to take
them from me, unless with a _douceur_ in perspective--viz., coachmen,
waiters, barmaids, _et hoc gittus omne_. From those of the third
class, many are the witching smiles lighting up pretty faces--many
the indignant glances shot from deep love-darting eyes, when their
under neighbours, the lips, were invaded without consent of
parties--which have saluted me everywhere; for the same varied
feelings, the same sudden and unaccountable likings and dislikings,
have place in the breasts of barmaids as in those of other women. As
is the case too with the rest of their sex, there are among them the
clumsy and the handsome, the plain and the pretty, the scraggy and
the plump, the old and the young; but of all the barmaids I ever met
with, none charmed me more than did Mary of the Black Swan, at
Altonby. In my eyes she inherited all the good qualities I have here
enumerated,--that is to say, she was handsome, pretty, plump, and
young, with a form neither too tall nor too short; but just the
indescribable happy size between, set off by a manner peculiarly
graceful.
It was on a delightful evening in the early spring, that I found
myself seated, for the first time, in a comfortable little parlour
pertaining to the Black Swan, and Mary attending on me--she being the
chief, nay, almost the only person in the establishment, who could
serve a table. I was struck with her loveliness, as well as
captivated with her engaging manner, and though I had for thirty
years defied the artifices of blind Cupid, I now felt myself all at
once over head and ears in love with this village beauty. Although
placed in so low a sphere as that in which I then beheld her, there
was a something about her that proclaimed her to be of gentle birth.
Whoever looked upon her countenance, felt conscious that there was a
respect due to her which it is far from customary to extend to girls
in waiting at an inn. Hers were
"Eyes so pure, that from their ray
Dark vice would turn abashed away."
Her feet were small and fairy-like, from which, if her voice,
redolent of musical softness--that thing so desirable in woman--had
not already informed me, I should have set her down as being of
English extraction.
Several months elapsed ere it was again in my power to visit Altonby.
During all that time, my vagrant thoughts had been of Mary--sleeping
or waking, her form was ever present to my fancy. On entering the
Black Swan, it was Mary who bounded forward to welcome me with a
delighted smile. She seemed gratified at my return; and I was no
less so at the cordiality of my reception. The month was July, and
the evening particularly fine; so, not having business of much
consequence to transact in the place, and Mary having to attend to
the comforts of others beside myself, then sojourning at the Black
Swan, I sallied forth alone--
"To take my evening's walk of meditation."
When one happens to be left _per se_ in a provincial town, where he
is alike unknowing and unknown--where there is no theatre or other
place of amusement in which to spend the evening--it almost
invariably happens that he pays a visit to the churchyard, and
delights himself, for an hour or so, with deciphering the
tombstones,--a recreation extremely healthful to the body, and
soothing to the mind. It was to the churchyard on that evening I
bent my steps, thinking, as I went along, seriously of Mary.
"What is she to me?" I involuntarily exclaimed; "I have no time to
waste upon women: I am a wanderer, with no great portion of worldly
gear. In my present circumstances it is impossible I can marry her;
and to think of her in any other light were villanous. No, no! I
will no longer cherish a dream which can never be realised."
And I determined that, on the morrow, I should fly the fatal spot for
ever. Who or what Mary's relations had been, she seemed to feel
great reluctance in disclosing to me. All I could glean from her
was, that she was an orphan--that she had had a sister who had formed
an unfortunate attachment, and broken their mother's heart--that all
of her kindred that now remained was a brother, and he was in a
foreign land.
The sun was resting above the summits of the far-off mountains, and
the yew trees were flinging their dusky shadows over the graves, as I
entered the burial-place of Altonby. The old church was roofless and
in ruins; and within its walls were many tombstones over the ashes of
those who, having left more than the wherewithal to bury them, had
been laid there by their heirs, as if in token of respect. In a
distant corner, I observed one little mound over which no stone had
been placed to indicate who lay beneath: it was evidently the grave
of a stranger, and seemed to have been placed in that spot more for
the purpose of being out of the way than for any other. At a short
distance from it was another mound, overtopped with grass of a
fresher kind. As I stood leaning over a marble tombstone, gazing
around me, a figure slowly entered at the farther end of the aisle,
and, with folded arms and downcast eyes, passed on to those two
graves. It was that of a young man of perhaps five-and-twenty,
though a settled melancholy, which overspread his countenance, made
him look five years older. I crouched behind the stone on which I
had been leaning, fearful of disturbing him with my presence, or
rousing his attention by my attempting to leave the place.
After gazing with a vacant eye for a few moments upon the graves, he
knelt down between them. His lips began to move, but I heard not
what he said. I thought he was praying for the souls of the
departed; and I was confirmed in this by hearing him at last say,
with an audible voice:--
"May all good angels guard thee, Clara Douglas, and thou, my mother!"
As he uttered these last words, he turned his eyes to the newer
grave. I thought he was about to continue his prayer; but, as if the
sight of the grave had awakened other feelings, he suddenly started
up, and, raising his hands to heaven, invoked curses on the head of
one whom he termed their "murderer!" That done, he rushed madly from
the church. All this was very strange to me; and I determined, if
possible, to ascertain whose remains those graves entombed.
On leaving the churchyard, I was fortunate enough to forgather with
an old man, from whom I learned the melancholy story of her who
occupied the older-looking grave. She was young and beautiful.
Accident had deprived her father of that wealth which a long life of
untiring industry had enabled him to lay past for his children; and
he did not long survive its loss. Fearful of being a burden to her
mother, who had a son and another daughter besides herself to provide
for out of the slender pittance which remained to her on her
husband's death, Clara Douglas accepted a situation as a governess,
and sought to earn an honourable independence by those talents and
accomplishments which had once been cultivated for mere amusement.
The brother of Clara, shortly afterwards, obtained an appointment in
the island of Madeira. Unfortunately for Clara, a young officer, a
relative of the family in which she resided, saw her, and was smitten
with her charms. He loved, and was beloved again. The footing of
intimacy on which he was in the house, procured him many interviews
with Clara. Suddenly his regiment was ordered to the Continent; and
when the young ensign told the sorrowful tidings to Clara, he
elicited from her a confession of her love.
Months passed away--Waterloo was fought and won--and Ensign Malcolm
was among those who fell.
When the death list reached Scotland, many were the hearts it
overpowered with grief; but Clara Douglas had more than one grief to
mourn: sorrow and shame were too much to bear together, and she fled
from the house where she had first met him who was the cause of all.
None could tell whither she had gone. Her mother and sister were
agonised when the news of her disappearance reached them. Every
search was made, but without effect. A year all but two weeks passed
away, and still no tidings of her, till that very day, two boys
seeking for pheasants' nests upon the top of a hillock overgrown with
furze--which the old man pointed out to me at a short distance from
the place where we stood--accidentally stumbled upon an object
beneath a fir-tree. It was the remains of a female in a kneeling
posture. Beneath her garments, by which she was recognised as Clara
Douglas, not a vestige of flesh remained. There was still some upon
her hands, which had been tightly clasped together; and upon her
face, which leant upon them. Seemingly she had died in great agony.
It was supposed by some that she had taken poison.
"If your time will permit," added the old man, as he wiped away a
tear, "I will willingly show you the place where her remains were
found. It is but a short distance. Come."
I followed the old man in silence. He led the way into a field. We
climbed over some loose stones thrown together, to serve as a wall of
division at the farther extremity of it, and slowly began to ascend
the grassy acclivity, which was on both sides bordered by a thick
hedge, placed apart, at the distance of about thirty feet. When half
way up, I could not resist the inclination I felt to turn and look
upon the scene. It was an evening as fair as I had ever gazed on.
The wheat was springing in the field through which we had just
passed, covering it, as it were, with a rich green carpet. Trees and
hills bounded the view, behind which the sun was on the point of
sinking, and the red streaks upon the western sky "gave promise of a
goodly day to-morrow."
If, thought I, the hour on which Clara Douglas ascended this hill was
as lovely as this evening, she must indeed have been deeply bent upon
her own destruction, to look upon the world so beautifully fair, and
not wish to return to it again. We continued our ascent, passing
among thick tangled underwood, in whose kindly grasp the light
flowing garments of Clara Douglas must have been ever and anon caught
as she wended on her way. Yet had she disregarded the friendly
interposition. Along the margin of an old stone quarry we now
proceeded, where the pathway was so narrow that we were occasionally
compelled to catch at the furze bushes which edged it, to prevent
ourselves from falling over into the gulf beneath. And Clara
Douglas, thought I, must have passed along here, and must have been
exposed to the same danger of toppling headlong over the cliff, yet
she had exerted herself to pass the fatal spot unharmed, to save a
life which she knew would almost the instant afterwards be taken by
her own hand. Such is the inconsistency of human nature.
Our course lay once more through the midst of underwood, so thickly
grown that one would have supposed no female foot would dare to enter
it.
"Here," cried the old man, stopping beside a dwarfish fir-tree, "here
is the spot where we found the mortal remains of Clara Douglas."
I pressed forward, and, to my surprise, beheld one other being than
my old guide looking on the place. It was the same I had noticed at
the grave of Clara Douglas, within the walls of the ruined church of
Altonby. I thought it a strange coincidence.
Summer passed away, winter and spring succeeded, and summer came
again, and with it came the wish to see Mary once more. However much
I had before doubted the truth of the axiom, that "absence makes the
heart grow fonder," I now felt the full force of its truth. My
affection for Mary was, day after day, becoming stronger; and, in
spite of the dictates of prudence, my determination never to see her
again began to falter; and one evening I unconsciously found myself
in the yard of the Black Swan. Well, since I had come there at any
rate, it would be exceedingly foolish to go away again without
speaking to Mary; so I called to the stable boy to put up my horse.
The boy knew me, for I had once given him a sixpence for running a
message, and he came briskly forward at my first call, no doubt with
some indistinct idea of receiving another sixpence at some no very
distant date.
"Eh! Mr Moir," said the boy, while I was dismounting, in answer to
my question, "What news in the village?" "Ye'll no guess what's gaun
to happen? Our Mary, the folk say, is gaun to be married!"
Our Mary! thought I, can _our_ Mary be _my_ Mary? And, to ascertain
whether they were one and the same personage, I inquired of the boy
who our Mary was.
"Ou!" replied he, "she's just barmaid at the inn here."
I started, now that this disclosure had unhinged my doubts; and
subduing, as well as I was able, my rising emotion, I boldly asked,
who was "the happy man."
"They ca' him a captain!" said the boy innocently; "but whether he's
a sea captain, an offisher in the army, or a captain o' police, I'm
no that sure. At ony rate, he aye gangs aboot in plain claes. He's
been staying for a month here, an' he gangs oot but seldom, an' that
only in the gloamin."
After thanking the boy, and placing the expected silver coin in his
hand, I turned the corner of the house in my way towards the
entrance, determined, with my own eyes and ears, to ascertain the
truth of the boy's statement. The pace at which I was proceeding was
so rapid, that, ere I was aware of the vicinity of any one, I came
bump against the person of a gentleman, whom, to my surprise, I
instantly recognised as the mysterious visitant to the grave of Clara
Douglas, and to the spot where her relics were found. He seemed to
regard me with a suspicious eye; for he shuffled past without
uttering a word. His air was disordered, his step irregular, and his
whole appearance was that of a man with whom care, and pain, and
sorrow, had long been familiar.
Can this be the captain? was the thought which first suggested itself
to me. It was a question I could not answer; yet I entered the Black
Swan half persuaded that it was.
"Ah! Mr Moir," cried Mary, coming forward to welcome me in her usual
way, the moment she heard my voice, "you have been long a stranger.
I fancied that, somehow or other, I was the cause of it, for you went
away last time without bidding me good-bye." I held her hand in
mine, I saw her eyes sparkle, and the blush suffuse her cheek, and I
muttered a confused apology. "Well! I am so glad to see you," she
continued. "It was but yesterday I spoke of you to the captain."
"The captain," I repeated, while the pangs of jealousy, which had,
during the last five minutes, been gradually lulled over to sleep,
suddenly roused themselves. "Who is the captain, Mary?"
"Oh? I'm sure you will like him when you become acquainted with
him," said she, blushing. "There is something so prepossessing about
him, that really I defy any one not to like him." The animation with
which she gave utterance to these words made me miserable, and I
cursed the captain in my heart.
The next day passed over without my being able to obtain a sight of
my rival; and, when I walked out in the afternoon, he had not yet
risen. Mary's assigned reason for this was, that he was an invalid;
but his was more the disease of the mind than of the body. In his
memory there was implanted a deep sorrow, which time could never root
out. In my walk, the churchyard and the venerable ruins of the
church were visited--I stood again beside the grave of the hapless
Clara Douglas, and her melancholy story afforded me a theme for sad
reflection, which, for a while, banished Mary and all jealous fears
from my mind.
It was evening when I reached "mine inn." On passing the parlour
window, a sight met my eye which brought the colour to my cheeks. A
tall, noble-looking man lay extended upon the sofa, while Mary leant
over him in kindly solicitude, and, with marked assiduity, placed
cushions for his head, and arranged his military cloak. This, then,
must be the captain, and he and my mysterious friend were not the
same. That was some consolation, however.
Thus as he lay, he held Mary's hand in his. My breast was racked
with agony intense; for
Oh! what a host of killing doubts and fears,
Of melancholy musings, deep perplexities,
Must the fond heart that yields itself to love
Struggle with and endure."
Once I determined on flying from the scene, and leaving my rival in
undisputed possession of the village beauty; but, having been
resolved that no woman should ever have it in her power to say she
made me wretched, I screwed my courage to the sticking place, and, on
seeing Mary leave the parlour, I shortly afterwards entered it.
The stranger scarcely noticed my entrance, so intently was his
attention fixed upon the perusal of a newspaper which he held in his
hand. I sat down at the window, and, for want of something better to
do, gazed with a scrutinising eye upon the gambols of the ducks and
geese outside.
After some time, Mary came in to ask the captain what he would have
for supper.
"This is the gentleman I spoke of," she said, directing her
expressive glance towards me.
"Mr Moir must pardon my inattention!" said the stranger, laying down
the paper; "I was not aware that my pretty Mary's friend was in the
room."
His urbane manner, his soft winning voice, made me feel an
irresistible impulse to meet his advances. He proposed that we
should sup together, and I sat down at the table with very different
feelings from those which had been mine on entering the parlour that
evening. I felt inclined to encourage an intimacy with the man whom,
but a short while before, I had looked upon with aversion.
As the night wore on, I became more and more captivated with the
stranger. His conversation was brilliant and intellectual; and, when
we parted for the night, I began to find fault with myself for having
for a moment harboured dislike towards so perfect a gentleman. I
resolved to stay a few days longer at Altonby, for the purpose of
improving our acquaintance. The stranger--or, as he was called at
the inn, "the captain," expressed delight when he was informed of my
resolution; and, although he seldom rose before the afternoon, we
spent many pleasant hours together.
On the evening of the third day of my sojourn, he expressed a wish
that I would accompany him in a short walk. Notwithstanding his
erect and easy carriage, there was a feebleness in his gait, which he
strove in vain to contend against; and it was but too evident that a
broken spirit, added to a shattered constitution, would speedily
bring him to his grave.
Leading the way into the churchyard, to my surprise he stopped at the
resting-place of the ill-starred lady, the story of whose untimely
end I had so patiently listened to the last time I visited Altonby.
"I am exceedingly fortunate," said the captain, "in having met with
one so kind as you, to cheer the last moments of my earthly
pilgrimage. You smile--nay, I can assure you that I feel I am not
long for this world. The object of my visit to this spot to-night,
is to ask you to do me the favour, when I am dead, of seeing my
remains laid here--here, beside this grave, o'er which the grass
grows longer than on those around;" and he pointed to the grave of
Clara Douglas. After a moment, he continued:--"Unlike other men, you
have never annoyed me by seeking to inquire of me who or what I am;
and, believe me, I feel grateful for it. I would not wish that you
should ever know the history of the being who stands before you.
When the earth closes over my coffin, think of him no more."
Although the captain had done me the honour of calling me unlike
other men--a distinction most folks are so exceedingly desirous of
obtaining--I must own that I had hitherto felt no common degree of
curiosity concerning him; and now that there was no prospect of it
being gratified, its desire increased tenfold, and I would now have
given worlds, if I had had them, to have learned something of the
birth, parentage, and education of the captain.
"And now," he added, "I beseech you, leave me for a short time--I
would be alone."
In silence I complied, sauntering outside the ruins, and seeking to
find, in my old avocation of perusing the tombstones, the wherewithal
to kill the time during which the captain held communion with the
dead; for I could not help thinking that it was for such a cause he
had desired to be left to himself.
Ten--twenty minutes passed, and the captain did not appear. I
retraced my steps, and again entered the ruins, by the farther end.
The gloom which prevailed around--the monuments which
intervened--and, above all, the distance at which I then was from the
grave of Clara Douglas--prevented me from descrying the captain. I
had advanced a few paces when I heard voices in high altercation. I
stopped; and, as I did so, one of the speakers, in whose clear
intonation I could recognise the captain, said--"On my word, I
returned here the instant my wounds were healed--I returned to marry
her--and my grief could not be equalled by yours when I heard of her
melancholy fate."
"Liar!" exclaimed the other; "you ne'er intended such. My sister's
wrongs call out aloud for vengeance; and here--here, between her
grave and that of our sainted mother--your blood shall be offered up
in atonement."
This was instantly followed by the report of a pistol. I rushed
forward, and beheld, O horror! the captain stretched upon the ground,
and the blood streaming from a wound in his breast. I caught a
glimpse of his assassin, as he fled from the church; it was the
stranger whom I had seen, on a former visit, at the grave of Clara
Douglas, and beside the fir-tree where her remains had been found. I
made a motion to follow him, but the captain waved me back--"Let him
go," said he; "I forgive him. I have no wish that he should die upon
the scaffold." So saying, he fell back exhausted; and, in my haste
to procure assistance for him, I quite forgot the assassin, until it
was too late.
The captain was conveyed to the Black Swan, where, with Mary to
attend to his every want, he was, no doubt, as comfortable as if he
had had a home to go to, and a beloved wife to smooth his dying
pillow. Mary bestowed more than ordinary care and attention upon
him, which, although she had declared to me that she could never love
the captain so well as to marry him, should he ever condescend to
make the offer, brought back occasionally a pang of jealousy to my
heart. I could not exactly understand the extent of her regard for
him.
Having business to transact at a neighbouring town, I left Altonby
the next day, with a determination to return, ere the lapse of a
week, to see the captain, I feared, for the last time. I had been
but two days gone, when I received a note from Mary, informing me
that he was daily becoming worse, and that it was the fear of his
medical attendant that he could not live four-and-twenty hours. With
the utmost speed, I therefore hastened back to the Black Swan, where,
indeed, I saw that the surgeon had had quite sufficient reason for
his prediction--the captain was greatly altered since I last saw him.
Wan and emaciated, he lay in resignation upon his couch, calmly
waiting the approach of death. He seemed quite composed.