annual festival held in Tweedmouth, he went to visit his mother, his
sister, and the fair Marion. I might--for I have often been a witness of
such a scene--describe the joy of the doating mother as she beheld her
son, in the youthful bloom of manhood, seated at her table. With delight
sparkling in her eyes, she sat gazing on his face, until the tear of
affection rose and bedimmed their radiance. On her left hand sat her
son, and on her right her daughter, and her intended daughter, Marion
Weatherly. Their dinner passed over in happiness--the mother smiled to
look upon her children's joy; and when "a gentle tap came to the door,"
which the daughter best understood, and blushing, responded to it,
George and Marion also arose, and they went into the fields together.
They wandered to and fro in a narrow pathway, the length of which was
rather less than a mile, while on each side of them the ripening grain
formed _a waving wall_, giving promise of an abundant harvest. They
wandered backward and forward, hand locked in hand, until the sun was
lost behind Hallidon, and the stars began to steal out through the grey
twilight.
When they shook hands at parting--"Now, George," said Marion, "you have
your acquaintances to see, but do not remain late with them; for my sake
and your mother's, do not."
"Dear Marion," said he, "wherefore remind me of this? I know that I must
meet my acquaintances to-night, all of whom are my old friends, many of
them my schoolfellows; I have promised to meet them--I have to leave for
Newcastle to-morrow--and wherefore remind me that I should not remain
late with them?"
"Oh!" she replied, "only that you will remember your character, George."
"Do not be interested about my character," said he; "I have hitherto
supported it with credit to myself, and, I think, dear Marion, I may do
also for the future."
He pressed his lips to hers, and, shaking her hand fervidly, they parted
for the night; but before they parted, they had renewed their young
vows, beneath an ash-tree, where they had sat down together (upon the
footpath which is now known by the name of the "_Willow Back_"), and
where he had carved their names four years before, and there he deepened
the incision which recorded their initials; and, as Virgil somewhere
hath it (though neither of them knew anything about Virgil), they vowed
that, as the "bark expanded, their love would grow." This is a very
common idea amongst love-engravers upon trees; but though a Mantuan
swain might so write, a British peasant would frequently have cause to
say, that, as the tree grew, and the bark expanded, so did his initials
spread, and become vague, and more vague, until fog grew over them; and
upon the heart, as on the tree where he had first carved his name, there
was no trace left.
But George Mordington parted with Marion, and went to a street called
the Kiln Hill, in which there then was an inn, known by the name of "THE
SALMON." In it all the associates of his youth were assembled; and when
he entered they rose simultaneously, each offering his hand, and
exclaiming, "Ah! George! my dear fellow, how are you?"
They sat long, and they drank deeply; and, while the song, the story,
the jest, or the argument went round, they forgot how time and reason
were flying together. It was usual for such companies not to break up
until they had witnessed the election of the mayor. The heads of several
of the party began to go round as well as the glass; and of this number
was George Mordington. He was a youth of the most sober and temperate
habits; and before he had drank off his third glass, he might have said,
in the words of the song, "This is no me!" His very countenance was
changed; his manner, which was, in general, backward and retiring,
became bold and boisterous. Instead of his wonted silence, he was the
chief orator of the company. He spoke of things of which he ought not to
have spoken, and as glass succeeded glass, so did one act of folly
succeed another. Some of the more sober of the company said, they "were
sorry for poor Mordington--but his head could stand nothing; and," added
they, "it is a pity, for he is an excellent fellow." This, however, was
only the sentiment of a part of them; and as he began to exhibit
fantastic tricks, and to declaim with violent gestures upon all
subjects, some said that he would make an excellent _mayor_, and
proposed that a cart should be procured. Against this proposal some of
his acquaintances protested; but the idea pleased his own disordered
fancy, and as the madness of intoxication increased, he insisted that
the bacchanalian honour should be conferred upon him.
"Well done, George!" cried the more thoughtless of the party; "he is the
king of good fellows, every inch of him!"
So saying, they rushed into the street, bearing him upon their
shoulders; and amidst the shouts and laughter of men and boys, he was
placed in a cart, his face rubbed over with soot, his hair bedaubed with
flour, and a broomstick was placed in his hand as his rod of office.
"Hurrah! George Mordington is mayor!" was the cry upon the streets; and
followed by a noisy multitude, he was paraded round the village, and, in
conformity with ancient custom, delivered a speech at every public-house
and baker's door in the place.
Old and young leave their pillows, to "see the mayor," as they term it,
and hasten to the door or window, to witness his procession as he is
hurled along. There were many who, as they perceived him, expressed
regret to see George Mordington in such a situation, and said it would
break his mother's heart.
But, as they passed the door of Mr Weatherly, a sudden cry was heard. It
was a woman's scream of agony, and as it burst forth, the maddened shout
of the multitude was hushed. It struck upon the ear of George Mordington
in the midst of his madness and degradation--it entered his heart. It
was the cry of his betrothed Marion. He struck his hand upon his brow,
and fell back in the cart as if an arrow had entered his breast. Her
voice had startled him, as from a trance, into a consciousness of his
shame and folly.
"He is dead!" cried the crowd--for he fell as if dead, and in a state of
unconsciousness he was conveyed to his mother's house. The poor widow
wept as she beheld her joy turned into shame; and as he opened his eyes
and began to gaze vacantly around, his sister said unto him, but rather
sorrowfully than reproachfully, "Brother! brother! who could have
thought that you would have been guilty of this?"
A groan of anguish was his only reply.
"Daughter," said his mother, "do not upbraid him; he will feel anguish
enough for the shame he has brought upon himself and on us, without our
reproaches."
He started to his feet as he heard her voice, he thrust his fingers in
his hair, he gnashed his teeth together, and howling as one in a
paroxysm of insanity, exclaimed--
"What have I done? I am lost--disgraced for ever!"
"No, my son! no!" said his mother; "you have acted foolishly, very
foolishly; but in time it will be forgotten."
"Never! never!" he answered; "would that the earth would swallow me up!
I am worse than a madman or a villain--I am ashamed of my existence!"
They endeavoured to soothe him; and for a few hours he forgot his shame
in sleep--though not wholly, for his slumber was troubled, and in the
midst of it he groaned, clenched his hands, and grated his teeth
together. The remembrance of his folly was stronger than sleep. He
awoke, and a sensation of horror awoke with him. The extravagance and
the madness of which he had been guilty in the morning were at first
only remembered as a disagreeable and confused dream, which he wished to
chase from his thoughts, and was afraid to remember more vividly. But,
as he saw the tears on the cheeks of his mother and his sister, as they
sat weeping by his bedside, all the absurdities in which he had been an
actor rushed painfully, if not distinctly, across his memory; and he
covered his face with his hands, ashamed to look upon the light, or on
his kindred's face. He was sick and fevered, and his throat was parched;
yet the sense of shame lay on his heart so keenly, that he would not ask
for a drop of water to cool his tongue. For five days he was confined to
his bed; and the physician who had been called in to attend him dreaded
an attack of brain fever. It was ordered that he should be kept calm;
but there was a troubled fire in his breast that burned and denied him
rest. On the sixth day, he ventured to whisper something in his sister's
ear regarding Marion.
"Poor Marion!" she replied; "though she forgives you, her father forbids
her to speak to you again, and has sent her to the north of Scotland,
that she may not have an opportunity of seeing you."
He sat in agony and in silence for a few moments, and rising and taking
his hat, walked feebly towards the door. But, ere he had opened it, he
turned back, and throwing himself upon his seat, cried--
"I am ashamed for the sunlight to fall upon my face, or for the eyes of
any one that I know to look upon me."
When the sun had set, and night began to fall grey upon the river, he
again rose, and went towards the house of Marion's father.
"What want ye?" said the old man, angrily, as he entered; "away, ye
disgrace o' kith and kin, and dinna let the shamefu shadow o' sic a
ne'er-do-weel darken my door! Away wi' ye! Dinna come here--and let ae
telling be as good as a hundred--for daughter o' mine shall never speak
to ye again!"
"You will not," said George, "deal with me so harshly, because I have
been guilty of one act of folly. They have a steady foot who never make
a slip; and, ashamed as I am of my conduct, it certainly has not been so
disgraceful as never to be forgiven."
"I have told ye once, and I tell ye again," cried the old man, more
wrathfully, "that my daughter shanna speak to ye while she breathes. I
hope she has a spirit above it. It would be a fine story for folk to
talk about, that she had married a blackguard that was mayor at
Tweedmouth feast!"
"I deserve your censure," returned George; "but surely there is nothing
so heinous in what I have done as to merit the epithet you apply to me.
I acknowledge and am ashamed of my folly; what can I do more? And I have
also suffered for it."
"Ye acknowledge your folly!" exclaimed the fisherman; "pray, sir, how
could ye deny it? I saw it--the whole toun saw it--my poor daughter was
a witness o' it; and yet ye have the impudence to stand there before me
and say ye acknowledge it! And muckle mends it makes to say ye are sorry
for it! I suppose, sir, the very murderer is sorry for his crime, when
he stands condemned before the judge; but his sorrow, I reckon, is but a
poor reason why he should be pardoned. Away wi' ye, I say--ye shall find
no admission here. At ony rate, I have taken good care to have my silly
bairn out o' your reach, and that she may be out o' the way o' the
disgrace and the scandal that ye have brought upon us."
So saying, the speaker rudely closed the door in the face of his
visiter.
George Mordington returned to his mother's house, gliding silently, as a
ghost is said to move; for his cheek burned lest any one should look
upon his face. On the following day, he prepared to set out for
Gateshead; but before he went he placed the following letter, addressed
to Marion Weatherly, into the hands of his sister, and which she was to
give to her on her return:--
"MARION,--I cannot now call you _my_ Marion--I have disgraced
you, I have dishonoured myself. Your advice, which I deemed
unnecessary, was not only forgotten, but you know how it was
insulted. I know you must despise me; and I blame you not--you
have a right to do so. I have made myself contemptible in your
eyes, but not more contemptible than my conduct has rendered me
in my own. I blush to think of you, and your excellence renders
my folly more despicable. Call it madness--call it what you
will--for it was the infatuation, the frenzy, the insanity of
an hour. Yet, dear Marion, by all the hours and scenes of
happiness that are gone, by all that we have known together,
and that we might yet know, cast me not off for ever! Had I
been familiar with the nightly debauch, my degradation would
have been less, my conduct not so extravagant. Think of me as
one degraded by folly, but not abandoned to it. I have sinned,
and that deeply; but my repentance is as bitter as my crime was
ridiculous. Its remembrance chokes me. _Forgive me, Marion._ I
write the words, but I could not utter them, for I find that I
could not stand in your presence, and support the weight of the
debasement which presses upon me as a galling load. Your father
has treated me cruelly--I would say that he has insulted me, if
it were possible to insult one who has so insulted himself. The
only apology I can, or should, offer for the part I have acted
ought to be, and must be, found in my future conduct. It is on
this ground only that I ask and hope for your forgiveness."
So ran his letter; and having delivered it to his sister, under the
promise that it should be given to Marion immediately on her return, he
left his mother's house, and took his journey towards Gateshead.
On arriving at the office of his employers, they looked upon him as
though they knew him not, and he perceived that the place at the desk
which he had formerly occupied was filled by another; for there the tale
of his follies had already reached: so true is it that evil rideth upon
wings which outstrip the wind. His late master sent one of the junior
clerks to inform him that he had no farther occasion for his services.
George stood as if a thunderbolt had smitten him; and he went forth
disconsolate, and began to wander towards South Shields, while the
thought haunted him what he should do, and to whom he should apply for
assistance. He had ruined his character--he was without friends, almost
without money, and he wandered in wretchedness, the martyr of his own
folly. He thought of his mother, of his sister, and of the fair Marion,
and wept; for he not only had drawn down misery upon his own head, but
he had made them miserable also. He took up his lodgings in a mean
public-house by the side of the river, and went round the public offices
in Newcastle and Shields, seeking for employment, but without success.
In all of them he was known; in each, the tale of his indiscretion
seemed to have been heard, for his entrance was greeted with a smile.
In a short time he began to be in want; and, like the prodigal, he would
have "arisen and gone unto his father"--but he had no father's roof to
receive him--no home, save the lowly habitation of his widowed
mother--and he found himself left as an outcast on the earth. In his
despair he applied to the captain of a vessel which was about to sail
for America. During his father's lifetime, he had made some voyages with
him, and obtained a knowledge of a seaman's duty. The skipper of the
American trader, also, to whom he applied, having known him when a clerk
in the merchant's office at Gateshead, agreed to take him on board, and
give him, as he called it, a trial. George Mordington, accordingly,
sailed for America, and several years passed, and his mother heard
nothing concerning him. The letter which he had left with his sister for
Marion had been delivered to her, and as she read it she wept, and her
heart whispered forgiveness. But days, months, and years dragged their
slow course along, and no one heard tidings of him. She began to feel
that, although she had forgiven him, he had forgotten her. Her father
said she "was weel quit o' the ne'er-do-weel--that he had always
determined that he should not speak to her again, and he was glad that
he had not attempted it."
But his poor mother mourned for him as a stricken dove that is robbed of
its young; the tears fell upon her pillow at midnight, as she wept for
her son, her only son, the child of her heart and hopes. Anxious and
fruitless were her inquiries after him. As the mist of morning
vanisheth, so had he departed from her sight; and, like it, when the
sun melteth it away, he was not.
Mrs Mordington had a brother who had been many years in India, and
having returned to Britain, he took up his residence in Ayrshire. Being
a widower, and without children, he sent for his sister and her daughter
to reside with him. They remained as the inmates of his roof for more
than ten years, and during that period she heard nothing of her lost
son. But her brother, who was now an old man, died, leaving to her his
property; and, regarding the place where her husband's bones lay as her
home, she returned to Tweedmouth. There, however, she had not been long,
when disease fell, as a withering blight, on the cheeks of her remaining
child. Year followed year, and, as the leaves dropped from the trees,
her daughter seemed ready to drop into the grave. Over her face
consumption's fitful rainbow spread its beautiful but deadly streaks;
and, though the widow now possessed affluence, she knew not happiness.
Her son was not, and her fair daughter was withering before her, as a
flower on which the cankerworm had fixed its teeth. Yet, long the maiden
lingered, until her aged mother almost hoped that they would go down
into the grave together.
Eighteen years had passed since the festival which had proved fatal to
the early promise and the fond prospects of George Mordington.
Margaret's day had again come round, and the neighbours of the widow,
with their children and friends around them, held a holiday. A slow and
unwieldy vehicle, which was then the only land conveyance between
Berwick and London, stopped in the village. A sunburned stranger
alighted from it, and as he left the coach, a young maiden crossed his
path. She seemed to be seventeen or eighteen years of age, and was
dressed in a mourning-gown, with a white sarcenet hood over her head,
being in the dress of one who was inviting guests to a funeral.
"Maiden," said the stranger, accosting her, "can you inform me where Mrs
Mordington resides?"
"Yes, sir," she replied; "I am bidding for the funeral."
"For what funeral?" he exclaimed, eagerly.
"For her daughter's, sir," answered the maiden.
"My sister--my poor sister!" cried the stranger, clasping his hands
together.
"Your sister!" said she, inquiringly gazing in his face, and throwing
back her hood as she spoke.
"Heaven!" he exclaimed, and starting back; "your name, maiden--your
name!" But he added, "I need not ask it; it is written on your features.
Your mother's name is Marion?"
"It is," replied the astonished and half-terrified girl.
"Show me to my mother's!" he cried, smiting his hand suddenly on his
bosom. "Would that I had this day to be buried in the grave prepared for
my sister!"
Afraid to cast upon him another glance, she conducted him to the house.
"It is here, sir," said she, pointing to the house.
His frame, his features were convulsed; they shook with agitation. He
raised his hand and struck upon the door. It was opened by a woman
dressed in the garb of mourning, and whose years might be described as
being between youth and middle-age.
"Do I dream!" he exclaimed, starting back as he beheld her. "I am
punished!--yes, I am now punished beyond the measure of my crime!
Marion, I am George Mordington!"
She clasped her hands together, a wild shriek escaped her lips, and she
fell back as dead upon the floor. Others who sat with the corpse ran to
her assistance; but his voice had reached an ear where its tones had
lived as a memory that might never die.
"My son! my son!" cried the aged widow, and pressed forward to throw her
arms around his neck.
"My mother!" he cried, springing from the ground, where he had sunk by
the side of Marion.
The widow fell upon the breast of her son, and he wept aloud upon her
neck.
Strangers raised Marion and conveyed her from the house. She had long
believed George Mordington, the object of her early affections, was with
the dead; and under this conviction, and in obedience to her father's
command, she had given her hand to another. The maiden whom the
betrothed husband of her youth had met on alighting from the coach was
her daughter, and the features of the girl then were as the mother's had
been when they last parted.
George Mordington accompanied his sister's corpse, as chief mourner, to
the grave. The friends of his boyhood had forgotten the tale of his
folly; but its consequences gnawed with fiercer agony in his heart than
when he was first ashamed to behold his own face in a glass because of
it. On the following day, it was stated that Marion was not expected to
live, and she requested to speak with him before she died. He approached
her bedside--she stretched her hand towards him. "Forgive me, George!"
she cried. "I knew not that you yet lived. I am the wife of one who has
long deserted me; my heart has long been broken, and your appearance has
severed the last cord that linked me with existence. But I leave behind
me a daughter. When I am gone, there will be no parent to provide for
her--no father whose roof will shelter or hand defend her. As you once
loved me, protect my poor child!"
"I will! I will!" he exclaimed. "Farewell, Marion!" And he rushed from
the house.
She lingered for a few weeks, and he followed her to the grave, as he
had done his sister. Yet the remembrance of his early shame still
haunted him, and he imagined that every eye in the place of his birth
looked on him with derision. He gave his mother's furniture in presents
to her neighbours; and, with her and the daughter of Marion, proceeded
to London. The widow lived for a few years, and, at her death, he
bequeathed upon the daughter of his adoption all that his mother
possessed.
"Maiden," he said, "I cannot look upon thy face, but it reminds me of
the happiness I have lost, of the misery I have brought on myself and
upon others. Child of my Marion, farewell! I leave you, if not rich,
above want. Be virtuous, as your mother was." And again crying,
"Farewell!" he left her; and George Mordington was no more heard of by
any who had known him. But, after the lapse of many years, there
appeared in an American newspaper the following paragraph:--
"Died, at Washington, in the seventieth year of his age, George
Mordington, Esq., a native of Berwick-upon-Tweed, a patriotic senator,
and an upright judge."
A LEGEND OF HOLYROOD.
Once upon a time, when a good story had not ceased to have a beginning
in this way, there lived a person called William Glenday, who was a sort
of sub-equerry to Mary Queen of Scots; or rather he assumed that title,
because it sounded better than "head groom." This man was a widower, and
lived with his daughter Mary, a very interesting young maiden, of about
twenty years of age, in one of the houses within the precincts of the
Abbey set apart for the Queen's household. William was a quaint
Scotsman, shrewd and caustic in his remarks, like many of his nation. He
was reputed rich, and somewhat addicted to making more than a proper
display of his riches; in other words, he was "purse-proud." He was,
however, a most loyal subject of the queen, whom he held to be a paragon
of beauty. His daughter bore the same name; and it was even whispered
that he had sought to trace a likeness between Mary Glenday and Mary
Queen of Scots. What will the partiality of a father's love not
accomplish?
On the other side of the Abbey strand--that is, on the unprivileged
side--there was a house kept as a tavern or ale-house by a person of the
name of Peter Connal, very well known in those days as a place of resort
for the humble retainers about the palace. Instead of placing a dry
picture of a type of his trade over his door, in the shape of stoups or
bickers overflowing with his famous beverage, Peter conceived that he
would be nearer his purpose of letting the public know the nature of his
calling, by showing them the liquor itself, in a real quaigh, and in the
act of being swallowed by a real toper; at least Peter gave out as a
reason for his sitting on a barrel at his door during a great part of
the day, drinking his ale, that he was merely showing the public a good
example, and exercising the functions of his calling in such a manner as
to fill his purse and his stomach at the same time--a reason which
possessed so much of plausibility, that his wife, Janet Wilkinson, was
not, by the mere power of logic alone, able to show any fallacy attached
to it. Peter had a son named John--a very fine young man, who followed
his father's trade, but demurred somewhat as to the propriety of
imitating his father, when he should come to succeed him, in making
himself a living signboard; a piece of self-willed precocious conceit on
the part of the lad which Peter despised.