will, consented to accept the insulting remuneration. Within two days,
he saw at the door of every bookseller a placard with the words--"Just
published, A DEFENCE OF THE WAR WITH FRANCE, by the Right Hon. Lord
L----." George compared himself to Esau, who sold his birthright for a
mess of pottage--he had bartered his name, his fame, and the fruits of
his genius, for a paltry guinea.
He began to be ashamed of the shabbiness of his garments--the withering
meaning of the word clung round him--he felt it as a festering sore
eating into his very soul, and he appeared but little upon the streets.
He had been several weeks without a lodging, and though it was now
summer, the winds of heaven afford but a comfortless blanket for the
shoulders when the midnight dews fall upon the earth. He had slept for
several nights in a hayfield in the suburbs, on the Kent side of the
river; and his custom was, to lift a few armfuls aside on a low rick,
and laying himself down in the midst of it, gradually placing the hay
over his feet, and the rest of his body, until the whole was covered.
But the hay season did not last for ever; and one morning, when fast
asleep in the middle of the rick, he was roused by a sudden exclamation
of mingled horror and astonishment. He looked up, and beside him stood a
countryman, with his mouth open, and his eyes gazing wistfully. In his
hand he held a hayfork, and on the prongs of the fork was one of the
skirts of poor George's coat. He gazed angrily at the countryman, and
ruefully at the fragment of his unfortunate coat; and, rising, he drew
round the portion of it that remained on his back, to view "the rent the
envious _hayfork_ made."
"By goam! chap," said the countryman, when he regained his speech, "I
have made thee a spencer; but I might have run the fork through thee,
and it would have been no blame of mine."
They were leading the hay from the field, and the genius was deprived of
his lodging. It was some nights after this he was wandering in the
neighbourhood of Poplar, fainting and exhausted--sleeping, starting,
dreaming--as he dragged his benumbed and wearied limbs along; and, as he
was crossing one of the bridges over the canal, he saw one of the long
fly-boats, which ply with goods to Birmingham and Manchester, lying
below it. George climbed over the bridge, and dropped into the boat, and
finding a quantity of painted sailcloth near the head of it, which was
used as a covering for the goods, to protect them from the weather, he
wrapped himself up in it, and lay down to sleep. How long he lay he
know not, for he slept most soundly; and, when he awoke, he felt more
refreshed than he had been for many nights. But he started as he heard
the sound of voices near him; and, cautiously withdrawing the canvas
from over his face, he beheld that the sun was up; and, to increase his
perplexity, fields, trees, and hedges were gliding past him. While he
slept, the boatmen had put the horses to the barge, and were now on
their passage to Birmingham, and several miles from London; but, though
they had passed and repassed the roll of canvas, they saw not, and they
suspected not, that they "carried Caesar and his fortunes." George
speedily comprehended his situation; and extricating his limbs from the
folds of the canvas as quietly as ho could, he sprang to his feet,
stepped to the side of the boat, and, with a desperate bound, reached
the bank of the canal.
"Holloa!" shouted the astonished boatmen--"holloa! what have you been
after?"
George made no answer, but ran with his utmost speed down the side of
the canal.
"Holloa! stop thief!--stop thief!" bellowed the boatmen; and, springing
to the ground, they gave chase to the genius. The boys, also, who rode
the horses that dragged the boat unlinked them, and joined in the
pursuit. It was a noble chase! But when George found himself pursued, he
left the side of the canal, and took to the fields, clearing hedge,
ditch, fence, and stone wall, with an agility that would have done
credit to a first-rate hunter. The horses were at fault in following his
example, and the boys gave up the chase; and when the boatmen had
pursued him for the space of half-a-mile, finding they were losing
ground at every step they returned, panting and breathless, to their
boat. George, however, slackened his pace but little until he arrived at
the Edgeware Road, and there he resumed his wonted slow and melancholy
saunter, and sorrowfully returned towards London. He now, poor fellow,
sometimes shut his eyes, to avoid the sight of his own shadow, which he
seemed to regard as a caricature of his forlorn person; and, in truth,
he now appeared miserably forlorn--I had almost said ludicrously so. His
coat has been already mentioned, with its wounded elbows, and imagine it
now with the skirts which had been torn away with the hayfork, when the
author of an epic was nearly forked upon a cart, as he reposed in a
bundle of hay--imagine now the coat with that skirt awkwardly pinned to
it--fancy also that the button-holes had become useless, and that all
the buttons, save two, had taken leave of his waistcoat--his trousers,
also, were as smooth at the knees as though they had been glazed and
hot-pressed, and they were so bare, so very bare, that the knees could
almost be seen through them without spectacles. Imagine, also, that this
suit had once been black, and that it had changed colours with the
weather, the damp hay, the painted canvas, and the cold earth on which
he slept; and add to this a hat, the brim of which was broken, and the
crown fallen in--with shoes, the soles of which had departed, and the
heels involuntarily gone down, as if ready to perform the service of
slippers. Imagine these things, and you have a personification of George
Rogers, as he now wended his weary way towards London.
He had reached the head of Oxford Street, and he was standing irresolute
whether to go into the city or turn into the Park, to hide himself from
the eyes of man, and to lie down in solitude with his misery, when a
lady and a gentleman crossed the street to where he stood. Their eyes
fell upon him--the lady started--George beheld her, and he started
too--he felt his heart throb, and a blush burn over his cheek. He knew
her at the first glance--it was the fair stranger--his mother's
first-foot! He turned round--he hurried towards the Park--he was
afraid--he was ashamed to look behind him. A thousand times had he
wished to meet that lady again, and now he had met her, and he fled from
her--the shame of his habiliments entered his soul. Still he heard
footsteps behind him, and he quickened his pace. Ho had entered the
Park, but yet he heard the sound of the footsteps following.
"Stop, young man!" cried a voice from behind him. But George walked on
as though he heard it not. The word "stop!" was repeated; but, instead
of doing so, he was endeavouring to hurry onward, when, as we have said,
one of the shoes which had become slippers, and which, bad before, were
now worse from his flight across the ploughed fields, came off, and he
was compelled to stop and stoop, to put it again upon his foot, or to
leave his shoe behind him. While he stopped, therefore, to get his shoe
again upon his foot, the person who followed him came up--it was the
gentleman whom he had seen with the fair unknown. With difficulty he
obtained a promise from George that he would call upon him at his house
in Pimlico in the afternoon; and when he found our genius too proud to
accept of money, he thrust into the pocket of the memorable skirt, which
the hayfork had torn from the parent cloth, all the silver which he had
upon his person.
When the gentleman had left him, George burst into tears. They were
tears of pride, of shame, and of agony.
At length, he took the silver from the pocket of his skirt; he counted
it in his hand--it amounted to nearly twenty shillings. Twenty shillings
will go farther in London than in any city in the world, with those who
know how to spend it--but much depends upon that. By all the by-ways he
could find, George winded his way down to Rosemary Lane, where the
"_Black and Blue Reviver_" worketh miracles, and where the children of
Israel are its high priests. Within an hour, wonderful was the
metamorphosis upon the person of George Rogers. At eleven o'clock he was
clothed as a beggar--at twelve he was shabby-genteel. The hat in ruins
was replaced by one of a newer shape, and that had been brushed and
ironed till it was as clear as a looking-glass. The skirtless coat was
thrown aside for an olive-coloured one of metropolitan cut, with a
velvet collar, and of which, as the Israelite who sold it said, "de
_glosh_ was not off." The buttonless vest was laid aside for one of a
light colour, and the place of the decayed trousers was supplied by a
pair of pure white; yea, his feet were enclosed in sheep-skin shoes,
which, he was assured, had never been upon foot before. Such was the
change produced upon the outer man of George Rogers through twenty
shillings; and, thus arrayed, with a beating and an anxious heart, he
proceeded in the afternoon to the home of the beautiful stranger who had
been the eventful first-foot in his father's house. As he crossed the
Park by the side of the Serpentine, he could not avoid stopping to
contemplate, perhaps I should say admire, the change that had been
wrought upon his person, as it was reflected in the water as in a
mirror. When he had arrived at Pimlico, and been ushered into the house,
there was surprise on the face of the gentleman as he surveyed the
change that had come over the person of his guest; but in the
countenance of the young lady there was more of delight than of
surprise. When he had sat with them for some time, the gentleman
requested that he would favour them with his history and his adventures
in London. George did so from the days of his childhood, until the day
when the fair lady before him became his mother's first-foot; and he
recounted also his adventures and his struggles in London, as we have
related them; and, as he spoke, the lady wept. As he concluded, he
said--"And, until this day, I have ever found an expression, which my
uncle made in a letter, verified, that 'the moment the elbows of my coat
opened, every door would shut.'"
"Your uncle!" said the gentleman, eagerly; "who is he?--what is his
name?"
"He commands a vessel of his own in the merchant service," replied
George, "and his name is John Rogers."
"John Rogers!" added the gentleman; "and your father's name?"
"Richard Rogers," answered George.
The young lady gazed upon him anxiously, and words seemed leaping to her
tongue, when the gentleman prevented her, saying, "Isabel, love, I wish
to speak with this young man in private;" and she withdrew. When they
were left alone, the gentleman remained silent for a few minutes, at
times gazing in the face of George, and again placing his hand upon his
brow. At length he said--"I know your uncle, and I am desirous of
serving you--he also will assist you, if you continue to deserve it. But
you must give up book-making as a business; and you must not neglect
business for book-making. You understand me. I shall give you a letter
to a gentleman in the city, who will take you into his counting-house;
and if, at the expiration of three months, I find your conduct has been
such as to deserve my approbation, you shall meet me here again."
He then wrote a letter, which, having sealed, he put, with a purse, into
the hands of George, who sat speechless with gratitude and astonishment.
On the following day, George delivered the letter to the merchant, and
was immediately admitted as a clerk into his counting-house. He was
ignorant of the name of his uncle's friend; and when he ventured to
inquire at the merchant respecting him, he merely told him, he was one
whose good opinion he would not advise him to forfeit. In this state of
suspense, George laboured day by day at the desk; and although he was
most diligent, active, and anxious to please, yet frequently, when he
was running up figures, or making out an invoice, his secret thoughts
were of the fair Isabel--the daughter of his uncle's friend, and his
mother's first-foot. He regretted that he did not inform her father
that he was his uncle's heir--he might then have been admitted to his
house, and daily seen her on whom his thoughts dwelt. His situation was
agreeable enough--it was paradise to what he had experienced; yet the
three months of his probation seemed longer than twelve.
He had been a few weeks employed in the counting-house, when he received
a letter from his parents. His father informed him that they had
received a letter from his uncle, who was then in London; but, added he,
"he has forgotten to gie us his direction, where we may write to him, or
where ye may find him." His mother added an important postscript, in
which she informed him that "She was sorry she was richt after a', that
there wasna luck in a squintin first-foot; for he would mind o' the
sailor that brought the letter, that said he was to be his uncle's heir;
and now it turned out that his uncle had found an heir o' his ain."
It was the intention of George, when he had read the letter, to go to
the house of his benefactor, and inquire for his uncle's address, or the
name of the ship; but when he reflected that he might know neither--that
he was not to return to his house for three months, nor until he was
sent for--and, above all, when he thought that he was no longer his
uncle's heir, and that he now could offer up no plea for looking up to
the lovely Isabel--he resumed his pen with a stifled sigh, and abandoned
the thought of finding out his uncle for the present.
He had been rather more than ten weeks in the office, when the unknown
Isabel entered and inquired for the merchant. She smiled upon George as
she passed him--the smile entered his very soul, and the pen shook in
his hand. It was drawing towards evening, and the merchant requested
George to accompany the young lady home. Joy and agitation raised a
tumult in his breast--he seized his hat--he offered her his arm--but he
scarce knew what he did. For half-an-hour he walked by her side without
daring or without being able to utter a single word. They entered the
Park; the lamps were lighted amidst the trees along the Mall, and the
young moon shone over them. It was a lovely and an imposing scene, and
with it George found a tongue. He dwelt upon the effect of the
scenery--he quoted passages from his own epic--and he spoke of the time
when his fair companion was his mother's first-foot. She informed him
that she was then hastening to the death-bed of her grandfather, whom
she believed to be the only relative that she had in life--that she
arrived in time to receive his blessing, and that, with his dying
breath, he told her her father yet lived--and, for the first time, she
heard his name, and had found him. George would have asked what that
name was, but when he attempted to do so he hesitated, and the question
was left unfinished. They spoke of many things, and often they walked in
silence; and it was not until the watchman called, "Past nine o'clock,"
that they seemed to discover that, instead of proceeding towards
Pimlico, they had been walking backward and forward upon the Mall. Ho
accompanied her to her father's door, and left her with his heart filled
with unutterable thoughts.
The three months had not quite expired, when the anxiously-looked-for
invitation arrived, and George Rogers was to dine at the house of his
uncle's friend, the father of the fair Isabel. I shall not describe his
feelings as he hastened along the streets towards Pimlico. He arrived at
the house, and his hand shook as he reached it to the rapper. The door
was opened by a strange-looking footman. George thought that he had seen
him before--it was indeed a face that, if once seen, was not easily
forgotten. The footman had not such large whiskers as Bill Somers, but
they were of the same colour, and they certainly were the same eyes that
had frightened his mother in the head of her first-foot. He was shown
into a room where Isabel and her father waited to receive him. "When I
last saw you, sir," said the latter, "you informed me you were the
nephew of John Rogers. He finds he has no cause to be ashamed of you.
George, my dear fellow, your uncle Jack gives you his hand! Isabel,
welcome your cousin!"
"My cousin!" cried George.
"My cousin!" said Isabel.
What need we say more--before the New Year came, they went down to
Scotland a wedded pair, to be his mother's first-foot in the farmhouse,
which had been rebuilt.
THE ROMANCE OF THE SIEGE OF PERTH.
In the year 1310, King Robert Bruce had overcome many of those
extraordinary difficulties that threatened to render all the efforts of
mere man unavailable in regaining for Scotland that perfect liberty of
which she had so long boasted, and which, though it had never been taken
from her absolutely, had been, by the unwarrantable schemes and policy
of the first Edward, loosened from her grasp, and lay trampled on by the
fierce genius of war. Great and wonderful, however, as had already been
the prowess and determination of Bruce, and successful beyond the
aspirations of hope as had been his efforts in the glorious cause of his
country's freedom, there was great room for question whether Scotland
would even at this period have triumphed, had the sceptre of England not
fallen so opportunely into the hands of the second Edward. The first and
greatest of all Scotland's foes, the first Edward, had died three years
before, at Burgh-upon-Sands, leaving, as Froissart informs us, his dying
injunction on his son, to boil his body in a caldron, till the bones
should part with the flesh, and to carry the grim relics with him into
Scotland, with the condition that they should not be buried till
Scotland was subdued. The legacy of dry bones, from which the spirit of
the great king had departed, was apparently all of his father that the
young Edward inherited; for he soon displayed so much vacillation of
policy, and so little genius for war, that, if Providence had intended
to work to the hands of Bruce for the salvation of his country, she
could not have brought about her designs with greater effect than by
giving Bruce as an enemy the young King of England. Things were going
straight forward to the result of Bannockburn. Bruce had been successful
almost everywhere. The clergy at Dundee had declared his right to the
throne, and the injustice of the decision that gave Baliol the crown;
the nobles, with the exception of Angus, Buchan, and some others, were
in his favour; but, above all, the common people, in whom the true
sovereignty of every country lies, had begun to see in their new king
those qualities that are calculated to move the heart. The hopes of
Bruce rose every hour; and, having scattered the forces of the English
in every recent encounter, he saw the necessity, and felt the power, of
seizing some of the walled towns that Edward had fortified with much
care, as if stone and lime could bind the freedom of Scotland. The town
of Perth was the one that seemed then of greatest importance, as well
from its central situation between the Highlands and Lowlands, as from
the state of its battlements, which were a regular fortification, with
strong walls defended by high towers, and all surrounded by a broad and
deep fosse.
The town had for some time been under siege, and, being one of those
that Edward was determined to hold to the last, was promised succour
with the first supplies that should enter the Tay. It was commanded by
William Oliphant, an Anglicised Scot, who, with a firmness worthy of a
better cause, had resolved to be true to the enemy of his country, and
to give up the town only with his life. But his efforts were sorely
thwarted by the remissness of Edward in sending provisions, and by the
effects of a grievous famine, that, as a consequence of the intestine
wars by which the country had been so wofully torn, was desolating the
land in every quarter. He had already drained the pockets of the most
wealthy of the citizens, by forcing them to supply him with money, by
which he contrived to get in provisions to enable him to hold out
against Bruce. Among the rest, a rich burgher from the Lower Provinces,
Peter of Ghent (his latter name has not reached us) was expected to lend
him a large sum of money. The Fleming was, in those days, what the Scots
afterwards became--remarkable for the possession of the faculty of
prudence--the legitimate offspring of the genius of merchandise. By the
importation of broadcloths and armour gear, he had contrived to realise
a large fortune, and was reported by the good men of Perth as one of the
wealthiest merchants in the kingdom. He had only one child, a daughter,
commonly known by the name of Anne of Ghent, a young creature of great
beauty, and, what may appear to have been somewhat remarkable in her
station, of a spirit that was deeply imbued with the love of chivalry.
But we would form a very inadequate estimate of the charms of that
extraordinary power which overturned kingdoms and damsels' hearts
wherever its influence was felt, if we were to limit its sphere to the
sons and daughters of nobility. Its principles, indeed, are found in
every bosom that responds to the sentiments of love and heroism; and
from the humble and beautiful Anne of Ghent, up to the noble and heroic
Isabella of Buchan, the spirit burned with a fervour that was only in
some accounted less strong because no opportunities wore afforded for
its display.