nothing but the deep blue and fleecy white overhead; the stunted thorn
and the croaking raven above; and the brawling brook and trout-dimpled
pool before us. In all games of activity I had the start of Ferguson,
and was always first chosen at "King o' Cantilon," "the dools," and
"shinty;" but he had the advantage again of me in feats of strength and
precision of eye--in the quoits and putting-stone. But I am wandering
from my purpose, and forgetting my narrative.
Ferguson would often admonish me that I was giving offence to several
professors, in order to gain the good opinion of one, and that the
applause which my medal would procure for me might be too dearly bought
at the expense of every other department of study. I took all this in
good part, but without altering, in the least, my conduct, as I answered
that my friend was making a virtue of necessity, and recommending that
course of obscure diligence to me which he, by nature, was destined to
pursue.
In consequence of the _eclat_ of the medal, I had an invitation to make
one of a pleasure party to Roslin, and had the happiness of being
introduced to some young ladies, who had previously expressed to my
friend Ferguson a wish to make my acquaintance. We spent a most
delightful day--
"'Midst Roslin's bowers sae bright and bonny,
And a' the sweets o' Hawthornden."
The ladies were young, bright, and beautiful, light of heart, and
delightfully pleasing in manners and conversation. I had not been
previously accustomed to such fascinating society; and I felt that kind
of intoxication which youth, innocence, and strong passion only can
feel. I was all day _off_ my feet, and gave way to every manner of fun,
frolic, and foolery, to show that, though I was an immense philosopher,
I was still a man in every pulse and vein. There was in this happy group
one divine countenance; an eye so blue, and so soft, and so
penetrating--lips that moved in meaning, and held every instant
communication of the most electric character, with a little playful,
almost wily dimple which gave the most varied fascination to a cheek of
sunshine and almost rosy hue. Her form
"Was fresher than the morning rose
When the dew wets its leaves--unstain'd and pure
As is the lily or the mountain snow."
In a word, as you will easily perceive, I was captivated; and could do
nothing all the ensuing night but toss and think, and think and toss,
till nature at last steeped me anew, not in forgetfulness, but in all
the motley, medley joys and gambols of Roslin. I had now become a
student of divinity; but all study was with me at an end. No party of
young people--particularly where young ladies were concerned--could be
held without me; and I had the very great misfortune to be talked of by
them as monstrous clever. The young lady to whom I had so long paid
particular attention, and at whose house (that of the widow of a
respected clergyman of the Church of Scotland) I had long been a
habitual and a welcome guest, at last consented to receive me in future
in the light of a lover. We walked it, talked it, and laughed it from
morning to night, "as other lovers do," and scarcely thought of either
the past or the future, being so completely engrossed with the present.
Time flew by on angel wings, fleeting as bright, and the period of my
examination, previous to my receiving license, at last approached. I had
all the while a secret misgiving that I would not stand a trial, in the
Presbytery of Edinburgh in particular; but I had no other residence for
several years, and, consequently, no other way of becoming a licentiate.
As good fortune would have it, the mother of my betrothed, through her
interest with the Duke of Queensberry's factor, had every chance of
procuring me a presentation the moment I was qualified to accept of it;
and both she and her daughter would as soon have dreamed that I would
fail in opening my eyes, as in obtaining the indispensable requisite of
a license. What I had anticipated, however, actually took place: I was
found so deficient in the classics of Greece and Rome, that my license
was delayed, and I was remitted for twelve months to my studies. This
was a degree of disgrace and degradation which altogether unmanned me. I
could not face my beloved Mary, or her mother, or any of my own friends
and acquaintances, under such circumstances. Sleep fled my eyes, and my
mind became unhinged. Existence itself became a positive, insupportable
misery. I fled to the mountains; but they, through all their glens and
streams, had tongues that syllabled beloved names, which I wished, were
it possible, to forget. Wherever I went, the horrors of the past were
ever present. People seemed to me to stop and point the finger of scorn
at me from every street and doorway. At last, in a fit of despair, I
rashly resolved on self-destruction, and plunged headlong into Leith
harbour. I have the sound of the waters still in my ears, and that sound
will, I verily believe, remain till that of the last trumpet shall
mingle with it. When I awoke from seeming nonentity, I was surrounded by
many and unknown faces; and my passage back to life was more terrific
and painful by far than my exit. I had been for some time in a warm bed,
and undergoing the means of resuscitation. "Much kinder," thought I,
"had ye been to let me go." My name, parentage, &c., having been
ascertained, my father was written to, and I was kept in close custody
till his arrival. My father was a respectable farmer in Dumfries-shire,
and immediately hurried me away to my native glen. My mother met me with
tears; but they were those of sympathy and affection, and one word of
reproach she never uttered. I became gradually more and more calm: but
at times the thoughts of the paradise which I had lost, and the hell I
had earned, would throw me absolutely into convulsions. The calmness
which gathered over my soul was not that of resignation--it was the
settled gloom of despair. Religion was talked of and pressed upon me;
but as yet I had no settled views on that subject. I neither believed
nor disbelieved: I was willing, when the subject obtruded itself upon my
thoughts, to get rid of it the best way I could. At last my melancholy
gradually undermined a naturally good constitution, and it was manifest
to my medical adviser that I was verging towards that degree of
weakness and decay which, under various distinctive appellations, is
sure to terminate in death. A change of scene was urged, and I was
hurried away to Saturness Point, that I might inhale the sea breeze, and
be interested in new objects. This measure was at first partially
successful; but, happening to see a newspaper one day, in which the
settlement of my more steady companion in the very church which I had
once destined for myself was mentioned, and reading in the very same
page a notice of his marriage with my beloved Mary, I became immediately
frantic. For years my mind was so far unhinged that a person was
appointed to watch my motions, and guard me from self-destruction. "Oh,
that cursed medal!" was I heard again and again to exclaim; "it is to
this I have to trace my every wo." What I endured, during this dark and
fearful night, no power of fancy can image, no pen can describe.
_Horresco referens._
As God would have it, the person who was thus associated with me night
and day was religiously disposed, and took occasion, when opportunity
served, to lead my mind to serious subjects--to talk of eternity,
immortality, heaven, and hell. Often did I kick against the pricks, and
strive to resume my former indifference; but it would not do. The very
_possibility_ of such awful truths was terrific. I awoke all at once, as
it were, to a sense of my imminent danger. I found that I was sleeping
on a parapet, from which to fall was certain death. I fled with all
possible speed to the only city of refuge--to the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus. I grasped the truths of the gospel with the energy of a
dying creature. I hugged the very Bible to my bosom, and read it night
and day. Our conversations were protracted, and, to me, ultimately
delightful. I found that there was mercy even to the _chief_ of sinners,
and I regarded myself as personally referred to in the gracious
intimation. With the perception and cultivation of gospel truth, my
health gradually rallied, and my mind assumed a more balanced attitude.
It was about this time that my father died, and the superintendence of a
pretty extensive sheep-farm naturally devolved upon me. This avocation,
uncongenial as it was to my college pursuits and feelings, still
occupied my attention, and withdrew me from reflections of no very
pleasing nature. In cultivating, or rather in renewing, my acquaintance
with the soil, and with its productions, vegetable as well as animal, I
felt that I was placed as it were in the outer vestibule of God's
temple. Into the holy of holies, through the blessed mediation, I had
already been introduced, and it gave me pleasure to behold the outer, as
well as to contemplate the inner, courts of so stupendous an erection.
"The Shepherd of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. My sheep hear my
voice. He shall separate the sheep from the goats. The streams that run
amongst the hills. Mount Carmel, Mount Zion, Mount Horeb." These and
similar expressions, in which the Jewish Scriptures, in particular,
abound, came home to my newly-renovated, and, I trust, regenerated,
perceptions, with a vividness and a force formerly unknown. I seemed to
myself to be a dweller on the mountains of Jacob, and amongst the tents
of Israel, as my flocks scattered themselves on the hill-side, or
pursued the green pasturage by the streams of waters. There was a
harmony and correspondence betwixt the seen and the unseen, the present
and the past, the temporal and the spiritual life, of which I every day
became more and more aware.
About this time we received intimation of the death of my father's
brother, who had gone, early in life, to Kingston in Jamaica, and had,
by prosperous adventures as a merchant, realised a considerable sum of
money. After various delays and much peculation, the residue of his
fortune, together with his will, was transmitted home, and I found
myself, as my father's heir-male, entitled to upwards of L10,000. My
mother had already greatly declined, indeed she never fully rallied
after my father's death; and on the very day on which the papers
respecting the inheritance arrived, I had to perform the last sad duties
to one of the best of parents. Alas! that ever my unhappy conduct should
have occasioned pain and anxiety in a bosom where pure affection and
undefiled religion habitually resided! I had the consolation, however,
to receive my mother's blessing in her parting breath, and to hear her
construe my misconduct and misfortunes into merciful dispensations of a
wise Providence, who is ever bringing good out of seeming evil.
"And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression."
The lease of the farm having expired in a year after this, I did not
think of continuing on a spot which suggested so many recollections
connected with the departed; so I at once removed to furnished lodgings
in Edinburgh, and gradually renewed my acquaintance with a few of my
still surviving friends. Amongst these was the mother of my Mary, who
informed me that her daughter was now a widow and without family, and
was expected in a month or two to return to her old fireside from the
Manse of ----. I do not know how it was, but I trembled all over at this
information, and an image, which had for so long a time been almost
obliterated from my memory, now rose before me in all its original
loveliness. The two months appeared to me two twelvemonths, till I again
saw, and renewed my acquaintance, with the only woman whom my soul had
ever loved. Mutual explanations took place; she had married my friend
Ferguson, under the impression that, if not dead, I was confined in a
lunatic asylum; and had only consented, after all, at the earnest
request of her mother. It was but yesterday that we had a most
delightful drive to Roslin, where I renewed my addresses, and have been
accepted. I have taken a neat cottage near Hawthornden, where I mean to
spend with Mary the remainder of my days, if not in the fervour of young
love, at least in the more enduring, perhaps, and more rational
endearments of mutual affection, friendship, and esteem. The medal,
which was the foundation of all my sufferings, I have at this moment
suspended before me, in my study, that I may be ever reminded of that
false step which, but for the interposition of Providence, might have
ruined both soul and body for ever. If it shall be in God's providence
that I am blessed with any pledges of affection by my dear Mary, I shall
endeavour to save them from the danger which I so narrowly escaped; yet,
so strangely commingled are the good and bad things of life--so very
delicately are the fine threads that go to form the web of our moral
system connected and interlaced--that it requires a hand finer than mere
man's to remove some of the dingy lines, so as to restore to the whole
that beauty it possessed when spread in the garden of Eden. If we take
from the noble steed the emulation that may hurry him over the
precipice, we will see him distanced at the next St Leger. Must we,
then, secure the good, and run the risk of the attendant evil? The
answer does not seem difficult. Let emulation be by all means
encouraged; but let all teachers and parents impress upon the minds of
the fortunate competitors the true value of the prize won. And whilst
efforts are made in one direction, let it ever be remembered that a
_useful_ education comprehends _breadth_ as well as _length_; and that
the departments which have been neglected may prove, in future life,
those of the most essential value in promoting success and securing
happiness.
THE MEETING AT ST BOSWELL'S.
It is now some years since I happened to visit the pretty little village
of St Boswell's, in Roxburghshire, in company with a friend, who had
some stock to dispose of at the great annual fair then holding there.
Most of my readers are aware that the Duke of Buccleugh is lord of the
manor of St Boswell's, and that a dinner is always provided, at his
grace's expense, in a barn on the fair ground, for all gentlemen who
have tickets of admission from the baron bailie. While my friend was
busied with the disposal of his stock, I, being an idler, wandered up
and down the green, and was much pleased with the appearance of the
fair, which was more English, if I may be allowed to use the term, than
anything of the kind I had ever witnessed in Scotland. The numbers, neat
arrangement, and really handsome appearance of the "street" of
booths--the gay and well-dressed parties of gentlefolks--the cheerful,
joyous faces of the lower orders--the handsome equipages--the green at a
distance, swarming with cattle of various kinds--with a bright and
genial sun shining over all--formed altogether a pleasing and animated
scene. Pleased as I was, however, I caught myself several times
involuntarily yawning, and turning my eyes towards the barn; and I was
not at all sorry when the welcome sound of the drum announced that "the
roast beef" was ready. I was soon seated beside my friend, who, like
myself, was most ready and anxious to do justice to the duke's liberal
provision. I have a great talent for eating, but none for description,
so I will not attempt to enumerate or describe the variety of good
things which _dis_appeared before us; suffice it, we were all much more
contented with ourselves and each other when all was over, than before
our operations commenced. Commend me to a man who has just made a good
dinner--if he be not a philanthropist then, he never will be. Happening
to glance my eye towards the other end of the table, I observed that I
was the object of close and intense attention to one of the company--a
stranger of prepossessing aspect, who was seated at some distance at the
opposite side. He gazed at me with an earnestness almost amounting to
rudeness; and whenever I glanced in that direction, I perceived that his
eye was constantly riveted upon my countenance. At first, I was
considerably annoyed by the persevering scrutiny of his gaze; but, after
a time, I was conscious of a vague impression on my mind that I had seen
his face before; but when or where, I in vain endeavoured to recall. I
was in the unpleasant situation of one who hears a long-forgotten
melody, which stirs up within his mind overpowering and indefinable
emotions, though, at the moment, the associations connected with it are
forgotten. A confused train of visions of the past, of pleasure and of
pain, crowded through my brain, with a dreamy consciousness that the
stranger was, in some way or another, connected with them. I could not,
for the life of me, shake off the impression his features had made upon
my mind; and I wandered up and down, through all the bustle of the fair,
as abstracted as if I were in a desert--treading upon the toes of the
present, and raking up the ashes of the past, to puzzle out some
connection between them and the stranger; but in vain. The indignant
looks and half-suppressed curses of those I jostled or trod upon alike
failed in rousing me from my reverie, till a violent push from the elbow
of one of my victims sent me staggering against a gentleman who was
standing close to one of the booths. It was the stranger.
How wonderful and unaccountable are the workings of the human mind, and
what trifling incidents may present us with a clue to the labyrinth of
thought we have been in vain endeavouring to unravel!
In making my apologies to the stranger, my eye chanced to glance upwards
to the _sign_ above the entrance to the booth; it was "The Old Ship." A
flash of sudden recollection lighted up the dark places of my
memory--the friend of my early days stood before me.
"Sandford!--in the name of all that's strange, is that you?"
"My name is Sandford Grant," said he, "and I know and feel that you are
an old friend. I have been thinking of nothing else since I saw you in
the barn; but my memory plays me false--I cannot recollect when or where
we have met before."
"Look up at that board--perhaps it will assist your recollection, as it
did mine."
"The Old Ship!" exclaimed he, with a look of wonder and inquiry. "The
Old Ship!" he repeated, slowly and distinctly, and then he gazed long
and earnestly in my face, till at length the look of indecision and
doubt gave place to a sudden glow of delighted recognition. "Douglas!"
exclaimed he, with a long and cordial shake of the hand.
"The same, my dear fellow. It is ten long years since we met, and time
has left his marks upon us both; no wonder we did not recognise each
other at first; particularly as it was in such a very different scene we
last met, or rather parted."
We spent the evening together, as two long-separated friends should do,
in talking over the events of our early years, and relating our mutual
adventures since we parted. As I did not know Sandford myself at first,
it is hardly to be expected that the reader can know either of us
without a formal introduction; which is the more necessary, as we are
both to figure in the tale I am about to relate.
Those of my readers who have passed through Longtown in Cumberland may
have remarked, on the left-hand side of the main street, as they entered
the town from the bridge, a neat red-brick house, with an iron-railed
enclosure in front, and a large gateway to the right, leading into the
courtyard. In that house Sandford Grant and I first became acquainted
with each other; it was then an academy. The house still remains, but
master and pupils are "scattered to the four winds of heaven." For three
years we were class-fellows and friends; for we were just of the same
age, and a Scottish feeling of clannish regard made us cling to each
other more perhaps than we otherwise would have done. He was a handsome,
spirited boy, or rather child, and was always ready, at a word, to fight
my battles as well as his own. He was a great favourite on account of
his frank, liberal disposition; but the most unlucky little dog that
ever lived. If ever there was any mischief going on, he was sure to be
concerned in it, and as sure of being discovered and punished; if there
was only one puddle in the road on a Sunday, he, somehow or other,
contrived to go out of his way to tumble into it, dirty his white
stockings, and be recommended by the mistress to her husband's tender
mercies. In fact, he was constantly getting into scrapes; so much so
that "Sandford's luck" became quite a proverb among us.
It was with sad hearts and tears on both sides that we parted, when
circumstances obliged me to accompany my family to the south. We were
then about eleven years of age; and having lately read the tale of Damon
and Pythias, we felt assured that we would willingly follow their
example, and were ready, if necessary, to immolate ourselves on the
altar of friendship. Fortunately for us, there was no such necessity.
The spring of tears in youth lies too near the surface--it is soon
exhausted. We solaced our sorrows for the present, by promising that, as
we could no longer see each other, we would exchange long letters, at
least once a-week. At first our correspondence added considerably to His
Majesty's revenue; but our epistolary ardour soon cooled, till, at no
very long interval, our correspondence fell into a gradual decline, and
at last died away altogether. But the Fates had decreed that Sandford
and I were not to part so easily. We met some years afterwards at the
Military College at Addiscombe, where we added to the number of the
East India Company's _hard bargains_. There we were inseparable; for,
with all the warmth of early recollections around us, our renewed
acquaintance soon ripened into sincere and devoted friendship.
After the usual term of probation at Addiscombe, Sandford obtained an
appointment in the engineers, and I a cadetship of infantry, and we
sailed from England together. On our arrival at Calcutta, we separated:
he remaining at the presidency, and I being ordered up the country, to
join my regiment at Cawnpore.
I pass over the details of my life in India; suffice it that, after ten
years roasting under an eastern sun, I was pretty well done at last, and
my liver began to give me sundry gentle hints that it was time for me to
be moving, unless I wished to remain altogether where I was;
accordingly, I applied for and obtained furlough to visit Europe for the
benefit of my health. Though Sandford and I had been so long separated,
we had always kept up a regular intercourse by letter, and we had
arranged that, if practicable, we would take our furlough together; and,
accordingly, we managed matters so that we took our passage in the same
ship for England. Fortune had favoured us both in promotion; we had each
attained the rank of captain in our respective corps. In congratulating
Sandford on his good fortune, I remarked, in allusion to our
school-days, that it was better than "Sandford's luck."
"You would not say so, my dear fellow," said he, "if you knew all. I am
as unlucky a dog as ever; and you may have reason yet, before we part,
to wish we had not met again."
"Nonsense," said I; "let us enjoy the present, at all events, whatever
the future may have in store for us. Come, order your palanquin, and let
us be off; the boat was to be waiting for us at Champaul Ghaut at ten
o'clock, and it only wants a few minutes of the hour."