Noreen. “O Dan, up to the gentleman as soon as he comes, and get the
money others got before you last time; and when ye get it, don’t be
making a beast of yourself or a martyr of the babby, but remember the
rent, jewel.”
Dan found it much easier to remember the rent than to pay it, and had
rather give his wife a black eye in private than be lectured by her in
public; and he therefore looked sulky and bade her run after the captain
if she chose, for that he would not bother himself for any reason in
life.—Ella, who had overheard all, explained that there was no reason,
as far as the captain was concerned; but that if Dan would bother
himself to go out fishing, the rent would be no longer a trouble.
With all their recklessness and indolence, these people had pride; and
when they heard that everybody was likely to prosper this summer, Noreen
began to talk of holding up her head, as she had a right to do, equal to
any of them that little thought what her relations were at Rathmullin.
Dan esteemed it mighty provoking that the bread was taken from within
his teeth by them that were born to nothing but what they got with their
dirty hands. If he had had a word with the captain as soon as others, he
might have coaxed him into letting him have a boat; but it was always
the way,—while he was content at home and just thinking of nothing at
all, some vagabond or another stept into his shoes.
Ronald refrained from calling Dan to account for his term of abuse,
knowing it to be in such frequent use in Ireland as to have lost much of
its offensiveness. He assured Dan that the captain had work for
everybody just now, and urged his making application to be hired without
delay.
Murdoch stared with astonishment when he found that Angus was actually
going to take down his curing-shed and remove it to the place where the
stage was to be erected. It seemed to him as well as to Dan vastly too
much trouble and expense; but Angus had taken into account the damage
the fish sustain by being much exposed and shifted about previous to
curing; and he believed that the expedition and security with which the
produce would be hauled up, prepared, and shipped again, would soon
repay him for what he was about to do.
The business of months seemed to be transacted in Garveloch this
afternoon, on the strength of the tidings which Ronald brought. All
doubtful matters (except the one which most nearly concerned Ronald)
were brought to a decision. Angus decided, as we have seen, on making a
large venture of fixed capital. Farmer Duff decided on hiring some more
labourers while there was any chance of his getting them. Fergus decided
on offering the labour of his two eldest boys at the station, believing
that there would be work for all, however young. More than a few parties
decided that their courtship should end in immediate marriage, and never
doubted the perfect propriety of making use of a season of prosperity
for the purpose. Dan decided on putting his hand to the oar at last. All
who wished to hire labour decided on looking abroad for labourers, and
betimes, if they wished to make good terms. All who had labour to let
began to consider how high they might venture to fix its price.
This was no deceitful promise of prosperity,—to those at least who did
not expect too much from it. The sanguine and the ignorant, who are ever
ready to take an ell where an inch is given, supposed that their island
was enriched for ever. They heard of wages rising higher and higher, and
never suspected they might fall. They saw that the only thing at present
wanted was a greater number of labourers, and imagined that when their
tribes of children were grown up, all would be right,—wages as high,
food as plentiful as now, and as great an increase of employment as
there would be of labour. It was well that all did not keep up their
expectations to this pitch,—that some were aware how precarious was the
present prosperity. A single bad season, the opening of a few more
fishing stations, a change in the diet of the West India slaves,—any one
of these, or many other circumstances, might reduce the Garveloch
fishery to what it had been; while the numbers of those who depended
upon it for subsistence were increasing with a greater and a greater
rapidity.
The least sanguine, however, could not resist the feeling of
exhilaration excited by what passed before their eyes: nor was there any
reason that they should. Prudence and foresight do not interfere with
the rational enjoyment of blessings; they rather add to it by imparting
a feeling of security. The youngest and giddiest could not relish more
than Angus and his wife the freedom from care they now enjoyed, the
sight of plenty around them, and the knowledge that none need be idle,
none need be poor; and if these, the young and the giddy, bestowed
little thought on the probable issue of their present state, and escaped
the anxiety with which they ought to have regarded the future, neither
did they share the satisfaction of making provision for a season of
storms.
The captain alighted in Garveloch, now and then, in his flight round the
station. He was always in a prodigious bustle, and he made every body he
met as fidgetty as himself about the impossibility of getting labourers
enough for the work to be done. Wherever he went, it was suggested to
him that people might be hired from some other place, from which other
place he had just heard that there was also a deficiency of labour.
Some people thought they might be satisfied with having as large a trade
as their numbers could manage; but the captain was not satisfied without
taking all that offered. Men and their families were brought from a
distance, all the boys that could handle an oar or help to draw a net
received wages; all the girls assisted their mothers to cure; so that,
at this time, the largest families were the richest. These circumstances
acted as an encouragement, and the captain’s sanguine expectation that
the demand would continue operated as a direct bounty on population;
and, in consequence, numbers increased in Garveloch as rapidly as in any
new colony of a fertile country.
The seasons which are favourable to the fishery,—in respect of
weather,—are favourable to the harvest also. Farmer Duff reaped abundant
crops the next two seasons, which unusual abundance just served to feed
his customers. What would have been done in case of an average or an
inferior crop having been yielded, few troubled themselves to determine.
They had enough, and that was all they cared for.
Kenneth could not often be spared during these two seasons; but he came
to attend the christening of a little brother and of two cousins. The
only troubles he had to relate were of the difficulty of supplying the
orders for barrels, and of the passion the captain was in when fish were
spoiled for sale by being packed in old casks. The magistrate had the
least to do of anybody. Hard times are the days of crime. There were
still occasional quarrels; complaints of oppression on one side and
sauciness on the other, and of a few acts of malice still perpetrated by
people as stupid and helpless as Rob; but the crimes to which men are
stimulated by want were not at present heard of. Were they over for
ever?
CHAPTER VI.
A DREARY PROSPECT.
A time of leisure, as grievous to the most reckless and indolent as to
the superior members of the society, came round ere long. First appeared
hardship in the shape of an average crop; for the people having
increased their consumption up to the amount of a remarkably abundant
harvest, were of course stinted when the soil yielded only the usual
return. No very disastrous consequences followed at first. There was
much complaint and a little dismay when it was found that supplies must
not be looked for from the neighbouring districts, since there also the
season had been only moderately favourable, and there were mouths enough
to feed in each place to leave no supplies over for Garveloch. The
Garveloch people therefore were obliged to eat some of their fish
instead of selling it, and to pay a very high price for their barley and
oatmeal. Those who were able to give this price were willing to do it,
seeing that the rise of price was a necessary consequence of the
comparative scarcity; that farmer Duff must pay himself for the outlay
on his land, whether its produce were ample or scanty; and that its
dearness alone could make the supply last till the next harvest came
round. Those who were too poor to buy abused the farmer, saying that his
crop was not scantier than it had been in many former years when he had
sold it much cheaper, and that he was making use of a dispensation of
Providence to fill his own pocket. They were slow to perceive that it
was themselves and not the farmer who had made the change; that they had
caused the increase of demand and the consequent rise of price.
It would have been well if nothing worse than the occurrence of an
average season had happened. The number of people brought by a sudden
demand for labour might have lessened. Some might have departed
elsewhere, and others have devised plans for a new introduction or
better economy of food; and after a short period of hardship, the demand
for food might have gradually accommodated itself to the supply; for
their society was not like the population of an overgrown district,
where there may be mistakes in ascribing effects to causes, and where
the blame of hardship may be laid in the wrong place. The people of
Garveloch might survey their little district at a glance, and calculate
the supply of provision grown, and count the numbers to be fed by it,
and by this means discern, in ordinary circumstances, how they might
best manage to proportion their resources of labour and food. But if any
had endeavoured to do this, their expectations would have been baffled
by the event, unless they had taken into the account the probability of
bad seasons—a probability which the truly wise will never overlook.
A few seasons after the period of prosperity of which we have spoken,
the dawn of a June morning broke as gloomily as if it had been November.
Scudding clouds, from which came gushes of hail, swept over the sky and
brushed the tallest points of rock as they passed. The wind came in
gusts as chill as the wintry blasts, and before it the vexed ocean
swelled and heaved, while its tumbling mass of waters seemed to forbid
man to approach, much more to trust the frail workmanship of his hands
to its overwhelming power. The night-light still glimmered from some of
the dwellings in Garveloch, the islands of the Sound were not yet
visible from the heights, and the peaks of Lorn were but beginning to
show themselves against the eastern sky, when Angus came out stealthily
from his dwelling, softly closed the door, drew his plaid about him, and
paced down to the beach. He was proceeding to get out his boat, when his
son Kenneth approached.
“Father,” said he, “you are not going to trust yourself at sea to-day?”
“Help must be had, Kenneth. I must cross at the risk of my own life, or
more will be lost. I have here the last of my savings; and since money
is worth no more than pebbles in Garveloch, I must carry it where it may
buy us food.”
“And my mother——”
“Your mother is in the inner room, where she has been up with Jamie all
night. I heard him very loud just now. His fever runs high, so that she
will not miss me perhaps for hours. She neither saw nor heard me come
out.—Now, Kenneth, say nothing about going instead of me. You know that
my experience of the sea is greater than yours, and the best skill is
little enough for such a voyage as mine is like to be.”
“But my mother must soon know,” urged Kenneth.
“Surely. Tell her that I hope to be back to-morrow night, with that
which may ease her nursing. Farewell, my boy.”
Kenneth was a brave, high-spirited youth. His heart was full when he saw
his father put off among the stormy breakers, and he therefore said
nothing. He helped to guide the boat to the last moment, wading as deep
and struggling with the waves as long as he possibly could, till his
father made a commanding sign that he should return. There was no use in
speaking amidst the thunder of the waters. Kenneth wrung out his plaid,
and climbing the rock, sat down, unheeding the wind, to watch his
father’s boat, scarcely visible in the grey light, as it won its weary
way among the billows. Bitter thoughts rose fast within him;—his father
in peril at sea; his mother worn with care and watching; his beloved
little Jamie, the youngest of the large family, and their darling,
sinking under the fever; all the others changing from what they had
been, some in health, some in spirits, some in temper, and he unable to
do anything to help them. Dismissed with others from the station because
his labour was not now worth the food he consumed, he had come home to
be, as he thought, a burden, but as his parents declared, a comfort, to
his family amidst their cares, and daily looked round, and ever in vain,
for some means of assisting them. As he now thought of the fruitlessness
of all his efforts, tears rose and blinded him so that he could no
longer discern any object at sea. As fast as he dashed them away they
rose again, till he no longer resisted them, but let them flow as they
had never flowed since childhood.
As he sat with his face hid in his plaid, he was roused by the pressure
of his mother’s hand upon his shoulder. She had spoken from a distance,
but the roaring of wind and waters and the screaming of sea-fowl were
more powerful than her voice, and her appearance took Kenneth by
surprise—a surprise at which she smiled.
“Mother!” he cried, as he started up, and a burning blush overspread his
face; “if I were a good son, it would be my part to smile when I found
you with sinking spirits.”
Ella smiled again as she answered—
“And when my spirits sink, I will look to you for cheer. Meantime, never
fancy that tears are unworthy a brave man, or always a sorrowful sight
to a mother. It is God’s will, Kenneth, that there is cause for tears;
and since there is cause, it is no pain to me to see them fall. If God
calls you and me hither to look out upon a second year’s storms, he
knows that it is as natural for the heart as for the cloud to drop its
rain; and never think, my boy, that I shall be a harder judge than he.”
“But what brought ye out, mother, so early, into the cold?”
“I came to seek the cooling wind. Jamie fell asleep, and Annie came to
take her turn beside him; and finding Angus gone, and my head hot and
weary, I thought I should find more rest on the rock than in my bed. I
see the boat, Kenneth. I know your father’s purpose, and I guess you
were praying just now for his safe return.”
“And, O mother! I had some distrustful thoughts in the midst of my
prayer. If he should not return, and even while he is gone, I can do
nothing. Here I am, eating my daily portion, which I never helped to
earn; being a burden when I thought—proud as I was—that I should be your
main joy and help. O mother! this humbles one sadly. I never thought to
be so humbled.”
“Who that is humbled ever sees the stroke before it comes, Kenneth? Look
round, and mark. Where many a smoke rose, only a short year since, from
those cottages below, the fires are quenched, and with them is quenched
the pride of those who revelled in plenty. Now, many are gone, and have
left but four bare walls for us to remember them by. Some are gone to
lie cold under yonder gray stones, and some few have found their way
back over the sea. Those that remain have lost their pride: it was blown
away with the cold ashes of their last fire; and it will not come back
while they sit hungry and shivering. Which of these thought any more
than you that they should be so humbled? When I gloried in my Jamie, as
the brightest and handsomest of my children, I did not expect that he
would be the first I should lay in the grave.”
“Must he die, mother?”
“I take such to be God’s will, Kenneth; but I once had a lesson, as you
know, against reading his pleasure too readily. They that I thought lost
came to dry land, and another lay under the water when I thought him
safe on the hard rock. Since that day, I have ever waited for the issue;
and so I will now. We will hope that Jamie may live, and we will be
ready to part with any who were but just now in life and strength.”
“It is but little we know, indeed,” replied Kenneth. “It seems but
yesterday that yon sea was almost as busy as a thronged city, with a
hundred vessels following the shoals, and then crowding homewards with a
full cargo; and now this year and last, not a boat has gone out, not a
gleam of sun, not a blink of moonlight has been upon the sea; and as to
the land, it is more changed still. Where the barley-fields were as
green as a rich pasture three years ago, there are only a few straggling
blades, just enough to tempt a man with thoughts of what a harvest is.
This is a change we little feared to see.”
“And yet,” said Ella, “many did foresee, and all might have foreseen.
When was there ever a time that the seasons did not change? Here we have
been too slow to learn God’s will. We knew that the same storms that
took away our occupation must cut off our harvest; we knew that such
stormy seasons come from time to time; and yet we acted as if we were
promised plenty for ever. Our children look up to us for food, because
we have given them no warning that it should cease; and they are right.
But if we look up to God in the same manner we are wrong; for the
warning was given long ago.”
“I have heard uncle Ronald speak of it,” replied Kenneth. “He has often
feared that scarcity would come; but he told me that father, and widow
Cuthbert, and the Duffs, would never be taken by surprise.”
“If it had not been for our savings,” replied Ella, “we should have had
worse things to undergo than may be in store for us. Instead of
trembling for Jamie, I might have been mourning the half of my children.
Instead of grieving to see you wasting, Kenneth—how thin ye are grown!—I
might have been——” She stopped.
“If I am thin, mother,” Kenneth replied, “it is with care; and my care
is that I can do nothing for bread for myself and you.”
“I will take you at your word,” replied his mother, with a smile. “We
will try whether you will grow stouter for your conscience being at
rest. But, mind, it shall be but a moderate trial, and I will share it
with you.”
Kenneth looked eagerly to his mother for an explanation of what was in
her mind. Ella told him that there was positively no more grain to be
bought before harvest. Farmer Duff had very wisely kept back enough for
seed-corn, in case of the crop failing utterly, and had very reasonably
laid up a sufficient store for his own household; and none was now left
over. Ella’s remaining store was not sufficient to afford even a stinted
allowance to the whole family for the three months still to come; and
she now, therefore, proposed that neither she nor her son should touch
barley or oatmeal, but give up their share to the younger and tenderer
members of the family.
Kenneth was grateful to his mother for her confidence. She had hitherto
concealed the fact of the supply being nearly exhausted, in the hope
that Kenneth, like the rest, would eat and think little of the future;
but she now saw that he would be made happier by being allowed to share
her sacrifices, and she therefore called upon him to do so.
Kenneth was not yet satisfied. It was not enough to be permitted to save
food; he must find out how to obtain it.
“Not enough!” exclaimed his mother, mournfully. “My boy, ye little know
what it is, and ye never can till the trial is made. Ye little know what
it is to lie down at night cold and aching, and to toss about unable to
sleep, when sleep seems the one thing that would give ye ease, since ye
cannot have food. Ye little think what sleep is when it comes,—how
horrible fancies are ever rising up to steal away the sweetness of
rest—how all that ye see and all that ye touch turns to food, and turns
back again before ye can get it to your mouth; or, worse still, to fancy
ye are driven by some evil power to strangle and devour whatever is most
precious to you. Ye little think what it is to wake with a parched mouth
and hands clenched, so that they are like an infant’s all the day after,
and the limbs trembling and the sight dim, as if fifty years had come
over ye in a night. Ye little know, Kenneth, what it will be to loathe
the food you and I shall have, and to see the thoughtless little ones
crumbling the bannocks and eating them as if they were to be had as
easily as the hailstones that have beat down the crops. Wait a while, my
boy, before you say all this is not enough.”
“You know too well, mother, what it is. Can it be that you have been
fasting alone already?”
“I learned all this,” said Ella, evading the question, “when I was
nearly as young as you. There was a scarcity then, and we had a sore
struggle. My father was never well after that season. There was no need,
thank God, to stint the lads as we stinted ourselves; and, as for me,
the only harm,” she continued, smiling, “was, that your father found me
less comely when he came back than I had been when he went away. There
is also this good,—that there is one among us who has gone through evil
times, and knows how to abide them.”
“Teach me, mother. How shall I get such food as we may live on?”
“There will be no positive want of food yet, my boy, though it will be
such as will not nourish us like that we have been used to. We must try
shell-fish, without bannocks or potatoes; merely shell-fish, day after
day; and the strongest soon grow weak on such diet.”
“I would rather give up my share, sometimes,” said Kenneth, “than gather
them at the cost of what I see. I have been glad you were at home when
the tide went down, and I would not let the little ones come and help,
lest they should learn to fight like the hungry people on the shore.
Dan, that ever kept his eyes half-shut at noon, now watches the first
falling of the water, and bullies every one, if it be Noreen herself,
that sees a shell before he snatches it.”
“Their potatoes have not come up,” observed Ella, “and they begin to be
pinched the very first, because they had nothing to give for meal.”
“And then,” continued Kenneth, “the Murdochs have got the ill-will of
all the neighbours, by their stripping every child they meet of whatever
he may be carrying home. The very babies are learning to curse Meg
Murdoch.”
“And so you took their part,” said Ella, smiling, “and let them strip
you in turn. You are right not to let your little brothers go down with
you to learn theft and covetousness; but you must not go on giving away
your own share, now that you will have no bread at home.”
“Then there are the fowl,” said Kenneth. “They are not food for the
delicate, to be sure, at this season; but we must try whether they will
not nourish us till better days come. The worst of it is that very few
are left, and those are the oldest and toughest.”
“The neighbours that are poorer than we have been everywhere before us,”
said Ella. “But they are welcome. Since they trusted to chance, the
first chances are their due. My eyes are dim with watching yon boat, and
I can see nothing: is it still there, or has the mist come over it?”
Ella had scarcely withdrawn her gaze for a moment from her husband’s
struggle with the winds and waves. Kenneth, who had not thus strained
his sight, could just discern the speck rising and falling on the dreary
waste of waters.
“I see her still winning her way, mother; but you will scarce make her
out again.”
“I will not try now, but go home.”
“And to bed,” said Kenneth. “You are weary and half-frozen, standing on
this point as if ye came to meet the storm. Promise me you will rest,
mother!”
“Perhaps I will if Jamie is still asleep. And do you hasten down,
Kenneth, and gather whatever the tide may have thrown up. Now, don’t
part with all you get for your own share. I have called upon you for
self-denial; and part of that self-denial must be not to give all the
help you have been accustomed to yield.”
“That is the worst part of it,” said Kenneth; “but I remember, mother,
that my first duty lies at home. O, if there were no hardship, how much
less greedy and quarrelsome should we be! It is not in men’s nature to
quarrel for shell-fish every time the tide goes down.”
“Remember,” said Ella, “that better things also arise out of hardship.
Do none learn patience? Do none practise self-denial?”
“But we have not known extreme hardship, mother.”
“True. May the day never come when I shall see my children looking with
jealousy upon one another! The jealousy of the starving is a fearful
sight.”
Kenneth’s first trial of his new resolution awaited him when he went
down to the shore to gather shell-fish. His appearance was usually a
signal for the children, who were driven away by some one of the tyrants
of the neighbourhood, to come down and put themselves under his
protection. They had learned to reckon on his share being divided among
them; for, while there was food at home, he could not find in his heart
to refuse the little half-starved creatures their piteous requests. One
found that some of her pickings were mere empty shells; another pleaded
that she had no breakfast on the mornings when it was her turn to look
for fish; and another declared that his father would beat him if he did
not carry home his bonnetful. One or all of these pleas usually emptied
Kenneth’s store. One set of claimants had never yet been refused,—his
cousins. Fergus’s two eldest boys, who had earned good wages, and hoped
to earn them again when the fishery should be resumed, were thrown back
on their own resources in the interval. It was melancholy to see them
wandering about the island in search of anything that might be rendered
eatable, and at times reduced to beg of their cousin Kenneth as many
shell-fish as he could spare. Kenneth felt that nothing but absolute
famine could drive him to deny them; and he was therefore glad to
perceive that they were not on the shore this morning. He gave notice to
the little ones, who now gathered about him, that he could henceforth
only help them by defending their right to whatever they could pick up.
He must share equally with them from this day, and he hoped they would
not ask that which he could no longer give. And now began the scenes
which he was henceforth daily to witness among the children, and in
time, upon a larger scale, among the parents. All the petty arts, all
the violence, all the recklessness, to which the needy are tempted,
began to show themselves first among those whose habits of self-control
were weakest; and afforded a specimen of what might be looked for when
the parents should be driven by want beyond the restraint of principles
and habits which had been powerful in the absence of overwhelming
temptation.
One of the little boys uplifted a vehement cry. “Willie has snatched my
bonnet! O, my bonnet, my bonnet! It was fuller to-day than it has ever
been yet.”
“That is the very reason,” cried Willie, a stout lad, who felt that he
could carry everything among the little ones by strength of arm. “You
never had enough before to make it worth while taking them. Now I have
got them, I will keep them.”
Kenneth, who was the representative of justice, struggled with Willie,
and got back the property; but the lad vowed vengeance for his drubbing,
especially against the complainant, who henceforth had no peace. All
parties being left discontented, it was plainly a great evil that there
had been temptation to recur to what Willie called the right of the
strongest.
One of the little girls was found hidden behind a rock, eating all that
had been collected for the family at home. Many cried “Shame!” and vowed
she should never again be trusted within reach of more than her own
share; to which she answered, that she should eat when she was hungry,
and that those who had enough might supply her brothers and sisters.
This child would have had a rate levied upon all the more provident, for
the relief of her fellow-paupers.
Two lads having quarrelled about the share due to one, the most hungry
threw the whole back into the sea, by way of revenge as he declared. One
would have thought he had heard Mr. Mackenzie speak of the possible,
though extreme, case of men burning stacks because there was not enough
corn.
Even this reckless boy was less provoking than one party, pre-eminent in
poverty and dirt, who could not be persuaded to give over their sport,
happen what might. They called together whatever animals could eat
shell-fish, and put this food down the mouths of dogs and ponys,—both of
which eat fish in the islands.
“How can you,” said Kenneth, “bring more eaters down to the shore when
we have too many already?”
“We must have our play,” answered they. “Ours is the age for play, as we
have heard our father say; and we are so cold and hungry almost all day,
that it is very hard if we may not amuse ourselves when we can.”
There was no use in pointing out to them that they were doing all they
could to increase their own hunger; they only answered that they would
have their sport as long as they could get it, and immediately whistled
for more dogs.
To judge by their acts, these children did not perceive that, though
they could not determine the quantity of fish which should be within
reach, it was their fault that the number of eaters was needlessly
increased. The half-starved multitudes of an over-peopled kingdom might
take a lesson from their folly.
“Can this be the place,” thought Kenneth, “can these be the children,
where and among whom there was so much cheerfulness but a few seasons
ago? How happy we all used to be picking up our fish! And now, some
still laugh louder than ever; but the mirth of the destitute is more
painful to witness than the grave looks of those who have something
left. O, for peace and plenty once more!”
----------------------------
CHAPTER VII.
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE TEACHABLE.
As Ella slowly took her way homewards, she caught a glimpse of two men
coming up the winding path she was descending. Forgetting the
impossibility that Angus should be already returned, and seeing that one
was Fergus, she supposed that her husband and brother were coming to
meet her. On her turning a point, they were in full view. It was Ronald
instead of Angus. Terror seized the anxious wife, who was weakened by
watching and care.
“O Angus, Angus!” she cried, in tones which made the rocks ring again.
“O, he is lost, and ye are come to tell me!”
Before her brothers could reach her, she had sunk down, unable to keep
her hold of the rock, while the earth seemed to swim round and quake
beneath her. She was lost in a fainting-fit before a word of comfort
could reach her ear.
“This must be fasting as well as care,” said Ronald, as he chafed her
hands, while Fergus sprinkled water over her face. “Never before was
Ella seen to sink, much less upon a false alarm. It must be sore
suffering that could bring her to this.”
Fergus’s tears were falling fast while he replied,—
“’Tis the parent’s heart that suffers, Ronald. ’Tis for her little Jamie
that she has watched and struggled till she faints, spirit and body
together.”
“She is coming round,” said Ronald. “There is colour in her lips. Now
see if her spirit does not rally as soon as her limbs, or sooner. She
will be more surprised at herself than we are.”
“Hush! she opened her eyes just now. Raise her a little more.”
“Why, Ella,” said Ronald, smiling, as he leaned over her, “ye never gave
me such a greeting before. Why are ye so sorry to see me to-day?”
“Is nothing the matter?” asked Ella steadily. “I dreamed there
was;—something about Angus.”
“It was only a dream, as far as I know. I have but just landed, and I
came to you for news of Angus and all of you.”
By this time Ella had started up, and refusing further assistance,
supported herself by leaning against the rock.
“I thought Fergus looked sad, I thought he looked wretched,” she
continued, gazing wistfully into her younger brother’s face.
“May be ye’re right, Ella; but it was not for you. A man has enough to
make him look grave in times like these. But I did not mean to frighten
you.”
“Times like these make us all selfish,” said Ella, “and that is the
worst of them. There was a time, Fergus, when I should have been
quicker-sighted to your sorrow than my own.—But come with me to shelter
before yon cloud bursts. I have been too long from my sick child
already. Come with me both of ye, and take the poor welcome I can give.
O, it is a comfort, Ronald, to see ye here!”
Her step was little less firm, as her brothers observed, than their own.
At her own door she charged them to make no one uneasy by speaking of
her fainting-fit. It was a strange fancy, she said, which would not come
over her again.
“Mother, how white you look!” exclaimed Annie, as they entered.
“I am cold, my lass. The wind is piercing on the heights; so put some
more peat to the fire, and see how you can make your uncles comfortable
while I go to Jamie.”
Jamie was still in his uneasy sleep. He lay on his back, his mouth open
and parched, as if not a drop of liquid had ever touched his tongue, his
breathing irregular, his bony fingers sometimes twitching, sometimes
drooped with an appearance of utter helplessness. While his mother
passed her hand over his temples, and watched his pulse and his
countenance, she did not perceive that any one had followed her into the
chamber. Presently she heard stifled sobs, and saw that Fergus was
kneeling at the foot of the child’s crib, hiding his face in his plaid.
“God help you! God comfort you!” she heard him say.
“You think he will die, Fergus; and you tremble for your own two sick
children. But hope—at least till you see them as ill as Jamie. I have
hoped till now.”
Fergus’s grief became more violent. His two infants had died in the
night. The fever had made quicker work where its victims were already
weakened by want. Fergus came to bid his brothers to the funeral.
Ella led him out of the chamber, and placed herself by him, but so that
she could see all that passed by her child’s bedside. She was more than
ever thankful that Ronald had come, when he succeeded in gaining
Fergus’s attention to what he had to say on the present state of
affairs.
He could give little comfort about the prospect of an early supply of
grain from the neighbouring islands, as there was a nearly equal degree
of distress throughout. The season that was unfavourable to one, was so
to all; and the same causes which stopped the fishery laid waste the
land. But though immediate relief was not to be looked for, it was hoped
that help was on the way. Memorials to government had been sent from the
different stations, and Captain Forbes was now making a circuit of the
islands in order to estimate the degrees of distress, and to judge how
best to apply the funds the Company proposed to set apart for the relief
of the inhabitants. He would soon be in Garveloch, and presently after
it was possible a vessel might arrive with pease, potatoes, or grain.
Ronald had no sooner heard of this prospect of relief than he made his
way over the stormy sea to cheer his sister and brother with the news.
There was doubtless another, Ella observed, whom he would wish to tell,
though she was thankful to say that widow Cuthbert suffered less from
the pressure of the times than any family in Garveloch, unless it was
the Duffs.
Ronald took no notice of this at present; he reserved what he had to say
about Katie till Fergus should be gone; and proceeded to explain that he
had endeavoured in vain to make a purchase of meal that he might bring
with him. There was none to be had for love or money. But as those who
could pay best were served first, he had received a promise that he
should purchase a portion of the first cargo that passed the station. He
desired that it might be equally divided between the families of his
sister, his brother, and the widow Cuthbert, and that some one should be
on the watch to secure the package addressed to Fergus, as soon as the
sloop should approach. Before he even thanked his brother, Fergus
anxiously inquired when the supply would come? There was no knowing. It
might be a fortnight; it might be two months. He did feel and express
himself grateful, however, and said something, to which Ronald would not
listen, about repaying, in happier days, that part of the debt which
could be repaid, and then rose to go and tell his wife that food was or
would be on the way. Ronald called him back as he was going out at the
door, to entreat that he would never revive the subject of payment.
“I have only myself to work and care for,” he said, “and whatever is
left over is the natural portion of my kindred. You would inherit it at
my death, you know, Fergus; and it is only putting it into your hands
when you really want it, instead of waiting till it might be less
acceptable to you and yours.”
Upon this ensued, as soon as Ronald and his sister were quite alone, a
conversation relating to the widow Cuthbert. It was long and earnest,
and interrupted only by the attentions necessary to the little patient.
The child, on waking, knew his uncle Ronald, and submitted to be soothed
and quieted by him while Ella sat spinning beside the crib.
They were thus engaged in the afternoon when Katie entered. She brought
a nourishing mess for little Jamie, as she had done more than once
before since his illness began. She was surprised to see Ronald, for
visitors were rare in such a season of storms. She declared herself
vexed at having entered without warning, when she saw him preparing for
immediate departure; but he said he must be at the station before night,
and had remained too long already; and as his sister did not press his
stay, Katie said no more about it, but took his offered hand, and
cheerfully confirmed what Ella had told him of the health and comfort of
her family. There was no need to ask after her own, for she looked,
perhaps from the force of contrast with every body else, more fresh in
health and easy in spirits than in many former days when less care
prevailed.
“Go, my dears,” said Ella to the children in the outer room, “and help
your uncle with his boat, and then ye can watch him away round the
point; and mind ye mark whether any other vessel is in sight. And yet
Angus said he should not be back this day.”
“And now,” said Katie, when she had done watching how her friend coaxed
little Jamie into swallowing the food she brought, “you must let me have
my own way entirely, Ella; for you know me for a wilful woman.”
“Let me hear your will before I promise, Katie.”
“My will is to change house and family with you to-night. You must put
my children to bed for me, and eat my supper, which you will find in the
cupboard, and then lie down in my bed, and sleep till the sun is high.
You can trust me to nurse Jamie, I know, from what you said when my Hugh
struggled through the measles; and you may quite depend on it, Kenneth
says, that your husband will not return to-night.”
Ella had no foolish scruples about accepting this neighbourly offer. She
had watched many nights, and was so nearly exhausted, that this was a
very seasonable help, she thought, to the better performance of her
duties the next day. She had been ever ready to give similar assistance
to her neighbours in like cases; and knowing the pleasure of doing
friendly acts, she would not refuse it to Katie. She therefore agreed at
once, adding,—
“I am sure you would not offer this if you had any fear of your children
taking the fever from me or you.”
“Certainly not, Ella. You know nobody was more careful than I when the
small-pox was in the island; and I offended several neighbours by not
letting my children so much as speak with theirs; but this kind of fever
is not given and taken, as I have good reason to be sure.”
In a little while, seeing that Ella was moving about as if to prepare
for her comfort during the evening and night, she called her to come and
sit down, and not trouble herself with any more cares this day.
“That which will do for you,” she said, “will do for me; and if I want
anything, there will be Annie to tell me where to find it.”
“I’m willing enough to sit down with ye,” said Ella, when she had fed
the fire, and resumed her spinning, “because——”
“Because you cannot stand; is not that it, Ella? You still look as white
as if you had seen a ghost. So you took Ronald for a ghost this
morning?”
“Fergus should not have told you that silly story. No; I am willing to
be alone with you, because I have much to say about Ronald. You need
never more look as you do now, Katie. I am going to lay a different plea
before you this day; and if ye will grant it, it will be my last.”
Katie bent over her work, and made no reply; so Ella proceeded.
“You know as well as I how long Ronald has loved you, and how sore a
struggle your marriage was to him, and that there have been times since
when he has hoped; but you have never known, as I have, how tossed in
mind he has been for more than three years past. He has come and gone,
and come again, Katie, watching your feelings, and waiting for what he
thought your pleasure, till he often lost all power of judging what he
should do, and how he should speak to you.”
“I am sure,” said Katie, “it was as far from my wish as from my
knowledge that his mind should be so tossed. I never willingly left any
one in uncertainty, and I have far too much respect for Ronald, far too
much——”
“Neither he nor I ever had such a thought, Katie, as that ye would
trifle with him or any man. If he had, ye would soon have seen an end of
his love. The uncertainty was no fault of yours, and it was only from
particular causes that it lasted so long. He has said many a time that
if you had been a young girl, he would have spoken out and known your
mind at once; but your husband was his friend, and there was no
measuring what your feelings might be now, and he feared above all
things wounding them; and so he lingered and lingered and never spoke,
till circumstances have decided the matter he could not decide for
himself. He wishes you to know, Katie, that you may lay aside all fear
of him. He gives you his word of honour he will never sue you; and if,
as he suspects, he has occasioned you uneasiness, he entreats your
pardon, and hopes you will dismiss it all from your mind.”
“Is this the plea you spoke of?” asked Katie.
“No; the plea I spoke of may be, perhaps, more easily granted. Let me
entreat for him that you will regard him freely as an old friend, as a
brother. He will think no more of marriage; and I know nothing would
make him so happy as being able to watch over and help us all equally.
Your children love him, Katie; and if you will only do as I do, give him
a welcome when he comes and a blessing when he departs, and ask him for
aid, and take what he offers, and let him keep watch upon your children
for their good, there may be an end of all difficulty, and my brother
may be happier than he has been for many a year. It will ever be painful
to be like strangers or common acquaintance; and you have his word of
honour,—and whose word is so sure?—that he will not seek to be more than
friend; the only way for his peace and your ease is to be really
friends,—as if ye were both the children of the same parents. Let Ronald
be your friend as he is mine.”
“I am not aware,” said Katie, “of either act or word which need make me
scruple to give and take friendship in the way you wish. But, Ella, you
must answer me one question plainly; is it anything in myself which made
Ronald change his views? I should not have asked this if you had not
said that he gave up marriage altogether; but since I know that his
thoughts are not turning upon any one else, I should like to be told
whether he has less esteem for me than before I married?”
“If he had, would he seek your friendship as he does? If he esteemed or
thought he ever should esteem you less, he would just keep away from
Garveloch, and tell nobody why, unless perhaps myself. No; he feels as
he ever did; and lest you should doubt me, I will tell you all I know of
his conscience and his judgment on this matter. It is the state of
society in the islands, Katie, that makes him and other thoughtful men
give up the intention of marrying.”
“And some that are not thoughtful too, Ella. I could tell you of more
than one that would fain have had me when there was prospect that my
boys would be a little fortune to me,—I mean when labour was
scarce,—that have now slunk away, and will never hold out a hand to me
again, I dare say, till my family promise to be a profit instead of a
burden.”
“You do not take Ronald to be one of these!” cried Ella indignantly.
“You cannot think that he is one to come forward and go back as your
fortune waxes and wanes, whether that fortune be your children or your
savings! It is not for himself only, but for you and your children, and
for us and for society, that he thinks and acts as he does.”
Katie did not doubt it.—Ronald was far from selfish.
“If all was bright with us again in a single month,” said Ella, “he
would keep in the same mind; for he sees that prosperity can never last
long among us, while we make no provision against the changes that must
ever befall, while seasons are sometimes stormy and our commerce liable
to variations. We have made an abundant season and a brisk demand into
curses, by acting as if they were always to last; and now we want many
such as he to soften our miseries, which he could not do if he were
burdened like us.”
“But it is hard,” observed Katie, “that he must deny himself because his
neighbours are imprudent.”
“Yet his lot is best, Katie. It is sweet to him to help us in our need;
and he is spared the sorrow of seeing his little ones pine for that
which he cannot give. Yet he cannot but feel that he bears more than his
share in giving up marriage altogether. If there were no O’Rorys to
marry at eighteen, and if most others had the prudence to wait some
years longer than they do, all who wish might marry and deserve no
blame.”
“But who thinks of praise or blame about the act of marrying?” said
Katie. “I own that they ought. When one looks round and sees how sin and
sorrow grow where hunger prevails, one cannot think any man guiltless
who overlooks the chance of his increasing the poverty of society. But
how few consider this! Those who think themselves conscientious, go no
farther than to consider whether they are marrying the right person.
They spend no thought on the time and the manner, or on their duty to
society.”
“It is so even here,” said Ella, “where we can trace the causes of
distress: and in great cities, where it is easy to lay the blame in the
wrong place, and where the people become the more reckless the poorer
they grow, the evil is much greater. There children are born whose
youthful parents have neither roofs to shelter, nor clothes to cover
them; and the more widely poverty spreads through the multitude of
labourers, the faster is that multitude doubled. You have seen enough of
cities, Katie, to know that this is true.”
“Yes; and all this is done in the name of Providence. I always expected
next to hear Providence blamed for not giving food enough for all this
multitude.”
“Such blame would have been as reasonable as the excuse,” said Ella.
“But how slow we are to learn the will of Providence in this case, when
it is the very same that we understand in other cases! Providence gave
us strength of limbs and of passions: yet these we restrain for the sake
of living in society. If a man used his hands to pull down his
neighbour’s house, or his passion of anger to disturb the society in
which he lives, we should think it no excuse that Providence had given
him his natural powers, or made him enjoy their exercise. How is it more
excusable for a man to bring children into the world, when there are so
many to be fed that every one that is born must help to starve one
already living?”
“Since Providence has not made food increase as men increase,” said
Katie, “it is plain that Providence wills restraint here as in the case
of other passions.”
“And awful are the tokens of its pleasure, Katie. The tears of mothers
over their dead children, that shrunk under poverty like blossoms
withering before the frosts, the fading of the weak, the wasting of the
strong, thefts in the streets, sickness in the houses, funerals by the
wayside—these are the tokens that unlimited increase is not God’s will.”
“These tell us where we are wrong, Ella. How shall we learn how we may
be right?”
“By doing as you have done through life, Katie; by using our judgment,
and such power as we have. We have not the power of increasing food as
fast as our numbers may increase; but we have the power of limiting our
numbers to agree with the supply of food. This is the gentle check which
is put into our own hands; and if we will not use it, we must not repine
if harsher checks follow. If the passionate man will not restrain his
anger, he must expect punishment at the hands of him whom he has
injured; and if he imprudently indulges his love, he must not complain
when poverty, disease, and death lay waste his family.”
“Do not you think, Ella, that there are more parties to a marriage than
is commonly supposed?”
“There is a party,” replied Ella, smiling, “that if it could be present,
would often forbid the banns; and it is this party that Ronald has now
consulted.”
“You mean society.”
“Yes. In savage life, marriage may be a contract between a man and woman
only, for their mutual pleasure; but if they lay claim to the protection
and advantages of society, they are responsible to society. They have no
right to provide for a diminution of its resources; and therefore, when
they marry, they form a tacit contract with society to bring no members
into it who shall not be provided for, by their own labour or that of
their parents. No man is a good citizen who runs the risk of throwing
the maintenance of his children on others.”
“Ah, Ella! did you consider this before your ten children were born?”
“Indeed, Katie, there seemed no doubt to my husband and me that our
children would be well provided for. There were then few labourers in
Garveloch, and a prospect of abundant provision; and even now we are not
in poverty. We have money, clothes, and furniture; and that we have not
food enough is owing to those who, having saved nothing, are now far
more distressed than we are. Let us hope that all will take warning. My
husband and I shall be careful to teach those of our children who are
spared to us how much easier it is to prevent want than to endure it.”
“You and I will do what we can, Ella, to make our children prudent in
marriage; and if all our neighbours would do the same, we might look
forward cheerfully. But so few take warning! And it is so discouraging
to the prudent to find themselves left almost alone!”
“Nay, Katie; it is not as if all must work together to do any good.
Every prudent man, like Ronald, not only prevents a large increase of
mischief, but, by increasing capital, does a positive good. Every such
act of restraint tells; every such wise resolution stops one drain on
the resources of society. Surely this knowledge affords grounds for a
conscientious man to act upon, without doubt and discouragement.”
“How differently is honour imputed in different times!” said Katie,
smiling. “The times have been when they who had brought the most
children into the world were thought the greatest benefactors of
society; and now we are honouring those most who have none. Yet both may
have been right in their time.”
“A change of place serves the same purpose as change of time,” replied
Ella. “If Ronald were in a new colony, where labour was more in request
than anything else, he would be honoured for having ten children, and
doubly honoured for having twenty. And reasonably too; for, in such a
case, children would be a gift, and not a burden to society.”
“It is a pity, Ella, that all should not go there who are too poor to
marry properly, and have no relish for the honour of a single life. Dan
and his wife would be a treasure to a new colony.”
“If they and their children would work, Katie; not otherwise. But the
poor little things would have a better chance of life there. If Noreen
stays here, she may be too like many a Highland mother;—she may tell of
her twenty children, and leave but one or two behind her.”
“My heart aches for those poor infants,” said Katie. “One would almost
as soon hear that they were put out of the way at their birth, as see
them dwindle away and drop into their little graves one after another,
before they are four years old. I have often heard that neither the very
rich nor the very poor leave such large families behind them as the
middling classes; and if the reason is known, it seems to me very like
murder not to prevent it.”
“The reasons are well known, Katie. Those who live in luxury and
dissipation have fewer children born to them than any class; but those
that are born are guarded from the wants and diseases which cut off the
families of the very poor. The middling classes are more prudent than
the lowest, and have therefore fewer children than they, though more
than the luxurious; and they rear a much larger proportion than either.”
“One might look far, Ella, among the lords and ladies in London, or
among the poor Paisley weavers, before one would find such a healthy,
hearty tribe——”
“As yours,” Katie would have said; but seeing Ella look upon her little
Jamie with a deep sigh, she stopped short, but presently went on—
“It seems to me that a lady of fashion, who gives up her natural rest
for feasting and playing cards all night long in a hot room, and lets
herself be driven about in a close carriage instead of taking the air on
her own limbs, can have no more wish to rear a large healthy family than
Noreen, who lets her babe dangle as if she meant to break its back, and
gives the poor thing nothing but potatoes, when it ought to be nourished
with the best of milk and wholesome bread. Both are little better than
the mothers in China. O Ella! did your husband ever tell you of the
children in China?”
“Yes, but I scarcely believed even his word for it. Who told you?”
“I have read it in more books than one; and I know that the same thing
is done in India; so I am afraid it is all too true. In India it is a
very common thing for female children to be destroyed as soon as born.”
“The temptation is strong, Katie, where the people are so poor that many
hundred thousand at a time die of famine. But child murder is yet more
common in China, where no punishment follows, and nothing can exceed the
distress for food. In great cities, new-born babes are nightly laid in
the streets to perish, and many more are thrown into the river, and
carried away before their parents’ eyes.”
“It is even said, Ella that there are persons whose regular business it
is to drown infants like puppies.”
“O horrible! And how far must people be corrupted before they would bear
children to meet such a fate!”
“There is nothing so corrupting as poverty, Ella; and there is no
poverty like that of the Chinese.”
“And yet China is called the richest country in the world.”
“And so it may be. It may produce more food in proportion to its
bounds—it may contain more wealth of every sort than any country in the
world, and may at the same time contain more paupers. We call
newly-settled countries poor countries because they contain
comparatively little capital; but the happiness of the people does not
depend on the total amount of wealth, but on its proportion to those who
are to enjoy it. What country was ever poorer than Garveloch twenty
years ago? Yet nobody was in want. What country is so rich as China at
this day? Yet there multitudes eat putrid dogs and cats, and live in
boats for want of a house, and follow the English ships, to pick up and
devour the most disgusting garbage that they throw overboard.”
“Suppose such should be the lot of our native kingdom,” said Ella,
shuddering. “Such is the natural course of things when a nation
multiplies its numbers without a corresponding increase of food. May it
be given to all to see this before we reach the pass of the Chinese!—and
even if we never reach it—if, as is more likely, the evil is palliated
by the caution of the prudent, by the emigration of the enterprising,
and by other means which may yet remain, may we learn to use them before
we are driven to it by famine and disease!”
“It is fearful enough, Ella, to witness what is daily before our eyes.
God forbid that the whole kingdom should be in the state that Garveloch
is in now!”
“In very many towns, Katie, there is always distress as great as our
neighbours’ now; and so there will be till they that hold the power in
their own hands—not the king, not the parliament, not the rich only, but
the body of the people, understand those natural laws by which and under
which they subsist.”
Many would be of Ella’s opinion, if they could, like her, see the
operation of the principle of increase within narrow bounds; for nothing
can be plainer, nothing more indisputable when fully understood. In
large societies, the mind of the observer is perplexed by the movements
around him. The comings and goings, the births, deaths, and accidents,
defy his calculations; and there are always persons at hand who help to
delude him by talking in a strain which would have suited the olden
time, but which is very inappropriate to the present state of things. In
every city, however crowded with a half-starved population, there are
many more who do their utmost to encourage population than can give a
sound reason for their doing so; and while their advice is ringing in
the ears, and their example is before the eyes, and there is no lack of
inaccurate explanations why our workhouses are overflowing, our
hospitals thronged, and our funeral bells for ever tolling, it is
difficult to ascertain the real state of the case. But when the
observation is exercised within a narrow range, the truth becomes
immediately apparent,—it becomes evident that since capital increases in
a slower ratio than population, there will be sooner or later a
deficiency of food, unless the more vigorous principle of increase be
controlled. If the welfare of a nation depended on the hare not reaching
the goal before the tortoise, there might be some who would insist till
the last moment that they moved at an equal pace, and ought, therefore,
to be let alone; but there would be some who, trusting to their own
eyes, would take precautionary measures: they might let the hare run
till she overtook the tortoise, but then they would put on a clog. If
any complain that this is not a fair race, the answer is that the hare
and the tortoise were not made to vie with each other in speed; and if
we set them to do it, we must manage the competition with a view to the
consequences.
Ella and Katie, sensible and unprejudiced, and rendered quick-sighted by
anxiety for their children, were peculiarly qualified for seeing the
truth when fairly placed before them. Their interest in Ronald, as well
as in their own offspring, gave them a view of both sides of the
question; and there remained not a doubt, after calculating numbers and
resources, that there must be some check to the increase of the people,
and that the prudential check is infinitely preferable to those of vice
and misery.
Of the griefs attending the latter, Ella could form some idea—though her
feelings were not embittered by self-reproach—when she looked in the
face of her sick child, who was now resting his aching head on her
bosom. She could not leave him, though it was growing late, till he
closed his heavy eyes, and let her lay him on his pillow. Then Annie
came to bear the widow company for an hour or two; and Ella went to pass
the night in her friend’s dwelling.
“We shall never have any reserves in our confidence henceforth, Ella,”
said Katie, smiling. “There has been but one subject on which I was not
always glad to hear you speak; and now that one is settled for ever.”
Ella was glad that Katie had thus spoken, for she had not been perfectly
sure of her friend’s state of feeling. She now gazed affectionately on
that youthful face, touched but not withered by early sorrow, and kissed
the forehead of the friend she loved like a younger sister, and whom she
could not have regarded as such more tenderly if they had been made
sisters by marriage.
----------------------------
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DISCIPLINE OF THE UNTEACHABLE.
Angus was restored safe to his home; but his return was melancholy
enough. He was blown over the Sound by a storm, and landed at the moment
that the funeral train who bore the bodies of Fergus’s two children were
winding up the rocks to the burial-place. The anxious father was
naturally possessed with the idea that this was the funeral of the child
he had left so ill; and he was confirmed in the supposition by seeing
none of his family on the beach to await his arrival. Kenneth and his
brothers were among the mourners, and Angus therefore found his wife and
the girls alone when, with a throbbing heart, he entered his own
dwelling. Ella met him with a calm but sad countenance, which, together
with the silent awe with which the children looked up to him, answered
but too plainly the question he would have asked. Little Jamie had died
a few hours before in his mother’s arms. The last words he spoke had
been to call for his father.
“O, why was I not here?” exclaimed the mourning parent, laying his cheek
to that of his boy, as if the cold body could be conscious of the
caress. “It must have been an evil spirit that decoyed me away.”
“Alas, then, your voyage has been in vain!” said Ella. “You have brought
no bread.”
Angus shook his head mournfully, and cast down the pouch of useless
money that came back as full as it went out. The scarcity extended
through all the neighbourhood, and no food was to be bought at any
price. Ella saw her husband’s look of despondency, and rallied. She
reminded him that they had a stock of meal, though a scanty one, and she
held out the hope, suggested by Ronald’s information, that a sloop would
soon arrive with food enough to afford a temporary supply to all the
inhabitants.
It had been agreed between Fergus and his sister that a constant watch
for this vessel should be kept from daybreak till dark by the elder
children of each family. Annie was now at the post in the absence of
Kenneth, and Ella tempted her husband out with her, to pronounce whether
the look-out was well chosen. She saw that his grief was too new to
allow him to receive the condolence of neighbours who might step in on
their return from the funeral. She was glad she had done so when she saw
Annie putting back the hair which the stormy wind blew over her face,
and evidently straining her sight to discern some object at sea. Angus
had his glass with him, and in the intervals of the driving mists, he
plainly perceived a sloop coming up from the south.
“Away with you, with me for your helper!” cried Ella. “We will be at sea
before any one knows what is coming; and then we shall escape
contention, and the sight of contention. And you, Annie, tell none but
your uncle and Kenneth where we are gone. If it should not be the right
sloop, it would be cruel to raise false hopes.”
“Besides, mother, the people would tear ye to pieces, or at least the
boat—they are grown so savage.”
“They would very likely fancy we were going to snatch their share,
instead of to receive a regular purchase. Farewell, my lass,” she
continued, as they reached the boat; “Kenneth will soon be with you, and
ye may give us a smile when we land, if yon be the vessel we take her
for.”
“But, O father, the squalls are so rough! I fear to let you go.”
“Never fear, Annie. The Flora knows the greeting of a summer squall. She
will win her way out hardly enough; but you will see her bounding back
as if she was racing with the gale.”
There were many loungers on the beach when Angus and Ella cleared out.
Some were invalids, who could not be kept within their cheerless homes
even by the chill and boisterous weather. Many were idlers; and all made
sport of what they thought the useless toil of going to sea at such a
time. Their jokes would have been painful and perhaps irritating to
Angus if he had not had reason to hope that relief was on the way to
himself and them.
“Did ye bring home such a cargo this morning that ye are tempted to try
your luck again?” cried one.
“Make haste!” exclaimed another, “or ye’ll scarcely find the shoal. It’s
a brave summer day for casting a net.”
“Or for angling,” observed a third. “Where are your lines, neighbour?
Nothing like a smooth sea for ladies’ fishing.”
“Ye must treat us each with a supper when you come back, Angus,” said a
fourth, “unless indeed the fishes should make a supper of you.”
“I trust there may be a supper for every one in Garveloch this night,”
observed Ella, as the final shout reached the rolling and pitching
vessel; and these cheering words were the last she spoke, as all her
husband’s attention and her own was required to direct their rough and
somewhat perilous course.
Never was such a commotion excited in Garveloch as upon the spread of
the tidings that a vessel had arrived at the quay with a certain
quantity of grain and an ample supply of pease. The eagle was startled
from her nest by the uproar. The more shrill grew the blast, the louder
rose the voices; the higher swelled the tide over the bar, the greater
was the eagerness to cross it as the shortest way to the quay. The men
sent their wives home for whatever little wealth they had to offer in
exchange, in case the food was to be purchased and not given, while they
themselves hastened to secure the point whence they might best bid or
entreat. Here a poor invalid, putting forth his utmost power to keep up
with his competitors, was jostled aside or thrown down by the passers
by. There a band of children were beginning a noisy rejoicing for they
scarcely knew what; some among them half-crying in the midst of their
shouting from hunger and pain, which would not be forgotten. The only
quiet people in the island were Angus’s family, and their ill-thriving
neighbours round the point.
When the Flora, dimly seen in the twilight, came bounding in as her
master had foretold, no one awaited her on the beach but those who had
watched the whole expedition, Fergus, Kenneth, and his sister. The
expected supply of meal was safe, and Fergus lost no time in conveying
it out of sight, and into a place of safety.
“I brought down the money, father,” said Kenneth, producing the pouch,
“that you might buy more at the quay, if you wish it, before it is all
gone.”
“No, my boy,” said Angus. “We have enough for the present, and I will
neither take what others want more than we, nor raise the price by
increasing the demand.”
The Murdochs and O’Rorys were the last to know what had happened, as
little was heard of the tumult beyond the point. They were extremely and
almost equally wretched, and were far from attempting to soften their
distresses by sympathy and neighbourly offices. Those who are most
heedless of adversity in prospect, do not usually bear it best when it
comes; and so it proved in the instance of both these families. Murdoch,
who, when he might have been prosperous, was too lazy to do more than
trust he should get through well enough, now cast all the blame of his
destitution on Dan’s assurances that it would be the easiest thing in
life to live, if he would only grow potatoes. Dan, who was content any
way when causes of discontent were only in prospect, forgot there was
such a thing as content when the natural consequences of his
recklessness came upon him. It had been a terrible day when the absolute
want of food had driven both to dig up their seed potatoes. Murdoch had
foresight enough to be appalled at the prospect of the long destitution
which this measure must cause. Dan laughed at him for supposing that
anything better could be done in a season so wet that every root would
rot in the ground instead of growing; but he did not the less grumble at
“the powers” for giving him nothing better to eat than half-rotten
roots, that afforded no more strength than his own puny infant had and
was losing day by day. Noreen often looked rueful with two black eyes,
and did not insist so vehemently as formerly on her Dan being “the
beautifullest husband in nature;” and as for the child, its best friends
could only hope it would follow Noreen’s former dangling “babbies,” and
be laid in peace under the sod.
The first news these neighbours had of the arrival of the vessel from
the station was from Kenneth, who goodnaturedly remembered to run and
give them the information in time to afford them a fair chance in the
scramble. Murdoch seized his staff and was off in an instant.
“Stay, neighbour,” cried Kenneth, who was not aware of the extent of
Murdoch’s poverty; “the buyers have the first chance you know. Better
not go empty-handed.”
Murdoch thought he was jeering, and shook his stick at him with a
gesture of passion, which Kenneth could not resent when he saw how the
old man’s limbs shook, and how vain were his attempts at unusual speed.
Dan jumped up at the news, snatched his baby, and gave it a toss which
was enough to shake its weak frame to pieces, seized upon Noreen for a
kiss in answer to the shriek with which she received the child, snatched
the pot in which the last batch of rotten potatoes was boiling, and
threw out its contents into the puddle beside the door, and ran off,
laughing at his wife’s lamentations for the only bit of food she had had
to put between her teeth this day. Kenneth now perceived that Dan could
bestir himself upon occasion; and indeed the Irishman’s glee was so
obstreperous, that it might have been supposed his mirth was owing to
his favourite “sperits,” if it had not been known that he had been long
without the means of procuring himself that indulgence.
Such a man’s mirth is easily turned to rage. On reaching the sloop,
which was fast emptying of its contents, Dan found that he stood a worse
chance of a supply than anybody in Garveloch, except Murdoch, who still
lagged behind. To come empty-handed and to come late was a double
disqualification; and to be kept at a distance by force put Dan into a
passion which was only equalled by his neighbour’s, when he also arrived
at the scene of action. It was the policy of the bystanders to turn
their rage upon each other. As soon as an opening appeared among the
group on the quay, through which the sloop might be approached, they
pushed the old man forward, and held Dan back, urging that a hearty
youth like him, and a stranger, would not surely force his way before an
old man, who had been born and bred in the place; but Dan kicked,
struggled, dealt his blows right and left, and at last sprang upon
Murdoch, snatched off his bonnet, and buffeted him about the face with
it.
“You graceless wretch!” exclaimed all who were at leisure to look on.
“Let him uncover gray hairs that helped to make them gray,” said
Murdoch, in a voice of forced calmness. “It was he that lured me to
poverty, and now let him glory in it.”
“It’s owing to your gray hairs I did not beat you blind this minute,”
cried Dan. “I’d have you keep a civil tongue in your head, if you’d have
your eyes stay there too.”
“I would peril my eyes to say it again,” cried the old man. “It was you
that lured me to poverty with saying that Ireland was the brightest and
merriest land under the sun, and the only country where a man may live
and be content without trouble.”
“By the holy poker, so it is, barring such reprobates as you are in it.”
“You told me that I spent my labour for nothing, and worse than nothing,
when I grew oats and barley. You told me that I might get three times as
much food out of the ground, by growing potatoes instead. You——”
“All true, by the saints, villain as you are to doubt my word! There’s
three times the victuals in an Irishman’s field, and three times the
childer in his cabin, and three times the people on the face of the
blessed land, that there is where the folks are so mighty high that they
must have bread.”
“And three times the number die,” said a voice near, “when a bad season
comes.”
“And what if they do?” cried Dan: “’tis a blessed land for all that,
with a golden sun to live under, and a green turf to lie under.”
“It’s a vile country,” cried Murdoch, emboldened by hope of support from
the bystanders. “Your children are as hungry as cannibals, and as naked
as savages. When the sun shines, you thank the powers and lie still in
your laziness——”
“There’s reason for that,” interrupted Dan. “There are so many to do the
work, we can’t settle who is to begin; and so we’re content to take no
trouble; and this is the most your Rob and Meg have learned of me.”
“And then when there comes a blank harvest, you fight over one another’s
graves.”
“Sure the powers forgive the sin,” cried Dan. “Craving stomachs drive to
blows, and then the priest is merciful.”
“More merciful than you are to one another when the fever comes, cruel
savages as you are! If your own mother took the fever, you would turn
her into a shed by the road side, and let her tend herself. You would go
quietly smoking your pipe past the very place where your own father lay
dying, and never speak a word or move a finger for him.”
“’Tis false as to not speaking a word. We pray for them in the fever day
and night; and many’s the mass I have vowed against I grow richer. The
fever is a judgment of Heaven, and where is the good of catching it if
we can help it? They that sent it will take care of them that have it,
and what is our care to theirs?”
“Shame! shame!” was the cry from all sides; and some who were on their
way home with a pan full of meal or a basket full of pease, stopped to
listen why.
“Shame! shame!” cried Dan, mimicking the shouters. “You just don’t know
what you’re talking about; for them that have the fever don’t cry
shame.”
“Not in their hearts?”
“Never a bit;—and don’t I know that had an uncle in the fever twice, and
moved him for fear we should fall down in it too? Didn’t he come
crawling out the first time when we were bringing a coffin and supposing
him dead, and did not he help the wail for himself before we saw him
among us? and would he have wailed in a joke, if he had cried ‘Shame!’
in his heart? and who such a judge as himself?”
“What happened the next time, Dan?”
“The next time ’twas his ghost in earnest that went to the burial; and a
pretty burial it was. O, there’s no place like old Ireland for care of
the dead! We beat you there entirely, you unnatural ruffians, that never
give so much as a howl to your nearest flesh and blood!”
The listeners thought it better and more natural to help the living than
to honour the dead. It did not seem to occur to either party that it was
possible to do both. The dispute now ran higher than ever, Murdoch
laying the blame on Dan of having made all his resources depend on a
favourable season, and Dan defending everything Irish, down to poverty,
famines, and pestilential fevers; the first a perpetual, and each of the
others a frequent evil. A fight was beginning, when order was restored
by an authority which might not be resisted. Mr. Mackenzie was on board,
having taken this opportunity of visiting several islands which were
under his charge as a magistrate. Seeing the uproar on the quay likely
to increase every moment, he stepped on shore, ordered two or three
stout men to part the combatants, and gave poor old Murdoch into the
care of Angus, who was standing by, desiring that his wants should be
supplied, and that he should be sent home out of the reach of
provocation from Dan. Angus looked kindly after the interests of his old
master, now so humbled as not to resist his help; and then sent a
neighbour with him to guard him from robbery on his way home. It might
have been thought that Rob would have been the fittest person to
undertake this natural duty; but Rob was nowhere to be seen. He had
appeared one of the first on the quay, and had bought a supply of food
with a little silver crucifix which he had contrived to steal from
Noreen, and which she had kept, through all her distresses, as a sort of
charm. Rob was now hidden in a snug corner, eating a portion of his
provision, and drinking the whiskey for which he had exchanged the rest.
Mr. Mackenzie accepted Angus’s invitation to spend the night under his
roof. He agreed all the more readily from perceiving that he could
gratify the feelings of the parents by taking part in the funeral of
their child the next day; by carrying his head to the grave, as the
expression is.
Mr. Mackenzie would know from Angus all that he could tell of Murdoch’s
history, and of what had happened to Dan since he settled in Garveloch.
The present state of the island was a subject which always made Angus
melancholy. The place was so changed, he said; there were many people
that you would scarcely believe to be the same as before their
distresses began.
“Such is always the case, Angus, where there are more people than can
live without jostling. People act upon opposite maxims according to
their circumstances. If there is abundance for every body, they are very
ready to cry, ‘The more the merrier;’ if the provision is scanty, they
mutter, ‘The fewer the better cheer,’ and each snatches what he can for
himself.”
Ella was at this moment distributing the evening meal. At these very
words she placed before her son Kenneth a barley-cake,—the first he had
tasted for some time,—with a smile which he well understood. He had
known something of the sufferings his mother had described as the
consequence of their mutual resolution not to touch the food on which
they usually subsisted; but, till this evening, he had supposed the
trial only begun, and felt almost ashamed to be released so soon. As he
broke his bread, a blush overspread his whole face; and when he next
looked up, he met Ella’s eyes filled with tears. Mr. Mackenzie observed,
but did not understand; and Angus himself would have found it difficult
to explain, though Kenneth’s altered looks caused a suspicion that he
had exercised more than his share of self-denial.
“I have seen so much of the snatching you speak of, and of defrauding
too,” said Angus, when all but himself and his guest had withdrawn, “as
to make me think we are now little better off than in cities, compared
with which I used to think our island a paradise. There has, I believe,
been crime enough committed within the circuit of a mile from this
place, to match with the alleys and cellars of a manufacturing city. The
malice of the people in their speech, the envy in their countenances,
the artifices in their management, the violence of their actions, are
new to this place and these people. I hoped to have kept my children out
of sight and hearing of these things for ever.”
“Never nourish such a hope, friend,” said Mr. Mackenzie, “unless you can
keep want out of sight and hearing too. Virtue and vice depend not on
place, but on circumstance. The rich do not steal in cities, any more
than the starving respect property in a retired island like this. If we
could increase our supply of necessaries and comforts in proportion to
the wants and reasonable desires of all, there would be little vice; and
if we did no more than rightly estimate and administer the resources we
already possess, we might destroy for ever the worst evils of which
society complains.”
“Surely, Sir, it might be done, if society were but animated with one
mind. It is in the power of few, I suppose, to increase the supply of
necessaries and comforts perpetually and very extensively; and no power
on earth can do it so as to keep pace with the constant demand for
them.”
“Certainly, if that demand be unchecked.”
“I was going to say, Sir, that it is in the power of every one to help
to equalize the demand. It seems to me, that whoever acts so as to
aggravate want, becomes answerable for the evils caused by want, whether
he injures his neighbour’s capital, or neglects to improve his own, or
increases a demand upon it which is already overwhelming.”
“You will be told, friend, if you preach your doctrine to unwilling
ears, that one set of vices would rage only the more fiercely for those
which result from want being moderated.”
“I know,” replied Angus, “that some are of opinion that there is always
a balance of vices in society; that, as some are extinguished, others
arise. This seems to me a fancy that nobody can prove or show to be
reasonable.”
“I am quite of your opinion, Angus; and if I were not, I am sure I
should find it difficult to assert that any set of vices could be more
to be dreaded than those which arise from extreme poverty. I would not
draw a comparison in favour of any acknowledged vice over any other; but
I can conceive of no more dreadful degradation of character, no more
abundant sources of misery, than arise out of the overpowering
temptations of want. You have seen instances, I doubt not, among the
lower, as I among the higher classes, of the regular process by which
honourable feelings are blunted, kindly affections embittered, piety
turned into blasphemy, and integrity into fraud and violence, as the
pressure of poverty becomes more and more galling.
“I have seen so much of this, Sir, as to make me believe that very few,
if any, pass through the trial of squalid and hopeless poverty with
healthy minds. Moreover, I believe such poverty to be the hot-bed of
_all_ vices. I shall never be convinced, unless I see it, that any vice
in existence will be aggravated by the comforts of life being extended
to all, or that there is any which is not encouraged by the feelings of
personal injury, of hatred towards their superiors, or recklessness
concerning their companions and themselves, which are excited among the
abject or ferocious poor.”
“Evil seems to be an admonition of Providence to men to change that part
of their conduct which brings on that evil,” observed Mr. Mackenzie;
“and happy are they who take the warning in time, or remember it for
their future guidance. Extensive fires warn men not to build houses of
wood; pestilence may teach cleanliness and ventilation; and having thus
given their lesson, these evils become rare, or cease. What, therefore,
may famine teach?”
“Care not to let eaters multiply beyond the ordinary supply of food. I
hope we people of Garveloch shall take the warning. I am sure it is
distinct enough.”
“Yes, Angus. You ate up the unusual supply of two abundant seasons. An
average one produced hardship. An unfavourable one has brought you to
the brink of a famine. This is Providence’s way of admonishing.”
----------------------------
CHAPTER IX.
TROUBLES NEVER COME ALONE.
The sufferings of the islanders were not yet over, as all foresaw who
were accustomed to watch the succession of events. The natural
consequence of a famine in former days was a plague; and it is still too
well known in Scotland and Ireland that sickness follows scarcity.
Garveloch went through the natural process. There never was such a
winter known there as that which succeeded the scarcity. Rheumatism
among the aged, consumption among the youthful, all the disorders of
infancy among the children, laid waste the habitations of many who
thought they had never known sorrow till now. Many a gray-haired matron,
who used to sit plying her distaff in the chimney-corner, and singing
old songs to the little ones playing about her, had been shaken by the
privations of the summer, and now lay groaning in the torments of the
disease which was soon to take her hence, although, with due care, so
vigorous a life might still have been preserved for a few years. Here, a
father who was anxious to be up and doing for his children, on the sea
or at the station, was in danger of coughing his life away if he faced
the wintry air, and fretted in idleness within his smoky cottage. There,
a mother who had hungered through many a day to feed her children, now
found that she had broken down her strength in the effort, and that she
must leave them to a care less tender than her own. In other cases, the
parent and her little ones seemed hastening together to another world,
and two or three of one family were buried in the same grave. The
mortality among the children was dreadful. The widow Cuthbert could
scarcely believe her own happiness when she saw all her little family
daily seated at the board in rosy health and gay spirits, when not a
neighbour had been exempt from loss. She would scarcely suffer her boys
out of her sight; and if accidentally parted from them, trembled lest
she should hear complaints or see traces of illness when she met them
again. There had been sickness in Ella’s family, but none died after
little Jamie. Ronald kept watch over them all. Many were the kind
presents, many the welcome indulgences he sent or carried to the sick
members of his sister’s and brother’s family this year. Katie needed no
such assistance. If she had, she would have freely accepted it; but
frequent inquiries and much friendly intercourse served quite as well to
show the regard these friends bore to each other.
The supplies of food were still so precarious as to make every body
anxious except those who could purchase a store. Now and then a boat
with provisions came from a distance, and the cod-fishing turned out
tolerably productive to those who had health and strength to pursue the
occupation. So much was wanted, however, for immediate consumption, that
business nearly stood still at the station. Kenneth had been recalled
thither when there seemed to be a prospect of employment for him; but he
had now made the last barrel that would be wanted before next season,
and began to be very melancholy. He sauntered along the pier, around
which there was no busy traffic; he lounged about the cooperage, taking
up first one tool and then another, and wondering when the hammer and
the saw would be heard there again. Many a time did he count the weeks
that must pass before he should be once more earning his maintenance,
and reckon how large was the debt to his uncle which he was incurring by
his present uselessness. Ronald could not succeed in making him cheerful
for a day together, or in inducing him to employ himself; and he began
to fear that either illness was creeping on the young man, or that his
fine spirit was broken by the anxiety he had undergone and the miseries
he had beheld. He would have sent him over to Ella, whose influence was
all-powerful with her son; but Ella had cares enough at home just now.
Having messages from Kenneth as frequently as usual, she was not more
than usually anxious concerning him.
Angus’s activity and cheerfulness never gave way. He ascribed their
power to his wife’s influence; while she found a never-failing support
to her energies when he was present. She owned to Katie how easily she
could give way to despondency when he was absent for days together, and
how she felt strong enough to do and bear anything when his boat came in
sight again. The fact was, they did owe to each other all they believed
they owed. There was a lofty spirit of trust in Ella, as animating to
her husband as his experience in life and devotion to his home were
supporting to her. Katie looked with a generous sympathy on the
enjoyment of a happiness of which she had been deprived, and wished no
more for herself than that she might be as secure from trials with her
children as she believed Angus and Ella to be. No sorrows could, she
told Ella, be inflicted by the children of such parents—by children so
brought up as theirs. Ella never admitted this assurance without
reservation; for she knew too much of human life to expect that any one
of its blessings should be enjoyed for ever without alloy.
It was during the absence of her husband on one of his trading
excursions that the children came crowding round the door, to ask Ella
to come and listen to the new music some gentlemen in fine clothes were
playing as they went up the pass. Katie was brought out by her little
people at the same moment. The children climbed the height to get
another view of the strangers, and their mothers followed. A recruiting
party was ascending between the rocks at the same moment that more
companies than one were leaving the burying-ground. The children clapped
their hands and began to dance to the booming drum and the shrill fife;
but Ella immediately stopped them.
“Don’t ye mark,” she said, “there’s Rob and Meg Murdoch coming down the
hill? Would ye like to see anybody dancing in your sight when you have
just laid your father’s head in the ground?”
“I saw Rob drunk this very morn, mother, and he danced as if his father
had been there looking on.”
“If Rob behaves as if he had no feeling, that is no reason why you
should seem to think he has none.”
“Look at Meg!” cried another child. “She is laughing as if it was a
bridal instead of a funeral.”
Ella was shocked, though not much surprised, to see Meg run forward to
meet the soldiers, as if they were old acquaintance, and linger behind
with them when her party, including her stupid brother, had cracked
their joke and passed on. It occurred to her that Meg’s brother-in-law
might be among the soldiers and she said so by way of excuse; but
immediately called the children down from the height, unwilling that
such an example of unfeeling levity should remain before their eyes.
They were naturally somewhat unwilling to lose sight of the scarlet
coats, having never beheld any before.
“Ye will see such often enough, now, my dears,” said their mother,
sighing. “These people know how to choose their time. The fife is ever
merriest when the heart’s music is hushed; and whenever people are at
their wit’s end with want and sorrow, the red-coats come and carry away
such as are glad to drown thought and seek change instead of waiting for
it.”
“Yes, indeed,” replied Katie: “a funeral at the top of the hill, and a
recruiting party going to meet it, is natural enough; and so it would
have been to see lads made to drink in the king’s name when their
stomachs were craving food. I wondered we had had no recruiting before;
for the worse the times, the more are ready to leave home behind them,
and go and serve the king.”
The children understood nothing of all this but that they should see the
soldiers again, which indeed was the point which most concerned them at
their age. They listened long for the drum—they took turns as scouts to
watch which way the soldiers went, and to give notice if they should
approach. Now they were traced up to Duff’s farm, heard to play before
the door, and seen to be invited in. After a while, they proceeded with
a few followers at their heels, by a roundabout way to the Murdochs’
cove. Meg was their guide, walking in front, arm-in-arm with a soldier—a
fashion of marching to which it was supposed she had been just drilled.
The music being heard approaching behind the rocks, the children
scampered off to meet it; and after a considerable time, during which
shouts arose which made the mothers wish their boys at home again, the
children appeared as the advanced guard of the procession, waving their
bonnets, and pretending to march like the grand folks behind them. It
was soon apparent that all present were not as happy as they. Meg indeed
laughed so as to be heard above the music, and one or two raw lads
looked full of pride and heroism, and took off their bonnets from time
to time to look at the gay ribbons with which they were ornamented; but
all the bustle and noise—nothing remarkable perhaps in an English city,
but very astonishing in Garveloch—could not call off attention from a
woman’s rage, or drown the screams of a woman’s scolding voice. The
vixen was Noreen; and if ever a vixen had an excuse for her violence, it
was she at this moment; for Dan, the husband for whom she had, as she
declared, left the beautifullest home of the beautifullest country in
the world—Dan, whom she had defended through thick and thin, for having
“kilt” her and “murthered” her “babbies,”—Dan, who had said so often
that a man needed nothing in life more than a cabin and a potato-ground,
and an “iligant” wife, had enlisted, and was going to leave her and her
last remaining child to starve. Had not he a cabin? she wanted to know;
and had not he a potato-ground, as good as any at Rathmullin? and had
not he called her his “iligant Noreen” before the fancy came across him
to break her heart?
Since it did not please Dan to answer her questions, no one else was
bound to do so. It was difficult to say whether he was drunk or not. He
kissed his wife in return for her cuffs, and behaved like a madman; but
such was his way when he was roused to mirth.
Shocked at the sight, Ella was about to withdraw, when Katie expressed
her wonder whether this scene was to be acted in all the islands. She
had connexions in more than one, and began to be anxious lest some of
them should be tempted to go abroad. Ella therefore accosted the
sergeant, a goodnatured-looking man, and asked if his recruiting was
likely to be prosperous among the islands? He found the people very
loyal, he replied, and many fine young men ready to serve their king and
country. He should visit every place in the district in turn, and had
already made a pretty wide circuit. He had this morning come from Islay.
“You would scarce enlist many there,” observed Ella. “A few months ago
would have been your best time for Islay; now the fishery begins to open
a prospect again.”
“I beg your pardon, madam; we have been particularly successful in
Islay.” And he pulled out a list of names, displayed it hastily, and was
about to put it up again, when Katie snatched it, and after the first
glance looked at her friend with such a gaze of anguish as at once told
Ella the truth.
“Is Kenneth’s name there?” she asked, in a low, hoarse voice.
“That young man,” said the sergeant, who had been speaking to one of his
people, and did not perceive Ella’s emotion, “that young man to whose
name you point—and a very fine youth he is, six feet and half an
inch—belongs to this place. He is to come over this afternoon to take
leave of his family, and proceeds with me in the morning.”
Ella retreated hastily towards her own door; she turned round on
reaching the threshold, and motioned to Katie not to follow her; but
Katie would not be repulsed. With streaming eyes she attempted to make
her way by gentle force. Ella recovered her power of speech.
“Leave me, Katie. I can speak to no one but Angus. O Angus! why are you
away? O! how shall I tell the news when he comes back?”
When Katie had led her friend into the inner room, she left her to her
grief, thinking that the best kindness was to keep watch that no one
intruded. The widow felt as if her own heart was bursting when audible
tokens once or twice reached her of the fearful conflict which rent the
mother’s heart. In the fervour of her love and compassion for Ella, she
was full of indignation against him who had caused all this misery; and
when this indignation had reached its highest pitch, the latch of the
door was uplifted, and Kenneth stood before her. His pale countenance,
with its expression of mournful determination, might have disarmed her
anger at a moment of less excitement; but Katie would not bestow on him
a second glance or a greeting.
“Where is my mother?” he inquired. “My father, I find, is absent.”
“Seek her yourself,” replied Katie, pointing to the chamber. “If you did
not fear to wring her heart, you will scarce shrink from seeing her
grief.”
“She knows then!” said Kenneth. “I would fain have told her myself——”
“You need not covet the task,” replied Katie, her features working
convulsively. “You would have cast yourself into the sea before now if
you had seen her take the tidings.” And the widow gave vent to what was
boiling in her mind.
Kenneth did not at first interrupt her; and when he attempted
explanation, was not allowed to proceed. Katie had never before been so
unreasonable as now on her friend’s behalf.
“Make way!” said Kenneth, at length, in strong emotion. “My mother will
hear me.”
Ella at this moment threw open the door of the chamber, and stood, still
trembling but erect, and spoke calmly.
“Katie!” she said, “I thought you had known Kenneth and me better. He
has ever been dutiful: why then condemn him unheard? I have told you my
confidence in him; and is it kind, then, to make a mockery of my trust?”
Katie’s anger was now all turned against herself. She cast an imploring
look at them both, and rushed out of the house before they could detain
her.
“Bless you, mother, for trusting me!” cried Kenneth.
“But O, my boy, what a sore trial to my trust! What has possessed ye,
Kenneth, that ye must leave us? When we have suffered together so long,
and were beginning to hope together again, what could make ye plunge us
into a new trouble?”
“It was hastily done, mother, but done for the best, and not from
discontent with home, or a love of wandering. I could not see so clearly
as you that times are about to mend. I could not endure to be a burden
to uncle Ronald, and my heart was sick with hoping and hoping, and
finding nothing to do after all. Then there are so many brothers growing
up to fill my place; and my going will make room for one of them at the
station. And then there was the bounty too. I thought I should have had
pleasure, mother, in giving you the first purse of money I ever had; but
nothing will give me any pleasure again if you think I have been
wilfully wrong.”
“Not wilfully wrong, Kenneth; I never thought you could be that—not even
in the first moment when——”
She could not proceed. Her son continued:
“I would fain hear ye say more, mother. O, can ye tell me that you think
me right?”
“Do not let it weigh with you, my son, whether I think you judged
rightly or not. You felt dutifully and kindly, and you have as much
right to judge of your duty as I. You shall never want my blessing nor
your father’s. It is to your wish to do your duty that we give our
blessing; and it will therefore follow you over the world.”
Kenneth had much to say on duty to one’s country, and on the question
who could best be spared to serve in her armies; in the pursuit of which
argument he brought the proof round to himself. His mother, feeling that
the deed could not be undone, encouraged his feelings of patriotism,
sanctioned his desire to fulfil a public duty, and contented herself
with the silence of dissent when she thought him mistaken.
“Mother,” cried Kenneth, at length, bursting into tears, “you make a
child of me by treating me like a man. I knew you would be patient, I
knew you would be indulgent, but I scarcely hoped that even you could so
soon, so very soon, give me the rights I have been so hasty to claim. If
you had blamed me, if you had spoken with authority, I could have
commanded myself better when it comes to the last.”
“We are all weak,” murmured Ella, melting also into tears. “God forbid
we should judge one another! We are least of all fit to do so when our
griefs are tossing so as to wreck our judgments. Authority, Kenneth! No;
this is not the time for me to use it. If it were merely whether ye
should cross to Islay to-day or to-morrow, I might have spoken unawares
with authority; but when the question is, what your duty in life is to
be, and when that question is already decided, all that a mother can do
is to give her blessing.”
The many dreary hours of this night were too few for what had to be said
and done by the elder members of this mourning family. Soon after
daybreak Angus returned; so that Kenneth had not the additional misery
of departing in uncertainty whether he should be followed by his
father’s blessing. Angus had in his young days been sent abroad by a
spirit of adventure; so that he was even better prepared than Ella to
sympathise in Kenneth’s feelings and convictions. He commanded himself
when the event was first told him; accompanied his son to a considerable
distance; and from the hour of his return spoke to none but Ella of the
blank the wanderer’s absence caused, or of the anxiety with which he
watched for tidings of the war.
----------------------------
CHAPTER X.
CONCLUSION.
A recruiting party was, as Ella had foretold, a frequent sight in
Garveloch as long as the distress lasted; and one of the present
consequences to her and her husband of the favourable season which
followed was, that the red-coats ceased to appear, and the hated sound
of the drum and fife to make them start. As soon as the fishery was
resumed, there was work enough for all who remained on the island, and
therefore little encouragement to serve the king out of his own
dominions. News of Kenneth came very rarely—about as often as rejoicings
for a victory. Some of Angus’s neighbours were wont to come and tell him
of such events as if they were certain of bringing welcome news,
provided he knew that his son was safe. Fergus’s lads, especially, who
regretted that they were too young to enlist at the same time with
Kenneth, seemed disposed to take the first opportunity of doing so that
might occur, and to have no doubt that the best service they could
render to their island was to leave it.
“How can you suppose,” said Angus to them one day, “that I can rejoice
in the slaughter you tell me of? How can you imagine it can give me
pleasure to look forward to our strong youths leaving our shores?”
“I thought, uncle,” said one—“I am sure I heard somebody say you
believed that we wanted thinning, and that war must therefore be a very
good thing.”
“I said so,” said Captain Forbes, who stood within hearing. “You think,
Angus, that there are too many people for the supply of food; and
therefore the more that die, the better cheer there is for those who
remain. Did you not tell Mr. Mackenzie so?”
“Better say at once, sir, that we ought to pray for a pestilence. Better
send for our enemies to slaughter us as fast as they can, sparing only a
proper number to enjoy what we leave behind.”
“But I am sure you used to complain of our numbers, Angus, and ascribe
our distress to them.”
“But it does not follow, sir, that I would have them removed by
violence. All I wish is, that society should be as happy as it can be
made; and it would be somewhat strange to inflict the extremest misery
with this view. I never had such a thought, I assure you, as of running
into a greater evil to avoid a lesser.”
“Many people, however, think occasional wars and plagues very good
things to keep down the population.”
“So I have heard, but I think very differently. The one circumstance
which, above all others, cheers me respecting the state of society, is
that population is, to a considerable extent, checked by better means
than formerly. There are fewer lives lost by war, plagues, and the
accidents of common life, while the increase of population is not in
proportion to the removal of these dreadful checks.”
“How do you account for this?”
“Marriage is less general, and takes place at a later age—at least among
the middling classes, whose example will, I trust, be soon followed by
their poorer neighbours. Whenever any one class gains a clear
understanding of the reasons why a thing has been, and why it should no
longer be, there is room for hope that other classes will in time enter
into their views, and act accordingly. There is hope that governments
will in time cease to make war and encourage population,—that is, to
call people into existence for the purpose of cutting one another’s
throat. There is hope that the poor will in time be more eager to
maintain than to multiply their families; and then, lads, there will be
no more drumming and fifing in Garveloch, and no need to wander abroad
in search of danger and death, in order to show patriotism.”
“When will that be, uncle?”
“I am no prophet; but I will venture to prophesy that it will happen
somewhere between the third and the thirty-thousandth generation from
the present—that is, that it will take place, but not yet.”
“You have said a great deal,” observed the captain, “about the reasons
why there should no longer be want; but you slipped quietly enough over
the reason why there has ever been want.”
“It was not my intention to do so,” said Angus, smiling, “for it appears
very clear to me. It was growing need which urged men towards all the
improvements which have ever taken place. The appropriation and security
of property, improvements in government, art, and sciences—in short, all
the institutions of society took their beginning from the growing wants
of men; and those growing wants were caused, of course, by increase of
numbers. This is quite enough to satisfy us that the principle of
increase is a good one; while, if we see that our institutions can now
be preserved and improved under other and higher kinds of stimulus, it
is time that we were controlling the principle within the bounds of
reason and happiness.”
“It is done for us when we do not look to it ourselves,” the captain
replied, sighing as he cast a glance around him. “How full is the
burying-ground,—how empty are the houses compared with what they were
but a few months ago! It reminds me of some of the places in the east,
where we were ordered to march in the rear of the plague. They will soon
be filled again, if the fishery does well. That is a comfort.”
“And it reminds me that I have no time to lose,” observed Angus. “Will
you be my passenger to the station, captain?”
Nobody had time to lose this season in the island, but those who were
willing to run the risk of future scarcity. Labour was in great request,
and, of course, well paid. Angus found ample employment for his crane,
and received very good interest for the capital laid out upon it. His
younger sons worked it with as much zeal as Kenneth had shown in its
construction; but their father, proud as he was of them, thought in his
inmost heart that no other of his flourishing tribe equalled the eldest,
or could make up for his loss; and the haunting dream of the night, the
favourite vision of the day, was of Kenneth’s return, to leave his
native land no more. This was Angus’s meditation while plying the oar,
and this his theme in his own chimney corner. It was much to hear of
Kenneth’s honour and welfare, but while no hope of peace came with the
tidings, they were not perfectly satisfying.
The only person to whom the improvement in the times brought any trouble
was the widow Cuthbert. Her former lovers—not Ronald, but those who had
broken off acquaintance with her when her young family seemed a dead
weight in the scale against her own charms—now returned, and were more
earnest than ever in their suit. Katie had discretion enough to be aware
that the only respect in which she had become a more desirable match
than before was in the growth of her boys, whose labour might soon be a
little fortune to her, if she chose so to employ it. She was therefore
far from being flattered at becoming so much in request, and honoured
and valued the disinterested friendship of Ronald more than ever.
The present time, even with the drawback of Kenneth’s absence, was the
happiest period of Ronald’s life. He made his little home at the station
sociable and comfortable, by gathering his nephews and nieces about him;
and his visits to Garveloch became more frequent and more welcome
continually when his prosperous business allowed him leisure for the
trip. Fergus, weighed down with care, had grown old before his time; and
to Ronald’s assistance it was owing that his family preserved their
respectability till the lads were able to take on themselves a part of
the charge which had been too heavy for their father.
Ella was the last of the family to show the marks of change. Her mind
and heart were as remarkable for their freshness in age as they had been
for their dignity in youth. Inured to early exertion and hardship, she
was equal to all calls upon her energies of body and spirit. She was
still seen, as occasion required, among the rocks, or on the sea, or
administering her affairs at home. She was never known to plead
infirmity, or to need forbearance, or to disappoint expectation. She had
all she wanted in her husband’s devotion to her and to his home, and she
distributed benefits untold from the rich treasury of her warm
affections. She had, from childhood, filled a station of authority, and
had never abused her power, but made it the means of living for others.
Her power increased with every year of her life, and with it grew her
scrupulous watchfulness over its exercise, till the same open heart,
penetrating eye, and ready hand, which had once made her the sufficient
dependence of her orphan brothers, gave her an extensive influence over
the weal and woe of Garveloch.
_Summary of Principles illustrated in this volume._
The increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of
subsistence.
Since successive portions of capital yield a less and less return, and
the human species produce at a constantly accelerated rate, there is a
perpetual tendency in population to press upon the means of subsistence.
The ultimate checks by which population is kept down to the level of the
means of subsistence are vice and misery.
Since the ends of life are virtue and happiness, these checks ought to
be superseded by the milder methods which exist within man’s reach.
These evils may be delayed by promoting the increase of capital, and
superseded by restraining the increase of population.
Towards the one object, a part of society may do a little; towards the
other, all may do much.
By rendering property secure, expenditure frugal, and production easy,
society may promote the growth of capital.
By bringing no more children into the world than there is a subsistence
provided for, society may preserve itself from the miseries of want. In
other words, the timely use of the mild preventive check may avert the
horrors of any positive check.
The preventive check becomes more, and the positive checks less
powerful, as society advances.
The positive checks, having performed their office in stimulating the
human faculties and originating social institutions, must be wholly
superseded by the preventive check before society can attain its
ultimate aim—the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, STAMFORD-STREET.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
There are many instances of absent punctuation. Where there is obviously
room for the missing character in the printed text, we assume that it
was present when printed, and have restored it; likewise, at paragraphs’
end.
Demerara: Mr[.] | (28.20), respects[.] (71.33), time. (136.2)
Ella of Garveloch:
Weal and Woe in Garveloch: be[.] (70.26), woman. (90.2)
Other errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected,
and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the
original. Given the independent pagination of the original, these are
divided by volume.
Demerara
13.7 [‘/“]What odd, disagreeable people!” Replaced.
33.2 if you ge[t] your liberty.” Restored.
33.4 straight to the poin[t]. Restored.
40.32 [‘/“]What luxury!” he exclaimed, Replaced.
49.19 discontented with her con[d]ition Inserted.
53.33 when I say where they are.[”] Added.
90.27 but——[”] Added.
92.4 In such a ca[s]e, Restored.
95.33 they are so little valuable,[’/”] Replaced.
98.21 go through the transition?[’/”] Replaced.
140.5 was kept [i]n the housekeeper’s room Restored.
Ella of Garveloch
26.9 [“]To relieve Ella Removed.
28.30 rather than move.[”] Added.
42.27 I hinde[r] our having any words Restored.
85.1 [‘/“]Is nothing the matter?” Replaced.
135.5 I am to have a commis[s]ion Inserted.
Weal and Woe in Garveloch
13.20 the unglazed window.[”] Removed.
109.1 she [she ]spoke Repeated.