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WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS
AND OF SCOTLAND.
HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.
WITH A GLOSSARY.
REVISED BY
ALEXANDER LEIGHTON
ONE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS.
VOL. XII.
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
1884.
CONTENTS
THE SCOTTISH HUNTERS OF HUDSON'S BAY, _(HUGH MILLER)_
THE PROFESSOR'S TALES, _(PROFESSOR THOMAS GILLESPIE)_
THE WEDDING
MIKE MAXWELL AND THE GRETNA GREEN LOVERS, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_
REUBEN PURVES; OR, THE SPECULATOR, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_
THE SEA-STORM, _(OLIVER RICHARDSON)_
THE HEIR OF INSHANNOCK, _(JAMES MAIDMENT)_
THE MOSSTROOPER, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_
THE FORGER, _(ALEXANDER CAMPBELL)_
THE SURGEON'S TALES, _(ALEXANDER LEIGHTON)_
THE THREE LETTERS
THE GLASS BACK
WE'LL HAVE ANOTHER, _(JOHN MACKAY WILSON)_
THE SCOTTISH VETERAN, _(JOHN HOWELL)_
THE WHITE WOMAN OF TARRAS, _(PATRICK MAXWELL)_
WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.
THE SCOTTISH HUNTERS OF HUDSON'S BAY.
The gloom of a boisterous winter evening was settling over one of the
wild, inhospitable tracts which lie to the north of the St Lawrence. The
earth, far as the eye could reach, was covered, to the depth of many
feet, by a continuous sheet of frozen snow; over which the bellying
clouds, heavily charged with the materials of a fresh storm, hung in
terrible array, fold beyond fold, as they descended on every side to
mingle with the distant horizon. On the one hand, a frozen lake, deeply
buried, like all the rest of the landscape, stretched its flat, unvaried
surface for leagues along the waste; on the other, a winding shore,
covered with stunted trees and bushes, alternately advanced into the
level, in the form of low, long promontories, or retired into little
hollow bays, edged with rock, and overhung by thickets of pine. All was
sublimely wild and desolate. The piercing north wind went whistling in
sudden gusts along the frozen surface of the lake, dashing against each
other the stiff, brittle branches of the underwood, and shaking off
their icicles, or whirling the lighter snow into huge columns, that ever
and anon went stalking along the waste like giants, and seemed at times
to thrust their foreheads into the very clouds. Not a single human
habitation--not so much as the wigwam of an Indian, or aught that could
give evidence of even the occasional visits of man--could be seen in
the whole frozen circle, from the centre to the horizon. All seemed
alike uninhabitable and uninhabited--a dreary unpeopled desert, the
undisputed domain of solitude and winter.
And yet, on this dismal evening, the landscape was enlivened by two
human figures. They were mounted on a rude sledge, drawn by four large
dogs, that now, as the evening began to darken, were urging their way at
full speed across one of the wider bays of the lake. The keen,
penetrating wind blew right ahead, so intensely chill that it felt to
the naked hand like a stream of ice; and the travellers, who were
seated, with their backs to the blast, on the front part of the car, and
who from time to time half turned their heads to direct the course of
the dogs, drew closer and closer together as they felt their limbs
stiffening, and a drowsy torpor stealing over all their faculties, under
the deadening influence of the cold. They were dressed from head to foot
in the skins of wild animals, with hoods, like those worn by the
Esquimaux, projecting over their faces, and long strips of some thick,
coarse fur wrapped in a spiral fashion round their limbs. One of them--a
robust, dark-complexioned young man, rather above the middle size--had
an Indian blanket bound round his shoulders; the other--who, though tall
and well-made, was of a rather slighter form, and much less deeply
bronzed by the climate--was closely enveloped in the folds of a Scottish
plaid.
"I am afraid, Sandy, it's all over with us," said Innes Cameron, the
fairer and handsomer of the two; "I have been dead asleep for the last
ten minutes--ah, me! and dreaming of Scotland, too, and of one I shall
never, never see more. Do you think there can be any chance of our yet
reaching the log-house?"
"I have been more than half asleep, too," said Sandy Munro, the more
robust traveller, "and my feet are ice to the ankles; but, if we can
hold out for barely one quarter-of-an-hour longer, we are safe. Pine
Creek Point is quite at hand--see how it stretches black across the snow
yonder, not four hundred yards away; and, hearken! you may hear the wind
whistling through the branches. There is a little bay beyond it, and the
log-house is at the bottom of the bay. Just strive and keep up for a few
minutes longer, Innes, and we shall get over this night with all the
rest."
The sledge reached the promontory, and entered the wood. It was thick
and dark; and there was a rustling and crackling on every side, as the
dogs went bounding among the underwood--their ears and tails erected,
and opening from time to time in quick, sharp barkings, sure indications
that they deemed themselves near the close of their journey. The trees
began to open; and, descending an abrupt ice declivity, the travellers
found themselves on the edge of a narrow creek, that went winding into
the interior, between steep banks laden with huge piles of snow, which,
hollowed by the blast into a thousand fantastic forms, hung bellying
over the level. A log-house, buried half-way to the eaves in front, and
overtopped by an immense wreath behind--resembling some hapless vessel
in the act of foundering--occupied an inflection of the bank opposite
the promontory; and in a few minutes the travellers had crossed the
creek, and stood fronting the door.
"Ah, no kindly smoke comes frae the lum, Innes," said Sandy, leaping out
of the car; "all dark, too, as midnight at Yule; but we maun just bestir
ourselves, and get up a blaze. Do exert yourself, my bonny man, or we
shall perish yet. Unfasten the dogs, and be sure you hang up the harness
out of their reach, or the puir hungry wratches will eat it up, every
snap, afore morning. Unfasten the door, too, and get out our driest
skins and driest tinder; and I, meanwhile, shall provide you with
brushwood aneugh to keep up a bonfire till morning."
He seized an axe, and began to ply lustily among the underwood; while
his neighbour unharnessed the dogs, and, clearing the door, entered the
log-house, which soon began to throw up a thick steam through the snow.
We shall take the liberty of following him. The apartment was about ten
feet square; the walls formed of undressed logs, and the roof of
shingles. The snow peeped in a hundred different places through the
interstices; and a multitude of huge icicles, the effects of a late
partial thaw, hung half-way down from the ceiling to the floor, and now
glistened in the light, as the flames rose gaily on the hearth. The dogs
were whining and pawing in a corner, impatient for their evening repast.
In a few minutes Sandy had half-filled the apartment with brushwood, and
then set himself to assist his companion, who seemed but indifferently
skilled in the culinary art, in preparing supper, which consisted mostly
of frozen fish and biscuit, relished by a dram of excellent rum. It was
soon smoking on the floor, and, with the assistance of the dogs, soon
discussed; and the two fur-gatherers sat indulging in the genial heat,
with the long dark evening before them, and neither of them in the least
disposed to retire to the bed of brushwood and skins which they had
formed on the floor, immediately behind them.
"We are strange, changeable creatures," said Sandy--"the bairn sticks to
us a' life lang; and, if we dinna laugh, and cry just in the ae breath,
it's no that the feelings dinna vary, but that the pride o' consistency
winna always let us show what we feel. Little mair nor an hour ago, we
were baith perishin in the bitter cauld, half resigned to die, that we
might escape frae our misery, and noo here we are as happy as if there
were no such things as death or hardship i' the warld. Man, what a bonny
fire! I could maist forget that I was a puir Hudson's Bay fur-gatherer,
and that kindly Scotland was four thousand miles awa."
"What," said his companion, "could have induced a steady, sensible
fellow like you, Sandy, to indenture with the company? 'Tis easy to
divine what brought most of our comrades here--they resemble David's
associates in the Cave of Adullam; but you, who could have been neither
in debt nor distress, and who are always so much the reverse of
discontented--I could never guess what brought you. Come, now, let us
have your story; the night is long and tedious, and I know not how we
could pass it to better purpose."
"But I do," replied Sandy. "My story is nae story ava. I am but a rude
man amang rude men like mysel; but you, Innes, what could hae brought
you here? You are a gentleman and a scholar, though ye hae but sma'
skill, maybe, in niffering brandy and glass beads for the skins o'
foumarts; and your story, no a vera gay one, I fear, will hae a' the
interest o' an auld ballad. It's but fair, however, that ye should hae
mine, such as it is, first. But draw just a wee bittie out o' the
draught; for there's a cauld, bitter wind soughin ben frae the door--and
only hear how the storm rages arout!
"There's a curious prejudice," continued Sandy, "among our country
folks--and, I suppose, among the folks o' every other country
besides--against some particular handicrafts. It's foolish in maist
cases. The souters o' Selkirk were gallant fellows; and, had a' our
Scottish knights fought half as weel at Flodden, our country would hae
lost a battle less; and yet ye canna but ken how our auld poets o' the
time--Dunbar, and Kennedy, and Davie Lindsay--ridicule the puir souters.
They say that, once on a time, the vera deil himsel wadna keep company
wi' ane o' them, till he had first got the puir man to wash himsel. Now,
the prejudice against tailors is hardly less strong in our ain days; and
yet a tailor may be a stalwart fellow, and bear a manly heart. I'm no
sure, had it no been for this prejudice, that I would now hae been a
fur-gatherer on the shores o' Hudson's Bay."
"Would to heaven," exclaimed his companion, interrupting him, "that I
had been bred a tailor! I'm mistaken if any such prejudice would have
sent me across the Atlantic."
"We can be a' wise enough on our neebor's weaknesses, Innes," said
Sandy; "but to the story.
"I come frae a seaport town in the north o' Scotland, no twenty miles
frae Inverness, your ain bonny half-Hieland, half-Lowland home. My
father, who had married late in life, was an old grey-headed man from
the time I first remember him. He had a sma' family; and, in his anxiety
to see us a' doing for oursels, I was apprenticed to a tailor in my
tenth year. Weel do I mind wi' what a disconsolate feeling I left the
twa cows I used to herd on a bonny brae-side speckled wi' gowans and
buttercups, to be crumpled down on the corner o' a board hardly bigger
than an apron, amang shreds and patches o' a' the colours o' the
rainbow, wi' an outlook through a dusty window on the side wa's o' an
auld warehouse. And then my comrades were such queer fallows, fu o' a
droll, little, wee sort o' conceit, that could ride on the neck o' a new
button, and a warld o' fashious bits o' tricks, naething sae guid as the
tricks o' a jackanapes, but every grain as wicked; and aften hae they
played them aff on the puir simple laddie. There are nane o' our
craftsfolks, Innes, but hae some peculiarity to mark them that grows up
oot o' their profession; and there's nae class mair marked than the
class I belong to."
"I have read Lamb on the Melancholy of Tailors," said Innes, "and
remember laughing heartily at the quaint humour of some of his remarks;
but I never wasted a thought on the subject after laying him down."
"Ah, Lamb, wi' a' his bonny, bairn-like humour and simplicity," said
Sandy, "is but a Cockney feelosopher after a', and kent naething o' the
matter. Melancholy o' tailors, forsooth! Why, man, a Hieland tailor is
aye the heartiest cock, and has aye the maist auld stories i' the
parish. But I maun gie you the feelosophy o' the thing at some ither
time.--I got on but ill wi' my companions," continued Sandy; "and the
royitous laddies outside used to jibe me wi' no being a man sax years
afore I ceased being a boy. Is it no hard that tailors should lose the
reputation o' manhood through a stupid misconception o' the sense o' an
auld-warld author? He tells us the tailor canna mak a man, just in the
spirit that Burns tells us a king canna mak an honest man. And, instead
o' the pith o' the remark being brought to bear on the beau and the
coxcomb, wha never separate the human creature frae his dress, it's
brought, oot o' sheer misapprehension, to bear against the puir
artisan."
"I see, Sandy," said Innes, with a smile, "you are still influenced by
_l'esprit de corps_. If you once get back to Scotland, you will take to
your old trade, and die a master tailor."
"I wish to goodness I were there to try!" replied Sandy. "But the story
lags wofully. I got on as I best could--longing sadly, i' the lang bonny
days o' simmer, to be oot amang the rocks o' the Sutors, or on the sea,
and in winter, thinking o' the Bay o' Udoll, wi' its wild ducks and its
swans, and o' the gran fun I could hae amang them wi' my auld
pistol--whan my master employed an auld ae-legged sodger to work wi' him
as a journeyman. He was a real fine fellow, save that he liked the drap
drink a wee owre weel, maybe; and he had wandered owre half the warld.
He had been in Egypt wi' Abercromby, and at Corunna wi' Moore, and o'er
a' Spain and at Waterloo wi' Wellington, and in mony a land and in mony
a fight besides; and noo he had come hame wi' a snug pension, and a
budget o' first-rate fine stories, that made the ears tingle and the
heart beat higher, to live and die amang his freends. Oh, the delight I
hae taen in that man's company! Why, Innes, at pension time, though I
never cared muckle for drink for its ain sake, I hae listened to his
stories i' the public-house till I hae felt my head spinnin round like a
tap, and my feet hae barely saired to carry me hame. I hae charged
Bonaparte's Invincibles wi' him, fifty and fifty times, and helped him
to carry aff Moore frae beside the thorn bush where he fell, and scaled
wi' him the breach at St Sebastian; and, in short, sae filled was I wi'
the spirit o' the sodger, that, had the wars no been owre, I would hae
broken my indentures, and gane awa to break heads and see foreign
countries. As it was, however, I learned to like my employment ten times
waur nor ever, and to break a head, noo and then, amang the town
prentices. Spite o' my close, in-door employment, I had grown stalwart
and strong; and I mind, on ae occasion, beating twa young fallows who
had twitted me on being but a _ninth_. Weel, the term o' my
apprenticeship cam till an end at last; and, flingin awa my thimble wi'
a jerk, and sendin my needle after it like an arrow, I determined on
seeing the warld. My crony, the auld veteran, advised me to enter the
army. I was formed baith in mind and body, he said, for a sodger; and if
I took but care--a thing he never could do himsel--I micht dee a
serjeant. But whatever love I micht hae for a guid fecht, I had nane for
the parade, and my thorough dread and detestation o' the halberds
o'er-mastered ony little ambition I micht hae indulged in when I dreamed
o' a battle. I thocht o' a voyage to Greenland--o' gangin a-sodgerin wi'
Lord Byron to Greece--o' emigratin to New South Wales or the Cape--o'
turnin a farmer in the backwoods--o' indenturin for a Jamaica
over-seer--o' goin oot to Mexica for a miner--ay, and o' fifty ither
plans besides--whan an adverteesement o' the Hudson's Bay Company caught
my notice, and determined me at once. I needna tell ye what the
directors promised to active young men: a paradise o' a country to live
in--the fun o' huntin and fishin frae Monday to Saturday nicht for our
only wark--and pocketfus o' money for our pay. I blessed my stars, and
closed wi' the agent at once. And now, here I am, Innes, in the seventh
year o' my service, no that meikle disposed to contemn my auld
profession, and mair nor half tired o' huntin, fishin, and seein the
warld. But just twa months mair, my boy, and I am free. And now, may I
no expect your story in turn?"
The wind, which had been rising since nightfall, now began to howl
around the log-house and through the neighbouring woods, like the roar
of the sea in a storm. There was an incessant creaking among the beams
of the roof, and the very floor at times seemed to rise and fall under
the foot, like the deck of a vessel which, after having lain stranded on
the beach, has just begun to float. The storm, which had been so long
impending, burst out in all its fury, and for some time the two
fur-gatherers, impressed by a feeling of natural awe, sat listening to
it in silence. The sounds rose and fell by intervals; at times sinking
into a deep, sullen roar, when all was comparatively still around; at
times swelling into thunder. In a pause of the blast, Sandy rose and
flung open the door. Day had sunk more than two hours before, and there
was no moon, but there was a strong flare of greenish-coloured light on
the snow, that served to discover the extreme dreariness of the scene;
and through a _bore_ in the far north, resembling, as Sandy said, the
opening of a dark lantern, he could see that, beyond the cloud, the
heavens were all a-flame with the aurora borealis. Earth and sky seemed
mingled; the snow, loose and fluctuating, and tossing its immense
wreaths to the hurricane, resembled the sea in a storm when the waves
run highest; the ice, though so deeply covered before, lay in some
places dark and bare, while in others, beneath the precipices, the drift
had accumulated over it to the depth of many fathoms. Again the blast
came roaring onwards with the fury of a tornado, and Sandy shut and
bolted the door.
"Ane o' the maist frightfu nichts, Innes," he said, "I ever saw in
America. It will be weel if we're no baith buried a hunder feet deep
afore mornin, wi' the log-house for our coffin. The like happened, about
twenty years syne, at Badger Hollow, where twa puir chields were covered
up till their skulls had grown white aneath their bannets. But though
alane, and in the desert, we're no oot o' the reach o' Providence yet."
"Ah no, my poor friend!" said Innes; "I do not feel, in these days, that
life is highly desirable; but nature shrinks from dissolution, and I am
still fain to live on. A poet, Sandy, would view our situation at
present with something like complacency; but I am afraid he would deem
your story, amusing as it is, little in keeping with the scene around
us, and a night so terrible as this. I can scarcely ask a tailor if he
remembers the little bit in 'Thalaba,' where the cave of the Lapland
sorceress is described? The long night of half-a-year has closed, and
wastes of eternal snow are stretching around; while in the midst, beside
her feeble light, that seems lost in the gloom of the cavern, the
sorceress is seated, ever drawing out and out from the revolving distaff
the golden thread of destiny."
"I mind better," replied Sandy, "Jamie Hogg's wild story o' my brother
craftsman, Allan Gordon, and how he wintered at the Pole in the cabin o'
a whomilt Greenlandman, wi' Nannie and a rum cask for his companions.
Dear me, how the roarins o' the bears outside used to amaze the puir
chield every time he was foolish aneugh to let himsel grow sober! But
gudesake, Innes, what's that?"
There was something sufficiently frightful in the interruption. A
fearfully-prolonged howl was heard outside, mingling with the hurricane,
and, in a moment after, the snorting and pawing of some animal at the
door. Sandy snatched up his musket, hastily examined the pan, to
ascertain that his powder had escaped the damp, and, setting it on full
cock, pointed it to the place whence the noises proceeded. Innes armed
himself with a hunting-spear. The sounds were repeated, but in a less
frightful tone: they were occasioned evidently by a dog whining for
admittance. "Some puir brute," said Sandy, "who has lost his master."
And, opening the door, a large Newfoundland dog came rushing into the
hut. With more than brute sagacity, he flung himself at the feet of the
fur-gatherers, as if imploring protection and assistance; and then,
springing up and laying hold of the skirts of Sandy's blanket, he began
to tug him violently towards the door.
"Let us follow the animal," said Innes; "it may be the means of rescuing
a fellow-creature from destruction; his master, I am convinced, is
perishing in the snow."
"I shall not fail you, Innes," exclaimed Sandy; and, hastily wrapping
their plaids around them, and snatching up, the one a loaded musket, the
other a bottle of spirits, the fur-gatherers plunged fearlessly into the
storm and the darkness.
A greenish-coloured light still glimmered faintly from the north,
through the thick drift and the falling snow, too faint, indeed, to
enable them to catch the outlines of surrounding objects, but sufficient
to show them the dog moving over the ice a few yards before them, like a
little black cloud. They followed hard in his track towards the bottom
of the creek. The steep banks on either hand contracted as they
advanced, till at length they could see their shagged summits high above
them in the darkness, and could hear the storm raging in the pines,
though it had become comparatively calm in the shelter below. The creek
at length terminated in a semicircular recess, surrounded by a steep
wall of precipices. The dog bounded forward to a fissure in the
rock--and there, at the edge of a huge wreath of snow, which half shut
up the entrance, lay what seemed, in the uncertain light, the dead body
of a man. The dog howled piteously over it, breathed hard in the face,
and then looked up imploringly to the fur-gatherers. Innes leaped over
the wreath, followed by Sandy, and, on raising up the body, found,
though the extremities were stiff and cold as the ice on which it lay,
that life was not yet extinct.
"Some unlucky huntsman," said Sandy; "we maun carry him, Innes, to the
log-house; life is sweet even among the deserts o' Hudson's Bay."
The perishing hunter muttered a few broken syllables, like a man in the
confusion of a dream. "It grows dark, Catherine," he said, "and I am
sick at heart, and cold."
"Puir, puir fallow!" exclaimed Sandy--"he's thinkin o' his wife or
sweetheart; but he'll no perish this time, Innes, if we can help it.
Pity, man, for the car and dogs; but minutes are precious, and we maun
just lug him wi' us as we best may."
Rolling their plaids around the almost lifeless stranger, the
fur-gatherers bore him away over the ice, the dog leaping and barking
with very joy before them; and in less than half-an-hour they had all
reached the log-house.
The means of restoring suspended animation, with which the casualties of
so many Hudson's Bay winters had made Sandy well acquainted, were
resorted to on this occasion with complete success; and the stranger
gradually recovered. He proved to be one of the most trusted and
influential of the company's managers--a native of Scotland, and much
loved and respected among the inferior retainers of the settlement, for
an obliging disposition and great rectitude of principle. He was a keen
sportsman, and had left his place of residence in the morning, on a
solitary hunting excursion, accompanied only by his dog. But, trusting
to his youth and strength, the enthusiasm of the hunter had drawn him
mile after mile from home; and, on the breaking out of the storm, he had
lost his way among the interminable bays and creeks of the lake. On his
recovery, he was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, and meant all
that he said. He was, perhaps, not much afraid to die, he remarked, but
then he had many inducements to live, and there were more than himself
who had a stake in his life, and who would feel grateful to his
preservers.
"Compose yourself," said Innes; "you have been strangely tried to-night,
and your spirits are still much flurried. Set yourself to sleep, for
never had man more need; and my companion and I shall watch beside you
during the night. Remember you are our patient, and entirely under our
control." The manager good-humouredly acquiesced in the prescription,
and in a few minutes after was fast asleep.
"Now, Innes," said Sandy, "as there's to be no bed for us to-night, you
maunna forget that you're pledged to me for your story. Remember, my
bonny man, our bargain when ye got mine."
"I do remember," replied Innes; "but I well know you will be both tired
and sleepy ere I have done."
"I have long had a liking for you, Sandy," continued Innes--"I knew you
from the first to be a man of a different cast from any of our fellows;
and, ever since I saw you take part with the poor Indian, whom the two
drunken Irishmen attempted to rob of his rum and his wife, I have wished
for your friendship. It is not good for man to be alone, and I have been
much too solitary since I entered with the company. You were, when in
Scotland, the victim of a silly prejudice against a humble, but honest
calling, but you could have lived in it, notwithstanding, had not a love
for wandering drawn you abroad. I, on the contrary--thought like the
hare with many friends, I was a favourite with every one--was literally
starved out of it. My father was a gentleman farmer, not thirty miles
from Inverness, whom the high war prices of cattle and grain had raised
from comparative poverty to sudden, though short-lived, affluence. No
man could be more sanguine in his hopes for his children. He had three
boys, and all of us were educated for the liberal professions, in the
full belief that we were all destined to rise in the world, and become
eminent. Alas! my brother, the divine, died of a broken heart, a poor
over-toiled usher in an English academy; my brother, the doctor,
perished in Greenland, where he had gone as the surgeon of a whaler,
after waiting on for years in the hope of some better appointment; and
here am I, a lawyer--prepared to practise, as soon as we get courts
established among the red men of Hudson's Bay. But I anticipate. I am
not sure nature ever intended that I should stand high as a scholar; but
I was no trifler, and so passed through the classes with tolerable
_eclat_. I am not at all convinced, either, that I possess the
capabilities of a first-rate lawyer; but I am certain I have seen men
rise in the world with not more knowledge, and with, perhaps, even less
judgment to direct it. What I chiefly wanted, I suspect, was a genius
for the knavish parts of the profession. Will you believe me when I say
I have known as much actual crime committed in the office of a
pettifogging country lawyer, as I ever saw tried in a sheriff court. Oh,
what finished rascality have I not seen skulking under the shelter of
the statute-book!--what remorseless blackening of character, for the
sake of a paltry fee!--what endless breaches of promise!--what shameless
betrayals of trust!--what reckless waste of property! Sandy Munro, I am
a poor Hudson's Bay fur-gatherer, and can indulge in no other hope than
that I shall one day lay my bones at the side of some nameless creek or
jungle; but rather that, a thousand, thousand times, than affluence,
and influence, and respectability--ay, respectability--through the
wretched means by which I have seen all these secured!"
"You are an honest chield, Innes," said Sandy, grasping him by the hand.
"I have had a regard for you ever since I first saw you; and the mair I
ken o' you the mair my respect rises."
"My father," continued Innes, "was respectably connected; I had a turn
for dress, a tolerably genteel figure, and was fond of female society;
and, during the four years I served with the lawyer in Inverness, I
found myself a welcome guest in all the more respectable circles of the
place. Scarcely a tea-drinking or dancing party was got up among the
_elite_ of the burgh, but I was sure of an invitation. I danced, played
on the flute, handed round the tea and the sweetmeats--all _par
excellence_--and was quite an adept in the art of speaking a great deal
without saying anything. In short, I became a most accomplished
trifler--an effect, perhaps, of my very imperfect love of my profession.
The men who rise to eminence, you know, rarely begin their course as
fine fellows; and were it not for a circumstance to which I owe more of
my happiness and more of my misery than to any other, I would have had
to attribute my failure in life less to an untoward destiny than to the
dissipation of this period. But I was taught diligence by the very means
through which most young people are _un_taught it. I fell in love. There
was a pretty, simple lassie, the daughter of one of the bailies of the
place, whom I used frequently to meet with in our evening parties, and
with whose appearance I was mightily taken from the moment I first saw
her. She united, in a rare degree, all the elegance of the young lady
with all the simplicity of the child; and, with better sense than falls
to the share of nineteen-twentieths of her sex, was more devoid than any
one I ever knew of their characteristic cunning. You have heard, I
daresay, that young ladies are anxious about getting husbands; but,
trust me, it is all a mistake. The anxiety is too natural a one to be
experienced by so artificial a personage as the mere young lady. It is
not persons but things she longs after--settlements, not sweethearts. I
have had a hundred young-lady friends, who liked my youth and gentility,
and who used to dance, and romp, and chat with me, with all the
good-will possible, but who thought as little of me as a sweetheart as
if I were one of themselves. Thoughts of that tender class were to be
reserved for some rich Indian, with a complexion the colour of a
drum-head, and a liver like a plum-pudding. This bonny lassie, however,
was born--poor thing!--with natural feelings. We met, and learned to
like one another; we sang and laughed together; talked of scenery and
the _belles lettres_; and, in short, lost our hearts to one another ere
we so much as dreamed that we had hearts to lose. You must be in love,
Sandy, ere all I could tell you could give you adequate notions of the
happiness I have enjoyed with that bonny, kind-hearted lassie. Love, I
have said, taught me diligence. I applied to my profession anew,
determined to be a lawyer, and the husband of Catherine. I waded through
whole tomes of black-letter statutes, studied my way over forty folios
of decisions, and did what I suppose no one ever did before--read Grigor
on the Game-laws. Not half-a-dozen practitioners in the country could
draw out a deed of settlement with equal adroitness--not one succeeded
in putting fewer double meanings into a will. My master used to consult
me on conveyancing; and when, at the expiry of my term, I left his
office and set up for myself, you will not wonder it was with the hope
that my at least average acquirements would secure for me an average
portion of success. You will see how that hope was realised.
"The father of my sweetheart was, as I have said, a Inverness bailie;
he was extensively engaged in trade, and all deemed him a rising man;
but the case was otherwise. An unlucky speculation, and the unexpected
failure of a friend, involved him in ruin; and I saw his office shut up
not three weeks after I had opened my own. A week after brought me the
intelligence of my father's death. He had been sinking in the world for
years before; getting, much against his will, into arrears with every
one; and now, immediately on his death, all his effects were seized by
the laird. He was an easy-tempered, obliging man--credulous and
confiding--and hence, perhaps, his misfortunes. You will deem me cold
and selfish, Sandy, to speak in this way of my father; and yet, believe
me, I felt as a son ought to feel; but repeated blows have a stupefying
effect, and I can now tell you, with scarcely a twinge, of hopes
blighted and friends lost. All my hopes of rising by my profession soon
failed me. No one entered my office. Though not without some confidence
in my acquirements, as you may see, I have ever had a sort of shamefaced
bashfulness about me, that has done me infinite harm. People were afraid
to trust their cases with one who seemed to mistrust himself--the
forward, the impudent, and the unprincipled carried off all the
employment, and I was left to starve."
"Honest, unlucky chield!" ejaculated Sandy, with a profound yawn. "One
might guess, by the way ye bargain wi' the Indians, that ye hae a vast
deal owre little brass for makin a fortune by the law. But what cam o'
your puir simple lassie, Innes, when her father broke?"
"Ah, dear, good girl," replied Innes, "with all her simplicity, she was,
by much, better fitted for making her way through the world than her
lover. She was highly accomplished, drew beautifully, read Chateaubriand
in the original, and had a pretty taste for music. Through the
recommendation of a friend, she was engaged as governess in the family
of a Highland proprietor, in which, when I left Scotland, she continued
to be employed--well, I trust, for her own happiness--usefully, I am
sure, for others. I shall forget many things, Sandy, ere I forget the
day I passed with her on the green top of _Tomnahurich_, ere we parted,
as it proved, for ever. You know that beautiful hill--the queen of all
our Highland _Tomhans_--with the long winding canal on the one side, and
the brattling Ness on the other, and surrounded by an assemblage of the
loveliest hills that ever dressed in purple and blue. It was a beautiful
day in early spring, and the sun shone cheerily on a hundred white
cottages at our feet, each looking out from its own little thicket of
birch and laburnum, and on the distant town, with its smoke-wreath
resting over it, and its two old steeples rising through. The world was
busy all around us: we could see the ploughman following his team, and
the mariner warping onward his vessel; the hum of eager occupation came
swelling with the breeze from the far-off streets--and yet there was I,
a poor supernumerary among the millions of my countrymen, parting almost
broken-hearted from her whom I loved better than myself, just because
there was no employment for me. Oh, the agony of that parting! But 'tis
passed, Sandy, and 'tis but folly thus to recall it. No one, as I have
already told you, ever thought of entering my office--no one, save my
landlord and the old woman with whom I lived; and you may believe there
was little of comfort in their visits. I was in arrears to the one for
rent, and to the other for lodging. So far was I reduced, that, in
passing through the old woman's room, I have been fain to take a potato
from off her platter, and that single potato has formed my meal for the
time. On one occasion I was for two days together without food."
"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Sandy--"what came o' a' the grand freends
that used to gie ye the teas and suppers? Had they nae bowels ava?"
"I would sooner have starved, Sandy, than have made my wants known to
the best of them. But there was one on whom I had a nearer claim, to
whom I applied in vain--a brother of my father--a close old hunks, who,
though he had realised thousands as a ship-broker in London, had not
heart enough to part with a shilling for the benefit of his poor nephew.
But I believe the wretched man was well-nigh as unkind to himself as he
was to me, and, in the midst of his wealth, fared nearly as ill. You are
getting sleepy, Sandy, and I daresay 'tis little wonder you should; but
I find a melancholy satisfaction in thus retracing the untoward events
of the past, which I am certain I could not feel, did conscience whisper
that my misfortunes were in any great degree owing to myself. Well, but
to conclude. I became squalid and shabby; all the ladies sent me to
Coventry, and all the gentlemen spurned me as a fellow of no spirit. I
had mistaken my profession, it was said; and blockheads, who had been
guiltless of a single new idea all their lives long, used to repeat from
one another that my father, in making a wretched lawyer of me, had
spoiled a good ploughman. I could bear no longer. The Hudson's Bay
Company had an agent, you know, at Inverness. I called on him one
evening after a day of fasting and miserable low spirits--and now here I
am, in the second year of my service with the company."
"But, how, Innes, man," inquired Sandy, "could ye hae found heart to
leave Scotland, without seein the puir lassie, your sweetheart? Do ye
ken aught o' her now?"
"Know of her!" exclaimed Innes; "alas! I too surely know I have lost
her. The last thing but one that I did ere I sailed from Stromness, was
to write her to say how I had fallen from all my hopes regarding her,
and to bid her forget me; the very last thing I did was to cry over a
kind, cheerful letter, which had followed me all the way from Inverness,
and in which she urged me to keep up my heart, for that all would yet be
well with us. Little did she know, when writing it, what I was on the
eve of becoming--a poor vagabond fur-gatherer on the wild shores of
Hudson's Bay. Dear, generous girl! I trust she is happy."
"May I ask," said the manager, who, unknown to the two fur-gatherers,
had lain awake for some time, listening to the narrative--"may I ask if
you are not Innes Cameron, late of Inverness, only surviving son of
Colin Cameron of Glendocharty, and nephew of the lately deceased Malachi
Cameron, of Upper Thames Street, London?"
"I am that Innes Cameron," said the fur-gatherer; "and so my poor old
uncle is dead?"
"And having died intestate," continued the manager, "you, as
heir-at-law, succeed to his entire estate, personal and real, consisting
of a property of a few hundred acres in the vicinity of Inverness, and
twenty thousand pounds vested in the three per cents. A considerable
remittance from London has been waiting you for the last month at the
Hawk River Settlement, and, what you will deem very handsome in the
circumstances, a free discharge from the company for your five remaining
years' servitude. I am acting manager at the River, and to my care the
whole has been committed."
Innes seemed astounded by the intelligence; his gayer companion leaped
up and performed a somerset on the floor.
"Innes, Innes, Innes!" he exclaimed, "why are ye no dancin?--why are ye
no dancin? Did I no ken ye were born to be a gentleman? I maun hae a
double glass to drink luck to ye; and I'm sure the manager winna say no.
Goodness, man, it's the best news I hae heard in America yet!"
Morning at length broke--a calm, clear morning, for the clouds had
passed away with the storm--and the travellers, after sharing in an
ample, though not very delicate, repast, prepared to set out on their
journey. The dogs were harnessed, and the car laden. The manager, who,
from the fatigue and exhaustion of the previous night, still felt
indisposed, was mounted in front; the two fur-gatherers were lacing on
their snow-shoes to follow on foot. At length the sun rose far to the
south, through a deep frosty haze, that seemed to swaddle the horizon
with a broad belt of russet, and the travellers set out in the direction
of a distant promontory of the lake. The snow all around, the woods that
rose thick over the level, the overhanging banks of the lake, the hills
in the far distance, were all bathed in one rich glow of crimson, that
more than emulated the blush of a summer's evening at sunset; the
shadows of the travellers, as they stretched for many fathoms across the
lake, had each a moon-like halo round the head, like the glory in an old
painting; and the very air, laden with frost rime, sparkled to the sun,
like the gold water of the chemist. The scene was altogether strangely,
I had almost said unnaturally, beautiful; it was one of those which,
once seen, are never forgotten.
"You have been silent, Innes," said Sandy, "for the last half-hour, and
look as wae and anxious as if some terrible mishanter had befallen ye.
I'll wad the best quid in my spleuchan, ye hae been thinkin about
Catherine Roberts, and o' your chance o' findin her single. I'd advise
ye, man, just for fear o' a disappointment, to marry the manager's
sister: she's ane o' the best, bonny lassies I ever saw, and plays
strathspeys and pibrochs like an angel. Oh, had ye but heard her at
'Lochaber no more,' and the 'Flowers o' the Forest,' ye wad hae grat
like a bairn, as I did. Dear me, but she's a fine lassie! Had I as mony
thousands as ye hae, Innes, I wad marry her mysel."
"How came you to hear her music?" asked Innes, in a tone that showed he
took but little interest in the query.
"Ah, there's a story belongs to that question," replied Sandy. "It's
about a month or twa mair nor a twelvemonth noo, sin Tam M'Intyre and I
set out frae Racoon Settlement, on ane o' the weariest and maist
desperate journeys I have yet taen in America. About Christmas, a
huntsman, in passing the settlement, tauld us there was to be a grand
ball on New-year's Day at the Hawk River, and that there were to be four
Scotch lassies at it, who had come owre the simmer afore, forbye a
bonnie young leddie, the manager's sister. The River, ye ken, is no
mickle aboon twa hundred miles frae Racoon Settlement, and Tam M'Intyre
and I, who for five years hadna seen a living creature liker a woman
than an Indian squaw, resolved on going to the ball, to see the lassies.
We yoked our sledges on a snell frosty morning, set out across the great
lake, and reached the log-house at Bear's Point about dark. We got up a
rousin fire, and drunk maybe a glass or twa extra owre our cracks about
Scotland and the lassies; but I'll tak my aith on't there was neither o'
us meikle the waur. But, however it happened, about midnight we baith
awakened mair nor half scomfisht, and there was the roof in a bright
lowe aboon our heads. M'Intyre singed a' his whiskers and eebrees in
getting out; I was luckier, and escaped wi' the loss only o' my blanket
and our twa days' provisions. But we just couldna help it; and, yokin
our dogs by the light o' the burnin, aff we set, weel aware that we wad
baith miss our breakfasts or we reached the Hawk River. We travelled a'
that day and a' the next nicht, the dogs hearty and strong, puir brutes,
for we had been lucky aneugh to get the hinder half o' a black fox in a
trap--the other half had been eaten by the wolves; but oursels, Innes,
were like to famish. When mornin came, we were within thirty miles o'
the Hawk River. There was little wind, but the frost burned like het
iron. I dinna remember a sneller morning. M'Intyre had to thaw his nose
three times, and my chin and ears had twice got as hard as bits o'
stockfish. We had rubbed off a' the skin in trying to mak the blood
circulate, and baith our faces had so swelled out o' the size, and
shape, and colour o' humanity, that, when we reached the settlement, we
were fain to steal into an outside hut, just that the lassies mightna
see us. Man, but it was a sair begeck! The ball night came, and we were
still uglier than ever, and I thought I wad hae gane daft wi' vexation.
We could hear the noise o' the fiddles, and the dancin--and that was
just a'. M'Intyre had some thoughts o' hangin himsel oot o' spite. Just
when we were at the warst, however, a genteel tap comes to the door; and
there there was a smart bonny lassie wi' a message to us frae her
mistress, the manager's sister. We were asked down, she said; her
mistress, hearing o' our misluck, and that we had baith come frae the
north country, had got up a snug little supper for us, where there would
be none to ferlie at us, and was noo waitin our comin. Was this no kind,
Innes? I made a veil o' my plaid as I best could, M'Intyre muffled
himself up in a napkin, and aff we went to the manager's. But, oh man!
sic kindness frae sae sweet a leddy! She sang and played till us--and
weel did it set her to do baith; and mixed up our toddy for us--for we
were gey blate, as ye may think; and, on takin our leave, she shook
hands wi' us as gin we had been her equals. I've never been fule aneugh
to be in love, Innes--beggin your pardon for sayin sae--but I feel I
could lay down my life for that bonny lassie ony day. Weel, but
kindliness is a kindly thing!"
"What is the young lady's name?" inquired Innes, with some eagerness, as
a sudden thought came across him. "Her brother, I think, calls her
Catherine."
"Ah, no your Catherine, though," said Sandy; "the manager's name is
Pringle, ye ken, and that's no Roberts."
"I am a fool," replied Innes, with a sigh; "and you see it, Sandy."
The track pursued by the party, which had hitherto lain along the edge
of the lake, now ascended the steep wooded bank which hung over it, and,
after winding for several miles through a series of shaggy thickets,
with here and there an intervening swamp, opened into an extensive
plain. A few straggling clumps of copsewood served to enliven the
otherwise unvaried surface, and, in the far distance, there was a range
of snowy hills that seemed to rise directly over a deep narrow valley in
which the plain terminated. There was no wind, and a column of smoke,
which issued from the centre of a distant wood, arose majestically in
the clear sunshine, till, reaching a lighter stratum of air, it spread
out equally on every side, like the foliage of a stately tree.
"Some Indian settlement," said the manager. "There is much of beauty in
this wild scene, Mr Cameron--beauty merging into the sublime; and the
poor red men, its sole inhabitants, form exactly the sort of figures one
would choose to introduce into such a landscape. I am now much more a
lover of such scenes than before my sister joined me."
"A taste for the wild and savage seems to be an acquired one," remarked
Innes; "a taste for the beautiful is natural. Certainly the first comes
later in life to the individual, and it is scarcely ever found among the
uneducated. One of the finest wild scenes in Ross-shire--a deep, rocky
ravine, overhung with wood, and with a turbulent Highland stream roaring
through it--is known by all the country folk in the neighbourhood by the
name of the Ugly Burn."
"The remark chimes in with my experience," said the manager. "I ever
admired the beautiful; but it was Catherine who first taught me to
admire the sublime. There is a savagely wild scene before us, where I
can now spend whole hours in the fine summer evenings, but which I used
to regard, only a few years ago, as positively a disagreeable one. But
such scenes make ever the deepest impression, whether the mind be
cultivated or no."
"Ay, Mr Pringle," remarked Sandy; "and frae that I draw my main
consolation for havin spent sae mony o' my best years in gatherin skins
for a wheen London merchants."
"How?" inquired the manager.
"Why, I just find that I am to bring hame wi' me recollections and
impressions aneugh to ser' me a' my life after; recollections o' mony a
desert prairie, and mony a fearfu storm--o' encounters wi' wild beasts
and wild men--o' a' that we deem hardship now, but which we will find it
pleasure to dwell on afterwards."
"Thank you for the remark, Sandy!" said Innes; "I find I am to bring
home with me something of that kind, too."