FEARS OF THE CHOLERA--DEPARTURE FROM SCOTLAND.
The cholera, which had hitherto only claimed a few victims in the city,
now began to make fearful progress; and every day enlarged the catalogue
of the dead, and those who were labouring under this awful disease.
People seemed unwilling to name the ravages of the plague to each other;
or spoke of it in low, mysterious tones, as a subject too dreadful for
ordinary conversation.
Just at this time Flora fell ill, and was forced to keep her bed for
several days. During the time she was confined to her chamber, Mrs.
Waddel kept up a constant lamentation, declaring that the reputation of
her lodgings would be lost for ever, if Mrs. Lyndsay should die of the
cholera. Yet, to do the good creature justice, she waited upon her, and
nursed her with most unselfish kindness; making gallons of gruel, which
the invalid scarcely tasted, and recommending remedies which, if
adopted, would have been certain to kill the patient, for whose life she
most earnestly and devoutly prayed.
The very morning that Mrs. Lyndsay was able to leave her bed, her
husband got a note from Mr. Gregg, informing him that the _Anne_ was to
sail at four o'clock the next day.
"My dear Flora," said Lyndsay, tenderly, "I fear you are not able to go
in your present weak state."
"Oh yes, I shall be better for the change. This frightful cholera is
spreading on all sides. The sooner, dear John, we can leave this place
the better. Two persons, Mrs. Waddel told me, died last night of it,
only a few doors off. I know that it is foolish to be afraid of an evil
which we cannot avoid; but I find it impossible to divest myself of this
fear. I look worse than I feel just now," she continued, walking across
the room, and surveying her face in the glass. "My colour is
returning--I shall pass muster with the doctors yet."
The great business of packing up for the voyage went steadily forward
all day; and before six in the evening, trunks, bedding, and little ship
stores, were on board, ready for a start.
Flora was surprised in the afternoon by a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Gregg,
and the two rosy girls, who expressed the greatest regret at their
departure. They had made a plum-cake for Mrs. Lyndsay to eat during the
voyage; and truly it looked big enough to have lasted out a trip to the
South Seas, while Mrs. Gregg had brought various small tin canisters
filled with all sorts of farinaceous food for the baby.
Abundant as their kindness was, the blessings and good wishes they
heaped upon the emigrants were more abundant still; the kind-hearted
mother and her bonnie girls, kissing them at parting, with tears
coursing down their rosy cheeks. Mr. Gregg, who was terribly afraid of
the cholera, tried to raise his own spirits, by describing all the fatal
symptoms of the disease, and gave them a faithful catalogue of those who
had died of it that morning in the city. He had great faith in a new
remedy, which was just then making a noise in the town, which had been
tried the day before, on a relation of his own--the injection of salt
into veins of the sufferer.
"Did it cure him?" asked Flora, rather eagerly.
"Why no, I canna jest say that it did. But it enabled him to mak' his
will an' settle a' his worldly affairs, which was a great point gained."
"For the living," sighed Flora. "Small satisfaction to the dying, to be
disturbed in their last agonies, by attending to matters of business,
while a greater reckoning is left unpaid."
"You look ill yoursel, Mistress Lyndsay," continued the gude man. "Let's
hope that it's not the commencement of the awfu' disease."
"I thought so myself two days ago," said Flora. "I am grateful to God
that it was not the cholera. Does it ever break out on board ship?"
"It is an affliction sae lately sent upon the nations by the Lord, that
we have had sma' experience o' the matter," quoth Mr. Gregg. "Your best
chance is to trust in Him. For let us be ever so cautious, an He wills
it, we canna' escape out o' His hand."
"Perhaps it is the best way to confide ourselves entirely to His care,
and to think as little about it as we possibly can. All our precautions
remind me of the boy who hid up in the cellar during a terrible
thunderstorm, in the hope that the lightning would never find him there,
little dreaming, that his place of safety exposed him to as much danger
as a stand on the house-top. A man may run away from a battle, and
escape from a fire, but it seems to me of little use attempting to fly
from a pestilence which lurks in the very air we breathe, the water we
drink, and the food we take to nourish us. Faith in the mercy of God,
and submission to His will appear to me the only remedies at all likely
to avert the danger we shrink from with so much fear."
"It comes like a thief in the night," said Mr. Gregg; "and it behoves us
all to mind the warning o' the Saviour, to watch an' pray, for we know
not at what hour the Master of the house cometh."
After the good Greggs had made their adieus, Flora felt so much
recovered that she accompanied her husband in a coach, to bid the rest
of their kind friends in Edinburgh farewell.
They drove first to the house of Mr. W., where Flora had spent many
happy days during her sojourn in Leith. Mr. W. had an only son, who held
an official situation at the Cape of Good Hope. Lyndsay had been on
intimate terms with this gentleman during his residence in the colony;
and on his return to Scotland, he was always a welcome visitor at the
house of his parents. They loved to talk of Willie to Lyndsay, and
treasured up as household words any little anecdotes they could collect
of his colonial life. Mrs. W. and her two daughters were highly
accomplished, elegant women. They took a deep interest in the fate of
the emigrants, and were always devising plans for their future comfort.
As to the father of the family, he was a perfect original--shrewd,
sarcastic, clever, and _very ugly_. The world called him morose and
ill-natured; but the world only judged from his face, and most certainly
he should have indicted it for bringing false witness against him. It
was a libellous face, which turned the worst aspect to the world; its
harsh lines and exaggerated features magnifying mental defects, while
they concealed the good qualities of the warm, generous heart that shone
like some precious gem within that hard rough case.
Mr. W. loved opposition, and courted it. He roused himself up to an
argument, as a terrier dog rouses himself to kill rats; and, like the
said terrier, when he got the advantage of his opponent, he loved to
worry and tease, to hold on till the last, till the vanquished was fain
to cry aloud for mercy; and then his main object in quitting the dispute
was to lie in wait for a fresh tussel. Flora laughed at all his blunt
speeches, and enjoyed his rude wit, and opposed him, and argued with him
to his heart's content, until they became the best friends in the world.
Their first meeting was so characteristic, that we must give it here.
Flora had accepted an invitation to dine, with her husband, at Mr. W.'s
house. It was only a family party, and they were to come early. On their
arrival, they found that Mr. W. had been called away on business, but
was expected back to dinner. After chatting awhile to Mrs. W. and her
daughters, Flora's attention was strongly directed to an oil-painting
which hung above the drawing-room mantelpiece. It was the portrait of an
old man, as large as life. The figure was represented in a sitting
posture, his head leaning upon his hand, or rather the chin supported in
the open palm. The eyes glanced upward with a sarcastic, humorous
expression, as if the original were in the act of asking some question
which a listener might find it no easy matter to answer; and a smile of
mischievous triumph hovered about the mouth. It was an extraordinary
countenance. No common every-day face, to which you could point and say,
"Does not that put you in mind of Mr. So-and-So?" Memory could supply no
duplicate to this picture. It was like but one other face in the world,
the one from which it had been faithfully copied. It was originally
meant for a handsome face, but the features were exaggerated until they
became grotesque and coarse in the extreme, and the thick, bushy,
iron-grey hair and whiskers, and clay-coloured complexion, put the
finishing strokes to a portrait, which might be considered the very
_ideal of ugliness_.
While Flora sat looking at the picture, and secretly wondering how any
person with such a face could bear to see it transferred to canvas, she
was suddenly roused from her reverie by the pressure of a heavy hand
upon her shoulder, and a gentleman in a very gruff, but by no means an
ill-natured or morose voice, thus addressed her.
"Did you ever see such a d----d ugly old fellow in your life before?"
"Never," returned Flora, very innocently. Then, looking up in his face,
she cried out with a sudden start, and without the least mental
reservation, "It is the picture of yourself!"
"Yes, it is my picture. An excellent likeness--half bulldog, half
terrier. Judging from that ugly, crabbed old dog over the mantelpiece,
what sort of a fellow ought I to be?"
He said this with a malicious twinkle in his clear, grey eyes, which
glanced like sparks of fire from under his thick bushy eyebrows.
"Better than you look," said Flora, laughing. "But your question is not
a fair one, Mr. W.; I was taken by surprise, and you must not press me
too hard."
"A clear admission, young lady, that you would rather avoid telling the
truth."
"It is the portrait of a plain man."
"Pshaw! You did not qualify it as such in your own mind. Plain--is only
one degree worse than good-looking. You thought it--"
"Ugly--if you insist upon it."
"Nothing worse?"
"Eccentric--pugnacious--satirical."
"God's truth! But that was not all?"
"Good heavens! what am I to say?"
"Don't swear; 'tis not fashionable for ladies. I do it myself; but 'tis
a bad habit. Now shall I tell you what you _did think_ of the picture?"
"I would rather have your opinion than mine."
"To relieve you from the horns of the dilemma? Well then; you thought it
the ugliest, most repulsive, and withal the oddest phiz you ever saw;
and you wondered how any one with such a hideous, morose countenance,
could ever sit for the picture?"
"Indeed I did."
"Good!" cried her tormentor, clapping his hands. "You and I must be
friends. You wonder how I came to guess your thoughts; I know them by my
own. Had any one asked my opinion of the picture of another man as ugly
as that, I should have spoken out plainly enough. Fortunately the
qualities of the mind do not depend upon the beauty of the face; though
personal beauty is greatly increased by the noble qualities of the mind;
and I know my inner man to be as vastly superior to its outer case, as
the moon is to the cloud she pierces with her rays. To mind, I am
indebted for the greatest happiness I enjoy,--the confidence and
affection of my wife and children.
"Mrs. W. was reckoned pretty in her youth; I think her so still. She was
of a good family too; with a comfortable independence, and had lovers by
the score. Yet, she fell in love with the ugly fellow, and married him,
though he had neither fame nor fortune to offer her in exchange. Nothing
but the mental treasures he had hid away from the world in this rough
casket. My daughters are elegant, accomplished girls; not beauties, to
be sure, but pleasing enough to be courted and sought after. Yet, they
are proud of being thought like their ugly old father. That picture must
be a likeness; it is pourtrayed by the hand of love. My dear girl there
drew it with her own pencil, and rejoiced that she had caught the very
expression of my face. To her, my dear lady, it is beautiful--for love
is blind. She does not heed the ugly features; she only sees the mind
she honours and obeys, looking through them."
"Ah, dear papa, who that knows you, as we know you, could ever think you
ugly?" said Mary W., laying her hand on the old man's shoulder, and
looking fondly and proudly in his face. "But I have forgotten all this
time to introduce you to Mrs. Lyndsay."
"My old friend Lyndsay's wife? I ought not to be pleased with you,
madam, for you disappointed a favourite scheme of mine."
"How could that possibly be?" said Flora.
"I loved that man of yours; I wanted him for a son-in-law. Of course,
neither I nor the girls hinted such a wish to him. But had he asked, he
would not have been refused."
"Mrs. Lyndsay!" broke in Mary W., "you must not mind papa's nonsense. He
will say just what he likes. Mr. Lyndsay was always a great favourite
with us all; and papa would have his joke at our expense."
"Well, my young friend has thought fit to please himself, and I am so
well pleased with his wife, that she shall sit by the ugly old man;
'an' I will ha' a spate o' clatter wi' her to mine ain sel.'"
The more Flora saw of the eccentric old man, the more she admired and
respected him. In a little time, she ceased to think him ugly--he was
only plain and odd-looking; till at length, like all the rest of Mr.
W.'s friends, she almost believed him handsome. When did genius ever
fail to leave upon the rudest clay, an impress of its divine origin?
It was with feelings of mutual regret that our emigrants took leave, and
for ever, of this talented family. Before the expiration of one short
year, that happy group of kind faces had passed out of the world! The
sudden death of the younger Mr. W., who was the idol of the family,
brought his mother in sorrow to the grave. The girls, by some strange
fatality, only survived her a few weeks; and the good old man, bereft of
every kindred tie, pined away and died of a broken heart!
Some years after Flora had been settled in Canada, a gentleman from
Scotland, who had been acquainted with the W. family, told her that he
called upon the old gentleman on a matter of business, a few days after
the funeral of his youngest daughter. The old man opened the door: he
was shrunk to a skeleton, and a perfect image of woe. When he saw who
his visitor was, he shook his thin, wasted hand at him, with a
melancholy, impatient gesture, exclaiming, "What brings you here, P----?
Leave this death-doomed house! I am too miserable to attend to anything
but my own burden of incurable grief." He called again the following
morning. The poor old man was dead!
The next day the emigrants bade farewell to the beautiful capital of
Scotland. How gladly would Flora have terminated her earthly pilgrimage
in that land of poetry and romance, and spent the rest of her days among
its truthful, high-minded, hospitable people! But vain are regrets. The
inexorable spirit of progress points onward; and the beings she chooses
to be the parents of a new people, in a new land, must fulfil their
destiny.
On the 1st of July, 1832, the Lyndsays embarked on board the brig
_Anne_, to seek a new home beyond the Atlantic, and friends in a land of
strangers.