Hamilton, Canada West.23d April, 1849.
NORTH.
"Under the opening eyelids of the Morn!" Mefeels, Amici, at this moment, the charm of that Impersonation. Slowly awaking from sleep—scarcely conscious of her whereabouts—bewildered by the beauty of the revelation, nor recognising her beloved lochs and mountains—visionary and nameless all as if an uncertain prolongation of her Summer's Night's Dream.
SEWARD.
I was not going to speak, my dear sir.
NORTH.
And now she is broad awake. She sees the heaven and the earth, nor thinks, God bless her, that 'tis herself that beautifies them!
SEWARD.
Twenty years since I stood on this knoll, honoured sir, by your side—twenty years to a day—and now the same perfect peace possesses me—mysterious return—as if all the intervening time slid away—and this were not a renewed but a continuous happiness.
NORTH.
And let it slide away into the still recesses of Memory—the Present has its privileges—and they may be blamelessly, wisely, virtuously enjoyed—and without irreverence to the sanctity of the Past. Let it slide away—but not into oblivion—no danger, no fear of oblivion—even joys will return on their wings of gossamer;—sorrows may be buried, but they are immortal.
SEWARD.
I see not the slightest change on this Grove of Sycamores. Twenty years tell not on boles that have for centuries been in their prime. Yes—that one a little way down—and that one still farther off—havegrown—and those striplings, then but saplings, may now be called Trees.
BULLER.
I never heard such a noise.
NORTH.
A cigar in your mouth at four o'clock in the morning! Well—well.
BULLER.
There, my dear sir, keep me in countenance with a Manilla.
NORTH.
The Herb! You have high authority—Spenser's—for "noise."
BULLER.
I said Noise—because it is Noise. Why, the hum of bees overhead is absolutely like soft sustained thunder—and yet no bees visible in the umbrage.The sound is like that of one single bee, and he must be a giant. Ay—there I see a few working like mad—and I guess there must be myriads. The Grove must be full of bees' nests.
NORTH.
Not one. Hundreds of smokes are stealing up from hidden or apparent cottages—for the region is not unpopulous, and not a garden without its hives—and early risers though we be, thematutinæ apesare still before us, and so are the birds.
BULLER.
They, too, are making a noise. Who says a shilfa cannot sing? Of the fifty now "pouring his throat," as the poet well says, I defy you to tell which sings best. That splendid fellow on the birch-tree top—or yonder gorgeous tyke on the yellow oak—or——
NORTH.
"In shadiest covert hid" the leader of the chorus that thrills the many-nested underwood with connubial bliss.
SEWARD.
Not till this moment heard I the waterfall.
BULLER.
You did, though, all along—a felt accompaniment.
NORTH.
I know few dens more beautiful than Cladich-Cleugh!
BULLER.
Pardon me, sir, if I do not attempt that name.
NORTH.
How mellifluous!—Cladich-Cleugh!
BULLER.
Great is the power of gutturals.
NORTH.
It is not inaccessible. But you must skirt it till you reach the meadow where the cattle are beginning to browse. And then threading your way through a coppice, where you are almost sure to see a roe, you come down upon a series of little pools, in such weather as this so clear that you can count the trouts; and then the verdurous walls begin to rise on either side and right before you; and you begin to feel that the beauty is becoming magnificence, for the pools are now black, and the stems are old, and the cliffs intercept the sky, and there are caves, and that waterfall has dominion in the gloom, and there is sublimity in the sounding solitude.
BULLER.
Cladick-Cloock.
NORTH.
A miserable failure.
BULLER.
Cladig-Cloog.
NORTH.
Worser and worser.
SEWARD.
Any footpath, sir?
NORTH.
Yes—for the roe and the goat.
BULLER.
And the Man of the Crutch.
NORTH.
Good. But I speak of days when the Crutch was in its tree-bole——
BULLER.
As the Apollo was in its marble block.
NORTH.
Not so good. But, believe me, gentlemen, I have done it with the Crutch.
SEWARD.
Ay, sir, and could do it again.
NORTH.
No. But you two are yet boys—on the sunny side of fifty—and I leave you, Seward, to act the guide to Buller up Cladich-Cleugh.
BULLER.
Pray, Mr North, what may be the name of that sheet of water?
NORTH.
In Scotland we call itLoch-Owe.
BULLER.
I am so happy—sir—that I talk nonsense.
NORTH.
Much nonsense may you talk.
BULLER.
'Twas a foolish question—but you know, sir, that by some strange fatality or another I have been three times called away from Scotland without having seenLock-Owe.
NORTH.
Make good use of your eyes now, sirrah, and you will remember it all the days of your life. That is Cruachan—no usurper he—by divine right a king. The sun is up, and there is motion in the clouds. Saw you ever such shadows? How majestically they stalk! And now how beautifully they glide! And now see you that broad black forest, half-way up the mountain?
BULLER.
I do.
NORTH.
You are sure you do.
BULLER.
I am.
NORTH.
You are mistaken. It is no broad black forest—it is mere gloom—shadow that in a minute will pass away, though now seeming steadfast as the woods.
BULLER.
I could swear it is a forest.
NORTH.
Swear not at all. Shut your eyes. Open them. Where now your wood?
BULLER.
Most extraordinary ocular deception.
NORTH.
Quite common. Yet no poet has described it. See again. The same forest a mile off. No need of trees—sun and cloud make our visionary mountains sylvan: and the grandest visions are ever those that are transitory—ask your soul.
BULLER.
Your Manilla is out, my dear sir. There is the case.
NORTH.
Caught like a cricketer. You must ascend Cruachan. "This morning gives us promise of a glorious day;" you cannot do better than take time by the forelock, and be off now. Say the word—and I will myself row you over the Loch. No need of a guide: inclining to the left for an hour or two after you have cleared yonder real timber and sap wood—and then for an hour or two, to the right—and then for another hour or two straight forwards—and then you will see the highest of the three peaks within an hour or two's walk of you—and thus, by mid-day, find yourself seated on the summit.
BULLER.
Seated on the summit!
NORTH.
Not too long, for the air is often very sharp at that altitude—and so rare, that I have heard tell of people fainting.
BULLER.
I am occasionally troubled with a palpitation of the heart—
NORTH.
Pooh, nonsense. Only the stomach.
BULLER.
And occasionally with a determination of blood to the head—
NORTH.
Pooh, nonsense. Only the stomach. Take a calker every two hours on your way up—and I warrant both heart and head—
BULLER.
Not to-day. It looks cloudy.
NORTH.
Why, I don't much care though I should accompany you—
BULLER.
I knew you would offer to do so, and I feel the delicacy of putting a decided negative on the proposal. Let us defer it till to-morrow. For my sake, my dear sir, if not for your own, do not think of it; it will be no disappointment to me to remain with you here—and I shudder at the thought of your fainting on the summit. Be advised, my dear sir, be advised—
NORTH.
Well then, be it so—I am not obstinate; but such another day for the ascent there may not be during the summer. On just such a day I made the ascent some half-century ago. I took it from Tyanuilt—having walked that morning from Dalmally, some dozen miles, for a breathing on level ground, before facing the steepish shoulder that roughens into Loch Etive. The fox-hunter from Gleno gave me his company with his hounds and terriers nearly half-way up, and after killing some cubs we parted—not without a tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well—
BULLER.
A tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well!
NORTH.
Yea—a tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well. Now I am a total-abstinent—
BULLER.
A total-abstinent!
NORTH.
By heavens! he echoes me. Pleasant, but mournful to the soul is the memory of joys that are past! A tinful of the unchristened creature to the health of the Silent People. Oh! Buller, there are no Silent People now.
BULLER.
In your company, sir, I am always willing to be a listener.
NORTH.
Well, on I flew as on wings.
BULLER.
What! Up Cruackan?
NORTH.
On feet, then, if you will; but the feet of a deer.
BULLER.
On all-fours?
NORTH.
Yes—sometimes on all-fours. On all-fours, like a frog in his prime, clearing tiny obstructions with a spang. On all-fours, like an ourang-outang, who, in difficult places, brings his arms into play. On all-fours, like the—
BULLER.
I cry you mercy.
NORTH.
Without palpitation of the heart; without determination of blood to the head; without panting; without dizziness; with merely a slight acceleration of the breath, and now and then something like a gasp after a run to a knowe which we foresaw as a momentary resting-place—we felt that we were conquering Cruachan! Lovely level places, like platforms—level as if water had formed them, flowing up just so far continually, and then ebbing back to someunimaginable sea—awaited our arrival, that on them we might lie down, and from beds of state survey our empire, for our empire it was felt to be, far away into the lowlands, with many a hill between—many a hill, that, in its own neighbourhood, is believed to be a mountain—just as many a man of moderate mental dimensions is believed by those who live beneath his shade to be of the first order of magnitude, and with funeral honours is interred.
BULLER.
Well for him that he is a hill at all—eminent on a flat, or among humbler undulations. All is comparative.
NORTH.
Just so. From a site on a mountain's side—far from the summit—the ascender hath sometimes a sublimer—often a lovelier vision—than from its most commanding peak. Yet still he has the feeling of ascension—stifle that, and the discontent of insufficiency dwarfs and darkens all that lies below.
BULLER.
Words to the wise.
NORTH.
We fear to ascend higher lest we should lose what we comprehend: yet we will ascend higher, though we know the clouds are gathering, and we are already enveloped in mist. But there were no clouds—no mist on that day—and the secret top of Cruachan was clear as a good man's conscience, and the whole world below like the promised land.
BULLER.
Let us go—let us go—let us go.
NORTH.
All knowledge, my dear boy, may be likened to stupendous ranges of mountains—clear and clouded, smooth and precipitous; and you or I in youth assail them in joy and pride of soul, not blind but blindfolded often, and ignorant of their inclination; so that we often are met by a beetling cliff with its cataract, and must keep ascending and descending ignorant of our whereabouts, and summit-seeking in vain. Yet all the while are we glorified. In maturer mind, when experience is like an instinct, we ascertain levels without a theodolite, and know assuredly where dwell the peaks. We know how to ascend—sideways or right on; we know which are midway heights; we can walk in mist and cloud as surely as in light, and we learn to know the Inaccessible.
BULLER.
I fear you will fatigue yourself—
NORTH.
Or another image. You sail down a stream, my good Buller, which widens as it flows, and will lead through inland seas—or lochs—down to the mighty ocean: what that is I need not say: you sail down it, sometimes with hoisted sail—sometimes with oars—on a quest or mission all undefined; but often anchoring where no need is, and leaping ashore, and engaging in pursuits or pastimes forbidden or vain—with the natives—
BULLER.
The natives!
NORTH.
Nay, adopting their dress—though dress it be none at all—and becoming one of themselves—naturalised; forgetting your mission clean out of mind! Fishing and hunting with the natives—
BULLER.
Whom?
NORTH.
The natives—when you ought to have been pursuing your voyage on—on—on. Such are youth's pastimes all. But you had not deserted—not you: and you return of your own accord to the ship.
BULLER.
What ship?
NORTH.
The ship of life—leaving some to lament you, who knew you only as a jolly mariner, who was bound afar! They believed that you had drawn up your pinnace for ever on that shore, in that lovely little haven, among reeds and palms—unknowing that you would relaunch her some day soon, and, bounding in her over the billows, rejoin your ship, waiting for you in the offing, and revisit the simple natives no more!
BULLER.
Methinks I understand now your mysterious meaning.
NORTH.
You do. But where was I?
BULLER.
Ascending Cruackan, and near the summit.
NORTH.
On the summit. Not a whit tired—not a bit fatigued; strong as ten—active as twenty ownselves on the flat—divinely drunk on draughts of ether—happier a thousand times, greater and more glorious, than Jupiter, with all his gods, enthroned on Olympus.
BULLER.
Moderately speaking.
NORTH.
In imagination I hear him barking now as he barked then—a sharp, short, savage, angry and hungry bark—
BULLER.
What? A dog? A Fox?
NORTH.
No—no—no. An Eagle—the Golden Eagle from Ben-Slarive, known—no mistaking him—to generations of Shepherds for a hundred years.
BULLER.
Do you see him?
NORTH.
Now I do. I see his eyes—for he came—he comes sughing close by me—and there he shoots up in terror a thousand feet into the sky.
BULLER.
I did not know the Bird was so timid—
NORTH.
He is not timid—he is bold; but an Eagle does not like to come all at once within ten yards of an unexpected man—any more than you would like suddenly to face a ghost.
BULLER.
What brought him there?
NORTH.
Wings nine feet wide.
BULLER.
Has he no sense of smell?
NORTH.
What do you mean, sir?
BULLER.
No offence.
NORTH.
He has. But we have not always all our senses about us, Buller, nor our wits either—he had been somewhat scared, a league up Glen Etive, by the Huntsman of Gleno—the scent of powder was in his nostrils; but fury follows fear, and in a minute I heard his bark again—as now I hear it—on the highway to Benlura.
BULLER.
He must have had enormous talons.
NORTH.
My hand is none of the smallest—
BULLER.
God bless you, my dear sir,—give me a grasp.
NORTH.
There.
BULLER.
Oh! thumbikins!
NORTH.
And one of his son's talons—whom I shot—was twice the length of mine; his yellow knobby loof at least as broad—and his leg like my wrist. He killed a man. Knocked him down a precipice, like a cannon-ball. He had the credit of it all over the country—but I believe his wife did the business, for she was half-again as big as himself; and no devil like a she-devil fighting for her imp.
BULLER.
Did you ever rob an Eyrie, sir?
NORTH.
Did you over rob a Lion's den? No, no, Buller. I never—except on duty—placed my life in danger. I have been in many dangerous-looking places among the Mountains, but a cautious activity ruled all my movements—I scanned my cliff before I scaled him—and as for jumping chasms—though I had a spring in me—I looked imaginatively down the abyss, and then sensibly turned its flank where it leaned on the greensward, and the liberated streamlet might be forded, without swimming, by the silly sheep.
BULLER.
And are all those stories lies?
NORTH.
All. I have sometimes swam a loch or a river in my clothes—but never except when they lay in my way, or when I was on an angling excursion—and what danger could there possibly be in doing that?
BULLER.
You might have taken the Cramp, Sir.
NORTH.
And the Cramp might have taken me—but neither of us ever did—and a man, with a short neck or a long one, might as well shun the streets in perpetual fear of apoplexy, as a good swimmer evade water in dread of being drowned. As for swimming in my clothes—had I left them on the hither, how should I have looked on the thither side?
BULLER.
No man, in such circumstances, could, with any satisfaction to himself, have pursued his journey, even through the most lonesome places.
BULLER.
Describe the view from the summit.
NORTH.
I have no descriptive power—but, even though I had, I know better than that. Why, between Cruachan and Buchail-Etive lie hundreds on hundreds of mountains of the first, second, and third order—and, for a while at first, your eyes are so bewildered that you cannot see any one in particular; yet, in your astonishment, have a strange vision of them all—and might think they were interchanging places, shouldering one another off into altering shapes in the uncertain region, did not the awful stillness assure you that there they had all stood in their places since the Creation, and would stand till the day of doom.
BULLER.
You have no descriptive power!
NORTH.
All at once dominion is given you over the Whole. You gradually see Order in what seemed a Chaos—you understand the character of the Region—its Formation—for you are a Geologist, else you have no business—no right there; and you know where the valleys are singing for joy, though you hear them not—where there is provision for the cattle on a hundred hills—where are the cottages of Christian men on the green braes sheltered by the mountains—and where may stand, beneath the granite rocks out of which it was built, the not unfrequent House of God.
BULLER.
To-morrow we shall attend Divine Service—
NORTH.
At Dalmally.
BULLER.
I long ago learned to like the ritual of the Kirk. I should like to believe in a high-minded purified Calvinist, who could embrace, in his brotherly heart, a high-minded purified English Bishop, with all his Episcopacy.
NORTH.
And why should he not, if he can recognise the Divine Spirit flowing through the two sets of sensible demonstrations? He can; unless the constitution of the Anglican Christian Religion wars, either by its dogmas or by its ecclesiastical ordinances, against his essential intelligence of Christianity.
BULLER.
And who shall say it does?
NORTH.
Many say it—not I.
BULLER.
And you are wise and good.
NORTH.
Many thousands—and hundreds of thousands, wiser and better. I can easily suppose a Mind—strong in thought, warm in feeling, of an imagination susceptible and creative—by magnanimity, study, and experience of the world, disengaged from all sectarian tenets—yet holding the absolute conviction of religion—and contemplating, with reverence and tenderness, many different ways of expression which this inmost spiritual disposition has produced or put on—having a firmest holding on to Christianity as pure, holy, august, divine, true, beyond all other modes of religion upon the Earth—partly from intuition of its essential fitness to our nature—partly from intense gratitude—partly, perhaps, from the original entwining of it with his own faculties, thoughts, feelings, history, being. Well, he looks with affectionate admiration upon the Scottish, with affectionate admiration on the English Church—old affection agreeing with new affection—and I can imagine inhimas much generosity required to love his own Church—the Presbyterian—as yours the Episcopalian—and that, Latitudinarian as he may be called, he loves them both. For myself, you know how I love England—all that belongs to her—all that makes her what she is—scarcely more—surely not less—Scotland. The ground of the Scottish Form is the overbearing consciousness, that religion is immediately between man and his Maker. All hallowing of things outward is to that consciousness a placing of such earthly things as interpositions and separating intermediates in that interval unavoidable between the Finite and the Infinite, but which should remain blank and clear for the immediate communications of the Worshipper and the Worshipped.
BULLER.
I believe, sir, you are a Presbyterian?
NORTH.
He that worships in spirit and in truth cannot endure—cannot imagine, that anything but his own sin shall stand betwixt him and God.
BULLER.
That, until it be in some way or another extinguished, shall and must.
NORTH.
True as Holy Writ. But intervening saints, images, and elaborate rituals—the contrivance of human wit—all these the fire of the Spirit has consumed, and consumes.
BULLER.
The fire of the Presbyterian spirit?
NORTH.
Add history. War and persecution have afforded an element of human hate for strengthening the sternness——
BULLER.
Of Presbyterian Scotland.
NORTH.
Drop that word—for I more than doubt if you understand it.
BULLER.
I beg pardon, sir.
NORTH.
The Scottish service, Mr Buller, comprehends Prayer, Praise, Doctrine—all three necessary verbal acts amongst Christians met, but each in utmost simplicity.
BULLER.
Episcopalian as I am, that simplicity I have felt to be most affecting.
NORTH.
The Praise, which unites the voices of the congregation, must be written. The Prayer, which is the burning towards God of the soul of the Shepherd upon the behalf of the Flock, and upon his own, must be unwritten—unpremeditated—else it is not Prayer. Can the heart ever want fitting words? The Teaching must be to the utmost, forethought, at some time or at another, as to the Matter. The Teacher must have secured his intelligence of the Matter ere he opens his mouth. But the Form, which is of expediency only, he may very loosely have considered. That is the Theory.
BULLER.
Often liable in practice, I should fear, to sad abuse.
NORTH.
May be so. But it presumes that capable men, full of zeal, and sincerity, and love—fervent servants and careful shepherds—have been chosen, under higher guidance. It supposes the holy fire of the new-born Reformation—of the newly-regenerated Church——-
BULLER.
Kirk.
NORTH.
Of the newly-regenerated Church, to continue undamped, inextinguishable.
BULLER.
And is it so?
NORTH.
The Fact answers to the Theory more or less. The original Thought—simplicity of worship—is to the utmost expressed, when the chased Covenanters are met on the greensward, between the hillside and the brawling brook, under the coloured or uncoloured sky. Understand that, when their descendants meet within walls and beneath roofs, theywouldworship after the manner of their hunted ancestors.
BULLER.
I wish I were better read than I am, in the history of Scotland, civil and ecclesiastical.
NORTH.
I wish you were. I say, then, my excellent friend, that the Ritual and whole Ordering of the Scottish Church is moulded upon, or issues out of, the human spirit kindling in conscious communication of the Divine Spirit. The power of the Infinite—that is, the Sense of Infinitude, of Eternity—reigns there; and the Sense in the inmost soul of the sustaining contact with Omnipotence, and self-consciousness intense, and elation of Divine favour personally vouchsafed, and joy of anticipated everlasting bliss, and triumph over Satan, death, and hell, and immeasurable desire to win souls to the King of the Worlds.
BULLER.
In England we are, I am ashamed to say it, ill informed on——
NORTH.
In Scotland we are, I am ashamed to say it, ill informed on——
BULLER.
But go on, sir.
NORTH.
What place is there for Forms of any kind in the presence of these immense overpowering Realities? For Forms, Buller, are of the Imagination; the Faculty that inhales and lives by the Unreal. But some concession to the humanity of our nature intrudes. Imagination may be subordinated, subjugated, but will not, may not, forego all its rights. Therefore, Forms and hallowing associations enter.
BULLER.
Into all Worship.
NORTH.
Form, too, is, in part, Necessary Order.
BULLER.
Perhaps, sir, you may be not unwilling to say a few words of our Ritual.
NORTH.
I tremble to speak of your Ritual; for it appears to me as bearing on its front an excellence which might be found incompatible with religious truth and sincerity.
BULLER.
I confess that I hardly understand you, sir.
NORTH.
The Liturgy looks to be that which the old Churches are, the Work of a Fine Art.
BULLER.
You do not urge that as an objection to it, I trust, sir?
NORTH.
A Poetical sensibility, a wakeful, just, delicate, simple Taste, seems to have ruled over the composition of each Prayer, and the ordering of the whole Service.
BULLER.
You do not urge that as an objection to it, I trust, sir?
NORTH.
I am not urging objections, sir. I seldom—never, indeed—urge objections to anything. I desire only to place all things in their true light.
BULLER.
Don't frown, sir—smile. Enough.
NORTH.
The whole composition of the Service is copious and various. Human Supplication, the lifting up of the hands of the creature knowing his own weakness, dependence, lapses, and liability to slip—man's own part, dictated by his own experience of himself, is the basis. Readings from the Old and New Volume of the Written Word are ingrafted, as if God audibly spoke in his own House; the Authoritative added to the Supplicatory.
BULLER.
Finely true. We Church of England men love you, Mr North—we do indeed.
NORTH.
The hymns of the sweet Singer of Israel, in literal translation, adopted as a holier inspired language of the heart.
BULLER.
These, sir, are surely three powerful elements of a Ritual Service.
NORTH.
Throughout, the People divide, the service with the Minister. They have in it their own personal function.
BULLER.
Then the Homily, sir.
NORTH.
Ay, the Homily, which, one might say, interprets between Sunday and the Week—fixes the holiness of the Day in precepts, doctrines, reflections, which may be carried home to guide and nourish.
BULLER.
Altogether, sir, it seems a meet work of worshippers met in their ChristianLand, upon the day of rest and aspiration. The Scottish worship might seem to remember the flame and the sword. The persecuted Iconoclasts of two centuries ago, live in their descendants.
NORTH.
But the Ritual of England breathes a divine calm. You think of the People walking through ripening fields on a mild day to their Church door. It is the work of a nation sitting in peace, possessing their land. It is the work of a wealthy nation, that, by dedicating a part of its wealth, consecrates the remainder—that acknowledges the Fountain from which all flows. The prayers are devout, humble, fervent. They are not impassioned. A wonderful temperance and sobriety of discretion; that which, in worldly things, would be called good sense, prevails in them; but you must name it better in things spiritual. The framers evidently bore in mind the continual consciousness of writing forALL. That is the guiding, tempering, calming spirit that keeps in the Whole one tone—that, and the hallowing, chastening awe which subdues vehemence, even in the asking for the Infinite, by those who have nothing but that which they earnestly ask, and who know that unless they ask infinitely, they ask nothing. In every word, the whole Congregation, the whole Nation prays—not the Individual Minister; the officiating Divine Functionary, not the Man. Nor must it be forgotten that the received Version and the Book of Common Prayer—observe the wordCommon, expressing exactly what I affirm—are beautiful by the words—that there is no other such English—simple, touching, apt, venerable—hued as the thoughts are—musical—the most English English that is known—of a Hebraic strength and antiquity, yet lucid and gracious as if of and for to-day.
BULLER.
I trust that many Presbyterians sympathise with you in these sentiments.
NORTH.
Not many—few. Nor do I say I wish they were more.
BULLER.
Are you serious, sir?
NORTH.
I am. But cannot explain myself now. What are the Three Pillars of the Love of any Church? Innate Religion—Humanity—Imagination. The Scottish worship better satisfies the first Principle—that of England the last; the Roman Catholic still more the last—and are not your Cathedrals Roman Catholic? I think that the Scottish and English, better than the Roman Catholic, satisfy the Middle Principle—Humanity, being truer to the highest requisitions of our Nature, and nourish our faculties better, both of Will and Understanding, into their strength and beauty. Yet what divine-minded Roman Catholics there have been—and are—and will be!
BULLER.
Pause for a moment, sir,—here comes Seward.
NORTH.
Seward! Is he not with us? Surely he was, all hour or two ago—but I never missed him—your conversation has been so interesting and instructive. Seward! why you are all the world like a drowned rat?
SEWARD.
Rat I am none—but a stanch Conservative. Would I had had a Protectionist with me to keep me right on the Navigation Laws.
NORTH.
What do you mean? What's the matter?
SEWARD.
Why, your description of the Pools in Cladich-Cleugh inspired me with a passion for one of the Naïads.
NORTH.
And you have had a ducking!
SEWARD.
I have indeed. Plashed souse, head over heels, into one of the prettiest pools, from a slippery ledge some dozen feet above the sleeping beauty—were you both deaf that you did not hear me bawl?
NORTH.
I have a faint recollection of hearing something bray, but I suppose I thought it came from the Gipsies' Camp.
BULLER.
Are you wet?
SEWARD.
Come—come—Buller.
BULLER.
Why so dry?
NORTH.
Sair drooket.
BULLER.
Where's your Tile?
SEWARD.
I hate slang.
BULLER.
Why, you have lost a shoe—and much delightful conversation.
NORTH.
I must say, Seward, that I was hurt by your withdrawing yourself from our Colloquy.
SEWARD.
Sir, you were beginning to get so prosy——
BULLER.
I insist, Seward, on your making an apology on your knees to our Father for your shocking impiety—I shudder to repeat the word—which you must swallow—P—R—O—S—Y!
SEWARD.
On my knees! Look at them.
NORTH.
My dear, dearer, dearest Mr Seward—you are bleeding—I fear a fracture. Let me——
SEWARD.
I am not bleeding—only a knap on the knee-pan, sir.
BULLER.
Not bleeding! Why you must be drenched in blood, your face is so white.
NORTH.
Anon sequitur, Buller. But from a knap on the knee-pan I have known a man a lamiter for life.
SEWARD.
I lament the loss of my Sketch-Book.
BULLER.
It is a judgment on you for that Caricature.
NORTH.
What caricature?
BULLER.
Since you will force me to tell it, a caricature of——Yourself, sir. I saw him working away at it with a most wicked leer on his face, while you supposed he was taking notes. He held it up to me for a moment—clapped the boards together with the grin of a fiend—and then off to Cladick-Cloock—where he met with Nemesis.
NORTH.
Is that a true bill, Mr Seward?
SEWARD.
On my honour as a gentleman, and my skill as an artist, it is not. It is a most malignant misrepresentation——
BULLER.
It was indeed.
SEWARD.
It was no caricature. I promised to Mrs Seward to send her a sketch of the illustrious Mr North; and finding you in one of the happiest of your many-sided attitudes——
NORTH.
The act is to be judged by the intention. You are acquitted of the charge.
BULLER.
To make a caricature ofYou, sir, under any circumstances, and for any purpose, would be sufficiently shocking; butHERE AND NOW, and that he might send it to hisWife—so transcends all previous perpetration ofcrimen læsæ majestatis, that I am beginning to be incredulous of what these eyes beheld—nay, to disbelieve what, if told to any human being, however depraved, would seem to him impossible, even in the mystery of iniquity, and an insane libel on our fallen nature.
SEWARD.
I did my best. Nor am I, sir, without hope that my Sketch-Book may be recovered, and then you will judge for yourself, sir, if it be a caricature. A failure, sir, it assuredly was, for what artist has succeeded withYOU?
NORTH.
To the Inn, and put on dry clothes.
SEWARD.
No. What care I about dry or wet clothes! Here let me lie down and bask in this patch of intenser sunshine at your feet. Don't stir, sir; the Crutch is not the least in the way.
NORTH.
We must be all up and doing—theHourand theMen. TheCavalcade. Hush! Hark! the Bagpipe! The Cavalcade can't be more than a mile off.
SEWARD.
Why staring thus like a Goshawk, sir?
BULLER.
I hear nothing. Seward, do you?
SEWARD.
Nothing. And what can he mean by Cavalcade? Yet I believe he has the Second Sight. I have heard it is in the Family.
NORTH.
Hear nothing? Then both of you must be deaf. But I forget—we Mountaineers are Fine-Ears—your sense of hearing has been educated on the Flat. Not now? "The Campbells are coming,"—that's the march—that's the go—that's the gathering.
BULLER.
A Horn—a Drum, sure enough—and—and—that incomprehensible mixture of groans and yells must be the Bagpipe.
NORTH.
See yonder they come, over the hill-top—the ninth mile-stone from Inverary! There's theVan, by the Road-Surveyor lent me for the occasion, drawn by Four Horses. And there's theWaggon, once the property of the lessee of the Swiss Giantess, a noble Unicorn. And there theSix Tent-Carts, Two-steeded; and there theTwo Boat-Carriages—horsed I know not how. But don't ye see the bonnyBargesaloft in the air? And Men on horseback—count them—there should be Four. You hear the Bagpipe now—surely—"The Campbells are coming." And here is the whole Concern, gentlemen, close at hand, deploying across the Bridge.
BULLER.
Has he lost his senses at last?
SEWARD.
Have we lost ours? A Cavalcade it is, with a vengeance.
NORTH.
One minute past Seven! True to their time within sixty seconds. This way, this way. Here is the Spot, the Centre of the Grove. Bagpipe—Drum and Horn—music all—silence. Silence, I cry, will nobody assist me in crying silence?
SEWARD AND BULLER.
Silence—silence—silence.
NORTH.
Give me the Speaking-Trumpet that I may call Silence.
SEWARD.
Stentor may put down the Drum, the Horns, the Fifes, and the Serpent, but the Bagpipe is above him—the Drone is deaf as the sea—the Piper moves in a sphere of his own—
BULLER.
I don't hear a syllable you are saying—ah! the storm is dead, and now what aBLESSED CALM.
NORTH.
Wheel into line—Prepare to—
Pitch Tents.
Enter the Field of the Sycamore Grove on Horseback—ushered by Archy M'Callum—Harry Seward—Marmaduke Buller—Vallance Volusene—Nepos Woodburn.Van, Waggon, Carriages, and Carts, &c., form a Barricade between the Rear of the Grove and the road to Dalmally.
Enter the Field of the Sycamore Grove on Horseback—ushered by Archy M'Callum—Harry Seward—Marmaduke Buller—Vallance Volusene—Nepos Woodburn.Van, Waggon, Carriages, and Carts, &c., form a Barricade between the Rear of the Grove and the road to Dalmally.
Adjutant Archy M'Callum! call the Roll of the Troops.
ADJUTANT.
Peter of the Lodge, Sewer and Seneschal—Here. Peterson ditto, Comptroller of the Cellars—Here. Kit Peterson, Tiger there—Here. Michael Dods, Cook at that Place—Here. Ben Brawn, Manciple—Here. Roderick M'Crimmon, King of the Pipes—-Here. Pym and Stretch, Body-men to the young Englishers—-Here,Here. Tom Moody, Huntsman at Under-cliff Hall, North Devon—-Here. The Cornwall Clipper, Head Game-keeper at Pendragon—Here. Billy Balmer of Bowness, Windermere, Commodore—Here.
NORTH.
Attention! Each man will be held answerable for his subordinates. The roll will be called an hour after sunrise, and an hour before sunset. Men, remember you are under martial law. Camp-master M'Kellar—Here. Let the Mid Peak of Cruachan be your pitching point. Old Dee-side Tent in the centre, right in Front. Dormitories to the east. To the west the Pavilion. Kitchen Range in the Rear. Donald Dhu, late Sergeant in the Black Watch, see to the Barricade. The Impedimenta in your charge. In three hours I command the Encampment to be complete. Admittance to the Field on the Queen's Birth-day. Crowd! disperse. Old Boys! What do you think of this? You have often called me a Wizard—a Warlock—no glamour here—'tis real all—and all theWork of the Crutch. Sons—your Fathers! Fathers—your Sons. Your hand, Volusene—and, Woodburn, yours.
SEWARD.
Hal, how are you?
BULLER.
How are you, Marmy?
NORTH.
On the Stage—in the Theatre of Fictitious Life—such a Meeting as this would require explanation—but in the Drama of Real Life, on the Banks of Lochawe, it needs none. Friends of my soul! you will come to understand it all in two minutes' talk with your Progeny. Progeny—welcome for your Sires' sakes—and your Lady Mothers'—and your own—to Lochawe-side. I see you are two Trumps. Volusene—Woodburn—from your faces all well at home. Come, my two old Bucks—let us Three, to be out of the bustle, retire to the Inn. Did you ever see Christopher fling the Crutch? There—I knew it would clear the Sycamore Grove.
SEWARD.
Still at his Siesta in his Swing-Chair. Few faces bear to be looked on asleep.
BULLER.
Men's faces.
SEWARD.
His bears it well. Awake, it is sometimes too full of expression. And then, how it fluctuates! Perpetual play and interchange as Thought, Feeling, Fancy, Imagination——
BULLER.
The gay, the grave, the sad, the serious, the pathetic, the humorous, the tragic, the whimsical rules the minute—