"For they that creep and they that fly,Just end where they began!"
"For they that creep and they that fly,Just end where they began!"
A May-morning on Ulswater and the banks of Ulswater—commingled earth and heaven! Spring is many-coloured as Autumn; but now Joy scatters the hues daily brightening into greener life, then Melancholy dropt them daily dimming into yellower death. The fear of Winter then—but now the hope of Summer; and Nature rings with hymns hailing the visible advent of the perfect year. If for a moment the woods are silent, it is but to burst forth anew into louder song. The rain is over and gone—but the showery sky speaks in the streams on a hundred hills; and the wide mountain gloom opens its heart to the sunshine that on many a dripping precipice burns like fire. Nothing seems inanimate. The very clouds and their shadows look alive—the trees, never dead, are wide-awakened from their sleep—families of flowers are frequenting all the dewy places—old walls are splendid with the light of lichens—and birch-crowned cliffs up among the coves send down their fine fragrance to the Lake on every bolder breath that whitens with breaking wavelets the blue of its breezy bosom. Nor mute the voice of man. The shepherd is whooping on the hill—the ploughman calling to his team somewhere among the furrows in some small late field, won from the woods; and you hear the laughter, and the echoes of the laughter—one sound—of children busied in half-work half-play; for what else in vernal sunshine is the occupation of young rustic life? 'Tis no Arcadia—no golden age. But a lovelier scene—in the midst of all its grandeur—is not in merry and majestic England; nor did the hills of this earth ever circumscribe a pleasanter dwelling for a nobler peasantry, than these Cumbrian ranges of rocks and pastures, where the raven croaks in his own region, unregarded in theirs by the fleecy flocks. How beautiful the Church Tower!
On a knoll not far from the shore, and not high above the water, yet by an especial felicity of place gently commanding all that reach of the Lake with all its ranges of mountains—every single tree, every grove, and all the woods seeming to show or to conceal the scene at the bidding of the Spirit of Beauty—reclined two Figures—the one almost rustic, but venerable in the simplicity of old age—the other no longer young, but still in the prime of life—and though plainly apparelled, with form and bearing such as are pointed out in cities, because belonging to distinguished men. The old man behaved towards him with deference, but not humility; and between them two—in many things unlike—it was clear even from their silence that there was friendship.
A little way off, and sometimes almost running, now up and now down the slopes and hollows, was a girl about eight years old—whether beautiful or not you could not know, for her face was either half-hidden in golden hair, or when she tossed the tresses from her brow, it was so bright in the sunshine that you saw no features, only a gleam of joy. Now she was chasing the butterflies, not to hurt them, but to get a nearer sight of their delicate gauze wings—the first that had come—she wondered whence—to waver and wanton for a little while in the spring sunshine, and then, she felt, as wondrously, one and all, as by consent, to vanish. And now she stooped as if to pull some little wildflower, her hand for a moment withheld by a loving sense of its loveliness, but ever and anon adding some new colour to the blended bloom intended to gladden her father's eyes—though the happy child knew full well, and sometimes wept to know, that she herself had his entire heart. Yet gliding, or tripping, or dancing along, she touched not with fairy foot one white clover-flower on which she saw working the silent bee. Her father looked too often sad, and she feared—though what it was, she imagined not even in dreams—that some great misery must have befallen him before they came to live in the glen. And such, too, she had heard from a chance whisper, was the belief of their neighbours. But momentary the shadows on the light of childhood! Nor was she insensible to her own beauty, that with the innocence it enshrined combined to make her happy; and first met her own eyes every morning, when most beautiful, awakening from the hushed awe of herprayers. She was clad in russet like a cottager's child; but her air spoke of finer breeding than may be met with among those mountains—though natural grace accompanies there many a maiden going with her pitcher to the well—and gentle blood and old flows there in the veins of now humble men—who, but for the decay of families once high, might have lived in halls, now dilapidated, and scarcely distinguished through masses of ivy from the circumjacent rocks!
The child stole close behind her father, and kissing his cheek, said, "Were there ever such lovely flowers seen in Ulswater before, father? I do not believe that they will ever die." And she put them in his breast. Not a smile came to his countenance—no look of love—no faint recognition—no gratitude for the gift which at other times might haply have drawn a tear. She stood abashed in the sternness of his eyes, which, though fixed on her, seemed to see her not; and feeling that her glee was mistimed—for with such gloom she was not unfamiliar—the child felt as if her own happiness had been sin, and, retiring into a glade among the broom, sat down and wept.
"Poor wretch, better far that she never had been born."
The old man looked on his friend with compassion, but with no surprise; and only said, "God will dry up her tears."
These few simple words, uttered in a solemn voice, but without one tone of reproach, seemed somewhat to calm the other's trouble, who first looking towards the spot where his child was sobbing to herself, though he heard it not, and then looking up to heaven, ejaculated for her sake a broken prayer. He then would have fain called her to him; but he was ashamed that even she should see him in such a passion of grief—and the old man went to her of his own accord, and bade her, as from her father, again to take her pastime among the flowers. Soon was she dancing in her happiness as before; and, that her father might hear she was obeying him, singing a song.
"For five years every Sabbath have I attended divine service in your chapel—yet dare I not call myself a Christian. I have prayed for faith—nor, wretch that I am, am I an unbeliever. But I fear to fling myself at the foot of the cross. God be merciful to me a sinner!"
The old man opened not his lips; for he felt that there wasabout to be made some confession. Yet he doubted not that the sufferer had been more sinned against than sinning; for the goodness of the stranger—so called still after five years' residence among the mountains—was known in many a vale—and the Pastor knew that charity covereth a multitude of sins—and even as a moral virtue prepares the heart for heaven. So sacred a thing is solace in this woeful world.
"We have walked together, many hundred times, for great part of a day, by ourselves two, over long tracts of uninhabited moors, and yet never once from my lips escaped one word about my fates or fortunes—so frozen was the secret in my heart. Often have I heard the sound of your voice, as if it were that of the idle wind; and often the words I did hear seemed, in the confusion, to have no relation to us, to be strange syllablings in the wilderness, as from the hauntings of some evil spirit instigating me to self-destruction."
"I saw that your life was oppressed by some perpetual burden; but God darkened not your mind while your heart was disturbed so grievously; and well pleased were we all to think, that in caring so kindly for the griefs of others, you might come at last to forget your own; or if that were impossible, to feel, that with the alleviations of time, and sympathy, and religion, yours was no more than the common lot of sorrow."
They rose—and continued to walk in silence—but not apart—up and down that small sylvan enclosure overlooked but by rocks. The child saw her father's distraction—no unusual sight to her; yet on each recurrence as mournful and full of fear as if seen for the first time—and pretended to be playing aloof with her face pale in tears.
"That child's mother is not dead. Where she is now I know not—perhaps in a foreign country hiding her guilt and her shame. All say that a lovelier child was never seen than that wretch—God bless her—how beautiful is the poor creature now in her happiness singing over her flowers! Just such another must her mother have been at her age. She is now an outcast—and an adulteress."
The Pastor turned away his face, for in the silence he heard groans, and the hollow voice again spoke.—
"Through many dismal days and nights have I striven to forgive her, but never for many hours together have I beenenabled to repent my curse. For on my knees I implored God to curse her—her head—her eyes—her breast—her body—mind, heart, and soul—and that she might go down a loathsome leper to the grave."
"Remember what He said to the woman—'Go, and sin no more!'"
"The words have haunted me all up and down the hills—His words and mine; but mine have always sounded liker justice at last—for my nature was created human—and human are all the passions that pronounced that holy or unholy curse!"
"Yet you would not curse her now—were she lying here at your feet—or if you were standing by her deathbed?"
"Lying here at my feet! Even here—on this very spot—not blasted, but green through all the year—within the shelter of these two rocks—she did lie at my feet in her beauty—and as I thought her innocence—my own happy bride! Hither I brought her to be blest—and blest I was even up to the measure of my misery. This world is hell to me now—but then it was heaven!"
"These awful names are of the mysteries beyond the grave."
"Hear me and judge. She was an orphan; all her father's and mother's relations were dead, but a few who were very poor. I married her, and secured her life against this heartless and wicked world. That child was born—and while it grew like a flower—she left it—and its father—me who loved her beyond light and life, and would have given up both for her sake."
"And have not yet found heart to forgive her—miserable as she needs must be—seeing she has been a great sinner!"
"Who forgives? The father his profligate son, or disobedient daughter? No; he disinherits his firstborn, and suffers him to perish, perhaps by an ignominious death. He leaves his only daughter to drag out her days in penury—a widow with orphans. The world may condemn, but is silent; he goes to church every Sabbath, but no preacher denounces punishment on the unrelenting, the unforgiving parent. Yet how easily might he have taken them both back to his heart, and loved them better than ever! But she poisoned my cup of life when it seemed to overflow with heaven. Had God dashed it from my lips, I could have borne my doom. Butwith her own hand which I had clasped at the altar—and with our Lucy at her knees—she gave me that loathsome draught of shame and sorrow:—I drank it to the dregs—and it is burning all through my being—now—as if it had been hell-fire from the hands of a fiend in the shape of an angel. In what page of the New Testament am I told to forgive her? Let me see the verse—and then shall I know that Christianity is an imposture; for the voice of God within me—the conscience which is His still small voice—commands me never from my memory to obliterate that curse—never to forgive her, and her wickedness—not even if we should see each other's shadows in a future state, after the day of judgment."
His countenance grew ghastly—and staggering to a stone, he sat down and eyed the skies with a vacant stare, like a man whom dreams carry about in his sleep. His face was like ashes—and he gasped like one about to fall into a fit. "Bring me water"—and the old man motioned on the child, who, giving ear to him for a moment, flew away to the Lakeside with an urn she had brought with her for flowers; and held it to her father's lips. His eyes saw it not;—there was her sweet pale face all wet with tears, almost touching his own—her innocent mouth breathing that pure balm that seems to a father's soul to be inhaled from the bowers of paradise. He took her into his bosom—and kissed her dewy eyes—and begged her to cease her sobbing—to smile—to laugh—to sing—to dance away into the sunshine—to be happy!And Lucy afraid, not of her father, but of his kindness—for the simple creature was not able to understand his wild utterance of blessings—returned to the glade but not to her pastime, and couching like a fawn among the fern, kept her eyes on her father, and left her flowers to fade unheeded beside her empty urn.
"Unintelligible mystery of wickedness! That child was just three years old the very day it was forsaken—she abandoned it and me on its birthday! Twice had that day been observed by us—as the sweetest—the most sacred of holidays; and now that it had again come round—but I not present—for I was on foreign service—thus did she observe it—and disappeared with her paramour. It so happened that we went that day into action—and I committed her and our child to the mercy of God in fervent prayers; for love made mereligious—and for their sakes I feared though I shunned not death. I lay all night among the wounded on the field of battle—and it was a severe frost. Pain kept me from sleep, but I saw them as distinctly as in a dream—the mother lying with her child in her bosom in our own bed. Was not that vision mockery enough to drive me mad? After a few weeks a letter came to me from herself—and I kissed it and pressed it to my heart; for no black seal was there—and I knew that little Lucy was alive. No meaning for a while seemed to be in the words—and then they began to blacken into ghastly characters—till at last I gathered from the horrid revelation that she was sunk in sin and shame, steeped for evermore in utmost pollution.
"A friend was with me, and I gave it to him to read—for in my anguish at first I felt no shame—and I watched his face as he read it, that I might see corroboration of the incredible truth, which continued to look like falsehood, even while it pierced my heart with agonising pangs. 'It may be a forgery,' was all he could utter—after long agitation; but the shape of each letter was too familiar to my eyes—the way in which the paper was folded—and I knew my doom was sealed. Hours must have passed, for the room grew dark—and I asked him to leave me for the night. He kissed my forehead—for we had been as brothers. I saw him next morning—dead—cut nearly in two—yet had he left a paper for me, written an hour before he fell, so filled with holiest friendship, that oh! how even in my agony I wept for him, now but a lump of cold clay and blood, and envied him at the same time a soldier's grave!
"And has the time indeed come that I can thus speak calmly of all that horror? The body was brought into my room, and it lay all day and all night close to my bed. But false was I to all our life-long friendship—and almost with indifference I looked upon the corpse. Momentary starts of affection seized me—but I cared little or nothing for the death of him, the tender and the true, the gentle and the brave, the pious and the noble-hearted; my anguish was all for her, the cruel and the faithless, dead to honour, to religion dead—dead to all the sanctities of nature—for her, and for her alone, I suffered all ghastliest agonies—nor any comfort came to me in my despair, from the conviction that she was worthless;for desperately wicked as she had shown herself to be—oh! crowding came back upon me all our hours of happiness—all her sweet smiles—all her loving looks—all her affectionate words—all her conjugal and maternal tendernesses; and the loss of all that bliss—the change of it all into strange, sudden, shameful, and everlasting misery, smote me till I swooned, and was delivered up to a trance in which the rueful reality was mixed up with phantasms more horrible than man's mind can suffer out of the hell of sleep!
"Wretched coward that I was to outlive that night! But my mind was weak from great loss of blood—and the blow so stunned me that I had not strength of resolution to die. I might have torn off the bandages—for nobody watched me—and my wounds were thought mortal. But the love of life had not welled out with all those vital streams; and as I began to recover, another passion took possession of me—and I vowed that there should be atonement and revenge. I was not obscure. My dishonour was known through the whole army. Not a tent—not a hut—in which my name was not bandied about—a jest in the mouths of profligate poltroons—pronounced with pity by the compassionate brave. I had commanded my men with pride. No need had I ever had to be ashamed when I looked on our colours; but no wretch led out to execution for desertion or cowardice ever shrunk from the sun, and from the sight of human faces arrayed around him, with more shame and horror than did I when, on my way to a transport, I came suddenly on my own corps, marching to music as if they were taking up a position in the line of battle—as they had often done with me at their head—all sternly silent before an approaching storm of fire. What brought them there? To do me honour! Me, smeared with infamy, and ashamed to lift my eyes from the mire. Honour had been the idol I worshipped—alas! too, too passionately far—and now I lay in my litter like a slave sold to stripes—and heard as if a legion of demons were mocking me with loud and long huzzas; and then a confused murmur of blessings on our noble commander, so they called me—me, despicable in my own esteem—scorned, insulted, forsaken—me, who could not bind to mine the bosom that for years had touched it—a wretch so poor in power over a woman's heart, that no sooner had I left her to her own thoughts than shefelt that she had never loved me, and, opening her fair breast to a new-born bliss, sacrificed me without remorse—nor could bear to think of me any more as her husband—not even for sake of that child whom I knew she loved—for no hypocrite was she there; and oh! lost creature though she was—even now I wonder over that unaccountable desertion—and much she must have suffered from the image of that small bed, beside which she used to sit for hours, perfectly happy from the sight of that face which I too so often blessed in her hearing, because it was so like her own! Where is my child? Have I frightened her away into the wood by my unfatherly looks? She too will come to hate me—oh! see yonder her face and her figure like a fairy's, gliding through among the broom! Sorrow has no business with her—nor she with sorrow. Yet—even her how often have I made weep! All the unhappiness she has ever known has all come from me; and would I but leave her alone to herself in her affectionate innocence, the smile that always lies on her face when she is asleep would remain there—only brighter—all the time her eyes are awake; but I dash it away by my unhallowed harshness, and people looking on her in her trouble wonder to think how sad can be the countenance even of a little child. O God of mercy! what if she were to die!"
"She will not die—she will live," said the pitying pastor; "and many happy years—my son—are yet in store even for you—sorely as you have been tried; for it is not in nature that your wretchedness can endure for ever. She is in herself all-sufficient for a father's happiness. You prayed just now that the God of Mercy would spare her life—and has He not spared it? Tender flower as she seems, yet how full of life! Let not then your gratitude to Heaven be barren in your heart; but let it produce there resignation—if need be, contrition—and, above all, forgiveness."
"Yes! I had a hope to live for—mangled as I was in body, and racked in mind—a hope that was a faith—and bittersweet it was in imagined foretaste of fruition—the hope and the faith of revenge. They said he would not aim at my life. But what was that to me who thirsted for his blood? Was he to escape death, because he dared not wound bone, or flesh, or muscle of mine, seeing that the assassin had already stabbed my soul? Satisfaction! I tell you that I was for revenge.Not that his blood could wipe out the stain with which my name was imbrued, but let it be mixed with the mould; and he who invaded my marriage-bed—and hallowed was it by every generous passion that ever breathed upon woman's breast—let him fall down in convulsions, and vomit out his heart's blood, at once in expiation of his guilt, and in retribution dealt out to him by the hand of him whom he had degraded in the eyes of the whole world beneath the condition even of a felon, and delivered over in my misery to contempt and scorn. I found him out;—there he was before me—in all that beauty by women so beloved—graceful as Apollo; and with a haughty air, as if proud of an achievement that adorned his name, he saluted me—her husband—on the field,—and let the wind play with his raven tresses—his curled love-locks—and then presented himself to my aim in an attitude a statuary would have admired. I shot him through the heart."
The good old man heard the dreadful words with a shudder—yet they had come to his ears not unexpectedly, for the speaker's aspect had gradually been growing black with wrath, long before he ended in an avowal of murder. Nor, on ceasing his wild words and distracted demeanour, did it seem that his heart was touched with any remorse. His eyes retained their savage glare—his teeth were clenched—and he feasted on his crime.
"Nothing but a full faith in Divine Revelation," solemnly said his aged friend, "can subdue the evil passions of our nature, or enable conscience itself to see and repent of sin. Your wrongs were indeed great—but without a change wrought in all your spirit, alas! my son! you cannot hope to see the kingdom of heaven."
"Who dares to condemn the deed? He deserved death—and whence was doom to come but from me the Avenger? I took his life—but once I saved it. I bore him from the battlements of a fort stormed in vain—after we had all been blown up by the springing of a mine; and from bayonets that had drunk my blood as well as his—and his widowed mother blessed me as the saviour of her son. I told my wife to receive him as a brother—and for my sake to feel towards him a sister's love. Who shall speak of temptation—or frailty—or infatuation to me? Let the fools hold their peace. Hiswounds became dearer to her abandoned heart than mine had ever been; yet had her cheek lain many a night on the scars that seamed this breast—for I was not backward in battle, and our place was in the van. I was no coward, that she who loved heroism in him should have dishonoured her husband. True, he was younger by some years than me—and God had given him pernicious beauty—and she was young, too—oh! the brightest of all mortal creatures the day she became my bride—nor less bright with that baby at her bosom—a matron in girlhood's resplendent spring! Is youth a plea for wickedness? And was I old? I, who, in spite of all I have suffered, feel the vital blood yet boiling as to a furnace; but cut off for ever by her crime from fame and glory—and from a soldier in his proud career, covered with honour in the eyes of all my countrymen, changed in an hour into an outlawed and nameless slave. My name has been borne by a race of heroes—the blood in my veins has flowed down a long line of illustrious ancestors—and here am I now—a hidden disguised hypocrite—dwelling among peasants—and afraid—ay, afraid, because ashamed, to lift my eyes freely from the ground even among the solitudes of the mountains, lest some wandering stranger should recognise me, and see the brand of ignominy her hand and his—accursed both—burnt in upon my brow. She forsook this bosom—but tell me if it was in disgust with these my scars?"
And as he bared it, distractedly, that noble chest was seen indeed disfigured with many a gash—on which a wife might well have rested her head with gratitude not less devout because of a lofty pride mingling with life-deep affection. But the burst of passion was gone by—and, covering his face with his hands, he wept like a child.
"Oh! cruel—cruel was her conduct to me; yet what has mine been to her—for so many years! I could not tear her image from my memory—not an hour has it ceased to haunt me; since I came among these mountains, her ghost is for ever at my side. I have striven to drive it away with curses, but still there is the phantom. Sometimes—beautiful as on our marriage-day—all in purest white—adorned with flowers—it wreathes its arms around my neck—and offers its mouth to my kisses—and then all at once is changed into a leering wretch, retaining a likeness of my bride—then into a corpse.And perhaps she is dead—dead of cold and hunger: she whom I cherished in all luxury—whose delicate frame seemed to bring round itself all the purest air and sweetest sunshine—she may have expired in the very mire—and her body been huddled into some hole called a pauper's grave. And I have suffered all this to happen to her! Or have I suffered her to become one of the miserable multitude who support hated and hateful life by prostitution? Black was her crime; yet hardly did she deserve to be one of that howling crew—she whose voice was once so sweet, her eyes so pure, and her soul so innocent—for up to the hour I parted with her weeping, no evil thought had ever been hers;—then why, ye eternal Heavens! why fell she from that sphere where she shone like a star? Let that mystery that shrouds my mind in darkness be lightened—let me see into its heart—and know but the meaning of her guilt—and then may I be able to forgive it; but for five years, day and night, it has troubled and confounded me—and from blind and baffled wrath with an iniquity that remains like a pitch-black night through which I cannot grope my way, no refuge can I find—and nothing is left me but to tear my hair out by handfuls—as, like a madman, I have done—to curse her by name in the solitary glooms, and to call down upon her the curse of God. O wicked—most wicked! Yet He who judges the hearts of His creatures knows that I have a thousand and a thousand times forgiven her, but that a chasm lay between us, from which, the moment that I came to its brink, a voice drove me back—I know not whether of a good or evil spirit—and bade me leave her to her fate. But she must be dead—and needs not now my tears. O friend! judge me not too sternly—from this my confession; for all my wild words have imperfectly expressed to you but parts of my miserable being—and if I could lay it all before you, you would pity me perhaps as much as condemn—for my worst passions only have now found utterance—all my better feelings will not return nor abide for words—even I myself have forgotten them; but your pitying face seems to say, that they will be remembered at the Throne of Mercy. I forgive her." And with these words he fell down on his knees, and prayed too for pardon to his own sins. The old man encouraged him not to despair—it needed but a motion of his hand to bring the child from hercouch in the cover, and Lucy was folded to her father's heart. The forgiveness was felt to be holy in that embrace.
The day had brightened up into more perfect beauty, and showers were sporting with sunshine on the blue air of Spring. The sky showed something like a rainbow—and the Lake, in some parts quite still, and in some breezy, contained at once shadowy fragments of wood and rock, and waves that would have murmured round the prow of pleasure-boat suddenly hoisting a sail. And such a very boat appeared round a promontory that stretched no great way into the water, and formed with a crescent of low meadow-land a bay that was the first to feel the wind coming down Glencoin. The boatman was rowing heedlessly along, when a sudden squall struck the sail, and in an instant the skiff was upset and went down. No shrieks were heard—and the boatman swam ashore; but a figure was seen struggling where the sail disappeared—and starting from his knees, he who knew not fear plunged into the Lake, and after desperate exertions brought the drowned creature to the side—a female meanly attired—seemingly a stranger—and so attenuated that it was plain she must have been in a dying state, and had she not thus perished, would have had but few days to live. The hair was grey—but the face, though withered, was not old—and as she lay on the greensward, the features were beautiful as well as calm in the sunshine.
He stood over her awhile—as if struck motionless—and then kneeling beside the body, kissed its lips and eyes—and said only, "It is Lucy!"
The old man was close by—and so was that child. They too knelt—and the passion of the mourner held him dumb, with his face close to the face of death—ghastly its glare beside the sleep that knows no waking, and is forsaken by all dreams. He opened the bosom—wasted to the bone—in the idle thought that she might yet breathe—and a paper dropt out into his hand, which he read aloud to himself—unconscious that any one was near. "I am fast dying—and desire to die at your feet. Perhaps you will spurn me—it is right you should; but you will see how sorrow has killed the wicked wretch who was once your wife. I have lived in humble servitude for five years, and have suffered great hardships. I think I am a penitent—and have been told byreligious persons that I may hope for pardon from Heaven! Oh! that you would forgive me too! and let me have one look at our Lucy. I will linger about the Field of Flowers—perhaps you will come there, and see me lie down and die on the very spot where we passed a summer day the week of our marriage."
"Not thus could I have kissed thy lips—Lucy—had they been red with life. White are they—and white must they long have been! No pollution on them—nor on that poor bosom now. Contrite tears had long since washed out thy sin. A feeble hand traced these lines—and in them a humble heart said nothing but God's truth. Child—behold your mother. Art thou afraid to touch the dead?"
"No—father—I am not afraid to kiss her lips—as you did now. Sometimes, when you thought me asleep, I have heard you praying for my mother."
"Oh! child! cease—cease—or my heart will burst."
People began to gather about the body—but awe kept them aloof; and as for removing it to a house, none who saw it but knew such care would have been vain, for doubt there could be none that there lay death. So the groups remained for a while at a distance—even the old pastor went a good many paces apart; and under the shadow of that tree the father and child composed her limbs, and closed her eyes, and continued to sit beside her, as still as if they had been watching over one asleep.
That death was seen by all to be a strange calamity to him who had lived long among them—had adopted many of their customs—and was even as one of themselves—so it seemed—in the familiar intercourse of man with man. Some dim notion that this was the dead body of his wife was entertained by many, they knew not why; and their clergyman felt that then there needed to be neither concealment nor avowal of the truth. So in solemn sympathy they approached the body and its watchers; a bier had been prepared: and walking at the head, as if it had been a funeral, the Father of little Lucy holding her hand, silently directed the procession towards his own house—out of theField of Flowers.
Have you any intention, dear reader, of building a house in the country? If you have, pray, for your own sake and ours, let it not be a Cottage. We presume that you are obliged to live, one half of the year at least, in a town. Then why change altogether the character of your domicile and your establishment? You are an inhabitant of Edinburgh, and have a house in the Circus, or Heriot Row, or Abercromby Place, or Queen Street. The said house has five or six stories, and is such a palace as one might expect in the City of Palaces. Your drawing-rooms can, at a pinch, hold some ten score of modern Athenians—your dining-room might feast one half of the contributors toBlackwood's Magazine—your "placens uxor" has her boudoir—your eldest daughter, now verging on womanhood, her music-room—your boys their own studio—the governess her retreat—and the tutor his den—the housekeeper sits like an overgrown spider in her own sanctum—the butler bargains for his dim apartment—and the four maids must have their front area-window. In short, from cellarage to garret all is complete, and Number Forty-two is really a splendid mansion.
Now, dear reader, far be it from us to question the propriety or prudence of such an establishment. Your house was not built for nothing—it was no easy thing to get the painters out—the furnishing thereof was no trifle—the feu-duty is really unreasonable—and taxes are taxes still, notwithstanding the principles of free trade, and the universal prosperity of the country. Servants are wasteful, and their wages absurd—and the whole style of living, with long-necked bottles, most extravagant. But still we do not object to your establishment—far from it, we admire it much; nor is there a single house in town where we make ourselves moreagreeable to a late hour, or that we leave with a greater quantity of wine of a good quality under our girdle. Few things would give us more temporary uneasiness, than to hear of any embarrassment in your money concerns. We are not people to forget good fare, we assure you; and long and far may all shapes of sorrow keep aloof from the hospitable board, whether illuminated by gas, oil, or mutton.
But what we were going to say is this—that the head of such a house ought not to live, when ruralising, in a Cottage. He ought to be consistent. Nothing so beautiful as consistency. What then is so absurd as to cram yourself, your wife, your numerous progeny, and your scarcely less numerous menials, into a concern called a Cottage? The ordinary heat of a baker's oven is very few degrees above that of a brown study, during the month of July, in a substantial, low-roofed Cottage. Then the smell of the kitchen! How it aggravates the sultry closeness! A strange, compounded, inexplicable smell of animal, vegetable, and mineral matter. It is at the worst during the latter part of the forenoon, when everything has been got into preparation for cookery. There is then nothing savoury about the smell—it is dull, dead—almost catacombish. A small back-kitchen has it in its power to destroy the sweetness of any Cottage. Add a scullery, and the three are omnipotent. Of the eternal clashing of pots, pans, plates, trenchers, and general crockery, we now say nothing; indeed, the sound somewhat relieves the smell, and the ear comes occasionally in to the aid of the nose. Such noises are windfalls; but not so the scolding of cook and butler—at first low and tetchy, with pauses—then sharp, but still interrupted—by-and-by, loud and ready in reply—finally a discordant gabble of vulgar fury, like maniacs quarrelling in Bedlam. Hear it you must—you and all the strangers. To explain it away is impossible; and your fear is, that Alecto, Tisiphone, or Megæra, will come flying into the parlour with a bloody cleaver, dripping with the butler's brains. During the time of the quarrel the spit has been standing still, and a gigot of the five-year-old black-face burnt on one side to a cinder.—"To dinner with what appetite you may."
It would be quite unpardonable to forget one especial smell which irretrievably ruined our happiness during a whole summer—the smell of a dead rat. The accursed vermin died somewhere in the Cottage; but whether beneath a floor, within lath and plaster, or in roof, baffled the conjectures of the most sagacious. The whole family used to walk about the Cottage for hours every day, snuffing on a travel of discovery; and we distinctly remember the face of one elderly maiden-lady at the moment she thought she had traced the source of the fumée to the wall behind a window-shutter. But even at the very same instant we ourselves had proclaimed it with open nostril from a press in an opposite corner. Terriers were procured—but the dog Billy himself would have been at fault. To pull down the whole Cottage would have been difficult—at least to build it up again would have been so; so we had to submit. Custom, they say, is second nature, but not when a dead rat is in the house. No, none can ever become accustomed to that; yet good springs out of evil—for the live rats could not endure it, and emigrated to a friend's house, about a mile off, who has never had a sound night's rest from that day. We have not revisited our Cottage for several years; but time does wonders, and we were lately told by a person of some veracity that the smell was then nearly gone; but our informant is a gentleman of blunted olfactory nerves, having been engaged from seventeen to seventy in a soap-work.
Smoke too. More especially that mysterious and infernal sort, called back-smoke! The old proverb, "No smoke without fire," is a base lie. We have seen smoke without fire in every room in a most delightful Cottage we inhabited during the dog-days. The moment you rushed for refuge even into a closet, you were blinded and stifled; nor shall we ever forget our horror on being within an ace of smotheration in the cellar. At last, we groped our way into the kitchen. Neither cook nor jack was visible. We heard, indeed, a whirring and revolving noise—and then suddenly Girzie swearing through the mist. Yet all this while people were admiring our Cottage from a distance, and especially this self-same accursed back-smoke, some portions of which had made an excursion up the chimneys, and was wavering away in a spiral form to the sky, in a style captivating to Mr Price on the Picturesque.
No doubt, there are many things very romantic about aCottage. Creepers, for example. Why, sir, these creepers are the most mischievous nuisance that can afflict a family. There is no occasion for mentioning names, but—devil take all parasites. Some of the rogues will actually grow a couple of inches upon you in one day's time; and when all other honest plants are asleep, the creepers are hard at it all night long, stretching out their toes and their fingers, and catching an inextricable hold of every wall they can reach, till, finally, you see them thrusting their impudent heads through the very slates. Then, like other low-bred creatures, they are covered with vermin. All manner of moths—the most grievous grubs—slimy slugs—spiders spinning toils to ensnare the caterpillar—earwigs and slaters, that would raise the gorge of a country curate—wood-lice—the slaver of gowk's-spittle—midges— jocks-with-the-many-legs; in short, the whole plague of insects infest that—Virgin's bower. Open the lattice for half an hour, and you find yourself in an entomological museum. Then there are no pins fixing down the specimens. All these beetles are alive, more especially the enormous blackguard crawling behind your ear. A moth plumps into your tumbler of cold negus, and goes whirling round in meal, till he makes absolute porritch. As you open your mouth in amazement, the large blue-bottle fly, having made his escape from the spiders, and seeing that not a moment is to be lost, precipitates himself head-foremost down your throat, and is felt, after a few ineffectual struggles, settling in despair at the very bottom of your stomach. Still, no person will be so unreasonable as to deny that creepers on a Cottage are most beautiful. For the sake of their beauty, some little sacrifice must be made of one's comforts, especially as it is only for one half of the year, and last really was a most delightful summer.
How truly romantic is a thatch roof! The eaves how commodious for sparrows! What a paradise for rats and mice! What a comfortable colony of vermin! They all bore their own tunnels in every direction, and the whole interior becomes a Cretan labyrinth. Frush, frush becomes the whole cover in a few seasons; and not a bird can open his wing, not a rat switch his tail, without scattering the straw like chaff. Eternal repairs! Look when you will, and half-a-dozen thatchers are riding on the rigging; of all operatives themost inoperative. Then there is always one of the number descending the ladder for a horn of ale. Without warning, the straw is all used up; and no more fit for the purpose can be got within twenty miles. They hint heather—and you sigh for slate—the beautiful sky-blue, sea-green, Ballachulish slate! But the summer is nearly over and gone, and you must be flitting back to the city; so you let the job stand over to spring, and the soaking rains and snows of a long winter search the Cottage to its heart's-core, and every floor is ere long laden with a crop of fungi—the bed-posts are ornamented curiously with lichens, and mosses bathe the walls with their various and inimitable lustre.
Everything is romantic that is pastoral—and what more pastoral than sheep? Accordingly, living in a Cottage, you kill your own mutton. Great lubberly Leicesters or Southdowns are not worth the mastication, so you keep the small black-face. Stone walls are ugly things, you think, near a Cottage, so you have rails or hurdles. Day and night are the small black-face, out of pure spite, bouncing through or over all impediments, after an adventurous leader, and, despising the daisied turf, keep nibbling away at all your rare flowering shrubs, till your avenue is a desolation. Every twig has its little ball of wool, and it is a rare time for the nest-makers. You purchase a collie, but he compromises the affair with the fleecy nation, and contents himself with barking all night long at the moon, if there happen to be one—if not, at the firmament of his kennel. You are too humane to hang or drown Luath, so you give him to a friend. But Luath is in love with the cook, and pays her nightly visits. Afraid of being entrapped should he step into the kennel, he takes up his station, after supper, on a knoll within ear-range, and pointing his snout to the stars, joins the music of the spheres, and is himself a perfect Sirius. The gardener at last gets orders to shoot him—and the gun being somewhat rusty, bursts and blows off his left hand—so that Andrew Fairservice retires on a pension.
Of all breeds of cattle we most admire the Alderney. They are slim, delicate, wild-deer-looking creatures, that give an air to a Cottage. But they are most capricious milkers. Of course you make your own butter; that is to say, with the addition of a dozen purchased pounds weekly, you are notvery often out of that commodity. Then, once or twice in a summer, they suddenly lose their temper, and chase the governess and your daughters over the edge of a gravel-pit. Nothing they like so much as the tender sprouts of cauliflower, nor do they abhor green pease. The garden-hedge is of privet—a pretty fence, and fast growing, but not formidable to a four-year-old. On going to eat a few gooseberries by sunrise, you start a covey of cows, that in their alarm plunge into the hot-bed with a smash, as if all the glass in the island had been broken—and rushing out at the gate at the critical instant little Tommy is tottering in, they leave the heir-apparent, scarcely deserving that name, half hidden in the border. There is no sale for such outlandish animals in the home-market, and it is not Martinmas, so you must make a present of them to the president or five silver-cupman of an agricultural society, and you receive in return a sorry red round, desperately saltpetred, at Christmas.
What is a Cottage in the country, unless "your banks are all furnished with bees, whose murmurs invite one to sleep?" There the hives stand, like four-and-twenty fiddlers all in a row. Not a more harmless insect in all this world than a bee. Wasps are devils incarnate, but bees are fleshly sprites, as amiable as industrious. You are strolling along in delightful mental vacuity, looking at a poem of Barry Cornwall's, when smack comes an infuriated honey-maker against your eyelid, and plunges into you the fortieth part of an inch of sting saturated in venom. The wretch clings to your lid like a burr, and it feels as if he had a million claws to hold him on while he is darting his weapon into your eyeball. Your banks are indeed well furnished with bees, but their murmurs do not invite you to sleep; on the contrary, away you fly like a madman, bolt into your wife's room, and roar out for the recipe. The whole of one side of your face is most absurdly swollen, while the other isin statu quo. One eye is dwindled away to almost nothing, and is peering forth from its rainbow-coloured envelope, while the other is open as day to melting charity, and shining over a cheek of the purest crimson. Infatuated man! Why could you not purchase your honey? Jemmy Thomson, the poet, would have let you have it, from Habbie's Howe, the true Pentland elixir, for five shillings the pint; for during this season boththe heather and the clover were prolific of the honey-dew, and the Skeps rejoiced over all Scotland on a thousand hills.
We could tell many stories about bees, but that would be leading us away from the main argument. We remember reading in an American newspaper, some years ago, that the United States lost one of their most upright and erudite judges by bees, which stung him to death in a wood while he was going the circuit. About a year afterwards, we read in the same newspaper, "We are afraid we have lost another judge by bees;" and then followed a somewhat frightful description of the assassination of another American Blackstone by the same insects. We could not fail to sympathise with both sufferers; for in the summer of the famous comet we ourselves had nearly shared the same fate. Our Newfoundlander upset a hive in his vagaries—and the whole swarm unjustly attacked us. The buzz was an absolute roar—and for the first time in our lives we were under a cloud. Such buzzing in our hair! and of what avail were fifty-times-washed nankeen breeches against the Polish Lancers? With our trusty crutch we made thousands bite the dust—but the wounded and dying crawled up our legs, and stung us cruelly over the lower regions. At last we took to flight, and found shelter in the ice-house. But it seemed as if a new hive had been disturbed in that cool grotto. Again we sallied out, stripping off garment after garment, till,in puris naturalibus, we leaped into a window, which happened to be that of the drawing-room, where a large party of ladies and gentlemen were awaiting the dinner-bell—but fancy must dream the rest.
We now offer a set ofBlackwood's Magazineto any scientific character who will answer this seemingly simple question—what is Damp? Quicksilver is a joke to it, for getting into or out of any place. Capricious as damp is, it is faithful in its affection to all Cottages ornées. What more pleasant than a bow-window? You had better, however, not sit with your back against the wall, for it is as blue and ropy as that of a charnel-house. Probably the wall is tastily papered—a vine-leaf pattern perhaps—or something spriggy—or in the aviary line—or, mayhap, haymakers, or shepherds piping in the dale. But all distinctions are levelled in the mould—Phyllis has a black patch over her eye, and Strephon seems to be playing on a pair of bellows. Damp delights to descendchimneys, and is one of smoke's most powerful auxiliaries. It is a thousand pities you hung up—just in that unlucky spot—Grecian Williams's Thebes—for now one of the finest water-colour paintings in the world is not worth six-and-eightpence. There is no living in the country without a library. Take down, with all due caution, that enormous tome, theExcursion, and let us hear something of the Pedlar. There is an end to the invention of printing. Lo and behold, blank verse indeed! You cannot help turning over twenty leaves at once, for they are all amalgamated in must and mouldiness. Lord Byron himself is no better than an Egyptian mummy; and the Great Unknown addresses you in hieroglyphics.
We have heard different opinions maintained on the subject of damp sheets. For our own part, we always wish to feel the difference between sheets and cerements. We hate everything clammy. It is awkward, on leaping out of bed to admire the moon, to drag along with you, glued round your body and members, the whole paraphernalia of the couch. It can never be good for rheumatism—problematical even for fever. Now, be candid—did you ever sleep in perfectly dry sheets in a Cottage ornée? You would not like to say "No, never," in the morning—privately, to host or hostess. But confess publicly, and trace your approaching retirement from all the troubles of this life, to the dimity-curtained cubiculum on Tweedside.
We know of few events so restorative as the arrival of a coachful of one's friends, if the house be roomy. But if everything there be on a small scale, how tremendous a sudden importation of live cattle! The children are all trundled away out of the Cottage, and their room given up to the young ladies, with all its enigmatical and emblematical wall-tracery. The captain is billeted in the boudoir, on a shake-down. My lady's maid must positively pass the night in the butler's pantry, and the valet makes a dormitory of the store-room. Where the old gentleman and his spouse have been disposed of, remains as controversial a point as the authorship of Junius; but next morning at the breakfast-table, it appears that all have survived the night, and the hospitable hostess remarks, with a self-complacent smile, that small as the Cottage appears, it has wonderful accommodation, and could have easilyadmitted half-a-dozen more patients. The visitors politely request to be favoured with a plan of so very commodious a Cottage, but silently swear never again to sleep in a house of one story, till life's brief tale be told.
But not one half the comforts of a Cottage have yet been enumerated—nor shall they be by us at the present juncture. Suffice it to add, that the strange coachman had been persuaded to put up his horses in the outhouses, instead of taking them to an excellent inn about two miles off. The old black long-tailed steeds, that had dragged the vehicle for nearly twenty years, had been lodged in what was called the Stable, and the horse behind had been introduced into the byre. As bad luck would have it, a small, sick, and surly shelty was in his stall; and without the slightest provocation, he had, during the night-watches, so handled his heels against Mr Fox, that he had not left the senior a leg to stand upon, while he had bit a lump out of the buttocks of Mr Pitt little less than an orange. A cow, afraid of her calf, had committed an assault on the roadster, and tore up his flank with her crooked horn as clean as if it had been a ripping chisel. The party had to proceed with post-horses; and although Mr Dick be at once one of the most skilful and most moderate of veterinary surgeons, his bill at the end of autumn was necessarily as long as that of a proctor. Mr Fox gave up the ghost—Mr Pitt was put on the superannuated list—and Joseph Hume, the hack, was sent to the dogs.
To this condition, then, we must come at last, that if you build at all in the country, it must be a mansion three stories high, at the lowest—large airy rooms—roof of slates and lead—and walls of the freestone or the Roman cement. No small black-faces, no Alderneys, no beehives. Buy all your vivres, and live like a gentleman. Seldom or never be without a houseful of company. If you manage your family matters properly, you may have your time nearly as much at your own disposal as if you were the greatest of hunkses, and never gave but unavoidable dinners. Let the breakfast-gong sound at ten o'clock—quite soon enough. The young people will have been romping about the parlours or the purlieus for a couple of hours—and will all make their appearance in the beauty of high health and high spirits. Chat away as long as need be, after muffins and mutton-ham, in small groups onsofas and settees, and then slip you away to your library, to add a chapter to your novel, or your history, or to any other task that is to make you immortal. Let gigs and curricles draw up in the circle, and the wooing and betrothed wheel away across a few parishes. Let the pedestrians saunter off into the woods or to the hill-side—the anglers be off to loch or river. No great harm even in a game or two at billiards—if such be of any the cue—sagacious spinsters of a certain age, staid dowagers, and bachelors of sedentary habits, may have recourse, without blame, to the chess or backgammon board. At two lunch—and at six the dinner-gong will bring the whole flock together, all dressed—mind that—all dressed, for slovenliness is an abomination. Let no elderly gentleman, however bilious and rich, seek to monopolise a young lady—but study the nature of things. Champagne, of course, and if not all the delicacies, at least all the substantialities, of the season. Join the ladies in about two hours—a little elevated or so—almost imperceptibly—but still a little elevated or so; then music—whispering in corners—if moonlight and stars, then an hour's out-of-door study of astronomy—no very regular supper—but an appearance of plates and tumblers, and to bed, to happy dreams and slumbers light, at the witching hour. Let no gentleman or lady snore, if it can be avoided, lest they annoy the crickets; and if you hear any extraordinary noise round and round about the mansion, be not alarmed, for why should not the owls choose their own hour of revelry?
Fond as we are of the country, we would not, had we our option, live there all the year round. We should just wish to linger into the winter about as far as the middle of December—then to a city—say at once Edinburgh. There is as good skating-ground, and as good curling-ground, at Lochend and Duddingston, as anywhere in all Scotland—nor is there anywhere else better beef and greens. There is no perfection anywhere, but Edinburgh society is excellent. We are certainly agreeable citizens; with just a sufficient spice of party spirit to season the feast of reason and the flow of soul, and to prevent society from becoming drowsily unanimous. Without the fillip of a little scandal, honest people would fall asleep; and surely it is far preferable to that to abuse one's friends with moderation. Even Literature and the Belles Lettres are not entirely useless; and our Human Life would not be sodelightful as that of Mr Rogers, without a few occasional Noctes Ambrosianæ.
But the title of our article recalls our wandering thoughts, and our talk must be of Cottages. Now, think not, beloved reader, that we care not for Cottages, for that would indeed be a gross mistake. But our very affections are philosophical; our sympathies have all their source in reason; and our admiration is always built on the foundation of truth. Taste, and feeling, and thought, and experience, and knowledge of this life's concerns, are all indispensable to the true delights the imagination experiences in beholding a beautifulbonâ fideCottage. It must be the dwelling of the poor; and it is that which gives it its whole character. By the poor, we mean not paupers, beggars; but families who, to eat, must work, and who, by working, may still be able to eat. Plain, coarse, not scanty, but unsuperfluous fare is theirs from year's-end to year's-end, excepting some decent and grateful change on chance holidays of nature's own appointment—a wedding or a christening, or a funeral. Yes, a funeral; for when this mortal coil is shuffled off, why should the hundreds of people that come trooping over muirs and mosses to see the body deposited, walk so many miles, and lose a whole day's work, without a dinner? And if there be a dinner, should it not be a good one? And if a good one, will the company not be social? But this is a subject for a future paper, nor need such paper be of other than a cheerful character. Poverty, then, is the builder and beautifier of all huts and cottages. But the views of honest poverty are always hopeful and prospective. Strength of muscle and strength of mind form a truly Holy Alliance; and the future brightens before the steadfast eyes of trust. Therefore, when a house is built in the valley, or on the hill-side—be it that of the poorest cottar—there is some little room, or nook, or spare place, which hope consecrates to the future. Better times may come—a shilling or two may be added to the week's wages—parsimony may accumulate a small capital in the Savings-bank sufficient to purchase an old eight-day clock, a chest of drawers for the wife, a curtained bed for the lumber-place, which a little labour will convert into a bedroom. It is not to be thought that the pasture-fields become every year greener, and the cornfields every harvest more yellow—that the hedgerowsgrow to thicker fragrance, and the birch-tree waves its tresses higher in the air, and expands its white-rinded stem almost to the bulk of a tree of the forest—and yet that there shall be no visible progress from good to better in the dwelling of those whose hands and hearts thus cultivate the soil into rejoicing beauty. As the whole land prospers, so does each individual dwelling. Every ten years, the observing eye sees a new expression on the face of the silent earth; the law of labour is no melancholy lot; for to industry the yoke is easy, and content is its own exceeding great reward.
Therefore, it does our heart good to look on a Cottage. Here the objections to straw-roofs have no application. A few sparrows chirping and fluttering in the eaves can do no great harm, and they serve to amuse the children. The very baby in the cradle, when all the family are in the fields, mother and all, hears the cheerful twitter, and is reconciled to solitude. The quantity of corn that a few sparrows can eat—greedy creatures as they are—cannot be very deadly; and it is chiefly in the winter-time that they attack the stacks, when there is much excuse to be made on the plea of hunger. As to the destruction of a little thatch, why, there is not a boy about the house, above ten years, who is not a thatcher, and there is no expense in such repairs. Let the honeysuckle, too, steal up the wall, and even blind unchecked a corner of the kitchen-window. Its fragrance will often cheer unconsciously the labourer's heart, as, in the mid-day hour of rest, he sits dandling his child on his knee, or converses with the passing pedlar. Let the moss-rose tree flourish, that its bright blush-balls may dazzle in the kirk the eyes of the lover of fair Helen Irwin, as they rise and fall with every movement of a bosom yet happy in its virgin innocence. Nature does not spread in vain her flowers in flush and fragrance over every obscure nook of earth. Simple and pure is the delight they inspire. Not to the poet's eye alone is their language addressed. The beautiful symbols are understood by lowliest minds; and while the philosophical Wordsworth speaks of the meanest flower that blows giving a joy too deep for tears, so do all mankind feel the exquisite truth of Burns's more simple address to the mountain-daisy which his ploughshare had upturned. The one touches sympathies too profound to be general—the other speaks as a son of the soil affected by the fate of the most familiar flower that springs from the bosom of our common dust.
Generally speaking, there has been a spirit of improvement at work, during these last twenty years, upon all the Cottages in Scotland. The villages are certainly much neater and cleaner than formerly, and in very few respects, if any, positively offensive. Perhaps none of them have—nor ever will have—the exquisite trimness, the habitual and hereditary rustic elegance, of the best villages of England. There, even the idle and worthless have an instinctive love of what is decent, and orderly, and pretty in their habitations. The very drunkard must have a well-sanded floor, a clean-swept hearth, clear-polished furniture, and uncobwebbed walls to the room in which he quaffs, guzzles, and smokes himself into stupidity. His wife may be a scold, but seldom a slattern—his children ill taught, but well apparelled. Much of this is observable even among the worst of the class; and, no doubt, such things must also have their effect in tempering and restraining excesses. Whereas, on the other hand, the house of a well-behaved, well-doing English villager is a perfect model of comfort and propriety. In Scotland, the houses of the dissolute are always dens of dirt, and disorder, and distraction. All ordinary goings-on are inextricably confused—meals eaten in different nooks, and at no regular hour—nothing in its right place or time—the whole abode as if on the eve of a flitting; while, with few exceptions, even in the dwellings of the best families in the village, one may detect occasional forgetfulness of trifling matters, that, if remembered, would be found greatly conducive to comfort—occasional insensibilities to what would be graceful in their condition, and might be secured at little expense and less trouble—occasional blindness to minute deformities that mar the aspect of the household, and which an awakened eye would sweep away as absolute nuisances. Perhaps the very depth of their affections—the solemnity of their religious thoughts—and the reflective spirit in which they carry on the warfare of life—hide from them the perception of what, after all, is of such very inferior moment, and even create a sort of austerity of character which makes them disregard, too much, trifles that appear to have no influence orconnection with the essence of weal or woe. Yet if there be any truth in this, it affords, we confess, an explanation rather than a justification.
Our business at present, however, is rather with single Cottages than with villages. We Scottish people have, for some years past, been doing all we could to make ourselves ridiculous, by claiming for our capital the name of Modern Athens, and talking all manner of nonsense about a city which stands nobly on its own proper foundation; while we have kept our mouths comparatively shut about the beauty of our hills and vales, and the rational happiness that everywhere overflows our native land. Our character is to be found in the country; and therefore, gentle reader, behold along with us a specimen of Scottish scenery. It is not above some four miles long—its breadth somewhere about a third of its length; a fair oblong, sheltered and secluded by a line of varied eminences, on some of which lies the power of cultivation, and over others the vivid verdure peculiar to a pastoral region; while, telling of disturbed times past for ever, stand yonder the ruins of an old fortalice or keep, picturesque in its deserted decay. The plough has stopped at the edge of the profitable and beautiful coppice-woods, and encircled the tall elm-grove. The rocky pasturage, with its clovery and daisied turf, is alive with sheep and cattle—its briery knolls with birds—its broom and whins with bees—and its wimpling burn with trouts and minnows glancing through the shallows, or leaping among the cloud of injects that glitter over its pools. Here and there a cottage—not above twenty in all—one low down in the holm, another on a cliff beside the waterfall: that is the mill—another breaking the horizon in its more ambitious station—and another far up at the hill-foot, where there is not a single tree, only shrubs and brackens. On a bleak day, there is but little beauty in such a glen; but when the sun is cloudless, and all the light serene, it is a place where poet or painter may see visions and dream dreams, of the very age of gold. At such seasons, there is a home-felt feeling of humble reality, blending with the emotions of imagination. In such places, the low-born high-souled poets of old breathed forth their songs, and hymns, and elegies—the undying lyrical poetry of the heart of Scotland.
Take the remotest Cottage first in order,Hillfoot, and hear who are its inmates—the Schoolmaster and his spouse. Theschoolhouse stands on a little unappropriated piece of ground—at least it seems to be so—quite at the head of the glen; for there the hills sink down on each side, and afford an easy access to the seat of learning from two neighbouring vales, both in the same parish. Perhaps fifty scholars are there taught—and with their small fees, and his small salary, Allan Easton is contented. Allan was originally intended for the Church; but some peccadilloes obstructed his progress with the Presbytery, and he never was a preacher. That disappointment of all his hopes was for many years grievously felt, and somewhat soured his mind with the world. It is often impossible to recover one single false step in the slippery road of life—and Allan Easton, year after year, saw himself falling farther and farther into the rear of almost all his contemporaries. One became a minister, and got a manse, with a stipend of twenty chalders; another grew into an East India Nabob; one married the laird's widow, and kept a pack of hounds—another expanded into a colonel—one cleared a plum by a cotton-mill—another became the Crœsus of a bank—while Allan, who had beat them all hollow at all the classes, wore second-hand clothes, and lived on the same fare with the poorest hind in the parish. He had married, rather too late, the partner of his frailties—and after many trials, and, as he thought, not a few persecutions, he got settled at last, when his head, not very old, was getting grey, and his face somewhat wrinkled. His wife, during his worst poverty, had gone again into service, the lot, indeed, to which she had been born; and Allan had struggled and starved upon private teaching. His appointment to the parish school had, therefore, been to them both a blessed elevation. The office was respectable—and loftier ambition had long been dead. Now they are old people—considerably upwards of sixty—and twenty years' professional life have converted Allan Easton, once the wild and eccentric genius, into a staid, solemn, formal, and pedantic pedagogue. All his scholars love him, for even in the discharge of such very humble duties, talents make themselves felt and respected; and the kindness of an affectionate and once sorely wounded, but now healed heart, is never lost upon the susceptible imaginations of the young. Allan has sometimes sent out no contemptible scholars, as scholars go in Scotland, to the universities; and his heart has warmed within him when hehas read their names, in the newspaper from the manse, in the list of successful competitors for prizes. During vacation-time, Allan and his spouse leave their cottage locked up, and disappear, none know exactly whither, on visits to an old friend or two, who have not altogether forgotten them in their obscurity. During the rest of the year, his only out-of-doors amusement is an afternoon's angling, an art in which it is universally allowed he excels all mortal men, both in river and loch; and often, during the long winter nights, when the shepherd is walking by his dwelling, to visit his "ain lassie," down the burn, he hears Allan's fiddle playing, in the solitary silence, some one of those Scottish melodies, that we know not whether it be cheerful or plaintive, but soothing to every heart that has been at all acquainted with grief. Rumour says too, but rumour has not a scrupulous conscience, that the Schoolmaster, when he meets with pleasant company, either at home or a friend's house, is not averse to a hospitable cup, and that then the memories of other days crowd upon his brain, and loosen his tongue into eloquence. Old Susan keeps a sharp warning eye upon her husband on all such occasions; but Allan braves its glances, and is forgiven.
We see only the uncertain glimmer of their dwelling through the low-lying mist; and therefore we cannot describe it, as if it were clearly before our eyes. But should you ever chance to angle your way up toHillfoot, admire Allan Easton's flower-garden, and the jargonelle pear-tree on the southern gable. The climate is somewhat high, but it is not cold; and, except when the spring-frosts come late and sharp, there do all blossoms and fruits abound, on every shrub and tree native to Scotland. You will hardly know how to distinguish—or rather, to speak in clerkly phrase, to analyse the sound prevalent over the fields and air; for it is made up of that of the burn, of bees, of old Susan's wheel, and the hum of the busy school. But now it is the play-hour, and Allan Easton comes into his kitchen for his frugal dinner. Brush up your Latin, and out with a few of the largest trouts in your pannier. Susan fries them in fresh butter and oatmeal—the greyhaired pedagogue asks a blessing—and a merrier man, within the limits of becoming mirth, you never passed an hour's talk withal. So much for Allan Easton and Susan his spouse.
You look as if you wished to ask who inhabits the Cottage—on the left hand yonder—that stares upon us with four front windows, and pricks up its ears like a new-started hare? Why, sir, that was once a Shooting-box. It was built about twenty years ago, by a sporting gentleman of two excellent double-barrelled guns, and three stanch pointers. He attempted to live there, several times, from the 12th of August till the end of September, and went pluffing disconsolately among the hills from sunrise to sunset. He has been long dead and buried; and the Box, they say, is now haunted. It has been attempted to be let furnished, and there is now a board to that effect hung out like an escutcheon. Picturesque people say it ruins the whole beauty of the glen; but we must not think so, for it is not in the power of the ugliest house that ever was built to do that, although, to effect such a purpose, it is unquestionably a skilful contrivance. The window-shutters have been closed for several years, and the chimneys look as if they had breathed their last. It stands in a perpetual eddy, and the ground shelves so all around it, that there is barely room for a barrel to catch the rain-drippings from the slate-eaves. If it be indeed haunted, pity the poor ghost! You may have it on a lease, short or long, for merely paying the taxes. Every year it costs some pounds in advertisements. What a jointure-house it would be for a relict! By name,Windy-knowe.
Nay, let us not fear to sketch the character of its last inhabitant, for we desire but to speak the truth. Drunkard, stand forward, that we may have a look at you, and draw your picture. There he stands! The mouth of the drunkard, you may observe, contracts a singularly sensitive appearance—seemingly red and rawish; and he is perpetually licking or smacking his lips, as if his palate were dry and adust. His is a thirst that water will not quench. He might as well drink air. His whole being burns for a dram. The whole world is contracted into a caulker. He would sell his soul in such extremity, were the black bottle denied him, for a gulp. Not to save his soul from eternal fire, would he, or rather could he, if left alone with it, refrain from pulling out the plug, and sucking away at destruction. What a snout he turns up to the morning air, inflamed, pimpled, snubby, and snorty, and with a nob at the end on't like one carved out of a stick by the knife of a schoolboy—rough and hot to the very eye—a nose which, rather than pull, you would submiteven to be in some degree insulted. A perpetual cough harasses and exhausts him, and a perpetual expectoration. How his hand trembles! It is an effort even to sign his name: one of his sides is certainly not by any means as sound as the other; there has been a touch of palsy there; and the next hint will draw down his chin to his collar-bone, and convert him, a month before dissolution, into a slavering idiot. There is no occupation, small or great, insignificant or important, to which he can turn, for any length of time, his hand, his heart, or his head. He cannot angle—for his fingers refuse to tie a knot, much more to busk a fly. The glimmer and the glow of the stream would make his brain dizzy—to wet his feet now would, he fears, be death. Yet he thinks that he will go out—during that sunny blink of a showery day—and try the well-known pool in which he used to bathe in boyhood, with the long, matted, green-trailing water-plants depending on the slippery rocks, and the water-ousel gliding from beneath the arch that hides her "procreant cradle," and then sinking like a stone suddenly in the limpid stream. He sits down on the bank, and fumbling in his pouch for his pocket-book, brings out, instead, a pocket-pistol. Turning his fiery face towards the mild, blue, vernal sky, he pours the gurgling brandy down his throat—first one dose, and then another—till, in an hour, stupefied and dazed, he sees not the silvery crimson-spotted trouts, shooting, and leaping, and tumbling, and plunging in deep and shallow; a day on which, with one of Captain Colley's March-Browns, in an hour we could fill our pannier. Or, if it be autumn or winter, he calls, perhaps, with a voice at once gruff and feeble, an old Ponto, and will take a pluff at the partridges. In former days, down they used to go, right and left, in potato or turnip-field, broomy brae or stubble—but now his sight is dim and wavering, and his touch trembles on the trigger. The covey whirrs off, unharmed in a single feather—and poor Ponto, remembering better days, cannot conceal his melancholy, falls in at his master's heel, and will range no more. Out, as usual, comes the brandy-bottle—he is still a good shot when his mouth is the mark; and having emptied the fatal flask, he staggers homewards, with the muzzles of his double-barrel frequently pointed to his ear, both being on full cock, and his brains not blown out only by a miracle. Hetries to read the newspaper—just arrived—but cannot find his spectacles. Then, by way of variety, he attempts a tune on the fiddle; but the bridge is broken, and her side cracked, and the bass-string snapped—and she is restored to her peg among the cobwebs. In comes a red-headed, stockingless lass, with her carrots in papers, and lays the cloth for dinner—salt beef and greens. But the Major's stomach scunners at the Skye-stot—his eyes roll eagerly for the hot-water—and in a couple of hours he is dead-drunk in his chair, or stoitering and staggering, in aimless dalliance with the scullion, among the pots and pans of an ever-disorderly and dirty kitchen. Mean people, in shabby sporting velveteen dresses, rise up, as he enters, from the dresser, covered with cans, jugs, and quaichs, and take off their rusty and greasy napless hats to the Major; and, to conclude the day worthily and consistently, he squelches himself down among the reprobate crew, takes his turn at smutty jest and smuttier song, which drive even the jades out of the kitchen—falls back insensible, exposed to gross and indecent practical jokes from the vilest of the unhanged—and finally is carried to bed on a hand-barrow, with hanging head and heels, like a calf across a butcher's cart, and, with glazed eyes and lolling tongue, is tumbled upon the quilt—if ever to awake it is extremely doubtful; but if awake he do, it is to the same wretched round of brutal degradation—a career, of which the inevitable close is an unfriended deathbed and a pauper's grave. O hero! six feet high, and once with a brawn like Hercules—in the prime of life too—well born and well bred—once bearing the king's commission—and on that glorious morn, now forgotten or bitterly remembered, thanked on the field of battle by Picton, though he of the fighting division was a hero of few words—is that a death worthy of a man—a soldier—and a Christian? A dram-drinker! Faugh! faugh! Look over—lean over that stile, where a pig lies wallowing in mire—and a voice, faint and feeble, and far off, as if it came from some dim and remote world within your lost soul, will cry, that of the two beasts, that bristly one, agrunt in sensual sleep, with its snout snoring across the husk-trough, is, as a physical, moral, and intellectual being, superior to you, late Major in his Majesty's —— regiment of foot, now dram-drinker, drunkard, and dotard, and self-doomed to a disgraceful and disgusting death ere you shall have completed your thirtieth year. What a changed being from that day when you carried the colours, and were found, the bravest of the brave, and the most beautiful of the beautiful, with the glorious tatters wrapped round your body all drenched in blood, your hand grasping the broken sabre, and two grim Frenchmen lying hacked and hewed at your feet! Your father and your mother saw your name in the "Great Lord's" Despatch; and it was as much as he could do to keep her from falling on the floor, for "her joy was like a deep affright!" Both are dead now; and better so, for the sight of that blotched face and those glazed eyes, now and then glittering in fitful frenzy, would have killed them both, nor, after such a spectacle, could their old bones have rested in the grave.