Chapter X: Part 10

If the players thus debase themselves by the impurity of their lives, and thereby render themselves unfit to be looked upon or listened to by the majority of society—if they continue to represent dramas suited to the taste of a past age, or else adapted only to the sympathies of children—if they persist in retaining about their whole system vicious forms of speech, indelicate gestures, and a code of moral feeling and action, all of which have long been pronounced intolerable in good society, how can they expect their theatres to be so prosperous as they once were, more especially when purer and better modes of entertainment are every where rising into competition with them? The person who pens these thoughts is by no means an enemy to theatricals in the abstract. With the most respectful deference to those who see in dramatic entertainments an express hostility to the divine law, he retains the conviction that they might be rendered as good and innocent a means as any other for producing that great end—the diversion of the public mind by amusement from the follies and vices of absolute vacuity. He does not consider the theatre, or any other amusement, so much with a reference to the good which it may do, as with respect to the evil which it may prevent. It is clear, however, that the really good and pure can never become the friends of the theatre, so long as it remains unreformed. There must be a combination among the virtuous actors to exclude the vicious from their body. A number of antiquated and absurd fashions of the stage must be brought nearer to the standard of ordinary natural life. And the best literary men of the day must be encouraged by legislative enactments to produce a crop of new plays with a stronger moral bent than the generality of those now existing. Till all this is done, and the theatre become as noted in public fame for a friendliness to what is good, as it has hitherto been for the reverse, it must be content to occupy its present degraded place amongst our prevailing modes of public entertainment.

RECOGNITIONS.

“Dignus vindice _nod_-us.”——

If you be a person that have lived for a long time in any large town, you must have ere this felt the dreadful inconvenience of knowing and being known by every body. The courtesy of society demands that, on meeting any one in the street, of whom you have the slightest acquaintance, you must _not_ “affect to nod,” like Alexander, but give a real _bona fide_ nod, or, if you please, a bow, as a mark of respect or regard—a practice which leads to a thousand disagreeable sensations in the day, till at last you almost resolve that your progress shall be like that of a British war-chariot—CUTTING right and left, without regard to man, woman, or child. It is not that you have any abstract disinclination to pay this tribute to friendship; it is the frequency and the iteration of the thing that annoys you. You could tolerate, perhaps, a certain number of nods in the day—_I_ would willingly compound for twenty—and it would be all very well if you only met a friend on the street once in the month or so. But this is not the way of it: you cannot be abroad two hours (supposing that you are of long standing in the town) without meeting fifty people and upwards, to whom you must “vail your haughty head,” and, what is worst of all, the half of these are people whom you met and nodded to yesterday, and the day before, and every day before that again, back to the creation of the world. With many of these persons, your acquaintance at first was of the very slightest nature. You met the man in a steam-boat, and had your respective names mentioned by a friend. You left a room one day as he was entering, and you were introduced, and, after exchanging only three words, made a friendly bow to each other, and parted. Perhaps he was introduced to you passingly on the street by some person to whom you had been introduced several years before, in the same transient way, by an individual whose acquaintance of you was originally of so slight a character that you had even then forgot for some years how it commenced. Your reminiscences upon the whole subject are a Generation of Shadows, traced back to Nothing. Possibly you sat next to him one night, “consule Planco,” at a mason-lodge, and to this blessed hour have never so much as learned his name. When it happens that you do not see or meet these acquaintances for six months after your first rencontre, the affair has by that time got cool enough to justify you mutually in cutting each other. But in most cases it happens quite differently. On the very morning, perhaps, after having scraped acquaintance with a merry fellow in some promiscuous company, you meet him going abroad, like yourself, to his place of business. As nothing of the world, or its concerns, has as yet got between you and your recollections of last night’s conviviality, you pull up with him for a minute, shake hands, laugh cordially in each other’s faces, hope each other is quite well after yesternight’s business, remark what a deal of fun there was, what a deuced funny fellow that was who sung the comic songs, and so forth; and then, with another cordial shake of each other’s hands, you part off, each to the serious duties of the day. Unfortunately, it happens that this new acquaintance of yours has to go to his place of business exactly at the same time in the morning with yourself, and that your places of residence and business are co-relatively in opposite situations. It is, therefore, your doom to cross each other’s path regularly every morning at ten minutes before ten, for all the rest of your natural lives. Your eyes begin to open upon this appalling fact on the second day. You meet your man _then_, exactly at the same spot as on the morning before; when, the conviviality of the penult evening being totally spent, both in respect of its effect on your mind, and as a subject of conversation, you stand in an agony of a minute’s duration, talking to each other of you know not what, till, fortunately, perhaps, a friend comes up who is going your way, and you hook yourself upon him, and take a hurried leave of your new acquaintance. Next morning you content yourself with shaking your friend by the hand cordially without stopping. Next morning, again, the affair has degenerated into a laughing nod. Next, it is an ordinary nod; at which point it continues ever after, till it is evident to both of you, as you approach each other, that you are beginning to be fairly tired of existence, and wish, mutually, that it were all well over with you, so far as this breathing world is concerned, and the whole affair hushed up in the silence of the grave.

It is not alone in the monotony of this system of recognition that the misery lies. You are also put to a great deal of pain and difficulty, in many cases, by the rank of the individuals to be recognised. Every man of the world has occasion to be brought into contact now and then with persons superior to himself, but who do not scruple to make themselves familiar with him in his own house or place of business. Now, the plague is, how to treat these people on the street. If their rank be very far above your own, the case is comparatively easy; for a bow, with an elevation of the hat, is readily awarded on your part, and graciously received on his. But should his place in society be just a little above your own, or such as you expect to attain very speedily—or should he be just a little longer started in the general race of prosperity than yourself—then it is perplexing indeed. Man has no antipathy to the brother worms who are so far beneath his own level as never to be brought into contrast with him. A nobleman is quite at his ease with his tailor. But it is very different with the individuals who are just a little lower than ourselves, and liable to be confounded with us. We could tolerate the _profanum et ignobile vulgus_ itself, rather than the people whose manners and circumstances in life are but one step beneath our own. Hence, one is liable to perpetual grievances on the street, through, what he thinks, the forwardness of some people, and the haughtiness of others. Alternately cutting and cut, on he goes, in a state of unhappiness beyond all description. Sometimes he avoids recognizing, through fear of its being offensive, a person who was fondly anxious to have his nod, and takes it very ill that he does not get it. Sometimes he is in the reverse predicament, and proffers a condescending bow, or intends to do so, to one who, putting quite a different construction on their respective degrees of consequence, coolly overlooks him.

In short, what with one thing and another, walking on the street is an exceedingly disagreeable exercise. For my part, having been long connected with the city I inhabit, I am obliged to take a thousand ingenious expedients in order to get along with any degree of comfort. For one thing, I would sooner walk some miles barefooted over broken glass, than parade on the principal streets of the city at high twelve. If I were to attempt a passage that way, I might go as I have been told Oechlenschlager the Danish poet does through the streets of Copenhagen, my hat in my hand, and my body in a perpetual inclination. I have to seek all possible kinds of by-ways, through alleys profound and obscure; and when I cross a thoroughfare, it is with the same dogged straight-forward look with which a man swims across a dangerous river. When I do happen, in a moment of facility or confidence, to venture upon an open street, I have all kinds of expedients for avoiding and diminishing the pains of recognition. When you see an acquaintance approaching, you must consider the relative circumstances. Much depends on the place of meeting—much on the time—much on the crowded or empty state of the streets, and much, of course, on the degree of your intimacy with him, and the distance of time since you last met. If it be a vacant street, and not a business time of the day, and six months since you last met him, you are in for a quarter of an hour’s palaver as sure as you live, and hardly even a parting _then_, unless you can either of you manage to get up a good witticism, under cover of which you may escape. If the street be crowded, and the time a busy one, you are tolerably safe, even although it should have been a twelvemonth since you met before. In this case, you fly past with a hurried nod, which seems to say, “We are busy just now, but will have another opportunity of stopping to speak.” This is a nod of adjournment, as it were, and it is one of great satisfaction to both parties, for both argue, of course—though they don’t put that into the nod—that, as it is a twelvemonth since they last met, it may be another before they meet again. Should you meet a man in a vacant street, even in the busiest part of the day, then the former circumstance annuls the latter, and you must stand and deliver, even although you be too late for an appointment of the most interesting character. On the other hand, if you meet your man in the leisurely part of the day, in a crowded street, you get off with a nod, pretending to yourself that you are carried away by the current. Sometimes you may not take advantage of your good fortune in this last case, but so bring it about that you get into collision with your friend, and begin a conversation. In this case, even although you have only asked him how he does—not caring in the least what he has to answer—and though you positively have not another idea to interchange with him, he finds it necessary to disengage himself from the throng in order to reply. You now get upon the curb-stone, or upon the causeway, where, of course, you have no more advantage from the crowded state of the street than a fish has of a river after it has been thrown upon the bank. You are now in the same predicament as if you had met your friend in the same cool part of the day _in a perfectly empty street_, and therefore, when he has answered your precious question as to his health, you are as fairly in for a quarter of an hour of wretched, bald, wishy-washy conversation about all kinds of nothings that you don’t care one farthing about, as ever you were in your life. The only thing that can now save you is either a joke to laugh yourselves asunder upon, a crowd raised at a distant part of the street by some such matter as a child ridden over by a coach, or else, what is not a bad means of separation, though sometimes dangerous, you cut off one grievous encumbrance by taking on another; that is, you see another friend coming up your way, and, pretending you have something to say to him, shake off the old love and take on with the new: in which case it is not improbable that you spend longer time at the end of the street with this last individual than you might have had to spend with the former one if you had continued with him, and only given the other man a passing nod; but, of course, that is all the fortune of war, and, having done what seemed best under the circumstances, you must rather blame fate than your own imprudence. Consider well, however, in such a case, whether you are likely to get soonest off with the new or the old love; for if you take on with a bore of ten minutes’ power, in order to get off with one of only five, merely because he is going your way, and promises no interruption in the first instance, you may only fall into Scylla, seeking to avoid Charybdis.

After all, as in every matter arising from the affairs of this world, a great deal of our happiness, so far as it is concerned by the system of recognition, lies with ourselves. If we are prudent, and take counsel from experience, we may avoid much of this nodding and bowing misery which would otherwise fall to our share. A man, for instance, should not be always goggling and staring about him; otherwise he will be sure to fall in with flying nods, which he could as well dispense with, if he does not even hit some person, perhaps, on the other side of the way, who, not having seen him for a long time, thinks it is duty—Lord confound him!—to come across the Hellespont of mud, and shake the spirits out of him with half an hour of tediousness and common-place. When you debouch from your door, never look along the street in the direction you are not to travel, or ten to one but you see some one who, having the infelicity, poor devil, to catch your eye, must put himself on to a canter to come up to you; and so you get mutually entangled, perhaps for half the day. I give this caution with a particular emphasis; for I have observed that nine out of every ten men look back in the way described, as if it were one of the involuntary motions or inclinations of human nature. As you are walking along, never cast your regards upon any one coming obliquely across the street, or in all probability you are shot dead by an eye of your acquaintance, which, if it had not hit you, would have passed on innocuous. The eye is the principal mischief in all these cases. A man is often snared by that part of him, and dragged a hundred yards along a dirty street, for all the world like a silly salmon hooked by the nose, and laid, after half a mile of tugging and hauling, exhausted on the shore. Keep your eye well to yourself, and you are tolerably safe; for of this you may be assured, no man will come up to attract your attention, unless he be a country cousin, who was just looking about for you. Every mother’s son of them is actuated by the same principles with yourself, and is glad to escape all the nodding he can. So reciprocal is this feeling, that many persons whom you are taking means to avoid, will, if you observe them narrowly, be found to be doing all they can to assist in the process. If you pretend, for instance, that you cannot see that gentleman there coming aslant the way, on account of the intense brightness of the sun, you will see out at the tail of your eye that he is pretending to be as much put about by the sunshine as yourself, and is doing all he can to shade his eyes from Phœbus and you, exactly in the same fashion with yourself. If you walk, as you ought to do, with your eyes fixed below what painters call the point of sight, but suddenly raise them for a moment, in order to look about you, it is ten to one but you see your very bosom friend—your confessor—the man whom you wear in your heart of hearts—in the act of sneakingly withdrawing his eye from your countenance, for the purpose of getting past you unnoticed. Take no scorn on account of these things, but put it all down rather to the strength of friendship; for can there be any stronger test of that sentiment, than the desire of saving those whom we love from any thing that is disagreeable to them?

It has been already remarked, that if you be in the regular habit of meeting and nodding to a person every now and then, the system is kept up till death do you part. On the other hand, if you can avoid seeing a person for some considerable time, the nod becomes _efféte_, and you ever after see, as if you saw not, each other. Sometimes, however, one gets a great relief in the midst of a fixed and hopeless nodding acquaintance, by happening to meet once more at the social board in some friend’s house, when you re-invigorate the principle, gather fresh intimacy, and perhaps, after all, take refuge from the unnecessary monotony of nodding terms in a serious friendship.

If you can help yourself by this means, it may be all very well, though certainly it is rather hard that one should be forced into an intimacy with a man merely because he crosses your path rather oftener than the most of your other slight acquaintances. The best way, however, to lessen this part of the evils of life, is to walk with _as little circumspection as possible_. So ends my preachment about RECOGNITIONS.

THE LADYE THAT I LOVE.

Were I a doughty cavalier,
On fire for high-born dame,
To win her smile, with sword and spear,
I’d seek a warrior’s fame;
But since no more stern deeds of blood
The gentle fair may move,
I’ll woo in softer—better mood,
The ladye that I love.

For helmet bright with steel and gold,
And plumes that flout the sky,
I’ll bear a mind of hardier mould,
And thoughts that sweep as high.
For scarf athwart my corslet cast,
With her fair name y-wove,
I’ll have her pictured in my breast—
The ladye that I love.

No mettled steed through battle-throng,
Shall bear me bravely on,
But pride shall make my spirit strong,
Where honours may be won:
Among the great of mind and heart,
My prowess I will prove;
And thus I’ll win, by gentler art,
The ladye that I love.

R. C.

PAY YOUR DEBT!

Jock Colquhoun was a clever journeyman painter of the famous Old Town of Edinburgh, very much given, unfortunately, to Saturday evening potations, which was the cause why he never found himself, poor fellow, any richer one Monday than another, and generally lived during the rest of the week in, to say the least of it, a very desultory manner. Jock was a long slip of a lad, with a bright intelligent face and a wofully battered hat, and the whole man of him was encased, from neck to heel, in one glazed suit—I was going to say, of clothes, but I should rather say, of oil-paint; for, to tell the truth, his attire consisted rather more of the one material than the other. He was universally reputed as a very clever workman; but, then, every body said, what matters it that he can make five shillings a-week more than any of his fellow-journeymen, if he is sure every Saturday, when he gets his wages, _to go upon the scuff_, and so pass the half of the week in spending, not in gaining? Jock, however, had many good points about him; and it was, perhaps, less owing to his own dispositions than to the influence of evil company, that he got into such bad habits. He was such a good fellow that he would at any time part his money with an old crony out of bread, or treat to a can or a bottle any working brother who had got through his money a little before him, and who happened to feel rather dry upon some sunshiny Wednesday. In his profession he was matchless at all superior kinds of work. If his employers had any thing to do that required an extraordinary degree of taste or dexterity, Jock was set to it, and he invariably managed it (beer and whisky aside) to their entire satisfaction. Jock might have long ago been foreman to his masters: nay, he might have set up as a general artist, and, with perseverance equal to his talent, would have been sure to do well. But gill-stoups were his lions in the way, and the deceitfulness of drink had beset him; and Jock, from year to year, was just the same glazed and battered, but withal rather spruce-looking fellow, as ever.

It would have been altogether impossible for any such man as Jock to carry on the war, if he had not had one howff,[4] above all others, where he enjoyed a little credit. This was an eating-house in the Canongate, kept by one Luckie Wishart, a decent widow of about forty, with four or five children, who had been pleased to cast an eye of particular favour upon the shining exterior of our hero. A pot sable upon a ground argent pointed out this house to the passers by, even if they had not been informed of its character by the savoury steam which always proceeded from it between the hours of one and five P. M., and certain spectral and unfinished pies which ran in a row along the sole of her little window, level with the street, as well as a larger display of the same article on a board half way down her somewhat steep and whitewashed stair. Luckie Wishart also sold liquors; but she was far too respectable a person to let Jock spend his wages at one bouse in her house. She always, as she said, shanked him off, whenever he came there of a Saturday night, and it was only when his pockets were empty, and no provisions to be had for the working days of the week, that he resorted to her. Generally about the Tuesdays, Jock came briskly down into her culinary Tartarus, quite sobered and hungry, sending his voice briskly along the passage before him, as if defending himself by anticipation from a shower of reproaches which he knew she would bestow upon him:—“Nothing of the kind,” he would cry; “nothing of the kind—all a mistake—’pon my honour.” There was generally, it may be supposed, fully as much scolding and railing as he could have anticipated; but the end of the jest always was, that Jock got snug into some corner of Luckie’s own particular den, where he was regaled with a plate of something or other, garnished always with a few last words of rebuke from the lady, like the droppings after a thunderstorm, which he always contrived, however, to stomach with his beef, without manifesting any very great degree of irritation. There is something ominous in the act of drawing in one’s stool at the fireside of a comfortable widow. It is apt to make a young man feel rather ticklish, even although he may never have thought of her before, except as a good cook. So it was with Jock, and the idea might have been fatal to his visits to Luckie Wishart’s (for, to speak the truth, she was no great beauty), if dire hunger, which tames lions, had not absolutely compelled him to continue the practice. In general, when Jock came in with his week’s gains, he flung a few shillings upon the dresser, as part payment of what he had ate and drank during the past few days, reserving the rest for the bouse-royal. But, notwithstanding all these occasional deposits to account, his score got always the longer the longer, until it at last went fairly off at the bottom of a cupboard door, and had to be “brought forward” on the end of a chest of drawers.

“That’s a shocking bad hat you’ve got,” said Luckie to him one day, without any idea that she was anticipating a favourite English phrase by some years. “Of course, there’s nae chance of such a drucken blackguard as you ever being able to buy a new ane. But what wad you say, John, if I were to gie ye ane mysel’?”

“I would say, much oblige t’ye, ma’am,” answered Jock, now for the first time in his life called by his proper Christian name.

“Here is one, then,” said the widow, and at the same time produced a decent-looking chapeau, which, she said, had belonged to _him that was away_—meaning her late husband—and had only been three times on his head at the kirk, when, puir man, he was carried without it to the kirk-yard.

Jock accepted the hat with great thankfulness, and made his old one skimmer into Luckie’s fire, where, it is needless to say, it was speedily roasted in its own grease.

“Dear sake, Jock, man,” said Mrs Wishart, some days afterwards, “what kind o’ a landlady hae ye got at hame? She maun be nae hand at the shirts, I reckon; for fient a bit can ane ken ye on a Monday frae what ye are on a Saturday. Ye may be as touzly as ye like i’ the outside o’ your claes, but I wad aye like to see a man decent-like next the skin.”

“Deed, mistress,” said Jock, “to let ye into a secret, I have nae great stock o’ linen, and whiles Mrs Ormiston’s a wee hurried in getting a shirt ready for me. I’m a gude deal between the hand and the mouth in that respect.”

“Ye’re just the greatest ne’er-do-weel ever I kenned,” replied Mrs Wishart; “but yet, reprobate as ye are, I canna think o’ seeing ye gaun that gate frae ae week’s end to anither. Here’s four gude shirts that I hae unco little use for now-a-days. Better ye should wear them, than that they should gang to the moths. Tak them hame wi’ ye, man, and mak yoursel’ something trig, and dinna gang to think that I’m aye to be gi’ing ye the buffet without the bite.”

Jock did as he was bid, and towards the end of the week Luckie Wishart asked him “if he ever thought o’ taking a walk on a Sunday evening wi’ his lass to Restalrig, to treat her wi’ curds and cream, or ony thing o’ that kind?”

“Oh, I daresay I have, mistress,” said Jock, “in my day. But,” added he, looking askance at his resplendent sleeves, “somehow or other I’ve fallen out of a suit of Sunday claes, and, of course, nae lass ’ll gang wi’ a chiel like a beggar.”

“Weel, Jock,” said the lady, “I think ye canna do better than just step into my auld gudeman’s claes bodily, and let us hae nae mair wark about it.”

This was accompanied with a look so significant, that Jock could not pretend to misunderstand it. He all at once felt as if the stool which he had drawn in towards the fireside was burning under him, while all the burnished covers on the opposite wall looked like so many moons dancing in troubled water. “Od, mistress,” he stammered out, “are ye serious?”

“Ay, that I am,” answered she; “and dinna let your modesty wrang ye, my man, an’ ye be wise. Ye see every thing here ready to your hand; and if ye just be steady a bit, as I’m sure ye will be, wi’ me to look after baith your meat and your winnings, ye may be the snuggest painter lad in the town. What wi’ what _ye_ can make, and what wi’ what _I_ can make, we’ll be very weel, or I’m muckle mista’en.”

“But, Luckie,” said Jock, “I maun get my ain consent first; and that, I’m feared, it’ll not be sae easy to get. There was a lass ——”

“Oh, very weel, John,” said Mrs Wishart; “of course ae man may lead a horse to the water, but twenty winna gar him drink. There’s some folk that dinna ken what’s gude for them, and ye’re ane o’ them. But see, lad,” she added, opening up the cupboard door, “what a score ye hae here! Twa pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence. When will ye be gaun to pay that?”

“I suppose I maun pay’t when I can,” said Jock, striding sturdily up stairs into the street.

Next day he was served with a summons to the sheriff’s court for two pounds fifteen shillings and eightpence, and as he never appeared to dispute the claim, a writ was allowed against him, warranting either the incarceration of his person, or the distraining of his goods. Goods Jock had none; his person therefore came into immediate request among certain individuals of whose companionship he was not ambitious. It would be vain to tell all the strange miracles by which he was enabled for some weeks to elude the pursuit instituted against him. Sometimes as the officers were entering at the door, he was escaping by the back window. Once he had to drop himself down two stories into an alley. At another time, he sprang across a gulf about ten feet wide, between two garret windows, nine floors from the ground. This course of life could not continue long. He could not get rest any where to pursue his ordinary business, and of course he soon found himself upon very short allowance both as to meat and drink. Just at this crisis, Jock heard of an expedition which was about to sail from Leith, for the purpose of colonising Poyais, and through the intervention of an old chum, who was going thither, he was permitted to join the corps. On the night before the vessel was to sail, he skulked down to Newhaven, and got on board along with the family of his friend. He now, for the first time during three weeks, found himself, as he thought, safe from the avenging persecution of Luckie Wishart. For one happy night he slept amidst a parcel of sacks in a corner of the cabin, surrounded on all hands by squalid and squalling children, whose cries, however, were nothing to the dread which he had recently entertained for the fell Dido of the Canongate. Next morning, the sun rose bright, the sails were set loose, the heart of every man on board beat high with hope, and Jock’s bosom’s lord sat lightly on his throne—when, oh manacles and fetters! a boat came alongside, containing a whole bevy of sheriff’s officers. Jock now thought that it was all over with him; for, simple man, he believed that he was the sole individual in request. The case, however, was quite different. On a demand being made for admission into the vessel, the whole of the passengers, with one consent, raised their voices against it. “What! let these fellows in!—as well give up the whole expedition!” The officers pleaded to have at least a representative sent on board, to show their case to the captain, which, after a great deal of difficulty, was consented to. One messenger was accordingly hoisted on board, and proceeded to call the names of the persons for whom they had captions—Jock Colquhoun among the number. But personalities of this kind were not to be endured. The passengers rose in absolute mutiny against the captain, demanded that he should instantly proceed on the voyage, even although one member of the expedition was yet to join; and as they feared to let the boat once more approach the vessel, they insisted that the messenger should be retained where he was, and carried out to Poyais and back again, as a punishment for his temerity. It was a mad affair altogether, and so small an addition to the general frenzy was of little moment. So the boatswain, or somebody else, “gave the dreadful word,” and, notwithstanding all the remonstrances of the _detenú_, which were both loud and vehement, the lessening boat of the officers was soon seen unwillingly rowing to land, while, instead of any white hand to wave adieu to those on board, the fist of big Pate Forsyth, the chief of the fraternity, was observed shaking in impotent rage over the stern, as much as to say to the captain, “If ever you come back to Leith, ye ken what ye’ll get.”

Jock soon found himself tolerably comfortable in his new situation. He had, no doubt, come on board without much luggage, and he was still the same greasy Pict as ever in respect of his attire. But then he was not, after all, much behind his neighbours; for if ever a fit garrison for the care of Adullam was collected since the days of King David, it was this ship’s company. The whole set resembled a troop of strolling players, going to act a grand historical drama in some country town. A gentleman in tartan trousers was to be a kind of Cincinnatus, alternating between the plough and the cares of state. A young lad, in a blue bonnet, was to be Chamberlain, and Supreme Director of Literature and the Arts. Another carried with him all the materials of a bank, except credit and specie. The other _characters_ and _properties_, to speak theatrically, were all on the same scale; and if a state could have been founded as easily as a castle of cards is built, or a puppet-show set in motion, Poyais could have immediately taken its place among the nations of the earth. In such a system it was easy to find a place for Jock. The Chamberlain was good enough to divest himself, in favour of this new friend, of that part of his commission which referred to the fine arts. Jock was therefore styled from this day forward, Director Colquhoun; and every one, including himself, agreed that the case could have only been improved, if he had happened to have any paints. However, nobody pretended to doubt that, so far as the fine arts could be cultivated without materials, Mr Colquhoun would prove himself an efficient member of the corps.

The voyage was a pleasant one, and during the whole time nothing was to be heard in the vessel but pæans of homage and gratitude to the Cazique Macgregor, who had sent them out to take possession of his territories. The only individual who did not partake of the general joy was the poor _detenú_, whose long gaunt person did not agree with a tropical climate, and who, therefore, sickened, and threatened to die before reaching the land. It was in vain that the Chamberlain promised to make him Lord High Constable of the Kingdom, if he would only keep up his spirits. Like the poor sparrow, who, in its last moment, refuses the very finest crumbs held to its mouth, he said it was all humbug to make him these offers, when it was clear he could never live in such a hot part of the world as this. He would lay his death, he said, to their door, and, if at all possible, he would be sure to haunt them after death. To the great grief of the company, the unfortunate messenger died on the very day when they cast anchor off the shores of Poyais.

About seventy or eighty individuals, from the Old Town of Edinburgh—forming the staff of a great empire—now landed on a flat bushy part of the Mosquito Territory—ominous name!—in the Bay of Honduras, with the expectation of immediately falling into the enjoyment of all the luxuries and pleasures which this world can bestow. They were, indeed, somewhat surprised to find that every thing was still in its primeval state, and that even their houses were as yet to be built. However, having found one small opening in the forest of brushwood, they established themselves there, with such goods and chattels as they had; and their first duty was to give a decent burial to the _detenú_, whose body they had brought ashore for that purpose. A grave having been dug, the Chamberlain, assuming the character of High Priest of the Kingdom, for want of a better, mounted an old shirt over his clothes, by way of sacerdotal vestment, and proceeded to read the funeral service of the church of England over the body. In the very middle of the most solemn part of this ceremony, a large bird, with a curious beaky face, somewhat resembling that of the deceased, alighted upon a tree immediately above the funeral group, and cried, with a loud shrill voice, what was interpreted by all present (with the aid, no doubt, of a stricken conscience) into the phrase, “Pay your debt!”

The colonists saw and heard with terror, believing that the spirit which had lately animated the body before them was now addressing them in character, according to his threat before death; and, but for the protection which daylight always gives to the superstitious, the whole set, including both the civil and military departments of the state, would have fled from the spot. The Chamberlain saw the nature of the case, and drew hurriedly towards a conclusion; but yet, at every brief pause of his voice, there still came in the ear-piercing cry, “Pay your debt!” Before the grave had been closed, another and another bird of the same species drew towards the spot, and each lifted up his voice to the same tune—“Pay your debt”—“Pay your debt”—“Pay your debt”—till the whole forest seemed possessed by one spirit, and the ghost of the sheriff’s officer appeared to the distracted senses of the settlers to have dispersed itself into a whole legion of harpies. The fact was, that the birds were brought forth by the coolness of the evening, according to their usual habits, and were now innocently amusing themselves with their accustomed cry, without the least idea of any personality towards the Poyaisians. The Chamberlain of the colonists, who had learned from books of travels that many American birds uttered something like a sentence of English as their habitual cry, endeavoured to assuage the alarm of his companions; but, nevertheless, a very general sense of terror remained.

“It may be all very true,” said Jock Colquhoun, “that the birds of this country have each a particular word to say; but, od, it’s gayan queer that the Poyais bird should have pitched upon a thing that jags our consciences sae sair.”

The first night was spent in a very uncomfortable manner. To a day of intense heat succeeded a cold dewy night, which struck the limbs of the unprotected settlers with such severe cramps, that hardly a man could stir next morning. Their sleep, moreover, was broken occasionally by the cry of “Pay your debt!” which a few of their feathered friends kept up at intervals all night. Next day, instead of setting about the erection of their metropolis and sea-port, as was intended, they had to attend each other’s sick-beds. Before night several of the women and children had expired. Next day, and the next again, the same sickness continued; and in less than a week, half their number were under the earth. Jock, who had fortunately escaped every mishap except a rheumatic shoulder, now began to think how much more comfortable he would have been in Luckie Wishart’s _laigh shop_ in the Canongate of Edinburgh, than he was on this inhospitable coast, where there was no prospect of raising so much as a potato for a twelvemonth. “What a fool I was,” said he, “not to make my quarters good there, as the honest woman proposed! Oh, to be walking wi’ her down the King’s Park on a Sunday nicht, even wi’ a’ the five bairns running after us! I’se warrant the gardens at Restalrig hae nae birds about the bushes that tell folk to pay their debt; naething o’ the kind there, unless it be the boord, black letters on a white ground, that says, ‘Pay on delivery.’”

Hardship had now dispelled from every mind the magnificent ideas with which they had hitherto been inspired. If the vessel had yet remained on the coast, the whole of the surviving company, prime minister and all, would have willingly exchanged their brilliant appointments under the Cazique for a snug berth on board. But it had departed immediately after landing them; and there only remained the chance that some other vessel would pass that way, and take pity on their distress. This, fortunately, happened in the course of a few days. A vessel bound to Belize came along the shore, and, on a signal from the unfortunate Poyaisians, sent a boat to inquire into their case. As only a few remained alive, it was soon arranged that they should be carried to the port for which the vessel was bound. With grateful and subdued hearts, and casting many a mournful glance towards the graves of their friends, the small remnant of the Poyais expedition betook themselves to the boat, and sailed off to the vessel. As a sort of parting admonition, a bird came up at the moment of their departure from the land, and, pronouncing one shrill, clear “Pay your debt!” flew off into the interior.

It were needless to relate the various hardships and adventures which befel Jock Colquhoun before he regained his native shore. Be it enough, that he immediately sought the cozy den of Luckie Wishart, and _paid his debt_ in the way originally desired by the lady, who, under the name of Mrs Colquhoun, continued for many years, with the assistance of her reformed husband, to regale the good people of the Canongate.

“A flichty chield,” she used to remark to her female friends, “was whyles the better o’ finding the grund o’ his stamack.”

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Alehouse of particular resort.

CHILDREN.

I may begin with the question of Henry the Fourth of France, when found by an ambassador at romps with his children, “Are you a father?” If you are, we may go on with the game—if not, you must pass to the next article. A curious thing it is, this same fact, that children in general are only interesting in the eyes of those who are parents, while brats in particular are held as pests by all but their immediate father and mother. Some lightheaded author has compared the rush of children which takes place at the conclusion of family dinners, to the incursion of the Goths and Vandals. Perhaps it is all true, that children out of place are not agreeable; but is any thing agreeable that is out of place? Children, abstracted from the homely details of their management, and the anxiety which they always occasion, are a delightful study—a study, I maintain, fitted alike to engage the speculations of the philosophic, and the affections of the benevolent, mind. I cannot, I must say, form the idea of a man of extended views and sympathies, who does not like children.

Among the grown-up part of mankind, there is always abundance of envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. This fact I consider with reference to the circumstances in which men are placed, and I plainly conceive that where existence is only to be supported by an unceasing struggle, and where self-love is so perpetually receiving injury, it is needless to expect that men should be much better than they are. In children, however, we see no possibility of any rivalship: they are a harmless little people at _this_ moment, and we run no chance of being jostled by them in our course of life, for many years to come. There is, therefore, no reason for envy, hatred, or uncharitableness with them. On the contrary, in our intercourse with children, our self-love is undergoing a perpetual compliment. The appeal which they are constantly making from their own silently-confessed weakness, to our tacitly-acknowledged strength, soothes and delights us. A fellow-creature lies unconsciously abandoned to our mercy—unconsciously unable to resist. It asks for nothing, for it cannot; but it does not expect harm. There is the charm. It imputes to us none of our original sins of envy, hatred, and uncharitableness, but seems to take it for granted that we are blanch and stainless like itself. It puts forth its little arms to us, with a perfect confidence in our gentler and better nature, and we feel it impossible to be evil when we are so sincerely understood to be good. We give, then, the love and faith that are demanded, and press the offenceless type of our original and perfect nature, with all the hues and all the odours of paradise rife around it, to our heart of hearts.

The whole external deportment of a child is delightful. Its smile—always so ready when there is no distress, and so soon recurring when that distress has passed away—is like an opening of the sky, showing heaven beyond. Tales are told of murderers, who, after revelling in the blood of many adults, were at length arrested by the smile of a child, and suddenly became innocent, because they were supposed to be so. The grasp of its little hand around one of our fingers—its mighty little crow when excited by the playfulness of its nurse—its manful spring upon the little woolpack legs that refuse to bear its weight—are all traits of more or less pleasantness. Then, the eye of a child—who can look unmoved into that “well undefiled,” in which heaven itself seems to be reflected? Whether the gem be of sweet pellucid blue, or of the mysterious and unsearchable black, what meanings unexpressed, unintelligible, reside within! the germ of a whole life of feelings and ideas. Human nature is familiar in all its bearings to most men; yet how novel does every symptom of it appear, as first shown forth by a child! Every little imperfect function—every step in the attainment of physical power—every new trait of intelligence, as they one by one arise in the infantine intellect, like the glory of night, starting star by star into the sky, is hailed with a heart-burst of rapture and surprise, as if we had never known any thing so clever or so captivating before. The point thus gained is never lost. The darling child is reminded perpetually of the idea he lately seemed to comprehend, or of the word he seemed nearly able to pronounce, or of the little action he attempted to perform; and thus the whole of his little stock of accomplishments is carefully kept together, liable to a constant increase. Hosannas of affection celebrate every step of his progress towards maturity, and fresh blessings are showered upon his holy and harmless head, for every manifestation of the presence of the godlike mind. Nor is this interest in his advance confined to those whose daily joy it is to fold him to the beatings of a kindred heart. Almost every one who has occasion to observe the march of infant intellect feels an instinctive satisfaction in the contemplation. It seems, indeed, to be part of the grand and wise design, that all the mature of the human race should be concerned respecting the progress of the young: it is the silent working of nature towards the general good. Without a principle of this kind constantly at work—and it _is_ always at work, in the attentions of the reflecting and grave, as well as in the apparently senseless prattle of the nurse—the moral world would be in danger of standing still.

The love of parents for their children—so far as it is not a sentiment arising from the contemplation of beauty, or innocence, or helplessness—is a kind of self-love. Yet no one ever thinks of imputing to a parent, as a fault, that he has a high appreciation of his children. The truth is, though in one sense self-love, it is, in another, the most generous and self-abandoning feeling in nature. The world is also aware instinctively, that the fondness of parents for their children is necessary for their protection and education; and, therefore, if there were no other palliation of the passion, it would at least be convenient. In virtue of these excuses, a parent can indulge in all the pleasures of the most intense, devoted, devouring, self-appreciation, and yet have none of the usual reproach attending it. He can admire himself in his children, to a greater extent than ever did Narcissus in the fountain, and yet there is no chance that he changes into a daffodil. He can call himself every pretty name in the nurse’s vocabulary, and yet no one will ever accuse him of flattering his own person. He may fondle and hug himself till his miniature counterpart loses both breath and patience; he may expend upon his little self a thousand compliments and praises; and yet it will never be insinuated that Mr —— is on uncommonly good terms with Mr ——. This, it must be remarked, is one of the compensations allowed by Providence for the anxiety and pains attendant upon the keeping of a child.

It is a very common impression among those who are practically unacquainted with children, that there is an immense deal of trouble incurred in their management. There is, no doubt, much trouble, but there is also much to alleviate it. Women, to whom, as mothers or as nurses, this trouble chiefly falls, are rarely heard to complain of it. The labour is either kindly and agreeable in itself, or it is rewarded by the generous pleasure of knowing that those are helped who cannot help themselves. There are few duties, it may be said, by which women appear to feel less oppressed, than the labour of managing children. What is very strange, it seems equally lightsome to the hired attendant as to the mother herself. There appears to be a general feeling among women that the neglect of, or the least cruelty, to a child, is the most monstrous offence in nature: it is the high treason of the sex. In the more refined circles of society, where it is convenient to employ deputies, this certain kindness of every female heart towards a child is very fortunate: in the lower circles it is still more so. _There_ many mothers are compelled to depend much upon the good-will of neighbours for the attentions necessary to their families. The infant is, indeed, in some measure the protegé of a little vicinity, rather than of any individual. It is handed about from one hand to another, and kept for a little by each, so as to enable the mother to attend to other duties that are still more indispensable—such as the preparation of her family meals, or, perhaps, the work necessary for obtaining them. There is in this no danger for the child, and not much obligation for the parents. The poor are in the constant practice of performing acts of kindness to each other: they are their own best friends; and their condition would be quite insupportable if it were otherwise. The attentions, therefore, which one neighbour bestows upon another’s child, are felt as a very slight burden by the particular party obliging, while the aggregate of many such little favours forms an immense relief to the mother. Then, every one knows that if the case were her own, as it perhaps may be, the individual whom she now obliges would be ready and glad to oblige her in turn. If the trouble of managing children had in it any thing really disagreeable, this universal system of mutual serviceableness could never obtain among the poor.