Chapter III: Part 3

By this crowd, who soon discovered that his purpose was the delivery of a letter from the chevalier to the magistrates, he was ushered forward to the opening of a narrow passage, which in those days led through a pile of buildings called the Luckenbooths, towards the door of Haddo’s Hole Church, a passage called in the old Scottish language a stile, which, moreover, was traversed in 1628 by King Charles the First, when he went to open the Scottish Parliament in the High Tolbooth. Here the Highlander dismounted, and after throwing his bridle over the hook at a saddler’s door close to the corner of the stile, was led forward into the lobby of the church, from which the hum of active discussion was heard to proceed. On requesting to be introduced to the magistrates, he was informed, by an official wearing their livery, that the church was so very much crowded, that “there would be nae possibility of either getting him in to see the magistrates, or the magistrates out to see him,” but that his letter might be handed into them over the heads of the crowd. To this expedient the messenger consented, and accordingly it was immediately put in execution. In a few moments after it had left the keeper’s hands, a dead silence seemed to fall upon the company, and, after a renewed tumult and a second silence, those who stood in the lobby heard a voice reading a few words aloud, apparently those of the letter. The voice was, however, interrupted in a few seconds by the clamour of the whole assembled people, who presently rose in confusion, and made a tumultuous rush towards the door. On hearing and observing these alarming symptoms, the city officer, with inconsiderate rashness, thought it his duty to seize the author of so much supposed mischief, and accordingly made a dash at the stranger’s collar, calling upon the town-guardsmen present to close in upon him, and intercept his retreat. But the prompt and energetic Highlander was not to be so betrayed. With a bound like the first movement of the startled deer, he cleared the lobby, and made for his horse. Two dragoons standing without, and who, observing the rush from the door, threw themselves in the stranger’s way, were in the same instant felled to the ground; and before any other person could lay hands upon him, the maltreated messenger threw himself upon his horse, drew his sword, and in a transport of rage shouted defiance to all around. Whirling his weapon round his head, he stopped a few seconds amidst the terrified crowd; and then, striking spurs into his horse’s sides, rode along the street, still vociferating loud defiances to all the detached military parties which he met. No attempt, however, was made to prevent his escape, or to offer him farther violence. One symptom of offensive warfare alone occurred, and that originated in an accident; for an old guardsman, who was overturned on the causeway by the brush of the passing steed, could not help discharging his redoubted piece; the shot, however, doing no other harm than _winging_ a golden peacock, which overhung the window of a fashionable milliner in the fourth flat of the Luckenbooths. After clearing the narrow defile of the Luckenbooths, and getting into the full open street, the Highland cavalier for once turned round, and, with a voice broken by excess of indignation, uttered a thundering malediction against all Edinburgh for its breach of the articles of war, and a challenge to the prettiest man in it who would meet him upon honourable terms. He then galloped briskly down the High Street, still brandishing his broadsword, the people making way for him on all sides, by running down the numerous alleys leading from the street, and terminated his daring exploit, unscathed and undaunted, by passing out at the Netherbow Port, of which the enormous folding doors, like the turnpikes in John Gilpin, flew open at his approach.

It is irrelevant to our purpose to describe the consternation under which the inhabitants of Edinburgh passed the whole of that evening and night, or the real terror which next morning seized them, when they understood that the insurgents were in possession of the town. Moreover, as it would not be proper to encumber our narrative with well-known historical details, we shall also pass over the circumstances in this remarkable civil war which followed upon the capture of the city, and content ourselves with relating the simple events of a love tale, in which the hero just introduced to the notice of our readers acted a conspicuous part.

About a month after the rebels had entered Edinburgh, and while Prince Charles Edward was still fondly lingering in the palace which had sheltered so many of his ancestors, a young gentlewoman, named Helen Lindsay, the daughter of a whig writer to the signet in Edinburgh, was one fine October evening taking a solitary walk in the King’s Park. The sun had gone down over the castle, like the fire-shell dropping into a devoted fortress, and the lofty edifices of the city presented, on the eastern side, nothing but dark irregular masses of shade. The park, which a little before had been crowded with idle and well-dressed people, waiting perhaps for a sight of the prince, was now deserted by all except a few Highland soldiers, hurrying to or from the camp at Duddingston, and by the young lady above mentioned, who continued, in spite of the deepening twilight, to saunter about, seeming to await the hour of some assignation. As each single Highland officer or group passed this lady, she contrived to elude their observation by an adroit management of her plaid; and it was not till the gathering darkness rendered her appearance at such a time and place absolutely suspicious, that at length one gallant mountaineer made bold to accost her. “Ah, Helen!” he exclaimed, “how delighted am I to find you here; for I expected you to be waiting at the bottom of the Walk—and thus I see you five minutes sooner than I otherwise would have done!” “I would rather wait near the palace than at that fearsome place, at this time o’ nicht, William,” said the young lady; “for, let me tell you, you have been a great deal later o’ comin’ than you should have been.” “Pardon me, my angel!” answered the youth; “I have been detained by the prince till this instant. His royal highness has communicated to me no very pleasant intelligence—he is decisive as to our march commencing on the morning after to-morrow, and I am distracted to think of parting with you. How shall I—how can I part with you?” “Oh! never mind that, Willie,” cried the lady, in a tone quite different from his, which was highly expressive of a lover’s misery; “if your enterprise prove successful, and you do not get your head broken, or beauty spoilt, you shall perhaps be made an earl, and marry some grand English countess; and I shall then content myself with young Claver the advocate, who has been already so warmly recommended to me by my father, and who would instate me to-morrow, if I chose, as his wedded wife, in the fine house he has just bought in Forrester’s Wynd.” “To the devil with that beast!” cried the jealous lover in Gaelic. “Do you think, Helen, that I could ever marry any one but you, even though it were the queen on the throne? But perhaps you are not so very resolute in your love matters, and could transfer your affections from one object to another as easily and as quickly as you could your thoughts, or the glance of your eyes!” “Ah, Willie, Willie,” said the lady, still in a jocular tone, “I see you are a complete Hielanter—fiery and irritable. I might have kenned that the first moment I ever saw ye, when ye bravadoed a’ Edinburgh, because a silly toon-officer tried to touch ye. Wad ye flee up, man, on your ain true love, when she merely jokes ye a wee?” “Oh! if that be all, Helen,” said the youth humbly, “I beg your grace. Yet, methinks, this is no time for merriment, when we are about to part, perhaps for ever. How, dearest Helen, do you contrive to keep up your spirits under such circumstances?” “Because,” said the young lady, “I know that there is no necessity for us parting, at least for some time to come; for I am willing to accompany you, if you will take me, to the very world’s end. There’s sincerity and true love for you!” Surprised and delighted with this frank offer, the lover strained his mistress passionately to his bosom, and swore to protect her as his lawful wife till the latest moment of his existence. “You shall travel,” he said, “in my sister Lady Ogilvie’s carriage, and be one of the first British ladies to attend the prince’s levee in St James’s at Christmas. Our marriage shall be solemnized at the end of the first stage.” The project was less than rational; but when was reason any thing to love? Many avowals of mutual attachment passed between the parties; and, after projecting a mode of elopement, they parted—William Douglas taking the road for the camp at Duddingston, and Helen Lindsay hastily returning to the town.

The morning of the 1st of November broke drearily upon Edinburgh, showing a dull frosty atmosphere, and the ground covered with a thin layer of snow. It was the morning of the march; and here and there throughout the streets stood a few bagpipers, playing a reveillé before the lodgings of the great officers of the clans. One or two chiefs were already marching down the street, preceded by their pipers, and followed by their men, in order to join the army, which was beginning to move from Duddingston. The Highland guard, which had been stationed, ever since the chevalier’s arrival, at the Weigh-house, was now leaving its station, and moving down the Lawnmarket to the merry sound of the bagpipe, when a strange circumstance occurred.

Just as the word of command had been given to the Weigh-house guard, the sash of the window in the third floor of an adjacent house was pushed up, and immediately after, a female figure was observed to issue therefrom, and to descend rapidly along a rope towards the pavement below. The commander of the guard no sooner perceived this, than he sprang forwards to the place where the figure was to alight, as if to receive her in his arms; but he did not reach it before the lady, finding the rope too short by several yards, dropped with a slight scream upon the ground, where she lay apparently lifeless. The officer was instantly beside her—and words cannot describe the consternation and sorrow depicted in his face, as he stooped, and with gentle promptitude lifted the unfortunate lady from the ground. She had fainted with the pain of what soon turned out to be a broken limb; and as she lay over the Highlander’s arm, her travelling hood, falling back from her head, disclosed a face which, though exquisitely beautiful, was as pale and expressionless as death. A slight murmur at length broke from her lips, and a tinge of red returned to her cheeks, as she half articulated the word “William.” William Douglas, for it was he, hung over her in silent despair for a few moments, and was only recalled to recollection when his men gathered eagerly and officiously around him, each loudly inquiring of the other the meaning of this strange scene. The noise thus occasioned soon had the effect of bringing all to an understanding; for the father of the lady, in a nightcap and morning gown, was first observed to cast a hurried glance over the still open window above, and was soon after in the midst of the group, calling loudly and distractedly for his daughter, and exclaiming vehemently against the person in whose arms he found her, for having attempted to rob him of his natural property. Douglas bethought himself for a moment, and, calling upon his men to close all round him and the lady, began to move away with his beloved burden, while the old gentleman loaded the air with his cries, and struggled forward with the vain intention of rescuing his daughter. The lover might soon have succeeded in his wishes, by ordering the remonstrant to be withheld, and taken home by his men; but he speedily found that to take away his mistress in her present condition, and without the means of immediately relieving her, would be the height of cruelty; and he therefore felt himself reluctantly compelled to resign her to the charge of her parent, even at the risk of losing her for ever. Old Mr Lindsay, overjoyed at this resolution, offered to take his daughter into his own arms, and transport her back to the house; but Douglas, heeding not his proposal, and apparently anxious to retain his mistress as long as he could, saved him this trouble, by slowly and mournfully retracing his steps, and carrying her up stairs to her bedchamber—his company meanwhile remaining below. He there discovered that Helen had been locked up by her father, who had found reason to suspect her intention of eloping, and that this was what occasioned her departure from the mode of escape previously agreed upon. After depositing her still inanimate person carefully on a bed, he turned for a moment towards her father, told him fiercely that if he exercised any cruelty upon her in consequence of what had taken place, he should dearly rue it; and then, alter taking another silent, lingering, farewell look of his mistress, left the house in order to continue his march.

After this, another and longer interval occurs between the incidents of our tale; and this may perhaps be profitably employed in illustrating a few of the circumstances already laid partially before the reader. William Douglas was a younger son of Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie, the celebrated antiquary, and had been bred to the profession of a writer, or attorney, under the auspices of a master of good practice in Aberdeen. Being, however, a youth of sanguine temperament and romantic spirit, he did not hesitate a moment, on hearing of the landing of the chevalier, to break his apprenticeship, just on the point of expiring, and set off to rank himself under the banners of him whom he conceived entitled to the duty and assistance of all true Scotsmen. In consideration of his birth, and his connection with some of the very highest leaders in the enterprise, he was appointed aide-de-camp to the prince, in which capacity he had been employed to communicate with the city in the manner already described. As he rode up the High Street, and, more than that, as he rode down again, he had been seen and admired by Helen Lindsay, who happened to be then in the house of a friend near the scene of his exploit. Soon after the Highland army had taken possession of the city, they had met at the house of a Jacobite aunt of the young lady, and a passion of the tenderest nature then took place between them. To her father, who was her only surviving parent, this was quite unknown till the day before the departure of the Highlanders, when some circumstances having roused his suspicions, he thought it necessary to lock her up in her own room, without, however, securing the window—that part of a house, so useful and so interesting above all others to youthful lovers, the chink of Pyramus and Thisbe not excepted. It only remains to be stated, that though the young lady recovered from the effects of her fall in a few weeks, she did not so soon recover from her disappointment, and she was doomed to experience a still greater affliction in the strange look with which she was afterwards regarded by her father and all her own acquaintance.

William Douglas performed an active part in all the scenes of the rebellion, and finally escaped the perils of Culloden almost without a wound. He fled to his father’s house, where he was received joyfully, and concealed for upwards of a twelvemonth, till the search of the royal troops was no longer dangerous. His father frequently entreated him to go abroad, but he would not consent to such a measure; and at last, it being understood that government had passed an “act of oblivion” in regard of the surviving rebels, he ventured gradually and cautiously to appear again in society. All this time he had never communicated with Helen Lindsay, but his thoughts had often, in the solitude of his place of hiding, turned anxiously and fondly towards her. At length, to the surprise of his father, he one day expressed his desire of going to Edinburgh, and setting up there as a writer—the profession to which he had been educated, and for which he could easily complete his qualifications. Sir Robert was by no means averse to his commencing business, but expressed his fears for the safety of his son’s person in so conspicuous a situation in the capital, where the eyes of justice were constantly wide open, and where he would certainly meet with the most disagreeable recognitions. The lover overruled all these obstructions, by asking the old gentleman whether he would wish to see his son perish in the West Indies, or become a respectable and pacific member of society in his own country; and it was speedily arranged that both should set out for Edinburgh, in order to put the youth’s purpose in execution, so soon as he should procure his indenture from his late master. In this no difficulty was experienced; and in a few weeks the aged baronet set forth, accompanied by his son, on horseback, towards the city, which contained all the latter held dear on earth.

On arriving at an inn in the Canongate, the first thing Sir Robert did, was to send a card to his cousin, the Earl of ——, informing his lordship of his arrival, and begging his company that evening at his hotel. The earl soon made his appearance, heartily welcomed the old gentleman to Edinburgh, and was introduced to young William. His lordship was sorry, however, that he could not stay long with them, as Lady —— was to have a ball that evening, where his presence was, of course, indispensable. He begged, however, to have the pleasure of _their_ company at his house so soon as they could dress, when he would endeavour to entertain them, and, moreover, introduce his young kinsman to the chief beauties of Edinburgh. When he was gone, Sir Robert, alarmed at the idea of his son entering at once into an assemblage where many would remember his face, attempted to dissuade him from attending the ball, and offered to remain all the evening with him in the inn. But William insisted upon going, holding all danger light, and representing to his father, that, even though he were _recognised_, no one, even an enemy, would think of _discovering_ him, that being generally held as a sin of the deepest dye. The truth was, that the earl’s mention of _beauties_ put him in mind of Miss Lindsay, and inspired him with a notion that she would be of the party, and that he might have an opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with her, which he could not easily procure otherwise. Both, therefore, prepared themselves for the ball, and, in a short time, set off in two chairs for Gray’s Close, in which the earl’s house was situated.

That fine old spacious alley was found to be, on the present occasion, as splendid as it was possible for any close in Auld Reekie to be, under the double advantages of fashion and festivity. Two livery-men stood at the head with torches, and served as a beacon to mark to the gathering company the entrance of the strait into which they had to steer their way. Between the head of the lane and the vestibule of his lordship’s house, other servants were planted with torches, so as to form an avenue of lights, along which the guests were ushered. All the guests, as they successively arrived, were announced at the head of the stair by a servant—a custom recently adopted from London, and of little service in Edinburgh, where all people knew each other by sight. It served, however, on the present occasion, to procure for Sir Robert and his son, immediately on their entering the room, a general and instantaneous attention, which they would rather have dispensed with, and upon which they had not calculated. Both gentlemen were personally presented by their kinsman, the earl, to many persons of distinction of both sexes, among whom Sir Robert (though he had been for twenty years estranged in a great measure from society, in the prosecution of his studies, and the management of his gout) soon recognised and entered into conversation with some old friends, while his son set himself to observe if Miss Lindsay was in the room. She was not present; but, as company continued still to arrive, he entertained hopes that she would yet make her appearance. Disengaging himself, therefore, from his father, he withdrew to a corner of the room, where he might see, without being easily perceived by any person entering; and there, in silence and abstraction, he awaited her probable arrival. Some minutes had elapsed after the last announcement; and, in the idea that all were assembled, the earl had stood up at the head of a long double line of powdered beaux, and ladies with enormous hoops and high head-dresses, in order to lead off the first dance, when William Douglas heard the name of Mr and Miss Lindsay proclaimed at the head of the stair, and presently after saw an old precise-looking gentleman lead into the room the elegant figure of his long-lost mistress. He saw no more for some time; for, while his blood rushed upwards to the heart in tumultuous tide, a dimness came over his eyes, and obscured even the brilliant chandeliers that hung over the company. On recovering his powers of observation, the dance was done, and the floor cleared of its revellers, who now sat all round in full view. Some of the ladies were fanning themselves vehemently with their large Indian fans; others were listening, with head awry, to the compliments of their partners; not a few were talking and coquetting with the gentlemen near them, and a great portion were sitting demurely and stiffly in groups, like hedgerow elms, under the awful patronage of their mothers or protectresses: all were companionable and looked happy, except one—a silent and solitary one—who, less attractively dressed than any of the rest, yet more beautiful than them all, sat pensively apart from the throng, apparently taking little interest in what was going on. Douglas needed no one to inform him that this was Helen Lindsay, though she was very different from the vivacious, sparkling girl she had been eighteen months before. He was shocked at the change he observed, and hastened to discover the cause, by inquiring of a silly-looking young man near him who she was. “Oh! that is Miss Lindsay,” quoth the youth, who was no other than her ancient admirer, Claver, “said to be the prettiest girl in Edinburgh, though Miss Pringle for my money—her you see with a flame-coloured sack, sitting next to the Lord Justice Clerk. To be sure, Miss Lindsay is not what she has been. I was once thought in love with her (here he simpered), but she was one morning found on the tramp with a rebel officer, who is said to have been hanged, and she has never since then held up her head as she used to do; for, indeed, let me tell you, some of our great dames here affect to hold up their noses at her adventures; so that, what with a lippit character and a hanged sweetheart, you see she looks somewhat dismal on it.” Douglas durst make no farther inquiries, but shrunk back in the seclusion and concealment afforded by a corner of the room, from whence he continued, for some time longer, to watch his unhappy mistress—his father, in the meantime, completely taken off his hands by a spectacled old maiden of quality, who had engaged him in a genealogical disquisition. By watching his opportunities, he contrived to place himself almost close beside his mistress, without being observed, and, gradually making still nearer approaches, he had at last the happiness of finding himself upon the very next seat to her’s. Whatever change disappointment and woe had wrought in her, it did not amount to a fourth of that which William had achieved in himself by a change of clothes, and taming down, to the expression of domestic life, a visage which had showed somewhat fierce and soldierly in the days of his acquaintance with Miss Lindsay. Instead of his former gallant and robust air, he was now pale and elegant; and though his eye still retained some of its fire, and his lip its wonted curve, the general change was such, and, moreover, the circumstances under which he was now seen were so different from those which surrounded and characterised him, that before any but a lover’s eye, he might have passed without recognition. As the case was, Miss Lindsay discovered him at the first glance, and with difficulty suppressing a scream, had nearly fainted with excessive emotion. In the words of Scotland’s national poet—

She gazed, she redden’d like a rose,
Syne pale as ony lily.

But she expressed no farther emotion. With presence of mind which was not singular in those times of danger, she instantly recovered her tranquillity, though her eyes could not but express that she half-believed herself to be in the presence of a being out of this world. One affectionate look from William sufficed to put her alarm on that score to rest; but she continued to feel the utmost apprehension respecting his safety, as well as a multitude of other confused emotions, which fast awakened in her heart, as from his imaginary grave, where they had long been buried, and thronged tumultuously through her breast. A few words, heard by no ears but hers, stealing under cover of the noise made by the music and the dancers, like the rill under a load of snow, conveyed to her the delightful intelligence that he was still alive and her lover, and that he was come thus late, when the days of peril seemed past, and under happier auspices than before, to claim her affections. When the dancers next arose upon the floor, he respectfully presented his hand, and led her, nothing loath, into the midst of the splendid assemblage, where Lord ——, bustling about as master of the ceremonies, assigned them an honourable place, in spite of the surprised looks and reprobatory winks of not a few matrons as well as young ladies. The handsome and well-matched pair acquitted themselves to the admiration of the whole assemblage, except the censorious and the envious; and when they sat down together upon the same seats from which they had risen, the speculation excited among the whole throng by the unexpected appearance of such a pair, was beyond all precedent in the annals of gossip.

Not long after, supper was announced, and the company left the dancing-room in order to go down stairs to the apartment where that meal was laid out. A ludicrous circumstance now occurred, which we shall relate, rather because it formed a part of the story, as told by our informant, than from any connection it has with the main incident.

Sir Robert had all this time been so earnestly engaged in the genealogical discussion alluded to, that, interesting as the word supper always is on such occasions to those not given to dancing alone, he did not hear it. It was not till all were gone that he and the old spectacled lady discovered at what stage of the proceedings they were arrived. Recollecting his old-fashioned politeness, however, in proper time, the venerable antiquary made his _congé_, and offered his hand to the tall, stiff, and rigid-looking dame, in order to escort her, _more majorum_, down stairs. Sir Robert was a man somewhat of the shortest, and, moreover, of the fattest, while a gouty foot, carefully swaddled, gave an infirm and tottering air to his whole person. As they moved along, the two antiques would have reminded one of Sancho Panza leading the distressed old spectacled duenna through the dark labyrinths of the duke’s castle. Thus they went along the room, down the earl’s narrow spiral stair, and through an ill-lighted passage, he cringing and limping, as gouty men are wont, and she sailing along, erect and dignified, after the manner of an old maid of 1750, who had seen good company at the Hunters’ Balls in Holyrood House. Now, it so happened that a servant, or, as some editions have it, a baker, had set down a small fruit pasty, contained in an oval dish, in a dark corner of the passage, intending immediately to return from the supper-room, to which he had carried some other dishes, in order to rescue it from that dangerous situation—to which, indeed, he had been compelled to consign it, on finding that his hands were already over-engaged. Before he returned, as ill luck would have it, Sir Robert’s gouty and clouty foot alighted full in the middle of the pasty, and stuck in it up to the ancle—perfectly unconscious, however, in its swaddlings, of having so shod itself, so that the good baronet walked on with it into the room. What was his surprise, and what the mirth of the company, and what the indignation of the old duenna, on finding that she shared in the ridicule of her esquire, may perhaps be imagined, but cannot be adequately described. Suffice it to say, that the whole assemblage were so delighted with the amusing incident, that not one face exhibited any thing of gloom during the subsequent part of the evening; and even the young ladies were tempted to forget and forgive the good fortune of Miss Lindsay, in having, to all appearance, so completely secured a first-rate lover.

Our tale now draws to a conclusion, and may be summed up in a few words. William Douglas soon settled in business as a writer to the signet, and found no obstacle on the part of either his parent or his mistress in uniting himself to that amiable young lady. It was known to a few, and suspected by more, that under the decent habit he now wore was concealed the very person who knocked down two of Gardener’s dragoons in the Luckenbooths, and braved all Edinburgh to single combat. But he was never molested on this account; and he therefore continued to practise in the Court of Session for upwards of half a century, with the success and with the credit of a respectable citizen.

REMOVALS.

“Three removes are as bad as a fire.”
“A rolling stone gathers no fog.”
_Poor Richard._

There is an allegory in the Spectator, called, if I recollect rightly, “The Mountain of Miseries.” It narrates how the human race were once summoned by a good Genius to a particular spot, and each permitted to cast down the misery which most afflicted him, taking up some one which had belonged to a fellow-creature, and which he thought he should be more able to endure. Some cast down diseased limbs, some bad wives, and so forth; but the end of the story is, that after the exchange had been made, all felt themselves a great deal more uneasy under their adopted evils than they had ever felt under their natural ones, and, accordingly, had to petition the Genius for permission to take back each his own proper original misery. I have often thought that the practice of removing from one house to another, in the hope of finding better ease and accommodation, was not much unlike this grand general interchange of personal distresses; and often on a Whitsunday in Scotland, when I have seen people flying in all directions with old tables and beds, that would have looked a great deal better in their native homes than on the street, I have mentally compared the scene to that which is so graphically described by Addison.

The English, it seems, are not much of a removing people. When a Southron once settles himself down in a house, he only quits it with the greatest reluctance. No matter for an increasing family—no matter for bettered circumstances—no matter for the ambition of wife or daughters to get into a genteeler neighbourhood. An Englishman has naturally a strong feeling about his house: it is his castle, and he never will abandon the fort so long as he can possibly retain it. Give him but a few years’ associations to hallow the dwelling—let him have been married in it, and there spent the years of the youth of his children; and sooner than part from the dear little parlour where he has enjoyed so many delightful evening scenes, with his young spouse and his happy infants around him, he would almost part with life itself. An Englishman gets accommodated to all the inconveniences of his house, however great, as naturally as the fish with its shell, however tortuous. Some strange angularity in his vestibule, which nearly throws you down every time you visit him, may appear to you a most disagreeable crook in his lot, and one that ought to make the house intolerable to him; but, ten to one, he looks upon it as only an amiable eccentricity in the plan of the mansion, and, so far from taking ill with it, would feel like a fish out of water if it were otherwise.

The Scotch, on the contrary, are an eminently migratory people. They never are three months in any house till they wish that the annual term were once more at hand, when they might remove to another. There is no day in the year so important in their eyes as Whitsunday, when almost the whole population of every considerable town is found to be on the move, exchanging houses with each other. This is a curious feature in the people, and seems as if it only could be accounted for by supposing that the nation is totally deficient in the phrenological organ called _inhabitiveness_. It is all to no use that experience is constantly showing how vain are their expectations of better lodging. Every disappointment seems to give them but a keener relish for a new attempt.

The fact is this: A family always enters upon a new house in a state of high hope as to its accommodations. So long as the recollection of their deserted abode is still fresh, the new house appears a paradise; for, mark, it has been selected on the express account of its not being characterised by any one of the inconveniences alleged against the old. By and bye, however, its own peculiar evils are felt; and, long before Candlemas day, it has been found as disagreeable as the other. Then a new one is selected, which, in its turn, is declared as bad as any. So far as my observation has extended, the itch for removing more generally prevails among the female than the male department of the population. Husbands in general are too little in the house ever to fall out of conceit with it; but the wife, as the more domestic creature, has full opportunity to observe and feel its defects; and she it is who most frequently urges and achieves the removal. There are various things about a house in which the husband can never see any importance, or feel any interest, but which appear to the wife as each the most cardinal of all cardinal points. One of these, for instance, is a back-green. “A back-green!” let the words be pronounced with a solemnity befitting their awful import. Often, when a house has seemed to the husband all that could be desired, he has been thrust out of it, whether he would or not, all on account of a thing which was as inexplicable to him as the mysteries of the Chinese faith—a back-green. Perhaps you hear some day that your back-green lies totally out of the sun, or that the right use to it is shared by some disagreeable neighbours, or is naught for some other equally intelligible reason. But you learn no more, and next Whitsunday you find yourself in the horrors and agonies of a removal to some distant part of the town, all on account of a little space of ground, of which you never yet could guess the use or purpose. Very often you are removed from a comfortable and every way excellent house, because it wants a back-green, and taken to one every way inferior, and, indeed, utterly wretched, but which, in the eyes of your sweet spouse, is rendered equal to a palace—because it has a back-green. I would advise all husbands to keep a sharp look-out after the back-greens, as well as several other things, which I shall point out to them.

Let us suppose a case of proposed removal in the middle walks of life. You are, say, the father of a rather numerous family, living very contentedly in a _flat_ in not the least dense part of the town. For a long time there have been grumblings, like distant thunder among the mountains; but you have never yet heard any very strong reason urged why you should remove. At length, about the New Year, these mutterings begin to get voice; and your wife, some quiet evening, after all the young people are gone to bed, opens a sudden and most tremendous attack upon you, respecting the necessity of no longer keeping the children pent up in this small dwelling, so far from any play-ground or fresh air. And, really, she does not think it is good for her own health that you should live any longer here. She has plenty of exercise, she acknowledges, but no air. It is so far from public walks, that it makes a toil of a pleasure before they can be reached. And then, no place whatsoever to dry the clothes. Your own shirts are never properly seen to, being only hung in an open garret, where they are exposed to all the smoke of the town; at least, all that chooses to come in at the skylights. And there is no such thing as a servant’s bed-room in this house. The girl, I assure you, has her own complaints as to the hardship of being obliged to sleep in that den above the kitchen door. And as for the stair, is it not a thoroughfare to all the scum of the town? Some of the neighbours, I assure you, are no better than they should be, if all tales be true. There is even an old man in the garret who is supposed to live by _Burking_. The fact is, we would now require an additional bed-room for the boys—&c. &c.

Lectured up to removing point, you consent, unhappy man! to leave your shop some forenoon, in order to take a walk with your wife about the outskirts of the town, in search of a more airy, more spacious, and more genteel abode. You are dragged “by the lug and the horn,” as shepherds say, through multitudes of those “delightful small _self-contained_ houses,” which offer, “within twenty minutes’ walk of the college,” all the elegancies of Heriot Row and Great King Street, at a tithe of the rent. You find them all as like each other in the interior as if they had been made on the principle of chip-boxes; but yet, to your wife, each seems to have its own peculiar merits. One excels in the matter of a lobby; another has an extra closet; a third affords a superior view from the drawing-room windows; and a fourth—O merit above all merits!—transcends its fellows in the article of a back-green. Every thing, however, is inspected—every thing is taken into the general account; and the result of the whole is, that though the rent is ten pounds higher, and the dining-room a thought less than in your present abode, you _must_ remove. The carpets, with a very little eeking and clipping, will all suit. Your sideboard, of which your spouse has a measure in her reticule, will exactly answer the recess devoted to it. The jack in the kitchen answers to a tee; and even the scraper at the door has something about it that is singularly appropriate, as if the builder at the very first had designed to take the measure of your foot. All things appear, in the showing of your good dame, to be so remarkably answerable and proper, that you half believe it to be a matter of destiny, and, in completing your arrangements, hardly bargain so much with the landlord as with Fate.

During the spring months which elapse before the day of removal, you live in a state of dreamy bliss respecting your new house. Almost every fine morning you rise about seven for a walk, and, by a strange chance, you invariably take the house of promise in your way, and enjoy a survey of its external excellencies. When you observe, from the closed shutters, that its present occupants, so far from being agog about it like yourself, are snugly snoozing in their beds, you wonder at their indifference. If you were they, you would have been up hours ago, enjoying the air in the back-green, or playing the king of the Vandals in the front-plot. What a pity to see that splendid ruin of a rhododendron drooping in that fashion! What a shame to pay so little attention to the boxwood! At length, the 25th of May arrives. You transfer yourself to the now vacated tenement, pitying with all your heart the stupid people who have left it. For a time, a kind of honeymoon delirium pervades the household. You certainly do find some pleasure in contemplating from your drawing-room windows the cattle in the neighbouring grass-park, even though sensible all the time that they are only kept there _in petto_ by the exterminating butcher at the end of “the Row.” Your wife, too, reposes upon the joys of her back-green with a gratulation of spirit that seems as if it could never know an end. And while the servant girl rejoices in a chamber to herself, your boys have sport unceasing in pasting over the kitchen door with pictures and excellent new songs. But all this only holds good while summer lasts—summer, during which no house ever appears inconvenient or disadvantageous. By and bye comes the winter of your discontent. The views from the window are no longer fair; the back-green, which already in autumn had begun to lose its character as a play-ground, in consequence of the swarms of creeping things, which covered the walls in such a way as if they had a design to form a living entomological museum, and so fairly frightened the children into the house, is now a sink of mud and melting snow; the serving-wench finds that it was better to sleep in “that den above the kitchen door”—in so far as the said den was very “cosey”—than to lie in a chamber under the slates, exposed to the malevolence of the elements in all its shapes. You find, too, that in the short days it is not very agreeable to walk several times to and from town in the dark, through a district which, in the language of house-proprietors, “has the advantage of being out of the bounds of police.” The phrase, “within twenty minutes’ walk of the College,” appears to you as only calculated for the faculties of some itinerating prodigy, in as much as it never takes you less than twice the time. The worthy housewife herself, after long suffering in secret, and great reluctance to confess her counsel wrong, has to complain at last of “the distance from the market,” which obliges her to buy every thing from small dealers in the neighbourhood, who necessarily must make up for uncertain custom by “two prices.” No getting so much as a pennyworth of vegetables without sending for it nearly a mile; and then “that creature Jenny,” there is no sending her out, you know, even upon the shortest errand, but she stays an hour. When we want even so much as change for a shilling, there is no getting it nearer than Port Hopetoun, which is half a mile away. Then we are such a distance from the kirk. It is only in fine weather we are able to get that length, and at most only once in the day. I declare, if we stay here much longer, we shall become absolute heathens. Although, to be sure, we pay less taxes in this out-of-the-way place than we did before, have we not lost a washing-tub, from there being no police? And then, is there not a toll-bar betwixt us and the town, at which we must pay one shilling every time we have to go out or come home in a coach? And, above all things, we are cut off here from all our friends and acquaintances. We do not know a soul nearer hand than the Duncans, who live at the back of the Meadows. And there is no dropping in here, in an easy way, upon a forenoon call, but the people, when they reach us, are so much fatigued with the distance, that they must be asked to stay to dinner: and the case ends, perhaps, with the good man being obliged to walk three miles home with a young lady at twelve o’clock at night! Only think of that! No, no, this cold, outlandish, genteel place, will never do. Give me a good front door in the New Town, “with all the conveniences,” and I’ll leave such places as this to them that like them better.

When once a resolution is formed to leave a house, it is amazing how many holes are picked in its character, many of them literal. The wind gets in at a hundred places; we can see daylight through stone walls and double-deafened ceilings. Then, there is such a draught up the staircase, and into the best bed-room, that positively there is no enduring it. I think another six months of this house would fairly make an end of _me_. It’s not a house for tender folk. You might sometimes as well sit in the open street, as by the fireside. You burn your shins, and all the time your back is freezing. Upon my word, I think we should save all the difference between this and a front door in doctors’ bills!

A front door is then determined upon; and you think you have at length, by a little stretch of your purse, reached the very perfection of comfort. But alas! “_fronti nulla fides_,” which is as much as to say, there is no reliance to be placed on a front door. It is true, you escape all the evils of your former habitation, and that nothing can match your back kitchen as a convenience to the servants. But then the family living above you has twice your number of children; and these imps seem to do nothing whatever the whole day long, from six in the morning till seven at night, but run pat, pat, pat, along the floors overhead, till they almost drive you mad, _non vi sed sæpe cadendo_. Even the charms of a back-green, or a superior scullery, will not stand against this; and so you determine at last to go to an upper flat in the same neighbourhood, where you may have the pleasure of tormenting some person below with _your_ children, without the risk of being at the same time tormented yourself. The last selection is made upon moderate and prudent principles; but yet hope is also even here upon the wing. The house has no pretensions to style or external gentility, but yet “Edwin was no vulgar boy.” The stair is remarkably spacious and well lighted, and has, further, the advantage of a door at the bottom, which can be opened by any inhabitant, by means of a pulley, without the necessity of descending to the bottom. In fact, it is what I would call a genteel stair. “The Stevensons” live in the first _flat_. The kitchen door has a nice hole at the lower corner for the cat; and what a delightful place there is by the side of the fire for the lamp, or where we could keep our salt dry in a _pig_! The request of the Regent Earl of Mar, as inscribed on the front of his house at Stirling,

“I pray all lukaris on this ludging
With gentil ee to gif their judging,”

comes powerfully into force in all cases where the tenant is just entering upon his house. As in the other case every fault is exaggerated, and made the subject of congratulatory disgust, so in this, every fault is extenuated. “The ceilings are a little contracted, I see, by the roof.” “Oh! a wee thought coomceyled—a very small matter; these rooms are only intended for the children. We have some capital _public_ rooms at the back, looking into the Queen Street gardens, and have a little peep of the sea in the distance.” “Upper flats,” observes your Malagrowther friend, “are very apt to smoke.” “Oh! not at all, I assure you. But I have been assured that Dr Bonnyman cured this house entirely some years ago, and since then there has never been a single puff of smoke.” “Your nursery is in the garret; don’t you think the children will feel it rather cold?” “Oh, the most comfortable nursery in the world; and see, _only see_, what a nice door there is at the top of the garret stair to prevent the bairns from tumbling down!” “I am sorry, however, to see a green-wife established so close beneath the door, at the bottom of your _common_ stair.” “Oh, Sir, but consider the convenience of the greens.” In fact, there is no peculiarity about the house, however trifling, but, in the eyes of a new tenant, it will seem a beauty, as in those of a departing one it will constitute a disgrace. And this is just the philosophy of the question, and the real cause why there is so much useless tossing and tumbling of old furniture on each 25th of May.

VICTIMS.

The industrious classes of the middle rank are, on the one hand, _attracted onwards_ to wealth and respectability, by contemplating men, formerly of their own order, who having, as the saying is, feathered their nests, now lie at ease, a kind of _conscripti patres_; while they are, on the other hand, _repelled_ from the regions of poverty and disgrace by the sight of a great many wretched persons, who having, under the influence of some unhappy star, permitted their good resolutions of industry and honour to give way, are sunk from their former estate, and now live—if living it can be called—in a state of misery and ignominy almost too painful to be thought of. There may be a use in this—as there is a use for beacons and buoys at sea. But oh, the desolation of such a fate! As different as the condition of a vessel which ever bends its course freely and gallantly over the seas, on some joyous expedition of profit or adventure, compared with one which has been deprived of all the means of locomotion, and chained down upon some reef of rocks, merely to tell its happier companions that it is to be avoided; so different is the condition of a man still engaged in the hopeful pursuits of life, and one who has lost all its prospects.

The progress of men who live by their daily industry, through this world, may be likened, in some respects, to the march of an army through an enemy’s country. He who, from fatigue, from disease, from inebriety, from severe wounds, or whatever cause, falls out of the line of march, and lays him down by the wayside, is sure, as a matter of course, to be destroyed by the peasantry; once let the column he belongs to pass on a little way ahead, and death is his sure portion. It is a dreadful thing to fall behind the onward march of the world.

VICTIMS—the word placed at the head of this article—is a designation for those woe-begone mortals who have had the misfortune to drop out of the ranks of society. Every body must know more or less of _victims_, for every body must have had to pay a smaller or greater number of half-crowns in his time to keep them from starvation. It happens, however, that the present writer has had _a great deal to do with victims_; and he therefore conceives himself qualified to afford his neighbours a little information upon the subject. It is a subject not without its moral.