Chapter II (4)

Composure was suddenly shed over her countenance, like gentle sunlight over a cheerless day, and she looked around the room as if searching for some pleasant objects that eluded her sight. “See,” said she, “yonder are all their books, arranged just as Henry arranged them on his unexpected visit. Alas! too many of them are about the troubles and battles of the sea! But it matters not now. You are looking at that drawing. It was done by himself—that is the ship he was so proud of, sailing in sunshine and a pleasant breeze. Another ship, indeed, was she soon after, when she lay upon the reef! But as for the books, I take them out of their places, and dust them, and return them to their places, every week. I used to read to my boys, sitting round my knees, out of many of these books, before they could read themselves; but now I never peruse them, for their cheerful stories are not for me. But there is one Book I do read, and without it I should long ago have been dead. The more the heart suffers, the more does it understand that Book. Never do I read a single chapter, without feeling assured of something more awful in our nature than I felt before. My own heart misgives me; my own soul betrays me; all my comforts desert me in a panic; but never yet once did I read one whole page of the New Testament that I did not know that the eye of God is on all His creatures, and on me like the rest, though my husband and all my sons are dead, and I may have many years yet to live alone on the earth.”

After this we walked out into the little avenue, now dark with the deep rich shadows of summer beauty. We looked at that beauty, and spoke of the surpassing brightness of the weather during all June, and advancing July. It is not in nature always to be sad; and the remembrance of all her melancholy and even miserable confessions was now like an uncertain echo, as I beheld a placid smile on her face, a smile of such perfect resignation, that it might not falsely be called a smile of joy. We stood at the little white gate; and, with a gentle voice, that perfectly accorded with that expression, she bade God bless me; and then with composed steps, and now and then turning up, as she walked along, the massy flower-branches of the laburnum, as, bent with their load of beauty, they trailed upon the ground, she disappeared into that retirement which, notwithstanding all I had seen and heard, I could not but think deserved almost to be called happy, in a world which even the most thoughtless know is a world of sorrow.

THE BATTLE OF THE BREEKS:
_A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF WILLIAM M‘GEE, WEAVER IN HAMILTON_.

BY ROBERT MACNISH, LL.D.

I often wonder when I think of the tribulations that men bring upon themsels, through a want of gumption and common independence of speerit. There now was I, for nae less than eighteen years, as henpeckit a man as ever wrocht at the loom. Maggie and me, after the first week of our marriage, never forgathered weel thegither. There was something unco dour and imperious about her temper, although, I maun say, barring this drawback, she was nae that ill in her way either,—that is to say, she had a sort of kindness about her, and behaved in a truly mitherly way to the bairns, giein them a’ things needfu’ in the way of feeding and claithing, so far as our means admitted. But, oh, man, for a’ that, she was a dour wife. There was nae pleasing her ae way or anither; and whenever I heard the bell ringing for the kirk, it put me in mind of her tongue—aye wag, wagging, and abusing me beyond bounds. In ae word, I was a puir, broken-hearted man, and often wished myself in Abraham’s bosom, awa frae the cares and miseries of this sinfu’ world.

I was just saying that folk often rin their heads into scrapes for want of a pickle natural spunk. Let nae man tell me that gude nature and simpleecity will get on best in this world; na—faith na. I hae had ower muckle experience that way; and the langer I live has proved to me that my auld maister, James Currie (him in the Quarry Loan), wasna sae far wrang when he alleged, in his droll, gude-humoured way, that a man should hae enough o’ the deil about him to keep the deil frae him. That was, after a’, ane of the wisest observes I hae heard of for a lang time. Little did I opine that I would ever be obligated to mak use o’t in my ain particular case:—but, bide a wee, and ye shall see how it was brocht about between me and Maggie.

It was on a wintry night when she set out to pick a quarrel wi’ Mrs Todd, the huckster’s wife, anent the price of a pickle flour which I had bought some days before, for making batter of, but which didna turn out sae weel as I expeckit, considering what was paid for’t. Had I been consulted, I would hae tell’t her to bide at hame, and no fash her thumb about the matter, which after a’ was only an affair of three-ha’pence farthing, and neither here nor there. But, na; Maggie was nane o’ the kind to let sic an object stan’ by; so out she sets, wi’ her red cloak about her, and her black velvet bonnet—that she had just that day got hame frae Miss Lorimer, the milliner—upon her head. But I maun first tell what passed between her and me on this wonderful occasion.

“And now, my dear,” quo’ I, looking as couthy and humble as I could, and pu’ing my Kilmarnock nicht-cap a wee grain aff my brow in a kind of half respectfu’ fashion, “what’s this ye’re ganging to be about? Odds, woman, I wadna gie a pirn for a’ that has happened. What signifies a pickle flour, scrimp worth half a groat?”

Faith, I would better hae held my tongue, for nae sooner was the word uttered, than takin’ haud of a can, half fu’ o’ ready-made dressing, which I was preparing to lay on a wab of blue check I was working for Mr Andrew Treddles, the Glasgow manufacturer—I say, taking haud of this, she let flee at my head like a cannon-ball. But Providence was kind, and instead of knocking out my brains, as I had every reason to expeck, it gaed bang against our ain looking-glass, and shattered it into five hunder pieces. But I didna a’thegither escape scaith—the dressing having flown out as the can gaed by me, and plaistered a’ my face ower in a manner maist extraordinar to behold. By jingo! my spirit was roused at this deadly attempt, and gin she hadna been my wife, I wad hae thrawn about her neck, like a tappit-hen’s. But, na—I was henpeckit, and she had sic a mastery ower me as nae persuasions of my ain judgment could owercome. Sae I could do naething but stan’ glowering at her like a moudiewart, while she poured out as muckle abuse as if I had been her flunkey, instead of her natural lord and master. Ance or twice I fand my nieves yeuking to gie her a clour by way of balancing accounts, but such was the power of influence she had obtained, that I durstna cheep for my very heart’s blude. So awa she gaed on her errand, leaving me sittin’ by the fire to mak the best of my desperate condition.

“O, Nancy,” said I to my dochter, as she sat mending her brither’s sark, opposite to me, “is na your mither an awfu’ woman?”

“I see naething awfu’ about her,” quo’ the cratur; “I think she servit ye richt; and had I a man, I would just treat him in the same way, if he daured to set his nose against onything I wanted.”

I declare to ye, when I heard this frae my ain flesh and blude, I was perfectly dumfoundered. The bairn I had brought up on my knee—that used, when a wee thing, to come and sit beside me at the loom, and who was in the custom of wheeling my pirns wi’ her ain hand—odds, man, it was desperate. I couldna say anither word, but I faund a big tear come hap-happing ower my runkled cheeks, the first that had wet them sin’ I was a bit laddie rinnin’ about before the schule door. What was her mither’s abusiveness to this? A man may thole muckle frae his wife, but, oh, the harsh words of an undutifu’ bairn gang like arrows to his heart, and he weeps tears of real bitterness. I wasna angry at the lassie—I was ower grieved to be angered; and for the first time I fand that my former sufferings were only as a single thread to a hale hank of yarn, compared to them I suffered at this moment.

A’thegither, the thing was mair than I could stand, so rising up, I betaks mysel to my but-an-ben neighbour, Andrew Brand. Andrew was an uncommon sagacious chiel, and, like mysel, a weaver to his trade. He was beuk-learned, and had read a hantle on different subjects, so that he was naturally looked up to by the folks round about, on account of his great lear. When onything gaed wrang about the Leechlee Street, where we lived, we were a’ glad to consult him; and his advice was reckoned no greatly behint that of Mr Meek, the minister. He was a great counter, or ’rithmetishian, as he ca’d it; and it was thocht by mony gude judges that he could handle a pen as weel as Mr Dick, the writing-master, himsel. So, as I was saying, I stappit ben to Andrew’s, to ask his advice, but, odds! if ye ever saw a man in sic a desperate passion as he was in when I tauld him how I had been used by my wife and dochter.

“William M‘Gee,” said he, raising his voice,—it was a geyan strong ane,—“ye’re an absolute gomeril. Oh, man, but ye’re a henpeckit sumph! I tell ye, ye’re a gawpus and a lauching-stock, and no worth the name of a man. Do ye hear that?”

“O ay, I hear’t very weel,” quo’ I, no that pleased at being sae spoken to, even by Andrew Brand, who was a man I could stamach a gude deal frae, in the way of reproof—“I hear’t a’ weel eneuch, and am muckle obleeged to ye, nae doubt, for your consolation.”

“Hooly and fairly, William,” said he in a kinder tone, for he saw I was a degree hurt by his speech. “Come, I was only joking ye, man, and ye maunna tak onything amiss I hae said. But, really, William, I speak to ye as a frien’, and tell ye that ye are submitting to a tyranny which no man of common understanding ought to submit to. Is this no the land of liberty? Are we no just as free as the Duke in his grand palace down by; and has onybody a richt—tell me that, William M‘Gee—to tyranneeze ower anither as your wife does ower you! I’ll no tell ye what to do, but I’ll just tell ye what I would do if my wife and dochter treated me as yours have treated you: losh, man, I would ding their harns about, and knock their heads thegither like twa curling-stanes. I would aye be master in my ain house.”

This was Andrew’s advice, and I thocht it sounded geyan rational, only no very easy to be put in practice. Hoosomever, thinks I to mysel, I’ll consider about it, and gin I could only bring mysel to mak the experiment, wha kens but I micht succeed to a miracle? On stapping back to my ain house, the first thing I did was to tak a thimblefu’ of whisky, by way of gieing me a pickle spunk, in case of ony fresh rumpus wi’ the wife, and also to clear up my ideas; for I hae fand, that after a lang spell at the loom, the thochts, as weel as the body, are like to get stupid and dozey. So I taks a drappie, and sits down quietly by the fireside, waiting for the return of Maggie frae scolding Mrs Todd about the flour.

In she comes, a’ in a flurry. Her face was as red as a peony rose, her breathing cam fast, and she lookit a’thegither like ane that has had a sair warsle wi’ the tongue. But she was far frae being downcast. On the contrair, she lookit as proud as a Turkey cock; and I saw wi’ the tail o’ my ee that she had gained a gran’ victory ower puir Mrs Todd, who was a douce, quiet woman, and nae match for the like of her in randying. So she began to stump and mak a great phrase about the way she had outcrawed the puir body; and was a’thegither as upset about it as if Duke Hamilton had made her keeper of his palace. Losh! I was mad to hear’t, and twa or three times had a gude mind to put in a word, to sic a degree was my courage raised by the drap speerits; but aye as the words were rising to my mouth, the thocht of the can and the dressing sent them back again, till they stuck like a bane in my throat. Very likely I micht hae said ne’er a word, and Andrew Brand’s advice micht hae gane for naething, had it no been for the cratur Nancy, who was sae lifted up about her mither’s dispute, that naething would sair her but to hae the hale affair mentioned cut and dry.

“And did ye cast up to Mrs Todd, mither,” quo’ the little cutty, “that she was fat?”

“Ay, that I did,” said Maggie. “I tell’t her she was like a barn-door. I tell’t her she was like the side of a house. ‘Ye’re a sow,’ quo’ I; ‘ye get fou every hour of the day, wi’ your lump of a gudeman!’”

But this wasna a’—for nae sooner had Maggie answered her dochter’s first question, than the cratur was ready wi’ anither: “And, mither, did ye cast up to her that her faither was a meeser?”

“Atweel did I, Nancy,” answered the gudewife. “I tell’t her a’ that. I coost up to her that her faither was a meeser, and would ride to Lunnon on a louse, and mak breeks of its skin, and candles of its tallow.”

I could thole this nae langer. I fand the hale man working within me, and was moved to a pitch of daring, mair like madness than onything else. Faith, the whisky was of gude service now, and so was Andrew Brand’s advice. I accordingly steekit my nieves wi’ desperation, threw awa my cowl, tucked up my sark sleeves,—for my coat happened to be aff at the time,—and got up frae the three-footed stool I had been sitting upon in the twinkling of an ee. I trumbled a’ ower, but whether it was wi’ fear, or wi’ anger, or wi’ baith put thegither, it would be difficult to say. I was in an awfu’ passion, and as fairce as a papist.

“And so,” said I, “ye coost up sic things to the honest woman, Mrs Todd! O, Maggie M‘Gee, Maggie M‘Gee, are ye no ashamed of yoursel?”

’Od it would hae dune your heart gude to see how she glowered at me. She was bewildered, and lookit as if to see whether I was mysel, and no some ither body. But her evil speerit didna lie lang asleep; it soon broke out like a squib on the king’s birthday, and I saw that I maun now stand firm, or be a dead man for ever.

“Has your faither been at the whisky bottle?” said she to her dochter. “He looks as if he was the waur of drink.”

“He had a glass just before ye cam in,” answered the wicked jimpey; and scarcely had she spoken the word, when Maggie flew upon me like a teeger, and gied me a skelp on the cheek wi’ her open loof, that made me turn round tapwise on the middle of the floor. Seeing that affairs were come to this pass, I saw plainly that I maun go on, no forgetting in sae doing my frien’ Andrew’s advice, as also my auld master Tammas Currie’s observe, anent a man ha’eing aneuch of the deil in his temper to keep the deil awa frae him. So I picked up a’ the spunk I had in me, besides what I had frae the drap whisky; and fa’ing to, I gied her sic a leathering as never woman got in her born days. In ae word, she met wi’ her match, and roared aloud for mercy; but this I would on nae account grant, till she promised faithfully that, in a’ time coming, she would acknowledge me as her lord and maister, and obey me in everything as a dutiful wife should her husband.

As soon as this was settled, in stappit Andrew Brand. At the sight of my wife greeting, and me sae fairce, he held up his hands wi’ astonishment.

“William M‘Gee,” quo’ he, “it’s no possible that ye’re maister in this house!”

“It’s no only possible, but it’s true, Andrew,” was my answer; and, taking me by the hand, he wished me joy for my speerit and success.

Sae far, sae weel; the first grand stroke was made, but there was something yet to do. I had discharged a’ outstanding debts wi’ my wife, and had brocht her to terms; but I had yet to reduce my bairns to their senses, and show them that I was _their_ lord and maister, as weel as their mither’s. Puir things! my heart was wae for them, for they were sairly miseducated, and held me in nae mair estimation, than if I had been ane of my ain wabster lads. So, just wi’ a view to their gude, I took down a pair of teuch ben-leather taws, weel burnt at the finger-ends, and gied Nancy as mony cracks ower the bare neck, as set her squeeling beyond a’ bounds. It was pitifu’ to see the cratur, how she skipped about the room, and ran awa to her mither, to escape my faitherly rage. But a’ assistance frae that quarter was at an end now; and she was fain to fa’ down on her knees, and beg my forgiveness, and promise to conduct hersel as became my dochter, in a’ time coming.

Just at this moment, in comes wee Geordie, greeting for his parritch. He kent naething of what had taken place in the house; and, doubtless, expeckit to mak an idiot of me, his faither, as he had been accustomed to do, almost frae his very cradle. I saw that now was the time to thresh the corruption out of him; and brandishing the taws ower my head, I made a stap forrit to lay hand upon him, and treat him like the lave. He looked as if he had an inkling of what was forthcoming, and ran whinging and craiking to his mither, who stood wiping her een wi’ her striped apron in a corner of the room. The terrified laddie clang to her knees, but she never offered to lend a helping hand, sae great was the salutary terror wi’ which I had inspired her. So I pu’d him awa frae her coats, to which he was clinging; and, laying him ower my knee, I gied him hipsie-dipsie in the presence of his mither, his sister, and Andrew Brand, who were looking on.

And thus hae I, who for eighteen years was ruled by my wife, got the upper hand; and ony man who is henpeckit as I hae been, should just tak the same plan, and his success will be as sure as mine. Andrew Brand aye said to me that a man should wear his ain breeks; and I can maintain, frae present experience, that a wiser saying is no to be found in the Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David. No that Maggie hasna tried nows and thans to recover her lost power, but I hae on thae occasions conduckit mysel wi’ sic firmness, that she has at last gien it up as a bad job, and is now as obedient a wife as ye’ll meet wi’ between this and Bothwell. The twa bairns, too, are just wonderfully changed, and are as raisonable as can be expeckit, a’ things considered. Let men, therefore, whether gentle or simple, follow my plan, and the word “henpeckit,” as Andrew Brand says, will soon slip out of the dictionair.

MY SISTER KATE.

BY ANDREW PICKEN.

There is a low road (but it is not much frequented, for it is terribly round about) that passes at the foot of the range of hills that skirt the long and beautiful gut or firth of the Clyde, in the west of Scotland; and as you go along this road, either up or down, the sea or firth is almost at your very side, the hills rising above you; and you are just opposite to the great black and blue mountains on the other side of the gut, that sweep in heavy masses, or jut out in bold capes, at the mouth of the deep lochs that run up the firth into the picturesque highlands of Argyleshire.

You may think of the scene what you please, because steam-boating has, of late years, profaned it somewhat into commonness, and defiled its pure air with filthy puffs of coal smoke; and because the Comet and all her unfortunate passengers were sunk to the bottom of this very part of the firth; and because, a little time previous, a whole boatful of poor Highland reaper girls were all run down in the night-time, while they were asleep, and drowned near the Clough lighthouse hard by; but if you were to walk this road by the seaside any summer afternoon, going towards the bathing village of Gourock, you would say, as you looked across to the Highlands, and up the Clyde towards the rocks of Dumbarton Castle, that there are few scenes more truly magnificent and interesting.

There is a little village exactly opposite to you, looking across the firth, which is called Dunoon, and contains the burying-place of the great house of Argyle; and which, surrounded by a patch of green cultivated land, sloping pleasantly from the sea, and cowering snugly by itself, with its picturesque cemetery, under the great blue hills frowning behind, looks, from across the firth, absolutely like a tasteful little haunt of the capricious spirit of romance.

Well, between this road on the lowland side of the firth, and the water’s-edge, and before it winds off round by the romantic seat of Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, farther up, there stand, or stood, two or three small fishing cottages which, from the hills nearly over them, looked just like white shells, of a large size, dropped fancifully down upon the green common between the hills and the road. In these cottages, it was observed, the fishermen had numerous families, who, while young, assisted them in their healthful employment; and that the girls, of which there were a number, were so wild in their contented seclusion, that if any passenger on the road stopped to observe them, as they sat in groups on the green mending their father’s nets, they would take alarm, and rise and run off like fawns, and hide among the rocks by the sea, or trip back into the cottages. Now it happened, once on a time, that a great event took place to one of the cottager’s daughters, which, for a long period, deranged and almost destroyed the happy equality in which they had hitherto lived; and becoming the theme of discourse and inquiry concerning things beyond the sphere of the fisher people and all their neighbours as far as Gourock, introduced among them no small degree of ambition and discontent.

There was one of the fishermen, a remarkably decent, well disposed Highlandman, from the opposite shore of Argyleshire, named Martin M‘Leod, and he had two daughters, the youngest of which, as was no uncommon case, turned out to be remarkably and even delicately beautiful.

But nobody ever saw or thought anything about the beauty of Catherine M‘Leod, except it might be some of the growing young men in the neighbouring cottages, several of whom began, at times, to look at her with a sort of wonder, and seemed to feel a degree of awe in her company; while her family took an involuntary pride in her beyond all the others; and her eldest sister somehow imitated her in every thing, and continually quoted her talk, and trumpeted about among the neighbours what was said and done by “my sister Kate.”

Things continued in this way as Kate grew to womankind; and she was the liveliest little body about the place, and used to sing so divertingly at the house-end, as she busied herself about her father’s fishing gear, and ran up and down “among the brekans on the brae,” behind the cottages, or took her wanderings off all the way to the Clough lighthouse at the point. I say things continued in this way until a gentleman, who, it turned out, was all the way from London, came to lodge in Greenock, or Gourock, or Inverkip, or somewhere not very far distant; and, being a gentleman, and, of course, at liberty to do every sort of out-of-the-way thing that he pleased, he got a manner of coming down and wandering about among the cottages, and asking questions concerning whatever he chose of the fishermen; and then it was not long until he got his eyes upon Kate.

“The gentleman,” as her sister used to tell afterwards, “was perfectly ill, and smitten at once about our Kate. He was not able,” she said, “to take the least rest, but was down constantly about us for weeks; and then he got to talking to and walking with Kate, she linking her arm in his beneath the hill, just as it had been Sir Michael Stewart and my lady; and then such presents as he used to bring for her, bought in the grand shop of Bailie Macnicol, at Greenock; gowns, and shawls, and veils, and fine chip hats, never speaking of ribbons, and lace edging, and mob caps—perfectly beautiful.”

The whole of the fishermen’s daughters became mad with envy of poor Kate, and admiration of her new dress, which some said was mostly bought by her father after all, who wanted to have his daughter made a lady of; and now nothing was heard in the hamlet but murmurings and discontented complaints; every girl looking at herself in the little cracked glass that her father used to shave by, to see if she were pretty, and wishing and longing, not only for a lover of her own, but even for a gentleman. So, as matters grew serious, and the gentleman was fairly in love, old Martin M‘Leod, who looked sharply after Kate, behoved to have sundry conversations with the gentleman about her; and masters being appointed to teach her right things, which the fisher folks never heard of, but which were to turn her into a lady, Kate and the gentleman, after a time, were actually married in Greenock new church, and set off for London.

During all this time, there were various opinions among the fisher people, how that Kate never was particularly in love with the gentleman; and some even said that she was in love with somebody else (for pretty maidens must always be in love), or, at least, that some of the youths of the neighbourhood were in love with her; but then the old folks said, that love was only for gentle people who could afford to pay for it; and that when a gentleman was pleased to fall in love, no one had a right to say him nay, or pretend to set up against him. Some of the young women, to be sure, ventured to contest this doctrine, and cited various cases from the authority of printed ballads bought at the Greenock fair, at a halfpenny each; and also from the traditionary literature of Argyleshire, which was couched in the mellifluous numbers of the Gaelic language; but, however this might be, the fame of Catherine M‘Leod’s happy marriage and great fortune was noised abroad exceedingly, among the fisher people throughout these coasts, as well as about Gourock and all the parts adjacent.

As to the gentleman, it was found out that his name was Mr Pounteney, and that little Kate M‘Leod was now Mrs Pounteney, and a great London lady, but what quality of a gentleman Mr Pounteney really was, was a matter of much controversy and discussion. Some said that he was a great gentleman, and others thought that, from various symptoms, he was not a very great gentleman; some went so far as to say he was a lord or a prince, while others maintained that he was only a simple esquire.

Nothing, therefore, could be talked of wherever Flora M‘Leod went, but about “my sister Kate;” and she was quite in request everywhere, because she could talk of the romantic history and happy fortune of her lucky sister. Mrs Pounteney’s house in London, therefore, Mrs Pounteney’s grand husband, and Mrs Pounteney’s coach, excited the admiration and the discontent of all the fishermen’s daughters, for many miles round this romantic seacoast, and these quiet cottages under the hills, where the simple people live upon their fish, and did not know that they were happy. Many a long summer’s day, as the girls sat working their nets on a knoll towards the sea, the sun that shone warm upon their indolent limbs on the grass, and the breeze that blew from the firth, or swept round from the flowery woods of Ardgowan, seemed less grateful and delicious, from their discontented imaginings about the fortune of Mrs Pounteney; and many a sweet and wholesome supper of fresh boiled fish was made to lose its former relish, or was even embittered by obtrusive discourse about the fine wines and the gilded grandeur of “my sister Kate.” Even the fisher lads in the neighbourhood—fine fearless youths—found a total alteration in their sweethearts; their discourse was not relished, their persons were almost despised; and there was now no happiness found for a fisherman’s daughter, but what was at least to approach to the state of grandeur and felicity so fortunately obtained by “my sister Kate.”

The minds of Kate’s family were so carried by her great fortune, that vague wishes and discontented repinings followed their constant meditations upon her lucky lot. Flora had found herself above marrying a fisherman; and a young fellow called Bryce Cameron, who had long waited for her, and whose brother, Allan, was once a sweetheart of Kate’s herself, being long ago discarded; and she, not perceiving any chances of a gentleman making his appearance to take Bryce’s place, became melancholy and thoughtful; she began to fear that she was to have nobody, and her thoughts ran constantly after London and Mrs Pounteney. With these anxious wishes, vague hopes began to mix of some lucky turn to her own fortune, if she were only in the way of getting to be a lady; and at length she formed the high wish, and even the adventurous resolve, of going all the way to London, just to get one peep at her sister’s happiness.

When this ambition seized Flora M‘Leod, she let the old people have no rest, nor did she spare any exertion to get the means of making her proposed pilgrimage to London. In the course of a fortnight from its first serious suggestion, she, with a gold guinea in her pocket, and two one-pound notes of the Greenock Bank, besides other coins and valuables, and even a little old-fashioned Highland brooch, with which the quondam lover of her sister, Allan Cameron, had the temerity to intrust to her, to be specially returned into the hand of the great lady when she should see her, besides a hundred other charges and remembrances from the neighbours, she set off one dewy morning in summer, carrying her shoes and stockings in her hand, to make her way to London, to get a sight of everything great, and particularly of her happy sister Kate.

Many a weary mile did Flora M‘Leod walk, and ride, and sail, through unknown places, and in what she called foreign parts; for strange things and people met her eye, and long dull regions of country passed her like a rapid vision, as she was wheeled towards the great capital, and proper centre of England. After travelling to a distance that was to her perfectly amazing, she was set down in London, and inquired her way, in the best English she could command, into one of those long brick streets, of dark and dull gentility, to which she was directed; and after much trouble and some expense, at length found the door of her sister’s house. She stood awhile considering, on the steps of the mansion, and felt a sort of fear of lifting the big iron knocker that seemed to grin down upon her; for she was not in the habit of knocking at great folk’s doors, and almost trembled lest somebody from within would frown her into nothing, even by their high and lofty looks.

And yet she thought the house was not so dreadfully grand after all;—not at all such as she had imagined, for she had passed houses much bigger and grander than this great gentleman’s; it was not even the largest in its own street, and looked dull and dingy, and shut up with blinds and rails, having a sort of melancholy appearance.

But she must not linger, but see what was inside. She lifted up the iron knocker, and as it fell the very clang of it, and its echo inside, smote upon her heart with a sensation of strange apprehension. A powdered man opened it, and stared at her with an inquisitive and impertinent look, then saucily asked what she wanted. Flora courtesied low to the servant from perfect terror, saying she wanted to see Mrs Pounteney.

“And what can _you_ want with Mrs Pounteney, young woman, I should like to know?” said the fellow; for Flora neither looked like a milliner’s woman nor any other sort of useful person likely to be wanted by a lady.

Flora had laid various pretty plans in her own mind, about taking her sister by surprise, and seeing how she would look at her before she spoke, and so forth; at least she had resolved not to affront her by making herself known as her sister before the servants; but the man looked at her with such suspicion, and spoke so insolently, that she absolutely began to fear, from the interrogations of this fellow, that she would be refused admittance to her own sister, and was forced to explain and reveal herself before the outer door was fully opened to her. At length she was conducted, on tiptoe, along a passage, and then upstairs, until she was placed in a little back dressing-room. The servant then went into the drawing-room, where sat two ladies at opposite sides of the apartment, there to announce Flora’s message.

On a sofa, near the window, sat a neat youthful figure, extremely elegantly formed, but _petite_, with a face that need not be described, further than that the features were small and pretty, and that, as a whole, it was rich in the nameless expression of simple beauty. Her dress could not have been plainer, to be of silk of the best sort; but the languid discontent, if not melancholy, with which the female, yet quite in youth, gazed towards the window, or bent over a little silk netting with which she carelessly employed herself, seemed to any observer strange and unnatural at her time of life. At a table near the fire was seated a woman, almost the perfect contrast to this interesting figure, in the person of Mr Pounteney’s eldest sister, a hard-faced, business-like person, who, with pen and ink before her, seemed busy among a parcel of household accounts, and the characteristic accompaniment of a bunch of keys occasionally rattling at her elbow.

The servant approached, as if fearful of being noticed by “the old one,” as he was accustomed to call Miss Pounteney, and in a half whisper intimated to the little figure that a female wanted to see her.

“Eh! what!—what is it you say, John?” cried the lady among the papers, noticing this manœuvre of the servant.

“Nothing, Madam; it is a person that wants my lady.”

“Your lady, sirrah; it must be me!—Eh! what!”

“No, Madam; she wants to see Mrs Pounteney particularly.”

“Ah, John!” said the little lady on the sofa; “just refer her to Miss Pounteney. There is nobody can want me.”

“Wants to see Mrs Pounteney particularly!” resumed the sister-in-law: “how dare you bring in such a message, sirrah? Mrs Pounteney particularly, indeed! Who is she, sirrah! Who comes here with such a message while I am in the house?”

“You must be mistaken, John,” said the little lady sighing, who was once the lively Kate M‘Leod of the fishing cottage in Scotland; “just let Miss Pounteney speak to her, you need not come to me.”

“No, madam,” said the servant, addressing Miss Pounteney, the natural pertness of his situation now returning to overcome his dread of “the old one.” “This young person wants to see my mistress directly, and I have put her into her dressing-room; pray, ma’am, go,” he added, respectfully, to the listless Kate.

“Do you come here to give _your_ orders, sirrah?” exclaimed Miss Pounteney, rising like a fury, and kicking the footstool half way across the room, “and to put strange people of your own accord into any dressing-room in this house! and to talk of _your mistress_, and wanting to speak to her directly, and privately, while _I_ am here! I wonder what sister Becky would say, or Mr Pounteney, if he were at home!”

“Who is it, John? Do just bring her here, and put an end to this!” said Kate, imploringly, to the man.

“Madam,” said John at last to his trembling mistress, “it is your sister!”

“Who, John?” cried Kate, starting to her feet; “my sister Flora—my own sister, from Clyde side! Speak, John, are you sure?”

“Yes, Madam, your sister from Scotland.”

“Oh, where is she, where is she? Let me go!”

“No, no; you must be mistaken, John,” said the lady with the keys, stepping forward to interrupt the anxious Kate. “John, this is all a mistake,” she added, smoothly; “Mrs Pounteney has no sister! John, you may leave the room;” and she gave a determined look to the other sister, who stood astonished.

The moment the servant left the room, Miss Pounteney came forward, and stood in renewed rage over the fragile, melancholy Kate, and burst out with “What is this, Kate? Is it really possible, after what you know of my mind, and all our minds, that you have dared to bring your poor relations into my brother’s house? That it is not enough that we are to have the disgrace of your mean connections, but we are to have your sisters and brothers to no end coming into the very house, and sending up their beggarly names and designations by the very servants! Kate, I must not permit this. I will not—I shall not;” and she stamped with rage.

“Oh, Miss Pounteney,” said Kate, with clasped hands, “will you not let me go and see my sister? Will you just let me go and weep on the neck of my poor Flora? I will go to a private place—I will go to another house, if you please; I will do anything when I return to you, if I ever return, for I care not if I never come into this unhappy house more!” and, uttering this, almost with a shriek, she burst past the two women, and ran through the rooms to seek her sister.

Meantime, Flora had sat so long waiting, without seeing her sister, that she began to feel intense anxiety; and, fancying her little Kate wished to forget her, because she was poor, had worked herself up into a resolution of assumed coldness, when she heard a hurried step, and the door was instantly opened. Kate paused for a moment after her entrance, and stood gazing upon the companion of her youth, with a look of such passionate joy, that Flora’s intended coldness was entirely subdued; and the two sisters rushed into each other’s arms in all the ecstacy of sisterly love.

“Oh, Flora, Flora! my dear happy Flora!” cried Kate, when she could get words, after the first burst of weeping; “have you really come all the way to London to see me?—poor me!” and her tears and sobs were again like to choke her. “Kate—my dear little Kate!” said Flora, “this is not the way I expected to find you. Do not greet so dreadfully; surely you are not happy, Kate?”

“But _you_ are happy,” said Kate, weeping. “And how is my good Highland father, and mother, and my brother Daniel? Ah! I think, Flora, your clothes have the very smell of the seashore, and of the bark of the nets, and of the heather hills of Argyleshire. Alas the happy days you remind me of, Flora!”

“And so, Kate, you are not so _very_ happy, after all,” said Flora, looking incredulously in her face; “and you are so thin, and pale, and your eyes are so red; and yet you have such a grand house, Kate! Tell me if you are really not happy.”

“I have no house, Flora,” said Kate, after a little, “and, I may say, no husband. They are both completely ruled by his two vixen sisters, who kept house for him before he married me, and still have the entire ascendancy over him. My husband, too, is not naturally good tempered; yet he once loved me, and I might enjoy some little happiness in this new life, if he had the feeling, or the spirit, to treat me as his wife, and free himself and the house from the dominion of his sisters, especially the eldest. But I believe he is rather disappointed in his ambitious career, and in the hopes he entertained of matches for his sisters, and he is somewhat sour and unhappy; and I have to bear it all, for he is afraid of these women; and I, the youngest in the family, and the only one who has a chance of being good tempered, am, on account of my low origin, forced to bear the spleen of all in this unhappy house.”

“But, Kate, surely your husband would not behave so bad as to cast up to you that your father was a fisherman, when he took you from the bonnie seaside himself, and when he thought himself once so happy to get you?”

“Alas! he does indeed!—too often—too often—when he is crossed abroad, and when his sisters set him on; and it so humbles me, Flora, when I am sitting at his table, that I cannot lift my head; and I am so sad, and so heart-broken among them all!”

“Bless me! and can people be really so miserable,” said Flora, simply, “who have plenty of money, and silk dresses to wear every day they rise?”

“It is little you know, my happy Flora, of artificial life here in London,” said Kate, mournfully. “As for dress, I cannot even order one but as my sister-in-law chooses; and as for happiness, I have left it behind me on the beautiful banks of the Clyde. O that I were there again!”

“Poor little Kate!” said Flora, wistfully looking again in her sister’s face; “and is that the end of all your grand marriage, that has set a’ the lasses crazy, from the Fairlie Roads to Gourock Point? I think I’ll gang back and marry Bryce Cameron after a’.”

“Is Allan Cameron married yet?” said Kate, sadly. “When did you see blithe and bonnie Allan Cameron?—Alas the day!”

“He gave me this brooch to return to you, Kate,” said Flora, taking the brooch out of her bosom. “I wish he had not gien it to me for you, for you’re vexed enough already.”

“Ah! well you may say I am vexed enough,” said she, weeping and contemplating the brooch. “Tell Allan Cameron that I am sensible I did not use him well—that my vain heart was lifted up; but I have suffered for it; many a sad and sleepless night I have lain in my bed, and thought of the delightful days I spent near my father’s happy cottage in Scotland, and about you, and about Allan. Alas! just tell him not to think more of me; for I am a sad and sorry married woman, out of my own sphere, and afraid to speak to my own people, panting my heart out and dying by inches, like the pretty silver fish that floundered on the hard stones, after my father had taken them out of their own clear water.”

“God help you, Kate!” said Flora, rising; “you will break my heart with grief about you. Let me out of this miserable house! Let me leave you and all your grandeur, since I cannot help you; and I will pray for you, my poor Kate, every night at my bedside, when I get back to the bonnie shore of Argyleshire.”

Sad was the parting of the two weeping sisters, and many a kiss of fraternal affection embittered, yet sweetened, the hour; and anxious was Flora M‘Leod to turn her back upon the great city of London, and to journey northwards to her own home in Scotland.

It was a little before sundown, on a Saturday evening, shortly after this, that a buzz of steam let off at the Mid Quay of Greenock, indicated that a steamboat had come in; and it proved to be from the fair seaport of Liverpool, having on board Flora M‘Leod, just down from London. The boat as it passed had been watched by the cottagers where she lived up the Firth; and several of them, their day’s work being over, set out towards the Clough to see if there was any chance of meeting Flora.

Many were the congratulations, and more the inquiries, when they met Flora, lumbering homewards with her bundle and her umbrella, weary and looking anxiously out for her own sweet cottage by Clyde side. “Ah, Flora! is this you!” cried the whole at once; “and are you really here again! And how is your sister, and all the great people in London? And, indeed, it is very good of you not to look the least proud, after coming from such a grand place!”

With such congratulations was Flora welcomed again among the light-hearted fisher people in the West of Scotland. But it was observed that her tone was now quite altered, and her own humble contentment had completely returned. In short, to bring our story to a close, she was shortly after married to Bryce Cameron, and various other marriages soon followed; for she gave such an account of what she had seen with her eyes, that a complete revolution took place in the sentiments of the whole young people of the neighbourhood.

It was observed in the hamlet that the unhappy Mrs Pounteney was never named after this by any but with a melancholy shake of the head; the ambition of the girls to get gentlemen seemed quite extinguished, and Flora in time began to nurse children of her own in humble and pious contentment.—_The Dominie’s Legacy._

WAT THE PROPHET.

BY JAMES HOGG, “THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.”

About sixty years ago[4] there departed this life an old man, who, for sixty years previous to that, was known only by the name of Wat the Prophet. I am even uncertain what his real surname was, though he was familiarly known to the most of my relatives of that day, and I was intimately acquainted with his nephew and heir, whose name was Paterson,—yet I hardly think that was the prophet’s surname, but that the man I knew was a maternal nephew. So far, I am shortcoming at the very outset of my tale, for in truth I never heard him distinguished by any other name than Wat the Prophet.[5]

Footnote 4:

This interesting account of a very extraordinary character was
contributed to the _Edinburgh Literary Journal_ in 1829.

Footnote 5:

The old prophet’s surname was Laidlaw, being of a race that has
produced more singular characters than any of our country.

He must have been a very singular person in every respect. In his youth he was so much more clever and acute than his fellows, that he was viewed as a sort of phenomenon, or rather “a kind of being that had mair airt than his ain.” It was no matter what Wat tried, for either at mental or manual exertion he excelled; and his gifts were so miscellaneous, that it was no wonder his most intimate acquaintances rather stood in awe of him. At the sports of the field, at the exposition of any part of Scripture, at prayer, and at mathematics, he was altogether unequalled. By this, I mean in the sphere of his acquaintance in the circle in which he moved, for he was the son of a respectable farmer who had a small property. In the last-mentioned art his comprehension is said to have been truly wonderful. He seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of the science of figures from beginning to end, and needed but a glance at the rules to outgo his masters.

But this was not all. In all the labours of the field his progress was equally unaccountable. He could with perfect ease have mown as much hay as two of the best men, sown as much, reaped as much, shorn as many sheep, and smeared as many, and with a little extra exertion could have equalled the efforts of three ordinary men at any time. As for ploughing, or any work with horses, he would never put a hand to it, for he then said he had not the power of the labour himself. However unaccountable all this may be, it is no fabrication; I have myself heard several men tell, who were wont to shear and smear sheep with him, when he was a much older man than they, that even though he would have been engaged in some fervent demonstration, in spite of all they could do, “he was aye popping off twa sheep, or maybe three, for their ane.”

I could multiply anecdotes of this kind without number, but these were mere atoms of the prophet’s character—a sort of excrescences, which were nevertheless in keeping with the rest, being matchless of their kind. He was intended by his parents for the Church—that is the Church of the Covenant, to which they belonged. I know not if Wat had consented thereto, but his education tended that way. However, as he said himself, he was born for a higher destiny, which was to reveal the future will of God to mankind for ever and ever. I have been told that he committed many of his prophecies to writing; and I believe it, for he was a scholar, and a man of rather supernatural abilities; but I have never been able to find any of them. I have often heard fragments of them, but they were recited by ignorant country people, who, never having understood them themselves, could not make them comprehensible to others. But the history of his call to the prophecy I have so often heard, that I think I can state the particulars, although a little confused in my recollection of them.

This event occurred about this time one hundred years ago, on an evening in spring, as Wat was going down a wild glen, which I know full well. “I was in a contemplative mood,” he said (for he told it to any that asked him), “and was meditating on the mysteries of redemption, and doubting, grievously doubting, the merits of an atonement by blood; when, to my astonishment in such a place, there was one spoke to me close behind, saying, in the Greek language, ‘Is it indeed so? Is thy faith no better rooted?’

“I looked behind me, but, perceiving no one, my hair stood all on end, for I thought it was a voice from heaven; and, after gazing into the firmament, and all around me, I said fearfully, in the same language, ‘Who art thou that speakest?’ And the voice answered me again, ‘I am one who laid down my life, witnessing for the glorious salvation which thou art about to deny; turn, and behold me!’