Chapter II (1)

“Weel, doctor, is it a’ richt wi’ the Laird?” inquired Mr Barlas when I returned to the Cross-Keys.

“Yes,” I rejoined, “it’s all right. Laird Ramsay is now my warmest and staunchest supporter, and a most companionable old gentleman he is.”

“I never heard the like o’ that,” said the landlord, lifting up his eyebrows in astonishment. “’Od, doctor, ye’re jist like that auld Roman reiver, Cæsar, wha gaed aboot seein’ and conquerin’. Ye hae a clear coast noo, when ye hae gotten the gudewill o’ the Laird and the minister. An’ what think ye o’ the dochter? Isna she a comely lass, Miss Ramsay?”

“She is, indeed, Mr Barlas,” I replied. “The young lady seems to do her best to make her father feel happy and comfortable, and I have no doubt that many ‘braw wooers’ will frequently find their way to the Haugh.”

“Na, doctor, na. As I tell’t ye afore, the Laird is unco fond o’ Miss Jessie, an’ I dinna believe he would pairt wi’ her to the best man i’ the kintra-side. But ye hae sic an uncommon power o’ comin’ roond folk that I wouldna wonner to see ye tryin’t yersel.”

“Stranger things have happened, Mr Barlas,” I rejoined. “Meantime, my mind is made up to settle down in St Dunstan. I like the place and the people, the Eildon Hills, the Tweed, and Laird Ramsay.”

“No to speak o’ his dochter,” interjected mine host with a knowing look.

“But where,” I continued, “am I to take up my quarters?”

“Ye needna put yersel in a peck o’ troubles aboot that, doctor. There’s Dr Sommerville’s cottage just waitin’ for ye alang the road a bit. It’s a commodious hoose, wi’ trees roond it an’ a bonny garden at the back, slopin’ to the south. Dr Sommerville was fond o’ flowers, an’ I never saw a pleasanter place than it was in simmer. But the fac’ is, ye’ll hae to tak it, doctor, because there’s no anither hoose to let in the hale toun.”

“Such being the case, Mr Barlas, there is no choice, and the matter is settled.”

“Just that—just that,” responded the worthy landlord, and then added, with an eye to business, “Ye can mak the Cross-Keys yer hame till ye get the cottage a’ painted an’ furnished to your mind.”

“So be it, Mr Barlas; and now that the house is settled, what about a housekeeper? Was Dr Sommerville married?”

“Married? of course, he was married, an’ had lots o’ weans to the bargain. But just try yer hand wi’ Miss Ramsay. I would like grand to see ye at that game, doctor.”

“Nonsense,” I rejoined. “I do not want to steal the Laird’s ewe-lamb, and break with him at the very commencement of my course. Is there no quiet, decent, honest body about St Dunstan who would make a good and active housekeeper?”

“They’re a’ honest an’ decent thegither, except it be twa or three o’ the canglin’ mugger folk wha mend auld pans and break ane anither’s heads. Let me see—stop a wee—ou, ay—I have ye noo, doctor; there’s Mrs Johnston—a clean, thrifty, tidy woman o’ forty or thereabouts; she’ll fit ye to a T, an’ keep yer hoose like a new leek. Her gudeman was an elder; but he took an inward trouble aboot a year syne, an’ a’ the skill o’ Doctor Sommerville couldna keep his life in when his time was come. I’ll speak to Mrs Johnston the morn, so ye can keep yer mind easy aboot a housekeeper.”

“We’re getting on famously, Mr Barlas. The house and housekeeper are both disposed of. What next?”

“What next, doctor? The next thing, I’m thinkin’, ’ill be a horse. Folk will be sendin’ for ye post-haste to gang sax or seven miles awa, an’ ye canna get on without a beast. Are ye onything skeely in horseflesh?”

“No,” I replied, “not particularly. I would require to purchase a horse by proxy.”

This reply appeared to give mine host considerable satisfaction. After a brief pause he said, “Weel, doctor, what think ye o’ the beastie that took ye to the Haugh the day? It’s fine an’ canny, an’ free frae a’ kind o’ pranks. It would never fling ye aff an’ break your banes when ye were gaun to mend ither folk’s bodies. It’ll no cost ye muckle siller, and ye’ll get a capital bargain wi’ the beast.”

I could not help smiling when the landlord detailed the excellent qualities of the Rosinante of the Cross-Keys—the superb steed which excited the compassion of Laird Ramsay.

“It is an admirable animal, Mr Barlas,” I replied, always careful to avoid giving offence; “but the truth is, there is a friend of mine in Edinburgh who is great in horses, and who would never forgive me if I did not permit him to make the selection and the purchase.”

“Vera weel, doctor—vera well,” rejoined the landlord, professing contentment, although apparently somewhat chagrined. “Ye may get a stronger and mair speerity beast; but, tak my word for’t, ye’ll no get ane to answer yer purpose better. It’s an extraordinar’ sensible animal, an’ kens a’ the roads aboot the kintra-side. In the darkest winter nicht ye micht fling the bridle on its neck, and it would bring ye hame to St Dunstan safe an’ soond. Ye can tak anither thocht about it, doctor, an’ I mun awa an’ gie the beast its supper.”

A few weeks after the above confab with the sagacious landlord of the Cross-Keys, I was quietly domiciled in Oakbank Cottage, on the outskirts of St Dunstan, and had commenced the routine work of a medical practitioner. Mrs Johnston was duly installed as housekeeper; and a capital riding-horse, which Mr Barlas was compelled to allow “micht do,” arrived from the metropolis. I liked my cottage very much. It stood apart from the public road, and was quiet and secluded. Rows of poplar trees surrounded the green, and flower pots in front, and a tall beechen-hedge girdled on all sides the sloping garden in the rear. The high banks of the Tweed, adorned with many-tinted foliage, swept along close at hand, and the strong deep gush of that noble river was borne abroad on every swell of wind. Oakbank Cottage was, in my estimation, the sweetest residence in and around St Dunstan; and as I, like my predecessor, was fond of floriculture, I resolved to make the place look like a little paradise when the spring and summer months came round again. I was not long in getting into a good practice. There was not much opposition from other gentlemen in the district, and many miles I rode both by night and by day. It always vexed the heart of my worthy housekeeper, Mrs Johnston, when a special messenger called me away to a distance after nightfall, and there was no end to the instructions she gave me—M.D. though I was—about the best means of preventing sore throats and rheumatisms. Mrs Johnston had never listened to the learned prelections of medical professors at any of our universities; nevertheless, like many other sensible and sedate women, in her own sphere of life, she had managed to pick up no inconsiderable amount of sound medical knowledge.

I was soon on the best of terms with all the people of the village, for it will generally be found that while a clergyman has admirers and detractors among his own hearers, a doctor who is gifted with a modicum of amiability can easily make himself a favourite with all classes. Of course, when any person dies, the friends of the deceased will not unfrequently declaim against the imperfection of the medical treatment; but grumblings such as these are natural and pardonable, and fail to shake the general esteem in which the practitioner is held. The minister of the parish was a frequent visitor at Oakbank, and in order to strengthen our good fellowship, I became a member of his congregation. He was an upright and honest-hearted man, although somewhat too polemical for my taste. I used to think that he was in the habit of airing his argumentative speeches in my presence before he delivered himself of them at Presbytery meetings.

None of the people in the district seemed better satisfied than Laird Ramsay o’ the Haugh that I had located myself in St Dunstan. He called one day at Oakbank, soon after my settlement, just as I was preparing to set out on a rural ride. The Laird was attired in the ordinary dress which he wore at the Haugh. The brown hat, the blue antique coat, the knee-breeches, the long gaiters, and the yellow-striped vest, seemed to form a part of his eccentric character.

“Gude day t’ye, Dr Wilson—gude day,” said the Laird, as he shook me by the hand. “What way hae ye been sae lang in comin’ ower my way? I’m wearyin’ sair to get anither firlot o’ yon queer humoursome stories oot o’ ye. Can ye come ower to the Haugh the morn, and tak a bit check o’ dinner wi’ some freends that I’m just on the road to inveet to meet you, doctor?”

“It will afford me much pleasure, Mr Ramsay.”

“That’s richt—that’s richt. Gie a’ yer patients a double dram o’ medicine the day, an’ that’ll save ye trouble the morn. I’ll no deteen ye langer i’ the noo, since I see ye’re for takin’ the road. Man, doctor, that’s a capital horse ye’ve gotten. I’ll try ye a steeplechase some day, auld as I am.”

Next day I did not forget to mount my horse, which I had christened Prince Charlie, and ride over to the Haugh. It was more the desire to meet again the handsome and black-haired Jessie, than the expectation of a good dinner,—in which the laird was said to excel,—that made me keep my appointment with scrupulous care, although two or three of my distant patients thereby missed an expected visit. I found a goodly company assembled in the Laird’s old-fashioned mansion. Several neighbouring lairds with their wives were present, my excellent friend the minister of the parish, and some of the “chief men” of St Dunstan. A few young ladies graced the company; but it struck me as something singular that I was the only young gentleman who had been honoured with an invitation. Does the Laird really think, I asked myself, that he will keep away the dangerous disease of love from his charming daughter’s heart by excluding chivalrous youths from his dinner-table? What intense selfishness there may be in the warmest paternal affection! Nor was selfishness altogether absent from my own heart. I began to feel a kind of secret satisfaction that the coast was clear, and that undivided attentions could be given and received. Jessie was all smiles, grace, and beauty; and before dinner was finished, I was more than charmed—I was bewitched with her manners and conversation. When the ladies retired from table I endeavoured, as on the former occasion, to keep the Laird o’ the Haugh in good humour, being now determined, for a particular reason, to rise rather than fall in his estimation. When the minister introduced polemics I flung out a shower of puns; when oxen became the topic I spiced the talk with some racy stories. The ruse succeeded. Between the strong waters and the stories, Laird Ramsay was elevated into a hilarious region, and he would have forgiven his worst enemy on the spot. He was not aware that I was playing with him and upon him for a purpose. When my stock was getting exhausted I started the minister on his everlasting expedition to Rome, and managed, at the commencement of his narrative, to escape from table unperceived. I was not particularly anxious to “join the ladies;” but I was excessively desirous to have, if possible, some private conversation with Jessie Ramsay. There could be no denying the fact that I—the young medical practitioner of St Dunstan—had fallen in love, how or why it boots not to inquire, with the beautiful daughter of the Laird o’ the Haugh. I felt it through every vein of my body, and every fibre of my heart, and I fondly imagined from sundry stealthy glances and sweet suggestive smiles that the dear creature had perceived and reciprocated my attachment. The golden silence of love is the highest eloquence, and the most entrancing song. As good luck and favouring fortune would have it, I had no sooner left the dining-hall than the object of my adoration came tripping down stairs alone. In looking over the drawing-room window a rich flower from her lustrous hair had fallen to the ground, and the lovely creature was now hastening to secure the lost treasure. Here was an opportunity little anticipated, but long remembered. It was impossible that I could be so ungallant as allow her to search for the fallen flower by herself, and we therefore went out into the open air together. There was no moon, but the stars were shining full and brilliant in the firmament. Tall holly bushes and other shrubs surrounded the house within the outer circle of trees. The only two sounds I distinctly heard were the beating of my heart, and the humming sound of the minister’s voice as he narrated the incidents of his pilgrimage to the Eternal City. I blessed the good man for his unconscious kindness in granting me this opportunity. Jessie and I proceeded to the place where the flower was supposed to be. I saw it at once, and she saw it at once; but both of us pretended that we had not seen it, and so the sweet search continued. Need I describe, O amiable reader! how in searching and stooping I felt the touch of her ringleted hair, the warmth of her breath, the delicate softness of her cheek, and imbibed the honey-balm of her lips? At last the flower was found,—I blessed it unaware,—and, under the starlight, replaced it on that lovely head from which it had not been untimely plucked, but had most opportunely fallen.

We returned to the house undiscovered. The Laird, I knew, was in that pleased and placid state when he could have listened for many hours to the Man of the Moon describing the incidents of his celestial travels and the wonders he had seen from his specular tower. I parted with Jessie at the foot of the staircase, pressed her soft warm hand, and re-entered the room which I had rather unceremoniously left. The minister had got upon the Pope, and all the symptoms of “tired nature” were apparent on the faces of most of the listeners. They had the look of a congregation when the thirteenth “head” is being propounded with due deliberation from the pulpit. The Laird had not seen me depart, but he saw me enter. He evidently placed in me the most implicit reliance, and there was no suspicion in his look.

“Hae ye been snuffin’ the caller air, doctor?” he inquired.

I answered in the affirmative with a look of perfect innocence, and then the Laird added, wishing apparently to cut short the minister’s harangue, “Ay, weel, let’s join the leddies noo.”

After that evening I was a frequent and welcome visitor at the Haugh. Prince Charlie soon knew the way to his own stall in the Laird’s stables. Some golden opportunities occurred when the Laird was absent for interviews and conversations with Jessie. We plighted our mutual troth, and were devoted to each other heart and soul. The one grand difficulty in the way of our happiness was the removal of the Laird’s scruples with regard to the marriage of his daughter. At last, when jogging leisurely homeward to Oakbank one evening, I hit upon a scheme which ultimately resulted in complete success, and gave me possession of the being whom I loved dearer than life.

A wealthy and winsome widow lady resided in the neighbourhood of St Dunstan, and the project entered my brain to make her believe that Laird Ramsay had some notions of her, and also to make him believe that she had a warm side of her heart to him. If I could only get the Laird to marry the widow, I knew that Jessie would soon thereafter be mine. The Laird was open to flattery; he was fond of what Mr Barlas called “butter;” and I did not despair of being able to make him renew his youth. Tact was required in such a delicate undertaking, and I resolved to do my spiriting gently. I began with the Laird first one evening when he was in his mellow after-dinner state. I praised the graces and winsome ways of Mrs Mackinlay, and drew from the Laird the confession that he thought her a “very gude and sociable-like leddy.” I then tried a few dexterous passes before hinting that she had a warm side to the Laird o’ the Haugh.

“Ye dinna mean to say that Mrs Mackinlay is castin’ a sheep’s e’e at me, do ye, doctor?”

“I can assure you, Mr Ramsay,” I rejoined, “that she speaks of you always with great respect, and seems to wonder why you do not honour her with a visit occasionally.”

“Ay, doctor, it’s queer what way I never thocht o’ that. She’s a sensible leddy after a’, Mrs Mackinlay. I think I could do worse than look ower at her hoose some o’ these days.”

“It’s the very thing you ought to do, Mr Ramsay,” I replied. “You will find her company highly entertaining. She has an accumulated fund of stories and anecdotes.”

“Has she, doctor?—has she? Weel, I’ll gang; but what would Jessie say, I wunner?”

I had now put the Laird on the right scent, and I tried my best also with Mrs Mackinlay. I made her aware of the Laird’s intended visit, and hinted tenderly its probable object. After a lengthened conversation, in which I exercised all the ingenuity I possessed, I left her with the impression on my mind that Laird Ramsay’s addresses when he called would be met half-way. The meeting did take place—it was followed by another and another—and the upshot of the matter was that the eccentric Laird and the wealthy widow were duly wedded, to the astonishment of the whole district. I allowed six months of their wedded bliss to slip past before I asked the Laird’s consent to have Jessie removed from the Haugh to Oakbank. A sort of dim suspicion of the whole affair seemed to cross the Laird’s mind when I addressed him. A pawky twinkle lit up his eye as he replied, “Ah, ye rogue!—tak her, an’ my blessin’ alang wi’ her. Ye ken whaur to look for a gude wife, an’ I daursay ye’ll no mak the warst o’ gudemen.” Thus I won the Laird’s daughter, and the paradise of Oakbank, in the village of St Dunstan, was complete in happiness.

MOSS-SIDE.

BY PROFESSOR WILSON.

Gilbert Ainslie was a poor man; and he had been a poor man all the days of his life, which were not few, for his thin hair was now waxing gray. He had been born and bred on the small moorland farm which he now occupied; and he hoped to die there, as his father and grandfather had done before him, leaving a family just above the more bitter wants of this world. Labour, hard and unremitting, had been his lot in life; but, although sometimes severely tried, he had never repined; and through all the mist and gloom, and even the storms that had assailed him, he had lived on from year to year in that calm and resigned contentment which unconsciously cheers the hearthstone of the blameless poor. With his own hands he had ploughed, sowed, and reaped his often scanty harvest, assisted, as they grew up, by three sons, who, even in boyhood, were happy to work along with their father in the fields. Out of doors or in, Gilbert Ainslie was never idle. The spade, the shears, the ploughshaft, the sickle, and the flail, all came readily to hands that grasped them well; and not a morsel of food was eaten under his roof, or a garment worn there, that was not honestly, severely, nobly earned. Gilbert Ainslie was a slave, but it was for them he loved with a sober and deep affection. The thraldom under which he lived God had imposed, and it only served to give his character a shade of silent gravity, but not austere; to make his smiles fewer, but more heartfelt; to calm his soul at grace before and after meals, and to kindle it in morning and evening prayer.

There is no need to tell the character of the wife of such a man. Meek and thoughtful, yet gladsome and gay withal, her heaven was in her house; and her gentler and weaker hands helped to bar the door against want. Of ten children that had been born to them, they had lost three; and as they had fed, clothed, and educated them respectably, so did they give them who died a respectable funeral. The living did not grudge to give up, for a while, some of their daily comforts for the sake of the dead; and bought, with the little sums which their industry had saved, decent mournings, worn on Sabbath, and then carefully laid by. Of the seven that survived, two sons and a daughter were farm-servants in the neighbourhood, while two daughters and two sons remained at home, growing, or grown up, a small, happy, hard-working household.

Many cottages are there in Scotland like Moss-side, and many such humble and virtuous cottagers as were now beneath its roof of straw. The eye of the passing traveller may mark them, or mark them not, but they stand peacefully in thousands over all the land; and most beautiful do they make it, through all its wide valleys and narrow glens—its low holms, encircled by the rocky walls of some bonny burn—its green mounts, elated with their little crowning groves of plane-trees—its yellow corn-fields—its bare pastoral hill-sides, and all its heathy moors, on whose black bosom lie shining or concealed glades of excessive verdure, inhabited by flowers, and visited only by the farflying bees. Moss-side was not beautiful to a careless or hasty eye; but, when looked on and surveyed, it seemed a pleasant dwelling. Its roof, overgrown with grass and moss, was almost as green as the ground out of which its weather-stained walls appeared to grow. The moss behind it was separated from a little garden, by a narrow slip of arable land, the dark colour of which showed that it had been won from the wild by patient industry, and by patient industry retained. It required a bright sunny day to make Moss-side fair, but then it was fair indeed; and when the little brown moorland birds were singing their short songs among the rushes and the heather, or a lark, perhaps lured thither by some green barley-field for its undisturbed nest, rose ringing all over the enlivened solitude, the little bleak farm smiled like the paradise of poverty, sad and affecting in its lone and extreme simplicity. The boys and girls had made some plots of flowers among the vegetables that the little garden supplied for their homely meals; pinks and carnations, brought from walled gardens of rich men farther down in the cultivated strath, grew here with somewhat diminished lustre; a bright show of tulips had a strange beauty in the midst of that moorland; and the smell of roses mixed well with that of the clover, the beautiful fair clover that loves the soil and the air of Scotland, and gives the rich and balmy milk to the poor man’s lips.

In this cottage, Gilbert’s youngest child, a girl about nine years of age, had been lying for a week in a fever. It was now Saturday evening, and the ninth day of the disease. Was she to live or die? It seemed as if a very few hours were between the innocent creature and heaven. All the symptoms were those of approaching death. The parents knew well the change that comes over the human face, whether it be in infancy, youth, or prime, just before the departure of the spirit; and as they stood together by Margaret’s bed, it seemed to them that the fatal shadow had fallen upon her features. The surgeon of the parish lived some miles distant, but they expected him now every moment, and many a wistful look was directed by tearful eyes along the moor. The daughter who was out at service came anxiously home on this night, the only one that could be allowed her; for the poor must work in their grief, and servants must do their duty to those whose bread they eat, even when nature is sick—sick at heart. Another of the daughters came in from the potato-field beyond the brae, with what was to be their frugal supper. The calm, noiseless spirit of life was in and around the house, while death seemed dealing with one who, a few days ago, was like light upon the floor, and the sound of music, that always breathed up when most wanted; glad and joyous in common talk—sweet, silvery, and mournful, when it joined in hymn or psalm. One after the other, they all continued going up to the bedside, and then coming away sobbing or silent, to see their merry little sister, who used to keep dancing all day like a butterfly in a meadowfield, or, like a butterfly with shut wings on a flower, trifling for a while in the silence of her joy, now tossing restlessly on her bed, and scarcely sensible to the words of endearment whispered around her, or the kisses dropped with tears, in spite of themselves, on her burning forehead.

Utter poverty often kills the affections; but a deep, constant, and common feeling of this world’s hardships, and an equal participation in all those struggles by which they may be softened, unite husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, in thoughtful and subdued tenderness, making them happy indeed, while the circle round the fire is unbroken, and yet preparing them every day to bear the separation, when some one or other is taken slowly or suddenly away. Their souls are not moved by fits and starts, although, indeed, nature sometimes will wrestle with necessity; and there is a wise moderation both in the joy and the grief of the intelligent poor, which keeps lasting trouble away from their earthly lot, and prepares them silently and unconsciously for heaven.

“Do you think the child is dying?” said Gilbert, with a calm voice, to the surgeon, who, on his wearied horse, had just arrived from another sick-bed, over the misty range of hills, and had been looking steadfastly for some minutes on the little patient. The humane man knew the family well, in the midst of whom he was standing, and replied, “While there is life there is hope; but my pretty little Margaret is, I fear, in the last extremity.” There was no loud lamentation at these words; all had before known, though they would not confess it to themselves, what they now were told; and though the certainty that was in the words of the skilful man made their hearts beat for a little with sicker throbbings, made their pale faces paler, and brought out from some eyes a greater gush of tears, yet death had been before in this house, and in this case he came, as he always does, in awe, but not in terror. There were wandering and wavering and dreamy delirious fantasies in the brain of the innocent child; but the few words she indistinctly uttered were affecting, not rending to the heart, for it was plain that she thought herself herding her sheep in the green silent pastures, and sitting wrapped in her plaid upon the lown and sunny side of the Birk-knowe. She was too much exhausted—there was too little life, too little breath in her heart—to frame a tune; but some of her words seemed to be from favourite old songs; and at last her mother wept, and turned aside her face, when the child, whose blue eyes were shut, and her lips almost still, breathed out these lines of the beautiful twenty-third Psalm:—

The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want.
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green: He leadeth me
The quiet waters by.

The child was now left with none but her mother by the bedside, for it was said to be best so; and Gilbert and his family sat down round the kitchen fire, for a while, in silence. In about a quarter of an hour, they began to rise calmly, and to go each to his allotted work. One of the daughters went forth with the pail to milk the cow, and another began to set out the table in the middle of the floor for supper, covering it with a white cloth. Gilbert viewed the usual household arrangements with a solemn and untroubled eye; and there was almost the faint light of a grateful smile on his cheek, as he said to the worthy surgeon, “You will partake of our fare, after your day’s travel and toil of humanity?” In a short silent half-hour, the potatoes and oat-cakes, butter and milk, were on the board; and Gilbert, lifting up his toil-hardened but manly hand, with a slow motion, at which the room was as hushed as if it had been empty, closed his eyes in reverence, and asked a blessing. There was a little stool, on which no one sat, by the old man’s side. It had been put there unwittingly, when the other seats were all placed in their usual order; but the golden head that was wont to rise at that part of the table was now wanting. There was silence—not a word was said—their meal was before them—God had been thanked, and they began to eat.

While they were at their silent meal a horseman came galloping to the door, and, with a loud voice, called out that he had been sent express with a letter to Gilbert Ainslie; at the same time rudely, and with an oath, demanding a dram for his trouble. The eldest son, a lad of eighteen, fiercely seized the bridle of his horse, and turned its head away from the door. The rider, somewhat alarmed at the flushed face of the powerful stripling, threw down the letter and rode off. Gilbert took the letter from his son’s hand, casting, at the same time, a half-upbraiding look on his face, that was returning to its former colour. “I feared,”—said the youth, with a tear in his eye,—“I feared that the brute’s voice, and the trampling of the horse’s feet, would have disturbed her.” Gilbert held the letter hesitatingly in his hand, as if afraid at that moment to read it; at length he said aloud to the surgeon:—“You know that I am a poor man, and debt, if justly incurred, and punctually paid when due, is no dishonour.” Both his hand and his voice shook slightly as he spoke; but he opened the letter from the lawyer, and read it in silence. At this moment his wife came from her child’s bedside, and, looking anxiously at her husband, told him “not to mind about the money, that no man who knew him would arrest his goods, or put him into prison. Though, dear me, it is cruel to be put to thus, when our bairn is dying, and when, if so it be the Lord’s will, she should have a decent burial, poor innocent, like them that went before her.” Gilbert continued reading the letter with a face on which no emotion could be discovered; and then, folding it up, he gave it to his wife, told her she might read it if she chose, and then put it into his desk in the room, beside the poor dear bairn. She took it from him, without reading it, and crushed it into her bosom: for she turned her ear towards her child, and thinking she heard it stir, ran out hastily to its bedside.

Another hour of trial passed, and the child was still swimming for its life. The very dogs knew there was grief in the house, and lay without stirring, as if hiding themselves, below the long table at the window. One sister sat with an unfinished gown on her knees, that she had been sewing for the dear child, and still continued at the hopeless work, she scarcely knew why; and often, often putting up her hand to wipe away a tear. “What is that?” said the old man to his eldest daughter. “What is that you are laying on the shelf?” She could scarcely reply that it was a riband and an ivory comb that she had brought for little Margaret, against the night of the dancing-school ball. And at these words the father could not restrain a long, deep, and bitter groan; at which the boy, nearest in age to his dying sister, looked up weeping in his face; and, letting the tattered book of old ballads, which he had been poring on, but not reading, fall out of his hands, he rose from his seat, and, going into his father’s bosom, kissed him, and asked God to bless him: for the holy heart of the boy was moved within him; and the old man, as he embraced him, felt that, in his innocence and simplicity, he was indeed a comforter. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,” said the old man; “blessed be the name of the Lord!”

The outer door gently opened, and he whose presence had in former years brought peace and resignation hither, when their hearts had been tried even as they now were tried, stood before them. On the night before the Sabbath, the minister of Auchindown never left his manse, except, as now, to visit the sick or dying bed. Scarcely could Gilbert reply to his first question about his child, when the surgeon came from the bedroom, and said—“Margaret seems lifted up by God’s hand above death and the grave: I think she will recover. She has fallen asleep; and, when she wakes, I hope—I—believe—that the danger will be past, and that your child will live.”

They were all prepared for death; but now they were found unprepared for life. One wept that had till then locked up all her tears within her heart; another gave a short palpitating shriek; and the tender-hearted Isobel, who had nursed the child when it was a baby, fainted away. The youngest brother gave way to gladsome smiles; and calling out his dog Hector, who used to sport with him and his little sister on the moor, he told the tidings to the dumb irrational creature, whose eyes, it is certain, sparkled with a sort of joy. The clock for some days had been prevented from striking the hours; but the silent fingers pointed to the hour of nine; and that, in the cottage of Gilbert Ainslie, was the stated hour of family worship. His own honoured minister took the Book,—

He waled a portion with judicious care,
And, “Let us worship God,” he said, with solemn air.

A chapter was read—a prayer said; and so, too, was sung a psalm; but it was sung low, and with suppressed voices, lest the child’s saving sleep might be broken; and now and then the female voices trembled, or some one of them ceased altogether; for there had been tribulation and anguish, and now hope and faith were tried in the joy of thanksgiving.

The child still slept; and its sleep seemed more sound and deep. It appeared almost certain that the crisis was over, and that the flower was not to fade. “Children,” said Gilbert, “our happiness is in the love we bear to one another; and our duty is in submitting to and serving God. Gracious, indeed, has He been unto us. Is not the recovery of our little darling, dancing, singing Margaret, worth all the gold that ever was mined? If we had had thousands of thousands, would we not have filled up her grave with the worthless dross of gold, rather than that she should have gone down there with her sweet face and all her rosy smiles?” There was no reply, but a joyful sobbing all over the room.

“Never mind the letter, nor the debt, father,” said the eldest daughter. “We have all some little thing of our own,—a few pounds,—and we shall be able to raise as much as will keep arrest and prison at a distance. Or if they do take our furniture out of the house, all except Margaret’s bed, who cares? We will sleep on the floor; and there are potatoes in the field, and clear water in the spring. We need fear nothing, want nothing; blessed be God for all His mercies!”

Gilbert went into the sick-room, and got the letter from his wife, who was sitting at the head of the bed, watching, with a heart blessed beyond all bliss, the calm and regular breathings of her child. “This letter,” said he, mildly, “is not from a hard creditor. Come with me while I read it aloud to our children.” The letter was read aloud, and it was well fitted to diffuse pleasure and satisfaction through the dwelling of poverty. It was from an executor to the will of a distant relative, who had left Gilbert Ainslie £1500.

“The sum,” said Gilbert, “is a large one to folks like us, but not, I hope, large enough to turn our heads, or make us think ourselves all lords and ladies. It will do more, far more, than put me fairly above the world at last. I believe that, with it, I may buy this very farm, on which my forefathers have toiled. But God, whose providence has sent this temporal blessing, may He send us wisdom and prudence how to use it, and humble and grateful hearts to us all.”

“You will be able to send me to school all the year round now, father,” said the youngest boy. “And you may leave the flail to your sons, now, father,” said the eldest. “You may hold the plough still, for you draw a straighter furrow than any of us; but hard work for young sinews; and you may sit now oftener in your arm-chair by the ingle. You will not need to rise now in the dark, cold, and snowy winter mornings, and keep threshing corn in the barn for hours by candlelight, before the late dawning.”

There was silence, gladness, and sorrow, and but little sleep in Moss-side, between the rising and the setting of the stars, that were now out in thousands, clear, bright, and sparkling over the unclouded sky. Those who had lain down for an hour or two in bed could scarcely be said to have slept; and when about morning little Margaret awoke, an altered creature, pale, languid, and unable to turn herself on her lowly bed, but with meaning in her eyes, memory in her mind, affection in her heart, and coolness in all her veins, a happy group were watching the first faint smile that broke over her features; and never did one who stood there forget that Sabbath morning on which she seemed to look round upon them all with a gaze of fair and sweet bewilderment, like one half conscious of having been rescued from the power of the grave.

MY FIRST FEE.

A CHAPTER FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN ADVOCATE.

“Fee him, father, fee him.”

Seven long yearning years had elapsed since, with the budding anticipation of youthful hope, I had assumed the lugubrious insignia of the bar. During that dreadful time, each morn, as old St Giles told the hour of nine, might I be seen insinuating my emaciated figure within the penetralia of the Parliament House, where, begowned and bewigged, and with the zeal of a Powell or a Barclay, I paced about till two. These peripatetic practices had well-nigh ruined me in Wellingtons, and latterly in shoes. My little Erskine was in pawn; while my tailor and my landlady threw out unmistakable and ominous hints regarding their long bills and longer credit. I dared not understand them, but consoled myself with the thought, that the day would come when my tailor would cease his dunning, and my landlady her clamour.

I had gone the different circuits, worn and torn my gown, seated myself in awful contemplation on the side benches, maintained angry argument on legal points with some more favoured brother, within earshot of a wily writer. In fine, I had resorted to every means that fancy could suggest, or experience dictate; but as yet my eyes had not seen, nor my pocket felt—a Fee. Alas! this was denied. I might be said to be, as yet, no barrister: for what is a lawyer without a fee? A nonentity! a shadow! To my grief, I seemed to be fast verging to the latter; and I doubt much whether the “Anatomie vivant” could have stood the comparison—so much had my feeless fast fed on my flesh!

I cannot divine the reason for this neglect of my legal services. In my own heart, I had vainly imagined the sufficiency of my tact and subtlety in unravelling a nice point; neither had I been wanting in attention to my studies; for Heaven and my landlady can bear witness, that my consumption of coal and candle would have sufficed any two ordinary readers. There was not a book or treatise on law which I had not dived into. I was insatiable in literature; but the world and the writers seemed ignorant of my brain be-labouring system, and sedulously determined that my _fee-ling_ propensities should not be gratified.

Never did I meet an agent either in or out of Court, but my heart and hand felt a pleasing glow of hope and of joy at the prospect of pocketing a fee; but how often have they turned their backs without even the mortifying allusion to such a catastrophe! How often have I turned round in whirling ecstacy as I felt some seemingly patronising palm tap gently on my shoulders with such a tap as writers’ clerks are wont to use; but oh, ye gods! a grinning wretch merely asked me how I did, and passed on!

Nor were my non-legal friends more kind. There was an old gentleman, who, I knew (for I made it my business to enquire), had some thoughts of a law-plea. From him I received an invitation to dinner. Joyfully, as at all times, but more so on this occasion, was the summons obeyed. I had laid a train to introduce the subject of his wrongs at a time which might _suit_ best, and with this plan I commenced my machinations. The old fox was too cunning even for me; he too had his plot, and had hit upon the expedient of obtaining my opinion without a fee—the skinflint! Long and doubtful was the contest; hint succeeded hint, question after question was put, till at last my entertainer was victorious, and I retired crestfallen and feeless from the field! By the soul of Erskine, had it not been for his dinners, I should have cut him for ever! Still I grubbed with this one, cultivated an acquaintance with that, but all to no purpose; no one pitied my position. My torments were those of the lost! Hope (not the President) alone buoyed me up; visions of future sovereigns, numerous as those which appeared to Banquo of old, but of a better and more useful kind, flitted before my charmed imagination. Pride, poverty, and starvation pushed me on. What! said I, shall it be hinted that I am likely neither to have a fee nor a feed? Tell it not in the First Division; publish it not in the Outer House! All my thoughts were riveted to one object—to one object all my endeavours were bent, and to accomplish this seemed the ultimatum of bliss.

Often have I looked with envy upon the more favoured candidates for judicial fame—those who never return to their domicile or their dinner, but to find their tables groaning with briefs! How different from my case! My case? What case? I have no case! Not one fee to work its own desolateness! Months and months passed on, still success came not! The hoped-for event came not; resolution died within me; I formed serious intentions of being even with the profession. As the profession had cut me, I intended to have cut the profession. In my wants, I would have robbed, but my hand was withheld by the thought that the jesters of the stove might taunt me thus: “He could not live, so he died, by the law.” I have often thought that there is a great similarity between the hangman and the want of a fee; the one is the finisher of the law, the other of lawyers!

Pondering on my griefs, with my feet on the expiring embers of a seacoal fire, the chair in that swinging position so much practised and approved in Yankee-land,—the seat destined for a clerk occupied by my cat, for I love everything of the _fe-line_ species,—my cogitations were disturbed by an application for admittance at the outer door. It was not the rat-tat of the postman, nor the rising and falling attack of the man of fashion, but a compound of both, which evidently bespoke the knockee unaccustomed to town. I am somewhat curious in knocks; I admire the true principles of the art, by which one may distinguish the peer from the postman—the dun from the dilettante—the footman from the furnisher. But there was something in this knock which baffled all my skill; yet sweet withal, thrilling through my heart with a joy unfelt before. Some spirit must have presided in the sound, for it seemed to me the music of the spheres.

A short time elapsed, and my landlady “opened wide the infernal doors.” Now hope cut capers—(Lazenby, thou wert not to blame, for of thy delicacies I dared not even dream!)—now hope cut capers within me! Heavy footsteps were heard in the passage, and one of the lords of the creation marched his calves into the apartment. With alacrity, I conveyed my _corpus juris_ to meet him, and, with all civility, I requested him to be seated. My landlady with her apron dusted the arm-chair (I purchased it at a sale of Lord M——’s _effects_, not _causes_,—expecting to catch inspiration). In this said chair my man ensconced his clay.

I had commenced my survey of his person, when my eyes were attracted by a basilisk-like bunch of papers which the good soul held in his hand. In ecstasy I gazed—characters were marked on them which could not be mistaken; a less keen glance than mine might have discovered their import. My joy was now beyond all bounds, testifying itself by sundry kickings and contortions of the body. I began to fear the worthy man might think me mad, and repent him of his errand; I calmed myself, and sat down. My guest thrust into my hands the papers, and then proceeded to issue letters of open doors against his dexter pocket. His intentions were evident; with difficulty could I restrain myself. For some minutes he “groped about the vast abyss,” during which time my agitation increased so much that I could not have answered one question, even out of that favourite chapter of one of our institutional writers, “On the Institution of Fees.” But let me describe the man to whom I owe so much.

He was a short, squat, farmer-looking being, who might have rented some fifty acres or so. Though stinted in his growth upwards, Dame Nature seemed determined to make him amends by an increase of dimension in every other direction. His nose and face spoke volumes—ay, libraries—of punch and ale; these potations had also made themselves manifested lower down, by the magnitude of the _belli-gerent_ powers. There was in his face a cunning leer, in his figure a knowing _tournure_, which was still further heightened by his dress; this consisted of a green coat, which gave evident signs of its utter incapability of ever being identified with Stultz; cords and continuations encased the lower parts of his carcase; a belcher his throat; while the whole was surmounted by a castor of the most preposterous breadth of brim, and shallow capacity. But in this man’s appearance there was something that pleased me; something of a nature superior to other mortals. I might have been prejudiced, but his face and figure seemed to me more beautiful than morning.

Never did I gaze with a more complacent benevolence on a breeches-pocket. At last he succeeded in dragging from its depths a huge old stocking, through which “the yellow-lettered Geordie’s keeked.” With what raptures did I look on that old stocking, the produce, I presumed, of the stocking of his farm. It seemed to possess the power of fascination, for my eyes could not quit it. Even when my client (for now I calculated upon him) began to speak, my attention still wandered to the stocking. He told me of a dispute with his landlord about some matters relating to his farm, that he was wronged, and would have the law of the laird, though he should spend his last shilling (here I looked with increased raptures at the stocking). On the recommendation of the minister (good man!), he had sought me for advice. He then opened wide the jaws of his homely purse—he inserted his paw—now my heart beat—he made a jingling noise—my heart beat quicker still—he pulled forth his two interesting fingers—oh, ecstasy! he pressed five guineas into my extended hand—they touched the virgin palm, and oh, ye gods! I was FEE’D!!!—_Edinburgh Literary Journal._

THE KIRK OF TULLIBODY.

The parish of Tullibody, in Clackmannanshire, now united with Alloa, was, before the Reformation, an independent ecclesiastical district. The manner in which it lost its separate character is curious. In the year 1559, when Monsieur D’Oysel commanded the French troops on the coast of Fife, they were alarmed by the arrival of the English fleet, and thought of nothing but a hasty retreat. It was in the month of January, and at the breaking of a great storm. William Kirkaldy of Grange, commander of the congregational forces, attentive to the circumstances in which his enemies were caught, took advantage of this situation, and marched with great expedition towards Stirling, and cut the bridge of Tullibody, which was over the Devon, to prevent their retreat. By this manœuvre, the French found themselves completely enclosed. They were driven to an extremity which obliged them to resort to an extraordinary expedient to effect their escape. They lifted the roof off the church of Tullibody, and laid it along the broken part of the bridge, by which means they effected a safe retreat to Stirling.

Such a dilapidation of the church caused the Tullibodians to proceed to the adjacent kirk of Alloa, and in a short time the parish ceased to be independent. The burying-ground round the ancient place of worship, now repaired, still remains; and on the north side of it, where there had been formerly an entry, there is a stone coffin, with a niche for the head, and two for the arms, covered with a thick hollowed lid like a tureen. The lid is a good deal broken, but a curious tradition is preserved of the coffin. It is related that in early times a young lady of the neighbourhood had declared her affection for the minister, who, either from his station or want of inclination, made no returns. So vexed was the lady on perceiving his indifference, that, in a short while, she sickened, and at last died of grief. While on her deathbed, she left it as her last request, that she should not be buried in the earth, but that her body should be placed in a stone coffin, and laid at the entry to the church; which was done, and to this day, the stone retains the name of the “Maiden’s Stone.”—_Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal_, 1832.

THE PROGRESS OF INCONSTANCY;
_OR_, _THE SCOTS TUTOR_.

“Sweet, tender sex! with snares encompassed round,
On others hang thy comforts and thy rest.”—HOGG.