Chapter XI: Jambe De Bois (1)

"Now, Master Abraham, if you try that trick again, I will make free with this mopstick, and break your head. Why, look here, cook, if he has not been teaching the child to chew tobacco! I suppose they will be asking Mr Weevil to serve him out his allowance of grog next."

It was Lennox who had spoken. Lanyard rung the bell. "What's the matter now, steward?"

"Oh, sir, they are massacring that poor little fellow, and teaching him all manner of abominations. But it's all in kindness, sir; so one really cannot be so angry with them, as"----

"Never mind then, get breakfast. What sort of morning is it?"

"Quite calm, sir."

"And the frigate?"

"About a mile to the northward of us, sir. The boat that was sent on board with Mr Donovan this morning, and to bring hay for the sheep, is now coming back again, sir."

Presently I heard the splash of the oars, then the noise and rumble of their being laid in; and the crew having got on board, she was hoisted up. By this time I was on deck; it was about seven o'clock in the morning, and, as the steward had reported, quite calm. "Heigh, ho! another roasting day, Mr Marline," said I, as I swept the horizon with the glass, round every part of which the junction of sea and sky was obliterated by a hot quivering blue haze, through which the frigate twinkled, her white streak glimmering like a ribbon streaming in the wind, and her hull trembling, as it were, in every atom: while her masts appeared to twist like snakes, the small wavy motion beginning at the deck, and flowing upwards towards the mastheads.

"Yes, sir," said the midshipman, "every appearance of a broiling day, indeed."

"Well, get the awning up, as quick as you can," said the lieutenant, who had followed me. And I set myself to play with Dicky Phantom, until breakfast was ready.

We ate our meal on deck; after it was ended I went below, and took a book to while away the time in the least wearisome manner possible; but being a dull dog I had got hold of, I soon tired; and, as I stretched myself on the locker, I saw Lennox, in his small pantry of a place behind the companion ladder, busy writing. When I first noticed him, he seemed very serious and melancholy. I could see a tear stand in his eye now and then, and he would blow his nose in a very pathetic and interesting manner; but as he went on, he once or twice laid down his pen, and laughed to himself, rubbing his hands in ecstasy. He again plied his task for some time quietly, until the laughing fit once more overtook him, when he threw himself back on the small _settle_ or block on which he sat, with such vehemence, that he cracked the back of his skull against the ladder very sharply, and uttered an involuntary "Oh!" In the confusion which this lapse threw him into, he upset the ink on his paper. Out of pure wickedness, I called out, "Lennox!"

"Coming, sir,"--while he bustled to gather up the ink, a precious article on board, with his pen, and to shovel it into the bottle again; but he did not come great speed this way, so he next tried a tea-spoon.

"Lennox!"

"Coming, sir."

"Coming? why, do come, man, and give me a glass of water, will you?"

"This instant, sir--beg pardon, sir--but--but"--

By this he had got his papers stowed away, and made his appearance with his trowsers covered with ink. I looked at him; he was blushing to the eyes.

"Why, what _have_ you been after? You have spilled all my ink, I see--writing love-letters, I suppose?"--In his bashfulness he here drew his hand across his face, and thereby transferred a good dash of the "best Japan" to his nose and cheeks, the effect of which was so absurd that I could not help laughing outright.--"You are an author, perhaps?"

He blushed still deeper, and seeing I waited for an answer, rapped out, "I am, sir, in a small way."

"The deuce!" said I, rather surprised that I should have hit the right nail on the head thus unexpectedly; "and pray, what works have you produced--what walk in literature have you especially followed out?"

"The novel line, lately, sir, but"----

"The novel line! A _novel_ line, certainly, for a corporal of marines," said I, interrupting him rather sneeringly.--"Pray, who and what were you before you joined Gazelle, Lennox; that is, if you have no objections to tell?"

He did not make me a direct answer.

"You have been very kind to me, sir," said the poor fellow, "and have more than once stood my friend, when, Heaven knows, I was desolate enough; indeed, if it had not been for you, Mr Brail, I would have gone overboard, some dark night, with a cold shot at my feet; for the Devil, who is always busy with desperate men, has been near getting the upper hand aftener than I will stay the noo to tell. But as I was saying,"--and here a large tear rolled down his face, through ink and all,--"I am bound to you, sir, and if you have any desire to know who I am, or what I have been, I am ready to tell you."

I was a little moved at this, as I had no idea that any little service I had rendered the poor fellow should have been so gratefully remembered. "Why, Lennox, I have done no more to you, nor for you, than I hope every right-hearted man would have done to an inferior; but I will not deny that I have such a desire."

He put into my hands a dirty roll of paper.

"Your honour has been very patient with me; but I hope I know my place better than to weary you with a long story; so, referring you to the manuscript, which you may read or not as you please, I will, with your permission--go and kill the pig, and then help the cook to scrape potatoes in the galley."

He withdrew--I looked after him, and then took a short turn on deck, where every thing was going on much as usual; I then returned to the cabin, and having stretched myself along the locker, and seen the windsail comfortably drawing down the small skylight? I unrolled the manuscript, which was entitled

"THE SORROWS OF SAUNDERS SKELP."

Poor Dominie Skelp! his sorrows were amusing enough, here and there, melancholy as his story was in the main. Some parts of the narrative were powerful, although unequally written, as if the mind of the writer had originally been calm and clear as a polished mirror, until shattered by the rude blows of misfortune into dust and rubbish, but still intermingled here and there with bright and sparkling fragments. His father, a respectable tradesman in a small country town, had cramped himself in every way to give his son a good education, and he had actually attained the barren dignity of a licentiate in the Scottish Kirk. After this he became the schoolmaster of the parish, and was even in the habit of occasionally preaching for Mr Bland, the clergyman, or minister thereof, as he called him. At length he fell in love with a beautiful and innocent girl; after which it was all the old story,--

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

And the loves of Saunders Skelp and Jessy Miller were no exception to the rule; the young laird, Mr Adderfang, having seduced the girl, and contrived, by a very mean and cruel _ruse_, not only to blast the happiness of both, but even to cast the blame of the transaction on the young probationer for a season. "But let the dominie tell his own story, Master Benjie."

"With all my heart, my boy. So here it is; mind it don't try your patience, however."

"EPISODE OF THE STICK LEG.

"And Adam fell by Eve: from womankind
All evil was derived; had the male race
But grown like turnips, man had never sinned.
_Dominie Skelp's Illustrations of Byron, MS._

"My great-grandfather, grandfather, and immediate progenitor, were all _ministers' men_ in the landward parish of Lincumdodie.

"My father had added to his more immediate vocation, that of a shoemaker; and being a good tradesman, we were the easiest in our circumstances of any family in the village, until my stepmother suddenly took to drinking, and thereby nearly broke my father down in mind, body, and estate.

"I can call it nothing else but a disease; for hitherto she had always been a discreet body, and a kind to me, considering I was an only bairn, and therefore sure to be fashious, and nane of her ain flesh and blood forby.

"My father focht lang with her, strapping her respectably at ae time, and fleeching and praying with her at anither; syne he would get the minister himsell to speak till her, but a' wad not do, for the puir body just grat and listened, and gat fou again; and grat and listened and gat fou, until at length the auld man crossed his arms in downricht despair, _and let her at it_.

"The issue wasna long in doubt, for she was fairly _speerited_ awa between and that day three months.

"Young as I was, my surprise was great, and so was that of the haill village, at the way my father took on when she died. 'She was ill to hersell, and no that guid till you, Saunders,' said the minister to him one day, by way of comforting him. 'And I can scrimp deny that same, minister, but for mony a day she was a leal and gude wife to me, before she fell away intil that evil propensity; and although it whiles surprises me mysell that I should miss an auld drucken wife sae muckle, yet lang custom, minister, makes ane even miss the very middenstead before the door, ye ken; at ony rate, I canna think o' her just yet, without a fullness at my heart, that I confess I am a wee bit ashamed o'."

"When the steek in my father's purse, let down by my mother's spiritual propensities, was taken up once more by her death, we again began to float up into respectability and comparative riches; so that we gradually resumed the status in the small village from which we had declined.

"I was at this time about twelve years of age, and my father sent me back to the school which my mother had drank me out of; and in the course of three years, I believe I may with a safe conscience say, that I knew as much as the master himself did; of whom the young laird, Mr Adderfang, used to say,--'He would be a clever chiel wha kenn'd _all the master didna_.'

"About this time, old Durie Squake, the precentor, met with an accident which gave me temporary promotion in the kirk; for, coming into it one dark forenoon in the winter-time, after having oiled his chanter with a drap drink, he did not notice that the door of his wee poopit had been altered, so as to swing the contrary way to what it did before; and as it stood wide open, fronting him edgeways, it was as clean and invisible as if it had been the blade of a knife; so that although the blind body had as usual his twa paws extended and stuck out before him, one holding his Bible and the other his pitchpipe, he ran smack up against the edge, clipping the leaf of the door with an outspread arm on each side of it, and thereby received such a _devel_, that his nose was bashed, and the sneck sank into his forehead, as if he had been struck with a butcher's hatchet. Down fell auld Durie Squake, with a grunt and a squelch, on his back. 'Losh preserve me! I aye kenned I had a lang nose, but surely it's langer this blessed Sabbath than common!'

"He was helped up and hame by two o' the elders, and being a thick-skulled creature, he was soon repaired by the farrier in the village, so as to be maist as gude as new, no being muckle worth at his best, and he was at his wark again in no time; but although his skull was sound, his voice was a wee cracked for ever after; and now the question came, what was to be done for a precentor that blessed day? A neighbouring minister, the excellent Mr Clour, of the parish of Thistledoup, was to preach, and by this time in the poopit, and he could sing none, I kenned; as for auld Mr Bland, our ain pastor, he was as empty of music as a toom bagpipe; so baith the ministers and their hearers sat glowering at each other for a guid space, until the uproar was over, and the bum had subsided, and I was just wondering what was to be done, when I found something kittle-kittling the crown of my head. I sat, it must be known, in a wee bit back jam of a pew, just before the minister's seat, and my father aside me. I looked round--it was the auld minister--'Saunders,' says he, 'your father tells me ye can sing fine--gae awa wi' ye, my bonny man, into the precentor's seat.' I was in an awful taking; the blood rushed to my face, and the sweat dropped from the point of my nose; nevertheless, I screwed up my courage, and, like a callant louping into the water to bathe in a cauld day, I dashed into the Psalm with great bir and success; but the speed I came puffed up my vanity until it burst, and I had a sair downcome that day. For finding that the precentor line was no sae difficult as I expected, I thought I would shine a bit, and at a solemn pause in the music aff I went, up and away, intil some fine tirlie-wirlies, which I could not cannily get out of again. By and by, the congregation dropped off one by one, as I ascended, until I was left alone in my glory. I started 'even at the sound myself had made,' and looked up to the roof, at the auld carved wark, above what had been the altar-piece when the Catholics had the kirk, singing all the while--but a nervous thought came over me, and suddenly I felt as if I had got screwed in amongst the roses and ornaments of the auld cornice, without the power of extricating myself; and how to get home again into the _Bangor_, that I had left so recklessly, I could not divine. At length, as my variations were nearly exhausted, Willie Johnston's auld colley, Snap, deliberately walked up the aisle, and cocking himself on end, raised his voice and joined in chorus. This speedily brought me to a stand-still, for Balaam could not have been more amazed when his ass spoke than I was; besides, I saw the folk were all laughing, until some one of them took advantage of the pause to skirl up the original tune once more, and faith but I was glad to join them.

"It was the fashion in our parish, at this time of the year, to give two sermons at one sitting, but auld Mr Clour had only brought one, and our ain minister being as hoarse as a raven, there was nothing for it but that Mr Clour should split his in two. Indeed, I heard him say, as they walked into the kirkyard together--'Well, friend Bland, if I maun preach twa sermons, while I hae only yin in my pouch, and nane in my head, they must just be of the shortest, for I can manage no other way than by halving it; however, I'll gie them a gude bit screed of a psalm to sough awa at after the first half, and that will help us 'ayont the twall,' as Burns says, before we begin to the second.

"The first sermon passed over, and when he gave out the Psalm that was to be the resting-place, the half-way house between the wings of his discourse, what was my dismay, to find that he, with all the coolness in life, read out six long verses! My mouth was dry enough, and my throat husky enough with my previous discomfiture, Heaven knows; but I whistled away until I got to the line about 'a dry parched land, wherein no waters be,' when my voice fairly failed me a'thegither. I made a desperate struggle, but there was nae mair sound in me than in a clarionet without the reed, or a child's bawbee whistle blawn dumb on the first day of the fair. So I waited for a while, and again set to, but my screech was this time a mixture of the cry of the corncraik and the hissing of a goose; besides, I had lost the tune, and nane of the congregation could find it, so I squeeled and sweltered about, until the haill kirk and pews, and the folk in them, danced before my eyes, and I could not tell whether I was on my head or my heels. At length I croaked out, '_Vox faucibus hæsit, domine--Vox faucibus hæsit_. As sure's death, I can sing nane until somebody gives me a drink of water.' At this moment I felt a slap on the cheek, which made me start and turn round, and there was the auld minister leaning ower the front of his pulpit, and girning at me like Auld Nick himsell. 'Deevil's in the callant; has he lost the _fang_[1] already, wi' skirling up the Psalm but for yae half hour?' This drave me demented altogether, so making a rush from the precentor's desk, I stumbled down into my father's seat, who was lying with his head on his blue bonnet, peching and perspiring with utter shame and vexation. _I never tried the precentor line again_.

[1] A pump is said to have _lost the fang_ in Scotland, when the sucker won't draw.

"Mv father's circumstances continued to improve, and at last he found himself in a condition to send me to Edinburgh itsell, to study for the kirk; and there I continued for three years more, during session time;--after which I returned home a licentiate of the Church of Scotland no less, but with the immediate purpose of succeeding the old schoolmaster of Lincomdodie, who had about this period been gathered to his fathers.

"When I arrived, a proud man was my father of me and my acquirements; and from that time forth, he had morning and evening service every day in his family--a thing he never had before, except on Sunday.

"And, oh! there was one that welcomed me back, with a smile and a tear, and a trembling of the tongue, and a heaving of her beautiful bosom, that was dearer, far dearer to me than father or friends, although I had a warm heart for them too. It was Jessy Miller, the only daughter of Rob Miller the carrier's widow, a tall fair-skinned lassie, with raven locks, and dark hazel eyes, and a face and figure with which none of the village girls could compare.

"'Ye are welcome home again, Saunders--heartily welcome; and you'll be glad to hear that the young leddies at the hall--the laird's sisters, ye ken--have been very kind to me and my mother baith, and that I go up there every day to work for them; and they have made me many a handsome present, as you see, Saunders, and many a good book have they sent me; and the young laird, Mr Adderfang, has come hame, ye will have heard,'--I started, for I had not heard it,--'and he is really very civil to us also.' We were speaking in a little bit green, at the western-most end of the village. There was a clump of horse chestnuts behind us, through which the breeze was rushing with a rustling sough, but it was neither strong enough nor loud enough to drown the buzzing, or rather moaning noise of the numberless bees that were gathering honey from its blossoms, for it was in June; or the rushing murmur of the clear sparkling burnie, that wimpled past at our feet, with a bit crazy wooden brig across it, beyond which a field of hay, ready for the scythe, was waving in the breeze, with the shadows of the shreds of summer clouds sailing along its green undulations, as they racked across the face of the sun.

"At the moment when the mention of the young laird's name by Jessy Miller, for he was known to be a wild graceless slip, had sent the blood back to my heart with a chill--a larger cloud than any that had gone before threw its black shadow over where we sat, while all around was blithe breeze and merry sunshine. It appeared to linger--I took Jessy's hand, and pointed upwards. I thought she shrank, and that her fingers were cold and clammy. She tried to smile, but it ended in a faint hysterical laugh, as she said,--'Saunders, man, ye're again at your vagaries, and omens, and nonsense; what for do ye look that gate at me, man?'

"'I canna help it, Jessy--no, for the soul of me, I cannot--why does the heaven frown on you and me only, when it smiles on all things beside?'

"'Hoot, it's but a summer cloud, and ye're a fule; and there--there it's gane, ye see--there, see if it hasna sailed away over the breezy hay field, beyond the dyke there--come and help me ower it, man--come,'--and once more I looked in her bright eyes undoubtingly, and as I lifted her over the grey stones, I pressed her to my heart, in the blessed belief and consciousness that she was my ain Jessy Miller still.

"All the summer I officiated as helper to the excellent Mr Bland, our parish minister--his nephew, who was appointed to fill the situation permanently, being still on the continent as tutor in a nobleman's family, nor did he return until the autumn.

"Although I never expected to have a kirk of my own, yet preaching was at this time a pleasure to me--for my intellect was strong and clear, health good, and spirits buoyant; my heart being at ease, and Jessy Miller loving and faithful.

"And was it not a proud thing for a parritch-fed laddie like me, to get the argument a' to mysell for a hail forenoon, and to lay down the law to all the gentry of the country, and maybe a lord among them; and to gie them their kail through the reek, and cry 'anathema maranatha' against the vices of the rich--the temptations whereto, if the truth maun be told, I never kenned; while nane o' them dared so much as open his mouth to reply to me?

"But I had ae redeeming virtue in their eyes, for, although whiles dogmatic, I was never so downright indiscreet as to inflict lang sermons on them--a thing great folk canna thole--a half-hour till the preachment, and a quarter till the prayer, being my maximum; never forgetting, that a good practical sermon should be like a jigot o' wee blackfaced Highland mutton, short in the shank, and pithy, and nutritious, which every body can digest something o', frae the fistling restless callant, wi' a clue in his breeks, till the auld staid elder, wha hears ye oot as steadily--teuch as ben-leather though you may be--as if his tail were Tam Clink's anvil. So, putting the shortness o' the screed against the bitterness o' the flyte, my popularity on the whole greatly increased.--Thus mollified by success, I grew sae bland and gentle in my disposition, that I could never even skelp ony o' my wee scholars without a tear in my eye; so that I verily believe if I could have shoved the dull creatures on by applying the tause to my ain--loof instead of theirs, I would have willingly done so.

"But soon a wee bit cloud cam o'er me; for I began about this time to be sair fashed with a great income."

[I laid down the manuscript--"sair fashed with an income--I say, Lennox"--I saw the marine in his steward-room at the moment--"Why, Lennox, construe me this, if you please--'sair fashed with an income,'--that is more than ever I have been, if I take you up rightly; but explain, if you please--was your income so _very_ great?"

"Indeed, sir, it was large enough to lame me for six months!"

I stared--"An income so large that it lamed you for six months--oh, you lived high--gout, I suppose?"

"Na, na, sir--I had never any title to gout, nor any of my forbears; but it was not the size of the tumor that was the worst of it; for it contracted the sinews and muscles of my left leg to such a degree, that, after I had hobbled on crutches for six weeks, I was at last fairly driven to stump it on a stick leg, although, Heaven be thanked, I recovered entirely in a year's time."

The poor fellow saw I was laughing; and apparently uncertain as to whether I comprehended him or not, he said--"An income is a tumour, sir; and mine was a very bad ane."

"Oh, I see, I see; but tell me this, Lennox--You speak very good English; and, from all I can hear, you write it correctly--how came you, therefore, to have indited your sorrows in your north country Doric?"

"Mair graphic, sir--I had an eye to publish, sir."

"Now, I understand--thank you"--and I resumed my study of the manuscript.]

"But I had my ain misgivings that Jessy would flee aff frae me, after all, now that I was a lameter, and I watched my opportunity to ask her frankly and fairly, 'whether we were to hold to our plighted troth, that we should be man and wife whenever I had laid by an hundred pounds from the school (I had already fifty), or that the calamity which had come over me'----I could scarcely speak here, for something rose up in my full breast, like a cork in a bottle that you are filling with water, and stuck in my thrapple like to choke me--; or that the calamity that had come over me, was to snap our vows in twain--and, Jessy Miller, I here declare, in the presence of our Maker, if it has wrought such change in you, I release you freely--freely--although it should break my heart, I release you.'

"The poor girl's hand, as I spoke, grew colder and colder, and her cheek paler and paler, until she fairly sank on her knees on the auld grey moss-grown stone that covered the muirland grave of the Covenanters, situated about a mile from Lincomdodie, where we happened to be at the time. It was now the gloaming the setting sun was flaming up in the red west, and his last ray fell on the beautifully rounded form of the fair lassie, and sparkled on the tear that stole down her cheek, as she held up one hand to Heaven, and grasped mine with the other.

"'Saunders Skelp, wi' ae leg or twa, or without a leg of ony kind--if ever I prove faithless to you--may'----

"'Hillo, Dominie--Dominie Skelp--you're a nice young man, I _don't_ know.'

"I started--Jessy shrieked, and rising, threw herself into my arms--and as I turned round, who should be ascending the hill, and now within a few yards of us, but the young laird himself--as handsome and buirdly a chiel as you would see in ten thousand!

"'Did that cloud come ower us at the side of the hay-field that day for naething, Jessy?' She could not answer me. The sun set, and one or two heavy drops of rain fell, and the lift darkened--ay, and something darker and drearier stole across my brain than the shadows which now began to settle down on the fair face of external nature. My heart fluttered for a moment, then made long irregular throbs, and finally I became dizzy and faint, and almost fell to the ground with Jessy in my arms. 'Was I, in very truth, in the presence of an evil spirit?' said I to myself.

"'Why,' said the young gentleman, 'what has come over you, Saunders? I won't tell, man--so keep your own secret, and nobody will be a whit the wiser.'

"'Secret, sir!' said I, deeply stung; 'secret--I have nane, sir--nane--that I love the lassie, the haill parish kens, and I am not ashamed of it; but if you--ay, you, sir, or _any_ man, dares'----

"'Heyday--dares! What do you mean by that, Master Skelp?--Dares!'

"My recollection and self-possession returned at this moment.

"'I beg pardon, sir; I have been taken by surprise, and in my anxiety to vindicate Jessy from all suspicion, I have been very uncivil to you. I am sorry for it.'

"The abjectness of this apology caused me to blush to the eyes, but it was made, as I thought, to serve my heart-dear girl, and gulping down my chagrin and wounded pride, I turned to go away.

"'Well, well, Dominie, I forgive you, man, and I _believe_ there is nothing wrong between you two after all. I only spoke in jest, man, and am in turn sorry to have given you pain; so gie's your hand--there--and I must have a kiss from Miss Miller, the darling, or I never shall believe that you have both really and truly forgiven me.'

"We returned together to the village. I would willingly have shaken off the youngster, but he insisted on seeing Jessy home, and as I had no plea to prevent him, I submitted in great bitterness of spirit.

"The next day he departed for London, to my great solace, and we heard nothing of him for several months, so I once more buckled to my schoolmaster's labours with a light heart; and if my friends did not flatter me, I also greatly improved in my preaching.

"At first, before I had confidence in my ain power and presence of mind, I slavishly wrote down all my sermons, and read them still more servilely, never trusting my finger neb off the manuscript, as if I had been frichtened it would have ta'en wing and flown away from under my nose; but I gradually began to trust mysell away in a wee bit flicht now and then, like a half-fledged shillfa[2] with the puddock-hair on, hopping about its nest, but always ready to drop into it again, as I was into the written discourse.

[2] Chaffinch.

"I soon found that the parts of my preachments that were maist liked were generally the very bits thus struck off _extempore_; so in time I took heart of grace, and only wrote down the _heads_. Before autumn I even gave this up, and began to preach even on and boldly, without scrap or note of any kind or description whatever.

"That there are many eloquent men who cannot trust their memories, and have all their lives to preach written sermons, is most true; but where a man of talent _can_ preach _extempore_, rely upon it, he will be more eloquent and impressive than if he had undergone the drudgery of inditing the discourse before hand.

"And so it was with me, even me Saunders Skelp; for, from the very first, when per force I had to write down my sermons, still even then I found my genius cribbed and confined, and held down in its soarings and highest aspirations by the written _thread_ of my discourse, like a string round the leg of a tame pyot; or if, in a moment of inspiration, I did break away, it was at the peril of getting into another vein of thocht a'thegither, which I aften found cruel kittle to dovetail cleverly into the plain jog-trot of what lay beneath my nose on the pulpit cushion; so, finding I made but a botched business of it so long as I halted between the two opinions, I resolutely determined to write nae mair for ever.

"But in the pride of my heart at my early success, I will not conceal that I grew about this time rather overly energetic, and my feelings whiles outran my discretion; but I had a good friend and excellent Mentor in auld Earl M----, the principal heritor in the parish.

"Seeing his lordship in his pew--for he didna come to the kirk every Sabbath--one fine clear day, when I was to preach, I thought I would astonish him a wee bit; but, as it turned out, I was mysell the maist astonished of the twa. It was a beautiful summer's day. I had scarcely ever seen the outline of the mountain that overhung the village so hard and clear and sharply defined, as it hove up and out, high into the cold pure blue of the cloudless sky. The misty cap that usually concealed the bald peak, had blown off before the fresh breeze that rustled cheerily among the twittering leaves; disclosing the grey scalp, the haunt of the gled and the eagle, with the glittering streaks of unmelted but not unsunned snow filling the wrinkle-like storm rifts, whose ice-fed streamlets loomed in the distance, still and fixed like frozen gouts of pure sea foam, but lower down sparkled in the sun, flowing with a perceptible motion, as if the hoary giant had been shedding glad tears of dropping diamonds.

"Still nearer, the silver chainlets of their many rills were welded into one small waterfall, that leapt from its rocky ledge, white as the wreaths that fed it; bending and wavering in the breeze, and gradually thinning as it fell, until it blew off in smoke like the Grey Mare's Tail, and vanished altogether, scarcely moistening the black and moss-grown stones of the shallow basin beneath. Below this, and skirting the dry region of shingle, the paired moorfowl, for the cheepers hadna taken wing yet, were whirring amang the purple heather, that glowed under the bright sunlight, as if the mountain had been girdled in with a ruby zone; while farther down, the sheep bleating to their lambs powdered the whole green hillside, like pearls sprinkled on a velvet mantle.

"The kine were lowing in the valley, as they stood kneedeep in the cool burn, whisking away the flies, under the vocal shadow of the overhanging _saughs_. The grey heron was floating above the spung from spring to spring, from one dark green tuft of rushes to another, so ghostlike, that you could not tell it from its shadow; the birds were singing among the trees; the very crackling of the furze pods in the sun had an exhilarating and joyous sound; and the drowsy and moaning hum of the myriads of bees, that floated into the wee auld kirk through the open window from the plane-trees that overshadowed it, dangerous as the sound wad hae been to a prosy preacher on a sultry Sabbath, was, in my vainglory, but a soothing melody to me: for in my vainglory I said to mysell, there _shall_ be nae sleeping here this day. There was happiness in the very cawing of the rooks in the auld trees of the kirkyard, as they peered down at us with eyes askance, as much as to say, 'ay, freens, there's nae gun amang ye the day.'

"The farmers came along cracking blithely as they looked over the sea of waving grain, now in ear, and fast bronzing under the genial sun, that covered the whole strath; the trouts were glancing and louping at the grey flies, and the ducks of the villagers were flaffing and squattering in the burn where the lassies were washing their feet, glancing like silver amang the sparkling wimples of the clear yet moss-browned water, and putting on their shoes and stockings, preparatory to their entering the sanctuary, therein differing from the heathen, who cast off their slippers at the threshold. Auld Widow Miller hersell, sober sedate body, was _heckling_ with Tam Clink the blacksmith, as she came along by the holly hedge; even the hard-worked carrier's horses, with their galled backs and shoulders, and the very banes sticking through their flanks, were frisking awkwardly with their iron joints (like so many of their wooden scaffold-supporting namesakes bewitched), in clumsy imitation of the beautiful filly there, and neighing on the other side of the hedge from you, speaking as plain as Balaam's ass that the Sabbath was for them also; ay, when the very Spirit of God himself seemed visibly abroad on the smiling face of the glad earth, I could not help exclaiming--'Surely, my friends, we cannot err greatly, if we veil our faces and retreat in such a day as this from before the thunders, and darkness, and earthquake of Sinai, the Mountain of the Lord, and wander away out of the bitterness and acrid atmosphere of the desert, 'where the Heaven over our heads is brass, and the earth under our feet iron, and the rain of the land powder and dust,' into the quiet and fertile valleys and pure skies of Canaan; and there, amongst the loveliness and freshness of nature, with hearts swelling with gratitude to _Him_, and love to our brethren of mankind, dwell on _His_ attributes of goodness and mercy, with mixed adoration and trembling, and endeavour to sing his praises in the spirit, and with the glorious imagery of David.--Shall all the beasts of the field,' I continued, warming with my subject,--'shall all the beasts of the field, and fowls of the air, and fishes, yea, shall all creatures, animate and inanimate, praise the Lord for his goodness, with one universal burst of joy; and shall man alone, while he worships with fear and trembling, not mingle with the groan of his just humiliation a shout of heartwarm and heartfelt gratitude to the Almighty Dispenser of all this happiness around him?'

"For a quarter of an hour after this I carried on fine, and was delighted to spy the auld earl's looks, of approval with the corner of my ee, the joy whereof drave me off my guard; for at a well-turned period, when I intended to bring my right hand down thump on the open Bible, I missed it, and smote the new elastic pulpit cushion instead, with such vehemence, that the old brazen-clasped Psalm-book spanged up, and out over into the air. 'Kep!' cried I; whereupon auld Durie Squake, the precentor, upturned his face, and thereby caught such a bash on the nose, that baith the lozens were dang out of his barnacles. 'Oh Lord, my sair nose!' (it had not recovered the blow against the door, as already related), 'oh Lord! my sair nose is clean demolished now--I maun get legs to my specs--for the brig's brak, and flattened in on my face like a pancake!' I tried to get back into my discourse, but I was awfully flurried, and as, not knowing what I did, I let fly another whack on the desk, his lordship, who, I could observe, even in the swelter of my confusion, was laughing to himsell, turned up his gaisened pheesiognomy, and _girned_ out--'I say, my lad, if ye break it, ye'll pay for't.' This put me daft--clean wud a'thegether--and I drave along at so furious a rate, and stamped with my stick-leg on the stool that I stood on with such vehemence, that in my confusion down I slipped; and the bottom of the pulpit being auld and frush, the wooden tram flew crash through, and I vanished, the iron-shod end striking Durie Squake, the devoted precentor, such a crack on the tap of the head, that I thought I had felled him clean. 'Oh dear! oh dear!' roared Squake; 'the callant has first bashed my neb as saft as pap' (he was a wabster to his trade), 'and broken my spectacles, and noo he has fractured my skull with his d--d stick-leg.' I struggled to extricate the tram, but it stuck fast, until Tam Clink, the blacksmith, gave the end of it, as it protruded into Durie Squake's desk, such a bang with his great heavy hand, as if it had been his forehammer, that he shot me up with a jerk like a 'Jack in the box,' into the sight of the astonished congregation again.

"I sat down utterly discomfited, and, covering my face with my hands, wept bitterly.

"A murmur ran through the kirk, and I could hear whispers of 'Puir callant, gie him time to collect his thochts--gie him time--he's a clever lad Saunders--he'll be a' richt presently.' I took heart of grace at this demonstration of good and kindly feeling amongst my fellow-parishioners, and making a strong effort, yet with a face like crimson--my lugs were burning like red-hot iron--I finished my discourse, and dismissed the congregation. As I passed out of the churchyard gate, I found the old lord there; it was a warm day, and he was sitting on a tombstone under the shade of the auld elm-tree, with his hat off, and wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, apparently waiting for his carriage to drive up. 'Ca' canny, man,' said he, as I approached--'Ca' canny, Saunders--dinna _rive_ folk alang the road to heaven at that rate, man.'

"'My lord, I was seduced intil that exuberance to-day against my better judgment. It was the vanity of making an appearance before you, my lord, when I ought to have been thinking only of my Maker and the Gospel, and I have determined to humble my pride by making this acknowledgment; but I have had a sair downcome, my lord, as you saw this morning, and I deserved it.'

"'Well, well, Saunders; but Durie Squake had the worst of the _downcome_, I'm thinking. However, let it be a lesson to you never to prostrate yourself so abjectly before a fellow-creature again, even if he should be a lord, Saunders; but as you are a lad of talent, and I have a regard for you, you must get over this mortification speedily, lest it rankle and spoil your usefulness, for I see you are a sensitive creature. So I'll gang down to the manse and rest my sell, and come back in the afternoon, when I will ask Mr Bland to let you preach again. So awa' wi' ye, Saunders; ca' in yere scattered thochts, Saunders--and tell Moses, as you pass Lucky Mutchkin's public, to put up the horses again. Awa' wi' ye, Saunders Skelp.'

"'Na, na, my lord--you are very kind, and I am greatly beholden to your lordship; but I canna--I canna hand up my head in the poopit again, so soon after my signal dis'----

"'Haud yere tongue, Saunders--ye're a fule. Gang till your room and cogitate, for preach you must and shall, this very day, and be d--d till ye. The dominie's gane mad a'thegither, I declare.'

"I took my excellent patron's advice, and although unco blate at first, I gained courage as I warmed with my subject, so that by the time I cam till the blessing, I was myself again; and having thus got over my mortification, I never afterwards sae far forgot myself as I had done that blessed morning."

But the humour of the following extract, which explains itself, surpasses either of the former in my estimation:--

"Next morning was the annual examination of my school, at which three ministers, one of them the celebrated Dr Soorock, were to be present, and the same passed over creditably to myself and scholars; and the doctor was very kind and condescending to the whole of us. He was the means of my being invited this day to dinner by Mr Bland. After the examination, we had walked a mile into the country together, enjoying the delight of the schoolboys, who had gotten a half holiday on the occasion, and were now rampaging about, like young colts broke loose, some jumping, some playing at football, others at shinty, while several were fishing in the burn, that twinkled past as clear as crystal; and we were returning home to the manse, when Earl M----'s equipage appeared, coming along the small bridge that crossed a bend of the stream beyond the village. Presently it was hid by the trees round the manse, and then glanced on this side of them, until the houses again concealed it. In another moment it rattled sharply round the corner, when the old earl desired his postilions to walk their horses until he met us. The moment Doctor Soorock saw the carriage go slow, he accelerated _his_ motion, and stepped out and away before Mr Bland and Mr Clour, salaaming with his hat in one hand, and his gold-headed cane in the other, in rather too abject a style, in my estimation, for _one who had a kirk already_. His lordship was still at pistol-shot distance, and the doctor was striding on, uncovered, with his eyes riveted on the carriage, when his foot caught on the projecting steps of the schoolhouse door, and away he went, his stick flying through the window, smashing the glass down in a tinkling shower--his hat into the neighbouring pigsty, and his wig into the burn that ran by the road-side.

"'Run, boys, run,' said I, as I helped him up,--'run and catch the doctor's wig,' as it floated away down the stream, like a hedgehog covered with meal.

"'Geordie,' cried one little fellow, 'hook the wig with your fly, man--hook the wig with your fly.'

"'Allan is fishing with bait, his hooks are bigger,' quoth Geordie.

"'Fling, Allan, man, fling--one gude cast, and you have it.'

"They both missed, and the wig continued floating down until it swam amongst a flock of village ducks, who instantly squattered away from it, as if it had been an otter.

"'Cast a stane intil't, or it will soom to Berwick before nicht,' said wee Tam.

"'Cast a stane intil't, Allan, man; you mark weel,' roared Geordie again.

"Flash--one stone pitched into the burn, close to it, and half filled the wig with water. It was pretty well saturated before, so that when another flew with better aim right into it, it instantly sank, and disappeared in the Dominie's Hole, as the pool was called. What was to be done? There was a spate had suddenly come down the water, and there was no seeing into the bottom of the pool; besides, there was not a creepy in the village, so the doctor gave his wig up for lost, as well he might, and had to cover the nakedness of the land for that day with one of Mr Eland's Kilmarnock nightcaps. He bore his misfortune, I will say, with great equanimity; and in the evening we all once more resorted to the schoolhouse, to hear the boys sing, led by auld Durie Squake.

"We had taken our seats, a number of the villagers in their best; auld Durie had sounded his pitch-pipe, and the bits of callants were watching him with open mouth, all ready to open in full cry, like a pack of young hounds waiting for old Jowler's deep tongue, when the candle at his desk was suddenly blown out, and I called out in Latin, seeing that some of the bigger boys were close to it, '_Quid hac rei?_' Wee Tam Stump at this louped off his seat with great energy, fearing he was about to be blamed: 'Ventus played puff, Dominie, ex that broken window, et extinxit the candle.' We had all a good laugh at this, and nothing more happened to disturb the harmony of the evening, until Allan Harden came running up the stairs, with a salmon lister in one hand, and a great dripping divot-looking thing on the top of it.

"'What kept ye so late?' said I; 'you are seldom late, Allan.'

"'I hae been dabbing with the lister the haill evening for Doctor Soorock's wig, sir; but I have speared it at last--_ecce signum_! Dominie.'

"A tiny buzz ran amongst the boys; auld Clour keckled audibly, and Mr Bland could scarcely keep his gravity, as Dr Soorock stirred the soaked mass that Allan had cast on the floor with the end of his cane, exclaiming--'My wig--my wig, did the callant say? It canna be my wig.'

"'Indeed it is yours, sir; there's nae wale o' wigs here,' said the handsome boy, blushing deeply--'if you but try it on, sir, ye'll find it sae.'

"The wig was finally turned over to the auld barber at the village, who dried it, but the doctor had to go home in the Kilmarnock on the following day, as the scratch was ruined for ever."

Now, a small touch at the Dominie in the "melting mood," and we bear up again on our cruise. He had returned to the parish, after having completed his education, such as it was.

"Months passed away without any thing worth notice occurring. I met Jessy often, and although some doubts and misgivings as to the state of her heart did come over me, and shake mine sometimes, still my anxiety to acquire the plighted hundred pounds diverted my mind from allowing the doubt to fester, by confining my attention chiefly to the school. Besides, the young laird, who was now studying the law in Edinburgh, came seldomer down to the auld castle than was his wont; so that altogether I began to attribute any little apparent coldness in Jessy's demeanour, either to my own fancy, or to being piqued by the unjustness of my former suspicions. Thus I struggled on, in the hope that the sum might be made up during the next summer at latest, until which time my pride counselled me to be silent.

"The long dreary winter drew on apace. The leaves became sere, and fell, and were whirled in rustling eddies along the hollows of the small woodland paths about the village,--and the bleak north howled on the hill-side, and moaned and soughed through the trees, and round the house,--and the herds began to fold their flocks in the evenings. One night, in particular, was marked in my memory indelibly by what occurred the morning after it. It was late in November, and the weather for several days previous had been rough and boisterous, but on this particular evening it had cleared. The full moon shone brightly as I returned from the county town, with a wallet of wee books for my youngest class, which I had bought there that afternoon. It was eleven at night as I got to the bridge across the stream which ran past the village; I was glouring down over the little parapet wall into the glancing water, that rushed and murmured through below the arch, and listening to the melancholy bleating of the sheep on the hill above me, and to the low bark of the colleys, and the distant shout of the herds, as the last of the stragglers were got within the circular folds, far up on the moor. Again I would look towards the village, where scarce a light twinkled, except in Tam Clink the blacksmith's shop, where every now and then a primrose-coloured jet of flame puffed up, and flashed on the blacksmith's begrimed face and hairy chest, and naked arms, and on wee Pate Clink's bit dirty face and curly pow, as the callant worked at the bellows; but the fire suddenly gaed out, and the sparks flew from a red-hot bar in all directions, under the powerful stroke of the blacksmith himsell, until the hissing iron became of a dull red, and gradually disappeared from my eye altogether. Presently the strokes ceased--the groaning and asthmatic wheezing of the bellows subsided--and the noise of the man locking the door of his small shop showed that the last of the villagers had finished the labours of the day; and I had time to notice that snow was beginning to fall.

"I got home, and let myself in without disturbing my auld father, and slept soundly till daylight next morning.

"There was none of the villagers asteer when I got up. A sprinkling of snow, as already mentioned, had fallen during the night, which had been so calm, that the white veil which covered the dying face of nature was unsoiled and without a rent, over all the level country; and the road through the village was one unbroken sheet of the purest white, unpolluted as yet by a single footstep--what do I say? there was _one_ footprint there, the recollection of which is indelible from my brain, as the mark on Cain's forehead.