Chapter VIII (1)

"O thou, my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!"--BURNS.

The asylum in which my unfortunate friend was confined, at this time the only one in Edinburgh, was situated in an angle of the city wall. It was a dismal-looking mansion, shut in on every side, by the neighbouring houses, from the view of the surrounding country; and so effectually covered up from the nearer street, by a large building in front, that it seemed possible enough to pass a lifetime in Edinburgh without coming to the knowledge of its existence. I shuddered as I looked up to its blackened walls, thinly sprinkled with miserable-looking windows, barred with iron, and thought of it as a sort of burial-place of dead minds. But it was a Golgotha, which, with more than the horrors of the grave, had neither its rest nor its silence. I was startled, as I entered the cell of the hapless poet, by a shout of laughter from a neighbouring room, which was answered from a dark recess behind me, by a fearfully prolonged shriek, and the clanking of chains. The mother and sister of Ferguson were sitting beside his pallet, on a sort of stone settle which stood out from the wall; and the poet himself, weak and exhausted, and worn to a shadow, but apparently in his right mind, lay extended on the straw. He made an attempt to rise as I entered; but the effort was above his strength, and, again lying down, he extended his hand.

"This is kind, Mr. Lindsay," he said; "it is ill for me to be alone in these days; and yet I have few visitors, save my poor old mother and Margaret. But who cares for the unhappy?"

I sat down on the settle beside him, still retaining his hand. "I have been at sea, and in foreign countries," I said, "since I last saw you, Mr. Ferguson, and it was only this morning I returned; but believe me there are many, many of your countrymen who sympathize sincerely in your affliction, and take a warm interest in your recovery."

He sighed deeply. "Ah," he replied, "I know too well the nature of that sympathy. You never find it at the bedside of the sufferer--it evaporates in a few barren expressions of idle pity; and yet, after all, it is but a paying the poet in kind. He calls so often on the world to sympathize over fictitious misfortune, that the feeling wears out, and becomes a mere mood of the imagination; and, with this light, attenuated pity of his own weaving, it regards his own real sorrows. Dearest mother, the evening is damp and chill--do gather the bedclothes round me, and sit on my feet; they are so very cold and so dead, that they cannot be colder a week hence."

"O Robert, why do you speak so?" said the poor woman, as she gathered the clothes round him, and sat on his feet. "You know you are coming home to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" he said--"if I see to-morrow, I shall have completed my twenty-fourth year--a small part, surely, of the threescore and ten; but what matters it when 'tis past?"

"You were ever, my friend, of a melancholy temperament," I said, "and too little disposed to hope. Indulge in brighter views of the future, and all shall yet be well."

"I can now hope that it shall," he said. "Yes, all shall be well with me--and that very soon. But, oh, how this nature of ours shrinks from dissolution!--yes, and all the lower natures too. You remember, mother, the poor starling that was killed in the room beside us? Oh, how it struggled with its ruthless enemy, and filled the whole place with its shrieks of terror and agony. And yet, poor little thing! it had been true, all life long, to the laws of its nature, and had no sins to account for, and no judge to meet. There is a shrinking of heart as I look before me, and yet I can hope that all shall yet be well with me--and that very soon. Would that I had been wise in time! Would that I had thought more and earlier of the things which pertain to my eternal peace! more of a living soul, and less of a dying name! But, oh, 'tis a glorious provision, through which a way of return is opened up even at the eleventh hour!"

We sat round him in silence; an indescribable feeling of awe pervaded my whole mind, and his sister was affected to tears.

"Margaret," he said, in a feeble voice--"Margaret, you will find my Bible in yonder little recess; 'tis all I have to leave you; but keep it, dearest sister, and use it, and, in times of sorrow and suffering that come to all, you will know how to prize the legacy of your poor brother. Many, many books do well enough for life; but there is only one of any value when we come to die.

"You have been a voyager of late, Mr. Lindsay," he continued, "and I have been a voyager too. I have been journeying in darkness and discomfort, amid strange unearthly shapes of dread and horror, with no reason to direct and no will to govern. Oh, the unspeakable unhappiness of these wanderings!--these dreams of suspicion, and fear, and hatred, in which shadow and substance, the true and the false, were so wrought up and mingled together, that they formed but one fantastic and miserable whole. And, oh! the unutterable horror of every momentary return to a recollection of what I had been once, and a sense of what I had become! Oh, when I awoke amid the terrors of the night--when I turned me on the rustling straw, and heard the wild wail and yet wilder laugh--when I heard and shuddered, and then felt the demon in all his might coming over me, till I laughed and wailed with the others--oh the misery! the utter misery!--But 'tis over, my friend--'tis all over; a few, few tedious days, a few, few weary nights, and all my sufferings shall be over."

I had covered my face with my hands, but the tears came bursting through my fingers; the mother and sister of the poet sobbed aloud.

"Why sorrow for me, sirs?" he said; "why grieve for me? I am well, quite well, and want for nothing. But 'tis cold; oh, 'tis very cold, and the blood seems freezing at my heart. Ah, but there is neither pain nor cold where I am going, and I trust it shall be well with my soul. Dearest, dearest mother, I always told you it would come to this at last."

The keeper had entered to intimate to us that the hour for locking up the cells was already past, and we now rose to leave the place. I stretched out my hand to my unfortunate friend; he took it in silence, and his thin attenuated fingers felt cold within my grasp, like those of a corpse. His mother stooped down to embrace him.

"Oh, do not go yet, mother," he said--"do not go yet--do not leave me; but it must be so, and I only distress you. Pray for me, dearest mother, and, oh, forgive me; I have been a grief and a burden to you all life-long; but I ever loved you, mother; and, oh, you have been kind, kind and forgiving--and now your task is over. May God bless and reward you! Margaret, dearest Margaret, farewell!"

We parted, and, as it proved, for ever. Robert Ferguson expired during the night; and when the keeper entered the cell next morning, to prepare him for quitting the asylum, all that remained of this most hapless of the children of genius, was a pallid and wasted corpse, that lay stiffening on the straw. I am now a very old man, and the feelings wear out; but I find that my heart is even yet susceptible of emotion, and that the source of tears is not yet dried up.

THE DISASTERS OF JOHNNY ARMSTRONG.

Johnny Armstrong, the hero of our tale, was, and, for aught we know to the contrary, still is, an inhabitant of the town of Carlisle. He was a stout, thickset, little man, with a round, good-humoured, ruddy countenance, and somewhere about fifty years of age at the period to which our story refers. Although possessed of a good deal of natural shrewdness, Johnny was, on the whole, rather a simple sort of person. His character, in short, was that of an honest, well-meaning, inoffensive man, but with parts that certainly did not shine with a very dazzling lustre. Johnny was, to business, an ironmonger, and had, by patient industry and upright dealing, acquired a small independency. He had stuck to the counter of his little dingy shop for upwards of twenty years, and used to boast that, during all that time, he had opened and shut his shop with his own hands every day, not even excepting one. The result of this steadiness and attention to business was, as has been already said, a competency.

Fortunately for Johnny, this propensity to stick fast--which he did like a limpet--was natural to him. It was a part of his constitution. He had no desire whatever to travel, or, rather, he had a positive dislike to it--a dislike, indeed, which was so great that, for an entire quarter of a century, he had never been three miles out of Carlisle. But when Johnny had waxed pretty rich, somewhat corpulent, and rather oldish, he was suddenly struck, one fine summer afternoon, as he stood at the door of his shop with his hands in his breeches pockets, (a favourite attitude,) with an amiable and ardent desire to see certain of his relations who lived at Brechin, in the north of Scotland; and--there is no accounting for these things--on that afternoon Johnny came to the extraordinary resolution of paying them a visit--of performing a journey of upwards of a hundred miles, even as the crow flies. It was a strange and a desperate resolution for a man of Johnny's peculiar temperament and habits; but so it was. Travel he would, and travel he did. On the third day after the doughty determination just alluded to had been formed, Johnny, swathed in an ample brown greatcoat, with a red comforter about his neck, appeared in the stable yard of the inn where most of the stage coaches that passed through Carlisle put up. Of these there were three: one for Dumfries, one for Glasgow, and one for Edinburgh--the latter being Johnny's coach; for his route was by the metropolis. We had almost forgotten to say that Johnny, who was a widower, was accompanied on this occasion by his son, Johnny junior, an only child, whom it was his intention to take along with him. The boy was about fourteen years of age, and though, upon the whole, a shrewd enough lad for his time of life, did not promise to be a much brighter genius than his father. In fact he was rather lumpish.

On arriving at the inn yard--it was about eight o'clock at night, and pretty dark, being the latter end of September--Johnny Armstrong found the coach apparently about to start, the horses being all yoked; but the vehicle happened, at the moment he entered the yard, to be in charge of an ostler--not of either the guard or driver, who had both gone out of the way for an instant. Desirous of securing a good seat for his son, Johnny Armstrong opened the coach door, thrust the lad in, and was about to follow himself, when he discovered that he had forgotten his watch. On making this discovery, he banged too the coach door without saying a word, and hurried home as fast as his little, thick, short legs would allow him, to recover his time-piece. On his return, which was in less than five minutes, Johnny himself stepped into the vehicle, which was now crowded with passengers, and, in a few seconds, was rattling away at a rapid rate towards Edinburgh. The night was pitch dark, not a star twinkled; and it was not until Johnny arrived at his journey's end--that is, at Edinburgh--that he discovered his son was not in the coach, and had never been there at all. We will not attempt to describe Johnny's amazement and distress of mind on making this most extraordinary and most alarming discovery. They were dreadful. In great agitation, he inquired at every one of the passengers if they had not seen his son, and one and all denied they ever had. The thing was mysterious and perfectly inexplicable.

"I put the boy into the coach with my own hands," said Johnny Armstrong, in great perturbation, to the guard and half crying as he spoke.

"Very odd," said the guard.

"Very odd, indeed," said Johnny.

"Are you sure it was _our_ coach, Mr. Armstrong?" inquired the guard.

The emphasis on the word _our_ was startling. It evidently meant more than met the ear; and Johnny felt that it did so, and he was startled accordingly.

"_Your_ coach?" he replied, but now with some hesitation of manner. "It surely was. What other coach could it be?"

"Why, it may have been the Glasgow coach," said the guard; "and I rather think it _must_ have been. You have made a mistake, sir, be assured, and put the boy into the wrong coach. We start from the same place, and at the same hour, five minutes or so in or over."

The mention of this possibility, nay certainty--for Johnny had actually dispatched the boy to Glasgow--instantly struck him dumb. It relieved him, indeed, from the misery arising from a dread of some terrible accident having happened the lad, but threw him into great tribulation as to his fate in Glasgow, without money or friends. But this being, after all, comparatively but a small affair, Johnny was now, what he had not been before, able to pay attention to minor things.

"Be sae guid," said Johnny to the guard, who was on the top of the coach, busy unloosing packages, "as haun me doun my trunk."

"No trunk of yours here, sir," said the guard. "You'll have sent it away to Glasgow with the boy."

"No, no," replied Johnny, sadly perplexed by this new misfortune. "I sent it wi' the lass to the inn half an hour before I gaed mysel."

"Oh, then, in that case," said the guard, "ten to one it's away to Dumfries, and not to Glasgow."

And truly such was the fact. The girl, a fresh-caught country lass, had thrown it on the first coach she found, saying her master would immediately follow--and that happened to be the Dumfries one. Here, then, was Johnny safely arrived himself, indeed, at Edinburgh; but his son was gone to Glasgow, and his trunk to Dumfries--all with the greatest precision imaginable. Next day, Johnny Armstrong, being extremely uneasy about his boy, started for Glasgow on board of one of the canal passage boats; while the lad, being equally uneasy about his father, and, moreover, ill at ease on sundry other accounts, did precisely the same thing with the difference of direction--that is, he started for Edinburgh by a similar conveyance; and so well timed had each of their respective departures been, that, without knowing it, they passed each other exactly halfway between the two cities. On arriving at Glasgow, Johnny Armstrong could not, for a long while, discover any trace of his son; but at length succeeded in tracking him to the canal boat--which led him rightly to conclude that he had proceeded to Edinburgh. On coming to this conclusion, Johnny again started for the metropolis, where he safely arrived about two hours after his son had left it for home, whither, finding no trace of his father in Edinburgh, he had wisely directed his steps. Johnny Armstrong, now greatly distressed about the object of his paternal solicitude, whom he vainly sought up and down the city, at last also bent his way homewards, thinking, what was true, that the boy might have gone home; and there indeed he found him. Thus nearly a week had been spent, and that in almost constant travel, and Johnny found himself precisely at the point from which he had set out. However, in three days, after having, in the meantime, recovered his trunk, he again set out on his travels to Brechin; for his courage was not in the least abated by what had happened; but on this occasion unaccompanied by his son, as he would not again run the risk of losing him, or of exposing himself to that distress of mind on his account, of which he had been before a victim. In the case of Johnny's second progress, there was "no mistake" whatever, of any kind--at least at starting. Both himself and his trunk arrived in perfect safety, and in due time, at Edinburgh.

Johnny's next route was to steam it to Kirkaldy from Newhaven. The boat started at six a.m.; and, having informed himself of this particular, he determined to be at the point of embarkation in good time. But he was rather late, and, on finding this, he ran every foot of the way from Edinburgh to the steam-boat, and was in a dreadful state of exhaustion when he reached it; but, by his exertions, he saved his distance, thereby exhibiting another proof that all is not lost that's in danger. An instant longer, however, and he would have been too late, for the vessel was just on the eve of starting. Johnny leapt on board, or rather was bundled on board; for Johnny, as already hinted, was in what is called good bodily condition--rather extra, indeed--and was, moreover, waxing a little stiff about the joints; so that he could not get over the side of the boat so cleverly as he would have done some twenty years before. Over and above all this, he was quite exhausted with the race against time which he had just run. Seeing his distressed condition, and that the boat was on the point of sailing, two of the hands leapt on the pier, when the one seizing him by the waistband of the breeches, and the other by the breast, they fairly pitched him into the vessel, throwing his trunk after him. As it was pouring rain, Johnny, on recovering his perpendicular, immediately descended into the cabin, and, in the next instant, the boat was ploughing her way through the deep. For two hours after he had embarked, it continued to rain without intermission; and for these two hours he remained snug below without stirring. At the end of this period, however, it cleared up a little, and, in a short while thereafter, became perfectly fair. Having discovered this he ascended to the deck, to see what was going on. The captain of the vessel was himself at the helm; he, therefore, sidled towards him, and, after making some remarks on the weather and the scenery, asked the captain, in the blandest and civilest tones imaginable, when he expected they would be at Kirkaldy. The man stared at Johnny with a look of astonishment, not unmingled with displeasure; but at length said--

"Kirkaldy, sir! What do you mean by asking me that question? I don't know when _you_ expect to be at Kirkaldy, but _I_ don't expect to be there for a twelvemonth at least."

"No!--od, that's queer!" quoth Johnny, amazed in his turn; but thinking, after a moment, that the captain meant to be facetious, he merely added--"I wad think, captain, that we wad be there much about the same time."

"Ay, ay, may be; but, I say, none of your gammon, friend," said the latter, gruffly, and now getting really angry at what he conceived to be some attempt to play upon him, though he could not see the drift of the joke. "Mind your own business, friend, and I'll mind mine."

This he said with an air that conveyed very plainly a hint that Johnny should take himself off, which, without saying any more, he accordingly did. Much perplexed by the captain's conduct, he now sauntered towards the fore part of the vessel, where he caught the engineer just as he was about to descend into the engine-room. Johnny tapped him gently on the shoulder, and the man, wiping his dripping face with a handful of tow, looked up to him, while Johnny, afraid to put the question, but anxious to know when he really would be at Kirkaldy, lowered himself down, by placing his hands on his knees, so as to bring his face on a level with the person he was addressing, and, in the mildest accents, and with a countenance beaming with gentleness, he popped the question in a low, soft whisper, as if to deprecate the man's wrath. On the fatal inquiry being made at him, the engineer, as the captain had done before him, stared at Johnny Armstrong, in amazement, for a second or two, then burst into a hoarse laugh, and, without vouchsafing any other reply, plunged down into his den.

"What in a' the earth can be the meanin' o' this?" quoth Johnny to himself, now ten times more perplexed than ever. "What can there be in my simple, natural, and reasonable question, to astonish folk sae muckle?"

This was an inquiry which Johnny might put to himself, but it was one which he could by no means answer. Being, however, an easy, good-natured man, and seeing how much offence in one instance, and subject for mirth in another, he had unwittingly given, by putting it, he resolved to make no further inquiries into the matter, but to await in patience the arrival of the boat at her destination--an event which he had the sense to perceive would be neither forwarded nor retarded by his obtaining or being refused the information he had desired to be possessed of. The boat arrived in due time at the wished-for haven, and Johnny landed with the other passengers; the captain giving him a wipe, as he stepped on the plank that was to convey him ashore, about his Kirkaldy inquiries, by asking him, though now in perfect good humour, if he knew the precise length of that celebrated town; but Johnny merely smiled and passed on.

On landing, Johnny Armstrong proceeded to what had the appearance of, and really was, a respectable inn. Here, as it was now pretty far in the day, he had some dinner, and afterwards treated himself to a tumbler of toddy and a peep at the papers. While thus comfortably enjoying himself, the waiter having chanced to pop into the room, Johnny raised his eye from the paper he was reading, and, looking the lad in the face--

"Can ye tell me, friend," he said, "when the coach for Dundee starts?"

"There's no coach at all from this to Dundee, sir," replied the waiter.

"No!" said Johnny, a little nonplused by this information. "That's odd." The waiter saw nothing odd in it.

"I was told," continued Johnny, "that there were twa or three coaches daily from this to Dundee."

"Oh, no, sir," said the lad, coolly, "you have been misinformed; but if you wish to go to Dundee, sir," he added--desirous of being as obliging as possible--"your best way is to go by steam from this to Newhaven, and from that cross over to Kirkaldy!!!"

At this fatal word, which seemed doomed to work Johnny much wo, the glass which he was about to raise to his lips fell on the floor, and went into a thousand pieces.

"Kirkaldy, laddie!" exclaimed Johnny Armstrong, with an expression of consternation in his face which it would require Cruikshank's art and skill to do justice to--"Gude hae a care o' me, is _this_ no Kirkaldy?"

"Kirkaldy, sir!" replied the waiter, no less amazed than Johnny, though in his case it was at the absurdity of the inquiry--"oh, no, sir," with a smile--"this is Alloa!!!"

Alloa it was, to be sure; for Johnny had taken the wrong boat, and that was all. On embarking, he had made no inquiries at those belonging to the vessel, and, of course, those in the vessel had put none to him--and this was the result. He was comfortably planted at Alloa, instead of Kirkaldy, which all our readers know lies in a very different direction; and this denouement also explains the captain's displeasure with his passenger, and the engineer's mirth. At the moment this extraordinary _eclaircissement_ took place between Johnny Armstrong and the waiter of the King's Arms, there happened to be a ship captain in the room--for it was the public one; and this person, who was a good-natured fellow, at once amused by, and pitying Johnny's dilemma, turned towards him, and inquired if it was his intention to go any further than Dundee.

Johnny said that it was--he intended going to Brechin.

"Oh, in that case," said the captain, "you had better just go with me. In an hour after this I sail for Montrose, which is within eight miles of Brechin, and I'll be very glad to give you a cast so far, and we shan't differ about the terms. Fine, smart little vessel mine, and, with a spanking breeze from the west or sou'-west, which we'll very likely catch about Queensferry, I'll land you in a jiffey within a trifle of your journey's end--a devilish sight cleverer, I warrant you, than your round-about way of steaming and coaching it, and at half the money too."

Johnny Armstrong was all gratitude for this very opportune piece of kindness, and gladly closed with the offer--the captain and he taking a couple of additional tumblers each, on the head of it, to begin with. We say to begin with; for it by no means ended with the quantity named. The captain was a jolly dog, and loved his liquor, and was, withal, so facetious a companion, that he prevailed on his new friend to swallow a great deal more than did him any good. To tell a truth, which, however, we would not have known at Carlisle, Johnny Armstrong, who had the character of a sober man, got, on this occasion, into a rather discreditable condition, and, in this state, he was escorted by the captain--who stood liquor like a water-cask--to the vessel, and was once more embarked; but it was now on board the _Fifteen Sisters_ of Skatehaven. On getting him on board, the captain, seeing the state he was in, prudently bundled him down into the cabin, and thrust him into his own bed, where he immediately fell into a profound sleep that extended over twelve mortal hours. At the end of this period, however, Johnny awoke; but it was not by any means of his own accord, for he was awakened by a variety of stimulants, or _rousers_, if we may be allowed to coin a word for the occasion, all operating at once. These were, a tremendous uproar on the deck, a fearful rolling of the vessel, the roaring of wind, and the splashing, dashing, and gurling of waves; and, to crown all, a feeling of deadly sickness. When he first opened his eyes, he could not conceive where he was, or what was the meaning of the furious motion that he felt, and of the tremendous sounds that he heard. A few minutes' cogitation with himself, however, solved the mystery, and exposed to him his true position. In great alarm--for he thought the vessel was on the eve of going down--Johnny Armstrong rolled himself out of his bed, and crawled in his shirt up the cabin ladder. On gaining the summit, he found himself confronted by the captain, who, with a very serious face, was standing by the helm.

"Are--are--are--we--near--Mon--trose, captain?" inquired Johnny, in a voice rendered so feeble by sickness and terror, that it was impossible to hear him a yard off, amidst the roaring of the winds and waves; for we suppose we need not more explicitly state, that he was in the midst of a storm, and as pretty a one it was as the most devoted admirer of the picturesque could desire to see.

"What?" roared the captain, in a voice of thunder, at the same time stooping down to catch his feeble interrogatory. Johnny repeated it; but, ere he could obtain an answer, a raking wave, which came in at the stern, took him full on the breast as he stood on the companion ladder, with his bust just above the level of the deck, sent him down, heels over head, into the cabin, and, in a twinkling, buried him in a foot and a half of water on the floor, where he lay for some time at full length, sprawling and floundering amidst the wreck which the sudden and violent influx of water had occasioned. On recovering from the stunning effects of his descent--for he had, amongst other small matters, received a violent contusion on the head--Johnny for an instant imagined that he had somehow or other got to the bottom of the sea. Finding, however, at length, that this was not precisely the case, he arose, though dripping with wet, yet not very like a sea god, and having denuded himself of his only garment, his shirt, crawled into his bed, where he now determined to await quietly and patiently the fate that might be intended for him; and this fate, he had no doubt, was suffocation by drowning.

"Very extraordinar this," said Johnny Armstrong to himself, as he lay musing in bed on the perilous situation into which he had so simply and innocently got--"very extraordinar, that I couldna get the length o' Brechin without a' this uproar, and confusion, and difficulty, and danger; this knocking about frae place to place, half drooned and half murdered. Here have I been now for mair than a week at it, and it's my opinion I'm no twenty mile nearer't yet than I was, for a' this kick up. Dear me," he went on soliloquizing, "I'm sure Brechin's no sic an out o' the way place. The road's straught, and the distance no great. Then, how, in the name o' wonder, is it that I canna mak' it out like ither folk, let me do as I like?"

Thus cogitated Johnny Armstrong as he lay on his bed of sickness, sorrow, and danger. But his cogitations could in no way mend the matter, nor, though they could, was he long permitted to indulge in them; for that mortal sickness under which he had been before suffering, but which the little incident of the visit from the wave, with its consequences, had temporarily banished, again returned with tenfold vigour, making him regardless of all sublunary things--even of life itself. In this state of supineness and suffering did Johnny lie for three entire days and nights--for so long did the storm continue with unabated fury--the vessel having, for some four-and-twenty hours previously, been quite unmanageable, and driving at the mercy of the winds and waves. A dreadful crash, however, at length announced that some horrible crisis was at hand. The vessel had struck, and, in a few seconds more, she was in a thousand pieces, and her unfortunate crew, including Johnny Armstrong, were struggling in the waves. From this instant he lost all consciousness; and, when he again awoke to life, he found himself lying on the sea-beach; but how he had come there he never could tell, nor could he at all conjecture by what accident his life had been saved, when all the rest in the ill-fated vessel had perished; for Johnny was indeed the only person that had escaped. On coming to himself he started to his feet, and gazed around him, with a bewildered look, to see if any object would present itself that might help him to guess where he was. But his survey affording him no such aid to recognition, he began to move inland, in the hope of meeting with somebody who could give him the information desired; and in this he was not disappointed, that is, he did meet somebody; but the appearance of that somebody surprised Johnny "pretty considerably." He had a high-crowned hat on, such as Johnny had never seen in his life before; an enormous pair of breeches; and a pipe a yard long in his mouth. His _tout ensemble_, in short, was exceeding strange in Johnny Armstrong's eyes. Nevertheless, he accosted him.

"Can ye tell me, freen, how far I may be frae Brechin?" he inquired.

The stranger shook his head, but made no reply.

"I'm sayin', freen," repeated Johnny, in a louder tone, thinking that his friend, as he called him, might possibly be dull of hearing, "can ye tell me if I'm onything near Brechin?"

The stranger again shook his head, but still said nothing. Johnny was confounded. At length, however, after puffing away for some seconds with a suddenly-increased energy, he slowly withdrew his pipe from his mouth, and delivered himself of what sounded to Johnny's ears very much like this, spoken with great rapidity.

"Futra butara rap a ruara dutera muttera purra murra footra den, Preekin, humph."

Of this Johnny of course could make nothing, no more than the reader can, further than recognising in the word "Preekin" a resemblance to the name of the town he so anxiously inquired after; and he was sorely perplexed thereat. Neither could he at all comprehend what sort of a being he had fallen in with.

"I dinna understan' a word o' what ye say, freen," at length said Johnny, staring hard at the stranger with open mouth.

"Umph!" said the latter; and he again withdrew his pipe from his mouth, and again sent a volley of his "dutera mutteras" about Johnny's ears, to precisely the same purpose as before.

Finding that it was of no use making any further attempt at conversation, Johnny passed on, not doubting that he had met either with a _dummy_ or a madman. But what was Johnny's amazement when, shortly afterwards, meeting a woman, whose dress, in its own way, was equally odd and strange with that of the person he had just left, he was answered (that is, to his queries again about Brechin), in the same gibberish in which the former had responded to him.

"What can be the meanin' o' this?" said Johnny to himself, in great perplexity of mind, as he jogged on, after leaving the lady in the same unsatisfactory way as he had left the gentleman. "Whar in a' the earth can I hae gotten to, that naebody I meet wi' can understan' a word o' plain English, or can speak themsels onything like an intelligible language?"

He now began to think that he had probably got into the Highlands; but, although this supposition might account for the strangeness of the language he had heard, it would not, he perceived, tally very well with the enormous breeches which the gentleman he had met with wore, and which he had seen from a distance others wearing, knowing, as he did very well, that the national dress of the Highlanders was the kilt, of which the trousers in question were the very antipodes. There was another circumstance, too, that appeared to Johnny at variance with his first conjecture, namely, that he might have got into the Highlands. Where he was there were no high lands, not an eminence the height of a mole-hill. On the contrary, the whole country, as far as his eye could reach, seemed one vast plain. Though greatly puzzled by these reflections, Johnny jogged on, and his progress at length brought him to a respectable-looking farm-house.

"'Od," said Johnny, "I'll surely get a mouthfu' o' sense frae somebody here, an' fin' out whar I am."

In this Johnny certainly did succeed; but not much to his comfort, as the sequel will show. The first person he addressed, on approaching the house, was a little girl, who, when he spoke, stared at him in the greatest amazement, then rushed screaming into the house. This proceeding brought out several young men and women, to whom Johnny now addressed himself; but the only answer he obtained was a stare of astonishment similar to the child's, and then a general burst of laughter. At length one of the girls went into the house and brought out a jolly-looking elderly man, who, from certain parts of his dress, seemed to be in the seafaring way.

"Vell, mine freend, vat you vant?" said this person, who spoke broken English--"vere you come from?"

"I cam last frae Alloa," said Johnny, "and I want to ken, sir, if I'm onything near to Brechin?"

"Preekin! Vere dat?"

"'Od, I thocht everbody in Scotland kent that," said Johnny, smiling.

"Ah! maybe Scotlan', mine freend, but no Hollands," replied he of the broken English.

"I dinna ken whether they ken't it in Holland or no," said Johnny, "that's a country I'm no in the least acquaint wi'; but I'm sure it's weel aneuch kent in Scotland."

"Ah! maybe Scotlan', but no Hollands, my freend," repeated the man, smiling in his turn; "but you vas in Hollands."

"Never in my life," said Johnny, earnestly.

"No, no," replied the man, impatiently, "you vas no in Hollands--but you vas in Hollands."

Johnny could make nothing of this; but it was soon cleared up by the person adding, "You vas in Hollands _now_--dis moment."

We will not even attempt to describe Johnny's amazement, horror, and consternation, on this announcement being made to him, for we feel how vain it would be, and how far short any idea we could convey would be of the reality.

"Holland!" said Johnny. "Heaven hae a care o' me! Ye surely dinna mean to say that I'm in Holland the noo?"

"To be sure I vas," said the Dutchman, smiling at Johnny's ludicrous perturbation. "Mine Got, did you not know you vas in Hollands? Vere you come from, in all de vorlds, you not know dat?"

"I tell't ye already," replied Johnny, with a most rueful countenance, "that I cam last frae Alloa. But ye're surely no in earnest, freen," he added, in a desperate hope that it might, after all, be but a joke, "when ye say that I'm in Holland?"

"Ah! sure earneest--no doubt--true," said the Dutchman, now laughing outright at Johnny's perplexity.

As in the former case, we presume we need not be more explicit in saying that Johnny had actually been wrecked on the coast of Holland.

"Weel, weel," said the Brechin voyager, with an air expressive of more calmness and resignation than might have been expected, "this does cowe the gowan! How, in Heaven's name, am I ever to fin' my way hame again? Little did I think I was ever to be landed this way amang savages."

Johnny Armstrong, it will be here observed, could have been no great reader--otherwise, he never would have applied the term savages to so decent, industrious, and civilized a people as the Dutch. The Dutchman, who was a kind, good-natured fellow--taking no offence whatever at Johnny's unbecoming expression, because probably he did not understand it, and compassionating his situation--now invited him into the house, where Johnny, having succeeded in conveying to the whole household, through the medium of the speaker of broken English, the story of his misfortunes, was treated with much hospitality. With these kind people Johnny Armstrong remained for about a week--for they would not allow him to go sooner--when, having entirely recovered from the effects of his sea voyage and shipwreck, he proceeded to Rotterdam; being accompanied and assisted in all his movements by his benevolent host, Dunder Vander Dunder, of Slootzsloykin. On arriving at Rotterdam, a passage was engaged for Johnny on board one of the Leith packets, or regular traders, in which he was next day snugly deposited; and, in an hour after, he was again braving the dangers of the ocean. For some time all went on well on this occasion with him, and he was beginning to feel comfortable, and even happy, from the prospect of being soon again in his native land, and from the superior accommodations of the vessel in which he was embarked--far surpassing, as they did, those of the unfortunate _Sisters_ of Skatehaven. His present ship was, in truth, a remarkably fine one, and altogether seemed well adapted for encountering the elements. The weather, too, was moderate, and the wind fair; so that a quick and pleasant passage was confidently anticipated by all on board, including Johnny Armstrong. All these agreeable circumstances combined, made him feel extremely comfortable and happy; and, in the exuberance of his feelings, and from the exciting sense of having at length triumphed over his misfortunes--it might almost be said his fate--Johnny even began to joke and laugh with those whom he found willing to joke and laugh with him. It was while in this happy frame of mind, and as he stood luxuriously leaning over the bulwark of the vessel, that the captain suddenly espied a little, smart, cutter-looking craft, sailing exactly in the same course with themselves, and evidently endeavouring to make up with them.

"What can the folk be wantin'?" quoth Johnny Armstrong, taking an interest in the approaching barge. His question was one which nobody could answer. In the meantime, the little vessel, moving with great velocity, was fast nearing them, when the captain, now convinced that those in her desired to have some communication with him, arrested his own vessel's way, and awaited their coming. In a very few minutes, the little cutter was alongside, and two men leapt from her to the deck of the packet, when one of them, approaching the captain, told him that they were messengers, that they had a warrant against John Jones, a native of Britain, for debt, and that they had reason to believe he was in the vessel. The captain said he did not believe he had any such passenger on board, but informed them that they were perfectly at liberty to search the ship. During this conversation, the other officer kept his eye fixed on Johnny Armstrong, and when rejoined by his comrade, seemed to inform him--for their language was not understood--that there was something about that person well worthy of his attention. They now both looked at Johnny, and appeared both convinced that he was a fit subject for further inquiry. Accordingly one of them addressed him:--

"Your name vas John Jones, mynheer?"

"No, sir," said Johnny; "my name's John Armstrong."

"Ah, a small shange--dat is all. You vas John, and he vas John, and you be both John togidder; so, you must come to de shore wid us."

"Catch me there, lads," quoth Johnny. "The deil a shore I'll gang to, please Providence, but Leith shore. Na, na; I've had aneuch o' this wark, and I'm determined to bring't till an' end noo."

"Donner and blitzen!" shouted out one of the men, passionately, "but you must go!"--at the same time seizing Johnny by the collar, and drawing a pistol from his bosom.

In utter amazement at this extraordinary treatment, Johnny Armstrong imploringly called on the captain and the other passengers for protection; but, as none of them were in the least acquainted with him, and therefore did not know whether he was John Jones or not, they all declined interfering--the captain saying that it would be more than his ship and situation were worth to aid any one in resisting the laws of the country--that he could not, dare not do it. His appeals, therefore, to those around him being vain, he was eventually bundled into the cutter and conveyed on shore, placed in a temporary place of confinement for the night, and next day carried before a magistrate to be identified. To effect this, several witnesses were called, when one and all of them, after examining Johnny pretty narrowly, pronounced, to the great disappointment of the officers who had apprehended him, that he was _not_ the man! They, however, asserted that the resemblance between the real and supposed John Jones was very remarkable. On the discovery being made that the prisoner was not Jones, the magistrate apologized to Johnny in the most polite terms for the trouble he had been put to, and expressed great regret for the mistake of the officers; but said that, as the witnesses had stated there was a strong resemblance--an unfortunate one, he must call it--between him and the real defaulter, and seeing, moreover, that they were both natives of Britain, the officers were perfectly justified in doing what they had done, however much the hardship of the case might be matter of regret. The magistrate having thus delivered himself, Johnny Armstrong was dismissed with great civility, and wished, by all present, safe home to his own country--a wish in which he most heartily concurred, but which seemed to him more easily entertained than gratified. On regaining his liberty, the first thing he did was to endeavour to find out when the next ship sailed for Scotland; he having, of course, lost that in which he had first embarked, and, to his great consternation and dismay, learned that there would be no vessel for a fortnight. This was sad intelligence to Johnny; for, to add to his other distresses, his funds were now waxing low, and he felt that it would require the utmost economy to enable him to spin out the time and leave sufficient to pay his passage to his native land. This economy he could very easily have practised at home, for he had a natural tendency that way; but he did not know how to set about it in a foreign country. His unhappiness and anxiety, therefore, on this point were very great. In this dilemma, he bethought him of again seeking out and quartering on his friend Vander Dunder, of Slootzsloykin, till the vessel should sail; but not having, of course, a word of Dutch, he could make no inquiries on the subject of his route, or indeed of anything regarding his friend at all. This idea, therefore, he ultimately abandoned, principally through a fear that he should, by some mistake, be despatched upon a wrong scent, a species of disaster to which he was now so sensitively alive, that he would neither turn to the right nor to the left without having made himself perfectly sure that he was about to take the right course; and, as to conveyances of all kinds, of which he now entertained an especial suspicion, he had prudently determined that he would know every particular about them and their destinations before he would put a foot in one of them, for he had found, from dear-bought experience, that if he did not take this precaution, the chance was that he would never reach the place he desired to get at, and might be whisked away to some unknown country, where he would never more be heard of.

Under this wholesome terror, Johnny made no attempt to find out his friend Vander Dunder; but chance effected, in part at least, what his limited knowledge of Dutch put it out of his power, with set purpose, to accomplish. On turning the corner of a street, who should he have the good fortune to meet with but Vander Dunder. The astonishment of the good Dutchman on seeing Johnny was great, so great, indeed, as to overcome the natural phlegm of his constitution. Holding up his hands in amazement--

"Mine Got, my freend! are you shipwrack agen?" he exclaimed.

"No, no," quoth Johnny--"bad aneuch, but no just sae bad as that." And he proceeded to inform his friend of the real state of the case.

The good-natured Dutchman was shocked at the recital, and felt ten times more than ever for Johnny's unhappy situation and complicated misfortunes. When he had concluded his affecting story--

"I tell you what you do, mine goot freend," said Vander Dunder--"you go vith me to Slootzsloykin, and you remain vith me dere till your ship sail. You do dat, mine goot freend."

"Wi' a' my heart," said Johnny, "and muckle obleeged to ye for yer kindness."

"No, no--no obleege at all," replied the kind-hearted Dutchman, impatiently. "Yo do the same to me in your coontry if I was shipwrack and in misfortune, and put to trooble for an innocent thief."

"Aweel, maybe I wad; but, nevertheless, its kind o' you to offer me the shelter o' yer roof," replied Johnny.

Dunder Vander Dunder now took his friend into a tavern, and treated him to a glass of schnaps. Shortly thereafter the two embarked in a canal boat for Slootzsloykin, where they finally arrived in safety. Here Johnny met with the same kind treatment as before; and of that kindness there was no abatement during the whole fortnight of his sojourn. At the end of this period, Johnny Armstrong once more set out for Rotterdam, on the day previous to the sailing of the vessel in which he now hoped to reach his native land, without further molestation or interruption. And, certainly, everything had the appearance of going right on this occasion. The vessel, with Johnny on board, sailed at the appointed time, and, before embarking, he had read distinctly on the ticket--a large black board, with yellow letters, which was fastened to the shrouds--that she was bound for Leith, and was the identical vessel he had had in his eye. So far as this went, there could be no mistake whatever. There was, indeed, one little circumstance that startled Johnny, but which he had not discovered till the vessel had been some time at sea. This was, that all the crew were Dutchmen, there not being a Scotchman amongst them. The circumstance did not, indeed, greatly alarm Johnny, but he certainly did think it a little odd; for he naturally expected that, as she was a Leith vessel, her crew would be, for the most part, at any rate, natives of Britain. However, he made no remarks on the subject, thinking it, as it really was, a matter of perfect indifference whether they were Scotchmen or Dutchmen. There were two or three passengers in the vessel besides himself; but they were all foreigners too, so that he could hold no converse with any of them; and thus debarred from intercourse with his fellow voyagers, he sat by himself, gazing from the deck of the vessel on the waste of waters with which he was surrounded, and musing on the strange series of mishaps of which he had so simply and innocently become the victim. It was while thus employed--the vessel having been now a good many hours at sea, and at the moment scudding away before a fine fresh breeze--that the captain approached Johnny, and in very polite and civil terms, demanded his passage money. As he spoke in Dutch, however, the latter did not understand him. The captain observing this, and now guessing what countryman he was, addressed him in very good English, and in that language repeated his demand. With this demand, Johnny instantly complied; and, finding that he was a civil, good-natured fellow, began to open up a little conversation with him. His first remark was, that he hoped they would have good weather. The captain hoped so too. His second remark was, that they had a fine breeze. The captain agreed with him--said it was a delightful breeze--and added that, if it continued to blow as it then blew for four-and-twenty hours, he expected they would be all safe at _Rouen_!

"At whar?" shouted out Johnny, looking aghast at the speaker.

"At Rouen, to be sure," repeated the captain, wondering at Johnny's amazement.

"Gude's mercy!" exclaimed Johnny, with dreadful energy, "are ye no gaun to Leith?--is this no a Leith boat?"

"Oh, no," said the captain smiling; "this is the Rouen packet. Were ye not aware of that, sir? You have got into a sad scrape, my friend, if you were not," he added, and now laughing outright at the dismal expression of Johnny's countenance.

"Heaven hae a care o' me!" said Johnny despairingly. "Did I no read distinctly on the ticket that was fastened to yer shroods, that ye were bound for Leith?"

"Yes, yes," replied the captain, "you may have seen such a ticket as you speak of, and there was certainly such a ticket on our shrouds as you say, but it did not refer to this ship, but to the vessel outside of us. We allowed the board to be exhibited on our shrouds merely to accommodate our neighbour, as it could not be read from his--he being on the outside, and we next the quay. That, my friend, is a piece of civility very commonly practised at seaports by one vessel to another, when similarly situated as we and they were. You will see it at all quays and wharfs."

Johnny Armstrong groaned, but said nothing. At length, however, he muttered, in a tone of Christian-like resignation--

"The Lord's will be dune! I see it's settled that I am never to get hame again; but to be keepit gaun frae place to place ower the face o' the earth, like anither wanderin' Jew. Gude hae a care o' me, but this is awfu'! Its judgment like."