Chapter III: Part 3

The mother was silent, and lifted up her eyes in an attitude of prayer to Heaven. The nervous symptoms still clung to the daughter, and shiverings and spasms succeeded each other, till she grew so weak that she was unable to undress herself to retire to bed. The office was performed by the kindly hands of the parent, who, still overcome by the workings of fearful anticipations, sat down by the fire, and, fixing her eyes on the red embers, seemed for a time lost in the meditations of a heart that, filled with the spirit of God, felt that, as Esdras sayeth, "life is astonishment and fear," and that we cannot comprehend the things that are promised to the righteous in this world, nor those that are given to the wicked to destroy the happiness of the good.

The night was passed in anxiety and fearful forebodings; and the beam of the morning was dreaded by the daughter, as if it were the blaze of evidence that was to bring to light some crime she had committed. She was unable to rise; the small domestic duties of the morning were performed by the mother, pensively, and under the burden of the prospect of coming ill. About ten o'clock, a slight knock was heard at the door; Euphan cried, in a weak voice, "Come in." She heard a whispering and rustling of clothes, as if the visitors were deciding, by expostulations and pushings, which of them should enter first. At last two neighbours, who had been known to be active in circulation of reports against the daughter, made their appearance. On the usual salutation, expressed, as Euphan thought, in a strange voice, and accompanied by stranger looks--

"Is Menie ill the day?" said one of them, as she cast her eye obliquely upon the bed. "Has she nae doctor, puir thing?"

"I haena seen her for mony weeks," said the other. "Why do ye conceal her illness, Euphan, woman? The lassie may dee, when a helpin hand micht save her."

"Yet I hae heard that she was seen on the road to Canonmills last nicht in the darkenin," rejoined the first, with an oblique glance at the other.

The words reached Menie in the bed, and the clothes shook above her.

"God be praised, my bairn is weel!" said Euphan, who understood the import of their speech; "but, though 'affliction cometh not forth from the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground,' yet are we all born unto grief. We hae our ain sorrows, and never pry into those o' our neighbours."

The conversation continued for some time, and the women departed, leaving the inmates to the certainty that the village had got hold of the dreaded topic of calumny against the miserable victim of prejudice. The shock had not expended its strength upon their already racked nerves, when the door was opened by a rude hand, and two men entered, dressed in the garb of officers of the Sheriff Court. An involuntary scream was uttered by Menie, as her eyes met the uniform of red facings of the harsh-looking men. Euphan was silent; but her eyes were filled with the eloquence of fear.

"Is your daughter at home, good woman?" said one of the men, while he cast his eye on the bed from which the weak scream issued.

"Ay," answered the mother. "What is your pleasure wi' her or wi' me?"

"Where is she?" added the same person.

"There," answered the mother. "She is weakly this morning, and hasna yet risen."

"No doubt--no doubt," said the man. "She cannot be weel. I understand she has been confined to the house for six weeks, with the exception of some night wanderings; but she must this day face the light of the sun. We have a warrant of apprehension against her, proceeding on a charge of child-murder. She must up and dress, sick or well, and go with us. The body of the child lies in the sheriff's office; and it is right that the mother should be there also."

The words, which had an ironical virulence in them, unbecoming the station of the man, wrung a wail from the accused maiden, which, muffled by the bedclothes she had wrapped round her head, sounded like the waning voice of the departing spirit; and the mother, overcome by the accumulation of ills crowned by this consummation, flung herself at the feet of the speaker, and grasped his legs with her fleshless arm.

"God hath spoken once; but I have heard it many times that power belongeth unto him, and not to those wha whet their tongues like swords, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows at the innocent. My dochter is as guiltless o' this crime as the babe she is accused o' murderin. Let her remain, if ye hae in ye the heart that travaileth with pity, and I will awa to them that sent ye, and satisfy them, as never suspicion was satisfied, that Menie Dempster is nae mair capable o' committin this crime against God and his laws, than is she wha is sanctified by the holiest spirit that ever warmed the breast or filled with tears the een o' the mercifu. Grant me this ae request, and it will be a' that Euphan Dempster may ever ask o' man."

"We cannot," replied the officer; "all we can do is to retire for a moment, till your daughter dress herself; but we cannot wait long--so, quick--quick."

And the two men retired to the door, where their appearance had already collected a crowd of curious inquirers. The behests of necessity overcome the strongest feelings of mortals, and even impart to weakness a morbid strength. The unhappy maiden rose, and put on her clothes in the midst of the outpourings of her mother's religious inspirations; but her sobs and suppressed wailings bore evidence to a sorrow that would not be comforted, even by the assurances of the mercy that endureth for ever. The men again entered; and Menie, accompanied by her mother, was led away to the hall of the Sheriff's Court, to undergo an examination, which, of itself, might operate as their utter ruin in this world.

They arrived at the court-room about eleven o'clock. An examination of witnesses had already been begun. As they entered the door of the room where they were to be placed, Menie saw passing through the lobby several neighbours; and between two men, in the act of taking him to be examined, she observed George Wallace, whose eyes seemed red and inflamed, and who exhibited a strong reluctance to proceed forward, requiring the efforts of the men to drag him before the examinator. The whole scene seemed nothing but a dream; and the trifling circumstance from which it originated invested it with a character strange and unnatural. It was nearly four o'clock before Menie was called in to be examined. When led before the judge, she looked wildly around her. A chair was set for her, and she sat down. The usual questions as to her name, and other matters, were put, and the more important part of the examination proceeded. She was asked whether she had at one time been on terms of intimacy with Michael M'Intyre, the city guardsman; whether she had not been in his society among the trees of Inverleith, on a night mentioned; whether she had not been courted by George Wallace of Inverleith Mains; whether she had not been renounced by him; whether the reason of such renouncement was not her prior intimacy with M'Intyre; whether she had not been confined to the house for a considerable period, and what was the reason of such confinement; whether she had not deposited a basket containing the dead child near the hedgerow in the loan leading to Canonmills; and whether she was not the mother of the child. Every question was answered according to her simple ideas of innocence and truth; but when she came to state that she found the basket on the road, carried it home without looking at it, and then replaced it in the situation in which she found it, and all this without being able properly to account for so unlikely and extraordinary a proceeding, the sheriff, prejudiced as he was against her, from her previous admission that she had been seen in the society of M'Intyre, a man of dissolute habits--that Wallace had not visited her for many weeks, in consequence, as she supposed, of that circumstance--and that she had not been in the habit of going out for a considerable period--viewed her statement as false, and entertained the strongest suspicions of her being guilty of the crime laid to her charge. She was accordingly committed to prison until further evidence might be procured, to throw more light on the mysterious transaction.

In the meantime, the circumstances of the case being of that inexplicable kind that stirs the curiosity of a prying public, the results of the precognition got abroad, and it was ascertained that a considerable part of the information afforded to the sheriff had been procured from Elspeth Grierson, the mother of Margaret Grierson, and from one of the men who had seen Menie in the arms of the city guardsman. The manner in which Wallace became implicated as an unwilling witness against his betrothed, was also a curious feature in the case. He had not been absent in the south so long as it had been represented, but had concealed his arrival at home with a view to watch the motions of her whom he yet loved, in spite of the suspicions he entertained against her; and having, on that eventful evening, seen Menie hurrying along with a basket in her hand, he had followed her, and seen her deposit the charge in the manner already mentioned. At the very moment when he was in the act of examining it, Elspeth Grierson came up, as if she had been returning from Canonmills, and helped him to undo the cloth in which the dead body of the child was wrapped; and thus was he painfully committed as a witness of what he had seen. The authorities soon after got intelligence of the circumstance; the child was taken to the office, and a great number of witnesses, chiefly pointed out by Elspeth Grierson (among the rest, George Wallace), were examined, previous to the interrogation of the supposed culprit herself.

The unhappy situation of the girl, and the apparently conflicting testimony of the witnesses, roused a sympathetic interest in many of her acquaintances, who, having set on foot a system of inquiry, induced or persuaded the fiscal to seek for the truth, rather than for an unilateral array of inculpative testimony. It was impossible, even on the part of the authorities, to deny the force of the facts, that Menie had been often seen by the neighbours during their visits, though she had kept the house in the day-time, in consequence of the shame produced by the reports circulated against her; that she had been on a visit to Canonmills on that evening when the child was exposed; that the rumours against her (with the exception of the facts attending the depositing of the corb) proceeded mainly from one source, which was a poisoned one; and that, in place of denying, as she might have done, all knowledge of the transaction, she had explained everything with a simplicity that was seldom exhibited by the votaries of vice. These things made a suitable impression, and the crown authorities were obliged to stop short in their proceedings, from the circumstance that they could find no proof of gravidity, and only one witness, Wallace himself--whose reluctance to give his testimony was looked upon, when contrasted with his ascertained inimical feelings towards her, as an affected exhibition of leniency to cover concealed hatred--could speak to the fact of the depositation of the child. All seemed enveloped in doubt; and, if there was a glimpse of certainty in regard to any part of the inexplicable case, it was that, that doubt itself would effectuate the ruin of the unfortunate prisoner, who could never claim again the respect that is due to innocence.

For six months she was confined within the narrow cells of a jail, and during every day of that period she was visited by her mother, whose endeavours to support the young and breaking heart of the victim, by the application of the balm that God has sent to the miserable, only tended to calm the spirit as it sunk in the ruins of a decaying constitution. She was at last liberated; but the freedom of the body only made more manifest the effects of the blasting power of prejudice and suspicion; and the intelligence, that was communicated to her some time afterwards, that Wallace had married Margaret Grierson, crowned the misery that enslaved her, and seemed to cut off all hope that she could ever again hold up her head among the daughters of men. Time passed, and realised that inherent condition of his power, which, as his progress continues, brings to the miserable the sad consolation of the woes of their enemies. The marriage of Wallace with Margaret Grierson was an unhappy one. The collision of adverse sentiments produced in the wife an infirmity of temper, which, in its exasperated moods, sought for relief in intoxication; and the domestic feuds at Inverleith Mains became a common topic of conversation among the inhabitants of Broughton. Such are the turns of fate that acknowledge the influence of a power whose ways we cannot comprehend; yet a still more extraordinary discovery was to be manifested to the child of misfortune. One night Menie and her mother were engaged in their evening exercise, heedless of the concerns of a world from which they were excluded, when the door opened with a loud noise, and George Wallace stood before them. His eyes were wild and bloodshot, a fever was in his blood, and his nerves, excited by some maniac passion, shook till his frame seemed convulsed, and the powers of judgment and will lay prostrate before the fiend that ruled his heart. Menie started up affrighted, and the mother laid her hand upon the book.

"I am compelled to be here," he cried, with a choking, unnatural voice, as he held forth his hands to the maiden; "and it is well I have come, for the quiet air o' this house o' innocence already quells the fever o' my heart. I have this moment left my wife; and I had a struggle to pass the water-dam, that shone in the mune to invite me to bury mysel and my grief in its still breast. But there is a God in heaven; and He it is wha has brought me here, to look ance mair on her I loved and ruined, and now can only save by my ain endless misery and shame. She lies yonder steeped in drink; but the power o' conscience has repelled the subtle poison, and she could speak in burnin words her crime and my eternal shame. Margaret Grierson it was--my wife--the mother o' my child--O God, help my words!--she has confessed, in her drunken madness, and my heart tells me it is the confession o' God's eternal truth, that the babe was hers--that her mother laid it by the hedgerow, a breathin victim, to hide her daughter's dishonour--and that it died there by suffocation. Let me speak it out, that this throbbin heart may be stilled. But it cannot--it never can be in this world--no--no--nor in the next."

And, groaning deeply, he threw himself on a chair, and rugged his hair like a maniac in the highest paroxysm of his disease. The unexpected and extraordinary statement rendered the women speechless. They looked at him, and at each other. Mutterings of prayer escaped from the lips of Euphan, and surprise and pity divided the empire of the heart of the daughter, who had never thought to see misery that equalled her own. There was no reason for the feeling of triumph, where the melancholy relief came from the ruins of one whom they had both loved and respected. He had been the only individual that ever influenced the heart of the one, and the other had fondly looked forward to him as the support and solace of her old age. Now he was a ruined, miserable man, and had no power to make amends for the wrong he had unintentionally committed. The calmness of the silence, and the relief that came from the unburdening of a secret that had been wrung from him by the pangs of conscience, brought him to a sense of the position in which he had placed himself. He had put himself and his wife in the power of those he had wronged, and returning reason brought with it the fears of self-preservation.

"What hae I done?" he again exclaimed, as he took his hand from his forehead, and looked into the face of Menie. "I hae condemned mysel and the wife o' my bosom--my conscience and a burnin revenge hae wrought this out o' me; but what shall be the consequence thereof? Will ye bring her to justice, the gallows--and me to a still deeper ruin and desolation than that which hang over this house o' innocent suffering? Say, Menie; speak, guid mother; our doom is in your hands. What says that blessed book on the merits o' forgiveness and the crime o' revenge?"

Euphan Dempster fixed her eyes on him calmly.

"Sair, sair hae ye wranged me, and that puir child o' misfortune, wha stands there unable to reply to ye, though the tears o' her grief and her pity speak in strange language the waes o' a broken heart. But sairer, far sairer, hae ye wranged yersel; for, though we 'have seen the travail which God hath given to the sons and daughters o' men,' we have been answered in the dark nights in which we cried and wept, by Him who 'maintains the cause o' the afflicted, and the right o' the poor;' but ye are left to the wrath o' yer ain spirit, that burns in yer heart, and even now lights up your eyes wi' a strange licht. Vainly would my daughter and I hae read this book, if we hadna learned to forgive our enemies. You hae naething to fear from us."

"And are thae the sentiments o' her wha was ance the life and light o' this stricken heart!" said Wallace, as he turned mournfully to Menie, who, pale and emaciated from her sorrow, stood before him, the ghost of what she was. "O God! can this be my Menie? Is a' that ruin o' health and beauty the doin o' him wha loved her as nae man ever loved woman? Are thae your sentiments, Menie? and am I, and is my miserable wife, safe in the keepin o' your forgiveness?"

"Ay, George," answered the maiden, as she burst into tears at the recollection of her former love, and the sight of her unhappy lover. "I hae been sair dealt wi'; but I forgie ye; and I forgie also your wife. I will dree the scorn o' an ill warld; but till you and she are dead, my lips will never mention the wrangs I hae suffered from my auld freend, and him I could hae dee'd to serve."

"Miserable man that I am!" exclaimed the youth. "How much do your generosity and kindness show me I have lost, and lost for ever? Whither now shall I fly!--to the arms o' a murderer, the wife o' my bosom--or to the wide world, to roam, a houseless man, to whom there is nae city o' refuge on earth?"

Unable longer to bear the poignancy of his feelings, he rushed out of the house.

For several years after the scene we have now described, Wallace was not heard of. None but his father knew whither he had gone. His wife was absolutely discarded from the farmhouse; and, her habits getting gradually worse, she became a street vagrant, and renounced herself to the dominion of the evil power that had, from an early period, ruled her, but whose workings she had so artfully, for a time, attempted to conceal. She paid many visits to Inverleith Mains, but was rejected by the old farmer, who attributed to her the ruin of his son. On these occasions, she broke forth in wild execrations; and, on her return, did not fail to assail the widow and her daughter as the instruments of her ruin. The old story of the child was published at the door in the words of drunken delirium; and often mixed with stray sentences of triumph that, to any one possessed of the secret, would have appeared a sufficient condemnation of herself. Yet the construction was all the other way; for Menie had never been cleared by evidence, and the virulent expressions of the vagabond were, according to the laws which too often regulate mundane belief, taken as inculpation; and hence the prejudice against the innocent victim was kept up, and the lives of her and her mother embittered to a degree that called for all the aids of their "sacred remeid" to ameliorate sufferings that seemed destined to have no end upon earth. But the ways of Heaven are wonderful. A boisterous sea may wreck, but the sufferer may be carried to the shore by a wave which, if less impetuous, might have been his grave. Wallace's wife at last died from the effects of that dissipation that had opened the evil heart to give forth the confession of her own shame; and, after this relief, the husband's father paid regular visits to Menie and her mother. He never spoke of the secret that had driven his son away, nor of the place to which he had fled; but he showed sufficiently, by his attentions and kindness, that he knew all. The house of the widow and her daughter was now kept full by supplies from the farm; money, too, was given to them in abundance, and, in so far as regarded worldly means, the two inmates had, at no period of their lives, been so well provided for.

Five years had now elapsed since the disappearance of Wallace. One night, as Menie and her mother were sitting by the fire, the door was opened, and Wallace stood before them. His manner was now very different from what it was on that day when he rushed like a madman from the house. He stood for a moment, looking at the couple who had suffered so much from his wrongs; and the first words he uttered were--

"Menie Dempster, ye have been true to your promise, and ye have been rewarded. That woman is gone to her trial, and yours is ended. Now shall truth triumph."

Menie was unable to utter a word. Her eyes were alternately turned to Wallace and to the fire. The mother laid her hand solemnly on the Bible, and addressing the inspired volume--

"Thus are yer secrets brought to light--ay, even out o' darkness. They wha trust in ye shall not fail in the end, though they should stumble seven times, yea, seven times seven."

"If I had trusted mair to that," said Wallace, "than to the whisperins o' my ain heart, I might never have been a miserable husband, or a banished man. But it's no yet owre late. I am resolved. Menie, will ye now consent to be the wife o' him wha wrought, maybe unwittingly, to your ruin?"

Menie was yet silent.

"I will publish your innocence," rejoined he. "There is mair evidence than my word against her wha is dead. It shall be known far and wide, and you will be the innocent and respected wife o' George Wallace."

"I will speak for her," said the mother; "she will consent. It is asked of her by Him wha has brought good out o' evil, and whase mercies, bein the reward o' the patience o' trial, are as a command that shall not be disobeyed."

Wallace drew near to Menie, and took her hand. Her face was still turned away, but he felt the trembling pressure, that got sooner to the heart than the sounds of the voice.

"It is enough, Menie," he whispered. "Come, the mune is again shinin amang the trees o' Warriston."

The couple proceeded to their old haunts. They passed the hedgerow where the child had been deposited. Menie's step was quick as they approached it, her eyes were averted from the spot, and they passed it in silence. We need not record the spoken sentiments of lovers in the situation of this couple. They parted, after it was arranged that their marriage should take place in the following week.

In the interval, the most prudent and effectual means were taken to clear up the mystery of the old story. The written statements of several individuals, who had heard the broken confessions of the woman, were taken. Wallace and his father added theirs, and there was soon a reaction in favour of Menie, much stronger than the original imputation. Every one believed her innocent; and the marriage, which took place a short time after, confirmed all.

THE PROFESSOR'S TALES.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF IDIOTS.

The very foundation of idiocy is peculiarity; whatever this unfortunate class may want, they do not want those features by which they are distinguishable from the ordinary ranks of mankind. Hence the interest which idiocy has ever exerted, and the splendid creations which, under the name of asylums, quiet, country residences, &c., have been made for their accommodation. The great mass of society--with the exception, perhaps, of a kingdom, which shall, for the present, be nameless--have nothing _idiotical_, that is, peculiar, belonging to them exclusively. They move as others move, dress as others dress, think as others think, and worship God as others do and as others did. Were it not for _idiots_, in the extended sense of the word, there were an end of plays, novels, and all works of fiction. Very few women, if we may credit Pope, are idiots: for he says--

"Nothing so true as what you once let fall--
Most women have no character at all;
Matter too soft a standing mark to bear,
And best distinguish'd by black, brown, or fair."

But, although the original meaning and enlarged sense of the term might carry us into a field thus almost boundless, we shall at the present limit ourselves to two classes of idiots, comprehending, as they do, a great variety of species. First, the natural idiot, or the simply fatuous: of these there are _two_ varieties--the peaceable and the frantic. Secondly, the unnatural or rational idiot; of these the varieties are infinite, and a selection only is in the present instance either desirable or attainable.

We return then to the purely fatuous, or peaceable idiot.

Poor innocent! as he is uniformly and kindly named by the neighbourhood. There he walks about, along that stream, or across that meadow, from morn to night, and from night to morning, his hand at his cheek, and his lips muttering incoherence, such as, "Johnnie, quo' he, lad; ah, ha, Willie lad, Willie lad, Willie lad." He is so biddable, that a child may make him lie down, or rise up, enlarge or shorten his step. He will carry a peat-barrow when peats are a-casting, ted hay, or lift a child safely over a fence; yet, for all that, he is not always to be trusted--for there are times when his countenance gets flushed, his frame nervously convulsed, and then he utters dreadful things, and becomes violent and unmanageable. These are, however, only aberrations, not continued character; and, by watching the symptoms of the approaching storm, the effects may be easily avoided. Idiots, even of this peaceable and innocuous kind, are now abstracted from their natural and kindly hearths, and concealed in asylums and private residences. Not so--it was not indeed so--in the olden times. The hereditary possession of at least one "innocent" in a family was deemed a blessing. "There never will be wanting," said the pious parent, "a bit for thy helplessness, poor Johnnie." Good luck took up her residence under the roof where such a one resided; and the parent was doubly attached to _the object_, as he was sometimes called. To hurt him, or injure him in any manner of way, was domestic treason; and even the schoolboy, on his harvest rambles, only pelted him with nuts and brambleberries. Poor Johnnie! he was missed one day; he had wandered beyond his ordinary reach, and all the town was in motion searching for him. The night came on, dark, and even drifty; and the poor helpless object could nowhere be found. Shouts were raised, dogs were dismissed on errands of inquiry, herd-boys ran, and servant lads greatly hastened their pace. At last, he was discovered on the brink of a precipice, over which he was suspended, by the coat-tails, which a strong shepherd's dog was holding fast in its teeth. But for the powerful sagacity of this brute, the helpless being had been dashed to pieces. When he was rescued from his dangerous position, he was repeating, in his usual manner, "Johnnie's a-caul quo' he, lad." He was never suffered to be in such danger again. These eyes saw him on his death-bed; and, at the instant of his departure, it was indeed a most affecting scene.

"The soul's dark cottage, shatter'd and decay'd,
Let _in_ new light through chinks which time had made."

As the pulse ebbed and the feet swelled, reason seemed to resume her long-deserted seat. He actually raised himself upon his elbow, drew the back of his hand twice across his brow, as if clearing away some obstruction from his eyes, and, looking around with an eye unusually bright and beaming, lambent like an expiring taper--

"Oh, what a dream! what a dream! But I see you all now; yes--yes--I see my kind mother, my dear father, my sister! Yes--yes--I am now well. I am awake--I live." Hereupon the fatal and well-known struggle in the throat stopped his speech; he fell back, gave one deep sigh, and was at rest. Poor Johnnie! if a tear of gratitude can gratify anything that lives, bearing the most distant relationship to thee, that tear has now been shed. Heaven has long been merciful to the poor Innocent.

But the frantic idiot who now struggles against the chain and the strait-waistcoat in yonder cell. He too, at one time, roamed at large, to the great alarm, but seldom to the injury, of the lieges. "His bark," as the people said, "was waur than his bite;" and, if at any time he required to be confined by force, a few kindly words and soothing accents threw oil on the troubled sea, and restored comparative serenity. Daft Will Gibson rises before me; his long rung or kent by way of staff, his Kilmarnock night-cap, and shoes of many patches, his aversion to all manner of trick or nickname, and his furious onset when pursued by schoolboys: all these circumstances rise again from the dark past, and glare before me like the shades in "Macbeth." Yet, though occasionally furious, and even dangerous, he was kind-hearted, and not unobservant of character. The timid he rejoiced to terrify, whilst he passed by the bold and firm unmolested. Though he often threw large stones at those who assailed him, he took special care always to throw short of his object. But one day a little child, unobserved by him, had crossed the pathway of his missile after it had been delivered, altogether unobserved by poor Will. The child was knocked down and greatly injured--it bled profusely. Will seemed horrorstruck, and roared aloud--

"It was I! It was me! It was daft Will Gibson!"

From that day he never lifted another stone, but always exhibited the greatest liking for this child--of which the following anecdote is sufficient proof. A little boy was playing in the channel of a mountain torrent, then almost dry. There was thunder in the distance, and Queensberry had put on her inky robe of darkness. All at once, the burns began to emit a loud, roaring, rattling sound, and down came the Caple Water--as my informant, who witnessed the scene, said--like "corn sacks." The boy, owing to his eagerness in pursuing a trout (which he was endeavouring to catch) from stone to stone, did not hear or see the approaching danger, till the mighty flood was upon him. My informant--a shepherd--threw aside plaid and staff, and ran to the rescue; but the red and roaring flood was before him; and a fine boy of seven or eight years old would undoubtedly have lost his life, had it not been for the poor maniac, who chanced to be pulling rushes hard by. He rushed into the flood just as it was oversetting the helpless victim, and, with a tremendous jerk, threw him clean upon the green bank of the torrent. He then endeavoured himself to clear the bank; but the treacherous and hollow earth, under the pressure of the water, gave way, and down tumbled brow and man into the raging whirlpool--the man underneath, the brow above him. The boy, by means of his heels, escaped; but poor Will Gibson's body was next day found some miles lower down, sadly disfigured and mangled. Thus did this grateful maniac expiate the inadvertent injury which he had done this very boy when a mere child, by saving his life at the expense of his own.

We now pass, in prosecution of our history, from darkness into light, from the irresponsible and irrational agent, to the responsible and foolish. Our guide here, in this _mare magnum_ of idiocy, shall be _the use_ of language in discussing the various merits of the different classes. We shall make use of no new phraseology, but be guided to our purpose by the acknowledged and recognised use and meaning of terms. Why the word "idiot" is retained in conversational language in particular, when its original and more legitimate meaning is lost, we have already pointed at; it is owing to analogy and resemblance that in this case, as in many others, such terms are legitimate and expressive.

There is, then, in the first place, to come at once to the point--there is

"THE HAVERING IDIOT."

Horace gives a most correct idea of this class in these well-known lines:--

"Hunc neque dira venena, nec hosticus auferet ensis
Nec laterum dolor, aut tussis aut tarda podagra,
_Garrulus hunc quando consumet_."

Galt, too, has hit off the character, under a feminine aspect, in his "Wearifu Woman;" but we have no occasion to ask Horace for his spectacles, or Galt for his microscope, in order to discover the features of this most numerous and annoying class. Midges, in a new-mown meadow, are terribly teasing; so are peas in one's shoes--particularly if unboiled. There is a certain cutaneous disease which is said to give exercise at once to the nails and to patience. Who would not fret if placed naked, all face over, in a whin bush? To be teased and tormented with grammar rules is vastly provoking; and to get the proof questions by heart cannot be deemed anything but annoying. A showery day, when you have set out on a long-meditated "pic-nic," will vex the most patient soul into spleen; and marriage-settlements are frequently great sources of heartburnings and delays. To be told that your house is on fire, when your messenger is on his way to effect an insurance, may possibly give pain; and to find that every pipe is frozen, so that there is not a drop of water for the engine, may probably add to your chagrin. All these, and a thousand other miseries to which human flesh is heir, may, nay must, be borne; but the torment of coming into ear-shot of a "havering idiot" is a thousand and a thousand times more insupportable. You are placed beside him at table, and in a mixed company of men of literature and science, whom probably you may never see again. A subject is started, which, from peculiar reasons, happens to be not only of itself curious, but exceedingly interesting to you, professionally in particular. Professor Pillans is discussing education, or Combe is manipulating heads; Sir David Brewster is describing the polarisation of light, or Tom Campbell is thrilling every heart with poetic quotations;--no matter, you are unfortunately in juxtaposition to a "havering idiot," and about five removes from the focus of general conversation. He will not let you rest for a moment, but is ever whispering into your ear some grand thing which he said last evening at Lady Whirligig's ball. You push your dish forward, and fix your eyes upon the intelligent speaker. He observes, and mistakes, or seems to mistake, your movement and your motive, and immediately hopes he may help you to the dish you are after. You are fairly _dished_; and unless you knock him down with your fist in the first place, and shoot him afterwards, you have no resource but to repeat the lines of Horace, already quoted, and submit to your fate.

His stories are infinite and inextricable; but, unlike the epic, they have neither a beginning, a middle, nor an end. When he starts with "I'll tell you a good thing," you listen for an instant, but immediately perceive that you are on the wrong scent; and, as he advances, he is ever admonishing you with his elbow of the many _hits_ he is making; and having heard him out--if that be possible!--you immediately exclaim, "Well!" thinking assuredly the cream of the joke is yet awaiting you.

"But, sir, you are making no meal at all. You must try some of that fine honeycomb; it is most excellent; it is of our own making; for, I may say, we have almost everything within ourselves. The bees, last season, did not do well at all; but they have done better this, sir. You are a natural philosopher, sir--can you tell me how the bees see their way back again to their houses, when they go far away in search of flowers and honey?"

"Just the way, I suppose, ma'am, that they see their way a-field."

"Oh, ay--I ken that; but I hae a book here--(go away, Jeanie, and bring me the book on natural history; the Cyclopaedia, ye ken). Now, sir, this book tells me that, from the shape of their eye, the bees canna see an inch before them--how then do they travel miles and miles, and never lose their road?--but bless me, sir, you're no making a meal at no rate. Ay, here's 'the article,' as it is called. Read that, sir, just at the bottom of the 196th page," &c. &c.

"THE BLETHERING IDIOT"

is manifestly twin-brother to the haverer, with this small difference, however, that the bletherer is a mere repeater or reporter of havers. The one is the importer, as it were, of the article wholesale, and the other retails the article thus imported. They are raw commodity and manufactured goods--they are original and copy--cause and effect. Burns was quite aware of this when he wrote--

"And baith a yellow George to claim,
And thole their blethers."

These blethers were not original inventions, but merely varnished repetitions. The blethering idiot is most dangerous as well as most disagreeable. In this respect, he even surpasses the haverer, whose annoyances terminate in themselves, in the irritations and inconveniences of the moment. But the bletherer is a dangerous friend, an inveterate foe, and a most unsafe neighbour. Will Webster was the intimate friend of poor James Johnston. James was a lad of honest intentions, fair talents, and warm feelings. He was educated as an engineer, and had already acquired a certain status and character in that capacity. His friend Webster had been accidentally a school companion, from the proximity of their dwellings and the intimacy of their parents. Webster had studied law, and was about to pass advocate, when he came to meet his friend, and spend a harvest vacation with him at Castledykes, in the parish of Tynron, Dumfries-shire. The two young men were in the bloom and strength of youth, being both some months under twenty-one. Georgina Gordon was the daughter of a small neighbouring proprietor (a Dunscore laird), an only daughter, her father's prop (her mother having died at her birth), and the admiration of everybody who merely saw her at church on Sunday, or who knew her intimately. I should have mentioned before, that this beautiful flower had been named Georgina, with the view of perpetuating the name of a brother whose fate had been involved in obscurity. He had betaken himself early to sea, and the vessel in which he sailed had never more, during several years before Georgina's birth, been heard of. All possible inquiries had been made, but without effect. The Thunderer, Captain Morris, had been seen off the coast of South America; but no more was known. James Johnston was already in the way of making reasonable proposals to any one; but his heart had long been fixed at Castledykes. He used to wander for hours and days along the glen of the cairn, and within sight of the old family abode. Georgina, however, had already many lovers, and was reported to have, in fact, made a selection. It was again and again reported by Will Webster to his friend Johnston, and to everybody who took any interest in the report, that he had seen Georgina enter the Kelpie Cave in company with a lover, and that he had even seen them fondly embracing each other. At first Johnston gave no heed to Will's _blethers_; but still they gradually made an impression upon him. He became, at last, decidedly jealous, when, led and guided by his friend Will, he beheld with his own eyes a male figure, closely wrapped up in a plaid, holding secret converse with the lovely Miss Gordon. What will not jealousy, goaded on by officious and injudicious friendship, do? Unknown to any one, he met and accosted the figure in the dark: a struggle and a contest with lethal weapons took place, and the stranger fell. No sooner had the deed been done, than James saw and repented of his rashness. The wound which he had inflicted was bound up, and the fainting man, help being procured, conveyed to Castledykes. James Johnston was not the man to fly, even should death prove the consequence of his rashness. A curious denouement now took place: the person whom James had wounded was no other than the long-lost George Gordon. The vessel in which he had sailed had not been wrecked, as was supposed, but had been taken, scuttled, and sunk, by Spanish privateers, who then infested the Leeward Islands. He had been bound and fettered in the hold, till he came under a solemn promise neither to desert nor abandon his colours in the hour of battle. Under such discipline, it was no wonder that, in a few years, George Gordon (now taking the Spanish name of Joan Paraiso) should be habituated to all manner of rapine and bloodshed. From less to more, by acts of heroism, he became second, and ultimately first, in command of a Spanish privateer.

England, having viewed this growing evil with a suitable indignation, sent out her armaments to the west; and the Don Savallo, Joan Paraiso, commander, was taken. The prisoners were conveyed to Britain; and it being discovered that Paraiso was originally a British subject, he was thrown into prison to abide his trial. From this he escaped, almost by a miracle, and wandering over the kingdom in another domino, or assumed name, he came at last, as if by the law of force and attraction, to his native glen. But he durst not yet discover himself, for he was an outlaw, and the papers were filled with rewards for his apprehension. In this situation he discovered himself, under the most dreadful oaths of secresy, even from his own father (at least for a time), to his sister. The rest, up to the period of his wound, which was by no means dangerous, is easily understood. What follows will be necessary to complete the narrative:--James Johnston having learned all this from Georgina, who, in a moment of excitement, discovered that it was not a lover but a brother over whom she hung, he again met his blethering friend Webster--acquainted him with the history, and, in a few days, Joan Paraiso was arrested in his bed, and carried to Plymouth, to undergo his trial. The grief and horror of all may be easily conceived. All, save the origin of the evil, were thunderstruck and overpowered with grief and vexation. "But for your long tongue and empty head," said Johnston, taking him one day by the throat, "my dear Georgina had been mine--her brother had lived, and all had been well." The guilty man struggled, and was dashed against a stone wall with tremendous violence. A concussion of the brain followed, and poor unhappy James Johnston was himself on trial for murder. It is true that he was acquitted, as the surgeon would not positively affirm that the dead person had not died from a natural stroke of apoplexy; and it is likewise true, that Joan Paraiso, _alias_ George Gordon, was acquitted, as he had been compelled, from fear of death, to act as he had done. But Georgina was no longer an heiress, and the mercenary laird of Clatchet-Knowe, who had all but obtained her consent to a marriage, became suddenly cooled in his fervour. Johnston hearing of this, and having, after some months, recovered his spirits, made his addresses, and was accepted. Georgina Johnston is now, or was lately, a happy wife and mother. Her husband has purchased the farm of Kirkcudbright, in that neighbourhood, and they live in comfort and respectability. So much as a specimen of the achievements and fate of a bletherer. But who waits there?

"THE AFFECTED IDIOT.

Let him enter. What a thing! But it is not with the tailor-work that we have to deal; we leave that to the titter and ridicule of every sensible person in the company, and to the compassion of the rest.

"In man or woman, but far most in man,
I hate all affectation."

So says good-hearted Cowper. But, hating affectation, he must in some degree hate a large section of the male, and a still larger proportion of the female sex. In fact, we are all more or less affected--I in writing this article in such an easy, off-hand, after-dinner manner, and the publisher of the "Border Tales" in affecting not to be affected by so many favourable notices in so many papers. I don't like the word--I hate it ever since Lord Brougham (who once was so great) made use of the one half of it, when speaking of Sugden; but, notwithstanding, I must out with it--"_humbug_" is the go, and everybody knows it, and yet everybody does it. Was there ever such a queer world, ma'am? I _wish_--well, I will tell you, madam, what I wish--I wish I had a new tack of "this world," with all its nonsense. This thing we call "life" is to me exceeding amusing; but I am off, on the very velocipede of affectation, and must "'bout ship."

The affectation of no affectation is the most unsupportable of all. Simple Johnnie comes into the room, throwing about, from side to side, both his elbows. He immediately, in the simplicity of his nature, lets you know that he never was up to the ordinary methods of society; in testimony of which he sits down beside you on a sofa--plaits his legs, and passes his hand along his leg, from heel to knee, and _vice versa_. You talk of anything and everything. He is sure you are right. He never could remember anything. He is sure you are right; but he cannot say, it is so long since he read about it. He tells you at once that people call him "Simple Johnnie;" that he once tumbled into a river, whilst reading a book; that he is _so_ absent, you have no notion; that he has forgotten his own name, and only remembered it, after having given a penny to a boy, saying, "Now, my boy, do you know who gave you that?" He puts on a blue stocking and a grey, and wonders that people observe it; he pushes through the market, snuffing, snorting, and repeating almost aloud, Thomson's "Seasons;" he is called a good sort of a body, and tells you so; but he knows in reality that he is an excellent classical scholar, and a writer of no mean degree. Affectation, however, hangs over him, like a mist; and his real merits, which are great, are greatly obscured by the medium through which they are seen.

Let us change the sex!--A farmer's daughter married to an earl--no, not an earl--a laird--a country gentleman. She is all _gentility_--talks of nothing beneath dukes and marquises; asks you if there is anybody of note in India; never saw fish eaten without a silver fork; and considers that Queen Victoria has never seen good company! After a', wha cares? This is a precious rag of feminality; nobody can hurt her feelings, or destroy her equanimity. You mention, in her company, that Lady Louisa Russell, her most intimate friend, of whom she talks daily, and to everybody, has left the town without calling; she assumes an air of supreme indifference, and exclaims--"Well! after a', wha cares?"

A bluestocking!--No, I will not spend ink and paper on the subject--it is literally _thread_-bare--not a loop in the stocking but may be seen by a man of ninety without spectacles. A fop!--faugh!--who cares for anything of the dandy or exquisite species?--A braggadocio--another Munchausen! who kills trouts by the gross, and men by the dozen--who shoots on the wing--_e.g._ Two individuals of this description once met in my own presence. They had been in India, and were Indianising for the benefit and entertainment of the company. Shooting came on the carpet, and their various achievements were stated. Colonel A---- had shot more than a dozen water-fowl at one shot.

"I am sure," said he, appealing to his Indian friend--"I am sure, general, you know it to be true."

"Twelve dozen, by God!" was the emphatic response.

"Who has not heard of my father, the colonel?"--viz., Colonel Cloud--and yet this colonel proved to be nothing more than plain Mr B----, from the grand town of Forfar. Oh, how shall I overtake the varied forms that rise up before me!--as well might I essay to catch and fix every butterfly from the Emperor of Morocco down to the blue wing. "Upwards and downwards, thwarting and convolved," the myriads of insects dance away their hour, and are forgot. And who art thou who thus speakest of others? A solitary fly! A large blue-bottom, madam, as insignificant and ephemeral as any amongst them. But of this enough. Let us now introduce another actor, or rather speaker.

"Well, sir, I am glad I have met you; for I was just going to call upon you, to tell you that my son John, poor fellow--you know John?--that he has got a step--what they call a step in the service, and that he has had a severe fever, but is now quite well; and that he writes to his sister--such a letter--but I have it here, sir, in my pocket. Pray do, sir, sit down for a little, and I will read it to you; it is such a funny letter--you have no notion--and so full of inquiries for everybody, amongst the rest for yourself, whom it is wonderful that he remembers--he has such a memory, my Johnnie, and always had. I remember, when just a little thing not higher than this parasol. But, bless me, sir, you are not listening!"

"No, ma'am; I beg your pardon; but I have an engagement." (Exit.)

And who does not see, at once, that this is a

"PROSING IDIOT?"

"I was up, yes--yes--up--up--yes, I was up by five yesterday--yes--yes--yesterday morning. When do you rise, ma'am? I always rise--yes--yes--rise--I always rise by six--true--true--quite true--by six, ma'am--it is good--so good--yes--yes--very good, ma'am, for the health--the health--yes--the health."

Such is the drivel which we have often heard oozing, drop by drop, from a male creature of the prosy kind.

"THE BLAZING IDIOT."

The blazing idiot is all over self and wonderment. He has done--what has he not done? He can do--what can he not do? One of this character was one day entertaining old Quin with the account of an encounter with a furious bull, in which the blazer had proved too much for the horner, and held him, in spite of his neck, till he roared for a truce.

"Oh," said Quin, looking around him knowingly on the company, "that is nothing at all to what I once experienced myself."

The original blazer looked amazement.

"Yes," says Quin, "I--even I, have managed the bull exercise in a higher style than you, sir. You only held the bull's head down by the horns, but I twisted his head from his neck, and threw it after his departing hind-quarters!"

This produced a roar at the idiot's expense, and he shrunk out, to announce his achievements somewhere else.

Is he a traveller?--Why, then, Munchausen is a fool to him. He has undergone, achieved, seen, heard, tasted, more wonders than a thousand Gullivers.