Chapter VI: Part 6

Thirty years ago, there dwelt within this village a man named Andrew Donaldson. He was merely a day-labourer upon the estate of the squire to whom the village belongs; but he was a singular man in many respects, and one whose character very few were able to comprehend. You will be surprised when I inform you that the desire to become a MAN OF FASHION haunted this poor day-labourer like his shadow in the sun. It was the disease of his mind. Now, sir, before proceeding with my story, I shall make a few observations on this plaything and ruler of the world called Fashion. I would describe Fashion to be a deformed little monster with a chameleon skin, bestriding the shoulders of public opinion. Though weak in itself, it has gradually usurped a degree of power that is well-nigh irresistible; and this tyranny prevails, in various forms, but with equal cruelty, over the whole habitable earth. Like a rushing stream, it bears along all ranks and conditions of men, all avocations and professions, and often principles. Fashion is withal a notable courtier, bowing to the strong, and flattering the powerful. Fashion is a mere whim, a conceit, a foible, a toy, a folly; and withal an idol whose worshippers are universal. Wherever introduced, it generally assumes the familiar name of Habit; and many of your great and philosophical men, and certain ill-natured old women, who appear at parties in their wedding-gowns, and despise the very name of Fashion, are each the slaves of sundry habits which once bore the appellation. Should Fashion miss the skirts of a man's coat, it is certain of seizing him by the beard. It is humiliating to the dignity of immortal beings, possessed of capabilities the extent of which is yet unknown, to confess that many of them, professing to be Christians, Jews, Mahometans, or Pagans, are merely the followers in the stream of Fashion; and are Christians or Jews simply because such a religion was after the fashion of their fathers or country. During the present century, it has been the cause of much infidelity and free-thinking; or, rather, as is more frequently the case with its votaries, of _no thinking_. This arose from wisdom and learning being the fashion; and a vast number of brainless people--who could neither be out of the service of their idol, nor yet endure the plodding labour and severe study necessary for the acquiring of wisdom and learning, and many of them not even possessing the requisite abilities--in order to be thought at once wise men and philosophers, they pronounced religion to be a cheat, futurity a bugbear, and themselves organic clods. Fashion, indeed, is as capricious as it is tyrannical; with one man it plays the infidel, and with another it runs the gauntlet of Bible and missionary meetings or benevolent societies. It is like the Emperor of Austria--a compound of intolerable evil and much good. It attempts to penetrate the mysteries of metaphysics; and it mocks the calculations of the most sagacious chancellor of the exchequer. At the nod of Fashion, ladies change their gloves; and the children of the glove-makers of Worcester go without dinners. At its call they took the shining buckles from their shoes, and they walked in the laced boot, the sandalled slipper, or the tied shoe. Individually, it seemed a small matter whether shoes were fastened with a buckle or with riband; but the small-ware manufacturers found a new harvest, while the buckle-makers of Birmingham and their families, in thousands, were driven through the country, to beg, to steal, to coin, to perish. This was the work of Fashion; and its effects are similar to the present hour. If the cloak drive the shawl from the promenade, Paisley and Bolton may go in sackcloth. Here I may observe that the cry of distress is frequently raised against _bad government_, assuming it to be the cause; when fickle Fashion has alone produced the injury. In such a matter, government was unable to prevent, and is unable to relieve--Fashion defying all its enactments, and the ladies being the sole governors in the case. For, although the world rules man and his business, and Fashion is the ruler of the world, yet the ladies, though the most devoted of its servants, are at the same time the rulers of Fashion. This last assertion may seem a contradiction, but it is not the less true. With simplicity and the graces, Fashion has seldom exhibited any inclination to cultivate an acquaintance. Now, the ladies being, in their very nature, form, and feature, the living representatives of these virtues, I am the more surprised that they should be the especial patrons of Fashion, seeing that its efforts are more directed to conceal a defect, by making it more deformed, than to lend a charm to elegance, or an adornment to beauty. The lady of fortune follows the tide of Fashion, till she and her husband are within sight of the shores of poverty. The portionless, or the poorly-portioned, maiden presses on in its wake, till she find herself immured in the everlasting garret of an old maid. The well-dressed woman every man admires--the fashionable woman every man fears. Then comes the animal of the male kind, whose coat is cut, whose hair is curled, and his very cravat tied according to the fashion. Away with such shreds and patches of effeminacy! But the fashion for which Andrew Donaldson, the day-labourer, sighed aimed at higher things than this. It grieved him that he was not a better-dressed man and a greater man than the squire on whose estate he earned his daily bread. He was a hard and severe man in his own house: at his frown his wife was submissive, and his children trembled. His family consisted of his wife; three sons, Paul, Peter, and Jacob; and two daughters, Sarah and Rebecca. Though all scriptural names, they had all been so called after his own relations. His earnings did not exceed eight or nine shillings a-week; but even out of this sum he did not permit the one-half to go to the support of his family--and that half was doled out most reluctantly, penny by penny. For twenty years, he had never intrusted his wife with the management or the keeping of a single sixpence. With her, of a verity, money was but a _sight_, and that generally in the smallest coins of the realm. She seldom had an opportunity of contemplating the gracious countenance of His Majesty; and when she had, it was invariably upon copper. If she needed but a penny to complete the cooking of a dinner, the children had to run for it to the fields, the quarry, or the hedge-side, where their father might be at work; and then it was given with a lecture against their mother's extravagance! Extravagance indeed! to support seven mouths for a week out of five shillings! I have spoken of dinners, and I should tell you that bread was seen in the house but once a-day, and that only of the coarsest kind. Potatoes were the staple commodity, and necessity taught Mrs Donaldson to cook them in twenty different ways; and, although butcher meat was never seen beneath Andrew's roof, with the exception of pork of their own feeding, in a very small portion, once a-week, yet the kindness of the cook in the squire's family, who occasionally presented her with a jar of _kitchen-fee_, enabled her to dish up her potatoes in modes as various and palatable to the hungry as they were creditable to her own ingenuity and frugality. Andrew was a man of no expensive habits himself; he had never been known to spend a penny upon liquor of any kind but once, and that was at the christening of his youngest child, who was baptised in the house; when, it being a cold and stormy night, and the minister having far to ride, and withal being labouring under a cold, he said he would thank Andrew for a glass of spirits. The frugal father thought the last born of his flock had made an expensive entry into existence; but, handing twopence to his son Paul, he desired him to bring a glass of spirits to his reverence. The spirits were brought in a milk-pot; but a milk-pot was an unsightly and an unseemly vessel out of which to ask a minister to drink. The only piece of crystal in the house was a footless wine-glass, out of which a grey linnet drank, and there was no alternative but to take it from the cage, clean it, pour the spirits into it, and hand it, bottomless as it was, to the clergyman--and this was done accordingly. For twenty years, this was all that Andrew Donaldson was known to have spent on ale, wine, or spirits; and as, from the period that his children had been able to work, he had not contributed a single sixpence of his earnings towards the maintenance of his house, it was generally believed that he could not be worth less than two or three hundred pounds. Where he kept his money, however, or who was his banker, no one could tell. Some believed that he was saving in order to emigrate to Canada, and purchase land; but this was only a surmise. For weeks and months he was frequently wont to manifest the deepest anxiety. His impatience was piteous to behold; but why he was anxious and impatient no one could tell. These fits of anxiety were as frequently succeeded by others of the deepest despondency; and during both, his wife and children feared to look in his face, to speak or move in his presence. As his despondency was wont to wear away, his penuriousness in the same degree increased; and at such periods a penny for the most necessary purpose was obstinately refused.

Such were the life and habits of Andrew Donaldson, until his son Paul, who was the eldest of his family, had attained the age of three-and-twenty, and his daughter Rebecca, the youngest, was seventeen, when, on a Saturday evening, he returned from the market-town, so changed, so elated (though evidently not with strong drink), so kind, so happy, and withal so proud, that his wife and his sons and daughters marvelled, and looked at each other with wonder. He walked backward and forward across the floor, with his arms crossed upon his breast, his head thrown back, yea, he stalked with the majestic stride of a stage-king in a tragedy. He took the fragment of a mirror, which, being fastened in pieces of parchment, hung against the wall, and endeavoured, as he best might, and as its size and its half-triangular, half-circular form would admit, to survey himself from head to foot. His family gazed at him and at each other with increased astonishment.

"The man's possessed!" whispered Mrs Donaldson, in terror.

He thrust his hand into his pocket, he drew out a quantity of silver.

"Go, _Miss_ Rebecca," said he, "and order John Bell of the King's Head to send Mister Donaldson a bottle of brandy and a bottle of his best wine, instantly."

His wife gave a sort of scream, his children started to their feet.

"Go!" said he, stamping his foot, and placing the money in her hand--"go! I order you."

They knew his temper, that he was not to be thwarted, and Rebecca obeyed. He continued to walk across the floor with the same stride of importance; he addressed his sons as Master Donaldson, Master Peter, and Master Jacob; and Sarah, who was the best of the family, as Miss Donaldson. He walked up to his wife, and, with a degree of kindness, such as his family had never witnessed before, he clapped her on the shoulder, and said--

"Catherine, you know the proverb, that 'they who look for a silk gown always get a sleeve o't'--I have long looked for one to you, and now

"I'll mak ye lady o' them a'!"

And, in his own unmusical way, he sang a line or two from the "Lass o' Gowrie."

Poor Mrs Donaldson trembled from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot. Her looks plainly told that she feared her husband had "gone beside himself." He resumed his march across the floor, stately as an admiral on the quarterdeck, when Rebecca entered with the brandy and the wine.

"What!" said he, again, stamping his foot, "did I not _order_ you to _order_ John Bell to _send_ the bottles?"

Rebecca shook--but he took them from her hand, and ordered her to bring the glasses! I have already noticed the paucity of glass vessels at Rebecca's baptism. They were not more numerous now; and even the footless glass, out of which the linnet drank, had long ago, with the linnet, gone the way of all flesh and of all glass; and Rebecca placed a white teacup, scored and seamed with age (there were but four in the house), upon the table.

"What! a cup! a cup!" exclaimed he, stamping his foot more vehemently than before; "did I not _order_ you to bring _glasses_! Me!--me!--Mister Donaldson drink wine out of a teacup!" And he dashed the cup behind the fire.

"O Paul! Paul!" cried Mrs Donaldson, addressing her first-born, "is yer faither crazed!--will ye no haud him!--shall we send for the doctor, a strait-jacket, or the minister?"

Paul was puzzled: his father did not exactly seem mad; but his conduct, his extravagance, was so unlike anything he had ever seen in him before, that he was troubled on his account, and he rose to reason with him.

"Keep your seat, Master Donaldson," said his father, with the dignity of a duke--"keep your seat, sir; your father is not mad, but before a week go round, the best hat in the village shall be lifted to him."

Paul knew not what to think; but he had been taught to fear and to obey his father, and he obeyed him now. Andrew again handed money to his daughter, and ordered her to go and purchase six tumblers and six wine-glasses. Mrs Donaldson wrung her hands; she no longer doubted that her husband was "beside himself." The crystal, however, was brought, the wine and the brandy were sent round, and the day-labourer made merry with his children.

On the Monday following, he went not out into the fields to his work as usual; but arraying himself in his Sunday attire, he took leave of his family, saying he would be absent for a week. This was as unaccountable as his sending for the wine, the brandy, and the crystal, for no man attended his employment more faithfully than Andrew Donaldson. For twenty years he had never been absent from his work a single day, Sundays and Fast-days alone excepted. His children communed together, and his wife shed tears; she was certain that something had gone wrong about his head; yet, strange as his actions were, his conversation was rational; and though still imperious, he manifested more affection for them all than he had ever done before. They did not dare to question him as to the change that had come over him, or whither he was going; for at all times his mildest answer to all inquiries was, that "fools and bairns should never see things half done." He departed, therefore, without telling why or whither, simply intimating that he would return within seven days, leaving his family in distress and bewilderment.

Sunday came, but no tidings were heard regarding him. With much heaviness of heart and anxiety of spirit, his sons and daughters proceeded to the church; and while they, with others, yet stood in groups around the church-yard, a stranger gentleman entered. His step was slow and soldier-like. He carried a silken umbrella to screen himself from the sun, for they were then but little used as a protection from rain; few had at that time discovered that they could be so applied. His head was covered with a hat of the most fashionable shape. His hair was thickly powdered, and gathered up behind in a _queue_. His coat, his vest, his breeches, were of silken velvet, and the colour thereof was the kingly purple--moreover, the knees of the last-mentioned article were fastened with silver buckles, which shone as stars as the sun fell upon them. His stockings also were of silk, white as the driven snow; and partly covering these, he wore a pair of boots of the kind called Hessian. In his left hand, as I have said, he carried an umbrella, and in his right he bore a silver-mounted cane.[2]

[Footnote 2: To some this picture may appear exaggerated, but many readers of these Tales will recognise in it a faithful portraiture of the original.]

The people gazed with wonder as the stranger paced slowly along the footpath; and, as he approached the door, the sexton lifted his hat, bowed, and walking before him, conducted him to the squire's pew. The gentleman sat down; he placed his umbrella between his knees, his cane by his side, and from his pocket he drew out a silver snuff-box, and a Bible in two volumes, bound in crimson-coloured morocco. As the congregation began to assemble, some looked at the stranger in the squire's seat with wonder. All thought his face was familiar to them. On the countenances of some there was a smile; and from divers parts of the church there issued sounds like the tittering of suppressed laughter. Amongst those who gazed on him were the sons and daughters of Andrew Donaldson. Their cheeks alternately became red, pale, hot, and cold. Their eyes were in a dream, and poor Sarah's head fell, as though she had fainted away, upon the shoulder of her brother Paul. Peter looked at Jacob, and Rebecca hung her head. But the squire and his family entered. They reached the pew--he bowed to the stranger--gazed--started--frowned--ushered his family rudely past him, and beckoned for the gentleman to leave the pew. In the purple-robed stranger he recognised his own field-labourer, Andrew Donaldson! Andrew, however, kept his seat, and looked haughty and unmoved. But the service began--the preacher looked often to the pew of the squire, and at length he too seemed to make the discovery, for he paused for a full half-minute in the middle of his sermon, gazed at the purple coat, and all the congregation gazed with him, and breaking from his subject, he commenced a lecture against the wickedness of pride and vanity.

The service being concluded, the sons and daughters of Andrew Donaldson proceeded home, with as many eyes fixed upon them as upon their father's purple coat. They were confounded and unhappy beyond the power of words to picture their feelings. They communicated to their mother all that they had seen. She, good soul, was more distressed than even they were, and she sat down and wept for "her poor Andrew." He came not; and Paul, Peter, and Jacob were about to go in quest of him--and they now thought in earnest of a strait-waistcoat--when John Bell's waiter of the King's Head entered, and presenting Mr Donaldson's compliments, requested them to come and dine with him. Wife, sons, and daughters were petrified!

"Puir man!" said Mrs Donaldson, and tears forbade her to say more.

"Oh! my father! my puir father!" cried Sarah.

"He does not seem to be poor," answered the waiter.

"What in the world can hae put him sae?" said Jacob.

"We maun try to soothe and humour him," added Paul.

The whole family, therefore, though ashamed to be seen in the village, went to the King's Head together. They were ushered into a room, in the midst of which stood Andrew, with divers trunks or boxes around him. His wife screamed, as she beheld his transformation; and, clasping her hands together, she cried, "O Andrew!"

"Catherine," said he, "ye must understand that ye are a lady now, and ye must not call me Andrew, but Mister Donaldson."

"A leddy!" exclaimed she, in a tone of mingled fear and astonishment--"O dear! what does the man mean! Bairns! bairns! can nane o' ye bring yer faither to reason!"

"It is you that requires to be brought to reason, Mrs Donaldson," said he; "but now since I see that ye are all upon the rack, I'll put ye at your wits' end. I am sensible that baith you and our neighbours have always considered me in the light of a miser. But neither you nor them knew my motive for saving. It has ever been my desire to become the richest, the greatest, and the most respectable man in the parish. But, though you may think that I have pinched the stomach, and wasted nothing on the back, this I knew I never could become out of the savings of nine shillings a-week. Yet, night and day, I hoped, prayed, and believed, that it would be accomplished--and it is accomplished!--yes, I repeat, it is accomplished."

"Oh help us!--help us?--what's to be dune wi' him?" cried Mrs Donaldson.

"Will ye speak sae that we can understand ye, faither?" said Paul.

"Well, then," replied Andrew, "for twenty years have I purchased shares in the lotteries, and twenty times did I get nothing but blanks--but I have got it at last!--I have got it at last!"

"What have you got, Andrew?" inquired Mrs Donaldson, eagerly, whose eyes were beginning to be opened.

"What have ye got, faither?" exclaimed Rebecca, breathlessly, who possessed no small portion of her father's pride; "how muckle is't?--will we can keep a coach?"

"Ay, and a coachman, too!" answered he, with an air of triumphant pride; "I have got the half of a _thirty thousand_!"

"The like o' that!" said Mrs Donaldson, raising her hands.

"A coach!" repeated Rebecca, surveying her face in a mirror.

Sarah looked surprised, but said nothing.

"Fifteen thousand pounds!" said Peter.

"Fifteen thousand!" responded Jacob.

Paul was thoughtful.

"Now," added Andrew, opening the boxes around him, "go each of you cast off the sackcloth which now covers you, and in these you will find garments such as it becomes the family of Andrew Donaldson, Esquire, to wear."

They obeyed his commands; and, casting aside their home-made cloth and cotton gowns, they appeared before him in the raiment which he had provided for them. The gowns were of silk, the coats of the finest Saxony, the waistcoats Marseilles. Mrs Donaldson's dress sat upon her awkwardly--the waist was out of its place, she seemed at a loss what to do with her arms, and altogether she appeared to feel as though the gown were too fine to sit upon. Sarah was neat, though not neater than she was in the dress of printed cotton which she had cast off; but Rebecca was transformed into the fine lady in a moment, and she tossed her head with the air of a duchess. The sleeves of Paul's coat were too short, Peter's vest would admit of but one button, and Jacob's trousers were deficient in length. Nevertheless, great was the outward change upon the family of Andrew Donaldson, and they gazed upon each other in wonder, as they would have stared at an exhibition of strange animals.

At this period there was a property, consisting of about twenty acres, in the neighbourhood of the village for sale. Mr Donaldson became the purchaser, and immediately commenced to build _Luck's Lodge, or Lottery Hall_, which to-day arrested your attention. As you may have seen, it was built under the direction of no architect but caprice, or a fickle and uninformed taste. The house was furnished expensively; there were card-tables and dining-tables, the couch, the sofa, and the harpsichord. Mrs Donaldson was afraid to touch the furniture, and she thought it little short of sin to sit upon the hair-bottomed mahogany chairs, which were studded with brass nails, bright as the stars in the firmament. Though, however, a harpsichord stood in the dining-room, as yet no music had issued from the lodge. Sarah had looked at it, and Rebecca had touched it, and appeared delighted with the sounds she produced; but even her mother knew that such sounds were not a tune. A dancing-master, therefore, who at that period was teaching the "five positions" to the youths and maidens of the village, was engaged to teach dancing and the mysteries of the harpsichord at the same time to the daughters of Mr. Donaldson. He had become a great and a rich man in a day; yet the pride of his heart was not satisfied. His neighbours did not lift their hats to him, as he had expected; but they passed him, saying, "Here's a fine day, Andrew!" or, "Weel, Andrew, hoo's a' wi' ye the day?" To such observations or inquiries he never returned an answer, but with his silver-mounted cane in his hand stalked proudly on. But this was not all; for, even in passing through the village, he would hear the women remark, "There's that silly body Donaldson away past;" or, "There struts the Lottery Ticket!" These things were wormwood to his spirit, and he repented that he had built his house in a neighbourhood where he was known. To be equal with the squire, however, and to mortify his neighbours the more, he bought a pair of horses and a barouche. He was long puzzled for a crest and motto with which to emblazon it; and Mrs. Donaldson suggested that Peter should paint on it a lottery ticket, but her husband stamped his foot in anger; and at length the coach-painter furnished it with the head and paws of some unknown animal.

Paul had always been given to books; he now requested to be sent to the university. His wish was complied with, and he took his departure for Edinburgh. Peter had always evinced a talent for drawing and painting. When a boy, he was wont to sketch houses and trees with pieces of chalk, which his mother declared to be as _natural as life_, and he now took instructions from a drawing-master. Jacob was ever of an idle turn; and he at first prevailed upon his father to purchase him a riding-horse, and afterwards to furnish him with the means of seeing the world. So Jacob set up gentleman in earnest, and went abroad. Mrs Donaldson was at home in no part of the house but the kitchen; and in it, notwithstanding her husband's lectures to remember that she was the wife of Mister Donaldson, she was generally found.

At the period when her father obtained the prize, Sarah was on the eve of being united to a respectable young man, a mechanic in the village, but now she was forbidden to speak or to look on him. The cotton gown lay lighter on her bosom than did its silken successor. Rebecca mocked her, and her father persecuted her; but poor Sarah could not cast off the affections of her heart like a worn garment. From childhood she had been blithe as the lark, but now dull melancholy claimed her as its own. The smile and the rose expired upon her cheeks together, and her health and happiness were crushed beneath her father's wealth. Rebecca, too, in their poverty had been "respected like the lave," but she now turned disdainfully from her admirer, and when he dared to accost her, she inquired with a frown, "Who are you, sir?" In her efforts also to speak properly, she committed foul murder on his Majesty's English; but she became the pride of her father's heart, his favourite daughter whom he delighted to honour.

Still feeling bitterly the want of reverence that was shown him by the villagers, and resolved at the same time to act as other gentlemen of fortune did, as winter drew on, Mr. Donaldson removed, with his wife, and daughters, and his son Peter, to London. They took up their abode at a hotel in Albemarle Street; and having brought the barouche with them, every afternoon Mr. Donaldson and his daughter Rebecca drove round the Park. His dress was rich and his carriage proud, and he lounged about the most fashionable places of resort; but he was not yet initiated into the mysteries of fashion and greatness; he was ignorant of the key by which their chambers were to be unlocked; and it mortified and surprised him that Andrew Donaldson, Esq., of Luck's Lodge--a gentleman who paid ready money for everything--received no invitations to the routes, the assemblies, or tables of the _haut ton_; but he paraded Bond Street, or sauntered on the Mall, with as little respect shown to him as by his neighbours in the country. When he had been a month in the metropolis, he discovered that he had made an omission, and he paid two guineas for the announcement of his arrival in a morning newspaper. "This will do!" said he twenty times during breakfast, as he held the paper in his hand, and twenty times read the announcement--"Arrived at ---- Hotel, Albemarle Street, A. Donaldson, Esq., of Luck's Lodge, and family, from their seat in the north." But this did not do; he found it was two guineas thrown away, but consoled himself with the thought that it would vex the squire and the people of his native village. With the hope of becoming familiar with the leading men of the great world, he became a frequenter of the principal coffee-rooms. At one of these, he shortly became acquainted with a Captain Edwards, who, as Mr. Donaldson affirmed, was intimate with all the world, and bowed to and was known by every nobleman they met. Edwards was one of those creatures who live--heaven knows how--who are without estates and without fortune, but who appear in the resorts of fashion as its very mirrors. In a word, he was one of the hangers-on of the nobility and gentry--one of their blacklegs and purveyors. Poor Mr. Donaldson thought him the greatest man he had ever met with. He heard him accost noblemen on the streets in the _afternoon_ with, "Good _morning_, my lord," and they familiarly replied, "Ha! Tom! what's the news?" He had borrowed ten, fifty, and a hundred pounds from his companion; and he had relieved him of a hundred or two more in teaching him to play at whist; but, vain, simple Mr. Donaldson never conceived that such a great man and such a fashionable man could be without money, though he could not be at the trouble to carry it. Edwards was between thirty and forty years of age, but looked younger; his hair was black, and tortured into ringlets; his upper lip was ornamented with thin, curved moustaches; and in his dress he was an exquisite, or a buck, as they were then called, of the first water. Mr. Donaldson invited him to his hotel, where he became a daily visitor. He spoke of his uncle the bishop of such a place, and of his godfather the earl of another--of his estates in Wales, and the rich advowsons in his gift. Andrew gloried in his fortune; he was now reaching the _acme_ of his ambition; he believed there would be no difficulty in getting his friend to bestow one or more of the benefices, when vacant, upon his son Paul; and he thought of sending for Paul to leave Edinburgh, and enter himself of Cambridge. Rebecca displayed all her charms before the captain; and the captain all his attractions before her. She triumphed in a conquest; so did he. Mr. Donaldson now also began to give dinners--and to them Captain Edwards invited the Honourable This, and Sir That; but in the midst of his own feast he found himself a cipher, where he was neither looked upon nor regarded, but had to think himself honoured in honourables eating of the banquet for which he had to pay. This galled him nearly as much as the perverseness of his neighbours in the country in not lifting their hats to him; but he feared to notice it, lest by so doing he should lose the distinction of their society. From the manner in which his guests treated him, they gave him few opportunities of betraying his origin; but, indeed, though a vain, he was not an ignorant man.

While these doings were carrying on in Albemarle-street, Mrs. Donaldson was, as she herself expressed it, "uneasy as a fish taken from the water." She said "such ongoings would be her death;" and she almost wished that the lottery ticket had turned up a blank. Peter was studying the paintings in Somerset House, and taking lessons in oil-colours; Rebecca mingled with company, or flaunted with Captain Edwards; but poor Sarah drooped like a lily that appears before its time, and is bitten by the returning frost. She wasted away--she died of a withered heart.

For a few weeks her death stemmed the tide of fashionable folly and extravagance; for, although vanity was the ruling passion of Andrew Donaldson, it could not altogether extinguish the parent in his heart. But his wife was inconsolable; for Sarah had been her favourite daughter, as Rebecca was his. It is a weak and a wicked thing, sir, for parents to make favourites of one child more than another--good never comes of it. Peter painted a portrait of his deceased sister from memory, and sent it to the young man to whom she was betrothed--I say betrothed, for she had said to him "_I will_," and they had broken a ring between them; each took a half of it; and, poor thing, her part of it was found on her breast, in a small bag, when she died. The captain paid his daily visits--he condoled with Rebecca--and, in a short time, she began to say it was a silly thing for her sister to die; but she was a grovelling-minded girl, she had no spirit.

Soon after this, Captain Edwards, in order to cheer Mr. Donaldson, obtained for him admission to a club, where he introduced him to a needy peer, who was a sort of half-proprietor of a nomination borough, and had the sale of the representation of a thousand souls. It was called his lordship's borough. One of its seats was then vacant, and was in the market, and his lordship was in want of money. Captain Edwards whispered the matter to his friend Mr Donaldson. Now, the latter, though a vain man, and anxious to be thought a fashionable man, was also a shrewd and a calculating man. His ideas expanded--his ambition fired at the thought! He imagined he saw the words ANDREW DONALDSON, ESQ., M.P., in capitals before him. He discovered that he had always had a turn for politics--he remembered that, when a working man, he had always been too much in an argument for the _Blacknebs_. He thought of the flaming speeches he would make in parliament--he had a habit of stamping his foot (for he thought it dignified), and he did so, and half exclaimed, "Mr. Speaker!" But he thought also of his family--he sank the idea of advowsons, and he had no doubt but he might push his son Paul forward till he saw him prime minister or lord chancellor; Peter's genius, he thought, was such as to secure his appointment to the Board of Works whenever he might apply for it; Jacob would make a secretary to a foreign ambassador; and for Rebecca he provided as a maid of honour. But, beyond all this, he perceived also that, by writing the letters M.P. after his name, he would be a greater man than the squire of his native village, and its inhabitants would then lift their hats to him when he went down to his seat; or, if they did not, he would know how to punish them. He would bring in severer bills on the game laws and against smuggling--he would chastise them with a new turnpike act.

Such were the ideas that passed rapidly through his mind, when his friend Edwards suggested the possibility of his becoming a Member of Parliament.

"And how much do ye think it would cost to obtain the seat?" inquired he, anxiously.

"Oh, only a few thousands," replied the captain.

"How many, think ye?" inquired Mr. Donaldson.

"Can't say exactly," replied the other; "but my friend Mr Borrowbridge, the solicitor, in Clement's Inn, has the management of the affair--we shall inquire at him."

So they went to the solicitor; the price agreed upon for the representation of the borough was five thousand pounds; and the money was paid.

Mr Donaldson returned to his hotel, his heart swelling within him, and cutting the figures M.P. in the air with his cane as he went along. A letter was despatched to Paul at Edinburgh, to write a speech for his father, which he might deliver on the day of his nomination.

"O father!" exclaimed Paul, as he read the letter, "much money hath made thee mad."

The speech was written, and forwarded, though reluctantly, by return of post. It was short, sententious, patriotic.

With the speech in his pocket, Mr. Donaldson, accompanied by his friend Edwards, posted down to the borough. But, to their horror, on arriving, they found that a candidate of the opposite party had dared to contest the borough with the nobleman's nominee, and had commenced his canvass the day before. But what was worse than all, they were told that he bleed freely, and his friends were distributing _gooseberries_ right and left.

"What is the meaning of all this?" said Mr. Donaldson, "have I not paid for the borough, and is it not mine? I shall punish him for daring to poach upon my grounds."

And, breaking away from Captain Edwards and his friends, he hurried out in quest of the mayor, to request advice from him. Nor had he gone far, till, addressing a person who was employed in thatching a house--

"Holloa, friend!" cried he, "can you inform me where I shall find the right worshipful the mayor?"

"Whoy, zur!" replied the thatcher, "I be's the mayor!"[3]

[Footnote 3: This picture also is drawn from life.]

Andrew looked at him. "Heaven help us!" thought he, "you the mayor!--you!--a thatcher!--well may I be a Member of Parliament!" But, without again addressing his worship, he hastened back to his friends; and with them he was made sensible, that, although he had given a consideration for the borough, yet, as opposition had started--as the power of the patron was not omnipotent--as the other candidate was bleeding freely--as he was keeping open houses and giving _yellow gooseberries_--there was nothing for it but that Mr. Donaldson should do the same.

"But, oh! how much will it require?" again inquired the candidate, in a tone of anxiety.

"Oh, merely a thousand or two!" again cooly rejoined Captain Edwards.

"A thousand or two!" ejeculated Mr. Donaldson, for his thousands were becoming few. But, like King Richard, he had "set his fate upon a cast," and he "would stand the hazard of the die." As to his landed qualification, if elected, the patron was to provide for that; and, after a few words from his friend Edwards, "Richard was himself again"--his fears vanished--the ocean of his ambition opened before him--he saw golden prospects for himself and for his family--he could soon, when elected, redeem a few thousands; and he bled, he opened houses, he gave gooseberries as his opponent did.

But the great, the eventful, the nomination day arrived. Mr. Donaldson--Andrew Donaldson, the labourer that was--stood forward to make his speech--the speech that his son Paul, student in the University of Edinburgh, had written. He got through the first sentence, in the tone and after the manner of the village clergyman, whom he had attended for forty years; but there he stuck fast; and of all his son Paul had written--short, sententious, patriotic as it was--he remembered not a single word. But, though gravelled from forgetfulness of his son's matter, and though he stammered, hesitated, and tried to recollect himself for a few moments, he had too high an idea of his own consequence to stand completely still. No man who has a consequential idea of his own abilities will ever positively stick in a speech. I remember an old schoolmaster of mine used to say, that a public speaker should regard his audience as so many cabbage-stocks.[4] But he had never been a public speaker, or he would have said no such thing, Such an advice may do very well for a precentor to a congregation; but, as regards an orator addressing a multitude, it is a different matter. No, sir; the man who speaks in public must neither forget his audience nor overlook them; he must regard them as his _equals_, but none of them as his _superiors_ in intellect; he should regard every man of them as capable of understanding and appreciating what he may say; and, in order to make himself understood, he should endeavour to bring his language and his imagery down to every capacity, rather than permit them to go on stilts or to take wings. Some silly people imagine that what they call fine language, flowery sentences, and splendid metaphors, are oratory. Stuff!--stuff! Where do you find them in the orations of the immortal orators of Greece or Rome? They used the proper language--they used effective language--

"Thoughts that breathed and words that burn'd;"

but they knew that the key of eloquence must be applied not to the head but to the heart. But, sir, I digress from the speech of Mr. Donaldson. (Pardon me--I am in the habit of illustrating to my boys, and dissertation is my fault, or rather I should say my habit.) Well, sir, as I have said, he stuck fast in the speech which his son had written; but, as I have also said, he had too high an opinion of himself to stand long without saying something. When left to himself, in what he did say, I am afraid he "betrayed his birth and breeding;" for there was loud laughter in the hall, and cries of _hear him! hear him!_ But the poll commenced; the other candidate brought voters from five hundred miles' distance--from east, west, north, and south--from Scotland, Ireland and the Continent. He polled a vote at every three proclamations, when Mr. Donaldson had no more to bring forward; and on the fourteenth day he defeated him by a majority of ONE! The right worshipful thatcher declared that the election had fallen on the opposing candidate. The people also said that he had spent most money, and that it was right the election should fall on the best man. He, in truth, had spent more in the contest than Andrew Donaldson had won by his lottery ticket. The feelings of Mr. Donaldson on the loss of his election were the agonies of extreme dispair. In the height of his misery he mentioned to his _introducer_, Captain Edwards--or rather I should call him his _traducer_--that he was a ruined man; that he had lost his all. The captain laughed and left the room. He seemed to have left the town also; for his victim did not meet with him again.

[Footnote 4: This, I believe, was the advice to his students of a late professor in the University of Edinburgh.]

In a state bordering on frenzy, he returned to London. He reached the hotel--he rushed into the room where his wife, his son, and his daughter sat. With a confused and hurried step he paced to and fro across the floor, wringing his hands, and ever and anon exclaiming, bitterly--

"Lost Andrew Donaldson!--Ruined Andrew Donaldson!"

His son Peter, who took the matter calmly, and who believed that the extent of the loss was the loss of the election, carefully surveyed his father's attitudes and the expression of his countenance, and thought the scene before him would make an admirable subject for a picture--the piece to be entitled, "_The Unsuccessful Candidate_." "It will help to make good his loss," thought Peter, "provided he will sit."

"Oh dearsake, Andrew! Andrew!--what is't?" cried Mrs. Donaldson.

"Lost! lost! ruined Andrew Donaldson!" replied her husband.

"Oh, where is the Captain?--where is Edwards? Why is he not here?" asked Rebecca.

"The foul fiend?" exclaimed her father.

"O Andrew, man--speak! Andrew, jewel--what is't?" added his wife; "if it be only the loss o' siller, Heaven be praised! for I've neither had peace nor comfort since ye got it."

"_Only_ the loss!" cried he, turning upon her like a fury--"only the loss!" Agony and passion stopped his utterance.

Mr Donaldson was in truth a ruined man. Of the fifteen thousand which he had obtained, not three hundred, exclusive of Lottery Hall, and the twenty acres around it, were left. His career had been a brief and a fashionable one. On the following day, his son Jacob returned from abroad. Within twelve months he had cost his father a thousand pounds; and, in exchange for the money spent, he brought home with him all the vices he had met with on his route. But I blame not Jacob: his betters, the learned and the noble, do the same. Poor fellow! he was sent upon the world with a rough garment round his shoulders, which gathered up all the dust that blew, and retained a portion of all the filth with which it came in contact; but polished substances would not adhere to it.

Captain Edwards returned no more to the hotel. He had given the last lesson to his scholar in the science of fashion; he had extorted from him the last fee he could spare. He had gauged the neck of his purse, and he forsook him--in his debt he forsook him. Poor Rebecca! day after day, she inquired after the captain--the captain! Lost, degraded, wretched Rebecca! But I will say no more of her. She became as dead while she yet lived--the confiding victim of a villain!

The barouche, the horses, the trinkets that deformed Mrs. Donaldson, with a piano that had been bought for Rebecca, were sold, and Andrew Donaldson, with his family, left London, and proceeded to Lottery Hall. But there, though he endeavoured to carry his head high, though he still walked with his silver cane, and though he was known (and he took care to make it known) that he had polled within one of being a Member of Parliament--still the squire did not acknowledge him--his old acquaintances did not lift their hats to him--but all seemed certain that he was coming down "_by the run_" (I think that was the slang or provincial phrase they used) to his old level. They perceived that he kept no horses now, save one to work the twenty acres around the lodge; for he had ploughed up, and sown with barley, and let out as potato ground, what he at first had laid out as a park. This spoke volumes. They also saw that he had parted with his coach, that he kept but one servant, and that servant told tales in the village. He was laughed at by his neighbours and those who had been his fellow-labourers; and with a sardonic chuckle they were wont to speak of his house as "_the Member o' Parliament's_." I have said that I would say no more of poor Rebecca; but the tongues of the women in the village dwelt also on her. She died, and in the same hour died also a new-born child of the villain Edwards.

Peter had left his father's house, and commenced the profession of an artist, in a town about twenty miles from this. Mr. Donaldson was now humbled. It was his intention with the sorry remnant of his fortune, to take a farm for Jacob; but, oh! Jacob had bathed in a sea of vice, and the bitter waters of adversity could not wash out the pollution it had left behind it. Into his native village he carried the habits he had acquired or witnessed beneath the cerulean skies of Italy, or amidst the dark-eyed daughters of France. Shame followed his footsteps. Yea, although the squire despised Mr. Donaldson, his son, a youth of nineteen, became the boon companion of Jacob. They held midnight orgies together. Jacob initiated the squireling into the mysteries of Paris and Rome, of Naples and Munich, whither he was about to proceed. But I will not dwell upon their short career. Extravagance attended it, shame and tears followed it.

Andrew Donaldson no longer possessed the means of upholding his son in folly and wickedness. He urged him to settle in the world--to take a farm while he had the power left of placing him in it; but Jacob's sins pursued him. He fled from his father's house, and enlisted in a marching regiment about to embark for the East Indies. No more was heard of him for many years, until a letter arrived from one of his comrades, announcing that he had fallen at Corunna.

To defray the expenses which his son Jacob had brought upon him, Mr. Donaldson had not only to part with the small remnant that was left him of his fifteen thousand, but take a heavy mortgage upon Lottery Hall. Again he was compelled to put his hand to the spade and to the plough; and his wife, deprived of her daughters, again became her own servant. Sorrow, shame, and disappointment gnawed in his heart. His garments of pride, now worn threadbare, were cut off for ever. The persecution, the mockery of his neighbours increased. They asked each other "if they had seen the Member of Parliament with the spade in his hand again?" They quoted the text, "A haughty spirit goes before a fall;" and they remembered passages of the preacher's lecture against pride and vanity on the day when Andrew appeared in his purple coat. He became a solitary man; and, on the face of this globe which we inhabit, there existed not a more miserable being than Andrew Donaldson.

Peter was generally admitted to be a young man of great talents, and bade fair to rise to eminence in his profession as an artist. There was to be an exhibition of the works of living artists in Edinburgh; and Peter went through to it, taking with him more than a dozen pictures, on all subjects and of all sizes. He had landscapes, sea pieces, historical paintings, portraits, fish, game, and compositions, the grouping of which would have done credit to a master. In size, they were from five feet square to five inches. His brother Paul, who was still at the college, and who now supported himself by private teaching, was surprised when one morning Peter arrived at his lodgings, with three cadies at his back, bearing his load of pictures. Paul welcomed him with open arms, for he was proud of his brother; he had admired his early talents, and had heard of the progress he had made in his art. With a proud heart and a delighted eye, Peter unpacked his paintings, and placed them round the room for the inspection of his brother; and great was his brother's admiration.

"What may be their value, Peter?" inquired Paul.

"Between ourselves, Paul," replied Peter, "I would not part with the lot under a thousand guineas."

"A thousand guineas!" ejeculated the student, in surprise; "do you say so?"

"Yes, I say it," answered the painter, with importance. "Look ye, Paul--observe this bridal party at the alter--see the blush on the bride's cheek, the joy in the bride-groom's eye--is it not natural? And look at the grouping! observe the warmth of the colouring, the breadth of effect, the depth of shade, the freedom of touch! Now, tell me candidly, as a brother, is it not a gem?"

"It is certainly beautiful," answered Paul.

"I tell you what," continued the artist--"though I say it who should not say it--I have seen worse things sold for a thousand guineas."

"You don't say so!" responded the astonished student, and he wished that he had been an artist instead of a scholar.

"I do," added Peter; "and now, Paul, what do you think I intend to do with the money which this will bring?"

"How should I know, brother?" returned the other.

"Why, then," said he, "I'm resolved to pay off the mortgage on our father's property, that the old man may spend the remainder of his days in comfort."

Paul wept, and taking his brother's hand, said, "And if you do, the property shall be yours, Peter."

"Never, brother!" replied the other--"rather than rob you of your birth-right I would cut my hand off."

The pictures were again packed up, and the brothers went out in quest of the secretary to the exhibition, in order to have them submitted to the committee for admission. The secretary received them with politeness; he said he was afraid that they could not find room for so many pieces as Mr Donaldson mentioned, for they wished to give every one a fair chance; but he desired him to forward the pictures, and he would see what could be done for them. The paintings were sent, and Peter heard no more of them for a week, when a printed catalogue and perpetual ticket were sent to him, with the secretary's compliments. Peter's eyes ran over the catalogue--at length they fell upon "_No. 210. A Bridal Party--P. Donaldson_," and again, "_No. 230. Dead Game--P. Donaldson_;" but his name did not again occur in the whole catalogue. This was a disappointment; but it was some consolation that his favourite piece had been chosen.