Chapter IX: An Apparition (7)

In the midst of a terrible storm of thunder, and lightning, and hail, Mr Austin preached the action sermon, and Mr Shiels fenced the tables—both serving the succeeding tables alternately. After the storm had passed, the day cleared out, the mist left Mount Benger’s brow, and sweet Bowhill looked out in soft and sparkling radiance. No signal of an approaching enemy was made till all was over, and the two officiating clergymen had returned with worthy Davie Dun—mentioned in one of Hogg’s poems—to enjoy a night’s repose. He was then shepherd on Mount Benger, and lived in a sheilin on the banks of Ettrick. About daylight next morning the sheilin was surrounded by dragoons, and Austin and his brother-in-law, Shiels, were dragged out of bed and mounted together upon one horse, without a saddle, and their legs tied together under its belly; and, in this painful and ignominious state, driven across the mountains towards Peebles. When they arrived there, poor Austin, who had not yet completely recovered from his late indisposition, became so faint and weak that he could not sit, even when supported by a dragoon at each side on horseback, and they were compelled to lodge there for the night. Next morning, they were marched off in the same manner, but with legs untied, towards Edinburgh, where they were safely lodged in the Tolbooth. They were ultimately brought before Lauderdale and the council; and after severe questioning, dismissed into banishment, as was originally intended, into the shire of Angus. Next day, they were conveyed over to Burntisland, and left to make the best of their way across to Angus—being at the same time informed, that if found south of the Tay, they would be taken up and executed as traitors.

In Mr Austin’s note-book, I find the following notice with which I shall conclude:—

“August, 1689.—It hath pleased the Lord to restore poor old useless Samuel Austin to his people; but where are they?—twenty years have made a sad event and reckoning here. The child has attained to manhood; the man has disappeared, or labours under the infirmities of age; and many have been removed, not only by death but by duty; they have removed, in the course of God’s providence, to other parishes, and even to other lands; and my flock is changed, and I feel no heart in preaching to these new faces, who know not Joseph. O Lord, let me arise and go hence; I am alone, in an altered world, of which I am weary. My house is desolate; my child—my wife—my sister—all—all gone on before; and fain, O, guid Lord, wad I follow—now let thy servant depart and sleep in peace.”

In the kirkyard of Penpont, at the west end of the church, there is a monument (at least there was, in my young days, some fifty years ago) with the following inscription:—

Here lies the worthy and godly
SAMUEL AUSTIN;
Forty-five years Minister of this Parish,
Nineteen of which years he was banished by ungodly men
from his dear Flock, and sorely persecuted for the
Truth, and for
PRESBYTERY’S SAKE.
God was pleased to restore him again at the period
of the
GLORIOUS REVOLUTION,
and he continued to the day of his death,
25th April, 1694,
faithfully, though in much bodily weakness, to administer
to his loved and loving
Flock.
“_The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance._”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Of the times to which reference is here made, as well as of the character here introduced to the reader’s notice, Blackwood, in the “Sketches of Scottish Character,” thus expresses himself, vol. viii., p. 12:—

“Sad time indeed, oh most detested time,
When vice was fealty, and religion crime;
When counsellors were traitors to the state;
A chancellor’s authority was fate
And Scotland felt the grasp, o’er muir and dale,
Of cruel, beastly, turncoat Lauderdale;
When Grierson stepped abroad in human gore,
The peaceful peasant butchered at his door;
And cruel Graham, and merciless Dalziell,
In nightly rendezvous enacted hell.”

A very striking engraving of this well-known person, is given by Burns of Paisley, in his admirable edition of Woodrow.

[2] Dalziell never wore boots.

THE CURSE OF SCOTLAND.

A night or two previous to the battle of Culloden, three or four gentlemen, retainers of Prince Charles, and who were residing in the same house with him at Inverness, were amusing themselves with a game at cards. During the evening, one of the latter suddenly disappeared, and, though anxiously sought for, could nowhere be found. “Curse the card!” exclaimed one of the gentlemen impatiently, after looking for it for some time in vain—“I wish it were in the Duke of Cumberland’s throat.” The missing card was the nine of diamonds. The gentlemen, however, determined not to be baulked of their sport, contrived a substitute for the lost article, and played on till bed time.

Two days after this, the battle of Culloden was fought; and, as is well known, the insurgent army was totally defeated, and the hopes of the unfortunate Adventurer laid prostrate for ever.

One consequence of this event was, that Inverness was thrown open to the Royalists, and thither, accordingly, the victorious general, the Duke of Cumberland, directed his steps after the engagement.

It was a practice of the Duke’s, on arriving at any town or village which had been previously visited by Charles, to inquire for the house, nay, for the very apartment and bed he had occupied, and to take possession of them for his own use, alleging, shrewdly enough, as a reason for this conduct, that they were sure to be the best in the place. In conformity with this practice, the Duke, on arriving at Inverness, inquired for the house in which Charles had stopped; and it being pointed out to him, he immediately took up his abode in it.

On the day after the engagement, it was reported to the Duke, that a great number of the wounded insurgents and others were still wandering, or in concealment in the neighbourhood of the field of battle. The ruthless general—whose naturally cruel disposition and sullen temper seem to have been fearfully excited by the resistance he had met with, and by the trouble it had cost him to subdue the rebellion in Scotland—on being informed of this circumstance, gave instant orders that a party of military should be sent out to destroy the unfortunate men wherever they could be found.

A strong body of troops were accordingly immediately dispatched on this sanguinary mission. But the officer in command of the party, after proceeding some way on his dreadful errand, suddenly recollected that he had no written authority for the horrible atrocity he was ordered to see perpetrated, the commands of the Duke having been merely verbal. Desirous of being better secured against any consequences which might arise from the shocking proceeding in which he was about to be engaged, he hastened back to Inverness, sought an audience of the Duke, and respectfully requested him to give him his orders in writing.

“No occasion whatever,” said the Duke sternly, and somewhat irritated at the want of confidence which the demand implied. “Do as you are desired, sir. I’ll answer for the consequences.”

The officer, however, continued to press his request, and reiterated his desire to be put in possession of documentary evidence that what he was about to do was done by authority.

Impatient at his importunity, and desirous of getting quit at once of the subject and his pertinacious visiter, the Duke hurriedly looked about the apartment for paper on which to write the desired order; but he could see none. While looking for the paper, however, he accidentally turned up a corner of the carpet with his foot, and brought to view a card which had been lying beneath it. The Duke observing it, hastily stooped down and picked it up, exclaiming, as he did so—“Oh, here, this will do well enough for the death-warrant of a parcel of rebel scoundrels!” And he immediately wrote the fatal order with a pencil on the back of the card. This card was the nine of diamonds, the same which had been lost a few evenings before; and such is one version, at any rate, of the tradition that has given to this particular card the startling title of “The Curse of Scotland.”

LEAVES

FROM THE

LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

Every reader has heard of the infamous speculation which is still known by the name of the South Sea Bubble. It produced a mania in the mercantile world, and brought ruin and misery to the hearths of thousands. Many who laid their head upon their pillow at night believing themselves to be rich, awoke beggars in the morning. Now, at the time when the South Sea scheme was at its height, there resided in Newcastle a Mr Hamilton, who had come from the neighbourhood of Peebles, when but a mere boy, as a clerk to a merchant; but he possessed much of the caution, the sobriety, and the prudence for which many of his countrymen are noted; and he not only obtained the confidence of his employers, but rose to be an eminent merchant himself. For more than thirty years he carried on business prosperously; he was believed to be wealthy, and he was so. But he had always been a speculative man, one whose temperament was too ardent, and he entered into the South Sea project with his whole heart, embarking in it his entire capital. He was a widower, and had an only son, named Alexander, who, at the age of twenty-one, he took into partnership with himself. The senior Mr Hamilton was a man who well knew the painful labour attending self-teaching, for he had himself experienced it; and, though he had always intended his son to be a merchant, he had sent him to Cambridge for his education, saying, “A British merchant is a citizen of the world, and stands in greater need of more languages than one, than a divine does. Therefore, my son shall be a scholar.”

Alexander accordingly passed through his academical studies with credit to himself; and, as has been said, when he had attained the age of twenty-one, his father took him into partnership. But before he was twenty-three he married Isabella Anderson, the daughter of a gentleman who was then his father’s principal clerk, but who had himself been an extensive merchant, until misfortune reduced him to the situation which he then occupied. She was somewhat younger than Alexander; and although a lovely girl, yet her virtues and the sweetness of her temper far exceeded her personal attractions. The elder Mr Hamilton, being aware of her many excellent qualities, though he knew her to be portionless, was not averse to her marriage with his son. But they had not been married twelve months, when the high-blown bubble burst, and the old merchant found himself a beggar. He took it deeply to heart, and, in the language of the mercantile world, he never raised his head again; but he sat sighing and pining away, like a broken-hearted child, and within six weeks he sank into the grave a ruined man.

Alexander, finding that the firm was indeed bankrupt, and that there was but little prospect of his again succeeding in Newcastle, where his pride revolted from becoming the servant of others, left his young wife with her father, and proceeded to London, where he doubted not but that amongst those who had received from his parent many thousands of pounds, he should soon be enabled to obtain a situation which would enable him to support himself and his Isabella in comfort.

His purse was, in truth, light when he arrived in the metropolis; and having taken lodgings in a mean coffee-house in Ratcliffe Highway, he despatched a note to a gentleman with whom they had dealt extensively, and, without entering into particulars, requested the loan of twenty pounds. He wrote, because he was conscious that he had not the assurance to solicit the favour personally; and he did solicit it, knowing that, before he could obtain a situation in London, money to support him in the interim was necessary. From that gentleman he received an answer by the bearer of his own note, in which no notice was taken of his father’s misfortunes or death; but the writer penned his reply as though he were aware of neither, and expressed his regret that, during the day, a circumstance occurred which deprived him of the pleasure he should have felt in serving Mr Hamilton; and that he was extremely sorry he could not then accommodate him with the trifle he requested. He added, in continuance, that he supposed, from the place from whence Mr Hamilton’s letter was dated, that his embarrassment proceeded from some youthful frolic, and he considered that the best method of discharging the debts of such creditors, was to give their persons over to the power of the magistrates.

“Such, then,” exclaimed Alexander, tearing the letter in pieces, “such is the friendship of this world!”

He was aware that the person to whom he had written was acquainted with the ruined fortunes of his house; and it was gall to his spirit to find that he not only wrote as if ignorant of them, but addressed him with the unfeeling familiarity of cold politeness, attributing to the folly of youth what he well knew to be the effect of misery and ruin.

He applied to another without obtaining any answer whatever; and the third to whom he applied, having read his note, sent a verbal message by the bearer, saying, “Tell Mr Hamilton that Mr —— is not at home.”

Indignant at the treatment of supposed friends, on the evening of the second day he discharged his bill at the coffee-house (on doing which he had but a few shillings left), and resolved to call personally upon an old college associate who had been often obliged to him, and who then was indebted to him more than a hundred pounds. This university companion, after coming of age, had fitted up a house in a style of absurd extravagance in Leicester Square.

I should have told you that, previous to Alexander’s proceeding to London, he had been compelled to dispose of the best part of his apparel to support his wife and himself, and, at the time we speak of, his appearance was what ought to be termed _shabby genteel_. He proceeded to the house of his friend, and striking upon the huge brass knocker, in the absence of the porter, a pert little French valet, with powdered hair, peeped cautiously from behind the door, and surveying him with a glance of aversion and contempt, in which he no doubt set him down to be a dun, he inquired—“Vat you vant, fellow?”

“The Honourable Edward Stafford, your master,” said Alexander, firmly.

“Mon Dieu! ha! ha! ha!” said the little Gaul, and attempted to thrust the door in his face; but Alexander, perceiving his intention, thrust forth his hand with a force that made the door fly back upon its hinges, and caused the huge brass knocker to sound an unusual and unceremonious alarm through the house, and at the same time drove the little powdered piece of foreign impertinence upon his back at the further end of the lobby.

“Moorder! moorder!” shouted the little valet, sprawling upon his back, and kicking with his feet upon the floor, till kitchen-maids, housekeeper, cook, butler, and all the personages in the Honourable Edward Stafford’s establishment, came rushing around him, holding up their hands.

“_O sacra Marie!_” cried the little valet, as they raised him to his feet; “de tief! de savage! vould commit von moorder!—_Ma foi!_ it be de miracle I be alive!” and, gathering himself upon his hands and knees, he muttered, eyeing him askance—“_Je voudrais qu’il s’en allat!_”

The Honourable Edward Stafford rushed also to the lobby, arrayed in a dressing-gown, having sprung from the hands of a hair-dresser, who was performing a piece of work upon his ringlets for which he did not consider the valet qualified; and, to give additional effect to the figure which he now made in the midst of his servants, he appeared with the one side of his head in curls, while a comb was left sticking in the other.

“What! in the name of the Tower of Babel!” cried, or rather squeaked, Mr Stafford—“what is the meaning of this?”

Alexander, whose natural humour returned at the risible scene before him, approached smiling; and, extending his hand, said—“What! don’t you know me, Ned?”

“Back! back!” exclaimed the honourable and gentle Edward Stafford; “the effluvia of thy garments is poison to my nostrils! Faugh!—know thee—why thou art a moving tar barrel!” There was some cause for this last remark; for Alexander had slept with the common seamen during his passage to London, and his clothes yet bore witness to the pitchy fragrance of his bed-chamber. But Mr Stafford calling for an opera-glass, raised it to his eye, and, surveying him for a few moments, inquired—“Why, who are you? Your face—I have seen it somewhere! Who are you?”

“Have you forgot Cambridge and Alexander Hamilton?” said the other.

“Sandy Hamilton!” exclaimed Stafford, rising an inch, as if in surprise—“we always called you Sandy. But, come, let me hear this lark—’tis a prime one, I will vow, from your appearance; and yet you were no lad for life either,” he added, as he coldly held out his forefinger, and turned to conduct him into an apartment.

Alexander, having related to him his present situation requested from him payment of such a portion of his college debt as he might find convenient.

“A plaguy odd affair, ’pon my honour!” drawled out Stafford; “but I’m sorry I can’t oblige you just at this moment. Never was a poor dog so confoundedly dunned! I am obliged to bilk the bailiffs at every corner. ’Pon my word, Sandy, I have had as many _Bills of Middlesex_ served upon me, within these six months, as would fill a stage coach! Nothing could be so provoking!—My rascal of a tailor, too, got a _Quare claussum_ popped into my hands only this morning! Lost a cool five hundred last night, also. So, you see I am involved on all sides. There is no way of redemption for me, that I can see, but taking a walk across Blackfriars. I do say that it is confoundedly hard that one can’t oblige one’s friends—but I hope you see, my dear fellow, that it is impossible. I am sorry for you, but I can’t help it at present—you must see that plain enough. Only, at the same time, your outward man seems approaching to the third and fourth letters of the alphabet—and, if there be anything in my wardrobe that would be of service——”

Here he paused—and be it known, gentle reader, that the Honourable Edward Stafford was one of the most diminutive of men; and as he stood by the side of Alexander, the crown of his head did not reach his shoulder. He again proceeded—“But why, Sandy, you know, when you were at Cambridge you were the Apollo, nay, the Adonis, of all the heiresses and rich dowagers within seven leagues. Many of them are in town now, and would be glad of an opportunity——”

“Sir,” said Alexander, reprovingly, “you forget that I am a husband.”

“Yes, yes, so you are,” drawled out Mr Stafford; “but that need not cause you to make sermons against your own preferment. I remember now, it was a low match—the daughter of one of your father’s clerks! O Sandy! Sandy!—I thought you had more spirit.”

“Sir,” replied Alexander, “my wife is the daughter of an honest man, whom you contributed to bring low and to ruin;” and, casting upon him a look of scorn, which caused the small gentleman to make precipitate retreat behind his chair, he added, with a sneer—“Farewell, Mr Stafford, and I wish you joy of your hopeful prospects.” Thus saying, and without waiting a reply, he left the house.

It was now July, and one hope remained. A gentleman who held a seat in the House of Commons, and who owed his return to the money advanced by the late Mr Hamilton, and the activity and zeal of Alexander, professed to be touched by his misfortunes, and promised to obtain for him a situation under government, which was then vacant. The day on which he was to be installed into the office was named; and Alexander, in the fulness and gladness of his heart, wrote for Isabella to come to London.

It may here be as well to inform the reader that the Honourable Edward Stafford, of whom we have spoken, was connected with the Borders. As hinted by Alexander, he had been one of those who had contributed to the ruin of Isabella’s father. But there was one circumstance which Alexander knew not, and which was, that, for some years prior to her marriage, the Honourable Edward Stafford had been her heartless persecutor, and as a villain had beset her path. The tale of her husband’s misfortunes having rekindled his hopes, he proceeded to the north to renew his plots and persecutions.

It was early in August, when a vessel, on board of which there were many passengers, sailed from the quayside of Newcastle. The morning was clear, the sky cloudless, and the villages, on either side of the Tyne, appeared in summer beauty. They had passed Shields, the pilot departed, and wished them a pleasant passage; several ladies and gentlemen promenaded the deck, contemplating the scene. Isabella, unconscious of being observed by all, sat alone on the starboard side of the companion, her elbow resting by the top of the binnacle lamp, and her eyes fixed upon the shore.

While she thus sat, an imposing little personage, wearing a superb Spanish cloak, flung with what may be termed graceful negligence across his shoulders, and having a highly-flavoured cigar in his teeth, consequentially ascended the cabin stairs—looked knowingly towards the mast-head—gave two or three springy struts across the after-deck—cast an aristocratical glance around the passengers—stood suddenly still—bent pryingly over the companion—stole round on tiptoe, tapped Isabella familiarly on the shoulder, and, throwing back his little body to its extreme altitude, he stretched out his parcel of white fingers, saying—“A study for a Rembrandt, by the Graces! I am a fortunate fellow in meeting you again; but didn’t know, ’pon my honour, until lately, that my friend, Sandy Hamilton, had the happiness of being acquainted with you.”

“Mr Stafford,” said Isabella, “the wife of him whom you call your friend has hitherto been accustomed to plainer language.”

“You are severe, my pretty paragon,” whispered the little man; “but, now that you are leaving the north country in quest of a husband, do not disfigure that lovely face with north country formality.”

And, casting aside both formality and delicacy himself, with the air of a wooer who presumes more upon his own importance than the feelings of her professed to be beloved, he seated himself by her side, and, with an affected and seemingly careless playfulness, threw his arm across her shoulder.

“Sir,” said Isabella, rising indignantly, “you have this moment called my husband your friend—if you are ignorant of the sacred duties of a friend, or of the respect due to my sex, and the conduct becoming a gentleman, let the misfortunes of our house be my protection.”

“Protection!—creature of beauty!” said he, “I will protect you with my life! Nay, do not frown; for your anger only makes your loveliness the more provoking, and calls back the colour which your misfortunes, as you term them, are trying to banish.”

“Begone, sir,” said Isabella, “practise your fooleries on those who will listen to them;” and she walked to the opposite side of the vessel, whither she was immediately followed by her unabashed tormentor.

“Come, sweet one,” resumed he, “do not delight in throwing lightnings from eyes where moonbeams would blush at the presence of rivals.”

“Your behaviour, sir,” said Isabella, “in any man, but especially in one bearing the rank of a gentleman, is contemptible, cowardly, and unmanly. On former occasions I have borne your insults without drawing upon you the chastisements which you merited; but you now profess to know me as the wife of your friend, and as such I claim your respect—or I shall know how to resent your conduct.”

“An angel in a fury!” exclaimed the Hon. Edward Stafford, with a theatrical start. “Respect you!—why, I adore you!—worship you!—will die for you!”

“Pitiable fool!” replied she, turning from him with disdain.

“Only the fool your eyes have made him, lovely cruelty!” rejoined he, following her, and extending his hand to lay hold of her arm.

“’Vast there, you chap!” cried the skipper—a round, red-faced, jolly-looking seaman, who had observed from the helm the conduct of Mr Stafford; “’vast there, I say—I’ll have no monkey tricks on board o’ my ship. That young lady is under my especial care; for, d’ye see, her father was once one o’ my owners, and so was her husband and his father before him—and I just tell ye, ceevilly, my canny lad, ye had better shove your boat off!”

“Fellow!” sneered Mr Stafford, surveying him with a look of contempt, “do you know to whom you speak?”

“I neither know nor care, young gentleman,” replied the skipper; “but I’ll let you know that neither you nor any man shall ca’ me fellow, or use any indecent liberties on board my ship, so ye had better take in a reef, or keep a look-out for squalls.”

“Heathen—uncivilized Laplander!” fumed Mr Stafford, stamping his little foot upon the deck; “do you know, sir, to whom you are opening your barbarian lips?”

“My wig! I’ll tell ye what it is, young chap,” vociferated the skipper, “I dinna care though ye were first cousin to the flying Dutchman; ye shall know I’m maister o’ this vessel.”

“Confound you and your vessel!” retorted the little man, stamping more passionately than before; “dare you open your frog’s mouth to a gentleman?”

“Ye poor singet creature!—ye miserable button top!” rejoined the skipper, “has an insignificant object like you the assurance to confound anybody? Are you no feared that I wry your neck about like a cock-sparrow’s? As sure as death, sir, if ye drop another word o’ your insolence to me I’ll capsize ye under a bucket.”

“You savage!—you Greenland bear!” reiterated Mr Stafford, brandishing his clenched fist in the face of the other; “are gentlemen to endure the boorish insolence of a Hottentot like you? You’ll capsize me under a bucket, will you? Look you, sir, if you don’t ask my pardon instantly, before the whole ship’s company, sir, I’ll put a brace of bullets through your ass’s head! I will, sir! Do you think with your cowardly carcass to intimidate me? Were you as big as Goliath, I’ll let you know I’m a gentleman, sir!”

“Here Jack, take the helm,” roared the skipper to one of his crew; “and now, ye chattering morsel o’ humanity, I’ll let ye see whether you or I be the best gentleman in this ship, at any bat!”

He sprang forward, Edward Stafford sprang back, and the passengers sprang between them.

“Hands off, gentlemen, if you please!” said the skipper; “remember I am master o’ this vessel. I wud wish to be civil to everybody, but it is not in the power o’ nature to put up wi’ the impudence o’ a creature like that; and though I’ll no hurt him—smash me! he shall either haud his tongue, or he shall never speak more. Did ye hear such names as I put up wi’?”

“Unhand the ruffian, gentlemen!” cried Mr Stafford, who had retreated amid-ships, and felt his courage revive under the protection of half-a-dozen ladies. “Unhand the mountain of moving mud! I’ll teach such fellows how to interfere with a gentleman! Unhand him, and I’ll send him below with a piece of cold lead through his fin!” And heroically taking from his pocket a handsome silver-mounted ivory case, he placed it with a determined air upon the top of a beef cask, again exclaiming—“Don’t hold him, gentlemen—these will do for him!”

“I tell ye again, sirs,” shouted the skipper, “don’t hold me! Do you think a thing like that shall threaten to shoot me on board o’ my own ship?” And he struggled to approach him.

“See to yourselves, gentlemen!” cried Mr Stafford, laying his hand fiercely upon the pistol-case.

“O sir!—pray sir!—dear sir!—” screamed the ladies, grasping him in their arms.

“Oh, don’t be alarmed,” said the little Honourable; “’pon honour, I shall only wing him—I have had some experience in these matters.”

The skipper made a desperate rush forward—the ladies screamed louder—Mr Stafford seized the pistol-case furiously, crying—“Then die, fellow!——”

His exclamation was cut short—a lady grasped the terrible pistol-case; it opened in the struggle, and the hateful weapons fell upon the deck, though not in the shape of pistols, but the honourable gentleman’s sea-stock of cigars! The gentlemen laughed—the ladies tittered.

“It has ended in _smoke_, sir,” said a fair punster.

“You can still _fire_ them!” added another.

And the skipper, laughing like the mirth of a hoarse wave, taking him firmly by the ear with his finger and thumb, said—“Gather them up, sir—gather up your _firearms_!” And, as Mr Stafford persisted in disobeying, another twitch was given to his ear, and another and another, while he screamed and wept through passion and pain, danced and twisted to be free, to the amusement of the spectators, who enjoyed his punishment and humiliation.

“Sir,” said Isabella, addressing his tormentor, the frantic cries of Mr Stafford having brought her from the cabin, where she retired at the beginning of their altercation; “if a fly sting us, we may drive it away, without taking pleasure in its tortures; and it is but a cowardly revenge to torment an insect.”

“Well, ma’am,” said the skipper, withdrawing his hand from the ear of the other; “I have no wish to hurt the thing; only, after his impudence to you, as well as to mysel’, he had better have a care what sort o’ colours he hoists for the rest o’ the passage—that’s all.” The agony and confusion of Mr Stafford cannot be described. He blushed, swore, threatened, and wept by turns—rushed to the cabin, hurried back, threw his card in the captain’s face—stamped, stormed, and vowed vengeance, till he became silent from exhaustion. A few weeks before, he had left London for the north, partly to avoid the importunities of his creditors, whose claims had been discharged after his departure by the too fond indulgence of a foolish mother, but chiefly to carry into effect his long-cherished designs against the beautiful wife of his college companion, whose misfortunes caused him now to look upon her as an easy and lawful prize; and it was under this conviction that he watched her departure for London, and took his passage in the same vessel. Mortified at the ridiculous figure he exhibited, he resolved to suspend all further attempts until they arrived at London.

But three days were not past, notwithstanding the misfortune of the pistol-case, until the Honourable Edward Stafford, through the assistance of self-confidence or impudence, with pretended wit and foppish extravagance, was again the principal personage in the vessel. His brandy, his claret, and his cigars, operated marvellously in his favour with the gentlemen; every one sought his society, and called him a good fellow. The weather had hitherto been too fine for sea-sickness, and his agreeable attentions, his vivacity and elegant compliments, rendered him not less a favourite with the ladies. Isabella alone despised him; while he, affecting to despise her in return, circulated foul whispers against her character. Whatever doubts there might be in the minds of his auditory respecting the veracity of his accusation, the breath of slander is exhaled from a poison so black, that for a time its passing shadow will veil the holiness of a saint, and bedim the radiance of a seraph. Isabella, therefore, was shunned by her own sex as contagious, and by the other treated with cold indifference. Occasionally she observed their scrutinizing glances, or coloured at their half audible whispers, but, in the purity of her own heart, she suspected not the cause. In the master of the vessel only she still found a friend, who, although rough as his own element, evinced towards her the tenderness of a parent.

For some days the wind was adverse, and on the Sabbath morning, being the fifth from their leaving Newcastle, it was a dead calm. The skipper was walking backward and forward upon the deck, now glancing at the clouds, and now at the shore, with the countenance of a man who considers he has reason neither to be satisfied with himself nor with others. In the cabin some appeared to read, others yawned, while some went to the deck and instantly returned. The ladies looked at each other, whispered, fretted, and exclaimed—“How tedious!” Isabella sat silent amidst the unhappy group, “among them, but not of them.”

Mr Stafford, who hitherto had been whistling at his toilette, turned round and exclaimed—“Dumb as the foundations of a Quaker’s chapel! Come,” continued he, placing a couple of bottles of claret upon the table, “my pantomimic company of tragedians, allow me to administer the comforts of a calm to the necessities of your poor dumb mouths;” and, as he poured out the wine, he sang a few lines of an idle song. The company looked upon each other with a flitting expression of horror—none of them had been accustomed to hear the Sabbath so desecrated, though, as he proceeded, a few of them relaxed into a smile. But Isabella, rising, said emphatically—“Sir, the FOOL hath said in his heart, There is no God!” And she pronounced the word, _fool_, with a pointed sarcasm, which, although it in some measure took from the spirit of the original, rendered it more poignant in its present application.

“Your ladyship!” replied he, sneeringly, and, bowing to her with an air of mock humility. “Lily of the saints!” he added, “preach on, that the humblest of thy slaves may treasure up in his heart of hearts the pious honey of thine own sweet lips!”

He paused, and continuing his attitude of mock humility, commenced to hum the tune which he before had attempted to sing.

“Sir,” said Isabella, glancing upon him with scorn and compassion, “I pity you.”

“Now for a sermon!” he added, but the words faltered on his tongue, and he sat down in confusion.

“Sermon or no sermon,” said the skipper, entering from the foot of the cabin stairs, where he had descended to stop the singing himself, “I’ll neither allow Sabbath-breaking nor any wickedness that I can prevent, on board a ship o mine.”

“Come, old prig,” returned Stafford, “I’ve paid for my passage, I suppose, and I’ll have you to know that I’ll amuse myself as I please. Don’t think, my good fellow, that because I have listened to a little sermonizing from a pretty face, that I am to be bored with your croaking.” And he began to whistle a waltz.

“Poor thing!” resumed the skipper, “ye are to be pitied, after a’. I’ll declare, when I see bits o’ dandy creatures like you glorying in your wickedness, and doubling your nieves in the face o’ Heaven, it puts me in mind o’ a peacock spreading its tail to stop a whirlwind, or a cockle opening its shell to swallow a water-spout!”

At this moment the breeze sprang up, and the mate summoning all hands to deck, Mr Stafford was left unheeded to reflect on his own folly. During the night the wind blew very fresh; and the vessel having left the land and entered Boston Deeps, laboured considerably. From the ladies’ cabin issued prayers, shrieks, and groans of suffering, and every one devoutly wished to be once more blest with the tediousness of a calm; and, as the vessel yawed, rocked, and staggered with the heavy swell, and the ponderous boom, with its mainsail flapping like thunder, grating, crashing, clanking, and tearing with sudden jerk, or with fearful lunge reversing the laws of gravity, and tearing both mast and vessel into the sea, scream rose upon scream; sickness and terror met in conflict. Babel seemed above them and thunder below. The wind bellowed more madly. The plunging of the vessel became more frequent and more alarming. There was a running to and fro upon the deck—a bawling and a bustle. Darkness hung over them—thick, substantial darkness, rendering the very surge invisible. The heavy clouds seemed embracing the waters, and the crushed winds roared between the pressure of their meeting. A storm, by almost imperceptible degrees, had circled round them. Every sail of the vessel was reefed, and both anchors dropped; but the chain cable snapped like the web of a gossamer, and she lunged and tugged from her remaining anchor, dragging it after her, like a fiery horse tearing from the rein of a schoolboy. The mast bent as a proud man bends in the day of adversity; the topmast went overboard, striking heavily upon the deck as it fell. It struck immediately over the bed of the Honourable Edward Stafford. A loud shriek issued from the curtained railings; they were flung open, and out sprang Mr Stafford, dragging after him the bed-clothes, wringing his hands, and crying to Heaven for mercy. The dressed and the half-dressed now stood around the floor, clinging to each other and the furniture of the cabin for safety—each speaking and no one hearing;—but a clamour, loud, confused, and fearful, mingled with the noise of the winds and waves. Isabella alone remained tranquil. The vessel had dragged her anchor for several miles; they were in the midst of breakers, and the increased confusion upon deck announced the horrors of a lee shore, when she suddenly brought to, and half turning to the weather, a heavy sea broke over her, sweeping from the deck the boat, casks, and spars, and gushing down the cabin stairs, encompassed its terror-stricken inmates to the knees. The heart of Mr Stafford sprang to his throat, and his feet to the table, where he remained upon his knees, wringing his hands by the side of a flickering lamp. While he was in this position, the vessel was suddenly driven upon her side; for, through the darkness of the night, another vessel had run against her, and she being cracked with age, the bowsprit of the other went through planks and timbers, and, before it gave way, projected rudely several feet into the cabin, forming an unexpected and unwelcome intruder upon the motley scene of sickness and despair. Fear had already fastened the gurgling gasp in the throats of many of the passengers, when a voice from the deck exclaimed—“Ladies and gentlemen, look to yourselves!” It was the signal of death. A general groan followed. There was a rush to the cabin stairs. Calm as Isabella had hitherto been, she was now changed. It is difficult to look the grim angel in the face with indifference; but she rushed not to the stairs with the others. Mr Stafford was driven from the table by the uncourteous visit of the bowsprit, and now wallowed upon the floor, buffeting with the brine, imagining himself at the bottom of the vasty deep. The concussion of the vessels had brought his head in violent conjunction with the cabin floor, which, with his excited fears, deprived him of the consciousness of time and place; and being immersed in water, he continued to gasp, groan, shriek, and flounder upon the floor, seizing the heels of his fellow-passengers—who, in their eagerness for escape, had wedged up the cabin door—doubting nothing, as they trode upon his delicate fingers, that he had thrust them into the mouth of a ravenous fish, which had come to feast upon his unfortunate body.

“Save me!—save me!” he cried again and again, as he continued tossing and rolling in the water.

The vessel again righted, and he was swept to the feet of Isabella, who, aroused by his cries of terror, raised him to his feet. He struggled, gasped, trembled. His eyes and mouth opened to their utmost width—he appeared to draw the breath of an hour in a moment; and, gazing round vacantly, he seemed to marvel whether he was in the world of men, of fish, or of spirits.

“You are living, brave sir!” said Isabella, sarcastically, smiling at his excess of terror; “but,” added she, leaving him, “the Sabbath-breaker and the scoffer are not the most courageous in the hour of danger.”

It is only necessary to add, that the vessels having got disentangled, with daybreak the storm abated; and, on the ninth day, after leaving Newcastle, the vessel drew up off the Hermitage Stairs, Wapping, with the loss of topmast, anchor, and cables, beef and water casks, spars, oars, and other minor _et ceteras_, together with damaged bulwarks and hulk; but with the crew and passengers safe.

Isabella had not had an opportunity of writing to her husband, to acquaint him with the name of the vessel in which she would take her passage, nor when she would leave Newcastle; and, as they drew up in the pier, while the friends and relatives of other passengers thronged around them, to her no hand was extended. She stood as one deserted upon the threshold of the Nineveh of nations; and the crowds that passed before her seemed as the ghosts of solitude, giving tongues to bereavement, and forms to desolation. She felt herself alone in the midst of millions, solitary as a wearied bird whose wing has drooped in the wilderness.

She went on shore, where she was immediately accosted by a hackney-coachman, whom she requested to convey her to a Mr Fulton’s in Cornhill, to whose care her husband had requested her to forward the letters she addressed to him. She was informed by the skipper that Cornhill was not above a mile and a half from the wharf; and, as the coach drove on, passing the bustling crowds who hurried along the streets, she forgot for a moment her own feelings in contemplation of the motley scene. The coach stopped facing the Mint, and the driver, leaving his box, spoke a few words with another coachman, who immediately drove rapidly in the direction of Watling Street. After a few minutes’ delay the coachman again mounted the box. She had never before looked upon a countenance where a grovelling and villanous soul had written in such broad and unblushing characters its own worthlessness. It was one of those countenances which it is hardly possible to pass upon the street without disliking. In it were pourtrayed meanness, servility, depravity, and deceit—it was purple with dissipation, and blotched with iniquity. She shuddered to find herself, though in the broad day, and in the midst of the metropolis, under the care of such a man. She began to feel conscious that they must have proceeded much farther than the distance mentioned by the skipper, and, with a degree of alarm, she inquired at the driver if he rightly understood where she wished to be set down.

“Vy, yes,” replied he, “I knows the house well enough; it is Mr Fulton’s of Cornhill, an’t it?”

“Yes,” she answered; and he added that they would be there within five minutes, and drove on. Within the time he specified they stopped before an elegant house in a square, the silence of which was only broken by the rattling of a few fashionable carriages. The coachman alighted, and a liveried servant stood ready to receive her. She inquired if the house to which she had been conducted was Mr Fulton’s of Cornhill, and the servant answered that it was. She, however, had been within it but a few minutes, when she became conscious that she was under the roof and in the power of the Honourable Edward Stafford. Despair gave her strength; she raised her eyes to Heaven, and in the emphatic words of Judith, prayed—“Strengthen my hand!” Grasping a fruit-knife, which lay near her, in her hand, she made a desperate effort to escape; and, although the servants aided their master in opposing her, yet, as my readers have already had a specimen of his courage, and as the heroism of his domestics was not of that description, which “smiles at the drawn dagger and defies its point,” they will not be surprised to learn that through half-a-dozen such assailants one weak woman, rendered desperate, forced her escape.

Having reached Cornhill, she was from thence conducted, by one of Mr Fulton’s clerks, to Red Lion Square, where her husband then lodged. Their meeting was one of sorrow and of joy; but I need not describe it. Alexander perceived that she was agitated, and he entreated to know the cause. She, fearful of the consequences that might arise from divulging it, would have concealed it; but it is difficult for an affectionate wife to conceal from her husband aught that concerns him; and within half an hour he knew all that had passed during her passage to London and since she arrived. He would have rushed forth on the instant to seek revenge, but she clung around his neck, she entreated him not to leave her, and he consented to defer the punishment of Stafford to a more favourable moment.

From week to week, Alexander’s expected appointment under government was delayed; and, although they had parted with almost every article of any value which they had brought with them, they began to be in want. Yet Isabella murmured not, but sought to sooth her husband and raise his drooping spirits. At length, the long wished-for day on which he was to be installed into office arrived, and ten o’clock was the hour fixed by his patron for meeting him. Everything around him wore a face of joy. He now knew that wealth was unnecessary to secure happiness with one who had taught him that contentment is true riches. He longed for the appointed hour. There was a tear in Isabella’s eye, but it was a tear of gratitude and happiness. “Bless thee—my own!” she said, as he rose to depart; and in silence he kissed her cheek.

Never until now had she felt the full measure of her anxiety for the issue of an event to which her husband looked forward with passionate eagerness. Slowly and tediously the morning passed away; noon came, and the hours seemed lengthening; and evening drew on, but it brought not Alexander. The long summer day died in midnight, but no remembered footstep stopped at the threshold. The morning dawn stole upon the voiceless streets, imperceptibly filling them with the slow and silent light.

“It is another day!” she exclaimed, in agony; “and where is my Alexander?”

Precisely at the appointed hour, Alexander had arrived at the house of his patron. The servant who opened the door, muttered that it was too early—that his master was not down—and requested him to remain a few minutes in an apartment adjoining the lobby. The few minutes became an hour. Alexander was mortified and in agony. The clock, measuring out the moments, seemed to remind him of the insults to which he was subjected. At length he heard the “great man’s” foot upon the stair, and rose to meet him. But the patron passed on, and his carriage drew up to the door. Alexander sprang forward, and, in the excitement of his feelings, placed his hand upon his shoulder. The bestower of patronage turned haughtily, and demanded the cause of the interruption. Alexander returned his glance with equal haughtiness, and demanded to know how he had dared first to mock and now insult him.

“Begone, fellow!” exclaimed the senator, contemptuously.

“Never!” replied Alexander, “until you have apologized for that word, and for having dared to mock me.”

The courage of the silent member was rather of an aspen character, and he became pale and trembled. Struggling for dignity of manner, shaking, and calling up an air of offended importance, he said he should have felt pleasure to have served him, in consideration of the kindness of his family; but added, after considerable faltering and hesitation, that he was compelled to withdraw his countenance and patronage, owing to the representations which he had heard of his habits and character, and that, in consequence, the situation he intended for him was already bestowed upon another.

“Representations regarding MY habits and character, sir?” exclaimed Alexander; “tell me who has dared to revile me.”

“My informant is a gentleman of honour and of family, one who knows you well—and beyond this I will not be braved to inform you.”

“You shall!” exclaimed Alexander.

“Never!” answered the other bitterly, and called to his servants to obtain assistance and give him into custody; and as he spoke he slid to the farther corner of the lobby. Alexander’s eyes glared upon him as a wounded lion measures its victim. There was an unearthly earnestness and determination in his manner that might have appalled a stouter heart. He grasped the trembler firmly by the arm, and in a tone more impressive than anger, slowly and solemnly inquired—“What is the name of my defamer?”

“The Honourable Edward Stafford,” stammered out the other, awed by the desperate resoluteness of his manner.

“Stafford!” exclaimed Alexander, starting back—“am I then a second time stung by a worm?—poisoned by a reptile?—Stafford!” he repeated, and hurried from the house.

He had turned aside into the Park, to conceal his agitation, indulging in the secret determination to proceed to Leicester Square and seek vengeance upon his enemy; but his gestures betrayed the agitation of his spirit, and excited the loud laughter of two horsemen who rode behind him. He turned fiercely round upon the mockers of his misery—one of them was the Honourable Edward Stafford. Alexander sprang upon him, and dragged him to the ground, as a tiger springeth upon his prey. In his fury he trampled him beneath his feet, and he lay bleeding and insensible upon the ground, when his companion, having procured the assistance of the police, Alexander was taken into custody, and, being brought before the magistrates, was committed for trial.

Wretched and disconsolate, Isabella beheld the sun of another day set, and yet she heard nothing of her husband. She had hurried from street to street, wild and restless as a household bird, which, escaped from its cage, breaks its wings and its heart, as it flutters, without aim and without rest, through the strange wilderness of liberty. Wearied with fatigue, and well nigh delirious with wretchedness, she was ready to inquire of every stranger that she met—“Have you seen my Alexander?” And again and again she returned to their silent and comfortless lodgings; but there the sound of her own sighs murmured desolation; and, in impatient agony, she exclaimed—“My husband!—my Alexander!—where shall I find him?”

She had sent messengers in every direction, and to all of whom she had heard him mention but their name; and, in her agony, her tearful eyes had wandered over the broad Thames, fearfully and eagerly surveying its shores, and following its stream for miles, till, faint and weary, she sank despairing and exhausted on the ground. A letter from her husband was at length put into her hands, which informed her that he was then a prisoner in Newgate. She immediately hastened to the gloomy prison-house, and when she arrived before it, and beheld its ponderous gates, studded with bolts of iron, and overhung with the emblems of the felon’s chain and the gibbet, she recoiled back for a few paces, and her heart failed.

Until the time of admission arrived, she wandered disconsolately in front of the prison, and, on being admitted, she heard the sound as of an unruly multitude issuing from the corner of the prison whither she was conducted. She was shewn into a large and noxious apartment, where about a hundred individuals, of all ages, the accused and the condemned, were assembled together—some cooking, some practising the art of the pickpocket, and others holding mock courts of law. Her heart became motionless with horror as she gazed wildly around the den of guilt and pollution. On perceiving her, they desisted from their amusements and boisterous mirth, and gazed upon her in silent wonder. Their sudden and unusual silence aroused Alexander, who was sitting alone in a dark corner of the room; and, sorrowfully raising his head, he perceived every eye turned upon his own beautiful and afflicted wife. He sprang forward, and, forgetful of all around, she sank upon his bosom. He led her to a remote corner of the apartment, and pressing her hand to his breast—“Ah, my Isabella!” he whispered in agony, “this is indeed kind! to visit me in such a place, and in the midst of these miserable beings!”

“Say not kind, dear husband,” she replied—“what is too much for the affection of a wife to do? Horrible as this place is, but yesterday to have known that you lived, and I could have been its inmate for life.”

“Isabella,” added he, “for imprisonment I care but little—from a tribunal of my countrymen I have nothing to fear; but there is one constant and heart-piercing misery which is consuming me. While I am here a prisoner, who will protect, who will provide for you, my love, for you?”