Part 16 (1/2)

By day, the frequent coffins, borne to the grave by but a few bearers, and the frequent smoke that rose outside the place from fires kindled to consu effect; a ration, too, of a considerable portion of the fisher population to the caves of the hill, in which they continued to reside till the disease left the town, for accoh, as the danger seemed to increase the consternation lessened, and there wasthe people when the disease was actually ravaging the place, than when it was ht around it We soon became faard them as comparatively ordinary and coe in Southey's ”_Colloquies_,” in which Sir Thouarantee whatever, in these latter times, that their shores shall not be visited, as of old, by devastating plagues ”As touching the pestilence,” says Sir Thomas (or rather the poet in his naue has not appeared a you for the last hundred and fifty years--a portion of ti as it may seem, co in the physical history of the globe The ie is as possible now as it was in former tie with less violence a the crowded population of your metropolis than it did before the fire? What,” he adds, ”if the sweating sickness, eain? Can any cause be assigned why it is not as likely to break out in the nineteenth century as in the fifteenth?” And, striking as the passage is, I re, natural to men in a quiet time, which leads them to draw so broad a line between the experience of history, if of a coe, or of a distant place, and their own personal experience In the loose sense of the sophist, it was contrary to my experience that Britain should beco disease as used to ravage it of old And yet, now that I saw as terrible and unwonted an infliction as either the plague or the sweating sickness decies, and the terrible scenes described by De Foe and Patrick Walker fully rivalled, the feeling hich I caeness, but of fa watch and ward against our insidious enemy, the Reform Bill for Scotland passed the House of Lords, and becarowth of the popular ele, froh theand Goderich, down till even Wellington and Peel, men of iron as they were, had to yield to the pressure from without, and to repeal first the Test and Corporation Acts, and next to carry, against their own convictions, the great Ro a season of undisturbed peace, favourable to the growth of opinion, were beco more decidedly a power in the country than they had ever been before; and of course, as one of the people, and in the belief, too, that the influence of the many would be less selfishly exerted than that of the feas pleased that it should be so, and looked forward to better days ForI had early come to see that toil, physical or intellectual, was to be h no possible iovern for , and I have received from it about aspretty hard for ed in heith bare breast and are to day, was to be carried across the ferry to a churchyard on the opposite side of the Firth A group of French fisher curiously at ht, so on the physical powers of aone day to deal They formed part of the crew of one of those powerfully-ers which visit our northern coasts every year, ostensibly with the design of prosecuting the herring fishery, but which, supported e Govern speculations, are in reality kept up by the State as a er--an uncouth-looking vessel, representative rather of the navigation of three centuries ago than of that of the present day--lay stranded in the harbour beside us; and, their work over for the day, they see whose stillness they were enjoying; when the letter-carrier of the place ca, and handed me, all damp from the press, a copy of the _Inverness Courier_, which I owed to the kindness of its editor I was at once attracted by the heading, in capitals, of his leading article--”Revolution in France--Flight of Charles X”--and pointed it out to the Frenchlish; but they could here and there catch the”_Revolution en France!!--Fuite de Charles X!!_”--they clustered round it in a state of the extre faster and louder than thrice as lishth, however, their resolution seeer bore the nae lu over the white-lead letters with the chalk, effaced the royal name Charles was virtually declared by the little bit of France that sailed in the lugger, to be no longer king; and the incident struck nificantly illustrative of the extrehtness of that hold which the rulers of modern France possess on the affections of their people I returned todarkened, more moved by this unexpected revolution than by any other political event of my time--brimful of hope for the cause of freedom all over the civilized world, and, in especial--uine in my expectations for France It had had, like our own country, its first stormy revolution, in which its monarch had lost his head; and then its Cro, who, like Charles II, had died in possession of the throne, and who had been succeeded by a weak bigot brother, the very counterpart of James VII

And now, after a coot had been dethroned, and the head of another branch of the royal family called in to enact the part of William III The historical parallel seemed complete; and could I doubt that ould next folloould be a long period of progressive improvement, in which the French people would coulated freedom, under which revolutions would be unnecessary, mayhap impossible? Was it not evident, too, that the success of the French in their noble struggle would immediately act with beneficial effect on the popular cause in our own country and everywhere else, and greatly quicken the progress of reform?

And so I continued to watch with interest the course of the Reforularly storth safely moored in port In soreatly delighted, especially in the ero slaves in the colonies Nor could I join many of my personal friends in their denunciation of that appropriation measure, as it was termed--also an effect of the altered constituency--which suppressed the Irish bishoprics As I ventured to tell my minister, who took the other side--if a Protestant Church failed, after enjoying for three hundred years the benefits of a large endowe of position which the statute-book could confer, to erect herself into the Church of thewith her in her true character--as the Church of the few At home, however, within the narrow precincts of h co, I liked considerably worse than the suppression of the bishoprics It broke up the townsfolk into two portions--the one consisting of elderly or ed men, who had been in the co of the bill, and who now, as it erected the town into a parliaistrates, in virtue of the support of a er and weaker, but clever and very active party, feere yet in the co unsuccessfully for the istracy, became the leaders of a patriotic opposition, which succeeded in rendering the seat of justice a rather uneasy one in Croreat Moderates--the elder, sound Evangelicals, but decidedly Conservative in their leanings; and as I held ecclesiastically by the one party, and secularly by the other, I found my position, on the whole, a rather anoot involved in law-suits When the Whig Meh ca about the streets arnal honour; and during the heat of a contested election, young Whiggis off with a Conservative voter, whoot itself involved in a law-suit in consequence, which cost it several hundred pounds The Conservatives, on the other hand, also got entangled in an expensive law-suit The town had its annual fair, at which froerbread, and which had held for h, however, so Liberals, a erbread-woreen a little above the harbour; and, of course, where the gingerbread was, there the children were gathered together; and the istrates, astonished, visited the spot in order to ascertain, if possible, the philosophy of the change

They found the ground occupied by a talkative pedlar, who stood up strongly for the young Liberals and the new side The htway demanded the production of his license The pedlar had none

And so he was apprehended, and su the statute 55 Geo III cap 71; and, being found guilty of hawking without a license, he was committed to prison The pedlar, backed, it was understood, by the young Liberals, raised an action for wrongous iround that the day on which he had sold his goods was a fair or istrates were cast in da Liberals would have beenmoney by their shops and professions--secure that the coveted honours would ultiood bank-accounts--than that they should be engaged either in scattering their ownon the hbours And ultimately I found my proper political position as a supporter in all ecclesiastical and municipal matters of my Conservative townsmen, and a supporter in als; whom, however, I always liked better, and deemed more virtuous, when they were out of office than when they were in

On one occasion I even becah to stand for a councillorshi+p My friends, chiefly through the death of elderly voters and the rise of youngerweak in the place; and fearing that they could not otherwise secure a ed ly did, and carriedthe first entleainst the individuals who, as he finely expressed it, ”ielding the destinies of his native town;” and saw, as the only serious piece of business before thepennies a-piece, in order to defray, in the utter lack of town funds, the expense of a ninepenny postage And then, with, I fear, a very inadequate sense of the responsibilities of my new office, I stayed away fro whatever in its behalf, with astonishi+ng perseverance and success, for three years together And thus began and terminated my municipal career--a career which, I must confess, failed to secure for me the thanks of my constituency; but then, on the other hand, I am not aware that the worthy people ever seriously co to do in the councilshi+p; and, unlike so I did, quietly and considerately, and very much at my leisure, without any unnecessary display of stu else

CHAPTER XXIII

”Days passed; an' now my patient steps That maiden's walks attend; My vows had reach'd that maiden's ear, Ay, an' she ca'd me friend

An' I was bless'd as bless'd can be; The fond, daft dreamer Hope Ne'er dream'd o' happier days than mine, Or joys o' ampler scope”--HENRISON'S SANG

I used, as I have said, to have occasional visitors orking in the churchyard Myevery sort of subject, from the misdeeds of the Moderate divines--who brethren of his own cloth--to the views of Isaac Taylor on the corruptions of Christianity or the possibilities of the future state Strangers, too, occasionally ca introduced to the natural curiosities of the district,in the churchyard, in this way, the late Sir Tho the opportunity afforded uished Professor of Hu the nature of the cohesive agent in the non-calcareous sandstone which I was engaged in hewing I had so, class of visitors The town had its small but very choice circle of accomplished intellectual ladies, who, earlier in the century, would have been perhaps described asintelligence of the age had rendered the phrase obsolete; and they simply took their place as well-informed, sensible woarded as in no degree disqualifying thehters And my circle of acquaintance included the entire class I used to htful tea-parties, and soh the picturesque burn of Eathie, or the wild scenes of Cromarty Hill, or to introduce them to the fossiliferous deposits of the Lias or the Old Red Sandstone And not unfrequently their evening walks used to terulus, or in the parish burying-ground, beside a sooded dell known as the ”Ladies'

Walk;” and my labours for the day closed in what I always very ood book, or on soanism, recently disinterred, of the Secondary or Palaeozoic period

I had been hewing, about this tiarden, and had just closed , when I was visited by one of er lady, who had co out of the earth long before, when a boy, and which had originally belonged to the ancient Castle-garden of Cro with thearden, and re, that as it exhibited in its structure no little mathematical skill, it had probably been cut under the eye of the eccentric but accoer than the others, and whoarden-walk, and, addressing the other two apparently quite in a flurry--”O, co you ever so long” ”Is this you, L----?” was the staid reply: ”Why, what now?--you have run yourself out of breath” The young lady was, I saw, very pretty; and though in her nineteenth year at the tiure, and the waxen clearness of her complexion, which reserooer And as if in soard her She stayed with theain; nor did I observe that she favoured lance But what else could be expected by an ungainly, dust-besprinkled mechanic in his shi+rt sleeves, and with a leathern apron before hiht else; and when infor after, by one whose testimony was conclusive on the point, that he had been pointed out to the young lady by souished name as ”the Cromarty Poet,” and that she had coht have a nearer look of hience someith surprise All the first interviews in all the novels I ever read are of a more romantic and less homely cast than the special interview just related; but I know not a s after, Ilady, in circuht have , just as the sun was sinking, along one of lade--now looking out through the openings on the ever fresh beauties of the Cro lines of winding shore, and anon aps on pale lichened trunks and huge boughs, in the deeper recesses of the wood--when I foundlady of the previous evening

She was sauntering through the wood as leisurely asinto a rather bulky volume which she carried, that had not in the least the look of a novel, and which, as I subsequently ascertained, was an elaborate essay on Causation We, of course, passed each other on our several ithout sign of recognition Quickening her pace, however, she was soon out of sight; and I just thought, on one or two occasions afterwards, of the apparition that had been presented as she passed, aswith the adjuncts--the picturesque forest and the gorgeous sunset It would not be easy, I thought, were the large book but away, to furnish a very lovely scene with alady at the char tea-parties of the place Her father, a worthy man, who, from unfortunate speculations in business, had met with severe losses, was at this time several years dead; and hishad come to reside in Cromarty, on a somewhat limited income, derived from property of her own Liberally assisted, however, by relations in England, she had been enabled to send her daughter to Edinburgh, where the young lady received all the advantages which a first-rate education could confer By some lucky chance, she was there boarded, with a few other ladies, in early woe Thomson, the well-known correspondent of Burns; and passed under his roof some of her happiest years Mr Thomson--himself an enthusiast in art--strove to inoculate the youthful inmates of his house with the saenius ht be found in them; and, characterized till the close of a life extended far beyond the ordinary terentle friends was very great, and his endeavours, in at least some of the instances, very successful And in none, perhaps, was helady of h she went to reside with the friends in England to whose kindness she had been so largely indebted; and with thees of superior position She was at an age, however, which rarely occupies itself in adjusting the balance of te been adh the interest of her friends, as a pupil into Christ's Hospital, she preferred returning to her ed h with the prospect of being obliged to add to her resources by taking a few of the children of the town as day-pupils

Her claih was soon recognised I found that, misled by the extreme youthfulness of her appearance, and alady That she should be accomplished in the ordinary sense of the ter well--would be what I should have expected; but I was not prepared to find that, irl as she seehter, but for the severer walks of literature, and should have already acquired the ability of giving expression to her thoughts in a style forlishlady The original shyness wore away, and we becareat friends I was nearly ten years her senior, and had read a greatme a sort of dictionary of fact, ready of access, and with explanatory notes attached, that beca or short just as she pleased to draw them out by her queries, she had, in the course of her amateur studies, frequent occasion to consult me There were, she saw, several ladies of her acquaintance, who used occasionally to converse with me in the churchyard; but in order tothe perfect propriety of such a proceeding on her part, she took the laudable precaution of stating the case to her istrates of the burgh, and an elder of the kirk; and he at once certified that there was no lady of the place whoas she pleased with me And so, fully justified, both by the example of her friends--all very judicious women, some of them only a few years older than herself--and by the deliberate judgistrate and elder-- lady friend learned to visit me in the churchyard, just like the other ladies; and, latterly at least, considerably oftener than any of them We used to converse on all manner of subjects connected with the _belles-lettres_ and the philosophy of mind, with, so far as I can at present remember, only one marked exception On that s up between persons of the opposite sexes when thrown h occasionally discussed by theby the poets--we by no chance ever touched Love forency, invariably escaped us

And yet, latterly at least, I had begun to think about it a good deal

Nature had not fashi+oned ht I had evenvery nitude of the sacrifice; but I daresay it didfourteen or fifteen years, a female coed , and to whom I pointed out many a beauty in the landscape, and co was as vigorous as her taste was faultless and her feelings exquisite One of the English essayists--the elder Moore--has drawn a very perfect personage of this airy character (not, however, of the softer, but of the masculine sex), under the name of the ”maid's husband;” and described him as one of the most formidable rivals that the ordinary lover of flesh and blood can possibly encounter My day-dream lady--a person that may be termed with equal propriety the ”bachelor's wife,”--has not been so distinctly recognised; but she occupies a large place in our literature, as the mistress of all the poets who ever wrote on love without actually experiencing it, from the days of Cowley down to those of Henry Kirke White; and her presence serves always to intimate a heart capable of occupation, but still unoccupied I find the bachelor's wife delicately drawn in one the posthu”--the frequent subject of his day-dreams--

”Whose soft voice Should be the sweetestall the chords of hare to his soul, More eloquent than aught which Greece or Rome Could boast of in its best and happiest days; Whose smile should be his rich reward for toil; Whose pure transparent cheek, when press'd to his, Should calhts, And woo his spirit to those fields Elysian-- The paradise which strong affection guards”

It may be always predicated of these bachelors' wives, that they never closely rese wole feature of any of his fair neighbours, the lasses of Upper Rankeillour or Newburgh Were the case otherwise, the drea displaced by the real one whonificant event, which, notwithstanding my inexperience, I learned by and bye to understand, that about this time my old companion, the ”bachelor's wife,” utterly forsookfriend took her place I can honestly aver, that I entertained not a single hope that the feeling should be mutual On whatever other head my vanity may have flattered me, it certainly never did so on the score of personal appearance My personal strength was, I knew, considerably above the average of that of my fellows, and at this time my activity also; but I was perfectly conscious that, on the other hand, ood looks rather fell below than rose above the ht, that, as in the famous fairy story, ”Beauty” had made a conquest of the ”Beast,” I had not the most distant expectation that the ”Beast” would, in turn,friend had, I knew, several ader and dressed better, and who, as they had all chosen the liberal professions, had fairer prospects than I; and as for the iteood looks, had she set her affections on even the least likely of them, I could have addressed him, with perfect sincerity, in the words of the old ballad:--

”Nae wonder, nae wonder, Gil Morrice, My lady lo'es ye weel: The fairest part o' e to say, however,friend succeeded ina discovery also;--the maid's husband shared on her part the same fate as the bachelor's wife did on mine; and her visits to the churchyard suddenly ceased

A twelve all this out; but the young lady's , as was quite right and proper, an operative hter,my friend at _conversazione_ or tea-party had becoh the woods of the Hill; and as htful hour, and as she also was a walker on the Hill, we did soether, from a behind the distant Ben Wevis These were very happy evenings; the hour we passed together always seely short; but, to th feorking days in the milder season of which it did not form the terminal one;--from the circumstance, of course, that the similarity of our tastes for natural scenery led us always into the same lonely walks about the sa this second stage of our friendshi+p, there was one interesting subject on which we never talked At length, however, we ca It was settled that we should re ter that time there should open to me no suitable field of exertion at hoether in a strange land whatever fatefriend was considerably uine than I I had laid faithfully before her those defects of character which renderedin my own behalf in the battle of life Inured to labour, and to the hardshi+ps of the bothie and the barrack, I believed that in the backwoods, where I would have to liftand hbours; but then the backwoods would, I feared, be no place for her; and as for effectually pushi+ng -peopled portions of the United States, aetic races in the world, I could not see that I was in the least fitted for that She, however, thought otherwise The tender passion is always a strangely exaggerative one Lodged in the ives to the object on which it rests all that is excellent in woman, and in the female mind imparts to its object all that is noble in ard e, and to deem it one of the weaknesses of my character, that I myself could not take an equally favourable view

There was, however, one profession of which,myself as carefully as I could, I deearded as not reater co respectable places in the periodical literature of the day, as the editors of Scotch newspapers, provincial, and evenfrom their labours incomes of from one to three hundred pounds per annum; and were my abilities, such as they were, to be fairly set by saht into the literary ement as a newspaper editor And so, as a first step in the process, I resolved on publishi+ng my volume of traditional history--a work on which I had bestowed considerable care, and which, regarded as a specimen of what I could do as a _litterateur_, would, I believed, show not inadequately hter subjects hich newspaper editors are occasionally called on to deal

Nearly two of the three twelvemonths passed by, however, and I was still an operative ive myself heartily to seek work of the kind which I saspaper editors had at that tiht, for the lawyer to be a special pleader With special pleadings equally extree to hold the balance between, the cause of truth and justice ents were to set theistrate himself But I could not extend the sa of the newspaper editor I saw that, to many of the readers of his paper, the editor did not hold the place of a law-agent, but of a judge: it was his part to subs, but, to the best of his judgment, honest decisions And not only did no place present itself for me in the editorial field, but I really could see no place in it that, with the viehich I entertained on this head, I would not scruple to occupy I saw no party cause for which I could honestly plead My ecclesiastical friends had, with a few exceptions, cast themselves into the Conservative ranks; and there I could not follow the in office at the time, had become at least as like their old opponents as their former selves, and I could by noIn Radicalism I had no faith; and Chartism--with my recollection of the kind of treatment which I had received froly ian seriously to think of the backwoods of America But there was another destiny in store for h a place of considerable trade, was unfurnished with a branch bank; but on the representation of some of its hbouring lands, the Coreed to ed with a sagacious and successful ent It had fixed, too, on a youngproprietor; and I heard of the projected bank sihbourhood, but, of course, without special bearing on any concern of , an invitation to breakfast with the future agent--Mr Ross--I was not a little surprised, after we had taken a quiet cup of tea together, and beaten over half-a-dozen several subjects, to be offered by him the accountantshi+p of the branch bank After a pause of a full half-minute, I said that the as one in which I had no experience whatever--that even the little knowledge of figures which I had acquired at school had been suffered to fade and get dim in my mind from want of practice--and that I feared I would make but a very indifferent accountant I shall undertake for you, said Mr Ross, and do my best to assist you All you have to do at present is just to signify your acceptance of the offerman who, I understood, had been already no wholly a stranger to hireat trust, he had, as the responsible party, sought the security of a guarantee, which the gentleive; and so his recoive you no guarantee,” I said ”From you,” rejoined Mr Ross, ”none shall ever be asked” And such was one of the ive it a humbler na friend in good hope, and was tossing in an old and so vessel, on h, to receive there the instructions necessary to the branch accountant I had wrought as an operativemy term of apprenticeshi+p, for fifteen years--no inconsiderable portion of the ether lost I enjoyed in these years fully the average amount of happiness, and learned to know enerally known Let me add--for it seems to be very much the fashi+on of the ti classes--that froht as a journeyman up till I took final leave of the mallet and chisel, I never knehat it was to want a shi+lling; that randfather, and themen--had had a similar experience; and that it was the experience ofmechanics may, in exceptional cases, be exposed to want; but I can as little doubt that the cases _are_ exceptional, and thatof the class is a consequence either of improvidence on the part of the co the ter at school--that always lands those who indulge in it in the hapless position of the inferior workman

I trust I may further add, that I was an honest mechanic It was one of the maxims of Uncle James, that as the Jews, restricted by law to their forty stripes, always fell short of the legal number by one, lest they should by any accident exceed it, so a workingelees for work done, slightly but sensibly within what he deeive, as he used to express himself, his ”customers the cast of the baulk” I do think I acted up to theed an employer for a piece of work that, fairly her sum than that at which it stood in my account

I had quitted Cromarty for the south late in Nove, just in time to escape a tremendous storht the smack in which I sailed on the Firth, would have driven us all back to Fraserburgh, and, as the vessel was hardly sea-worthy at the tie had been storer--a fine specile--had been sea-sick, and evidently very uncole reat deal more rapid than that of the vessel, but it was motion of a different kind; and so he fared as persons do who never feel a qual a railway at the rate of fortyboat, that creeps through a rough sea at a speed not exceeding, in the sa the storh the little wind there was blew the right way, it carried us on, fro, e found ourselves abreast of the Bass, to only near Inchkeith; for when night fell,the May light twinkling dih right a-head I spent the greater part of the day on deck, , as they came into view, the various objects--hill, and island, and seaport town, of which I had lost sight nearly ten years before; feeling the while, not without soot to the end, in the journey of life, of one very definite stage, with its peculiar scenery and sets of objects, I was just on the eve of entering upon another stage, in which the scenery and objects would be all unfamiliar and neas noo years turned of thirty; and though I could not hold that any very great amount of natural endowment was essentially necessary to the bank accountant, I knew thatthe ability even of heading a pin with the necessary adroitness, and that I ht fail, on the same principle, to pass muster as an accountant I determined, however, obstinately to set ht be the result; and entered Edinburgh in soth of the resolution I had transendary work, several months before, to Sir Thomas dick Lauder; and as he was now on terms, in its behalf, with Mr Adam Black, the well-known publisher, I took the liberty of waiting on hi He received ed that I should live with hih, in his noble e House; and, as an induceed with the best editions of the best authors, and enriched with many a rare volume and curious manuscript