Part 7

Ye gods! what superstitious notions peopled my brain ever since! I recollect such fears about the invisible world becoming visible--I walked amidst a multitude of unseen terrors, ever ready to burst the casement of immateriality, and to stand, naked, confessed, in material semblance, before me. There was the fairy, the inhabitant of the green unploughed knowe, the green-coated imp, intent on child-stealing, or rather barter, and jingling her bridle through the high air on Halloween; there was the ghost, awful, solemn, and admonishing, pointing with the finger to buried treasure or murder glen; there was the wraith, little less terrible, and clothed in a well-known presence, prognosticating death or sore affliction; there was the death-watch, distinctly heard tick, ticking, all night long, in the bed-post; there were the blue lights seen in round spots on the bed-head, on the very night when three lads and three lasses perished in the boat; there was the muckle deil himself, driving in a post-chaise, over the "chaise-craig," or panting, like a bull-dog, at the nightly traveller's feet; and, over and above all these, was "Will o' the Wisp," skipping about from one side of the moss to the other, and always placing itself betwixt you and your home.

"D'ye see that?" said my cousin, Nelly Laurie, a girl of eighteen, to me, when my years could be reckoned by the number of the muses.

"What! what is it!" I exclaimed; and my attention was directed towards a moss, or morass, through which our footpath lay, on our way home, about ten o'clock of a dark, damp, and cloudy night.

"There! there it's again!"

There is something in the word "it" most indefinitely terrific. Had she said _he_ or _she_, or even that ghost, or that wraith, or that bogle, it would not have been half so startling; but "it"--do you see it?--see a thing without a name, a definition--a mere object, shorn of its accidents or qualities! This is indeed most awful. With fear and trembling, I lifted up mine eyes, and beheld--O mercy, mercy!--a light in the middle of the moss, where no light should have been; and it was floating and playing about, blue as indigo, and making the darkness around it visible. My joints relaxed, and I fell to the earth, incapable of motion. I was a mere bundle of loose and unconnected bones, sinews, and muscles. My cousin stood over me, incapable of deciding what would be done; at last, it was discovered that to advance homewards was better than to retrograde, as we were already more than half-way on our course. I was instructed to repeat, and to continue repeating, aloud, the Lord's prayer; whilst she, on whose shoulders I lay like a dead sheep, continued to give audible note to the tune of the twenty-third psalm. It was, indeed, an odd concert for the devil, or his emissary, Mr. William yclept "of the Wisp," to listen to; for, whilst I was roaring out, in perfect desperation, "Our Father which art in Heaven," she was articulating, in a clear and overpowering tone, "The Lord's my shepherd;" whilst I slipt into "Hallowed be thy name," she advanced with, "I'll not want--he makes me down to lie!"--and, sure enough, down _both of us lay_, with a vengeance, in the midst of a moss-hole, into which, from terror and the darkness of the night, we had inadvertently plunged. "What's the meaning of all this, sirs!" exclaimed a well-known voice. It was my mother's, God bless her! I clung to her like grim death, and never quitted my hold till I was snugly lodged above the fire, near to the lamp, and with dog, cat, my cousin, and my mother, betwixt me and the dark doorway passage! I did not get a sound sleep for months and years afterwards! Such are thy miseries, unhallowed, unmanly superstition! Disease may relax the body and enervate the whole frame; but thou art the disease of the soul, the fever of the brain. Misfortunes may be borne--pain must be endured till it is cured--but superstition such as _this_, is neither endurable nor curable. I am not yet completely cured of it, now that I have entered my sixtieth year. Were you to send me into an empty, dark church, at midnight, and through a surrounding churchyard, peopled with the bodies of the dead, I durst not go, though you gave me large sums of money. And is my judgment or reason in fault? Not at all; it is my feelings, my moral nature; my very blood has got such a blue tinge that I verily believe it would look like the blue ink I am writing with, were it caught in a tea-cup! Sir Walter Scott was bit, too, and so are nine-tenths of the _living_, though they won't allow it. It has now become, like latent heat, an unseen agency; but it still acts, and powerfully, on civilized, and even learned man!

Seeking of birds' nests is a glorious amusement, and the knowledge of a large amount of these is a possession to be boasted of. I know of a linnet's nest, says one--and I of a robin's, says another--I of shilfa's, says a third; but a fourth party comes in with his mavis, and all competition is at an end. The mavis is indeed a Scottish nightingale; he sings so mellow, and so varied--his brown spreckled breast turned up to the rising or the setting sun, he pours o'er the woodland a whole concert of harmony; and then he awakens into competition the blackbird, with his AEolian whistle; the green and grey linnet, with their sharp and sweet tweedle-twee; the goldfinch, with his scarlet hood and song of flame; and the lark on the far-off fell, with his minstrelsy of heaven's border. But what to a boy, a boy of eight or nine, is all this song and sunshine, in comparison with the fact--"I know of five birds' nests!" Why, this annunciation is enough to settle your doom--you may almost apprehend assassination, so much must you be envied. But true it is, and of verity; I once knew five birds' nests--all containing eggs or young. Oh, I remember them as it were only of yesterday. Time has only engraved, with a tool of adamant, the impression deeper and deeper. There was the snug and pendulous abode of the little kitty-wren. It was beneath the brow of the burn, covered over from winds and rains by the incumbent bank and brushwood. It was a plum-pudding, with a hole made by your thumb on one side; a stationary football, composed of all things soft and comfortable, covered on the outside with fog or moss, and in the inside lined with the down of feathers; and there were from sixteen to twenty little blue _peas_ in it; and the little hen sat on them daily, and opposed her little bill vigorously to my intrusive finger. She was not afraid--not she! she fought manfully, "_pro aris et focis_;" if not, as the Romans say, "_manibus pedibusque_;" nor, as the savage Saxons say, "tooth and nail," nor, as the shepherd of Ettrick says, "knees and elbows an' a',"--still she fought with the instruments with which nature had endowed her, with her bill and her little claws, and she fought it most vigorously. O Nature! thou art a fearful mystery of wisdom--thou makest the meekest and most timid natures bold as lions when their progeny are concerned. Look at the hen--poor chucky, that scrapes her pittance from the doorway or dunghill, whom the veriest whelp which can bark and tumble over will scare into wing and screech--put the hen on eggs, give her an infant brood, show her danger from dog, man, bear, or lion--who's afraid? Not she at least; she will dance on the nose of the mastiff, she will fly in the face of humanity, whether in the shape of man, woman, boy, or child. The warrior looks fierce in his regimentals and armour; but what cares she for guns, bayonets, swords, and pistols? Not a peppercorn! Her young ones are behind her, and she will meet the armed monster, with foot, bill, wing, and with a fearful intonation of terrifying sounds. No Highland regiment, even at Prestonpans, ever set up a more alarming battle shout. She is never conquered--like Achilles, she is "invincible;" but so soon as her progeny need no more her care or her protection--so soon as they have been pecked into estrangement, and sent to scrape and provide for themselves--she resumes all her mild and feminine qualities--she is plain "chucky" again! The linnet's nest is covered with scales of a silky whiteness--the fine thin _laminae_ which cover the bark of the oak, of that very tree in the cleft of whose branches her nursery is fixed. Inside of this little nicely-proportioned cup, there are five beautifully-spotted eggs--a white ground with a grey spot, flung over the whole shell with a most charming regularity. And there is a nest in that stone wall which surrounds the plantation--it is that of the stone-chatter--filthy, unsonsy bird, fit companion for the yellow yeldring, which conceals her treasure 'neath a tuft of grass on the bent, and is trodden under foot. They are both deserving of all detestation; the one for drinking every May morning of the devil's-blood, and the other for many an impertinent jest and chatter. Let them perish in one day--let their eggs be blown, and hung up as ornaments in strings along the brow of the household looking-glass, or smashed to atoms by the stroke of an urchin previously blinded.

"For he ne'er would be true, she averred, That would rob a poor bird."

It was whilst engaged in robbery of this kind, that I was first checked by the tears and entreaties of Mary--of my dear cousin, Mary Morison. Alas! poor Mary! thou wast mild, beautiful, kind, merciful; yet thy days have been numbered, and thou art gone--

"Unde negant redire quenquam;"

and I, a lubber fiend in comparison with thy beauty and gentleness--I, a personification of cruelty and horror in comparison with thee--I am still alive, and thinking of thee--whilst thou art not even _dust_--"_etiam periere ruinae_." Forty-five years confound even dust, and reduce to a fearful nonentity all that smiled, and charmed, and inspired. But of this enough--this way madness lies.

That was a terrible conflagration at Miramichi. I think I hear it crashing, thundering, crackling on; before it the wild beasts, the serpents, the cattle--man! poor, houseless, helpless, smoke-enveloped, and perishing man. The reason why I can conceive so vividly of this awful and comparatively recent visitation is this--I was accustomed to "set muirburn" when a boy of nine or ten. The primeval heath of our mountains was strong, bushy; and, when dry in spring, exceedingly inflammable. I was a mountain child; for, on one side of my dwelling the heather withered and bloomed up to the door; and when one thinks of the "bonny blooming heather," it is quite refreshing; it blooms when all things around it are withering, during the later months of harvest; but then, oh, then, it puts on such a russet robe of beauty--a dark evening cloud tipped and tinged with red--a mantle of black velvet spangled with gold; and its fragrance is honey steeped in myrrh. Yet when withered in March and April, it is an object of aversion to the sheep farmer, who prefers green grass and tender sward; and he issues to impatient boyhood the sentence of destruction. Peat follows peat, kindled at one end, and held by the other; the hillside or the level muir swarm with matches; carefully is the ignition communicated to the dry and widespread heath; from spot to spot--in lines and in circles--it extends and unites--the wind is up, and one continuous blaze is the almost immediate consequence. It is night, dark night--the clouds above catch and reflect the uncertain gleam. The heathfowl wing their terrified flight--through, above, and beneath the rolling and outspreading smoke. The flame gathers into a point; and, at the more advanced part of the curvature, the force and blaze is terrible. A thousand tongues of fire shoot up into the density, and immediately disappear. Who now so venturous as to dash headlong through the hottest flame, and to recover from beneath the choking night his former position? There goes--a hat--a cap--a bonnet! They have taken up their position in the pathway of the devouring flood of fire--and who so brave, so daring, as to extricate his own property from instant destruction? Hurrah! hurrah! from a score of throats, mixes with the thunder, the crackle, the roll--all is power, novelty, ecstasy; bare heads and bare feet dance and show conspicuously upon the still smoking turf. Here an adder is seen writhing and twisting in the agonies of death. There a half-burned hat evinces the fun and the folly of its owner. But, oh, horrible! what is that on the edge of vision, in the dim and hazy distance; it comes forward, bounding, turning, and bellowing, fearful and paralysing; it is the bull himself escaped from his fold, and maddened by the smoke and blazing atmosphere. He comes down upon the charge, tail erect, and head down, tossing all that is solid under his feet, and looking through the scattered earth with eyes glaring as well as reflecting fire. Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon, Wallace, Wellington, never entered a field of battle with such a terrific presence. He seems as if he had just escaped from a Roman or Spanish arena. He is desperately infuriated; and woe be to him who shall be overtaken by this muscular tornado in his weakness and his fears! We are off! _diffugimus_! We are nowhere to be found. One has made for a distant wall surrounding the heather park, and is in the act of climbing it. The bull is in full chase, armed with two short but powerful horns. The fugitive has just laid hold of an upper stone to assist his ascent; but the faithless help has given way; stone and he are lying alongside of the dyke. The bull is in full scent. The noise has directed him. He nears--he nears--he nears! My God! the urchin's life is not worth two minutes' purchase.

"Now, do thy speedy, Arnot Wull-- 'Twill take it all to clear the bull!"

Bravo! the summit is gained; the feet of the pursued are seen flying in mid air; he has sprung from the summit at least twenty feet; but the whole weight of the pursuing brute is upon the crazy structure; it gives way with a crash, and down rush stones over stones, and the poor maimed, bruised brute over all. What! Mr. Bull! are you satisfied?--why not continue the sport? But the game is up; Will has regained his mother's dwelling, and now lives to record this wonderful, this all but miraculous escape. Catch me setting muirburn again!

I was very unwilling, at the age of nine, to be sent to school--I had formed for myself a home society with which I was perfectly satisfied; but the decree had gone forth, and to school I must go, to learn Latin, conducted by a scholar of some standing. I had three miles to walk, but I would have wished them ten. Shakspeare shows the characters with whom time gallops, and, amongst others, with a thief who is to be hanged on a certain day--he might have mentioned a schoolboy, with shiny morning face, going unwillingly to school. When I came within sight of the large, many-windowed building, my heart beat sorely with alarm. All was new to me--the boys, the masters, the house, the grounds around it; in fact, I was about to pass into a new state of being. I was bursting the shell, and coming forth into real life. Hitherto I had seen nobody but the herd-callan, the Gibson family, my mother and _her_ aunts. I was exceeding smart and mischievous, no doubt; but my sphere of operations was confined; now it was about to be enlarged--I must face three hundred boys and girls in the park or school play-ground of Wallacehall. All eyes would be turned upon me; my very dress would undergo a scrutiny; nor would I easily escape the seasoning welcome, a hearty drubbing: all this I anticipated, and all this and more I soon experienced. When I set up my face in the play-ground about half-past eight (nine being the school hour), all was commotion. Alas! how many are now motionless who were then active--_still_, who were then vociferous--_cold_, whose hearts were then beating warm and buoyant! When the disk of my countenance appeared at the entrance into the park or play-ground, I was immediately smoked. One fellow came up with the most affected good-nature, and hoped my _mither_ was with me. I would be in great danger, he said, without her. A second one bid me tie my shoe, and, whilst I was stooping, hauled me heels over head. I had not fairly recovered my natural position, when I was hit on the side of my head with a ball, till my eyes glanced fire; anon, the drive, the crowd, the scramble carried me along with it completely off my feet. I was pelted, bruised, buffeted, and even kicked. Human nature could stand it no longer--my spirit, even that of the Devil, was awakened within me--I struck out around me with all my might, and at random--somebody's nose happened to come in the way of my knuckles, and it bled; he struck back again, and the blood sprang from my lips. A ring was formed--to it we went--I, running in upon him head and shoulders, "knees and elbows an' a'," laid him flat; unfair play was proclaimed--my antagonist was raised; but he was pale and breathless; he said he was _hearted_, and had almost fainted; so I got a cheap victory, and eternal glory! I took my place amongst the boys, unmolested and respected in future. I would twaddle through a pretty decent volume, about public and private education, and everybody but my bookseller would think I was speaking sense; but I will spare my reader and myself, and only add, in one sentence, that a public seminary, well conducted, is the best of all schools _for the world_--preparation for the buffetings, kickings, and jostlings of life.

THE SUICIDE'S GRAVE.

The suicide's grave--where is it? It is at the meeting or crossing of three public roads; the body has been thrust down, under the darkness of night, into a coffinless grave. The breast, formerly torn and lacerated by passions, has lately been mangled into horrid deformity by the pointed stake; and the traveller, as he walks, rides, or drives along, regards the spot with an eye of suspicion, and blesses his stars that he is a living man. The suicide's grave--where is it? On the bare and cold top of that mountain which divides Lanark from Dumfriesshire. There you may see congregated the hoody craw, and the grey gled, and the eagle--but they are not congregated in peace and in friendship; they are fearful rivals, and terrible notes do they utter as they contend over the body of her who was fair, and innocent, and happy. Alas, for Alice Lorimer! Her story is a sad one, and it would require the pen of a Sterne or a Wilson to do it justice. But the circumstances are of themselves so full of mournful interest, that, even though stated in the most simple language, they cannot fail, I should think, to interest--nay, I will say it at once, to excite sympathy and pity; for why should we not pity the unhappy and unfortunate? They are pitied in poverty, in obscurity, in sickness, in death. Why should not we even pity the guilty and abandoned? They are pitied in prison, on the day of trial, and, most of all, in the hour of execution. There--even there--on that platform, the murderer himself obtains that sympathy which we refuse to the suicide. He who has only ruined, destroyed himself, is held in greater abhorrence than the man who has ruined innocence, and even murdered the unhappy mother and unborn babe. Away with such unjust and ungenerous distinctions! Away, and to the highway and to the mountain top, and to the raven, and the falcon, and the eagle, with the seducer and the murderer; and let the poor suicide's grave, in future, be in consecrated ground, where remembrance may soon overlook his woes and his very existence. Let him sleep unknowing and unknown in the churchyard of his fathers. Alice Lorimer, I myself knew--I was intimately acquainted with her--I was a companion and a favourite. In frosty weather we have frequented the same slides, and, when Alice was in danger of falling, I have caught her in my arms; we have hopped together for hours, playing at beds, and I even made Alice privy to all my birds' nests. Hers was indeed a playful, but a gentle nature. Her heart was light, her voice clear and cheerful, and her whole affections were engrossed by an only surviving parent, a widowed father. Alice was his first-born and his last. Her mother had given her life at the expense of her own; and her father, a shoemaker in the village of Croalchapel, devoted his whole spare time to the education of Alice. Often have I seen him, with the shoe on the last, and the elshun in his hand, pursuing his daily labours; but listening attentively all the while to Aly's readings. It was thus the child was taught to read the Bible, to say her prayers, and ultimately to make her father's dinner and her own. Their cottage stood at what was termed the "_head_ of the town," on a sunny eminence looking to the west; behind it were the shade and the shelter of many trees, of the widespread oak, the tall ash, and the sweetly-scented birch. On Sabbath afternoons, John Lorimer might be seen with his beloved child, clean and neatly dressed, ascending to the top of the Bormoors braes; and, from the green summit of the eminence, looking abroad over a landscape, certainly not surpassed by any which has yet come under the writer's observation. On his one hand lay the worn and silver-clasped Bible, from which portions of the gospels were occasionally read, and on the other reposed Poodle, a little wire-haired dog of uncommon natural parts, which had been greatly improved by education. Poodle could bark, and do all manner of things. His eyes would "glisten in friendship, or beam in reply." His nose was a platform, from which many little pieces of bread had been tossed up into the air, and afterwards snapped. He was all obedience to little Alice in particular; and, at her bidding, would do anything but swim--he had, somehow or other, contracted an aversion for the water, probably referable to some mischievous boys having one day thrown him into Closeburn Loch.