Chapter 18

It was a tempestuous night; and, though the blast was completely excluded from the manse by the dense masses of trees with which it was surrounded, the wind howled and moaned through their branches and on their summits, and, like the thunder, gave forth a solemn music to the soul. I did not sleep, but listened to the sounds of the tempest with that pleasure which philosophy cannot explain. Ere long, the current of thought reverted to my own former relations, to the dwelling in which I reposed; and busy memory, in the watches of the night, supplied, with all the freshness of a recent event, the circumstances which chequered the life and marked the character of my father. Though, perhaps, in the estimation of many, these were commonplace, yet, to me, they were still full of interest; and, as they seem to afford a true and undistorted picture of a Scottish clergyman's real character and fortunes, I have written them down to fill a spare corner in the _Tales of the Borders_.

William Douglas was the eldest son of a farmer in one of the northern counties of Scotland. The family had been tenants of the farm of Mains for five successive generations; and, so far as tradition and the humble annals of the parish could be relied on, had borne an unspotted name, and acquired that hereditary character for worth, which, in their humble station, maybe regarded as constituting the moral nobility of human nature. Just and devout in their lives--sincere, unpretending, and unaffected in their manners--they were never spoken of but with respect and goodwill by their neighbours; and were often, in the domestic and rural affairs of the vicinity, the counsellors and umpires, in whose good sense, and integrity, and kindness of heart, their humble friends trusted with confidence. Such characters and families are to be found in almost every rural district of this country; for, "though grace gangs no' by generation, yet there is sic a thing as a hawk o' a guid nest." I believe in the homely proverb, though some metaphysicians may dispute it, but whether debatable or not in the abstract, William Douglas had the good fortune, as he deemed it, to grow up in the bosom of a family in which the characteristic of worth was cherished and transmitted as an heirloom.

The eldest son of the guidman of Mains showed an early fondness for his school exercises, and acquired, under the tuition of _Roaring Jock_, the dominie of the parish, a tolerable proficiency in the rudiments of literature. The guidman, being an elder of the kirk, was often at the minister's manse, and the bairns from Mains were occasionally invited to tea on the Saturdays and play-days; and Paplay, the minister, (was so denominated, from the name of a small estate of which he was the laird), showed great favour to the "auldest callant," and often conversed with him about the subject of his reading. In these circumstances, and considering the religious character of the Mains family, it was almost a matter of course that Willie should be destined by his parents, and prompted by his own predilections, to "the ministry." And, by the advice of Paplay and Roaring Jock, Willie was sent to the Marischal College at Aberdeen, where he gained a bursary at the competition, and prosecuted his studies with assiduity, until, at length, in the fulness of time, he became a licentiate of the church.

The only thing I remember to have heard connected with this period of my father's life, was his anecdotes of Paplay's eccentricities, which were numerous--some of them personal, and some of them the peculiarities of the old school of clergy in Scotland. He was a pious and orthodox man; but withal had a tincture of the Covenanter about him, blended with the aristocratic and chivalrous feeling of a country gentleman of old family. In the troubled times, about the years 1745-6, he was a staunch Whig; and so very decided in his politics, that, when "Prince Charlie's men" had the ascendancy in Scotland, he was either in arms or in hiding; and when he ventured to preach, he wore his sword in the pulpit, and a blue coat, girt with a belt, in which a pair of pistols were hung--more like a man of war than a preacher of peace! Even after the defeat at Culloden, the Jacobitism of the north was so strong, and Paplay was so obnoxious, by reason of his vehement preaching against popery, and prelacy, and the Pretender, that he continued long after to wear his sword (in the pulpit and elsewhere), which was rather a formidable concern to the nonjurors about him, in the hand of a brave and athletic champion of true Whiggery. He assigned three reasons for wearing his sword after it seemed to some of his friends to be unnecessary:--"First, because I am a gentleman; secondly, because I can use it; and, thirdly, because, if you doubt, you may try." Among some of his oddities, he had a great admiration of a well-spring, a white calf, and a bonny lass; and he never passed any of them in his way without doing them homage. Though travelling on horseback, he would dismount to bathe his feet in a limpid stream, as it gushed from the earth, or to caress a white calf, or to salute a female--all which fantasies were united with the most primitive innocence. And he never ate a meal, even in his own house, or when he was a refugee in a hay stack or kiln barn, without exacting from his wife and friends the most urgent _pressing_.

It was under the auspices of this warlike and singular apostle that my father was ushered into the sacred office of a minister of the gospel. He preached his first sermon in the church of his native parish; and, according to the fashion of the times, at the close of the service, the parish minister publicly criticised the discourses of the day. The young preacher, in this instance, found favour in Paplay's eyes; and his testimony in favour of the _plant_ which had sprung up among them was so emphatic, and rendered so piquant by his odd figures of speech, that William Douglas was long distinguished among his friends and neighbours by the familiar designation of _Paplay's Plant_.

But there was another _plant_ that graced the manse, which was not unobserved or unadmired by the young preacher--Jane Malcolm (the daughter of a clergyman in a more remote parish, and niece of Paplay's lady), a sweet flower, that had grown up in the wilderness, like "a daisy on the mountain's side." It was in the nature of things that "the loves of the plants" should be illustrated by the juxtaposition of the two favourite flowers of the chivalrous parson. An affectionate but secret attachment naturally grew out of the frequent visits which "Paplay's Plant" paid to the manse; and these were multiplied in consequence of William Douglas being appointed assistant to his spiritual patron, whose decline into the vale of years had begun to abate the energy of his character, and to render assistance necessary. The attachment between the young people might be suspected, but was not formally made known to Paplay and "the lady," as she was called, according to the courtesy of the olden time. Indeed, such a promulgation would have been idle; for the "half-reverend" assistant (as Paplay was wont to address the young probationers of the church) had no immediate prospect of a benefice, although he was an acceptable preacher, throughout the bounds of the presbytery. But an incident occurred which facilitated the union, of which the preliminaries were thus established.

The Earl of Bellersdale,[H] a nobleman in the neighbouring county, who affected to be descended from an ancient family that flourished in the days of good King Duncan, but who had really no more connection with it than with Hercules or the Man in the Moon, reared a village or sea-port at a short but convenient distance from his magnificent castle. Among the other items in the arrangements which were destined to immortalise the munificence of the Earl in the establishment of Bellerstown, a church was deemed necessary for political, to say nothing of moral considerations; and the earl, being a man of taste, thought that a church, placed in a particular position, would make a fine vista from various points in the noble park which surrounded the Castle of Bellersdale. A picturesque chapel was accordingly built on a rising knoll, separated from the pleasure grounds and the castle by a river, over which a handsome bridge made no mean addition to the lordly scene.

[H] A little reflection will enable the reader to see what true name this fictitious one is intended to cover.--ED.

The chapel being built, and endowed with a stipend of "forty pounds a-year" (the hint, I suppose, was taken from Oliver Goldsmith), it was necessary to provide a clergyman to officiate in it; and William Douglas being one of the most approved young men in the district, had the honour to be preferred by the patron. The period to which I now refer was long before the church, in its wisdom, enacted a law for regulating chapels of ease; and not only the amount of stipend, but the continuance of clergymen who officiated in such chapels, depended on the arbitrary and sovereign will of their pious founders. Bellerstown, though a step in William Douglas' professional progress, yielded too scanty a revenue to admit of matrimony; but the talents, respectability, and prepossessing manners of the chaplain made him a favourite at the castle, and rendered it practicable to eke out the slender living by the addition of a small farm, at what was called a moderate rent. But this appendage, too, was held by the same precarious tenure--Lord Bellersdale's will. The probationer was inducted as pastor of the Bellerstown chapel, according to the rules of the church; and, after the lapse of a few months, he and Miss Jane Malcolm thought--although no other person thought--that they might venture to enter into the holy bands of wedlock, and, with frugality and mutual love in their household, look forward to happiness in their humble and unambitious sphere of life. This thought ended in deed--and they were married.

The tenor of a clergyman's life is, in general, even and unvaried, consisting of a faithful and regular discharge of his peculiar duties. Such, for some years, was the fate of William Douglas. He acquired the confidence and affections of his humble flock--the esteem of his brethren--the countenance of the neighbouring gentry--and even the patronage of the great man, at whose table he was a frequent and welcomed guest. Mrs. Douglas had presented him with two sons: and his parents, advanced in years, were gathered to their fathers. This bereavement was not unlooked for; but the first trial of life which wrung his heart to the core, was a fatal illness which, in a few days, snatched the object of his most tender affection from him.

Time passed on, and "brought healing on its wings." After the lapse of several years, my father felt that it was not meet for man to be alone; and, whilst he cherished the fondest remembrance of his first domestic companion, he had too much good sense to go into the affectation of continuing single during the rest of his life "for her sake;" more especially as he had no female relative to whom he could confide the maternal charge of his boys in their nursery days. He accordingly discerned, in the daughter of one of his flock, a respectable farmer in the neighbourhood, those personal attractions and amiable dispositions which awakened his manly sympathies; and, too high-minded to stoop to mercenary considerations, he married a second time, without hunting for a _tocher_, as is sometimes imputed sarcastically to the Scottish clergy. Isobel Wilson was lovely and virtuous.

About the time the American war ended, I came into this earthly part of the universe; but nothing occurred for several years of my father's life to diversify the peaceful enjoyments of his domestic life, or to interrupt the conscientious and zealous discharge of his pastoral duties. At length, however, a cloud gathered in the firmament, which ere long burst on his head, in the wrath of his patron, the Earl of Bellersdale.

Local, rather than general politics agitated the district in which his humble life was cast; and there was a vehement struggle betwixt his lordship and a neighbouring nobleman for ascendancy in the county. The ranks of either party were swelled by the multiplication of freehold qualifications, for the purpose of acquiring votes. One of the expedients, as is well known, for the attainment of such objects, is the creation of nominal and fictitious voters, by conferring on the _friends_ of a political party an apparent, but not a real interest in a landed estate; and this is practised and justified by a legal fiction, and a little casuistry, with which political agents are quite familiar. The ordinary mode in these cases, is to confer such _parchment_ franchises on dependents and personal connections of the great man who needs their support--and the Earl of Bellersdale, who had the patronage of many churches of greater or less value, found, even among the clergy who had hopes of preferment from his hand, several individuals sufficiently unscrupulous to accept of such discreditable titles to a political franchise as freeholders.[I] Amongst others, my father, who was in good odour at the castle, was deemed a _likely_ person to be intrusted with so precious a privilege as a right to vote for any tool of the earl who might be brought forward as a candidate for representing the shire in Parliament. The factor was despatched to Bellerstown to offer this high behest to the poor parson, whose ready compliance was expected, _as a matter of course_. But he calmly and peremptorily refused the proffered vote, and intimated that he held it derogatory to the sacred nature of his office to pollute himself with such politics, and inconsistent with every principle of honour, morality, and religion, to take an oath, as required by law, that he was possessed of a landed estate, while, in truth, he had no earthly title to an inch of it. This scrupulosity gave mortal offence at the castle; and the recusant parson was doomed to ridicule as a pious fool, and to ruin. And as, in such cases, when an offending individual is completely dependent on the offended party, pretexts are never wanting for cloaking the lurking purpose of mischief: these were soon and easily discovered. If the minister of Bellerstown discoursed on integrity and truth as Christian virtues, or on the sacredness of an oath, the earl's underlings bore the tidings to the castle, where such doctrine was deemed high treason against the electioneering morality; and the faithful and fearless minister of religion having rebuked, from the pulpit, some gross and public enormities and violations of the Sabbath by the canvassers for the earl's candidate, within the precincts of his pastoral charge, this was a sad and unpardonable aggravation of his rebellion. Nay, having published a little tract on the duty of attending public worship, of which he was the known author, this was regarded as a direct personal insult to the lord of the manor--because his lordship was so much engrossed with politics and his other affairs, that he had, for some time, ceased entirely to go to church. These little incidents were aggravated by the perfidy of the parson of the parish within which Mr. Douglas' chapel was situated. That gentleman had formed a scheme for transferring his residence from the ancient manse, in a remote part of the parish, to the more populous and flourishing burgh of barony of Bellerstown--intending to officiate himself in the chapel (receiving, of course, the additional accommodation applicable to that cure), and consigning the care of the souls in the parish church to the schoolmaster--a preacher whom he satisfied with a bonus of £10 or £12 a-year. And for the accomplishment of this object, it was no difficult thing, as matters stood, to ingratiate himself into the patron's favour, and to accomplish his own personal objects, by whispering into the earl's greedy ear every remark that would suit his purpose, made by Mr. Douglas, in the most unbounded confidence of private intercourse and seeming friendship.

[I] This was written in 1829, before the Reform Act was dreamt of.--ED.

When the wrath which had accumulated in the heart of the earl was fanned to its height, he issued his orders to the factor in the following decree:--"Rackrent--_Us_"--(a grammatical singularity which his lordship always used, surpassing even the royal or editorial majesty, indicated by the first person plural)--"_Us_ is determined to root out that rebellious fellow Douglas, and to banish him from our grounds. Rackrent, order Spulzie, the scribe, instantly to serve the fellow with a summons of removing from Stablebarns; and, do you hear, go to Bellerstown, lock and nail up the chapel door, and tell the fellow that he shall never preach there again against _us_. Tell him to go to the devil, as _us_ will not suffer rebels against our will."

This mandate was instantly obeyed. Mr. Douglas received the intimation from Rackrent with surprise, but undismayed; and, his "courage swelling as the danger swells," he accepted the intimation as a testimony to his fidelity, and pitied the tyrant who had thus abused his authority. The earl had the uncontrolled power--there was no appeal from his heartless decree. Rackrent speedily promulgated in the burgh the purport of his mission, and ostentatiously performed his task of shutting up the chapel--putting the key in his pocket. Consternation, and sympathy with their "ain guid minister and his wife and bairns," spread from house to house; and it was not till the shadow of night afforded shelter from observation, that even a few true friends mustered courage to venture into the house of a proscribed man, and to cheer him with their condolence.

Mr. Douglas had an instinctive courage, which prompted him to bear Rackrent's message without a quiver on his countenance, save perhaps a momentary expression of scorn on his lip, and a sparkle of indignation in his keen blue eye. But, after the minion of power had retired, and he felt himself alone, a cold and chilling emotion gathered round his heart. He went immediately to the nursery, where his wife was busied in tending and amusing her children; and having desired Grace Grant (our attached and only servant, who never was in any other service) to look after her matters in the kitchen, he communicated to his dear Isobel, that she and her little ones were thrown destitute. I was too young (being only four or five years of age at the time) to understand the import of what he said. But my mother and the elder children knew it well; and I need not describe the scene. The tears which a brave man sheds are only those of tenderness and affection--but these are, indeed, tears of bitterness. Such scenes of love and agony are too sacred to be disclosed to an unfeeling world; and all I remember of the one now alluded to, was, that my heart was like to break when I saw those around me embracing and embraced, in tears and in silence, save the sounds of sobs which burst from every bosom.

It was a day of sorrow. Even the youngsters forgot, for a time, that they required their wonted frugal dinner; and it was not until twilight succeeded the last blaze of the setting sun, that Grace Grant called her mistress from the nursery (having heard from a neighbour the adversity which had befallen), to remind her that tea was ready. My mother was now much composed, and invited the minister to go to the parlour. It was a silent procession. My eldest brother carried me in his arms; and my father led his wife in one hand, while he bore their younger babe on his other arm. On reaching the parlour, we found tea prepared by the careful hands of Grace Grant; but, before sitting down to partake of that comforting refreshment, the minister proposed to offer up a prayer of resignation to the will of God, and of hope and trust in his providence.

"Then kneeling down to Heaven's eternal King, The saint, the father, and the husband prays: Hope 'springs exulting on triumphant wing,' That thus they all shall meet in future days; There, ever bask in uncreated rays, No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear; Together hymning their Creator's praise-- In such society yet still more dear, While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere."

These devout aspirations being ended, an air of calm composure reigned around my "Father's Fireside." He seated himself in his arm-chair, while my mother busied herself in preparing tea, and each little one took his appointed place around the oval wainscot table. The turf fire burned cheerily on the hearth. The tea-kettle gave out its hissing sounds, indicative of comfort; and the solitary candle diffused light on the fair young faces which brightened as the oat-cake and the "buttered pieces" began to disappear. But the minister's wonted playfulness was gone; and the decent silence of a Sabbath afternoon was observed even by the younger boys.

The visits of their friends were a solace in the first hour of their unlooked-for adversity. But, after their retirement the vague, undefined, and gloomy shadows which rose to the contemplation of my parents, with respect to their future prospects, yielded only a troubled and unutterable anxiety. Repining and supineness, however, were not suited to my father's character; for, with mildness, he united decision and even boldness of spirit. He had, for several years previous to this explosion of lordly despotism in the patron of his chapel, corresponded with some of his college friends in the new Republic of America; and had been encouraged by them, and through them, by one of the most distinguished of the American patriots, to leave his meagre benefice and cross the Atlantic. These invitations he had declined; being warmly attached to his flock, to the Established Church of Scotland, to his friends at home, and to his country. In his altered circumstances, however--severed as he was by an arbitrary act over which there was no moral or legal control, cast destitute from the altar at which he had ministered with usefulness and acceptance, and having no claims to immediate patronage in the church--he resolved, with a heavy heart, to betake himself to that field of exertion in a foreign land to which he had been so courteously invited. Having adopted this resolution, he did not waste time in idle whining, but prepared to encounter all the inconveniences and perils of a long voyage across the deep; aggravated, unspeakably, by the accompaniments of a wife and six young children, and hampered by the scanty means which remained to him amidst this wreck of his hopes of happiness at home.

But before his final departure from the cold and rocky shore of Scotland for ever, he wished to take a public leave of his flock. His own chapel had been shut up; but a reverend friend, in a closely adjoining burgh, acceded at once to his request, that he might have the use of his pulpit on the Sunday after the act of ejection which I have already mentioned. The villagers of Bellerstown were speedily apprised of their minister's intention; and they and many others attended to hear his farewell sermon. The church was crowded with an affectionate and even somewhat exasperated multitude, and the service of the day was characterised by a more than usual solemnity. All the energy of the preacher's spirit was called up to sustain him on so trying an occasion; and the unaffected, earnest, and native eloquence of his pulpit appearances, were heightened by the emotions which struggled within his bosom.