Part 15

"Where was I to turn?--Without a character, no other plantation would admit my services. The heavens over my head were iron, the earth was brass. I could get no employment, and to beg I was ashamed. I wandered down to the sea-shore, and in my excursion met with several ladies and gentlemen, riding on beautiful chargers, talking and laughing loudly all the while--and I wished to be one of them. It was this stimulus which had set me in motion, made me cross the Atlantic, and submit to great indignities--and yet here I was, an outcast less valuable than the wrecks which lined the bay. No one of the various cavalcades took the least notice of me; and I seated myself, at last, on a rock, and began to plunge little water-worn pebbles into the smooth bay. After a considerable interval of most poignant despair, the little black boy made his appearance, and told me that he had just heard of my dismissal, and that his father wished to see me in the hospital. I went with the boy half-stupified, and almost unconscious of either motive or motion. The poor, grateful creature wished me to take some money, which he had accumulated by his Sabbath-afternoon industry; but I refused it at once, though I did so with tears of gratitude in my eyes. He then informed me that he had formerly slaved on an adjoining plantation, and that his former master was of a more kindly disposition than the present one. He had just heard of the death of one of his clerks, and, if I would present myself immediately, ere the next fleet should arrive with a fresh supply of slave-drivers, he had no doubt but, from my appearance, and my good hand of writing, I might find employment. I took the honest creature's advice; and, accompanied by little Ebony, made the best of my way to Hillside plantation, about a mile and a-half from Kingston. The kind-hearted boy went before me, and, chancing to meet Mr Ferguson, the proprietor of Hillside estate, he threw himself on his knees before him, in the most imploring manner:--

"'Young gentleman dismissed; but he no ill--he kind to poor father--he very kind to black man when sick. Massa know poor Gabby.'

"Ere the boy had risen from his knees, I had presented myself to Mr Ferguson, and told my own story precisely as it stood. Luckily for me, Mr Ferguson and my former employer were upon the worst terms possible; so I found no difficulty in getting a temporary appointment on trial. It is said somewhere that despotism is the best of all governments, when the despot is a good man. This is truly verified in these islands. Nothing can differ more than does the usage of the slaves in different plantations. The overseer, Mr Handy, on Watson's plantation, he whom I had just left, was a brutal person, almost constantly under the excitement or reaction of rum, and his slaves were constantly beaten and ill used in every way; whereas the Hillside slaves were allowed all possible indulgences, and really seemed quite happy. They used to go about, on the fine Jamaica evenings, singing, dancing, and playing upon instruments, visiting and returning visits, and enjoying all the happiness of which their state was susceptible. I lived two years on this plantation, and was handsomely paid as a clerk. I now, for the first time, began to think of accumulating money, with the view of purchase or partnership. But an incident occured to me at this stage of my fortunes which gave them an unforeseen turn. I was kidnapped, whilst walking on the sea-shore, rather late one evening, and immediately carried on board a vessel, which sailed ere morning. This had been done, as I afterwards understood, under the direction of Handy; who, having heard of my good fortune and prosperity, persuaded a brother of his, who traded to Hudson's Bay, in the fur trade, to carry me there, and keep me out of his sight. He could not bear to think that I might possibly one day come to effect an establishment in his immediate neighbourhood. Captain Handy was a cruel, despotic, weatherbeaten piece of mortality; he carried me in a few months to Hudson's Bay, and had me introduced into a great house in the fur trade. In vain, when I got ashore, did I remonstrate against the violence which had been used in regard to me; I was immediately clothed in warm garments, armed with a musket, and marched overland, along with about ten or twelve copper-faced Indians, towards the upper lakes of the St. Lawrence. Our ultimate destination was Lake Superior. There we were commissioned to trade with the Indians, exchanging muskets, spirits, and various kinds of cutlery, for fur-skins. There was a small settlement in the centre of the lake, but there were not sufficient provisions for the additional numbers during winter; so we were expected to return on land to the settlement on Hudson's Bay ere the winter set in. But this year the American winter commenced a month earlier than usual, and with unprecedented severity. We had nothing but one log-house to accommodate upwards of thirty people; but this erection was of considerable extent, and leaned against several growing trees. Our situation became immediately all but desperate. You can have no idea of an American winter in such latitudes." (Hereupon I stirred the fire, and helped myself to a glass of toddy.) "The snow comes on at once, and the atmosphere is so loaded and thickened with drift, that you may cut it into cubes with a knife. And then the snow, which in a few hours accumulates over your dwelling to the very roof, penetrates everywhere through your wooden erection. In spite of a blazing hearth, you are shivering almost in the midst of the flame. The horrors of that winter I can never forget; we were, long ere New Year's-day, reduced to our daily shifts for our daily food. Had it not been for our Indian friends, we should have perished of hunger to a man; but their skill in archery and even in ball-shooting is altogether incredible. Nothing borne on wings over our heads escaped them. The bow was lifted immediately to the eye, the arrow was pointed, and followed for a small space the course of the bird; it flew, but apparently not straight for the object, but greatly in advance of it; but, ere it had gained its utmost ascent, the winged and the feathered objects had crossed on their courses, and the prey fell immediately, transfixed by the arrow. We broke the ice, too, of the lake, which was often three feet in thickness, and, with bait prepared by the Indians, of the seeds of trees, decoyed occasionally some half-starved fish to our lines. But, with all appliances and means to boot, we became perfect skeletons; several died of various complaints, all brought on by cold, and spare as well as unwholesome diet. Oh, what would I then have given for a dinner such as we have enjoyed this day! But, not to fatigue you with exclamations and with representations of suffering which to you must seem incredible, the winter gave way at last, and its departure was agreeably unexpected with its approach; the thaw came as much earlier as the frost had anticipated its average approach. Our boats were again on the lake, and we were enabled to ship off our skins for their ultimate destination, Montreal. As I had shown considerable talents, and what they termed mettle, during the winter trials, the commander of the party had me boated off, along with the skins, for Mr Syme's warehouse, at Montreal. Here I met with a friend, in a cousin of my mother. He immediately took me into his warehouse.

"By this time I was sufficiently tired of a moving life; like the rolling stone of the proverb, I had gathered no fog--'_movebam, sed nil promovebam_.' I was very happy, therefore, when Mr Syme proposed my remaining at least some time with him in the capacity mentioned. Montreal, as everybody knows, is situated upon an island in the St Lawrence, and few places could be more advantageous for trade, or more picturesque in appearance. In the centre of the island there rises a beautiful eminence, still covered with trees of the primeval American forests; and towards the eastern skies lies the town itself, upper and lower, adorned with public buildings, and presenting, as you approach it, a very prepossessing aspect. Mr Syme had a warehouse, at a place called Chine, about eight miles up, and immediately upon the river. Here the furs were shipped for Europe, and Britain in particular, and here it was my duty to remain, except on Sundays, when I constantly dined with my kind relative. Mr Syme had an only daughter, two sons having died, and the mother likewise, whilst being delivered of the last. This daughter was now a young woman of nineteen, and sufficiently handsome for matrimony, considering that she was to inherit her father's wealth and business, which was itself a mine of gain. Her father, who in many respects was a kind-hearted and a prudent man, was as obstinate as an old oak-trunk when he took it into his head to be so. Most people have some weak side or other--and this was his. He had determined, from the time when Samuel Horseman, the rich merchant (the richest, it was supposed, in the island), had rocked his Nancy in the cradle, and had suffered himself to be scorned with the child, that Nancy should one day or other be Mrs Horseman; and that thus, by the union of their families and their fortunes, there should not be a firm in Montreal that would once be spoken of in the same day with Horseman, Syme, & Co. This idea had grown with the growth of the child, and had strengthened with her strength--it was never twenty-four hours out of his head. But, one dreadful afternoon, Horseman arrived from Quebec with a little pretty French milliner, whom he had married. This was death to Syme's plans and prospects, and so he set immediately about cutting Horseman, and looking out for some other advantageous way of disposing of his _article_, which had now seen some fourteen summers. But before he could settle upon any particular individual, he was relieved from his disappointment, and restored to his intercourse with Horseman, by a gallant serjeant, who claimed Mrs Horseman as his lawful and married wife; in fact, there were several claimants; but one was as good as a hundred to Horseman, who by this time was heartily tired of his partner, and would have willingly seen her attempting a voyage of discovery over the Falls of Niagara. Syme soon redoubled his diligence, and gave his daughter to understand that, so soon as she had attained the age of nineteen, the age of her mother when she became a bride, she should be exalted to all the honours and privileges of Mrs Horseman.

"There are two, it is said, at a bargain-making; but that is merely the _minimum_: in this case, there were three, and ultimately four. Miss Syme had been exceedingly annoyed by her father's unreasonable arrangement; she, of course, disliked Horseman, as she did everything old, ugly, snuffy, and bandylegged; but her father was incessant in his importunities, or rather commands, and matters were in this state when the friend now addressing you made his appearance, and took up his principal residence at Chine. It was not long before Miss Syme and I came to understand each other. I do not know how it was--I was not romantically in love--perhaps it is not in my nature; but I was willing to hear the poor girl's story, and to mingle tears with hers. We never talked of love; but yet, somehow or other, it made an inroad upon the debateable territory on both sides, till we felt that we were assuredly over head and ears, from the circumstance that, like Darby and Joan, 'we were ever uneasy asunder.' The father began to smell a rat, as they say--at least you and I have often said whilst at school--and he was in a furious passion, threatened dismissal to me and imprisonment to Nancy. In the meantime, death, in the shape of an ague, carried Horseman beyond the reach of matrimony--he went to that land where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage; and I became every day more and more useful to my employer. It was manifest to all that his heart had now softened, and that he had come to see the utter folly of human schemes when controverted by the decrees of Heaven. One day he was up at Chine, seeing some furs shipped for London; when in passing from the shore to the ship, he slipped a foot and fell into the water. There was no one who observed this but myself, as all the men were busily engaged. I immediately plunged headlong into the somewhat rapid stream. He was not to be found. The current had borne him downwards, and a water-dog, which was kept on purpose on board, was in the act, as I perceived, of dragging the body ashore. I assisted the animal, and got the credit of saving my friend.

"I need not delay you longer. I married Mr Syme's daughter, and succeeded, at his death, to the whole concern, which I have just wound up; and, having left my wife and an only daughter in London, I am on my way to visit, by surprise, my aged mother, who still lives in the place of my birth, and to purchase, if possible, a property in the neighbourhood, there to spend, in peace, and affection, and domestic love, the evening of my days.--Will you go with me to Lastcairn?"

I agreed. We drove up the glen, by Croalchapel; and my friend was all absence, and inward rumination, and anticipated delight. But the footsteps of death were on the threshold. His aged parent was still alive and sensible, but manifestly fast going. She was made sensible that her long-lost Charlie, who had been so kind to her in her old age, was before her. She tried to stretch forth her withered arm, but it was scathed by death. She received the last embrace of her son, said something about "depart in peace," and fell asleep.

THE POOR SCHOLAR.

Reader, if ever thou hast been in "Babylon the Great," or, in other words, in the overgrown metropolis of the southern portion of these kingdoms, peradventure you have observed melancholy-looking men, their countenances tinged with the "pale cast of thought," in suits of well-worn black, "a world too wide," creeping, edging, or shuffling along the streets, each belike with a bundle of papers peering from his pocket. In nine cases out of ten, these neglected-looking men are the poor scholars who instruct or amuse the world. You may also find them, with anxiety in their eyes, and hunger sitting at home upon their cheeks, wandering in the most secluded corners of the parks, enjoying, by way of a substitute for dinner, the apology which the air in the parks offers for the pure and unadulterated breath of heaven. Daily, too, they may be seen in the library of the Museum, poring over an old volume, and concealing their shoes beneath the table, lest they should "prate" of the scholar's "whereabouts," and ask of the venerable volume, "Are you or we oldest?" Or you may find them in the corner of some obscure coffee-house, poring intently over the periodicals of the day, at intervals slowly sipping and mincing the cup of coffee and half slice of bread before them. But, in speaking of poor scholars generally, I keep you from the tale of our Poor Scholar.

You have heard of Longtown, which is a neat, respectable-looking, and remarkably clean little town in Cumberland, on the banks of the Esk, near to what is called Solway Moss, and sometimes spoken of as the first or last town in England, in the same manner as Coldstream is mentioned as the first or last town in Scotland. Well, there dwelt in Longtown a respectable widow, named Musgrave. She derived an income of about eighty pounds a-year from a property that had been bequeathed to her in the West Indies. She had an only son, whose name was Robert, and who, after a respectable education in his native place, was bound as an apprentice to a medical practitioner in Carlisle. He afterwards attended the classes in Edinburgh; but, before he had taken out all the necessary tickets, and before he had obtained the diploma or qualification which was to enable him to use the word "surgeon" after his name, something went wrong about the property that was bequeathed to his mother in the West Indies; her remittances ceased, and, after a tedious lawsuit, it was swallowed up altogether.

She was left in poverty--in utter destitution. The misfortune fell upon her heavily; she drooped, pined, mourned, and died; and Robert Musgrave, still under twenty, was left without money and without friends. His talents, however, had excited the notice of several of the professors under whom he had studied; and they, acquiring a knowledge of his circumstances, and feeling an interest in his fate, enabled him to take out his certificate as a member of the College of Surgeons.

He now, with high hopes, and, I need not say, a low pocket, commenced practice as a country surgeon in a small village on the Borders. It was a young man's dream. A surgeon in a country village, and especially a young one, is generally the worst paid man in it. The war between poverty and the necessity of appearing respectable never ceases. The clergyman, be he churchman or dissenter, has a certain income, be it less or more; but the surgeon lives between the hand and the mouth; and he can hardly, considering his avocation, in Christian benevolence, pray for "daily bread." Such a prayer would be something akin to a gravedigger's for an east wind or a "green Christmas," which, as the adage hath it, "maketh a fat kirkyard."

Now, Robert Musgrave was a young man, possessed not only of what may be called talent, but, what is more, of strong and ardent genius; while, young as he was, his professional skill would have done honour to a court physician. But, buried in the obscurity of a poor and secluded village, struggling between gentility and penury, shut out from all society congenial to his taste, education, and former habits, he became heartless and callous, if not slovenly; and, eventually, he sank into a sceptic from the _force of appearance_. For, be assured, gentle reader, if ye will study mankind closely, and examine into their outgoings and their incomings, and think of the _why_ for every _wherefore_, ye will find that the reasoning of a shabby coat produces more converts to everyday free-thinking or infidelity, than the philosophy of Hobbes, the rhetoric of Shaftesbury, the wit of Voltaire, the sophistry of Hume, and the blackguard ribaldry of Paine, united. The neighbouring farmers admitted Doctor Musgrave, as they called him, to be clever; but they despised his poverty, and invited him to their tables only for amusement. Deprived of books, and without society, while his temperament was framed for both, and feeling himself slighted, he gradually lost his respectability, and became a tippler, if not a drunkard.

I shall here follow out a portion of his history, in a conversation which he had with a Cumberland farmer, one Peter Liddell, whom he met in London about three years after he had left his country practice on the Borders:--

"The longer I remained in----," said he, "my situation became the more painful. I felt I was becoming something less than the equal of society I despised. I found that I had gradually sunk into the odious vice of drunkenness; that I was the companion only of the ignorant and the worthless; and poverty, eternal poverty and obscurity, were all that appeared before me. But the dormant ambition of boyhood, the dreams that delighted my early years, did not wholly forsake me. I had long determined to leave the village, and try my fortune in the world; but want of means prevented me. I resolved to tear adversity by the beard, and face every obstacle. With difficulty I gathered in as many debts as enabled me to proceed to Newcastle, and take a passage to London, where I arrived on the first of February, without friends, and almost without money--in fact, with not five shillings in my pocket."

"Poor fellow!" said Peter; and they were sitting together in a tavern in Fleet Street, which is called a north-country house; for Peter was in London on business, and having met the doctor on the street, they went into the tavern to talk of their native hills, and the "old familiar faces." "Poor fellow!" added Peter; and, with a sort of sigh, added, "_Ah_, sirs! it is really well said that the one half of the world doesn't know how the other lives. It would take planning to lay out those five shillings."

"It certainly did," said the scholar. "You are aware that my practice in the village, from a prejudice against what some called my religion, or rather my no religion, was exceedingly limited. In fact, I was a persecuted man, for principles of which I was as ignorant as themselves; and disdaining to accommodate my habits and conversation to their rules, the persecution increased, and the payments made to me became more limited than my practice. I bade fair to become an actual representative of Shakspere's apothecary; and would assuredly have thought myself 'passing rich with forty pounds a-year.' But the one-half of my practice would not pay the expense of wrapping the powders in paper. On sending to our village tobacconist's, I have had my own accounts returning as snuff-paper; and, though my success was not, I believe, inferior to most in the profession, my patients regarded paying me as throwing money away, or as an unnecessary charity; and never did the payments, taking one year with another, exceed thirty pounds."

"Poor fellow! do ye really say so?" responded Peter; "thirty pounds a-year!--and was that a'? And was ye really not an atheist or a deist, doctor, as the people gied ye out to be?"

"Whatever I and the mass of mankind are in our practice, Mr Liddell," he replied, "I am neither, when the small still voice of conscience speaks."

"Gie's your hand--gie's your hand, doctor," cried Peter; "I ask your pardon for onything I ever thought or said respecting ye, as sincerely as ever man did. Conscience is, as ye say, a sma still voice; but I doubt it is one that many will hear aboon the sough o' friends at a death-bed, the thunders o' the day o' judgment, and the roaring and raging o' the bottomless pit. But ye say that ye had barely five shillings in your pocket when ye arrived in London here. How, in a' the world, did ye manage to lay it out?'

"Sixpence," replied the scholar, "went in treating the captain to a glass of grog, when we came on shore, including one for myself."

"That was very foolishly spent, however," interrupted Peter.

"And it being night when we landed," added the doctor, "another shilling was spent in the public-house for a bed."

"A bed!" exclaimed our Cumberland farmer. "Man, had ye not the gumption to sleep aboord, or gie the captain the hint, after treating him wi' the glass. That was eighteen-pence clean thrown awa'; and only left ye wi' three-and-sax-pence. Poor soul! what did ye do?"

"Beginning to reflect in the morning," said the other, "that three-and-sixpence was not an inexhaustible sum, I agreed to pass over the very useful ceremony of a breakfast; and, strolling about, planning what to do, and marvelling at all I saw--after narrowly escaping being jostled to pieces, as I moved slowly from street to street, while every soul in the great city appeared to be walking for a wager but myself--towards three o'clock I dined in an eating-house, for six pence, by the side of a coalheaver. The afternoon was also passed in dreamy wandering. After nightfall, I became dispirited and fatigued. I was still unable to form any definite plan of proceeding, and I more than once asked myself what I had come to London to do."

"Poor man! I doubt there are too many like ye," said Peter.