Part 19

It is time, however, that we should describe Adam more particularly to our readers. He was dressed in a coarse grey coat; with trousers of the same colour, a striped waistcoat; a half-worn broad-brimmed hat, and thick shoes, studded with nails, which clattered as he went. Thus arrayed, and with his trunk upon his shoulders, Adam went tramping and clattering along East Smithfield, over Tower-hill, and along the Minories, inquiring at every turning--"If any one could direct him to Mr Davison's, the merchant in Cornhill?" There was many a laugh, and many a joke, at poor Adam's expense, as he went trudging along, and more than once the trunk fell to the ground, as he came in contact with the crowds who were hurrying past him. He had been directed out of his way; but at length he arrived at the place he sought. He placed his burden on the ground--he rang the bell--and again and again he rang, but no one answered. His letter was addressed to Mr Davison's counting-house--it was past business hours, and the office was locked up for the day. Adam was now tired, disappointed, and perplexed. He wist not what to do. He informed several "decent-looking people," as he said, "that he was a stranger, and he would be obleeged to them if they could recommend him to a lodging." He was shown several, but the rent per week terrified Adam. He was sinking under his burden, when, near the corner of Newgate Street, he inquired of an old Irish orange-woman, if "she could inform him where he would be likely to obtain a lodging at the rate of eighteen-pence or two shillings a-week?

"Sure, and it's I who can, jewel," replied she; "and an iligant room it is, with a bed his Holiness might rest his blessed bones on, and never a one slapes in it at all but my own boy Barney; and, barring when Barney's in dhrink--and that's not above twice a-week--you'll make mighty plaisant sort of company together."

Adam was glad to have the prospect of a resting-place of any sort before him at last, and with a lighter heart and a freer step he followed the old orange-woman. She conducted him to Green Dragon Court, and desiring him to follow her up a long, dark, dirty stair, ushered him into a small, miserable-looking garret, dimly lighted by a broken skylight, while the entire furniture consisted of four wooden posts without curtains, which she termed a bed, a mutilated chair, and a low wooden stool. "Now, darlint," said she, observing Adam fatigued, "here is a room fit for a prince; and sure you won't be thinking half-a-crown too much for it?"

"Weel," said Adam, for he was ready to lie down anywhere, "we'll no quarrel about a sixpence."

The orange-woman left him, having vainly recommended him "to christen his new tenement with a drop of the cratur." Adam threw himself upon the bed, and, in a few minutes, his spirit wandered in its dreams amidst the "bonny woods and braes" of Teviotdale. Early on the following day he proceeded to the counting-house of Mr Davison, who received him with a hurried sort of civility--glanced over the letter of introduction--expressed a hope that Mr Douglas was well--said he would be happy to serve him--but he was engaged at present, and, if Mr Brown would call again, if he should hear of anything, he would let him know. Adam thanked him, and, with his best bow (which was a very awkward one), withdrew. The clerks in the outer office tittered, as poor Adam, with his heavy hobnailed shoes, tramped through the midst of them. He delivered the other letter of introduction, and the gentleman to whom it was addressed received him much in the same manner as Mr Davison had done, and his clerks also smiled at Adam's grey coat, and gave a very peculiar look at his clattering shoes, and then at each other. Day after day he repeated his visits to the counting-houses of these gentlemen--sometimes they were too much engaged to see him, at others they simply informed him that they were sorry they had heard of nothing to suit him, and continued writing, without noticing him again; while Adam, with a heavy heart, would stand behind their desk, brushing the crown of his brown broad-brimmed hat with his sleeve. At length the clerks in the outer office merely informed him their master had heard of nothing for him. Adam saw it was in vain--three weeks had passed, and the thirty shillings which he had brought to London were reduced to ten.

He was wandering disconsolately down Chancery Lane, with his hands thrust in his pockets, when his attention was attracted to a shop, the windows and door of which were covered with written placards, and on these placards were the words, "_Wanted, a Book-keeper_"--"_Wanted, by a Literary Gentleman, an Amanuensis_"--in short, there seemed no sort of a situation for which there was not a person wanted, and each concluded with "_inquire within_." Adam's heart and his eyes overflowed with joy. There were at least half-a-dozen places which would suit him exactly--he was only at a loss now which to choose upon--and he thought also that Mr Douglas' friends had used him most unkindly in saying they could hear of no situation for him, when here scores were advertised in the streets. At length he fixed upon one. He entered the shop. A sharp, Jewish-looking little man was writing at a desk--he received the visiter with a gracious smile.

"If ye please, sir," said Adam, "will ye be so good as inform me where the gentleman lives that wants the book-keeper?"

"With pleasure," said the master of the register office; "but you must give me five shillings, and I will enter your name."

"Five shillings!" repeated Adam, and a new light began to dawn upon him. "Five shillings, sir, is a deal o' money and, to tell ye the truth, I can very ill afford it; but, as I am much in want o' a situation, maybe ye wad tak half-a-crown."

"Can't book you for that," said the other, "but give me your half-crown, and you may have the gentleman's address."

He directed him to a merchant in Thames Street. Adam quickly found the house; and, entering with his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, and scraping the hob-nails along the floor--"Sir," said he, "I'm the person Mr Daniells o' Chancery Lane has sent to you as a book-keeper."

"Mr Daniells--Mr Daniells?" said the merchant; "don't know any such person--have not wanted a book-keeper these six months."

"Sir," said Adam, "are ye no Mr Robertson o' 54 Thames Street?"

"I am," replied the merchant; "but," added he, "I see how it is. Pray, young man, what did you give this Mr Daniells to recommend you to the situation?"

"Half-a-crown, sir," returned Adam.

"Well," said the other, "you have more money than wit. Good-morning, sir, and take care of another Mr Daniells."

Poor Adam was dumfoundered; and, in the bitterness of his spirit, he said London was a den o' thieves. I might tell you how his last shilling was expended--how he lived upon bread and water--how he fell into arrears with the orange-woman for the rent of his garret--how she persecuted him--how he was puzzled to understand the meaning of the generous words, "_Money Lent_;"--how the orange-woman, in order to obtain her rent, taught him the mystery of the _three golden balls_--and how the shirts which his mother had made him from a web of her own spinning, and his books, and all that he had, save the clothes upon his back, were pledged--and how, when all was gone, the old landlady turned him to the door, houseless, friendless, penniless, with no companion but despair. We might have dwelt upon these things, but must proceed with his history.

Adam, after enduring privations which would make humanity shudder, obtained the situation of assistant-porter in a merchant's office. The employment was humble, but he received it joyfully. He was steady and industrious, and it was not long until he was appointed warehouseman; and his employer, finding that, in addition to his good qualities, he had received a superior education, made him one of his confidential clerks. He had held the situation about two years. The rust, as his brother clerks said, was now pretty well rubbed off Scotch Adam. His hodden-grey was laid aside for the dashing green, his hobnailed shoes for fashionable pumps, and his broad-brimmed hat for a narrow-crowned beaver; his speech, too, had caught a sprinkling of the southern accent; but, in other respects, he was the same inoffensive, steady, and serious being as when he left his mother's cottage.

His companions were wont to "roast" Adam, as they termed it, on what they called his Methodism. They had often urged him to accompany them to the theatre; but, for two years, he had stubbornly withstood their temptations. The stage was to Adam what the tree of knowledge was to his first namesake and progenitor. He had been counselled against it, he had read against it, he had heard sermons against it; but had never been within the walls of a theatre. _The_ Siddons, and her brother John Kemble, then in the zenith of their fame, were filling not only London, but Europe, with their names. One evening they were to perform together--Adam had often heard of them--he admired Shakspere--his curiosity was excited--he yielded to the solicitations of his companions, and accompanied them to Covent Garden. The curtain was drawn up. The performance began. Adam's soul was riveted, his senses distracted. The Siddons swept before him like a vision of immortality--Kemble seemed to draw a soul from the tomb of the Caesars; and, as the curtain fell, and the loud music pealed, Adam felt as if a new existence and a new world had opened before him, and his head reeled with wonder and delight.

When the performances were concluded, his companions proposed to have a single bottle in an adjoining tavern; Adam offered some opposition, but was prevailed upon to accompany them. Several of the players entered--they were convivial spirits, abounding with wit, anecdote, and song. The scene was new, but not unpleasant to Adam. He took no note of time. He was unused to drink, and little affected him. The first bottle was finished. "WE'LL HAVE ANOTHER," said one of his companions. It was the first time Adam had heard the fatal words, and he offered no opposition. He drank again--he began to expatiate on divers subjects--he discovered he was an orator. "Well done, Mr Brown," cried one of his companions, "there's hope of you yet; _we'll have another_, my boy--three's band!" A third bottle was brought; Adam was called upon for a song. He could sing, and sing well too; and, taking his glass in his hand, he began--

"'Stop, stop, we'll hae anither gill, Ne'er mind a lang-tongued beldame's yatter They're fools wha'd leave a glass o' yill For ony wife's infernal clatter.

"'There's Bet, when I gang hame the night, Will set the hail stair-head a ringin-- Let a' the neebors hear her flyte, Ca' me a brute, and stap my singin. She'll yelp about the bairns' rags-- Ca' me a drucken gude-for-naethin! She'll curse my throat and drouthy bags, And at me thraw their duddy claethin!'

"Chorus, gentlemen--chorus!" cried Adam, and continued--

"'The fient a supper I'll get there-- A _dish o' tongue_ is a' she'll gie me! She'll shake her nieve and rug her hair, And wonder how she e'er gaed wi' me! She vows to leave me, and I say, "Gang, gang! for dearsake!--that's a blessin!" She rins to get her claes away, But--_o' the kist the key's amissin_!

"'The younkers a' set up a skirl. They shriek and cry, "Oh dinna, mither!" I slip to bed, and fash the quarrel Neither ae way nor anither. Bet creeps beside me, unco dour. I clap her back, and say, "My dawtie!" Quo' she, "Weel, weel, my passion's owre; But dinna gang a-drinkin, Watty."'"

"Bravo, Scotchy!" shouted one. "Your health and song, Mr Brown," cried another. Adam's head began to swim--the lights danced before his eyes--he fell from his chair. One of his friends called a hackney-coach; and, half insensible of where he was, he was conveyed to his lodgings. It was afternoon on the following day before he appeared at the counting-house, and his eyes were red, and he had the languid look of one who had spent a night in revelry. That night he was again prevailed upon to accompany his brother clerks to the club-room, "just," as they expressed it, "to have one bottle to put all right." That night he again heard the words--"_We'll have another_," and again he yielded to their seduction.

But we will not follow him through the steps and through the snares by which he departed from virtue, and became entangled in vice. He became an almost nightly frequenter of the tavern, the theatre, or both, and his habits opened up temptations to grosser viciousness. Still he kept up a correspondence with Mary Douglas, the gentle object of his young affections, and, for a time, her endeared remembrance haunted him like a protecting angel, whispering in his ear, and saving him from depravity. But his religious principles were already forgotten; and, when that cord was snapped asunder, the fibre of affection that twined around his heart did not long hold him in the path of virtue. As the influence of company grew upon him, her remembrance lost its power, and Adam Brown plunged headlong into all the pleasures and temptations of the metropolis.

Still he was attentive to business--he still retained the confidence of his employer--his salary was liberal--he still sent thirty pounds a-year to his mother; and Mary Douglas yet held a place in his heart, though he was changed--fatally changed. He had been about four years in his situation, when he obtained leave for a few weeks to visit his native village. It was on a summer afternoon, when a chaise from Jedburgh drove up to the door of the only public-house in the village. A fashionably-dressed young man alighted, and, in an affected voice, desired the landlord to send a _porter_ with his luggage to Mrs Brown's. "A porter, sir?" said the innkeeper--"there's naething o' the kind in the toun; but I'll get twa callants to tak it alang."

He hastened to his mother's. "Ah! how d'ye do?" said he, slightly shaking the hands of his younger brothers; but a tear gathered in his eye as his mother kissed his cheek. She, good soul, when the first surprise was over, said "she hardly kenned her bairn in sic a fine gentleman." He proceeded to the manse, and Mary marvelled at the change in his appearance and his manner; yet she loved him not the less: but her father beheld the affectation and levity of his young friend, and grieved over them.

He had not been a month in the village when Mary gave him her hand, and they set out for London together. For a few weeks after their arrival, he spent his evenings at their own fireside, and they were blessed in the society of each other. But it was not long until company again spread its seductive snares around him. Again he listened to the words--"_We'll have another_"--again he yielded to their temptation, and again the _force of habit_ made him its slave. Night followed night, and he was irritable and unhappy, unless in the midst of his boon companions. Poor Mary felt the bitterness and anguish of a deserted wife; but she upbraided him not--she spoke not of her sorrows. Health forsook her cheeks, and gladness had fled from her spirit; yet as she nightly sat hour after hour waiting his return, as he entered, she welcomed him with a smile, which not unfrequently was met with an imprecation or a frown. They had been married about two years. Mary was a mother, and oft at midnight she would sit weeping over the cradle of her child, mourning in secret for its thoughtless father.

It was her birth-day, her father had come to London to visit them; she had not told him of her sorrows, and she had invited a few friends to dine with them. They had assembled; but Adam was still absent. He had been unkind to her; but this was an unkindness she did not expect from him. They were yet waiting, when a police-officer entered. His errand was soon told. Adam Brown had become a gambler, as well as a drunkard--he had been guilty of fraud and embezzlement--his guilt had been discovered, and the police were in quest of him. Mr Douglas wrung his hands and groaned. Mary bore the dreadful blow with more than human fortitude. She uttered no scream--she shed no tears; for a moment she sat motionless--speechless. It was the dumbness of agony. With her child at her breast, and in the midst of her guests, she flung herself at her father's feet. "Father!" she exclaimed, "for my sake!--for my helpless child's sake--save! oh, save my poor husband!"

"For your sake, what I can do I will do, dearest," groaned the old man.

A coach was ordered to the door, and the miserable wife and her father hastened to the office of her husband's employer.

When Adam Brown received intelligence that his guilt was discovered from a companion, he was carousing with others in a low gambling-house. Horror seized him, and he hurried from the room; but he returned in a few minutes. "_We'll have another_!" he exclaimed, in atone of frenzy; and another was brought. He half-filled a glass--he raised it to his lips--he dashed into it a deadly poison, and, ere they could stay his hand, the fatal draught was swallowed. He had purchased a quantity of arsenic when he rushed from the house.

His fellow-gamblers were thronging around him, when his injured wife and her grey-haired father entered the room. "Away, tormentors!" he exclaimed, as his glazed eyes fell upon them, and he dashed his hand before his face.

"My husband! my dear husband!" cried Mary, flinging her arms around his neck; "look on me--speak to me! All is well!"

He gazed on her face--he grasped her hand. "Mary--my injured Mary!" he exclaimed, convulsively, "can _you_ forgive me--_you_--_you_? O God! I was once innocent! Forgive me, dearest!--for our child's sake, curse not its guilty father!"

"Husband!--Adam!" she cried, wringing his hand--"come with me, love, come--leave this horrid place--you have nothing to fear--your debt is paid."

"Paid!" he exclaimed, wildly. "Ha! ha! Paid!"

They were his last words. Convulsions came upon him; the film of death passed over his eyes, and his troubled spirit fled.

She clung round his neck--she yet cried, "Speak to me!"--she refused to believe that he was dead, and her reason seemed to have fled with his spirit.

She was taken from his body and conveyed home. The agony of grief subsided into a stupor approaching imbecility. She was unconscious of all around; and within three weeks from the death of her husband, the broken spirit of Mary Douglas found rest, and her father returned in sorrow with her helpless orphan to Teviotdale.

THE SCOTTISH VETERAN.

It was upon one of those clear, chill, but not unpleasant days, that so often occur towards the latter end of November, that an aged female, and one much younger, in all the bloom of maiden beauty, overcast by a tender shade of melancholy, that gave tenfold interest to her lovely countenance, and mellowed the lustre of her dark hazel eyes, were seen sitting at the door of a cottage on the banks of one of the tributaries of the silver Tweed. The full round orb of the sun was sinking slowly behind a huge bank of clouds, tinged by his departing rays, that lingered as if regretting his short career, and loth to depart. The deep shades of twilight closed quickly upon the scene; but the females sat engaged at their work, as if it had been an eve of autumn. Margaret Blair, the more aged of the two, sat gazing in one direction with unwearied assiduity, only occasionally looking at the progress she made at the stocking she was busy knitting; and Jeanie Aitken, the younger, bent her steadfast gaze at intervals in the same direction, towards the road that skirted the foot of the neighbouring hills. Heavy clouds began to rise in the east; the wind had changed towards that quarter, and howled mournfully along the waste.

"Jeanie, my dear," said Margaret, "Jamie has gotten a fine day to travel in. Do you see no appearance o' him yet? Your young een are far clearer than mine. These heavy clouds mak me fear for the nicht. I am sure he might hae been here lang before this time, if his heart yearned as mickle to see me as mine does to see him. I trust that naething has happened to him on the road. Many a danger has he passed through in the wars. It would be an awfu thing were ony misfortune to happen him when he is sae near hame. God has preserved him in the battlefield; and oh, I trust and pray He will still be his guide! Do you no see ony signs o' him yet? The nicht will soon be on, and I fear it will be a stormy ane."

A deep sigh escaped from Jeanie as she answered, "Oh no; I see no one on the road. Dear mother, retire into the house--you must be very cold--I will watch yet a little. I hope he will soon be here, and then we will be so happy when we meet." The tears that filled her eyes, and the trembling accents in which she spoke, betrayed a heart ill at ease.

It was at this period I arrived at the cottage, in hopes of seeing my old schoolfellow; for a letter had been received a few days before, in which he informed his mother and Jean that he would be with them this day, as he had received his discharge.

Jeanie and James had long loved each other; they were cousins, and had been brought up together; but he had enlisted in anger, and forsaken her. With all his faults, she had never ceased to love him; and, from the day he went off to join his regiment, for six long years they had never heard of him. About three months after the battle of Victoria, the carrier to the town of Dunse brought them two letters as he passed--one for Margaret Blair, the other for Jeanie Aitken. They were from James. I was shown both the letters, which will unfold the previous history of my friends, and the feelings of the reformed son better than I can, and introduce the Veteran in a more favourable light than I have as yet been enabled to do.

"_Victoria._

"DEAREST MOTHER,--My folly has at length fallen upon my own head, and heavy is the load I will bear until I receive an answer to this, containing your forgiveness for my wicked neglect of your counsels, and despising the instructions of my worthy father--the result of all which has been my giving myself so much to evil company, and deserting you in your old age. But, dear mother, I am now an altered man. On the dark and cheerless guard, at the dead hour of the night, my conscience often awoke, and rendered me almost desperate--when sinking under fatigue, hunger, and thirst, on the long and toilsome march, it has given a keener edge to my sufferings; still I warred against the better feelings that arose in my breast--for I was still wayward and proud; but now, lingering under my wounds, I humble myself in the dust, before that God I so long neglected, who alone speaks peace to my humbled spirit! Be not alarmed at the mention of my wounds. I am now out of danger, and will be enabled to join my regiment in a few weeks--would it were to join your peaceful fireside. But, though I am unworthy to obtain yet for a time this my earnest prayer, I feel assured I shall yet be spared to comfort your declining years. And that every blessing may be yours until then, is the prayer of your now repentant and loving son,

"JAMES BLAIR.