Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume X Part 6

I know not that any one has rightly described a first love. It is not the love of man and woman, though that be fervent and terrible--it is not the love of mere boy and girlhood, though that be disinterested and engrossing--but it is the love of the period of life which unites the two. "Is there a man whose blood is warm within him" who does not recollect it? Is there a woman who has pa.s.sed through the novitiate of fifteen, who has not still a distinct impression of the feeling of which I speak. It is not s.e.xual, and yet it can only exist betwixt the s.e.xes.

It is the sweetest delusion under which the soul of a created being can pa.s.s. It is modest, timid, retiring, bashful; yet, in absence of the adored--in seclusion, in meditation, and in dreams--it is bold, resolute, and determined. There is no plan, no design, no right conception of _cause_; yet the _effect_ is sure and the bliss perfect.

Oh, for one hour--one little hour--from the thousands which I have idled, sported, dreamed away in the company of my darling school-companion, Nancy!

Will Mather was about two years older than Nancy--a fine youth, attending the same school, and evidently an admirer of Nancy. Mine was the love of comparative boyhood; but his was a pa.s.sion gradually ripening (as the charms of Nancy budded into womanhood) into a manly and matrimonial feeling. I loved the girl merely as such--his eye, his heart, his whole soul were in his future bride. Marriage in no shape ever entered into my computations; but his eager look and heaving bosom bespoke the definite purpose--he antic.i.p.ated felicity. I don't know exactly why, but I was never jealous of Will Mather--we were companions; and he was high-souled and generous, and stood my friend in many perilous quarrels. I knew that _my_ pathway in life was to be afar from that in which Nancy and Will were likely to walk; and I felt in my heart that, dear as this beautiful rosebud was to me, I was not _man_ enough--I was not _peasant_ enough to wear it in my bosom. Had Nancy on any occasion turned round to be kissed by me, I would have fled over muir and dale, to avoid her presence--and yet I had often a great desire to obtain that favour. Once indeed, and only once, did I obtain, or rather steal it. She was sitting beside a bird's nest, the young ones of which she was feeding and cheris.h.i.+ng--for the parent birds, by the rapacity of a cat, had recently perished. As the little bills were expanding to receive their food, her countenance beamed with pity and benevolence. I never saw even _her_ so lovely--so, in a moment, I had her round the neck, and clung to her lips with the tenacity of a creature drowning. But, feeling at once the awkwardness of my position, I took to my heels, becoming immediately invisible amidst the surrounding brushwood.

Such was "Will Mather," and such was "Nancy Morrison" at the period of which I am speaking. We must now advance about two or three years in our chronology, and find Will possessed of a piece of information which bore materially on his future fortunes. Will was an illegitimate child. His mother had kept the secret so well that he did not know his father, though he had frequently urged her to reveal to him privately all that she knew of his parentage. In conversing, too, with Nancy, his now affianced bride, he had expressed similar wishes; whilst she, with a becoming and feminine modesty, had urged him not to press an aged parent on so delicate a point. At last the old woman was taken seriously ill, and, on her death-bed and at midnight, revealed to her son the secret of his birth. He was the son of a proprietor in the parish, and a much-respected man. The youth, so soon as he had closed his mother's eyes, hurried off, amidst the darkness, to the abode of his father, and, entering by a window, was in his father's bedchamber and over his body ere he was fully awake.

"John Scott!" said the son, in a firm and terrible tone, grasping his parent meantime convulsively round the neck--"John Scott of Auchincleuch, _I am thy son_!"

Tho conscience-stricken culprit, being taken by surprise, and almost imagining this a supernatural intimation from heaven, exclaimed, in trembling accents--

"But who are you that makes this averment?"

"I am thy son, father--oh, I am thy son!"

Will could no more; for his heart was full, and his tears dropped hot and heavy on a father's face.

"Yes," replied the parent, after a convulsive solemn sob--(O Heaven!

thou art just!)--"yes, thou _art_ indeed my son--my long-denied and ill-used boy--whom the fear of the world's scorn has tempted me, against all the yearnings of my better nature, to use so unjustly. But come to my bosom--to a father's bosom _now_, for I know that voice too well to distrust thee."

In a few months after this interesting disclosure, John Scott was numbered with his fathers, and Will Scott (no longer Mather) became Laird of Auchincleuch.

Poor Nancy was at first somewhat distressed at this discovery, which put her betrothed in a position to expect a higher or genteeler match. But there was no cause of alarm. Will was true to the back-bone, and would as soon have burned his Bible as have sacrificed his future bride. After much pressing for an early day on the part of the lover, it was agreed, at last, that the marriage should take place at "Peat-casting Time," and that Nancy should, for the last turn, a.s.sist at the casting of her mother's peats.

I wish I could stop here, or at least proceed to give you an account of the happy nuptials of Will Scott and Nancy Morrison, the handsomest couple in the parish of Closeburn. But it may not be! These eyes, which are still filled (though it is forty-eight years since) with tears, and this pen, which trembles as I proceed, must attest and record the catastrophe.

Nancy, the beautiful bride, and I (for I was now on the point of leaving school for college) agreed to have a jump for the last time (often had we jumped before) from a suitable moss-brow.

"My frolicsome days will sune be owre," she cried, laughing; "the guidwife of Auchincleuch will hae something else to do than jump frae the moss-brow; and, while my name is Nancy Morrison, I'll hail the dules, or jump wi' the best o' my auld playmates."

"Weel dune, Nancy!" cried I; "you are now to be the wife o' the Laird o'

Auchincleuch, when your jumping days will be at an end, and I am soon to be sent to college, where the only jump I may get may be from the top of a pile of old black-letter folios--no half sae guid a point of advantage as the moss-brow."

"There's the Laird o' Auchincleuch coming," cried Peggy Chalmers, one of the peat-casters, who was standing aside along with several others.

"He's nae langer the daft Will Mather, wha liked a jump as weel as the blithest sw.a.n.kie o' the barnyard. Siller maks sair changes; and yet, wha wad exchange the Will Scott of Auchincleuch, your rich bridegroom, Nancy, for the Will Mather, your auld lover? Dinna tempt Providence, my hinny! The laird winna like to see his bride jumpin frae knowe to knowe like a daft giglet, within a week o' her marriage."

"Tout!" cried Nancy, bursting out into a loud laugh; "see, he's awa round by the Craw Plantin, and winna see us--and whar's the harm if he did? Come now, Tammie, just ae spring and the last, and I'll wad ye my kame against your cravat, that I beat ye by the length o' my marriage slipper."

"Weel dune, Nancy!" cried several of the peat-casters, who, leaning on their spades, stood and looked at us with pleasure and approbation.

The laird had, as Nancy said, crossed over by what was called the Craw Plantin, and was now out of sight. To make the affair more ludicrous--for we were all bent on fun--Nancy took out, from among her high-built locks of auburn hair, her comb--a present from her lover--and impledged it in the hands of Billy Watson, along with my cravat, which I had taken off, and handed to the umpire.

"Here is a better moss-brow," cried one, at a distance.

And so to be sure it was, for it was much higher than the one we had fixed upon, and the landing-place was soft and elastic. Our practice was, always to jump together, so that the points of the toes could be measured when both the compet.i.tors' feet were still fixed in the moss.

We mounted the moss-brow. I was in high spirits, and Nancy could scarcely contain herself, for pure, boisterous, laughing glee. I went off, but the mad girl could not follow, for she was still holding her sides, and laughing immoderately. I asked her what she laughed at. She could not tell. She was under the influence of one of those extraordinary cachinnations that sometimes convulse our diaphragms, without our being able to tell why, and certainly without our being able to put a stop to them. Her face was flushed, and the fire of her glee shone bright in her eye. I took my position again.

"Now!" cried I; and away we flew, and stuck deeply in the soft and spongy moss.

I stood with my feet in the ground, that the umpire might come and mark the distance. A loud scream broke on my ear. I looked round, and, dreadful sight! I saw Nancy lying extended on the ground, with the blood pouring out at her mouth in a large stream! She had burst a blood-vessel. The fit of laughing which preceded her effort to leap had, in all likelihood, distended her delicate veins, and predisposed her to the unhappy result.

The loud scream had attracted the notice of the bridegroom, who came running from the back of the Craw Plantin. The sight appalled and stupefied him. He cried for explanation, and ran forward to his dead or dying bride, in wild confusion. Several voices essayed an explanation, but none were intelligible. I was as unable as the rest to satisfy the unhappy man; but, though we could not speak intelligibly, we could act, and several of us lifted her up. This step sealed her fate. The change in her position produced another stream of blood. She opened her eyes once, and fixed them for a moment on Will Scott. She then closed them, and for ever.

I saw poor Nancy carried home. Will Scott, who upheld her head, fainted before he proceeded twenty yards, and I was obliged to take his place. I was almost as unfit for the task as himself; for I reproached myself as the cause of her death. I have lived long. Will the image of that procession ever pa.s.s from my mind? The bloodstained moss-ground, the bleeding body, the trailing clothes, the unbound locks, are all before me. I can proceed no further. Would that I could stop the current of my thoughts as easily as that of this feathered chronicler of sorrow! But--

"There is a silent sorrow here, A grief I'll ne'er impart; It breathes no sigh, it sheds no tear, But it consumes my heart."

I have taken up my pen to add, that Will Mather still remains a bachelor, and that on every visit I make to Dumfries-s.h.i.+re, I take my dinner, _solus c.u.m solo_, at Auchincleuch, and that many tears are annually shed, over a snug bottle, for poor Nancy.

THE MEDAL.

I was educated in a Scottish university, where prizes were distributed to the most distinguished students in each cla.s.s at the termination of the session. The most distinguished prize was a gold medal, value ten guineas, the gift of a departed _eleve_, and awarded to the best scholar in the mathematical cla.s.s. Having a natural turn or bias for mathematical pursuits, I applied myself night and day to the attainment of this my object of ambition; and this, too, at the expense and neglect of all the other cla.s.ses which I attended. I was a very imperfect Latin scholar, I knew almost nothing of Greek, and held the unscientific reasoning of logic and moral philosophy in great contempt. By great labour, and after a severe compet.i.tion, I succeeded in attaining the distinction at which I aimed, and saw myself blazoned in several newspapers as the holder of this distinguis.h.i.+ng badge. My great chum at college was a Mr Donald Ferguson, a lad of a staid and persevering disposition, of a well-balanced and judicious mind, and without any talents, _apparently_, which bespoke future distinction. We had been friends and companions at school--our parents were friends before us--and, although we differed materially in disposition, this did not prevent the closest and most affectionate intercourse. Oh! such recollections as now rush upon my mind!--

"Dear happy scenes of innocence and ease-- Scenes of my youth, when every sport could please!"

Ferguson and I spent whole days together in the solitude of nature, with nothing but the deep blue and fleecy white overhead; the stunted thorn and the croaking raven above; and the brawling brook and trout-dimpled pool before us. In all games of activity I had the start of Ferguson, and was always first chosen at "King o' Cantilon," "the dools," and "s.h.i.+nty;" but he had the advantage again of me in feats of strength and precision of eye--in the quoits and putting-stone. But I am wandering from my purpose, and forgetting my narrative.

Ferguson would often admonish me that I was giving offence to several professors, in order to gain the good opinion of one, and that the applause which my medal would procure for me might be too dearly bought at the expense of every other department of study. I took all this in good part, but without altering, in the least, my conduct, as I answered that my friend was making a virtue of necessity, and recommending that course of obscure diligence to me which he, by nature, was destined to pursue.

In consequence of the _eclat_ of the medal, I had an invitation to make one of a pleasure party to Roslin, and had the happiness of being introduced to some young ladies, who had previously expressed to my friend Ferguson a wish to make my acquaintance. We spent a most delightful day--

"'Midst Roslin's bowers sae bright and bonny, And a' the sweets o' Hawthornden."

The ladies were young, bright, and beautiful, light of heart, and delightfully pleasing in manners and conversation. I had not been previously accustomed to such fascinating society; and I felt that kind of intoxication which youth, innocence, and strong pa.s.sion only can feel. I was all day _off_ my feet, and gave way to every manner of fun, frolic, and foolery, to show that, though I was an immense philosopher, I was still a man in every pulse and vein. There was in this happy group one divine countenance; an eye so blue, and so soft, and so penetrating--lips that moved in meaning, and held every instant communication of the most electric character, with a little playful, almost wily dimple which gave the most varied fascination to a cheek of suns.h.i.+ne and almost rosy hue. Her form

"Was fresher than the morning rose When the dew wets its leaves--unstain'd and pure As is the lily or the mountain snow."

In a word, as you will easily perceive, I was captivated; and could do nothing all the ensuing night but toss and think, and think and toss, till nature at last steeped me anew, not in forgetfulness, but in all the motley, medley joys and gambols of Roslin. I had now become a student of divinity; but all study was with me at an end. No party of young people--particularly where young ladies were concerned--could be held without me; and I had the very great misfortune to be talked of by them as monstrous clever. The young lady to whom I had so long paid particular attention, and at whose house (that of the widow of a respected clergyman of the Church of Scotland) I had long been a habitual and a welcome guest, at last consented to receive me in future in the light of a lover. We walked it, talked it, and laughed it from morning to night, "as other lovers do," and scarcely thought of either the past or the future, being so completely engrossed with the present.

Time flew by on angel wings, fleeting as bright, and the period of my examination, previous to my receiving license, at last approached. I had all the while a secret misgiving that I would not stand a trial, in the Presbytery of Edinburgh in particular; but I had no other residence for several years, and, consequently, no other way of becoming a licentiate.

As good fortune would have it, the mother of my betrothed, through her interest with the Duke of Queensberry's factor, had every chance of procuring me a presentation the moment I was qualified to accept of it; and both she and her daughter would as soon have dreamed that I would fail in opening my eyes, as in obtaining the indispensable requisite of a license. What I had antic.i.p.ated, however, actually took place: I was found so deficient in the cla.s.sics of Greece and Rome, that my license was delayed, and I was remitted for twelve months to my studies. This was a degree of disgrace and degradation which altogether unmanned me. I could not face my beloved Mary, or her mother, or any of my own friends and acquaintances, under such circ.u.mstances. Sleep fled my eyes, and my mind became unhinged. Existence itself became a positive, insupportable misery. I fled to the mountains; but they, through all their glens and streams, had tongues that syllabled beloved names, which I wished, were it possible, to forget. Wherever I went, the horrors of the past were ever present. People seemed to me to stop and point the finger of scorn at me from every street and doorway. At last, in a fit of despair, I rashly resolved on self-destruction, and plunged headlong into Leith harbour. I have the sound of the waters still in my ears, and that sound will, I verily believe, remain till that of the last trumpet shall mingle with it. When I awoke from seeming nonent.i.ty, I was surrounded by many and unknown faces; and my pa.s.sage back to life was more terrific and painful by far than my exit. I had been for some time in a warm bed, and undergoing the means of resuscitation. "Much kinder," thought I, "had ye been to let me go." My name, parentage, &c., having been ascertained, my father was written to, and I was kept in close custody till his arrival. My father was a respectable farmer in Dumfries-s.h.i.+re, and immediately hurried me away to my native glen. My mother met me with tears; but they were those of sympathy and affection, and one word of reproach she never uttered. I became gradually more and more calm: but at times the thoughts of the paradise which I had lost, and the h.e.l.l I had earned, would throw me absolutely into convulsions. The calmness which gathered over my soul was not that of resignation--it was the settled gloom of despair. Religion was talked of and pressed upon me; but as yet I had no settled views on that subject. I neither believed nor disbelieved: I was willing, when the subject obtruded itself upon my thoughts, to get rid of it the best way I could. At last my melancholy gradually undermined a naturally good const.i.tution, and it was manifest to my medical adviser that I was verging towards that degree of weakness and decay which, under various distinctive appellations, is sure to terminate in death. A change of scene was urged, and I was hurried away to Saturness Point, that I might inhale the sea breeze, and be interested in new objects. This measure was at first partially successful; but, happening to see a newspaper one day, in which the settlement of my more steady companion in the very church which I had once destined for myself was mentioned, and reading in the very same page a notice of his marriage with my beloved Mary, I became immediately frantic. For years my mind was so far unhinged that a person was appointed to watch my motions, and guard me from self-destruction. "Oh, that cursed medal!" was I heard again and again to exclaim; "it is to this I have to trace my every wo." What I endured, during this dark and fearful night, no power of fancy can image, no pen can describe.

_Horresco referens._

As G.o.d would have it, the person who was thus a.s.sociated with me night and day was religiously disposed, and took occasion, when opportunity served, to lead my mind to serious subjects--to talk of eternity, immortality, heaven, and h.e.l.l. Often did I kick against the p.r.i.c.ks, and strive to resume my former indifference; but it would not do. The very _possibility_ of such awful truths was terrific. I awoke all at once, as it were, to a sense of my imminent danger. I found that I was sleeping on a parapet, from which to fall was certain death. I fled with all possible speed to the only city of refuge--to the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. I grasped the truths of the gospel with the energy of a dying creature. I hugged the very Bible to my bosom, and read it night and day. Our conversations were protracted, and, to me, ultimately delightful. I found that there was mercy even to the _chief_ of sinners, and I regarded myself as personally referred to in the gracious intimation. With the perception and cultivation of gospel truth, my health gradually rallied, and my mind a.s.sumed a more balanced att.i.tude.

It was about this time that my father died, and the superintendence of a pretty extensive sheep-farm naturally devolved upon me. This avocation, uncongenial as it was to my college pursuits and feelings, still occupied my attention, and withdrew me from reflections of no very pleasing nature. In cultivating, or rather in renewing, my acquaintance with the soil, and with its productions, vegetable as well as animal, I felt that I was placed as it were in the outer vestibule of G.o.d's temple. Into the holy of holies, through the blessed mediation, I had already been introduced, and it gave me pleasure to behold the outer, as well as to contemplate the inner, courts of so stupendous an erection.

"The Shepherd of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. My sheep hear my voice. He shall separate the sheep from the goats. The streams that run amongst the hills. Mount Carmel, Mount Zion, Mount h.o.r.eb." These and similar expressions, in which the Jewish Scriptures, in particular, abound, came home to my newly-renovated, and, I trust, regenerated, perceptions, with a vividness and a force formerly unknown. I seemed to myself to be a dweller on the mountains of Jacob, and amongst the tents of Israel, as my flocks scattered themselves on the hill-side, or pursued the green pasturage by the streams of waters. There was a harmony and correspondence betwixt the seen and the unseen, the present and the past, the temporal and the spiritual life, of which I every day became more and more aware.

About this time we received intimation of the death of my father's brother, who had gone, early in life, to Kingston in Jamaica, and had, by prosperous adventures as a merchant, realised a considerable sum of money. After various delays and much peculation, the residue of his fortune, together with his will, was transmitted home, and I found myself, as my father's heir-male, ent.i.tled to upwards of 10,000. My mother had already greatly declined, indeed she never fully rallied after my father's death; and on the very day on which the papers respecting the inheritance arrived, I had to perform the last sad duties to one of the best of parents. Alas! that ever my unhappy conduct should have occasioned pain and anxiety in a bosom where pure affection and undefiled religion habitually resided! I had the consolation, however, to receive my mother's blessing in her parting breath, and to hear her construe my misconduct and misfortunes into merciful dispensations of a wise Providence, who is ever bringing good out of seeming evil.

"And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression."

The lease of the farm having expired in a year after this, I did not think of continuing on a spot which suggested so many recollections connected with the departed; so I at once removed to furnished lodgings in Edinburgh, and gradually renewed my acquaintance with a few of my still surviving friends. Amongst these was the mother of my Mary, who informed me that her daughter was now a widow and without family, and was expected in a month or two to return to her old fireside from the Manse of ----. I do not know how it was, but I trembled all over at this information, and an image, which had for so long a time been almost obliterated from my memory, now rose before me in all its original loveliness. The two months appeared to me two twelvemonths, till I again saw, and renewed my acquaintance, with the only woman whom my soul had ever loved. Mutual explanations took place; she had married my friend Ferguson, under the impression that, if not dead, I was confined in a lunatic asylum; and had only consented, after all, at the earnest request of her mother. It was but yesterday that we had a most delightful drive to Roslin, where I renewed my addresses, and have been accepted. I have taken a neat cottage near Hawthornden, where I mean to spend with Mary the remainder of my days, if not in the fervour of young love, at least in the more enduring, perhaps, and more rational endearments of mutual affection, friends.h.i.+p, and esteem. The medal, which was the foundation of all my sufferings, I have at this moment suspended before me, in my study, that I may be ever reminded of that false step which, but for the interposition of Providence, might have ruined both soul and body for ever. If it shall be in G.o.d's providence that I am blessed with any pledges of affection by my dear Mary, I shall endeavour to save them from the danger which I so narrowly escaped; yet, so strangely commingled are the good and bad things of life--so very delicately are the fine threads that go to form the web of our moral system connected and interlaced--that it requires a hand finer than mere man's to remove some of the dingy lines, so as to restore to the whole that beauty it possessed when spread in the garden of Eden. If we take from the n.o.ble steed the emulation that may hurry him over the precipice, we will see him distanced at the next St Leger. Must we, then, secure the good, and run the risk of the attendant evil? The answer does not seem difficult. Let emulation be by all means encouraged; but let all teachers and parents impress upon the minds of the fortunate compet.i.tors the true value of the prize won. And whilst efforts are made in one direction, let it ever be remembered that a _useful_ education comprehends _breadth_ as well as _length_; and that the departments which have been neglected may prove, in future life, those of the most essential value in promoting success and securing happiness.