Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XVI Part 20

As I rushed away, I turned round for a moment to exclaim, "Farewell, Jessy!--we shall meet again!" Me-thought, as I hurried onward, I heard the accents of broken-hearted agony following after me; and through all, and over all, her voice was there. But I would not, I could not return.

It was better to feel the arrow in my soul, than to have a new one thrust into it.

In a few days I took my departure towards London. I carried with me the letters of introduction which her father had given me. The broker to whom he recommended me was a Mr Stafford. He received me civilly, but at the same time most coldly, and pointing with his finger to the desk, said, "You will take your place there."

I did so, and in a very few weeks I became acquainted with the minutiae of a broker's office. I perceived the situation which my senior clerks occupied, and I trusted one day to be as they were. I had heard them tell of our master having come to London with only half-a-crown in his pocket; and I thought of my father's maxim, "persevere," and that I might do even as my master had done.

There were a dozen clerks; and three years had not pa.s.sed, until I occupied one of the chief seats in the counting-house. I became a favourite with my employer, and one in whom he trusted.

During that period I had heard nothing of my early benefactor--nothing of Jessy; but my thoughts were full of them.

Now it came to pa.s.s, somewhat more than three years after I had arrived in London, that, one day as I was pa.s.sing up Oldgate, a person stopped me, and exclaimed, "Roderic!"

"Esau!" I returned; for his name was Esau Taylor.

"The same," he replied, "your old schoolfellow."

Hunger sat upon his cheeks--starvation glared from his eyeb.a.l.l.s--necessity fluttered around him as a ragged robe. The shoes upon his feet were the ghost of what they had been. His whole apparel was the laughingstock of the wind; but my father had taught me to despise no one, however humble. It was a saying of his, "Look to the heart within a breast, and not to the coat that covers it;" and therefore I received Esau Taylor kindly. He was the son of an extensive farmer in our neighbourhood, and although I wondered to find him in a situation so distressed, I recollected that in London such things were matter of everyday occurrence. Therefore I did not receive him coldly, because of the shabbiness of his coat, and the misery of his appearance.

I knew that I was the son of a barnman, and that my father's coat might be out at the elbows.

"Ha, Esau! my dear fellow," said I to him, "when did you come to town?"

"Several weeks ago," he replied.

"And what have you been doing?" said I.

"Nothing, nothing," he rejoined.

"Well," said I, "will you meet me in this house to-morrow? You were always good at figures, Esau; you can keep accounts. I think I can do something for you; and if you _persevere_, I doubt not but that you may arrive at the top of the tree, and become the managing clerk of the establishment."

"Thank you! thank you! thank you!" said Esau, grasping my hands as he spoke.

"Ah!" said I, "there is no necessity for thanks; I am a plain, blunt person. I did not know you personally in the place of my nativity, but I remember having seen you. I remember also your friends; and as a townsman it will give me pleasure to know that I can be of service to you."

Esau grasped my hand, and he shook it as though he would have taken it from the elbow. I was certain that he would obtain the situation which I had in view for him. We sat down together--we talked of old times, when the feelings of our hearts were young; and, amongst other things, we spoke of Jessy Mortimer. I sat--I drank with him--we became happy together--we became mad together. My Jessy--Jessy Mortimer was before me. Her presence filled my thoughts--it overshadowed me. I could think of nothing else--I could speak of nothing else. I drank to her in b.u.mpers; but Esau sat as calm as a judge with the black cap upon his head. I marvelled that the man had so little of what is called sympathy in his soul. He appeared before me as a dead man--a thing that moved merely as it was moved. I almost despised, and yet I trusted him, because he was connected with the part of the country to which I belonged.

Now, as I have informed you, we sat together, we drank together, and the name of Jessy Mortimer overcame me; but I sat till I forgot her, until I forgot myself--my companion--everything! In this state I was left sitting; and when consciousness returned, I was alone, bewildered. My companion had left me. My first sensation was that of shame--of burning shame. I felt that I had abused the time and the confidence of my employer, and the thought rendered me wretched.

It was two days before I ventured to call again at the office, where I had become a confidential clerk. My master pa.s.sed me as I entered, but he neither spoke to nor noticed me. His coldness stung me. I felt my guiltiness burning over me. But my confusion was increased, when I learned that I was not only discharged, but that my place was to be supplied by Esau Taylor!

"Impossible!" I exclaimed.

"Deem it so," said my informant. "But you have cherished an adder that has stung you; and, with all your knowledge, you are ignorant of the world, and of the people that live, breathe, and act in it. Take my counsel, and regard every man as though he were your enemy, until you have proved him to be your friend."

There was something in his words that more than restored my wandering thoughts into their proper channel.

I found that I had performed an act of kindness towards a villain--for I had not only treated Esau Taylor hospitably, but knowing that in London a good coat is of as much importance as a good character, I had furnished him with wearing apparel from my own wardrobe. A few days afterwards I met him in the Strand, arrayed in my garments, and he pa.s.sed me with a supercilious air, as though I were a being only fit to be despised. I walked on as though I saw him not, conscious that, if he had a soul within him, it must be burning with the coals of fire which I had heaped upon his head.

I soon found it was much easier to lose a good situation than to obtain an indifferent one, and that one act of folly might accomplish what a thousand of repentances could not retrieve.

In a few months I found myself in a state of dest.i.tution; and while the coat which I had given to Esau Taylor was still glossy upon his back, mine--my last remaining one--hung loose and forlorn upon my shoulders.

Yet, although I then suffered from both cold and hunger, the words which my parents had made a portion of my character departed not from me, and the words "_persevere!--persevere!_" were ever in my heart, kindling, glowing as a flame, until, in solitary enthusiasm, I have exclaimed aloud, as I wandered (not having a roof to shelter me) upon the streets at midnight, "I will persevere."

I was glad to accept of employment as copying clerk to a law stationer, at a salary of seven s.h.i.+llings a-week. It was a small sum, and I have often thoughtlessly wasted many times the amount since; but it made me happy then. It s.n.a.t.c.hed, or rather it bought from the gripe of death--it relieved me from the pains and the terrors of want. My situation was now sufficiently humble, but my spirit was not broken; neither had I forgotten Jessy Mortimer, nor did I despair of one day calling her mine.

During the days of humiliation which I am recording, I was struck with an incident, which, although trifling in itself, I shall here relate; for from it I drew a lesson which encouraged me, and made me resolve, if possible, to carry my maxim into more active practice. Frequently on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when the labours of the week were over, instead of returning to my wretched garret (for which I paid a s.h.i.+lling a-week, and which contained no furniture save a shake-down bed and a broken chair), I was wont to go out in the country, and to seek the silence and solitude of the woods and the green lanes. On such occasions

"My lodging was on the cold ground,"

and on the Sabbath mornings, I was wont to steal, as if un.o.bserved, into the first country church, or rather place of wors.h.i.+p, which I found open. I was there unknown; and in a congregation of English peasantry, the one-half of whom were in their smock-frocks, there were none to observe the shabbiness of my garments. And in the plainness of everything around me, there was something that accorded with my frame of mind, and in the midst of which I felt happier, and more at ease, than I could in the splendid cathedral or the gaudy chapel of a great city. It was in the month of May, and the sweet blossom, like odoriferous snow, lay on the hawthorn. The lark sang over me its Sabbath hymn. The sun had just risen, and, like the canopy of a celestial couch on which an angel might have reposed, the clouds, like curtains of red and gold, seemed drawn asunder. I sat beneath a venerable elm-tree, over which more than a hundred winters had pa.s.sed; but their frosts had not nipped the majesty of its beauty. Above me a goldfinch chirmed and fed its young, and they seemed ready to break away upon the wing. It chirped to them, it fluttered from branch to branch, to allure them from the nest. One bolder than the rest ventured to follow, but ignorant of the strength of its wings, it fell upon the ground. The parent bird descended, and with strange motions mourned over it, anxiously striving again to teach it to ascend and regain its nest. My first impulse was to take up the little flutterer, to climb the tree, and replace it in the home which its first parent had built; but I lay and watched its motions for a few minutes.

Again and again by a bold effort it endeavoured to reach the lofty branch where its parent had poised its nest, but as often it fell upon the ground, and its little breast panted on the earth. At length it perched upon the lowest twig, and from it got to others higher and higher, turning round proudly as it ascended, as if conversing with its parent, happy in what it was achieving, until the nest was regained.

"There," I exclaimed--"there is an example of perseverance; and a lesson is taught me by that little bird. It attempted too much at once, and its efforts were unsuccessful; it endeavoured to rise step by step, and it has gained the object it desired. That bird shall be my monitor, and I will endeavour to rise step by step, even as it has done."

I returned to London, and as I went, the attempts of the little bird were the text on which my thoughts dwelt. By sedulous attention to my duties, I began to rise in the esteem of my employer, the law stationer, and he increased my salary from seven s.h.i.+llings to a guinea a-week. I said unto myself, that, like the young bird, I had gained a higher branch.

Within twelve months he obtained me a situation in the office of an eminent solicitor, where I was engaged at a salary of a hundred pounds a-year. This was the scaling of another branch; and I again found myself in circ.u.mstances equal to those I had enjoyed previous to the treachery of Esau Taylor. I did not, in order to ingratiate myself with my employer, practise the _bowing_ system, with which my countrymen have at times been accused; but I strove to be useful, I studied to oblige, and was rewarded with his confidence and favour.

It became a part of my employment to draw up abstracts of pleadings. On one occasion, I had drawn out a brief, which was to be placed in the hands of one of the most eminent counsel at the bar. He was struck with the manner in which the task was executed, and was pleased to p.r.o.nounce it the clearest, the ablest, and best arranged brief that had ever been placed in his hands. He inquired who had drawn it out; and my employer introduced me to him. He spoke to me kindly and encouragingly, and recommended me to _persevere_. The word rekindled every slumbering energy of my soul. I had always endeavoured to do so, but now stronger impulses seemed to stir within me, and there was a confidence in my hopes that I had never felt before. He suggested that I should prepare myself for the bar, and generously offered to a.s.sist me. Through his interest, and the liberality of my master, I was admitted a student of the Inner Temple. My perseverance was now more necessary than ever, and again I thought of the little bird and its successful efforts. I had gained another branch, and the topmost bough to which I aspired was now visible.

I allowed myself but five hours out of the twenty-four for repose; the rest I devoted to hard study, and to the duties of a.s.sistant reporter to a daily newspaper. But often, in the midst of my studies, and even while noting down the strife of words in Parliament, thoughts of Jessy Mortimer came over me, and her image was pictured on my mind, like a guardian angel revealing for a moment the brightness of its countenance.

My hopes became more sanguine, and I felt an a.s.surance that the day would come when I should call her mine.

I had many privations to encounter, and many difficulties to overcome, but for none did I turn aside; my watch-word was "onward," and in due time I was called to the bar. I expected to struggle for years with the genteel misery of a briefless barrister, but the thought dismayed me not.

Before, however, I proceed farther with my own career, I shall notice that of Esau Taylor. There was no species of cunning, of treachery, or of meanness, of which he was not capable. There was none to which he did not resort. His brother clerks hated him; for, to his other properties, he added that of a low tale-bearer. But he was plausible as Lucifer, and with his smooth tongue, and fair professions, he succeeded in ingratiating himself into the chief place in his master's confidence; and eventually was placed by him at the head of his establishment; and, in order further to reward what he considered his singular worth and honesty, he permitted him to have a small share in the firm. But Esau was not one of those whom a small share, or any portion short of the whole, would satisfy. This he accomplished more easily and more speedily than it is possible that even he, with all his guilty cunning, had antic.i.p.ated.

The merchant from whose employment he had supplanted me, and over whom his plausibility and pretended honesty had gained such an ascendency, had a daughter--an only child--who, about the time of Taylor's being admitted into a sort of partners.h.i.+p, returned from a boarding-school in Yorks.h.i.+re. He immediately conceived that the easiest way to obtain both the father's business and his wealth would be by first securing the daughter's hand. Of anything even bordering upon affection his sordid soul was incapable: but to obtain his object he could a.s.sume its appearance, and he could employ the rhapsodies which at times pa.s.s for its language. The maiden was young and inexperienced, and with just as much of affectation as made her the more likely to be entangled in the snares of a plausible hypocrite, who adapted his conversation to her taste. The girl began to imagine that she loved him--perhaps she did--but more possibly it was a morbid fancy which she mistook for affection, and which he well knew how to encourage.

She became pensive, sighed, and drooped like a lily that is nipped by the frost, and seemed ready to leave her father childless; and the merchant, to save his daughter, consented to her union with Esau Taylor, his managing clerk and nominal partner.

The old man lived but a few months after their union, bequeathing to them his fortune and his business; and within a year and a-half his daughter followed him to the grave; to which, it was said, she was hurried through the cruelty and neglect of her husband.

Esau was now a rich man, a great man, and withal a bad man--one whose heart was blacker than the darkness of the grave, where his injured, I believe I may say his murdered, wife was buried.

We had not met each other for more than five years, and it is possible that he had half forgotten me, or, if he remembered me, considered me unworthy of a thought.

I have told you that I was called to the bar, and for ten months I attended the courts in my gown and wig, sitting in the back benches, and listening to the eloquence of my seniors, with a light pocket, and frequently a heavy heart.

I was sitting one evening in my chambers, as they were called--though they contained nothing but an old writing-desk, two chairs, and a few law books; I was poring over a volume of olden statutes, mincing a biscuit, and sipping a gla.s.s of cold water, when the bell rang, and on opening the door, my old master, the solicitor, stood before me, and he had what appeared to be a brief in his hand. My heart began to beat audibly in my bosom.

"Well, Roderic," said he, entering, "I always promised that I would do what I could for you, and now I am determined to bring you out. Here is a case that may make your fortune. You will have scope for argument, feeling, declamation. If you do not produce an impression in it, you are not the person I take you for. Don't tremble, don't be too diffident; but, as I say to you, throw your soul into it, and I will answer for it making your fortune. Here are fifty guineas as a retaining fee, and it is not unlikely that my fair client to-morrow may give you fifty more as a refresher."

"Fifty guineas!" I involuntarily exclaimed, and my eyes glanced upon the money. I felt as though my fortune were already made, and that I should be rich for ever.

"Come, Roderic," said he, "don't think about the retainer, but think of the case--think of getting another."

"What is the case?" I inquired.