The Brownie of Bodsbeck, and Other Tales Volume Ii Part 4

MODERN.

Love is a pa.s.sion so capricious, so violent, and so productive of whimsical expedients, that there is no end of its varieties. Dramas may be founded, plots arranged, and novels written on the subject, yet the simple truth itself generally outlasts them all. The following story, which relates to an amiable family still existing, is so like a romance, that perhaps the word of a narrator is insufficient to stamp it with that veracity to which it is ent.i.tled. The princ.i.p.al incidents, however, are set down precisely as they were related to me; only I have deemed it meet to change the designations of the individuals, so far that they cannot be recognised by any one not previously acquainted with the circ.u.mstances.

The late Laird of Earlhall dying in the fiftieth year of his age, as his grave-stone intimates, left behind him a widow, and two sons both in their minority. The eldest was of a dashing impatient character--he had a kind and affectionate heart, but his actions were not always tempered with prudence. He entered at an early age into the army, and fell in the Peninsular War when scarcely twenty-two years of age. The estate thus devolved wholly on the youngest, whose name for the present shall be Lindsey, that being his second Christian name, and the one by which his mother generally called him. He had been intended for the law, but on his brother's death gave up the study as too laborious for his easy and careless disposition. He was attached to literature; and after his return home his princ.i.p.al employment consisted in poring over his books, and managing a little flower-garden in which he took great delight. He was studious, absent, and sensible, but paid little attention to his estate, or the extensive farm which he himself occupied.

The old lady, who was a stirring, talkative, industrious dame, entertained him constantly with long lectures on the ill effects of idleness. She called it the _blight_ of youth, the _grub_ of virtue, and the _mildew_ of happiness; and sometimes, when roused into energy, she said it was _the devil's langsettle_ on which he plotted all his devices against human weal. Lindsey bore all with great patience, but still continued his easy and indolent way.

The summer advanced--the weather became peculiarly fine--labourers were busy in every field, and the shepherd's voice, and the bleating of his flocks, sounded from the adjacent mountains by break of day. This lively and rousing scene gave a new edge to the old lady's remonstrances; they came upon poor Lindsey thicker and faster, like the continued dropping of a rainy day, until he was obliged in some degree to yield. He tried to reason the matter with her, in somewhat near to the following words; but there, lawyer as he was, he had no chance. He was fairly overcome.

"My dear mother," said he, "what does all this signify?--Or what is it that I can effect by my superintendance? Our farmers are all doing well, and pay their rents regularly; and as for our farm-servants, they have each of them filled the same situation so long and so creditably, that I feel quite awkward when standing looking over them,--it looks as if I suspected their integrity, which has been so often proved. Besides, it is a leading maxim with me, that if a man, and more particularly a woman, know or believe that trust is reposed in them, they will, in ten out of eleven instances, deserve it; but if once they see that they are suspected, the feeling towards you is changed, and they will in a little time as likely deserve the one as the other. Our wealth is annually increasing, at least as fast as necessary, and it is my princ.i.p.al wish, that every one under us may be as easy and comfortable as possible."

This was true, for the old lady being parsimonious in the extreme, their riches had increased rapidly since the death of the late laird. As for Lindsey, he never spent any thing, save some trifle that he laid out yearly in payment of Reviews, and new books, and in relieving some poor families in the neighbourhood. The article of dress he left entirely to his mother: Whatever she bought or made for him he approved of, and whatever clothes or linen she laid down in his chamber, he put on without any observations. He acted upon the same principle with regard to his meals, but he sometimes was obliged to insist on a little addition being made to the comforts of the family servants, all of whom loved him as a friend and benefactor. He could at any time have swayed his mother so far as to make her a little more liberal towards the men-servants, but with regard to the maids he had no such power. She and they lived at constant variance,--an irreconcileable jealousy seemed always to subsist between them, and woe to them if the young laird interested himself in their favour! Matters being in this state, he was obliged to witness this mutual animosity; this tyranny on the one hand, and discontent on the other, without having the power to amend it.

"But then, my dear Lindsey," returned she to his former remonstrance, "making allowance for a' that you say--allowing that your weel-spoken arguments are a' foundit in truth, for laith wad you be to say an untruth, an' I never heard an argument that wasna sound come out o' your mouth,--but then I say, what's to hinder you to gang a fishing like other gentlemen, or shooting moor-c.o.c.ks, an' paetricks, an' black-c.o.c.ks, as a' ither countrymen o' your age an' station do? Some manly exercise in the field is absolutely necessary to keep your form robust, your colour fresh, and your mind active; an', indeed, you maunna be discontent.i.t, nor displeased, if I insist on it, while the weather is so fine."

"With regard to fowling, my dear mother, I am perfectly ignorant; I know nothing about the sport, and I never can delight in it, for often has it given me pain to see others pursuing it. I think the pleasure arising from it can scarcely originate in any thing else than a principle of cruelty. Fishing is little better. I never regret the killing of an ox, or sheep, by which we have so much necessary food for our life, but I think it hard to take a precious life for a single mouthful."

"His presence be about us! Lindsey! what's that ye say? Wha heard ever tell of a trout's precious life? Or a salmon's precious life? Or a ged's precious life? Wow, man, but sma' things are precious i' your een! Or wha can feel for a trout? A cauldrife creature that has nae feeling itsel; a greedy grampus of a thing, that worries its ain kind, an' eats them whenever it can get a chance. Na, na, Lindsey, let me hear nae mair o' sickan lang-nebbit fine-spun arguments; but do take your father's rod, like a man, and a gentleman, and gang a fishing, if it were but an hour in the day; there are as many hooks and lines in the house as will serve you for seven years to come; an' it is weel kend how plenty the trouts are in your ain water. I hae seen the day when we never wanted plenty o' them at this time o' the year."

"Well, well," said Lindsey, taking up a book, "I shall go to please you, but I would rather be at home."

She rung the bell, and ordered in old John the barnman, one well skilled in the art of angling. "John," said she, "put your master's fishing-rod and tackle in order, he is going a fishing at noon."

John shrugged up his shoulders when he heard of his master's intent, as much as to say, "sic a fisher as he'll mak!" however, he went away in silence, and the order was quickly obeyed.

Thus equipt, away trudged Lindsay to the fishing for the first time in his life; slowly and indifferently he went, and began at the first pool he came to. John offered to accompany him, to which he a.s.sented, but this the old lady resisted, and bid him go to his work; he, however, watched his master's motions slyly for some time, and on joining his fellow labourers remarked, that "his master was a real saft hand at the fishing."

An experienced angler certainly would have been highly amused at his procedure. He pulled out the line, and threw it in again so fast, that he appeared more like one threshing corn than angling; he, moreover, fixed always upon the smoothest parts of the stream, where no trout in his right senses could possibly be inveigled. But the far greater part of his employment consisted in loosening the hook from different objects with which it chanced to come in contact. At one time he was to be seen stooping to the arm-pits in the middle of the water, disengaging it from some officious twig that had intercepted its progress; at another time on the top of a tree tearing off a branch on which it had laid hold. A countryman happening to pa.s.s by just as he stood stripped to the shirt cutting it out of his clothes, in which it had fastened behind, observed, by way of friendly remark, that "they were fashous things them hooks." Lindsey answered, that "they certainly had a singular knack of catching hold of things."

He went through all this without being in the least disconcerted, or showing any impatience; and towards dinner-time, the trouts being abundant, and John having put on a fly that answered the weather, he caught some excellent fish, and might have caught many more had he been diligent; but every trout that he brought ash.o.r.e took him a long time to contemplate. He surveyed his eye, his mouth, and the structure of his gills with tedious curiosity; then again laid him down, and fixed his eyes on him in deep and serious meditation.

The next day he needed somewhat less persuasion from his mother to try the same amus.e.m.e.nt; still it was solely to please her that he went, for about the sport itself he was quite careless. Away he set the second day, and prudently determined to go farther up the water, as he supposed that part to be completely emptied of fish where he had been the day before. He sauntered on in his usual thoughtful and indifferent mood, sometimes throwing in his line without any manner of success. At length, on going over an abrupt ridge, he came to a clear pool where the farmers had lately been washing their flocks, and by the side of it a most interesting female, apparently not exceeding seventeen years of age, gathering the small flakes of wool in her ap.r.o.n that had fallen from the sheep in washing; while, at the same time, a beautiful well-dressed child, about two years old, was playing on the gra.s.s. Lindsey was close beside her before any of them were aware, and it is hard to say which of the two were most surprised. She blushed like scarlet, but pretended to gather on, as if wishing he would pa.s.s without taking any notice of them; but Lindsey was rivetted to the spot; he had never in his life seen any woman half so beautiful, and at the same time her array accorded with the business in which she was engaged. Her form was the finest symmetry; her dark hair was tucked up behind with a comb, and hung waving in ringlets over her cheeks and brow, "like shadows on the mountain snow;" and there was an elegance in the model of her features, arms, and hands, that the youth believed he had never before seen equalled in any lady, far less a country girl.

"What are you going to do with that wretched stuff, la.s.sie?" said Lindsey; "it has been trampled among the clay and sand, and is unfit for any human use."

"It will easily clean again, sir," said she, in a frank and cheerful voice, "and then it will be as good as ever."

"It looks very ill; I am positive it is for no manner of use."

"It is certainly, as you say, not of great value, sir; but if it is of any, I may as well lift it as let it lie and rot here."

"Certainly, there can be no harm in it; only I am sorry to see such a girl at such an employment."

"It is better doing this than nothing," was the reply.

The child now rolled himself over to get his face turned towards them; and, fixing his large blue eyes on Lindsey, looked at him with the utmost seriousness. The latter observing a striking likeness between the girl and the child, had no doubt that she was his sister; and, unwilling to drop the conversation, he added, abruptly enough, "Has your mother sent you to gather that stuff?"

"I have neither father nor mother, sir."

"But one who supplies both their places, I hope. You have a husband, have not you?"

"Not as yet, sir; but there is no time lost."

She blushed; but Lindsey coloured ten times deeper when he cast his eyes upon the child. His heart died within him at the thoughts that now obtruded themselves; it was likewise wrung for his imprudence and indelicacy. What was his business whether she was married or not, or how she was connected with the child? She seemed likewise to be put into some confusion at the turn the conversation was taking; and, anxious to bring it to a conclusion as soon as possible, she tucked up the wool in her ap.r.o.n below one arm, and was lifting up the child with the other to go away, when Lindsey stepped forward, saying, "Will not you shake hands with me, my good little fellow, before you go?"

"Ay," said the child, stretching out his little chubby hand; "how d'ye doo, sil?"

Lindsay smiled, shook his hand heartily, and put a crown piece into it.

"Ah, sir, don't give him that," said she, blushing deeply.

"It is only a play-thing that he must keep for my sake."

"Thank you, sil," said the child. "Great muckle shilling, mamma."

This last appellation, _mamma_, struck Lindsey motionless;--he had not another word to say;--while the two went away prattling to one another.

"Vely lalge fine-looking shilling, mamma."

"Ay, it is a very bonny shilling, dear," said she, kissing him, and casting a parting look at the petrified fisher.

"Mamma, mamma!" repeated Lindsey to himself an hundred times, trying it with every modulation of his voice. "This is the most extraordinary circ.u.mstance I ever witnessed. Now, who in the world can comprehend that thing called woman?--Who would not have sworn that that rural beauty there was the most pure, innocent, and untainted of her s.e.x?--And yet, behold! she has a fine boy running at her side, and calling her _mamma_!--Poor girl, is she not to be pitied?--When one thinks how some tender parent might rejoice over her, antic.i.p.ating so much better things of her! It is plain she has been very indifferently used by the world--most cruelly used--and is she the less interesting on that account? I wish I knew how to make her some amends."

Thus reasoned our moral fisher with himself, keeping all the while a sidelong glance towards her, till he saw her enter a little neat white-washed cottage not far from the side of the stream; there were sundry other houses inhabited by cottagers in the hamlet, and the farm-house stood at the head of the cl.u.s.ter. The ground belonged to Lindsey, and the farmer was a quiet sober man, a widower, with a large family. Lindsey now went up the water a-fishing every day; and though he often hovered a considerable while at the washing-pool, and about the crook opposite to the cot, pretending all the while to be extremely busy fishing, he could never get another sight of the lovely Wool-gatherer, though he desired it above all present earthly things; for, some way or other, he felt that he _pitied_ her exceedingly; and though he was not greatly _interested_ in her, yet he was very much so in the _child_--he was _certain it was the child_ that interested him so much--nevertheless, he was sorry too on account of the mother, for she seemed _very gentle_, and _very amiable_, and must have been abominably used; and therefore he could not help feeling _very sorry for her indeed_, as well as deeply _interested in the child_. On the second and third day that he went up, little George came out paddling to meet him at the water side, on which he always sent him in again with a fish in one hand, and some little present in the other; but after that, he appeared no more, which Lindsey easily perceived to originate in the Wool-gatherer's diffidence and modesty, who could not bear the idea of her little man receiving such gifts.

The same course was continued for many days, and always with the same success, as far as regarded the princ.i.p.al motive, for the trouts were only a secondary one--the beauteous Wool-gatherer was thenceforward invisible. After three weeks perseverance, it chanced to come on a heavy rain one day when he was but a little way above the farm-house. Robin the farmer, expecting that he would fly into his house until the shower abated, was standing without his own door to receive him; but he kept aloof, pa.s.sed by, and took shelter in the Wool-gatherer's cottage; though not without some scruples of conscience as to the prudence of the step he was taking. When he went in she was singing a melodious Scotch air, and plying at her wheel. "What a thoughtless creature she must be,"

said he to himself; "and how little conscious of the state to which she has fallen." He desired her to go on with her song, but she quitted both that and her wheel instantly, set a chair for him, and sitting down on a low form herself, lighted sticks on the fire to warm and dry him, at the same time speaking and looking with the utmost cheerfulness, and behaving with all that ease and respect as if she had been his equal, and an old intimate acquaintance. He had a heart of the greatest integrity, and this was the very manner that delighted him; and indeed he felt that he was delighted in the highest degree by this fair mystery. He would gladly have learned her story, but durst not hint at such a thing for fear of giving her pain, and he had too much delicacy to enquire after her at any other person, or even to mention her name.

He observed that though there was but little furniture in the house, yet it was not in the least degree like any other he had ever seen in such a cottage, and seemed very lately to have occupied a more respectable situation. Little George was mounching at a lump of dry bread, making very slow progress. He kept his eyes fixed on his benefactor, but said nothing for a considerable time, till at length he observed him sitting silent as in pleasing contemplation; he then came forward with a bounce upon his knee, and smiled up in his face, as much as to say, "You are not minding little George?"

"Ah, my dear little fellow, are you there? Will you have a muckle shilling of me to-day?"

"Na, na; be vely solly. Mamma quite angly. She scold me."

"Well, but since you have never come to help me to catch the fish for so long a time, I will only give you a very little one to-day."

"Dear sir, if you would not distress me, don't mind him; he is a little impudent fellow.--Go off from the gentleman, George."

George clapped both his hands upon his head, and went back without hesitation, gloomed at his mamma, and took again up his luncheon of dry bread.

"Nay, pardon me," continued Lindsey; "but you must always suffer me to give my little new acquaintance something." So saying, he put a guinea into the child's hand.

"Hank you, sil," said George,--"O no be angy, mamma--only ittle wee half-penny--ook ye, mamma."

"Oh sir," said she, "you distress me by these presents. I have no need of money, and what can he do with it but throw it away?"

"Nay, nay; pray don't notice it; that is nothing between two friends like George and me."