Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume V Part 22

He was getting gradually worse--gradually weaker. He had tried all those little remedies commonly prescribed for coughs, without advantage, and in secret. What was next to be done, he hardly knew. The school could no longer be continued, as he was unable to leave his room. After so much reluctant delay, a medical pract.i.tioner was consulted.

On inquiry, it was found that, for some weeks, he had been expectorating blood--he had nocturnal perspirations, hectic flushes, and almost incessant cough. His appet.i.te was gone, and his whole frame in disorder.

Poor William said, that he hoped he should soon be better, and able to persevere with his school. A week pa.s.sed over, and matters were rapidly getting worse; yet it was not without reiterated persuasions, that the pale scholar could be persuaded to return for a season to the home of his fathers.

We must not omit, that, during his confinement, every attention was paid to William by the family of the Allans, and such small luxuries as his state seemed to require were sent by them unsolicited. Mr. Allan himself repeatedly called for him; and, one afternoon, as Miss Mary had walked as far as the village, she summoned up resolution to inquire at the door. William heard her voice, and requested her to come in. As he sat in a large stuffed chair, propped with pillows, his appearance evidently shocked her; and, when she wished to speak to him, her voice swelled in her throat. He extended his hand to her, and told her he would soon be better; but his long thin fingers thrilled her to the heart by their touch. She stood for a minute beside him; and, after again shaking hands with him, departed. Her sensations, during her solitary walk home, may be more easily imagined than described.

It was noted by the servants, that Miss Mary happened to be always the first to receive the communications of the messenger sent to the village of Sauchieburn. It was also remarked that the tidings, whether favourable or otherwise, could be read in a countenance not yet hardened by artifice, as so to belie the feelings of the heart.

Home he returned at length. To paint the distress of the family, on that occasion, at such a reappearance of one whom they had loved so tenderly, for whom they had done, and were yet willing to do, so much, were a heart-rending and melancholy task. As he entered the door, the mother rushed out to embrace her weak and emaciated son; and, throwing her arms around his neck, kissed his pale cheek with an agony of distress, while the tears, in spite of opposition, gushed in burning drops over her furrowed cheeks to the ground. The father grasped him by the hand, and supported him, with cheering words, into the apartment which of old he had inhabited. It had been but little used since he had last been its occupant; and the neat, clean, but plain furniture, remained almost as he had left it.

He was put to bed after the fatigue of travel, and every heart in that house was sorrowful. The poor scholar could not fail to see the distress so visible on his return; and his heart sank as the clouds of fate lowered over him. His brothers, as they dropped in, one after another, from the fields, approached affectionately to the bedside, and, taking his long, thin fingers in their toil-hardened hands, lamented his case, but cheered him with many a word of comfort, which almost belied themselves, from the uncertain tone in which they were uttered. And no wonder, for the alteration in his appearance was dreadful; and it was evident, to the least observant glance, that the poor young man was far gone in a consumption.

For some weeks the change of air, and the sight of so many countenances, so anxiously interested in his welfare, seemed to work a favourable change; and the gloom on his spirits began gradually to subside. In the sunny fore-noons, a chair was placed for him in the little garden behind the house. The spot commanded an extensive view of the country; and it amused him to look on the jolly reapers in the neighbouring field, and listen to their simple music while gathering in the yellow harvest treasures. Around him were many tall ash-trees, well remembered in the thoughts of other years. The gooseberry bushes, each of which was familiar to his memory, had shed their fruits, and were beginning to shed their leaves; but, on the later currants, some depending red and white strings were yet visible. The summer flowers were disappearing; but the more hardy roots, the spearmint, the gillyflower, the thyme, and the southernwood, sent forth to the autumnal air "a faint decaying smell." The beehive in the corner of the hedgerow was still unremoved, and the buzz of its never idle inhabitants filled the whole air with a continual pleasant murmur. The birds were all singing amid the beauty of nature, and, ever and anon, the lark, springing up on twinkling wings, sent a fainter and yet fainter note from its receding elevation.

So many agreeable images, so much affectionate attention, soothed the wounds that no earthly medicine could heal. In a short time, debility rendered him completely bed-ridden, and the tyrant of the human race betokened his approach "by many a drear foreboding sign."

It was one evening, when all the brothers had dropped in, one after another, that symptoms of rapid dissolution showed themselves. They sat down in silence around the hearth, and looked frequently, first at William and then at each other; while, at intervals, the fort.i.tude of manhood could not forbear a half stifled sob. They saw that the curtain of death would soon be let down over eyes so beloved; and many a hurried glance of affection--and the agitated countenance--and the quivering hand--seemed to say, in silent eloquence, "Would to G.o.d I could die in my brother's stead!"

William was not insensible to the afflicting scene around him. He told them to bear up, and a.s.sured them that he suffered neither pain of body nor mind. "Heaven is wise in all its decrees," said the dying youth; "mourn not much for me; we shall, I trust, all meet again in Heaven. I only set out on my journey a little while before you. I feel that I have been much, too much of a burden to you all"----

Here he was eagerly interrupted by all of them, who conjured him not to speak in that manner, and that it was almost unkind of him to do so.

"Well," continued William, "I feel your affection as I ought. The reward hath not perished, and shall not be taken away, though now G.o.d calls upon me to leave you."

He then requested his father to read to him the latter part of the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, which he did with a composed and steady voice, amid the silent tears of his children, and the frequent sobs of the almost heart-broken mother, who leant with her face on the bedclothes, holding in hers the emaciated hand of her son. The soul of a mother can only comprehend the depth and the agony of her sufferings at that hour, when called on to part with her last born--the Benjamin of her small household.

In a short time his exhaustion was so great, that his efforts to speak were unavailing, and he fell into a gentle slumber, from which he never awoke--breathing his soul out upon the silent midnight without a groan!

However much the stroke of death may be expected, it never arrives without a violent shock to the feelings of all around. Here the grief was deep, but it was not upbraiding; and every pang was tempered by the gentle consolations of Christianity.

The mournful news was communicated to the inhabitants of Sauchieburn; and, amid the regrets of many a grateful parent, bright tears fell from the eyes of childhood, at the thoughts of their kind instructor's death.

For a time, with the buoyancy of feeling incident to their years, they had considered the few first day's of play as something favourable and fortunate. Feeling the pleasurable effects, they forgot the melancholy cause. But now the "hope deferred" was taken away, and nothing but uncertainty and doubt were left in its place. They looked on the shut up windows and closed door of the school-house with a mingled feeling of curiosity and regret. The more affectionate said to each other, "our master shall never hear us lessons any more; they are going to lay him in the church-yard; we shall never see him again;" while the more selfish-minded busied themselves with conjectures about him who should come to them in his stead. The sorrows of childhood are of short duration; the heart is then like the softened wax, which takes all impressions--the one obliterates the other, and the last, whatever be its import, is still the deepest.

Not so evanescent was the melancholy at the house of the Allans. The two boys who had been under his charge spoke often of him as their kind master to Miss Mary, who seldom answered them but with a stifled accent, and an involuntary tear in her eye. That, almost unconsciously to herself, some impression had been made on her heart was evident. The feelings, perhaps, were reciprocal, for William had never mentioned her but in terms of deep respect, mingled with something of tenderness and admiration; but the wide gulf that separated them prevented him from having, even for a moment, indulged one dearer hope.

Certain it is, from whatever cause it might arise, that the health of Mary Allan declined rapidly, even to a state of the utmost delicacy; and the cheerful, lively girl, could hardly be recognised in the pale, emaciated, but still beautiful features, over which the ray of pleasure now seldom shot even a transient gleam. But time, the grand physician of all human troubles, by slow, but sure degrees, began the healing of the wound so afflictingly felt by her, and by the whole cottage family.

Though, after the first burst of sorrow was over, each turned to his wonted avocation, yet the mainspring of activity was felt to be broken; and the heart often refuses, for a long period, to mould itself for the reception of new feelings and altered objects. Life a.s.sumes a different aspect; and the thoughts are often tardy to accommodate themselves to change, and its inevitable concomitants.

The remaining brothers met in the cottage of their parents, as heretofore, on the Sat.u.r.day evenings; and, for a long time, the blank was felt--a chair was unoccupied--a beloved face was absent; but resignation to the decrees of Providence at length triumphed over the yearnings of natural affection. The father, on whose temples the few remaining hairs were changed to white, read the portion of Scripture with accustomed gravity, from the "big ha' Bible;" and exhibited a lesson, to all around, of n.o.ble, steadfast, and unshrinking piety.

The books, the papers, and everything that had belonged to William, were preserved by his relations with an affectionate regard, amounting almost to veneration; and, in a short time, a plain tombstone was erected at the head of the turf under which his ashes lay, inscribed simply with his name and age.

As the church was at more than two miles' distance from the cottage, the family usually spent the intervals between the forenoon and afternoon services, in loitering about the burial-ground. Around the grave of William, often were the whole remaining family observed, seated in the sunshine, upon the daisied turf, with their open Bibles in their hands.

The health of Miss Allan gradually recovered its former tone; but the shock she had sustained threw a shadow of change over her whole character. A degree of thoughtfulness and pensive grace hung around her looks and motions, softening down sorrow to resignation, and gaiety to cheerfulness. She grew more pa.s.sionately fond of the beauties of external nature, and enjoyed a serene pleasure in solitary walks.

Sometimes, in the light of the setting sun, when an azure shadow hung over the hills, when the clouds were tipped with refulgent glory, and the note of the blackbird, "most musical, most melancholy," burst on the ear from the neighbouring coppice, the eye of the pa.s.senger has, unawares, intruded on the privacy of her grief, as she stood silently gazing on the grave of him who had gone up before her into heaven.

END OF VOL. V