Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XI Part 19

THE SCHOOLFELLOWS.

A few years ago, I happened to pa.s.s through the main street of Carlisle, just as the south mail had "pulled up" at the door of "The Bush." The night was very cold; the horses were tossing their heads, and pawing the ground, impatient to escape from the restraint of their harness; and the steam, which rose in clouds from their bodies, gave evidence that they had just "come off" a rapid and fatiguing stage. At the coach-door stood a middle-aged, gentlemanly-looking man, whose blue nose, m.u.f.fled throat, and frozen body, pointed him out as one of the new arrivals. As I loitered slowly past, the stranger, who had just settled the claims of the guard, turned round, and observed me.

His keen eye rested for a moment on my features--he started, looked again, and then said--

"No; I cannot be mistaken. I surely ought to know that face. Is not your name Lorrimer?"

"It is," replied I, surprised at being thus accosted by a perfect stranger. "You seem to be better acquainted with my name, sir, than I am with yours; for I am not conscious of ever having seen you before."

"Look at me again, Frank; try if you cannot recollect me," said he, as we entered the travellers' room, and the gas-light shone full on his face.

I looked; but in vain.

"I am ashamed to say, I do not know who you can be, though I have a kind of consciousness that your features are those of an old friend."

"Do you remember Richard Musgrave?"

"What! d.i.c.k Muzzy? To be sure I do--the kindest-hearted fellow that ever dog's-eared a Latin grammar. What news of my old schoolmate?"

"He is speaking to you now."

"Is it possible? You Richard Musgrave? Why, Richard was younger, I rather think, than myself; and you, begging your pardon, look almost old enough to be my father."

"So it is, notwithstanding. I am Richard Musgrave. Time and climate must have altered me even more sadly than I conceived, since Frank Lorrimer fails to recognise me."

He was indeed changed. Some alteration might have been expected, for several years had elapsed since we had met; but time alone could not have thus metamorphosed him. We had been schoolfellows and intimate friends; and, when he left home, ten years before, he was a handsome, vigorous young fellow, with hair dark as a raven's wing, and a brow clear as alabaster. Now, his hair was iron-grey, his features were dark and sunburned, and the scar, of a sabre-wound apparently, disfigured his forehead. Even with my knowledge of his ident.i.ty, some minutes elapsed ere I could persuade myself that the friend of my early years stood before me; but my recollection slowly revived as I gazed upon him, and I wondered at my own stupidity in not having sooner recognised him.

"Musgrave, my dear fellow," said I, shaking him cordially by the hand, "I rejoice to see you. Time has altered us both outwardly; but, I trust, it has left our hearts unchanged. The recollection of youthful joys and sorrows is the last to leave us. Amid all the changes and chances of life, our thoughts fondly dwell upon the days of our innocent and happy childhood; and all the friendships we form in after years can never efface the remembrance of those who were dear to us in early youth. I have often thought of you, Musgrave, and often, though in vain, I have made anxious inquiries after the fate of my old friend and schoolfellow; and, now that you _have_ returned, I should have pa.s.sed you by as a common stranger, had your memory been as treacherous as my own."

"You forget, my dear fellow," replied he, "that _you_ are but little changed; your florid cheek, and smooth, unwrinkled brow, prove that time has been flowing on in a smooth, unruffled current with _you_; that you have been leading a life of ease and comfort. But look at me; on my sunburned features you may read a tale of hardship and exposure.

Look at my brow! these premature wrinkles are mementos of care and anxiety. But, come, I have much to ask and to tell you; if you have leisure, let us retire to a private room, and talk over the past. I cannot, I find, proceed on my journey till the morning, and I could not employ my time more agreeably than in conversation with an old friend."

I willingly complied with his request, and we were soon seated beside a comfortable fire, with "all appliances and means to boot," for making the evening pa.s.s with _spirit_.

"Now, Frank," said Musgrave, "before we commence, set my mind at rest about my family. Do you know anything of them?"

"It is some time since I saw them; but I heard a few days ago that they were all well."

"Thank you, thank you, my dear fellow; you have removed a load of anxiety from my mind. Fill your gla.s.s to 'auld langsyne,' and then we will talk over old scenes and old friends."

Long and confidential was our conversation, and varied were the feelings which it excited. There can be few more interesting events in a man's life than the unexpected meeting with a long-absent friend.

There is a mournful pleasure in recalling the past, in contrasting the sad experience of maturer years with the sanguine and glowing antic.i.p.ations of our youth. For a few pa.s.sing moments we forget the march of time, we look back through the long vista of years, and once more the warm, and joyous, and fresh feelings of youth seem to gush forth, and to soften and revive our world-seared and hardened hearts.

So it was with _us_.

The present was for awhile forgotten by us; we were living in the past; and loud and joyful were our bursts of merriment when we talked of old jokes and adventures; and then again the thought came over us, like a chilling blight, suffusing our eyes with tears, that the curtain of death had fallen over most of our young and cheerful fellow-actors on the early stage of life. It was with saddened and subdued hearts we dwelt upon the brief career of some of our early companions; and we sat for some minutes in silence, musing upon the vicissitudes of human life. At last, with a forced attempt at merriment, Musgrave exclaimed, in the words of an old sea ditty--

"'Come, grieving's a folly; So let us be jolly: If we've troubles at sea, boys, we've pleasures on sh.o.r.e.'"

"Replenish your tumbler, Frank," continued he; "we'll talk no more of the past; that's gone beyond recall; but let us make the most of the present. We have not many hours before us; and I have heard nothing of your adventures since we parted, nor you of mine. Set a good example, and begin."

"My story is soon told," replied I; "for, as you remarked before, time has been flowing on, for me, quiet and undisturbed. I have no adventures to relate--no stirring accidents by field or flood; mine has been a humdrum, peaceful life, unmarked by variety, except those common ones which would be uninteresting to a man of travel and adventure like yourself."

"Nothing connected with my old friend can prove uninteresting," said Musgrave; "so pray commence your tale."

Thus urged, I began as follows:--I continued at school two years after you so suddenly left it, and was then bound apprentice to a lawyer in this town. I did not much like the profession which had been chosen for me; but there was no help for it. I knew that my father had no interest, and that I must trust entirely to my own exertions for a provision for my future life. I therefore applied myself diligently to my duties, and soon had the good fortune to gain the confidence of my employer. I had been with him about three years, when he sent me to a neighbouring village to wait upon a client of his. This gentleman was a retired post-captain, a man who had seen much service, and had been often and severely wounded.

He was, as I had been before informed, as smart an officer as ever trod a ship's deck; his whole heart was in his profession; and his long residence on sh.o.r.e had not broken him of his habit of interlarding his conversation with sea-phrases; and he delighted in talking over the adventures of his past life to all who would listen to him. Notwithstanding his little peculiarities, he was universally loved and respected. He was a hospitable, kind-hearted man, and a "gentleman of Nature's own making;" for, though he was a little wanting in external polish, his actions proved him worthy of the t.i.tle. I had often heard of him before, but had never chanced to meet him. I was much pleased with him at first sight: there was so much warmth and frankness in his reception of me; and I felt at home with him in a minute. He was a man of short stature, upright as a dart, with iron-grey hair, and a keen, quick eye; and had on, when I met him in the avenue to his house, an old rusty hat, pinched up in the rims, and placed transversely on his head, so as to look like a "fore and after," as he called it, or, as we would say, a c.o.c.ked hat.

"Oh," interrupted Musgrave, "you need not take the trouble of explaining sea terms to _me_; they are as natural to me as my native tongue almost."

"I forgot," replied I, "that you are a chip of the same block; so I will continue my _yarn_--you see I have picked up a little sea-lingo too. After I had transacted my business with Captain Trimmer, he pressed me to stay and partake of family fare."

"We pipe to dinner at six-bells," said he; "three o'clock, I mean. You will have plain fare and a sailor's welcome; which, you know, is a warm one either to friend or foe."

I accepted his frank invitation with pleasure; and, as it still wanted an hour to dinner-time, he proposed that we should "take a cruise"

through the grounds till "the grub" was ready. During the walk, he amused me greatly with his tales of the sea; but I was often obliged to request him to interpret terms which were as unintelligible to me as Hebrew or Sanscrit. He laughed heartily at my ignorance, but did all in his power to enlighten me.

"You have not had the benefit of a sea education, so what can we expect from you? I'll tell you what, my young friend--I would as soon come athwart the hawse of a shark as a lawyer (no offence to _you_), but, somehow or other, I like the cut of your jib, and think we shall be good friends nevertheless."

"Oh," said I, laughing, alluding to my professional visit, "I am not the lawyer, but the lawyer's _avant courier_--the pilot-fish, not the shark."

He laughed heartily, and kept bantering me on the sharking propensities of my tribe in such an amusing manner that I could not restrain my mirth. At last, the dinner-bell rang.

"Ah! there's pipe to dinner at last! Come along, youngster; let's see if you can take your grub as well as you can take a joke."

We dined alone; for his only daughter, he told me, had gone to visit a neighbour, and would not return till evening. The dinner was substantial and good; the wines excellent; but, though the old gentleman pressed me much to drink, he was very moderate himself. When the cloth was removed, he said--

"Now I will pipe to grog; if you like to join my mess, do so, unless you prefer your wine."

"Why, if you have no objection," said I, "I will not desert this capital claret; you may have all the grog to yourself."

"Well, tastes differ; of course, as a landsman you prefer wine; but you know the old song says--

'A sailor's sheet-anchor is grog.'"

He told me a number of his old adventures; and hours pa.s.sed away like minutes in listening to them; but I am free to admit that none of his yarns were half so pleasant to me as some of the silken thread-ends he let fall about his daughter Emmeline. There was something in the rough manner in which he gave vent to the feelings of a father, that possessed a tenderness which never could have been expressed by the soft vocables of sentimentality. It is thus (excuse my poetry) that we often admire the fragrance of a flower the more for the rough petals from which it emanates. I was captivated, and twitched the old gentleman on the string which yielded me the best music, till I thought he suspected some love-larking in my sly attempts to get him to praise the absent fair one.

"Come, come," he said, "mind your grog; although _I_ say it, who shouldn't say it, she's as pretty a little craft as ever sailed the ocean of life; but we're not to take her in tow throughout all our voyages--so we'll drop her."

"Not till I drink to her, with your leave, sir," said I.

"Oh, as to that, there's no harm," said he. "All I say is, it's a pity you belong to the land sharks. If you'd been a seaman, I might have fancied you for a son-in-law."

The words startled me; and, if he had had the keen perception of a refined man of the world, he might have augured something from the sound of my voice, though my words belied my thoughts.

"Well, here's to her!" said I; "and may her fortune yield her a better cast up than a limb of the----" Law I would have said, but he roared out devil, with a laugh, and I joined him.

But, as I had a long walk before me, I was obliged to take my leave of the old gentleman rather early in the night. His daughter had not yet returned; but he was not uneasy on her account, as it was a fine moonlight night, and she was well acquainted with the road.