Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XIII Part 13

said he twenty times during breakfast, as he held the paper in his hand, and twenty times read the announcement--"Arrived at ---- Hotel, Albemarle Street, A. Donaldson, Esq., of Luck's Lodge, and family, from their seat in the north." But this did not do; he found it was two guineas thrown away, but consoled himself with the thought that it would vex the squire and the people of his native village. With the hope of becoming familiar with the leading men of the great world, he became a frequenter of the princ.i.p.al coffee-rooms. At one of these, he shortly became acquainted with a Captain Edwards, who, as Mr. Donaldson affirmed, was intimate with all the world, and bowed to and was known by every n.o.bleman they met. Edwards was one of those creatures who live--heaven knows how--who are without estates and without fortune, but who appear in the resorts of fashion as its very mirrors. In a word, he was one of the hangers-on of the n.o.bility and gentry--one of their blacklegs and purveyors. Poor Mr. Donaldson thought him the greatest man he had ever met with. He heard him accost n.o.blemen on the streets in the _afternoon_ with, "Good _morning_, my lord," and they familiarly replied, "Ha! Tom! what's the news?" He had borrowed ten, fifty, and a hundred pounds from his companion; and he had relieved him of a hundred or two more in teaching him to play at whist; but, vain, simple Mr.

Donaldson never conceived that such a great man and such a fashionable man could be without money, though he could not be at the trouble to carry it. Edwards was between thirty and forty years of age, but looked younger; his hair was black, and tortured into ringlets; his upper lip was ornamented with thin, curved moustaches; and in his dress he was an exquisite, or a buck, as they were then called, of the first water. Mr.

Donaldson invited him to his hotel, where he became a daily visitor. He spoke of his uncle the bishop of such a place, and of his G.o.dfather the earl of another--of his estates in Wales, and the rich advowsons in his gift. Andrew gloried in his fortune; he was now reaching the _acme_ of his ambition; he believed there would be no difficulty in getting his friend to bestow one or more of the benefices, when vacant, upon his son Paul; and he thought of sending for Paul to leave Edinburgh, and enter himself of Cambridge. Rebecca displayed all her charms before the captain; and the captain all his attractions before her. She triumphed in a conquest; so did he. Mr. Donaldson now also began to give dinners--and to them Captain Edwards invited the Honourable This, and Sir That; but in the midst of his own feast he found himself a cipher, where he was neither looked upon nor regarded, but had to think himself honoured in honourables eating of the banquet for which he had to pay.

This galled him nearly as much as the perverseness of his neighbours in the country in not lifting their hats to him; but he feared to notice it, lest by so doing he should lose the distinction of their society.

From the manner in which his guests treated him, they gave him few opportunities of betraying his origin; but, indeed, though a vain, he was not an ignorant man.

While these doings were carrying on in Albemarle-street, Mrs. Donaldson was, as she herself expressed it, "uneasy as a fish taken from the water." She said "such ongoings would be her death;" and she almost wished that the lottery ticket had turned up a blank. Peter was studying the paintings in Somerset House, and taking lessons in oil-colours; Rebecca mingled with company, or flaunted with Captain Edwards; but poor Sarah drooped like a lily that appears before its time, and is bitten by the returning frost. She wasted away--she died of a withered heart.

For a few weeks her death stemmed the tide of fashionable folly and extravagance; for, although vanity was the ruling pa.s.sion of Andrew Donaldson, it could not altogether extinguish the parent in his heart.

But his wife was inconsolable; for Sarah had been her favourite daughter, as Rebecca was his. It is a weak and a wicked thing, sir, for parents to make favourites of one child more than another--good never comes of it. Peter painted a portrait of his deceased sister from memory, and sent it to the young man to whom she was betrothed--I say betrothed, for she had said to him "_I will_," and they had broken a ring between them; each took a half of it; and, poor thing, her part of it was found on her breast, in a small bag, when she died. The captain paid his daily visits--he condoled with Rebecca--and, in a short time, she began to say it was a silly thing for her sister to die; but she was a grovelling-minded girl, she had no spirit.

Soon after this, Captain Edwards, in order to cheer Mr. Donaldson, obtained for him admission to a club, where he introduced him to a needy peer, who was a sort of half-proprietor of a nomination borough, and had the sale of the representation of a thousand souls. It was called his lordship's borough. One of its seats was then vacant, and was in the market, and his lordship was in want of money. Captain Edwards whispered the matter to his friend Mr Donaldson. Now, the latter, though a vain man, and anxious to be thought a fashionable man, was also a shrewd and a calculating man. His ideas expanded--his ambition fired at the thought! He imagined he saw the words ANDREW DONALDSON, ESQ., M.P., in capitals before him. He discovered that he had always had a turn for politics--he remembered that, when a working man, he had always been too much in an argument for the _Blacknebs_. He thought of the flaming speeches he would make in parliament--he had a habit of stamping his foot (for he thought it dignified), and he did so, and half exclaimed, "Mr. Speaker!" But he thought also of his family--he sank the idea of advowsons, and he had no doubt but he might push his son Paul forward till he saw him prime minister or lord chancellor; Peter's genius, he thought, was such as to secure his appointment to the Board of Works whenever he might apply for it; Jacob would make a secretary to a foreign amba.s.sador; and for Rebecca he provided as a maid of honour.

But, beyond all this, he perceived also that, by writing the letters M.P. after his name, he would be a greater man than the squire of his native village, and its inhabitants would then lift their hats to him when he went down to his seat; or, if they did not, he would know how to punish them. He would bring in severer bills on the game laws and against smuggling--he would chastise them with a new turnpike act.

Such were the ideas that pa.s.sed rapidly through his mind, when his friend Edwards suggested the possibility of his becoming a Member of Parliament.

"And how much do ye think it would cost to obtain the seat?" inquired he, anxiously.

"Oh, only a few thousands," replied the captain.

"How many, think ye?" inquired Mr. Donaldson.

"Can't say exactly," replied the other; "but my friend Mr Borrowbridge, the solicitor, in Clement's Inn, has the management of the affair--we shall inquire at him."

So they went to the solicitor; the price agreed upon for the representation of the borough was five thousand pounds; and the money was paid.

Mr Donaldson returned to his hotel, his heart swelling within him, and cutting the figures M.P. in the air with his cane as he went along. A letter was despatched to Paul at Edinburgh, to write a speech for his father, which he might deliver on the day of his nomination.

"O father!" exclaimed Paul, as he read the letter, "much money hath made thee mad."

The speech was written, and forwarded, though reluctantly, by return of post. It was short, sententious, patriotic.

With the speech in his pocket, Mr. Donaldson, accompanied by his friend Edwards, posted down to the borough. But, to their horror, on arriving, they found that a candidate of the opposite party had dared to contest the borough with the n.o.bleman's nominee, and had commenced his canva.s.s the day before. But what was worse than all, they were told that he bleed freely, and his friends were distributing _gooseberries_ right and left.

"What is the meaning of all this?" said Mr. Donaldson, "have I not paid for the borough, and is it not mine? I shall punish him for daring to poach upon my grounds."

And, breaking away from Captain Edwards and his friends, he hurried out in quest of the mayor, to request advice from him. Nor had he gone far, till, addressing a person who was employed in thatching a house--

"Holloa, friend!" cried he, "can you inform me where I shall find the right worshipful the mayor?"

"Whoy, zur!" replied the thatcher, "I be's the mayor!"[3]

[Footnote 3: This picture also is drawn from life.]

Andrew looked at him. "Heaven help us!" thought he, "you the mayor!--you!--a thatcher!--well may I be a Member of Parliament!" But, without again addressing his worship, he hastened back to his friends; and with them he was made sensible, that, although he had given a consideration for the borough, yet, as opposition had started--as the power of the patron was not omnipotent--as the other candidate was bleeding freely--as he was keeping open houses and giving _yellow gooseberries_--there was nothing for it but that Mr. Donaldson should do the same.

"But, oh! how much will it require?" again inquired the candidate, in a tone of anxiety.

"Oh, merely a thousand or two!" again cooly rejoined Captain Edwards.

"A thousand or two!" ejeculated Mr. Donaldson, for his thousands were becoming few. But, like King Richard, he had "set his fate upon a cast,"

and he "would stand the hazard of the die." As to his landed qualification, if elected, the patron was to provide for that; and, after a few words from his friend Edwards, "Richard was himself again"--his fears vanished--the ocean of his ambition opened before him--he saw golden prospects for himself and for his family--he could soon, when elected, redeem a few thousands; and he bled, he opened houses, he gave gooseberries as his opponent did.

But the great, the eventful, the nomination day arrived. Mr.

Donaldson--Andrew Donaldson, the labourer that was--stood forward to make his speech--the speech that his son Paul, student in the University of Edinburgh, had written. He got through the first sentence, in the tone and after the manner of the village clergyman, whom he had attended for forty years; but there he stuck fast; and of all his son Paul had written--short, sententious, patriotic as it was--he remembered not a single word. But, though gravelled from forgetfulness of his son's matter, and though he stammered, hesitated, and tried to recollect himself for a few moments, he had too high an idea of his own consequence to stand completely still. No man who has a consequential idea of his own abilities will ever positively stick in a speech. I remember an old schoolmaster of mine used to say, that a public speaker should regard his audience as so many cabbage-stocks.[4] But he had never been a public speaker, or he would have said no such thing, Such an advice may do very well for a precentor to a congregation; but, as regards an orator addressing a mult.i.tude, it is a different matter. No, sir; the man who speaks in public must neither forget his audience nor overlook them; he must regard them as his _equals_, but none of them as his _superiors_ in intellect; he should regard every man of them as capable of understanding and appreciating what he may say; and, in order to make himself understood, he should endeavour to bring his language and his imagery down to every capacity, rather than permit them to go on stilts or to take wings. Some silly people imagine that what they call fine language, flowery sentences, and splendid metaphors, are oratory.

Stuff!--stuff! Where do you find them in the orations of the immortal orators of Greece or Rome? They used the proper language--they used effective language--

"Thoughts that breathed and words that burn'd;"

but they knew that the key of eloquence must be applied not to the head but to the heart. But, sir, I digress from the speech of Mr. Donaldson.

(Pardon me--I am in the habit of ill.u.s.trating to my boys, and dissertation is my fault, or rather I should say my habit.) Well, sir, as I have said, he stuck fast in the speech which his son had written; but, as I have also said, he had too high an opinion of himself to stand long without saying something. When left to himself, in what he did say, I am afraid he "betrayed his birth and breeding;" for there was loud laughter in the hall, and cries of _hear him! hear him!_ But the poll commenced; the other candidate brought voters from five hundred miles'

distance--from east, west, north, and south--from Scotland, Ireland and the Continent. He polled a vote at every three proclamations, when Mr.

Donaldson had no more to bring forward; and on the fourteenth day he defeated him by a majority of ONE! The right worshipful thatcher declared that the election had fallen on the opposing candidate. The people also said that he had spent most money, and that it was right the election should fall on the best man. He, in truth, had spent more in the contest than Andrew Donaldson had won by his lottery ticket. The feelings of Mr. Donaldson on the loss of his election were the agonies of extreme dispair. In the height of his misery he mentioned to his _introducer_, Captain Edwards--or rather I should call him his _traducer_--that he was a ruined man; that he had lost his all. The captain laughed and left the room. He seemed to have left the town also; for his victim did not meet with him again.

[Footnote 4: This, I believe, was the advice to his students of a late professor in the University of Edinburgh.]

In a state bordering on frenzy, he returned to London. He reached the hotel--he rushed into the room where his wife, his son, and his daughter sat. With a confused and hurried step he paced to and fro across the floor, wringing his hands, and ever and anon exclaiming, bitterly--

"Lost Andrew Donaldson!--Ruined Andrew Donaldson!"

His son Peter, who took the matter calmly, and who believed that the extent of the loss was the loss of the election, carefully surveyed his father's att.i.tudes and the expression of his countenance, and thought the scene before him would make an admirable subject for a picture--the piece to be ent.i.tled, "_The Unsuccessful Candidate_." "It will help to make good his loss," thought Peter, "provided he will sit."

"Oh dearsake, Andrew! Andrew!--what is't?" cried Mrs. Donaldson.

"Lost! lost! ruined Andrew Donaldson!" replied her husband.

"Oh, where is the Captain?--where is Edwards? Why is he not here?" asked Rebecca.

"The foul fiend?" exclaimed her father.

"O Andrew, man--speak! Andrew, jewel--what is't?" added his wife; "if it be only the loss o' siller, Heaven be praised! for I've neither had peace nor comfort since ye got it."

"_Only_ the loss!" cried he, turning upon her like a fury--"only the loss!" Agony and pa.s.sion stopped his utterance.

Mr Donaldson was in truth a ruined man. Of the fifteen thousand which he had obtained, not three hundred, exclusive of Lottery Hall, and the twenty acres around it, were left. His career had been a brief and a fashionable one. On the following day, his son Jacob returned from abroad. Within twelve months he had cost his father a thousand pounds; and, in exchange for the money spent, he brought home with him all the vices he had met with on his route. But I blame not Jacob: his betters, the learned and the n.o.ble, do the same. Poor fellow! he was sent upon the world with a rough garment round his shoulders, which gathered up all the dust that blew, and retained a portion of all the filth with which it came in contact; but polished substances would not adhere to it.

Captain Edwards returned no more to the hotel. He had given the last lesson to his scholar in the science of fashion; he had extorted from him the last fee he could spare. He had gauged the neck of his purse, and he forsook him--in his debt he forsook him. Poor Rebecca! day after day, she inquired after the captain--the captain! Lost, degraded, wretched Rebecca! But I will say no more of her. She became as dead while she yet lived--the confiding victim of a villain!

The barouche, the horses, the trinkets that deformed Mrs. Donaldson, with a piano that had been bought for Rebecca, were sold, and Andrew Donaldson, with his family, left London, and proceeded to Lottery Hall.

But there, though he endeavoured to carry his head high, though he still walked with his silver cane, and though he was known (and he took care to make it known) that he had polled within one of being a Member of Parliament--still the squire did not acknowledge him--his old acquaintances did not lift their hats to him--but all seemed certain that he was coming down "_by the run_" (I think that was the slang or provincial phrase they used) to his old level. They perceived that he kept no horses now, save one to work the twenty acres around the lodge; for he had ploughed up, and sown with barley, and let out as potato ground, what he at first had laid out as a park. This spoke volumes.

They also saw that he had parted with his coach, that he kept but one servant, and that servant told tales in the village. He was laughed at by his neighbours and those who had been his fellow-labourers; and with a sardonic chuckle they were wont to speak of his house as "_the Member o' Parliament's_." I have said that I would say no more of poor Rebecca; but the tongues of the women in the village dwelt also on her. She died, and in the same hour died also a new-born child of the villain Edwards.

Peter had left his father's house, and commenced the profession of an artist, in a town about twenty miles from this. Mr. Donaldson was now humbled. It was his intention with the sorry remnant of his fortune, to take a farm for Jacob; but, oh! Jacob had bathed in a sea of vice, and the bitter waters of adversity could not wash out the pollution it had left behind it. Into his native village he carried the habits he had acquired or witnessed beneath the cerulean skies of Italy, or amidst the dark-eyed daughters of France. Shame followed his footsteps. Yea, although the squire despised Mr. Donaldson, his son, a youth of nineteen, became the boon companion of Jacob. They held midnight orgies together. Jacob initiated the squireling into the mysteries of Paris and Rome, of Naples and Munich, whither he was about to proceed. But I will not dwell upon their short career. Extravagance attended it, shame and tears followed it.

Andrew Donaldson no longer possessed the means of upholding his son in folly and wickedness. He urged him to settle in the world--to take a farm while he had the power left of placing him in it; but Jacob's sins pursued him. He fled from his father's house, and enlisted in a marching regiment about to embark for the East Indies. No more was heard of him for many years, until a letter arrived from one of his comrades, announcing that he had fallen at Corunna.

To defray the expenses which his son Jacob had brought upon him, Mr.

Donaldson had not only to part with the small remnant that was left him of his fifteen thousand, but take a heavy mortgage upon Lottery Hall.

Again he was compelled to put his hand to the spade and to the plough; and his wife, deprived of her daughters, again became her own servant.

Sorrow, shame, and disappointment gnawed in his heart. His garments of pride, now worn threadbare, were cut off for ever. The persecution, the mockery of his neighbours increased. They asked each other "if they had seen the Member of Parliament with the spade in his hand again?" They quoted the text, "A haughty spirit goes before a fall;" and they remembered pa.s.sages of the preacher's lecture against pride and vanity on the day when Andrew appeared in his purple coat. He became a solitary man; and, on the face of this globe which we inhabit, there existed not a more miserable being than Andrew Donaldson.