Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XIII Part 17

"What are ye gaun to do at the Linthaughs?"

"Do ye not know," says I, "that I'm about to leave this quarter, for guid and a', for America?" Her heart lap into her mouth at hearing this, and she quickly cast her eyes round on me, which were brimful o' tears, as if to see whether or no I spoke in earnest, and hurriedly withdrew them the same moment without uttering a word. "It's a trying thing,"

says I, "to leave the place o' ane's nativity. It may appear childish, but there is a charm attaches even to the schulehouse, with its clay floor, and dirty hacked tables, that my heart cannot resist; and, as sure as death, Margery, the very wooden chair, whose hind legs I rock backwards and forwards on when the cla.s.s is ranged before me, dimmed my eyes with tears this morning, when I reflected that, in a few weeks, some stranger lad should sit upon it. It was but the other night, too, that I chanced to light upon a few simple verses in Mrs Heslop's alb.u.m that quite unmanned me."

"What were they about?" says Margery.

"Just about a person's way-going and fareweel-taking," says I; "and the writer, in speaking o' the sorrow it occasioned him, to take a last look o' ony familiar object, says, truly and feelingly--

'I never look'd a last adieu To things familiar, but my heart Shrank with a feeling, almost pain, Even from their lifelessness to part.

I never spoke the word Farewell!

But with an utterance faint and broken; A heart-sick yearning for the time When it should never more be spoken.'

"G.o.d only knows," continued I, in the same deep earnestness, "whether the time will ever come round to _me_ when the bitter word shall never be spoken again. Our evening walks, Margery, will soon be at an end; but go where I will, never can I forget the green banks o' the Yarrow, and the beetling brow o' those hills, with their red heather and bleached bent, where I used to rin when a callant; and no scene, however grand or lovely, can ever have nearer and warmer claims upon my affection, than this loaning, Margery, where you and I have watched the lang streaks o'

the yellow sunlight fading in the grey clouds o' evening, as the twilight thickened round us, rendering us as happy as if we were under the delusion o' glamoury. In the sad clearness o' regret, the whole o'

the simple images o' the past are crowding owre my fancy; and now that I am thinking o' leaving Selkirk, I cannot describe to you the melancholy sensation o' loneliness that possesses me. I depart from it a green bough, and can only return--if ever I be permitted to come back--a withered, sapless stem; and, though the sun may shine, the birds sing, and that bonny green haugh present the same garniture o' sweets and beauties as ever, what will it a' avail, Margery, if _you_, and a' them that I care for, have gone down into the grave, and left me without a tie to bind me to the world!"

Here the tears actually trickled down my cheeks, Richard, having wrought my feelings into such a fermentation; and Margery, the same moment, threw her arms around me, and breathed on my neck, in a tremulous and broken voice, the love o' her warm and feeling heart.

"Will ye cross the Atlantic with me, Margery?" says I, while the dear creature still trembled palpably by my side.

"Yes, yes," says she, tenderly; "but ye're no gaun to leave Selkirk, James; and ye ken ye're only saying sae to try me."

"You and my happiness are so utterly entwined, Margery," says I, "that I could not for a moment harbour the thought, were it to make you uneasy.

_I'll no stir a foot._"

About two months after this took place, Margery and I were married by Mr Heslop, our ain minister; and a braw wedding we had, there being no less than eight couple, besides my guidfather, at it. And, certies, she could not complain o' her down-sitting; for, though I say it who should not, I do not believe there's a brawer house than ours--among those o' our ain graith, I mean--in a' Selkirk, or one where you'll find half o' the comfort; for Margery and I are as happy as the day is long, and our twa bonny bairns, John and Mary--the laddie's christened after my faither, and the la.s.sie after the wife's mother--mingle with us nightly around our cheerful fireside in the snug little parlour, delighting us with their endearing prattle, and beguiling our cares with the innocent joyousness o' their happy hearts. You may think me a weak man, Richard; but I doubt not the most f.e.c.k o' parents are like mysel--fond o'

speaking about their offspring--no minding that it may be tiresome aneugh to those that never had ony themselves; yet could we but feel how the sunshine o' their young and glad hearts reflects itself back upon a doting faither's, I am certain ye would think that I was more to be envied in my domestic happiness than the monarch o' England; and weel can I exclaim, in the words o' the Scottish sang--

"I view, with mair than kingly pride, My hearth--a heaven o' rapture; While Mary's hand in mine will slide, As Jockie reads his chapter."

THE SOUTER'S WEDDING.

"Not to flatter you, Maister Brown," said the souter, when the dominie had finished the account of his courtship, "your wooing is a capital tale in itself; and could it only be put into prent, in the simple and honest manner--for ye hide nothing--that you've gone owre it, I'll venture to say that a more laughable story is no in the book. Deil o'

the like o' it I ever heard; so muckle duplicity on the one hand, and sheepishness on the other; and, after a', to think that ye should have won your wife's heart by such a wily stratagem. Ye talked, if I remember rightly, o' being weel up in years ere ye fell in love; but atweel I cannot say the same, for I was owre head and ears in it before I was rightly into my teens. Having my faither's business in Selkirk to fall back upon, and being rather handsome, and no that ill-farand, and naturally gifted, like the rest o' our family--for our cleverness a'

came by the Maxwells--that's our mother's side o' the house--it is not to be wondered at that the young la.s.sies o' the place should have held a great racket about me. I was even styled the leddies' man; and, night after night, I might have been seen strolling away down by the Pleasance, in company with the Jacksons--high as they hold their heads above you and me now, Maister Brown; and, at other times, with the braw niece o' the dean o' guild. At our annual fairs, too, I have seen the genteeler la.s.ses--farmers' daughters and the like--flocking about me for their _fairing_ in perfect droves; and I'm certain there was not one o'

them, either from Selkirkshire or Roxburghshire, but who would have waded the Tweed for me, had I but held up my thumb. I was very ill to please, however; for, unless I could get one possessed o' youth, beauty, and siller, I had resolved never to marry. These three requisites I considered indispensable in a wife; and though, at times, I felt my prudent resolution nearly sapped by the winning gentleness o' Susan Baillie, I still prevented the sacred citadel o' my heart from being openly taken, and kept cautiously speculating upon the untoward consequences o' a rash and imprudent marriage. My faither dropping off just as I was entering upon my three-and-twentieth year, his business was consigned owre to me, with the whole o' his effects; and, although the heavy bereavement did not fail to make a suitable impression upon my heart, I felt my personal consequence greatly increased, from the circ.u.mstance o' standing in his _shoon_. The Johnsons went actually mad about me, besides scores o' others, as weel to do in the world as any Johnson among them; and many a trap was set for me, by auld crones who had daughters at a marriageable age hanging on their hands. I continued, however, to gallant away among them, as a kind o' general lover; and at a' their select parties, there was I to be found figuring.

Thus weeks, and months, and years pa.s.sed on, and I still remained in single blessedness, while the young leddies o' my acquaintance kept stepping off one by one--some marrying tradesmen's sons, and others the young gentlemen belonging to the neighbouring counties, till not one o'

a' the number that I used to caper about with was left for my taking.

The very bairns o' some o' them, breeched and unbreeched, were big aneugh to come to my shop and get the measure o' their shoon; and on one occasion, when Susan Baillie's auld Irish nurse--Susan was then Mrs Captain Fraser--brought down the auldest la.s.sie in her hand, to get a pair o' red boots fitted on, I declare the very tears came into my eyes when I saw the little creature--she looked so like her mother!

"Losh, me!" says I to Peggy Byrne, "that la.s.sie makes me an auld man."

"Och, and it's your own fault, Master Blackwell," says the nurse, "that your ould at all at all; for you, who are a gintleman born, should be glad to have the mistress and purty childer at home, even to spake to."

"A wife is an expensive piece o' furniture to keep about a house," says I.

"I'm sorry to the heart for you, sir," says she; "and if you care for yoursilf, you'll not let a thrifle of money prevint you from trating yoursilf to some genteel cratur of a wife. Will you just give a look to this swate girleen, G.o.d bless it!" added she, kissing the wee la.s.sie, "and say if ye could grudge her bit of brade, poor sowl, or the brade of the moder that bore her?"

"But I cannot get anybody to please me, woman," says I, jocularly.

"Take my word and honour, as an Irishwoman," says Peggy, in Hibernian warmth, "you'll bring the shame of the world on yoursilf, and ye will, ye will. I thought once you could not live after my mistress Susan; but she's lost to you, anyhow, the jewel, and I only know you will never have it in your power to get a glance of love from such two swate eyes again."

"There are better fish in the sea," says I, "than ever came out o' it."

"Don't attimpt to say so," says she; "for, though many a nate, dacent girl is to the fore, 'tis a silfish cratur they wish bad luck to; and maybe your honour will let me tell you the iligant ould story of the 'Crooked Stick' for your idification. Well, then," she went on, "you must know there was a whimsical young woman sent into a green lane, having on either side tall and beautiful trees; and she was tould to pick out and bring away the straightest and purtiest branch she could find. She was left at liberty to go to the end, if she plased; but she was not, by any means, to be allowed to retrace her steps, to make choice of a stick she had already slighted. Beautiful and tall were the boughs of the trees, and swate to look upon; and each in its turn was decaived in not being preferred; for the silly maiden went on and on, without any rason, vainly expecting to get a more perfect stick than those that courted her two eyes. At long and last, the trees became smaller, while blurs and warts disfigured their crooked boughs. She could not, she thought within hersilf, choose such rubb.i.t.c.h. But what was she to do?--for lo! she had arrived at the ind of her journey, and, instead of a nate young branch from a stately tree, an ould deformed bough was all that remained within her reach. So the silly maiden had to take the _crooked stick_ at last, and return with it in her hand, amidst the jeering of the beautiful trees which she had formerly despised. And now," said Peggy Byrne, in conclusion, "remember the _crooked stick_, your honour, and give over your dilly-dallying, or sure enough you'll get it--you will."

I laughed heartily at the Irish nurse's foolery; and that very night, I mind, I had as queer a dream as mortal ever dreamed. I thought I was out on a fine summer's day in the month o' June, fishing in the stream a little below Selkirk, where the Tweed is augmented by the Ettrick. I was angling, I thought, with the artificial fly in the manner o' worm; and, though the water was very turbid, trouts, like silly women, are so apt to be taken with _appearances_, that that day mult.i.tudes o' them eagerly seized the deadly barb, and only found out the deceit at the precious cost o' their lives! I imagined I was particularly nice, however, in choosing the fish I raised; for, as I drew them ash.o.r.e upon the nearest channel, instead o' rinning forward with alacrity and seizing them, I thought I stood like an innocent, turning owre in my mind whether the trouts were o' such a quality as to repay me for the trouble o' stooping to take them up. Presently the fish, not being properly banked, would have broken the gut and torn themselves from the hook, leaving me in bewilderment and shame, to execrate my ain stupid indecision. But this was not the worst o' it; for in some cases I actually fancied I saw the same bonny detached trouts taken further down the stream by other anglers, while a number, after a fierce struggle to get free, would have been seen pining, with wounded hearts, at the bottom o' the water, unable apparently either to feed or sp.a.w.n. To add to my vexation, Maister Brown, the stream began suddenly to clear, while the fish, from the quant.i.ty o' food that covered the water, grew lazy, and would not so muckle as move. At last I thought I threw in, for the last time, in a fit o' desperation, and what should I do but hook a huge salmon by the side fin! He immediately started in beautiful style for his far hame, the sea; and as a fish so fastened was no better secured than a young bluid-horse bridled by the middle instead o' the mouth, I saw there was nothing for it but following him, and using my legs as weel as my line. Away we accordingly went, at a dead heat, down the Tweed--starting from about Ettrick foot, while the fish every now and then would have sprung furiously out o' the water in his attempts to shiver the line with his tail. It would not a' do, however; and, after a great many hours' play, I thought we landed at "Coldstream Brig-end,"

where, finding him greatly exhausted, I drew him closer and closer to the edge, whiles giving him a brattle out into the deep water, till seeing him unable to give any further resistance, I gaffed and secured him. But, judge o' my mortification, when, instead o' a bonny plump salmon, a lean, deformed skate lay in the dead-thraws upon the white gravel, to mock me for my pains! The bairns, at this moment, whom I thought I saw distinctly on the bridge, setting up a wicked shout o'

derision, I awoke with the noise. Nor will I ever forget the agony that I was in--the sweat ran from my body like a planet shower; and do what I liked, I could not get the disagreeable image o' the ill-coloured toom skate from my mind; for aye, as I dovered owre again, I was as suddenly started by the presence o' the hateful fish laying itsel cheek by jowl alongside o' me.

You may laugh as ye like, Maister Brown, at this strange dream; but, when you hear how significantly the crowning event in the after-history o' my life was prefigured by it, you'll see less cause for laughter, I'm thinking. It might be half-a-year subsequent to the dream, or thereabouts, that I happened to be in Wooler on a jaunt; and as the place and the folk about it were muckle to my mind, I was induced to protract my stay for several weeks. I soon made the acquaintance o'

several o' the young leddies o' the same _caste_ as mysel; and, among others, I got uncommonly intimate with a Miss Cochrane, and her sister Arabella. The former, I was told, had a hantle o' siller, besides rich expectations from some auld aunt in Newcastle; while stories were whispered o' the prodigious number o' offers she had refused, and that he would be considered a lucky man who should make off with such a capital prize! Here, thinks I, I've fallen on my feet at last; and, if I do not impove the golden opportunity to my advantage, blame me. Miss Cochrane continued shy, however; and I was beginning to despair o'

making any impression, when, one night, being at a party with her and her sister, at the house o' a Mrs Cavendish, we a' three grew so delighted with each other, that it was agreed, before parting, that, as neither Arabella nor hersel had ever seen Coldstream, and as they had a genteel cousin there, we should take a trip to it the next day in a post-chaise. Off we accordingly went on the ensuing morning; and, as soon as we reached the town, a messenger was despatched for the genteel cousin, when presently a little dissipated-looking creature made his appearance, who, at the sight o' his dear Sophia and Arabella, was like to go into ecstatics. He did not need to be asked twice to join us at dinner; for he moved about as if the inn had been his ain, and he fell to the dainties we had ordered as greedily as a half-famished cur. The wine and brandy, too, were sent down his throat as if his stomach had been a sand-bed, and he kept drinking gla.s.ses with us every whip-touch, first asking me to join him, and then his "dear cousins," till, long before the dinner was owre, I had got so completely _rosined_, that I could not weel make out where I was, or satisfactorily account for the appearance o' the two strange women that sat on each side o' me. The haze, however, that hung owre me began to go off in the course o' the evening; and, when I cleared up sufficiently, the Coldstream birkie proposed that we should sally out and get a sight o' the famed "Brig-end," where the well-known Peter Moodie celebrated clandestine marriages.

"I'm yer man for a spree," says I--for the brandy, by this time, had flown to my head. And, starting to my feet, and seizing Miss Cochrane by the arm--"Come, my dawty," cries I, "let us away down to the brig and see Hymen's Altar!"

"Oh, Master Blackwell!" says madam, in girlish bashfulness, allowing hersel at the same time to be led off "only think what our friends will say, should they hear of _us_ being there! I would not for ten thousand worlds they should know."

"Fiddledee, fiddledum!" shouted I; and off we strutted, uttering a' the balderdash, and foolery in the world on our way down; and, when we came to the Brig-end, I began to sing, at the very top o' my lungs,

"There's naebody coming to marry me."

But I had scarcely finished the first line o' the sang, when forward stepped an auld man, with a snuffy white napkin round his neck, and with a head as white as the driven snaw; and says he, touching his hat with his hand--

"Would ye be wanting my services, sir?"

"What services in a' the world can ye render, auld carle?" says I.

"I'm the man that marries the folk," says he; "my name's Peter Moodie."

"And what do you seek for your marriage-service?" says I.

"Three half-crowns frae working-folk, and a guinea frae the like o' you, sir," says he.

"There's a crown-piece, my guid fellow," says I, "and let me see you go owre the foolery--for the very fun o' the thing."

"Do, do, Peter!" cried the youngest Cochrane and her cousin, eagerly.

"Wha shall I buckle, then?" says the mimicking priest.

"Our two selves," says I, pressing Miss Cochrane's hand, in maudlin fondness.

"What's your name, sir?" says the white-headed impostor, looking me gravely in the face.