Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XVI Part 10

John ran towards his sister, and clasped her in his arms. She did not recognise him for a second or two; but when she did, she burst into tears, and--

"O John, John," she said, "this is a sorrowfu hoose ye hae come to; but yer faither 'll hae tell't ye a'?"

"He has, Marion; and, amongst the rest, he has told me, what has surprised me more than all, that you intend marrying old John Maitland."

Marion burst afresh into tears. "It maun he sae, brother," she said--"it maun be sae. There's nae ither way o' savin my puir faither and mother frae ruin."

"But there is, though, Marion," replied her brother. "Ye need not now give your hand where your heart is not, for any such purpose. I have the means of saving you from the necessity of making this sacrifice, and gladly shall I employ them. I will pay our father's debts, Marion, and make you once more a free woman."

We would fain describe the joy--the rapturous, the inexpressible joy--with which these delightful words filled the bosom of the poor girl on whose ravished ear they fell; but we are sure that such an attempt would only interfere with the reader's more lively and vivid conceptions, and we therefore refrain from it.

On the same day on which these events occurred, John Waterstone, having previously settled his father's debt to his landlord with those sent to look after the latter's interest at the intended sale, wrote to the house through which the money he had transmitted to his father had been sent, mentioning its non-delivery, and requesting an explanation of the circ.u.mstance.

To this letter Mr Waterstone received, two days afterwards, the following reply:--

"SIR,--We have received, with very painful feelings, though not with surprise, yours of the 10th instant. The misconduct of our junior partner, which has placed us in a similarly distressing predicament with several others as with you, has been the cause of the gross irregularity of which you demand an explanation.

Your remittances, together with other moneys to a large amount, were appropriated by this person (who has lately absconded) to his own use--a practice which we have since discovered he has been long addicted to. As we, however, consider ourselves bound in honour to make good all such claims as yours--the sums you transmitted having been advised to the firm, and the responsibility accepted--we beg to inform you that the money alluded to will be paid to your order, at our counting-house, on demand. We need scarcely remark, that the circ.u.mstance above mentioned will sufficiently account for the suppression of letters of which you also complain.--We are, sir," &c.

This letter John Waterstone lost no time in laying before his father, whom it at once convinced of his son's veracity, and consequently of the injustice he had done him. But it was to his mother that this proof of her son's integrity and dutiful conduct brought the most triumphant joy.

"I was sure my John," she said, "wad never either forget or deceive us; and weel did I ken, as aften I have said, that it wad a' be satisfactorily accounted for, and that my laddie wad yet triumph owre a'

his backbiters, and shame them that misdooted him."

We have only now to add, that John's generosity, on the occasion of this visit to his parents, which was only temporary, was not confined to the latter, but extended to his sister, on whom he bestowed a portion that enabled her and Richard Spalding to unite their destinies.

John returned shortly after to the West Indies, where he pursued a prosperous career for ten years longer, when he came home an independent man, and spent the remainder of his life in the place of his nativity.

MR SAMUEL RAMSAY THRIVEN:

A TALE OF LOVE AND BANKRUPTCY.

CHAP I.--A WAY OF MAKING MONEY.

All the world knows that Mandeville, the author of the "Fable of the Bees," and Shaftesbury, the author of the "Characteristics," divided a great portion of mankind on a question which is now no question at all.

That there are, a.s.suredly, some instances to be met with of rational bipeds, who exhibit scarcely any traces of a moral sense, and act altogether upon the principle of selfishness, we do not deny; but this admission does not bind us to the selfish theory, for the very good reason, that we hold these creatures to be nothing better than a species of monsters. Nor do we think the world, with the tendency to self-love that prevails in it, would have been the better for the want of these living, walking exemplars of their patron--the devil; for, of a surety, they show us the fallen creature in all his naked deformity, and make us hate the principle of evil through the ugly flesh-case in which it works, and the noisome overt acts it turns up in the repugnant nostrils of good men. Now, if you are an inhabitant of that scandalous freestone village that lies near Arthur Seat, and took its name from the Northumbrian king, Edwin--corrupted, by the conceit of the inhabitants, into Edin--you will say that we mean something personal in these remarks; and, very probably, when we mention the name of Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven, who, about twenty years after Mr John Neal introduced to the admiring eyes of the inhabitants of the Scottish metropolis the term haberdasher, carried on that trade in one of the princ.i.p.al streets of the city, our intention will be held manifest. And what then? We will only share the fate, without exhibiting the talent, of Horace, and shall care nothing if we return his good-humour--a quality of far greater importance to mankind than even that knowledge "which is versant with the stars."

Now, this Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven, who took up, as we have already signified, the trade designated by the strange appellative introduced by the said John Neal, was one of those dabblers in morals who endeavour to make the whole system of morality accord with their own wishes. As to the moral sense, so strongly insisted for by the n.o.ble author of the "Characteristics," he considered it as a _taste_ something like that for _vertu_, which a man might have or not have, just as it pleased Dame Nature or Mr Syntax Pedagogue, but which he could pretend to have as often and in as great profusion as it pleased himself. It was, he acknowledged, a very good thing to have, sometimes, about one, but there were many things in the world far better--such as money, a good house, good victuals, good clothing, and so forth. It was again, sometimes, a thing a man might be much better without. It formed a stumbling-block to prosperity; and when, at the long run, a man had made to it many sacrifices, and become a beggar, "rich in the virtue of good offices,"

he did not find that it got him a softer bed in an almshouse, or a whiter piece of bread at the door of the rich. These sentiments were probably strengthened by the view he took of the world, and especially of our great country, where there is a mighty crying, and a mighty printing, about virtue, magnanimity, and honesty, in the abstract, while there is, probably, less real active honesty than might be found among the Karomantyns--yea, or the Hottentots or Cherokees. Then, too, it could not be denied that "riches cover a mult.i.tude of sins;" why, then, should not Mr Thriven strive to get rich?

Upon such a theory did Mr Samuel Thriven propose to act. It had clearly an advantage over theories in general, insomuch as it was every day reduced to practice by a great proportion of mankind, and so proved to be a good workable speculation. That he intended to follow out the practical part of his scheme with the same wisdom he had exhibited in choosing his theory of morals, may be safely doubted. Caution, which is of great use to all men in a densely-populated country, is an indispensable element in the composition of one who would be rich at the expense of others. A good-natured man will often allow himself to be cheated out of a sum which is not greater than the price of his ease; and there are a great number of such good-natured men in all communities. It is upon these that clever men operate--without them a great portion of the cleverest would starve. They are the lambs with sweet flesh and soft wool, making the plains a paradise for the wolves.

A system of successful operations carried on against these quiet subjects, for a number of years, might have enabled Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven to have retired, with his feelings of enjoyment blunted, and his conscience quickened, to some romantic spot, where he might have turned poetical. An idle man is always, to some extent, a poet; and a rogue makes often a good sentimentalist.

This ought clearly to have been the course which worldly caution should have suggested as the legitimate working out of the theory of selfishness. But Mr Thriven was not gifted with the virtue of patience to the same extent that he was with the spirit of theorising on the great process of getting rich. He wanted to seize Plutus by a _coup de main_, and hug the G.o.d until he got out of him a liberal allowance. The plan has been attended with success; but it is always a dangerous one.

The great deity of wealth has been painted lame, blind, and foolish, because he gives, without distinction, to the undeserving as well as to the worthy--to the bad often more than to the good. It is seldom his G.o.dship will be coaxed into a gift; and if he is attempted to be forced, he can use his lame leg, and send the rough worshipper to the devil.

Neither can we say that Mr Thriven's scheme was new or ingenious, being no other than to "_break_ with the full hand"--a project of great antiquity in Scotland, and struck at for the first time by the act 1621, cap. 18. It existed, indeed, in ancient Rome, and was comprehended under the general term of stellionate, from stelio, a little subtle serpent, common in Italy. Always in great vogue in our country, it at one time roused the choler of our judges to such an extent, that they condemned the culprits either to wear the yellow cap and stockings of different colours, or be for ever at the mercy of their creditors. But these times had gone by, and a man might make a very respectable thing of a break, if he could manage it adroitly enough to make it appear that he had himself been the victim of misplaced confidence. So Mr Samuel having given large orders to the English houses for goods, at a pretty long credit, got himself in debt to an amount proportioned to the sum he wished to make by his failure. There is no place in the world where a man may get more easily in debt than in Scotland. We go for a decent, composed, shrewd, honest people; and, though we are very adequately and sufficiently hated by the volatile English, whom we so often beat on their own ground, and at their own weapons, we enjoy a greater share of their confidence in mercantile matters than their own countrymen.

Vouchsafe to John the privilege of abusing Sawney, and calling him all manner of hard names, and he will allow his English neck to be placed in the Scottish noose with a civility and decorum that is just as commendable as his abuse of our countryman is ungenerous and unmanly. Mr Thriven's warehouses were accordingly soon filled with goods from both England and Scotland; and it is no inconsiderable indication of a man's respectability that he is able to get pretty largely in debt. When a man is to enter upon the speculation of failing, the step we have now mentioned is the first and most important preliminary. Debt is the Ossa from which the successful speculator rolls into the rich vale of Tempe.

There are some rugged rocks in the side of his descent to independence--such as the examinations under the statutes--that are next to be guarded against, and the getting over these is a more difficult achievement than the getting himself regularly const.i.tuted a debtor. The running away of a trusty servant with a hundred pounds, especially if he has forged the cheque, may be the making of a good speculator in bankruptcy, because the loss of a thousand or two may be safely laid to the charge of one who dare not appear to defend himself. The failure and flight of a relation, to whom one gives a hundred pounds to leave him in his books a creditor in a thousand, is also a very good mode of overcoming some of the difficulties of failing; and a clever man, with a sharp foresight, ought to be working a.s.siduously for a length of time in collecting the names of removing families, every one of whom will make a good "bad debtor." These things were not unknown to Mr Thriven; but accident did what the devil was essaying to do for him, or rather, speaking in a more orthodox manner, the great enemy, taking the form of the mighty power yclept Chance, set the neighbouring uninsured premises, belonging to Miss Fortune, the milliner, in a blaze; and a large back warehouse, in which there was scarcely anything save Mr Thriven's ledgers, was burned so effectually, that no person could have told whether they were full of Manchester goods or merely atmospheric air of the ordinary weight--that is, thirty-one grains to a hundred cubic inches.

When a respectable man wishes ardently for a calamity, he arrays his face in comely melancholy, because he has too much respect for public decorum to outrage the decencies of life. Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven accordingly _looked_ the loss he had sustained with a propriety that might have done honour to a widower between whom and a bad wife the cold grave has been shut for the s.p.a.ce of a day, and then set about writing circulars to his creditors, stating that, owing to his having sustained a loss through the burning of a warehouse where he had deposited three thousand pounds' worth of goods, he was under the necessity of stopping payment. No attorney ever made more of letter-writing than Mr Samuel did on that day: in place of three shillings and fourpence for two pages, every word he penned was equal to a pound.

CHAP. II.--THE INSCRIPTION.

"Well," said Mr Samuel Thriven, after he had retired to his house, "this has been hard and hot work; but a man has a satisfaction in doing his duty, and that satisfaction may not be diminished by a bottle of port."

Now the port was as good as Ofleys; and Mr Thriven's thirst was nothing the less for the fire of the previous night, which he had done his utmost not to extinguish, and as he was in good spirits, he, like those people in good health who, to make themselves better, begin to take in a load of Morrison's pills, drew another cork, with that increased sound which belongs peculiarly to second bottles, and in a short time was well through with his potation. "How much, now," said he, as he pretended, in a knowing way, to look for a dead fly in the gla.s.s, which he held up between him and the candle, shutting, in the operation, the left eye, according to the practice of connoisseurs--"how much may I make of this transanction in the way of business?--Let me see--let me see."

And, as he accordingly tried to see, he took down from the mantelpiece an ink-bottle and a pen, and, having no paper within reach--he laid hold of a small book, well known to serious-minded people, and which was no other, in fact, than the "Pilgrim's Progress." But it was all one to Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven, in the middle of his second bottle, what the book was, provided it had a blank leaf at the beginning or end thereof. It might, indeed, have been the "Louping-on-Stone for Heavy-Bottomed Believers," or the "Economy of Human Life," or the "Young Man's Best Companion," or "A New Way to Pay Old Debts;" or any other book or brochure in the wide republic of letters which the wisdom or wit of man has ever produced. It may verily be much doubted if he knew himself what book it was.

"Well, let me see," he said again, as he seized the pen, and held the blank leaf open before him. "The three thousand pounds lost by the fire is a very good item; I can easily make a very good list of very bad debts to the extent of five hundred pounds; I have three thousand of good banknotes in the house; and if I get off with a dividend of five shillings in the pound, which I can pay out of my stock, I may clear by this single transaction, in the way of business, as much as may make me comfortable for the whole period of my natural life."

And having made some monologue of this kind, he began to jot down particulars; laying on the table his pen, occasionally, to take another gla.s.s of the port wine, and resuming his operation again, with that peculiar zest which accompanies a playfulness of the fancy on a subject of darling interest. So he finished his arithmetical operation and dream, just about the time when the wine finished him; fell sound asleep; and awoke about two in the morning, with a headache, and no more recollection of having committed his secret to the blank leaf of the "Pilgrim's Progress," than if he had never written a word thereon at all.

CHAP. III.--THE FACING OF CREDITORS.

Of all men in the world, a bankrupt requires to wear a lugubrious look.

It is proper, too, that he should keep the house, hold out the flag of distress, and pretend that he is an unfortunate mortal, who has been the prey either of adverse fate or designing rogues. Of all this Mr Thriven was well aware as ever man could be; no man could have acted the dyvour better than he, even though he had been upon the pillory, with the bankrupt's yellow cap on his head. Creditors kept calling upon him--some threatening imprisonment, and some trying to cajole him out of a preference; but Mr Samuel was a match for them all.

"It is all very well to look thus concernedly," said Mr Horner, a large creditor; "but will this pay the two hundred pounds you owe me?"

"Would to heaven that it might!" replied Mr Thriven, drawing his hand over his eyes; "but, alas! it is the peculiar feature of the misfortune of bankruptcy, that a man who has been himself ruined--ay, burned out of his stock by a fire that he had no hand in raising, and thus made a beggar of, probably for ever--receives not a single drop of sympathy in return for all the tears he sheds for his unfortunate creditors. Your case concerns me, sir, most of all; and, were it for nothing in the wide world but to make up your loss, I will strive with all my energies, even to the urging of the blood from the ends of my laborious fingers, and to the latest period of a wretched existence."

And Mr Horner being mollified, he was next attacked by Mr Wrench.

"It is but fair to inform you, sir," said the vulture-faced dealer in ginghams, "that I intend to try the effect of the prison upon you."

"That is because the most wicked of nature's elements-fire--has rendered me a beggar," replied Mr Samuel, rubbing again his eyes. "It is just the way of this world; when fate has rendered a man unfortunate, his fellow-creature, man, falls upon him to complete his wretchedness; even like the creatures of the forest, who fall upon the poor stag that has been wounded by the fall from the crags, man is ever cruellest to him who is already down. Yet you, who threaten to put me in jail, are the creditor of all others whose case concerns me most. The feeling for my own loss is nothing to what I suffer for yours; and I will never be satisfied till, by hard labour, I make up to you what I have been the unwilling and unconscious instrument of depriving you of."

And having got quit of Wrench, who declared himself not satisfied, though his threat, as he departed, was more feebly expressed, he was accosted by Mr Bairnsfather.

"Your face, sir, tortures me," said Mr Samuel, turning away his head, "even as one is tortured by the ghost of the friend he has murdered with a b.l.o.o.d.y and relentless hand. All my creditors put together do not furnish me matter of grief equal to your individual case. Do not I know that you are the father of ten children, whom probably I have ruined.

Yet am I not also ruined, and all by a misfortune whose origin is beyond the ken of mortals?"

"You have spoken a melancholy truth, Mr Thriven," replied the father; "but will that truth feed my children?"

"No, sir; but I will feed them, when once discharged under a sequestration," rejoined Mr Thriven. "Your case above all the others, it shall be my care to a.s.suage. Nor night nor day shall see my energies relaxed, till this wrong shall be made right."

"Our present necessities must be relieved," rejoined "the parent."

"Could you not give us a part of our debt, in the meantime."

"And be dishonest in addition to being unfortunate!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr Samuel. "That, sir, is the worst cut of all. No, no. I may be imprisoned, I may be fed on bread and water, I may be denied the benefit of the act of grace, but I shall never be forced to give an undue preference to one creditor over another. You forget, Mr Bairnsfather, that a bankrupt may have a conscience."

After much more of such converse, Mr Bairnsfather retired. And the next who came for the relief which she was not destined to receive, was Widow Mercer.