Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XX Part 16

When the stranger had put on dry raiment and partaken of food, his host ordered liquors to be brought; and when they were placed upon the table, he again addressed his guest, and said--"Here, sir, thou hast claret, port, and sherry--my cellar affords no other wines. Therefore, take thy choice. Be merry and wise; but, above all--be at home. The wayfaring man, and the man whom a storm drives into our house among the mountains, should need no second invitation. With me he is welcome to whatsoever is set before him. Therefore, use no ceremony, but consult thine own taste. For myself I am no wine-drinker. Its coldness agrees not with my stomach, and I prefer the distillation of our northern hills to the juice of the grapes of the sunny south. Therefore, friend, while I brew my punch, help thyself to whatsoever best pleaseth thee."

The stranger again thanked him, and having something of nationality about him, preferred joining him in a bowl prepared from the "mountain dew." They quickly discovered that they were what the world calls "kindred spirits," and, before an hour had pa.s.sed, the stranger told whence he came, what he had been, and what his intentions, in visiting that part of the country, were; but his name, he said, he did not intend to divulge to any one for a time. He might make it known in a few days, should he remain in the neighbourhood, and, perhaps, he never would.

"Well," said his host, "thou hast told me a considerable part of thy history, but thou hast withheld thy name: I will tell thee _all_ mine; but, to be even with thee, thou shalt not know my name either, (provided thou dost not know it already,) beyond that my Christian name is Robert.

"I am (continued he) the first-born of a numerous family, and am twenty-four years older than the youngest of my parents' children. My father was what is called a statesman in this part of the country; by which you are not to understand that he was in any way connected with politics, or had any part in governing the affairs of the nation, but, simply, that he was the possessor of an estate containing some eighty acres, and which had descended to him from his ancestors, unimpaired and unenc.u.mbered. He was a kind husband and an indulgent father; but he was provident as neither. A better-hearted man never breathed. He was generous even to the committing of a crime against his own family; and the misfortune, the error--I might say the curse of his life--was, that he never knew the value of a shilling. It has been said that I possess my father's failing in this respect; but, through his example at all times as a warning before me, I have been enabled to regulate it, and to keep it within controllable limits. You have often heard it said, 'Take care of the shillings, and the pounds will take care of themselves;' but this will not hold good in every instance--as was the case with my father. He appeared to be one of those who did not stop to consider the value between a pound and a shilling. He was naturally a man of a strong intellect and a sound judgment; but his impulses were stronger still. He was a being of impulses. They hurried him away, and he stopped not to consult with calmer reason. With him to feel was to act. He generally saw and repented his error, before another had an opportunity of telling him of it, but not before it was too late; and these self-made discoveries never prevented him from falling into the same errors again.

In the kindliness of his own heart he took _all_ mankind to be good; he believed them to be better than they really were; or rather he believed no man to be a bad man until he had found him to be so. Now, sir, when I say that in this respect my father exercised too much both of faith and charity, thou must not think that I am shut up here like a cynic in this mountain solitude, to inflict upon every pa.s.senger my railings against his race. On the contrary, I have seen much of the world, and experienced much of its buffetings, of its storms, its calms, and its sunshine; I have also seen much of men; and I have seldom, I would almost say, I have never, met with one who had no redeeming quality.

But, sir, I have seen and felt enough, to trust no man far until I have proved him. Yet my father was many times deceived, and he trusted again; and, if not the same parties, others under the same circ.u.mstances. He could not pa.s.s a beggar on the highway without relieving him; and, where he saw or heard that distress or misery existed, it was enough for him--he never inquired into the cause He was bringing up his family, not certainly in affluence, but in respectability; but his unthinking generosity, his open hand, and his open-heartedness, were frequently bringing him into trouble. One instance I will relate; it took place when I was a lad of eighteen. There resided in our neighbourhood an extensive manufacturer, who employed many people, and who was reputed to be very rich. He was also a man of ostentatious piety; and, young as I then was, his dragging forward religion in every conversation, and upon all occasions, led me to doubt whether he really had anything of religion in his heart. There were many, also, who disputed his wealth.

But my father and he were as brothers. We perceived that he had gained an ascendancy over him in all things; and often did my mother remonstrate with him, for being, as she said, led by a stranger, and caution him against what might be the consequences. For I ought to inform you, that the manufacturer had been but a few years in c.u.mberland, and no one knew his previous history. But my father would not hear the whisper of suspicion breathed against him.

"My mother was a native of Dumfriesshire; her ancestors had taken a distinguished part in the wars of the Covenant; and, one evening, I was reading to her from her favourite volume, "_The Lives of the Scots Worthies_," when my father entered, and sat down in a corner of the room in silence, and evidently in deep sorrow. He leaned his brow upon his hand, and his spirit seemed troubled."

"William," said my mother, addressing him, "why do ye sit there? What has happened? There is something putting ye about."

He returned no answer to her inquiries; and approaching him, and taking his hand in hers, she added--"Oh! there is something the matter, or ye would never sit in that way, and have such a look. Are ye weel enough, William--or what is it?"

"Nothing! nothing!" said he. But the very manner in which he said it, and the trembling and quavering of his voice, were equivalent to saying--"Something! something!"

"Oh, dinna say to me, nothing!" said she; "for there is a something, and that is evident, or ye would never sit as ye are doing."

He struck his clenched hands upon his brow, and exclaimed--"Do not torment me!--do not add to my misery!"

"William! William!" cried my mother, "there is something wrong, and why will ye hide it from me? Have I been your wife for twenty years, and ye say I torment ye now, by my anxiety for your weelfare? O William! I am certain I didna deserve this treatment from you, neither did I think that ye were capable of acting in such a manner. What is it that is troubling ye?"

"Nancy," he cried, in the vehemence of despair, "I have ruined you!--I have ruined my family! I have ruined my earthly comfort, my peace of mind, and my own soul!"

"Oh, dinna talk in that way, William!" she cried; "I ken now that something serious has happened; but, oh! whatever it be, let us bear it like Christians, and remember that we are Christians. What is it, William? Ye may confide in your wife now?"

"Nancy," said he, "I never was worthy of such a wife. But neither look on me, nor speak to me with kindness. I have brought you to beggary--I have brought my family to beggary--and I have brought myself to everlasting misery and despair!"

"O my dear!" said she, "dinna talk in such a heathen-like manner. If it be the case that we have lost all that we had, there is no help for it now; but I trust, and am a.s.sured, that ye will not have lost it in such a way as to make your family hang their head among folk, in remembrance of their faither's transaction. I am certain, already, that it is your foolish disposition to be everybody's friend, that has brought this upon ye. A thousand times have I warned ye of what, some day or other, would be the upshot; but ye would take no admonition from me."

"Oh!" added he, "I have misery enough, and more than enough, without your aggravating it by your dagger-drawing reflections."

He sat groaning, throughout the night, with his hand upon his brow; but the real cause of his misery he would not explain, farther than that he had brought himself and his family to ruin. But, with sunrise, the tale of our undoing was on every tongue; and all its particulars, and more than all, were not long in being conveyed to us. For a tale of distress hath the power of taking unto itself wings, and every wind of heaven will echo it, let it come whence it may, and let it go where it may. I beheld, and I heard my mother doomed to receive the doleful _congratulations_ of her friends--the prompt expression of their sympathy for her calamities. It was the first time, and it was the last, that many of them ever felt for human wo. But there are people in this world, who delight to go abroad with the tidings of tribulation on their tongue, and whose chief pleasure is to act the part of Job's comforters, or, I might say, of his messengers.

We learned that my father's bosom friend, the professedly wealthy and pious manufacturer, had been declared a bankrupt, and that my father had become liable on his account to the amount of two thousand pounds. His unguided generosity had previously compelled him to mortgage his property, and this calamity swallowed it up. Never will I forget the calmness, I might call it the philosophy, with which my mother received the tidings.

"I am glad," said she to the individual who first communicated to her the tidings, "that my children will have no cause to blush for their father's misfortunes; and I would rather endure the privations which those misfortunes may bring upon us, than feel the pangs of his conscience who has brought them upon his friend."

My father sank into a state of despondency, from which it required all our efforts to arouse him; and his despondency increased, when it was necessary that the money for which he had become liable, should be paid.

The estate, which had been in the possession of his ancestors for a hundred and fifty years, it became necessary to sell; and when it was sold, not only to the last acre, but even to our household furniture, it did not bring a sum sufficient to discharge the liabilities which he had incurred. Well do I remember the soul-harrowing day on which that sale took place. My father went out into the fields, and, in a small plantation, which before sunset was no longer to be his, sat down and wept. Even my mother, who hitherto had borne our trials with more than mere fort.i.tude, sat down in a corner of the house, upon the humblest chair that was in it, and which she perhaps thought they would not sell, or that it would not be worth their selling, and there, with an infant child at her bosom, she rocked her head in misery, and her secret tears bedewed the cheeks of her babe.

That night, my father, my mother, and their children, sought refuge in a miserable garret in Carlisle. I, as I have already said, was the eldest, and perhaps the change in their circ.u.mstances affected me most deeply, and by me was most keenly felt.

Through yielding to the influence of feelings that were too susceptible, my father beheld his family suddenly plunged into dest.i.tution. It was a sad sight to behold my brothers and my sisters, who had ever been used to plenty, crying around him and around my mother, for bread to eat, when they were without credit, and their last coin was expended. My father did not shew the extreme agony of his spirit before his children, but he could not conceal that it lay like a cankerworm in his breast, preying upon his vitals. His strength withered away like a leaf in autumn; and what went most deeply to my mother's heart was, that he seemed as if ashamed to look his family in the face; and he appeared even as one who had committed a crime which he was anxious to conceal.

My mother, however, was a woman amongst ten thousand. Never did the slightest murmur escape her lips, to upbraid my father for what he had brought upon us; but, on the contrary, she daily, hourly, strove to cheer him, and to render him happy--to make him forget the past. But it was a vain task; misery haunted him by night and by day; there was despair in his very smile, and the teeth of self-reproach entered his soul. He was a man who had received more than what is called a common education; and a gentleman who had been his schoolfellow, and known him from his childhood, and who resided much abroad, appointed him to be his land steward. The emoluments of the office were not great, but they were sufficient to keep his family from want.

Under the circ.u.mstances in which they were now placed, I was too old to remain longer as a burden upon my parents. I therefore bade them a fond, a heart-rending farewell; and with less than four pounds in my pocket, took my pa.s.sage from Whitehaven to Liverpool, from whence I was to proceed by land to London. Liverpool was then only beginning to emerge into its present commercial magnitude; and I carried with me letters to two merchants there, the one residing in Poole Lane, the other in Dale Street. Both received me civilly, and both asked me _what I could do?_ It was a question which I believe had never occurred to me before, nor even to my father, up to the period of my shaking hands with him and bidding him farewell. I hesitated for a few seconds, and I believe that upon both occasions I stammered out the word--"_anything_."

"You can do _anything_, can you?" said the first merchant, sarcastically; "then you are a great deal too clever for me; and I suspect the situation of a servant of _all work_ will suit you better than that of a clerk in a counting-house. Pray, are you acquainted with keeping books?"

I replied that I was not.

"Then," added he, "though you can do everything, that is one thing which I find you cannot do; and as it is the only thing that would be of any service to me, I shall not be able to avail myself of your otherwise universal attainments."

The cold, the sarcastic manner of this gentleman, made my very blood to freeze within my veins; a cold shivering (I might call it the mantle of despair) came over me, and my heart failed within me. I, however, proceeded to Dale Street, and delivered my letter to the other gentleman. He, as I have already intimated to you, inquired at me what I could do. And to him, also, my unfortunate answer was "_anything_." He smiled, but there was a kindness in his smile, and he good-humouredly asked me what I meant by anything. I was as much at a loss to answer him, as I had been to answer the merchant I had left.

"Have you ever been in a merchant's office?" he inquired, "or had any practice as an accountant?"

"No," I replied.

"Then," added he, "I fear it will be difficult to find anything in Liverpool to answer your expectations, and I would not recommend you to waste time in it. If I could have promoted your views, I would have done so most cheerfully; but, as I cannot, here are three guineas--(for from the manner in which my friend speaks of you in his letter I believe you to be a deserving youth)--they will help you onward in your journey, and in London you will meet with many chances of obtaining a situation, that you cannot find in Liverpool."

I burst into tears as he spoke, and put the money in my hands. The kindness of the one merchant had affected me more than the chilling irony of the other. The one roused my indignation, the other melted my heart. But I was indebted to both; for both had given me a lesson of what the world was, and both had rendered me more sensible of the dependence and hopelessness of my situation.

In order to husband my resources, I proceeded to London on foot, and when I arrived there, I found myself to be like a bird in a wilderness, or a helmless vessel on a dark sea. The magnitude of the city, its busy thousands, its groaning warehouses, where the treasures and luxuries of every corner of the globe are piled together, the splendour of its shops, the magnificence of its squares, and the lordly equipages which glittered in the midst of them, moved me not. They scarcely excited my observation. My soul was filled with thoughts of my own prospects; and I wandered, dreaming, from street to street, moving at a pace as though I had been sauntering by the side of one of my native lakes, and I appeared as the only individual in the great city who had no aim, and no urgent business which required me to move rapidly, as others did. I delivered all the letters that I brought with me, and I was again asked, as I had been in Liverpool--_what I could do?_ But I did not, as I did there, reply, _anything_. I, however, was puzzled how to answer the question. The truth was, I was utterly ignorant of business. I had been brought up amongst those mountains, with merely a knowledge that there was such a thing. In fact, my ideas of it hardly extended beyond giving out goods with one hand, and receiving money for them in the other. The word _commerce_ was to me as a phrase in a dead language. I had fancied to myself that the sea was a great lake, over the whole expanse of which I should be able to gaze at once, and see the four quarters of the globe around it: and my ideas of what ships were, were gathered from the boats which I had seen upon Keswick. On the day on which I left my parents' roof, I heard my old schoolmaster console them with the a.s.surance, that "there was no fear of me, for _I was fit for anything_."

While such testimony, from his lips, comforted them, it cheered me also, and it caused me to look upon myself as a youth of high promise, and of yet higher expectations. But now, when I was left to myself, with all my talents and acquirements ready to be disposed of in any market, I found that my general qualifications, my fitness for anything, amounted to being qualified for nothing, when reduced to particulars. Days, weeks, months pa.s.sed away, and I was still a wanderer upon the streets of the modern Babylon.

At length, when ready to lie down and die from hunger and from hopelessness, I obtained a situation as copying-clerk to a solicitor, at a salary of ten shillings a-week. In such a city as London, and where it was necessary to keep up a respectable appearance, this sum might be considered as inadequate to my wants. But it was not so. During the first ten weeks, I transmitted two pounds to my parents, to a.s.sist them.

I always kept the proverb before my memory, that "a penny hained is a penny gained;" and I never took one from my pocket, until I had considered whether or not it was absolutely necessary to spend it. My food was of the simplest kind; and finding that I could not afford the expense of an eating-house, it consisted of a half-quartern loaf in the twenty-four hours, the one half of which was eaten in the morning; the other in the evening. I "_kitchened_" my loaf, as they say in Scotland, with a pennyworth of b.u.t.ter, and occasionally with lettuce or a few radishes in their season; and the beverage with which I regaled myself, after my meals, was a gla.s.s of water from the nearest pump.

Upon this diet I became stouter, and was more healthy for the time, than ever I had been before; though I believe I have suffered for it since.

It was my duty to lock up the office (or chambers, as they were called) at night, and to open them in the morning. I had not been many days in my situation, when the thought struck me, that, by locking myself within the chambers at night, instead of locking myself out, I might save the expense of a lodging. Again I said to myself that "a penny hained was a penny gained," and four chairs in the chambers became my couch, while the money which I would have given for a lodging was transmitted to my parents.

I had not been many months in this situation, when it was my fortune to render what he considered a service to a rich merchant in the city, who was a client of my employers. He made inquiry at me respecting the amount of my salary, and concerning my home and relatives. I found that he was from Westmoreland, and he offered me a situation in his counting-house, with a salary of eighty pounds a-year. My heart sprang in joy and in grat.i.tude to my throat at his proposal. I seized his hand as though he had been my brother. I pressed it to my breast. A tear ran down my cheek and fell upon it. Even while I held his hand, I fancied to myself, that I beheld my parents and their children again sitting beneath the sunshine of independence, and blessing their first-born, who was "fit for anything."

I entered upon my new situation, and upon my income of eighty pounds a-year, in a few days, and received a quarter's salary in advance. I well knew that my father was still oppressed by liabilities, which he was endeavouring to discharge out of forty pounds a-year, which he received for his stewardship. I knew, and I felt also, that let a son do for a parent what he will, he can never repay a parent's love and a parent's cares. Who could repay a mother for her unceasing and anxious watchings over us in the helplessness of infancy, or a father, in providing for all our wants, in teaching us to know good from evil? I fancied that thirty pounds a-year was enough and more than enough for all my wants, and I dwelt with fondness on the thought of remitting them fifty pounds out of my annual salary. Previous to entering the counting-house of the merchant, my delight at the pleasing antic.i.p.ations before me robbed me of sleep, and for the first time caused me to feel the hardness of my bed upon the chairs of the solicitor's chambers.

However, with a heart overflowing with joy, I entered upon my mercantile avocations. Then, as I bustled along the streets, I felt within my heart as though in all London there was none greater than I; I was independent as the Lord Mayor--as happy as his Majesty. But there was one thing, a small matter, which I forgot--it was the proverb which I have twice quoted already, that "a penny hained is a penny gained." On leaving my occupation as a copying-clerk, I almost unconsciously left also my cheap and humble diet. My fellow-clerks in the merchant's counting-house dined every day at a chop-house in Milk Street, and they requested me to join them. I had no longer an opportunity of eating my half-loaf in secret, and I accompanied them. Each of us had generally a chop, for which we paid eight-pence; a fried sole, for which we were charged a shilling; with a gla.s.s of porter during dinner, and a "go" of gin, as it was called, and sometimes _two_, afterwards. I did not wish to be singular, neither did I see how I could avoid doing as others did; and, moreover, I reasoned that, with eighty pounds a-year, I was justified in living comfortably. But this was not all. My a.s.sociates were in the habit of having their crust and cheese, and their gla.s.s of porter, in the forenoons; and I had to join them in this also. And this, too, ran away with pence which might have been saved. But I had not been long amongst them, when I found that they had also evening clubs, where they met to enjoy a pipe and a gla.s.s, and hear the news of the day. Unless I joined one of these clubs, I found that I would be considered as--n.o.body. I accompanied a comrade to one of them, and as the gla.s.s, the song, and the merry jest went round, I was as a person ushered into a new world, delighted with all I saw. I became a nightly attender of the club; and although I never indulged to excess, I had completely forgotten the proverb which enabled me to a.s.sist my parents when I had but ten shillings a-week; and therefore it forgot me.

My landlady also informed me, that it was the rule of her establishment for her lodgers to breakfast in the house, and with this proposal, also, I deemed it necessary to comply. I had begun to yield to circ.u.mstances, and when, in such a case, the head is once bent, the whole body imperceptibly becomes prostrate.

But twelve months pa.s.sed away, and instead of fifty pounds being sent to my parents, I found my entire eighty not only expended, but that I was ten pounds in debt. I called myself a fool, a madman, and many other names; for conscience burned within my bosom, and the glow of shame upon my cheek. But it was fruitless; a habit had been formed, and that habit was my master. I had involuntarily become its slave, and wanted resolution to become its master.

On entering upon my second year, my employer, who still retained a favourable opinion of me, increased my salary to a hundred a-year. But even when it had expired, instead of having a.s.sisted my parents, I still found myself in debt. I had left my twenty pounds of additional salary to take care of themselves, and at the same time I had forgotten to take care not only of the shillings which composed them, but of the pence which made up my whole income. I forgot that a hundred pounds quickly disappears in a free hand, and leaves its owner wondering whither it has gone. At this period, the letters which I received from my parents sometimes indirectly hinted at the privations which they were enduring; but they never requested, or seemed to expect a.s.sistance from me. The consciousness of their circ.u.mstances, however, stung me to the soul; but it did not reclaim me, or turn me from the dark sea of thoughtless expenditure on which I had embarked. I experienced that a slight thread is sufficient to lead a man to temptation, but it requireth a strong cord and a strong hand to drag him again to repentance.

I seldom laid my head upon my pillow but I resolved that, on the following day, I would reform my course of life, and again practise economy. But, alas! I "resolved and re-resolved," and lived the same. At this period, however, my own conscience was my only accuser and tormentor. For although in a country town my habit of spending every evening with a club, at a tavern, might have been registered against me as a vice, in London it did not so militate, and was neither noted nor regarded. I was punctual in my attendance at the counting-house--always clean, and rather particular in my person; (and I must say, that I do not know a town on the face of the habitable globe, where the certificate of dandyism, or of something approaching to it, will be of greater service to a young man than in London. It has struck me a hundred times, that the two chief recommendations for obtaining a situation there, are _dress_ and _address_.) I was not exactly what could be called a good-natured person, but there was a free and easy something about my disposition, which rendered me a favourite with my fellow-clerks. I also was pleased with their society, and it was seldom that I could resist the temptation of accompanying them wheresoever they went when solicited, and which was in general to all their parties of pleasure. When I said to myself, in the language of Burns--"Come, go to, I will be wise," and began to practise retrenchment in one item of my expenditure, I heedlessly plunged into other sources equally extravagant. For my old maxim, which had proved a friend to me on my first coming to London, was completely forgotten; and I neither thought of saving a penny nor taking care of a shilling. Indeed, so far had I forgotten these maxims, that on many occasions I reasoned with myself, saying--"Oh, it is _only_ a shilling or two--there is nothing in that. I will go, or I will do it." But I forgot the sum to which that _only_, repeated three hundred and odd times in the year, amounted. In short, I had fallen into a habit which would have prevented me, had my salary been a thousand a-year, from being either richer or happier than I was when I had but ten shillings a-week.

I, however, retained the good opinion of my employer; and in the third year of my engagement with him, I was sent as supercargo with a vessel to South America. It was to be a trading voyage, and the appointment conferred upon me was an honour which caused me to be envied by the other clerks in the counting-house. Some of my seniors sneered at my inexperience, and said I would bring home a "precious cargo, and a profitable account of my transactions." Those who were nearer my own age saw nothing in me that I should have been chosen by our employer, and they agreed that he had preferred me, merely because I was a Border man like himself. In truth, I wondered at his choice myself; for I was conscious of but few qualifications for the task imposed on me, although, three years before, I was thought, and considered myself--"fit for anything."

It was understood that our voyage would occupy between two and three years; and in order that I might provide myself with everything necessary for my lengthened travels on the sea, and my dealings on sh.o.r.e, my employer placed in my hands two hundred and fifty pounds, independent of letters of credit to foreign merchants, in various ports, in which I was to transact business.

But, on the very day on which I received the two hundred and fifty pounds, and about five days before I was to leave England, I received a letter from my father, to the following import:--

"MY DEAR SON,--It pains me to be the bearer to you of evil tidings, and the more so, as I know that they can only grieve you, and that it is not in your power to remove their cause.

Yet it is meet that you should know of them. You knew, and felt the the effects of the misfortunes which, a few years ago, overwhelmed me; but you knew not their extent. They still weigh me to the earth--they blast my prospects, and render powerless my energies. Yet there is no one whom I can accuse for my misfortunes; they, and the distresses of my family, are the work of my own hands. To-morrow I will be the inmate of a prison, for a debt of two hundred pounds, which still hangs over me. Your poor mother, and your brothers and sisters, will be left with no one to provide for them. Think of them, my dear son, and, if it be in your power, a.s.sist them."