crack o' my thoom for you, or your Magazin, or your Buchanan-Lodge, were you and they worth ten thousand million times mair than what you ever will be, as lang's your name's Christopher North! NORTH. James-you are a pretty fellow. Nothing will satisfy you, it seems, but to insult most grossly the old man whom you have first drowned in his sleep, then hanged, and, but for my guardian angel, Ambrose, would have guillo tined! SHEPHERD. What! and you were pretendin' to be asleep a' the while o' the pheeloso phical experiments! What a horrid heepocrit! You're really no fit company for plain, simple, honest folk like the like o' me-but as we've been baith to blame, especially you, who began it a' by shammin' sleep, let's shake hauns— and say nae mair about it. Do ye ken I'm desperate hungry-and no a little thrusty-(Re-enter Mr AMBROSE, in trim apparel and downcast eyes-with a board of oysters.) NORTH. Bless you, James! You wheel me round in my chair to the table with quite a filial touch. Ay, my dear boy, take a pull at the porter, for you are in a violent perspiration. Nathing like draft! SHEPHERD. NORTH. Mr Ambrose, confine the Russian General to his chamber-and see that you keep him in fresh train-oil. [Exit MR AMBROSE, smiling through his tears. James, I shrewdly suspect Mr NORTH. Ambrose is up to our high jinks. SHEPHERD. I really begin to jalouse he is. He was sair frichten'd at first-but I thocht I heard him gi'en a bit grunt o' a lauch, a sort o' subpress'd nicher, ahint the door, to the flunkies in the trance, wha had a' flocked thegither in a croud at the cry o' Fire and Murder. Hech, sirs! but the month o' September's the month after my ain heart-and worth ony ither twa in the year-comin' upon you, as it does, after May, June, July, and August, wi' its R and its Eisters -na, that brodd beats a-ilka shell as wide's my loof-ilka fish like a shotstar-and the tottle o' the whole swimming in its ain sawt-sea liccor, aneuch to create an appeteet in the palate o' yon Atomy swingin' in Dr Munro's class in the College by himsell during the lang vacation-Puir fallow! NORTH. Dear to me, James, September, because of the harvest moon SHEPHERD. Haud your tongue, ye heepocrit.-The harvest moon, indeed! Did ye ever aince see her horns, or her lugs, or her een, or her mou', or her chin, or her nose, or her Toot-nsamble, as the French say, during a' that September you passed wi' us at Mount-Benger the year afore last, when wee Jamie, you ken, had the mizzles? NORTH. Why, James, there was a perpetual mist SHEPHERD. Frae the toddy jug. Ye wad aye drink it het-and 'deed I agree wi' you in detestin' a blash o' cauld speerits and water wi' broon sugar-aneuch to gar you gru, scunner, and bock-Ye wad aye drink it het, and frae gloamin' till midnicht assuredly there was a mist, but hoo could you possibly see the moon, ye auld sinner, through the mist, like ane o' Ossian's ghosts, when regularly at sax o'clock you axed me to ripe the ribs, and shut the shutters-and NORTH. I rung the bell for that bonnie lassie, the "lass with the gowden hair," to come with her brush which she brandished so prettily, and sweep in the ashes SHEPHERD. I ca'd you an auld sinner-and an auld sinner ye arc, my maist excellent sir, though I gladly alloo there's no a better man, for a' that, 'mang the eight hundred millions inhabiting the earth. NORTH. Sits still so trigly, James, the silken snood of my Lily of the Lea? Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen, But it was na to meet Duneira's men. SHEPHERD. The last time I saw your Lily o' the Lea, sir, she was sittin on a stane at the cheek o' the door, wi' a mutch ower her tawty hair, a geyan dirty face, bauchles on, and sooklin' twuns. NORTH. Suckling twins! O Jupiter and Leda! Castor and Pollux ! SHEPHERD. Ay, just sooklin' twuns. But what's there in that to gar you turn up the whites o' your een? Tibbie's married. NORTH. And I devoutly trust to a man worthy of her beauty, her virtue, her innocence-her SHEPHERD. The tailor carried her aff frae them a'-The flyin' tailor o' Ettrick, sir— him that can do fifteen yards, at hap, step, and loup, back and forward on level grun'-stood second ae year in the ring at Carlisle-can put the stane within a foot o' Jedburgh Bell himsell, and fling the hammer neist best ower a' the Border to Geordy Scougal o' Innerleithen. NORTH. Another phantom of my imagination has melted, like a dew-drop from the earth. To a tailor! SHEPHERD. Another phantom o' my imagination has melted, like a dew-drop frae the earth-and a sappier eister never play'd plump intil a human stamack. NORTH. James, that is a sacrilegious parody on the expression of one of the finest feelings that breathes a sadness over our common humanity. Eat your oysters after your own fashion-but SHEPHERD. O, sir! I wonder to see you, at your time o' life, lamentin' that a bit fernytickled kintra lassie, that used to gang atween barn and byre wi' worsted huggers on, and a jacket o' striped mankey, should hae sae far improved her condition within the year, as to be a sonsie gudewife, double the size she used to be her wee bit prim rosy mouth, aince sae like a bud that refused to open out even in the sunshine, noo aye wide open as if wishing to catch flees-and her voice, formerly sae laigh and loun, now loud and fierce as ony ither wife and mither's, scaulding the servant lass, the doug, or a tramper. NORTH. True-James-as Wordsworth says, "Such ebb and flow must ever be, Then wherefore should we mourn ?" As Wordsworth says-whroo!-Nae occasion for quoting ony body but oursells. We twa ken as muckle-and mair too, o' human nature, in its various phawses, than a' the Pond Poets pitten thegither. O man! Mr North, but my heart has often and often amaist dee'd within me, to think that a' we love and long for, pine to possess, and burn to enjoy-a' that passion maddens for on the midnicht pillow, in the desert day-dream-a' that the yearning sowl would fain expand itself to embrace within the rainbow circle o' its holiest and maist heavenly affections-a' that speeritualeezes our human nature, till our very dust-formed bodies seem o' the essence o' licht, or flowers, or music, something no terrestrial, but akin to the elements o' our native regions on the blue cloudless lift NORTH. You touch a chord, James-You do indeed—you touch a chord— SHEPHERD. Should a' be delusion-a glamour flung ower us by a celestial but deceitful spirit-felt and seen, as soon as it is broken and dissolved, to have been a fiction, a falsehood, a lie-a soft, sweet, bright, balmy, triumphant and glorious lie, in place of which nature offers us in mockery, during a' the rest o' our lives, the puir, paltry, pitiful, faded, fushionless, cauld-rifed, and chittering substitute-Truth. O, sir! waes me, that by stripping a' creation, fauld after fauld, o' gay, glitterin', gorgeous and glorious apparellin', you are sure at last to come to the hard naked Truth Hamlet has it, James NORTH. "a foul congregation of vapours"— SHEPHERD. Or say rather, like a body carelessly or purposely pressin' a full-blawn or budding rose atween his finger and his thoomb, scalin' leaf after leaf, till what hae you in your hand at last but the bare heart o' the flower, and you look down amang your feet in vain for the scattered and dissipated bloom that a moment afore thrust its bold beauty into the eyes of the sun, and seemed o' its ain single self to be scenting the haill wilderness, then sweet wi' its grassy braes, as if the heavens had hung over mountains o' bloomin' heather steeped in morning dew evaporating in mist-wreaths exhaled from earth to heaven in morning sacrifice! And Tibbie has twins! NORTH. SHEPHERD. 'Deed has she, sir. Her poetry is now prose. NORTH. Gone all the light lyrical measures! all the sweet pauses transposed. The numerous verse of her virgin being shorn of all its rhymes so musical-a thousand tunes, each in its specific sweetness murmuring of a separate soul, blended indistinguishably into one monotony-and marriage, marriage, mar riage is the deadening word! SHEPHERD. That's treason, sir-treason against natur. Is the young lintie, I would ask, flutterin' amang the broom, or balancin' itsell in sportive happiness on ane o' the yellow jewels, half sae bonny as the same lintie sittin' in its nest within a briar-bush, wi' its head lying sae meek and lovingly on the rim o' the moss, and a' its breast yearning wi' the still deep instinctive bliss o' maternal affection-or fleeing ten times in a minute frae briar-bush to bracken-brae, and frae bracken-brae to briar-bush, wi' insects, and worms, and caterpillars, and speeders, in her neb, to satisfy the hunger o' a nest a' agape wi' yellowthroated young anes, and then settlin' hersell down again, as saftly as if she were naething but feathers, aboon her brood in that cozie bield, although but a bit sillie burdie, happy as ony angel in the heaven o' heavens? NORTH. A sweet image, James; an image that beams the light of Poetry on the Prose-ground of human life! But, alas! that thin golden ring lays a heavy weight on the hand that wears it-The finger it seriously and somewhat sadly decks, never again, with so lightsome touch, braids the hair above the fair forehead,-the gay, gladsome, tripping, dancing, and singing maiden soon changes into the staid, calm, douce, almost melancholy matron, whose tears are then sincerer than her smiles-with whom Joy seems but a transient visitor,-Grief a constant guest. SHEPHERD. And this warld, ye ken, sir, and nane kens better, was made for Grief as weel as for Joy. Grief and Joy, unlike as they appear in face and figure, are nevertheless sisters,-and by fate and destiny, their verra lives depend on ane and the same eternal law. Were Grief banished frae this life, Joy would soon dwine awa into the resemblance o' her departed Soror-aye, her face would soon be whiter and mair woe-begone, and they would soon be buried, side by side, in ae grave. NORTH. Shake hands, my dear James. I am in bad spirits to-night, and love to listen to your benign philosophy. SHEPHERD, I hae nae philosophy, my dear Mr North; but I howp I hae some religion. If I had not, the banes o' my father and my mother would not lie at rest in Yarrow kirk-yard. Philosophy, I hae nae doubt, is an excellent, a capital thing, -and I'm sure Poetry is sae,-but the ane is but the moon, which, bricht and bonny though she be, is often sairly benichted, and at the best shines by a reflected licht, the ither is like the stars-no useless in their beauty-God forbid I ever should think sic a stupid thocht-but still, after a', no just sae usefu' perhaps, in the ordinair sense o' utility, as they are pleasant and delichtfu to the shepherd on the hills;-but the last, that is, Religion, she, sir, is like the sun, that gladdens heaven and earth, gars a' things grow, baith for the profit and the pleasure o' man, and convinces us, alike in gloom and glory, that the mortal senses hold a mysterious communion with the immortal soul; that "we are greater than we seem ;"-may I be pardoned for even venturing to say, even here-and why not-that "the things which are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal" NORTH. You may say it, James, without reproach here, over the social board-there, by yourself, in the wilderness-anywhere, by day or by night, on the world of green earth or foamy waters, on the steadfast brae or reeling deck, in calm or in storm, in joy or in sorrow, in life and in death. Shame on the coward heart that fears to utter what itself prompts! Shame on the coward ear that fears to hear what the heart dictates, in any time or any place, where the mood is blameless,-for mirth is still in sympathy with melancholy, and what, oh! what thoughts profound circle round the wine-cup, when it flows to the memory of one beloved of yore,-one who left us in the sunshine of youth, and seems to reappear like a veiled shadow across the light of the festal fire-and then in a moment away into oblivion ! SHEPHERD. Then you see, sir, the place o' the bonnie young distractin' and deceitfu' creatures-for, wi' a' their innocence-a favourite word wi' you, sir-they are deceitfu'-their places, I say, are supplied by anither flock o' flowers-just like annuals after annuals-as fair and as fragrant as theirsells-and thus, amid the perpetual decay and the perpetual renovation, there is naething worth weeping for-except, indeed, when twa silly poets like us, and ye are a poet, sir, though ye dinna write verses,-foregather ower a brodd and a bowl, and gie vent, the ane or the ither o' us, it's the turnin' o' a straw which, to mournfu' heart-sinkings that maun hae an inkling o' pleasure in them, or else they would be at aince repressed-and seek in a sort of diseased or distemper'd wilfulness, just as you hae been doing the noo-to look on the world in a licht that it was never intended we should look on it, and to people it wi' sorrowfu' spectres, instead o' various kinds o' gude flesh-and-blood folk, a' gude in their degree, in their place, and in their time, and if that be true, is na a' moping contrar to richt reason, and them that's Penserosos for the maist pairt-Sumphs? NORTH. "Melancholy and gentlemanlike," you know, James. SHEPHERD. It's a wicked ack, sir, in a warld like ours, to pretend to sham melancholy; and if a man canna contrive, by ony other means, to look like a gentleman, he had far better keep on lookin' like a bagman. Besides being wicked, it s dangerous; for by pretending to be melancholy, in desperation o' being thought a gentleman by ony other mair natural contrivances and endowments, a man comes to get himsell universally despised-contempt kills credit-then follows bankruptcy-and the upshot o' the whole is suicide-jail-or America. NORTH. But to be rational, and as far as possible from the poetical and the pathetic, I often shudder, James, in solitude, to think of the change, generally slow but often sudden, from the happiness of maidenhood, to the misery of the wife, especially in many of the classes of the lower orders of society. I use advisedly the words-happiness and misery. James, the whole world groans.-I hear it groaning-though no Fine-Ear to the doleful. SHEPHERD. There's owre muckle truth in what you say, Mr North-and were we to think too intently on the dark side o' the picture, or rather on the mony great big black blotches disfigurin' the brichtest pairts o' the fairest side o' the mar ried life o' the puir, and ignorant, and depraved, weel might we shut them in despair, and weep for the maist o' woman born! Meesery never comes to a head but in marriage. Yet, oh! how different might it be, without supposing human natur' to be altogether changed, but only what it was intended to be, in spite o' original sin and corruption ! NORTH. How many hundreds of thousands of harsh husbands-nay, cruel-savage -fierce-drunken-furious—insane-murderous! What horrid oaths heard at the humble ingle-and, worse than oaths, blows and shrieks-and the preg nant mother of terrified children, all crouching in a corner, on her knees beseeching the demoniacal homicide not to kick to death the babe yet unbornfor its sake to remember the days of their courtship-and Whisht-whisht-whisht! SHEPHERD. NORTH. Drunkenness is the cause of nine-tenths of the grief and guilt that aggravate the inevitable distresses of the poor. Dry up that horrid thirst, and the hearts of the wretched would sing aloud for joy. In their sober senses, it seldom happens that men, in a Christian country, are such savages. But all cursed passions latent in the heart, and, seemingly at least, dead, or nonexistent, while that heart beats healthily in sober industry, leap up fierce and fullgrown in the power of drunkenness, making the man at once a maniac, or rather at once converting him into a fiend. SHEPHERD. There's nae cure for that but edication-edicatin' o' the people-clear the head and you strengthen the heart-gie thoughts, and feelings follow-I agree wi' Socrates in thinking a' vice ignorance, and a' virtue knowledge, takin' a' the four words in the highest sense o' which they are cawpable. Then they are baith επτα πτελεοντα και φωνοντα συνέτοισι. NORTH. Yet I sometimes feel myself almost compelled to agree with the present Archbishop of Canterbury, that there is something necessarily and essentially immoral and irreligious in the cultivation of the intellect Na-na-na-that can never be SHEPHERD. NORTH. His lordship means-apart from-divorced from the cultivation of those feelings and principles-those great natural instincts-by which man is a moral and religious being. The tendency of intellect not only left to itself, but instructed solely in its own knowledge, is averse, his Lordship holds, from the contemplation and the love of more holy and higher things-and SHEPHERD. Ay, there he's richt. I perfectly agree wi' his Lordship there-and I wish he ken't it for aiblins I'm better acquainted, practically acquainted, I mean, than ony Archbishop's likely to be-nae disparagement to the Episcopawlian church-wi' the virtues and vices, the sins, sorrows, and sufferings, the noble thochts, and feelin's, and acks, the every-day wark-life, the Sabbath-day rest-life, o' the Puir! The first often painfu', laborious, nay, slavish, and wi' but ordinar' satisfactions belongin' to our lower natur; the last, in Scotland at least, pleasant, cawm, and elevated in blisfu' release, up to a mood that, alike in the auld grey-headed grandfather, and his bit bonnie wee oe walking haun' in haun' we him to the kirk, does indeed deserve the name o' religion, if sic a thing as religion be ony where to be found atween heaven and earth. NORTH. You speak like yourself, my dear James. In their present zeal for intellectual education, many good men forget SHEPHERD. Then they should be reminded, that a' the knowledge which the puir-I VOL. XXIV. 3 U |
