NORTH. God bless you, James. I feel the Sabbath silence of a thousand hills descending upon my soul and senses. Never is your genius more delightful, my dear Shepherd, than when SHEPHERD. You're a real gude, pious auld man, Mr North, wi' a' the unaccountable perversities o' your natur. Or, haply, when after a wee bit cheerfu' and awaukening patter o' a hasty simmer shower on the windows lookin' to the stormy airt, the sun bursts out in sudden glory, and fills the humble tabernacle wi' a licht, that is felt to be gracious as the smile o' the all-seeing God! NORTH. Happy Scotland-thrice happy in thy most simple Sabbath-service, long ago purchased and secured by blood-now held by the tenure of now and then a few contrite tears! SHEPHERD. The bonnie lasses-a' dressed like verra leddies, and yet, at the same time, for a' that, likewise just like themsells; and wha wadna wish to see them arrayed on the Sabbath like the lilies o' the field? Their sweethearts, perhaps, or them no quite their sweethearts yet, helpin' them to turn ower the leaves o' their Bibles at every reference to Scripture, till the haill kirk rustles wi' religion. NORTH. Even like the very sycamore shading the porch, when the only breeze in all the air visits for a minute its sacred umbrage! SHEPHERD. Just sae, sir; gie me your haun'. Let me fill your glass. This jug's sweeter nor usual-and what's strong shud aye be sweet. Every here and there an auld grey head o' grandfather or great-grandfather, wi' an aspect amaist stern in its thouchtfulness, fixed wi' dim yet searchin' een on the Expounder o' the Word-and matrons, wi' sweet serious faces, fair still, though time has touched them, in the beauty o' holiness-and young wives sae douce, but no sae douncast, wha in early spring, and yet 'tis simmer, were maidens, and as they walked amang the braes pu'd the primroses for their snooded hair-and, sprinkled up and down the pews, gowden-headed weans that at school are yet in the Larger or Shorter Catechism, some o' them listenin' to the discourse like auld people, some of them doin' a' they can to listen; some o' them, aiblins, when their pawrents are no lookin', lauchin' to ane auither wi' silent jokes o' their ain, scarcely understood by themsells, and passin' awa aff their faces in transitory smiles, like dewy sunbeams glintin' frae the harebells-or wearied wi' their walk, and overpowered by the slumberous hush o' the place o' worship, leanin' their heads on the shouther of an elder sister, wha stirs not lest she disturb them,-heaven forgive and bless the innocents-fast, fast, and sound, sound asleep! NORTH. The" contrived Eemage," James, as you called him, with his eye-glass, stiffstarched stock, and poll of ringlets, has disappeared into his bandbox-on with the lid upon him-and let him rest within the pasteboard. SHEPHERD. When me and you begins a twa-handed crack, there's nae kennin' whare the association o' ideas-there's a pheelosophic word for you-will carry us—and oh, sir! it's pleasant to embark in our fairy pinnace, me at the oars, and you at the helm, and wi' wind and tide, to drap awa down the banks, sometimes laigh without being flat, sometimes just tremblin' into knowes, and sometimes heavin' into hills-noo a bit solitary birk-tree dancin' to the din o' a waterfa' -noo a coppice, a' that remains o' an auld decayed forest-noo a wood, a hundred years o' age, in the prime o' life-noo a tower, a castle, an abbey-to say naething o' the glintin' steeples o' kirks and the lumms o' dwallin' houses smokin' in the clear air, or, in the heat o' simmer, lookin' as if they were only ornaments to the thatch-roofs variegated by time wi' a' the colours o' the rainbow. NORTH. I feel now, James, in my heart's core, the difference between " yawmerin' and moraleezin'." SHEPHERD. A man may let his sowl sink down to the verra bottom o' the black pit o' mental despair, sir, and yet no deserve the name o' a yawmerer. Ay, James, it was in no playful mood, but in an agony, that some haunted spirit first strove to laugh the phantoms to scorn, by naming them blue devils. SHEPHERD. Mercy on us! when a man thinks wha made him, and for what end, and then thinks what his life at the verra best has been, the only wonder is that he does na gang mad. Wha that breathes the breath o' life, when standin' a' by himsell in the desert, has na reason to ca' upon the rocks to cover him, to hide him in the bowels o' the earth frae the beautiful, benign, and gracious blue sky? Every day is a day o' judgment. I feel that, sir, every nicht I kneel down to say my prayers, and hear wee Jamie breathin' in the bed at the foot o' our ain, but then again, bairns and ither blessings are gien us to hinder our souls frae swarfin' within us at the thocht o' our ain wickedness-and since he who made us and provides for us, hung our planet by the golden chain o' beauty round the sun, and gied us senses mirroring creation, and spirits to rejoice in the mysterious reflection, surely, surely, silly and sinfu' though we all are, we may venture at times to lift up a humble but happy ee to the "glorious firmament on high," being, fallen as we are from our high estate, but a little lower-so we are truly tauld-than the angels. NORTH. We are getting perhaps somewhat more serious, James, than is altogether suitable to SHEPHERD.. Na, sir. This is Saturday nicht-and cheerfu' as Saturday nicht ever is to every son o' dear auld Scotland,-mair especially since sweet Robin hallowed it by that deathless strain-it aye, somehow or ither, seems wi' me to partake o' the character o' the comin' Sabbath. NORTH. I have felt that sentiment, my dear James, through all the chances and changes of my chequered life ever since boyhood. Even then, when night came unawares upon us at our play, with her one large clear moon and her thousand twinkling stars, at the quick close of the happiest of all holidaysthe Saturday-a sudden hush used to still the beatings of my wild heart-and whether with my playmates, or slipping away by myself, I used to return from the brae or the glen to the Manse, with a divine melancholy in my mind, ever and anon eying with a delight allied to awe and wonder, the heavenly host marshalling themselves, every minute, in vaster multitudes all over the glo rious firmament. SHEPHERD. Do you ken, Mr North, that every thocht, every feeling, every image, every description, that it is possible for a poet to pour out frae within the sanctuary o' his spirit, seems to be brought frae a hidden store, tha twas gathered, and girnell'd, and heaped up by himsell unconsciously during the heavenly era o' early life? NORTH. True, James, true. O call not the little laddie idle that is strolling by some trotting burn's meander, all in aimless joy by his happy self-or angling, perhaps, as if angling were the sole end of life, and all the world a world of clear running waters-or bird-nesting by bank and brae, and hedgerow and forestside, with more imaginative passion than ever impelled men of old to voyage to golden lands or stringing blaeberries on a thread, far in the bosom of woods, where sometimes to his quaking heart and his startled eyes, the stems of the aged mossy trees seemed to glimmer like ghosts, and then in a sudden gust of the young emotion of beauty, that small wild fruitage blushed with deeper and deeper purple, as if indeed and verily gathered in Paradise-or pulling up by the roots, that the sky-blue flowers might not droop their dewy clusters, when gently the stalk should be replanted in the rich mould of the nook of the gar den, beside the murmuring hives,the lovely Harebells, the Blue Bells of Scot land SHEPHERD. Hourra-hourra-hourra!-Scotland for ever!-damn a' the niggers that daur to hint the tenth pairt o' the sma'est monosyllable against Scotland. Say on, sir, say on-but acknowledge at the same time, that you are catchin' your inspiration frae him you love to ca' the Shepherd-and wha, were he to be ane o' the crooned heads o' Europe, would glory in the name ! NORTH. Or tearing a rainbow branch of broom from the Hesperides SHEPHERD. That's a real bonny use o' a classical fable NORTH. Or purer, softer, brighter far than any pearls ever dived for in Indian seas, with fingers trembling in eagerest passion, yet half-restrained by a reverential wonder at their surpassing loveliness, plucking from the mossy stones primroses and violets! And almost sick with the scent of their blended balm, faint, faint, faint as an odour in a dream-and with the sight of their blended beauty, the bright burnished yellow,-yes, at once both bright and pale,-and the dim celestial blue,-yes, at once both celestial and sullen,-unable to determine in the rapt spirit within him, whether primrose or violet be the most heavenly flower of the wilderness! All blent, mingled, transfused, incorporated, spiritualized the one with the other into one glowing, gorgeous, meek, mild, magnificent whole, into one large Luminous Flower, worthy, nor more than worthy, to be placed by his own happiest hands on the bosom of his own first-love, then seen sitting, far off though she be, by the knee of her old grandame, reading the Bible aloud with her silver voice-an orphan, even more blessed than she knows herself to be, in the well-pleased eye of Heaven. SHEPHERD. Gin Mr Gurney spiles that, either in the contraction or the extension, he deserves to gang without his sooper-that's a-and yet, perhaps, it'll no read sae weel in prent as to hear it spoken-for oh, sir! but you hae a fine modulated vice when you speak rather laigh-and then when a body looks at your dim een and your white face-though they're no that unco dim nor white neither and your figure mair bent o' late than we a' cou'd wish-the effeck's no to be resisted-But the jug's noddin' at you, sir; touch noses wi' him, as freens, they say, do in Turkey-and then shove him ower to me, and I'll re plenish-for, by this time, puir fallow, he maun be sair exhausted. NORTH. All fictitious composition-however pathetic-ought to leave the mind of the reader in a happy state, James. Is not the soul of every man worthy of immortality left in a happy state, at the conclusion of Lear, knowing that Cordelia's now gone to heaven? SHEPHERD. The verra instant an author begins darkenin' heaven's gracious daylight, except it be for the sake o' a burst o' sunshine that has been dammed up as it were amang the black clouds, and is a' at ance let out in a spate o' licht breakin' intil a thousan' streams through the sky,-I say, the verra instant I see the idiwit, and the waur than idiwit, doin' what he can to "put out the licht, and then-put out the licht"-I order awa the book, just as I would do an empty bottle wi' some dregs o' soor yill in't that never at its best was worth the corkin', and tell the mistress that she maunna alloo that volumm to get in. to the leebrary again on penalty o' its being burnt. NORTH. What! You are your own Incremator? SHEPHERD. It was only the last week that we had an Auto da Fe o' yawmerers on the knowe-the pamphlets burned sweetly-but ae blockhead in boards died verra hard, and as for the coofs in cawf, some o' them,-would you believe it— were positively alive next mornin', and I lichted my pipe at the finis o' a vo lumm on Corruption, afore I went to the hill with the grews. NORTH. But how do you reconcile, James, this cheerful creed of yours with the general melancholy of the Noctes? SHEPHERD. There is nae creed either philosophical or theological with which the melan. choly o' the Noctes may not be reconciled, as easily as twa friends that hae never quarrelled. My remark amounted to this, that there never was, never will, never can be, in this sublunary scene, a perfect jug o' het toddy. NORTH. I have the beau ideal of one, James, in my mind SHEPHERD. Na-na-dinna think o' bamboozlin me wi' your bo-adecals. Imperfect as I alloo this jug to be, it is nevertheless better, when you put it to your mouth, than ony bo-adeeal o' a jug that ever you had in your mind. For what can ony bo-adeeal o' a jug, by ony possibility, be but a conception, or in ither words, a remembrance? And will you pretend to tell me that there ever was, either o' eatables or drinkables, a conception or a remembrance half as vivid as the liquid or solid reality its ain sell? NORTH. But then, James, by abstracting, and adding, and modifying, and―― SHEPHERD. O sir, sir! O my dear sir, ye maunna, ye really maunna begin sae soon as the verra first second jug to dreevil metapheesics NORTH. Even thus, James, the loveliest of the loveliest of the creation, as she breathes and blooms in bright and balmy flesh and blood, what is she to the vision, the idea, in the poet's brain? SHEPHERD. I'll tell you what she is-her wee finger, ay, her wee tae's worth a' the airwoven limmers O, Medicean Venus! NORTH. SHEPHERD. I never saw, ye ken that weel aneuch, the marble statute; but I hae seen a plaister cast o' the Heathen creter-and I dinna deny that she's a gae tosh body, rather o' an under size, and that the chiel who originally cut her out, could hae been nae journeyman. But may this be the last jug o' toddy that ever you and I drink thegither, if I havena seen a dizzen, a score, a hunder, a thousan' times, lassie upon lassie, nane o' them reckoned very extraordinar in the way o' beauty, far, far, far bonnier, baith in face and figure, than the Greek image, dookin' in secret pools o' the burnies among the braes-noo splashin' ane anither, like sae mony wild swans a' at ance seized wi' a mirthfu' madness, and far out in the very heart o' St Mary's Loch, garrin' the spray spin into rainbows aneath the beating beauty o' their snow-white wings, -noo meltin' like foam-bells, or say rather, sinkin' like water-lilies, veesible through the element as if it were but a pearly veil-Oh! sir-ower ower veesible,-noo chasin' ane anither, in ee-dazzlin', soul-sickenin' succession, Naiad after Naiad, this ane croon'd, say rather apparelled, in a shower o' sunbeams, and that ane wi' a trail o' clouds-brichtenin' or blackenin' their fair bodies like day or like nicht, such was the dreepin' length o' yellow or sable hair, that hung, in their stooping flight, frae forehead unto feet-chasin' ane anither, I say, sir, through alang the pillared and fretted gallery that runs alang the rock ahint the waterfa', cool, caller, cauld in July's dog-star drought, and yet sae chearfu' and halesome too within the misty den, that there the wren doth hang her large green nest in a nook, and at any time you throw in a stane, lo! the white-breasted water-pyet flits forth, and skimmin' the surface, dips and disappears sae suddenly, that you know not whether it was a bird or a thocht! NORTH. My dear James-you have peopled the pool with poetry, even as the heaven with stars. SHEPHERD. That's as true a word as ever you spake ; and ane o' the maist glorious gifts of poetry, sir, is the power o' bringin' upon the imagination woman-virgin woman-for a glimpse-a glimpse and nae mair-veiled but in her ain native-her ain sacred innocence and secure from all profanation of unhallowed thoughts, as the nun kneeling in her cell before the crucifix. NORTH. So have all great poets and painters felt, my dear James-nor have they ever feared for nature and her sanctities. To the pure all things are pure; but there are poor, feeble, fastidious fribbles, James, who would have turned aside their faces, clapped a handkerchief to their eyes, and deviated down a lane, had they suddenly met Eve in Paradise. SHEPHERD. Hoo the mother of mankind would hae despised the Atheists! For what better than Atheists are they who blush for the handy-work of their Maker? NORTH. Their tailor stands between them and God. SHEPHERD. That's a daurin' expression-but noo that I've taen a minute to think on't, I see it's a profoond apophthegm. Fause delicacy's mair excusable in a woman than a man-for it ower aften forms pairt o' her edication-and some young leddies live in a perpetual horror of lookin', or sayin', or doin' something improper; whereas if the bit harmless creters would but chatter away on, they would be as safe no to talk out o' tune as the lintie on the broom, or the laverock in the cloud. NORTH. What think you of a hook-nosed old maiden lady, with a yellow shrivelled neck, James, attempting to blush behind her fan SHEPHERD. When reading a Noctes! Huts! the auld idiwit-you micht imagine her, in like manner, comin' suddenly upon Adam, with a wooden spade over his shoulder, and shriekin' loud enough, at the sight of our worthy first male parent, to alarm the fairest of her daughters, Eve, employed in training the pretty parasites of Paradise to cluster more thickly round the porch of her nuptial 'bower. NORTH. Yes-I have been credibly informed, James, that there are absolutely creatures permitted to inhale the vital air, under the external appearance of human beings, male and female, who won't read the Noctes, because, forsooth, they are indelicate SHEPHERD. I wudna advise the pawrents o' ony female under forty, that pretends no to read the Noctes for that reason, to alloo Miss Madam to ride out on horseback for an airing, wi' an unmarried groom-lad, or it'll no be her fawt if them twa's no ae flesh, and her, before lang, the landlady o' a tavern in Bow Street, wi' livery stables with back premises, wi' horses staunin' in them at a guinea aweek. NORTH. Might this tongue-and this hand-be benumbed by palsy, if ever one word dropt from either that modest maiden might not read, with no other blush but that of mantling mirth on the cheek of Innocence, who, herself knowing no ill, suspecteth it not in others, and least of all in the harmless merriment of an old man, fain, now and then, my gentle Shepherd, as you know, to kindle up a light beneath the sparks of such a genius as thine, James, in the dry and withered sticks, as it were, of his imagination-coruscating fitfully, alas! and feebly, but innocently too, as the flakes of wild-fire through the fast-descending, and deepening, and thickening mists of age SHEPHERD. Mists! A mind like yours, sir, wad be naething without mists. Your gran' towerin' sky-seekin' thochts are aften dimly seen through mists, just like the mountains o' Swisserland, or our ain Highlands-while through the heart o' the dead or drivin' cloud-gloom is heard the roarin' o' mouy streams a' in unison wi' the voice of some Great Waterfa', the Leader o' the Band,— |
