CHAPTER XIV. CROSSING THE BORDER.
The time had now arrived when it was necessary for me to go to Scotland, for a few days. I had two very powerful reasons for this excursion:—first, because an old and valued friend of mine was there, whom I had not met for many years, and whom I could not think of leaving this country without seeing again; and secondly, because I was desirous of visiting the residence of my forefathers on the Tweed, which, although it had passed out of their possession many years ago, was still endeared to me as their home, as the scene of the family traditions; and above all, as their burial place.
The grave is the first stage on the journey, from this to the other world. We are permitted to escort our friends so far, and no further; it is there we part for ever. It is there the human form is deposited, when mortality is changed for immortality. This burial place contains no one that I have ever seen or known; but it contains the remains of those from whom I derived my lineage and my name. I therefore naturally desired to see it.
Having communicated my intention to my two American companions, I was very much struck with the different manner in which they received the announcement.
“Come back soon, Squire,” said Mr. Slick; “go and see your old friend, if you must, and go to the old campin’ grounds of your folks; though the wigwam I expect has gone long ago, but don’t look at anythin’ else. I want we should visit the country together. I have an idea from what little I have seed of it, Scotland is over-rated. I guess there is a good deal of romance about their old times; and that, if we knowed all, their old lairds warn’t much better, or much richer than our Ingian chiefs; much of a muchness. Kinder sorter so, and kinder sorter not so, no great odds. Both hardy, both fierce; both as poor as Job’s Turkey, and both tarnation proud, at least, that’s my idea to a notch.
“I have often axed myself what sort of a gall that splenderiferous, ‘Lady of the Lake’ of Scott’s was, and I kinder guess she was a red-headed Scotch heifer, with her hair filled with heather, and feather, and lint, with no shoes and stockings to her feet, and that
“Her lips apart
Like monument of Grecian art”
meant that she stared with her eyes and mouth wide open, like other county galls that never see’d nothing before—a regilar screetch owl in petticoats. And I suspicion, that Mr. Rob Roy was a sort of thievin’ devil of a white Mohawk, that found it easier to steal cattle, than raise them himself; and that Loch Katrin, that they make such a touss about, is jist about equal to a good sizeable duck-pond in our country; at least, that’s my idea. For I tell you it does not do to follow arter a poet, and take all he says for gospel.
“Yes, let’s go and see Sawney in his “Ould Reeky.” Airth and seas! if I have any nose at all, there never was a place so well named as that. Phew! let me light a cigar to get rid of the fogo of it.
“Then let’s cross over and see “Pat at Home;” let’s look into matters and things there, and see what “Big Dan” is about, with his “association” and “agitation” and “repail” and “tee-totals.” Let’s see whether it’s John Bull or Patlander that’s to blame, or both on ‘em; six of one and half-a-dozen of tother. By Gosh! Minister would talk, more sense in one day to Ireland, than has been talked there since the rebellion; for common sense is a word that don’t grow like Jacob’s ladder, in them diggins, I guess. It’s about, as stunted as Gineral Nichodemus Ott’s corn was.
“The Gineral was takin’ a ride with a southerner one day over his farm to Bangor in Maine, to see his crops, fixin mill privileges and what not, and the southerner was a turning up his nose at every thing amost, proper scorney, and braggin’ how things growed on his estate down south. At last the Gineral’s ebenezer began to rise, and he got as mad as a hatter, and was intarmed to take a rise out of him.
“‘So,’ says he, ‘stranger,’ says he, ‘you talk about your Indgian corn, as if nobody else raised any but yourself. Now I’ll bet you a thousand dollars, I have corn that’s growd so wonderful, you can’t reach the top of it a standin’ on your horse.’
“‘Done,’ sais Southener, and ‘Done,’ sais the General, and done it was.
“‘Now,’ sais the Giniral, ‘stand up on your saddle like a circus rider, for the field is round that corner of the wood there.’ And the entire stranger stood up as stiff as a poker. ‘Tall corn, I guess,’ sais he, ‘if I can’t reach it, any how, for I can e’en a’most reach the top o’ them trees. I think I feel them thousand dollars of yourn, a marchin’ quick step into my pocket, four deep. Reach your corn, to be sure I will. Who the plague, ever see’d corn so tall, that a man couldn’t reach it a horseback.’
“‘Try it,’ sais the Gineral, as he led him into the field, where the corn was only a foot high, the land was so monstrous, mean and so beggarly poor.
“‘Reach it,’ sais the Gineral.
“‘What a damned Yankee trick,’ sais the Southener. ‘What a take in this is, ain’t it?’ and he leapt, and hopt, and jumped like a snappin’ turtle, he was so mad. Yes, common sense to Ireland, is like Indgian corn to Bangor, it ain’t overly tall growin’, that’s a fact. We must see both these countries together. It is like the nigger’s pig to the West Indies “little and dam old.”
“Oh, come back soon, Squire, I have a thousand things, I want to tell you, and I shall forget one half o’ them, if you don’t; and besides,” said he in an onder tone, “he” (nodding his head towards Mr. Hopewell,) “will miss you shockingly. He frets horridly about his flock. He says, ‘’Mancipation and Temperance have superceded the Scriptures in the States. That formerly they preached religion there, but now they only preach about niggers and rum.’ Good bye, Squire.”
“You do right, Squire,” said Mr. Hopewell, “to go. That which has to be done, should be done soon, for we have not always the command of our time. See your friend, for the claims of friendship are sacred; and see your family tomb-stones also, for the sight of them, will awaken a train of reflections in a mind like yours, at once melancholy and elevating; but I will not deprive you of the pleasure you will derive from first impressions, by stripping them of their novelty. You will be pleased with the Scotch; they are a frugal, industrious, moral and intellectual people. I should like to see their agriculture, I am told it is by far the best in Europe.
“But, Squire, I shall hope to see you soon, for I sometimes think duty calls me home again. Although my little flock has chosen other shepherds and quitted my fold, some of them may have seen their error, and wish to return. And ought I not to be there to receive them? It is true, I am no longer a labourer in the vineyard, but my heart is there. I should like to walk round and round the wall that encloses it, and climb up, and look into it, and talk to them that are at work there. I might give some advice that would be valuable to them. The blossoms require shelter, and the fruit requires heat, and the roots need covering in Winter. The vine too is luxuriant, and must be pruned, or it will produce nothing but wood. It demands constant care and constant labour; I had decorated the little place with flowers too, to make it attractive and pleasant.
“But, ah me! dissent will pull all these up like weeds, and throw them out; and scepticism will raise nothing but gaudy annuals. The perennials will not flourish without cultivating and enriching the ground; their roots are in the heart. The religion of our Church, which is the same as this of England, is a religion which inculcates love: filial love towards God; paternal love to those committed to our care; brotherly love, to our neighbour, nay, something more than is known by that term in its common acceptation, for we are instructed to love our neighbour as ourselves.
“We are directed to commence our prayer with “Our Father.” How much of love, of tenderness, of forbearance, of kindness, of liberality, is embodied in that word—children: of the same father, members of the same great human family I Love is the bond of union—love dwelleth in the heart; and the heart must be cultivated, that the seeds of affection may germinate in it.
“Dissent is cold and sour; it never appeals to the affections, but it scatters denunciations, and rules by terror. Scepticism is proud and self-sufficient. It refuses to believe in mysteries and deals in rhetoric and sophistry, and flatters the vanity, by exalting human reason. My poor lost flock will see the change, and I fear, feel it too. Besides, absence is a temporary death. Now I am gone from them, they will forget my frailties and infirmities, and dwell on what little good might have been in me, and, perhaps, yearn towards me.
“If I was to return, perhaps I could make an impression on the minds of some, and recall two or three, if not more, to a sense of duty. What a great thing that would be, wouldn’t it? And if I did, I would get our bishop to send me a pious, zealous, humble-minded, affectionate, able young man, as a successor; and I would leave my farm, and orchard, and little matters, as a glebe for the Church. And who knows but the Lord may yet rescue Slickville from the inroads of ignorant fanatics, political dissenters, and wicked infidels?
“And besides, my good friend, I have much to say to you, relative to the present condition and future prospects of this great country. I have lived to see a few ambitious lawyers, restless demagogues, political preachers, and unemployed local officers of provincial regiments, agitate and sever thirteen colonies at one time from the government of England. I have witnessed the struggle. It was a fearful, a bloody and an unnatural one. My opinions, therefore, are strong in proportion as my experience is great. I have abstained on account of their appearing like preconceptions from saying much to you yet, for I want to see more of this country, and to be certain, that I am quite right before I speak.
“When you return, I will give you my views on some of the great questions of the day. Don’t adopt them, hear them and compare them with your own. I would have you think for yourself, for I am an old man now and sometimes I distrust my powers of mind.
“The state of this country you, in your situation, ought to be thoroughly acquainted with. It is a very perilous one. Its prosperity, its integrity, nay its existence as a first-rate power, hangs by a thread, and that thread but little better and stronger than a cotton one. Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat. I look in vain for that constitutional vigour, and intellectual power, which once ruled the destinies of this great nation.
“There is an aberration of intellect, and a want of self-possession here that alarms me. I say, alarms me, for American as I am by birth, and republican as I am from the force of circumstances, I cannot but regard England with great interest, and with great affection. What a beautiful country! What a noble constitution! What a high minded, intelligent, and generous people! When the Whigs came into office, the Tories were not a party, they were the people of England. Where and what are they now? Will they ever have a lucid interval, or again recognise the sound of their own name? And yet, Sam, doubtful as the prospect of their recovery is, and fearful as the consequences of a continuance of their malady appear to be, one thing is most certain, a Tory government is the proper government for a monarchy, a suitable one for any country, but it is the only one for England. I do not mean an ultra one, for I am a moderate man, and all extremes are equally to be avoided. I mean a temperate, but firm one: steady to its friends, just to its enemies, and inflexible to all. “When compelled to yield, it should be by the force of reason, and never by the power of agitation. Its measures should be actuated by a sense of what is right, and not what is expedient, for to concede is to recede—to recede is to evince weakness—and to betray weakness is to invite attack.
“I am a stranger here. I do not understand this new word, Conservatism. I comprehend the other two, Toryism and Liberalism. The one is a monarchical, and the other a republican word. The term, Conservatism, I suppose, designates a party formed out of the moderate men of both sides, or rather, composed of Low-toned Tories and High Whigs. I do not like to express a decided opinion yet, but my first impression is always adverse to mixtures, for a mixture renders impure the elements of which it is compounded. Every thing will depend on the preponderance of the wholesome over the deleterious ingredients. I will analyse it carefully. See how one neutralizes or improves the other, and what the effect of the compound is likely to be on the constitution. I will request our Ambassador, Everett, or Sam’s friend, the Minister Extraordinary, Abednego Layman, to introduce me to Sir Robert Peel, and will endeavour to obtain all possible information from the best possible source.
“On your return I will give you a candid and deliberate opinion.”
After a silence of some minutes, during which he walked up and down the room in a fit of abstraction, he suddenly paused, and said, as if thinking aloud—
“Hem, hem—so you are going to cross the border, eh? That northern intellect is strong. Able men the Scotch, a little too radical in politics, and a little too liberal, as it is called, in a matter of much greater consequence; but a superior people, on the whole. They will give you a warm reception, will the Scotch. Your name will insure that; and they are clannish; and another warm reception will, I assure you, await you here, when, returning, you again Cross the Border.”