“An’ now, my boy,” said the boatman as they reached the West Port, “I hae business to do at the Customhouse, an’ some money to get; but I maun first try and find out your friends for ye. Look at the letters and tell me the street where they put up.” The boy untied his little bundle, which contained a few shirts and stockings, a parcel of papers, and a small box.—“What’s a’ the papers about?” inquired the boatman; “an’ what hae ye in the wee box?” “My mither,” said the boy, “bade me be sure to keep the papers, for they tell of her marriage to my father; and the box hauds her ring. She could have got money for it when she was sick and no able to work, but she would sooner starve, she said, than part wi’ it; and I widna like to part wi’ it, either, to ony bodie but yoursel’—but if ye would take it?” He opened the box and passed it to his companion. It contained a valuable diamond ring. “No, no, my boy,” said the boatman, “that widna do; the ring’s a bonny ring, an’ something bye ordinar, though I be no judge; but, blessings on your heart! tak ye care o’t, an’ part wi’t on no account to ony bodie;—Hae ye found out the direction?” The boy named some place in the vicinity of the Cowgate, and in a few minutes they were both walking up the Grassmarket.
“O, yonder’s my aunt!” exclaimed the boy, pointing to a young woman who was coming down the street; “yonder’s my mither’s sister;” and away he sprang to meet her. She immediately recognised and welcomed him; and he introduced the boatman to her as the kind friend who had rescued him from the snow-storm and the ferryman. She related in a few words the story of the boy’s parents. His father had been a dissipated young man of good family, whose follies had separated him from his friends; and the difference he had rendered irreconcilable by marrying a low-born but industrious and virtuous young woman, who, despite of her birth, was deserving of a better husband. In a few years he had sunk into indigence and contempt; and in the midst of a wretchedness which would have been still more complete had it not been for the efforts of his wife, he was seized by a fever, of which he died. “Two of his brothers,” said the woman, “who are gentlemen of the law, were lately inquiring about the boy, and will, I hope, interest themselves in his behalf.” In this hope the boatman cordially acquiesced. “An’ now, my boy,” said he, as he bade him farewell, “I have just one groat left yet;—here it is; better in your pocket than wi’ the gruff carle at the ferry. It’s an honest groat, anyhow; an’ I’m sure I wish it luck.”
Eighteen years elapsed before Sandy Wright again visited Edinburgh. He had quitted it a robust, powerful man of forty-seven, and he returned to it a greyheaded old man of sixty-five. His humble fortunes, too, were sadly in the wane. His son William, a gallant young fellow, who had risen in a few years, on the score of merit alone, from the forecastle to a lieutenancy, had headed, under Admiral Vernon, some desperate enterprise, from which he never returned: and the boatman himself, when on the eve of retiring on a small pension from his long service in the Customhouse, was dismissed without a shilling, on the charge of having connived at the escape of a smuggler. He was slightly acquainted with one of the inferior clerks in the Edinburgh Customhouse; and in the slender hope that this person might use his influence in his behalf, and that that influence might prove powerful enough to get him reinstated, he had now travelled from Cromarty to Edinburgh, a weary journey of nearly two hundred miles. He had visited the clerk, who had given him scarcely any encouragement, and he was now waiting for him in a street near Brown Square, where he had promised to meet him in less than half an hour. But more than two hours had elapsed; and Sandy Wright, fatigued and melancholy, was sauntering slowly along the street, musing on his altered circumstances, when a gentleman, who had passed him with the quick hurried step of a person engaged in business, stopped abruptly a few yards away, and returning at a much slower pace, eyed him steadfastly as he repassed. He again came forward and stood. “Are you not Mr. Wright?” he inquired. “My name, sir, is Sandy Wright,” said the boatman, touching his bonnet. The face of the stranger glowed with pleasure, and grasping him by the hand, “Oh, my good kind friend, Sandy Wright!” he exclaimed, “often, often, have I inquired after you, but no one could tell me where you resided, or whether you were living or dead. Come along with me—my house is in the next square. What! not remember me; ah, but it will be ill with me when I cease to remember you! I am Hamilton, an advocate—but you will scarcely know me as that.”
The boatman accompanied him to an elegant house in Brown Square, and was ushered into a splendid apartment, where there sat a Madonna-looking young lady engaged in reading. “Who of all the world have I found,” said the advocate to the lady, “but good Sandy Wright, the kind brave man who rescued me when perishing in the snow, and who was so true a friend to me when I had no friend besides.” The lady welcomed the boatman with one of her most fascinating smiles, and held out her hand. “How happy I am,” she said, “that we should have met with you! Often has Mr. Hamilton told me of your kindness to him, and regretted that he should have no opportunity of acknowledging it.” The boatman made one of his best bows, but he had no words for so fine a lady.
The advocate inquired kindly after his concerns, and was told of his dismissal from the Customhouse. “I’ll vouch!” he exclaimed, “it was for nothing an honest man should be ashamed of.” “Oh! only a slight matter, Mr. Hamilton,” said the boatman; “an’ troth I couldna’ weel do other than what I did though I should hae to do’t o’er again. Captain Robinson o’ the Free Trade was on the coast o’ Cadboll last har’st, about the time o’ the Equinoxal, unlading a cargo o’ Hollands, whan on cam’ the storm o’ the season, an’ he had to run for Cromarty to avoid shipwreck. His loading was mostly out, except a few orra kegs that might just make his lugger seizable if folk gied a wee owre strict. If he could but show, however, that he had been at the Isle o’ Man, an’ had been forced into the Firth by mere stress o’ weather frae his even course to Flushing, it would set him clear out o’ our danger. I had a strong liking to the Captain, for he had been unco kind to my poor Willie, that’s dead now; an’ when he tauld our officer that he had been at Man, an’ the officer asked for proof, I contrived to slide twa Manks baubees intil his han’, an’ he held them out just in a careless way, as if he had plenty mair proof besides. Weel, this did, an’ the puir chield wan off; but hardly was he down the Firth when out cam’ the haill story. Him they coudna harm, but me they could; an’ after muckle ill words, (an’ I had to bear them a’, for I’m an auld failed man now,) instead o’ getting retired on a pension for my forty years’ service, I was turned aff without a shilling. I have an acquaintance in the Customhouse here, Mr. Scrabster the clerk; an’ I came up ance errand to Edinburgh in the hope that he might do something for me; but he’s no verra able I’m thinking, an’ I’m feared no verra willing; an’ so, Mr. Hamilton, I just canna help it. My day, o’ coorse o’ nature, canna be verra lang, an’ Providence, that has aye carried me through as yet, winna surely let me stick now.”—“Ah no, my poor friend!” said the advocate. “Make up your mind, however, to stay for a few weeks with Helen and me, and I’ll try in the meantime what my little influence may be able to do for you at the Customhouse.”
A fortnight passed away very agreeably to the boatman. Mrs. Hamilton, a fascinating young creature of very superior mental endowments, was delighted with his character and his stories:—the latter opened to her a new chapter in her favourite volume—the book of human life; and the advocate, a man of high talent and a benevolent heart, seemed to regard him with the feelings of an affectionate son. At length, however, he began to weary sadly of what he termed the life of a gentleman, and to sigh after his little smoky cottage, and “the puir auld wife.” “Just remain with us one week longer,” said the advocate, “and I shall learn in that time the result of my application. You are not now quite so active a man as when you carried me ten miles through the snow, and frightened the tall ferryman, and so I shall secure for you a passage in one of the Leith traders.” In a few days after, when the boatman was in the middle of one of his most interesting stories, and Mrs. Hamilton hugely delighted, the advocate entered the apartment, his eyes beaming with pleasure, and a packet in his hand. “This is from London,” he said, as he handed it to the lady; “it intimates to us, that ‘Alexander Wright, Customhouse boatman,’ is to retire from the service on a pension of twenty pounds per annum.”—But why dwell longer on the story? Sandy Wright parted from his kind friends, and returned to Cromarty, where he died in the spring of 1769, in the eighty-second year of his age. “Folk hae aye to learn,” he used to say, “an’, for my own pairt, I was a saxty-year-auld scholar afore I kent the meaning o’ the verse, ‘Cast thy bread on the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days.’”
CHAPTER XIX.
“I’ll give thee a wind.”
—Shakspere.
TARBAT NESS.