THE WOOL-GATHERER.
MODERN.
Love is a passion so capricious, so violent, and so productive of whimsical expedients, that there is no end of its varieties. Dramas may be founded, plots arranged, and novels written on the subject, yet the simple truth itself generally outlasts them all. The following story, which relates to an amiable family still existing, is so like a romance, that perhaps the word of a narrator is insufficient to stamp it with that veracity to which it is entitled. The principal incidents, however, are set down precisely as they were related to me; only I have deemed it meet to change the designations of the individuals, so far that they cannot be recognised by any one not previously acquainted with the circumstances.
The late Laird of Earlhall dying in the fiftieth year of his age, as his grave-stone intimates, left behind him a widow, and two sons both in their minority. The eldest was of a dashing impatient character—he had a kind and affectionate heart, but his actions were not always tempered with prudence. He entered at an early age into the army, and fell in the Peninsular War when scarcely twenty-two years of age. The estate thus devolved wholly on the youngest, whose name for the present shall be Lindsey, that being his second Christian name, and the one by which his mother generally called him. He had been intended for the law, but on his brother’s death gave up the study as too laborious for his easy and careless disposition. He was attached to literature; and after his return home his principal employment consisted in poring over his books, and managing a little flower-garden in which he took great delight. He was studious, absent, and sensible, but paid little attention to his estate, or the extensive farm which he himself occupied.
The old lady, who was a stirring, talkative, industrious dame, entertained him constantly with long lectures on the ill effects of idleness. She called it the blight of youth, the grub of virtue, and the mildew of happiness; and sometimes, when roused into energy, she said it was the devil’s langsettle on which he plotted all his devices against human weal. Lindsey bore all with great patience, but still continued his easy and indolent way.
The summer advanced—the weather became peculiarly fine—labourers were busy in every field, and the shepherd’s voice, and the bleating of his flocks, sounded from the adjacent mountains by break of day. This lively and rousing scene gave a new edge to the old lady’s remonstrances; they came upon poor Lindsey thicker and faster, like the continued dropping of a rainy day, until he was obliged in some degree to yield. He tried to reason the matter with her, in somewhat near to the following words; but there, lawyer as he was, he had no chance. He was fairly overcome.
“My dear mother,” said he, “what does all this signify?—Or what is it that I can effect by my superintendance? Our farmers are all doing well, and pay their rents regularly; and as for our farm-servants, they have each of them filled the same situation so long and so creditably, that I feel quite awkward when standing looking over them,—it looks as if I suspected their integrity, which has been so often proved. Besides, it is a leading maxim with me, that if a man, and more particularly a woman, know or believe that trust is reposed in them, they will, in ten out of eleven instances, deserve it; but if once they see that they are suspected, the feeling towards you is changed, and they will in a little time as likely deserve the one as the other. Our wealth is annually increasing, at least as fast as necessary, and it is my principal wish, that every one under us may be as easy and comfortable as possible.”
This was true, for the old lady being parsimonious in the extreme, their riches had increased rapidly since the death of the late laird. As for Lindsey, he never spent any thing, save some trifle that he laid out yearly in payment of Reviews, and new books, and in relieving some poor families in the neighbourhood. The article of dress he left entirely to his mother: Whatever she bought or made for him he approved of, and whatever clothes or linen she laid down in his chamber, he put on without any observations. He acted upon the same principle with regard to his meals, but he sometimes was obliged to insist on a little addition being made to the comforts of the family servants, all of whom loved him as a friend and benefactor. He could at any time have swayed his mother so far as to make her a little more liberal towards the men-servants, but with regard to the maids he had no such power. She and they lived at constant variance,—an irreconcileable jealousy seemed always to subsist between them, and woe to them if the young laird interested himself in their favour! Matters being in this state, he was obliged to witness this mutual animosity; this tyranny on the one hand, and discontent on the other, without having the power to amend it.