It is impossible to say what were Park’s plans for his future life when he took to himself a wife. Probably they were but ill-defined even to himself. It may be safely concluded, however, that he had then no intention of returning to Africa. All the horrors of his recent experiences were still too strongly upon him to make the idea of a new journey welcome. Moreover, the after penalty of those months of starvation and atrocious fare had still to be paid by inveterate dyspepsia and its concomitant evils of gloom and despondency. While under its influence his sleep was much broken, and too often night was made one hideous nightmare by dreams of being back once more in captivity among the Moors of Ludamar, and subjected to the old tortures and indignities.
Probably, therefore, when he married, he did so in the belief that there would be no occasion for separation—no likelihood of his ever entering upon any engagements which should make him unable to fulfil his duty to his wife as a loving, ever-present protector and support.
At no time does Park ever seem to have been enamoured of his profession, and after the life he had recently led he felt a repugnance to settling down to its uncongenial routine.
For the moment, however, he did not feel called upon to come to an immediate decision as to his future work in life. The liberal remuneration which he had received from the African Association, together with the profits of his book, had placed him for the time being in easy circumstances. He could therefore afford to wait to see what might turn up. He had become well known. He had powerful friends. There was accordingly every likelihood that something congenial would be found for him. Meanwhile he resolved to settle down quietly at Foulshiels.
At this period his mother was still alive, and the farm was worked by one of his brothers. Most of the family had done well. One sister, as we have already seen, had married Mr. Dickson, who had risen both to moderate affluence and to considerable fame as a botanist. Another had found a husband in a well-to-do farmer in the neighbourhood. His brother Adam had gone through the same course as himself, and had become established as a doctor in Gravesend; while a second brother, Alexander, had been made under-sheriff for the county, the sheriff-principal being Sir Walter Scott.
Of this brother Scott himself gives us a sketch in his introduction to the “Lady of the Lake,” when recalling his doubts of the poem’s success:—
“I remember that about the same time a friend (Arch. Park) started in to ‘heeze up my hope,’ like the sportsman with his cutty gun in the old song. He was bred a farmer, but a man of powerful understanding, natural good taste, and warm poetical feeling, perfectly competent to supply the wants of an imperfect or irregular education. He was a passionate admirer of field sports, which we often pursued together.” And then Scott goes on to tell how he was in the habit of reading the poem to him to experiment as to the effect produced on one who was “but too favourable a representative of readers at large.” Archibald Park remained in Scott’s employment for many years, and was frequently his companion in his mountain rides.
In 1799, the Government made certain proposals to Park relative to his going out in some official capacity to New South Wales. Of this, however, nothing came, though whether the fault lay with the Government or with the explorer is not known.
The natural consequences of idleness to a man of Park’s personality and past life soon became apparent. With a wife of no particular depth of character and no special mental attainments, however attractive and amiable she might otherwise be, there could be but small absorption of his thoughts. With no other society, and no work to keep him occupied, there could be but one result—restlessness and revolt against the position in which he found himself, and the gradual upgrowth of the old longings and ideas—the irrepressible fever of travel. Coincidently he began to forget the hardships and dangers he had experienced, and as they grew less and less vivid, and gradually dropped into the background of his memory, the fascination of discovery, of travel in strange lands and among strange peoples—the wish to settle the unsolved mystery of the Niger—began anew to assert their power and possess him with ever-growing force.
For the time the African Association was resting on their oars as far as prosecuting their work from West Africa was concerned, though in 1798 Horneman had been despatched to penetrate to the Sudan from Egypt.