CHAPTER X.
RESUMES HIS FORMER HABITS.
Edward had left Banff on the 31st of July 1846, full of hope; after six weeks he returned to it, full of despair. He had gone to Aberdeen with his collection, accompanied by his wife and family; he returned from it alone and on foot, without a single specimen of his collection, and without a penny in his pocket that he could call his own. He felt ruined, disappointed, beggared,—his aims and hopes in life blasted. He was under the necessity of leaving his wife and children at Aberdeen; for they could not travel fifty miles to Banff on foot.
Edward felt terribly crushed on re-entering his desolate home. A strange-like heaviness of mind came over him. The place was drear and lonesome. It was so different from what it had once been. It was no longer enlivened by the prattle of his children, or the pleasant looks of his wife. There was neither fire, nor food, nor money. The walls, which, only a few weeks before, had been covered with his treasures—the results of the hard labour of years—were bare and destitute. The house was desolation itself.
After remaining there for a short time, a neighbour came in, and asked Edward to come to his house and get some food. He most gladly assented to the proposal. He afterwards went to see his master, and arranged with him as to the re-commencement of his work. This was easily accomplished, as Edward was considered a Don at his trade.[34] After this had been settled, he went to pay a short visit to a friend at Gardenstown, until his wife and family had returned from Aberdeen. Edward could not bear to remain in his house until they had come back. Nor could he yet pay for their journey. But the carrier, who had taken the collection and the family to Aberdeen, cheerfully consented to bring the latter back free.
It was during this interval that Edward lived for a few days with his friend, Mr. Gordon of Gardenstown. The place had long been one of Edward’s favourite haunts. He was able, in a sort of way, to enjoy the coast scenery, to see the busy fishermen going out to sea in the evenings, and to listen to the noisy clamour of the sea-fowl at Gamrie Mohr.
EDWARD RETURNS HOME.
When Edward knew that his wife and family had reached Banff, he returned home, and was joyfully met by his wife and bairns. Home had already begun to look more homely. There was a fire to sit down beside, and a family circle to converse with. Care, despondency, and despair, had already to a certain extent been cast aside. There would yet be peace and plenty about the fireside. Edward threw off the showman’s garb, and donned that of the hard-working sutor.[35] Next morning he was busy at his trade, sewing, hammering, and “skelping away at the leather.”
BEGINS AGAIN.
During the ensuing autumn and winter, he passed his time at his ordinary daily work. He refrained from going out at night. He had parted with all his objects in Natural History, and he did nothing as yet to replace them. But his mind had been at work all the while. As spring advanced, he found it impossible to check his ruling passion. His day’s work done, he again started with his gun on his shoulder, his insect boxes and appendages slung round his back, his plant case by his side, and a host of pill boxes, small bottles, and such like, packed in his pockets. Away he went, with heart as light as a feather, to search, as long as light remained, for tenants of the woods, the fields, and the sea-shore.
When daylight faded into darkness, he would sit down as usual for a nap—it did not matter where,—by the side of a rock, on a sand-bank, in a hole in the ground, in a dry ditch, under the cover of a bush, behind a dyke, in a ruined castle, or by the side of a tree: it was all the same to him. There he lay until the first peep of morning appeared, when he started up, and was at work again. He continued, until he thought he had just sufficient time left to get to his workshop by the appointed hour.