A circumstance occurred one afternoon, which led him to imagine that this prospect was nearer realisation than he could have believed it to be. A stranger, of a spare form and extremely atrabilious complexion, was seen to ride into the town at a gentle pace, and to go directly up to the principal house of entertainment for travellers, as if the way to it had been familiar to him. He had not been long housed there, when a waiter came across the street to Mr. Ross, with compliments “from the gentleman at the inn,” who requested a few minutes’ conversation with him. The eager shopkeeper, anticipating some important sale of his goods, waited not to doff his apron and sleeves, but hurried over the way directly, and, what was his astonishment and delight, when, after a few words of inquiry and explanation had passed between them, he found himself weeping tears of joy in the arms of an affectionate elder brother.
This man had left his father’s house when very young, with little else but hope for his portion, and after being so lost sight of by his relations, that they had long believed him to be dead, he now most unexpectedly returned to them from India with an ample fortune. Wonderful were the visions of wealth which now arose in the mind of the poor shopkeeper, and, on his warm invitation, his brother, and his brother’s saddle-bags, were quickly transferred from the inn to his small and inconvenient house, and the Indian was speedily subjected to the danger of being smothered in the embraces of his sister-in-law and her numerous progeny.
Narrow as was his apartment, and small as was his bed, the nabob felt himself in elysium in his brother’s house. He had never before experienced the genial effects of the warmth of kindred blood. He was idolised by every one of the family, and imminent was the risk he ran of being killed with kindness. Nor was he the great object of attention to his immediate relations alone. He soon became the oracle of a large circle of kind friends and neighbours, who were seen crowding Mr. Ross’s small back parlour, which many of them had never before condescended to enter. And not only was the Indian feasted by small and great, but his humble brother and his sister-in-law were also invited to parties by people who had hardly before been aware of the fact that such an individual as Mr. Ross, the grocer and hardwareman, existed in the place. But now Mr. Ross was not only discovered, as it were, but he was discovered to be a very sensible man, having much of his brother, the nabob’s sound intellect, though wanting the advantages of cultivation. As to the nabob, he was a rara avis in terris,—an absolute phœnix, a creature a specimen of which is not to be met with in every age of the world. What the nabob uttered was considered as law; and even when he was absent, “the nabob said this,” and “the nabob said that,” and “that’s the way the nabob likes it,” were expressions continually employed by the good people of the town and neighbourhood to put an end to a debate; and they never failed to be quite conclusive upon every question. All this had a certain charm for the old Indian. It was extremely pleasant thus despotically to rule over men’s opinions, aye, and over women’s too, even in such a place as Tain. But the copper of the gilded crown and sceptre of his dominion soon began to appear through its thin coating. His own origin had indeed been humble, but as his wealth had grown by degrees, so had he been gradually elevated above his original sphere, till he had at last risen into familiar intercourse with people of rank and consequence, from whose society his address, and still more, his ideas had received a certain degree of polish. This did not prevent him from greatly enjoying the plain, honest, warm, but very vulgar manners of his brother and his townsmen, whilst they were as yet new to him. They pleased him at first, precisely on the same principle of novelty, combined with old association, which made him relish for a certain time sheep’s-head broth and haggis. But having unfortunately expressed himself rather strongly in his admiration of these dishes, the good folks thought themselves bound to give them to him upon all occasions, so that they soon began to lose their charm; and just so it was that the uninterrupted converse with the good, yet homely people around him, to which he was daily subjected, very soon became dull, tiresome, ennuyant, and, finally, disgusting, until it eventually grew to be so very intolerable that he altogether abandoned the thought he had entertained of purchasing an estate in that neighbourhood which was then for sale, and he quickly came to the determination of bringing this visit to his native town to a speedy conclusion, and of returning to London to take up his abode there among people who like himself had known what it was to live on curries and mulligatawny, and who could talk with him of tiffins and tiger hunting.
How shall I describe that wet blanket of disappointment that fell upon the shoulders of Mr. Ross, the grocer and hardwareman, and his family, when the nabob communicated to them this change in his plans. All the poor shopkeeper’s splendid visions departed from him with the same suddenness with which the figures from a magic lantern disappear from a wall the moment its light is extinguished. He had already set it down in his own mind as a thing absolutely certain, that his beloved brother would live and die in his house; and he and his wife had been calculating, that as every child they had would be as a child to its bachelor uncle, every child of them would be better provided for than another. Ten thousand cobwebby castles had been erected in the air by this worthy couple, who had already made lairds of all the boys, and lairds’ ladies at least of all the girls. “Out of sight out of mind” was a proverb that came with chilling truth to their hearts; and although the nabob had already shown much affection to them, and had behaved generously enough in giving liberal aid towards the improvement of his brother’s condition and that of his family, yet they could not help considering his threatened separation from them as the removal of the sunshine of fortune from the hemisphere of their fate. Never was the anticipated departure of any one more deeply or sincerely deplored. The nabob himself had no such feelings. He looked forward to his escape from his relatives and friends as to a period of happy relief. Yet to this there was one exception.
Chirsty Ross, as his niece Christina was provincially called, was then a very beautiful and extremely engaging little girl of some five or six years of age. From the first day that the old Indian took up his residence in her father’s house, she had innocently and unconsciously commenced her approaches against the citadel of his heart. Each succeeding hour saw her gain outpost after outpost, and defence after defence, until she fairly entwined herself so firmly around his affections, that he could not contemplate the approaching loss of her smiles, of her kisses, and of her prattle, with anything like philosophy. He had been naturally enough led to shower a double portion of his favours upon her. She was already in the habit of calling him “her own uncle,” as if he had belonged exclusively and entirely to herself, and to this she had been a good deal encouraged by the nabob. It is not wonderful, therefore, that when his departure was communicated to her, she was thrown into an inconsolable paroxysm of grief, and clung to his knees, giving loud vent to her plaints, and sobbing as if her little heart would have burst.
“Take me with you! take me with you, my own dear uncle! oh, take your own Chirsty with you!” cried she.
“I shall take you with me, my little dear!” exclaimed the nabob, snatching her up, and kissing her. “I shall take you with me, provided your father and mother will but part with you.”
A negotiation was speedily entered into. The parents were too sensible of the great advantages which such a proposal opened for their child to think for one moment of throwing any obstacle in the way of its fulfilment. They, moreover, hoped that this arrangement might have the desirable effect of keeping up a connecting tie between them and their rich relative. However much they might have been disappointed in this last respect, they certainly never had any reason to accuse the nabob of any forgetfulness of those promises which he made to them at parting.
He was no sooner established in his house in town than he set about providing proper instructors for Chirsty, and a very few weeks proved to him that his care was by no means thrown away. The child’s perception was quick, and her desire to learn was strong, so that things which were difficult to others were, comparatively speaking, easy to her. So rapid was her progress, that her uncle became every day more and more interested in it; and as she advanced, he was from time to time led to engage firstrate masters, in order to perfect her in all manner of solid acquirements and elegant accomplishments. With all this her person became every day more graceful as she grew in stature; and everything she said and did was seasoned with so much sweetness of manner, that she gained the hearts of all who had the good fortune to meet with her.
Not a little proud of what he had so good a right to call his own work, the nabob, on her fifteenth birthday, put the master-keys of his house with great but affectionate ceremonial into her hands, and with them he gave her the entire control and management of his household affairs. But she did not long continue to enjoy the distinguished situation in which he had thus placed her. Too close an application to the numerous branches of education she occupied herself with soon brought upon her that delicacy of health which is too often the produce of the similar over-confinement of young growing girls in our own days. A very alarming cough came on, her strength visibly declined daily, and her spirits began to sink. She was compelled to give up all her favourite pursuits. Books and music lost their charms for her, and her hours were spent in list-less idleness, not unfrequently broken in upon by nervous fits of crying, which she could by no means account for. Then it was that in her moody dreamings her mind would revert to the innocent pleasures of her childhood, to the simple, the rustic, yet highly relished happiness she had enjoyed whilst surrounded by her brothers and sisters, when they wandered about the furzy hillocks in a joyous knot, inhaling the perfume of the rich yellow blossoms,—when they dug little caves in the sandy banks, or built their mimic houses, or planted their perishable gardens, with careless hearts, noisy tongues, and laughing eyes. The thought that she might never again behold them or her dear parents renewed her tears, and she pined more and more.