“I thought so myself two days ago,” said Flora. “I am grateful to God that it was not the cholera. Does it ever break out on board ship?”
“It is an affliction sae lately sent upon the nations by the Lord, that we have had sma’ experience o’ the matter,” quoth Mr. Gregg. “Your best chance is to trust in Him. For let us be ever so cautious, an He wills it, we canna’ escape out o’ His hand.”
“Perhaps it is the best way to confide ourselves entirely to His care, and to think as little about it as we possibly can. All our precautions remind me of the boy who hid up in the cellar during a terrible thunderstorm, in the hope that the lightning would never find him there, little dreaming, that his place of safety exposed him to as much danger as a stand on the house-top. A man may run away from a battle, and escape from a fire, but it seems to me of little use attempting to fly from a pestilence which lurks in the very air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we take to nourish us. Faith in the mercy of God, and submission to His will appear to me the only remedies at all likely to avert the danger we shrink from with so much fear.”
“It comes like a thief in the night,” said Mr. Gregg; “and it behoves us all to mind the warning o’ the Saviour, to watch an’ pray, for we know not at what hour the Master of the house cometh.”
After the good Greggs had made their adieus, Flora felt so much recovered that she accompanied her husband in a coach, to bid the rest of their kind friends in Edinburgh farewell.
They drove first to the house of Mr. W., where Flora had spent many happy days during her sojourn in Leith. Mr. W. had an only son, who held an official situation at the Cape of Good Hope. Lyndsay had been on intimate terms with this gentleman during his residence in the colony; and on his return to Scotland, he was always a welcome visitor at the house of his parents. They loved to talk of Willie to Lyndsay, and treasured up as household words any little anecdotes they could collect of his colonial life. Mrs. W. and her two daughters were highly accomplished, elegant women. They took a deep interest in the fate of the emigrants, and were always devising plans for their future comfort.
As to the father of the family, he was a perfect original—shrewd, sarcastic, clever, and very ugly. The world called him morose and ill-natured; but the world only judged from his face, and most certainly he should have indicted it for bringing false witness against him. It was a libellous face, which turned the worst aspect to the world; its harsh lines and exaggerated features magnifying mental defects, while they concealed the good qualities of the warm, generous heart that shone like some precious gem within that hard rough case.
Mr. W. loved opposition, and courted it. He roused himself up to an argument, as a terrier dog rouses himself to kill rats; and, like the said terrier, when he got the advantage of his opponent, he loved to worry and tease, to hold on till the last, till the vanquished was fain to cry aloud for mercy; and then his main object in quitting the dispute was to lie in wait for a fresh tussel. Flora laughed at all his blunt speeches, and enjoyed his rude wit, and opposed him, and argued with him to his heart’s content, until they became the best friends in the world. Their first meeting was so characteristic, that we must give it here.
Flora had accepted an invitation to dine, with her husband, at Mr. W.’s house. It was only a family party, and they were to come early. On their arrival, they found that Mr. W. had been called away on business, but was expected back to dinner. After chatting awhile to Mrs. W. and her daughters, Flora’s attention was strongly directed to an oil-painting which hung above the drawing-room mantelpiece. It was the portrait of an old man, as large as life. The figure was represented in a sitting posture, his head leaning upon his hand, or rather the chin supported in the open palm. The eyes glanced upward with a sarcastic, humorous expression, as if the original were in the act of asking some question which a listener might find it no easy matter to answer; and a smile of mischievous triumph hovered about the mouth. It was an extraordinary countenance. No common every-day face, to which you could point and say, “Does not that put you in mind of Mr. So-and-So?” Memory could supply no duplicate to this picture. It was like but one other face in the world, the one from which it had been faithfully copied. It was originally meant for a handsome face, but the features were exaggerated until they became grotesque and coarse in the extreme, and the thick, bushy, iron-grey hair and whiskers, and clay-coloured complexion, put the finishing strokes to a portrait, which might be considered the very ideal of ugliness.
While Flora sat looking at the picture, and secretly wondering how any person with such a face could bear to see it transferred to canvas, she was suddenly roused from her reverie by the pressure of a heavy hand upon her shoulder, and a gentleman in a very gruff, but by no means an ill-natured or morose voice, thus addressed her.