"Shortly after becoming a probationer, I came to reside in this district, and, not long after, the preacher who officiated in the preaching-station here died. The people connected with it wished me to become his successor, which, after some difficulties on their part had been surmounted, I became. I had other views at the time which were promising and important; but as there had been untoward disturbances in the place, owing to the lack of defined rights and privileges, I had it in my power to become a peacemaker, and, besides, I felt it my duty to comply with a call which was both cordial and unanimous. I now laid wholly aside those things which pertain to the pursuits of romantic literature, and devoted myself to the performance of incumbent duties. In consequence of no house having been provided for the preacher, and no one to be obtained but at a very inconvenient distance, I was in this respect very inconveniently situated. Travelling nine miles to the scene of my official duties, it was frequently my hap to preach in a very uncomfortable condition, when, indeed, the wet would be pouring from my arms on the Bible before me, and oozing over my shoes when the foot was stirred on the pulpit floor. But, by and by, the Duke of Buccleuch built a dwelling-house for me, the same which I still occupy."
To the ministerial charge of the then preaching station of Teviothead Mr Riddell was about to receive ordination, at the united solicitation of his hearers, when he was suddenly visited with severe affliction. Unable to discharge pulpit duty for a period of years, the pastoral superintendence of the district was devolved on another; and on his recovery, with commendable forbearance, he did not seek to interfere with the new ecclesiastical arrangement. This procedure was generously approved of by the Duke of Buccleuch, who conferred upon him the right to occupy the manse cottage, along with a grant of land, and a small annuity.
Mr Riddell's autobiography proceeds:—"In the hope of soon obtaining a permanent and comfortable settlement at Teviothead, I had ventured to make my own, by marriage, her who had in heart been mine through all my college years, and who for my sake had, in the course of these, rejected wealth and high standing in life. The heart that, for the sake of leal faith and love, could despise wealth and its concomitants, and brave the risk of embracing comparative poverty, even at its best estate, was not one likely overmuch to fear that poverty when it appeared, nor flinch with an altered tone from the position which it had adopted, when it actually came. This, much rather, fell to my part. It preyed upon my mind too deeply not to prove injurious in its effects; and it did this all the more, that the voice of love, true to its own law, had the words of hope and consolation in it, but never those of complaint. It appeared the acmé of the severity of fate itself to have lived to be the mean of placing a heart and mind so rich in disinterested affection on so wild and waste a scene of trial.
"From an experience of fourteen years, in which there were changes in almost all things except in the affection which bound two hearts in one, before the hands were united, it might be expected that I should give some eminent admonitions concerning the imprudence of men, and particularly of students, allowing their hearts to become interested in, and the remembrance of their minds more fraught with the rich beauty of auburn ringlets than in the untoward confusion, for example, of irregular Greek verbs; yet I much fear that admonition would be of no use. If their fate be woven of a texture similar to that of mine, how can they help it? A man may have an idea that to cling to the shelter which he has found, and indulge in the sleep that has overtaken him amid the stormy blasts of the waste mountains, may be little else than opening for himself the gates of death, yet the toils of the way through which he has already passed may also have rendered him incapable of resisting the dangerous rest and repose of his immediate accommodation. In regard to my own love affairs, I, throughout all these long years which I have specified, might well have adopted, as the motto of both mind and heart, these lines—
"'Oh, poortith cauld and restless love,
Ye wreck my peace between ye.'
I had, as has already been hinted, a rival, who, if not so devotedly attached as I, nevertheless was by far too much so for any one who is destined to love without encouragement. He was as rich in proportion as I was poor. The gifts of love, called the gifts of friendship, which he contrived to bestow were costly; mine, as fashioned forth by a higher hand than that of art, might be equally rich and beautiful in the main, yet wild-flowers, though yellow as the gold, and though wrapped in rhymes, are light ware when weighed against the solid material. He, in personal appearance, manners, and generosity of heart, was one with whom it was impossible to be acquainted and not to esteem; and another feature of this affair was, that we were friends, and almost constant companions for some years. When in the country I had to be with him as continually as possible; and when I went to the city, it was his wont to follow me. Here, then, was a web strangely woven by the fingers of a wayward fate. Feelings were brought into daily exercise which might seem the least compatible with being brought into contact and maintained in harmony. And these things, which are strictly true, if set forth in the contrivances of romance might, or in all likelihood would, be pronounced unnatural or overstrained. The worth and truth of the heart to which these fond anxieties related left me no ground to fear for losing that regard which I valued as 'light and life' itself; but in another way there reached me a matchless misery, and which haunted me almost as constantly as my own shadow when the sun shone. Considering the dark uncertainty of my future prospects in life, that regard I felt it fearful almost beyond measure even to seek to retain, incurring the responsibility of marring the fortune of one whom nevertheless I could not bear the thought of another than myself having the bliss of rendering blessed. If selfishness be thus seen to exist even in love itself, I would fain hope that it is of an elevated and peculiar kind, and not that which grovels, dragging downwards, and therefore justly deserving of the name. I am the more anxious in regard to this on account of its being in my own case felt so deeply. It maintained its ground with more or less firmness at all times, and ultimately triumphed, in despite of all efforts made to the contrary over the suggestions of prudence and even the sterner reasonings of the sense of justice. In times of sadness and melancholy, which, like the preacher's days of darkness, were many, when hope scarcely lit the gloom of the heart on which it sat though the band of love was about its brow, I busied myself in endeavouring to form resolutions to resign my pretensions to the warmer regard of her who was the object of all this serious solicitude; but neither she herself, nor time and place seemed, so far as I could see, disposed in the least to aid me in these efforts of self-control and denial; and, indeed, even at best, I much suspect that the resolutions of lovers in such cases are only like the little dams which the rivulet forms in itself by the frail material of stray grass-piles, and wild-rose leaves, easily overturned by the next slight impulse that the wave receives. In a ballad called 'Lanazine,' written somewhat in the old irregular style, sentiments relating to this matter, a little—and only a little—disguised, are set forth. The following is a portion of these records, written from time to time for the sake of preserving to the memory what might once be deeply interesting to the heart:—
"'O who may love with warm true heart,
And then from love refrain?
Who say 'tis fit we now should part
And never meet again?
"'The heart once broken bleeds no more,
And a deep sound sleep it hath,
Where the stir of pain ne'er travels o'er
The solitude of death.
"'The moon is set, and the star is gone,
And the cure, though cruel, cures,
But the heart left lone must sorrow on,
While the tie of life endures.
"'He had nor gold nor land, and trow'd
Himself unworthy all,
And sternly in his soul had vow'd
His fond love to recall.