"E'en drawing out a thread wi' little din,
And beaking her auld limbs afore the sun."
A large grey cat occupied the other side of the passage, and a few hens, with the necessary accompaniment, clucked and chuckled, and crowed around. Janet sat there in her solitude, an old, infirm, and comparatively helpless creature; but she was wonderfully contented and happy. Her own industry supplied her little wants; and she was protected, in a free house and kail-yard, by Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, the princely and humane laird of Closeburn. The wheel had just ceased its revolution, and her spectacles had just been assumed, with the view of reading, by the light of a cheery spark, her evening chapter. A cake of oat-bread was toasting at the fire, and a bowl of pure whey was set upon a stool, when Janet's ear was arrested by the approach of a horseman, who with difficulty urged his steed up the somewhat precipitous ascent. The horseman had no sooner attained the doorway, than he alighted, and giving his horse to be held by a little urchin, whom he had beckoned from the wood for this purpose, he was at once in the presence of the aged inmate of this humble dwelling. The scene I shall never forget; for I was, in fact, the little boy whom he had enlisted in his service, by the tempting reward of sixpence. The horseman was tall and well-built; he might be about fifty years of age, and every way wearing the garb and the aspect of a gentleman. Having advanced towards the old woman, he looked steadily and keenly into her face, while his bosom heaved, and the tears began to indicate deep and tender emotion. The old woman seemed petrified with astonishment, and fell back into her arm-chair, as if some one had rudely pushed her down into it. At last, old Janet found utterance in these words, pronounced in a quavering and almost inarticulate voice, "In the name of God, who or what art thou?" These words, however, had not been pronounced, when the stranger had already dropped down on his knees, and had actually flung himself into the arms of his mother. Yes, of his mother—for so it proved to be, that this was the first meeting betwixt mother and child for the space of upwards of forty years. The old woman's mind seemed for a time bewildered. She endeavoured to clear her eyes, pushed the stranger feebly from her, looked him intensely in the face for an instant, and then, uttering a loud scream, became altogether insensible.
"Oh, what shall I do!" exclaimed the stranger; "what have I done? I have murdered—I have murdered the mother that bore me! Oh, that I had staid at Brownhill inn till morning, and had apprised my poor parent—alas! my only parent—of my approach!"
Whilst he was ejaculating in this manner, the old woman's lips began to resume their usual colour, and she opened her eyes and her arms at once, exclaiming, in an agony of transport—
"My son! oh, my son! My long-lost, long-dead, long-despaired-of son!"
The scene now became more calm and rational. The stranger passed, with his mother, into the humble dwelling. I tied the horse to the door-sneck, and followed, more from curiosity than humanity. The stranger sat down on what he termed his old creepy stool, from which, in days long past, he had taken his porridge. He drew his mother nearer and nearer him, kissed her again and again, and the tears fell fast and full over his manly and withered cheeks; and, ever and anon, as old Janet would eye her tall and manly son, she would exclaim, looking into his face at all the distance which her withered arms could place him—
"Ay, me, an' is that my wee Geordie?"
The facts of Geordie's history I have often listened to with more than boyish interest; for this stranger ultimately took up his abode in a beautiful cottage, built on the spot where his original dwelling stood; and, as I came and went to Closeburn School, Mr George Smith would take me into his parlour, and discourse with me for hour after hour, and day after day, on all the varied incidents of a stirring and eventful life. His father died early, having lost his life by the fall of a tree which he was assisting in cutting down, or felling, as it is termed. George was a first-born, and, indeed, an only child; and the kindness of the laird, with the industry of his mother, combined to rear him into boyhood. Being, however, under no paternal authority, he became wild and wayward, and, ere he had gained his thirteenth year, he was a greater adept in fishing, orchard-breaking, and cock-fighting, than in Ovid and Virgil. It was his early fortune to become acquainted with an old sailor, who had been in various engagements, particularly in that betwixt Rodney and De Grasse, in the western seas. This sailor, whose name was Bill Wilson, and whose trade in his old age was that of smuggling tea and brandy from the Solway to the Clyde, used to fill his head with adventure, and daring purpose, and successful execution. He had listened, he said, for hours to Bill's account of niggers, and buccaneers, and dare-devils, who fed on gunpowder, and walked, whistling, amidst cannon and musket shots. And then, prize-money, and Plymouth, and fun, and frolic, all night long! The thing was irresistible; so, with a letter in his pocket from Bill to an old comrade in the Isle of Man, then the centre of smuggling, George Smith took a moonlight leave of his mother, and his youthful associates, and the bonny braes of Dunsyette, and was on board a smuggler at Glencaple Key ere day dawned. He was conveyed, in the course of forty-eight hours, to the Isle of Man, and fairly stowed into the warehouse of Dick Davison, in the neighbourhood of the town of Douglas. His first adventure was the landing of a cargo of French brandy in the Bay of Glenluce; but the night was dark and stormy, and the boat upset; and, according to a published account, all in the boat—namely, three souls—had perished. The fact, however, was, that, whilst clinging to the inverted boat, he had been picked up by a West Indian ship from Greenock, which had been driven into the bay by stress of weather, and carried out incontinent, as no land could be made, to the island of Jamaica. In the meantime, Bill Wilson thought proper to get sick, and to die, and to confess the whole truth, with the dreadful catastrophe, to the poor distracted mother.
When George arrived off Kingston, in Jamaica, he resolved upon pushing his way, in one course or another, upon land; so, having bid his captain good-by, and thanked him sincerely for the small trifle of saving his life, he set his foot on shore, almost naked, friendless, penniless. As he entered Kingston, he encountered a runaway steed, which, with a young lady screaming on its back, was plunging forwards, and entirely without control. George, acting on a natural impulse, threw himself in the way of the unruly animal, and, by getting hold of the bridle, at last brought it up; but not without several severe bruises, as he hung betwixt its fore-feet, unable, for want of weight, all at once to check the horse's career. The father of the young lady had now overtaken them; and, having alighted, extricated first his daughter, and then poor George Smith, from their perilous position. The young lady, who had in fact sustained no bodily injury, was loud in praise of him who, by his promptitude and intrepidity, had rescued her, in all probability, from much serious injury, or even from death; and George was immediately invited to accompany the party (for there was a well-mounted servant likewise) home to their villa, in the neighbourhood of the town. As they walked slowly (the young lady refusing to mount anew) up the rising ground to the south of Kingston, George had sufficient time to unfold the particulars of his short but eventful history; and to interest the father not less by his good sense and sagacity, than he had the daughter by his intrepidity and self-devotion. In a word, George found favour in the great man's eyes, and was introduced to the overseer of an extensive plantation, with instructions to have him clothed, employed as a clerk or slave-driver, and properly attended to in all respects. This seeming accident George used always to consider as one of those arrangements of divine Providence, by which good is brought out of seeming evil; and a total destitution of all the necessaries of life was in his case prevented. For three years, George continued to act on these plantations, receiving many acts of kindness from his really humane employer; and waxing into vigorous manhood, without seasoning fever, or any disease whatever. It was Mr Walker's habit (such was the name of his benefactor) to have George up with him to dine every Saturday, when he had renewed opportunities of becoming acquainted with the young lady whom he had rescued; and who was now budding sweetly into the perfect and accomplished woman. The distance in point of wealth, and consequently station (in a country where wealth is the only rank), betwixt George and Miss Walker, kept the eyes of the parent long blind to the actual position of affairs. But true it was, and of verity, that Miss Walker's heart was fairly won, and George's was as fairly lost, without one word on the subject of love having been exchanged on either side. Wonderful, unsearchable passion!—the electric fluid does not more universally penetrate nature herself, than does this passion the whole framework of society; and yet the ethereal agency is not more remote and inscrutable in its workings and doings, than in love—
"Sae, lang ere bonny Mary wist,
Her peace was lost, her heart was won."