Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 10

by Unknown

"All being prepared, I bade adieu to your father, and embarked, in the dress of a Dutch skipper, on board of a vessel bound for Dysart, principally loaded with old iron, for the nailers of Pathhead. She was a Fife vessel; and the captain knew me only as William Speare, a Dutchman. Upon our arrival, I crossed, with the first Kinghorn boat, for Leith, and hurried up to Edinburgh. Our passage across the Frith had been very tedious; and the shades of evening were just coming on when I reached the Abbey Hill. With a heart equally divided between hope and fear, I walked up the Canongate, through the Netherbow Port, and up the High Street. I saw many that I had known in happier days, and my heart yearned to address them; but, alas! I was a proscribed outlaw, shut out from the society I loved. When I reached Mary King's Close, my heart beat so ardently, that I was forced to pause for breath as I climbed the stair to my old door. I took the rasp in my hand, and gave my wonted tirl. A female opened the door, about the same height as her I loved. It was very dusky. That it was my wife I had no doubt. I threw my arms around her, crying, 'Dear Mary!' The female pushed me from her, and screamed out for help. I thought I would have sunk to the ground, and leaned against the door for support. An elderly female came in haste with a light. I attempted to speak, but could only sob, and felt sick almost to death. The women looked upon me in amazement, for the tears were silently stealing down my face. After whispering a few words, I was kindly invited into the house which I had expected to have been my own. It was tidily furnished; but everything in it was strange to me, and wore a look of desolation and loneliness. Neither my wife nor you were there. Not to betray myself, I told them that I had not been in Edinburgh for a long time; but that, when I left it last, a very dear friend had resided there, whom I had hoped to find where I left her, and that my mistake must plead my excuse for any apparent rudeness. Their answers to my inquiries crushed all my hopes. Mary was in her silent grave, and you had disappeared. Nothing now remained to me in Scotland that I cared for; and, after in vain offering a reward to any one who could give any information concerning you, and shedding a few tears over the grave of my wife, I returned to Holland with my sorrowful intelligence. Your father, quite sunk with your uncertain fate, fell into a lowness of spirits that preyed upon his health, and continually reflected upon himself as the cause of your mother's early death, and your destitution.

"As the monotony and dulness of garrison duty in a strongly-fortified town served to increase his melancholy, which threatened to merge into consumption, he, by the advice of his physician—that change of scene, and a warm climate, might remove all the bad symptoms he exhibited—exchanged into a regiment stationed in the Island of Ceylon, into which I also enlisted, that I might accompany him. There was, alas! no other individual on earth for whom I cared. Far from recovering on the voyage, its tedious dulness sunk him more and more into his habitual lowness of spirits; and, on our arrival on the island, he grew worse, and did not survive many months. I buried him at Trincomalee. Alas! how true is the saying, that 'all men know where they were born, but none where they shall lay their bones.'"

So intense had been the interest I felt in his narrative, that I scarcely moved, lest I should lose a word, or interrupt him. He paused at this event, and wiped a tear from his eyes. William and Mary I had until this hour looked upon as my real parents. For those I now heard of, I had new feelings to acquire. I noticed that he did not tell me the surname of my parents, and I pressed not the question. All that I asked of him was to continue his history, and inform me what had induced him once more to return to Scotland.

"Can a Scotsman ask that question of a Scotsman?" said he. "In whatever part of the globe he may be, the hope to lay his bones with his fathers is the Polar Star that cheers his wanderings, be they prosperous or adverse. Remove this hope, and his energies from that moment sink, for he has lost all of life worth caring for. I have both known and felt it. But to proceed:—

"After your father's death, I felt the most solitary of men for many months. Still I continued to do my duty as a private soldier, without taking any interest in surrounding events. About two years after my arrival, a revolt broke out in the colony: the Singaleese were aided by the Candians from the mountains; and the handful of Europeans could scarce make head against the multitudes of the natives, who had courage and ferocity more than sufficient to have exterminated us every man; but, fortunately for us, they had no discipline or other mode of warfare, but to rush on their enemy and overpower them. This they found to be a vain attempt; yet they never changed their mode until compelled to sue for peace, by the immense slaughter made of them in this war of carnage and massacre. I had been several times the decided cause of victory to the Dutch, in preventing small detachments from being cut off, and directing the movements of the main body; for which services I was promoted to a lieutenantcy. I never rose higher, nor do I believe I would have attained this rank, had it not been to enable me to take command of small parties, for which I was qualified from my being ever on the outskirts of the army, or in the borders of the jungle. Great numbers of my men died through fatigue and fever. I, myself for several years, remained robust; but my turn came at length. I fevered and relapsed; several times my life was despaired of for whole weeks; and many wounds I had received from the Candian spears and arrows broke out afresh, and baffled the power of medicine. My constitution triumphed over my malady; but I was unfit for service. I have one wound here on my side that is hurrying me to my grave; which, I hope, will be in Pennycuick churchyard. But, now that I have the happiness to find my long-lost charge, there is one more duty for me to perform when we reach Edinburgh, whither you must return with me, to consign me to the dust. That duty I never did expect to be called to perform—it is to re-possess myself of the certificates of your father's marriage and your baptism, which are, as I told you, concealed behind the wainscot in the house in Mary King's Close. I trust, for your sake, they are still safe, and may be the means of placing you in your proper rank in society."

"Dear father," I replied—"for I must still call you so—if it is to be of any service to me alone, it is of no avail to proceed further on that errand, for fortune baffles all my undertakings, and I tell you you will not succeed; still I have no objection to return with you to Scotland, although my present object in London was to go to sea in a vessel bound for the Indian seas—the only place of all I ever visited where fortune smiled upon me, and I scorned her favours."

After dinner I gave the lieutenant an outline of my adventures since he had left Edinburgh, at which he was much moved. When I told him of the obligation I lay under to the worthy lawyer—

"Ah, Johnnie!" said he, "we have already half-gained the victory. Mr Davidson was at college and intimate with your father, and ho knows me well as your father's servant. Scotland does not contain a better man for our purpose. I shall fee him liberally, and fortune may yet smile upon us." It was now late in the evening, and the lieutenant left me for the night.

Scarce was he gone, when a new passion took entire possession of me—that of pride and ambition. I felt myself quite changed, and strange visions of imaginary importance floated before me. My present finances were now deemed low enough—eleven guineas—which at one period I would have considered an immense sum. So sanguine had a few hours made me, that I looked upon it only as so many pence. From this period I date a complete revolution in my train of thoughts. Formerly I had cared but for the passing hour, nor heeded for to-morrow. My early education had, until now, clung to me in all my vicissitudes, being ever the outcast orphan boy, who, his belly full, his back warm, had nothing further to obtain. My contentment was now gone. But to proceed:—

For a few days I was forced to keep at home, until the marks of my Tower Hill affray had disappeared; during which, urged by my new passion (pride), I got myself equipped in the extreme of fashion. I now smile at my folly, when I look back to these few weeks in which I was swayed by it. But no young lady, getting her first ball-dress, was ever more fidgety or hard to please than John Square. The lieutenant was pleased to see me ape the gentleman; for he really looked upon me as such, and paid me every deference, as the son of his master. The money he had saved while in Ceylon he counted as mutual; nor would he allow me to expend one farthing of my own. We both were now anxious to proceed to Edinburgh, and embarked in the first trader bound for Leith. This voyage was the most pleasant I had ever made; I was in fairyland, and the lieutenant not far behind me.