Many years had passed away between the time when the old shepherd had perished in the church and the time to which we now refer, and William had a family of two sons and three daughters. If Ellen's father was unfavourable to her marriage at first, it will be easily imagined that he never now acknowledged them. His young family, therefore, had nothing to depend upon except their father's exertions, and they were about to be closed for ever.
The time arrived when it was impossible for William to be suffered any longer to remain in his charge. He was thrust out of his church, and expelled from the ministry. The messenger who delivered this message to him, delivered it to one more dead than alive. His excesses had at length brought on a fit of apoplexy; he was but partially recovered from it, and could only, in a dim manner, comprehend the purport of the message, when, with his wife and children, he was removed from the manse. A friend sheltered him for a time—afterwards he was conveyed over to Edinburgh. Within a twelvemonth he died, having been chained down to bed by his disease, one-half of his frame being dead, with mind enough to see poverty and inevitable misery ready to crush his helpless family, but without the power to use the slightest exertion in order to avert the impending calamity. It was in a garret in the High Street, upon rotten straw, the spectacle of an emaciated and shattered wife before his eyes, and the cries of his starving children sounding in his ears, that William Riddell breathed his last! What availed it then that he had been good and pure, full of generous sentiments, endowed with a graceful person, a noble genius, and a manly eloquence? These otherwise invaluable qualities had been all sunk or scattered by the spendthrift extravagances of the Social Man.
It is now about five years ago, since, as we were hurrying past Cassels Place, at the foot of Leith Walk, we were attracted by a crowd who had gathered round a poor intoxicated woman. She had fallen beneath the wheel of a waggon, and both her legs were crushed in a terrible manner. As two or three assistants carried her past a gas-light towards the nearest house, we were struck by the resemblance—hideous, indeed, and bloated—which her features wore to some one whom we had known. We inquired her history, and, to our horror, discovered that this was indeed Ellen Ogilvie—the widow of our poor friend, William Riddell. It was useless attempting to save her; her vital energies were sinking rapidly beneath the injuries which she had received. She revived a little from the effect of some wine which we gave her, and began incoherently to speak of her past life. "You see me here, sir," said she, "a poor, wretched, degraded creature:—I was not always thus. There was not a happier heart in wide Scotland than mine was, ten years ago. But my husband, sir, was a Social Man!" A convulsive sob checked her words—her head sank back on the pillow—her lower jaw fell—the death-rattle sounded in her throat—and in a few moments the unfortunate woman expired.
THE TWO COMRADES.
Still and calm lay the sleeping waters of Loch Ard, as they reposed in their beauty on the morning of the 17th of August, 17—. The hour was early, and the rays of the rising sun had not yet dispersed the thick mists that hung on the bosoms of the surrounding hills. The scenery around, although of the most romantic character, and composed of the choicest materials for the picturesque, had an air of gloominess and rawness about it, that did but little justice to the thousand beauties which its simple elements of wood and water, rock and hill, were capable, by their various combinations, of producing. That scene yet wanted the life and soul, the cheering, spirit-stirring influence of the blessed sunlight, to bring out its loveliness, and to exhibit its details in all their fairy brightness. This want was not long of being supplied. The sun rose in all his splendour; the mist rolled away from the face of the hill; the calm, placid surface of the lake, like a mighty mirror, embedded in its rude and gigantic, but gorgeous framework of wooded mountains, shone with dazzling effulgence; and the hills and forests displayed themselves in their robes of brightest green.
As every one who has visited these romantic regions knows, the road that conducts to Aberfoyle from the west end of Loch Ard runs, for a considerable space, close by the margin of the lake on its northern side—and a most beautiful locality this is. The road is low and level; on one hand is the bright, smooth, sandy shore of the loch, with its clear, shallow water; and, on the other, steep mountains, shaggy with primeval woods. We have directed the attention of the reader to this particular point of the landscape, for the purpose of saying, that, at the moment at which our story opens (namely, on the morning of the 17th of August, 17—), two persons were seen, at the early hour which our description would indicate, trudging silently along by the margin of the lake. They were two young men, and evidently prosecuting a journey of some length. Over the shoulder of each projected a stout oak stick, on whose extremity a small bundle was suspended; probably, small as they were, containing all the earthly possessions of their bearers. Yet, however poor the lads might be in world's wealth—for they were, as was sufficiently evident from their dress, of the humblest class—they were rich in the gifts of nature; for a couple of handsomer-looking young men than they were the Highlands of Scotland could not have produced. Strongly built, and exhibiting in their erect and springy gait the peculiar muscular energy of their mountain education, they appeared men capable of any fatigue, and, to judge by the air of calm determination and mild resolution expressed in their bold and manly countenances, of any deed of honourable daring. Such was the personal appearance—for, although differing in individual features, they resembled each other in their general characteristics—of James M'Intyre and Roderick M'Leod, which were the names of the two young men whom we have just introduced to the reader. The ages of the two seemed to be about equal—somewhere about five or six-and-twenty; in stature they were also nearly the same; but, if there was any difference between them in this particular, it was in favour of M'Intyre, who stood nearly six feet in height. M'Leod might be an inch shorter. They had been brought up together from their infancy; had a thousand times together climbed the heights of Cruagh Moran, and as often swam across the deep, dark waters of Loch Uisk, which lay just before their doors. Their parents were next door neighbours in the little village of Ardvortan, situated in one of the most beautiful straths in the West of Scotland. James and Roderick had not only been companions from their earliest years, but earned their scanty subsistence; and they were now, together, about to try their fortunes in a world to which they had hitherto been strangers. Stories of the warlike renown of their ancestors, with more recent tales of the achievements of their countrymen who had enlisted in the 42nd and other Highland regiments, had roused the martial spirit which they inherited from their fathers, and determined them to leave their peaceful glen and native hills, to seek, in "the ranks of death," for that which they had been taught to believe was the proudest gift of fortune—a soldier's fame.
It was a sad, and yet a proud day, for the mothers of the young men, that on which they left their native village. Natural affection deplored their departure, while maternal pride gloried in visions of the honours that awaited them on the fields of war. The plumed bonnet, the belted plaid, and all the other gallant array of the Highland soldier, presented themselves to the fond mothers; and they thought, as they gazed on the stately forms of their sons for the last time, how well they would look in the martial garb which they were about to assume. The young men, then, whom we have represented as wending their way by the margin of Loch Ard, and prosecuting a southward journey, were proceeding to Glasgow, one of the recruiting stations of the —th Highland regiment, to enrol themselves in that gallant corps, which was already filled with their friends and countrymen.
On arriving at Glasgow, which, although a distance of nearly forty miles from the spot where we first introduced them to the reader, they made out with perfect ease on the evening of the same day on which they left their native village, the young men repaired to a well-known resort of the privates of Highland regiments which were from time to time quartered in Glasgow. This was a low, dark public-house in the High Street of that city, kept by a Serjeant M'Nab, an old veteran, who had seen service in his day; and who, although he had now retired into private life, continued to maintain all his military connections with as much zeal as if he was still in the discharge of his military duties; and, indeed, this he was to some extent, having still an authority to enlist. The house of M'Nab was thus filled from morning to night with soldiers of various grades of rank—serjeants, corporals, and privates—and of various degrees of standing, from the raw, newly-enrolled recruit, with his stiff black stock—the only article of his military equipment with which he had been yet provided—to the veteran serjeant, who had literally fought his way to his present rank. In every corner of every room in this favourite resort of the Celtic warriors, lay heaps of muskets resting against the wall; and on every table lay piles of Highland bonnets—their owners being engaged in discussing the contents of the oft-replenished half-mutchkin stoup. Occasionally, too, the scream of a bagpipe might be suddenly heard in some apartment, where the party by which it was occupied had attained the point of musical excitement, while, over all, except the sounds of the aforenamed instrument, prevailed the din of noisy, but good-humoured colloquy, in sonorous Gaelic; for no other language was ever heard in the warlike domicile of Serjeant M'Nab.