Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 13

by Unknown

"Fifteen thousand!" responded Jacob.

Paul was thoughtful.

"Now," added Andrew, opening the boxes around him, "go each of you cast off the sackcloth which now covers you, and in these you will find garments such as it becomes the family of Andrew Donaldson, Esquire, to wear."

They obeyed his commands; and, casting aside their home-made cloth and cotton gowns, they appeared before him in the raiment which he had provided for them. The gowns were of silk, the coats of the finest Saxony, the waistcoats Marseilles. Mrs Donaldson's dress sat upon her awkwardly—the waist was out of its place, she seemed at a loss what to do with her arms, and altogether she appeared to feel as though the gown were too fine to sit upon. Sarah was neat, though not neater than she was in the dress of printed cotton which she had cast off; but Rebecca was transformed into the fine lady in a moment, and she tossed her head with the air of a duchess. The sleeves of Paul's coat were too short, Peter's vest would admit of but one button, and Jacob's trousers were deficient in length. Nevertheless, great was the outward change upon the family of Andrew Donaldson, and they gazed upon each other in wonder, as they would have stared at an exhibition of strange animals.

At this period there was a property, consisting of about twenty acres, in the neighbourhood of the village for sale. Mr Donaldson became the purchaser, and immediately commenced to build Luck's Lodge, or Lottery Hall, which to-day arrested your attention. As you may have seen, it was built under the direction of no architect but caprice, or a fickle and uninformed taste. The house was furnished expensively; there were card-tables and dining-tables, the couch, the sofa, and the harpsichord. Mrs Donaldson was afraid to touch the furniture, and she thought it little short of sin to sit upon the hair-bottomed mahogany chairs, which were studded with brass nails, bright as the stars in the firmament. Though, however, a harpsichord stood in the dining-room, as yet no music had issued from the lodge. Sarah had looked at it, and Rebecca had touched it, and appeared delighted with the sounds she produced; but even her mother knew that such sounds were not a tune. A dancing-master, therefore, who at that period was teaching the "five positions" to the youths and maidens of the village, was engaged to teach dancing and the mysteries of the harpsichord at the same time to the daughters of Mr. Donaldson. He had become a great and a rich man in a day; yet the pride of his heart was not satisfied. His neighbours did not lift their hats to him, as he had expected; but they passed him, saying, "Here's a fine day, Andrew!" or, "Weel, Andrew, hoo's a' wi' ye the day?" To such observations or inquiries he never returned an answer, but with his silver-mounted cane in his hand stalked proudly on. But this was not all; for, even in passing through the village, he would hear the women remark, "There's that silly body Donaldson away past;" or, "There struts the Lottery Ticket!" These things were wormwood to his spirit, and he repented that he had built his house in a neighbourhood where he was known. To be equal with the squire, however, and to mortify his neighbours the more, he bought a pair of horses and a barouche. He was long puzzled for a crest and motto with which to emblazon it; and Mrs. Donaldson suggested that Peter should paint on it a lottery ticket, but her husband stamped his foot in anger; and at length the coach-painter furnished it with the head and paws of some unknown animal.

Paul had always been given to books; he now requested to be sent to the university. His wish was complied with, and he took his departure for Edinburgh. Peter had always evinced a talent for drawing and painting. When a boy, he was wont to sketch houses and trees with pieces of chalk, which his mother declared to be as natural as life, and he now took instructions from a drawing-master. Jacob was ever of an idle turn; and he at first prevailed upon his father to purchase him a riding-horse, and afterwards to furnish him with the means of seeing the world. So Jacob set up gentleman in earnest, and went abroad. Mrs Donaldson was at home in no part of the house but the kitchen; and in it, notwithstanding her husband's lectures to remember that she was the wife of Mister Donaldson, she was generally found.

At the period when her father obtained the prize, Sarah was on the eve of being united to a respectable young man, a mechanic in the village, but now she was forbidden to speak or to look on him. The cotton gown lay lighter on her bosom than did its silken successor. Rebecca mocked her, and her father persecuted her; but poor Sarah could not cast off the affections of her heart like a worn garment. From childhood she had been blithe as the lark, but now dull melancholy claimed her as its own. The smile and the rose expired upon her cheeks together, and her health and happiness were crushed beneath her father's wealth. Rebecca, too, in their poverty had been "respected like the lave," but she now turned disdainfully from her admirer, and when he dared to accost her, she inquired with a frown, "Who are you, sir?" In her efforts also to speak properly, she committed foul murder on his Majesty's English; but she became the pride of her father's heart, his favourite daughter whom he delighted to honour.

Still feeling bitterly the want of reverence that was shown him by the villagers, and resolved at the same time to act as other gentlemen of fortune did, as winter drew on, Mr. Donaldson removed, with his wife, and daughters, and his son Peter, to London. They took up their abode at a hotel in Albemarle Street; and having brought the barouche with them, every afternoon Mr. Donaldson and his daughter Rebecca drove round the Park. His dress was rich and his carriage proud, and he lounged about the most fashionable places of resort; but he was not yet initiated into the mysteries of fashion and greatness; he was ignorant of the key by which their chambers were to be unlocked; and it mortified and surprised him that Andrew Donaldson, Esq., of Luck's Lodge—a gentleman who paid ready money for everything—received no invitations to the routes, the assemblies, or tables of the haut ton; but he paraded Bond Street, or sauntered on the Mall, with as little respect shown to him as by his neighbours in the country. When he had been a month in the metropolis, he discovered that he had made an omission, and he paid two guineas for the announcement of his arrival in a morning newspaper. "This will do!" said he twenty times during breakfast, as he held the paper in his hand, and twenty times read the announcement—"Arrived at —— Hotel, Albemarle Street, A. Donaldson, Esq., of Luck's Lodge, and family, from their seat in the north." But this did not do; he found it was two guineas thrown away, but consoled himself with the thought that it would vex the squire and the people of his native village. With the hope of becoming familiar with the leading men of the great world, he became a frequenter of the principal coffee-rooms. At one of these, he shortly became acquainted with a Captain Edwards, who, as Mr. Donaldson affirmed, was intimate with all the world, and bowed to and was known by every nobleman they met. Edwards was one of those creatures who live—heaven knows how—who are without estates and without fortune, but who appear in the resorts of fashion as its very mirrors. In a word, he was one of the hangers-on of the nobility and gentry—one of their blacklegs and purveyors. Poor Mr. Donaldson thought him the greatest man he had ever met with. He heard him accost noblemen on the streets in the afternoon with, "Good morning, my lord," and they familiarly replied, "Ha! Tom! what's the news?" He had borrowed ten, fifty, and a hundred pounds from his companion; and he had relieved him of a hundred or two more in teaching him to play at whist; but, vain, simple Mr. Donaldson never conceived that such a great man and such a fashionable man could be without money, though he could not be at the trouble to carry it. Edwards was between thirty and forty years of age, but looked younger; his hair was black, and tortured into ringlets; his upper lip was ornamented with thin, curved moustaches; and in his dress he was an exquisite, or a buck, as they were then called, of the first water. Mr. Donaldson invited him to his hotel, where he became a daily visitor. He spoke of his uncle the bishop of such a place, and of his godfather the earl of another—of his estates in Wales, and the rich advowsons in his gift. Andrew gloried in his fortune; he was now reaching the acmé of his ambition; he believed there would be no difficulty in getting his friend to bestow one or more of the benefices, when vacant, upon his son Paul; and he thought of sending for Paul to leave Edinburgh, and enter himself of Cambridge. Rebecca displayed all her charms before the captain; and the captain all his attractions before her. She triumphed in a conquest; so did he. Mr. Donaldson now also began to give dinners—and to them Captain Edwards invited the Honourable This, and Sir That; but in the midst of his own feast he found himself a cipher, where he was neither looked upon nor regarded, but had to think himself honoured in honourables eating of the banquet for which he had to pay. This galled him nearly as much as the perverseness of his neighbours in the country in not lifting their hats to him; but he feared to notice it, lest by so doing he should lose the distinction of their society. From the manner in which his guests treated him, they gave him few opportunities of betraying his origin; but, indeed, though a vain, he was not an ignorant man.

While these doings were carrying on in Albemarle-street, Mrs. Donaldson was, as she herself expressed it, "uneasy as a fish taken from the water." She said "such ongoings would be her death;" and she almost wished that the lottery ticket had turned up a blank. Peter was studying the paintings in Somerset House, and taking lessons in oil-colours; Rebecca mingled with company, or flaunted with Captain Edwards; but poor Sarah drooped like a lily that appears before its time, and is bitten by the returning frost. She wasted away—she died of a withered heart.

For a few weeks her death stemmed the tide of fashionable folly and extravagance; for, although vanity was the ruling passion of Andrew Donaldson, it could not altogether extinguish the parent in his heart. But his wife was inconsolable; for Sarah had been her favourite daughter, as Rebecca was his. It is a weak and a wicked thing, sir, for parents to make favourites of one child more than another—good never comes of it. Peter painted a portrait of his deceased sister from memory, and sent it to the young man to whom she was betrothed—I say betrothed, for she had said to him "I will," and they had broken a ring between them; each took a half of it; and, poor thing, her part of it was found on her breast, in a small bag, when she died. The captain paid his daily visits—he condoled with Rebecca—and, in a short time, she began to say it was a silly thing for her sister to die; but she was a grovelling-minded girl, she had no spirit.