Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 16

by Unknown

Many said that before I was twenty they would see me in a pulpit—but they were mistaken. My father's habitual word, persevere, had taken too deep root in my heart, until it produced a sort of mental perpetual motion, which ever urged me onward—onward! and I found that the limits of a pulpit would never confine or contain me. I felt like a thing of life and happiness, that rejoiced and shook its wings beneath the sunshine of freedom, and I longed to expand my wings, even though they should fall or break under me.

I have said that I left school three days before I had completed my thirteenth year, and on the day that I did so, I was to become tutor in the family of a Colonel Mortimer, of the Honourable the East India Company's service. I was to be at once the playmate and instructor of two children; the one five, the other seven years of age—both boys. But his family contained another child—Jessy Mortimer—a lovely, dark-eyed girl of fifteen. The sun of an eastern clime had early drawn forth her beauty into ripeness, and although but two years older than myself, she was as a woman, while I was not only a mere boy, but, if I might use the expression, something between what might be termed a boy and a child; and certainly at the very age when children are most disagreeable to persons of a riper age. Yet, young as I was, from the very day that I beheld her, my soul took up its habitation in her eyes. I was dumb in her presence, I opened not my mouth. I was as a whisper, a shadow, in the family—a piece of mechanism that performed the task designed for it. It was a presumptuous thing in the son of a humble barnman to fix his eyes and his heart upon the daughter of an East India colonel, and one two years older than himself; but the heart hath its vagaries, even as our actions have.

For the first two years that I was in the house of Colonel Mortimer, I may say that, save in my class-room, my voice was not heard above my breath. But, as my voluntary dumbness became more and more oppressive, so also did my affection, my devotion, for Jessy become the more intense. The difference between our ages seemed even to have become more marked, and I felt it. Yet I began to think that her eyes looked upon me more tenderly; and the thought increased the devotion which for two years I had silently cherished. There seemed also a music, a spirit of gentleness and of kindness, in her voice, which first inspired me with hope.

Thus did five years pass on, and during that period I hardly ventured to lift up my eyes in her presence; though throughout that period I had said within my heart, Jessy Mortimer shall be my wife, and that was a bold thought for the son of a barnman to entertain towards the daughter of a wealthy nabob. But throughout my whole life I had endeavoured to put into practice my father's counsel concerning perseverance; and most of all was I determined to follow it in the subject which was deepest in my heart.

I remember the first time I ever spoke to Jessy. When I say the first time I spoke to her, I mean the first time that my soul spoke to her through my lips. For more than five years we had exchanged the common civilities of society with each other; but the language of the heart is ever a sealed volume, when the cold-fashioned ceremonies of society have to be observed.

But to proceed. I was now upwards of eighteen, and the children under my tuition were to be removed to a public school. It was no disgrace to me that they were to be so removed, for I knew it from the beginning of my engagement. Yet I felt it as disgrace—as more than disgrace—because that it would tear me from the side of Jessy, on whom my eyes lived and my mind dreamed. I had no wish to be a teacher, no ambition to become a minister; and her father had procured for me a situation as a clerk to a broker in London. But to me the thoughts of departure were terrible. Everything within and around the colonel's establishment had become things that I loved. I loved them because Jessy loved them, because she saw them, touched them, was familiar with and in the midst of them. They had become a portion of my home. I was unhappy at the thought of leaving them; but, beyond every other cause, my mind was without comfort at the thought of leaving her—it was hopeless, desolate. It was like causing a memory by force to perish in my heart.

It was in the month of September; I was wandering amidst the wooded walks upon her father's grounds. The rainbowed bronze of autumn lay upon the trees, deepening as it lay. The sun hung over the western hills; and the lark, after its summer silence, carolled over the heads of the last reapers of the season, to cheer their toil. A few solitary swallows twittered together, as if crying, "Come—come!" to summon them to a gathering and departure. The wood-pigeon cooed in the plantations, and as the twilight deepened, the plaintiveness of its strain increased. As I have said, I was then wandering in the wooded walks upon Colonel Mortimer's grounds, and my thoughts were far too deep for words. While I so wandered in lonely melancholy, my attention was aroused by the sound of footsteps approaching. I looked up, and Jessy Mortimer stood before me. I was too bashful to advance—too proud, too attached towards her, to retire.

We stood as though an electric spark had stricken both. I trembled, and my eyes grew dim; but I saw the rose die upon her cheeks. I beheld her ready to fall upon the ground, and, half unconscious of what I did, I sprang forward, and my arm encircled her waist.

"Jessy!—Miss Mortimer!" I cried. "Pardon me—speak to me."

"Sir!" she exclaimed—"Roderic!" I approached her—I took her hand. We stood before each other in silence. She drew herself up—she fixed her eyes upon me. "Sir," she returned, "I will not pretend to misunderstand your meaning; but remember the difference that exists in our situations."