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

by Unknown

and on the Sabbath mornings, I was wont to steal, as if unobserved, into the first country church, or rather place of worship, which I found open. I was there unknown; and in a congregation of English peasantry, the one-half of whom were in their smock-frocks, there were none to observe the shabbiness of my garments. And in the plainness of everything around me, there was something that accorded with my frame of mind, and in the midst of which I felt happier, and more at ease, than I could in the splendid cathedral or the gaudy chapel of a great city. It was in the month of May, and the sweet blossom, like odoriferous snow, lay on the hawthorn. The lark sang over me its Sabbath hymn. The sun had just risen, and, like the canopy of a celestial couch on which an angel might have reposed, the clouds, like curtains of red and gold, seemed drawn asunder. I sat beneath a venerable elm-tree, over which more than a hundred winters had passed; but their frosts had not nipped the majesty of its beauty. Above me a goldfinch chirmed and fed its young, and they seemed ready to break away upon the wing. It chirped to them, it fluttered from branch to branch, to allure them from the nest. One bolder than the rest ventured to follow, but ignorant of the strength of its wings, it fell upon the ground. The parent bird descended, and with strange motions mourned over it, anxiously striving again to teach it to ascend and regain its nest. My first impulse was to take up the little flutterer, to climb the tree, and replace it in the home which its first parent had built; but I lay and watched its motions for a few minutes. Again and again by a bold effort it endeavoured to reach the lofty branch where its parent had poised its nest, but as often it fell upon the ground, and its little breast panted on the earth. At length it perched upon the lowest twig, and from it got to others higher and higher, turning round proudly as it ascended, as if conversing with its parent, happy in what it was achieving, until the nest was regained.

"There," I exclaimed—"there is an example of perseverance; and a lesson is taught me by that little bird. It attempted too much at once, and its efforts were unsuccessful; it endeavoured to rise step by step, and it has gained the object it desired. That bird shall be my monitor, and I will endeavour to rise step by step, even as it has done."

I returned to London, and as I went, the attempts of the little bird were the text on which my thoughts dwelt. By sedulous attention to my duties, I began to rise in the esteem of my employer, the law stationer, and he increased my salary from seven shillings to a guinea a-week. I said unto myself, that, like the young bird, I had gained a higher branch.

Within twelve months he obtained me a situation in the office of an eminent solicitor, where I was engaged at a salary of a hundred pounds a-year. This was the scaling of another branch; and I again found myself in circumstances equal to those I had enjoyed previous to the treachery of Esau Taylor. I did not, in order to ingratiate myself with my employer, practise the bowing system, with which my countrymen have at times been accused; but I strove to be useful, I studied to oblige, and was rewarded with his confidence and favour.

It became a part of my employment to draw up abstracts of pleadings. On one occasion, I had drawn out a brief, which was to be placed in the hands of one of the most eminent counsel at the bar. He was struck with the manner in which the task was executed, and was pleased to pronounce it the clearest, the ablest, and best arranged brief that had ever been placed in his hands. He inquired who had drawn it out; and my employer introduced me to him. He spoke to me kindly and encouragingly, and recommended me to persevere. The word rekindled every slumbering energy of my soul. I had always endeavoured to do so, but now stronger impulses seemed to stir within me, and there was a confidence in my hopes that I had never felt before. He suggested that I should prepare myself for the bar, and generously offered to assist me. Through his interest, and the liberality of my master, I was admitted a student of the Inner Temple. My perseverance was now more necessary than ever, and again I thought of the little bird and its successful efforts. I had gained another branch, and the topmost bough to which I aspired was now visible.

I allowed myself but five hours out of the twenty-four for repose; the rest I devoted to hard study, and to the duties of assistant reporter to a daily newspaper. But often, in the midst of my studies, and even while noting down the strife of words in Parliament, thoughts of Jessy Mortimer came over me, and her image was pictured on my mind, like a guardian angel revealing for a moment the brightness of its countenance. My hopes became more sanguine, and I felt an assurance that the day would come when I should call her mine.

I had many privations to encounter, and many difficulties to overcome, but for none did I turn aside; my watch-word was "onward," and in due time I was called to the bar. I expected to struggle for years with the genteel misery of a briefless barrister, but the thought dismayed me not.

Before, however, I proceed farther with my own career, I shall notice that of Esau Taylor. There was no species of cunning, of treachery, or of meanness, of which he was not capable. There was none to which he did not resort. His brother clerks hated him; for, to his other properties, he added that of a low tale-bearer. But he was plausible as Lucifer, and with his smooth tongue, and fair professions, he succeeded in ingratiating himself into the chief place in his master's confidence; and eventually was placed by him at the head of his establishment; and, in order further to reward what he considered his singular worth and honesty, he permitted him to have a small share in the firm. But Esau was not one of those whom a small share, or any portion short of the whole, would satisfy. This he accomplished more easily and more speedily than it is possible that even he, with all his guilty cunning, had anticipated.

The merchant from whose employment he had supplanted me, and over whom his plausibility and pretended honesty had gained such an ascendency, had a daughter—an only child—who, about the time of Taylor's being admitted into a sort of partnership, returned from a boarding-school in Yorkshire. He immediately conceived that the easiest way to obtain both the father's business and his wealth would be by first securing the daughter's hand. Of anything even bordering upon affection his sordid soul was incapable: but to obtain his object he could assume its appearance, and he could employ the rhapsodies which at times pass for its language. The maiden was young and inexperienced, and with just as much of affectation as made her the more likely to be entangled in the snares of a plausible hypocrite, who adapted his conversation to her taste. The girl began to imagine that she loved him—perhaps she did—but more possibly it was a morbid fancy which she mistook for affection, and which he well knew how to encourage.

She became pensive, sighed, and drooped like a lily that is nipped by the frost, and seemed ready to leave her father childless; and the merchant, to save his daughter, consented to her union with Esau Taylor, his managing clerk and nominal partner.