A PASSAGE OF MY LIFE.
Maiden aunts are very tough. Their very infirmities seem to bring about a new term of life. They are like old square towers—nobody knows when they were built, and nobody knows when they will tumble down. You may unroof them, unfloor them, knock in their casements, and break down their doors, till the four old black walls stand, and stand through storm and sunshine year after year, till the eye, accustomed to contemplate the gradual decay of everything else, sickens to look at this anomaly in nature. My aunt, dear good soul, seemed resolved never to die,—at least to outlive her hopeful nephew. I thought she was to prove as perdurable as a dried mummy,—she was by this time equally yellow and exsiccated as any of the daughters of Pharaoh.
I had run myself quite aground. But my extravagances, as well as my distresses, I had the policy to conceal from my aged relative. She, honest lady, occasionally had pressed me to accept of some slight pittances of two or three £50’s at different times, which, after much difficulty and entreaty, I made a merit of accepting, stoutly asserting that I only received them to avoid hurting her feelings—that my own income was amply sufficient for the limited wants of a scholar, or to any one who could put in practice the rules of wholesome economy; but this trifle certainly would enable me to purchase a few rather expensive publications which I could not otherwise have hoped to do, and which would prove of essential use in furthering the progress of the two great works I had commenced while at college, and had been busy with ever since, viz.: “A History of Antediluvian Literature, Arts, and Sciences,” and, “A Dissertation on the Military Tactics of the Assyrians,” which I intended should appear along with the last volume of Valpy’s Greek Dictionary, or the first of Sir James Mackintosh’s History of Great Britain.
Fortune at last grew tired of persecuting me; she fairly turned her wheel, and put me on the brightest spoke. My aunt’s factor called one day, and let me know that he thought I should make my visits at Broadcroft more frequent—take a little interest in looking over the ditching and draining of the estate (short-sighted man, he little knew how much I had ditched and drained it by anticipation!)—walk through the woods and plantations, and bestow my opinion as to thinning them (they were long ago, in my own mind, transferred to the timber-yard)—apply myself a little to master the details of business connected with agricultural affairs, such as markets, green and white crops, manure, &c. &c.; and concluded by telling me that his son was a remarkably clever lad, knew country matters exceedingly well, and would be a most valuable acquisition as factor or land grieve to any gentleman of extensive landed property. The drift of this communication I perfectly understood. I listened with the most profound attention, lamented my own ignorance of the subjects wherein his clever son was so much at home, and wished only that I had an estate, that I might entrust it to the care of so intelligent a steward. After dispatching a bottle or two of claret, we parted mutually pleased.
He had seen my aunt’s will, and, in the fulness of his heart, ran over the legal jargon which constituted me the owner of Broadcroft, Lilliesacre, Kittleford, Westerha’, Cozieholm, Harperston, and Oxgang, with hale parts and pendicles, woods and fishings, mills and mill-lands, muirs and mosses, rights of pasturage and commonty. I never heard more delightful music all my days than the hour I spent hearkening to this old rook cawing over the excellent lands that were mine in prospective. My aunt’s letters, after this, I found assumed a querulous tone, and became strongly impregnated with religious commonplaces—a sure sign to me that she herself was now winding up her earthly affairs—and generally concluded with some such sentence as this: “I am in a comfortable frame of spirit, but my fleshly tabernacle is sorely decayed—great need hath it of a sure prop in the evening of its days.” These epistles I regularly answered, seasoning them with scriptural texts as well as I could. Some, to be sure, had no manner of connection or application whatsoever; but I did not care for that if they were there. I stuck them thick and threefold, for I knew my aunt was an indulgent critic, provided she got plenty of matter. I took the precaution also of paying the postage, for I learned, with something like satisfaction, that of late she had become rather parsimonious in her habits. I also heard that she daily took much comfort in the soul-searching and faith-fortifying discourses of Mr Samuel Salmasius Sickerscreed, a migratory preacher of some denomination or other, who had found it convenient for some months to pitch his tent in the Broadcroft. Several of my aunt’s letters told me, in no measured terms, her high opinion of his edifying gifts. With these opinions, as a matter of course, I warmly coincided. Sheet after sheet now poured in from Broadcroft. I verily thought all the worthy divines, from the Reformation downwards, had been put in requisition to batter me to pieces with choice and ghostly counsel.
This infliction I bore up against with wonderful fortitude, and repaid with my weightiest metal. To supply the extraordinary drafts thus made on my stores of devout phraseology, I had to call in my worthy friend Tom ——. He had been a regularly-bred theologian, but finding the casque more fitting for his hot head than the presbyter’s cowl, he now lived in elegant starvation as a dashing cornet in the —— Dragoons, and a better fellow never breathed. His assistance was of eminent service: when we exhausted our own invention, we immediately transcribed the sermon of some forgotten divine of last century, and sent it thundering off. These we denominated shells. At this time Tom’s fortune and mine were hanging on the same pin; we were both up to the chin in debt; we had stretched our respective personal credits, as far as they would go, for each other. We were involved in such a beautiful multitude and labyrinth of mutual obligations, that we could neither count them nor see our way out of them. In the holy siege of Broadcroft citadel we therefore joined heart and hand.
In this manner things went on smoothly. My aunt was becoming daily weaker, seldom left her own bedroom, and permitted no person to see her save the Rev. S. S. Sickerscreed. Indeed, every letter I received from my aunt intimated more plainly than its predecessor that I might make up my mind for a great and sudden change, and prepare myself for afflictions. As in duty bound, my answers breathed of sorrow and resignation—lamented the mutability of this world—its nothingness—the utter vanity of all earthly joys. I really loved the good old lady; but I was hampered most villanously. I knew not a spot where I could put the sole of my foot, without some legal mine blowing me up a shivered rag into the azure firmament,—a fate a thousand times more picturesque than pleasant. I may therefore be excused for confessing that I looked upon my aunt’s release from this world as the dawn of my own deliverance. Yet, even then, I felt shame when I looked into the chambers of my heart, and found that every feeling of grief I had there for my aunt’s illness was beautifully edged with a gleam of satisfaction. The cypresses and yews, and other mournful trees that threw their pensive shadows around me, were positively resting above a burning volcano of joy. No; it was not in human nature for a desperate man like me to exclude from his contemplation the bills, bonds, moneys, and manors that had accumulated for years under her thrifty and prudent management.
One morning, while musing in this indescribable state of feeling, a little ragged boy, besmeared with dust and sweat, whom I recognised as turnspit and running footman of the establishment at Broadcroft, thrust a crumpled greasy-like billet in my hand.
“Come awa, laird, come awa, gin ye would like to see your auld auntie afore she gangs aff a’thegither.”
I started up, threw down the “Sporting Magazine,” and instinctively snatched up my hat.