With a glee, not unmingled with tender regrets, she used to tell how, when she and the spruce young officer were proceeding up Leith Walk together to Edinburgh, an old woman stopped them, and, clapping him kindly on the shoulder, said—“Ay, my mannie, ye’ll be a captain yet!” This prophecy of the old woman certainly met its fulfilment.
After staying a few days in the old home near the Meadows, young Moffat again took his departure, never more to see his affectionate mother, or the bald crown of Arthur Seat rising by the side of the familiar Firth. He joined the army (changes of officers from the navy to the army being then frequent in the Russian service), and reenacted his part honourably in many memorable scenes. Still do I remember the tender and tearful care with which his old mother opened up the yellow letters, with their faded ink-tracings, which contained descriptions of the part he played in harassing the French, during their disastrous retreat after the burning of Moscow. One of these letters, I recollect, commenced thus—“Here we are, driving the French before us like a flock of sheep;” and in others he gave painful descriptions of their coming up to small parties of French soldiers who were literally glued by the extreme frost to the ground—quite stiff and dead, but still in a standing attitude, and leaning on their muskets. Poor wretches! that was their sole reward for helping to whet the appetite of an insatiable ambition. In those warlike times, young Moffat grew into favour, and gained promotion. He received a gold-hilted sword from the Emperor for distinguished service, but he succumbed to fatigue, and died on foreign soil. The gold-headed sword and his epaulets, which he had bequeathed to a favourite sister, fell into the hands of harpies in London, and to this day have never reached Scotland.
In the quiet village Mrs Moffat spent her declining days in peace and sweet content, and she now sleeps in the village churchyard, till the last spring that visits the world shall waken inanimate dust to immortal life.
THE BAPTISM.
By Professor Wilson.
It is a pleasant and impressive time, when, at the close of divine service, in some small country church, there takes place the gentle stir and preparation for a baptism. A sudden air of cheerfulness spreads over the whole congregation; the more solemn expression of all countenances fades away; and it is at once felt that a rite is about to be performed which, although of a sacred and awful kind, is yet connected with a thousand delightful associations of purity, beauty, and innocence. Then there is an eager bending of smiling faces over the humble galleries—an unconscious rising up in affectionate curiosity—and a slight murmuring sound, in which is no violation of the Sabbath sanctity of God’s house, when, in the middle passage of the church, the party of women is seen, matrons and maids, who bear in their bosoms, or in their arms, the helpless beings about to be made members of the Christian communion.
There sit, all dressed becomingly in white, the fond and happy baptismal group. The babies have been intrusted, for a precious hour, to the bosoms of young maidens, who tenderly fold them to their yearning hearts, and with endearments taught by nature, are stilling, not always successfully, their plaintive cries. Then the proud and delighted girls rise up, one after the other, in sight of the whole congregation, and hold up the infants, arrayed in neat caps and long flowing linen, into their fathers’ hands. For the poorest of the poor, if he has a heart at all, will have his infant well dressed on such a day, even although it should scant his meal for weeks to come, and force him to spare fuel to his winter fire.
And now the fathers were all standing below the pulpit, with grave and thoughtful faces. Each has tenderly taken his infant into his toil-hardened hands, and supports it in gentle and steadfast affection. They are all the children of poverty, and if they live, are destined to a life of toil. But now poverty puts on its most pleasant aspect, for it is beheld standing before the altar of religion with contentment and faith. This is a time when the better and deeper nature of every man must rise up within him, and when he must feel, more especially, that he is a spiritual and immortal being making covenant with God. He is about to take upon himself a holy charge; to promise to look after his child’s immortal soul; and to keep its little feet from the paths of evil, and in those of innocence and peace. Such a thought elevates the lowest mind above itself, diffuses additional tenderness over the domestic relations, and makes them who hold up their infants to the baptismal font, better fathers, husbands, and sons, by the deeper insight which they then possess into their nature and their life.
The minister consecrates the water; and, as it falls on his infant’s face, the father feels the great oath in his soul. As the poor helpless creature is wailing in his arms, he thinks how needful indeed to human infancy is the love of Providence! And when, after delivering each his child into the arms of the smiling maiden from whom he had received it, he again takes his place for admonition and advice before the pulpit, his mind is well disposed to think on the perfect beauty of that religion of which the Divine Founder said, “Suffer little children to be brought unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven!”
The rite of baptism had not thus been performed for several months in the kirk of Lanark. It was now the hottest time of persecution; and the inhabitants of that parish found other places in which to worship God and celebrate the ordinances of religion. It was now the Sabbath-day, and a small congregation of about a hundred souls had met for divine service in a place of worship more magnificent than any temple that human hands had ever built to Deity. Here, too, were three children about to be baptised. The congregation had not assembled to the toll of the bell, but each heart knew the hour and observed it; for there are a hundred sun-dials among the hills, woods, moors, and fields, and the shepherd and the peasant see the hours passing by them in sunshine and shadow.