James Hamilton, who had this evening experienced the opposites of extreme agony and extreme happiness, was only a mere long-headed specimen of the weavers of Daldaff. Having saved a little money, and acquired a reputation for prudence and honesty, he had been able, when the Glasgow work was first introduced into the village, to get himself appointed by a manufacturing house in that city as agent for supplying employment to his brethren; and as he not only enjoyed a commission upon the labours of his neighbours, but also kept a number of looms going upon his own account, he might be considered the most prosperous man in the village. He had been married for many years, but was blessed with only one child, the fair young girl who was rescued from death in the manner above described. He was one of those individuals, who, though entitled to praise for their correct dealings and sagacious conduct in life, are yet apt to excite dislike by their contenting themselves too exclusively with those properties, and not showing enough of the amenity and friendliness of disposition, by which alone society at large is rendered agreeable. You could always make sure that James Hamilton would do you no wrong, but you were also impressed with the certainty that neither would he do you any good; and if it be possible that there can be an excess of circumspection and prudence, he erred in that excess. Rarely giving way to feeling himself, he could hardly believe that it existed in others, or, if he did acknowledge its existence, he despised it as only the symptom of an unworldly character. Even on seeing a single and beloved child rescued from destruction, though he could not repress the first gush of grateful and joyful emotion, he almost immediately after relapsed into his usual coldness, and seemed to chide himself for having been betrayed into that excitement.
Adam Cuthbertson, who had done for him almost the greatest service that one man could do to another, was the son of a poor widow in Sarkinholm, and now resided with a relation at Daldaff, under whom he was acquiring the universal craft of the district. Though graced with only a very limited education, and condemned to almost unceasing toil, Adam was a youth of some spirit and ingenuity. An old black buke of Scotch songs lay constantly on the beam at his left hand, and the rush of the shuttle and the dunt of the lay went in unison with as clear a pipe as ever lilted up the notes of our national minstrelsy. It was even whispered that Adam had himself composed a few songs, or there were at least certain ditties which the lasses of Daldaff might occasionally be heard singing at their washings on the haugh, and which were privately attributed to his pen—though, it is to be remarked, his modesty would never permit him to confess the soft impeachment. Adam also contrived to obtain some scientific books, which he pored over at night by his uncle’s fireside, or, in summer, beneath a little bower which he had constructed in the garden. He was thought to be less steady at his work than some duller lads, and the case was not mended by a particular improvement which he had carried into effect upon the machinery of his loom. Although he practically demonstrated that he could work more with the same trouble by means of this alteration, the old workmen only shook their heads at it, and wished he might work as much with it in the long-run. It happened one day, that, as he was dressing his web with the brushes, he lost his balance by mere accident, and fell head foremost through the white expanse before him, producing, of course, irremediable ruin. “Ay, ay,” remarked some of the old stagers, “I never thought ony gude would come o’ thae improvements. Wha ever heard o’ ony ordinar workman playing sic a plisky?” Others, less disposed to observe the strict doctrines of causation, would ask what else could be expected of “that newfangled way o’ working the hiddles.” The very minister, honest man, was heard to hazard a quiet witticism on the subject, not from any ill-will towards his young parishioner, but just because the joke could hardly be avoided: “I was aye jalousing,” said the worthy divine one day to his elder, James Hamilton, “that Yedie wad some day or other fa’ through his wark.” It is to be mentioned with regret that Hamilton, notwithstanding his obligations to the young man, was one of those who regarded his frank-spirited character and forward genius with least favour. This did not appear to be solely the result of the opposition of their characters. Hamilton, who, in any circumstances, would have been sure to disapprove of the qualities manifested by Adam Cuthbertson, appeared almost to have contracted an additional dislike for him, on account of the very obligation which ought to have made him his friend. He seemed to dread the claims which the rescue of his child might establish, and acted as if he thought it necessary to give as little encouragement to those claims as possible.
There was, however, one individual who did full justice both to the superior character and the gallant achievement of Cuthbertson. This was Susan Hamilton, the fair young girl whom he had saved. Susan at the time of her rescue was too young to regard her deliverer with any other feeling than that of grateful respect. But as she advanced towards womanhood, the childish feeling of awe with which she had always beheld him when they chanced to meet, became gradually exchanged for a sentiment of a softer and tenderer character, though not less bashful and abased. Adam’s feelings towards her experienced a similar change. Ever after the day when he saved her life, he had taken rather more interest in that fair head and those sweet blue eyes, than in the features of any other child of the same age whom he saw tripping to school. But this feeling was merely one of circumstances. It solely referred to the adventure by which he had been so happy as to restore her to the arms of her father. Susan, however, in a very few years, ceased to be a little girl tripping to school. Her figure became considerably taller, and more attractive. Her blue eyes became filled with deeper and more thoughtful meanings. Her cheek, when she approached her deliverer, assumed a richer hue; and her voice, when it addressed him, surprised him with new tones. Sometimes he would hardly permit himself to think that she was in the least different from what she had been. He would still speak to her as a man addressing a child. But after they had parted, he would feel his soul troubled with a delight he had never before experienced. He would feel, though he did not think, that she was different. Need any more be said than that he in time found himself at once loving and beloved? The sun never set with a richer glow, nor did the flowers ever give out a richer perfume, than on the evening, when, in the woods of Craigcross, Adam Cuthbertson and Susan Hamilton first confessed their mutual attachment.
But fate was adverse to the passion of these amiable beings. James Hamilton, with all his homely wisdom, had so far given way to a wretched ambition as to wish his daughter to match in a sphere above his own rank. Laird Ganderson, of Windigate, had marked out Susan at church as a very proper person to undertake the management of his household, an office just become vacant in consequence of the death of his mother. Being arrived at the full and perfect age of forty-seven years, the beauty of the young lady was perhaps a smaller consideration with the laird, than the contiguity of a few fields lately purchased by her father, to his own somewhat dilapidated property. He therefore made some overtures to James Hamilton, which that individual listened to in a manner far from unfavourable. It was soon made up between them that Susan was to become Mrs Ganderson: all that remained to be done was to gain the approbation of the young woman herself towards the scheme. Susan, who, in addition to many better qualities, possessed a gift of rustic humour, endeavoured to convey her sentiments to the laird in a delicate way, by one evening frying him a dish of sliced peats instead of Scotch collops; but the laird took it all as a good joke, and said he only liked her the better for her waggery. In fact, being anxious to have her only on the ordinary principles of a mercantile speculation, he was not to be turned aside by any nice delicacy, any more than he would have been prevented from buying a horse at a fair, by the animal showing a reluctance to part with its former proprietor. On the other hand, Cuthbertson felt in a manner entirely different. A taunt which he received one night from the father, respecting the narrowness of his circumstances and prospects, determined him to quit Daldaff in search of fortune, taking no care but first to interchange with Susan a vow of eternal fidelity.
For one full year Susan was enabled to parry the addresses of the laird and the entreaties of her father. The former spent a great part of every day at James Hamilton’s, where he smoked incessantly, or, if he ceased at all, it was only to ask for liquor, or to utter a ribald jest. By this familiarity he only rendered himself the more intolerable to Susan. But it had a different effect upon the father. The laird became so thoroughly ingratiated with that individual, that there was no exertion of friendship which Hamilton would not make in his behalf. In fact, in order to secure to his daughter the eclat of being lady of Windigate, he was understood to have compromised all that he was worth in the world in securities for the behoof of his future son-in-law, whose fortune was suspected to be in no very flourishing condition. The unfortunate weaver exemplified a very common failing in the most sagacious characters, namely, a disposition, after a whole lifetime of prudence, to give way to some notably ridiculous error, which is rendered unalarming to them from its being totally different in character and tendency from any that they have been accustomed to avoid.
At length came evil days. Owing to some turn of affairs in the progress of the war, cotton-weaving experienced a severe shock, by which many of the best Glasgow houses were materially damaged, and thousands of operatives throughout the country were thrown out of work. The very respectable establishment for which Hamilton had long acted as agent, lingered for a time in existence, and was able occasionally to send a small scantling of work, hardly enough to employ a tenth part of the population of the village. When the carrier was expected to come with these small supplies, numbers of poor men, attended by their wives and children, all of whom were alike unemployed, would go out for miles to meet the eagerly expected vehicle, to learn how much work was brought, and what prospect there was of more. On the small bag being opened by Hamilton, and perhaps only three webs being displayed, the grief of the poor people was beyond all description. The married men would then, by Hamilton’s directions, draw lots for those precious morsels of employment. While this process went forward, what eager breathless hope in the faces of both men and women, tempered, at the same time, by a religious sense of the misery which each man knew that his own success would inflict upon some equally deserving neighbour! What despair was depicted in each honest homely face, as it turned from the fatal lottery, upon the unhappy family group, which, more eagerly than himself, had watched the result of his throw! With what joy, mingled with sad sympathies for the rest, would the successful man bear home his load, though he knew that the price of his labour would hardly be sufficient to supply the food necessary to support him, even though he were to work sixteen hours a-day! At length, towards winter, even these wretchedly insufficient supplies were stopped. Hamilton’s employers, after every effort to keep themselves afloat, were obliged to give way also; and, consequently, the Daldaff agency became at once a dead letter. People talk of the exemption of the present generation from disasters by fire and sword, which so frequently befell their ancestors; but what calamity was ever inflicted upon the poor, even in the most lawless days of past history, equal to the desolation which is now so often occasioned in a large district, by a total cessation of the staple employment? The cots which gave shelter to our ancestors, were rebuilt in three days, after even the most savage invasion; the herds, which had been gathered off to some place of security, were restored to their indestructible pastures. The calamity, if unaccompanied by severe loss of life, must have been only, in general, an exciting adventure. But what retreat, what consolation is there for the hordes of poor artizans, who, by some commercial accident, arising, perhaps, from the imprudence of a few merchants, or some political or warlike movement, are deprived of the customary weekly pittance? It may be relied on, that such disasters exceed in measure of sorrow almost any kind of historical distress, except those of plague or famine. No other accident but these last ever introduced such coldness to the poor man’s hearth, such despair to his heart, or made him regret with so bitter a pang that he had others to care for besides himself.
Amidst the public calamity, one of a most grievous nature overtook the father of our heroine. The affairs of the laird, which had long been desperately out of order, and for some time were only sustained by the aid of his intended father-in-law, came to a complete stand-still; and, the whole wealth of James Hamilton being engaged in securities, he was at once reduced to the condition in which he had entered life. The stroke at first seemed likely to be fatal. Thus to lose the whole earnings of a laborious life—to forfeit, at the eleventh hour, by one miserable piece of imprudence, all the honours of the wisely spent day, was more, almost, than he could bear. He had, however, two comforters in his affliction—the worthy old minister, who in these calamitous times had been a succouring angel to his flock—and his daughter, an angel of a still more gracious kind, who, forgetting all the severities with which she had been treated, and thinking only of his present affliction, applied herself to the sacred task of soothing his wounded mind, and inspiring him with hopes of better times. The change of his circumstances produced a complete change in the mind of Hamilton. Having no longer wealth to care for, the jealous sentinels with which he had guarded it were withdrawn. The crust of worldly selfishness was broken off his character, and all its better affections were again called into free play. His eyes were now opened to the wickedness of which he had been guilty, in endeavouring to force the affections of his daughter, and he only wished that he were again as he had been a twelvemonth before, in order to make her happy with the man of her heart.
Weeks of partial famine passed on, and now the distresses of the villagers were suddenly doubled by the premature commencement of a very severe winter. With the exception of their small patches of potatoes and garden vegetables, there seemed hardly any resource for them during the whole winter. The minister, whose own income was exhausted in providing for their wants, thought it necessary, under these distressing circumstances, to call them all together, and join them in one solemn exercise of humiliation appropriate to the occasion. Just as this was concluded, a boy belonging to an inn about ten miles distant upon the Glasgow road, arrived, after a toilsome journey through the snow, and gave the joyful news that a cart filled with webs was storm-stayed at his master’s house, on its way to the village, the trade having suddenly experienced a slight revival. Transported with this intelligence, though no one could guess by whom the work could have been sent, they one and all resolved to proceed to Redcraigs, where the cart was lying, and aid in clearing a way for it through the snow. Every spade and semblance of a spade was then put in requisition, and the half of the bannocks in the village were brought forward, without the least regard to individual property, to provision the troop of pioneers. Thirty men set out early next morning on this expedition, graced with the blessings and prayers of all who saw them depart.
The snow, it was found, had only fallen to the depth of three feet, but it was drifted in many hollow parts of the road to six times that depth, so as to present an insurmountable obstacle to the progress of a cart. At all those places the weavers exerted themselves as they advanced to clear away the gelid heaps. The toil was most severe; but what these poor starved men wanted in strength, they made up by zeal—that zeal, above all others, which is inspired by the wish of answering the clamour of a hungry family circle with the necessary bite. The thought that work was before them, that money would again be procured, and, for that money, food to supply “the bairns at hame,” nerved every arm with superhuman energy; and as the country people every where lent a willing, though less enthusiastic assistance, the party had before mid-day cleared their way to Redcraigs. What was their surprise on being met there by their friend Adam Cuthbertson, of whom they had not heard ever since he left Daldaff, and who now informed them, with ineffable pleasure beaming in his eyes, that he had been the happy means of procuring them this supply of work. He had entered, he said, into the service of a manufacturer at Glasgow, and having divulged to him a plan of improving the loom, had been advanced to a very onerous place of trust in the factory. His employer having weathered on till the present revival of trade, he had used the little influence he had, to get his old master, of whose misfortunes he had heard, appointed to an agency, and was favoured with one of the very first parcels of work that was to be had, which he was now conveying to the relief of his old friends at Daldaff. “Let us on now, my friends,” cried Adam; “and, before night is far spent, we shall be able to tell the women and the bairns that the bad times are now blown by, and that every one will get his porridge and his broth as he used to do.” The cavalcade then set forward, the cart drawn by three horses in line, and every man more ready than another, either to clear away the drifted heap that lay before it, or to urge it with his desperate shoulder over every such impediment that might happen to be left. Though the way was long, and the labour severe, and the strength of the poor weavers not very great, yet every eye and voice maintained its cheerfulness, and the song, the jest, and the merry tale, were kept up to the very last. The wintry sun had set upon the snowy hills ere the procession came within sight of Daldaff; yet all the women and children were collected at the Loanbraehead, near the village, to see it approach; and when the cart was first discerned turning a neighbouring height, with its large attendant train, a shout of natural joy arose through the clear air, such as might burst from those who gaze from the shore upon a wreck, and see the crew, one by one, make their escape from destruction. James Hamilton was there, though much reduced by a recent illness; and the joy which seized him on being informed by the workmen of his appointment, was almost too much for his frame. He looked in vain, however, for Cuthbertson, to pour before him the thanks of a repentant spirit. That excellent young man had eluded the observation of all, and, diving through some of the lanes of the village, had taken refuge in the house of his uncle. He found that much as he had longed to see gladness once more restored to these poor villagers, he could not endure the scene at last. He had therefore escaped from their gratitude; and it was not till Hamilton sought him in his old lodgings, that he was at length discovered. The old man took him warmly by the hand, which he did not quit, till, leading him to his own house, he deposited it in that of his fair daughter. “Susan Hamilton,” said he, “twice have you been saved by this good youth; you are now fairly his own property—you are no longer mine. May you both be happy!”