The remainder of the tale of Bruntfield may be easily told. After a decent interval, the young laird of Craighouse married Catherine Moubray; and as the king saw it right to restore that young lady to a property originally forfeited for service to his mother, the happiness of the parties might be considered as complete. A long life of prosperity and peace was granted to them by the kindness of Heaven; and at their death, they had the satisfaction of enjoying that greatest of all earthly blessings, the love and respect of a numerous and virtuous family.
THE PASSING CROWD.
“The Passing Crowd” is a phrase coined in the spirit of indifference. Yet, to a man of what Plato calls “universal sympathies,” and even to the plain ordinary denizens of this world, what can be more interesting than “the passing crowd?” Does not this tide of human beings, which we daily see passing along the ways of this world, consist of persons animated by the same spark of the divine essence, and partaking of the same high destinies with ourselves? Let us stand still but for a moment in the midst of this busy and seemingly careless scene, and consider what they are or may be whom we see around us. In the hurry of the passing show, and of our own sensations, we see but a series of unknown faces; but this is no reason why we should regard them with indifference. Many of these persons, if we knew their histories, would rivet our admiration by the ability, worth, benevolence, or piety, which they have displayed in their various paths through life. Many would excite our warmest interest by their sufferings—sufferings, perhaps, borne meekly and well, and more for the sake of others than themselves. How many tales of human weal and woe, of glory and of humiliation, could be told by those beings, whom, in passing, we regard not! Unvalued as they are by us, how many as good as ourselves repose upon them the affections of bounteous hearts, and would not want them for any earthly compensation! Every one of these persons, in all probability, retains in his bosom the cherished recollections of early happy days, spent in some scene which “they ne’er forget, though there they are forgot,” with friends and fellows who, though now far removed in distance and in fortune, are never to be given up by the heart. Every one of these individuals, in all probability, nurses still deeper in the recesses of feeling, the remembrance of that chapter of romance in the life of every man, an early earnest attachment, conceived in the fervour of youth, unstained by the slightest thought of self, and for a time purifying and elevating the character far above its ordinary standard. Beneath all this gloss of the world—this cold conventional aspect, which all more or less present, and which the business of life renders necessary—there resides for certain a fountain of goodness, pure in its inner depths as the lymph rock-distilled, and ready on every proper occasion to well out in the exercise of the noblest duties. Though all may seem but a hunt after worldly objects, the great majority of these individuals can, at the proper time, cast aside all earthly thoughts, and communicate directly with the Being whom their fathers have taught them to worship, and whose will and attributes have been taught to man immediately by Himself. Perhaps many of these persons are of loftier aspect than ourselves, and belong to a sphere removed above our own. But, nevertheless, if the barrier of mere worldly form were taken out of the way, it is probable that we could interchange sympathies with these persons as freely and cordially as with any of our own class. Perhaps they are of an inferior order; but they are only inferior in certain circumstances, which should never interpose to prevent the flow of feeling for our kind. The great common features of human nature remain; and let us never forget how much respect is due to the very impress of humanity—the type of the divine nature itself! Even where our fellow creatures are degraded by vice and poverty, let us still be gentle in our judging. The various fortunes which we every day see befalling the members of a single family, after they part off in their several paths through life, teach us that it is not to every one that success in the career of existence is destined. Besides, do not the arrangements of society at once necessitate the subjection of an immense multitude to humble toil, and give rise to temptations, before which the weak and uninstructed can scarcely escape falling? But even beneath the soiled face of the poor artizan, there may be aspirations after some vague excellence, which hard fate has denied him the means of attaining, though the very wish to obtain it is itself ennobling. The very mendicant was not always so; he, too, has had his undegraded and happier days, upon the recollection of which, some remnant of better feeling may still repose.
These, I humbly think, are reasons why we should not look with coldness upon any masses of men with whom it may be our lot to mingle. It is the nature of a good man to conclude that others are like himself; and if we take the crowd promiscuously, we can never be far wrong in thinking that there are worthy and well-directed feelings in it as well as in our own bosoms.
A TALE OF THE FORTY-FIVE.
Never, perhaps, did any city, upon the approach of a foreign enemy, betray such symptoms of consternation and disorder, as did Edinburgh, on the 16th of September 1745, when it was understood that Prince Charles Edward, with his army of Highlanders, had reached a village three miles to the westward, unresisted by the civic corps in which the hapless city had placed its last hopes of defence. A regiment of dragoons, which had retreated on the previous day from Stirling, and another which happened to be encamped near Edinburgh, having joined their strengths to that of the town-guard and volunteers, had that forenoon marched boldly out of town, with the determined purpose of opposing the rebels, and saving the town; but after standing very bravely for a few hours at Corstorphine, the spectacle of a single Highlander, who rode up towards them and fired off his pistol, caused the whole of these gallant cavaliers to turn and fly; nor did they stop till they had left Edinburgh itself twenty miles behind. The precipitate flight of regular troops was the worst possible example for a body of raw, undisciplined citizens, who were too much accustomed to the secure comforts of their firesides, to have any relish for the horrors of an out-of-doors war with the unscrupulous mountaineers. The consequence was, that all retreated in confusion back to the city, where their pusillanimity was the subject of triumphant ridicule to the Jacobite party, and of shame and fear to the rest of the inhabitants.
In this dilemma, as band after band poured through the West Port, and filled the ample area of the Grassmarket, the magistrates assembled in their council chamber, for the purpose of “wondering what was to be done.” The result of their deliberations was, that a full meeting of the inhabitants should be held, in order that they might be enabled to shape their course according to the general opinion. Orders were immediately given to this effect, and in the course of an hour, they found a respectable assemblage of citizens, prepared, in one of the churches of St Giles’s, to consider the important question of the defensibility of the town.
The appearance of the city, on this dreadful afternoon, was very remarkable, and such as we hope it will never again exhibit. All the streets to the west of St Giles’s were crowded with citizen volunteers, apparently irresolute whether to lay down their arms or to retain them, and whose anxious and crest-fallen looks communicated only despair to the trembling citizens. The sound of hammers was heard at the opening of every lane, and at the bottoms of all important turnpike stairs, where workmen were busied in mounting strong doors, studded thickly with nails, moving on immense hinges, and bearing bolts and bars of no ordinary strength—the well-known rapacious character of the Highlanders, not less than their present hostile purpose, having suggested this feeble attempt at security. The principal street was encumbered with the large, tall, pavilion-roofed family carriages of people of distinction, judges, and officers of the crown, which, after being hastily crammed with their proper burdens of live stock, and laden atop with as much baggage as they could carry, one after another wheeled off down the High Street, through the Netherbow, and so out of town. A few scattered groups of women, children, and inferior citizens, stood near that old-accustomed meeting place, the Cross, round the tall form of which they seemed to gather, like a Catholic population clinging to a sacred fabric, which they suppose to be endowed with some protecting virtue.
At the ordinary dinner hour, when the streets were as usual in a great measure deserted, and while the assemblage of citizens were still deliberating in the New Church aisle, the people of the High Street were thrown into a state of dreadful agitation, by a circumstance which they witnessed from their windows. The accustomed silence of “the hollow hungry hour” was suddenly broken by the clatter of a horse’s feet upon the pavement; and on running to their windows, they were prodigiously alarmed at the sight of one of their anticipated foes riding boldly up the street. Yet this alarm subsided considerably, when they observed that his purpose seemed pacific, and that he was not followed by any companions. The horseman was a youth apparently about twenty years of age, with a remarkably handsome figure and gallant carriage, which did not fail in their effect upon at least the female part of the beholders. The most robust Highland health was indicated in his fair countenance and athletic form: and, in addition to this, his appearance expressed just enough of polish not to destroy the romantic effect produced by his wild habiliments and striking situation. The tight tartan trews showed well upon a limb, of which the symmetry was never equalled by David Allan, the national painter, so remarkable for his handsome Highland limbs, and of which the effect, instead of being impaired by the clumsy boot, was improved by the neat brogue, fastened as it was to the foot by sparkling silver buckles. He wore a smart round bonnet, adorned with his family cognisance—a bunch of ivy—and from beneath which, a profusion of light brown tresses, tied with dark ribbons, flowed, according to the fashion of the time, about half way down his back. He carried a small white flag in his hand, and bore about his person the full set of Highland arms—broadsword, dirk, and two silver-mounted pistols. Many a warm Jacobite heart, male and female, palpitated at sight of his graceful figure, and a considerable crowd of idle admirers, or wonderers, followed him up the broad noble expanse of the High Street.
By this crowd, who soon discovered that his purpose was the delivery of a letter from the chevalier to the magistrates, he was ushered forward to the opening of a narrow passage, which in those days led through a pile of buildings called the Luckenbooths, towards the door of Haddo’s Hole Church, a passage called in the old Scottish language a stile, which, moreover, was traversed in 1628 by King Charles the First, when he went to open the Scottish Parliament in the High Tolbooth. Here the Highlander dismounted, and after throwing his bridle over the hook at a saddler’s door close to the corner of the stile, was led forward into the lobby of the church, from which the hum of active discussion was heard to proceed. On requesting to be introduced to the magistrates, he was informed, by an official wearing their livery, that the church was so very much crowded, that “there would be nae possibility of either getting him in to see the magistrates, or the magistrates out to see him,” but that his letter might be handed into them over the heads of the crowd. To this expedient the messenger consented, and accordingly it was immediately put in execution. In a few moments after it had left the keeper’s hands, a dead silence seemed to fall upon the company, and, after a renewed tumult and a second silence, those who stood in the lobby heard a voice reading a few words aloud, apparently those of the letter. The voice was, however, interrupted in a few seconds by the clamour of the whole assembled people, who presently rose in confusion, and made a tumultuous rush towards the door. On hearing and observing these alarming symptoms, the city officer, with inconsiderate rashness, thought it his duty to seize the author of so much supposed mischief, and accordingly made a dash at the stranger’s collar, calling upon the town-guardsmen present to close in upon him, and intercept his retreat. But the prompt and energetic Highlander was not to be so betrayed. With a bound like the first movement of the startled deer, he cleared the lobby, and made for his horse. Two dragoons standing without, and who, observing the rush from the door, threw themselves in the stranger’s way, were in the same instant felled to the ground; and before any other person could lay hands upon him, the maltreated messenger threw himself upon his horse, drew his sword, and in a transport of rage shouted defiance to all around. Whirling his weapon round his head, he stopped a few seconds amidst the terrified crowd; and then, striking spurs into his horse’s sides, rode along the street, still vociferating loud defiances to all the detached military parties which he met. No attempt, however, was made to prevent his escape, or to offer him farther violence. One symptom of offensive warfare alone occurred, and that originated in an accident; for an old guardsman, who was overturned on the causeway by the brush of the passing steed, could not help discharging his redoubted piece; the shot, however, doing no other harm than winging a golden peacock, which overhung the window of a fashionable milliner in the fourth flat of the Luckenbooths. After clearing the narrow defile of the Luckenbooths, and getting into the full open street, the Highland cavalier for once turned round, and, with a voice broken by excess of indignation, uttered a thundering malediction against all Edinburgh for its breach of the articles of war, and a challenge to the prettiest man in it who would meet him upon honourable terms. He then galloped briskly down the High Street, still brandishing his broadsword, the people making way for him on all sides, by running down the numerous alleys leading from the street, and terminated his daring exploit, unscathed and undaunted, by passing out at the Netherbow Port, of which the enormous folding doors, like the turnpikes in John Gilpin, flew open at his approach.