Tales of My Time, Vol. 2 (of 3) / Who Is She? [concluded]; The Young Reformers

by William Pitt Scargill

The elder of these youths, whose name was Harold, was particularly amiable, and became the victim of designing men, who worked successfully on his generosity to draw him into their snares. He took up the theory of Godwin, and believed, with more sincerity than his master, in the infinite perfectibility of the human race. Ascribing all the evil which he beheld under the sun to the various corruptions of administration, and the venality of governors, benevolence was in fact the destroying angel of his mind; and he would gladly have prostrated princes in the dust, and overthrown their seats of empire, in order to secure "the people" in the enjoyment of every good.

Short-sighted politicians, who, rejecting the light of experience, fell into the error of expecting universal order, out of particular derangement, and general virtue, as the result of individual crime! Harold's was a benign spirit, which wished well to every thing that breathed; but he was not proof against the seductions of the popular creed, and became completely entangled in speculations worthy of the source from which they emanated. His temper, which had been naturally sweet, and open as the morning breeze, changed to dark, sullen, and secretive. He had been, deservedly, a darling with the best of mothers, and her grief at his altered deportment may be more easily conceived than described. It was not that he designed, "as of malice prepense," to behave uncourteously, but his mind was absolutely absorbed. The amusements which had hitherto delighted, no longer afforded interest. His favourite dog—his garden—his collection of shells and minerals, were all neglected. Harold, who used to wander for miles along the sea-shore in quest of specimens with which to enrich his store, and who hastened to bring the fruits of his labour to that gentle being, the kindness of whose smile might have warmed the breast of an anchorite, and whose ready participation in whatever gave pleasure to others rendered her in better times the beloved friend as well as mother of her children—lived now immured in his bed-chamber, the door of which he kept locked while he was within it, and the key was always put into his pocket when he left the house.

How he was employed no one could tell, as no trace of book, pen, ink, or writing was discoverable at those times when old Margaret, a faithful domestic who lived in my family during several years, had access to his apartment. One day, however, in sweeping the room, she discovered a small bit of paper which had been torn from a larger piece, and escaped the flames to which it had been probably destined. "Central Committee," "Western District," "French Forces," were the only words from which any surmise could be collected; and these were enough to alarm her, to whom they bore evident testimony of league in those treasonable plots which were threatening to involve the country in civil discord, and endanger the lives and property of thousands.

Margaret, who was well acquainted with the anxious state of my mother's mind, took the fragment to her, and the latter, watching an opportunity to remark the effect which it might produce upon her son, fixed her eyes steadily upon him as he entered the room where she sat, saying, "Harold, is not this your hand-writing?"

"I am sure it is hard to tell; perhaps it may be," was my brother's reply; uttered so coldly, so carefully, as to baffle inquiry, and convince my mother that any further scrutiny would lead but to a more artful avoidance of the truth, as well as more cunning contrivance for future concealment. She therefore refrained from asking another question, but heaved a sigh as she quitted her seat to gain the sanctuary of her closet.

There had been a time when that sigh would have agonized the soul of Harold, could he have believed himself to be the cause of drawing it forth; but his affections were seared, and he saw his mother turn from him with a breaking heart, undisturbed by the slightest emotion. My second brother possessed neither Harold's talents, nor my romance. He was more phlegmatic and common-place than any of the family. Yet he, too, was infected by the distemper of the times, and had his part assigned him, in which he was more useful than if he had been considered equal to higher purposes. He had ever been fond of shooting and fishing, and as these sports were continued as usual, he was not suspected of taking much concern in political matters, and was therefore employed as a safe ambassador, frequently leaving our once peaceful abode, loaded with despatches which were to be deposited in the ivied wall of a ruined castle, at some distance from Glendruid. All who met him supposed that lines, flies, and sandwiches, constituted the entire freight of a wicker basket which, strapped upon his back, was in reality the vehicle of a correspondence, the discovery of which would have doomed its authors to inevitable destruction. The plans thus carried on were, it is true, carefully wrapped in the concealment of cypher, but a key is easily found to the most cunning contrivance of this kind; and in fact at a later period, our devices were all brought to light.

I have said that my father's circumstances were very limited, and I should not revert to a subject which involves the remembrance of privations as humiliating to pride as distasteful to sense, were it not to preserve a recollection of our real situation in the minds of such as may read my story, and furnish some excuse for the wanderings of youth, debarred as we were from the enjoyment of those advantages which depend upon wealth. Books we had, and a great many of them, but they had ceased to charm. The standard works of a former day were not in vogue; the new philosophy had extinguished the wisdom of antiquity, and reduced it to a dead letter, and the flippant apothegms of the day, whether applied to religion, morals, or politics, were accounted the only knowledge worth possessing.

I had no money to procure the modern publications, but the Talbots and Lovetts were bountifully supplied, and always ready to lend. I devoured, therefore, with famished appetite, all that I could beg or borrow, and conveyed my treasure to that rocky recess which I have described, where, with industry worthy of a better object, I used to read whatever was recommended by my evil instructors. My poor father, who was an excellent scholar, found himself at length deserted in his study, from which his sons retired one by one, leaving this affectionate parent to mourn over the shipwreck of a sanguine spirit, which had delighted to anticipate with prophetic zeal the honours of his children, and wreathe their brows with academic glory; but a "killing frost" was preparing to nip the tender germ of hope, and destroy every shoot from which the chaplet of future fame might be derived.

Those who have never been parents cannot, I believe, form an adequate conception of the sorrow reserved for those who, after having passed one half of life in expectation, are doomed to spend the other in disappointment, and reap a blighted crop in return for devoted love and unslumbering solicitude.