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UPS AND DOWNS; OR, DAVID STUART'S ACCOUNT OF HIS PILGRIMAGE, ,

THE BURGHER'S TALES. THE ANCIENT BUREAU. ,

LADY RAE, ,

THE DIAMOND EYES, ,

DAVID LORIMER,

THE CONVICT,

THE AMATEUR ROBBERY, ,

THE PROCRASTINATOR, ,

THE TEN OF DIAMONDS, ,

WILSON'S TALES OF THE BORDERS, AND OF SCOTLAND.

UPS AND DOWNS; OR, DAVID STUART'S ACCOUNT OF HIS PILGRIMAGE.

"I ne'er was a great traveller," David was wont to begin: "through the length o' Edinburgh, and as far south as Newcastle, is a' that my legs ken about geography. But I've had a good deal o' crooks and thraws, and ups and downs, in the world for a' that. My faither was in the droving line, and lived in the parish o' Coldstream. He did a good deal o' business, baith about the fairs on the Borders, at Edinburgh market every week, and sometimes at Morpeth. He was a bachelor till he was five-and-forty, and he had a very decent lass keep'd his house, they ca'd Kirsty Simson. Kirsty was a remarkably weel-faur'd woman, and a number o' the farm lads round about used to come and see her, as weel as trades' chields frae about Coldstream and Birgham--no that she gied them ony encouragement, but that it was her misfortune to hae a gude-looking face. So, there was ae night that my faither cam' hame frae Edinburgh, and, according to his custom, he had a drap in his e'e--yet no sae meikle but that he could see a lad or twa hingin' about the house. He was very angry; and, 'Kirsty,' said he, 'I dinna like thae youngsters to come about the house.'

"'I'm sure, sir,' said she, 'I dinna encourage them.'

"'Weel, Kirsty,' said he, 'if that's the way, if ye hae nae objections, I'll marry ye mysel'.'

"'I dinna see what objections I should hae,' said she, and, without ony mair courtship, in a week or twa they were married; and, in course o' time, I was born. I was sent to school when I was about eight years auld, but my education ne'er got far'er than the rule o' three. Before I was fifteen, I assisted my faither at the markets, and in a short time he could trust me to buy and sell. There was one very dark night in the month o' January, when I was little mair than seventeen, my faither and me were gaun to Morpeth, and we were wishing to get forward wi' the beasts as far as Whittingham; but just as we were about half a mile doun the loanin' frae Glanton, it cam' awa ane o' the dreadfu'est storms that e'er mortal was out in. The snaw literally fell in a solid mass, and every now and then the wind cam' roarin' and howlin' frae the hills, and the fury o' the drift was terrible. I was driven stupid and half suffocated. My faither was on a strong mare, and I was on a bit powney; and amang the cattle there was a camstairy three-year-auld bull, that wad neither hup nor drive. We had it tied by the foreleg and the horns; but the moment the drift broke ower us, the creature grew perfectly unmanageable; forward it wadna gang. My faither had strucken at it, when the mad animal plunged its horns into the side o' the mare, and he fell to the ground. I could just see what had happened, and that was a'. I jumped aff the powney, and ran forward. 'O faither!' says I, 'ye're no hurt, are ye?' He was trying to rise, but before I could reach him--indeed, before I had the words weel out o' my mouth--the animal made a drive at him! 'O Davy!' he cried, and he ne'er spak mair! We generally carried pistols, and I had presence o' mind to draw ane out o' the breast-pocket o' my big coat, and shoot the animal dead on the spot. I tried to raise my faither in my arms, and, dark as it was, I could see his blood upon the snaw--and a dreadfu' sight it was for a son to see! I couldna see where he had been hurt; and still, though he groaned but once, I didna think he was dead, and I strove and strove again to lift him upon the back o' the powney, and take him back to Glanton; but though I fought wi' my heart like to burst a' the time, I couldna accomplish it. 'Oh, what shall I do?' said I, and cried and shouted for help--for the snaw fell sae fast, and the drift was sae terrible, that I was feared that, even if he werena dead, he wad be smothered and buried up before I could ride to Glanton and back. And, as I cried, our poor dog Rover came couring to my faither's body and licked his hand, and its pitiful howls mingled wi' the shrieks o' the wind. No kennin' what to do, I lifted my faither to the side o' the road, and tried to place him, half sitting like, wi' his back to the drift, by the foot o' the hedge. 'Oh, watch there, Rover,' said I; and the poor dog ran yowlin' to his feet, and did as I desired it. I sprang upon the back o' the powney, and flew up to the town. Within five minutes I was back, and in a short time a number o' folk wi' lichts cam' to our assistance. My faither was covered wi' blood, but without the least sign o' life. I thought my heart wad break, and for a time my screams were heard aboon the ragin' o' the storm. My faither was conveyed up to the inn, and, on being stripped, it was found that the horn o' the animal had entered his back below the left shouther; and when a doctor frae Alnwick saw the body next day, he said he must have died instantly--and, as I have told ye, he never spoke, but just cried, 'O Davy!'

"My feelings were in such a state that I couldna write mysel', and I got a minister to send a letter to my mother, puir woman, stating what had happened. An acquaintance o' my faither's looked after the cattle, and disposed o' them at Morpeth; and I, having hired a hearse at Alnwick, got the body o' my faither taen hame. A sorrowfu' hame-gaun it was, ye may weel think. Before ever we reached the house, I heard the shrieks o' my puir mither. 'O my faitherless bairn!' she cried, as I entered the door; but before she could rise to meet me, she got a glent o' the coffin which they were takin' out o' the hearse, and utterin' a sudden scream, her head fell back, and she gaed clean awa.

"After my faither's funeral, we found that he had died worth only about four hundred pounds when his debts were paid; and as I had been bred in the droving line, though I was rather young, I just continued it, and my mother and me kept house thegither.

"This was the only thing particular that happened to me for the next thirteen years, or till I was thirty. My mother still kept the house, and I had nae thoughts o' marrying: no but that I had gallanted a wee bit wi' the lasses now and then, but it was naething serious, and was only to be neighbour-like. I had ne'er seen ane that I could think o' takin' for better for warse; and, anither thing, if I had seen ane to please me, I didna think my mother would be comfortable wi' a young wife in the house. Weel, ye see, as I was telling ye, things passed on in this way till I was thirty, when a respectable flesher in Edinburgh that I did a good deal o' business wi', and that had just got married, says to me in the Grassmarket ae day: 'Davy,' says he, 'ye're no gaun out o' the toun the night--will ye come and tak' tea and supper wi' the wife and me, and a freend or twa?'

"'I dinna care though I do,' says I; 'but I'm no just in a tea-drinkin' dress.'

"'Ne'er mind the dress,' says he. So, at the hour appointed, I stepped awa ower to Hanover Street, in the New Town, where he lived, and was shown into a fine carpeted room, wi' a great looking-glass, in a gilt frame, ower the chimley-piece--ye could see yoursel' at full length in't the moment you entered the door. I was confounded at the carpets and the glass, and a sofa, nae less; and, thinks I, 'This shows what kind o' bargains ye get frae me.' There were three or four leddies sitting in the room; and 'Mr. Stuart, leddies,' said the flesher; 'Mr. Stuart, Mrs. So-and-so,' said he again--'Miss Murray, Mr. Stuart.' I was like to drap at the impudence o' the creatur--he handed me about as if I had been a bairn at a dancin' school. 'Your servant, leddies,' said I; and didna ken where to look, when I got a glimpse o' my face in the glass, and saw it was as red as crimson. But I was mair than ever put about when the tea was brought in, and the creatur says to me, 'Mr. Stuart, will you assist the leddies?' 'Confound him,' thought I, 'has he brought me here to mak' a fule o'me!' I did attempt to hand round the tea and toast, when, wi' downright confusion, I let a cup fall on Miss Murray's gown. I could have died wi' shame. 'Never mind--never mind, sir!' said she; 'there is no harm done;' and she spoke sae proper and sae kindly, I was in love wi' her very voice. But when I got time to observe her face, it was a perfect picture; and through the hale night after, I could do naething but look at and think o' Miss Murray.

"'Man,' says I to the flesher the next time I saw him, 'wha was yon Miss Murray?' 'No match for a Grassmarket dealer, Davy,' says he. 'I was thinkin' that,' says I; 'but I wad like to be acquainted wi' her.' 'Ye shall be that,' says he; and, after that, there was seldom a month passed that I was in Edinburgh but I saw Miss Murray. But as to courtin', that was out o' the question.

"A short time after this, a relation o' my mither's, wha had been a merchant in London, dee'd, and it was said we were his nearest heirs; and that as he had left nae will, if we applied, we would get the property, which was worth about five thousand pounds. Weel, three or four years passed awa, and we heard something about the lawsuit, but naething about the money. I was vexed for having onything to say to it. I thought it was only wasting a candle to chase a will-o'-the-wisp. About the time I speak o', my mither had turned very frail. I saw there was a wastin' awa o' nature, and she wadna be lang beside me. The day before her death, she took my hand, and 'Davy,' says she to me--'Davy,' poor body, she repeated --'it wad been a great comfort to me if I had seen ye settled wi' a decent partner before I dee'd; but it's no to be.'

"Within a week we had a'thing settled. I found out she had nae fortune. Her mother belanged to a kind o' auld family, that, like mony ithers, cam' down the brae wi' Prince Charles, poor fallow; and they were baith rank Episcopawlians. I found the mither had just sae muckle a year frae some o' her far-awa relations; and had it no been that they happened to ca' me Stuart, and I tauld her a rigmarole about my grandfaither and Culloden, so that she soon made me out a pedigree, about which I kenned nae mair than the man o' the moon, but keept saying 'yes' and 'certainly' to a' she said--I say, but for that, and confound me, if she wadna hae curled up her nose at me and my five thousand pounds into the bargain, though her lassie should hae starved. But Jeannie was a perfect angel. She was about two or three and thirty, wi' light brown hair, hazel e'en, and a waist as jimp and sma' as ye ever saw upon a human creature. She dressed maist as plain as a Quakeress, but was a pattern o' neatness. Indeed, a blind man might seen she was a leddy born and bred; and then for sense, haud at ye there, I wad matched her against the minister and the kirk elders put thegither. But she took that o' her mither; o' whom mair by-and-by.

"As I was saying, she was an Episcopawlian,--a downright, open-day defender o' Archbishop Laud and the bloody Claverhouse; and she wished to prove down through me the priority and supremacy o' bishops ower presbyteries,--just downright nonsense, ye ken; but there's nae accounting for sooperstition. A great deal depends on how a body's brought up. But what vexed me maist was to think that she wad be gaun to ae place o' public worship on the Sabbath, and me to anither, just like twa strangers; and maybe if her minister preached half an hour langer than mine, or mine half an hour langer than hers, or when we had nae intermission, then there was the denner spoiled, and the servant no kenned what time to hae it ready; for the mistress said ane o'clock, and the maister said twa o'clock. Now, I wadna gie tippence for a cauld denner.

"But, as I was telling ye about the auld wife, she thocht fit to read baith us a bit o' a lecture.

"'Mercy me, ma'am!' exclaimed I, 'what de ye mean? Ye've surely been misinformed.'

"'I've observed it mysel', David,' said she seriously.

"'Goodness, ma'am! ye confound me!' says I; 'if it's onything that's bad, I'll deny it point blank.'

"'Ask the broken-hearted wife,' says she, 'if there be ony ill in a dram--ask the starving family--ask the jailer and the gravedigger--ask the doctor and the minister o' religion--ask where ye see roups o' furniture at the cross, or the auctioneer's flag wavin' frae the window--ask a deathbed--ask eternity, David Stuart, and they will tell ye if there be ony ill in a dram.'

"'I hope, ma'am,' says I,--and I was a guid deal nettled,--'I hope, ma'am, ye dinna tak' me to be a drunkard. I can declare freely, that unless maybe at a time by chance , I never tak' aboon twa or three glasses at a time. Indeed, three's just my set. I aye say to my cronies, there is nae luck till the second tumbler, and nae peace after the fourth. So ye perceive, there's not the smallest danger o' me.'

"'Mak' nae rash vows,' says she; 'for a breath mak's them, and less than a breath unmak's them. But mind that, while ye wad be comfortable wi' your cronies, my bairn wad be frettin' her lane; and though she might say naething when ye cam hame, that wadna be the way to wear her love round your neck like a chain of gold; but, night after night, it wad break away link by link, till the whole was lost; and if ye didna hate, ye wad soon find ye were disagreeable to each other. Nae true woman will condescend to love ony man lang, wha can find society he prefers to hers in an alehouse. I dinna mean to say that ye should never enter a company; but dinna mak' a practice o't.'

"Weel, the wedding morning cam, and I really thocht it was a great blessin' folk hadna to be married every day. My neckcloth wadna tie as it used to tie, and but that I wadna swear at onybody on the day o' my marriage, I'm sure I wad hae wished some ill wish on the fingers o' the laundress. She had starched the muslins!--a circumstance, I am perfectly certain, unheard of in the memory o' man, and a thing which my mother ne'er did. It was stiff, crumpled, and clumsy. I vowed it was insupportable. It was within half an hour o' the time o' gaun to the chapel. I had tried a 'rose-knot,' a 'witch-knot,' a 'chaise-driver's knot,' and a 'running-knot,' wi' every kind o' knot that fingers could twist the neckcloth into, but the confounded starch made every ane look waur than anither. Three neckcloths I had rendered unwearable, and the fourth I tied in a 'beau-knot' in despair. The frill o' my sark-breast wadna lie in the position in which I wanted it! For the first time my very hair rose in rebellion--it wadna lie right; and I cried, 'The mischief tak' the barber!' The only part o' my dress wi' which I was satisfied, was a spotless pair o' nankeen pantaloons. I had a dog they ca'ed Mettle--it was a son o' poor Rover, that I mentioned to ye before, Weel, it had been raining through the night, and Mettle had been out in the street. The instinct o' the poor dumb brute was puzzled to comprehend the change that had recently taken place in my appearance and habits, and its curiosity was excited. I was sitting before the looking-glass, and had just finished tying my cravat, when Mettle cam bouncing into the room; he looked up in my face inquisitively, and, to unriddle mair o' the matter, placed his unwashed paws upon my unsoiled nankeens. Every particular claw left its ugly impression. It was provoking beyond endurance. I raised my hand to strike him, but the poor brute wagged his tail, and I only pushed him down, saying, 'Sorrow tak' ye, Mettle, do ye see what ye've dune?' So I had to gang to the kitchen fire and stand before it to dry the damp, dirty footprints o' the offender. I then found that the waistcoat wadna sit without wrinkles, such as I had ne'er seen before upon a waistcoat o' mine. The coat, too, was insupportably tight below the arms; and, as I turned half round before the glass, I saw that it hung loose between the shouthers! 'As sure as a gun,' says I, 'the stupid soul o' a tailor has sent me hame the coat o' a humph-back in a mistak'!' My hat was fitted on in every possible manner, ower the brow and aff the brow, now straight, now cocked to the right side and again to the left, but to no purpose; I couldna place it to look like mysel', or as I wished. But half-past eight chimed frae St. Giles'. I had ne'er before spent ten minutes to dress, shaving included, and that morning I had begun at seven! There was not another moment to spare; I let my hat fit as it would, seized my gloves, and rushed down stairs, and up to the Lawnmarket, where I knocked joyfully at the door o' my bonny bride.

"When we were about to depart for the chapel, the auld leddy rose to gie us her blessing, and placed Jeannie's hand within mine. She shed a few quiet tears ; and 'Now, Jeannie,' said she, 'before ye go, I have just anither word or twa to say to ye'--

"'Dearsake, ma'am!' said I, for I was out o' a' patience, 'we'll do very weel wi' what we've heard just now, and ye can say onything ye like when we come back.'

"'Weel,' said the auld leddy, 'my daughter will be the first o' our family that ever gaed on foot to the altar.'

"It's o' nae use tellin' ye how I gaed back in the farm. In the year sixteen my crops warna worth takin' aff the ground, and I had twa score o' sheep smothered the same winter. I fell behint wi' my rent; and household furniture, farm-stock, and everything I had, were to be sold off. The day before the sale, wi' naething but a bit bundle carrying in my hand, I took Jeannie on my ae arm and her puir auld mither on the other, and wi' a sad and sorrowfu' heart we gaed out o' the door o' the hame where our bairns had been brought up, and a sheriff's officer steeked it behint us. Weel, we gaed to Coldstream, and we took a bit room there, and furnished it wi' a few things that a friend bought back for us at our sale. We were very sair pinched. Margaret's gudeman ne'er looked near us, nor rendered us the least assistance, and she hadna it in her power. There was nae ither alternative that I could see; and I was just gaun to apply for labouring wark when we got a letter frae Andrew, enclosing a fifty-pound bank-note. Mony a tear did Jeannie and me shed ower that letter. He informed us that he had been appointed mate o' an East Indiaman, and begged that we would keep ourselves easy; for while he had a sixpence, his faither and mither should hae the half o't. Margaret's husband very soon squandered away the money he had got frae me, as weel as the property he had got frae his faither; and, to escape the jail, he ran off, and left his wife and family. They cam to stop wi' me; and for five years we heard naething o' him. We had begun a shop in the spirit and grocery line, and really we were remarkably fortunate. It was about six years after I had begun business, ae night just after the shop was shut, Jeannie and her mother, wha was then about ninety, and Margaret and her bairns, and mysel', were a' sittin' round the fire, when a rap cam to the door; ane o' the bairns ran and opened it, and twa gentlemen cam in. Margaret gied a shriek, and ane o' them flung himsel' at her feet. 'Mother! faither!' said the other, 'do ye no ken me?' It was our son Andrew, and Margaret's gudeman! I jamp up, and Jeannie jamp up; auld grannie raise totterin' to her feet, and the bairns screamed, puir things. I got haud o' Andrew, and his mother got haud o' him, and we a' grat wi' joy. It was such a night o' happiness as I had never kenned before. Andrew had been made a ship captain. Margaret's husband had repented o' a' his follies, and was in a good way o' doing in India; and everything has gane right and prospered wi' our whole family frae that day to this."

THE BURGHER'S TALES.

THE ANCIENT BUREAU.

Some such thoughts might have been passing through the minds of the assembled neighbours; and they could not be said to be the less true that a shrunk and partially-withered right arm showed that the doom of the woman had been so far precipitated by the still remaining effects of an old stroke of palsy. And the gossip confirmed this, going also into particulars of observation,--how she had kept herself so to herself as if she wished to avoid the neighbours,--a fact which to an extent justified their imputed want of attention; how almost the only individual who had visited her was a peculiar being, in the shape of a very little man, with a slight limp and thin pleasant features, illuminated by a pair of dark, penetrating eyes. For years and years had he been seen, always about the same hour of the day, ascending her stair, and carrying a flagon, supposed to contain articles of food. Then the gossiping embraced the furniture and other articles in the room, which, however they might have been unnoticed before, had now assumed the usual interest when seen in the blue light of the acted tragedy: the small mahogany table and the two chairs--how strange that they should be of mahogany!--and some of the few marrowless plates in the rack over the fireplace, why, they were absolute china! but above all, the exquisite little bureau of French manufacture, with its drawers, its desk, and pigeon-holes, and cunning slides--what on earth was it doing in that room, when its value even to a broker would have kept the woman alive for months? Questions these put by a roused curiosity, and perhaps not worth answer. Was not she a woman, and was not that enough?

Not enough; for legendary details cluster round startling events, and often carry a moral which may prevent a repetition of these; and so, had it not been for this apparently inexplicable death by starvation, our wonderful story might never have gathered listeners round the evening fire. We must go back some twenty years before the date of the said sermon to find a certain merchant-burgess of the city of Edinburgh, David Grierson, occupying a portion of a front land situated in the Canongate, a little to the east of Leith Wynd. It would be sheer affectation in us to pretend that this merchant-burgess had any mental or physical characteristic about him to justify his appearance in a romance, if we except the power he had shown of amassing wealth, of which he had so much that he could boast the possession of more than twenty goodly tenements, some of wood and some of stone, besides shares of ships and bank stock. And no doubt this exception might stand for the thing excepted from, for money, though commonly said to be extraneous, is often so far in its influences intraneous, that it changes the feelings and motives, and enables them to work. And then don't we know that it is by extraneous things we are mostly led? But however all that may be, certain it is that our merchant-burgess was a great man in his own house in the Canongate, where his family consisted of Rachel Grierson, his natural daughter, by a woman who had been long dead, and Walter Grierson, his legitimate nephew, who had been left an orphan in his early years, and who was his nearest lawful heir. Two servants completed the household; and surely in this rather curious combination there might be, if only circumstances were favourable to their development, elements which might impart interest to a story.

So long as the shadow of the dark angel was, as Time counted, far away from him, Burgess David was comparatively happy; but as he got old and older, he began to realize the condition of the poet--

"Now pleasure will no longer please, And all the joys of life are gone; I ask no more on earth but ease, To be at peace, and be alone: I ask in vain the winged powers That weave man's destiny on high; In vain I ask the golden hours That o'er my head for ever fly."

Having thus arrived at a sense of his duty by the pleasant path of his affection, Mr. David Grierson seized the first opportunity which presented itself of sounding the heart of Rachel, in order to know in what direction her affections ran. Sitting in his big chair, all so comfortably cushioned by the hands of the said Rachel herself, and with a good fire alongside, due also to her unremitting care, he called her to him, and placing his arm round her waist, as he was often in the habit of doing, said to her--

"Rachel, dear, I feel day by day my strength leaving me, and it may be, nay, will be, that I will not be very much longer with you."

Rachel looked at him for a little, but said nothing, for, as the saying goes, her heart came to her mouth, and she could not have spoken even if she would; but the father understood all this, and preferred the mute expression of a real grief to a hysterical burst--of which, indeed, her calm genial nature was incapable.

"Forgive me, dear," continued he, "for I would not willingly cause you sorrow, but I have a reason for speaking in this grave way. Who is to fill the old arm-chair when I cannot occupy it?"

And he smiled somewhat grimly as he sought her eye, in which he could observe the most real of all nature's evidences of emotion.

"What mean you, father?" she replied, with something like an effort to respond to his humour.

"Why, then, Rachel," he said, "to be out with it, I want to know whether you have fixed your heart on any one."

"Only upon you, dear father," she replied, with a smile which struggled against her seriousness.

"Nay, Rachel," continued he. "It is no light matter, and I must have an answer. I intend to leave you my whole fortune, but upon one condition, which is, that if Walter Grierson shall sue for your hand, you will consent to marry him."

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