(MARCH 1827.) Scene,-Ambrose's Hotel, Picardy Place-Paper Parlour. NORTH and the SHEPHERD. North. How do you account, my dearest Shepherd, for the steadiness and perseverance of my affection for thee, seeing that I am naturally and artificially the most wayward, fickle, and capricious of all God's creatures? Not a friend but yourself, James, with whom I have not frequently and bitterly quarrelled, often to the utter extinction of mutual regard— but towards my incomprehensible Brownie my heart ever yearns Shepherd. Haud your leein tongue, ye tyke, you've quarrelled wi' me mony thousan' times, and I've borne at your hands mair ill-usage than I wad hae taen frae ony ither mortal man in his Majesty's dominions. Yet I weel believe that only the shears o' Fate will ever cut the cords o' our friendship. I fancy it's just the same wi' you as wi' me, we maun like ane anither whether we wull or no-and that's the sort o' freendship for me-for it flourishes, like a mountain flower, in all weathersbraid and bricht in the sunshine, and just faulded up a wee in the sleet, sae that it micht maist be thocht dead, but fu' o' life in its cozy bield1 ahint the mossy stane, and peering out again in a' its beauty, at the sang o' the rising laverock. North. This world's friendships, James Shepherd. Are as cheap as crockery, and as easily broken by a fa'. They seldom can bide a clash, without fleein intil flinders. O, sir, but maist men's hearts, and women's too, are 1 Cozy bield-snug shelter. 2 Flinders-shivers. 2 300 FRIENDSHIP.-THE GRAVE. like toom nits'-nae kernel, and a splutter o' fushionless dust. I sometimes canna help thinkin that there's nae future state. North. Fie, fie, James, leave all such dark scepticism to a Byron-it is unworthy of the Shepherd. Shepherd. What for should sae mony puir, peevish, selfish, stupid, mean, and malignant creatures no just lie still in the mools among the ither worms, aneath their bits o' inscribed tomb-stones, aiblins railed in, and a' their nettles, wi' painted airn-rails, in a nook o' the kirkyard that's their ain property, and naebody's wushin to tak it frae them-What for, I say, shouldna they lie quate in skeleton for a thousand years, and then crummle, crummle, crummle awa intil the yearth o' which Time is made, and ne'er be reimmatterialeezed into Eternity? North. This is not like your usual gracious and benign philosophy, James; but, believe me, my friend, that within the spirit of the most degraded wretch that ever grovelled earthward from caudle-day to corpse-day, there has been some slumbering spark divine, inextinguishable by the death-damps of the cemetery Shepherd. Gran' words, sir, gran' words, nae doubt, mair especially "cemetery," which I'm fond o' usin mysel, as often's the subject and the verse will alloo. But after a', is't mair poetical than the "Grave"? Deevil a bit. For a wee, short, simple, stiff, stern, dour, and fearsome word, commend me to the "Grave." North. Let us change the channel of our discussion, James, if you please Shepherd. What! You're no feared for death, are you, sir? North. I am. Shepherd. So am I. There, only look at the cawnle2 expiring -faint, feeble, flickering, and just like ane o' us puir mortal human creatures, sair, sair unwilling to die! Whare's the snuffers, that I may put it out o' pain. I'm tell't that twa folk die every minute, or rather every moment. Isna that fearsome to think o'? North. Ay, James, children have been made orphans, and wives widows, since that wick began to fill the room with its funereal odour. Shepherd. Nae man can manage snuffers richt, unless he hae been accustomed to them when he was young. In the Forest, we 1 Toom nits-empty nuts. 2 Cawnle-candle. SHEPHERD ON BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE. 301 a' use our fingers, or blaw the cawnles out wi' our mouths, or chap the brass sticks wi' the stinkin wicks again' the ribsand gin there was a pair o' snuffers in the house, you might hunt for them through a' the closets and presses for a fortnight, without their ever castin up. North. I hear that you intend to light up Mount Benger with gas, James. Is that a true bill? Shepherd. I had thochts o't—but the gasometer, I find, comes ower high-so I shall stick to the "Lang Twas." O man, noo that the cawnle's out, isna that fire unco heartsome? Your face, sir, looks just perfeckly ruddy in the bleeze, and it wad tak a pair o' poorfu' specks to spy out a single wrinkle. You'll leeve yet for ither twa hundred Numbers. North. And then, my dear Shepherd, the editorship shall be thine. 1 2 Shepherd. Na. When you're dead, Maga will be dead. She'll no surveeve you ae single day. Buried shall you be in ae grave, and curst be he that disturbs your banes! Afore you and her cam out, this wasna the same warld it has been sin' syne. Wut and wisdom never used to be seen linkin alang thegither, han'-in-han' as they are noo, frae ae end o' the month to the ither; there wasna prented a byuck that garred ye break out at ae page into grief, and at anither into a guffaw;-where could ye forgather wi' sic a canty crew o' chiels as ODoherty and the rest, passin themselves aff sometimes for real, and sometimes for fictious characters, till the puzzled public glowered as if they had flung the glamour ower her?—and oh, sir, afore you brak out, beautiful as had been many thousan' thousan' million, billion, trillion and quadrillion nights by firesides in huts or ha's, or out-by in the open air wi' the starry heavens resting on the saft hilltaps, yet a' the time that the heavenly bodies were performing their stated revolutions—there were nae, nae NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ! North. I have not, I would fain hope, my dear James, been altogether useless in my generation-but your partiality exaggerates my merits Shepherd. A man would require an oss magna sonaturum to do that. Suffice it to say, sir, that you are the wisest and wittiest of men. Dinna turn awa your face, or you'll get a 1 Forgather wi-fall in with. 2 Canty-lively. 302 SHEPHERD WITH TWENTY THOUSAND POUNDS. crick in your neck. There's no sic a popular man in a' Britain the noo as Christopher North. Oh, sir, you'll dee as rich as Croesus-for every day there's wulls makin by auld leddies and young leddies, leaving you their residiatory legatee, sometimes, I fear, past the heirs, male or female, o' their bodies lawfully begotten. North. No, James, I trust that none of my admirers, since admirers you say the old man hath, will ever prove so unprincipled as to leave their money away from their own kin. Nothing can justify that-but hopeless and incurable vice in the natural heirs. Shepherd. I wush I was worth just twenty thousan' pounds. I could leeve on that-but no on a farden less. In the first place, I would buy three or four pair o' tap-boots—and I would try to introduce into the Forest buckskin breeks. I would niest, sin' naebody's gien me ane in a present, buy a gold musical snuff-box, that would play tunes on the table. North. Heavens! James-at that rate you would be a ruined man before the coming of Christmas. You would see your name honourably mentioned in the Gazette. Shepherd. Then a gold twisted watch-chain, sax gold seals o' various sizes, frae the bigness o' my nieve amaist, doun to that o' a kitty-wren's egg. North. Which ODoherty would chouse you out of at brag, some night at his own lodgings, after the play. Shepherd. Catch me at the cairds, unless it be a game at Birky;1 for I'm sick o' Whust itsel, I've sic desperate bad hauns dealt to me noo-no an ace ance in a month, and no that unseldom a haun without a face-caird, made up o' deuces, and trays, and fours, and fives, and be damned to them; so that to tak the verra weakest trick is entirely out o' my power, except it be by main force, harling the cairds to me whether the opposite side wull or no; and then at the close o' the round, threepin' that I had twa honours-the knave and anither ane. Sic bad luck hae I in a' chance games, Mr North, as you ken, that were I to fling dice for my life alang wi' a haill army o' fifty thousand men, I wad be sure to be shot; for I would fling aces after some puir trumlin drummer had flung deuces, and be led out into the middle o' a hollow square for execution. 1 Anglicè, Beggar-my-neighbour. 2 Threepin-asserting pertinaciously. EXECUTION OF A MUTINEER. 303 North. James, you are very excursive this evening in your conversation-nobody is thinking of shooting you, James. Shepherd. And I'm sure that I hae nae thochts o' shootin mysel. But ance-it's a lang time syne-I saw a sodger shot-dead, sir, as a door-nail, or a coffin-nail, or ony ither kind o' nail. North. Was it in battle, James? Shepherd. In battle?—Na, na; neither you nor me was ever fond o' being in battle at ony time o' our lives. North. I was Private Secretary to Rodney when he beat Langara,1 James. Shepherd. Haud your tongue!-What a crowd on the Links2 that day! But a' wi' fixed whitish faces-nae speakin-no sae muckle as a whisper-a frozen dumbness that nae wechts could break! North. You mean the spectators, James. Shepherd. Then the airmy appeared in the distance; for there were three haill regiments, a' wi' fixed beggonets; but nae music-nae music for a while at least, till a' at ance, mercy on us! we heard, like laigh sullen thunder, the soun' o' the great muffled drum, aye played on, ye ken, by a black man; in this case, an African neegger, sax feet four; and what bangs he gied the bass-the whites o' his een rowin about as if he was glad, atween every stroke! North. I remember him-the best pugilist then going, for it was long before the days of Richmond and Molineaux-and nearer forty than thirty years ago, James. Shepherd. The tread of the troops was like the step o' ae giant sae perfate was their discippleen-and afore I weel kent that they were a' in the Links, three sides o'a square were formed—and the soun' o' the great drum ceased, as at an inaudible word of command, or wavin o' a haun, or the lowerin o' a banner. It was but ae man that was about to die-but for that ae man, had their awe no hindered them, twenty thousan' folk wad at that moment hae broken out into lamentations and rueful cries-but as yet not a tear was shed —not a sigh was heaved-for had a' that vast crowd been sae mony images, or corpses raised up by cantrip in their deathclaes, they couldna hae been mair motionless than at that 1 Off Cape St Vincent, on the 16th of January 1780. 3 Wecht-weight. |