|
Sir Alexander and Sir
Charles thought it advisable for Arthur to lose no time in establishing
himself at Monteith; and after some little consideration, it was
determined that they should set out themselves a few days before any
other of the party, in order to have everything settled, before the
young heir was introduced to his dependants. Lady Beaumont greatly
objected to her father’s attempting to take such a journey; but the old
man seemed to have recovered his youth, and declared that he would walk
barefooted, rather than not be present when the son of Hector Monteith
was reinstated in his birthright.
“But consider your great age, dear sir,” still pleaded his daughter. “If
the journey should be too much for you, we shall none of us forgive
ourselves for having yielded to your wishes.”
“Pohl pohl girl,” answered he, as he stepped into the carriage, “I am
the youngest of you all, at this time, and can feel no fatigue when
engaged in such a cause.”
Ten days from the time of their departure, Arthur, William, and Jessie,
in one carriage, and Lady Beaumont, Jane, and Allen, in another, quitted
Glenlyn, on their way to Monteith. Jamie had accompanied Sir Charles and
Sir Alexander, as they thought he would be of great service to them, by
his activity and skill in settling the necessary business relative to
the tenants on the estate, and in saving them from much fatigue, which
otherwise they would have been obliged to undergo.
The day shone bright, and all nature seemed to rejoice in the welcome
return of the rights fill heir of Monteith to the mansion of his
ancestors. As they passed through Stirling, William carried his young
friends to the very spot where he first received them out of the basket,
when lowered by the trembling hands of their affectionate father. “From
that window, my children, did you descend; a spot which I now shudder to
look on, as the slightest turn or struggle on your parts, must have
placed you in great jeopardy, and might have occasioned your
destruction. On that morning, my dear Arthur, you first displayed the
obedience and resolution which nave since become such prominent features
in your character; for, if you had not, from a wish to save your poor
mother’s tears, obeyed your father’s instructions, and resolutely
suppressed the screams which the terror of such a descent might
naturally have inclined a child of your age to utter, your own ruin, and
that of your brother and sister must have been the consequence. Let it
act, my son, as a lesson to you, if it should ever please God to make
you a father, to be care-ul in rearing your infants, even from the
earliest age, in habits of strict obedience to your own commands, and in
uniform respect and love to their mother. Few ever had so much reason as
you have, to bless God that their parents had followed these rules. I
sincerely trust that no child of yours will ever be placed in similar
danger; yet, rest assured, that in all situations during life, such
lessons will be productive, both to the parent and the child, of most
essential advantages; and if such a foundation is once laid, easy will
be the acquisition of all other good principles and virtues.”
Our young friends were much affected at seeing the prison of their
parents; and Lady Beaumont, fearful of spreading a gloom over a day
dedicated to happiness and rejoicing, eagerly pressed William to quit
Stirling, and proceed towards Monteith, which lay about seven miles to
the north of that ancient city.
The mansion-house of Monteith was originally a handsome, old-fashioned
edifice, of considerable size. It was built like many gentlemen’s houses
in Scotland, in the form of a castle ; being surrounded with turrets,
and haying a sort of embattlement round the roof. The woods which grew
thickly on all sides, prevented it from being seen from the road at any
great distance; but as our friends drove through the little straggling
village which bore the name of the estate, they caught a sight of one
single turret, which rose above the rest, and formed a striking feature
of the landscape.
"Ah!" exclaimed Jane, eagerly letting down the glass, “there is my
lady’s turret, where you, my dear Allen, were born, and where I have
passed so many happy days.”
Allen was prevented from replying, by a number of the tenants who
approached to meet the carriages, and who, in proof of the delight they
felt on seeing the children of their old master returned among them,
insisted on being allowed to draw them up to the house of Monteith.
Arthur and Allen remonstrated against this as much as they could; but
they were obliged to submit, or they would have hurt the feelings of
those who meant to do them honour. William sat back in the carriage,
that he might not be recognized; but Jane leaned eagerly forward to
watch the various countenances that surrounded her, in hopes of seeing
her father or brother amongst them. At last, her brother’s face met het
eye. Unable to contain herself any longer, she called out, “Jamie
Morrison! Jamie Morrison I do I live to see you again at Monteith?”
Her brother, who was one of the most eager in drawing the carriage, at
the sound of his own name, looked hastily up, and instantly recognized
his sister, to whom he had been particularly attached, and whom he had
for many years firmly believed to be dead.
“Jane! my sister Jane!” cried he, letting go his hold. “Oh! it is she
who has saved le orphans!” The poor fellow would have fallen to the
ground if one of his neighbours had not supported him: and it was with
the utmost difficulty that Allen could prevent Jane from getting out of
the carriage to his assistance. “Bring him up, my mend, to Monteith-House,”
said Allen. “There we shall rejoice to see any relation of my dear
mother, and my equally dear father.”
“He called me mother, Lady Beaumont,” said Jane, bursting into tears of
delight; “did you hear that, even before the whole of the tenants of
MonteithI AhI I am the proudest and the happiest of women this day.
“My dearest mother,” said Allen, putting his arms round her, and
straining her to his breast, “do you suppose that any of us will ever
give you any other name, let who will be present? Nay, even were the
king upon his throne beside us, you and my father must ever hold the
place you have so long and so faithfully filled, both in our love and
respect.”
It is quite impossible to describe the meeting between Jane and her
father. The old man had been singled out by Sir Charles, who had kept
him in the house with himself, when the other villagers went out to meet
the carriages. On being informed of the part William and Jane had acted,
his astonishment was beyond bounds: and whilst he expressed his delight
and happiness, he declared that had he ever suspected what were the
motives for their quitting the country, so far from blaming them, as he
had done, he would have sold every thing he possessed to have assisted
them in rearing the orphans.
Little more remains to be related. Arthur, beloved and respected by
every one, fixed his residence at Monteith; where, in the course of a
few months, he married an amiable young woman in the neighbourhood.
Allen, from choice, entered into the church; and very soon afterwards,
upon the death of the clergyman of the parish in which the estate of
Monteith lay, ne was presented to the living by his brother, in whose
gift it was. In this situation he became a blessing to his parishioners,
and an ornament to the sacred profession to which he belonged.
Jessie continued to reside with Sir Charles and Lady Beaumont at Glenlyn,
paying regularly a visit to her brothers every year; generally spending
several months with them, and always quitting them with regret. She
became, at the age of twenty-one, attached to a nephew of Sir Charles’s,
and shortly afterwards married him, to the satisfaction of all connected
with her; and as he was the presumptive heir to the title and estate of
his uncle, it was to Sir Charles and Lady Beaumont, an union above all
others desirable.
William and Jane were glad when their son James informed them of his
intention of bringing home a wife to Lochmore; for they had long
determined to give up that farm to him as soon as they could see him
comfortably settled in marriage. His choice fell upon Mr. Brown’s
daughter; and in little more than a year after that marriage, Allen was
united to her sister; so that he and James became in reality, what they
had long been in affection—brothers.
William, on giving up his farm, returned with his wife to their
much-loved cottage at Monteith; all Arthur’s entreaties not being able
to prevail on them, either to reside with him, or to allow him to build
a better house on his own little farm.
“No, my son,” answered William, “I never will consent to be any thing
beyond a respectable farmer. In that rank I was born; and in that rank,
if it please God, I will die. I am willing to continue to be considered
by you as your father, so far as confidence and affection go; for I
think I deserve to be so treated and respected by you; but I will never
allow either your kindness or my own vanity, to make me forget what I
owe to my own character. It was a rule taught me by my good and worthy
father, never to aspire to a situation, which neither my birth, habits,
nor education, rendered me fit to occupy. I have followed the same rule
with regard to my son James; though by the pains which you bestowed on
him in his youth, he is more polished than his father ever was. He has
contrived, indeed, to marry above the rank to which his birth entitled
him; yet as his wife has been brought up with economy, and is a sensible
girl, the daughter of an honest man, who loved him like a son, I did not
oppose his choice.”
Jane was one of the happiest of human beings. She was tenderly beloved
by her husband; and all her children paid her the most unremitting
attention, never suffering her to grow weary by separation from them,
but always contriving, that during the hours of William’s absence, some
one of them should visit her. Her daughters-in-law, as she called them,
both entered with the liveliest interest into the feelings and wishes of
their husbands, \ respecting ana treating her exactly as if she had been
their own mother.
Thus have I brought to a
conclusion the history of Arthur Monteith. If I have related it
properly, it must have carried its own moral along with it; but my young
readers will, perhaps, expect that I should direct their attention to
the principal lessons that I wished to inculcate, not only in this
volume, but in the book of which it is a continuation. Well, then, we
will begin with the first foundation of all those good and honourable
feelings which distinguished our hero throughout the course of his life.
“Honour thy father and thy mother,” was the law early and deeply
imprinted on his young heart Respect for nis parents, and consequent
obedience to their commands, enabled him, though little more than an
infant, to suppress his cries when placed in a situation where, without
such habits, he would naturally have given way to the force of terror,
the consequence of which must have been the ruin of himself as well as
of his brother and sister. The same habits led him to submit to the
directions of William Mathieson, even when too young to judge of the
motives which influenced the latter to exact silence on a subject so
highly interesting to him as his birth. Again, subsequently, when from
his age and acquirements he might naturally have hoped to be trusted
with the secret, we have seen him evince the same respect and obedience
to his kind protector, without allowing himself to doubt the propriety
of William’s decision. Another result of his early submission to the
authority of his parents was that strength of mind, which is acquired by
imposing a restraint on the will. This it was which enabled him to
preserve, for such a length of time, the secret of Sir Alexander
M’Donald: and by so doing, to secure the life and safety of his father’s
friend, and benefactor’s uncle. The religious and moral lessons which
were first impressed on his mind, under the parental roof, and
afterwards nurtured and brought to maturity by the care of William,
enabled the virtuous youth to withstand the temptations, and overcome
the trials, which he met with in the world; to became a blessing to his
friends, and a comfort even to the dying sinner. They gave him strength
to persevere in those honourable exertions which raised him to an
elevated rank in society; and they taught him to look forward with
humble confidence in the merits of his Redeemer, to still brighter
rewards in a less perishable and more glorious state of existence.
In comparing Annie’s death with that of Colonel Monteith, my young
friends will learn the inestimable value of a well-spent life. It is
this that smooths the pillow of the dying Christian; and though it
cannot remove all the bitterness of that awful hour, yet it sustains the
fainting soul with a lively hope of inheriting the mansions above.
Nor is the resignation of William, when bereft of his dear and amiable
daughter, a circumstance from which less instruction is to be drawn; for
it proves that the same faith which is the Christian’s support on the
brink of the grave, is likewise his shield and refuge amid all the
losses and afflictions of life.
If, by the perusal of these pages, consolation be afforded to any reader
whom death has deprived of a friend; if any child be taught to imitate
the active virtues of Arthur, and so to live, as at last to die like
Annie; if any parent be induced to imprint more deeply on the minds of
his offspring the precepts of religion and virtue, the author will not
have laboured in vain, nor will she have cause to regret the time which
has been occupied in penning this simple story. |
