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Towards the close of a
beautiful autunmal day in 18--, when pacing slowly on my way, and in a
contemplative mood admiring the delightful scenery between Blair Athole
and Dunkeld, on my return from a survey of the celebrated pass of
Killiecrankie, and other places rendered famous in Scottish story, I was
accosted by a female, little past the prime of life, but with two
children of unequal age walking by her side, and a younger slung upon
her back. The salutation was of the supplicatory kind, and while the
tones were almost perfectly English, the pronunciation of the words was
often highly Scottish. The words, a "sodger’s widow"—"three helpless
bairns" — and "Waterloo," broke my meditations with the force of an
enchantment, excited my sympathy, and made me draw my purse. While in
the act of tendering a piece of money — a cheap and easy mode of
procuring the luxury of doing good — I thought the countenance, though
browned and weather-beaten, one which I before had seen, with out
exactly recollecting when or where. My curiosity thus raised, many
interrogatives and answers speedily followed, when at last I discovered
that there stood before me Jeanie Strathavon, once the beauty and the
pride of my own native village. Ten long and troublous years had passed
away since Jeanie left the neighbourhood in which she was born to follow
the spirit - stirring drum; and where she had gone, or how she had
afterwards fared, many enquired, though but few could tell. The incident
which led to all her subsequent toil and suffering seemed but trivial at
the time, yet, like many other trivial occurrences, became to her one
fraught with mighty consequences.
She was an only daughter, her father was an honest labourer, and though
not nursed in the bosom of affluence, she hardly knew what it was to
have a wish ungratified. She possessed mental vivacity, and personal
attractions, rarely exhibited, especially at the present day, by persons
in her humble sphere of life. Though she never could boast what might
properly be called education, yet great care had been taken to render
her modest, affectionate, and pious. Her parents, now in the decline of
life, looked upon her as their only solace. She had been from her very
birth the idol of their hearts; and as there was no sunshine in their
days but when she was healthy and happy, so their prospects were never
clouded but when she was the reverse. Always the favourite of one sex,
and the envy of another, when not yet out of her teens, she was
importuned by the addresses of many both of her own rank and of a rank
above her own, to change her mode of life. The attentions of the latter,
in obedience to the suggestions of her affectionate but simple hearted
parents, she always discouraged, for they never would allow themselves
to think that "folk wi’ siller would be looking after their bairn for
ony gude end." Among those of her own station, she could hardly be said
to have yet shown a decided preference to any one, though the glances
which she cast at Henry Williams, when passing through the kirkyard on
Sundays, seemed to every one to say where, if she had her own unbiassed
will, her choice would light. Still she had never thought seriously upon
the time when, nor the person for whom, she would leave her fond and
doting parents. Chance or accident, however, in these matters, often
outruns the speed of deliberate choice; at least such was the case with
poor Jeanie.
Decked out one Sabbath morning in her best, to go to what Burns calls a
"Holy Fair," in the neighbouring parish, though viewed in a far
different light by her, Jeanie had on her brawest and her best; and
among other things, a fine new bonnet, which excited the gossip and the
gaze of all the lasses in the village. Having sat for an hour or two at
the tent, listening earnestly and devoutly to a discourse which formed a
complete body of divinity, she, with many others, was at length obliged
to take refuge in the church, to shun a heavy summer shower, which
unexpectedly arrested the out-door devotions. Here, whether wearied with
the long walk she had in the morning, or overpowered with the heat and
suffocation consequent upon such a crowd, she began to feel a serious
oppression of sickness, and before she could effect her escape she
entirely fainted away, requiring to be carried out in a state of
complete insensibility.
It was long before she came to herself ; and when she did, she found
that the rough hands of those who had caught her when falling, and borne
her through the crowd to the open air, had, amidst the anxiety for her
recovery, treated her finery with but very little ceremony. Among other
instances of this kind, she found that her bonnet had been hastily torn
from her head, thrown carelessly aside, and, being accidentally trod
upon, had been so crushed, as to render it perfectly useless. The grief
which this caused made her forget the occasion which produced such
disaster; and adjusting herself as well as she could, she did not wait
the conclusion of the solemn service, but sought her father’s cottage
amidst much sorrow and confusion.
When she reached home, she found her parents engaged in devotional
reading, their usual mode of spending the Sabbath evenings. As it was
not altogether with their consent that she had not accompanied them that
day to their usual place of being instructed in divine things, the
plight in which she returned to them excited, especially on the mother’s
part, a hasty burst of displeasure, if not of anger; and the calm
improving peace of the evening was entirely broken. Sacred as to them
the day appeared, they could not restrain inquiry as to the cause of her
altered appearance, and maternal anxiety gave birth to suspicions which
poor Jeanie’s known veracity and simple unaffected narrative could not
altogether repress. Thus, for the first time in her life, had Jeanie
excited the frown of her parents, and every reproving look and word was
as a dagger to her heart.
Night came, and she retired to rest, but her innocent breast was too
much agitated to allow her eyes to close in sleep ; and the return of
morning only brought with it an additional burden to her heart, by a
renewed discussion of the events of the previous day. This was more than
she was able to stand, and she took the first opportunity to escape from
that roof where, till now, she had never known aught but delight, to go
to pour her complaint into the ear of one who seemed to love her almost
to distraction, —her youthful admirer, Henry Williams. Their interview,
though not long, terminated in the proposal on his part to relieve her
from her embarrassed situation by forthwith making her his own. Whether
this was what she desired, in having recourse to such an adviser, cannot
be known, but, at all events, she acceded with blamable facility to his
wishes. She could not endure the thought of being without a friend, and
she knew not that the friendship and affection of her parents had
suffered no abatement, though their great concern for her innocence and
welfare had pushed their reproofs further than they intended, or than
prudence under such circumstances would warrant.
Henry was little more than her own age, of but moderate capacity,
handsome in person, and ill provided with the means of making matrimony
a state of enjoyment; and too much addicted to the frivolities of his
years to be fitted for the serious business of being the head of a
family. Youth and inexperience seldom consider consequences, and the
desire of the one to receive, and of the other to afford relief, under
existing circumstances, made them resolve neither to ask parental
consent to their purpose, nor wait the ordinary steps prescribed by the
Church. The connection was therefore no less irregular than it was
precipitate, and Jeanie never so much as sought to see her father’s
house till the solemn knot was tied.
In her absence many inquiries were made respecting her by the villagers,
who had witnessed or heard of what had happened to her on the previous
day. Her truth and innocence being thus put beyond the shadow of a
doubt, consternation at the long absence of their child, and compunction
for the severity of their reproofs, drove the unhappy parents almost
frantic. When the news of the re-appearance of their daughter dispelled
their direful apprehensions as to her safety, though they felt a
momentary gleam of joy, yet they experienced nothing like heart-felt
satisfaction.
Jeanie made as sweet and loving a wife as she had been a daughter; but
the cares of providing for more than himself soon made Henry regret his
rashness, and the prospect of these cares speedily increasing made him
more and more dissatisfied with his new state of life. All Jeanie’s care
and anxiety to soothe and please him were unavailing. It is not in the
power of beauty, youth, and innocence, to check and control the sallies
of ignorance and caprice. Chagrined because his youthful wife had not
prepared his morning meal to his liking, on a day when he was to visit a
neighbouring city for some trifling purpose, he determined to free
himself from the yoke into which he had so heedlessly run, and returned
home on the evening of the following day somewhat altered in dress and
appearance, and with the king’s money in his pocket. The grief and agony
of Jeanie, and of her affectionate parents, were past all description ;
and the consideration of her rashness and imprudence having been the
occasion of so much distress to herself and others, rendered her almost
desperate.
Henry was not long in the hands of the drill sergeant till he became
nearly as penitent and full of regrets as his lovely young wife, and he
willingly would, had he been permitted, have returned to a faithful
discharge of the duties of a husband; but the country was at that time
in too great need of men such as Henry, to part with him either for
money or interest. When he began to reap the bitter fruits of his own
folly, his affection for Jeanie, if it ever deserved so sacred a name,
returned with redoubled intensity; and that object, for the abandonment
of which he had plunged himself into the hardships of which he
complained, he thought he could not now live without. He was shortly to
be marched off to his regiment, and poor Jeanie, whose attachment
remained unshaken amidst the severe treatment she had suffered,
determined to follow him through all the casualties of the military
life; and at any rate preferred hardship to the disgrace which she
thought she had brought upon herself by her own imprudence. She had at
this time been a mother for little more than two months; hut even this
could not change her resolution to follow the father of her child,
exposed as she must be to all the privations and hardships of the
soldier’s wife. She saw her father and mother on the morning of her
departure, but neither she nor they were able to exchange words, so full
were their hearts; save that the old man said, “God help and bless you,
Jeanie!" Scarcely a dry eye was to be seen in the village that morning,
and a crowd of youths, amidst silent dejection, saw her far on her way,
carrying her baby and her bundle by turns. The toils through which she
passed in following her husband were too many and too severe to be here
related. He was ultimately one of those who assisted to decide the
dreadful conflict at Waterloo, and received a severe wound when the day
was just about won. In a foreign hospital, though he suffered much, he
at length recovered; but upon returning home, his wounds broke forth
afresh, and at last carried him off. Jeanie was now left quite
unfriended. She had seen her two eldest children laid in the dust, the
one in a distant clime, and the other, though on British soil, yet far
from the tomb of her fathers. She still had three surviving, and her
parents being gone to their long home, her only resource at the time I
met her was dependence on public charity.
“The Athenaeum,"— Glasgow University Annual, 1830. |
