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Gilbert Ainslie was a poor
man; and he had been a poor man all the days of his life, which were not
few, for his thin hair was now waxing gray. He had been born and bred on
the small moorland farm which he now occupied; and he hoped to die there,
as his father and grandfather had done before him, leaving a family just
above the more bitter wants of this world. Labour, hard and unremitting,
had been his lot in life; but, although sometimes severely tried, he had
never repined; and through all the mist and gloom, and even the storms
that had assailed him, he had lived on from year to year in that calm and
resigned contentment which unconsciously cheers the hearthstone of the
blameless poor. With his own hands he had ploughed, sowed, and reaped his
often scanty harvest, assisted, as they grew up, by three sons, who, even
in boyhood, were happy to work along with their father in the fields. Out
of doors or in, Gilbert Ainslie was never idle. The spade, the shears, the
plough-shaft, the sickle, and the flail, all came readily to hands that
grasped them well; and not a morsel of food was eaten under his roof, or a
garment worn there, that was not honestly, severely, nobly earned. Gilbert
Ainslie was a slave, but it was for them he loved with a sober and deep
affection. The thraldom under which he lived God had imposed, and it only
served to give his character a shade of silent gravity, but not austere;
to make his smiles fewer, but more heartfelt; to calm his soul at grace
before and after meals, and to kindle it in morning and evening prayer.
There is no need to tell
the character of the wife of such a man. Meek and thoughtful, yet gladsome
and gay withal, her heaven was in her house; and her gentler and weaker
hands helped to bar the door against want. Of ten children that had been
born to them, they had lost three; and as they had fed, clothed, and
educated them respectably, so did they give them who died a respectable
funeral. The living did not grudge to give up, for a while, some of their
daily comforts for the sake of the dead ; and bought, with the little sums
which their industry had saved, decent mournings, worn on Sabbath, and
then carefully laid by. Of the seven that survived, two sons and a
daughter were farm-servants in the neighbourhood, while two daughters and
two sons remained at home, growing, or grown up, a small, happy,
hard-working household. Many cottages are there in Scotland like
Moss-side, and many such humble and virtuous cottagers as were now beneath
its roof of straw. The eye of the passing traveller may mark them, or mark
them not, but they stand peacefully in thousands over all the land; and
most beautiful do they make it, through all its wide valleys and narrow
glens— its low holms, encircled by the rocky walls of some bonny burn—its
green mounts, elated with their little crowning groves of plane-trees—its
yellow corn-fields—its bare pastoral hill-sides, and all its heathy moors,
on whose black bosom lie shining or concealed glades of excessive verdure,
inhabited by flowers, and visited only by the far-flying bees. Moss-side
was not beautiful to a careless or hasty eye; but, when looked on and
surveyed, it seemed a pleasant dwelling. Its roof, overgrown with grass
and moss, was almost as green as the ground out of which its
weather-stained walls appeared to grow. The moss behind it was separated
from a little garden, by a narrow slip of arable land, the dark colour of
which showed that it had been won from the wild by patient industry, and
by patient industry retained. It required a bright sunny day to make
Moss-side fair, but then it was fair indeed; and when the little brown
moorland birds were singing their short songs among the rushes and the
heather, or a lark, perhaps lured thither by some green barley-field for
its undisturbed nest, rose ringing all over the enlivened solitude, the
little bleak farm smiled like the paradise of poverty, sad and affecting
in its lone and extreme simplicity. The boys and girls had made some plots
of flowers among the vegetables that the little garden supplied for their
homely meals; pinks and carnations, brought from walled gardens of rich
men farther down in the cultivated strath, grew here with somewhat
diminished lustre; a bright show of tulips had a strange beauty in the
midst of that moorland ; and the smell of roses mixed well with that of
the clover, the beautiful fair clover that loves the soil and the air of
Scotland, and gives the rich and balmy milk to the poor man's lips.
In this cottage, Gilbert's
youngest child, a girl about nine years of age, had been lying for a week
in a fever. It was now Saturday evening, and the ninth day of the disease.
Was she to live or die? It seemed as if a very few hours were between the
innocent creature and heaven. All the symptoms were those of approaching
death. The parents knew well the change that comes over the human face,
whether it be in infancy, youth, or prime, just before the departure of
the spirit; and as they stood together by Margaret's bed, it seemed to
them that the fatal shadow had fallen upon her features. The surgeon of
the parish lived some miles distant, but they expected him now every
moment, and many a wistful look was directed by tearful eyes along the
moor. The daughter who was out at service came anxiously home on this
night, the only one that could be allowed her; for the poor must work in
their grief, and servants must do their duty to those whose bread they
eat, even when nature is sick—sick at heart. Another of the daughters came
in from the potato-field beyond the brae, with what was to be their frugal
supper. The calm, noiseless spirit of life was in and around the house,
while death seemed dealing with one who, a few days ago, was like light
upon the floor, and the sound of music, that always breathed up when most
wanted; glad and joyous in common talk—sweet, silvery, and mournful, when
it joined in hymn or psalm. One after the other, they all continued going
up to the bedside, and then coming away sobbing or silent, to see their
merry little sister, who used to keep dancing all day like a butterfly in
a meadow-field, or, like a butterfly with shut wings on a flower, trifling
for a while in the silence of her joy, now tossing restlessly on her bed,
and scarcely sensible to the words of endearment whispered around her, or
the kisses dropped with tears, in spite of themselves, on her burning
forehead.
Utter poverty often kills
the affections; but a deep, constant, and common feeling of this world's
hardships, and an equal participation in all those struggles by which they
may be softened, unite husband and wife, parents and children, brothers
and sisters, in thoughtful and subdued tenderness, making them happy
indeed, while the circle round the fire is unbroken, and yet preparing
them every day to bear the separation, when some one or other is taken
slowly or suddenly away. Their souls are not moved by fits and starts,
although, indeed, nature sometimes will wrestle with necessity; and there
is a wise moderation both in the joy and the grief of the intelligent
poor, which keeps lasting trouble away from their earthly lot, and
prepares them silently and unconsciously for heaven.
"Do you think the child is
dying?" said Gilbert, with a calm voice, to the surgeon, who, on his
wearied horse, had just arrived from another sick-bed, over the misty
range of hills, and had been looking steadfastly for some minutes on the
little patient. The humane man knew the family well, in the midst of whom
he was standing, and replied, "While there is life there is hope ; but my
pretty little Margaret is, I fear, in the last extremity." There was no
loud lamentation at these words; all had before known, though they would
not confess it to themselves, what they now were told ; and though the
certainty that was in the words of the skilful man made their hearts beat
for a little with sicker throbbings, made their pale faces paler, and
brought out from some eyes a greater gush of tears, yet death had been
before in this house, and in this case he came, as he always does, in awe,
but not in terror. There were wandering and wavering and dreamy delirious
fantasies in the brain of the innocent child; but the few words she
indistinctly uttered were affecting, not rending to the heart, for it was
plain that she thought herself herding her sheep in the green silent
pastures, and sitting wrapped in her plaid upon the lown and sunny side of
the Birk-knowe. She was too much exhausted—there was too little life, too
little breath in her heart—to frame a tune; but some of her words seemed
to be from favourite old songs ; and at last her mother wept, and turned
aside her face, when the child, whose blue eyes were shut, and her lips
almost still, breathed out these lines of the beautiful twenty third
Psalm:—
The Lord's my shepherd, I'll
not want.
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green;
He leadeth me The quiet waters by.
The child was now left with
none but her mother by the bedside, for it was said to be best so; and
Gilbert and his family sat down round the kitchen fire, for a while, in
silence. In about a quarter of an hour, they began to rise calmly, and to
go each to his allotted work. One of the daughters went forth with the
pail to milk the cow, and another began to set out the table in the middle
of the floor for supper, covering it with a white cloth. Gilbert viewed
the usual household arrangements with a solemn and untroubled eye; and
there was almost the faint light of a grateful smile on his cheek, as he
said to the worthy surgeon, "You will partake of our fare, after your
day's travel and toil of humanity?" In a short silent half-hour, the
potatoes and oat-cakes, butter and milk, were on the board; and Gilbert,
lifting up his toil-hardened but manly hand, with a slow motion, at which
the room was as hushed as if it had been empty, closed his eyes in
reverence, and asked a blessing. There was a little stool, on which no one
sat, by the old man's side. It had been put there unwittingly, when the
other seats were all placed in their usual order; but the golden head that
was won't to rise at that part of the table was now wanting. There was
silence—not a word was said—their meal was before them—God had been
thanked, and they began to eat.
While they were at their
silent meal a horseman came galloping to the door, and, with a loud voice,
called out that he had been sent express with a letter to Gilbert Ainslie;
at the same time rudely, and with an oath, demanding a dram for his
trouble. The eldest son, a lad of eighteen, fiercely seized the bridle of
his horse, and turned its head away from the door. The rider, somewhat
alarmed at the flushed face of the powerful stripling, threw down the
letter and rode off. Gilbert took the letter from his son's hand, casting,
at the same time, a half-upbraiding look on his face, that was returning
to its former colour. "I feared,"—said the youth, with a tear in his
eye,—"I feared that the brute's voice, and the trampling of the horse's
feet, would have disturbed her." Gilbert held the letter hesitatingly in
his hand, as if afraid at that moment to read it; at length he said aloud
to the surgeon:— "You know that I am a poor man, and debt, if justly
incurred, and punctually paid when due, is no dishonour." Both his hand
and his voice shook slightly as he spoke; but he opened the letter from
the lawyer, and read it in silence. At this moment his wife came from her
child's bedside, and, looking anxiously at her husband, told him "not to
mind about the money, that no man who knew him would arrest his goods, or
put him into prison. Though, dear me, it is cruel to be put to thus, when
our bairn is dying, and when, if so it be the Lord's will, she should have
a decent burial, poor innocent, like them that went before her." Gilbert
continued reading the letter with a face on which no emotion could be
discovered ; and then, folding it up, he gave it to his wife, told her she
might read it if she chose, and then put it into his desk in the room,
beside the poor dear bairn. She took it from him, without reading it, and
crushed it into her bosom: for she turned her ear towards her child, and
thinking she heard it stir, ran out hastily to its bedside.
Another hour of trial
passed, and the child was still swimming for its life. The very dogs knew
there was grief in the house, and lay without stirring, as if hiding
themselves, below the long table at the window. One sister sat with an
unfinished gown on her knees, that she had been sewing for the dear child,
and still continued at the hopeless work, she scarcely knew why; and
often, often putting up her hand to wipe away a tear. "What is that?" said
the old man to his eldest daughter. "What is that you are laying on the
shelf?" She could scarcely reply that it was a riband and an ivory comb
that she had brought for little Margaret, against the night of the
dancing-school ball. And at these words the father could not restrain a
long, deep, and bitter groan; at which the boy, nearest in age to his
dying sister, looked up weeping in his face; and, letting the tattered
book of old ballads, which he had been poring on, but not reading, fall
out of his hands, he rose from his seat, and, going into his father's
bosom, kissed him, and asked God to bless him: for the holy heart of the
boy was moved within him ; and the old man, as he embraced him, felt that,
in his innocence and simplicity, he was indeed a comforter. "The Lord
giveth, and the Lord taketh away," said the old man; "blessed be the name
of the Lord!"
The outer door gently
opened, and he whose presence had in former years brought peace and
resignation hither, when their hearts had been tried even as they now were
tried, stood before them. On the night before the Sabbath, the minister of
Auchindown never left his manse, except, as now, to visit the sick or
dying bed. Scarcely could Gilbert reply to his first question about his
child, when the surgeon came from the bedroom, and said—"Margaret seems
lifted up by God's hand above death and the grave: I think she will
recover. She has fallen asleep; and, when she wakes, I hope—I—believe—
that the danger will be past, and that your child will live."
They were all prepared for
death; but now they were found unprepared for life. One wept that had till
then locked up all her tears within her heart; another gave a short
palpitating shriek; and the tender-hearted Isobel, who had nursed the
child when it was a baby, fainted away. The youngest brother gave way to
gladsome smiles; and calling out his dog Hector, who used to sport with
him and his little sister on the moor, he told the tidings to the dumb
irrational creature, whose eyes, it is certain, sparkled with a sort of
joy. The clock for some days had been prevented from striking the hours;
but the silent fingers pointed to the hour of nine; and that, in the
cottage of Gilbert Ainslie, was the stated hour of family worship. His own
honoured minister took the Book,—
He waled a portion with
judicious care,
And, "Let us worship God," he said, with solemn air.
A chapter was read—a prayer
said; and so, too, was sung a psalm; but it was sung low, and with
suppressed voices, lest the child's saving sleep might be broken; and now
and then the female voices trembled, or some one of them ceased
altogether; for there had been tribulation and anguish, and now hope and
faith were tried in the joy of thanksgiving.
The child still slept; and
its sleep seemed more sound and deep. It appeared almost certain that the
crisis was over, and that the flower was not to fade. "Children," said
Gilbert, "our happiness is in the love we bear to one another; and our
duty is in submitting to and serving God. Gracious, indeed, has He been
unto us. Is not the recovery of our little darling, dancing, singing
Margaret, worth all the gold that ever was mined? If we had had thousands
of thousands, would we not have filled up her grave with the worthless
dross of gold, rather than that she should have gone down there with her
sweet face and all her rosy smiles?" There was no reply, but a joyful
sobbing all over the room.
"Never mind the letter, nor
the debt, father," said the eldest daughter. "We have all some little
thing of our own,—a few pounds,—and we shall be able to raise as much as
will keep arrest and prison at a distance. Or if they do take our
furniture out of the house, all except Margaret's bed, who cares? We will
sleep on the floor; and there are potatoes in the field, and clear water
in the spring. We need fear nothing, want nothing; blessed be God for all
His mercies!"
Gilbert went into the
sick-room, and got the letter from his wife, who was sitting at the head
of the bed, watching, with a heart blessed beyond all bliss, the calm and
regular breathings of her child. "This letter," said he, mildly, "is not
from a hard creditor. Come with me while I read it aloud to our children."
The letter was read aloud, and it was well fitted to diffuse pleasure and
satisfaction through the dwelling of poverty. It was from an executor to
the will of a distant relative, who had left Gilbert Ainslie £1500.
"The sum," said Gilbert,
"is a large one to folks like us, but not, I hope, large enough to turn
our heads, or make us think ourselves all lords and ladies. It will do
more, far more, than put me fairly above the world at last. I believe
that, with it, I may buy this very farm, on which my forefathers have
toiled. But God, whose providence has sent this temporal blessing, may He
send us wisdom and prudence how to use it, and humble and grateful hearts
to us all."
"You will be able to send
me to school all the year round now, father," said the youngest boy. "And
you may leave the flail to your sons, now, father," said the eldest. "You
may hold the plough still, for you draw a straighter furrow than any of
us; but hard work for young sinews; and you may sit now oftener in your
arm-chair by the ingle. You will not need to rise now in the dark, cold,
and snowy winter mornings, and keep threshing corn in the barn for hours
by candlelight, before the late dawning."
There was silence,
gladness, and sorrow, and but little sleep in Moss-side, between the
rising and the setting of the stars, that were now out in thousands,
clear, bright, and sparkling over the unclouded sky. Those who had lain
down for an hour or two in bed could scarcely be said to have slept; and
when about morning little Margaret awoke, an altered creature, pale,
languid, and unable to turn herself on her lowly bed, but with meaning in
her eyes, memory in her mind, affection in her heart, and coolness in all
her veins, a happy group were watching the first faint smile that broke
over her features; and never did one who stood there forget that Sabbath
morning on which she seemed to look round upon them all with a gaze of
fair and sweet bewilderment, like one half conscious of having been
rescued from the power of the grave. |
