220

ETTRICK FOREST.-EARLY DAYS.

except on bleaky knowes, the hardwood wad grow better, in my opinion, left to themsels, without either nurses or schoolmasters. The nurses are apt to overlay their weans, and the schoolmasters to forget, or, what's waur, to flog their pupils; and thus the rising is a stunted generation.

North. Forty-five years ago, my dear James, when you were too young to remember much, I loved the Forest for its solitary single trees, ancient yew or sycamore, black in the distance, but when near how gloriously green! Tall, delicatelyfeathered ash, whose limbs were still visible in latest summer's leafiness—birch, in early spring, weeping and whispering in its pensive happiness by the perpetual din of its own waterfall-oak, yellow in the suns of June

Shepherd.

66 The grace of forest charms decayed,

And pastoral melancholy!”

North. What lovely lines! Who writes like Wordsworth! Shepherd. Tuts! Me ower young to remember muckle fourty-five years ago! You're speakin havers. I was then twal-and I remember everything I ever heard or saw sin' I was three year auld. I recolleck the mornin I was pitten intil breeks as distinckly as if it were this verra day. They hurt me sair atween the fork and the inside o' the knees—but oh! I was a prood man—and the lamb that I chased all the way frae my father's hut to Ettrick Manse, round about the kirk, till I caught it on a gowany grave, and lay doun wi't in my arms on the sunny heap, had nae need to be ashamed o' itsel, for I hunted it like a collie-although, when I grupped it at last, I held it to my beatin bosom as tenderly as ever I hae since dune wee Jamie, when pittin' the dear cretur intil the crib that stauns at the side o' his mother's bed, after e'enin prayers.

North. I feel not undelightfully, my dear James, that I must be waxing old-very old-for of the last ten years of my life I remember almost nothing except by an effort; whereas the first ten commencing with that bright, clear, undying light that borders the edge of the oblivion of infancy-have been lately becoming more intensely distinct; so that often the past is with me as it were the present and the sad greyhaired ancient is again a blest golden-headed boy, singing a 1 Pittin-putting.

PENSIVE REFLECTIONS.

221

chorus with the breezes, the birds, and the streams. Alas and alack-a-day!

Shepherd. 'Tis only sae that we ever renew our youth. Oh, sir, I hinna forgotten the colour o' the plumage o' ae single dove that ever sat cooin of old on the growin turf-riggin o' my father's hut! Ae great muckle, big, beautifu' ane in particular, blue as if it had dropt doun frae the sky-I see the noo, a' neck and bosom, cooin and cooin deep as distant thunder, round and round his mate, wha was whiter than the white sea-faem, makin love to the snawy cretur-wha cowered doun in fear afore her imperious and impassioned lord-yet in love stronger than fear-showing hoo in a' leevin natur passions seemingly the maist remote frae ane anither, coalesce into mysterious union by means o' ae pervading and interfusing speerit, that quickens the pulses o' that inscrutable secretlife!

North. All linnets have died, James-that race of loveliest lilters is extinct.

Shepherd. No thae. Broom and bracken are tenanted by the glad, meek creturs still,—but the chords o' music in our hearts are sair unstrung-the harp o' our heart has lost its melody. But come out to the Forest, my dear, my honoured sir, and fear not then when we twa are walking thegither without speakin among the hills, you

"Will feel the airs that from them blow,
A momentary bliss bestow;"

and the wild, uncertain, waverin music o' the Eolian harp that natur plays upon in the solitude, will again echo far far awa amang the recesses o' your heart, and the lintie will sing as sweetly as ever frae amang the blossoms o' the milk-white thorn. Or, if you canna be brocht to feel sae, you'll hae but to look in my wee Jamie's face, and his glistening een will convince you that Scotia's nightingale still singeth as sweetly as of yore !-But let us sit in to the fire, sir.

North. Thank you, Shepherd-thank you, James.

Shepherd (wheeling his father's chair to the ingle corner, and singing the while).

"THERE'S CHRISTOPHER NORTH THAT WONS IN YON GLEN,

HE'S THE KING O' GUDE FALLOWS, AND WALE1 o' AULD MEN!"

1 Wale-best.

222

LANGUAGE.-INTERCHANGE OF COMPLIMENTS.

North. I cannot bear, James, to receive such attention paid to my bodily weakness-I had almost said, my decrepitudeby any living soul but yourself.-How is that, my dear Shepherd ?

Shepherd. Because I treat you wi' tenderness, but no wi' pity-wi' sympathy, but no wi' compassion

North. My dear James, ye must give us a book on synonymes. What delicacy of distinction!

Shepherd. I suspeck, sir, that mother wut and mother feeling hae mair to do wi' the truth o' metaphysical etymology and grammar than either lair' or labour. Ken the meanin, by self-experience, o' a' the nicest shades o' thoughts and feelings, and devil the fears but you'll ken the meanins o' the nicest shades o' syllables and words.

North. Good, James. Language flows from two great sources-the head and the heart. Each feeds ten thousand rills

Shepherd. Reflectin different imagery-but no sae very different either-for-you see

North. I see nothing, James, little or nothing, till you blow away the intervening mist by the breath of genius, and then the whole world outshines, like a panorama with a central

sun.

Shepherd. Ah! sir, you had seen the haill world afore ever I kent you-a perfect wandering Ulysses.

North. Yes, James, I have circumnavigated the globe, and intersected it through all its zones, and, by Jupiter, there is not a climate comparable to that of Scotland.

Shepherd. I believe't. Blessed be Providence for having saved my life frae the curse o' a stagnant sky—a monotonous heaven. On flat land, and aneath an ever blue lift, I should sune hae been a perfect idiwut.

North. What a comical chap, James, you would have been, had you been born a negro !

Shepherd. Ay-I think I see you, sir, wi' great big blubber lips, a mouthfu' o' muckle white horse's teeth, and a head o' hair like the woo atween a ram's horns when he's grown ancient among the mountains. What Desdemona could hae stood out against sic an Othello?

1 Lair-learning.

A DAY FOR A POET.

223

North. Are negroes, gentlemen, to sit in both Houses of Parliament ?

This has been a

Shepherd. Nae politics the nicht-nae politics. I'm sick o' politics. Let's speak about the weather. fine day, sirs.

North. A first-rate day, indeed, James. Commend me to a day who does not stand shilly-shallying during the whole morning and forenoon, with hands in his breeches pockets, or biting his nails, and scratching his head, unable to make up his mind in what fancy character he is to appear from meridian to sunset-but who—

Shepherd. Breaks out o' the arms o' the dark-haired, bricht-eed nicht, wi' the power and pomp o' a Titan, and frichtenin that bit puir timid lassie the Dawn out o' her seven senses, in thunder and lightning a' at ance storms the sky, till creation is drenched in flood, bathed in fire, and rocked by earthquake. That's the day for a poet, sirs-that's a pictur for the ee, and that's music for the lug o' imagination, sirs, till ane's verra speerit cums to creawte the war it trummles at, and to be composed o' the self-same yelements, gloomin and boomin, blackenin and brichtenin, pourin and roarin, and awsomely confusin and confoundin heaven and earth, and this life and the life that is to come, and a' the passions that loup up at sichts and soun's, joy, hope, fear, terror, exultation, and that mysterious uprisin and dounfa'in o' our mortal hearts connected somehoo or ither wi' the fleein cluds, and the tossin trees, and the red rivers in spate, and the sullen looks o' black bits o' sky-like faces, together wi' ane and a' o' thae restless shows o' uneasy natur appertainin, God knows hoo, but maist certain sure it is so, to the region, the rueful region o' man's entailed inheritance-the grave!

North. James, you are very pale-very white about the gills are you well enough? Turn up your little finger. Pale! nay, now they are more of the colour of my hat-as if

"In the scowl of heaven, his face

Grew black as he was speaking."

The shadow of the thunder-cloud threatening the eyes of his imagination, has absolutely darkened his face of clay. He seems at a funeral-James!

224

THUNDER.-POETRY

Shepherd. Whare's the moral? What's the use of thunder, except in a free country? There's nae grandeur in the terror o' slaves flingin themsels doun on their faces amang the sugar-canes, in a tornawdo. But the low quick beatin at the heart c' a freeman, a bauld-faced son o' liberty, when simultawneous flash and crash rends Natur to her core,-why, that flutter, sir, that does homage to a Power aboon us, exalts the dreadful magnificence o' the instruments that Power employs to subjugate our sowls to his sway, and makes thunder and lichtnin, in sic a country as England and Scotland, sublime. North. The short and the long of the matter seems to be, James, that when it thunders you funk.

Shepherd. Yes, sir, thunder frightens me into my senses. North. Well said, James-well said.

Shepherd. Heaven forgive me-but ten out o' the eighteen wakin hours, I am an atheist.

North. And I.

Shepherd. And a' men. Puir, pitifu', ungratefu', and meeserable wretches that we are-waur than worms. An atheist's a godless man. Sweep a' thoughts o' his Maker out o' ony man's heart—and what better is he, as lang's the floor o' his being continues bare, than an atheist?

North. Little better, indeed.

Shepherd. I envy-I honour-I venerate-I love-I bless the man, who, like the patriarchs of old, ere sin drowned the world, ever walks with God.

North. James, here we must not get too solemn

Shepherd. That's true; and let me hope that I'm no sae forgetfu' as I fear. In this season o' the year, especially when the flowers are a' seen again in lauchin flocks ower the braes, like children returnin to school after a lang snaw, I can wi' truth avoo, that the sicht o' a primrose is to me like the soun' o' a prayer, and that I seldom walk alone by mysel for half a mile, without thochts sae calm and sae serene, and sae humble and sae gratefu', that I howp I'm no deceivin mysel noo when I venture to ca' them-religious.

North. No, James, you are not self-deceived-Poetry melts into Religion.

Shepherd. It is Religion, sir; for what is Religion but a clear often a sudden-insicht, accompanied wi' emotion, into the dependence o' a' beauty and a' glory on the Divine Mind?