CRAWFORD
BY THE AUTHOR, M.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v04 - Bes to Bro
There was an old servant, Jeanie Robertson, who was forty
years in her grandfather's family. Marjorie Fleming-or as
she is called in the letters and by Sir Walter, Maidie was the
last child she kept. Jeanie's wages never exceeded £3 a year,
and when she left service she had saved £40. She was devot-
edly attached to Maidie, rather despising and ill-using her sister
Isabella, a beautiful and gentle child. This partiality made
Maidie apt at times to domineer over Isabella. "I mention
this," writes her surviving sister, "for the purpose of telling you
an instance of Maidie's generous justice. When only five years
old, when walking in Raith grounds, the two children had run
on before, and old Jeanie remembered they might come too near
a dangerous mill-lade. She called to them to turn back. Maidie
heeded her not, rushed all the faster on, and fell, and would
have been lost, had her sister not pulled her back, saving her
life, but tearing her clothes. Jeanie flew on Isabella to 'give it
her' for spoiling her favorite's dress; Maidie rushed in between,
crying out, 'Pay (whip) Maidjie as much as you like, and I'll
not say one word; but touch Isy, and I'll roar like a bull! '
Years after Maidie was resting in her grave, my mother used to
take me to the place, and told the story always in the exact
same words. This Jeanie must have been a character. She
took great pride in exhibiting Maidie's brother William's Calvin-
istic acquirements when nineteen months old, to the officers of a
militia regiment then quartered in Kirkcaldy. This performance
was so amusing that it was often repeated, and the little theo-
logian was presented by them with a cap and feathers. Jeanie's
glory was "putting him through the carritch" (catechism) in
broad Scotch, beginning at the beginning with "Wha made ye,
ma bonnie man? " For the correctness of this and the three
next replies, Jeanie had no anxiety; but the tone changed to
menace, and the closed nieve (fist) was shaken in the child's face
as she demanded, "Of what are you made? " "DIRT," was the
>>
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JOHN BROWN
answer uniformly given. "Wull ye never learn to say dust, ye
thrawn deevil? " with a cuff from the opened hand, was the as
inevitable rejoinder.
Here is Maidie's first letter, before she was six, the spelling
unaltered, and there are no "commoes. "
-
"MY DEAR ISA I now sit down to answer all your kind and
beloved letters which you was so good as to write to me. This
is the first time I ever wrote a letter in my Life. There are a
great many Girls in the Square and they cry just like a pig
when we are under the painfull necessity of putting it to Death.
Miss Potune a Lady of my acquaintance praises me dreadfully. I
repeated something out of Dean Swift and she said I was fit for
the stage and you may think I was primmed up with majestick
Pride but upon my word I felt myselfe turn a little birsay-
birsay is a word which is a word that William composed which
is as you may suppose a little enraged. This horrid fat simpli-
ton says that my Aunt is beautifull which is intirely impossible.
for that is not her nature. "
What a peppery little pen we wield! What could that have
been out of the sardonic Dean? what other child of that age
would have used "beloved" as she does? This power of affec-
tion, this faculty of beloving, and wild hunger to be beloved,
comes out more and more. She periled her all upon it, and
it may have been as well-we know, indeed, that it was far
better for her that this wealth of love was so soon withdrawn
to its one only infinite Giver and Receiver. This must have
been the law of her earthly life. Love was indeed "her Lord
and King"; and it was perhaps well for her that she found so
soon that her and our only Lord and King Himself is Love.
Here are bits from her Diary at Brachead: -
"The day of my existence here has been delightful and en-
chanting. On Saturday I expected no less than three well-made.
Bucks the names of whom is here advertised. Mr. Geo. Crakey
[Craigie], and Wm. Keith and Jn. Keith-the first is the funniest
of every one of them. Mr. Crakey and I walked to Crakyhall
[Craigiehall] hand in hand in Innocence and matitation [medita-
tion] sweet thinking on the kind love which flows in our tender
hearted mind which is overflowing with majestic pleasure no one
was ever so polite to me in the hole state of my existence. Mr.
Craky you must know is a great Buck and pretty good-looking. "
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JOHN BROWN
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"I am at Ravelston enjoying nature's fresh air. The birds
are singing sweetly- the calf doth frisk and nature shows her
glorious face. »
Here is a confession:
"I confess I have been very more like a little young divil
than creature for when Isabella went up stairs to teach me
religion and my multiplication and to be good and all my other
lessons I stamped with my foot and threw my new hat which
she had made on the ground and was sulky and was dreadfully
passionate, but she never whiped me but said Marjory go into
another room and think what a great crime you are commit-
ting letting your temper git the better of you. But I went so
sulkily that the Devil got the better of me but she never never
never whips me so that I think I would be the better of it and
the next time that I behave ill I think she should do it for she
never does it.
. Isabella has given me praise for checking
my temper for I was sulky even when she was kneeling an hole
hour teaching me to write. "
Our poor little wifie, she has no doubts of the personality of
the Devil! "Yesterday I behave extremely ill in God's most
holy church for I would never attend myself nor let Isabella
attend which was a great crime for she often, often tells me that
when to or three are geathered together God is in the midst of
them, and it was the very same Divil that tempted Job that
tempted me I am sure; but he resisted Satan though he had
boils and many many other misfortunes which I have escaped.
I am now going to tell you the horible and wretched
plaege that my multiplication gives me you can't conceive it the
most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature
itself cant endure. "
·
« I
This is delicious; and what harm is there in her "Devilish"?
it is strong language merely; even old Rowland Hill used to say
"he grudged the Devil those rough and ready words. "
walked to that delightful place Crakyhall with a delightful young
man beloved by all his friends especially by me his loveress, but
I must not talk any more about him for Isa said it is not proper
for to speak of gentalmen but I will never forget him!
I am very very glad that satan has not given me boils and
many other misfortunes-In the holy bible these words are
written that the Devil goes like a roaring lyon in search of his
pray but the lord lets us escape from him but we" (pauvre
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JOHN BROWN
petite! ) "do not strive with this awful Spirit.
To-day
I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady's
lips it was that I called John a Impudent Bitch.
I will tell you
what I think made me in so bad a humor is I got one or two
of that bad sina [senna] tea to-day,". a better excuse for bad
humor and bad language than most.
-
She has been reading the Book of Esther: :- -"It was a dread-
ful thing that Haman was hanged on the very gallows which he
had prepared for Mordecai to hang him and his ten sons thereon
and it was very wrong and cruel to hang his sons for they did
not commit the crime; but then Jesus was not then come to teach
us to be merciful. " This is wise and beautiful,- has upon it the
very dew of youth and holiness. Out of the mouths of babes
and sucklings He perfects his praise.
"This is Saturday and I am very glad of it because I have
play half the Day and I get money too but alas I owe Isabella
4 pence for I am finned 2 pence whenever I bite my nails.
Isabella is teaching me to make simmecoling nots of interriga-
tions peorids commoes, etc.
As this is Sunday I will
meditate upon Senciable and Religious subjects. First I should
be very thankful I am not a beggar. "
This amount of meditation and thankfulness seems to have
been all she was able for.
"I am going to-morrow to a delightfull place, Braehead by
name, belonging to Mrs. Crraford, where there is ducks cocks
hens bubblyjocks 2 dogs 2 cats and swine which is delightful.
I think it is shocking to think that the dog and cat should bear
them" (this is a meditation physiological) "and they are drowned
after all. I would rather have a man-dog than a woman-dog,
because they do not bear like woman-dogs; it is a hard case
it is shocking. I came here to enjoy natures delightful breath
it is sweeter than a fial of rose oil. "
Braehead is the farm the historical Jock Howison asked and
got from our gay James the Fifth, "the gudeman o' Ballengiech,"
as a reward for the services of his flail when the King had the
worst of it at Cramond Brig with the gipsies. The farm is un-
changed in size from that time, and still in the unbroken line of
the ready and victorious thrasher. Braehead is held on the con-
dition of the possessor being ready to present the King with a
ewer and basin to wash his hands, Jock having done this for his
unknown king after the splore; and when George the Fourth
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JOHN BROWN
2447
to Edinburgh, this ceremony was performed in silver at
Holyrood.
-
It is a lovely neuk, this Braehead, preserved almost as it was
two hundred years ago. "Lot and his wife," mentioned by
Maidie, two quaintly cropped yew-trees, — still thrive; the burn
runs as it did in her time, and sings the same quiet tune, -as
much the same and as different as Now and Then. The house
is full of old family relics and pictures, the sun shining on them.
through the small deep windows with their plate-glass; and there,
blinking at the sun and chattering contentedly, is a parrot, that
might, for its looks of eld, have been in the ark, and domineered
over and deaved the dove. Everything about the place is old
and fresh.
This is beautiful: "I am very sorry to say that I forgot
God that is to say I forgot to pray to-day and Isabella
told me that I should be thankful that God did not forget me
if he did, O what would become of me if I was in danger and
God not friends with me- I must go to unquenchable fire and
if I was tempted to sin-how could I resist it O no I will never
do it again— no no if I can help it. " (Canny wee wifie! )
"My religion is greatly falling off because I dont pray with so
much attention when I am saying my prayers, and my charecter
is lost among the Braehead people. I hope I will be religious
again but as for regaining my charecter I despare for it. "
(Poor little "habit and repute "! )
Her temper, her passion, and her "badness" are almost daily
confessed and deplored:-"I will never again trust to my own
power, for I see that I cannot be good without God's assistance
I will not trust in my own selfe, and Isa's health will be quite
ruined by me-it will indeed. " "Isa has giving me advice, which
is, that when I feel Satan beginning to tempt me, that I flea
him and he would flea me. " "Remorse is the worst thing to
bear, and I am afraid that I will fall a marter to it. "
Poor dear little sinner! - Here comes the world again:
"In
my travels I met with a handsome lad named Charles Balfour
Esq. , and from him I got ofers of marage-offers of marage,
did I say? Nay plenty heard me. " A fine scent for "breach of
promise"!
This is abrupt and strong: "The Divil is curced and all
works. 'Tis a fine work 'Newton on the profecies. ' I wonder if
there is another book of poems comes near the Bible. The Divil
―――――
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JOHN BROWN
always girns at the sight of the Bible. " "Miss Potune" (her
"simpliton" friend) "is very fat; she pretends to be very learned.
She says she saw a stone that dropt from the skies; but she is a
good Christian. "
Here come her views on church government:- "An Anni-
babtist is a thing I am not a member of -I am a Pisplekan
(Episcopalian) just now, and" (O you little Laodicean and Lati-
tudinarian! ) "a Prisbeteran at Kirkcaldy" - (Blandula! Vagula!
cælum et animum mutas quæ trans mare [i. e. , trans Bodotriam]
curris! )-"my native town. "
"Sentiment is not what I am acquainted with as yet, though
I wish it, and should like to practise it" (! ) "I wish I had a
great, great deal of gratitude in my heart, in all my body. "
"There is a new novel published, named 'Self-Control' (Mrs.
Brunton's) "a very good maxim forsooth! "
A
This is shocking:-"Yesterday a marrade man, named Mr.
John Balfour, Esq. , offered to kiss me, and offered to marry me,
though the man" (a fine directness this! ) "was espused, and his
wife was present and said he must ask her permission; but he
did not. I think he was ashamed and confounded before 3 gen-
telman Mr. Jobson and 2 Mr. Kings. " "Mr. Banesters" (Ban-
nister's) "Budjet is to-night; I hope it will be a good one.
great many authors have expressed themselves too sentimentally. "
You are right, Marjorie. "A Mr. Burns writes a beautiful song
on Mr. Cunhaming, whose wife desarted him-truly it is a most
beautiful one. " "I like to read the Fabulous historys, about the
histerys of Robin, Dickey, flapsay, and Peccay, and it is very
amusing, for some were good birds and others bad, but Peccay
was the most dutiful and obedient to her parients. " "Thom-
son is a beautiful author, and Pope, but nothing to Shakespear,
of which I have a little knolege. 'Macbeth' is a pretty com-
position, but awful one. ” "The 'Newgate Calender' is very in-
structive. " (! )
"A sailor called here to say farewell; it must be dreadful to
leave his native country when he might get a wife; or perhaps
me, for I love him very much. But O I forgot, Isabella forbid
me to speak about love. " This antiphlogistic regimen and lesson
is ill to learn by our Maidie, for here she sins again:- "Love is
a very papithatick thing" (it is almost a pity to correct this into
pathetic), "as well as troublesome and tiresome-but O Isabella
forbid me to speak of it. "
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JOHN BROWN
2449
Here are her reflections on a pineapple:-"I think the price
of a pineapple is very dear: it is a whole bright goulden guinea,
that might have sustained a poor family. " Here is a new vernal
simile: "The hedges are sprouting like chicks from the eggs
when they are newly hatched or, as the vulgar say, clacked. "
"Doctor Swift's works are very funny; I got some of them by
heart. " "Moreheads sermons are I hear much praised, but I
never read sermons of any kind; but I read novelettes and my
Bible, and I never forget it, or my prayers. " Brava, Marjorie!
She seems now, when still about six, to have broken out into
song:-
--
EPHIBOL [EPIGRAM OR EPITAPH-WHO KNOWS WHICH? ON MY DEAR
LOVE ISABELLA.
"Here lies sweet Isabel in bed,
With a night-cap on her head;
Her skin is soft, her face is fair,
And she has very pretty hair;
She and I in bed lies nice,
And undisturbed by rats or mice.
She is disgusted with Mr. Worgan,
Though he plays upon the organ.
Her nails are neat, her teeth are white,
Her eyes are very, very bright.
In a conspicuous town she lives,
And to the poor her money gives.
Here ends sweet Isabella's story,
And may it be much to her glory. "
Here are some bits at random:
"Of summer I am very fond,
And love to bathe into a pond:
The look of sunshine dies away,
And will not let me out to play;
I love the morning's sun to spy
Glittering through the casement's eye;
The rays of light are very sweet,
And puts away the taste of meat;
The balmy breeze comes down from heaven,
And makes us like for to be living. "
IV-154
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JOHN BROWN
"The casawary is an curious bird, and so is the gigantic
crane, and the pelican of the wilderness, whose mouth holds a
bucket of fish and water. Fighting is what ladies is not qualy-
fied for, they would not make a good figure in battle or in a
duel. Alas! we females are of little use to our country. The
history of all the malcontents as ever was hanged is amusing. "
Still harping on the Newgate Calendar!
"Braehead is extremely pleasant to me by the companie of
swine, geese, cocks, etc. , and they are the delight of my soul. "
"I am going to tell you of a melancholy story.
A young
turkie of two or three months old, would you believe it, the
father broke its leg, and he killed another! I think he ought
to be transported or hanged. "
"Queen Street is a very gay one, and so is Princes Street,
for all the lads and lasses, besides bucks and beggars, parade
there. "
"I should like to see a play very much, for I never saw one
in all my life, and don't believe I ever shall; but I hope I can
be content without going to one. I can be quite happy without
my desire being granted. "
Some days ago Isabella had a terrible fit of the toothake,
and she walked with a long night-shift at dead of night like a
ghost, and I thought she was one. She prayed for nature's
sweet restorer - balmy sleep - but did not get it a ghostly
figure indeed she was, enough to make a saint tremble. It made
me quiver and shake from top to toe. Superstition is a very
mean thing, and should be despised and shunned. "
Here is her weakness and her strength again:-"In the love-
novels all the heroines are very desperate. Isabella will not
allow me to speak about lovers and heroins, and 'tis too refined
for my taste. " "Miss Egward's [Edgeworth's] tails are very
good, particularly some that are very much adapted for youth (! )
as Laz Laurance and Tarelton, False Keys, etc. , etc. "
-
"Tom Jones and Gray's Elegey in a country church-yard are
both excellent, and much spoke of by both sex, particularly
by the men. ” Are our Marjories now-a-days better or worse,
because they cannot read Tom Jones' unharmed? More better
than worse; but who among them can repeat Gray's 'Lines on a
Distant Prospect of Eton College' as could our Maidie ?
Here is some more of her prattle: "I went into Isabella's
bed to make her smile like the Genius Demedicus [the Venus
-
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JOHN BROWN
2451
de' Medicis] or the statute in an ancient Greece, but she fell
asleep in my very face, at which my anger broke forth, so that
I awoke her from a comfortable nap. All was now hushed up
again, but again my anger burst forth at her biding me get
up. ”
She begins thus loftily,-
"Death the righteous love to see,
But from it doth the wicked flee. "
Then suddenly breaks off (as if with laughter),—
"I am sure they fly as fast as their legs can carry them! "
"There is a thing I love to see,
That is our monkey catch a flee. "
"I love in Isa's bed to lie,
Oh, such a joy and luxury!
The bottom of the bed I sleep,
And with great care within I creep;
Oft I embrace her feet of lillys,
But she has goton all the pillys.
Her neck I never can embrace,
But I do hug her feet in place. "
How childish and yet how strong and free is her use of
words! "I lay at the foot of the bed because Isabella said I
disturbed her by continial fighting and kicking, but I was very
dull, and continially at work reading the Arabian Nights, which
I could not have done if I had slept at the top. I am reading
the Mysteries of Udolpho. I am much interested in the fate
of poor, poor Emily. "
Here is one of her swains:
"Very soft and white his cheeks,
His hair is red, and gray his breeks;
His tooth is like the daisy fair,
His only fault is in his hair. "
This is a higher flight:-
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JOHN BROWN
DEDICATED TO MRS. H.
CRAWFORD BY THE AUTHOR, M. F.
"Three turkeys fair their last have breathed,
And now this world forever leaved;
Their father, and their mother too,
They sigh and weep as well as you;
Indeed, the rats their bones have crunched,
Into eternity theire laanched.
A direful death indeed they had,
As wad put any parent mad;
But she was more than usual calm:
She did not give a single dam. "
This last word is saved from all sin by its tender age, not to
speak of the want of the n. We fear "she" is the abandoned
mother, in spite of her previous sighs and tears.
-
"Isabella says when we pray we should pray fervently, and
not rattel over a prayer · for that we are kneeling at the foot-
stool of our Lord and Creator, who saves us from eternal dam-
nation, and from unquestionable fire and brimston. "
She has a long poem on Mary Queen of Scots:-
"Queen Mary was much loved by all,
Both by the great and by the small,
But hark! her soul to heaven doth rise!
And I suppose she has gained a prize;
For I do think she would not go
Into the awful place below.
There is a thing that I must tell-
Elizabeth went to fire and hell!
He who would teach her to be civil,
It must be her great friend, the divil! »
She hits off Darnley well:
――――――
"A noble's son, a handsome lad,
By some queer way or other, had
Got quite the better of her heart;
With him she always talked apart:
Silly he was, but very fair;
A greater buck was not found there. "
-
"By some queer way or other": is not this the general case
and the mystery, young ladies and gentlemen? Goethe's doc-
trine of "elective affinities" discovered by our Pet Maidie!
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JOHN BROWN
2453
SONNET TO A MONKEY
"O lively, O most charming pug:
Thy graceful air and heavenly mug!
The beauties of his mind do shine,
And every bit is shaped and fine.
Your teeth are whiter than the snow;
Your a great buck, your a great beau;
Your eyes are of so nice a shape,
More like a Christian's than an ape;
Your cheek is like the rose's blume;
Your hair is like the raven's plume;
His nose's cast is of the Roman:
He is a very pretty woman.
I could not get a rhyme for Roman,
So was obliged to call him woman. "
This last joke is good. She repeats it when writing of James
the Second being killed at Roxburgh:-
―
"He was killed by a cannon splinter,
Quite in the middle of the winter;
Perhaps it was not at that time,
But I can get no other rhyme! "
Here is one of her last letters, dated Kirkcaldy, 12th October,
1811.
You can see how her nature is deepening and enrich-
ing: · -
"MY DEAR MOTHER-You will think that I entirely forget
you but I assure you that you are greatly mistaken. I think of
you always and often sigh to think of the distance between us
two loving creatures of nature. We have regular hours for all
our occupations first at 7 o'clock we go to the dancing and come
home at 8 we then read our Bible and get our repeating and
then play till ten then we get our music till I when we get
our writing and accounts we sew from 12 till I after which I
get my gramer and then work till five.
till 8 when we dont go to the dancing.
scription. I must take a hasty farewell to her whom I love,
reverence and doat on and who I hope thinks the same of
At 7 we come and knit
This is an exact de-
"MARJORY FLEMING.
"P. S. An old pack of cards (! ) would be very exceptible. "
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JOHN BROWN
This other is a month earlier:
"MY DEAR LITTLE MAMA-I was truly happy to hear that
you were all well. We are surrounded with measles at present
on every side, for the Herons got it, and Isabella Heron was
near Death's Door, and one night her father lifted her out of
bed, and she fell down as they thought lifeless. Mr. Heron said,
'That lassie's deed noo'-'I'm no deed yet. ' She then threw
up a big worm nine inches and a half long. I have begun dan-
cing, but am not very fond of it, for the boys strikes and mocks
me. I have been another night at the dancing; I like it better.
I will write to you as often as I can; but I am afraid not every
week. I long for you with the longings of a child to embrace
you to fold you in my arms. I respect you with all the respect
due to a mother. You don't know how I love you. So I shall
remain, your loving child,
M. FLEMING. "
-
What rich involution of love in the words marked! Here are
some lines to her beloved Isabella, in July, 1811:-
-
"There is a thing that I do want
With you these beauteous walks to haunt;
We would be happy if you would
Try to come over if you could.
Then I would all quite happy be
Now and for all eternity.
My mother is so very sweet,
And checks my appetite to eat;
My father shows us what to do;
But I'm sure that I want you.
I have no more of poetry;
O Isa do remember me,
And try to love your Marjory. "
In a letter from "Isa" to
-
"Miss Muff Maidie Marjory Fleming,
favored by Rare Rear-Admiral Fleming,"
she says:
"I long much to see you, and talk over all our old
stories together, and to hear you read and repeat. I am pining
for my old friend Cesario, and poor Lear, and wicked Richard.
How is the dear Multiplication table going on? are you still as
much attached to 9 times 9 as you used to be? "
But this dainty, bright thing is about to flee, to come
"quick to confusion. " The measles she writes of seized her,
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2455
and she died on the 19th of December, 1811. The day before.
her death, Sunday, she sat up in bed, worn and thin, her eye
gleaming as with the light of a coming world, and with a trem-
ulous, old voice repeated the lines by Burns, - heavy with the
shadow of death, and lit with the fantasy of the judgment-seat,
-the publican's prayer in paraphrase:-
"Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene? "
It is more affecting than we care to say to read her mother's
and Isabella Keith's letters, written immediately after her death.
Old and withered, tattered and pale, they are now: but when
you read them, how quick, how throbbing with life and love!
how rich in that language of affection which only women and
Shakespeare and Luther can use,-that power of detaining the
soul over the beloved object and its loss.
In her first letter to Miss Keith, Mrs. Fleming says of her
dead Maidie:-"Never did I behold so beautiful an object. It
resembled the finest wax-work. There was in the countenance
an expression of sweetness and serenity which seemed to indi-
cate that the pure spirit had anticipated the joys of heaven ere
it quitted the mortal frame. To tell you what your Maidie said
of you would fill volumes; for you were the constant theme of
her discourse, the subject of her thoughts, and ruler of her
actions. The last time she mentioned you was a few hours
before all sense save that of suffering was suspended, when she
said to Dr. Johnstone, 'If you will let me out at the New Year,
I will be quite contented. ' I asked what made her so anxious
to get out then. 'I want to purchase a New Year's gift for Isa
Keith with the sixpence you gave me for being patient in the
measles; and I would like to choose it myself. ' I do not re-
member her speaking afterwards, except to complain of her
head, till just before she expired, when she articulated, 'O
mother! mother! >»
Do we make too much of this little child, who has been in
her grave in Abbotshall Kirkyard these fifty and more years?
We may of her cleverness, not of her affectionateness, her
nature. What a picture the animosa infans gives us of herself,
her vivacity, her passionateness, her precocious love-making, her
passion for nature, for swine, for all living things, her reading,
her turn for expression, her satire, her frankness, her little sins.
and rages, her great repentances! We don't wonder Walter Scott
—
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2456
JOHN BROWN
carried her off in the neuk of his plaid, and played himself with
her for hours.
We are indebted for the following — and our readers will be
not unwilling to share our obligations to her sister:-"Her
birth was 15th January, 1803; her death 19th December, 1811.
I take this from her Bibles. I believe she was a child of robust
health, of much vigor of body, and beautifully formed arms, and
until her last illness, never was an hour in bed. She was niece
to Mrs. Keith, residing in No. 1 North Charlotte Street, who
was not Mrs. Murray Keith, although very intimately acquainted
with that old lady.
.
-
"As to my aunt and Scott, they were on a very intimate
footing. He asked my aunt to be godmother to his eldest
daughter Sophia Charlotte. I had a copy of Miss Edgeworth's
'Rosamond' and 'Harry and Lucy' for long, which was 'a gift
to Marjorie from Walter Scott,' probably the first edition of that
attractive series, for it wanted 'Frank,' which is always now
published as part of the series under the title of 'Early Lessons. '
I regret to say these little volumes have disappeared. "
Sir Walter was no relation of Marjorie's, but of the Keiths,
through the Swintons; and like Marjorie, he stayed much
at Ravelstone in his early days, with his grand-aunt Mrs.
Keith.
We cannot better end than in words from this same pen:
"I have to ask you to forgive my anxiety in gathering up the
fragments of Marjorie's last days, but I have an almost sacred.
feeling to all that pertains to her. You are quite correct in
stating that measles were the cause of her death. My mother
was struck by the patient quietness manifested by Marjorie dur-
ing this illness, unlike her ardent, impulsive nature; but love and
poetic feeling were unquenched. When lying very still, her
mother asked her if there was anything she wished: 'Oh yes!
if you would just leave the room door open a wee bit, and play
'The Land o' the Leal,' and I will lie and think, and enjoy
myself' (this is just as stated to me by her mother and mine).
Well, the happy day came, alike to parents and child, when
Marjorie was allowed to come forth from the nursery to the par-
lor. It was Sabbath evening, and after tea. My father, who
idolized this child, and never afterwards in my hearing men-
tioned her name, took her in his arms; and while walking up
and down the room, she said, 'Father, I will repeat something
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JOHN BROWN
2457
to you; what would you like? ' He said, 'Just choose yourself,
Maidie. ' She hesitated for a moment between the paraphrase
Few are thy days, and full of woe,' and the lines of Burns
already quoted, but decided on the latter, a remarkable choice
for a child. The repeating these lines seemed to stir up the
depths of feeling in her soul. She asked to be allowed to write
a poem; there was a doubt whether it would be right to allow
her, in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded earnestly, 'Just
this once; the point was yielded, her slate was given her, and
with great rapidity she wrote an address of fourteen lines, To
her loved cousin on the author's recovery,' her last work on
earth:
――――――
'Oh! Isa, pain did visit me,
I was at the last extremity;
How often did I think of you,
I wished your graceful form to view,
To clasp you in my weak embrace,
Indeed I thought I'd run my race:
Good care, I'm sure, was of me taken,
But still indeed I was much shaken.
At last I daily strength did gain,
And oh! at last, away went pain;
At length the doctor thought I might
Stay in the parlor all the night;
I now continue so to do;
Farewell to Nancy and to you. '
She went to bed apparently well, awoke in the middle of the
night with the old cry of woe to a mother's heart, 'My head,
my head! ' Three days of the dire malady 'water in the head'
followed, and the end came. "
"Soft, silken primrose, fading timelessly! "
It is needless, it is impossible to add anything to this; the
fervor, the sweetness, the flush of poetic ecstasy, the lovely and
glowing eye, the perfect nature of that bright and warm intelli-
gence, that darling child; Lady Nairne's words, and the old
tune, stealing up from the depths of the human heart, deep call-
ing unto deep, gentle and strong like the waves of the great sea
hushing themselves to sleep in the dark; the words of Burns
touching the kindred chord; her last numbers, "wildly sweet,"
traced with thin and eager fingers, already touched by the last
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2458
JOHN BROWN
enemy and friend,- moriens canit,- and that love which is so
soon to be her everlasting light, is her song's burden to the
end.
"She set as sets the morning star, which goes
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides
Obscured among the tempests of the sky,
But melts away into the light of heaven. "
THE DEATH OF THACKERAY
From Spare Hours>
WE
CANNOT resist here recalling one Sunday evening in
December, when he was walking with two friends along
the Dean road, to the west of Edinburgh,—one of the
noblest outlets to any city. It was a lovely evening,— such a
sunset as one never forgets: a rich dark bar of cloud hovered
over the sun, going down behind the Highland hills, lying bathed
in amethystine bloom; between this cloud and the hills there was
a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender cowslip color, lucid,
and as if it were the very body of heaven in its clearness; every
object standing out as if etched upon the sky. The northwest
end of Corstorphine Hill, with its trees and rocks, lay in the
heart of this pure radiance, and there a wooden crane, used in
the quarry below, was so placed as to assume the figure of a
cross; there it was, unmistakable, lifted up against the crystalline
sky. All three gazed at it silently. As they gazed, he gave
utterance in a tremulous, gentle, and rapid voice, to what all
were feeling, in the word "CALVARY! " The friends walked
on in silence, and then turned to other things. All that evening
he was very gentle and serious, speaking, as he seldom did,
of divine things,-of death, of sin, of eternity, of salvation; ex-
pressing his simple faith in God and in his Savior.
There is a passage at the close of the 'Roundabout Paper'
No. 23, 'De Finibus,' in which a sense of the ebb of life is very
marked; the whole paper is like a soliloquy. It opens with a
drawing of Mr. Punch, with unusually mild eye, retiring for the
night; he is putting out his high-heeled shoes, and before disap-
pearing gives a wistful look into the passage, as if bidding it and
all else good-night. He will be in bed, his candle out, and in
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JOHN BROWN
2459
darkness, in five minutes, and his shoes found next morning at
his door, the little potentate all the while in his final sleep. The
whole paper is worth the most careful study; it reveals not a
little of his real nature, and unfolds very curiously the secret of
his work, the vitality and abiding power of his own creations;
how he "invented a certain Costigan, out of scraps, heel-taps,
odds and ends of characters," and met the original the other day,
without surprise, in a tavern parlor. The following is beautiful:
"Years ago I had a quarrel with a certain well-known person
(I believed a statement regarding him which his friends imparted
to me, and which turned out to be quite incorrect). To his
dying day that quarrel was never quite made up. I said to his
brother, 'Why is your brother's soul still dark against me?
is I who ought to be angry and unforgiving, for I was in the
wrong. " Odisse quem læseris was never better contravened. But
what we chiefly refer to now is the profound pensiveness of the
following strain, as if written with a presentiment of what was
not then very far off:-"Another Finis written; another mile-
stone on this journey from birth to the next world. Sure it is a
subject for solemn cogitation. Shall we continue this story-telling
business, and be voluble to the end of our age? " "Will it not
be presently time, O prattler, to hold your tongue? " And thus
It
he ends:
"Oh, the sad old pages, the dull old pages; oh, the cares, the
ennui, the squabbles, the repetitions, the old conversations over
and over again! But now and again a kind thought is recalled,
and now and again a dear memory. Yet a few chapters more,
and then the last; after which, behold Finis itself comes to an
end, and the Infinite begins. "
He had been suffering on Sunday from an old and cruel
enemy. He fixed with his friend and surgeon to come again on
Tuesday, but with that dread of anticipated pain which is a com-
mon condition of sensibility and genius, he put him off with a
note from "yours unfaithfully, W. M. T. ” He went out on
Wednesday for a little, and came home at ten. He went to his
room, suffering much, but declining his man's offer to sit with
him. He hated to make others suffer. He was heard moving,
as if in pain, about twelve, on the eve of —
## p. 2460 (#666) ###########################################
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JOHN BROWN
-
"That happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin-mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring. "
Then all was quiet, and then he must have died-in a moment.
Next morning his man went in, and opening the windows found
his master dead, his arms behind his head, as if he had tried
to take one more breath. We think of him as of our Chalmers,
found dead in like manner: the same childlike, unspoiled, open
face; the same gentle mouth; the same spaciousness and softness
of nature; the same look of power. What a thing to think
of, his lying there alone in the dark, in the midst of his own
mighty London; his mother and his daughters asleep, and, it
may be, dreaming of his goodness. God help them, and us all!
What would become of us, stumbling along this our path of life,
if we could not, at our utmost need, stay ourselves on Him?
Long years of sorrow, labor, and pain had killed him before
his time. It was found after death how little life he had to live.
He looked always fresh, with that abounding silvery hair, and
his young, almost infantine face, but he was worn to a shadow,
and his hands wasted as if by eighty years. With him it is the
end of Ends; finite is over and infinite begun. What we all
felt and feel can never be so well expressed as in his own words
of sorrow for the early death of Charles Buller:-
"Who knows the inscrutable design?
Blest He who took and He who gave!
Why should your mother, Charles, not mine,
Be weeping at her darling's grave?
We bow to heaven that willed it so,
That darkly rules the fate of all,
That sends the respite or the blow,
That's free to give or to recall. ”
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