Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXII

Alexander Leighton

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The sources of legends are not often found in old sermons; and yet it will be admitted that there are few remarkable events in man's history, which, if inquired into, will not be found to embrace the elements of very impressive pulpit discourses. Even in cases which seem to disprove a special, if not a general Providence, there will always be found in the account between earth and heaven some desperate debt, mayhap an accommodation bill, which justifies the ways of God to man. It may even be said that the fact of our being generally able to find that item is a proof of the wonderful adaptability of Christianity to the fortunes and hopes of our race. That ministers avoid the special topics of peculiar destinies, may easily be accounted for otherwise than by supposing that they cannot explain them so as to vindicate God's justice; but if ever there was a case where that difficulty would seem to the eye of mere reason to culminate in impossibility, it is that which I have gleaned from a veritable pulpit lecture

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819900559
• Langue: English

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THE ANCIENT BUREAU.
The sources of legends are not often found in oldsermons; and yet it will be admitted that there are few remarkableevents in man's history, which, if inquired into, will not be foundto embrace the elements of very impressive pulpit discourses. Evenin cases which seem to disprove a special, if not a generalProvidence, there will always be found in the account between earthand heaven some "desperate debt," mayhap an "accommodation bill,"which justifies the ways of God to man. It may even be said thatthe fact of our being generally able to find that item is a proofof the wonderful adaptability of Christianity to the fortunes andhopes of our race. That ministers avoid the special topics ofpeculiar destinies, may easily be accounted for otherwise than bysupposing that they cannot explain them so as to vindicate God'sjustice; but if ever there was a case where that difficulty wouldseem to the eye of mere reason to culminate in impossibility, it isthat which I have gleaned from a veritable pulpit lecture. I havethe sermon in my possession, but from the want of the title-page, Iam unable to ascertain the author. The date at the end is 1793, andthe text is, "Inscrutable are his judgments."
Inscrutable indeed in the case to which the wordswere applied – no other than an instance of death by starvation,which occurred in Edinburgh in the year we have just mentioned. Inthat retreat of poverty called Middleton's Entry, which joins thedark street called the Potterrow, and Bristo Street, theinhabitants were roused into surprise, if not a feeling approachingto horror, by the discovery that a woman, who had lived for aperiod of fifteen years in a solitary room at the top of one of thetenements, had been found in bed dead. A doctor was called, butbefore he came it was concluded by those who had assembled in thesmall room that she had died from want of food; and such was thefact. The body – that of one not yet much past the middle of life,and with fair complexion and comely features – was so emaciated,that you might have counted the ribs merely by the eye; and allthose parts where the bones are naturally near the surfaceexhibited a sharpness which suggested the fancy, that as you maysee a phosphorescent skeleton through the glow, you beheld in thecandle-light the figure of death under the thin covering of thebones. She realized, in short, the description which doctors giveof the appearance of those unfortunate beings who die of what istechnically called atrophia familicorum – that Nemesis ofcivilisation which points scornfully to the victim of want, andthen looks round on God's bountiful table, set for the meanest ofhis creatures. So we may indite; but rhetoric, which is uselesswhere the images cannot rise to the dignity or descend to thehumiliation of the visible fact, must always come short of theeffect of the plain words that a human creature – perhaps good andamiable and delicate to that shyness which cannot complain – hasdied in the very midst of a proclaimed philanthropy, and within thelimits of a space comprehending smoking tables covered withluxuries, and surrounded by Christian men and women filled withmeat and drink to repletion and satiety.
Some such thoughts might have been passing throughthe minds of the assembled neighbours; and they could not be saidto be the less true that a shrunk and partially-withered right armshowed that the doom of the woman had been so far precipitated bythe still remaining effects of an old stroke of palsy. And thegossip confirmed this, going also into particulars of observation,– how she had kept herself so to herself as if she wished to avoidthe neighbours, – a fact which to an extent justified their imputedwant of attention; how almost the only individual who had visitedher was a peculiar being, in the shape of a very little man, with aslight limp and thin pleasant features, illuminated by a pair ofdark, penetrating eyes. For years and years had he been seen,always about the same hour of the day, ascending her stair, andcarrying a flagon, supposed to contain articles of food. Then thegossiping embraced the furniture and other articles in the room,which, however they might have been unnoticed before, had nowassumed the usual interest when seen in the blue light of the actedtragedy: the small mahogany table and the two chairs – how strangethat they should be of mahogany! – and some of the few marrowlessplates in the rack over the fireplace, why, they were absolutechina! but above all, the exquisite little bureau of Frenchmanufacture, with its drawers, its desk, and pigeon-holes, andcunning slides – what on earth was it doing in that room, when itsvalue even to a broker would have kept the woman alive for months?Questions these put by a roused curiosity, and perhaps not worthanswer. Was not she a woman, and was not that enough?
Not enough; for legendary details cluster roundstartling events, and often carry a moral which may prevent arepetition of these; and so, had it not been for this apparentlyinexplicable death by starvation, our wonderful story might neverhave gathered listeners round the evening fire. We must go backsome twenty years before the date of the said sermon to find acertain merchant-burgess of the city of Edinburgh, David Grierson,occupying a portion of a front land situated in the Canongate, alittle to the east of Leith Wynd. It would be sheer affectation inus to pretend that this merchant-burgess had any mental or physicalcharacteristic about him to justify his appearance in a romance, ifwe except the power he had shown of amassing wealth, of which hehad so much that he could boast the possession of more than twentygoodly tenements, some of wood and some of stone, besides shares ofships and bank stock. And no doubt this exception might stand forthe thing excepted from, for money, though commonly said to beextraneous, is often so far in its influences intraneous, that itchanges the feelings and motives, and enables them to work. Andthen don't we know that it is by extraneous things we are mostlyled? But however all that may be, certain it is that ourmerchant-burgess was a great man in his own house in the Canongate,where his family consisted of Rachel Grierson, his naturaldaughter, by a woman who had been long dead, and Walter Grierson,his legitimate nephew, who had been left an orphan in his earlyyears, and who was his nearest lawful heir. Two servants completedthe household; and surely in this rather curious combination theremight be, if only circumstances were favourable to theirdevelopment, elements which might impart interest to a story.
So long as the shadow of the dark angel was, as Timecounted, far away from him, Burgess David was comparatively happy;but as he got old and older, he began to realize the condition ofthe poet – "Now pleasure will no longer please, And all the joys oflife are gone; I ask no more on earth but ease, To be at peace, andbe alone: I ask in vain the winged powers That weave man's destinyon high; In vain I ask the golden hours That o'er my head for everfly."
Then he waxed more and more anxious as to what hewas to do with his money. He tried to put away the thought; but theterrible magistra necessitas went round and round him withever-diminishing circles, clearly indicating a conflict in which hemust succumb. He must make a will; an act which it is said no manis ever in a hearty condition to perform, unless mayhap he isangry, and wishes to cut off an ungrateful dog with a shilling; andbesides the general disinclination to sign the disposal of so muchwealth, of which he was more than ordinarily fond, and to giveaway, as it were, omnia praeter animam , in the very view ofgiving away the soul too, he was in a great perplexity as to how todivide his means. Nor could he reconcile himself to a division atall, preferring, as the greatly lesser evil, the alternative ofdestinating his fortune all of a lump, with some hope of its beingkept together. As for Walter, though he had some affection for him,he had not much confidence in him, for he had seen that he washare-brained as regarded things which suited his fancy, andpig-brained as respected those which solicited and required soundjudgment; while Rachel, again, was everything which, among thelower angels, could be comprehended under the delightful title of"dear soul," an amiable and devoted creature, as stedfast in heraffections as she was wise in the selection of their objects. So byrevolving in his mind all the beauties of the character of her who,however disqualified by law, was still of his flesh and blood, yea,of his very nature, as he complacently thought in compliment tohimself, he became more and more reconciled to his intention, ifthe very thought of making a will, which had been horrible to him,did not become even a pleasing kind of meditation. So is it – whenNature imposes an inevitable duty, she gives man the power ofinventing a pleasing reason for his obedience; nay, so much of aself-dissembler is he, that he even cheats himself into the beliefthat his obedience is an act of his own will. In all which he atleast proved the value of one of the arguments in favour ofmarriage; for trite it is to say, a bachelor bears to no one a lovewhich reconciles him to will-making, while a father, in leaving hismeans to his children, feels as if he were giving to himself. Butthis plan of our merchant-burgess had in addition a spice ofingenuity in it which still more pleased him – he would so contrivematters that the daughter and the nephew would become, after hisdeath, man and wife. He had only some doubts how far their tastesagreed, – probably an absurd condition, in so much as we all knowthat love is often struck out by opposition, and that there is apleasant suitability in a husband preferring the head of a herring,and the wife the tail.
Having thus arrived at a sense of his duty by thepleasant path of his affection, Mr. David Grierson seized the firstopportunity whi