you? And yet how powerful are the workings of nature! They are indeed the workings of the Deity himself: for when I arose, all unconscious of the presence of my child, and left her weeping, I felt as if I had left a part of my body and blood behind me."
"So she was indeed there, whining and whimpering over her honourable lover?" said Matilda. "I wish I had been there, to have told her a piece of my mind! The silly, inconsiderate being, to allow herself to be deprived of fair fame and character by such a worthless profligate, bringing disgrace on all connected with her! And then to go whimpering over his sick-bed!—O dear love, you must marry me, or I am undone! I have loved you with all my heart, you know, and you must make me your wife. I am content to beg my bread with you, now that I have loved you so dearly! only you must marry me. Oh dear! Oh dear! what shall become of me else!"
"Dear daughter Matilda, where is the presumptuous being of the fallen race of Adam who can say, Here will I stand in my own strength? What will the best of us do, if left to ourselves, better than the erring, inexperienced being, whose turning aside you so bitterly censure? It is better that we lament the sins and failings of our relatives, my dear Matty, than rail against them, putting ourselves into sinful passion, and thereby adding one iniquity to another."
The argument was kept up all that evening, and all next day, with the same effect; and if either of the disputants had been asked what it was about, neither could have told very precisely: the one attached a blame, which the other did not deny; only there were different ways of speaking about it. On the third day, which was Friday, old Isaac appeared at breakfast in his Sunday clothes, giving thus an intimation of a second intended visit to the house of Gawin the shepherd. The first cup of tea was scarcely poured out, till the old subject was renewed, and the debate seasoned with a little more salt than was customary between the two amiable disputants. Matilda disapproved of the visit, and tried, by all the eloquence she was mistress of, to make it appear indecorous. Isaac defended it on the score of disinterestedness and purity of intention; but finding himself hard pressed, he brought forward his promise, and the impropriety of breaking it. Matty would not give up her point; she persisted in it, till she spoiled her father's breakfast, made his hand shake so, that he could scarcely put the cup to his head, and, after all, staggered his resolution so much, that at last he sat in silence, and Matty got all to say herself. She now accounted the conquest certain, and valuing herself on the influence she possessed, she began to overburden her old father with all manner of kindness and teasing officiousness. Would he not take this, and refrain from that, and wear one part of dress in preference to another that he had on? There was no end of controversy with Isaac, however kind might be the intent. All that he said at that time was, "Let me alone, dear Matty; let me have some peace. Women are always overwise—always contrary."
When matters were at this pass, the maid-servant came into the room, and announced that a little girl of shepherd Gawin's wanted to speak with the Minister. "Alas, I fear the young man will be at his rest!" said Isaac. Matilda grew pale, and looked exceedingly alarmed, and only said, "she hoped not." Isaac inquired of the maid, but she said the girl refused to tell her any thing, and said she had orders not to tell a word of aught that had happened about the house.
"Then something has happened," said Isaac. "It must be as I feared! Send the little girl ben."
Ellen came into the parlour with a beck as quick and as low as that made by the water ouzel, when standing on a stone in the middle of the water; and, without waiting for any inquiries, began her speech on the instant, with, "Sir—hem—heh—my father sent me, sir—hem—to tell ye that ye warna to forget your promise to come ower the day, for that there's muckle need for yer helping hand yonder—sir; that's a', sir."
"You may tell your father," said Isaac, "that I will come as soon as I am able. I will be there by twelve o'clock, God willing."
"Are you wise enough, my dear father, to send such a message?" remonstrated Matilda. "You are not able to go a journey to-day. I thought I had said enough about that before.—You may tell your father," continued she, turning to Ellen, "that my father cannot come the length of his house to-day."
"I'll tell my father what the Minister bade me," replied the girl. "I'll say, sir, that ye'll be there by twall o'clock;—will I, sir?"
"Yes, by twelve o'clock," said Isaac.
Ellen had no sooner made her abrupt curtsey, and left the room, than Matilda, with the desperation of a general who sees himself on the point of being driven from a position which it had cost him much exertion to gain, again opened the fire of her eloquence upon her father. "Were I you," said she, "I would scorn to enter their door, after the manner in which the profligate villain has behaved: first, to make an acquaintance with your grandson at the College—pervert all his ideas of rectitude and truth—then go home with him to his father's house, during the vacation, and there live at heck and manger, no lady being in the house save your simple and unsuspecting Phemy, who now is reduced to the necessity of going to a shepherd's cottage, and begging to be admitted to the alliance of a family, the best of whom is far beneath her, to say nothing of the unhappy individual in question. Wo is me, that I have seen the day!"
"If the picture be correctly drawn, it is indeed very bad; but I hope the recent sufferings of the young man will have the effect of restoring him to the principles in which he was bred, and to a better sense of his heinous offences. I must go and see how the family fares, as in duty and promise bound. Content yourself, dear daughter. It may be that the unfortunate youth has already appeared at that bar from which there is no appeal."
This consideration, as it again astounded, so it put to silence the offended dame, who suffered her father to depart on his mission of humanity without farther opposition; and old Isaac again set out, meditating as he went, and often conversing with himself, on the sinfulness of man, and the great goodness of God. So deeply was he wrapt in contemplation, that he scarcely cast an eye over the wild mountain scenery by which he was surrounded, but plodded on his way, with eyes fixed on the ground, till he approached the cottage. He was there aroused from his reverie, by the bustle that appeared about the door. The scene was changed indeed from that to which he introduced himself two days before. The collies came yelping and wagging their tails to meet him, while the inmates of the dwelling were peeping out at the door, and as quickly vanishing again into the interior. There were also a pair or two of neighbouring shepherds sauntering about the side of the kail-yard dike, all dressed in their Sunday apparel, and every thing bespeaking some "occasion," as any uncommon occurrence is generally denominated.
"What can it be that is astir here to-day?" said Isaac to himself.—"Am I brought here to a funeral or corpse-chesting, without being apprised of the event? It must be so. What else can cause such a bustle about a house where trouble has so long prevailed? Ah! there is also old Robinson, my session-clerk and precentor. He is the true emblem of mortality: then it is indeed all over with the poor young man!"
Now Robinson had been at so many funerals all over the country, and was so punctual in his attendance on all within his reach, that to see him pass, with his staff, and black coat without the collar, was the very same thing as if a coffin had gone by. A burial was always a good excuse for giving the boys the play, for a refreshing walk into the country, and was, besides, a fit opportunity for moral contemplation, not to say any thing of hearing the country news. But there was also another motive, which some thought was the most powerful inducement of any with the old Dominie. It arose from that longing desire after preeminence which reigns in every human breast, and which no man fails to improve, however small the circle may be in which it can be manifested. At every funeral, in the absence of the Minister, Robinson was called on to say grace; and when they were both present, whenever the Parson took up his station in one apartment, the Dominie took up his in another, and thus had an equal chance, for the time, with his superior. It was always shrewdly suspected, that the Clerk tried to outdo the Minister on such occasions, and certainly made up in length what he wanted in energy. The general remarks on this important point amounted to this, "that the Dominie was langer than the
