A WATER-SPOUT. THE FAIRY'S CLEUGH. water-spout! Samuel ? 5 Sam! Sam! Sam! Where are you, First Registrar. What's all this? North. A mystery, Sam. Not a cloud in the sky-yet, look here Registrar. A mystery indeed! Never till this day beheld I the beau-ideal of a drowned rat. North (musing). There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Samuel. Registrar. My philosophy! I make no pretensions to philosophy-but won't you walk into the Tent, and change yourself, sir? North. A Scotticism, Sam, a palpable Scotticism. No-I will never change myself; but to the last be Christopher North. Ah, Sam! I am up to your tricks; but was it kind— was it fair, to steal upon my slumbers so, and take advantage of my sleeping innocence? "I had a dream, yet 'twas not all a dream." I thought I was at Windermere, beneath the shadow of the sycamore, and that for me, and for me alone, "Jocund Morn Stood tiptoe on yon rosy mountain's head." Registrar. And here we are in the Fairy's Cleugh, among the mountains of North. Peeblesshire, Dumfriesshire, Lanarkshire, for here all three counties get inextricably entangled; yet in their pastoral peace they quarrel not for the dominion of this nook, central in the hill-heart, and haunted by the Silent People. Registrar. You do not call us silent people! Why, you outtalk a spinning-jenny, and the mill-clapper stops in despair at the volubility of your speech. North. Elves, Sam-Elves. Is it not the Fairy's Cleugh? Registrar. And here have been "little feet that print the ground." But I took them for those of hares North. These, Sam, are not worm-holes-nor did Mole the miner upheave these pretty little pyramids of primroses-for these, Sam, are all Fairy palaces,—and yonder edifice that towers above the Lady-Fern- therein now sleeps - let us speak low, and disturb her not-the Fairy Queen, waiting for the moonlight-and soon as the orb shows her rim rising from behind Birk-fell—away to the ring will she be gliding with all the ladies of her Court THE FAIRY'S BURIAL. Registrar. And we will join the dance-Kit- North. Do you know, Sam, that I dreamed a dream? Registrar. You cannot keep a secret, for you blab in your sleep. North. Ay-both talk and walk. But I dreamed that I saw a Fairy's funeral, and that I was myself a fairy. Registrar. A warlock. North. No-a pretty little female fairy, not a span long. North. And they asked me to sing her dirge, and then I sang-for sorrow in sleep, Sam, is sometimes sweeter than any joy-ineffably sweet-and thus comes back wavering into my memory the elegiac strain. THE FAIRY'S BURIAL. Where shall our sister rest? Not to those white lips cling Dim the bright tresses! Death now hath claimed his spoil- Where down in yonder vale Sweet tears bestowing! Will they shed o'er her; AN UNSEASONABLE INTERRUPTION. Here let the fern-grass grow, O'er the wave stooping! Mournfully singing! Let the wind murmur nigh, Sad echoes bringing! And when the moonbeams shower, Tender and holy, Light on the haunted hour Which is ours solely, Then will we seek the spot Holding thee unforgot With our long weeping! 7 Ambrose (rushing out of the Tent). Mr Tickler, sirs, Mr Tickler! Yonder's his head and shoulders rising over the knollin continuation of his herald the rod. North (savagely). Go to the devil, sir. Ambrose (petrified). Ah! ha! ha! ah! si-sir-pa-papard North (unmollified). Go to the devil, I say, sir. Are you deaf? Ambrose (going, going, gone). I beseech you, Mr Registrar North (grimly). "How like a fawning publican he looks!" Registrar. A most melancholy example of a truth I never believed before, that poetical and human sensibility are altogether distinct-nay, perhaps, incompatible! North, forgive me (North grasps the Crutch); but you should be ashamed of yourself-nay, strike, but hear me ! North (smiling after a sort). Well-Themistocles. Registrar. You awaken out of a dream-dirge of Faëry Land--where you, by force of strong imagination, were a female fairy, not a span long-mild as a musical violet, if one might suppose one, "by a mossy stone half-hidden from the eye," inspired with speech. North. I feel the delicacy of the compliment. Registrar. Then you feel something very different, sir, I assure you, from what I intended, and still intend, you shall feel; for your treatment of my friend Mr Ambrose was shock ing. North. I declare on my conscience, I never saw Ambrose! 8 NORTH REPENTANT. Registrar. What! aggravate your folly by falsehood! Then are you a lost man-and North. I thought it a stirk staggering in upon me at the close of a stanza that Registrar. And why did you say "sir?" Nay-naythat won't pass. From a female fairy, not a span long, “and even the gentlest of all gentle things," you suffer yourself to transform you into a Fury six feet high! and wantonly insult a man who would not hurt the feelings of a wasp. North (humbly). I hope I am not a wasp. Registrar. I hope not, sir; but permit me, who am not one of your youngest friends, to say to you confidentially, that you were just now very unlike a bee. North (hiding his face with both his hands). All sting—and no honey. Spare me, Sam. Registrar. I will. But the world would not have credited it, had she heard it with her own ears. Are you aware, sir, that you told Mr Ambrose "to go to the devil?" North (agitated). And has he gone? Registrar (beckoning on Ambrose, who advances). Well, Ambrose ? North. Ambrose ! Do you forgive me? Ambrose (falling on one knee). No-no-no-my dear sir— my honoured master North. Alas! Ambrose-I am not even master of myself. Ambrose. It was all my fault, sir. I ought to have looked first to see if you were in the poetics. Such intrusion was most unpardonable-for (smiling and looking down) shall mere man obtrude on the hour of inspiration-when "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Glances from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, turns them to shape, A local habitation and a name !" Registrar. Who suffers, Ambrose? Ambrose. Shakespeare, sir. Mr Tickler! Mr Tickler! Mr Tickler! (catching up his voice) Mr Tick Registrar. Yea-verily and 'tis no other! Tickler (stalking up the brae-rod in hand—and creel on his shoulder with his head well laid back-and his nose pretty perpendicular with earth and sky). Well-boys-what's the news? TICKLER JOINS THE PARTY. 9 And how are you off for soap? How long here? Ho! ho! The Tent. North. Since Monday evening-and if my memory serve me right, this is either Thursday or Friday. Whence, Tim? Tickler. From the West. But is there any porter? Ambrose (striving to draw). Ay-ay-sir. Tickler. You may as well try to uproot that birk. Give it me. [Puts the bottle between his feet-stoops-and lays on his strength. Registrar (jogging North). Oh! for George Cruikshank ! Tickler (loud explosion and much smoke). The Jug. Ambrose. Here, sir. Tickler (teeming). Brown stout. The porter's in spate. THE QUEEN! Omnes. Hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! hurra! Ambrose. Hip-hip-hip Registrar. Hush! Tickler. Hech! That draught made my lugs crack. Oh! Kit! there was a grand ploy at Paisley. North. Since Gordon was not to be the man, I rejoice in Sandford.1 Tickler. Dan dang the Radicals all into the dirt. The lad has spunk, Kit-is eloquent-and will do. He did not leave Crawfurd the likeness o' a dowg. North. I hope he left Douglas the likeness of a gander. Tickler. Scarcely. John waddled away, with his disconsolate doup (Anglicè, dolp) sweeping the dust from the plainstones so clean, that he left behind him no print of his splay web-feet. He could not so much as cry quack. His plight was so piteous, that the brown-duffled damsels at the mouths of the closes absolutely shed tears. The clique accompanied him past the Abercorn Arms-I speak of what I saw-for I was leaning over some pretty dears who filled the bowwindow-and he did his best to look magnifique, the gander at the head of his goslings-but it would not do. Once he 1 Captain Gordon, one of the unsuccessful candidates who in March 1834 stood for the representation of Paisley, had in the preceding Parliament been M.P. for Dundalk, and was distinguished for his advocacy of Protestant and constitutional principles. The election was carried by Sir Daniel Kyte Sandford, Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow, who resigned his seat after having held it for a very few months. 2 See ante, vol. iii. p. 212. |