Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

feems to me one of the most comfortable circumstances in his lot.

It appears to me a very pernicious mistake, which I have fometimes feen parents guilty of in the education of their children, to encourage and incite in them a haughty and defpotic behaviour to their fervants; to teach them an early conceit of the difference of their conditions; to accuftom them to confider the fervices of their attendants as perfectly compenfated by the wages they receive, and as unworthy of any return of kindness, attention, or complacency.

I was laft autumn at my friend Colonel Cauftic's in Scotland, and faw there, on a vifit to Mifs Cauftic, a young gentleman and his fifter, children of a neighbour of the Colonel's, with whofe appearance and manner I was particularly pleafed.-"The hiftory of their parents," faid my friend, "is fomewhat fingular, and I love to tell it, as I do every thing that is to the honour of our nature. Man is fo poor a thing taken in the grofs, that when I meet with an inftance of nobleness in detail, I am glad to reft upon it long, and to recall

it often.

"The father of those young folks, whofe looks you were ftruck with, was a gentleman of confiderable domains and extenfive influence on the northern frontier of our county. In his youth he lived, as it was then more the fashion than it is now, at the feat of his anceftors, furrounded with Gothic grandeur, and compaffed with feudal followers and dependents, all of whom could trace their connection, at a period more or less remote, with the family of their chief. Every domestic in his house bore the family name, and looked on himself as in a certain degree partaking its dignity, and fharing its fortune. Of these, one was in a particular manner the favourite of his mafter. Albert Bane had been his companion from his infancy. Of an age fo much more advanced as to enable him to be a fort of tutor to his youthful Lord, Albert had early taught

him the rural exercises and rural amusements, in which he was eminently fkilful; he had attended him in the course of his education at home, of his travels abroad, and was ftill the conftant companion of his excurfions, and the affociate of his sports.

"On one of these occafions, a favourite dog of Albert's, which he had trained himself, and of whofe qualities he was proud, happened to mar the sport which his mafter expected, who, irritated at the disappointment, and having his gun ready cocked in his hand, fired at the animal, which, however, in the violence of his refentment, he miffed. Albert, to whom the dog (Ofcar) was as a child, remonftrated against the rafhnefs of the deed, in a manner rather too warm for his master, ruffled as he was with the accident, and conscious of being in the wrong, to bear. In his paffion he ftruck his faithful attendant; who fuffered the indignity in filence, and retiring, rather in grief than in anger, left his native country that very night; and when he reached the nearest town, enlifted with a recruiting party of a regiment then on foreign fervice. It was in the beginning of the war with France which broke out in 1744, rendered remarkable for the rebellion which the policy of the French court excited, in which fome of the firft families in the Highlands were unfortunately engaged. Among those who joined the standard of Charles, was the mafter of Albert.

After the battle of Culloden, fo fatal to that party, this gentleman, along with others who had escaped the flaughter of the field, sheltered himself from the rage of the unfparing foldiery, among the diftant receffes of their country. To him his native mountains offered an afylum; and thither he naturally fled for protection. Acquainted, in the purfuits of the chace, with every secret path and unworn track, he lived for a confiderable time, like the deer of his foreft, close hid all day, and only venturing down at the fall of evening, to obtain from fome of his cottagers, whofe fidelity he

could

could truft, a feanty and precarious fupport. I have often heard him, for he is one of my oldest acquaintances, describe the scene of his hiding-place, at a later period, when he could recollect it in its fublimity, without its horror.--" At times," faid he, "when I -ventured to the edge of the wood, among fome of those inacceffible crags which you remember a few miles from my house, I have heard, in the pauses of the breeze which rolled fuddenly through the pines beneath me, the diftant voices of the foldiers, fhouting in answer to one another, amidst their inhuman fearch. I have heard their fhots re-echoed from cliff to cliff, and feen reflected from the deep ftill lake, the gleam of those fires which confumed the cottages of my people. Sometimes fhame and indignation had nearly overcome my fear, and I have prepared to rufh down the steep, unarmed as I was, and to die at once by the fwords of my enemies; but the instinctive love of life prevailed, and ftarting as the roe bounded by me, I have again fhrunk back to the shelter I had left.

"One day," continued he, "the noise was nearer than ufual; and, at laft, from the cave in which I lay, I heard the parties immediately below fo close upon me, that I could diftinguith the words they spoke. After fome time of horrible fufpenfe, the voices grew weaker and more distant; and at last I heard them die away at the end of the wood. I rofe, and ftole to the mouth of the cave; when fuddenly a dog met me, and gave that fhort, quick bark by which they indicate their prey. Amidft the terror of the circumftance, I was yet mafter enough of myself to discover that the dog was Oscar; and I own to you I felt his appearance like the retribution of juftice and of Heaven. Stand! cried a threatening voice; and a foldier preffed through the thicket, with his bayonet charged. It was Albert! Shame, confufion, and remorfe, ftopped my utterance, and I ftood motionlefs before him." My master !” faid he, with the ftifled voice of wonder and of fear,

and

and threw himself at my feet. I had recovered my recollection. You are revenged, faid I, and I am your. prifoner."-" Revenged! Alas! you have judged too hardly of me; I have not had one happy day fince that fatal one on which I left my mafter; but I have: lived, I hope, to fave him. The party to which I belong are paffed; for I lingered behind them among those woods and rocks which I remembered fo well in happier days.-There is, however, no time to be loft. In a few hours this wood will blaze, though they do not suspect that it shelters you. Take my drefs, which may help your escape, and I will endeavour to dispose of yours. On the coaft, to the weftward, we have learned there is a small party of your friends, whom, by following the river's track till dufk, and then striking over the fhoulder of the hill, you may join without much danger of discovery."-"I felt the difgrace of owing fo much to him I had injured, and remonftrated against expofing him to fuch imminent danger of its being known that he had favoured my escape, which, from the temper of his commander, I knew would be inftant death. Albert, in an agony of fear and distress, befought me to think only of my own fafety.-"Save us both," said he, " for if you die, I cannot live. Perhaps we may meet again; but whatever becomes of Albert, may the bleffing of God be with his master!"

1

Albert's prayer was heard. His mafter, by the exercife of talents which, though he had always poffeffed, adverfity only taught him to ufe, acquired abroad a ftation of equal honour and emolument; and when the profcriptions of party had ceased, returned home to his own country, where he found Albert advanced to the rank of a Lieutenant in the army, to which his valour and merit had raised him, married to a lady by whom he had acquired fome little fortune, and was the fatherof an only daughter, for whom nature had done much, and to whose native endowments it was the chief study and delight of her parents to add every thing that art

could

could beftow. The gratitude of the chief was only equalled by the happiness of his follower, whofe honeft pride was not long after gratified, by his daughter's becoming the wife of that mafter whom his generous fidelity had faved. That mafter, by the clemency of more indulgent and liberal times, was again restored to the domains of his ancestors, and had the fatisfaction of feeing the grandfon of Albert enjoy the hereditary birthright of his race.

[ocr errors][merged small][graphic]
« AnteriorContinuar »