by Walter Scott
CHAPTER FIRST.
How have I sinn'd, that this affliction Should light so heavy on me? I have no more sons, And this no more mine own.--My grand curse Hang o'er his head that thus transformed thee!-- Travel? I'll send my horse to travel next. Monsieur Thomas.
You have requested me, my dear friend, to bestow some of that leisure,with which Providence has blessed the decline of my life, in registeringthe hazards and difficulties which attended its commencement. Therecollection of those adventures, as you are pleased to term them, hasindeed left upon my mind a chequered and varied feeling of pleasure andof pain, mingled, I trust, with no slight gratitude and veneration to theDisposer of human events, who guided my early course through much riskand labour, that the ease with which he has blessed my prolonged lifemight seem softer from remembrance and contrast. Neither is it possiblefor me to doubt, what you have often affirmed, that the incidents whichbefell me among a people singularly primitive in their government andmanners, have something interesting and attractive for those who love tohear an old man's stories of a past age.
Still, however, you must remember, that the tale told by one friend, andlistened to by another, loses half its charms when committed to paper;and that the narratives to which you have attended with interest, asheard from the voice of him to whom they occurred, will appear lessdeserving of attention when perused in the seclusion of your study. Butyour greener age and robust constitution promise longer life than will,in all human probability, be the lot of your friend. Throw, then, thesesheets into some secret drawer of your escritoire till we are separatedfrom each other's society by an event which may happen at any moment, andwhich must happen within the course of a few--a very few years. When weare parted in this world, to meet, I hope, in a better, you will, I amwell aware, cherish more than it deserves the memory of your departedfriend, and will find in those details which I am now to commit to paper,matter for melancholy, but not unpleasing reflection. Others bequeath tothe confidants of their bosom portraits of their external features--I putinto your hands a faithful transcript of my thoughts and feelings, of myvirtues and of my failings, with the assured hope, that the follies andheadstrong impetuosity of my youth will meet the same kind constructionand forgiveness which have so often attended the faults of my maturedage.
One advantage, among the many, of addressing my Memoirs (if I may givethese sheets a name so imposing) to a dear and intimate friend, is, thatI may spare some of the details, in this case unnecessary, with which Imust needs have detained a stranger from what I have to say of greaterinterest. Why should I bestow all my tediousness upon you, because I haveyou in my power, and have ink, paper, and time before me? At the sametime, I dare not promise that I may not abuse the opportunity sotemptingly offered me, to treat of myself and my own concerns, eventhough I speak of circumstances as well known to you as to myself. Theseductive love of narrative, when we ourselves are the heroes of theevents which we tell, often disregards the attention due to the time andpatience of the audience, and the best and wisest have yielded to itsfascination. I need only remind you of the singular instance evinced bythe form of that rare and original edition of Sully's Memoirs, which you(with the fond vanity of a book-collector) insist upon preferring to thatwhich is reduced to the useful and ordinary form of Memoirs, but which Ithink curious, solely as illustrating how far so great a man as theauthor was accessible to the foible of self-importance. If I recollectrightly, that venerable peer and great statesman had appointed no fewerthan four gentlemen of his household to draw up the events of his life,under the title of Memorials of the Sage and Royal Affairs of State,Domestic, Political, and Military, transacted by Henry IV., and so forth.These grave recorders, having made their compilation, reduced the Memoirscontaining all the remarkable events of their master's life into anarrative, addressed to himself in _propria persona._ And thus, insteadof telling his own story, in the third person, like Julius Caesar, or inthe first person, like most who, in the hall, or the study, undertake tobe the heroes of their own tale, Sully enjoyed the refined, thoughwhimsical pleasure, of having the events of his life told over to him byhis secretaries, being himself the auditor, as he was also the hero, andprobably the author, of the whole book. It must have been a great sightto have seen the ex-minister, as bolt upright as a starched ruff andlaced cassock could make him, seated in state beneath his canopy, andlistening to the recitation of his compilers, while, standing bare in hispresence, they informed him gravely, "Thus said the duke--so did the dukeinfer--such were your grace's sentiments upon this importantpoint--such were your secret counsels to the king on that otheremergency,"--circumstances, all of which must have been much betterknown to their hearer than to themselves, and most of which could onlybe derived from his own special communication.
My situation is not quite so ludicrous as that of the great Sully, andyet there would be something whimsical in Frank Osbaldistone giving WillTresham a formal account of his birth, education, and connections in theworld. I will, therefore, wrestle with the tempting spirit of P. P.,Clerk of our Parish, as I best may, and endeavour to tell you nothingthat is familiar to you already. Some things, however, I must recall toyour memory, because, though formerly well known to you, they may havebeen forgotten through lapse of time, and they afford the ground-work ofmy destiny.
You must remember my father well; for, as your own was a member of themercantile house, you knew him from infancy. Yet you hardly saw him inhis best days, before age and infirmity had quenched his ardent spirit ofenterprise and speculation. He would have been a poorer man, indeed, butperhaps as happy, had he devoted to the extension of science those activeenergies, and acute powers of observation, for which commercial pursuitsfound occupation. Yet, in the fluctuations of mercantile speculation,there is something captivating to the adventurer, even independent of thehope of gain. He who embarks on that fickle sea, requires to possess theskill of the pilot and the fortitude of the navigator, and after all maybe wrecked and lost, unless the gales of fortune breathe in his favour.This mixture of necessary attention and inevitable hazard,--the frequentand awful uncertainty whether prudence shall overcome fortune, or fortunebaffle the schemes of prudence, affords full occupation for the powers,as well as for the feelings of the mind, and trade has all thefascination of gambling without its moral guilt.
Early in the 18th century, when I (Heaven help me) was a youth of sometwenty years old, I was summoned suddenly from Bourdeaux to attend myfather on business of importance. I shall never forget our firstinterview. You recollect the brief, abrupt, and somewhat stern mode inwhich he was wont to communicate his pleasure to those around him.Methinks I see him even now in my mind's eye;--the firm and uprightfigure,--the step, quick and determined,--the eye, which shot so keen andso penetrating a glance,--the features, on which care had already plantedwrinkles,--and hear his language, in which he never wasted word in vain,expressed in a voice which had sometimes an occasional harshness, farfrom the intention of the speaker.
When I dismounted from my post-horse, I hastened to my father'sapartment. He was traversing it with an air of composed and steadydeliberation, which even my arrival, although an only son unseen for fouryears, was unable to discompose. I threw myself into his arms. He was akind, though not a fond father, and the tear twinkled in his dark eye,but it was only for a moment.
"Dubourg writes to me that he is satisfied with you, Frank."
"I am happy, sir"--
"But I have less reason to be so" he added, sitting down at his bureau.
"I am sorry, sir"--
"Sorry and happy, Frank, are words that, on most occasions, signifylittle or nothing--Here is your last letter."
He took it out from a number of others tied up in a parcel of red tape,and curiously labelled and filed. There lay my poor epistle, written onthe subject the nearest to my heart at the time, and couched in wordswhich I had thought would work compassion if not conv
iction,--there, Isay, it lay, squeezed up among the letters on miscellaneous business inwhich my father's daily affairs had engaged him. I cannot help smilinginternally when I recollect the mixture of hurt vanity, and woundedfeeling, with which I regarded my remonstrance, to the penning of whichthere had gone, I promise you, some trouble, as I beheld it extractedfrom amongst letters of advice, of credit, and all the commonplacelumber, as I then thought them, of a merchant's correspondence. Surely,thought I, a letter of such importance (I dared not say, even to myself,so well written) deserved a separate place, as well as more anxiousconsideration, than those on the ordinary business of the counting-house.
But my father did not observe my dissatisfaction, and would not haveminded it if he had. He proceeded, with the letter in his hand. "This,Frank, is yours of the 21st ultimo, in which you advise me (reading frommy letter), that in the most important business of forming a plan, andadopting a profession for life, you trust my paternal goodness will holdyou entitled to at least a negative voice; that you have insuperable--ay,insuperable is the word--I wish, by the way, you would write a moredistinct current hand--draw a score through the tops of your t's, andopen the loops of your l's--insuperable objections to the arrangementswhich I have proposed to you. There is much more to the same effect,occupying four good pages of paper, which a little attention toperspicuity and distinctness of expression might have comprised within asmany lines. For, after all, Frank, it amounts but to this, that you willnot do as I would have you."
"That I cannot, sir, in the present instance, not that I will not."
"Words avail very little with me, young man," said my father, whoseinflexibility always possessed the air of the most perfect calmness ofself-possession. "_Can not_ may be a more civil phrase than _will not,_but the expressions are synonymous where there is no moral impossibility.But I am not a friend to doing business hastily; we will talk this matterover after dinner.--Owen!"
Owen appeared, not with the silver locks which you were used to venerate,for he was then little more than fifty; but he had the same, or anexactly similar uniform suit of light-brown clothes,--the same pearl-greysilk stockings,--the same stock, with its silver buckle,--the sameplaited cambric ruffles, drawn down over his knuckles in the parlour, butin the counting-house carefully folded back under the sleeves, that theymight remain unstained by the ink which he daily consumed;--in a word,the same grave, formal, yet benevolent cast of features, which continuedto his death to distinguish the head clerk of the great house ofOsbaldistone and Tresham.
"Owen," said my father, as the kind old man shook me affectionately bythe hand, "you must dine with us to-day, and hear the news Frank hasbrought us from our friends in Bourdeaux."
Owen made one of his stiff bows of respectful gratitude; for, in thosedays, when the distance between superiors and inferiors was enforced in amanner to which the present times are strangers, such an invitation was afavour of some little consequence.
I shall long remember that dinner-party. Deeply affected by feelings ofanxiety, not unmingled with displeasure, I was unable to take that activeshare in the conversation which my father seemed to expect from me; and Itoo frequently gave unsatisfactory answers to the questions with which heassailed me. Owen, hovering betwixt his respect for his patron, and hislove for the youth he had dandled on his knee in childhood, like thetimorous, yet anxious ally of an invaded nation, endeavoured at everyblunder I made to explain my no-meaning, and to cover my retreat;manoeuvres which added to my father's pettish displeasure, and brought ashare of it upon my kind advocate, instead of protecting me. I had not,while residing in the house of Dubourg, absolutely conducted myself like
A clerk condemn'd his father's soul to cross, Who penn'd a stanza when he should engross;--
but, to say truth, I had frequented the counting-house no more than I hadthought absolutely necessary to secure the good report of the Frenchman,long a correspondent of our firm, to whom my father had trusted forinitiating me into the mysteries of commerce. In fact, my principalattention had been dedicated to literature and manly exercises. My fatherdid not altogether discourage such acquirements, whether mental orpersonal. He had too much good sense not to perceive, that they sategracefully upon every man, and he was sensible that they relieved anddignified the character to which he wished me to aspire. But his chiefambition was, that I should succeed not merely to his fortune, but to theviews and plans by which he imagined he could extend and perpetuate thewealthy inheritance which he designed for me.
Love of his profession was the motive which he chose should be mostostensible, when he urged me to tread the same path; but he had otherswith which I only became acquainted at a later period. Impetuous in hisschemes, as well as skilful and daring, each new adventure, whensuccessful, became at once the incentive, and furnished the means, forfarther speculation. It seemed to be necessary to him, as to an ambitiousconqueror, to push on from achievement to achievement, without stoppingto secure, far less to enjoy, the acquisitions which he made. Accustomedto see his whole fortune trembling in the scales of chance, and dexterousat adopting expedients for casting the balance in his favour, his healthand spirits and activity seemed ever to increase with the animatinghazards on which he staked his wealth; and he resembled a sailor,accustomed to brave the billows and the foe, whose confidence rises onthe eve of tempest or of battle. He was not, however, insensible to thechanges which increasing age or supervening malady might make in his ownconstitution; and was anxious in good time to secure in me an assistant,who might take the helm when his hand grew weary, and keep the vessel'sway according to his counsel and instruction. Paternal affection, as wellas the furtherance of his own plans, determined him to the sameconclusion. Your father, though his fortune was vested in the house, wasonly a sleeping partner, as the commercial phrase goes; and Owen, whoseprobity and skill in the details of arithmetic rendered his servicesinvaluable as a head clerk, was not possessed either of information ortalents sufficient to conduct the mysteries of the principal management.If my father were suddenly summoned from life, what would become of theworld of schemes which he had formed, unless his son were moulded into acommercial Hercules, fit to sustain the weight when relinquished by thefalling Atlas? and what would become of that son himself, if, a strangerto business of this description, he found himself at once involved in thelabyrinth of mercantile concerns, without the clew of knowledge necessaryfor his extraction? For all these reasons, avowed and secret, my fatherwas determined I should embrace his profession; and when he wasdetermined, the resolution of no man was more immovable. I, however, wasalso a party to be consulted, and, with something of his own pertinacity,I had formed a determination precisely contrary. It may, I hope, be somepalliative for the resistance which, on this occasion, I offered to myfather's wishes, that I did not fully understand upon what they werefounded, or how deeply his happiness was involved in them. Imaginingmyself certain of a large succession in future, and ample maintenance inthe meanwhile, it never occurred to me that it might be necessary, inorder to secure these blessings, to submit to labour and limitationsunpleasant to my taste and temper. I only saw in my father's proposal formy engaging in business, a desire that I should add to those heaps ofwealth which he had himself acquired; and imagining myself the best judgeof the path to my own happiness, I did not conceive that I shouldincrease that happiness by augmenting a fortune which I believed wasalready sufficient, and more than sufficient, for every use, comfort, andelegant enjoyment.
Accordingly, I am compelled to repeat, that my time at Bourdeaux had notbeen spent as my father had proposed to himself. What he considered asthe chief end of my residence in that city, I had postponed for everyother, and would (had I dared) have neglected altogether. Dubourg, afavoured and benefited correspondent of our mercantile house, was toomuch of a shrewd politician to make such reports to the head of the firmconcerning his only child, as would excite the displeasure of both; andhe might also, as you will presently hear, have views of selfishadvantage in sufferi
ng me to neglect the purposes for which I was placedunder his charge. My conduct was regulated by the bounds of decency andgood order, and thus far he had no evil report to make, supposing him sodisposed; but, perhaps, the crafty Frenchman would have been equallycomplaisant, had I been in the habit of indulging worse feelings thanthose of indolence and aversion to mercantile business. As it was, whileI gave a decent portion of my time to the commercial studies herecommended, he was by no means envious of the hours which I dedicated toother and more classical attainments, nor did he ever find fault with mefor dwelling upon Corneille and Boileau, in preference to Postlethwayte(supposing his folio to have then existed, and Monsieur Dubourg able tohave pronounced his name), or Savary, or any other writer on commercialeconomy. He had picked up somewhere a convenient expression, with whichhe rounded off every letter to his correspondent,--"I was all," he said,"that a father could wish."
My father never quarrelled with a phrase, however frequently repeated,provided it seemed to him distinct and expressive; and Addison himselfcould not have found expressions so satisfactory to him as, "Yoursreceived, and duly honoured the bills enclosed, as per margin."
Knowing, therefore, very well what he desired me to, be, Mr. Osbaldistonemade no doubt, from the frequent repetition of Dubourg's favouritephrase, that I was the very thing he wished to see me; when, in an evilhour, he received my letter, containing my eloquent and detailed apologyfor declining a place in the firm, and a desk and stool in the corner ofthe dark counting-house in Crane Alley, surmounting in height those ofOwen, and the other clerks, and only inferior to the tripod of my fatherhimself. All was wrong from that moment. Dubourg's reports became assuspicious as if his bills had been noted for dishonour. I was summonedhome in all haste, and received in the manner I have already communicatedto you.