Chronicles of the Canongate, 1st Series. Вальтер Скотт
skill as the gold of the rich.
He looked at me with surprise, but the young lady said a word of introduction, and I, who was known to the doctor formerly, hastened to complete it. He recollected me perfectly, and intimated that he was well acquainted with the reasons I had for being deeply interested in the fate of his patient. He gave me a very melancholy account of my poor friend, drawing me for that purpose a little apart from the lady. “The light of life,” he said, “was trembling in the socket; he scarcely expected it would ever leap up even into a momentary flash, but more was impossible.” He then stepped towards his patient, and put some questions, to which the poor invalid, though he seemed to recognize the friendly and familiar voice, answered only in a faltering and uncertain manner.
The young lady, in her turn, had drawn back when the doctor approached his patient. “You see how it is with him,” said the doctor, addressing me. “I have heard our poor friend, in one of the most eloquent of his pleadings, give a description of this very disease, which he compared to the tortures inflicted by Mezentius when he chained the dead to the living. The soul, he said, is imprisoned in its dungeon of flesh, and though retaining its natural and unalienable properties, can no more exert them than the captive enclosed within a prison-house can act as a free agent. Alas! to see HIM, who could so well describe what this malady was in others, a prey himself to its infirmities! I shall never forget the solemn tone of expression with which he summed up the incapacities of the paralytic – the deafened ear, the dimmed eye, the crippled limbs – in the noble words of Juvenal, —
“‘Omni
Membrorum damno major, dementia, quae nec
Nomina servorum, nec vultum agnoscit amici.’”
As the physician repeated these lines, a flash of intelligence seemed to revive in the invalid’s eye – sunk again – again struggled, and he spoke more intelligibly than before, and in the tone of one eager to say something which he felt would escape him unless said instantly. “A question of death-bed, a question of death-bed, doctor – a reduction EX CAPITE LECTI – Withering against Wilibus – about the MORBUS SONTICUS. I pleaded the cause for the pursuer – I, and – and – why, I shall forget my own name – I, and – he that was the wittiest and the best-humoured man living – ”
The description enabled the doctor to fill up the blank, and the patient joyfully repeated the name suggested. “Ay, ay,” he said, “just he – Harry – poor Harry – ” The light in his eye died away, and he sunk back in his easy-chair.
“You have now seen more of our poor friend, Mr. Croftangry,” said the physician, “than I dared venture to promise you; and now I must take my professional authority on me, and ask you to retire. Miss Sommerville will, I am sure, let you know if a moment should by any chance occur when her uncle can see you.”
What could I do? I gave my card to the young lady, and taking my offering from my bosom – “if my poor friend,” I said, with accents as broken almost as his own, “should ask where this came from, name me, and say from the most obliged and most grateful man alive. Say, the gold of which it is composed was saved by grains at a time, and was hoarded with as much avarice as ever was a miser’s. To bring it here I have come a thousand miles; and now, alas, I find him thus!”
I laid the box on the table, and was retiring with a lingering step. The eye of the invalid was caught by it, as that of a child by a glittering toy, and with infantine impatience he faltered out inquiries of his niece. With gentle mildness she repeated again and again who I was, and why I came, etc. I was about to turn, and hasten from a scene so painful, when the physician laid his hand on my sleeve. “Stop,” he said, “there is a change.”
There was, indeed, and a marked one. A faint glow spread over his pallid features – they seemed to gain the look of intelligence which belongs to vitality – his eye once more kindled – his lip coloured – and drawing himself up out of the listless posture he had hitherto maintained, he rose without assistance. The doctor and the servant ran to give him their support. He waved them aside, and they were contented to place themselves in such a position behind as might ensure against accident, should his newly-acquired strength decay as suddenly as it had revived.
“My dear Croftangry,” he said, in the tone of kindness of other days, “I am glad to see you returned. You find me but poorly; but my little niece here and Dr. – are very kind. God bless you, my dear friend! We shall not meet again till we meet in a better world.”
I pressed his extended hand to my lips – I pressed it to my bosom – I would fain have flung myself on my knees; but the doctor, leaving the patient to the young lady and the servant, who wheeled forward his chair, and were replacing him in it, hurried me out of the room. “My dear sir,” he said, “you ought to be satisfied; you have seen our poor invalid more like his former self than he has been for months, or than he may be perhaps again until all is over. The whole Faculty could not have assured such an interval. I must see whether anything can be derived from it to improve the general health. Pray, begone.” The last argument hurried me from the spot, agitated by a crowd of feelings, all of them painful.
When I had overcome the shock of this great disappointment, I renewed gradually my acquaintance with one or two old companions, who, though of infinitely less interest to my feelings than my unfortunate friend, served to relieve the pressure of actual solitude, and who were not perhaps the less open to my advances that I was a bachelor somewhat stricken in years, newly arrived from foreign parts, and certainly independent, if not wealthy.
I was considered as a tolerable subject of speculation by some, and I could not be burdensome to any. I was therefore, according to the ordinary rule of Edinburgh hospitality, a welcome guest in several respectable families. But I found no one who could replace the loss I had sustained in my best friend and benefactor. I wanted something more than mere companionship could give me, and where was I to look for it? Among the scattered remnants of those that had been my gay friends of yore? Alas!
“Many a lad I loved was dead,
And many a lass grown old.”
Besides, all community of ties between us had ceased to exist, and such of former friends as were still in the world held their life in a different tenor from what I did.
Some had become misers, and were as eager in saving sixpence as ever they had been in spending a guinea. Some had turned agriculturists; their talk was of oxen, and they were only fit companions for graziers. Some stuck to cards, and though no longer deep gamblers, rather played small game than sat out. This I particularly despised. The strong impulse of gaming, alas! I had felt in my time. It is as intense as it is criminal; but it produces excitation and interest, and I can conceive how it should become a passion with strong and powerful minds. But to dribble away life in exchanging bits of painted pasteboard round a green table for the piddling concern of a few shillings, can only be excused in folly or superannuation. It is like riding on a rocking-horse, where your utmost exertion never carries you a foot forward; it is a kind of mental treadmill, where you are perpetually climbing, but can never rise an inch. From these hints, my readers will perceive I am incapacitated for one of the pleasures of old age, which, though not mentioned by Cicero, is not the least frequent resource in the present day – the club-room, and the snug hand at whist.
To return to my old companions. Some frequented public assemblies, like the ghost of Beau Nash, or any other beau of half a century back, thrust aside by tittering youth, and pitied by those of their own age. In fine, some went into devotion, as the French term it, and others, I fear, went to the devil; a few found resources in science and letters; one or two turned philosophers in a small way, peeped into microscopes, and became familiar with the fashionable experiments of the day; some took to reading, and I was one of them.
Some grains of repulsion towards the society around me – some painful recollections of early faults and follies – some touch of displeasure with living mankind – inclined me rather to a study of antiquities, and particularly those of my own country. The reader, if I can prevail on myself to continue the present work, will probably be able to judge in the course of it whether I have made any useful progress in the study of the olden times.
I owed this turn of study, in part,