Part 19

The orange-woman left him, having vainly recommended him "to christen his new tenement with a drop of the cratur." Adam threw himself upon the bed, and, in a few minutes, his spirit wandered in its dreams amidst the "bonny woods and braes" of Teviotdale. Early on the following day he proceeded to the counting-house of Mr Davison, who received him with a hurried sort of civility--glanced over the letter of introduction--expressed a hope that Mr Douglas was well--said he would be happy to serve him--but he was engaged at present, and if Mr Brown would call again, if he should hear of anything he would let him know. Adam thanked him, and, with his best bow (which was a very awkward one), withdrew. The clerks in the outer office tittered as poor Adam, with his heavy hob-nailed shoes, tramped through the midst of them. He delivered the other letter of introduction, and the gentleman to whom it was addressed received him much in the same manner as Mr Davison had done, and his clerks also smiled at Adam's grey coat, and gave a very peculiar look at his clattering shoes, and then at each other. Day after day he repeated his visits to the counting-houses of these gentlemen--sometimes they were too much engaged to see him, at others they simply informed him that they were sorry they had heard of nothing to suit him, and continued writing, without noticing him again; while Adam, with a heavy heart, would stand behind their desk, brushing the crown of his brown broad-brimmed hat with his sleeve. At length, the clerks in the outer office merely informed him their master had heard of nothing for him. Adam saw it was in vain--three weeks had passed, and the thirty shillings which he had brought to London were reduced to ten.

He was wandering disconsolately down Chancery Lane, with his hands thrust in his pockets, when his attention was attracted to a shop, the windows and door of which were covered with written placards, and on these placards were the words, "_Wanted, a Book-keeper_"--"_Wanted, by a Literary Gentleman, an Amanuensis_"--in short, there seemed no sort of situation for which there was not a person wanted, and each concluded with "_inquire within_." Adam's heart and his eyes overflowed with joy. There were at least half-a-dozen places which would suit him exactly--he was only at a loss now which to choose upon--and he thought also that Mr Douglas's friends had used him most unkindly in saying they could hear of no situation for him, when here scores were advertised in the streets. At length he fixed upon one. He entered the shop. A sharp, Jewish-looking little man was writing at a desk--he received the visitor with a gracious smile.

"If you please, sir," said Adam, "will ye be so good as inform me where the gentleman lives that wants the bookkeeper?"

"With pleasure," said the master of the register office; "but you must give me five shillings, and I will enter your name."

"Five shillings!" repeated Adam, and a new light began to dawn upon him. "Five shillings, sir, is a deal o' money, an', to tell you the truth, I can very ill afford it; but, as I am much in want o' a situation, maybe you wad tak' half-a-crown."

"Can't book you for that," said the other; "but give me your half-crown, and you may have the gentleman's address."

He directed him to a merchant in Thames Street. Adam quickly found the house; and, entering with his broad-brimmed hat in his hand, and scraping the hob-nails along the floor--"Sir," said he, "I'm the person Mr Daniells o' Chancery Lane has sent to you as a bookkeeper."

"Mr Daniells--Mr Daniells," said the merchant; "don't know any such person--have not wanted a bookkeeper these six months."

"Sir," said Adam, "are ye no' Mr Robertson, o' 54 Thames Street?"

"I am," replied the merchant; "but," added he, "I see how it is. Pray, young man, what did you give this Mr Daniells to recommend you to the situation?"

"Half-a-crown, sir," returned Adam.

"Well," said the other, "you have more money than wit. Good morning, sir, and take care of another Mr Daniells."

Poor Adam was dumfoundered; and, in the bitterness of his spirit, he said London was a den o' thieves. I might tell you how his last shilling was expended--how he lived upon bread and water--how he fell into arrears with the orange-woman for the rent of his garret--how she persecuted him--how he was puzzled to understand the meaning of the generous words, "_Money lent_;" how the orange-woman, in order to obtain her rent, taught him the mystery of the _three golden balls_; and how the shirts--which his mother had made him from a web of her own spinning--and his books, all that he had, save the clothes upon his back, were pledged--and how, when all was gone, the old landlady turned him to the door, houseless, friendless, pennyless, with no companion but despair. We might have dwelt upon these things, but must proceed with his history.

Adam, after enduring privations which would make humanity shudder, obtained the situation of assistant-porter in a merchant's office. The employment was humble, but he received it joyfully. He was steady and industrious, and it was not long until he was appointed warehouseman; and his employer, finding that, in addition to his good qualities, he had received a superior education, made him one of his confidential clerks. He had held the situation about two years. The rust, as his brother-clerks said, was now pretty well rubbed off Scotch Adam. His hodden grey was laid aside for the dashing green, his hob-nailed shoes for fashionable pumps, and his broad-brimmed hat for a narrow-crowned beaver; his speech, too, had caught a sprinkling of the southern accent; but, in other respects, he was the same inoffensive, steady, and serious being as when he left his mother's cottage.

His companions were wont "to roast" Adam, as they termed it, on what they called his Methodism. They had often urged him to accompany them to the theatre; but, for two years, he had stubbornly withstood their temptations. The stage was to Adam what the tree of knowledge was to his first namesake and progenitor. He had been counselled against it, he had read against it, he had heard sermons against it; but had never been within the walls of a theatre. _The_ Siddons, and her brother John Kemble, then in the zenith of their fame, were filling not only London but Europe with their names. One evening they were to perform, together--Adam had often heard of them--he admired Shakspeare--his curiosity was excited, he yielded to the solicitations of his companions, and accompanied them to Covent Garden. The curtain was drawn up. The performance began. Adam's soul was riveted, his senses distracted. The Siddons swept before him like a vision of immortality--Kemble seemed to draw a soul from the tomb of the Cæsars; and, as the curtain fell, and the loud music pealed, Adam felt as if a new existence and a new world had opened before him, and his head reeled with wonder and delight. When the performance was concluded, his companions proposed to have a single bottle in an adjoining tavern; Adam offered some opposition, but was prevailed upon to accompany them. Several of the players entered--they were convivial spirits, abounding with wit, anecdote, and song. The scene was new, but not unpleasant to Adam. He took no note of time. He was unused to drink, and little affected him. The first bottle was finished. "WE'LL HAVE ANOTHER," said one of his companions. It was the first time Adam had heard the fatal words, and he offered no opposition. He drank again--he began to expatiate on divers subjects--he discovered he was an orator. "Well done, Mr Brown," cried one of his companions, "there's hope of you yet--_we'll have another_, my boy--three's band!" A third bottle was brought; Adam was called upon for a song. He could sing, and sing well too; and, taking his glass in his hand, he began--

"Stop, stop, we'll ha'e anither gill, Ne'ermind a lang-tongued beldame's yatter; They're fools wha'd leave a glass o' yill For ony wife's infernal clatter.

"There's Bet, when I gang hame the night, Will set the hail stairhead a ringin'-- Let a' the neebours hear her flyte, Ca' me a brute, and stap my singin'.

"She'll yelp about the bairns' rags-- Ca' me a drucken gude-for-naethin'! She'll curse my throat an' drouthy bags, An' at me thraw their duddy claethin'!

"Chorus, gentlemen--chorus!" cried Adam, and continued--

"The fient a supper I'll get there-- A _dish o' tongues_ is a' she'll gie me! She'll shake her nieve and rug her hair, An' wonder how she e'er gaed wi' me! She vows to leave me, an' I say, 'Gang, gang! for dearsake!--that's a blessin'!' She rins to get her claes away, But--_o' the kist the key's amissin!_

"The younkers a' set up a skirl, They shriek an' cry--'O dinna, mither!' I slip to bed, and fash the quarrel Neither ae way nor anither. Bet creeps beside me unco dour, I clap her back, an' say--'My dawtie!' Quo' she--'Weel, weel, my passion's ower, But dinna gang a-drinkin', Watty.'"

"Bravo, Scotchy!" shouted one. "Your health and song, Mr Brown," cried another. Adam's head began to swim--the lights danced before his eyes--he fell from his chair. One of his friends called a hackney coach; and, half insensible of where he was, he was conveyed to his lodgings. It was afternoon on the following day before he appeared at the counting-house, and his eyes were red, and he had the languid look of one who has spent a night in revelry. That night he was again prevailed upon to accompany his brother-clerks to the club-room, "just," as they expressed it, "to have one bottle to put all right." That night he again heard the words--"_We'll have another_," and again he yielded to their seduction.

But we will not follow him through the steps and through the snares by which he departed from virtue and became entangled in vice. He became an almost nightly frequenter of the tavern, the theatre, or both, and his habits opened up temptations to grosser viciousness. Still he kept up a correspondence with Mary Douglas, the gentle object of his young affections, and for a time her endeared remembrance haunted him like a protecting angel, whispering in his ear and saving him from depravity. But his religious principles were already forgotten; and, when that cord was snapped asunder, the fibre of affection that twined around his heart did not long hold him in the path of virtue. As the influence of company grew upon him, her remembrance lost its power, and Adam Brown plunged headlong into all the pleasures and temptations of the metropolis.

Still he was attentive to business--he still retained the confidence of his employer--his salary was liberal--he still sent thirty pounds a-year to his mother; and Mary Douglas yet held a place in his heart, though he was changed--fatally changed. He had been about four years in his situation when he obtained leave for a few weeks to visit his native village. It was on a summer afternoon when a chaise from Jedburgh drove up to the door of the only public-house in the village. A fashionably dressed young man alighted, and, in an affected voice, desired the landlord to send a porter with his luggage to Mrs Brown's. "A porter, sir?" said the innkeeper--"there's naething o' the kind in the toun; but I'll get twa callants to tak' it alang."

He hastened to his mother's. "Ah! how d'ye do?" said he, slightly shaking the hands of his younger brothers; but a tear gathered in his eye as his mother kissed his cheek. She, good soul, when the first surprise was over, said "she hardly kenned her bairn in sic a fine gentleman." He proceeded to the manse, and Mary marvelled at the change in his appearance and his manner; yet she loved him not the less; but her father beheld the affectation and levity of his young friend, and grieved over them.

He had not been a month in the village when Mary gave him her hand, and they set out for London together.

For a few weeks after their arrival, he spent his evenings at their own fireside, and they were blest in the society of each other. But it was not long until company again spread its seductive snares around him. Again he listened to the words--"_We'll have another_"--again he yielded to their temptations, and again the _force of habit_ made him its slave. Night followed night, and he was irritable and unhappy, unless in the midst of his boon companions. Poor Mary felt the bitterness and anguish of a deserted wife; but she upbraided him not--she spoke not of her sorrows. Health forsook her cheeks, and gladness had fled from her spirit; yet as she nightly sat hour after hour waiting his return, as he entered, she welcomed him with a smile, which not unfrequently was met with an imprecation or a frown. They had been married about two years. Mary was a mother, and oft at midnight she would sit weeping over the cradle of her child, mourning in secret for its thoughtless father.

It was her birthday, her father had come to London to visit them; she had not told him of her sorrows, and she had invited a few friends to dine with them. They had assembled; but Adam was still absent. He had been unkind to her; but this was an unkindness she did not expect from him. They were yet awaiting, when a police-officer entered. His errand was soon told. Adam Brown had become a gambler, as well as a drunkard--he had been guilty of fraud and embezzlement--his guilt had been discovered, and the police were in quest of him. Mr Douglas wrung his hands and groaned. Mary bore the dreadful blow with more than human fortitude. She uttered no scream--she shed no tears; for a moment she sat motionless--speechless. It was the dumbness of agony. With her child at her breast, and, in the midst of her guests, she flung herself at her father's feet. "Father!" she exclaimed, "for my sake!--for my helpless child's sake--save! oh, save my poor husband!"

"For your sake, what I can do I will do, dearest," groaned the old man.

A coach was ordered to the door, and the miserable wife and her father hastened to the office of her husband's employer.

When Adam Brown received intelligence that his guilt was discovered from a companion, he was carousing with others in a low gambling-house. Horror seized him, and he hurried from the room, but returned in a few minutes. "_We'll have another!_" he exclaimed, in a tone of frenzy--and another was brought. He half filled a glass--he raised it to his lips--he dashed into it a deadly poison, and, ere they could stay his hand, the fatal draught was swallowed. He had purchased a quantity of arsenic when he rushed from the house.

His fellow-gamblers were thronging around him, when his injured wife and her grey-headed father entered the room. "Away, tormentors!" he exclaimed, as his glazed eyes fell upon them, and he dashed his hand before his face.

"My husband! my dear husband!" cried Mary, flinging her arms around his neck. "Look on me, speak to me!"

He gazed on her face--he grasped her hand. "Mary, my injured Mary!" he exclaimed convulsively, "can _you_ forgive me--_you--you_? O God; I was once innocent! Forgive me, dearest!--for our child's sake, curse not its guilty father!"

"Husband!--Adam!" she cried, wringing his hand--"come with me, love, come--leave this horrid place--you have nothing to fear--your debt is paid."

"Paid!" he exclaimed, wildly--"Ha! ha!--Paid!" These were his last words--convulsions came upon him, the film of death passed over his eyes, and his troubled spirit fled.

She clung round his neck--she yet cried "Speak to me!"--she refused to believe that he was dead, and her reason seemed to have fled with his spirit.

She was taken from his body and conveyed home. The agony of grief subsided into a stupor approaching imbecility. She was unconscious of all around; and, within three weeks from the death of her husband, the broken spirit of Mary Douglas found rest, and her father returned in sorrow with her helpless orphan to Teviotdale.