Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 10
General
Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 10
Scottish Borders (Scotland) -- Fiction
and undergoing the means of resuscitation. "Much kinder," thought I,
"had ye been to let me go." My name, parentage, &c., having been
ascertained, my father was written to, and I was kept in close custody
till his arrival. My father was a respectable farmer in Dumfries-shire,
and immediately hurried me away to my native glen. My mother met me with
tears; but they were those of sympathy and affection, and one word of
reproach she never uttered. I became gradually more and more calm: but
at times the thoughts of the paradise which I had lost, and the hell I
had earned, would throw me absolutely into convulsions. The calmness
which gathered over my soul was not that of resignation--it was the
settled gloom of despair. Religion was talked of and pressed upon me;
but as yet I had no settled views on that subject. I neither believed
nor disbelieved: I was willing, when the subject obtruded itself upon my
thoughts, to get rid of it the best way I could. At last my melancholy
gradually undermined a naturally good constitution, and it was manifest
to my medical adviser that I was verging towards that degree of
weakness and decay which, under various distinctive appellations, is
sure to terminate in death. A change of scene was urged, and I was
hurried away to Saturness Point, that I might inhale the sea breeze, and
be interested in new objects. This measure was at first partially
successful; but, happening to see a newspaper one day, in which the
settlement of my more steady companion in the very church which I had
once destined for myself was mentioned, and reading in the very same
page a notice of his marriage with my beloved Mary, I became immediately
frantic. For years my mind was so far unhinged that a person was
appointed to watch my motions, and guard me from self-destruction. "Oh,
that cursed medal!" was I heard again and again to exclaim; "it is to
this I have to trace my every wo." What I endured, during this dark and
fearful night, no power of fancy can image, no pen can describe.
_Horresco referens._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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