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The best feature of a story
is, after all, its truth; and, however much the fancy of man may travail
in the production of plots and characters, we must always come back to the
working of our old mother Nature. Yet, or a verity, she herself is a
strange coiner of inventions; and, if it were not that she is so
sober-looking a matron, especially at this time of the year, we would
sometimes have very good grounds to doubt if she herself did not sometimes
deal as much in fiction as ever did the favour Don Pinto of mendacious
memory. In one stance which we are about to detail, she played off one of
her tricks of invention with an art that no fictioneer out of China, where
they are all liars together, could have done so well by a full half. In
the old town of Dumfries lived an individual called Simon M’William, a
very good man, and as good a Christian to boot as one might see in a whole
chancel of godly men on a Sunday. His religion was as sincere as a good
heart could feel, and the actions of his life acknowledged in their
uprightness the power of his good spirit; yet was it a matter of verity,
however much it may savour of strangeness, that his holiness, no more than
Dr Johnson’s, ever took away from him the fear of death.
This peculiarity in his
character, and this alone, was the cause of some disputes between him and
his wife Margaret, who was as good a Christian as Simon, but who, with the
fortitude of her sex, when they get old, seemed to care no more for the
big black angel than she did for the arch-enemy himself. Had it not been
for this difference, these two godly persons might have been as happy as
ever were man and wife in this lower world, or any other world of which
Fontenelle has given an account. But this was an eternal source of
disagreement. Somehow or another, Margaret was almost continually talking
about the vanity of all things here, after the manner of the son of Sirach,
or any other prophet. And from this she fell naturally into the subject of
death, of whom she spoke as a good friend, that would, by and by, remove
her and Simon from this sphere of suffering. Of a truth, it was as strange
a sight as one could wish to see, in this province of wonders, this worthy
pair engaged in this subject of conjugal polemics; for, while the eye of
the one brightened with the prospect of an immortality as pure as
everlasting, which made her despise the pains of dissolution, the other
gloomed like a cloud in November, shuddered with horror at the prospect of
death and judgment, and taxed his better half, in his bitterness of spite,
with a wish that he were gathered to his fathers.
Now, it happened that Simon
took ill, and was, indeed, just as ill as any man ought to be when he
calls for a physician; but the never a physician he would send for,
notwithstanding all that Margaret could advance in favour of its
expediency. He trembled at the very idea of being in danger; and the face
of a doctor was, he thought, no better than that of death himself. The
opportunity, however, thus presented, by the hand of God’s affection, was
too good a one to be let slip by Margaret, without turning it to account
in behalf of Simon’s soul. So she set to work with all the pith of her
tongue, to array before him the consequences of death; nor did she stop,
although she saw him twisting himself like a snake beneath the clothes,
and heard strong words of objurlation and spite come from his white lips,
as he struggled with his anger and his fear.
On a subsequent day, Simon
had been dovering a little, and enjoying a respite from his terrors.
Startled by some noise, he looked up, and whom should he see standing
before him, and actually holding his pulse, but the doctor himself. He had
come by the request of Margaret, who could not stand by, as she said, and
see her husband die, without something being done for the safety of his
body. Simon shuddered with terror, and bade the doctor be gone—but the
doctor was a man of sense, and knew the infirmity of his patient. Simon
grew worse and worse. Margaret continued her devotional exercises, and
spoke of death more and more. Visitors called daily, to ascertain how he
was, and, as none durst approach him, to inquire about his health, they
were generally answered at the door, in such a manner as that he might not
hear their inquiries. One day Margaret thought he had got worse than
ever—for he was lying apparently in a state of great weakness, with his
eyes shut, and his mouth open, and other signs of dissolution about him;
but the truth was, that he was undergoing an improvement, by a process of
nature’s own, and the vis medicatrix was busy working in him a
change for the better. At this moment it happened, in that curious way by
which the imp Chance chooses to bring about coincidences, that Jenny
Perkins—a very officious body—put in her head at Margaret’s door, and
asked how Simon was. Margaret shook her head, as any good wife would do,
and looked as melancholy as if her face had been lengthened by the
stretching process about to be applied to her husband. She had, however, a
message for Jenny to perform, and thought proper to get her own request
out before she answered by words that which had been put to her.
"Run up, Jenny," she said,
"to George Webster, and tell him he’s wanted here immediately."
Now, this George Webster
was no other than an undertaker; and Jenny, judging from the look, and the
shake of the head of Margaret, that all was over with Simon, flew as fast
as intelligence itself, and told George Webster to take down the "streeking
board" to Simon M’William’s upon the instant. This was an addition of
Jenny’s own; for Margaret wanted the wright for another purpose entirely.
The command was complied with by two of George’s men, who stalked away
with the grim "deal," in the expectation of getting a "good dram," as is
customary on stretching out the dead. As they went along, all the
neighbours looked and gossiped, and set down Simon for dead; and by the
time they got to the door, Margaret had gone forth to the doctor’s for
some medicine which he was preparing for Simon. But the men cared nothing
for the absence of the living—it was the presence of the dead they wanted;
so in they stalked, and they never stopped till they were by the bedside
of Simon. There they placed themselves, like sentinels, with the dead deal
standing between them, on its broad end, and the round head of it
presented to the face of the patient. The noise awoke Simon. He opened his
eyes; saw the men standing before him with the dead deal in their hands,
just as if he had been on the very eve of being stretched out. He seemed
to doubt whether he was dead or alive; for he stared a goodly time,
without saying a single word; but the men, seeing his eyelids move, and
the eyes fixed upon them, took fright, and hurried away out of the room.
We never heard described the feelings of Simon on this occasion. One thing
is certain—that he was still more satisfied that Margaret wished to bring
death upon him, by presenting the object to both his senses of hearing and
seeing; but, in spite of her efforts, he got better, and lived afterwards
for many years after he had thus seen his own "Dead Deal." |
