REUBEN PURVES; or, THE SPECULATOR.

Speculation is the soul of business; it is the mainspring of improvement; it is essential to prosperity. Burns has signified that he could not stoop to crawl into what he considered as the narrow holes of bargain-making; and nine out of every ten persons who consider themselves high-minded profess to sympathise with him, and say he was right. But our immortal bard, in so saying, looked only at the odds and ends—the corners and the disjointed extremities—of bargain-making, properly so called; and he suffered his pride and his prejudices to blind, in this instance, his mighty spirit, and contract his grasp, so that he saw not the all-powerful, the humanising, and civilising influence of the very bargain-making which he despised. True it is, that as a spirit of speculation or bargain-making contracts itself, and every day becomes more and more a thing of farthings and of fractions, it begets a grovelling spirit of meanness, that may eventually end in dishonesty; but as it expands, it exalts the man, imbues his mind with liberality, and benefits society. The spirit of commercial speculation will spread abroad, until it render useless the sword of the hero, cause it to rust in its scabbard, and to be regarded as the barbarous plaything of antiquity. It will go forth as a dove from the ark of society, bearing the olive-branch of peace and of mutual benefits unto all lands, until men shall learn war no more.

But at present I am not writing an essay on speculation or enterprise, but the history of Reuben Purves, the Speculator; and I shall therefore begin with it at once. Reuben was born in Galashiels, than which I do not know a more thriving town, or one more beautifully situated, on all the wide Borders. As you pass it, seated on the outside of the Chevy-Chase coach on a summer day (if perchance a sunny shower shall have fallen), it lies before you as a long and silvered line, the blue slates reflecting back the sunbeams. In its streets, cleanliness and prosperity join hands; while before it and behind it rise hills high enough to be called mountains, where the gorgeous heather purples in its season. Before it—I might say through it—wimples the Gala, almost laving its thresholds. There the spirit of speculation and of trade has taken up "a local habitation and a name," in the bosom of poetry. On the one hand is the magic of Abbotsford, on the other the memories of Melrose. But its description is best summed up in the condemnation of a Cockney traveller, who said, "Vy, certainly, Galashiels would be wery pretty, were it not its vood and vater!"

But I again digress from the history of Reuben Purves. I have said that he was born in Galashiels: his father was a weaver, and the father brought his son up to his own profession. But although Reuben

his apprenticeship (if his instructions from his father could be called one) was scarce expired, when, like Othello, he found "his occupation gone," and the hand-loom was falling into disuse. Arkwright, who was long considered a mere bee-headed barber, had—though in a great measure by the aid of others—brought his mechanism to a degree of perfection that not only astonished the world, but held out a more inexhaustible and a richer source of wealth to Britain than its mines did to Peru. Deep and bitter were the imprecations of many against the power-loom; for it is difficult for any man to see good in that which dashes away his hard-earned morsel from the mouths of his family, and leaves them calling in vain for food. But there were a few spirits who could appreciate the vast discovery, and who in it perceived not only the benefits it would confer on the country, but on the human race. Arkwright, who, though a wonderful man, was not one of deep or accurate knowledge, with a vanity which in him is excusable, imagined that he could carry out the results of his improvements to an extent that would enable the country to pay off the national debt. It was a wild idea; but, extravagant as it was, it must be acknowledged that the fruits of his discoveries enabled Britain to bear up against its burdens, and maintain its faith, in times of severest trial and oppression.

Reuben's father was one of those who complained most bitterly against the modern innovation. He said, "the work could never be like a man's work. It was a ridiculous novelty, and would justly end in the ruin of all engaged in it." It had, indeed, not only reduced his wages the one-half, but he had not half his wonted employment, and he saw nothing but folly, ruin, and injustice in the speculation. Reuben, however, pondered more deeply; he entered somewhat into the spirit of the projector. He not only entertained the belief that it would enrich the nation, but he cherished the hope that it would enrich himself. How it was to accomplish his own advancement he did not exactly perceive, but he lived in the idea—he dreamed of it—nothing could make him divest himself of it; and he was encouraged by his mother saying—

"Weel, Reuben, I canna tell, things may be as ye say—only there is very little appearance o' them at present, when the wages o' you and your faither put thegither are hardly the half o' what ane o' ye could hae made. But ae thing is certain—they who bode for a silk gown always get a sleeve o't."

"Nonsense, woman! ye're as bad as him," was the reply of his father; "wherefore would ye encourage the callant in his havers? I wonder, seeing the distress we are a' brought to, he doesna think shame to speak o' such a thing. Mak a fortune by the newfangled system, indeed!—my truly! if it continue meikle langer, he winna be able to get brose without butter."

"Weel, faither," was the answer of Reuben, "we'll see; but you must perceive that there is no great improvement can take place, let it be what it will, without doing injury to somebody. And it is our duty to watch every opportunity to make the most of it."

"In my belief, the laddie is out o' his head," rejoined the father; "but want will bring him to his senses."

Reuben, however, soon found that it became almost impossible to keep soul and body together by the labours of the loom. He therefore began to speculate on what he ought to do; and, like my honoured namesake, the respectable poet, but immortal ornithologist, he took unto himself a PACK, and, with it upon his shoulders, he resolved to perambulate the Borders. There was no disgrace in the calling, for it is as ancient, perhaps more ancient, than nobility; and we are told that, even in the time of Solomon, "there were chapmen in the land in those days." Therefore Reuben Purves became a chapman. He, as his original trade might lead one to suppose, was purely a dealer in "soft" goods; and when he entered a farmhouse, among the bonny buxom girls, he would have flung his pack upon the table, and said—

"Here, now, my braw lassies; look ye here! Here's the real upright, downright, elegant, and irresistible muslin for frills, which no sweetheart upon this earth could have the power to withstand. And here's the gown-pieces—cheap, cheap—actually giein them awa—the newest, the most elegant patterns! Only look at them!—it is a sin to see them so cheap! Naething could be mair handsome! Now or never, lassies. Look at the ribands, too—blue, red, yellow, purple, green, plain, flowered, and gauze. Now is the time for buskin your cockernony—naething could withstand them wi' sic faces as yours—naething, naething, and that ye would find. It would be out o' the question to talk o't. Come, hinnies, only observe them, I'm sure ye canna but buy—or look at this lawn."

"O Reuben, man," they would have said, "they are very bonny; but we hae nae siller."

"Havers!" answered he; "young queans like you talking about siller! Sell your hair, dears, and buy lang lawn?"

Then did Reuben pull forth his scissors, and begin to exercise the functions of a hairdresser, in addition to his calling as a chapman—thinning, and sometimes almost cropping, the fair, the raven, the auburn, or the brown tresses of the serving-maids, and giving them his ribands and his cambrics in exchange for their shorn locks. The ringlets he disposed of to the hairdressers in Edinburgh, Newcastle, or Carlisle, and he confessed that he found it a very profitable speculation; and where the colour or texture of the hair was beautiful, he invariably preferred bartering for it, to receiving payment in money. This was a trait in Reuben's character, at the outset of his career as a speculator, which showed that he had a correct appreciation of the real principles of trade—that he knew the importance of barter, without which commerce could not exist; and it afforded an indication of the future merchant.

He was in the habit of visiting every town, village, and farm-stead within sixty miles of the Borders—to the north and to the south—and taking in the entire breadth of the island. His visits became as regular as clock-work. No merchant now-a-days knows more exactly the day and almost the hour when he may expect a visit from the traveller of the house with which he deals, accompanied with an invitation to drink a bottle of wine, and pay his account, than the people in the Border villages knew when Reuben would appear amongst them.

It was shrewdly suspected that Reuben did not confine himself solely to the sale of ribands, gown-pieces, and such-like ware, but that his goodly pack was in fact a magazine, in which was concealed tea, cognac, and tobacco. At all events, he prospered amazingly, and in the course of three years—though he lessened its weight at every village he came to—his pack overgrew his shoulders, and prosperity compelled him, first, to have recourse to a pack-horse, and, before he had had it long, to a covered cart or caravan. In short, on arriving at a village, instead of going round from house to house, with his stock upon his shoulders, as he was wont to do, he sent round the drummer or bellman: or, where no such functionaries are known, he employed some other individual, with a key and a trencher, to go round the village and make the proclamation—

"This is to give notice, that Mr Reuben Purves, with his grand and elegant assortment of the newest and most fashionable varieties of soft-ware goods, and other commodities, all bought by him for ready money, so that great bargains may be expected, has just arrived (at such an inn), and will remain for this day only; therefore those who wish the real superior articles, at most excellent bargains, will embrace the present opportunity."

Let not the reader despise Reuben because he practised and understood the mysteries of puffing. There is nothing done in this world without it. No gardener ever "lichtlied" his own leeks. All men practise it, from the maker of books to the maker of shoe-blacking, or the vender of matches. From the grandiloquent advertisement of a metropolitan auctioneer, down to the "only true and particular account" of an execution, bawled by a flying-stationer on the streets, the spirit of puffing, in its various degrees, is to be found. Therefore we blame not Reuben; he only did what other people did, though perhaps after a different fashion, and with better success. It gave a promise of his success as a tradesman. He said he ventured on it as a speculation, and finding it to suit his purpose, he continued it. In truth, scarce had the herald made the proclamation which I have quoted, until Reuben's cart was literally besieged. His customers said, "it went like a cried fair—there was nae getting forward to it."

Moreover, he was always civil; he was always obliging. He had a smile and a pleasant and merry word for every one. Buy or not buy, his courtesy never failed him. In short, he would do anything to oblige his customers, save to give them credit; and that, as he said, was not because he had any doubt of their honesty, or that he was unwilling to serve them, but because he had laid it down as a rule never to trust a single penny, which rule he could not break. He was also possessed of a goodly person; was some five feet ten inches in height; he had fair hair, a ruddy, cheerful countenance, intelligent blue eyes; and his years but little exceeded thirty.

At this period of Reuben's history, there lived in the town of Moffat one Miss Priscilla Spottiswoode. Now, Priscilla was a portly, and withal a comely, personage, and though rather stout, she was tall in proportion to her stoutness. Nothing could surpass the smoothness of the clear red and white upon her goodly countenance. There was by no means too much red, and constitutional good-nature shed a sort of perpetual smile over her features, like a sunbeam irradiating a tranquil lake. In short, it was a reproach to every bachelor in the town and parish of Moffat, to have permitted forty-and-four summers to roll over the head of Priscilla, without one amongst them having the manliness to step forward and offer his hand to rescue her from a state of single solitariness. She had been for more than twenty years the maid, or rather I might say the nurse, of an old and rich lady, who at her death bequeathed to her five hundred pounds.

Reuben first saw Priscilla about three months after she had received the legacy. "Five hundred pounds," thought he, "would set a man on his feet." He also gazed on her kind, comely, smiling countenance, and he said within himself that "the men of Moffat were blind." And eventually he concluded, communing with himself, that the fair Priscilla was a speculation worthy the thinking of. She wished to purchase a few yards of lace for cap-borders, and such-like purposes; and as Reuben sold them to her, he said to her a hundred pleasant things, and he let drop some well-timed and well-turned compliments, and she blushed as his eulogy on the lace aptly ended in praise of her own fair features. Yet this was not all; for he not only sold to her fifty per cent. cheaper than he would have parted with his goods to any other purchaser, but he politely—by what appeared a wilful sort of accident—contrived to give her a full yard into her bargain. Priscilla looked upon Reuben with more than complacency; she acknowledged (that is, to herself) that he was the best-looking, polite, and most sensible young man she had ever seen. She resolved that in future she would deal with no one else; and, indeed, she had got such an excellent bargain of the lace, that she had come to the determination of again visiting his stock, and making a purchase of other articles. And, added she, to a particular friend, "It does a body good to buy from him, for he is always so pleasant."

But Reuben saved her the trouble; for early the next day he called at her house, with a silk dress under his arm. He said—

"It was the last piece of the kind he had—indeed it was a perfect beauty, equal to real India, and would become her exceedingly—and not to think about the price, for that was no object."

"What, then, am I to think about?" thought Priscilla; and she admired the silk much, but, peradventure, if the truth were told, she admired its owner more.

Reuben spent more than two hours beneath the roof of the too-long-neglected spinster. Often in those two hours she blushed, his tongue faltered, and when he rose to depart, he had neither the silk beneath his arm, nor the cash for it in his pocket; but he shook her hand long and fervently, and he would have saluted her fair cheek—but true love, like true genius, people say, is always modest. Priscilla, on being left alone, felt her heart in a very unusual tumult; and now she examined her face in a mirror, and again admired the silk which he had presented to her. She had always heard him spoken of as a steady, thriving, and deserving young man; and it became a settled point in her mind, that, if he directly popped the important question, she would be as candid with him, and at once answer, "Yes."

Reuben was frequently seen in Moffat after this, even when he brought no goods for sale; and within six months after her purchase of the lace, the sacred knot, which no man may unloose, was tied between them; and at the age of forty-and-four years and four months, but before time had "wrote a wrinkle" on her fair brow, Miss Priscilla Spottiswoode blushed into Mrs Purves.

While following his avocation as a chapman, Reuben had accumulated somewhat more than two hundred pounds, which, with the five hundred that his wife brought him, raised his capital to more than seven hundred. But he was not a man to look only at the needle point of things, or whose soul would be lost in a nut-shell. Onward! onward! was the ruling principle of Reuben—he had been fortunate in all his speculations, and he trusted to be fortunate still. Never, during all his wanderings, had he lost sight of the important discoveries of Arkwright, and of the improvements which were every day being made upon them; and, while he was convinced that they would become a source of inexhaustible wealth to the nation, he still cherished the hope and the belief that they would enrich himself. He said also—and Mrs Purves agreed with him—that travelling the country was a most uncomfortable life for a married man. He therefore sold his horse and his covered cart, disposed of his stock at prime cost, and, with his wife and capital, removed to Manchester.

He took a room and a cellar at the top of Dean Street, and near to the foot of Market Street,

The upper room served them for bedchamber, parlour, kitchen, and all, while the cellar he converted into a wareroom. Perhaps, having more than seven hundred pounds to begin the world with, some may think that he might have taken more commodious premises; but rents were becoming high in Manchester—many a great merchant has begun business in a cellar—and Reuben, quoting the words of poor Richard, said:—

And he further said, "I am but serving my time yet; we must creep before we walk."

Never was any man who prospered in the affairs of this world more diligent in business than Reuben Purves, and in Priscilla he found an admirable helpmate. She soon learned the name, the price, and the quality of every description of goods; and when he was necessarily absent, she could attend to the orders of customers as promptly as himself. The reader unacquainted with the Manchester mode of business, is not to suppose that Reuben, although his stock was wedged up in a cellar, was a retail draper or haberdasher. Its magnitude considered, there are fewer such in Manchester than in any other town in the kingdom; but Reuben commenced as a wholesale merchant—one who supplies the country dealers. He always went to the markets to purchase with the money in his hand, as Joseph the patriarch's brethren came to him to buy corn—and pity it is that the good old custom has too much fallen into disuse. He made his purchases chiefly from the small manufacturers, to whom ready money was an object of importance, and consequently bought his goods to much advantage to himself. During his extensive perambulations on the Borders, also, he had become generally acquainted with the drapers in all the towns upon his circuit; and at the seasons when they generally visit Manchester, he might have been seen rapidly passing along what is now called Piccadilly, and passing the coach from the north, just as it drew up to the inn; and if one whose face he knew stepped off it or out of it, Reuben turned suddenly round as if by accident, took the north-country purchaser by the hand, and invited him home to "eat beef" with him, or to take supper, as the case might be. He was generally successful; for to resist his solicitations was a matter of difficulty, and after partaking of a frugal meal and a single glass, the stranger was invited to examine the stock in the wareroom, and seldom failed of becoming the purchaser of a part. By such means, and perseverance, his business in a few years increased exceedingly. He was of opinion that there is hardly anything too difficult for resolute perseverance to accomplish or overcome, at least he always found it so; and I confess I am very much of his mind.

Within three years he had taken extensive warerooms. He had a clerk, a salesman, four warehousemen, a traveller, and a porter. He had also taken his father from the loom. Reuben had seized fortune at the flood, and he floated down with the stream. He said he never undertook a speculation, but he was convinced in his own mind it would be successful. He also said, that fortune-making was like courtship; it was never venture never win—only to know what you were venturing upon.

I should have mentioned, that, previous to this, Priscilla had made Reuben the happy father of twin daughters, and the one they named Rachel, the other Elizabeth. The mother gloried in her children, and her husband looked on them with delight. He was a fortunate man and a happy one; and his cup of felicity, if it did not run over, was well filled.

In a short time, Reuben not only supplied with goods to a great extent the merchants on the Borders, but throughout the three kingdoms; and he also exported extensively to other countries, and even to some where the importation of British goods was prohibited.

"A fig for their tariffs," he was wont to say, snapping his fingers; "the profit will cover the risk. The principle of trade is like the principle of steam—there is no restraining it. Neither kings, emperors, congresses, nor laws, are a match for it. They canna cage it up like a bird. They might as well say to the waves of the sea, 'hitherto shalt thou come and no farther,' as to the spirit of trade—'stop!'"

In these speculations however, Reuben frequently experienced the common fate of the smuggler; and the goods which he sent into countries where they were prohibited were seized. He was of too ardent a temperament to be merely the purchaser and vender of other men's manufactures, and eventually he erected a cotton-mill of his own, a few miles out of Manchester.

And here it will, perhaps, be more acceptable to the reader, that I detail the remainder of Reuben's narrative in his own words, as he related it to an old schoolfellow in his native town, after an absence from it of more than thirty years. It was delivered with his unchanged Scottish accent, and with many Scottish phrases and modes of expression, which a residence of more than three times ten years in England had not destroyed:—

I was now (said he, alluding to the erection of the mill), at what I had always considered as the very pinnacle of my ambition—the proprietor of a cotton-mill, and of one, too, that had cost me several thousands in completing it. I had no manner of doubt, but that it would turn out the master-speculation of my existence; for, bless ye, at that period, to have a mill was to have a mine. A spinning-jenny was worth its weight in rubies. There was Arkwright, made a fortune like a nobleman's in a jiffy; and Robert Peel, greatly to his credit from being a weaver lad, I may say, in less than no time, made a fortune that could have bought up half the gentry in the country. Indeed, wealth just poured in upon the millowners; and, I must confess, they werna bad times for the like o' me, that bought their calicoes, and got them dressed and printed to sell them out, as you may judge from my having been able to erect a mill of my own before I had been many years in business. But, I must confess, that the mill ran between me and my wits. All the time it was building, I was out and in frae the town to see how the workmen were getting on, wet or dry; and, I dare to say, that if I dreamed about it once during the twelve months it was in hands, I dreamed about it a thousand times. Many a time Priscilla has said to me—

"Reuben, I doubt ye are thinking owre meikle about that mill, and really it's no richt—it is sinfu. I fear it is aneugh to mak the concern no prosper."

"My dear," I used to say, "do ye consider what an immense speculation it is?—it is like death or life to me; and, if I dinna think o't, and look after the workmen to see how they are gettin on wi' it, who, do ye suppose, would? There is naething like a man lookin after his own concerns; and, where there is sae meikle at stake, it is impossible but to think o't."

But, sir, I looked after the progress of the mill, and my thoughts were taken up concerning it, to the neglect of my more immediate business. After commencing in the wholesale line, I found it impossible to abide by my original rule of—no credit; and, during my frequent absence from my warehouse, my salesman had admitted the names of men into my books of whom I knew nothing, but whom I afterwards learned were not to be trusted. Their payments were not forthcoming in the proper season; and, in looking after them, I put off insuring the mill at the time I intended. Delay, sir, is a curse to a person in business; it is as dangerous as the blandishments of a harlot to the young—and so I found it. On the very night that the machinery and everything was completed, I allowed the spinners and others that I had engaged, to have a supper and dance in it wi' their wives and sweethearts. I keepit them company for an hour mysel, and very merry they were. But, after charging them all to keep sober and harmonious one with another, and to see that they locked the doors behind them when they broke up, and to leave everything right, I wished them good-night; and they drank my health, and gave me three cheers as I left them. I got into my gig, and drove home to Manchester. But I dinna think I had been three hours in bed, when Priscilla gied me a dunch with her elbow, and, says she—

"Waken, Reuben! waken!—there's an unco knocking at the street-door."

"Hoot! it will be some drunk body passing," says I, and turned round on my side to compose myself to sleep again.

But the knock, knocking, continued louder and louder.

"That is nae drunk body," said Priscilla; "something has happened."

I started owre the bed, and I was hardly half-dressed, when I heard the street-door open, and the servant lass come fleein up the stair.

"What is it?" cried I.

"Oh, sir—the mill!—the mill!" said she.

Had she shot me, she could not have rendered me more stupefied.

"What about the mill?" cries I, all shaking with agitation.

"Oh, it's on fire—it's on fire!" replied the lassie.

I heard Priscilla scream, "On fire!" and she also sprung to the floor.

I cannot tell ye how I threw on my coat—I know that I banged out without a napkin about my neck, and, rushing down the stairs, I couldna even stop to get the horse from the stable and saddled, but away I flew upon my feet. If ever a man ran as if for his life, it was me that night. It was six miles to the mill, but I never slacked for a single moment. I didna even discover, though the stones were cutting my feet, that I had come away without my shoes. The mill absorbed both thought and sense—I was dead to everything else. But oh, upon reaching it, what a sight presented itself to my view! There was the great red flames roaring and raging up the height of its five storeys; and the very wheels of the machinery, seen through the windows, glowing as bright as when in the hands of the smith that formed them. The great suffocating clouds of smoke came rolling about me, and even blinding me. Hundreds of women ran about screaming, some carrying water, and some running in the way of others, and drunken men staggered to and fro, like lost spirits in the midst of their tortures. Oh, sir, it was an awful sight for any one to behold; but for me to witness it was terrible! For some minutes I was bereft of both speech and reason; and, had the spectators not held me back, I would have rushed into the middle of the flames. Crash after crash, the newly-erected walls and the floors fell in, and I was a helpless spectator of the destruction of my own property. In one night, yea, in one hour, more than half of the fortune that I had struggled for years to gather together, was swept, as by a whirlwind, from off the face of the earth!

I stood till I beheld the edifice that had been the pride of my heart a mass of smoking ruins, with, I may say, scarce one stone left upon another. All the manufacturers round about sympathised with me very sincerely, and one of them drove me back to Manchester in his drosky. When I entered my own house, I believe I appeared like a person on whom sentence of death has been passed, as he is removed from the bar, and led back to his prison.

"Weel, Reuben," asked Priscilla, in her own calm and gentle way, "is the damage great?"

"Oh, my dear," said I, "there is nothing left but a heap o' ashes! Nothing! nothing!—we are ruined!"

"No, no," replied she, as quietly as ever, "we arena ruined. The back is aye made fit for the burden. The Hand that sent the misfortune, as we think it, upon us, will enable us to bear up against it. Now, just ye compose yersel, and dinna be angry at what I am gaun to say, but we are just as rich now as we were three years ago; and, I am sure, Reuben, we were quite as happy then as we are now. Ye have still a very excellent business, and a fortune far beyond onything that you and I could ever expect to possess when we cam thegither. You have your health and I have mine; and our twa bits o' bairnies are growing up to be a comfort to us baith. They will ne'er feel the loss o' the cotton-mill, and you and I ne'er kenned the guid o't. Wherefore, then, should ye grieve? Ye ought rather to be thankfu that it is nane o' your family that is taen frae ye. And, I have nae doubt that, although we self-wise and shortsighted mortals canna see it, this visitation will be for the guid o' us a'. It is better that ye should lose the mill than forget your Maker; and, forgie me for saying it, but I feared it was setting your heart upon the things o' this world to a degree which did not become the faither o' a Christian family. Therefore, let me entreat you to say, 'His will be done,' and to believe that this has fallen upon you for the best. Our loss is not so great but that, if times keep good, we may soon o'ercome it."

I had often experienced the value of my wife, and admired her meek, patient spirit and affectionate heart; but I never, until this trial came upon me, knew her real worth. She enabled me to begin the world; ay, sir, and this far she had guided me through it. She was better than twelve years older than me—but what of that? She looked as young like at forty as ever I saw another woman do at twenty; and now, when she has been my wife for thirty years, I hardly ken her aulder. A glaiket lassie, under such circumstances, might have wrung her hands, and upbraided me for allowing the supper and the dance; but Priscilla strove only to comfort me, to imbue my mind with fortitude, and to turn the accident to my eternal advantage. I had long loved and esteemed her, but I now reverenced her.

I sat and I listened to her, and looked in her face for the space of ten minutes, without speaking a word; and, at last, fairly overpowered wi' her gentleness and her tenderness, I rose and took her hand; and "Priscilla," says I, "for your sake, dear, I will think no more about the matter. The mill is destroyed; but, as you say, we may overcome the loss—and I shall try."

Though I have as keen feelings as onybody, I was not a person to sit down long, and croon and shake my head over misfortunes that couldna be helped. I might be driven back from an object, and defeated in accomplishing it; but it would be necessary to take my life before I could be made to relinquish my attempts, or to conquer me. Perseverance, and a restless, ambitious spirit of enterprise, spurred me on.

I endeavoured to extend my business more widely than ever; and, as I had sometimes had losses with houses on the Continent, I resolved to visit France, and Germany, and other places, myself, and see in what situation the land lay. I did so; and in Holland and Switzerland in particular I entered into what proved some very profitable speculations. Now, sir, it is my conviction, that where there is no speculation, there can be no luck. As well might a man with his hands in his pockets expect a guinea to drop into them. People who, perhaps, have been born with a silver spoon in their mouths, or had enough to purchase them a hot joint every day, thrust upon them by accident, will tell you, in speaking of any particular subject, "Oh, I will have nothing to do with it—it is only a speculation." Now, sir, but for some speculation that had been entered into before they were, the one would have neither had the silver spoon in his teeth, nor the other the hot joint. Without speculation, commerce could not exist. In the community where its spirit is not felt, they must be dull as horses in a ring; moving round and round as regularly and as monotonously as the wheels of a machine, to procure the every-day bread and cheese of existence. I have been a speculator all my life—I am a speculator still. Neither you nor I have time for me to enter into the particulars of thirty years' enterprises. It is true I have lost by some, but in more I have been successful, or until this day I would have been a hand-loom weaver in this my native town of Galashiels.

But, sir, within three years I had built another mill. I commenced manufacturer, and prospered; and, in a short time, I began the business of printer also. You understand me—it is a calico-printer I mean, not a book or newspaper printer; for if, in a town in Lancashire, you ask for a printer, nobody would think of showing you to a consumer of ink and paper.

Our two daughters had been educated at a boarding-school in Yorkshire; but they were now come home, and were, I may say, women grown, for they were eighteen; and, although I say it, that, perhaps, ought not to say it, remarkably fine-looking young women they were. People said that Elizabeth was a perfect picture; though, so far as I could judge, Rachel was the bonniest of the two; but they were remarkably like each other. There, however, was this difference between them—Rachel was of a sedate and serious disposition, and very plain in her dress, even plainer, sometimes, than I wished to see her; but she was always so neat, that she set whatever she put on. Elizabeth, on the other hand, though a kind-hearted lassie, was more thoughtless, and more given to the vanities of this world. When her sister was at her books, she was at her looking-glass. She was as fond of dress as Rachel was the reverse. I have often said to her—

"O Bessy! Bessy!—dress will turn your head some day or other. Ye will frighten ony man from having ye."

"Don't be afraid of that, father," she replied, laughing, for there was no putting her out of temper—she was like her mother in that—"there is no danger, and it is time enough yet."

She was also excessively fond of amusements—such as balls, concerts, plays, and parties; much fonder, indeed, than it was agreeable for me or her mother to observe. And we frequently expostulated with her; for, though we did not wish to debar her entirely from such amusements, yet there is a medium to be observed in all things, and we did not like to see her going beyond that medium.

Well, sir, she had been at a party one night in Mosley Street, and a young gentleman, who, I afterwards understood, had shown her a great deal of attention throughout the evening, saw her home. There was no harm in this; but he called again the next day, and, as I shortly after learned, every day. So, when I heard this, I thought it was right and proper that I should see him, and learn who and what he was. I accordingly stopped at home a forenoon for the express purpose, but not much, as I easily observed, to the satisfaction of Elizabeth. About eleven o'clock the gentleman came as usual. I easily saw that he was rather taken aback on perceiving me; but he recovered his self-possession as quick as the eyelids can twinkle, and perfectly confused me with his superabundance of bows and scrapes. I did not like his appearance. He was dressed like a perfect fop. He wore silk stockings, and his feet were wedged into bits of French-soled pumps, which, to my eye, made it perfectly painful to look on them. He had on a light green, very fine, and very fashionable coat and trousers, with a pure white waistcoat, and a riband about his neck. He also carried a cane with an image on the head o't; and he had a great bunch of black curls on each side of his head, which, I verily believe, were pomatumed, brushed, and frizzled.

"I must put an end to your visits, billy," thinks I, before ever he opened his lips.

He was what some ladies would call "a most agreeable young man." In fact, I heard one (not my daughter) pronounce him to be "a prodigious fine gentleman!" "Prodigious!" thought I, when I heard it. He had a great flow of speech and spirits, and could run over all the scandal of the town with a flippancy that disgusted me, but delighted many. He could also talk like a critic about dancers, singers, actors, and race-horses, and discuss the fashions like a milliner. All this I ascertained during the half-hour I was in his company. He also gabbled French and Italian, and played upon a thing like a sort of bass-fiddle without a bow, that they call a guitar. I at once set him down in my own mind for a mere fortune-hunter. He was a shallow puppy; he carried all on the outside of his head, and nothing within it. I found he knew no more about business than the man in the moon. But he pretended to be the son of an Honourable, and carried cards with the words, "Charles Austin, Esq.," engraved upon them. He was above belonging to any profession—he was a gentleman at large.

Disgusted as I was with him, I had not the face to rise and say to him, "Sir, I will thank you to go out of my house, and not to enter it again." And from the manner in which I had been brought up, I had not the manner of what is called—bowing a person to the door. But what vexed me most, while he remained, was to observe that even Priscilla sometimes laughed at the silly things he said, which, as I afterwards told her, was just encouraging him. When he left the house, I turned to Elizabeth, and—

"Now, Betty, hinny," says I, "tak my advice, as yer faither and yer freend, and ne'er speak to that young man again, nor alloo him to keep ye company; for, as sure as my name is Reuben, there is something essentially bad aboot him."

She hung her head, and there was a tear in her ee, and I think for the first time ever I had observed it in my days, she looked rather sulky; but I could get no satisfaction from her.

I think it was between two and three months after this—during which time I had seen and heard no more of the fashionable Charles Austin—that, having business to transact in Liverpool, I took Priscilla down with me in the gig, for the benefit of her health. It was in the summer season, and eleven o'clock had just chimed from the steeple of the collegiate church before we returned at night. But never, never shall I forget our miserable home-coming. There was our poor Rachel, sitting by herself, wringing her hands, and the tears running down her bonny cheeks.

"Rachel! dear Rachel! what is the matter, love?" cried her mother and myself at the same instant.

"O Elizabeth!—Elizabeth is away!" sobbed my poor bairn.

Priscilla was stupified, and she repeated the word "Away!" but the truth broke over me in a moment; and I sank back into a chair, as helpless, for all the world, as a new-born infant.

Rachel tried to compose herself the best way she could; and she informed us that her sister had left the house about ten o'clock in the forenoon, and that she had not since returned. She also mentioned that Elizabeth had been seen in the company of Charles Austin shortly after leaving the house; and that, when she did not return in the course of the day, suspecting that they had fled to Gretna, she had sent my principal clerk, Thomas Galloway, after them, in a chaise-and-four, to bring back Elizabeth.

Distressed as I was, I admired the presence of mind which Rachel had exhibited. She had done all that I could have done myself, had I been at home; and a fitter person than Thomas Galloway could not have been sent. His zeal, honesty, and industry, had long rendered him a favourite with me; and, though he was but a young man, I treated him more as an equal than a clerk. Nor had I any doubt but in the mission he was sent upon, he would show as much courage, if such an article were required, as he had at all times shown zeal and prudence in my service.

But Thomas returned. He had heard nothing of them on the road, and they had not been at Gretna. These tidings threw us all into deeper affliction; and a week passed, and we could hear nothing of my daughter, and our misery increased. But, on the ninth day after her disappearance, a letter arrived from her. It was dated Coldstream. My fears read its contents before it was opened. In it she poured forth a rhapsody in praise of her "dear Charles," as she termed him, and said, if we knew his virtues as well as she knew them, we would love him as she did. She begged forgiveness for the step she had taken, and sought permission to return with her husband, and receive mine and her mother's blessing. She concluded the letter by signing herself our "affectionate and dutiful daughter, Elizabeth Austin."

"Dutiful!—the ungrateful, the silly gipsy!" cried I, flinging down the letter, and trampling it under my feet, in pure madness; "she shall never inherit a penny of mine—she shall never enter my door. She is ruined—she has married worthlessness and misery!"

It was some time before Priscilla said anything; but I saw she was very greatly affected. At last, the mother's love for her offspring got the better of every other consideration in her heart, and she endeavoured to soothe me, and to prevail on me to forgive Elizabeth, and to see her again.

I had intended that the marriage portion of my daughters, on the very day they became wives, should be ten thousand each, providing that I approved of the match—though I by no manner of means wished or intended to direct their choice, or control their affections, further than it was my duty as a parent to see that they did not throw themselves away. But I was perfectly persuaded that, to give ten thousand, or the half of it, or any sum, to such a person as Elizabeth had got, would be no better than to fling it into the fire.

However, the entreaties and persuasion of Priscilla prevailed. I consented that Elizabeth should return, and gave her husband five thousand pounds as her dowery, with a promise of more, if they should conduct themselves to my satisfaction. He had not received the money many days when they set out for London.

Some time previous to this, I thought I had observed a sort of particular kindness between my daughter Rachel and my clerk, Thomas Galloway, of whom I have already spoken, and to whose worth I have borne testimony. He was a native of Newton-Stewart, and a young man of humble parentage, like myself; but I liked him nothing the worse upon that account; for, in my opinion, there is no real respectability, save that only which a man purchases through his own merits. Now, I once or twice, when I went out to enjoy the air in the summer nights, after business hours, perceived Rachel and Thomas oxtering together along the green lanes, behind a place in the suburbs that is called Strangeways. Such was the high opinion that I had of him, that I was determined, if there was anything between them, to offer no obstacle in the world to their marriage. I considered that a character, a disposition, and a knowledge of business, such as Thomas had, were far before riches. But I knew that, in certain respects, both of the two were such bashful creatures, that neither of them would dare to mention the matter to me. So, after their familiarity became every day more apparent, though they tried to hide it, and when, at different times, I had tried humorously to sound both of them in vain, I mentioned the subject to Priscilla. I found that she had perceived it long before me; for women have quick eyes in such matters. But she said that Rachel was such a strange reserved lassie, that, though her own bairn, she could not speak to her with a mother's freedom; though, now that she had heard my mind concerning the match, she would ask Rachel how matters stood between her and Thomas Galloway that very day.

She therefore went into the room where Rachel was sitting sewing, and, after talking about various matters, by way of not just breaking the matter at once, she said—

"Rachel, dear, are ye aware if your faither has ever made ony sort o' recompense to Thomas Galloway for his trouble in gaun a' the way to Gretna after Elizabeth, when the foolish lassie ran away wi' young Mr Austin?"

"I do not think it," replied Rachel.

"Then," said her mother, "he has not done what he ought to have done. Indeed, I think he would only be doing his duty if he were to do something for Thomas; for he is a fine, genteel, deserving lad. Do ye not think so, dear?"

This was a home-thrust which our bit lassie was not prepared for, and it brought the vermilion to her cheeks. But, after a moment's hesitation, she said, though not without a manifest degree of confusion—

"Yes, I think him a very deserving lad."

But her mother had made the first step, and she was not to be put back, and therefore she continued—

"He is a lad that will rise in the world yet, and he weel deserves it; for a kinder, or more prudent, and obliging young man, I never saw—and I am glad, hinny, that ye hae the good sense to think weel o' him."

"Mother!" said Rachel, and her confusion greatly increased.

"Come, love," continued Priscilla, "ye needna blush or conceal onything frae yer mother. She's a bad mother, indeed, that a daughter daurna trust wi' a virtuous secret; and I hope ye ne'er saw onything in me, Rachel, that need debar ye frae making yer feelings known to me. Dinna suppose, love, that I am sae shortsighted but that I hae observed the tender affection that has been long springing up between ye; and I have not only observed it, but I have dune sae wi' satisfaction and pleasure; for I know not a young man that I could have more credit by in calling him son-in-law. So look up, dear, and tell me at once, am I not right—would ye not prefer Thomas to any man ye have seen for your husband?" And she kindly took our daughter by the hand.

"Yes, mother!" faltered my sweet, blushing blossom, and she sank her head on her mother's breast.

"That is right, hinny," said her mother; "but ye micht hae tauld me before, and it would hae saved ye baith mony a weary hour o' uneasiness, I hae nae doobt. But ye shall find nae obstacles in yer way; for it is a match that will gie baith yer faither and me great satisfaction. He has observed the attentions o' Thomas to ye as weel as mysel, and spoke to me concerning it this very hour. Indeed, I may just tell ye, that he desired me to mention the subject to ye; and if I found that yer feelings were as we supposed, that the marriage should immediately take place. And he will also take Thomas into partnership."

Rachel, poor thing, grat with joy when her mother told her what I had said; and when Thomas heard of it, he could have flung himself at my feet. The upshot was, that, in a few weeks, they were married, and I took Thomas into partnership with me, which lifted a great burden off my shoulders—and more particularly as I had recently entered into a canal speculation, and become one of the principal shareholders and directors of the company.

For twelve months from the time that Elizabeth went to London, we had but two letters from her; and one of them was abusing her sister for what she termed her "grovelling spirit," in marrying her father's clerk, and bringing disgrace upon the family. When I saw the letter, my answer back to her was—

"Elizabeth, my woman, do not forget yourself. Your sister has married a deserving lad; and your mother married a packman."

As to her husband, I never, in my born days, had a scribble from his pen. But I heard, from people that had business in London, that they were flinging away the money I had given them with both hands; and that Elizabeth, so far from being a check upon her husband's extravagance, thoughtlessly whirled round with him in the vortex of fashionable dissipation.

The third letter we received from her was written about fourteen months after her marriage. It was in a strain of the wildest agony. In one line, she implored to have her full dowery bestowed upon her, and in the next she demanded it—and again she entreated me to release her "dear Charles," who, as she termed it, had been imprisoned for the paltry sum of five hundred pounds. I saw plainly that to do anything for them would be money thrown away, and only encouraging them in their ridiculous, not to say wicked, course of fashion and folly. Therefore, in a way, I had made up my mind to let them feel what distress was, so that they might come to some kind of an understanding of the value and the use of money, which it was as clear as the sun at noonday that neither the one nor the other of them had. But Priscilla was dreadfully distressed; I never had seen anything put her so much about. We held a sort of family parliament, consisting of my wife and myself, Rachel and her husband, to consider what was best to be done. Rachel, poor thing, pled hard for her sister, which I was pleased to see, though I said nothing; and Thomas suggested that I should release Charles Austin from prison, and give Elizabeth two hundred pounds for their immediate wants, and that I would set up her husband in whatever line of business he might prefer; but that I neither could nor should keep them in idleness and extravagance. This advice was agreed to. I released my hopeful son-in-law from prison, and sent two hundred pounds to my daughter, with a long letter of admonition, entreaty, and advice.

We heard no more of them for six months; and I wrote to Elizabeth again, and her mother wrote, and so did Rachel; but we all wrote in vain—our letters were never noticed. But there was one morning that my son, Thomas Galloway, came into the parlour where I was sitting, with an open letter in his hand, and his face was like the face of death. A trembling seized me all over. I was glad that there was no person beside me, for I saw that something had happened.

"Thomas!" cried I, as I saw the letter shake in his hand, "is my bairn dead?"

"No," said he, "but——" And he stood still, and handed me the letter.

I just glanced my eyes on it, and it fell out of my hand. It showed us that a forgery had been committed upon our house to the extent of ten thousand pounds!—and, oh horrible!—by my own worthless son-in-law, Charles Austin! It was a dreadful trial—I knew not how to act. If I permitted the villain to escape unpunished, I was doing an injustice to society; and, oh, on the other hand, how was it possible that I could send to the gallows the husband of my own bairn! Thomas posted off instantly to London, to see what could be done; and I broke the bitter tidings in the best manner I could to Rachel and her mother. Their distress was even greater than mine. Thomas returned in a few days, and brought us word that the villain had escaped abroad somewhere; but where he could not learn; and it was supposed he had taken his wife and child with him—for they had an infant about eight months old.

It was not the loss of the money, nor even the manner in which it had been lost, that chiefly affected me, but the loss, the ruin, the disgrace of my bairn. Indeed, it made such an impression upon me, that I never was the same man afterwards in any business transaction. Therefore, about twelve months after this melancholy event, I purchased a property in Dumfries-shire, and Priscilla and myself went to reside upon it. I intrusted the entire business to the prudence and experience of Thomas Galloway, and became merely a sleeping partner in the firm.

We had been better than a year in our house in Dumfries-shire—it was about the Christmas time, and Thomas and Rachel were down seeing us, with their little son, who was just beginning to run about and climb upon our knees. It was a remarkably cold and gousty night, and a poor wandering woman came to our door, with a bairn at her breast, and another on her back, and begging a morsel, and a shelter for herself and infants. We were all sitting round the fire, when one of the servants came up and told us concerning her, asking if they might give her a seat by the fire. I never liked to harbour beggars, and, says I—

"No: there is a shilling for her; gie her some broken meat, and tell her to go down to the village—it is only two miles."

"And give her this from me," said Rachel; and Priscilla had her hand in her pocket, when the lass added—

"Poor creature! I dinna believe she is able to crawl as far as the village, for baith her and her infants seem starving to death."

"What like is she?" asked Rachel.

"A bonny young creature, ma'am," answered our servant, "but sair, sair dejected."

"She had better be brought in, father," said my daughter.

"Take her into the kitchen, and let her warm herself and her bairns by the fire," said Priscilla. And the lass went away down-stairs and brought her in.

Well, in the course of half-an-hour, Rachel went down to the kitchen, to see if there was anything that she could do for the poor woman and her infants—anything that they stood in need of, like—such as a gown, a frock, a pair of shoes, or the like of those things. But the sound of her light footsteps was hardly off the stairs, when we heard a scream, and the exclamations—

"Sister! sister!"

I started to my feet—we all started to our feet; and Priscilla, and Thomas, and myself looked for a moment at each other, in an agony of wonder. We hurried down to the kitchen, and there was Rachel weeping on the bosom of the poor wandering woman—my lost, my ruined Elizabeth! She sobbed as though her heart would burst, and would have fallen down and embraced our knees; but her mother pressed her to her bosom, and cried, "My bairn! my bairn!"

I took her hand, and, bursting into tears, could only sob, "My poor Betsy!"—and I felt her heart throb, throbbing, as she pressed my hand to her breast.

Rachel again flung her arms around her neck, and took her and her little ones from the kitchen, to clothe them with her own apparel, and that of her child. Poor Priscilla could do nothing but weep; and, when Rachel had clothed her, and cast aside the rags that covered her, she brought her into the parlour, where we sat waiting for them; and her mother and myself again rose and kissed her cheek, and bade her welcome. Throughout the evening, she sat sobbing and weeping, with her face towards the ground, and could not be comforted. We were not in a state of feeling to ask her questions, nor she to answer them.

But, in a few days, she voluntarily unbosomed her griefs to her sister, who communicated to me her tale of wo. It was evident that she knew nothing of the crime which her husband had committed, and we agreed that she should never know, as it would only add a heavier load to her broken spirit. All she knew was, that he had hastened with her to America, where he had changed his name, in consequence, as he said, of a property that had fallen to him in that country. He had long treated her with coolness and neglect, and prohibited her from writing to us, using threats that made her tremble for her life, if she attempted to do so. But, on arriving in America, his indifference gave place to open brutality; and in a few months he basely deserted her and her infants in a strange land. She sold the few trinkets and articles of apparel he had left her; and, with her children in her arms, fainting and broken-hearted, slowly performed a journey of several hundred miles, to the nearest seaport, where, after waiting for some months, doling out the little money she had left to procure food for her children, she at length found a vessel about to sail for Greenock, and her passage-money deprived her of her last coin. My poor bairn had been landed in Scotland without a penny in her pocket, and was begging her way to Manchester, to throw herself at our feet, when Providence directed her to our door.

Never do I think of the sufferings which my bairn must at this period have endured, but my heart melts within me, and I think what must have been the tortures of her proud spirit before she could seek assistance from the cold and measured hand of charity. Oh, what a struggle there must have been in her gentle bosom, between the agonies of hunger, the feelings of the mother, and the shame that burned upon her face, and deprived her of utterance!—and while her bits of bairnies clung to her neck, or pulled at her tattered gown, and cried, "Bread, mother—give us bread!"—while her own heart was fainting within her—how dreadful must have been the sufferings that my poor Betsy endured! The idea that she was perishing, and begging like a wretched outcast from door to door, while we were faring sumptuously every day, brings the tears to my eyes even to this hour; and often has my heart overflowed in gratitude to the Power that in mercy directed her steps to her father's house.

From that day, she and her children have never left my roof; and she shall still share equally with Rachel. About six months ago, I received a double letter from America. The outer one was from a clergyman, and that which was enclosed bore the signature of Charles Austin. It was his confession on his death-bed, begging my forgiveness, and the forgiveness of his wife—my poor injured Elizabeth—for the wrongs and the cruelties he had committed against her; and declaring that she was ignorant and innocent of the crime he had committed against me. He also beseeched me to provide for his children, for their mother's sake, if they yet lived. It was the letter of a dying penitent. Four thousand of the sum with which he had absconded he had not squandered, and it he had directed to be restored to me. The letter from the clergyman announced the death and burial of the unhappy young man, and that he had been appointed to carry his dying requests into effect.

I communicated the tidings of his death and his repentance of his conduct towards her; and she received them meekly, but wept as the remembrance of young affection touched her heart.

Such, sir, is an account of my speculations, and the losses and crosses with which they have been attended. But success and happiness have predominated; and I must say that I am happier now than ever. And at the season when Rachel and Thomas come down to see us, with the bairns, and they run romping about with Elizabeth's, who are two interesting creatures, and three or four will be crying at once, "Granny this, and granny that," I believe there is not a happier auld woman in Britain than my Priscilla, who first enabled me to speculate to some purpose.