The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 282, November 10, 1827

Robin now turned the light foot of his country towards the wilds, through which, by Mr. Ireby's report, Morrison was advancing. His mind was wholly engrossed by the sense of injury the treasured ideas of self-importance and self-opinion—of ideal birth and quality, had become more precious to him, (like the hoard to the miser,) because he could only enjoy them in secret. But insulted, abused, and beaten, he was no longer worthy, in his own opinion, of the name he bore, or the lineage which he belonged to—nothing was left to him—but revenge.

When Robin Oig left the door of the ale-house, seven or eight English miles at least lay betwixt him and Morrison, whose advance was limited by the sluggish pace of his cattle. And now the distant lowing of Morrison's cattle is heard; and now he meets them—passes them, and stops their conductor.

"May good betide us," said the South-lander—"Is this you, Robin M'Combich, or your wraith?"

"It is Robin Oig M'Combich," answered the Highlander, "and it is not.—But never mind that, give me pack my dirk, Hugh Morrison, or there will be words petween us."

"There it is for you then, since less wunna serve."

"Cot speed you, Hughie, and send you good marcats. Ye winna meet with Robin Oig again either at tryste or fair."

So saying, he shook hastily the hand of his acquaintance, and set out in the direction from which he had advanced.

Long ere the morning dawned, the catastrophe of our tale had taken place. It was two hours after the affray when Robin Oig returned to Heskett's inn. There was Harry Wakefield, who amidst a grinning group of smockfrocks, hob-nailed shoes, and jolly English physiognomies, was trolling forth an old ditty, when he was interrupted by a high and stern voice, saying "Harry Waakfelt—if you be a man, stand up!"

"Harry Waakfelt," repeated the same ominous summons, "stand up, if you be a man!"

"I will stand up with all my heart, Robin, my boy, but it shall be to shake hands with you, and drink down all unkindness.

"'Tis not thy fault, man, that, not having the luck to be an Englishman, thou canst not fight more than a school-girl."

"I can fight," answered Robin Oig, sternly, but calmly, "and you shall know it. You, Harry Waakfelt, showed me to-day how the Saxon churls fight—I show you now how the Highland Dunniewassal fights."

He then plunged the dagger, which he suddenly displayed, into the broad breast of the English yeoman, with such fatal certainty and force, that the hilt made a hollow sound against the breast bone, and the double-edged point split the very heart of his victim. Harry Wakefield fell, and expired with a single groan.

Robin next offered the bloody poniard to the bailiff's throat.

"It were very just to lay you beside him," he said, "but the blood of a base pick-thank shall never mix on my father's dirk, with that of a brave man."

As he spoke, he threw the fatal weapon into the blazing turf-fire.

"There," he said, "take me who likes—and let fire cleanse blood if it can."

The pause still continuing, Robin Oig asked for a peace-officer, and a constable having stepped out, he surrendered himself.

"A bloody night's work you have made of it," said the constable.

"Your own fault," said the Highlander. "Had you kept his hands off me twa hours since, he would have been now as well and merry as he was twa minutes since."

"It must be sorely answered," said the peace-officer.

"Never you mind that—death pays all debts; it will pay that too."

The constable, with assistance, procured horses to guard the prisoner to Carlisle, to abide his doom at the next assizes. While the escort was preparing, the prisoner, before he was carried from the fatal apartment, desired to look at the dead body, which had been deposited upon the large table, (at the head of which Harry Wakefield had just presided) until the surgeons should examine the wound. The face of the corpse was decently covered with a napkin. Robin Oig removed the cloth, and gazed on the lifeless visage. While those present expected that the wound, which had so lately flooded the apartment with gore, would send forth fresh streams at the touch of the homicide, Robin Oig replaced the covering, with the brief exclamation, "He was a pretty man!"

My story is nearly ended. The unfortunate Highlander stood his trial at Carlisle. I was myself present. The facts of the case were proved in the manner I have related them; and whatever might be at first the prejudice of the audience against a crime so un-English as that of assassination from revenge, yet when the national prejudices of the prisoner had been explained, which made him consider himself as stained with indelible dishonour, the generosity of the English audience was inclined to regard his crime as the aberration of a false idea of honour, rather than as flowing from a heart naturally savage, or habitually vicious. I shall never forget the charge of the venerable judge to the jury.

"We have had," he said, "in the previous part of our duty, (alluding to some former trials,) to discuss crimes which infer disgust and abhorrence, while they call down the well-merited vengeance of the law. It is now our still more melancholy duty to apply its salutary, though severe enactments to a case of a very singular character, in which the crime (for a crime it is, and a deep one) arose less out of the malevolence of the heart, than the error of the understanding—less from any idea of committing wrong, than from an unhappily perverted notion of that which is right. Here we have two men, highly esteemed, it has been stated, in their rank of life, and attached, it seems, to each other as friends, one of whose lives has been already sacrificed to a punctilio, and the other is about to prove the vengeance of the offended laws; and yet both may claim our commiseration at least, as men acting in ignorance of each other's national prejudices, and unhappily misguided rather than voluntarily erring from the path of right conduct.

In the original cause of the misunderstanding, we must in justice give the right to the prisoner at the bar. He had acquired possession of the enclosure, by a legal contract with the proprietor, and yet, when accosted with galling reproaches he offered to yield up half his acquisition, and his amicable proposal was rejected with scorn. Then follows the scene at Mr. Heskett the publican's, and you will observe how the stranger was treated by the deceased, and I am sorry to observe, by those around, who seem to have urged him in a manner which was aggravating in the highest degree.

"Gentlemen of the jury, it was with some impatience that I heard my learned brother, who opened the case for the crown, give an unfavourable turn to the prisoner's conduct on this occasion. He said the prisoner was afraid to encounter his antagonist in fair fight, or to submit to the laws of the ring; and that therefore, like a cowardly Italian, he had recourse to his fatal stiletto, to murder the man whom he dared not meet in manly encounter. I observed the prisoner shrink from this part of the accusation with the abhorrence natural to a brave man; and as I would wish to make my words impressive, when I point his real crime, I must secure his opinion of my impartiality, by rebutting every thing that seems to me a false accusation. There can be no doubt that the prisoner is a man of resolution—too much resolution; I wish to heaven that he had less, or rather that he had had a better education to regulate it.

"But, gentlemen of the jury, the pinch of the case lies in the interval of two hours betwixt the injury and the fatal retaliation. In the heat of affray and chaude melée, law, compassionating the infirmities of humanity, makes allowance for the passions which rule such a stormy moment—But the time necessary to walk twelve miles, however speedily performed, was an interval sufficient for the prisoner to have recollected himself; and the violence and deliberate determination with which he carried his purpose into effect, could neither be induced by anger, nor fear. It was the purpose and the act of pre-determined revenge, for which law neither can, will, nor ought to have sympathy.

The law says to the subjects, with a voice only inferior to that of the Deity, 'Vengeance is mine.' The instant that there is time for passion to cool, and reason to interpose, an injured party must become aware, that the law assumes the exclusive cognizance of the right and wrong betwixt the parties, and opposes her inviolable buckler to every attempt of the private party to right himself. I repeat, that this unhappy man ought personally to be the object rather of our pity than our abhorrence, for he failed in his ignorance, and from mistaken notions of honour. But his crime is not the less that of murder, gentlemen, and, in your high and important office, it is your duty so to find. Englishmen have their angry passions as well as Scots; and should this man's action remain unpunished, you may unsheath, under various pretences, a thousand daggers betwixt the Land's-end and the Orkneys."

The venerable judge thus ended what, to judge by his emotion and tears, was really a painful task. The jury, accordingly brought in a verdict of guilty; and Robin Oig M'Combich, alias M'Gregor, was sentenced to death, and executed accordingly. He met his fate with firmness, and acknowledged the justice of his sentence. But he repelled indignantly the observations of those who accused him of attacking an unarmed man. "I give a life for the life I took," he said, "and what can I do more?"

A PERSIAN FABLE

A little particle of rain,That from a passing cloud descended,Was heard thus idly to complain:—"My brief existence now is ended.Outcast alike of earth and sky,Useless to live, unknown to die."It chanced to fall into the sea,And there an open shell received it;And, after years, how rich was he,Who from its prison-house relieved it:The drop of rain has formed a gem,To deck a monarch's diadem.

Amulet.

THE GATHERER

"I am but a Gatherer and disposer of other men's stuff."—Wotton.

NEW READING

A witty wight, on seeing the following line in our last,

Necessitas non habet legem,

supplied this new reading,

Necessity without a leg to stand upon.

O. P. RIOTS

"What is doing to-night?" asked Kemble, of one of the ballet-masters; "Oh pis (O P) toujours, Monsieur," was the reply.

A CURIOUS FACT

An absent man, whose heart can seldom resist the importunities of beggars, was, a few mornings since, followed by a hungry half-starved dog, when he inadvertently took from his pocket a penny, which he was just about to give to the four-footed wanderer, when he perceived his mistake. It should be mentioned that the above individual had, on nearly the precise spot, on the previous night, assisted one of his fellow creatures in the same manner as that in which he was about to relieve the quadruped. The EDITOR of the MIRROR will be happy to substantiate this fact to such as may be disposed to doubt its authenticity:—"if it be madness, there's method in it."

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Seventeen hundred individuals a year, for the last seven years, have been committed for poaching.—Report Prison Discip. Society.

Crime is a curse only to the period in which it is successful; but virtue, whether fortunate or otherwise, blesses not only its own age, but remotest posterity, and is as beneficial by its example, as by its immediate effects.

At the late Doncaster races, there were 30,000 persons well clothed, and apparently well fed and happy. 2000l. were taken at the grand stand for admission.

Mr. Kean is to receive, during the present season, fifty pounds for each night's performance—the yearly income of a curate!

Singing Non Nobis Domine after dinner is a very foolish custom. People in England pay 10,000l. a year for non nobis. Rather sing Dr. Kitchener's Universal Prayer and the English grace. The common people of every country understand only their native tongue; therefore if you do not understand them, you will not understand each other. All Italian music is detestable, and nothing like our genuine native song. Weber's "unconcatenated chords" ought not to be listened to, while we have such composers as Braham and Tom Cooke. The national songs of Great Britain have not sold so well as the Cook's Oracle. "People like what goes into the mouth better than what comes out of it."—Dr. Kitchener.

A museum, deanery, and a cattle-market are building at York. Various other improvements and repairs are also in progress in that city!

According to the Report of the Commissioners of Public Charities, the annual sum of 972,396l. has been bequeathed by pious donors to England only! This is surely the promised land of benevolence; but in Salop only, there are arrears now due to the poor for upwards of 42 years!

M. La Combe, in his Picture of London, advises those who do not wish to be robbed to carry a brace of blunderbusses, and to put the muzzle of one out of each window, so as to be seen by the robbers.

The silly habit of praising every thing at a man's table came in for a share of the late Dr. Kitchener's severity. He said, "Criticism, sir, is not a pastime; it is a verdict on oath: the man who does it is (morally) sworn to perform his duty. There is but one character on earth, sir," he would add, "that I detest; and that is the man who praises, indiscriminately, every dish that is set before him. Once I find a fellow do that at my table, and, if he were my brother, I never ask him to dinner again."

A daily literary journal has lately been started in Paris, and has, in less than three weeks, above 2,000 subscribers.

Reviewing, as a profession by which a certain class of men seek to instruct the public, and to support themselves creditably in the middle order, and to keep their children from falling, after the decease of enlightened parents, on the parish, is at the lowest possible ebb in this country; and many is the once well-fed critic now an hungered—Blackwood.

Oranges.—It is not perhaps generally known or suspected, that the rabbis of the London synagogues are in the habit of affording both employment and maintenance to the poor of their own persuasion, by supplying them with oranges at an almost nominal price.—Ibid.

Noble Authors.—The poor spinsters of the Minerva press can scarcely support life by their labours, so completely are they driven out of the market by the Lady Charlottes and the Lady Bettys; and a rhyming peer is as common as a Birmingham button. It would take ten Horace Walpoles at least to do justice to the living authors of the red book.

Buying Books.—Money is universally allowed to be the thing which all men love best; and if a man buys a book, we may safely infer he thinks well of it. What nobody buys, then, we may justly conclude is not worth reading.

On the Duchess of Devonshire's canvassing for Mr. Fox at the Westminster Election.

Array'd in matchless beauty, Devon's fairIn Fox's favour takes a zealous part;But, oh! where'er the pilferer comes beware,She supplicates a vote, and steals a heart.

Lines sent by a Surgeon, with a box of ointment, to a Lady who had an inflamed eye.

The doctor's kindest wishes e'er attendHis beauteous patient, may he hope his friend;And prays that no corrosive disappointmentMay mar the lenient virtues of his ointment;Of which, a bit not larger than a shot,Or that more murd'rous thing, "a beauty spot,"Warmed on the finger by the taper's ray,Smear o'er the eye affected twice a day.Proffer not gold—I swear by my degree,From beauty's lily hand to take no fee;No glittering trash be mine, I scorn such pelf,The eye, when cured, will pay the debt itself.

George III. is said to have observed to a person who approached him in a moment of personal restraint, indispensable in his situation, "Here you see me checkmated."

OLD GRIMALDI

The first Grimaldi celebrated on the stage, appeared at Paris about the year 1735, when his athletic force and extraordinary agility procured him the sobriquet of "Jambe de Fer," or iron-leg. In 1742, when Mahomet Effendi, ambassador of the Porte, visited Paris, he was received with the highest honour and utmost distinction; and the court having ordered a performance for the Turk's entertainment, Grimaldi was commanded to exert himself to effect that object. In obedience to his directions, in making a surprising leap, his foot actually struck a lustre, placed high from the stage, and one of the glass drops was thrown in the face of the ambassador. It was then customary to demand some reward from the personage for whom the entertainment was prepared, and, at the conclusion of the piece, Grimaldi waited upon the Mussulman for the usual present. If the Turk had concealed the expression of his anger at the accident, it was not however extinct, for on the appearance of the buffoon, he directed him to be seized by his attendants, and transported in his theatrical costume, to his residence, where, after undergoing a severe bastinado, the hapless actor was thrust into the street, with only his pedal honour for his recompense.

NEGROES' HEIR LOOM

Some years ago, the boiler-men negroes on Huckenfield estate were overheard by the book-keeper discoursing on this subject, (the superiority of the whites,) and various opinions were given, till the question was thus set at rest by an old African:—"When God Almighty make de world, him make two men, a nigger and a buckra; and him give dem two box, and him tell dem for make dem choice. Nigger, (nigger greedy from time,) when him find one box heavy, him take it, and buckra take t'other; when dem open de box, buckra see pen, ink, and paper; nigger box full up with hoe and bill, and hoe and bill for nigger till this day."—Barclay's Slavery in the West Indies.

GRATITUDE

When Suffer, who had been fifty years a servant in the English factory at Abesheber, or Bushire, a Persian sea-port, was on his death-bed, the English doctor ordered him a glass of wine. He at first refused, saying, "I cannot take it; it is forbidden in the Koran." But after a few moments, he begged the doctor to give it him, saying, as he raised himself in his bed, "Give me the wine; for it is written in the same volume, that all you unbelievers will be excluded from Paradise; and the experience of fifty years teaches me to prefer your society in the other world, to any place unto which I can be advanced with my own countrymen." He died a few hours after this sally.—Sketches of Persia.

1

We thank our correspondent for the above communication on one of the most interesting phenomena of British geology; for, as we hinted in our last, the pleasantest hours of our sojourn at Margate, about three years since, were passed in the watchmaker's museum, nearly opposite the Marine Library, which collection contains many Sheppey fossils, especially a prawn, said to be the only one in England. We remember the proprietor to have been a self-educated man: he had been to the museum at Paris twice or thrice, and spoke in high terms of the courteous reception he met with from M Cuvier; and we are happy to corroborate his representations. With respect to the reptile, or, as we should say, insect, alluded to in the preceding letter, we suppose it to have been a vermicular insect, similar to those inhabiting the cells of corallines, of whose tiny labours, in the formation of coral islands, we quoted a spirited poetical description in No. 279 of the MIRROR. Corallines much resemble fossil or petrified wood; and we recollect to have received from the landlady of an inn at Portsmouth a small branch of fossil wood, which she asserted to be coral, and that upon the authority of scores of her visiters; but the fibres, &c. of the wood were too evident to admit of a dispute.

2

"Which, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along"—POPE.

3

It is, indeed, difficult to avoid one, call it what you will, and quite as difficult to find a more absurd name than that adopted, unless, indeed, (why the machine goes but five miles an hour,) it is called a diligence from not being diligent, as the speaker of our House of Commons may be so designated from not speaking. It consists of three bodies, carries eighteen inside, and is not unfrequently drawn by nine horses. A cavalry charge, therefore, could scarcely make more noise. Hence, and from the other circumstance, its association in the second stanza with the triune sonorous Cerberus. A diligence indeed!

4

The intrusive garrulity of French waiters at dinner is notorious.

5

This "sea Mediterranean" is a most filthy, fetid, uncovered gutter, running down the middle of the most, even of the best streets, and with which every merciless Jehu most liberally bespatters the unhappy pedestrian. Truly la belle nation has little idea of decency, or there would be subterranean sewers like ours.

6

French houses are cleaner even than ours externally, being all neatly whitewashed! mais le dedans! le dedans!

7

The servants are as notorious for their incivility as for their intrusive loquacity.

8

As Scott well observes in the introduction to Waverley, "the word comfortable is peculiar to the English language." The thing is certainly peculiar to us, if the word is not.

9

All the tragedies are in rhyme, and that of the very worst description for elocutionary effect. It is the anapestic, like, as Hannah More remarks, "A cobbler there was, and he lived in a stall!"

10

It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the absurdity (exploded in England at the Reformation) of a Latin liturgy still obtains in France.

11

The Palais Royal! that pandemonium of profligacy! whose gaming tables have eternally ruined so many of our countrymen! So many, that he who, unwarned by their sad experience, plays at them, is—is he not?—"complete ass."

12

There are none, even in the leading streets; our ambassador's, for instance.

13

As the Etoile lately translated John Bull. "When John's no longer chamber-maid." Of the propria quæ maribus of French domestic economy, this is not the least amusing feature. At my hotel (in Rue St. Honoré) there was a he bed-maker; and I do believe the anomalous animal is not uncommon.

"When printed well a book is."

Both paper and types are very inferior to ours. But that I respect the editor's modesty, I would say it were not easy to find a periodical in Paris, at once so handsomely and economically got up as—this MIRROR.

14

See MIRROR, vol. 8, page 296.

15

These names are descriptive of the manner in which the women, so called, perform their part of the work, To todle, is to walk or move slowly, like a child; to trodle, is to walk or move more quickly.

16

From our Correspondent's description of these cakes, we suppose them to resemble the wafers sold by the confectioners, except in the elegant designs on their surface.

17

We remember the proverb, "Honour among thieves."

18

But we cannot so far forget our country as to be indifferent to them.—See a passage in the Two Drovers.