Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume X Part 16

What shall he do? Shall he part with one? and if so, which of the two?

No; the idea is torment to him--he cannot for a moment entertain it. He will save both, or perish in the attempt. He sinks, and rises, and sinks again, with his precious burden. The waters close over their heads--they are given up for lost. The two young women perish, but a huge wave casts the young man nearer the sh.o.r.e; his comrades on the beach make the most extraordinary efforts to save him, and he is at last rescued from the very jaws of death.

CALEB CRABBIN.

As a good theorising spirit in philosophy is the very soul of all progress in science, and the creatures that dabble in experiments with crucibles and retorts are no better than pioneers to the great geniuses that combine and generalise, so some think it an undoubted truth that speculation is the great spirit of commerce (including, of course, in the articles of that commerce, _wives_), and that those who do not make a bold stroke seldom make an effectual one. In no department of commerce is speculation held of greater importance than in that of marriage; and how rare is it to find a man who thoroughly understands it--if, indeed, it may not be said that ninety-nine out of a hundred do not know even the difference between buying and selling. The women marriage-traders, indeed, form a very creditable exception, because every one of them--knowing very well, for a surety, that they have on hand a stock that does not improve by keeping--are sellers, out and out; while the males again are almost all buyers, though, if they had the sense of a tortoise, they might know that they have just as good a stock to dispose of as their fair customers. There are, doubtless, some exceptions in our s.e.x that go far to retrieve our characters; but, alas! they are very few; and it is just on that very account that we think it proper to give some account of Mr Caleb Crabbin, hosier in the Lawn-market in Edinburgh--so great a genius in the department to which we have alluded, that he discovered that all mongering in blankets and stockings was a perfect bagatelle in comparison of the profitable disposal of his own person; and no sooner did he make the discovery than he acted upon it, with all the boldness that belongs to original thinkers.

The worthy we have thus mentioned favourably--because we admire a supporter of the rights of free trade--had laboured for a period of six or eight years in disposing of articles of hosiery, for every one of which he paid a high price; and, whether it was that he could not buy to advantage--his genius, probably, not lying in that way--or that he could not sell with a profit, wherein he displayed the same want of natural tact--it is certain that he became a bankrupt about as soon as other people merely begin to see they might make "a good thing" of a stop. So he wound up cleverly, and made just as little of his bankruptcy--a matter of profit often to those who are mere bunglers in the department of solvency--and took it into his head to sell himself.

So, accordingly, as chance would have it, he threw his eyes on Miss Belinda Yellowlees, who combined the two comely properties of wealth and weakness--in other words, she possessed a thousand pounds, and a very bad const.i.tution; and here it was that Caleb's properties began to be manifested; for the man who thought himself not worth one farthing--and was, in fact, not worth more, in the estimation of any of his own s.e.x--was proved to be worth no less than a thousand pounds, at which price Miss Yellowlees bought him, and thought, too, that she had got a very good bargain. Seldom, indeed, it happens that both buyer and seller, in a transaction of pure business concerns, think that they have made a hit; yet, of a surety, it was the case in this marriage; for Mr Caleb Crabbin actually conceived that he had made as good a bargain as did Miss Belinda Yellowlees; and so, to be sure, it was soon proved, by an exceeding good probatory test; for Miss Belinda, within six months, went the way of the dead, and her thousand pounds went the way of the living--that is, into the possession of her surviving husband.

No one will deny that this was undoubtedly a good beginning in this new commercial enterprise of Mr Caleb; and the best feature of the whole transaction was, that, along with the thousand pounds, he had actually got back again the commodity which he gave for it, and was thereby in a capacity to dispose of it again, on far better terms than ever. Many a good article of hosiery he had disposed of over the counter, and never seen a single glimpse again either of the price or the article; whereas here there was all the difference in the world; for he held the possession of both--the thing sold, and the price got for it; and, stimulated by his success, he, as soon as decency would permit, set about again endeavouring to make a bargain, upon the same, or better, terms than before. Nor was he long about encompa.s.sing his object; for the money he had got by the first transaction yielded a facility to the progress of the second; and, within a year of the death of the first unfortunate, Mrs Belinda Crabbin, he, after a hunt comprehending nearly all that period, found out an individual not only in every way worthy of his attention, but exhibiting all the features of being as good a market-woman as he was an out-and-out trader. The lady, whose name was Miss Amelia Reddie--clearly an orthographic phase of the cognomen Ready--was eager, or "yape," as the Scotch call it, for a transaction; and, having nothing to boast of but her patrimony of twelve hundred and fifty, she made the most of what she had; and the never a man of all she had ever spoken to but knew, as well as he did the number of his own fingers, the exact sum, to the odd fifty, which she was willing to give as the consideration. Many a dozen of suitors had heard her set forth her mercantile recommendation; but, then, she was the last of five, who had all died of consumption, leaving her the heir of the small sums that belonged to them; and this fact, which she tried a.s.siduously to conceal, had, in a great measure, destroyed her saleable capability, till the time when there appeared in the mart Mr Caleb, who, instead of deeming it an objection, thought it the consideration next best to the amount of her funds. Well, without exhausting a lexicon upon the affair, we come to the point, as cleverly as did the hero himself, who was, in the thirteenth month after the death of his first wife, duly and lawfully put in possession of Miss Amelia Reddie and her twelve hundred and fifty.

"A deuced deal better than hosiery this!" said Caleb to himself, on his marriage night; "for here have I not made two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds in one year and a month, without ever a shop, or signboard, or risk or trouble at all!"

If we were to say that there was an atom of affection in a concern of this kind, we would a.s.suredly be doing not only Mr Caleb a great injustice, but be committing a libel on the taste of our s.e.x; and, to be sure, save for the money, there was none at all. But we have more to say; and that is, that, where a man does not love the woman (as why should he?) whom he has married for money, it follows, as a natural corollary, that he wishes her dead. With "a trembling hand," like that of the poet Tibullus, he would hold the fair one, when dying; but then the hand would tremble lest she should recover, not lest she should go the way of all flesh. But, alas for the plans of mortals! the greatest geniuses sometimes fail in n.o.ble undertakings; and, not long after Mr Crabbin had begun to discover ailing symptoms on the part of his helpmate, the truth broke upon him that he was about to become a father; and a father, too, in good time, he became, of as healthy a child as ever blessed a living husband who liked his wife.

"If I am to have half-a-dozen, or mayhap a dozen, of these," said he, "the devil a merchant that ever sold cheaper than he bought, ever made so bad a bargain. Every one of those creatures will cost, at least, three hundred pounds; so that, if I shall have six of them, I will be a loser to the extent of five hundred and fifty."

The speech was prophetic; for every year, for a period of six, the consumptive Mrs Amelia Crabbin presented her husband with a healthy pledge; and on every birth-day Mr Caleb made a speech almost the same, but with increased lugubrity. But for this he might have found very good authority among the ancients; and if he had known of that strange man who wept at the birth of a child, or of Xenophon, who continued the job of a sacrifice he was at, though a messenger told him of the death of his boy, he would have thought them very sensible men, of a very different kidney from the fool, John Zopilah, who died of joy, when he heard that his wife had brought him an heir male. But it availed Mr Caleb nothing.

"Better," said he, "I had stuck by the counter; for I might have become bankrupt as often as I chose; and, if I had made the never a penny by it, I might at least have got quit of my creditors; but children are a sort of creditors that a man cannot sweep off by any means, not even the famous cessio."

And what made the matter more intolerable was, that all this time, when Mrs Crabbin was thriving so excellently well, in the way of adding to the number of the human species, she was gradually declining in health, having, by the time she had the third child, become so lean and shrivelled, that neither the Atlas nor the Hercules would have insured her life at a premium of fifty per cent. Yet, as we have said, three more followed in good time, and healthier creatures never opened their eyes on an evil world. Mrs Amelia Crabbin had now, however, done her worst; and, having been wasted away to a mere sigh, she one night took Mr Caleb round the neck, and, weeping bitterly, told him she was going, in the midst of her prosperity, to where she once thought she would have gone six years before--even where her five sisters were--the grave; recommending to him to take care of the twelve hundred and fifty, for the sake of the six children she had left, as every penny of it, and more, would be needed by the dear orphans. Mr Caleb wept too; but it was at the touching allusion she had made to the danger she had escaped, of dying before the first of the children was born; and Mrs Amelia, seeing what she conceived to be undoubted evidence of his affection, hung awhile upon his neck, and then bid him bring in every one of the six.

They were accordingly ranged by the side of her bed.

"Now, my little ones," she said to them, tenderly, "Caleb, Andrew, Maria, George, Amelia, and Augustus, your mother is going to die, and you may never see her again after this hour. Mr Crabbin," she continued, looking to her husband, "you must know that these children are the last of the blood of our Reddies, and proud am I to think that it has pleased Heaven that I should be the means of thus leaving so many scions of our ancient race, that there is no chance of the name being forgotten, seeing that they have all three names, the middle one being Reddie in every instance. I hope they will multiply as I have done. Bless you, my dear children! Your father will protect you; and thankful am I that the twelve hundred and fifty is yet all left, so that you will get your shares when you come to be of age."

In an hour afterwards Mrs Amelia Crabbin was no more, and in three days afterwards she was buried.

"It is finished," said the husband; "and a fair speculation never turned up an uglier balance, since the days of the bubble of the South Sea."

So he took to real weeping; and there was not a friend that came to give him consolation, but went away with the impression that he had been one of the most loving of husbands, and was one of the tenderest of men.

Among those visiters, were two or three acquaintances of his deceased wife, and one or two of them possessed even more than twelve hundred and fifty. So, Mr Caleb, seeing through his wet eyes that his grief took with them very well, continued the indications--a very easy process, seeing he had only to look to the debit and credit of his speculation to make the tears drop as fast as hailstones.

"It's a heavy loss you have sustained, Mr Crabbin," said Miss Jean Gibbs.

"Very heavy loss," rejoined he, with emphasis on the princ.i.p.al word.

"But the children are a consolation."

"To be sure they are," answered Caleb; "and I have six of them, and now, you see, all without a female to take charge of them."

The hint did not take, as the saying goes; and Miss Jean having departed, and Miss Isabella Gentle, who had also a competency, having arrived, he tried the same plan with her; for his spirit for speculation was still strong; and he expected, yet, to make a far more successful hit than he had even done in the case of Miss Belinda Yellowlees. Now, Miss Isabella was just as sincere in her admiration of his sorrow as was Miss Jean Gibbs; and all that was gone over about the loss he had sustained, and the consolation of the children, and the feeling he exhibited, as became a good husband and a loving father. But the moment he made a hint about the poor creatures having no female to look after them, the same effect was as evident as in the case of Miss Jean--for Miss Isabella, for a certainty, did not seem to relish it.

"All this may come of my being too eager and too soon," said he. "But I fear these six children will be stumbling-blocks in the way of my farther enterprise; for a woman will not give so much for a man with six children, as she would do for himself. Had my second transaction come up to the first, I might to-day have been an independent man. But a third may do better; and, if it don't, it shall not, by Hymen, be Mr Caleb Crabbin that will be to blame."

Nor, indeed, could it be alleged that he spoke falsely; for, as soon as the proper time came, he set about a very vigorous search for a third helpmate in every direction where he thought he had any chance. He tried again Miss Jean Gibbs and Miss Isabella Gentle; but the children formed an objection which they could not get over.

"I will never marry a man with six children--no--nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two," said Miss Jean.

"I would far rather live and die an old maid, than become the slave of another woman's family," was the reply of Miss Isabella.

And then he tried Miss Julia Cross, who had something of a lying stock, though not much, and her answer was just as peremptory.

"I hold the woman to be mad, Mr Caleb Crabbin," said she, "who would undertake the charge of six children. One might as well become a schoolmistress at once."

And after this rebuff, he tried Miss Angelina Crabbe, who had an annuity of somewhere about seventy-five pounds, besides about three hundred of old savings; but Angelina said that she would not be a stepmother for the whole earth.

"I see it will not do," said he, after some farther rejections. "Unless I take a wife with nothing, I will never get another, where it is known that I am burdened with six children. But he who takes a wife with nothing is but a sorry trafficker; and the never a wife with nothing, were she as fair as Venus, will Caleb Crabbin marry in this world. I will pack off the whole crew, and try my fortune under other colours."

The resolution thus formed he put in execution, by getting the whole of his children boarded with friends who lived at a distance, upon the pretence that he was going to take a trip away somewhere abroad. Having achieved this preliminary, he set off for the nearest good watering-place, being no other than the noted Pitcaithly, where so many "wanters," have, with various success, been supplied; and he had not been a week there when he fell in with a buxom widow of five-and-thirty, who was reported as being worth not a jot less than one hundred and fifty pounds a-year, secured on the strong Atlas, by the providence of her deceased husband. The name she carried, Mrs Jemima Bowsie, was a mixture of her own maiden name and the surname of her husband, very well blended; and she carried herself with such an air of frankness, surrounded with the eclat of her fortune, which she had taken care to blaze pretty well, that Mr Caleb Crabbin was immediately struck.

"That is my mark," said he, "as sure as was Belinda Yellowlees; and, if I'm not worth the purchase at one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, on the life of Mrs Jemima Bowsie, I have lost all my saleable commodity."

One who had twice sold himself, and offered himself for sale a score of times over, had no difficulty in getting matters placed in a train for a new offer; and an hour had scarcely elapsed after the monologue we have mentioned, when Mr Caleb Crabbin and Mrs Jemima Bowsie were walking and talking together as if they had been acquainted from the period of conning the alphabet. Nor was their intimacy long limited to talking a-field; for he found his way to the house where she lodged, and she found her way to the house where he had taken up his quarters, and, in the course of these meetings, mutual hints and questions tended towards the expression of mutual wishes.

"By the way, Mr Crabbin," said Mrs Jemima, one evening when they were sitting together in her lodgings, "I have a question to put to you; and, as you respect a widow, left, as it were, alone in the world, you will answer me according to your conscience."

"That will I, Mrs Bowsie," answered Caleb, "as sincerely as if you were my wedded wife."

"That is tenderly and beautifully indited, Mr Crabbin," answered she.

"Pray, sir, is the Atlas a strong company?"

"I believe it is a very strong concern, madam," replied he; "not much less so, I fancy, than the Royal, where I happen to have two thousand pounds deposited on an operating account. But might I have the great boldness, madam, to ask you why you put that question to me?"

"I am not sure," replied Mrs Jemima; "yet, let me see. Why, there can't be much harm in it either, only one does not like to trumpet forth her private affairs. But then it is to be remembered that I am a lonely creature in the world; and to whom can an unprotected widow speak, if it isn't to one who is just in her own situation?--for you hinted to me that your wife has gone, and left you also solitary."

"Too true," answered Caleb, affecting some ocular moisture. "My house is indeed empty enough. Indeed I have the key of it in my pocket; and one who has the never a one to speak to at home just wanders about where the fancy lists."

"How our positions and sentiments _do_ coincide!" replied she. "Well, as to the reason for my putting the question about the strength of the Atlas; this," she continued, as she opened a box, and took out a policy--"this may explain it." And she handed the policy to Mr Caleb Crabbin.

"An annuity policy for one hundred and fifty, for the natural life,"

said he, as he affected surprise at what he knew as well as he did the amount of the sums possessed by his two deceased wives. "A handsome thing, madam, of a certainty."

"Very well for two single people," rejoined she, sentimentally; "but believe me, sir, I would not have put the question, had it not been that a female is apt to get nervous where her all is laid out on the security of one concern."

"There need be never a tone of apology about the matter, madam; for, to be plain with you, I often make inquiries about the stability of the Royal, where, as I told you, I have two thousand pounds deposited on an operating account; and, to be plainer still, I do not hesitate to tell you, madam, that my house being, as I said, locked up in these gloomy days of my widowhood, I carry about with me my receipt. Here it is."

(Opening his pocket-book.) "You may take a glance at it just as I have done at your policy. Giff-gaff, as we say, makes good friends."

"And you have just hit upon the very reason," replied she, "why I carry about my policy with me; for, where there is no one at home to take an interest in one's affairs, or a charge of their effects, one feels uneasy about a valuable doc.u.ment, such as these in our hands. Of course you do not tell any one of the question I put to you; because, you know, the Atlas might come on me for damages."

"No fear on't, madam," said Caleb; "but pray--hem! hem!--is it your intention, Mrs Bowsie, ever again to change your name?"

"And, pray, Mr Crabbin," replied she, holding away her head, "is it your intention ever to give yours to another woman?"