At length it became necessary that the parting scene
should end; and Richard Middlemas, mounting a horse
which he had hired for the journey, set off for Edinburgh,
to which metropolis he had already forwarded his heavy
baggage. Upon the road the idea more than once
occurred to him, that even, yet he had better return
to Middlemas, and secure his happiness by uniting
himself at once to Menie Gray, and to humble competence.
But from the moment that he rejoined his friend Hillary
at their appointed place of rendezvous, he became
ashamed even to hint at any change of purpose; and
his late excited feelings were forgotten, unless in
so far as they confirmed his resolution, that as soon
as he had attained a certain portion of wealth and
consequence, he would haste to share them with Menie
Gray. Yet his gratitude to her father did not
appear to have slumbered, if we may judge from the
gift of a very handsome cornelian seal, set in gold,
and bearing engraved upon it Gules, a lion rampant
within a bordure Or, which was carefully despatched
to Stevenlaw’s Land, Middlemas, with a suitable
letter. Menie knew the hand-writing and watched
her father’s looks as he read it, thinking,
perhaps, that it had turned on a different topic.
Her father pshawed and poohed a good deal when he
had finished the billet, and examined the seal.
“Dick Middlemas,” he said, “is but
a fool after all, Menie. I am sure I am not like
to forget him, that he should send me a token of remembrance;
add if he would be so absurd, could he not have sent
me the improved lithotomical apparatus? And what
have I, Gideon Gray, to do with the arms of my Lord
Gray?—No, no,—my old silver stamp,
with the double G upon it, will serve my turn—But
put the bonnie dye [Footnote: “Pretty Toy”]
away, Menie, my dear—it was kindly meant
at any rate.”
The reader cannot doubt that the seal was safely and
carefully preserved.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
A lazar-house it seemed, wherein
were laid
Numbers of all diseased.
MILTON.
After the Captain had finished his business, amongst
which he did not forget to have his recruit regularly
attested, as a candidate for glory in the service
of the Honourable East India Company, the friends left
Edinburgh. From thence they got a passage by sea
to Newcastle, where Hillary had also some regimental
affairs to transact, before he joined his regiment.
At Newcastle the Captain had the good luck to find
a small brig, commanded by an old acquaintance and
school-fellow, which was just about to sail for the
Isle of Wight. “I have arranged for our
passage with him,” he said to Middlemas—“for
when you are at the depot, you can learn a little
of your duty, which cannot be so well taught on board
of ship, and then I will find it easier to have you
promoted.”
“Do you mean,” said Richard, “that
I am to stay at the Isle of Wight all the time that
you are jigging it away in London?”
