CHAPTER XXI .-- ANENT MUNGO GLEN.
"Earth to earth," and "dust to dust," The solemn priest hath said, So we lay the turf above thee now, And we seal thy narrow bed; But thy spirit, brother, soars away Among the faithful blest, Where the wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest.
MILMAN.
Perhaps, since I was born, I do not remember such a string of casualties as happened to me and mine, all within the period of one short fortnight.
To say nothing connected with the playacting business, which was immediately before--first came Mungo Glen's misfortune with regard to the blood-soiling of the new nankeen trowsers, the foremost of his transactions, and a bad omen--next, the fire, and all its wonderfuls, the saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of the poor cat--syne the robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish ne'er-do- weels, who paid so sweetly for their pranks--and lastly, the hoax, the thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and the banishment of the spaewife.
These were awful signs of the times, and seemed to say that the world was fast coming to a finis; the ends of the earth appearing to have combined in a great Popish plot of villany.

Every man that had a heart to feel, must have trembled amid these threatening, judgment-like, and calamitous events.

As for my own part, the depravity of the nations, which most of these scenes showed me, I must say, fell heavily upon my spirit; and I could not help thinking of the old cities of the plain, over the house- tops of which, for their heinous sins and iniquitous abominations, the wrath of the Almighty showered down fire and brimstone from heaven, till the very earth melted and swallowed them up for ever and ever.
These added to the number, to be sure; but not that I had never before seen signs and wonders in my time.

I had seen the friends of the people,--and the scarce years,--and the bloody gulleteening over-bye among the French blackguards,--and the business of Watt and Downie nearer home, at our own doors almost, in Edinburgh like,--and the calling out of the volunteers,--and divers sea-fights at Camperdown and elsewhere,--and land battles countless,--and the American war, part o't,--and awful murders,--and mock fights in the Duke's Parks,--and highway robberies,--and breakings of all the Ten Commandments, from the first to the last; so that, allowing me to have had but a common spunk of reflection, I must, like others, have cast a wistful eye on the ongoings of men: and, if I had not strength to pour out my inward lamentations, I could not help thinking, with fear and trembling, at the rebellion of such a worm as man, against a Power whose smallest word could extinguish his existence, and blot him out in a twinkling from the roll of living things.
But, if I was much affected, the callant Mungo was a great deal more.
From the days in which he had lain in his cradle, he had been brought up in a remote and quiet part of the country, far from the bustling of towns, and from man encountering man in the stramash of daily life; so that his heart seemed to pine within him like a flower, for want of the blessed morning dew; and, like a bird that has been catched in a girn among the winter snows, his appetite failed him, and he fell away from his meat and clothes.
I was vexed exceedingly to see the callant in this dilemmy, for he was growing very tall and thin, his chaft-blades being lank and white, and his eyes of a hollow drumliness, as if he got no refreshment from the slumbers of the night.

Beholding all this work of destruction going on in silence, I spoke to his friend Mrs Grassie about him, and she was so motherly as to offer to have a glass of port-wine, stirred with best jesuit's barks, ready for him every forenoon at twelve o'clock; for really nobody could be but interested in the laddie, he was so gentle and modest, making never a word of complaint, though melting like snow off a dyke; and, though he must have suffered both in body and mind, enduring all with a silent composure, worthy of a holy martyr.
Perceiving things going on from bad to worse, I thought it as best to break the matter to him, as he was never like to speak himself; and I asked him in a friendly way, as we were sitting together on the board finishing a pair of fustian overalls for Maister Bob Bustle--a riding clerk for one of the Edinburgh spirit shops, but who liked aye to have his clothes of the Dalkeith cut, having been born, bred, and educated in our town, like his forbears before him--if there was any thing the matter with him, that he was aye so dowie and heartless?
Never shall I forget the look he gave me as he lifted up his eyes, in which I could see visible distress painted as plain as the figures of the saints on old kirk windows; but he told me, with a faint smile, that he had nothing particular to complain of, only that he would have liked to have died among his friends, as he could not live from home, and away from the life he had been accustomed to all his days.
'Od, I was touched to the quick; and when I heard him speaking of death in such a calm, quiet way, I found something, as if his words were words of prophecy, and as if I had seen a sign that told me he was not to be long for this world.