A BIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 79, 14 August 1869, Page 6

A BIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL.

I, — The Dawn of Life.

(Cmtmnkated ty the Executors of tte late Alisihair M'lan, Esq.}*

I was bom — the exact date is unnecessary — at a time the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was much agitated by a dispute, which resulted in the event known by one party as the "Secession," by the other as the " Disruption." The hostility of jarring theologies did not disturb my infant pillow, for I belonged to a family " faithful 'mong the faithless found," \ who always prided themselves on their i Jacobite politics and Episcopalian the- | ology. My father was the representative'of a Highland family, of a pedigree more remarkable than its patrimony. i Like many others of the same class, j he endeavoured to increase the scanty | returns of the hereditary moorland by I practising a profession. The only ' choice in his young days was between ' the two branches of the legal profes- | sion ; and he finally became a writer ito the signet — a term applied to the higher class of Edinburgh solicitors. Some time before my birth, he had retired from active practise, contenting i himself with the moderate salary de- ! rived from various official appointments he held in the county where our little patrimony was situated. My infancy, ! I believe, vras passed in the usual ! manner. Being the first born, I, as a matter of course, displayed wonderful precocity in regard to teeth, and have been credibly informed that I actually articulated the word "da" when barely six months had passed from my first appearance in the world. The earliest recollection I possess has, as is not unusually the case, reference to an animal. A sudden thaw had flooded the little stream that flowed near my home. A young lamb, either betrayed by the giddiness of youth, or, from some cruel panic, approached the margin too closely, and was at once I swept away. I was walking in com- ! pany with a nursemaid, not far from ! the place, and witnessed the accident. The meek, white face, tossed and tumbled by the angry water, brown and sombre, and strewn with forest wrack as it was, the pitiful bleating of the whilome giddy frolicker, the sorrow and restless helplessness of the mother ewe — all touched my childish heart. My screams attracted the aid of the gardener, who was working near, and he drew the little victim from the cruel flood. It wass too late ; and for the first time I found myself face to face with Death. I cried sorely that the lamb would not get up and play with Hie, for the WOrd " dead " irae to me quite meaningless. To pacify me, the little body was carried home, and an ingenious little fellow, son of the gardener, directed to aid me in its burial. With mute wonder I watched him "go through the mimic performance of a funeral ceremony, and at last went to bed happy, confident the lamb we had planted would by morning have grown into sheep at least. Of course, I was disappointed ; and to gratify me, my playfellow, some days thereafter, dug up the little body. Thus I became familiar with the idea of corruption. I may have" earned the . sneers of some shallow witlings for dwelling so long upon so trivial an incident. My defence is simply that nihil httmanum me alienum pwto, and as unquestionably the Beeds of a man's future character are sown in his childhood, nothing bearing upon so important a subject, can be altogether uninteresting. The incident I- have stated is absolutely the first time I consciously reasoned ; and the slight tinge of melancholy that overshadowed the birth of the mental faculties appears to have caused a certain pensiveness and erenietic shrinking from society, which has always seized on me when I left my natural promptings to work in their own way. Another incident, occurring shortly after, contributed an addition to my childish gloom. It was the year of the potato blight, and my nurse was condoling a peasant whose crop had been utterly destroyed. The man, in the spirit of his stern theology, made no complaint, attributing the disaster to God's vengeance on a sinful land. The expression struck me forcibly, and in my childish prattling I said, "It was surely very cruel to spoil the people's potatoes." The reply was stern, for among the Calvinistic peasantry our family were regarded, as children of perdition, and I brooded over it long and solemnly. The result was that I entered my fourth year with a stock of three ideas — Death, Corruption, and an Avenging Providence — sufficiently terrible to endanger a stronger intellect than that of a sickly child. Unfortunately for me, I was without companions of my own age, and was thua thrown on my own resources for amusement and companionship. An unnatural solemnity was the result, and the consequence would have infallibly been either madness or death, had not a healthy impulse been given to my life by a change in the government of the nursery. The new potentate was an old and attached servitor, who some years before my birth made a foolish marriage. She had buried her husband, and now returned to her ancient service. It must not be supposed that this Gaelic Euryclea was a common

* Mr. M'lan died lately of a violent attack of the Scotch cremona, brought on by a surfeit of oatmeal porridge, pis posthumous papers have been placed at our disposal by his executors, and we shall, from time to time, publish such extracts as seem suitable for our columns. -Ed. "%. T."

servant; indeed, she would have been indignant at such a title. She claimed kin with the family ; she had nursed my fatber, and exercised no small authority over him, and her opinion was always taken in any matteT of domestic policy. I think I see the dear old creature now, clad in her glossy black silk, her sole luxury and extravagance, with huge white cap — a miracle of starch and muslin. I think I see her, thus dressed, conning over some old ballad, or telling some wondrous tale of Angus, who took the big bannock ancl his mother's malison, and . Colin, who took the little one, with his mother's benison; or exciting legend of my respectable ancestor Hamish an Tomban. She gave my thoughts the objective, tendency so essential to healthy childhood. Instead of gloomy introspection and sullen terror of the awful avenging Somebody who blighted the potatoes and killed the lambs, my li£e passed in listening to tales of action. With mj lath "sharpness" I emulated the blows of the illustrious Jack, with the slight difference that he slew giants and I backed cabbage stocks. As tbe easiest route to a peerage, I endeavoured to convince my pet kitten that boots were a desirable addition to her dress, and when successful, was rather disappointed at the non-arrival of the patent for the second Marquisate of Carrabbas. My fancy had plenty of nurture, but it was from external sources. I had my sympathies with the animal creation awakened, and my pets soon became legion. The gloom of my earlier childhood was dispelled, and I became much less " interesting," but infinitely more healthy and promising child. From my third year to the close of my fifth I remained under tbe tutelage of my kind old nurse. Under her supervision I_ learnt my letters, — a most stupendous era, — and, more important still, made the grand discovery that reading was the art by which stories could be extracted from books. After this brilliant thought flashed across me I progressed rapidly, for an incentive was afforded for exertion. I could read with fluency in a wonderfully short space — that is if I were allowed to omit the "big words." This course was, indeed, inculcated by my preceptress, who whenever a word too lengthy for her limited scholarship appeared, used to bid me " Put your thoomb .on it, dawtie, it's Laitin ! "—" — Latin being, as I have since had occasion to observe, the embodiment, in the idea of the vulgar, of all that is recondite and mysterious. In this primitive method I waded through JBOtllnSOn Crusoe, t>6ing rewarded for reading a few lines myself by having a page or two read by my instructress.