Immediately on the removal of the cloth, the young gentleman withdrew into another room, and sending for his uncle to speak with him, he there explained the nature of his errand, and how absolutely necessary it was for him to have the money, for the relief of his bond. Old Sandy was off in a twinkling. He had no money for him—not one copper!—not the value of a hair of his thin grey beard should he have from him! He had other uses for his money, and had won it too hardly to give it to any one to throw away for him on grand rooms and carpets, upon flying horses, and four-guinea boots!
They returned to the parlour, and we drank some whisky toddy together. There was no more gibing and snappishness. The old man was civil and attentive, but the face of the young one exhibited marks of anger and despair. He took his leave, and went away abruptly enough; and I began to break some jests on the Flying Manufacturer, in order to try the humour of my entertainer. I soon found it out; old Singlebeard's shaft was shot; and he now let me know he had a different opinion of his nephew from what had been intimated by the whole course of his conversation with the young man himself. He said he was a good lad; an ingenious and honest one; that he scarcely knew a better of his years; but he wanted to curb a little that upsetting spirit in him, to which every young man new to business was too much addicted.
The young gentleman went to his other friends in a sad pickle, and represented himself to them as ruined beyond all redress; reprobating all the while the inconsistency of his uncle, and his unaccountable and ill-timed penury.
The most part of the young gentleman's relations were in deep dismay, in consequence of the Laird's refusal to perform his engagement. But one of them, after listening seriously to the narration, instead of being vexed, only laughed immoderately at the whole affair, and said he had never heard any thing so comic and truly ludicrous. "Go your ways home, and mind your business," said he; "you do not know any thing of old uncle Sandy: leave the whole matter to me, and I shall answer for his share of the concern."
"You will be answerable at your own cost, then," said the nephew. "If the money is not paid till he advance it, the sum will never be paid on this side of time.—You may as well try to extract it from the rock on the side of the mountain."
"Go your ways," said the other. "It is evident that you can do nothing in the business; but were the sum three times the amount of what it is, I shall be answerable for it."
It turned out precisely as this gentleman predicted; but no man will conceive old Sandy's motive for refusing that which he was in fact bound to perform: He could not bear to have it known that he had done so liberal and generous an action, and wished to manage matters so, that his nephew might believe the money to have been raised in some other way attended with the utmost difficulty. He could not put his nephew to the same school in which he himself had been taught, namely, the School of Actual Adversity; but he wanted to give him a touch of Ideal Misfortune; that he might learn the value of independence.
George Dobson's Expedition to Hell
There is no phenomenon in nature less understood, and about which greater nonsense is written, than dreaming. It is a strange thing. For my part, I do not understand it, nor have I any desire to do so; and I firmly believe that no philosopher that ever wrote knows a particle more about it than I do, however elaborate and subtle the theories he may advance concerning it. He knows not even what sleep is, nor can he define its nature, so as to enable any common mind to comprehend him; and how, then, can he define that ethereal part of it, wherein the soul holds intercourse with the external world?—how, in that state of abstraction, some ideas force themselves upon us, in spite of all our efforts to get rid of them; while others, which we have resolved to bear about with us by night as well as by day, refuse us their fellowship, even at periods when we most require their aid?
No, no; the philosopher knows nothing about either; and if he says he does, I entreat you not to believe him. He does not know what mind is; even his own mind, to which one would think he has the most direct access: far less can he estimate the operations and powers of that of any other intelligent being. He does not even know, with all his subtlety, whether it be a power distinct from his body, or essentially the same, and only incidentally and temporarily endowed with different qualities. He sets himself to discover at what period of his existence the union was established. He is baffled; for Consciousness refuses the intelligence, declaring, that she cannot carry him far enough back to ascertain it. He tries to discover the precise moment when it is dissolved, but on this Consciousness is altogether silent; and all is darkness and mystery; for the origin, the manner of continuance, and the time and mode of breaking up of the union between soul and body, are in reality undiscoverable by our natural faculties—are not patent, beyond the possibility of mistake: but whosoever can read his Bible, and solve a dream, can do either, without being subjected to any material error.
It is on this ground that I like to contemplate, not the theory of dreams, but the dreams themselves; because they prove to the unlettered man, in a very forcible manner, a distinct existence of the soul, and its lively and rapid intelligence with external nature, as well as with a world of spirits with which it has no acquaintance, when the body is lying dormant, and the same to the soul as if sleeping in death.
I account nothing of any dream that relates to the actions of the day; the person is not sound asleep who dreams about these things; there is no division between matter and mind, but they are mingled together in a sort of chaos—what a farmer would call compost—fermenting and disturbing one another. I find that in all dreams of that kind, men of every profession have dreams peculiar to their own occupations; and, in the country, at least, their import is generally understood. Every man's body is a barometer. A thing made up of the elements must be affected by their various changes and convulsions; and so the body assuredly is. When I was a shepherd, and all the comforts of my life depended so much on good or bad weather, the first thing I did every morning was strictly to overhaul the dreams of the night; and I found that I could calculate better from them than from the appearance and changes of the sky. I know a keen sportsman, who pretends that his dreams never deceive him. If he dream of angling, or pursuing salmon in deep waters, he is sure of rain; but if fishing on dry ground, or in waters so low that the fish cannot get from him, it forebodes drought; hunting or shooting hares, is snow, and moorfowl, wind, &c. But the most extraordinary professional dream on record is, without all doubt, that well-known one of George Dobson, coach-driver in Edinburgh, which I shall here relate; for though it did not happen in the shepherd's cot, it has often been recited there.
George was part proprietor and driver of a hackney-coach in Edinburgh, when such vehicles were scarce; and one day a gentleman, whom he knew, came to him and said:—"George, you must drive me and my son here out to——," a certain place that he named, somewhere in the vicinity of Edinburgh.
"Sir," said George, "I never heard tell of such a place, and I cannot drive you to it unless you give me very particular directions."
"It is false," returned the gentleman; "there is no man in Scotland who knows the road to that place better than you do. You have never driven on any other road all your life; and I insist on your taking us."
"Very well, sir," said George, "I'll drive you to hell, if you have a mind; only you are to direct me on the road."
"Mount and drive on, then," said the other; "and no fear of the road."
George did so, and never in his life did he see his horses go at such a noble rate; they snorted, they pranced, and they flew on; and as the whole road appeared to lie down-hill, he deemed that he should soon come to his journey's end. Still he drove on at the same rate, far, far down-hill,—and so fine an open road he never travelled,—till by degrees it grew so dark that he could not see to drive any farther. He called to the gentleman, inquiring what he should do; who answered, that this was the place they were bound to, so he might draw up, dismiss them, and return. He did so, alighted from the dickie, wondered at his foaming horses, and forthwith opened the coach-door, held the rim of his hat with the