The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 475, February 5, 1831

she sat at home,

"Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm."

She, like too many in that district at that time, was very superstitious. Thomas took her by the weak side, and usually arrested her "light-horse gallop of clish ma-claver" by some specious story of ghost or hobgoblin adventures, with which he had been detained.

He had now got into such a continued state of dissipation and irregularity, that he was obliged to leave the farm to the mercy of his creditors, and opened a small public-house, at the end of the old bridge on the water of Doon. It was while he was here that Tam O'Shanter made its appearance. A manuscript copy was sent to Thomas, by post, with this motto—

Change the name, and the
Story may be told of yourself.

The celebrity of the poem brought numbers to his house, and he sold a great deal. But his spirit could not brook the brutal taunts and jeers which every day he was obliged to bear from his customers. He left off business, and commenced labourer, at which he continued till he got an offer of a situation as overseer of hedges, on the large estate of Castle Semple, at that time belonging to William M'Dowall, Esq., M.P. for Renfrewshire, which he accepted. With short intervals, he remained there till the day of his death. He was of such a character, that he considered no man, or class of men, his superior, and no man his inferior.

Feeling the infirmities of old age approach, Mr. Harvey placed him at his west gate, as gate-keeper, where he fell into a lingering disease, which soon put a period to his mortal career. As he had no friends nor relations (his wife having died about two years before) Thomas had never cared for to-morrow: he was destitute of the means to support himself during his illness. The night before he died, he called for a half-mutchkin of whisky; and (as an acquaintance of his sat by his bed-side, and who personally informed me) he, taking a glass of it in his hand, held it between him and the light, and eyed it for some time with a peculiarly exhilarated expression of countenance, even at such a crisis;—then, while pleasure sparkled in his eyes, he took his friend by the hand, and pressing it warmly, exclaimed, "This is the last whisky I, in all probability, will ever drink, and many and often is the times I have felt its power. Here's to thee, Jamie, and may thou never want a drap when thou art dry!" He died the next morning, about eight o'clock.

    J.R.S.

THE SKETCH-BOOK

RECOLLECTIONS OF A WANDERER. NO. V

Dawlish's Hole:—An Incident

The eye looked out upon the watery world—
With fearful glance looked east and west, but all
Was wild and solitary, and the surge
Dashed on the groaning cliff, and foaming rose
And roared, as 'twere triumphing.

    N.T. CARRINGTON.
The coast scene near Landwithiel[3 - Printed by mistake Tor-withiel, in No. II. of these Recollections: see Mirror, vol. xv. p. 356.] was of so varied and interesting a character that I was irresistibly led on to examine it very fully in detail. My sojourn therefore at Mr. Habbakuk Sheepshanks', of the "Ship-Aground'; (whom I have formerly introduced to the reader) was prolonged to an extent which sometimes surprised myself, and the various local stories and traditions of times past, with which mine host, especially when under the exciting influence of an extra glass of grog, almost nightly entertained me, essentially contributed to while away the time. The spot too was so secluded—comparatively unknown: there is something inseparable from a temperament like mine in so deep a retirement. To its inhabitants the world and its busy haunts are but as a tale; yet man in all his varieties is essentially the same. Many a day have I wandered along the sea-beaten coast—dining perhaps on a headland stretching far into the sea—or in some secluded little bay, by the side of a gushing spring; the ocean spread out before me—what object is so boundlessly or beautifully inspiring? It may be mighty fine philosophy for those who have passed through the current of life in one untroubled and unvaried stream, and who have no perception or idea of the deeper (if I may so express it) feelings of our nature, to call all this romance; but those who have tasted bitterly of the ills of this world, and who look back upon times past as doth the traveller in the desert on viewing from afar the oasis he has left—upon their transitory existence as a troubled dream—these can feel how deeply solitude amidst the sublimities of Nature will heal the troubled mind. Is there not a responsive chord in the hearts of such of my readers? Early one morning, soon after my arrival at Landwithiel, I proceeded over land to a distant part of the parish, to visit a ruin situated in a wild and remote spot, which possessed some degree of historical interest. In the evening I decided on returning by the coast in order to vary my route. The day had been clear and sultry, and though the wind blew fresh from the southward, yet its refreshing influence seemed exhausted by the intense heat of the sun. In my progress along shore, though it was getting late, and I was somewhat fatigued, I could not resist the opportunity of exploring a sort of natural opening or cove in a part of the coast where the cliffs were unusually precipitous; affording the geologist the highest gratification; you were reminded indeed of the flat surface of a stone wall in many parts, which effect the regular stratification of the rocks contributed to produce; and it required no great stretch of fancy to imagine it one vast fortification, with loop-holes at regular intervals—at a short distance from seaward certainly it would be difficult to divest a stranger of the idea that it was something artificial. Two high points of rock contracting at their extremities in a circular direction so as almost to meet, ran into the sandy beach, and you found on advancing beyond the narrow entrance, a considerable space, which gradually extended to something like an oblong square, with a sandy bottom everywhere, surrounded by the same lofty cliffs which composed the adjacent coast. I was much surprised that I had never heard of this place before; it had apparently been more the effect of some natural convulsion than of the encroachment of the sea, and at the further end was a high mass of shingles, seaweed, and fragments of rock packed closely together by the tide. On examination I discovered, about the centre of the shingles, a large stone cross, carved out of a projecting part near the base of the cliff. It bore simply the initials W.D. and though the surrounding rocks were thickly covered with seaweed and barnacles, yet the cross itself was perfectly clean, and bore marks of recent care. Some singular event had evidently occurred in this retired and desolate place. I loitered a considerable time in musing and examining the spot, regardless of the whining and uneasiness of my Newfoundland dog, Retriever, when I was suddenly and fully aroused by the sharp echo and plashing of the tide against the rock, within the entrance of the cove. I now recollected with alarm that it was a spring flood, and that I had heard the tide sets in on this part of the coast with extraordinary velocity. I ran hastily forward, expecting to escape with a mere wetting, along the base of the rocks to an opening which I had passed about half a mile to the westward. I had just grounds of alarm. The mouth of the cove as I have already stated, extended some way abruptly into the beach. On wading to its extremity I found the tide already breaking in impetuous surf towards the foot of the cliffs, and it was now so far advanced as to preclude any hope of escape from that quarter; for the sands shelved in for some way on each side of the projecting entrance, and if I gained the foot of the cliffs I feared that I must inevitably be dashed to pieces before reaching the opening. In the calmest weather on the coast, exposed to all the fury of the Atlantic, the spring tides come in with a heavy swell; on this occasion they were aided by the wind, and I had to retreat with precipitation before an angry and threatening mass of waves, which broke many feet over the spot I occupied the moment before, with a noise like a discharge of artillery.