Читать книгу Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant - Mathew Joseph Holt - Страница 12

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When we speak of birth-marks our mind first pictures a physical impression, probably some bodily characteristic transmitted from an ancestor; though mental habit or mind trait of ancestry is transmitted with more consistent regularity than mere physical resemblance.

In a sense our ancestors in us are immortal; not because there is a human imperishableness, but we are heirs to certain family peculiarities and sometimes are afflicted with a restlessness that causes us to fan pinionless wings to reach heights we never fathom and of which we scarcely dream. My meaning can best be conveyed by example.

On a certain day in May a species of plover appear in great number on the northern plains of British America. There they nest and rear their young. The Indians take these birds when unfledged nestlings and make pets of them; and as they grow pluck their sprouting pinions. By environment they are robbed of all life suggesting the migration; yet when the day of southward flight rolls round, the cripples grow restless and seeking to rise on pinionless wing, end by climbing to a perch, where for several days, unceasingly, they beat the air with stubby, outstretched wings; uttering the while that plaintive whistle, which is never heard, except when the bird is on its migratory flight.

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[pg 72] The fire on the hearth, forgotten and dying, cast a faint glow disclosing a home-like room of good proportions and two men seated at a red deal table facing each other: Donald McDonald, a Scotch Presbyterian preacher, and his son, Archibald Campbell, who though a gentleman farmer, was a kinsman of the Campbells of Argyll. A casual observer would have noted that the men were nervously anxious, watching, waiting, perhaps praying for some one dear to both and ill in the adjoining chamber.

The young farmer, as the silence is broken by a shrill wail of protest from his for-some-time-expected son and heir, starts from his chair in a clumsy effort at noiselessness and moves towards the bedroom door. His companion, rising, lifts his hands as in benediction and prays aloud in a tense, subdued voice, which seems to blend with the now lowered voice of the whimpering babe. The father does not hear the old man; his thoughts are of and for the mother and the babe; and unknown to him, tears channel an unused course down his cheeks. So they stand for some time; until the baby, hastily cared for and placed near his mother’s breast, grows quiet, having discovered there is more in life than a wail; then the fat old mid-wife opening the door tells them that the baby is asleep and they may see the mother for a moment.

They tiptoe into the other room and to her bedside, trying hard not to make a noise, though the thick oak floor boards seem to creak as never before. She holds out a hand to each. Her husband, trembling, bends and kisses her quivering lips. She draws down the covers and he looks upon a little red and wrinkled thing, that might almost sleep in comfort in his hands—his boy! his only son!

[pg 73] For the first time he calls her “mother,” saying: “Mother, we shall call him McDonald Campbell, using your family name, he is more yours than mine.”

“No, neither by my name nor after you, Archibald, but John Calvin. He is our first born; and the nurse says is without mark or blemish.”

And the boy was called John Calvin Campbell.

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Prior to the Rebellion, Donald McDonald of the McDonald Clan, had lived in the vicinity of Fort William. At its close, with his family, a wife and two daughters, he moved to a small fishing village on the North Channel in Ulster, to which point most of his congregation had been transported.

His son-in-law, Archibald Campbell, was born in Argyllshire, in 1740. In 1766, disregarding the protest of his family he married Mary McDonald, whereupon his father sent word: “In this marriage you have disregarded my advice and disobeyed me. Your wife, the daughter of Dissenter McDonald, will not be received as one of my family. You are welcome to come home when you wish; but it is hardly probable that you will visit where your wife is not an honored guest.”

In the spring of 1766, Donald McDonald and family, with some twenty members of his small and more or less persecuted congregation, emigrated to the Virginia Colony; and after several weeks spent in the Tidewater country, moved westward and settled in the western foothills of the Virginia Valley, in the vicinity of Jackson River Meeting House.

As Archibald Campbell’s family continued to treat his wife as a stranger and her friends and relatives, except a sister, had gone to America, she found it very [pg 74] lonely. Seven months after her father and mother sailed she received letters from them telling how satisfactory they found the new life and what pleasant prospects the new country offered; and from that day she persistently importuned and finally prevailed upon her husband to sell their farm and join the colony.

The day before sailing they sent the effects they intended taking aboard ship, including a young cow, two heifers and a coop of chickens, surrendered possession of their home and were just leaving for the inn, when Mr. Campbell’s father, who had been watching them, drove up in the family carriage and made them go home with him. There his son’s wife was at last received as a daughter. His mother and sisters met her at the door and cried when they kissed her. They remained over night and when the time came for sailing, the whole household accompanied them to the ship.

His father in a voice husky with feeling, though he managed to keep back his tears, said: “* * * Here is a letter of introduction to Peyton Randolph of Virginia; he is not as loyal to the Crown as he might be but he is a good man; and here is a wallet containing three hundred guineas. This sum with the four hundred and fifty which your cousin paid for your farm, will give you a fair start. I have paid the passage of Richard Cameron; you know him, the son of the gatekeeper. He is to go with you as an indentured servant; but I had first to promise his father that you would see that the boy is educated and brought up in the Presbyterian faith and when discharged from your service shall be given seventy guineas. This sum I will provide, either by forwarding it to you or by making provision for its payment in my will. I understand that there are several servants and slaves aboard for sale. I would advise the purchase of [pg 75] a slave; he becomes your absolute property, whereas the term of service of an indentured servant seems always to expire at a most inopportune time. Here are ten guineas to buy a pony for my grandson, John Calvin. The little Dissenter is every inch a Campbell of Argyll. God bless and keep you and your family safe on the voyage and in that far land. I am sorry I ever said anything against your marriage, Mary is as fine a woman as there is in Scotland. God bless you, boy!”

[pg 76]