Income which he
derived from a fine estate which had descended from father to son
through many generations, had greatly reduced the circumstances of
the elder Wilson. Still, his family held a certain rank and
standing in their native county, of which his evil courses, bad as
they were, could not wholly deprive them. The young people - and a
very large family they made of sons and daughters, twelve in
number - were objects of interest and commiseration to all who knew
them, while the worthless father was justly held in contempt and
detestation. Our hero was the youngest of the six sons; and from
his childhood he was famous for his nothing-to-doishness. He was
too indolent to engage heart and soul in the manly sports of his
comrades; and he never thought it necessary to commence learning
his lessons until the school had been in an hour. As he grew up
to man's estate, he might be seen dawdling about in a black
frock-coat, jean trousers, and white kid gloves, making lazy bows
to the pretty girls of his acquaintance; or dressed in a green
shooting-jacket, with a gun across his shoulder, sauntering down
the wooded lanes, with a brown spaniel dodging at his heels, and
looking as sleepy and indolent as his master.
The slowness of all Tom's movements was strangely contrasted with
his slight, and symmetrical figure; that looked as if it only
awaited the will of the owner to be the most active piece of human
machinery that ever responded to the impulses of youth and health.
But then, his face! What pencil could faithfully delineate features
at once so comical and lugubrious - features that one moment
expressed the most solemn seriousness, and the next, the most
grotesque and absurd abandonment to mirth? In him, all extremes
appeared to meet; the man was a contradiction to himself. Tom was
a person of few words, and so intensely lazy that it required a
strong effort of will to enable him to answer the questions of
inquiring friends; and when at length aroused to exercise his
colloquial powers, he performed the task in so original a manner
that it never failed to upset the gravity of the interrogator.
When he raised his large, prominent, leaden-coloured eyes from the
ground, and looked the inquirer steadily in the face, the effect
was irresistible; the laugh would come - do your best to resist it.
Poor Tom took this mistimed merriment in very good part, generally
answering with a ghastly contortion which he meant for a smile, or,
if he did trouble himself to find words, with, "Well, that's funny!
What makes you laugh? At me, I suppose? I don't wonder at it; I
often laugh at myself."
Tom would have been a treasure to an undertaker. He would have been
celebrated as a mute; he looked as if he had been born in a shroud,
and rocked in a coffin. The gravity with which he could answer a
ridiculous or impertinent question completely disarmed and turned
the shafts of malice back upon his opponent. If Tom was himself an
object of ridicule to many, he had a way of quietly ridiculing
others that bade defiance to all competition. He could quiz with a
smile, and put down insolence with an incredulous stare. A grave
wink from those dreamy eyes would destroy the veracity of a
travelled dandy for ever.
Tom was not without use in his day and generation; queer and
awkward as he was, he was the soul of truth and honour. You might
suspect his sanity - a matter always doubtful - but his honesty of
heart and purpose, never.
When you met Tom in the streets, he was dressed with such neatness
and care (to be sure it took him half the day to make his toilet),
that it led many persons to imagine that this very ugly young man
considered himself an Adonis; and I must confess that I rather
inclined to this opinion. He always paced the public streets with
a slow, deliberate tread, and with his eyes fixed intently on the
ground - like a man who had lost his ideas, and was diligently
employed in searching for them. I chanced to meet him one day in
this dreamy mood.
"How do you do, Mr. Wilson?" He stared at me for several minutes,
as if doubtful of my presence or identity.
"What was that you said?"
I repeated the question; and he answered, with one of his
incredulous smiles -
"Was it to me you spoke? Oh, I am quite well, or I should not be
walking here. By the way, did you see my dog?"
"How should I know your dog?"
"They say he resembles me. He's a queer dog, too; but I never could
find out the likeness. Good night!"
This was at noonday; but Tom had a habit of taking light for
darkness, and darkness for light, in all he did or said. He must
have had different eyes and ears, and a different way of seeing,
hearing, and comprehending, than is possessed by the generality of
his species; and to such a length did he carry this abstraction of
soul and sense, that he would often leave you abruptly in the
middle of a sentence; and if you chanced to meet him some weeks
after, he would resume the conversation with the very word at which
he had cut short the thread of your discourse.
A lady once told him in jest that her youngest brother, a lad of
twelve years old, had called his donkey Braham, in honour of the
great singer of that name. Tom made no answer, but started abruptly
away. Three months after, she happened to encounter him on the same
spot, when he accosted her, without any previous salutation,
