THE AUTHOR OF "LIFE IN IND I A.” NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-ST. 27 1842. 1 D- THE NA BOB AT HOME. DOCTOR M'ALPIN, like most men in India, had, for years after his arrival, sighed for the time when he should be enabled to revisit his native land-when he should be enabled with honour and credit to support the dignity of his ancient house; and, like many others also, he had deferred his departure from year to year, though many a year had passed since he had realized all that he had originally fixed upon as the utmost extent of his wishes. When he had the power, and could go at any time, he found that "it was ridiculous for a man in the meridian of life to withdraw from active employment, and to sit down contented with little more than the patrimony of his ancestors." Then "it was unwise to resign a splendid appointment, which put fortune in his power, and gave him the opportunity of serving his friends." The death of his father and mother depressed his spirits, and "made him less anxious about returning just so soon;" that of his grandfather followed, and put him in possession of Fernbraes, the estate of his forefathers-more fertile in purple heathbells than golden grain. "He was now the head of the house, and consequently more was expected of him, and, since he had stayed so long, he might even stay a little longer, and go among his own people as the only surviving male branch ought to do." Last of all came tidings of the death of his only and much-beloved sister-the companion of his childhood-the friend of his youth-one whose image never rose to his mind unassociated with recollections of early happiness and tender love. She had been his confidant and counsellor in all his projects-in all his wishes. She had listened with unwearying patience to his early and ardent desires to see the worldshe had walked with him over the heath and on the seashore-she had talked of his future hopes and his future prospects a thousand and a thousand times, and she, in the pride and fondness of sisterly affection, had foreseen and foretold his prosperous return; and though long years had passed since, this stroke brought her before him with the renewed feelings of early affection. He felt her arms upon his neck-he heard the blessing which came from a bursting heart, when she kissed him at parting, and he looked up as if he almost expected to see the sister of his love leaning over him as she had done then, but she for months had lain in the dark and narrow house before the information of his loss had reached him, and their earthly intercourse was finally closed. "I have waited," he said, speaking to himself, as was his usual custom when anything agitated his mind, "until one year after another has taken every one from me that ever I wished to see; and now," he spoke in bitterness, "I'll wait no longer. Am I not old, and rich, and childless, and friendless, and who is to come after me in Fernbraes, for which I have done so much? Who is to uphold the honour of the ancient roof-tree? Much have I expended, and much have I remitted for planting and improving the old place, which in my day was a thought o'er bare, though it cannot be that now-but I fear the plantings will never shelter me or mine." Strange as it may seem, the doctor now actually set about making the preparations which he had so long talked of and delayed; and he sometimes pleased himself with thinking that in his sister's family he might still find some one to love and cherish. But to go back to the motives which had influenced his life. The truth was, that the worthy doctor, like many others, after a few years' residence in the country, had lost the ardent desire to return to his birthplace which at first tormented him—which he always expressed, and fancied that he still felt; years had brought new connexions and new friendships, and, though they never occupied in his heart the place of those he had left round his father's hearthstone, yet they exercised his kindly affections, and diminished the feeling of loneliness and isolation which every one possessed of the least sensibility must experience on making a solitary entry into life in a strange land. Youth is slow to reason but quick to feel, and he who had been accustomed to find himself a first object—a central point at Fernbraes-felt wonder and mortification, on his first arrival, on discovering how small a space he occupied in Indian society. His local consequence had quite left him-he was no longer the heir-apparent-" the young laird"—nothing more than Mr. Assistant-surgeon M'Alpin, the peculiarity of whose Gaelic idiom and national predilections were his most marked claims to notice. Then he sighed to return; but time, which changes all things where there is any material to work upon (and in his case Nature had done her part), changed the raw Highland lad into the able and experienced physician; unremitting in his duty, indefatigable in his exertions for the wellbeing of those under his care, and |