Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/364

628 But he was not destined to tread the same path with Campbell or Byron, or even the humble missionary, John Campbell, and these resolutions ended like dissolving views or day-dreams. It is curious that one of such a stirring spirit was at last contented with Britain, beyond the limits of which he never carried his peregrinations. Having succeeded at the age of twenty-one to a considerable fortune by the death of his father, he purchased, in 1808, the small but beautiful estate of Elleray, in Cumberland, embosomed amidst the picturesque lakes, with their distinguished poets for his neighbours and companions.

Thus settled for the time as a border laird, Wilson was as yet too young to subside into regular study or peaceful meditation ; and on many occasions the turbulence of life within him only burst out the more violently from the compression of such narrow limits. One specimen of his desperate frolics at this period is thus recorded: "A young man, name not given, had taken up his abode in the Vale of Grasmere, anxious for an introduction to Mr. Wilson, and strolled out early one fine summer morning—three o'clock—to that rocky and moorish common (called the White Moss) which overhangs the Vale of Rydal, dividing it from Grasmere. Looking southward in the direction of Rydal, he suddenly became aware of a huge beast advancing at a long trot, with the heavy arid thundering tread of a hippopotamus, along the public road. The creature soon arrived within half a mile of him, in the gray light of morning—a bull apparently flying from unseen danger in the rear. As yet, all was mystery; till suddenly three horsemen emerged round a turn in the road, hurrying after it at full speed, in evident pursuit. The bull made heavily for the moor, which he reached; then paused, panting, blowing out smoke, and looking back. The animal was not safe, however; the horsemen scarcely relaxing their speed, charged up hill, gained the rear of the bull, and drove him at full gallop over the worst part of this impracticable ground to that below; while the stranger perceived by the increasing light that the three were armed with immense spears, fourteen feet long. By these the fugitive beast was soon dislodged, scouring down to the plain, his hunters at his tail, toward the marsh, and into it; till, after plunging together for a quarter of an hour, all suddenly regained terra firma, the bull making again for the rocks. Till then there had been the silence of phantasmagoria, amidst which it was doubtful whether the spectacle were a pageant of aerial spectres, ghostly huntsmen, imaginary lances, and unreal bull; but just at that crisis a voice shouted aloud —’Turn the villain—turn that villain, or he will take to Cumberland.' It was the voice of Elleray [Wilson] for whom the young stranger succeeded in performing the required service, the villain being turned to flee southwards; the hunters, lance in rest, rushed after him, all bowing their thanks as they fled past, except, of course, the frantic object of chase. The singular cavalcade swiftly took the high road, doubled the cape, and disappeared, leaving the quiet valley to its original silence; while the young stranger, and two grave Westmoreland statesmen just come into sight, stood quietly wondering, saying to themselves, perhaps,

It was no bubble however; the bull was substantial, and may have taken no harm at all from being turned out occasionally for a midnight run of fifteen or twenty miles no doubt to his own amazement, and his owner's perplexity at the beast's bedraggled condition next day." Thus far goes the account of