The Bride of Lammermoor

INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR

The author, on a former occasion, declined giving the real source from which he
drew the tragic subject of this history, because, though occurring at a distant
period, it might possibly be unpleasing to the feelings of the descendants of
the parties. But as he finds an account of the circumstances given in the Notes
to Law’s Memorials, by his ingenious friend, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe,
Esq., and also indicated in his reprint of the Rev. Mr. Symson’s poems
appended to the Large Description of Galloway, as the original of the Bride of
Lammermoor, the author feels himself now at liberty to tell the tale as he had
it from connexions of his own, who lived very near the period, and were closely
related to the family of the bride.

It is well known that the family of Dalrymple, which has produced, within the
space of two centuries, as many men of talent, civil and military, and of
literary, political, and professional eminence, as any house in Scotland, first
rose into distinction in the person of James Dalrymple, one of the most eminent
lawyers that ever lived, though the labours of his powerful mind were unhappily
exercised on a subject so limited as Scottish jurisprudence, on which he has
composed an admirable work.

He married Margaret, daughter to Ross of Balneel, with whom he obtained a
considerable estate. She was an able, politic, and high-minded woman, so
successful in what she undertook, that the vulgar, no way partial to her
husband or her family, imputed her success to necromancy. According to the
popular belief, this Dame Margaret purchased the temporal prosperity of her
family from the Master whom she served under a singular condition, which is
thus narrated by the historian of her grandson, the great Earl of Stair:
“She lived to a great age, and at her death desired that she might not be
put under ground, but that her coffin should stand upright on one end of it,
promising that while she remained in that situation the Dalrymples should
continue to flourish. What was the old lady’s motive for the request, or
whether she really made such a promise, I shall not take upon me to determine;
but it’s certain her coffin stands upright in the isle of the church of
Kirklistown, the burial-place belonging to the family.” The talents of
this accomplished race were sufficient to have accounted for the dignities
which many members of the family attained, without any supernatural assistance.
But their extraordinary prosperity was attended by some equally singular family
misfortunes, of which that which befell their eldest daughter was at once
unaccountable and melancholy.

Miss Janet Dalrymple, daughter of the first Lord Stair and Dame Margaret Ross,
had engaged herself without the knowledge of her parents to the Lord
Rutherford, who was not acceptable to them either on account of his political
principles or his want of fortune. The young couple broke a piece of gold
together, and pledged their troth in the most solemn manner; and it is said the
young lady imprecated dreadful evils on herself should she break her plighted
faith. Shortly after, a suitor who was favoured by Lord Stair, and still more
so by his lady, paid his addresses to Miss Dalrymple. The young lady refused
the proposal, and being pressed on the subject, confessed her secret
engagement. Lady Stair, a woman accustomed to universal submission, for even
her husband did not dare to contradict her, treated this objection as a trifle,
and insisted upon her daughter yielding her consent to marry the new suitor,
David Dunbar, son and heir to David Dunbar of Baldoon, in Wigtonshire. The
first lover, a man of very high spirit, then interfered by letter, and insisted
on the right he had acquired by his troth plighted with the young lady. Lady
Stair sent him for answer, that her daughter, sensible of her undutiful
behaviour in entering into a contract unsanctioned by her parents, had
retracted her unlawful vow, and now refused to fulfil her engagement with him.

The lover, in return, declined positively to receive such an answer from any
one but his mistress in person; and as she had to deal with a man who was both
of a most determined character and of too high condition to be trifled with,
Lady Stair was obliged to consent to an interview between Lord Rutherford and
her daughter. But she took care to be present in person, and argued the point
with the disappointed and incensed lover with pertinacity equal to his own. She
particularly insisted on the Levitical law, which declares that a woman shall
be free of a vow which her parents dissent from. This is the passage of
Scripture she founded on:

“If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with
a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that
proceedeth out of his mouth.

“If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond,
being in her father’s house in her youth; And her father hear her vow,
and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his
peace at her: then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath
bound her soul shall stand.

“But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of
her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand: and
the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed
her.”—Numbers xxx. 2-5.

While the mother insisted on these topics, the lover in vain conjured the
daughter to declare her own opinion and feelings. She remained totally
overwhelmed, as it seemed—mute, pale, and motionless as a statue. Only at
her mother’s command, sternly uttered, she summoned strength enough to
restore to her plighted suitor the piece of broken gold which was the emblem of
her troth. On this he burst forth into a tremendous passion, took leave of the
mother with maledictions, and as he left the apartment, turned back to say to
his weak, if not fickle, mistresss: “For you, madam, you will be a
world’s wonder”; a phrase by which some remarkable degree of
calamity is usually implied. He went abroad, and returned not again. If the
last Lord Rutherford was the unfortunate party, he must have been the third who
bore that title, and who died in 1685.

The marriage betwixt Janet Dalrymple and David Dunbar of Baldoon now went
forward, the bride showing no repugnance, but being absolutely passive in
everything her mother commanded or advised. On the day of the marriage, which,
as was then usual, was celebrated by a great assemblage of friends and
relations, she was the same—sad, silent, and resigned, as it seemed, to
her destiny. A lady, very nearly connected with the family, told the Author
that she had conversed on the subject with one of the brothers of the bride, a
mere lad at the time, who had ridden before his sister to church. He said her
hand, which lay on his as she held her arm around his waist, was as cold and
damp as marble. But, full of his new dress and the part he acted in the
procession, the circumstance, which he long afterwards remembered with bitter
sorrow and compunction, made no impression on him at the time.

The bridal feast was followed by dancing. The bride and bridegroom retired as
usual, when of a sudden the most wild and piercing cries were heard from the
nuptial chamber. It was then the custom, to prevent any coarse pleasantry which
old times perhaps admitted, that the key of the nuptial chamber should be
entrusted to the bridesman. He was called upon, but refused at first to give it
up, till the shrieks became so hideous that he was compelled to hasten with
others to learn the cause. On opening the door, they found the bridegroom lying
across the threshold, dreadfully wounded, and streaming with blood. The bride
was then sought for. She was found in the corner of the large chimney, having
no covering save her shift, and that dabbled in gore. There she sat grinning at
them, mopping and mowing, as I heard the expression used; in a word, absolutely
insane. The only words she spoke were, “Tak up your bonny
bridegroom.” She survived this horrible scene little more than a
fortnight, having been married on the 24th of August, and dying on the 12th of
September 1669.

The unfortunate Baldoon recovered from his wounds, but sternly prohibited all
inquiries respecting the manner in which he had received them. “If a
lady,” he said, “asked him any question upon the subject, he would
neither answer her nor speak to her again while he lived; if a gentleman, he
would consider it as a mortal affront, and demand satisfaction as having
received such.” He did not very long survive the dreadful catastrophe,
having met with a fatal injury by a fall from his horse, as he rode between
Leith and Holyrood House, of which he died the next day, 28th March 1682. Thus
a few years removed all the principal actors in this frightful tragedy.

Various reports went abroad on this mysterious affair, many of them very
inaccurate, though they could hardly be said to be exaggerated. It was
difficult at that time to become acquainted with the history of a Scottish
family above the lower rank; and strange things sometimes took place there,
into which even the law did not scrupulously inquire.

The credulous Mr. Law says, generally, that the Lord President Stair had a
daughter, who, “being married, the night she was bride in, was taken from
her bridegroom and harled through the house (by spirits, we are given to
understand) and afterward died. Another daughter,” he says, “was
supposed to be possessed with an evil spirit.”

My friend, Mr. Sharpe, gives another edition of the tale. According to his
information, it was the bridegroom who wounded the bride. The marriage,
according to this account, had been against her mother’s inclination, who
had given her consent in these ominous words: “Weel, you may marry him,
but sair shall you repent it.”

I find still another account darkly insinuated in some highly scurrilous and
abusive verses, of which I have an original copy. They are docketed as being
written “Upon the late Viscount Stair and his family, by Sir William
Hamilton of Whitelaw. The marginals by William Dunlop, writer in Edinburgh, a
son of the Laird of Househill, and nephew to the said Sir William
Hamilton.” There was a bitter and personal quarrel and rivalry betwixt
the author of this libel, a name which it richly deserves, and Lord President
Stair; and the lampoon, which is written with much more malice than art, bears
the following motto:

Stair’s neck, mind, wife, songs, grandson, and the rest,
Are wry, false, witch, pests, parricide, possessed.

This malignant satirist, who calls up all the misfortunes of the family, does
not forget the fatal bridal of Baldoon. He seems, though his verses are as
obscure as unpoetical, to intimate that the violence done to the bridegroom was
by the intervention of the foul fiend, to whom the young lady had resigned
herself, in case she should break her contract with her first lover. His
hypothesis is inconsistent with the account given in the note upon Law’s
Memorials, but easily reconcilable to the family tradition.

In all Stair’s offspring we no difference know,
They do the females as the males bestow;
So he of one of his daughters’ marriages gave the ward,
Like a true vassal, to Glenluce’s Laird;
He knew what she did to her master plight,
If she her faith to Rutherfurd should slight,
Which, like his own, for greed he broke outright.
Nick did Baldoon’s posterior right deride,
And, as first substitute, did seize the bride;
Whate’er he to his mistress did or said,
He threw the bridegroom from the nuptial bed,
Into the chimney did so his rival maul,
His bruised bones ne’er were cured but by the fall.

One of the marginal notes ascribed to William Dunlop applies to the above
lines. “She had betrothed herself to Lord Rutherfoord under horrid
imprecations, and afterwards married Baldoon, his nevoy, and her mother was the
cause of her breach of faith.”

The same tragedy is alluded to in the following couplet and note:

What train of curses that base brood pursues,
When the young nephew weds old uncle’s spouse.

The note on the word “uncle” explains it as meaning
“Rutherfoord, who should have married the Lady Baldoon, was
Baldoon’s uncle.” The poetry of this satire on Lord Stair and his
family was, as already noticed, written by Sir William Hamilton of Whitelaw, a
rival of Lord Stair for the situation of President of the Court of Session; a
person much inferior to that great lawyer in talents, and equally ill-treated
by the calumny or just satire of his contemporaries as an unjust and partial
judge. Some of the notes are by that curious and laborious antiquary, Robert
Milne, who, as a virulent Jacobite, willingly lent a hand to blacken the family
of Stair.

Another poet of the period, with a very different purpose, has left an elegy,
in which he darkly hints at and bemoans the fate of the ill-starred young
person, whose very uncommon calamity Whitelaw, Dunlop, and Milne thought a
fitting subject for buffoonery and ribaldry. This bard of milder mood was
Andrew Symson, before the Revolution minister of Kirkinner, in Galloway, and
after his expulsion as an Episcopalian following the humble occupation of a
printer in Edinburgh. He furnished the family of Baldoon, with which he appears
to have been intimate, with an elegy on the tragic event in their family. In
this piece he treats the mournful occasion of the bride’s death with
mysterious solemnity.

The verses bear this title, “On the unexpected death of the virtuous Lady
Mrs. Janet Dalrymple, Lady Baldoon, younger,” and afford us the precise
dates of the catastrophe, which could not otherwise have been easily
ascertained. “Nupta August 12. Domum Ducta August 24. Obiit September 12.
Sepult. September 30, 1669.” The form of the elegy is a dialogue betwixt
a passenger and a domestic servant. The first, recollecting that he had passed
that way lately, and seen all around enlivened by the appearances of mirth and
festivity, is desirous to know what had changed so gay a scene into mourning.
We preserve the reply of the servant as a specimen of Mr. Symson’s
verses, which are not of the first quality:

Sir, ’tis truth you’ve told.
We did enjoy great mirth; but now, ah me!
Our joyful song’s turn’d to an elegie.
A virtuous lady, not long since a bride,
Was to a hopeful plant by marriage tied,
And brought home hither. We did all rejoice,
Even for her sake. But presently our voice
Was turn’d to mourning for that little time
That she’d enjoy: she waned in her prime,
For Atropus, with her impartial knife,
Soon cut her thread, and therewithal her life;
And for the time we may it well remember,
It being in unfortunate September;
Where we must leave her till the resurrection.
’Tis then the Saints enjoy their full perfection.

Mr. Symson also poured forth his elegiac strains upon the fate of the widowed
bridegroom, on which subject, after a long and querulous effusion, the poet
arrives at the sound conclusion, that if Baldoon had walked on foot, which it
seems was his general custom, he would have escaped perishing by a fall from
horseback. As the work in which it occurs is so scarce as almost to be unique,
and as it gives us the most full account of one of the actors in this tragic
tale which we have rehearsed, we will, at the risk of being tedious, insert
some short specimens of Mr. Symson’s composition. It is entitled:

“A Funeral Elegie, occasioned by the sad and much lamented death of that
worthily respected, and very much accomplished gentleman, David Dunbar,
younger, of Baldoon, only son and apparent heir to the right worshipful Sir
David Dunbar of Baldoon, Knight Baronet. He departed this life on March 28,
1682, having received a bruise by a fall, as he was riding the day preceding
betwixt Leith and Holyrood House; and was honourably interred in the Abbey
Church of Holyrood House, on April 4, 1682.”

Men might, and very justly too, conclude
Me guilty of the worst ingratitude,
Should I be silent, or should I forbear
At this sad accident to shed a tear;
A tear! said I? ah! that’s a petit thing,
A very lean, slight, slender offering,
Too mean, I’m sure, for me, wherewith t’attend
The unexpected funeral of my friend:
A glass of briny tears charged up to th’ brim.
Would be too few for me to shed for him.

The poet proceeds to state his intimacy with the deceased, and the constancy of
the young man’s attendance on public worship, which was regular, and had
such effect upon two or three other that were influenced by his example:

So that my Muse ’gainst Priscian avers,
He, only he, were my parishioners;
Yea, and my only hearers.

He then describes the deceased in person and manners, from which it appears
that more accomplishments were expected in the composition of a fine gentleman
in ancient than modern times:

His body, though not very large or tall,
Was sprightly, active, yea and strong withal.
His constitution was, if right I’ve guess’d,
Blood mixt with choler, said to be the best.
In’s gesture, converse, speech, discourse, attire,
He practis’d that which wise men still admire,
Commend, and recommend. What’s that? you’ll say.
’Tis this: he ever choos’d the middle way
’Twixt both th’ extremes. Amost in ev’ry thing
He did the like, ’tis worth our noticing:
Sparing, yet not a niggard; liberal,
And yet not lavish or a prodigal,
As knowing when to spend and when to spare;
And that’s a lesson which not many are
Acquainted with. He bashful was, yet daring
When he saw cause, and yet therein not sparing;
Familiar, yet not common, for he knew
To condescend, and keep his distance too.
He us’d, and that most commonly, to go
On foot; I wish that he had still done so.
Th’ affairs of court were unto him well known;
And yet meanwhile he slighted not his own.
He knew full well how to behave at court,
And yet but seldom did thereto resort;
But lov’d the country life, choos’d to inure
Himself to past’rage and agriculture;
Proving, improving, ditching, trenching, draining,
Viewing, reviewing, and by those means gaining;
Planting, transplanting, levelling, erecting
Walls, chambers, houses, terraces; projecting
Now this, now that device, this draught, that measure,
That might advance his profit with his pleasure.
Quick in his bargains, honest in commerce,
Just in his dealings, being much adverse
From quirks of law, still ready to refer
His cause t’ an honest country arbiter.
He was acquainted with cosmography,
Arithmetic, and modern history;
With architecture and such arts as these,
Which I may call specifick sciences
Fit for a gentleman; and surely he
That knows them not, at least in some degree,
May brook the title, but he wants the thing,
Is but a shadow scarce worth noticing.
He learned the French, be’t spoken to his praise,
In very little more than fourty days.

Then comes the full burst of woe, in which, instead of saying much himself, the
poet informs us what the ancients would have said on such an occasion:

A heathen poet, at the news, no doubt,
Would have exclaimed, and furiously cry’d out
Against the fates, the destinies and starrs,
What! this the effect of planetarie warrs!
We might have seen him rage and rave, yea worse,
’Tis very like we might have heard him curse
The year, the month, the day, the hour, the place,
The company, the wager, and the race;
Decry all recreations, with the names
Of Isthmian, Pythian, and Olympick games;
Exclaim against them all both old and new,
Both the Nemaean and the Lethaean too:
Adjudge all persons, under highest pain,
Always to walk on foot, and then again
Order all horses to be hough’d, that we
Might never more the like adventure see.

Supposing our readers have had enough of Mr. Symson’s woe, and finding
nothing more in his poem worthy of transcription, we return to the tragic
story.

It is needless to point out to the intelligent reader that the witchcraft of
the mother consisted only in the ascendency of a powerful mind over a weak and
melancholy one, and that the harshness with which she exercised her superiority
in a case of delicacy had driven her daughter first to despair, then to frenzy.
Accordingly, the Author has endeavoured to explain the tragic tale on this
principle. Whatever resemblance Lady Ashton may be supposed to possess to the
celebrated Dame Margaret Ross, the reader must not suppose that there was any
idea of tracing the portrait of the first Lord Viscount Stair in the tricky and
mean-spirited Sir William Ashton. Lord Stair, whatever might be his moral
qualities, was certainly one of the first statesmen and lawyers of his age.

The imaginary castle of Wolf’s Crag has been identified by some lover of
locality with that of Fast Castle. The Author is not competent to judge of the
resemblance betwixt the real and imaginary scenes, having never seen Fast
Castle except from the sea. But fortalices of this description are found
occupying, like ospreys’ nests, projecting rocks, or promontories, in
many parts of the eastern coast of Scotland, and the position of Fast Castle
seems certainly to resemble that of Wolf’s Crag as much as any other,
while its vicinity to the mountain ridge of Lammermoor renders the assimilation
a probable one.

We have only to add, that the death of the unfortunate bridegroom by a fall
from horseback has been in the novel transferred to the no less unfortunate
lover.

CHAPTER I

By Cauk and keel to win your bread,
Wi’ whigmaleeries for them wha need,
Whilk is a gentle trade indeed
To carry the gaberlunzie on.

Old Song.

Few have been in my secret while I was compiling these narratives, nor is it
probable that they will ever become public during the life of their author.
Even were that event to happen, I am not ambitious of the honoured distinction,
digito monstrari. I confess that, were it safe to cherish such dreams at
all, I should more enjoy the thought of remaining behind the curtain unseen,
like the ingenious manager of Punch and his wife Joan, and enjoying the
astonishment and conjectures of my audience. Then might I, perchance, hear the
productions of the obscure Peter Pattieson praised by the judicious and admired
by the feeling, engrossing the young and attracting even the old; while the
critic traced their fame up to some name of literary celebrity, and the
question when, and by whom, these tales were written filled up the pause of
conversation in a hundred circles and coteries. This I may never enjoy during
my lifetime; but farther than this, I am certain, my vanity should never induce
me to aspire.

I am too stubborn in habits, and too little polished in manners, to envy or
aspire to the honours assigned to my literary contemporaries. I could not think
a whit more highly of myself were I found worthy to “come in place as a
lion” for a winter in the great metropolis. I could not rise, turn round,
and show all my honours, from the shaggy mane to the tufted tail, “roar
you an’t were any nightingale,” and so lie down again like a
well-behaved beast of show, and all at the cheap and easy rate of a cup of
coffee and a slice of bread and butter as thin as a wafer. And I could ill
stomach the fulsome flattery with which the lady of the evening indulges her
show-monsters on such occasions, as she crams her parrots with sugar-plums, in
order to make them talk before company. I cannot be tempted to “come
aloft” for these marks of distinction, and, like imprisoned Samson, I
would rather remain—if such must be the alternative—all my life in
the mill-house, grinding for my very bread, than be brought forth to make sport
for the Philistine lords and ladies. This proceeds from no dislike, real or
affected, to the aristocracy of these realms. But they have their place, and I
have mine; and, like the iron and earthen vessels in the old fable, we can
scarce come into collision without my being the sufferer in every sense. It may
be otherwise with the sheets which I am now writing. These may be opened and
laid aside at pleasure; by amusing themselves with the perusal, the great will
excite no false hopes; by neglecting or condemning them, they will inflict no
pain; and how seldom can they converse with those whose minds have toiled for
their delight without doing either the one or the other.

In the better and wiser tone of feeling, which Ovid only expresses in one line
to retract in that which follows, I can address these quires—

Parve, nec invideo, sine me, liber, ibis in urbem.

Nor do I join the regret of the illustrious exile, that he himself could not in
person accompany the volume, which he sent forth to the mart of literature,
pleasure, and luxury. Were there not a hundred similar instances on record, the
rate of my poor friend and school-fellow, Dick Tinto, would be sufficient to
warn me against seeking happiness in the celebrity which attaches itself to a
successful cultivator of the fine arts.

Dick Tinto, when he wrote himself artist, was wont to derive his origin from
the ancient family of Tinto, of that ilk, in Lanarkshire, and occasionally
hinted that he had somewhat derogated from his gentle blood in using the pencil
for his principal means of support. But if Dick’s pedigree was correct,
some of his ancestors must have suffered a more heavy declension, since the
good man his father executed the necessary, and, I trust, the honest, but
certainly not very distinguished, employment of tailor in ordinary to the
village of Langdirdum in the west. Under his humble roof was Richard born, and
to his father’s humble trade was Richard, greatly contrary to his
inclination, early indentured. Old Mr. Tinto had, however, no reason to
congratulate himself upon having compelled the youthful genius of his son to
forsake its natural bent. He fared like the school-boy who attempts to stop
with his finger the spout of a water cistern, while the stream, exasperated at
this compression, escapes by a thousand uncalculated spurts, and wets him all
over for his pains. Even so fared the senior Tinto, when his hopeful apprentice
not only exhausted all the chalk in making sketches upon the shopboard, but
even executed several caricatures of his father’s best customers, who
began loudly to murmur, that it was too hard to have their persons deformed by
the vestments of the father, and to be at the same time turned into ridicule by
the pencil of the son. This led to discredit and loss of practice, until the
old tailor, yielding to destiny and to the entreaties of his son, permitted him
to attempt his fortune in a line for which he was better qualified.

There was about this time, in the village of Langdirdum, a peripatetic brother
of the brush, who exercised his vocation sub Jove frigido, the object of
admiration of all the boys of the village, but especially to Dick Tinto. The
age had not yet adopted, amongst other unworthy retrenchments, that illiberal
measure of economy which, supplying by written characters the lack of
symbolical representation, closes one open and easily accessible avenue of
instruction and emolument against the students of the fine arts. It was not yet
permitted to write upon the plastered doorway of an alehouse, or the suspended
sign of an inn, “The Old Magpie,” or “The Saracen’s
Head,” substituting that cold description for the lively effigies of the
plumed chatterer, or the turban’d frown of the terrific soldan. That
early and more simple age considered alike the necessities of all ranks, and
depicted the symbols of good cheer so as to be obvious to all capacities; well
judging that a man who could not read a syllable might nevertheless love a pot
of good ale as well as his better-educated neighbours, or even as the parson
himself. Acting upon this liberal principle, publicans as yet hung forth the
painted emblems of their calling, and sign-painters, if they seldom feasted,
did not at least absolutely starve.

To a worthy of this decayed profession, as we have already intimated, Dick
Tinto became an assistant; and thus, as is not unusual among heaven-born
geniuses in this department of the fine arts, began to paint before he had any
notion of drawing.

His talent for observing nature soon induced him to rectify the errors, and
soar above the instructions, of his teacher. He particularly shone in painting
horses, that being a favourite sign in the Scottish villages; and, in tracing
his progress, it is beautiful to observe how by degrees he learned to shorten
the backs and prolong the legs of these noble animals, until they came to look
less like crocodiles, and more like nags. Detraction, which always pursues
merit with strides proportioned to its advancement, has indeed alleged that
Dick once upon a time painted a horse with five legs, instead of four. I might
have rested his defence upon the license allowed to that branch of his
profession, which, as it permits all sorts of singular and irregular
combinations, may be allowed to extend itself so far as to bestow a limb
supernumerary on a favourite subject. But the cause of a deceased friend is
sacred; and I disdain to bottom it so superficially. I have visited the sign in
question, which yet swings exalted in the village of Langdirdum; and I am ready
to depone upon the oath that what has been idly mistaken or misrepresented as
being the fifth leg of the horse, is, in fact, the tail of that quadruped, and,
considered with reference to the posture in which he is delineated, forms a
circumstance introduced and managed with great and successful, though daring,
art. The nag being represented in a rampant or rearing posture, the tail, which
is prolonged till it touches the ground, appears to form a point
d’appui, and gives the firmness of a tripod to the figure, without
which it would be difficult to conceive, placed as the feet are, how the
courser could maintain his ground without tumbling backwards. This bold
conception has fortunately fallen into the custody of one by whom it is duly
valued; for, when Dick, in his more advanced state of proficiency, became
dubious of the propriety of so daring a deviation to execute a picture of the
publican himself in exchange for this juvenile production, the courteous offer
was declined by his judicious employer, who had observed, it seems, that when
his ale failed to do its duty in conciliating his guests, one glance at his
sign was sure to put them in good humour.

It would be foreign to my present purpose to trace the steps by which Dick
Tinto improved his touch, and corrected, by the rules of art, the luxuriance of
a fervid imagination. The scales fell from his eyes on viewing the sketches of
a contemporary, the Scottish Teniers, as Wilkie has been deservedly styled. He
threw down the brush took up the crayons, and, amid hunger and toil, and
suspense and uncertainty, pursued the path of his profession under better
auspices than those of his original master. Still the first rude emanations of
his genius, like the nursery rhymes of Pope, could these be recovered, will be
dear to the companions of Dick Tinto’s youth. There is a tankard and
gridiron painted over the door of an obscure change-house in the Back Wynd of
Gandercleugh——But I feel I must tear myself from the subject, or
dwell on it too long.

Amid his wants and struggles, Dick Tinto had recourse, like his brethren, to
levying that tax upon the vanity of mankind which he could not extract from
their taste and liberality—on a word, he painted portraits. It was in
this more advanced state of proficiency, when Dick had soared above his
original line of business, and highly disdained any allusion to it, that, after
having been estranged for several years, we again met in the village of
Gandercleugh, I holding my present situation, and Dick painting copies of the
human face divine at a guinea per head. This was a small premium, yet, in the
first burst of business, it more than sufficed for all Dick’s moderate
wants; so that he occupied an apartment at the Wallace Inn, cracked his jest
with impunity even upon mine host himself, and lived in respect and observance
with the chambermaid, hostler, and waiter.

Those halcyon days were too serene to last long. When his honour the Laird of
Gandercleugh, with his wife and three daughters, the minister, the gauger, mine
esteemed patron Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, and some round dozen of the feuars
and farmers, had been consigned to immortality by Tinto’s brush, custom
began to slacken, and it was impossible to wring more than crowns and
half-crowns from the hard hands of the peasants whose ambition led them to
Dick’s painting-room.

Still, though the horizon was overclouded, no storm for some time ensued. Mine
host had Christian faith with a lodger who had been a good paymaster as long as
he had the means. And from a portrait of our landlord himself, grouped with his
wife and daughters, in the style of Rubens, which suddenly appeared in the best
parlour, it was evident that Dick had found some mode of bartering art for the
necessaries of life.

Nothing, however, is more precarious than resources of this nature. It was
observed that Dick became in his turn the whetstone of mine host’s wit,
without venturing either at defence or retaliation; that his easel was
transferred to a garret-room, in which there was scarce space for it to stand
upright; and that he no longer ventured to join the weekly club, of which he
had been once the life and soul. In short, Dick Tinto’s friends feared
that he had acted like the animal called the sloth, which, heaving eaten up the
last green leaf upon the tree where it has established itself, ends by tumbling
down from the top, and dying of inanition. I ventured to hint this to Dick,
recommended his transferring the exercise of his inestimable talent to some
other sphere, and forsaking the common which he might be said to have eaten
bare.

“There is an obstacle to my change of residence,” said my friend,
grasping my hand with a look of solemnity.

“A bill due to my landlord, I am afraid?” replied I, with heartfelt
sympathy; “if any part of my slender means can assist in this
emergence——”

“No, by the soul of Sir Joshua!” answered the generous youth,
“I will never involve a friend in the consequences of my own misfortune.
There is a mode by which I can regain my liberty; and to creep even through a
common sewer is better than to remain in prison.”

I did not perfectly understand what my friend meant. The muse of painting
appeared to have failed him, and what other goddess he could invoke in his
distress was a mystery to me. We parted, however, without further explanation,
and I did not see him until three days after, when he summoned me to partake of
the foy with which his landlord proposed to regale him ere his departure
for Edinburgh.

I found Dick in high spirits, whistling while he buckled the small knapsack
which contained his colours, brushes, pallets, and clean shirt. That he parted
on the best terms with mine host was obvious from the cold beef set forth in
the low parlour, flanked by two mugs of admirable brown stout; and I own my
curiosity was excited concerning the means through which the face of my
friend’s affairs had been so suddenly improved. I did not suspect Dick of
dealing with the devil, and by what earthly means he had extricated himself
thus happily I was at a total loss to conjecture.

He perceived my curiosity, and took me by the hand. “My friend,” he
said, “fain would I conceal, even from you, the degradation to which it
has been necessary to submit, in order to accomplish an honourable retreat from
Gandercleaugh. But what avails attempting to conceal that which must needs
betray itself even by its superior excellence? All the village—all the
parish—all the world—will soon discover to what poverty has reduced
Richard Tinto.”

A sudden thought here struck me. I had observed that our landlord wore, on that
memorable morning, a pair of bran new velveteens instead of his ancient
thicksets.

“What,” said I, drawing my right hand, with the forefinger and
thumb pressed together, nimbly from my right haunch to my left shoulder,
“you have condescended to resume the paternal arts to which you were
first bred—long stitches, ha, Dick?”

He repelled this unlucky conjecture with a frown and a pshaw, indicative of
indignant contempt, and leading me into another room, showed me, resting
against the wall, the majestic head of Sir William Wallace, grim as when
severed from the trunk by the orders of the Edward.

The painting was executed on boards of a substantial thickness, and the top
decorated with irons, for suspending the honoured effigy upon a signpost.

“There,” he said, “my friend, stands the honour of Scotland,
and my shame; yet not so—rather the shame of those who, instead of
encouraging art in its proper sphere, reduce it to these unbecoming and
unworthy extremities.”

I endeavoured to smooth the ruffled feelings of my misused and indignant
friend. I reminded him that he ought not, like the stag in the fable, to
despise the quality which had extricated him from difficulties, in which his
talents, as a portrait or landscape painter, had been found unavailing. Above
all, I praised the execution, as well as conception, of his painting, and
reminded him that, far from feeling dishonoured by so superb a specimen of his
talents being exposed to the general view of the public, he ought rather to
congratulate himself upon the augmentation of his celebrity to which its public
exhibition must necessarily give rise.

“You are right, my friend—you are right,” replied poor Dick,
his eye kindling with enthusiasm; “why should I shun the name of
an—an—(he hesitated for a phrase)—an out-of-doors artist?
Hogarth has introduced himself in that character in one of his best engravings;
Domenichino, or somebody else, in ancient times, Morland in our own, have
exercised their talents in this manner. And wherefore limit to the rich and
higher classes alone the delight which the exhibition of works of art is
calculated to inspire into all classes? Statues are placed in the open air, why
should Painting be more niggardly in displaying her masterpieces than her
sister Sculpture? And yet, my friend, we must part suddenly; the carpenter is
coming in an hour to put up the—the emblem; and truly, with all my
philosophy, and your consolatory encouragement to boot, I would rather wish to
leave Gandercleugh before that operation commences.”

We partook of our genial host’s parting banquet, and I escorted Dick on
his walk to Edinburgh. We parted about a mile from the village, just as we
heard the distant cheer of the boys which accompanied the mounting of the new
symbol of the Wallace Head. Dick Tinto mended his pace to get out of hearing,
so little had either early practice or recent philosophy reconciled him to the
character of a sign-painter.

In Edinburgh, Dick’s talents were discovered and appreciated, and he
received dinners and hints from several distinguished judges of the fine arts.
But these gentlemen dispensed their criticism more willingly than their cash,
and Dick thought he needed cash more than criticism. He therefore sought
London, the universal mart of talent, and where, as is usual in general marts
of most descriptions, much more of each commodity is exposed to sale than can
ever find purchasers.

Dick, who, in serious earnest, was supposed to have considerable natural
talents for his profession, and whose vain and sanguine disposition never
permitted him to doubt for a moment of ultimate success, threw himself headlong
into the crowd which jostled and struggled for notice and preferment. He
elbowed others, and was elbowed himself; and finally, by dint of intrepidity,
fought his way into some notice, painted for the prize at the Institution, had
pictures at the exhibition at Somerset House, and damned the hanging committee.
But poor Dick was doomed to lose the field he fought so gallantly. In the fine
arts, there is scarce an alternative betwixt distinguished success and absolute
failure; and as Dick’s zeal and industry were unable to ensure the first,
he fell into the distresses which, in his condition, were the natural
consequences of the latter alternative. He was for a time patronised by one or
two of those judicious persons who make a virtue of being singular, and of
pitching their own opinions against those of the world in matters of taste and
criticism. But they soon tired of poor Tinto, and laid him down as a load, upon
the principle on which a spoilt child throws away its plaything. Misery, I
fear, took him up, and accompanied him to a premature grave, to which he was
carried from an obscure lodging in Swallow Street, where he had been dunned by
his landlady within doors, and watched by bailiffs without, until death came to
his relief. A corner of the Morning Post noticed his death, generously adding,
that his manner displayed considerable genius, though his style was rather
sketchy; and referred to an advertisement, which announced that Mr. Varnish, a
well-known printseller, had still on hand a very few drawings and paintings by
Richard Tinto, Esquire, which those of the nobility and gentry who might wish
to complete their collections of modern art were invited to visit without
delay. So ended Dick Tinto! a lamentable proof of the great truth, that in the
fine arts mediocrity is not permitted, and that he who cannot ascend to the
very top of the ladder will do well not to put his foot upon it at all.

The memory of Tinto is dear to me, from the recollection of the many
conversations which we have had together, most of them turning upon my present
task. He was delighted with my progress, and talked of an ornamented and
illustrated edition, with heads, vignettes, and culs de lampe, all to be
designed by his own patriotic and friendly pencil. He prevailed upon an old
sergeant of invalids to sit to him in the character of Bothwell, the
lifeguard’s-man of Charles the Second, and the bellman of Gandercleugh in
that of David Deans. But while he thus proposed to unite his own powers with
mine for the illustration of these narratives, he mixed many a dose of salutary
criticism with the panegyrics which my composition was at times so fortunate as
to call forth.

“Your characters,” he said, “my dear Pattieson, make too much
use of the gob box; they patter too much (an elegant phraseology
which Dick had learned while painting the scenes of an itinerant company of
players); there is nothing in whole pages but mere chat and dialogue.”

“The ancient philosopher,” said I in reply, “was wont to say,
‘Speak, that I may know thee’; and how is it possible for an author
to introduce his personæ dramatis to his readers in a more interesting
and effectual manner than by the dialogue in which each is represented as
supporting his own appropriate character?”

“It is a false conclusion,” said Tinto; “I hate it, Peter, as
I hate an unfilled can. I grant you, indeed, that speech is a faculty of some
value in the intercourse of human affairs, and I will not even insist on the
doctrine of that Pythagorean toper, who was of opinion that over a bottle
speaking spoiled conversation. But I will not allow that a professor of the
fine arts has occasion to embody the idea of his scene in language, in order to
impress upon the reader its reality and its effect. On the contrary, I will be
judged by most of your readers, Peter, should these tales ever become public,
whether you have not given us a page of talk for every single idea which two
words might have communicated, while the posture, and manner, and incident,
accurately drawn, and brought out by appropriate colouring, would have
preserved all that was worthy of preservation, and saved these everlasting
‘said he’s’ and ‘said she’s,’ with which it
has been your pleasure to encumber your pages.”

I replied, “That he confounded the operations of the pencil and the pen;
that the serene and silent art, as painting has been called by one of our first
living poets, necessarily appealed to the eye, because it had not the organs
for addressing the ear; whereas poetry, or that species of composition which
approached to it, lay under the necessity of doing absolutely the reverse, and
addressed itself to the ear, for the purpose of exciting that interest which it
could not attain through the medium of the eye.”

Dick was not a whit staggered by my argument, which he contended was founded on
misrepresentation. “Description,” he said, “was to the author
of a romance exactly what drawing and tinting were to a painter: words were his
colours, and, if properly employed, they could not fail to place the scene
which he wished to conjure up as effectually before the mind’s eye as the
tablet or canvas presents it to the bodily organ. The same rules,” he
contended, “applied to both, and an exuberance of dialogue, in the former
case, was a verbose and laborious mode of composition which went to confound
the proper art of fictitious narrative with that of the drama, a widely
different species of composition, of which dialogue was the very essence,
because all, excepting the language to be made use of, was presented to the eye
by the dresses, and persons, and actions of the performers upon the stage. But
as nothing,” said Dick, “can be more dull than a long narrative
written upon the plan of a drama, so where you have approached most near to
that species of composition, by indulging in prolonged scenes of mere
conversation, the course of your story has become chill and constrained, and
you have lost the power of arresting the attention and exciting the
imagination, in which upon other occasions you may be considered as having
succeeded tolerably well.”

I made my bow in requital of the compliment, which was probably thrown in by
way of placebo, and expressed myself willing at least to make one trial
of a more straightforward style of composition, in which my actors should do
more, and say less, than in my former attempts of this kind. Dick gave me a
patronising and approving nod, and observed that, finding me so docile, he
would communicate, for the benefit of my muse, a subject which he had studied
with a view to his own art.

“The story,” he said, “was, by tradition, affirmed to be
truth, although, as upwards of a hundred years had passed away since the events
took place, some doubts upon the accuracy of all the particulars might be
reasonably entertained.”

When Dick Tinto had thus spoken, he rummaged his portfolio for the sketch from
which he proposed one day to execute a picture of fourteen feet by eight. The
sketch, which was cleverly executed, to use the appropriate phrase, represented
an ancient hall, fitted up and furnished in what we now call the taste of Queen
Elizabeth’s age. The light, admitted from the upper part of a high
casement, fell upon a female figure of exquisite beauty, who, in an attitude of
speechless terror, appeared to watch the issue of a debate betwixt two other
persons. The one was a young man, in the Vandyke dress common to the time of
Charles I., who, with an air of indignant pride, testified by the manner in
which he raised his head and extended his arm, seemed to be urging a claim of
right, rather than of favour, to a lady whose age, and some resemblance in
their features, pointed her out as the mother of the younger female, and who
appeared to listen with a mixture of displeasure and impatience.

Tinto produced his sketch with an air of mysterious triumph, and gazed on it as
a fond parent looks upon a hopeful child, while he anticipates the future
figure he is to make in the world, and the height to which he will raise the
honour of his family. He held it at arm’s length from me—he held it
closer—he placed it upon the top of a chest of drawers—closed the
lower shutters of the casement, to adjust a downward and favourable
light—fell back to the due distance, dragging me after him—shaded
his face with his hand, as if to exclude all but the favourite object—and
ended by spoiling a child’s copy-book, which he rolled up so as to serve
for the darkened tube of an amateur. I fancy my expressions of enthusiasm had
not been in proportion to his own, for he presently exclaimed with vehemence:
“Mr. Pattieson, I used to think you had an eye in your head.”

I vindicated my claim to the usual allowance of visual organs.

“Yet, on my honour,” said Dick, “I would swear you had been
born blind, since you have failed at the first glance to discover the subject
and meaning of that sketch. I do not mean to praise my own performance, I leave
these arts to others; I am sensible of my deficiencies, conscious that my
drawing and colouring may be improved by the time I intend to dedicate to the
art. But the conception—the expression—the positions—these
tell the story to every one who looks at the sketch; and if I can finish the
picture without diminution of the original conception, the name of Tinto shall
no more be smothered by the mists of envy and intrigue.”

I replied: “That I admired the sketch exceedingly; but that to understand
its full merit, I felt it absolutely necessary to be informed of the
subject.”

“That is the very thing I complain of,” answered Tinto; “you
have accustomed yourself so much to these creeping twilight details of yours,
that you are become incapable of receiving that instant and vivid flash of
conviction which darts on the mind from seeing the happy and expressive
combinations of a single scene, and which gathers from the position, attitude,
and countenance of the moment, not only the history of the past lives of the
personages represented, and the nature of the business on which they are
immediately engaged, but lifts even the veil of futurity, and affords a shrewd
guess at their future fortunes.”

“In that case,” replied I, “Painting excels the ape of the
renowned Gines de Passamonte, which only meddled with the past and the present;
nay, she excels that very Nature who affords her subject; for I protest to you,
Dick, that were I permitted to peep into that Elizabeth-chamber, and see the
persons you have sketched conversing in flesh and blood, I should not be a jot
nearer guessing the nature of their business than I am at this moment while
looking at your sketch. Only generally, from the languishing look of the young
lady, and the care you have taken to present a very handsome leg on the part of
the gentleman, I presume there is some reference to a love affair between
them.”

“Do you really presume to form such a bold conjecture?” said Tinto.
“And the indignant earnestness with which you see the man urge his suit,
the unresisting and passive despair of the younger female, the stern air of
inflexible determination in the elder woman, whose looks express at once
consciousness that she is acting wrong and a firm determination to persist in
the course she has adopted——”

“If her looks express all this, my dear Tinto,” replied I,
interrupting him, “your pencil rivals the dramatic art of Mr. Puff in The
Critic, who crammed a whole complicated sentence into the expressive shake of
Lord Burleigh’s head.”

“My good friend, Peter,” replied Tinto, “I observe you are
perfectly incorrigible; however, I have compassion on your dulness, and am
unwilling you should be deprived of the pleasure of understanding my picture,
and of gaining, at the same time, a subject for your own pen. You must know
then, last summer, while I was taking sketches on the coast of East Lothian and
Berwickshire, I was seduced into the mountains of Lammermoor by the account I
received of some remains of antiquity in that district. Those with which I was
most struck were the ruins of an ancient castle in which that
Elizabeth-chamber, as you call it, once existed. I resided for two or three
days at a farmhouse in the neighbourhood, where the aged goodwife was well
acquainted with the history of the castle, and the events which had taken place
in it. One of these was of a nature so interesting and singular, that my
attention was divided between my wish to draw the old ruins in landscape, and
to represent, in a history-piece, the singular events which have taken place in
it. Here are my notes of the tale,” said poor Dick, handing a parcel of
loose scraps, partly scratched over with his pencil, partly with his pen, where
outlines of caricatures, sketches of turrets, mills, old gables, and dovecots,
disputed the ground with his written memoranda.

I proceeded, however, to decipher the substance of the manuscript as well as I
could, and move it into the following Tale, in which, following in part, though
not entirely, my friend Tinto’s advice, I endeavoured to render my
narrative rather descriptive than dramatic. My favourite propensity, however,
has at times overcome me, and my persons, like many others in this talking
world, speak now and then a great deal more than they act.

CHAPTER II.

Well, lord, we have not got that which we have;
’Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,
Being opposites of such repairing nature.

Henry VI. Part II.

In the gorge of a pass or mountain glen, ascending from the fertile plains of
East Lothian, there stood in former times an extensive castle, of which only
the ruins are now visible. Its ancient proprietors were a race of powerful and
warlike barons, who bore the same name with the castle itself, which was
Ravenswood. Their line extended to a remote period of antiquity, and they had
intermarried with the Douglasses, Humes, Swintons, Hays, and other families of
power and distinction in the same country. Their history was frequently
involved in that of Scotland itself, in whose annals their feats are recorded.
The Castle of Ravenswood, occupying, and in some measure commanding, a pass
betweixt Berwickshire, or the Merse, as the southeastern province of Scotland
is termed, and the Lothians, was of importance both in times of foreign war and
domestic discord. It was frequently beseiged with ardour, and defended with
obstinacy, and, of course, its owners played a conspicuous part in story. But
their house had its revolutions, like all sublunary things: it became greatly
declined from its splendour about the middle of the 17th century; and towards
the period of the Revolution, the last proprietor of Ravenswood Castle saw
himself compelled to part with the ancient family seat, and to remove himself
to a lonely and sea-beaten tower, which, situated on the bleak shores between
St. Abb’s Head and the village of Eyemouth, looked out on the lonely and
boisterous German Ocean. A black domain of wild pasture-land surrounded their
new residence, and formed the remains of their property.

Lord Ravenswood, the heir of this ruined family, was far from bending his mind
to his new condition of life. In the civil war of 1689 he had espoused the
sinking side, and although he had escaped without the forfeiture of life or
land, his blood had been attainted, and his title abolished. He was now called
Lord Ravenswood only in courtesy.

This forfeited nobleman inherited the pride and turbulence, though not the
fortune, of his house, and, as he imputed the final declension of his family to
a particular individual, he honoured that person with his full portion of
hatred. This was the very man who had now become, by purchase, proprietor of
Ravenswood, and the domains of which the heir of the house now stood
dispossessed. He was descended of a family much less ancient than that of Lord
Ravenswood, and which had only risen to wealth and political importance during
the great civil wars. He himself had been bred to the bar, and had held high
offices in the state, maintaining through life the character of a skilful
fisher in the troubled waters of a state divided by factions, and governed by
delegated authority; and of one who contrived to amass considerable sums of
money in a country where there was but little to be gathered, and who equally
knew the value of wealth and the various means of augmenting it and using it as
an engine of increasing his power and influence.

Thus qualified and gifted, he was a dangerous antagonist to the fierce and
imprudent Ravenswood. Whether he had given him good cause for the enmity with
which the Baron regarded him, was a point on which men spoke differently. Some
said the quarrel arose merely from the vindictive spirit and envy of Lord
Ravenswood, who could not patiently behold another, though by just and fair
purchase, become the proprietor of the estate and castle of his forefathers.
But the greater part of the public, prone to slander the wealthy in their
absence as to flatter them in their presence, held a less charitable opinion.
They said that the Lord Keeper (for to this height Sir William Ashton had
ascended) had, previous to the final purchase of the estate of Ravenswood, been
concerned in extensive pecuniary transactions with the former proprietor; and,
rather intimating what was probable than affirming anything positively, they
asked which party was likely to have the advantage in stating and enforcing the
claims arising out of these complicated affairs, and more than hinted the
advantages which the cool lawyer and able politician must necessarily possess
over the hot, fiery, and imprudent character whom he had involved in legal
toils and pecuniary snares.

The character of the times aggravated these suspicions. “In those days
there was no king in Israel.” Since the departure of James VI. to assume
the richer and more powerful crown of England, there had existed in Scotland
contending parties, formed among the aristocracy, by whom, as their intrigues
at the court of St. James’s chanced to prevail, the delegated powers of
sovereignty were alternately swayed. The evils attending upon this system of
government resembled those which afflict the tenants of an Irish estate, the
property of an absentee. There was no supreme power, claiming and possessing a
general interest with the community at large, to whom the oppressed might
appeal from subordinate tyranny, either for justice or for mercy. Let a monarch
be as indolent, as selfish, as much disposed to arbitrary power as he will,
still, in a free country, his own interests are so clearly connected with those
of the public at large, and the evil consequences to his own authority are so
obvious and imminent when a different course is pursued, that common policy, as
well as common feeling, point to the equal distribution of justice, and to the
establishment of the throne in righteousness. Thus, even sovereigns remarkable
for usurpation and tyranny have been found rigorous in the administration of
justice among their subjects, in cases where their own power and passions were
not compromised.

It is very different when the powers of sovereignty are delegated to the head
of an aristocratic faction, rivalled and pressed closely in the race of
ambition by an adverse leader. His brief and precarious enjoyment of power must
be employed in rewarding his partizans, in extending his influence, in
oppressing and crushing his adversaries. Even Abou Hassan, the most
disinterested of all viceroys, forgot not, during his caliphate of one day, to
send a douceur of one thousand pieces of gold to his own household; and the
Scottish vicegerents, raised to power by the strength of their faction, failed
not to embrace the same means of rewarding them.

The administration of justice, in particular, was infected by the most gross
partiality. A case of importance scarcely occurred in which there was not some
ground for bias or partiality on the part of the judges, who were so little
able to withstand the temptation that the adage, “Show me the man, and I
will show you the law,” became as prevalent as it was scandalous. One
corruption led the way to others still more gross and profligate. The judge who
lent his sacred authority in one case to support a friend, and in another to
crush an enemy, and whose decisions were founded on family connexions or
political relations, could not be supposed inaccessible to direct personal
motives; and the purse of the wealthy was too often believed to be thrown into
the scale to weigh down the cause of the poor litigant. The subordinate
officers of the law affected little scruple concerning bribery. Pieces of plate
and bags of money were sent in presents to the king’s counsel, to
influence their conduct, and poured forth, says a contemporary writer, like
billets of wood upon their floors, without even the decency of concealment.

In such times, it was not over uncharitable to suppose that the statesman,
practised in courts of law, and a powerful member of a triumphant cabal, might
find and use means of advantage over his less skilful and less favoured
adversary; and if it had been supposed that Sir William Ashton’s
conscience had been too delicate to profit by these advantages, it was believed
that his ambition and desire of extending his wealth and consequence found as
strong a stimulus in the exhortations of his lady as the daring aim of Macbeth
in the days of yore.

Lady Ashton was of a family more distinguished than that of her lord, an
advantage which she did not fail to use to the uttermost, in maintaining and
extending her husband’s influence over others, and, unless she was
greatly belied, her own over him. She had been beautiful, and was stately and
majestic in her appearance. Endowed by nature with strong powers and violent
passions, experience had taught her to employ the one, and to conceal, if not
to moderate, the other. She was a severe and strict observer of the external
forms, at least, of devotion; her hospitality was splendid, even to
ostentation; her address and manners, agreeable to the pattern most valued in
Scotland at the period, were grave, dignified, and severely regulated by the
rules of etiquette. Her character had always been beyond the breath of slander.
And yet, with all these qualities to excite respect, Lady Ashton was seldom
mentioned in the terms of love or affection. Interest—the interest of her
family, if not her own—seemed too obviously the motive of her actions;
and where this is the case, the sharp-judging and malignant public are not
easily imposed upon by outward show. It was seen and ascertained that, in her
most graceful courtesies and compliments, Lady Ashton no more lost sight of her
object than the falcon in his airy wheel turns his quick eyes from his destined
quarry; and hence, something of doubt and suspicion qualified the feelings with
which her equals received her attentions. With her inferiors these feelings
were mingled with fear; an impression useful to her purposes, so far as it
enforced ready compliance with her requests and implicit obedience to her
commands, but detrimental, because it cannot exist with affection or regard.

Even her husband, it is said, upon whose fortunes her talents and address had
produced such emphatic influence, regarded her with respectful awe rather than
confiding attachment; and report said, there were times when he considered his
grandeur as dearly purchased at the expense of domestic thraldom. Of this,
however, much might be suspected, but little could be accurately known: Lady
Ashton regarded the honour of her husband as her own, and was well aware how
much that would suffer in the public eye should he appear a vassal to his wife.
In all her arguments his opinion was quoted as infallible; his taste was
appealed to, and his sentiments received, with the air of deference which a
dutiful wife might seem to owe to a husband of Sir William Ashton’s rank
and character. But there was something under all this which rung false and
hollow; and to those who watched this couple with close, and perhaps malicious,
scrutiny it seemed evident that, in the haughtiness of a firmer character,
higher birth, and more decided views of aggrandisement, the lady looked with
some contempt on her husband, and that he regarded her with jealous fear,
rather than with love or admiration.

Still, however, the leading and favourite interests of Sir William Ashton and
his lady were the same, and they failed not to work in concert, although
without cordiality, and to testify, in all exterior circumstances, that respect
for each other which they were aware was necessary to secure that of the
public.

Their union was crowned with several children, of whom three survived. One, the
eldest son, was absent on his travels; the second, a girl of seventeen, and the
third, a boy about three years younger, resided with their parents in Edinburgh
during the sessions of the Scottish Parliament and Privy Council, at other
times in the old Gothic castle of Ravenswood, to which the Lord Keeper had made
large additions in the style of the 17th century.

Allan Lord Ravenswood, the late proprietor of that ancient mansion and the
large estate annexed to it, continued for some time to wage ineffectual war
with his successor concerning various points to which their former transactions
had given rise, and which were successively determined in favour of the wealthy
and powerful competitor, until death closed the litigation, by summoning
Ravenswood to a higher bar. The thread of life, which had been long wasting,
gave way during a fit of violent and impotent fury with which he was assailed
on receiving the news of the loss of a cause, founded, perhaps, rather in
equity than in law, the last which he had maintained against his powerful
antagonist. His son witnessed his dying agonies, and heard the curses which he
breathed against his adversary, as if they had conveyed to him a legacy of
vengeance. Other circumstances happened to exasperate a passion which was, and
had long been, a prevalent vice in the Scottish disposition.

It was a November morning, and the cliffs which overlooked the ocean were hung
with thick and heavy mist, when the portals of the ancient and half-ruinous
tower, in which Lord Ravenswood had spent the last and troubled years of his
life, opened, that his mortal remains might pass forward to an abode yet more
dreary and lonely. The pomp of attendance, to which the deceased had, in his
latter years, been a stranger, was revived as he was about to be consigned to
the realms of forgetfulness.

Banner after banner, with the various devices and coats of this ancient family
and its connexions, followed each other in mournful procession from under the
low-browed archway of the courtyard. The principal gentry of the country
attended in the deepest mourning, and tempered the pace of their long train of
horses to the solemn march befitting the occasion. Trumpets, with banners of
crape attached to them, sent forth their long and melancholy notes to regulate
the movements of the procession. An immense train of inferior mourners and
menials closed the rear, which had not yet issued from the castle gate when the
van had reached the chapel where the body was to be deposited.

Contrary to the custom, and even to the law, of the time, the body was met by a
priest of the Scottish Episcopal communion, arrayed in his surplice, and
prepared to read over the coffin of the deceased the funeral service of the
church. Such had been the desire of Lord Ravenswood in his last illness, and it
was readily complied with by the Tory gentlemen, or Cavaliers, as they affected
to style themselves, in which faction most of his kinsmen were enrolled. The
Presbyterian Church judicatory of the bounds, considering the ceremony as a
bravading insult upon their authority, had applied to the Lord Keeper, as the
nearest privy councillor, for a warrant to prevent its being carried into
effect; so that, when the clergyman had opened his prayer-book, an officer of
the law, supported by some armed men, commanded him to be silent. An insult
which fired the whole assembly with indignation was particularly and instantly
resented by the only son of the deceased, Edgar, popularly called the Master of
Ravenswood, a youth of about twenty years of age. He clapped his hand on his
sword, and bidding the official person to desist at his peril from farther
interruption, commanded the clergyman to proceed. The man attempted to enforce
his commission; but as an hundred swords at once glittered in the air, he
contented himself with protesting against the violence which had been offered
to him in the execution of his duty, and stood aloof, a sullen and moody
spectator of the ceremonial, muttering as one who should say:
“You’ll rue the day that clogs me with this answer.”

The scene was worthy of an artist’s pencil. Under the very arch of the
house of death, the clergyman, affrighted at the scene, and trembling for his
own safety, hastily and unwillingly rehearsed the solemn service of the church,
and spoke “dust to dust and ashes to ashes,” over ruined pride and
decayed prosperity. Around stood the relations of the deceased, their
countenances more in anger than in sorrow, and the drawn swords which they
brandished forming a violent contrast with their deep mourning habits. In the
countenance of the young man alone, resentment seemed for the moment
overpowered by the deep agony with which he beheld his nearest, and almost his
only, friend consigned to the tomb of his ancestry. A relative observed him
turn deadly pale, when, all rites being now duly observed, it became the duty
of the chief mourner to lower down into the charnel vault, where mouldering
coffins showed their tattered velvet and decayed plating, the head of the
corpse which was to be their partner in corruption. He stept to the youth and
offered his assistance, which, by a mute motion, Edgar Ravenswood rejected.
Firmly, and without a tear, he performed that last duty. The stone was laid on
the sepulchre, the door of the aisle was locked, and the youth took possession
of its massive key.

As the crowd left the chapel, he paused on the steps which led to its Gothic
chancel. “Gentlemen and friends,” he said, “you have this day
done no common duty to the body of your deceased kinsman. The rites of due
observance, which, in other countries, are allowed as the due of the meanest
Christian, would this day have been denied to the body of your
relative—not certainly sprung of the meanest house in Scotland—had
it not been assured to him by your courage. Others bury their dead in sorrow
and tears, in silence and in reverence; our funeral rites are marred by the
intrusion of bailiffs and ruffians, and our grief—the grief due to our
departed friend—is chased from our cheeks by the glow of just
indignation. But it is well that I know from what quiver this arrow has come
forth. It was only he that dug the grave who could have the mean cruelty to
disturb the obsequies; and Heaven do as much to me and more, if I requite not
to this man and his house the ruin and disgrace he has brought on me and
mine!”

A numerous part of the assembly applauded this speech, as the spirited
expression of just resentment; but the more cool and judicious regretted that
it had been uttered. The fortunes of the heir of Ravenswood were too low to
brave the farther hostility which they imagined these open expressions of
resentment must necessarily provoke. Their apprehensions, however, proved
groundless, at least in the immediate consequences of this affair.

The mourners returned to the tower, there, according to a custom but recently
abolished in Scotland, to carouse deep healths to the memory of the deceased,
to make the house of sorrow ring with sounds of joviality and debauch, and to
diminish, by the expense of a large and profuse entertainment, the limited
revenues of the heir of him whose funeral they thus strangely honoured. It was
the custom, however, and on the present occasion it was fully observed. The
tables swam in wine, the populace feasted in the courtyard, the yeomen in the
kitchen and buttery; and two years’ rent of Ravenswood’s remaining
property hardly defrayed the charge of the funeral revel. The wine did its
office on all but the Master of Ravenswood, a title which he still retained,
though forfeiture had attached to that of his father. He, while passing around
the cup which he himself did not taste, soon listened to a thousand
exclamations against the Lord Keeper, and passionate protestations of
attachment to himself, and to the honour of his house. He listened with dark
and sullen brow to ebullitions which he considered justly as equally evanescent
with the crimson bubbles on the brink of the goblet, or at least with the
vapours which its contents excited in the brains of the revellers around him.

When the last flask was emptied, they took their leave with deep
protestations—to be forgotten on the morrow, if, indeed, those who made
them should not think it necessary for their safety to make a more solemn
retractation.

Accepting their adieus with an air of contempt which he could scarce conceal,
Ravenswood at length beheld his ruinous habitation cleared of this confluence
of riotous guests, and returned to the deserted hall, which now appeared doubly
lonely from the cessation of that clamour to which it had so lately echoed. But
its space was peopled by phantoms which the imagination of the young heir
conjured up before him—the tarnished honour and degraded fortunes of his
house, the destruction of his own hopes, and the triumph of that family by whom
they had been ruined. To a mind naturally of a gloomy cast here was ample room
for meditation, and the musings of young Ravenswood were deep and unwitnessed.

The peasant who shows the ruins of the tower, which still crown the beetling
cliff and behold the war of the waves, though no more tenanted saved by the
sea-mew and cormorant, even yet affirms that on this fatal night the Master of
Ravenswood, by the bitter exclamations of his despair, evoked some evil fiend,
under whose malignant influence the future tissue of incidents was woven. Alas!
what fiend can suggest more desperate counsels than those adopted under the
guidance of our own violent and unresisted passions?

CHAPTER III.

Over Gods forebode, then said the King,
That thou shouldst shoot at me.

William Bell, Clim ’o the Cleugh, etc.

On the morning after the funeral, the legal officer whose authority had been
found insufficient to effect an interruption of the funeral solemnities of the
late Lord Ravenswood, hastened to state before the Keeper the resistance which
he had met with in the execution of his office.

The statesman was seated in a spacious library, once a banqueting-room in the
old Castle of Ravenswood, as was evident from the armorial insignia still
displayed on the carved roof, which was vaulted with Spanish chestnut, and on
the stained glass of the casement, through which gleamed a dim yet rich light
on the long rows of shelves, bending under the weight of legal commentators and
monkish historians, whose ponderous volumes formed the chief and most valued
contents of a Scottish historian [library] of the period. On the massive oaken
table and reading-desk lay a confused mass of letters, petitions, and
parchments; to toil amongst which was the pleasure at once and the plague of
Sir William Ashton’s life. His appearance was grave and even noble, well
becoming one who held an high office in the state; and it was not save after
long and intimate conversation with him upon topics of pressing and personal
interest, that a stranger could have discovered something vacillating and
uncertain in his resolutions; an infirmity of purpose, arising from a cautious
and timid disposition, which, as he was conscious of its internal influence on
his mind, he was, from pride as well as policy, most anxious to conceal from
others. He listened with great apparent composure to an exaggerated account of
the tumult which had taken place at the funeral, of the contempt thrown on his
own authority and that of the church and state; nor did he seem moved even by
the faithful report of the insulting and threatening language which had been
uttered by young Ravenswood and others, and obviously directed against himself.
He heard, also, what the man had been able to collect, in a very distorted and
aggravated shape, of the toasts which had been drunk, and the menaces uttered,
at the subsequent entertainment. In fine, he made careful notes of all these
particulars, and of the names of the persons by whom, in case of need, an
accusation, founded upon these violent proceedings, could be witnessed and made
good, and dismissed his informer, secure that he was now master of the
remaining fortune, and even of the personal liberty, of young Ravenswood.

When the door had closed upon the officer of the law, the Lord Keeper remained
for a moment in deep meditation; then, starting from his seat, paced the
apartment as one about to take a sudden and energetic resolution. “Young
Ravenswood,” he muttered, “is now mine—he is my own; he has
placed himself in my hand, and he shall bend or break. I have not forgot the
determined and dogged obstinacy with which his father fought every point to the
last, resisted every effort at compromise, embroiled me in lawsuits, and
attempted to assail my character when he could not otherwise impugn my rights.
This boy he has left behind him—this Edgar—this hot-headed,
hare-brained fool, has wrecked his vessel before she has cleared the harbor. I
must see that he gains no advantage of some turning tide which may again float
him off. These memoranda, properly stated to the privy council, cannot but be
construed into an aggravated riot, in which the dignity both of the civil and
ecclesiastical authorities stands committed. A heavy fine might be imposed; an
order for committing him to Edinburgh or Blackness Castle seems not improper;
even a charge of treason might be laid on many of these words and expressions,
though God forbid I should prosecute the matter to that extent. No, I will not;
I will not touch his life, even if it should be in my power; and yet, if he
lives till a change of times, what follows? Restitution—perhaps revenge.
I know Athole promised his interest to old Ravenswood, and here is his son
already bandying and making a faction by his own contemptible influence. What a
ready tool he would be for the use of those who are watching the downfall of
our administration!”

While these thoughts were agitating the mind of the wily statesman, and while
he was persuading himself that his own interest and safety, as well as those of
his friends and party, depended on using the present advantage to the uttermost
against young Ravenswood, the Lord Keeper sate down to his desk, and proceeded
to draw up, for the information of the privy council, an account of the
disorderly proceedings which, in contempt of his warrant, had taken place at
the funeral of Lord Ravenswood. The names of most of the parties concerned, as
well as the fact itself, would, he was well aware, sound odiously in the ears
of his colleagues in administration, and most likely instigate them to make an
example of young Ravenswood, at least, in terrorem.

It was a point of delicacy, however, to select such expressions as might infer
the young man’s culpability, without seeming directly to urge it, which,
on the part of Sir William Ashton, his father’s ancient antagonist, could
not but appear odious and invidious. While he was in the act of composition,
labouring to find words which might indicate Edgar Ravenswood to be the cause
of the uproar, without specifically making such a charge, Sir William, in a
pause of his task, chanced, in looking upward, to see the crest of the family
for whose heir he was whetting the arrows and disposing the toils of the law
carved upon one of the corbeilles from which the vaulted roof of the apartment
sprung. It was a black bull’s head, with the legend, “I bide my
time”; and the occasion upon which it was adopted mingled itself
singularly and impressively with the subject of his present reflections.

It was said by a constant tradition that a Malisius de Ravenswood had, in the
13th century, been deprived of his castle and lands by a powerful usurper, who
had for a while enjoyed his spoils in quiet. At length, on the eve of a costly
banquet, Ravenswood, who had watched his opportunity, introduced himself into
the castle with a small band of faithful retainers. The serving of the expected
feast was impatiently looked for by the guests, and clamorously demanded by the
temporary master of the castle. Ravenswood, who had assumed the disguise of a
sewer upon the occasion, answered, in a stern voice, “I bide my
time”; and at the same moment a bull’s head, the ancient symbol of
death, was placed upon the table. The explosion of the conspiracy took place
upon the signal, and the usurper and his followers were put to death. Perhaps
there was something in this still known and often repeated story which came
immediately home to the breast and conscience of the Lord Keeper; for, putting
from him the paper on which he had begun his report, and carefully locking the
memoranda which he had prepared into a cabinet which stood beside him, he
proceeded to walk abroad, as if for the purpose of collecting his ideas, and
reflecting farther on the consequences of the step which he was about to take,
ere yet they became inevitable.

In passing through a large Gothic ante-room, Sir William Ashton heard the sound
of his daughter’s lute. Music, when the performers are concealed, affects
us with a pleasure mingled with surprise, and reminds us of the natural concert
of birds among the leafy bowers. The statesman, though little accustomed to
give way to emotions of this natural and simple class, was still a man and a
father. He stopped, therefore, and listened, while the silver tones of Lucy
Ashton’s voice mingled with the accompaniment in an ancient air, to which
some one had adapted the following words:

“Look not thou on beauty’s charming,
Sit thou still when kings are arming,
Taste not when the wine-cup glistens,
Speak not when the people listens,
Stop thine ear against the singer,
From the red gold keep thy finger,
Vacant heart, and hand, and eye,
Easy live and quiet die.”

The sounds ceased, and the Keeper entered his daughter’s apartment.

The words she had chosen seemed particularly adapted to her character; for Lucy
Ashton’s exquisitely beautiful, yet somewhat girlish features were formed
to express peace of mind, serenity, and indifference to the tinsel of worldly
pleasure. Her locks, which were of shadowy gold, divided on a brow of exquisite
whiteness, like a gleam of broken and pallid sunshine upon a hill of snow. The
expression of the countenance was in the last degree gentle, soft, timid, and
feminine, and seemed rather to shrink from the most casual look of a stranger
than to court his admiration. Something there was of a Madonna cast, perhaps
the result of delicate health, and of residence in a family where the
dispositions of the inmates were fiercer, more active, and energetic than her
own.

Yet her passiveness of disposition was by no means owing to an indifferent or
unfeeling mind. Left to the impulse of her own taste and feelings, Lucy Ashton
was peculiarly accessible to those of a romantic cast. Her secret delight was
in the old legendary tales of ardent devotion and unalterable affection,
chequered as they so often are with strange adventures and supernatural
horrors. This was her favoured fairy realm, and here she erected her aerial
palaces. But it was only in secret that she laboured at this delusive though
delightful architecture. In her retired chamber, or in the woodland bower which
she had chosen for her own, and called after her name, she was in fancy
distributing the prizes at the tournament, or raining down influence from her
eyes on the valiant combatants: or she was wandering in the wilderness with
Una, under escort of the generous lion; or she was identifying herself with the
simple yet noble-minded Miranda in the isle of wonder and enchantment.

But in her exterior relations to things of this world, Lucy willingly received
the ruling impulse from those around her. The alternative was, in general, too
indifferent to her to render resistance desirable, and she willingly found a
motive for decision in the opinion of her friends which perhaps she might have
sought for in vain in her own choice. Every reader must have observed in some
family of his acquaintance some individual of a temper soft and yielding, who,
mixed with stronger and more ardent minds, is borne along by the will of
others, with as little power of opposition as the flower which is flung into a
running stream. It usually happens that such a compliant and easy disposition,
which resigns itself without murmur to the guidance of others, becomes the
darling of those to whose inclinations its own seem to be offered, in
ungrudging and ready sacrifice.

This was eminently the case with Lucy Ashton. Her politic, wary, and worldly
father felt for her an affection the strength of which sometimes surprised him
into an unusual emotion. Her elder brother, who trode the path of ambition with
a haughtier step than his father, had also more of human affection. A soldier,
and in a dissolute age, he preferred his sister Lucy even to pleasure and to
military preferment and distinction. Her younger brother, at an age when
trifles chiefly occupied his mind, made her the confidante of all his pleasures
and anxieties, his success in field-sports, and his quarrels with his tutor and
instructors. To these details, however trivial, Lucy lent patient and not
indifferent attention. They moved and interested Henry, and that was enough to
secure her ear.

Her mother alone did not feel that distinguished and predominating affection
with which the rest of the family cherished Lucy. She regarded what she termed
her daughter’s want of spirit as a decided mark that the more plebeian
blood of her father predominated in Lucy’s veins, and used to call her in
derision her Lammermoor Shepherdess. To dislike so gentle and inoffensive a
being was impossible; but Lady Ashton preferred her eldest son, on whom had
descended a large portion of her own ambitious and undaunted disposition, to a
daughter whose softness of temper seemed allied to feebleness of mind. Her
eldest son was the more partially beloved by his mother because, contrary to
the usual custom of Scottish families of distinction, he had been named after
the head of the house.

“My Sholto,” she said, “will support the untarnished honour
of his maternal house, and elevate and support that of his father. Poor Lucy is
unfit for courts or crowded halls. Some country laird must be her husband, rich
enough to supply her with every comfort, without an effort on her own part, so
that she may have nothing to shed a tear for but the tender apprehension lest
he may break his neck in a foxchase. It was not so, however, that our house was
raised, nor is it so that it can be fortified and augmented. The Lord
Keeper’s dignity is yet new; it must be borne as if we were used to its
weight, worthy of it, and prompt to assert and maintain it. Before ancient
authorities men bend from customary and hereditary deference; in our presence
they will stand erect, unless they are compelled to prostrate themselves. A
daughter fit for the sheepfold or the cloister is ill qualified to exact
respect where it is yielded with reluctance; and since Heaven refused us a
third boy, Lucy should have held a character fit to supply his place. The hour
will be a happy one which disposes her hand in marriage to some one whose
energy is greater than her own, or whose ambition is of as low an order.”

So meditated a mother to whom the qualities of her children’s hearts, as
well as the prospect of their domestic happiness, seemed light in comparison to
their rank and temporal greatness. But, like many a parent of hot and impatient
character, she was mistaken in estimating the feelings of her daughter, who,
under a semblance of extreme indifference, nourished the germ of those passions
which sometimes spring up in one night, like the gourd of the prophet, and
astonish the observer by their unexpected ardour and intensity. In fact,
Lucy’s sentiments seemed chill because nothing had occurred to interest
or awaken them. Her life had hitherto flowed on in a uniform and gentle tenor,
and happy for her had not its present smoothness of current resembled that of
the stream as it glides downwards to the waterfall!

“So, Lucy,” said her father, entering as her song was ended,
“does your musical philosopher teach you to contemn the world before you
know it? That is surely something premature. Or did you but speak according to
the fashion of fair maidens, who are always to hold the pleasures of life in
contempt till they are pressed upon them by the address of some gentle
knight?”

Lucy blushed, disclaimed any inference respecting her own choice being drawn
from her selection of a song, and readily laid aside her instrument at her
father’s request that she would attend him in his walk.

A large and well-wooded park, or rather chase, stretched along the hill behind
the castle, which, occupying, as we have noticed, a pass ascending from the
plain, seemed built in its very gorge to defend the forest ground which arose
behind it in shaggy majesty. Into this romantic region the father and daughter
proceeded, arm in arm, by a noble avenue overarched by embowering elms, beneath
which groups of the fallow-deer were seen to stray in distant perspective. As
they paced slowly on, admiring the different points of view, for which Sir
William Ashton, notwithstanding the nature of his usual avocations, had
considerable taste and feeling, they were overtaken by the forester, or
park-keeper, who, intent on silvan sport, was proceeding with his crossbow over
his arm, and a hound led in leash by his boy, into the interior of the wood.

“Going to shoot us a piece of venison, Norman?” said his master, as
he returned the woodsman’s salutation.

“Saul, your honour, and that I am. Will it please you to see the
sport?”

“Oh no,” said his lordship, after looking at his daughter, whose
colour fled at the idea of seeing the deer shot, although, had her father
expressed his wish that they should accompany Norman, it was probable she would
not even have hinted her reluctance.

The forester shrugged his shoulders. “It was a disheartening
thing,” he said, “when none of the gentles came down to see the
sport. He hoped Captain Sholto would be soon hame, or he might shut up his shop
entirely; for Mr. Harry was kept sae close wi’ his Latin nonsense that,
though his will was very gude to be in the wood from morning till night, there
would be a hopeful lad lost, and no making a man of him. It was not so, he had
heard, in Lord Ravenswood’s time: when a buck was to be killed, man and
mother’s son ran to see; and when the deer fell, the knife was always
presented to the knight, and he never gave less than a dollar for the
compliment. And there was Edgar Ravenswood—Master of Ravenswood that is
now—when he goes up to the wood—there hasna been a better hunter
since Tristrem’s time—when Sir Edgar hauds out, down goes the deer,
faith. But we hae lost a’ sense of woodcraft on this side of the
hill.”

There was much in this harangue highly displeasing to the Lord Keeper’s
feelings; he could not help observing that his menial despised him almost
avowedly for not possessing that taste for sport which in those times was
deemed the natural and indispensable attribute of a real gentleman. But the
master of the game is, in all country houses, a man of great importance, and
entitled to use considerable freedom of speech. Sir William, therefore, only
smiled and replied, “He had something else to think upon to-day than
killing deer”; meantime, taking out his purse, he gave the ranger a
dollar for his encouragement. The fellow received it as the waiter of a
fashionable hotel receives double his proper fee from the hands of a country
gentleman—that is, with a smile, in which pleasure at the gift is mingled
with contempt for the ignorance of the donor. “Your honour is the bad
paymaster,” he said, “who pays before it is done. What would you do
were I to miss the buck after you have paid me my wood-fee?”

“I suppose,” said the Keeper, smiling, “you would hardly
guess what I mean were I to tell you of a condictio indebiti?”

“Not I, on my saul. I guess it is some law phrase; but sue a beggar,
and—your honour knows what follows. Well, but I will be just with you,
and if bow and brach fail not, you shall have a piece of game two fingers fat
on the brisket.”

As he was about to go off, his master again called him, and asked, as if by
accident, whether the Master of Ravenswood was actually so brave a man and so
good a shooter as the world spoke him.

“Brave!—brave enough, I warrant you,” answered Norman.
“I was in the wood at Tyninghame when there was a sort of gallants
hunting with my lord; on my saul, there was a buck turned to bay made us all
stand back—a stout old Trojan of the first head, ten-tyned branches, and
a brow as broad as e’er a bullock’s. Egad, he dashed at the old
lord, and there would have been inlake among the perrage, if the Master had not
whipt roundly in, and hamstrung him with his cutlass. He was but sixteen then,
bless his heart!”

“And is he as ready with the gun as with the couteau?” said Sir
William.

“He’ll strike this silver dollar out from between my finger and
thumb at fourscore yards, and I’ll hold it out for a gold merk; what more
would ye have of eye, hand, lead, and gunpowder?”

“Oh, no more to be wished, certainly,” said the Lord Keeper;
“but we keep you from your sport, Norman. Good morrow, good
Norman.”

And, humming his rustic roundelay, the yeoman went on his road, the sound of
his rough voice gradually dying away as the distance betwixt them increased:

“The monk must arise when the matins ring,
    The abbot may sleep to their chime;
But the yeoman must start when the bugles sing
    ’Tis time, my hearts, ’tis time.

There’s bucks and raes on Bilhope braes,
    There’s a herd on Shortwood Shaw;
But a lily-white doe in the garden goes,
    She’s fairly worth them a’.”

“Has this fellow,” said the Lord Keeper, when the yeoman’s
song had died on the wind, “ever served the Ravenswood people, that he
seems so much interested in them? I suppose you know, Lucy, for you make it a
point of conscience to record the special history of every boor about the
castle.”

“I am not quite so faithful a chronicler, my dear father; but I believe
that Norman once served here while a boy, and before he went to Ledington,
whence you hired him. But if you want to know anything of the former family,
Old Alice is the best authority.”

“And what should I have to do with them, pray, Lucy,” said her
father, “or with their history or accomplishments?”

“Nay, I do not know, sir; only that you were asking questions of Norman
about young Ravenswood.”

“Pshaw, child!” replied her father, yet immediately added:
“And who is Old Alice? I think you know all the old women in the
country.”

“To be sure I do, or how could I help the old creatures when they are in
hard times? And as to Old Alice, she is the very empress of old women and queen
of gossips, so far as legendary lore is concerned. She is blind, poor old soul,
but when she speaks to you, you would think she has some way of looking into
your very heart. I am sure I often cover my face, or turn it away, for it seems
as if she saw one change colour, though she has been blind these twenty years.
She is worth visiting, were it but to say you have seen a blind and paralytic
old woman have so much acuteness of perception and dignity of manners. I assure
you, she might be a countess from her language and behaviour. Come, you must go
to see Alice; we are not a quarter of a mile from her cottage.”

“All this, my dear,” said the Lord Keeper, “is no answer to
my question, who this woman is, and what is her connexion with the former
proprietor’s family?”

“Oh, it was something of a nouriceship, I believe; and she remained here,
because her two grandsons were engaged in your service. But it was against her
will, I fancy; for the poor old creature is always regretting the change of
times and of property.”

“I am much obliged to her,” answered the Lord Keeper. “She
and her folk eat my bread and drink my cup, and are lamenting all the while
that they are not still under a family which never could do good, either to
themselves or any one else!”

“Indeed,” replied Lucy, “I am certain you do Old Alice
injustice. She has nothing mercenary about her, and would not accept a penny in
charity, if it were to save her from being starved. She is only talkative, like
all old folk when you put them upon stories of their youth; and she speaks
about the Ravenswood people, because she lived under them so many years. But I
am sure she is grateful to you, sir, for your protection, and that she would
rather speak to you than to any other person in the whole world beside. Do,
sir, come and see Old Alice.”

And with the freedom of an indulged daughter she dragged the Lord Keeper in the
direction she desired.

CHAPTER IV.

Through tops of the high trees she did descry
A little smoke, whose vapour, thin and light,
Reeking aloft, uprolled to the sky,
Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight,
That in the same did wonne some living wight.

SPENSER.

Lucy acted as her father’s guide, for he was too much engrossed with his
political labours, or with society, to be perfectly acquainted with his own
extensive domains, and, moreover, was generally an inhabitant of the city of
Edinburgh; and she, on the other hand, had, with her mother, resided the whole
summer in Ravenswood, and, partly from taste, partly from want of any other
amusement, had, by her frequent rambles, learned to know each lane, alley,
dingle, or bushy dell,

And every bosky bourne from side to side.

We have said that the Lord Keeper was not indifferent to the beauties of
nature; and we add, in justice to him, that he felt them doubly when pointed
out by the beautiful, simple, and interesting girl who, hanging on his arm with
filial kindness, now called him to admire the size of some ancient oak, and now
the unexpected turn where the path, developing its maze from glen or dingle,
suddenly reached an eminence commanding an extensive view of the plains beneath
them, and then gradually glided away from the prospect to lose itself among
rocks and thickets, and guide to scenes of deeper seclusion.

It was when pausing on one of those points of extensive and commanding view
that Lucy told her father they were close by the cottage of her blind protégée;
and on turning from the little hill, a path which led around it, worn by the
daily steps of the infirm inmate, brought them in sight of the hut, which,
embosomed in a deep and obscure dell, seemed to have been so situated purposely
to bear a correspondence with the darkened state of its inhabitant.

The cottage was situated immediately under a tall rock, which in some measure
beetled over it, as if threatening to drop some detached fragment from its brow
on the frail tenement beneath. The hut itself was constructed of turf and
stones, and rudely roofed over with thatch, much of which was in a dilapidated
condition. The thin blue smoke rose from it in a light column, and curled
upward along the white face of the incumbent rock, giving the scene a tint of
exquisite softness. In a small and rude garden, surrounded by straggling
elder-bushes, which formed a sort of imperfect hedge, sat near to the beehives,
by the produce of which she lived, that “woman old” whom Lucy had
brought her father hither to visit.

Whatever there had been which was disastrous in her fortune, whatever there was
miserable in her dwelling, it was easy to judge by the first glance that
neither years, poverty, misfortune, nor infirmity had broken the spirit of this
remarkable woman.

She occupied a turf seat, placed under a weeping birch of unusual magnitude and
age, as Judah is represented sitting under her palm-tree, with an air at once
of majesty and of dejection. Her figure was tall, commanding, and but little
bent by the infirmities of old age. Her dress, though that of a peasant, was
uncommonly clean, forming in that particular a strong contrast to most of her
rank, and was disposed with an attention to neatness, and even to taste,
equally unusual. But it was her expression of countenance which chiefly struck
the spectator, and induced most persons to address her with a degree of
deference and civility very inconsistent with the miserable state of her
dwelling, and which, nevertheless, she received with that easy composure which
showed she felt it to be her due. She had once been beautiful, but her beauty
had been of a bold and masculine cast, such as does not survive the bloom of
youth; yet her features continued to express strong sense, deep reflection, and
a character of sober pride, which, as we have already said of her dress,
appeared to argue a conscious superiority to those of her own rank. It scarce
seemed possible that a face, deprived of the advantage of sight, could have
expressed character so strongly; but her eyes, which were almost totally
closed, did not, by the display of their sightless orbs, mar the countenance to
which they could add nothing. She seemed in a ruminating posture, soothed,
perhaps, by the murmurs of the busy tribe around her to abstraction, though not
to slumber.

Lucy undid the latch of the little garden gate, and solicited the old
woman’s attention. “My father, Alice, is come to see you.”

“He is welcome, Miss Ashton, and so are you,” said the old woman,
turning and inclining her head towards her visitors.

“This is a fine morning for your beehives, mother,” said the Lord
Keeper, who, struck with the outward appearance of Alice, was somewhat curious
to know if her conversation would correspond with it.

“I believe so, my lord,” she replied; “I feel the air breathe
milder than of late.”

“You do not,” resumed the statesman, “take charge of these
bees yourself, mother? How do you manage them?”

“By delegates, as kings do their subjects,” resumed Alice;
“and I am fortunate in a prime minister. Here, Babie.”

She whistled on a small silver call which hung around her neck, and which at
that time was sometimes used to summon domestics, and Babie, a girl of fifteen,
made her appearance from the hut, not altogether so cleanly arrayed as she
would probably have been had Alice had the use of her eyes, but with a greater
air of neatness than was upon the whole to have been expected.

“Babie,” said her mistress, “offer some bread and honey to
the Lord Keeper and Miss Ashton; they will excuse your awkwardness if you use
cleanliness and despatch.”

Babie performed her mistress’s command with the grace which was naturally
to have been expected, moving to and fro with a lobster-like gesture, her feet
and legs tending one way, while her head, turned in a different direction, was
fixed in wonder upon the laird, who was more frequently heard of than seen by
his tenants and dependants. The bread and honey, however, deposited on a
plantain leaf, was offered and accepted in all due courtesy. The Lord Keeper,
still retaining the place which he had occupied on the decayed trunk of a
fallen tree, looked as if he wished to prolong the interview, but was at a loss
how to introduce a suitable subject.

“You have been long a resident on this property?” he said, after a
pause.

“It is now nearly sixty years since I first knew Ravenswood,”
answered the old dame, whose conversation, though perfectly civil and
respectful, seemed cautiously limited to the unavoidable and necessary task of
replying to Sir William.

“You are not, I should judge by your accent, of this country
originally?” said the Lord Keeper, in continuation.

“No; I am by birth an Englishwoman.”

“Yet you seem attached to this country as if it were your own.”

“It is here,” replied the blind woman, “that I have drank the
cup of joy and of sorrow which Heaven destined for me. I was here the wife of
an upright and affectionate husband for more than twenty years; I was here the
mother of six promising children; it was here that God deprived me of all these
blessings; it was here they died, and yonder, by yon ruined chapel, they lie
all buried. I had no country but theirs while they lived; I have none but
theirs now they are no more.”

“But your house,” said the Lord Keeper, looking at it, “is
miserably ruinous?”

“Do, my dear father,” said Lucy, eagerly, yet bashfully, catching
at the hint, “give orders to make it better; that is, if you think it
proper.”

“It will last my time, my dear Miss Lucy,” said the blind woman;
“I would not have my lord give himself the least trouble about it.”

“But,” said Lucy, “you once had a much better house, and were
rich, and now in your old age to live in this hovel!”

“It is as good as I deserve, Miss Lucy; if my heart has not broke with
what I have suffered, and seen others suffer, it must have been strong enough,
and the rest of this old frame has no right to call itself weaker.”

“You have probably witnessed many changes,” said the Lord Keeper;
“but your experience must have taught you to expect them.”

“It has taught me to endure them, my lord,” was the reply.

“Yet you knew that they must needs arrive in the course of years?”
said the statesman.

“Ay; as I knew that the stump, on or beside which you sit, once a tall
and lofty tree, must needs one day fall by decay, or by the axe; yet I hoped my
eyes might not witness the downfall of the tree which overshadowed my
dwelling.”

“Do not suppose,” said the Lord Keeper, “that you will lose
any interest with me for looking back with regret to the days when another
family possessed my estates. You had reason, doubtless, to love them, and I
respect your gratitude. I will order some repairs in your cottage, and I hope
we shall live to be friends when we know each other better.”

“Those of my age,” returned the dame, “make no new friends. I
thank you for your bounty, it is well intended undoubtedly; but I have all I
want, and I cannot accept more at your lordship’s hand.”

“Well, then,” continued the Lord Keeper, “at least allow me
to say, that I look upon you as a woman of sense and education beyond your
appearance, and that I hope you will continue to reside on this property of
mine rent-free for your life.”

“I hope I shall,” said the old dame, composedly; “I believe
that was made an article in the sale of Ravenswood to your lordship, though
such a trifling circumstance may have escaped your recollection.”

“I remember—I recollect,” said his lordship, somewhat
confused. “I perceive you are too much attached to your old friends to
accept any benefit from their successor.”

“Far from it, my lord; I am grateful for the benefits which I decline,
and I wish I could pay you for offering them, better than what I am now about
to say.” The Lord Keeper looked at her in some surprise, but said not a
word. “My lord,” she continued, in an impressive and solemn tone,
“take care what you do; you are on the brink of a precipice.”

“Indeed?” said the Lord Keeper, his mind reverting to the political
circumstances of the country. “Has anything come to your
knowledge—any plot or conspiracy?”

“No, my lord; those who traffic in such commodities do not call to their
councils the old, blind, and infirm. My warning is of another kind. You have
driven matters hard with the house of Ravenswood. Believe a true tale: they are
a fierce house, and there is danger in dealing with men when they become
desperate.”

“Tush,” answered the Keeper; “what has been between us has
been the work of the law, not my doing; and to the law they must look, if they
would impugn my proceedings.”

“Ay, but they may think otherwise, and take the law into their own hand,
when they fail of other means of redress.”

“What mean you?” said the Lord Keeper. “Young Ravenswood
would not have recourse to personal violence?”

“God forbid I should say so! I know nothing of the youth but what is
honourable and open. Honourable and open, said I? I should have added, free,
generous, noble. But he is still a Ravenswood, and may bide his time. Remember
the fate of Sir George Lockhart.”

The Lord Keeper started as she called to his recollection a tragedy so deep and
so recent. The old woman proceeded: “Chiesley, who did the deed, was a
relative of Lord Ravenswood. In the hall of Ravenswood, in my presence and in
that of others, he avowed publicly his determination to do the cruelty which he
afterwards committed. I could not keep silence, though to speak it ill became
my station. ‘You are devising a dreadful crime,’ I said, ‘for
which you must reckon before the judgment seat.’ Never shall I forget his
look, as he replied, ‘I must reckon then for many things, and will reckon
for this also.’ Therefore I may well say, beware of pressing a desperate
man with the hand of authority. There is blood of Chiesley in the veins of
Ravenswood, and one drop of it were enough to fire him in the circumstances in
which he is placed. I say, beware of him.”

The old dame had, either intentionally or by accident, harped aright the fear
of the Lord Keeper. The desperate and dark resource of private assassination,
so familiar to a Scottish baron in former times, had even in the present age
been too frequently resorted to under the pressure of unusual temptation, or
where the mind of the actor was prepared for such a crime. Sir William Ashton
was aware of this; as also that young Ravenswood had received injuries
sufficient to prompt him to that sort of revenge, which becomes a frequent
though fearful consequence of the partial administration of justice. He
endeavoured to disguise from Alice the nature of the apprehensions which he
entertained; but so ineffectually, that a person even of less penetration than
nature had endowed her with must necessarily have been aware that the subject
lay near his bosom. His voice was changed in its accent as he replied to her,
“That the Master of Ravenswood was a man of honour; and, were it
otherwise, that the fate of Chiesley of Dalry was a sufficient warning to any
one who should dare to assume the office of avenger of his own imaginary
wrongs.” And having hastily uttered these expressions, he rose and left
the place without waiting for a reply.

CHAPTER V.

Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! my life is my foe’s debt.

SHAKESPEARE

The Lord Keeper walked for nearly a quarter of a mile in profound silence. His
daughter, naturally timid, and bred up in those ideas of filial awe and
implicit obedience which were inculcated upon the youth of that period, did not
venture to interrupt his meditations.

“Why do you look so pale, Lucy?” said her father, turning suddenly
round and breaking silence.

According to the ideas of the time, which did not permit a young woman to offer
her sentiments on any subject of importance unless required to do so, Lucy was
bound to appear ignorant of the meaning of all that had passed betwixt Alice
and her father, and imputed the emotion he had observed to the fear of the wild
cattle which grazed in that part of the extensive chase through which they were
now walking.

Of these animals, the descendants of the savage herds which anciently roamed
free in the Caledonian forests, it was formerly a point of state to preserve a
few in the parks of the Scottish nobility. Specimens continued within the
memory of man to be kept at least at three houses of
distinction—Hamilton, namely, Drumlanrig, and Cumbernauld. They had
degenerated from the ancient race in size and strength, if we are to judge from
the accounts of old chronicles, and from the formidable remains frequently
discovered in bogs and morasses when drained and laid open. The bull had lost
the shaggy honours of his mane, and the race was small and light made, in
colour a dingy white, or rather a pale yellow, with black horns and hoofs. They
retained, however, in some measure, the ferocity of their ancestry, could not
be domesticated on account of their antipathy to the human race, and were often
dangerous if approached unguardedly, or wantonly disturbed. It was this last
reason which has occasioned their being extirpated at the places we have
mentioned, where probably they would otherwise have been retained as
appropriate inhabitants of a Scottish woodland, and fit tenants for a baronial
forest. A few, if I mistake not, are still preserved at Chillingham Castle, in
Northumberland, the seat of the Earl of Tankerville.

It was to her finding herself in the vicinity of a group of three or four of
these animals, that Lucy thought proper to impute those signs of fear which had
arisen in her countenance for a different reason. For she had been familiarised
with the appearance of the wild cattle during her walks in the chase; and it
was not then, as it may be now, a necessary part of a young lady’s
demeanour to indulge in causeless tremors of the nerves. On the present
occasion, however, she speedily found cause for real terror.

Lucy had scarcely replied to her father in the words we have mentioned, and he
was just about to rebuke her supposed timidity, when a bull, stimulated either
by the scarlet colour of Miss Ashton’s mantle, or by one of those fits of
capricious ferocity to which their dispositions are liable, detached himself
suddenly from the group which was feeding at the upper extremity of a grassy
glade, that seemed to lose itself among the crossing and entangled boughs. The
animal approached the intruders on his pasture ground, at first slowly, pawing
the ground with his hoof, bellowing from time to time, and tearing up the sand
with his horns, as if to lash himself up to rage and violence.

The Lord Keeper, who observed the animal’s demeanour, was aware that he
was about to become mischievous, and, drawing his daughter’s arm under
his own, began to walk fast along the avenue, in hopes to get out of his sight
and his reach. This was the most injudicious course he could have adopted, for,
encouraged by the appearance of flight, the bull began to pursue them at full
speed. Assailed by a danger so imminent, firmer courage than that of the Lord
Keeper might have given way. But paternal tenderness, “love strong as
death,” sustained him. He continued to support and drag onward his
daughter, until her fears altogether depriving her of the power of flight, she
sunk down by his side; and when he could no longer assist her to escape, he
turned round and placed himself betwixt her and the raging animal, which,
advancing in full career, its brutal fury enhanced by the rapidity of the
pursuit, was now within a few yards of them. The Lord Keeper had no weapons;
his age and gravity dispensed even with the usual appendage of a walking
sword—could such appendage have availed him anything.

It seemed inevitable that the father or daughter, or both, should have fallen
victims to the impending danger, when a shot from the neighbouring thicket
arrested the progress of the animal. He was so truly struck between the
junction of the spine with the skull, that the wound, which in any other part
of his body might scarce have impeded his career, proved instantly fatal.
Stumbling forward with a hideous bellow, the progressive force of his previous
motion, rather than any operation of his limbs, carried him up to within three
yards of the astonished Lord Keeper, where he rolled on the ground, his limbs
darkened with the black death-sweat, and quivering with the last convulsions of
muscular motion.

Lucy lay senseless on the ground, insensible of the wonderful deliverance which
she had experience. Her father was almost equally stupefied, so rapid and
unexpected had been the transition from the horrid death which seemed
inevitable to perfect security. He gazed on the animal, terrible even in death,
with a species of mute and confused astonishment, which did not permit him
distinctly to understand what had taken place; and so inaccurate was his
consciousness of what had passed, that he might have supposed the bull had been
arrested in its career by a thunderbolt, had he not observed among the branches
of the thicket the figure of a man, with a short gun or musquetoon in his hand.

This instantly recalled him to a sense of their situation: a glance at his
daughter reminded him of the necessity of procuring her assistance. He called
to the man, whom he concluded to be one of his foresters, to give immediate
attention to Miss Ashton, while he himself hastened to call assistance. The
huntsman approached them accordingly, and the Lord Keeper saw he was a
stranger, but was too much agitated to make any farther remarks. In a few
hurried words he directed the shooter, as stronger and more active than
himself, to carry the young lady to a neighbouring fountain, while he went back
to Alice’s hut to procure more aid.

The man to whose timely interference they had been so much indebted did not
seem inclined to leave his good work half finished. He raised Lucy from the
ground in his arms, and conveying her through the glades of the forest by paths
with which he seemed well acquainted, stopped not until he laid her in safety
by the side of a plentiful and pellucid fountain, which had been once covered
in, screened and decorated with architectural ornaments of a Gothic character.
But now the vault which had covered it being broken down and riven, and the
Gothic font ruined and demolished, the stream burst forth from the recess of
the earth in open day, and winded its way among the broken sculpture and
moss-grown stones which lay in confusion around its source.

Tradition, always busy, at least in Scotland, to grace with a legendary tale a
spot in itself interesting, had ascribed a cause of peculiar veneration to this
fountain. A beautiful young lady met one of the Lords of Ravenswood while
hunting near this spot, and, like a second Egeria, had captivated the
affections of the feudal Numa. They met frequently afterwards, and always at
sunset, the charms of the nymph’s mind completing the conquest which her
beauty had begun, and the mystery of the intrigue adding zest to both. She
always appeared and disappeared close by the fountain, with which, therefore,
her lover judged she had some inexplicable connexion. She placed certain
restrictions on their intercourse, which also savoured of mystery. They met
only once a week—Friday was the appointed day—and she explained to
the Lord of Ravenswood that they were under the necessity of separating so soon
as the bell of a chapel, belonging to a hermitage in the adjoining wood, now
long ruinous, should toll the hour of vespers. In the course of his confession,
the Baron of Ravenswood entrusted the hermit with the secret of this singular
amour, and Father Zachary drew the necessary and obvious consequence that his
patron was enveloped in the toils of Satan, and in danger of destruction, both
to body and soul. He urged these perils to the Baron with all the force of
monkish rhetoric, and described, in the most frightful colours, the real
character and person of the apparently lovely Naiad, whom he hesitated not to
denounce as a limb of the kingdom of darkness. The lover listened with
obstinate incredulity; and it was not until worn out by the obstinacy of the
anchoret that he consented to put the state and condition of his mistress to a
certain trial, and for that purpose acquiesced in Zachary’s proposal that
on their next interview the vespers bell should be rung half an hour later than
usual. The hermit maintained and bucklered his opinion, by quotations from
Malleus Malificarum, Sprengerus, Remigius, and other learned
demonologists, that the Evil One, thus seduced to remain behind the appointed
hour, would assume her true shape, and, having appeared to her terrified lover
as a fiend of hell, would vanish from him in a flash of sulphurous lightning.
Raymond of Ravenswood acquiesced in the experiment, not incurious concerning
the issue, though confident it would disappoint the expectations of the hermit.

At the appointed hour the lovers met, and their interview was protracted beyond
that at which they usually parted, by the delay of the priest to ring his usual
curfew. No change took place upon the nymph’s outward form; but as soon
as the lengthening shadows made her aware that the usual hour of the vespers
chime was passed, she tore herself from her lover’s arms with a shriek of
despair, bid him adieu for ever, and, plunging into the fountain, disappeared
from his eyes. The bubbles occasioned by her descent were crimsoned with blood
as they arose, leading the distracted Baron to infer that his ill-judged
curiosity had occasioned the death of this interesting and mysterious being.
The remorse which he felt, as well as the recollection of her charms, proved
the penance of his future life, which he lost in the battle of Flodden not many
months after. But, in memory of his Naiad, he had previously ornamented the
fountain in which she appeared to reside, and secured its waters from
profanation or pollution by the small vaulted building of which the fragments
still remained scattered around it. From this period the house of Ravenswood
was supposed to have dated its decay.

Such was the generally-received legend, which some, who would seem wiser than
the vulgar, explained as obscurely intimating the fate of a beautiful maid of
plebeian rank, the mistress of this Raymond, whom he slew in a fit of jealousy,
and whose blood was mingled with the waters of the locked fountain, as it was
commonly called. Others imagined that the tale had a more remote origin in the
ancient heathen mythology. All, however, agreed that the spot was fatal to the
Ravenswood family; and that to drink of the waters of the well, or even
approach its brink, was as ominous to a descendant of that house as for a
Grahame to wear green, a Bruce to kill a spider, or a St. Clair to cross the
Ord on a Monday.

It was on this ominous spot that Lucy Ashton first drew breath after her long
and almost deadly swoon. Beautiful and pale as the fabulous Naiad in the last
agony of separation from her lover, she was seated so as to rest with her back
against a part of the ruined wall, while her mantle, dripping with the water
which her protector had used profusely to recall her senses, clung to her
slender and beautifully proportioned form.

The first moment of recollection brought to her mind the danger which had
overpowered her senses; the next called to remembrance that of her father. She
looked around; he was nowhere to be seen. “My father, my father!”
was all that she could ejaculate.

“Sir William is safe,” answered the voice of a
stranger—“perfectly safe, and will be with you instantly.”

“Are you sure of that?” exclaimed Lucy. “The bull was close
by us. Do not stop me: I must go to seek my father!”

And she rose with that purpose; but her strength was so much exhausted that,
far from possessing the power to execute her purpose, she must have fallen
against the stone on which she had leant, probably not without sustaining
serious injury.

The stranger was so near to her that, without actually suffering her to fall,
he could not avoid catching her in his arms, which, however, he did with a
momentary reluctance, very unusual when youth interposes to prevent beauty from
danger. It seemed as if her weight, slight as it was, proved too heavy for her
young and athletic assistant, for, without feeling the temptation of detaining
her in his arms even for a single instant, he again placed her on the stone
from which she had risen, and retreating a few steps, repeated hastily
“Sir William Ashton is perfectly safe and will be here instantly. Do not
make yourself anxious on his account: Fate has singularly preserved him. You,
madam, are exhausted, and must not think of rising until you have some
assistance more suitable than mine.”

Lucy, whose senses were by this time more effectually collected, was naturally
led to look at the stranger with attention. There was nothing in his appearance
which should have rendered him unwilling to offer his arm to a young lady who
required support, or which could have induced her to refuse his assistance; and
she could not help thinking, even in that moment, that he seemed cold and
reluctant to offer it. A shooting-dress of dark cloth intimated the rank of the
wearer, though concealed in part by a large and loose cloak of a dark brown
colour. A montero cap and a black feather drooped over the wearer’s brow,
and partly concealed his features, which, so far as seen, were dark, regular,
and full of majestic, though somewhat sullen, expression. Some secret sorrow,
or the brooding spirit of some moody passion, had quenched the light and
ingenuous vivacity of youth in a countenance singularly fitted to display both,
and it was not easy to gaze on the stranger without a secret impression either
of pity or awe, or at least of doubt and curiosity allied to both.

The impression which we have necessarily been long in describing, Lucy felt in
the glance of a moment, and had no sooner encountered the keen black eyes of
the stranger than her own were bent on the ground with a mixture of bashful
embarrassment and fear. Yet there was a necessity to speak, or at last she
thought so, and in a fluttered accent she began to mention her wonderful
escape, in which she was sure that the stranger must, under Heaven, have been
her father’s protector and her own.

He seemed to shrink from her expressions of gratitude, while he replied
abruptly, “I leave you, madam,” the deep melody of his voice
rendered powerful, but not harsh, by something like a severity of
tone—“I leave you to the protection of those to whom it is possible
you may have this day been a guardian angel.”

Lucy was surprised at the ambiguity of his language, and, with a feeling of
artless and unaffected gratitude, began to deprecate the idea of having
intended to give her deliverer any offence, as if such a thing had been
possible. “I have been unfortunate,” she said, “in
endeavouring to express my thanks—I am sure it must be so, though I
cannot recollect what I said; but would you but stay till my father—till
the Lord Keeper comes; would you only permit him to pay you his thanks, and to
inquire your name?”

“My name is unnecessary,” answered the stranger; “your
father—I would rather say Sir William Ashton—will learn it soon
enough, for all the pleasure it is likely to afford him.”

“You mistake him,” said Lucy, earnestly; “he will be grateful
for my sake and for his own. You do not know my father, or you are deceiving me
with a story of his safety, when he has already fallen a victim to the fury of
that animal.”

When she had caught this idea, she started from the ground and endeavoured to
press towards the avenue in which the accident had taken place, while the
stranger, though he seemed to hesitate between the desire to assist and the
wish to leave her, was obliged, in common humanity, to oppose her both by
entreaty and action.

“On the word of a gentleman, madam, I tell you the truth; your father is
in perfect safety; you will expose yourself to injury if you venture back where
the herd of wild cattle grazed. If you will go”—for, having once
adopted the idea that her father was still in danger, she pressed forward in
spite of him—“if you will go, accept my arm, though I am not
perhaps the person who can with most propriety offer you support.”

But, without heeding this intimation, Lucy took him at his word. “Oh, if
you be a man,” she said—“if you be a gentleman, assist me to
find my father! You shall not leave me—you must go with me; he is dying
perhaps while we are talking here!”

Then, without listening to excuse or apology, and holding fast by the
stranger’s arm, though unconscious of anything save the support which it
gave, and without which she could not have moved, mixed with a vague feeling of
preventing his escape from her, she was urging, and almost dragging, him
forward when Sir William Ashton came up, followed by the female attendant of
blind Alice, and by two woodcutters, whom he had summoned from their occupation
to his assistance. His joy at seeing his daughter safe overcame the surprise
with which he would at another time have beheld her hanging as familiarly on
the arm of a stranger as she might have done upon his own.

“Lucy, my dear Lucy, are you safe?—are you well?” were the
only words that broke from him as he embraced her in ecstasy.

“I am well, sir, thank God! and still more that I see you so; but this
gentleman,” she said, quitting his arm and shrinking from him,
“what must he think of me?” and her eloquent blood, flushing over
neck and brow, spoke how much she was ashamed of the freedom with which she had
craved, and even compelled, his assistance.

“This gentleman,” said Sir William Ashton, “will, I trust,
not regret the trouble we have given him, when I assure him of the gratitude of
the Lord Keeper for the greatest service which one man ever rendered to
another—for the life of my child—for my own life, which he has
saved by his bravery and presence of mind. He will, I am sure, permit us to
request——”

“Request nothing of ME, my lord,” said the stranger,
in a stern and peremptory tone; “I am the Master of Ravenswood.”

There was a dead pause of surprise, not unmixed with less pleasant feelings.
The Master wrapt himself in his cloak, made a haughty inclination toward Lucy,
muttering a few words of courtesy, as indistinctly heard as they seemed to be
reluctantly uttered, and, turning from them, was immediately lost in the
thicket.

“The Master of Ravenswood!” said the Lord Keeper, when he had
recovered his momentary astonishment. “Hasten after him—stop
him—beg him to speak to me for a single moment.”

The two foresters accordingly set off in pursuit of the stranger. They speedily
reappeared, and, in an embarrassed and awkward manner, said the gentleman would
not return.

The Lord Keeper took one of the fellows aside, and questioned him more closely
what the Master of Ravenswood had said.

“He just said he wanda come back,” said the man, with the caution
of a prudent Scotchman, who cared not to be the bearer of an unpleasant errand.

“He said something more, sir,” said the Lord Keeper, “and I
insist on knowing what it was.”

“Why, then, my lord,” said the man, looking down, “he
said—But it wad be nae pleasure to your lordship to hear it, for I dare
say the Master meant nae ill.”

“That’s none of your concern, sir; I desire to hear the very
words.”

“Weel, then,” replied the man, “he said, ‘Tell Sir
William Ashton that the next time he and I forgather, he will not be half sae
blythe of our meeting as of our parting.’”

“Very well, sir,” said the Lord Keeper, “I believe he alludes
to a wager we have on our hawks; it is a matter of no consequence.”

He turned to his daughter, who was by this time so much recovered as to be able
to walk home. But the effect, which the various recollections connected with a
scene so terrific made upon a mind which was susceptible in an extreme degree,
was more permanent than the injury which her nerves had sustained. Visions of
terror, both in sleep and in waking reveries, recalled to her the form of the
furious animal, and the dreadful bellow with which he accompanied his career;
and it was always the image of the Master of Ravenswood, with his native
nobleness of countenance and form, that seemed to interpose betwixt her and
assured death. It is, perhaps, at all times dangerous for a young person to
suffer recollection to dwell repeatedly, and with too much complacency, on the
same individual; but in Lucy’s situation it was almost unavoidable. She
had never happened to see a young man of mien and features so romantic and so
striking as young Ravenswood; but had she seen an hundred his equals or his
superiors in those particulars, no one else would have been linked to her heart
by the strong associations of remembered danger and escape, of gratitude,
wonder, and curiosity. I say curiosity, for it is likely that the singularly
restrained and unaccommodating manners of the Master of Ravenswood, so much at
variance with the natural expression of his features and grace of his
deportment, as they excited wonder by the contrast, had their effect in
riveting her attention to the recollections. She knew little of Ravenswood, or
the disputes which had existed betwixt her father and his, and perhaps could in
her gentleness of mind hardly have comprehended the angry and bitter passions
which they had engendered. But she knew that he was come of noble stem; was
poor, though descended from the noble and the wealthy; and she felt that she
could sympathise with the feelings of a proud mind, which urged him to recoil
from the proffered gratitude of the new proprietors of his father’s house
and domains. Would he have equally shunned their acknowledgments and avoided
their intimacy, had her father’s request been urged more mildly, less
abruptly, and softened with the grace which women so well know how to throw
into their manner, when they mean to mediate betwixt the headlong passions of
the ruder sex? This was a perilous question to ask her own mind—perilous
both in the idea and its consequences.

Lucy Ashton, in short, was involved in those mazes of the imagination which are
most dangerous to the young and the sensitive. Time, it is true, absence,
change of scene and new faces, might probably have destroyed the illusion in
her instance, as it has done in many others; but her residence remained
solitary, and her mind without those means of dissipating her pleasing visions.
This solitude was chiefly owing to the absence of Lady Ashton, who was at this
time in Edinburgh, watching the progress of some state-intrigue; the Lord
Keeper only received society out of policy or ostentation, and was by nature
rather reserved and unsociable; and thus no cavalier appeared to rival or to
obscure the ideal picture of chivalrous excellence which Lucy had pictured to
herself in the Master of Ravenswood.

While Lucy indulged in these dreams, she made frequent visits to old blind
Alice, hoping it would be easy to lead her to talk on the subject which at
present she had so imprudently admitted to occupy so large a portion of her
thoughts. But Alice did not in this particular gratify her wishes and
expectations. She spoke readily, and with pathetic feeling, concerning the
family in general, but seemed to observe an especial and cautious silence on
the subject of the present representative. The little she said of him was not
altogether so favourable as Lucy had anticipated. She hinted that he was of a
stern and unforgiving character, more ready to resent than to pardon injuries;
and Lucy combined, with great alarm, the hints which she now dropped of these
dangerous qualities with Alice’s advice to her father, so emphatically
given, “to beware of Ravenswood.”

But that very Ravenswood, of whom such unjust suspicions had been entertained,
had, almost immediately after they had been uttered, confuted them by saving at
once her father’s life and her own. Had he nourished such black revenge
as Alice’s dark hints seemed to indicate, no deed of active guilt was
necessary to the full gratification of that evil passion. He needed but to have
withheld for an instant his indispensable and effective assistance, and the
object of his resentment must have perished, without any direct aggression on
his part, by a death equally fearful and certain. She conceived, therefore,
that some secret prejudice, or the suspicions incident to age and misfortune,
had led Alice to form conclusions injurious to the character, and
irreconcilable both with the generous conduct and noble features, of the Master
of Ravenswood. And in this belief Lucy reposed her hope, and went on weaving
her enchanted web of fairy tissue, as beautiful and transient as the film of
the gossamer when it is pearled with the morning dew and glimmering to the sun.

Her father, in the mean while, as well as the Master of Ravenswood, were making
reflections, as frequent though more solid than those of Lucy, upon the
singular event which had taken place. The Lord Keeper’s first task, when
he returned home, was to ascertain by medical advice that his daughter had
sustained no injury from the dangerous and alarming situation in which she had
been placed. Satisfied on this topic, he proceeded to revise the memoranda
which he had taken down from the mouth of the person employed to interrupt the
funeral service of the late Lord Ravenswood. Bred to casuistry, and well
accustomed to practise the ambidexter ingenuity of the bar, it cost him little
trouble to soften the features of the tumult which he had been at first so
anxious to exaggerate. He preached to his colleagues of the privy council the
necessity of using conciliatory measures with young men, whose blood and temper
were hot, and their experience of life limited. He did not hesitate to
attribute some censure to the conduct of the officer, as having been
unnecessarily irritating.

These were the contents of his public despatches. The letters which he wrote to
those private friends into whose management the matter was likely to fall were
of a yet more favourable tenor. He represented that lenity in this case would
be equally politic and popular, whereas, considering the high respect with
which the rites of interment are regarded in Scotland, any severity exercised
against the Master of Ravenswood for protecting those of his father from
interruption, would be on all sides most unfavourably construed. And, finally,
assuming the language of a generous and high-spirited man, he made it his
particular request that this affair should be passed over without severe
notice. He alluded with delicacy to the predicament in which he himself stood
with young Ravenswood, as having succeeded in the long train of litigation by
which the fortunes of that noble house had been so much reduced, and confessed
it would be most peculiarly acceptable to his own feelings, could he find in
some sort to counterbalance the disadvantages which he had occasioned the
family, though only in the prosecution of his just and lawful rights. He
therefore made it his particular and personal request that the matter should
have no farther consequences, and insinuated a desire that he himself should
have the merit of having put a stop to it by his favourable report and
intercession. It was particularly remarkable that, contrary to his uniform
practice, he made no special communication to Lady Ashton upon the subject of
the tumult; and although he mentioned the alarm which Lucy had received from
one of the wild cattle, yet he gave no detailed account of an incident so
interesting and terrible.

There was much surprise among Sir William Ashton’s political friends and
colleagues on receiving letters of a tenor so unexpected. On comparing notes
together, one smiled, one put up his eyebrows, a third nodded acquiescence in
the general wonder, and a fourth asked if they were sure these were all
the letters the Lord Keeper had written on the subject. “It runs
strangely in my mind, my lords, that none of these advices contain the root of
the matter.”

But no secret letters of a contrary nature had been received, although the
question seemed to imply the possibility of their existence.

“Well,” said an old grey-headed statesman, who had contrived, by
shifting and trimming, to maintain his post at the steerage through all the
changes of course which the vessel had held for thirty years, “I thought
Sir William would hae verified the auld Scottish saying, ‘As soon comes
the lamb’s skin to market as the auld tup’s’.”

“We must please him after his own fashion,” said another,
“though it be an unlooked-for one.”

“A wilful man maun hae his way,” answered the old counsellor.

“The Keeper will rue this before year and day are out,” said a
third; “the Master of Ravenswood is the lad to wind him a pirn.”

“Why, what would you do, my lords, with the poor young fellow?”
said a noble Marquis present. “The Lord Keeper has got all his estates;
he has not a cross to bless himself with.”

On which the ancient Lord Turntippet replied,

“If he hasna gear to fine,
He ha shins to pine.

“And that was our way before the Revolution: Lucitur cum persona, qui
luere non potest cum crumena. Hegh, my lords, that’s gude law
Latin.”

“I can see no motive,” replied the Marquis, “that any noble
lord can have for urging this matter farther; let the Lord Keeper have the
power to deal in it as he pleases.”

“Agree, agree—remit to the Lord Keeper, with any other person for
fashion’s sake—Lord Hirplehooly, who is bed-ridden—one to be
a quorum. Make your entry in the minutes, Mr. Clerk. And now, my lords, there
is that young scattergood the Laird of Bucklaw’s fine to be disposed
upon. I suppose it goes to my Lord Treasurer?”

“Shame be in my meal-poke, then,” exclaimed the Lord Turntippet,
“and your hand aye in the nook of it! I had set that down for a bye-bit
between meals for mysell.”

“To use one of your favourite saws, my lord,” replied the Marquis,
“you are like the miller’s dog, that licks his lips before the bag
is untied: the man is not fined yet.”

“But that costs but twa skarts of a pen,” said Lord Turntippet;
“and surely there is nae noble lord that will presume to say that I, wha
hae complied wi’ a’ compliances, taen all manner of tests, abujred
all that was to be abjured, and sworn a’ that was to be sworn, for these
thirty years bye-past, sticking fast by my duty to the state through good
report and bad report, shouldna hae something now and then to synd my mouth
wi’ after sic drouthy wark? Eh?”

“It would be very unreasonable indeed, my lord,” replied the
Marquis, “had we either thought that your lordship’s drought was
quenchable, or observed anything stick in your throat that required washing
down.”

And so we close the scene on the privy council of that period.

CHAPTER VI.

For this are all these warriors come,
    To hear an idle tale;
And o’er our death-accustom’d arms
    Shall silly tears prevail?

HENRY MACKENZIE.

On the evening of the day when the Lord Keeper and his daughter were saved from
such imminent peril, two strangers were seated in the most private apartment of
a small obscure inn, or rather alehouse, called the Tod’s Den, about
three or four miles from the Castle of Ravenswood and as far from the ruinous
tower of Wolf’s Crag, betwixt which two places it was situated.

One of these strangers was about forty years of age, tall, and thin in the
flanks, with an aquiline nose, dark penetrating eyes, and a shrewd but sinister
cast of countenance. The other was about fifteen years younger, short, stout,
ruddy-faced, and red-haired, with an open, resolute, and cheerful eye, to which
careless and fearless freedom and inward daring gave fire and expression,
notwithstanding its light grey colour. A stoup of wine (for in those days it
was served out from the cask in pewter flagons) was placed on the table, and
each had his quaigh or bicker before him. But there was little appearance of
conviviality. With folded arms, and looks of anxious expectation, they eyed
each other in silence, each wrapt in his own thoughts, and holding no
communication with his neighbour. At length the younger broke silence by
exclaiming: “What the foul fiend can detain the Master so long? He must
have miscarried in his enterprise. Why did you dissuade me from going with
him?”

“One man is enough to right his own wrong,” said the taller and
older personage; “we venture our lives for him in coming thus far on such
an errand.”

“You are but a craven after all, Craigengelt,” answered the
younger, “and that’s what many folk have thought you before
now.”

“But what none has dared to tell me,” said Craigengelt, laying his
hand on the hilt of his sword; “and, but that I hold a hasty man no
better than a fool, I would——” he paused for his
companion’s answer.

“Would you?” said the other, coolly; “and why do you
not then?”

Craigengelt drew his cutlass an inch or two, and then returned it with violence
into the scabbard—“Because there is a deeper stake to be played for
than the lives of twenty hare-brained gowks like you.”

“You are right there,” said his companion, “for if it were
not that these forfeitures, and that last fine that the old driveller
Turntippet is gaping for, and which, I dare say, is laid on by this time, have
fairly driven me out of house and home, I were a coxcomb and a cuckoo to boot
to trust your fair promises of getting me a commission in the Irish brigade.
What have I to do with the Irish brigade? I am a plain Scotchman, as my father
was before me; and my grand-aunt, Lady Girnington, cannot live for ever.”

“Ay, Bucklaw,” observed Craigengelt, “but she may live for
many a long day; and for your father, he had land and living, kept himself
close from wadsetters and money-lenders, paid each man his due, and lived on
his own.”

“And whose fault is it that I have not done so too?” said
Bucklaw—“whose but the devil’s and yours, and such-like as
you, that have led me to the far end of a fair estate? And now I shall be
obliged, I suppose, to shelter and shift about like yourself: live one week
upon a line of secret intelligence from Saint Germains; another upon a report
of a rising in the Highlands; get my breakfast and morning draught of sack from
old Jacobite ladies, and give them locks of my old wig for the
Chevalier’s hair; second my friend in his quarrel till he comes to the
field, and then flinch from him lest so important a political agent should
perish from the way. All this I must do for bread, besides calling myself a
captain!”

“You think you are making a fine speech now,” said Craigengelt,
“and showing much wit at my expense. Is starving or hanging better than
the life I am obliged to lead, because the present fortunes of the king cannot
sufficiently support his envoys?”

“Starving is honester, Craigengelt, and hanging is like to be the end
on’t. But what you mean to make of this poor fellow Ravenswood, I know
not. He has no money left, any more than I; his lands are all pawned and
pledged, and the interest eats up the rents, and is not satisfied, and what do
you hope to make by meddling in his affairs?”

“Content yourself, Bucklaw; I know my business,” replied
Craigengelt. “Besides that his name, and his father’s services in
1689, will make such an acquisition sound well both at Versailles and Saint
Germains, you will also please be informed that the Master of Ravenswood is a
very different kind of a young fellow from you. He has parts and address, as
well as courage and talents, and will present himself abroad like a young man
of head as well as heart, who knows something more than the speed of a horse or
the flight of a hawk. I have lost credit of late, by bringing over no one that
had sense to know more than how to unharbour a stag, or take and reclaim an
eyas. The Master has education, sense, and penetration.”

“And yet is not wise enough to escape the tricks of a kidnapper,
Craigengelt?” replied the younger man. “But don’t be angry;
you know you will not fight, and so it is as well to leave your hilt in peace
and quiet, and tell me in sober guise how you drew the Master into your
confidence?”

“By flattering his love of vengeance, Bucklaw,” answered
Craigengelt. “He has always distrusted me; but I watched my time, and
struck while his temper was red-hot with the sense of insult and of wrong. He
goes now to expostulate, as he says, and perhaps thinks, with Sir William
Ashton. I say, that if they meet, and the lawyer puts him to his defence, the
Master will kill him; for he had that sparkle in his eye which never deceives
you when you would read a man’s purpose. At any rate, he will give him
such a bullying as will be construed into an assault on a privy councillor; so
there will be a total breach betwixt him and government. Scotland will be too
hot for him; France will gain him; and we will all set sail together in the
French brig ‘L’Espoir,’ which is hovering for us off
Eyemouth.”

“Content am I,” said Bucklaw; “Scotland has little left that
I care about; and if carrying the Master with us will get us a better reception
in France, why, so be it, a God’s name. I doubt our own merits will
procure us slender preferment; and I trust he will send a ball through the
Keeper’s head before he joins us. One or two of these scoundrel statesmen
should be shot once a year, just to keep the others on their good
behaviour.”

“That is very true,” replied Craigengelt; “and it reminds me
that I must go and see that our horses have been fed and are in readiness; for,
should such deed be done, it will be no time for grass to grow beneath their
heels.” He proceeded as far as the door, then turned back with a look of
earnestness, and said to Bucklaw: “Whatever should come of this business,
I am sure you will do me the justice to remember that I said nothing to the
Master which could imply my accession to any act of violence which he may take
it into his head to commit.”

“No, no, not a single word like accession,” replied Bucklaw;
“you know too well the risk belonging to these two terrible words,
‘art and part.’” Then, as if to himself, he recited the
following lines:

“The dial spoke not, but it made shrewd signs,
And pointed full upon the stroke of murder.

“What is that you are talking to yourself?” said Craigengelt,
turning back with some anxiety.

“Nothing, only two lines I have heard upon the stage,” replied his
companion.

“Bucklaw,” said Craigengelt, “I sometimes think you should
have been a stage-player yourself; all is fancy and frolic with you.”

“I have often thought so myself,” said Bucklaw. “I believe it
would be safer than acting with you in the Fatal Conspiracy. But away, play
your own part, and look after the horses like a groom as you are. A
play-actor—a stage-player!” he repeated to himself; “that
would have deserved a stab, but that Craigengelt’s a coward. And yet I
should like the profession well enough. Stay, let me see; ay, I would come out
in Alexander:

Thus from the grave I rise to save my love,
Draw all your swords, and quick as lightning move.
When I rush on, sure none will dare to stay:
’Tis love commands, and glory leads the way.”

As with a voice of thunder, and his hand upon his sword, Bucklaw repeated the
ranting couplets of poor Lee, Craigengelt re-entered with a face of alarm.

“We are undone, Bucklaw! The Master’s led horse has cast himself
over his halter in the stable, and is dead lame. His hackney will be set up
with the day’s work, and now he has no fresh horse; he will never get
off.”

“Egad, there will be no moving with the speed of lightning this
bout,” said Bucklaw, drily. “But stay, you can give him
yours.”

“What! and be taken myself? I thank you for the proposal,” said
Craigengelt.

“Why,” replied Bucklaw, “if the Lord Keeper should have met
with a mischance, which for my part I cannot suppose, for the Master is not the
lad to shoot an old and unarmed man—but if there should have been
a fray at the Castle, you are neither art not part in it, you know, so have
nothing to fear.”

“True, true,” answered the other, with embarrassment; “but
consider my commission from Saint Germains.”

“Which many men think is a commission of your own making, noble Captain.
Well, if you will not give him your horse, why, d——n it, he must
have mine.”

“Yours?” said Craigengelt.

“Ay, mine,” repeated Bucklaw; “it shall never be said that I
agreed to back a gentleman in a little affair of honour, and neither helped him
on with it nor off from it.”

“You will give him your horse? and have you considered the loss?”

“Loss! why, Grey Gilbert cost me twenty Jacobuses, that’s true; but
then his hackney is worth something, and his Black Moor is worth twice as much
were he sound, and I know how to handle him. Take a fat sucking mastiff whelp,
flay and bowel him, stuff the body full of black and grey snails, roast a
reasonable time, and baste with oil of spikenard, saffron, cinnamon, and honey,
anoint with the dripping, working it in——”

“Yes, Bucklaw; but in the mean while, before the sprain is cured, nay,
before the whelp is roasted, you will be caught and hung. Depend on it, the
chase will be hard after Ravenswood. I wish we had made our place of rendezvous
nearer to the coast.”

“On my faith, then,” said Bucklaw, “I had best go off just
now, and leave my horse for him. Stay—stay, he comes: I hear a
horse’s feet.”

“Are you sure there is only one?” said Craigengelt. “I fear
there is a chase; I think I hear three or four galloping together. I am sure I
hear more horses than one.”

“Pooh, pooh, it is the wench of the house clattering to the well in her
pattens. By my faith, Captain, you should give up both your captainship and
your secret service, for you are as easily scared as a wild goose. But here
comes the Master alone, and looking as gloomy as a night in November.”

The Master of Ravenswood entered the room accordingly, his cloak muffled around
him, his arms folded, his looks stern, and at the same time dejected. He flung
his cloak from him as he entered, threw himself upon a chair, and appeared sunk
in a profound reverie.

“What has happened? What have you done?” was hastily demanded by
Craigengelt and Bucklaw in the same moment.

“Nothing!” was the short and sullen answer.

“Nothing! and left us, determined to call the old villain to account for
all the injuries that you, we, and the country have received at his hand? Have
you seen him?”

“I have,” replied the Master of Ravenswood.

“Seen him—and come away without settling scores which have been so
long due?” said Bucklaw; “I would not have expected that at the
hand of the Master of Ravenswood.”

“No matter what you expected,” replied Ravenswood; “it is not
to you, sir, that I shall be disposed to render any reason for my
conduct.”

“Patience, Bucklaw,” said Craigengelt, interrupting his companion,
who seemed about to make an angry reply. “The Master has been interrupted
in his purpose by some accident; but he must excuse the anxious curiosity of
friends who are devoted to his cause like you and me.”

“Friends, Captain Craigengelt!” retorted Ravenswood, haughtily;
“I am ignorant what familiarity passed betwixt us to entitle you to use
that expression. I think our friendship amounts to this, that we agreed to
leave Scotland together so soon as I should have visited the alienated mansion
of my fathers, and had an interview with its present possessor—I will not
call him proprietor.”

“Very true, Master,” answered Bucklaw; “and as we thought you
had in mind to do something to put your neck in jeopardy, Craigie and I very
courteously agreed to tarry for you, although ours might run some risk in
consequence. As to Craigie, indeed, it does not very much signify: he had
gallows written on his brow in the hour of his birth; but I should not like to
discredit my parentage by coming to such an end in another man’s
cause.”

“Gentlemen,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “I am sorry if I
have occasioned you any inconvenience, but I must claim the right of judging
what is best for my own affairs, without rendering explanations to any one. I
have altered my mind, and do not design to leave the country this
season.”

“Not to leave the country, Master!” exclaimed Craigengelt.
“Not to go over, after all the trouble and expense I have
incurred—after all the risk of discovery, and the expense of freight and
demurrage!”

“Sir,” replied the Master of Ravenswood, “when I designed to
leave this country in this haste, I made use of your obliging offer to procure
me means of conveyance; but I do not recollect that I pledged myself to go off,
if I found occasion to alter my mind. For your trouble on my account, I am
sorry, and I thank you; your expense,” he added, putting his hand into
his pocket, “admits a more solid compensation: freight and demurrage are
matters with which I am unacquainted, Captain Craigengelt, but take my purse
and pay yourself according to your own conscience.” And accordingly he
tendered a purse with some gold in it to the soi-disant captain.

But here Bucklaw interposed in his turn. “Your fingers, Craigie, seem to
itch for that same piece of green network,” said he; “but I make my
vow to God, that if they offer to close upon it, I will chop them off with my
whinger. Since the Master has changed his mind, I suppose we need stay here no
longer; but in the first place I beg leave to tell him——”

“Tell him anything you will,” said Craigengelt, “if you will
first allow me to state the inconveniences to which he will expose himself by
quitting our society, to remind him of the obstacles to his remaining here, and
of the difficulties attending his proper introduction at Versailles and Saint
Germains without the countenance of those who have established useful
connexions.”

“Besides forfeiting the friendship,” said Bucklaw, “of at
least one man of spirit and honour.”

“Gentlemen,” said Ravenswood, “permit me once more to assure
you that you have been pleased to attach to our temporary connexion more
importance than I ever meant that it should have. When I repair to foreign
courts, I shall not need the introduction of an intriguing adventurer, nor is
it necessary for me to set value on the friendship of a hot-headed
bully.” With these words, and without waiting for an answer, he left the
apartment, remounted his horse, and was heard to ride off.

“Mortbleu!” said Captain Craigengelt, “my recruit is
lost!”

“Ay, Captain,” said Bucklaw, “the salmon is off with hook and
all. But I will after him, for I have had more of his insolence than I can well
digest.”

Craigengelt offered to accompany him; but Bucklaw replied: “No, no,
Captain, keep you the check of the chimney-nook till I come back; it’s
good sleeping in a haill skin.

Little kens the auld wife that sits by the fire,
How cauld the wind blaws in hurle-burle swire.”

And singing as he went, he left the apartment.

CHAPTER VII.

Now, Billy Berwick, keep good heart,
    And of thy talking let me be;
But if thou art a man, as I am sure thou art,
    Come over the dike and fight with me.

Old Ballad.

The Master of Ravenswood had mounted the ambling hackney which he before rode,
on finding the accident which had happened to his led horse, and, for the
animal’s ease, was proceeding at a slow pace from the Tod’s Den
towards his old tower of Wolf’s Crag, when he heard the galloping of a
horse behind him, and, looking back, perceived that he was pursued by young
Bucklaw, who had been delayed a few minutes in the pursuit by the irresistable
temptation of giving the hostler at the Tod’s Den some recipe for
treating the lame horse. This brief delay he had made up by hard galloping, and
now overtook the Master where the road traversed a waste moor. “Halt,
sir,” cried Bucklaw; “I am no political agent—no Captain
Craigengelt, whose life is too important to be hazarded in defence of his
honour. I am Frank Hayston of Bucklaw, and no man injures me by word, deed,
sign, or look, but he must render me an account of it.”

“This is all very well, Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw,” replied the Master
of Ravenswood, in a tone the most calm and indifferent; “but I have no
quarrel with you, and desire to have none. Our roads homeward, as well as our
roads through life, lie in different directions; there is no occasion for us
crossing each other.”

“Is there not?” said Bucklaw, impetuously. “By Heaven! but I
say that there is, though: you called us intriguing adventurers.”

“Be correct in your recollection, Mr. Hayston; it was to your companion
only I applied that epithet, and you know him to be no better.”

“And what then? He was my companion for the time, and no man shall insult
my companion, right or wrong, while he is in my company.”

“Then, Mr. Hayston,” replied Ravenswood, with the same composure,
“you should choose your society better, or you are like to have much work
in your capacity of their champion. Go home, sir; sleep, and have more reason
in your wrath to-morrow.”

“Not so, Master, you have mistaken your man; high airs and wise saws
shall not carry it off thus. Besides, you termed me bully, and you shall
retract the word before we part.”

“Faith, scarcely,” said Ravenswood, “unless you show me
better reason for thinking myself mistaken than you are now producing.”

“Then, Master,” said Bucklaw, “though I should be sorry to
offer it to a man of your quality, if you will not justify your incivility, or
retract it, or name a place of meeting, you must here undergo the hard word and
the hard blow.”

“Neither will be necessary,” said Ravenswood; “I am satisfied
with what I have done to avoid an affair with you. If you are serious, this
place will serve as well as another.”

“Dismount then, and draw,” said Bucklaw, setting him an example.
“I always thought and said you were a pretty man; I should be sorry to
report you otherwise.”

“You shall have no reason, sir,” said Ravenswood, alighting, and
putting himself into a posture of defence.

Their swords crossed, and the combat commenced with great spirit on the part of
Bucklaw, who was well accustomed to affairs of the kind, and distinguished by
address and dexterity at his weapon. In the present case, however, he did not
use his skill to advantage; for, having lost temper at the cool and
contemptuous manner in which the Master of Ravenswood had long refused, and at
length granted, him satisfaction, and urged by his impatience, he adopted the
part of an assailant with inconsiderate eagerness. The Master, with equal
skill, and much greater composure, remained chiefly on the defensive, and even
declined to avail himself of one or two advantages afforded him by the
eagerness of his adversary. At length, in a desperate lunge, which he followed
with an attempt to close, Bucklaw’s foot slipped, and he fell on the
short grassy turf on which they were fighting. “Take your life,
sir,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “and mend it if you
can.”

“It would be but a cobbled piece of work, I fear,” said Bucklaw,
rising slowly and gathering up his sword, much less disconcerted with the issue
of the combat than could have been expected from the impetuosity of his temper.
“I thank you for my life, Master,” he pursued. “There is my
hand; I bear no ill-will to you, either for my bad luck or your better
swordsmanship.”

The Master looked steadily at him for an instant, then extended his hand to
him. “Bucklaw,” he said, “you are a generous fellow, and I
have done you wrong. I heartily ask your pardon for the expression which
offended you; it was hastily and incautiously uttered, and I am convinced it is
totally misapplied.”

“Are you indeed, Master?” said Bucklaw, his face resuming at once
its natural expression of light-hearted carelessness and audacity; “that
is more than I expected of you; for, Master, men say you are not ready to
retract your opinion and your language.”

“Not when I have well considered them,” said the Master.

“Then you are a little wiser than I am, for I always give my friend
satisfaction first, and explanation afterwards. If one of us falls, all
accounts are settled; if not, men are never so ready for peace as after war.
But what does that bawling brat of a boy want?” said Bucklaw. “I
wish to Heaven he had come a few minutes sooner! and yet it must have been
ended some time, and perhaps this way is as well as any other.”

As he spoke, the boy he mentioned came up, cudgelling an ass, on which he was
mounted, to the top of its speed, and sending, like one of Ossian’s
heroes, his voice before him: “Gentlemen—gentlemen, save
yourselves! for the gudewife bade us tell ye there were folk in her house had
taen Captain Craigengelt, and were seeking for Bucklaw, and that ye behoved to
ride for it.”

“By my faith, and that’s very true, my man” said Bucklaw;
“and there’s a silver sixpence for your news, and I would give any
man twice as much would tell me which way I should ride.”

“That will I, Bucklaw,” said Ravenswood; “ride home to
Wolf’s Crag with me. There are places in the old tower where you might
lie hid, were a thousand men to seek you.”

“But that will bring you into trouble yourself, Master; and unless you be
in the Jacobite scrape already, it is quite needless for me to drag you
in.”

“Not a whit; I have nothing to fear.”

“Then I will ride with you blythely, for, to say the truth, I do not know
the rendezvous that Craigie was to guide us to this night; and I am sure that,
if he is taken, he will tell all the truth of me, and twenty lies of you, in
order to save himself from the withie.”

They mounted and rode off in company accordingly, striking off the ordinary
road, and holding their way by wild moorish unfrequented paths, with which the
gentlemen were well acquainted from the exercise of the chase, but through
which others would have had much difficulty in tracing their course. They rode
for some time in silence, making such haste as the condition of
Ravenswood’s horse permitted, until night having gradually closed around
them, they discontinued their speed, both from the difficulty of discovering
their path, and from the hope that they were beyond the reach of pursuit or
observation.

“And now that we have drawn bridle a bit,” said Bucklaw, “I
would fain ask you a question, Master.”

“Ask and welcome,” said Ravenswood, “but forgive not
answering it, unless I think proper.”

“Well, it is simply this,” answered his late antagonist
“What, in the name of old Sathan, could make you, who stand so highly on
your reputation, think for a moment of drawing up with such a rogue as
Craigengelt, and such a scapegrace as folk call Bucklaw?”

“Simply, because I was desperate, and sought desperate associates.”

“And what made you break off from us at the nearest?” again
demanded Bucklaw.

“Because I had changed my mind,” said the Master, “and
renounced my enterprise, at least for the present. And now that I have answered
your questions fairly and frankly, tell me what makes you associate with
Craigengelt, so much beneath you both in birth and in spirit?”

“In plain terms,” answered Bucklaw, “because I am a fool, who
have gambled away my land in these times. My grand-aunt, Lady Girnington, has
taen a new tack of life, I think, and I could only hope to get something by a
change of government. Craigie was a sort of gambling acquaintance; he saw my
condition, and, as the devil is always at one’s elbow, told me fifty lies
about his credentials from Versailles, and his interest at Saint Germains,
promised me a captain’s commission at Paris, and I have been ass enough
to put my thumb under his belt. I dare say, by this time, he has told a dozen
pretty stories of me to the government. And this is what I have got by wine,
women, and dice, cocks, dogs, and horses.”

“Yes, Bucklaw,” said the Master, “you have indeed nourished
in your bosom the snakes that are now stinging you.”

“That’s home as well as true, Master,” replied his companion;
“but, by your leave, you have nursed in your bosom one great goodly snake
that has swallowed all the rest, and is as sure to devour you as my half-dozen
are to make a meal on all that’s left of Bucklaw, which is but what lies
between bonnet and boot-heel.”

“I must not,” answered the Master of Ravenswood, “challenge
the freedom of speech in which I have set example. What, to speak without a
metaphor, do you call this monstrous passion which you charge me with
fostering?”

“Revenge, my good sir—revenge; which, if it be as gentle manlike a
sin as wine and wassail, with their et cæteras, is equally unchristian,
and not so bloodless. It is better breaking a park-pale to watch a doe or
damsel than to shoot an old man.”

“I deny the purpose,” said the Master of Ravenswood. “On my
soul, I had no such intention; I meant but to confront the oppressor ere I left
my native land, and upbraid him with his tyranny and its consequences. I would
have stated my wrongs so that they would have shaken his soul within
him.”

“Yes,” answered Bucklaw, “and he would have collared you, and
cried ‘help,’ and then you would have shaken the soul out of
him, I suppose. Your very look and manner would have frightened the old man to
death.”

“Consider the provocation,” answered
Ravenswood—“consider the ruin and death procured and caused by his
hard-hearted cruelty—an ancient house destroyed, an affectionate father
murdered! Why, in our old Scottish days, he that sat quiet under such wrongs
would have been held neither fit to back a friend nor face a foe.”

“Well, Master, I am glad to see that the devil deals as cunningly with
other folk as he deals with me; for whenever I am about to commit any folly, he
persuades me it is the most necessary, gallant, gentlemanlike thing on earth,
and I am up to saddlegirths in the bog before I see that the ground is soft.
And you, Master, might have turned out a murd——a homicide, just out
of pure respect for your father’s memory.”

“There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw,” replied the
Master, “than might have been expected from your conduct. It is too true,
our vices steal upon us in forms outwardly as fair as those of the demons whom
the superstitious represent as intriguing with the human race, and are not
discovered in their native hideousness until we have clasped them in our
arms.”

“But we may throw them from us, though,” said Bucklaw, “and
that is what I shall think of doing one of these days—that is, when old
Lady Girnington dies.”

“Did you ever hear the expression of the English divine?” said
Ravenswood—“‘Hell is paved with good
intentions,’—as much as to say, they are more often formed than
executed.”

“Well,” replied Bucklaw, “but I will begin this blessed
night, and have determined not to drink above one quart of wine, unless your
claret be of extraordinary quality.”

“You will find little to tempt you at Wolf’s Crag,” said the
Master. “I know not that I can promise you more than the shelter of my
roof; all, and more than all, our stock of wine and provisions was exhausted at
the late occasion.”

“Long may it be ere provision is needed for the like purpose,”
answered Bucklaw; “but you should not drink up the last flask at a dirge;
there is ill luck in that.”

“There is ill luck, I think, in whatever belongs to me,” said
Ravenswood. “But yonder is Wolf’s Crag, and whatever it still
contains is at your service.”

The roar of the sea had long announced their approach to the cliffs, on the
summit of which, like the nest of some sea-eagle, the founder of the fortalice
had perched his eyrie. The pale moon, which had hitherto been contending with
flitting clouds, now shone out, and gave them a view of the solitary and naked
tower, situated on a projecting cliff that beetled on the German Ocean. On
three sides the rock was precipitous; on the fourth, which was that towards the
land, it had been originally fenced by an artificial ditch and drawbridge, but
the latter was broken down and ruinous, and the former had been in part filled
up, so as to allow passage for a horseman into the narrow courtyard, encircled
on two sides with low offices and stables, partly ruinous, and closed on the
landward front by a low embattled wall, while the remaining side of the
quadrangle was occupied by the tower itself, which, tall and narrow, and built
of a greyish stone, stood glimmering in the moonlight, like the sheeted spectre
of some huge giant. A wilder or more disconsolate dwelling it was perhaps
difficult to conceive. The sombrous and heavy sound of the billows,
successively dashing against the rocky beach at a profound distance beneath,
was to the ear what the landscape was to the eye—a symbol of unvaried and
monotonous melancholy, not unmingled with horror.

Although the night was not far advanced, there was no sign of living inhabitant
about this forlorn abode, excepting that one, and only one, of the narrow and
stanchelled windows which appeared at irregular heights and distances in the
walls of the building showed a small glimmer of light.

“There,” said Ravenswood, “sits the only male domestic that
remains to the house of Ravenswood; and it is well that he does remain there,
since otherwise we had little hope to find either light or fire. But follow me
cautiously; the road is narrow, and admits only one horse in front.”

In effect, the path led along a kind of isthmus, at the peninsular extremity of
which the tower was situated, with that exclusive attention to strength and
security, in preference to every circumstances of convenience, which dictated
to the Scottish barons the choice of their situations, as well as their style
of building.

By adopting the cautious mode of approach recommended by the proprietor of this
wild hold, they entered the courtyard in safety. But it was long ere the
efforts of Ravenswood, though loudly exerted by knocking at the low-browed
entrance, and repeated shouts to Caleb to open the gate and admit them,
received any answer.

“The old man must be departed,” he began to say, “or fallen
into some fit; for the noise I have made would have waked the seven
sleepers.”

At length a timid and hesitating voice replied: “Master—Master of
Ravenswood, is it you?”

“Yes, it is I, Caleb; open the door quickly.”

“But it is you in very blood and body? For I would sooner face fifty
deevils as my master’s ghaist, or even his wraith; wherefore, aroint ye,
if ye were ten times my master, unless ye come in bodily shape, lith and
limb.”

“It is I, you old fool,” answered Ravenswood, “in bodily
shape and alive, save that I am half dead with cold.”

The light at the upper window disappeared, and glancing from loophole to
loophole in slow succession, gave intimation that the bearer was in the act of
descending, with great deliberation, a winding staircase occupying one of the
turrets which graced the angles of the old tower. The tardiness of his descent
extracted some exclamations of impatience from Ravenswood, and several oaths
from his less patient and more mecurial companion. Caleb again paused ere he
unbolted the door, and once more asked if they were men of mould that demanded
entrance at this time of night.

“Were I near you, you old fool,” said Bucklaw, “I would give
you sufficient proofs of my bodily condition.”

“Open the gate, Caleb,” said his master, in a more soothing tone,
partly from his regard to the ancient and faithful seneschal, partly perhaps
because he thought that angry words would be thrown away, so long as Caleb had
a stout iron-clenched oaken door betwixt his person and the speakers.

At length Caleb, with a trembling hand, undid the bars, opened the heavy door,
and stood before them, exhibiting his thin grey hairs, bald forehead, and sharp
high features, illuminated by a quivering lamp which he held in one hand, while
he shaded and protected its flame with the other. The timorous, courteous
glance which he threw around him, the effect of the partial light upon his
white hair and illumined features, might have made a good painting; but our
travellers were too impatient for security against the rising storm to permit
them to indulge themselves in studying the picturesque. “Is it you, my
dear master?—is it you yourself, indeed?” exclaimed the old
domestic. “I am wae ye suld hae stude waiting at your ain gate; but wha
wad hae thought o’ seeing ye sae sune, and a strange gentleman with
a—(Here he exclaimed apart, as it were, and to some inmate of the tower,
in a voice not meant to be heard by those in the
court)—Mysie—Mysie, woman! stir for dear life, and get the fire
mended; take the auld three-legged stool, or ony thing that’s readiest
that will make a lowe. I doubt we are but puirly provided, no expecting ye this
some months, when doubtless ye was hae been received conform till your rank, as
gude right is; but natheless——”

“Natheless, Caleb,” said the Master, “we must have our horses
put up, and ourselves too, the best way we can. I hope you are not sorry to see
me sooner than you expected?”

“Sorry, my lord! I am sure ye sall aye be my lord wi’ honest folk,
as your noble ancestors hae been these three hundred years, and never asked a
Whig’s leave. Sorry to see the Lord of Ravenswood at ane o’ his ain
castles! (Then again apart to his unseen associate behind the screen) Mysie,
kill the brood-hen without thinking twice on it; let them care that come ahint.
No to say it’s our best dwelling,” he added, turning to Bucklaw;
“but just a strength for the Lord of Ravenswood to flee until—that
is, no to flee, but to retreat until in troublous times, like the
present, when it was ill convenient for him to live farther in the country in
ony of his better and mair principal manors; but, for its antiquity, maist folk
think that the outside of Wolf’s Crag is worthy of a large
perusal.”

“And you are determined we shall have time to make it,” said
Ravenswood, somewhat amused with the shifts the old man used to detain them
without doors until his confederate Mysie had made her preparations within.

“Oh, never mind the outside of the house, my good friend,” said
Bucklaw; “let’s see the inside, and let our horses see the stable,
that’s all.”

“Oh yes, sir—ay, sir—unquestionably, sir—my lord and
ony of his honourable companions——”

“But our horses, my friend—our horses; they will be dead-founded by
standing here in the cold after riding hard, and mine is too good to be
spoiled; therefore, once more, our horses!” exclaimed Bucklaw.

“True—ay—your horses—yes—I will call the
grooms”; and sturdily did Caleb roar till the old tower rang again:
“John—William—Saunders! The lads are gane out, or
sleeping,” he observed, after pausing for an answer, which he knew that
he had no human chance of receiving. “A’ gaes wrang when the
Master’s out-bye; but I’ll take care o’ your cattle
mysell.”

“I think you had better,” said Ravenswood, “otherwise I see
little chance of their being attended to at all.”

“Whisht, my lord—whisht, for God’s sake,” said Caleb,
in an imploring tone, and apart to his master; “if ye dinna regard your
ain credit, think on mine; we’ll hae hard eneugh wark to make a decent
night o’t, wi’ a’ the lees I can tell.”

“Well, well, never mind,” said his master; “go to the stable.
There is hay and corn, I trust?”

“Ou ay, plenty of hay and corn”; this was uttered boldly and aloud,
and, in a lower tone, “there was some half fous o’ aits, and some
taits o’ meadow-hay, left after the burial.”

“Very well,” said Ravenswood, taking the lamp from his
domestic’s unwilling hand, “I will show the stranger upstairs
myself.”

“I canna think o’ that, my lord; if ye wad but have five minutes,
or ten minutes, or, at maist, a quarter of an hour’s patience, and look
at the fine moonlight prospect of the Bass and North Berwick Law till I sort
the horses, I would marshal ye up, as reason is ye suld be marshalled, your
lordship and your honourable visitor. And I hae lockit up the siller
candlesticks, and the lamp is not fit——”

“It will do very well in the mean time,” said Ravenswood,
“and you will have no difficulty for want of light in the stable, for, if
I recollect, half the roof is off.”

“Very true, my lord,” replied the trusty adherent, and with ready
wit instantly added, “and the lazy sclater loons have never come to put
it on a’ this while, your lordship.”

“If I were disposed to jest at the calamities of my house,” said
Ravenswood, as he led the way upstairs, “poor old Caleb would furnish me
with ample means. His passion consists in representing things about our
miserable menage, not as they are, but as, in his opinion, they ought to
be; and, to say the truth, I have been often diverted with the poor
wretch’s expedients to supply what he thought was essential for the
credit of the family, and his still more generous apologies for the want of
those articles for which his ingenuity could discover no substitute. But though
the tower is none of the largest, I shall have some trouble without him to find
the apartment in which there is a fire.”

As he spoke thus, he opened the door of the hall. “Here, at least,”
he said, “there is neither hearth nor harbour.”

It was indeed a scene of desolation. A large vaulted room, the beams of which,
combined like those of Westminster Hall, were rudely carved at the extremities,
remained nearly in the situation in which it had been left after the
entertainment at Allan Lord Ravenswood’s funeral. Overturned pitchers,
and black-jacks, and pewter stoups, and flagons still cumbered the large oaken
table; glasses, those more perishable implements of conviviality, many of which
had been voluntarily sacrificed by the guests in their enthusiastic pledges to
favourite toasts, strewed the stone floor with their fragments. As for the
articles of plate, lent for the purpose by friends and kinsfolk, those had been
carefully withdrawn so soon as the ostentatious display of festivity, equally
unnecessary and strangely timed, had been made and ended. Nothing, in short,
remained that indicated wealth; all the signs were those of recent wastefulness
and present desolation. The black cloth hangings, which, on the late mournful
occasion, replaced the tattered moth-eaten tapestries, had been partly pulled
down, and, dangling from the wall in irregular festoons, disclosed the rough
stonework of the building, unsmoothed either by plaster or the chisel. The
seats thrown down, or left in disorder, intimated the careless confusion which
had concluded the mournful revel. “This room,” said Ravenswood,
holding up the lamp—“this room, Mr. Hayston, was riotous when it
should have been sad; it is a just retribution that it should now be sad when
it ought to be cheerful.”

They left this disconsolate apartment, and went upstairs, where, after opening
one or two doors in vain, Ravenswood led the way into a little matted
ante-room, in which, to their great joy, they found a tolerably good fire,
which Mysie, by some such expedient as Caleb had suggested, had supplied with a
reasonable quantity of fuel. Glad at the heart to see more of comfort than the
castle had yet seemed to offer, Bucklaw rubbed his hands heartily over the
fire, and now listened with more complacency to the apologies which the Master
of Ravenswood offered. “Comfort,” he said, “I cannot provide
for you, for I have it not for myself; it is long since these walls have known
it, if, indeed, they were ever acquainted with it. Shelter and safety, I think,
I can promise you.”

“Excellent matters, Master,” replied Bucklaw, “and, with a
mouthful of food and wine, positively all I can require to-night.”

“I fear,” said the Master, “your supper will be a poor one; I
hear the matter in discussion betwixt Caleb and Mysie. Poor Balderstone is
something deaf, amongst his other accomplishments, so that much of what he
means should be spoken aside is overheard by the whole audience, and especially
by those from whom he is most anxious to conceal his private manœuvres.
Hark!”

They listened, and heard the old domestic’s voice in conversation with
Mysie to the following effect:

“Just mak the best o’t—make the besto’t, woman;
it’s easy to put a fair face on ony thing.”

“But the auld brood-hen? She’ll be as teugh as bow-strings and
bend-leather!”

“Say ye made a mistake—say ye made a mistake, Mysie,” replied
the faithful seneschal, in a soothing and undertoned voice; “tak it
a’ on yoursell; never let the credit o’ the house suffer.”

“But the brood-hen,” remonstrated Mysie—“ou,
she’s sitting some gate aneath the dais in the hall, and I am feared to
gae in in the dark for the bogle; and if I didna see the bogle, I could as ill
see the hen, for it’s pit-mirk, and there’s no another light in the
house, save that very blessed lamp whilk the Master has in his ain hand. And if
I had the hen, she’s to pu’, and to draw, and to dress; how can I
do that, and them sitting by the only fire we have?”

“Weel, weel, Mysie,” said the butler, “bide ye there a wee,
and I’ll try to get the lamp wiled away frae them.”

Accordingly, Caleb Balderstone entered the apartment, little aware that so much
of his by-play had been audible there. “Well, Caleb, my old friend, is
there any chance of supper?” said the Master of Ravenswood.

“Chance of supper, your lordship?” said Caleb, with an
emphasis of strong scorn at the implied doubt. “How should there be ony
question of that, and us in your lordship’s house? Chance of supper,
indeed! But ye’ll no be for butcher-meat? There’s walth o’
fat poultry, ready either for spit or brander. The fat capon, Mysie!” he
added, calling out as boldly as if such a thing had been in existence.

“Quite unnecessary,” said Bucklaw, who deemed himself bound in
courtesy to relieve some part of the anxious butler’s perplexity,
“if you have anything cold, or a morsel of bread.”

“The best of bannocks!” exclaimed Caleb, much relieved; “and,
for cauld meat, a’ that we hae is cauld eneugh,—how-beit, maist of
the cauld meat and pastry was gien to the poor folk after the ceremony of
interment, as gude reason was; nevertheless——”

“Come, Caleb,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “I must cut
this matter short. This is the young Laird of Bucklaw; he is under hiding, and
therefore, you know——”

“He’ll be nae nicer than your lordship’s honour, I’se
warrant,” answered Caleb, cheerfully, with a nod of intelligence;
“I am sorry that the gentleman is under distress, but I am blythe that he
canna say muckle agane our housekeeping, for I believe his ain pinches may
match ours; no that we are pinched, thank God,” he added, retracting the
admission which he had made in his first burst of joy, “but nae doubt we
are waur aff than we hae been, or suld be. And for eating—what signifies
telling a lee? there’s just the hinder end of the mutton-ham that has
been but three times on the table, and the nearer the bane the sweeter, as your
honours weel ken; and—there’s the heel of the ewe-milk kebbuck,
wi’ a bit of nice butter, and—and—that’s a’
that’s to trust to.” And with great alacrity he produced his
slender stock of provisions, and placed them with much formality upon a small
round table betwixt the two gentlemen, who were not deterred either by the
homely quality or limited quantity of the repast from doing it full justice.
Caleb in the mean while waited on them with grave officiousness, as if anxious
to make up, by his own respectful assiduity, for the want of all other
attendance.

But, alas! how little on such occasions can form, however anxiously and
scrupulously observed, supply the lack of substantial fare! Bucklaw, who had
eagerly eaten a considerable portion of the thrice-sacked mutton-ham, now began
to demand ale.

“I wanda just presume to recommend our ale,” said Caleb; “the
maut was ill made, and there was awfu’ thunner last week; but siccan
water as the Tower well has ye’ll seldome see, Bucklaw, and that
I’se engage for.”

“But if your ale is bad, you can let us have some wine,” said
Bucklaw, making a grimace at the mention of the pure element which Caleb so
earnestly recommended.

“Wine!” answered Caleb, undauntedly, “eneugh of wine! It was
but twa days syne—wae’s me for the cause—there was as much
wine drunk in this house as would have floated a pinnace. There never was lack
of wine at Wolf’s Crag.”

“Do fetch us some then,” said the master, “instead of talking
about it.” And Caleb boldly departed.

Every expended butt in the old cellar did he set a-tilt, and shake with the
desperate expectation of collecting enough of the grounds of claret to fill the
large pewter measure which he carried in his hand. Alas! each had been too
devoutly drained; and, with all the squeezing and manoeuvring which his craft
as a butler suggested, he could only collect about half a quart that seemed
presentable. Still, however, Caleb was too good a general to renounce the field
without a strategem to cover his retreat. He undauntedly threw down an empty
flagon, as if he had stumbled at the entrance of the apartment, called upon
Mysie to wipe up the wine that had never been spilt, and placing the other
vessel on the table, hoped there was still enough left for their honours. There
was indeed; for even Bucklaw, a sworn friend to the grape, found no
encouragement to renew his first attack upon the vintage of Wolf’s Crag,
but contented himself, however reluctantly, with a draught of fair water.
Arrangements were now made for his repose; and as the secret chamber was
assigned for this purpose, it furnished Caleb with a first-rate and most
plausible apology for all deficiencies of furniture, bedding, etc.

“For wha,” said he, “would have thought of the secret chaumer
being needed? It has not been used since the time of the Gowrie Conspiracy, and
I durst never let a woman ken of the entrance to it, or your honour will allow
that it wad not hae been a secret chaumer lang.”

CHAPTER VIII.

The hearth in hall was black and dead,
No board was dight in bower within,
Nor merry bowl nor welcome bed;
“Here’s sorry cheer,” quoth the Heir of Linne.

Old Ballad

The feelings of the prodigal Heir of Linne, as expressed in that excellent old
song, when, after dissipating his whole fortune, he found himself the deserted
inhabitant of “the lonely lodge,” might perhaps have some
resemblance to those of the Master of Ravenswood in his deserted mansion of
Wolf’s Crag. The Master, however, had this advantage over the spendthrift
in the legend, that, if he was in similar distress, he could not impute it to
his own imprudence. His misery had been bequeathed to him by his father, and,
joined to his high blood, and to a title which the courteous might give or the
churlish withhold at their pleasure, it was the whole inheritance he had
derived from his ancestry. Perhaps this melancholy yet consolatory reflection
crossed the mind of the unfortunate young nobleman with a breathing of comfort.
Favourable to calm reflection, as well as to the Muses, the morning, while it
dispelled the shades of night, had a composing and sedative effect upon the
stormy passions by which the Master of Ravenswood had been agitated on the
preceding day. He now felt himself able to analyse the different feelings by
which he was agitated, and much resolved to combat and to subdue them. The
morning, which had arisen calm and bright, gave a pleasant effect even to the
waste moorland view which was seen from the castle on looking to the landward;
and the glorious ocean, crisped with a thousand rippling waves of silver,
extended on the other side, in awful yet complacent majesty, to the verge of
the horizon. With such scenes of calm sublimity the human heart sympathises
even in its most disturbed moods, and deeds of honour and virtue are inspired
by their majestic influence. To seek out Bucklaw in the retreat which he had
afforded him, was the first occupation of the Master, after he had performed,
with a scrutiny unusually severe, the important task of self-examination.
“How now, Bucklaw?” was his morning’s
salutation—“how like you the couch in which the exiled Earl of
Angus once slept in security, when he was pursued by the full energy of a
king’s resentment?”

“Umph!” returned the sleeper awakened; “I have little to
complain of where so great a man was quartered before me, only the mattress was
of the hardest, the vault somewhat damp, the rats rather more mutinous than I
would have expected from the state of Caleb’s larder; and if there had
been shutters to that grated window, or a curtain to the bed, I should think
it, upon the whole, an improvement in your accommodations.”

“It is, to be sure, forlorn enough,” said the Master, looking
around the small vault; “but if you will rise and leave it, Caleb will
endeavour to find you a better breakfast than your supper of last night.”

“Pray, let it be no better,” said Bucklaw, getting up, and
endeavouring to dress himself as well as the obscurity of the place would
permit—“let it, I say, be no better, if you mean me to preserve in
my proposed reformation. The very recollection of Caleb’s beverage has
done more to suppress my longing to open the day with a morning draught than
twenty sermons would have done. And you, master, have you been able to give
battle valiantly to your bosom-snake? You see I am in the way of smothering my
vipers one by one.”

“I have commenced the battle, at least, Bucklaw, and I have had a fair
vision of an angel who descended to my assistance,” replied the Master.

“Woe’s me!” said his guest, “no vision can I expect,
unless my aunt, Lady Grinington, should betake herself to the tomb; and then it
would be the substance of her heritage rather than the appearance of her
phantom that I should consider as the support of my good resolutions. But this
same breakfast, Master—does the deer that is to make the pasty run yet on
foot, as the ballad has it?”

“I will inquire into that matter,” said his entertainer; and,
leaving the apartment, he went in search of Caleb, whom, after some difficulty,
he found in an obscure sort of dungeon, which had been in former times the
buttery of the castle. Here the old man was employed busily in the doubtful
task of burnishing a pewter flagon until it should take the hue and semblance
of silver-plate. “I think it may do—I think it might pass, if they
winna bring it ower muckle in the light o’ the window!” were the
ejaculations which he muttered from time to time, as if to encourage himself in
his undertaking, when he was interrupted by the voice of his master.

“Take this,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “and get what is
necessary for the family.” And with these words he gave to the old butler
the purse which had on the preceding evening so narrowly escaped the fangs of
Craigengelt.

The old man shook his silvery and thin locks, and looked with an expression of
the most heartfelt anguish at his master as he weighed in his hand the slender
treasure, and said in a sorrowful voice, “And is this a’
that’s left?”

“All that is left at present,” said the Master, affecting more
cheerfulness than perhaps he really felt, “is just the green purse and
the wee pickle gowd, as the old song says; but we shall do better one day,
Caleb.”

“Before that day comes,” said Caleb, “I doubt there will be
an end of an auld sang, and an auld serving-man to boot. But it disna become me
to speak that gate to your honour, and you looking sae pale. Tak back the
purse, and keep it to be making a show before company; for if your honour would
just take a bidding, and be whiles taking it out afore folk and putting it up
again, there’s naebody would refuse us trust, for a’ that’s
come and gane yet.”

“But, Caleb,” said the Master, “I still intend to leave this
country very soon, and desire to do so with the reputation of an honest man,
leaving no debt behind me, at least of my own contracting.”

“And gude right ye suld gang away as a true man, and so ye shall; for
auld Caleb can tak the wyte of whatever is taen on for the house, and then it
will be a’ just ae man’s burden; and I will live just as weel in
the tolbooth as out of it, and the credit of the family will be a’ safe
and sound.”

The Master endeavoured, in vain, to make Caleb comprehend that the
butler’s incurring the responsibility of debts in his own person would
rather add to than remove the objections which he had to their being
contracted. He spoke to a premier too busy in devising ways and means to puzzle
himself with refuting the arguments offered against their justice or
expediency.

“There’s Eppie Sma’trash will trust us for ale,” said
Caleb to himself—“she has lived a’ her life under the
family—and maybe wi’ a soup brandy; I canna say for wine—she
is but a lone woman, and gets her claret by a runlet at a time; but I’ll
work a wee drap out o’ her by fair means or foul. For doos, there’s
the doocot; there will be poultry amang the tenants, though Luckie Chirnside
says she has paid the kain twice ower. We’ll mak shift, an it like your
honour—we’ll mak shift; keep your heart abune, for the house sall
haud its credit as lang as auld Caleb is to the fore.”

The entertainment which the old man’s exertions of various kinds enabled
him to present to the young gentlemen for three or four days was certainly of
no splendid description, but it may readily be believed it was set before no
critical guests; and even the distresses, excuses, evasions, and shifts of
Caleb afforded amusement to the young men, and added a sort of interest to the
scrambling and irregular style of their table. They had indeed occasion to
seize on every circumstance that might serve to diversify or enliven time,
which otherwise passed away so heavily.

Bucklaw, shut out from his usual field-sports and joyous carouses by the
necessity of remaining concealed within the walls of the castle, became a
joyless and uninteresting companion. When the Master of Ravenswood would no
longer fence or play at shovel-board; when he himself had polished to the
extremity the coat of his palfrey with brush, curry comb, and hair-cloth; when
he had seen him eat his provender, and gently lie down in his stall, he could
hardly help envying the animal’s apparent acquiescence in a life so
monotonous. “The stupid brute,” he said, “thinks neither of
the race-ground or the hunting-field, or his green paddock at Bucklaw, but
enjoys himself as comfortably when haltered to the rack in this ruinous vault,
as if he had been foaled in it; and, I who have the freedom of a prisoner at
large, to range through the dungeons of this wretched old tower, can hardly,
betwixt whistling and sleeping, contrive to pass away the hour till
dinner-time.”

And with this disconsolate reflection, he wended his way to the bartizan or
battlements of the tower, to watch what objects might appear on the distant
moor, or to pelt, with pebbles and pieces of lime, the sea-mews and cormorants
which established themselves incautiously within the reach of an idle young
man.

Ravenswood, with a mind incalculably deeper and more powerful than that of his
companion, had his own anxious subjects of reflection, which wrought for him
the same unhappiness that sheer enui and want of occupation inflicted on his
companion. The first sight of Lucy Ashton had been less impressive than her
image proved to be upon reflection. As the depth and violence of that
revengeful passion by which he had been actuated in seeking an interview with
the father began to abate by degrees, he looked back on his conduct towards the
daughter as harsh and unworthy towards a female of rank and beauty. Her looks
of grateful acknowledgment, her words of affectionate courtesy, had been
repelled with something which approached to disdain; and if the Master of
Ravenswood had sustained wrongs at the hand of Sir William Ashton, his
conscience told him they had been unhandsomely resented towards his daughter.
When his thoughts took this turn of self-reproach, the recollection of Lucy
Ashton’s beautiful features, rendered yet more interesting by the
circumstances in which their meeting had taken place, made an impression upon
his mind at once soothing and painful. The sweetness of her voice, the delicacy
of her expressions, the vivid glow of her filial affection, embittered his
regret at having repulsed her gratitude with rudeness, while, at the same time,
they placed before his imagination a picture of the most seducing sweetness.

Even young Ravenswood’s strength of moral feeling and rectitude of
purpose at once increased the danger of cherishing these recollections, and the
propensity to entertain them. Firmly resolved as he was to subdue, if possible,
the predominating vice in his character, he admitted with
willingness—nay, he summoned up in his imagination—the ideas by
which it could be most powerfully counteracted; and, while he did so, a sense
of his own harsh conduct towards the daughter of his enemy naturally induced
him, as if by way of recompense, to invest her with more of grace and beauty
than perhaps she could actually claim.

Had any one at this period told the Master of Ravenswood that he had so lately
vowed vengeance against the whole lineage of him whom he considered, not
unjustly, as author of his father’s ruin and death, he might at first
have repelled the charge as a foul calumny; yet, upon serious self-examination,
he would have been compelled to admit that it had, at one period, some
foundation in truth, though, according to the present tone of his sentiments,
it was difficult to believe that this had really been the case.

There already existed in his bosom two contradictory passions—a desire to
revenge the death of his father, strangely qualified by admiration of his
enemy’s daughter. Against the former feeling he had struggled, until it
seemed to him upon the wane; against the latter he used no means of resistance,
for he did not suspect its existence. That this was actually the case was
chiefly evinced by his resuming his resolution to leave Scotland. Yet, though
such was his purpose, he remained day after day at Wolf’s Crag, without
taking measures for carrying it into execution. It is true, that he had written
to one or two kinsmen who resided in a distant quarter of Scotland, and
particularly to the Marquis of A——, intimating his purpose; and
when pressed upon the subject by Bucklaw, he was wont to allege the necessity
of waiting for their reply, especially that of the Marquis, before taking so
decisive a measure.

The Marquis was rich and powerful; and although he was suspected to entertain
sentiments unfavourable to the government established at the Revolution, he had
nevertheless address enough to head a party in the Scottish privy council,
connected with the High Church faction in England, and powerful enough to
menace those to whom the Lord Keeper adhered with a probable subversion of
their power. The consulting with a personage of such importance was a plausible
excuse, which Ravenswood used to Bucklaw, and probably to himself, for
continuing his residence at Wolf’s Crag; and it was rendered yet more so
by a general report which began to be current of a probable change of ministers
and measures in the Scottish administration. The rumours, strongly asserted by
some, and as resolutely denied by others, as their wishes or interest dictated,
found their way even to the ruinous Tower of Wolf’s Crag, chiefly through
the medium of Caleb, the butler, who, among his other excellences, was an
ardent politician, and seldom made an excursion from the old fortress to the
neighbouring village of Wolf’s Hope without bringing back what tidings
were current in the vicinity.

But if Bucklaw could not offer any satisfactory objections to the delay of the
Master in leaving Scotland, he did not the less suffer with impatience the
state of inaction to which it confined him; and it was only the ascendency
which his new companion had acquired over him that induced him to submit to a
course of life so alien to his habits and inclinations.

“You were wont to be thought a stirring active young fellow,
Master,” was his frequent remonstrance; “yet here you seem
determined to live on and on like a rat in a hole, with this trifling
difference, that the wiser vermin chooses a hermitage where he can find food at
least; but as for us, Caleb’s excuses become longer as his diet turns
more spare, and I fear we shall realise the stories they tell of the
sloth,—we have almost eat up the last green leaf on the plant, and have
nothing left for it but to drop from the tree and break our necks.”

“Do not fear it,” said Ravenswood; “there is a fate watches
for us, and we too have a stake in the revolution that is now impending, and
which already has alarmed many a bosom.”

“What fate—what revolution?” inquired his companion.
“We have had one revolution too much already, I think.”

Ravenswood interrupted him by putting into his hands a letter.

“Oh,” answered Bucklaw, “my dream’s out. I thought I
heard Caleb this morning pressing some unfortunate fellow to a drink of cold
water, and assuring him it was better for his stomach in the morning than ale
or brandy.”

“It was my Lord of A——’s courier,” said
Ravenswood, “who was doomed to experience his ostentatious hospitality,
which I believe ended in sour beer and herrings. Read, and you will see the
news he has brought us.”

“I will as fast as I can,” said Bucklaw; “but I am no great
clerk, nor does his lordship seem to be the first of scribes.”

The reader will peruse, in a few seconds, by the aid our friend
Ballantyne’s types, what took Bucklaw a good half hour in perusal, though
assisted by the Master of Ravenswood. The tenor was as follows:

“RIGHT HONOURABLE OUR
COUSIN:

“Our hearty commendations premised, these come to assure you of the
interest which we take in your welfare, and in your purpose towards its
augmentation. If we have been less active in showing forth our effective
good-will towards you than, as a loving kinsman and blood-relative, we would
willingly have desired, we request that you will impute it to lack of
opportunity to show our good-liking, not to any coldness of our will. Touching
your resolution to travel in foreign parts, as at this time we hold the same
little advisable, in respect that your ill-willers may, according to the custom
of such persons, impute motives for your journey, whereof, although we know and
believe you to be as clear as ourselves, yet natheless their words may find
credence in places where the belief in them may much prejudice you, and which
we should see with more unwillingness and displeasure than with means of
remedy.

“Having thus, as becometh our kindred, given you our poor mind on the
subject of your journeying forth of Scotland, we would willingly add reasons of
weight, which might materially advantage you and your father’s house,
thereby to determine you to abide at Wolf’s Crag, until this harvest
season shall be passed over. But what sayeth the proverb, verbum
sapienti—a word is more to him that hath wisdom than a sermon to a
fool. And albeit we have written this poor scroll with our own hand, and are
well assured of the fidelity of our messenger, as him that is many ways bounden
to us, yet so it is, that sliddery ways crave wary walking, and that we may not
peril upon paper matters which we would gladly impart to you by word of mouth.
Wherefore, it was our purpose to have prayed you heartily to come to this our
barren Highland country to kill a stag, and to treat of the matters which we
are now more painfully inditing to you anent. But commodity does not serve at
present for such our meeting, which, therefore, shall be deferred until sic
time as we may in all mirth rehearse those things whereof we now keep silence.
Meantime, we pray you to think that we are, and will still be, your good
kinsman and well-wisher, waiting but for times of whilk we do, as it were,
entertain a twilight prospect, and appear and hope to be also your effectual
well-doer. And in which hope we heartily write ourself,

“Right Honourable,
    “Your loving cousin,
    “A——.

“Given from our poor house of
B——,” etc.

Superscribed—“For the right honourable, and our honoured kinsman,
the Master of Ravenswood—These, with haste, haste, post haste—ride
and run until these be delivered.”

“What think you of this epistle, Bucklaw?” said the Master, when
his companion had hammered out all the sense, and almost all the words of which
it consisted.

“Truly, that the Marquis’s meaning is as great a riddle as his
manuscript. He is really in much need of Wit’s Interpreter, or the
Complete Letter-Writer, and were I you, I would send him a copy by the
bearer. He writes you very kindly to remain wasting your time and your money in
this vile, stupid, oppressed country, without so much as offering you the
countenance and shelter of his house. In my opinion, he has some scheme in view
in which he supposes you can be useful, and he wishes to keep you at hand, to
make use of you when it ripens, reserving the power of turning you adrift,
should his plot fail in the concoction.”

“His plot! Then you suppose it is a treasonable business,” answered
Ravenswood.

“What else can it be?” replied Bucklaw; “the Marquis has been
long suspected to have an eye to Saint Germains.”

“He should not engage me rashly in such an adventure,” said
Ravenswood; “when I recollect the times of the first and second Charles,
and of the last James, truly I see little reason that, as a man or a patriot, I
should draw my sword for their descendants.”

“Humph!” replied Bucklaw; “so you have set yourself down to
mourn over the crop-eared dogs whom honest Claver’se treated as they
deserved?”

“They first gave the dogs an ill name, and then hanged them,”
replied Ravenswood. “I hope to see the day when justice shall be open to
Whig and Tory, and when these nicknames shall only be used among coffee-house
politicians, as ‘slut’ and ‘jade’ are among
apple-women, as cant terms of idle spite and rancour.”

“That will not be in our days, Master: the iron has entered too deeply
into our sides and our souls.”

“It will be, however, one day,” replied the Master; “men will
not always start at these nicknames as at a trumpet-sound. As social life is
better protected, its comforts will become too dear to be hazarded without some
better reasons than speculative politics.”

“It is fine talking,” answered Bucklaw; “but my heart is with
the old song—

To see good corn upon the rigs,
And a gallow built to hang the Whigs,
And the right restored where the right should be.
Oh, that is the thing that would wanton me.”

“You may sing as loudly as you will, cantabit
vacuus,”—answered the Master; “but I believe the Marquis
is too wise, at least too wary, to join you in such a burden. I suspect he
alludes to a revolution in the Scottish privy council, rather than in the
British kingdoms.”

“Oh, confusion to your state tricks!” exclaimed
Bucklaw—“your cold calculating manœuvres, which old gentlemen in
wrought nightcaps and furred gowns execute like so many games at chess, and
displace a treasurer or lord commissioner as they would take a rook or a pawn.
Tennis for my sport, and battle for my earnest! And you, Master, so deep and
considerate as you would seem, you have that within you makes the blood boil
faster than suits your present humour of moralising on political truths. You
are one of those wise men who see everything with great composure till their
blood is up, and then—woe to any one who should put them in mind of their
own prudential maxims!”

“Perhaps,” said Ravenswood, “you read me more rightly than I
can myself. But to think justly will certainly go some length in helping me to
act so. But hark! I hear Caleb tolling the dinner-bell.”

“Which he always does with the more sonorous grace in proportion to the
meagreness of the cheer which he has provided,” said Bucklaw; “as
if that infernal clang and jangle, which will one day bring the belfry down the
cliff, could convert a starved hen into a fat capon, and a blade-bone of mutton
into a haunch of venison.”

“I wish we may be so well off as your worst conjectures surmise, Bucklaw,
from the extreme solemnity and ceremony with which Caleb seems to place on the
table that solitary covered dish.”

“Uncover, Caleb! uncover, for Heaven’s sake!” said Bucklaw;
“let us have what you can give us without preface. Why, it stands well
enough, man,” he continued, addressing impatiently the ancient butler,
who, without reply, kept shifting the dish, until he had at length placed it
with mathematical precision in the very midst of the table.

“What have we got here, Caleb?” inquired the Master in his turn.

“Ahem! sir, ye suld have known before; but his honour the Laird of
Bucklaw is so impatient,” answered Caleb, still holding the dish with one
hand and the cover with the other, with evident reluctance to disclose the
contents.

“But what is it, a God’s name—not a pair of clean spurs, I
hope, in the Border fashion of old times?”

“Ahem! ahem!” reiterated Caleb, “your honour is pleased to be
facetious; natheless, I might presume to say it was a convenient fashion, and
used, as I have heard, in an honourable and thriving family. But touching your
present dinner, I judged that this being St. Magdalen’s
[Margaret’s] Eve, who was a worthy queen of Scotland in her day, your
honours might judge it decorous, if not altogether to fast, yet only to sustain
nature with some slight refection, as ane saulted herring or the like.”
And, uncovering the dish, he displayed four of the savoury fishes which he
mentioned, adding, in a subdued tone, “that they were no just common
herring neither, being every ane melters, and sauted with uncommon care by the
housekeeper (poor Mysie) for his honour’s especial use.”

“Out upon all apologies!” said the Master, “let us eat the
herrings, since there is nothing better to be had; but I begin to think with
you, Bucklaw, that we are consuming the last green leaf, and that, in spite of
the Marquis’s political machinations, we must positively shift camp for
want of forage, without waiting the issue of them.”

CHAPTER IX.

Ay, and when huntsmen wind the merry horn,
And from its covert starts the fearful prey,
Who, warm’d with youth’s blood in his swelling veins,
Would, like a lifeless clod, outstretched lie,
Shut out from all the fair creation offers?

Ethwald, Act I. Scene 1.

Light meals procure light slumbers; and therefore it is not surprising that,
considering the fare which Caleb’s conscience, or his necessity,
assuming, as will sometimes happen, that disguise, had assigned to the guests
of Wolf’s Crag, their slumbers should have been short.

In the morning Bucklaw rushed into his host’s apartment with a loud
halloo, which might have awaked the dead.

“Up! up! in the name of Heaven! The hunters are out, the only piece of
sport I have seen this month; and you lie here, Master, on a bed that has
little to recommend it, except that it may be something softer than the stone
floor of your ancestor’s vault.”

“I wish,” said Ravenswood, raising his head peevishly, “you
had forborne so early a jest, Mr. Hayston; it is really no pleasure to lose the
very short repose which I had just begun to enjoy, after a night spent in
thoughts upon fortune far harder than my couch, Bucklaw.”

“Pschaw, pshaw!” replied his guest; “get up—get up; the
hounds are abroad. I have saddled the horses myself, for old Caleb was calling
for grooms and lackeys, and would never have proceeded without two hours’
apology for the absence of men that were a hundred miles off. Get up, Master; I
say the hounds are out—get up, I say; the hunt is up.” And off ran
Bucklaw.

“And I say,” said the Master, rising slowly, “that nothing
can concern me less. Whose hounds come so near to us?”

“The Honourable Lord Bittlebrains’,” answered Caleb, who
had followed the impatient Laird of Bucklaw into his master’s bedroom,
“and truly I ken nae title they have to be yowling and howling within the
freedoms and immunities of your lordship’s right of free forestry.”

“Nor I, Caleb,” replied Ravenswood, “excepting that they have
bought both the lands and the right of forestry, and may think themselves
entitled to exercise the rights they have paid their money for.”

“It may be sae, my lord,” replied Caleb; “but it’s no
gentleman’s deed of them to come here and exercise such-like right, and
your lordship living at your ain castle of Wolf’s Crag. Lord
Bittlebrains would weel to remember what his folk have been.”

“And what we now are,” said the Master, with suppressed bitterness
of feeling. “But reach me my cloak, Caleb, and I will indulge Bucklaw
with a sight of this chase. It is selfish to sacrifice my guest’s
pleasure to my own.”

“Sacrifice!” echoed Caleb, in a tone which seemed to imply the
total absurdity of his master making the least concession in deference to any
one—“sacrifice, indeed!—but I crave your honour’s
pardon, and whilk doublet is it your pleasure to wear?”

“Any one you will, Caleb; my wardrobe, I suppose, is not very
extensive.”

“Not extensive!” echoed his assistant; “when there is the
grey and silver that your lordship bestowed on Hew Hildebrand, your outrider;
and the French velvet that went with my lord your father—be gracious to
him!—my lord your father’s auld wardrobe to the puir friends of the
family; and the drap-de-Berry——”

“Which I gave to you, Caleb, and which, I suppose, is the only dress we
have any chance to come at, except that I wore yesterday; pray, hand me that,
and say no more about it.”

“If your honour has a fancy,” replied Caleb, “and doubtless
it’s a sad-coloured suit, and you are in mourning; nevertheless, I have
never tried on the drap-de-Berry—ill wad it become me—and your
honour having no change of claiths at this present—and it’s weel
brushed, and as there are leddies down yonder——”

“Ladies!” said Ravenswood; “and what ladies, pray?”

“What do I ken, your lordship? Looking down at them from the
Warden’s Tower, I could but see them glent by wi’ their bridles
ringing and their feathers fluttering, like the court of Elfland.”

“Well, well, Caleb,” replied the Master, “help me on with my
cloak, and hand me my sword-belt. What clatter is that in the courtyard?”

“Just Bucklaw bringing out the horses,” said Caleb, after a glance
through the window, “as if there werena men eneugh in the castle, or as
if I couldna serve the turn of ony o’ them that are out o’ the
gate.”

“Alas! Caleb, we should want little if your ability were equal to your
will,” replied the Master.

“And I hope your lordship disna want that muckle,” said Caleb;
“for, considering a’ things, I trust we support the credit of the
family as weel as things will permit of,—only Bucklaw is aye sae frank
and sae forward. And there he has brought out your lordship’s palfrey,
without the saddle being decored wi’ the broidered sumpter-cloth! and I
could have brushed it in a minute.”

“It is all very well,” said his master, escaping from him and
descending the narrow and steep winding staircase which led to the courtyard.

“It may be a’ very weel,” said Caleb, somewhat
peevishly; “but if your lordship wad tarry a bit, I will tell you what
will not be very weel.”

“And what is that?” said Ravenswood, impatiently, but stopping at
the same time.

“Why, just that ye suld speer ony gentleman hame to dinner; for I canna
mak anither fast on a feast day, as when I cam ower Bucklaw wi’ Queen
Margaret; and, to speak truth, if your lordship wad but please to cast yoursell
in the way of dining wi’ Lord Bittlebrains, I’se warrand I wad cast
about brawly for the morn; or if, stead o’ that, ye wad but dine
wi’ them at the change-house, ye might mak your shift for the awing: ye
might say ye had forgot your purse, or that the carline awed ye rent, and that
ye wad allow it in the settlement.”

“Or any other lie that came uppermost, I suppose?” said his master.
“Good-bye, Caleb; I commend your care for the honour of the
family.” And, throwing himself on his horse, he followed Bucklaw, who, at
the manifest risk of his neck, had begun to gallop down the steep path which
led from the Tower as soon as he saw Ravenswood have his foot in the stirrup.

Caleb Balderstone looked anxiously after them, and shook his thin grey locks:
“And I trust they will come to no evil; but they have reached the plain,
and folk cannot say but that the horse are hearty and in spirits.”

Animated by the natural impetuosity and fire of his temper, young Bucklaw
rushed on with the careless speed of a whirlwind. Ravenswood was scarce more
moderate in his pace, for his was a mind unwillingly roused from contemplative
inactivity, but which, when once put into motion, acquired a spirit of forcible
and violent progression. Neither was his eagerness proportioned in all cases to
the motive of impulse, but might be compared to the speed of a stone, which
rushes with like fury down the hill whether it was first put in motion by the
arm of a giant or the hand of a boy. He felt, therefore, in no ordinary degree,
the headlong impulse of the chase, a pastime so natural to youth of all ranks,
that it seems rather to be an inherent passion in our animal nature, which
levels all differences of rank and education, than an acquired habit of rapid
exercise.

The repeated bursts of the French horn, which was then always used for the
encouragement and direction of the hounds; the deep, though distant baying of
the pack; the half-heard cries of the huntsmen; the half-seen forms which were
discovered, now emerging from glens which crossed the moor, now sweeping over
its surface, now picking their way where it was impeded by morasses; and, above
all, the feeling of his own rapid motion, animated the Master of Ravenswood, at
last for the moment, above the recollections of a more painful nature by which
he was surrounded. The first thing which recalled him to those unpleasing
circumstances was feeling that his horse, notwithstanding all the advantages
which he received from his rider’s knowledge of the country, was unable
to keep up with the chase. As he drew his bridle up with the bitter feeling
that his poverty excluded him from the favourite recreation of his forefathers,
and indeed their sole employment when not engaged in military pursuits, he was
accosted by a well-mounted stranger, who, unobserved, had kept near him during
the earlier part of his career.

“Your horse is blown,” said the man, with a complaisance seldom
used in a hunting-field. “Might I crave your honour to make use of
mine?”

“Sir,” said Ravenswood, more surprised than pleased at such a
proposal. “I really do not know how I have merited such a favour at a
stranger’s hands.”

“Never ask a question about it, Master,” said Bucklaw, who, with
great unwillingness, had hitherto reined in his own gallant steed, not to
outride his host and entertainer. “Take the goods the gods provide you,
as the great John Dryden says; or stay—here, my friend, lend me that
horse; I see you have been puzzled to rein him up this half-hour. I’ll
take the devil out of him for you. Now, Master, do you ride mine, which will
carry you like an eagle.”

And throwing the rein of his own horse to the Master of Ravenswood, he sprung
upon that which the stranger resigned to him, and continued his career at full
speed. “Was ever so thoughtless a being!” said the Master;
“and you, my friend, how could you trust him with your horse?”

“The horse,” said the man, “belongs to a person who will make
your honour, or any of your honourable friends, most welcome to him, flesh and
fell.”

“And the owner’s name is——?” asked Ravenswood.

“Your honour must excuse me, you will learn that from himself. If you
please to take your friend’s horse, and leave me your galloway, I will
meet you after the fall of the stag, for I hear they are blowing him at
bay.”

“I believe, my friend, it will be the best way to recover your good horse
for you,” answered Ravenswood; and mounting the nag of his friend
Bucklaw, he made all the haste in his power to the spot where the blast of the
horn announced that the stag’s career was nearly terminated.

These jovial sounds were intermixed with the huntsmen’s shouts of
“Hyke a Talbot! Hyke a Teviot! now, boys, now!” and similar
cheering halloos of the olden hunting-field, to which the impatient yelling of
the hounds, now close of the object of their pursuit, gave a lively and
unremitting chorus. The straggling riders began now to rally towards the scene
of action, collecting from different points as to a common centre.

Bucklaw kept the start which he had gotten, and arrived first at the spot,
where the stag, incapable of sustaining a more prolonged flight, had turned
upon the hounds, and, in the hunter’s phrase, was at bay. With his
stately head bent down, his sides white with foam, his eyes strained betwixt
rage and terror, the hunted animal had now in his turn become an object of
intimidation to his pursuers. The hunters came up one by one, and watched an
opportunity to assail him with some advantage, which, in such circumstances,
can only be done with caution. The dogs stood aloof and bayed loudly,
intimating at once eagerness and fear, and each of the sportsmen seemed to
expect that his comrade would take upon him the perilous task of assaulting and
disabling the animal. The ground, which was a hollow in the common or moor,
afforded little advantage for approaching the stag unobserved; and general was
the shout of triumph when Bucklaw, with the dexterity proper to an accomplished
cavalier of the day, sprang from his horse, and dashing suddenly and swiftly at
the stag, brought him to the ground by a cut on the hind leg with his short
hunting-sword. The pack, rushing in upon their disabled enemy, soon ended his
painful struggles, and solemnised his fall with their clamour; the hunters,
with their horns and voices, whooping and blowing a mort, or death-note,
which resounded far over the billows of the adjacent ocean.

The huntsman then withdrew the hounds from the throttled stag, and on his knee
presented his knife to a fair female form, on a white palfrey, whose terror, or
perhaps her compassion, had till then kept her at some distance. She wore a
black silk riding-mask, which was then a common fashion, as well for preserving
the complexion from the sun and rain, as from an idea of decorum, which did not
permit a lady to appear barefaced while engaged in a boisterous sport, and
attended by a promiscuous company. The richness of her dress, however, as well
as the mettle and form of her palfrey, together with the silvan compliment paid
to her by the huntsman, pointed her out to Bucklaw as the principal person in
the field. It was not without a feeling of pity, approaching even to contempt,
that this enthusiastic hunter observed her refuse the huntsman’s knife,
presented to her for the purpose of making the first incision in the
stag’s breast, and thereby discovering the venison. He felt more than
half inclined to pay his compliments to her; but it had been Bucklaw’s
misfortune, that his habits of life had not rendered him familiarly acquainted
with the higher and better classes of female society, so that, with all his
natural audacity, he felt sheepish and bashful when it became necessary to
address a lady of distinction.

Taking unto himself heart of grace (to use his own phrase), he did at length
summon up resolution enough to give the fair huntress good time of the day, and
trust that her sport had answered her expectation. Her answer was very
courteously and modestly expressed, and testified some gratitude to the gallant
cavalier, whose exploit had terminated the chase so adroitly, when the hounds
and huntsmen seemed somewhat at a stand.

“Uds daggers and scabbard, madam,” said Bucklaw, whom this
observation brought at once upon his own ground, “there is no difficulty
or merit in that matter at all, so that a fellow is not too much afraid of
having a pair of antlers in his guts. I have hunted at force five hundred
times, madam; and I never yet saw the stag at bay, by land or water, but I
durst have gone roundly in on him. It is all use and wont, madam; and
I’ll tell you, madam, for all that, it must be done with good heed and
caution; and you will do well, madam, to have your hunting-sword right sharp
and double-edged, that you may strike either fore-handed or back-handed, as you
see reason, for a hurt with a buck’s horn is a perilous and somewhat
venomous matter.”

“I am afraid, sir,” said the young lady, and her smile was scarce
concealed by her vizard, “I shall have little use for such careful
preparation.”

“But the gentleman says very right for all that, my lady,” said an
old huntsman, who had listened to Bucklaw’s harangue with no small
edification; “and I have heard my father say, who was a forester at the
Cabrach, that a wild boar’s gaunch is more easily healed than a hurt from
the deer’s horn, for so says the old woodman’s rhyme—

If thou be hurt with horn of hart, it brings thee to they bier;
But tusk of boar shall leeches heal, thereof have lesser fear.”

“An I might advise,” continued Bucklaw, who was now in his element,
and desirous of assuming the whole management, “as the hounds are
surbated and weary, the head of the stag should be cabaged in order to reward
them; and if I may presume to speak, the huntsman, who is to break up the stag,
ought to drink to your good ladyship’s health a good lusty bicker of ale,
or a tass of brandy; for if he breaks him up without drinking, the venison will
not keep well.”

This very agreeable prescription received, as will be readily believed, all
acceptation from the huntsman, who, in requital, offered to Bucklaw the
compliment of his knife, which the young lady had declined.

This polite proffer was seconded by his mistress. “I believe, sir,”
she said, withdrawing herself from the circle, “that my father, for whose
amusement Lord Bittlebrain’s hounds have been out to-day, will readily
surrender all care of these matters to a gentleman of your experience.”

Then, bending gracefully from her horse, she wished him good morning, and,
attended by one or two domestics, who seemed immediately attached to her
service, retired from the scene of action, to which Bucklaw, too much delighted
with an opportunity of displaying his woodcraft to care about man or woman
either, paid little attention; but was soon stript to his doublet, with
tucked-up sleeves, and naked arms up to the elbows in blood and grease,
slashing, cutting, hacking, and hewing, with the precision of Sir Tristrem
himself, and wrangling and disputing with all around him concerning nombles,
briskets, flankards, and raven-bones, then usual terms of the art of hunting,
or of butchery, whichever the reader chooses to call it, which are now probably
antiquated.

When Ravenswood, who followed a short pace behind his friend, saw that the stag
had fallen, his temporary ardour for the chase gave way to that feeling of
reluctance which he endured at encountering in his fallen fortunes the gaze
whether of equals or inferiors. He reined up his horse on the top of a gentle
eminence, from which he observed the busy and gay scene beneath him, and heard
the whoops of the huntsmen, gaily mingled with the cry of the dogs, and the
neighing and trampling of the horses. But these jovial sounds fell sadly on the
ear of the ruined nobleman. The chase, with all its train of excitations, has
ever since feudal times been accounted the almost exclusive privilege of the
aristocracy, and was anciently their chief employment in times of peace. The
sense that he was excluded by his situation from enjoying the silvan sport,
which his rank assigned to him as a special prerogative, and the feeling that
new men were now exercising it over the downs which had been jealously reserved
by his ancestors for their own amusement, while he, the heir of the domain, was
fain to hold himself at a distance from their party, awakened reflections
calculated to depress deeply a mind like Ravenswood’s, which was
naturally contemplative and melancholy. His pride, however, soon shook off this
feeling of dejection, and it gave way to impatience upon finding that his
volatile friend Bucklaw seemed in no hurry to return with his borrowed steed,
which Ravenswood, before leaving the field, wished to see restored to the
obliging owner. As he was about to move towards the group of assembled
huntsmen, he was joined by a horseman, who, like himself, had kept aloof during
the fall of the deer.

This personage seemed stricken in years. He wore a scarlet cloak, buttoning
high upon his face, and his hat was unlooped and slouched, probably by way of
defence against the weather. His horse, a strong and steady palfrey, was
calculated for a rider who proposed to witness the sport of the day rather than
to share it. An attendant waited at some distance, and the whole equipment was
that of an elderly gentleman of rank and fashion. He accosted Ravenswood very
politely, but not without some embarrassment.

“You seem a gallant young gentleman, sir,” he said, “and yet
appear as indifferent to this brave sport as if you had my load of years on
your shoulders.”

“I have followed the sport with more spirit on other occasions,”
replied the Master; “at present, late events in my family must be my
apology; and besides,” he added, “I was but indifferently mounted
at the beginning of the sport.”

“I think,” said the stranger, “one of my attendants had the
sense to accommodate your friend with a horse.”

“I was much indebted to his politeness and yours,” replied
Ravenswood. “My friend is Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw, whom I dare say you
will be sure to find in the thick of the keenest sportsmen. He will return your
servant’s horse, and take my pony in exchange; and will add,” he
concluded, turning his horse’s head from the stranger, “his best
acknowledgments to mine for the accommodation.”

The Master of Ravenswood, having thus expressed himself, began to move
homeward, with the manner of one who has taken leave of his company. But the
stranger was not so to be shaken off. He turned his horse at the same time, and
rode in the same direction, so near to the Master that, without outriding him,
which the formal civility of the time, and the respect due to the
stranger’s age and recent civility, would have rendered improper, he
could not easily escape from his company.

The stranger did not long remain silent. “This, then,” he said,
“is the ancient Castle of Wolf’s Crag, often mentioned in the
Scottish records,” looking to the old tower, then darkening under the
influence of a stormy cloud, that formed its background; for at the distance of
a short mile, the chase, having been circuitous, had brought the hunters nearly
back to the point which they had attained when Ravenswood and Bucklaw had set
forward to join them.

Ravenswood answered this observation with a cold and distant assent. “It
was, as I have heard,” continued the stranger, unabashed by his coldness,
“one of the most early possessions of the honourable family of
Ravenswood.”

“Their earliest possession,” answered the Master, “and
probably their latest.”

“I—I—I should hope not, sir,” answered the stranger,
clearing his voice with more than one cough, and making an effort to overcome a
certain degree of hesitation; “Scotland knows what she owes to this
ancient family, and remembers their frequent and honourable achievements. I
have little doubt that, were it properly represented to her Majesty that so
ancient and noble a family were subjected to dilapidation—I mean to
decay—means might be found, ad re-ædificandum antiquam
domum——”

“I will save you the trouble, sir, of discussing this point
farther,” interrupted the Master, haughtily. “I am the heir of that
unfortunate house—I am the Master of Ravenswood. And you, sir, who seem
to be a gentleman of fashion and education, must be sensible that the next
mortification after being unhappy is the being loaded with undesired
commiseration.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the elder horseman; “I did not
know—I am sensible I ought not to have mentioned—nothing could be
farther from my thoughts than to suppose——”

“There are no apologies necessary, sir,” answered Ravenswood,
“for here, I suppose, our roads separate, and I assure you that we part
in perfect equanimity on my side.”

As speaking these words, he directed his horse’s head towards a narrow
causeway, the ancient approach to Wolf’s Crag, of which it might be truly
said, in the words of the Bard of Hope, that

Frequented by few was the grass-cover’d road,
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode,
        To his hills that encircle the sea.

But, ere he could disengage himself from his companion, the young lady we have
already mentioned came up to join the stranger, followed by her servants.

“Daughter,” said the stranger to the unmasked damsel, “this
is the Master of Ravenswood.”

It would have been natural that the gentleman should have replied to this
introduction; but there was something in the graceful form and retiring modesty
of the female to whom he was thus presented, which not only prevented him from
inquiring to whom, and by whom, the annunciation had been made, but which even
for the time struck him absolutely mute. At this moment the cloud which had
long lowered above the height on which Wolf’s Crag is situated, and which
now, as it advanced, spread itself in darker and denser folds both over land
and sea, hiding the distant objects and obscuring those which were nearer,
turning the sea to a leaden complexion and the heath to a darker brown, began
now, by one or two distant peals, to announce the thunders with which it was
fraught; while two flashes of lightning, following each other very closely,
showed in the distance the grey turrets of Wolf’s Crag, and, more nearly,
the rollowing billows of the ocean, crested suddenly with red and dazzling
light.

The horse of the fair huntress showed symptoms of impatience and restiveness,
and it became impossible for Ravenswood, as a man or a gentleman, to leave her
abruptly to the care of an aged father or her menial attendants. He was, or
believed himself, obliged in courtesy to take hold of her bridle, and assist
her in managing the unruly animal. While he was thus engaged, the old gentleman
observed that the storm seemed to increase; that they were far from Lord
Bittlebrains’s, whose guests they were for the present; and that he would
be obliged to the Master of Ravenswood to point him the way to the nearest
place of refuge from the storm. At the same time he cast a wistful and
embarrassed look towards the Tower of Wolf’s Crag, which seemed to render
it almost impossible for the owner to avoid offering an old man and a lady, in
such an emergency, the temporary use of his house. Indeed, the condition of the
young huntress made this courtesy indispensable; for, in the course of the
services which he rendered, he could not but perceive that she trembled much,
and was extremely agitated, from her apprehensions, doubtless, of the coming
storm.

I know not if the Master of Ravenswood shared her terrors, but he was not
entirely free from something like a similar disorder of nerves, as he observed,
“The Tower of Wolf’s Crag has nothing to offer beyond the shelter
of its roof, but if that can be acceptable at such a
moment——” he paused, as if the rest of the invitation stuck
in his throat. But the old gentleman, his self-constituted companion, did not
allow him to recede from the invitation, which he had rather suffered to be
implied than directly expressed.

“The storm,” said the stranger, “must be an apology for
waiving ceremony; his daughter’s health was weak, she had suffered much
from a recent alarm; he trusted their intrusion on the Master of
Ravenswood’s hospitality would not be altogether unpardonable in the
circumstances of the case: his child’s safety must be dearer to him than
ceremony.”

There was no room to retreat. The Master of Ravenswood led the way, continuing
to keep hold of the lady’s bridle to prevent her horse from starting at
some unexpected explosion of thunder. He was not so bewildered in his own
hurried reflections but that he remarked, that the deadly paleness which had
occupied her neck and temples, and such of her features as the riding-mask left
exposed, gave place to a deep and rosy suffusion; and he felt with
embarrassment that a flush was by tacit sympathy excited in his own cheeks. The
stranger, with watchfulness which he disguised under apprehensions of the
safety of his daughter, continued to observe the expression of the
Master’s countenance as they ascended the hill to Wolf’s Crag. When
they stood in front of that ancient fortress, Ravenswood’s emotions were
of a very complicated description; and as he led the way into the rude
courtyard, and hallooed to Caleb to give attendance, there was a tone of
sternness, almost of fierceness, which seemed somewhat alien from the
courtesies of one who is receiving honoured guests.

Caleb came; and not the paleness of the fair stranger at the first approach of
the thunder, nor the paleness of any other person, in any other circumstances
whatever, equalled that which overcame the thin cheeks of the disconsolate
seneschal when he beheld this accession of guests to the castle, and reflected
that the dinner hour was fast approaching. “Is he daft?” he
muttered to himself;—“is he clean daft a’thegither, to bring
lords and leddies, and a host of folk behint them, and twal o’clock
chappit?” Then approaching the Master, he craved pardon for having
permitted the rest of his people to go out to see the hunt, observing, that
“They wad never think of his lordship coming back till mirk night, and
that he dreaded they might play the truant.”

“Silence, Balderstone!” said Ravenswood, sternly; “your folly
is unseasonable. Sir and madam,” he said, turning to his guests,
“this old man, and a yet older and more imbecile female domestic, form my
whole retinue. Our means of refreshing you are more scanty than even so
miserable a retinue, and a dwelling so dilapidated, might seem to promise you;
but, such as they may chance to be, you may command them.”

The elder stranger, struck with the ruined and even savage appearance of the
Tower, rendered still more disconsolate by the lowering and gloomy sky, and
perhaps not altogether unmoved by the grave and determined voice in which their
host addressed them, looked round him anxiously, as if he half repented the
readiness with which he had accepted the offered hospitality. But there was now
no opportunity of receding from the situation in which he had placed himself.

As for Caleb, he was so utterly stunned by his master’s public and
unqualified acknowledgment of the nakedness of the land, that for two minutes
he could only mutter within his hebdomadal beard, which had not felt the razor
for six days, “He’s daft—clean daft—red wud, and
awa’ wit! But deil hae Caleb Balderstone,” said he, collecting his
powers of invention and resource, “if the family shall lose credit, if he
were as mad as the seven wise masters!” He then boldly advanced, and in
spite of his master’s frowns and impatience, gravely asked, “If he
should not serve up some slight refection for the young leddy, and a glass of
tokay, or old sack—or——”

“Truce to this ill-timed foolery,” said the Master, sternly;
“put the horses into the stable, and interrupt us no more with your
absurdities.”

“Your honour’s pleasure is to be obeyed aboon a’
things,” said Caleb; “nevertheless, as for the sack and tokay which
it is not your noble guests’ pleasure to accept——”

But here the voice of Bucklaw, heard even above the clattering of hoofs and
braying of horns with which it mingled, announced that he was scaling the
pathway to the Tower at the head of the greater part of the gallant hunting
train.

“The deil be in me,” said Caleb, taking heart in spite of this new
invasion of Philistines, “if they shall beat me yet! The hellicat
ne’er-do-weel! to bring such a crew here, that will expect to find brandy
as plenty as ditch-water, and he kenning sae absolutely the case in whilk we
stand for the present! But I trow, could I get rid of thae gaping gowks of
flunkies that hae won into the courtyard at the back of their betters, as mony
a man gets preferment, I could make a’ right yet.”

The measures which he took to execute this dauntless resolution, the reader
shall learn in the next chapter.

CHAPTER X.

With throat unslaked, with black lips baked,
    Agape they heard him call;
Gramercy they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
    As they had been drinking all!

COLERIDGE’S Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Hayston of Bucklaw was one of the thoughtless class who never hesitate between
their friend and their jest. When it was announced that the principal persons
of the chase had taken their route towards Wolf’s Crag, the huntsmen, as
a point of civility, offered to transfer the venison to that mansion; a proffer
which was readily accepted by Bucklaw, who thought much of the astonishment
which their arrival in full body would occasion poor old Caleb Balderstone, and
very little of the dilemma to which he was about to expose his friend the
Master, so ill circumstanced to receive such a party. But in old Caleb he had
to do with a crafty and alert antagonist, prompt at supplying, upon all
emergencies, evasions and excuses suitable, as he thought, to the dignity of
the family.

“Praise be blest!” said Caleb to himself, “ae leaf of the
muckle gate has been swung to wi’ yestreen’s wind, and I think I
can manage to shut the ither.”

But he was desirous, like a prudent governor, at the same time to get rid, if
possible, of the internal enemy, in which light he considered almost every one
who eat and drank, ere he took measures to exclude those whom their jocund
noise now pronounced to be near at hand. He waited, therefore, with impatience
until his master had shown his two principal guests into the Tower, and then
commenced his operations.

“I think,” he said to the stranger menials, “that, as they
are bringing the stag’s head to the castle in all honour, we, who are
indwellers, should receive them at the gate.”

The unwary grooms had no sooner hurried out, in compliance with this insidious
hint, than, one folding-door of the ancient gate being already closed by the
wind, as has been already intimated, honest Caleb lost no time in shutting the
other with a clang, which resounded from donjon-vault to battlement. Having
thus secured the pass, he forthwith indulged the excluded huntsmen in brief
parley, from a small projecting window, or shot-hole, through which, in former
days, the warders were wont to reconnoitre those who presented themselves
before the gates. He gave them to understand, in a short and pity speech, that
the gate of the castle was never on any account opened during meal-times; that
his honour, the Master of Ravenswood, and some guests of quality, had just sat
down to dinner; that there was excellent brandy at the hostler-wife’s at
Wolf’s Hope down below; and he held out some obscure hint that the
reckoning would be discharged by the Master; but this was uttered in a very
dubious and oracular strain, for, like Louis XIV., Caleb Balderstone hesitated
to carry finesse so far as direct falsehood, and was content to deceive, if
possible, without directly lying.

This annunciation was received with surprise by some, with laughter by others,
and with dismay by the expelled lackeys, who endeavoured to demonstrate that
their right of readmission, for the purpose of waiting upon their master and
mistress, was at least indisputable. But Caleb was not in a humour to
understand or admit any distinctions. He stuck to his original proposition with
that dogged but convenient pertinacity which is armed against all conviction,
and deaf to all reasoning. Bucklaw now came from the rear of the party, and
demanded admittance in a very angry tone. But the resolution of Caleb was
immovable.

“If the king on the throne were at the gate,” he declared,
“his ten fingers should never open it contrair to the established use and
wont of the family of Ravenswood, and his duty as their head-servant.”

Bucklaw was now extremely incensed, and with more oaths and curses than we care
to repeat, declared himself most unworthily treated, and demanded peremptorily
to speak with the Master of Ravenswood himself.

But to this also Caleb turned a deaf ear. “He’s as soon a-bleeze as
a tap of tow, the lad Bucklaw,” he said; “but the deil of ony
master’s face he shall see till he has sleepit and waken’d
on’t. He’ll ken himsell better the morn’s morning. It sets
the like o’ him, to be bringing a crew of drunken hunters here, when he
kens there is but little preparation to sloken his ain drought.” And he
disappeared from the window, leaving them all to digest their exclusion as they
best might.

But another person, of whose presence Caleb, in the animation of the debate,
was not aware, had listened in silence to its progress. This was the principal
domestic of the stranger—a man of trust and consequence—the same
who, in the hunting-field, had accommodated Bucklaw with the use of his horse.
He was in the stable when Caleb had contrived the expulsion of his
fellow-servants, and thus avoided sharing the same fate, from which his
personal importance would certainly not have otherwise saved him.

This personage perceived the manœuvre of Caleb, easily appreciated the motive
of his conduct, and knowing his master’s intentions towards the family of
Ravenswood, had no difficulty as to the line of conduct he ought to adopt. He
took the place of Caleb (unperceived by the latter) at the post of audience
which he had just left, and announced to the assembled domestics, “That
it was his master’s pleasure that Lord Bittlebrain’s retinue and
his own should go down to the adjacent change-house and call for what
refreshments they might have occasion for, and he should take care to discharge
the lawing.”

The jolly troop of huntsmen retired from the inhospitable gate of Wolf’s
Crag, execrating, as they descended the steep pathway, the niggard and unworthy
disposition of the proprietor, and damning, with more than silvan license, both
the castle and its inhabitants. Bucklaw, with many qualities which would have
made him a man of worth and judgment in more favourable circumstances, had been
so utterly neglected in point of education, that he was apt to think and feel
according to the ideas of the companions of his pleasures. The praises which
had recently been heaped upon himself he contrasted with the general abuse now
levelled against Ravenswood; he recalled to his mind the dull and monotonous
days he had spent in the Tower of Wolf’s Crag, compared with the
joviality of his usual life; he felt with great indignation his exclusion from
the castle, which he considered as a gross affront, and every mingled feeling
led him to break off the union which he had formed with the Master of
Ravenswood.

On arriving at the change-house of the village of Wolf’s Hope, he
unexpectedly met with an acquaintance just alighting from his horse. This was
no other than the very respectable Captain Craigengelt, who immediately came up
to him, and, without appearing to retain any recollection of the indifferent
terms on which they had parted, shook him by the hand in the warmest manner
possible. A warm grasp of the hand was what Bucklaw could never help returning
with cordiality, and no sooner had Craigengelt felt the pressure of his fingers
than he knew the terms on which he stood with him.

“Long life to you, Bucklaw!” he exclaimed; “there’s
life for honest folk in this bad world yet!”

The Jacobites at this period, with what propriety I know not, used, it must be
noticed, the term of honest men as peculiarly descriptive of their own
party.

“Ay, and for others besides, it seems,” answered Bucklaw;
“otherways, how came you to venture hither, noble Captain?”

“Who—I? I am as free as the wind at Martinmas, that pays neither
land-rent nor annual; all is explained—all settled with the honest old
drivellers yonder of Auld Reekie. Pooh! pooh! they dared not keep me a week of
days in durance. A certain person has better friends among them than you wot
of, and can serve a friend when it is least likely.”

“Pshaw!” answered Hayston, who perfectly knew and thoroughly
despised the character of this man, “none of your cogging gibberish; tell
me truly, are you at liberty and in safety?”

“Free and safe as a Whig bailie on the causeway of his own borough, or a
canting Presbyterian minister in his own pulpit; and I came to tell you that
you need not remain in hiding any longer.”

“Then I suppose you call yourself my friend, Captain Craigengelt?”
said Bucklaw.

“Friend!” replied Craigengelt, “my cock of the pit! why, I am
thy very Achates, man, as I have heard scholars say—hand and
glove—bark and tree—thine to life and death!”

“I’ll try that in a moment,” answered Bucklaw. “Thou
art never without money, however thou comest by it. Lend me two pieces to wash
the dust out of these honest fellows’ throats in the first place, and
then——”

“Two pieces! Twenty are at thy service, my lad, and twenty to back
them.”

“Ay, say you so?” said Bucklaw, pausing, for his natural
penetration led him to suspect some extraordinary motive lay couched under an
excess of generosity. “Craigengelt, you are either an honest fellow in
right good earnest, and I scarce know how to believe that; or you are cleverer
than I took you for, and I scarce know how to believe that either.”

“L’un n’empeche pas l’autre,” said
Craigengelt. “Touch and try; the gold is good as ever was weighed.”

He put a quantity of gold pieces into Bucklaw’s hand, which he thrust
into his pocket without either counting or looking at them, only observing,
“That he was so circumstanced that he must enlist, though the devil
offered the press-money”; and then turning to the huntsmen, he called
out, “Come along, my lads; all is at my cost.”

“Long life to Bucklaw!” shouted the men of the chase.

“And confusion to him that takes his share of the sport, and leaves the
hunters as dry as a drumhead,” added another, by way of corollary.

“The house of Ravenswood was ance a gude and an honourable house in this
land,” said an old man; “but it’s lost its credit this day,
and the Master has shown himself no better than a greedy cullion.”

And with this conclusion, which was unanimously agreed to by all who heard it,
they rushed tumultuously into the house of entertainment, where they revelled
till a late hour. The jovial temper of Bucklaw seldom permitted him to be nice
in the choice of his associates; and on the present occasion, when his joyous
debauch received additional zest from the intervention of an unusual space of
sobriety, and almost abstinence, he was as happy in leading the revels as if
his comrades had been sons of princes. Craigengelt had his own purposes in
fooling him up to the top of his bent; and having some low humour, much
impudence, and the power of singing a good song, understanding besides
thoroughly the disposition of his regained associate, he headily succeeded in
involving him bumper-deep in the festivity of the meeting.

A very different scene was in the mean time passing in the Tower of
Wolf’s Crag. When the Master of Ravenswood left the courtyard, too much
busied with his own perplexed reflections to pay attention to the manœuvre of
Caleb, he ushered his guests into the great hall of the castle.

The indefatigable Balderstone, who, from choice or habit, worked on from
morning to night, had by degrees cleared this desolate apartment of the
confused relics of the funeral banquet, and restored it to some order. But not
all his skill and labour, in disposing to advantage the little furniture which
remained, could remove the dark and disconsolate appearance of those ancient
and disfurnished walls. The narrow windows, flanked by deep indentures into the
walls, seemed formed rather to exclude than to admit the cheerful light; and
the heavy and gloomy appearance of the thunder-sky added still farther to the
obscurity.

As Ravenswood, with the grace of a gallant of that period, but not without a
certain stiffness and embarrassment of manner, handed the young lady to the
upper end of the apartment, her father remained standing more near to the door,
as if about to disengage himself from his hat and cloak. At this moment the
clang of the portal was heard, a sound at which the stranger started, stepped
hastily to the window, and looked with an air of alarm at Ravenswood, when he
saw that the gate of the court was shut, and his domestics excluded.

“You have nothing to fear, sir,” said Ravenswood, gravely;
“this roof retains the means of giving protection, though not welcome.
Methinks,” he added, “it is time that I should know who they are
that have thus highly honoured my ruined dwelling!” The young lady
remained silent and motionless, and the father, to whom the question was more
directly addressed, seemed in the situation of a performer who has ventured to
take upon himself a part which he finds himself unable to present, and who
comes to a pause when it is most to be expected that he should speak. While he
endeavoured to cover his embarrassment with the exterior ceremonials of a
well-bred demeanour, it was obvious that, in making his bow, one foot shuffled
forward, as if to advance, the other backward, as if with the purpose of
escape; and as he undid the cape of his coat, and raised his beaver from his
face, his fingers fumbled as if the one had been linked with rusted iron, or
the other had weighed equal with a stone of lead. The darkness of the sky
seemed to increase, as if to supply the want of those mufflings which he laid
aside with such evident reluctance. The impatience of Ravenswood increased also
in proportion to the delay of the stranger, and he appeared to struggle under
agitation, though probably from a very different cause. He laboured to restrain
his desire to speak, while the stranger, to all appearance, was at a loss for
words to express what he felt necessary to say.

At length Ravenswood’s impatience broke the bounds he had imposed upon
it. “I perceive,” he said, “that Sir William Ashton is
unwilling to announced himself in the Castle of Wolf’s Crag.”

“I had hoped it was unnecessary,” said the Lord Keeper, relieved
from his silence, as a spectre by the voice of the exorcist, “and I am
obliged to you, Master of Ravenswood, for breaking the ice at once, where
circumstances—unhappy circumstances, let me call them—rendered
self-introduction peculiarly awkward.”

“And I am not then,” said the Master of Ravenswood, gravely,
“to consider the honour of this visit as purely accidental?”

“Let us distinguish a little,” said the Keeper, assuming an
appearance of ease which perhaps his heart was a stranger to; “this is an
honour which I have eagerly desired for some time, but which I might never have
obtained, save for the accident of the storm. My daughter and I are alike
grateful for this opportunity of thanking the brave man to whom she owes her
life and I mine.”

The hatred which divided the great families in the feudal times had lost little
of its bitterness, though it no longer expressed itself in deeds of open
violence. Not the feelings which Ravenswood had begun to entertain towards Lucy
Ashton, not the hospitality due to his guests, were able entirely to subdue,
though they warmly combated, the deep passions which arose within him at
beholding his father’s foe standing in the hall of the family of which he
had in a great measure accelerated the ruin. His looks glanced from the father
to the daughter with an irresolution of which Sir William Ashton did not think
it proper to await the conclusion. He had now disembarrassed himself of his
riding-dress, and walking up to his daughter, he undid the fastening of her
mask.

“Lucy, my love,” he said, raising her and leading her towards
Ravenswood, “lay aside your mask, and let us express our gratitude to the
Master openly and barefaced.”

“If he will condescend to accept it,” was all that Lucy uttered;
but in a tone so sweetly modulated, and which seemed to imply at once a feeling
and a forgiving of the cold reception to which they were exposed, that, coming
from a creature so innocent and so beautiful, her words cut Ravenswood to the
very heart for his harshness. He muttered something of surprise, something of
confusion, and, ending with a warm and eager expression of his happiness at
being able to afford her shelter under his roof, he saluted her, as the
ceremonial of the time enjoined upon such occasions. Their cheeks had touched
and were withdrawn from each other; Ravenswood had not quitted the hand which
he had taken in kindly courtesy; a blush, which attached more consequence by
far than was usual to such ceremony, still mantled on Lucy Ashton’s
beautiful cheek, when the apartment was suddenly illuminated by a flash of
lightning, which seemed absolutely to swallow the darkness of the hall. Every
object might have been for an instant seen distinctly. The slight and
half-sinking form of Lucy Ashton; the well-proportioned and stately figure of
Ravenswood, his dark features, and the fiery yet irresolute expression of his
eyes; the old arms and scutcheons which hung on the walls of the apartment,
were for an instant distinctly visible to the Keeper by a strong red brilliant
glare of light. Its disappearance was almost instantly followed by a burst of
thunder, for the storm-cloud was very near the castle; and the peal was so
sudden and dreadful, that the old tower rocked to its foundation, and every
inmate concluded it was falling upon them. The soot, which had not been
disturbed for centuries, showered down the huge tunnelled chimneys; lime and
dust flew in clouds from the wall; and, whether the lightning had actually
struck the castle or whether through the violent concussion of the air, several
heavy stones were hurled from the mouldering battlements into the roaring sea
beneath. It might seem as if the ancient founder of the castle were bestriding
the thunderstorm, and proclaiming his displeasure at the reconciliation of his
descendant with the enemy of his house.

The consternation was general, and it required the efforts of both the Lord
Keeper and Ravenswood to keep Lucy from fainting. Thus was the Master a second
time engaged in the most delicate and dangerous of all tasks, that of affording
support and assistance to a beautiful and helpless being, who, as seen before
in a similar situation, had already become a favourite of his imagination, both
when awake and when slumbering. If the genius of the house really condemned a
union betwixt the Master and his fair guest, the means by which he expressed
his sentiments were as unhappily chosen as if he had been a mere mortal. The
train of little attentions, absolutely necessary to soothe the young
lady’s mind, and aid her in composing her spirits, necessarily threw the
Master of Ravenswood into such an intercourse with her father as was
calculated, for the moment at least, to break down the barrier of feudal enmity
which divided them. To express himself churlishly, or even coldly, towards an
old man whose daughter (and such a daughter) lay before them,
overpowered with natural terror—and all this under his own roof, the
thing was impossible; and by the time that Lucy, extending a hand to each, was
able to thank them for their kindness, the Master felt that his sentiments of
hostility towards the Lord Keeper were by no means those most predominant in
his bosom.

The weather, her state of health, the absence of her attendants, all prevented
the possibility of Lucy Ashton renewing her journey to Bittlebrains House,
which was full five miles distant; and the Master of Ravenswood could not but,
in common courtesy, offer the shelter of his roof for the rest of the day and
for the night. But a flush of less soft expression, a look much more habitual
to his features, resumed predominance when he mentioned how meanly he was
provided for the entertainment of his guests.

“Do not mention deficiencies,” said the Lord Keeper, eager to
interrupt him and prevent his resuming an alarming topic; “you are
preparing to set out for the Continent, and your house is probably for the
present unfurnished. All this we understand; but if you mention inconvenience,
you will oblige us to seek accommodations in the hamlet.”

As the Master of Ravenswood was about to reply, the door of the hall opened,
and Caleb Balderstone rushed in.

CHAPTER XI.

Let them have meat enough, woman—half a hen;
There be old rotten pilchards—put them off too;
’Tis but a little new anointing of them,
And a strong onion, that confounds the savour.

Love’s Pilgrimage.

The thunderbolt, which had stunned all who were within hearing of it, had only
served to awaken the bold and inventive genius of the flower of majors-domo.
Almost before the clatter had ceased, and while there was yet scarce an
assurance whether the castle was standing or falling, Caleb exclaimed,
“Heaven be praised! this comes to hand like the boul of a
pint-stoup.” He then barred the kitchen door in the face of the Lord
Keeper’s servant, whom he perceived returning from the party at the gate,
and muttering, “How the deil cam he in?—but deil may care. Mysie,
what are ye sitting shaking and greeting in the chimney-neuk for? Come
here—or stay where ye are, and skirl as loud as ye can; it’s
a’ ye’re gude for. I say, ye auld deevil,
skirl—skirl—louder—louder, woman; gar the gentles hear ye in
the ha’. I have heard ye as far off as the Bass for a less matter. And
stay—down wi’ that crockery——”

And with a sweeping blow, he threw down from a shelf some articles of pewter
and earthenware. He exalted his voice amid the clatter, shouting and roaring in
a manner which changed Mysie’s hysterical terrors of the thunder into
fears that her old fellow-servant was gone distracted. “He has dung down
a’ the bits o’ pigs, too—the only thing we had left to haud a
soup milk—and he has spilt the hatted hit that was for the Master’s
dinner. Mercy save us, the auld man’s gaen clean and clear wud wi’
the thunner!”

“Haud your tongue, ye b——!” said Caleb, in the
impetuous and overbearing triumph of successful invention, “a’s
provided now—dinner and a’thing; the thunner’s done a’
in a clap of a hand!”

“Puir man, he’s muckle astray,” said Mysie, looking at him
with a mixture of pity and alarm; “I wish he may ever come hame to
himsell again.”

“Here, ye auld doited deevil,” said Caleb, still exulting in his
extrication from a dilemma which had seemed insurmountable; “keep the
strange man out of the kitchen; swear the thunner came down the chimney and
spoiled the best dinner ye ever
dressed—beef—bacon—kid—lark—leveret—wild-
fowl—venison, and what not. Lay it on thick, and never mind expenses.
I’ll awa’ up to the la’. Make a’ the confusion ye can;
but be sure ye keep out the strange servant.”

With these charges to his ally, Caleb posted up to the hall, but stopping to
reconnoitre through an aperture, which time, for the convenience of many a
domestic in succession, had made in the door, and perceiving the situation of
Miss Ashton, he had prudence enough to make a pause, both to avoid adding to
her alarm and in order to secure attention to his account of the disastrous
effects of the thunder.

But when he perceived that the lady was recovered, and heard the conversation
turn upon the accommodation and refreshment which the castle afforded, he
thought it time to burst into the room in the manner announced in the last
chapter.

“Willawins!—willawins! Such a misfortune to befa’ the house
of Ravenswood, and I to live to see it.”

“What is the matter, Caleb?” said his master, somewhat alarmed in
his turn; “has any part of the castle fallen?”

“Castle fa’an! na, but the sute’s fa’an, and the
thunner’s come right down the kitchen-lum, and the things are a’
lying here awa’, there awa’, like the Laird o’
Hotchpotch’s lands; and wi’ brave guests of honour and quality to
entertain (a low bow here to Sir William Ashton and his daughter), and naething
left in the house fit to present for dinner, or for supper either, for aught
that I can see!”

“I very believe you, Caleb,” said Ravenswood, drily.

Balderstone here turned to his master a half-upbraiding, half-imploring
countenance, and edged towards him as he repeated, “It was nae great
matter of preparation; but just something added to your honour’s ordinary
course of fare—petty cover, as they say at the Louvre—three
courses and the fruit.”

“Keep your intolerable nonsense to yourself, you old fool!” said
Ravenswood, mortified at his officiousness, yet not knowing how to contradict
him, without the risk of giving rise to scenes yet more ridiculous.

Caleb saw his advantage, and resolved to improve it. But first, observing that
the Lord Keeper’s servant entered the apartment and spoke apart with his
master, he took the same opportunity to whisper a few words into
Ravenswood’s ear: “Haud your tongue, for heaven’s sake, sir;
if it’s my pleasure to hazard my soul in telling lees for the honour of
the family, it’s nae business o’ yours; and if ye let me gang on
quietly, I’se be moderate in my banquet; but if ye contradict me, deil
but I dress ye a dinner fit for a duke!”

Ravenswood, in fact, thought it would be best to let his officious butler run
on, who proceeded to enumerate upon his fingers—“No muckle
provision—might hae served four persons of honour,—first course,
capons in white broth—roast kid—bacon with reverence; second
course, roasted leveret—butter crabs—a veal florentine; third
course, blackcock—it’s black eneugh now wi’ the
sute—plumdamas—a tart—a flam—and some nonsense sweet
things, and comfits—and that’s a’,” he said, seeing the
impatience of his master—“that’s just a’ was
o’t—forbye the apples and pears.”

Miss Ashton had by degrees gathered her spirits, so far as to pay some
attention to what was going on; and observing the restrained impatience of
Ravenswood, contrasted with the peculiar determination of manner with which
Caleb detailed his imaginary banquet, the whole struck her as so ridiculous
that, despite every effort to the contrary, she burst into a fit of
incontrollable laughter, in which she was joined by her father, though with
more moderation, and finally by the Master of Ravenswood himself, though
conscious that the jest was at his own expense. Their mirth—for a scene
which we read with little emotion often appears extremely ludicrous to the
spectators—made the old vault ring again. They ceased—they
renewed—they ceased—they renewed again their shouts of laughter!
Caleb, in the mean time, stood his ground with a grave, angry, and scornful
dignity, which greatly enhanced the ridicule of the scene and mirth of the
spectators.

At length, when the voices, and nearly the strength, of the laughers were
exhausted, he exclaimed, with very little ceremony: “The deil’s in
the gentles! they breakfast sae lordly, that the loss of the best dinner ever
cook pat fingers to makes them as merry as if it were the best jeest in
a’ George Buchanan. If there was as little in your honours’ wames
as there is in Caleb Balderstone’s, less caickling wad serve ye on sic a
gravaminous subject.”

Caleb’s blunt expression of resentment again awakened the mirth of the
company, which, by the way, he regarded not only as an aggression upon the
dignity of the family, but a special contempt of the eloquence with which he
himself had summed up the extent of their supposed losses. “A description
of a dinner,” as he said afterwards to Mysie, “that wad hae made a
fu’ man hungry, and them to sit there laughing at it!”

“But,” said Miss Ashton, composing her countenance as well as she
could, “are all these delicacies so totally destroyed that no scrap can
be collected?”

“Collected, my leddy! what wad ye collect out of the sute and the ass? Ye
may gang down yoursell, and look into our kitchen—the cookmaid in the
trembling exies—the gude vivers lying a’ about—beef, capons,
and white broth—florentine and flams—bacon wi’
reverence—and a’ the sweet confections and
whim-whams—ye’ll see them a’, my leddy—that is,”
said he, correcting himself, “ye’ll no see ony of them now, for the
cook has soopit them up, as was weel her part; but ye’ll see the white
broth where it was spilt. I pat my fingers in it, and it tastes as like sour
milk as ony thing else; if that isna the effect of thunner, I kenna what is.
This gentleman here couldna but hear the clash of our haill dishes, china and
silver thegither?”

The Lord Keeper’s domestic, though a statesman’s attendant, and of
course trained to command his countenance upon all occasions, was somewhat
discomposed by this appeal, to which he only answered by a bow.

“I think, Mr. Butler,” said the Lord Keeper, who began to be afraid
lest the prolongation of this scene should at length displease
Ravenswood—“I think that, were you to retire with my servant
Lockhard—he has travelled, and is quite accustomed to accidents and
contingencies of every kind, and I hope betwixt you, you may find out some mode
of supply at this emergency.”

“His honour kens,” said Caleb, who, however hopeless of himself of
accomplishing what was desirable, would, like the high-spirited elephant,
rather have died in the effort than brooked the aid of a brother in
commission—“his honour kens weel I need nae counsellor, when the
honour of the house is concerned.”

“I should be unjust if I denied it, Caleb,” said his master;
“but your art lies chiefly in making apologies, upon which we can no more
dine than upon the bill of fare of our thunder-blasted dinner. Now, possibly
Mr. Lockhard’s talent may consist in finding some substitute for that
which certainly is not, and has in all probability never been.”

“Your honour is pleased to be facetious,” said Caleb, “but I
am sure that, for the warst, for a walk as far as Wolf’s Hope, I could
dine forty men—no that the folk there deserve your honour’s custom.
They hae been ill advised in the matter of the duty eggs and butter, I winna
deny that.”

“Do go consult together,” said the Master; “go down to the
village, and do the best you can. We must not let our guests remain without
refreshment, to save the honour of a ruined family. And here, Caleb, take my
purse; I believe that will prove your best ally.”

“Purse! purse, indeed!” quoth Caleb, indignantly flinging out of
the room; “what suld I do wi’ your honour’s purse, on your
ain grund? I trust we are no to pay for our ain?”

The servants left the hall; and the door was no sooner shut than the Lord
Keeper began to apologise for the rudeness of his mirth; and Lucy to hope she
had given no pain or offence to the kind-hearted faithful old man.

“Caleb and I must both learn, madam, to undergo with good humour, or at
least with patience, the ridicule which everywhere attaches itself to
poverty.”

“You do yourself injustice, Master of Ravenswood, on my word of
honour,” answered his elder guest. “I believe I know more of your
affairs than you do yourself, and I hope to show you that I am interested in
them; and that—in short, that your prospects are better than you
apprehend. In the mean time, I can conceive nothing so respectable as the
spirit which rises above misfortune, and prefers honourable privations to debt
or dependence.”

Whether from fear of offending the delicacy or awakening the pride of the
Master, the Lord Keeper made these allusions with an appearance of fearful and
hesitating reserve, and seemed to be afraid that he was intruding too far, in
venturing to touch, however lightly, upon such a topic, even when the Master
had led to it. In short, he appeared at once pushed on by his desire of
appearing friendly, and held back by the fear of intrusion. It was no wonder
that the Master of Ravenswood, little acquainted as he then was with life,
should have given this consummate courtier credit for more sincerity than was
probably to be found in a score of his cast. He answered, however, with
reserve, that he was indebted to all who might think well of him; and,
apologising to his guests, he left the hall, in order to make such arrangements
for their entertainment as circumstances admitted.

Upon consulting with old Mysie, the accommodations for the night were easily
completed, as indeed they admitted of little choice. The Master surrendered his
apartment for the use of Miss Ashton, and Mysie, once a person of consequence,
dressed in a black satin gown which had belonged of yore to the Master’s
grandmother, and had figured in the court-balls of Henrietta Maria, went to
attend her as lady’s-maid. He next inquired after Bucklaw, and
understanding he was at the change-house with the huntsmen and some companions,
he desired Caleb to call there, and acquaint him how he was circumstanced at
Wolf’s Crag; to intimate to him that it would be most convenient if he
could find a bed in the hamlet, as the elder guest must necessarily be
quartered in the secret chamber, the only spare bedroom which could be made fit
to receive him. The Master saw no hardship in passing the night by the hall
fire, wrapt in his campaign-cloak; and to Scottish domestics of the day, even
of the highest rank, nay, to young men of family or fashion, on any pinch,
clean straw, or a dry hayloft, was always held good night-quarters.

For the rest, Lockhard had his master’s orders to bring some venison from
the inn, and Caleb was to trust to his wits for the honour of his family. The
Master, indeed, a second time held out his purse; but, as it was in sight of
the strange servant, the butler thought himself obliged to decline what his
fingers itched to clutch. “Couldna he hae slippit it gently into my
hand?” said Caleb; “but his honour will never learn how to bear
himsell in siccan cases.”

Mysie, in the mean time, according to a uniform custom in remote places in
Scotland, offered the strangers the produce of her little dairy, “while
better meat was getting ready.” And according to another custom, not yet
wholly in desuetude, as the storm was now drifting off to leeward, the Master
carried the Keeper to the top of his highest tower to admire a wide and waste
extent of view, and to “weary for his dinner.”

CHAPTER XII.

“Now dame,” quoth he, “Je vous dis sans doute,
Had I nought of a capon but the liver,
And of your white bread nought but a shiver,
And after that a roasted pigge’s head
(But I ne wold for me no beast were dead),
Then had I with you homely sufferaunce.”

CHAUCER, Sumner’s Tale.

It was not without some secret misgivings that Caleb set out upon his
exploratory expedition. In fact, it was attended with a treble difficulty. He
dared not tell his master the offence which he had that morning given to
Bucklaw, just for the honour of the family; he dared not acknowledge he had
been too hasty in refusing the purse; and, thirdly, he was somewhat
apprehensive of unpleasant consequences upon his meeting Hayston under the
impression of an affront, and probably by this time under the influence also of
no small quantity of brandy.

Caleb, to do him justice, was as bold as any lion where the honour of the
family of Ravenswood was concerned; but his was that considerate valour which
does not delight in unnecessary risks. This, however, was a secondary
consideration; the main point was to veil the indigence of the housekeeping at
the castle, and to make good his vaunt of the cheer which his resources could
procure, without Lockhard’s assistance, and without supplies from his
master. This was as prime a point of honour with him as with the generous
elephant with whom we have already compared him, who, being overtasked, broke
his skull through the desperate exertions which he made to discharge his duty,
when he perceived they were bringing up another to his assistance.

The village which they now approached had frequently afforded the distressed
butler resources upon similar emergencies; but his relations with it had been
of late much altered.

It was a little hamlet which straggled along the side of a creek formed by the
discharge of a small brook into the sea, and was hidden from the castle, to
which it had been in former times an appendage, by the intervention of the
shoulder of a hill forming a projecting headland. It was called Wolf’s
Hope (i.e. Wolf’s Haven), and the few inhabitants gained a
precarious subsistence by manning two or three fishing-boats in the herring
season, and smuggling gin and brandy during the winter months. They paid a kind
of hereditary respect to the Lords of Ravenswood; but, in the difficulties of
the family, most of the inhabitants of Wolf’s Hope had contrived to get
feu-rights to their little possessions, their huts, kail-yards, and rights of
commonty, so that they were emancipated from the chains of feudal dependence,
and free from the various exactions with which, under every possible pretext,
or without any pretext at all, the Scottish landlords of the period, themselves
in great poverty, were wont to harass their still poorer tenants at will. They
might be, on the whole, termed independent, a circumstance peculiarly galling
to Caleb, who had been wont to exercise over them the same sweeping authority
in levying contributions which was exercised in former times in England, when
“the royal purveyors, sallying forth from under the Gothic portcullis to
purchase provisions with power and prerogative, instead of money, brought home
the plunder of an hundred markets, and all that could be seized from a flying
and hiding country, and deposited their spoil in an hundred caverns.”

Caleb loved the memory and resented the downfall of that authority, which
mimicked, on a petty scale, the grand contributions exacted by the feudal
sovereigns. And as he fondly flattered himself that the awful rule and right
supremacy, which assigned to the Barons of Ravenswood the first and most
effective interest in all productions of nature within five miles of their
castle, only slumbered, and was not departed for ever, he used every now and
then to give the recollection of the inhabitants a little jog by some petty
exaction. These were at first submitted to, with more or less readiness, by the
inhabitants of the hamlet; for they had been so long used to consider the wants
of the Baron and his family as having a title to be preferred to their own,
that their actual independence did not convey to them an immediate sense of
freedom. They resembled a man that has been long fettered, who, even at
liberty, feels in imagination the grasp of the handcuffs still binding his
wrists. But the exercise of freedom is quickly followed with the natural
consciousness of its immunities, as the enlarged prisoner, by the free use of
his limbs, soon dispels the cramped feeling they had acquired when bound.

The inhabitants of Wolf’s Hope began to grumble, to resist, and at length
positively to refuse compliance with the exactions of Caleb Balderstone. It was
in vain he reminded them, that when the eleventh Lord Ravenswood, called the
Skipper, from his delight in naval matters, had encouraged the trade of their
port by building the pier (a bulwark of stones rudely piled together), which
protected the fishing-boats from the weather, it had been matter of
understanding that he was to have the first stone of butter after the calving
of every cow within the barony, and the first egg, thence called the
Monday’s egg, laid by every hen on every Monday in the year.

The feuars heard and scratched their heads, coughed, sneezed, and being pressed
for answer, rejoined with one voice, “They could not say”—the
universal refuge of a Scottish peasant when pressed to admit a claim which his
conscience owns, or perhaps his feelings, and his interest inclines him to
deny.

Caleb, however, furnished the notables of Wolf’s Hope with a note of the
requisition of butter and eggs, which he claimed as arrears of the aforesaid
subsidy, or kindly aid, payable as above mentioned; and having intimated that
he would not be averse to compound the same for goods or money, if it was
inconvenient to them to pay in kind, left them, as he hoped, to debate the mode
of assessing themselves for that purpose. On the contrary, they met with a
determined purpose of resisting the exaction, and were only undecided as to the
mode of grounding their opposition, when the cooper, a very important person on
a fishing-station, and one of the conscript fathers of the village, observed,
“That their hens had caickled mony a day for the Lords of Ravenswood, and
it was time they suld caickle for those that gave them roosts and
barley.” An unanimous grin intimated the assent of the assembly.
“And,” continued the orator, “if it’s your wull,
I’ll just tak a step as far as Dunse for Davie Dingwall, the writer,
that’s come frae the North to settle amang us, and he’ll pit this
job to rights, I’se warrant him.”

A day was accordingly fixed for holding a grand palaver at Wolf’s
Hope on the subject of Caleb’s requisitions, and he was invited to attend
at the hamlet for that purpose.

He went with open hands and empty stomach, trusting to fill the one on his
master’s account and the other on his own score, at the expense of the
feuars of Wolf’s Hope. But, death to his hopes! as he entered the eastern
end of the straggling village, the awful form of Davie Dingwall, a sly, dry,
hard-fisted, shrewd country attorney, who had already acted against the family
of Ravenswood, and was a principal agent of Sir William Ashton, trotted in at
the western extremity, bestriding a leathern portmanteau stuffed with the
feu-charters of the hamlet, and hoping he had not kept Mr. Balderstone waiting,
“as he was instructed and fully empowered to pay or receive, compound or
compensate, and, in fine, to agé as accords respecting all mutual and
unsettled claims whatsoever, belonging or competent to the Honourable Edgar
Ravenswood, commonly called the Master of Ravenswood——”

“The Right Honourable Edgar Lord Ravenswood,” said
Caleb, with great emphasis; for, though conscious he had little chance of
advantage in the conflict to ensue, he was resolved not to sacrifice one jot of
honour.

“Lord Ravenswood, then,” said the man of business—“we
shall not quarrel with you about titles of courtesy—commonly called Lord
Ravenswood, or Master of Ravenswood, heritable proprietor of the lands and
barony of Wolf’s Crag, on the one part, and to John Whitefish and others,
feuars in the town of Wolf’s Hope, within the barony aforesaid, on the
other part.”

Caleb was conscious, from sad experience, that he would wage a very different
strife with this mercenary champion than with the individual feuars themselves,
upon whose old recollections, predilections, and habits of thinking he might
have wrought by an hundred indirect arguments, to which their
deputy-representative was totally insensible. The issue of the debate proved
the reality of his apprehensions. It was in vain he strained his eloquence and
ingenuity, and collected into one mass all arguments arising from antique
custom and hereditary respect, from the good deeds done by the Lords of
Ravenswood to the community of Wolf’s Hope in former days, and from what
might be expected from them in future. The writer stuck to the contents of his
feu-charters; he could not see it: ’twas not in the bond. And when Caleb,
determined to try what a little spirit would do, deprecated the consequences of
Lord Ravenswood’s withdrawing his protection from the burgh, and even
hinted in his using active measures of resentment, the man of law sneered in
his face.

“His clients,” he said, “had determined to do the best they
could for their own town, and he thought Lord Ravenswood, since he was a lord,
might have enough to do to look after his own castle. As to any threats of
stouthrief oppression, by rule of thumb, or via facti, as the law termed
it, he would have Mr. Balderstone recollect, that new times were not as old
times; that they lived on the south of the Forth, and far from the Highlands;
that his clients thought they were able to protect themselves; but should they
find themselves mistaken, they would apply to the government for the protection
of a corporal and four red-coats, who,” said Mr. Dingwall, with a grin,
“would be perfectly able to secure them against Lord Ravenswood, and all
that he or his followers could do by the strong hand.”

If Caleb could have concentrated all the lightnings of aristocracy in his eye,
to have struck dead this contemner of allegiance and privilege, he would have
launched them at his head, without respect to the consequences. As it was, he
was compelled to turn his course backward to the castle; and there he remained
for full half a day invisible and inaccessible even to Mysie, sequestered in
his own peculiar dungeon, where he sat burnishing a single pewter plate and
whistling “Maggie Lauder” six hours without intermission.

The issue of this unfortunate requisition had shut against Caleb all resources
which could be derived from Wolf’s Hope and its purlieus, the El Dorado,
or Peru, from which, in all former cases of exigence, he had been able to
extract some assistance. He had, indeed, in a manner vowed that the deil should
have him, if ever he put the print of his foot within its causeway again. He
had hitherto kept his word; and, strange to tell, this secession had, as he
intended, in some degree, the effect of a punishment upon the refractory
feuars. Mr. Balderstone had been a person in their eyes connected with a
superior order of beings, whose presence used to grace their little
festivities, whose advice they found useful on many occasions, and whose
communications gave a sort of credit to their village. The place, they
acknowledged, “didna look as it used to do, and should do, since Mr.
Caleb keepit the castle sae closely; but doubtless, touching the eggs and
butter, it was a most unreasonable demand, as Mr. Dingwall had justly made
manifest.”

Thus stood matters betwixt the parties, when the old butler, though it was gall
and wormwood to him, found himself obliged either to ackowledge before a
strange man of quality, and, what was much worse, before that stranger’s
servant, the total inability of Wolf’s Crag to produce a dinner, or he
must trust to the compassion of the feuars of Wolf’s Hope. It was a
dreadful degradation; but necessity was equally imperious and lawless. With
these feelings he entered the street of the village.

Willing to shake himself from his companion as soon as possible, he directed
Mr. Lockhard to Luckie Sma-trash’s change-house, where a din, proceeding
from the revels of Bucklaw, Craigengelt, and their party, sounded half-way down
the street, while the red glare from the window overpowered the grey twilight
which was now settling down, and glimmered against a parcel of old tubs, kegs,
and barrels, piled up in the cooper’s yard, on the other side of the way.

“If you, Mr. Lockhard,” said the old butler to his companion,
“will be pleased to step to the change-house where that light comes from,
and where, as I judge, they are now singing ‘Cauld Kail in
Aberdeen,’ ye may do your master’s errand about the venison, and I
will do mine about Bucklaw’s bed, as I return frae getting the rest of
the vivers. It’s no that the venison is actually needfu’,” he
added, detaining his colleague by the button, “to make up the dinner; but
as a compliment to the hunters, ye ken; and, Mr. Lockhard, if they offer ye a
drink o’ yill, or a cup o’ wine, or a glass o’ brandy,
ye’ll be a wise man to take it, in case the thunner should hae soured
ours at the castle, whilk is ower muckle to be dreaded.”

He then permitted Lockhard to depart; and with foot heavy as lead, and yet far
lighter than his heart, stepped on through the unequal street of the straggling
village, meditating on whom he ought to make his first attack. It was necessary
he should find some one with whom old acknowledged greatness should weigh more
than recent independence, and to whom his application might appear an act of
high dignity, relenting at once and soothing. But he could not recollect an
inhabitant of a mind so constructed. “Our kail is like to be cauld eneugh
too,” he reflected, as the chorus of “Cauld Kail in Aberdeen”
again reached his ears. The minister—he had got his presentation from the
late lord, but they had quarrelled about teinds; the brewster’s
wife—she had trusted long, and the bill was aye scored up, and unless the
dignity of the family should actually require it, it would be a sin to distress
a widow woman. None was so able—but, on the other hand, none was likely
to be less willing—to stand his friend upon the present occasion, than
Gibbie Girder, the man of tubs and barrels already mentioned, who had headed
the insurrection in the matter of the egg and butter subsidy. “But
a’ comes o’ taking folk on the right side, I trow,” quoted
Caleb to himself; “and I had ance the ill hap to say he was but a Johnny
New-come in our town, and the carle bore the family an ill-will ever since. But
he married a bonny young quean, Jean Lightbody, auld Lightbody’s
daughter, him that was in the steading of Loup-the-Dyke; and auld Lightbody was
married himsell to Marion, that was about my lady in the family forty years
syne. I hae had mony a day’s daffing wi’ Jean’s mither, and
they say she bides on wi’ them. The carle has Jacobuses and Georgiuses
baith, an ane could get at them; and sure I am, it’s doing him an honour
him or his never deserved at our hand, the ungracious sumph; and if he loses by
us a’thegither, he is e’en cheap o’t: he can spare it
brawly.”

Shaking off irresolution, therefore, and turning at once upon his heel, Caleb
walked hastily back to the cooper’s house, lifted the latch without
ceremony, and, in a moment, found himself behind the hallan, or
partition, from which position he could, himself unseen, reconnoitre the
interior of the but, or kitchen apartment, of the mansion.

Reverse of the sad menage at the Castle of Wolf’s Crag, a bickering fire
roared up the cooper’s chimney. His wife, on the one side, in her
pearlings and pudding-sleeves, put the last finishing touch to her
holiday’s apparel, while she contemplated a very handsome and
good-humoured face in a broken mirror, raised upon the bink (the shelves
on which the plates are disposed) for her special accommodation. Her mother,
old Luckie Loup-the-Dyke, “a canty carline” as was within twenty
miles of her, according to the unanimous report of the cummers, or
gossips, sat by the fire in the full glory of a grogram gown, lammer beads, and
a clean cockernony, whiffing a snug pipe of tobacco, and superintending the
affairs of the kitchen; for—sight more interesting to the anxious heart
and craving entrails of the desponding seneschal than either buxom dame or
canty cummer—there bubbled on the aforesaid bickering fire a huge pot, or
rather cauldron, steaming with beef and brewis; while before it revolved two
spits, turned each by one of the cooper’s apprentices, seated in the
opposite corners of the chimney, the one loaded with a quarter of mutton, while
the other was graced with a fat goose and a brace of wild ducks. The sight and
scent of such a land of plenty almost wholly overcame the drooping spirits of
Caleb. He turned, for a moment’s space to reconnoitre the ben, or
parlour end of the house, and there saw a sight scarce less affecting to his
feelings—a large round table, covered for ten or twelve persons,
decored (according to his own favourite terms) with napery as
white as snow, grand flagons of pewter, intermixed with one or two silver cups,
containing, as was probable, something worthy the brilliancy of their outward
appearance, clean trenchers, cutty spoons, knives and forks, sharp, burnished,
and prompt for action, which lay all displayed as for an especial festival.

“The devil’s in the peddling tub-coopering carl!” muttered
Caleb, in all the envy of astonishment; “it’s a shame to see the
like o’ them gusting their gabs at sic a rate. But if some o’ that
gude cheer does not find its way to Wolf’s Crag this night, my name is
not Caleb Balderstone.”

So resolving, he entered the apartment, and, in all courteous greeting, saluted
both the mother and the daughter. Wolf’s Crag was the court of the
barony, Caleb prime minister at Wolf’s Crag; and it has ever been
remarked that, though the masculine subject who pays the taxes sometimes growls
at the courtiers by whom they are imposed, the said courtiers continue,
nevertheless, welcome to the fair sex, to whom they furnish the newest
small-talk and the earliest fashions. Both the dames were, therefore, at once
about old Caleb’s neck, setting up their throats together by way of
welcome.

“Ay, sirs, Mr. Balderstone, and is this you? A sight of you is gude for
sair een. Sit down—sit down; the gudeman will be blythe to see
you—ye nar saw him sae cadgy in your life; but we are to christen our bit
wean the night, as ye will hae heard, and doubtless ye will stay and see the
ordinance. We hae killed a wether, and ane o’ our lads has been out
wi’ his gun at the moss; ye used to like wild-fowl.”

“Na, na, gudewife,” said Caleb; “I just keekit in to wish ye
joy, and I wad be glad to hae spoken wi’ the gudeman,
but——” moving, as if to go away.

“The ne’er a fit ye’s gang,” said the elder dame,
laughing and holding him fast, with a freedom which belonged to their old
acquaintance; “wha kens what ill it may bring to the bairn, if ye
owerlook it in that gate?”

“But I’m in a preceese hurry, gudewife,” said the butler,
suffering himself to be dragged to a seat without much resistance; “and
as to eating,” for he observed the mistress of the dwelling bustling
about to place a trencher for him—“as for eating—lack-a-day,
we are just killed up yonder wi’ eating frae morning to night! It’s
shamefu’ epicurism; but that’s what we hae gotten frae the English
pock-puddings.”

“Hout, never mind the English pock-puddings,” said Luckie
Lightbody; “try our puddings, Mr. Balderstone; there is black pudding and
white-hass; try whilk ye like best.”

“Baith gude—baith excellent—canna be better; but the very
smell is eneugh for me that hae dined sae lately (the faithful wretch had
fasted since daybreak). But I wanda affront your housewifeskep, gudewife; and,
with your permission, I’se e’en pit them in my napkin, and eat them
to my supper at e’en, for I am wearied of Mysie’s pastry and
nonsense; ye ken landward dainties aye pleased me best, Marion, and landward
lasses too (looking at the cooper’s wife). Ne’er a bit but she
looks far better than when she married Gilbert, and then she was the bonniest
lass in our parochine and the neist till’t. But gawsie cow, goodly
calf.”

The women smiled at the compliment each to herself, and they smiled again to
each other as Caleb wrapt up the puddings in a towel which he had brought with
him, as a dragoon carries his foraging bag to receive what my fall in his way.

“And what news at the castle?” quo’ the gudewife.

“News! The bravest news ye ever heard—the Lord Keeper’s up
yonder wi’ his fair daughter, just ready to fling her at my lord’s
head, if he winna tak her out o’ his arms; and I’se warrant
he’ll stitch our auld lands of Ravenswood to her petticoat tail.”

“Eh! sirs—ay!—and will hae her? and is she weel-favoured? and
what’s the colour o’ her hair? and does she wear a habit or a
railly?” were the questions which the females showered upon the butler.

“Hout tout! it wad tak a man a day to answer a’ your questions, and
I hae hardly a minute. Where’s the gudeman?”

“Awa’ to fetch the minister,” said Mrs. Girder,
“precious Mr. Peter Bide-the-Bent, frae the Mosshead; the honest man has
the rheumatism wi’ lying in the hills in the persecution.”

“Ay! Whig and a mountain-man, nae less!” said Caleb, with a
peevishness he could not suppress. “I hae seen the day, Luckie, when
worthy Mr. Cuffcushion and the service-book would hae served your turn (to the
elder dame), or ony honest woman in like circumstances.”

“And that’s true too,” said Mrs. Lightbody, “but what
can a body do? Jean maun baith sing her psalms and busk her cockernony the gate
the gudeman likes, and nae ither gate; for he’s maister and mair at hame,
I can tell ye, Mr. Balderstone.”

“Ay, ay, and does he guide the gear too?” said Caleb, to whose
projects masculine rule boded little good.

“Ilka penny on’t; but he’ll dress her as dink as a daisy, as
ye see; sae she has little reason to complain: where there’s ane better
aff there’s ten waur.”

“Aweel, gudewife,” said Caleb, crestfallen, but not beaten off,
“that wasna the way ye guided your gudeman; but ilka land has its ain
lauch. I maun be ganging. I just wanted to round in the gudeman’s lug,
that I heard them say up-bye yonder that Peter Puncheon, that was cooper to the
Queen’s stores at the Timmer Burse at Leith, is dead; sae I though that
maybe a word frae my lord to the Lord Keeper might hae served Gilbert; but
since he’s frae hame——”

“O, but ye maun stay his hame-coming,” said the dame. “I aye
telled the gudeman ye meant weel to him; but he taks the tout at every bit
lippening word.”

“Aweel, I’ll stay the last minute I can.”

“And so,” said the handsome young spouse of Mr. Girder, “ye
think this Miss Ashton is weel-favoured? Troth, and sae should she, to set up
for our young lord, with a face and a hand, and a seat on his horse, that might
become a king’s son. D’ye ken that he aye glowers up at my window,
Mr. Balderstone, when he chaunces to ride thro’ the town? Sae I hae a
right to ken what like he is, as weel as ony body.”

“I ken that brawly,” said Caleb, “for I hae heard his
lordship say the cooper’s wife had the blackest ee in the barony; and I
said, ‘Weel may that be, my lord, for it was her mither’s afore
her, as I ken to my cost.’ Eh, Marion? Ha, ha, ha! Ah! these were merry
days!”

“Hout awa’, auld carle,” said the old dame, “to speak
sic daffing to young folk. But, Jean—fie, woman, dinna ye hear the bairn
greet? I’se warrant it’s that dreary weid has come ower’t
again.”

Up got mother and grandmother, and scoured away, jostling each other as they
ran, into some remote corner of the tenement, where the young hero of the
evening was deposited. When Caleb saw the coast fairly clear, he took an
invigorating pinch of snuff, to sharpen and confirm his resolution.

“Cauld be my cast,” thought he, “if either Bide-the-Bent or
Girder taste that broach of wild-fowl this evening”; and then addressing
the eldest turnspit, a boy of about eleven years old, and putting a penny into
his hand, he said, “Here is twal pennies, my man; carry that ower to Mrs.
Sma’trash, and bid her fill my mill wi’ snishing, and I’ll
turn the broche for ye in the mean time; and she will gie ye a ginge-bread snap
for your pains.”

No sooner was the elder boy departed on this mission than Caleb, looking the
remaining turnspit gravely and steadily in the face, removed from the fire the
spit bearing the wild-fowl of which he had undertaken the charge, clapped his
hat on his head, and fairly marched off with it, he stopped at the door of the
change-house only to say, in a few brief words, that Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw was
not to expect a bed that evening in the castle.

If this message was too briefly delivered by Caleb, it became absolute rudeness
when conveyed through the medium of a suburb landlady; and Bucklaw was, as a
more calm and temperate man might have been, highly incensed. Captain
Craigengelt proposed, with the unanimous applause of all present, that they
should course the old fox (meaning Caleb) ere he got to cover, and toss him in
a blanket. But Lockhard intimated to his master’s servants and those of
Lord Bittlebrains, in a tone of authority, that the slightest impertinence to
the Master of Ravenswood’s domestic would give Sir William Ashton the
highest offence. And having so said, in a manner sufficient to prevent any
aggression on their part, he left the public-house, taking along with him two
servants loaded with such provisions as he had been able to procure, and
overtook Caleb just when he had cleared the village.

CHAPTER XIII.

Should I take aught of you? ’Tis true I begged now;
And what is worse than that, I stole a kindness;
And, what is worst of all, I lost my way in’t.

Wit without Money.

The face of the little boy, sole witness of Caleb’s infringement upon the
laws at once of property and hospitality, would have made a good picture. He
sat motionless, as if he had witnessed some of the spectral appearances which
he had heard told of in a winter’s evening; and as he forgot his own
duty, and allowed his spit to stand still, he added to the misfortunes of the
evening by suffering the mutton to burn as black as a coal. He was first
recalled from his trance of astonishment by a hearty cuff administered by Dame
Lightbody, who, in whatever other respects she might conform to her name, was a
woman strong of person, and expert in the use of her hands, as some say her
deceased husband had known to his cost.

“What garr’d ye let the roast burn, ye ill-clerkit
gude-for-nought?”

“I dinna ken,” said the boy.

“And where’s that ill-deedy gett, Giles?”

“I dinna ken,” blubbered the astonished declarant.

“And where’s Mr. Balderstone?—and abune a’, and in the
name of council and kirk-session, that I suld say sae, where’s the broche
wi’ the wild-fowl?” As Mrs. Girder here entered, and joined her
mother’s exclamations, screaming into one ear while the old lady deafened
the other, they succeeded in so utterly confounding the unhappy urchin, that he
could not for some time tell his story at all, and it was only when the elder
boy returned that the truth began to dawn on their minds.

“Weel, sirs!” said Mrs. Lightbody, “wha wad hae thought
o’ Caleb Balderstone playing an auld acquaintance sic a pliskie!”

“Oh, weary on him!” said the spouse of Mr. Girder; “and what
am I to say to the gudeman? He’ll brain me, if there wasna anither woman
in a’ Wolf’s Hope.”

“Hout tout, silly quean,” said the mother; “na, na,
it’s come to muckle, but it’s no come to that neither; for an he
brain you he maun brain me, and I have garr’d his betters stand back.
Hands aff is fair play; we maunna heed a bit flyting.”

The tramp of horses now announced the arrival of the cooper, with the minister.
They had no sooner dismounted than they made for the kitchen fire, for the
evening was cool after the thunderstorm, and the woods wet and dirty. The young
gudewife, strong in the charms of her Sunday gown and biggonets, threw herself
in the way of receiving the first attack, while her mother, like the veteran
division of the Roman legion, remained in the rear, ready to support her in
case of necessity. Both hoped to protract the discovery of what had
happened—the mother, by interposing her bustling person betwixt Mr.
Girder and the fire, and the daughter, by the extreme cordiality with which she
received the minister and her husband, and the anxious fears which she
expressed lest they should have “gotten cauld.”

“Cauld!” quoted the husband, surlily, for he was not of that class
of lords and masters whose wives are viceroys over them, “we’ll be
cauld eneugh, I think, if ye dinna let us in to the fire.”

And so saying, he burst his way through both lines of defence; and, as he had a
careful eye over his property of every kind, he perceived at one glance the
absence of the spit with its savoury burden. “What the deil,
woman——”

“Fie for shame!” exclaimed both the women; “and before Mr.
Bide-the-Bent!”

“I stand reproved,” said the cooper; “but—”

“The taking in our mouths the name of the great enemy of our
souls,” said Mr. Bide-the-Bent—

“I stand reproved,” said the cooper.

“—Is an exposing ourselves to his temptations,” continued the
reverend monitor, “and in inviting, or, in some sort, a compelling, of
him to lay aside his other trafficking with unhappy persons, and wait upon
those in whose speech his name is frequent.”

“Weel, weel, Mr. Bide-the-Bent, can a man do mair than stand
reproved?” said the cooper; “but jest let me ask the women what for
they hae dished the wild-fowl before we came.”

“They arena dished, Gilbert,” said his wife; “but—but
an accident——”

“What accident?” said Girder, with flashing eyes. “Nae ill
come ower them, I trust? Uh?”

His wife, who stood much in awe of him, durst not reply, but her mother bustled
up to her support, with arms disposed as if they were about to be a-kimbo at
the next reply.—“I gied them to an acquaintance of mine, Gibbie
Girder; and what about it now?”

Her excess of assurance struck Girder mute for an instant. “And ye
gied the wild-fowl, the best end of our christening dinner, to a friend of
yours, ye auld rudas! And what might his name be, I pray ye?”

“Just worthy Mr. Caleb Balderstone—frae Wolf’s Crag,”
answered Marion, prompt and prepared for battle.

Girder’s wrath foamed over all restraint. If there was a circumstance
which could have added to the resentment he felt, it was that this extravagant
donation had been made in favour of our friend Caleb, towards whom, for reasons
to which the reader is no stranger, he nourished a decided resentment. He
raised his riding-wand against the elder matron, but she stood firm, collected
in herself, and undauntedly brandished the iron ladle with which she had just
been flambing (Anglicè, basting) the roast of mutton. Her weapon
was certainly the better, and her arm not the weakest of the two; so that
Gilbert thought it safest to turn short off upon his wife, who had by this time
hatched a sort of hysterical whine, which greatly moved the minister, who was
in fact as simple and kind-hearted a creature as ever breathed. “And you,
ye thowless jade, to sit still and see my substance disponed upon to an idle,
drunken, reprobate, worm-eaten serving-man, just because he kittles the lugs
o’ a silly auld wife wi’ useless clavers, and every twa words a
lee? I’ll gar you as gude——”

Here the minister interposed, both by voice and action, while Dame Lightbody
threw herself in front of her daughter, and flourished her ladle.

“Am I no to chastise my ain wife?” exclaimed the cooper very
indignantly.

“Ye may chastise your ain wife if ye like,” answered Dame
Lightbody; “but ye shall never lay finger on my daughter, and that ye may
found upon.”

“For shame, Mr. Girder!” said the clergyman; “this is what I
little expected to have seen of you, that you suld give rein to your sinful
passions against your nearest and your dearest, and this night too, when ye are
called to the most solemn duty of a Christian parent; and a’ for what?
For a redundancy of creature-comforts, as worthless as they are
unneedful.”

“Worthless!” exclaimed the cooper. “A better guse never
walkit on stubble; two finer, dentier wild ducks never wat a feather.”

“Be it sae, neighbour,” rejoined the minister; “but see what
superfluities are yet revolving before your fire. I have seen the day when ten
of the bannocks which stand upon that board would have been an acceptable
dainty to as many men, that were starving on hills and bogs, and in caves of
the earth, for the Gospel’s sake.”

“And that’s what vexes me maist of a’,” said the
cooper, anxious to get some one to sympathise with his not altogether causeless
anger; “an the quean had gien it to ony suffering sant, or to ony body
ava but that reaving, lying, oppressing Tory villain, that rade in the wicked
troop of militia when it was commanded out against the sants at Bothwell Brig
by the auld tyrant Allan Ravenswood, that is gane to his place, I wad the less
hae minded it. But to gie the principal parts o’ the feast to the like
o’ him——!”

“Aweel, Gilbert,” said the minister, “and dinna ye see a high
judgment in this? The seed of the righteous are not seen begging their bread:
think of the son of a powerful oppressor being brought to the pass of
supporting his household from your fulness.”

“And, besides,” said the wife, “it wasna for Lord Ravenswood
neither, an he wad hear but a body speak: it was to help to entertain the Lord
Keeper, as they ca’ him, that’s up yonder at Wolf’s
Crag.”

“Sir William Ashton at Wolf’s Crag!” ejaculated the
astonished man of hoops and staves.

“And hand and glove wi’ Lord Ravenswood,” added Dame
Lightbody.

“Doited idiot! that auld, clavering sneckdrawer wad gar ye trow the moon
is made of green cheese. The Lord Keeper and Ravenswood! they are cat and dog,
hare and hound.”

“I tell ye they are man and wife, and gree better than some others that
are sae,” retorted the mother-in-law; “forbye, Peter Puncheon,
that’s cooper the Queen’s stores, is dead, and the place is to
fill, and——”

“Od guide us, wull ye haud your skirling tongues!” said
Girder,—for we are to remark, that this explanation was given like a
catch for two voices, the younger dame, much encouraged by the turn of the
debate, taking up and repeating in a higher tone the words as fast as they were
uttered by her mother.

“The gudewife says naething but what’s true, maister,” said
Girder’s foreman, who had come in during the fray. “I saw the Lord
Keeper’s servants drinking and driving ower at Luckie
Sma’trash’s, ower-bye yonder.”

“And is their maister up at Wolf’s Crag?” said Girder.

“Ay, troth is he,” replied his man of confidence.

“And friends wi’ Ravenswood?”

“It’s like sae,” answered the foreman, “since he is
putting up wi’ him.”

“And Peter Puncheon’s dead?”

“Ay, ay, Puncheon has leaked out at last, the auld carle,” said the
foreman; “mony a dribble o’ brandy has gaen through him in his day.
But as for the broche and the wild-fowl, the saddle’s no aff your mare
yet, maister, and I could follow and bring it back, for Mr. Balderstone’s
no far aff the town yet.”

“Do sae, Will; and come here, I’ll tell ye what to do when ye
owertake him.”

He relieved the females of his presence, and gave Will his private
instructions.

“A bonny-like thing,” said the mother-in-law, as the cooper
re-entered the apartment, “to send the innocent lad after an armed man,
when ye ken Mr. Balderstone aye wears a rapier, and whiles a dirk into the
bargain.”

“I trust,” said the minister, “ye have reflected weel on what
ye have done, lest you should minister cause of strife, of which it is my duty
to say, he who affordeth matter, albeit he himself striketh not, is in no
manner guiltless.”

“Never fash your beard, Mr. Bide-the-Bent,” replied Girder;
“ane canna get their breath out here between wives and ministers. I ken
best how to turn my ain cake. Jean, serve up the dinner, and nae mair about
it.”

Nor did he again allude to the deficiency in the course of the evening.

Meantime, the foreman, mounted on his master’s steed, and charged with
his special orders, pricked swiftly forth in pursuit of the marauder Caleb.
That personage, it may be imagined, did not linger by the way. He intermitted
even his dearly-beloved chatter, for the purpose of making more haste, only
assuring Mr. Lockhard that he had made the purveyor’s wife give the
wild-fowl a few turns before the fire, in case that Mysie, who had been so much
alarmed by the thunder, should not have her kitchen-grate in full splendour.
Meanwhile, alleging the necessity of being at Wolf’s Crag as soon as
possible, he pushed on so fast that his companions could scarce keep up with
him. He began already to think he was safe from pursuit, having gained the
summit of the swelling eminence which divides Wolf’s Crag from the
village, when he heard the distant tread of a horse, and a voice which shouted
at intervals, “Mr. Caleb—Mr. Balderstone—Mr. Caleb
Balderstone—hollo—bide a wee!”

Caleb, it may be well believed, was in no hurry to acknowledge the summons.
First, he would not heart it, and faced his companions down, that it was the
echo of the wind; then he said it was not worth stopping for; and, at length,
halting reluctantly, as the figure of the horseman appeared through the shades
of the evening, he bent up his whole soul to the task of defending his prey,
threw himself into an attitude of dignity, advanced the spit, which in his
grasp might with its burden seem both spear and shield, and firmly resolved to
die rather than surrender it.

What was his astonishment, when the cooper’s foreman, riding up and
addressing him with respect, told him: “His master was very sorry he was
absent when he came to his dwelling, and grieved that he could not tarry the
christening dinner; and that he had taen the freedom to send a sma’
runlet of sack, and ane anker of brandy, as he understood there were guests at
the castle, and that they were short of preparation.”

I have heard somewhere a story of an elderly gentleman who was pursued by a
bear that had gotten loose from its muzzle, until completely exhausted. In a
fit of desperation, he faced round upon Bruin and lifted his cane; at the sight
of which the instinct of discipline prevailed, and the animal, instead of
tearing him to pieces, rose up upon his hind-legs and instantly began to
shuffle a saraband. Not less than the joyful surprise of the senior, who had
supposed himself in the extremity of peril from which he was thus unexpectedly
relieved, was that of our excellent friend Caleb, when he found the pursuer
intended to add to his prize, instead of bereaving him of it. He recovered his
latitude, however, instantly, so soon as the foreman, stooping from his nag,
where he sate perched betwixt the two barrels, whispered in his ear: “If
ony thing about Peter Puncheon’s place could be airted their way, John
[Gibbie] Girder wad mak it better to the Master of Ravenswood than a pair of
new gloves; and that he wad be blythe to speak wi’ Maister Balderstone on
that head, and he wad find him as pliant as a hoop-willow in a’ that he
could wish of him.”

Caleb heard all this without rendering any answer, except that of all great men
from Louis XIV. downwards, namely, “We will see about it”; and then
added aloud, for the edification of Mr. Lockhard: “Your master has acted
with becoming civility and attention in forwarding the liquors, and I will not
fail to represent it properly to my Lord Ravenswood. And, my lad,” he
said, “you may ride on to the castle, and if none of the servants are
returned, whilk is to be dreaded, as they make day and night of it when they
are out of sight, ye may put them into the porter’s lodge, whilk is on
the right hand of the great entry; the porter has got leave to go to see his
friends, sae ye will meet no ane to steer ye.”

The foreman, having received his orders, rode on; and having deposited the
casks in the deserted and ruinous porter’s lodge, he returned
unquestioned by any one. Having thus executed his master’s commission,
and doffed his bonnet to Caleb and his company as he repassed them in his way
to the village, he returned to have his share of the christening festivity.

CHAPTER XIV.

As, to the Autumn breeze’s bugle sound,
Various and vague the dry leaves dance their round;
Or, from the garner-door, on ether borne,
The chaff flies devious from the winnow’d corn;
So vague, so devious, at the breath of heaven,
From their fix’d aim are mortal counsels driv’n.

ANONYMOUS.

We left Caleb Balderstone in the extremity of triumph at the success of his
various achievements for the honour of the house of Ravenswood. When he had
mustered and marshalled his dishes of divers kinds, a more royal provision had
not been seen in Wolf’s Crag since the funeral feast of its deceased
lord. Great was the glory of the serving-man, as he decored the old
oaken table with a clean cloth, and arranged upon it carbonaded venison and
roasted wild-fowl, with a glance, every now and then, as if to upbraid the
incredulity of his master and his guests; and with many a story, more or less
true, was Lockhard that evening regaled concerning the ancient grandeur of
Wolf’s Crag, and the sway of its barons over the country in their
neighbourhood.

“A vassal scarce held a calf or a lamb his ain, till he had first asked
if the Lord of Ravenswood was pleased to accept it; and they were obliged to
ask the lord’s consent before they married in these days, and mony a
merry tale they tell about that right as weel as others. And although,”
said Caleb, “these times are not like the gude auld times, when authority
had its right, yet true it is, Mr. Lockhard, and you yoursell may partly have
remarked, that we of the house of Ravenswood do our endeavour in keeping up, by
all just and lawful exertion of our baronial authority, that due and fitting
connexion betwixt superior and vassal, whilk is in some danger of falling into
desuetude, owing to the general license and misrule of these present unhappy
times.”

“Umph!” said Mr. Lockhard; “and if I may inquire, Mr.
Balderstone, pray do you find your people at the village yonder amenable? for I
must needs say, that at Ravenswood Castle, now pertaining to my master the Lord
Keeper, ye have not left behind ye the most compliant set of tenantry.”

“Ah! but Mr. Lockhard,” replied Caleb, “ye must consider
there has been a change of hands, and the auld lord might expect twa turns frae
them, when the new-comer canna get ane. A dour and fractious set they were,
thae tenants of Ravenswood, and ill to live wi’ when they dinna ken their
master; and if your master put them mad ance, the whole country will not put
them down.”

“Troth,” said Mr. Lockhard, “an such be the case, I think the
wisest thing for us a’ wad be to hammer up a match between your young
lord and our winsome young leddy up-bye there; and Sir William might just
stitch your auld barony to her gown-sleeve, and he wad sune cuitle another out
o’ somebody else, sic a lang head as he has.”

Caleb shook his head. “I wish,” he said—“I wish that
may answer, Mr. Lockhard. There are auld prophecies about this house I wad like
ill to see fulfilled wi’ my auld een, that has seen evil eneugh
already.”

“Pshaw! never mind freits,” said his brother butler; “if the
young folk liked ane anither, they wad make a winsome couple. But, to say
truth, there is a leddy sits in our hall-neuk, maun have her hand in that as
weel as in every other job. But there’s no harm in drinking to their
healths, and I will fill Mrs. Mysie a cup of Mr. Girder’s canary.”

While they thus enjoyed themselves in the kitchen, the company in the hall were
not less pleasantly engaged. So soon as Ravenswood had determined upon giving
the Lord Keeper such hospitality as he had to offer, he deemed it incumbent on
him to assume the open and courteous brow of a well-pleased host. It has been
often remarked, that when a man commences by acting a character, he frequently
ends by adopting it in good earnest. In the course of an hour or two,
Ravenswood, to his own surprise, found himself in the situation of one who
frankly does his best to entertain welcome and honoured guests. How much of
this change in his disposition was to be ascribed to the beauty and simplicity
of Miss Ashton, to the readiness with which she accommodated herself to the
inconveniences of her situation; how much to the smooth and plausible
conversation of the Lord Keeper, remarkably gifted with those words which win
the ear, must be left to the reader’s ingenuity to conjecture. But
Ravenswood was insensible to neither.

The Lord Keeper was a veteran statesman, well acquainted with courts and
cabinets, and intimate with all the various turns of public affairs during the
last eventful years of the 17th century. He could talk, from his own knowledge,
of men and events, in a way which failed not to win attention, and had the
peculiar art, while he never said a word which committed himself, at the same
time to persuade the hearer that he was speaking without the least shadow of
scrupulous caution or reserve. Ravenswood, in spite of his prejudices and real
grounds of resentment, felt himself at once amused and instructed in listening
to him, while the statesman, whose inward feelings had at first so much impeded
his efforts to make himself known, had now regained all the ease and fluency of
a silver-tongued lawyer of the very highest order.

His daughter did not speak much, but she smiled; and what she did say argued a
submissive gentleness, and a desire to give pleasure, which, to a proud man
like Ravenswood, was more fascinating than the most brilliant wit. Above all,
he could not be observe that, whether from gratitude or from some other motive,
he himself, in his deserted and unprovided hall, was as much the object of
respectful attention to his guests as he would have been when surrounded by all
the appliances and means of hospitality proper to his high birth. All
deficiencies passed unobserved, or, if they did not escape notice, it was to
praise the substitutes which Caleb had contrived to supply the want of the
usual accommodations. Where a smile was unavoidable, it was a very
good-humoured one, and often coupled with some well-turned compliment, to show
how much the guests esteemed the merits of their noble host, how little they
thought of the inconveniences with which they were surrounded. I am not sure
whether the pride of being found to outbalance, in virtue of his own personal
merit, all the disadvantages of fortune, did not make as favourable an
impression upon the haughty heart of the Master of Ravenswood as the
conversation of the father and the beauty of Lucy Ashton.

The hour of repose arrived. The Keeper and his daughter retired to their
apartments, which were “decored” more properly than could have been
anticipated. In making the necessary arrangements, Mysie had indeed enjoyed the
assistance of a gossip who had arrived from the village upon an exploratory
expedition, but had been arrested by Caleb, and impressed into the domestic
drudgery of the evening; so that, instead of returning home to describe the
dress and person of the grand young lady, she found herself compelled to be
active in the domestic economy of Wolf’s Crag.

According to the custom of the time, the Master of Ravenswood attended the Lord
Keeper to his apartment, followed by Caleb, who placed on the table, with all
the ceremonials due to torches of wax, two rudely-framed tallow-candles, such
as in those days were only used by the peasantry, hooped in paltry clasps of
wire, which served for candlesticks. He then disappeared, and presently entered
with two earthen flagons (the china, he said, had been little used since my
lady’s time), one filled with canary wine, the other with brandy. The
canary sack, unheeding all probabilities of detection, he declared had been
twenty years in the cellars of Wolf’s Crag, “though it was not for
him to speak before their honours; the brandy—it was weel-kenn’d
liquor, as mild as mead and as strong as Sampson; it had been in the house ever
since the memorable revel, in which auld Micklestob had been slain at the head
of the stair by Jamie of Jenklebrae, on account of the honour of the worshipful
Lady Muirend, wha was in some sort an ally of the family;
natheless——”

“But to cut that matter short, Mr. Caleb,” said the Keeper,
“perhaps you will favour me with a ewer of water.”

“God forbid your lordship should drink water in this family,”
replied Caleb, “to the disgrace of so honourable an house!”

“Nevertheless, if his lordship have a fancy,” said the Master,
smiling, “I think you might indulge him; for, if I mistake not, there has
been water drank here at no distant date, and with good relish too.”

“To be sure, if his lordship has a fancy,” said Caleb; and
re-entering with a jug of pure element—“He will scarce find such
water onywhere as is drawn frae the well at Wolf’s Crag;
nevertheless——”

“Nevertheless, we must leave the Lord Keeper to his repose in this poor
chamber of ours,” said the Master of Ravenswood, interrupting his
talkative domestic, who immediately turning to the doorway, with a profound
reverence, prepared to usher his master from the secret chamber.

But the Lord Keeper prevented his host’s departure.—“I have
but one word to say to the Master of Ravenswood, Mr. Caleb, and I fancy he will
excuse your waiting.”

With a second reverence, lower than the former, Caleb withdrew; and his master
stood motionless, expecting, with considerable embarrassment, what was to close
the events of a day fraught with unexpected incidents.

“Master of Ravenswood,” said Sir William Ashton, with some
embarrassment, “I hope you understand the Christian law too well to
suffer the sun to set upon your anger.”

The Master blushed and replied, “He had no occasion that evening to
exercise the duty enjoined upon him by his Christian faith.”

“I should have thought otherwise,” said his guest,
“considering the various subjects of dispute and litigation which have
unhappily occurred more frequently than was desirable or necessary betwixt the
late honourable lord, your father, and myself.”

“I could wish, my lord,” said Ravenswood, agitated by suppressed
emotion, “that reference to these circumstances should be made anywhere
rather than under my father’s roof.”

“I should have felt the delicacy of this appeal at another time,”
said Sir William Ashton, “but now I must proceed with what I mean to say.
I have suffered too much in my own mind, from the false delicacy which
prevented my soliciting with earnestness, what indeed I frequently requested, a
personal communing with your father: much distress of mind to him and to me
might have been prevented.”

“It is true,” said Ravenswood, after a moment’s reflection,
“I have heard my father say your lordship had proposed a personal
interview.”

“Proposed, my dear Master? I did indeed propose it; but I ought to have
begged, entreated, beseeched it. I ought to have torn away the veil, which
interested persons had stretched betwixt us, and shown myself as I was, willing
to sacrifice a considerable part even of my legal rights, in order to
conciliate feelings so natural as his must be allowed to have been. Let me say
for myself, my young friend, for so I will call you, that had your father and I
spent the same time together which my good fortune has allowed me to-day to
pass in your company, it is possible the land might yet have enjoyed one of the
most respectable of its ancient nobility, and I should have been spared the
pain of parting in enmity from a person whose general character I so much
admired and honoured.”

He put his handkerchief to his eyes. Ravenswood also was moved, but awaited in
silence the progress of this extraordinary communication.

“It is necessary,” continued the Lord Keeper, “and proper
that you should understand, that there have been many points betwixt us, in
which, although I judged it proper that there should be an exact ascertainment
of my legal rights by the decree of a court of justice, yet it was never my
intention to press them beyond the verge of equity.”

“My lord,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “it is unnecessary
to pursue this topic farther. What the law will give you, or has given you, you
enjoy—or you shall enjoy; neither my father nor I myself would have
received anything on the footing of favour.”

“Favour! No, you misunderstand me,” resumed the Keeper; “or
rather you are no lawyer. A right may be good in law, and ascertained to be so,
which yet a man of honour may not in every case care to avail himself
of.”

“I am sorry for it, my lord,” said the Master.

“Nay, nay,” retorted his guest, “you speak like a young
counsellor; your spirit goes before your wit. There are many things still open
for decision betwixt us. Can you blame me, an old man desirous of peace, and in
the castle of a young nobleman who has saved my daughter’s life and my
own, that I am desirous, anxiously desirous, that these should be settled on
the most liberal principles?” The old man kept fast hold of the
Master’s passive hand as he spoke, and made it impossible for him, be his
predetermination what it would, to return any other than an acquiescent reply;
and wishing his guest goodnight, he postponed farther conference until the next
morning.

Ravenswood hurried into the hall, where he was to spend the night, and for a
time traversed its pavement with a disordered and rapid pace. His mortal foe
was under his roof, yet his sentiments towards him were neither those of a
feudal enemy nor of a true Christian. He felt as if he could neither forgive
him in the one character, nor follow forth his vengeance in the other, but that
he was making a base and dishonourable composition betwixt his resentment
against the father and his affection for his daughter. He cursed himself, as he
hurried to and fro in the pale moonlight, and more ruddy gleams of the expiring
wood-fire. He threw open and shut the latticed windows with violence, as if
alike impatient of the admission and exclusion of free air. At length, however,
the torrent of passion foamed off its madness, and he flung himself into the
chair which he proposed as his place of repose for the night.

“If, in reality,” such were the calmer thoughts that followed the
first tempest of his passion—“if, in reality, this man desires no
more than the law allows him—if he is willing to adjust even his
acknowledged rights upon an equitable footing, what could be my father’s
cause of complaint?—what is mine? Those from who we won our ancient
possessions fell under the sword of my ancestors, and left lands and livings to
the conquerors; we sink under the force of the law, now too powerful for the
Scottish cavalry. Let us parley with the victors of the day, as if we had been
besieged in our fortress, and without hope of relief. This man may be other
than I have thought him; and his daughter—but I have resolved not to
think of her.”

He wrapt his cloak around him, fell asleep, and dreamed of Lucy Ashton till
daylight gleamed through the lattices.

CHAPTER XV.

We worldly men, when we see friends and kinsmen
Past hope sunk in their fortunes, lend no hand
To lift them up, but rather set our feet
Upon their heads to press them to the bottom,
As I must yield with you I practised it;
But now I see you in a way to rise,
I can and will assist you.

New Way to Pay Old Debts.

The Lord Keeper carried with him, to a couch harder than he was accustomed to
stretch himself upon, the same ambitious thoughts and political perplexities
which drive sleep from the softest down that ever spread a bed of state. He had
sailed long enough amid the contending tides and currents of the time to be
sensible of their peril, and of the necessity of trimming his vessel to the
prevailing wind, if he would have her escape shipwreck in the storm. The nature
of his talents, and the timorousness of disposition connected with them, had
made him assume the pliability of the versatile old Earl of Northampton, who
explained the art by which he kept his ground during all the changes of state,
from the reign of Henry VIII. to that of Elizabeth, by the frank avowal, that
he was born of the willow, not of the oak. It had accordingly been Sir William
Ashton’s policy, on all occasions, to watch the changes in the political
horizon, and, ere yet the conflict was decided, to negotiate some interest for
himself with the party most likely to prove victorious. His time-serving
disposition was well-known, and excited the contempt of the more daring leaders
of both factions in the state. But his talents were of a useful and practical
kind, and his legal knowledge held in high estimation; and they so far
counterbalanced other deficiencies that those in power were glad to use and to
reward, though without absolutely trusting or greatly respecting, him.

The Marquis of A—— had used his utmost influence to effect a change
in the Scottish cabinet, and his schemes had been of late so well laid and so
ably supported, that there appeared a very great chance of his proving
ultimately successful. He did not, however, feel so strong or so confident as
to neglect any means of drawing recruits to his standard. The acquisition of
the Lord Keeper was deemed of some importance, and a friend, perfectly
acquainted with his circumstances and character, became responsible for his
political conversion.

When this gentleman arrived at Ravenswood Castle upon a visit, the real purpose
of which was disguised under general courtesy, he found the prevailing fear
which at present beset the Lord Keeper was that of danger to his own person
from the Master of Ravenswood. The language which the blind sibyl, Old Alice,
had used; the sudden appearance of the Master, armed, and within his precincts,
immediately after he had been warned against danger from him; the cold and
haughty return received in exchange for the acknowledgments with which he
loaded him for his timely protection, had all made a strong impression on his
imagination.

So soon as the Marquis’s political agent found how the wind sate, he
began to insinuate fears and doubts of another kind, scarce less calculated to
affect the Lord Keeper. He inquired with seeming interest, whether the
proceedings in Sir William’s complicated litigation with the Ravenswood
family were out of court, and settled without the possibility of appeal. The
Lord Keeper answered in the affirmative; but his interrogator was too well
informed to be imposed upon. He pointed out to him, by unanswerable arguments,
that some of the most important points which had been decided in his favour
against the house of Ravenswood were liable, under the Treaty of Union, to be
reviewed by the British House of Peers, a court of equity of which the Lord
Keeper felt an instinctive dread. This course came instead of an appeal to the
old Scottish Parliament, or, as it was technically termed, “a
protestation for remeid in law.”

The Lord Keeper, after he had for some time disputed the legality of such a
proceeding, was compelled, at length, to comfort himself with the improbability
of the young Master of Ravenswood’s finding friends in parliament capable
of stirring in so weighty an affair.

“Do not comfort yourself with that false hope,” said his wily
friend; “it is possible that, in the next session of Parliament, young
Ravenswood may find more friends and favour even than your lordship.”

“That would be a sight worth seeing,” said the Keeper, scornfully.

“And yet,” said his friend, “such things have been seen ere
now, and in our own time. There are many at the head of affairs even now that a
few years ago were under hiding for their lives; and many a man now dines on
plate of silver that was fain to eat his crowdy without a bicker; and many a
high head has been brought full low among us in as short a space. Scott of
Scotsarvet’s Staggering State of Scots Statesmen, of which curious memoir
you showed me a manuscript, has been outstaggered in our time.”

The Lord Keeper answered with a deep sigh, “That these mutations were no
new sights in Scotland, and had been witnessed long before the time of the
satirical author he had quoted. It was many a long year,” he said,
“since Fordun had quoted as an ancient proverb, ‘Neque dives,
neque fortis, sed nec sapiens Scotus, prædominante invidia, diu durabit in
terra.’”

“And be assured, my esteemed friend,” was the answer, “that
even your long services to the state, or deep legal knowledge, will not save
you, or render your estate stable, if the Marquis of A—— comes in
with a party in the British Parliament. You know that the deceased Lord
Ravenswood was his near ally, his lady being fifth in descent from the Knight
of Tillibardine; and I am well assured that he will take young Ravenswood by
the hand, and be his very good lord and kinsman. Why should he not? The Master
is an active and stirring young fellow, able to help himself with tongue and
hands; and it is such as he that finds friends among their kindred, and not
those unarmed and unable Mephibosheths that are sure to be a burden to every
one that takes them up. And so, if these Ravenswood cases be called over the
coals in the House of Peers, you will find that the Marquis will have a crow to
pluck with you.”

“That would be an evil requital,” said the Lord Keeper, “for
my long services to the state, and the ancient respect in which I have held his
lordship’s honourable family and person.”

“Ay, but,” rejoined the agent of the Marquis, “it is in vain
to look back on past service and auld respect, my lord; it will be present
service and immediate proofs of regard which, in these sliddery times, will be
expected by a man like the Marquis.”

The Lord Keeper now saw the full drift of his friend’s argument, but he
was too cautious to return any positive answer.

“He knew not,” he said, “the service which the Lord Marquis
could expect from one of his limited abilities, that had not always stood at
his command, still saving and reserving his duty to his king and
country.”

Having thus said nothing, while he seemed to say everything, for the exception
was calculated to cover whatever he might afterwards think proper to bring
under it, Sir William Ashton changed the conversation, nor did he again permit
the same topic to be introduced. His guest departed, without having brought the
wily old statesman the length of committing himself, or of pledging himself to
any future line of conduct, but with the certainty that he had alarmed his
fears in a most sensible point, and laid a foundation for future and farther
treaty.

When he rendered an account of his negotiation to the Marquis, they both agreed
that the Keeper ought not to be permitted to relapse into security, and that he
should be plied with new subjects of alarm, especially during the absence of
his lady. They were well aware that her proud, vindictive, and predominating
spirit would be likely to supply him with the courage in which he was
deficient; that she was immovably attached to the party now in power, with whom
she maintained a close correspondence and alliance; and that she hated, without
fearing, the Ravenswood family (whose more ancient dignity threw discredit on
the newly acquired grandeur of her husband) to such a degree that she would
have perilled the interest of her own house to have the prospect of altogether
crushing that of her enemy.

But Lady Ashton was now absent. The business which had long detained her in
Edinburgh had afterwards induced her to travel to London, not without the hope
that she might contribute her share to disconcert the intrigues of the Marquis
at court; for she stood high in favour with the celebrated Sarah, Duchess of
Marlborough, to whom, in point of character, she bore considerable resemblance.
It was necessary to press her husband hard before her return; and, as a
preparatory step, the Marquis wrote to the Master of Ravenswood the letter
which we rehearsed in a former chapter. It was cautiously worded, so as to
leave it in the power of the writer hereafter to take as deep or as slight an
interest in the fortunes of his kinsmen as the progress of his own schemes
might require. But however unwilling, as a statesman, the Marquis might be to
commit himself, or assume the character of a patron, while he had nothing to
give away, it must be said to his honour that he felt a strong inclination
effectually to befriend the Master of Ravenswood, as well as to use his name as
a means of alarming the terrors of the Lord Keeper.

As the messenger who carried this letter was to pass near the house of the Lord
Keeper, he had it in direction that, in the village adjoining to the park-gate
of the castle, his horse should lose a shoe, and that, while it was replaced by
the smith of the place, he should express the utmost regret for the necessary
loss of time, and in the vehemence of his impatience give it to be understood
that he was bearing a message from the Marquis of A—— to the Master
of Ravenswood upon a matter of life and death.

This news, with exaggerations, was speedily carried from various quarters to
the ears of the Lord Keeper, and each reporter dwelt upon the extreme
impatience of the courier, and the surprising short time in which he had
executed his journey. The anxious statesman heard in silence; but in private
Lockhard received orders to watch the courier on his return, to waylay him in
the village, to ply him with liquor, if possible, and to use all means, fair or
foul, to learn the contents of the letter of which he was the bearer. But as
this plot had been foreseen, the messenger returned by a different and distant
road, and thus escaped the snare that was laid for him.

After he had been in vain expected for some time, Mr. Dingwall had orders to
made especial inquiry among his clients of Wolf’s Hope, whether such a
domestic belonging to the Marquis of A——had actually arrived at the
neighbouring castle. This was easily ascertained; for Caleb had been in the
village one morning by five o’clock, to borrow “twa chappins of ale
and a kipper” for the messenger’s refreshment, and the poor fellow
had been ill for twenty-four hours at Luckie Sma’trash’s, in
consequence of dining upon “saut saumon and sour drink.” So that
the existence of a correspondence betwixt the Marquis and his distressed
kinsman, which Sir William Ashton had sometimes treated as a bugbear, was
proved beyond the possibility of further doubt.

The alarm of the Lord Keeper became very serious; since the Claim of Right, the
power of appealing from the decisions of the civil court to the Estates of
Parliament, which had formerly been held incompetent, had in many instances
been claimed, and in some allowed, and he had no small reason to apprehend the
issue, if the English House of Lords should be disposed to act upon an appeal
from the Master of Ravenswood “for remeid in law.” It would resolve
into an equitable claim, and be decided, perhaps, upon the broad principles of
justice, which were not quite so favourable to the Lord Keeper as those of
strict law. Besides, judging, though most inaccurately, from courts which he
had himself known in the unhappy times preceding the Scottish Union, the Keeper
might have too much right to think that, in the House to which his lawsuits
were to be transferred, the old maxim might prevail which was too well
recognised in Scotland in former times: “Show me the man, and I’ll
show you the law.” The high and unbiased character of English judicial
proceedings was then little known in Scotland, and the extension of them to
that country was one of the most valuable advantages which it gained by the
Union. But this was a blessing which the Lord Keeper, who had lived under
another system, could not have the means of foreseeing. In the loss of his
political consequence, he anticipated the loss of his lawsuit. Meanwhile, every
report which reached him served to render the success of the Marquis’s
intrigues the more probable, and the Lord Keeper began to think it
indispensable that he should look round for some kind of protection against the
coming storm. The timidity of his temper induced him to adopt measures of
compromise and conciliation. The affair of the wild bull, properly managed,
might, he thought, be made to facilitate a personal communication and
reconciliation betwixt the Master and himself. He would then learn, if
possible, what his own ideas were of the extent of his rights, and the means of
enforcing them; and perhaps matters might be brought to a compromise, where one
party was wealthy and the other so very poor. A reconciliation with Ravenswood
was likely to give him an opportunity to play his own game with the Marquis of
A——. “And besides,” said he to himself, “it will
be an act of generosity to raise up the heir of this distressed family; and if
he is to be warmly and effectually befriended by the new government, who knows
but my virtue may prove its own reward?”

Thus thought Sir William Ashton, covering with no unusual self-delusion his
interested views with a hue of virtue; and having attained this point, his
fancy strayed still farther. He began to bethink himself, “That if
Ravenswood was to have a distinguished place of power and trust, and if such a
union would sopite the heavier part of his unadjusted claims, there might be
worse matches for his daughter Lucy: the Master might be reponed against the
attainder. Lord Ravenswood was an ancient title, and the alliance would, in
some measure, legitimate his own possession of the greater part of the
Master’s spoils, and make the surrender of the rest a subject of less
bitter regret.”

With these mingled and multifarious plans occupying his head, the Lord Keeper
availed himself of my Lord Bittlebrains’s repeated invitation to his
residence, and thus came within a very few miles of Wolf’s Crag. Here he
found the lord of the mansion absent, but was courteously received by the lady,
who expected her husband’s immediate return. She expressed her particular
delight at seeing Miss Ashton, and appointed the hounds to be taken out for the
Lord Keeper’s special amusement. He readily entered into the proposal, as
giving him an opportunity to reconnoitre Wolf’s Crag, and perhaps to make
some acquaintance with the owner, if he should be tempted from his desolate
mansion by the chase. Lockhard had his orders to endeavour on his part to make
some acquaintance with the inmates of the castle, and we have seen how he
played his part.

The accidental storm did more to further the Lord Keeper’s plan of
forming a personal acquaintance with young Ravenswood than his most sanguine
expectations could have anticipated. His fear of the young nobleman’s
personal resentment had greatly decreased since he considered him as formidable
from his legal claims and the means he might have of enforcing them. But
although he thought, not unreasonably, that only desperate circumstances drove
men on desperate measures, it was not without a secret terror, which shook his
heart within him, that he first felt himself inclosed within the desolate Tower
of Wolf’s Crag; a place so well fitted, from solitude and strength, to be
a scene of violence and vengeance. The stern reception at first given to them
by the Master of Ravenswood, and the difficulty he felt in explaining to that
injured nobleman what guests were under the shelter of his roof, did not soothe
these alarms; so that when Sir William Ashton heard the door of the courtyard
shut behind him with violence, the words of Alice rung in his ears, “That
he had drawn on matters too hardly with so fierce a race as those of
Ravenswood, and that they would bide their time to be avenged.”

The subsequent frankness of the Master’s hospitality, as their
acquaintance increased, abated the apprehensions these recollections were
calculated to excite; and it did not escape Sir William Ashton, that it was to
Lucy’s grace and beauty he owed the change in their host’s
behavior.

All these thoughts thronged upon him when he took possession of the secret
chamber. The iron lamp, the unfurnished apartment, more resembling a prison
than a place of ordinary repose, the hoarse and ceaseless sound of the waves
rushing against the base of the rock on which the castle was founded, saddened
and perplexed his mind. To his own successful machinations, the ruin of the
family had been in a great measure owing, but his disposition was crafty, and
not cruel; so that actually to witness the desolation and distress he had
himself occasioned was as painful to him as it would be to the humane mistress
of a family to superintend in person the execution of the lambs and poultry
which are killed by her own directions. At the same time, when he thought of
the alternative of restoring to Ravenswood a large proportion of his spoils, or
of adopting, as an ally and member of his own family, the heir of this
impoverished house, he felt as the spider may be supposed to do when his whole
web, the intricacies of which had been planned with so much art, is destroyed
by the chance sweep of a broom. And then, if he should commit himself too far
in this matter, it gave rise to a perilous question, which many a good husband,
when under temptation to act as a free agent, has asked himself without being
able to return a satisfactory answer: “What will my wife—what will
Lady Ashton say?” On the whole, he came at length to the resolution in
which minds of a weaker cast so often take refuge. He resolved to watch events,
to take advantage of circumstances as they occurred, and regulate his conduct
accordingly. In this spirit of temporising policy, he at length composed his
mind to rest.

CHAPTER XVI.

A slight note I have about me for you, for the delivery of which you must
excuse me. It is an offer that friendship calls upon me to do, and no way
offensive to you, since I desire nothing but right upon both sides.

King and no King.

When Ravenswood and his guest met in the morning, the gloom of the
Master’s spirit had in part returned. He, also, had passed a night rather
of reflection than of slumber; and the feelings which he could not but
entertain towards Lucy Ashton had to support a severe conflict against those
which he had so long nourished against her father. To clasp in friendship the
hand of the enemy of his house, to entertain him under his roof, to exchange
with him the courtesies and the kindness of domestic familiarity, was a
degradation which his proud spirit could not be bent to without a struggle.

But the ice being once broken, the Lord Keeper was resolved it should not have
time again to freeze. It had been part of his plan to stun and confuse
Ravenswood’s ideas, by a complicated and technical statement of the
matters which had been in debate betwixt their families, justly thinking that
it would be difficult for a youth of his age to follow the expositions of a
practical lawyer, concerning actions of compt and reckoning, and of
multiplepoindings, and adjudications and wadsets, proper and improper, and
poindings of the ground, and declarations of the expiry of the legal.
“Thus,” thought Sir William, “I shall have all the grace of
appearing perfectly communicative, while my party will derive very little
advantage from anything I may tell him.” He therefore took Ravenswood
aside into the deep recess of a window in the hall, and resuming the discourse
of the proceeding evening, expressed a hope that his young friend would assume
some patience, in order to hear him enter in a minute and explanatory detail of
those unfortunate circumstances in which his late honourable father had stood
at variance with the Lord Keeper. The Master of Ravenswood coloured highly, but
was silent; and the Lord Keeper, though not greatly approving the sudden
heightening of his auditor’s complexion, commenced the history of a bond
for twenty thousand marks, advanced by his father to the father of Allan Lord
Ravenswood, and was proceeding to detail the executorial proceedings by which
this large sum had been rendered a debitum fundi, when he was
interrupted by the Master.

“It is not in this place,” he said, “that I can hear Sir
William Ashton’s explanation of the matters in question between us. It is
not here, where my father died of a broken heart, that I can with decency or
temper investigate the cause of his distress. I might remember that I was a
son, and forget the duties of a host. A time, however, there must come, when
these things shall be discussed, in a place and in a presence where both of us
will have equal freedom to speak and to hear.”

“Any time,” the Lord Keeper said, “any place, was alike to
those who sought nothing but justice. Yet it would seem he was, in fairness,
entitled to some premonition respecting the grounds upon which the Master
proposed to impugn the whole train of legal proceedings, which had been so well
and ripely advised in the only courts competent.”

“Sir William Ashton,” answered the Master, with warmth, “the
lands which you now occupy were granted to my remote ancestor for services done
with his sword against the English invaders. How they have glided from us by a
train of proceedings that seem to be neither sale, nor mortgage, nor
adjudication for debt, but a nondescript and entangled mixture of all these
rights; how annual rent has been accumulated upon principal, and no nook or
coign of legal advantage left unoccupied, until our interest in our hereditary
property seems to have melted away like an icicle in thaw—all this you
understand better than I do. I am willing, however, to suppose, from the
frankness of your conduct towards me, that I may in a great measure have
mistaken your personal character, and that things may have appeared right and
fitting to you, a skilful and practised lawyer, which to my ignorant
understanding seem very little short of injustice and gross oppression.”

“And you, my dear Master,” answered Sir William—“you,
permit me to say, have been equally misrepresented to me. I was taught to
believe you a fierce, imperious, hot-headed youth, ready, at the slightest
provocation, to throw your sword into the scales of justice, and to appeal to
those rude and forcible measures from which civil polity has long protected the
people of Scotland. Then, since we were mutually mistaken in each other, why
should not the young nobleman be willing to listen to the old lawyer, while, at
least, he explains the points of difference betwixt them?”

“No, my lord,” answered Ravenswood; “it is in the House of
British Peers, whose honour must be equal to their rank—it is in the
court of last resort that we must parley together. The belted lords of Britain,
her ancient peers, must decide, if it is their will that a house, not the least
noble of their members, shall be stripped of their possessions, the reward of
the patriotism of generations, as the pawn of a wretched mechanic becomes
forfeit to the usurer the instant the hour of redemption has passed away. If
they yield to the grasping severity of the creditor, and to the gnawing usury
that eats into our lands as moths into a raiment, it will be of more evil
consequence to them and their posterity than to Edgar Ravenswood. I shall still
have my sword and my cloak, and can follow the profession of arms wherever a
trumpet shall sound.”

As he pronounced these words, in a firm yet melancholy tone, he raised his
eyes, and suddenly encountered those of Lucy Ashton, who had stolen unawares on
their interview, and observed her looks fastened on them with an expression of
enthusiastic interest and admiration, which had wrapt her for the moment beyond
the fear of discovery. The noble form and fine features of Ravenswood, fired
with the pride of birth and sense of internal dignity, the mellow and
expressive tones of his voice, the desolate state of his fortunes, and the
indifference with which he seemed to endure and to dare the worst that might
befall, rendered him a dangerous object of contemplation for a maiden already
too much disposed to dwell upon recollections connected with him. When their
eyes encountered each other, both blushed deeply, conscious of some strong
internal emotion, and shunned again to meet each other’s looks.

Sir William Ashton had, of course, closely watched the expression of their
countenances. “I need fear,” said he internally, “neither
Parliament nor protestation; I have an effectual mode of reconciling myself
with this hot-tempered young fellow, in case he shall become formidable. The
present object is, at all events, to avoid committing ourselves. The hook is
fixed; we will not strain the line too soon: it is as well to reserve the
privilege of slipping it loose, if we do not find the fish worth
landing.”

In this selfish and cruel calculation upon the supposed attachment of
Ravenswood to Lucy, he was so far from considering the pain he might give to
the former, by thus dallying with his affections, that he even did not think
upon the risk of involving his own daughter in the perils of an unfortunate
passion; as if her predilection, which could not escape his attention, were
like the flame of a taper which might be lighted or extinguished at pleasure.
But Providence had prepared a dreadful requital for this keen observer of human
passions, who had spent his life in securing advantages to himself by artfully
working upon the passions of others.

Caleb Balderstone now came to announce that breakfast was prepared; for in
those days of substantial feeding, the relics of the supper simply furnished
forth the morning meal. Neither did he forget to present to the Lord Keeper,
with great reverence, a morning draught in a large pewter cup, garnished with
leaves of parsley and scurvy-grass. He craved pardon, of course, for having
omitted to serve it in the great silver standing cup as behoved, being that it
was at present in a silversmith’s in Edinburgh, for the purpose of being
overlaid with gilt.

“In Edinburgh like enough,” said Ravenswood; “but in what
place, or for what purpose, I am afraid neither you nor I know.”

“Aweel!” said Caleb, peevishly, “there’s a man standing
at the gate already this morning—that’s ae thing that I ken. Does
your honour ken whether ye will speak wi’ him or no?”

“Does he wish to speak with me, Caleb?”

“Less will no serve him,” said Caleb; “but ye had best take a
visie of him through the wicket before opening the gate; it’s no every
ane we suld let into this castle.”

“What! do you suppose him to be a messenger come to arrest me for
debt?” said Ravenswood.

“A messenger arrest your honour for debt, and in your Castle of
Wolf’s Crag! Your honour is jesting wi’ auld Caleb this
morning.” However, he whispered in his ear, as he followed him out,
“I would be loth to do ony decent man a prejudice in your honour’s
gude opinion; but I would tak twa looks o’ that chield before I let him
within these walls.”

He was not an officer of the law, however; being no less a person than Captain
Craigengelt, with his nose as red as a comfortable cup of brandy could make it,
his laced cocked hat set a little aside upon the top of his black riding
periwig, a sword by his side and pistols at his holsters, and his person
arrayed in a riding suit, laid over with tarnished lace—the very moral of
one who would say, “Stand to a true man.”

When the Master had recognised him, he ordered the gates to be opened. “I
suppose,” he said, “Captain Craigengelt, there are no such weighty
matters betwixt you and me, but may be discussed in this place. I have company
in the castle at present, and the terms upon which we last parted must excuse
my asking you to make part of them.”

Craigengelt, although possessing the very perfection of impudence, was somewhat
abashed by this unfavourable reception. “He had no intention,” he
said, “to force himself upon the Master of Ravenswood’s
hospitality; he was in the honourable service of bearing a message to him from
a friend, otherwise the Master of Ravenswood should not have had reason to
complain of this intrusion.”

“Let it be short, sir,” said the Master, “for that will be
the best apology. Who is the gentleman who is so fortunate as to have your
services as a messenger?”

“My friend, Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw,” answered Craigengelt, with
conscious importance, and that confidence which the acknowledged courage of his
principal inspired, “who conceives himself to have been treated by you
with something much short of the respect which he had reason to demand, and,
therefore is resolved to exact satisfaction. I bring with me,” said he,
taking a piece of paper out of his pocket, “the precise length of his
sword; and he requests you will meet him, accompanied by a friend, and equally
armed, at any place within a mile of the castle, when I shall give attendance
as umpire, or second, on his behoof.”

“Satisfaction! and equal arms!” repeated Ravenswood, who, the
reader will recollect, had no reason to suppose he had given the slightest
offence to his late intimate; “upon my word, Captain Craigengelt, either
you have invented the most improbable falsehood that ever came into the mind of
such a person, or your morning draught has been somewhat of the strongest. What
could persuade Bucklaw to send me such a message?”

“For that, sir,” replied Craigengelt, “I am desired to refer
you to what, in duty to my friend, I am to term your inhospitality in excluding
him from your house, without reasons assigned.”

“It is impossible,” replied the Master; “he cannot be such a
fool as to interpret actual necessity as an insult. Nor do I believe that,
knowing my opinion of you, Captain, he would have employed the services of so
slight and inconsiderable a person as yourself upon such an errand, as I
certainly could expect no man of honour to act with you in the office of
umpire.”

“I slight and inconsiderable?” said Craigengelt, raising his voice,
and laying his hand on his cutlass; “if it were not that the quarrel of
my friend craves the precedence, and is in dependence before my own, I would
give you to understand——”

“I can understand nothing upon your explanation, Captain Craigengelt. Be
satisfied of that, and oblige me with your departure.”

“D——n!” muttered the bully; “and is this the
answer which I am to carry back to an honourable message?”

“Tell the Laird of Bucklaw,” answered Ravenswood, “if you are
really sent by him, that, when he sends me his cause of grievance by a person
fitting to carry such an errand betwixt him and me, I will either explain it or
maintain it.”

“Then, Master, you will at least cause to be returned to Hayston, by my
hands, his property which is remaining in your possession.”

“Whatever property Bucklaw may have left behind him, sir,” replied
the Master, “shall be returned to him by my servant, as you do not show
me any credentials from him which entitle you to receive it.”

“Well, Master,” said Captain Craigengelt, with malice which even
his fear of the consequences could not suppress, “you have this morning
done me an egregious wrong and dishonour, but far more to yourself. A castle
indeed!” he continued, looking around him; “why, this is worse than
a coupe-gorge house, where they receive travellers to plunder them of
their property.”

“You insolent rascal,” said the Master, raising his cane, and
making a grasp at the Captain’s bridle, “if you do not depart
without uttering another syllable, I will batoon you to death!”

At the motion of the Master towards him, the bully turned so rapidly round,
that with some difficulty he escaped throwing down his horse, whose hoofs
struck fire from the rocky pavement in every direction. Recovering him,
however, with the bridle, he pushed for the gate, and rode sharply back again
in the direction of the village.

As Ravenswood turned round to leave the courtyard after this dialogue, he found
that the Lord Keeper had descended from the hall, and witnessed, though at the
distance prescribed by politeness, his interview with Craigengelt.

“I have seen,” said the Lord Keeper, “that gentleman’s
face, and at no great distance of time; his name is
Craig—Craig—something, is it not?”

“Craigengelt is the fellow’s name,” said the Master,
“at least that by which he passes at present.”

“Craig-in-guilt,” said Caleb, punning upon the word craig,
which in Scotch signifies throat; “if he is Craig-in-guilt just now, he
is as likely to be Craig-in-peril as ony chield I ever saw; the loon has woodie
written on his very visnomy, and I wad wager twa and a plack that hemp plaits
his cravat yet.”

“You understand physiognomy, good Mr. Caleb,” said the Keeper,
smiling; “I assure you the gentleman has been near such a consummation
before now; for I most distinctly recollect that, upon occasion of a journey
which I made about a fortnight ago to Edinburgh, I saw Mr. Craigengelt, or
whatever is his name, undergo a severe examination before the privy
council.”

“Upon what account?” said the Master of Ravenswood, with some
interest.

The question led immediately to a tale which the Lord Keeper had been very
anxious to introduce, when he could find a graceful and fitting opportunity. He
took hold of the Master’s arm, and led him back towards the hall.
“The answer to your question,” he said, “though it is a
ridiculous business, is only fit for your own ear.”

As they entered the hall, he again took the Master apart into one of the
recesses of the window, where it will be easily believed that Miss Ashton did
not venture again to intrude upon their conference.

CHAPTER XVII.

Here is a father now,
Will truck his daughter for a foreign venture,
Make her the stop-gap to some canker’d feud,
Or fling her o’er, like Jonah, to the fishes,
To appease the sea at highest.

ANONYMOUS.

The Lord Keeper opened his discourse with an appearance of unconcern, marking,
however, very carefully, the effect of his communication upon young Ravenswood.

“You are aware,” he said, “my young friend, that suspicion is
the natural vice of our unsettled times, and exposes the best and wisest of us
to the imposition of artful rascals. If I had been disposed to listen to such
the other day, or even if I had been the wily politicians which you have been
taught to believe me, you, Master of Ravenswood, instead of being at freedom,
and with fully liberty to solicit and act against me as you please, in defence
of what you suppose to be your rights, would have been in the Castle of
Edinburgh, or some other state prison; or, if you had escaped that destiny, it
must have been by flight to a foreign country, and at the risk of a sentence of
fugitation.”

“My Lord Keeper,” said the Master, “I think you would not
jest on such a subject; yet it seems impossible you can be in earnest.”

“Innocence,” said the Lord Keeper, “is also confident, and
sometimes, though very excusably, presumptuously so.”

“I do not understand,” said Ravenswood, “how a consciousness
of innocence can be, in any case, accounted presumptuous.”

“Imprudent, at least, it may be called,” said Sir William Ashton,
“since it is apt to lead us into the mistake of supposing that
sufficiently evident to others of which, in fact, we are only conscious
ourselves. I have known a rogue, for this very reason, make a better defence
than an innocent man could have done in the same circumstances of suspicion.
Having no consciousness of innocence to support him, such a fellow applies
himself to all the advantages which the law will afford him, and
sometimes—if his counsel be men of talent—succeeds in compelling
his judges to receive him as innocent. I remember the celebrated case of Sir
Coolie Condiddle of Condiddle, who was tried for theft under trust, of which
all the world knew him guilty, and yet was not only acquitted, but lived to sit
in judgment on honester folk.”

“Allow me to beg you will return to the point,” said the Master;
“you seemed to say that I had suffered under some suspicion.”

“Suspicion, Master! Ay, truly, and I can show you the proofs of it; if I
happen only to have them with me. Here, Lockhard.” His attendant came.
“Fetch me the little private mail with the padlocks, that I recommended
to your particular charge, d’ye hear?”

“Yes, my lord.” Lockhard vanished; and the Keeper continued, as if
half speaking to himself.

“I think the papers are with me—I think so, for, as I was to be in
this country, it was natural for me to bring them with me. I have them,
however, at Ravenswood Castle, that I am sure; so perhaps you might
condescend——”

Here Lockhard entered, and put the leathern scrutoire, or mail-box, into his
hands. The Keeper produced one or two papers, respecting the information laid
before the privy council concerning the riot, as it was termed, at the funeral
of Allan Lord Ravenswood, and the active share he had himself taken in quashing
the proceedings against the Master. These documents had been selected with
care, so as to irritate the natural curiosity of Ravenswood upon such a
subject, without gratifying it, yet to show that Sir William Ashton had acted
upon that trying occasion the part of an advocate and peacemaker betwixt him
and the jealous authorities of the day. Having furnished his host with such
subjects for examination, the Lord Keeper went to the breakfast-table, and
entered into light conversation, addressed partly to old Caleb, whose
resentment against the usurper of the Castle of Ravenswood began to be softened
by his familiarity, and partly to his daughter.

After perusing these papers, the Master of Ravenswood remained for a minute or
two with his hand pressed against his brow, in deep and profound meditation. He
then again ran his eye hastily over the papers, as if desirous of discovering
in them some deep purpose, or some mark of fabrication, which had escaped him
at first perusal. Apparently the second reading confirmed the opinion which had
pressed upon him at the first, for he started from the stone bench on which he
was sitting, and, going to the Lord Keeper, took his hand, and, strongly
pressing it, asked his pardon repeatedly for the injustice he had done him,
when it appeared he was experiencing, at his hands, the benefit of protection
to his person and vindication to his character.

The statesman received these acknowledgments at first with well-feigned
surprise, and then with an affectation of frank cordiality. The tears began
already to start from Lucy’s blue eyes at viewing this unexpected and
moving scene. To see the Master, late so haughty and reserved, and whom she had
always supposed the injured person, supplicating her father for forgiveness,
was a change at once surprising, flattering, and affecting.

“Dry your eyes, Lucy,” said her father; “why should you weep,
because your father, though a lawyer, is discovered to be a fair and honourable
man? What have you to thank me for, my dear Master,” he continued,
addressing Ravenswood, “that you would not have done in my case?
‘Suum cuique tribuito,’ was the Roman justice, and I learned
it when I studied Justinian. Besides, have you not overpaid me a thousand
times, in saving the life of this dear child?”

“Yes,” answered the Master, in all the remorse of self-accusation;
“but the little service I did was an act of mere brutal instinct;
your defence of my cause, when you knew how ill I thought of you, and
how much I was disposed to be your enemy, was an act of generous, manly, and
considerate wisdom.”

“Pshaw!” said the Lord Keeper, “each of us acted in his own
way; you as a gallant soldier, I as an upright judge and privy-councillor. We
could not, perhaps, have changed parts; at least I should have made a very
sorry Tauridor, and you, my good Master, though your cause is so
excellent, might have pleaded it perhaps worse yourself than I who acted for
you before the council.”

“My generous friend!” said Ravenswood; and with that brief word,
which the Keeper had often lavished upon him, but which he himself now
pronounced for the first time, he gave to his feudal enemy the full confidence
of an haughty but honourable heart. The Master had been remarked among his
contemporaries for sense and acuteness, as well as for his reserved,
pertinacious, and irascible character. His prepossessions accordingly, however
obstinate, were of a nature to give way before love and gratitude; and the real
charms of the daughter, joined to the supposed services of the father,
cancelled in his memory the vows of vengeance which he had taken so deeply on
the eve of his father’s funeral. But they had been heard and registered
in the book of fate.

Caleb was present at this extraordinary scene, and he could conceive no other
reason for a proceeding so extraordinary than an alliance betwixt the houses,
and Ravenswood Castle assigned for the young lady’s dowry. As for Lucy,
when Ravenswood uttered the most passionate excuses for his ungrateful
negligence, she could but smile through her tears, and, as she abandoned her
hand to him, assure him, in broken accents, of the delight with which she
beheld the complete reconciliation between her father and her deliverer. Even
the statesman was moved and affected by the fiery, unreserved, and generous
self-abandonment with which the Master of Ravenswood renounced his feudal
enmity, and threw himself without hesitation upon his forgiveness. His eyes
glistened as he looked upon a couple who were obviously becoming attached, and
who seemed made for each other. He thought how high the proud and chivalrous
character of Ravenswood might rise under many circumstances in which he
found himself “overcrowed,” to use a phrase of Spenser, and kept
under, by his brief pedigree, and timidity of disposition. Then his
daughter—his favorite child—his constant playmate—seemed
formed to live happy in a union with such a commanding spirit as Ravenswood;
and even the fine, delicate, fragile form of Lucy Ashton seemed to require the
support of the Master’s muscular strength and masculine character. And it
was not merely during a few minutes that Sir William Ashton looked upon their
marriage as a probable and even desirable event, for a full hour intervened ere
his imagination was crossed by recollection of the Master’s poverty, and
the sure displeasure of Lady Ashton. It is certain, that the very unusual flow
of kindly feeling with which the Lord Keeper had been thus surprised, was one
of the circumstances which gave much tacit encouragement to the attachment
between the Master and his daughter, and led both the lovers distinctly to
believe that it was a connexion which would be most agreeable to him. He
himself was supposed to have admitted this in effect, when, long after the
catastrophe of their love, he used to warn his hearers against permitting their
feelings to obtain an ascendency over their judgment, and affirm, that the
greatest misfortune of his life was owing to a very temporary predominance of
sensibility over self-interest. It must be owned, if such was the case, he was
long and severely punished for an offence of very brief duration.

After some pause, the Lord Keeper resumed the conversation.—

“In your surprise at finding me an honester man than you expected, you
have lost your curiosity about this Craigengelt, my good Master; and yet your
name was brought in, in the course of that matter too.”

“The scoundrel!” said Ravenswood. “My connexion with him was
of the most temporary nature possible; and yet I was very foolish to hold any
communication with him at all. What did he say of me?”

“Enough,” said the Keeper, “to excite the very loyal terrors
of some of our sages, who are for proceeding against men on the mere grounds of
suspicion or mercenary information. Some nonsense about your proposing to enter
into the service of France, or of the Pretender, I don’t recollect which,
but which the Marquis of A——, one of your best friends, and another
person, whom some call one of your worst and most interested enemies, could
not, somehow, be brought to listen to.”

“I am obliged to my honourable friend; and yet,” shaking the Lord
Keeper’s hand—“and yet I am still more obliged to my
honourable enemy.”

“Inimicus amicissimus,” said the Lord Keeper, returning the
pressure; “but this gentleman—this Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw—I
am afraid the poor young man—I heard the fellow mention his name—is
under very bad guidance.”

“He is old enough to govern himself,” answered the Master.

“Old enough, perhaps, but scarce wise enough, if he has chosen this
fellow for his fidus Achates. Why, he lodged an information against
him—that is, such a consequence might have ensued from his examination,
had we not looked rather at the character of the witness than the tenor of his
evidence.”

“Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw,” said the master, “is, I believe, a
most honourable man, and capable of nothing that is mean or disgraceful.”

“Capable of much that is unreasonable, though; that you must needs allow,
master. Death will soon put him in possession of a fair estate, if he hath it
not already; old Lady Girnington—an excellent person, excepting that her
inveterate ill-nature rendered her intolerable to the whole world—is
probably dead by this time. Six heirs portioners have successively died to make
her wealthy. I know the estates well; they march with my own—a noble
property.”

“I am glad of it,” said Ravenswood, “and should be more so,
were I confident that Bucklaw would change his company and habits with his
fortunes. This appearance of Craigengelt, acting in the capacity of his friend,
is a most vile augury for his future respectability.”

“He is a bird of evil omen, to be sure,” said the Keeper,
“and croaks of jail and gallows-tree. But I see Mr. Caleb grows impatient
for our return to breakfast.”

CHAPTER XVIII.

Sir, stay at home and take an old man’s counsel;
Seek not to bask you by a stranger’s hearth;
Our own blue smoke is warmer than their fire.
Domestic food is wholesome, though ’tis homely,
And foreign dainties poisonous, though tasteful.

The French Courtezan.

The Master of Ravenswood took an opportunity to leave his guests to prepare for
their departure, while he himself made the brief arrangements necessary
previous to his absence from Wolf’s Crag for a day or two. It was
necessary to communicate with Caleb on this occasion, and he found that
faithful servitor in his sooty and ruinous den, greatly delighted with the
departure of their visitors, and computing how long, with good management, the
provisions which had been unexpended might furnish the Master’s table.
“He’s nae belly god, that’s ae blessing; and Bucklaw’s
gane, that could have eaten a horse behind the saddle. Cresses or water-purpie,
and a bit ait-cake, can serve the Master for breakfast as weel as Caleb. Then
for dinner—there’s no muckle left on the spule-bane; it will
brander, though—it will brander very weel.”

His triumphant calculations were interrupted by the Master, who communicated to
him, not without some hesitation, his purpose to ride with the Lord Keeper as
far as Ravenswood Castle, and to remain there for a day or two.

“The mercy of Heaven forbid!” said the old serving-man, turning as
pal as the table-cloth which he was folding up.

“And why, Caleb?” said his master—“why should the mercy
of Heaven forbid my returning the Lord Keeper’s visit?”

“Oh, sir!” replied Caleb—“oh, Mr. Edgar! I am your
servant, and it ill becomes me to speak; but I am an auld servant—have
served baith your father and gudesire, and mind to have seen Lord Randal, your
great-grandfather, but that was when I was a bairn.”

“And what of all this, Balderstone?” said the Master; “what
can it possibly have to do with my paying some ordinary civility to a
neighbour.”

“Oh, Mr. Edgar,—that is, my lord!” answered the butler,
“your ain conscience tells you it isna for your father’s son to be
neighbouring wi’ the like o’ him; it isna for the credit of the
family. An he were ance come to terms, and to gie ye back your ain, e’en
though ye suld honour his house wi’ your alliance, I suldna say na; for
the young leddy is a winsome sweet creature. But keep your ain state wi’
them—I ken the race o’ them weel—they will think the mair
o’ ye.”

“Why, now, you go father than I do, Caleb,” said the Master,
drowning a certain degree of consciousness in a forced laugh; “you are
for marrying me into a family that you will not allow me to visit, how this?
and you look as pale as death besides.”

“Oh, sir,” repeated Caleb again, “you would but laugh if I
tauld it; but Thomas the Rhymer, whose tongue couldna be fause, spoke the word
of your house that will e’en prove ower true if you go to Ravenswood this
day. Oh, that it should e’er have been fulfilled in my time!”

“And what is it, Caleb?” said Ravenswood, wishing to soothe the
fears of his old servant.

Caleb replied: “He had never repeated the lines to living mortal; they
were told to him by an auld priest that had been confessor to Lord
Allan’s father when the family were Catholic. But mony a time,” he
said, “I hae soughed thae dark words ower to myself, and, well-a-day!
little did I think of their coming round this day.”

“Truce with your nonsense, and let me hear the doggerel which has put it
into your head,” said the Master, impatiently.

With a quivering voice, and a cheek pale with apprehension, Caleb faltered out
the following lines:

“When the last Laird of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride,
And woo a dead maiden to be his bride,
He shall stable his steed in the Kelpie’s flow,
And his name shall be lost for evermoe!”

“I know the Kelpie’s flow well enough,” said the Master;
“I suppose, at least, you mean the quicksand betwixt this tower and
Wolf’s Hope; but why any man in his senses should stable a steed
there——”

“Oh, ever speer ony thing about that, sir—God forbid we should ken
what the prophecy means—but just bide you at hame, and let the strangers
ride to Ravenswood by themselves. We have done eneugh for them; and to do mair
would be mair against the credit of the family than in its favour.”

“Well, Caleb,” said the Master, “I give you the best possible
credit for your good advice on this occasion; but as I do not go to Ravenswood
to seek a bride, dead or alive, I hope I shall choose a better stable for my
horse than the Kelpie’s quicksand, and especially as I have always had a
particular dread of it since the patrol of dragoons were lost there ten years
since. My father and I saw them from the tower struggling against the advancing
tide, and they were lost long before any help could reach them.”

“And they deserved it weel, the southern loons!” said Caleb;
“what had they ado capering on our sands, and hindering a wheen honest
folk frae bringing on shore a drap brandy? I hae seen them that busy, that I
wad hae fired the auld culverin or the demi-saker that’s on the south
bartizan at them, only I was feared they might burst in the ganging aff.”

Caleb’s brain was now fully engaged with abuse of the English soldiery
and excisemen, so that his master found no great difficulty in escaping from
him and rejoining his guests. All was now ready for their departure; and one of
the Lord Keeper’s grooms having saddled the Master’s steed, they
mounted in the courtyard.

Caleb had, with much toil, opened the double doors of the outward gate, and
thereat stationed himself, endeavouring, by the reverential, and at the same
time consequential, air which he assumed, to supply, by his own gaunt, wasted,
and thin person, the absence of a whole baronial establishment of porters,
warders, and liveried menials.

The Keeper returned his deep reverence with a cordial farewell, stooping at the
same time from his horse, and sliding into the butler’s hand the
remuneration which in those days was always given by a departing guest to the
domestics of the family where he had been entertained. Lucy smiled on the old
man with her usual sweetness, bade him adieu, and deposited her guerdon with a
grace of action and a gentleness of accent which could not have failed to have
won the faithful retainer’s heart, but for Thomas the Rhymer, and the
successful lawsuit against his master. As it was, he might have adopted the
language of the Duke in “As You Like It”:

Thou wouldst have better pleased me with this deed,
If thou hadst told me of another father.

Ravenswood was at the lady’s bridle-rein, encouraging her timidity, and
guiding her horse carefully down the rocky path which led to the moor, when one
of the servants announced from the rear that Caleb was calling loudly after
them, desiring to speak with his master. Ravenswood felt it would look singular
to neglect this summons, although inwardly cursing Caleb for his impertinent
officiousness; therefore he was compelled to relinquish to Mr. Lockhard the
agreeable duty in which he was engaged, and to ride back to the gate of the
courtyard. Here he was beginning, somewhat peevishly, to ask Caleb the cause of
his clamour, when the good old man exclaimed: “Whisht, sir!—whisht,
and let me speak just ae word that I couldna say afore folk; there (putting
into his lord’s hand the money he had just received)—there’s
three gowd pieces; and ye’ll want siller up-bye yonder. But stay, whisht,
now!” for the Master was beginning to exclaim against this transference,
“never say a word, but just see to get them changed in the first town ye
ride through, for they are bran new frae the mint, and ken-speckle a wee
bit.”

“You forget, Caleb,” said his master, striving to force back the
money on his servant, and extricate the bridle from his hold—“you
forget that I have some gold pieces left of my own. Keep these to yourself, my
old friend; and, once more, good day to you. I assure you, I have plenty. You
know you have managed that our living should cost us little or nothing.”

“Aweel,” said Caleb, “these will serve for you another time;
but see ye hae eneugh, for, doubtless, for the credit of the family, there maun
be some civility to the servants, and ye maun hae something to mak a show with
when they say, ‘Master, will you bet a broad piece?’ Then ye maun
tak out your purse, and say, ‘I carena if I do’; and tak care no to
agree on the articles of the wager, and just put up your purse again,
and——”

“This is intolerable, Caleb; I really must be gone.”

“And you will go, then?” said Caleb, loosening his hold upon the
Master’s cloak, and changing his didactics into a pathetic and mournful
tone—“and you will go, for a’ I have told you about
the prophecy, and the dead bride, and the Kelpie’s quicksand? Aweel! a
wilful man maun hae his way: he that will to Cupar maun to Cupar. But pity of
your life, sir, if ye be fowling or shooting in the Park, beware of drinking at
the Mermaiden’s Well—He’s gane! he’s down the path
arrow-flight after her! The head is as clean taen aff the Ravenswood family
this day as I wad chap the head aff a sybo!”

The old butler looked long after his master, often clearing away the dew as it
rose to his eyes, that he might, as long as possible, distinguish his stately
form from those of the other horsemen. “Close to her
bridle-rein—ay, close to her bridle-rein! Wisely saith the holy man,
‘By this also you may know that woman hath dominion over all men’;
and without this lass would not our ruin have been a’thegither
fulfilled.”

With a heart fraught with such sad auguries did Caleb return to his necessary
duties at Wolf’s Crag, as soon as he could no longer distinguish the
object of his anxiety among the group of riders, which diminished in the
distance.

In the mean time the party pursued their route joyfully. Having once taken his
resolution, the Master of Ravenswood was not of a character to hesitate or
pause upon it. He abandoned himself to the pleasure he felt in Miss
Ashton’s company, and displayed an assiduous gallantry which approached
as nearly to gaiety as the temper of his mind and state of his family
permitted. The Lord Keeper was much struck with his depth of observation, and
the unusual improvement which he had derived from his studies. Of these
accomplishments Sir William Ashton’s profession and habits of society
rendered him an excellent judge; and he well knew how to appreciate a quality
to which he himself was a total stranger—the brief and decided
dauntlessness of the Master of Ravenswood’s fear. In his heart the Lord
Keeper rejoiced at having conciliated an adversary so formidable, while, with a
mixture of pleasure and anxiety, he anticipated the great things his young
companion might achieve, were the breath of court-favour to fill his sails.

“What could she desire,” he thought, his mind always conjuring up
opposition in the person of Lady Ashton to his new prevailing
wish—“what could a woman desire in a match more than the sopiting
of a very dangerous claim, and the alliance of a son-in-law, noble, brave,
well-gifted, and highly connected; sure to float whenever the tide sets his
way; strong, exactly where we are weak, in pedigree and in the temper of a
swordsman? Sure, no reasonable woman would hesitate. But
alas——!” Here his argument was stopped by the consciousness
that Lady Ashton was not always reasonable, in his sense of the word. “To
prefer some clownish Merse laird to the gallant young nobleman, and to the
secure possession of Ravenswood upon terms of easy compromise—it would be
the act of a madwoman!”

Thus pondered the veteran politician, until they reached Bittlebrains House,
where it had been previously settled they were to dine and repose themselves,
and prosecute their journey in the afternoon.

They were received with an excess of hospitality; and the most marked attention
was offered to the Master of Ravenswood, in particular, by their noble
entertainers. The truth was, that Lord Bittlebrains had obtained his peerage by
a good deal of plausibility, an art of building up a character for wisdom upon
a very trite style of commonplace eloquence, a steady observation of the
changes of the times, and the power of rendering certain political services to
those who could best reward them. His lady and he, not feeling quite easy under
their new honours, to which use had not adapted their feelings, were very
desirous to procure the fraternal countenance of those who were born denizens
of the regions into which they had been exalted from a lower sphere. The
extreme attention which they paid to the Master of Ravenswood had its usual
effect in exalting his importance in the eyes of the Lord Keeper, who, although
he had a reasonable degree of contempt for Lord Bittlebrains’s general
parts, entertained a high opinion of the acuteness of his judgment in all
matters of self-interest.

“I wish Lady Ashton had seen this,” was his internal reflection;
“no man knows so well as Bittlebrains on which side his bread is
buttered; and he fawns on the Master like a beggar’s messan on a cook.
And my lady, too, bringing forward her beetle-browed misses to skirl and play
upon the virginals, as if she said, ‘Pick and choose.’ They are no
more comparable to Lucy than an owl is to a cygnet, and so they may carry their
black brows to a farther market.”

The entertainment being ended, our travellers, who had still to measure the
longest part of their journey, resumed their horses; and after the Lord Keeper,
the Master, and the domestics had drunk doch-an-dorroch, or the
stirrup-cup, in the liquors adapted to their various ranks, the cavalcade
resumed its progress.

It was dark by the time they entered the avenue of Ravenswood Castle, a long
straight line leading directly to the front of the house, flanked with huge
elm-trees, which sighed to the night-wind, as if they compassionated the heir
of their ancient proprietors, who now returned to their shades in the society,
and almost in the retinue, of their new master. Some feelings of the same kind
oppressed the mind of the Master himself. He gradually became silent, and
dropped a little behind the lady, at whose bridle-rein he had hitherto waited
with such devotion. He well recollected the period when, at the same hour in
the evening, he had accompanied his father, as that nobleman left, never again
to return to it, the mansion from which he derived his name and title. The
extensive front of the old castle, on which he remembered having often looked
back, was then “as black as mourning weed.” The same front now
glanced with many lights, some throwing far forward into the night a fixed and
stationary blaze, and others hurrying from one window to another, intimating
the bustle and busy preparation preceding their arrival, which had been
intimated by an avant-courier. The contrast pressed so strongly upon the
Master’s heart as to awaken some of the sterner feelings with which he
had been accustomed to regard the new lord of his paternal domain, and to
impress his countenance with an air of severe gravity, when, alighted from his
horse, he stood in the hall no longer his own, surrounded by the numerous
menials of its present owner.

The Lord Keeper, when about to welcome him with the cordiality which their late
intercourse seemed to render proper, became aware of the change, refrained from
his purpose, and only intimated the ceremony of reception by a deep reverence
to his guest, seeming thus delicately to share the feelings which predominated
on his brow.

Two upper domestics, bearing each a huge pair of silver candlesticks, now
marshalled the company into a large saloon, or withdrawing-room, where new
alterations impressed upon Ravenswood the superior wealth of the present
inhabitants of the castle. The mouldering tapestry, which, in his
father’s time, had half covered the walls of this stately apartment, and
half streamed from them in tatters, had given place to a complete finishing of
wainscot, the cornice of which, as well as the frames of the various
compartments, were ornamented with festoons of flowers and with birds, which,
though carved in oak, seemed, such was the art of the chisel, actually to swell
their throats and flutter their wings. Several old family portraits of armed
heroes of the house of Ravenswood, together with a suit or two of old armour
and some military weapons, had given place to those of King William and Queen
Mary, or Sir Thomas Hope and Lord Stair, two distinguished Scottish lawyers.
The pictures of the Lord Keeper’s father and mother were also to be seen;
the latter, sour, shrewish, and solemn, in her black hood and close pinners,
with a book of devotion in her hand; the former, exhibiting beneath a black
silk Geneva cowl, or skull-cap, which sate as close to the head as if it had
been shaven, a pinched, peevish, Puritanical set of features, terminating in a
hungry, reddish, peaked beard, forming on the whole a countenance in the
expression of which the hypocrite seemed to contend with the miser and the
knave. “And it is to make room for such scarecrows as these,”
thought Ravenswood, “that my ancestors have been torn down from the walls
which they erected!” he looked at them again, and, as he looked, the
recollection of Lucy Ashton, for she had not entered the apartment with them,
seemed less lively in his imagination. There were also two or three Dutch
drolleries, as the pictures of Ostade and Teniers were then termed, with one
good painting of the Italian school. There was, besides, a noble full-length of
the Lord Keeper in his robes of office, placed beside his lady in silk and
ermine, a haughty beauty, bearing in her looks all the pride of the house of
Douglas, from which she was descended. The painter, notwithstanding his skill,
overcome by the reality, or, perhaps, from a suppressed sense of humour, had
not been able to give the husband on the canvas that air of awful rule and
right supremacy which indicates the full possession of domestic authority. It
was obvious at the first glance that, despite mace and gold frogs, the Lord
Keeper was somewhat henpecked. The floor of this fine saloon was laid with rich
carpets, huge fires blazed in the double chimneys, and ten silver sconces,
reflecting with their bright plates the lights which they supported, made the
whole seem as brilliant as day.

“Would you choose any refreshment, Master?” said Sir William
Ashton, not unwilling to break the awkward silence.

He received no answer, the Master being so busily engaged in marking the
various changes which had taken place in the apartment, that he hardly heard
the Lord Keeper address him. A repetition of the offer of refreshment, with the
addition, that the family meal would be presently ready, compelled his
attention, and reminded him that he acted a weak, perhaps even a ridiculous,
part in suffering himself to be overcome by the circumstances in which he found
himself. He compelled himself, therefore, to enter into conversation with Sir
William Ashton, with as much appearance of indifference as he could well
command.

“You will not be surprised, Sir William, that I am interested in the
changes you have made for the better in this apartment. In my father’s
time, after our misfortunes compelled him to live in retirement, it was little
used, except by me as a play-room, when the weather would not permit me to go
abroad. In that recess was my little workshop, where I treasured the few
carpenters’ tools which old Caleb procured for me, and taught me how to
use; there, in yonder corner, under that handsome silver sconce, I kept my
fishing-rods and hunting poles, bows and arrows.”

“I have a young birkie,” said the Lord Keeper, willing to change
the tone of the conversation, “of much the same turn. He is never happy
save when he is in the field. I wonder he is not here. Here, Lockhard; send
William Shaw for Mr. Henry. I suppose he is, as usual, tied to Lucy’s
apron-string; that foolish girl, Master, draws the whole family after her at
her pleasure.”

Even this allusion to his daughter, though artfully thrown out, did not recall
Ravenswood from his own topic. “We were obliged to leave,” he said,
“some armour and portraits in this apartment; may I ask where they have
been removed to?”

“Why,” answered the Keeper, with some hesitation, “the room
was fitted up in our absence, and cedant arma togæ is the maxim of
lawyers, you know: I am afraid it has been here somewhat too literally complied
with. I hope—I believe they are safe, I am sure I gave orders; may I hope
that when they are recovered, and put in proper order, you will do me the
honour to accept them at my hand, as an atonement for their accidental
derangement?”

The Master of Ravenswood bowed stiffly, and, with folded arms, again resumed
his survey of the room.

Henry, a spoilt boy of fifteen, burst into the room, and ran up to his father.
“Think of Lucy, papa; she has come home so cross and so fractious, that
she will not go down to the stable to see my new pony, that Bob Wilson brought
from the Mull of Galloway.”

“I think you were very unreasonable to ask her,” said the Keeper.

“Then you are as cross as she is,” answered the boy; “but
when mamma comes home, she’ll claw up both your mittens.”

“Hush your impertinence, you little forward imp!” said his father;
“where is your tutor?”

“Gone to a wedding at Dunbar; I hope he’ll get a haggis to his
dinner”; and he began to sing the old Scottish song:

“There was a haggis in Dunbar,
Fal de ral, &c.
Mony better and few waur,
Fal de ral,” &c.

“I am much obliged to Mr. Cordery for his attentions,” said the
Lord Keeper; “and pray who has had the charge of you while I was away,
Mr. Henry?”

“Norman and Bob Wilson, forbye my own self.”

“A groom and a gamekeeper, and your own silly self—proper guardians
for a young advocate! Why, you will never know any statutes but those against
shooting red-deer, killing salmon, and——”

“And speaking of red-game,” said the young scapegrace, interrupting
his father without scruple or hesitation, “Norman has shot a buck, and I
showed the branches to Lucy, and she says they have but eight tynes; and she
says that you killed a deer with Lord Bittlebrains’s hounds, when you
were west away, and, do you know, she says it had ten tynes; is it true?”

“It may have had twenty, Henry, for what I know; but if you go to that
gentleman, he can tell you all about it. Go speak to him, Henry; it is the
Master of Ravenswood.”

While they conversed thus, the father and son were standing by the fire; and
the Master, having walked towards the upper end of the apartment, stood with
his back towards them, apparently engaged in examining one of the paintings.
The boy ran up to him, and pulled him by the skirt of the coat with the freedom
of a spoilt child, saying, “I say, sir, if you please to tell
me——” but when the Master turned round, and Henry saw his
face, he became suddenly and totally disconcerted; walked two or three steps
backward, and still gazed on Ravenswood with an air of fear and wonder, which
had totally banished from his features their usual expression of pert vivacity.

“Come to me, young gentleman,” said the Master, “and I will
tell you all I know about the hunt.”

“Go to the gentleman, Henry,” said his father; “you are not
used to be so shy.”

But neither invitation nor exhortation had any effect on the boy. On the
contrary, he turned round as soon as he had completed his survey of the Master,
and walking as cautiously as if he had been treading upon eggs, he glided back
to his father, and pressed as close to him as possible. Ravenswood, to avoid
hearing the dispute betwixt the father and the overindulged boy, thought it
most polite to turn his face once more towards the pictures, and pay no
attention to what they said.

“Why do you not speak to the Master, you little fool?” said the
Lord Keeper.

“I am afraid,” said Henry, in a very low tone of voice.

“Afraid, you goose!” said his father, giving him a slight shake by
the collar. “What makes you afraid?”

“What makes him to like the picture of Sir Malise Ravenswood then?”
said the boy, whispering.

“What picture, you natural?” said his father. “I used to
think you only a scapegrace, but I believe you will turn out a born
idiot.”

“I tell you, it is the picture of old Malise of Ravenswood, and he is as
like it as if he had loupen out of the canvas; and it is up in the old
baron’s hall that the maids launder the clothes in; and it has armour,
and not a coat like the gentleman; and he has not a beard and whiskers like the
picture; and it has another kind of thing about the throat, and no band-strings
as he has; and——”

“And why should not the gentleman be like his ancestor, you silly
boy?” said the Lord Keeper.

“Ay; but if he is come to chase us all out of the castle,” said the
boy, “and has twenty men at his back in disguise; and is come to say,
with a hollow voice, I bide my time; and is to kill you on the hearth as
Malise did the other man, and whose blood is still to be seen!”

“Hush! nonsense!” said the Lord Keeper, not himself much pleased to
hear these disagreeable coincidences forced on his notice. “Master, here
comes Lockhard to say supper is served.”

And, at the same instant, Lucy entered at another door, having changed her
dress since her return. The exquisite feminine beauty of her countenance, now
shaded only by a profusion of sunny tresses; the sylph-like form, disencumbered
of her heavy riding-skirt and mantled in azure silk; the grace of her manner
and of her smile, cleared, with a celerity which surprised the Master himself,
all the gloomy and unfavourable thoughts which had for some time overclouded
his fancy. In those features, so simply sweet, he could trace no alliance with
the pinched visage of the peak-bearded, black-capped Puritan, or his starched,
withered spouse, with the craft expressed in the Lord Keeper’s
countenance, or the haughtiness which predominated in that of his lady; and,
while he gazed on Lucy Ashton, she seemed to be an angel descended on earth,
unallied to the coarser mortals among whom she deigned to dwell for a season.
Such is the power of beauty over a youthful and enthusiastic fancy.

CHAPTER XIX.

I do too ill in this,
And must not think but that a parent’s plaint
Will move the heavens to pour forth misery
Upon the head of disobediency.
Yet reason tells us, parents are o’erseen,
When with too strict a rein they do hold in
Their child’s affection, and control that love,
Which the high powers divine inspire them with.

The Hog hath lost his Pearl.

The feast of Ravenswood Castle was as remarkable for its profusion as that of
Wolf’s Crag had been for its ill-veiled penury. The Lord Keeper might
feel internal pride at the contrast, but he had too much tact to suffer it to
appear. On the contrary, he seemed to remember with pleasure what he called Mr.
Balderstone’s bachelor’s meal, and to be rather disgusted than
pleased with the display upon his own groaning board.

“We do these things,” he said, “because others do them; but I
was bred a plain man at my father’s frugal table, and I should like well
would my wife and family permit me to return to my sowens and my
poor-man-of-mutton.”

This was a little overstretched. The Master only answered, “That
different ranks—I mean,” said he, correcting himself,
“different degrees of wealth require a different style of
housekeeping.”

This dry remark put a stop to further conversation on the subject, nor is it
necessary to record that which was substituted in its place. The evening was
spent with freedom, and even cordiality; and Henry had so far overcome his
first apprehensions, that he had settled a party for coursing a stag with the
representative and living resemblance of grim Sir Malise of Ravenswood, called
the Revenger. The next morning was the appointed time. It rose upon active
sportsmen and successful sport. The banquet came in course; and a pressing
invitation to tarry yet another day was given and accepted. This Ravenswood had
resolved should be the last of his stay; but he recollected he had not yet
visited the ancient and devoted servant of his house, Old Alice, and it was but
kind to dedicate one morning to the gratification of so ancient an adherent.

To visit Alice, therefore, a day was devoted, and Lucy was the Master’s
guide upon the way. Henry, it is true, accompanied them, and took from their
walk the air of a tête-à-tête, while, in reality, it was little else,
considering the variety of circumstances which occurred to prevent the boy from
giving the least attention to what passed between his companions. Now a rook
settled on a branch within shot; anon a hare crossed their path, and Henry and
his greyhound went astray in pursuit of it; then he had to hold a long
conversation with the forester, which detained him a while behind his
companions; and again he went to examine the earth of a badger, which carried
him on a good way before them.

The conversation betwixt the Master and his sister, meanwhile, took an
interesting, and almost a confidential, turn. She could not help mentioning her
sense of the pain he must feel in visiting scenes so well known to him, bearing
now an aspect so different; and so gently was her sympathy expressed, that
Ravenswood felt it for a moment as a full requital of all his misfortunes. Some
such sentiment escaped him, which Lucy heard with more of confusion than
displeasure; and she may be forgiven the imprudence of listening to such
language, considering that the situation in which she was placed by her father
seemed to authorise Ravenswood to use it. Yet she made an effort to turn the
conversation, and she succeeded; for the Master also had advanced farther than
he intended, and his conscience had instantly checked him when he found himself
on the verge of speaking of love to the daughter of Sir William Ashton.

They now approached the hut of Old Alice, which had of late been rendered more
comfortable, and presented an appearance less picturesque, perhaps, but far
neater than before. The old woman was on her accustomed seat beneath the
weeping birch, basking, with the listless enjoyment of age and infirmity, in
the beams of the autumn sun. At the arrival of her visitors she turned her head
towards them. “I hear your step, Miss Ashton,” she said, “but
the gentleman who attends you is not my lord, your father.”

“And why should you think so, Alice?” said Lucy; “or how is
it possible for you to judge so accurately by the sound of a step, on this firm
earth, and in the open air?”

“My hearing, my child, has been sharpened by my blindness, and I can now
draw conclusions from the slightest sounds, which formerly reached my ears as
unheeded as they now approach yours. Necessity is a stern but an excellent
schoolmistress, and she that has lost her sight must collect her information
from other sources.”

“Well, you hear a man’s step, I grant it,” said Lucy;
“but why, Alice, may it not be my father’s?”

“The pace of age, my love, is timid and cautious: the foot takes leave of
the earth slowly, and is planted down upon it with hesitation; it is the hasty
and determined step of youth that I now hear, and—could I give credit to
so strange a thought—I should say is was the step of a Ravenswood.”

“This is indeed,” said Ravenswood, “an acuteness of organ
which I could not have credited had I not witnessed it. I am indeed the Master
of Ravenswood, Alice,—the son of your old master.”

“You!” said the old woman, with almost a scream of
surprise—“you the Master of Ravenswood—here—in this
place, and thus accompanied! I cannot believe it. Let me pass my old hand over
your face, that my touch may bear witness to my ears.”

The Master sate down beside her on the earthen bank, and permitted her to touch
his features with her trembling hand.

“It is indeed!” she said—“it is the features as well as
the voice of Ravenswood—the high lines of pride, as well as the bold and
haughty tone. But what do you here, Master of Ravenswood?—what do you in
your enemy’s domain, and in company with his child?” As Old Alice
spoke, her face kindled, as probably that of an ancient feudal vassal might
have done in whose presence his youthful liege-lord had showed some symptom of
degenerating from the spirit of his ancestors.

“The Master of Ravenswood,” said Lucy, who liked not the tone of
this expostulation, and was desirous to abridge it, “is upon a visit to
my father.”

“Indeed!” said the old blind woman, in an accent of surprise.

“I knew,” continued Lucy, “I should do him a pleasure by
conducting him to your cottage.”

“Where, to say the truth, Alice,” said Ravenswood, “I
expected a more cordial reception.”

“It is most wonderful!” said the old woman, muttering to herself;
“but the ways of Heaven are not like our ways, and its judgments are
brought about by means far beyond our fathoming. Hearken, young man,” she
said; “your fathers were implacable, but they were honourable, foes; they
sought not to ruin their enemies under the mask of hospitality. What have you
to do with Lucy Ashton? why should your steps move in the same footpath with
hers? why should your voice sound in the same chord and time with those of Sir
William Ashton’s daughter? Young man, he who aims at revenge by
dishonourable means——”

“Be silent, woman!” said Ravenswood, sternly; “is it the
devil that prompts your voice? Know that this young lady has not on earth a
friend who would venture farther to save her from injury or from insult.”

“And is it even so?” said the old woman, in an altered but
melancholy tone, “then God help you both!”

“Amen! Alice,” said Lucy, who had not comprehended the import of
what the blind woman had hinted, “and send you your senses, Alice, and
your good humour. If you hold this mysterious language, instead of welcoming
your friends, they will think of you as other people do.”

“And how do other people think?” said Ravenswood, for he also began
to believe the old woman spoke with incoherence.

“They think,” said Henry Ashton, who came up at that moment, and
whispered into Ravenswood’s ear, “that she is a witch, that should
have been burned with them that suffered at Haddington.”

“What is it you say?” said Alice, turning towards the boy, her
sightless visage inflamed with passion; “that I am a witch, and ought to
have suffered with the helpless old wretches who were murdered at
Haddington?”

“Hear to that now,” again whispered Henry, “and me whispering
lower than a wren cheeps!”

“If the usurer, and the oppressor, and the grinder of the poor
man’s face, and the remover of ancient landmarks, and the subverter of
ancient houses, were at the same stake with me, I could say, ‘Light the
fire, in God’s name!’”

“This is dreadful,” said Lucy; “I have never seen the poor
deserted woman in this state of mind; but age and poverty can ill bear
reproach. Come, Henry, we will leave her for the present; she wishes to speak
with the Master alone. We will walk homeward, and rest us,” she added,
looking at Ravenswood, “by the Mermaiden’s Well.”

“And Alice,” said the boy, “if you know of any hare that
comes through among the deer, and makes them drop their calves out of season,
you may tell her, with my compliments to command, that if Norman has not got a
silver bullet ready for her, I’ll lend him one of my doublet-buttons on
purpose.”

Alice made no answer till she was aware that the sister and brother were out of
hearing. She then said to Ravenswood: “And you, too, are angry with me
for my love? It is just that strangers should be offended, but you, too, are
angry!”

“I am not angry, Alice,” said the Master, “only surprised
that you, whose good sense I have heard so often praised, should give way to
offensive and unfounded suspicions.”

“Offensive!” said Alice. “Ay, trust is ever offensive; but,
surely, not unfounded.”

“I tell you, dame, most groundless,” replied Ravenswood.

“Then the world has changed its wont, and the Ravenswoods their
hereditary temper, and the eyes of Old Alice’s understanding are yet more
blind than those of her countenance. When did a Ravenswood seek the house of
his enemy but with the purpose of revenge? and hither are you come, Edgar
Ravenswood, either in fatal anger or in still more fatal love.”

“In neither,” said Ravenswood, “I give you mine
honour—I mean, I assure you.”

Alice could not see his blushing cheek, but she noticed his hesitation, and
that he retracted the pledge which he seemed at first disposed to attach to his
denial.

“It is so, then,” she said, “and therefore she is to tarry by
the Mermaiden’s Well! Often has it been called a place fatal to the race
of Ravenswood—often has it proved so; but never was it likely to verify
old sayings as much as on this day.”

“You drive me to madness, Alice,” said Ravenswood; “you are
more silly and more superstitious than old Balderstone. Are you such a wretched
Christian as to suppose I would in the present day levy war against the Ashton
family, as was the sanguinary custom in elder times? or do you suppose me so
foolish, that I cannot walk by a young lady’s side without plunging
headlong in love with her?”

“My thoughts,” replied Alice, “are my own; and if my mortal
sight is closed to objects present with me, it may be I can look with more
steadiness into future events. Are you prepared to sit lowest at the board
which was once your father’s own, unwillingly, as a connexion and ally of
his proud successor? Are you ready to live on his bounty; to follow him in the
bye-paths of intrigue and chicane, which none can better point out to you; to
gnaw the bones of his prey when he has devoured the substance? Can you say as
Sir William Ashton says, think as he thinks, vote as he votes, and call your
father’s murderer your worshipful father-in-law and revered patron?
Master of Ravenswood, I am the eldest servant of your house, and I would rather
see you shrouded and coffined!”

The tumult in Ravenswood’s mind was uncommonly great; she struck upon and
awakened a chord which he had for some time successfully silenced. He strode
backwards and forwards through the little garden with a hasty pace; and at
length checking himself, and stopping right opposite to Alice, he exclaimed:
“Woman! on the verge of the grave, dare you urge the son of your master
to blood and to revenge?”

“God forbid!” said Alice, solemnly; “and therefore I would
have you depart these fatal bounds, where your love, as well as your hatred,
threatens sure mischief, or at least disgrace, both to yourself and others. I
would shield, were it in the power of this withered hand, the Ashtons from you,
and you from them, and both from their own passions. You can have
nothing—ought to have nothing, in common with them. Begone from among
them; and if God has destined vengeance on the oppressor’s house, do not
you be the instrument.”

“I will think on what you have said, Alice,” said Ravenswood, more
composedly. “I believe you mean truly and faithfully by me, but you urge
the freedom of an ancient domestic somewhat too far. But farewell; and if
Heaven afford me better means, I will not fail to contribute to your
comfort.”

He attempted to put a piece of gold into her hand, which she refused to
receive; and, in the slight struggle attending his wish to force it upon her,
it dropped to the earth.

“Let it remain an instant on the ground,” said Alice, as the Master
stooped to raise it; “and believe me, that piece of gold is an emblem of
her whom you love; she is as precious, I grant, but you must stoop even to
abasement before you can win her. For me, I have as little to do with gold as
with earthly passions; and the best news that the world has in store for me is,
that Edgar Ravenswood is an hundred miles distant from the seat of his
ancestors, with the determination never again to behold it.”

“Alice,” said the Master, who began to think this earnestness had
some more secret cause than arose from anything that the blind woman could have
gathered from this casual visit, “I have heard you praised by my mother
for your sense, acuteness, and fidelity; you are no fool to start at shadows,
or to dread old superstitious saws, like Caleb Balderstone; tell me distinctly
where my danger lies, if you are aware of any which is tending towards me. If I
know myself, I am free from all such views respecting Miss Ashton as you impute
to me. I have necessary business to settle with Sir William; that arranged, I
shall depart, and with as little wish, as you may easily believe, to return to
a place full of melancholy subjects of reflection, as you have to see me
here.” Alice bent her sightless eyes on the ground, and was for some time
plunged in deep meditation. “I will speak the truth,” she said at
length, raising up her head—“I will tell you the source of my
apprehensions, whether my candour be for good or for evil. Lucy Ashton loves
you, Lord of Ravenswood!”

“It is impossible,” said the Master.

“A thousand circumstances have proved it to me,” replied the blind
woman. “Her thoughts have turned on no one else since you saved her from
death, and that my experienced judgment has won from her own conversation.
Having told you this—if you are indeed a gentleman and your
father’s son—you will make it a motive for flying from her
presence. Her passion will die like a lamp for want of that the flame should
feed upon; but, if you remain here, her destruction, or yours, or that of both,
will be the inevitable consequence of her misplaced attachment. I tell you this
secret unwillingly, but it could not have been hid long from your own
observation, and it is better you learn it from mine. Depart, Master of
Ravenswood; you have my secret. If you remain an hour under Sir William
Ashton’s roof without the resolution to marry his daughter, you are a
villain; if with the purpose of allying yourself with kin, you are an
infatuated and predestined fool.”

So saying, the old blind woman arose, assumed her staff, and, tottering to her
hut, entered it and closed the door, leaving Ravenswood to his own reflections.

CHAPTER XX.

Lovelier in her own retired abode
….than Naiad by the side
Of Grecian brook—or Lady of the Mere
Lone sitting by the shores of old romance.

WORDSWORTH.

The meditations of Ravenswood were of a very mixed complexion. He saw himself
at once in the very dilemma which he had for some time felt apprehensive he
might be placed in. The pleasure he felt in Lucy’s company had indeed
approached to fascination, yet it had never altogether surmounted his internal
reluctance to wed with the daughter of his father’s foe; and even in
forgiving Sir William Ashton the injuries which his family had received, and
giving him credit for the kind intentions he professed to entertain, he could
not bring himself to contemplate as possible an alliance betwixt their houses.
Still, he felt that Alice spoke truth, and that his honour now required he
should take an instant leave of Ravenswood Castle, or become a suitor of Lucy
Ashton. The possibility of being rejected, too, should he make advances to her
wealthy and powerful father—to sue for the hand of an Ashton and be
refused—this were a consummation too disgraceful. “I wish her
well,” he said to himself, “and for her sake I forgive the injuries
her father has done to my house; but I will never—no, never see her
more!”

With one bitter pang he adopted this resolution, just as he came to where two
paths parted: the one to the Mermaiden’s Fountain, where he knew Lucy
waited him, the other leading to the castle by another and more circuitous
road. He paused an instant when about to take the latter path, thinking what
apology he should make for conduct which must needs seem extraordinary, and had
just muttered to himself, “Sudden news from Edinburgh—any pretext
will serve; only let me dally no longer here,” when young Henry came
flying up to him, half out of breath: “Master, Master you must give Lucy
your arm back to the castle, for I cannot give her mine; for Norman is waiting
for me, and I am to go with him to make his ring-walk, and I would not stay
away for a gold Jacobus; and Lucy is afraid to walk home alone, though all the
wild nowt have been shot, and so you must come away directly.”

Betwixt two scales equally loaded, a feather’s weight will turn the
scale. “It is impossible for me to leave the young lady in the wood
alone,” said Ravenswood; “to see her once more can be of little
consequence, after the frequent meetings we have had. I ought, too, in
courtesy, to apprise her of my intention to quit the castle.”

And having thus satisfied himself that he was taking not only a wise, but an
absolutely necessary, step, he took the path to the fatal fountain. Henry no
sooner saw him on the way to join his sister than he was off like lightning in
another direction, to enjoy the society of the forester in their congenial
pursuits. Ravenswood, not allowing himself to give a second thought to the
propriety of his own conduct, walked with a quick step towards the stream,
where he found Lucy seated alone by the ruin.

She sate upon one of the disjointed stones of the ancient fountain, and seemed
to watch the progress of its current, as it bubbled forth to daylight, in gay
and sparkling profusion, from under the shadow of the ribbed and darksome
vault, with which veneration, or perhaps remorse, had canopied its source. To a
superstitious eye, Lucy Ashton, folded in her plaided mantle, with her long
hair, escaping partly from the snood and falling upon her silver neck, might
have suggested the idea of the murdered Nymph of the fountain. But Ravenswood
only saw a female exquisitely beautiful, and rendered yet more so in his
eyes—how could it be otherwise?—by the consciousness that she had
placed her affections on him. As he gazed on her, he felt his fixed resolution
melting like wax in the sun, and hastened, therefore, from his concealment in
the neighbouring thicket. She saluted him, but did not arise from the stone on
which she was seated.

“My madcap brother,” she said, “has left me, but I expect him
back in a few minutes; for, fortunately, as anything pleases him for a minute,
nothing has charms for him much longer.”

Ravenswood did not feel the power of informing Lucy that her brother meditated
a distant excursion, and would not return in haste. He sate himself down on the
grass, at some little distance from Miss Ashton, and both were silent for a
short space.

“I like this spot,” said Lucy at length, as if she found the
silence embarrassing; “the bubbling murmur of the clear fountain, the
waving of the trees, the profusion of grass and wild-flowers that rise among
the ruins, make it like a scene in romance. I think, too, I have heard it is a
spot connected with the legendary lore which I love so well.”

“It has been thought,” answered Ravenswood, “a fatal spot to
my family; and I have some reason to term it so, for it was here I first saw
Miss Ashton; and it is here I must take my leave of her for ever.”

The blood, which the first part of this speech called into Lucy’s cheeks,
was speedily expelled by its conclusion.

“To take leave of us, Master!” she exclaimed; “what can have
happened to hurry you away? I know Alice hates—I mean dislikes my father;
and I hardly understood her humour to-day, it was so mysterious. But I am
certain my father is sincerely grateful for the high service you rendered us.
Let me hope that, having won your friendship hardly, we shall not lose it
lightly.”

“Lose it, Miss Ashton!” said the Master of Ravenswood. “No;
wherever my fortune calls me—whatever she inflicts upon me—it is
your friend—your sincere friend, who acts or suffers. But there is a fate
on me, and I must go, or I shall add the ruin of others to my own.”

“Yet do not go from us, Master,” said Lucy; and she laid her hand,
in all simplicity and kindness, upon the skirt of his cloak, as if to detain
him. “You shall not part from us. My father is powerful, he has friends
that are more so than himself; do not go till you see what his gratitude will
do for you. Believe me, he is already labouring in your behalf with the
council.”

“It may be so,” said the Master, proudly; “yet it is not to
your father, Miss Ashton, but to my own exertions, that I ought to owe success
in the career on which I am about to enter. My preparations are already
made—a sword and a cloak, and a bold heart and a determined hand.”

Lucy covered her face her hands, and the tears, in spite of her, forced their
way between her fingers.

“Forgive me,” said Ravenswood, taking her right hand, which, after
slight resistance, she yielded to him, still continuing to shade her face with
the left—“I am too rude—too rough—too intractable to
deal with any being so soft and gentle as you are. Forget that so stern a
vision has crossed your path of life; and let me pursue mine, sure that I can
meet with no worse misfortune after the moment it divides me from your
side.”

Lucy wept on, but her tears were less bitter. Each attempt which the Master
made to explain his purpose of departure only proved a new evidence of his
desire to stay; until, at length, instead of bidding her farewell, he gave his
faith to her for ever, and received her troth in return. The whole passed so
suddenly, and arose so much out of the immediate impulse of the moment, that
ere the Master of Ravenswood could reflect upon the consequences of the step
which he had taken, their lips, as well as their hands, had pledged the
sincerity of their affection.

“And now,” he said, after a moment’s consideration, “it
is fit I should speak to Sir William Ashton; he must know of our engagement.
Ravenswood must not seem to dwell under his roof to solicit clandestinely the
affections of his daughter.”

“You would not speak to my father on the subject?” said Lucy,
doubtingly; and then added more warmly: “Oh do not—do not! Let your
lot in life be determined—your station and purpose ascertained, before
you address my father. I am sure he loves you—I think he will consent;
but then my mother——!”

She paused, ashamed to express the doubt she felt how far her father dared to
form any positive resolution on this most important subject without the consent
of his lady.

“Your mother, my Lucy!” replied Ravenswood. “She is of the
house of Douglas, a house that has intermarried with mine even when its glory
and power were at the highest; what could your mother object to my
alliance?”

“I did not say object,” said Lucy; “but she is jealous of her
rights, and may claim a mother’s title to be consulted in the first
instance.”

“Be it so,” replied Ravenswood. “London is distant, but a
letter will reach it and receive an answer within a fortnight; I will not press
on the Lord Keeper for an instant reply to my proposal.”

“But,” hesitated Lucy, “were it not better to wait—to
wait a few weeks? Were my mother to see you—to know you, I am sure she
would approve; but you are unacquainted personally, and the ancient feud
between the families——”

Ravenswood fixed upon her his keen dark eyes, as if he was desirous of
penetrating into her very soul.

“Lucy,” he said, “I have sacrificed to you projects of
vengeance long nursed, and sworn to with ceremonies little better than
heathen—I sacrificed them to your image, ere I knew the worth which it
represented. In the evening which succeeded my poor father’s funeral, I
cut a lock from my hair, and, as it consumed in the fire, I swore that my rage
and revenge should pursue his enemies, until they shrivelled before me like
that scorched-up symbol of annihilation.”

“It was a deadly sin,” said Lucy, turning pale, “to make a
vow so fatal.”

“I acknowledge it,” said Ravenswood, “and it had been a worse
crime to keep it. It was for your sake that I abjured these purposes of
vengeance, though I scarce knew that such was the argument by which I was
conquered, until I saw you once more, and became conscious of the influence you
possessed over me.”

“And why do you now,” said Lucy, “recall sentiments so
terrible—sentiments so inconsistent with those you profess for
me—with those your importunity has prevailed on me to acknowledge?”

“Because,” said her lover, “I would impress on you the price
at which I have bought your love—the right I have to expect your
constancy. I say not that I have bartered for it the honour of my house, its
last remaining possession; but though I say it not, and think it not, I cannot
conceal from myself that the world may do both.”

“If such are your sentiments,” said Lucy, “you have played a
cruel game with me. But it is not too late to give it over: take back the faith
and troth which you could not plight to me without suffering abatement of
honour—let what is passed be as if it had not been—forget me; I
will endeavour to forget myself.”

“You do me injustice,” said the Master of
Ravenswood—“by all I hold true and honourable, you do me the
extremity of injustice; if I mentioned the price at which I have bought your
love, it is only to show how much I prize it, to bind our engagement by a still
firmer tie, and to show, by what I have done to attain this station in your
regard, how much I must suffer should you ever break your faith.”

“And why, Ravenswood,” answered Lucy, “should you think that
possible? Why should you urge me with even the mention of infidelity? Is it
because I ask you to delay applying to my father for a little space of time?
Bind me by what vows you please; if vows are unnecessary to secure constancy,
they may yet prevent suspicion.” Ravenswood pleaded, apologised, and even
kneeled, to appease her displeasure; and Lucy, as placable as she was
single-hearted, readily forgave the offence which his doubts had implied. The
dispute thus agitated, however, ended by the lovers going through an emblematic
ceremony of their troth-plight, of which the vulgar still preserve some traces.
They broke betwixt them the thin broad-piece of gold which Alice had refused to
receive from Ravenswood.

“And never shall this leave my bosom,” said Lucy, as she hung the
piece of gold round her neck, and concealed it with her handkerchief,
“until you, Edgar Ravenswood, ask me to resign it to you; and, while I
wear it, never shall that heart acknowledge another love than yours.”

With like protestations, Ravenswood placed his portion of the coin opposite to
his heart. And now, at length, it struck them that time had hurried fast on
during this interview, and their absence at the castle would be subject of
remark, if not of alarm. As they arose to leave the fountain which had been
witness of their mutual engagement, an arrow whistled through the air, and
struck a raven perched on the sere branch of an old oak, near to where they had
been seated. The bird fluttered a few yards and dropped at the feet of Lucy,
whose dress was stained with some spots of its blood.

Miss Ashton was much alarmed, and Ravenswood, surprised and angry, looked
everywhere for the marksman, who had given them a proof of his skill as little
expected as desired. He was not long of discovering himself, being no other
than Henry Ashton, who came running up with a crossbow in his hand.

“I knew I should startle you,” he said; “and do you know, you
looked so busy that I hoped it would have fallen souse on your heads before you
were aware of it. What was the Master saying to you, Lucy?”

“I was telling your sister what an idle lad you were, keeping us waiting
here for you so long,” said Ravenswood, to save Lucy’s confusion.

“Waiting for me! Why, I told you to see Lucy home, and that I was to go
to make the ring-walk with old Norman in the Hayberry thicket, and you may be
sure that would take a good hour, and we have all the deer’s marks and
furnishes got, while you were sitting here with Lucy, like a lazy loon.”

“Well, well, Mr. Henry,” said Ravenswood; “but let us see how
you will answer to me for killing the raven. Do you know, the ravens are all
under the protection of the Lords of Ravenswood, and to kill one in their
presence is such bad luck that it deserves the stab?”

“And that’s what Norman said,” replied the boy; “he
came as far with me as within a flight-shot of you, and he said he never saw a
raven sit still so near living folk, and he wished it might be for good luck,
for the raven is one of the wildest birds that flies, unless it be a tame one;
and so I crept on and on, till I was within threescore yards of him, and then
whiz went the bolt, and there he lies, faith! Was it not well shot? and, I dare
say, I have not shot in a crossbow!—not ten times, maybe.”

“Admirably shot, indeed,” said Ravenswood; “and you will be a
fine marksman if you practise hard.”

“And that’s what Norman says,” answered the boy; “but I
am sure it is not my fault if I do not practise enough; for, of free will, I
would do little else, only my father and tutor are angry sometimes, and only
Miss Lucy there gives herself airs about my being busy, for all she can sit
idle by a well-side the whole day, when she has a handsome young gentleman to
prate with. I have known her do so twenty times, if you will believe me.”

The boy looked at his sister as he spoke, and, in the midst of his mischievous
chatter, had the sense to see that he was really inflicting pain upon her,
though without being able to comprehend the cause or the amount.

“Come now, Lucy,” he said, “don’t greet; and if I have
said anything beside the mark, I’ll deny it again; and what does the
Master of Ravenswood care if you had a hundred sweethearts? so ne’er put
finger in your eye about it.”

The Master of Ravenswood was, for the moment, scarce satisfied with what he
heard; yet his good sense naturally regarded it as the chatter of a spoilt boy,
who strove to mortify his sister in the point which seemed most accessible for
the time. But, although of a temper equally slow in receiving impressions and
obstinate in retaining them, the prattle of Henry served to nourish in his mind
some vague suspicion that his present engagement might only end in his being
exposed, like a conquered enemy in a Roman triumph, a captive attendant on the
car of a victor who meditated only the satiating his pride at the expense of
the vanquished. There was, we repeat it, no real ground whatever for such an
apprehension, nor could he be said seriously to entertain such for a moment.
Indeed, it was impossible to look at the clear blue eye of Lucy Ashton, and
entertain the slightest permanent doubt concerning the sincerity of her
disposition. Still, however, conscious pride and conscious poverty combined to
render a mind suspicious which in more fortunate circumstances would have been
a stranger to that as well as to every other meanness.

They reached the castle, where Sir William Ashton, who had been alarmed by the
length of their stay, met them in the hall.

“Had Lucy,” he said, “been in any other company than that of
one who had shown he had so complete power of protecting her, he confessed he
should have been very uneasy, and would have despatched persons in quest of
them. But, in the company of the Master of Ravenswood, he knew his daughter had
nothing to dread.” Lucy commenced some apology for their long delay, but,
conscience-struck, becames confused as she proceeded; and when Ravenswood,
coming to her assistance, endeavoured to render the explanation complete and
satisfactory, he only involved himself in the same disorder, like one who,
endeavouring to extricate his companion from a slough, entangles himself in the
same tenacious swamp. It cannot be supposed that the confusion of the two
youthful lovers escaped the observation of the subtle lawyer, accustomed, by
habit and profession, to trace human nature through all her windings. But it
was not his present policy to take any notice of what he observed. He desired
to hold the Master of Ravenswood bound, but wished that he himself should
remain free; and it did not occur to him that his plan might be defeated by
Lucy’s returning the passion which he hoped she might inspire. If she
should adopt some romantic feelings towards Ravenswood, in which circumstances,
or the positive and absolute opposition of Lady Ashton, might render it
unadvisable to indulge her, the Lord Keeper conceived they might be easily
superseded and annulled by a journey to Edinburgh, or even to London, a new set
of Brussels lace, and the soft whispers of half a dozen lovers, anxious to
replace him whom it was convenient she should renounce. This was his provision
for the worst view of the case. But, according to its more probable issue, any
passing favours she might entertain for the Master of Ravenswood might require
encouragement rather than repression.

This seemed the more likely, as he had that very morning, since their departure
from the castle, received a letter, the contents of which he hastened to
communicate to Ravenswood. A foot-post had arrived with a packet to the Lord
Keeper from that friend whom we have already mentioned, who was labouring hard
underhand to consolidate a band of patriots, at the head of whom stood Sir
William’s greatest terror, the active and ambitious Marquis of
A——. The success of this convenient friend had been such, that he
had obtained from Sir William, not indeed a directly favourable answer, but
certainly a most patient hearing. This he had reported to his principal, who
had replied by the ancient French adage, “Château qui parle, et femme
qui écoute, l’un et l’autre va se rendre.” A statesman
who hears you propose a change of measures without reply was, according to the
Marquis’s opinion, in the situation of the fortress which parleys and the
lady who listens, and he resolved to press the siege of the Lord Keeper.

The packet, therefore, contained a letter from his friend and ally, and another
from himself, to the Lord Keeper, frankly offering an unceremonious visit. They
were crossing the country to go to the southward; the roads were indifferent;
the accommodation of the inns as execrable as possible; the Lord Keeper had
been long acquainted intimately with one of his correspondents, and, though
more slightly known to the Marquis, had yet enough of his lordship’s
acquaintance to render the visit sufficiently natural, and to shut the mouths
of those who might be disposed to impute it to a political intrigue. He
instantly accepted the offered visit, determined, however, that he would not
pledge himself an inch farther for the furtherance of their views than
reason (by which he meant his own self-interest) should plainly point
out to him as proper.

Two circumstances particularly delighted him—the presence of Ravenswood,
and the absence of his own lady. By having the former under his roof, he
conceived he might be able to quash all such hazardous and hostile proceedings
as he might otherwise have been engaged in, under the patronage of the Marquis;
and Lucy, he foresaw, would make, for his immediate purpose of delay and
procrastination, a much better mistress of his family than her mother, who
would, he was sure, in some shape or other, contrive to disconcert his
political schemes by her proud and implacable temper.

His anxious solicitations that the Master would stay to receive his kinsman,
were, of course, readily complied with, since the éclaircissement which
had taken place at the Mermaiden’s Fountain had removed all wish for
sudden departure. Lucy and Lockhard, had, therefore, orders to provide all
things necessary in their different departments, for receiving the expected
guests with a pomp and display of luxury very uncommon in Scotland at that
remote period.

CHAPTER XXI.

Marall: Sir, the man of honour’s come,
Newly alighted——
Overreach: In without reply,
And do as I command….
Is the loud music I gave order for
Ready to receive him?

New Way to Pay Old Debts.

Sir William Ashton, although a man of sense, legal information, and great
practical knowledge of the world, had yet some points of character which
corresponded better with the timidity of his disposition and the supple arts by
which he had risen in the world, than to the degree of eminence which he had
attained; as they tended to show an original mediocrity of understanding,
however highly it had been cultivated, and a native meanness of disposition,
however carefully veiled. He loved the ostentatious display of his wealth, less
as a man to whom habit has made it necessary, than as one to whom it is still
delightful from its novelty. The most trivial details did not escape him; and
Lucy soon learned to watch the flush of scorn which crossed Ravenswood’s
cheek, when he heard her father gravely arguing with Lockhard, nay, even with
the old housekeeper, upon circumstances which, in families of rank, are left
uncared for, because it is supposed impossible they can be neglected.

“I could pardon Sir William,” said Ravenswood, one evening after he
had left the room, “some general anxiety upon this occasion, for the
Marquis’s visit is an honour, and should be received as such; but I am
worn out by these miserable minutiae of the buttery, and the larder, and the
very hencoop—they drive me beyond my patience; I would rather endure the
poverty of Wolf’s Crag than be pestered with the wealth of Ravenswood
Castle.”

“And yet,” said Lucy, “it was by attention to these minutiae
that my father acquired the property——”

“Which my ancestors sold for lack of it,” replied Ravenswood.
“Be it so; a porter still bears but a burden, though the burden be of
gold.”

Lucy sighed; she perceived too plainly that her lover held in scorn the manners
and habits of a father to whom she had long looked up as her best and most
partial friend, whose fondness had often consoled her for her mother’s
contemptuous harshness.

The lovers soon discovered that they differed upon other and no less important
topics. Religion, the mother of peace, was, in those days of discord, so much
misconstrued and mistaken, that her rules and forms were the subject of the
most opposite opinions and the most hostile animosities. The Lord Keeper, being
a Whig, was, of course, a Presbyterian, and had found it convenient, at
different periods, to express greater zeal for the kirk than perhaps he really
felt. His family, equally of course, were trained under the same institution.
Ravenswood, as we know, was a High Churchman, or Episcopalian, and frequently
objected to Lucy the fanaticism of some of her own communion, while she
intimated, rather than expressed, horror at the latitudinarian principles which
she had been taught to think connected with the prelatical form of church
government.

Thus, although their mutual affection seemed to increase rather than to be
diminished as their characters opened more fully on each other, the feelings of
each were mingled with some less agreeable ingredients. Lucy felt a secret awe,
amid all her affection for Ravenswood. His soul was of an higher, prouder
character than those with whom she had hitherto mixed in intercourse; his ideas
were more fierce and free; and he contemned many of the opinions which had been
inculcated upon her as chiefly demanding her veneration. On the other hand,
Ravenswood saw in Lucy a soft and flexible character, which, in his eyes at
least, seemed too susceptible of being moulded to any form by those with whom
she lived. He felt that his own temper required a partner of a more independent
spirit, who could set sail with him on his course of life, resolved as himself
to dare indifferently the storm and the favouring breeze. But Lucy was so
beautiful, so devoutly attached to him, of a temper so exquisitely soft and
kind, that, while he could have wished it were possible to inspire her with a
greater degree of firmness and resolution, and while he sometimes became
impatient of the extreme fear which she expressed of their attachment being
prematurely discovered, he felt that the softness of a mind, amounting almost
to feebleness, rendered her even dearer to him, as a being who had voluntarily
clung to him for protection, and made him the arbiter of her fate for weal or
woe. His feelings towards her at such moments were those which have been since
so beautifully expressed by our immortal Joanna Baillie:

Thou sweetest thing,
That e’er did fix its lightly-fibred sprays
To the rude rock, ah! wouldst thou cling to me?
Rough and storm-worn I am; yet love me as
Thou truly dost, I will love thee again
With true and honest heart, though all unmeet
To be the mate of such sweet gentleness.

Thus the very points in which they differed seemed, in some measure, to ensure
the continuance of their mutual affection. If, indeed, they had so fully
appreciated each other’s character before the burst of passion in which
they hastily pledged their faith to each other, Lucy might have feared
Ravenswood too much ever to have loved him, and he might have construed her
softness and docile temper as imbecility, rendering her unworthy of his regard.
But they stood pledged to each other; and Lucy only feared that her
lover’s pride might one day teach him to regret his attachment;
Ravenswood, that a mind so ductile as Lucy’s might, in absence or
difficulties, be induced, by the entreaties or influence of those around her,
to renounce the engagement she had formed.

“Do not fear it,” said Lucy, when upon one occasion a hint of such
suspicion escaped her lover; “the mirrors which receive the reflection of
all successive objects are framed of hard materials like glass or steel; the
softer substances, when they receive an impression, retain it undefaced.”

“This is poetry, Lucy,” said Ravenswood; “and in poetry there
is always fallacy, and sometimes fiction.”

“Believe me, then, once more, in honest prose,” said Lucy,
“that, though I will never wed man without the consent of my parents, yet
neither force nor persuasion shall dispose of my hand till you renounce the
right I have given you to it.”

The lovers had ample time for such explanations. Henry was now more seldom
their companion, being either a most unwilling attendant upon the lessons of
his tutor, or a forward volunteer under the instructions of the foresters or
grooms. As for the Keeper, his mornings were spent in his study, maintaining
correspondences of all kinds, and balancing in his anxious mind the various
intelligence which he collected from every quarter concerning the expected
change of Scottish politics, and the probable strength of the parties who were
about to struggle for power. At other times he busied himself about arranging,
and countermanding, and then again arranging, the preparations which he judged
necessary for the reception of the Marquis of A——, whose arrival
had been twice delayed by some necessary cause of detention.

In the midst of all these various avocations, political and domestic, he seemed
not to observe how much his daughter and his guest were thrown into each
other’s society, and was censured by many of his neighbours, according to
the fashion of neighbours in all countries, for suffering such an intimate
connexion to take place betwixt two young persons. The only natural explanation
was, that he designed them for each other; while, in truth, his only motive was
to temporise and procrastinate until he should discover the real extent of the
interest which the Marquis took in Ravenswood’s affairs, and the power
which he was likely to possess of advancing them. Until these points should be
made both clear and manifest, the Lord Keeper resolved that he would do nothing
to commit himself, either in one shape or other; and, like many cunning
persons, he overreached himself deplorably.

Amongst those who had been disposed to censure, with the greatest severity, the
conduct of Sir William Ashton, in permitting the prolonged residence of
Ravenswood under his roof, and his constant attendance on Miss Ashton, was the
new Laird of Girnington, and his faithful squire and bottleholder, personages
formerly well known to us by the names of Hayston and Bucklaw, and his
companion Captain Craigengelt. The former had at length succeeded to the
extensive property of his long-lived grand-aunt, and to considerable wealth
besides, which he had employed in redeeming his paternal acres (by the title
appertaining to which he still chose to be designated), notwithstanding Captain
Craigengelt had proposed to him a most advantageous mode of vesting the money
in Law’s scheme, which was just then broached, and offered his services
to travel express to Paris for the purpose. But Bucklaw had so far derived
wisdom from adversity, that he would listen to no proposal which Craigengelt
could invent, which had the slightest tendency to risk his newly-acquired
independence. He that had once eat pease-bannocks, drank sour wine, and slept
in the secret chamber at Wolf’s Crag, would, he said, prize good cheer
and a soft bed as long as he lived, and take special care never to need such
hospitality again.

Craigengelt, therefore, found himself disappointed in the first hopes he had
entertained of making a good hand of the Laird of Bucklaw. Still, however, he
reaped many advantages from his friend’s good fortune. Bucklaw, who had
never been at all scrupulous in choosing his companions, was accustomed to, and
entertained by, a fellow whom he could either laugh with or laugh at as he had
a mind, who would take, according to Scottish phrase, “the bit and the
buffet,” understood all sports, whether within or without doors, and,
when the laird had a mind for a bottle of wine (no infrequent circumstance),
was always ready to save him from the scandal of getting drunk by himself. Upon
these terms, Craigengelt was the frequent, almost the constant, inmate of the
house of Girnington.

In no time, and under no possibility of circumstances, could good have been
derived from such an intimacy, however its bad consequences might be qualified
by the thorough knowledge which Bucklaw possessed of his dependant’s
character, and the high contempt in which he held it. But, as circumstances
stood, this evil communication was particularly liable to corrupt what good
principles nature had implanted in the patron.

Craigengelt had never forgiven the scorn with which Ravenswood had torn the
mask of courage and honesty from his countenance; and to exasperate
Bucklaw’s resentment against him was the safest mode of revenge which
occurred to his cowardly, yet cunning and malignant, disposition.

He brought up on all occasions the story of the challenge which Ravenswood had
declined to accept, and endeavoured, by every possible insinuation, to make his
patron believe that his honour was concerned in bringing that matter to an
issue by a present discussion with Ravenswood. But respecting this subject
Bucklaw imposed on him, at length, a peremptory command of silence.

“I think,” he said, “the Master has treated me unlike a
gentleman, and I see no right he had to send me back a cavalier answer when I
demanded the satisfaction of one. But he gave me my life once; and, in looking
the matter over at present, I put myself but on equal terms with him. Should he
cross me again, I shall consider the old accompt as balanced, and his
Mastership will do well to look to himself.”

“That he should,” re-echoed Craigengelt; “for when you are in
practice, Bucklaw, I would bet a magnum you are through him before the third
pass.”

“Then you know nothing of the matter,” said Bucklaw, “and you
never saw him fence.”

“And I know nothing of the matter?” said the
dependant—“a good jest, I promise you! And though I never saw
Ravenswood fence, have I not been at Monsieur Sagoon’s school, who was
the first maître d’armes at Paris; and have I not been at Signor
Poco’s at Florence, and Meinheer Durchstossen’s at Vienna, and have
I not seen all their play?”

“I don’t know whether you have or not,” said Bucklaw;
“but what about it, though you had?”

“Only that I will be d—d if ever I saw French, Italian, or
High-Dutchman ever make foot, hand, and eye keep time half so well as you,
Bucklaw.”

“I believe you lie, Craigie,” said Bucklaw; “however, I can
hold my own, both with single rapier, backsword, sword and dagger, broadsword,
or case of falchions—and that’s as much as any gentleman need know
of the matter.”

“And the double of what ninety-nine out of a hundred know,” said
Craigengelt; “they learn to change a few thrusts with the small sword,
and then, forsooth, they understand the noble art of defence! Now, when I was
at Rouen in the year 1695, there was a Chevalier de Chapon and I went to the
opera, where we found three bits of English birkies——”

“Is it a long story you are going to tell?” said Bucklaw,
interrupting him without ceremony.

“Just as you like,” answered the parasite, “for we made short
work of it.”

“Then I like it short,” said Bucklaw. “Is it serious or
merry?”

“Devilish serious, I assure you, and so they found it; for the Chevalier
and I——”

“Then I don’t like it at all,” said Bucklaw; “so fill a
brimmer of my auld auntie’s claret, rest her heart! And, as the
Hielandman says, Skioch doch na skiaill.”

“That was what tough old Sir Even Dhu used to say to me when I was out
with the metall’d lads in 1689. ‘Craigengelt,’ he used to
say, ‘you are as pretty a fellow as ever held steel in his grip, but you
have one fault.’”

“If he had known you as long as I have done,” said Bucklaw,
“he would have found out some twenty more; but hang long stories, give us
your toast, man.”

Craigengelt rose, went a-tiptoe to the door, peeped out, shut it carefully,
came back again, clapped his tarnished gold-laced hat on one side of his head,
took his glass in one hand, and touching the hilt of his hanger with the other,
named, “The King over the water.”

“I tell you what it is, Captain Craigengelt,” said Bucklaw;
“I shall keep my mind to myself on these subjects, having too much
respect for the memory of my venerable Aunt Girnington to put her lands and
tenements in the way of committing treason against established authority. Bring
me King James to Edinburgh, Captain, with thirty thousand men at his back, and
I’ll tell you what I think about his title; but as for running my neck
into a noose, and my good broad lands into the statutory penalties, ‘in
that case made and provided,’ rely upon it, you will find me no such
fool. So, when you mean to vapour with your hanger and your dram-cup in support
of treasonable toasts, you must find your liquor and company elsewhere.”

“Well, then,” said Craigengelt, “name the toast yourself, and
be it what it like, I’ll pledge you, were it a mile to the bottom.”

“And I’ll give you a toast that deserves it, my boy,” said
Bucklaw; “what say you to Miss Lucy Ashton?”

“Up with it,” said the Captain, as he tossed off his brimmer,
“the bonniest lass in Lothian! What a pity the old sneckdrawing
Whigamore, her father, is about to throw her away upon that rag of pride and
beggary, the Master of Ravenswood!”

“That’s not quite so clear,” said Bucklaw, in a tone which,
though it seemed indifferent, excited his companion’s eager curiosity;
and not that only, but also his hope of working himself into some sort of
confidence, which might make him necessary to his patron, being by no means
satisfied to rest on mere sufferance, if he could form by art or industry a
more permanent title to his favour.

“I thought,” said he, after a moment’s pause, “that was
a settled matter; they are continually together, and nothing else is spoken of
betwixt Lammer Law and Traprain.”

“They may say what they please,” replied his patron, “but I
know better; and I’ll give you Miss Lucy Ashton’s health again, my
boy.”

“And I would drink it on my knee,” said Craigengelt, “if I
thought the girl had the spirit to jilt that d—d son of a
Spaniard.”

“I am to request you will not use the word ‘jilt’ and Miss
Ashton’s name together,” said Bucklaw, gravely.

“Jilt, did I say? Discard, my lad of acres—by Jove, I meant to
discard,” replied Craigengelt; “and I hope she’ll discard him
like a small card at piquet, and take in the king of hearts, my boy! But
yet——”

“But what?” said his patron.

“But yet I know for certain they are hours together alone, and in the
woods and the fields.”

“That’s her foolish father’s dotage; that will be soon put
out of the lass’s head, if it ever gets into it,” answered Bucklaw.
“And now fill your glass again, Captain; I am going to make you happy; I
am going to let you into a secret—a plot—a noosing plot—only
the noose is but typical.”

“A marrying matter?” said Craigengelt, and his jaw fell as he asked
the question, for he suspected that matrimony would render his situation at
Girnington much more precarious than during the jolly days of his
patron’s bachelorhood.

“Ay, a marriage, man,” said Bucklaw; “but wherefore droops
thy mighty spirit, and why grow the rubies on thy cheek so pale? The board
will have a corner, and the corner will have a trencher, and the trencher will
have a glass beside it; and the board-end shall be filled, and the trencher and
the glass shall be replenished for thee, if all the petticoats in Lothian had
sworn the contrary. What, man! I am not the boy to put myself into
leading-strings.”

“So says many an honest fellow,” said Craigengelt, “and some
of my special friends; but, curse me if I know the reason, the women could
never bear me, and always contrived to trundle me out of favour before the
honeymoon was over.”

“If you could have kept your ground till that was over, you might have
made a good year’s pension,” said Bucklaw.

“But I never could,” answered the dejected parasite. “There
was my Lord Castle-Cuddy—we were hand and glove: I rode his horses,
borrowed money both for him and from him, trained his hawks, and taught him how
to lay his bets; and when he took a fancy of marrying, I married him to Katie
Glegg, whom I thought myself as sure of as man could be of woman. Egad, she had
me out of the house, as if I had run on wheels, within the first
fortnight!”

“Well!” replied Bucklaw, “I think I have nothing of
Castle-Cuddy about me, or Lucy of Katie Glegg. But you see the thing will go on
whether you like it or no; the only question is, will you be useful?”

“Useful!” exclaimed the Captain, “and to thee, my lad of
lands, my darling boy, whom I would tramp barefooted through the world for!
Name time, place, mode, and circumstances, and see if I will not be useful in
all uses that can be devised.”

“Why, then, you must ride two hundred miles for me,” said the
patron.

“A thousand, and call them a flea’s leap,” answered the
dependant; “I’ll cause saddle my horse directly.”

“Better stay till you know where you are to go, and what you are to
do,” quoth Bucklaw. “You know I have a kinswoman in Northumberland,
Lady Blenkensop by name, whose old acquaintance I had the misfortune to lose in
the period of my poverty, but the light of whose countenance shone forth upon
me when the sun of my prosperity began to arise.”

“D—n all such double-faced jades!” exclaimed Craigengelt,
heroically; “this I will say for John Craigengelt, that he is his
friend’s friend through good report and bad report, poverty and riches;
and you know something of that yourself, Bucklaw.”

“I have not forgot your merits,” said his patron; “I do
remember that, in my extremities, you had a mind to crimp me for the
service of the French king, or of the Pretender; and, moreover, that you
afterwards lent me a score of pieces, when, as I firmly believe, you had heard
the news that old Lady Girnington had a touch of the dead palsy. But
don’t be downcast, John; I believe, after all, you like me very well in
your way, and it is my misfortune to have no better counsellor at present. To
return to this Lady Blenkensop, you must know, she is a close confederate of
Duchess Sarah.”

“What! of Sall Jennings?” exclaimed Craigengelt; “then she
must be a good one.”

“Hold your tongue, and keep your Tory rants to yourself, if it be
possible,” said Bucklaw. “I tell you, that through the Duchess of
Marlborough has this Northumbrian cousin of mine become a crony of Lady Ashton,
the Keeper’s wife, or, I may say, the Lord Keeper’s Lady Keeper,
and she has favoured Lady Blenkensop with a visit on her return from London,
and is just now at her old mansion-house on the banks of the Wansbeck. Now,
sir, as it has been the use and wont of these ladies to consider their husbands
as of no importance in the management of their own families, it has been their
present pleasure, without consulting Sir William Ashton, to put on the
tapis a matrimonial alliance, to be concluded between Lucy Ashton and my
own right honourable self, Lady Ashton acting as self-constituted
plenipotentiary on the part of her daughter and husband, and Mother Blenkensop,
equally unaccredited, doing me the honour to be my representative. You may
suppose I was a little astonished when I found that a treaty, in which I was so
considerably interested, had advanced a good way before I was even
consulted.”

“Capot me! if I think that was according to the rules of the game,”
said his confidant; “and pray, what answer did you return?”

“Why, my first thought was to send the treaty to the devil, and the
negotiators along with it, for a couple of meddling old women; my next was to
laugh very heartily; and my third and last was a settled opinion that the thing
was reasonable, and would suit me well enough.”

“Why, I thought you had never seen the wench but once, and then she had
her riding-mask on; I am sure you told me so.”

“Ay, but I liked her very well then. And Ravenswood’s dirty usage
of me—shutting me out of doors to dine with the lackeys, because he had
the Lord Keeper, forsooth, and his daughter, to be guests in his beggarly
castle of starvation,—d—n me, Craigengelt, if I ever forgive him
till I play him as good a trick!”

“No more you should, if you are a lad of mettle,” said Craigengelt,
the matter now taking a turn in which he could sympathise; “and if you
carry this wench from him, it will break his heart.”

“That it will not,” said Bucklaw; “his heart is all steeled
over with reason and philosophy, things that you, Craigie, know nothing about
more than myself, God help me. But it will break his pride, though, and
that’s what I’m driving at.”

“Distance me!” said Craigengelt, “but I know the reason now
of his unmannerly behaviour at his old tumble-down tower yonder. Ashamed of
your company?—no, no! Gad, he was afraid you would cut in and carry off
the girl.”

“Eh! Craigengelt?” said Bucklaw, “do you really think so? but
no, no! he is a devilish deal prettier man than I am.”

“Who—he?” exclaimed the parasite. “He’s as black
as the crook; and for his size—he’s a tall fellow, to be sure, but
give me a light, stout, middle-sized——”

“Plague on thee!” said Bucklaw, interrupting him, “and on me
for listening to you! You would say as much if I were hunch-backed. But as to
Ravenswood—he has kept no terms with me, I’ll keep none with him;
if I can win this girl from him, I will win her.”

“Win her! ’sblood, you shall win her, point, quint, and
quatorze, my king of trumps; you shall pique, repique, and capot him.”

“Prithee, stop thy gambling cant for one instant,” said Bucklaw.
“Things have come thus far, that I have entertained the proposal of my
kinswoman, agreed to the terms of jointure, amount of fortune, and so forth,
and that the affair is to go forward when Lady Ashton comes down, for she takes
her daughter and her son in her own hand. Now they want me to send up a
confidential person with some writings.”

“By this good win, I’ll ride to the end of the world—the very
gates of Jericho, and the judgment-seat of Prester John, for thee!”
ejaculated the Captain.

“Why, I believe you would do something for me, and a great deal for
yourself. Now, any one could carry the writings; but you will have a little
more to do. You must contrive to drop out before my Lady Ashton, just as if it
were a matter of little consequence, the residence of Ravenswood at her
husband’s house, and his close intercourse with Miss Ashton; and you may
tell her that all the country talks of a visit from the Marquis of
A——, as it is supposed, to make up the match betwixt Ravenswood and
her daughter. I should like to hear what she says to all this; for, rat me! if
I have any idea of starting for the plate at all if Ravenswood is to win the
race, and he has odds against me already.”

“Never a bit; the wench has too much sense, and in that belief I drink
her health a third time; and, were time and place fitting, I would drink it on
bended knees, and he that would not pledge me, I would make his guts garter his
stockings.”

“Hark ye, Craigengelt; as you are going into the society of women of
rank,” said Bucklaw, “I’ll thank you to forget your strange
blackguard oaths and ‘damme’s.’ I’ll write to them,
though, that you are a blunt, untaught fellow.”

“Ay, ay,” replied Craigengelt—“a plain, blunt, honest,
downright soldier.”

“Not too honest, not too much of the soldier neither; but such as thou
art, it is my luck to need thee, for I must have spurs put to Lady
Ashton’s motions.”

“I’ll dash them up to the rowel-heads,” said Craigengelt;
“she shall come here at the gallop, like a cow chased by a whole nest of
hornets, and her tail over her rump like a corkscrew.”

“And hear ye, Craigie,” said Bucklaw; “your boots and doublet
are good enough to drink in, as the man says in the play, but they are somewhat
too greasy for tea-table service; prithee, get thyself a little better rigged
out, and here is to pay all charges.”

“Nay, Bucklaw; on my soul, man, you use me ill. However,” added
Craigengelt, pocketing the money, “if you will have me so far indebted to
you, I must be conforming.”

“Well, horse and away!” said the patron, “so soon as you have
got your riding livery in trim. You may ride the black crop-ear; and, hark ye,
I’ll make you a present of him to boot.”

“I drink to the good luck of my mission,” answered the ambassador,
“in a half-pint bumper.”

“I thank ye, Craigie, and pledge you; I see nothing against it but the
father or the girl taking a tantrum, and I am told the mother can wind them
both round her little finger. Take care not to affront her with any of your
Jacobite jargon.”

“Oh, ay, true—she is a Whig, and a friend of old Sall of
Marlborough; thank my stars, I can hoist any colours at a pinch! I have fought
as hard under John Churchill as ever I did under Dundee or the Duke of
Berwick.”

“I verily believe you, Craigie,” said the lord of the mansion;
“but, Craigie, do you, pray, step down to the cellar, and fetch us up a
bottle of the Burgundy, 1678; it is in the fourth bin from the right-hand turn.
And I say, Craigie, you may fetch up half a dozen whilst you are about it.
Egad, we’ll make a night on’t!”

CHAPTER XXII.

And soon they spied the merry-men green,
And eke the coach and four.

Duke upon Duke.

Craigengelt set forth on his mission so soon as his equipage was complete,
prosecuted his journey with all diligence, and accomplished his commission with
all the dexterity for which bucklaw had given him credit. As he arrived with
credentials from Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw, he was extremely welcome to both
ladies; and those who are prejudiced in favour of a new acquaintance can, for a
time at least, discover excellencies in his very faults and perfections in his
deficiencies. Although both ladies were accustomed to good society, yet, being
pre-determined to find out an agreeable and well-behaved gentleman in Mr.
Hayston’s friend, they succeeded wonderfully in imposing on themselves.
It is true that Craigengelt was now handsomely dressed, and that was a point of
no small consequence. But, independent of outward show, his blackguard
impudence of address was construed into honourable bluntness becoming his
supposed military profession; his hectoring passed for courage, and his
sauciness for wit. Lest, however, any one should think this a violation of
probability, we must add, in fairness to the two ladies, that their discernment
was greatly blinded, and their favour propitiated, by the opportune arrival of
Captain Craigengelt in the moment when they were longing for a third hand to
make a party at tredrille, in which, as in all games, whether of chance or
skill, that worthy person was a great proficient.

When he found himself established in favour, his next point was how best to use
it for the furtherance of his patron’s views. He found Lady Ashton
prepossessed strongly in favour of the motion which Lady Blenkensop, partly
from regard to her kinswoman, partly from the spirit of match-making, had not
hesitated to propose to her; so that his task was an easy one. Bucklaw,
reformed from his prodigality, was just the sort of husband which she desired
to have for her Shepherdess of Lammermoor; and while the marriage gave her an
easy fortune, and a respectable country gentleman for her husband, Lady Ashton
was of opinion that her destinies would be fully and most favourably
accomplished. It so chanced, also, that Bucklaw, among his new acquisitions,
had gained the management of a little political interest in a neighbouring
county where the Douglas family originally held large possessions. It was one
of the bosom-hopes of Lady Ashton that her eldest son, Sholto, should represent
this county in the British Parliament, and she saw this alliance with Bucklaw
as a circumstance which might be highly favourable to her wishes.

Craigengelt, who, in his way, by no means wanted sagacity, no sooner discovered
in what quarter the wind of Lady Ashton’s wishes sate, than he trimmed
his course accordingly. “There was little to prevent Bucklaw himself from
sitting for the county; he must carry the heat—must walk the course. Two
cousins-german, six more distant kinsmen, his factor and his chamberlain, were
all hollow votes; and the Girnington interest had always carried, betwixt love
and fear, about as many more. But Bucklaw cared no more about riding the first
horse, and that sort of thing, than he, Craigengelt, did about a game at
birkie: it was a pity his interest was not in good guidance.”

All this Lady Ashton drank in with willing and attentive ears, resolving
internally to be herself the person who should take the management of the
political influence of her destined son-in-law, for the benefit of her
eldest-born, Sholto, and all other parties concerned.

When he found her ladyship thus favourably disposed, the Captain proceeded, to
use his employer’s phrase, to set spurs to her resolution, by hinting at
the situation of matters at Ravenswood Castle, the long residence which the
heir of that family had made with the Lord Keeper, and the reports
which—though he would be d—d ere he gave credit to any of
them—had been idly circulated in the neighbourhood. It was not the
Captain’s cue to appear himself to be uneasy on the subject of these
rumours; but he easily saw from Lady Ashton’s flushed cheek, hesitating
voice, and flashing eye, that she had caught the alarm which he intended to
communicate. She had not heard from her husband so often or so regularly as she
thought him bound in duty to have written, and of this very interesting
intelligence concerning his visit to the Tower of Wolf’s Crag, and the
guest whom, with such cordiality, he had received at Ravenswood Castle, he had
suffered his lady to remain altogether ignorant, until she now learned it by
the chance information of a stranger. Such concealment approached, in her
apprehension, to a misprision, at last, of treason, if not to actual rebellion
against her matrimonial authority; and in her inward soul she did vow to take
vengeance on the Lord Keeper, as on a subject detected in meditating revolt.
Her indignation burned the more fiercely as she found herself obliged to
suppress it in presence of Lady Blenkensop, the kinswoman, and of Craigengelt,
the confidential friend, of Bucklaw, of whose alliance she now became trebly
desirous, since it occurred to her alarmed imagination that her husband might,
in his policy or timidity, prefer that of Ravenswood.

The Captain was engineer enough to discover that the train was fired; and
therefore heard, in the course of the same day, without the least surprise,
that Lady Ashton had resolved to abridge her visit to Lady Blenkensop, and set
forth with the peep of morning on her return to Scotland, using all the
despatch which the state of the roads and the mode of travelling would possibly
permit.

Unhappy Lord Keeper! little was he aware what a storm was travelling towards
him in all the speed with which an old-fashioned coach and six could possibly
achieve its journey. He, like Don Gayferos, “forgot his lady fair and
true,” and was only anxious about the expected visit of the Marquis of
A——. Soothfast tidings had assured him that this nobleman was at
length, and without fail, to honour his castle at one in the afternoon, being a
late dinner-hour; and much was the bustle in consequence of the annunciation.
The Lord Keeper traversed the chambers, held consultation with the butler in
the cellars, and even ventured, at the risk of a démêlé with a cook of a
spirit lofty enough to scorn the admonitions of Lady Ashton herself, to peep
into the kitchen. Satisfied, at length, that everything was in as active a
train of preparation as was possible, he summoned Ravenswood and his daughter
to walk upon the terrace, for the purpose of watching, from that commanding
position, the earliest symptoms of his lordship’s approach. For this
purpose, with slow and idle step, he paraded the terrace, which, flanked with a
heavy stone battlement, stretched in front of the castle upon a level with the
first story; while visitors found access to the court by a projecting gateway,
the bartizan or flat-leaded roof of which was accessible from the terrace by an
easy flight of low and broad steps. The whole bore a resemblance partly to a
castle, partly to a nobleman’s seat; and though calculated, in some
respects, for defence, evinced that it had been constructed under a sense of
the power and security of the ancient Lords of Ravenswood.

This pleasant walk commanded a beautiful and extensive view. But what was most
to our present purpose, there were seen from the terrace two roads, one leading
from the east, and one from the westward, which, crossing a ridge opposed to
the eminence on which the castle stood, at different angles, gradually
approached each other, until they joined not far from the gate of the avenue.
It was to the westward approach that the Lord Keeper, from a sort of fidgeting
anxiety, his daughter, from complaisance to him, and Ravenswood, though feeling
some symptoms of internal impatience, out of complaisance to his daughter,
directed their eyes to see the precursors of the Marquis’s approach.

These were not long of presenting themselves. Two running footmen, dressed in
white, with black jockey-caps, and long staffs in their hands, headed the
train; and such was their agility, that they found no difficulty in keeping the
necessary advance, which the etiquette of their station required, before the
carriage and horsemen. Onward they came at a long swinging trot, arguing
unwearied speed in their long-breathed calling. Such running footmen are often
alluded to in old plays (I would particularly instance Middleton’s Mad
World, my Masters), and perhaps may be still remembered by some old persons in
Scotland, as part of the retinue of the ancient nobility when travelling in
full ceremony. Behind these glancing meteors, who footed it as if the Avenger
of Blood had been behind them, came a cloud of dust, raised by riders who
preceded, attended, or followed the state-carriage of the Marquis.

The privilege of nobility, in those days, had something in it impressive on the
imagination. The dresses and liveries and number of their attendants, their
style of travelling, the imposing, and almost warlike, air of the armed men who
surrounded them, place them far above the laird, who travelled with his brace
of footmen; and as to rivalry from the mercantile part of the community, these
would as soon have thought of imitating the state equipage of the Sovereign. At
present it is different; and I myself, Peter Pattieson, in a late journey to
Edinburgh, had the honour, in the mail-coach phrase to “change a
leg” with a peer of the realm. It was not so in the days of which I
write; and the Marquis’s approach, so long expected in vain, now took
place in the full pomp of ancient aristocracy. Sir William Ashton was so much
interested in what he beheld, and in considering the ceremonial of reception,
in case any circumstance had been omitted, that he scarce heard his son Henry
exclaim: “There is another coach and six coming down the east road, papa;
can they both belong to the Marquis of A——?”

At length, when the youngster had fairly compelled his attention by pulling his
sleeve,

He turned his eyes, and, as he turned, survey’d
An awful vision.

Sure enough, another coach and six, with four servants or outriders in
attendance, was descending the hill from the eastward, at such a pace as made
it doubtful which of the carriages thus approaching from different quarters
would first reach the gate at the extremity of the avenue. The one coach was
green, the other blue; and not the green and blue chariots in the circus of
Rome or Constantinople excited more turmoil among the citizens than the double
apparition occasioned in the mind of the Lord Keeper.

We all remember the terrible exclamation of the dying profligate, when a
friend, to destroy what he supposed the hypochondriac idea of a spectre
appearing in a certain shape at a given hour, placed before him a person
dressed up in the manner he described. “Mon Dieu!” said the
expiring sinner, who, it seems, saw both the real and polygraphic apparition,
“il y en a deux!”

The surprise of the Lord Keeper was scarcely less unpleasing at the duplication
of the expected arrival; his mind misgave him strangely. There was no neighbour
who would have approached so unceremoniously, at a time when ceremony was held
in such respect. It must be Lady Ashton, said his conscience, and followed up
the hint with an anxious anticipation of the purpose of her sudden and
unannounced return. He felt that he was caught “in the manner.”
That the company in which she had so unluckily surprised him was likely to be
highly distasteful to her, there was no question; and the only hope which
remained for him was her high sense of dignified propriety, which, he trusted,
might prevent a public explosion. But so active were his doubts and fears as
altogether to derange his purposed ceremonial for the reception of the Marquis.

These feelings of apprehension were not confined to Sir William Ashton.
“It is my mother—it is my mother!” said Lucy, turning as pale
as ashes, and clasping her hands together as she looked at Ravenswood.

“And if it be Lady Ashton,” said her lover to her in a low tone,
“what can be the occasion of such alarm? Surely the return of a lady to
the family from which she has been so long absent should excite other
sensations than those of fear and dismay.”

“You do not know my mother,” said Miss Ashton, in a tone almost
breathless with terror; “what will she say when she sees you in this
place!”

“My stay has been too long,” said Ravenswood, somewhat haughtily,
“if her displeasure at my presence is likely to be so formidable. My dear
Lucy,” he resumed, in a tone of soothing encouragement, “you are
too childishly afraid of Lady Ashton; she is a woman of family—a lady of
fashion—a person who must know the world, and what is due to her husband
and her husband’s guests.” Lucy shook her head; and, as if her
mother, still at the distance of half a mile, could have seen and scrutinised
her deportment, she withdrew herself from beside Ravenswood, and, taking her
brother Henry’s arm, led him to a different part of the terrace. The
Keeper also shuffled down towards the portal of the great gate, without
inviting Ravenswood to accompany him; and thus he remained standing alone on
the terrace, deserted and shunned, as it were, by the inhabitants of the
mansion. This suited not the mood of one who was proud in proportion to his
poverty, and who thought that, in sacrificing his deep-rooted resentments so
far as to become Sir William Ashton’s guest, he conferred a favour, and
received none. “I can forgive Lucy,” he said to himself; “she
is young, timid, and conscious of an important engagement assumed without her
mother’s sanction; yet she should remember with whom it has been assumed,
and leave me no reason to suspect that she is ashamed of her choice. For the
Keeper, sense, spirit, and expression seem to have left his face and manner
since he had the first glimpse of Lady Ashton’s carriage. I must watch
how this is to end; and, if they give me reason to think myself an unwelcome
guest, my visit is soon abridged.”

With these suspicions floating on his mind, he left the terrace, and walking
towards the stables of the castle, gave directions that his horse should be
kept in readiness, in case he should have occasion to ride abroad.

In the mean while, the drivers of the two carriages, the approach of which had
occasioned so much dismay at the castle, had become aware of each other’s
presence, as they approached upon different lines to the head of the avenue, as
a common centre. Lady Ashton’s driver and postilions instantly received
orders to get foremost, if possible, her ladyship being desirous of despatching
her first interview with her husband before the arrival of these guests,
whoever they might happen to be. On the other hand, the coachman of the
Marquis, conscious of his own dignity and that of his master, and observing the
rival charioteer was mending his pace, resolved, like a true brother of the
whip, whether ancient or modern, to vindicate his right of precedence. So that,
to increase the confusion of the Lord Keeper’s understanding, he saw the
short time which remained for consideration abridged by the haste of the
contending coachmen, who, fixing their eyes sternly on each other, and applying
the lash smartly to their horses, began to thunder down the descent with
emulous rapidity, while the horsemen who attended them were forced to put on to
a hand-gallop.

Sir William’s only chance now remaining was the possibility of an
overturn, and that his lady or visitor might break their necks. I am not aware
that he formed any distinct wish on the subject, but I have no reason to think
that his grief in either case would have been altogether inconsolable. This
chance, however, also disappeared; for Lady Ashton, though insensible to fear,
began to see the ridicule of running a race with a visitor of distinction, the
goal being the portal of her own castle, and commanded her coachman, as they
approached the avenue, to slacken his pace, and allow precedence to the
stranger’s equipage; a command which he gladly obeyed, as coming in time
to save his honour, the horses of the Marquis’s carriage being better,
or, at least, fresher than his own. He restrained his pace, therefore, and
suffered the green coach to enter the avenue, with all its retinue, which pass
it occupied with the speed of a whirlwind. The Marquis’s laced charioteer
no sooner found the pas d’avance was granted to him than he
resumed a more deliberate pace, at which he advanced under the embowering shade
of the lofty elms, surrounded by all the attendants; while the carriage of Lady
Ashton followed, still more slowly, at some distance.

In the front of the castle, and beneath the portal which admitted guests into
the inner court, stood Sir William Ashton, much perplexed in mind, his younger
son and daughter beside him, and in their rear a train of attendants of various
ranks, in and out of livery. The nobility and gentry of Scotland, at this
period, were remarkable even to extravagance for the number of their servants,
whose services were easily purchased in a country where men were numerous
beyond proportion to the means of employing them.

The manners of a man trained like Sir William Ashton are too much at his
command to remain long disconcerted with the most adverse concurrence of
circumstances. He received the Marquis, as he alighted from his equipage, with
the usual compliments of welcome; and, as he ushered him into the great hall,
expressed his hope that his journey had been pleasant. The Marquis was a tall,
well-made man, with a thoughtful and intelligent countenance, and an eye in
which the fire of ambition had for some years replaced the vivacity of youth; a
bold, proud expression of countenance, yet chastened by habitual caution, and
the desire which, as the head of a party, he necessarily entertained of
acquiring popularity. He answered with courtesy the courteous inquiries of the
Lord Keeper, and was formally presented to Miss Ashton, in the course of which
ceremony the Lord Keeper gave the first symptom of what was chiefly occupying
his mind, by introducing his daughter as “his wife, Lady Ashton.”

Lucy blushed; the Marquis looked surprised at the extremely juvenile appearance
of his hostess, and the Lord Keeper with difficulty rallied himself so far as
to explain. “I should have said my daughter, my lord; but the truth is,
that I saw Lady Ashton’s carriage enter the avenue shortly after your
lordship’s, and——”

“Make no apology, my lord,” replied his noble guest; “let me
entreat you will wait on your lady, and leave me to cultivate Miss
Ashton’s acquaintance. I am shocked my people should have taken
precedence of our hostess at her own gate; but your lordship is aware that I
supposed Lady Ashton was still in the south. Permit me to beseech you will
waive ceremony, and hasten to welcome her.”

This was precisely what the Lord Keeper longed to do; and he instantly profited
by his lordship’s obliging permission. To see Lady Ashton, and encounter
the first burst of her displeasure in private, might prepare her, in some
degree, to receive her unwelcome guests with due decorum. As her carriage,
therefore, stopped, the arm of the attentive husband was ready to assist Lady
Ashton in dismounting. Looking as if she saw him not, she put his arm aside,
and requested that of Captain Craigengelt, who stood by the coach with his
laced hat under his arm, having acted as cavaliere servente, or squire
in attendance, during the journey. Taking hold of this respectable
person’s arm as if to support her, Lady Ashton traversed the court,
uttering a word or two by way of direction to the servants, but not one to Sir
William, who in vain endeavoured to attract her attention, as he rather
followed than accompanied her into the hall, in which they found the Marquis in
close conversation with the Master of Ravenswood. Lucy had taken the first
opportunity of escaping. There was embarrassment on every countenance except
that of the Marquis of A——; for even Craigengelt’s impudence
was hardly able to veil his fear of Ravenswood, and the rest felt the
awkwardness of the position in which they were thus unexpectedly placed.

After waiting a moment to be presented by Sir William Ashton, the Marquis
resolved to introduce himself. “The Lord Keeper,” he said, bowing
to Lady Ashton, “has just introduced to me his daughter as his wife; he
might very easily present Lady Ashton as his daughter, so little does she
differ from what I remember her some years since. Will she permit an old
acquaintance the privilege of a guest?”

He saluted the lady with too good a grace to apprehend a repulse, and then
proceeded: “This, Lady Ashton, is a peacemaking visit, and therefore I
presume to introduce my cousin, the young Master of Ravenswood, to your
favourable notice.”

Lady Ashton could not choose but courtesy; but there was in her obeisance an
air of haughtiness approaching to contemptuous repulse. Ravenswood could not
choose but bow; but his manner returned the scorn with which he had been
greeted.

“Allow me,” she said, “to present to your lordship my
friend.” Craigengelt, with the forward impudence which men of his cast
mistake for ease, made a sliding bow to the Marquis, which he graced by a
flourish of his gold-laced hat. The lady turned to her husband. “You and
I, Sir William,” she said, and these were the first words she had
addressed to him, “have acquired new acquaintances since we parted; let
me introduce the acquisition I have made to mine—Captain
Craigengelt.”

Another bow, and another flourish of the gold-laced hat, which was returned by
the Lord Keeper without intimation of former recognition, and with that sort of
anxious readiness which intimated his wish that peace and amnesty should take
place betwixt the contending parties, including the auxiliaries on both sides.
“Let me introduce you to the Master of Ravenswood,” said he to
Captain Craigengelt, following up the same amicable system.

But the Master drew up his tall form to the full extent of his height, and
without so much as looking towards the person thus introduced to him, he said,
in a marked tone: “Captain Craigengelt and I are already perfectly well
acquainted with each other.”

“Perfectly—perfectly,” replied the Captain, in a mumbling
tone, like that of a double echo, and with a flourish of his hat, the
circumference of which was greatly abridged, compared with those which had so
cordially graced his introduction to the Marquis and the Lord Keeper.

Lockhard, followed by three menials, now entered with wine and refreshments,
which it was the fashion to offer as a whet before dinner; and when they were
placed before the guests, Lady Ashton made an apology for withdrawing her
husband from them for some minutes upon business of special import. The
Marquis, of course, requested her ladyship would lay herself under no
restraint; and Craigengelt, bolting with speed a second glass of racy canary,
hastened to leave the room, feeling no great pleasure in the prospect of being
left alone with the Marquis of A—— and the Master of Ravenswood;
the presence of the former holding him in awe, and that of the latter in bodily
terror.

Some arrangements about his horse and baggage formed the pretext for his sudden
retreat, in which he persevered, although Lady Ashton gave Lockhard orders to
be careful most particularly to accommodate Captain Craigengelt with all the
attendance which he could possibly require. The Marquis and the Master of
Ravenswood were thus left to communicate to each other their remarks upon the
reception which they had met with, while Lady Ashton led the way, and her lord
followed somewhat like a condemned criminal, to her ladyship’s
dressing-room.

So soon as the spouses had both entered, her ladyship gave way to that fierce
audacity of temper which she had with difficulty suppressed, out of respect to
appearances. She shut the door behind the alarmed Lord Keeper, took the key out
of the spring-lock, and with a countenance which years had not bereft of its
haughty charms, and eyes which spoke at once resolution and resentment, she
addressed her astounded husband in these words: “My lord, I am not
greatly surprised at the connexions you have been pleased to form during my
absence, they are entirely in conformity with your birth and breeding; and if I
did expect anything else, I heartily own my error, and that I merit, by having
done so, the disappointment you had prepared for me.”

“My dear Lady Ashton—my dear Eleanor [Margaret],” said the
Lord Keeper, “listen to reason for a moment, and I will convince you I
have acted with all the regard due to the dignity, as well as the interest, of
my family.”

“To the interest of your family I conceive you perfectly capable
of attending,” returned the indignant lady, “and even to the
dignity of your own family also, as far as it requires any looking after. But
as mine happens to be inextricably involved with it, you will excuse me if I
choose to give my own attention so far as that is concerned.”

“What would you have, Lady Ashton?” said the husband. “What
is it that displeases you? Why is it that, on your return after so long an
absence, I am arraigned in this manner?”

“Ask your own conscience, Sir William, what has prompted you to become a
renegade to your political party and opinions, and led you, for what I know, to
be on the point of marrying your only daughter to a beggarly Jacobite bankrupt,
the inveterate enemy of your family to the boot.”

“Why, what, in the name of common sense and common civility, would you
have me do, madam?” answered her husband. “Is it possible for me,
with ordinary decency, to turn a young gentleman out of my house, who saved my
daughter’s life and my own, but the other morning, as it were?”

“Saved your life! I have heard of that story,” said the lady.
“The Lord Keeper was scared by a dun cow, and he takes the young fellow
who killed her for Guy of Warwick: any butcher from Haddington may soon have an
equal claim on your hospitality.”

“Lady Ashton,” stammered the Keeper, “this is intolerable;
and when I am desirous, too, to make you easy by any sacrifice, if you would
but tell me what you would be at.”

“Go down to your guests,” said the imperious dame, “and make
your apology to Ravenswood, that the arrival of Captain Craigengelt and some
other friends renders it impossible for you to offer him lodgings at the
castle. I expect young Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw.”

“Good heavens, madam!” ejaculated her husband. “Ravenswood to
give place to Craigengelt, a common gambler and an informer! It was all I could
do to forbear desiring the fellow to get out of my house, and I was much
surprised to see him in your ladyship’s train.”

“Since you saw him there, you might be well assured,” answered this
meek helpmate, “that he was proper society. As to this Ravenswood, he
only meets with the treatment which, to my certain knowledge, he gave to a
much-valued friend of mine, who had the misfortune to be his guest some time
since. But take your resolution; for, if Ravenswood does not quit the house, I
will.”

Sir William Ashton paced up and down the apartment in the most distressing
agitation; fear, and shame, and anger contending against the habitual deference
he was in the use of rendering to his lady. At length it ended, as is usual
with timid minds placed in such circumstances, in his adopting a mezzo
termine, a middle measure.

“I tell you frankly, madam, I neither can nor will be guilty of the
incivility you propose to the Master of Ravenswood; he has not deserved it at
my hand. If you will be so unreasonable as to insult a man of quality under
your own roof, I cannot prevent you; but I will not at least be the agent in
such a preposterous proceeding.”

“You will not?” asked the lady.

“No, by heavens, madam!” her husband replied; “ask me
anything congruent with common decency, as to drop his acquaintance by degrees,
or the like; but to bid him leave my house is what I will not and cannot
consent to.”

“Then the task of supporting the honour of the family will fall on me, as
it has often done before,” said the lady.

She sat down, and hastily wrote a few lines. The Lord Keeper made another
effort to prevent her taking a step so decisive, just as she opened the door to
call her female attendant from the ante-room. “Think what you are doing,
Lady Ashton: you are making a mortal enemy of a young man who is like to have
the means of harming us——”

“Did you ever know a Douglas who feared an enemy?” answered the
lady, contemptuously.

“Ay, but he is as proud and vindictive as an hundred Douglasses, and an
hundred devils to boot. Think of it for a night only.”

“Not for another moment,” answered the lady. “Here, Mrs.
Patullo, give this billet to young Ravenswood.”

“To the Master, madam?” said Mrs. Patullo.

“Ay, to the Master, if you call him so.”

“I wash my hands of it entirely,” said the Keeper; “and I
shall go down into the garden, and see that Jardine gathers the winter fruit
for the dessert.”

“Do so,” said the lady, looking after him with glances of infinite
contempt; “and thank God that you leave one behind you as fit to protect
the honour of the family as you are to look after pippins and pears.”

The Lord Keeper remained long enough in the garden to give her ladyship’s
mind time to explode, and to let, as he thought, at least the first violence of
Ravenswood’s displeasure blow over. When he entered the hall, he found
the Marquis of A—— giving orders to some of his attendants. He
seemed in high displeasure, and interrupted an apology which Sir William had
commenced for having left his lordship alone.

“I presume, Sir William, you are no stranger to this singular billet with
which my kinsman of Ravenswood (an emphasis on the word
‘my’) has been favoured by your lady; and, of course, that you are
prepared to receive my adieus. My kinsman is already gone, having thought it
unnecessary to offer any on his part, since all former civilities had been
cancelled by this singular insult.”

“I protest, my lord,” said Sir William, holding the billet in his
hand, “I am not privy to the contents of this letter. I know Lady Ashton
is a warm-tempered and prejudiced woman, and I am sincerely sorry for any
offence that has been given or taken; but I hope your lordship will consider
that a lady——”

“Should bear herself towards persons of a certain rank with the breeding
of one,” said the Marquis, completing the half-uttered sentence.

“True, my lord,” said the unfortunate Keeper; “but Lady
Ashton is still a woman——”

“And, as such, methinks,” said the Marquis, again interrupting him,
“should be taught the duties which correspond to her station. But here
she comes, and I will learn from her own mouth the reason of this extraordinary
and unexpected affront offered to my near relation, while both he and I were
her ladyship’s guests.”

Lady Ashton accordingly entered the apartment at this moment. Her dispute with
Sir William, and a subsequent interview with her daughter, had not prevented
her from attending to the duties of her toilette. She appeared in full dress;
and, from the character of her countenance and manner, well became the
splendour with which ladies of quality then appeared on such occasions.

The Marquis of A—— bowed haughtily, and she returned the salute
with equal pride and distance of demeanour. He then took from the passive hand
of Sir William Ashton the billet he had given him the moment before he
approached the lady, and was about to speak, when she interrupted him. “I
perceive, my lord, you are about to enter upon an unpleasant subject. I am
sorry any such should have occurred at this time, to interrupt in the slightest
degree the respectful reception due to your lordship; but so it is. Mr. Edgar
Ravenswood, for whom I have addressed the billet in your lordship’s hand,
has abused the hospitality of this family, and Sir William Ashton’s
softness of temper, in order to seduce a young person into engagements without
her parents’ consent, and of which they never can approve.”

Both gentlemen answered at once. “My kinsman is
incapable——” said the Lord Marquis.

“I am confident that my daughter Lucy is still more
incapable——” said the Lord Keeper.

Lady Ashton at once interrupted and replied to them both: “My Lord
Marquis, your kinsman, if Mr. Ravenswood has the honour to be so, has made the
attempt privately to secure the affections of this young and inexperienced
girl. Sir William Ashton, your daughter has been simple enough to give more
encouragement than she ought to have done to so very improper a suitor.”

“And I think, madam,” said the Lord Keeper, losing his accustomed
temper and patience, “that if you had nothing better to tell us, you had
better have kept this family secret to yourself also.”

“You will pardon me, Sir William,” said the lady, calmly;
“the noble Marquis has a right to know the cause of the treatment I have
found it necessary to use to a gentleman whom he calls his
blood-relation.”

“It is a cause,” muttered the Lord Keeper, “which has emerged
since the effect has taken place; for, if it exists at all, I am sure she knew
nothing of it when her letter to Ravenswood was written.”

“It is the first time that I have heard of this,” said the Marquis;
“but, since your ladyship has tabled a subject so delicate, permit me to
say, that my kinsman’s birth and connexions entitled him to a patient
hearing, and at least a civil refusal, even in case of his being so ambitious
as to raise his eyes to the daughter of Sir William Ashton.”

“You will recollect, my lord, of what blood Miss Lucy Ashton is come by
the mother’s side,” said the lady.

“I do remember your descent—from a younger branch of the house of
Angus,” said the Marquis; “and your ladyship—forgive me,
lady—ought not to forget that the Ravenswoods have thrice intermarried
with the main stem. Come, madam, I know how matters stand—old and
long-fostered prejudices are difficult to get over, I make every allowance for
them; I ought not, and I would not, otherwise have suffered my kinsman to
depart alone, expelled, in a manner, from this house, but I had hopes of being
a mediator. I am still unwilling to leave you in anger, and shall not set
forward till after noon, as I rejoin the Master of Ravenswood upon the road a
few miles from hence. Let us talk over this matter more coolly.”

“It is what I anxiously desire, my lord,” said Sir William Ashton,
eagerly. “Lady Ashton, we will not permit my Lord of A—— to
leave us in displeasure. We must compel him to tarry dinner at the
castle.”

“The castle,” said the lady, “and all that it contains, are
at the command of the Marquis, so long as he chooses to honour it with his
residence; but touching the farther discussion of this disagreeable
topic——”

“Pardon me, good madam,” said the Marquis; “but I cannot
allow you to express any hasty resolution on a subject so important. I see that
more company is arriving; and, since I have the good fortune to renew my former
acquaintance with Lady Ashton, I hope she will give me leave to avoid perilling
what I prize so highly upon any disagreeable subject of discussion—at
least till we have talked over more pleasant topics.”

The lady smiled, courtesied, and gave her hand to the Marquis, by whom, with
all the formal gallantry of the time, which did not permit the guest to tuck
the lady of the house under the arm, as a rustic does his sweetheart at a wake,
she was ushered to the eating-room.

Here they were joined by Bucklaw, Craigengelt, and other neighbours, whom the
Lord Keeper had previously invited to meet the Marquis of A——. An
apology, founded upon a slight indisposition, was alleged as an excuse for the
absence of Miss Ashton, whose seat appeared unoccupied. The entertainment was
splendid to profusion, and was protracted till a late hour.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Such was our fallen father’s fate,
    Yet better than mine own;
He shared his exile with his mate,
    I’m banish’d forth alone.

WALLER

I will not attempt to describe the mixture of indignation and regret with which
Ravenswood left the seat which had belonged to his ancestors. The terms in
which Lady Ashton’s billet was couched rendered it impossible for him,
without being deficient in that spirit of which he perhaps had too much, to
remain an instant longer within its walls. The Marquis, who had his share in
the affront, was, nevertheless, still willing to make some efforts at
conciliation. He therefore suffered his kinsman to depart alone, making him
promise, however, that he would wait for him at the small inn called the
Tod’s Hole, situated, as our readers may be pleased to recollect,
half-way betwixt Ravenswood Castle and Wolf’s Crag, and about five
Scottish miles distant from each. Here the Marquis proposed to join the Master
of Ravenswood, either that night or the next morning. His own feelings would
have induced him to have left the castle directly, but he was loth to forfeit,
without at least one effort, the advantages which he had proposed from his
visit to the Lord Keeper; and the Master of Ravenswood was, even in the very
heat of his resentment, unwilling to foreclose any chance of reconciliation
which might arise out of the partiality which Sir William Ashton had shown
towards him, as well as the intercessory arguments of his noble kinsman. He
himself departed without a moment’s delay, farther than was necessary to
make this arrangement.

At first he spurred his horse at a quick pace through an avenue of the park, as
if, by rapidity of motion, he could stupify the confusion of feelings with
which he was assailed. But as the road grew wilder and more sequestered, and
when the trees had hidden the turrets of the castle, he gradually slackened his
pace, as if to indulge the painful reflections which he had in vain endeavoured
to repress. The path in which he found himself led him to the Mermaiden’s
Fountain, and to the cottage of Alice; and the fatal influence which
superstitious belief attached to the former spot, as well as the admonitions
which had been in vain offered to him by the inhabitant of the latter, forced
themselves upon his memory. “Old saws speak truth,” he said to
himself, “and the Mermaiden’s Well has indeed witnessed the last
act of rashness of the heir of Ravenswood. Alice spoke well,” he
continued, “and I am in the situation which she foretold; or rather, I am
more deeply dishonoured—not the dependant and ally of the destroyer of my
father’s house, as the old sibyl presaged, but the degraded wretch who
has aspired to hold that subordinate character, and has been rejected with
disdain.”

We are bound to tell the tale as we have received it; and, considering the
distance of the time, and propensity of those through whose mouths it has
passed to the marvellous, this could not be called a Scottish story unless it
manifested a tinge of Scottish superstition. As Ravenswood approached the
solitary fountain, he is said to have met with the following singular
adventure: His horse, which was moving slowly forward, suddenly interrupted its
steady and composed pace, snorted, reared, and, though urged by the spur,
refused to proceed, as if some object of terror had suddenly presented itself.
On looking to the fountain, Ravenswood discerned a female figure, dressed in a
white, or rather greyish, mantle, placed on the very spot on which Lucy Ashton
had reclined while listening to the fatal tale of love. His immediate
impression was that she had conjectured by which path he would traverse the
park on his departure, and placed herself at this well-known and sequestered
place of rendezvous, to indulge her own sorrow and his parting interview. In
this belief he jumped from his horse, and, making its bridle fast to a tree,
walked hastily towards the fountain, pronouncing eagerly, yet under his breath,
the words, “Miss Ashton!—Lucy!”