The German, determined, it would seem, to assert the vantage-ground on which the discovery had placed him, replied with great pomp and stateliness to the attack of the Antiquary.
“Maister Oldenbuck, all dis may be very witty and comedy, but I have nothing to say–nothing at all–to people dat will not believe deir own eye-sights. It is vary true dat I ave not any of de things of de art, and it makes de more wonder what I has done dis day. But I would ask of you, mine honoured and goot and generous patron, to put your hand into your right-hand waistcoat pocket, and show me what you shall find dere.”
Sir Arthur obeyed his direction, and pulled out the small plate of silver which he had used under the adept’s auspices upon the former occasion. “It is very true,” said Sir Arthur, looking gravely at the Antiquary; “this is the graduated and calculated sigil by which Mr. Dousterswivel and I regulated our first discovery.”
“Pshaw! pshaw! my dear friend,” said Oldbuck, “you are too wise to believe in the influence of a trumpery crown-piece, beat out thin, and a parcel of scratches upon it. I tell thee, Sir Arthur, that if Dousterswivel had known where to get this treasure himself, you would not have been lord of the least share of it.”
“In troth, please your honour,” said Edie, who put in his word on all occasions, “I think, since Mr. Dunkerswivel has had sae muckle merit in discovering a’ the gear, the least ye can do is to gie him that o’t that’s left behind for his labour; for doubtless he that kend where to find sae muckle will hae nae difficulty to find mair.”
Dousterswivel’s brow grew very dark at this proposal of leaving him to his “ain purchase,” as Ochiltree expressed it; but the beggar, drawing him aside, whispered a word or two in his ear, to which he seemed to give serious attention,
Meanwhile Sir Arthur, his heart warm with his good fortune, said aloud, “Never mind our friend Monkbarns, Mr. Dousterswivel, but come to the Castle to-morrow, and I’ll convince you that I am not ungrateful for the hints you have given me about this matter–and the fifty Fairport dirty notes, as you call them, are heartily at your service. Come, my lads, get the cover of this precious chest fastened up again.”
But the cover had in the confusion fallen aside among the rubbish, or the loose earth which had been removed from the grave–in short, it was not to be seen.
“Never mind, my good lads, tie the tarpaulin over it, and get it away to the carriage.–Monkbarns, will you walk? I must go back your way to take up Miss Wardour.”
“And, I hope, to take up your dinner also, Sir Arthur, and drink a glass of wine for joy of our happy adventure. Besides, you should write about the business to the Exchequer, in case of any interference on the part of the Crown. As you are lord of the manor, it will be easy to get a deed of gift, should they make any claim. We must talk about it, though.”
“And I particularly recommend silence to all who are present,” said Sir Arthur, looking round. All bowed and professed themselves dumb.
“Why, as to that,” said Monkbarns, “recommending secrecy where a dozen of people are acquainted with the circumstance to be concealed, is only putting the truth in masquerade, for the story will be circulated under twenty different shapes. But never mind–we will state the true one to the Barons, and that is all that is necessary.”
“I incline to send off an express to-night,” said the Baronet.
“I can recommend your honour to a sure hand,” said Ochiltree; “little Davie Mailsetter, and the butcher’s reisting powny.”
“We will talk over the matter as we go to Monkbarns,” said Sir Arthur. “My lads” (to the work-people), “come with me to the Four Horse-shoes, that I may take down all your names.–Dousterswivel, I won’t ask you to go down to Monkbarns, as the laird and you differ so widely in opinion; but do not fail to come to see me to-morrow.”
Dousterswivel growled out an answer, in which the words, “duty,”–“mine honoured patron,”–and “wait upon Sir Arthurs,”–were alone distinguishable; and after the Baronet and his friend had left the ruins, followed by the servants and workmen, who, in hope of reward and whisky, joyfully attended their leader, the adept remained in a brown study by the side of the open grave.
“Who was it as could have thought this?” he ejaculated unconsciously. “Mine heiligkeit! I have heard of such things, and often spoken of such things–but, sapperment! I never, thought to see them! And if I had gone but two or dree feet deeper down in the earth–mein himmel! it had been all mine own–so much more as I have been muddling about to get from this fool’s man.”
Here the German ceased his soliloquy, for, raising his eyes, he encountered those of Edie Ochiltree, who had not followed the rest of the company, but, resting as usual on his pike-staff, had planted himself on the other side of the grave. The features of the old man, naturally shrewd and expressive almost to an appearance of knavery, seemed in this instance so keenly knowing, that even the assurance of Dousterswivel, though a professed adventurer, sunk beneath their glances. But he saw the necessity of an e’claircissement, and, rallying his spirits, instantly began to sound the mendicant on the occurrences of the day. “Goot Maister Edies Ochiltrees”–
“Edie Ochiltree, nae maister–your puir bedesman and the king’s,” answered the Blue-Gown.
“Awell den, goot Edie, what do you think of all dis?”
“I was just thinking it was very kind (for I darena say very simple) o’ your honour to gie thae twa rich gentles, wha hae lands and lairdships, and siller without end, this grand pose o’ silver and treasure (three times tried in the fire, as the Scripture expresses it), that might hae made yoursell and ony twa or three honest bodies beside, as happy and content as the day was lang.”
“Indeed, Edie, mine honest friends, dat is very true; only I did not know, dat is, I was not sure, where to find the gelt myself.”
“What! was it not by your honours advice and counsel that Monkbarns and the Knight of Knockwinnock came here then?”
“Aha–yes; but it was by another circumstance. I did not know dat dey would have found de treasure, mine friend; though I did guess, by such a tintamarre, and cough, and sneeze, and groan, among de spirit one other night here, dat there might be treasure and bullion hereabout. Ach, mein himmel! the spirit will hone and groan over his gelt, as if he were a Dutch Burgomaster counting his dollars after a great dinner at the Stadthaus.”
“And do you really believe the like o’ that, Mr. Dusterdeevil !–a skeelfu’ man like you–hout fie!”
“Mein friend,” answered the adept, foreed by circumstances to speak something nearer the truth than he generally used to do, “I believed it no more than you and no man at all, till I did hear them hone and moan and groan myself on de oder night, and till I did this day see de cause, which was an great chest all full of de pure silver from Mexico–and what would you ave nae think den?”
“And what wad ye gie to ony ane,” said Edie, “that wad help ye to sic another kistfu’ o’ silver!”
“Give?–mein himmel!–one great big quarter of it.”
“Now if the secret were mine,” said the mendicant, “I wad stand out for a half; for you see, though I am but a puir ragged body, and couldna carry silver or gowd to sell for fear o’ being taen up, yet I could find mony folk would pass it awa for me at unco muckle easier profit than ye’re thinking on.”
“Ach, himmel!–Mein goot friend, what was it I said?–I did mean to say you should have de tree quarter for your half, and de one quarter to be my fair half.”
“No, no, Mr. Dusterdeevil, we will divide equally what we find, like brother and brother. Now, look at this board that I just flung into the dark aisle out o’ the way, while Monkbarns was glowering ower a’ the silver yonder. He’s a sharp chiel Monkbarns–I was glad to keep the like o’ this out o’ his sight. Ye’ll maybe can read the character better than me–I am nae that book learned, at least I’m no that muckle in practice.”
With this modest declaration of ignorance, Ochiltree brought forth from behind a pillar the cover of the box or chest of treasure, which, when forced from its hinges, had been carelessly flung aside during the ardour of curiosity to ascertain the contents which it concealed, and had been afterwards, as it seems, secreted by the mendicant. There was a word and a number upon the plank, and the beggar made them more distinct by spitting upon his ragged blue handkerchief, and rubbing off the clay by which the inscription was obscured. It was in the ordinary black letter.
“Can ye mak ought o’t?” said Edie to the adept.
“S,” said the philosopher, like a child getting his lesson in the primer –“S, T, A, R, C, H,–_Starch!_–dat is what de woman-washers put into de neckerchers, and de shirt collar.”
“Search!” echoed Ochiltree; “na, na, Mr. Dusterdeevil, ye are mair of a conjuror than a clerk–it’s _search,_ man, _search_–See, there’s the _Ye_ clear and distinct.”
“Aha! I see it now–it is _search–number one._ Mein himmel! then there must be a _number two,_ mein goot friend: for _search_ is what you call to seek and dig, and this is but _number one!_ Mine wort, there is one great big prize in de wheel for us, goot Maister Ochiltree.”
“Aweel, it may be sae; but we canna howk fort enow–we hae nae shules, for they hae taen them a’ awa–and it’s like some o’ them will be sent back to fling the earth into the hole, and mak a’ things trig again. But an ye’ll sit down wi’ me a while in the wood, I’se satisfy your honour that ye hae just lighted on the only man in the country that could hae tauld about Malcolm Misticot and his hidden treasure–But first we’ll rub out the letters on this board, for fear it tell tales.”
And, by the assistance of his knife, the beggar erased and defaced the characters so as to make them quite unintelligible, and then daubed the board with clay so as to obliterate all traces of the erasure.
Dousterswivel stared at him in ambiguous silence. There was an intelligence and alacrity about all the old man’s movements, which indicated a person that could not be easily overreached, and yet (for even rogues acknowledge in some degree the spirit of precedence) our adept felt the disgrace of playing a secondary part, and dividing winnings with so mean an associate. His appetite for gain, however, was sufficiently sharp to overpower his offended pride, and though far more an impostor than a dupe, he was not without a certain degree of personal faith even in the gross superstitions by means of which he imposed upon others. Still, being accustomed to act as a leader on such occasions, he felt humiliated at feeling himself in the situation of a vulture marshalled to his prey by a carrion-crow.–“Let me, however, hear this story to an end,” thought Dousterswivel, “and it will be hard if I do not make mine account in it better as Maister Edie Ochiltrees makes proposes.”
The adept, thus transformed into a pupil from a teacher of the mystic art, followed Ochiltree in passive acquiescence to the Prior’s Oak–a spot, as the reader may remember, at a short distance from the ruins, where the German sat down, and silence waited the old man’s communication.
“Maister Dustandsnivel,” said the narrator, “it’s an unco while since I heard this business treated anent;–for the lairds of Knockwinnock, neither Sir Arthur, nor his father, nor his grandfather–and I mind a wee bit about them a’–liked to hear it spoken about; nor they dinna like it yet–But nae matter; ye may be sure it was clattered about in the kitchen, like onything else in a great house, though it were forbidden in the ha’–and sae I hae heard the circumstance rehearsed by auld servants in the family; and in thir present days, when things o’ that auld-warld sort arena keepit in mind round winter fire-sides as they used to be, I question if there’s onybody in the country can tell the tale but mysell– aye out-taken the laird though, for there’s a parchment book about it, as I have heard, in the charter-room at Knockwinnock Castle.”
“Well, all dat is vary well–but get you on with your stories, mine goot friend,” said Dousterswivel.
“Aweel, ye see,” continued the mendicant, “this was a job in the auld times o’ rugging and riving through the hale country, when it was ilka ane for himsell, and God for us a’–when nae man wanted property if he had strength to take it, or had it langer than he had power to keep it. It was just he ower her, and she ower him, whichever could win upmost, a’ through the east country here, and nae doubt through the rest o’ Scotland in the self and same manner.
“Sae in these days Sir Richard Wardour came into the land, and that was the first o’ the name ever was in this country. There’s been mony o’ them sin’ syne; and the maist, like him they ca’d Hell-in-Harness, and the rest o’ them, are sleeping down in yon ruins. They were a proud dour set o’ men, but unco brave, and aye stood up for the weel o’ the country, God sain them a’–there’s no muckle popery in that wish. They ca’d them the Norman Wardours, though they cam frae the south to this country. So this Sir Richard, that they ca’d Red-hand, drew up wi’ the auld Knockwinnock o’ that day–for then they were Knockwinnocks of that Ilk–and wad fain marry his only daughter, that was to have the castle and the land. Laith, laith was the lass–(Sybil Knockwinnock they ca’d her that tauld me the tale)–laith, laith was she to gie into the match, for she had fa’en a wee ower thick wi’ a cousin o’ her ain that her father had some ill-will to; and sae it was, that after she had been married to Sir Richard jimp four months–for marry him she maun, it’s like–ye’ll no hinder her gieing them a present o’ a bonny knave bairn. Then there was siccan a ca’-thro’, as the like was never seen; and she’s be burnt, and he’s be slain, was the best words o’ their mouths. But it was a’ sowdered up again some gait, and the bairn was sent awa, and bred up near the Highlands, and grew up to be a fine wanle fallow, like mony ane that comes o’ the wrang side o’ the blanket; and Sir Richard wi’ the Red-hand, he had a fair offspring o’his ain, and a was lound and quiet till his head was laid in the ground. But then down came Malcolm Misticot–(Sir Arthur says it should be _Misbegot,_ but they aye ca’d him Misticot that spoke o’t lang syne)–down cam this Malcolm, the love-begot, frae Glen-isla, wi’ a string o’ lang-legged Highlanders at his heels, that’s aye ready for onybody’s mischief, and he threeps the castle and lands are his ain as his mother’s eldest son, and turns a’ the Wardours out to the hill. There was a sort of fighting and blude-spilling about it, for the gentles took different sides; but Malcolm had the uppermost for a lang time, and keepit the Castle of Knockwinnock, and strengthened it, and built that muckle tower that they ca’ Misticot’s tower to this day.”
“Mine goot friend, old Mr. Edie Ochiltree.” interrupted the German, “this is all as one like de long histories of a baron of sixteen quarters in mine countries; but I would as rather hear of de silver and gold.”
“Why, ye see,” continued the mendicant, “this Malcolm was weel helped by an uncle, a brother o’ his father’s, that was Prior o’ St. Ruth here; and muckle treasure they gathered between them, to secure the succession of their house in the lands of Knockwinnock. Folk said that the monks in thae days had the art of multiplying metals–at ony rate, they were very rich. At last it came to this, that the young Wardour, that was Red-hand’s son, challenged Misticot to fight with him in the lists as they ca’d them–that’s no lists or tailor’s runds and selvedges o’ claith, but a palin’-thing they set up for them to fight in like game-cocks. Aweel, Misticot was beaten, and at his brother’s mercy–but he wadna touch his life, for the blood of Knockwinnock that was in baith their veins: so Malcolm was compelled to turn a monk, and he died soon after in the priory, of pure despite and vexation. Naebody ever kenn’d whare his uncle the prior earded him, or what he did wi’ his gowd and silver, for he stood on the right o’ halie kirk, and wad gie nae account to onybody. But the prophecy gat abroad in the country, that whenever Misticot’s grave was fund out, the estate of Knockwinnock should be lost and won.”
“Ach! mine goot old friend, Maister Edie, and dat is not so very unlikely, if Sir Arthurs will quarrel wit his goot friends to please Mr. Oldenbuck.–And so you do tink dat dis golds and silvers belonged to goot Mr. Malcolm Mishdigoat?”
“Troth do I, Mr. Dousterdeevil.”
“And you do believe dat dere is more of dat sorts behind?”
“By my certie do I–How can it be otherwise?–_Search–No. I_–that is as muckle as to say, search and ye’ll find number twa. Besides, yon kist is only silver, and I aye heard that’ Misticot’s pose had muckle yellow gowd in’t.”
“Den, mine goot friends,” said the adept, jumping up hastily, “why do we not set about our little job directly?”
“For twa gude reasons,” answered the beggar, who quietly kept his sitting posture;–“first, because, as I said before, we have naething to dig wi’, for they hae taen awa the picks and shules; and, secondly, because there will be a wheen idle gowks coming to glower at the hole as lang as it is daylight, and maybe the laird may send somebody to fill it up–and ony way we wad be catched. But if you will meet me on this place at twal o’clock wi’ a dark lantern, I’ll hae tools ready, and we’ll gang quietly about our job our twa sells, and naebody the wiser for’t.”
“Be–be–but, mine goot friend,” said Dousterswivel, from whose recollection his former nocturnal adventure was not to be altogether erased, even by the splendid hopes which Edie’s narrative held forth, “it is not so goot or so safe, to be about goot Maister Mishdigoat’s grabe at dat time of night–you have forgot how I told you de spirits did hone and mone dere. I do assure you, dere is disturbance dere.”
“If ye’re afraid of ghaists,” answered the mendicant, coolly, “I’ll do the job mysell, and bring your share o’ the siller to ony place you like to appoint.”
“No–no–mine excellent old Mr. Edie,–too much trouble for you–I will not have dat–I will come myself–and it will be bettermost; for, mine old friend, it was I, Herman Dousterswivel, discovered Maister Mishdigoat’s grave when I was looking for a place as to put away some little trumpery coins, just to play one little trick on my dear friend Sir Arthur, for a little sport and pleasures. Yes, I did take some what you call rubbish, and did discover Maister Mishdigoat’s own monumentsh– It’s like dat he meant I should be his heirs–so it would not be civility in me not to come mineself for mine inheritance.”
“At twal o’clock, then,” said the mendicant, “we meet under this tree. I’ll watch for a while, and see that naebody meddles wi’ the grave–it’s only saying the laird’s forbade it–then get my bit supper frae Ringan the poinder up by, and leave to sleep in his barn; and I’ll slip out at night, and neer be mist.”
“Do so, mine goot Maister Edie, and I will meet you here on this very place, though all de spirits should moan and sneeze deir very brains out.”
So saying he shook hands with the old man, and with this mutual pledge of fidelity to their appointment, they separated for the present.
CHAPTER FOURTH.
–See thou shake the bags Of hoarding abbots; angels imprisoned Set thou at liberty–
Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back, If gold and silver beckon to come on. King John.
The night set in stormy, with wind and occasional showers of rain. “Eh, sirs,” said the old mendicant, as he took his place on the sheltered side of the large oak-tree to wait for his associate–“Eh, sirs, but human nature’s a wilful and wilyard thing!–Is it not an unco lucre o’ gain wad bring this Dousterdivel out in a blast o’ wind like this, at twal o’clock at night, to thir wild gousty wa’s?–and amna I a bigger fule than himsell to bide here waiting for him?”
Having made these sage reflections, he wrapped himself close in his cloak, and fixed his eye on the moon as she waded amid the stormy and dusky clouds, which the wind from time to time drove across her surface. The melancholy and uncertain gleams that she shot from between the passing shadows fell full upon the rifted arches and shafted windows of the old building, which were thus for an instant made distinctly visible in their ruinous state, and anon became again a dark, undistinguished, and shadowy mass. The little lake had its share of these transient beams of light, and showed its waters broken, whitened, and agitated under the passing storm, which, when the clouds swept over the moon, were only distinguished by their sullen and murmuring plash against the beach. The wooded glen repeated, to every successive gust that hurried through its narrow trough, the deep and various groan with which the trees replied to the whirlwind, and the sound sunk again, as the blast passed away, into a faint and passing murmur, resembling the sighs of an exhausted criminal after the first pangs of his torture are over. In these sounds, superstition might have found ample gratification for that State of excited terror which she fears and yet loves. But such feeling is made no part of Ochiltree’s composition. His mind wandered back to the scenes of his youth.
“I have kept guard on the outposts baith in Germany and America,” he said to himself, “in mony a waur night than this, and when I ken’d there was maybe a dozen o’ their riflemen in the thicket before me. But I was aye gleg at my duty–naebody ever catched Edie sleeping.”
As he muttered thus to himself, he instinctively shouldered his trusty pike-staff, assumed the port of a sentinel on duty, and, as a step advanced towards the tree, called, with a tone assorting better with his military reminiscences than his present state–“Stand! who goes there?”
“De devil, goot Edie,” answered Dousterswivel, “why does you speak so loud as a baarenhauter, or what you call a factionary–I mean a sentinel?”
“Just because I thought I was a sentinel at that moment,” answered the mendicant. “Here’s an awsome night! Hae ye brought the lantern and a pock for the siller?”
“Ay-ay, mine goot friend,” said the German, “here it is–my pair of what you call saddlebag; one side will be for you, one side for me;–I will put dem on my horse to save you de trouble, as you are old man.”
“Have you a horse here, then?” asked Edie Ochiltree.
“O yes, mine friend–tied yonder by de stile,” responded the adept.
“Weel, I hae just ae word to the bargain–there sall nane o’ my gear gang on your beast’s back.”
“What was it as you would be afraid of?” said the foreigner.
“Only of losing sight of horse, man, and money,” again replied the gaberlunzie.
“Does you know dat you make one gentlemans out to be one great rogue?”
“Mony gentlemen,” replied Ochiltree, “can make that out for themselves– But what’s the sense of quarrelling?–If ye want to gang on, gang on–if no–I’ll gae back to the gude ait-straw in Ringan Aikwood’s barn that I left wi’ right ill-will e’now, and I’ll pit back the pick and shule whar I got them.”
Dousterswivel deliberated a moment, whether, by suffering Edie to depart, he might not secure the whole of the expected wealth for his own exclusive use. But the want of digging implements, the uncertainty whether, if he had them, he could clear out the grave to a sufficient depth without assistance, and, above all, the reluctance which he felt, owing to the experience of the former night, to venture alone on the terrors of Misticot’s grave, satisfied him the attempt would be hazardous. Endeavouring, therefore, to assume his usual cajoling tone, though internally incensed, he begged “his goot friend Maister Edie Ochiltrees would lead the way, and assured him of his acquiescence in all such an excellent friend could propose.”
“Aweel, aweel, then,” said Edie, “tak gude care o’ your feet amang the lang grass and the loose stones. I wish we may get the light keepit in neist, wi’ this fearsome wind–but there’s a blink o’ moonlight at times.”
Thus saying, old Edie, closely accompanied by the adept, led the way towards the ruins, but presently made a full halt in front of them.
“Ye’re a learned man, Mr. Dousterdeevil, and ken muckle o’ the marvellous works o’ nature–Now, will ye tell me ae thing?–D’ye believe in ghaists and spirits that walk the earth?–d’ye believe in them, ay or no?”
“Now, goot Mr. Edie,” whispered Dousterswivel, in an expostulatory tone of voice, “is this a times or a places for such a questions?”
“Indeed is it, baith the tane and the t’other, Mr. Dustanshovel; for I maun fairly tell ye, there’s reports that auld Misticot walks. Now this wad be an uncanny night to meet him in, and wha kens if he wad be ower weel pleased wi’ our purpose of visiting his pose?”
“_Alle guten Geister_”–muttered the adept, the rest of the conjuration being lost in a tremulous warble of his voice,–“I do desires you not to speak so, Mr. Edie; for, from all I heard dat one other night, I do much believes”–
“Now I,” said Ochiltree, entering the chancel, and flinging abroad his arm with an air of defiance, “I wadna gie the crack o’ my thumb for him were he to appear at this moment: he’s but a disembodied spirit, as we are embodied anes.”
“For the lofe of heavens,” said Dousterswivel, “say nothing at all neither about somebodies or nobodies!”
“Aweel,” said the beggar (expanding the shade of the lantern), “here’s the stane, and, spirit or no spirit, I’se be a wee bit deeper in the grave;” and he jumped into the place from which the precious chest had that morning been removed. After striking a few strokes, he tired, or affected to tire, and said to his companion, “I’m auld and failed now, and canna keep at it–time about’s fair play, neighbour; ye maun get in and tak the shule a bit, and shule out the loose earth, and then I’ll tak turn about wi’ you.”
Dousterswivel accordingly took the place which the beggar had evacuated, and toiled with all the zeal that awakened avarice, mingled with the anxious wish to finish the undertaking and leave the place as soon as possible, could inspire in a mind at once greedy, suspicious, and timorous.
Edie, standing much at his ease by the side of the hole, contented himself with exhorting his associate to labour hard. “My certie! few ever wrought for siccan a day’s wage; an it be but–say the tenth part o’ the size o’ the kist, No. I., it will double its value, being filled wi’ gowd instead of silver. Od, ye work as if ye had been bred to pick and shule– ye could win your round half-crown ilka day. Tak care o’ your taes wi’ that stane!” giving a kick to a large one which the adept had heaved out with difficulty, and which Edie pushed back again to the great annoyance of his associate’s shins.
Thus exhorted by the mendicant, Dousterswivel struggled and laboured among the stones and stiff clay, toiling like a horse, and internally blaspheming in German. When such an unhallowed syllable escaped his lips, Edie changed his battery upon him.
“O dinna swear! dinna swear! Wha kens whals listening!–Eh! gude guide us, what’s you!–Hout, it’s just a branch of ivy flightering awa frae the wa’; when the moon was in, it lookit unco like a dead man’s arm wi’ a taper in’t–I thought it was Misticot himsell. But never mind, work you away–fling the earth weel up by out o’ the gate–Od, if ye’re no as clean a worker at a grave as Win Winnet himsell! What gars ye stop now?– ye’re just at the very bit for a chance.”
“Stop!” said the German, in a tone of anger and disappointment, “why, I am down at de rocks dat de cursed ruins (God forgife me!) is founded upon.”
“Weel,” said the beggar, “that’s the likeliest bit of ony. It will be but a muckle through-stane laid doun to kiver the gowd–tak the pick till’t, and pit mair strength, man–ae gude down-right devvel will split it, I’se warrant ye–Ay, that will do Od, he comes on wi’ Wallace’s straiks!”
In fact, the adept, moved by Edie’s exhortations, fetched two or three desperate blows, and succeeded in breaking, not indeed that against which he struck, which, as he had already conjectured, was the solid rock, but the implement which he wielded, jarring at the same time his arms up to the shoulder-blades.
“Hurra, boys!–there goes Ringan’s pick-axe!” cried Edie “it’s a shame o’ the Fairport folk to sell siccan frail gear. Try the shule–at it again, Mr. Dusterdeevil.”
The adept, without reply, scrambled out of the pit, which was now about six feet deep, and addressed his associate in a voice that trembled with anger. “Does you know, Mr. Edies Ochiltrees, who it is you put off your gibes and your jests upon?”
“Brawly, Mr. Dusterdeevil–brawly do I ken ye, and has done mony a day; but there’s nae jesting in the case, for I am wearying to see ae our treasures; we should hae had baith ends o’ the pockmanky filled by this time–I hope it’s bowk eneugh to haud a’ the gear?”
“Look you, you base old person,” said the incensed philosopher, “if you do put another jest upon me, I will cleave your skull-piece with this shovels!”
“And whare wad my hands and my pike-staff be a’ the time?” replied Edie, in a tone that indicated no apprehension. “Hout, tout, Maister Dusterdeevil, I haena lived sae lang in the warld neither, to be shuled out o’t that gate. What ails ye to be cankered, man, wi’ your friends? I’ll wager I’ll find out the treasure in a minute;” and he jumped into the pit, and took up the spade.
“I do swear to you,” said the adept, whose suspicions were now fully awake, “that if you have played me one big trick, I will give you one big beating, Mr. Edies.”
“Hear till him now!” said Ochiltree, “he kens how to gar folk find out the gear–Od, I’m thinking he’s been drilled that way himsell some day.”
At this insinuation, which alluded obviously to the former scene betwixt himself and Sir Arthur, the philosopher lost the slender remnant of patience he had left, and being of violent passions, heaved up the truncheon of the broken mattock to discharge it upon the old man’s head. The blow would in all probability have been fatal, had not he at whom it was aimed exclaimed in a stern and firm voice, “Shame to ye, man!–do ye think Heaven or earth will suffer ye to murder an auld man that might be your father?–Look behind ye, man!”
Dousterswivel turned instinctively, and beheld, to his utter astonishment, a tall dark figure standing close behind him. The apparition gave him no time to proceed by exorcism or otherwise, but having instantly recourse to the _voie de fait,_ took measure of the adept’s shoulders three or four times with blows so substantial, that he fell under the weight of them, and remained senseless for some minutes between fear and stupefaction. When he came to himself, he was alone in the ruined chancel, lying upon the soft and damp earth which had been thrown out of Misticot’s grave. He raised himself with a confused sensation of anger, pain, and terror, and it was not until he had sat upright for some minutes, that he could arrange his ideas sufficiently to recollect how he came there, or with what purpose. As his recollection returned, he could have little doubt that the bait held out to him by Ochiltree, to bring him to that solitary spot, the sarcasms by which he had provoked him into a quarrel, and the ready assistance which he had at hand for terminating it in the manner in which it had ended, were all parts of a concerted plan to bring disgrace and damage on Herman Dousterswivel. He could hardly suppose that he was indebted for the fatigue, anxiety, and beating which he had undergone, purely to the malice of Edie Ochiltree singly, but concluded that the mendicant had acted a part assigned to him by some person of greater importance. His suspicions hesitated between Oldbuck and Sir Arthur Wardour. The former had been at no pains to conceal a marked dislike of him–but the latter he had deeply injured; and although he judged that Sir Arthur did not know the extent of his wrongs towards him, yet it was easy to suppose he had gathered enough of the truth to make him desirous of revenge. Ochiltree had alluded to at least one circumstance which the adept had every reason to suppose was private between Sir Arthur and himself, and therefore must have been learned from the former. The language of Oldbuck also intimated a conviction of his knavery, which Sir Arthur heard without making any animated defence. Lastly, the way in which Dousterswivel supposed the Baronet to have exercised his revenge, was not inconsistent with the practice of other countries with which the adept was better acquainted than with those of North Britain. With him, as with many bad men, to suspect an injury, and to nourish the purpose of revenge, was one and the same movement. And before Dousterswivel had fairly recovered his legs, he had mentally sworn the ruin of his benefactor, which, unfortunately, he possessed too much the power of accelerating.
But although a purpose of revenge floated through his brain, it was no time to indulge such speculations. The hour, the place, his own situation, and perhaps the presence or near neighbourhood of his assailants, made self-preservation the adept’s first object. The lantern had been thrown down and extinguished in the scuffle. The wind, which formerly howled so loudly through the aisles of the ruin, had now greatly fallen, lulled by the rain, which was descending very fast. The moon, from the same cause, was totally obscured, and though Dousterswivel had some experience of the ruins, and knew that he must endeavour to regain the eastern door of the chancel, yet the confusion of his ideas was such, that he hesitated for some time ere he could ascertain in what direction he was to seek it. In this perplexity, the suggestions of superstition, taking the advantage of darkness and his evil conscience, began again to present themselves to his disturbed imagination. “But bah!” quoth he valiantly to himself, “it is all nonsense all one part of de damn big trick and imposture. Devil! that one thick-skulled Scotch Baronet, as I have led by the nose for five year, should cheat Herman Dousterswivel!”
As he had come to this conclusion, an incident occurred which tended greatly to shake the grounds on which he had adopted it. Amid the melancholy _sough_ of the dying wind, and the plash of the rain-drops on leaves and stones, arose, and apparently at no great distance from the listener, a strain of vocal music so sad and solemn, as if the departed spirits of the churchmen who had once inhabited these deserted rains were mourning the solitude and desolation to which their hallowed precincts had been abandoned. Dousterswivel, who had now got upon his feet, and was groping around the wall of the chancel, stood rooted to the ground on the occurrence of this new phenomenon. Each faculty of his soul seemed for the moment concentred in the sense of hearing, and all rushed back with the unanimous information, that the deep, wild, and prolonged chant which he now heard, was the appropriate music of one of the most solemn dirges of the Church of Rome. Why performed in such a solitude, and by what class of choristers, were questions which the terrified imagination of the adept, stirred with all the German superstitions of nixies, oak-kings, wer-wolves, hobgoblins, black spirits and white, blue spirits and grey, durst not even attempt to solve.
Another of his senses was soon engaged in the investigation. At the extremity of one of the transepts of the church, at the bottom of a few descending steps, was a small iron-grated door, opening, as far as he recollected, to a sort of low vault or sacristy. As he cast his eye in the direction of the sound, he observed a strong reflection of red light glimmering through these bars, and against the steps which descended to them. Dousterswivel stood a moment uncertain what to do; then, suddenly forming a desperate resolution, he moved down the aisle to the place from which the light proceeded.
Fortified with the sign of the cross, and as many exorcisms as his memory could recover, he advanced to the grate, from which, unseen, he could see what passed in the interior of the vault. As he approached with timid and uncertain steps, the chant, after one or two wild and prolonged cadences, died away into profound silence. The grate, when he reached it, presented a singular spectacle in the interior of the sacristy. An open grave, with four tall flambeaus, each about six feet high, placed at the four corners–a bier, having a corpse in its shroud, the arms folded upon the breast, rested upon tressels at one side of the grave, as if ready to be interred–a priest, dressed in his cope and stole, held open the service book–another churchman in his vestments bore a holy-water sprinkler, and two boys in white surplices held censers with incense–a man, of a figure once tall and commanding, but now bent with age or infirmity, stood alone and nearest to the coffin, attired in deep mourning–such were the most prominent figures of the group. At a little distance were two or three persons of both sexes, attired in long mourning hoods and cloaks; and five or six others in the same lugubrious dress, still farther removed from the body, around the walls of the vault, stood ranged in motionless order, each bearing in his hand a huge torch of black wax. The smoky light from so many flambeaus, by the red and indistinct atmosphere which it spread around, gave a hazy, dubious, and as it were phantom-like appearance to the outlines of this singular apparition, The voice of the priest–loud, clear, and sonorous–now recited, from the breviary which he held in his hand, those solemn words which the ritual of the Catholic church has consecrated to the rendering of dust to dust. Meanwhile, Dousterswivel, the place, the hour, and the surprise considered, still remained uncertain whether what he saw was substantial, or an unearthly representation of the rites to which in former times these walls were familiar, but which are now rarely practised in Protestant countries, and almost never in Scotland. He was uncertain whether to abide the conclusion of the ceremony, or to endeavour to regain the chancel, when a change in his position made him visible through the grate to one of the attendant mourners. The person who first espied him indicated his discovery to the individual who stood apart and nearest the coffin, by a sign, and upon his making a sign in reply, two of the group detached themselves, and, gliding along with noiseless steps, as if fearing to disturb the service, unlocked and opened the grate which separated them from the adept. Each took him by an arm, and exerting a degree of force, which he would have been incapable of resisting had his fear permitted him to attempt opposition, they placed him on the ground in the chancel, and sat down, one on each side of him, as if to detain him. Satisfied he was in the power of mortals like himself, the adept would have put some questions to them; but while one pointed to the vault, from which the sound of the priest’s voice was distinctly heard, the other placed his finger upon his lips in token of silence, a hint which the German thought it most prudent to obey. And thus they detained him until a loud Alleluia, pealing through the deserted arches of St. Ruth, closed the singular ceremony which it had been his fortune to witness.
When the hymn had died away with all its echoes, the voice of one of the sable personages under whose guard the adept had remained, said, in a familiar tone and dialect, “Dear sirs, Mr. Dousterswivel, is this you? could not ye have let us ken an ye had wussed till hae been present at the ceremony?–My lord couldna tak it weel your coming blinking and jinking in, in that fashion.”
“In de name of all dat is gootness, tell me what you are?” interrupted the German in his turn.
“What I am? why, wha should I be but Ringan Aikwood, the Knockwinnock poinder?–and what are ye doing here at this time o’ night, unless ye were come to attend the leddy’s burial?”
“I do declare to you, mine goot Poinder Aikwood,” said the German, raising himself up, “that I have been this vary nights murdered, robbed, and put in fears of my life.”
“Robbed! wha wad do sic a deed here?–Murdered! od ye speak pretty blithe for a murdered man–Put in fear! what put you in fear, Mr. Dousterswivel?”
“I will tell you, Maister Poinder Aikwood Ringan, just dat old miscreant dog villain blue-gown, as you call Edie Ochiltrees.”
“I’ll neer believe that,” answered Ringan;–“Edie was ken’d to me, and my father before me, for a true, loyal, and sooth-fast man; and, mair by token, he’s sleeping up yonder in our barn, and has been since ten at e’en–Sae touch ye wha liket, Mr. Dousterswivel, and whether onybody touched ye or no, I’m sure Edie’s sackless.”
“Maister Ringan Aikwood Poinders, I do not know what you call sackless,– but let alone all de oils and de soot dat you say he has, and I will tell you I was dis night robbed of fifty pounds by your oil and sooty friend, Edies Ochiltree; and he is no more in your barn even now dan I ever shall be in de kingdom of heafen.”
“Weel, sir, if ye will gae up wi’ me, as the burial company has dispersed, we’se mak ye down a bed at the lodge, and we’se see if Edie’s at the barn. There was twa wild-looking chaps left the auld kirk when we were coming up wi’ the corpse, that’s certain; and the priest, wha likes ill that ony heretics should look on at our church ceremonies, sent twa o’ the riding saulies after them; sae we’ll hear a’ about it frae them.”
Thus speaking, the kindly apparition, with the assistance of the mute personage, who was his son, disencumbered himself of his cloak, and prepared to escort Dousterswivel to the place of that rest which the adept so much needed.
“I will apply to the magistrates to-morrow,” said the adept; “oder, I will have de law put in force against all the peoples.”
While he thus muttered vengeance against the cause of his injury, he tottered from among the ruins, supporting himself on Ringan and his son, whose assistance his state of weakness rendered very necessary.
When they were clear of the priory, and had gained the little meadow in which it stands, Dousterswivel could perceive the torches which had caused him so much alarm issuing in irregular procession from the ruins, and glancing their light, like that of the _ignis fatuus,_ on the banks of the lake. After moving along the path for some short space with a fluctuating and irregular motion, the lights were at once extinguished.
“We aye put out the torches at the Halie-cross Well on sic occasions,” said the forester to his guest. And accordingly no farther visible sign of the procession offered itself to Dousterswivel, although his ear could catch the distant and decreasing echo of horses’ hoofs in the direction towards which the mourners had bent their course.
CHAPTER FIFTH.
O weel may the boatie row And better may she speed,
And weel may the boatie row That earns the bairnies’ bread! The boatie rows, the boatie rows, The boatie rows fu’ weel,
And lightsome be their life that bear The merlin and the creel!
Old Ballad.
We must now introduce our reader to the interior of the fisher’s cottage mentioned in chapter eleventh of this edifying history. I wish I could say that its inside was well arranged, decently furnished, or tolerably clean. On the contrary, I am compelled to admit, there was confusion,– there was dilapidation,–there was dirt good store. Yet, with all this, there was about the inmates, Luckie Mucklebackit and her family, an appearance of ease, plenty, and comfort, that seemed to warrant their old sluttish proverb, “The clartier the cosier.” A huge fire, though the season was summer, occupied the hearth, and served at once for affording light, heat, and the means of preparing food. The fishing had been successful, and the family, with customary improvidence, had, since unlading the cargo, continued an unremitting operation of broiling and frying that part of the produce reserved for home consumption, and the bones and fragments lay on the wooden trenchers, mingled with morsels of broken bannocks and shattered mugs of half-drunk beer. The stout and athletic form of Maggie herself, bustling here and there among a pack of half-grown girls and younger children, of whom she chucked one now here and another now there, with an exclamation of “Get out o’ the gate, ye little sorrow!” was strongly contrasted with the passive and half-stupified look and manner of her husband’s mother, a woman advanced to the last stage of human life, who was seated in her wonted chair close by the fire, the warmth of which she coveted, yet hardly seemed to be sensible of–now muttering to herself, now smiling vacantly to the children as they pulled the strings of her _toy_ or close cap, or twitched her blue checked apron. With her distaff in her bosom, and her spindle in her hand, she plied lazily and mechanically the old-fashioned Scottish thrift, according to the old-fashioned Scottish manner. The younger children, crawling among the feet of the elder, watched the progress of grannies spindle as it twisted, and now and then ventured to interrupt its progress as it danced upon the floor in those vagaries which the more regulated spinning-wheel has now so universally superseded, that even the fated Princess in the fairy tale might roam through all Scotland without the risk of piercing her hand with a spindle, and dying of the wound. Late as the hour was (and it was long past midnight), the whole family were still on foot, and far from proposing to go to bed; the dame was still busy broiling car-cakes on the girdle, and the elder girl, the half-naked mermaid elsewhere commemorated, was preparing a pile of Findhorn haddocks (that is, haddocks smoked with green wood), to be eaten along with these relishing provisions.
While they were thus employed, a slight tap at the door, accompanied with the question, “Are ye up yet, sirs?” announced a visitor. The answer, “Ay, ay,–come your ways ben, hinny,” occasioned the lifting of the latch, and Jenny Rintherout, the female domestic of our Antiquary, made her appearance.
“Ay, ay,” exclaimed the mistress of the family–“Hegh, sirs! can this be you, Jenny?–a sight o’ you’s gude for sair een, lass.”
“O woman, we’ve been sae ta’en up wi’ Captain Hector’s wound up by, that I havena had my fit out ower the door this fortnight; but he’s better now, and auld Caxon sleeps in his room in case he wanted onything. Sae, as soon as our auld folk gaed to bed, I e’en snodded my head up a bit, and left the house-door on the latch, in case onybody should be wanting in or out while I was awa, and just cam down the gate to see an there was ony cracks amang ye.”
“Ay, ay,” answered Luckie Mucklebackit, “I see you hae gotten a’ your braws on; ye’re looking about for Steenie now–but he’s no at hame the night; and ye’ll no do for Steenie, lass–a feckless thing like you’s no fit to mainteen a man.”
“Steenie will no do for me,” retorted Jenny, with a toss of her head that might have become a higher-born damsel; “I maun hae a man that can mainteen his wife.”
“Ou ay, hinny–thae’s your landward and burrows-town notions. My certie! –fisherwives ken better–they keep the man, and keep the house, and keep the siller too, lass.”
“A wheen poor drudges ye are,” answered the nymph of the land to the nymph of the sea. “As sune as the keel o’ the coble touches the sand, deil a bit mair will the lazy fisher loons work, but the wives maun kilt their coats, and wade into the surf to tak the fish ashore. And then the man casts aff the wat and puts on the dry, and sits down wi’ his pipe and his gill-stoup ahint the ingle, like ony auld houdie, and neer a turn will he do till the coble’s afloat again! And the wife she maun get the scull on her back, and awa wi’ the fish to the next burrows-town, and scauld and ban wi’ilka wife that will scauld and ban wi’her till it’s sauld–and that’s the gait fisher-wives live, puir slaving bodies.”
“Slaves?–gae wa’, lass!–ca’ the head o’ the house slaves? little ye ken about it, lass. Show me a word my Saunders daur speak, or a turn he daur do about the house, without it be just to tak his meat, and his drink, and his diversion, like ony o’ the weans. He has mair sense than to ca’ anything about the bigging his ain, frae the rooftree down to a crackit trencher on the bink. He kens weel eneugh wha feeds him, and cleeds him, and keeps a’ tight, thack and rape, when his coble is jowing awa in the Firth, puir fallow. Na, na, lass!–them that sell the goods guide the purse–them that guide the purse rule the house. Show me ane o’ yer bits o’ farmer-bodies that wad let their wife drive the stock to the market, and ca’ in the debts. Na, na.”
“Aweel, aweel, Maggie, ilka land has its ain lauch–But where’s Steenie the night, when a’s come and gane? And where’s the gudeman?”*
* Note G. Gyneocracy.
“I hae putten the gudeman to his bed, for he was e’en sair forfain; and Steenie’s awa out about some barns-breaking wi’ the auld gaberlunzie, Edie Ochiltree: they’ll be in sune, and ye can sit doun.”
“Troth, gudewife” (taking a seat), “I haena that muckle time to stop–but I maun tell ye about the news. Yell hae heard o’ the muckle kist o’ gowd that Sir Arthur has fund down by at St. Ruth?–He’ll be grander than ever now–he’ll no can haud down his head to sneeze, for fear o’ seeing his shoon.”
“Ou ay–a’ the country’s heard o’ that; but auld Edie says that they ca’ it ten times mair than ever was o’t, and he saw them howk it up. Od, it would be lang or a puir body that needed it got sic a windfa’.”
“Na, that’s sure eneugh.–And yell hae heard o’ the Countess o’ Glenallan being dead and lying in state, and how she’s to be buried at St. Ruth’s as this night fa’s, wi’ torch-light; and a’ the popist servants, and Ringan Aikwood, that’s a papist too, are to be there, and it will be the grandest show ever was seen.”
“Troth, hinny,” answered the Nereid, “if they let naebody but papists come there, it’ll no be muckle o’ a show in this country, for the auld harlot, as honest Mr. Blattergowl ca’s her, has few that drink o’ her cup o’ enchantments in this corner o’ our chosen lands.–But what can ail them to bury the auld carlin (a rudas wife she was) in the night-time?–I dare say our gudemither will ken.”
Here she exalted her voice, and exclaimed twice or thrice, “Gudemither! gudemither!” but, lost in the apathy of age and deafness, the aged sibyl she addressed continued plying her spindle without understanding the appeal made to her.
“Speak to your grandmither, Jenny–Od, I wad rather hail the coble half a mile aff, and the nor-wast wind whistling again in my teeth.”
“Grannie,” said the little mermaid, in a voice to which the old woman was better accustomed, “minnie wants to ken what for the Glenallan folk aye bury by candle-light in the ruing of St. Ruth!”
The old woman paused in the act of twirling the spindle, turned round to the rest of the party, lifted her withered, trembling, and clay-coloured band, raised up her ashen-hued and wrinkled face, which the quick motion of two light-blue eyes chiefly distinguished from the visage of a corpse, and, as if catching at any touch of association with the living world, answered, “What gars the Glenallan family inter their dead by torchlight, said the lassie?–Is there a Glenallan dead e’en now?”
“We might be a’ dead and buried too,” said Maggie, “for onything ye wad ken about it;”–and then, raising her voice to the stretch of her mother-in-law’s comprehension, she added,
“It’s the auld Countess, gudemither.”
“And is she ca’d hame then at last?” said the old woman, in a voice that seemed to be agitated with much more feeling than belonged to her extreme old age, and the general indifference and apathy of her manner–“is she then called to her last account after her lang race o’ pride and power?– O God, forgie her!”
“But minnie was asking ye,” resumed the lesser querist, “what for the Glenallan family aye bury their dead by torch-light?”
“They hae aye dune sae,” said the grandmother, “since the time the Great Earl fell in the sair battle o’ the Harlaw, when they say the coronach was cried in ae day from the mouth of the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach, that ye wad hae heard nae other sound but that of lamentation for the great folks that had fa’en fighting against Donald of the Isles. But the Great Earl’s mither was living–they were a doughty and a dour race, the women o’ the house o’ Glenallan–and she wad hae nae coronach cried for her son, but had him laid in the silence o’ midnight in his place o’ rest, without either drinking the dirge, or crying the lament. She said he had killed enow that day he died, for the widows and daughters o’ the Highlanders he had slain to cry the coronach for them they had lost, and for her son too; and sae she laid him in his gave wi’ dry eyes, and without a groan or a wail. And it was thought a proud word o’ the family, and they aye stickit by it–and the mair in the latter times, because in the night-time they had mair freedom to perform their popish ceremonies by darkness and in secrecy than in the daylight–at least that was the case in my time; they wad hae been disturbed in the day-time baith by the law and the commons of Fairport–they may be owerlooked now, as I have heard: the warlds changed–I whiles hardly ken whether I am standing or sitting, or dead or living.”
And looking round the fire, as if in a state of unconscious uncertainty of which she complained, old Elspeth relapsed into her habitual and mechanical occupation of twirling the spindle.
“Eh, sirs!” said Jenny Rintherout, under her breath to her gossip, “it’s awsome to hear your gudemither break out in that gait–it’s like the dead speaking to the living.”
“Ye’re no that far wrang, lass; she minds naething o’ what passes the day–but set her on auld tales, and she can speak like a prent buke. She kens mair about the Glenallan family than maist folk–the gudeman’s father was their fisher mony a day. Ye maun ken the papists make a great point o’ eating fish–it’s nae bad part o’ their religion that, whatever the rest is–I could aye sell the best o’ fish at the best o’ prices for the Countess’s ain table, grace be wi’ her! especially on a Friday–But see as our gudemither’s hands and lips are ganging–now it’s working in her head like barm–she’ll speak eneugh the night. Whiles she’ll no speak a word in a week, unless it be to the bits o’ bairns.”
“Hegh, Mrs. Mucklebackit, she’s an awsome wife!” said Jenny in reply. “D’ye think she’s a’thegither right? Folk say she downa gang to the kirk, or speak to the minister, and that she was ance a papist but since her gudeman’s been dead, naebody kens what she is. D’ye think yoursell that she’s no uncanny?”
“Canny, ye silly tawpie! think ye ae auld wife’s less canny than anither? unless it be Alison Breck–I really couldna in conscience swear for her; I have kent the boxes she set fill’d wi’ partans, when”–
“Whisht, whisht, Maggie,” whispered Jenny–“your gudemither’s gaun to speak again.”
“Wasna there some ane o’ ye said,” asked the old sibyl, “or did I dream, or was it revealed to me, that Joscelind, Lady Glenallan, is dead, an’ buried this night?”
“Yes, gudemither,” screamed the daughter-in-law, “it’s e’en sae.”
“And e’en sae let it be,” said old Elspeth; “she’s made mony a sair heart in her day–ay, e’en her ain son’s–is he living yet?”
“Ay, he’s living yet; but how lang he’ll live–however, dinna ye mind his coming and asking after you in the spring, and leaving siller?”
“It may be sae, Magge–I dinna mind it–but a handsome gentleman he was, and his father before him. Eh! if his father had lived, they might hae been happy folk! But he was gane, and the lady carried it in–ower and out-ower wi’ her son, and garr’d him trow the thing he never suld hae trowed, and do the thing he has repented a’ his life, and will repent still, were his life as lang as this lang and wearisome ane o’ mine.”
“O what was it, grannie?”–and “What was it, gudemither?”–and “What was it, Luckie Elspeth?” asked the children, the mother, and the visitor, in one breath.
“Never ask what it was,” answered the old sibyl, “but pray to God that ye arena left to the pride and wilfu’ness o’ your ain hearts: they may be as powerful in a cabin as in a castle–I can bear a sad witness to that. O that weary and fearfu’ night! will it never gang out o’ my auld head!– Eh! to see her lying on the floor wi’ her lang hair dreeping wi’ the salt water!–Heaven will avenge on a’ that had to do wi’t. Sirs! is my son out wi’ the coble this windy e’en?”
“Na, na, mither–nae coble can keep the sea this wind; he’s sleeping in his bed out-ower yonder ahint the hallan.”
“Is Steenie out at sea then?”
“Na, grannie–Steenie’s awa out wi’ auld Edie Ochiltree, the gaberlunzie; maybe they’ll be gaun to see the burial.”
“That canna be,” said the mother of the family; “we kent naething o’t till Jock Rand cam in, and tauld us the Aikwoods had warning to attend– they keep thae things unco private–and they were to bring the corpse a’ the way frae the Castle, ten miles off, under cloud o’ night. She has lain in state this ten days at Glenallan House, in a grand chamber a’ hung wi’ black, and lighted wi’ wax cannle.”
“God assoilzie her!” ejaculated old Elspeth, her head apparently still occupied by the event of the Countess’s death; “she was a hard-hearted woman, but she’s gaen to account for it a’, and His mercy is infinite– God grant she may find it sae!” And she relapsed into silence, which she did not break again during the rest of the evening.
“I wonder what that auld daft beggar carle and our son Steenie can be doing out in sic a nicht as this,” said Maggie Mucklebackit; and her expression of surprise was echoed by her visitor. “Gang awa, ane o’ ye, hinnies, up to the heugh head, and gie them a cry in case they’re within hearing; the car-cakes will be burnt to a cinder.”
The little emissary departed, but in a few minutes came running back with the loud exclamation, “Eh, Minnie! eh, grannie! there’s a white bogle chasing twa black anes down the heugh.”
A noise of footsteps followed this singular annunciation, and young Steenie Mucklebackit, closely followed by Edie Ochiltree, bounced into the hut. They were panting and out of breath. The first thing Steenie did was to look for the bar of the door, which his mother reminded him had been broken up for fire-wood in the hard winter three years ago; “for what use,” she said, “had the like o’ them for bars?”
“There’s naebody chasing us,” said the beggar, after he had taken his breath: “we’re e’en like the wicked, that flee when no one pursueth.”
“Troth, but we were chased,” said Steenie, “by a spirit or something little better.”
“It was a man in white on horseback,” said Edie, “for the soft grund that wadna bear the beast, flung him about, I wot that weel; but I didna think my auld legs could have brought me aff as fast; I ran amaist as fast as if I had been at Prestonpans.”*
* [This refers to the flight of the government forces at the battle of Prestonpans, 1745.]
“Hout, ye daft gowks!” said Luckie Mucklebackit, “it will hae been some o’ the riders at the Countess’s burial.”
“What!” said Edie, “is the auld Countess buried the night at St. Ruth’s? Ou, that wad be the lights and the noise that scarr’d us awa; I wish I had ken’d–I wad hae stude them, and no left the man yonder–but they’ll take care o’ him. Ye strike ower hard, Steenie I doubt ye foundered the chield.”
“Neer a bit,” said Steenie, laughing; “he has braw broad shouthers, and I just took measure o’ them wi’ the stang. Od, if I hadna been something short wi’ him, he wad hae knockit your auld hams out, lad.”
“Weel, an I win clear o’ this scrape,” said Edie, “I’se tempt Providence nae mair. But I canna think it an unlawfu’ thing to pit a bit trick on sic a landlouping scoundrel, that just lives by tricking honester folk.”
“But what are we to do with this?” said Steenie, producing a pocket-book.
“Od guide us, man,” said Edie in great alarm, “what garr’d ye touch the gear? a very leaf o’ that pocket-book wad be eneugh to hang us baith.”
“I dinna ken,” said Steenie; “the book had fa’en out o’ his pocket, I fancy, for I fand it amang my feet when I was graping about to set him on his logs again, and I just pat it in my pouch to keep it safe; and then came the tramp of horse, and you cried, Rin, rin,’ and I had nae mair thought o’ the book.”
“We maun get it back to the loon some gait or other; ye had better take it yoursell, I think, wi’ peep o’ light, up to Ringan Aikwood’s. I wadna for a hundred pounds it was fund in our hands.”
Steenie undertook to do as he was directed.
“A bonny night ye hae made o’t, Mr. Steenie,” said Jenny Rintherout, who, impatient of remaining so long unnoticed, now presented herself to the young fisherman–“A bonny night ye hae made o’t, tramping about wi’ gaberlunzies, and getting yoursell hunted wi’ worricows, when ye suld be sleeping in your bed, like your father, honest man.”
This attack called forth a suitable response of rustic raillery from the young fisherman. An attack was now commenced upon the car-cakes and smoked fish, and sustained with great perseverance by assistance of a bicker or two of twopenny ale and a bottle of gin. The mendicant then retired to the straw of an out-house adjoining,–the children had one by one crept into their nests,–the old grandmother was deposited in her flock-bed,–Steenie, notwithstanding his preceding fatigue, had the gallantry to accompany Miss Rintherout to her own mansion, and at what hour he returned the story saith not,–and the matron of the family, having laid the gathering-coal upon the fire, and put things in some sort of order, retired to rest the last of the family.
CHAPTER SIXTH.
–Many great ones
Would part with half their states, to have the plan And credit to beg in the first style. Beggar’s Bush.
Old Edie was stirring with the lark, and his first inquiry was after Steenie and the pocket-book. The young fisherman had been under the necessity of attending his father before daybreak, to avail themselves of the tide, but he had promised that, immediately on his return, the pocket-book, with all its contents, carefully wrapped up in a piece of sail-cloth, should be delivered by him to Ringan Aikwood, for Dousterswivel, the owner.
The matron had prepared the morning meal for the family, and, shouldering her basket of fish, tramped sturdily away towards Fairport. The children were idling round the door, for the day was fair and sun-shiney. The ancient grandame, again seated on her wicker-chair by the fire, had resumed her eternal spindle, wholly unmoved by the yelling and screaming of the children, and the scolding of the mother, which had preceded the dispersion of the family. Edie had arranged his various bags, and was bound for the renewal of his wandering life, but first advanced with due courtesy to take his leave of the ancient crone.
“Gude day to ye, cummer, and mony ane o’ them. I will be back about the fore-end o’har’st, and I trust to find ye baith haill and fere.”
“Pray that ye may find me in my quiet grave,” said the old woman, in a hollow and sepulchral voice, but without the agitation of a single feature.
“Ye’re auld, cummer, and sae am I mysell; but we maun abide His will– we’ll no be forgotten in His good time.”
“Nor our deeds neither,” said the crone: “what’s dune in the body maun be answered in the spirit.”
“I wot that’s true; and I may weel tak the tale hame to mysell, that hae led a misruled and roving life. But ye were aye a canny wife. We’re a’ frail–but ye canna hae sae muckle to bow ye down.”
“Less than I might have had–but mair, O far mair, than wad sink the stoutest brig e’er sailed out o’ Fairport harbour!–Didna somebody say yestreen–at least sae it is borne in on my mind, but auld folk hae weak fancies–did not somebody say that Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, was departed frae life?”
“They said the truth whaever said it,” answered old Edie; “she was buried yestreen by torch-light at St. Ruth’s, and I, like a fule, gat a gliff wi’ seeing the lights and the riders.”
“It was their fashion since the days of the Great Earl that was killed at Harlaw;–they did it to show scorn that they should die and be buried like other mortals; the wives o’ the house of Glenallan wailed nae wail for the husband, nor the sister for the brother.–But is she e’en ca’d to the lang account?”
“As sure,” answered Edie, “as we maun a’ abide it.”
“Then I’ll unlade my mind, come o’t what will.”
This she spoke with more alacrity than usually attended her expressions, and accompanied her words with an attitude of the hand, as if throwing something from her. She then raised up her form, once tall, and still retaining the appearance of having been so, though bent with age and rheumatism, and stood before the beggar like a mummy animated by some wandering spirit into a temporary resurrection. Her light-blue eyes wandered to and fro, as if she occasionally forgot and again remembered the purpose for which her long and withered hand was searching among the miscellaneous contents of an ample old-fashioned pocket. At length she pulled out a small chip-box, and opening it, took out a handsome ring, in which was set a braid of hair, composed of two different colours, black and light brown, twined together, encircled with brilliants of considerable value.
“Gudeman,” she said to Ochiltree, “as ye wad e’er deserve mercy, ye maun gang my errand to the house of Glenallan, and ask for the Earl.”
“The Earl of Glenallan, cummer! ou, he winna see ony o’ the gentles o’ the country, and what likelihood is there that he wad see the like o’ an auld gaberlunzie?”
“Gang your ways and try;–and tell him that Elspeth o’ the Craigburnfoot –he’ll mind me best by that name–maun see him or she be relieved frae her lang pilgrimage, and that she sends him that ring in token of the business she wad speak o’.”
Ochiltree looked on the ring with some admiration of its apparent value, and then carefully replacing it in the box, and wrapping it in an old ragged handkerchief, he deposited the token in his bosom.
“Weel, gudewife,” he said, “I’se do your bidding, or it’s no be my fault. But surely there was never sic a braw propine as this sent to a yerl by an auld fishwife, and through the hands of a gaberlunzie beggar.”
With this reflection, Edie took up his pike-staff, put on his broad-brimmed bonnet, and set forth upon his pilgrimage. The old woman remained for some time standing in a fixed posture, her eyes directed to the door through which her ambassador had departed. The appearance of excitation, which the conversation had occasioned, gradually left her features; she sank down upon her accustomed seat, and resumed her mechanical labour of the distaff and spindle, with her wonted air of apathy.
Edie Ochiltree meanwhile advanced on his journey. The distance to Glenallan was ten miles, a march which the old soldier accomplished in about four hours. With the curiosity belonging to his idle trade and animated character, he tortured himself the whole way to consider what could be the meaning of this mysterious errand with which he was entrusted, or what connection the proud, wealthy, and powerful Earl of Glenallan could have with the crimes or penitence of an old doting woman, whose rank in life did not greatly exceed that of her messenger. He endeavoured to call to memory all that he had ever known or heard of the Glenallan family, yet, having done so, remained altogether unable to form a conjecture on the subject. He knew that the whole extensive estate of this ancient and powerful family had descended to the Countess, lately deceased, who inherited, in a most remarkable degree, the stern, fierce, and unbending character which had distinguished the house of Glenallan since they first figured in Scottish annals. Like the rest of her ancestors, she adhered zealously to the Roman Catholic faith, and was married to an English gentleman of the same communion, and of large fortune, who did not survive their union two years. The Countess was, therefore, left all early widow, with the uncontrolled management of the large estates of her two sons. The elder, Lord Geraldin, who was to succeed to the title and fortune of Glenallan, was totally dependent on his mother during her life. The second, when he came of age, assumed the name and arms of his father, and took possession of his estate, according to the provisions of the Countess’s marriage-settlement. After this period, he chiefly resided in England, and paid very few and brief visits to his mother and brother; and these at length were altogether dispensed with, in consequence of his becoming a convert to the reformed religion.
But even before this mortal offence was given to its mistress, his residence at Glenallan offered few inducements to a gay young man like Edward Geraldin Neville, though its gloom and seclusion seemed to suit the retired and melancholy habits of his elder brother. Lord Geraldin, in the outset of life, had been a young man of accomplishment and hopes. Those who knew him upon his travels entertained the highest expectations of his future career. But such fair dawns are often strangely overcast. The young nobleman returned to Scotland, and after living about a year in his mother’s society at Glenallan House, he seemed to have adopted all the stern gloom and melancholy of her character. Excluded from politics by the incapacities attached to those of his religion, and from all lighter avocationas by choice, Lord Geraldin led a life of the strictest retirement. His ordinary society was composed of the clergyman of his communion, who occasionally visited his mansion; and very rarely, upon stated occasions of high festival, one or two families who still professed the Catholic religion were formally entertained at Glenallan House. But this was all; their heretic neighbours knew nothing of the family whatever; and even the Catholics saw little more than the sumptuous entertainment and solemn parade which was exhibited on those formal occasions, from which all returned without knowing whether most to wonder at the stern and stately demeanour of the Countess, or the deep and gloomy dejection which never ceased for a moment to cloud the features of her son. The late event had put him in possession of his fortune and title, and the neighbourhood had already begun to conjecture whether gaiety would revive with independence, when those who had some occasional acquaintance with the interior of the family spread abroad a report, that the Earl’s constitution was undermined by religious austerities, and that in all probability he would soon follow his mother to the grave. This event was the more probable, as his brother had died of a lingering complaint, which, in the latter years of his life, had affected at once his frame and his spirits; so that heralds and genealogists were already looking back into their records to discover the heir of this ill-fated family, and lawyers were talking with gleesome anticipation, of the probability of a “great Glenallan cause.”
As Edie Ochiltree approached the front of Glenallan House,* an ancient building of great extent, the most modern part of which had been designed by the celebrated Inigo Jones, he began to consider in what way he should be most likely to gain access for delivery of his message; and, after much consideration, resolved to send the token to the Earl by one of the domestics.
* [Supposed to represent Glammis Castle, in Forfarshire, with which the Author was well acquainted.]
With this purpose he stopped at a cottage, where he obtained the means of making up the ring in a sealed packet like a petition, addressed, _Forr his hounor the Yerl of Glenllan–These._ But being aware that missives delivered at the doors of great houses by such persons as himself, do not always make their way according to address, Edie determined, like an old soldier, to reconnoitre the ground before he made his final attack. As he approached the porter’s lodge, he discovered, by the number of poor ranked before it, some of them being indigent persons in the vicinity, and others itinerants of his own begging profession,–that there was about to be a general dole or distribution of charity.
“A good turn,” said Edie to himself, “never goes unrewarded–I’ll maybe get a good awmous that I wad hae missed but for trotting on this auld wife’s errand.”
Accordingly, he ranked up with the rest of this ragged regiment, assuming a station as near the front as possible,–a distinction due, as he conceived, to his blue gown and badge, no less than to his years and experience; but he soon found there was another principle of precedence in this assembly, to which he had not adverted.
“Are ye a triple man, friend, that ye press forward sae bauldly?–I’m thinking no, for there’s nae Catholics wear that badge.”
“Na, na, I am no a Roman,” said Edie.
“Then shank yoursell awa to the double folk, or single folk, that’s the Episcopals or Presbyterians yonder: it’s a shame to see a heretic hae sic a lang white beard, that would do credit to a hermit.”
Ochiltree, thus rejected from the society of the Catholic mendicants, or those who called themselves such, went to station himself with the paupers of the communion of the church of England, to whom the noble donor allotted a double portion of his charity. But never was a poor occasional conformist more roughly rejected by a High-church congregation, even when that matter was furiously agitated in the days of good Queen Anne.
“See to him wi’ his badge!” they said;–“he hears ane o’ the king’s Presbyterian chaplains sough out a sermon on the morning of every birth-day, and now he would pass himsell for ane o’ the Episcopal church! Na, na!–we’ll take care o’ that.”
Edie, thus rejected by Rome and Prelacy, was fain to shelter himself from the laughter of his brethren among the thin group of Presbyterians, who had either disdained to disguise their religious opinions for the sake of an augmented dole, or perhaps knew they could not attempt the imposition without a certainty of detection.
The same degree of precedence was observed in the mode of distributing the charity, which consisted in bread, beef, and a piece of money, to each individual of all the three classes. The almoner, an ecclesiastic of grave appearance and demeanour, superintended in person the accommodation of the Catholic mendicants, asking a question or two of each as he delivered the charity, and recommending to their prayers the soul of Joscelind, late Countess of Glenallan, mother of their benefactor. The porter, distinguished by his long staff headed with silver, and by the black gown tufted with lace of the same colour, which he had assumed upon the general mourning in the family, overlooked the distribution of the dole among the prelatists. The less-favoured kirk-folk were committed to the charge of an aged domestic.
As this last discussed some disputed point with the porter, his name, as it chanced to be occasionally mentioned, and then his features, struck Ochiltree, and awakened recollections of former times. The rest of the assembly were now retiring, when the domestic, again approaching the place where Edie still lingered, said, in a strong Aberdeenshire accent, “Fat is the auld feel-body deeing, that he canna gang avay, now that he’s gotten baith meat and siller?”
“Francis Macraw,” answered Edie Ochiltree, “d’ye no mind Fontenoy, and keep thegither front and rear?'”
“Ohon! ohon!” cried Francie, with a true north-country yell of recognition, “naebody could hae said that word but my auld front-rank man, Edie Ochiltree! But I’m sorry to see ye in sic a peer state, man.”
“No sae ill aff as ye may think, Francis. But I’m laith to leave this place without a crack wi’ you, and I kenna when I may see you again, for your folk dinna mak Protestants welcome, and that’s ae reason that I hae never been here before.”
“Fusht, fusht,” said Francie, “let that flee stick i’ the wa’–when the dirt’s dry it will rub out;–and come you awa wi’ me, and I’ll gie ye something better thau that beef bane, man.”
Having then spoke a confidential word with the porter (probably to request his connivance), and having waited until the almoner had returned into the house with slow and solemn steps, Francie Macraw introduced his old comrade into the court of Glenallan House, the gloomy gateway of which was surmounted by a huge scutcheon, in which the herald and undertaker had mingled, as usual, the emblems of human pride and of human nothingness,–the Countess’s hereditary coat-of-arms, with all its numerous quarterings, disposed in a lozenge, and surrounded by the separate shields of her paternal and maternal ancestry, intermingled with scythes, hour glasses, skulls, and other symbols of that mortality which levels all distinctions. Conducting his friend as speedily as possible along the large paved court, Macraw led the way through a side-door to a small apartment near the servants’ hall, which, in virtue of his personal attendance upon the Earl of Glenallan, he was entitled to call his own. To produce cold meat of various kinds, strong beer, and even a glass of spirits, was no difficulty to a person of Francis’s importance, who had not lost, in his sense of conscious dignity, the keen northern prudence which recommended a good understanding with the butler. Our mendicant envoy drank ale, and talked over old stories with his comrade, until, no other topic of conversation occurring, he resolved to take up the theme of his embassy, which had for some time escaped his memory.
“He had a petition to present to the Earl,” he said;–for he judged it prudent to say nothing of the ring, not knowing, as he afterwards observed, how far the manners of a single soldier* might have been corrupted by service in a great house.
* A single soldier means, in Scotch, a private soldier.
“Hout, tout, man,” said Francie, “the Earl will look at nae petitions– but I can gie’t to the almoner.”
“But it relates to some secret, that maybe my lord wad like best to see’t himsell.”
“I’m jeedging that’s the very reason that the almoner will be for seeing it the first and foremost.”
“But I hae come a’ this way on purpose to deliver it, Francis, and ye really maun help me at a pinch.”
“Neer speed then if I dinna,” answered the Aberdeenshire man: “let them be as cankered as they like, they can but turn me awa, and I was just thinking to ask my discharge, and gang down to end my days at Inverurie.”
With this doughty resolution of serving his friend at all ventures, since none was to be encountered which could much inconvenience himself, Francie Macraw left the apartment. It was long before he returned, and when he did, his manner indicated wonder and agitation.
“I am nae seer gin ye be Edie Ochiltree o’ Carrick’s company in the Forty-twa, or gin ye be the deil in his likeness!”
“And what makes ye speak in that gait?” demanded the astonished mendicant.
“Because my lord has been in sic a distress and surpreese as I neer saw a man in my life. But he’ll see you–I got that job cookit. He was like a man awa frae himsell for mony minutes, and I thought he wad hae swarv’t a’thegither,–and fan he cam to himsell, he asked fae brought the packet –and fat trow ye I said?”
“An auld soger,” says Edie–“that does likeliest at a gentle’s door; at a farmer’s it’s best to say ye’re an auld tinkler, if ye need ony quarters, for maybe the gudewife will hae something to souther.”
“But I said neer ane o’ the twa,” answered Francis; “my lord cares as little about the tane as the tother–for he’s best to them that can souther up our sins. Sae I e’en said the bit paper was brought by an auld man wi’ a long fite beard–he might be a capeechin freer for fat I ken’d, for he was dressed like an auld palmer. Sae ye’ll be sent up for fanever he can find mettle to face ye.”
“I wish I was weel through this business,” thought Edie to himself; “mony folk surmise that the Earl’s no very right in the judgment, and wha can say how far he may be offended wi’ me for taking upon me sae muckle?”
But there was now no room for retreat–a bell sounded from a distant part of the mansion, and Macraw said, with a smothered accent, as if already in his master’s presence, “That’s my lord’s bell!–follow me, and step lightly and cannily, Edie.”
Edie followed his guide, who seemed to tread as if afraid of being overheard, through a long passage, and up a back stair, which admitted them into the family apartments. They were ample and extensive, furnished at such cost as showed the ancient importance and splendour of the family. But all the ornaments were in the taste of a former and distant period, and one would have almost supposed himself traversing the halls of a Scottish nobleman before the union of the crowns. The late Countess, partly from a haughty contempt of the times in which she lived, partly from her sense of family pride, had not permitted the furniture to be altered or modernized during her residence at Glenallan House. The most magnificent part of the decorations was a valuable collection of pictures by the best masters, whose massive frames were somewhat tarnished by time. In this particular also the gloomy taste of the family seemed to predominate. There were some fine family portraits by Vandyke and other masters of eminence; but the collection was richest in the Saints and Martyrdoms of Domenichino, Velasquez, and Murillo, and other subjects of the same kind, which had been selected in preference to landscapes or historical pieces. The manner in which these awful, and sometimes disgusting, subjects were represented, harmonized with the gloomy state of the apartments,–a circumstance which was not altogether lost on the old man, as he traversed them under the guidance of his quondam fellow-soldier. He was about to express some sentiment of this kind, but Francie imposed silence on him by signs, and opening a door at the end of the long picture-gallery, ushered him into a small antechamber hung with black. Here they found the almoner, with his ear turned to a door opposite that by which they entered, in the attitude of one who listens with attention, but is at the same time afraid of being detected in the act.
The old domestic and churchman started when they perceived each other. But the almoner first recovered his recollection, and advancing towards Macraw, said, under his breath, but with an authoritative tone, “How dare you approach the Earl’s apartment without knocking? and who is this stranger, or what has he to do here?–Retire to the gallery, and wait for me there.”
“It’s impossible just now to attend your reverence,” answered Macraw, raising his voice so as to be heard in the next room, being conscious that the priest would not maintain the altercation within hearing of his patron,–“the Earl’s bell has rung.”
He had scarce uttered the words, when it was rung again with greater violence than before; and the ecclesiastic, perceiving further expostulation impossible, lifted his finger at Macraw, with a menacing attitude, as he left the apartment.
“I tell’d ye sae,” said the Aberdeen man in a whisper to Edie, and then proceeded to open the door near which they had observed the chaplain stationed.
CHAPTER SEVENTH.
–This ring.–
This little ring, with necromantic force, Has raised the ghost of pleasure to my fears, Conjured the sense of honour and of love Into such shapes, they fright me from myself. The Fatal Marriage.
The ancient forms of mourning were observed in Glenallan House, notwithstanding the obduracy with which the members of the family were popularly supposed to refuse to the dead the usual tribute of lamentation. It was remarked, that when she received the fatal letter announcing the death of her second, and, as was once believed, her favourite son, the hand of the Countess did not shake, nor her eyelid twinkle, any more than upon perusal of a letter of ordinary business. Heaven only knows whether the suppression of maternal sorrow, which her pride commanded, might not have some effect in hastening her own death. It was at least generally supposed that the apoplectic stroke, which so soon afterwards terminated her existence, was, as it were, the vengeance of outraged Nature for the restraint to which her feelings had been subjected. But although Lady Glenallan forebore the usual external signs of grief, she had caused many of the apartments, amongst others her own and that of the Earl, to be hung with the exterior trappings of woe.
The Earl of Glenallan was therefore seated in an apartment hung with black cloth, which waved in dusky folds along its lofty walls. A screen, also covered with black baize, placed towards the high and narrow window, intercepted much of the broken light which found its way through the stained glass, that represented, with such skill as the fourteenth century possessed, the life and sorrows of the prophet Jeremiah. The table at which the Earl was seated was lighted with two lamps wrought in silver, shedding that unpleasant and doubtful light which arises from the mingling of artificial lustre with that of general daylight. The same table displayed a silver crucifix, and one or two clasped parchment books. A large picture, exquisitely painted by Spagnoletto, represented the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and was the only ornament of the apartment.
The inhabitant and lord of this disconsolate chamber was a man not past the prime of life, yet so broken down with disease and mental misery, so gaunt and ghastly, that he appeared but a wreck of manhood; and when he hastily arose and advanced towards his visitor, the exertion seemed almost to overpower his emaciated frame. As they met in the midst of the apartment, the contrast they exhibited was very striking. The hale cheek, firm step, erect stature, and undaunted presence and bearing of the old mendicant, indicated patience and content in the extremity of age, and in the lowest condition to which humanity can sink; while the sunken eye, pallid cheek, and tottering form of the nobleman with whom he was confronted, showed how little wealth, power, and even the advantages of youth, have to do with that which gives repose to the mind, and firmness to the frame.
The Earl met the old man in the middle of the room, and having commanded his attendant to withdraw into the gallery, and suffer no one to enter the antechamber till he rung the bell, awaited, with hurried yet fearful impatience, until he heard first the door of his apartment, and then that of the antechamber, shut and fastened by the spring-bolt. When he was satisfied with this security against being overheard, Lord Glenallan came close up to the mendicant, whom he probably mistook for some person of a religious order in disguise, and said, in a hasty yet faltering tone, “In the name of all our religion holds most holy, tell me, reverend father, what am I to expect from a communication opened by a token connected with such horrible recollections?”
The old man, appalled by a manner so different from what he had expected from the proud and powerful nobleman, was at a loss how to answer, and in what manner to undeceive him. “Tell me,” continued the Earl, in a tone of increasing trepidation and agony–“tell me, do you come to say that all that has been done to expiate guilt so horrible, has been too little and too trivial for the offence, and to point out new and more efficacious modes of severe penance?–I will not blench from it, father–let me suffer the pains of my crime here in the body, rather than hereafter in the spirit!”
Edie had now recollection enough to perceive, that if he did not interrapt the frankness of Lord Glenallan’s admissions, he was likely to become the confidant of more than might be safe for him to know. He therefore uttered with a hasty and trembling voice–“Your lordship’s honour is mistaken–I am not of your persuasion, nor a clergyman, but, with all reverence, only puir Edie Ochiltree, the king’s bedesman and your honour’s.”
This explanation be accompanied by a profound bow after his manner, and then, drawing himself up erect, rested his arm on his staff, threw back his long white hair, and fixed his eyes upon the Earl, as he waited for an answer.
“And you are not then,” said Lord Glenallan, after a pause of surprise– “You are not then a Catholic priest?”
“God forbid!” said Edie, forgetting in his confusion to whom he was speaking; “I am only the king’s bedesman and your honour’s, as I said before.”
The Earl turned hastily away, and paced the room twice or thrice, as if to recover the effects of his mistake, and then, coming close up to the mendicant, he demanded, in a stern and commanding tone, what he meant by intruding himself on his privacy, and from whence he had got the ring which he had thought proper to send him. Edie, a man of much spirit, was less daunted at this mode of interrogation than he had been confused by the tone of confidence in which the Earl had opened their conversation. To the reiterated question from whom he had obtained the ring, he answered composedly, “From one who was better known to the Earl than to him.”
“Better known to me, fellow?” said Lord Glenallan: “what is your meaning?–explain yourself instantly, or you shall experience the consequence of breaking in upon the hours of family distress.”
“It was auld Elspeth Mucklebackit that sent me here,” said the beggar, “in order to say”–
“You dote, old man!” said the Earl; “I never heard the name–but this dreadful token reminds me”–
“I mind now, my lord,” said Ochiltree, “she tauld me your lordship would be mair familiar wi’ her, if I ca’d her Elspeth o’ the Craigburnfoot–she had that name when she lived on your honour’s land, that is, your honour’s worshipful mother’s that was then–Grace be wi’ her!”
“Ay,” said the appalled nobleman, as his countenance sunk, and his cheek assumed a hue yet more cadaverous; “that name is indeed written in the most tragic page of a deplorable history. But what can she desire of me? Is she dead or living?”
“Living, my lord; and entreats to see your lordship before she dies, for she has something to communicate that hangs upon her very soul, and she says she canna flit in peace until she sees you.”
“Not until she sees me!–what can that mean? But she is doting with age and infirmity. I tell thee, friend, I called at her cottage myself, not a twelvemonth since, from a report that she was in distress, and she did not even know my face or voice.”
“If your honour wad permit me,” said Edie, to whom the length of the conference restored a part of his professional audacity and native talkativeness–“if your honour wad but permit me, I wad say, under correction of your lordship’s better judgment, that auld Elspeth’s like some of the ancient ruined strengths and castles that ane sees amang the hills. There are mony parts of her mind that appear, as I may say, laid waste and decayed, but then there’s parts that look the steever, and the stronger, and the grander, because they are rising just like to fragments amaong the ruins o’ the rest. She’s an awful woman.”
“She always was so,” said the Earl, almost unconsciously echoing the observation of the mendicant; “she always was different from other women –likest perhaps to her who is now no more, in her temper and turn of mind.–She wishes to see me, then?”
“Before she dies,” said Edie, “she earnestly entreats that pleasure.”
“It will be a pleasure to neither of us,” said the Earl, sternly, “yet she shall be gratified. She lives, I think, on the sea-shore to the southward of Fairport?”
“Just between Monkbarns and Knockwinnock Castle, but nearer to Monkbarns. Your lordship’s honour will ken the laird and Sir Arthur, doubtless?”
A stare, as if he did not comprehend the question, was Lord Glenallan’s answer. Edie saw his mind was elsewhere, and did not venture to repeat a query which was so little germain to the matter.
“Are you a Catholic, old man?” demanded the Earl.
“No, my lord,” said Ochiltree stoutly; for the remembrance of the unequal division of the dole rose in his mind at the moment; “I thank Heaven I am a good Protestant.”
“He who can conscientiously call himself _good,_ has indeed reason to thank Heaven, be his form of Christianity what it will–But who is he that shall dare to do so!”
“Not I,” said Edie; “I trust to beware of the sin of presumption.”
“What was your trade in your youth?” continued the Earl.
“A soldier, my lord; and mony a sair day’s kemping I’ve seen. I was to have been made a sergeant, but”–
“A soldier! then you have slain and burnt, and sacked and spoiled?”
“I winna say,” replied Edie, “that I have been better than my neighbours;–it’s a rough trade–war’s sweet to them that never tried it.”
“And you are now old and miserable, asking from precarious charity the food which in your youth you tore from the hand of the poor peasant?”
“I am a beggar, it is true, my lord; but I am nae just sae miserable neither. For my sins, I hae had grace to repent of them, if I might say sae, and to lay them where they may be better borne than by me; and for my food, naebody grudges an auld man a bit and a drink–Sae I live as I can, and am contented to die when I am ca’d upon.”
“And thus, then, with little to look back upon that is pleasant or praiseworthy in your past life–with less to look forward to on this side of eternity, you are contented to drag out the rest of your existence? Go, begone! and in your age and poverty and weariness, never envy the lord of such a mansion as this, either in his sleeping or waking moments –Here is something for thee.”
The Earl put into the old man’s hand five or six guineas. Edie would perhaps have stated his scruples, as upon other occasions, to the amount of the benefaction, but the tone of Lord Glenallan was too absolute to admit of either answer or dispute. The Earl then called his servant–“See this old man safe from the castle–let no one ask him any questions–and you, friend, begone, and forget the road that leads to my house.”
“That would be difficult for me,” said Edie, looking at the gold which he still held in his hand, “that would be e’en difficult, since your honour has gien me such gade cause to remember it.”
Lord Glenallan stared, as hardly comprehending the old man’s boldness in daring to bandy words with him, and, with his hand, made him another signal of departure, which the mendicant instantly obeyed.
CHAPTER EIGHTH.
For he was one in all their idle sport, And like a monarch, ruled their little court The pliant bow he formed, the flying ball, The bat, the wicket, were his labours all. Crabbe’s Village.
Francis Macraw, agreeably to the commands of his master, attended the mendicant, in order to see him fairly out of the estate, without permitting him to have conversation, or intercourse, with any of the Earl’s dependents or domestics. But, judiciously considering that the restriction did not extend to himself, who was the person entrusted with the convoy, he used every measure in his power to extort from Edie the nature of his confidential and secret interview with Lord Glenallan. But Edie had been in his time accustomed to cross-examination, and easily evaded those of his quondam comrade. “The secrets of grit folk,” said Ochiltree within himself, “are just like the wild beasts that are shut up in cages. Keep them hard and fast sneaked up, and it’s a’ very weel or better–but ance let them out, they will turn and rend you. I mind how ill Dugald Gunn cam aff for letting loose his tongue about the Major’s leddy and Captain Bandilier.”
Francis was therefore foiled in his assaults upon the fidelity of the mendicant, and, like an indifferent chess-player, became, at every unsuccessful movement, more liable to the counter-checks of his opponent.
“Sae ye uphauld ye had nae particulars to say to my lord but about yer ain matters?”
“Ay, and about the wee bits o’ things I had brought frae abroad,” said Edie. “I ken’d you popist folk are unco set on the relics that are fetched frae far-kirks and sae forth.”
“Troth, my Lord maun be turned feel outright,” said the domestic, “an he puts himsell into sic a carfuffle, for onything ye could bring him, Edie.”
“I doubtna ye may say true in the main, neighbour,” replied the beggar; “but maybe he’s had some hard play in his younger days, Francis, and that whiles unsettles folk sair.”
“Troth, Edie, and ye may say that–and since it’s like yell neer come back to the estate, or, if ye dee, that ye’ll no find me there, I’se e’en tell you he had a heart in his young time sae wrecked and rent, that it’s a wonder it hasna broken outright lang afore this day.”
“Ay, say ye sae?” said Ochiltree; “that maun hae been about a woman, I reckon?”
“Troth, and ye hae guessed it,” said Francie–“jeest a cusin o’ his nain –Miss Eveline Neville, as they suld hae ca’d her;–there was a sough in the country about it, but it was hushed up, as the grandees were concerned;–it’s mair than twenty years syne–ay, it will be three-and-twenty.”
“Ay, I was in America then,” said the mendicant, “and no in the way to hear the country clashes.”
“There was little clash about it, man,” replied Macraw; “he liked this young leddy, ana suld hae married her, but his mother fand it out, and then the deil gaed o’er Jock Webster. At last, the peer lass clodded hersell o’er the scaur at the Craigburnfoot into the sea, and there was an end o’t.”
“An end ot wi’ the puir leddy,” said the mendicant, “but, as I reckon, nae end o’t wi’ the yerl.”
“Nae end o’t till his life makes an end,” answered the Aberdonian.
“But what for did the auld Countess forbid the marriage?” continued the persevering querist.
“Fat for!–she maybe didna weel ken for fat hersell, for she gar’d a’ bow to her bidding, right or wrang–But it was ken’d the young leddy was inclined to some o’ the heresies of the country–mair by token, she was sib to him nearer than our Church’s rule admits of. Sae the leddy was driven to the desperate act, and the yerl has never since held his head up like a man.”
“Weel away!” replied Ochiltree:–“it’s e’en queer I neer heard this tale afore.”
“It’s e’en queer that ye heard it now, for deil ane o’ the servants durst hae spoken o’t had the auld Countess been living. Eh, man, Edie! but she was a trimmer–it wad hae taen a skeely man to hae squared wi’ her!–But she’s in her grave, and we may loose our tongues a bit fan we meet a friend.–But fare ye weel, Edie–I maun be back to the evening-service. An’ ye come to Inverurie maybe sax months awa, dinna forget to ask after Francie Macraw.”
What one kindly pressed, the other as firmly promised; and the friends having thus parted, with every testimony of mutual regard, the domestic of Lord Glenallan took his road back to the seat of his master, leaving Ochiltree to trace onward his habitual pilgrimage.
It was a fine summer evening, and the world–that is, the little circle which was all in all to the individual by whom it was trodden, lay before Edie Ochiltree, for the choosing of his night’s quarters. When he had passed the less hospitable domains of Glenallan, he had in his option so many places of refuge for the evening, that he was nice, and even fastidious in the choice. Ailie Sim’s public was on the road-side about a mile before him, but there would be a parcel of young fellows there on the Saturday night, and that was a bar to civil conversation. Other “gudemen and gudewives,” as the farmers and their dames are termed in Scotland, successively presented themselves to his imagination. But one was deaf, and could not hear him; another toothless, and could not make him hear; a third had a cross temper; and a fourth an ill-natured house-dog. At Monkbarns or Knockwinnock he was sure of a favourable and hospitable reception; but they lay too distant to be conveniently reached that night.
“I dinna ken how it is,” said the old man, “but I am nicer about my quarters this night than ever I mind having been in my life. I think, having seen a’ the braws yonder, and finding out ane may be happier without them, has made me proud o’ my ain lot–But I wuss it bode me gude, for pride goeth before destruction. At ony rate, the warst barn e’er man lay in wad be a pleasanter abode than Glenallan House, wi’ a’ the pictures and black velvet, and silver bonny-wawlies belonging to it– Sae I’ll e’en settle at ance, and put in for Ailie Sims.”
As the old man descended the hill above the little hamlet to which he was bending his course, the setting sun had relieved its inmates from their labour, and the young men, availing themselves of the fine evening, were engaged in the sport of long-bowls on a patch of common, while the women and elders looked on. The shout, the laugh, the exclamations of winners and losers, came in blended chorus up the path which Ochiltree was descending, and awakened in his recollection the days when he himself had been a keen competitor, and frequently victor, in games of strength and agility. These remembrances seldom fail to excite a sigh, even when the evening of life is cheered by brighter prospects than those of our poor mendicant. “At that time of day,” was his natural reflection, “I would have thought as little about ony auld palmering body that was coming down the edge of Kinblythemont, as ony o’ thae stalwart young chiels does e’enow about auld Edie Ochiltree.”
He was, however, presently cheered, by finding that more importance was attached to his arrival than his modesty had anticipated. A disputed cast had occurred between the bands of players, and as the gauger favoured the one party, and the schoolmaster the other, the matter might be said to be taken up by the higher powers. The miller and smith, also, had espoused different sides, and, considering the vivacity of two such disputants, there was reason to doubt whether the strife might be amicably terminated. But the first person who caught a sight of the mendicant exclaimed, “Ah! here comes auld Edie, that kens the rules of a’ country games better than ony man that ever drave a bowl, or threw an axle-tree, or putted a stane either;–let’s hae nae quarrelling, callants–we’ll stand by auld Edie’s judgment.”
Edie was accordingly welcomed, and installed as umpire, with a general shout of gratulation. With all the modesty of a Bishop to whom the mitre is proffered, or of a new Speaker called to the chair, the old man declined the high trust and responsibility with which it was proposed to invest him, and, in requital for his self-denial and humility, had the pleasure of receiving the reiterated assurances of young, old, and middle-aged, that he was simply the best qualified person for the office of arbiter “in the haill country-side.” Thus encouraged, he proceeded gravely to the execution of his duty, and, strictly forbidding all aggravating expressions on either side, he heard the smith and gauger on one side, the miller and schoolmaster on the other, as junior and senior counsel. Edie’s mind, however, was fully made up on the subject before the pleading began; like that of many a judge, who must nevertheless go through all the forms, and endure in its full extent the eloquence and argumentation of the Bar. For when all had been said on both sides, and much of it said over oftener than once, our senior, being well and ripely advised, pronounced the moderate and healing judgment, that the disputed cast was a drawn one, and should therefore count to neither party. This judicious decision restored concord to the field of players; they began anew to arrange their match and their bets, with the clamorous mirth usual on such occasions of village sport, and the more eager were already stripping their jackets, and committing them, with their coloured handkerchiefs, to the care of wives, sisters, and mistresses. But their mirth was singularly interrupted.
On the outside of the group of players began to arise sounds of a description very different from those of sport–that sort of suppressed sigh and exclamation, with which the first news of calamity is received by the hearers, began to be heard indistinctly. A buzz went about among the women of “Eh, sirs! sae young and sae suddenly summoned!”–It then extended itself among the men, and silenced the sounds of sportive mirth.
All understood at once that some disaster had happened in the country, and each inquired the cause at his neighbour, who knew as little as the querist. At length the rumour reached, in a distinct shape, the ears of Edie Ochiltree, who was in the very centre of the assembly. The boat of Mucklebackit, the fisherman whom we have so often mentioned, had been swamped at sea, and four men had perished, it was affirmed, including Mucklebackit and his son. Rumour had in this, however, as in other cases, gone beyond the truth. The boat had indeed been overset; but Stephen, or, as he was called, Steenie Mucklebackit, was the only man who had been drowned. Although the place of his residence and his mode of life removed the young man from the society of the country folks, yet they failed not to pause in their rustic mirth to pay that tribute to sudden calamity which it seldom fails to receive in cases of infrequent occurrence. To Ochiltree, in particular, the news came like a knell, the rather that he had so lately engaged this young man’s assistance in an affair of sportive mischief; and though neither loss nor injury was designed to the German adept, yet the work was not precisely one in which the latter hours of life ought to be occupied.
Misfortunes never come alone. While Ochiltree, pensively leaning upon his staff, added his regrets to those of the hamlet which bewailed the young man’s sudden death, and internally blamed himself for the transaction in which he had so lately engaged him, the old man’s collar was seized by a peace-officer, who displayed his baton in his right hand, and exclaimed, “In the king’s name.”
The gauger and schoolmaster united their rhetoric, to prove to the constable and his assistant that he had no right to arrest the king’s bedesman as a vagrant; and the mute eloquence of the miller and smith, which was vested in their clenched fists, was prepared to give Highland bail for their arbiter; his blue gown, they said, was his warrant for travelling the country.
“But his blue gown,” answered the officer, “is nae protection for assault, robbery, and murder; and my warrant is against him for these crimes.”
“Murder!” said Edie, “murder! wha did I e’er murder?”
“Mr. German Doustercivil, the agent at Glen-Withershins mining-works.”
“Murder Doustersnivel?–hout, he’s living, and life-like, man.”
“Nae thanks to you if he be; he had a sair struggle for his life, if a’ be true he tells, and ye maun answer for’t at the bidding of the law.”
The defenders of the mendicant shrunk back at hearing the atrocity of the charges against him, but more than one kind hand thrust meat and bread and pence upon Edie, to maintain him in the prison, to which the officers were about to conduct him.