APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/scott/bride_lamm/BRIDELAMM2

Text File | 1997-10-02 | 365.3 KB | 7,461 lines

CHAPTER XVI.

A slight note I have about me for you, for the delivery of which
you must excuse me.  It is an offer that friendship calls upon me
to do, and no way offensive to you, since I desire nothing but
right upon both sides.

King and no King.


WHEN Ravenswood and his guest met in the morning, the gloom of
the Master's spirit had in part returned.  He, also, had passed a
night rather of reflection that of slumber; and the feelings
which he could not but entertain towards Lucy Ashton had to
support a severe conflict against those which he had so long
nourished against her father.  To clasp in friendship the hand of
the enemy of his house, to entertain him under his roof, to
exchange with him the courtesies and the kindness of domestic
familiarity, was a degradation which his proud spirit could not
be bent to without a struggle.

But the ice being once broken, the Lord Keeper was resolved it
should not have time against to freeze.  It had been part of his
plan to stun and confuse Ravenswood's ideas, by a
complicated and technical statement of the matters which had been
in debate betwixt their families, justly thinking that it would
be difficult for a youth of his age to follow the expositions of
a practical lawyer, concerning actions of compt and reckoning,
and of multiplepoindings, and adjudications and wadsets, proper
and improper, and poindings of the ground, and declarations of
the expiry of the legal.  "Thus," thought Sir William, "I shall
have all the grace of appearing perfectly communicative, while my
party will derive very little advantage from anything I may tell
him."  He therefore took Ravenswood aside into the deep recess of
a window in the hall, and resuming the discourse of the proceding
evening, expressed a hope that his young friend would assume some
patience, in order to hear him enter in a minute and explanatory
detail of those unfortunate circumstances in which his late
honourable father had stood at variance with the Lord Keeper.
The Master of Ravenswood  coloured highly, but was silent; and
the Lord Keeper, though not greatly approving the sudden
heightening of his auditor's complexion, commenced the history
of a bond for twenty thousand merks, advanced by his father to
the father of Allan Lord Ravenswood, and was proceeding to detail
the executorial proceedings by which this large sum had been
rendered a debitum fundi, when he was interrupted by the Master.

"It is not in this place," he said, "that I can hear Sir William
Ashton's explanation of the matters in question between us.  It
is not here, where my father died of a broken heart, that I can
with decency or temper investigate the cause of his distress.  I
might remember that I was a son, and forget the duties of a host.
A time, however, there must come, when these things shall be
discussed, in a place and in a presence where both of us will
have equal freedom to speak and to hear."

"Any time," the Lord Keeper said, "any place, was alike to those
who sought nothing but justice.  Yet it would seem he was, in
fairness, entitled to some premonition respecting the grounds
upon which the Master proposed to impugn the whole train of legal
proceedings, which had been so well and ripely advised in the
only courts competent."

"Sir William Ashton," answered the Master, with warmth, "the
lands which you now occupy were granted to my remote ancestor for
services done with his sword against the English invaders.  How
they have glided from us by a train of proceedings that seem to
be neither sale, nor mortgage, nor adjudication for debt, but a
nondescript and entangled mixture of all these rights; how annual
rent has been accumulated upon principal, and no nook or coign of
legal advantage left unoccupied, until our interest in our
hereditary property seems to have melted away like an icicle in
thaw--all this you understand better than I do.  I am willing,
however, to suppose, from the frankness of your conduct towards
me, that I may in a great measure have mistaken your personal
character, and that things may have appeared right and fitting to
you, a skilful and practised lawyer, which to my ignorant
understanding seem very little short of injustice and gross
oppression."

"And you, my dear Master," answered Sir William--"you, permit me
to say, have been equally misrepresented to me.  I was taught to
believe you a fierce, imperious, hot-headed youth, ready, at the
slightest provocation, to throw your sword into the scales of
justice, and to appeal to those rude and forcible measures from
which civil polity has long protected the people of Scotland.
Then, since we were mutually mistaken in each other, why should
not the young nobleman be willing to listen to the old lawyer,
while, at least, he explains the points of difference betwixt
them?"

"No, my lord," answered Ravenswood; "it is in the House of
British Peers, whose honour must be equal to their rank--it is in
the court of last resort that we must parley together.  The
belted lords of Britain, her ancient peers, must decide, if it is
their will that a house, not the least noble of their members,
shall be stripped of their possessions, the reward of the
patriotism of generations, as the pawn of a wretched mechanic
becomes forfeit to the usurer the instant the hour of redemption
has passed away.  If they yield to the grasping severity of the
creditor, and to the gnawing usury that eats into our lands as
moths into a raiment, it will be of more evil consequence to them
and their posterity than to Edgar Ravenswood.  I shall still have
my sword and my cloak, and can follow the profession of arms
wherever a trumpet shall sound."

As he pronounced these words, in a firm yet melancholy tone, he
raised his eyes, and suddenly encountered those of Lucy Ashton,
who had stolen unawares on their interview, and observed her
looks fastened on them with an expression of enthusiastic
interest and admiration, which had wrapt her for the moment
beyond the fear of discovery.  The noble form and fine features
of Ravenswood, fired with the pride of birth and sense of
internal dignity, the mellow and expressive tones of his voice,
the desolate state of his fortunes, and the indifference with
which he seemed to endure and to dare the worst that might
befall, rendered him a dangerous object of contemplation for a
maiden already too much disposed to dwell upon recollections
connected with him.  When their eyes encountered each other, both
blushed deeply, conscious of some strong internal emotion, an
shunned again to meet each other's looks.  Sir William Ashton
had, of course, closely watched the expression of their
countenances.  "I need fear," said he internally, "neither
Parliament nor protestation; I have an effectual mode of
reconciling myself with this hot-tempered young fellow, in case
he shall become formidable.  The present object is, at all
events, to avoid committing ourselves.   The hook is fixed; we
will nto strain the line too soon: it is as well to reserve the
privilege of slipping it loose, if we do not find the fish worth
landing."

In this selfish and cruel calculation upon the supposed
attachment of Ravenswood to Lucy, he was so far from considering
the pain he might give to the former, by thus dallying with his
affections, that he even did not think upon the risk of involving
his own daughter in the perils of an unfortunate passion; as if
her predilection, which could not escape his attention, were like
the flame of a taper which might be lighted or extinguished at
pleasure.  But Providence had prepared a dreadful requital for
this keen observer of human passions, who had spent his life in
securing advantages to himself by artfully working upon the
passions of others.

Caleb Balderstone now came to announce that breakfast was
prepared; for in those days of substantial feeding, the relics of
the supper simply furnished forth the morning meal.  Neither did
he forget to present to the Lord Keeper, with great reverence, a
morning draught in a large pewter cup, garnished with leaves of
parsley and scurvy-grass.  He craved pardon, of course, for
having omitted to serve it in the great silver standing cup as
behoved, being that it was at present in a silversmith's in
Edinburgh, for the purpose of being overlaid with gilt.

"In Edinburgh like enough," said Ravenswood; "but in what place,
or for what purpose, I am afraid neither you nor I know."

"Aweel!" said Caleb, peevishly, "there's a man standing at the
gate already this morning--that's ae thing that I ken.  Does
your honour ken whether ye will speak wi' him or no?"

"Does he wish to speak with me, Caleb?"

"Less will no serve him," said Caleb; "but ye had best take a
visie of him through the wicket before opening the gate; it's no
every ane we suld let into this castle."

"What! do you suppose him to be a messenger come to arrest me
for debt?" said Ravenswood.

"A messenger arrest your honour for debt, and in your Castle of
Wolf's Crag!  Your honour is jesting wi' auld Caleb this
morning."  However, he whispered in his ear, as he followed him
out, "I would be loth to do ony decent man a
prejudice in your honour's gude opinion; but I would tak twa
looks o' that chield before I let him within these walls."

He was not an officer of the law, however; being no less a
person than Captain Craigengelt, with his nose as red as a
comfortable cup of brandy could make it, his laced cocked hat set
a little aside upon the top of his black riding periwig, a sword
by his side and pistols at his holsters, and his person arrayed
in a riding suit, laid over with tarnished lace--the very moral
of one who would say, "Stand to a true man."

When the Master had recognised him, he ordered the gates to be
opened.  "I suppose," he said, "Captain Craigengelt, there are
no such weighty matters betwixt you and me, but may be discussed
in this place.  I have company in the castle at present, and the
terms upon which we last parted must excuse my asking you to make
part of them."

Craigengelt, although possessing the very perfection of
impudence, was somewhat abashed by this unfavourable reception.
"He had no intention," he said, "to force himself upon the
Master of Ravenswood's hospitality; he was in the honourable
service of bearing a message to him from a friend, otherwise the
Master of Ravenswood should not have had reason to complain of
this intrusion."

"Let it be short, sir," said the Master, "for that will be the
best apology.  Who is the gentleman who is so fortunate as to
have your services as a messenger?"

"My friend, Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw," answered Craigengelt, with
conscious importance, and that confidence which the
acknowledged courage of his principal inspired, "who conceives
himself to have been treated by you with something much short of
the respect which he had reason to demand, and, therefore is
resolved to exact satisfaction.  I bring with me," said he,
taking a piece of paper out of his pocket, "the precise length of
his sword; and he requests you will meet him, accompanied by a
friend, and equally armed, at any place within a mile of the
castle, when I shall give attendance as umpire, or second, on his
behoof."

"Satisfaction! and equal arms!" repeated Ravenswood, who, the
reader will recollect, had no reason to suppose he had given the
slightest offence to his late intimate; "upon my word, Captain
Craigengelt, either you have invented the most improbable
falsehood that ever came into the mind of such a person, or your
morning draught has been somewhat of the strongest.  What could
persuade Bucklaw to send me such a message?"

"For that, sir," replied Craigengelt, "I am desired to refer you
to what, in duty to my friend, I am to term your
inhospitality in excluding him from your house, without reasons
assigned."

"It is impossible," replied the Master; "he cannot be such a
fool as to interpret actual necessity as an insult.  Nor do I
believe that, knowing my opinion of you, Captain, he would have
employed the services of so slight and inconsiderable a person as
yourself upon such an errand, as I certainly could expect no man
of honour to act with you in the office of umpire."

"I slight and inconsiderable?" said Craigengelt, raising his
voice, and laying his hand on his cutlass; "if it were not that
the quarrel of my friend craves the precedence, and is in
dependence before my own, I would give you to understand----"

"I can understand nothing upon your explanation, Captain
Craigengelt.  Be satisfied of that, and oblige me with your
departure."

"D----n!" muttered the bully; "and is this the answer which I am
to carry back to an honourable message?"

"Tell the Laird of Bucklaw," answered Ravenswood, "if you are
really sent by him, that, when he sends me his cause of
grievance by a person fitting to carry such an errand betwixt him
and me, I will either explain it or maintain it."

"Then, Master, you will at least cause to be returned to
Hayston, by my hands, his property which is remaining in your
possession."

"Whatever property Bucklaw may have left behind him, sir,"
replied the Master, "shall be returned to him by my servant, as
you do not show me any credentials from him which entitle you to
receive it."

"Well, Master," said Captain Craigengelt, with malice which even
his fear of the consequences could not suppress, "you have this
morning done me an egregious wrong adn dishonour, but far more to
yourself.  A castle indeed!" he continued, looking around him;
"why, this is worse than a coupe-gorge house, where they
receive travellers to plunder them of their property."

"You insolent rascal," said the Master, raising his cane, and
making a grasp at the Captain's bridle, "if you do not depart
without uttering another syllable, I will batoon you to death!"

At the motion of the Master towards him, the bully turned so
rapidly round, that with some difficulty he escaped throwing down
his horse, whose hoofs struck fire from the rocky pavement in
every direction.  Recovering him, however, with the bridle, he
pushed for the gate, and rode sharply back again in the direction
of the village.

As Ravenswood turned round to leave the courtyard after this
dialogue, he found that the Lord Keeper had descended from the
hall, and witnessed, though at the distance prescribed by
politeness, his interview with Craigengelt.

"I have seen," said the Lord Keeper, "that gentleman's face, and
at no great distance of time; his name is Craig--Craig--
something, is it not?"

"Craigengelt is the fellow's name," said the Master, "at least
that by which he passes at present."

"Craig-in-guilt," said Caleb, punning upon the word "craig,"
which in Scotch signifies throat; "if he is Craig-in-guilt just
now, he is as likely to be Craig-in-peril as ony chield I ever
saw; the loon has woodie written on his very visnomy, and I wad
wager twa and a plack that hemp plaits his cravat yet."

"You understand physiognomy, good Mr. Caleb," said the Keeper,
smiling; "I assure you the gentleman has been near such a
consummation before now; for I most distinctly recollect that,
upon occasion of a journey which I made about a fortnight ago to
Edinburgh, I saw Mr. Craigengelt, or whatever is his name,
undergo a severe examination before the privy council."

"Upon what account?" said the Master of Ravenswood, with some
interest.

The question led immediately to a tale which the Lord Keeper had
been very anxious to introduce, when he could find a graceful
and fitting opportunity.  He took hold of the Master's arm, and
led him back towards the hall.  "The answer to your question," he
said, "though it is a ridiculous business, is only fit for your
own ear."

As they entered the hall, he again took the Master apart into
one of the recesses of the window, where it will be easily
believed that Miss Ashton did not venture again to intrude upon
their conference.



CHAPTER XVII.

Here is a father now,
Will truck his daughter for a foreign venture,
Make her the stop-gap to some canker'd feud,
Or fling her o'er, like Jonah, to the fishes,
To appease the sea at highest.

Anonymous.


THE Lord Keeper opened his discourse with an appearance of
unconcern, marking, however, very carefully, the effect of his
communication upon young Ravenswood.

"You are aware," he said, "my young friend, that suspicion is
the natural vice of our unsettled times, and exposes the best
and wisest of us to the imposition of artful rascals.  If I had
been disposed to listen to such the other day, or even if I had
been the wily politicians which you have been taught to believe
me, you, Master of Ravenswood, instead of being at freedom, and
with fully liberty to solicit and act against me as you please,
in defence of what you suppose to be your rights, would have been
in the Castle of Edinburgh, or some other state prison; or, if
you had escaped that destiny, it must have been by flight to a
foreign country, and at the risk of a sentence of fugitation."

"My Lord Keeper," said the Master, "I think you would not jest
on such a subject; yet it seems impossible you can be in
earnest."

"Innocence," said the Lord Keeper, "is also confident, and
sometimes, though very excusably, presumptuously so."

"I do not understand," said Ravenswood, "how a consciouness of
innocence can be, in any case,  accounted presumtuous."

"Imprudent, at least, it may be called," said Sir William
Ashton, "since it is apt to lead us into the mistake of
supposeing that sufficiently evident to others of which, in fact,
we are only conscious ourselves.  I have known a rogue, for this
very reason, make a better defence than an innocent man could
have done in the same circumstances of suspicion.  Having no
consciousness of innocence to support him, such a fellow applies
himself to all the advantages which the law will afford him, and
sometimes--if his counsel be men of talent--succeeds in
compelling his judges to receive him as innocent.  I remember the
celebrated case of Sir Coolie Condiddle of Condiddle, who was
tried for theft under trust, of which all the world knew him
guilty, and yet was not only acquitted, but lived to sit in
judgment on honester folk."

"Allow me to beg you will return to the point," said the Master;
"you seemed to say that I had suffered under some
suspicion."

"Suspicion, Master!  Ay, truly, and I can show you the proofs of
it; if I happen only to have them with me.  Here, Lockhard."  His
attendant came.  "Fetch me the little private mail with the
padlocks, that I recommended to your particular charge, d'ye
hear?"

"Yes, my lord."  Lockhard vanished; and the Keeper
continued, as if half speaking to himself.

"I think the papers are with me--I think so, for, as I was to be
in this country, it was natural for me to bring them with me.  I
have them, however, at Ravenswood Castle, that I am sure; so
perhaps you might condescend----"

Here Lockhard entered, and put the leathern scrutoire, or mail-
box, into his hands.  The Keeper produced one or two papers,
respecting the information laid before the privy council
concerning the riot, as it was termed, at the funeral of Allan
Lord Ravenswood, and the active share he had himself taken in
quashing the proceedings against the Master.  These documents had
been selected with care, so as to irritate the natural curiosity
of Ravenswood upon such a subject, without gratifying it, yet to
show that Sir William Ashton had acted upon that trying occasion
the part of an advocate and peacemaker betwixt him and the
jealous authorities of the day.  Having furnished his host with
such subjects for examination, the Lord Keeper went to the
breakfast-table, and entered into light conversation, addressed
partly to old Caleb, whose resentment against the usurper of the
Castle of Ravenswood began to be softened by his familiarity, and
partly to his daughter.

After perusing these papers, the Master of Ravenswood remained
for a minute or two with his hand pressed against his brow, in
deep and profound meditation.  He then again ran his eye hastily
over the papers, as if desirous of discovering in them some deep
purpose, or some mark of fabrication, which had escaped him at
first perusal.  Apparently the second reading confirmed the
opinion which had pressed upon him at the first, for he started
from the stone bench on which he was sitting, and, going to the
Lord Keeper, took his hand, and, strongly pressing it, asked his
pardon repeatedly for the injustice he had done him, when it
appeared he was experiencing, at his hands, the benefit of
protection to his person and vindication to his character.

The statesman received these acknowledgments at first with well-
feigned surprise, and then with an affectation of frank
cordiality.  The tears began already to start from Lucy's blue
eyes at viewing this unexpected and moving scene.  To see the
Master, late so haughty and reserved, and whom she had always
supposed the injured person, supplicating her father for
forgiveness, was a change at once surprising, flattering, and
affecting.

"Dry your eyes, Lucy," said her father; "why should you weep,
because your father, though a lawyer, is discovered to be a fair
and honourable man?  What have you to thank me for, my dear
Master," he continued, addressing Ravenswood, "that you would not
have done in my case?  'Suum cuique tribuito,' was the Roman
justice, and I learned it when I studied Justinian.  Besides,
have you not overpaid me a thousand times, in saving the life of
this dear child?"

"Yes," answered the Master, in all the remorse of self-
accusation; "but the little service _I_ did was an act of mere
brutal instinct; YOUR defence of my cause, when you knew how
ill I thought of you, and how much I was disposed to be your
enemy, was an act of generous, manly, and considerate wisdom."

"Pshaw!" said the Lord Keeper, "each of us acted in his own way;
you as a gallant soldier, I as an upright judge and privy-
councillor.  We could not, perhaps, have changed parts; at least
I should have made a very sorry tauridor, and you, my good
Master, though your cause is so excellent, might have pleaded it
perhaps worse yourself than I who acted for you before the
council."

"My generous friend!" said Ravenswood; and with that brief word,
which the Keeper had often lavished upon him, but which he
himself now pronounced for the first time, he gave to his feudal
enemy the full confidence of an haughty but honourable heart.
The Master had been remarked among his contemporaries for sense
and acuteness, as well as for his reserved, pertinacious, and
irascible character.  His prepossessions accordingly, however
obstinate, were of a nature to give way before love and
gratitude; and the real charms of the daughter, joined to the
supposed services of the father, cancelled in his memory the vows
of vengeance which he had taken so deeply on the eve of his
father's funeral.  But they had been heard and registered in the
book of fate.

Caleb was present at this extraordinary scene, and he could
conceive no other reason for a proceeding so extraordinary than
an alliance betwixt the houses, and Ravenswood Castle assigned
for the young lady's dowry.  As for Lucy, when Ravenswood uttered
the most passionate excuses for his ungrateful negligence, she
could but smile through her tears, and, as she abandoned her hand
to him, assure him, in broken accents, of the delight with which
she beheld the complete reconciliation between her father and her
deliverer.  Even the statesman was moved and affected by the
fiery, unreserved, and generous self-abandonment with which the
Master of Ravenswood renounced his feudal enmity, and threw
himself without hesitation upon his forgiveness.  His eyes
glistened as he looked upon a couple who were obviously becoming
attached, and who seemed made for each other.   He thought how
high the proud and chivalrous character of Ravenswood might rise
under many circumstances in which HE found himself "overcrowed,"
to use a phrase of Spenser, and kept under, by his brief
pedigree, and timidity of disposition.  Then his daughter--his
favorite child--his constant playmate--seemed formed to live
happy in a union with such a commanding spirit as Ravenswood; and
even the fine, delicate, fragile form of Lucy Ashton seemed to
require the support of the Master's muscular strength and
masculine character.  And it was not merely during a few minutes
that Sir William Ashton looked upon their marriage as a probable
and even desirable event, for a full hour intervened ere his
imagination was crossed by recollection of the Master's poverty,
and the sure displeasure of Lady Ashton.   It is certain, that
the very unusual flow of kindly feeling with which the Lord
Keeper had been thus surprised, was one of the circumstances
which gave much tacit encouragement to the attachment between the
Master and his daughter, and led both the lovers distinctly to
believe that it was a connexion which would be most agreeable to
him.  He himself was supposed to have admitted this in effect,
when, long after the catastrophe of their love, he used to warn
his hearers against permitting their feelings to obtain an
ascendency over their judgment, and affirm, that the greatest
misfortunte of his life was owing to a very temporary
predominance of sensibility over self-interest.  It must be
owned, if such was the case, he was long and severely punished
for an offence of very brief duration.

After some pause, the Lord Keeper resumed the conversation.--

"In your surprise at finding me an honester man than you
expected, you have lost your curiosity about this Craigengelt, my
good Master; and yet your name was brought in, in the course of
that matter too."

"The scoundrel!" said Ravenswood.  "My connexion with him was of
the most temporary nature possible; and yet I was very foolish to
hold any communication with him at all.  What did he say of me?"

"Enough," said the Keeper, "to excite the very loyal terrors of
some of our sages, who are for proceeding against men on the
mere grounds of suspicion or mercenary information.  Some
nonsense about your proposing to enter into the service of
France, or of the Pretender, I don't recollect which, but which
the Marquis of A----, one of your best friends, and another
person, whom some call one of your worst and most interested
enemies, could not, somehow, be brought to listen to."

"I am obliged to my honourable friend; and yet," shaking the
Lord Keeper's hand--"and yet I am still more obliged to my
honourable enemy."

"Inimicus amicissimus," said the Lord Keeper, returning the
pressure; "but this gentleman--this Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw--I am
afraid the poor young man--I heard the fellow mention his name--
is under very bad guidance."

"He is old enough to govern himself," answered the Master.

"Old enough, perhaps, but scarce wise enough, if he has chosen
this fellow for his fidus Achates.  Why, he lodged an
information against him--that is, such a consequence might have
ensued from his examination, had we not looked rather at the
character of the witness than the tenor of his evidence."

"Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw," said the master, "is, I believe, a
most honourable man, and capable of nothing that is mean or
disgraceful."

"Capable of much that is unreasonable, though; that you must
needs allow, master.  Death will soon put him in possession of a
fair estate, if he hath it not already; old Lady Girnington--an
excellent person, excepting that her inveterate ill-nature
rendered her intolerable to the whole world--is probably dead by
this time.  Six heirs portioners have successively died to make
her wealthy.  I know the estates well; they march with my own--a
noble property."

"I am glad of it," said Ravenswood, "and should be more so, were
I confident that Bucklaw would change his company and habits
with his fortunes.  This appearance of Craigengelt, acting in the
capacity of his friend, is a most vile augury for his future
respectability."

"He is a bird of evil omen, to be sure," said the Keeper, "and
croaks of jail and gallows-tree.  But I see Mr. Caleb grows
impatient for our return to breakfast."



CHAPTER XVIII.

Sir, stay at home and take an old man's counsel;
Seek not to bask you by a stranger's hearth;
Our own blue smoke is warmer than their fire.
Domestic food is wholesome, though 'tis homely,
And foreign dainties poisonous, though tasteful.

The French Courtezan.


THE Master of Ravenswood took an opportunity to leave his guests
to prepare for their departure, while he himself made the brief
arrangements necessary previous to his absence from Wolf's Crag
for a day or two.  It was necessary to communicate with Caleb on
this occasion, and he found that faithful servitor in his sooty
and ruinous den, greatly delighted with the departure of their
visitors, and computing how long, with good management, the
provisions which had been unexpended might furnish the Master's
table.  "He's nae belly god, that's ae blessing; and Bucklaw's
gane, that could have eaten a horse behind the saddle.  Cresses
or water-purpie, and a bit ait-cake, can serve the Master for
breakfast as weel as Caleb.  Then for dinner--there's no muckle
left on the spule-bane; it will brander, though--it will brander
very weel."

His triumphant calculations were interrupted by the Master, who
communicated to him, not without some hesitation, his purpose to
ride with the Lord Keeper as far as Ravenswood Castle, and to
remain there for a day or two.

"The mercy of Heaven forbid!" said the old serving-man, turning
as pal as the table-cloth which he was folding up.

"And why, Caleb?" said his master--"why should the mercy of
Heaven forbid my returning the Lord Keeper's visit?"

"Oh, sir!" replied Caleb--"oh, Mr. Edgar!  I am your
servant, and it ill becomes me to speak; but I am an auld
servant--have served baith your father and gudesire, and mind to
have seen Lord Randal, your great-grandfather, but that was when
I was a bairn."

"And what of all this, Balderstone?" said the Master; "what can
it possibly have to do with my paying some ordinary civility to a
neighbour."

"Oh, Mr. Edgar,--that is, my lord!" answered the butler, "your
ain conscience tells you it isna for your father's son to be
neighbouring wi' the like o' him; it isna for the credit of the
family.  An he were ance come to terms, and to gie ye back your
ain, e'en though ye suld honour his house wi' your alliance, I
suldna say na; for the young leddy is a winsome sweet creature.
But keep your ain state wi' them--I ken the race o' them weel--
they will think the mair o' ye."

"Why, now, you go father than I do, Caleb," said the Master,
drowning a certain degree of consciousness in a forced laugh;
"you are for marrying me into a family that you will nto allow me
to visit, how this? and you look as pale as death besides."

"Oh, sir," repeated Caleb again, "you would but laugh if I tauld
it; but Thomas the Rhymer, whose tongue couldna be fause, spoke
the word of your house that will e'en prove ower true if you go
to Ravenswood this day.  Oh,  that it should e'er have been
fulfilled in my time!"

"And what is it, Caleb?" said Ravenswood, wishing to soothe the
fears of his old servant.

Caleb replied:  "He had never repeated the lines to living
mortal; they were told to him by an auld priest that had been
confessor to Lord Allan's father when the family were Catholic.
But mony a time," he said, "I hae soughed thae dark words ower to
myself, and, well-a-day! little did I think of their coming round
this day."

"Truce with your nonsense, and let me hear the doggerel which
has put it into your head," said the Master, impatiently.

With a quivering voice, and a cheek pale with apprehension,
Caleb faltered out the following lines:

"When the last Laird of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride,
And woo a dead maiden to be his bride,
He shall stable his steed in the Kelpie's flow,
And his name shall be lost for evermoe!"

"I know the Kelpie's flow well enough," said the Master; "I
suppose, at least, you mean the quicksand betwixt this tower and
Wolf's Hope; but why any man in his senses should stable a steed
there----"

"Oh, ever speer ony thing about that, sir--God forbid we should
ken what the prophecy means--but just bide you at hame, and let
the strangers ride to Ravenswood by themselves.  We have done
eneugh for them; and to do mair would be mair against the credit
of the family than in its favour."

"Well, Caleb," said the Master, "I give you the best
possible credit for your good advice on this occasion; but as I
do not go to Ravenswood to seek a bride, dead or alive, I hope I
shall choose a better stable for my horse than the Kelpie's
quicksand, and especially as I have always had a particular dread
of it since the patrol of dragoons were lost there ten years
since.  My father and I saw them from the tower struggling
against the advancing tide, and they were lost long before any
help could reach them."

"And they deserved it weel, the southern loons!" said Caleb;
"what had they ado capering on our sands, and hindering a wheen
honest folk frae bringing on shore a drap brandy?  I hae seen
them that busy, that I wad hae fired the auld culverin or the
demi-saker that's on the south bartizan at them, only I was
feared they might burst in the ganging aff."

Caleb's brain was now fully engaged with abuse of the English
soldiery and excisemen, so that his master found no great
difficulty in escaping from him and rejoining his guests.  All
was now ready for their departure; and one of the Lord Keeper's
grooms having saddled the Master's steed, they mounted in the
courtyard.

Caleb had, with much toil, opened the double doors of the
outward gate, and thereat stationed himself, endeavouring, by the
reverential, and at the same time consequential, air which he
assumed, to supply, by his own gaunt, wasted, and thin person,
the absence of a whole baronial establishment of porters,
warders, and liveried menials.

The Keeper returned his deep reverence with a cordial farewell,
stooping at the same time from his horse, and sliding into the
butler's hand the remuneration which in those days was always
given by a departing guest to the domestics of the family where
he had been entertained.   Lucy smiled on the old man with her
usual sweetness, bade him adieu, and deposited her guerdon with a
grace of action and a gentleness of accent which could not have
failed to have won the faithful retainer's heart, but for Thomas
the Rhymer, and the successful lawsuit against his master.  As it
was, he might have adopted the language of the Duke in As You
Like It:

Thou wouldst have better pleased me with this deed,
If thou hadst told me of another father.

Ravenswood was at the lady's bridle-rein, encouraging her
timidity, and guiding her horse carefully down the rocky path
which led to the moor, when one of the servants announed from the
rear that Caleb was calling loudly after them, desiring to speak
with his master.  Ravenswood felt it would look singular to
neglect this summons, although inwardly cursing Caleb for his
impertinent officiousness; therefore he was compelled to
relinquish to Mr. Lockhard the aggreeable duty in which he was
engaged, and to ride back to the gate of the courtyard.  Here he
was beginning, somewhat peevishly, to ask Caleb the cause of his
clamour, when the good old man exclaimed: "Whisht, sir!--whisht,
and let me speak just ae word that I couldna say afore folk;
there (putting into his lord's hand the money he had just
received)--there's three gowd pieces; and ye'll want siller up-
bye yonder.  But stay, whisht, now!" for the Master was beginning
to exclaim against this transference, "never say a word, but just
see to get them changed in the first town ye ride through, for
they are bran new frae the mint, and ken-speckle a wee bit."

"You forget, Caleb," said his master, striving to force back the
money on his servant, and extricate the bridle from his hold--
"you forget that I have some gold pieces left of my own.  Keep
these to yourself, my old friend; and, once more, good day to
you.  I assure you, I have plenty.  You know you have managed
that our living should cost us little or nothing."

"Aweel," said Caleb, "these will serve for you another time; but
see ye hae eneugh, for, doubtless, for the credit of the family,
there maun be some civility to the servants, and ye maun hae
something to mak a show with when they say, 'Master, will you
bet a broad piece?'  Then ye maun tak out your purse, and say, 'I
carena if I do'; and tak care no to agree on the articles of the
wager, and just put up your purse again, and----"

"This is intolerable, Caleb; I really must be gone."

"And you will go, then?" said Caleb, loosening his hold upon the
Master's cloak, and changing his didactics into a pathetic and
mournful tone--"and you WILL go, for a' I have told you about
the prophecy, and the dead bride, and the Kelpie's
quicksand?  Aweel! a wilful man maun hae his way: he that will to
Cupar maun to Cupar.  But pity of your life, sir, if ye be
fowling or shooting in the Park, beware of drinking at the
Mermaiden's Well----  He's gane! he's down the path arrow-flight
after her!  The head is as clean taen aff the Ravenswood family
this day as I wad chap the head aff a sybo!"

The old butler looked long after his master, often clearing away
the dew as it rose to his eyes, that he might, as long as
possible, distinguish his stately form from those of the other
horsemen.  "Close to her bridle-rein--ay, close to her bridle-
rein!  Wisely saith the holy man, 'By this also you may know that
woman hath dominion over all men'; and without this lass would
not our ruin have been a'thegither fulfilled."

With a heart fraught with such sad auguries did Caleb return to
his necessary duties at Wofl's Crag, as soon as he could no
longer distinguish the object of his anxiety among the group fo
riders, which diminished in the distance.

In the mean time the party pursued their route joyfully.  Having
once taken his resolution, the Master of Ravenswood  was not of a
character to hesitate or pause upon it.  He abandoned himself to
the pleasure he felt in Miss Ashton's company, and displayed an
assiduous gallantry which approached as nearly to gaiety as the
temper of his mind and state of his family
permitted.  The Lord Keeper was much struck with his depth of
observation, and the unusual improvement which he had derived
from his studies.  Of these accomplishments Sir William Ashton's
profession and habits of society rendered him an excellent judge;
and he well knew how to appreciate a quality to which he himself
was a total stranger--the brief and decided dauntlessness of the
Master of Ravenswood's fear.  In his heart the Lord Keeper
rejoiced at having conciliated an adversary so formidable, while,
with a mixture of pleasure and anxiety, he anticipated the great
things his young companion might achieve, were the breath of
court-favour to fill his sails.

"What could she desire," he thought, his mind always
conjuring up opporition in the person of Lady Ashton to his new
prevailing wish--"what could a woman desire in a match more than
the sopiting of a very dangerous claim, and the alliance of a
son-in-law, noble, brave, well-gifted, and highly connected; sure
to float whenever the tide sets his way; strong, exactly where we
are weak, in pedigree and in the temper of a swordsman?  Sure, no
reasonable woman would hesitate.  But alas----!"  Here his
argument was stopped by the consciousness that Lady Ashton was
not always reasonable, in his sense of the word.  "To prefer some
clownish Merse laird to the gallant young nobleman, and to the
secure possession of Ravenswood upon terms of easy compromise--it
would be the act of a madwoman!"

Thus pondered the veteran politician, until they reached
Bittlebrains House, where it had been previously settled they
were to dine and repose themselves, and prosecute their journey
in the afternoon.

They were received with an excess of hospitality; and the most
marked attention was offered to the Master of Ravenswood, in
particular, by their noble entertainers.  The truth was, that
Lord Bittlebrains had obtained his peerage by a good deal of
plausibility, an art of building up a character for wisdom upon a
very trite style of commonplace eloquence, a steady observation
of the changes of the times, and the power of rendering certain
political services to those who could best reward them.  His lady
and he, not feeling quite easy under their new honours, to which
use had not adapted their feelings, were very desirous to procure
the fraternal countenance of those who were born denizens of the
regions into which they had been exalted from a lower sphere.
The extreme attention which they paid to the Master of Ravenswood
had its usual effect in exalting his importance in the eyes of
the Lord Keeper, who, although he had a reasonable degree of
contempt for Lord Bittlebrains's general parts, entertained a
high opinion of the acuteness of his judgment in all matters of
self-interest.

"I wish Lady Ashton had seen this," was his internal
reflection; "no man knows so well as Bittlebrains on which side
his bread is buttered; and he fawns on the Master like a beggar's
messan on a cook.  And my lady, too, bringing forward her beetle-
browed misses to skirl and play upon the virginals, as if she
said, 'Pick and choose.'  They are no more comparable to Lucy
than an owl is to a cygnet, and so they may carry their black
brows to a farther market."

The entertainment being ended, our travellers, who had still to
measure the longest part of their journey, resumed their horses;
and after the Lord Keeper, the Master, and the domestics had
drunk doch-an-dorroch, or the stirrup-cup, in the liquors
adapted to their various ranks, the cavalcade resumed its
progress.

It was dark by the time they entered the avenue of
Ravenswood Castle, a long straight line leading directly to the
front of the house, flanked with huge elm-trees, which sighed to
the night-wind, as if they compassionated the heir of their
ancient proprietors, who now returned to their shades in the
society, and almost in the retinue, of their new master.  Some
feelings of the same kind oppressed the mind of the Master
himself.  He gradually became silent, adn dropped a little
behind the lady, at whose bridle-rein he had hitherto waited with
such devotion.  He well recollected the period when, at the same
hour in the evening, he had accompanied his father, as that
nobleman left, never again to return to it, the mansion from
which he derived his name and title.  The extensive front of the
old castle, on which he remembered having often looked back, was
then "as black as mourning weed."  The same front now glanced
with many lights, some throwing far forward into the night a
fixed and stationary blaze, and others hurrying from one window
to another, intimating the bustle and busy preparation preceding
their arrival, which had been intimated by an avant-courier.  The
contrast pressed so strongly upon the Master's heart as to
awaken some of the sterner feelings with which he had been
accustomed to regard the new lord of his paternal domain, and to
impress his countenance with an air of servere gravity, when,
alighted from his horse, he stood in the hall no longer his own,
surrounded by the numerous menials of its present owner.

The Lord Keeper, when about to welcome him with the
cordiality which their late intercourse seemed to render proper,
became aware of the change, refrained from his purpose, and only
intimated the ceremony of reception by a deep reverence to his
guest, seeming thus delicately to share the feelings which
predominated on his brow.

Two upper domestics, bearing each a huge pair of silver
candlesticks, now marshalled the company into a large saloon, or
withdrawing-room, where new alterations impressed upon
Ravenswood the superior wealth of the present inhabitants of the
castle.  The mouldering tapestry, which, in his father's time,
had half covered the walls of this stately apartment, and half
streamed from them in tatters, had given place to a complete
finishing of wainscot, the cornice of which, as well as the
frames of the various compartments, were ornamented with festoons
of flowers and with birds, which, though carved in oak, seemed,
such was the art of the chisel, actually to swell their throats
and flutter their wings.  Several old family portraits of armed
heroes of the house of Ravenswood, together with a suit or two of
old armour and some military weapons, had given place to those of
King William and Queen Mary, or Sir Thomas Hope and Lord Stair,
two distinguished Scottish lawyers.  The pictures of the Lord
Keeper's father and mother were also to be seen; the latter,
sour, shrewish, and solemn, in her black hood and close pinners,
with a book of devotion in her hand; the former, exhibiting
beneath a black silk Geneva cowl, or skull-cap, which sate as
close to the head as if it had been shaven, a pinched, peevish,
Puritanical set of features, terminating in a hungry, reddish,
peaked beard, forming on the whole a countenance in the
expression of which the hypocrite seemed to contend with the
miser and the knave.  "And it is to make room for such scarecrows
as these," thought Ravenswood, "that my ancestors have been torn
down from the walls which they erected!"  he looked at them
again, and, as he looked, the recollection of Lucy Ashton, for
she had not entered the apartment with them, seemed less lively
in his imagination.  There were also two or three Dutch
drolleries, as the pictures of Ostade and Teniers were then
termed, with one good painting of the Italian school.  There was,
besides, a noble full-length of the Lord Keeper in his robes of
office, placed beside his lady in silk and ermine, a haughty
beauty, bearing in her looks all the pride of the house of
Douglas, from which she was descended.  The painter,
notwithstanding his skill, overcome by the reality, or, perhaps,
from a suppressed sense of humour, had not been able to give the
husband on the canvas that air of awful rule and right supremacy
which indicates the full possession of domestic authority.  It
was obvious at the first glance that, despite mace and gold
frogs, the Lord Keeper was somewhat henpecked.  The floor of this
fine saloon was laid with rich carpets, huge fires blazed in the
double chimneys, and ten silver sconces, reflecting with their
bright plates the lights which they supported, made the whole
seem as brilliant as day.

"Would you choose any refreshment, Master?" said Sir William
Ashton, not unwilling to break the awkward silence.

He received no answer, the Master being so busily engaged in
marking the various changes which had taken place in the
apartment, that he hardly heard the Lord Keeper address him.  A
repetition of the offer of refreshment, with the addition, that
the family meal would be presently ready, compelled his
attention, and reminded him that he acted a weak, perhaps even a
ridiculous, part in suffering himself to be overcome by the
circumstances in which he found himself.  He compelled himself,
therefore, to enter into conversation with Sir William Ashton,
with as much appearance of indifference as he could well command.

"You will not be surprised, Sir William, that I am
interested in the changes you have made for the better in this
apartment.  In my father's time, after our misfortunes compelled
him to live in retirement, it was little used, except by me as a
play-room, when the weather would not permit me to go abroad.  In
that recess was my little workshop, where I treasured the few
carpenters' tools which old Caleb procured for me, and taught me
how to use; there, in yonder corner, under that handsome silver
sconce, I kept my fishing-rods and hunting poles, bows and
arrows."

"I have a young birkie," said the Lord Keeper, willing to change
the tone of the conversation, "of much the same turn.  He is
never happy save when he is in the field.  I wonder he is not
here.  Here, Lockhard; send William Shaw for Mr. Henry.  I
suppose he is, as usual, tied to Lucy's apron-string; that
foolish girl, Master, draws the whole family after her at her
pleasure."

Even this allusion to his daughter, though artfully thrown out,
did not recall Ravenswood from his own topic.
"We were obliged to leave," he said, "some armour and portraits
in this apartment; may I ask where they have been removed to?"

"Why," answered the Keeper, with some hesitation, "the room was
fitted up in our absence, and cedant arma togae is the maxim of
lawyers, you know: I am afraid it has been here somewhat too
literally complied with.  I hope--I believe they are safe,
I am sure I gave orders; may I hope that when they are recovered,
and put in proper order, you will do me the honour to accept them
at my hand, as an atonement for their accidental derangement?"

The Master of Ravenswood bowed stiffly, and, with folded arms,
again resumed his survey of the room.

Henry, a spoilt boy of fifteen, burst into the room, and ran up
to his father.  "Think of Lucy, papa; she has come home so cross
and so fractious, that she will not go down to the stable to see
my new pony, that Bob Wilson brought from the Mull of Galloway."

"I think you were very unreasonable to ask her," said the
Keeper.

"Then you are as cross as she is," answered the boy; "but when
mamma comes home, she'll claw up both your mittens."

"Hush your impertinence, you little forward imp!" said his
father; "where is your tutor?"

"Gone to a wedding at Dunbar; I hope he'll get a haggis to his
dinner"; and he began to sing the old Scottish song:

"There was a haggis in Dunbar,
Fal de ral, etc.
Mony better and few waur,
Fal de ral," etc.

"I am much obliged to Mr. Cordery for his attentions," said the
Lord Keeper; "and pray who has had the charge of you while I was
away, Mr. Henry?"

"Norman and Bob Wilson, forbye my own self."

"A groom and a gamekeeper, and your own silly self--proper
guardians for a young advocate!  Why, you will never know any
statutes but those against shooting red-deer, killing salmon,
and----"

"And speaking of red-game," said the young scapegrace,
interrupting his father without scruple or hesitation, "Norman
has shot a buck, and I showed the branches to Lucy, and she says
they have but eight tynes; and she says that you killed a deer
with Lord Bittlebrains's hounds, when you were west away, and, do
you know, she says it had ten tynes; is it true?"

"It may have had twenty, Henry, for what I know; but if you go
to that gentleman, he can tell you all about it.  Go speak to
him, Henry; it is the Master of Ravenswood."

While they conversed thus, the father and son were standing by
the fire; and the Master, having walked towards the upper end of
the apartment, stood with his back towards them, apparently
engaged in examining one of the paintings.  The boy ran up to
him, and pulled him by the skirt of the coat with the freedom of
a spoilt child, saying, "I say, sir, if you please to tell me----
" but when the Master turned round, and Henry saw his face, he
became suddenly and totally disconcerted; walked two or three
steps backward, and still gazed on Ravenswood with an air of
fear and wonder, which had totally banished from his features
their usual expression of pert vivacity.

"Come to me, young gentleman," said the Master, "and I will tell
you all I know about the hunt."

"Go to the gentleman, Henry," said his father; "you are not used
to be so shy."

But neither invitation nor exhortation had any effect on the
boy.  On the contrary, he turned round as soon as he had
completed his survey of the Master, and walking as cautiously as
if he had been treading upon eggs, he glided back to his father,
and pressed as close to him as possible.  Ravenswood, to avoid
hearing the dispute betwixt the father and the overindulged boy,
thought it most polite to turn his face once more towards the
pictures, and pay no attention to what they said.

"Why do you not speak to the Master, you little fool?" said the
Lord Keeper.

"I am afraid," said Henry, in a very low tone of voice.

"Afraid, you goose!" said his father, giving him a slight shake
by the collar.  "What makes you afraid?"

"What makes him to like the picture of Sir Malise Ravenswood
then?" said the boy, whispering.

"What picture, you natural?" said his father.  "I used to think
you only a scapegrace, but I believe you will turn out a born
idiot."

"I tell you, it is the picture of old Malise of Ravenswood, and
he is as like it as if he had loupen out of the canvas; and it is
up in the old baron's hall that the maids launder the clothes in;
and it has armour, and not a coat like the gentleman; and he has
not a beard and whiskers like the picture; and it has another
kind of thing about the throat, and no band-strings as he has;
and----"

"And why should not the gentleman be like his ancestor, you
silly boy?" said the Lord Keeper.

"Ay; but if he is come to chase us all out of the castle," said
the boy, "and has twenty men at his back in disguise; and is
come to say, with a hollow voice, 'I bide my time'; and is to
kill you on the hearth as Malise did the other man, and whose
blood is still to be seen!"

"Hush! nonsense!" said the Lord Keeper, not himself much pleased
to hear these disagreeable coicidences forced on his notice.
"Master, here comes Lockhard to say supper is served."

And, at the same instant, Lucy entered at another door, having
changed her dress since her return.  The exquisite
feminine beauty of her countenance, now shaded only by a
profusion of sunny tresses; the sylph-like form, disencumbered of
her heavy riding-skirt and mantled in azure silk; the grace of
her manner and of her smile, cleared, with a celerity which
surprised the Master himself, all the gloomy and unfavourable
thoughts which had for some time overclouded his fancy.  In those
features, so simply sweet, he could trace no alliance with the
pinched visage of the peak-bearded, black-capped Puritan, or his
starched, withered spouse, with the craft expressed in the Lord
Keeper's countenance, or the haughtiness which predominated in
that of his lady; and, while he gazed on Lucy Ashton, she seemed
to be an angel descended on earth, unallied to the coarses
mortals among whom she deigned to dwell for a season.  Such is
the power of beauty over a youthful and enthusiastic fancy.



CHAPTER XIX.

I do too ill in this,
And must not think but that a parent's plaint
Will move the heavens to pour forth misery
Upon the head of disobediency.
Yet reason tells us, parents are o'erseen,
When with too strict a rein they do hold in
Their child's affection, and control that love,
Which the high powers divine inspire them with.

The Hog hath lost his Pearl.



THE feast of Ravenswood Castle was as remarkable for its
profusion as that of Wolf's Crag had been for its ill-veiled
penury.  The Lord Keeper might feel internal pride at the
contrast, but he had too much tact to suffer it to appear.  On
the contrary, he seemed to remember with pleasure what he called
Mr. Balderstone's bachelor's meal, and to be rather disgusted
than pleaseed with the display upon his own groaning board.

"We do these things," he said, "because others do them; but I
was bred a plain man at my father's frugal table, and I should
like well would my wife and family permit me to return to my
sowens and my poor-man-of-mutton."

This was a little overstretched.  The Master only answered,
"That different ranks--I mean," said he, correcting himself,
"different degrees of wealth require a different style of
housekeeping."

This dry remark put a stop to further conversation on the
subject, nor is it necessary to record that which was substituted
in its place.  The evening was spent with freedom, and even
cordiality; and Henry had so far overcome his first
apprehensions, that he had settled a party for coursing a stag
with the representative and living resemblance of grim Sir Malise
of Ravenswood, called the Revenger.  The next morning was the
appointed time.  It rose upon active sportsmen and successful
sport.  The banquet came in course; and a pressing invitation to
tarry yet another day was given and accepted.  This Ravenswood
had resolved should be the last of his stay; but he recollected
he had not yet visited the ancient and devoted servant of his
house, Old Alice, and it was but kind to dedicate one morning to
the gratification of so ancient an adherent.

To visit Alice, therefore, a day was devoted, and Lucy was the
Master's guide upon the way.  Henry, it is true, accompanied
them, and took from their walk the air of a tete-a-tete,
while, in reality, it was little else, considering the variety of
circumstances which occurred to prevent the boy from giving the
least attention to what passed between his companions.  Now a
rook settled on a branch within shot; anon a hare crossed their
path, and Henry and his greyhound went astray in pursuit of it;
then he had to hold a long conversation with the forester, which
detained him a while behind his companions; and again he went to
examine the earth of a badger, which carriued him on a good way
before them.

The conversation betwixt the Master and his sister,
meanwhile, took an interesting, and almost a confidential, turn.
She could not help mentioning her sense of the pain he must feel
in visiting scenes so well known to him, bearing now an aspect so
different; and so gently was her sympathy expressed, that
Ravenswood felt it for a moment as a full requital of all his
misfortunes.  Some such sentiment escaped him, which Lucy heard
with more of confusion than displeasure; and she may be forgiven
the imprudence of listening to such langauge, considering that
the situation in which she was placed by her father seemed to
authorise Ravenswood to use it.  Yet she made an effort to turn
the conversation, and she succeeded; for the Master also had
advanced farther than he intended, and his conscience had
instantly checked him when he found himself on the verge of
speaking of love to the daughter of Sir William Ashton.

They now approached the hut of Old Alice, which had of late been
rendered more comfortable, and presented an appearance less
picturesque, perhaps, but far neater than before.  The old woman
was on her accustomed seat beneath the weeping birch, basking,
with the listless enjoyment of age and infirmity, in the beams of
the autumn sun.  At the arrival of her visitors she turned her
head towards them.  "I hear your step, Miss Ashton," she said,
"but the gentleman who attends you is not my lord, your father."

"And why should you think so, Alice?" said Lucy; "or how is it
possible for you to judge so accurately by the sound of a step,
on this firm earth, and in the open air?"

"My hearing, my child, has been sharpened by my blindness, and I
can now draw conclusions from the slightest sounds, which
formerly reached my ears as unheeded as they niw approach yours.
Necessity is a stern but an excellent schoolmistress, and she
that has lost her sight must collect her information from other
sources."

"Well, you hear a man's step, I grant it," said Lucy; "but why,
Alice, may it not be my father's?"

"The pace of age, my love, is timid and cautious: the foot takes
leave of the earth slowly, and is planted down upon it with
hesitation; it is the hasty and determined step of youth that I
now hear, and --could I give credit to so strange a thought--I
should say is was the step of a Ravenswood."

"This is indeed," said Ravenswood, "an acuteness of organ which
I could not have credited had I not witnessed it.  I am indeed
the Master of Ravenswood, Alice,--the son of your old master."

"You!" said the old woman, with almost a scream of surprise--
"you the Master of Ravenswood--here--in this place, and thus
accompanied!  I cannot believe it.  let me pass my old hand over
your face, that my touch may bear witness to my ears."

The Master sate down beside her on the earthen bank, and
permitted her to touch his features with her trembling hand.

"It is indeed!" she said--"it is the features as well as the
voice of Ravenswood--the high lines of pride, as well as the bold
and haughty tone.  But what do you here, Master of Ravenwsood?--
what do you in your enemy's domain, and in company with his
child?"
As Old Alice spoke, her face kindled, as probably that of an
ancient feudal vassal might have done in whose presence his
youthful liege-lord had showed some symptom of degenerating from
the spirit of his ancestors.

"The Master of Ravenswood," said Lucy, who liked not the tone of
this expostulation, and was desirous to abridge it, "is upon a
visit to my father."

"Indeed!" said the old blind woman, in an accent of
surprise.

"I knew," continued Lucy, "I should do him a pleasure by
conducting him to your cottage."

"Where, to say the truth, Alice," said Ravenswood, "I expected a
more cordial reception."

"It is most wonderful!" said the old woman, muttering to
herself; "but the ways of Heaven are not like our ways, and its
judgments are brought about by means far beyond our fathoming.
Hearken, young man," she said; "your fathers were implacable, but
they were honourable, foes; they sought not to ruin their enemies
under the mast of hospitality.  "What have you to do with Lucy
Ashton?  why should your steps move in the same footpath with
hers? why should your voice sound in the same chord and time with
those of Sir William Ashton's daughter?  Young man, he who aims
at revenge by dishonourable means----"

"Be silent, woman!" said Ravenswood, sternly; "it is the devil
that prompts your voice?  Know that this young lady has not on
earth a friend who would venture farther to save her from injury
or from insult."

"And is it even so?" said the old woman, in an altered but
melancholy tone, "then God help you both!"

"Amen!  Alice," said Lucy, who had not comprehended the import
of what the blind woman had hinted, "and send you your senses,
Alice, and your good humour.  If you hold this mysterious
language, instead of welcoming your friends, they will think of
you as other people do."

"And how do other people think?" said Ravenswood, for he also
began to believe the old woman spoke with incoherence.

"They think," said Henry Ashton, who came up at that moment, and
whispered into Ravenswood's ear, "that she is a witch, that
should have been burned with them that suffered at Haddington."

"What is it you say?" said Alice, turning towards the boy, her
sightless visage inflamed with passion; "that I am a witch, and
ought to have suffered with the helpless old wretches who were
murdered at Haddington?"

"Hear to that now," again whispered Henry, "and me
whispering lower than a wren cheeps!"

"If the usurer, and the oppressor, and the grinder of the poor
man's face, and the remover of ancient landmarks, and the
subverter of ancient houses, were at the same stake with me, I
could say, 'Light the fire, in God's name!'"

"This is dreadful," said Lucy; "I have never seen the poor
deserted woman in this state of mind; but age and poverty can ill
bear reproach.  Come, Henry, we will leave her for the present;
she wishes to speak with the Master alone.  We will walk
homeward, and rest us," she added, looking at Ravenswood, "by the
Mermaiden's Well."
"And Alice," said the boy, "if you know of any hare that comes
through among the deer, and makes them drop their calves out of
season, you may tell her, with my compliments to command, that if
Norman has not got a silver bullet ready for her, I'll lend him
one of my doublet-buttons on purpose."

Alice made no answer till she was aware that the sister and
brother were out of hearing.  She then said to Ravenswood:  "And
you, too, are angry with me for my love?  It is just that
strangers should be offended, but you, too, are angry!"

"I am not angry, Alice," said the Master, "only surprised that
you, whose good sense I have ehard so often praised, should give
way to offensive and unfounded suspicions."

"Offensive!" said Alice.   "Ay, trust is ever offensive; but,
surely, not unfounded."

"I tell you, dame, most groundless," replied Ravenswood.

"Then the world has changed its wont, and the Ravenswoods their
hereditary temper, and the eyes of Old Alice's
understanding are yet more blind than those of her countenance.
When did a Ravenswood seek the house of his enemy but with the
purpose of revenge? and hither are you come, Edgar Ravenswood,
either in fatal anger or in still more fatal love."

"In neither," said Ravenswood, "I give you mine honour--I mean,
I assure you."

Alice could not see his blushing cheek, but she noticed his
hestitation, and that he retracted the pledge which he seemed at
first disposed to attach to his denial.

"It is so, then," she said, "and therefore she is to tarry by
the Mermaiden's Well!  Often has it been called a place fatal to
the race of Ravenswood--often has it proved so; but never was it
likely to verify old sayings as much as on this day."

"You drive me to madness, Alice," said Ravenswood; "you are more
silly and more superstitious than old Balderstone.  Are you such
a wretched Christian as to suppose I would in the present day
levy war against the Ashton family, as was the sanguinary custom
in elder times? or do you suppose me so foolish, that I cannot
walk by a young lady's side without plunging headlong in love
with her?"

"My thoughts," replied Alice, "are my own; and if my mortal
sight is closed to objects present with me, it may be I can look
with more steadiness into future events.  Are you prepared to
sit lowest at the board which was once your father's own,
unwillingly, as a connexion and ally of his proud successor?  Are
you ready to live on his bounty; to follow him in the bye-paths
of intrigue and chicane, which none can better point out to you;
to gnaw the bones of his prey when he has devoured the substance?
Can you say as Sir William Ashton says, think as he thinks, vote
as he votes, and call your father's murderer your worshipful
father-in-law and revered patron?  Master of Ravenswood, I am
the eldest servant of your house, and I would rather see you
shrouded and coffined!"

The tumult in Ravenswood's mind was uncommonly great; she struck
upon and awakened a chord which he had for some time
successfully silenced.  He strode backwards and forwards through
the little garden with a hasty pace; and at length checking
himself, and stopping right opposite to Alice, he exclaimed:
"Woman! on the verge of the grave, dare you urge the son of your
master to blood and to revenge?"

"God forbid!" said Alice, solemnly; "and therefore I would have
you depart these fatal bounds, where your love, as well as your
hatred, threatens sure mischief, or at least disgrace, both to
yourself and others.  I would shield, were it in the power of
this withered hand, the Ashtons from you, and you from them, and
both from their own passions.  You can have nothing--ought to
have nothing, in common with them.   Begone from among them; and
if God has destined vengeance on the oppressor's house, do not
you be the instrument."

"I will think on what you have said, Alice," said
Ravenswood, more composedly.  "I believe you mean truly and
faithfully by me, but you urge the freedom of an ancient domestic
somewhat too far.  But farewell; and if Heaven afford me better
means, I will not fail to contribute to your comfort."

He attempted to put a piece of gold into her hand, which she
refused to receive; and, in the slight struggle attending his
wish to force it upon her, it dropped to the earth.

"Let it remain an instant on the ground," said Alice, as the
Master stooped to raise it; "and believe me, that piece of gold
is an emblem of her whom you love; she is as precious, I grant,
but you must stoop even to abasement before you can win her.  For
me, I have as little to do with gold as with earthly passions;
and the best news that the world has in store for me is, that
Edgar Ravenswood is an hundred miles distant from the seat of his
ancestors, with the determination never again to behold it."

"Alice," said the Master, who began  to think this
earnestness had some more secret cause than arose from anything
that the blind woman could have gathered from this casual visit,
"I have heard you praised by my mother for your sense, acuteness,
and fidelity; you are no fool to start at shadows, or to dread
old superstitious saws, like Caleb Balderstone; tell me
distinctly where my danger lies, if you are aware of any which is
tending towards me.  If I know myself, I am free from all such
views respecting Miss Ashton as you impute to me.  I have
necessary business to settle with Sir William; that arranged, I
shall depart, and with as little wish, as you may easily believe,
to return to a place full of melancholy subjects of reflection,
as you have to see me here."
Alice bent her sightless eyes on the ground, and was for some
time plunged in deep meditation.  "I will speak the truth," she
said at length, raising up her head--"I will tell you the source
of my apprehensions, whether my candour be for good or for evil.
Lucy Ashton loves you, Lord of Ravenswood!"

"It is impossible," said the Master.

"A thousand circumstances have proved it to me," replied the
blind woman.  "Her thoughts have turned on no one else since you
saved her from death, and that my experienced judgment has won
from her own conversation.  Having told you this--if you are
indeed a gentleman and your father's son--you will make it a
movtive for flying from her presence.  Her passion will die like
a lamp for want of that the flame should feed upon; but, if you
remain here, her destruction, or yours, or that of both, will be
the inevitable consequence of her misplaced attachment.  I tell
you this secret unwillingly, but it could not have been hid long
from your own observation, and it is better you learn it from
mine.  Depart, Master of Ravenswood; you have my secret.  If you
remain an hour under Sir William Ashton's roof without the
resolution to marry his daughter, you are a villain; if with the
purpose of allying yourself with kin, you are an infatuated and
predestined fool."

So saying, the old blind woman arose, asumed her staff, and,
tottering to her hut, entered it and closed the door, leaving
Ravenswood to his own reflections.



CHAPTER XX.

Lovelier in her own retired abode
....than Naiad by the side
Of Grecian brook--or Lady of the Mere
Lone sitting by the shores of old romance.

WORDSWORTH.


THE meditations of Ravenswood were of a very mixed
complexion.  He saw himself at once in the very dilemma which he
had for some time felt apprehensive he might be placed in.  The
pleasure he felt in Lucy's company had indeed approached to
fascination, yet it had never altogether surmounted his internal
reluctance to wed with the daughter of his father's foe; and even
in forgiving Sir William Ashton the injuries which his family had
received, and giving him credit for the kind intentions he
professed to entertain, he could not bring himself to contemplate
as possible an alliance betwixt their houses.  Still, he felt
that Alice poke truth, and that his honour now required he should
take an instant leave of Ravenswood Castle, or become a suitor of
Lucy Ashton.  The possibility of being rejected, too, should he
make advances to her wealthy and powerful father--to sue for the
hand of an Ashton and be refused--this were a consummation too
disgraceful.  "I wish her well," he said to himself, "and for her
sake I forgive the injuries her father has done to my house; but
I will never--no, never see her more!"

With one bitter pang he adopted this resolution, just as he came
to where two paths parted: the one to the Mermaiden's Fountain,
where he knew Lucy waited him, the other leading to the castle by
another and more circuitous road.  He paused an instant when
about to take the latter path, thinking what apology he should
make for conduct which must needs seem extraordinary, and had
just muttered to himself, "Sudden news from Edinburgh--any
pretext will serve; only let me dally no longer here," when
young Henry came flying up to him, half out of breath: "Master,
Master you must give Lucy your arm back to the castle, for I
cannot give her mine; for Norman is waiting for me, and I am to
go with him to make his ring-walk, and I would not stay away for
a gold Jacobus; and Lucy is afraid to walk home alone, though all
the wild nowt have been shot, and so you must come away
directly."

Betwixt two scales equally loaded, a feather's weight will turn
the scale.  "It is impossible for me to leave the young lady in
the wood alone," said Ravenswood; "to see her once more can be
of little consequence, after the frequent meetings we have had.
I ought, too, in courtesy, to apprise her of my intention to quit
the castle."

And having thus satisfied himself that he was taking not only a
wise, but an absolutely necessary, step, he took the path to the
fatal fountain.  Henry no sooner saw him on the way to join his
sister than he was off like lightning in another
direction, to enjoy the society of the forester in their
congenial pursuits.  Ravenswood, not allowing himself to give a
second thought to the propriety of his own conduct, walked with a
quick step towards the stream, where he found Lucy seated alone
by the ruin.

She sate upon one of the disjointed stones of the ancient
fountain, and seemed to watch the progress of its current, as it
bubbled forth to daylight, in gay and sparkling profusion, from
under the shadow of the ribbed and darksome vault, with which
veneration, or perhaps remorse, had canopied its source.  To a
superstitious eye, Lucy Ashton, folded in her plaided mantle,
with her long hair, escaping partly from the snood and falling
upon her silver neck, might have suggested the idea of the
murdered Nymph of the fountain.  But Ravenswood only saw a female
exquisitely beautiful, and rendered yet more so in his eyes--how
could it be otherwise?--by the consciousness that she had placed
her affections on him.  As he gazed on her, he felt his fixed
resolution melting like wax in the sun, and hastened, therefore,
from his concealment in the neighbouring thicket.  She saluted
him, but did not arise from the stone on which she was seated.

"My madcap brother," she said, "has left me, but I expect him
back in a few minutes; for, fortunately, as anything pleases him
for a minute, nothing has charms for him much longer."

Ravenswood did not feel the power of informing Lucy that her
brother meditated a distant excursion, and would not return in
haste.  He sate himself down on the grass, at some little
distance from Miss Ashton, and both were silent for a short
space.

"I like this spot," said Lucy at length, as if she found the
silence embarrassing; "the bubbling murmur of the clear fountain,
the waving of the trees, the profusion of grass and wild-
flowers that rise among the ruins, make it like a scene in
romance.  I think, too, I have heard it is a spot connected with
the legendary lore which I love so well."

"It has been thought," answered Ravenswood, "a fatal spot to my
family; and I have some reason to term it so, for it was here I
first saw Miss Ashton; and it is here I must take my leave of
her for ever."

The blood, which the first part of this speech called into
Lucy's cheeks, was speedily expelled by its conclusion.

"To take leave of us, Master!" she exclaimed; "what can have
happened to hurry you away?  I know Alice hates--I mean dislikes
my father; and I hardly understood her humour to-day, it was so
mysterious.  But I am certain my father is sincerely grateful for
the high service you rendered us.  Lt me hope that, having won
your friendship hardly, we shall not lose it lightly."

"Lose it, Miss Ashton!" said the Master of Ravenswood.  "No;
wherever my fortune calls me--whatever she inflicts upon me--it
is your friend--your sincere friend, who acts or suffers.  But
there is a fate on me, and I must go, or I shall add the ruin of
others to my own."

"Yet do not go from us, Master," said Lucy; and she laid her
hand, in all simplicity and kindness, upon the skirt of his
cloak, as if to detain him.  "You shall not part from us.  My
father is powerful, he has friends taht are more so than himself;
do not go till you see what his gratitude will do for you.
Believe me, he is already labouring in your behalf with the
council."

"It may be so," said the Master, proudly; "yet it is not to your
father, Miss Ashton, but to my own exertions, that I ought to owe
success in the career on which I am about to enter.  My
preparations are already made--a sword and a cloak, and a bold
heart and a determined hand."

Lucy covered her face her hands, and the tears, in spite of her,
forced their way between her fingers.

"Forgive me," said Ravenswood, taking her right hand, which,
after slight resistance, she yielded to him, still continuing to
shade her face with the left--"I am too rude--too rough--too
intractable to deal with any being so soft and gentle as you are.
Forget that so stern a vision has crossed your path of life; and
let me pursue mine, sure that I can meet with no worse misfortune
after the moment it divides me from your side."

Lucy wept on, but her tears were less bitter.  Each attempt
which the Master made to explain his purpose of departure only
proved a new evidence of his desire to stay; until, at length,
instead of bidding her farewell, he gave his faith to her for
ever, and received her troth in return.  The whole passed so
suddenly, and arose so much out of the immediate impulse of the
moment, that ere the Master of Ravenswood could reflect upon the
consequences of the step which he had taken, their lips, as well
as their hands, had pledged the sincerity of their affection.

"And now," he said, after a moment's consideration, "it is fit I
should speak to Sir William Ashton; he must know of our
engagement.  Ravenswood must not seem to dwell under his roof to
solicit clandestinely the affections of his daughter."

"You would not speak to my father on the subject?" said Lucy,
doubtingly; and then added more warmly: "Oh do not--do not!  Let
your lot in life be determined--your station and purpose
ascertained, before you address my father.  I am sure he loves
you--I think he will consent; but then my mother----!"

She paused, ashamed to express the doubt she felt how far her
father dared to form any positive resolution on this most
important subject without the consent of his lady.

"Your mother, my Lucy!" replied Ravenswood.  "She is of the
house of Douglas, a house that has intermarried with mine even
when its glory and power were at the highest; what could your
mother object to my alliance?"

"I did not say object," said Lucy; "but she is jealous of her
rights, and may claim a mother's title to be consulted in the
first instance."

"Be it so," replied Ravenswood.  "London is distant, but a
letter will reach it and receive an answer within a fortnight; I
will not press on the Lord Keeper for an instant reply to my
proposal."

"But," hesitated Lucy, "were it not better to wait--to wait a
few weeks?  Were my mother to see you--to know you, I am sure
she would approve; but you are unacquainted personally, and the
ancient feud between the families----"

Ravenswood fixed upon her his keen dark eyes, as if he was
desirous of penetrating into her very soul.

"Lucy," he said, "I have sacrificed to you projects of vengeance
long nursed, and sworn to with ceremonies little better than
heathen--I sacrificed them to your image, ere I knew the worth
which it represented.  In the evening which succeeded my poor
father's funeral, I cut a lock from my hair, and, as it consumed
in the fire, I swore that my rage and revenge should pursue his
enemies, until they shrivelled before me like that scorched-up
symbol of annihilation."

"It was a deadly sin," said Lucy, turning pale, "to make a vow
so fatal."

"I acknowledge it," said Ravenswood, "and it had been a worse
crime to keep it.  It was for your sake that I abjured these
purposes of vengeance, though I scarce knew that such was the
argument by which I was conquered, until I saw you once more,
and became ocnscious of the influence you possessed over me."

"And why do you now," said Lucy, "recall sentiments so terrible--
sentiments so inconsistent with those you profess for me--with
those your importunity has prevailed on me to acknowledge?"

"Because," said her lover, "I would impress on you the price at
which I have bought your love--the right I have to expect your
constancy.  I say not that I have bartered for it the honour of
my house, its last remaining possession; but though I say it not,
and think it not, I cannot conceal from myself that the world may
do both."

"If such are your sentiments," said Lucy, "you have played a
cruel game with me.  But it is not too late to give it over: take
back the faith and troth which you could not plight to me without
suffering abatement of honour--let what is passed be as if it had
not been--forget me; I will endeavour to forget myself."

"You do me injustice," said the Master of Ravenswood--"by all I
hold true and honourable, you do me the extremity of injustice;
if I mentioned the price at which I have bought your love, it is
only to show how much I prize it, to bind our
engagement by a still firmer tie, and to show, by what I have
done to attain this atation in your regard, how much I must
suffer should you ever break your faith."

"And why, Ravenswood," answered Lucy, "should you think that
possible?  Why should you urge me with even the mention of
infidelity?  Is it because I ask you to delay applying to my
father for a little space of time?  Bind me by what vows you
please; if vows are unnecessary to secure constancy, they may yet
prevent suspicion."
Ravenswood pleaded, apologised, and even kneeled, to appease her
displeasure; and lucy, as placable as she was single-hearted,
readily forgave the offence which his doubts had implied.  The
dispute thus agitated, however, ended by the lovers going through
an emblematic ceremony of their troth-plight, of which the vulgar
still preserve some traces.  They broke betwixt them the thin
broad-piece of gold which Alice had refused to receive from
Ravenswood.

"And never shall this leave my bosom," said Lucy, as she hung
the piece of gold round her neck, and concealed it with her
handkerchief, "until you, Edgar Ravenswood, ask me to resign it
to you; and, while I wear it, never shall that heart acknowledge
another love than yours."

With like protestations, Ravenswood placed his portion of the
coin opposite to his heart.  And now, at length, it struck them
that time had hurried fast on during this interview, and their
absence at the castle would be subject of remark, if not of
alarm.  As they arose to leave the fountain which had been
witness of their mutual engagement, an arrow whistled through the
air, and struck a raven perched on the sere branch of an old oak,
near to where they had been seated.  The bird fluttered a few
yards and dropped at the feet of Lucy, whose dress was stained
with some spots of its blood.

Miss Ashton was much alarmed, and Ravenswood, surprised and
angry, looked everywhere for the marksman, who had given them a
proof of his skill as little expected as desired.  He was not
long of discovering himself, being no other than Henry Ashton,
who came running up with a crossbow in his hand.

"I knew I should startle you," he said; "and do you know, you
looked so busy that I hoped it would have fallen souse on your
heads before you were aware of it.  What was the Master saying to
you, Lucy?"

"I was telling your sister what an idle lad you were, keeping us
waiting here for you so long," said Ravenswood, to save Lucy's
confusion.

"Waiting for me!  Why, I told you to see Lucy home, and that I
was to go to make the ring-walk with old Norman in the Hayberry
thicket, and you may be sure that would take a good hour, and we
have all the deer's marks and furnishes got, while you were
sitting here with Lucy, like a lazy loon."

"Well, well, Mr. Henry," said Ravenswood; "but let us see how
you will answer to me for killing the raven.  Do you know, the
ravens are all under the protection of the Lords of
Ravenswood, and to kill one in their presence is such bad luck
that it deserves the stab?"

"And that's what Norman said," replied the boy; "he came as far
with me as within a flight-shot of you, and he said he never saw
a raven sit still so near living folk, and he wished it might be
for good luck, for the raven is one of the wildest birds that
flies, unless it be a tame one; and so I crept on and on, till I
was within threescore yards of him, and then whiz went the bolt,
and there he lies, faith!  Was it not well shot? and, I dare say,
I have not shot in a crossbow!--not ten times, maybe."

"Admirably shot, indeed," said Ravenswood; "and you will be a
fine marksman if you practise hard."

"And that's what Norman says," answered the boy; "but I am sure
it is not my fault if I do not practise enough; for, of free
will, I would do little else, only my father and tutor are angry
sometimes, and only Miss Lucy there gives herself airs about my
being busy, for all she can sit idle by a wellside the whole day,
when she has a handsome young gentleman to prate with.  I have
known her do so twenty times, if you will believe me."

The boy looked at his sister as he spoke, and, in the midst of
his mischievous chatter, had the sense to see that he was really
inflicting pain upon her, though without being able to
comprehend the cause or the amount.

"Come now, Lucy," he said, "don't greet; and if I have said
anything beside the mark, I'll deny it again; and what does the
Master of Ravenswood care if you had a hundred sweethearts? so
ne'er put finger in your eye about it."

The Master of Ravenswood was, for the moment, scarce
satisfied with what he heard; yet his good sense naturally
regarded it as the chatter of a spoilt boy, who strove to mortify
his sister in the point which seemed most accessible for the
time.  But, although of a temper equally slow in receiving
impressions and obstinate in retaining them, the prattle of Henry
served to nourish in his mind some vague suspicion that his
present engagement might only end in his being exposed, like a
conquered enemy in a Roman triumph, a captive attendant on the
car of a victor who meditated only the satiating his pride at the
expense of the vanquished.  There was, we repeat it, no real
ground whatever for such an apprehension, nor could he be said
seriously to entertain such for a moment.  Indeed, it was
impossible to look at the clear blue eye of Lucy Ashton, and
entertain the slightest permanent doubt concerning the sincerity
of her disposition.  Still, however, conscious pride and
conscious poverty combined to render a mind suspecious which in
more fortunate circumstances would have been a stranger to that
as well as to every other meanness.

They reached the castle, where Sir William Ashton, who had been
alarmed by the length of their stay, met them in the hall.

"Had Lucy," he said, "been in any other company than that of one
who had shown he had so complete power of protecting her, he
confessed he should have been very uneasy, and would have
despatched persons in quest of them.  But, in the company of the
Master of Ravenswood, he knew his daughter had nothing to dread."
Lucy commenced some apology for their long delay, but,
conscience-struck, becames confused as she proceeded; and when
Ravenswood, coming to her assistance, endeavoured to render the
explanation complete and satisfactory, he only involved himself
in the same disorder, like one who, endeavouring to extricate his
companion from a slough, entangles himself in the same tenacious
swamp.  It cannot be supposed that the confusion of the two
youthful lovers escaped the observation of the sublte lawyer,
accustomed, by habit and profession, to trace human nature
through all her windings.  But it was not his present policy to
take any notice of what he observed.  He desired to hold the
Master of Ravenswood bound, but wished that he himself should
remain free; and it did not occur to him that his plan might be
defeated by Lucy's returning the passion which he hoped she might
inspire.  If she should adopt some romantic feelings towards
Ravenswood, in which circumstances, or the positive and absolute
opposition of Lady Ashton, might render it unadvisable to indulge
her, the Lord Keeper conceived they might be easily superseded
and annulled by a journey to Edinburgh, or even to London, a new
set of Brussels lace, and the soft whispers of half a dozen
lovers, anxious to replace him whom it was convenient she should
renounce.  This was his provision for the worst view of the case.
But, according to its more probable issue, any passing favours
she might entertain for the Master of Ravenswood might require
encouragement rather than repression.

This seemed the more likely, as he had that very morning, since
their departure from the castle, received a letter, the contents
of which he hastened to communicate to Ravenswood.  A foot-post
had arrived with a packet to the Lord Keeper from that friend
whom we have already mentioned, who was labouring hard underhand
to consolidate a band of patriots, at the head of whom stood Sir
William's greatest terror, the active and ambitious Marquis of A-
---.  The success of this convenient friend had been such, that
he had obtained from Sir William, not indeed a
directly favourable answer, but certainly a most patient hearing.
This he had reported to his principal, who had replied by the
ancient French adage, "Chateau qui parle, et femme qui ecoute,
l'un et l'autre va se rendre."  A statesman who hears you
propose a change of measures without reply was, according to the
Marquis's opinion, in the situation of the fortress which parleys
and the lady who listens, and he resolved to press the siege of
the Lord Keeper.

The packet, therefore, contained a letter from his friend and
ally, and another from himself, to the Lord Keeper, frankly
offering an unceremonious visit.  They were crossing the country
to go to the southward; the roads were indifferent; the
accommodation of the inns as execrable as possible; the Lord
Keeper had been long acquainted intimately with one of his
correspondents, and, though more slightly known to the Marquis,
had yet enough of his lordship's acquaintance to render the visit
sufficiently natural, and to shut the mouths of those who might
be disposed to impute it to a political intrigue.  He instantly
accepted the offered visit, determined, however, that he would
not pledge himself an inch farther for the furtherance of their
views than REASON (by which he meant his own self-interest)
should plainly point out to him as proper.

Two circumstances particularly delighted him--the presence of
Ravenswood, and the absence of his own lady.  By having the
former under his roof, he conceived he might be able to quash all
such hazardous and hostile proceedings as he might otherwise have
been engaged in, under the patronage of the Marquis; and Lucy, he
foresaw, would make, for his immediate purpose of delay and
procrastination, a much better mistress of his family than her
mother, who would, he was sure, in some shape or other, contrive
to disconcert his political schemes by her proud and implacable
temper.

His anxious solicitations that the Master would stay to
receive his kinsman, were, of course, readily complied with,
since the eclaircissement which had taken place at the
Mermaiden's Fountain had removed all wish for sudden departure.
Lucy and Lockhard, had, therefore, orders to provide all things
necessary in their different departments, for receiving the
expected guests with a pomp and display of luxury very uncommon
in Scotland at that remote period.



CHAPTER XXI.

Marall:  Sir, the man of honour's come,
Newly alighted----
Overreach:  In without reply,
And do as I command....
Is the loud music I gave order for
Ready to receive him?

New Way to pay Old Debts.


SIR WILLIAM ASHTON, although a man of sense, legal
information, and great practical knowledge of the world, had yet
some points of character which corresponded better with the
timidity of his disposition and the supple arts by which he had
risen in the world, than to the degree of eminence which he had
attained; as they tended to show an original mediocrity of
understanding, however highly it had been cultivated, and a
native meanness of disposition, however carefully veiled.  He
loved the ostentatious display of his wealth, less as a man to
whom habit has made it necessary, than as one to whom it is still
delightful from its novelty.  The most trivial details did not
escape him; and Lucy soon learned to watch the flush of scorn
which crossed Ravenswood's cheek, when he heard her father
gravely arguing with Lockhard, nay, even with the old
housekeeper, upon circumstances which, in families of rank, are
left uncared for, because it is supposed impossible they can be
neglected.

"I could pardon Sir William," said Ravenswood, one evening after
he had left the room, "some general anxiety upon this occasion,
for the Marquis's visit is an honour, and should be received as
such; but I am worn out by these miserable minutiae of the
buttery, and the larder, and the very hencoop--they drive me
beyond my patience; I would rather endure the poverty of Wolf's
Crag than be pestered with the wealth of Ravenswood Castle."

"And yet," said Lucy, "it was by attention to these minutiae
that my father acquired the property----"

"Which my ancestors sold for lack of it," replied
Ravenswood.  "Be it so; a porter still bears but a burden, though
the burden be of gold."

Lucy sighed; she perceived too plainly that her lover held in
scorn the manners and habits of a father to whom she had long
looked up as her best and most partial friend, whose fondness
had often consoled her for her mother's contemptuous harshness.

The lovers soon discovered that they differed upon other and no
less important topics.  Religion, the mother of peace, was, in
those days of discord, so much misconstrued and mistaken, that
her rules and forms were the subject of the most opposite
opinions and the most hotsile animosities.  The Lord Keeper,
being a Whig, was, of course, a Presbyterian, and had found it
convenient, at different periods, to express greater zeal for the
kirk than perhaps he really felt.  His family, equally of course,
were trained under the same institution.  Ravenswood, as we know,
was a High Churchman, or Episcopalian, and frequently objected to
Lucy the fanaticism of some of her own communion, while she
intimated, rather than expressed , horror at the latitudinarian
principles which she had been taught to think connected with the
prelatical form of church government.

Thus, although their mutual affection seemed to increase rather
than to be diminished as their characters opened more fully on
each other, the feelings of each were mingled with some less
agreeable ingredients.  Lucy felt a secret awe, amid all her
affection for Ravenswood.  His soul was of an higher, prouder
character than those with thom she had hitherto mixed in
intercourse; his ideas were more fierce and free; and he
contemned many of the opinions which had been inculcated upon her
as chiefly demanding her veneration.  On the other hand,
Ravenswood saw in Lucy a soft and flexible character, which, in
his eyes at least, seemed too susceptible of being moulded to any
form by those with whom she lived.  He felt that his own temper
required a partner of a more independent spirit, who could set
sail with him on his course of life, resolved as himself to dare
indifferently the storm and the favouring breeze.  But Lucy was
so beautiful, so devoutly attached to him, of a temper so
exquisitely soft and kind, that, while he could have wished it
were possible to inspire her with a greater degree of firmness
and resolution, and while he sometimes became impatient of the
extreme fear which she expressed of their attachment being
prematurely discovered, he felt that the softness of a mind,
amounting almost to feebleness, rendered her even dearer to him,
as a being who had voluntarily clung to him for protection, and
made him the arbiter of her fate for weal or woe.  His feelings
towards her at such moments were those which have been since so
beautifully expressed by our immortal Joanna Baillie:

Thou sweetest thing,
That e'er did fix its lightly-fibred sprays
To the rude rock, ah! wouldst thou cling to me?
Rough and storm-worn I am; yet love me as
Thou truly dost, I will love thee again
With true and honest heart, though all unmeet
To be the mate of such sweet gentleness.


Thus the very points in which they differed seemed, in some
measure, to ensure the continuance of their mutual affection.
If, indeed, they had so fully appreciated each other's character
before the burst of passion in which they hastily pledged their
faith to each other, Lucy might have feared Ravenswood too much
ever to have loved him, and he might have construed her softness
and docile temper as imbecility, rendering her unworthy of his
regard.  But they stood pledged to each other; and Lucy only
feared that her lover's pride might one day teach him to regret
his attachment; Ravenswood, that a mind so ductile as Lucy's
might, in absence or difficulties, be induced, by the entreaties
or influence of those around her, to renounce the engagement she
had formed.

"Do not fear it," said Lucy, when upon one occasion a hint of
such suspicion escaped her lover; "the mirrors which receive the
reflection of all successive objects are framed of hard
materials like glass or steel; the softer substances, when they
receive an impression, retain it undefaced."

"This is poetry, Lucy," said Ravenswood; "and in poetry there is
always fallacy, and sometimes fiction."

"Believe me, then, once more, in honest prose," said Lucy,
"that, though I will never wed man without the consent of my
parents, yet neither force nor persuasion shall dispose of my
hand till you renounce the right I have given you to it."

The lovers had ample time for such explanations.  Henry was now
more seldom their companion, being either a most unwilling
attendant upon the lessons of his tutor, or a forward volunteer
under the instructions of the foresters or grooms.  As for the
Keeper, his mornings were spent in his study, maintaining
correspondences of all kinds, and balancing in his anxious mind
the various intelligence which he collected from every quarter
concerning the expected change of Scottish politics, and the
probable strength of the parties who were about to struggle for
power.  At other times he busied himself about arranging, and
coutermanding, and then again arranging, the preparations which
he judged necessary for the reception of the Marquis of A----,
whose arrival had been twice delayed by some necessary cause of
detention.

In the midst of all these various avocations, political and
domestic, he seemed not to observe how much his daughter and his
guest were thrown into each other's society, and was censured by
many of his neighbours, according to the fashion of neighbours in
all countries, for suffering such an intimate connexion to take
place betwixt two young persons.  The only natural explanation
was, that he designed them for each other; while, in truth, his
only motive was to temporise and procrastinate until he should
discover the real extent of the interest which the Marquis took
in Ravenswood's affairs, and the power which he was likely to
possess of advancing them.  Until these points should be made
both clear and manifest, the Lord Keeper resolved that he would
do nothing to commit himself, either in one shape or other; and,
like many cunning persons, he overreached himself deplorably.

Amongst those who had been disposed to censure, with the
greatest severity, the conduct of Sir William Ashton, in
permitting the prolonged residence of Ravenswood under his roof,
and his constant attendance on Miss Ashton, was the new Laird of
Girnington, and his faithful squire and bottleholder, personages
formerly well known to us by the names of Hayston and Bucklaw,
and his companion Captain Craigengelt.  The former had at length
succeeded to the extensive property of his long-lived grand-aunt,
and to considerable wealth besides, which he had employed in
redeeming his paternal acres (by the title appertaining to which
he still chose to be designated), notwithstanding Captain
Craigengelt had proposed to him a most advantageous mode of
vesting the money in Law's scheme, which was just then broached,
and offered his services to travel express to Paris for the
purpose.  But Bucklaw had so far derived wisdom from adversity,
that he would listen to no proposal which Craigengelt could
invent, which had the slightest tendency to risk his newly-
acquired independence.  He that had once eat pease-bannocks,
drank sour wine, and slept in the secret chamber at Wolf's Crag,
would, he said, prize good cheer and a soft bed as long as he
lived, and take special care never to need such hospitality
again.

Craigengelt, therefore, found himself disappointed in the first
hopes he had entertained of making a good hand of the Laird of
Bucklaw.  Still, however, he reaped many advantages from his
friend's good fortune.  Bucklaw, who had never been at all
scrupulous in choosing his companions, was accustomed to, and
entertained by, a fellow whom he could either laugh with or
laugh at as he had a mind, who would take, according to Scottish
phrase, "the bit and the buffet," understood all sports, whether
within or without doors, and, when the laird had a mind for a
bottle of wine (no infrequent circumstance), was always ready to
save him from the scandal of getting drunk by himself.  Upon
these terms, Craigengelt was the frequent, almost the constant,
inmate of the house of Girnington.

In no time, and under no possibility of circumstances, could
good have been derived from such an intimacy, however its bad
consequences might be qualified by the thorough knowledge which
Bucklaw possessed of his dependant's character, and the high
contempt in which he held it.  But, as circumstances stood, this
evil communication was particularly liable to corrupt what good
principles nature had implanted in the patron.

Craigengelt had never forgiven the scorn with which
Ravenswood had torn the mask of courage and honesty from his
countenance; and to exasperate Bucklaw's resentment against him
was the safest mode of revenge which occurred to his cowardly,
yet cunning and malignant, disposition.

He brought up on all occasions the story of the challenge which
Ravenswood had declined to accept, and endeavoured, by every
possible insinuation, to make his patron believe that his honour
was concerned in bringing that matter to an issue by a present
discussion with Ravenswood.  But respecting this subject Bucklaw
imposed on him, at length, a peremptory command of silence.

"I think," he said, "the Master has treated me unlike a
gentleman, and I see no right he had to send me back a cavalier
answer when I demanded the satisfaction of one.  But he gave me
my life once; and, in looking the matter over at present, I put
myself but on equal terms with him.  Should he cross me again, I
shall consider the old accompt as balanced, and his Mastership
will do well to look to himself."

"That he should," re-echoed Craigengelt; "for when you are in
practice, Bucklaw, I would bet a magnum you are through him
before the third pass."

"Then you know nothing of the matter," said Bucklaw, "and you
never saw him fence."

"And I know nothing of the matter?" said the dependant--"a good
jest, I promise you!  And though I never saw Ravenswood fence,
have I not been at Monsieur Sagoon's school, who was the first
maitre d'armes at Paris; and have I not been at Signor Poco's
at Florence, and Meinheer Durchstossen's at Vienna, and have I
not seen all their play?"

"I don't know whether you have or not," said Bucklaw; "but what
about it, though you had?"

"Only that I will be d--d if ever I saw French, Italian, or
High-Dutchman ever make foot, hand, and eye keep time half so
well as you, Bucklaw."

"I believe you lie, Craigie," said Bucklaw; "however, I can hold
my own, both with single rapier, backsword, sword and dagger,
broadsword, or case of falchions--and that's as much as any
gentleman need know of the matter."

"And the doublt of what ninety-nine out of a hundred know," said
Craigengelt; "they learn to chanage a few thrusts with the small
sword, and then, forsooth, they understand the noble art of
defence!  Now, when I was at Rouen in the year 1695, there was a
Chevalier de Chapon and I went to the opera, where we found three
bits of English birkies----"
"Is it a long story you are going to tell?" said Bucklaw,
interrupting him without ceremony.

"Just as you like," answered the parasite, "for we made short
work of it."

"Then I like it short," said Bucklaw.  "Is it serious or merry?"

"Devilish serious, I assure you, and so they found it; for the
Chevalier and I----"

"Then I don't like it at all," said Bucklaw; "so fill a brimmer
of my auld auntie's claret, rest her heart!   And, as the
Hielandman says, Skioch doch na skiall."

"That was what tough old Sir Even Dhu used to say to me when I
was out with the metall'd lads in 1689.  'Craigengelt,' he used
to say, 'you are as pretty a fellow as ever held steel in his
grip, but you have one fault.'"

"If he had known you as long as I have don," said Bucklaw, "he
would have found out some twenty more; but hand long stories,
give us your toast, man."

Craigengelt rose, went a -tiptoe to the door, peeped out, shut
it carefully, came back again, clapped his tarnished gold-laced
hat on one side of his head, took his glass in one hand, and
touching the hilt of his hanger with the other, named, "The King
over the water."

"I tell you what it is, Captain Craigengelt," said Bucklaw; "I
shall keep my mind to myself on thse subjects, having too much
respect for the memory of my venerable Aunt Girnington to put
her lands and tenements in the way of committing treason against
established authority.  Bring me King James to Edinburgh,
Captain, with thirty thousand men at his back, and I'll tell you
what I think about his title; but as for running my neck into a
noose, and my good broad lands into the statutory penalties, 'in
that case made and provided,' rely upon it, you will find me no
such fool.  So, when you mean to vapour with your hanger and your
dram-cup in support of treasonable toasts, you must find your
liquor and company elsewhere."

"Well, then," said Craigengelt, "name the toast yourself, and be
it what it like, I'll pledge you, were it a mile to the bottom."

"And I'll give you a toast that deserves it, my boy," said
Bucklaw; "what say you to Miss Lucy Ashton?"

"Up with it," said the Captain, as he tossed off his
brimmer, "the bonniest lass in Lothian!  What a pity the old
sneckdrawing Whigamore, her father, is about to throw her away
upon that rag of pride and beggary, the Master of Ravenswood!"

"That's not quite so clear," said Bucklaw, in a tone which,
though it seemed indifferent, excited his companion's eager
curiosity; and not that only, but also his hope of working
himself into soem sort of confidence, which might make him
necessary to his patron, being by no means satisfied to rest on
mere sufferance, if he could form by art or industry a more
permanent title to his favour.

"I thought," said he, after a moment's pause, "that was a
settled matter; they are continually together, and nothing else
is spoken of betwixt Lammer Law and Traprain."

"They may say what they please," replied his patron, "but I know
better; and I'll give you Miss Lucy Ashton's health again, my
boy."

"And I woul drink it on my knee," said Craigengelt, "if I
thought the girl had the spirit to jilt that d--d son of a
Spaniard."

"I am to request you will not use the word 'jilt' and Miss
Ashton's name together," said Bucklaw, gravely.

"Jilt, did I say?  Discard, my lad of acres--by Jove, I meant to
discard," replied Craigengelt; "and I hope she'll discard him
like a small card at piquet, and take in the king of hearts, my
boy!  But yet----"

"But what?" said his patron.

"But yet I know for certain they are hours together alone, and
in the woods and the fields."

"That's her foolish father's dotage; that will be soon put out
of the lass's head, if it ever gets into it," answered Bucklaw.
"And now fill your glass again, Captain; I am going to make you
happy; I am going to let you into a secret--a plot--a noosing
plot--only the noose is but typical."

"A marrying matter?" said Craigengelt, and his jaw fell as he
asked the question, for he suspected that matrimony would render
his situation at Girnington much more precarious than during the
jolly days of his patron's bachelorhood.

"Ay, a marriage, man," said Bucklaw; "but wherefore droops they
might spirit, and why grow the rubies on they cheek so pale?
The board will have a corner, and the corner will have a
trencher, and the trencher will have a glass beside it; and the
board-end shall be filled, and the trencher and the glass shall
be replenished for thee, if all the petticoats in Lothian had
sworn the contrary.  What, man!  I am not the boy to put myself
into leading-strings."

"So says many an honest fellow," said Craigengelt, "and some of
my special friends; but, curse me if I know the reason, the
women could never bear me, and always contrived to trundle me out
of favour before the honeymoon was over."

"If you could have kept your ground till that was over, you
might have made a good year's pension," said Bucklaw.

"But I never could," answered the dejected parasite.  "There was
my Lord Castle-Cuddy--we were hand and glove: I rode his horses,
borrowed money both for him and from him, trained his hawks, and
taught him how to lay his bets; and when he took a fancy of
marrying, I married him to Katie Glegg, whom I thought myself as
sure of as man could be of woman.  Egad, she had me out of the
house, as if I had run on wheels, within the first
fortnight!"

"Well!" replied Bucklaw, "I think I have nothing of Castle-
Cuddy about me, or Lucy of Katie Glegg.  But you see the thing
will go on whether you like it or no; the only question is, will
you be useful?"

"Useful!" exclaimed the Captain, "and to thee, my lad of lands,
my darling boy, whom I would tramp barefooted through the world
for!  Name time, place, mode, and circumstances, and see if I
will not be useful in all uses that can be devised."

"Why, then, you must ride two hundred miles for me," said the
patron.

"A thousand, and call them a flea's leap," answered the
dependant; "I'll cause saddle my horse directly."

"Better stay till you know where you are to go, and what you are
to do," quoth Bucklaw.  "You know I have a kinswoman in
Northumberland, Lady Blenkensop by name, whose old acquaintance I
had the misfortune to lose in the period of my poverty, but the
light of whose countenance shone forth upon me when the sun of my
prosperity began to arise."

"D--n all such double-faced jades!" exclaimed Craigengelt,
heroically; "this I will say for John Craigengelt, that he is his
friend's friend through good report and bad report, poverty and
riches; and you know something of that yourself, Bucklaw."

"I have not forgot your merits," said his patron; "I do remember
that, in my extremities, you had a mind to CRIMP me for the
service of the French king, or of the Pretender; and, moreover,
that you afterwards lent me a score of pieces, when, as I firmly
believe, you had heard the news that old Lady Girnington had a
touch of the dead palsy.  But don't be downcast, John; I
believe, after all, you like me very well in your way, and it is
my misfortune to have no better counsellor at present.  To return
to this Lady Blenkensop, you must know, she is a close
confederate of Duchess Sarah."

"What! of Sall Jennings?" exclaimed Craigengelt; "then she must
be a good one."

"Hold your tongue, and keep your Tory rants to yourself, if it
be possible," said Bucklaw.  "I tell you, that through the
Duchess of Marlborough has this Northumbrian cousin of mine
become a crony of Lady Ashton, the Keeper's wife, or, I may say,
the Lord Keeper's Lady Keeper, and she has favoured Lady
Blenkensop with a visit on her return from London, and is just
now at her old mansion-house on the banks fo the Wansbeck.  Now,
sir, as it has been the use and wont of these ladies to consider
their husbands as of no importance in the management of their own
families, it has been their present pleasure, without consulting
Sir William Ashton, to put on the tapis a matrimonial alliance,
to be concluded between Lucy Ashton and my own right honourable
self, Lady Ashton acting as self-constituted plenipotentiary on
the part of her daughter and husband, and Mother Blenkensop,
equally unaccredited, doing me the honour to be my
representative.  You may suppose I was a little astonished when I
found that a treaty, in which I was so considerably interested,
had advanced a good way before I was even consulted."

"Capot me! if I think that was according to the rules of the
game," said his confidant; "and pray, what answer did you
return?"

"Why, my first thought was to send the treaty to the devil, and
the negotiators along with it, for a couple of meddling old
women; my next was to laugh very hearily; and my third and last
was a settled opinion that the thing was reasonable, and would
suit me well enough."

"Why, I thought you had never seen the wench but once, and then
she had her riding-mask on; I am sure you told me so."

"Ay, but I liked her very well then.  And Ravenswood's dirty
usage of me--shutting me out of doors to dine with the lackeys,
because he had the Lord Keeper, forsooth, and his daughter, to
be guests in his beggarly castle of starvation,--d--n me,
Craigengelt, if I ever forgive him till I play him as good a
trick!"

"No more you should, if you are a lad of mettle," said
Craigengelt, the matter now taking a turn in which he could
sympathise; "and if you carry this wench from him, it will break
his heart."

"That it will not," said Bucklaw; "his heart is all steeled over
with reason and philosophy, things that you, Craigie, know
nothing about more than myself, God help me.  But it will break
his pride, though, and that's what I'm driving at."

"Distance me!" said Craigengelt, "but I know the reason now of
his unmannerly behaviour at his old tumble-down tower yonder.
Ashamed of your company?--no, no!  Gad, he was afraid you would
cut in and carry off the girl."

"Eh!  Craigengelt?" said Bucklaw, "do you really think so? but
no, no! he is a devilish deal prettier man than I am."
"Who--he?" exclaimed the parasite.  "He's as black as the crook;
and for his size--he's a tall fellow, to be sure, but give me a
light, stout, middle-sized----"

"Plague on thee!" said Bucklaw, interrupting him, "and on me for
listening to you!  You would say as much if I were hunch-
backed.  But as to Ravenswood--he has kept no terms with me,
I'll keep none with him; if I CAN win this girl from him,
I WILL win her."

"Win her! 'sblood, you SHALL win her, point, quint,
and quatorze, my king of trumps; you shall pique, repique, and
capot him."

"Prithee, stop thy gambling cant for one instant," said Bucklaw.
"Things have come thus far, that I have entertained the proposal
of my kinswoman, agreed to the terms of jointure, amount of
fortune, and so forth, and that the affair is to go forward when
Lady Ashton comes down, for she takes her daughter and her son in
her own hand.  Now they want me to send up a confidential person
with some writings."

"By this good win, I'll ride to the end of the world--the very
gates of Jericho, and the judgment-seat of Prester John, for
thee!" ejaculated the Captain.

"Why, I believe you would do something for me, and a great deal
for yourself.  Now, any one could carry the writings; but you
will have a little more to do.  You must contrive to drop out
before my Lady Ashton, just as if it were a matter of little
consequence, the residence of Ravenswood at her husband's house,
and his close intercourse with Miss Ashton; and you may tell her
that all the country talks of a visit from the Marquis of A----,
as it is supposed, to make up the match betwixt Ravenswood and
her daughter.  I should like to hear what she says to all this;
for, rat me! if I have any idea of starting for the plate at all
if Ravenswood is to win the race, and he has odds against me
already."

"Never a bit; the wench has too much sense, and in that belief I
drink her health a third time; and, were time and place fitting,
I would drink it on bended knees, and he that would not pledge
me, I would make his guts garter his stockings."

"Hark ye, Craigengelt; as you are going into the society of
women of rank," said Bucklaw, "I'll thank you to forget your
strange blackguard oaths and 'damme's.'  I'll write to them,
though, that you are a blunt, untaught fellow."

"Ay, ay," replied Craigengelt--"a plain, blunt, honest,
downright soldier."

"Not too honest, not too much of the soldier neither; but such
as thou art, it is my luck to need thee, for I must have spurs
put to Lady Ashton's motions."
"I'll dash them up to the rowel-heads," said Craigengelt; "she
shall come here at the gallop, like a cow chased by a whole nest
of hornets, and her tail over her rump like a corkscrew."

"And hear ye, Craigie," said Bucklaw; "your boots and doublet
are good enough to drink in, as the man says in the  play, but
they are somewhat too greasy for tea-table service; prithee, get
thyself a little better rigged out, and here is to pay all
charges."

"Nay, Bucklaw; on my soul, man, you use me ill.  However," added
Craigengelt, pocketing the money, "if you will have me so far
indebted to you, I must be conforming."

"Well, horse and away!" said the patron, "so soon as you have
got your riding livery in trim.  You may ride the black crop-ear;
and, hark ye, I'll make you a present of him to boot."

"I drink to the good luck of my mission," answered the
ambassador, "in a half-pint bumper."

"I thank ye, Craigie, and pledge you; I see nothing against it
but the father or the girl taking a tantrum, and I am told the
mother can wind them both round her little finger.  Take care
not to affront her with any of your Jacobite jargon."

"Oh, ay, true--she is a Whig, and a friend of old Sall of
Marlborough; thank my stars, I can hoist any colours at a pinch!
I have fought as hard under John Churchill as ever I did under
Dundee or the Duke of Berwick."

"I verily believe you, Craigie," said the lord of the mansion;
"but, Craigie, do you, pray, step down to the cellar, and fetch
us up a bottle of the Burgundy, 1678; it is in the fourth bin
from the right-hand turn.  And I say, Craigie, you may fetch up
half a dozen whilst you are about it.  Egad, we'll make a night
on't!"



CHAPTER XXII.

And soon they spied the merry-men green,
And eke the coach and four.

Duke upon Duke.


CRAIGENGELT set forth on his mission so soon as his equipage was
complete, prosecuted his journey with all diligence, and
accomplished his commission with all the dexterity for which
bucklaw had given him credit.  As he arrived with credentials
from Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw, he was extremely welcome to both
ladies; and those who are prejudiced in favour of a new
acquaintance can, for a time at least, discover
excellencies in his very faults and perfections in his
deficiencies.  Although both ladies were accustomed to good
society, yet, being pre-determined to find out an agreeable and
well-behaved gentleman in Mr. Hayston's friend, they succeeded
wonderfully in imposing on themselves.  It is true that
Craigengelt was now handsomely dressed, and that was a point of
no small consequence.  But, independent of outward show, his
blackguard impudence of address was construed into honourable
bluntness. becoming his supposed military profession; his
hectoring passed for courage, and his sauciness for wit.  Lest,
however, any one should think this a violation of probability, we
must add, in fairness to the two ladies, that their discernment
was greatly blinded, and their favour propitiated, by the
opportune arrival of Captain Craigengelt in the moment when they
were longing for a third hand to make a party at tredrille, in
which, as in all games, whether of chance or skill, that worthy
person was a great proficient.

When he found himself established in favour, his next point was
how best to use it for the furtherance of his patron's views.
He found Lady Ashton prepossessed strongly in favour of the
motion which Lady Blenkensop, partly from regard to her
kinswoman, partly from the spirit of match-making, had not
hesitated to propose to her; so that his task was an easy one.
Bucklaw, reformed from his prodigality, was just the sort of
husband which she desired to have for her Shepherdess of
Lammermoor; and while the marriage gave her an easy fortune, and
a respectable country gentleman for her husband, Lady Ashton was
of opinion that her destinies would be fully and most favourably
accomplished.  It so chanced, also, that Bucklaw, among his new
acquisitions, had gained the management of a little political
interest in a neighbouring county where the Douglas family
originally held large possessions.  It was one of the bosom-hopes
of Lady Ashton that her eldest son, Sholto, should represent this
county in the British Parliament, and she saw this alliance with
Bucklaw as a circumstance which might be highly favourable to
her wishes.

Craigengelt, who, in his way, by no means wanted sagacity, no
sooner discovered in what quarter the wind of Lady Ashton's
wishes sate, than he trimmed his course accordinly.  "There was
little to prevent Bucklaw himself from sitting for the county; he
must carry the heat--must walk the course.  Two cousins-german,
six more distant kinsmen,  his factor and his chamberlain, were
all hollow votes; and the Girnington interest had always carried,
betwixt love and fear, about as many more.  But Bucklaw cared no
more about riding the first horse, and that sort of thing, than
he, Craigengelt, did about a game at birkie: it was a pity his
interest was not in good guidance."

All this Lady Ashton drank in with willing and attentive ears,
resolving internally to be herself the person who should take the
management of the political influence of her destined son-in-law,
for the benefit of her eldest-born, Sholto, and all other parties
concerned.

When he found her ladyship thus favourably disposed, the Captain
proceeded, to use his employer's phrase, to set spurs to her
resolution, by hinting at the situation of matters at
Ravenswood Castle, the long residence which the heir of that
family had made with the Lord Keeper, and the reports which--
though he would be d--d ere he gave credit to any of them--had
been idly circulated in the neighbourhood.  It was not the
Captain's cue to appear himself to be uneasy on the subject of
these rumours; but he easily saw from Lady Ashton's flushed
cheek, hesitating voice, and flashing eye, that she had caught
the alarm which he intended to communicate.  She had not heard
from her husband so often or so regularly as she though him
bound in duty to have written, and of this very interesting
intelligence concerning his visit to the Tower of Wolf's Crag,
and the guest whom, with such cordiality, he had received at
Ravenswsood Castle, he had suffered his lady to remain altogether
ignorant, until she now learned it by the chance information of a
stranger.  Such concealment approached, in her apprehension, to a
misprision, at last, of treason, if not to actual rebellion
against her matrimonial authority; and in her inward sould she
did vow to take vengeance on the Lord Keeper, as on a subject
detected in meditating revolt.  Her indignation burned the more
fiercely as she found herself obliged to suppress it in presence
of Lady Blenkensop, the kinswoman, and of Craigengelt, the
confidential friend, of Bucklaw, of whose alliance she now became
trebly desirous, since it occurred to her alarmed imagination
that her husband might, in his policy or timidity, prefer that of
Ravenswood.

The Captain was engineer enough to discover that the train was
fired; and therefore heard, in the course of the same day,
without the least surprise, that Lady Ashton had resolved to
abridge her visit to Lady Blenkensop, and set forth with the peep
of morning on her return to Scotland, using all the despatch
which the state of the roads and the mode of travelling would
possibly permit.

Unhappy Lord Keeper!  little was he aware what a storm was
travelling towards him in all the speed with which an old-
fashioned coach and six could possibly achieve its journey.  He,
like Don Gayferos, "forgot his lady fair and true," and was only
anxious about the expected visit of the Marquis of A----.
Soothfast tidings had assured him that this nobleman was at
length, and without fail, to honour his castle at one in the
afternoon, being a late dinner-hour; and much was the bustle in
consequence of the annunciation.  The Lord Keeper traversed the
chambers, held consultation with the butler in the cellars, and
even ventured, at the risk of a demele with a cook of a spirit
lofty enough to scorn the admonitions of Lady Ashton herself, to
peep into the kitchen.  Satisfied, at length, that everything was
in as active a train of preparation as was possible, he summoned
Ravenswood and his daughter to walk upon the terrace, for the
purpose of watching, from that commanding position, the earliest
symptoms of his lordship's approach.   For this purpose, with
slow and idle step, he paraded the terrace, which, flanked with a
heavy stone battlement, stretched in front of the castle upon a
level with the first story; while visitors found access to the
court by a projecting gateway, the bartizan or flat-leaded roof
of which was accessible from the terrace by an easy flight of low
and broad steps.  The whole bore a resemblance partly to a
castle, partly to a nobleman's seat; and though calculated, in
some respects, for defence, evinced that it had been constructed
under a sense of the power and security of the ancient Lords of
Ravenswood.

This pleasant walk commanded a beautiful and extensive view.
But what was most to our present purpose, there were seen from
the terrace two roads, one leading from the east, and one from
the westward, which, crossing a ridge opposed to the eminence on
which the castle stood, at different angles, gradually approached
each other, until they joined not far from the gate of the
avenue.  It was to the westward approach that the Lord Keeper,
from a sort of fidgeting anxiety, his daughter, from complaisance
to him, and Ravenswood, though feeling some symptoms of internal
impatience, out of complaisance to his daughter, directed their
eyes to see the precursors of the Marquis's approach.

These were not long of presenting themselves.  Two running
footmen, dressed in white, with black jockey-caps, and long
staffs in their hands, headed the train; and such was their
agility, that they found no difficulty in keeping the necessary
advance, which the etiquette of their station required, before
the carriage and horsemen.  Onward they came at a long swinging
trot, arguing unwearied speed in their long-breathed calling.
Such running footmen are often alluded to in old plays (I would
particularly instance Middleton's Mad World, my Masters), and
perhaps may be still remembered by some old persons in Scotland,
as part of the retinue of the ancient nobility when travelling in
full ceremony.  Behind these glancing meteors, who footed it as
if the Avenger of Blood had been behind them, came a cloud of
dust, raised by riders who preceded, attended, or followed the
state-carriage of the Marquis.

The privilege of nobility, in those days, had something in it
impressive on the imagination.  The dresses and liveries and
number of their attendants, their style of travelling, the
imposing, and almost warlike, air of the armed men who surrounded
them, place them far above the laird, who travelled with his
brace of footmen; and as to rivalry from the mercantile part of
the community, these would as soon have thought of imitating the
state equipage of the Sovereign.  At present it is different; and
I myself, Peter Pattieson, in a late journey to Edinburgh, had
the honour, in the mail-coach phrasem to "change a leg" with a
peer of the realm.  It was not so in the days of which I write;
and the Marquis's approach, so long expected in vain, now took
place in the full pomp of ancient aristocracy.  Sir William
Ashton was so much interested in what he beheld, and in
considering the ceremonial of reception, in case any
circumstance had been omitted, that he scarce heard his son Henry
exclaim: "There is another coach and six coming down the east
road, papa; can they both belong to the Marquis of A----?"

At length, when the youngster had fairly compelled his attention
by pulling his sleeve,

He turned his eyes, and, as he turned, survey'd
An awful vision.

Sure enough, another coach and six, with four servants or
outriders in attendance, was descending the hill from the
eastward, at such a pace as made it doubtful which of the
carriages thus approaching from different quarters would first
reach the gate at the extremity of the avenue.  The one coach was
green, the other blue; and not the green and blue chariots in the
circus of Rome or Constantinople excited more turmoil among the
citizens than the double apparition occasioned in the mind of the
Lord Keeper.

We all remember the terrible exclamation of the dying
profligate, when a friend, to destroy what he supposed the
hypochondriac idea of a spectre appearing in a certain shape at a
given hour, placed before him a person dressed up in the manner
he described.  "Mon Dieu!" said the expiring sinner, who, it
seems, saw both the real and polygraphic apparition, "il y en a
deux!"  The surprise of the Lord Keeper was scarcely less
unpleasing at the duplication of the expected arrival; his mind
misgave him strangely.  There was no neighbour who would have
approached so unceremoniously, at a time when ceremony was held
in such respect.  It must be Lady Ashton, said his conscience,
and followed up the hint with an anxious anticipation of the
purpose of her sudden and unannounced return.  He felt that he
was caught "in the manner."  That the company in which she had so
unluckily surprised him was likely to be highly distasteful to
her, there was no question; and the only hope which remained for
him was her high sense of dignified propriety, which, he trusted,
might prevent a public explosion.  But so active were his doubts
and fears as altogether to derange his purposed ceremonial for
the reception of the Marquis.

These feelings of apprehension were not confined to Sir William
Ashton.  "It is my mother--it is my mother!" said Lucy, turning
as pale as ashes, and clasping her hands together as she looked
at Ravenswood.

"And if it be Lady Ashton," said her lover to her in a low tone,
"what can be the occasion of such alarm?  Surely the return of a
lady to the family from which she has been so long absent should
excite other sensations than those of fear and dismay."

"You do not know my mother," said Miss Ashton, in a tone almost
breathless with terror; "what will she say when she sees you in
this place!"

"My stay has been too long," said Ravenswood, somewhat
haughtily, "if her displeasure at my presence is likely to be so
formidable.  My dear Lucy," he resumed, in a tone of soothing
encouragement, "you are too childishly afraid of Lady Ashton; she
is a woman of family--a lady of fashion--a person who must know
the world, and what is due to her husband and her husband's
guests."
Lucy shook her head; and, as if her mother, still at the
distance of half a mile, could have seen and scrutinised her
deportment, she withdrew herself from besdie Ravenswood, and,
taking her brother Henry's arm, led him to a different part of
the terrace.  The Keeper also shuffled down towards the portal of
the great gate, without inviting Ravenswood to accompany him; and
thus he remained standing alone on the terrace, deserted and
shunned, as it were, by the inhabitants of the mansion.
This suited not the mood of one who was proud in proportion to
his poverty, and who thought that, in sacrificing his deep-
rooted resentments so far as to become Sir William Ashton's
guest, he conferred a favour, and received none.  "I can forgive
Lucy," he said to himself; "she is young, timid, and conscious of
an important engagement assumed without her mother's sanction;
yet she should remember with whom it has been assumed, and leave
me no reason to suspect that she is ashamed of her choice.  For
the Keeper, sense, spirit, and expression seem to have left his
face and manner since he had the first glimpse of Lady Ashton's
carriage.  I must watch how this is to end; and, if they give me
reason to think myself an unwelcome guest, my visit is soon
abridged."

With these suspicions floating on his mind, he left the terrace,
and walking towards the stables of the castle, gave directions
that his horse should be kept in readiness, in case he should
have occasion to ride abroad.

In the mean while, the drivers of the two carriages, the
approach of which had occasioned so much dismay at the castle,
had become aware of each other's presence, as they approached
upon different lines to the head of the avenue, as a ocmmon
centre.  Lady Ashton's driver and postilions instantly received
orders to get foremost, if possible, her ladyship being desirous
of despatching her first interview with her husband before the
arrival of these guests, whoever they might happen to be.  On the
other hand, the coachman of the Marquis, conscious of his own
dignity and that of his master, and observing the rival
charioteer was mending his pace, resolved, like a true brother of
the whip, whether ancient or modern, to vindicate his right of
precedence.  So that, to increase the confusion of the Lord
Keeper's understanding, he saw the short time which remained for
consideration abridged by the haste of the contending coachmen,
who, fixing their eyes sternly on each other, and applying the
lash smartly to their horses, began to thunder down the descent
with emulous rapidity, while the horsemen who attended them were
forced to put on to a hand-gallop.

Sir William's only chance now remaining was the possibility of
an overturn, and that his lady or visitor might break their
necks.  I am not aware that he formed any distinct wish on the
subject, but I have no reason to think that his grief in either
case would have been altogether inconsolable.  This chance,
however, also disappeared; for Lady Ashton, though insensible to
fear, began to see the ridicule of running a race with a visitor
of distinction, the goal being the portal of her own castle, and
commanded her coachman, as they approached the avenue, to slacken
his pace, and allow precedence to the stranger's equipage; a
command which he gladly obeyed, as coming in time to save his
honour, the horses of the Marquis's carriage being better, or, at
least, fresher than his own.  He restrained his pace, therefore,
and suffered the green coach to enter the avenue, with all its
retinue, which pass it occupied with the speed of a whirlwind.
The Marquis's laced charioteer no sooner found the pas d'avance
was granted to him than he resumed a more deliberate pace, at
which he advanced under the embowering shade of the lofty elms,
surrounded by all the attendants; while the carriage of Lady
Ashton followed, still more slowly, at some distance.

In the front of the castle, and beneath the portal which
admitted guests into the inner court, stood Sir William Ashton,
much perplexed in mind, his younger son and daughter beside him,
and in their rear a train of attendants of various ranks, in and
out of livery.  The nobility and gentry of Scotland, at this
period, were remarkable even to extravagance for the number of
their servants, whose services were easily purchased in a country
where men were numerous beyond proportion to the means of
employing them.

The manners of a man trained like Sir William Ashton are too
much at his command to remain long disconcerted with the most
adverse concurrence of circumstances.  He received the Marquis,
as he alighted from his equipage, with the usual compliments of
welcome; and, as he ushered him into the great hall, expressed
his hope that his journey had been pleasant.  The Marquis was a
tall, well-made man, with a thoughtful and intelligent
countenance, and an eye in which the fire of ambition had for
some years replaced the vivacity of youth; a bold, proud
expression of countenance, yet chastened by habitual caution, and
the desire which, as the head of a party, he necessarily
entertained of acquiring popularity.  He answered with courtesy
the courteous inquiries of the Lord Keeper, and was formally
presented to Miss Ashton, in the course of which ceremony the
Lord Keeper gave the first symptom of what was chiefly occupying
his mind, by introducing his daughter as "his wife, Lady Ashton."

Lucy blushed; the Marquis looked surprised at the extremely
juvenile appearance of his hostess, and the Lord Keeper with
difficulty rallied himself so far as to explain.  "I should have
said my daughter, my lord; but the truth is, that I saw Lady
Ashton's carriage enter the avenue shortly after your lordship's,
and----"

"Make no apology, my lord," replied his noble guest; "let me
entreat you will wait on your lady, and leave me to cultivate
Miss Ashton's acquaintance.  I am shocked my people should have
taken precedence of our hostess at her own gate; but your
lordship is aware that I supposed Lady Ashton was still in the
south.  Permit me to beseech you will waive ceremony, and hasten
to welcome her."

This was precisely what the Lord Keeper longed to do; and he
instantly profited by his lordship's obliging permission.  To see
Lady Ashton, and encounter the first burst of her displeasure in
private, might prepare her, in some degree, to receive her
unwelcome guests with due decorum.  As her carriage, therefore,
stopped, the arm of the attentive husband was ready to assist
Lady Ashton in dismounting.  Looking as if she saw him not, she
put his arm aside, and requested that of Captain Craigengelt, who
stood by the coach with his laced hat under his arm, having acted
as cavaliere servente, or squire in attendance, during the
journey.  Taking hold of this respectable person's arm as if to
support her, Lady Ashton traversed the court, uttering a wod or
two by way of direction to the servants, but not one to Sir
William, who in vain endeavoured to attract her attention, as he
rather followed than accompanied her into the hall, in which they
found the Marquis in close conversation with the Master of
Ravenswood.  Lucy had taken the first opportunity of escaping.
There was embarrassment on every countenance except that of the
Marquis of A----; for even Craigengelt's impudence was hardly
able to veil his fear of Ravenswood, an the rest felt the
awkwardness of the position in which they were thus unexpectedly
placed.

After waiting a moment to be presented by Sir William Ashton,
the Marquis resolved to introduce himself.  "The Lord Keeper," he
said, bowing to Lady Ashton, "has just introduced to me his
daughter as his wife; he might very easily present Lady Ashton as
his daughter, so little does she differ from what I remember her
some years since.  Will she permit an old
acquaintance the privilege of a guest?"

He saluted the lady with too good a grace to apprehend a
repulse, and then proceeded: "This, Lady Ashton, is a peacemaking
visit, and therefore I presume to introduce my cousin, the young
Master of Ravenswood, to your favourable notice."

Lady Ashton could not choose but courtesy; but there was in her
obeisance an air of haughtiness approaching to contemptuous
repulse.  Ravenswood could not choose but bow; but his manner
returned the scorn with which he had been greeted.

"Allow me," she said, "to present to your lordship MY friend."
Craigengelt, with the forward impudence which men of his cast
mistake for ease, made a sliding bow to the Marquis, which he
graced by a flourish of his gold-laced hat.  The lady turned to
her husband.  "You and I, Sir William," she said, and these were
the first words she had addressed to him, "have acquired new
acquaintances since we parted; let me introduce the acquisition I
have made to mine--Captain Craigengelt."

Another bow, and another flourish of the gold-laced hat, which
was returned by the Lord Keeper without intimation of former
recognition, and with that sort of anxious readiness which
intimated his wish that peace and amnesty should take place
betwixt the contending parties, including the auxiliaries on both
sides.  "Let me introduce you to the Master of Ravenswood," said
he to Captain Craigengelt, following up the same amicable system.


But the Master drew up his tall form to the full extent of his
height, and without so much as looking towards the person thus
introduced to him, he said, in a marked tone: "Captain
Craigengelt and I are already perfectly well acquainted with each
other."

"Perfectly--perfectly," replied the Captain, in a mumbling tone,
like that of a double echo, and with a flourish of his hat, the
circumference of which was greatly abridged, compared with those
which had so cordially graced his introduction to the Marquis and
the Lord Keeper.

Lockhard, followed by three menials, now entered with wine and
refreshments, which it was the fashion to offer as a whet before
dinner; and when they were placed before the guests, Lady Ashton
made an apology for withdrawing her husband from them for some
minutes upon business of special import.  The Marquis, of
course, requested her ladyship would lay herself under no
restraint; and Craigengelt, bolting with speed a second glass of
racy canary, hastened to leave the room, feeling no great
pleasure in the prospect of being left alone with the Marquis of
A---- and the Master of Ravenswood; the presence of the former
holding him in awe, and that of the latter in bodily terror.

Some arrangements about his horse and baggage formed the pretext
for his sudden retreat, in which he persevered, although Lady
Ashton gave Lockhard orders to be careful most particularly to
accommodate Captain Craigengelt with all the attendance which he
could possibly require.  The Marquis and the Master of
Ravenswood were thus left to communicate to each other their
remarks upon the reception which they had met with, while Lady
Ashton led the way, and her lord followed somewhat like a
condemned criminal, to her ladyship's dressing-room.

So soon as the spouses had both entered, her ladyship gave way
to that fierce audacity of temper which she had with
difficulty suppressed, out of respect to appearances.  She shut
the door behind the alarmed Lord Keeper, took the key out of the
spring-lock, and with a countenance which years had not bereft of
its haughty charms, and eyes which spoke at once resolution and
resentment, she addressed her astounded husband in these words:
"My lord, I am not greatly surprised at the connexions you have
been pleased to form during my absence, they are entirely in
conformity with your birth and breeding; and if I did expect
anything else, I heartily own my error, and that I merit, by
having done so, the disappointment you had prepared for me."

"My dear Lady Ashton--my dear Eleanor [Margaret]," said the Lord
Keeper, "listen to reason for a moment, and I will convince you I
have acted with all the regard due to the dignity, as well as the
interest, of my family."

"To the interest of YOUR family I conceive you perfectly
capable of attending," returned the indignant lady, "and even to
the dignity of your own family also, as far as it requires any
looking after.  But as mine happens to be inextricably involved
with it, you will excuse me if I choose to give my own attention
so far as that is concerned."

"What would you have, Lady Ashton?" said the husband.  "What is
it that displeases you?  Why is it that, on your return after so
long an absence, I am arraigned in this manner?"
"Ask your own conscience, Sir William, what has prompted you to
become a renegade to your political party and opinions, and led
you, for what I know, to be on the point of marrying your only
daughter to a beggarly Jacobite bankrupt, the inveterate enemy of
your family to the boot."

"Why, what, in the name of common sense and common civility,
would you have me do, madam?" answered her husband.  "Is it
possible for me, with ordinary decency, to turn a young
gentleman out of my house, who saved my duaghter's life and my
own, but the other morning, as it were?"

"Saved your life!  I have heard of that story," said the lady.
"The Lord Keeper was scared by a dun cow, and he takes the young
fellow who killed her for Guy of Warwick: any butcher from
Haddington may soon have an equal claim on your hospitality."

"Lady Ashton," stammered the Keeper, "this is intolerable; and
when I am desirous, too, to make you easy by any sacrifice, if
you would but tell me what you would be at."

"Go down to your guests," said the imperious dame, "and make
your apology to Ravenswood, that the arrival of Captain
Craigengelt and some other friends renders it impossible for you
to offer him lodgings at the castle.  I expect young Mr. Hayston
of Bucklaw."

"Good heavens, madam!" ejaculated her husband.  "Ravenswood to
give place to Craigengelt, a common gambler and an informer!  It
was all I could do to forbear desiring the fellow to get out of
my house, and I was much surprised to see him in your
ladyship's train."

"Since you saw him there, you might be well assured," answered
this meek helpmate, "that he was proper society.  As to this
Ravenswood, he only meets with the treatment which, to my
certain knowledge, he gave to a much-valued friend of mine, who
had the misfortune to be his guest some time since.  But take
your resolution; for, if Ravenswood does not quit the house, I
will."

Sir William Ashton paced up and down the apartment in the most
distressing agitation; fear, and shame, and anger contending
against the habitual deference he was in the use of rendering to
his lady.  At length it ended, as is usual with timid minds
placed in such circumstances, in his adopting a mezzo termine--
a middle measure.

"I tell you frankly, madam, I neither can nor will be guilty of
the incivility you propose to the Master of Ravenswood; he has
not deserved it at my hand.  If you will be so unreasonable as
to insult a man of quality under your own roof, I cannot prevent
you; but I will not at least be the agent in such a preposterous
proceeding."

"You will not?" asked the lady.

"No, by heavens, madam!" her husband replied; "ask me anything
congruent with common decency, as to drop his
acquaintance by degrees, or the like; but to bid him leave my
house is what I will nto and cannot consent to."

"Then the task of supporting the honour of the family will fall
on me, as it has often done before," said the lady.

She sat down, and hastily wrote a few lines.  The Lord Keeper
made another effort to prevent her taking a step so decisive,
just as she opened the door to call her female
attendant from the ante-room.  "Think what you are doing, Lady
Ashton: you are making a mortal enemy of a young man who is like
to have the means of harming us----"

"Did you ever know a Douglas who feared an enemy?" answered the
lady, contemptuously.

"Ay, but he is as proud and vindictive as an hundred
Douglasses, and an hundred devils to boot.  Think of it for a
night only."

"Not for another moment," answered the lady.  "Here, Mrs.
Patullo, give this billet to young Ravenswood."

"To the Master, madam!" said Mrs. Patullo.

"Ay, to the Master, if you call him so."

"I wash my hands of it entirely," said the Keeper; "and I shall
go down into the garden, and see that Jardine gathers the winter
fruit for the dessert."

"Do so," said the lady, looking after him with glances of
infinite contempt; "and thank God that you leave one behind you
as fit to protect the honour of the family as you are to look
after pippins and pears."

The Lord Keeper remained long enough in the garden to give her
ladyship's mind time to explode, and to let, as he thought, at
least the first violence of Ravenswood's displeasure blow oever.
When he entered the hall, he found the Marquis of A----giving
orders to some of his attendants.  He seemed in high
displeasure, and interrupted an apology which Sir William had
commenced for having left his lordship alone.

"I presume, Sir William, you are no stranger to this
singular billet with which MY kinsman of Ravenswood (an
emphasis on the word 'my') has been favoured by your lady; and,
of course, that you are prepared to receive my adieus.  My
kinsman is already gone, having thought it unnecessary to offer
any on his part, since all former civilities had been cancelled
by this singular insult."

"I protest, my lord," said Sir William, holding the billet in
his hand, "I am not privy to the contents of this letter.  I
know Lady Ashton is a warm-tempered and prejudiced woman, and I
am sincerely sorry for any offence that has been given or taken;
but I hope your lordship will consider that a lady----"

"Should bear herself towards persons of a certain rank with the
breeding of one," said the Marquis, completing the half-uttered
sentence.

"True, my lord," said the unfortunate Keeper; "but Lady Ashton
is still a woman----"

"And, as such, methinks," said the Marquis, again
interrupting him, "should be taught the duties which correspond
to her station.  But here she comes, and I will learn from her
own mouth the reason of this extraordinary and unexpected affront
offered to my near relation, while both he and I were her
ladyship's guests."

Lady Ashton accordingly entered the apartment at this moment.
Her dispute with Sir William, and a subsequent interview with her
daughter, had not prevented her from attending to the duties of
her toilette.  She appeared in full dress; and, from the
character of her countenance and manner, well became the
splendour with which ladies of quality then appeared on such
occasions.

The Marquis of A---- bowed haughtily, and she returned the
salute with equal pride and distance of demeanour.  He then took
from the passive hand of Sir William Ashton the billet he had
given him the moment before he approached the lady, and was about
to speak, when she interrupted him.  "I perceive, my lord, you
are about to enter upon an unpleasant subject.  I am sorry any
such should have occurred at this time, to interrupt in the
slightest degree the respectful reception due to your lordship;
but so it is.  Mr. Edgar Ravenswood, for whom I have addressed
the billet in your lordship's hand, has abused the hospitality of
this family, and Sir William Ashton's softness of temper, in
order to seduce a young person into engagements without her
parents' consent, and of which they never can approve."

Both gentlemen answered at once.  "My kinsman is incapable----"
said the Lord Marquis.

"I am confident that my daughter Lucy is still more
incapable----" said the Lord Keeper.

Lady Ashton at once interrupted and replied to them both: "My
Lord Marquis, your kinsman, if Mr. Ravenswood has the honour to
be so, has made the attempt privately to secure the
affections of this young and inexperienced girl.  Sir William
Ashton, your daughter has been simple enough to give more
encouragement than she ought to have done to so very improper a
suitor."

"And I think, madam," said the Lord Keeper, losing his
accustomed temper and patience, "that if you had nothing better
to tell us, you had better have kept this family secret to
yourself also."

"You will pardon me, Sir William," said the lady, calmly; "the
noble Marquis has a right to know the cause of the treatment I
have found it necessary to use to a gentleman whom he calls his
blood-relation."

"It is a cause," muttered the Lord Keeper, "which has emerged
since the effect has taken place; for, if it exists at all, I am
sure she knew nothing of it when her letter to
Ravenswood was written."

"It is the first time that I have heard of this," said the
Marquis; "but, since your ladyship has tabled a subject so
delicate, permit me to say, that my kinsman's birth and
connexions entitled him to a patient hearing, and at least a
civil refusal, even in case of his being so ambitious as to
raise his eyes to the daughter of Sir William Ashton."

"You will recollect, my lord, of what blood Miss Lucy Ashton is
come by the mother's side," said the lady.

"I do remember your descent--from a younger branch of the house
of Angus," said the Marquis; "and your ladyship--forgive me,
lady--ought not to forget that the Ravenswoods have thrice
intermarried with the main stem.  Come, madam, I know how matters
stand--old and long-fostered prejudices are difficult to get
over, I make every allowance for them; I ought not, and I would
not, otherwise have suffered my kinsman to depart alone,
expelled, in a manner, from this house, but I had hopes of being
a mediator.  I am still unwilling to leave you in anger, and
shall not set forward till after noon, as I rejoin the Master of
Ravenswood upon the road a few miles from hence.  Let us talk
over this matter more coolly."

"It is what I anxiously desire, my lord," said Sir William
Ashton, eagerly.  "Lady Ashton, we will not permit my Lord of A--
-- to leave us in displeasure.  We must compel him to tarry
dinner at the castle."

"The castle," said the lady, "and all that it contains, are at
the command of the Marquis, so long as he chooses to honour it
with his residence; but touching the farther discussion of this
disagreeable topic----"

"Pardon me, good madam," said the Marquis; "but I cannot allow
you to express any hasty resolution on a subject so
important.  I see that more company is arriving; and, since I
have the good fortune to renew my former acquaintance with Lady
Ashton, I hope she will give me leave to avoid perilling what I
prize so highly upon any disagreeable subject of discussion--at
least till we have talked over more pleasant topics."

The lady smiled, courtesied, and gave her hand to the Marquis,
by whom, with all the formal gallantry of the time, which did not
permit the guest to tuck the lady of the house under the arm, as
a rustic does his sweetheart at a wake, she was ushered to the
eating-room.

Here they were joined by Bucklaw, Craigengelt, and other
neighbours, whom the Lord Keeper had previously invited to meet
the Marquis of A----.  An apology, founded upon a slight
indisposition, was alleged as an excuse for the absence of Miss
Ashton, whose seat appeared unoccupied.  The entertainment was
splendid to profusion, and was protracted till a late hour.



CHAPTER XXIII.

Such was our fallen father's fate,
Yet better than mine own;
He shared his exile with his mate,
I'm banish'd forth alone.

WALLER


I WILL not attempt to describe the mixture of indignation and
regret with which Ravenswood left the seat which had belonged to
his ancestors.  The terms in which Lady Ashton's billet was
couched rendered it impossible for him, without being deficient
in that spirit of which he perhaps had too much, to remain an
instant longer within its walls.  The Marquis, who had his share
in the affront, was, nevertheless, still willing to make some
efforts at conciliation.  He therefore suffered his kinsman to
depart alone, making him promise, however, that he would wait
for him at the small inn called the Tod's Hole, situated, as our
readers may be pleased to recollect, half-way betwixt Ravenswood
Castle and Wolf's Crag, and about five Scottish miles distant
from each.  Here the Marquis proposed to join the Master of
Ravenswood, either that night or the next morning.  His own
feelings would have induced him to have left the castle directly,
but he was loth to forfeit, without at least one effort, the
advantages which he had proposed from his visit to the Lord
Keeper; and the Master of Ravenswood was, even in the very heat
of his resentment, unwilling to foreclose any chance of
reconciliation which might arise out of the partiality which Sir
William Ashton had shown towards him, as well as the intercessory
arguments of his noble kinsman.  He himself departed without a
moment's delay, farther than was necessary to make this
arrangement.

At first he spurred his horse at a quick pace through an avenue
of the park, as if, by rapidity of motion, he could stupify the
confusion of feelings with which he was assailed.  But as the
road grew wilder and more sequestered, and when the trees had
hidden the turrets of the castle, he gradually
slackened his pace, as if to indulge the painful reflections
which he had in vain endeavoured to repress.  The path in which
he found himself led him to the Mermaiden's Fountain, and to the
cottage of Alice; and the fatal influence which superstitious
belief attached to the former spot, as well as the admonitions
which had been in vain offered to him by the inhabitant of the
latter, forced themselves upon his memory.  "Old saws speak
truth," he said to himself, "and the Mermaiden's Well has indeed
witnessed the last act of rashness of the heir of Ravenswood.
Alice spoke well," he continued, "and I am in the situation which
she foretold; or rather, I am more deeply dishonoured--not the
dependant and ally of the destroyer of my father's house, as the
old sibyl presaged, but the degraded wretch who has aspired to
hold that subordinate character, and has been rejected with
disdain."

We are bound to tell the tale as we have received it; and,
considering the distance of the time, and propensity of those
through whose mouths it has passed to the marvellous, this could
not be called a Scottish story unless it manifested a tinge of
Scottish superstition.  As Ravenswood approached the solitary
fountain, he is said to have met with the following singular
adventure: His horse, which was moving slowly forward, suddenly
interrupted its steady and composed pace, snorted, reared, and,
though urged by the spur, refused to proceed, as if some object
of terror had suddenly presented itself.  On looking to the
fountain, Ravenswood discerned a female figure, dressed in a
white, or rather greyish, mantle, placed on the very spot on
which Lucy Ashton had reclined while listening to the fatal tale
of love.  His immediate impression was that she had conjectured
by which path he would traverse the park on his departure, and
placed herself at this well-known and sequestered place of
rendezvous, to indulge her own sorrow and his parting interview.
In this belief he jumped from his horse, and, making its bridle
fast to a tree, walked hastily towards the fountain, pronouncing
eagerly, yet under his breath, the words, "Miss Ashton!--Lucy!"

The figure turned as he addressed it, and displayed to his
wondering eyes the features, not of Lucy Ashton, but of old blind
Alice.  The singularity of her dress, which rather resembled a
shroud than the garment of a living woman; the appearance of her
person, larger, as it struck him, than it usually seemed to be;
above all, the strange circumstance of a blind, infirm, and
decrepit person being found alone and at a distance from her
habitation (considerable, if her infirmities be taken into
account), combined to impress him with a feeling of wonder
approaching to fear.  As he approached, she arose slowly from her
seat, held her shrivelled hand up as if to prevent his coming
more near, and her withered lips moved fast, although no sound
issued from them.  Ravenswood stopped; and as, after a moment's
pause, he again advanced towards her, Alice, or her apparition,
moved or glided backwards towards the thicket, still keeping her
face turned towards him.  The trees soon hid the form from his
sight; and, yielding to the strong and terrific
impression that the being which he had seen was not of this
world, the Master of Ravenswood remained rooted to the ground
whereon he had stood when he caught his last view of her.  At
length, summoning up his courage, he advanced to the spot on
which the figure had seemed to be seated; but neither was there
pressure of the grass nor any other circumstance to induce him to
believe that what he had seen was real and substantial.

Full of those strange thoughts and confused apprehensions which
awake in the bosom of one who conceives he has witnessed some
preternatural appearance, the Master of Ravenswood walked back
towards his horse, frequently, however, looking behind him, not
without apprehension, as if expecting that the vision would
reappear.  But the apparition, whether it was real or whether it
was the creation of a heated and agitated imagination, returned
not again; and he found his horse sweating and terrified, as if
experiencing that agony of fear with which the presence of a
supernatural being is supposed to agitate the brute creation.
The Master mounted, and rode slowly forward, soothing his steed
from time to time, while the animal seemed internally to shrink
and shudder, as if expecting some new object of fear at the
opening of every glade.  The rider, after a moment's
consideration, resolved to investigate the matter further.  "Can
my eyes have deceived me," he said, "and deceived me for such a
space of time?   Or are this woman's infirmities but feigned, in
order to excite compassion?  And even then, her motion resembled
not that of a living and existing person.  Must I adopt the
popular creed, and think that the unhappy being has formed a
league with the powers of
darkness?  I am determined to be resolved; I will not brook
imposition even from my own eyes."

In this uncertainty he rode up to the little wicket of Alice's
garden.  Her seat beneath the birch-tree was vacant, though the
day was pleasant and the sun was high.  He approached the hut,
and heard from within the sobs and wailing of a female.  No
answer was returned when he knocked, so that, after a moment's
pause, he lifted the latch and entered.  It was indeed a house of
solitude and sorrow.  Stretched upon her miserable pallet lay the
corpse of the last retainer of the house of Ravenswood who still
abode on their paternal domains!  Life had but shortly departed;
and the little girl by whom she had been attended in her last
moments was wringing her hands and sobbing, betwixt childish fear
and sorrow, over the body of her mistress.

The Master of Ravenswood had some difficulty to compose the
terrors of the poor child, whom his unexpected appearance had at
first rather appalled than comforted; and when he succeeded, the
first expression which the girl used intimated that "he had come
too late."  Upon inquiring the meaning of this expression, he
learned that the deceased, upon the first attack of the mortal
agony, had sent a peasant to the castle to beseech an interview
of the Master of Ravenswood, and had expressed the utmost
impatience for his return.  But the messengers of the poor are
tardy and negligent: the fellow had not reached the castle, as
was afterwards learned, until Ravenswood had left it, and had
then found too much amusement maong the retinue of the strangers
to return in any haste to the cottage of Alice.  Meantime her
anxiety of mind seemed to increase with the agony of her body;
and, to use the phrase of Babie, her only attendant, "she prayed
powerfully that she might see her master's son once more, and
renew her warning."  She died just as the clock in the distant
village tolled one; and Ravenswood remembered, with internal
shuddering, that he had heard the chime sound through the wood
just before he had seen what he was now much disposed to consider
as the spectre of the deceased.

It was necessary, as well from his respect to the departed as in
common humanity to her terrified attendant, that he should take
some measures to relieve the girl from her distressing
situation.  The deceased, he understood, had expressed a desire
to be buried in a solitary churchyard, near the little inn of the
Tod's Hole, called the Hermitage, or more commonly Armitage, in
which lay interred some of the Ravenswood family, and many of
their followers.  Ravenswood conceived it his duty to gratify
this predilection, commonly found to exist among the Scottish
peasantry, and despatched Babie to the neighbouring village to
procure the assistance of some females, assuring her that, in the
mean while, he would himself remain with the dead body, which, as
in Thessaly of old, it is accounted highly unfit to leave without
a watch.

Thus, in the course of a quarter of an hour or little more, he
found himself sitting a solitary guard over the inanimate corpse
of her whose dismissed spirit, unless his eyes had
strangely deceived him, had so recently manifested itself before
him.  Notwithstanding his natural courage, the Master was
considerably affected by a concurrence of circumstances so
extraordinary.  "She died expressing her eager desire to see me.
Can it be, then," was his natural course of reflection--"can
strong and earnest wishes, formed during the last agony of
nature, survive its catastrophe, surmount the awful bounds of the
spiritual world, and place before us its inhabitants in the hues
and colouring of life?  And why was that manifested to the eye
which could not unfold its tale to the ear? and wherefore should
a breach be made in the laws of nature, yet its purpose remain
unknown?  Vain questions, which only death, when it shall make me
like the pale and withered form before me, can ever resolve."

He laid a cloth, as he spoke, over the lifeless face, upon whose
features he felt unwilling any longer to dwell.  He then took his
place in an old carved oaken chair, ornamented with his own
armorial bearings, which Alice had contrived to appropriate to
her own use in the pillage which took place among creditors,
officers, domestics, and messengers of the law when his father
left Ravenswood Castle for the last time.  Thus seated, he
banished, as much as he could, the superstitious feelings which
the late incident naturally inspired.  His own were sad enough,
without the exaggeration of supernatural terror, since he found
himself transferred from the situation of a successful lover of
Lucy Ashton, and an honoured and respected friend of her father,
into the melancholy and solitary guardian of the abandoned and
forsaken corpse of a common pauper.

He was relieved, however, from his sad office sooner that he
could reasonably have expected, considering the distance betwixt
the hut of the deceased and the village, and the age and
infirmities of three old women who came from thence, in military
phrase, to relieve guard upon the body of the defunct.  On any
other occasion the speed of these reverend sibyls would have been
much more moderate, for the first was eighty years of age and
upwards, the second was paralytic, and the third lame of a leg
from some accident.  But the burial duties rendered to the
deceased are, to the Scottish peasant of either sex, a labour of
love.  I know not whether it is from the temper of the people,
grave and enthusiastic as it certainly is, or from the
recollection of the ancient Catholic opinions, when the funeral
rites were always considered as a period of festival to the
living; but feasting, good cheeer, and even inebriety, were, and
are, the frequent accompaniments of a Scottish old-fashioned
burial.  What the funeral feast, or "dirgie," as it is called,
was to the men, the gloomy preparations of the dead body for the
coffin were to the women.  To straight the contorted limbs upon a
board used for that melancholy purpose, to array the corpse in
clean linen, and over that in its woollen shroad, were operations
committed always to the old matrons of the village, and in which
they found a singular and gloomy delight.

The old women paid the Master their salutations with a ghastly
smile, which reminded him of the meeting betwixt Macbeth and the
witches on the blasted heath of Forres.  He gave them some money,
and recommended to them the charge of the dead body of their
contemporary, an office which they willingly undertook;
intimating to him at the same time that he must leave the hut, in
order that they might begin their mournful duties.  Ravenswood
readily agreed to depart, only tarrying to recommend to them due
attention to the body, and to receive information where he was to
find the sexton, or beadle, who had in charge the deserted
churchyard of the Armitage, in order to prepare matters for the
reception of Old Alice in the place of repose which she had
selected for herself.

"Ye'll no be pinched to find out Johnie Mortsheugh," said the
elder sibyl, and still her withered cheek bore a grisly smile;
"he dwells near the Tod's Hole, an house of entertainment where
there has been mony a blythe birling, for death and drink-
draining are near neighbours to ane anither."

"Ay! and that's e'en true, cummer," said the lame hag, propping
herself with a crutch which supported the shortness of her left
leg, "for I mind when the father of this Master of Ravenswood
that is now standing before us sticked young Blackhall with his
whinger, for a wrang word said ower their wine, or brandy, or
what not: he gaed in as light as a lark, and he came out wi' his
feet foremost.  I was at the winding of the corpse; and when the
bluid was washed off, he was a bonny bouk of man's body."
It may be easily believed that this ill-timed anecdote hastened
the Master's purpose of quitting a company so evil-omened and so
odious.  Yet, while walking to the tree to which his horse was
tied, and busying himself with adjusting the girhts of the
saddle, he could not avoid hearing, through the hedge of the
little garden, a conversation respecting himself, betwixt the
lame woman and the octagenarian sibyl.  The pair had hobbled into
the garden to gather rosemary, southernwood, rue, and other
plants proper to be strewed upon the body, and burned by way of
fumigation in the chimney of the cottage.  The paralytic wretch,
almost exhausted by the journey, was left guard upon the corpse,
lest witches or fiends might play their sport with it.

The following law, croaking dialogue was necessarily
overheard by the Master of Ravenswood:

"That's a fresh and full-grown hemlock, Annie Winnie; mony a
cummer lang syne wad hae sought nae better horse to flee over
hill and how, through mist and moonlight, and light down in the
the King of France's cellar."

"Ay, cummer! but the very deil has turned as hard-hearted now as
the Lord Keeper and the grit folk, that hae breasts like
whinstane.  They prick us and they pine us, and they pit us on
the pinnywinkles for witches; and, if I say my prayers backwards
ten times ower, Satan will never gie me amends o' them."

"Did ye ever see the foul thief?" asked her neighbour.

"Na!" replied the other spokeswoman; "but I trow I hae dreamed
of him mony a time, and I think the day will come they will burn
me for't.  But ne'er mind, cummer! we hae this dollar of the
Master's, and we'll send doun for bread and for yill, and
tobacco, and a drap brandy to burn, and a wee pickle saft sugar;
and be there deil, or nae deil, lass, we'll hae a merry night
o't."

Here her leathern chops uttered a sort of cackling, ghastly
laugh, resembling, to a certain degree, the cry of the screech-
owl.

"He's a frank man, and a free-handed man, the Master," said
Annie Winnie, "and a comely personage--broad in the shouthers,
and narrow around the lunyies.  He wad mak a bonny corpse; I wad
like to hae the streiking and winding o' him."

"It is written on his brow, Annie Winnie," returned  the
octogenarian, her companion, "that hand of woman, or of man
either, will never straught him: dead-deal will never be laid on
his back, make you your market of that, for I hae it frae a sure
hand."

"Will it be his lot to die on the battle-ground then, Ailsie
Gourlay?  Will he die by the sword or the ball, as his forbears
had dune before him, mony ane o' them?"
"Ask nae mair questions about it--he'll no be graced sae far,"
replied the sage.

"I ken ye are wiser than ither folk, Aislie Gourlay.  But wha
tell'd ye this?"
"Fashna your thumb about that, Annie Winnie," answered the
sibyl, "I hae it frae a hand sure eneugh."

"But ye said ye never saw the foul thief," reiterated her
inquisitive companion.

"I hae it frae as sure a hand," said Ailsie, "and frae them that
spaed his fortune before the sark gaed ower his head."

"Hark! I hear his horse's feet riding aff," said the other;
"they dinna sound as if good luck was wi' them."

"Mak haste, sirs," cried the paralytic hag from the cottage,
"and let us do what is needfu', and say what is fitting; for, if
the dead corpse binna straughted, it will girn and thraw, and
that will fear the best o' us."

Ravenswood was now out of hearing.  He despised most of the
ordinary prejudices about witchcraft, omens, and vaticination, to
which his age and country still gave such implicit credit that to
express a doubt of them was accounted a crime equal to the
unbelief of Jews or Saracens; he knew also that the prevailing
belief, concerning witches, operating upon the hypochondriac
habits of those whom age, infirmity, and poverty rendered liable
to suspicion, and enforced by the fear of death and the pangs of
the most cruel tortures, often extorted those confessions which
encumber and disgrace the criminal records of Scotland during the
17th century.  But the vision of that morning, whether real or
imaginary, had impressed his mind with a superstitious feeling
which he in vain endeavoured to shake off.  The nature of the
business which awaited him at the little inn, called Tod's Hole,
where he soon after arrived, was not of a kind to restore his
spirits.

It was necessary he should see Mortsheugh, the sexton of the old
burial-ground at Armitage, to arrange matters for the funeral of
Alice; and, as the man dwelt near the place of her late
residence, the Master, after a slight refreshment, walked towards
the place where the body of Alice was to be deposited.  It was
situated in the nook formed by the eddying sweep of a stream,
which issued from the adjoining hills.  A rude cavern in an
adjacent rock, which, in the interior, was cut into the shape of
a cross, formed the hermitage, where some Saxon saint had in
ancient times done penance, and given name to the place.  The
rich Abbey of Coldinghame had, in latter days, established a
chapel in the neighbourhood, of which no vestige was now visible,
though the churchyard which surrounded it was still, as upon the
present occasion, used for the interment of particular persons.
One or two shattered yew-trees still grew within the precincts of
that which had once been holy ground.  Warriors and barons had
been buried there of old, but their names were forgotten, and
their monuments demolished.  The only sepulchral memorials which
remained were the upright headstonres which mark the graves of
persons of inferior rank.  The abode of the sexton was a solitary
cottage adjacent to the ruined wall of the cemetery, but so low
that, with its thatch, which nearly reached the ground, covered
with a thick crop of grass, fog, and house-leeks, it resembled an
overgrown grave.  On inquiry, however, Ravenswood found that the
man of the last mattock was absent at a bridal, being fiddler as
well as grave-digger to the vicinity.  He therefore retired to
the little inn, leaving a message that early next morning he
would again call for the person whose double occupation connected
him at once with the house of mourning and the house of feasting.

An outrider of the Marquis arrived at Tod's Hole shortly after,
with a message, intimating that his master would join Ravenswood
at that place on the following morning; and the Master, who would
otherwise have proceeded to his old retreat at Wolf's Crag,
remained there accordingy to give meeting to his noble kinsman.



CHAPTER XXIV.

Hamlet:  Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at
grave making. Horatio:   Custom hath made it in him a property
of easiness. Hamlet:  'Tis e'en so: the hand of little
employment hath the daintier sense.

Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1.


THE sleep of Ravenswood was broken by ghastly and agitating
visions, and his waking intervals disturbed by melancholy
reflections on the past and painful anticipations of the future.
He was perhaps the only traveller who ever slept in that
miserable kennel without complaining of his lodgings, or feeling
inconvenience from their deficiencies.  It is when "the mind is
free the body's delicate."  Morning, however, found the Master an
early riser, in hopes that the fresh air of the dawn might afford
the refreshment which night had refused him.  He took his way
towards the solitary burial-ground, which lay about half a mile
from the inn.

The thin blue smoke, which already began to curl upward, and to
distinguish the cottage of the living from the habitation of the
dead, apprised him that its inmate had returned and was
stirring.  Accordingly, on entering the little churchyard, he saw
the old man labouring in a half-made grave.  "My destiny,"
thought Ravenswood, "seems to lead me to scenes of fate and of
death; but these are childish thoughts, and they shall not master
me.  I will not again suffer my imagination to beguile my
senses."  The old man rested on his spade as the Master
approached him, as if to receive his commands; and as he did not
immediately speak, the sexton opened the discourse in his own
way.

"Ye will be a wedding customer, sir, I'se warrant?"

"What makes you think so, friend?" replied the Master.

"I live by twa trades, sir," replied the blythe old man--
"fiddle, sir, and spade; filling the world, and emptying of it;
and I suld ken baith cast of customers by head-mark in thirty
years' practice."

"You are mistaken, however, this morning," replied
Ravenswood.

"Am I?" said the old man, looking keenly at him, "troth and it
may be; since, for as brent as your brow is, there is
something sitting upon it this day that is as near akin to death
as to wedlock.  Weel--weel; the pick and shovel are as ready to
your order as bow and fiddle."

"I wish you," said Ravenswood, "to look after the descent
interment of an old woman, Alice Gray, who lived at the Graigfoot
in Ravenswood Park."

"Alice Gray!--blind Alice!" said the sexton; "and is she gane at
last? that's another jow of the bell to bid me be ready.  I mind
when Habbie Gray brought her down to this land; a likely lass she
was then, and looked ower her southland nose at us a'.  I trow
her pride got a downcome.  And is she e'en gane?"

"She died yesterday," said Ravenswood; "and desired to be buried
here beside her husband; you know where he lies, no doubt?"

"Ken where he lies!" answered the sexton, with national
indirection of response.  "I ken whar a'body lies, that lies
here.  But ye were speaking o' her grave?  Lord help us, it's no
an ordinar grave that will haud her in, if a's true that folk
said of Alice in her auld days; and if I gae to six feet deep--
and a warlock's grave shouldna be an inch mair ebb, or her ain
witch cummers would soon whirl her out of her shroud for a' their
auld acquaintance--and be't six feet, or be't three, wha's to pay
the making o't, I pray ye?"

"I will pay that, my friend, and all other reasonable charges."

"Reasonable charges!" said the sexton; "ou, there's
grundmail--and bell-siller, though the bell's broken, nae doubt--
and the kist--and my day's wark--and my bit fee--and some brandy
and yill to the dirgie, I am no thinking that you can inter her,
to ca' decently, under saxteen pund Scots."

"There is the money, my friend," said Ravenswood, "and something
over.  Be sure you know the grave."

"Ye'll be ane o' her English relations, I'se warrant," said the
hoary man of skulls; "I hae heard she married far below her
station.  It was very right to let her bite on the bridle when
she was living, and it's very right to gie her a secent burial
now she's dead, for that's a matter o' credit to yoursell rather
than to her.  Folk may let their kindred shift for themsells when
they are alive, and can bear the burden fo their ain misdoings;
but it's an unnatural thing to let them be buried like dogs, when
a' the discredit gangs to the kindred.  What kens the dead corpse
about it?"

"You would not have people neglect their relations on a bridal
occasion neither?" said Ravenswood, who was amused with the
professional limitation of the grave-digger's philanthropy.

The old man cast up his sharp grey eyes with a shrewd smile, as
if he understood the jest, but instantly continued, with his
former gravity: "Bridals--wha wad neglect bridals that had ony
regard for plenishing the earth?  To be sure, they suld be
celebrated with all manner of good cheer, and meeting of friends,
and musical instruments--harp, sackbut, and psaltery; or gude
fiddle and pipes, when these auld-warld instruments of melody are
hard to be compassed."

"The presence of the fiddle, I dare say," replied
Ravenswood, "would atone for the absence of all the others."

The sexton again looked sharply up at him, as he answered.  "Nae
doubt--nae doubt, if it were weel played; but yonder," he said,
as if to change the discourse, "is Halbert Gray's lang hame, that
ye were speering after, just the third bourock beyond the muckle
through-stane that stands on sax legs yonder, abune some ane of
the Ravenswoods; for there is mony of their kin and followers
here, deil lift them! though it isna just their main burial-
place."

"They are no favourites, then, of yours, these Ravenswoods?"
said the Master, no much pleased with the passing benediction
which was thus bestowed on his family and name.

"I kenna wha should favour them," said the grave-digger; "when
they had lands and power, they were ill guides of them baith, and
now their head's down, there's few care how lang they may be of
lifting it again."

"Indeed!" said Ravenswood; "I never heard that this unhappy
family deserved ill-will at the hands of their country.  I grant
their poverty, if that renders them contemptible."

"It will gang a far way till't" said the sexton of
Hermitage, "ye may tak my word for that; at least, I ken naething
else that suld mak myself contemptible, and folk are far frae
respecting me as they wad do if I lived in a twa-lofted sclated
house.  But as for the Ravenswoods, I hae seen three generations
of them, and deil ane to mend other."

"I thought they had enjoyed a fair character in the
country," said their descendant.

"Character!  Ou, ye see, sir," said the sexton, "as for the auld
gudesire body of a lord, I lived on his land when I was a
swanking young chield, and could hae blawn the trumpet wi' ony
body, for I had wind eneugh then; and touching this trumpeter
Marine that I have heard play afore the lords of  the circuit, I
wad hae made nae mair o' him than of a bairn and a bawbee
whistle.  I defy him to hae played 'Boot and saddle,' or 'Horse
and away,' or 'Gallants, come trot,' with me; he hadna the
tones."

"But what is all this to old Lord Ravenswood, my friend?" said
the Master, who, with an anxiety not unnatural in his
circumstances, was desirous of prosecuting the musician's first
topic--"what had his memory to do with the degeneracy of the
trumpet music?"

"Just this, sir," answered the sexton, "that I lost my wind in
his service.  Ye see I was trumpeter at the castle, and had
allowance for blawing at break of day, and at dinner time, and
other whiles when there was company about, and it pleased my
lord; and when he raised his militia to caper awa' to Bothwell
Brig against the wrang-headed westland Whigs, I behoved, reason
or name, to munt a horse and caper awa' wi' them."

"And very reasonable," said Ravenswood; "you were his servant
and vassal."

"Servitor, say ye?" replied the sexton, "and so I was; but it
was to blaw folk to their warm dinner, or at the warst to a
decent kirkyard, and no to skirl them awa' to a bluidy braeside,
where there was deil a bedral but the hooded craw.  But bide ye,
ye shall hear what cam o't, and how far I am bund to be bedesman
to the Ravenswoods.  Till't, ye see, we gaed on a braw simmer
morning, twenty-fourth of June, saxteen hundred and se'enty-nine,
of a' the days of the month and year--drums beat, guns rattled,
horses kicked and trampled.  Hackstoun of Rathillet keepit the
brig wi' mustket and carabine and pike, sword and scythe for what
I ken, and we horsemen were ordered down to cross at the ford,--I
hate fords at a' times, let abee when there's thousands of armed
men on the other side.  There was auld Ravenswood brandishing his
Andrew Ferrara at the head, and crying to us to come and buckle
to, as if we had been gaun to a fair; there was Caleb
Balderstone, that is living yet, flourishing in the rear, and
swearing Gog and Magog, he would put steel through the gus of ony
man that turned bridle; there was young Allan Ravenswood, that
was then Master, wi' a bended pistol in his hand--it was a mercy
it gaed na aff!--crying to me, that had scarce as much wind left
as serve the necessary purpose of my ain lungs, 'Sound, you
poltroon!--sound, you damned cowardly villain, or I will blow
your brains out!' and, to be sure, I blew sic points of war that
the scraugh of a clockin-hen was music to them."

"Well, sir, cut all this short," said Ravenswood.

"Short!  I had like to hae been cut short mysell, in the flower
of my youth, as Scripture says; and that's the very thing that I
compleen o'.  Weel! in to the water we behoved a' to splash,
heels ower head, sit or fa'--ae horse driving on anither, as is
the way of brute beasts, and riders that hae as little sense; the
very bushes on the ither side were ableeze wi' the flashes of the
Whig guns; and my horse had just taen the grund, when a
blackavised westland carle--I wad mind the face o' him a hundred
years yet--an ee like a wild falcon's, and a beard as broad as my
shovel--clapped the end o' his lang black gun within a quarter's
length of my lug!  By the grace o' Mercy, the horse swarved
round, and I fell aff at the tae side as the ball
whistled by at the tither, and the fell auld lord took the Whig
such a swauk wi' his broadsword that he made twa pieces o' his
head, and down fell the lurdance wi' a' his bouk abune me."

"You were rather obliged to the old lord, I think," said
Ravenswood.

"Was I? my sartie! first for bringing me into jeopardy, would I
nould I, and then for whomling a chield on the tap o' me that
dang the very wind out of my body?  I hae been short-
breathed ever since, and canna gang twenty yards without peghing
like a miller's aiver."

"You lost, then, your place as trumpeter?" said Ravenswood.

"Lost it! to be sure I lost it," replied the sexton, "for I
couldna hae played pew upon a dry hemlock; but I might hae dune
weel eneugh, for I keepit the wage and the free house, and little
to do but play on the fiddle to them, but for Allan, last Lord
Ravenswood, that was far waur than ever his father was."

"What," said the Master, "did my father--I mean, did his
father's son--this last Lord Ravenswood, deprive you of what the
bounty of his father allowed you?"

"Ay, troth did he," answered the old man; "for he loot his
affairs gang to the dogs, and let in this Sir William Ashton on
us, that will gie naething for naething, and just removed me and
a' the puir creatures that had bite and soup at the castle, and a
hole to put our heads in, when things were in the auld way."

"If Lord Ravenswood protected his people, my friend, while he
had the means of doing so, I think they might spare his memory,"
replied the Master.

"Ye are welcome to your ain opinion, sir," said the sexton; "but
ye winna persuade me that he did his duty, either to himsell or
to huz puir dependent creatures, in guiding us the gate he has
done; he might hae gien us life-rent tacks of our bits o' houses
and yards; and me, that's an auld man, living in you miserable
cabin, that's fitter for the dead than the quick, and killed wi'
rheumatise, and John Smith in my dainty bit mailing, and his
window glazen, and a' because Ravenswood guided his gear like a
fule!"

"It is but too true," said Ravenswood, conscience-struck; "the
penalties of extravagance extend far beyond the prodigal's own
sufferings."
"However," said the sexton, "this young man Edgar is like to
avenge my wrangs on the haill of his kindred."
"Indeed?" said Ravenswood; "why should you suppose so?"

"They say he is about to marry the daughter of Leddy Ashton; and
let her leddyship get his head ance under her oxter, and see you
if she winna gie his neck a thraw.  Sorra a bit, if I were him!
Let her alane for hauding a'thing in het water that draws near
her.  Sae the warst wish I shall wish the lad is, that he may
take his ain creditable gate o't, and ally himsell wi' his
father's enemies, that have taken his broad lands and my bonny
kail-yard from the lawful owners thereof."

Cervantes acutely remarks, that flattery is pleasing even from
the mouth of a madman; and censure, as well as praise, often
affects us, while we despise the opinions and motives on which it
is founded and expressed.  Ravenswood, abruptly reiterating his
command that Alice's funeral should be attended to, flung away
from the sexton, under the painful impression that the great as
well as the small vulgar would think of his engagement with Lucy
like this ignorant and selfish peasant.

"And I have stooped to subject myself to these calumnies, and am
rejected notwithstanding!  Lucy, your faith must be true and
perfect as the diamond to compensate for the dishonour which
men's opinions, and the conduct of your mother, attach to the
heir of Ravenswood!"

As he raised his eyes, he beheld the Marquis of A----, who,
having arrived at the Tod's Hole, had walked forth to look for
his kinsman.

After mutual greetings, he made some apology to the Master for
not coming forward on the preceding evening.  "It was his wish,"
he said, "to have done so, but he had come to the
knowledge of some matters which induced him to delay his purpose.
I find," he proceeded, "there has been a love affair here,
kinsman; and though I might blame you for not having communicated
with me, as being in some degree the chief of your family----"

"With your lordship's permission," said Ravenswood, "I am deeply
grateful for the interest you are pleased to take in me, but _I_
am the chief and head of my family."

"I know it--I know it," said the Marquis; "in a strict heraldic
and genealogical sense, you certainly are so; what I mean is,
that being in some measure under my guardianship----"

"I must take the liberty to say, my lord----" answered
Ravenswood, and the tone in which he interrupted the Marquis
boded no long duration to the friendship of the noble relatives,
when he himself was interrupted by the little sexton, who cam
puffing after them, to ask if their honours would choose music at
the change-house to make up for short cheer.

"We want no music," said the Master, abruptly.

"Your honour disna ken what ye're refusing, then," said the
fiddler, with the impertinent freedom of his profession.  "I can
play, 'Wilt thou do't again,' and 'The Auld Man's Mear's Dead,'
sax times better than ever Patie Birnie.  I'll get my fiddle in
the turning of a coffin-screw."

"Take yourself away, sir," said the Marquis.

"And if your honour be a north-country gentleman," said the
persevering minstrel, "whilk I wad judge from your tongue, I can
play 'Liggeram Cosh,' and 'Mullin Dhu,' and 'The Cummers of
Athole.'"

"Take yourself away, friend; you interrupt our
conversation."

"Or if, under your honour's favour, ye should happen to be a
thought honest, I can play (this in a low and confidential tone)
'Killiecrankie,' and 'The King shall hae his ain,' and 'The Auld
Stuarts back again'; and the wife at the change-house is a
decent, discreet body, neither kens nor cares what toasts are
drucken, and what tunes are played, in her house: she's deaf to
a'thing but the clink o' the siller."

The Marquis, who was sometimes suspected of Jacobitism, could
not help laughing as he threw the fellow a dollar, and bid him go
play to the servants if he had a mind, and leave them at peace.

"Aweel, gentlemen," said he, "I am wishing your honours gude
day.  "I'll be a' the better of the dollar, and ye'll be the waur
of wanting music, I'se tell ye.  But I'se gang hame, and finish
the grave in the tuning o' a fiddle-string, lay by my spade, and
then get my tother bread-winner, and awa' to your folk, and see
if they hae better lugs than their masters."



CHAPTER XXV.

True love, an thou be true,
Thou has ane kittle part to play;
For fortune, fashion, fancy, and thou,
Maun strive for many a day.

I've kend by mony a friend's tale,
Far better by this heart of mine,
What time and change of fancy avail
A true-love knot to untwine.

HENDERSOUN.


"I WISHED to tell you, my good kinsman," said the Marquis, "now
that we are quit of that impertinent fiddler, that I had tried to
discuss this love affair of yours with Sir William Ashton's
daughter.  I never saw the young lady but for a few minutes to-
day; so, being a stranger to her personal merits, I pay a
compliment to you, and offer her no offence, in saying you might
do better."

"My lord, I am much indebted for the interest you have taken in
my affairs," said Ravenswood.  "I did not intend to have
troubled you in any matter concerning Miss Ashton.  As my
engagement with that young lady has reached your lordship, I can
only say, that you must necessarily suppose that I was aware of
the objections to my marrying into her father's family, and of
course must have been completely satisfied with the reasons by
which these objections are overbalanced, since I have proceeded
so far in the matter."

"Nay, Master, if you had heard me out," said his noble relation,
"you might have spared that observation; for, withotu
questioning that you had reasons which seemed to you to
counterbalance every other obstacle, I set myself, by every means
that it became me to use towards the Ashtons, to persuade them to
meet your views."

"I am obliged to your lordship for your unsolicited
intercession," said Ravenswood; "especially as I am sure your
lordship would never carry it beyond the bounds which it became
me to use."

"Of that," said the Marquis, "you may be confident; I myself
felt the delicacy of the matter too much to place a gentleman
nearly connected with my house in a degrading or dubious
situation with these Ashtons.  But I pointed out all the
advantages of their marrying their daughter into a house so
honourable, and so nearly related with the first of Scotland; I
explained the exact degree of relationship in which the
Ravenswoods stand to ourselves; and I even hinted how political
matters were like to turn, and what cards would be trumps next
Parliament.  I said I regarded you as a son--or a nephew, or so--
rather than as a more distant relation; and that I made your
affair entirely my own."

"And what was the issue of your lordship's explanation?" said
Ravenswood, in some doubt whether he should resent or express
gratitude for his interference.

"Why, the Lord Keeper would have listened to reason," said the
Marquis; "he is rather unwilling to leave his place, which, in
the present view of a change, must be vacated; and, to say
truth, he seemed to have a liking for you, and to be sensible of
the general advantages to be attained by such a match.  But his
lady, who is tongue of the trump, Master----"

"What of Lady Ashton, my lord?" said Ravenswood; "let me know
the issue of this extraordinary conference: I can bear it."

"I am glad of that, kinsman," said the Marquis, "for I am
ashamed to tell you half what she said.  It is enough--her mind
is made up, and the mistress of a first-rate boarding-school
could not have rejected with more haughty indifference the suit
of a half-pay Irish officer, beseeching permission to wait upon
the heiress of a West India planter, than Lady Ashton spurned
every proposal of mediation which it could at all become me to
offer in behalf of you, my good kinsman.  I cannot guess what she
means.  A more honourable connexion she could not form, that's
certain.  As for money and land, that used to be her husband's
business rather than hers; I really think she hates you for
having the rank which her husband has not, and perhaps for not
having the lands that her goodman has.  But I should only vex you
to say more about it--here we are at the change-house."

The Master of Ravenswood paused as he entered the cottage, which
reeked through all its crevices, and they were not few, from the
exertions of the Marquis's travelling-cooks to supply good cheer,
and spread, as it were, a table in the wilderness.

"My Lord Marquis," said Ravenswood, "I already mentioned that
accident has put your lordship in possession of a secret which,
with my consent, should have remained one even to you, my
kinsman, for some time.  Since the secret was to part from my own
custody, and that of the only person besides who was interested
in it, I am not sorry it should have reached your lordship's
ears, as being fully aware that you are my noble kinsman and
friend."

"You may believe it is safely lodged with me, Master of
Ravenswood," said the Marquis; "but I should like well to hear
you say that you renounced the idea of an alliance which you can
hardly pursue without a certain degree of degradation."

"Of that, my lord, I shall judge," answered Ravenswood, "and I
hope with delicacy as sensitive as any of my friends.  But I
have no engagement with Sir William and Lady Ashton.  It is with
Miss Ashton alone that I have entered upon the subject, and my
conduct in the matter shall be entirely ruled by hers.  If she
continues to prefer me in my poverty to the wealthier suitors
whom her friends recommend, I may well make some sacrifice to her
sincere affection: I may well surrender to her the less tangible
and less palpable advantages of birth, and the deep-rooted
prejudices of family hatred.  If Miss Lucy Ashton should change
her mind on a subject of such delicacy, I trust my friends will
be silent on my disappointment, and I shall know how to make my
enemies so."

"Spoke like a gallant young nobleman," said the Marquis; "for my
part, I have that regard for you, that I should be sorry the
thing went on.  This Sir William Ashton was a pretty enough
pettifogging kind of a lawyer twenty years ago, and betwixt
battling at the bar and leading in committees of Parliament he
has got well on; the Darien matter lent him a lift, for he had
good intelligence and sound views, and sold out in time; but the
best work is had out of him.  No government will take him at his
own, or rather his wife's extravagant, valuation; and betwixt his
indecision and her insolence, from all I can guess, he will
outsit his market, and be had cheap when no one will bid for him.
I say nothing of Miss Ashton; but I assure you, a connexion with
her father will be neither useful nor ornamental, beyond that
part of your father's spoils which he may be prevailed upon to
disgorge by way of tocher-good; and take my word for it, you will
get more if you have spirit to bell the cat with him in the House
of Peers.  And I will be the man, cousin," continued his
lordship, "will course the fox for you, and make him rue the day
that ever he refused a composition too honourable for him, and
proposed by me on the behalf of a kinsman."

There was something in all this that, as it were, overshot the
mark.  Ravenswood could not disguise from himself that his noble
kinsman had more reasons for taking offence at the
reception of his suit than regarded his interest and honour, yet
he could neither complain nor be surprised that it should be so.
He contented himself, therefore, with repeating, that his
attachment was to Miss Ashton personally; that he desired neither
wealth nor aggrandisement from her father's means and influence;
and that nothing should prevent his keeping his engagement,
excepting her own express desire that it should be relinquished;
and he requested as a favour that the matter might be no more
mentioned betwixt them at present, assuring the Marquis of A----
that he should be his confidant or its interruption.

The Marquis soon had more agreeable, as well as more
interesting, subjects on which to converse.  A foot-post, who had
followed him from Edinburgh to Ravenswood Castle, and had traced
his steps to the Tod's Hole, brought him a packet laden with good
news.  The political calculations of the Marquis had proved just,
both in London and at Edinburgh, and he saw almost within his
grasp the pre-eminence for which he had panted.  The refreshments
which the servants had prepared were now put on the table, and an
epicure would perhaps have enjoyed them with additional zest from
the contrast which such fare afforded to the miserable cabin in
which it was served up.

The turn of conversation corresponded with and added to the
social feelings of the company.  The Marquis expanded with
pleasure on the power which probably incidents were likely to
assign to him, and on the use which eh hoped to make of it in
serving his kinsman Ravenswood.  Ravenswood could but repeat the
gratitude which he really felt, even when he considered the topic
as too long dwelt upon.  The wine was excellent, notwithstanding
its having been brought in a runlet from Edinburgh; and the
habits of the Marquis, when engaged with such good cheer, were
somewhat sedentary.  And so it fell out that they delayed their
journey two hours later than was their original purpose.

"But what of that, my good young friend?" said the Marquis.
"Your Castle of Wolf's Crag is at but five or six miles'
distance, and will afford the same hospitality to your kinsman of
A----that it gave to this same Sir William Ashton."

"Sir William took the castle by storm," said Ravenswood, "and,
like many a victor, had little reason to congratulate himself on
his conquest."
"Well--well!" said Lord A----, whose dignity was something
relaxed by the wine he had drunk, "I see I must bribe you to
harbour me.  Come, pledge me in a bumper health to the last
young lady that slept at Wolf's Crag, and liked her quarters.  My
bones are not so tender as hers, and I am resolved to occupy her
apartment to-night, that I may judge how hard the couch is that
love can soften."

"Your lordship may choose what penance you please," said
Ravenswood; "but I assure you, I should expect my old servant to
hang himself, or throw himself from the battlements, should your
lordship visit him so unexpectedly.  I do assure you, we are
totally and literally unprovided."

But his declaration only brought from his noble patron an
assurance of his own total indifference as to every species of
accommodation, and his determination to see the Tower of Wolf's
Crag.  His ancestor, he said, had been feasted there, when he
went forward with the then Lord Ravenswood to the fatal battle of
Flodden, in which they both fell.  Thus hard pressed, the Master
offered to ride forward to get matters put in such preparation as
time and circumstances admitted; but the Marquis protested his
kinsman must afford him his company, and would only consent that
an avant-courier should carry to the desinted seneschal, Caleb
Balderstone, the unexpected news of this invasion.

The Master of Ravenswood soon after accompanied the Marquis in
his carriage, as the latter had proposed; and when they became
better acquainted in the progress of the journey, his noble
relation explained the very liberal views which he entertained
for his relation's preferment, in case of the success of his own
political schemes.  They related to a secret and highly important
commission beyond sea, which could only be entrusted to a person
of rank, talent, and perfect confidence, and which, as it
required great trust and reliance on the envoy employed, could
but not prove both honourable and advantageous to him.  We need
not enter into the nature and purpose of this commission, farther
than to acquaint our readers that the charge was in prospect
highly acceptable to the Master of Ravenswood, who hailed with
pleasure the hope of emerging from his present state of indigence
and inaction into independence and honourable exertion.

While he listened thus eagerly to the details with which the
Marquis now thought it necessary to entrust him, the messenger
who had been despatched to the Tower of Wolf's Crag returned with
Caleb Balderstone's humble duty, and an assurance that "a' should
be in seemly order, sic as the hurry of time permitted, to
receive their lordships as it behoved."

Ravenswood was too well accustomed to his seneschal's mode of
acting and speaking to hope much from this confident
assurance.  He knew that Caleb acted upon the principle of the
Spanish geenrals, in the campaign of ----, who, much to the
perplexity of the Prince of Orange, their commander-in-chief,
used to report their troops as full in number, and possessed of
all necessary points of equipment, not considering it consistent
with their dignity, or the honour of Spain, to confess any
deficiency either in men or munition, until the want of both was
unavoidably discovered in the day of battle.  Accordingly,
Ravenswood thought it necessary to give the Marquis some hint
that the fair assurance which they had just received from Caleb
did not by any means ensure them against a very indifferent
reception.

"You do yourself injustice, Master," said the Marquis, "or you
wish to surprise me agreeably.  From this window I see a great
light in the direction where, if I remember aright, Wolf's Crag
lies; and, to judge from the splendour which the old Tower sheds
around it, the preparations for our reception must be of no
ordinary description.  I remember your father putting the same
deception on me, when we went to the Tower for afew days'
hawking, about twenty years since, and yet we spent our time as
jollily at Wolf's Crag as we could have done at my own hunting
seat at B----."

"Your lordship, I fear, will experience that the faculty of the
present proprietor to entertain his friends is greatly
abridged," said Ravenswood; "the will, I need hardly say, remains
the same.  But I am as much at a loss as your lordship to account
for so strong and brilliant a light as is now above Wolf's Crag;
the windows of the Tower are few and narrow, and those of the
lower story are hidden from us by the walls of the court.  I
cannot conceive that any illumination of an ordinary nature could
afford such a blaze of light."

The mystery was soon explained; for the cavalcade almost
instantly halted, and the voice of Caleb Balderstone was heard
p278
at the coach window, exclaiming, in accents broken by grief and
fear, "Och, gentlemen!  Och, my gude lords!  Och, haud to the
right!  Wolf's Crag is burning, bower and ha'--a' the rich
plenishing outside and inside--a' the fine graith, pictures,
tapestries, needle-wark, hangings, and other decorements--a' in a
bleeze, as if they were nae mair than sae mony peats, or as
muckle pease-strae!  Haud to the right, gentlemen, I implore ye;
there is some sma' provision making at Luckie Sma'trash's; but
oh, wae for this night, and wae for me that lives to see it!"

Ravenswood was first stunned by this new and unexpected
calamity; but after a moment's recollection he sprang from the
carriage, and hastily bidding his noble kinsman goodnight, was
about to ascend the hill towards the castle, the broad and full
conflagration of which now flung forth a high column of red
light, that flickered far to seaward upon the dashing waves of
the ocean.

"Take a horse, Master," exclaimed the Marquis, greatly affected
by this additional misfortune, so unexpectedly heaped upon his
young protege; "and give me my ambling palfrey; and haste
forward, you knaves, to see what can be done to save the
furniture, or to extinguish the fire--ride, you knaves, for your
lives!"

The attendants bustled together, and began to strike their
horses with the spur, and call upon Caleb to show them the road.
But the voice of that careful seneschal was heard above the
tumult, "Oh, stop sirs, stop--turn bridle, for the luve of Mercy;
add not loss of lives to the loss of warld's gean!  Thirty
barrels of powther, landed out of a Dunkirk dogger in the auld
lord's time--a' in the vau'ts of the auld tower,--the fire canna
be far off it, I trow.  Lord's sake, to the right, lads--to the
right; let's pit the hill atween us and peril,--a wap wi' a
corner-stane o' Wolf's Crag wad defy the doctor!"

It will readily be supposed that this annunciation hurried the
Marquis and his attendants into the route which Caleb
prescribed, dragging Ravenswood along with them, although there
was much in the matter which he could not possibly comprehend.
"Gunpowder!" he exclaimed, laying hold of Caleb, who in vain
endeavoured to escape from him; "what
gunpowder?  How any quantity of powder could be in Wolf's Crag
without my knowledge, I cannot possibly comprehend."

"But I can," interrupted the Marquis, whispering him, "I can
comprehend it thoroughly; for God's sake, ask him no more
questions at present."

"There it is, now," said Caleb, extricating himself from his
master, and adjusting his dress, "your honour will believe his
lordship's honourable testimony.  His lordship minds weel how, in
the year that him they ca'd King Willie died----"

"Hush! hush, my good friend!" said the Marquis; "I shall satisfy
your master upon that subject."

"And the people at Wolf's Hope," said Ravenswood, "did none of
them come to your assistance before the flame got so high?"

"Ay did they, mony ane of them, the rapscallions!" said Caleb;
"but truly I was in nae hurry to let them into the Tower, where
there were so much plate and valuables."

"Confound you for an impudent liar!" said Ravenswood, in
uncontrollable ire, "there was not a single ounce of----"

"Forbye," said the butler, most irreverently raising his voice
to a pitch which drowned his master's, "the fire made fast on us,
owing to the store of tapestry and carved timmer in the
banqueting-ha', and the loons ran like scaulded rats sae sune as
they heard of the gunpouther."

"I do entreat," said the Marquis to Ravenswood, "you will ask
him no more questions."

"Only one, my lord.  What has become of poor Mysie?"

"Mysie!" said Caleb, "I had nae time to look about ony Mysie;
she's in the Tower, I'se warrant, biding her awful doom."
"By heaven," said Ravenswood, "I do not understand all this !
The life of a faithful old creature is at stake; my lord, I will
be withheld no longer; I will at least ride up, and see whether
the danger is as imminent as this old fool pretends."

"Weel, then, as I live by bread," said Caleb, "Mysie is weel and
safe.  I saw her out of the castle before I left it mysell.  Was
I ganging to forget an auld fellow-servant?"

"What made you tell me the contrary this moment?" said his
master.

"Did I tell you the contrary?" said Caleb; "then I maun hae been
dreaming surely, or this awsome night has turned my
judgment; but safe she is, and ne'er a living soul in the castle,
a' the better for them: they wau have gotten an unco heezy."

The Master of Ravenswood, upon this assurance being solemnly
reiterated, and notwithstanding his extreme wish to witness the
last explosion, which was to ruin to the ground the mansion of
his fathers, suffered himself to be dragged onward towards the
village of Wolf's Hope, where not only the change-house, but that
of our well-known friend the cooper, were all prepared for
reception of himself and his noble guest, with a liberality of
provision which requires some explanation.

We omitted to mention in its place, that Lockhard having fished
out the truth concerning the mode by which Caleb had obtained the
supplies for his banquet, the Lord Keeper, amused with the
incident, and desirous at the time to gratify
Ravenswood, had recommended the cooper of Wolf''s Hope to the
official situation under government the prospect of which had
reconciled him to the loss of his wild-fowl.  Mr. Girder's
preferment had occasioned a pleasing surprise to old Caleb; for
when, some days after his master's departure, he found himself
absolutely compelled, by some necessary business, to visit the
fishing hamlet, and was gliding like a ghost past the door of the
cooper, for fear of being summoned to give some account of the
progress of the solicitation in his favour, or, more probably
that the inmates might upbraid him with the false hope he had
held out upon the subject, he heard himself, not without some
apprehension, summoned at once in treble, tenor, and bass--a trio
performed by the voices of Mrs. Girder, old Dame Loup-the-Dyke,
and the goodman of the dwelling--"Mr. Caleb!--Mr. Caleb
Balderstone!  I hope ye arena ganging dry-lipped by our door, and
we sae muckle indebted to you?"

This might be said ironically as well as in earnest.  Caleb
augured the worst, turned a deaf ear to the trio aforesaid, and
was moving doggedly on, his ancient castor pulled over his brows,
and his eyes bent on the ground, as if to count the flinty
pebbles with which the rude pathway was causewayed.  But on a
sudden he found himself surrounded in his progress, like a
stately merchantman in the Gut of Gibraltar (I hope the ladies
will excuse the tarpaulin phrase) by three Algerine galleys.
"Gude guide us, Mr. Balderstone!" said Mrs. Girder.
"Wha wad hae thought it of an auld and kenn'd friend!" said the
mother.

"And no sae muckle as stay to receive our thanks," said the
cooper himself, "and frae the like o' me that seldom offers them!
I am sure I hope there's nae ill seed sawn between us, Mr.
Balderstone.  Ony man that has said to ye I am no gratefu' for
the situation of Queen's cooper, let me hae a whample at him wi'
mine eatche, that's a'."

"My good friends--my dear friends," said Caleb, still doubting
how the certainty of the matter might stand, "what needs a' this
ceremony?  Ane tries to serve their friends, and
sometimes they may happen to prosper, and sometimes to misgie.
Naething I care to be fashed wi' less than thanks; I never could
bide them."

"Faith, Mr. Balderstone, ye suld hae been fashed wi' few o'
mine," said the downright man of staves and hoops, "if I had only
your gude-will to thank ye for: I suld e'en hae set the guse, and
the wild deukes, adn the runlet of sack to balance that account.
Gude-will, man, is a geizen'd tub, that hauds in nae liquor; but
gude deed's like the cask, tight, round, and sound, that will
haud liquor for the king."

"Have ye no heard of our letter," said the mother-in-law,
"making our John [Gibbie] the Queen's cooper for certain? and
scarce a chield that had ever hammered gird upon tub but was
applying for it?"

"Have I heard!!!" said Caleb, who now found how the wind set,
with an accent of exceeding contempt, at the doubt
expressed--"have I heard, quo'she!!!" and as he spoke he changed
his shambling, skulking, dodging pace into a manly and
authoritative step, readjusted his cocked hat, and suffered his
brow to emerge from under it in all the pride of aristocracy,
like the sun from behind a cloud.

"To be sure, he canna but hae heard," said the good woman.

"Ay, to be sure it's impossible but I should," said Caleb; "and
sae I'll be the first to kiss ye, joe, and wish you, cooper,
much joy of your preferment, naething doubting but ye ken wha are
your friends, and HAVE helped ye, and CAN help ye.  I thought
it right to look a wee strange upon it at first," added Caleb,
"just to see if ye were made of the right mettle; but ye ring
true, lad--ye ring true!"

So saying, with a most lordly air he kissed the women, and
abandoned his hand, with an air of serene patronage, to the
hearty shake of Mr. Girder's horn-hard palm.  Upon this complete,
and to Caleb most satisfactory, information he did not, it may
readily be believed, hesitate to accept an invitation to a solemn
feast, to which were invited, not only all the NOTABLES of the
village, but even his ancient antagonist, Mr. Dingwall, himself.
At this festivity he was, of course, the most welcome and most
honoured guest; and so well did he ply the company with stories
of what he could do with his master, his master with the Lord
Keeper, the Lord Keeper with the council, and the council with
the king [queen], that before the company dismissed (which was,
indeed, rather at an early hour than a late one), every man of
note in the village was ascending to the top-gallant of some
ideal preferment by the ladder of ropes which Caleb had presented
to their imagination.  Nay, the cunning butler regained in that
moment not only all the influence he possessed formerly over the
villagers, when the baronial family which he served were at the
proudest, but acquired even an accession of importance.  The
writer--the very attorney himself, such is the thirst of
preferment--felt the force of the attraction, and taking an
opportunity to draw Caleb into a corner, spoke, with affectionate
regret, of the declining health of the sheriff-clerk of the
county.

"An excellent man--a most valuable man, Mr. Caleb; but fat sall
I say! we are peer feckless bodies, here the day and awa' by
cock-screech the morn; and if he failyies, there maun be somebody
in his place; and gif that ye could airt it my way, I sall be
thankful, man--a gluve stuffed wi gowd nobles; an' hark ye, man
something canny till yoursell, and the Wolf's Hope carles to
settle kindly wi' the Master of Ravenswood--that is, Lord
Ravenswood--God bless his lordship!"

A smile, and a hearty squeeze by the hand, was the suitable
answer to this overture; and Caleb made his escape from the
jovial party, in order to avoid committing himself by any special
promises.

"The Lord be gude to me," said Caleb, when he found himself in
the open air, and at liberty to give vent to the self-
exultation with which he was, as it were, distended; "did ever
ony man see sic a set of green-gaislings?  The very pickmaws and
solan-geese out-bye yonder at the Bass hae ten times their sense!
God, an I had been the Lord High Commissioner to the Estates o'
Parliament, they couldna hae beflumm'd me mair; and, to speak
Heaven's truth, I could hardly hae beflumm'd them better neither!
But the writer--ha! ha! ha!--ah, ha! ha! ha! mercy on me, that I
suld live in my auld days to gie the ganag-bye to the very
writer!  Sheriff-clerk!!!  But I hae an auld account to settle
wi' the carle; and to make amends for bye-ganes, the office shall
just cost him as much time-serving and tide-serving as if he were
to get it in gude earnest, of whilk there is sma' appearance,
unless the Master learns mair the ways of this warld, whilk it is
muckle to be doubted that he never will do."



CHAPTER XXVI.

Why flames yon far summit--why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'Tis the fire-shower of  ruin, all dreadfully driven
From thine eyrie, that beacons the darkness of Heaven.

CAMPBELL.


THE circumstances announced in the conclusion of the last
chapter will account for the ready and cheerful reception of the
Marquis of A---- and the Master of Ravenswood in the village of
Wolf's Hope.  In fact, Caleb had no sooner announced the
conflagration of the tower than the whole hamlet were upon foot
to hasten to extinguish the flames.  And although that zealous
adherent diverted their zeal by intimating the formidable
contents of the subterranean apartments, yet the check only
turned their assiduity into another direction.  Never had there
been such slaughtering of capons, and fat geese, and barndoor
fowls; never such boiling of "reested" hams; never such making of
car-cakes and sweet scones, Selkirk bannocks, cookies, and
petticoat-tails--delicacies little known to the present
generation.  Never had there been such a tapping of barrels, and
such uncorking of greybeards, in the village of Wolf's Hope.  All
the inferior houses were thrown open for the reception of the
Marquis's  dependants, who came, it was thought, as precursors of
the shower of preferment which hereafter was to leave the rest of
Scotland dry, in order to distil its rich dews on the village of
Wolf's Hope under Lammermoor.  The minister put in his claim to
have the guests of distinction lodged at the manse, having his
eye, it was thought, upon a neighbouring preferment, where the
incumbent was sickly; but Mr. Balderstone destined that honour to
the cooper, his wife, and wife's mother, who danced for joy at
the preferences thus assigned them.

Many a beck and many a bow welcomed these noble guests to as
good entertainment as persons of such rank could set before such
visitors; and the old dame, who had formerly lived in Ravenswood
Castle, and knew, as she said, the ways of the nobility, was in
no whit wanting in arranging matters, as well as circumstances
permitted, according to the etiquette of the times.  The
cooper's house was so roomy that each guest had his separate
retiring-room, to which they were ushered with all due ceremony,
while the plentiful supper was in the act of being placed upon
the table.

Ravenswood no sooner found himself alone than, impelled by a
thousand feelings, he left the apartment, the house, and the
village, and hastily retraced his steps to the brow of the hill,
which rose betwixt the village and screened it from the tower, in
order to view the final fall of the house of his fathers.  Some
idle boys from the hamlet had taken the same direction out of
curiosity, having first witnessed the arrival of the coach and
six and its attendants.  As they ran one by one past the Master,
calling to each other to "Come and see the auld tower blaw up in
the lift like the peelings of an ingan," he could not but feel
himself moved with indignation.  "And these are the sons of my
father's vassals," he said--"of men bound, both by law and
gratitude, to follow our steps through battle, and fire, and
flood; and now the destruction of their liege lord's house is but
a holiday's sight to them"

These exasperating reflections were partly expresssed in the
acrimony with which he exclaimed, on feeling himself pulled by
the cloak: "What do you want, you dog?"

"I am a dog, and an auld dog too," answered Caleb, for it was he
who had taken the freedom, "and I am like to get a dog's wages;
but it does not signification a pinch of sneesing, for I am ower
auld a dog to learn new tricks, or to follow a new master."

As he spoke, Ravenswood attained the ridge of the hill from
which Wolf's Crag was visible; the flames had entirely sunk down,
and, to his great surprise, there was only a dusky reddening upon
the clouds immediately over the castle, which seemed the
reflection of the embers of the sunken fire.

"The place cannot have blown up," said the Master; "we must have
heard the report: if a quarter of the gunpowder was there you
tell me of, it would have been heard twenty miles off."

"It've very like it wad," said Balderstone, composedly.

"Then the fire cannot have reached the vaults?"

"It's like no," answered Caleb, with the same impenetrable
gravity.

"Hark ye, Caleb," said his master, "this grows a little too much
for my patience.  I must go and examine how matters stand at
Wolf's Crag myself."

"Your honour is ganging to gang nae sic gate," said Caleb,
firmly.

"And why not?" said Ravenswood, sharply; "who or what shall
prevent me?"

"Even I mysell," said Caleb, with the same determination.

"You, Balderstone!" replied the Master; "you are forgetting
yourself, I think."

"But I think no," said Balderstone; "for I can just tell ye a'
about the castle on this knowe-head as weel as if ye were at it.
Only dinna pit yoursell into a kippage, and expose yoursell
before the weans, or before the Marquis, when ye gang down-bye."

"Speak out, you old fool," replied his master, "and let me know
the best and the worst at once."

"Ou, the best and the warst is, just that the tower is standing
hail and feir, as safe and as empty as when ye left it."

"Indeed! and the fire?" said Ravenswood.
"Not a gleed of fire, then, except the bit kindling peat, and
maybe a spunk in Mysie's cutty-pipe," replied Caleb.

"But the flame?" demanded Ravenswood--"the broad blaze which
might have been seen ten miles off--what occasioned that?"

"Hout awa'! it's an auld saying and a true--

Little's the light
Will be seen far in a mirk night.

A wheen fern and horse little that I fired in the courtyard,
after sending back the loon of a footman; and, to speak Heaven's
truth, the next time that ye send or bring ony body here, let
them ge gentles allenarly, without ony fremd servants, like that
chield Lockhard, to be gledging and gleeing about, and looking
upon the wrang side of ane's housekeeping, to the discredit of
the family, and forcing ane to damn their souls wi' telling ae
lee after another faster than I can count them: I wad rather set
fire to the tower in gude earnest, and burn it ower my ain head
into the bargain, or I see the family dishonoured in the sort."

"Upon my word, I am infinitely obliged by the proposal, Caleb,"
said his master, scarce able to to restrain his laughter, though
rather angry at the same time.  "But the gunpowder--is there such
a thing in the tower?  The Marquis seemed to know of it."
"The pouther, ha! ha! ha!--the Marquis, ha! ha! ha!" replied
Caleb,--"if your honour were to brain me, I behooved to laugh,--
the Marquis--the pouther!  Was it there?  Ay, it was there.  Did
he ken o't?  My certie! the Marquis kenn'd o't, and it was the
best o' the game; for, when I couldna pacify your honour wi' a'
that I could say, I aye threw out a word mair about the
gunpouther, and garr'd the Marquis tak the job in his ain hand."

"But you have not answered my question," said the Master,
impatiently; "how came the powder there, and where is it now?"

"Ou, it came there, an ye maun needs ken," said Caleb, looking
mysteriously, and whispering, "when there was like to be a wee
bit rising here; and the Marquis, and a' the great lords of the
north, were a' in it, and mony a gudely gun and broadsword were
ferried ower frae Dunkirk forbye the pouther.  Awfu' work we had
getting them into the tower under cloud o' night, for ye maun
think it wasna everybody could be trusted wi' sic kittle jobs.
But if ye will gae hame to your supper, I will tell you a' about
it as ye gang down."

"And these wretched boys," said Ravenswood, "is it your pleasure
they are to sit there all night, to wait for the blowing up of a
tower that is not even on fire?"

"Surely not, if it is your honour's pleasure that they suld gang
hame; although," added Caleb, "it wadna do them a grain's
damage: they wad screigh less the next day, and sleep the
sounder at e'en.  But just as your honour likes."

Stepping accordingly towards the urchins who manned the knolls
near which they stood, Caleb informed them, in an
authoritative tone, that their honours Lord Ravenswood and the
Marquis of A---- had given orders that the tower was not to be
blow up till next day at noon.  The boys dispersed upon this
comfortable assurance.  One or two, however, followed Caleb for
more information, particularly the urchin whom he had cheated
while officiating as turnspit, who screamed, "Mr. Balderstone!--
Mr. Balderstone! then the castle's gane out like an auld wife's
spunk?"

"To be sure it is, callant," said the butler; "do ye think the
castle of as great a lord as Lord Ravenswood wad continue in a
bleeze, and him standing looking on wi' his ain very een?  It's
aye right," continued Caleb, shaking off his ragged page, and
closing in to his Master, "to train up weans, as the wise man
says, in the way they should go, and, aboon a', to teach them
respect to their superiors."

"But all this while, Caleb, you have never told me what became
of the arms and powder," said Ravenswood.

"Why, as for the arms," said Caleb, "it was just like the
bairn's rhyme--
Some gaed east and some gaed west,
And some gaed to the craw's nest.

And for the pouther, I e'en changed it, as occasion served, with
the skippers o' Dutch luggers and French vessels, for gin and
brandy, and is served the house mony a year--a gude swap too,
between what cheereth the soul of man and that which hingeth it
clean out of his body; forbye, I keepit a wheen pounds of it for
yoursell when ye wanted to take the pleasure o' shooting: whiles,
in these latter days, I wad hardly hae kenn'd else whar to get
pouther for your pleasure.  And now that your anger is ower, sir,
wasna that weel managed o' me, and arena ye far better sorted
doun yonder than ye could hae been in your ain auld ruins up-bye
yonder, as the case stands wi' us now? the mair's the pity!"

"I believe you may be right, Caleb; but, before burning down my
castle, either in jest or in earnest," said Ravenswood, "I think
I had a right to be in the secret."

"Fie for shame, your honour!" replied Caleb; "it fits an auld
carle like me weel eneugh to tell lees for the credit of the
family, but it wadna beseem the like o' your honour's sell;
besides, young folk are no judicious: they cannot make the maist
of a bit figment.  Now this fire--for a fire it sall be, if I
suld burn the auld stable to make it mair feasible--this fire,
besides that it will be an excuse for asking ony thing we want
through the country, or doun at the haven--this fire will settle
mony things on an honourable footing for the family's credit,
that cost me telling twenty daily lees to a wheen idle chaps and
queans, and, what's waur, without gaining credence."
"That was hard indeed, Caleb; but I do not see how this fire
should help your veracity or your credit."

"There it is now?" said Caleb; "wasna I saying that young folk
had a green judgment?  How suld it help me, quotha?  It will be a
creditable apology for the honour of the family for this score of
years to come, if it is weel guided.  'Where's the family
pictures?' says ae meddling body.  'The great fire at Wolf's
Crag,' answers I.  'Where's the family plate?' says another.
'The great fire,' says I; 'wha was to think of plate, when life
and limb were in danger?'  'Where's the wardrobe and the linens?-
-where's the tapestries and the decorements?--beds of state,
twilts, pands and testors, napery and broidered wark?'  'The
fire--the fire--the fire.'  Guide the fire weel, and it will
serve ye for a' that ye suld have and have not; and, in some
sort, a gude excuse is better than the things themselves; for
they maun crack and wear out, and be consumed by time, whereas a
gude offcome, prudently and creditably handled, may serve a
nobleman and his family, Lord kens how lang!"

Ravenswood was too well acquainted with his butler's
pertinacity and self-opinion to dispute the point with him any
farther.  Leaving Caleb, therefore, to the enjoyment of his own
successful ingenuity, he returned to the hamlet, where he found
the Marquis and the good women of the mansion under some anxiety-
-the former on account of his absence, the others for the
discredit their cookery might sustain by the delay of the supper.
All were now at ease, and heard with pleasure that the fire at
the castle had burned out of itself without reaching the vaults,
which was the only information that Ravenswood thought it proper
to give in public concerning the event of his butler's strategem.

They sat down to an excellent supper.  No invitation could
prevail on Mr. and Mrs. Girder, even in their own house, to sit
down at table with guests of such high quality.  They remained
standing in the apartment, and acted the part of respectful and
careful attendants on the company.  Such were the manners of the
time.  The elder dame, confident through her age and connexion
with the Ravenswood family, was less
scrupulously ceremonious.  She played a mixed part betwixt that
of the hostess of an inn and the mistress of a private house, who
receives guests above her own degree.  She recommended, and even
pressed, what she thought best, and was herself easily entreated
to take a moderate share of the good cheer, in order to encourage
her guests by her own example.  Often she interrupted herself, to
express her regret that "my lord did not eat; that the Master was
pyking a bare bane; that, to be sure, there was naething there
fit to set before their honours; that Lord Allan, rest his saul,
used to like a pouthered guse, and said it was Latin for a tass
o' brandy; that the brandy came frae France direct; for, for a'
the English laws and gaugers, the Wolf's Hope brigs hadna
forgotten the gate to Dunkirk."

Here the cooper admonished his mother-in-law with his elbow,
which procured him the following special notice in the progress
of her speech:

"Ye needna be dunshin that gate, John [Gibbie]," continued the
old lady; "naebody says that YE ken whar the brandy comes
frae; and it wadna be fitting ye should, and you the Queen's
cooper; and what signifies't," continued she, addressing Lord
Ravenswood, "to king, queen, or kaiser whar an auld wife like me
buys her pickle sneeshin, or her drap brandy-wine, to haud her
heart up?"

Having thus extricated herself from her supposed false step,
Dame Loup-the-Dyke proceeded, during the rest of the evening, to
supply, with great animation, and very little assistance from her
guests, the funds necessary for the support of the conversation,
until, declining any further circulation of their glass, her
guests requested her permission to retire to their apartments.

The Marquis occupied the chamber of dais, which, in every house
above the rank of a mere cottage, was kept sacred for such high
occasions as the present.  The modern finishing with plaster was
then unknown, and tapestry was confined to the houses of the
nobility and superior gentry.  The cooper, therefore, who was a
man of some vanity, as well as some wealth, had imitated the
fashion observed by the inferior landholders and clergy, who
usually ornamented their state apartments with hangings of a sort
of stamped leather, manufactured in the Netherlands, garnished
with trees and aminals executed in copper foil, and with many a
pithy sentence of morality, which, although couched in Low Dutch,
were perhaps as much attended to in
practice as if written in broad Scotch.  The whole had somewhat
of a gloomy aspect; but the fire, composed of old pitch-barrel
staves, blazed merrily up the chimney; the bed was decorated with
linen of most fresh and dazzling whiteness, which had never
before been used, and might, perhaps, have never been used at
all, but for this high occasion.  On the toilette beside, stood
an old-fashioned mirror, in a fillagree frame, part of the
dispersed finery of the neighbouring castle.  It was flanked by a
long-necked bottle of Florence wine, by which stood a glass
enarly as tall, resembling in shape that which Teniers usually
places in the hands of his own portrait, when he paints himself
as mingling in the revels of a country village.  To
counterbalance those foreign sentinels, there mounted guard on
the other side of the mirror two stout warders of Scottish
lineage; a jug, namely, of double ale, which held a Scotch pint,
and a quaigh, or bicker, of ivory and ebony, hooped with silver,
the work of John Girder's own hands, and the pride of his heart.
Besides these preparations against thirst, there was a goodly
diet-loaf, or sweet cake; so that, with such auxiliaries, the
apartment seemed victualled against a siege of two or three days.

It only remains to say, that the Marquis's valet was in
attendance, displaying his master's brocaded nightgown, and
richly embroidered velvet cap, lined and faced with Brussels
lace, upon a huge leathern easy-chair, wheeled round so as to
have the full advantage of the comfortable fire which we have
already mentioned.  We therefore commit that eminent person to
his night's repose, trusting he profited by the ample
preparations made for his accommodation--preparations which we
have mentioned in detail, as illustrative of ancient Scottish
manners.

It is not necessary we should be equally minute in
describing the sleeping apartment of the Master of Ravenswood,
which was that usually occupied by the goodman and goodwife
themselves.  It was comfortably hung with a sort of warm-coloured
worsted, manufactured in Scotland, approaching in trexture to
what is now called shalloon.  A staring picture of John [Gibbie]
Girder himself ornamented this dormiory, painted by a starving
Frenchman, who had, God knows how or why, strolled over from
Flushing or Dunkirk to Wolf's Hope in a smuggling dogger.  The
features were, indeed, those of the stubborn, opinionative, yet
sensible artisan, but Monsieur had contrived to throw a French
grace into the look and manner, so utterly inconsistent with the
dogged gravity of the original, that it was impossible to look at
it without laughing.  John and his family, however, piqued
themselves not a little upon this picture, and were
proportionably censured by the neighbourhood, who pronounced that
the cooper, in sitting for the same, and yet more in presuming to
hang it up in his bedchamber, had exceeded his privilege as the
richest man of the village; at once stept beyond the bounds of
his own rank, and encroached upon those of the superior orders;
and, in fine, had been guilty of a very overweening act of vanity
and presumption.  Respect for the memory of my deceased friend,
Mr. Richard Tinto, has obliged me to treat this matter at some
length; but I spare the reader his prolix though curious
observations, as well upon the character of the French school as
upon the state of painting in Scotland at the beginning of the
18th century.

The other preparations of the Master's sleeping apartment were
similar to those in the chamber of dais.

At the usual early hour of that period, the Marquis of A---- and
his kinsman prepared to resume their journey.  This could not be
done without an ample breakfast, in which cold meat and hot meat,
and oatmeal flummery, wine and spirits, and milk varied by every
possible mode of preparation, evinced the same desire to do
honour to their guests which had been shown by the hospitable
owners of the mansion upon the evening before.  All the bustle of
preparation for departure now resounded through Wolf's Hope.
There was paying of bills and shaking of hands, and saddling of
horses, and harnessing of carriages, and distributing of drink-
money.  The Marquis left a broad piece for the gratification of
John Girder's household, which he, the said John, was for some
time disposed to convert to his own use; Dingwall, the writer,
assuring him he was justified in so doing, seeing he was the
disburser of those expenses which were the occasion of the
gratification.  But, notwithstanding this legal authority, John
could not find in his heart to dim the splendour of his late
hospitality by picketing anything in the nature of a gratuity.
He only assured his menials he would consider them as a damned
ungrateful pack if they bought a gill of brandy elsewhere than
out of his own stores; and as the drink-money was likely to go to
its legitimate use, he comforted himself that, in this manner,
the Marquis's donative would, without any impeachment of credit
and character, come ultimately into his own exclusive possession.

While arrangements were making for departure, Ravenswood made
blythe the heart of his ancient butler by informing him,
cautiously however (for he knew Caleb's warmth of imagination),
of the probably change which was about to take place in his
fortunes.  He deposited with Balderstone, at the same time, the
greater part of his slender funds, with an assurance, which he
was obliged to reiterate more than once, that he himself had
sufficient supplies in certain prospect. He therefore enjoined
Caleb, as he valued his favour, to desist from all farther
maneouvres against the inhabitants of Wolf's Hope, their cellars,
poultry-yards, and substance whatsoever.  In this prohibition,
the old domestic acquiesced more readily than his master
expected.

"It was doubtless," he said, "a shame, a discredit, and a sin to
harry the puir creatures, when the family were in
circumstances to live honourably on their ain means; and there
might be wisdom," he added, "in giving them a while's breathing-
time at any rate, that they might be the more readily brougth
forward upon his honour's future occasions."

This matter being settled, and having taken an affectionate
farewell of his old domestic, the Master rejoined his noble
relative, who was now ready to enter his carriage.  The two
landladies, old and young, having received in all kindly greeting
a kiss from each of their noble guests, stood simpering at the
door of their house, as the coach and six, followed by its train
of clattering horsemen, thundered out of the village.  John
Girder also stood upon his threshold, now looking at his honoured
right hand, which had been so lately shaken by a marquis and a
lord, and now giving a glance into the interior of his mansion,
which manifested all the disarray of the late revel, as if
balancing the distinction which he had attained with the
expenses of the entertainment.

At length he opened his oracular jaws.  "Let every man and woman
here set about their ain business, as if there was nae sic thing
as marquis or master, duke or drake, laird or lord, in this
world.  Let the house be redd up, the broken meat set bye, and if
there is ony thing totally uneatable, let it be gien to the puir
folk; and, gude mother and wife, I hae just ae thing to entreat
ye, that ye will never speak to me a single word, good or bad,
anent a' this nonsense wark, but keep a' your cracks about it to
yoursells and your kimmers, for my head is weel-nigh dung donnart
wi' it already."

As John's authority was tolerably absolute, all departed to
their usual occupations, leaving him to build castles in the air,
if he had a mind, upon the court favour which he had acquired by
the expenditure of his worldly substance.



CHAPTER XXVII.

Why, now I have Dame Fortune by the Forelock,
And if she escapes my grasp, the fault is mine;
He that hath buffeted with stern adversity
Best knows the shape his course to favouring breezes.

Old Play.


OUR travellers reach Edinburgh without any farther
adventure, and the Master of Ravenswood, as had been previously
settled, took up his abode with his noble friend.

In the mean time, the political crisis which had been expected
took place, and the Tory party obtained in the Scottish, as in
the English, councils of Queen Anne a short-lived
ascendency, of which it is not our business to trace either the
cause or consequences.  Suffice it to say, that it affected the
different political parties according to the nature of their
principles.  In England, many of the High Church party, with
Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, at their head, affected to
separate their principles from those of the Jacobites, and, on
that account, obtained the denomination of Whimsicals.  The
Scottish High Church party, on the contrary, or, as they termed
themselves, the Cavaliers, were more consistent, if not so
prudent, in their politics, and viewed all the changes now made
as preparatory to calling to the throne, upon the queen's demise,
her brother the Chevalier de St. George.  Those who had suffered
in his service now entertained the most unreasonable hopes, not
only of indemnification, but of vengeance upon their political
adversaries; while families attached to the Whig interest saw
nothing before them but a renewal of the hardships they had
undergone during the reigns of Charles the Second and his
brother, and a retaliation of the confiscation which had been
inflicted upon the Jacobites during that of King William.

But the most alarmed at the change of system was that prudential
set of persons, some of whom are found in all
governments, but who abound in a provincial administration like
that of Scotland during the period, and who are what Cromwell
called waiters upon Providence, or, in other words, uniform
adherents to the party who are uppermost.  Many of these hastened
to read their recantation to the Marquis of A----; and, as it was
easily seen that he took a deep interest in the affairs of his
kinsman, the Master of Ravenswood, they were the first to suggest
measures for retrieving at least a part of his property, and for
restoring him in blood against his father's attainder.

Old Lord Turntippet professed to be one of the most anxious for
the success of these measures; for "it grieved him to the very
saul," he said, "to see so brave a young gentleman, of sic auld
and undoubted nobility, and, what was mair than a' that, a bluid
relation of the Marquis of A----, the man whom," he swore, "he
honoured most upon the face of the earth, brougth to so severe a
pass.  For his ain puir peculiar," as he said, "and to
contribute something to the rehabilitation of sae auld ane
house," the said Turntippet sent in three family pictures lacking
the frames, and six high-backed chairs, with worked Turkey
cushions, having the crest of Ravenswood broidered thereon,
without charging a penny either of the principal or interest they
had cost him, when he bought them, sixteen years before, at a
roup of the furniture of Lord Ravenswood's lodgings in the
Canongate.

Much more to Lord Turntippet's dismay than to his surprise,
although he affected to feel more of the latter than the former,
the Marquis received his gift very drily, and observed, that his
lordship's restitution, if he expected it to be received by the
Master of Ravenswood and his friends, must comprehend a pretty
large farm, which, having been mortgaged to Turntippet for a very
inadequate sum, he had contrived, during the confusion of the
family affairs, and by means well understood by the lawyers of
that period, to acquire to himself in absolute property.

The old time-serving lord winced excessively under the
requisition, protesting to God, that he saw no occasion the lad
could have for the instant possession of the land, seeing he
would doubtless now recover the bulk of his estate from Sir
William Ashton, to which he was ready to contribute by every
means in his power, as was just and reasonable; and finally
declaring, that he was willing to settle the land on the young
gentleman after his own natural demise.

But all these excuses availed nothing, and he was compelled to
disgorge the property, on receiving back the sum for which it
had been mortgaged.  Having no other means of making peace with
the higher powers, he returned home sorrowful and malcontent,
complaining to his confidants, "That every mutation or change in
the state had hitherto been productive of some sma' advantage to
him in his ain quiet affairs; but that the present had--pize upon
it!--cost him one of the best penfeathers o' his wing."

Similar measures were threatened against others who had profited
by the wreck of the fortune of Ravenswood; and Sir William
Ashton, in particular, was menaced with an appeal to the House of
Peers, a court of equity, against the judicial
sentences, proceeding upon a strict and severe construction of
the letter of the law, under which he held the castle and barony
of Ravenswood.  With him, however, the Master, as well for Lucy's
sake as on account of the hospitality he had received from him,
felt himself under the necessity of proceeding with great
candor.  He wrote to the late Lord Keeper, for he no longer held
that office, stating frankly the engagement which existed between
him and Miss Ashton, requesting his permission for their union,
and assuring him of his willingness to put the settlement of all
matters between them upon such a footing as Sir William himself
should think favourable.

The same messenger was charged with a letter to Lady Ashton,
deprecating any cause of displeasure which the Master might
unintentionally have given her, enlarging upon his attachment to
Miss Ashton, and the length to which it had proceeded, and
conjuring the lady, as a Douglas in nature as well as in name,
generously to forget ancient prejudices and misunderstandings,
and to believe that the family had acquired a friend, and she
herself a respectful and attached humble servant, in him who
subscribed himself, "Edgar, Master of Ravenswood."
A third letter Ravenswood addressed to Lucy, and the
messenger was instructed to find some secret and secure means of
delivering it into her own hands.  It contained the strongest
protestations of continued affection, and dwelt upon the
approaching change of the writer's fortunes, as chiefly valuable
by tending to remove the impediments to their union.  He related
the steps he had taken to overcome the prejudices of her parents,
and especially of her mother, and expressed his hope they might
prove effectual.  If not, he still trusted that his absence from
Scotland upon an important and honourable mission might give time
for prejudices to die away; while he hoped and trusted Miss
Ashton's constancy, on which he had the most implicit reliance,
would baffle any effort that might be used to divert her
attachment.  Much more there was, which, however interesting to
the lovers themselves, would afford the reader neither interest
nor information.  To each of these three letters the Master of
Ravenswood received an answer, but by different means of
conveyance, and certainly couched in very different styles.

Lady Ashton answered his leetter by his own messenger, who was
not allowed to remain at Ravenswood a moment longer than she was
engaged in penning these lines.  "For the hand of Mr.
Ravenswood of Wolf's Crag--These:

"SIR, UNKNOWN:
"I have received a letter, signed 'Edgar, Master of
Ravenswood,' concerning the writer whereof I am uncertain, seeing
that the honours of such a family were forfeited for high reason
in the person of Allan, late Lord Ravenswood.  Sir, if you shall
happen to be the person so subscribing yourself, you will please
to know, that I claim the full interest of a parent in Miss Lucy
Ashton, which I have disposed of irrevocably in behalf of a
worthy person.  And, sir, were this otherwise, I would not listen
to a proposal from you, or any of your house, seeing their hand
has been uniformly held up against the freedom of the subject and
the immunities of God's kirk.  Sir, it is not a flightering blink
of prosperity which can change my constant opinion in this
regard, seeing it has been my lot before now, like holy David, to
see the wicked great in power and flourishing like a green bay-
tree; nevertheless I passed, and they were not, and the place
thereof knew them no more.  Wishing you to lay these things to
your heart for your own sake, so far as they may concern you, I
pray you to take no farther notice of her who desires to remain
your unknown servant,
"MARGARET DOUGLAS,
"otherwise ASHTON."

About two days after he had received this very
unsatisfactory epistle, the Master of Ravenswood, while walking
up the High Street of Edinburgh, was jostled by a person, in
whom, as the man pulled off his hat to make an apology, he
recognized Lockhard, the confidential domestic of Sir William
Ashton.  The man bowed, slipt a letter into his hand, and
disappeared.  The packet contained four close-written folios,
from which, however, as is sometimes incident to the compositions
of great lawyers, little could be extracted, excepting that the
writer felt himself in a very puzzling predicament.

Sir William spoke at length of his high value and regard for his
dear young friend, the Master of Ravenswood, and of his very
extreme high value and regard for the Marquis of A----, his very
dear old friend; he trusted that any measures that they might
adopt, in which he was concerned, would be carred on with due
regard to the sanctity of decreets and judgments obtained in
foro contentioso; protesting, before men and angels, that if the
law of Scotland, as declared in her supreme courts, were to
undergo a reversal in the English House of Lords, the evils which
would thence arise to the public would inflict a greater wound
upon his heart than any loss he might himself sustain by such
irregular proceedings.  He flourished much on generosity and
forgiveness of mutual injuries, and hinted at the mutability of
human affairs, always favourite topics with the weaker party in
politics.  He pathetically lamented, and gently censured, the
haste which had been used in depriving him of his situation of
Lord Keeper, which his experience had enabled him to fill with
some advantage to the public, without so much as giving him an
opportunity of explaining how far his own views of general
politics might essentially differ from those now in power.  He
was convinced the Marquis of A---- had as sincere intentions
towards the public as himself or any man; and if, upon a
conference, they could have agreed upon the measures by which it
was to be pursued, his experience and his interest should have
gone to support the present administration.  Upon the engagement
betwixt Ravenswood and his daughter, he spoke in a dry and
confused manner.  He regretted so premature a step as the
engagement of the young people should have been taken, and
conjured the Master to remember he had never given any
encouragement thereunto; and observed that, as a transaction
inter minores, and without concurrence of his daughter's
natural curators, the engagement was inept, and void in law.
This precipitate measure, he added, had produced a very bad
effect upon Lady Ashton's mind, which it was impossible at
present to remove.  Her son, Colonel Douglas Ashton, had embraced
her prejudices in the fullest extent, and it was impossible for
Sir William to adopt a course disagreeable to them without a
fatal and irreconcilable breach in his family; which was not at
present to be thought of.  Time, the great physician, he hoped,
would mend all.

In a postscript, Sir William said something more explicitly,
which seemed to intimate that, rather than the law of Scotland
should sustain a severe wound through his sides, by a reversal of
the judgment of her supreme courts, in the case of the barony of
Ravenswood, through the intervention of what, with all
submission, he must term a foreign court of appeal, he himself
would extrajudically consent to considerable sacrifices.

From Lucy Ashton, by some unknown conveyance, the Master
received the following lines:  "I received yours, but it was at
the utmost risk; do not attempt to write again till better
times.  I am sore beset, but I will be true to my word, while the
exercise of my reason is vouchsafed to me.  That you are happy
and prosperous is some consolation, and my situation requires it
all."  The note was signed "L.A."

This letter filled Ravenswood with the most lively alarm.  He
made many attempts, notwithstanding her prohibition, to convey
letters to Miss Ashton, and even to obtain an interview; but his
plans were frustrated, and he had only the mortification to learn
that anxious and effectual precautions had been taken to prevent
the possibility of their correspondence.  The Master was the
more distressed by these circumstances, as it became impossible
to delay his departure from Scotland, upon the important mission
which had been confided to him.  Before his departure, he put Sir
William Ashton's letter into the hands of the Marquis of A----,
who observed with a smile, that Sir William's day of grace was
past, and that he had now to learn which side of the hedge the
sun had got to.  It was with the greatest difficulty that
Ravenswood extorted from the Marquis a promise that he would
compromise the proceedings in Parliament, providing Sir William
should be disposed to acquiesce in a union between him and Lucy
Ashton.

"I would hardly," said the Marquis, "consent to your
throwing away your birthright in this manner, were I not
perfectly confident that Lady Ashton, or Lady Douglas, or
whatever she calls herself, will, as Scotchmen say, keep her
threep; and that her husband dares not contradict her."

"But yet," said the Master, "I trust your lordship will consider
my engagement as sacred."

"Believe my word of honour," said the Marquis, "I would be a
friend even to your follies; and having thus told you MY
opinion, I will endeavour, as occasion offers, to serve you
according to your own."

The master of Ravenswood could but thank his generous kinsman
and patron, and leave him full power to act in all his affairs.
He departed from Scotland upon his mission, which, it was
supposed, might detain him upon the continent for some months.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

Was ever woman in this humor wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
I'll have her.

Richard III.


TWELVE months had passed away since the Master of
Ravenswood's departure for the continent, and, although his
return to Scotland had been expected in a much shorter space, yet
the affairs of his mission, or, according to a prevailing report,
others of a nature personal to himself, still detained him
abroad.  In the mean time, the altered state of affairs in Sir
William Ashton's family may be gathered from the following
conversation which took place betwixt Bucklaw and his
confidential bottle companion and dependant, the noted Captain
Craigengelt.  They were seated on either side of the huge
sepulchral-looking freestone chimney in the low hall at
Girnington.  A wood fire blazed merrily in the grate; a round
oaken table, placed between them, supported a stoup of excellent
claret, two rummer glasses, and other good cheer; and yet, with
all these appliances and means to boot, the countenance of the
patron was dubious, doubtful, and unsatisfied, while the
invention of his dependant was taxed to the utmost to parry what
he most dreaded, a fit, as he called it, of the sullens, on the
part of his protector.  After a long pause, only interrupted by
the devil's tattoo, which Bucklaw kept beating against the hearth
with the toe of his boot, Craigengelt at last ventured to break
silence.  "May I be double distanced," said he, "if ever I saw a
man in my life have less the air of a bridegroom!  Cut me out of
feather, if you have not more the look of a man condemned to be
hanged!"

"My kind thanks for the compliment," replied Bucklaw; "but I
suppose you think upon the predicament in which you yourself are
most likely to be placed; and pray, Captain Craigengelt, if it
please your worship, why should I look merry, when I'm sad, and
devilish sad too?"

"And that's what vexes me," said Craigengelt.  "Here is this
match, the best in the whole country, andwhich were so anxious
about, is on the point of being concluded, and you are as sulky
as a bear that has lost its whelps."

"I do not know," answered the Laird, doggedly, "whether I should
conclude or not, if it was not that I am too far forwards to leap
back."

"Leap back!" exclaimed Craigengelt, with a well-assumed air of
astonishment, "that would be playing the back-game with a
witness!  Leap back!  Why, is not the girl's fortune----"

"The young lady's, if you please," said Hayston,
interrupting him.

"Well--well, no disrespect meant.  Will Miss Ashton's tocher not
weigh against any in Lothian?"

"Granted," answered Bucklaw; "but I care not a penny for her
tocher; I have enough of my own."

"And the mother, that loves you like her own child?"

"Better than some of her children, I believe," said Bucklaw, "or
there would be little love wared on the matter."

"And Colonel Sholto Douglas Ashton, who desires the marriage
above all earthly things?"

"Because," said Bucklaw, "he expects to carry the county of ----
 through my interest."

"And the father, who is as keen to see the match concluded as
ever I have been to win a main?"

"Ay," said Bucklaw, in the same disparaging manner, "it lies
with Sir William's policy to secure the next best match, since he
cannot barter his child to save the great Ravenswood estate,
which the English House of Lords are about to wrench out of his
clutches."

"What say you to the young lady herself?" said Craigengelt; "the
finest young woman in all Scotland, one that you used to be so
fond of when she was cross, and now she consents to have you,
and gives up her engagement with Ravenswood, you are for jibbing.
I must say, the devil's in ye, when ye neither know what you
would have nor what you would want."

"I'll tell you my meaning in a word," answered Bucklaw, getting
up and walking through the room; "I want to know what the devil
is the cause of Miss Ashton's changing her mind so
suddenly?"

"And what need you care," said Craigengelt, "since the change is
in your favour?"

"I'll tell you what it is," returned his patron, "I never knew
much of that sort of fine ladies, and I believe they may be as
capricious as the devil; but there is something in Miss Ashton's
change a devilish deal too sudden and too serious for a mere
flisk of her own.  I'll be bound, Lady Ashton understands every
machine for breaking in the human mind, and there are as many as
there are cannon-bit, martingales, and cavessons for young
colts."

"And if that were not the case," said Craigengelt, "how the
devil should we ever get them into training at all?"

"And that's true too," said Bucklaw, suspending his march
through the dining-room, and leaning upon the back of a chair.
"And besides, here's Ravenswood in the way still, do you think
he'll give up Lucy's engagement?"

"To be sure he will," answered Craigengelt; "what good can it do
him to refuse, since he wishes to marry another woman and she
another man?"

"And you believe seriously," said Bucklaw, "that he is going to
marry the foreign lady we heard of?"

"You heard yourself," answered Craigengelt, "what Captain
Westenho said about it, and the great preparation made for their
blythesome bridal."

"Captain Westenho," replied Bucklaw, "has rather too much of
your own cast about, Craigie, to make what Sir William would call
a 'famous witness.'  He drinks deep, plays deep, swears deep, and
I suspect can lie and cheat a little into the bargain; useful
qualities, Craigie, if kept in their proper sphere, but which
have a little too much of the freebooter to make a figure in a
court of evidence."

"Well, then," said Craigengelt, "will you believe Colonel
Douglas Ashton, who heard the Marquis of A---- say in a public
circle, but not aware that he was within ear-shot, that his
kinsman had made a better arrangement for himself than to give
his father's land for the pale-cheeked daughter of a broken-down
fanatic, and that Bucklaw was welcome to the wearing of
Ravenswood's shaughled shoes."

"Did he say so, by heavens!" cried Bucklaw, breaking out into
one of those incontrollable fits of passion to which he was
constitutionally subject; "if I had heard him, I would have torn
the tongue out of his throat before all his peats and minions,
and Highland bullies into the bargain.  Why did not Ashton run
him through the body?"

"Capot me if I know," said the Captain.  "He deserved it sure
enough; but he is an old man, and a minister of state, and there
would be more risk than credit in meddling with him.  You had
more need to think of making up to Miss Lucy Ashton the disgrace
that's like to fall upon her than of interfering with a man too
old to fight, and on too high a tool for your hand to reach him."

"It SHALL reach him, though, one day," said Bucklaw, "and his
kinsman Ravenswood to boot.  In the mean time, I'll take care
Miss Ashton receives no discredit for the slight they have put
upon her.  It's an awkward job, however, and I wish it were
ended; I scarce know how to talk to her,--but fill a bumper,
Craigie, and we'll drink her health.  It grows late, and a night-
cowl of good claret is worth all the considering-caps in Europe."



CHAPTER XXIX.

It was the copy of our conference.
In bed she slept not, for my urging it;
At board she fed not, for my urging it;
Alone, it was the subject of my theme;
In company I often glanced at it.

Comedy of Errors.


THE next morning saw Bucklaw and his faithful Achates,
Craigengelt, at Ravenswood Castle.  They were most courteously
received by the knight and his lady, as well, as by their son
and heir, Colonel Ashton.  After a good deal of stammering and
blushing--for Bucklaw, notwithstanding his audacity in other
matters, had all the sheepish bashfulness common to those who
have lived little in respectable society--he contrived at length
to explain his wish to be admitted to a conference with Miss
Ashton upon the subject of their approaching union.  Sir William
and his son looked at Lady Ashton, who replied with the greatest
composure, "That Lucy would wait upon Mr. Hayston directly.  I
hope," she added with a smile, "that as Lucy is very young, and
has been lately trepanned into an engagement of which she is now
heartily ashamed, our dear Bucklaw will excuse her wish that I
should be present at their interview?"

"In truth, my dear lady," said Bucklaw, "it is the very thing
that I would have desired on my own account; for I have been so
little accustomed to what is called gallantry, that I shall
certainly fall into some cursed mistake unless I have the
advantage of your ladyship as an interpreter."

It was thus that Bucklaw, in the perturbation of his
embarrassment upon this critical occasion, forgot the just
apprehensions he had entertained of Lady Ashton's overbearing
ascendency over her daughter's mind, and lost an opportunity of
ascertaining, by his own investigation, the real state of Lucy's
feelings.

The other gentlemen left the room, and in a shrot time Lady
Ashton, followed by her daughter, entered the apartment.  She
appeared, as he had seen her on former occasions, rather
composed than agitated; but a nicer judge than he could scarce
have determined whether her calmness was that of despair or of
indifference.  Bucklaw was too much agitated by his own feelings
minutely to scrutinise those of the lady.  He stammered out an
unconnected address, confounding together the two or three topics
to which it related, and stopt short before he brought it to any
regular conclusion.  Miss Ashton listened, or looked as if she
listened, but returned not a single word in answer, continuing to
fix her eyes on a small piece of embroidery on which, as if by
instinct or habit, her fingers were busily employed.  Lady Ashton
sat at some distance, almost screened from notice by the deep
embrasure of the window in which she had placed her chair.  From
this she whispered, in a tone of voice which, though soft and
sweet, had something in it of admonition, if not command: "Lucy,
my dear, remember--have you heard what Bucklaw has been saying?"

The idea of her mother's presence seemed to have slipped from
the unhappy girl's recollection.  She started, dropped her
needle, and repeated hastily, and almost in the same breath, the
contradictory answers: "Yes, madam--no, my lady--I beg pardon, I
did not hear."

"You need not blush, my love, and still less need you look so
pale and frightened," said Lady Ashton, coming forward; "we know
that maiden's ears must be slow in receiving a gentleman's
language; but you must remember Mr. Hayston speaks on a subject
on which you have long since agreed to give him a favourable
hearing.  You know how much your father and I have our hearts set
upon an event so extremely desirable."

In Lady Ashton's voice, a tone of impressive, and even stern,
innuendo was  sedulously and skilfully concealed under an
appearance of the most affectionate maternal tenderness.  The
manner was for Bucklaw, who was easily enough imposed upon; the
matter of the exhortation was for the terrified Lucy, who well
knew how to interpret her mother's hints, however skilfully their
real purport might be veiled from general observation.

Miss Ashton sat upright in her chair, cast round her a glance in
which fear was mingled with a still wilder expression, but
remained perfectly silent.  Bucklaw, who had in the mean time
paced the room to and fro, until he had recovered his composure,
now stopped within two or three yards of her chair, and broke out
as follows: "I believe I have been a d--d fool, Miss Ashton; I
have tried to speak to you as people tell me young ladies like to
be talked to, and I don't think you comprehend what I have been
saying; and no wonder, for d--n me if I understand it myself!
But, however, once for all, and in broad Scotch, your father and
mother like what is proposed, and if you can take a plain young
fellow for your husband, who will never cross you in anything you
have a mind to, I will place you at the head of the best
establishment in the three Lothians; you shall have Lady
Girnington's lodging in the Canongate of Edinburgh, go where you
please, do what you please, and see what you please--and that's
fair.  Only I must have a corner at the board-end for a worthless
old playfellow of mine, whose company I would rather want than
have, if it were not that the d--d fellow has persuaded me that I
can't do without him; and so I hope you won't except against
Craigie, although it might be easy to find much better company."

"Now, out upon you, Bucklaw," said Lady Ashton, again
interposing; "how can you think Lucy can have any objection to
that blunt, honest, good-natured creature, Captain Craigengelt?"

"Why, madam," replied Bucklaw, "as to Craigie's sincerity,
honesty, and good-nature, they are, I believe, pretty much upon a
par; but that's neither here nor there--the fellow knows my ways,
and has got useful to me, and I cannot well do without him, as I
said before.  But all this is nothing to the purpose; for since I
have mustered up courage to make a plain proposal, I would fain
hear Miss Ashton, from her own lips, give me a plain answer."

"My dear Bucklaw," said Lady Ashton, "let me spare Lucy's
bashfulness.  I tell you, in her presence, that she has already
consented to be guided by her father and me in this matter.
Lucy, my love," she added, with that singular combination of
suavity of tone and pointed energy which we have already noticed-
-"Lucy, my dearest love! speak for yourself, is it not as I say?"

Her victim answered in a tremulous and hollow voice: "I HAVE
promised to obey you--but upon one condition."

"She means," said Lady Ashton, turning to Bucklaw, "she expects
an answer to the demand which she has made upon the man at
Vienna, or Ratisbon, or Paris--or where is he?--for
restitution of the engagement in which he had the art to involve
her.  You will not, I am sure, my dear friend, think it is wrong
that she should feel much delicacy upon this head; indeed, it
concerns us all."

"Perfetly right--quite fair," said Bucklaw, half humming, half
speaking the end of the old song--

"It is best to be off wi' the old love
Before you be on wi' the new.

But I thought," said he, pausing, "you might have had an answer
six times told from Ravenswood.  D--n me, if I have not a mind to
go fetch one myself, if Miss Ashton will honour me with the
commission."

"By no means," said Lady Ashton; "we have had the utmost
difficulty of preventing Douglas, for whom it would be more
proper, from taking so rash a step; and do you think we could
permit you, my good friend, almost equally dear to us, to go to a
desperate man upon an errand so desperate?  In fact, all the
friends of the family are of opinion, and my dear Lucy herself
ought so to think, that, as this unworthy person has returned no
answer to her letter, silence must on this, as in other cases,
be held to give consent, and a contract must be supposed to be
given up, when the party waives insisting upon it.  Sir William,
who should know best, is clear upon this subject; and therefore,
my dear Lucy----"

"Madam," said Lucy, with unwonted energy, "urge me no farther;
if this unhappy engagement be restored, I have already said you
shall dispose of me as you will; till then I should commit a
heavy sin in the sight of God and man in doing what you
require."
"But, my love, if this man remains obstinately silent----"

"He will NOT be silent," answered Lucy; "it is six weeks since
I sent him a double of my former letter by a sure hand."

"You have not--you could not--you durst not," said Lady Ashton,
with violence inconsistent with the tone she had intended to
assume; but instantly correcting herself, "My dearest Lucy,"
said she, in her sweetest tone of expostulation, "how could you
think of such a thing?"

"No matter," said Bucklaw; "I respect Miss Ashton for her
sentiments, and I only wish I had been her messenger myself."

"And pray how long, Miss Ashton," said her mother,
ironically, "are we to wait the return of your Pacolet--your
fairy messenger--since our humble couriers of flesh and blood
could not be trusted in this matter?"

"I have numbered weeks, days, hours, and minutes," said Miss
Ashton; "within another week I shall have an answer, unless he is
dead.  Till that time, sir," she said, addressing Bucklaw, "let
me be thus far beholden to you, that you will beg my mother to
forbear me upon this subject."

"I will make it my particular entreaty to Lady Ashton," said
Bucklaw.  "By my honour, madam, I respect your feelings; and,
although the prosecution of this affair be rendered dearer to me
than ever, yet, as I am a gentleman, I would renounce it, were it
so urged as to give you a moment's pain."

"Mr. Hayston, I think, cannot comprehend that," said Lady
Ashton, looking pale with anger, "when the daughter's happiness
lies in the bosom of the mother.  Let me ask you, Miss Ashton, in
what terms your last letter was couched?"

"Exactly in the same, madam," answered Lucy, "which you dictated
on a former occasion."

"When eight days have elapsed, then," said her mother, resuming
her tone of tenderness, "we shall hope, my dearest love, that you
will end this suspense."

"Miss Ashton must not be hurried, madam," said Bucklaw, whose
bluntness of feeling did not by any means arise from want of
good-nature; "messengers may be stopped or delayed.  I have
known a day's journey broke by the casting of a foreshoe.  Stay,
let me see my calendar: the twentieth day from this is St.
Jude's, and the day before I must be at Caverton Edge, to see the
match between the Laird of Kittlegirth's black mare and Johnston
the meal-monger's four-year-old-colt; but I can ride all night,
or Craigie can bring me word how the match goes; and I hope, in
the mean time, as I shall not myself dstress Miss Ashton with any
further importunity, that your ladyship yourself, and Sir
William, and Colonel Douglas will have the goodness to allow her
uninterrupted time for making up her mind."

"Sir," said Miss Ashton, "you are generous."

"As for that, madam," answered Bucklaw, "I only pretend to be a
plain, good-humoured young fellw, as I said before, who will
willingly make you happy if you will permit him, and show him how
to do so."
Having said this, he saluted her with more emotion than was
consistent with his usual train of feeling, and took his leave;
Lady Ashton, as she accompanied him out of the apartment,
assuring him thta her daughter did full justice to the sincerity
of his attachment, and requesting him to see Sir William before
his departure, "since," as she said, with a keen glance reverting
towards Lucy, "against St. Jude's day, we must all be ready to
SIGN AND SEAL."

"To sign and seal!" echoed Lucy, in a muttering tone, as the
door of the apartment closed--"to sign and seal--to do and die!"
and, clasping her extenuated hands together, she sunk back on
the easy-chair she occupied, in a state resembling stupor.

From this she was shortly after awakened by the boisterous entry
of her brother Henry, who clamorously reminded her of a promise
to give him two yards of carnation ribbon to make knots to his
new garters.  With the most patient composure Lucy arose, and
opening a little ivory cabinet, sought out the ribbon the lad
waned, measured it accurately, cut it off into proper lengths,
and knotted it into the fashion his boyish whim required.

"Dinna shut the cabinet yet," said Henry, "for I must have some
of your silver wire to fasten the bells to my hawk's
jesses,--and yet the new falcon's not worth them neither; for do
you know, after all the plague we had to get her frm an eyrie,
all the way at Posso, in Mannor Water, she's going to prove,
after all, nothing better than a rifler: she just wets her
singles in the blood of the partridge, and then breaks away, and
lets her fly; and what good can the poor bird do after that, you
know, except pine and die in the first heather-cow or whin-bush
she can crawl into?"

"Right, Henry--right--very right," said Luch, mournfully,
holding the boy fast by the hand, after she had given him the
wire he wanted; "but there are more riflers in the world than
your falcon, and more wounded birds that seek but to die in
quiet, that can find neither brake nor whin-bush to hide their
head in."

"Ah! that's some speech out of your romances," said the boy;
"and Sholto says they have turned your head.  But I hear Norman
whistling to the hawk; I must go fasten on the jesses."

And he scampered away with the thoughtless gaiety of
boyhood, leaving his sister to the bitterness of her own
reflections.

"It is decreed," she said, "that every living creature, even
those who owe me most kindness, are to shun me, and leave me to
those by whom I am beset.  It is just it should be thus.  Alone
and uncounselled, I involved myself in these perils; alone and
uncounselled, I must extricate myself or die."


CHAPTER XXX.

What doth ensue
But moody and dull melancholy,
Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,
And at her heel, a huge infectious troop
Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life?

Comedy of Errors.


AS some vindication of the ease with which Bucklaw (who
otherwise, as he termed himself, was really a very good-humoured
fellow) resigned his judgment to the management of Lady Ashton,
while paying his addresses to her daughter, the reader must call
to mind the strict domestic discipline which, at this period, was
exercised over the females of a Scottish family.

The manners of the country in this, as in many other
respects, coincided with those of France before the Revolution.
Young women of the higher rank seldom mingled in society until
after marriage, and, both in law and fact, were held to be under
the strict tutelage of their parents, who were too apt to enforce
the views for their settlement in life without paying any regard
to the inclination of the parties chiefly interested.  On such
occasions, the suitor expected little more from his bride than a
silent acquiescence in the will of her parents; and as few
opportunities of acquaintance, far less of intimacy, occurred, he
made his choice by the outside, as the lovers in the Merchant of
Venice select the casket, contented to trust to chance the issue
of the lottery in which he had hazarded a venture.

It was not therefore surprising, such being the general manners
of the age, that Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw, whom dissipated habits
had detached in some degree from the best society, should not
attend particularly to those feelings in his elected bride to
which many men of more sentiment, experience, and reflection
would, in all probability, have been equally indifferent.  He
knew what all accounted the principal point, that her parents and
friends, namely, were decidedly in his favour, and that there
existed most powerful reasons for their predilection.

In truth, the conduct of the Marquis of A----, since
Ravenswood's departure, had been such as almost to bar the
possibility of his kinsman's union with Lucy Ashton.  The Marquis
was Ravenswood's sincere but misjudging friend; or rather, like
many friends and patrons, he consulted what he considered to be
his relation's true interest, although he knew that in doing so
he run counter to his inclinations.

The Marquis drove on, therefore, with the plentitude of
ministerial authority, an appeal to the British House of Peers
against those judgments of the courts of law by which Sir William
became possessed of Ravenswood's hereditary property.  As this
measure, enforced with all the authority of power, was new in
Scottish judicial proceedings, though now so frequently resorted
to, it was exclaimed against by the lawyers on the opposite side
of politics, as an interference with the civil judicature of the
country, equally new, arbitrary, and tyrannical.  And if it thus
affected even strangers connected with them only by political
party, it may be guessed what the Ashton family themselves said
and thought under so gross a dispensation.  Sir William, still
more worldly-minded than he was timid, was reduced to despair by
the loss by which he was threatened.  His son's haughtier spirit
was exalted into rage at the idea of being deprived of his
expected patrimony.  But to Lady Ashton's yet more vindictive
temper the conduct of Ravenswood, or rather of his patron,
appeared to be an offence challenging the deepest and most
immortal revenge.  Even the quiet and confiding temper of Lucy
herself, swayed by the opinions expressed by all around her,
could not but consider the conduct of Ravenswood as precipitate,
and even unkind.  "It was my father," she repeated with a sigh,
"who welcomed him to this place, and encouraged, or at least
allowed, the intimacy between us.  Should he not have remembered
this, and requited it with at least some moderate degree of
procrastination in the assertion of his own alleged rights?  I
would have forfeited for him double the value of these lands,
which he pursues with an ardour that shows he has forgotten how
much I am implicated in the matter."

Lucy, however, could only murmur these things to herself,
unwilling to increase the prejudices against her lover
entertained by all around her, who exclaimed against the steps
pursued on his account as illegal, vexatious, and tyrannical,
resembling the worst measures in the worst times of the worst
Stuarts, and a degradation of Scotland, the decisions of whose
learned judges were thus subjected to the review of a court
composed indeed of men of the highest rank, and who were not
trained to the study of any municipal law, and might be supposed
specially to hold in contempt that of Scotland.  As a natural
consequence of the alleged injustice meditated towards her
father, every means was restored to, and every argument urged to
induce Miss Ashton to break off her engagement with Ravenswood,
as being scandalous, shameful, and sinful, formed with the mortal
enemy of her family, and calculated to add bitterness to the
distress of her parents.

Lucy's spirit, however, was high, and, although unaided and
alone, she could have borne much: she could have endured the
repinings of her father; his murmurs against what he called the
tyrannical usage of the ruling party; his ceaseless charges of
ingratitude against Ravenswood; his endless lectures on the
various means by which contracts may be voided an annulled; his
quotations from the civil, municipal, and the canon law; and his
prelections upon the patria potestas.

She might have borne also in patience, or repelled with scorn,
the bitter taunts and occasional violence of her brother,
Colonel Douglas Ashton, and the impertinent and intrusive
interference of other friends and relations.  But it was beyond
her power effectually to withstand or elude the constant and
unceasing persecution of Lady Ashton, who, laying every other
wish aside, had bent the whol efforts of her powerful mind to
break her daughter's contract with Ravenswood, and to place a
perpetual bar between the lovers, by effecting Lucy's union with
Bucklaw.  Far more deeply skilled than her husband in the
recesses of the human heart, she was aware that in this way she
might strike a blow of deep and decisive vengeance upon one whom
she esteemed as her mortal enemy; nor did she hestitate at
raising her arm, although she knew that the wound must be dealt
through the bosom of her daughter.  With this stern and fixed
purpose, she sounded every deep and shallow of her daughter's
soul, assumed alternately every disguise of manner which could
serve her object, and prepared at leisure every species of dire
machinery by which the human mind can be wrenched from its
settled determination.  Some of these were of an obvious
description, and require only to be cursorily
mentioned; others were characteristic of the time, the country,
and the persons engaged in this singular drama.

It was of the last consequence that all intercourse betwixt the
lovers should be stopped, and, by dint of gold and authority,
Lady Ashton contrived to possess herself of such a complete
command of all who were placed around her daughter, that, if
fact, no leaguered fortress was ever more completely blockaded;
while, at the same time, to all outward appearance Miss Ashton
lay under no restriction.  The verge of her parents' domains
became, in respect to her, like the viewless and enchanted line
drawn around a fairy castle, where nothing unpermitted can either
enter from without or escape from within.  Thus every letter, in
which Ravenswood conveyed to Lucy Ashton the indispensable
reasons which detained him abroad, and more than one note which
poor Lucy had addressed to him through what she thought a secure
channel, fell into the hands of her mother.  It could not be but
that the tenor of these intercepted letters, especially those of
Ravenswood, should contain something to irritate the passions and
fortify the obstinacy of her into whose hands they fell; but Lady
Ashton's passions were too deep-rooted to require this fresh
food.  She burnt the papers as regularly as she perused them; and
as they consumed into vapour and tinder, regarded them with a
smile upon her compressed lips, and an exultation in her steady
eye, which showed her confidence that the hopes of the writers
should soon be rendered equally unsubstantial.

It usually happens that fortune aids the machinations of those
who are prompt to avail themselves of every chance that offers.
A report was wafted from the continent, founded, like others of
the same sort, upon many plausible circumstances, but without any
real basis, stating the Master of Ravenswood to be on the eve of
marriage with a foreign lady of fortune and
distinction.  This was greedily caught up by both the political
parties, who were at once struggling for power and for popular
favour, and who seized, as usual, upon the most private
circumstances in the lives of each other's partisans t convert
them into subjects of political discussion.

The Marquis of A---- gave his opinion aloud and publicly, not
indeed in the coarse terms ascribed to him by Captain
Craigengelt, but in a manner sufficiently offensive to the
Ashtons.  "He thought the report," he said, "highly probably, and
heartily wished it might be true.  Such a match was fitter and
far more creditable for a spirited young fellow than a marriage
with the daughter of an old Whig lawyer, whose chicanery had so
nearly ruined his father."

The other party, of course, laying out of view the
opposition which the Master of Ravenswood received from Miss
Ashton's family, cried shame upon his fickleness and perfidy, as
if he had seduced the young lady into an engagement, and wilfully
and causelessly abandoned her for another.

Sufficient care was taken that this report should find its way
to Ravenswood Castle through every various channel, Lady Ashton
being well aware that the very reiteration of the same rumour,
from so many quarters, could not but give it a semblance of
truth.  By some it was told as a piece of ordinary news, by some
communicated as serious intelligence; now it was whispered to
Lucy Ashton's ear in the tone of malignant pleasantry, and now
transmitted to her as a matter of grave and serious warning.

Even the boy henry was made the instrument of adding to his
sister's torments.  One morning he rushed into the room with a
willow branch in his hand, which he told her had arrived that
instant from Germany for her special wearing.  Lucy, as we have
seen, was remarkably fond of her younger brother, and at that
moment his wanton and thoughtless unkindness seemed more keenly
injurious than even the studied insults of her elder brother.
Her grief, however, had no shade of resentment; she folded her
arms about the boy's neck, and saying faintly, "Poor Henry! you
speak but what they tell you" she burst into a flood of
unrestrained tears.  The boy was moved, notwithstanding the
thoughtlessness of his age and character.  "The devil take me,"
said he, "Lucy, if I fetch you any more of these tormenting
messages again; for I like you better," said he, kissing away the
tears, "than the whole pack of them; and you shall have my grey
pony to ride on, and you shall canter him if you like--ay, and
ride beyond the village, too, if you have a mind."

"Who told you," said Lucy, "that I am not permitted to ride
where I please?"

"That's a secret," said the boy; "but you will find you can
never ride beyond the village but your horse will cast a she, or
fall lame, or the catle bell will ring, or something will happen
to bring you back.  But if I tell you more of these things,
Douglas will nto get me the pair of colours they have promised
me, and so good-morrow to you."

This dialogue plunged Lucy in still deeper dejection, as it
tended to show her plainly what she had for some time suspected,
that she was little better than a prisoner at large in her
father's house.  We have described her in the outsdet of our
story as of a romantic disposition, delighting in tales of love
and wonder, and readily identifying herself with the situation of
those legendary heroines with whose adventures, for want of
better reading, her memory had become stocked.   The fairy wand,
with which in her solitude she had delighted to raise visions of
enchantment, became now the rod of a magician, the bond slave pof
evil genii, serving only to invoke spectres at which the exorcist
trembled.  She felt herself the object of suspicion, of scorn, of
dislike at least, if not of hatred, to her own family; and it
seemed to her that she was abandoned by the very person on whose
account she was exposed to the enmity of all around her.  Indeed,
the evidence of Ravenswood's infidelity began to assume every day
a more determined character.  A soldier of fortune, of the name
of Westenho, an old familiar of Craigengelt's, chanced to arrive
from abroad about this time.  The worthy Captian, though without
any precise communication with Lady Ashton, always acted most
regularly and sedulously in support of her plans, and easily
prevailed upon his friend, by dint of exaggeration of real
circumstances and
coining of others, to give explicit testimony to the truth of
Ravenswood's approaching marriage.

Thus beset on all hands, and in a manner reduced to despair,
Lucy's temper gave way under the pressure of constant affliction
and persecution.  She became gloomy and abstracted, and,
contrary to her natural and ordinary habit of mind, sometimes
turned with spirit, and even fierceness, on those by whom she was
long and closely annoyed.  Her health also began to be shaken,
and her hectic cheek and wandering eye gave symptoms of what is
called a fever upon the spirits.  In most mothers this would have
moved compassion; but Lady Ashton, compact and firm of purpose,
saw these waverings of health and intellect with no greater
sympathy than that with which the hostile engineer regards the
towers of a beleaguered city as they reel under the discharge of
his artillery; or rather, she considered these starts and
inequalities of temper as symptoms of Lucy's expiring resolution;
as the angler, by the throes and convulsive exertions of the fish
which he has hooked, becomes aware that he soon will be able to
land him.  To accelerate the catastrophe in the present case,
Lady Ashton had recourse to an expedient very consistent with the
temper and credulity of those times, but which the reader will
probably pronounce truly detestable and diabolical.



CHAPTER XXXI.

In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weeds,
And wilful want, all careless of her deeds;
So choosing solitary to abide,
Far from all neighbours, that her devilish deeds
And hellish arts from people she might hide,
And hurt far off, unknown, whome'er she envied.

Faerie Queene.


THE health of Lucy Ashton soon required the assistance of a
person more skilful in the office of a sick-nurse than the female
domestics of the family.  Ailsie Gourlay, sometimes called the
Wise Woman of Bowden, was the person whom, for her own strong
reasons, Lady Ashton selected as an attendant upon her daughter.

This woman had acquired a considerable reputation among the
ignorant by the pretended cures which she performed, especially
in "oncomes," as the Scotch call them, or mysterious diseases,
which baffle the regular physician.  Her pharmacopoeia consisted
partly of herbs selected in planetary hours, partly of words,
signs, and charms, which sometimes, perhaps, produced a
favourable influence upon the imagination of her patients.  Such
was the avowed profession of Luckie Gourlay, which, as may well
be supposed, was looked upon with a suspicious eye, not only by
her neighbours, but even by the clergy of the district.  In
private, however, she traded more deeply in the occult sciences;
for, notwithstanding the dreadful punishments inflicted upon the
supposed crime of witchcraft, there wanted not those who, steeled
by want and bitterness of spirit, were willing to adopt the
hateful and dangerous character, for the sake of the influence
which its terrors enabled them to exercise in the vicinity, and
the wretched emolument which they could extract by the practice
of their supposed art.

Ailsie Gourlay was not indeed fool enough to acknowledge a
compact with the Evil One, which would have been a swift and
ready road to the stake and tar-barrel.  Her fairy, she said,
like Caliban's, was a harmless fairy.  Nevertheless, she "spaed
fortunes," read dreams, composed philtres, discovered stolen
goods, and made and dissolved matches as successfully as if,
according to the belief of the whole neighbourhood, she had been
aided in those arts by Beelzebub himself.  The worst of the
pretenders to these sciences was, that they were generally
persons who, feeling themselves odious to humanity, were careless
of what they did to deserve the public hatred.  Real crimes were
often committed under pretence of magical imposture; and it
somewhat relieves the disgust with which we read, in the criminal
records, the conviction of these wretches, to be aware that many
of them merited, as poisoners, suborners, and diabolical agents
in secret domestic crimes, the severe fate to which they were
condemned for the imaginary guilt of witchcraft.

Such was Aislie Gourlay, whom, in order to attain the absolute
subjugation of Lucy Ashton's mind, her mother thought it fitting
to place near her person.  A woman of less consequence than Lady
Ashton had not dared to take such a step; but her high rank and
strength of character set her above the censure of the world, and
she was allowed to have seleced for her daughter's attendant the
best and most experienced sick-nurse and
"mediciner" in the neighbourhood, where an inferior person would
have fallen under the reproach of calling in the assistance of a
partner and ally of the great Enemy of mankind.

The beldam caught her cue readily and by innuendo, without
giving Lady Ashton the pain of distinct explanation.  She was in
many respects qualified for the part she played, which indeed
could not be efficiently assumed without some knowledge of the
human heart and passions.  Dame Gourlay perceived that Lucy
shuddered at her external appearance, which we have already
described when we found her in the death-chamber of blind Alice;
and while internally she hated the poor girl for the involuntary
horror with which she saw she was regarded, she commenced her
operations by endeavouring to efface or overcome those prejudices
which, in her heart, she resented as mortal offences.  This was
easily done, for the hag's external ugliness was soon balanced by
a show of kindness and interest, to which Lucy had of late been
little accustomed; her attentive services and real skill gained
her the ear, if not the confidence, of her patient; and under
pretence of diverting the solitude of a sick-room, she soon led
her attention captive by the legends in which she was well
skilled, and to which Lucy's habit of reading and reflection
induced her to "lend an attentive ear."  Dame Gourlay's tales
were at first of a mild and
interesting character--

Of fays that nightly dance upon the wold,
And lovers doom'd to wander and to weep,
And castles high, where wicked wizards keep
Their captive thralls.

Gradually, however, they assumed a darker and more
mysterious character, and became such as, told by the midnight
lamp, and enforced by the tremulous tone, the quivering and livid
lip, the uplifted skinny forefinger, and the shaking head of the
blue-eyed hag, might have appalled a less credulous imagination
in an age more hard of belief.  The old Sycorax saw her
advantage, and gradually narrowed her magic circle around the
devoted victim on whose spirit she practised.  Her legends began
to relate to the fortunes of the Ravenswood family, whose ancient
grandeur and portentous authority credulity had graced with so
many superstitious attributes.  The story of the fatal fountain
was narrated at full length, and with formidable additions, by
the ancient sibyl.  The prophecy, quoted by Caleb, concerning the
dead bride who was to be won by the last of the Ravenswoods, had
its own mysterious commentary; and the singular circumstance of
the apparition seen by the Master of Ravenswood in the forest,
having partly transpired through his hasty inquiries in the
cottage of Old Alice, formed a theme for many exaggerations.

Lucy might have despised these tales if they had been related
concerning another family, or if her own situation had been less
despondent.  But circumstanced as she was, the idea that an evil
fate hung over her attachment became predominant over her other
feelings; and the gloom of superstition darkened a mind already
sufficiently weakned by sorrow, distress, uncertainty, and an
oppressive sense of desertion and desolation.  Stories were told
by her attendant so closely resembling her own in their
circumstances, that she was gradually led to converse upon such
tragic and mystical subjects with the beldam, and to repose a
sort of confidence in the sibyl, whom she still regarded with
involuntary shuddering.  Dame Gourlay knew how to avail herself
of this imperfect confidence.  She directed Lucy's thoughts to
the means of inquiring into futurity--the surest mode perhaps, of
shaking the understanding and destroying the spirits.  Omens were
expounded, dreams were interpreted, and other tricks of jugglery
perhaps resorted to, by which the pretended adepts of the period
deceived and fascinated their deluded followers.  I find it
mentioned in the articles of dittay against Ailsie Gourlay--for
it is some comfort to know that the old hag was tried, condemned,
and burned on the top of North Berwick Law, by sentence of a
commission from the privy council--I find, I say, it was charged
against her, among other offences, that she had, by the aid and
delusions of Satan, shown to a young person of quality, in a
mirror glass, a gentleman then abroad, to whom the said young
person was betrothed, and who appeared in the vision to be in the
act of bestowing his hand upon another lady.  But this and some
other parts of the record appear to have been studiously left
imperfect in names and dates, probably out of regard to the
honour of the families concerned.  If Dame Gourlay was able
actually to play off such a piece of jugglery, it is clear she
must have had better assistance to practise the
deception than her own skill or funds could supply.  Meanwhile,
this mysterious visionary traffic had its usual effect in
unsettling Miss Ashton's mind.  Her temper became unequal, her
health decayed daily, her manners grew moping, melancholy, and
uncertain.  her father, guessing partly at the cause of these
appearances, made a point of banishing Dame Gourlay from the
castle; but the arrow was shot, and was rankling barb-deep in the
side of the wounded deer.

It was shortly after the departure of this woman, that Lucy
Ashton, urged by her parents, announced to them, with a vivacity
by which they were startled, "That she was concious heaven and
earth and hell had set themselves against her union with
Ravenswood; still her contract," she said, "was a binding
contract, and she neither would nor could resign it without the
consent of Ravenswood.  Let me be assured," she concluded, "that
he will free me from my engagement, and dispose of me as you
please, I care not how.  When the diamonds are gone, what
signifies the casket?"

The tone of obstinacy with which this was said, her eyes
flashingt with unnatural light, and her hands firmly clenched,
precluded the possibility of dispute; and the utmost length which
Lady Ashton's art could attain, only got her the privilege of
dictating the letter, by which her daughter required to know of
Ravenswood whether he intended to abide by or to surrender what
she termed "their unfortuante engagement."  Of this advantage
Lady Ashton so far and so ingeniously availed herself that,
according to the wording of the letter, the reader would have
supposed Lucy was calling upon her lover to renounce a contract
which was contrary to the interests and inclinations of both.
Not trusting even to this point of deception, Lady Ashton finally
determined to suppress the letter altogether, in hopes that
Lucy's impatience would induce her to condemn Ravenswood unheard
and in absence.  In this she was disappointed.  The time, indeed,
had long elapsed when an answer should have been received from
the continent.  The faint ray of hope which still glimmered in
Lucy's mind was well nigh extinguished.  But the idea never
forsook her that her letter might not have been duly forwarded.
One of her mother's new machinations unexpectedly furnished her
with the means of ascertaining what she most desired to know.

The female agent of hell having been dismissed from the castle,
Lady Ashton, who wrought by all variety of means,
resolved to employ, for working the same end on Lucy's mind, an
agent of a very different character.  This was no other than the
Reverent Mr. Bide-the-Bent, a presbyterian clergyman, formerly
mentioned, of the very strictest order and the most rigid
orthodoxy, whose aid she called in, upon the principle of the
tyrant in the in the tragedy:

I'll have a priest shall preach her from her faith,
And make it sin not to renounce that vow
Which I'd have broken.

But Lady Ashton was mistaken in the agent she had selected.  His
prejudices, indeed, were easily enlisted on her side, and it was
no difficult matter to make him regard with horror the prospect
of a union betwixt the daughter of a God-fearing, professing, and
Presbyterian family of distinction and the heir of a bloodthirsty
prelatist and persecutor, the hands of whose fathers had been
dyed to the wrists in the blood of God's saints.  This resembled,
in the divine's opinion, the union of a Moabitish stranger with a
daughter of Zion.  But with all the more severe prejudices and
principles of his sect, Bide-the-Bent possessed a sound judgment,
and had learnt sympathy even in that very school of presecution
where the heart is so frequently hardened.  In a private
interview with Miss Ashton, he was deeply moved by her distress,
and could not but admit the justice of her request to be
permitted a direct communication with Ravenswood upon the subject
of their solemn contract.  When she urged to him the great
uncertainty under which she laboured whether her letter had been
ever forwarded, the old man paced the room with long steps, shook
his grey head, rested repeatedly for a space on his ivory-headed
staff, and, after much hesitation, confessed that he thought her
doubts so reasonable that he would himself aid in the removal of
them.

"I cannot but opine, Miss Lucy," he said, "that your
worshipful lady mother hath in this matter an eagerness whilk,
although it ariseth doubtless from love to your best interests
here and hereafter, for the man is of persecuting blood, and
himself a persecutor, a Cavalier or Malignant, and a scoffer, who
hath no inheritance in Jesse; nevertheless, we are commanded to
do justice unto all, and to fulfil our bond and covenant, as well
to the stranger as to him who is in brotherhood with us.
Wherefore myself, even I myself, will be aiding unto the delivery
of your letter to the man Edgar Ravenswood, trusting that the
issue therof may be your deliverance from the nets in which he
hath sinfully engaged you.  And that I may do in this neither
more nor less than hath been warranted by your honourable
parents, I pray you to transcribe, without increment or
subtraction, the letter formerly expeded under the dictation of
your right honourable mother; and I shall put it into such sure
course of being delivered, that if, honourable young madam, you
shall receive no answer, it will be necessary that you conclude
that the man meaneth in silence to abandon that naughty
contract, which, peradventure, he may be  unwilling directly to
restore."

Lucy eagerly embraced the expedient of the worthy divine.  A new
letter was written in the precise terms of the former, and
consigned by Mr. Bide-the-Bent to the charge of Saunders
Moonshine, a zealous elder of the church when on shore, and when
on board his brig as bold a smuggler as ever ran out a sliding
bowsprit to the winds that blow betwixt Campvere and the east
coast of Scotland.  At the recommendation of his pastor, Saunders
readily undertook that the letter should be securely conveyed to
the Master of Ravenswood at the court where he now resided.

This retrospect became necessary to explain the conference
betwixt Miss Ashton, her mother, and Bucklaw which we have
detailed in a preceding chapter.

Lucy was now like the sailor who, while drifting through a
tempestuous ocean, clings for safety to a single plank, his
powers of grasping it becoming every moment more feeble, and the
deep darkness of the night only checkered by the flashes of
lightning, hissing as they show the white tops of the billows, in
which he is soon to be engulfed.

Week crept away after week, and day after day.  St. Jude's day
arrived, the last and protracted term to which Lucy had limited
herself, and there was neither letter nor news of
Ravenswood.



CHAPTER XXXII.

How fair these names, how much unlike they look
To all the blurr'd subscriptions in my book!
The bridegroom's letters stand in row above,
Tapering, yet straight, like pine-trees in his grove;
While free and fine the bride's appear below,
As light and slender as her jessamines grow.

CRABBE.


ST. JUDE's day came, the term assigned by Lucy herself as the
furthest date of expectation, and, as we have already said,
there were neither letters from nor news of Ravenswood.  But
there were news of Bucklaw, and of his trusty associate
Craigengelt, who arrived early in the morning for the completion
of the proposed espousals, and for signing the necessary deeds.

These had been carefully prepared under the revisal of Sir
William Ashton himself, it having been resolved, on account of
the state of Miss Ashton's health, as it was said, that none
save the parties immediately interested should be present when
the parchments were subscribed.  It was further determined that
the marriage should be solemnised upon the fourth day after
signing the articles, a masure adopted by Lady Ashton, in order
that Lucy might have as little time as possible to recede or
relapse into intractability.  There was no appearance, however,
of her doing either.  She heard the proposed arrangement with the
calm indifference of despair, or rather with an apathy arising
from the oppressed and stupified state of her feelings.  To an
eye so unobserving as that of Bucklaw, her demeanour had little
more of reluctance than might suit the character of a bashful
young lady, who, however, he could not disguise from himself, was
complying with the choice of her friends rather than exercising
any personal predilection in his favour.

When the morning compliment of the bridegroom had been paid,
Miss Ashton was left for some time to herself; her mother
remarking, that the deeds must be signed before the hour of noon,
in order that the marriage might be happy.  Lucy suffered herself
to be attired for the occasion as the taste of her attendants
suggested, and was of course splendidly arrayed.  Her dress was
composed of white satin and Brussels lace, and her hair arranged
with a profusion of jewels, whose lustre made a strange contrast
to the deadly paleness of her complexion, and to the trouble
which dwelt in her unsettled eye.

Her toilette was hardly finished ere Henry appeared, to conduct
the passive bride to the state apartment, where all was prepared
for signing the contract.  "Do you know, sister," he said, "I am
glad you are to have Bucklaw after all, instead of Ravenswood,
who looked like a Spanish grandee come to cute our throats and
trample our bodies under foot.  And I am glad the broad seas are
between us this day, for I shall never forget how frightened I
was when I took him for the picture of old Sir Malise walked out
of the canvas.  Tell me true, are you not glad to be fairly shot
of him?"

"Ask me no questions, dear Henry," said his unfortunate sister;
"there is little more can happen to make me either glad or sorry
in this world."

"And that's what all young brides say," said Henry; "and so do
not be cast down, Lucy, for you'll tell another tale a
twelvemonth hence; and I am to be bride's-man, and ride before
you to the kirk; and all our kith, kin, and allies, and all
Bucklaw's, are to be mounted and in order; and I am to have a
scarlet laced coat, and a feathered hat, and a swordbelt, double
bordered with gold, and point d'Espagne, and a dagger instead
of a sword; and I should like a sword much better, but my father
won't hear of it.  All my things, and a hundred besides, are to
come out from Edinburgh to-night with old Gilbert and the sumpter
mules; and I will bring them and show them to you the instant
they come."

The boy's chatter was here interrupted by the arrival of Lady
Ashton, somewhat alarmed at her daughter's stay.  With one of her
sweetest smiles, she took Lucy's arm under her own.

There were only present, Sir William Ashton and Colonel Douglas
Ashton, the last in full regimentals; Bucklaw, in bridegroom
trim; Craigengelt, freshly equipt from top to toe by the bounty
of his patron, and bedizened with as much lace as might have
become the dress of the Copper Captain; together with the Rev.
Mr. Bide-the-Bent; the presence of a minister being, in strict
Presbyterian families, an indispensable requisite upon all
occasions of unusual solemnity.

Wines and refreshments were placed on a table, on which the
writings were displayed, ready for signature.

But before proceeding either to business or refreshment, Mr.
Bide-the-Bent, at a signal from Sir William Ashton, invited the
company to join him in a short extemporary prayer, in which he
implored a blessing upon the contract now to be solemnised
between the honourable parties then present.  With the simplicity
of his times and profession, which permitted strong personal
allusions, he petitioned that the wounded mind of one of these
noble parties might be healed, in reward of her compliance with
the advice of her right honourable parents; and that, as she had
proved herself a child after God's commandment, by honouring her
father and mother, she and hers might enjoy the promised
blessing--length of days in the land here, and a happy portion
hereafter in a better country.  He prayed farther, that the
bridegroom might be weaned from those follies which seduced youth
from the path of knowledge; that he might cease to take delight
in vain and unprofitable company, scoffers, rioters, and those
who sit late at the wine (here Bucklaw winked at Craigengelt),
and cease from the society that causeth to err.  A suitable
supplication in behalf of Sir William and Lady Ashton and their
family concluded this religious address, which thus embraced
every individual present excepting Craigengelt, whom the worthy
divine probably considered as past all hopes of grace.

The business of the day now went forward:  Sir William Ashton
signed the contract with legal solemnity and precision; his son,
with military nonchalance; and Bucklaw, having
subscribed as rapidly as Craigengelt could manage to turn the
leaves, concluded by wiping his pen on that worthy's new laced
cravat.  It was now Miss Ashton's turn to sign the writings, and
she was guided by her watchful mother to the table for that
purpose.  At her first attempt, she began to write with a dry
pen, and when the circumstance was pointed out, seemed unable,
after several attempts, to dip it in the massive silver ink-
standish, which stood full before her.  Lady Ashton's vigilance
hastened to supply the deficiency.  I have myself seen the fatal
deed, and in the distinct characters in which the name of Lucy
Ashton is traced on each page there is only a very slight
tremulous
irregularity, indicative of her state of mind at the time of the
subscription.  But the last signature is incomplete, defaced, and
blotted; for, while her hand was employed in tracing it, the
hasty tramp of a horse was heard at the gate, succeeded by a step
in the outer gallery, and a voice which, in a commanding tone,
bore down the opposition of the menials.  The pen dropped from
Lucy's fingers, as she exclaimed with a faint shriek: "He is
come--he is come!"



CHAPTER XXXIII.

This by his tongue should be a Montague!
Fetch me my rapier, boy;
Now, by the faith and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

Romeo and Juliet.


HARDLY had Miss Ashton dropped the pen, when the door of the
apartment flew open, and the Master of Ravenswood entered the
apartment.

Lockhard and another domestic, who had in vain attempted to
oppose his passage through the gallery or antechamber, were seen
standing on the threshold transfixed with surprise, which was
instantly communicated to the whole party in the staterroom.
That of Colonel Douglas Ashton was mingled with resentment; that
of Bucklaw with haughty and affected indifference; the rest, even
Lady Ashton herself, showed signs of fear; and Lucy seemed
stiffened to stone by this unexpected apparition.  Apparition it
might well be termed, for Ravenswood had more the appearance of
one returned from the dead than of a living visitor.

He planted himself full in the middle of the apartment, opposite
to the table at which Lucy was seated, on whom, as if she had
been alone in the chamber, he bent his eyes with a mingled
expression of deep grief and deliberate indignation.  His dark-
coloured riding cloak, displaced from one shoulder, hung around
one side of his person in the ample folds of the Spanish mantle.
The rest of his rich dress was travel-soiled, and
deranged by hard riding.  He had a sword by his side, and pistols
in his belt.  His slouched hat, which he had not removed at
entrance, gave an additional gloom to his dark features, which,
wasted by sorrow and marked by the ghastly look communicated by
long illness, added to a countenance naturally somewhat stern and
wild a fierce and even savage expression.  The matted and
dishevelled locks of hair which escaped from under his hat,
together with his fixed and unmoved posture, made his head more
resemble that of a marble bust than that of a living man.  He
said not a single word, and there was a deep silence in the
company for more than two minutes.

It was broken by Lady Ashton, who in that space partly recovered
her natural audacity.  She demanded to know the cause of this
unauthorised intrusion.

"That is a question, madam," said her son, "which I have the
best right to ask; and I must request of the Master of Ravenswood
to follow me where he can answer it at leisure."

Bucklaw interposed, saying, "No man on earth should usurp his
previous right in demanding an explanation from the Master.
Craigengelt," he added, in an undertone, "d--n ye, why do you
stand staring as if you saw a ghost? fetch me my sword from the
gallery."

"I will relinquish to none," said Colonel Ashton, "my right of
calling to account the man who has offered this unparalleled
affront to my family."
"Be patient, gentlemen," said Ravenswood, turning sternly
towards them, and waving his hand as if to impose silence on
their altercation.  "If you are as weary of your lives as I am,
I will find time and place to pledge mine against one or both;
at present, I have no leisure for the disputes of triflers."

"Triflers!" echoed Colonel Ashton, half unsheathing his sword,
while Bucklaw laid his hand on the hilt of that which
Craigengelt had just reached him.

Sir William Ashton, alarmed for his son's safety, rushed between
the young men and Ravenswood, exclaiming: "My son, I command you-
-Bucklaw, I entreat you--keep the peace, in the name of the Queen
and of the law!"

"In the name of the law of God," said Bide-the-Bent,
advancing also with uplifted hands between Bucklaw, the Colonel,
and the object of their resentment--"in the name of Him who
brought peace on earth and good-will to mankind, I implore--I
beseech--I command you to forbear violence towards each other!
God hateth the bloodthirsty man; he who striketh with the sword
shall perish with the sword."

"Do you take me for a dog, sir" said Colonel Ashton, turning
fiercely upon him, "or something more brutally stupid, to endure
this insult in my father's house?  Let me go, Bucklaw!  He shall
account to me, or, by Heavens, I will stab him where he stands!"

"You shall not touch him here," said Bucklaw; "he once gave me
my life, and were he the devil come to fly away with the whole
house and generation, he shall have nothing but fair play."

The passions of the two young men thus counteracting each other
gave Ravenswood leisure to exclaim, in a stern and steady voice:
"Silence!--let him who really seeks danger take the fitting time
when it is to be found; my mission here will be shortly
accomplished.  Is THAT your handwriting, madam?" he added in a
softer tone, extending towards Miss Ashton her last letter.

A faltering "Yes" seemed rather to escape from her lips than to
be uttered as a voluntary answer.

"And is THIS also your handwriting?" extending towards her the
mutual engagement.

Lucy remained silent.  Terror, and a yet stronger and more
confused feeling, so utterly disturbed her understanding that she
probably scarcely comprehended the question that was put to her.

"If you design," said Sir William Ashton, "to found any legal
claim on that paper, sir, do not expect to receive any answer to
an extrajudicial question."

"Sir William Ashton," said Ravenswood, "I pray you, and all who
hear me, that you will not mistake my purpose.  If this young
lady, of her own free will, desires the restoration of this
contract, as her letter would seem to imply, there is not a
withered leaf which this autumn wind strews on the heath that is
more valueless in my eyes.  But I must and will hear the truth
from her own mouth; without this satisfaction I will not leave
this spot.  Murder me by numbers you possibly may; but I am an
armed man--I am a desperate man, and I will nto die without ample
vengeance.  This is my resolution, take it as you may.  I WILL
hear her determination from her own mouth; from her own mouth,
alone, and without witnesses, will I hear it.  Now, choose," he
said, drawing his sword with the right hand, and, with the left,
by the same motion taking a pistol from his belt and cocking it,
but turning the point of one weapon and the muzzle of the other
to the ground--"choose if you will have this hall floated with
blood, or if you will grant me the decisive interview with my
affianced bride which the laws of God and the country alike
entitle me to demand."

All recoiled at the sound of his voice and the determined action
by which it was accompanied; for the ecstasy of real desperation
seldom fails to overpower the less energetic
passions by which it may be opposed.  The clergyman was the first
to speak.  "In the name of God," he said, "receive an overture of
peace from the meanest of His servants.  What this honourable
person demands, albeit it is urged with over violence, hath yet
in it something of reason.  Let him hear from Miss Lucy's own
lips that she hath dutifully acceded to the will of her parents,
and repenteth her of her covenant with him; and when he is
assured of this he will depart in peace unto his own dwelling,
and cumber us no more.  Alas! the workings of the ancient Adam
are strong even in the regenerate; surely we should have long-
suffering with those who, being yet in the gall of bitterness and
bond of iniquity, are swept forward by the uncontrollable current
of worldly passion.  Let, then, the Master of Ravenswood have the
interview on which he insisteth; it can but be as a passing pang
to this honourable maiden, since her faith is now irrevocably
pledged to the choice of her parents.  Let it, I say, be this: it
belongeth to my functions to entreat your honours' compliance
with this headling overture."

"Never!" answered Lady Ashton, whose rage had now overcome her
first surprise and terror--"never shall this man speak in
private with my daughter, the affianced bride of another!  pass
from this room who will, I remain here.  I fear neither his
violence nor his weapons, though some, " she said, glancing a
look towards Colonel Ashton, "who bear my name appear more moved
by them."

"For God's sake, madam," answered the worthy divine, "add not
fuel to firebrands.  The Master of Ravenswood cannot, I am sure,
object to your presence, the young lady's state of health being
considered, and your maternal duty.  I myself will also tarry;
peradventure my grey hairs may turn away wrath."

"You are welcome to do so, sir," said Ravenswood; "and Lady
Ashton is also welcome to remain, if she shall think proper; but
let all others depart."

"Ravenswood," said Colonel Ashton, crossing him as he went out,
"you shall account for this ere long."

"When you please," replied Ravenswood.

"But I," said Bucklaw, with a half smile, "have a prior demand
on your leisure, a claim of some standing."

"Arrange it as you will," said Ravenswood; "leave me but this
day in peace, and I will have no dearer employment on earth to-
morrow than to give you all the satisfaction you can desire."

The other gentlemen left the apartment; but Sir William Ashton
lingered.

"Master of Ravenswood," he said, in a conciliating tone, "I
think I have not deserved that you should make this scandal and
outrage in my family.  If you will sheathe your sword, and retire
with me into my study, I will prove to you, by the most
satisfactory arguments, the inutility of your present irregular
procedure----"

"To-morrow, sir--to-morrow--to-morrow, I will hear you at
length," reiterated Ravenswood, interrupting him; "this day hath
its own sacred and indispensable business."

He pointed to the door, and Sir William left the apartment.

Ravenswood sheathed his sword, uncocked and returned his pistol
to his belt; walked deliberately to the door of the apartment,
which he bolted; returned, raised his hat from his forehead, and
gazing upon Lucy with eyes in which an expression of sorrow
overcame their late fierceness, spread his dishevelled locks back
from his face, and said, "Do you know me, Miss
Ashton?  I am still Edgar Ravenswood."  She was silent, and he
went on with increasing vehemence: "I am still that Edgar
Ravenswood who, for your affection, renounced the dear ties by
which injured honour bound him to seek vengeance.  I am that
Ravenswood who, for your sake, forgave, nay, clasped hands in
friendship with, the oppressor and pillager of his house, the
traducer and murderer of his father."

"My daughter," answered Lady Ashton, interrupting him, "has no
occasion to dispute the identity of your person; the venom of
your present language is sufficient to remind her that she
speaks with the moral enemy of her father."

"I pray you to be patient, madam," answered Ravenswood; "my
answer must come from her own lips.  Once more, Miss Lucy Ashton,
I am that Ravenswood to whom you granted the solemn engagement
which you now desire to retract and cancel."

Lucy's bloodless lips could only falter out the words, "It was
my mother."

"She speaks truly," said Lady Ashton, "it WAS I who,
authorised alike by the laws of God and man, advised her, and
concurred with her, to set aside an unhappy and precipitate
engagement, and to annul it by the authority of Scripture
itself."

"Scripture!" said Ravenswood, scornfully.

"Let him hear the text," said Lady Ashton, appealing to the
divine, "on which you yourself, with cautious reluctance,
declared the nullity of the pretended engagement insisted upon by
this violent man."

The clergyman took his clasped Bible from his pocket, and read
the following words: "If a woman vow a vow unto the Lord, and
bind herself by a bond, being in her father's house in her
youth, and her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she
hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her;
then all her vows shall stand, and every vow wherewith she hath
bound her soul shall stand."

"And was it not even so with us?" interrrupted Ravenswood.

"Control thy impatience, young man," answered the divine, "and
hear what follows in the sacred text: 'But if her father
disallow her in the day that he heareth, not any of her vows, or
of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand; and
the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her."

"And was not," said Lady Ashton, fiercely and triumphantly
breaking in--"was not ours the case stated in the Holy Writ?
Will this person deny, that the instant her parents heard of the
vow, or bond, by which our daughter had bound her soul, we
disallowed the same in the most express terms, and informed him
by writing of our determination?"

"And is this all?" said Ravenswood, looking at Lucy.  "Are you
willing to barter sworn faith, the exercise of free will, and
the feelings of mutual affection to this wretched hypocritical
sophistry?"

"Hear him!" said Lady Ashton, looking to the clergyman--"hear
the blasphemer!"

"May God forgive him," said Bide-the-Bent, "and enlighten his
ignorance!"

"Hear what I have sacrificed for you," said Ravenswood, still
addressing Lucy, "ere you sanction what has been done in your
name.  The honour of an ancient family, the urgent advice of my
best friends, have been in vain used to sway my resolution;
neither the arguments of reason nor the portents of superstition
have shaken my fidelity.  The very dead have arisen to warn me,
and their warning has been despised.  Are you
prepared to pierce my heart for its fidelity with the very weapon
which my rash confidence entrusted to your grasp?"

"Master of Ravenswood," said Lady Ashton, "you have asked what
questions you thought fit.  You see the total incapacity of my
daughter to answer you.  But I will reply for her, and in a
manner which you cannot dispute.  You desire to know whether Lucy
Ashton, of her own free will, desires to annual the engagement
into which she has been trepanned.  You have her letter under her
own hand, demanding the surrender of it; and, in yet more full
evidence of her purpose, here is the contract which she has this
morning subscribed, in presence of this reverence gentleman, with
Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw."

Ravenswood gazed upon the deed as if petrified.  "And it was
without fraud or compulsion," said he, looking towards the
clergyman, "that Miss Ashton subscribed this parchment?"

"I couch it upon my sacred character."

"This is indeed, madam, an undeniable piece of evidence," said
Ravenswood, sternly; "and it will be equally unnecessary and
dishonourable to waste another word in useless remonstrance or
reproach.  There, madam," he said, laying down before Lucy the
signed paper and the broken piece of gold--"there are the
evidences of your first engagement; may you be more faithful to
that which you have just formed.  I will trouble you to return
the corresponding tokens of my ill-placed confidence; I ought
rather to say, of my egregious folly."

Lucy returned the scornful glance of her lover with a gaze from
which perception seemed to have been banisshed; yet she seemed
partly to have understood his meaning, for she raised her hands
as if to undo a blue ribbon which she wore around her neck.  She
was unable to accomplish her purpose, but Lady Ashton cut the
ribbon asunder, and detached the broken piece of gold, which Miss
Ashton had till then worn concealed in her bosom; the written
counterpart of the lovers' engagement she for some time had had
in her own possession.  With a haughty courtesy, she delivered
both to Ravenswood, who was much
softened when he took the piece of gold.

"And she could wear it thus," he said, speaking to himself--
"could wear it in her very bosom--could wear it next to her
heart--even when----  But complain avails not," he said, dashing
from his eye the tear which had gathered in it, and resuming the
stern composure of his manner.  He strode to the chimney, and
threw into the fire the paper and piece of gold, stamping upon
the coals with the heel of his boot, as if to ensure their
destruction.  "I will be no longer," he then said, "an intruder
here.  Your evil wishes, and your worse offices, Lady Ashton, I
will only return by hoping these will be your last machinations
against your daughter's honour and happiness.  And to you,
madam," he said, addressing Lucy, "I have nothing farther to say,
except to pray to God that you may not become a world's wonder
for this act of wilful and deliberate perjury."  Having uttered
these words, he turned on his heel and left the apartment.

Sir William Ashton, by entreaty and authority, had detained his
son and Bucklaw in a distant part of the castle, in order to
prevent their again meeting with Ravenswood; but as the Master
descended the great staircase, Lockhard delivered him a billet,
signed "Sholto Douglas Ashton," requesting to know where the
Master of Ravenswood would be heard of four or five days from
hence, as the writer had business of weight to settle with him,
so soon as an important family event had taken place.

"Tell Colonel Ashton," said Ravenswood, composedly, "I shall be
found at Wolf's Crag when his leisure serves him."

As he descended the outward stair which led from the
terrace, he was a second time interrupted by Craigengelt, who, on
the part of his principal, the Laird of Bucklaw, expressed a
hope that Ravenswood would not leave Scotland within ten days at
least, as he had both former and recent civilities for which to
express his gratitude.

"Tell your master," said Ravenswood, fiercely, "to choose his own
time.  He will find me at Wolf's Crag, if his purpose is not
forestalled."

"MY master!" replied Craigengelt, encouraged by seeing Colonel
Ashton and Bucklaw at the bottom of the terrace.  "Give me leave
to say I know of no such person upon earth, nor will I permit
such language to be used to me!"

"Seek your master, then, in hell!" exclaimed Ravenswood, giving
way to the passion he had hitherto restrained, and
throwing Craigengelt from him with such violence that he rolled
down the steps and lay senseless at the foot of them.   "I am a
fool," he instantly added, "to vent my passion upon a caitiff so
worthless."

He then mounted his horse, which at his arrival he had secured
to a balustrade in front of the castle, rode very slowly past
Bucklaw and Colonel Ashton, raising his hat as he passed each,
and looking in their faces steadily while he offered this mute
salutation, which was returned by both with the same stern
gravity.  Ravenswood walked on with equal deliberation until he
reached the head of the avenue, as if to show that he rather
courted than avoided interruption.  When he had passed the upper
gate, he turned his horse, and looked at the castle with a fixed
eye; then set spurs to his good steed, and departed with the
speed of a demon dismissed by the exorcist.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

Who comes from the bridal chamber?
It is Azrael, the angel of death.

Thalaba.


AFTER the dreadful scene that had taken place at the castle,
Lucy was transported to her own chamber, where she remained for
some time in a state of absolute stupor.  Yet afterwards, in the
course of the ensuing day, she seemed to have recovered, not
merely her spirits and resolution, but a sort of flighty levity,
that was foreign to her character and situation, and which was at
times chequered by fits of deep silence and melancholy and of
capricious pettishness.  Lady Ashton became much alarmed and
consulted the family physicians.  But as her pulse indicated no
change, they could only say that the disease was on the spirits,
and recommended gentle exercise and
amusement.  Miss Ashton never alluded to what had passed in the
state-room.  It seemed doubtful even if she was conscious of it,
for she was often observed to raise her hands to her neck, as if
in search of the ribbon that had been taken from it, and mutter,
in surprise and discontent, when she could not find it, "It was
the link that bound me to life."

Notwithstanding all these remarkable symptoms, Lady Ashton was
too deeply pledged to delay her daughter's marriage even in her
present state of health.  It cost her much trouble to keep up the
fair side of appearances towards Bucklaw.  She was well aware,
that if he once saw any reluctance on her daughter's part, he
would break off the treaty, to her great personal shame and
dishonour.  She therefore resolved that, if Lucy continued
passive, the marriage should take place upon the day that had
been previously fixed, trusting that a change of place, of
situation, and of character would operate a more speedy and
effectual cure upon the unsettled spirits of her daughter than
could be attained by the slow measures which the medical men
recommended.  Sir William Ashton's views of family
aggrandisement, and his desire to strengthen himself against the
measures of the Marquis of A----, readily induced him to
acquiesce in what he could not have perhaps resisted if willing
to do so.  As for the young men, Bucklaw and Colonel Ashton, they
protested that, after what had happened, it would be most
dishonourable to postpone for a single hour the time appointed
for the marriage, as it would be generally ascribed to their
being intimidated by the intrusive visit and threats of
Ravenswood.

Bucklaw would indeed have been incapable of such
precipitation, had he been aware of the state of Miss Ashton's
health, or rather of her mind.  But custom, upon these occasions,
permitted only brief and sparing intercourse between the
bridegroom and the betrothed; a circumstance so well improved by
Lady Ashton, that Bucklaw neither saw nor suspected the real
state of the health and feelings of his unhappy bride.

On the eve of the bridal day, Lucy appeared to have one of her
fits of levity, and surveyed with a degree of girlish
interest the various preparations of dress, etc., etc., which the
different members of the family had prepared for the occasion.

The morning dawned bright and cheerily.  The bridal guests
assembled in gallant troops from distant quarters.  Not only the
relations of Sir William Ashton, and the still more dignified
connexions of his lady, together with the numerous kinsmen and
allies of the bridegroom, were present upon this joyful ceremony,
gallantly mounted, arrayed, and caparisoned, but almost every
Presbyterian family of distinction within fifty miles made a
point of attendance upon an occasion which was considered as
giving a sort of triumph over the Marquis of A----, in the person
of his kinsman.  Splendid refreshments awaited the guests on
their arrival, and after these were finished, the cray was "To
horse."  The bride was led forth betwixt her brother Henry and
her mother.  Her gaiety of the preceding day had given rise
[place] to a deep shade of melancholy, which, however, did not
misbecome an occasion so momentous.  There was a light in her
eyes and a colour in her cheek which had not been kindled for
many a day, and which, joined to her great beauty, and the
splendour of her dress, occasioned her entrance to be greeted
with an universal murmur of applause, in which even the ladies
could not refrain from joining.  While the cavalcade were
getting to horse, Sir William Ashton, a man of peace and of form,
censured his son Henry for having begirt himself with a military
sword of preposterous length, belonging to his brother, Colonel
Ashton.

"If you must have a weapon," he said, "upon such a peaceful
occasion, why did you not use the short poniard sent from
Edinburgh on purpose?"

The boy vindicated himself by saying it was lost.

"You put it out of the way yourself, I suppose," said his
father, "out of ambition to wear that preposterous thing, which
might have served Sir William Wallace.  But never mind, get to
horse now, and take care of your sister."

The boy did so, and was placed in the centre of the gallant
train.  At the time, he was too full of his own appearance, his
sword, his laced cloak, his feathered hat, and his managed horse,
to pay much regard to anything else; but he afterwards remembered
to the hour of his death, that when the hand of his sister, by
which she supported hersel on the pillion behind him, touched his
own, it felt as wet and cold as sepulchral marble.

Glancing wide over hill and dale, the fair bridal procession at
last reached the parish church, which they nearly filled; for,
besides domestics, above a hundred gentlemen and ladies were
present upon the occasion.  The marriage ceremony was performed
according to the rites of the Presbyterian persuasion, to which
Bucklaw of late had judged it proper to conform.

On the outside of the church, a liberal dole was distributed to
the poor of the neighbouring parishes, under the direction of
Johnie Mortheuch [Mortsheugh], who had lately been promoted from
his desolate quarters at the Hermitage to fill the more eligible
situation of sexton at the parish church of Ravenswood.  Dame
Gourlay, with two of her contemporaries, the same who assisted at
Alice's late-wake, seated apart upon a flat monument, or
"through-stane," sate enviously comparing the shares which had
been allotted to them in dividing the dole.

"Johnie Mortheuch," said Annie Winnie, "might hae minded auld
lang syne, and thought of his auld kimmers, for as braw as he is
with his new black coat.  I hae gotten but five herring instead
o' sax, and this disna look like a gude saxpennys, and I dare say
this bit morsel o' beef is an unce lighter than ony that's been
dealt round; and it's a bit o' the tenony hough, mair by token
that yours, Maggie, is out o' the back-sey."

"Mine, quo' she!" mumbled the paralytic hag--"mine is half
banes, I trow.  If grit folk gie poor bodies ony thing for coming
to their weddings and burials, it suld be something that wad do
them gude, I think."

"Their gifts," said Ailsie Gourlay, "are dealt for nae love of
us, nor out of respect for whether we feed or starve.  They wad
gie us whinstanes for loaves, if it would serve their ain vanity,
and yet they expect us to be as gratefu', as they ca' it, as if
they served us for true love and liking."

"And that's truly said," answered her companion.

"But, Aislie Gourlay, ye're the auldest o' us three--did ye ever
see a mair grand bridal?"

"I winna say that I have," answered the hag; "but I think soon
to see as braw a burial."

"And that wad please me as weel," said Annie Winnie; "for
there's as large a dole, and folk are no obliged to girn and
laugh, and mak murgeons, and wish joy to these hellicat quality,
that lord it ower us like brute beasts.  I like to pack the dead-
dole in my lap and rin ower my auld rhyme--

My loaf in my lap, my penny in my purse,
Thou art ne'er the better, and I'm ne'er the worse."

"That's right, Annie," said the paralytic woman; "God send us a
green Yule and a fat kirkyard!"

"But I wad like to ken, Luckie Gourlay, for ye're the auldest
and wisest amang us, whilk o' these revellers' turn it will be to
be streikit first?"

"D'ye see yon dandilly maiden," said Dame Gourlay, "a'
glistenin' wi' gowd and jewels, that they are lifting up on the
white horse behind that hare-brained callant in scarlet, wi' the
lang sword at his side?"

"But that's the bride!" said her companion, her cold heart
touched with some sort of compassion--"that's the very bride
hersell!  Eh, whow! sae young, sae braw, and sae bonny--and is
her time sae short?"

"I tell ye," said the sibyl, "her winding sheet is up as high as
her throat already, believe it wha list.  Her sand has but few
grains to rin out; and nae wonder--they've been weel shaken.  The
leaves are withering fast on the trees, but she'll never see the
Martinmas wind gar them dance in swirls like the fairy rings."
"Ye waited on her for a quarter," said the paralytic woman, "and
got twa red pieces, or I am far beguiled?"

"Ay, ay," answered Ailsie, with a bitter grin; "and Sir William
Ashton promised me a bonny red gown to the boot o' that--a stake,
and a chain, and a tar-barrel, lass! what think ye o' that for a
propine?--for being up early and doun late for
fourscore nights and mair wi' his dwining daughter.  But he may
keep it for his ain leddy, cummers."

"I hae heard a sough," said Annie Winnie, "as if Leddy Ashton
was nae canny body."

"D'ye see her yonder," said Dame Gourlay, "as she prances on her
grey gelding out at the kirkyard?  There's mair o' utter
deevilry in that woman, as brave and fair-fashioned as she rides
yonder, than in a' the Scotch withces that ever flew by moonlight
ower North Berwick Law."

"What's that ye say about witches, ye damned hags?" said Johnie
Mortheuch [Mortsheugh]; "are ye casting yer cantrips in the very
kirkyard, to mischieve the bride and bridegroom?  Get awa' hame,
for if I tak my souple t'ye, I'll gar ye find the road faster
than ye wad like."

"Hegh, sirs!" answered Ailsie Gourlay; "how bra' are we wi' our
new black coat and our weel-pouthered head, as if we had never
kenn'd hunger nor thirst oursells! and we'll be screwing up our
bit fiddle, doubtless, in the ha' the night, amang a' the other
elbo'-jiggers for miles round.  Let's see if the pins haud,
Johnie--that's a', lad."

"I take ye a' to witness, gude people," said Morheuch, "that she
threatens me wi' mischief, and forespeaks me.  If ony thing but
gude happens to me or my fiddle this night, I'll make it the
blackest night's job she ever stirred in.  I'll hae her before
presbytery and synod: I'm half a minister mysell, now that I'm a
bedral in an inhabited parish."

Although the mutual hatred betwixt these hags and the rest of
mankind had steeled their hearts against all impressions of
festivity, this was by no means the case with the multitude at
large.  The splendour of the bridal retinue, the gay dresses, the
spirited horses, the blythesome appearance of the handsome women
and gallant gentlemen assembled upon the occasion, had the usual
effect upon the minds of the populace.  The repeated shouts of
"Ashton and Bucklaw for ever!" the discharge of pistols, guns,
and musketoons, to give what was called the bridal shot, evinced
the interest the people took in the occasion of the cavalcade, as
they accompanied it upon their return to the castle.  If there
was here and there an elder peasant or his wife who sneered at
the pomp of the upstart family, and remembered the days of the
long-descended Ravenswoods, even they, attracted by the plentiful
cheer which the castle that day afforded to rich and poor, held
their way thither, and acknowledged, notwithstanding their
prejudices, the influence of l'Amphitrion ou l'on dine.

Thus accompanied with the attendance both of rich and poor, Lucy
returned to her father's house.  Bucklaw used his privilege of
riding next to the bride, but, new to such a situation, rather
endeavoured to attract attention by the display of his person and
horsemanship, than by any attempt to address her in private.
They reached the castle in safety, amid a thousand joyous
acclamations.

It is well known that the weddings of ancient days were
celebrated with a festive publicity rejected by the delicacy of
modern times.  The marriage guests, on the present occasion, were
regaled with a banquet of unbounded profusion, the relics of
which, after the domestics had feasted in their turn, were
distributed among the shouting crowd, with as many barrels of ale
as made the hilarity without correspond to that within the
castle.  The gentlemen, according to the fashion of the times,
indulged, for the most part, in deep draughts of the richest
wines, while the ladies, prepared for the ball which always
closed a bridal entertainment, impatiently expected their
arrival in the state gallery.  At length the social party broke
up at a late hour, and the gentlemen crowded into the saloon,
where, enlivened by wine and the joyful occasion, they laid aside
their swords and handed their impatient partners to the floor.
The music already rung from the gallery, along the fretted roof
of the ancient state apartment.  According to strict etiquette,
the bride ought to have opened the ball; but Lady Ashton, making
an apology on account of her daughter's health, offered her own
hand to Bucklaw as substitute for her daughter's.
But as Lady Ashton raised her head gracefully, expecting the
strain at which she was to begin the dance, she was so much
struck by an unexpected alteration in the ornaments of the
apartment that she was surprised into an exclamation, "Who has
dared to change the pictures?"

All looked up, and those who knew the usual state of the
apartment observed, with surprise, that the picture of Sir
William Ashton's father was removed from its place, and in its
stead that of old Sir Malise Ravenswood seemed to frown wrath and
vengeance upon the party assembled below.  The exchange must have
been made while the apartments were empty, but had not been
observed until the torches and lights in the sconces were kindled
for the ball.  The haughty and heated spirits of the gentlemen
led them to demand an immediate inquiry into the cause of what
they deemed an affront to their host and to themselves; but Lady
Ashton, recovering herself, passed it over as the freak of a
crazy wench who was maintained about the castle, and whose
susceptible imagination had been observed to be much affected by
the stories which Dame Gourlay delighted to tell concerning "the
former family," so Lady Ashton named the Ravenswoods.  The
obnoxious picture was immediately removed, and the ball was
opened by Lady Ashton, with a grace and dignity which supplied
the charms of youth, and almost verified the extravagant
encomiums of the elder part of the company, who extolled her
performance as far exceeding the dancing of the rising
generation.

When Lady Ashton sat down, she was not surprised to find that
her daughter had left the apartment, and she herself
followed, eager to obviate any impression which might have been
made upon her nerves by an incident so likely to affect them as
the mysterious transposition of the portraits.  Apparently she
found her apprehensions groundless, for she returned in about an
hour, and whispered the bridegroom, who extricated himself from
the dancers, and vanished from the apartment.  The instrumets now
played their loudest strains; the dancers pursued their exercise
with all the enthusiasm inspired by youth, mirth, and high
spirits, when a cry was heard so shrill and piercing as at once
to arrest the dance and the music.  All stood motionless; but
when the yell was again repeated, Colonel Ashton snatched a torch
from the sconce, and demanding the key of the bridal-chamber from
Henry, to whom, as bride's-man, it had been entrusted, rushed
thither, followed by Sir William Ashton and Lady Ashton, and one
or two others, near relations of the family.  The bridal guests
waited their return in stupified amazement.

Arrived at the door of the apartment, Colonel Ashton knocked and
called, but received no answer except stifled groans.  He
hesitated no longer to open the door of the apartment, in which
he found opposition from something which lay against it.  When he
had succeeded in opening it, the body of the bridegroom was found
lying on the threshold of the bridal chamber, and all around was
flooded with blood.  A cry of surprise and horror was raised by
all present; and the company, excited by this new alarm, began to
rush tumultuously towards the sleeping apartment.  Colonel
Ashton, first whispering to his mother, "Search for her; she has
murdered him!" drew his sword, planted himself in the passage,
and declared he would suffer no man to pass excepting the
clergyman and a medical person present.  By their assistance,
Bucklaw, who still breathed, was raised from the ground, and
transported to another apartment, where his friends, full of
suspicion and murmuring, assembled round him to learn the opinion
of the surgeon.

In the mean while, Lady Ashton, her husband, and their
assistants in vain sought Lucy in the bridal bed and in the
chamber.  There was no private passage from the room, and they
began to think that she must have thrown herself from the window,
when one of  the company, holding his torch lower than the rest,
discovered something white in the corner of the great old-
fashioned chimney of the apartment.  Here they found the
unfortunate girl seated, or rather couched like a hare upon its
form--her head-gear dishevelled, her night-clothes torn and
dabbled with blood, her eyes glazed, and her features convulsed
into a wild paroxysm of insanity.  When she saw herself
discovered, she gibbered, made mouths, and pointed at them with
her bloody fingers, with the frantic gestures of an exulting
demoniac.

Female assistance was now hastily summoned; the unhappy bride
was overpowered, not without the use of some force.  As they
carried her over the threshold, she looked down, and
uttered the only articulate words that she had yet spoken,
saying, with a sort of grinning exultation, "So, you have ta'en
up your bonny bridegroom?"  She was, by the shuddering
assistants, conveyed to another and more retired apartment, where
she was secured as her situation required, and closely watched.
The unutterable agony of the parents, the horror and confusion of
all who were in the castle, the fury of contending passions
between the friends of the different parties--passions augmented
by previous intemperance--surpass description.

The surgeon was the first who obtained something like a patient
hearing; he pronounced that the wound of Bucklaw, though severe
and dangerous, was by no means fatal, but might readily be
rendered so by disturbance and hasty removal.  This silenced the
numerous party of Bucklaw's friends, who had previously insisted
that he should, at all rates, be transported from the castle to
the nearest of their houses.  They still demanded, however, that,
in consideration of what had happened, four of their number
should remain to watch over the sick-bed of their friend, and
that a suitable number of their domestics, well armed, should
also remain in the castle.  This condition being acceded to on
the part of Colonel Ashton and his father, the rest of the
bridegroom's friends left the castle, notwithstanding the hour
and the darkness of  the night.  The cares of the medical man
were next employed in behalf of Miss Ashton, whom he pronounced
to be in a very dangerous state.  Farther medical assistance was
immediately summoned.  All night she remained delirious.  On the
morning, she fell into a state of absolute insensibility.  The
next evening, the physicians said, would be the crisis of her
malady.  It proved so; for although she awoke from her trance
with some appearance of calmness, and suffered her night-
clothes to be changed, or put in order, yet so soon as she put
her hand to her neck, as if to search for the for the fatal flue
ribbon, a tide of recollections seemed to rush upon her, which
her mind and body were alike incapable of bearing.  Convulsion
followed convulsion, till they closed in death, without her being
able to utter a word explanatory of the fatal scene.

The provincial judge of the district arrived the day after the
young lady had expired, and executed, though with all
possible delicacy to the afflicted family, the painful duty of
inquiring into this fatal transaction.  But there occurred
nothing to explain the general hypothesis that the bride, in a
sudden fit of insanity, had stabbed the bridegroom at the
threshold of the apartment.  The fatal weapon was found in the
chamber smeared with blood.  It was the same piniard which Henry
should have worn on the widding-day, and the unhappy sister had
probably contrived to secrete on the preceding evening, when it
had been shown to her among other articles of preparation for the
wedding.

The friends of Bucklaw expected that on his recovery he would
throw some light upon this dark story, and eagerly pressed him
with inquiries, which for some time he evaded under pretext of
weakness.  When, however, he had been transported to his own
house, and was considered in a state of convalescence, he
assembled those persons, both male and female, who had considered
themselves as entitled to press him on this subject, and returned
them thanks for the interest they had exhibited in his behalf,
and their offers of adherence and support.  "I wish you all," he
said, "my friends, to understand, however, that I have neither
story to tell nor injuries to avenge.  If a lady shall question
me henceforward upon the incident of that unhappy night, I shall
remain silent, and in future consider her as one who has shown
herself desirous to break of her friendship with me; in a word, I
will never speak to her again.  But if a gentleman shall ask me
the same question, I shall regard the incivility as equivalent to
an invitation to meet him in the Duke's Walk, and I expect that
he will rule himself accordingly."

A declaration so decisive admitted no commentary; and it was
soon after seen that Bucklaw had arisen from the bed of sickness
a sadder and a wiser man than he had hitherto shown himself.  He
dismissed Craigengelt from his society, but not without such a
provision as, if well employed, might secure him against
indigence and against temptation.
Bucklaw afterwards went abroad, and never returned to Scotland;
nor was he known ever to hint at the circumstances attending his
fatal marriage.  By many readers this may be deemed overstrained,
romantic, and composed by the wild imagination of an author
desirous of gratifying the popular appetite for the horrible; but
those who are read in the private family history of Scotland
during the period in which the scene is laid, will readily
discover, through the disguise of borrowed names and added
incidents, the leading particulars of AN OWER TRUE TALE.



CHAPTER XXXV.

Whose mind's so marbled, and his heart so hard,
That would not, when this huge mishap was heard,
To th' utmost note of sorrow set their song,
To see a gallant, with so great a grace,
So suddenly unthought on, so o'erthrown,
And so to perish, in so poor a place,
By too rash riding in a ground unknown!

POEM, IN NISBET'S Heraldry, vol. ii.


WE have anticipated the course of time to mention Bucklaw's
recovery and fate, that we might not interrupt the detail of
events which succeeded the funeral of the unfortunate Lucy
Ashton.  This melancholy ceremony was performed in the misty dawn
of an autumnal morning, with such moderate attendance and
ceremony as could not possibly be dispensed with.  A very few of
the nearest relations attended her body to the same churchyard to
which she had so lately been led as a bride, with as little free
will, perhaps, as could be now testified by her lifeless and
passive remains.  An aisle adjacent to the church had been fitted
up by Sir William Ashton as a family cemetery; and here, in a
coffin bearing neither name nor date, were consigned to dust the
remains of what was once lovely, beautiful, and innocent, though
exasperated to frenzy by a long tract of unremitting persecution.

While the mourners were busy in the vault, the three village
hags, who, notwithstanding the unwonted earliness of the hour,
had snuffed the carrion like vultures, were seated on the
"through-stane," and engaged in their wonted unhallowed
conference.

"Did not I say," said Dame Gourlay, "that the braw bridal would
be followed by as braw a funeral?"

"I think," answered Dame Winnie, "there's little bravery at it:
neither meat nor drink, and just a wheen silver tippences to the
poor folk; it was little worth while to come sae far a road for
sae sma' profit, and us sae frail."

"Out, wretch!" replied Dame Gourlay, "can a' the dainties they
could gie us be half sae sweet as this hour's vengeance?  There
they are that were capering on their prancing nags four days
since, and they are now ganging as dreigh and sober as oursells
the day.  They were a' glistening wi' gowd and silver; they're
now as black as the crook.  And Miss Lucy Ashton, that grudged
when an honest woman came near her--a taid may sit on her coffin
that day, and she can never scunner when he croaks.  And Lady
Ashton has hell-fire burning in her breast by this time; and Sir
William, wi' his gibbets, and his faggots, and his chains, how
likes he the witcheries of his ain dwelling-house?"

"And is it true, then," mumbled the paralytic wretch, "that the
bride was trailed out of her bed and up the chimly by evil
spirits, and that the bridegroom's face was wrung round ahint
him?"

"Ye needna care wha did it, or how it was done," said Aislie
Gourlay; "but I'll uphaud it for nae stickit job, and that the
lairds and leddies ken weel this day."

"And was it true," said Annie Winnie, "sin ye ken sae muckle
about it, that the picture of auld Sir Malise Ravenswood came
down on the ha' floor, and led out the brawl before them a'?"

"Na," said Ailsie; "but into the ha' came the picture--and I ken
weel how it came there--to gie them a warning that pride wad get
a fa'.  But there's as queer a ploy, cummers, as ony o' thae,
that's gaun on even now in the burial vault yonder: ye saw twall
mourners, wi' crape and cloak, gang down the steps pair and
pair!"

"What should ail us to see them?" said the one old woman.

"I counted them," said the other, with the eagerness of a person
to whom the spectacle had afforded too much interest to be
viewed with indifference.

"But ye did not see," said Ailsie, exulting in her superior
observation, "that there's a thirteenth amang them that they ken
naething about; and, if auld freits say true, there's ane o' that
company that'll no be lang for this warld.   But come awa'
cummers; if we bide here, I'se warrant we get the wyte o'
whatever ill comes of it, and that gude will come of it nane o'
them need ever think to see."

And thus, croaking like the ravens when they anticipate
pestilence, the ill-boding sibyls withdrew from the churchyard.

In fact, the mourners, when the service of interment was ended,
discovered that there was among them one more than the invited
number, and the remark was communicated in whispers to each
other.  The suspicion fell upon a figure which, muffled in the
same deep mourning with the others, was reclined, almost in a
state of insensibility, against one of the pillars of the
sepulchral vault.  The relatives of the Ashton family were
expressing in whispers their surprise and displeasure at the
intrusion, when they were interrupted by Colonel Ashton, who, in
his father's absence, acted as principal mourner.  "I know," he
said in a whisper, "who this person is, he has, or shall soon
have, as deep cause of mourning as ourselves; leave me to deal
with him, and do not disturb the ceremony by unnecessary
exposure."  So saying, he separated himself from the group of his
relations, and taking the unknown mourner by the cloak, he said
to him, in a tone of suppressed emotion, "Follow me."

The stranger, as if starting from a trance at the sound of his
voice, mechanically obeyed, and they ascended the broken ruinous
stair which led from the sepulchre into the churchyard.  The
other mourners followed, but remained grouped together at the
door of the vault, watching with anxiety the motions of Colonel
Ashton and the stranger, who now appeared to be in close
conference beneath the shade of a yew-tree, in the most remote
part of the burial-ground.

To this sequestered spot Colonel Ashton had guided the stranger,
and then turning round, addressed him in a stern and composed
tone.--"I cannot doubt that I speak to the Master of
Ravenswood?"  No answer was returned.  "I cannot doubt," resumed
the Colonel, trembling with rising passion, "that I speak to the
murderer of my sister!"

"You have named me but too truly," said Ravenswood, in a hollow
and tremulous voice.

"If you repent what you have done," said the Colonel, "may your
penitence avail you before God; with me it shall serve you
nothing.  Here," he said, giving a paper, "is the measure of my
sword, and a memorandum of the time and place of meeting.
Sunrise to-morrow morning, on the links to the east of Wolf's
Hope."

The Master of Ravenswood held the paper in his hand, and seemed
irresolute.  At length he spoke--"Do not," he said, "urge to
farther desperation a wretch who is already desperate.  Enjoy
your life while you can, and let me seek my death from another."

"That you never, never shall!" said Douglas Ashton.  "You shall
die by my hand, or you shall complete the ruin of my family by
taking my life.  If you refuse my open challenge, there is no
advantage I will not take of you, no indignity with which I will
not load you, until the very name of Ravenswood shall be the sign
of everything that is dishonourable, as it is already of all
that is villainous."

"That it shall never be," said Ravenswood, fiercely; "if I am
the last who must bear it, I owe it to those who once owned it
that the name shall be extinguished without infamy.  I accept
your challenge, time, and place of meeting.  We meet, I presume,
alone?"

"Alone we meet," said Colonel Ashton, "and alone will the
survivor of us return from that place of rendezvous."

"Then God have mercy on the soul of him who falls!" said
Ravenswood.

"So be it!" said Colonel Ashton; "so far can my charity reach
even for the man I hate most deadly, and with the deepest
reason.  Now, break off, for we shall be interrupted.  The links
by the sea-shore to the east of Wolf's Hope; the hour, sunrise;
our swords our only weapons."

"Enough," said the Master, "I will not fail you."

They separated; Colonel Ashton joining the rest of the mourners,
and the Master of Ravenswood taking his horse, which was tied to
a tree behind the church.  Colonel Ashton returned to the castle
with the funeral guests, but found a pretext for detaching
himself from them in the evening, when, changing his dress to a
riding-habit, he rode to Wolf's Hope, that night, and took up his
abode in the little inn, in order that he might be ready for his
rendezvous in the morning.

It is not known how the Master of Ravenswood disposed of the
rest of that unhappy day.  Late at night, however, he arrived at
Wolf's Crag, and aroused his old domestic, Caleb Balderstone, who
had ceased to expect his return.  Confused and flying rumours of
the late tragical death of Miss Ashton, and of its mysterious
cause, had already reached the old man, who was filled with the
utmost anxiety, on account of the probable effect these events
might produce upon the mind of his master.

The conduct of Ravenswood did not alleviate his
apprehensions.  To the butler's trembling entreaties that he
would take some refreshment, he at first returned no answer, and
then suddenly and fiercely demanding wine, he drank, contrary to
his habits, a very large draught.  Seeing that his master would
eat nothing, the old man affectionately entreated that he would
permit him to light him to his chamber.  It was not until the
request was three or four times repeated that Ravenswood made a
mute sign of compliance.  But when Balderstone conducted him to
an apartment which had been comfortably fitted up, and which,
since his return, he had usually occupied, Ravenswood stopped
short on the threshold.

"Not here," said he, sternly; "show me the room in which my
father died; the room in which SHE slept the night the were at
the castle."

"Who, sir?" said Caleb, too terrified to preserve his presence
of mind.

"SHE, Lucy Ashton!  Would you kill me, old man, by forcing me to
repeat her name?"

Caleb would have said something of the disrepair of the chamber,
but was silenced by the irritable impatience which was expressed
in his master's countenance; he lighted the way
trembling and in silence, placed the lamp on the table of the
deserted room, and was about to attempt some arrangement of the
bed, when his master big him begone in a tone that admitted of
no delay.  The old man retired, not to rest, but to prayer; and
from time to time crept to the door of the apartment, in order to
find out whether Ravenswood had gone to repose.  His measured
heavy step upon the floor was only interrupted by deep groans;
and the repeated stamps of the heel of his heavy boot intimated
too clearly that the wretched inmate was abandoning himself at
such moments to paroxysms of uncontrolled agony.  The old man
thought that the mroning, for which he longed, would never have
dawned; but time, whose course rolls on with equal current,
however it may seem more rapid or more slow to mortal
apprehension, brought the dawn at last, and spread a ruddy light
on the broad verge of the glistening ocean.  It was early in
November, and the weather was serene for the season of the year.
But an easterly wind had prevailed during the night, and the
advancing tide rolled nearer than usual to the foot of the crags
on which the castle was founded.

With the first peep of light, Caleb Balderstone again resorted
to the door of Ravenswood's sleeping apartment, through a chink
of which he observed him engaged in measuring the length of two
or three swords which lay in a closet adjoining to the apartment.
He muttered to himself, as he selected one of these weapons: "It
is shorter: let him have this advantage, as he has every other."

Caleb Balderstone knew too well, from what he witnessed, upon
what enterprise his master was bound, and how vain all
interference on his part must necessarily prove.  He had but
time to retreat from the door, so nearly was he surprised by his
master suddenly coming out and descending to the stables.  The
faithful domestic followed; and from the dishevelled appearance
of his master's dress, and his ghastly looks, was confirmed in
his conjecture that he had passed the night without sleep or
repose.  He found him busily engaged in saddling his horse, a
service from which Caleb, though with faltering voice and
trembling hands, offered to relieve him.  Ravenswood rejected his
assistance by a mute sign, and having led the animal into the
court, was just about to mount him, when the old domestic's fear
giving way to the strong attachment which was the principal
passion of his mind, he flung himself suddenly at Ravenswood's
feet, and clasped his knees, while he exclaimed: "Oh, sir! oh,
master! kill me if you will, but do not go out on this dreadful
errand!  Oh! my dear master, wait but this day; the Marquis of A-
--- comes to-morrow, and a' will be remedied."

"You have no longer a master, Caleb," said Ravenswood,
endeavouring to extricate himself; "why, old man, would you cling
to a falling tower?"

"But I HAVE a master," cried Caleb, still holding him fast,
"while the heir of Ravenswood breathes.  I am but a
servant; but I was born your father's--your grandfather's
servant.  I was born for the family--I have lived for them--I
would die for them!  Stay but at home, and all will be well!"

"Well, fool! well!" said Ravenswood.  "Vain old man, nothing
hereafter in life will be well with me, and happiest is the hour
that shall soonest close it!"

So saying, he extricated himself from the old man's hold, threw
himself on his horse, and rode out the gate; but instantly
turning back, he threw towards Caleb, who hastened to meet him, a
heavy purse of gold.

"Caleb!" he said, with a ghastly smile, "I make you my
executor"; and again turning his bridle, he resumed his course
down the hill.

The gold fell unheeded on the pavement, for the old man ran to
observe the course which was taken by his master, who turned to
the left down a small and broken path, which gained the sea-
shore through a cleft in the rock, and led to a sort of cove
where, in former times, the boats of the castle were wont to be
moored.  Observing him take this course, Caleb hastened to the
eastern battlement, which commanded the prospect of the whole
sands, very near as far as the village of Wolf's Hope.  He could
easily see his master riding in that direction, as fast as the
horse could carry him.  The prophecy at once rushed on
Balderstone's mind, that the Lord of Ravenswood should perish on
the Kelpie's flow, which lay half-way betwixt the Tower and the
links, or sand knolls, to the northward of Wolf's Hope.  He saw
him according reach the fatal spot; but he never saw him pass
further.



Colonel Ashton, frantic for revenge, was already in the field,
pacing the turf with eagerness, and looking with
impatience towards the Tower for the arrival of his antagonist.
The sun had now risen, and showed its broad disk above the
eastern sea, so that he could easily discern the horseman who
rode towards him with speed which argued impatience equal to his
own.  At once the figure became invisible, as if it had melted
into the air.  He rubbed his eyes, as if he had witnessed an
apparition, and then hastened to the spot, near which he was met
by Balderstone, who came from the opposite direction.  No trace
whatever o horse or rider could be discerned; it only appeared
that the late winds and high tides had greatly extended the usual
bounds of the quicksand, and that the unfortunate horseman, as
appeared from the hoof-tracks, in his precipitate haste, had not
attended to keep on the firm sands on the foot of the rock, but
had taken the shortest and most dangerous course.  One only
vestige of his fate appeared.  A large sable feather had been
detached from his hat, and the rippling waves of the rising tide
wafted it to Caleb's feet.  The old man took it up, dried it, and
placed it in his bosom.

The inhabitants of Wolf's Hope were now alarmed, and crowded to
the place, some on shore, and some in boats, but their search
availed nothing.  The tenacious depths of the quicksand, as is
usual in such cases, retained its prey.



Our tale draws to a conclusion.  The Marquis of A----, alarmed
at the frightful reports that were current, and anxious for his
kinsman's safety, arrived on the subsequent day to mourn his
loss; and, after renewing in vain a search for the body,
returned, to forget what had happened amid the bustle of politics
and state affairs.

Not so Caleb Balderstone.  If wordly profit could have consoled
the old man, his age was better provided for than his earlier
years had ever been; but life had lost to him its salt and its
savour.  His whole course of ideas, his feelings, whether of
pride or of apprehension, of pleasure or of pain, had all arisen
from its close connexion with the family which was now
extinguished.  He held up his head no longer, forsook all his
usual haunts and occupations, and seemed only to find pleasure in
moping about those apartments in the old castle which the Master
of Ravenswood had last inhabited.  He ate without refreshment,
and slumbered without repose; and, with a fidelity sometimes
displayed by the canine race,  but seldom by human beings, he
pined and died within a year after the catastrophe which we have
narrated.

The family of Ashton did not long survive that of
Ravenswood.  Sir William Ashton outlived his eldest son, the
Colonel, who was slain in a duel in Flanders; and Henry, by whom
he was succeeded, died unmarried.  Lady Ashton lived to the verge
of extreme old age, the only survivor of the group of unhappy
persons whose misfortunes were owing to her implacability.  That
she might internally feel compunction, and reconcile herself with
Heaven, whom she had offended, we will not, and we dare not,
deny; but to those around her she did not evince the slightest
symptom either of repentance or remorse.  In all external
appearance she bore the same bold, haughty, unbending character
which she had displayed before these unhappy events.  A splendid
marble monument records her name, titles, and virtues, while her
victims remain undistinguished by tomb or epitath.





END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG ETEXT OF THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR