LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 MRS. EDWIN CORLE 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MRS. HORACE ARMSTRONG

 
 i'i^lkhi 
 
 LUCT AT THE FOUKTAIN.
 
 The /Bride of Lammermoor 
 AND Keepsake Stories and 
 Chronicle of Canongate 
 
 By SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 R. F. FENNO & COMPANY. PUB- 
 LISHERS : 9 & II E. SIXTEENTH 
 STREET : NEW YORK CITY : 1900 
 
 'i//^
 
 iite<0)i>¥<SMOM= mm 
 
 The Author, on a former occasion, declined giving the real 
 source from which he drew the tragic subject of this history,* be- 
 cause, though occurring at a distant period, it might possibly be 
 unpleasing to the feelings of the descendants of the parties. But 
 as he finds an account of the circumstances given in the Notes to 
 Law's Memorials,! by his ingenious friend Charles Kirkpatrick 
 Sharpe, Esq., and also indicated in his reprint of the Rev, Mr. 
 Symson's Poems, appended to the Description of Galloway, J as 
 the original of the Bride of Lammermoor, the Author feels himself 
 now at liberty to tell the tale as he had it from connections of his 
 own, who lived very near the period, and were closely related to 
 the family of the Bride. 
 
 It is well known that the family of Dnlrymplp, which has pro- 
 duced within the space of two centuries as many men of talent, 
 civil and military, and of literary, political, and professional emi- 
 nence, as any bouse in Scotland, first rose into distinction in the 
 person of James Dalrympic, one of the most eminent lawyers that 
 ever lived, though the labors of his powerful mind were unhappily 
 exercised on a subject so limited as Scottish Jurisprudence, on 
 which he has composed an admirable work. 
 
 He married Margaret, daughter to Ross of Balniel, with whom 
 he obtained a considerable estate. She was an able, politic and 
 high-minded woman, so successful in what she undertook, chat the 
 vulgar, no way partial to her husband or her family, imputed her 
 
 * Note A. Tlio Family of Stair, 
 t Law's Memorials, 4to, 1818, p. 226. J See note to p. 7.
 
 iv WAJ'ERLEY NOVELS. 
 
 success to necromancy. According to the popular belief, this 
 Dame Margaret purchased the temporal prosperity of her family 
 from the Master whom she served, under a singular condition, 
 which is thus narrated by the historian of her grandson, the great 
 Earl of Stair : " She lived to a great age, and at her death desired 
 that she might not be put under ground, but that her coffin should 
 be placed upright on one end of it, promising, that while she re- 
 mained in that situation, the Dalrymples should continue in pros- 
 perity. What was the old lady's motive for such a request, or 
 whether she really made such a promise, I cannot take upon me 
 to determine ; but it is certain her coffin stands upright in the 
 aisle of the church of Kirkliston, the burial-place of the family." * 
 The talents of this accomplished race were suthcient to have ac- 
 counted for the dignities which many members of the family at- 
 tained, without any supernatural assistance. But their extraor- 
 dinary prosperity was attended by some equally singular family 
 misfortunes, of which that which befell their eldest daughter was 
 at once unaccountable and melancholy. 
 
 Miss Janet Dalrymple, daughter of the first Lord Stair, and 
 Dame Margaret Ross, had engaged herself without the knowledge 
 of her parents to the Lord Rutherford, who was not acceptable to 
 them either on account of his political principles, or his want of 
 fortune. The young couple broke a piece of gold together, and 
 pledged their troth in the most solemn manner ; and it is said the 
 young lady imprecated dreadful evils on herself should she break 
 her plighted faith. Shortly after, a suitor who was favored by 
 Lord Stair, and still more so by his lady, paid his addresses to 
 Miss Dalrymple. The young lady refused the proposal, and being 
 pressed on the subject, confessed her secret engagement. Lady 
 Stair, a woman accustomed to universal submission (for even her 
 husband did not dare to contradict her), treated this objection as 
 a trifle, and insisted upon her daughter yielding her consent to 
 marry the new suitor, David Dunbar, son and heir of David Dun- 
 bar of Baldoon, in Wigtonshire. The first lover, a man of very 
 high spirit, then interfered by letter, and insisted on the right he 
 had acquired by his troth plighted with the young lady. Lady 
 Stair sent him for answer, that her daughter, sensible of her un- 
 dutiful behavior in entering into a contract unsanctioned by her 
 parents, had retracted her unlawful vow, and now refused to fulfil 
 her engagement with him. 
 
 The lover, in return, declined positively to receive such an an- 
 swer from anyone but his mistress in person ; and as she had to 
 deal with a man who was both of a most determined character, and 
 of too high condition to be trifled with. Lady Stair was obliged to 
 consent to an interview between Lord Rutherford and her daugh- 
 ter. But she took care to be present in person, and argued the 
 point with the disappointed and incensed lover with pertinacity 
 equal to his own. She particalarly insisted on the Levitical law, 
 which declares that a woman shall be free of a vow which her pa- 
 
 * Memoirs of John Earl of Stair, by an Impartial Hand London, printed 
 for C. Cobbet, p. 7.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE BKIDE OF lAMMERMOOR. v 
 
 rents dissent from. This is the passage of Scripture she founded 
 on : — 
 
 " If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind 
 his soul with a bond ; he shall not break his word, he shall do ac- 
 cording to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. 
 
 " If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself 
 by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth ; 
 
 " And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she 
 hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her : 
 then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath 
 bound her soul shall stand. 
 
 " But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth ; not 
 any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her 
 soul, shall stand : and the Lord shall forgive her, because her 
 father disallowed her." — Numbers xxx. 2, 3, 4, 5. 
 
 While the mother insisted on these topics, the lover in vain 
 conjured the daughter to declare her own opinion and feelings. 
 She remained totally overwhelmed, as it seemed — mute, pale, and 
 motionless as a statue. Only at her mother's command, sternly 
 uttered, she summoned strength enough to restore to her plighted 
 suitor the piece of broken gold, which was the emblem of her troth. 
 
 On this he burst forth into a tremendous passion, took leave of 
 the mother with maledictions, and as he left the apartment, 
 turned back to say to his weak, if not fickle mistress, " For, you, 
 madam, you will be a world's wonder ; " a phrase by which some 
 remarkable degree of calamity is usually implied. He went 
 abroad, and returned not again. If the last Lord Rutherford was 
 the unfortunate party, he must have been the third who bore that 
 title, and who died in 1685. 
 
 The marriage betwixt Janet Dalrymple and David Dunbar of 
 Baldoon now went forward, the bride showing no repugnance, but 
 being absolutely passive in everything her mother commanded or 
 advised. On the day of the marriage, which, as was then usual, 
 was celebrated by a great assemblage of friends and relations, she 
 was the same — sad, silent, and resigned, as it seemed, to her 
 destiny. A lady, very nearly connected with the family, told the 
 author that she had conversed on the subject with one of the 
 brothers of the bride, a mere lad at the time, who had ridden be- 
 fore his sister to church. He said her hand, which lay on his as 
 she held her arm round his waist, was as cold and damp as mar- 
 ble. But full of his new dress, and the part he acted in the pro- 
 cession, the circumstance, which he long afterward remembered 
 with bitter sorrow and compunction, made no impression on him 
 at the time. 
 
 The bridal feast was followed by dancing ; the bride and bride- 
 groom retired as usual, when of a sudden the most wild and pierc- 
 ing cries were heard from the nuptial chamber. It was then the 
 custom, to prevent any coarse pleasantry which old times admit- 
 ted, that the key of the nuptial chamber should be intrusted to 
 the brideman. He was called upon but refused at first to give it 
 up, till the shrieks became so hideous that he was compelled to
 
 vi INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF I.AMMERMOOR. 
 
 hasten with others to learn the cause. On opening the door, they 
 found the bridegroom lying across the threshold, dreadfully 
 wounded, and streaming with blood. The bride was then sought 
 for : She was found in the corner of the large chimney, having no 
 covering save her shift, and that dabbled in gore. There she sat 
 grinning at them, mopping and mowing, as I heard the expressioii 
 used ; in a word, absolutely insane. The only words she spoke 
 were, "Take up your bonny bridegroom." She survived this 
 horrible scene little more than a fortnight, having been married on 
 the 24th of August, and dying on the 12th of September, i66g. 
 
 The unfortunate Baldoon recovered from his wounds, but 
 sternly prohibited all inquiries respecting the manner in which he 
 had received them. If a lady, he said, asked him any questions 
 upon the subject, he would neither answer her nor speak to her 
 again while he lived ; if a gentleman, he would consider it as a 
 mortal affront, and demand satisfaction as having received such. 
 He did not very long survive the dreadful catastrophe, having met 
 with a fatal injury by a fall from his horse, as he rode between 
 Leith and Holyrood House, of which he died the next day, 28th 
 March, 1682. Thus a few years removed all the principal actors 
 in this frightful tragedy. It was difficult at that time to become 
 acquainted with the history of a Scottish family above the lower 
 rank ; and strange things sometimes took place there, into which 
 even the law did not scrupulously inquire. 
 
 The credulous Mr. Law says, generally, that the Lord Presi- 
 dent Stair had a daughter, who " being married, the night she 
 was bride in (that is, bedded bride), was taken from her bride- 
 groom and harlcd (dragged) through the house (by spirits we are 
 given to understand), and soon afterward died. Another daughter," 
 he says, " was possessed by an evil spirit." 
 
 My friend, Mr. Sharpe, gives another edition of the tale. Ac- 
 cording to his information, it was the bridegroom who wounded 
 the bride. The marriage, according to this account, had been 
 against her mother's inclination, who had given her consent in 
 these ominous words ; " You may marry him, but soon shall you 
 repent it." 
 
 I find still another account darkly insinuated in some highly 
 scurrilous and abusive verses, of which I have an original copy. 
 They are docketed as being written " Upon the late Viscount 
 Stair and his family, by Sir William Hamilton of Whitelaw. The 
 marginals by William Dunlop, writer in Edinburgh, a son of the 
 Laird of Househill, and nephew to the said Sir William Hamilton." 
 There was a bitter and personal quarrel and rivalry betwixt the 
 author of this libel, a name which it richly deserves, and Lord 
 President Stair ; and the lampoon, which is written with much 
 more malice than art, bears the following motto : 
 
 Stair's neck, mind, wife, sons, grandson, and the rest. 
 Are wry, false, witch, pests, parricide, possessed. 
 
 This maligant satirist, who calls up all the misfortunes of the 
 family, does not forget the fatal bridal of Baldoon. He seems.
 
 INTRODUCTIO.V TO THE BKIDf'l OF LAMMERMOOR. vii 
 
 though his verses are as obscure as unpoetical, to intimate, that 
 the violence done to the bridegroom was by the intervention of 
 the foul fiend, to whom the young lady had resigned herself, in 
 case she should break her contract with her first lover. His hy- 
 pothesis is inconsistent with the account given in the note upon 
 Law's Memorials, but easily reconcilable to the family tradition. 
 
 In al Stair's offspring we no difference know, 
 
 They doe the females as the males bestow ; 
 
 So he ofs daughter's marriage gave the ward, 
 
 Like a true vassal, to Glenluce's Laird ; 
 
 He knew what she did to her suitor plight, 
 
 If she her faith to Rutherfurd should slight, 
 
 Which, like his own, for greed he broke outright. 
 
 Nick did Baldoon's posterior right deride, 
 
 And as first substitute, did seize the bride ; 
 
 Whate'er he to his mistress did or said, 
 
 He drew the bridegroom from the nuptial bed. 
 
 Into the chimney did so his rival maul. 
 
 His bruised bones ne'er were cured but by the fall.* 
 
 One of the marginal notes ascribed to William Dunlop applies 
 to the above lines. "She had betrothed herself to Lord Ruther- 
 foord under horrid imprecations, and afterward married Baldoon, 
 his nevoy, and her mother was the cause of her breach of faith." 
 
 The same tragedy is alluded to in the following couplet and 
 note : — 
 
 What train of curses that base brood pursues. 
 When the young nephew weds old uncle's spouse. 
 
 The note on the word uncle explains it as meaning " Ruther- 
 foord, who should have married the Lady Baldoon, was Baldoon's 
 uncle." The poetry of this satire on Lord Stair and his family 
 was, as already noticed, written by Sir William Hamilton of 
 Whitelawjt a rival of Lord Stair for the situation of President of 
 the Court of Session ; a person much inferior to that great lawyer 
 in talents, and equally ill-treated by the calumny or just satire of 
 his contemporaries, as an unjust and partial judge. Some of the 
 notes are by that curious and laborious antiquary, Robert Milne, 
 who, as a virulent Jacobite, willingly knt a hand to blacken the 
 family of Stair. J 
 
 * The fall from his horse, by which he was killed. 
 
 t I have compared the satire, which occurs in the first volume of the cu- 
 rious little collection called a Book of Scottish Pasquils, 1827, with that which 
 has a more full text, and more extended notes, and which is in my own pos- 
 session, by gift of Thomas Thomson, Esq., Register-Depute. In the second 
 Book of Pasquils, p. 72, is a most abusive epitaph on Sir James Hamilton of 
 Whitelaw. 
 
 X [There appeared in the F.diubu>-i;h Evenins^ Post of October 10, 1840 
 (and afterward in the Lives of the Lindsays, p. 4.5Q), n letter dated Sejjtem- 
 bersth, 1823, addressed by Sir J. Home Dalrymple Elphinslone, Bart., to 
 the late Sir James Stewart Denham of Coltness. Bait , hnth des( endanfs of 
 Lord President Stair, from which it appears that, according to the traditional 
 creed of the Dalrymple family, the Bride's unhappy lover, Lord Ruther-
 
 viii INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Another poet of the period, with a very different purpose, has 
 left ."xn elegy, in which he darkly hints at and bemoans the fate of 
 the ill-starred young person, whose very uncommon calamity 
 Whitelaw, Dunlop, and Milne, thought a fitting subject for buf- 
 foonery and ribaldry. This bard of milder mood was Andrew 
 Symson, before the Revolution minister of Kirkinner, in Gallo- 
 way, and, after his expulsion as an Episcopalian, following the 
 humble occupation of a printer in Edinburgh. He furnished the 
 family of Baldoon, with which he appears to have been intimate, 
 with an elegy on the tragic event in their family. In this piece he 
 treats the mournful occasion of the bride's death with mysterious 
 solemnity. 
 
 The verses bear this title — " On the unexpected death of the 
 virtuous Lady Mrs. Janet Dalrymple, Lady Baldoon, younger," 
 and afford us the precise dates of the catastrophe, which could 
 not otherwise have been easily ascertained. " Nupta August 12. 
 Domum Ducta August 24. Obiit September 12. Scpult. Sep- 
 tember 30,1669." The form of the elegy is a dialogue betwixt a 
 passenger and a domestic servant. The first, recollecting that he 
 had passed that way lately, and seen all around enlivened by the 
 appearance of mirth and festivity, is desirous to know what had 
 changed so gay a scene into mourning. We preserve the reply of 
 the servant as a specimen of Mr. Symson's verses, which are not 
 of the first quality : — 
 
 -Sir, 'tis truth you've told, 
 
 We did enjoy great mirth ; but now, ah me ! 
 
 Our joyful song's turn'd loan elegie. 
 
 A virtuous lady, not long since a bride. 
 
 Was to a hopeful plant by marriage tied. 
 
 And brought home hither. We did all rejoice, 
 
 Even for her sake. Rut presently our voice 
 
 Was turn'd to mourning for that little time 
 
 That she'd enjoyed : She waned in her prime, 
 
 For Atropos, with her impartial knife. 
 
 Soon cut her thread, and therewithal her life ; 
 
 And for the time we may it well remember, 
 
 It being in unfortunate September ; 
 
 Where we must leave her till the resurrection, 
 
 'Tis then the Saints enjoy their full perfection.* 
 
 Mr. Symson also poured forth his elegiac strains upon the fate 
 of the widowed bridegroom, on which subject, after a long and 
 querulous effusion, the poet arrives at the sound conclusion, that 
 if Baldoon had walked on foot, which it seems was his general 
 custom, he would have escaped perishing by a fall from horse- 
 back. As the work in which it occurs is so scarce as almost to be 
 
 ford, had found means to be secreted, in the nuptial chamber, and that the 
 wound of the bridegroom. Sir David Dunbar of Baldoon, was inflicted by 
 kutherford s hand.— J. G. LoCKiiART.] 
 
 * This elegy is reprinted in the apj^endix to a topographical work by the 
 same author, entitled A Large Description of Galloway, by Andrew Symson, 
 Minister of Kirkinner (1684), 8vo ; W. and C. 'I'ait, I'.dinburgh, 1823. The 
 reverend gentleman's elegies are bound up with the Tripatriarchicon (1705) 
 ^ religious poem from the Biblicial History, by the same author.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. ix 
 
 unique, and as it gives us the most full account of one of the ac- 
 tors in this tragic tale which we have rehearsed, we will, at the 
 risk of being tedious, insert some short specimens of Mr. Sym- 
 son's composition. It is entitled — 
 
 " A funeral Elegie, occasioned by the sad and much lamented 
 death of that worthily respected and very much accomplished 
 gentleman, David Dunbar, younger of Baldoon, only son and ap- 
 parent heir to the right woi'shipful Sir David Dunbar of baldoon, 
 Knight Baronet. He departed this life on March 28, 1682, having 
 received a bruise by a fall, as he was riding the day preceding 
 betwixt Leith and Holy-Rood-Housc ; and was honorably interred 
 in the Abbey church of Holy-Rood-House, on April 4, 1682." 
 
 Men might, and very justly too, conclude 
 
 Me guilty of the worst ingratitude. 
 
 Should I be silent, or should I forbear 
 
 At this sad accident to shed a tear ; 
 
 A tear 1 said I ? ah ! that's a petit thing, 
 
 A very lean, slight, slender offering. 
 
 Too mean, I'm sure, for me, wherewith t'attend 
 
 The unexpected funeral of my friend — 
 
 A glass of briny tears charged up to th' brim 
 
 Would be too few for me to shed for him. 
 
 The poet proceeds to state his intimacy with the deceased, and 
 the constancy of the young man's attendance on public worship, 
 which was regular, and had such effect upon two or three others 
 that were influenced by his example, 
 
 So that my Muse 'gainst Priscian avers, 
 He, only he, were my parishioners ; 
 Yea, and my only hearers. 
 
 He then describes the deceased in person and manners, from 
 which it appears that more accomplishments were expected in the 
 composition of a fine gentleman in ancient than modern times : — 
 
 His body, though not very large or tall. 
 
 Was sprightly, active, yea, and strong withal. 
 
 His constitution was, if riglu I've guessed. 
 
 Blood mixt with choler, said to be the best. 
 
 In's gesture, converse, speech, discourse, attire, 
 
 He practis'd that which wise men still admire. 
 
 Commend, and recommend. What's that ? you'll say; 
 
 'Tis this : He ever choos'd the middle way 
 
 'Twixt both th' extremes. Almost in ev'ry thing 
 
 He did the like, 'tis worth our noticing : 
 
 Sparing, yet not a niggard ; liberal, 
 
 And yet not lavish or a prodigal. 
 
 As knowing when to spend and when to spare ; 
 
 And that's a lesson which not many are 
 
 Acquainted with. He bashful was, yet daring 
 
 When he saw cause, and yet therein hut sparing ; 
 
 Familiar, yet not common, for he knew 
 
 To condes'-end, and keep his distance ton. 
 
 He us'd, and that most commonly, to go 
 
 On foot ; I wish that he had still done so.
 
 X INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Th' affairs of court were unto him well known, 
 
 And yet meanwhile he slighted not his own ; 
 
 He knew full well how to behave at court, 
 
 And yet but seldonie did thereto resort ; 
 
 But lov'd the country life, choos'd to inure 
 
 Himself to past'rage and agriculture: 
 
 Proving, improving, ditching, trenching, draining, 
 
 Viewing, reviewing, and by those means gaining : 
 
 Planting, transplanting, levelling, erecting 
 
 Walls, chambiirs, houses, terraces ; projecting 
 
 Now this, now that device, this draught, that measure, 
 
 That might advanc e his profit with his pleasure. 
 
 Quick in his bargains, honest in commerce. 
 
 Just in his dealings, being much averse 
 
 From quirks of law, still ready to refer 
 
 His cause t' an honest country arbiter. 
 
 He was acquainted with cosmography, 
 
 Arithmetic, and modern history ; 
 
 With architecture and such arts as these, 
 
 Which I may call specifick sciences 
 
 Fit for a gentleman ; and surely he 
 
 That knows them not, at least in some degree, 
 
 May brook the title, but he wants the thing. 
 
 Is but a shadow scarce worth noticing. 
 
 He learned the French, be't spoken to his praise, 
 
 In very little more than fourty days. 
 
 Then conies the full burst of woe, in which, instead of saying 
 much himself, the poet informs us what the ancients would have 
 said on such an occasion : 
 
 A heathen poet, at the news, no doubt, 
 
 Would have exclaimed, and furiously cry'd out 
 
 Against the fates, the destinies, and Starrs, 
 
 What ! this the effect of planetarie warrs ! 
 
 We might have seen him rage ;ind rave, yea worse, 
 
 'Tis very like we might have heard him curse 
 
 The year, the month, the day, the hour, the place, 
 
 The company, the wager, and the race ; 
 
 Decry all recreations with the names 
 
 Of Isthmian, Pythian, and C)lympic games ; 
 
 Exclaim against them all, both old and new, 
 
 Both the Nemajan and the Lethasan too: 
 
 Adjudge all persons under highest pain 
 
 Always to walk on foot, and then again, 
 
 Order all horses to be hough'd, that we 
 
 Might never more the like adventure see. 
 
 Supposing our readers have had enough of Mr. Symson's verses, 
 and finding nothing more in his poem worthy of transcription, we 
 return to the tragic story. 
 
 It is needless to point out to the intelligent reader that the 
 witchcraft of the mother consisted only in the ascendency of a 
 powerful mind over a weak and melancholy one, and that the 
 harshness with which she exercised her superiority in a case of 
 delicacy had driven her daughter first to despair, then to frenzy. 
 Accordingly, the author has endeavored to explain the tragic tale 
 on this principle. Whatever resemblance Lady Ashton may be
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. xi 
 
 supposed to possess to the celebrated Dame Margaret Ross, the 
 reader must not suppose that there was any idea of tracing the 
 portrait of the first Lord Viscount Stair in the tricky and mean- 
 spirited Sir Wilham Ashton. Lord Stair, whatever might be his 
 moral qualities, was certainly one of the first statesmen and law- 
 yers of his age. 
 
 The imaginary castle of Wolf's Crag has been idestified by 
 some lover of locality with that of Fast Castle. The author is not 
 competent to judge of the resemblance betwixt the real and im- 
 aginary scene, having never seen Fast Castle except from the sea. 
 Butfortaliccs of this description are found occupying, like ospreys' 
 nests, projecting rocks or promontories, in many parts of the east- 
 ern coast of Scotland, and the position of Fast Castle seems cer- 
 tainly to resemble that of Wolf's Crag as much as any other, 
 while its vicinity to the mountain ridge of Lammermoor renders 
 the assimilation a probable one. 
 
 We have only to add, that the death of the unfortunate bride- 
 groom, by a fall from horseback, has been in the novel trans- 
 ferred to the no less unfortunate lover.* 
 
 * [Note B. Illness of the Author, and dictation of the Novel.]
 
 PRELIMINARY. 
 
 By catik and keel to win your bread, 
 Wi' whigmaleeries for them wha need, 
 Whilk is a gentle trade indeed 
 
 To carry the gaberlunzieon. 
 
 Old Song. 
 
 Few have been in my secret while I was compiling these nar- 
 ratives, nor is it probable that they will ever become public during 
 the life of their author. Even were that event to happen, I am not 
 ambitious of the honored distinction, digito monstrari. I confess 
 that, were it safe to cherish such dreams at all, I should more 
 enjoy the thought of remaining behind the curtain unseen, like the 
 ingenious manager of Punch and his wife Joan, and enjoying the 
 astonishment and conjectures of my audience. Then might I, 
 perchance, hear the productions of the obscure Peter Pattieson 
 praised by the judicious, and admired by the feeling, engrossing 
 the young, and attracting even the old ; while the critic traced 
 their fame up to some name of literary celebrity, and the question 
 when and by whom these tales were written filled up the pause 
 of conversation in a hundred circles and coteries. This I may 
 never enjoy during my lifetime ; but further than this, I am cer- 
 tain, my vanity should never induce me to aspire. 
 
 I am too stubborn in habits and too little polished in manners 
 to envy or aspire to the honors assigned to my literary contempo- 
 raries. I could not think a whit more highly of myself were I even 
 found worthy to "come in place as a lion" for a winter in the 
 great metropolis. I could not rise, turn round, and show all my 
 honors, from the shaggy mane to the tufted tail, roar you an 
 'twere any nightingale, and so lie down again like a well-behaved 
 beast of show, and all at the cheap and easy rate of a cup of 
 coffee, and a slice of bread and butter as thin as a wafer. And I 
 could ill stomach the fulsome flattery with which the lady of the 
 evening indulges her show monsters on such occasions, as she 
 crams her parrots with sugar-plums, in order to make them talk 
 before company. I cannot be tempted to " come aloft" for these 
 marks of distinction, and, like imprisoned Samson, I would rather 
 remain — if such must be the alternative — all my life in the mill 
 house, grinding for my very bread, than be brought forth to make 
 sport for the Philistine lords and ladies! This proceeds from no 
 dislike, real or affected, to the aristocracy of these realms. But 
 they have their nlace, and I have mine ; and, like the iron and 
 earthen vessels in the old fable, we can scarce come into collision
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. xiii 
 
 without my being the sufferer in every sense. It may be other- 
 wise with the sheets which I am now writing. These may Idc 
 opened and laid aside at pleasure ; by amusing themselves with 
 the perusal, the great will excite no false hopes ; by neglecting or 
 condemning them, they will inflict no pain ; and how seldom can 
 they converse with those whose minds have toiled for their de- 
 light, without doing either the one or the other. 
 
 In the better and wiser tone of feeling, which Ovid only ex- 
 presses in one line to retract in that which follows, I can addi^ess 
 these quires — 
 
 Parve, nee invideo, sine me, liber, ibis in urbem. 
 
 Nor do I join the regret of the illustrious exile, that he himself 
 could not in person accompany the volume which he sent forth to 
 the mart of literature, pleasure, and luxury. Were there not a 
 hundred similar instances on record, the fate of my poor friend 
 and school-fellow, Dick Tinto, would be sufficient to warn me 
 against seeking happiness in the celebrity which attaches itself to 
 a successful cultivator of the fine arts. 
 
 Dick Tinto, when he wrote himself artist, was wont to derive 
 his origin from the ancient family of Tinto of that ilk, in Lanark- 
 shire, and occasionally hinted that he had somewhat derogated 
 from his gentle blood, in using the pencil for his principal means 
 of support. But if Dick's pedigree was correct, some of his an- 
 cestors must have suffered a more heavy declension, since the 
 good man his father executed the necessary, and, I trust, the 
 honest but certainly not very distinguished, employment of tailor 
 in ordinary to the village of Langdirdum in the west. Under his 
 humble roof was Richard born, and to his father's humble tr.-^de 
 was Richard, greatly contrary to his inclination, early indentured. 
 Old Mr. Tinto had, however, no reason to congratulate himself 
 upon having compelled the youthful genius of his son to forsake 
 its natural bent. He fared like the schoolboy who attempts to 
 stop with his finger the spout of a water cistern, while the stream, 
 exasperated at this compression, escapes by a thousand uncalcu- 
 lated spirts, and wets him all over for his pains. Even so fared 
 the senior Tinto, when his hopeful apprentice not only exhausted 
 all the chalk in making sketches upon the shop-board, but even 
 executed several caricatures of his father's best customers, who 
 began loudly to murmur that it was too hard to have their per- 
 sons deformed by the vestments of the father, and to be at the 
 same time turned into ridicule by the pencil of the son. This led 
 to discredit and loss of practice, until the old tailor, yielding to 
 destiny and to the entreaties of his son, permitted him to attempt 
 his fortune in a line for which he was better qualified. 
 
 There was about this time, in the village of Langdirdum, a per- 
 ipatetic brother of the brush, who exercised his vocation S2ib Jo7>c 
 frigido, the object of admiration to all the boys of the village, but 
 especially to Dick Tinto. The age had not yet adopted, amongst 
 Other unworthy retrenchments, that illiberal measure of economy
 
 xiv INTR OD UCTIOX 7 V THE BKWE OF LA MMERMO OR. 
 
 which, supplying by written characters the lack of symbolical rep- 
 resentation, closes one open and easy accessible avenue of in- 
 struction and emolument against the students of the fine arts. It 
 was not yet permitted to write upon the plastered door-way of an 
 alehouse or the suspended sign of an inn, "The Old Magpie," or 
 " The Saracen's Head," substituting that cold description for the 
 lively effigies of the plumed chatterer or the turban'd frown of 
 the terrific soldan. That early and more simple age considered 
 alike the necessities of all ranks, and depicted the symbols of good 
 cheer so as to be obvious to all capacities ; well judging that a 
 man who could not read a syllable might nevertheless love a pot 
 of good ale as well as his better-educated neighbors, or even as the 
 parson himself. Acting upon this liberal principle, publicans as 
 yet hung forth the painted emblems of their calling, and sign- 
 painters, if they seldom feasted, did not at least absolutely starve. 
 
 To a worthy of this decayed profession, as we have already in- 
 timated, Dick Tinto became an assistant ; and thus, as is not 
 unusual among heaven-born geniuses in this department of the 
 fine arts, began to paint before he had any notion of drawing. 
 
 His talent for observing nature soon induced him to rectify the 
 errors and soar above the instructions of his teacher. He particu- 
 larly shone in painting horses, that being a favorite sign in the 
 Scottish villages ; and, in tracing his progress, it is beautiful to ob- 
 serve how, by degrees, he learned to shorten the backs and pro- 
 long the legs of these noble animals, until they came to look less 
 like crocodiles, and more like nags. Detraction, which always 
 pursues merit with strides proportioned to its advancement, has 
 indeed alleged that Dick once upon a time painted a horse with 
 five legs, instead of four. I might have rested his defence upon 
 the license allowed to that branch of his profession, which, as it 
 permits all sorts of singular and irregular combinations, may be 
 allowed to extend itself so far as to bestow a limb supernumerary 
 on a favorite subject. But the cause of a deceased friend is sacred ; 
 and I disdain to bottom it so superficially. I have visited the sign 
 in question, which yet swings exalted in the village of Langdirdum ; 
 and I am ready to depone upon oath, that what has been idly mis- 
 taken or misrepresented as being the fifth leg of the horse is, in 
 fact, the tail of that quadruped, and, considered with reference to 
 the posture in which he is delineated, forms a circumstance in- 
 troduced and managed with great and successful, though daring, 
 art. The nag Ijcing represented in a rampant or rearing posture, 
 the tail, which is prolonged till it touches the ground, appears to 
 form a point (Vappui, and gives the firmness of a tripod to the 
 figure, without which it would be difficult to conceive, placed as 
 the feet are, how the courser could maintain his ground without 
 tumljling backward. This bold conception has fortunately fallen 
 into the custody of one by whom it is duly valued ; for, when Dick, 
 in his more advanced state of proficiency, became dubious of the 
 propriety of so daring a deviation from the established rules of art, 
 and was desirous to execute a picture of the publican himself in 
 exchange for this juvenile production, the courteous offer was de-
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. xv 
 
 clined by his judicious employer, who had observed, it seems, 
 that when his ale failed to do its duty in conciliating his guests, one 
 glance at his sign was sure to put them in good humor. 
 
 It would be foreign to my present purpose to trace the steps by 
 which Dick Tinto improved his touch, and corrected, by the rules 
 of art, the luxuriance of a fevered imagination. The scales fell 
 from his eyes on viewing the sketches of a contemporary, the 
 Scottish Teniers, as Wilkie has been deservedly styled. He threw 
 down the brush, took up the crayons, and, amid hunger and toil 
 and suspense and uncertainty, pursued the path of his profession 
 under better auspices than those of his original master. Still the 
 first rude emanations of his genius (like the nursery rhymes of 
 Pope, could these be recovered) will be dear to the companions of 
 Dick Tinto's youth. There is a tankard and gridiron painted over 
 the door of an obscure change-house in the Back-wynd of Gander- 
 cleugh — but I feel I must tear myself from the subject, or dwell on 
 it too long. 
 
 Amid his wants and struggles, Dick Tinto had recourse, like his 
 brethren, to levying that tax upon the vanity of mankind which he 
 could not extract from their taste and liberality— in a word, he 
 painted portraits. It was in this more advanced state of profi- 
 ciency, when Dick had soared above his original line of business, 
 and highly disdained any allusion to it, that, after having been 
 estranged for several years, we again met in the village of Gan- 
 dercleugh, I holding my present situation, and Dick painting 
 copies of the human face divine at a guinea a head. This was a 
 small premium, yet, in the first burst of business, it more than 
 sufficed for all Dick's moderate wants ; so that he occupied an 
 apartment at the Wallace Inn, cracked his jest with impunity even 
 upon mine host himself, and lived in respect and observance with 
 the chambermaid, hostler, and waiter. 
 
 Those halcyon days were too serene to last long. When his 
 honor the Laird of Gandcrcleugh, with his wife and three daugh- 
 ters, the minister, the gauger, mine esteemed patron Mr. Jedediah 
 Cleishbotham, and some round dozen of the feuars and farmers, 
 had been consigned to immortality by Tinto's brush, custom be- 
 gan to slacken, and it was impossible to wring more than crowns 
 and half crowns from the hard hands of the peasants whose ambi- 
 tion led them to Dick's painting room. 
 
 Still, though the horizon was overclouded, no storm for some 
 time ensued. Mine host had Christian faith with a lodger who 
 had been a good paymaster as long as he had the means. And 
 from a portrait of our landlord himself, grouped with his wife and 
 daughters, in the style of Rubens, which suddenly appeared in the 
 best parlor, it was evident that Dick had found some mode of bar- 
 tering art for the necessaries of life. 
 
 Nothing, however, is more precarious than resources of this 
 nature. It was observed that Dick became in his turn the whet- 
 stone of mine host's wit, without venturing either at defence or 
 retaliation; that his easel was transferred to a garret-room, in 
 which there was scarce space for it to stand upright ; and that he
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF lAMMERMOOR. 
 
 no longer ventured to join the weekly club, of which he had been 
 once the life and soul. In short, Dick Tinto's friends feared that 
 he had acted like the animal called the sloth, which, having eaten 
 up the last green leaf upon the tree where it had established itself, 
 ends by tumbling down from the top, and dying of inanition. I 
 ventured to hint this to Dick, recommended his transferring the 
 exercise of his inestimable talent to some other sphere, and for- 
 saking the common which he might be said to have eaten bare. 
 
 " There is an obstacle to my change of residence," said my 
 friend, grasping my hand with a look of solemnity. 
 
 "A bill due to my landlord, I am afraid?" replied I, with 
 heartfelt sympathy ; " if any part of my slender means can assist 
 in this emergency " 
 
 *' No, by the soul of Sir Joshua ! " answered the generous 
 youth, " I will never involve a friend in the consequences of my 
 own misfortune. There is a mode by which I can regain my lib- 
 erty ; and to creep even through a common sewer is better than 
 to remain in prison." 
 
 I did not perfectly understand what my friend meant. The 
 muse of painting appeared to have failed him, and what other 
 goddess he could invoke in his distress was a mystery to me. We 
 parted, however, without further explanation, and I did not again 
 see him until three days after, when he summoned me to partake 
 of xSxQfoy with which his landlord proposed to regale him ere his 
 departure for Edinburgh. 
 
 I found Dick in high spirits, whistling while he buckled the 
 small knapsack which contained his colors, brushes, palettes, and 
 clean shirt. That he parted on the best terms with mine host was 
 obvious from the cold beef set forth in the low parlor, flanked by 
 two mugs of admirable brown stout ; and I own my curiosity was 
 excited concerning the means through which the face of my 
 friend's affairs had been so suddenly improved. I did not suspect 
 Dick of dealing with the devil, and by what earthly means he had 
 extricated himself thus happily I was at a total loss to conjecture. 
 
 He perceived my curiosity, and took me by the hand. "My 
 friend," he said, "fain would I conceal, even from you, the degra- 
 dation to which it has been necessary to submit in order to ac- 
 complish an honorable retreat from Gandcrclcugh. But what 
 avails attempting to conceal that which must needs betray itself 
 even by its superior excellence ? All the village — all tlic parish — 
 all the world — will soon discover to what poverty has reduced 
 Richard Tinto." 
 
 A sudden thought here struck me — I had observed that our 
 landlord wore, on that memorable morning, a pair of bran new 
 velveteens, instead of his ancient thicksets. 
 
 " What," said I, drawing my right hand, with the forefinger 
 and thumb pressed together, nimbly from my right haunch to my 
 left shoulder, " you have condescended to resume the paternal 
 arts to which you were first bred — long stitches, ha, Dick ? " 
 
 He repelled this unlucky conjecture with a frown and a pshaw, 
 indicative of indignant contempt, and, leading me into another
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. xvii 
 
 room, showed me, resting against the wall, the majestic head of 
 Sir VVillam Wallace, given as when severed from the trunk by the 
 orders of the felon Edward. 
 
 The painting was executed on boards of a substantial thickness, 
 and the top decorated with irons, for suspending the honored effigy 
 upon a sign-post. 
 
 "There," he said, " my friend, stands the honor of Scotland, 
 and my shame — yet not so — rather the shame of those who, in- 
 stead of encouraging art in its proper sphere, reduce it to these 
 unbecoming and unworthy extremities." 
 
 I endeavored to smooth the ruffled feelings of my misused and 
 indignant friend. I reminded him that he ought not, like the stag 
 in the fable, to despise the quality which had extricated him from 
 difficulties in which his talents as a portrait or landscape painter 
 had been found unavailing. Above all, I praised the execution, 
 as well as conception, of his painting, and reminded him that, far 
 from feeling dishonored by so superb a specimen of his talents 
 being exposed to the general view of the public, he ought rather to 
 congratulate himself upon the augmentation of his celebrity to 
 which its public exhibition must necessarily give rise. 
 
 " You are right, my friend — you are right," replied poor Dick, 
 his eye kindling with enthusiasm ; " why should I shun the name 
 of an — an" — (he hesitated for a phrase) — " an out-of-door artist? 
 Hogarth has introduced himself in that character in one of his 
 best engravings — Domenichino, or somebody else, in ancient 
 times— Morland in our own, have exercised their talents in this 
 manner. And wherefore limit to the rich and higher classes 
 alone the delight v.hich the exhibition of works of art is calculated 
 to inspire into all classes ? Statues are placed in the open air ; 
 why should Painting be more niggardly in displaying her master- 
 pieces than her sister. Sculpture ? And yet, my friend, we must 
 part suddenly : the carpenter is coming in an hour to put up the 
 — the emblem ; and truly, with all my philosophy, and your con- 
 solatory encouragement to boot, I would rather wish to leave 
 Gandercleugh before that operation commences." 
 
 We partook of our genial host's parting banquet, and I escorted 
 Dick on his walk to Edinburgh. We parted about a mile from the 
 village, just as we heard the distant cheer of the boys which ac- 
 companied the mounting of the new symbol of the Wallace Head. 
 Dick Tinto mended his pace to get out of hearing — so little had 
 either early practice or recent philosophy reconciled him to the 
 character of a sign-painter. 
 
 " In Edinburgh, Dick's talents were discovered and appreci- 
 ated, and he received dinners and hints from several distin- 
 guished judges of the fine arts. But these gentlemen dispensed 
 (their criticism more willingly than their cash, and Dick thought he 
 /needed cash more than criticism. He therefore sought London, 
 f the universal mart of talent, and where, as is usual in general 
 marts of most descriptions, much more of each community is ex- 
 posed to sale than can ever find purchasers. 
 
 Dick, who, in seriops earnest, was supposed to have considi-
 
 xviii INTRODUCTIOX TO THE BRIDE OE LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 crable natural talents for his profession, and whose vain and san- 
 guine disposition never permitted him to doubt for a moment of 
 ultimate success, threw himself headlong into the crowd which 
 jostled and struggled for notice and preferment. He elbowed 
 others, and was elbowed himself ; and finally, by dint of intre- 
 pidity, fought his way into some notice, painted for the prize at 
 the Institution, had pictures at the exhibition at Somerset House, 
 and damned the hanging committee. But poor Dick was doomed 
 to lose the field he fought so gallantly. In the fine arts, there is 
 scarce an alternative betwixt distinguished success and absolute 
 failure ; and as Dick's zeal and industry were unable to ensure the 
 first, he fell into the distresses which, in his condition, were the 
 natural consequences of the latter alternative. He was for a time 
 patronized by one or two of those judicious persons who make a 
 virtue of being singular, and of pitching their own opinions against 
 those of the world in matters of taste and criticism. But they 
 soon tired of poor Tinto, and laid him down as a load, upon the 
 principle on which a spoiled child throws away its plaything. Mis- 
 ery, I fear, took him up, and accompanied him to a premature 
 grave, to which he was carried from an obscure lodging in Swallow 
 Street, where he had been dunned by his landlady within doors, 
 and watched by bailiffs without, until death came to his relief. A 
 corner of the Morning Post noticed his death, generously adding 
 that his manner displayed considerable genius, though his style 
 was rather sketchy ; and referred to an advertisement which an- 
 nounced that Mr. Varnish, a well-known printsellcr, had still on 
 hand a very few drawings and paintings by Richard Tinto, Es- 
 quire, which those of the nobility and gentry who wished to complete 
 their collections of modern art were invited to visit without delay. 
 So ended Dick Tinto ! a lamentable proof of the great truth, that 
 in the fine arte mediocrity is not permitted, and that he who can- 
 not ascend to the very tojj of the ladder will do well not to put his 
 foot upon it at all. 
 
 The memory of Tinto is dear to me, from the recollections of 
 the many conversations which we have had together, most of them 
 turning upon my present task. He was delighted with my prog- 
 ress, and talked of an ornamented and illustrated edition, with 
 heads, vignettes, and ctils de lampe, all to be designed by his own 
 patriotic and friendly pencil. He prevailed upon an old sergeant 
 of invalids to sit to him in the character of Bothwell, the life- 
 guards-man of Charles the Second, and the bellman of Gander- 
 cleugh in that of David Deans. But while he thus proposed to 
 unite his own powers with mine for the illustration of these nar- 
 ratives, he mixed many a dose of salutary criticism with the 
 panegyrics which my composition was at times so fortunate as to 
 call forth. 
 
 *' Your characters," he said, " my dear Pattieson, make too 
 much use of the gob box j they patter too much — (an elegant 
 phraseology, which Dick had learned while painting the scenes of 
 an itinerant company of players) — there is nothing in whole pages 
 but mere chat and dialogue."
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. xix 
 
 "The ancient philosopher," said I in reply, " was wont to say, 
 ' Speak, that I may know thee ' ; and how is it possible for an au- 
 thor to introduce \\\?, pcrsoncc dramatis to his readers in a more in- 
 teresting and effectual manner than by the dialogue in which each 
 is represented as supporting his own appropriate character ? " 
 
 " It is a false conclusion," said Tinto ; " I hate it, Peter, as I 
 hate an unfilled can. I will grant you, indeed, that speech is a 
 faculty of some value in the intercourse of human affairs, and I 
 will not even insist on the doctrine of that Pythagorean toper who 
 was of opinion that, over a bottle, speaking spoiled conversation. 
 But I will not allow that a professor of the fine arts had occasion 
 to embody the idea of his scene in language, in order to impress 
 upon the reader its reality and its effect. On the contrary, I will 
 be judged by most of your readers, Peter, should these tales ever 
 become public, whether you have not given us a page of talk for 
 every single idea which two words might have communicated, 
 while the posture, and manner, and incident, accurately drawn 
 and brought out by appropriate coloring, would have preserved 
 all that was worthy of preservation, and saved these everlasting 
 said he's and said she's with which it has been your pleasure to 
 encumber your pages." 
 
 I replied, "That he confounded the operations of the pencil 
 and the pen ; that the serene and silent art, as painting has been 
 called by one of our first living poets, necessarily appealed to the 
 eye, because it had not the organs for addressing the ear ; whereas 
 poetry, or that species of composition which approached to it, 
 lay under the necessity of doing absolutely the reverse, and ad- 
 dressed itself to the ear, for the purpose of exciting that interest 
 which it could not attain through the medium of the eye." 
 
 Dick was not a whit staggered by my argument, which he con- 
 tended was founded on misrepresentation. " Description," he 
 said, " was to the author of a romance exactly what drawing and 
 tinting were to a painter ; words were his colors, and, if properly 
 employed, they could not fail to place the scene which he wished 
 to conjure up as effectually before the mind's eye as the tablet or 
 canvas presents it to the bodily organ. The same rules," he con- 
 tended, " applied to both, and an exuberance of dialogue, in the 
 former case, was a verbose and laborious mode of composition 
 which went to confound the proper art of fictitious narrative with 
 that of the drama, a widely different species of composition, of 
 which dialogue was the very essence, because all, excepting the 
 language to be made use of, was presented to the eye by tlie 
 dresses and persons and actions of the performers upon the 
 stage. But as nothing," said Dick, " can be more dull than a 
 long narrative written upon the plan of a drama, so where you 
 have approached most near to that species of composition, by in- 
 dulging in prolonged scenes of mere conversation, the course of 
 your story has become chill and constrained, and you have 
 lost the power of arresting the attention and exciting the imagina- 
 tion, in which upon other occasions you may be considered as hav- 
 ing succeeded tolerably well."
 
 XX INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 I made my bow in requital of the compliment, which was prob' 
 ably thrown in by way oi placebo, and expressed myself willing at 
 least to make one trial of a more straightforward style of composi- 
 tion, in which my actors should do more and say less than in my 
 former attempts of this kind. Dick gave me a patronizing and ap- 
 proving nod, and observed that, finding me so docile, he would 
 communicate, for the benefit of my muse, a subject which he had 
 studied with a view to his own art. 
 
 " The story," he said, " was by tradition affirmed to be truth, 
 although, as upward of a hundred years had passed away since the 
 events took place, some doubt upon the accuracy of all the partic- 
 ulars might be reasonably entertained." 
 
 When Dick Tinto had thus spoken, he rummaged his portfolio 
 for the sketch from which he proposed one day to execute a pict- 
 ure of fourteen feet by eight. The sketch, which was cleverly 
 executed, to use the appropriate phrase, represented an ancient 
 hall, fitted up and furnished in what we now call the taste of 
 Queen Elizabeth's age. The light, admitted from the upper part 
 of the high casement, fell upon a female figure of exquisite beauty, 
 who, in an attitude of speechless terror, appeared to watch the 
 issue of a debate betwixt two other persons. The one was a young 
 man, in the Vandyke dress common to the time of Charles 1., 
 who, with an air of indignant pride, testified by the manner in 
 which he raised his head and extended his arm, seemed to be urg- 
 ing a claim of right, rather than of favor, to a lady whose age, 
 and some resemblance in their features, pointed her out as the 
 mother of the younger female, and who appeared to listen with a 
 mixture of displeasure and impatience. 
 
 Tinto produced his sketch with an air of mysterious triumph, 
 and gazed on it as a fond parent looks upon a hopeful child, while 
 he anticipates the future figure he is to make in the world, and the 
 height to which he will raise the honor of his family. He held it 
 at arm's length from me — he held it closer — he placed it upon the 
 top of a chest of drawers ; closed the lower shutters of the case- 
 ment, to adjust a downward and favorable light ; fell back to the 
 due distance ; dragged me after him ; shaded his face with his hand, 
 as if to exclude all but the favorable object, and ended by spoiling 
 a child's copy-book, which he rolled up so as to serve for the 
 darkened tube of an amateur. I fancy my expressions of enthu- 
 siasm had not been in proportion to his own, for he presently 
 exclaimed, with vehemence, " Mr. Pattieson, I used to think you 
 had an eye in your head." 
 
 I vindicated my claim to the usual allowance of visual organs. 
 
 " Yet, on my honor," said Dick, " I would swear you had been 
 born blind, since you have failed at the first glance to discover 
 the subject and meaning of that sketch. I do not mean to praise 
 my own performance, I leave these arts to others ; I am sensible 
 of my deficiencies, conscious that my drawing and coloring may 
 be improved by the time I intend to dedicate to the art. But the 
 conception — the expression — the positions — these tell the story to 
 every one who looks at the sketch ; and if I can finish the picture
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. xxl 
 
 without diminution of the original conception, the name of Tinto 
 shall no more be smothered by the mists of envy and intrigue." 
 
 I replied, "That I admired the sketch exceedingly ; but that, 
 to understand its full merit, I felt it absolutely necessary to be 
 informed of the subject." 
 
 " That is the very thing I complain of," answered Tinto ; " you 
 have accustomed yourself so much to these creeping twilight de- 
 tails of yours, that you are become incapable of receiving that 
 instant and vivid Hash of conviction which darts on the mind from 
 seeing the happy and expressive combinations of a single scene, 
 and which gather from the position, attitude, and countenance of 
 the moment not only the history of the past lives of the person- 
 ages represented, and the nature of the business on which they 
 are immediately engaged, but lifts even the veil of futurity, and 
 affords a shrewd guess at their future fortunes." 
 
 " In that case," replied I, " painting excels the Ape of the re- 
 nowned Gines de Passamont, which only meddled with the past 
 and the present ; nay, she excels that very Nature who affords her 
 subjects ; for I protest to you, Dick, that were I permitted to 
 peep into that Elizabeth chamber, and see the persons you have 
 sketched conversing in flesh and blood, I should not be a jot 
 nearer guessing the nature of their business than I am at this mo- 
 ment while looking at your sketch. Only generally, from the 
 languishing look of the young lady, and the care you have taken 
 to present a very handsome leg on the part of the gentleman, I 
 presume there is some reference to a love affair between them." 
 
 " Do you really presume to form such a bold conjecture ? " 
 said Tinto. " And the indignant earnestness with which you see 
 the man urge his suit — the unresisting and passive despair of the 
 younger female — the stern air of inflexible determination in the 
 elder woman, whose looks express at once consciousness that she 
 is acting wrong, and a firm determination to persist in the course 
 she has adopted " 
 
 " If her looks express all this, my dear Tinto," replied I, inter- 
 rupting him, "your pencil rivals the dramatic art of Mr. Puff in 
 the Critic, who crammed a whole complicated sentence into the 
 expressive shake of Lord Burleigh's head." 
 
 " My good friend, Peter," replied Tinto, " I observe you are 
 perfectly incorrigible ; however, I have compassion on your dul- 
 ness, and am unwilling you should be deprived of the pleasure of 
 understanding my picture, and of gaining, at the same time, a 
 subject for your own pen. You must know then, last summer, 
 while I was taking sketches on the coast of East- Lothian and Ber- 
 wickshire, I was seduced into the mountains of Lammermoor by 
 the account I received of some remains of antiquity in that dis- 
 trict. Those with which I was most struck were the ruins of an 
 ancient castle in which that Elizabeth chamber, as you call it, 
 once existed. I resided for two or three days at a farm-house in 
 the neighborhood, where the aged goodwife was well acquainted 
 with the history of the castle, and the events which had taken 
 place in it. One of these was of a nature so interesting and sin-
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION TO THE BRIDE OE LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 gular, that my attention was divided between my wish to draw the 
 old ruins in landscape and to represent, in a history-piece, the 
 singular events which have taken place in it. Here are my notes 
 of the tale," said poor Dick, handing a parcel of loose scraps, 
 partly scratched over with his pencil, partly with his pen, where 
 outlines of caricatures, sketches of turrets, mills, old gables, and 
 dovecots disputed the ground with his written memoranda. 
 
 I proceeded, however, to decipher the substance of the manu- 
 script as well as I could, and wove it into the following Tale, in 
 which, following in part, though not entirely, my friend Tinto's ad- 
 vice, I endeavored to render my narrative rather descriptive than 
 dramatic. My favorite propensity, however, has at times over- 
 come me, and my persons, like many others in this talking world, 
 speak now and then a great deal more than they act.
 
 T90i\AVCRStll0dD-§nALDi ' 
 
 CQRiDeTi-T?a«j3c-nis 
 
 SR^LL-BC;Li0S5'F0I\ 
 
 eve R.© 6 cY€)^sKx. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 Well, lords, we have not got that which we have ; 
 'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled, 
 Being opposites of such repairing nature. 
 
 Second Part of Henry 
 
 VI. 
 
 In the gorge of a pass or mountain glen, ascending from the 
 fertile plains of EastLothian, there stood in former times an 
 extensive castle, of which only the ruins are now visible. Its 
 ancient proprietors were a race of powerful and warlike barons, 
 who bore the same name with the castle itself, which was 
 Ravenswood. Their line extended to a remote period of anti- 
 quity, and they had intermarried with the Douglases, Humes, 
 Swiutons, Hays, and other families of power and distinction in 
 the same countr)^ Their history was frequently involved in 
 that of Scotland itself, in whose annals their feats are recorded. 
 The castle of Ravenswood, occupying, and in some measure 
 commanding, a pass betwixt Berwickshire, or the Merse, as the 
 south-eastern province of Scotland is termed, and the Lothians, 
 was of importance both in time of foreign war and domestic 
 discord. It was frequently besieged with ardor, and defended 
 with obstinacy, and, of course, its owners played a conspicuous 
 part in story. But their house had its revolutions, like all 
 sublunary things ; it became greatly declined from its splendor 
 about the middle of the seventeenth century ; and toward the 
 period of the Revolution, the last proprietor of Ravenswood 
 Castle saw himself compelled to part with the ancient family 
 seat, and to remove himself to a lonely and sea-beaten tower,
 
 J THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOK. 
 
 which, situated on the bleak shores between Saint Abb's Head 
 and the village of Eyemouth, looked out on the lonely and 
 boisterous German Ocean. A black domain of wild pasture- 
 land surrounded their new residence, and formed the remains 
 of their property. 
 
 Lord Ravenswood, the heir of this ruined family, was far 
 from bending his mind to his new condition of life. In the 
 civil war of i68g, he had espoused the sinking side, and although 
 he had escaped without the forfeiture of life or land, his blood 
 had been attainted, and his title abolished. He was now called 
 Lord Ravenswood only in courtesy. 
 
 This forfeited nobleman inherited the pride and turbulence, 
 though not the fortune of his house, and, as he imputed the 
 final declension of his family to a particular individual, he 
 honored that person with his full portion of hatred. This was 
 the very man who had now become, by purchase, proprietor of 
 Ravenswood, and the domains of which the heir of the house 
 now stood dispossessed. He was descended of a family much 
 less ancient than that of Lord Ravenswood, and which had only 
 risen to wealth and political importance during the great civil 
 wars. He himself had been bred to the bar, and had held high 
 offices in the state, maintaining through life the character of a 
 skilful fisher in the troubled waters of a state divided by fac- 
 tions, and governed by delegated authority ; and of one who 
 contrived to amass considerable sums of money in a country 
 wbere there was but little to be gathered, and who equally 
 knew the value of wealth, and the various means of augment- 
 ing it, and using it as an engine of increasing his power and 
 influence. 
 
 Thus qualified and gifted, he was a dangerous antagonist to 
 the fierce and imprudent Ravenswood. Whether he had given 
 him good cause for the enmity with which the Baron regarded 
 him, was a point on which men spoke differently. Some said 
 the quarrel arose merely from the vindictive spirit and envy of 
 Lord Ravenswood, who could not patiently behold another, 
 though by just and fair purchase, become the proprietor of the 
 estate and castle of his forefathers. But the greater part of the 
 public, prone to slander the wealthy in their absence, as to 
 flatter them in their presence, held a less charitable opinion. 
 They said, that the Lord Keeper (for to this height Sir William 
 Ashton had ascended) had, previous to the final purchase of 
 the estate of Ravenswood, been concerned in extensive pecu- 
 niary transactions with the former proprietor ; and, rather inti- 
 mating what was probable, than affirming anything positively, 
 they asked whicii party was likely to have the advantage in
 
 THE BRTDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 3 
 
 Stating and enforcing the claims arising out of these compli- 
 cated affairs, and more than hinted the advantages which the 
 cool lawyer and able politician must necessarily possess over 
 the hot, fiery, and imprudent character, whom he had involved 
 in legal toils and pecuniary snares. 
 
 The character of the times aggravated these suspicions, y^ ,i 
 " In those days there was no king in Israel." Since the Aq.-\^^'' 
 parture of James VI. to assume the richer and more powerful 
 crown of England, there had existed in Scotland contending 
 parties, formed among the aristocracy, by whom, as their in- 
 trigues at the court of Saint James's chanced to prevail, the 
 delegated powers of sovereignty were alternately swayed. 
 The evils attending upon this system of government resembled 
 those which afflict the tenants of an Irish estate, the property 
 of an absentee. There was no supreme power, claiming and 
 possessing a general interest with the community at large, to 
 whom the oppressed might appeal from subordinate tyranny, 
 either for justice or for mercy. Let a monarch be as indolent, 
 as selfish, as much disposed to arbitrary power as he will, still, 
 in a free country, his own interests are so clearly connected 
 with those of the public at large, and the evil consequences to 
 his own authority are so obvious and imminent when a different 
 course is pursued, that common policy, as well as common 
 feeling, point to the equal distribution of justice, and to the 
 establishment of the throne in righteousness. Thus, even 
 sovereigns, remarkable for usurpation and tyranny, have been 
 found rigorous in the administration of justice among their 
 subjects, in cases where their own power and passions were 
 not compromised. 
 
 It is very different when the powers of sovereignty are del- 
 egated to the head of an aristocratic faction, rivaled and 
 pressed closely in the race of ambition by an adverse leader. 
 His brief and precarious enjoyment of power must be employed 
 in rewarding his partisans, in extending his influence, in op- 
 pressing and crushing his adversaries. Even Abon Hassan, 
 the most disinterested of all viceroys, forgot not during his 
 caliphate of one day, to send a douceur of one thousand pieces 
 of gold to his own household ; and the Scottish viceregents, 
 raised to power by the strength of their faction, fa.iled not to 
 embrace the same means of rewarding them. 
 
 The administration of justice, in particular, was infected by 
 the most gross partiality. A case of importance scarcely oc- 
 curred, in which there was not some ground for bias or par- 
 tiality on the part of the judges, who were so little able to . 
 withstand the temptation, that the adage, " Show me the man, I Ct^(
 
 ^ THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 and I will show you the law," became as prevalent as it wag 
 scandalous. One corruption led the way to others still more 
 gross and profligate. The judge who lent his sacred authority 
 in one case to support a friend, and in another to crush an 
 enemy, and whose decisions were founded on family connections 
 or political relations, could not be supposed inaccessible to 
 direct personal motives ; and the purse of the wealthy was too 
 often believed to be thrown into the scale to weigh down the 
 cause of the poor litigant. The subordinate officers of the law 
 affected little scruple concerning bribery. Pieces of plate, and 
 bags of money, were sent in presents to the king's counsel, to 
 influence their conduct, and poured forth, says a contempo- 
 rary writer, like billets of wood upon their floors, without even 
 the decency of concealment. 
 
 In such times, it was not over uncharitable to suppose, that 
 the statesman, practised in courts of law, and a powerful mem- 
 ber of a triumphant cabal, might find and use means of advan- 
 tage over his less skilful and less favored adversary ; and if it 
 had been supposed that Sir William Ashton's conscience had 
 been too delicate to profit by these advantages, it was believed 
 that his ambition and desire of extending his wealth and con- 
 sequence, found as strong a stimulus in the exhortations of his 
 lady, as the daring aim of Macbeth in the days of yore. 
 
 Lady Ashton was of a family more distinguished than that 
 of her lord, an advantage which she did not fail to use to the 
 uttermost, in maintaining and extending her husband's influ- 
 ence over otliers, and, unless she was greatly belied, her own 
 over him. She had been beautiful, and was stately and majes- 
 tic in her appearance. P^ndowed by nature with strong powers 
 and violent passions, experience had taught her to employ the 
 one, and to conceal, if not to moderate, the other. She was a 
 severe and strict observer of the external forms,, at least, of 
 devotion ; her hospitality was splendid even to ostentation ; her 
 address and manners, agreeable to the pattern most valued in 
 Scotland at the period, were grave, dignified, and severely regu- 
 lated by the rules of etiquette. Her character had always been 
 beyond the breath of slander. And yet, with all these qualities 
 to excite respect, Lady Ashton was seldom mentioned in the 
 terms of love or affection. Interest, — the interest of her family, 
 if not her own, — seemed too obviously the motive of her ac 
 tions ; and where this is the case, the sharp-judging and malig- 
 nant public are not easily imposed upon by outward show. It 
 was seen and ascertained, that, in her most graceful courtesies 
 and compliments. Lady Ashton no more lost sight of her object, 
 than the falcon in his airy wheel turns his quick eyes from his
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. ^ 
 
 destined quarry ; and hence, something of doubt and suspicion 
 qualified the feelings with which her equals received her atten- 
 tions. With her inferiors these feelings were mingled with fear ; 
 an impression useful to her purposes, so far as it enforced ready 
 compliance with her requests, and implicit obedience to her 
 commands, but detrimental, because it cannot exist with affec' 
 tion or regard. 
 
 Even her husband, it is said, upon whose fortunes her tal- 
 ents and address had produced such emphatic influence, 
 regarded her with respectful awe rather than confiding attach- 
 ment ; and report said, there were times when he considered 
 his grandeur as dearly purchased at the expense of domestic 
 thraldom. Of this, however much might be suspected, but 
 little could be accurately known ; Lady Ashton regarded the 
 honor of her husband as her own, and was well aware how 
 much that would suffer in the public eye should he appear a 
 vassal to his wife. In all her arguments, his opinion was 
 quoted as infallible ; his taste was appealed to, and his senti- 
 ments received, with the air of deference which a dutiful wife 
 might seem to owe to a husband of Sir William Ashton's rank 
 and character. But there was something under all this which 
 rung false and hollow ; and to those who watched this couple 
 with close, and perhaps malicious scrutiny, it seemed evident, 
 that, in the haughtiness of a firmer character, higher birth, and 
 more decided views of aggrandizement, the lady looked with 
 some contempt on the husband, and that he regarded her with 
 jealous fear, rather than with love or admiration. 
 
 Still, however, the leading and favorite interests of Sir 
 William Ashton and his lady were the same, and they failed 
 not to work in concert, although without cordiality, and to 
 testify, in all exterior circumstances, that respect for each 
 other, which they were aware was necessary to secure that of 
 the public. 
 
 Their union was crowned with several children, of whom 
 three survived. One, the eldest son, was absent on his travels ; 
 the second, a girl of seventeen, and the third, a boy about 
 three years younger, resided with their parents in Edinburgh, 
 during the sessions of the Scottish Parliament and Privy 
 Council, at other times in the old Gothic castle of Ravens 
 wood, to which the Lord Keeper had made large additions in 
 the style of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Allan Lord Ravenswood, the late proprietor of that 
 ancient mansion and the large estate annexed to it, con- 
 tinued for some time to wage ineffectual war with his suc- 
 cessor concerning various points to which their former
 
 6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 transactions had given rise, and which were successivel]f 
 determined in favor of the weahhy and powerful com- 
 petitor, until death closed the litigation, by summoning 
 Ravenswood to a higher bar. The thread of life, which 
 had been long wasting, gave way during a fit of violent and 
 impotent fury, with which he was assailed on receiving the 
 news of the loss of a cause, founded, perhaps, rather in equity 
 than in law, the last which he had maintained against his 
 powerful antagonist. His son witnessed his dying agonies, 
 and heard the curses which he breathed against his adversary, 
 as if they had conveyed to hirn a legacy of vengeance. Other 
 circumstances happened to exasperate a passion, which was, 
 and had long been, a prevalent vice in the Scottish disposition. 
 
 It was a November morning, and the cliffs which overlooked 
 the ocean were hung with thick and heavy mist, when the 
 portals of the ancient and half-ruinous tower, in which Lord 
 Ravenswood had spent the last and troubled years of his life, 
 opened, that his mortal remains might pass forward to an abode 
 yet more dreary and lonely. The pomp of attendance, to 
 which the deceased had, in his latter years, been a stranger, 
 was revived as he was about to be consigned to the realms of 
 forgetfulness. 
 
 Banner after banner, with the various devices and coats at 
 this ancient family and its connections, followed each other in 
 mournful procession from under the low-browed archway of the 
 courtyard. The principal gentry of the country attended in 
 the deepest mourning, and tempered the pace of their long 
 train of horses to the solemn march befitting the occasion. 
 Trumpets, with banners of crape attached to them, sent forth 
 their long and melancholy notes to regulate the movements of 
 the procession. An immense train of inferior mourners and 
 inenials closed the rear, which had not yet issued from the 
 castle-gate, when the van had reached the chapel where the 
 body was to be deposited. 
 
 Contrary to the custom, and even to the law of the time, the 
 body was met by a priest of the Scottish Episcopal communion, 
 arrayed in his surplice, and prepared to read over the coffin ot 
 the deceased the funeral service of the church. Such had been 
 the desire of Lord Ravenswood in his last illness, and it was 
 readily complied with by the Tory gentlemen, or cavaliers, as 
 they affected to style themselves, in which faction most of his 
 kinsmen were enrolled. The Presbyterian church-judicatory 
 of the bounds, considering the ceremony as a bravading insult 
 upon their authority, had applied to the Lord Keeper, as the , 
 nearest privy councillor, for a warrant to prevent its being
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. ^^- -j 
 
 carried into effect; so that, when the clergyman had opened 
 his prayer-book, an officer of the law, supported by some armed 
 men, commanded him to be silent. An insult, which fired the 
 whole assembly with indignation, was particularly and instantly 
 resented by the only son of the deceased, Edgar, popularly 
 called the Master of Ravenswood, a youth of about twenty years 
 of age. He clapped his hand on his sword, and bidding the 
 official person to desist at his peril from further interruption, 
 commanded the clergyman to proceed. The man attempted to 
 enforce his commission, but as a hundred swords at once 
 glittered in the air, he contented himself with protesting against 
 the violence which had been offered to him in the execution of 
 his duty, and stood aloof, a sullen and moody spectator of the 
 ceremonial, muttering as one who should say, " You'll rue the 
 day that clogs me with this answer." 
 
 The scene was worthy of an artist's pencil. Under the very 
 arch of the house of death, the clergyman, affrighted at the 
 scene, and trembling for his own safety, hastily and unwillingly 
 rehearsed the solemn service of the church, and spoke dust to 
 dust, and ashes to ashes, over ruined pride and decayed pros- 
 perity. Around stood the relations of the deceased, their coun- 
 tenances more in anger than in sorrow, and the drawn swords 
 which they brandished forming a violent contrast with their 
 deep mourning habits. In the countenance of the young man 
 alone, resentment seemed for the moment overpowered by the 
 deep agony with which he beheld his nearest and almost his 
 only friend, consigned to the tomb of his ancestry. A relative 
 observed him turn deadly pale, when, all rites being now duly 
 observed, it became the duty of the chief mourner to lower 
 down into the charnel vault, where mouldering coffins showed 
 their tattered velvet and decayed plating, the head of the corpse 
 which was to be their partner in corruption. He stepped to the 
 youth and offered his assistance, which, by a mute motion, 
 Edgar Ravenswood rejected. Firmly and without a tear, he 
 performed that last duty. The stone was laid on the sepulchre, 
 the door of the aisle was locked, and the youth took possession 
 of its massive key. 
 
 As the crowd left the chapel, he paused on the steps which 
 led to its Gothic chancel, " Gentlemen and friends," he said. 
 " you have this day done no common duty to the body of your 
 deceased kinsman. The rites of due observance, which, in 
 other countries, are allowed as the due of the meanest Christian, 
 would this day have been denied to the body of your relp'cive— 
 not certainly sprung of the meanest house fn Scotland — had ii 
 not been assured to him by your courage. Others bury their
 
 8 THE B KID It OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 dead in sorrow and tears, in silence and in reverence ; our 
 funeral rites are marred by the intrusion of bailiffs and ruffians, 
 and our grief — the grief due to our departed friend — is chased 
 from our cheeks by the glow of just indignation. But it is well 
 that I know from what quiver this arrow has come forth. It 
 was only he that dug the grave who could have the mean 
 cruelty to disturb the obsequies ; and Heaven do as much to 
 me and more, if I requite not to this man and his house the 
 ruin and disgrace he has brought on me and mine ! " 
 
 A numerous part of the assembly applauded this speech, as 
 the spirited expression of just resentment ; but the more cool 
 and judicious regretted that it had been uttered. The fortunes 
 of the heir of Ravenswood were too low to brave the further 
 hostility which they imagined these open expressions of resent- 
 ment must necessarily provoke. Their apprehensions, how- 
 ever, proved groundless, at least in the immediate consequences 
 of this affair. 
 
 The mourners returned to the tower, there, according to a 
 custom but recently abolished in Scotland, to carouse deep 
 healths to the memory of the deceased, to make the house of 
 sorrow ring with sounds of joviality and debauch, and to dimin- 
 ish, by the expense of a large and profuse entertainment, the 
 limited revenues of the heir of him whose funeral they thus 
 strangely honored. It was the custom, however, and on the 
 present occasion it was fully observed. The tables swam in 
 wine, the populace feasted in the courtyard, the yeomen in the 
 kitchen and buttery ; and two years' rent of Ravenswood's 
 remaining property hardly defrayed the charge of the funeral 
 revel. The wine did its office on all but the Master of Ravens- 
 wood — a title which he still retained, though forfeiture had 
 attached to that of his father. He, while passing around the 
 cup which he himself did not taste, soon listened to a thousand 
 exclamations against the Lord Keeper, and passionate protesta- 
 tions of attachment to himself, and to the honor of his house. 
 He listened with dark and sullen brow to ebullitions which he 
 considered justly as equally evanescent with the crimson bubbles 
 on the brink of the goblet, or at least with the vapors which 
 its contents excited in the brains of the revelers around him. 
 
 When the last flask was emptied, they took their leave, with 
 deep protestations — to be forgotten on the morrow, if, indeed, 
 those who made them should not think it necessary for their 
 safety to make a more solemn retractation. 
 
 Accepting their adieus with an air of contempt which he 
 could scarce conceal, Ravenswood at length beheld his ruinous 
 habitation cleared of his confluence of riotous guests, and re-
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. g 
 
 turned to the deserted hall, which now appeared doubly lonely 
 from the cessation of that clamor to which it had so lately 
 echoed. But its space was peopled by phantoms, which the 
 imagination of the young heir conjured up before him — the tar 
 nished honor and degraded fortunes of his house, tlie destruc- 
 tion of his own hopes, and the triumph of that family by whom 
 they had been ruined. To a mind naturally of a gloomy cast, 
 here was ample room for meditation, and the musings of young 
 Ravenswood were deep and unwitnessed. 
 
 The peasant, who shows the ruins of the tower, which still 
 crown the beetling cliff and behold the war of the waves, though 
 no more tenanted save by the sea-mew and cormorant, even yet 
 affirms, that on this fatal night the Master of Ravenswood, by 
 the bitter exclamations of his despair, evoked some evil fiend, 
 under whose malignant influence the future tissue of incidents 
 was woven. Alas ! what fiend can suggest more desperate 
 counsels than those adopted under the guidance of our own 
 violent and unresisted passions ? 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 Over Gods forbode, then said the King, 
 That thou shouldst shoot at me. 
 
 William Bell, Clim o' the Cleugh, etc. 
 
 On the morning after the funeral, the legal officer, whose au- 
 thority had been found insufficient to effect an interruption of 
 the funeral solemnities of the late Lord Ravenswood, hastened 
 to state before the Keeper the resistance which he had met with 
 in the execution of his office. 
 
 The statesman was seated in a spacious library, once a 
 banqueting-room in the old Castle of Ravenswood, as was evi- 
 dent from the armorial insignia still displayed on the carved 
 roof, which was vaulted with Spanish chestnut, and on the 
 stained glass of the casement, through which gleamed a dim yet 
 rich light, on the long rows of shelves, bending under the weight 
 of legal commentators and monkish historians, whose ponderous 
 volumes formed the chief and most valued contents of a Scot- 
 tish historian of the period. On the massive oaken table and 
 reading-desk lay a confused mass of letters, petitions, and 
 parchments ; to toil amongst which was the pleasure at once 
 and the plague of Sir William Ashton's life. His appearance 
 was grave and even noble, well becoming one who held a high
 
 to THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 office in the state ; and it was not, save after long and intimate 
 conversation with him upon topics of pressing and personal in- 
 terest, that a stranger could have discovered something vacil- 
 lating and uncertain in his resolutions ; an infirmity of purpose, 
 arising from a cautious and timid disposition, which, as he was 
 conscious of its interna4 influence on his mind, he was, from 
 pride as well as policy, most anxious to conceal from others. 
 
 He listened with great apparent composure to an exagger- 
 ated account of the tumult which had taken place at the fune 
 ral, of the contempt thrown on his own authority, and that 
 of the church and state ; nor did he seem moved even by the 
 faithful report of the insulting and threatening language which 
 had been uttered by young Ravenswood and others, and ob- 
 viously directed against himself. He heard, also, what the 
 man had been able to collect, in a very distorted and ag- 
 gravated shape, of the toasts which had been drunk, and the 
 menaces uttered, at the subsequent entertainment. In fine, 
 he made careful notes of the particulars, and of the names of the 
 persons by whom, in case of need, an accusation, founded upon 
 these violent proceedings could be witnessed and made good, and 
 dismissed his informer, secure that he was now master of the re 
 maining fortune, and even of the personal liberty, of young 
 Ravenswood. 
 
 When the door had closed upon the officer of the law, the 
 Lord Keeper remained for a moment in deep meditation ; 
 then, starting from his seat, paced the apartment as one about 
 to take a sudden and energetic resolution. " Young Ravens- 
 wood," he muttered, " is now mine — he is my own — he has 
 placed himself in my hand, and he shall bend or break. I 
 have not forgot the determined and dogged obstinacy with 
 which his father fought every point to the last, resisted every 
 effort at compromise, embroiled me in lawsuits, and attempted 
 to assail my character when he could not otherwise impugn my 
 rights. This boy he has left behind him — this Fxlgar — this 
 hot-headed, harebrained fool, has wrecked his vessel before she 
 has cleared the harbor, I must see that he gains no advan- 
 tage of some turning tide which may again float him off. These 
 memoranda, properly stated to the Privy Council, cannot but 
 be construed into an aggravated riot, in which the dignity both 
 of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities stands committed 
 A heavy fine might be imposed ; an order for committing 
 him to Edinburgh or Blackness Castle seems not improper; 
 even a charge of treason might be laid on many of these words 
 and expressions, though God forbid I should prosecute the 
 matter to that extent. No, I will not ; — I will not touch hi^
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. x\ 
 
 life even if it should be in my power ; — and yet, if he lives till 
 n change of times, what follows ? — Restitution— perhaps re- 
 venge. I know Athole promised his interest to old Ravens- 
 •A'ood, and here is his son already bandying and making a 
 faction by his own contemptible influence. What a ready tool 
 he would be for the use of those who are watching the downfall 
 .;f our administration ! " 
 
 While these thoughts were agitating the mind of the wil/ 
 -.^atesman, and while he was persuading himself that his own 
 .nterest and safety, as well as those of his friends and party, 
 depenxled on using the present advantage to the uttermost 
 against young Ravenswood, the Lord Keeper sat down to his 
 desk, and proceeded to draw up, for the information of the 
 Privy Council, an account of the disorderly proceedings which, 
 in contempt of his warrant, had taken place at the funeral of 
 Lord Ravenswood. The names of most of the parties con- 
 cerned, as well as the fact itself, would, he was well aware, 
 sound odiously in the ears of his colleagues in administration, 
 and most likely instigate them to make an example of young 
 Ravenswood, at least, in tcrrorem. 
 
 It was a point of delicacy, however, to select such expres- 
 sions as might infer the young man's culpability, without 
 seeming directly to urge it, which, on the part of Sir William 
 Ashton, his father's ancient antagonist, could not but appear 
 odious and invidious. While he was in the act of composition, 
 laboring to find words which might indicate Edgar Ravens- 
 wood to be the cause of the uproar, without specifically making 
 such a charge, Sir William, in a pause of his task, chanced, 
 in looking upward, to see the crest of the family (for whose 
 heir he was whetting the arrows, and disposing the toils of 
 the law), carved upon one of the corbeilles from which the , 
 vaulted roof of the apartment sprung. It was a black bull's - * 
 head, with the legend, \\ bide my time ;T and the occasion . 
 upon which it was adopt~ed mingled itself singularly and im- " 
 pressively with the subject of his present reflections. >^^>|J 
 
 It was said by a constant tradition, that a Malisius de 
 Riivenswood had in the thirteenth century, been deprived of his 
 castle and lands by a powerful usurper, who for a while eiu 
 joyed his spoils in quiet. At length, on the eve of a costly 
 banquet, Ravenswood, who had watched his opportunity, in- 
 troduced himself into the castle with a small band of faithful 
 retainers. The serving of the expected feast was impatiently 
 looked for by the guests, and clamorously demanded by the 
 temporary master of the castle. Ravenswood, who had as* 
 srr rd the disguise of a sewer upon the occasion, answered, in
 
 12 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Stem voice, " I bide my time ; " and at the same moraeui A 
 bull's head, the ancient symbol of death, was placed upon the 
 table. The explosion of the conspiracy took place upon the 
 signal, and the usurper and his followers were put to death. 
 Perhaps there was something in this still known and often re- 
 peated story, which came immediately home to the breast and 
 conscience of the Lord Keeper ; for, putting from him the par 
 per on which he had begun his report, and carefully locking 
 the memoranda which he had prepared into a cabinet which 
 stood beside him, he proceeded to walk abroad, as if for the 
 purpose of collecting his ideas, and reflecting further on the 
 consequences of the step which he was about to take, ere yet 
 they became inevitable. 
 
 In passing through a large Gothic anteroom^ Sir William 
 Ashton heard the sound of his daughter's lute. [ Music, when 
 the performers are concealed, affects us with a pleasure mingled 
 with surprise, and reminds us of the natural concert of birds 
 among the leafy bowers.,,- The statesman, though little accus- 
 tomed to give way to emotions of this natural and simple class, 
 was still a man and a father. He stopped, therefore, and list- 
 ened, while the silver tones of Lucy Ashton's voice mingled 
 with the accompaniment in an ancient air, to which some one 
 had adapted the following words : — 
 
 " Look not thou on beauty's charming, — 
 Sit thou still when kings are arming, — • 
 Taste not when flie wine-cup glistens,— 
 Speak not when the ])eople listens, — 
 Stop thine ear against the singer, — 
 From the red gold keeji thy finger, — 
 Vacant heart, and hand, and eye, — 
 Easy live and quiet die." 
 
 The sounds ceased, and the Keeper entered his daughter's 
 apartment. 
 
 The words she had chosen seemed particularly adapted to 
 her character; for Lucy Ashton's exquisitely beautiful, yet 
 somewhat girlish features, were formed to express peace of mind, 
 serenity and indifference to the tinsel of worldly pleasure. Her 
 locks, which were of shadowy gold, divided on a brow of ex- 
 quisite whiteness, like a gleam of broken and pallid sunshine 
 upon a hill of snow. The expression of the countenance was 
 in the last d^-pjree gentle, soft, timid, and feminine, and seemed 
 rather to shrink from the most casual look of a stranger, than 
 to court his admiration. Something there was of a Madonna 
 cast, perhaps the result of delicate health, and of residence in g
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 '3 
 
 family where the dispositions of the inmates were fiercer, more 
 active, and energetic, than her own. 
 
 Yet her passiveness of disposition was by no means owing 
 to an indifferent or unfeeling mind. Left to the impulse of hei 
 own taste and feeling, Lucy Ashton was peculiarly accessible to 
 those of a romantic cast. Her secret delight was in the old 
 legendary tales of ardent devotion and unalterable affection, 
 checkered as they so often are with strange adventures and 
 supernatural horrors. This was her favored fairy realm, and 
 here she erected her aerial palaces. But it was only in secret 
 that she labored at this delusive, though delightful architecture. 
 In her retired chamber, or in the woodland bower which she 
 had chosen for her own, and called after her name, she was in 
 fancy distributing the prizes at the tournament, or raining down 
 influence from her eyes on the valiant combatants ; or she was 
 wandering in the wilderness with Una, under escort of the gen- 
 erous lion ; or she was identifying herself wiih the simple, yet 
 noble-minded Miranda, in the isle of wonder and enchantment. 
 
 But in her exterior relations to things of this world, Lucy 
 willingly received the ruling impulse from those around her. 
 The alternative was, in general, too indifferent to her to render 
 resistance desirable, and she willingly found a motive for deci- 
 sion in the opinion of her friends, which perhaps she might have 
 sought for in vain in her own choice. Every reader must have 
 observed ^^ some family of his acquaintance some individual of 
 a temper soft and yielding, who, mixed with stronger and more 
 ardent minds, is borne along by the will of others, with as little 
 power uf opposition as the flower which is flung into a running 
 stream. It usually happens that such a compliant and easy 
 disposition, which resigns itself without murmur to the guidance 
 of others, becomes the darling of those to whose inclinations its 
 own seemed to be offered, in ungrudging and ready sacrifice. 
 
 This was eminently the case with Lucy Ashton. Her politic, 
 war)', and worldly father, felt for her an affection, the strength 
 of which sometimes surprised him into an unusual emotion. 
 Her elder brother, who trode the path of ambition with a 
 haughtier step than his father, had also more of human affection. 
 A soldier, and in a dissolute age, he preferred his sister Lucy 
 even to pleasure, and to military preferment and distinction. 
 Her younger brother, at an age when trifles chiefly occupied 
 his mind, made her the confidant of all his pleasures and anxie- 
 ties, his success in field-sports, and his quarrels with his tutor 
 and instructors. To these details, however trivial, Lucy lent 
 patient and not indifferent attention. They moved and inter- 
 ested Henry, and that was enough to secure her ear.
 
 14 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 Her mother alone did not feel that distinguished and pre- 
 dominating affection, with which the rest of the family cherished 
 Lucy. She regarded what she termed her daughter's want of 
 spirit, as a decided mark, that the more plebeian blood of her 
 father predominated in Lucy's veins, and used to call her in 
 derision her Lammermoor Shepherdess. To dislike so gentle 
 and inoffensive a being was impossible ; but Lady Ashton pre- 
 ferred her eldest son, on whom had descended a large portion o( 
 her own ambitious and undaunted disposition, to a daughter 
 whose softness of temper seemed allied to feebleness of mind. 
 Her eldest son was the more partially beloved by his mother, 
 because, contrary to the usual custom of Scottish families of 
 distinction, he had been named after the head of the house. 
 
 "My Sholto," she said, "will support the untarnished honor 
 of his maternal house, and elevate and support that of his 
 father. Poor Lucy is unfit for courts or crowded halls. Some 
 country laird must be her husband, rich enough to supply her 
 with every comfort, without an effort on her own part, so that 
 she may have nothing to shed a tear for but the tender appre- 
 hension lest he may break his neck in a fox-chase. It was not 
 so, however, that our house was raised, nor is it so that it can 
 be fortified and augmented. The Lord Keeper's dignity is yet 
 new ; it must be borne as if we were used to its weight, worthy 
 of it and prompt to assert and maintain it. Before ancient 
 authorities men bend, from customary and hereditary deference ; 
 in our presence, they will stand erect, unless they are compelled 
 to prostrate themselves. A daughter fit for the sheep-fold or 
 the cloister, is ill-qualified to exact respect where it is yielded 
 with reluctance ; and since Heaven refused us a third boy, Lucy 
 should have held a character fit to supply his place. The hour 
 will be a happy one which disposes her hand in marriage to 
 some one whose energy is greater than her own, or whose ar/i- 
 bition is of as low an order." 
 
 So meditated a mother, to whom the qualities of her children's 
 hearts, as well as the prospect of their domestic happiness, 
 seemed light in comparison to their rank and temporal greatness. 
 But, like many a parent of hot and impatient character, she was 
 mistaken in estimating the feelings of her daughter, who, under 
 a semblance of extreme indifference, nourished the germ of those 
 passions which sometimes spring up in one night, like the gourd 
 of the prophet, and astonish the observer by their unexpected 
 ardor and intensity. In fact, Lucy's sentiments seemed chill, 
 because nothing had occurred to interest or awaken them. Her 
 life had hitherto flowed on in a uniform and gentle tenor, and 
 happy for her had not its present smoothness of current
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 15 
 
 I 
 
 resembled that of the stream as it glides downward to the 
 waterfall ! 
 
 " So, Lucy," said her father, entering as her song was ended, 
 " does your musical philosopher teach you to contemn the world 
 before you know it? — that is surely something premature. Or 
 did you but speak according to the fashion of fair maidens, who 
 are always to hold the pleasures of life in contempt till they are 
 pressed upon them by the address of some gentle knight ? " 
 
 Lucy blushed, disclaimed any inference respecting her own 
 choice being drawn from her selection of a song, and readily 
 laid aside her instrument at her father's request that she would 
 attend him in his walk. 
 
 A large and well-wooded park, or rather chase, stretched 
 along the hill behind the castle, which occupying, as we have 
 noticed, a pass ascending from the plain, seemed built in its 
 very gorge to defend the forest ground which arose behind it 
 in shaggy majesty. Into this romantic region the father and 
 daughter proceeded, arm in arm, by a noble avenue overarched 
 by embowering elms, beneath which groups of the fallow-deer 
 were seen to stray in distant perspective. As they paced slowly 
 on admiring the different points of view, for which Sir William 
 Ashton, notwithstanding the nature of his usual avocations, had 
 considerable taste and feeling, they were overtaken by the 
 forester, or park-keeper, who, intent on silvan sport, was pro 
 ceeding with his cross-bow over his arm, and a hound led in 
 leash by his boy, into the interior of the wood. 
 
 " Going to shoot us a piece of venison, Norman ? " said his 
 master, as he returned the woodman's salutation. 
 
 " Saul, your honor, and that I am. Will it please you to 
 see the sport ? " 
 
 " O no," said his lordship, after looking at his daughter, 
 whose color fled at the idea of seeing the deer shot, although., 
 had her father expressed his wish that they should accompany 
 Norman, it was probable she would not even have hinted her 
 reluctance. 
 
 The forester shrugged his shoulders. " It was a disheart 
 enmg thing," he said, "when none of the gentles came down 
 to see the sport. He hoped Captain Sholto would be soon hame, 
 or he might shut up his shop entirely ; for Mr. Harry was kept 
 sae close wi' his Latin nonsense, that, though his will was very 
 gude to be in the wood from morning till night, there would be 
 a hopeful lad lost, and no making a man of him. It was not 
 so, he had heard, in Lord Ravenwood's time — when a buck 
 was to be killed, man and mother's son ran to see ; and when 
 the deer fell, the knife was always presented to the kniglit. and
 
 ,6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 he never gave less than a dollar for the compliment. And there 
 was Edgar Ravenswood — Master of Ravenswood that is now — • 
 when he goes up to the wood — there hasna been a better hun- 
 ter since Tristrem's time — when Sir Edgar bauds out,* down 
 goes the deer, faith. But we hae lost a' sense of wood-craft on 
 this side of the hill." 
 
 There was much in this harangue highly displeasing to the 
 Lord Keeper's feelings ; he could not help observing that his 
 menial despised him almost avowedly for not posessing that 
 taste for sport, which in those times was deemed the natural 
 and indispensable attribute of a real gentleman. But the mas- 
 ter of the game is, in all country houses, a man of great impor- 
 tance, and entitled to use considerable freedom of speech. Sir 
 William, therefore, only smiled and replied, he had something 
 else to think upon to-day than killing deer ; meantime, taking 
 out his purse, he gave the ranger a dollar for his encourage- 
 ment. The fellow received it as the waiter of a fashionable 
 hotel receives double his proper fee from the hands of a coun- 
 try gentleman, — that is, with a smile, at which pleasure at the 
 gift is mingled with contempt for the ignorance of the donor. 
 " Your honor is the bad paymaster," he said, '' who pays before 
 it is done. What would you do were I to miss the buck after 
 you have paid me my wood-fee t " 
 
 "I suppose," said the Keeper, smiling, "you would hardly 
 guess what I mean were I to tell you of a condictio indcbiti 1 " 
 
 " Not I, on my saul — I guess it is some law phrase — but 
 sue a beggar, and — your honor knows what follows. — Well, but 
 I will be just with you, and if bow and brach fail not, you shall 
 have a piece of game two fingers fat on the brisket." 
 
 As he was about to go off, his master again called him, and 
 asked, as if by accident, whether the Master of Ravenswood was 
 actually so brave a man and so good a shooter as the world 
 spoke him ? 
 
 " Brave ! brave enough, I warrant you," answered Norman ; 
 " I was in the wood at Tyninghame, when there was a sort of 
 gallants hunting with my lord : on my saul, there was a buck 
 turned to bay made us all stand back ; a stout old Trojan of 
 the first head, ten-tyned branches, and a brow as broad as e'er 
 a bullock's. Egad, he dashed at the old lord, and there would 
 have been inlake among the peerage, if the Master had not 
 whipt roundly in, and hamstrung him with his cutlass. He was 
 but sixteen then, bless his heart ! " 
 
 " And is he as ready with the gun as with the couteau ? " said 
 Sir William. 
 
 *Hauds out. Holds out, i.e. presents his piece.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 »7 
 
 " He'll strike this silver dollar out from beneath my finger 
 and thumb at four score yards, and I'll hold it out for a gold 
 merk ; what more would you have of eye, hand, lead, and gun- 
 powder ? " 
 
 " O, no more to be wished, certainly," said the Lord Keeper ; 
 *' but we keep you from your sport, Norman. Good-morrow. 
 good Norman." 
 
 And humming his rustic roundelay, the yeoman went on his 
 road, the sound of his rough voice gradually dying away as the 
 distance betwixt them increased : — 
 
 " The monk must arise when the matins ring, 
 The abbot may sleep to their chime ; 
 But the yeomen must start when the bugles sing, 
 'Tis time, my hearts, 'tis time. 
 
 " There's bucks and raes on Bilhope braes, 
 There's a herd on Shortwood Shaw ; 
 But a lily-white doe in the garden goes, 
 She's fairly worth them a'." 
 
 "Has this fellow," said the Lord Keeper, when the yea 
 man's song had died on the wind, " ever served the Ravens- 
 wood people, that he seems so much interested in them ? I 
 suppose you know, Lucy, for you make it a point of conscience 
 to record the special history of every boor about the castle." 
 
 "I am not quite so faithful a chronicler, my dear father; 
 but I believe that Norman once served here while a boy, and 
 before he went to Ledington, whence you hired him. But if you 
 want to know anything of the former family. Old Alice is the 
 best authority." 
 
 " And what should I have to do with them, pray, Lucy," 
 said her father, " or with their history or accomplishments .-" " 
 
 " Nay, I do not know, sir ; only that you were asking ques- 
 tions of Norman about young Ravenswood." 
 
 " Pshaw, child !" — replied her father, yet immediately added^ 
 " and who is old Alice ? I think you know all the old women 
 in the country." 
 
 " To be sure I do, or how could I help the old creatures 
 •when they are in hard times ? And as to old Alice, she is the 
 very empress of old women, and queen of gossips, so far as 
 legendary lore is concerned. She is blind, poor old soul, but 
 when she speaks to you, you would think she has some way ol 
 looking into your very heart. I am sure I often cover my face, 
 or turn it away, for it seems as if she saw one change color, 
 though she has been blind these twenty years. She is worth 
 visiting, were it bijt to say you have seen a blind and paralytio
 
 l8 THE BRIDE OF LAMMEKMOOR. 
 
 old woman have so much acuteness of perception, and dignity 
 of manners. I assure you she might be a countess from hei 
 language and behavior. — Come, you must go to see Alice ; 
 we are not a quarter of a mile from her cottage." 
 
 '* All this, my dear," said the Lord Keeper, " is no answer 
 to my question, who this woman is, and what is her connection 
 with the former proprietor's family ? " 
 
 " O, it was something of a nourice-ship, I believe ; and she 
 remained here, because her two grandsons were engaged in 
 your service. But it was against her will I fancy ; for the 
 poor old creature is always regretting the change of time and 
 of property." 
 
 " I am much obliged to her," answered the Lord Keeper. 
 ** She and her folk eat my bread, and drink my cup, and are 
 lamenting all the while that they are not still under a family 
 which never could do good, either to themselves or any one 
 else ! " 
 
 " Indeed," replied Lucy, " I am certain you do old Alice 
 injustice. She has nothing mercenary about her, and would 
 not accept a penny in charity, if it were to save her from being 
 starved. She is only talkative, like all old folk, when you put 
 them on stories of their youth ; and she speaks about the 
 Ravenswood people, because she lived under them so many 
 years. But I am sure she is grateful to you, sir, for your pro- 
 tection, and that she would rather speak to you, than to any 
 other person in the whole world beside. Do, sir, come and 
 see old Alice," 
 
 And, with the freedom of an indulged daughter, she drag- 
 ged the Lord Keeper in Llie direction she desired. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 Through tops of the high trees she did descry 
 A little smoke, whose vapor, thin and light, 
 Reeking aloft, uprolled to the sky, 
 Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight, 
 That in the same did wonne some living wight 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 Lucy acted as her father's guide, for he was too much ei> 
 grossed with his political labors, or with society, to be per- 
 fectly acquainted with his own extensive domains, and, more- 
 over, was generally an inhabitant of the city of Edinburgh ; 
 and she, on the other hand, had, with her mother, resided the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 19 
 
 whole summer in Ravenswood, and partly from taste, partly 
 from want of any other amusement, had, by her frequent ran> 
 bles, learnt to know each lane, alley, dingle, or bushy dell, 
 
 And every bosky bourne from side to side. 
 
 We have said that the Lord Keeper was not indifferent to 
 the beauties of nature ; and we add, in justice to him, that he 
 felt them doubly, when pointed out by the beautiful, simple, 
 and interesting girl, who, hanging on his arm with filial kind- 
 ness, now called him to admire the size of some ancient oak, 
 and now the unexpected turn, where the path, developing its 
 maze from glen or dingle, suddenly reached an eminence com- 
 manding an extensive view of the plains beneath them, and 
 then gradually glided away from the prospect to lose itself 
 among rocks and thickets, and guide to scenes of deeper seclu- 
 sion. 
 
 It was when pausing on one of those points of extensive 
 and commanding view, that Lucy told her father they were 
 close by the cottage of her blind prote'gee ; and on turning from 
 the little hill, a path which led around it, worn by the daily 
 steps of the infirm inmate, brought them in sight of the hut, 
 which, embosomed in a deep and obscure dell, seemed to have 
 been so situated purposely to bear a correspondence with the 
 darkened state of its inhabitant. 
 
 The cottage was situated immediately under a tall rock, 
 which in some measure beetled over it, as if threatening to drop 
 some detached fragment from its brow on the frail tenement 
 beneath. The hut itself was constructed of turf and stones, 
 and rudely roofed over with thatch, much of which was in a 
 dilapidated condition. The thin blue smoke rose from it in a 
 light column, and curled upward along the white face of the in- 
 cumbent rock, giving the scene a tint of exquisite softness. In 
 a small and rude garden, surrounded by straggling elder-bushes, 
 which formed a sort of imperfect hedge, sat, near to the bee- 
 hives, by the produce of which she lived, that " woman old," 
 whom Lucy had brought her father hither to visit. 
 
 Whatever there had been which was disastrous in her for* 
 tune — whatever there was miserable in her dwelling, it was easy 
 to judge, by the first glance, that neither years, poverty, mis- 
 fortune, nor infirmity, had broken the spirit of this remarkable 
 woman. 
 
 She occupied a turf-seat placed under a weeping birch of 
 unusual magnitude and age, as Judah is represented sitting un- 
 der her palm-tree, with an air at once of majesty and of dejec- 
 tion. Her figure was tall, commanding, and but little bent by
 
 io THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 the infirmities of old age. Her dress, though that of a peasant, 
 was uncommonly clean, forming in that particular a strong 
 contrast to most of her rank, and was disposed with an atten- 
 tion to neatness and even to taste, equally unusual. But it 
 was her expression of countenance which chiefly struck the spec- 
 tator, and induced most persons to address her with a degree 
 of deference and civility very inconsistent with the miserable 
 state of her dwelling, and which, nevertheless, she received 
 with that easy composure which showed she felt it to be her 
 due. She had once been beautiful, but her beauty had been of 
 a bold and masculine cast, such as does not survive the bloom 
 of youth ; yet her features continued to express strong sense, 
 deep reflection, and a character of sober piide, which, as we 
 have already said of her dress, appeared to argue a conscious 
 superiority to those of her own rank. It scarce seemed possible 
 that a face, deprived of the advantage of sight, could have ex- 
 pressed character so strongly ; but her eyes, which were almost 
 totally closed, did not, by the display of their sightless orbs, 
 mar the countenance to which they could add nothing. She 
 seemed in a ruminating posture, soothed, perhaps, by the mur- 
 murs of the busy tribe around her, to abstraction, though not to 
 slumber. 
 
 Lucy undid the latch of the little garden gate, and solicited 
 the old woman's attention. " My father, Alice, is come to see 
 you." 
 
 " He is welcome. Miss Ashton, and so are you," said the 
 old woman, turning and inclining her head toward her visitors. 
 
 " This is a fine morning for your bee-hives, mother," said 
 the Lord Keeper, who, struck with the outward appearance of 
 Alice, was somewhat curious to know if her conversation 
 would correspond with it. 
 
 " I believe so, my lord," she replied ; " I feel the air breathe 
 milder than of late." 
 
 " You do not," resumed the statesman, " take charge of 
 these bees yourself, mother } — How do you manage them } " — 
 
 " By delegates, as kings do their subjects," resumed Alice , 
 *^ and 1 am fortunate in a prime minister — Here, Babie." 
 
 She whistled on a small silver call which hung around her 
 neck, and which at that time was sometimes used to summon dom- 
 estics, and Babie, a girl of fifteen, made her appearance from 
 the hut, not altogether so cleanly arrayed as she would probably 
 have been had Alice had the use of her eyes, but with a greater 
 air of neatness than was upon the whole to have been ex- 
 pected. 
 
 " Babie," said her mistress, " offer some bread and honey
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 2I 
 
 to the Lord Keeper and Miss Ashton — they will excuse your 
 awkwardness if you use cleanliness and despatch." 
 
 Babie performed her mistress's command with the grace 
 which was naturally to have been expected, moving to and fro 
 with ailobster-like gesture, her feet and legs tending one way, 
 while her head, turned in a different direction, was fixed in 
 wonder upon the laird, who was more frequently heard of than 
 seen by his tenants and dependants. The bread and honey, 
 however, deposited on a plantain leaf, was offered and ac- 
 cepted in all due courtesy. The Lord Keeper, still retaining 
 the place which he had occupied on the decayed trunk of a 
 fallen tree, looked as if he wished to prolong the interview, 
 but was at a loss how to introduce a suitable subject. 
 
 " You have been long a resident on this property .'"' he said, 
 after a pause. 
 
 " It is now nearly sixty years since I first knew Ravens- 
 wood," answered the old dame, whose conversation, though 
 perfectly civil and respectful, seemed cautiously limited to the 
 unavoidable and necessary task of replying to Sir William. 
 
 " You are not, I should judge by your accent, of this coun- 
 try originally ?" said the Lord Keeper, in continuation. 
 " No ; I am by birth an Englishwoman." 
 " Yet you seem attached to this country^ as if it were your 
 own." 
 
 " It is here," replied the blind woman," that I have drunk 
 the cup of joy and of sorrow which Heaven destined for me. 
 I was here the wife of an upright and affectionate husband 
 for more than twenty years — I was here the mother of six ])ro- 
 mising children — it was here that God deprived me of all these 
 blessings — it was here they died, and yonder, by yon ruined 
 chapel, they lie all buried — I had no country but theirs while 
 they lived — I have none but theirs now they are no more." 
 
 " But your house," said the Lord Keeper, looking at it, 
 " is miserably ruinous ? " 
 
 " Do, my dear father," said Lucy, eagerly, yet bashfully, 
 catching at the hint, " give orders to make it better, — that 
 is, if you think it proper." 
 
 "It will last my time, my dear Miss Lucy," said the blind 
 woman ; " I would not have my lord give himself the least 
 trouble about it." 
 
 "But," said Lucy, "you once had a much better house, 
 and were rich, and now in your old age to live in this hovel ! " 
 
 " It is as good as I deserve. Miss Lucy; if my heart has 
 not broke with what I have suffered, and seen others suffer, it
 
 22 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOO^. 
 
 must have been strong enough, and the rest of this old frame 
 has no right to call itself weaker." 
 
 " You have probably witnessed many changes," said the Lord 
 Keeper ; " but your experience must have taught you to ex- 
 pect them." 
 
 " It has taught me to endure them, my lord," was the reply 
 
 " Yet you knew that they must needs arrive in the course cf 
 years .-• " said the statesman. 
 
 " Ay ; as I know that the stump, on or beside which you 
 sit, once a tall and lofty tree, must needs one day fall by decay, 
 or by the axe ; yet I hoped my eyes might not witness the down- 
 fal of the tree which overshadowed my dwelling." 
 
 " Do not suppose," said the Lord Keeper, " that you will lose 
 any interest with me, for looking back with regret to the days 
 when another family possessed my estates. You had reason, 
 doubtless, to love them, and I respect your gratitude. I will 
 order some repairs in your cottage, and I hope we shall live to 
 be friends when we know each other better." 
 
 " Those of ray age," returned the dame, " make no new 
 friends. I thank you for your bounty — it is well intended, un- 
 doubtedly; but I have all I want, and I cannot accept more 
 at your lordship's hands." 
 
 " Well, then," continued the Lord Keeper, " at least allow 
 me to say, that I look upon you as a woman of sense and 
 education beyond your appearance, and that I hope you will 
 continue to reside on this property of mine rent-free for your 
 life." 
 
 " I hope I shall," said the old dame, composedly ; " I be- 
 lieve that was made an article in the sale of Ravenswood to 
 your lordship, though such a trifling circumstance may have 
 escaped your recollection." 
 
 " I remember — I recollect," said his lordship, somewhat 
 confused. " I perceive you are too much attached to your old 
 friends to accept any benefit from their successor." 
 
 " Far from it, my lord ; I am grateful for the benefits which 
 I decline, and I wish I could pay you for offering them better 
 than what I am now about to say." The Lord Keeper looked 
 at her in some surprise, but said not a word. " My Lord," she 
 continued, in an impressive and solemn tone, " take care what 
 you do ; you are on the brink of a precipice." 
 
 " Indeed ? " said the Lord Keeper, his mind reverting to 
 the political circumstances of the country. " Has anything 
 come to your knowledge — any plot or conspiracy ? " 
 
 " No, my lord ; those who traffic in such commodities do not 
 call in to their councils the old, blind, and infirm. My warning is
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. js^ 
 
 of another kind. You have driven matters hard with the house 
 of Ravenswood. Believe a true tale — they are a fierce house, 
 and there is danger in dealing with men when they become 
 desperate." 
 
 " Tush !" answered the Keeper ; " what has been between us 
 has been the work of the law, not my doing ; and to the law 
 they must look, if they would impugn my proceedings." 
 
 " Ay, but they may think otherwise, and take the law into 
 their own hands, when they fail of other means of redress." 
 
 " What mean you ? " said the Lord Keeper. " Young Ravens- 
 wood would not have recourse to personal violence ?" 
 
 " God forbid I should say so ! I know nothing of the youth 
 but what is honorable and open — honorable and open, said 
 I ? — I should have added, free, generous, noble. But he is still 
 a Ravenswood, and may bide his time. Remember the fate of 
 Sir George Lockhart." * 
 
 The Lord Keeper started as she called to his recollection a 
 tragedy so deep and so recent. The old woman proceeded : 
 " Chiesley, who did the deed, was a relative of Lord Ravens- 
 wood. In the hall of Ravenswood, in my presence, and in that 
 of others, he avowed publicly his determination to do the 
 cruelty which he afterward committed. I could not keep 
 silence, though to speak it ill became my station. ' You are 
 devising a dreadful crime,' I said, ' for which you must reckon 
 before the judgment-seat.' Never shall I forget his look, as he 
 replied, ' 1 must reckon then for many things, and wil reckon 
 for this also.' Therefore I may well say, beware of pressing a 
 desperate man with the hand of authority. There is blood of 
 Chiesley in the veins of Ravenswood, and one drop of it were 
 enough to fire him in the circumstances in which he is placed— 
 I say, beware of him." 
 
 The old dame had, either intentionally or by accident, harped 
 aright the fear of the Lord Keeper. The desperate and dark 
 resource of private assassination, so familiar to a Scottish baron 
 in former times, had even in the present age been too frequently 
 resorted to under the pressure of unusual temptation, or where 
 the mind of the actor was prepared for such a crime. Sir 
 William Ashton was aware of this ; as also that young Ravens- 
 wood had received injuries sufficient to prompt him to that sort 
 of revenge, which becomes a frequent though fearful consequence 
 of the partial administration of justice. He endeavored to dis- 
 guise from Alice the nature of the apprehensions which he enter- 
 tained ; but so ineffectually, that a person even of less penetration 
 than nature had endowed her with must necessarily have been 
 * Note C. Sir George Lockhart.
 
 «4 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 aware that the subject lay near his bosom. His voice was 
 changed in its accent as he repHed to her, that the Master of 
 Ravenswood was a man of honor ; and were it otherwise, that 
 the fate of Chiesley of Dairy was a sufficient warning to any 
 who should dare to assume the office of avenger of his own 
 imaginary wrongs. And having hastily uttered these expressions, 
 he rose and left the place without waiting for a reply. 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 Is she a Capulet "i 
 
 O dear account 1 my life is my foe's debt. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 The Lord Keeper walked for nearly a quarter of a mile in 
 profound silence. His daughter, naturally timid, and bred up 
 in those ideas of filial awe and implicit obedience which were 
 inculcated upon the youth of that period, did not venture to 
 interrupt his meditations. 
 
 " Why do you look so pale, Lucy 1 " said her father, turning 
 suddenly round and breaking silence. 
 
 Accordii g to the ideas of the time, which did not permit a 
 young woman to offer her sentiments on any subject of import- 
 ance unless especially required to do so, Lucy was bound to 
 appear ignorant of the meaning of all that had passed betwixt 
 Alice and her lather, and imputed the emotii- i he had observed 
 to the fear of the wild cattle which grazed in that part of the 
 extensive chase through which they were now walking 
 
 Of these animals, the descendants of the savage herds which 
 anciently roamed free in the Caledonian forests, it was formerly 
 a point of state to preserve a few in the parks of the Scottish 
 nobility. Specimens continued within the memory of man to be 
 kept at least at three houses of distinction, namely, Hamilton, 
 Drumlanrig, and Cumbernauld. They had degenerated from 
 the ancient race in size and strength, if we are to judge from the 
 accounts of old chronicles, and from the formidable remains fre- 
 quently discovered in bogs and morasses when drained and laid 
 open. The bull had iost the shaggy honors of his mane, and 
 the race was small and light made, in color a dingy white, oi 
 rather a pale yellow, with black horns and hoofs. They retained, 
 however, in some measure, the ferocity of their ancestry, could 
 not be domesticated on account of their antipathy to the human 
 race, and were often dangerous if approached unguardedly, or 
 wantonly disturbed.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 ?s 
 
 I 
 
 It was this last reason which has occasioned their being 
 extirpated at the places we have mentioned, where probably 
 they would otherwise have been retained as appropriate inhabit- 
 ants of a Scottish woodland, and fit tenants for a baronial forest. 
 A few if I mistake not, are still preserved at Chillingham 
 Castle, in Northumberland, the seat of the Earl of Tankerville. 
 
 It was to her finding herself in the vicinity of a group of 
 three or four of these animals, that Lucy thought proper to 
 impute those signs of fear which had arisen in her countenance 
 for a different reason. For she had been familiarized with the 
 appearance of the wild cattle, during her walks in the chase ; 
 and it was not then, as it may be now, a necessary part of a 
 young lady's demeanor to indulge in causeless tremors of the 
 nerves. On the present occasion, however, she speedily found 
 cause for real terror. 
 
 Lucy had scarcely replied to her father in the words we have 
 mentioned, and he was just about to rebuke her supposed 
 timidity, when a bull, stimulated either by the scarlet color 
 of Miss Ashton's mantle, or by one of those fits of capricious 
 ferocity to which their dispositions are liable, detached himself 
 suddenly from the group which was feeding at the upper extrem- 
 ity of a grassy glade, that seemed to lose itself among the 
 crossing and entangled boughs. The animal approached the 
 intruders on his pasture ground, at first slowly, pawing the 
 ground with his hoof, bellowing from time to time, and tearing 
 up the sand with his horns, as if to lash himself up to rage and 
 violence. 
 
 The Lord Keeper, who observed the animal'o demeanor, 
 was aware that he was about to become mischievou"^, and, draw- 
 ing his daughter's arm under his own, began to walk fast along 
 the avenue, in hopes to get out of his sight and his reach. This 
 was the most injudicious course he could have adopted, for, 
 encouraged by the appearance of flight, the bull began to pur- 
 sue them at full speed. Assailed by a danger so imminent, 
 firmer courage than that of the Lord Keeper might have given 
 way. But paternal tenderness, "love strong as death," sus- 
 tained him. He continued to support and drag onward his 
 daughter, until, her fears altogether depriving her of the power 
 of flight, she sunk down by his side ; and when he could no 
 longer assist her to escape, he turned round and placed himself 
 betwixt her and the raging animal, which advancing in full career, 
 its brutal fury enhanced by the rapidity of the' pursuit, was 
 now within a "ew yiirds of them. The Lord Keeper had no 
 weapons ; his age and gravity disn«>«sed even with the usual
 
 a 6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 appendage of a walking sword, — could such appendage have 
 availed him anything. 
 
 It seemed inevitable that the father or daughter, or both, 
 should have fallen victims to the impending danger, when a 
 shot from a neighboring thicket arrested the progress of the 
 animal. He was so truly struck between the junction of the 
 spine with the skull, that the wound, which in any other part 
 of his body might scarce have impeded his career, proved 
 Instantly fatal. Stumbling forward with a hideous bellow, the 
 progressive force of his previous motion, rather than any opera- 
 tion of his limbs, carried him up to within three yards of the 
 astonished Lord Keeper, where he rolled on the ground, his 
 limbs darkened wfth the black death-sweat, and quivering with 
 the last convulsions of muscular motion. 
 
 Lucy lay senseless on the ground, insensible of the wonder- 
 ful deliverance which she had experienced. Her father was 
 almost equally stupefied, so rapid and unexpected had been the 
 transition from the horrid death which seemed inevitable, to 
 perfect security. He gazed on the animal, terrible even in 
 death, with a si>ecies of mute and confused astonishment, which 
 did not permit him distinctly to understand what had taken 
 place ; and so inaccurate was his consciousness of what had 
 passed, he might have supposed the bull to have been arrested 
 in its career by a thunderbolt, had he not observed among the 
 branches of the thicket the figure of a man, with a short gun or 
 musquetoon in his hand. 
 
 This instantly recalled him to a sense of their situation- 
 glance at his daughter reminded him of the necessity of procur- 
 ing her assistance. He called to the man, whom he concluded 
 to be one of his foresters, to give immediate attention to Miss 
 Ashton, while he himself hastened to call assistance. The 
 huntsman approached them accordingly, and the Lord Keeper 
 .•;aw he was a stranger, but was too much agitated to make any 
 turther remarks. In a few hurried words, he directed the 
 shooter, as stronger and more active than himself, to carry the 
 young lady to a neighboring fountain, while he went back to 
 Alice's hut to procure more aid. 
 
 The man to whose timely interference they had been so 
 much indebted, did not seem inclined to leave his good work 
 half finished. He raised Lucy from the ground in his arms, 
 and conveying her through the glades of the forest by paths 
 with which he seemed well acquainted, stopped not until he laid 
 her in safety by the side of a plentiful and pellucid fountain, 
 which had been once covered in, screened and decorated with 
 ^c^.T4*ctural ornaments of a Gothic character. But now the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 27 
 
 vault which had covered it being broken down and riven, and 
 the Gothic font ruined and demolished, the stream burst forth 
 from the recess of the earth in open day, and winded its way 
 among the brolcen sculpture and moss-grown stones which lay 
 in confusion around its source. 
 
 Tradition, always busy, at least in Scotland, to grace with a 
 legendary tale a spot in itself interesting, had ascribed a 
 cause of peculiar veneration to this fountain. A beautiful 
 young lady met one of the Lords of Ravenswood while hunting 
 near this spot, and like a second Egeria, had captivated the af- 
 fections of the feudal Numa. They met frequently afterwards, 
 and always at sunset, the charms of the nymph's mind complet- 
 ing the conquest which her beauty had begun, and the mystery 
 of the intrigue adding zest to both. She always appeared and 
 disappeared close by the fountain, with which, therefore her 
 lover judged she had some inexplicable connection. She placed 
 certain restrictions on their intercourse, which also savored 
 of mystery. They met only once a week — Friday was the ap- 
 pointed day — and she explained to the Lord of Ravenswood, 
 that they were under the necessity of separating so soon as the 
 bell of a chapel, belonging to a hermitage in the adjoining 
 wood, now long ruinous, should toll the hour of vespers. In 
 the course of his confession, the Baron of Ravenswood intrusted 
 the hermit with the secret of his singular amour, and Father 
 Zachary drew the necessary and obvious consequence, that his 
 patron was enveloped in the toils of Satan, and in danger of 
 destruction both to body and soul. He urged these perils to 
 the Baron with all the force of monkish rhetoric, and described, 
 in the most frightful colors, the real character and person of 
 the apparently lovely Naiad, whom he hesitated not to denounce 
 as a limb of the kingdom of darkness. The lover listened with 
 obstinate incredulity ; and it was not until worn out by the ob- 
 stinacy of the anchoret, that he consented to put the state and 
 condition of his mistress to a certain trial, and for that purpose 
 acquiesced in Zachary's proposal, that on their next interview 
 the vespers' bell should be rung half-an-hour later than usual. 
 The hermit nmintained, and bucklered his opinion bv quotations 
 from Malleus Malcficanan, Sprengerus, JRemigius* and other 
 learned demonologists, that the Evil One, thus seduced to remain 
 behind the appointed hour, would assume her true shape, and 
 having appeared to her terrified lover as a fiend of hell, would 
 vanish from him in a flash of sulphurous lightning. Raymond 
 of Ravenswood acquiesced in the experiment, not incurious 
 
 ♦ [See the Author's Letters on Demonology.'i
 
 28 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 concerning the issue, though confident it would disappoint the 
 expectations of the hermit. 
 
 At the appointed hour the lovers met, and their interview 
 was protracted beyond that at which they usually parted, by the 
 delay of the priest to ring his usual curfew. No change took 
 place upon the nymph's outward form ; but as soon as the 
 lengthening shadows made her aware that the usual hour of the 
 vesperj' chime was past, she tore herself from her lover's arms 
 with a shriek of despair, bid him adieu forever, and plunging 
 into the fountain, disappeared from his eyes. The bubbles oc- 
 casioned by her descent were crimsoned with blood as they 
 arose, leaving the distracted Baron to infer that his ill-judged 
 curiosity had occasioned the death of this interesting and mys- 
 terious being. The remorse which he felt, as well as the rec- 
 collection of her charms, proved the penance of his future life, 
 which he lost in the battle of Flodden not many months after. 
 But, in memory of his Naiad, he had previously ornamented the 
 fountain in which she appeared to reside, and secured its waters 
 from profanation or pollution, by the small vaulted building of 
 which the fragments still remained scattered around it. From 
 this period the house of Ravenswood was supposed to have 
 dated its decay. 
 
 Such was the generally received legend, which some, who 
 would seem wiser than the vulgar, explained, as obscurely in- 
 timating the fate of a beautiful maid of plebeian rank, the mis- 
 tress of this Raymond, whom he slew in a fit of jealousy, and 
 whose blood was mingled with the waters of the locked fountain, 
 as it was commonly called. Others imagined that the tale had 
 a more remote origin in the ancient heathen mythology. All how- 
 ever agreed, that the spot was fatal to the Ravenswood family; 
 and that to drink of the waters of the well, or even approach 
 its brink, was as ominous to a descendant of that house, as for 
 a Grahame to wear green, a Bruce to kill a spider, or a St. Clair 
 ■to cross the Ord on a Monday. 
 
 It was on this ominous spot that Lucy Ashton first drew 
 breath after her long and almost deadly swoon. Beautiful 
 and pale as the fabulous Naiad in the last agony of separation 
 from her lover, she was seated so as to rest with her back 
 against a part of the ruined wall, while her mantle, dripping 
 with the water which her protector had used profusely to recall 
 her senses, clung to her slender and beautifully proportioned 
 form. 
 
 The first moment of recollection brought to her mind the 
 danger which had overpowered her senses — the next called to 
 remembrance that of her father. She looked around — he was
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 29 
 
 nowhere to be seen — " My father — my father ! " was all that 
 she could ejaculate. 
 
 " Sir William is safe," answered the voice of a stranger — • 
 " perfectly safe, and will be with you instantly." 
 
 " Are you sure of that t '' exclaimed Lucy — " the bull was close 
 by us — do not stop me — I must go to seek my father." 
 
 And she arose with that purpose ; but her strength was 
 so much exhausted, that, far from possessing the power to 
 execute her purpose, she must have fallen against the stone 
 on which she had leant, probably not without sustaining serious 
 injury. 
 
 The stranger was so near to her that, without actually suffer- 
 ing her to fall, he could not avoid catching her in his arms, 
 which, however, he did with a momentary reluctance, very un- 
 usual when youth interposes to prevent beauty from danger. It 
 seemed as if her weight, slight as it was, proved too heavy for 
 her young and athletic assistant, for without feeling the temp- 
 tation of detaining her in his arms ever for a single instant, 
 he again placed her on the stone from which she had risen, and 
 retreating a few steps, repeated hastily, " Sir William Ashton 
 is perfectly safe, and will be here instantly. Do not make 
 yourself anxious on his account — Fate has singularly preserved 
 him. You, madam, are exhausted, and must not think of rising 
 unt'l you have some assistance more suitable than mine." 
 
 Lucy, whose senses were by this time more effectually 
 collected, was naturally led to look at the stranger with at- 
 tention. There was nothing in his appearance which should 
 have rendered him unwilling to offer his arm to a young lady 
 who required support, or which could have induced her to> (A-fe/'^A^ 
 refuse his assistance • and she could not help thinking, even In /"'"'' 
 that moment, that he seemed cold and reluctant to offer it. A 
 shooting-dress of dark cloth intimated the rank of the wearer, 
 though concealed in part by a large and loose cloak of a dark 
 brown color. A Montero cap and a black feather drooped 
 over the wearer's brow, and partly concealed his features, which, 
 so far as seen, were dark, regular, and full of majestic, though 
 somewhat sullen, expression. Some secret sorrow, or the brood- 
 ing spirit of some moody passion, had quenched the light and in- 
 genuous vivacity of youth in a countenance singularly fitted to 
 display both, and it was not easy to gaze on the stranger with- 
 out a secret impression either of pity or awe, or at least of doubt 
 and curiosity allied to both. 
 
 The impression which we have necessarily been long in de- 
 scribing, Lucy felt in the glance of a moment, and had no soonei 
 ppcountered the keen black eyes of the stranger, than her own
 
 30 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 were bent on the ground with a mixture of bashful embarrass 
 ment and fear. Yet there was a necessity to speak, at least 
 she thought so, and in a fluttered accent she began to mention 
 her wonderful escape, in which she was sure that the stranger 
 must, under Heaven, have been her father's protector, and her 
 own. 
 
 He seemed to shrink from her expressions of gratitude, 
 while he replied abruptly, " I leave you, madam," — the deep 
 melody of his voice rendered powerful, but not harsh, by some- 
 thing like a severity of tone — " I leave you to the protection 
 of those to whom it is possible you may have this day been a 
 guardian angel." 
 
 Lucy was surprised at the ambiguity of his language, and with 
 a feeling of artless and unaffected gratitude, began to deprecate 
 the idea of having intended to give her deliverer any offence, 
 as if such a thing had been possible. " I have been unfortunate," 
 she said, " in endeavoring to express my thanks — I am sure 
 it must be so, though I cannot recollect what I said — but would 
 you but stay till my father — till the Lord Keeper comes — would 
 you only permit him to pay you his thanks, and to inquire 
 your name." 
 
 " My name is unnecessar).'," answered the stranger ; " your 
 father — I would rather say Sir William Ashton — will learn it 
 soon enough, for all the pleasure it is likely to afford him." 
 
 " You mistake him," said Lucy, earnestly ; "he will be grate- 
 ful for my sake and for his own. You do not know my father, 
 or you are deceiving me with a story of his safety, when he has 
 already fallen a victim to the fury of that animal." 
 
 When she had caught this idea, she started from the ground, 
 and endeavored to press toward the avenue in which the acci- 
 dent had taken place, while the stranger, though he seemed to 
 hesitate between the desire to assist and the wish to leave her, 
 was obliged, in common humanity, to oppose her both by en- 
 treaty and action. 
 
 " On the word of a gentleman, madam, I tell you the truth ; 
 youT father is in perfect safety ; you will expose yourself to in- 
 jury if you venture back where the herd of wild cattle grazed. 
 — If you will go" — for, having once adopted the idea that hei 
 father was still in danger, she pressed forward in spite of hira 
 — " If 5'ou will go, accept my arm, though I am not perhaps the 
 person who can with most propriety offer you support." 
 
 But, without heeding this intimation, Lucy took him at his 
 word. " O, if you be a man," she said, — " if you be a gentle- 
 wian, assist nae to find my father I You shall not leave me —
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 3« 
 
 you must go with me — he is dying perhaps while we are talking 
 here ! " 
 
 Then, without listening to excuse or apology, and holding 
 fast by the stranger's arm, though unconscious of anything save 
 the support which it gave, and without which she could not 
 have moved, mixed with a vague feeling of preventing his 
 escape from her, she was urging, and almost dragging him 
 forward, when Sir William Ashton came up, followed by the 
 female attendant of blind Alice, and by two wood-cutters, whom 
 he had summoned from their occupation to his assistance. His 
 joy at seeing his daughter safe, overcame the surprise with which 
 he would at another time have beheld her hanging as familiarly 
 on the arm of a stranger, as she might have done upon his 
 own. 
 
 " Lucy, my dear Lucy, are you safe ? — are you well ?" were 
 the only words that broke from him as he embraced her in 
 ecstasy. 
 
 " I am well, sir, thank God ! and still more that I see you 
 so ; — but this gentleman," she said, quitting his arm, and shrink- 
 ing from him, " what must he think of me ? " and her eloquent 
 blood, flushing over neck and brow, spoke how much she was 
 ashamed of the freedom with which she had craved, and even 
 compelled, his assistance. 
 
 "This gentleman," said Sir William Ashton, " will, I trust, 
 not regret the trouble we have given him, when I assure him of 
 the gratitude of the Lord Keeper for the greatest service which 
 one man ever rendered to another — for the life of my child — 
 for my own life, which he has saved by his bravery and presence 
 of mind. He will, I am sure, permit us to request" 
 
 " Request nothing of me, my lord," said the stranger, in a 
 stern and peremptory tone ; " I am the Master of Ravenswood." 
 
 There was a dead pause of surprise, not unmixed with less 
 pleasant feelings. The Master wrapt himself in his cloak, made 
 a haughty inclination toward Lucy, muttering a few words of 
 courtesy, as indistinctly heard as they seemed to be reluctantly 
 uttered, and, turning from them, was immediately lost in the 
 thicket. 
 
 " The Master of Ravenswood ! " said the Lord Keeper, when 
 he had recovered his momentary astonishment — " Hasten after 
 him — stop him — beg him to speak to me for a single moment." 
 
 The two foresters accordingly set off in pursuit of the 
 stranger. They speedily reappeared, and in an embarrassed and 
 awkward manner, said the gentleman would not return. The 
 I^ord Keeper took one of the fellows aside, and questioned him 
 more closely what the Master of Ravenswood had said.
 
 32 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 " He just said he wadna come back," said the man, with the 
 
 caution of a prudent Scotsman, who cared not to be the bearei 
 of an unpleasant errand. 
 
 " He said something more, sir," said the Lord Keeper, " and 
 I insist on knowing what it was." 
 
 " Why, then, my lord," said the man, looking down, 'he 
 said — But it wad be nae pleasure to your lordship to hear it, for 
 I dare say the Master meant nae ill." 
 
 " That's none of your concern, sir ; I desire to hear the very 
 words." 
 
 " Weel, then," replied the man, " he said, Tell Sir William 
 Ashton, that the next time he and I foregather, he will not be 
 half sae blithe of our meeting as of our parting." 
 
 " Very well, sir," said the Lord Keeper ; " I believe he alludes 
 to a wager we have on our hawks — it is a matter of no con- 
 sequence." 
 
 He turned to his daughter, who was by this time so much 
 recovered as to be able to walk home. But the effect which 
 the various recollections, connected with a scene so terrific, 
 made upon a mind which was susceptible in an extreme degree, 
 was more permanent than the injury which her nerves had 
 sustained. Visions of terror, both in sleep and in waking 
 reveries, recalled to her the form of the furious animal, and 
 the dreadful bellow with which he accompanied his career; 
 and it was always the image of the Master of Ravenswood, with 
 his native nobleness of countenance and form, that seemed to 
 interpose betwixt her and assured death. It is, perhaps, at all 
 times dangerous for a young person to suffer recollection to 
 dwell repeatedly, and with too much complacency, on the same 
 individual ; but in Lucy's situation it was almost unavoidable. 
 She had never happened to see a young man of mien and fea- 
 tures so romantic and so striking as young Ravenswood ; but 
 had she seen a hundred his equals or his superiors in those 
 particulars, no one else could have been linked to lier heart by 
 the strong associations of remembered danger and escape, of 
 gratitude, wonder, and curiosity. I say curiosity, for it is likely 
 that the singularly restrained and unaccommodating manners 
 of the Master of Ravenswood, so much at variance with the 
 natural expression of his features and grace of his deportment, 
 as they excited wonder by the contrast, had their effect in 
 riveting hor attention to the recollection. She knew little of 
 Ravenswood, or the disputes which had existed betwixt her 
 father and his, and perhaps could in her gentleness of mind 
 hardly have comprehended the angry and bitter passions which 
 they had engendered. But she knew that he was come of noble
 
 TBE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 33 
 
 stem ; was poor, though descended from the noble and the 
 wealthy ; and bhe felt that she could sympathize with the feel- 
 ings of a proud mind, which urged him to recoil from the 
 proffered gratitude of the new proprietors of his father's house 
 and domains. Would he have equally shunned their acknowl- 
 edgments and avoided their intimacy, had her father's request 
 been urged more mildly, less abruptly, and softened with the 
 grace which women so well know how to throw into their 
 manner, when they mean to mediate betwixt the headlong 
 passions of the ruder sex ? This was a perilous question to 
 ask her own mind — perilous both in the idea and in its con- 
 sequences. 
 
 Lucy Ashton, in short, was involved in those mazes of the 
 imagination which are most dangerous to the young and the 
 sensitive. Time, it is true, absence, change of scene and new 
 faces, might probably have destroyed the illusion in her instance 
 as it has done in many others ; but her residence remained 
 solitary, and her mind without those means of dissipating her 
 pleasing visions. This solitude was chieily owing to the absence 
 of Lady Ashton, who was at this time in Edinburgh, watching 
 the progress of some state intrigue ; the Lord Keeper only 
 received society out of policy or ostentation, and was by nature 
 rather reserved and unsociable ; and thus no cavalier appeared 
 to rival or to obscure the ideal picture of chivalrous excellence 
 which Lucy had pictured to herself in the Master of Ravenswood. 
 
 While Lucy indulged in these dreams, she made frequent 
 visits to old blind Alice, hoping it would be easy to lead her to 
 talk on the subject, which at present she had so imprudently 
 admitted to occupy so large a portion of her thoughts. But 
 Alice did not in this particular gratify her wishes and expecta- 
 tions. She spoke readily, and with pathetic feeling, concerning 
 the family in general, but seemed to observe an especial and 
 cautious silence on the subject of the present representative. 
 The little she said of him was not altogether so favorable as 
 Lucy had anticipated. She hinted that he was of a stern and 
 unforgiving character, more ready to resent than to pardon 
 injuries ; and Lucy combined with great alarm the hints which 
 she now dropped of these dangerous qualities, with Alice's 
 advice to her father, so emphatically given, " to beware of 
 Ravenswood." 
 
 But that very Ravenswood, of whom such unjust suspicions 
 had been entertained, had, almost immediately after they had 
 been uttered, confuted them, by saving at once her father's life 
 and her own. Had he nourished such black revenge as Alice's 
 dark hints seemed to indicate, no deed of active guilt was
 
 34 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 necessary to the full gratification of that evil passion. He 
 needed but to have withheld for an instant his indispensable 
 and effective assistance, and the object of his resentment must 
 have perished, without any direct aggression on his part, by a 
 death equally fearful and certain. She conceived, therefore, 
 that some secret prejudice, or the suspicions incident to age and 
 misfortune, had led Alice to form conclusions injurious to the 
 character, and irreconcilable both with the generous conduct 
 and noble features of the Master of Ravenswood. And in this 
 belief Lucy reposed her hope, and went on weaving her enchanted 
 web of fairy -tissue, as beautiful and transient as the film of the 
 gossamer, when it is pearled with the morning dew and glim- 
 mering to the sun. 
 
 Her father, in the meanwhile, as well as the Master of 
 Ravenswood, were making reflections, as frequent though more 
 solid than those of Lucy, upon the singular event which 
 had taken place. The Lord Keeper's first task, when he re- 
 turned home, was to ascertain by medical advice that his daugh- 
 ter had sustained no injury from the dangerous and alarming 
 situation in which she had been placed. Satisfied on this topic, 
 he proceeded to revise the memoranda which he had taken 
 down from the mouth of the person employed to interrupt the 
 funeral service of the late Lord Ravenswood. Bred to casuis- 
 try, and well accustomed to practice the ambidexter ingenuity 
 of the bar, it cost him little trouble to soften the features of the 
 tumult which he had been at first so anxious to exaggerate. 
 He preached to his colleagues of the Privy Council the necessity 
 of using conciliatory measures with young men, whose blood 
 and temper were hot, and their experience of life limited. He 
 did not hesitate to attribute some censure to the conduct of the 
 officer, as having been unnecessarily irritating. 
 
 These were the contents of his public despatches. The 
 letters which he wrote to those private friends into whose man- 
 agement the matter was likely to fall, were of a yet more favor- 
 able tenor. He represented that lenity in this case would be 
 equally politic and popular, whereas, considering the high respect 
 with which the rites of interment are regarded in Scotland, 
 any severity exercised against the Master of Ravenswood for 
 protecting those of his father from interruption, would be on 
 all sides most unfavorably construed. And, finally, assuming 
 the language of a generous and high-spirited man, he made it 
 his particular request, that this affair should be passed over 
 without severe notice. He alluded with delicacy to the predic- 
 ament in which he himself stood with young Ravenswood, as 
 having succeeded in the long train of litigation by which the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 35 
 
 fortunes of that noble house had been so much reduced, and 
 confessed it would be most peculiarly acceptable to his feelings 
 could he find means in some sort to counterbalance the disad 
 vantages which he occasioned the family, though only in the 
 prosecution of his just and lawful rights. He therefore made 
 it his particular and personal request that the matter should 
 have no further consequences, and insinuated a desire that he 
 himself should have the merit of having put a stop to it by his 
 favorable report and intercession. It was particularly remark- 
 able, that, contrary to his uniform practice, he made no special 
 communication to Lady Ashton upon the subject of the tumult; 
 and although he mentioned the alarm which Lucy had received 
 from one of the wild cattle, yet he gave no detailed account 
 of an incident so interesting and terrible. 
 
 There was much surprise among Sir William Ashton's polit- 
 ical friends and colleagues on receiving letters of a tenor so 
 unexpected. On comparing notes together, one smiled, one put 
 up his eyebrows, a third nodded acquiescence in the general 
 wonder, and a fourth asked, if they were sure these were all 
 the letters the Lord Keeper had written on the subject. " It 
 runs strangely in my mind, my lords, that none of these advices 
 contain the root of the matter." 
 
 But no secret letters of a contrary nature had been received, 
 although the questions seemed to imply the possibility of their 
 existence. 
 
 " Well," said an old gray-headed statesman, who had con- 
 trived, by shifting and trimming, to maintain his post at the 
 steerage through all the changes of course which the vessel 
 had held for thirty years, " I thought Sir William would hae 
 verified the auld Scottish saying, ^.As soon comes the lamb's 
 skin to market as the auld tup's'. ^\ 
 
 " We must please him after his own fashion," said another, 
 *' thoughit be an unlooked-for one." 
 
 " A wilful man maun hae his way," answered the old coun- 
 sellor, 
 
 " The Keeper will rue this before year and day are out," 
 said a third ; " the Master of Ravenswood is the lad to wind 
 him a pirn."* 
 
 "Why, what would you do, my lords, with the poor young 
 fellow ? " said a noble Marquis present ; " the Lord Keeper has 
 got all his estates — he has not a cross to bless himself with. " 
 
 On which the ancient Lord Turntippet replied, 
 
 * Wind him a pirn (reel), proverbial for preparing a troublesome busfr 
 nesi for some person.
 
 36 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 * If he hfisna gear to fine, 
 He has shins to pine — 
 
 And that was our way before the Revolution — Luitur cum 
 persona, qii hiere non potest cum cnimena* — Hegh, my lords, 
 that's gude law Latin." 
 
 " I can see no motive," replied the Marquis, " that any noble 
 lord can have for urging this matter further ; let the Lord 
 Keeper have the power to deal in it as he pleases." 
 
 '' Agree, agree — remit to the Lord Keeper, with any other 
 person for fashion's sake — Lord Hirplehooly, who is bed-ridden 
 — one to be a quorum — Make your entry in the minutes, Mr. 
 Clerk — and now, my lords, there is that young scattergood, the 
 Laird of Bucklaw's fine to be disponed upon — I suppose it goes 
 to my Lord Treasurer t " 
 
 " Shame be in my meal-poke, then," exclaimed Lord Turn- 
 tippet; " and your hand aye in the nook of it ! I had set that 
 down for a by bit between meals for mysell." 
 
 " To use one of your favorite saws, my lord," replied the 
 Marquis, " you are like the miller's dog, that licks his lips before 
 the bag is untied — the man is not fined yet." 
 
 " But that costs but twa skarts of a pen," said Lord Turn- 
 tippet ; "and surely there is nae noble lord that will presume 
 to say, that I, who hae complied wi' a' compliances, taen all 
 manner of tests, abjured all that was to be abjured, and sworn 
 a' that was to be sworn, for these thirty years bypast, sticking 
 fast by my duty to the state through good report and bad re- 
 port, shouldna hae something now and then to synd my mouth 
 wi' after sic drouthy wark ? Eh ? " 
 
 " It would be very unreasonable indeed, my lord," replied the 
 Marquis, "had we either thought that your lordship's drought 
 was quenchdblc, or observed anything stick in your throat that 
 required waehing down." 
 
 And so we close the scene on the Privy Council of that 
 period, 
 
 * i, t. Let him pay with his person who cannot pay with his purse.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 3^ 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 For this are all these warriors come, 
 
 To hear an idle tale ; 
 And o'er our death-accustom'd arms 
 
 Shall silly tears prevail ? 
 
 Henry Mackenzie. 
 
 On the evening of the day when the Lord Keeper and his 
 daughter were saved from such imminent peril, two strangers 
 were seated in the most private apartment of a small obscure 
 inn, or rather ale-house, called the Tod's Den, about three or 
 four miles from the Castle of Ravenswood, and as far from the 
 ruinous tower of Wolf's Crag, betwixt which two places it was 
 situated. 
 
 One of these strangers was about forty years of age, tall, and 
 thin in the flanks, with an aquiline nose, dark penetrating eyes, 
 and a shrewd but sinister cast of countenance. The other 
 was about fifteen years younger, short, stout, ruddy-faced, and 
 red-haired, with an open, resolute, and cheerful eye, to which 
 careless and fearless freedom, and inward daring, gave fire and 
 expression, notwithstanding its light gray color. A stoup of 
 wine (for in those days it was served out from the cask in 
 pewter flagons) was placed on the table, and each had his quaigh 
 or bicker* before him. But there was little appearance of 
 conviviality. With folded arms, and looks of anxious expecta- 
 tion, they eyed each other in silence, each wrapt in his own 
 thoughts, and holding no communication with his neighbor. 
 
 At length the younger broke silence by exclaiming, " What 
 the foul fiend can detain the Master so long? he must have 
 miscarried in his enterprise. — Why did you dissuade me from 
 going with him ? " 
 
 " One man is enough to right his own wrong," said the taller 
 and older personage ; " we venture our lives for him in coming 
 ihus far on such an errand." 
 
 "You are but a craven after all, Craigengelt," answered the 
 younger, "and that's what many folk have thought you before 
 now." 
 
 " But what none has dared to tell me," said Craigengelt, lay- 
 
 * Drinking cups of different sizes, made out of staves hooped together. 
 The q?w?^/4 was used chiefly for drinking wine or brandy: it might hold 
 about a gill, and was often composed r^ r.^re wood, and curiously ornac 
 tuented with silver.
 
 ,g THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 ing his hand on the hilt of his sword ; " and, but that I hold a 
 hasty man no better than a fool, I would " — he paused for his 
 companion's answer. 
 
 *' Would you ? " said the other coolly ; " and why do you 
 not, then ? " 
 
 Craigengelt drew his cutlass an inch or two, and then re- 
 turned it wiih violence into the scabbard — " Because there is a 
 deeper stake to be played for, than the lives of twenty hare 
 brain-ed gowks like you." 
 
 " You are right there," said his companion, "for if it were not 
 that these forfeitures, and that last fine that the old driveler 
 Turntippet is gaping for, and which, I daresay, is laid on by this 
 time, have fairly driven me out of house and home, I were a 
 coxcomb and a cuckoo to boot, to trust your fair promises of get- 
 ting me a commission in the Irish brigade, — what have I to do 
 with the Irish brigade ? I am a plain Scotsman as my father 
 was before me : and my grand-aunt. Lady Girnington, cannot 
 live forever." 
 
 " Ay, Bucklaw," observed Craigengelt, " but she may live for 
 many a long day ; and for your father, he had land and living, kept 
 himself close from wadsetters and money-lenders, paid each man 
 his due, and lived on his own." 
 
 " And whose fault is it that I have not done so too ? " said 
 Bucklaw — " whose but the devil's and yours, and such like as you, 
 that have led me to the far end of a fair estate .'' and now I shall 
 be obliged, I suppose, to shelter and shift about like yourself — • 
 live one week upon a line of secret intelligence from Saint Ger- 
 mains — another upon report of a rising in the Highlands — get 
 my breakfast and morning-draught of sack from old Jacobite 
 ladies, and give them locks of my old wig for the Chevalier's 
 hair — second my friend in his quarrel till he comes to the field, 
 and then flinch from him lest so important a political agent 
 should perish from the way. All this I must do for bread, be- 
 • sides calling myself a Captain ! " 
 
 "You think you are making a fine speech now," said Craig- 
 engelt, " and showing much wit at my expense. Is starving 
 or hanging better than the life 1 am obliged to lead, because 
 the present fortunes of the king cannot sufficiently support 
 his envoys ? " 
 
 " Starving is honester, Craigengelt, and hanging is like to 
 be the end on't — But what you mean to make of this poor fel- 
 low Ravenswood I know not — he has no money left, anymore 
 than I — his lands are all pawned and pledged, and the interest 
 eats up the rents and is not satisfied, and what do you hope to 
 make by meddling in his affairs ? "
 
 I 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. jg 
 
 " Content yourself, Bucklaw ; I know my business," re- 
 plied Craigengelt. " Besides that his name, and his father's 
 services in 1689, will make such an acquisition sound well 
 both at Versailles and Saint Germains — you will also please be 
 informed, that the Master of Ravenswood is a very different 
 kind of young fellow from you. He has parts and address, as 
 well as courage and talents, and will present himself abroad like 
 a young man of head as well as heart, who knows something 
 more than the speed of a horse or the flight of a hawk. I have 
 lost credit of late, by bringing over no one that had sense to 
 know more than how to unharbor a stag, or take and reclaim 
 an eyess. The Master has education, sense, and penetration." 
 
 " And yet is not wise enough to escape the tricks of a kid- 
 napper, Craigengelt ! " replied the younger man. " But don't be 
 angry ; you know you will not fight, and so it is as well to leave 
 your hilt in peace and quiet, and tell me in sober guise how 
 you drew the Master into your confidence .'' " 
 
 " By flattering his love of vengeance, Bucklaw," an- 
 swered Craigengelt. " He has always distrusted me, but I 
 watched my time, and struck while his temper was red-hot with 
 the sense of insult and of wrong. He goes now to expostulate, 
 as he says, and perhaps thinks, with Sir William Ashton. I 
 say that if they meet, and the lawyer puts him to his defence, 
 the Master will kill him ; for he had that sparkle in his eye 
 which never deceives you when you would read a man's pur- 
 pose. At any rate, he will give him such a bullying as will be 
 construed into an assault on a privy-councillor ; so there will 
 be a total breach betwixt him and government ; Scotland will be 
 too hot for him, France will gain him, and we will all set sail 
 together in the French brig L'Espoir, which is hovering for us 
 off Eyemouth." 
 
 " Content am I," said Bucklaw ; " Scotland has little left that 
 I care about; and if carrying the Master with us will get us a 
 better reception in France, why, so be it, a God's name. I 
 doubt our own merits will procure us slender preferment ; and 
 I trust he will send a ball through the Keeper's head before he 
 joins us. One or two of these scoundrel statesmen should be 
 shot once a-year, just to keep the others on their good behavior." 
 
 *• That is very true," replied Craigengelt ; and it reminds 
 me that I must go and see that our horses have been fed, and 
 are in readiness ; for should such deed be done, it will be no 
 time for grass to grow beneath their heels." He proceeded as 
 far as the door, then turned back with a look of earnestness, 
 and said to Bucklaw, " Whatever should come of this business, 
 I s,m sure you will do me the justice to remember, that I said
 
 ♦o 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 nothing to the Master which could imply my accession to anj 
 act of violence which he may take into his head to commit." 
 
 " No, no, not a single word like accession," replied Buck- 
 law ; " you know too well the risk belonging to these two terrible 
 words, art and part." Then as if to himself, he recited the 
 following lines : — 
 
 " The dial spoke not, but it made shrewd signs, 
 And pointed full upon the stroke of murder." 
 
 " What is that you are talking to yourself } " said Craigen- 
 gelt, turning back with some anxiety. 
 
 '' Nothing — only two lines I have heard upon the stage," 
 replied his companion. 
 
 " Bucklavv," said Craigengelt, " I sometimes think you 
 should have been a stage player yourself ; all is fancy and 
 frolic with you." 
 
 " I have often thought so myself," said Bucklaw. " I be- 
 lieve it would be safer than acting with you in the Fatal Con- 
 spiracy. But away, play your own part, and look after the 
 horses like a groom as you are. A play-actor — a stage-player,' 
 he repeated to himself; " that would have deserved a stab, but 
 that Craigengelt's a coward — And yet I should like the pro- 
 fession well enough — Stay — let me see — ay — I would come 
 out in Alexander — 
 
 " Thus from the grave I rise to save my love. 
 Draw all your swords, and quick as lightning move ; 
 When I rush on, sure none will dare to stay, 
 'Tis love commands, and glory leads the way.'" 
 
 As with a voice of thunder, and his hand upon his sword, 
 Bucklaw repeated the ranting couplets of poor Lee, Craigen- 
 gelt re-entered with a face of alarm. 
 
 *' We are undone, Bucklaw ! the Master's led horse has cast 
 himself over his halter in the stable, and is dead lame — his 
 hackney will be set up with the day's work, and now he has no 
 fresh horse ; he will never get off." 
 
 " Egad, there will be no moving with the speed of lightning 
 this bout," said Bucklaw, dryly. " But stay, you can give him 
 yours." 
 
 " What ! and be taken myself ! I thank you for the pro- 
 I^sal," said Craigengelt. 
 
 " Why," replied Bucklaw, " if the Lord Keeper should have 
 met with a mischance, which for my part I cannot suppose, foi 
 the Master is not the lad to shoot an old and unarmed m«n —
 
 THE BTTDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 41 
 
 but if there should have been a fray at the Castle, you are 
 neither art nor part in it, you know, so have nothing to fear." 
 
 " True, true," answered the other, with embarrassment ; 
 " but consider my commission from Saint Germains." 
 
 " Which many men think is a commission of your own mak- 
 ing, noble captain. Well, if you will not give him your horse, 
 why, d — n it, he must have mine." 
 
 "Yours .'' " said Craigengelt. 
 
 " Ay, mine," repeated Bucklaw ; " it shall never be said that 
 I agreed to back a gentleman in a little affair of honor, and 
 neither helped him on with it nor off from it." 
 
 " You will give him your horse .'' and have you considered 
 the loss ? " 
 
 " Loss ! why. Grey Gilbert cost me twenty Jacobuses, that's 
 true ; but then his hackney is worth something, and his Black 
 Moor is worth twice as much were he sound, and I know how 
 to handle him. Take a fat sucking mastiff whelp, flay and 
 bowel him, stuff the body full of black and grey snails, roast 
 a reasonable time, and baste with oil of spikenard, saffron, 
 cinnamon and honey, anoint the dripping, working it 
 in" 
 
 " Yes, Bucklaw, but in the meanwhile, before the sprain is 
 cured, nay, before the whelp is roasted, you will be caught and 
 hung. Depend on it, the chase will be hard after Ravenswood. 
 I wish we had made our place of rendezvous nearer to the 
 coast." 
 
 " On my faith, then," said Bucklaw, " I had best go off just 
 now, and leave my horse for him — Stay, stay, he comes, I hear 
 a horse's feet. 
 
 " Are you sure there is only one ? " said Craigengelt ; " I 
 fear there is a chase ; I think I hear three or four galloping Xxy 
 gether — I am sure I hear more horses than one." 
 
 " Pooh, pooh, it is the wench of the house clattering to 
 the well in her pattens. By my faith. Captain, you should give 
 up both your captainship and your secret service, for you are 
 as easily scared as a wild goose. But here comes the Maste; 
 alone, and looking as gloomy as a night in November." 
 
 The Master of Ravenswood entered the room accordingly, 
 his cloak muffled around him, his arms folded, his looks stern, 
 and at the same time dejected. He flung his cloak from him 
 as he entered, threw himself upon a chair, and appeared sunk 
 in a profound reverie. 
 
 " What has happened .'' What have you done .-• " was hastily 
 demanded by Craigengelt and Bucklaw in the same moment, 
 
 *' NQthing," was the short and suUen answer.
 
 4^ THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 " Nothing ? and left us, determined to call the old villain tO 
 account for all the injur cs that you, we, and the country hav« 
 received at his hand ? Have you seen him ? " 
 
 " I have," replied the Master of Ravenswood. 
 
 " Seen him ? and come away without settling scores which 
 have been so long due ? " said Bucklaw ; " I would not have 
 expected that at the hand of the Master of Ravenswood." 
 
 " No matter what you expected," replied Ravenswood ; " it 
 Is not to you, sir, that I shall be disposed to render any reason 
 for my conduct." 
 
 " Patience, Bucklaw," said Craigengelt, interrupting his 
 companion, who seemed about to make an angry reply. " The 
 Master has been interrupted in his purpose by some accident ; 
 but he must excuse the anxious curiosity of friends, who are 
 devoted to his cause like you and me." 
 
 " Friends, Captain Craigengelt ! " retorted Ravenswood, 
 haughtily; " I am ignorant what familiarity has passed betwixt 
 us to entitle you to use that expression. I think our friendship 
 amounts to this, that we agreed to leave Scotland together so 
 soon as I should have visited the alienated mansion of my 
 fathers, and had an interview with its present possessor — I wiU 
 not call him proprietor." 
 
 " Very true, Master," answered Bucklaw ; " and as we 
 thought you had a mind to do something to put your neck in 
 jeopardy, Craigie and I very courteously agreed to tarry fox 
 you, although ours might run some risk in consequence. As 
 to Craigie, indeed, it does not very much signify, he had gal- 
 lows written on his brow in the hour of his birth ; but I should 
 not like to discredit my parentage by coming to such an end in 
 another man's cause." 
 
 " Gentlomen," said the Master of Ravenswood, " I am sorry 
 if I have occasioned you any inconvenience. But I must claim 
 the right of judging what is best for my own afifairs, without 
 rendering explanations to any one. I have altered my mind, 
 and do not design to leave the country this season." 
 
 " Not to leave the country, Master," exclaimed Craiger>- 
 gelt. " Not to go over, after all the trouble and expense I have 
 incurred — after all the risk of discovery, and the expense ol 
 demurrage ! " 
 
 "Sir," replied the Master of Ravenswood, " when I de- 
 signed to leave this country in this haste, I made use of your 
 obliging ofifer to procure me means of conveyance ; but I do 
 not recollect that I pledged myself togoofif, if I found occasion 
 to alter my rrind. For your trouble on my account, I am sorry, 
 and I thank you \ your expense," he added, putting his hand
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. ^■^ 
 
 fnto his pocket, " admits a more solid compensation — freight 
 and demurrage are matters with wiiich 1 am unacquainted, 
 Captain Craigengelt ; but take my purse, and pay yourself 
 according to your own conscience," And accordingly he ten- 
 dered a purse with some gold in it to the soi-disant captain. 
 
 But here Bucklaw interposed in his turn. " Your fingers, 
 Craigie, seem to itch for that same piece of green net-work," 
 said he ; " but I make my vow to God, that if they offer to 
 close upon it I will chop them off with my whinger. Since the 
 Master has changed his mind, I suppose we need stay here no 
 longer ; but in the first place I beg leave to tell him" — 
 
 " Tell him anything you will," said Craigengelt, " if you will 
 first allow me to state the inconveniences to which he will ex- 
 pose himself by quitting our society, to remind him of the ob- 
 stacles to his remaining here, and of the difficulties attending 
 his proper introduction at Versailles and Saint Germains with- 
 out the countenance of those who have established useful con- 
 nections." 
 
 " Besides forfeiting the friendship," said Bucklaw, " of at 
 least one man of spirit and honor." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Ravenswood, " permit me once more to 
 assure you that you have been pleased to attach to our tem- 
 porary connection more importance than I ever meant that it 
 should have. When I repair to foreign courts, I shall not need 
 the introduction of an intriguing adventurer, nor is it necessary 
 for me to set value on the friendship of a hot-headed bully," 
 With these words, and without waiting for an answer, he left 
 the apartment, remounted his horse, and was heard to ride off. 
 " Mortbleu ! " said Captain Craigengelt, " my recruit is lost ! '' 
 " Ay, Captain," said Bucklaw, " the salnion is off with hook 
 and all. But I will after him, for I have had more of his in- 
 solence than I can well digest." 
 
 Craigengelt offered to accompany him, but Bucklaw replied, 
 ' No, no, Captain ; keep you the cheek of the chimney-nook til! 
 T come back ; it's good sleeping in a haill skin. 
 
 Little kens the auid wife that sits by the fire. 
 How cauld th« wind blaws in hurle-burle swire." 
 
 And, singing as he went, he left the apartment.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LA MM ER MOOR, 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 I Now, Billy Bewick, keep good heart, 
 
 And of thy talking let me be ; 
 But if thou art a man, as I am sure thou art, 
 Come over the dike and fight with me. 
 
 Old Ballad. 
 
 The Master of Ravensvvood had mounted the ambling hack- 
 ney which he before rode on finding the accident whith had hap- 
 pened to his led horse, and, for the animal's ease was proceed- 
 ing at a slow pace from the Tod's Den towards his old tower of 
 Wolf's Crag, when he heard the galloping of a horse behind him, 
 and looking back, perceived that he was pursued by young Bcuk- 
 law, who had been delayed a fewminutes in the pursuit by the irre- 
 sistible temptation of giving the hostler at the Tod's Den some 
 recipe for treating the lame horse. This brief delay he had 
 made up by hard galloping, and now overtook she Master where 
 the road traversed a waste moor. "Halt, sir .'"cried Bucklaw; 
 *' I am no political agent — no Captain Craigengelt, whose life is 
 too important to be hazarded in defence of his honor. I am 
 Frank Hayston of Bucklaw, and no man injures me by word, 
 deed, sign, or look, but he must render me an account of it." 
 
 " This is all very well, Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw," replied 
 the Master of Ravenswood, in a tone the most calm and indif- 
 ferent ; " but I have no quarrel with you, and desire to have 
 none. Our roads homeward, as well as our roads through life, 
 lie in different directions ; there is no occasion for us crossing 
 each other." 
 
 " Is there not "i " said Bucklaw, impetuously. " By Heaven I 
 but I say that there is though — you call us intriguing adven 
 turers." 
 
 " Be correct in your recollection, Mr. Hayston ; it was to 
 your companion only I applied that epithet, and you know him 
 to be no better." 
 
 And what then } He was my companion for the time, and 
 no man shall insult my companion, right or wrong, while he is 
 in my company." 
 
 " Then Mr. Hayston," replied Ravenswood, with the same 
 composure, " you should choose your society better, or you are 
 like to have much work in your capacity of their champion. 
 Go home sir, sleep, and have more reason in your wrath to- 
 morrow."
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 45 
 
 •* Not so, Master, you have mistaken your man ; high airs 
 and wise saws shall not carry it off thus. Besides, you termed 
 me bully, and you shall retract the word before we part." 
 
 " Faith, scarcely," said Ravenswood, "unless you show me 
 better reason for thinking myself mistaken than you are now 
 producing." 
 
 " Then, Master," said Bucklaw, " though I should be sorry 
 to offer it to a man of your quality, if you will not justify your 
 incivility, or retract it, or name a place of meeting, you must 
 here vmdergo the hard word and the hard blow." 
 
 " Neither will be necessary," said Ravenswood : " I am satis- 
 fied with what I have done to avoid an affair with you. If you 
 are serious, this place will serve as well as another." 
 
 " Dismount, then, and draw," said Bucklaw, setting him an 
 example. " I always thought and said you were a pretty man 5 
 I should be sorry to report you otherwise." 
 
 " You shall have no reason, sir," said Ravenswood, alighting 
 and putting himself into a posture of defence. 
 
 Their swords crossed, and the combat commenced with great 
 spirit on the part of Bucklaw, who was well accustomed to 
 affairs of the kind, and distinguished by address and dexterity 
 at his weapon. In the present case, however, he did not use 
 his skill to advantage ; for, having lost temper at the cool and 
 contemptuous manner in which the Master of Ravenswood 
 had long refused, and at length granted him satisfaction, and 
 urged by his impatience, he adopted the part of an assailant 
 with inconsiderate eagerness. The Master, with equal skill, 
 and much greater composure, remained chiefly on the defensive, 
 and even declined to avail himself of one or two advantages 
 afforded him by the eagerness of his adversarj'. At length in 
 a desperate lunge, which he followed with an attempt to close, 
 Bucklaw's foot slipped, and he fell on the short grassy turf on 
 which they were fighting. " Take your life, sir," said the 
 Master of Ravenswood, " and mend it, if you can." 
 
 " It would be but a cobbled piece of work, I fear," said Buck- 
 law, rising slowly, and gathering up his sword, much less dis- 
 concerted with the issue of the combat than could have been ex- 
 pected from the impetuosity of his temper. "I thank you for 
 my life, Master," he pursued. "There is my hand, I bear no 
 ill will to vou, either for my bad luck or your better swordman 
 ship." 
 
 The Master looked steadily at him for an instant, then ex- 
 tended his hand to him. — "Bucklaw," he said, "you are a gen- 
 erous fellow, and I have done you wrong. I heartily ask youT 
 pardon for the expression which offended you j it wa.s hastily
 
 46 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 and incautiously uttered, and I am convinced it is totally mis- 
 applied." 
 
 " Are you indeed, Master ? " said Bucklaw, his face resuming 
 at once its natural expression of light-hearted carelessness and 
 audacity ; " that is more than I expected of you ; for, Master, 
 men say you are not ready to retract your opinions and your 
 language." 
 
 "JSot when I have well considered them," said the Master. 
 
 " Then you are a little wiser than I am, for I always give my 
 friend satisfaction first and explanation afterward. If one of 
 us falls, all accounts are settled ; if not, men are never so ready 
 for peace as after war. — But what does that bawling brat of a 
 boy want .'' " said Bucklaw. " I wish to Heaven he had come a 
 few minutes sooner ! and yet it must have been ended some 
 time and perhaps this way is as well as any other." 
 
 As he spoke, the boy he mentioned came up, cudgeling an 
 ass, on which he was mounted, to the top of its speed, and send- 
 ing, like one of Ossian's heroes, his voice before him, — " Gentle- 
 men, — gentlemen, save yourselves ! for the gudewife bade us 
 tell ye there were folk in her house had taen Captain Craigen- 
 gelt, and were seeking for Bucklaw, and that ye behoved to ride 
 for it." 
 
 " By my faith, and that's very true, my man," said Bucklaw,' 
 " and there's a silver sixpence for your news, and 1 would give 
 any man twice as much would tell me which way I should ride." 
 
 " That will I, Bucklaw," said Ravenswood ; " ride home to 
 Wolf's Crag with me. There are places in the old tower where 
 you might lie hid were a thousand men to seek you." 
 
 " But that will bring you into trouble yourself. Master ; and 
 unless you be in the Jacobite scrape already, it is quite needless 
 for me to drag you in." 
 
 " Not a whit ; I have nothing to fear." 
 
 " Then I will ride with you blithely, for, to say the truth, 1 
 do not know the rendezvous that Craigie was to guide us to this 
 night ; and I am sure that, if he is taken, he will tell all the truth 
 of me, and twenty lies of you, in order to save himself from the 
 withie." 
 
 They mounted, and rode off in company accordingly, striking 
 off the ordinary road, and holding their way by wild moorish un- 
 frequented paths, with which the gentlemen were well acquainted 
 from the exercise of the chase, but through which others would 
 have had much difficulty in tracing their course. They rode fox 
 some time in silence, making such haste as the condition of Rav- 
 enswood's horse permitted, until night having gradually closed 
 around them, they discontinued their speed, both from the diffi-
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. ^y 
 
 culty of discovering their path, and from the hope that they were 
 
 beyond the reach of pursuit or observation. 
 
 " And now that we have drawn bridle a bit," said Bucklaw, 
 " I would fain ask you a question, Master." 
 
 " Ask, and welcome," said Ravenswood, " but forgive my not 
 answering it, unless I think proper." 
 
 " Well, it is simply this," answered his late antagonist, — 
 " What, in the name of old Sathan, could make you, who stand 
 so highly on your reputation, think for a moment of drawing up 
 ■with such a rogue as Craigengelt, and such a scapegrace as folk 
 call Bucklaw ? " 
 
 " Simply, because I was desperate, and sought desperate 
 associates." 
 
 " And what made you break off from us at the nearest ? " 
 again demanded Bucklaw. 
 
 " Because I had changed my mind," said the Master, " and 
 renounced my enterprise, at least for the present. And now that 
 I have answered your questions fairly and frankly, tell me what 
 makes you associate with Craigengelt, so much beneath you 
 both in birth and spirit ? " 
 
 "In plain terms," answered Bucklaw, "because I am a 
 fool, who have gambled away my land in these times. My 
 grandaunt, Lady Girnington, has taen a new tack of life, I 
 think, and I could only hope to get something by a change of 
 government. Craigie was a sort of gambling acquaintance ; he 
 saw my condition ; and, as the devil is always at one's elbow, 
 told me fifty lies about his credentials from Versailles and his 
 interest at Saint Germains, promised me a captain's commission 
 at Paris, and I have been ass enough to put my thumb under 
 his belt. I daresay by this time he has told a dozen pretty 
 stories of me to the Government. And this is what I have got 
 by wine, women, and dice, cocks, dogs, and horses." 
 
 '""Yes, Bucklaw," said the Master, "you have indeed nour- 
 ished in your bosom the snakes that are now stinging you." 
 
 " That's home as well as true. Master," replied his companion; 
 "but, by your leave, you have nursed in your bosom one great 
 goodly snake that has swallowed all the rest, and is as sure 
 to devour you as my half-dozen are to make a meal on all 
 that's left of Bucklaw, which is but what lies between bonnet 
 and boot-heel." 
 
 " I must not," answered the Master of Ravenswood, " chal- 
 lenge the freedom of speech in which I have set example. 
 What, to speak without a metaphor, do you call this monstrous 
 passion, which you charge me with fostering ? " 
 
 " Revenge, my good sir, revenge ; which if it be as gentlemai>
 
 ^8 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 like a sin as wine and wassail with their et cceteras, is equatl} 
 unchristian, and not so bloodless. It is better breaking a park- 
 pale, to watch a doe or damsel, than to shoot an old man." 
 
 " I deny the purpose," said the Master of Ravenswood. 
 " On my soul, I had no such intention ; I meant but to confront 
 the oppressor ere I left my native land, and upbraid him with 
 his tyranny and its consequences. I would have stated my 
 wrongs so that they would hav^e shaken his soul within him." 
 
 " Yes," answered Bucklaw, " and he would have collared 
 you, and cried help, and then you would have shaken the soul 
 out of him, I suppose. Your very look and manner would have 
 frightened the old man to death." 
 
 " Consider the provocation," answered Ravenswood — " con- 
 sider the ruin and death procured and caused by his hard- 
 hearted cruelty — an ancient house destroyed, an aiTectionate 
 father murdered ! Why, in our old Scottish days, he that sat 
 quiet under such wrongs, would have been held neither fit to 
 back a friend nor face a foe." 
 
 " Well, Master, I am glad to see that the devil deals as 
 cunningly with other folk as he deals with me ; for whenever 
 I am about to commit any folly, he persuades me it is the most 
 necessary, gallant, gentlemanlike thing on earth, and I am 
 up to saddlegirths in the bog before I see that the ground is 
 
 soft. And you, Master, might have turned out a murd a 
 
 homicide, just out of pure respect for your father's memory." 
 
 " There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw," replied 
 the Master. " than might have been expected from j'our conduct. 
 It is too true, our vices steal upon us in forms outwardly as 
 fair as those of the demons whom the superstitious represent as 
 intriguing with the human race, and are not discovered in their 
 native hideousness until we have clasped them in our arms." 
 
 " But we may throw them from us, though," said Bucklaw. 
 " and that is what I shall think of doing one of those days, — • 
 that is, when old Lady Girnington dies." 
 
 " Did yovi ever hear the expression of the English divine ? " 
 said Ravenswood — " ' Hell is paved with good intentions ' — as 
 much as to say, they are more often formed than executed." 
 
 "Well," replied Bucklaw, "but I will begin this blessed 
 night, and have determined not to drink above one quart of 
 wine, unless your claret be of extraordinary quality." 
 
 " You will find little to tempt you at Wolf's Crag," said the 
 Master. " I know not that I can promise you more than the 
 shelter of my roof ; all, and more than all, our stock of wine and 
 provisions was exhausted at the late occasion." 
 
 "Long may it be ere provision is needed for the like pm
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. ^g 
 
 {)OSe,** answered Bucklaw ; " but you should not drink up the 
 ast flask at a dirge ; there is ill luck in that." 
 
 "There is ill luck, I think, in whatever belongs to me," said 
 Ravenswood. " But yonder is Wolf's Crag, and whatever it 
 still contains is at your service." 
 
 The roar of the sea had long announced their approach to 
 the cliffs, and the summit of which, like the nest of some sea- 
 eagle, the founder of the fortalice had perched his eyry The 
 pale moon, which had hitherto been contending with flitting 
 clouds, now shone out, and gave them a view of the solitary 
 and naked tower, situated on a projecting cliff that beetled on 
 the German Ocean. On three sides the rock was precipitous ; ^ T — 
 on the fourth, which was that toward the land, it had been '^'^-'*-^-^ 
 orginally fenced by an artificial ditch and drawbridge, but the 
 latter was broken down and ruinous, and the former had been 
 in part filled up, so as to allow passage for a horseman into the 
 narrow courtyard, encircled on two sides with low offices and 
 stables, partly ruinous, and closed on the landward front by a 
 low embattled wall, while the remaining side of the quadrangle 
 was occupied by the tower itself, which, tall and narrow, and 
 built of a grayish stone, stood glimmering in the moonlight, 
 like the sheeted spectre of some huge giant. A wilder or more 
 disconsolate dwelling, it was perhaps difficult to conceive. The 
 sombrous and heavy sound of the billows, successively dashing 
 against the rocky beach at a profound distance beneath, was to 
 the ear what the landscape was to the eye — a symbol of unvaried 
 and monotonous melancholy, not unmingled with horror.* 
 
 Although the night was not far advanced, there was no sign 
 of living inhabitant about this forlorn abode, excepting that 
 one, and only one, of the narrow and stancheled windows 
 which appeared at irregular heights and distances in the walls 
 of the building, showed a small glimmer of light. 
 
 "There," said Ravenswood, "sits the only male domestic 
 that remains to the house of Ravenswood, and it is well that 
 he does remain there, since otherwise, ve had little hope to find 
 either light or fire. But follow me cautiously ; the road is nar- 
 row, and admits only one horse in front." 
 
 In effect, the path led along a kind of isthmus, at the 
 peninsular extremity of which the tower was situated, with that 
 exclusive attention to strength and security, in preference to 
 every circumstance of convenience, which dictated to the Scot- 
 
 * [Wolf's Crag and Fast Castle.— See the Author's explanatioo in his 
 Introduction to Chronicles of the Canon^te, vol, xix.l
 
 CO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 tish barons the choice of tlieir situations, as well as their style 
 of building. 
 
 By adopting the cautious mode of approach recommended by 
 the proprietor of this wild hold, they entered the courtyard in 
 safety. But it was long ere the efforts of Ravenswood, though 
 loudly exerted by knocking at the low-browed entrance, and 
 repeated shouts to Caleb to open the gate and admit them, 
 received any answer. 
 
 " The old man must be departed," he began to say, " oi 
 fallen into some fit ; for the noise I have made would have 
 waked the seven sleepers " 
 
 At length a timid and hesitating voice replied, — " Master — 
 Master of Ravenswood, is it you } " 
 
 " Yes. it is I, Caleb ; open the door quickly." 
 
 " But is it you in very blood and body ? For I would sooner 
 face fifty deevils as my master's ghaist, or even his wraith — • 
 wherefore, aroint ye, if ye were ten times my master, unless ye 
 come in bodily shape, lith and limb." 
 
 " It is I, you old fool," answered Ravenswood, " in bodily 
 shape, and alive, save that I am half-dead with cold." 
 
 The light at the upper window disappeared, and glancing 
 from loop-hole to loop-hole in slow succession, gave intimation 
 that the bearer was in the act of descending, with great deliber- 
 ation, a winding staircase occupying one of the turrets which 
 graced the angles of the old tower. The tardiness of his descent 
 extracted some exclamations of impatience from Ravenswood, 
 and several oaths from his less patient and more mercurial 
 companion. Caleb again paused ere he unbolted the door, and 
 once more asked, if they were men of mould that demanded 
 entrance at this time of night ? 
 
 " Were I near you, you old fool," said Bucklaw, " I would 
 give you sufficient proofs of mj> bodily condition." 
 
 " Open the gate, Caleb," said his master, in a more soothing 
 tone, partly from his regard to the ancient and faithful seneschal, 
 partly perhaps because he thought that angry words would be 
 thrown away, so long as Caleb had a stout iron-clenched oaken 
 door betwixt his person and the speakers. 
 
 At length Caleb, with a trembling hand, undid the bars, 
 opened the heavy door, and stood before them, exhibiting his 
 thin gray hairs, bald forehead, and sharp high features, illumi- 
 nated by a quivering lamp which he held in one hand, while he 
 shaded and protected its flame with the other. The timorous 
 courteous glance which he threw around him — the effect of the 
 partial light upon his white hair and illumined features, might 
 have made a good painting ; but our travelers were too imp*
 
 THE BR IDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 51 
 
 rient for security against the rising storm, to permit them to 
 indulge themselves in studying the picturesque. " Is it you, 
 my dear master? is it you yourself, indeed ?" exclaimed the old 
 domestic. " I am wae ye suld hae stude waiting at your ain 
 gate ; but wha wad hae thought o' seeing ye sae sune, and a 
 strange gentleman with a — (Here he exclaimed apart, as it 
 ivere, and to some inmate of the tower, in a voice not meant to 
 be heard by those in the court — Mysie — Mysie, woman ; stir 
 for dear life, and get the fire mended ; take the auld three- 
 legged stool, or ony thing that's readiest that will make a lowe). 
 — I doubt we are but puirly provided, no expecting ye this 
 some months, when doubtless ye wad hae been received con- 
 form till your rank, as gude right is ; but natheless" 
 
 " Natheless, Caleb," said the Master, " we must have our 
 horses put up, and ourselves too, the best way we can. I 
 hope you are not sorry to see me sooner than you expected ? " 
 
 " Sorry, my lord ! — I am sure ye sail aye be my lord wi' 
 honest folk, as your noble ancestors hae been these three 
 hundred years, and never asked a whig's leave. Sorry to see the 
 Lord of Ravenswood at ane o' his ain castles ! — (Then again 
 apart to his unseen associate behind the screen — Mysie, kill 
 the brood-hen without thinking twice on it ; let them care that 
 come ahint.) — No to say it's our best dwelling," he added, turn- 
 ing to Bucklaw ; " but just a strength for the Lord of Ravens- 
 wood to flee until, — that is, not to flee, but to retreat until in 
 troublous times, like the present, when it was ill convenient for 
 him to live fruther in the country in ony of his better and mair 
 principal manors ; but, for its antiquity, maist folk think that 
 the outside of Wolf's Crag is worthy of a large perusal." 
 
 " And you are determined we shall have time to make it," 
 said Ravenswood, somewhat amused with the shifts the old 
 man used to detain them without doors, until his confederate 
 Mysie had made her preparations within. 
 
 " O, never mind the outside of the house, my good friend," 
 said Bucklaw ; " let's see the inside, and let our horses see the 
 stable, that's all." 
 
 " O yes, sir — ay, sir, — unquestionably, sir^-my lord and 
 ony of his honorable companions" 
 
 " But our horses, my old friend — our horses ; they will be 
 dead-foundered by standing here in the cold after riding hard, 
 and mine is too good to be spoiled ; therefore, once more, out 
 horses," exclaimed Bucklaw. 
 
 " True — ay — your horses — yes — I will call the grooms ; " 
 and sturdily did Caleb roar till the old tower rang again, — 
 "John — William — Saunders! — The lads are gane out, or sleep-
 
 52 
 
 THE BR WE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 ing " he observed, after pausing for an answer, which he kne^f 
 that he had no human chance of receiving. " A' gaes wrang 
 ■when the Master's out by ; but I'll take care o' j'our cattle 
 mysell." 
 
 " I think you had better," said Ravenswood, " otherwise I 
 see little chance of their being attended to at all," 
 
 "Whisht, my lord, — whisht, for God's sake," said Caleb, 
 in an imploring tone, and apart to his master ; "if ye dinna 
 gard your ain credit, think on mine ; we'll hae hard eneugh 
 wark to mak a decent night o't, wi' a' the lees I can tell." 
 
 "Well, well, never mind," said his master; "go to the 
 stable. There is hay and corn, I trust } " 
 
 " Ou ay, plenty of hay and corn ; " this was uttered boldly 
 and aloud, and, in a lower tone, " there was some half-fous 
 o' aits, and some taits o' meadow-hay, left after the burial." 
 
 " Very well," said Ravenswood, taking the lamp from his 
 domestic's unwilling hand, " I will show the stranger up stairs 
 myself," 
 
 " I canna think o' that, my lord ; — if ye wad but have five 
 minutes, or ten minutes, or at maist, a quarter of an hour's pa- 
 tience, and look at the fine moonlight prospect of the Bass* and 
 North Berwick Law till I sort the horses, I would marshal ye 
 up, as reason is ye suld be marshaled, your lordship and your 
 honorable visitor. And I hae lockit up the siller candlesticks, 
 and the lamp is not fit" 
 
 " It will do very well in the meantime," said Ravenswood, 
 " and you will have no difficulty for want of light in the stables, 
 for, if I recollect, half the roof is off." 
 
 "Very true, my lord," replied the trusty adherent, and with 
 ready wit instantly added, " and the lazy sclater loons have 
 never come to put it on a' this while, your lordship." 
 
 ■■' If I were disposed to jest at the calamities of my house," 
 said Ravenswood, as he led the way up stairs, " poor old Caleb 
 would furnish me with ample means. His passion consists in 
 rej^resenting things about our miserable tnenage, not as they are, 
 but as, in his opinion, they ought to be ; and, to say the truth, 
 I have been often diverted with the poor wretch's expedients to 
 supply what he thought was essential for the credit of the family, 
 and his still more generous apologies for the want of those 
 articles for which his ingenuity could discover no substitute. 
 But though the tower is none of the largest, I shall have some 
 trouble without him to find the apartment in which there is a 
 fire." 
 
 ♦ [A solitary rock off the coast of East Lotliian.]
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 ^l 
 
 As he spoke thus, he opened the door of the hall. " Here, 
 at least," he said, " there is neither hearth nor harbor." 
 
 It was indeed a scene of desolation, A large vaulted room, 
 the beams of which, combined like those of Westminster Hall, 
 were rudely carved at the extremities, remained nearly in the 
 situation in which it had been left after the entertainment at 
 Allan Lord Ravenswood's funeral. Overturned pitchers, and 
 blackjacks, and pewter stoups, and flagons, still encumbered the 
 large oaken table ; glasses, those more perishable implements of 
 conviviality, many of which had been voluntarily sacrificed 
 by the guests in their enthusiastic pledges to favorite toasts, 
 strewed the stone floor with their fragments. As for the ar- 
 ticles of plate lent for the purpose by friends and kinsfolk, those 
 had been carefully withdrawn so soon as the ostentatious dis- 
 play of festivity, equally unnecessary and strangely timed, had 
 been made and ended. Nothing, in short, remained that indi- 
 cated wealth ; all the signs were those of recent wastefulness, 
 and present desolation. The black cloth hangings, which, on 
 the late mournful occasion, replaced the tattered moth-eaten 
 tapestries, had been partly pulled down, and, dangling from the 
 wall in irregular festoons, disclosed the rough stone-worK of 
 the building, unsmoothed either by plaster or the chisel. The 
 seats thrown down, or left in disorder, intimated the careless 
 confusion which had concluded the mournful revel. " This 
 room," said Ravenswood, holding up the lamp — " this room, 
 Mr. Hayston, was riotous when it should have been sad ; it is 
 a just retribution that it should now be sad when it ought to be 
 cheerful." 
 
 They left this disconsolate apartment, and went upstairs, 
 where, after opening one or two doors in vain, Ravenswood led 
 the way into a little matted anteroom, in which, to their great 
 joy, they found a tolerable good fire, which Mysie, by some such 
 expedient as Caleb had suggested, had supplied with a reason- 
 able quantity of fuel. Glad at the heart to see more of comfort 
 than the castle had yet seemed to offer, Bucklaw rubbed his 
 hands heartily over the fire, and now listened with more compla- 
 cency to the apologies wliich the Master of Ravenswood offered. 
 " Comfort," he said, " I cannot provide for you, for I have it not 
 for myself ; it is long since these walls have known it, if, indeed, 
 they were ever acquainted with it. Shelter and safety, I think, 
 I can promise you." 
 
 " Excellent matters, Master," replied Bucklaw, " and with 
 a mouthful of food and wine, positively all I can require to- 
 night." 
 
 " I fear," said the Master, " your supper will be a poor one ;
 
 54 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 I hear the matter in discussion betwixt Caleb and Mysie, 
 Poor Balderston is something deaf, amongst his other accom- 
 plishments, so that much of what he means should be spoken 
 aside is overheard by the whole audience, and especially by 
 those from whom he is most anxious to conceal his private 
 manoeuvres — Hark ! " 
 
 They listened, and heard the old domestic's voice in conver 
 sation with Mysie to the following effect. " Just mak the best 
 o't, mak the best o't, woman ; it's easy to put a fair face on 
 ony thing." 
 
 " But the auld brood-hen ! — she'll be as teugh as bow-strings 
 and bend leather ! " 
 
 " Say ye made a mistake — say ye made a mistake, Mysie," 
 replied the faithful seneschal, in a soothing and undertoned 
 voice ; " tak it a' on yoursell ; never let the credit o' the house 
 suffer." 
 
 " But the brood-hen," remonstrated Mysie, — " ou, she's 
 sitting some gate aneath the dais in the hall, and I am feared 
 to gae in in the dark for the bogle ; and if I didna see the bogle, 
 1 could as ill see the hen, for it's pit mirk, and there's no an 
 other light in the house, save that very blessed lamp whilk the 
 Master has in his ain hand. And if I had the hen, she's to pu', 
 and to draw, and to dress ; how can I do that, and them sitting 
 by the only fire we have ? " 
 
 " Weel, weel, Mysie," said the butler, " bide ye there a wee, 
 and I'll try to get the lamp wiled away frae them." 
 
 Accordingly, Caleb Balderston entered the apartment, little 
 aware that so much of his bA'-play had been audible there. 
 '' Well, Caleb, my old friend, is there any chance of supper ? " 
 said the Master of Ravenswood. 
 
 " Chance of supper, your lordship ? " said Caleb, with an 
 emphasis of strong scorn at the implied doubt, — " How should 
 there be ony question of that, and us in your lordship's house ? 
 — Chance of supper, indeed ! — But ye'll no be for butcher meat i 
 There's walth o' frt poultry, ready either for spit or brander — 
 The fat capon, Mysie ! " he added, calling out as boldly as if 
 such a thing had been in existence. 
 
 " Quite unnecessary," said Bucklaw, who deemed himself 
 bound in courtesy to relieve some part of the anxious butler's 
 perplexity, " if you have anything cold, or a morsel of bread." 
 
 " The best of bannocks ! " exclaimed Caleb, much relieved ; 
 "and for cauld meat, a' that we hae is cauld enough, — howbeit 
 maist of the cauld meat and pastry was gien to the puir folk 
 after the ceremony of interment, as gude reason was ; nevep' 
 theless"
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 55 
 
 " Come, Caleb," said the Master of Ravenswood, " I must cut 
 ^is matter short. This is the young Laird of Bucklaw ; he is 
 
 under hiding and therefore, you know" 
 
 " He'll be nae nicer than your lordship's honor, I'se warrant," 
 answered Caleb cheerfully, with a nod of intelligence ; "I am 
 sorry that the gentleman is under distress, but 1 am blithe that 
 he canna say muckle again our housekeeping, for I believe his 
 ain pinches may match ours ; — no that we are pinched, thank 
 God," he added, retracting the admission which he had made 
 in his first burst of joy, " but nae doubt we are waur dSi than 
 we hae been or suld be. And for eating — what signifies telling 
 a lee ? there's just the hinder end of the mutton-ham that has 
 been but three times on the table, and the nearer the bane the 
 sweeter, as your honors weel ken ; and — there's the heel of the 
 ewe milk kebbuck, wi' a bit of nice butter, and — and — that's 
 a' that's to trust to." And with great alacrity he produced his 
 slender stock of provisions, and placed them with much formality 
 upon a small round table betwixt the two gentlemen, who were 
 not deterred either by the homely quality or limited quantity 
 of the repast from doing it full justice. Caleb in the mean- 
 while waited on them with grave officiousness, as if anxious to 
 make up, by his own respectful assiduity, for the want of all 
 other attendance. 
 
 But, alas ! how little on such occasions can form, however 
 anxiously and scrupulously observed, supply the lack of substan- 
 tial fare ! Bucklaw, who had eagerly eaten a considerable por- 
 tion of the thrice-sacked mutton-ham, now began to demand ale. 
 
 " I wadna just presume to recommend our ale," said Caleb ; 
 "the maut was ill made, and there was awfu' thunner last 
 week ; but siccan water as the Tower well has ye'll seldom see, 
 Bucklaw, and that I'se engage for." 
 
 " But if your ale is bad, you can let us have some wine," 
 said Bucklaw, making a grimace at the mention of the pure 
 element which Caleb so earnestly recommended. 
 
 " Wine ! " answered Caleb unclauntedly, " enauih of wine ; it 
 was but twa days syne — wae's me for the cause — there was as 
 much wine drunk in this house as would have floated a pinnace. 
 There never was lack of wine at Wolf's Crag." 
 
 " Do fetch us some then," said his master, " instead of talk- 
 ing about it. " And Caleb boldly departed. 
 
 Every expended butt in the old cellar did he set a-tilt, and 
 ghake with the desperate expectation of collecting enough of 
 the grounds of claret to fill the large pewter measure which he 
 carried in his hand. Alas ! each had been too devoutly drained ; 
 and, with all the squeezing and manoeuvring which his craft as
 
 5 6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 a butler suggested, he could only collect about half-a-quart that 
 seemed presentable. Still, however, Caleb was too good a general 
 to renounce the field without a stratagem to cover his retreat 
 He undauntedly threw down an empty flagon, as if he had 
 stumbled at the entrance of the apartment ; called upon Mysie 
 to wipe up the wine that had never been spilt, and placing the 
 other vessel on the table, hoped there was still enough left for 
 their honors. There was indeed ; for even Eucklaw, a sworn 
 friend to the grape, found no encouragement to renew his first 
 attack on the vintage of Wolf's Crag, but contented himself, 
 however reluctantly, with a draught of fair water. Arrange- 
 ments w'cre now made for his repose ; and as the secret chamber 
 was assigned for this purpose, it furnished Caleb with a first- 
 rate and most plausible apology for all deficiencies of furniture, 
 bedding, etc. 
 
 "For wha," said he, "would have thought of the secret 
 chaumer being needed ? it has not been used since the time of 
 the Gowrie Conspiracy, and I durst never let a woman ken of 
 the entrance to it., or your honor will allow that it wad not 
 hae been a secret chaumer lane." 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTH. 
 
 The hearth in hall was black and dead. 
 No board was dight in bower within. 
 
 Nor merry bowl, nor welcome bed ; 
 
 " Here's sorry cheer," quoth the Heir of Linne. 
 
 Old Ballad. 
 
 ' The feelings of the prodigal Heir of Linne, as expressed in 
 that excellent old song, when, after dissipating his whole fortune, 
 It^ found himself the deserted inhabitant of " the lonely lodge," 
 might perhaps have some resemblance to those of the Mastei 
 of Ravenswood in his deserted mansion of Wolf's Crag. The 
 Master, however, had this advantage over the spendthrift in the 
 legend, that if he was in similar distress, he could not in.pute 
 it to his own imprudence. His misery had been bequeathed to 
 him by his father, and joined to his high blood, and to a title 
 which the courteous might give, or the churlish withholi at 
 their pleasure, it was the whole inheritance he had derived from 
 his ancestry. 
 
 Perhaps this melancholy, yet consolatory reflection crossed 
 *he mind of the unfortunate young nobleman with a breathing
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 57 
 
 of comfort. Favorable to calm reflection, as well as to the 
 Muses, the morning, while it dispelled the shades of night, had 
 a composing and sedative effect upon the stormy passions by 
 which the Master of Ravenswood had been agitated on the pre- 
 ceding day. He now felt himself able to analyze the different 
 feelings by which he was agitated, and much resolved to combat 
 and to subdue them. The morning, which had arisen calm and 
 bright, gave a pleasant effect even to the waste moorland view 
 which was seen from the castle on looking to the landward, 
 and the glorious ocean, crisped with a thousand rippling waves 
 of silver, extended on the other side, in awful yet complacent 
 majesty, to the verge of the horizon. With such scenes of calm 
 sublimity the human heart sympathizes even in its most dis- 
 turbed moods, and deeds of honor and virtue are inspired by 
 their majestic influence. 
 
 To seek out Bucklaw in the retreat which he had afforded him 
 was the first occupation of the Master, after he had performed, 
 with a scrutiny unusually severe, the important task of self- 
 examination. " How now, Bucklaw ? " was his morning's salu- 
 tation — " how like you the couch in which the exiled Earl of 
 Angus once slept in security, when he was pursued by the full 
 energy of a king's resentment .'' " 
 
 " IJmph ! " returned the sleeper awakened ; " I have little to 
 complain of where so great a man was quartered before me, only 
 the mattress was of the hardest, the vault somewhat damp, the 
 rats rather more mutinous than I would have expected from the 
 state of Caleb's larder, and if there had been shutters to that 
 grated window, or a curtain to the bed, I should think it, upon 
 the whole, an improvement in your accommodations." 
 
 " It is, to be sure, forlorn enough," said the Master, looking 
 around the small vault ; " but if you will rise and leave it, Caleb 
 will endeavor to find you a better breakfast than your supper 
 of last night." 
 
 " Pray, let it be no better," said Bucklaw, getting up, and 
 endeavoring to dress himself as well as the obscurity of the 
 place would permit — " let it, I say, be no better, if you mean 
 me to persevere in my proposed reformation. The very recollec- 
 tion of Caleb's beverage has done more to suppress my longing 
 to open the day with a morning draught than twenty sermons 
 would have done. And you, Master, have you been able to give 
 battle valiantly to your bosom-snake ? You see I am in the 
 way of smothering my vipers one by one." 
 
 " I have commenced the battle, at least, Bucklaw, and I have 
 had a fair vision of an angel who descended to my assistance," 
 replied the Master.
 
 58 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 " Woe's me ! " said his guest, " no vision can I expect, unless 
 my aunt, Lady Girnington, should betake herself to the tomb •, 
 and then it would be the substance of her heritage rather than 
 the appearance of her phantom that I should consider as the 
 support of my good resolutions. But this same breakfast, 
 Master, — does the deer that is to make the pastry run yet on 
 foot, as the ballad has it ? " 
 
 " I will inquire into that matter," said his entertainer , and 
 leaving the apartment, he went in search of Caleb, whom after 
 some difficulty, he found in an obscure sort of dungeon, which 
 had been in former times the buttery of the castle. Here the 
 old man was employed busily in the doubtful task of burnishing 
 a pewter flagon until it should take the hue and semblance of 
 silver-plate. " I think it may do — I think it might pass, if 
 they winna bring it ower muckle in the light o' the window!" 
 were the ejaculations which he muttered from time to time, as 
 if to encourage himself in his undertaking, when he was inter- 
 rupted by the voice of his master. " Take this," said the Master 
 of Ravenswood, " and get what is necessary for the family." 
 And with these words he gave to the old butler the purse which 
 had on the preceding evening so narrowly escaped the fangs of 
 Craigengelt. The old man shook his silvery and thin locks, and 
 looked with an expression of the most heartfelt anguish at his 
 master as he weighed in his hand the slender treasure, and said 
 in a sorrowful voice, " And is this a' that's left ? " 
 
 "All that is left at present," said the Master, affecting more 
 cheerfulness than perhaps he really felt, " is just the green purse 
 and the wee pickle gowd, as the old song says ; but we shall do 
 better one day, Caleb." 
 
 " Before that day comes," said Caleb, " I doubt there will be 
 an end of an auld sang, and an auld serving-man to boot. But 
 it disna become me to speak that gate to your honor, and you 
 looking sae pale. Tak back the purse, and keep it to be mak- 
 ing a show before company ; for if your honor would just tak a 
 bidding, and be whiles taking it out afore folk and putting it up 
 again, there's naebody would refuse us trust, for a' that's come 
 and gane y^t." 
 
 " But, Caleb," said the Master, " I still intend to leave this 
 country very soon, and I desire to do so with the reputation of 
 an honest man, leaving no debt behind me, at least of my own 
 contracting." 
 
 " And gude right ye suld gang away as a true man, and so 
 ye shall ; for auld Caleb can tak the wyte of whatever is taen on 
 tor the house, and then it will be a' just ae man's burden ; and
 
 THE BRIDE OF LA MMERMOOR. 59 
 
 I will live just as weel in the tolbooth as out of it, and the credit 
 of the family will be a' safe and sound." 
 
 The Master endeavored in vain to make Caleb comprehend 
 that the butler's incurring the responsibility of debts in his own 
 person would rather add to than remove the objections which he 
 had to their being contracted. He spoke to a premier, too busy 
 in devising ways and means to puzzle himself with refuting the 
 arguments offered against their justice or expediency. v , 
 
 " There's Eppie Sma'trash will trust us for ale," said Caleb ^-'f^'^ 
 to himself ; " she has lived a' her life under the family — and may- /"'J 
 be wi' a soup brandy — I canna say for wine — she is but a lone - '7*'^ 
 woman, and gets her claret by a runlet at a time — but I'll work 
 a wee drap out o' her by fair means or foul. For doos, there's 
 the doocot — there will be poultry amang the tenants, though L,//!^ 
 Luckie Chirnside says she has paid the kain twice ower. We'll 
 mak shift an it like your honor — we'll mak shift — keep your 
 heart abune, for the house sail baud its credit as lang as auld 
 Caleb is to the fore." 
 
 The entertainment which the old man's exertions of various 
 kinds enabled him to present to the young gentlemen for three 
 or four days was certainly of no splendid description, but it may 
 readily be believed it was set before no critical guests ; and even 
 the distresses, excuses, evasions, and shifts of Caleb afforded 
 amusement to the young men, and added a sort of interest to 
 the scrambling and irregular style of their table. They had in 
 deed occasion to seize on every circumstance that might serve 
 to diversify or enliven time, which otherwise passed away so 
 heavily. 
 
 Bucklaw, shut out from his usual field-sports and joyous 
 carouses by the necessity of remaining concealed within the walls 
 of the castle, became a joyless and uninteresting companion. 
 When the Master of Ravenwood would no longer fence or play 
 at shovel-board — when he himself had polished to the extremity 
 the coat of his palfrey, with brush, currycomb, and hair-cloth — 
 when he had seen him eat his provender, and gently lie dcv/ji 
 in his stall, he could hardly help envying the animal's apparent 
 acquiescence in a life so monotonous. " The stupid brute," h(? 
 said, " thinks neither of the race-ground nor the hunting-field, of 
 his green paddock at Bucklaw, but enjoys himself as comfortably 
 when haltered to the rack in this ruinous vault, as if he had been 
 foaled in it ; and I, who have the freedom of a prisoner at large, 
 to range through the dungeons of this wretched old tower, can 
 hardly, betwixt whistling and sleeping, contrive to pass away the 
 hour till dinner-time." 
 
 And with this disconsolate reflection, he wended his way tQ
 
 6o THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 the bartisan or battlements of the tower, to watch what objects 
 might appear on the distant moor, or to pelt, with pebbles and 
 pieces of lime, the sea-mews and cormorants which established 
 themselves incautiously within the reach of an idle young man. 
 Ravenswood, with a mind incalculably deeper and more power- 
 ful than that of his companion, had his own anxious subjects of 
 reflection, which wrought for him the same unhappiness that 
 sheer ennui and want of occupation inflicted on his companion. 
 The first sight of Lucy Ashton had been less impressive than 
 her image proved to be upon reflection. As the depth and vio- 
 lence of that revengeful passion by which he had been actuated 
 in seeking an interview with the father, began to abate by de- 
 grees, he looked back on his conduct toward the daughter as 
 harsh and unworthy toward a female of rank and beauty. Her 
 looks of grateful acknowledgment, her words of affectionate 
 courtesy, had been repelled with something which approached 
 to disdain ; and if the Master of Ravenswood had sustained 
 wrongs at the hand of Sir William Ashton, his conscience told 
 him they had been unhandsomely resented toward his daughter. 
 ^^'hen his thoughts took this turn of self-reproach, the recollec- 
 tion of Lucy Ashton's beautiful features, rendered yet more in- 
 teresting by the circumstances in which their meeting had taken 
 place, made an impression upon his mind at once soothing and 
 painful. The sweetness of her voice, the delicacy of her ex- 
 pressions, the vivid glow of her filial afl^ection, embittered his 
 regret at having repulsed her gratitude with rudeness, while, 
 at the same time, they placed before his imagination a picture 
 of the most seducing sweetness. 
 
 Even young Ravenswood's strength of moral feeling and 
 rectitude of purpose at once increased the danger of cherishing 
 these recollections, and the propensity to entertain them. Firmly 
 resolved as he was to subdue, if possible, the predominating 
 vice in his character, he admitted with willingness — nay, he sum- 
 moned up in his imagination, the ideas by which it could be 
 most powerfully counteracted ; and, while he did so, a sense of 
 his own harsh conduct toward the daughter of his enemy natu- 
 rally induced him, as if byway of recompense, to invest her with 
 more of grace and beauty than perhaps she could actually claim. 
 
 Had any one at this period told the Master of Ravenswood 
 that he had so lately vowed vengeance agamst the whole lineage 
 of him whom he considered, not unjustly, as author of his father's 
 ruin and death, he might at first have repelled the charge as a 
 foul calumny ; yet, upon serious self-examination he would have 
 been compelled to admit, that it had, at one period, some 
 foundation in truth, though, according to the present tone of
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 6t 
 
 his sentiments, it was difficult to believe that this had really 
 been the case. 
 
 There already existed in his bosom two contradictory passions . 
 
 — a Jesire to revenge the death of his faiher, strangely qualined^yv^feiM'< 
 by ^miration of his enemy's daughter. Against the former Vj 
 feeling he had struggled, until it seemed to him upon the wane ; 
 a'.^ainst the latter he used no means of resistance, for he did not 
 suspect its existence. That this was actually the case, was 
 ciiietiy evinced by his resuming his resolution to leave Scotland. 
 Yet, though such was his purpose, he remained day after day at 
 Wolf's Crag, without taking measures for carrying it into execu- 
 tion. It is true that he had written to one or two kinsmen, who 
 resided in a distant quarter of Scotland, and particularly to the 
 
 Marquis of A , intimating his purpose ; and when pressed 
 
 upon the subject by Bucklaw, he was wont to allege the neces- 
 sity of v/aiting for their reply, especially that of the Marquis, 
 before taking so decisive a measure. 
 
 The Marquis was rich and powerful ; and although he was 
 suspected to entertain sentiments unfavorable to the govern- 
 ment established at the Revolution, he had nevertheless address 
 enough to head a party in the Scottish Privy Council, connected 
 with the high church faction in England, and powerful enough 
 to menace those to whom the Lord Keeper adhered, with a prob- 
 able subversion of their power. The consulting with a per- 
 sonage of such importance was a plausible excuse, which 
 Ravenswood used to Bucklaw, and probably to himself, for 
 continuing his residence at Wolf's Crag ; and it was rendered 
 yet more so by a general report which began to be current, of 
 a probable change of ministers and measures in the Scottish 
 administration. These rumors, strongly asserted by some, and 
 as resolutely denied by others, as their wishes or interest dic- 
 tated, found their way even to the ruinous Tower of Wolf's Crag, 
 chiefly through the medium of Caleb the butler, who, among 
 his other excellences, was an ardent politician, and seldom 
 made on excursion from the old fortress to the neighboring 
 village of Wolf's Hope, without bringing back what tidings 
 were current in the vicinity. 
 
 But if Bucklaw could not offer any satisfactory objections to 
 the delay of the Master in leaving Scotland, he did not the less 
 suffer with impatience the state of inaction to which it confined 
 him ; and it was only the ascendency which his new companion 
 had acquired over him, that induced him to submit to a course 
 of life so alien to his habits and inclinations. 
 
 " You were wont to be thought a stirring active young fellow. 
 Master," was his frequent remonstrance ; " yet here you seem
 
 62 THE BRIDE OF LAMMJ-.RMOOR. 
 
 determined to live on and on like a rat in a hole, with this 
 trifling difference, that the wiser vermin chooses a hermitage 
 where he can find food at least ; but as for us, Caleb's excuses 
 become longer as his diet turns more spare, and I fear we shall 
 realize the stories they tell of the sloth, — we have almost eat up 
 the last green leaf on the plant, and have nothing left for it but 
 to drop from the tree and break our necks." 
 
 " Do not fear," said Ravenswood ; " there is a fate watche?. 
 for us, and we too have a stake in the revolution that is rujv/ 
 impending, and which already has alarmed many a bosom 
 
 " What fate — what revolution ? " inquired his companion. 
 " We have had one revolution too much already, I think." 
 
 Ravenswood interrupted him by putting into his hands a 
 letter. 
 
 "Oh," answered Bucklav/, "my dream's out — I thought I 
 heard Caleb this morning pressing some unfortunate fellow to 
 a drink of cold water, and assuring him it was better for his 
 stomach in the morning than ale or brandy." 
 
 " It was my Lord of A 's courier," said Ravenswood, 
 
 " who was doomed to experience his ostentatious hospitality, 
 which I believe ended in sour beer and herrings — Read, and 
 you will see the news he has brought us." 
 
 " I will as fast as I can," said Bucklaw ; " but I am no great 
 clerk, nor does his lordship seem to be the first of scribes." 
 
 (The reader will peruse, in a few seconds, by the aid of our 
 friend Ballantyne's* types, what took Bucklaw a good half-hour 
 in perusal, though assisted by the Master of Ravenswood.) The 
 tenor was as follows : — 
 
 " Right Honorarle our Cousin, — Our hearty commenda- 
 tions premised, these come to assure you of the interest which 
 we take in your welfare, and in your purposes toward its 
 augmentation. If we have been less active in showing forth 
 our effective good-will toward you than, as a loving kinsman 
 and blood-relative, we would willingly have desired, we request 
 that you will impute it to lack of opportunity to show our 
 good-liking, not to any coldness of our will. Touching your 
 resolution to travel in foreign parts, as at this time we hold 
 the same little advisable, in respect than your ill-willers may, 
 according to the custom of such persons, impute motives for 
 your journey, whereof, although we know and believe you to be 
 as clear as ourselves, yet natheless their words may find credence 
 in places where the belief in them may much prejudice you, and 
 
 * Note D. The Ballantynes.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 63 
 
 which we should see with more unwillingness and displeasure 
 than with means of remedy. 
 
 " Having thus, as beconieth our kindred, given you our poor 
 mind on the subject of your journeying forth of Scotland, we 
 would willingly add reasons of weight, which might materially 
 advantage you and your father's house, thereby to determine 
 yju to abide at Wolf's Crag, until this harvest season shall be 
 passed over. But what sayeth the prov?ib, verbum sapienti, — 
 Q^word is more to him that hath wisdom than a sermon to a '/^j 
 Tool. } And albeit we have written this poor scroll with our own 
 hand and are well assured of the fidelity of our messenger, as 
 him that is many ways bounden to us, yet so it is, that sliddery 
 ways crave wary walking, and that we may not peril upon 
 paper matters which we would gladly impart to you by word of 
 mouth. Wherefore, it was our purpose to have prayed you 
 heartily to come to this barren Highland country to kill a stag, 
 and to treat of the matters which we are now more painfully 
 inditing to you anent. But commodity does not serve at pres- 
 ent for such our meeting, which, therefore, shall be deferred 
 until sic time as we may in all mirth rehearse those things 
 whereof we now keep silence. Meantime, we pray you to think 
 that we are, and will still be, your good kinsman and well- 
 wisher, waiting but for times of whilk we do, as it were, enter- 
 tain a twilight prospect, and appear and hope to be also your 
 effectual well-doer. And in which hope we heartily write ourself, 
 " Right Honorable, 
 
 " Your loving cousin, 
 
 " Given from our poor house of B , etc." 
 
 Superscribed — " For the right honorable, and our honored 
 kinsman, the Master of Ravenswood. These, with haste, 
 haste, post haste — ride and run until these be delivered." 
 
 " What think you of this epistle, Bucklaw ? " said the Master, 
 when his companion had hammered out all the sense, and 
 almost all the words of which it consisted. 
 
 " Truly, that the Marquis's meaning is as great a riddle as 
 his manuscript. He is really in much need of Wit's Interpreter, 
 or the Complete Letter Writer, and were I you, I would send 
 him a copy by the bearer. He writes you very kindly to remain 
 wasting your time and your money in this vile, stupid, oppressed 
 country, without so much as offering you the countenance and 
 shelter of his house. In my opinion, he has some scheme in 
 riew in which he supposes you can be useful, and he wishes to
 
 6^ THE BRIDE OF LA MMERMOOR. 
 
 keep you at hand, to make use of you when it ripens, reserving 
 the power of turning you adrift, should his plot fail in the con- 
 coction." 
 
 " His plot ? — then you suppose it is a treasonable business," 
 answered Ravenswood. 
 
 " What else can it be ? " replied Bucklaw ; " the Marquis has 
 been long suspected to have an eye to Saint Gerrnains." 
 
 " He should not engage me rashly in such an adventure," 
 said Ravenswood ; " when I recollect the times of the first and 
 second Charles, and of the last James, truly, I see little reason, 
 that, as a man or a patriot, I should draw my sword for their 
 descendants." 
 
 " Humph ! " replied Bucklaw ; " so you have set yourself 
 down to mourn over the crop-eared dogs, whom honest Claver'se 
 treated as they deserved .'' " 
 
 " They first gave the dogs an ill name, and then hanged 
 them," replied Ravenswood. " I hope to see the day when jus- 
 tice shall be opened to Whig and Tory, and when these nick- 
 names sliall only be used among coffee-house politicians, as slut 
 and jade are among apple-women, as cant terms of idle spite 
 and rancor." 
 
 " That will not be in our days. Master — the iron has entered 
 too deeply into our sides and our souls." 
 
 "It will be, however, one day," replied the Master, "men 
 will not always start at these nicknames as at a trumpet sound. 
 As social life is better protected, its comforts will become too 
 dear to be hazarded without some better reason than speculative 
 politics." 
 
 " It is fine talking," answered Bucklaw ; " but my heart is 
 with the old song, — 
 
 To see good corn upon the rigs, 
 
 And a gallows built to hang the Whigs, 
 
 And the rigiu restored where the right should be, 
 
 O, that is the thing that would wanton me." 
 
 " You may sing as loudly as you will, cantahit vacuus," — an- 
 swered the Master ; " but I believe the Marquis is too wise, at 
 least too wary, to join you in such a burden. I suspect he 
 alludes to a revolution in the Scottish Privy Council, rather than 
 :n the British kingdoms." 
 
 ' Oh, confusion to your state tricks ! " exclaimed Bucklaw, 
 " your cold calculating manoeuvres, which old gentlemen In 
 wrought nightcaps and furred gowns execute like so many games 
 at chess, and displace a treasurer or lord commissioner as they 
 would take a rook or a pawn. Tennis for my sport, and battle
 
 ^p^ 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. £5 
 
 for my earnest ! My racket and my sword for my plaything and 
 ^Bread-winner ! And you, Master, so deep and considerate as you 
 would seem, you have that within you maizes the blood boil faster 
 than suits your present humor of moralizing on political truths. 
 You are one of those wise men who see everything with great 
 composure till their blood is up, and then — woe to any who 
 should put them in mind of their own prudential maxims ! " 
 
 "Perhaps," said Ravenswood, "you read me more rightly 
 than I can myself. But to think justly will certainly go some 
 length in helping me to act so. But, hark ! I hear Caleb tolling 
 the dinner-bell.'' 
 
 " Which he always does with the more sonorous grace, in 
 proportion to the meagreness of the cheer which he has pro- 
 vided," said Bucklaw ; " as if that infernal clang and jangle, 
 which will one day bring the belfry down the cliff, could convert 
 a starved hen into a fat capon, and a blade-bone of mutton into 
 a haunch of venison." 
 
 " I wish we may be so well off as your worst conjectures 
 surmise, Bucklaw, from the extreme solemnity and ceremony with 
 which Caleb seems to place on the table that solitary covered 
 dish." 
 
 " Uncover, Caleb ! uncover, for Heaven's sake ! " said Buck- 
 law ; " let us have what you can give us without preface — Why, 
 it stands well enough, man," he continued, addressing impa- 
 tiently the ancient butler, who, without reply, kept shifting the 
 dish, until he had at length placed it with mathematical precision 
 in the very midst of the table. 
 
 " What have we got here, Caleb t " inquired the master in his 
 turn. 
 
 " Ahem ! sir, j'e suld have known before ; but his honor the 
 Laird of Bucklaw is so impatient," answered Caleb, still holding 
 the dish with one hand, and the cover with the other, with evident 
 rehictance to disclose the contents. 
 
 " But what is it, a God's name — not a pair of clean spurs, I 
 hope, in the border fashion of old times ! " 
 
 " Ahem ! ahem ! " reiterated Caleb, " your honor is pleased 
 to be facetious — natheless, I might presume to say it was a 
 convenient fashion used, as I have heard, in an honorable 
 and thriving family. But touching your present dinner, I 
 judged that this being Saint Magdalene's Eve, who was a worthy 
 queen of Scotland in her day, your honors might judge it 
 decorous, if not altogether to fast, yet only to sustain nature 
 with some slight refection, as ane saulted herring or the like." 
 And, uncovering the dish, he displayed four of the savory 
 fishes which he mentioned, adding, in a subdued tone, " that
 
 66 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 they were no just common herring neither, being every atiC 
 melters, and sauted with uncommon care by tiie housekeepei 
 (poor Mysie) for his honor's especial use." 
 
 " Out upon all apologies !" said the Master, " let us eat the 
 herrings, since there is nothing better to be had — but I begin 
 to think with you, Bucklaw, that we are consuming the last 
 green leaf, and that, in spite of the Marquis's political machina- 
 tions, we must positively shift camp for want of forage, without 
 waiting the issue of them." 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTH. 
 
 Ay, and when huntsmen wind the merry horn. 
 
 And from its covert starts the fearful prey, 
 
 Who, warm'd with youth's blood in his swelling veins, 
 
 Would, like a lifeless clod, outstretched lie, 
 
 Shut out from all the fair creation offers? 
 
 liTHWALD, Scene I. Act L 
 
 Light meals procure light slumbers ; and therefore it is not 
 surprising, that, considering the fare which Caleb's conscience, or 
 his necessity, assuming, as will sometimes happen, that disguise 
 had assigned to the guests of Wolf's Crag, their slumbers should 
 have been short. 
 
 In the morning Bucklaw rushed into his host's apartment 
 with a loud halloo, which might have awaked the dead. 
 
 " Up ! up ! in the name of Heaven — the hunters are out, 
 the only piece of sport I have seen this month ; and. you lie 
 here. Master, on a bed that has little to recommend it, except 
 that it may be something softer than the stone floor of your 
 ancestor's vault." 
 
 ' " I wish," said Ravenswood, raising his head peevishly, "you 
 had forborne so early a jest, Mr. Hayston — it is really no pleas- 
 ure to lose the very short repose which I had just begun to 
 enjoy, after a night spent in thoughts upon fortune far harder 
 than my couch, Bucklaw." 
 
 " Pshaw, pshaw ! " replied his guest ; " get up — get up — the 
 hounds are abroad — I have saddled the horses myself, for old 
 Caleb was calling for grooms and lackeys, and would never 
 have proceeded without two hours' apology for the absence of 
 men who were a hundred miles off. — Get up. Master — I say, 
 the hounds are out — get up, I say — the hunt is up." And off 
 ran Bucklaw.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 67 
 
 "And I say," said the Master, rising slowh^, " that nothing 
 can concern me less. Whose hounds come so near to us ? " 
 
 •' The Honorable Lord Bittlebrains', " answered Caleb, who 
 had followed the impatient Laird of Bucklaw into his master's 
 bedroom, "and truly I ken nae title they have to be yowling 
 and howling within the freedoms and immunities of your lord 
 ship's right of free forestry." 
 
 " Nor L Caleb," replied Ravenswood, ''excepting that they 
 have bought both the lands and the right of forestry, and may 
 think themselves entitled to exercise the rights they have paid 
 their money for." 
 
 " It may be sae, my lord," replied Caleb ; " but it's no gen- 
 tleman's deed of them to come here and exercise such like right, 
 and your lordship living at your ain castle of Wolf's Crag. 
 Lord Bittlebrains would do weel to remember what his folk 
 have been." 
 
 " And we what we now are," said the Master with suppressed 
 bitterness of feeling. " But reach me my cloak, Caleb, and I 
 will indulge Bucklaw with a sight of this chase. It is selfish to 
 sacrifice my guest's pleasure to my own." 
 
 " Sacrifice ! " echoed Caleb, in a tone which seemed to imply 
 the total absurdity of his master making the least concession 
 in deference to any one — " Sacrifice indeed ! — but I crave your 
 honor's pardon — and whilk doublet is it your pleasure to 
 wear? *' 
 
 "Any one you will, Caleb — my wardrobe, I su^Dpose, is not 
 very extensive." 
 
 " Not extensive ! " echoed his assistant ; " when there is 
 the gray and silver that your lordship bestowed on Hew Hilde- 
 brand, your outrider — and the French velvet that went with my 
 lord your father — (be gracious to him !) — my lord your father's 
 auld wardrobe to the puir friends of the family — and the drap- 
 deberry" 
 
 " Which I gave to you, Caleb, and which, I suppose, is 
 the only dress we have any chance to come at, except that I 
 wore j^esterday — pray, hand me that, and say no more about it." 
 
 " If your honor has a fancy, " replied Caleb, " and doubt- 
 less it's a sad-colored suit, and you are in mourning — never- 
 theless I have never tried on the drap-de-berry — ill wad it be- 
 come me — and your honor having no change of claiths at this 
 present — and it's weel brushed, and as there are leddies down 
 yonder " — 
 
 " Ladies ! " said Ravenswood ; " and what ladies, pray ? " 
 
 "What do I ken, your lordship ? — looking down at them 
 from the Warden's Tower, I could but see them glent by vH'
 
 68 THE BRTDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 their bridles ringing, and their feathers fluttering, like the 
 court of Eltiand." 
 
 " Well, well, Caleb," replied the Master, " help me on 
 with my cloak, and hand me my sword-belt. — What clatter is 
 that in the courtyard? " 
 
 "Just Bucklaw bringing out the horses," said Caleb, after 
 a glance through the window, " as if there werena men eneugh in 
 the castle, or as if I couldna serve the turn of ony o' them that 
 are out o' the gate." 
 
 " Alas ! Caleb, we should want little, if your ability were 
 equal to your will," replied his master. 
 
 " And I hope your lordship disna want that muckle," said 
 Caleb ; " for, considering a' things, I trust we support the 
 credit of the family as weel as things will permit of — only Buck- 
 law is aye sae frank and sae forward. — And there he has brought 
 out your lordship's palfrey without the saddle being decored wi' 
 the broidered sumpter-cloth ! and I could have brushed it in a 
 minute." 
 
 " It is all very well," said his master, escaping from him, and 
 descending the narrow and steep winding staircase, which led 
 to the courtyard." 
 
 " It may be a' very weel," said Caleb, somewhat peevishly ; 
 ** but if your lordship wad tarry a bit, I will tell you what will 
 not be very weel." 
 
 " And what is that ? " said Ravenswood, impatiently, but 
 stopping at the same time. 
 
 " Why, just that ye suld speer ony gentleman hame to din- 
 ner ; for I canna mak anither fast on a feast day, as when I 
 cam ower Bucklaw wi' Queen Margaret — and, to speak truth, 
 if your lordship wad but please to cast yoursell in the way of 
 dining wi' Lord Bittlebrains, I'se warrand I wad cast about 
 brawly for the morn ; or if, stead o' that, ye wad but dine wi' 
 them at the change-house, ye might mak your shift for the 
 lawing ; ye might say ye had forgot your purse — or that the 
 carline awed ye rent, and that ye wad allow it in the settle- 
 ment." 
 
 " Or any other lie that came uppermost, I suppose ? " said 
 his master, " Good-bye, Caleb ; I commend your care for 
 the honor of the family." And, throwing himself on his horse, 
 he followed Bucklaw, who, at the manifest risk of his neck, 
 had begun to gallop down the steep path which led from the 
 tower, as soon as he saw Ravenswood have his foot in the 
 stirrup. 
 
 Caleb Balderstone looked anxiously after them, and shook 
 his thin gray locks — " And I trust that they will come to no
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 69 
 
 evil — but they have reached the plain, and folk cannot say but 
 that the horse are hearty and in spirits." 
 
 Animated by the natural impetuosity and fire of his tem- 
 per, young Bucklaw rushed on with the careless speed of a 
 whirlwind. Ravenswood was scarce more moderate in his 
 pace, for his was a mind unwillingly roused from contemplative 
 inactivity ; but which, when once put into motion, acquired 
 a spirit of forcible and violent progression. Neither was his 
 eagerness proportioned in all cases to the motive of impulse, 
 but might be compared to the speed of a stone, which rushes 
 with like fury down the hill, whether it was first put in motion by 
 the arm of a giant or the hand of a boy. He felt, therefore, in 
 an ordinary degree, the headlong impulse of the chase, a pas- 
 time so natural to youth of all ranks, that it seems rather to be 
 an inherent passion in our animal nature, which levels all differ- 
 ences of rank and education, than an acquired habit of rapid 
 exercise. 
 
 The repeated bursts of the French horn, which was then 
 always used for the encouragement and direction of the hounds 
 — the deep, though distant baying of the pack — the half-heard 
 cries of the huntsmen — the half-seen forms which were dis- 
 covered, now emerging from glens which crossed the moor, now 
 sweeping over its surface, now picking their way where it was 
 impeded by morasses ; and above all, the feeling of his own 
 rapid motion, animated the Master of Ravenswood, at least for 
 the moment, above the recollections of a more painfvil nature 
 by which he was surrounded. The first thing which recalled 
 him to those unpleasing circumstances, was feeling that his 
 horse, notwithstanding all the advantages which he received 
 from his rider's knowledge of the country, was unable to keep 
 up with the chase. As he drew his bridle up with the bitter 
 feeling, that his poverty excluded him from the favorite re- 
 creation of his forefathers, and indeed, their sole employment 
 when not engaged in military pursuits, he was accosted by a 
 well-mounted stranger, who, unobserved, had kept near him 
 during the earlier part of his career. 
 
 " Your horse is blown," said the man, with a complaisance 
 seldom used in a hunting-field, " Might I crave your honor to 
 make use of mine ? " 
 
 " Sir," said Ravenswood, more surprised than pleased at such 
 a proposal, " I really do not know how I have merited such a 
 favor at a stranger's hands." 
 
 " Never ask a question about it, Master," said Bucklaw, who, 
 ■with great unwillingness, had hitherto reined in his own gallant 
 Steed, not to outride his host and entertainer. " Take the goods
 
 JO THE BRIDE l^E LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 the gods provide you, as the great John Dryden says — or stay- 
 here, my friend, lend me that' horse ; — I see you have been 
 puzzled to rein him up this half-hour. I'll take the devil out 
 of him for you. Now, Master, do you ride mine, which wili 
 carry you like an eagle." 
 
 And throwing the rein of his own horse to the Master ot 
 Ravcnswood, he sprang upon that which the stranger resigned 
 to him, and continued his career at full speed. 
 
 " Was ever so thoughtless a being! " said the Master ; " an 1 
 you, my friend, how could you trust him with your horse ?" 
 
 '■'■ The horse," said the man, " belongs to a person who will 
 make your honor, or any of your honorable friends, most wel- 
 come to him, flesh and fell." 
 
 " And the owner's name is 1 " asked Ravenswood. 
 
 *•' Your honor must excuse me, you will learn that from 
 himself. — If you please to take your friend's horse, and leave 
 me your galloway, I will meet you after the fall of the stag, for 
 I hear they are blowing him at bay." 
 
 " I believe, my friend, it will be the best way to recover your 
 good horse for you," answered Ravenswood ; and mounting the 
 nag of his friend Bucklaw he made all the haste in his power 
 to the spot where the blast of the horn announced that the 
 stag's career was nearly terminated. 
 
 These jovial sounds were intermixed with the huntsman's, 
 shouts of " Hyke a Talbot ! Hyke a Teviot ! now boys, now ! " 
 and similar cheering halloos of the olden hunting-field, to 
 which the impatient yelling of the hounds, now close on the 
 object of their pursuit, gave a lively and unremitting chorus. 
 The straggling riders began now to rally toward the scene of 
 action, collecting from different points as to a common centre. 
 
 Bucklaw kept the start which he had gotten, and arrived 
 first at the spot, where the stag, incapable of sustaining a more 
 prolonged flight, had turned upon the hounds, and, in the 
 'hunter's phrase, was at bay. With his stately head bent down, 
 his sides white with foam, his eyes strained betwixt rage and 
 terror, the hunted animal had now in his turn become an object 
 Ol intimidation to his pursuers. The hunters came up one by 
 one. and watched an opportunity to as sailhim with some ad- 
 vantage, which, in such circumstances, can only be done with 
 caution. The dogs stood aloof and bayed loudly, intimating at 
 oi-»ce eagerness and fear, and each oi the sportsmen seemed to 
 expect that his comrade would take upon him the perilous task 
 of assaulting and disabling the animal. The ground, which 
 was a hollow in the common or moor, afforded little advantage 
 for approaching the stag unobserved ; and general was the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 7> 
 
 shout of triumph when Bucklaw, with the dexterity proper to 
 an accompUshed cavalier of the day, sprang from his horse, and 
 dashing suddenly and swiftly at the stag, brought him to the 
 ground by a cut on the hind leg with his short hunting-sword. 
 The pack, rushing in upon their disabled enemy, soon ended 
 his painful struggles, and solemnized his fall with their clamor 
 — the hunters, with their horns and voices, whooping and blow- 
 ing a mart, or death-note, which resounded far over the billows 
 of the adjacent ocean. 
 
 The huntsman then withdrew the hounds from the throttled 
 stag, and on his knee presented his knife to a fair female form, 
 on a white palfrey, whose terror, or perhaps her compassion, had 
 till then kept her at some distance. She wore a black silk 
 riding-mask, which was then a common fashion, as well for pre 
 serving the complexion from sun and rain, as from an idea of 
 decorum, which did not permit a lady to appear barefaced while 
 engaged in a boisterous sport, and attended by a promiscuous 
 company. The richness of her dress, however, as well as the 
 mettle and form of her palfrey, together with the silvan compli- 
 ment paid to her by the huntsman, pointed her out to Bucklaw 
 as the principal person in the field. It was not without a feeling 
 of pity, approaching even to contempt, that this enthusiastic 
 hunter observed her refuse the huntsman's knife, presented to 
 her for the purpose of making the first incision in the stag's 
 breast, and thereby discovering the quality of the venison. He 
 felt more than half inclined to pay his compliments to her; but 
 it had been Bucklaw's misfortune, that his habits of life had not 
 rendered him familiarly acquainted with the higher and better 
 classes of female society, so that, with all his natural audacity, 
 he felt sheepish and bashful when it became necessary to ad- 
 dress a lady of distinction. 
 
 Taking unto himself heart of grace (to use his own phrase), 
 he did at length summon up resolution enough to give the fair 
 huntress good time of the day, and trust that her sport had an- 
 swered her expectation. Her answer was very courteously and 
 modestly expressed, and testified some gratitude to the gallant 
 cavalier, whose exploit had terminated the chase so adroitly, 
 when the hounds and huntsmen seemed somewhat at a stand. 
 
 " Uds daggers and scabbard, madam," said Bucklaw, whom 
 this observation brought at once upon his own ground, " there 
 is no difficulty or merit in that matter at all, so that a fellow is 
 not too much afraid of having a pair of antlers in his guts. I 
 have hunted at force five hundred times, madam ; and I never 
 yet saw the stag at bay, by land or water, but I durst have gone 
 roundly in on him. It is all use and wont, madam ; and I'll tcli
 
 73 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 you, madam, for all that, it must be done with good heed and 
 caution ; and yoM will do well, madam, to have your hunting- 
 sword both right sharp and double-edged, that you may strike 
 either foie-handed or back-lianded, as you see reason, for a hurt 
 with a buck's horn is a perilous and somewhat venomous 
 matter. 
 
 " I am afraid, sir," said the young lady, and her smile was 
 scarce concealed by her vizard, " I shall have little use for such 
 careful preparation." 
 
 " But the gentleman says very right for all that, my lady," 
 said an old huntsman, who had listened to Bucklaw's harangue 
 with no small edification ; " and I have heard my father say, who 
 was a forester at the Cabrach, that a wild boar's gaunch is more 
 easily healed than a hurt from the deer's horn, for so says the 
 old woodman's rhyme — 
 
 If thou be hurt with horn of hart, it brings thee to thy bier ; 
 But tusk of boar shall leeches heal — thereof have lesser fear." 
 
 " An I might advise," continued Bucklaw, who was now in 
 his element, and desirous of assuming the whole management, 
 " as the hounds are surbated and weary, the head of the stag 
 should be cabbaged in order to reward them ; and if I may pre- 
 sume to speak, the huntsman, who is to break up the stag, ought 
 to drink to your good ladyship's health a good lusty bicker of 
 ale, or a tass of brandy ; for if he breaks him up without drink- 
 ing, the venison will not keep well." 
 
 This very agreeable prescription received, as will be readily 
 believed, all acceptation from the huntsman, who, in requital, 
 offered to Bucklaw the compliment of his knife, which the young 
 lady had declined. This polite proffer was seconded by his 
 mistress. 
 
 " I believe, sir," she said, withdrawing herself from the circle, 
 " that my father, for whose amusement Lord Bittlebrains' hounds 
 have been out to-day, will readily surrender all care of these 
 matters to a gentleman of your experience." 
 
 Then, bending gracefully from her horse, she wished him 
 good morning, and, attended by one or two domestics, who 
 seemed immediately attached to her service, retired from the 
 scene of action, to which Bucklaw, too much delighted with an 
 opportunit}' of displaying his wood-craft to care about man or 
 woman either, paid little attention ; but was soon stripped to his 
 doublet, with tucked-up sleeves, and naked arms up to the elbows 
 in blood and grease, slashing, cutting, hacking, and hewing with 
 the precision of Sir Tristrem himself, and wrangling and disput' 
 ing with all around him concerning nonibles, briskets, flankard*
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 73 
 
 and ravenbones, then usual terms of the art of hunting, or of 
 butchery, whichever the reader chooses to call it, which are now 
 probably antiquated. 
 
 When Ravenswood, who followed a short space behind his 
 friend, saw that the stag had fallen, his temporary ardor for 
 the chase gave way to that feeling of reluctance which he en- 
 dured at encountering in his fallen fortunes the gaze whether of 
 equals or inferiors. He reined up his horse on the top of a 
 gentle eminence, from which he observed the busy and gay 
 scene beneath htm, and heard th'fe whoops of the huntsmen gaily 
 mingled with the cry of the dogs, and the neighing and tramp- 
 ling of the horses. But these jovial sounds fell sadly on the ear 
 of the ruined nobleman. The chase, with all its train of ex- 
 citations, has ever since feudal times been accounted the almost 
 exclusive privilege of the aristocracy, and was anciently their 
 chief employment in times of peace. The sense that he was 
 excluded by his situation from enjoying the silvan sport, which 
 his rank assigned to him as a special prerogative, and the feel- 
 ing that new men were now exercising it over the downs, which 
 had been jealously reserved by his ancestors for their own 
 amusement, while he, the heir of the domain, was fain to hold 
 himself at a distance from their party, awakened reflections cal- 
 culated to depress deeply a mind like Ravenswood's, which was 
 naturally contemplative and melancholy. His pride, however, 
 soon shook off this feeling of dejection, and it gave way to im- 
 patience upon finding that his volatile friend, Bucklaw, seemed 
 in no hurry to return with his borrowed steed, which Ravens- 
 wood, before leaving the field, wished to see restored to the 
 obliging owner. As he was about to move toward the group 
 of assembled huntsmen, he was joined by a horseman, who like 
 himself had kept aloof during the fall of the deer. 
 
 I'his personage seemed stricken in years. He wore a scarlet 
 cloak, buttoning high up on his face, and his hat was unlooped 
 and slouched, probably by way of defence against the weather. 
 His horse, a strong and steady palfrey, was calculated for a 
 rider who proposed to witness the sport of the day, rather than 
 to share it. An attendant waited at some distance, and the 
 whole equipment was that of an elderly gentleman of rank and 
 fashion. He accosted I-lavenswood very politel}', but not with 
 out some embarrassment. 
 
 " You seem a gallant young gentleman, sir," he said, " and 
 yet appear as indifferent to this brave sport as if you had my 
 load of years on your shoulders." 
 
 " I have followed the sport with more spirit on other occa- 
 gions," replied the Master ; " at present, late events in my family
 
 74 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 must be my apology — and besides," he added, " I was but itt 
 differently mounted at the beginning of the sport." 
 
 " I think," said the stranger, " one of my attendants had tha 
 sense to accommodate your friend with a horse." 
 
 " I was much indebted to his politeness and yours," replied 
 Ravenswood. My friend is Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw, whom I 
 daresay you wili be sure to find in the thick of the keenest 
 sportsmen. He will return your servant's horse, and take my 
 pony in exchange — and will add," he concluded, turning his 
 horse's head from the stranger, " his best acknowledgments to 
 mine for the accommodation." 
 
 The Master of Ravenswood, having thus expressed himself, 
 began to move homeward, with the manner of one who has taken 
 leave of his company. But the stranger was not so to be shaken 
 off. He turned his horse at the same time, and rode in the 
 same direction so near to the Master, that, without outriding 
 him, which the formal civility of the time, and the respect due 
 to the stranger's age and recent civility would have rendered 
 improper, he could not easily escape from his company. 
 
 The stranger did not long remain silent. " This, then," he 
 said, " is the ancient Castle of Wolf's Crag, often mentioned in 
 the Scottish records," looking to the old tower, then darkening 
 under the influence of a stormy cloud, that formed its background ; 
 for at the distance of a short mile, the chase having been cir- 
 cuitous, had brought the hunters nearly back to the point which 
 they had attained, when Ravenswood and Bucklaw had set for- 
 ward to join them. 
 
 Ravenswood answered this observation with a cold and dis- 
 tant assent. 
 
 '• It was, as I have heard," continued the stranger, unabashed 
 by his coldness, " one of the most early possessions of the 
 honorable family of Ravenswood." 
 
 " Their earliest possession," answered the Master, " and 
 probably their latest," 
 
 " I — I — I should hope not, sir," answered the stranger, clear- 
 ing his voice with more than one cough, and making an effort 
 to overcome a certain degree of hesitation, — " Scotland knows 
 what she owes to this ancient family, and remembers their 
 frequent and honorable achievements. I have little doubt, 
 that, were it properly represenlcd to her majesty, that so ancient 
 and noble a family were subjected to dilapidation — I mean 
 to decay — means might be found ad re-adijicandum antiquam 
 
 *' I will save you the trouble, sir, of discussing this point 
 further," interrupted the Master, haughtily. " I am the h«if
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 75 
 
 of that unfortunate house — I am the Master of Ravenswood. 
 And you, sir, who seem to be a gentleman of fashion and edu- 
 cation, must be sensible, that the next mortification after being 
 unhappy, is the being loaded with undesired commiseration." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," said the elder horseman — " I did 
 not know — I am sensible I ought not to have mentioned — notli- 
 ing could be further from my thoughts than to suppose" 
 
 " There are no apologies necessary, sir," answered Ravens 
 wood, *' for here, I suppose, our roads separate, and I assure 
 you that we part in perfect equanimity on my side." 
 
 As speaking these words, he directed his horse's head tow- 
 ard a narrow causeway, the ancient approach to Wolf's Crag, 
 of which it might be truly said, in the words of the Bard of 
 Hope, that. 
 
 Travelled by few was the grass-cover'd road, 
 Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode, 
 To his hills that encircle the sea. 
 
 But, ere he could disengage himself from his companion, the 
 young lady we have already mentioned came up to join the 
 stranger, followed by her servants. 
 
 " Daughter," said the stranger to the masked damsel, " this 
 is the Master of Ravenswood." 
 
 It would have been natural that the gentleman should have 
 replied to this introduction ; but there was something in the 
 graceful form and retiring modesty of the female to whom he 
 was thus presented, which not only prevented him from inquir- 
 ing to whom, and by whom, the annunciation had been made, 
 but which even for the time struck him absolutely mute. At 
 this moment the cloud which had long lowered above the height 
 on which Wolf's Crag is situated, and which now, as it advanced, 
 spread itself in darker and denser folds both over land and sea, 
 hiding the distant objects, and obscuring those which were 
 nearer, turning the sea to a leaden complexion, and the heath to 
 a darker brown, began now, by one or two distant peals, to an- 
 nounce the thunders with which it was fraught ; while two flashes 
 of lightning, following each other very closely, showed in the 
 distance the gray turrets of Wolf's Crag, and, more nearly, the 
 rolling billows of the ocean, crested suddenly with red and daz- 
 zling light. 
 
 The horse of the fair huntress showed symptoms of impa- 
 tience and restiveneis, and it became impossible for Ravens- 
 wood, as a man or a gentleman, to leave her abruptly to the 
 care of an aged father or her menial attendants. He was, or 
 believed himself, obliged in courtesy to take hold of her bridle^
 
 tj6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 and assist her in managing the unruly animal. While he was 
 thus engaged, the old gentleman observed that the storm seemed 
 to increase — that they were far from Lord Bittlebrains', whose 
 guests they were for the present — and that he would be obliged 
 to the Master of Ravenswood to point him the way to the 
 nearest place of refuge from the storm. At the same time, he 
 cast a wistful and embarrassed look toward the Tower of 
 Wolf's Crag, which seemed to render it almost impossible for 
 the owner to avoid offering an old man and a lady, in such an 
 emergency, the temporary use of his house. Indeed, the condi- 
 tion of the young huntress made this courtesy indispensable ; 
 for, in the course of the services which he rendered, he could 
 not but perceive that she trembled much, and was extremely 
 agitated, from her apprehensions, doubtless, of the coming 
 storm. 
 
 I know not if the Master of Ravenswood shared her terrors, 
 but he was not entirely free from something like a similar dis- 
 order of nerves, as he observed, " The Tower of Wolf's Crag 
 has nothing to offer be3-ond the shelter of its roof, but if that 
 can be acceptable at such a moment" — he paused, as if the res: 
 of the invitation stuck in his throat. But the old gentleman, 
 his self-constituted companion, did not allow him to recede from 
 the invitation, which he had rather suffered to be implied than 
 directly expressed. 
 
 "The storm," said the stranger, "must be an apology for 
 waiving ceremony — his daughter's health was weak — she had 
 suffered much from a recent alarm — he trusted their intrusion 
 on the Master of Ravenswood's hospitality would not be alto- 
 gether unpardonable in the circumstances of the case — his 
 child's safety must be dearer to him than ceremony." 
 
 There was no room to retreat. The Master of Ravenswood 
 led the way, continuing to keep hold of the lady's bridle to pre- 
 vent her horse from starting at some unexpected explosion of 
 thunder. He was not so bewildered in his own hurried reflec- 
 tions, but that he remarked, that the deadly paleness which 
 had occupied her neck and temples, and such of her features 
 as the riding-mask left exposed, gave phice to a deep and rosy 
 suffusion ; and he felt with embarrassment that a flush was by 
 tacit sympathy excited in his own cheeks. The stranger, wiih 
 watchfulness which he disguised under apprehensions for the 
 safety of his daughter, continued to observe the expression of 
 the Master's countenance as they ascended the hill to Wolf's 
 Crag. When they stood in front of that ancient fortress, 
 Ravenswood's emotions were of a very complicated description; 
 and as he led the way into the rude courtyard, and halloo'd to
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. yjt 
 
 Caleb to give attendance, there was a tone of sternness, almost 
 of fierceness, which seemed somewhat alien from the courtesies 
 of one who is receiving honored guests. 
 
 Caleb came ; and not the paleness of the fair stranger at 
 the first approach of the thunder, nor the paleness of any othei 
 person, in any other circumstances whatever, equaled that 
 which overcame the thin cheeks of the disconsolate seneschal, 
 when he beheld this accession of guests to the castle, and 
 reflected that the dinner hour was fast approaching. " Is he 
 daft ? '■■ he muttered to himself, — " is he clean daft a'thegither, 
 to bring lords and leddies, and a host o' folk behint them, and 
 twal-o'clock chappit ? " Then approaching the Master, he 
 craved pardon for having permitted the rest of his people to go 
 out to see the hunt, observing, that "they wad never think of 
 his lordship coming back till mirk night, and that he dreaded 
 they might play the truant." 
 
 " Silence, Balderston ! " said Ravenswood, sternly ; " your 
 folly is unseasonable. — Sir and madam," he said, turning to his 
 guests, " this old man, and a yet older and more imbecile 
 female domestic, form my whole retinue. Our means of 
 refreshing you are more scanty than even so miserable a 
 retinue, and a dwelling so dilapidated, might seem to promise 
 you ; but, such as they may chance to be, you may command 
 them." 
 
 The elder stranger, struck with the ruined and even savaga 
 appearance of the Tower, rendered still more disconsolate by 
 the lowering and gloomy sky, and perhaps not altogether un. 
 moved by the grave and determined voice in which their host 
 addressed them, looked round him anxiously, as if he half re- 
 pented the readiness with which he had accepted the offered 
 hospitality. But there was now no opportunity of receding 
 from the situation in which he had placed himself. 
 
 As for Caleb, he was so utterly stunned by his master's 
 public and unqualified acknowledgment of the nakedness of the 
 land, that for two minutes he could only mutter within his heb- 
 ilomadal beard, which had not felt the razor for six days, " He's 
 daft — clean daft — red wud, and awa wi't ! But deil hae Caleb 
 Balderston," said he, collecting his powers of invention and re 
 source, "if the family shall lose credit, if he were as mad as 
 the seven wise masters ! " he then boldly advanced, and in 
 spite of his master's frowns and impatience, gravely asked, " if 
 he should not serve up some slight refection for the young 
 leddy, and a glass of tokay, or old sack — or " 
 
 " Truce to this ill-timed foolery," said the Master, sternlyj
 
 j$ THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 •—"put the horses into the stable, and interrupt us no mora 
 with your absurdities." 
 
 " Your honor's pleasure is to be obeyed aboon a' things," 
 said Caleb ; " nevertheless, as for the sack and tokay, which it 
 is not your noble guests' pleasure to accept " 
 
 But here the voice of Bucklaw, heard even above the 
 clattering of hoofs and braying of horns with which it mingled, 
 announced that he was scaling the pathway to the Tower at 
 the head of the greater part of the gallant hunting train. 
 
 " The deil be in me," said Caleb, taking heart in spite of 
 this new invasion of Philistines, "if they shall beat me yet! 
 The hellicat ne'er-do-weel ! — to bring such a crew here, that 
 will expect to find brandy as plenty as ditch-water, and he 
 kenning sae absolutely the case in whilk we stand for the 
 present ! But I trow, could I get rid of thae gaping gowks of 
 flunkies that hae won into the courtyard at the back of their 
 betters, as mony a man gets preferment, I could make a' right 
 yet." 
 
 The measures which he took to execute this dauntless 
 resolution the reader shall learn in the next chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER NINTH. 
 
 With throat unslaked, with black lips baked. 
 
 Agape they heard him call ; 
 Gramercy they for joy did grin, 
 And all at once th:ir breath drew in. 
 
 As they had been drinking all ! 
 
 Coleridge's " Rime ok the Ancient Mariner." 
 
 Hayston of Bucklaw was one of the thoughtless class who 
 never hesitate between their friend and their jest. When it 
 was announced that the principal persons of the chase had taken 
 their route toward Wolf's Crag, the huntsmen, as a point of 
 civility, offered to transfer the venison to that mansion ; a proffer 
 which was readily accepted by Bucklaw, who thought much of 
 the astonishment which their arrival in full body would occasion 
 poor old Caleb Balderston, and very little of the dilemma to 
 which he was about to expose his friend the Master, so ill cir- 
 cumstanced to receive such a party. But in old Caleb he had 
 to do with a crafty and alert antagonist, prompt at supplying, 
 upon all emergencies, evasions and excuses suitable, as he 
 thought, to the dignity of the family.
 
 THE BRTDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 79 
 
 "Praise be blest ! " said Caleb to himself, " ae leaf of the 
 muckle gate has been swung to \vi' yestreen's wind, and I think 
 I can manage to shut the ither." 
 
 But he was desirous, like a prudent governor, at the same 
 time to get rid, if possible, of the internal enemy, in which light 
 he considered almost every one who ate and drank, ere he took 
 measures to exclude those whom their jocund noise now pro- 
 nounced to be near at hand. He waited, therefore, with impa- 
 tience until his master had shown his two principal guests into 
 the tower, and then commenced his operations. 
 
 " I think," he said to the stranger menials, " that as they ar« 
 bringing the stag's head to the castle in all honor, we, who are 
 in-dwellers. should receive them at the gate." 
 
 The unwary grooms had no sooner hurried out, in compliance 
 with this, insidious hint, than, one folding-door of the ancient 
 gate being already closed by the wind, as has been already inti- 
 mated, honest Caleb lost no time in shutting the other with a 
 clang, which resounded from donjon vault to battlement. Hav- 
 ing thus secured the pass, he forthwith indulged the excluded 
 huntsmen in brief parley, from a small projecting window, or 
 shot-hole, through which, in former days, the warders were wont 
 to reconnoitre those who presented themselves before the gates. 
 He gave them to understand, in a short and pithy speech, that 
 the gate of the castle was never on any account opened during 
 meal-times — that his honor, the Master of Ravenswood, and 
 some guests of quality, had just sat down to dinner — that there 
 was excellent brandy at the hostler's wife's at Wolf's Hope 
 down below — and he held out some obscure hint that the 
 reckoning would be discharged by the Master ; but this was 
 uttered in a very dubious and oracular strain, for, like Louis 
 XIV., Caleb Balderston hesitated to carry finesse so far as direct 
 falsehood, and was content to deceive, if possible, without 
 directly lying. 
 
 This annunciation was received with surprise by some, with 
 laughter by others, and with dismay by the expelled lackeys, 
 who endeavored to demonstrate that their right of re-admission, 
 for the purpose of waiting upon their master and mistress, was 
 at least indisputable. But Caleb was not in a humor to under- 
 stand or admit any distinctiotis. He stuck to his original pro- 
 position with that dogged, but convenient pertinacity, which is 
 armed against all conviction, and deaf to all reasoning. 
 
 Bucklaw now came from the rear of the party, and demanded 
 admittance in a very angry tone. But the resolution of Caleb 
 was immovable. 
 
 *' If the king on the throne were at the gate," he declared.
 
 go THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 "his ten fingers should never open itcontrairto the established 
 nse and wont of the family of Ravenswood, and his duty as their 
 head-servant/' 
 
 Bucklaw was now extremely incensed, and with more oaths 
 and curses than we care to repeat, declared himself most un- 
 worthily treated, and demanded peremptorily to speak with the 
 Master of Ravenswood himself. But to this, also, Caleb turned 
 a deaf ear, 
 
 " He's as soon a-bleeze as a tap of tow the lad Bucklaw," 
 he said; "but the deil of ony master's face he shall see till he 
 has sleepit and waken'd on't. He'll ken himscU belter the 
 morn's morning. It sets the like o' him to be bringing a crew 
 of drunken hunters here, when he kens there is but little prep- 
 aration to sloken his ain drought." And he disappeared from 
 the window, leaving them all to digest their exclusion as they 
 best might. 
 
 But another person, of whose presence Caleb, in the anima- 
 tion of the debate, was not aware, had listened in silence to its 
 progress. This was the principal domestic of the stranger — a 
 man of trust and consequence — the same who, in the hunting- 
 field, had accommodated Bucklaw with the use of his horse. 
 He was in the stable when Caleb had contrived the expulsion 
 of his fellow-servants, and thus avoided sharing the same fate, 
 from which his personal importance would certainly not have 
 otherwise saved him. 
 
 This personage perceived tlie manoeuvre of Caleb, easily 
 appreciated the motive of his conduct, and knowing his master's 
 intentions toward the family of Ravenswood, had no difiiculty 
 as to the line of conduct he ought to adopt. He took the place 
 of Caleb (unperceived by the latter) at the post of audience 
 which he had just left, and announced to the assembled domes 
 tics, " that it was his master's pleasure that Lord Bittlebrains' 
 retinue and his own should go down to the adjacent change- 
 house, and call for what refreshments they might have occasion 
 for, and he should take care to discharge the lawing." 
 
 The jolly troop of huntsmen retired from the inhospitable 
 gate of Wolf's Crag, execrating, as they descended the steep 
 pathway, the niggard and unworthy disposition of the proprie- 
 tor, and damning, with more than silvan license, both the castle 
 and its inhabitants. Bucklaw, with many qualities which would 
 have made him a man of worth and judgment in more favor- 
 able circumstances, had been so utterly neglected in point of 
 education, that he was apt to think and feel according to the 
 ideas of the companions of his pleasures. The praises which 
 had recently been heaped upon himself he contrasted with the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. gi 
 
 general abuse now levelled against Ravenswood — he recalled to 
 his mind the dull and monotonous days he had spent in the 
 Tower of Wolf's Crag, compared with the joviality of his usual 
 life — he felt, with great indignation, his exclusion from the 
 castle, which he considered as a gross affront, and every mingled 
 feeling led him to break off the union which he had formed with 
 the Master of Ravenswood. 
 
 On arriving at the change-house of the village of Wolf's 
 Hope, he unexpectedly met with an old acquaintance just 
 alighting from his horse. This was no other than the very 
 respectable Captain Craigengelt, who immediately came up to 
 him, and, without appearing to retain any recollection of the 
 indifferent terms on which they had parted, shook him by the 
 hand in the warmest manner possible. A warm grasp of the 
 hand was what Bucklaw could never help returning with cor- 
 diality, and no sooner had Craigengelt felt the pressure of his 
 fingers than he knew the terms on which he stood with him. 
 
 " Long life to you, Bucklaw ! " he exclaimed ; " there's life 
 for honest folk in this bad world yet ! " 
 
 The Jacobites at this period, with what propriety I know 
 not, used, it must be noticed, the term of honest men as pe- 
 culiarly descriptive of their own party. 
 
 "Ay, and for others besides, it seems," answered Bucklaw ; 
 " otherways, how came you to venture hither, noble Captain "i " 
 
 " Who — I ? — 1 am as free as the wind at Martinmas, that 
 pays neither land-rent nor annual ; all is explained — all settled 
 with the honest old drivelers yonder of Auld Reekie — Pooh ! 
 pooh ! they dared not keep me a week of days in durance. A 
 certain person has better friends among them than you wot of, 
 and can serve a friend when it is least likely." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " answered Hayston, who perfectly knew and 
 thoroughly despised the character of this man, " none of your 
 c<^gg'"g gibberish — tell me truly, are you at liberty and in 
 safety ? " 
 
 " Free and safe as a whig bailie on the causeway of his own 
 borough, or a canting Presbyterian minister in his own pulpit 
 — and I came to tell you that you need not remain in hiding 
 any longer." 
 
 " Then I suppose you call yourself my friend, Captain 
 Craigengelt .'' " said Bucklaw. 
 
 " Friend ? " replied Craigengelt, "my cock of the pit ! why, 
 I am the very Achates, man, as I have heard scholars say — 
 hand and glove — bark and tree — thine to life and death ! " 
 
 " I'll try that in a moment," answered Bucklaw. ** Thou 
 art ncTcr without money, however thou comest by it. Lend
 
 82 THE PRIDE OF LAMMERMOOK. 
 
 me two pieces to wash the dust out of these honest fellow^ 
 throats in the first place, and then" 
 
 " Two pieces ? twenty are at thy service, my lad — and 
 twenty to back them." 
 
 " Ay — say you so ? " said Bucklaw, pausing, for his natural 
 penetration led him to suspect some extraordinary motive lay 
 couched under such an excess of generosity. '' Craigengelt, 
 you are either an honest fellov/ in right good earnest, and I 
 scarce know how to believe that — or you are cleverer than 1 
 took you for, and I scarce know how to believe that either." 
 
 "Z'//// n'empechc pas Tautn^^ said Craigengelt, "touch and 
 try — the gold is good as ever was weighed." 
 
 He put a quantity of gold pieces into Bucklaw's hand, 
 which he thrust into his pocket without either counting or look- 
 ing at them, only observing, " that he was so circumstanced 
 that he must enlist, though the devil offered the press-money ;" 
 And then turning to the huntsmen, he called out, " Come along, 
 my lads — all is at my cost." 
 
 " Long life to Bucklaw ! " shouted the men of the chase. 
 
 " And confusion to him that takes his share of the sport, and 
 leaves the hunters as dry, as a drum-head," added another by 
 way of corollary." 
 
 " The house of Ravenswood was ance a gude and an honora- 
 ble house in this land," said an old man, " but it's lost its credit 
 this day, and the Master has shown himself no better than a 
 greedy cullioii." 
 
 And with this conclusion, which was unanimously agreed to 
 by all who heard it, they rushed timmltuousiy into the house of 
 entertainment, where they reveled till a late hour. The jovial 
 temper of Bucklaw seldom permitted him to be nice in the 
 choice of his associates ; and on the present occasion, when his 
 joyous debau'.h received additional zest from the intervention 
 of an unusual space of sobriety, and almost abstinence, he was 
 as happy in leading the revels, as if his comrades had been sons 
 of princes. Craigengelt had his own purposes, in fooling him 
 up to the top of his bent ; and having some low humor, much 
 impudence, and the power of singing a good song, understand- 
 ing besides thoroughly the disposition of his regained associ- 
 ate, he readily succeeded in involving him bumper-deep in the 
 festivity of the meeting. 
 
 A very different scene was in the meantime passing in the 
 Tower of Wolf's Crag. When the Master of Ravenswood left 
 the courtyard, too much busied with his own perplexed reflec- 
 tions to pay attention to the manceuvre of Caleb, he ushered 
 his guests into the great hall of the castle,
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 83 
 
 The indefatigable Balderston, who, from choice or habit, 
 worked on from morning to night, had, by degrees, cleared 
 this desolate apartment of the confused relics of the funeral 
 banquet, and restored it to some order. But not all his skill 
 and labor, in disposing to advantage the little furniture which 
 remained, could remove the dark and disconsolate appearance 
 of those ancient and disfurnished walls. The narrow windows, 
 flanked by deep indentures into the wall, seemed formed rather 
 to exclude than to admit the cheerful light ; and the heavy and 
 gloomy appearance of the thunder-sky added still further to 
 the obscurity. 
 
 As Ravenswood, with the grace of a gallant of that period, 
 but not without a certain stiffness and embarrassment of man- 
 ner, handed the young lady to the upper end of the apartment, 
 her father remained standing more near to the door, as if about 
 to disengage himself from his hat and cloak. At this moment 
 the clang of the portal was heard, a sound at which the stranger 
 started, stepped hastily to the window, and looked with an air 
 of alarm at Ravenswood, when he saw that the gate of the 
 court was shut, and his domestics excluded. 
 
 "You have nothing to fear, sir," said Ravenswood, gravely ; 
 " this roof retains the means of giving protection, though not 
 welcome. Methinks," he added, " it is time that I should 
 know who they are that have thus highly honored my ruined 
 dwelling." 
 
 The young lady remained silent and motionless, and the 
 father, to whom the question was more directly addressed, 
 seemed in the situation of a performer who has ventured to 
 take upon himself a part which he finds himself unable to 
 present, and who comes to a pause when it is most to be ex- 
 pected that he should speak. While he endeavored to cover 
 his embarrassment with the exterior ceremonials of a well-bred 
 demeanor, it was obvious, that, in making his bow, one foot 
 shuffled forward, as if to advance — the other backward, as if 
 with the purpose of escape — and as he undid the cape of his 
 coat, and raised his beaver from his face, his fingers fumbled 
 as if the one had been linked with rusted iron, or the other 
 had weighed equal with a stone of lead. The darkness of the 
 sky seemed to increase, as if to supply the want of those muf- 
 flings which he laid aside with such evident reluctance. The 
 impatience of Ravenswood increased also in proportion to the 
 delay of the stranger, and he appeared to struggle under agi- 
 tation, though probably from a very different cause. He 
 labored to restrain his desire to speak, while the stranger, to 
 all appearance, was at a loss for words to express what he felt
 
 84 THE BR IDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 it necessary to say. At length Ravenswood's impatience broko 
 the bounds he had imposed upon it. 
 
 "I perceive," he said, "that Sir William Ashton is unwilling 
 to announce himself in the Castle of Wolf's Crag." 
 
 " T had hoped it was unnecessary," said the Lord Keeper, 
 relieved from his silence, as a spectre by the voice of the 
 exorcist; "and I am obliged to you, Master of Ravenswood, 
 for breaking the ice at once, where circumstances — unhappy 
 circumstances, let me call them — rendered self-introduction 
 peculiarly awkward." 
 
 "And am I not then," said the Master of Ravenswood, 
 gravely, " to consider the honor of this visit as purely acci- 
 dental ? " 
 
 " Let us distinguish a little," said the Keeper, assuming an 
 appearance of ease which perhaps his heart was a stranger to ; 
 " this is an honor which I have eagerly desired for some time, 
 but which I might never have obtained, save for the accident 
 of the storm. My daughter and I are alike grateful for this 
 opportunity of thanking the brave man to whom she owes her 
 life and I mine." 
 
 The hatred which divided the great families in the feudal 
 times had lost little of its bitterness, though it no longer ex- 
 pressed itself in deeds of open violence. Not the feelings which 
 Ravenswood had begun to entertain toward Lucy Ashton, not 
 the hospitality due to his guests, were able entirely to subdue, 
 though they warmly combated, the deep passions which arose 
 within him, at beholding his father's foe standing in the hall of 
 the family of which he had in a great measure accelerated the 
 ruin. His look glanced from the father to the daughter with 
 an irresolution, of which Sir William Ashton did not think it 
 proper to await the conclusion. He had now disembarrassed 
 himself of his riding dress, and walking up to his daughter, he 
 undid the fastening of her mask. 
 
 " Lucy, my love," he said, raising her and leading her toward 
 Ravenswood, " lay aside your mask, and let us express our 
 gratitude to the Master openly and barefaced." 
 
 " If he will condescend to accept it," was all that Lucy 
 uttered, but in a tone so sweetly modulated, and which seemed 
 to im]Dly at once a feeling and a forgiving of the cold reception 
 to which they were exposed, that, coming from a creature so in- 
 nocent and so beautiful, her words cut Rav^enswood to the very 
 heart for his harshness. He muttered something of surprise, 
 something of confusion, and ending with a warm and eager ex- 
 pression of his happiness at being able to afiford her shelter 
 under his roof, he saluted her, as the ceremonial of the time
 
 THE BRIBE OF LAMMERMOOR. gj 
 
 enjoined upon such occasions. Their cheeks had touched and 
 were withdrawn from each other — Ravenswood had not quit- 
 ted the hand which he had taken in kindly courtesy — a blush, 
 which attached more consequence by far than was usual to such 
 ceremony, still mantled on Lucy Ashton's beautiful cheek, when 
 the apartment was suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightnings 
 which seemed absolutely to swallow the darkness of the hall. 
 Every object might have been for an instant seen distinctly. 
 The slight and half-sinking form of Lucy Ashton, the well-pro- 
 portioned and stately figure of Ravenswood, his dark features, 
 and the fiery, yet irresolute expression of his eyes, — the old arms 
 and scutcheons which hung on the walls of the apartment, were 
 for an instant distinctly visible to the Keeper by a strong red 
 brilliant glare of light. Its disappearance was almost instantly 
 followed by a burst of thunder, for the storm-cloud was very near 
 the castle ; and the peal was so sudden and dreadful, that the 
 old tower rocked to its foundation, and every inmate concluded 
 it was falling upon them. The soot, which had not been dis- 
 turbed for centuries, showered down the huge tunneled chim- 
 neys — lime and dust flew m clouds from the wall ; and, whether 
 the lightning had actually struck the castle, or whether through the 
 violent concussion of the air, several heavy stones were hurled 
 from the mouldering battlements into the roaring sea beneath, 
 it might seem as if the ancient founder of the castle were be- 
 striding the thunderstorm, and proclaiming his displeasure at the 
 reconciliation of his descendant with the enemy of his house. 
 
 The consternation was general, and it required the efforts 
 of both the Lord Keeper and Ravenswood to keep Lucy from 
 fainting. Thus was the Master a second time engaged in tlie 
 most delicate and dangerous of all tasks, that of affording sup- 
 port to a beautiful and helpless being, who, as seen before in a 
 similar situation, had already become a favorite of his imagi- 
 nation, both when awake and when slumbering. If the Genius 
 of the House really condemned a union betwixt the Master and 
 his fair guest, the means by which he expressed his sentiments 
 were as unhappily chosen as if he had been a mere mortal. 
 The train of little attentions, absolutely necessary to soothe 
 the young lady's mind, and aid her in composing her spirits 
 necessarily threw the Master of Ravenswood into such an inter- 
 course with her father, as was calculated, for the moment at least, 
 to break down the barrier of feudal enmity which divided them. 
 To express himself churlishly, or even coldly, toward an old 
 man, whose daughter (and such a daughter) lay before them, 
 overpowered with natural terror — and all this under his own 
 roof — the thing was impossible ; and by the time that Lucy,
 
 36 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 extending a hand to each, was able to thank them for their 
 kindness, the Master felt that his sentiments of hostility to- 
 ward the Lord Keeper were by no means those most pre- 
 dominant in his bosom. 
 
 The weather, her state of health, the absence of her attend 
 ants, all prevented the possibility of Lucy Ashton renewing 
 her journey to Bittlebrains House, which was full five miles 
 distant; and the Master of Ravenswood could not but, in 
 common courtesy, offer the shelter of his roof for the rest of 
 the day and for the night. But a flush of less soft expression, 
 a look much more habitual to his features, resumed predomi- 
 nance when he mentioned how meanly he was provided for the 
 entertainment of his guests. 
 
 " Do not mention deficiences," said the Lord Keeper, eager 
 to interrupt him and prevent his resuming an alarming topic ; 
 " you are preparing to set out for the Continent, and your house 
 is probably for the present unfurnished. All this we under- 
 stand ; but if you mention inconvenience, you will oblige us to 
 seek accommodations in the hamlet." 
 
 As the Master of Ravenswood was about to reply, the door 
 of the hall opened, and Caleb Balderston rushed in. 
 
 CHAPTER TENTH. 
 
 Let them have meat enough, woman — half a hen ; 
 There be old rotten j^ilchards — put them off too ; 
 'Tis but a little new anointins; of th^m, 
 And a strong onion, that confounds the savor. 
 
 Love's Pilgrimage. 
 
 The thunderbolt, which had stunned all who were within 
 hearing of it, had only served to awaken the bold and inventive 
 genius of the flower of Majors-Domo. Almost before the 
 clatter had ceased, and while there was yet scarce an assurance 
 whether the castle was standing or falling, Caleb exclaimed, 
 " Heavens be praised ! — this comes to hand like the bowl of a 
 pint-stoup." He then barred the kitchen door in the face of 
 the Lord Keeper's servant, whom he perceived returning from 
 the parly at the gate, and muttering, " How the deil camhe in ? 
 — but deil may care — Mysie, what are ye sitting shaking and 
 greeting in the chimney neuk for.? Come here— or stay where 
 ye are, and skirl as loud as ye can — it's a' ye're gude for — ^^I
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. gy 
 
 say, ye auld deevil, skirl — skirl — louder — louder, woman — gar 
 the gentles hear ye in the ha' — I have heard ye as far off as the 
 Bass for a less matter. And stay — down wi' that crockery" — • 
 
 And with a sweeping blow, he threw down from a shelf 
 some articles of pewter and earthenware. He exalted his voice 
 amid the clatter, shouting and roaring in a manner which 
 changed Mysie's hysterical terrors of the thunder into fears that 
 her old fellow-servant was g:one distracted. " He has duns , ^ 
 down a' the bits o' pigs too — the only thing we had left to baud "" « 
 a soup milk — and he has spilt the hatted kitt that was for the 'aj^XA^ 
 Master's dinner. Mercy save us, the auld man's gaen clean ^ |) j) 
 and clear wud wi' the thunner !" " ' '' 
 
 " Haud your tongue, ye b ! " said Caleb, in the im- 
 petuous and overbearing triumph of successful invention, " a's 
 provided now — dinner and a' thing — the thunner's done a' in a 
 clap of a hand !" 
 
 " Puir man, he's muck|e_astray," said Mysie, looking at him 
 with a mixture of pity and alarm ; " I wish he may ever come 
 hame to himsell again." 
 
 " Here, ye auld doited deevil," said Caleb, still exulting in 
 his extrication from a dilemma which had seemed insurmount- 
 able ; " keep the strange man out of the kitchen — swear the 
 thunner came down the chimney, and spoiled the best dinner ye 
 
 ever dressed — beef — bacon — kid — lark — leveret — wild fowl 
 
 venison, and what not. Lay it on thick, and never mind ex- 
 penses. I'll awa up to the ha' — make a' the confusion ye can 
 — but be sure ye keep out the strange servant." 
 
 With these charges to his ally, Caleb posted up to the hall, 
 but stopping to reconnoitre through an aperture, which time, for 
 the convenience of many a domestic in succession, had made 
 in the door, and perceiving the situation of Miss Ashton, he had 
 prudence enough to make a pause, both to avoid adding to her 
 alarm, and in order to secure attention to his account of the 
 disastrous effects of the thunder. 
 
 But when he perceived that the lady was recovered, and 
 heard the conversation turn upon the accommodation and re- 
 freshment which the castle afforded, he thought it time to burst 
 'nto the room in the manner announced in the last chapter. 
 
 " Wull a wins ! — such a misfortune to befa' the House of 
 Ravenswood, and I to live to see it ! " 
 
 "What is the matter, Caleb ?" said his master, somewhat 
 alarmed in his turn ; " has any part of the castle fallen .? " 
 
 " Castle fa'en ? — na, but the sute's fa'en, and the thunner's 
 come right down the kitchen-lum, and the things are a' lying 
 here awa, there awa, like the Laird o' Hotchpotch's lands — and
 
 88 THE DRTDE OF LAMMERAWOR. 
 
 wi' brave guests of honor and quality to entertain " — a low bo\i 
 here to Sir William Ashton and his daughter — " and naeihin 
 left in the house fit to present for dinner — or for supper either 
 for aught that I can see ! " 
 
 " I verily believe you, Caleb," said Ravenswood, dryly, 
 
 Balderston here turned to his master a half-upbraiding, half- 
 imploring countenance, and edged toward him as he repeated, 
 " It was nae great matter of preparation ; but just something 
 added to your honor's ordinary course of fare — petty cover, as 
 they say at the Louvre — three courses and the fruit." 
 
 " Keep your intolerable nonsense to yourself, you old fool ! " 
 said Ravenswood, mortified at his ofificiousness, yet not knowing 
 how to contradict him, without the risk of giving rise to scenes 
 yet more ridiculous, 
 
 Caleb saw his advantage, and resolved to improve it. But 
 first observing that the Lord Keeper's servant entered the apart- 
 ment and spoke apart with his master, he took the same oppor- 
 tunity to whisper a few words into Ravenswood's ear — " Haud 
 your tongue, for Heaven's sake, sir — if it's my pleasure to 
 hazard my soul in telling lees for the honor of the family, it's 
 nae business o' yours — and if ye let me gang on quietly, I'se be 
 moderate in my banquet ; but if ye contradict me, deil but I 
 dress ye a dinner fit for a duke ! " 
 
 Ravenswood, in fact, thought it would be best to let his 
 officious butler run on, who proceeded to enumerate upon his 
 fingers, — " Nomuckle provision — might hae served four persons 
 of honor, — first course, capons in white broth — roast kid — 
 bacon with reverence, — second course, roasted leveret — butter 
 crabs — a veal florentine, — third course, black-cock — it's black 
 enough now wi' the sute — plumdamas — a tart — a flam — and 
 some nonsense sweet things, and comfits — and that's a'," he 
 said, seeing the impatience of his master ; " that's just a' was 
 o't — forby the apples and pears." 
 
 Miss Ashton had by degrees gathered her spirits, so far as 
 to pay some attention to what was going on ; and observing 
 the restrained impatience of Ravenswood, contrasted with the 
 peculiar determination of manner with which Caleb detailed hi.s 
 imaginary banquet, the whole struck her as so ridiculous, that, 
 despite every elTort to the contrary, she burst into a fit of un- 
 controllable laughter, in which she was joined by her father, 
 though with more moderation, and finally by the Master of 
 Ravenswood himself, though conscious that the jest was at his 
 own expense. Their mirth — for a scene which we read with 
 little emotion often appears extremely ludicrous to the spectators 
 —made the old vault ring again. They ceased — they renewed
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMORMOOR. ^q 
 
 — they ceased — they renewed again their shouts of laughter ! 
 Caleb, in the meantime, stood his ground with a grave, angry, 
 and scornful dignity, which greatly enhanced the ridicule of the 
 scene, and the mirth of the spectators. 
 
 At length, when the voices, and nearly the strength of the 
 laughers, were exhausted, he exclaimed, with very little cere- 
 mony, " The deil's in the gentles ! they breakfast sae lordly, that 
 the loss of the best dinrer ever cook pat fingers to, makes them 
 as merry as if it were th^ best jeest in a' George Buchanan.* 
 If there was a little in your honors' wames, as there is in Caleb 
 Balderston's, less caickling wad serve ye on sic a gravaminous 
 subject." 
 
 Caleb's blunt expression of resentment again awakened the 
 mirth of the company, which, by the way, he regarded not only 
 as an aggression upon the dignity of the family, but a special 
 contempt of the eloquence with which he himself had sum- 
 med up the extent of their supposed losses ; — " a description 
 of a dinner, " as he said afterward to Mysie, " that wad hae 
 made a fu' man hungry, and them to sit there laughing at it ! " 
 
 " But," said Miss Ashton, composing her countenance as 
 well as she could, " are all these delicacies so totally destroyed, 
 that no scrap can be collected ? " 
 
 " Collected, my leddy ! what wad ye collect out of the sute 
 and the ass ? Ye may gang down yoursell, and look into our 
 kitchen — the cookmaid in the trembling exies — the gude vivers 
 lying a' about — beef — capons and white broth — florentine and 
 flams — bacon, wi' reverence, and a' the sweet confections and 
 whim-whams ! ye'll see them a', my leddy — that is, " said he, 
 correcting himself, " ye'll no see ony of them now, for the cook 
 has soopit them up, as was weel her part ; but ye'll see the white 
 broth where it was spilt. I pat my fingers in it, and it tastes 
 as like sour-milk as ony thing else ; if that isna the effect of 
 thunner, I kenna what is. — This gentleman here couldna but 
 hear the clash of our haill dishes, china and silver thegither ? " 
 
 The Lord Keeper's domestic, though a statesman's attend- 
 ant, and of course trained to command his countenance upon 
 all occasions, was somewhat discomposed by this appeal, to 
 which he only answered by a bow. 
 
 " I think, Mr. Butler," said the Lord Keeper, who began 
 to be afraid lest the prolongation of this scene should at length 
 displease Ravenswood, — " I think, that were you to retire with 
 
 * [Referring probably to a popular chap-book, entitled " The witty and 
 entertaining Exploits of George P.uchanan, who was commonly called the 
 King's Fool ; the whole six parts complete," 17S1. This character was 
 )ester to Charles I. and must not be mistaken for his learned namesake.]
 
 90 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 my servant Lockhard — he has traveled, and is quite accustomed 
 to accidents and contingencies of every kind, and I hope 
 betwixt you, you may find out some mode of supply at this 
 emergency." 
 
 " His honor kens," — said Caleb, who, however hopeless 
 of himself of accomplishing what was desirable, would, like the 
 high-spirited elephant, rather have died in the effort than 
 brooked the aid of a brother in commission. — " his honor kens 
 weel I need nae counselor when the honor of the house is con- 
 cerned." 
 
 " I should be unjust if I denied it, Caleb," said his master ; 
 " but your art lies chiefly in making apologies, upon which we 
 can no more dine, than upon the bill of fare of our thunder- 
 blasted dinner. Now, possibly, Mr. Lockhard's talent may 
 consist in finding some substitute for that, which certainly is 
 not, and has in all probability never been." 
 
 " Your honor is pleased to be facetious," said Caleb, " but 
 I am sure, that for the w^arst, for a walk as far as Wolf's Hope, 
 I could dine forty men, — no that the folk there deserve your 
 honor's custom. They hae been ill advised in the matter of the 
 duty-eggs and butter, I winna deny that." 
 
 " Do go consult together," said the Master ; " go down to 
 the village, and do the best you can. We must not let our guests 
 remain without refreshment, to save the honor of a ruined 
 family. And here, Caleb — take my purse ; I believe that will 
 prove your best ally." 
 
 " Purse ? purse, indeed ? " quoth Caleb, indignantly flinging 
 out of the room, — " what suld I do wi' your honor's purse, on 
 your ain ground ? I trust we are no to pay for our ain ? " 
 
 The servants left the hall ; and the door was no sooner 
 shut, than the Lord Keeper began to apologize for the rudeness 
 of his mirth ; and Lucy to hope she had given no pain or offence 
 to the kind-hearted faithful old man. 
 
 " Caleb and I must both learn, madam, to undergo with 
 good humor, or at least with patience, the ridicule which every- 
 where attaches itself to poverty." 
 
 " You do yourself injustice. Master of Ravenswood, on my 
 word of honor," answered his elder guest. " I believe I know 
 more of your affairs than you do yourself, and I hope to show 
 you that I am interested in them ; and that — in short, that your 
 prospects are better than you apprehend. In the meantime, I 
 can conceive nothing so respectable, as the spirit which rises 
 above misfortune, and prefers honorable privations to debt or 
 dependence." 
 
 Whether from fear of offending the delicacy, or awakening
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 91 
 
 the pride of the Master, the Lord Keeper made these allusions 
 with an appearance of fearful and hesitating reserve, and seemed 
 to be afraid that he was intruding too far, in venturing to touch, 
 however lightly, upon such a topic, even when the Master had 
 led to it. In short, he appeared at once pushed on by his 
 desire of appearing friendly, and held back by the fear of in- 
 trusion. It was no wonder that the Master of Ravenswood, 
 little acquainted as he then was with life, should have given this 
 consummate courtier credit for more sincerity than was prob- 
 ably to be found in a score of his cast. He answered, however, 
 with reserve, that he was indebted to all who might think well of 
 him ; and, apologizing to his guests, he left the hall, in order 
 to make such arrangements for their entertainment at circum- 
 stances admitted. 
 
 Upon consulting with old Mysie, the accommodations for 
 the night were easily completed, as indeed they admitted of 
 little choice. The Master surrendered his apartment for the 
 use of Miss Ashton, and Mysie (once a person of consequence), 
 dressed in a black satin gown which had beloriged of yore to 
 the Master's grandmother, and had figured in the court-balls of 
 Henrietta Maria, went to attend her as lady's maid. He next 
 inquired after Bucklaw, and understanding he was at the 
 change-house with the huntsmen and some companions, he de- 
 sired Caleb to call there, and acquaint him how he was circum- 
 stanced at Wolf's Crag — to intimate to him that it would be 
 most convenient if he could find a bed in the hamlet, as the 
 elder guest must necessarily be quartered in the secret chamber, 
 the only spare bedroom which could be made fit to receive 
 him. The Master saw no hardship in passing the night by the 
 hall-fire, wrapt in his campaign cloak ; and to Scottish domes- 
 tics of the day, even of the highest rank, nay, to young men of 
 family or fashion, on any pinch, clean straw, or a dry hay-loft, 
 was always held good night-quarters. 
 
 For the rest, Lockhard had his master's orders to bring 
 some venison from the inn, and Caleb was to trust to his wits 
 for the honor of his family. The Master, indeed, a second 
 time held out his purse ; but, as it was in sight of the strange 
 servant, the butler thought himself obliged to decline what his 
 fingers itched to clutch. " Couldna he hae slippit it gently into 
 my hand ? " said Caleb — " but his honor will never learn how 
 to bear himsell in siccan cases." 
 
 Mysie, in the meantime, according to a uniform custom in 
 remote places in Scotland, offered the strangers the produce of 
 her little dairy, " while better meat was getting ready." And, 
 according to another custom, not yet wholly in desuetude, as
 
 92 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 the storm was now drifting off to leeward, the Master carried 
 the Keeper to the top of his highest tower to admire a wide 
 and waste extent of view, and to " weary for his dinner." 
 
 CHAPTER ELEVENTH. 
 
 " Now dame," quoth he, " Je vous dis sans doute, 
 Had I nought of a capon but the liver, 
 And of your white bread nought but a shiver. 
 And after that a roasted pigge's head 
 (But I ne wold for me no Ijeast were dead), 
 Then had I with you homely sufferaunce." 
 
 Chaucer, Sumner's Tale. 
 
 It was not without some secret misgivings that Caleb set ou'; 
 upon his exploratory expedition. In fact, it was attended with 
 a treble difficulty. He dared not tell his master the offence 
 which he had that morning given to Bucklaw (just for the 
 honor of the family) — he dared not acknowledge he had been 
 too hasty in refusing the purse — and, thirdly, he was somewhat 
 apprehensive of unpleasant consequences upon his meeting 
 Hayston, under the impression of an affront, and probably by 
 this time under the influence also of no small quantity of 
 brandy, 
 
 Caleb, to do him justice, was as bold as any lion where the 
 honor of the family of Ravenswood was concerned ; but his 
 was that considerate valor which does not delight in unneces- 
 sary risks. This, however, was a secondary consideration the 
 main point was to veil the indigence of the housekeeping at 
 the castle, and to make good his vaunt of the cheer which his 
 resources could procure, without Lockhard's assistance, and 
 without supplies from his master. This was as prime a point 
 of honor with him, as with the generous elephant with whom 
 we have already compared him, who, being overtasked, brok. 
 his skull through the desperate exertions which he made to 
 discharge his duty, when he perceived they were bringing up 
 another to his assistance. 
 
 The village which they now approached had frequently 
 afforded the distressed butler resources upon similar emergen- 
 cies : but his relations with it had been of late much altered. 
 
 It was a little hamlet which straggled along the side of a 
 creek formed by the discharge of a small brook into the sea. 
 and was hidden from the castle, to which it had been in formci
 
 THE BR WE OF LAMMERMOOR. ^ "juX^v, 
 
 times an appendage, by the intervention of the shoulder of a 
 hill forming a projecting headland. It was called Wolf's Hope, 
 (/.<•, Wolf's Haven), and the few inhabitants gained a precarious 
 subsistence by manning two or three fishing-boats in the her- 
 ring season, and smuggling gin and brandy during the winter 
 months. They paid a kind of hereditary respect to the T>ords 
 of Ravenswood ; but, in the dithculties of the family, most of 
 the inhabitants of Wolf's Hope had contrived to get feu-rights* 
 to their little possessions, their huts, kail-yards, and rights of 
 commonty, so that they were emancipated from the chains of 
 feudal dependence, and free from the various exactions with 
 which, under every possible pretext, or without any pretext at 
 all, the Scottish landlords of the period, themselves in great 
 poverty, were wont to harass their still poorer tenants at will. 
 They might be, on the whole, termed independent, a circum- 
 stance peculiarly galling to Caleb, who had been wont to exer- 
 cise over them the same sweeping authority in levying con- 
 tributions which was exercised in former times in England, 
 when " the royal purveyors, sallying forth from under the Gothic 
 portcullis to purchase provisions with power and prerogative 
 instead of money, brought home the plunder of a hundred 
 markets, and all that could be seized from a flying and hiding 
 country and deposited their spoil in a hundred caverns. "f 
 
 Caleb loved the memory and resented the downfall of tha'; 
 authority, which municked, on a petty scale, the grand contri- 
 butions exacted by the feudal sovereigns. And as he fondly 
 flattered himself that the awful rule and right supremacy which 
 assigned to the Barons of Ravenswood the first and most effec- 
 tive interest .n all productions of nature within five miles of their 
 castle, only slumbered, and was not departed forever, he used 
 every now and then to give the recollection of the inhabitants a 
 hule jog by some petty exaction. These were at first submitted 
 to, with more or less readiness, by the inhabitants of the hamlet ; 
 for they had been so long used to consider the wants of the 
 IJaron and his family as having a title to be preferred to their 
 ovvn that their actual independence did not convey to them an 
 immediate sense of freedom. They resembled a man that has 
 been long fettered, who, even at liberty, feels in imagination the 
 grasp of the handcuffs still binding his wrists. But the ex- 
 ercise of freedom is quickly followed with the natural conscious- 
 ness of its immunities, as an enlarged prisoner, by the free use 
 
 * That is, absolute rights of property for the payment of a sum annually. 
 v-hich is usually a trifle in such cases as are alluded to in the text. 
 tP.urke's Speech on Economical Reform. — Works, vol. iii p. 2sp.
 
 94 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 of his limbs, soon dispels the cramped feeling they had acquired 
 when bound. 
 
 The inhabitants of Wolf's Hope began to grumble, to resist, 
 and at length positively to refuse compliance with the exactions 
 of Caleb Balderston, It was in vain he reminded them, that 
 when the eleventh Lord Ravenswood, called the Skipper, from, 
 his delight in naval matters, had encouraged the trade of their 
 port by building the pier (a bulwark of stones rudely piled to- 
 gether), which protected the fishing-boats from the weather, it 
 ;had been matter of understanding, that he was to have the first 
 [Stone of butter after the calving of every cow within the barony, 
 |and the first egg, thence called the Monday's egg, laid by every 
 ■ hen on every Monday in the year. 
 
 The feuars heard and scratched their heads, coughed, 
 sneezed, and being pressed for answer, rejoined with one voice, 
 "They could not say;" — the universal refuge of a Scottish 
 peasant, when pressed to admit a claim which his conscience 
 owns, or perhaps his feelings, and his interest inclines him to 
 deny. 
 
 Caleb, however, furnished the notables of Wolf's Hope with 
 a note of the requisition of butter and eggs, which he claimed 
 as arrears of the aforesaid subsidy, or kindly aid, payable as 
 above mentioned ; and having intimated that he would not be 
 averse to compound the same for goods or money, if it was in- 
 convenient to them to pay in kind, left them, as he hoped, to de- 
 bate the mode of assessing themselves for that purpose. On the 
 contrary, they met with a determined purpose of resisting the 
 exaction, and were only undecided as to the mode of grounding 
 their opposition, when the cooper, a very important person on 
 a fishing station, and one of the Conscript Fathers of the vil- 
 lage, observed, " That their hens had caickled mony a day for 
 the Lords of Ravenswood, and it was time they suld caickle for 
 those that gave them roosts and barley." A unanimous grin 
 intimated the assent of the assembly. "And," continued the 
 orator, " if it's your wull, I'll just tak a step as far as Dunse for 
 Davie Dingwall the writer, that's come frae the North to settle 
 amang us, and he'll pit this job to rights, I'se warrant him." 
 
 A day was accordingly fixed for holding a grand palaver at 
 Wolf's Hope on the subject of Caleb's requisitions, and he was 
 invited to attend at the hamlet for that purpose. 
 
 He went with open hands and empty stomach, trusting to 
 fill the one on his master's account, and the other on his own 
 score, at the expense of the feuars of Wolf's Hope. But, death 
 to his hopes ! as he entered the eastern end of the straggling 
 village, the awful form of Davie Dingwall, a sly, dry, hard-
 
 IujA^ 'I^QaXi 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. o-C- 
 
 fisted shrewd country attorney, who had already acted against ,^ ■^ 
 the family of Ravenswood, and was a principal agent of Sir ' "^ 
 William Ashton, trotted in at the western extremity, bestriding 
 a leathern portmanteau stuffed with the feu-charters of the 
 hamlet, and hoping he had not kept Mr. Balderston waiting, 
 " as he was instructed and fully empowered to pay or receive, 
 compound or compensate, and, in fine, to age* as accords, 
 respecting all mutual and unsettled claims whatsoever, belong- 
 ing or competent to the Honorable Edgar Ravenswood, com- 
 monly called the Master of Ravenswood " 
 
 "The Right Honorable Edgar Lord Ravensjoood" said 
 Caleb, with great emphasis ; for, though conscious he had little 
 chance of advantage in the conflict to ensue, he was resolved 
 not to sacrifice one jot of honor, " Lord Ravenswood, then," 
 said the man of business : " we shall not quarrel with you about 
 titles of courtesy — commonly called Lord Ravenswood, or Mas- 
 ter of Ravenswood, heritable proprietor of the lands and barony 
 of Wolf's Crag, on the one part, and to John Whitefish and 
 others, feuars in the town of Wolf's Hope, within the barony 
 aforesaid, on the other part." 
 
 Caleb was conscious, from sad experience, that he would 
 wage a very different strife wdth this mercenary champion, than 
 with the individual feuars themselves, upon whose old recollec- 
 tions, predilections, and habits of thinking, he might have 
 wrought by a hundred indirect arguments, to which their 
 deputy-representative was totally insensible. The issue of the 
 debate proved the reality of his apprehensions. It was in vain 
 he strained his eloquence and ingenuity, and collected into one 
 mass all arguments arising from antique custom and hereditary 
 respect, from good deeds done by the Lord of Ravenswood to 
 the community of Wolf's Hope in former days, and from what 
 might be expected from them in future. The writer stuck to 
 the contents of his feu-charters — he could not see it — 'twas not 
 in the bond. And when Caleb, determined to try what a little 
 spirit would do, deprecated the consequences of Lord Ravens- 
 wood's withdrawing his protection from the burgh, and even 
 hinted at his using active measures of resentment, the man of 
 law sneered in his face. 
 
 " His clients," he said, " had determined to do the best they 
 could for their own town, and he thought Lord Ravenswood, 
 since he was a lord, might have enough to do to look after his 
 own castle. As to any threats of stouthrief oppression, by rule 
 of thumb, or via facfi, as the law termed it, he would have 
 
 *i,e. To act as may be necessary and legal : a Scottish law phrase.
 
 56 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Mr. Balderston recollect, that new times were not as old times 
 — that they lived in the south of the Forth, and far from the 
 Highlands — that his clients thought they were able to protect 
 themselves; but should they find themselves mistaken, the^^ 
 would apply to ihe government for the protection of a corporal 
 and four red-coats, who," said Mr. Dingwall, with a grin; 
 " would be perfectly able to secure them against Lord Ravens- 
 wood, and all that he or his followers could do by the strong 
 hand." 
 
 If Caleb could have concentrated all the lightnings of aris- 
 tocracy in his eye, to have struck dead this contemner of allegi- 
 ance and privilege, he would have launched them at his head, 
 without respect to the consequences. As it was, he was com- 
 pelled to turn his course backward to the castle ; and there he 
 remained for full half-a-day invisible and inaccessible even to 
 Mysie, sequestered in his own peculiar dungeon, where he sat 
 burnishing a single pewter-plate, and whistling "Maggie Lauder" 
 six hours without intermisson. ■*''.A 
 
 The issue of this unfortunate requisition had shut against , , 
 Caleb all resources which could be derived from Wolf's Hope 
 and its purlieus, the El Dorado, or Peru, from which, in all 
 former cases of exigence, he had been able to extract some 
 assistance. He had, indeed, in a manner, vowed that the deil • 
 should have him, if ever he put the print of his foot within its 
 causeway again. He had hitherto kept his word ; and, strange 
 to tell, this secession had, as he intended in some degree, the 
 effect of a punishment upon the refractory feuars. Mr Balder- 
 ston had been a person in their eyes connected with a superior 
 order of beings, whose presence used to grace their little festiv- 
 ities, whose advice they found useful on many occasions, and 
 whose communications gave a sort of credit to their village. 
 The place, they acknowledged, " didna look as it used to do, 
 and should do, since Mr. Caleb keepit the castle sae closely 
 — but, doubtless, touchingthe eggs and butter, it was a most un- 
 reasonable demand, as Mr. Dingwall had justly made manifest." 
 
 Thus stood matters betwixt the parties, when the old butler, 
 though it was gall and wormwood to him, found himself obliged 
 either to acknowledge before a strange man of quality, and, 
 what was much worse, before that stranger's servant, the total 
 inability of Wolf's Crag to produce a dinner, or he must trust 
 to the compassion of the feuars of Wolf's Hope. It was a 
 dreadful degradation, but necessity was equally imperious and 
 lawless. With these feelings he entered the streets of the 
 village. 
 
 Willing to shake himself from his companion as soon as
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 97 
 
 possible, he directed Mr. Lockhard to Luckie Sma'trash's 
 change-house, where a din, proceeding from the revels of Buck- 
 law, Craigengelt, and their party, sounded half-way down the 
 street, while the red glare from the window overpowered the 
 gray twilight which was now settling down, and glimmered 
 against a parcel of old tubs, kegs, and barrels, piled up in the 
 cooper's yard, on the other side of the way. 
 
 " If you, Mr. Lockhard," said the old butler to his compan- 
 ion, "will be pleased to step to the change-house where that 
 light comes from, and where, as I judge, they are now singing 
 ' Cauld_Kail in Aberdeen,' ye may do your master's errand 
 about the venison, and I will do mine about Bucklaw's bed, as I 
 return frae getting the rest of the vivers. — It's no that the veni- 
 son is actually needfu'," he added, detaining his colleague by 
 the button, " to make up the dinner ; but, as a compliment to 
 the hunters, ye ken — and, Mr. Lockhard — if they offer ye a 
 drink o' yill, or a cup o' wine, or a glass o' brandy, ye'll be a 
 wise man to take it, in case the thunner should hae soured ours 
 at the castle — whilk isower muckle to be dreaded." 
 
 He then permitted Lockhard to depart ; and with foot 
 heavy as lead, and yet far lighter than his heart, stepped on 
 through the unequal street of the straggling village, meditating 
 on whom he ought to make his first attack. It was necessary 
 he should find some one, with whom old acknowledged great- 
 ness should weigh more than recent independence, and to 
 whom his application might appear an act of high dignity, re- 
 lenting at once and soothing. But he could not recollect an 
 inhabitant of a mind so constructed. "Our kail is like to be 
 cauld eneugh too," he reflected, as the chorus of " Cauld Kail 
 in Aberdeen" again reached his ears. The minister — he had 
 got his presentation from the late lord, but they had quarreled 
 about teinds : — the brewster's wife — she had trusted long — and 
 the bill was aye scored up — and unless the dignity of the family 
 should actually require it, it would be a sin to distress a widow 
 woman. None was so able — but, on the other hand, none was 
 likely to be less willing, to stand his friend upon the present 
 occasion, than Gibbie Girder, the man of tubs and barrels 
 already mentioned, who had headed the insurrection in the 
 matter of the egg and butter subsidy. — " But a' comes o' taking 
 folk on the right side, I trow," quoth Caleb to himself ; " and 
 I had ance the ill hap to say he was but a Johnny Newcome in 
 our town, and the carle bore the family an ill will ever since. 
 But he married a bonny young queen, Jean Lightbody, auld 
 Lightbody's daughter, him that was in the steading of Loup- 
 the Dyke, — and auld Lightbody was married himself to Marion,
 
 o8 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 that was about my lady in the family forty years syne — I hae 
 had mony a day's daffing wi' Jean's mither, and they say she 
 bides on wi' them — the carle has Jacobuses and Georgiuses 
 baith, an ane could get at them — and sure I am, it's doing him 
 an honor him or his never deserved at our hand, the ungra- 
 cious sumph ; and if he loses by us a'thegither, he is e'en cheap 
 o't, he can spare it brawly." 
 
 Shaking off irresolution, therefore, and turning at once 
 upon his heel, Caleb walked hastily back to the cooper's 
 house, lifted the latch without ceremony, and in a moment 
 found himself behind the hallan, or partition, from which 
 position he could, himself unseen, reconnoitre the interior of 
 the hut, or kitchen apartment, of the mansion. 
 
 Reverse of the sad menage at the Castle of Wolf's Crag, 
 a bickering fire roared up the cooper's chimney. His wife on 
 the one side, in her pearlings and pudding sleeves, put the last 
 finishing touch to her holiday's apparel while she contemplated 
 a very handsome and good-humored face in a broken mirror, 
 raised upon the bink (the shelves on which the plates are dis- 
 posed) for her special accommodation. Her mother, old Luckie 
 Loup-the-Dyke, " a canty carline," as was within twenty miles 
 of her, according to the unanimous report of the cum?nc/'S, or 
 gossips, sat by the fire in the full glory of a grogram gown, 
 lammer beads, and a clean cockernony, whiffing a snug pipe of 
 tobacco, and superintending the affairs of the kitchen. For — 
 sight more interesting to the anxious heart and craving entrails 
 of the desponding seneschal, than either buxom dame or canty 
 cummer — there bubbled on the aforesaid bickering fire a huge 
 pot, or rather cauldron, steaming with beef and brewis ; while 
 before it revolved two spits, turned each by one of the cooper's 
 apprentices, seated in the opposite corners of the chimney ; the 
 one loaded with a quarter of mutton, while the other was 
 graced with a fat goose and a beace of wild ducks. The sight 
 and the scent of such a land of plenty almost wholly overcame 
 the drooping spirits of Caleb. He turned, for a moment's space, 
 to reconnoitre the ben, or parlor end of the house, and there 
 saw a sight scarce less affecting to his feelings, — a large round 
 table, covered for ten or twelve persons, decorcd (according to 
 his own favorite term) with napcry as white as snow ; grand 
 flagons of pewter, intermixed with one or two silver cups, con- 
 taining, as was probable, something worthy the brilliancy of 
 their outward appearance ; clean trenchers, cutty spoons, 
 knives and forks, sharp, burnished, and prompt for action, 
 which lay all displayed as for an especial festival. 
 
 " The devil's in the pedling tub-coopering carle ! " mut*
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 99 
 
 tered Caleb, in all the envy of astonishment ; " it's a shame to 
 see the like o' them gusting their gabs at sic a rate. But i{ 
 some o' that gude cheer does not find its way to Wolf's Crag 
 this night, my name is not Caleb Balderston." 
 
 So resolving, he entered the apartment, and, in all courte- 
 ous greeting, saluted both the mother and the daughter. 
 Wolf's Crag was the court of the barony, Caleb prime minister 
 at Wolf's Crag ; and it has ever been remarked, that though 
 the masculine subject who pays the taxes sometimes growls at 
 the courtiers by whom they are imposed, the said courtiers 
 continue, nevertheless, welcome to the fair sex, to whom they 
 furnish the newest small talk and the earliest fashions. Both 
 the dames were, therefore, at once about Old Caleb's neck, 
 setting up their throats together by way of welcome. 
 
 " Ay, sirs, Mr. Balderston, and is this you ? — A sight of you 
 is gude for sair een — sit down — sit down — the gudeman will 
 be blithe to see you — ye nar saw him ?ae cadgy in your life ; 
 but we are to christen our bit wean the night, as ye will hae 
 heard, and doubtless ye will stay and see the ordinance. — We 
 hae killed a wether, and ane o' our lads has been out wi' his 
 gun at the moss — ye used to like wild-fowl." 
 
 "Na — na — gudewife," said Caleb, "I just keekit in :o 
 wish ye joy, and I wad be glad to hae spoken wi' the gudeman, 
 but " moving, as if to go away. 
 
 " The ne'er a fit ye's gang," said the elder dame, laughing, 
 and holding him fast, with a freedom which belonged to their 
 old acquaintance ; " wha kens what ill it may bring to the 
 bairn, if ye owerlook it in that gate 1 " 
 
 " But I'm in a preceese hurry, gudewife," said the butler, 
 suffering himself to be dragged to a seat without much resist- 
 ance ; " and as to eating " — for he observed the mistress of the 
 dwelling bustling about to place a trencher for him — " as for 
 eating — lack-a-day, we are just killed up yonder wi' eating frae 
 morning to night — it's shamefu' epicurism ; but that's what we 
 hae gotten frae the English pock-puddings." 
 
 " Hout — never mind the English pock-puddings," said 
 Luckie Lightbody ; " try our puddings, Mr. Balderston — there 
 is black pudding and white-hass — try whilk ye like best." 
 
 " Baith gude — baith excellent — canna be better-, but the 
 very smell is eneugh for me that hae dined sae lately (the 
 faithful wretch had fasted since day-break). But I wadna 
 affront your housewifeskep, gudewife ; and, with your permis- 
 sion, I'se e'en pit them in my napkin, and eat them to my sup- 
 per at e'en, for I'm wearied of Mysie's pastry and nonsense — 
 ye ken landward dainties aye pleased me best, Marion — and
 
 lOO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 landward lasses too — (looking at the cooper's wife) — Ne'er a 
 bit but she looks far better than when she married Gilbert, and 
 then she was the bonniest lass in our parochine and the neest 
 till't — But gawsie cow, goodly calf." 
 
 The women smiled at the compliment each to herself, and 
 they smiled again to each other as Caleb wrapt up the puddings 
 in a towel which he had brought with him, as a dragoon car- 
 ries his foraging bag to receive what may fall in his way. 
 
 "And what news at the castle ? " quo' the gudewife. 
 
 '■News.'' — the bravest news ye ever heard — the Lord 
 Keeper's up yonder wi' his fair daughter, just ready to fling 
 her at my lord's head, if he winna tak her out o' his arms ; 
 and I'se warrant he'll stitch our auld lands of Ravenswood to 
 her petticoat tail." 
 
 " Eh ! sirs — ay ! — and will he hae her ? — and is she weel 
 favored i" — and what's the color o' her hair ? — and does she 
 wear a habit or a railly ? " were the questions which the 
 females showered upon the butler. 
 
 " Hout tout ! — it wad tak a man a day to answer a' your 
 questions, and I hae hardly a minute. Where's thegudeman?" 
 
 " Awa to fetch the minister," said Mrs. Girder, " precious 
 Mr. Peter Bide-the-Bent, frae the Moss-head — the honest man 
 has the rheumatism wi' lying in the hills in the persecution. 
 
 " Ay ! — a whig and a mountain man — nae less ? " said Caleb, 
 with a peevishness he could not suppress : '' I hae seen the 
 day, Luckie, when worthy Mr. Cuffcushion and the service- 
 book would hae served your turn (to the elder dame), or ony 
 honest woman in like circumstances." 
 
 " And that's true too," said Mrs. Lightbody, " but what 
 can a body do i* — Jean maun baith sing her psalms and busk 
 her cockernony the gate the gudeman likes, and nae ither gate; 
 for he's maister and mair at hame, I can tell ye, Mr. Balder- 
 ston." 
 
 " Ay, ay, and does he guide the gear too ? " said Caleb, to 
 whose projects masculine rule boded little good. 
 
 " Ilka penny on't — but he'll dress her as dink as a daisy, as 
 ye see — sae she has little reason to complain — where there's 
 ane better aff there's ten waur." 
 
 " Aweel, gudewife," said Caleb, crestfallen, but not beaten 
 off, that wasna the way ye guided your gudeman ; but ilka land 
 has its ain lauch. I maun be ganging — I just wanted to round 
 in the gudeman's lug, that I heard them say up by yonder, that 
 Peter Puncheon that was cooper to the Queen's stores at the 
 Timmer Burse at Leith, is dead — sae I thought that maybe
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. loi 
 
 a word frae my lord to the Lord Keeper might hae served - 
 Gilbert; but since he's frae hame" JTj . 
 
 " O, but ye maun stay his hame-coming," said the dame; 
 " I aye tell'd the gudeman ye meant weel to him ; but he taks 
 the tout at every bit lippening word." 
 
 " Aweel, ril^stay the last minute I can." 
 
 " And so," said the handsome young spouse of Mr. Girder, ,,j/#, 
 " ye think this Miss Ashton is wee!-favored .'' — troth, and sae 
 should she, to set up for our young lord, with a face, and a hand, 
 and a seat on his horse, that might become a king's son, — d'ye 
 ken that he aye glowers up at my window, Mr. Balderston, 
 when he chances to ride thro' the town, sae I hae a right to 
 ken what like he is, as weel as ony body. 
 
 " I ken that brawl}'," said Caleb, " for I hae heard his lord- 
 ship say, the cooper's wife had the blackest ee in the barony ; 
 and I said, Weel may that be, my lord, for it was her mither's 
 afore her, as I ken to my cost — Eh, Marion ? Ha, ha, ha ! — 
 Ah ! these were merry days ! " 
 
 " Hout awa, auld carle," said the old dame, " to speak sic 
 daffin to young folk. — But, Jean — fie, woman, dinna ye hear 
 the bairn greet ? I'se warrant it's that dreary weid* has come 
 over't again." 
 
 Up got mother and grandmother, and scoured away, jostling 
 each other as they ran, into some remote corner of the tenement, 
 where the young hero of the evening was deposited. When 
 Caleb saw the coast fairly clear, he took an invigorating pinch 
 of snuff, to sharpen and confirm his resolution. 
 
 Cauld be my cast, thought he, if either Bide-the-Bent or 
 Girder taste that broche of wild-fowl this evening ; and then 
 addressing the eldest turnspit, a boy about eleven years old, and 
 putting a penny into his hand, he said, " Here is twal pennies,! 
 my man ; carry that ower to Mrs. Sma'trash, and bid her fill 
 my mull wi' sneeshin, and I'll turn the broche for ye in the 
 meantime — and she will gie ye a gingerbread snap for your 
 pains." 
 
 No sooner was the elder boy departed on this mission, than 
 Caleb, looking the remaining turnspit gravely and steadily in 
 the face, removed from the fire the spit bearing the wild-fowl 
 of which he had undertaken the charge, clapped his hat on hig 
 head, and fairly marched off with it. He stopped at the door 
 of the change-house only to say, in a few brief words, that Mr. 
 
 *Wied, a feverish cold ; a disorder incident to infants and to fiemales, is 
 so called. 
 
 t Monetae Scoticae, scilicet.
 
 fQ2 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Haystone of Bucklaw was not to expect a bed that evening in 
 the castle. 
 
 If this message was too briefly delivered by Caleb, it be- 
 came absolute rudeness when conveyed through themedium of 
 a suburb landlady ; and Eucklaw was, as a more calm and 
 temperate man might have been, highly incensed. Captain 
 Craigengelt proposed, with the unanimous applause of all pres- 
 ent, that they should course the old fox (meaning Caleb) ere 
 he got to cover,fand toss Jiiin Jji j._hliuiketi But Lockhard in- 
 timated to his rhaster's servants, and those of Lord Bittlebrains, 
 in a tone of authority, that the slightest impertinence to the Mas- 
 ter of Ravenswood's domestic would give Sir William Ashton the 
 highest offence. And having so said, in a manner sufficient to 
 prevent any aggression on their part, he left the public-house, 
 taking along with him two servants loaded with such provisions 
 as he had been able to procure, and overtook Caleb just when 
 he had cleared the village. 
 
 CHAPTER TWELFTH. 
 
 Should I take ought of you ? — 'tis true I begged now ; 
 And, what is worse than that, I stole a kindness; 
 And, what is worst of all, I lost my way in't. 
 
 Wit Without Money. 
 
 The face of the little bo}-, sole witness of Caleb's infringe- 
 ment upon the laws at once of property and hospitality, would 
 have made a good picture. He sat motionless, as if he had 
 witnessed some of the spectral appearances which he had heard 
 told of in a winter's evening ; and as he forgot his own dutv, 
 and allowed his spit to stand still, he added to the misfortunes 
 of the evening, by suffering the mutton to burn as black as coal. 
 He was first recalled from his trance of astonishment by a 
 hearty cuff, administered by Dame Lightbody, who ( in what- 
 ever other respects she might conform her name) was a woman 
 strong of person, and expert in the use of her hands, as some 
 say her deceased husband had known to his cost. 
 
 " What garr'd ye let the roast burn, )'e ill-cleckit gude-for- 
 naught .'' " 
 
 " I dinna ken," said the boy. 
 
 "And Where's that ill-deedy gett, Giles ? " 
 
 " I dinna ken," blubbered the astonished declarant. 
 
 " And Where's Mr. Balderston i" — and abune a', and in the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 103 
 
 name of council and kirk-session, that I suld say sae, where's 
 the broche wi' the wild-fowl ? " 
 
 As Mrs. Girder here entered, and joined her mother's ex- 
 clamations, screaming into one ear while the old lady deafened 
 the other, they succeeded in so utterly confounding the unhappy 
 urchin, that he could not for some time tell his story at all, and 
 it was only when the elder boy returned, that the truth began 
 to dawn on their minds. 
 
 "Weel, sirs ! " said Mrs. Lightbody, " wha wadhae thought 
 o' Caleb Balderston playing an auld acquaintance sic a pHskie ? " 
 
 " O, weary on him ! " said the spouse of Mr. Girder ; "■ and 
 what am I to say to the gudeman ? — he'll brain me, if there 
 wasna anither woman in a' Wolf's Hope." 
 
 " Hout~fout, silly quean," said the mother ; " na, na — it's 
 come to muckle, but it's no come to that neither ; for an he 
 brain you he maun brain me, and I have garr'd his betters 
 stand back — hands aff is fair play — we maunna heed a bit 
 flyting." 
 
 The tramp of horses now announced the arrival of the cooper, 
 with the minister. They had no sooner dismounted than they 
 made for the kitchen fire, for the evening was cool after the 
 thunderstorm, and the woods wet and dirty. The young gude- 
 wife, strong in the charms of her Sunday gown and biggonets, 
 threw herself in the way of receiving the first attack, while her 
 mother, like the veteran division of the Roman legion, remained 
 in the rear, ready to support her in case of necessity. Both 
 hoped to protract the discovery of what had happened — the 
 mother, by interposing her bustling person betwixt Mr, Girder 
 and the fire, and the daughter by the extreme cordiality with 
 which she received the minister and her husband, and the 
 anxious fears which she expressed lest they should have "gotten 
 cauld." 
 
 "Cauld ?" quoth the husband surlily — for he was not of 
 that class of lords and masters whose wives are viceroys over 
 them — " we'll be cauld eneugh, I think, if ye dinna let us in to 
 the fire." 
 
 And so saying, he burst his way through both lines of de- 
 fence ; and, as he had a careful eye over his property of every 
 kind, he perceived at one glance the absence of the spit with 
 its savory burden. " What the deil, woman " 
 
 " Fie for shame ! " exclaimed both the women ; " and before 
 Mr. Bide-the-bent ! " 
 
 " I stand reproved," said the cooper ; " but " 
 
 " The taking in our mouths the name of the great enemy of 
 our souls," said Mr, Bide-the-Bent
 
 104 THE BRIDE OF LA MM ER MOOR. 
 
 *' I stand reproved," said the cooper. 
 
 " Is an exposing oursells to his temptations," continued the 
 reverend monitor, " and an inviting, or in some sort, a compel 
 ling, of him to lay aside his other trafficking with unhappy per- 
 sons, and wait upon those in whose speech his name is frequent." 
 
 " Weel, weel, Mr. Bide-the-Bent, can a man do mair than 
 stand reproved ? " said the cooper ; " but just let me ask the 
 women what for they hae dished the wild-fowl before we came." 
 
 " They arena dished, Gilbert," said his wife ; " but — but an 
 accident" 
 
 " What accident ?" said Girder, with flashing eyes — " Nae 
 ill come ower them, I trust ? Uh .-' " 
 ^^"^ His wife who stood much in awe of him, durst not reply; 
 but her mother bustled up to her support, with arms jdisposed 
 as if tTiey we're libout to be a-kimbo at the~hext reply,^^" Igied 
 them to an acquaintance of mine, Gibbie Girder ; and' what about 
 it now .? " 
 
 Her excess of assurance struck Girder mute for an instant. 
 " And_>'^ gied the wild-fowl, the best end of our christening din- 
 ner, to a friend of yours, ye auld rudas ! And what might hk 
 name be, I pray ye .'' " 
 
 "Just worthy Mr. Caleb Balderston frae Wolf's Crag," 
 answered Marion, prompt and prepared for battle. 
 
 Girder's wrath foamed over all restraint. If there was a cir- 
 cumstance which could have added to the resentment he felt, it 
 was, that this extravagant donation had been made in favor of 
 our friend Caleb, toward whom, for reasons to which the reader 
 is no stranger, he nourished a decided resentment. He raised 
 his riding-wand against the elder matron, but she stood firm, 
 collected in herself, and undauntedly brandished the iron ladle 
 with which she had just httn JIambing {Anglice, basting) the 
 roast of mutton. Her weapon was certainly the better, and her 
 arm not the weakest of the two ; so that Gilbert thought it safest 
 to turn short off upon his wife, who had by this time hatched a 
 sort of hysterical whine, which greatly moved the minister, who 
 was in fact as simple and kind-hearted a creature as ever 
 breathed. — " And you, ye thowless jaud, to sit still and see my 
 substance disponed upon to an idle, drunken, reprobate, worm- 
 eaten, serving man, just because he kittles the lugs o' a silly 
 auld wife wi' useless clavers, and every twa words a lee ? — I'll 
 
 gar you as gude" 
 
 Here the minister interposed, both by voice and action 
 w^hile Dame Lightbody threw herself in front of her daughtef 
 and flourished her ladle.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 I OS 
 
 " Am I no to chastise my ain wife ? " exclaimed the coojier, 
 very indignantly. 
 
 " Ye may chastise your ain wife if you like," answered Dame 
 Lightbody ; " but ye shall never lay finger on my daughter, and 
 that ye may found upon." 
 
 " For shame, Mr. Girder ! " said the clergyman ; " this is 
 what I little expected to have seen of you, that you suld give 
 rein to your sinful passions against your nearest and your dear- 
 est ; and this night too, when ye are called to the most solemn 
 duty of a Christian parent — and a' for what .-' for a redundancy 
 of creature-comforts, as worthless as they are unneedful." 
 
 " Worthless ! " exclaimed the cooper ; " a better guse never 
 walkit on stubble ; twa finer dentier wild-ducks never wat a 
 feather." 
 
 " Be it sae, neighbor," rejoined the minister ; " but see what 
 superfluities are yet revolving before your fire. I have seen the 
 day when ten of the bannocks which stand upon that board 
 would have been an acceptable dainty to as many men, that 
 were starving on hills and bogs, and in caves of the earth, for 
 the Gospel's sake." 
 
 " And that's what vexes me maist of a','' said the cooper, 
 anxious to get some one to sympathize with his not altogether 
 causeless anger ; " an the queen had gien it to ony sulfering 
 sant, or to ony body ava but that reiving, lying, oppressing Tory 
 villain, that rade in the wicked troop of militia when it was com- 
 manded out against the sants at Bothwell Brigg by the auld 
 tyrant Allan Ravenswood, that is gane to his place, I wad the 
 less hae minded it. But to gie the principal part o' the feast 
 to the like o' him ! " 
 
 " Aweel, Gilbert/' said the minister, "and dinna ye see a 
 high judgment in this? — The seed of the righteous are not seen 
 begging their bread — think of the son of a powerful oppressor 
 being brought to the pass of supporting his household from 
 your fullness." 
 
 " And, besides," said the wife, " it wasna for Lord Ravens- 
 wood neither, an he wad hear but a body speak — it was to help 
 to entertain the Lord Keeper, as they ca' him, that's up yonder 
 at Wolf's Crag." 
 
 " Sir William Ashton at Wolf's Crag ! " ejaculated the 
 astonished man of hoops and staves. 
 
 "And hand and glove wi' Lord Ravenswood," added Dame 
 Lightbody. 
 
 " Doited idiot ! — that auld clavering sneckdrawer wad gar 
 ye trow the moon is made of green cheese. The Lord Keeper 
 and Ravenswood I they are c<it and dog, hare and hound."
 
 io6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 " I tell ye they are man and wife, and gree better than 
 some others that are sae," retorted the mother-in-law ; " forby, 
 Peter Puncheon, that's cooper to the Queen's stores, is dead, 
 and the place is to fill, and" 
 
 "Od guide us, wull ye baud your skirling tongues ? " said 
 Girder, — for we are to remark, that this explanation was given 
 like a catch for two voices, the younger dame, much encouraged 
 by the turn of the debate, taking up, and repeating in a higher 
 tone, the words as fast as they were uttered by her mother. 
 
 " The gudewife says naething but what's true, master," 
 said Girder's foreman, who had come in during the fray. " I 
 saw the Lord Keeper's servants drinking and driving ower at 
 Luckie Sma'trash's ower by yonder." 
 
 " And is their maister up at Wolf's Crag .-' " said Girder. 
 
 " Ay, troth is he," replied his man of confidence. 
 
 " And friends wi' Ravenswood .'' " 
 
 " It's like sae," answered the foreman, "since he is putting 
 up* wi' him." 
 
 "And Peter Puncheon's dead ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay — Puncheon has leaked out at last, the auld carle," 
 said the foreman ; " mony a dribble o' brandy has gaen through 
 him in his day. But as for the broche and the wild-fowl, the 
 saddle's no aff your mare yet, maister, and I could follow and 
 bring it back, for Mr. Balderston's no far aff the town yet." 
 
 " Do sae, Will — and come here — I'll tell ye what to do when 
 ye owertake him." 
 
 He reliev^ed the females of his presence, and gave Will his 
 private mstructions. 
 
 "A bonny-like thing," said the mother-in-law, as the cooper 
 re-entered the apartment, " to send the innocent lad after an 
 armed man, when ye ken Mr. Balderston aye wears a rapier, 
 and whiles a dirk into the bargain." 
 
 " I trust," said the minister," ye have reflected weel on 
 what ye have done, lest you should minister cause of strife, of 
 which it is my duty to say, he who affordeth matter, albeit he 
 himself striketh not, is in no manner guiltless," 
 
 " Never fash your beard, Mr. Bide-the-Bent," replied Gir 
 der ; "ane cannaget their breath out between wives and minis- 
 ters — I ken best how to turn my ain cake. — Jean, serve up the 
 dinner, and nae mair about it." 
 
 Nor did he again allude to the deficiency in the course of 
 the evening. 
 
 Meantime, the foreman, mounted on his master's steed, and 
 
 * Taking up his abode.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 107 
 
 charged with his special orders, pricked swiftly forth In pursuit 
 of the marauder, Caleb. That personage, it may be. imagined, 
 did not linger by the way. He intermitted even his dearly- 
 beloved chatter, for the purpose of making more haste, only as- 
 suring Mr. Lockhard that he had made the purveyor's wife give 
 the wild-fowl a few turns before the fire, in case that Mysie, who 
 had been so much alarmed by the thunder, should not have 
 her kitchen-grate in full splendor. Meanwhile, alleging the ne- 
 cessity of being at Wolf's Crag as soon as possible, he pushed 
 on so fast that his companions could scarce keep up with him. 
 He began already to think he was safe from pursuit, having 
 gained the summit of the swelling eminence which divides Wolf's 
 Crag from the village, when he heard the distant tread of a 
 horse, and a voice which shouted at intervals, " Mr. Caleb — 
 Mr. Balderston — Mr. Caleb Balderston — hollo — bide a wee ! " 
 
 Caleb, it may be well believed, was in no hurry to acknowl- 
 edge the summons. First, he would not hear it, and faced his com- 
 panions down, that it was the echo of the wind ; then he said it 
 was not worth stopping for ; and, at length, halting reluctantly, 
 as the figure of the horseman appeared through the shades of 
 the evening, he bent up his whole soul to the task of defending 
 his prey, threw himself into an attitude of dignity, advanced 
 the spit, which in his grasp might with its burden seem both 
 spear and shield, and firmly resolved to die rather than sur- 
 render it. 
 
 What was his astonishment, when the cooper's foreman, 
 riding up and addressing him with respect, told him " his master 
 was very sorry he was absent when he came to his dwelling, and 
 grieved that he could not tarry the christening dinner ; and that 
 he had taen the freedom to send a sma' rundlet of sack, and 
 ane anker of brandy, as he understood there were guests at the 
 castle, and that they were short of preparation." 
 
 I have heard somewhere a story of an elderly gentleman 
 who was pursued by a bear that had gotten loose from its 
 muzzle, until completely exhausted. In a fit of desperation he 
 faced round upon Bruin and lifted his cane ; at the sight of 
 which the instinct of discipline prevailed and the animal. 
 Instead of tearing him to pieces, rose up upon his hind legs, 
 and instantly began to shuffle a saraband. Not less than the 
 joyful surprise- of the senior, who had supposed himself in the 
 extremity of peril from which he was thus unexpectedly re- 
 lieved, was that of our excellent friend, Caleb, when he found 
 the pursuer intended to add to his prize, instead of bereaving 
 him of it. He recovered his attitude, however, instantly, so 
 soon as the foreman, stooping from his nag, where he sate
 
 108 THE BRTDE OF LAMMERMOOK. 
 
 perched betwixt the two barrels, whispered in his ear, — " H 
 ony thing about Peter Puncheon's place could be airted their 
 way, John Girder wad mak it better to the Master of Ravens- 
 wood than a pair of new gloves ; and that he wad be blithe to 
 speak wi' Maister Balderston on that head, and he wad find 
 him as pliant as a hoop-willow in a' that he could wish of 
 him." 
 
 Caleb heard all this without rendering any answer, except 
 that of all great men from Louis XIV. downward, namely, 
 " We will see about it ; " and then added aloud, for the edifica- 
 tion of Mr. Lockhard, — " Your master has acted with becoming 
 civility and attention in forwarding the liquors, and I will not 
 fail to represent it properly to my Lord Ravenswood. And, my 
 lad," he said, " you may ride on to the castle, and if none of 
 the servants are returned, whilk is to be dreaded, as they make 
 day and night of it when they are out of sight, ye may put them 
 into the porter's lodge, whilk is on the right hand of the great 
 entry — the porter has got leave to go to see his friends, sae ye 
 will meet no ane to steer ye." 
 
 The foreman, having received his orders, rode on ; and 
 havmg deposited the casks in the deserted and ruinous porter's 
 lodge, he returned unquestioned by any one. Having thus 
 executed his master's commission, and doffed his bonnet to 
 Caleb and his company as he repassed them in his way to 
 the village, he returned to have his share of the christening 
 festivity.* 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. 
 
 As, to the autumn breeze's bugle sound, 
 
 Various and vague the dry leaves dance their round ; 
 
 Or, from the garden-door, on ether borne, 
 
 The chaff flies devious from the winnow'd com ; 
 
 So vague, so devious, at the breath of heaven. 
 
 From their fix'd aim are mortal counsels driv'n. 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 We left Caleb Balderston in the extremity of triumph at the 
 success of his various achievements for the honor of the house 
 of Ravenswood. When he had mustered and marshaled his 
 dishes of di-v ers kinds, a more royal provision had not been 
 seen in WoK'i Crag since the funeral feast of its deceased lord. 
 
 * Note E. The raid of Caleb Balderston.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 lo^ 
 
 Great was the glory of the serving-man, as he decored the old 
 oaken table cloth with a clean cloth, and arranged upon it car- 
 bonaded venison and roasted wild-fowl, with a glance, every 
 now and then, as if to upbraid the incredulity of his master and 
 his guests ; and with many a story, more or less true, was 
 Lockhard that evening regaled concerning the ancient grandeur 
 of Wolf's Crag, and the sway of its Barons over the country in 
 their neighborhood. 
 
 " A vassal scarce held a calf or a lamb his ain, till he had 
 first asked if the Lord of Ravenswood was pleased to accept it; 
 and they were obliged to ask the lord's consent before they 
 married in these days, and mony a merry tale they tell about 
 that right as weel as others. And although," said Caleb, " these 
 times are not like the gude auld times, when authority had its 
 right, yet true it is, Mr. Lockhard, and you yoursell may partly 
 have remarked, that we of the house of Ravenswood do our 
 endeavor in keepmg up, by all just and lawful exertion of our 
 baronial authority, that due and fitting connection betwixt 
 superior and vassal, whilk is in some danger of falling into 
 desuetude, owing to the general license and misrule of these 
 present unhappy times." 
 
 " Umph ! " said Mr. Lockhard ; " and, if I may inquire, Mr 
 Balderston, pray do you find your people at the village yonder 
 amenable .-* for I must needs say, that at Ravenswood Castle, 
 now pertaining to my master, the Lord Keeper, ye have not 
 left behind ye the most compliant set of tenantry." 
 
 "Ah ! but, Mr. Lockhard," replied Caleb, "ye must consider 
 there has been a change of hands, and the auld lord might 
 expect twa turns frae them, when the new comer canna get 
 ane. A dour and fractious set they were, thae tenants of 
 Ravenswood, and ill to live wi' when they dinna ken their 
 master — and if your master put them mad ance, the whole 
 country will not put them down." 
 
 "Troth," said Mr. Lockhard, " and such be the case I think / ~ 
 the wisest thing for us a' wad be to hammer up a match between (^./y^y 
 your young lord and our winsome young leddy up by there ; A,^ . itSJ^^ 
 and Sir William might just stitch your old barony to her^' ^ ■ 
 gown-sleeve, and he wad sune cuitle* another out o' somebody 
 else, sic a lang head as he has." 
 
 Caleb shook his head. — " I wish," he said, " I wish that may 
 answer, Mr. Lockhard. There are auld prophecies about this 
 house I wad like ill to see fulfilled wi' my auld e'en, that has 
 seen evil eneugh already." 
 
 * Cuitle may answer to the elegant modern phrase diddle.
 
 no THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 "Pshaw ! never mind freits," said his brother butler ; "if 
 iiht young folk liked ane anither, they wad make a winsome 
 couple. But, to say truth, there is a leddy sits in our hall-neuk, 
 maun have her hand in that as well as in every other job. But 
 there's no harm in drinking to their healths, and I will fill Mrs. 
 Mysie a cup of Mr. Girder's Canary." 
 
 While they thus enjoyed themselves in the kitchen, the com- 
 pany in the hall were not less pleasantly engaged. So soon as 
 Ravenswood had determined upon giving the Lord Keeper such 
 hospitality as he had to offer, he deemed it incumbent on him 
 to assume the open and courteous brow of a well-pleased host. 
 It has been often remarked, that when a man commences by 
 acting a character, he frequently ends by adopting it in good 
 earnest. In the course of an hour or two, Ravenswood, to his 
 own surprise, found himself in the situation of one who frankly 
 does his best to entertain welcome and honored guests. How 
 much of this change in his disposition was to be ascribed to the 
 beauty and simplicity of Miss Ashton, to the readiness with 
 which she accommodated herself to the inconveniencies of her 
 situation — how much to the smooth and plausible conversation 
 of the Lord Keeper, remarkably gifted with those words which 
 win the ear, must be left to the reader's ingenuity to conjecture. 
 But Ravenswood was insensible to neither. 
 
 The Lord Keeper was a veteran statesman, well acquainted 
 with courts and cabinets, and mtimate with all the various 
 turns of public affairs during the last eventful years of the 
 seventeenth century. He could talk, from his own knowledge, 
 of men and events, in a way which failed not to win attention, 
 and had the peculiar art, while he never said a word which 
 committed himself, at the same time, to persuade the hearer 
 that he was speaking without the least shadow of scrupulous 
 caution or reserve. Ravenswood, in spite of his prejudices, 
 and real grounds of resentment, felt himself at once amused 
 and instructed in listening to him, while the statesman, whose 
 inward feelings had at first so much impeded his efforts to 
 make himself known, had now regained all the ease and fluency 
 of a silver-tongued lawyer of the very highest order. 
 
 His daughter did not speak much, but she smiled ; and 
 what she did say argued a submissive gentleness, and a desire 
 to give pleasure, which, to a proud man like Ravenswood, was 
 more fascinating than the most brilliant wit. Above all, he 
 could not but observe that, whether from gratitude, or from 
 some other motive, he himself, in his deserted and unprovided 
 ball, was as much the object of respectful attention to his 
 guests, as he would have been when surrounded by all the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 lit 
 
 appliances and means of hospitality proper to his high birth. 
 All deficiencies passed unobserved, or if they did not escape 
 notice, it was to praise the substitutes which Caleb had con- 
 trived to supply the want of the usual accommodations. Where 
 a smile was unavoidable, it was a very good-humored one, and 
 often coupled with some well-turned compliment, to show how 
 much the guests esteemed the merits of their noble host, how 
 little they thought of the inconveniencies with which they were 
 surrounded. I am not sure whether the pride of being found 
 to outbalance, in virtue of his own personal merit, all the dis- 
 advantages of fortune, did not make as favorable an impression 
 upon the haughty heart of the Master of Ravenswood, as the 
 conversation of the father and the beauty of Lucy Ashton. 
 
 The hour of repose arrived. The Keeper and his daughter 
 retired to their apartments, which were " decored " more prop- 
 erly than could have been anticipated. In making the neces- 
 sary arrangements, Mysie had indeed enjoyed the assistance 
 of a gossip who had arrived from the village upon an ex- 
 ploratory expedition, but had been arrested by Caleb, and im- 
 pressed into the domestic drudgery of the evening. So that, 
 instead of returning home to describe the dress and person of 
 the grand young lady, she found herself compelled to be active 
 in the domestic economy of Wolf's Crag. 
 
 According to the custom of the time, the Master of Ravens- 
 wood attended the Lord Keeper to his apartment, followed b;j 
 Caleb, who placed on the table, with all the ceremonials due 
 to torches of wax, two rudely-framed tallow-candles, such as in 
 those days were only used by the peasantry, hooped in paltry 
 clasps of wire, which served for candlesticks. He then disap- 
 peared, and presently entered with two earthen flagons (the 
 china, he said, had been little used since my lady's time), one 
 filled with Canary wine, the other with brandy.* The Canary 
 sack, unheeding all probabilities of detection, he declared had 
 been twenty years in the cellars of Wolf's Crag, " though it 
 was not for him to speak before their honors ; the brandy — it 
 was weel-kend liquor, as mild as mead, and as strong as Sam- 
 son — it had been in the house ever since the memorable revel, 
 in which auld Micklestob had been slain at the head of the 
 stair by Jamie of Jenklebrae, on account of the honor of the 
 worshipful Lady Muriend, wha was in some sort an ally of the 
 family ; natheless " 
 
 " But to cut that matter short, Mr. Caleb," said the Keeper, 
 " perhaps you will favor me with a ewer of water." 
 
 ♦ Note F. Ancient Hospitality.
 
 il2 THE BKIDE OF LAMMERMOOR 
 
 " God forbid your lordship should drink water in this 
 family," replied Caleb, " to the disgrace of so honorable an 
 house ! " 
 
 " Nevertheless, if his lordship have a fancy," said the Master, 
 smiling, " I think you might indulge him ; for, if I mistake not, 
 there has been water drank here at no distant date, and with 
 good relish too." 
 
 "To be sure, if his lordship has a fancy," said Caleb ; and 
 re-entering with a jug of pure element — " He will scarce find 
 such water onywhere as is drawn frae the well at Wolf's Crag 
 — nevertheless " 
 
 " Nevertheless, we must leave the Lord Keeper to his repose 
 in this poor chamber of ours," said the Master of Ravenswood, 
 interrupting his talkative domestic, who immediately turning to 
 the doorway, with a profound reverence, prepared to usher his 
 master from the secret chamber. 
 
 But the Lord Keeper prevented his host's departure — " I 
 have but one word to say to the Master of Ravenswood, Mr. 
 Caleb, and I fancy he will excuse your waiting." 
 
 With a second reverence, lower than the former, Caleb with- 
 drew — and his master stood motionless, expecting, with consid- 
 erable embarrassment, what was to close the events of a day 
 fraught with unexpected incidents. 
 
 " Master of Ravenswood," said Sir William Ashton with 
 some embarrassment, " I hope you understand the Christian 
 law too well to suffer the sun to set upon your anger." 
 
 The Master blushed and replied, " He had no occasion that 
 evening to exercise the duty enjoined upon him by his Chris- 
 tian faith." 
 
 " I should have thought otherwise," said his guest, " consid 
 ering the various subjects of dispute and litigation which have 
 unhappily occurred more frequently than was desirable or 
 necessary betwixt the late honorable lord, your father, and my- 
 self." 
 
 " I could wish, my lord," said Ravenswood, agitated by sup- 
 pressed emotion, " that reference to these circumstances should 
 be made anywhere rather than under my father's roof." 
 
 *' I should have felt the delicacy of this appeal at another 
 time," said Sir William Ashton, "but, now 1 must proceed 
 with what I mean to say. — I have suffered too much in my own 
 mind, from the false delicacy which prevented my soliciting 
 with earnestness, what indeed I frequently requested, a personal 
 communing with your father — much distress of mind to him and 
 \o me might have been prevented." 
 
 " It is true," said Ravenswood, after a moment's reflection;
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMCOR. u^ 
 
 " I have heard my father say your lordship had proposed a 
 personal interview." 
 
 " Proposed, my dear Master ? I did indeed propose it, but 
 I ought to have begged, entreated, beseeched it. I ought to 
 have torn away the veil which interested persons had stretched 
 betwixt us, and shown myself, as I was, willing to sacrifice a 
 considerable part even of my legal rights, in order to conciliate 
 feelings so natural as his must be allowed to have been. Let 
 me say for myself, my young friend, for so I will call you, that 
 had your father and I spent the same time together which my 
 good fortune has allowed me to-day to pass in your company, 
 it is possible the land might yet have enjoyed one of the most 
 respectable of its ancient nobility, and I should have been 
 spared the pain of parting in enmity from a person whose 
 general character I so much admired and honored." 
 
 He put his handkerchief to his eyes. Ravenswood also was 
 moved, but awaited in silence the progress of this extraordinary 
 communication. 
 
 " It is necessary," continued the Lord Keeper, "and proper 
 that you should understand, that there have been many points 
 betwixt us, in which, although I judged it proper that there 
 should be an exact ascertainment of my legal rights by the de- 
 cree of a court of justice, yet it was never my intention to press 
 them beyond the verge of equity." 
 
 " My lord," said the Master of Ravenswood, " it is unneces- 
 sary to pursue this topic further. What the law will give you, 
 or has given you, you enjoy — or you shall enjoy ; neither my 
 father, nor myself, would have received anything on the footing 
 of favor." 
 
 "Favor? — no — you misunderstand me," resumed the 
 Keeper ; " or rather you are no lawyer. A right may be good 
 in law, and ascertained to be so, which yet a man of honor may 
 not in every case care to avail himself of." 
 
 "I am sorry for it, my lord," said the Master. 
 
 " Nay, nay," retorted his guest, " you speak like a young 
 counselor; your spirit goes before your wit. There are many 
 things still open for decision betwixt us. Can you blame me, 
 an old man desirous of peace, and in the castle of a young 
 nobleman who has saved my daughter's life and my own, that I 
 am desirous, anxiously desirous, that these should be settled on 
 the most liberal principles ? " 
 
 The old man kept fast hold of the Master's passive hand as 
 he spoke, and made it impossible for him, be his predetermina- 
 tion what it would, to return any other than an acquiescent reply;
 
 ,14 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 and wishing his guest good-night, he postponed farther confer 
 ence until the next morning. 
 
 Ravenswood hurried into the hall, where he was to spend 
 the night, and for a time traversed its pavement with a dis- 
 ordered and rapid pace. His mortal foe was under his roof, 
 yet his sentiments toward him were neither those of a feudal 
 enemy nor of a true Christian, He felt as if he could neither 
 forgive him in the one character, nor follow forth his vengeance 
 in the other, but that he was making a base and dishonorable 
 composition betwixt his resentment against the father, and his 
 affection for his daughter. He cursed himself as he hurried to 
 and fro in the pale moonlight, and more ruddy gleams of the 
 expiring wood fire. He threw open and shut the latticed win- 
 dows with violence, as if alike impatient of the admission and 
 exclusion of free air. At length, however, the torrent of passion 
 foamed ofT its madness, and he flung himself into the chair, 
 which he proposed as his place of repose for the night. 
 
 If, in reality, — such were the calmer thoughts that followed 
 the first tempest of his passion, — if, in reality, this man desires 
 no more than the law allows him — if he is willing to adjust 
 even his acknowledged rights upon an equitable footing, what 
 could be my father's cause of complaint? — what is mine? — 
 Those from whom we won our ancient possessions fell under 
 the sword of my ancestors, and left lands and livings of the con- 
 querers ; we sink under the force of the law, now too powerful 
 for the Scottish chivalry. Let us parley with *Jie victors of the 
 day, as if we had been besieged in our fortress, and without 
 hope of relief. This man may be other than I have thought 
 him ; and his daughter — but I have resolved not think of her. 
 
 He wrapt his cloak around him, fell asleep, and dreamed of 
 Lucy Ashton till daylight gleamed through the lattices. 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEENTH. 
 
 " We worldly men, when we see friends and kinsman 
 Past hoi)e sunk in their fortunes, lend no hand 
 To lift them up, but rather set our feet 
 Upon their heads to press them to the bottom, 
 As I must yield with you I practised it ; 
 But now I see you in a way to rise, 
 I can and will assist you." 
 
 New Way to Pay Old Debts. 
 
 The Lord Keeper carried with him to a couch harder than 
 he was accustomed to stretch himself upon, the same ambitious 
 thoughts and political perplexities, which drive sleep from the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. K 
 
 softest down that ever spread a bed of state. He had sailed 
 long enough amid the contending tides and currents of the time 
 to be sensible of their peril, and of the necessity of trimming 
 his vessel to the prevailing wind, if he would have her escape 
 shipwreck in the storm. The nature of his talents, and the 
 timorousness of disposition connected with them, had made him 
 assume the pliability of the versatile old Earl of Northampton, 
 who explained the art by which he kept his ground during all 
 the changes of state, from the reign of Henry VI H. to that of 
 Elizabeth, by the frank avowal, that he was born of the wil- 
 low, not of the oak. It had accordingly been Sir William Ash- 
 ton's policy, on all occasions, to watch the changes in the polit' 
 ical horizon, and, ere yet the conflict was decided, to negotiate 
 some interest for himself with the party most likely to prove 
 victorious. His time-serving disposition was well known, and 
 excited contempt of the more daring leaders of both factions in 
 the state. But his talents were of a useful and practical kind, 
 and his legal knowledge held in high estimation ; and they so 
 far counterbalanced other deficiencies, that those in power were 
 glad to use and to reward, though without absolutely trusting or 
 greatly respecting him. 
 
 The Marquis of A had used his utmost influence to 
 
 efifect a change in the Scottish cabinet, and his schemes had 
 been of late so well laid and so ably supported, that there 
 appeared a very great chance of his proving ultimately success- 
 ful. He did not, however, feel so strong or so confident as to 
 neglect any means of drawing recruits to his standard. The 
 acquisition of the Lord Keeper was deemed of some import- 
 ance, and a friend, perfectly acquainted with his circumstances 
 and character, became responsible for his political conversion. 
 
 When this gentleman arrived at Ravenswood Castle upon a 
 visit, the real purpose of which was disguised under general 
 courtesy, he found the prevailing fear which at present beset 
 the Lord Keeper was that of danger to his own person from 
 the Master of Ravenswood. The language which the blind 
 sibyl old Alice had used ; the sudden appearance of the Mas- 
 ter, armed, and within his precincts, immediately after he had 
 been warned against danger from him ; the cold and haughty 
 return received in exchange for the acknowledgments with 
 which he loaded him for his timely protection, had aU made a 
 strong impression on his imagination. 
 
 So soon as the Marquis's political agent found how the 
 wind sat, he began to insinuate fears and doubts of another 
 kind, scarce less calculated to affect the Lord Keeper. He in- 
 quired with seeming interest whether the proceedings in Sir
 
 Ii6 THE BR WE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 William's complicated litigation with the Ravenswood family 
 were out of court, and settled without the possibility of appeal ! 
 The Lord Keeper answered in the afhrmative ; but his interro- 
 gator was too well informed to be imposed upon. He pointed 
 out to him, by unanswerable arguments, that some of the most 
 important points which had been decided in his favor against 
 the house of Ravenswood were liable, under the Treaty of 
 Union, to be reviewed by the British House of Peers, a court 
 of equity of which the Lord Keeper felt an instinctive dread. 
 This course came instead of an appeal to the old Scottish Par- 
 liament, or, as it was technically termed, " a protestation fo! 
 remeid in law." 
 
 The Lord Keeper, after he had for some time disputed the 
 legality of such a proceeding, was compelled at length to com- 
 fort himself with the improbability of the young Master of 
 Ravenswood's finding friends in parliam-jnt capable of stirring 
 in so weighty an affair. 
 
 " Do not comfort yourself with that false hope," said his 
 wily friend ; " it is possible that in the next session of parlia- 
 ment young Ravenswood may find more friends and favor even 
 than your lordship." 
 
 " That would be a sight worth seeing," said the Keeper, 
 scornfully. 
 
 " And yet," said his friend, " such things have been seen 
 
 ere now, and in our own time. There are many at the head of 
 
 affairs even now, that a few years ago were under hiding for 
 
 their lives ; and many a man now dines on plate of silver that 
 
 . was fain to eat his crowdy without a bicker ; and many a high 
 
 )f rjiead has been brought full low among us in as short a space. 
 
 \^Scott of Scotstarvet's ' Staggering State of Scots Statesmen"^ of 
 
 which curious memoir you showed me a manuscript, has been 
 
 out-staggered in our time." 
 
 The Lord Keeper answered with a deep sigh, " that these 
 mutations were no new sights in Scotland, and had been wit- 
 nessed long before the time of the satirical author he had 
 quoted. It was many a long year," he said, " since Fordun 
 had quoted as an ancient proverb, '' N^eque dives, neqne fortis, 
 sed nee sapiens Scotus, prcedominante invidia, din diirabit in 
 terra: " 
 
 " And be assured, my esteemed friend," was the answer, 
 "that even your long services to the state, or deep legal knowl- 
 edge, will not save you, or render your estate stable, if the Mar« 
 
 quis of A ■ comes in with a party in the British Parliament 
 
 You know that the deceased Lord Ravenswood was his near ally, 
 his lady being fifth in descent from the Knight of Tillibardine 
 
 I
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 117 
 
 and I am well assured that he will take young Ravenswood by 
 
 the hand, and be his very good lord and kinsman. Why should 
 
 he not ? — The Master is an active and stirring young fellow, 
 
 able to help himself with tongue and hands ; and it is such as 
 
 he that finds friends among their kindred, and not those un 
 
 armed and unable Mephibosheths,)that are sure to be a burden ^^JjO^^ 
 
 to every one that takes tlTem up. 'And so, if these Ravenswood |4j%*j*i 
 
 cases be called over the cecals in the House of Peers, you will \ 
 
 find that the Marquis will have a^crow to pluck with you." 
 
 " That would be an evil requital,'*^~said the Lord Keeper, 
 " for my long services to the state, and the ancient respect in 
 which I have held his lordship's honorable family and person." 
 
 " Ay, but," rejoined the agent of the Marquis, " it is in vain 
 to look back on past service and auld respect, my lord — it will 
 be present service and immediate proofs of regard, which, in 
 these sliddery times, will be expected by a man like the Mar- 
 quis." 
 
 The Lord Keeper now saw the full drift of his friend's ar- 
 gument, but he was too cautious to return any positive answer. 
 
 " He knew not," he said, " the service which the Lord Mar- 
 quis could expect from one of his limited abilities, that had not 
 always stood at his command, still saving and reserving his 
 duty to his king and country." 
 
 Having thus said nothing, while he seemed to say everything, 
 for the exception was calculated to cover whatever he might 
 afterward think proper to bring under it. Sir William Ashton 
 changed the conversation, nor did he again permit the same 
 topic to be introduced. His guest departed without having 
 brought the wily old statesman the length of committing himself, 
 or of pledging himself, to any future line of conduct, but with 
 the certainty that he had alarmed his fears in a most sensible 
 point, and laid a foundation for future and further treaty. 
 
 When he rendered an account of his negotiation to the Mar- 
 quis, they both agreed that the Keeper ought not to be permitted 
 to relapse into security, and that he should be plied with new 
 subjects of alarm, especially during the absence of his lady. 
 They were well aware that her proud, vindictive, and predomi- 
 nating spirit would be likely to supply him with the courage in 
 which he was deficient — that she was immovably attached to 
 the party now in power, with whom she maintained a close cor- 
 respondence and alliance, and that she hated, without fearing, 
 the Ravenswood family (whose more ancient dignity threw dis- 
 credit on the newly-acquired grandeur of her husband), to such 
 a degree, ihat she would have periled the interest of her own
 
 ,lg THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 house to have the prospect of altogether crushing that of het 
 enemy. 
 
 But Lady Ashton was now absent. The business which had 
 long detained her in Edinburgh, had afterward induced her to 
 travel to London, not without the hope that she might contribute 
 her share to disconcert the intrigues of the Marquis at court , 
 for she stood high in favor with the celebrated Sarah, Duchess 
 of Marlborough, to whom, in point of character, she bore con 
 siderable resemblance. It was necessary to press her hus- 
 band hard before her return ; and, as a preparatory step, the 
 Marquis wrote to the Master of Ravenswood the letter which 
 we rehearsed in a former chapter. It was cautiously worded, 
 so as to leave it in the power of the writer hereafter to take as 
 deep, or as slight an interest in the fortunes of his kinsman, as 
 the progress of his own schemes might require. But, however 
 unwilling, as a statesman, the Marquis might be to commit 
 himself, or assume the character of a patron, while he had 
 nothing to give away, it must be said to his honor, that he felt 
 a strong inclination effectually to befriend the Master of 
 Ravenswood, as well as to use his name as a means of alarming 
 the terrors of the Lord Keeper. 
 
 As the messenger who carried this letter was to pass neat 
 the house of the Lord Keeper, he had it in direction, that, in 
 the village adjoining to the park-gate of the castle, his horse 
 should lose a shoe, and that, while it was replaced by the smith 
 of the place, he should express the utmost regret for the neces- 
 sary loss of time, and in the vehemence of his impatience, give 
 it to be understood, that he was bearing a message from the 
 
 Marquis of A to the Master of Ravenswood, upon a matter 
 
 of life and death. 
 
 This news, with exaggerations, was speedily carried from 
 various quarters to the ears of the Lord Keeper, and each 
 reporter dwelt upon the extreme impatience of the courier, and 
 the surprising short time in which he had executed his journey. 
 The anxious statesman heard in silence ; but in private Lock- 
 hard received orders to watch the courier on his return, to 
 waylay him in the village, to ply him with liquor if possible, 
 and to use all means, fair or foul, to learn the contents of the 
 letter of which he was the bearer. But as this plot had been 
 foreseen, the messenger returned by a different and distant road, 
 and thus escaped the snare that was laid for him. 
 
 After he had been in vain expected for some time, Mr. Ding« 
 wall had orders to make especial inquiry among his clients of 
 Wolf's Hope, whether such a domestic belonging to the Mar 
 quis of A had actually arrived at the neighboring castie.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR 119 
 
 This was easily ascertained ; for Caleb had been in the village 
 one morning by five o'clock, to " borrow twa chappins of ale 
 and a kipper " for the messenger's refreshment, and the poor 
 fellow had been ill for twenty-four hours at Luckie Sma'trash's, 
 in consequence of dining upon " saut saumon and sour drink." 
 So that the existence of a correspondence betwixt the Marquis 
 and his distressed kinsman, which Sir William Ashton had 
 sometimes treated as a bugbear, was proved beyond the possi- 
 bility of further doubt. 
 
 The alarm of the Lord Keeper became very serious. Since 
 the Claim of Right, the power of appealing from the decisions 
 of the civil court to the Estates of Parliament, which had for- 
 merly been held incompetent, had in many instances been 
 claimed, and in some allowed, and he had no small reason to 
 apprehend the issue, if the English House of Lords should be 
 disposed to act upon an appeal from the Master of Ravenswood 
 '' for remeid in law." It would resolve into an equitable claim, 
 and be decided, perhaps, upon the broad principles of justice, 
 which were not quite so favorable to the Lord Keeper as thosf 
 of strict law. Besides, judging, though most inaccurately, from 
 courts which he had himself known in the unhappy times pre- 
 ceding the Scottish Union, the Keeper might have too much 
 right to think, that in the House to which his lawsuits were to 
 be transferred, the old maxim might prevail.. in Scotland which 
 was too well recognized in former times, — ^(^Show me the man, 
 and I'll show you the law.'*} The high and unbiased character 
 of English judicial proceedings was then little known in Scot- 
 land ; and the extension of them to that country was one of the 
 most valuable advantages which it gained by the Union. But 
 this was a blessing which the Lord Keeper, who had lived under 
 another system, could not have the means of foreseeing. In 
 the loss of his political consequence, he anticipated the loss of 
 his lawsuit. Meanwhile, every report which reached him served 
 to render the success of the Marquis's intrigues the more prob- 
 able, and the Lord Keeper began to think it indispensable, 
 that he should look round for some kind of protection against 
 the coming storm. The timidity of his temper induced him to 
 adopt measures of compromise and conciliation. The affair of 
 the wild bull, properly managed, might, he thought, be made to 
 facilitate a personal communication and reconciliation betwixt 
 the Master and himself. He would then learn, if possible, what' 
 his own ideas were of the extent of his rights, and the means 
 of enforcing them ; and perhaps matters might be brought to a 
 compromise, where one party was wealthy, and the other so 
 very poor. A reconciliation with Ravenswood was likely to
 
 I20 THE BRIDE OF LA MM ER MOOR. 
 
 give him an opportunity to play his own game with the Mar 
 
 quis of A . " And besides,'' said he to himself, " it will be 
 
 an act of generosity to raise up the heir of this distressed 
 family ; and if he is to be warmly and effectually befriended by 
 the new government, who knows but my virtue may prove its 
 own reward ? " 
 
 Thus thought Sir William Ashton, covering with no unusual 
 self-delusion his interested views with a hue of virtue ; and hav- 
 ing attained this point, his fancy strayed still further. He be- 
 , gan to bethink himself, " that if Ravenswood was to have a dis- 
 ^.v/' , tinguished place of power and trust — and if such a union should 
 • ••.'* sopite the heavier part of his unadjusted claims — there might 
 ^ be worse matches for his daughter Lucy — the Master might 
 be reponed against the attainder — Lord Ravenswood was an 
 ancient title, and the alliance would, in some measure, legitimate 
 his own possession of the greater part of the Master's spoils, and 
 make the surrender of the rest a subject of less bitter regret." 
 
 With these mingled and multifarious plans occupying his 
 head, the Lord Keeper availed himself of my Lord Bittlebrains' 
 repeated invitation to his residence, and thus came within a 
 very few miles of Wolf's Crag. Here he found the lord of the 
 mansion absent, but was courteously received by the lady, who 
 expected her husband's immediate return. She expressed her 
 particular delight at seeing Miss Ashton, and appointed the 
 hounds to be taken out for the Lord Keeper's special amuse- 
 ment. He readily entered into the proposal, as giving him an 
 opportunity to reconnoitre Wolf's Crag, and perhaps to make 
 some acquaintance with the owner, if he should be tempted from 
 his desolate mansion by the chase. Lockhard had his orders 
 to endeavor on his part to make some acquaintance with the 
 inmates of the castle, and we have seen how he played his 
 part. 
 
 The accidental storm did more to further the Lord Keeper's 
 plan of forming a personal acquaintance with young Ravenswood, 
 than his most sanguine expectations could have anticipated. 
 His fear of the young nobleman's personal resentment had 
 greatly decreased, since he considered him as formidable from 
 his legal claims, and the means he might have of enforcing 
 them. But although he thought, not unreasonably, that only 
 desperate circumstances drove men on desperate measures, it 
 was not without a secret terror, which shook his heart within 
 him, that he first felt himself enclosed within the desolate 
 Tower of Wolf's Crag ; a place so well fitted, from solitude and 
 strength, to be a scene of violence and vengeance. The stern 
 reception at first given to them by the Master of Ravenswood,
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOK. X2i 
 
 and the difficulty he felt in explaining to that injured nobleman 
 what guests were under the shelter of his roof, did not soothe 
 these alarms ; so that when Sir William Ashton heard the 
 door of the courtyard shut behind him with violence, the words 
 of Alice rung in his ears, " that he had drawn on matters too 
 hardly with so fierce a race as those of Ravenswood, and that 
 they would bide their time to be avenged." 
 
 The subsequent frankness of the Master's hospitality, as 
 their acquaintance increased, abated the apprehensions those 
 recollections were calculated to excite ; and it did not escape 
 Sir William Ashton, that it was to Lucy's grace and beauty he 
 owed the change in their host's behavior. 
 
 All these thoughts thronged upon him when he took posses- 
 sion of the secret chamber. The iron lamp, the unfurnished 
 apartment, more resembling a prison than a place of ordinary 
 repose, the hoarse and ceaseless sound of the waves rushing 
 against the base of the rock on which the castle was founded, 
 saddened and perplexed his mind. To his own successful 
 machinations, the ruin of the family had been in a great measure 
 owing, but his disposition was crafty and not cruel ; so that ac» 
 tually to witness the desolation and distress he had himself 
 occasioned, was as painful to him as it would be to the humane 
 mistress of a family to superintend in person the execution of 
 the lambs and poultry which are killed by her own directions. 
 At the same tiiue, when he thought of the alternative of restor- 
 ing to Ravenswood a large proportion of his spoils, or of adopt- 
 ing, as an ally and member of his own family, the heir of this 
 impoverished house, he felt as the spider may be supposed to 
 do, when his whole web, the intricacies of which had been 
 planned with so much art, is destroyed by the chance sweep 
 of a broom. And then, if he should commit himself too far in 
 this matter, it gave rise to a perilous question which many a 
 good husband, when under temptation to act as a free agent, 
 has asked himself without being able to return a satisfactory ■ j 
 
 answer; " Wh at will jny wife— what will Lady Ashton say ?'^('-w^ "^ 
 On the whole, he came at length to the resolution in which minds .x#-w.(U/ v 
 of a weaker cast so often take refuge. He resolved to watch '■ Jljj^j,^ 
 events, to take advantage of circumstances as they occurred, 
 and regulate his conduct accordingly. In this spirit of temporiz- 
 ing policy, he at length composed his mind to rest.
 
 122 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEENTH. 
 
 A slight note I have about me for you, for the delivery of which you must 
 excuse me. It is an offer that friendship calls upon me to do, and no 
 way offensive to you, since I desire nothing but right upon both 
 sides. 
 
 King and no King. 
 
 When Ravenswood and his guest met in the morning, the 
 gloom of the Master's spirit had in part returned. He, also, 
 had passed a night rather of reflection than of slumber ; and 
 the feelings which he could not but entertain toward Lucy 
 Ashton, had to support a severe conflict against those which he 
 had so long nourished against her father. To clasp in friend- 
 ship the hand of the enemy of his house, to entertain him under 
 his roof, to exchange with him the courtesies and the kindness 
 of domestic familiarity, was a degradation which his proud spirit 
 could not be bent to without a struggle. 
 
 But the ice being once broken, the Lord Keeper was resolved 
 it should not have time again to freeze. It had been part of 
 his plan to stun and confuse Ravenwood's ideas, by a compli- 
 cated 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 or 
 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 preceding evening, expressed a hope that his young friend 
 would assume some patience, in order to hear him enter into a 
 minute and explanatory detail of those unfortunate circum- 
 stances in which his late honorable father had stood at variance 
 with the Lord Keeper. The Master of Ravenswood colored 
 highly, but was silent ; and the Lord Keeper, though not 
 greatly approving the sudden heightening of his auditor's com- 
 plexion, commenced the history of a bond for twenty thousand
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 I^ 
 
 marks, advanced by his father to the father of Allan, Lord 
 Ravenswood, and was proceeding to detail the executorial pro- 
 ceedings 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 Wil- 
 liam 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 
 ancestors for services done with his sword against the English 
 invaders. How they have glided from us by a train of pro- 
 ceeding that seem to be neither sale, nor mortgage, nor adju- 
 dication 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 unoccu- 
 pied, 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 toward me, that I may in a great 
 measure have mistaken your personal character, and that things 
 may have appeared right and fitting to you, skillful and 
 practised lawyer, which to my ignorant understanding seems 
 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 tho
 
 124 
 
 THE BKIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 House of British Peers,* whose honor must be equal to theii 
 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, m 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 
 a 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 indiflerence 
 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 recollec- 
 tions connected with him. When their eyes encountered each 
 other, both blushed deeply, conscious of some strong internal 
 emotion, and shunned again to meet each other's looks. 
 
 Sir William Ashton had, of course, closely watched the ex- 
 pression of their countenances. " I need fear," said he inter- 
 nally, " neither parliament nor protestation ; I have an effectual 
 mode of reconciling myself with this hot-tempered young fellow, 
 in case he shall become formidable. The present object is, at 
 all events, to avoid committing ourselves. The hook is fixed ; 
 we will not strain the line too soon — it is as well to reserve the 
 privilege of slipping it loose, if wc 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 con- 
 sidering 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 atteo" 
 
 * Note G. Appeal to Parliament.
 
 THE BRTDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 125 
 
 tion, 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, wlio 
 had spent his life in securing advantages to himself by artfully 
 working upon the passions of others. 
 
 Caleb Balderston now came to announce that breakfast was 
 prepared ; for, in those days of substantial feeding, the relics 
 of the supper amply furnished forth the morning meal. Neither 
 did he forget to present to the Lord Keeper, with great rever- 
 ence, 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, and 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 honor ken whether ye will speak wi' him or no ? " 
 
 " Does he wish to speak with me, Caleb ?" 
 
 " Less will not 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 honor for debt, and in your castle 
 of Wolf's Crag ! — your honor is jesting wi' auld Caleb this 
 morning," However, he whispered in his ear as he followed 
 him out, " I would be loath to do ony decent man a prejudice 
 in your honor'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 com-\ or ^ 
 fortable cup of brandy could make it, his laced cocked-hat se(^ /}/'\ 
 a little aside upon the top of his black riding periwig, a sword by | ^f 
 his side, and pistols at his holsters, and his person arrayed in 
 a riding suit, laid over with tarnished lace, — the very moral ol. 
 one who would say, Stand, to a true man. 
 
 When the Master had recognized 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 (JisK;ussed in this place. I have company in the castle at
 
 126 THE BRIDK OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 impu- 
 dence, was somewhat abashed hy this unfavorable reception. 
 " He had no intention," he said, " to force himself upon the 
 Master of Ravenswood's hospitality — he was in the honorable 
 service of bearing a message to him from a friend, otherwise 
 the Master of Ravenswood should not have had reason to com- 
 plain 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 
 icknowledged courage of his principal inspired, " who conceives 
 limself to have been treated by you with something much short 
 of the respect which he had reason to demand, and thereforf 
 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 attendence 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 inmate — " upon my word, 
 Captain Craigengelt, either j'ou have invented the most im- 
 probable 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 inhos- 
 pitality 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 honor 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
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 127 
 
 m dependence before my own, I would give you to under- 
 stand " 
 
 " I can understand nothing upon your explanation, Captain 
 Craigengelt. Be satisfied of that, and obUge me with your 
 departure." 
 
 " D n ! " muttered the bully ; " and is this the answer 
 
 which I am to carry back to an honorable 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 n e, I will either explain it or maintain it." 
 
 " Then, Master, you will at least cause to be returned to 
 Ha3^ston, 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 wiiich 
 even his fear of the consequences could not suppress, — " you 
 have this morning done me an egregious wrong and dishonor, 
 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 travelers 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 toward him the bully turned 
 so rapidly round, that with some difficulty he escaped throwing 
 down his horse, whose hoofs struck fire f roni 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 
 kast that by which he passes at present." 
 
 " Craig-in-guilt," said Caleb, punning upon the word crai([^
 
 ,28 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 which in Scotch signifies throat ; " if he is Craig-in-guilt just 
 now, he is as Ukely to be Craig-in-peril as ony child I ever saw 
 — the loon has woodie written on his very visonomy, and I wad 
 wager twa and a plack that plaits his hemp 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 recol- 
 lect, that, upon occasion of a journey which I made about a 
 fortnight ago to Edinburgh, I saw Mr. Craigengelt, or what- 
 ever 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 Mas- 
 ter's arm, and led him back toward 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 SIXTEENTH. 
 
 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 efifect 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 politician which you have been taught to believe 
 me, you. Master of Ravenswood, instead of being at freedom, 
 and with full liberty to solicit and act against me as you please, 
 in defence of what you suppose to be your rights, would hav*
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 129 
 
 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 con- 
 sciousness of innocence can be, in any case, accounted pre- 
 sumptuous." 
 
 " Imprudent, at least, it may be called," said Sir William 
 Ashton, " since it is apt to lead us into the mistake of supposing 
 that sufficiently evident to others, of which, in fact, we are only 
 conscious ourselves. I have known a rogue, for this very reason 
 make a better defence than an innocent man could have done 
 in the same circumstances of suspicion. Having no conscious- 
 ness of innocence to support him, such a fellow applies himseli 
 to all the advantages which the law will afford him, and some- 
 times (if his counsel be men of talent) succeeds in compelling 
 his judges to receive him as innocent. I remember the cele- 
 brated case of Sir Coolie Condiddle, of Condiddle, who waa 
 tried for theft under trust, of which all the world knew hir( 
 guilty, and yet was not only acquitted, but lived to sit in judg- 
 ment 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 con- 
 tinued, 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 of — 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 quashi ng the proceedings against the Master. These docu- 
 /
 
 ^30 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 ments 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 peace-maker betwixt 
 him and the jealous authorities of the day. Having furnished 
 his host with such subjects for examination, the Lord Keepei 
 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 wiih 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 
 eves 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 honorable 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 cuiqiie tribuiio,^ 
 was the Roman justice, and I learned it when I studied Jus- 
 tinian. Besides, have ye 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 / did was an act of mere 
 brutal instinct ; ynur defence of my cause, when you knew ho\» 
 ill I thought of you, and how much I was disposed to be yout 
 enemy, was an act of generous, manly, and considerate wis 
 dom."
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 131 
 
 " 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 a haughty but honorable 
 heart. The Master had been remarked among his contem- 
 poraries for sense and acuteness, as well as for his reserved, 
 pertinacious, and irascible character. His prepossessions ac- 
 cordingly, 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 negli- 
 gence, 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 e}es 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 "over-crowed," to use a phrase of I ii 
 Spenser, and kept under, by his brief pedigree, and timidity of A^r* ^, 
 msposirion. Then his daughter — his favorite child — his con- 
 
 stant playmate — seemed formed to live hajopy 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 char- 
 acter. And it was not merely during a few minutes that Sir 
 William Ashton looked upon their marriage as a probable and
 
 132 
 
 THE BKJDE OF LA.VMERMOOR. 
 
 even desirable event, for a full hour intervened ere his imagina- 
 tion was crossed by recollections 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 connection 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 aflfirm, that the greatest 
 misfortune of his life was owing to a very temporary predom- 
 inance 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 conver- 
 sation. — " In your surprise at finding me an honester man than 
 you expected, you have lost your curiosity about this Craigen- 
 gelt, my good Master ; and yet your name was brought in, in 
 the course of that matter, too." 
 
 "The scoundrel ! " said Ravenswood ; " my connection 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 honorable friend — and yet " — shaking 
 the Lord Keeper's hand — " and yet I am still more obliged to 
 my honorable enemy." 
 
 '"'■ Inimicus ainicissimus," 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 Jidus Achates. Why, he lodged an
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 133 
 
 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 honorable 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 pos 
 session 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 prob- 
 ably 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 jails and gallows-tree. — But I see Mr. Caleb 
 grows impatient for our return to breakfast." 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 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 com- 
 municate 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 forth 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* 
 
 * i.e. They are bounded by my own.
 
 »i4 
 
 THE BRTDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Then for dinner — there's no muckle left on the spule-bane \ it 
 will brander, though — it will brander* very well." 
 
 His triumphant calculations were interrupted by the Master, 
 who communicated to him, not without some hesitation, hi'i 
 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 pale 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 — " O Mr. Edgar ! I am your ser- 
 vant, 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, Balderston said the Master ; what 
 can it possibly have to do with my paying some ordinary civility 
 to a neighbor? " 
 
 " O Mr. Edgar, — that is, my lord ! " answered the butler, 
 "your ain conscience tells you itisna foryour father's son to be 
 neighboring 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 honor his house wi' your alli- 
 ance, I suldna say na-r7-,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 further than I do, Caleb," said the 
 Master, drowning a certain degree of consciousness in a forced 
 laugh ; " you are for marrying me into a family that you will 
 not allow me to visit — how's this — and you look as pale as 
 death besides," 
 
 " O, sir," repeated Caleb again, " you would but laugh if I 
 lauld 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 — O, 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 mysell, and, well-a-day ! little did I think of their 
 coming round this day." 
 
 » Broil.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 13^ 
 
 " 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 : — y ^^^\_M^ 
 
 " 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, I 
 
 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 " 
 
 " O, never 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 favor." 
 
 "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 1 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 hin- 
 dering 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 demisaker that's on the south bartisan 
 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, endeavoring, 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 por- 
 ters, warders, and liveried menials.
 
 .vV 
 
 c/ 
 
 136 THE BR/DE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 de- 
 posited 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 success- 
 ful lawsuit against his master. As it was, he might have adop 
 ted 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 hei 
 timidity, and guiding her horse carefully down the rocky path 
 which led to the moor, when one of the servants announced 
 from the rear, that Caleb was calling loudly after them, desir- 
 ing to speak with his master. Ravenswood felt it would look 
 singular to neglect this summons, although inwardly cursing 
 Caleb for his impertinent ofificiousness ; therefore he was com- 
 pelled to relinquish to Mr. Lockhard the agreeable duty in 
 which he was engaged, and to ride back to the gate of the 
 courtyard. Here he was beginning, somewhat peevishly, to 
 ask Caleb the cause of his clamor, 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 by 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 kenspeckle 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 anothei 
 time ; but see ye hae enough, 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 agre(9
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 »37 
 
 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 pathe- 
 tic and mournful tone — " And you ivill go, for a' 1 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''- Well He's gane ! he's down the path, arrow- 
 flight after her ! — The head is as clean ta'en aff the Ravenswood 
 family this day, as I wad chap the head aff a sybo \ " 
 
 The old butler looked long after his master, often clearing 
 away the dew as it rose to his eyes, that he might, as long as 
 possible, distinguish his stately form from those of the other 
 horsemen. " Close to her bridle-rein — ay, close to her bridle- 
 rein ! — Wisely saith the holy man, ' By this also you may know 
 that^ woman hath dominion over all men ^ ' — and without this 
 lass would not our ruin have been a'thegither fulfilled." 
 
 With a heart fraught with such sad auguries did Caleb return 
 to his necessary duties at Wolf's Crag, as soon as he could nr 
 longer distinguish the object of his anxiety among the group of 
 riders, which diminished in the distance. 
 
 In the meantime the party pursued their route joyfully. 
 Having once taken his resolution, the iVIaster of Ravenswood 
 was not of a character to hesitate or pause upon it. He aban- 
 doned himself to the pleasure he felt in Miss Ashton's company, 
 and displayed an assiduous gallantry, which approached as 
 nearly to gayety 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 
 W'Uiam Ashton's profession and habits of society rendered him 
 an excellent judge -. and he well knew how to api reciate a 
 quality to which he himself was a total stranger, — the brief and 
 decided dauntlessness of the Master of Ravenswood's disposi- 
 tion, whf seemed equally a stranger to doubt and to fear. In his 
 heart the Lorr" Keeper rejoiced at having conciliated an adver- 
 sary 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 favor to fill his sails. 
 
 "What could she desire?" he thought, his mind always 
 conjuring up opposition in the person of Lady Ashton to his 
 uow prevailing wish — " What could a woman desire in a match,
 
 138 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 tioat whenever the tide sets his way — 
 strong, exactly where we are weak, in pedigree, and in the 
 temper of a swordman ? — 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 Ravens- 
 wood, 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 observa- 
 tion 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 honors, 
 to which use had not adopted 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 im- 
 portance in the eyes of the Lord Keeper, who, although he had 
 a reasonable degree of contempt for Lord Bittlebrains' general 
 parts, entertained a high opinion of the acuteness of his judg- 
 ment in all matters of self-interest. 
 
 " I wish Lady Ashton had seen this," was his internal reflec- 
 tion ; " 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 ii to a cygnet, and so they may carry their 
 black brows to a further market." 
 
 The entertainment being ended, our travelers, who had still 
 to measure the longest part of their journey, resumed their 
 horses ; and after the Lord Keeper, the Master, and the dom- 
 estics, had drunk doch-an-dorroch, cr the stirrup-cup, in the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 139 
 
 liquors adopted to their various ranks, the cavalcade resumed 
 its progress. 
 
 It was dark by the time they entered the avenue of Ravens- 
 wood 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 societ}', 
 and almost in the retinue, of their new master. Some feelings j 
 of the same kind oppressed the mind of the Master himself. 
 He gradually became silent, and dropped a little behind the 
 lady, at whose bridle-rein he had hitherto waited with such 
 devotion. He well recollected the period, when, at the same 
 hour in the evening, he had accompanied his father, as that 
 nobleman left, never again to return to it, the mansion from 
 which he derived his name and title. The extensive front of 
 the old castle, on which he remembered having often looked 
 back, was then " as black as mourning weed." The same front 
 now glanced with many lights, some throwing far forward into 
 the night a fixed and stationary blaze, and others hurrying 
 from one window to another, intimating tke bustle and busy 
 preparations preceding their arrival, which had been intimated 
 by an avant-courier. The contrast pressed so strongly upon 
 the Master's heart, as to awaken some of the sterner feelings 
 with which he had been accustomed to regard the new lord of 
 his paternal domain, and to impress his countenance with an 
 air of severe gravity, when, alighted from his horse, he stood 
 in the hall, no longer his own, surrounded by the numerous 
 menials of its present owner. 
 
 The Lord Keeper, when about to welcome him with the 
 cordiality which their late intercourse seemed to render proper, 
 became aware of the change, refrained from his purpose, and 
 only intimated the ceremony of reception by a deep reverence 
 to his guest, seeming thus delicately to share the feelings which 
 predominated on his brow. 
 
 Two upper domestics, bearing each a huge pair of silver 
 candlesticks, now marshaled 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 com- 
 plete 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
 
 14© THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 their throats and flutter their wings. Several old family por- 
 traits of armed heros of the House of Ravenswood, together 
 with a suit or two of old armor, and some military weapons, 
 had given place to those of King William and Queen Mary, of 
 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 sat 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 hypo- 
 crite seemed to centend 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, an-d, 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 sup- 
 pressed sense of humor, 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 theii 
 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 atten- 
 tion, and reminded him that he acted a weak, perhaps even a 
 ridiculous part, in suffering himself to be overcome by the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMEkMOOR. 
 
 141 
 
 circumstances in which he found himself. He compelled him- 
 self, 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 carpenter's 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 armor 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 anna togce, 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 
 honor to accept them at my hand, as an atonement for their 
 accidental derangement?" 
 
 The Master of Ravenswood bowed stiffly, and, with folded 
 irms, 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 
 »o 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 ;
 
 142 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 "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 in 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 — forby 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' 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 stand- 
 ing by the fire ; and the Master, having walked toward the 
 upper end of the apartment stood with his back toward 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 discon- 
 certed — walked two or three steps backward, and still gazed 
 on Ravenswood with an air of fear and wonder, which had to- 
 tally banished from his features their usual expression of perl 
 vivacity. 
 
 " Come to me, young gentleman," said the Master, " and 
 I will tell you all I know about the hunt.'' 
 
 "Goto the gentleman, Henry," said his father ; " you are 
 not used to be so shy." 
 
 But neither invitation nor exhortation had any effect on the
 
 '"^ = '^'-^ THE BRIDE OF LAMM ERMOOR. 1 43 
 
 boy. On the contrary, he turned round as soon as he had com- 
 pleted 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 over-indulged 
 boy, thought it most polite to turn his face once more toward 
 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 so like the picture of Sir Malise Ravens- 
 wood, then ? " said the boy, whispering. 
 
 " What picture, you natural ? " said his father. " I used to 
 think you only a scapegrace, but I believe vou 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 armor, 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, / bide my time — and is 
 to kill you on the hearth as Malise did the other man, and 
 whose blood is still to be seen ! " 
 
 " Hush ! nonsense ! " said the Lord Keeper, not himself 
 much pleased to hear these disagreeable coincidences forced 
 on his notice. — " Master, here comes Lockhard to say supper 
 is served." 
 
 And, at the same instant, Lucy entered at another door, 
 having changed her dress since her return. The exquisite 
 feminine beauty of her countenance, now shaded only by a 
 profusion of sunny tresses ; the sylph-like form disencumbered 
 of her heavy riding-skirt, and mantled in azure silk ; the grace 
 of her manner and of her smile, cleared, with a celerity which 
 surprised the Master himself, all the gloomy and unfavorable 
 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,
 
 144 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 or his starch withered spouse, with the craft expressed in the 
 Lord Keepei's countenance, or the haughtiness which predom- 
 inated in that of his lady ; and, while he gazed on Lucy Ash- 
 ton, she seemed to be an angel descended on earth, unallied 
 to the coarser mortals among whom she deigned to dwell for a 
 season. Such is the power of beauty over a youthful and en- , 
 thusiastic fancy. 
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH. 
 
 -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 arc o'erseen, 
 When with too strict a rein they do hold in 
 Their child's affections, 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. Balderston's bachelor's meal, and to be rather dis- 
 gusted than pleased with the display upon his own groaning 
 board. 
 
 " We do these things," he said, " because others do them — 
 but I was bred a plain man at my father's frugal table, and I 
 should like well, would my wife and family permit me, to return 
 to my sowens and my poor-man-of-mutton.'" * 
 
 This was a little overstretched. The Master only answered, 
 *■ That different ranks — I mean," said he, correcting himself, 
 " different degrees of wealth require a different style of house- 
 keeping." 
 
 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 liis first apprehen- 
 sions, 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 
 
 ♦ Note H. The Poor-Man-of-Mutton.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 ^45 
 
 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 Ravens- 
 wood had resolved should be the last of his stay ; but he recol- 
 lected 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, accom- 
 panied 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 awhile behind his companions 
 — and again he went to examine the earth of a badger, which 
 carried him on a good way before them. 
 
 The conversation betwixt the Master and his sister, mean- 
 while, took an interesting, and almost confidential turn. She 
 could not help mentioning the sense of the pain he must feel 
 in visiting scenes so well known to him, bearing now an aspect 
 so different; and so gently was her sympathy expressed, that 
 Ravenswood felt it for a moment as a full requital of all his 
 misfortunes. Some such sentiment escaped him, which Lucy 
 heard with more of confusion than displeasure; and she may 
 be forgiven the imprudence of listening to such language, con- 
 sidering that the situation in which she was placed by her father 
 seemed to authorize Ravenswood to use it. Yet she made an 
 effort to turn the conversation, and she succeeded ; for the 
 Master also had advanced further than he intended, and his 
 conscience had instantly checked him when he found himself 
 on the verge of speaking 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 toward them. " I hear your step. Miss 
 Ashton," she said, "hut the gentleman who attends you is not 
 my lord, your father." 
 
 " And why should you think so, Alice ? " said Lucy ; " or
 
 149 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 blind- 
 ness, and I can now draw conclusions from the slightest sounds, 
 which formerly reached my ears as unheeded as they now 
 approach yours. Necessity is a stern, but an excellent school- 
 mistress, and she that has lost her sight must collect her infor- 
 mation 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 it 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 sur- 
 prise — " You the Master of Ravenswood — here — in this place, 
 and thus accompanied? — I cannot believe it. — Let me pass my 
 old hands over your face, that my touch may bear witness to 
 my ears." 
 
 The Master sate down beside her on the earthen bank, and 
 permitted her to touch his features with her trembling hand. 
 
 '' It is, indeed ! " she said, " it is the features as well as the 
 voice of Ravenswood — the high lines of pride, as well as the 
 bold and haughty tone. — But what do you here. Master of 
 Ravenswood ? — what do you in your enemy's domain, and in 
 company with his child .■* " 
 
 As old Alice spoke, her face kindled, as probably that of an 
 ancient feudal vassal might have done in whose presence his 
 youthful liege-lord had showed some symptom of degenerating 
 from the spirit of his ancestors. 
 
 "The Master of Ravenswood," said Lucy, who liked not the 
 tone of this expostulation, and was desirous to abridge it " is 
 upon a visit to my father." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the old blind woman in an accent of 
 surprise. 
 
 " I knew," continued Lucy, " I should do him a pleasure by 
 conducting him to your cottage." 
 
 " Where, to sav the truth, Alice," said Ravenswood, " I ex- 
 pected a more cordial reception." 
 
 " It is most wonderful ! " said the old woman, muttering to
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 147 
 
 herself ; ** but the ways of Heaven are not like our ways, and ,. .' j— ^ 
 its judgments are brought about by means far beyond our ' i.-pf]}^^'- 
 fathoming. — Hearken, young man," she said ; " your fathers '/ 
 were implacable, but they were honorable foes ; they sought "-^ ^A^ 
 not to ruin their enemies under the mask of hospitality. What 
 have you to do with Lucy Ashton ? — why should your steps 
 move in the same footpath with hers ? — why should your voice 
 sound in the same chord and time with those of Sir William 
 Ashton's daughter? — Young man, he who aims at revenge by 
 dishonorable means " 
 
 "'^Be silent, woman ! " said Ravenswood, sternly ; " is it the 
 devil that prompts your voice ? — Know that this young lady 
 has not on earth a friend who would venture farther to save her 
 from injury or from insult." 
 
 " And is it even so .-' " said the old woman in an altered but 
 melancholy tone — " Then God help you both ! " 
 
 "Amen ! Alice," said Lucy, who had not comprehended the 
 import of what the blind woman had hinted, " and send you 
 your senses, Alice, and your good humor. 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 that you say ? " said Alice, turning toward the 
 boy, her sightless vision 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 land-marks, and 
 the subverter of ancient houses, were at the same stake with 
 me, I could sav, light the fire, in God's name ! " 
 
 "That 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 Ravens- 
 wood, "bv the Mcrmaiden's Well." 
 
 " And, Alice," said the bov, " if you know of any hare that 
 comes through among the deer and makes them drop theil
 
 ,48 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 calves out of season, you may tell her, with my compliments to 
 command, that if Norman has not got a silver bullet ready foi 
 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 1 have heard so often praised, should 
 give way to offensive and unfounded suspicions." 
 
 " Offensive ? " said Alice — " ay, truth 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 understand- 
 ing 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 Ravens- 
 wood, either in fatal anger, or in still more fatal love." 
 
 "In neither," said Ravenswood, " I give you mine honor — 
 I mean, I assure you." 
 
 Alice could not see his blushing cheek, but she noticed his 
 hesitation, and that he retracted the pledge which he seemed at 
 first disposed to attach to his denial. 
 
 " It is so, then," she said, " and therefore she is to tarry by 
 the Mermaiden's Well ! Often has it been called a place fatal 
 to the race of Ravenswood — often has it proved so — but never 
 was it likely to verify old sayings as much as on this day.' 
 
 " You drive me to madness, Alice," said Ravenswood ; "you 
 are more silly and more superstitious than old Balderston. Are 
 you such a wretched Christian as to suppose I would in the 
 present day levy war against the Ashton family, as was the san- 
 guinary 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 connection and ally of his proud succes- 
 sor ? — Are you ready to live on his bounty — to follow him in 
 the bypaths 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
 
 THE BRIDE OF LA MM ER MOOR. 149 
 
 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 backward and forward 
 through the little garden with a hasty pace ; and at length 
 checking himself, and stopping right opposite to Alice, he ex- 
 claimed, " 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 to others. I would shield, were it in the 
 power of this withered band, 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 Ravens- 
 wood, more composedly. " I believe you mean truly and faith- 
 fully 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 a 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 earnest- 
 ness 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, acute- 
 ness, and fidelity; you arc no fool to stnrt at shadows, or to 
 dread old superstitious saws, like Caleb Balderston ; tell me dis- 
 tinctly where my danger lies, if you are aware of any which is 
 tending toward me. If I know myself, I am free from all such 
 views respecting Miss Ashton r.: you impute to me. I have ne- 
 cessary business to settle with Sir William — that arranged, I
 
 i^o THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 foT 
 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 candor be for good 
 or for evil. — Lucy Ashton loves you, Lord of Ravenswood ! " 
 
 " It is impossible," said the Master. 
 
 " A thousand circumstances have proved it to me," replied 
 the blind woman. " Her thoughts have turned on no one else 
 since you saved her from death, and that my experienced 
 judgment has won from her own conversation. Having told 
 you this — if you are indeed a gentleman and your father's son 
 — you will make it a motive for flying from her presence. Her 
 passion will die like a lamp, for want of that the flame should 
 feed upon ; but, if you remain here, her destruction, or yours, 
 or that of both, will be the inevitable consequence of her mis 
 placed attachment. I tell j'ou 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 Ravens- 
 wood — 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 your- 
 self with him, you are an infatuated and predestined fool." 
 
 So saying, the old blind woman arose, assumed her staff, 
 and tottering to her hut, entered it and closed the door, leaving 
 Ravenswood to his own reflections. 
 
 CHAPTER NINETEENTH. 
 
 Lovelier in her own retired abode 
 
 than Naiad by the sid« 
 
 Of Grecian 1)r()ok — or Lady of the Mete 
 Lone sitting by the shores of old romance. 
 
 WORDSWORTIf. 
 
 The meditations of Ravenswood were of a very mixed com- 
 plexion. 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 inter- 
 nal reluctance to wed with the daughter of his father's foe '
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 JSi 
 
 and even in forgiving Sir William Ashton the injuries which his 
 family had received, and giving him credit for the kind inten- 
 tions he professed to entertain, he could not bring himself to 
 contemplate as possible an alliance betwixt their houses. Still 
 he felt that Alice spoke truth, and that h^s honor 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 in- 
 juries 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, \x\ 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 toward 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
 
 »5« 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 a 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 neighboring thicket. 
 She saluted him, but did not arise from the stone on which she 
 was seated. 
 
 " My mad-cap 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 re- 
 turn 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 had 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 forever." 
 
 The blood, which the first part of this speech called into 
 Lucy's cheeks, w-as 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 humor 
 to-day, it was so mysterious. But I am certain my father is 
 sincerely grateful for the high service you rendered us. Let me 
 hope that having won vour 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
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 iS3 
 
 suffers. But there is a fate on me, and I must go, or I shall 
 add the ruin of others to my own." 
 
 "Yet do not go from us. Master," said Lucy ; and she laid 
 her hand, in all simplicity and kindness, upon the skirt of his 
 cloak, as if to detain him — " You shall not part from us. My 
 father is powerful, he has friends that are more so than him- 
 self — do not go till you see what his gratitude will do for you. 
 Believe me, he is already laboring 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 with 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 
 forever, and received her troth in return. The whole passed so 
 suddenl}', 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, " O do not — 
 do not ! Let your lot in life be determined — your station and 
 purpose acertained, 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.
 
 «54 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 " 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 per- 
 sonally, 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 ven- 
 geance 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 shriveled 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 adjured 
 these purposes of vengeance, though I scarce knew that such 
 was the argument by which I was conquered, until 1 saw you 
 once more, and became conscious of the influence you possessed 
 over me." 
 
 " And why do you now," said Lucy, " recall sentiments so 
 terrible — sentiments so inconsistent with those you profess 
 for me — with those 3'our 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 
 honor 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 —
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 ^^l 
 
 take back the faith and troth which you could not plight to me 
 without suffering abatement of honor — let what is passed be as 
 if it had not been — forget me — I will endeavor to forget my- 
 self." 
 
 " You do me injustice," said the Master of Ravenswood ; 
 " by all I hold true and honorable, 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 engage- 
 ment by a still firmer tie, and to show, by what I have done to 
 attain this station in your regard, how much I must suffer 
 should you ever break your faith." 
 
 " And why, Ravenswood," answered Lucy, " should you 
 think that possible .' — Why should you urge me with even the 
 mention of infidelity .'' — Is it because I ask you to delay apply- 
 ing 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, apologized, 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 broaKl-pj.e££_M-gQld which Alice j,i,j_;^ 
 had refused to receive from Ravenswood. ^ rf^ 
 
 "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 a subject of remark, if not 
 of alarm. As they rose 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 flut» 
 tered 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 Asj?- 
 ton, who came running up with a crossbow irx his hand.
 
 ,c6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 *' 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 forme ? 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 three score yards of him, and then whiz 
 went the bolt, and there he lies, faith ! Was it not well shot ? — 
 and, I daresay, I have not shot in a crossbow — not ten times 
 maybe." 
 
 " Admirably shot indeed," said Ravenswood; "and you will 
 be a fine marksman if you practise hard." 
 
 " And that's what Norman says," answered the boy; "but 
 I am sure it is not my fault if I do not practise enough ; for, 
 of free will, I would do little else, only my father and tutor are 
 angry sometimes, and only Miss Lucy there gives herself airs 
 about my being busy, for all she can sit idle by a well-side the 
 whole day, when she has a handsome young gentleman to 
 prate with — I have known her do so twenty times, if you will 
 believe me." 
 
 The boy looked at his sister as he spoke, and in the midst 
 of his mischievous chatter, had ihe sense to see that he was 
 really inflicting pain upon her, tliough 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
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 '57 
 
 satisfied with what he heard ; yet his good sense naturally re- 
 garded 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 im- 
 pressions, 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 sin- 
 cerity of her disposition. Still, however, conscious pride and 
 conscious poverty combined to render a mind suspicious, which 
 in more fortunate circumstances, would have been a stranger to 
 that as well as to every other meanness. 
 
 They reached the castle, where Sir William Ashton, who 
 had been alarmed by the length of their stay, met them in the 
 hall. 
 
 " Had Lucy," he said, " been in any other company than 
 that of one who had shown he had so complete power of pro- 
 tecting 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, became confused as she proceeded ; and 
 when Ravenswood, coming to her assistance, endeavored to 
 render the explanation complete and satisfactory, iie only in- 
 volved himself in the same disorder, like one who, endeavoring 
 to extricate his companion from a slough, entangles himself in 
 the same tenacious swamp. It cannot be supposed that the 
 confusion of the two youthful lovers escaped the observation of 
 the subtle lawyer, accustomed by habit and profession to trace 
 human nature through all her windings. But it was not his 
 present policy to take any notice of what he observed. He de- 
 sired 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 returning the passion which 
 he hoped she might inspire. If she should adopt some roman- 
 tic feelings toward Ravenswood, in which circumstances, or 
 the positive and absolute opposition of Lady Ashton, might 
 jreiider it unadvisabl? to indulge her, the Lord Keeper conceived
 
 1^8 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 they might easily be superseded and annulled by a journey to 
 Edinburgh, or even 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 favor 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 con- 
 tents 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 labor- 
 ing hard under-hand 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 con- 
 venient friend had been such, that he had obtained from Sir 
 William, not indeed a directly favorable answer, but certainly 
 a most patient hearing. 'I'his he had reported to his principal, 
 who had replied by the ancient French adage, " Chateau qui 
 park, etfemme q/iic'coiitc, P un et l' autre va se re)idre." A statesman 
 who hears you propose a change of measures without reply, was, 
 according to the Marquis's opinion, in the situation of the for- 
 tress 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 coun- 
 try to go to the southward — the roads were indifferent, the ac- 
 commodation of the iims as execrable as possible — the Lord 
 Keeper had been long acquainted intimately with one of his cor- 
 respondents, 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 in- 
 stantly accepted the offered visit, determined, however, that he 
 would not pledge himself an inch further for the furtherance of 
 their views than reasou (by which he meant his own self-interest) 
 should plainly point out to him as jiroper. 
 
 Two circumstances particularly delighted him — the presence 
 of Ravenswood, and the absence of his own lady. By having 
 the former under his own 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 im-
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 159 
 
 mediate 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 re- 
 ceive his kinsman were of course readily complied with, since 
 the c'claircissement 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 neces- 
 sary 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 TWENTIETH. 
 
 Marall. — Sir, the man of honor'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 in- 
 formation, 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 even- 
 ing after he had left the room, " some general anxiety upon 
 this occasion, for the Marquis's visit is an honor, and should
 
 ,6o THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 be received as such ; but I am worn out by these miserabl* 
 minutiae of the buttery, and the larder, and the very hen-coop 
 — 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 minu- 
 tire that my father acquired the property" 
 
 '' Which my ancestors sold for lack of it," replied Ravens- 
 wood. " 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 misconstrued and mistaken, 
 that her rules and forms were the subject of the most opposite 
 opinions, and the most hostile animosities. The Lord Keeper, 
 being a whig, was, of course, a Presbyterian, and had found it 
 convenient, at different periods, to express greater zeal for the 
 kirk than perhaps he really felt. His family, equally of course, 
 were trained under the same institution. Ravenswood, as we 
 know, was a High-Churchman, or Episcopalian, and frequently 
 objected to Lucy the fanaticism of some of her own com- 
 munion, 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 a higher, 
 prouder character, than those with whom she had hitherto 
 mixed in intercourse ; his ideas were more fierce and free ; and 
 he contemned many of the opinions which had been inculcated r, 
 upon her, as chiefly demanding her veneration. On the other J 
 hand, Ravenswood saw in Lucy ^a soft and flexible character, '-^^ 
 which, in his eyes at least, seemed too susceptible of beiiig 
 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, re- 
 solved as himself to dare indifferently the storm and the favor- 
 ing breeze. But Lucy was so beautiful, so devoutly attached
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. i6t 
 
 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 be- 
 came 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 toward her at such moments, were 
 those which have been since so beautifully expressed by qui 
 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 affec- 
 tion. 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 re- 
 ceive 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 un- 
 willing attendant upon the lessons of his tutor, or a forward
 
 l62 THE BRIDE OF LA^rMER^IOOR. 
 
 volunteer under the instructions of the foresters or grooms. As 
 for the Keeper, his mornings were spent in his study, maintain- 
 ing correspondences of all kinds, and balancing in his anxious 
 mind the various intelligence which he collected from every 
 quarter concerning the expected change in Scottish politics, 
 and the probable strength of the parties who were about to 
 struggle for power. At other times he busied himself about 
 arranging, and countermanding, and then again arranging, the 
 preparations which he judged necessarv' for the reception of the 
 
 Marquis of A , whose arrival had been twice delayed by 
 
 some necessar}' 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 neighbors, according to the fashion 
 of neighbors in all countries, for suffering such an intimate 
 connection 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 temporize and procras- 
 tinate, 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 over- 
 reached himself deplorably. 
 
 Amongst those who had been disposed to censure with the 
 greatest severity the conduct of Sir William Ashton, in permit- 
 ting 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 bottle-holder, 
 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), notwith- 
 standing Captain Craigengelt had proposed to him a most ad- 
 vantageous 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 wis- 
 dom from adversity, that he would listen to n^ proposal which 
 Craigengelt could invent, which had the slightest tendency to 
 risk his newly-acquired independence. He that once had eaten 
 pease bannocks, drank sour wine and slept in the secret chamber
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 163 
 
 at Wolf's Crag, would, he said, prize good cheer and a soft bed 
 as long as he lived, and take special care not 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 Scot- 
 tish 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 con- 
 stant, 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 Ravens- 
 wood had torn the mask of courage and honesty from his counten- 
 nance ; and to exasperate I^ucklaw's resentment against him, was 
 the safest mode of revenge that 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 endeavored, by 
 every possible insinuation, to make his patron believe that his 
 honor was concerned in bringing that matter to an issue by a 
 present discussion with Ravenswood. But respecting his subject, 
 Bucklaw imposed on him, at length, a peremptory command of 
 silence. 
 
 " I think." he said, " the Master has treated me unlike a gen 
 tleman, 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 practise, Bucklaw, I would bet a magnum you are through 
 him before the third pass,"
 
 164 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 " 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 Ravens- 
 wood fence, have I not been at Monsieur Sagoon's school, who 
 was the first maitre iV ar7nes at Paris; and have I not been at 
 Signor Poco's at Florence, and Meinheer Durchstossen's at 
 Vienna, and have I not seen all their play ? " 
 
 "I don't know whether you have or not," said Bucklaw; 
 " but what about it, though you had ? " 
 
 " Only that I will be d — d if ever I saw French, Italian, or 
 High-Dutchman, ever make foot, hand, and eye, keep time half 
 so well as you, Bucklaw." 
 
 " I believe you lie, Craigie," said Bucklaw ; " however, I can 
 hold my own both with single rapier, backsword, sword and 
 dagger, broadsword, or case of falchions — and that's as much 
 as any gentleman need know of the matter." 
 
 " And the double of what ninety-nine out of a hundred 
 know," said Craigengelt ; " they learn to change a few thrusts 
 with the small sword, and then, forsooth, they understand the 
 noble art of defence ! Now, when I was at Rouen in the year 
 1695, there was a Chevalier de Chapon and I went to the Opera, 
 where we found three bits of English birkies" 
 
 " Is it a long story you are going to tell .■' " said Bucklaw, in- 
 terrupting 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 Hie- 
 landman says Skloch dock na skiailir * 
 
 " That was what tough old Sir Evan Dhu used to say to 
 me when I was out with the metal'd lads in 1689. 'Craigen- 
 gelt,' he used to say, ' you are as pretty a fellow as ever held 
 Bteel in his grip, but 3'ou have one fault.' " 
 
 " If he had known you as long as I have done," said Buck- 
 law, " he would have found out some twenty more ; but hang 
 long stories, give us your toast, man." 
 
 Craigengelt rose, went on tiptoe to the door, peeped out, 
 shut it carefully, came back again — clapped his tarnished gold 
 
 * "Cut a drink with a tale ; " equivalent to the English adage of boon 
 companions, " Don't preach over your liquor."
 
 THE BRIDE OE LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Tt^S 
 
 laced hat on one side of his head, took his glass in one hand, 
 and touching the hilt of his hanger with the other, named, 
 " The King over the water." 
 
 " I tell you what it is, Captain Craigengelt," said Bucklaw ; 
 " I shall keep my mind to myself on these subjects, having too 
 much respect for the memory of my venerable aunt Girnington 
 to put her lands and tenements in the way of committing 
 treason against established authority. Bring me King James 
 to Edinburgh, Captain, with thirty thousand men at his back, 
 and I'll tell you what I think about his title; but as for run- 
 ning 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 vapor 
 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 brim- 
 mer, " the bonniest lass in Lothian. What a pity the old sneck- 
 drawing whigamore, her father, is about to throw her away 
 upon that rag of pride and beggary, the Master of Ravens- 
 wood ! " 
 
 " 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 him- 
 self into some sort of confidence, which might make him 
 necessary to his patron, being by no means satisfied to rest on 
 mere sufferance, if he could form by art or industry a more 
 permanent title to his favor. 
 
 " 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 Lammerlaw and Taprain." 
 
 •' They may say what they please," replied his patron, " but 
 I know better ; and I'll give you Miss Lucy Ashton's health 
 again, my boy.'' 
 
 " And I would drink it on my knee," said Craigengelt, " if 
 I thought the girl had the spirit to jilt that d — d son of a 
 Spaniard." 
 
 " I am to request you will not use the word jilt and Miss 
 Ashton's name together," said Bucklaw, gravely. 
 
 " Jilt, did I say ? — discard, my lad of acres — by JpvjC, I 
 meant to say discard," replied Craigengelt ; " and I Iiope she'll
 
 1 66 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 Buck 
 law. "And now fill your glass again, Captain, I am going to 
 make you happy — I am going to let you into a secret — a plot 
 — a noosing plot — only the noose is but typical." 
 
 "A marrying matter?" said Craigengelt, and his jaw fell as 
 he asked the question ; for he suspected that matrimony would 
 render his situation at Girnington much more precarious than 
 during the jolly days of his patron's bachelorhood. 
 
 "Ay, a marriage, man," said Bucklaw ; but wherefore droops 
 thy mighty spirit, and why grow the rubies on thy cheek so 
 pale ."* The board will have a corner, and the corner will 
 have a trencher, and the trencher will have a glass beside it ; 
 and the board-end shall be filled, and the trencher and the 
 glass shall be replenished for thee, if all the petticoats in 
 Lothian had sworn the contrary — What, man ! I am not the boy 
 to put myself into leading-strings ? " 
 
 " So says many an honest fellow," said Craigengelt, " and 
 some of my special friends ; but, curse me if I know the reason, 
 the women could never bear me, and always contrived to trun- 
 dle me out of favor 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 circum- 
 stances, and see if I will not be useful in all uses that can be 
 devised."
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 167 
 
 " 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 kins- 
 woman 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 re- 
 member, that, in my extremities, you had a mind to crhnp me 
 for the service of the French king, or of the Pretender ; and, 
 moreover, that you afterward lent me a score of pieces, when, 
 as I firmly believe, you had heard the news that old Lady Girn- 
 ington 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 counselor at present. 
 To return to this Lady Blenkensop, you must know she is a 
 close confederate of Duchess Sarah." 
 
 " What ! of Sail Jennings 1 " 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 favored Lady 
 Blenkensop with a visit on her return from London, and is just 
 now at her old mansion-house on the banks of the Wansbeck. 
 Now, sir, as it has been the use and wont of these ladies to con- 
 sider 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 honorable self. Lady Ashton acting a self-constituted pleni- 
 potentiary on the part of her daughter and husband and Mother 
 Blenkensop, equally unaccredited, doing me the honor to be 
 my representative. You may suppose I was a little aston- 
 ished when I found that a treaty, in which I was so consider- 
 ably interested, had advanced a good way before I was even 
 consulted."
 
 l68 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOK. 
 
 " Capo* me if I think that was according to the rules oi the 
 game," saici his confidant ; " and pray, what answer did you re- 
 turn ? " 
 
 " Why, ray first thought was to send the treaty to the devil, 
 and the negotiators along with it, for a couple of medding old 
 women ; my next was to laugh very heartily ; and my third and 
 last was a settled opinion that the thing was reasonable, and 
 would suit me well enough." 
 
 " Why, I thought you had never seen the wench but once — • 
 and then she had her riding-mask on — I am sure you told 
 me so." 
 
 "Ay — but I liked her very well then. And Rav«nswood'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 1 " 
 
 '• No more you should, if you are a lad of metal," said Craig- 
 engelt, the matter now taking a turn in which he could sym- 
 pathize , " 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 behavior at his old tumble-down tower 
 yonder — Ashamed of your company i* — 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 that 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 \v\x\ 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 entertaine<|
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMO'OR. 169 ^-^ 
 
 the proposal of my kinswoman, agreed to the terms of jointure, 
 amount of fortune, and so forth, and that the affair is to go for- 
 ward when Lady Ashton comes down, for she takes her daugh- 
 ter and her son in her own hand. Now they want me to send 
 up a confidential person with some writings." 
 
 " By this good wine, I'll ride to the end of the world— the 
 very gates of Jericho, and the judgment-seat of Prester John, 
 for thee 1 " 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 stock- 
 ings." 
 
 " 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, nor 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 thr gallop, like a cow chased by a whole 
 nest of hornets, and her tail twisted over her rump like a cork- 
 screw. ' 
 
 " 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 nae iU — How-
 
 ,yo THE BRIDE OF LA MM ER MOOR. 
 
 ever," 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 }our 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." 
 
 " O ay, true — she is a whig, and a friend of old Sail of 
 Marlborough — thank my stars, I can hoist any cokrs at a pinch. 
 I have fought as hard under John Churchill as evei 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 1 " 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST. 
 
 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 equi- 
 page 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 
 favor of a new acquaintance can, for a time at least, discover 
 excellencies in his very faults, and perfections in his deficien- 
 cies. Although both ladies were accustomed to good society, 
 yet, being predetermined 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 Craig- 
 engelt was now handsomely dressed, and that was a point of no 
 small consequence. But, independent of outward show, black- 
 guard impudence of address was construed into honorable
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 171 
 
 Wuntness, 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 dis- 
 cernment was greatly blinded, and their favor propitiated, by 
 the opportune arrival of Captain Craigengelt in the moment 
 when they were longing for a third hand to make a party a^ 
 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 favor, his next point 
 was how best to use it for the futherance of his patron's views. 
 He found Lady Ashton prepossessed strongly in favor of the 
 motion, which Lady Blenkensop, partly from regard to her 
 kinsman, partly from the spirit of match-making, had not hesi- 
 tated to propose to her ; so that his task was an easy one. Buck- 
 law, reformed from his prodigalit}^, was just the sort of husband 
 which she desired to have for her Shepherdess of Lammer- 
 moor; and while the marriage gave her aiTeasy lortune, and a 
 respectable country gentleman for her husband, Lady Ashton 
 was of opinion that her'destinies would be fully and most favor- 
 ably accomplished. It so chanced, also, that Bucklaw, among 
 his new acquisitions, had gained the management of a little 
 political interest in a neighboring 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 favorable to her wishes. 
 
 Craigengelt, who in his way by no means wanted sagacity, 
 no sooner discovered in what quarter the wind of Lady Ashton's 
 wishes sate, than he trimmed his course accordingly. " There 
 was little to prevent Bucklaw himself from sitting for the 
 county — he must carry the heat — must walk the course. Two 
 cousins-german — six more distant kinsmen, his factor and his 
 chamberlain, were all hollow votes — and the Girnington inter- 
 est 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 destmed 
 son-in-law, for the benefit of her eldest born, Sholto, and all 
 other parties concerned. 
 
 When he found her ladyship thus favorably disposed, the
 
 tji 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Captain proceeded, to use his employer's phase, to set spurs to 
 her resolution, by hinting at the situation of matters at Ravens- 
 wood 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 neighborhood. It was not the Captain's 
 cue to appear hunself to be uneasy on the subject of these 
 rumors ; but he easily saw from Lady Ashton's flushed cheek, 
 hesitating voice, and flashing eyes, that she had caught the 
 alarm which he intended to communicate. She had not heard 
 from her husband so often or so regularly as she thought him 
 bound in duty to have written, and of this very interesting in- 
 telligence, concerning his visit to the Tower of Wolf's Crag, 
 and the guest whom, with such cordiality, he had received at 
 Ravenswood Castle, he had suffered his lady to remain alto- 
 gether ignorant, until she now learned it by the chance infor- 
 mation of a stranger. Such concealment approached, in her 
 apprehension, to a misprision, at least, of treason, if not to 
 actual rebellion against her matrimonial authority, and in her 
 inward soul did she vow to take vengeance on the Lord Keeper, 
 as on a subject detected in meditating re\olt Her indigna- 
 tion burned the more fiercely, as she found herself obliged to 
 suppress it in presence of Lady Blenkensop, kinswoman, and of 
 Craigengelt, the confidential friend of Bucklaw, of whose al- 
 liance 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. 
 
 Tire 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 de- 
 spatch which the state of the roads, and the mode of traveling, 
 would possibly permit. 
 
 Unhappy Lord Keeper ! — little was he aware what a storm- 
 was traveling toward 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 honor his castle at one in the 
 afternoon, bi ing a late dinner-hour, and much was the bustle 
 in consequence of the annunciation. The Lord Keeper tra- 
 versed the chambers, held consultation with the butler in the 
 cellars, and even ventured, at the risk of a demiU with a cook,
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. jyj 
 
 of a spirit lofty enough to scorn the admonitions of Lady Ash- 
 ton herself, to peep into the kitchen. Satisfied, at length, that 
 everything was in as active a train of preparation as was pos- 
 sible, he summoned Ravenswood and his daughter to walk upon 
 the terrace, for the purpose of watching from that commandii.g 
 position, the earliest symptoms of his lordship's approach, Foi 
 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 storey ; while 
 visitors found access to the court by a projecting gateway, the 
 bartisan 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, grad 
 ually approached each other, until they joined not far fron 
 the gate of the avenue. It was to the westward approach ihal 
 the Lord Keeper, from a sort ol 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 Mar- 
 quis's approach. 
 
 These were not long of presenting themselves. Two run- 
 ning footmen, dressed in while, with black jockey-caps, ano 
 long stafifs in their hands, headed the train ; and such was theii 
 agility, that they found no difficulty in keeping the necessar} 
 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 (1 
 would particularly instance " Middleton's Mad World, m) 
 Master "), and perhaps may be still remembered by some olc 
 persons in Scotland, as part of the retinue of the ancieni 
 nobility when traveling 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 tho 
 Marquis. 
 
 * Note I. Running Footmeti.
 
 jy . THE BRIDE OF LA MM ER MOOR. 
 
 The privilege of nobility, in those days, had something in n 
 impressive on the imagination. The dresses and liveries, and 
 number of their attendants, their style of traveling, the impos- 
 ing, and almost warlike air of the armed men who surrounded 
 them, placed them far above the laird, who traveled with his 
 brace of footmen . and as to rivalry from the mercantile part 
 of the community, these would as soon have thought of 'mi- 
 lating the state equipage of the Sovereign. At present 1 is 
 different ; and I myself, Peter Pattieson, in a late journey to 
 Edmburgh, had the honor, in the mail-coach phrase, to " change 
 a leg " with a peer of the realm. It was not so in the days of 
 which I write ; and the Marquis's approach, so long expected 
 m vain, now took place in the full pomp of ancient aristocracy, 
 tjir William Ashton was so much interested in what he beheld 
 and in considenng the ceremonial of reception in case any cir- 
 cumstance 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 tum'd his eyes, and, as he tum'd, survey'd 
 An awful vision 
 
 Sure enough, another coach and six, with four servants or 
 out-riders in attendance, was descending the hill from the east- 
 ward, 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 sup- 
 posed the hypochondriac idea of a spectre appearing in a cer- 
 tain shape at a given hour, placed before him a person dressed 
 up in the manner he described. "■ Afon Dieii !" sz\<\ the ex- 
 piring sinner, who, it seems, saw both the real and polygraphia 
 apparition — " il y en a deux! " 
 
 The surprise of the Lord Keeper was scarcely less unpleas- 
 ing at the duplication of the expected arrival ; his mind mis- 
 gave him strangely. There was no neighbor who would have 
 approached so unceremoniously, at a time when ceremony was 
 held in such respect. It must be Lady Ashton, said his con 
 science, and followed up the hint with an anxious anticipation
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. ,ye 
 
 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 to- 
 gether 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 of 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 sooth-i 
 ing encouragement, " you are too childishly afraid of Lady] 
 Ashton, she is a woman of family— a Tady of fashion — a per-; 
 son 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 scrutinized her 
 deportment, she withdrew herself from beside Ravenswood, and 
 taking her brother Henry's arm, led him to a different part of 
 the terrace. The Keeper also shuffled down toward 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 propor- 
 tion to his poverty, and who thought that, in sacrificing his 
 deep-rooted sentiments so far as to become Sir William Ashton's 
 guest, he conferred a favor 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 as- 
 sumed, and leave me no reason to suspect that she is ashamed 
 of her choice. For the Keeper, sense, spirit, and expression
 
 jy6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 seem to have left his face and manner since he had the first 
 glimpse of Lady Ashton's carnage. I must watch how this is 
 to end ; and, if they give me reason to think myself an un- 
 welcome guest, my visit is soon abridged." 
 
 With these suspicions floating on his mind, he left the ter- 
 race, and walking toward the stables of the castle, gave direc- 
 tions that his horse should be kept in readiness, in case he 
 should have occasion to ride abroad. 
 
 In the meanwhile the drivers of the two carriages, the ap- 
 proach of which had occasioned so much dismay at the castle, 
 had become aware of each other's presence, as they approached 
 upon different lines to the head of the avenue, as a common 
 centre. Lady Ashton's driver and postillions 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 dign'ity 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 coach- 
 men, who, fixing their eyes sternly on each other, and app4ying 
 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 possl 
 bility 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 thmk 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 honor, 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 
 •.vith the speed of a whirlwind. The Marquis's laced charioteer 
 no sooner found the/rfj' d^ ava/iCc \\3.s granted to him, than he 
 resumed a more deliberate pace, at which he advanced undej
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMCOR. lyy 
 
 the embowering shade of the lofty ehiis, surrounded by all the 
 attendants ; while the carriage of Lady Ashton followed, stilJ 
 more slowly, at some distance. 
 
 In the front of the castle, and beneath the portal which ad- 
 mitted 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 liver}'. 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 com- 
 pliments 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 en- 
 tertained 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 symptoms of what was chiefly occu- 
 pying his mind, by introducing his daughter as " his wife. Lady 
 Ashton." 
 
 Lucy blushed , the Marquis looked surprised at the ex- 
 tremely 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 lord- 
 ship'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 
 gee Lady Ashton and eacounter the first burst of her displea^
 
 jyg THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 lire in private, might prepare her, in some degreo, 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 cavalicre servefite, or squire in attend- 
 ance, during the journey. Taking hold of this respectable per- 
 son's arm as if to support her. Lady Ashton traversed the court, 
 uttering a word or two by the way of direction to the servants, 
 but not one to Sir William, who in vain endeavored to attract 
 her attention, as he rather followed than accompanied her into 
 the hall, in which they found the Marquis m close conversation 
 with the Master of Ravenswood : Lucy had taken the first op- 
 portunity of escaping. There was embarrassment on every 
 
 countenance except that of the Marquis of A ; for even 
 
 Craigengelt's impudence was hardly able to veil his fear of 
 Ravenswood, and the rest felt the awkwardness of the position 
 in which they were thus unexpectedly placed. 
 
 After waiting a moment to be presented by Sir William 
 Ashton, the Marquis resolved to introduce himself. "The 
 Lord Keeper," he said, bowing to Lady Ashton, " has just in- 
 troduced 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 peace- 
 making visit, and therefore I presume to introduce my cousin, 
 the young Master of Ravenswood, to your favorable notice." 
 
 Lady Ashton could not choose but courtesy ; but there V'as 
 in her obeisance an air of haughtiness approaching to contemp- 
 tuous repulse. Ravenswood could not choose but bow ; but 
 his manner returned the scorn with which l^e 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 — " Vou 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,
 
 THE BRIDE ^F LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 175 
 
 which intimated his wish, that peace and amnesty should take 
 place betwixt the contending parties, including tlie auxiliaries 
 on both sides. " Let mc introduce you to the Master of Ravens- 
 wood," 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 toward 
 the person thus introduced to him, he said, in a marked tone^ 
 " Captain Craigengelt and I are already perfectly well ac- 
 quainted 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 her- 
 self under no restraint ; and Craigengelt, bolting with speed a 
 second glass of racy Canary, hastened to leave the room, feel 
 ing no great pleasure in the prospect of bemg left alone with 
 
 the Marquis of A and the Master of Ravenswood , the 
 
 presence of the former holding him m 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, al- 
 though 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. '"^fJ- 
 
 So soon as the spouses had both entered, her ladyship gave r* 
 way to that fierce audacity of temper, which she had with diffi- 
 culty 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 yean had not bereft 
 of its haughty charms, and eyes which spoke at once resolution 
 and resentment, she addressed her astounded husl^and in these 
 words : — " My lord, I am not greatly surprised at the connec- 
 tions you have been pleased to form during my absence — they
 
 l8o THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 are entirely in conformity with your birth and breeding ; and if 
 I did expect anything else, I heartily own my error, and that 1 
 merit, by having done so, the disappointment you had prepared 
 for me." 
 
 " My dear Lady Ashton — my dear Eleanor," said the Lord 
 Keeper, " listen to reason for a moment, and I will convince 
 you 1 have acted with all the regard due to the dignity, as well 
 as the interest, of my family." 
 
 "To the interest of jY^//r 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 re- 
 turn 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 opin- 
 ions, and led you, for what I know, to be on the point of marry- 
 ing 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 civility, 
 would you have me do, madam .-' " answered her husband — " Is 
 it possible for me, v'^'ith ordinary decency, to turn a young gentle- 
 man out of my house, w ho saved my daughter's life and my own, 
 but the other morning as it w^ere ? " 
 
 " 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 hosDitality." 
 
 " Lady Ashton," stammered the Keeper, " this is intolerable 
 — and when I am desirous, too, to make you easy by any sacri- 
 fice — 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 foi 
 you to offer him lodgings at the castle — I expect young Mr. 
 Hayst. n )f Bucklaw." 
 
 "Good heavens, madam !" ejaculated her husband — "Ra- 
 venswood 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."
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. igi 
 
 " Since you saw him there, you might be well assured," an- 
 swered 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, con- 
 tending 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 tcr- 
 mine, 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 pre- 
 vent you ; but I will not at least be the agent in such a prepos- 
 terous proceeding." 
 
 *' You will not .'' " asked the lady. 
 
 " No, by heavens, madam I " her husband replied ; " ask me 
 anything congruent with common decency, as to drop his 
 acquaintance by degrees, or the like — but to bid him leave my 
 house is what I will not, and cannot consent to." 
 
 " Then the task of supporting the honor 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 anteroom. " 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 a hundred Doug- 
 lases, and a hundred devils to boot. Think of it for a night 
 only." 
 
 " Not for another moment," answered the lady ; — " here, 
 Mrs. PatuUo, give this billet to young Ravenswood." 
 
 " To the Master, madam 1 " 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 
 fvinter fruit for the dessert." 
 
 *' Do so," said the lady, looking after him with glances of
 
 1 82 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 'infinite contempt : " and thank God that you leave one behind 
 yot: as fit to protect the honor of the family, as you are to look 
 after pippins and pears." 
 
 The Lord Keeper remained long enough in the garden to 
 give her Ladyship's mind time to explode, and to let, as he 
 thought, at least the first violence of Ravenswood's displeasure 
 blow over. When he entered the hall, he found the ALirquis 
 
 of A giving orders to some of his attendants. He seemed 
 
 in high displeasure, and interrupted an apology which Sii 
 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 favored by your lady — and, of course, 
 that you are prepared to receive my adieus — My kinsman is 
 already gone, having thought it unnecessar}' to offer any on his 
 part, since all former civilities had been canceled 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 ot 
 taken ; but I hope your Lordship will consider that a lady " ■ 
 
 " Should bear herself toward 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 interrupt- 
 ing him, " should be taught the duties which correspond to her 
 station. Rut 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 lady- 
 ship's guests. 
 
 Lady Ashton accordingly entered the appartment at this 
 moment. Her dispute with Sir William, and a subsequent 
 interview with her daughter, had not prevented her from attend- 
 ing to the duties of her toilette. She appeared in full dress, 
 and, from the character of her countenance and manner, well 
 became the splendor 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 demeanor. He 
 then took from the passive hand of Sir William Ashton the 
 billet he had given him the moment before he approached the 
 *ady, and was about to speak, when she interrupted him. " \
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 183 
 
 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 recep- 
 tion due to your lordship — but so it is. — Mr. Edgar Ravens- 
 wood, 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 in- 
 capable " said the Lord Marquis. 
 
 " I am confident that my daughter Lucy is still more in- 
 capable " said the Lord Keeper. 
 
 Lady Ashton at once interrupted, and replied to them both. 
 — " My Lord Marquis, your kinsman, if Mr. Ravenswood has 
 Ihe honor 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 the right to know the cause of the treat- 
 ment 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 deli- 
 cate, permit me to say, that my kinsman's birth and connections 
 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 Ash- 
 ton 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
 
 l84 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 an difficult to get over — I make every allowance for them — 1 
 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 until 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 honor it 
 with his residence ; but touching the further discussion of this 
 disagreeable topic " 
 
 " Pardon me, good madam," said the Marquis, " but I can- 
 not 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 periling 
 what I prize so highly upon any disagreeable subject of discus- 
 sion — at least, till we have talked over more pleasant topics." 
 
 The lady smiled, courtesied, and gave her hand to the Mar- 
 quis, 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 
 neighbors 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 enter- 
 tainment was splendid to profusion, and was protracted till a 
 'ate hour.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. ig^ 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND. 
 
 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 spiiit 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 loath 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 fore- 
 close any chance of reconciliation which might arise out of the 
 partiality which Sir William Ashton had shown toward him, as 
 well as the intercessory arguments of his noble kinsman. He 
 himself departed without a moment's delay, further 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 stupefy 
 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 endeavored to repress. The path in which he found 
 himself led him to the Mermaiden's Fountain, and to the cottage 
 ^f 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 truthj 
 
 ,^{jjw>^
 
 l86 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 he said to himself ; " and the Mermaiden's Well has indeed wifr 
 nessed 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 dishonored — 
 not the dependent 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 
 cortsidering the distance of the time, and propensity of those 
 through whose mouths it has passed to the marvelous, this 
 could not be called a Scottish story, unless it manifested a 
 tinge of Scottish superstition. As Ravenswood ajDproached 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 t< 
 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 grayish mantle, 
 placed on the very spot on which Lucy Ashton had reclined 
 while listening to the fatal tale of love. His immediate impres- 
 sion 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 in a parting interview. In this belief he 
 jumped from his horse, and making its bridle fast to a tree, 
 walked hastily toward the fountain, pronouncing eagerly, yet 
 under his breath, the words, " Miss Ashton ! — Lucy! " 
 
 The figure turned as he addressed it, and discovered lo his 
 wondering eyes the features, not of Lucy Ashton, but of old 
 blind Alice. The singularity of her dress, which rather re- 
 sembled 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 circumstances 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 shriveled 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 
 toward her, Alice, or her apparition, moved, or glided, back- 
 ward toward the thicket, still keeping her face turned toward
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. jgy 
 
 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 stood when he 
 caught his last view of her. At length, summoning up his 
 courage, he advanced to tiie 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 wit- 
 nessed some preternatural appearance, the Master of Ravens- 
 wood walked back toward his horse, frequently, however, look- 
 ing behind him, not without apprehension, as if expecting that 
 the vision would re-appear. 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 sweat 
 ing and terrified, as if experiencing that agony of fear with 
 which the presence of a supernatural being is supposed to agi- 
 tate 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 mat' 
 ter 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 exist- 
 ing person. Must I adopt the popular creed, and think that the 
 unhappy being has formed a league with the powers of dark- 
 ness i* — I am determined to be resolved — I will not brook im- 
 position 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 wilhin 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 Ravens- 
 wood, 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 sob- 
 bing, betwixt childish fear and sorrow, over ttie body of her 
 mistress. 
 
 /MjM^
 
 ,8g THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR 
 
 The Master of Ravenswood had some difficulty to compost 
 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 mes- 
 sengers of the poor are tardy and negligent : the fellow had not 
 reached the castle, as was afterward learned, until Ravenswood 
 had left it, and had then found too much amusement among 
 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 
 jher master's son once more, and renew her warning." She died 
 just as the clock in the distant village tolled one; and Ravens- 
 wood remembered, with internal shudderings, 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, so commonly found to exist among the Scottish 
 peasantry, and despatched Babie to the neighboring village to 
 procure the assistance of some females, assuring her that, in the 
 meanwhile, he would himself remain with the dead body, which, 
 as in Thessaly of old, it is accounted highly unfit to leave with- 
 out 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 ex- 
 traordinary. " 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 ol
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. jgg 
 
 nature, survive its catastrophe, surmount the awful bounds of 
 (he spiritual world, and place before us its inhabitants in the 
 hues and coloring of life ? — And why was that manifested to 
 the eye which could not unfold its tale to the ear ? — and where- 
 fore 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 appro- 
 priate 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 honored and respected 
 friend of her father, into the melancholy and solitary guardian 
 of the abandoned and forsaken corpse of a comnion pauper. 
 
 He was relieved, however, from his sad office sooner than he 
 could reasonably have expected, considering the distance be- 
 twixt the hut of the deceased and the village, and the age and 
 infirmities of three old women, who came from thence, in mili- ■ 
 tary 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 upward, the second was paralytic, and the third lame of a 
 leg from some accident. But the burial duties rendered to the 6.c^tM(/ 
 deceased, are, to the Scottish peasant of either sex, a labor of fi 
 love. I know not whether it is from the temper of the people, 5 .".(). 
 grave and enthusiastic as it certainly is, or from the recollection ' ^■^-^-'WJ 
 of the ancient Catholic opinions, when the funeral rites were 
 always considered as a period of festival to the living , but feast 
 ing, good cheer, and even inebriety, were, and are, the frequent 
 accompaniments of a Scottish old-fashioned burial. What the 
 funeral feast or dh^e, 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 woolen shroud, were operations committed always 
 to the 0I4 matrons of the village, and in which they found a 
 singular and gloomy delight.
 
 10b THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOORi 
 
 The o!d women paid the Master their salutations with a 
 
 , , -ghastly smile, which reminded him of the meeting betwixt 
 
 ■■ ^ J LMacbeth 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 leav^e 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 Armltage, 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 wore a grisly smile, 
 
 ' ,, — "he dwells near the Tod's Hole, a house of entertainment 
 
 '^where there has been mony a blithe birling — for death and 
 
 u^ drink-draining are near neighbors 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 mmd when the father of this Master of 
 Ravenswood that is now standing before us, sticked young 
 Blackball with his whinger, for a wrang word said over 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 a man's body." 
 
 It may easily be believed, that this ill-timed anecdote hast- 
 ened 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 
 girths 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 octogenarian 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 low croaking dialogue was necessarily over- 
 heard by the Master of Ravenswood : — 
 
 "That's afresh and full-grown hemlock, Annie Winnie-^ 
 mony a cummer lang syne wad hae sought nae better horse to
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 I9t 
 
 flee over hill and how, through mist and moonlight, and light 
 down in 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 
 whin-stane. They prick us and they pine us, and they pi' us 
 on the pinny-winkles for witches ; and, if I say my prayers 
 backward ten times ower, Satan will never gie me amends o' 
 them." 
 
 " Did ye ever see the foul thief ? " asked her neighbor, 
 
 " 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, 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 lungies — he wad mak a 
 bonny corpse — I wad like to hae the streaking 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 for- 
 bears hae 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, Ailsie 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^
 
 tgi 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 " 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 vaticina- 
 tion, 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 hy- 
 pochondriac 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 seventeenth century. But the vision of 
 tha"^ morning, whether real or imaginary, had impressed his 
 mind with a superstitious feeling which he in vain endeavored 
 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 
 toward 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 time done penance, and given name to the 
 place. The rich abbey of Coldinghame had, in latter days, 
 established a chapel in the neighborhood, 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 <here of old, but 
 their names were forgotten, and their monuments demolished. 
 The only sepulchral memorials which remained, were the up- 
 right headstones which marked 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, bein|;
 
 THE BRIDE 01 LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 ^91 
 
 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 occu- 
 pation 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 accordingly, to give meeting to 
 his noble kinsman. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD. 
 
 Hamlet. — Has this fellow no feeling of his business ? — he sings at 
 
 grave making. 
 HoRAXro. — 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 I. 
 
 The sleep of Ravenswood was broken by ghastly and 
 agitating visions, and his waking intervals disti:rbed by melan- 
 choly reflections on the past, and painful anticipations of the 
 future. He was perhaps the only traveler who ev;r slept in 
 that miserable kennel without complaining of his lodgings, or 
 feeling inconvenience from their deficiencies. It is when ^he 
 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 toward 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 laboring 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
 
 J94 ^^^ BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 not immediately speak, the sexton opened the discourse in his 
 own way. 
 
 "Ye will be a wedding customer, sir, I'sc warrant," 
 
 "What makes you think so, friend ? " replied the Master, 
 ^^^v^'"I live by twa trades, sir," replied the blithe old man; 
 ^*y^ "fiddle, sir, and spade ; filling the world, and emptying of it ; 
 and T'sLild ken baith cast of customers by head-mark in thirty 
 years' practice." 
 
 " You are mistaken, however, this morning," replied Ra- 
 venswood. 
 
 " 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 
 somethmg 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 decent 
 interment of an old woman, Alice Gray, who lived at the Craig- 
 foot 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 over her southland nose at 
 us a'. I trow her pride got a downcome. And is she e'en 
 gane ? " 
 
 " She died j-esterday," 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 
 indii^ction of response, " I ken where a'body lies, that lies here. 
 But ye were speaking o' her grave ? — Lord help us — it's no an 
 ordinar grave tliat will hand 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 reasonable charges." 
 
 '• Reasonable charges ? " said the sexton ; " ou, there's grund- 
 mail — 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 dirgic — I am no thinkaig that you can 
 inter her, to ca' decently, under snxteen pound 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, J 'se warrant," said the
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 195 
 
 hoary man of skulls • " I hae heard she married far below her sta- 
 tion ; it was very right to let he; bite on the bridle when she 
 was living, and it's very right to gie her a decent burial now she's 
 dead, 'or 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 of 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 the relations on a 
 bridal occasion neither?" said Ravenswood, who was amused 
 with the professional limitation of the gravedigger's philan- 
 thropy. 
 
 The old man cast up his sharp gray 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 sulci 
 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 daresay," replied Ravenswood, 
 "would atone for the absence of all others." 
 
 The sexton ''gain 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 ourock 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 
 buiial-place." 
 
 " They are no favorites, then, of yours, these Ravenswoods ? " 
 said the Master, not much pleased with the passing benediction 
 which was thus bestowed on his family and name. 
 
 " I kenna wha should favor them," said the gravedigger ; 
 " 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 un- 
 happy family deserved ill-will at the hands of their country, I 
 grant their poverty — if that renders them contemptible." 
 
 It will gang a far away 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
 
 ,g6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 as for the Ravcnswoods, I hae seen three generations of them, 
 deil ane to mend o;'ier." 
 
 " 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 gude-sire body of a lord, I Hved on his land when I was 
 a swanking young chield, and could hae blavvn the trumpet 
 wi' onybody, for I had wind enough then — and toucliing 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 cir- 
 cumstances, 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 
 ther whiles when there was company about, and it pleased my 
 lord ; and when he raised his militia to caper awa to BothwelJ 
 Brigg against the wrang-headed wastland Whigs, I behoved, 
 reason or nane, 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 brae-side, 
 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 
 md se'enty-nine, of a' the days of the month and year, — drums 
 heat — guns rattled — horses kicked and trampled. Hackstoun 
 of Ralhillet keepit the brigg wi' musket and carabine and pike, 
 sword and scythe for what 1 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 bucke of, as if we had been 
 gaun to a fair, — there was Caleb Balderston, that is living yet, 
 flourishing in the rear, and swearing Gog and Magog, he would 
 * INote J. Trumpeter Marine at Sheriffmuir.]
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 197 
 
 put steel through the guts 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 itherside 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 e'e 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 o' 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 two 
 pieces o' his head, and down fell the lurdane wi' a' his bowk 
 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 o' 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 Ravens^ 
 wood. 
 
 "Lost it? to be sure I lost it," replied the sexton, "for I 
 couldna hae played pew upon a dry humlock ; — but I might 
 hae dune weel enough, 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 
 * £A broken-winded cart-horscj
 
 igS THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 affairs gang to the dogs, and let this at 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 in 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 thmk 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 
 hir.isell or to huz puir dependent creatures, in guiding us the 
 gate he has done — he might hae gien us liferent tacks of our 
 bits o' houses and yards — and me that's an auld man living 
 in yon 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 
 jruided 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 do 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 handing 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 kailyard from the lawful owners thereof." 
 
 Cervantes acutely remarks, tliat flattery is pleasing^even 
 from the mouth of a. madman ; and censure, as well aspraise, 
 often affect 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 
 10, 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 a diamond, to compensate for the dis- 
 honor 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,
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. i<jg 
 
 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 knowl- 
 edge of some matters which induced him to delav his purpose. 
 I find," he proceeded, " there has been a love affair here, kins- 
 man ; and though I might blame you for not having com- 
 municated 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 /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 guardian- 
 ship " 
 
 " I must take the liberty to say, my lord," answered Ravens- 
 wood — and the tone in which he interrupted the Marquis boded 
 no longer duration to the friendship of the noble relatives, when 
 he himself was interrupted by the little sexton, who came 
 puffing after them, to ask if their honors would choose music 
 at the change-house to make up for short cheer. 
 
 " We want no music," said the Master abruptly. 
 
 "Your honor disna ken what ye're refusing, then," said the 
 fiddler, with the impertinent freedom of his profession. " I 
 c.w play 'Wilt thou do't again,' and 'The Auld Man's Mear's /v;^,^-^..-^ ,^ - 
 Dead,' sax times better than ever Pattie Birnie.* I'll get my 'I 
 
 fiddle in the turning of a coffin screw." 
 
 " Take yourself away, sir," said the Marquis. 
 
 " And if your honor 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 conversa- 
 tion." 
 
 " Or if, under your honor's favor, 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." 
 
 * [ Patie Birnie, a celebrated fiddler and songster of tCinghorn. — Seo 
 Allan Ramsay's Collected Poems, Edition 1721.]
 
 200 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 The Marquis, who was sometimes suspected of Jacobitism, 
 tould 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 honors 
 gude-day — I'll be a' the better of the dollar, and ye'll be the 
 waur of wanting the music, I'se tell ye. But I'se gang hame, 
 and finish 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 TWENTY-FOURTH. 
 
 True love, an thou be true, 
 
 Thou hast 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 Mar- 
 quis, " now that we are quit of that impertinent fiddler, that ) 
 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, ] 
 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 lord- 
 ship, I can only say, that you must necessarily suppose that J 
 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 with- 
 out questioning that you had reasons which seemed to you to 
 counterbalance every other obstacle, I set myself, by every
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR: 20I 
 
 ancans that it became me to use toward the Ashtons, to per- 
 suade them to meet your views." 
 
 " I am obliged to your lordship for your unsolicited interces- 
 sion," said Ravenswood ; " especially as I am sure 3'our lord- 
 ship 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 gen- 
 tleman 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 honorable, and so nearly related with the first in Scotland ; 
 I explained the exact degree of relationship in which the Ra- 
 venswoods 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 j " 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." 
 
 "lam glad of that, kinsman," said the Marquis, "fori 
 am ashamed to tell you half what she said. It is enough — he' 
 mind is made up — and the mistress of a first-rale boarding- 
 school could not have rejected with more haughty indifference 
 the suit of a half-pay Irish officer, beseeching permission t'' 
 wait upon the heiress of a West India planter, than Lady Ash- 
 ton spurned every proposal of mediation which it could at al' 
 become me to offer in behalf of you, my good kinsman. I can- 
 not guess what she means. A more honorable connection 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 good man 
 has. But I should only vex you to say more about it — here we 
 gre zX the change-house,"
 
 ,.* 1 •- 
 
 20^ THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 The Master of Ravenswood paused as he entered the cot 
 iage, wliich reeked through all its crevices, and they were not 
 few, from the exertions of the Marquis's traveHng-cooks to 
 supply good cheer, and spread, as it were, a table in the wilder- 
 ness. 
 
 " My Lord Marquis," said Ravenswood, " I already men- 
 tioned 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 degrada 
 tion." 
 
 " 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 
 dee{>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 Par- 
 liament, 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 connection with her father will be neither 
 useful nor ornamental, beyond that part of your father's spoilt
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 203 
 
 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 honorable for him, and proposed by me on 
 the behalf of a kinsman." 
 
 There was something in all this, that, as it were, oversh t 
 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 honor, yet 
 he could neither complain nor be surprised that it should be so. 
 He contented himself therefore with repeating, that his at- 
 tachment was to Miss Ashton personally; that he desired 
 neither wealth nor aggrandizement 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 favor that the 
 matter might be no more mentioned betwixt them at present, 
 
 assuring the Marquis of A that he should be his confidant 
 
 in its progress or its interruption. 
 
 The Marquis soon had more agreeable, as well as more in- 
 teresting 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 companv. The Marquis expanded 
 with pleasure on the power which probable incidents were 
 likely to assign to him, and on the use which he 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 ex 
 cellent, notwithstandmg its having been brought in a runlet 
 from Edinburgh ; and the habits of the Marq-.iis, 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.
 
 id4 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMEHMOO^. 
 
 " But what of that, my good young friend ? " said th.e Mar 
 quis ; 'your Castle of Wolf's Crag is but five or six miles' dis- 
 jance, and will afford the same hospitality to your kinsman ol 
 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 some- 
 thing relaxed by the wine he had drunk, — "I see I must bribe 
 you to harbor 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 ser- 
 vant 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 l^attle 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 com- 
 pany, and would only consent that an avant-courier should 
 carry to the destined seneschal, Caleb Balderston, the unex- 
 pected news of this invasion. 
 
 The Alaster of Ravenswood soon after accompanied the 
 Marquis in his carriage, as the latter had proposed ; and when 
 tiiey 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 
 intrusted to a person of rank, and talent, and perfect confidence, 
 and which as it required great trust and reliance on the envoy 
 employed, could not but prove both honorable and advantage- 
 ous to him. We need not enter into the nature and purpose of 
 this commission further than to acquaint our readers that the 
 charge was in prospect highly acceptable to the Master of 
 Ravenswood, whf hailed with pleasure the hope of emerging
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 203 
 
 from his present state of indigence and inaction, into independ- 
 ence and honorable exertion. While he listened thus eagerly 
 to the details with which the Marquis now thought it necessary 
 to intrust him, the messenger who had been despatched to the 
 tower of Wolf's Crag, returned with Caleb Balderston'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." 
 
 Ravensood was too well accustomed to his seneschal's mode 
 of acting and speaking to hope much from this confident as- 
 surance. He knew that Caleb acted upon the principle of the 
 
 Spanish generals, in the campaign of , who, much to the 
 
 perplexity of the Prince of Orange, their commander-m-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 honor of Spain, to confess any defi- 
 ciency 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 insure them against a very indif- 
 ferent reception. 
 
 *' You do yourself injustice, Master," said the Marquis, " or 
 5'^ou wish to surprise me agreeably. From this window I see a 
 great light ia the direction where, if I remember aright. Wolf's 
 Crag lies ; and, to judge from the splendor 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 a few 
 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, 1 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, re- 
 mains 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 storey are hidden from us by the walls of 
 the court. I cannot conceive that any illumination of an ordi- 
 nary nature could afford such a blaze of light." 
 
 The mystery was soon explained ; for the cavalcade almost 
 instantly halted, and the voice of Caleb Balderston was her.rd 
 at the coach window, exclaiming, in accents broken by grief and 
 fear, " Och, gentlemen — Och, my gude lords — Och, haud to tho
 
 206 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 right! — Wolf's Crag is burning, bower and Ixa' — a' the rich 
 plenishing outside and inside — a' the fine graith, pictures tapes- 
 tries, needle-wark, hangings, and other decorements — a' in a 
 bleeze, as if they were nae mair than sac mony peats, or as 
 muckle peas strae ! Haud to the right, gentlemen, I implore 
 ye — there is some sma' provision making at Lucky Sma'trash's 
 — but O, wae for this night, and wae for me that lives to see 
 it!" 
 
 Ravenswood was at 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 good-night, 
 was about to ascend the hill toward 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 INIarquis, greatly 
 affected by this additional misfortune, so unexpectedly heaped 
 upon his young protege ; "and give me my ambling palfrey i, — 
 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, " O stop — sirs, stop — turn bridle, for the love of 
 mercy — add not loss of lives to the loss of warld's gear ! — 
 Thirty barrels of pouther, 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 aff 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 pre- 
 scribed, dragging Ravenswood along with them, although there 
 was much in the matter which he could not possibly compre- 
 hend. " Gunpowder ! " he exclaimed, laying hold of Caleb, who 
 in vain endeavored 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 honor will believe his
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 207 
 
 lordship's honorable testimony^^His lordship minds weel; hbw, 
 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 3-ou for an impudent liar!" said Ravenswood, 
 in uncontrolable ire, " there was not a single ounce of " 
 
 " Forby," 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 scauded 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 my- 
 self. 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 wad 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 
 toward 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.
 
 2o8 ^-^^-^ BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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, tlie Lord Keeper, amused 
 with the incident, and desirous at the time to gratify Ravens- 
 wood, 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 pre- 
 ferment 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 favor, or, more prob- 
 ably, 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 good man of the dwelling — 
 " Mr. Caleb — Mr. Caleb — Mr. Caleb Balderston ! I hope ye 
 arena ganging dry-lipped by our door, and we sae muckle in- 
 debted 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. Balderston ! " said Mrs. Girder. 
 
 " Wha wad hae thought it of an auld and kend friend ? " 
 said the mother. 
 
 " And no sae muckle as to stay to receive our thanks," said 
 the cooper himself, "and frae the like o' me that seldom offers 
 tliem 1 1 am sure I hope there's nae ill seed sawn between us, 
 Mr. Balderston. — Ony man that has said to ye, I am no grate- 
 fu' for the situation of Queen's cooper, let me hae a whample 
 at him wi' mine catche* — that's a'." 
 
 ," My good friends — my dear friends," said Caleb, still doubt- 
 ing how the certainty of the matter might stand, " what needs 
 a' this ceremony ? — ane tries to serve their friends, and some- 
 times they may happen to prosper, and sometimes to misgic — 
 
 *Anglice, Adz«.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 209 
 
 naethingi care to be fashed wi' less than thanks — I never could 
 bide them." 
 
 " Faith, Mr. Balderston, 3'e 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, and the runlet of sack, to balance 
 that account. Gude-will, man, is a geizen'd tub, that bauds 
 in nae liquor — but gude-deed's like the cask tight, round, and 
 sound, that will baud liquor for the king." 
 
 " Have ye no heard of our letter," said the mother-in-law, 
 " making our John the Queen's cooper for certain 1 — 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, re-adjusted 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 i 
 " 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 woman, and 
 abandoned his hand, with an air of serene patronage, to the 
 hearty shake of Mr. Girder's horn-hard palm. Upon this com- 
 plete, and to Caleb most satisfactory, informstion, 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 him- 
 self At this festivity he was, of course, the most welcome and 
 most honored 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, 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 pre- 
 sented to their imagination. Nay, the cunning butler regained
 
 9IO 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 im- 
 portance. 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 sail I say ! — we are peer feckless bodies — here the day, and 
 awa by cock-screech the morn — and if he failzies, there maun 
 be somebody in his place — and gif that ye could airt it my 
 way, I sail 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 Ravens- 
 wood, — 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 pick-maws 
 and solan-geese out by 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 beflummed me 
 mair — and to speak Heaven's truth, I could hardly hae be- 
 flummed 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 gang-by to the very writer ! — Sheriff-clerk ! ! ! — 
 But I hae an auld account to settle wi' the carle ; and to make 
 amends for byganes, the office shall just cost him as much time- 
 serving as if he were to get 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 ever 
 will do." 
 
 •^\^
 
 JI^X, 
 
 TUS BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. %i\ 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIFTH. 
 
 Why flames the 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 his eyry, 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 apartment, yet the 
 check only turned their assiduity into another direction. Never 
 had there been such slaughtering of capons, and fat geese, and 
 barn-door fowls, — never such boiling of recsted hams, — never t , 
 such making of car-cakes and sweet scones, Selkirk bannocks,j) ^ ^p 
 cookies, and pe_tticoat-tails, — delicacies little known to the'' '\ 
 present generation. ~ "Never had there been such a tapping of \.j^ 
 barrels, and such uncorking of graybeards, in the village ol 
 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 here- 
 after was to leave the rest of Scotland dr}', 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 
 neighboring preferment, where the incumbent was sickly ; but 
 Mr. Balderston destined that honor to the cooper, his wife, and 
 wife's mother, who danced for joy at the preference thus as- 
 signed 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
 
 lij THE BRTDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 due ceremony, while the plentiful supper was in the act of being 
 placed upon the table. 
 
 Ravenswo id 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 th-; 
 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 expressed 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 sneeshing, 
 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 redden- 
 ing 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's very like it wad," said Balderston, 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 honor is ganging to gang nae sic gate," said Caleb, 
 firmly. 
 
 " And why not ? " said Ravenswood, sharply ; " who or what 
 shall prevent me ? "
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 213 
 
 "Even I mysell,"' said Caleb, with the same determination. 
 
 ** You, Balderston ! " replied the Master ; '' you are for- 
 getting yourself, I think." 
 
 " But I think no," sn.id Balderston ; " for I can just tell ye 
 a' about the castle oi; thi'; 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 
 downby." 
 
 "Speak out, you old fool," replied his mast-r, " and let me 
 know the best and the worst at once." 
 
 ' Ou, the best and the warst is, just that the tower is stand 
 ing hale 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 M3^sie'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 in a mirk night. 
 
 A wheen fern and horse litter 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 be 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 lean count them — I wad 
 rather set fire to the tower in gude earnest, and burn it owei 
 my ain head into the bargain, or I see the family dishonored in 
 the sort." 
 
 " Upon my word, I am infinitely obliged by the proposal, 
 Caleb," said his master, scarce able 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 honor were to brain me, I behoved 
 to laugh — the Marquis — the pouther! — was it there.'' ay, it was 
 there. Did he ken o't ! — my certie ! the Marquis kend o't, and 
 it was the best o' the game ; for, when I could not pacify your 
 honor wi' a' that I could say, I aye threw out a word mail
 
 »I4 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LA2>IMERMOOR. 
 
 about the gunpouther, and garr'dthe Marquis tak the job in his 
 ain hand." 
 
 ^ But you have not answered my question," said the 
 Master, impatiently ; " how came the pov/der 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 o' the north, were a' in it, and mony a gudely gun and 
 broadsword were ferried ower frae Dunkirk forby the pouther — 
 awfu' wark 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 ye 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 honor'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 honor lil:es." 
 
 Stepping accordingly toward the urchins who manned the 
 knolls near which they stood, Caleb informed them, in an 
 authoritative tone, that their honors Lord Ravenswood and 
 
 the Marquis of A had given orders that the tower was not 
 
 to 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, " INIr. 
 Balderston ! Mr. Balderston's ! than 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 
 bairns' rhyme — 
 
 CSome gaed east, and some gaed west, . 
 ^nd some gaed to the craw's nest ; ;
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 215 
 
 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 it served the house mony a year — a good swap too, 
 between what cheereth the soul of man and that which dingeth 
 it clean out of his body ; forby 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 kend else whar to 
 get pouther for your pleasure. — And now that your anger is 
 ower, sir, wasna that weel managed o' me, and arena you far 
 better sorted down yonder, than ye could hae been in your ain 
 auld ruins upby 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 honor ! " 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 honor's sell ; 
 besides, young folk are no judicious — they cannot make the 
 maist of a bit figment. Now this fire — for a fire it shall be, if 
 I suld burn the auld stable to make it mair feasible — this fire, 
 besides that it will be an excuse for asking onything we want 
 through the country, or doun at the haven — this fire will settle 
 mony things on an honorable 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 honor 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 testers, napcry and broidered wark t 
 — 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, 
 'vhereas a gude offcome, prudently and comfortably handled, 
 .nay serve a nobleman and his fam'ilv, Lord knows how lang!" 
 
 Ravenswood was too well acquainted with his butler s per-
 
 2i6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 tenacity and self-opinion, to dispute the point with him any 
 further. 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 events of his 
 butler's stratagem. 
 
 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 compan^^ Such were the manners of 
 the time. The elder dame, confident through her age and 
 connection 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 honors — that Lord Allan, rest his soul, used ta 
 like a pouthered guse, and said it was Latin for a tass o' brandy 
 — that the brandy came from France direct ; for, for a' the 
 P^nglish laws and gangers, the Wolf's Hope brigs hadna for- 
 gotten 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," continued the old 
 lady ; " naebody says that jtr 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 Ravens- 
 wood, " to king, queen, or keiser, 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
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 iif 
 
 her guests, the funds necessary for the support of the conversa- 
 tion, until, declining any further circulation of their glass, her 
 guests requested her permission to retire to their apartments. 
 
 The Marquis occupied the chamberof dais, which, in every 
 house above the rank of a mefe cottage, was kept sacred fo\ 
 such high occasions as the present. The modern finishing 
 with plaster was then unknown, and tapestry was confined to 
 the liouses 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 land- 
 holders and clergy, who usually ornamented their state apart- 
 ments with hangings of a sort of stamped leather, manufactured 
 in the Netherlands, garnished with trees and animals 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 iriight, per- 
 haps, have never been used at all, but for this high occasion. 
 On the toilette beside stood an old-fashioned mirror, in a fili- 
 gree frame, part of the dispersed finery of the neighboring 
 castle. It was flanked by a long-necked bottle of Florence 
 wine, by which stood a glass nearly as tall resembling in shape 
 that which Tenier s 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 quegh, 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 victualed 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 night-gown, 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 the eminent person 
 to his night's repose, trusting he profited by the ample pre- 
 parations made for his accommodation — preparations which we
 
 ^i8 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 have mentioned in detail, as illustrative of ancient Scottish 
 manners. 
 
 It is not necessary we should be equally minute in describ- 
 ing the sleeping apartment of the Master of Ravenswood, which 
 was that usually occupied by the goodman and goodwife them- 
 selves. It was comfortably hung with a sort of warm- colored 
 worsted, manufactured in Scotland, approaching in texture to 
 what is now called shaloon. A staring picture of John Girder 
 iiimself ornamented this dormitory, 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 neighborhood, who pro- 
 nounced 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 stepped 
 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 char- 
 acter of the French School, as upon the state of painting in 
 Scotland, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 
 
 The other preparations of tlie 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 honor to their guests which had been shown 
 by the hospitable owners of the mansion upon the evening be- 
 fore. All the bustle of preparation for departure now resound- 
 ed through Wolf's Hope. There was paying of bills and shak- 
 ing 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 
 * [See Preliminary Chapter.]
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 aig 
 
 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 
 splendor of his late hospitality, by pocketing 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 him- 
 self that, in this manner, the Marquis's donative would, with- 
 out any impeachment of credit and character, come ultimately 
 into his own exclusive possession. 
 
 While arrangements were making for departure, Ravens- 
 wood made blithe the heart of his ancient butler, by informing 
 him, cautiously however (for he knew Caleb's warmth of imagina- 
 tion), of the probable change which was about to take place in 
 his fortunes. He deposited with Balderston, 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 favor, to desist from all further man- 
 oeuvres 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 ex- 
 pected. 
 
 ^' It was doubtless," he said, " a shame, a discredit, and a 
 sin, to harry the puir creatures, when the family were in circum- 
 stances to live honorably 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 brought 
 forward upon his honor's future occasions." 
 
 This matter being settled, and having taking an afifectionate 
 farewell of his old domestic, the Master rejoined his noble re- 
 lative, who was now ready to enter his carriage. The two 
 landladies, old and young, having received in all kindly greet- 
 lng,_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. Joha 
 Girder also stood upon his threshold, now looking at his hon- 
 ored right hand, which had been so lately shaken by a marquis 
 and a lord, and now giving a glance into the interior of his man- 
 sion, which manifested all the disarray of the late revel, as if 
 balancing the distinction which he had attained with the ex- 
 penses of the entertainment. 
 
 At length he opened his oracular jaws. ** i,et every man and
 
 »20 THE BRIDE CF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 woman here set about their ain bushiess, 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 by, and 
 if there is onything totally uneatable, let it be gien to the puir 
 folk ; and, gudcmother 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 weelnigh 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 favor which he had acquired by 
 the expenditure of his worldly substance. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXTH. 
 
 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 to shape his course to favoring breezes. 
 
 Old Play. 
 
 Our travelers reached Edinburgh without any farther adven- 
 ture, and the Master of Ravenswood, as had been previously 
 settled, took up his abode with his noble friend. 
 
 In the meantime, 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 con- 
 sequences. Suffice it to say, that it affected the different politi- 
 cal parties according to the nature of their principles. In 
 England, many of the High Church party, with Harley, after- 
 ward Earl of Oxford, at their head, affected to separate their 
 principles from those of the Jacobites, and, on that account, 
 obtained the denomination of Vvhimsicals. 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 adver- 
 saries ; while families attached to the Whig interest, saw nothing
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. jat 
 
 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 anx- 
 ious 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 honored most upon the face of the yearth, 
 brought to so severe a pass. For his ain puir peculiar," as he 
 said, " and to contribute something to the rehabilitation of sic 
 auld ane house," the said Turntippet sent in three family pic- 
 tures 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 prin- 
 cipal or interest they had cost him, when he bought them, six- 
 teen years before, at a roup of the furniture of Lord Ravens- 
 wood's lodgings in the Canongate. 
 
 Much more to Lord Tiirntippet'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 con 
 fusion of the family affairs, and by means well understood b^ 
 the lawyers of the period, to acquire to himself in absolute 
 property, 
 
 The old time-serving lord winced excessively under this 
 requisition, protesting to God, that he saw no occasion the lad 
 could have for the instant possession of the land, seeing ho 
 would doubtjess now recover the bulk of his estate from Sii
 
 222 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 William Ashton, to which he was ready to contribute by even^ 
 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 muta- 
 tion or change in the state had hitherto been productive of some 
 sma' advantage to him in his ain quiet afifairs ; but that the 
 present had (pize upon it !) cost him one of the best pen-feathers 
 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 against the judicial sentences 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 jDcrmission 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 favorable. 
 
 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 attach- 
 ment 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 misunder- 
 standings ; 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 ap- 
 proaching 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 hopes they might prove effectual. If not, he still
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 223 
 
 trusted that his absence from Scotland upon an important 
 and honorable 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 letter 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 honors of such a family were for- 
 feited for high treason 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; never- 
 theless 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 further notice of her, who desires to remain your 
 unknown servant, 
 
 Margaret Douglas, otherwise Ashton." 
 
 About two days after he had received this very unsatisfac- 
 tory 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, slipped a letter into his hand, and disappeared 
 The packet contained four closely-wiitten folios, from which, 
 however, as is sometimes incident to the compositions of great
 
 224 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 
 carried 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 flour- 
 ished much on generosity and forgiveness of mutual injuries, 
 and hinted at the mutability of human affairs, always favorite 
 topics with the weaker party in politics. He pathetically lam- 
 ented and gently censured, the haste which had been used in 
 depriving him of his situation of Lord Keeper,* which his ex- 
 perience had enabled him to fill with some advantage to the 
 jDublic, without so much as giving him an opportunity of explain- 
 ing 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 toward the public, as him- 
 self or any man ; and if, upon a conference, they could have 
 agreed upon the measures by which it was to be pursued, his ex- 
 perience and his interest should have gone to support the pres- 
 ent administration. Upon the engagement betwixt Ravens- 
 wood 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 viinorcs, and without 
 concurrence of his daughter's natural curators, the engagement 
 was inept and void in law. This precipitate measure, he add- 
 ed, 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 
 
 •[ This obviously cannot aonlv to Sir James Dalrymple, Lord StaU 
 who was then dead, and had nevet been deprived of any such oflSce.]
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 225 
 
 should sustain a severe wound through his sides, by a reversal 
 of the judgment of her supreme courts, in the case of tha 
 Barony of Ravenswood, through the intervention of what, with 
 all submission, he must term a foreign court of appeal, he him- 
 self would extrajudicially consent to considerable sacrifices. 
 
 From Lucy Ashton, by some unknown conveyance, the Mas- 
 ter 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 "■^''■*'t*^" 
 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 im- 
 portant mission which had been confined 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 Sif 
 
 William's days 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 difiiculty that Ravenswood extorted from the Mar- 
 quis a promise that he would compromise the proceedings in 
 Parliament, providing Sir William should be disposed to ac- 
 quiesce in a union between liim and Lucy Ashton. 
 
 " I would hardly," said the Marquis, " consent to your 
 throwing away your birthriglit 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 honor," said the Marquis, " I would 
 be a friend even to your follies; and having thus told you my 
 opinion, I will endeavor, as occasion offers, to serve you accord- 
 ing to your own." 
 
 The Master of Ravenswood could but thank his generous 
 kinsman and patron, and leave him full power to act in all ins 
 affairs. He departed from Scotland upon his mission, which, 
 it was supposed, might detain him upon the Continent for sorao 
 months.
 
 22'6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH. 
 
 Was over woman in this humor wooed ? 
 Was ever woman in this humor won ? 
 I'll have her. 
 
 Richard the Third. 
 
 Twelve months had passed away since the Master ol 
 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 meantime, 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 confi- 
 dential bottle-coinpanion and dependant, the noted Captain 
 Craigengelt. 
 
 They were seated on either side of the huge sepulchral-look- 
 ing 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 rum- 
 mer 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 compliinent," replied Bucklaw ; 
 "but 1 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 am sad, and devilish sad too .-' " 
 
 " And that's what vexes me," said Craigengelt. " Here is 
 this match, the best in the whole country, and which you were 
 so anxious about, is on the point of being concluded, and you 
 are as sulky as a bear that has lost his whelps." 
 
 " I do not know," answered the Laird doggedly, " whethei
 
 THE BRTDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 227 
 
 I should conclude it or not, if it was not that I. am too far for- 
 ward 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 3'oung lady herself?" said Craigen- 
 gelt ; " the finest young woman in all Scotland, one that you 
 used to be so fond of when she was cross, and now she con- 
 sents to have you, and gives up her engagement with Ravens- 
 wood, 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 favor .-' " 
 
 " 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 under- 
 stands every machine for breaking in the human mind, and 
 * \Anglicl, dowry.]
 
 228 THE BRIDE OP LAMMERMOOK. 
 
 there are as many as there are cannon-bits, martingales, and 
 cavessons for young colts." 
 
 " And if that were not the case," said Craigcngelt, " 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 preparations made for 
 their blithesome bridal." 
 
 " Captain Westenho," replied Bucklaw, " has rather too 
 much of your own cast about him, Craigie, to make what Sir 
 William would call a ' famous witness.' He drinks deep, pla3'S 
 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 
 Havenswood's shaughled shoes ? " 
 
 " Did he say so, by heavens ! " cried Bucklaw, breaking out 
 into one of those uncontrolable 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 pets and minions, 
 and Highland bullies into the bargain. Why did not Ashton 
 run him through the body ? " 
 
 " Capote 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 stool for your hand to 
 reach him." 
 
 " It shall reach him, though, one day," said Bucklaw, " and 
 his kinsman Ravenswood to boot. In the meantime, I'll take
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 229 
 
 ■^are 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 TWENTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 It was the copy of our conference. 
 In l)ed 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 Errirs. 
 
 1 iiii: next morning saw Bucklaw, and his faithful Achates 
 Craigengelt, at Ravenswood Castle. They were most cour- 
 teously 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, Mho replied with- 
 the greatest composure, " that Lucy would wait upon Mr. Hay- 
 ston 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 ad- 
 vantage of your ladyship as an interpreter." 
 
 It was thus that Bucklaw, in the perturbation of his embar- 
 rassment upon this critical occasion, forgot the just apprehen- 
 sions he had entertained of Lady Asliton's overbearing ascend- 
 ency over her daughter's mind, and lost an opportunity of as- 
 certaining, by his own investigation, the real state of Lucy's feet 
 ings. 
 
 The other gentlemen left the room, and in a short time. 
 Lady Ashton, followed by her daughter, entered the apartment^
 
 230 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 lier cahnness was that of despair or of 
 hidifference. Bucklaw was too much agitated by his own feel- 
 ings minutely to scrutinize those of the lady. He stammered out 
 an unconnected address, confounding together the two or three 
 topics to which it related, and stopped 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, con^ 
 tinning to fix her eyes on a small piece of embroidery, on which, 
 as if by mstinct or habit, her fingers were busily employed. Lady 
 Ashton sat at some distance, almost screened from notice bv 
 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 ©f 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, lady — I beg par- 
 don, 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 gentle- 
 man's language ; but you must remember Mr. Hayston speaks 
 on a subject on which you have long since agreed to give him a 
 favorable 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 ap- 
 pearance 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 glancr, 
 in which fear was mingled with a still wilder expression, but 
 remained perfectly silent. Bucklaw, who had in the meantime 
 paced the room to and fro, until he had recovered his com- 
 posure, 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 com- 
 prehend what I have been saying ; and no wonder, for d — rx
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 231 
 
 me if I understand it mj-self ! 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 Can- 
 ongate 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 play-fellow 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 
 inierposing, — " how can you think Lucy can have any objection 
 to that blunt, honest, good-natured creature, Captain Craigen- 
 
 " 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 was 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." 
 
 " Perfectly 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.
 
 232 THE BRIDE OF LAMM EK MOOR. 
 
 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 and fetch one myself, if Miss Ashton will 
 honor me with the commission." 
 
 " By no means," said Lady Ashton, " we have 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 
 further — if this unhappy engagement be restored, I have already 
 said you shall dispose of me as you will — till then I should com- 
 mit 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 in- 
 tended to assume ; but instantly correcting herself, " My dear- 
 est 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 my- 
 self." 
 
 " And pray how long. Miss Ashton," said her mother ironi- 
 cally, " 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 13 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 honor, madam, I respect your feelings; 
 and. although the prosecution of this affair be rendered dearer
 
 TFTE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 233 
 
 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 tliink, cannot apprehend that," said Lady 
 Ashton, looking pale with anger, " when the daughter's happi- 
 ness, 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 biuntness of feeling did not by any means arise from 
 want of goodnature — " messengers maybe stopped or delayed. 
 I have known a day's journey broke by the casting of a fore- 
 shoe. Stay, let me see my calendar — the 20th 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 meantime, as I shall not myself dis- 
 tress 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-humored young fellow, as I said before, 
 who will willingly inake 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 apart- 
 ment, assuring l:"mthat her daughter did full justice to the sin- 
 cerity of his attachment, and requesting him to see Sir William 
 before his departure, "since," as she said, with a keen glance 
 reverting toward 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 I '^ 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 0^
 
 234 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 a promise to give him two yards of carnation ribbon to make 
 knots to his new garters. With tlie most patient composure 
 Lucy arose, and opened a little ivory cabinet, sought out the 
 ribbon the lad wanted, measured it accurately, cut it off into 
 proper lengths, and knoted 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 jessesj 
 — and yet the new falcon's not worth them neither ; for do you 
 know, after all the plague we had to get her from an eyry, all 
 the way at Posso, in Manor Water, she's going to prove, aftei 
 all, nothing better than a trifier — she just wets her singles in 
 the blood of a 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 Lucy, mournfully, 
 holding the boy fast by the hand, after she had given him the 
 wire he wanted ; "but there are more trifiers 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 
 heads 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 gayety of boy- 
 hood, 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 uncounseled, I involved myself in these perils— 
 a^one and uncounseJed I must extricate myself or die."
 
 THE BRIDE OP LAMMERMOOR. 235 
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINTH. 
 
 What doth ensue 
 
 But moody and dull melancholy, 
 Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair, 
 And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop 
 Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life ? 
 
 CoMKDY OF Errors. 
 
 As some vindication of the ease with which Bucklaw (who 
 otherwise, as he termed himself, was really a very good-humored 
 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 re- 
 spects, coincided with those of France before the Kevolution. 
 Young women of the higher ranks 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 in the issue of the lotter}^, in which he had hazarded 
 a venture 
 
 It was not therefore surprising, such being the general man- 
 ners 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 indiffer- 
 ent. He knew what all accounted the principal point, that 
 her parents and friends, namely, were decidedly in his favor, 
 and there existed most powerful reasons for their predilection. 
 In truth, the conduct of the Marquis of A since Ravens- 
 wood's departure, had been such as almost to bar the possi
 
 43$ THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOO^. 
 
 bility of his kinsman's union with Lucy Ashton. The 2»Iarquis 
 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 ran 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 Sit 
 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 judica- 
 ture 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 Ash- 
 ton's yet more vindictive temper, the conduct of Ravenswood, 
 or rather of his patron, appeared to be an offence challenging 
 the deepest and most mortal revenge. Even the quiet and con- 
 fiding temper of Lucy herself, swayed by the opinions expressed 
 by all around her, could not but consider the conduct of Ravens- 
 wood 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 ardor 
 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 enter- 
 tained 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 judg. s were thus subjected to the review of a court, 
 composed, indeed, of men of the highest rank, but who were 
 not trained to the study of any municipal law, and might be 
 supposed specially to hold in contempt that of Scotland. As 4
 
 7'HE BRIDR OF LAMMERMOOR. 237 
 
 natura* consequence of the alleged injustice meditated toward 
 her father, every means was resorted 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 en 
 dured the repinings of her father — his murmurs against what 
 he called the tyrannical usage of the ruling party — his cease- 
 less charges of ingratitude against Ravenswood — his endless 
 lectures on the various means by which contracts may be voided 
 and annuled — his quotations from the civil, the municipal, and 
 the canon law — and his prelections upon the. pair ia potcstas. 
 
 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 whole efforts of her powerful mind ta 
 break her daughter's contract with Ravenswood, and to place 
 a perpetual bar between the lovers, by effecting Lucy's unioa 
 with iiucklaw. 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 hesitate 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 shal- 
 low 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, ar.d require only to be cursorily 
 mentioned ; others were characteristic of the time, the coun- 
 try, and the persons engaged in this singular drama. 
 
 It was of the last consequence that all intercourse betwixt 
 the lovers shouid 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, 
 in fact, no leaguered fortress was ever more completely block- 
 aded ; while, at the same time, to all outward appearance, Miss 
 Ashton lay under no restriction. Tlie verge of her parents' 
 domains became, in respect to her, like the viewless and en-
 
 ^38 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 chanted line drawn around a fairy castle, where nothing un 
 permitted 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 
 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 vapor 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 
 favor, and who seized, as usual, upon the most private circum- 
 stances in the lives of each other's partisans, to convert them 
 into subjects of political discussion. 
 
 The Marquis of A gave his opinion aloud and jDublicly, 
 
 not indeed in the coarse terms ascribed to him by Captain 
 Craigengelt, but in a manner sufficiently offensive to the Ash- 
 tons : — "Rethought the report," he said, "highly probable, 
 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 rumor from so many quarters could not but give it a sem^ 
 blance of truth. By some it was told as a piece of ordinary
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 239 
 
 news, by some communicated as serious intelligence ; now it 
 was whispered to Lucy Ashton's ear in the tone of maHgnant 
 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 nothwithstand- 
 ing 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 gray 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 shoe, or 
 fall lame, or the castle bell will ring, or something will happen 
 to bring you back. — But if I tell you more of these things, 
 Douglas will not get me the pair of colors 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 sus- 
 pected, that she was little better than a prisoner at large in hei 
 father's house. We have described her in the outset 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 of 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
 
 240 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 enmity of all around her. Indeed, the evidence of Ravens 
 wood's infidelity began to assume everyday a more determined 
 character. 
 
 A soldier of fortune, of the name of Westenho, an old familial 
 of Craigengelt's, chanced to arrive from abroad about this time. 
 The worthy Captain, 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 con- 
 trary 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 beleagured 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 detestablfl 
 and diabolical.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 24.1 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTIETH. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weeds. 
 
 And wilful want, all careless of her needs ; 
 
 So choosing solitaiy to abide, 
 
 Far from all neighbors, that her devilish deeds 
 
 And hellish arts from ]jeople she might hide, 
 
 And hurt far off, unknown, whome'er she envied. 
 
 Fairy Queen. 
 
 The health of Lucy Ashton soon required the assistance of 
 a person more skilful in the ofhce of a sick-nurse than the fe- 
 male 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, espe- 
 cially moncoj)ics, as the Scotch call them, or mysterious diseases, 
 which bafifle the regular physician. Her pharmacopoeia con- 
 sisted partly of herbs selected in planetary hours, partly of 
 words, signs, and charms, which sometimes, perhaps, produced 
 a favorable influence upon the imagination of her patients. 
 Such was the avowed profession of Lucky Gourlay, which, as 
 may well be supposed, was looked upon with a suspicious eye, 
 not only by her neighbors, but even by the clergy of the dis- 
 trict. 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 vicin- 
 ity, 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 philters, discovered stolen 
 goods, and made and dissolved matches as successfully as if, 
 according to the belief of the whole neighborhood, she had been
 
 242 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 aided in those arts by Beelzebub himself. The worst of the 
 pretenders to these sciences was, that they were generally per- 
 sons 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 dia 
 bolical agents in secret domestic crimes, the severe fate to which 
 they were condemned for the imaginary guilt of witchcraft. 
 
 Such was Ailsie Gourlay, whom, in order to attain the abso- 
 lute subjugation of Lucy Ashton's mind, her mother thought it 
 fitting to place neo.r 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 selected for het 
 daughter's attendant the best and most experienced sick-nurse 
 " and mediciner " in the neighborhood, where an inferior person 
 would have fallen under the reproach of calling in the assist- 
 ance of a partner and ally of the great Enemy of Mankind. 
 
 The beldam caught her cue readily and by innuendo, with- 
 out 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 knowl- 
 edge of the human heart and passions. Dame Gourlay per- 
 ceived that Lucy shuddered at her external appearance, which 
 we have already described when we found her in the death- 
 chamber of blind Alice ; and wliile internally she hated the 
 poor girl for the involuntary horror with which she saw she was re- 
 garded, she commenced her operations by endeavoring to efface 
 01 overcome those prejudices which, in her heart, she resented 
 as mortal offences. This was easily done, for the hag's exter- 
 nal ugliness was soon balanced by a show of kindness and in- 
 terest, 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, soon led her attention captive by the 
 legends in which she was well skilled, and to which Lucy's habits 
 of reading and reflection induced her to " lend an attentive 
 ear." Dame Gourlay's tales were at first of a mild and interest- 
 ing 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 
 Tbeir captive thralls.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 243 
 
 Gradually, however, they assumed a darker and more mys- 
 terious character, and became such as, told by the midnight 
 lamp, and enforced by the tremulous tone, the quivering and 
 livid lip, the uplifted skinny fore-finger, and the shaking head 
 of the blue-eyed hag, might have appalled a less credulous ima- 
 gination, 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 addi- 
 tions, 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 re- 
 lated 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 weakened by sorrow, distress, un- 
 certainty, 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 con- 
 verse 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 Gourly 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 de- 
 stroying the spirits. Omens were expounded, dreams were in- 
 terpreted, and other tricks of jugglery perhaps resorted to, by 
 which the pretended adepts of the period deceived and fasci- 
 nated their deluded followers. I find it mentioned in the 
 articles of dittay against Ailsie Gourlay — (for it is some com-' 
 fort 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 delu- 
 sions of Satan, shown to a young person of quality, in a mirror 
 glass, a gentleman then abroad, to whom the said young person
 
 244 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LA.WJlTERMOOR. 
 
 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 
 honor 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, and 
 exerting a degree of authority unusual \\\i\\ him, 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 viva- 
 city by which they were startled, " that she was conscious hea- 
 ven and earth and hell had set themselves against her union 
 with Ravenswood ; still her contract," she said, " was a bind- 
 ing 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 
 flashing with unnatural light, and her hands firmly clinched, 
 precluded the possibility of dispute ; and the utmost length 
 which Lady Ashlon'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 sur- 
 render, what she termed, " their unfortunate 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 decep- 
 tion. 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 weU 
 nigh extinguished. But the idea never forsook her, that her
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 245 
 
 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 mindj 
 an agent of a very different character. This was no other than 
 the Reverend 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 tyratit 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, pro- 
 fessing, 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 the daughter of Zion. But with all the more 
 severe prejudices and principles of his sect, Bide-the-Bent pos- 
 sessed a sound judgment, and had learned sympathy even in 
 that very school of persecution, 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 
 labored, whether her letter had been ever forwarded, the old 
 man paced the room with long steps, shook his gray 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 wor- 
 shipful 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 — ne\ertheless, 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 uSi
 
 2^6 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 Wherefore myself, even I myself, will be aiding unto the delivery 
 of your letter to the man Edgar Ravenswood, trusting that the 
 issue thereof 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 honor- 
 able parents, I pray 3'ou to transcribe, without increment or 
 subtraction, the letter formerly expeded under the dictation of 
 your right honorable mother ; and I shall put it into such 
 sure course of being delivered, that if, honored young madam, 
 you shall receive no answer, it will be necessary that you con- 
 clude 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 Saun- 
 ders 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 
 ix)wers of grasping it becoming every moment more feeble, 
 and the deep darkness of the night only checkered by die 
 flashes of lightning, hissing as they show the white tops of the 
 billows, in which he is soon to be ingulfed. 
 
 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 Ra 
 vans wood.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 245 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-FIRST. 
 
 How fair these names, how much unlike they look 
 To all the blurr'd, subscriptions in my book I 
 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 comple- 
 tion of the proposed espousals, and for signing the necessary 
 deeds. 
 
 These had been carefully prepared under the revisal of Sir 
 (Villiam Ashton himself, it having been resolved, on account of 
 ;he state of Miss Ashton's health, as it was said, that none save 
 :he parties immediately interested should be present when the 
 parchments were subscribed. It was further determined, that 
 the marriage should be solemnized upon the fourth day after 
 signing the articles, a measure 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, how- 
 ever, of her doing either. She heard the proposed arrangement 
 with the calra indifference of despair, or rather with an apathy 
 arising from the oppressed and stupefied state of her feelings. 
 To an eye so unobserving as that of Bucklaw, her demeanor 
 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 favor. 
 
 When the morning compliments 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
 
 248 THE BRIDE OF LAMXIEKMOOR. 
 
 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 cut 
 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 1 am to be bride's-man, and ride be- 
 fore you to the kirk, and all our kitli, kin, and allies, and all 
 Bucklaws are to be mounted and in order — and I am to JKive 
 a scarlet laced coat, and a feathered hat, and a sword-belt, 
 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 ^vith 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, 
 and led her to the apartment wliere her presence was expected. 
 
 There were only present, Sir William Ashton and Colonel 
 Douglas Ashton, the last in full regimentals — Bucklaw, in 
 bridegroom trim — Craigengelt, freshly equipped from top to toe, 
 by the bounty of his patron, and bedizened with as much lace 
 as might have become the dress of tlie Copper Captain — to- 
 gether with the Rev. Mr. Bide-the-Bent ; the presence of a min- 
 ister 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 refreshments, 
 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 solemnized
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 4^ 
 
 between the honorable parties then present. With the simpli- 
 city of his times and profession, which permitted strong per- 
 sonal allusions, he petitioned, that the wounded mind of one 
 of these noble parties might be healed, in reward of her com- 
 pliance with the advice of her right honorable parents ; and 
 that, as she had proved herself a child after God's command- 
 ment, by honoring 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 
 further, that the bridegroom, might be weaned from those follies 
 which seduce 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 
 to 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 Craig- 
 engelt, 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 sub- 
 scribed 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 pur- 
 pose. 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 inkstandish, 
 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 charac- 
 ters 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.' "
 
 «5P 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-SECOND. 
 
 This by his tongue should be a Montague t 
 Fetch me m}' rapier, boy ; 
 Now, by the faith and honor of my kin, 
 So 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 en- 
 tered 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 state- 
 room. That of Colonel Douglas Ashton was mingled with re- 
 sentment ; that of Bucklaw, with haughty and affected indiffer- 
 ence ; the rest, even Lady Ashton herself, showed signs of fear, 
 and Lucy seemed stiffened to stone by this unexpected appari- 
 tion. 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, op- 
 j posite 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-colored 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-soil'd, 
 and deranged by hard riding. He had a sword by his side, and 
 pistols in his belt. His slouched hat, which he had not re- 
 moved at entrance, gave an additional gloom to his dark feat- 
 ures, 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 disheveled 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 re-
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 2S« 
 
 covered her natural audacity. She demanded to know the 
 cause of this unauthorized intrusion. 
 
 " That is a question, madam," said her son, " which I have 
 the best right to ask — and I must request ihe Master of Ravens- 
 wood 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 ye 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 
 toward 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 be- 
 tween 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, ad- 
 vancing 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 toward 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, turn- 
 ing 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 Heaven, I will stab him wheie 
 he stands 1 " 
 
 " 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 js to be found ; my mission here will be
 
 252 
 
 THE BRIDE CF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 shortly accomplished. — Is that your handwriting, madam ?" he 
 added in a softer tone, extending toward 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 tfiis also your handwriting.?" extending toward 
 her the mutual engagement. 
 
 Lucy remained silent. Terror, and yet a 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 the 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 not die 
 without ample vengeance. This is my resolution, take it as you 
 may. I vvill 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 ecstacy of real 
 desperation seldom fails to overpower the less energetic pas- 
 sions 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 
 honorable 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
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 253 
 
 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 uncontrolable current of worldly passion. Let, then, the 
 Master of Ravenswood have the interview on which he insisteth ; 
 it can be but as a passing pang to this honorable maiden, 
 since her faith is now irrevocably pledged to the choice of her 
 parents. Let it, I say, be thus : it belongeth to my functions 
 to entreat your honors' compliance with this healing overture." 
 
 " Never ! " ansivered Lady Ashton, whose rage had now over- 
 come 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 toward 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 can- 
 not, 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 gray hairs may turn away 
 wrath." 
 
 " You are welcome to do so, sir," said Ravenswood ; " and 
 T,ady 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 
 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 scan- 
 dal 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 irre- 
 gular procedure" 
 
 " To-morrow, sir — to-morrow — to-morrow I will hear you at 
 length," reiterated Ravenswood, interrupting him ; " (his day 
 hath its own sacred and indispensable business."
 
 2r4 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 He pointed to the door, and S-ir William left the apartment 
 
 Ravenswood sheathed his sword, uncocked and returned 
 his pistol to his belt, walked deliberately to the door of the apart- 
 ment, which he bolted — returned, raised his hat from his fore- 
 head, and, gazing upon Lucy with eyes in which an expression 
 of sorrow overcame their late fierceness, spread his disheveled 
 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 honor 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 mortal 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, 
 authorized alike by the laws of God and man, advised her, and 
 concurred with her, to set aside an unhappy and precipitate en- 
 gagement, 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, de- 
 clared 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 : '' Jf a looinan 7'ozv 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 bonds where- 
 u*th she hath bound her sou/, and her father shall hold his peace 
 at her : then all her vows shall stand, every vow whereT.vith sh& 
 hath bound her soul shall standi 
 
 " And was it not even so with us .? " interrupted Ravens- 
 wood. 
 
 " Control thy impatience, young man," answered the divine, 
 " and hear what follows in the sacred text ; — But if herfatJuf
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 255 
 
 disallow her in the day that he heareth ; not any of her V07vs, or 
 of her bonds whereti.nth she hath hound 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 lieard of 
 the vow, or bond, by which our daughter had bound her soul, 
 we disallowed the same in the most express terms, and in 
 formed 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 hypocriti- 
 cal sophistr)' ? " 
 
 " 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 honor of an ancient family, the urgent advice 
 of my best friends, hav^e been in vain used to sway my resolu- 
 tion ; 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 intrusted to your grasp ? " 
 
 " Master of Ravenswood," said Lady Ashton, " you have 
 asked what questions you thought fit. You see the total incap- 
 acity of my daughter to answer you. But I will reply for her 
 and in a manner whicTi you cannot dispute. You desire to know 
 whether Lucy Ashton, of her own free will, desires to annul 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 rev- 
 erend gentleman, with Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw." 
 
 Ravenswood gazed upon the deed, as if petrified. " And it 
 was without fraud or compulsion," said he, looking toward the 
 clergyman, " that Miss Ashton subscribed this parchment t " 
 
 " I vouch it upon my sacred character." 
 
 " This is indeed, madam, an undeniable piece of evidence,' 
 said Ravenswood, sternly; " and it will be equally unnecessary 
 and dishonorable 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
 
 256 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 evidences of your fiist 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 banished ; 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 lover's 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 complaint 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 insure 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 machina- 
 tionsagainst your daughter's honor and happiness. — And to you, 
 madam," he said, addressing Lucy, " I have nothing further 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 apart- 
 ment. 
 
 SirWilliam 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 ter- 
 race, he was interrupted a second time 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
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 ^57 
 
 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." 
 
 " J/)' 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 throw- 
 ing 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 saluation, 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 
 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 THIRTY-THIRD. 
 
 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 afterward, in 
 the course of the ensuing day, she seemed to have recovered, 
 not merely hei spirits and resolution, but a sort of flighty levity, 
 that was foreign to her character and situation, and which was 
 at times checkered 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 indi- 
 cated no change, they could only say that the disease was oa
 
 2^8 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 the spirits and, rcommended 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 it in 
 search of the ribbon that had been taken from it, and muttej 
 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 Ash- 
 ton 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 toward 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 per- 
 sonal shame and dishonor. 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 eflfectual 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 aggrandizement, 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 dishonorable 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 precipi- 
 tation, had he been aware of the state of Miss Ashton's health, 
 or rather of her mind. But custom, upon these occasions, per- 
 mitted only brief and sparing intercourse between the bride- 
 groom 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 
 connections of his lady, together with the numerous kinsmen 
 and allies of the bridegroom, were present upon this joyful cere-
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 259 
 
 mony, gallantly mounted, arrayed and caparisoned, but almost 
 every Presbyterian family of distinction, within fifty milesj 
 made a point of attendance upon an occasion which was con- 
 sidered 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 
 cry was to horse. The bride was led forth betwixt her brother 
 Henry and her mother. Her gayety of the preceding day had 
 given rise to a deep shade of melancholy, which, however did 
 not misbecome an occasion so momentous. There was a light 
 in her eyes, and a color in her cheek, which had not been 
 kindled for many a day, and which, joined to her great beauty, 
 and the splendor of her dress, occasioned her entrance to be 
 greeted with a 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 saving 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 afterward 
 remembered to the hour of his death, that when the hand of 
 his sister, by which she supported herself on the pillion be- 
 hind him, touched his own, it felt as wet and cold as sepul- 
 chral marble. 
 
 Glancing wide over hill and dale, the fair bridal procession 
 at last reached the parish church, wliich they nearly filled ; 
 for, besides domestics, above a hundred gentlemen and ladies 
 were present upon the occasion. Tlie marriage ceremony was 
 performed according to the riles of the Presbyterian persua- 
 sion, 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 neighboring parishes, under the direction of 
 Johnny Mortsheugh, who had lately been promoted from his 
 desolate quarters at the Hermitage, to fill the more eligible
 
 2Go THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 situation of sexton at the parish church of Ravenswood. Dame 
 Gourlay, with two of her contemporaries, the same who assisted 
 at Ahce's late-wake, seated apart upon a flat monument or 
 through-static, sate enviously comparing the shares which had 
 been allotted to them in dividing the dole. 
 
 " Johnny Mortsheugh," 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 sax- 
 pennys, and I daresay 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, Ailsie 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 grin 
 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, mv penny in my purse. 
 Thou art ne'er the bcuei, aiid 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 would like to ken. Lucky Gourlay, for ye're the auldest 
 
 * Reginald Scott tells of an old woman who performed so many cures 
 by m Jis of a charm, that she was suspected of witchcraft. Her mode or 
 pract: e being inquired into, it was found, that the only fee which she 
 woi'id accept of, was a loaf of bread an .1 a silver penny; and that the 
 potent charm with which she wrouglit so many cures, was the dogger ] 
 coupl t in the text. [See note o the Antiquary.]
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 261 
 
 and wisest among us, whilk o' these revelers' turns it will 
 be to be streekit first ? " 
 
 " D'ye see yon dandilly maiden," said Dame Gourlay, " a 
 glistening wi' gowd and jewels, that they are lifting up on the 
 white horse behind that harebrained callant in scarlet, wi' the 
 lang sword at his side ? " 
 
 " Eut 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 gray 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 witches that ever flew by moon- 
 light ower North Berwick Law." 
 
 " What's that ye say about witches, ye damned hags : " said 
 Johnny Mortsheugh ; " are ye casting yer cantrips in the very 
 kirkyard, to mischief 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." 
 
 " Hech, sirs ! " answered Ailsle Gourlay : " how braw are we 
 wi' our new black coat and our weel-pouthered head, as if we 
 had never ken'd hunger nor thirst oursells ! and we'll be screw- 
 ing 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, Johnny — that's a' lad." 
 
 " I take ye a' to witness, gude people," said Mortsheugh, 
 **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
 
 862 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 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 am 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 
 .arge. — The splendor of the bridal retinue — the gay dresses — 
 the spirited horses — the blithesome appearance of the handsome 
 women and gallant gentlemen assembled upon the occasion, 
 had the usual effect upon the minds of the populace. The re- 
 peated shouts of " Ashton and Bucklaw forever ! " — the dis- 
 charge 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 Ravens- 
 woods, 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 in- 
 fluence of r Amphit}'ion oti Pon 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 endeavored 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
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOK. 263 
 
 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 os'naments 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 Wil- 
 liam 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 ex- 
 change 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 in- 
 quiry 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 Gour- 
 lay 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 compau}', who extolled her performance as far exceed- 
 ing 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 fol- 
 lowed, 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 in- 
 struments 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 motion- 
 less ; 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 intrusted, rushed thither, followed by Sir William and
 
 264 T^F- BRTDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Lady Ashton, and one or two others, near relations of thfl 
 famil3\ The bridal guests waited their return in stupefied 
 amazement. 
 
 Arrived at the door of the apartment, Colonel Ashton 
 knocked and called, but received no answer except stiflea 
 groans. He hesitated no longer to open the door of the apart- 
 ment, in which he found opposition from something which lay 
 against it. When he has 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 toward 
 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 apart- 
 ment, where his friends, full of suspicion and murmuring, as 
 sembled round him to learn the opinion of the surgeon. 
 
 In the meanwhile. 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 disheveled ; her night-clothes torn and 
 dabbled with blood, — her eyes glazed, and her features con- 
 vulsed 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'er 
 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 cotv 
 tending passions between the friends of the different parties
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 265 
 
 passions augmented by previous intemperance, surpass de- 
 scription. 
 
 The surgeon was the first one to obtain 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 
 demandi^d, however, that, in consideration of what had hap- 
 pened, 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 sumnioned. All 
 night she remained delirious. On the morning, she fell into 
 a state of absolute insensibility. The next evening, the physi- 
 cians 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 fatal blue 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 ratal 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 afiflicted family, the painful duty of inquiring 
 into this fatal transaction. But there occurred nothing to ex- 
 plain 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 poniard which Henry 
 should have worn on the wedding-day, and which his unhappy 
 sister had probably contrived to secrete on the preceding even- 
 ing, 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
 
 266 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 under pretext of weakness. When, however, he had been 
 transported to his own house, and was considered as 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 ofifers of adherence and 
 support. " I wish you all," he said, " my friends, to under- 
 stand, however, that 1 have neither story to tell, nor injuries to 
 avenge. If a lady shall question me henceforward upon the 
 incidents of that unhappy night, I shall remain silent, and in 
 future consider her as one who has shown herself desirous to 
 break off her friendship with me ; in a word, I will never speak 
 to her again. But if a gentleman shall ask me the same ques- 
 tion, 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 provision as, if well employed, might secure him 
 against indigence, and against temptation. 
 
 Bucklaw afterward 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. 
 
 * A walk in the vicinity of Ilolyrood House, so called, because often 
 frequented by the Duke of York, afterward Jaines II., during his resi- 
 dence in Scotland, It was for a long time the usual place of rendczYOUB 
 for settling affairs of honoir.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 267 
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-FOURTH. 
 
 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 at- 
 tendance 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 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 ia 
 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 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 a.s 
 oursells the day. They were a' glistening wi' gowd and silver 
 — they're now as black as the crook. And Miss Lucy Ashton,
 
 ;j<58 1'ff£ BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOk, 
 
 that grudged when an honest woman came near her, a tald may 
 sit on her cofhn the 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," murmured the paralytic wretch, " that 
 the bride was trailed out of her bed and up the chimley 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 Ailsie 
 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 Ravens- 
 wood 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 
 T ken weel how it came there — to gie them a warning that pride 
 would 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' what- 
 ever 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 whis- 
 pers to each other. The suspicion fell upon a figure, which, 
 muffled in the same deep mourning with the others, was reclined, 
 almost in a s^ate 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 iiv 
 * Stickit, imperfect
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 269 
 
 trusion, 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 lias, or shall soon 
 have, as deep cause of mourning as ourselves — leave me to deaj 
 with him, and do not disturb the ceremony by unnecessary ex- 
 posure." So saving, 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 shai| 
 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. Sun-rise 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 further desperation a wretch who is already desperate. 
 Enjoy your life when 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 dishonorable, as it is al- 
 ready of all that is villanous." 
 
 " 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
 
 270 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 your challenge, time, and place of meeting. We meet, f pre 
 sume, alone ? " 
 
 "Alone we meet," said Colonel Ashton, " and alone will tha 
 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 decjv 
 est 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 Balder- 
 ston, who had ceased to expect his return. Confused and flying 
 rumors 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 appre- 
 hensions. 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 Balderston conducted 
 him to an apartment which had been comfortably fitted up, 
 and which, since his return he had usually occupied, Ravens- 
 wood 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 they were 
 at the castle." 
 
 " Who, sir ? ' said Caleb, too terrified to preserve his pres 
 ence of mind.
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR 
 
 271 
 
 " She, Lucy Ashton ! — would you kill me, old man, by forc- 
 ing 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 bid him begone in a tone that ad- 
 mitted of no delay. The old man retired, not to rest, but to 
 prayer : and from time to time crept to the door of the apart- 
 ment, in order to find out whether Ravenswood had gone to 
 repose. His measured heavy step upon the floor was only in- 
 terrupted by deep groans ; and the repeated stamps of the heel 
 of his heavy boot, intimated too clearly, that the wretched in- 
 mate was abandoning himself at such moments to paroxysms 
 of uncontroled agony. The old man thought that the morn, 
 ing 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 Balderston 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 Balderston knew too well, from what he had witnessed, 
 upon what enterprise his master was bound, and how vain an 
 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 disheveled ap- 
 pearance of his master's dress, and his ghastly looks, was con- 
 firmed 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 re- 
 jected his assistance by a mute sign, and having led the animal 
 into the court, and was just about to mount him when the old
 
 272 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 domestic's fear giving way to the strong attachment which wag 
 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 
 endeavoring 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 at the gate ; but in- 
 stantly turning back, he threw toward 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, ver)- 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 Balderston'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 accordingly 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 to- 
 ward 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 toward
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 273 
 
 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 Bal- 
 derston, who came from the opposite direction. No trace what- 
 ever of 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 horse- 
 man, 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 v/afted 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 
 the search availed nothing. The tenacious depths of the quick- 
 sand, 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 Balderston. If worldly profit could have con- 
 soled the old man, his age was better provided for than his 
 earlier life had ever been ; but life had lost to him its salt and 
 its savor. His whole course of ideas, his feelings, whether of 
 pride or of apprehension, of pleasure or of pain, had all arisen 
 from his close connection with the family which was now ex- 
 tinguished. 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 fidel-^^y^^jr^ 
 ity sometimes displayed by the canine race, but seldom by ' 
 human beings, he pined and died within a year after the catas- , 
 trophe which we have narrated. 
 
 The family of Ashton did not long survive that of Ravens- 
 wood. Sir William Ashton outlived his eldest son, the Colonel, tj^ ( ji 
 who was slain in a duel in Flanders ; and Henry, by whom he 'Vt****^ 
 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 im-
 
 274 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 placability. 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 undistin- 
 guished by tomb or epitaph.
 
 NOTES 
 
 TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Note A, p. i.— The Family of Stair. 
 
 [It may be regretted that the Author had not adhered to his original 
 purpose as here stated. In his Introduction to the Chronicles of the Canon- 
 gate {vide vol. xix. ), when referring to the sources or materials of his 
 novels, he says, " I may mention, for example's sake, that the terrible 
 catastrophe of the Bride of Lammermoor actually occurred in a Scottish 
 family of rank. ... It is unnecessary further to withdraw the real veil 
 from this scene of family distress, nor, although it occurred more than a 
 hundred years since, might it be altogether agreeable to the representatives 
 of the families concerned in the narrative. It may be proper to say, that 
 the events are imitated; h\x1 I had neither the means nor intcntio)i of copy- 
 ing the manners, or tracing the characters, of the persons concerned in the real 
 story." 
 
 The regret, however, is not in his stating that the tragical event said to 
 have happened in the family of Dalrymple of Stair in 1669 had suggested 
 the catastrophe, but in seemmgly connecting the story itself with the history 
 of that family, by quoting so fully the scandal and satirical verses of a later 
 period.] 
 
 Note B, p. 10. — Author's Illness and Dictation of the Noveu 
 
 From Lockhart's Memoirs of Scott. 
 
 [" Ballantyne informed me that Sir Walter was so much recovered as to 
 have resumed his usual literary tasks, though with this difference, that he 
 now, for the first time in his life, found it necessary to employ the hand of 
 another. The manuscript which Scott was thus dictating, was that of the 
 Bride of Lammermoor, and his amanuenses were William Laidlaw and John 
 Ballantyne; — of whom he preferred the latter, when he could be at Abbots- 
 ford, on account of the superior rapidity of his pen ; and also because John 
 Icept his pen to the paper without interru]5tion, and, though with many an 
 arch twinkle in his eyes, and now and then an audible smack of his lips, had 
 resolution to work on like a well-trained clerk ; whereas good Laidlaw en- 
 tered with such keen zest into the interest of the story as it flowed from the 
 author's lips, that he could not suppress exclamations of surprise and 
 delight — ' Gude keep us a' !— the like o' that ! — eh sirs ! eh sirs ! ' — and so 
 forth — which did not promote despatch. 
 
 " I have often, however, in the sequel, heard both the.se secretaries dc' 
 scribe the astonishment with which they were equally affected when Scolt
 
 276 1^0 TES TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 began this experiment. The affectionate Laidlaw beseeching him to stop 
 dictating when his audible suffering filled every pause, ' Nay, Willie,' he 
 answered, 'only see that the doors are fast. I would fain keep all the cry 
 as well as all the wool to ourselves; but as to giving over work, that can 
 only be when I am in woollen.' John Ballantyne told me, that after the 
 first day, he always took care to have a dozen of pens made before he seated 
 himself opposite to the sofa on which Scott lay, and that though he often 
 turned himself on his pillow with a groan of torment, he usually continued 
 the sentence in the same breath. But when dialogue of peculiar animation 
 was in progress, spirit seemed to triumph altogether over matter — he arose 
 from his couch and walked up and down the room, raising and lowering his 
 voice, and as it were acting the parts. It was in this fashion that Scott pro- 
 duced the far greater portion of the Bride of Lammermoor." 
 
 J. G. LOCKHART.] 
 
 Note C, p. 23. — Sir George Lockhart. 
 
 President of the Court of Session. He was pistolled in the High Street 
 of Edinburgh, by John Chiesley of Dairy in the year 1689, The revenge of 
 this desperate man was stimulated by an opinion that he had sustained in- 
 justice in a decreet-arbitral pronounced by the President, assigning an ali- 
 mentary provision of about ^93 in favor of his wife and children. He is 
 said at first to have designed to shoot the judge while attending upon divine 
 worship, but was diverted by some feeling concerning the sanctity of the 
 place. After the congregation was dismissed, he dogged his victim as far 
 as the head of the close on the south side of the Lawnmarket, in which the 
 President's house was situated, and shot him dead as he was about to enter 
 it. This act was done in the presence of numerous spectators. The assas- 
 sin made no attempt to flv, but boasted of the deed, saying, " I have taught 
 the President how to do justice." He had at least given him fair warning, 
 as Jack Cade says on a similar occasion. The murderer, after undertroing 
 the torture, by a special act of the Estates of Parliament, was tried before 
 the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, as high sheriff, and condemned to be 
 dragged on a hurdle to the place of execution, to have his right hand struck 
 off while he yet lived, and finally, to be hung on the gallows with the pistol 
 wherewith he shot the President tied round his neck. This execution took 
 place on the 3d of April, 1689; and the incident was long remembered as a 
 dreadful instance of what the law books call the perfervidum. ingenium 
 Scotoriim. 
 
 Note D, p. 62. — The Ballantynes. 
 
 [James Ballantyne, the eminent printer, was the eldest of three sons of 
 a small merchant in Kelso. He was born in 1772, and became acquainted 
 with Sir Walter Scott so early as 1784, when attending the Grammar 
 School. Having established a printing-office, he started a local news- 
 paper, called the" Kdso Mail: and in 1799. there issued from his press, 
 Scott's Apolor;y for Tales of Terror, of which only 12 copies were thrown 
 off. This was followed bv the first edition of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 Border, in 1802, a work that was considered such an admirable specimen 
 of tvpography, that Ballantyne was induced to remove to Edinburgh, 
 where for thirty years he carried on a printing establishment with great suoi 
 cess, leaving his younger brother, Alexander, at Kelso to look after the 
 IJfewspaper,
 
 itOTES TO THE BKIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 277 
 
 John Ballantyne, the second son, was born in 1774. He commenced hii 
 career at Kelso, in September 18 1 3, by the sale of that portion of the cele- 
 brated library of John Duke of Roxburghe which remained at Fleiirs Castle. 
 On coming to Edinburgh he was for a time connected with the printing 
 office ; but afterward turned auctioneer and bookseller, and became the 
 publisher of several of Scott's Poems and Novels. "Jocund Johnny," as 
 Scott sometimes called him, was a person of a volatile and joyous disposi- 
 tion, a most amusing companion, having the credit of being the best story- 
 teller of his time. The state of his health, however, obliged him to relin- 
 quish business, and he died i6th June, 1821. 
 
 James, who devoted much of his time to theatrical criticism and journal- 
 ism, died within four months of Sir Walter Scott, in January 1833. He 
 assisted the author of these novels in revising the proof sheets, and suggest- 
 ing minute corrections.] 
 
 Note E, p. 142. — The Raid of Caleb Balderston. 
 
 The raid of Caleb Balderston on the cooper's kitchen has been uni- 
 versally considered on the southern side of the Tweed as grotesquely and 
 absurdly extravagant. The Author can only say, that a similar anecdote 
 was communicated to him, with date and names of the parties, by a noble 
 Earl, lately deceased, whose remembrances of former days, both in Scot- 
 land and England, while they were given with a felicity and power of humor 
 never to be forgotten by those who had the happiness of meeting his lord- 
 ship in familiar society, were especially invaluable from their extreme 
 accuracy. 
 
 Speaking after my kind and lamented informer, with the omission of 
 names only, the anecdote ran thus : — There was a certain bachelor gentle- 
 man in one of the midland counties of Scotland, second son of an ancient 
 family, who lived on the fortune of a second .son — videlicet, upon some 
 miserable small annuity, which yet was so managed and stretched out by 
 the expedients of his man John, that his master kept the front rank with all 
 the young men of quality in the county, and hunted, dined, diced and drank 
 with them, upon apparently equal terms. 
 
 It is true, that as the master's society was extremely amusing, his friends 
 contrived to reconcile his man John to accept assistance of various kinds 
 under the rose, which they dared not to have directly offered to his master. 
 Yet, very consistently with all this good uiclination to John, nnd John's 
 master, it was thought among the young fox-hunters, that it Avould be an 
 excellent jest, if possible, to take John at fault. 
 
 With this intention, and, I think, in consequence of a bet, a party of 
 four or five of these youngsters arrived at the bachelor's little mansion, 
 which was adjacent tn a considerable village. Here they alighted a short 
 while before the dinner-hotn- — for it was judged regular to give John's in- 
 genuity a fair start — and, rushing past the astonished domestic, entered the 
 little parlor ; and, telling some concerted story of the cause of their in- 
 vasion, the self-invited guests asked their landlord if he could let them have 
 some dinner. Their friend gave them a hearty and unembarrassed re- 
 ception, and, for the matter of dinner, referred them to John. He was 
 summoned accordingly — received his master's orders to get dinner ready 
 for the party who had thus unexpectedlv arrived : and, without changing a 
 muscle of his countenance, promised prompt obedience. Great was the 
 speculation of the visitors, and probably of the landlord also, what was to 
 be the issue of John's fair promises. Some of the more curious had taken 
 a peep into the kitchen, and could see nothing there to realize the prospect
 
 278 NOTES TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 held out by tlie Major-Domo. But punctual as the dinner-hour struck on 
 the village clock, John placed before them a stately rump of boiled beef, 
 with a proper accompaniment of greens, amply suflicient to dine the whole 
 party, and to decide the bet against those among the visitors who expected 
 to take John napping. The explanation was the same as in the ca; e of 
 Calcl) Balderston. John had used the freedom to carry off the kail-pot of 
 a rich old chuff in the village, and brought it to his master's house, leaving 
 the proprietor and his friends to dine on bread and cheese; and as John 
 said, " good enough for them." The fear of giving offence to so many 
 persons of distinction kept the poor man sufficiently quiet, and he was 
 afterwards remunerated by some indirect patronage, so that the jest was 
 admitted a good one on all sides. In England, at any period, or in 
 some parts of Scotland at the present day, it might not have passed off 
 so well. 
 
 Note F, p. iii. — Ancient Hospitality. 
 
 It was once the universal custom to place ale, wine, or some strong 
 liquor in the chamber of an honored guest, to assuage his thirst should he 
 feel any on awakening in the night, which, considering that the hospitality 
 of that period often reached excess, was by no means unlikely. The Author 
 has met some instances of it in former days, and in old-fashioned families 
 It was, perhajjs, no poetic fiction that records how 
 
 " My cummer and I lay down to sleep 
 With two pint stoups at our bed-feet ; 
 And aye when we waken't we drank them dry : 
 What think you o' my cummer and I." 
 
 It is a current story in Teviotdale, that, in the house of an ancient 
 family of distinction, much addicted to the Presbyterian cause, a Bible was 
 always put into the sleeping apartment of the guests, along with a bottle of 
 strong ale. On some occasion there was a meeting of clergymen in the 
 vicinity of the castle, all of whom were invited to dinner by the worthy 
 Baronet, and several abode all night. According to the fashion of the 
 times, seven of the reverend guests were allotted to one large barrack- 
 room, which was used on such occasions of extended hospitality. The 
 butler took care that tiic divines were j^resented, according to custom, each 
 with a Bible and a bottle of ale. But after a little consultation among 
 themselves, they are said to have recalled the domestic as he was leaving 
 the apartment. " My friend," said one of the venerable guests, " vou musf 
 know, when we meet to together, as brethren, the youngest minister reads 
 aloud a portion of Scripture to the rest ; only one Bible, therefore, is neces- 
 sary ; take away the other six, and in their place bring six more bottles of 
 ale." 
 
 This synod would have suited the " hermit-sage " of Johnson, who an. 
 swered a pupil who inquired for the real road to happiness, with the cele- 
 brated line, 
 
 " Come, my lad, and drink some beer! " 
 
 Note G, p. 158.— Appeal to Parliament. 
 
 The power of appeal from the Court of Session, the supreme Judges of 
 Scotland, to the Scottish Parliament, in cases of civil right, was fiercely de* 
 bated before the Union. It was a privilege highly desirable for th* subject
 
 NOTES TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR 
 
 *79 
 
 as tne examination and occasional reversal of their sentences in Parliament, 
 might serve as a check upon the Judges, which they greatly required at a 
 time when they were much more distinguished for legal knowledge than for 
 uprightness and integrity. 
 
 The members of the Faculty of Advocates (so the Scottish barristers are 
 termed), in the year 1674, incurred the violent displeasure of the Court of 
 Session, on account of their refusal to renounce the right of appeal to Par- 
 liament ; and, by a very arbitrary procedure, the majority of the number 
 were banished from Edinburgh, and consequently deprived of their profes- 
 sional practice for several sessions, or terms. But by the articles of the 
 Union, an appeal to the British House of Peers has been secured to the 
 Scottish subject ; and that right has, no doubt, had its influence in forming 
 the i;npartial and independent character, which, much contrary to the 
 practice of their predecessors, the Judges of the Court of Session have 
 since displayed. 
 
 It is easy to conceive, that an old lawyer, like the Lord Keeper in 
 the text, should feel alarm at the judgments given in his favor, upon 
 grounds of strict penal law, being brought to appeal under a new and 
 dreaded procedure in a Court eminently impartial, and peculiarly moved by 
 considerations of equity. 
 
 In earlier additions of this Work, this legal distinction was not sufficiently 
 explained. 
 
 Note H, p. 181. — The Poor-Man-of-Mutton. 
 
 The blade-bone of a shoulder of mutton is called in Scotland " a poor 
 man," as in some parts of England it is termed "a poor knight of Wind- 
 sor; " in contrast, it must be presumed, to the baronial Sir Loin. It is 
 said, that in the last age an old Scottish peer, whose conditions (none of 
 the most gentle) were marked by a strange and fierce-looking exaggeration 
 of the Highland countenance, chanced to be indisposed while he was ia 
 London attending Parliament. The master of the hotel where he lodged, 
 anxious to show attention to his noble guest, waited on him to enumerate 
 the contents of his well-stocked larder, so as to endeavor to hit on some- 
 thing which might suit his appetite. " I think, landlord," said his lordship, 
 rising up from his couch, and throwing back the tartan plaid with which he 
 had screened his grim and ferocious visage — " I think I could eat a morsel 
 oi z poor man." The landlord fled in terror, having no doubt that his 
 guest was a cannibal, who might be in the habit of eating a slice of a 
 tenant, as light food, when he was under regimen. 
 
 Note I, p. 212. — Running Footmen. 
 
 Hereupon I, Jedediah Cleishbotham, crave leave to remark, /r/»/^, which 
 signifies, in the first place, that, having in vain inquired at tlie Circulating 
 Library in Gandercleugh, albeit it aboundeth in similar vanities, for this 
 samyn Middleton and his Mad World,* it was at length shown unto me 
 amongst other ancient fooleries carefully compiled by one Dodsley, who, 
 doubtless, hath his reward for neglect of precious time; and having 
 misused so much of mine as was necessary for the purpose, I therein found 
 that a play-man is brought in as a footman, whom a knight is made to 
 greet facetiously with the epithet of " linen stocking and three-score miles 
 a-day. " 
 
 • (In Dodsley's Select Celleciion of Old Plays, vol. v. pp. 307-402, ia reprinted the Pl^f 
 by Thomas Middleton, first published in i6oS, entitled A Mad IVorldx tny Matters.}
 
 ago NOTES TO THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOQR. 
 
 Secundo (which is secondly in the vernacular), under Mr. Pattieson's 
 favor, some men not altogether so old as he would represent them, do re- 
 member this species of menial, or forerunner. In evidence of which, I, 
 Tedediah Cleishbotham, though mine eyes yet do me good service, remem- 
 ber me to have seen one of this tribe clothed in white, and bearing a sfaff, 
 who ran daily before the stage-coach of the umquhile John, Earl of Hope- 
 ton, father of this Earl, Charles, that now is; unto whom it may be justly 
 said, that Renown playeth the part of a running footman, or precursor: 
 and as the poet singeth — 
 
 " Mars standing by asserts his quarrel, 
 And Fame flies after with a laurel." 
 
 Note J, p. 237. — Trumpeter Marine at Sheriffmuir. 
 
 (The battle of Sheriffmuir, which took place in November 17 [5, was 
 claimed as a victory by both sides. This gave rise to a clever popular song 
 printed at the time as a bioadside, under the title of "^ Race at Sheriff- 
 mnir, fairly run on /he i-^th A''oz'e?nber, 17 15, to the tune of THE HORSE- 
 MAN'S Sport." 
 
 " There's some say that we wan, some say that tliey wan. 
 Some say that nane wan at a', man : 
 But one thing I'm sure, that at Sluriffmuir 
 A battle there was, which I saw, man. 
 And we ran, and i/iey ran, andtliey ran, atidwe ran. 
 And we ran, andiliey ran awa, man." 
 
 In these satirical verses Trumpeter Marine is introduced, and in proof 
 of Sir Walter's accuracy as to the name, the following note iiiay be added, 
 as recent editors of this ballad have altered it to Maclean. 
 
 In the Present State of Great Britain, London, 1 7 10, Francis Marine is 
 second on the list of Queen Anne's Trumpeters for Scotland, while in the 
 volume for 17 16 his name occurs among the oiificers of the King's house- 
 hold, as " Francis Marine, Sen.," and there is added as fifth trumpeter, 
 •' Francis Marine, Jun." These household trinn peters were employed, as 
 thev are to this day in the Lyon Office, for announcing royal proclama- 
 tions, and attending the Circuit Courts of Justiciary. Another son or 
 grandson, named James Marine, continues to appear as trumpeter down to 
 
 178;. 
 
 The words referred to, in the original ballad of Sheriffmuir, are as 
 follow : — 
 
 And Trumpet Marine too, whose breeks were not clean, through 
 
 Misfortune he happen'd to fa', man : 
 By saving his neck, his trumpet did break. 
 
 Came off witliout musick at a', man. 
 And we ran, and ttiey ran, etc. 
 
 No doubt there was a John Maclean, trumpeter, sent on a message from 
 the rebels to the Duke of Argyle before the battle, but the modern im- 
 provers have spoiled the verses both as to rhyme and accuracy; while the^ 
 have overlooked the description of the trumpeter's dress, which would evi- 
 dently indicate his not being a Highlander.)
 
 GLOSSARY. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 A', all. 
 
 Abbe, let alone. 
 
 Abi.eeze, ablaze. 
 
 Abunk, above. 
 
 Ae, one. 
 
 Aff, o£f. 
 
 Again, against, until. 
 
 Ahint, behind. 
 
 AiRT, to direct. 
 
 Aits, oats. 
 
 AivER, a broken-winded horse. 
 
 Allenarly, solely. 
 
 An, if. 
 
 Ane ANiTHBR, One another. 
 
 Aroint, avaunt. 
 
 Ass, ash. 
 
 AuLD Reekie, Edinburgh. 
 
 Aw, owe 
 
 Back-sey, the sirloin. 
 
 Bailie, a magistrate. 
 
 Bairn, a child. 
 
 Bawbee, a halfpenny. 
 
 Bedesman, one supported by charity 
 
 Bedral, beadle, sexton. 
 
 Beflumm, befool. 
 
 Bide, stay, wait. 
 
 Binna, be not. 
 
 Birkie, a lively little fellow. 
 
 BiRKiE, the game of beggar-my-neighbor. 
 
 Birling, drinking. 
 
 Blackavisbd, black-visaged. 
 
 Blerze, blaze. 
 
 Blythe, merry. 
 
 Black as the crook, i.e., the chain used 
 
 for suspending a pot in old fireplaces. 
 BoGLu, a ghost. 
 BouROCK, a mound. 
 Bow AND brack, bow and hound. 
 Bowk, body, carcass. 
 Brander, broil. 
 Braw, brave, fine. 
 Brent, straight and smooth. 
 Brewis, the scum caused by boiling. 
 Broche, a roasting spit. 
 Bund, bound. 
 Busk, to deck up. 
 
 Ca*, can. 
 
 Caickling, cackling. 
 Callant, a young lad. 
 
 Cantrips, tricks, vagaries. 
 
 Canty, cheerful. 
 
 Capot, to win all the tricks at picqutfc. 
 
 Carle, a fellow. 
 
 Carline, a jade. 
 
 Cauld be my cast, cold be my fate or IpfL 
 
 Chaumer, chamber. 
 
 Chappin, a quart. 
 
 Chappit, struck. 
 
 Chield, a fellow. 
 
 Clavers, idle talk, gossip. 
 
 Claw up your mittens, to finish jrai^ 
 
 give the co7ip tie gnue. 
 Clockin hen, a sitting hen. 
 Cockernony, a top-knot on the head. 
 Cog, to empty or pour out 
 Cummer, a gossip or friend, 
 Cupar, will to, maun to, a wilful vtf, 
 
 must have his way. 
 
 Daffing, frolicking, larking. 
 
 Daft, crazy. 
 
 Dbil, devil. 
 
 Ding, knock. 
 
 DiNNA, do not. 
 
 Dittay, an indictment. 
 
 Doited, doited 
 
 DoNNART, stupid. 
 
 Dog, a dove. 
 
 Dour, stubborn. 
 
 Drap-de-berry, fine woollen dadb 
 
 Dreigh, dry. 
 
 Drouthv, dry. 
 
 DuNCH, to nudge. 
 
 Dune, done. 
 
 Dung, knocked. 
 
 DwiNiNG, declining. 
 
 Ebb, shallow. 
 Een, eyes. 
 ExiEs, hysterica. 
 
 Fat, what. 
 
 Tailzie, legal, to fail. 
 Feckless, feeble, silly. 
 Fell, terrible. 
 P'lT, the foot. 
 Flyte, to scold. 
 Forbears, ancestor*. 
 FoKBY. besides.
 
 282 
 
 GLOSSARY. 
 
 FoRGATHBK, come together, become inti- 
 mate. 
 
 Fou, a bushel. 
 
 Fool thief, the devil. 
 
 FoY, an entertainment ol gaudeamus. at a 
 leave-taking. 
 
 Frab, {rem. 
 
 Fremd, strange. 
 
 Freit, an omen. 
 
 Gab, go. 
 
 Gaisling, a gosling. 
 
 Gank, gone. 
 
 Ganc, go. 
 
 Gar, make, oblige. 
 
 Gate, way, manner, direction. 
 
 Gauger, exciseman. 
 
 Gawsie, plump, jolly. 
 
 Gear, money, property* 
 
 Gbizened, leaky. 
 
 Gib, give. 
 
 Gip, if 
 
 Gird, a hoop. 
 
 GiRN, grin. 
 
 Gledging, looking askance. 
 
 Glked, a spark. 
 
 Gleeing, squinting. 
 
 Glent, glance. 
 
 Glower, to gaze. 
 
 GowD, gold. 
 
 Gowk, a cuckoo, a fooL 
 
 Graith, furniture. 
 
 Greet, cry, weep. 
 
 GuDE guide us ! Lord preserve us! 
 
 Gudeman, head of the house, applied to the 
 
 husband. 
 GuDEWiFB, head of the house, applied to 
 
 the wife. 
 GusTiNG THEIR GABS, pleasing their 
 
 palates. 
 
 Haggis, a favorite Scotch pudding. 
 
 Haill, whole. 
 
 Hatted KIT, a bowlful of sourer curdled 
 
 cream. 
 Haud, hold. 
 
 Heather-cow, twig of heath. 
 Hellicat, villain. 
 How, hollow. 
 
 Ilka, each, every. 
 
 Ilka land its ain lauch (law), every 
 
 place its own custom. 
 Ill-clecket, ill-hatched. 
 Illdeedv gett, a mischievous urchin. 
 Ingan, an onion. 
 Inlakb, death, deficiency. 
 
 J best, jest 
 Jow, to toll 
 
 Kail, broth. 
 
 Kailyard, cabbage garden. 
 
 Kain, a tax (in kind) paid by tenant to 
 
 landlord. 
 Kkbbuck, a large cheese. 
 Kbek, peep. 
 Keep hbr thrkkp, keep on her course of 
 
 resolution. 
 Ken, know. 
 Kknspbcklb, outre, different from other 
 
 peraoBs. 
 
 KiMMER, a gossip, a friend. 
 Kippagb, confusion. 
 Kipper, dried salmon. 
 KisT, a chest, coffin. 
 Kittle, to tickle. 
 
 Lammkr, amber. 
 
 Landward, in the country. 
 
 Lauch, law. 
 
 La WING, the account or bill. 
 
 Lee, a lie. 
 
 LippKN, to trust. 
 
 Lith and limb, in bodily shap«> entirely 
 
 Loot, allowed. 
 
 Loupen, leaped. 
 
 Lowe, flame. 
 
 Lug, the ear. 
 
 LuMM, a chimney. 
 
 LuRDANB, blockhead, lazy. 
 
 Mailing, a small farm. 
 Main, a hand at dice. 
 Maun, must. 
 Meal-poke, meal-bag. 
 Melter, a male-herring. 
 Mersb, Berwickshire. 
 Mbssan, a cur. 
 Mirk, dark. 
 Misgie, go wrong. 
 MoNY, many. 
 Muckle, much. 
 Mull, a snufi-hom. 
 
 MURGANS, or MURGEONS, mOUths. 
 
 My sartie! my faith ! 
 
 Napery, table linen. 
 Natheless, nevertheless. 
 Ne'er-do-well, a worthless, do-aothief 
 
 person. 
 NouLD I, would I not. 
 Nourice-ship, nurse-ship. 
 NowT, black cattle. 
 
 OwER, over. 
 Oxter, armpit. 
 
 Pands, pledges. 
 
 Parochine. parish. 
 
 Pat, put. 
 
 Peat, turf. 
 
 Pegh, pant. 
 
 Pen can't play, pen can do nothi»{. 
 
 PiCK-MAW, a species of gull. 
 
 Pickle, a little. 
 
 Pigs, earthenware jars. 
 
 PiNNYWINKLES, the StOCks. 
 
 PiNT-SToup, pint measure. 
 
 Plack, a small copper coin. 
 
 Pliskie, a prank. 
 
 Ploy, a merry-making. 
 
 Pu', pull. 
 
 PuND .Scots, is. 8d, sterhng. 
 
 Quean, a young woman, a fliit. 
 
 Raily, an upper dress. 
 
 Reaving, robbing. 
 
 Redd, to clear. - . 
 
 RuDAs, a scolding jade. 
 
 Runlet, a soiall bamU 
 
 Sau., shaU. 
 
 \
 
 GLOSSARY. 
 
 283 
 
 Saraband, a grave Spanish dance. 
 
 Sark, a shirt. 
 
 Saui,, soul. 
 
 Scraugh, screech. 
 
 Scunner, to loathe. 
 
 Shaughlkd, worn dovm. 
 
 Sic, such. 
 
 SiccAN, such. 
 
 Siller, silver money. 
 
 Skart, scratch 
 
 Skirl, scream. 
 
 Sloken, quench. 
 
 Snap, a biscuit. 
 
 Sneckdrawer, a sneak. 
 
 Sneeshin, snuff. 
 
 Soothfast, true, honest. 
 
 Sorra a bit, devil a bit. 
 
 Sough, a sigh, a report. 
 
 Soup, sup, spoonful. 
 
 SouPLE, a switch. 
 
 Souse, to give a drubbing. 
 
 SowENS, a thick gruel. 
 
 Speer, ask, inquire. 
 
 Spule-bane, shoulder-blade. 
 
 Steading, farm buUdings. 
 
 Steer, to disturb. 
 
 -Stoup, liquid measure. 
 
 .Strae, straw. 
 
 Streak, stretch. 
 
 SuLD, should. 
 
 SuMPH, a slow dunce. 
 
 Swanking, active, agile. 
 
 SwAUK, strike forcibly. 
 
 Swap, to strike soundly. 
 
 SvBO, a young onion. 
 
 SvND, to rinse. 
 
 SvNE, since, ago. 
 
 Taen, taken. 
 
 Taid, a toad. 
 
 Tait, a small portion. 
 
 Tantrum the pet, great airs, a vagary. 
 
 Tap o' tow an irritable person, easily in 
 
 flamed. 
 Testers, bed covers. 
 Thowlhss, inactive. 
 Thkaw, twist. 
 
 Through-stane, a l!at grayeston*. 
 
 Thunner, thunder. 
 
 TiMMER, woodwork. 
 
 Tocher, dowry. 
 
 TotJT, the pet. 
 
 Troth, sure. 
 
 Trow, trust. 
 
 Tup, a ram. 
 
 Virginals, an old-fashioned sort of piano. 
 VivKRS, victuals. 
 VisiE, inspection. 
 
 Wad, would. 
 
 Wadsetter, a holder of another's properly 
 
 under pledge. 
 Wae, sorry. 
 Wame, belly. 
 Wap, a smart stroke. 
 Ware, to spend. 
 Warlock, a witch. 
 Wastland, west country. 
 Wat, wet. 
 Water-purpie, the brook-lime or torse' 
 
 well grass. 
 Waur, worse. 
 Wean, a chUd. 
 Wee, little. 
 Weel, well, 
 Wha, who. 
 Whample, a blow. 
 Wheen, a few. 
 Whii-K, which. 
 Whin-bush, furze. 
 White-hass, a sausage pudding. 
 Whomling, turning. 
 Wi' it, with it. 
 Will to Cupar, maun to Cupar, a wllfd 
 
 man must have his way. 
 WiNNA, will not. 
 WooDiE, the gallows. 
 Wraith, a ghost seen before deftthr 
 WuD, mad. 
 Wvte, blame.
 
 INDEX T .- THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 AlLsts GoDKLAT appointed nurse to Lncyi 
 
 241. Evil prognostications at the wedding, 
 
 260. And at the funeral, 267. 
 Alice, Blind, visited by Sir W. Ashton and 
 
 Lucy, 19. Painful visit from Lucy and 
 Kavenswood, 145. Apparition and death of, 
 
 Apparition at the Mermaiden's Fountain, 
 185. 
 
 Appeal to Parliament, note on, 292. 
 
 Armitage Churchyard, scene in, igz. 
 
 Ashton, Colonel, resents Ravenswood's in- 
 terference, 251. Challenges Ravenswood, 
 269. 
 
 Ashton, Henry, friglitened at Edgar's ap- 
 pearance, 142. Losis his dagger, 259. 
 
 Ashton Lady, 4. Unexpected arrival at 
 Ravenswood Castle, 174. Requests Ed- 
 gar to leave the Castle, 181. Enconrdg- 
 ing Bucklaw and Lucy, 230. Cuts the 
 ribbon, 256. 
 
 Ashton Lucy. St-e Lucy. 
 
 Ashton, Sir William, 2. Hears of thetuthull 
 at Ravenswood's funeral, q. Visit to Blind 
 Alice, 19. Meeting with Ravenswood, ji. 
 Tones down his complaint against Ravens- 
 wood, 34. Asks a reconciliation with 
 Ravenswood, 112. Insecurity of his es- 
 tate, 116. Removes Ravenswood's sus- 
 picions of him; U9. His policy toward 
 Edgar, 159. Rated by his wife, 179. 
 Menaced with an appeal, 222. 
 
 Assassniation familiar to the ancient baroo, 
 
 23- 
 
 Author's explanation on the Stair family, iiL 
 Author's illness during the progress of the 
 Bride of Lammarmoor, >eoie 281. 
 
 Balderstom. See Caleb. 
 
 Ballantynes, the, note nn, ago. 
 
 Bidc-the Bent, R<v. Mr., at Girder's cottage, 
 
 103. Called in to counsel Lucy, 245. 
 
 quotes Scripture, 254. 
 nittlebrains, lx)rd, 138. 
 Blind .'Vlice. See Alice. 
 Bride of Lammermoor, (Janet Dalrymple), 
 
 see a/sj I,ucy Ashton, 2. 
 .Bride of Lammermoor, the novel, dictation 
 
 of, by the Author, fiote, 281. 
 Bucklaw at the Todd's Den, 3. Challenges 
 
 Ravenswood, 55. Lod.ues in Wolf's Crag, 
 
 S». Complaints ot his night's lodging, 57. 
 
 Sets oft lor the chase, 69. Refused admrt- | 
 
 ' tance to the Tower, 79. Now Laird oi 
 Girnington, 152. Determines to court 
 Lucy Ashton, 166. And despatches Craig 
 engelt on the mission, 170. Uneasy aboiK 
 his suit with Lucy, 226-229. Stabbed by 
 his bride, 264. 
 
 Bull scene at Ravenswood, 25. 
 
 Burial rites on old Alice, i8g. 
 
 Burial scene in Armitage Churchyard, 192. 
 
 Caleb Balderston, reception of his mas- 
 ter and Bucklaw, 50. Collects the drib- 
 blets of claret, 55. Uncovering his dish of 
 herrings. 65. Implores his master not to 
 invite more guests, 68. Consternation at 
 seeiig Lucy and her father coming to tha 
 Tower, 77. Shuts out the flunkeys, 79. 
 Announces the spoiling of the dinner, 87. 
 Requisitions on the tenantry /efused, 94. 
 Enters Girder's cottage, 99. And makes 
 off with the roast fowl, 10 1. Propitiated 
 by Girder, loR. Warns his masser against 
 his reconciliation with the Ashtons, 134. 
 Forces money on his master, 136. Set! 
 fire to the Tower, 205, 213 Surrounded 
 by the Girders, 208. Picks up his mas 
 ter's feather, 273. Note on, 291. 
 
 Cattle, wild Scotch, 24 
 
 Chase at Ravenswood, 69. 
 
 Coldingliame Churchyard, 192. 
 
 Craigengelt at the Tod's Den, 37 Glad to 
 receive Bucklaw back again, 81. Refused 
 admittance by Ravenswood, 125. Carouse 
 with Bucklaw, 163. Despatch<!d to so. 
 licit Lucy's hand, 170, Reviving Buck 
 law's courage, 226. 
 
 Dalrvmplk family, connection with th» 
 
 novel, ill. Note on, 289. 
 Description, the drawing and tinting of aO 
 
 author, xix 
 Dick Tinto. .S'c^'Tinto. 
 Dialogue, Dick Tinto's ideas of, xx. 
 Dunbar of Baldoon, connection with Janet 
 
 Dalrymple (Bride of Lammermoor), iv. 
 
 Edgar. See Ravenswood, 
 
 Fast Castlr, identity of, 10, 49. 
 
 Ftu-rights, 93. 
 
 Footmen, running, note on, 293.
 
 INDEX TO THE BRIDE OE LAMMERMOOR. 
 
 Gamekeeper an important person, 15. 
 
 tjirder the cooper's indignation at his wife 
 and Caleb, 103. Sends a rundlet of 
 
 brandy to Caleb, 107. Marquis A 
 
 entertained in his house, 211. 
 
 Girnington, Lady, Bucklaw's grand-aunt, 
 
 Gourlay. See Ailsie. 
 
 Graveyard, scene between Mortsheugh and 
 Ravenswood, 193. 
 
 Hayston, Frank. See Bucklaw. 
 He is come — he is come ! 249. 
 Henry Ashton. See Ashton. 
 Hospitality, ancient, note on, 292. 
 
 J'anet Dalrymplk, prototype of the 
 
 Bride of Lammermoor, iv. 
 Justice, corrupt administration, time of 
 
 tale, 3. 
 
 Kelpie's Flow, Caleb's waniiRg, 135. 
 Comes true, 272. 
 
 Lockhart, Sir George, note on, 290. 
 
 Look not thou on beauty's charming, 12. 
 
 Lord Keeper. See Ashton, Sir W. 
 
 Lucy Ashton, at her lute, 37. Takes her 
 father to Blind Alice, 18. Rescued from 
 the bull, 26. Her thoughts of Ravens- 
 wood, 33. Led by Ravenswood into 
 Wolf's Crag, 75. Her conduct to Edgar, 
 no. His influence on her, 124. Be- 
 trothal scene, 152. Love Passages, 159. 
 Her reception of Bucklaw, 229. Perse- 
 cuted by her mother, 240. Arrival of 
 Ravenswood, 249. Allows her mother to 
 cut the ribbon, 256. Her wedding day, 
 258. Stabs her husband (Bucklaw), and 
 her death, 264. 
 
 Marine the Truinpeter, note on, 294. 
 
 Marquis of A , letfjr to Ravenswood on 
 
 his prospects, 62, xiS. Arrival at Rav- 
 enswood Castle, 173. Counsels Ravens- 
 wood to give up Lucy, 200. 
 
 Marriage of Lucy and Bucklaw, 259. 
 
 Master of Ravenswood. See Ravenswood- 
 
 Merniaiden's P'ountain, legend on, 27. 
 Betrothal scene at, 152. Apparition at, 
 185. 
 
 Morning favorable to calm reflection, 57. 
 
 Mortsheugh the sexton, 193. 
 
 Mutton, poor-man-of, note on, 293. 
 
 Music, concealed, gives a mingled pleasure. 
 
 NifiHT, ancient hospitalities to strangers 
 
 passing the, note, 292. 
 Norman tlie gamekeeper, 15. 
 
 Painting, and poetry, xix. Excels the ape 
 
 of Gines de Passamont, xxi. 
 Parliament, .Scotch appeii to, 292, 
 I'uetry and painting, xix. 
 
 Pnor-man-of-nnittnn, note on, 29^ 
 Poor, the. Girder's consideration for (:) 22a 
 Privy Council wonder over Sir W. Ashton's 
 conciliatory spirit, 35. 
 
 Raid of Caleb Balderston, note, 291. 
 
 Raven shot at the betrothal. 155. 
 
 Ravenswood Castle, visit of Edgar, 739. 
 
 Ravenswood, Lord Allan, funeral of, 5. 
 
 Ravenswood, Master of (Edgar), conduct 
 at his father's funeral, 6. Rescues Lucy 
 from the bull, iS. Hasty visit to the 
 Tod's Den, 41. Combat with Bucklaw, 
 45. Lodges him in Wolf's Crag, 51. 
 Thoughts of Lucy, 60. Meets with Sir 
 W. Ashton and Lucy at the chase, 73. 
 And gives them refuge in the Tower, 76. 
 His troubled thoughts on their visit, 114. 
 Feels the influence of Lucy, 124. Con- 
 temptuous treatment of Craigengelt, 125. 
 Reconciliation with Ashton, 130. Warn- 
 ing from Caleb, 134. Visit to Ravens- 
 wood, 139. Accompanies Lucy to old 
 Alice's, 145. Betrothal at the fountain, 
 153. Love passages with Lucy, 159. 
 Desired to leave the Castle, iSi. Meets 
 an apparition at the well, i?6. Evil 
 prognostications, 192. Interview with 
 the sexton, 193. Counseled by Marquis 
 
 A , 200- Departure for abroad, and 
 
 letters to the Ashtous, 222. Reply f'om 
 Lucy, 225. Interrupts her betrothal to 
 Bucklaw, 250. Receives back the en- 
 gaged token, 256. At Lucy's funeral, 26S. 
 Perishes in the Kelpie's Flow, 272. 
 
 Ravenswood, house of, iii. 
 
 Revenge, a gentleman-like sin, 47. 
 
 Running footmen, note on, 293. 
 
 Rutherford, Lord, connection with Janet 
 Dalryraple (Bride of Lammermoor), iv. 
 
 Scotch burial customs, 
 
 Scotch wild cattle, 24, 
 
 Sign painting, xiv. 
 
 Sleep, ancient hospitalities, note, 292- 
 
 Stag's horn, dangerous wound from, 72. 
 
 Stair family, connection with the novel, ni. 
 
 note on, 2S9. 
 Symson of Kirkinner, vii. 
 
 Thb monk must rise when the matins 
 
 ring, 17. 
 Tinto, Dick, his pedigree, xiii. Plies his 
 
 brush, xiv. 
 Tod's l>en alehouse, 37. 
 Truinpeter Marine, note on, 294. 
 Turntippet, Lord, his restitution, 221. 
 
 Weddin& scene, 262 
 
 When the last Laird of Ravenswood to 
 
 Ravenswood shall ride, 135. 
 Wolf's Crag, 49. Banqueting hall, 53. 
 
 Scene in, with Ravenswood and the Ash- 
 oil's, no. Pseudo-burning of, 205. 
 Wolf's Hope village, connection with the 
 
 Ravenswoods, 93. Entertainment of 
 
 Marquis A at, 2 1 1.
 
 MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The species of publication which has come to be generally 
 known by the title o{ Annual, being a miscellany of prose and 
 verse, equipped with numerous engravings, and put forth every 
 year about Christmas, had flourished for a long while in Germany, 
 before it was imitated in this country by an enterprising bookseller, 
 a German by birth, Mr. Ackermann. The rapid success of his 
 work, as is the custom of the time, gave birth to a host of rivals, 
 and, among others, to an annual styled The Keepsake, the first 
 volume of which appeared in 1828, and attracted much notice, 
 chiefly in consequence of the very uncommon splendor of its illus- 
 trative accompaniments. The expenditure which the spirited pro- 
 prietors lavished en this magnificent volume is understood to have 
 been not less than from ten to twelve thousand pounds sterling ! 
 
 Various gentlemen, of such literary reputation that any one 
 might think it an honor to be associated with them, had been an- 
 nounced as contributors to this annual, before application was 
 made to me to assist in it ; and I accordingly placed with much 
 pleasure at the Editor's disposal a few fragments, originally de- 
 signed to have been worked into the Chronicles of the Canongate, 
 besides a MS. Drama, the long-neglected performance of my 
 youthful days— The House of Aspen. 
 
 The Keepsake for 1828 included, however, only three of these 
 little prose tales — of which the first in order was that entitled 
 " My Aunt Margaret's Mirror." By way of introduction to this, 
 when now included in a general collection of my lucubrations, I 
 have only to say that it is a mere transcript, or at least with very 
 little embellishment, of a story that 1 remembered being struck 
 with in my childhood, when told at the fireside by a lady of emi- 
 nent virtues, and no inconsiderable share of talent, one of the an- 
 cient and honorable house of Swinton. She was a kind relation 
 of my own, and met her death in a manner so shocking, being 
 killed in a fit of insanity by a female attendant who had been at- 
 tached to her person for half a lifetime, that I cannot now recall 
 her memory, child as I was when the catastrophe occurred, with- 
 out a painful reawakening of perhaps the first images of horror 
 that the scenes of real life stamped on my mind.
 
 li INTR OD UCTIOM. 
 
 This good spinster had in her composition a strong vein of the 
 superstitious, and was pleased, among other fancies, to read alone 
 in her chamber by a taper fixed in a candlestick which she had 
 formed out of a human skull. One night, this strange piece of 
 furniture acquired suddenly the power of locomotion, and, after 
 performing some odd circles on her chimney-piece, fairly leaped 
 on the floor, and continued to roll about the apartment. Mrs. 
 Swinton calmly proceeded to the adjoining room for another light, 
 and had the satisfaction to penetrate the mystery on the spot. 
 Rats abounded in the ancient building she inhabited, and one of 
 these had managed to ensconce itself within her favorite vicnicnto 
 mori. Though thus endowed with a more than feminine share of 
 nerve, she entertained largely that belief in supernatural which 
 in those times was not considered as sitting ungracefully on the 
 grave and aged of her condition; and the story of the Magic Mir- 
 ror was one for which she vouched with particular confidence, al- 
 leging indeed that one of her own family had been an eye-witness 
 of the incidents recorded in it. 
 
 " I tell the tale as it was told to me.'' 
 
 Stories enow of much the same cast will present themselves to 
 the recollection of such of my readers as have ever dabbled in a 
 species of lore to which I certainly gave more hours, at one period 
 of my life, than I should gain any credit by confessing. 
 
 August, 1831.
 
 MY AUNT MARGARETS MIRROR. 
 
 " There are times 
 When Fancy plays her gambols, in despite 
 Even of our watchful senses, when in sooth 
 Substance seems shadow, shadow substance seems, 
 When the broad, palpable, and mark'd partition, 
 'Twixt that which is and is not, seems dissolved, 
 As if the mental eye gain'd power to gaze 
 Beyond the limits of the existing world. 
 Such hours of shadowy dreams I better love 
 Than all the gross realities of life." 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 My Aunt Margaret was one of that respected sisterhood, 
 upon whom devolve all the trouble and solicitude incidental to 
 the possession of children, excepting only that which attends 
 their entrance into the world. We were a large family, of very 
 different dispositions and constitutions. Some were dull and 
 peevish — they were sent to Aunt Margaret to be amused ; some 
 were rude, romping, and boisterous — they were sent to Aunt 
 Margaret to be kept quiet, or rather that their noise might be 
 removed out of hearing : those who were indisposed were sent 
 with the prospect of being nursed — those who were stubborn, 
 with the hope of their being subdued by the kindness of Aunt 
 Margaret's discipline ; in short, she had all the various duties of 
 a mother, without the credit and dignity of the maternal char- 
 acter. The busy scene of her various cares is now over — of the 
 invalids and the robust, the kind and the rough, the peevish 
 and pleased children, who thronged her little parlor from 
 morning to night, not one now remains alive but myself ; who, 
 afflicted by early infirmity was one of the most delicate of her 
 nurslings, yet, nevertheless, have outlived them all. 
 
 It is still my custom, and shall be so while I have the use of 
 my limbs, to visit my respected relation at least three times a- 
 week. Her abode is about half-a-mile from the suburbs of th-e 
 town in which I reside ; and is accessible not only by the high-
 
 ^ MV A UNT M ARC A RE T'S MIRROR. 
 
 road, from which it stands at some distance, but by means of a 
 greensward footpath, leading through some pretty meadows. 
 I have so little left to torment me in life, that it is one of my 
 greatest vexations to know that several of these sequestered 
 fields have been devoted as sites for building. In that which 
 is nearest the town, wheelbarrows have been at work for several 
 weeks, in such numbers, that, I verily believe, its whole surface, 
 to the depth of at least eighteen inches, was mounted in these 
 monotrochs at the same moment, and in the act of being trans- 
 ported from one place to another. Huge triangular piles of 
 planhs are also reared in different parts of the devoted messuage; 
 and a little group of trees, that still grace the eastern end, which 
 rises in a gentle ascent, have just received warning to quit, ex- 
 pressed by a daub of white paint, and are to give place to a 
 curious grove of chimneys. 
 
 It would, perhaps, hurt others in my situation to reflect that 
 this little range of pasturage once belonged to my father (whose 
 family was of some consideration in the world), and was sold by 
 patches to remedy distresses in which he involved himself in an 
 attempt by commercial adventure to redeem his diminished 
 fortune. While the building scheme was in full operation, this 
 circumstance w^as often pointed out to me by the class of friends 
 who are anxious that no part of your misfortunes should escape 
 your observation. " Such pasture-ground ! — lying at the very 
 town's end — in turnips and potatoes, the parks would bring ;^2o 
 per acre, and if leased for building — Oh, it was a gold mine ! 
 • — And all sold for an old song out of the ancient possessor's 
 hands ! " My comforters cannot bring me to repine much on 
 this subject. If I could be allowed to look back on the past 
 without interruption, I could w^illingly give up the enjoyment of 
 present income, and the hope of future profit, to those who 
 have purchased what my father sold, I regret the alteration of 
 the ground only because it destroys associations, and I would 
 more willingly (I think) see the Earl's Closes in the hands of 
 strangers, retaining their sylvan appearance, than know them for 
 my own, if torn up by agriculture, or covered with buildings. 
 Mine are the sensations of poor Logan : — 
 
 " The horrid plougli has razed the green 
 Wliere yet a child I stray'd ; 
 The axe has felled the hawthorn screen, 
 The schoolboy's sunnner shade." 
 
 I hope, however, the threatened devastation will not be con- 
 summated in my day. Although the adventurous spirit of times 
 short while since passed gave rise to the undertaking, 1 have
 
 MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. ^ 
 
 been encouraged to think, that the subsequent changer, have so 
 far damped the spirit of speculation, that the rest of the wood- 
 land footpath leading to Aunt Margaret's retreat will be left un- 
 disturbed for her time and mine. I am interested in this, for 
 every step of the way, after I have passed through the green al- 
 ready mentioned, has for me something of early remembrance : 
 — There is the stile at which I can recollect a cross child's-maid 
 upbraiding me with my infirmity, as she lifted me coarsely and 
 carelessly over the flinty steps, which my brothers traversed 
 with shout and bound. I remember the suppressed bitterness 
 of the moment, and, conscious of my own inferiority, the feeling 
 of envy with which I regarded the easy movements and elastic 
 steps of my more happily formed brethren. Alas ! these goodly 
 barks have all perished on life's wide ocean, and only that which 
 seemed so little seaworthy, as the naval phrase goes, has reached 
 the port when the tempest is over. Then there is the pool, where, 
 manoeuvring our little navy constructed out of the broad water 
 flags, my elder brother fell in, and was scarce saved from the 
 watery element to die under Nelson's banner. There is the 
 hazel copse also, in which my brother Henry used to gather 
 nuts, thinking little that he was to die in an Indian jungle in 
 quest of rupees. 
 
 There is so much more of remembrance about the little walk, 
 that — as I stop, rest on my crutch-headed cane, and look round 
 with that species of comparison between the thing I was and 
 that which I now am — it almost induces me to doubt my own 
 identity ; until I find myself in face of the honeysuckle porch 
 of Aunt Margaret's dwelling, with its irregularity of front, and its 
 odd projecting latticed windows ; where the workmen seem to 
 have made a study that no one of them should resemble another, 
 in form, size, or in the old-fashioned stone entablature and la- 
 bels which adorn them. This tenement, once the manor-house 
 of Pearl's Closes, we still retain a slight hold upon ; for, in some 
 family arrangements, it had been settled upon Aunt Margaret 
 during the term of her life. Upon this frail tenure depends, in 
 a great measure, the last shadow of the family of Bothwell of 
 Earl's Closes, and their last slight connection with their pater- 
 nal inheritance. The only representative will then be an infirm 
 old man, moving not unwillingly to the grave, which has de- 
 voured all that were dear to his affections. 
 
 When I have indulged such thoughts for a minute or two, I 
 enter the mansion, which is said to have been the gatehouse 
 only of the original building, and find one being on whom time 
 seems to have made little impression ; for the Aunt Margaret 
 of to-day bears the same proportional age to the Aunt Margaret
 
 6 MY AUNT MA RGARE T'S MIRROR, 
 
 of my early youth, that the boy of ten years old does to the man 
 of (by'r Lady !) some fifty-six years. The old lady's invariable 
 costume has doubtless some share in contirming one in the 
 opinion, that time has stood still with Aunt Margaret. 
 
 The brown or chocolate-colored silk gown, with ruffles of 
 the same stuff at the elbow, within which are others of Mechlin 
 lace — the black silk gloves, or mitts, the white hair combed 
 back upon a roll, and the cap of spotless cambric, which closes 
 around the venerable countenance, as they were not the costume 
 of 1780, so neither were they that of 1826; they are altogether 
 a style peculiar to the individual Aunt Margaret. There she 
 still sits, as she sat thirty years since, with her wheel or the 
 stocking, which she works by the fire in winter and by the win- 
 dow in summer ; or, perhaps, venturing as far as the porch in 
 an unusually fine summer evening. Her frame, like some well- 
 constructed piece of mechanics, still performs the operations 
 for which it had seemed destined ; going its round with an ac- 
 tivity which is gradually diminished, yet indicating no probability 
 that it will soon come to a period. 
 
 The solicitude and affection which had made Aunt Margaret 
 the willing slave to the inflictions of a whole nursery, have now 
 for their object the health and comfort of one old and fnfirm 
 man, the last remaining relative of her family, and the only one 
 who can still find interest in the traditional stores which she 
 hoards, as some miser hides the gold which he desires that no 
 one should enjoy after his death. 
 
 My conversation with Aunt Margaret generally relates little 
 either to the present or to the future : for the passing day we 
 possess as much as we require, and we neither of us wish for 
 more; and for that which is to follow we have on this side of 
 the grave neither hopes, nor fears, nor anxiety. We therefore 
 naturally look back to the past ; and forget the present fallen 
 fortunes and declined importance of our family, in recalling the 
 hours when it was wealthy and prosperous. 
 
 With this slight introduction, the reader will know as much 
 of Aunt Margaret and her nephew as is necessary to comprehend 
 the following conversation and narrative. 
 
 Last week, when, late in a summer evening, I went to call on 
 the old lady to whom my reader is now introduced, I was received 
 by her with all her usual affection and benignity; while, at the 
 same time, she seemed abstracted and disposed to silence. I 
 asked her the reason. " They have been clearing out the old 
 chapel," she said, " John Clayhudgeons having, it seems, dis- 
 covered that the stuff within — being, I suppose, the remains of 
 our ancestors — was excellent for top-dressing the meadows."
 
 My A UNT MA R GA RE T'S MIRROR. « 
 
 Here I started up with more alacrity than I have displayed 
 for some years ; but sat down while my aunt added, laying her 
 hand upon my sleeve, " The chapel has been long considered as 
 common ground, my dear, and used for a penfold, and what 
 objection can we have to the man for employing what is his 
 own, to his ov.-n profit ? Besides, I did speak to him, and he 
 very readily and civilly promised, that, if he found bones or mon- 
 uments, they should be carefully respected and reinstated ; and 
 what more could I ask ? So, the first stone they found bore the 
 name of Margaret Both well, 1585, and I have caused it to be laid 
 carefully aside, as I think it betokens death ; and having served 
 my namesake two hundred years, it has just been cast up in time 
 to do me the same good turn. My house has been long put in 
 order, as far as the small earthly concerns require it, but who 
 shall say that their account with Heaven is sufficiently revised ? " 
 
 " After what you have said, aunt," I replied, " perhaps I 
 ought to take my hat and go away, and so I should, but that 
 there is on this occasion a little alloy mingled with our devotion. 
 To think of death at all times is a duty — to suppose it nearer, 
 from the finding of an old gravestone, is superstition ; and you, 
 with your strong useful common sense, which was so long the 
 prop of a fallen family, are the last person whom I should have 
 suspected of such weakness." 
 
 " Neither would I have deserved your suspicions, kinsman," 
 answered Aunt Margaret, " if we were speaking of any incident 
 occurring in the actual business of human life. But for all this 
 I have a sense of superstition about me, which I do not wish to 
 part with. It is a feeling which separates me from this age, and 
 links me with that to which I am hastening ; and even when it 
 seems, as now, to lead me to the brink of the grave, and bids 
 me gaze on it, I do not love that it should be dispelled. It 
 soothes my imagination, without influencing my reason or 
 conduct." 
 
 " I profess, my good lady," replied I, "that had any one but 
 you made such a declaration, I should have thought it as capri- 
 cious as that of the clergyman, who, without vindicating his 
 false reading, preferred, from habit's sake, his old Mumpsimus 
 to the modern Sumpsimus." 
 
 " Well," answered my aunt, " I must explain my inconsistency 
 in this particular, by comparing it to another. I am, as you 
 know, a piece of that old-fashioned thing called a Jacobite ; but 
 I am so in sentiment and feeling only ; for a more loyal subject 
 r-jvcr joined in prayers for the health and wealth of George the 
 Fourth, whom God long preserve ! But I dare say tiiat kind- 
 hcnrted sovereign would not deem that an old woman did hinj
 
 3 jlfY AUNT MARGARET'S MlRkOR. 
 
 much injury if she leaned back in her arm-chair, just in such a 
 twilight as this, and thought of the high-mettled men, whose 
 sense of duty called them to arms against his grandfather ; and 
 how, in a cause which they deemed that of their rightful prince 
 and country, 
 
 * They fought till their hands to the broadsword were glued, 
 They fought against fortune with iiearts unsubdued.' 
 
 Do not come at such a moment, when my head is full of plaids, 
 pibrochs, and claymores, and ask my reason to admit what, I 
 am afraid, it cannot deny — I mean, that the public advantage 
 peremptorily demanded that these things should cease to exist. 
 I cannot, indeed, refuse to allow the justice of your reasoning; 
 but yet, being convinced against my will, you will gain little by 
 your motion. You might as well read to an infatuated lover the 
 catalogue of his mistress's imperfections ; for, when he has been 
 compelled to listen to the summary, you will only get for answer, 
 that, ' he lo'es her a' the better.' '' 
 
 I was not sorry to have changed the gloomy train of Aunt 
 Margaret's thoughts, and replied in the same tone, " Well, I can't 
 help being persuaded that our good king is the more sure of 
 Mrs. Bothwell's loyal affection, that he has the Stuart right of 
 birth, as well as the Act of Succession in his favor," 
 
 " Perhaps my attachment, were its source of consequence, 
 might be found warmer for the union of the rights you mention," 
 said Aunt Margaret ; " but, upon my word, it would be as sincere 
 if the king's right were founded only on the will of the nation, 
 as declared at the Revolution. I am none of yoMX j'uere devino 
 folk." 
 
 "And a Jacobite notwithstanding." 
 
 " And a Jacobite notwithstanding ; or rather, I will give you 
 leave to call me one of the party which, in Queen Anne's time, 
 were called Whimsicals \ because they were sometimes operated 
 upon by feelings, sometimes by principle. After all, it is very 
 hard that you will not allow an old woman to be as inconsistent 
 in her political sentiments, as mankind in general show them- 
 selves in all the various courses of life ; since you cannot point 
 out one of them, in which the passions and prejudices of those 
 who pursue it are not perpetually carrying us away from the 
 path which our reason points out." 
 
 "True, aunt; but you are a wilful wanderer, who should be 
 forced back into the right path." 
 
 " Spare me, I entreat you," replied Aunt Margaret. " You 
 remember the Gaelic song, though I dare say 1 mispronounce 
 the words —
 
 xVY A O'A ' T MA R GA RE T'S MIRROR. p 
 
 * Hateel mohateel nah dovvskee mee.' 
 ' I am asleep, do not waken me.' 
 
 I tell you, kinsman, that the sort of waking dreams which my 
 imagination spins out, in what your favorite Wordsworth calls 
 * moods of my own mind,' are worth all the rest of my more 
 active days. Then, instead of looking forward as I did in 
 youth, and forming for myself fairy palaces, upon the verge of 
 the grave, I turn my eyes backward upon the days and manners 
 of my better time ; and the sad, yet soothing recollections come 
 so close and interesting, that I almost think it sacrilege to be 
 wiser, or more rational, or less prejudiced, than those to whom 
 I looked up in my younger )'ears." 
 
 " I think I now understand what you mean, " I answered, 
 *' and can comprehend why you should occasionally prefer the 
 twilight of illusion to the steady light of reason." 
 
 " Where there is no task," she rejoined, " to be performed, 
 we may sit in the dark if we like it — if we go to work, we must 
 ring for candles." 
 
 "And amidst such shadowy and doubtful light," continued 
 I, " imagination frames her enchanted and enchanting visions, 
 and sometimes passes them upon the senses for reality." 
 
 " Yes," said Aunt Margaret, who is a well-read woman," to 
 those who resemble the translator of Tasso, 
 
 * Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind 
 Believed the magic wonders which he sung.' 
 
 It is not required for this purpose, that you should be sensible 
 of the painful horrors which an actual belief in such prodigies 
 inflicts — such a belief, now-a-days, belongs only to fools and 
 children. It is not necessary that your ears should tingle, and 
 your comiilexion change, like that of Theodore, at the approach 
 of the apectral huntsman. All that is indispensable for the en- 
 joyment of the milder feeling of supernatural awe is, that you 
 should be susceptible of the slight shuddering which creeps over 
 you when you hear a tale of terror — that well-vouched tale which 
 the narrator, having first expressed his general disbelief of all 
 such legendary lore, selects and produces, as having something 
 in it which he has been always obliged to give up as inexplicable. 
 Another symptom is, a momentary hesitation to look round you, 
 when the interest of the narrative is at the highest ; and the 
 third, a desire to avoid looking into a mirror, when you are alone, 
 in your chamber, for the evening. I mean such are signs which 
 indicate the crisis, when a female imagination is in due tempera-
 
 iO 
 
 MY AUN'I MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 ture to enjoy a ghost story. I do not pretend to describe those 
 which express the same disposition in a gentleman." 
 
 "This last symptom, dear aunt, of shunning the mirror, 
 seems likely to be a rare occurrence amongst the fair sex." 
 
 " You are a novice in toilet fashions, my dear kinsman. All 
 women consult the looking-glass, with anxiety before they go 
 into company ; but when they return home, the mirror has not 
 the same charm. The die has been cast — the party has been 
 successful or unsuccessful, in the impression which she desired 
 to make. But without going deeper into the mysteries of the 
 dressing-table, I will tell you that I myself, like many other 
 honest folk, do not like to see the blank black front of a large 
 mirror in a room dimly lighted, and where the reflection of the 
 candle seems rather to lose itself in the deep obscurity of the 
 glass, than to be reflected back again into the apartment. That 
 space of inky darkness seems to be a field for Fancy to play her 
 revels in. She may call up other features to meet us, instead 
 of the reflection of our own ; or, as in the spells of Hallowe'en, 
 which we learned in childhood, some unknown form may be 
 seen peeping over our shoulder. In short, when I am in a 
 ghost-seeing humor, I make my handmaiden draw the green 
 curtains over the mirror before I go into the room, so that she 
 may have the first shock of the apparition, if there be any to 
 be seen. But to tell you the truth, this dislike to look into a 
 mirror in particular times and places, has, I believe, its original 
 foundation in a story which came to me by tradition from my 
 grandmother, who was a party concerned in the scene of which 
 I will now tell you." 
 
 THE MIRROR. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 You are fond (said my aunt) of sketches of the society 
 which has passed away. I wish I could describe to you Sit 
 Philip Forester, the " chartered libertine " of Scottish good 
 company, about the end of the last century. I never saw him 
 indeed ; but my mother's traditions were full of his wit, gallan- 
 try, and dissipation. This gay knight flourished about the end 
 of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. 
 He was the Sir Charles Easy and the Lovelace of his day and 
 country ; renowned for the number of duels he had fought, and 
 the successful intrigues which he had carried on. The suprem- 
 acy which he had attained in the fashionable world was
 
 MV AUNT MARGARET S MIRROR. 
 
 tl 
 
 absolute : and when we combine it with one or two anecdotes, 
 for which, " if laws were made for every degree," he ought 
 certainly to have been hanged, the popularity of such a person 
 really serves to show, either that the present times are much 
 more decent, if not more virtuous, than they formerly were ; 
 or, that high breeding then was of more difficult attainment 
 than that which is now so called ; and consequently, entitled 
 the successful professor to a proportionable degree of plenary 
 indulgences and privileges. No beau of this day could have 
 borne out so ugly a story as that of Pretty Peggy Grindstone, 
 the miller's daughter at Sillermills — it had well-nigh made work 
 for the Lord Advocate, But it hurt Sir Philip Forester no more 
 than the hail hurts the hearthstone. He was as well received 
 
 in society as ever, and dined with the Duke of A • the day 
 
 the poor girl was buried. She died of heartbreak. But that has 
 nothing to do with my story. 
 
 Now, you must listen to a single word upon kith, kin, and 
 ally ; I promise you I will not be prolix. But it is necessary 
 to the authenticity of my legend, that you should know that 
 Sir Philip Forester, with his handsome person, elegant accom- 
 plishments, and fashionable manners married the younger Miss 
 Falconer of King's-Copland. The elder sister of this lady had 
 previously become the wife of my grandfather, Sir Geoffrey 
 Bothwell, and brought into our family a good fortune. Miss 
 Jemima, or Miss Jemmie Falconer, as she was usually called, 
 had also about ten thousand pounds sterling — then thought a 
 very handsome portion indeed. 
 
 The two sisters were extremely different, though each had 
 their admirers while they remained single. Lady Bothwell had 
 some touch of the old King's-Copland blood about her. She 
 was bold, though not to the degree of audacity ; ambitious, and 
 desirous to raise her house and family ; and was, as has been 
 said, a considerable spur to my grandfather, who was otherwise 
 an indolent man ; but whom, unless he has been slandered, his 
 lady's influence involved in some political matters which had 
 been more wisely let alone. She was a woman of high principle, 
 however, and masculine good sense, as some of her letters 
 testify, which are still in my wainscot cabinet. 
 
 Jemmie Falconer was the reverse of her sister in every 
 respect. Her understanding did not reach above the ordinary 
 pitch, if, indeed, she could be said to have attained it. Her 
 beauty, while it lasted, consisted, in a great measure, of delicacy 
 of complexion and regularity of features, without any peculiar 
 force of expression. Even these charms faded under the suffer- 
 ings attendant on an ill-sorted match. She was passionately
 
 ,2 MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 attached to hijr husband, by whom she was treated with a callous, 
 yet polite indifference, which, to one whose heart was as tender 
 as her judgment was weak, was more painful perhaps than abso- 
 lute ill-usage. Sir Philip was a voluptuary, that is, a completely 
 selfish egotist, whose disposition and character resembled the 
 rapier he wore, polished, keen, and brilliant, but inflexible anc- 
 unpitying. As he observed carefully all the usual forms toward 
 his lady, he had the art to deprive her even of the compassion 
 of the world ; and useless and unavailing as that may be wliile 
 actually possessed by the sufferer, it is, to a mind like Lady 
 Forester's, most painful to know she has it not. 
 
 The tattle of society did its best to place the peccant husband 
 above the suffering wife. Some called her a poor spiritless 
 thing, and declared that, with a little of her sister's spirit, she 
 might have brought to reason any Sir Philip whatsoever, were 
 it the termagant Falconbridge himself. But the greater part 
 of their acquaintance affected candor, and saw faults on both 
 sides ; though, in fact, there only existed the oppressor and the 
 oppressed. The tone of such critics was — " To be sure, no one 
 will justify Sir Philip Forester, but then we all know Sir Philip, 
 and Jemmie Falconer might have known what she had to ex- 
 pect from the beginning. What made her set her cap at Sir 
 Philip? — He would never have looked at her if she had 
 not thrown herself at his head, with her poor ten thou- 
 sand pounds. I am sure, if it is money he wanted, she spoiled 
 his market. I know where Sir Philip could have done 
 much better. — And then, if she would have the man, could not 
 she try to make him more comfortable at home, and have his 
 friends oftener, and not plague him with the squalling children, 
 and take care all was handsome and in good style about the 
 house ? I declare I think Sir Philip would have made a very 
 domestic man, with a woman who knew how to manage him." 
 
 Now these fair critics, in raising their profound edifice of 
 domestic felicity, did not recollect that the corner-stone was 
 wanting ; and that to receive good company with good cheer, 
 the means of the banquet ought to have been furnished by Sir 
 Philip ; whose income (dilapidated as it was) was not equal to 
 the display of hospitality required, and, at the same time, to the 
 supply.-of the good knight's menus plaisirs. So, in spite of all 
 that was so sai^ely suggested by female friends. Sir Philip car- 
 ried his good-humor everywhere abroad, and left at home 
 a solitary mansion and a pining spouse. 
 
 At length, inconvenienced in his money affairs, and tired 
 even of the short time which he spent in his own dull house, 
 Sir Philip Forester determined to take a trip to the Continent
 
 MV AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 13 
 
 in the capacity of a volunteer. It was then common for men 
 of fashion to do so ; and our knight perhaps was of opinion that 
 a touch of the military character, just enough to exalt, but not 
 render pedantic, his qualities as a beau garden, was necessary 
 to maintain possession of the elevated situation which he held 
 in the ranks of fashion. 
 
 Sir Philip's resolution threw his wife into agonies of terror, 
 by which the worthy baronet was so much annoyed, that, con- 
 rary to his wont, he took some trouble to soothe her appre- 
 hensions ; and once more brought her to shed tears, in which 
 sorrow was not altogether unmingled with pleasure. Lady 
 Bothwell asked, as a favor, Sir Philip's permission to receive 
 her sister and her family into her own house during his absence 
 on the Continent. Sir Philip readily assented to a proposition 
 which saved expense, silenced the foolish people who might 
 have talked of a deserted wife and family and gratified Lady 
 Bothwell, for whom he felt some respect, as for one who often 
 spoke to him, always with freedom, and sometimes with sever- 
 ity, without being deterred either by his raillery, or the prestige 
 of his reputation. 
 
 A day or two before Sir Philip's departure, Lady Both- 
 well took the liberty of asking him, in her sister's presence, 
 the direct question, which his timid wife had often desired, but 
 never ventured, to put to him. 
 
 " Pray, Sir Philip, what route do you take when you reach 
 the Continent .-' " 
 
 " I go from Leith to Helvoet by a packet with advices." 
 
 " That I comprehend perfectly," said Lady Bothwell dryly ; 
 " but you do not mean to remain long at Helvoet, I presume, 
 and I should like to know what is your next object ? " 
 
 " You ask me, my dear lady," answered Sir Philip, " a ques- 
 tion which I have not dared to ask myself. The answer depends 
 on the fate of war. 1 shall, of course, go to head-quarters, 
 wherever they may happen to be for the time ; deliver my let- 
 ters of introduction ; learn as much of the noble art of war as 
 may suffice a poor interloping amateur ; and then take a glance 
 at the sort of thing of which we read so much in the Gazette." 
 
 " And I trust. Sir Philip," said Lady Bothwell, " that you 
 will remember that you are a husband and a father ; and that 
 though you think fit to indulge this military fancy, you will not 
 let it hurry you into dangers which it is certainly unnecessary 
 for any save professional persons to encounter." 
 
 " Lady Bothwell does me too much honor," replied the 
 adventurous knight, " in regarding such a circumstance with the 
 slightest interest. But to soothe your flattering anxiety, I trust
 
 H 
 
 MV AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 your ladyship will recollect, that I cannot expose to hazard the 
 venerable and paternal character which you so obligingly recom- 
 mend to my protection, without putting in some peril an honest 
 fellow, called Philip Forester, with whom I have kept company 
 for thirty years, and with whom, though some folk consider him 
 a coxcomb, I have not the least desire to part." 
 
 "Well, Sir Philip, you are the best judge of your own 
 affairs ; I have little right to interfere — you are not my hus- 
 band," 
 
 " God forbid ! " — said Sir Philip hastily ; instantly adding, 
 how-ever, " God forbid that I should deprive my friend Sir 
 Geoffrey of so inestimable a treasure." 
 
 " But you are my sister's husband," replied the lady ; " and 
 I suppose you are aware of her present distress of mind " 
 
 " If hearing of nothing else from morning to night can make 
 me aware of it," said Sir Philip, " I should know something of 
 the matter." 
 
 " I do not pretend to reply to your wit. Sir Philip," an- 
 swered Lady Bothwell ; " but you must be sensible that all this 
 distress is on account of apprehensions for your personal 
 safety." 
 
 " In that case, I am surprised that Lady Bothwell, at least, 
 should give herself so much trouble upon so insignificant a 
 subject." 
 
 " My sister's interest may account for my being anxious to 
 learn something of Sir Philip Forester's motions ; about which 
 otherwise, I know, he would not wish me to concern myself. I 
 have a brother's safety, too, to be anxious for." 
 
 " You mean Major Falconer, your brother by the mother's 
 side : — What can he possibly have to do with our present 
 agreeable conversation } " 
 
 " You have had words together. Sir Philip," said Lady 
 Bothwell. 
 
 " Naturally ; we are connections," replied Sir Philip, " and 
 as such have always had the usual intercourse." 
 
 "That is an evasion of the subject," answered the lady. 
 " By words, I mean angry words, on the subject of your usage 
 of your wife." 
 
 "If," replied Sir Philip Forester, "you suppose Major Fal- 
 coner simple enough to intrude his advice upon me. Lady 
 Bothwell, in my domestic matters, you are indeed warranted in 
 believing that I might possibly be so far displca:.ed with the 
 interference, as to request him to res^irve his advice till it wa? 
 asked."
 
 A/V AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 IS 
 
 " And, being on these terms, you are going to join the very 
 army in which my brother Falconer is now serving ?" 
 
 '' No man knows the path of honor better than Major Fal- 
 coner," said Sir Philip. " An aspirant after fame, like me, 
 cannot choose a better guide than his footsteps." 
 
 Lady Bothwell rose and went to the window, the tears gush- 
 ing from her eyes. 
 
 " And this heartless railery,"she said, " is all the consider- 
 ation that is to be given to our apprehensions of a quarrel 
 which may bring on the most terrible consequences? Good 
 God ! of what can men's hearts be made, who can thus dally 
 with the agony of others .' " 
 
 Sir Philip Forester was moved ; he laid aside the mocking 
 tone in which he had hitherto sjDoken. 
 
 " Dear Lady Bothwell," he said, taking her reluctant hand, 
 " we are both wrong : — you are too deeply serious ; I, perhaps, 
 too little so. The dispute I had with Major Falconer was of 
 no earthly consequence. Had anything occurred betwixt us 
 that ought to have been settled /<^?r voie du fait, as we say in 
 France, neither of us are persons that are likely to postpone 
 such a meeting. Permit me to say, that were it generally 
 known that you or my Lady Forester are apprehensive of such 
 a catastrophe, it might be the very means of bringing about 
 what would not otherwise be likely to happen. I know your 
 good sense, Lady Bothwell, and that )'ou will understand me 
 when I say, that really my affairs require my absence for some 
 months ; — this Jemima cannot understand ; it is a perpetual re- 
 currence of questions, why can you not do this, or that, or the 
 third thing ; and, when you have proved to her that her expedi- 
 ents are totally ineffectual, you have just to begin the whole 
 round again. Now, do you tell her, dear Lady Bothwell, that 
 you are satisfied. She is, you must confess, one of those persons 
 with whom authority goes further than reasoning. Do but re- 
 pose a little confidence in me, and you shall see how amply I 
 will repay it." 
 
 Lady Bothwell shook her head, as one but half satisfied. 
 '■' How difficult it is to extend confidence, when the basis on 
 which it ought to rest has been so much shaken ! But I will 
 do my best to make Jemima easy ; and further, I can only say, 
 that for keeping your present purpose, I hold you responsible 
 both to God and man." 
 
 "Do not fear that I will deceive you," said Sir Philip ; "the 
 safest conveyance to me will be through the general post-office 
 Helvoetsluys, where 1 will talce care to leave orders for for- 
 warding my letters. As for Falconer, our only encounter will
 
 l6 My AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 be over a bottle of Burgundy ! so make yourself perfectly easy 
 on his score." 
 
 Lady Bothwell could not make herself easy ; yet she was 
 sensible that her sister hurt her own cause by taking on, as the 
 maid-servants call it, too vehemently ; and by showing before 
 every stranger, by manner, and sometimes by words also, a dis- 
 satisfaction with her husband's journey that was sure to come 
 to his ears, and equally certain to displease him. But there 
 was no help for this domestic dissension, which ended only with 
 the day of separation. 
 
 I am sorry I cannot tell, with precision, the year in which 
 Sir Philip Forester went over to Flanders ; but it was one of 
 those in which the campaign opened with extraordinary fury ; 
 and many bloody, though indecisive, skirmishes were fought 
 between the French on the one side, and the Allies on the 
 other. In all our modern improvements, there are none, per- 
 haps, greater than in the accuracy and speed with which intel- 
 ligence is transmitted from any scene of action to those in this 
 country whom it may concern. During Marlborough's cam- 
 paigns, the sufferings of the many who had relations in, or along 
 with, the army, were greatly augmented by the suspense in 
 which they were detained for weeks, after they had heard of 
 bloody battles, in which, in all probability, those for whom 
 their bosoms throbbed with anxiety had been personally 
 engaged. Amongst those who were most agonized by this state 
 of uncertaint}', was the — I had almost said deserted — wife of 
 the gay Sir Philip Forester. A single letter had informed her 
 of his arrival on the Continent — no others were received. One 
 notice occurred in the newspapers, in which Volunteer Sir Philip 
 Forester was mentioned as having been entrusted with a 
 dangerous reconnoissance, which he had executed with the 
 greatest courage, dexterity, and intelligence, and received the 
 thanks of the commanding officer. The sense of his having 
 acquired distinction brought a momentary glow into the lady's 
 pale cheek ; but it was instantly lost in ashen whiteness at the 
 recollection of his danger. After this, they had no news 
 whatever, neither from Sir Philip, nor even from their brother 
 Falconer. The case of Lady Forester was not indeed different 
 from that of hundreds in the same situation ; but a feeble mind 
 is necessarily an irritable one, and the suspense which some 
 bear with contitutional indifference or philosophical resignation, 
 and some with a disposition to believe and hope the best, was 
 intolerable to Lady Forester, at once solitary and sensitive, low- 
 spirited, and devoid of strength of mind, whether natural or 
 acquired.
 
 MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 As she received no further news of Sir Philip, whether directly 
 or indirectly, his unfortunate lady began now to feel a sort of 
 consolation even in those careless habits which had so often 
 given her pain. " He is so thoughtless," she repeated a hundred 
 times a day to her sister, " he never writes when things are going 
 on smoothly ; it is his way ; had anything happened he would 
 have informed us." 
 
 Lady Bothwell listened to her sister without attempting to 
 console her. Probably she might be of opinion, that even the 
 worst intelligence which could be received from Flanders might 
 not be without some touch of consolation ; and that the Dowager 
 Lady Forester, if so she was doomed to be called, might have 
 a source of happiness unknown to the wife of the gayest and 
 finest gentleman in Scotland. This conviction became stronger 
 as they learned, from inquiries made at head-quarters, that 
 Sir Philip was no longer with the army ; though whether he 
 had been taken or slain in some of those skirmishes which were 
 perpetually occurring, and in which he loved to distinguish him- 
 self, or whether he had, for some unknown reason or capricious 
 change of mind, voluntarily left the service, none of his country- 
 men in the camp of the Allies could form even a conjecture. 
 Meantime his creditors at home became clamorous, entered - 
 into possession of his property, and threatened his person, should 
 he be rash enough to return to Scotland. These additional dis- 
 advantages aggravated Lady Bothwell's displeasure against the 
 fugitive husband ; while her sister saw nothing in any of them, 
 save what tended to increase her grief for the absence of him 
 whom her imagination now represented — as it had before 
 marriage — gallant, gay, and affectionate. 
 
 About this period there appeared in Edinburgh a man of 
 singular appearance and pretensions. He was commonly called 
 the Paduan Doctor, from having received his education at that 
 famous university. He was supposed to possess some rare re- 
 ceipts in medicine, with which, it was affirmed, he had wrought 
 remarkable cures. But though, on the one hand, the physicians 
 of Edinburgh termed him an empiric, there were many persons, 
 and among them some of the clergy, who, while they admitted 
 the truth of the cures and the force of his remedies, alleged 
 that Doctor Baptista Damiotti made use of charms and unlaw- 
 ful arts in order to obtain success in his practice. The resort-
 
 l8 MY AUNT MARGARET'^ MIRROR. 
 
 ing to him was even solemnly preached against, as a seeking of 
 health from idols, and a trusting to the help which was to come 
 from Egypt. But the protection which the Paduan Doctor re- 
 ceived from some friends of interest and consequence enabled 
 him to set these imputations at defiance, and to assume, even 
 in the city of Edinburgh, famed as it was for abhorrence of 
 witches and necromancers, the dangerous character of an ex- 
 pounder of futurity. It was at length rumored that for a certain 
 gratification, which, of course, was not an inconsiderable one, 
 Doctor Baptista Damiotti could tell the fate of the absent, and 
 even show his visitors the personal form of their absent friends, 
 and the action in which they were engaged at the moment. 
 This rumor came to the ears of Lady Forester, who had reached 
 that pitch of mental agony in which the sufferer will do any- 
 thing, or endure anything, that suspense may be converted into 
 ■certainty. 
 
 Gentle and timid in most cases, her state of mind made her 
 equally obstinate and reckless, and it was with no small surprise 
 and alarm that her sister. Lady Bothwell, heard her express a 
 resolution to visit this man of art, and learn from him the fate 
 of her husband. Lady Bothwell remonstrated on the improba- 
 bility that such pretensions as those of this foreigner could be 
 founded in anything but imposture. 
 
 " I care not," said the deserted wife, '* what degree of ridi- 
 cule I may incur ; if there be any one chance out of a hundred 
 that I may obtain some certainty of my husband's fate, I would 
 not miss that chance for whatever else the world can offer me." 
 
 Lady Bothwell next urged the unlawfulness of resorting to 
 such sources of forbidden knowledge. 
 
 " Sister," replied the sufferer, " he who is dying of thirst 
 cannot refrain from drinking even poisoned water. She who 
 suffers under suspense must seek information, even were the 
 powers which offer it unhallowed and infernal. 1 go to learn 
 my fate alone ; and this very evening will I know it ; the sun 
 that rises to-morrow shall find me, if not more happy, at least 
 more resigned." 
 
 " Sister," said Lady Bothwell, " if you are determined upon 
 this wild step, you shall not go alone. If this man be an im- 
 postor, you maybe too much agitated by your feelings to detect 
 his villany. If, which I cannot believe, there be any truth in 
 what he pretends, you shall not be exposed alone to a commu- 
 nication of so extraordinary a nature. I will go with you, if 
 indeed you determine to go. But yet reconsider your project, 
 and renounce inquiries which cannot be prosecuted without 
 guilt, and perhaps without danger."
 
 MV A UNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 19 
 
 Lady Forester threw herself into her sister's arms, and 
 clasping her to her bosom, thanked her a hundred times for 
 the offer of her company ; while she declined with a melancholy 
 gesture the friendly advice with which it was accompanied. 
 
 When the hour of twilight arrived — which was the period 
 when the Paduan Doctor was understood to receive the visits 
 of those who came to consult with him — the two ladies left 
 their apartments in the Canongate of Edinburgh, having their 
 dress arranged like that of women of an inferior description, 
 and their plaids disposed round their faces as they were worn 
 by the same class : for in those days of aristocracy, the quality 
 of the wearer was generally indicated by the manner in which 
 her plaid was disposed, as well as by the fineness of its texture. 
 It was Lady Bothwell who had suggested this species of dis- 
 guise partly to avoid observation as they should go to the 
 conjurer's house, and partly in order to make trial of his pene- 
 tration, by appearing before him in a feigned character. Lady 
 Forester's servants, of tried fidelity, had been employed by her 
 to propitiate the Doctor by a suitable fee, and a story intimating 
 that a soldier's wife desired to know the fate of her husband ; 
 a subject upon which, in all probability, the sage was very 
 frequently consulted. 
 
 To the last moment, when the palace clock struck eight. Lady 
 Bothwell earnestly watched her sister, in hopes that she might 
 retreat from her rash undertaking ; but as mildness, and even 
 timidity, is capable at times of vehement and fixed purposes, she 
 found Lady Forester resolutely unmoved and determined when 
 the moment of departure arrived. Ill satisfied with the expedi- 
 tion, but determined not to leave her sister at such a crisis. Lady 
 Bothwell accompanied Lady Forester through more than one 
 obscure street and lane, the servant walking before and acting 
 as their guide. At length he suddenly turned into a narrow 
 court and knocked at an arched door, which seemed to belong 
 to a building of some antiquity. It opened, though no one ap- 
 peared to act as porter ; and the servant, stepping aside from 
 the entrance, motioned the ladies to enter. They had no sooner 
 done so than it shut and excluded their guide. The two ladies 
 found themselves in a small vestibule, illuminated by a dim 
 lamp, and having, when the door was closed, no communication 
 with the external light or air. The door of an inner apartment, 
 partly open, was at the further side of the vestibule. 
 
 " We must not hesitate now, Jemima," said Lady Bothwell, 
 and walked forward into the inner room, where, surrounded by 
 books, maps, philosophical utensils, and other implements of 
 peculiar shape and appearance, they found the man of art.
 
 20 Ji^y '-^ UxVT MARGARE T'S MIRROR. 
 
 There was nothing very peculiar in the Italian's appear- 
 ance. He had the dark complexion and marked features of his 
 country, seemed about fifty years old, and was handsomely, but 
 plainly, dressed in a full suit of black clothes, which was then 
 the universal costume of the medical profession. Large wax- 
 lights, in silver sconces, illuminated the apartment, which was 
 reasonably furnished. He rose as the ladies entered ; and, 
 notwithstanding the inferiority of their dress, received them 
 with the marked respect due to their quality, and which foreign- 
 ers are usually punctilious in rendering to those to whom such 
 honors are due. 
 
 Lady Bothwell endeavored to maintain her proposed incog- 
 nito; and, as the Doctor ushered them to the upper end of the 
 room, made a motion declining his courtesy as unfitted for 
 their condition. " We are poor people, sir," she said ; " only 
 my sister's distress has brought us to consult your worship 
 whether " 
 
 He smiled as he interrupted her — " I am aware, madam, of 
 your sister's distress, and its cause ; I am aware, also, that I 
 am honored with a visit from two ladies of the highest con- 
 sideration — Lady Bothwell and Lady Forester. If I could not 
 distinguish them from the class of society which their present 
 dress would indicate, there would be small possibility of my 
 being able to gratify them by giving the information which they 
 come to seek." 
 
 " I can easily understand," said Lady Bothwell 
 
 "Pardon my boldness to interrupt you, milady," cried the 
 Italian : " your ladyship was about to say, that you could easily 
 understand that I had got possession of your names by means 
 of your domestic. But in thinking so, you do injustice to the 
 fidelity of your servant, and, I may add, to the skill of one who 
 is also not less your humble servant — Baptista Damiotti." 
 
 " I have no intention to do either, sir," said Lady Bothwell, 
 maintaining a tone of composure, though somewhat surprised, 
 *' but the situation is something new to me. If you know who 
 we are, you also know, sir, what brought us here." 
 
 " Curiosity to know the fate of a Scottish gentleman of rank, 
 now, or lately, upon the Continent," answered the seer; "his 
 name is II Cavaliero Philippo Forester ; a gentleman who has 
 the honor to be husband to this lady, and, with your ladyship's 
 permission, for using plain language, the misfortune not to 
 value, as it deserves that inestimable advantage." 
 
 Lady Forester sighed deeply, and Lady Bothwell replied, — 
 
 " Since you know our object without our telling it, the only
 
 Mr A UJSrT MARGA KE 7 'S MIRROR. 2 1 
 
 question that remains is, whether you have the power to relieve 
 my sister's anxiety ? " 
 
 " I have, madam," answered the Paduan scliolar ; " but 
 there is still a previous inquiry. Have you the courage to be- 
 hold with your own eyes what the Cavaliero Philippo Forester 
 is now doing ? or will you take it on my report ? " 
 
 "That question my sister must answer for herself," said 
 Lady Bothwell. 
 
 " With my own eyes will I endure to see whatever you have 
 power to show me," said Lady Forester, with the same deter- 
 mined spirit which had stimulated her since her resolution was 
 taken upon this subject. 
 
 " There may be danger in it." 
 
 "If gold can compensate the risk," said Lad}' Forester, 
 taking out her purse. 
 
 " I do not such things for the purpose of gain," answered 
 the foreigner. " I dare not turn my art to such a purpose. If 
 I take the gold of the wealthy, it is but to bestow it on the 
 poor; nor do I ever accept more than the sum I have already 
 received from your servant. Put up your purse, madam ; an 
 adept needs not your gold." 
 
 Lady Bothwell, considering this rejection of her sister's offer 
 as a mere trick of an empiric, to induce her to press a larger sum 
 upon him, and willing that the scene should be commenced and 
 ended, offered some gold in turn, observing that it was only to 
 enlarge the sphere of his charity. 
 
 " Let Lady Bothwell enlarge the sphere of her own charity," 
 said the Paduan, " not merely in giving of alms, in which I know 
 she is not deficient, but in judging the character of others ; and 
 let her oblige Baptista Damiotti by believmg him honest, till 
 she shall discover him to be a knave. Do not be surprised, 
 madam, if I speak in answer to your thoughts, rather than your 
 expressions, and tell me once more whether you have courage to 
 look on what I am prepared to show ? " 
 
 " I own, sir," said Lady Bothwell, " that your words strike 
 me with some sense of fear ; but whatever my sister desires to 
 witness, I will not shrink from witnessing along with her." 
 
 '* Nay, the danger only consists in the risk of your resolution 
 failing you. The sight can only last for the space of seven 
 minutes ; and should you interrupt the vision by speaking a 
 single word, not only would the charm be broken, but some 
 danger might result to the spectators. But if you can remain 
 steadily silent for the seven minutes, your curiosity will be grati- 
 fied without the slightest risk ; and for this I will engage my 
 honor."
 
 22 AfV A UNT MA R GA RE T 'S MIRROR. 
 
 Internally Lady Bothwell thought the security was but an 
 indifferent one ; but she suppressed the suspicion, as if she had 
 believed that the adept, whose dark features wore a half-formed 
 smile, could in reality read even her most secret reflections. A 
 solemn pause then ensued, until Lady Forester gathered courage 
 enough to reply to the physician, as he termed himself, that she 
 would abide with firmness and silence the sight which he had 
 promised to exhibit to them. Upon this, he made them a low 
 obeisance, and saying he went to prepare matters to meet their 
 wish, left the apartment. The two sisters, hand in hand, as if 
 seeking by that close union to divert any danger which might 
 threaten them, sat down in two seats in immediate contact with 
 each other ; Jemima seeking support in the manly and habitual 
 courage of Lady Bothwell ; and she, on the other hand, more 
 agitated than she had expected, endeavoring to fortify herself 
 by the desperate resolution which circumstances had forced 
 her sister to assume. The one perhaps said to herself, that her 
 sister never feared anything ; and the other might reflect, that 
 what so feeble a minded woman as Jemima did not fear, could 
 not properly be a subject of apprehension to a person of firm- 
 ness and resolution like herself. 
 
 In a few moments the thoughts of both were diverted from 
 their own situation, by a strain of music so singularly sweet and 
 solemn, that, while it seemed calculated to divert or dispel any 
 feeling unconnected with its harmony, increased, at the same 
 time, the solemn excitation which the preceding interview was 
 calculated to produce. The music was that of some instrument 
 with which they were unacquainted ; but circumstances after- 
 ward led my ancestress to believe that it was that of the 
 harmonica, which she heard at a much later period in life. 
 
 When these heaven-born sounds had ceased, a door opened 
 in the upper end of the apartment, and they saw Damiotti, 
 standing at the head of two or three steps, sign to them to 
 advance. His dress was so different from that which he had 
 worn a few minutes before, that they could hardly recognize 
 him ; and the deadly paleness of his countenance, and a certain 
 stern rigidity of muscles, like that of one whose mind is made up 
 to some strange and daring action, had totally changed the some- 
 what sarcastic expression with which he had previously regarded 
 them both, and particularly Lady Bothwell. He was barefooted, 
 excepting a species of sandals in the antique fashion ; his legs 
 were naked beneath the knees ; above them he wore hose, and 
 a doublet of dark crimson silk close to his body ; and over 
 that a flowing loose robe, something resembling a surplice, of 
 snow-white linen ; his throat and neck were uncovered, and
 
 A/y A UNT MARGARETS MIRROR. 23 
 
 his long, straight, 1 lack hair, was carefully combed down at 
 full length. 
 
 As the ladies approached at his bidding, he showed no ges^ 
 ture of that ceremonious courtesy of which he had been formerly 
 lavish. On the contrary, he made the signal of advance with 
 an air of command; and when, arm in arm, and with insecure 
 steps, the sisters approached the spot where he stood, it was 
 with a warning frown that he pressed his finger to his lips, as if 
 reiterating his condition of absolute silence, while, stalking 
 before them, he led the way into the next apartment. 
 
 This was a large room, hung with black, as if for a funeral. 
 At the upper end was a table, or rather a species of altar, 
 covered with the same lugubrious color, on which lay divers 
 objects resembling the usual implements of sorcery. These 
 objects were not indeed visible as they advanced into the apart- 
 ment ; for the light which displayed them, being only that of 
 two expiring lamps, was extremely faint. The master — to use 
 the Italian phrase for persons of this description — approached 
 the upper end of the room with a genuflection like that of a 
 Catholic to the crucifix, and at the same time crossed him- 
 self. The ladies followed in silence, and arm in arm. Two or 
 three low broad steps led to a platform in front of the altar, 
 or what resembled such. Here the sage took his stand, and 
 placed the ladies beside him, once more earnestly repeating 
 by signs his injunctions of silence. The Italian then, extend- 
 ing his bare arm from under his linen vestment, pointed with 
 his forefinger to five large flambeaux, or torches, placed on 
 each side of the altar. They took fire successively at the ap- 
 proach of his hand, or rather of his finger, and spread a strong 
 light through the room. By this the visitors could discern 
 that, on the seeming altar, were disposed two naked swords 
 laid crosswise ; a large open book, which they conceived to be 
 a copy of the Holy Scriptures, but in a language to them un- 
 known ; and beside this mysterious volume was placed a human 
 skull. But what struck the sisters most was a very tall and 
 broad mirror, which occupied all the space behind the altar, 
 and, illumined by the lighted torches, reflected the mysterious 
 articles which were laid upon it. 
 
 The master then placed himself between the two ladies, 
 and, pointing to the mirror, took each by the hand, but with- 
 out speaking a syllable. They gazed instantly on the pol- 
 ished and sable space to which he had directed their attention. 
 Suddenly the surface assumed a new and singular appearance. 
 It no longer simply reflected the objects placed before it, but, 
 as if it had self-contained scenery of its own, objects began to
 
 24 
 
 Mi AUIVT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 appear within it, at first in a disorderly, indistinct, and miscel- 
 laneous manner, like form arranging itself out of chaos ; at 
 length, in distinct and defined shape and symmetry. It was 
 thus that, after some shifting of light and darkness over the 
 face of the wonderful glass, a long perspective of arclics and 
 columns began to arrange itself on its sides, and a vaulted roof 
 on the upper part of it; till, after many oscillations, the whole 
 vision gained a fixed and stationary appearance representing 
 the interior of a foreign church. The pillars were stately, and 
 hung with scutcheons ; the arches were lofty and magnificent ; 
 the floor was lettered with funeral inscriptions. But there were 
 no separate shrines, no images, no display of chalice or crucifix 
 on the altar. It was, therefore, a Protestant church upon the 
 Continent. A clergyman, dressed in the Geneva gown and 
 band, stood by the communion-tal)le, and, with the Bible 
 opened before him, and his clerk awaiting in the background, 
 seemed prepared to perform some service of the church to 
 which he belonged. 
 
 At length there entered the middle aisle of the building a 
 numerous party, which appeared to be a bridal one, as a lady 
 and gentleman walked first, hand in hand, followed by a 
 large concourse of persons of both sexes, gayly, nay richly, 
 attired. The bride, whose features they could distinctly see, 
 seemed not more than sixteen years old, and extremely beauti- 
 ful. The bridegroom, for some seconds, moved rather with his 
 shoulder toward them, and his face averted; but his elegance 
 of form and step struck the sisters at once with the same ap- 
 prehension. As he turned his face suddenly, it was frightfully 
 realized, and they saw, in the gay bridegroom before them, Sir 
 Philip Forester. His wife uttered an imperfect exclamation, 
 at the sound of which the whole scene stirred and seemed to 
 separate. 
 
 " I could compare it to nothing," said Lady Bothwell, while 
 recounting the wonderful tale, " but to the dispersion of the re- 
 flection offered by a deep and calm pool, when a stone is sud- 
 denly cast into it, and the shadows become dissipated and 
 broken." The master pressed both the ladies' hands severely, 
 as if to remind them of their jDromise, and of the danger 
 which they incurred. The exclamation died away on Lady 
 Forester's tongue, without attaining pefect utterance, and the 
 scene in the glass, after the fluctuation of a minute, again re- 
 sumed to the eye its former appearance of a real scene, exist- 
 ing within the mirror, as if represented in a picture, save the 
 figures were movable instead of being stationary. 
 
 The representation of Sir Philip Forester, now distinctly
 
 MV AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 25 
 
 Visible in form and feature, was seen to lead on toward the 
 clergyman that beautiful girl, who advanced at once with 
 diffidence, and with a species of affectionate pride. In the 
 meantime, and just as the clergyman had arranged the bridal 
 company before him, and seemed about to commence the ser- 
 vice, another group of persons, of whom two or three were 
 ofhcers, entered the church. They moved, at first, forward a? 
 thougli they came to witness the bridal ceremony, but suddenly 
 one of the officers, whose back was toward the spectators, 
 detached himself from his companions, and rushed hastily to- 
 ward the marriage party, when the whole of them turned to- 
 ward him, as if attracted by some exclamation which had 
 accompanied his advance. Suddenly the intruder drew his 
 sword ; the bridegroom unsheathed his own, and made toward 
 him ; swords were also drawn by other individuals, both of the 
 marriage party, and of those who had last entered. They fell 
 into a sort of confusion, the clergyman, and some elder and 
 graver persons, laboring apparently to keep the peace, while 
 the hotter spirits on both sides brandished their weapons. But 
 now the period of brief space during which the soothsayer, as 
 he pretended, was permitted to exhibit his art, was arrived. 
 The fumes again mixed together, and dissolved gradually from 
 observation ; the vaults and columns of the church rolled 
 asunder, and disappeared ; and the front of the mirror reflected 
 nothing save the blazing torches, and the melancholy apparatus 
 placed on the altar or table before it. 
 
 The doctor led the ladies, who greatly required his support, 
 into the apartment from whence they came ; where wine, 
 essences, and other means of restoring suspended animation, 
 had been provided during his absence. He motioned them to 
 chairs, which they occupied in silence ; Lady Forester, in par- 
 ticular, wringing her hands, and casting her eyes up to heaven, 
 but without speaking a word, as if the spell had been still 
 before her eyes. 
 
 "And what we have seen is even now acting.'' " said Lady 
 Pothwell, collecting herself with difficulty. 
 
 " That," answered Baptista Damiotti, " I cannot justly, or with 
 certainty, say. But it is either now acting, or has been acted 
 during a short space before this. It is the last remarkable 
 transaction in which the Cavalier Forester has been engaged." 
 
 Lady Bothwell then expressed anxiety concerning her sister, 
 whose altered countenance, and apparent unconsciousness of 
 what passed around her, excited her apprehensions how it 
 might be possible to convey her home. 
 
 *' I have prepared for that," answered the adept ; " I have
 
 2$ MY AUNT MARGARET S MIRROR. 
 
 directed the servant to bring your equipage as near tothisplac 
 as the narrowness of the street will permit. Fear not for youi 
 sister ; but give her, when you return home, this composing 
 draught, and she will be belter to-morrow morning. Few," he 
 added, in a melancholy tone, " leave this house as well in health 
 as they entered it. Such being the consequence of seeking 
 knowledge by mysterious means, I leave you to judge the con- 
 dition of those who have the power of gratifying such irregular 
 curiosity. Farewell, and forget not the potion." 
 
 " I will give her nothing that comes from you," said Lady 
 Bothwell ; " I have seen enough of your art already. Perhaps 
 you would poison us both to conceal your own necromancy. 
 But we are persons who want neither the means of making our 
 wrongs known, nor the assistance of friends to right them." 
 
 *' You have had no wrongs from me, madam," said the adept 
 "You sought one who is little grateful for such honor. He 
 seeks no one, and only gives responses to those who invite and 
 call upon him. After all, you have but learned a little sooner 
 the evil which you must still be doomed to endure. I hear 
 your servant's step at the door, and will detain your ladyship 
 and Lady Forester no longer. The next packet from the Con- 
 tinent will explain what you have already partly witnessed. 
 Let it not, if I may advise, pass too suddenly into your sister's 
 hands." 
 
 So saying, he bid Lady Bothwell good-night. She went, 
 lighted by the adept, to the vestibule, where he hastily threw 
 a black cloak over his singular dress, and opening the door, 
 intrusted his visitors to the care of the servant. It was with 
 difficulty that Lady Bothwell sustained her sister to the carriage, 
 though it was only twenty steps distant. When they arrived at 
 home. Lady Forester required medical assistance. The physi- 
 cian of the family attended, and shook his head on feeling 
 her pulse. 
 
 " Here has been," he said, " a violent and sudden shock on 
 the ner\'es. I must know how it has happened." 
 
 Lady Bothwell admitted they had visited the conjuror, and 
 that Lady Forester had received some bad news respecting hel 
 husband. Sir Philip. 
 
 " That rascally quack would make my fortune were he to 
 stay in Edinburgh," said the graduate; ''this is the seventh 
 nervous case I have heard of his making for me, and all by 
 effect of terror." He next examined the composing draught 
 v/hich Lady Bothwell had unconsciously brought in her hand, 
 tasted it, and pronounced it very germane to the matter, and 
 what would save an application to the apothecary. He then
 
 MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 27 
 
 paused, and looking at Lady Both'vell very significantly, at 
 lengtli added, " I suppose I must not ask your ladyship any- 
 thing about this Italian warlock's proceedings ? " 
 
 "Indeed, Doctor," answered Lady Bothwell, " I consider 
 what passed as confidential ; and though the man may be a 
 rogue, yet, as we were f^oL enough to consult him, we should, 
 I think, be honest enough to keep his counsel." 
 
 '■'■May be a knave — come," said the Doctor, "I am glad to 
 hear your ladyship allows such a possibility in anything that 
 comes from Italy." 
 
 "What comes from Italy may be as good as what comes 
 from Hanover, Doctor. But you and I will remain good 
 friends, and that it may be so, we will say nothing of Whig and 
 Tory." 
 
 " Not I," said the Doctor, receiving his fee, and taking his 
 hat ; " a Carolus serves my purpose as well as a Willielmus. 
 But I should like to know why old Lady Saint Ringan's, and 
 all that set, go about wasting their decayed lungs in pufiing 
 this foreign fellow." 
 
 " Ay — you had best set him down a Jesuit, as Scrub says." 
 On these terms they parted. 
 
 The poor patient — whose nerves, from an extraordinary 
 state of tension, had at length become relaxed in as extraordi- 
 nary a degree — continued to struggle with a sort of imbecility, 
 the growth of superstitious terror, when the shocking tidings 
 were brought from Holland, which fulfilled even her worst 
 expectations. 
 
 They were sent by the celebrated Earl of Stair, and con- 
 tained the melancholy event of a duel betwixt Sir Philip 
 Forester and his wife's half-brother. Captain Falconer, of the 
 Scotch-Dutch, as they were then called, in which the latter had 
 been killed. The cause of quarrel rendered the incident still 
 more shocking. It seemed that Sir Philip had left the army 
 suddenly, in consequence of being unable to pay a very con- 
 siderable sum, which he had lost to another volunteer at play. 
 He had changed his name, and taken up his residence at 
 Rotterdam, where he had insinuated himself into the good 
 graces of an ancient and rich burgomaster, and by his hand» 
 some person and graceful manners, captivated the affections of 
 his only child, a very young person of great beauty, and the 
 heiress of much wealth. Delighted with the specious attrac- 
 tions of his proposed son-in-law, the wealthy merchant — whose 
 idea of the British character was too high to admit of his taking 
 any precaution to acquire evidence of his condition and cir- 
 cumstances — gave his consent to the marria<re. It was about
 
 28 MY A UNT MARGARE rs MIRROR. 
 
 to be celebrated in the principal church of the city, when it 
 was interrupted by a singular occurrence. 
 
 Captain Falconer having been detached to Rotterdam to 
 bring up a part of the brigade of Scottish auxiliaries, who were 
 in quarters there, a person of consideration in the town, to 
 whom he had been formerly known, proposed to him for amuse- 
 ment to go to the high church, to see a countryman of his own 
 married to the daughter of a wealthy burgomaster. Captain 
 Falconer went accordingly, accompanied by his Dutch acquaint- 
 ance with a party of his friends, and two or three officers of 
 the Scotch brigade. His astonishment may be conceived when 
 he saw his own brother-in-law, a married man, on the point of 
 leading to the altar the innocent and beautiful creature, upon 
 whom he was about to practice abase and unmanly deceit. He 
 proclaimed his villainy on the spot, and the marriage was inter- 
 rupted of course. But, against the opinion of more thinking 
 men, who considered Sir Philip Forester as having thrown him- 
 self out of the rank of men of honor. Captain Falconer ad" 
 mitted him to the privilege of such, accepted a challenge from 
 him, and in the rencounter received a mortal wound. Such are 
 the ways of Heaven, mysterious in our eyes. Lady Forester 
 never recovered the shock of this dismal intelligence. 
 
 " And did this tragedy," said I, *' take place exactly at the 
 time when the scene in the mirror was exhibited ? " 
 
 " It is hard to be obliged to maim one's story," answered my 
 aunt ; " but, to speak the truth, it happened some days sooner 
 than the apparition was exhibited." 
 
 "And so there remained a possibility," said I, "that by 
 some secret and speedy communication the artist might have 
 received early intelligence of that incident." 
 
 " The incredulous pretended so," replied my aunt. 
 
 " What became of the adept ? " demanded I, 
 
 "Why, a warrant came down shortly afterward to arrest 
 him for high treason, as an agent of the Chevalier St. George ; 
 and Lady Bothwell, recollecting the hints which had escaped 
 the Doctor, an ardent friend of the Protestant succession, did 
 then call to remembrance that this man was chiefly prbne 
 among the ancient matrons of her own political persuasion. It 
 certainly seemed probable that intelligence from the Continent, 
 which could easily have been transmitted by an active and 
 powerful agent, might have enabled him to prepare such a 
 scene of phantasmagoria as she had herself witnessed. Yet
 
 MY AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 29 
 
 there were so many difficulties in assigning a natural explana- 
 tion, that, to the day of her death, she remained in great doubt 
 on the subject, and much disposed to cut the Gordian knot, by 
 admitting the existence of supernatural agency." 
 
 " But, mv dear aunt," said I, " what became of the man of 
 skill ? " 
 
 " Oh, he was too good a fortune-teller not to be able to fore- 
 see that his own destiny would be tragical if he waited the 
 arrival of the man with the silver greyhound upon his sleeve. 
 He made, as we say, a moonlight flitting, and was nowhere to 
 be seen or heard of. Some noise there was about papers or 
 letters found in the house, but it died away, and Doctor 
 Baptista Damiotti was soon as little talked of as Galen or 
 Hippocrates." 
 
 " And Sir Philip Forester," said I, " did he too vanish for- 
 ever from the public scene ? " 
 
 " No," replied my kind informer. " He was heard of once 
 more, and it was upon a remarkable occasion. It is said that 
 we Scots, when there was such a nation in existence, have, 
 among our full peck of virtues, one or two little barleycorns of 
 vice. In particular, it is alleged that we rarely forgive, and 
 never forget, any injuries received ; that we used to make an 
 idol of our resentment, as poor Lady Constance did of her 
 grief ; and are addicted, as Burns says, to ' nursing our wrath 
 to keep it warm.' Lady Bothwell was not without this feeling ; 
 and, I believe, nothing whatever, scarce the restoration of the 
 Stuart line, could have happened so delicious to her feelings as 
 an opportunity of being revenged on Sir Philip Forester, for 
 the deep and double injury which had deprived her of a sister 
 and of a brother. But nothing of him was heard or known till 
 many a year had passed away." 
 
 At length — it was on a Fastern's E'en (Shrovetide) assembly 
 at which the whole fashion of Edinburgh attended, full and 
 frequent, and when Lady Bothwell had a seat amongst the lady 
 patronesses, that one of the attendants on the company whis- 
 pered into her ear, that a gentleman wished to speak with her 
 in private. 
 
 "In private ? and in an assembly-room ? — he must be mad 
 • — Tell him to call upon me to-morrow morning." 
 
 " I said so, my lady," answered the man ; " but he desired 
 me to give you this paper." 
 
 She undid the billet, which was curiously folded and sealed. 
 It only bore the words, " On business of life and death" written 
 in a hand which she had never seen before. Suddenly it occurred 
 to her, that it might concern the safety of some of her poUticaJ
 
 3© ^^y ^4 UNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 friends ; she therefore followed the messenger to a small 
 apartment where the refreshments were prepared, and from 
 which the general company was excluded. She found an old 
 man, who, at her approach, rose up and bowed profoundly. 
 His appearance indicated a broken constitution ; and his dress, 
 though sedulously rendered conforming to the etiquette of a 
 ball-room, was worn and tarnished, and hung in folds about his 
 emaciated person. Lady Bothwell was about to feel for her 
 purse, expecting to get rid of the supplicant at the expense of 
 a little money, but some fear of a mistake arrested her purpose. 
 She therefore gave the man leisure to explain himself. 
 
 " I have the honor to speak with the Lady Bothwell ? " 
 
 " I am Lady Bothwell ; allow- me to say, that this is no time 
 or place for long explanations. — What are your commands with 
 me ? " 
 
 " Your ladyship," said the old man, " had once a sister." 
 
 " True ; whom I loved as my own soul." 
 
 " And a brother." 
 
 *' The bravest, the kindest, the most affectionate ! " said 
 Lady Bothwell. 
 
 " Both these beloved relatives you lost by the fault of an un- 
 fortunate man," continued the stranger. 
 
 " By the crimes of an unnatural, bloody-minded murderer," 
 said the lady. 
 
 " I am answered," replied the old man, bowing, as if to with- 
 draw. 
 
 " Stop, sir, I command you," said Lady Bothwell. — " Who 
 are you, that, at such a place and time, come to recall these 
 horrible recollections ? I insist upon knowing." 
 
 *' I am one who intends Lady Bothwell no injury ; but, on 
 (he contrary, to offer her the means of doing a deed of Christian 
 charity, which the world would wonder at, and which Heaven 
 would reward ; but I find her in no temper for such a sacrifice 
 fl.s I was prepared to ask." 
 
 " Speak out, sir ; what is your mea^^ing ? " said Lady Both- 
 well. 
 
 " The wretch that has wronged you so deeply," rejoined the 
 stranger, " is now on his death-bed. His days have been days 
 of misery, his nights have been sleepless hours of anguish — yet 
 he cannot die without your forgiveness. His life has been an 
 unremitting penance — yet he dares not part from his burden 
 while your curses load his soul." 
 
 " Tell him," said Lady Bothwell, sternly, " to ask pardon 
 of that Being whom he has so greatly offended ; not of an erring 
 mortal like himself. What could my forgiveness avail him ? "
 
 MV A UNT MA RGARE r\S AflRROK. ^f 
 
 '* Much," answered the old man. " It will be an earnest oi 
 that which he may then venture to ask from his Creator, lady, 
 and from yours. Remember, Lady Bothwell, you too have a 
 death-bed to look forward to ; your soul may, all human souls 
 must, feel the awe of facing the judgment-seat, with the 
 wounds of an untented conscience, raw, and rankling — what 
 thought would it be then that should whisper, 'I have given no 
 mercy, how then shall I ask it ? ' " 
 
 " Man, whosoever thou may'st be," replied Lady Bothwel!, 
 " urge me not so cruelly. It would be but blasphemous hypocrisy 
 to utter with my lips the words which every throb of my heart 
 protests against. They would open the earth and give to light 
 the wasted form of my sister — the bloody form of my murdered 
 brother — forgive him ? — Never, never ! " 
 
 " Great God ! " cried the old man, holding up his hands, 
 " is it thus the worms which thou hast called out of dust obey 
 the commands of their Maker ? Farewell, proud and unfor- 
 giving woman. Exult that thou hast added to a death in want 
 and pain the agonies of religious despair; but never again 
 mock Heaven by petitioning for the pardon which thou hast 
 refused to grant." 
 
 He was turning from her. 
 
 " Stop," she exclaimed ; I will try ; yes, I will try to pardon 
 him." 
 
 " Gracious lady," said the old man, " you will relieve the 
 over-burdened soul, which dare not sever itself from its sinful 
 companion of earth without being at peace with you. What do 
 I know — your forgiveness may perhaps preserve for penitence 
 the dregs of a wretched life." 
 
 " Ha! " said the lady, as a sudden light broke on her, "it 
 is the villain himself ! " And grasping Sir Philip Forester — for 
 it was he, and no other — by the collar, she raised a cry of 
 " Murder, murder ! Seize the murderer ! " 
 
 At an exclamation so singular, in such a place, the company 
 thronged into the apartment, but Sir Philip Forester was no 
 longer there. Fie had forcibly extricated himself from Lady 
 Bothwell's hold, and had run out of the apartment which 
 opened on the landing-place of the stair. There seemed no 
 escape in that direction, for there were several persons coming 
 up the steps, and others descending. But the unfortunate 
 man was desperate. He threw himself over the balustrade, and 
 alighted safely in the lobby, though a leap of fifteen feet at 
 least, then dashed into the street, and was lost in darkness. 
 Some of the Bothwell family made pursuit, and, had they come 
 up with the fugitive, they might have perhaps slain him ; for in
 
 32 
 
 Aiy AUNT MARGARET'S MIRROR. 
 
 those days men's blood ran warm in their veins. But the 
 police did not interfere ; the matter most criminal having hap- 
 pened long since, and in a foreign land. Indeed, it was always 
 thought, that this extraordinary scene originated in a hypo- 
 critical experiment, by which Sir Philip desired to ascertain 
 whether he might return to his native country in safety from 
 the resentment of a family which he had injured so deeply. 
 As the result fell out so contrary to his wishes, he is believed 
 to have returned to the Continent, and there died in exile. 
 So closed the tale of the Mysterious Mirror,
 
 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE LADY IN THE SACQUE. 
 
 INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 This is another little story from the Keepsake of i?>2%. It was 
 told to vie many years ago, by the late Miss Anna Seward, ivho, 
 among other accomplishments that rcfidered her an amusing iiwiate 
 in a cotcntry house, had that of recoimting narratives of this sort 
 with very considerable effect ; ttiuch greater, indeed, than afiy one 
 would be apt to guess fr07fi the style of her written performances. 
 There are hours and moods when most people are not displeased to 
 listen to such things ; and I have heard some of the greatest and 
 wisest of my contemporaries take their share in telVmg them. 
 
 August 1831. 
 
 The following narrative is given from the pen, so far as 
 memor}' permits, in the same character in which it was pre- 
 sented to the author's ear; nor has he claim to further praise, 
 or to be more deeply censured, than in proportion to the good 
 or bad judgment which he has employed in selecting his 
 materials, as he has studiously avoided any attempt at orna- 
 ment, which might interfere with the simplicity of the tale. 
 
 At the same time, it must be admitted, that the particular 
 class of stories w'hich turns on the marvelous, possesses a 
 stronger influence when told than when committed to print. 
 The volume taken up at noonday, though rehearsing the same 
 incidents, conveys a much more feeble impression than is 
 achieved by the voice of the speaker on a circle of fireside 
 auditors, who hang upon the narrative as the narrator details 
 the minute incidents which serve to give it authenticity, and
 
 34 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER. 
 
 lowers his voice with an affectation of mystery while he aj> 
 proaches the fearful and wonderful part. It was with such 
 advantages that the present writer heard the following events 
 related, more than twenty years since, by the celebrated Miss 
 Seward, of Litchfield, who to her numerous accomplishments, 
 added, in a remarkable degree, the power of narrative in 
 private conversation. In its present form, the tale must neces- 
 sarily lose all the interest which was attached to it by the licxi- 
 hie voice and intelligent features of the gifted narrator. Yet 
 still, read aloud, to an undoubting audience by the doubtful 
 light of the closing evening, or in silence, by the decaying taper, 
 and amidst the solitude of a half-lighted apartment, it may 
 redeem its character as a good ghost story. Miss Seward 
 always affirmed that she had derived her information from an 
 authentic source, although she suppressed the names of the 
 two persons chiefly concerned. I will not avail myself of any 
 particulars I may have since received concerning the localities 
 of the detail, but suffer them to rest under the same general 
 description in which they were first related to me; and, for the 
 same reason, I will not add to or diminish the narrative, by any 
 circumstances, whether more or less material, but simply re- 
 hearse, as I heard it, a story of supernatural terror. 
 
 About the end of the American war, when the officers of 
 Lord Cornwallis's army, which surrendered at Yorktown, and 
 others, who had been made prisoners during the impolitic and 
 ill-fated controversy, were returning to their own country, to 
 relate their adventures, and repose themselves after their 
 fatigues ; there was amongst them a general officer, to whom 
 Miss S. gave the name of Browne, but merely, as I understood, 
 to save the inconvenience of introducing a nameless agent in 
 the narrative. He was an officer of merit, as well as a gentle- 
 man of high consideration for family and attainments. 
 
 Some business had carried General Browne upon a tour 
 through the western counties, when, in the conclusion of a 
 morning stage, he found himself in the vicinity of a small 
 country town, which presented a scene of uncommon beauty, 
 and of a character peculiarly English. 
 
 The little town, with its stately old church, whose tower bore 
 testimony to the devotion of ages long past, lay amidst pasture 
 and corn-fields of small extent, but bounded and divided with 
 hedge-row timber of great age and size. There were few marks 
 of modern improvement. The environs of the place intimated 
 neither the solitude of decay, nor the bustle of novelty ; the 
 houses were old, but in good repair ; and the beautiful little
 
 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER. 35 
 
 river murmured freely on its way to the left of the town, neither 
 restrained by a dam, nor bordered by a towing-path. 
 
 Upon a gentle eminence, nearly a mile to the southward of 
 the town, were seen, amongst many venerable oaks and tangled 
 thickets, the turrets of a castle, as old as the wars of York and 
 Lancaster, but which seemed to have received important alter- 
 ations during the age of Elizabeth and her successors. It had 
 not been a place of great size ; but whatever accommodation it 
 formerly afforded, was, it must be supposed, still to be obtained 
 within its walls ; at least, such was the inference which General 
 Browne drew from observing the smoke arise merrily from 
 several of the ancient wreathed and carved chimney-stalks. 
 The wall of the park ran alongside of the highway for two or 
 three hundred yards ; and through the different points by which 
 the eye found glimpses into the woodland scenery, it seemed to 
 be well stocked. Other points of view opened in succession ; 
 now a full one, of the front of the old castle, and now a side 
 glimpse at its particular towers ; the former rich in all the 
 bizarrerie of the Elizabethan school, while the simple and solid 
 strength of other parts of the building seemed to show that they 
 had been raised more for defence than ostentation. 
 
 Delighted with the partial glimpses which he obtained of 
 the castle through the woods and glades by which this ancient 
 feudal fortress was surrounded, our military traveler was 
 determined to inquire whether it might not deserve a nearer 
 view, and whether it contained family pictures or other objects 
 of curiosity worthy of a stranger's visit ; when, leaving the 
 vicinity of the park, he rolled through a clean and well-paved 
 street, and stopped at the door of a well-frequented inn. - 
 
 Before ordering horses to proceed on his journey, General 
 Browne made inquiries concerning the proprietor of the chateau 
 which had so attracted his admiration, and was equally sur- 
 prised and pleased at hearing in reply a nobleman named whom 
 we shall call Lord Woodville. How fortunate ! Much of 
 Browne's early recollections, both at school and at college, had 
 been connected with young Woodville, whom, by a few ques- 
 tions, he now ascertained to be the same with the owner of 
 this fair domain. He had been raised to the peerage by the 
 decease of his father a few months before, and as the General 
 learned from the landlord, the term of mourning being ended, 
 was now taking possession of his paternal estate, in the jovial 
 season of merry autumn, accompanied by a select party of 
 friends to enjoy the sports of a country famous for game. 
 
 This was delightful news to our traveler. Frank Woodville 
 had been Richard Browne's fag at Eton, and his chosen inti
 
 36 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER. 
 
 mate at Christ Church ; their pleasures and their tasks had 
 been the same ; and the honest soldier's heart warmed to find 
 his early friend in possession of so delightful a residence, and 
 of an estate, as the landlord assured him with a nod and a 
 wink, fully adequate to maintain and add to his dignity. 
 Nothing was more natural than that the traveler should 
 suspend a journey, which there was nothing to render hurried, 
 to pay a visit to an old friend under such agreeable circunv 
 stances. 
 
 The fresh horses, therefore, had only the brief task of con- 
 veying the General's traveling carriage to VVoodville Castle. 
 A porter admitted them at a modern Gothic lodge, built in 
 that style to correspond with the Castle itself, and at the same 
 time rang a bell to give warning of the approach of visitors. 
 Apparently the sound of the bell had suspended the separation 
 of the company, bent on the various amusements of the morn- 
 ing; for, on entering the court of the chateau, several young 
 men were lounging about in their sporting dresses, looking at, 
 and criticising, the dogs which the keepers held in readiness to 
 attend their pastime. As General Browne alighted, the young 
 lord came to the gate of the hall, and for an instant gazed, as 
 at a stranger, upon the countenance of his friend, on which 
 war, with its fatigues and its wounds, had made a great alter- 
 ation. But the uncertainty lasted no longer than till the 
 visitor had spoken, and the hearty greeting which followed 
 was such as can only be exchanged betwixt those who have 
 passed together the merry days of careless boyhood or early 
 youth. 
 
 " If I could have formed a wish, my dear Browne," said Lord 
 Woodville, " it would have been to have you here, of all men, 
 upon this occasion, which my friends are good enough to hold 
 as a sort of holiday. Do not think you have been unvvatched 
 during the years you have been absent from us. I have traced 
 you through your dangers, your triumphs, your misfortunes, and 
 was delighted to see that, whether in victory or defeat, the name 
 of my old friend was always distinguished with applause " 
 
 The General made a suitable reply, and congratulated his 
 friend on his new dignities, and the possession of a place and 
 domain so beautiful. 
 
 " Nay, you have seen nothing of it as yet," said Lord Wood' 
 ville, " and I trust you do not mean to leave us till you are 
 better acquainted with it. It is true, I confess, that my present 
 party is pretty large, and the old house, like other places of the 
 kind, does not possess so much accommodation as the extent 
 of the outward walls appears to promise. But we can give you
 
 THE TATESTKIED CHAMBER. 
 
 37 
 
 a comfortable old-fashioned room ; and I venture to suppose 
 that your campaigns have taught you to be glad of worse 
 quarters." 
 
 The General shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. " I pre- 
 sume," he said, •' the worst apartment in your chateau is con- 
 siderably superior to the old tobacco-cask, in which 1 was fain 
 to take up my night's lodging when I was in the Bush, as the 
 Virginians call it, with the light corps, Then^ I lay, like Dioge- 
 nes himself, so delighted with my covering from the elements, 
 that I made a vain attempt to have it rolled on to my next 
 quarters ; but my commander for the time would give way tc 
 no such luxurious provision, and I took farewell of my beloved 
 cask with tears in my eyes." 
 
 " Well, then, since you do not fear your quarters," said Lord 
 Woodville, " you will stay with me a week at least. Of guns, 
 dogs, fishing rods, flies, and means of sport by sea and land, we 
 have enough and to spare : you cannot pitch on an amusement, 
 but we will pitch on the means of pursuing it. But if you pre- 
 fer the gun and pointers, I will go with you myself, and see 
 whether you have mended your shooting since you have been 
 amongst the Indians of the back settlements." 
 
 The General gladly accepted his friendly host's proposal in 
 all its points. After a morning of manl}' exercise, the company 
 met at dinner, where it was the delight of Lord Woodville to 
 conduce to the display of the high properties of his recovered 
 friend, so as to recommend him to his guests, most of whom were 
 persons of distinction. He led General Browne to speak of 
 the scenes he had witnessed ; and as every word marked alike 
 the brave officer and the sensible man, who retained possession 
 of his cool judgment under the most imminent dangers, the 
 company looked upon the soldier with general respect, as on 
 one who had proved himself possessed of an uncommon portion 
 of personal courage — that attribute, of all other which every 
 body desires to be thought possessed. 
 
 The day at Woodville Castle ended as usual in such mansions. 
 The hospitality stopped within the limits of good order ; music, 
 in which the young lord was a proficient, succeeded to the circu- 
 lation of the bottle : cards and billiards, for those who preferred 
 such amusements, were in readiness : but the exercise of the 
 morning required early hours, and not long after eleven o'clock 
 the guests began to retire to their several apartments. 
 
 The young lord himself conducted his friend, General Browne, 
 to the cliamber destined for him, which answered the descrip- 
 tion he had given of it, being comfortable, but old-fashioned. 
 The bed was of the massive form used in the end of the seveo
 
 ^8 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER. 
 
 teentn century, and the curtains of faded silk, heavily trimmed 
 with tarnished gold. But then the sheets, pillows, and blankets 
 looked delightful to the campaigner, when he thought of his 
 mansion, the cask. There was an air of gloom in the tapestry 
 hangings, which, with their worn-out graces, curtained the walls 
 of the little chamber, and gently undulated as the autumnal 
 breeze found its way through the ancient lattice-window, which 
 pattered and whistled as the air gained entrance. The toilet 
 too, with its mirror, turbaned, after the manner of the begin- 
 ning of the century, with a coiffure of murrey-colored silk, and 
 its hundred strange-shaped boxes, providing for arrangements 
 which had been obsolete for more than fifty years, had an an- 
 tique, and in so far a melancholy, aspect. But nothing could 
 blaze more brightly and cheerfully than the two large wax 
 candles ; or if aught could rival them, it was the flaming bicker- 
 ing fagots in the chimney, that sent at once their gleam and 
 their warmth through the snug apartment ; which, notwithstand- 
 ing the general antiquity of its appearance, was not wanting in 
 the least convenience that modern habits rendered either neces- 
 sary or desirable. 
 
 " This is an old-fashioned sleeping apartment. General,' 
 said the young lord ; " but I hope you will find nothing that 
 makes you envy your old tobacco-cask." 
 
 " I am not particular repecting my lodgings," replied the 
 General ; " yet, were I to make any choice, I would prefer this 
 chamber by many degrees, to the gayer and more modern 
 rooms of your family mansion. Believe me, that when I unite 
 its modern air of comfort with its venerable antiquity, and rec- 
 ollect that it is your lordship's property, I shall feel in belter 
 quarters here, than if I were in the best hotel London could 
 afford." 
 
 " I trust — I have no doubt — that you will find yourself as 
 comfortable as I wish you, my dear General," said the young 
 nobleman ; and once more bidding his guest good-night, he 
 shook him by the hand and withdrew. 
 
 The General again looked round him, and internally con- 
 gratulating himself on his return to peaceful life, the comforts 
 of which were endeared by thj recollection of the hardships and 
 dangers he had lately sustained, undressed himself, and pre- 
 pared himself for a luxurious night's rest. 
 
 Here contrary to the custom of this species of tale, we leave 
 the General in possession of his apartment until the next 
 morning. 
 
 The company assembled for breakfast at an early hour, but 
 without the appearence of General Browne, who seemed the
 
 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER. 39 
 
 guest that Lord Woodville was desirous of honoring above all 
 whom his hospitality had assembled around him. He more 
 than once expressed surprise at the General's absence, and at 
 length sent a servant to make inquiry after him. The man 
 brought back information that General Browne had been walk- 
 ing abroad since an early hour of the morning, in defiance of 
 the weather, wliich was misty and ungenial. 
 
 " The custom of a soldier," — said the young nobleman to his 
 friends ; " many of them acquire habitual vigilance, and can- 
 not sleep after the early hour at which their duty usually com- 
 mands them to be alert." 
 
 Yet the explanation which Lord Woodville thus offered to 
 the company seemed hardly satisfactory to his own mind, and 
 it was in a fit of silence and abstraction that he awaited the re- 
 turn of the General. It took place near an hour after the break- 
 fast-bell had rung. He looked fatigued and feverish. His 
 hair, the powdering and arrangement of which was at this time 
 one of the most important occupations of a man's whole day, 
 and marked his fashion as much as, in the present time, the ty- 
 ing of a cravat, or the want of one, was disheveled, uncurled, 
 void of powder, and dank with dew. His clothes were huddled 
 on with a careless negligence, remarkable in a military man, 
 whose real or supposed duties are usually held to include some 
 attention to the toilet ; and his looks were haggard and ghastly 
 in a peculiar degree. 
 
 " So you have stolen a march upon us this morning, my dear 
 General," said Lord Woodville ; "or you have not found your 
 bed so much to your mind as I had hoped and you seemed to 
 expect. How did you rest last night .'' " 
 
 "Oh, excellently well ! remarkably well ! never better in my 
 life" — said General Browne rapidly, and yet with an air of 
 embarrassment which was obvious to his friend. He then 
 hastily swallowed a cup of tea, and, neglecting or refusing 
 whatever else was offered, seemed to fall into a fit of abstrac- 
 tion. 
 
 " You will take the gun to-day. General ;" said his friend 
 and host, but had to repeat the question twice ere he received 
 the abrupt answer, " No, my lord ; T am sorry I cannot have the 
 honor of spending another day with your lordship ; my post 
 horses are ordered, and will be here directly." 
 
 All who were present showed surprise, and Lord Wood- 
 ville immediately replied, " Post horses, my good friend ! what 
 can you possibly want with them, when you promised to stay 
 with me quietly for at least a week ? " 
 
 " I believe," said the Genera!, obviously much embarrassed,
 
 40 
 
 THE TAPESTRIED CI/AM TEA'. 
 
 "that I niight, in the pleasure of my first meeting with youi 
 lordship, have said something about stopping here a few days; 
 but I have since found it altogether impossible." 
 
 " That is very extraordinary," answered the young nob'e- 
 man. " You seemed quite disengaged yesterday, and you can- 
 not have had a summons to-day ; for our post has not come up 
 from the town, and therefore you cannot have received any 
 letters." 
 
 General Browne, without giving any further explanation, 
 muttered something of indispensable business, and insisted on 
 the absolute necessity of his departure in a manner which 
 silenced all opposition on the part of his host, w'ho saw that his 
 resolution was taken, and forebore further importunity. 
 
 " At least, however," he said, " permit me, my dear Browne, 
 since go you will or must, to show you the view from the ter- 
 race, which the mist, that is now rising, will soon display." 
 
 He threw open a sash window, and stepped down upon the 
 terrace as he spoke. The General followed him mechanically, 
 but seemed little to attend to what his host was saying, as, 
 looking across an extended and rich prospect, he pointed out 
 the different object; worthy of observation. Thus they moved 
 on till Lord Woodvi.Ie had attained his purpose of drawing his 
 guest entirely apart from the rest of the company, when, turn- 
 ing round upon him with an air of great solemnity, he addressed 
 him thus : — 
 
 " Richard Browne, my old and very dear friend, we are now 
 alone. Let me conjure you to answer me upon the word of a 
 friend, and the honor of a soldier. How did you in reality 
 rest during last night .-' " 
 
 " Most wretchedly indeed, my lord," answered the General 
 In the same tone of solemnity; — "so miserably, that I would 
 not run the risk of suc^ a second night, not only for all the 
 lands belonging to this castle, but for all the country which I 
 see from this elevated point of view." 
 
 " This is most extraordinary," said the young lord, as if speak- 
 ing to himself; " then there must be something in the reports 
 concerning that apartment." Again turning to the General, he 
 said, " For God's sake, my dear friend, be candid with me, and 
 let me know the disagreeable particulars, which have befallen 
 you under a roof, where, with consent of the owner, you should 
 have met nothing save comfort." 
 
 The General seemed distressed by this appeal, and paused a 
 moment before he replied. " My dear lord," he at length said, 
 " what happened to me last night is of a nature so peculiar and 
 so unpleasant, that I could hardly bring myself to detail it even
 
 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER. 
 
 4X 
 
 to your lordship, were it not that, independent of my wish to 
 gratify any request of yours, I think that sincerity on my part 
 may lead to some explanation about a circumstance equally pain* 
 ful and mysterious. To others, the communication I am 
 about to make, might place me in the light of a weak-minded, 
 superstitious fool, who suffered his own imagination to delude 
 and bewilder him ; but you have known me in childhood and 
 youth, and will not suspect me of having adopted in manhood 
 the feelings and frailties from which my early years were free." 
 Here he paused, and his friend replied : — 
 
 " Do not doubt my perfect confidence in the truth of your 
 communication, however strange it may be," replied Lord Wood- 
 ville ; " I know your firmness of disposition too well, to suspect 
 you could be made the object of imposition, and am aware that 
 your honor and your friendship will equally deter you from 
 exaggerating whatever you may have witnessed." 
 
 " Well then," said the General, " I will proceed with my story 
 as well as I can, relying upon your candor ; and yet distinctly 
 feeling that I would rather face a battery than recall to my mind 
 the odious recollections of last night." 
 
 He paused a second time, and then perceiving that Lord 
 Woodville remained silent and in an attitude of attention, he 
 commenced though not without obvious reluctance, the history 
 of his night's adventures in the Tapes':ried Chamber. 
 
 " I undressed and went to bed, so soon as your lordship left 
 me yesterday evening ; but the wood in the chimney, which 
 nearly fronted my bed, blazed brightly and cheerfully, and, aided 
 by a hundred exciting recollections of my childhood and youth 
 which had been recalled by the unexpected pleasure of meeting 
 your lordship, prevented me from falling immediately asleep. 
 I ought, however, to say, that these reflections were all of a 
 pleasant and agreeable kind, grounded on a sense of having for 
 a time exchanged the labor, fatigues, and dangers of my pro- 
 fession, for the enjoyment of a peaceful life, and the reunion of 
 those friendly and affectionate ties, which I had torn asundel 
 at the rude summons of war. 
 
 " While such pleasing reflections were stealing over my mind, 
 and gradually lulling me to slumber, I was suddenly aroused by 
 a sound like that of the rustling of a silken gown, and the tap- 
 ping of a pair of high-heeled shoes, as if a woman were walking 
 in the apartment. Ere I could draw the curtain to see what 
 the matter was, the figure of a little woman passed between the 
 bed and the fire. The back of this form was turned to me, and 
 I could observe, from the shoulders and neck, that it was that 
 of an old woman, whose dress was an old-fashioned gown, which,,
 
 4« 
 
 THE TAPESTRIED CIIAMBEK. 
 
 I think, ladies call a sacque ; that is, a sort of robe, completely 
 loose in the body, but gjathered into broad plaits upon the neck 
 and shoulders, which fall down to the ground, and terminate in 
 a species of train. 
 
 " I thouglit the intrusion singular enough, but never harbored 
 for a moment the idea that what I saw was anything more than 
 the mortal form of some old woman about the establishment, 
 who had a fancy to dress like her grandmother, and who, 
 having perhaps (as your lordship mentioned that you were rather 
 straitened for room) been dislodged from her chamber for my 
 accommodation, had forgotten the circumstance, and returned 
 by twelve to her old haunt. Under this persuasion I moved my- 
 self in bed and coughed a little, to make the intruder sensible 
 of my being in possession of the premises. — She turned slowly 
 round, but, gracious heaven ! my lord, what a countenance did 
 she display to me ! There was no longer any question what she 
 was, or any thought of her being a living being. Upon a face 
 which wore the fixed features of a corpse, were imprinted the 
 traces of the vilest and most hideous passions which had ani- 
 mated her while she lived. The body of some atrocious crimi- 
 nal seemed to have been given up from the grave, and the soul 
 restored from the penal fire, in order to form, for a space, a 
 union with the ancient accomplice of its guilt. I started up in 
 bed, and sat upright, supporting myself on my palms, as I gazed 
 on this horrible spectre. The hag made, as it seemed, a single 
 and swift stride to the bed where I lay, and squatted herself 
 down upon it, in precisely the same attitude which I had 
 assumed in the extremity of horror, advancing her diabolical 
 countenance within half-a-yard of mine, with a grin which 
 seemed to intimate the malice and the derision of an incarnate 
 fiend." 
 
 Here General Browne stopped, and wiped from his brow the 
 cold prespiration with which the recollection of his horrible 
 vision had covered it. 
 
 " My lord," he said, " I am no coward. I have been in all 
 the mortal dangers incidental to my profession, and I may 
 truly boast, that no man every knew Richard Browne dishonor 
 the sword he wears ; but in these horrible circumstances, under 
 the eyes, and as it seemed, almost in the grasp of an incarna' 
 tion of an c\il spirit, all firmness forsook me, all manhood 
 melted from me like wax in the furnace, and I felt my hair in> 
 dividually bristle. The current of my life-blood ceased to flow, 
 and I sank back in a swoon, as very a victim to panic terror as 
 ever was a village girl, or a child of ten years old. How long 
 I lay in this condition I cannot pretend to guess.
 
 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER. 
 
 43 
 
 " But I was roused by the castle clock striking one, so loud 
 thnt it seemed as if it were in the very room. It was some time 
 before I dared open my eyes, lest they should again encounter 
 the horrible spectacle. When, however, I summoned courage 
 to look up, she was no longer visible. My first idea was to 
 pull my bell, wake the servants, and remove to a garret or a 
 hay-loft, to be ensured against a second visitation. Nay, I will 
 confess the truth, that my resolution was altered, not by the 
 shame of exposing myself, but by the fear that, as the bell-cord 
 hung bv the chimnev, I misfht, in makingmy wav to it, be asrain 
 crossed by the fiendish hag, who, I figured to myself, might be 
 still lurking about some corner of the apartment. 
 
 " I will not pretend to describe what hot and cold fever-fits 
 tormented me for the rest of the night, through broken sleep, 
 weary vigils, and that dubious state which forms the neutral 
 ground between them. A hundred terrible objects appeared to 
 haunt me ; but there was the great difference betwixt the vision 
 which I have described, and those which followed that I knew 
 the last to be deceptions of my own fancy and over-excited 
 nerves. 
 
 " Day at last appeared, and I rose from my bed ill in health 
 and humiliated in mind. I was ashamed of myself as a man 
 and a soldier, and still more so, at feeling my own extreme 
 desire to escape from the haunted apartment, which, however, 
 conquered all other considerations ; so that, huddling on my 
 clothes with the most careless haste, I made my escape from 
 your lordship's mansion, to seek in the open air some relief to 
 my nervous system, shaken as it was by this horrible rencounter 
 with a visitant, for such I must believe her, from the other 
 world. Your lordship has now heard the cause of my discom- 
 posure, and of my sudden desire to leave j^our hospitable castle. 
 In other places I trust we may often meet ; but God protect 
 me from ever spending a second night under that roof ! " 
 
 Strange as the General's tale was, he spoke with such a deep 
 air of conviction, that it cut short all the usual commentaries 
 which are made on such stories. Lord Woodville never once 
 asked him if he was sure he did not dream of the apparition, 
 or suggested any of the possibilities by which it is fashionable 
 to explain supernatural appearances, as wild vagaries of the 
 fancy, or deceptions of the optic ner\'es. On the contrary, he 
 seemed deeply impressed with the truth and reality of what he 
 had heard ; and, after a considerable pause, regretted, with 
 much appearance of sincerity, that his early friend should in 
 his house have suffered so severely. 
 
 " I am the more sorry for your pain, my dear Browne," he
 
 44 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER, 
 
 continued, " that it is the unhappy, though most unexpected 
 result of anexperiment of my own! You must know, that for 
 my father and grandfather's time, at least, the apartment which 
 was assigned to you last night, had been shut on account of 
 reports that it was disturbed by supernatural sights and noises. 
 When I came, a few weeks since, into possession of the estate, 
 I thought the acconnnodation, which the castle afforded for my 
 friends, was not extensive enough to permit the inhabitants of 
 the invisible world to retain possession of a comfortable sleeping 
 apartment. I therefore caused the Tapestried Chamber, as we 
 call it, to be opened ; and without destroying its air of antiquity, 
 I had such new articles of furnitures placed in it as became the 
 modern times. Yet, as the opinion that the room was haunted 
 very strongly prevailed among the domestics, and was also known 
 in the neighborhood and to many of my friends, I feared some 
 prejudice might be entertained by the first occupant of the 
 Tapestried Chamber, which might tend to revive the evil report 
 which it had labored under, and so disappoint my purpose of 
 rendering it a useful part of the house. I must confess, my dear 
 Browne, that your arrival yesterday, agreeable to me for a 
 thousand reasons besides, seemed the most favorable oppor- 
 tunity of removing the unpleasant rumors which attached to 
 the room, since your courage was indubitable, and your mind 
 free of any pre-occupation on the subject. I could not, there- 
 fore, have chosen a more fitting subject for my experiment. 
 
 " Upon my life," said General Browne, somewhat hastily, 
 " I am infinitely obliged to your lordship — very particularly 
 indebted indeed. I am likely to remember for some time the 
 consequences of the experiment, as your lordship is pleased to 
 call it." 
 
 " Nay, now you are unjust, my dear friend," said Lord Wood- 
 ville. " You have only to reflect for a single moment, in order 
 to be convinced that I could not augur the possibility of the pain 
 to which you have been so unhappily exposed. I was yesterday 
 morning a complete sceptic on the subject of supernatural 
 appearances. Nay, I am sure that had I told you what was 
 said about that room, those very reports would have induced 
 you, by your own choice, to select it for your accommodation. 
 It was my misfortune, perhaps my error, but really cannot be 
 termed my fault, that you have been afflicted so strangely." 
 
 " Strangely indeed ! " said the General, resuming his good 
 temper ; " and I acknowledge that I have no right to be 
 ofifended with your lordship for treating me like what I used 
 to think myself — a man of some firmness and courage. — But I
 
 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER. 45 
 
 see my post horses are arrived, and I must not detain youi 
 lordship from your amusement." 
 
 " Nay, my old friend," said Lord Woodville, " since you 
 cannot stay with us another day, which, ^ndeed, I can no longer 
 urge, give me at least half-an-hour more. You used to love 
 pictures, and I have a gallery of portraits, some of them by 
 Vandyke, representing ancestry to whom this property and 
 castle formerly belonged. I think that several of them will 
 Strike you as possessing merit." 
 
 General Browne accepted the invitation, though somewhat 
 unwillingly. It was evident he was not to breathe freely or at 
 ease till he left Woodville Castle far behind him. He could 
 not refuse his friend's invitation, however ; and the less so, 
 that he was a little ashamed of the peevishness which he had 
 displayed toward his well-meaning entertainer. 
 
 The General, therefore, followed Lord Woodville through 
 several rooms, into a long gallery hung with pictures, which the 
 latter pointed out to his guest, telling the names, and giving 
 some account of the personages whose portraits presented them- 
 selves in progression. General Browne was but little interested 
 in the details which these accyunts conveyed to him. They 
 were, indeed, of the kind which are usually found in an old 
 family gallery. Here was a cavalier who had ruined the estate 
 in the royal cause ; there a fine lady who had reinstated it by 
 contracting a match with a wealthy Roundhead. There hung 
 a gallant who had been in danger for corresponding with the 
 exiled Court at Saint Germains ; here one who had taken arms 
 for William at the Revolution ; and there a third that had 
 thrown his weight alternately into the scale of Whig and Tory. 
 
 While Lord Woodville was cramming these words into his 
 guest's ear, " against the stomach of his sense." theygained the 
 middle of the gallery, when he beheld General Browne suddenly 
 start, and assume an attitude of the utmost surprise, not unmixed 
 with fear, as his eyes were caught and suddenly riveted by a 
 portrait of an old lady in a sacque, the fashionable dress of the 
 end of the seventeenth century. 
 
 " There she is ! " he exclaimed ; " there she is, in form and 
 features, though inferior in demoniac expression to the accursed 
 hag who visited me last night ! " 
 
 " If that be the case," said the young nobleman, " there can 
 remain no longer any doubt of the horrible reality of your 
 apparition. That is the picture of a wretched ancestress of 
 mine, of whose crimes a black and fearful catalogue is recorded 
 in a family history in my charter-chest. The recital of them 
 would be too horrible > it is enough to say, that in yon fatal
 
 46 THE TAPESTRIED CHAMBER. 
 
 apartment incest and unnatural murder were committed. I 
 will restore it to the solitude to which the better judgment of 
 those who preceded me had consigned it ; and never shall any 
 one, so long as I can prevent it, be exposed to a repetition of 
 the supernatural horrors which could shake such courage as 
 yours." 
 
 Thus the friends, who had met with such glee, parted in a 
 very different mood ; Lord Woodville to command the Tapes- 
 tried Chamber to be unmantled, and the door built up ; and 
 General Browne to seek in some less beautiful country, and with 
 some less dignified friend, forgetfulness of the painful night 
 which he had passed in Woodville Castle.
 
 DEATH OF THE LAIRD'S JOCK. 
 
 The manner in which this trifle 7i'as introduced at the iimetd 
 Mr. F. M. Reynolds, editor of the Keepsake of 1828, /eaves no 
 occasion for a preface. 
 
 August i8ji. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE KEEPSAKE. 
 
 You have asked me, sir, to point out a subject for the 
 pencil, and I feel the diihculty of complying with your request ; 
 although I am not certainly unaccustomed to literary composi- 
 tion, or a total stranger to the stories of history and tradition, 
 which afford the best copies for the painter's art. But although 
 siciit pictura poesis is an ancient and undisputed axiom — al- 
 though poetry and painting both address themselves to the 
 same object of exciting the human imagination, by presenting 
 to it pleasing or sublime images of ideal scenes ; yet the one 
 conveying itself through the ears to the understanding, and the 
 other applying itself only to the e\es, the subjects which are 
 best suited to the bard or tale-teller are often totally unfit for 
 painting, where the artist must present in a single glance all 
 that his art has power to tell us. The artist can neither recapit- 
 ulate the past nor intimate the future. The single notv is all 
 which he can present ; and hence, unquestionably, many sub- 
 jects which delight us in poetry, or in narrative, whether real 
 or fictitious, cannot with advantage be transferred to the 
 canvas. 
 
 Being in some degree aware of these difficulties, though 
 doubtless unacquainted both with their extent, and the means 
 by which they maybe modified or surmounted, I have, never- 
 theless, ventured to draw up the following traditional narrative, 
 as a story in which, when the general details are known, the 
 interest is so much concentrated in one strong moment of 
 agonizing passion, that it can be understood, and sympathized
 
 48 DEATH OF THE LAIRDS JOCK. 
 
 with, at a single glance. I therefore presume that it may be 
 acceptable as a hint to some one among the numerous artists, 
 who have of late years distinguished themselves as rearing up 
 and supporting the British school. 
 
 Enough has been said and sung about 
 
 The well contested ground, 
 The warlike border-land — 
 
 to render the habits ot the tribes who inhabited them before 
 the union of England and Scotland familiar to most of your 
 readers. The rougher and sterner features of their character 
 were softened by their attachment to the fine arts, from which 
 has arisen the saying that, on the frontiers, every dale had its 
 battle, and every river its song. A rude species of chivalry' 
 was in constant use, and single combats were practiced as the 
 amusement of the few intervals of truce which suspended the 
 exercise of war. The inveteracy of this custom may be inferred 
 from the following incident : — 
 
 Bernard Gilpin, the apostle of the north, the first who under- 
 took to preach the Protestant doctrines to the Border dalesmen, 
 was surprised, on entering one of their churches, to see a 
 gauntlet, or mail-glove, hanging above the altar. Upon in- 
 quiring the meaning of a symbol so indecorous being displayed 
 in that sacred place, he was informed by the clerk, that the 
 glove was that of a famous swordsman, who hung it there as an 
 emblem of a general challenge and gage of battle, to any who 
 should dare to take the fatal token down. " Reach it to me," 
 said the reverend churchman. The clerk and sexton equally 
 declined the perilous office ; and the good Bernard Gilpin was 
 obliged to remove the glove with his own hands, desiring those 
 who were present to inform the champion, that he, and no 
 other, had possessed himself of the gage of defiance. But the 
 champion was as much n shamed to face Bernard Gilpin as the 
 officials of the church hail been to displace his pledge of com- 
 bat. 
 
 The date of the following story is about the latter years of 
 Queen Elizabeth's reign ; and the events took place in Liddes- 
 dale, a hilly and pastoral district of Roxburghshire, which, on a 
 part of its boundary, is divided from England only by a small 
 river. 
 
 During the good old times of rugging and riving (that is, 
 tugging and tearing), under which term the disorderly doings 
 of the warlike age are affectionately remembered, this valley 
 was principally cultivated by the sept or clan of the Armstrongs.
 
 DEATH OF THE LAIKD'S JOCK. 4^ 
 
 The chief of this warlike race was the Laird of Mangertown. 
 At the period of which I speak, the estate of Mangertown, with 
 the power and dignity of chief, was possessed by John Arm- 
 strong, a man of great size, strength, and courage. While his 
 father was alive, he was distinguished from others of his clan 
 who bore the same name, by the epithet of the Laird^s Jock, 
 that is to say, the Laird's son Jock, or Jack. This name he 
 distinguished by so many bold and desperate achievements, 
 that he retained it even after his father's death, and is men- 
 tioned under it both in authentic records and in tradition. 
 Some of his feats are recorded in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
 Border, and others mentioned in contemporary chronicles. 
 
 At the species of singular combat which we have described, 
 the Laird's Jock was unrivaled; and no champion of Cumberland, 
 Westmoreland, or Northumberland, could endure the sway of 
 the huge two-handed sword which he wielded, and which few 
 others could even lift. This " awful sword," as the common 
 people term it, was as dear to him as Durindana or Fushberta 
 to their respective masters, and was nearly as formidable to his 
 enemies as those renowned falchions proved to the foes of 
 Christendom. The weapon had been bequeathed to him by a 
 celebrated English outlaw named Hobbie Noble, who, having 
 committed some deed for which he was in danger from justice, 
 fled to Liddesdale, and became a follower, or rather a brother- 
 in-arms, to the renowned Laird's Jock ; till, venturing into Eng. 
 land with a small escort, a faithless guide, and with a light 
 single-handed sword instead of his ponderous brand, Hobbie 
 Noble, attacked by superior numbers, v/as made prisoner and 
 executed. 
 
 With this weapon, and by means of Lis own strength and ad- 
 dress, the Laird's Jock maintained the reputation of the best 
 swordsman on the Border side, and defeated or slew many 
 who ventured to dispute with him the formidable title. 
 
 But years pass on with the strong and the brave as with the 
 feeble and the timid. In process of time, the Laird's Jock grew 
 incapable of wielding his weapons, and finally of all active ex- 
 ertion, even of the most ordinary kind. The disabled cham- 
 pion became at length totally bed-ridden, and entirely dependent 
 for his comfort on the pious duties of an only daughter, his 
 perpetual attendant and companion. 
 
 Besides this dutiful child, the Laird's Jock had an only son, 
 upon whom devolved the perilous task of leading the clan to 
 battle, and maintaining the warlike renown of his native country, 
 which was now disputed by the English upon many occasions. 
 The young Armstrong was active, brave, and strong, and brought
 
 JO DEA TH OF THE LAIRD'S JOCK. 
 
 home from dangerous adventures many tokens of decided suc- 
 cess. Still the ancient chief conceived as it would seem, that 
 his son was scarce yet entitled by age and experience to be en- 
 trusted with the two-handed sword, by the use of which he had 
 himself been so dreadfully distinguished. 
 
 At length, an English champion, one of the name of Foster 
 (if I rightly recollect), had the audacity to send a challenge te 
 the best swordsman in Liddesdale ; and young Armstrong, burn 
 ingfor chivalrous distinction, accepted the challenge. 
 
 The heart of the disabled old man swelled with joy when he 
 heard that the challenge was passed and accepted, and the 
 meeting fixed at a neutral spot, used as the place of rencontre 
 upon such occasions, and which he himself had distinguished 
 by numerous victories. He exulted so much in the conquest 
 which he anticipated, that, to nerve his son to still bolder ex- 
 ertions, he conferred upon him, as champion of his clan and prov- 
 ince, the celebrated weapon which he had hitherto retained in 
 his own custody. 
 
 This was not all. When the day of combat arrived, the 
 Laird's Jock, in spite of his daughter's affectionate remon- 
 strances, determined, though he had not left his bed for two 
 years, to be a personal witness of the duel. His will was still 
 a law to his people, who bore him on their shoulders, wrapped 
 in plaids and blankets, to the spot where the combat was to 
 take place, and seated him on a fragment of rock, which is still 
 called the Laird's Jock's stone. There he remained with eyes 
 fixed on the lists or barrier, within which the champions were 
 about to meet. His daughter, having done all she could for 
 his accommodation, stood motionless beside him, divided be- 
 tween anxiety for his health, and for the event of the combat 
 to her beloved brother. Ere yet the fight began, the old men 
 gazed on their chief, now seen for the first time after several 
 years, and sadly compared his altered features and wasted frame, 
 with the paragon of strength and manly beauty which they once 
 remembered. The young men gazed on his large form and 
 powerful make, as upon some antediluvian giant who had sur- 
 vived the destruction of the Flood. 
 
 But the sound of the trumpets on both sides recalled the at- 
 tention of every one to the lists, surrounded as they were by 
 numbers of both nations eager to witness the event of the day. 
 The combatants met. It is needless to describe the struggle : 
 the Scottish champion fell. Foster, placing his foot on his an- 
 tagonist, seized on the redoubted sword, so precious in the eyes 
 of its aged owner, and brandished it over his head as a trophy 
 of his conquest. The English shouted in triumph. But the
 
 DEATH OF THE LAIRD'S JOCK, 51 
 
 c'espairing cry of the aged champion, who saw his country di* 
 honored, and his sword, long the terror of their race, in pos* 
 session of an Englishman, was heard high above the acclama- 
 tions of victory. He seemed, for an instant, animated by all 
 his wonted power ; for he started from the rock on which he sat, 
 and while the garments with which he had been invested fell 
 from his wasted frame, and showed the ruins of his strength, he 
 tossed his arms wildly to heaven, and uttered a cry of indignation, 
 horror, and despair, which, tradition says, was heard to a pre- 
 ternatural distance, and resembled the cry of a dying lion more 
 than a human sound. 
 
 His friends received him in their arms as he sank utterly ex- 
 hausted by the effort, and bore him back to his castle in mute 
 sorrow ; while his daughter at once wept for her brother, and 
 endeavored to mitigate and soothe the despair of her father. 
 But this was impossible ; the old man's only tie to life was rent 
 rudely asunder, and his heart had broken with it. The death 
 of his son had no part in his sorrow. If he thought of him at 
 all, it was as the degenerate boy, through whom the honor of 
 his country and clan had been lost ; and he died in the course 
 of three days, never even mentioning his name, but pouring out 
 unintermitted lamentations for the loss of his sword. 
 
 I conceive, that the instant when the disabled chief was 
 roused into a last exertion by the agony of the moment is favor- 
 able to the object of a painter. He might obtain the full advan- 
 tage of contrasting the form of the rugged old man, in the extrem- 
 ity of furious despair, with the softness and beauty of the female 
 form. The fatal field might be thrown into perspective, so as 
 to give full effect to these two principal figures, and with the 
 single explanation that the piece represented a soldier beholding 
 his son slain, and the honor of his country lost, the picture 
 would be sufficiently intelligible at the first glance. If it was 
 thought necessary to show more clearly the nature of the con- 
 flict, it might be indicated by the pennon of Saint George being 
 displayed at one end of the lists, and that of Saint Andrew at 
 the other. 
 
 I remain, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant. 
 
 The Author of Waverlet.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. 
 
 GENERAL INTRODUCTION— (1831). 
 
 The preceding Tale of this Collection* concluded the last of 
 the pieces originally published under the nominis umbra of the 
 Author of Waverley, and the circumstances which rendered it im- 
 possible for the writer to continue longer in the possession of his 
 incognito were communicated in 1827, in the Introduction f to the 
 first series of " Chronicles of the Canongate" — consisting (besides 
 a biographical sketch of the imaginary rhroniclei) of three tales, 
 entitled " The Highland Widow," " The Two Drovers," and " The 
 Surgeon's Daughter." In this and the next volume are included 
 the two first-named of these pieces, together with three detached 
 stories, which appeared the year after in the elegant compilation 
 called " The Keepsake." The " Surgeon's Daughter" it is thought 
 better to defer until a succeeding volume, than to 
 
 " Begin and break off in the middle." 
 
 I have, perhaps, said enough on former occasions of the mis- 
 fortunes which led to the dropping of that mask under which I had, 
 for a long series of years, enjoyed so large a portion of public 
 favor. Through the success of those literary efforts I had been 
 enabled to indulge most of the tastes which a retired person of 
 my station might be supposed to entertain. In the pen of this 
 nameless romancer I seemed to possess something like the secret 
 fountain of coined gold and pearls vouchsafed to the traveller of 
 the Eastern Talc ; and no doubt believed that I might venture, 
 without silly imprudence- to extend my personal expenditure con- 
 siderably beyond what I should have thought of, had my means 
 been limited to t'.ie competence which I derived from inheritance, 
 with the moderate income of a professional situation. I bought 
 and built and planted, and was considered by myself, as by the 
 rest of the world, in the safe possession of an easy fortune. My 
 riches, however, like the other riches of this world, were liable to 
 
 * Namely, Woodstock, which forms Vol. XXI. of the present series, 
 t See also Appendi.x — Theatrical Fund Dinner.
 
 iv INTRODUCTIOl^. 
 
 accidents, under which they were ultimately destined to make unto 
 themselves wings and fly away. The year 1825, so disastrous to 
 many branches of industry and commerce, did not spare the 
 market of literature ; and the sudden ruin that fell on so many of 
 the booksellers could scarcely have been expected to leave un- 
 scathed one whose career had of necessity connected him deeply 
 and extensively with the pecuniary transactions of that profession. 
 In a word, almost without one note of premonition, 1 found myself 
 involved in the sweeping catastrophe of the unhappy time, and 
 called on to meet the demands of creditors upon commercial estab- 
 lishments with which my fortunes had long been bound up, to the 
 extent of no less a sum than one hundred and twenty thousand 
 pounds. 
 
 The Author having, however rashly, committed his pledges thus 
 largely to the hazards of trading companies, it behoved him, of 
 course, to abide the consequences of his conduct, and, wiih what- 
 ever feelings, he surrendered on the instant every shred of prop- 
 erty which he had been accustomed to call his own. It became 
 vested in the hands of gentlemen whose integrity, prudence, and 
 intelligence were combined with all possible liberality and kind- 
 ness of disposition, and who readily afforded every assistance 
 toward the execution of plans, in the success of which the Author 
 contemplated the possibility of his ultimate extraction, and which 
 were of such a nature that, had assistance of this sort been with- 
 held, he could have had little prospect of carrying them into effect. 
 Among other resources which occurred was the project of that 
 complete and corrected edition of his Novels and Romances 
 (whose real parentage had of necessity been disclosed at the mo- 
 ment of the commercial convulsions alluded to) which has now 
 advanced with unprecedented favor nearly to its close ; but as he 
 purposed also to continue, for the behoof of those to whom he was 
 indebted, the exercise of his pen in the same path of literature, 
 so long as the taste of his countrymen should seem to approve of 
 his efforts, it appeared to him that it would have been an idle piece 
 of affectntion to attempt getting up a new incognito after his 
 original visor had been thus dashed from his brow. Hence the 
 personal narrative prefixed to the first work of fiction which he 
 put forth after the paternity of the " Waverley Novels " had come 
 to be publicly ascertained ; and though many of the particulars 
 originally avowed in that Notice have been unavoidably adverted 
 to in the preface and notes to some of the preceding volumes of 
 t'.', present collection, it is now reprinted as it stood at the time, 
 because some interest is generally attached to a coin or medal 
 struck on a special occasion, as expressing, perhaps, more faith- 
 fully than the same artist could have afterward conveyed, the feel- 
 ings of the moment that gave it birth. The Introduction to the 
 first series of "Chronicles of the Canongate " ran, then, in these 
 words :
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 All who are acquainted with the early history of the Italian stage 
 are aware that Arlechino is not, in his original conception, a 
 mere worker of marvels with his wooden sword, a jumper in and 
 out of windows, as upon our theatre, but, as his parti-colored 
 jacket implies, a buffoon or clown, whose mouth, far from being 
 eternally closed, as among us, is filled, like that of Touchstone, 
 with quips and cranks and witty devices, very often delivered 
 extempore. It is not easy to trace how he became possessed of 
 his black vizard, which was anciently made in the resemblance of 
 the face of a cat ; but it seems that the mask was essential to the 
 performance of the character, as will appear from the following 
 theatrical anecdote : 
 
 An actor on the Italian stage permitted at the Foire du St. 
 Germain, in Paris, was renowned for the wild, venturous, and ex- 
 travagant wit, the brilliant sallies, and fortunate repartees, with 
 which he prodigally seasoned the character of parti- colored jester. 
 Some critics, whose good-will toward a favorite performer was 
 stronger than their judgment, took occasion to remonstrate with 
 the successful actor on the subject of the grotesque vizard. They 
 went wilily to their purpose, observing that his classical and Attic 
 wit, his delicate vein of humor, his happy turn for dialogue, were 
 rendered burlesque and ludicrous by this unmeaning and bizarre 
 disguise, and that those attributes would become far more impres- 
 sive if aided by the spirit of his eye and the expression of his 
 natural features. The actor's vanity was easily so far engaged as 
 to induce him to make the experiment. He played Harlecjuin 
 barefaced, but was considered on all hands as having made a total 
 failure. He had lost the audacity which a sense of incognito be- 
 stowed, and with it all the reckless play of raillery which gave 
 vivacity to his original acting. He cursed his advisers, and re- 
 sumed his grotesque vizard ; but, it is said, without ever being able 
 to regain the careless and successful levity which the conscious- 
 ness of the disguise had formerly bestowed. 
 
 Perhaps the Author of Waverley is now about to incur a risk 
 of the same kind, and endanger his popularity by having laid aside 
 his incognito. It is certainly not a voluntary experiment, like that 
 of Harlequin ; for it was my original intention never to have 
 avowed these works during my lifetime, and the original manu- 
 scripts were carefully preserved (though by the care of others 
 rather than mine), with the purpose of supplying the necessary 
 evidence of the truth when the period of announcing it should ar- 
 rive.* But the affairs of my publishers having unfortunately passed 
 into a management different from their own, I had no right any 
 longer to rely upon secrecy in that quarter ; and thus my mask, 
 like my Aunt Dinah's in " Tristram Shandy," having begun to wax 
 a little threadbare about the chin, it became time to lay it aside 
 
 * These manuscripts are at present (August, 1831) advertised for public 
 sale, which is an addition, though a small one, to other annoyance/.
 
 vi INTRODUC TION. 
 
 with a good grace, unless I desired it should fall in pieces from my 
 face, which was now become likely. 
 
 Yet I had not the slightest intention of selecting the time and 
 place in which the disclosure was finally made ; nor was there any 
 concert betwixt my learned and respected friend Lord Meadow- 
 bank and myself upon that occasion. It was, as the reader is 
 probably aware, upon the 23d February last, at a public meeting, 
 called for establishing a professional Theatrical Fund in Edin- 
 burgh, that the communication took place. Just before we sat 
 down to table Lord Meadowbank* asked me, privately, whether I 
 was still anxious to preserve my incognito on the subject of what 
 were called the Waverley Novels ? I did not immediately see the 
 purpose of his Lordship's question, although 1 certainly might have 
 been led to infer it, and replied, that the secret had now of necessity 
 become known to so many people that I was indifferent on the sub- 
 ject. Lord Meadowbank was thus induced, while doing me the 
 great honor of proposing my health to the meeting, to say some- 
 thing on the subject of these novels, so strongly connecting them 
 with me as the author, that by remaining silent I must have stood 
 convicted either of the actual paternity or of the still greater 
 crime of being supposed willing to receive indirectly praise to 
 which 1 had no just title. 1 thus found myself suddenly and un- 
 expectedly placed in the confessional, and had only time to recol- 
 lect that I had been guided thither by a most friendly hand, and 
 could not, perhaps, find a better public opportunity to lay down a 
 disguise which began to resemble that of a detected masquerader.f 
 
 I had therefore the task of avowing myself, to the numerous 
 and respectable company assembled, as the sole and unaided 
 author of these Novels of Waverley, the paternity of which was 
 likely at one time to have formed a controversy of some celebrity, 
 for the ingenuity with which some instructors of the public gave 
 their assurance on the subject was extremely persevering. I now 
 think it further necessary to say, that while I take on myself all 
 the merits and demerits attending these compositions, I am bound 
 to acknowledge with gratitude hints of subjects and legends which 
 I have received from various quarters, and have occasionally used 
 as a foundation of my fictitious compositions, or woven up with 
 them in the shape of episodes. I am bound, in particular, to 
 acknowledge the unremitting kindness of Mr. Joseph Train, Su- 
 pervisor of Excise at Dumfries, to whose unwearied industry I have 
 been indebted for many curious traditions and points of antiqua- 
 rian interest. It was Mr. Train who brought to my recollection the 
 history of Old Mortality, although I myself had had a personal in- 
 terview with that celebrated wanderer so far back as about 1792, 
 when I found him on his usual task. He was then engaged in re- 
 pairing the gravestones of the Covenanters who had died while 
 imprisoned in the Castle of Dunnottar, to which many of them 
 were committed prisoners at the period of Argyle's rising ; their 
 
 * One of the Supreme Judges of Scotland, termed Lords of Council and 
 Session. 
 
 t See Appendix— Theatrical Fund Dinner.
 
 INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 place of confinement is still called the Whigs' Vault. Mr. Train, 
 however, procured for me far more extensive information concern- 
 ing this singular person, whose name was Patterson, than I had 
 been able to acquire during my own short conversation with him. 
 He was (as I think I have somewhere already stated) a native of 
 the parish of Closeburn, in Dumfriesshire, and it is believed that 
 domestic affliction, as well as devotional feeling, induced him to 
 commence the wandering mode of life which he pursued for a 
 very long period. It is more than twenty years since Robert Pat- 
 terson's death, which took place on the high road near Lockerby, 
 where he was found exhausted and expiring. The white pony, 
 the companion of his pilgrimage, was standing by the side of its 
 dying master ; the whole furnishing a scene not unfitted for the 
 pencil. These particulars I had from Mr. Train.* 
 
 Another debt, which I pay most willingly, I owe to an unknown 
 correspondent (a ladyf), who favored me with the history of the 
 upright and high-principled female whom, in " The Heart of Mid- 
 Lothian," I have termed Jeanie Deans. The circumstance of her 
 refusing to save her sister's life by an act of perjury, and under- 
 taking a pilgrimage to London to obtain her pardon, are both 
 represented as true by my fair and obliging correspondent; and they 
 led me to consider the possibility of rendering a fictitious person- 
 age interesting by mere dignity of mind and rectitude of principle, 
 assisted by unpretending good sense and temper, without any of 
 the beauty, grace, talent, accomplishment, and wit to which a 
 heroine of romance is supposed to have a prescriptive right. If 
 the portrait was received with interest by the public, I am con- 
 scious how much it was owing to the truth and force of the original 
 sketch, which I regret being unable to present to the public, as it 
 was written with much feeling and spirit. 
 
 Old and odd books, and a considerable collection of family 
 legends, formed another quarry, so ample, that it was much more 
 likely that the strength of the laborer should be exhausted than 
 that materials should fail. I may mention, for example's sake, that 
 the terrible catastrophe of "The Bride of Lammermoor " actually 
 occurred in a Scottish family of rank. The female relative by 
 whom the melancholy tale was communicated to me, many years 
 since, was a near connection of the family in which the event had 
 happened, and always told it with an appearance of melancholy 
 mystery, which enhanced the interest. She had known, in her 
 youth, the brother who rode before the unhappy victim to the fatal 
 altar, who, though then a mere boy, and occupied almost entirely 
 with the gayety of his own appearance in the bridal procession, 
 could not but remark that the hand of his sister was moist, and 
 cold as that of a statue. It is unnecessary further to withdraw the 
 veil from this scene of family distress, nor, although it occurred 
 more than a hundred years since, might it be altogether agreeable 
 to the representatives of the families concerned in the narrative. 
 
 * See, for some further particulars, the notes to Old Mortality in the 
 present collective edition. 
 t The late Mrs. Goldie.
 
 viii INTR OD UC TION. 
 
 It may be proper to say that the events alone are imitated ; but I 
 had neither the means nor intention of copying the manners or 
 tracing the characters of the persons concerned in the real story. 
 
 Indeed, I may here state generally, that although 1 have deemed 
 historical personages free subjects of delmeation, I have never on 
 any occasion violated the respect due to private life. It was indeed 
 impossible that traits proper to persons, both living and dead, with 
 whom I have had intercourse in society, should not have risen to 
 my pen in such works as " Waverley," and those which followed it. 
 But 1 have always studied to generalize the portraits, so that they 
 should still seem, on the whole, the productions of fancy, though 
 possessing some resemblance to real individuals. Yet I must own 
 my attempts have not in this last particular been uniformly suc- 
 cessful. There are men whose characters are so peculiarly marked 
 that the delineation of some leading and principal feature inevi- 
 tably places the whole person before you in his individuality. 
 Thus the character of Jonathan Oldbuck, in " The Antiquary," was 
 partly founded on that of an old friend of my youth, to whom I am 
 indebted for introducing mc to Shakespeare, and other invaluable 
 favors ; but I thought 1 had so completely disguised the likeness 
 that his features could not be recognized by any one alive. 1 was 
 mistaken, however, and indeed had endangered what I desired 
 should be considered as a secret ; for I afterward learned that a 
 highly respectable gentleman, one of the few surviving friends of 
 my father,* and an acute critic, had said, upon the appearance of 
 the work, that he was now convinced who was the author of it, as 
 he recognized in the Antiquary of Monkbarns traces of the char- 
 acter of a very intimate friend of my father's family. 
 
 I may here also notice that the sort of exchange of gallantry 
 which is represented as taking place betwixt Waverley and Colonel 
 Talbot is a literal fact. The real circumstances of the anecdote, 
 alike honorable to Whig and Tory, are these : 
 
 Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle — a name which I cannot 
 write without the warmest recollections of gratitude to the friend 
 of my childhood who first introduced me to the Highlands, their 
 traditions, and their manners — had been engaged actively in the 
 troubles of 1745. As he charged at the battle of Preston with his 
 clan, the Stewarts of Appine, he saw an officer of the opposite 
 army standing alone by a battery of four cannon, of which he dis- 
 charged three on the advancing Highlanders, and then drew his 
 sword. Invernahyle rushed on him, and required him to surren- 
 der. " Never to rebels! " was the undaunted reply, accompanied 
 with a lunge, which the Highlander received on his target; but 
 instead of using his sword in cutting down his now defenceless an- 
 tagonist, he employed it in parrying the blow of a Lochaber-axe, 
 aimed at tlie officer by the miller, one of his own followers, a grim- 
 looking old Highlander, whom I remember to have seen. Thus 
 overpowered, Lieutenant-Colonel Allan Whitefoord, a gentleman 
 of rank and consequence, as well as a brave officer, gave up his 
 
 * Jame-; Chalmers, Esq., Solicitor-at-law, London, who died during the 
 publication of the present edition of these Novels. (Aug., 1831.)
 
 INTR OD UC TION. ix 
 
 sword, and with it his purse and watch, which Invernahyle ac- 
 cepted, to save them from his foUowers. After the affair was 
 over, Mr. Stewart sought out his prisoner, and they were intro- 
 duced to each other by the celebrated John Roy Stewart, who ac- 
 quainted Colonel Whitefoord with the quality of his captor, and 
 made him aware of the necessity of receiving back his property, 
 which he was inclined to leave in the hands to which it had fallen. 
 So great became the confidence established betwixt them, that 
 Invernahyle obtained from the Chevalier his prisoner's freedom 
 upon parole ; and soon afterward, having been sent back to the 
 Highlands to raise men, he visited Colonel Whitefoord at his own 
 house, and spent two happy days with him and his Whig friends, 
 without thinking, on either side, of the civil war which was then 
 raging. 
 
 When the battle of CuUoden put an end to the hopes of Charles 
 Edward, Invernahyle, wounded and unable to move, was borne 
 from the field by the faithful zeal of his retainers. But, as he had 
 been a distinguished Jacobite, his family and property were ex- 
 posed to the system of vindictive destruction too generally car- 
 ried into execution through the country of the insurgents. It 
 was now Colonel Whitefoord's turn to exert himself, and he 
 wearied all the authorities, civil and military, with his solicitations 
 for pardon to the saver of his life, or at least for a protection for 
 his wife and family. His applications were for a long time unsuc- 
 cessful : " I was found with the mark of the Beast upon me in 
 every list," was Invernahyle's expression. At length Colonel 
 Whitefoord applied to the Duke of Cumberland, and urged his 
 suit with every argument which he could think of. Being still re- 
 pulsed, he took his commission from his bosom, and, having said 
 something of his own and his family's exertions in the cause of 
 the House of Hanover, begged to resign his situation in their ser- 
 vice, since he could not be permitted to show his gratitude to the 
 person to whom he owed his life. The Duke, struck with his ear- 
 nestness, desired him to take up his commission, and granted the 
 protection required for the family of Invernahyle. 
 
 The chieftain himself lay concealed in a cave near his own 
 house, before which a small body of regular soldiers were en- 
 camped. He could hear their muster-roll called every morning, 
 and their drums beat to quarter at nights, and not a change of the 
 sentinels escaped him. As it was suspected that he was lurking 
 somewhere on the property, his family were closely watched, and 
 compelled to use the utmost precaution in supplying him with 
 food. One of his daughters, a child of eight or ten years old, was 
 employed as the agent least likely to be suspected. She was an 
 instance, among others, that a time of danger and difficulty creates 
 a premature sharpness of intellect. She made herself acquainted 
 among the soldiers, till she became so familiar to them that her 
 motions escaped their notice ; and her practice was, to stroll away 
 in the neighborhood of the cave and leave what slender supply of 
 food she carried for that purpose under some remarkable stone, or 
 the root of some tree, where her father might find it as he crept by
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 night from his lurking-place. Times became milder, and my ex- 
 cellent friend was relieved from proscription by the Act of Indem- 
 nity. Such is the interesting story which I have rather injured 
 than improved by the manner in which it is told in "Waverley." 
 
 This incident, with several other circumstances illustrating 
 the Tales in question, was communicated by me to my late 
 lamented friend, William Erskine (a Scottish Judge, by the title 
 of Lord Kinedder), who afterward reviewed with far too much 
 partiality the " Tales of my Landlord," for the Quarterly Review 
 of January, 1817.* In the same article are contained other illus- 
 trations of the Novels, with which I supplied my accomplished 
 friend who took the trouble to write the review. The reader who 
 is desirous of such information will find the original of Meg 
 Merrilies, and, I believe, of one or two other personages of the 
 same cast of character in the article referred to. 
 
 I may also mention, that the tragic and savage circumstances 
 which are represented as preceding the birth of Allan MacAulay, 
 in the " Legend of Montrose," really happened in the family of 
 Stewart of Ardvoirlich. The wager about the candlesticks, whose 
 place was supplied by Highland torch-bearers, was laid and won 
 by one of the ISIacUonalds of Keppoch. 
 
 There can be but little amusement in winnowing out the few 
 grains of truth which are contained in this mass of empty fiction. 
 I may, however, before dismissing the subject, allude to the 
 various localities which have been affixed to some of the scenery 
 introduced into these Novels, by which, for example, Wolfs Hope 
 is identified with Fast Castle in Berwickshire, Tillietudlem with 
 Draphane in Clydesdale, and the valley in "The Monastery," called 
 Glendearg, with the dale of the river Allan, above Lord Somer- 
 ville's villa, near Melrose. I can only say, that, in these and 
 other instances, I had no purpose of describing any particular 
 local spot ; and the resemblance must therefore be of that general 
 kind which necessarily exists between scenes of the same charac- 
 ter. The iron-bound coast of Scotland affords upon its headlands 
 and promontories fifty such castles as Wolf's Hope ; every county 
 has a valley more or less resembling Glendearg ; and if castles 
 like Tillietudlem, or mansions like the Baron of Bradwardinc's, are 
 now less frequently to be met with, it is owing to the rage of in- 
 discriminate destruction, which has removed or ruined so many 
 monuments of antiquity, when they were not protected by their 
 inaccessible situation. f 
 
 The scraps of poetry which have been in most cases tacked to 
 the beginning of chapters in these Novels, are sometimes quoted 
 either from reading or from memory, but, in the general case, are 
 pure invention. I found it too troublesome to turn to the collec- 
 tion of the British Poets to discover apposite mottoes, and, in the 
 
 * Lord Kinedfler died in August, 1822. Eheu ! (Aug., 1831.) 
 + I would particularly intimate the Kaim of b'rie, on the eastern coast of 
 Scotland, as having suggested an idea for the tower called Wolfs Crag, 
 which the public more generally identified with the ancient tower of Fast 
 Castle.
 
 INTR OD UC TION. x\ 
 
 situation of the theatrical mechanist, who, when the white paper 
 which represented his shower of snow was exhausted, continued 
 the storm by snowing brown, I drew on my memory as long as I 
 could, and when that failed, eked it out with invention, I believe 
 that, in some cases, where actual names are affixed to the sup- 
 posed quotations, it v/ould be to little purpose to seek them in 
 the works of the authors referred to. In some cases I have been 
 entertained when Dr. Watts and other graver authors have been 
 ransacked in vain for stanzas for which the novelist alone was re- 
 sponsible. 
 
 And now the reader may expect me, while in the confessional, 
 to explain the motives why I have so long persisted in disclaiming 
 the works of which I am now writing. To this it would be difficult 
 to give any other reply, save that of Corporal Nym — It was the 
 author's humor or caprice for the time. I hope it will not be con- 
 strued into ingratitude to the public, to whose indulgence I have 
 owed my sang-froid much more than to any merit of my own, if I 
 confess that I am, and have been, more indifferent to success, or 
 to failure, as an author, than may be the case with others, who 
 feel more strongly the passion for literary fame, probably because 
 they are justly conscious of a better title to it. It was not until I 
 had attained the age of thirty years that I made any serious attempt 
 at distinguishing myself as an author ; and at that period men's 
 hopes, desires, and wishes have usually acquired something of a 
 decisive character, and arc not eagerly and easily diverted into a 
 new channel. When I made the discovery — for to me it was one 
 — that by amusing myself with composition, which I felt a delight- 
 ful occupation, I could also give pleasure to others, and became 
 aware that literary pursuits were likely to engage in future a con- 
 siderable portion of my time, I felt some alarm that I might ac- 
 quire those habits of jealousy and fretfulness which have lessened 
 and degraded the character even of great authors, and rendered 
 them, by their petty squabbles and mutual irritability, the laugh- 
 ing-stock of the people of the world. I resolved, therefore, in this re- 
 spect, to guard my breast, perhaps an unfriendly critic may add, 
 my brow, with triple brass,* and as much as possible to avoid rest- 
 ing my thoughts and wishes upon literary success, lest I should 
 endanger my own peace of mind and tranquillity by literary fail- 
 ure. It would argue either stupid apathy or ridiculous affecta- 
 tion to say that I have been insensible to the public applause, 
 when I have been honored with its testimonies ; and still more 
 highly do I prize the invaluable friendships which some temporary 
 popularity has enabled me to form among those of my contempo- 
 raries most distinguished by talents and genius, and which I venture 
 to hope now rest upon a basis more firm than the circumstances 
 which gave rise to them. Yet, feeling all these advantages as a 
 man ought to do, and must do, I may say, with truth and confi- 
 dence, that I have, I think, tasted of the intoxicating cup with 
 moderation, and that I have never, either in conversation or corre- 
 
 * Not altogether impossible, when it is considered that I have been at the 
 bar since 1792 1 (Aug., 1831.)
 
 xii INTRODUCTIOSr. 
 
 spondence, encouraged discussions respecting my own literary pur- 
 suits. On the contrary, I have usually found such topics, even 
 when introduced from motives most flattering to myself, rather 
 embarrassing and disagreeable. 
 
 I have now frankly told my motives for concealment, so far as 
 I am conscious of having any, and the public will forgive the ego- 
 tism of the detail, as what is necessarily connected with it. The 
 Author, so long and loudly called for, has appeared on the stage, 
 and made his obeisance to the audience. Thus far his conduct is 
 a mark of respect. To linger in their presence would be intrusion. 
 
 I have only to repeat that I avow myself in print, as formerly 
 in words, the sole and unassisted Author of all the Novels pub- 
 lished as works of the " Author of Waverley." I do this without 
 shame, for 1 am unconscious that there is anything in their com- 
 position which deserves reproach, either on the score of religion 
 or morality ; and without any feeling of exultation, because, what- 
 ever may have been their temporary success, I am well aware how 
 much their reputation depends upon the caprice of fashion ; and I 
 have already mentioned the precarious tenure by which it is held 
 as a reason for displaying no great avidity in grasping at the pos- 
 session. 
 
 1 ought to mention, before concluding, that twenty persons, at 
 least, were, either from intimacy or from the confidence which cir- 
 cumstances rendered necessary, participant of this secret ; and as 
 there was no instance, to my knowledge, of any one of the number 
 breaking faith, 1 am the more obliged to them, because the slight 
 and trivial character of the mystery was not qualified to inspire 
 much respect in those intrusted with it. Nevertheless, like Jack 
 the Giant-Killer, I was fully confident in the advantage of my 
 " Coat of Darkness," and had it not been from compulsory cir- 
 cumstances I would indeed have been very cautious how I parted 
 with it. 
 
 As for the work which follows, it was meditated, and in part 
 printed, long before the avowal of the Novels took place, and was 
 originally commenced with a declaration that it was neither to 
 have introduction nor preface of any kind. This long proem, pre- 
 fixed to a work intended not to have any, may, however, serve to 
 show how human purposes, in the most trifling, as well as the most 
 im.portant afl"airs, are liable to be controlled by the course of 
 events. Thus, we begin to cross a strong river with our eyes and 
 our resolution fixed on that point of the opposite shore on which 
 we purpose to land ; but, gradually giving way to the torrent, are 
 glad, by the aid perhaps of branch or bush, to extricate ourselves 
 at some distant and perhaps dangerous landing-place, much far- 
 ther down the stream than that on which we had fixed our inten- 
 tions. 
 
 Hoping that the Courteous Reader will afford to a known and 
 familiar acquaintance some portion of the favor which he extended 
 to a disguised candidate for his applause, I beg leave to subscribe 
 myself his obliged, humble servant, WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 Abbotsforu, October i, 1827.
 
 JNTRODUCTTON. xiii 
 
 Such was the little narrative which I thought proper to put forth 
 in October, 1827 : nor have I much to add to it now. About to 
 appear for the first time in my own name in this department of 
 letters, it occurred to me that something in the shape of a periodi- 
 ca! publication might carry with it a certain air of novelty, and I 
 was willing to break, if I may so express it, the abruptness of my 
 personal forthcoming, by investing an imaginary coadjutor with at 
 least as much distinctness of individual existence as I had ever 
 previously thought it worth while to bestow on shadows of the same 
 convenient tribe. Of course it had never been in my contemplation 
 to invite the assistance of any person in the sustaining of my quasi- 
 editorial character and labors. It had long been my opinion that 
 anything like a literary //rw/V is likely to end in suggesting com- 
 parisons, justly termed odious, and therefore to be avoided : and 
 indeed, I had also had some occasion to know that promises of as- 
 sistance in efforts of that order are apt to be more magnificent than 
 the subsequent performance. I therefore planned a miscellany, to 
 be dependent, after the old fashion, on my own resources alone, 
 and although conscious enough that the moment which assigned to 
 the Author of Waverley " a local habitation and a name," had 
 seriously endangered his spell, I felt inclined to adopt the senti- 
 ment of my old hero, Montrose, and to say to myself that, in litera- 
 ture as in war, 
 
 " He eilher fears his fate too much, 
 
 Or his deserts are small, 
 Who dares not put it to the touch, 
 
 To win or lose it all." 
 
 To the particulars explanatory of the plan of these Chronicles 
 which the reader is presented with in Chapter II. by the imagi- 
 nary Editor, Mr. Croftangry, I have now to add, that the lady, 
 termed in his narrative Mrs. Belhune I3alioI, was designed to 
 shadow out in its leading points the interesting character of a dear 
 friend of mine, Mrs. Murray Keith,' whose death, occurring 
 shortly before, had saddened a wide circle, much attached to her 
 as well for her genuine virtue and amiable qualities of disposition, 
 
 * The Keiths of Craig, in Kincardineshire, descended from [ohn Keith, 
 fourth son of William, second Earl Marischal, who got from his father, 
 about 1480, the lands of Craig, and part of Garvock, in that county. In 
 Douglas's Baronage, 443 to 445, is a pedigree of that family. Colonel 
 Robert Keith of Craig (the seventh in d(-scent from [ohn), by his wife Agnes, 
 daughter of Robert Murray, of Murrayshall, of the family of Blackbarony, 
 widow of Colonel Stirling, of the family of Keir, had one son — viz., Robert 
 Keith of Craig, ambassador to the Court of Vienna, afterward to St. Peters- 
 burg, which latter situatiim he held at the accession of King Gcorgi- III. — 
 who died at Edinburgh in 1774. He married Margaret, second dnut;hter of 
 Sir William Cunningham of Caprington, by Janet, only child and heiress of 
 Sir James Dick of I'restonfield ; antl among other children of this marriage 
 were the late well-known diplomatist. Sir Robert Murray Keith, K. R., a 
 general in the army, and for some time ambassador at Vienna ; Sir Basil 
 Keith, Knight, captain in the navy, who died governor of Jamaica ; and my 
 e.\i:ellent friend, Anne Murray Keith, who ultimately came into possession 
 of the family estates, and died not long before the date of this Introduction. 
 (1831.)
 
 xiv introduction: 
 
 as for the extent of information which she possessed, and the de- 
 lightful manner in which she was used to communicate it. In 
 truth, the Author had, on many occasions, been indebted to her 
 vivid memory for the substratutn of his Scottish fictions — and she 
 accordingly had been, from an early period, at no loss to fix the 
 Waverley Novels on the right culprit. 
 
 In the sketch of Chrystal Croftangry's own history the Author 
 has been accused of introducing some not polite allusions to re- 
 spectable living individuals ; but he may safely, he presumes, pass 
 over such an insinuation. The first of the narratives which Mr. 
 Croftangry proceeds to lay before the public, " The Highland 
 Widow," was derived from Mrs. Murray Keith, and is given, with 
 the exception of a few additional circumstances — the introduction 
 of which 1 am rather inclined to regret— very much as the excel- 
 lent old lady used to tell the story. Neither the Highland cicerone 
 MacLeish, nor the demure waiting-woman, were drawn from im- 
 agination ; and on re-reading my tale, after the lapse of a few 
 years, and comparing its effect with my remembrance of my 
 worthy friend's oral narration, which was certamly extremely af- 
 fecting, I cannot but suspect myself of having marred its simplicity 
 by some of those interpolations which, at the time when I penned 
 them, no doubt passed with myself for embellishments.* 
 
 The next tale (in Vol. XX.), entitled " The Two Drovers," I 
 learned from another old friend, the late George Constable, Esq., 
 of Wallace Craigie, near Dundee, whom I have already introduced 
 to my reader as the original Antiquary of Monkbarns. He had 
 been present, I think, at the trial at Carlisle, and seldom men- 
 tioned the venerable Judge's charge to the jury without shedding 
 tears, which had peculiar pathos, as flowing down features carry- 
 ing rather a sarcastic, or almost a cynical, expression. 
 
 This worthy gentleman's reputation for shrewd Scottish sense, 
 knowledge of our national antiquities, and a racy humor peculiar 
 to himself, must be still remembered. For myself, I have pride 
 in recording that for many years we were, in Wordsworth's 
 language, 
 
 — a pair of friends, though I was young, 
 And " George " was seventy-two. 
 
 W. S. 
 Abbotsford, Aug. 15, 1831 
 
 * [The portraiture of Mrs. Murray Keith, under the name of Mrs. Bethune 
 Briliol, and that of Chrystal Croftangry throughout, appear to me unsur- 
 passed in vScott's writings. In the former I am assured he has mixed up vari- 
 ous features of his own beloved mothir; and in the latter there can be no 
 doubt that a good deal was taken from nobody but himself. In fact the 
 choice of the hero's residence, the original title of the book, and a world of 
 minor circumstances, were suggested by the actual condition and prospects 
 of the Author's affairs ; for it appears from his Diary that, between Decem- 
 ber, 1826, and November, 1827, he had renewed threatenings of severe treat- 
 ment from one of his creditors, and on the occasion made every prepara- 
 tion for taking shelter in the Sanctuary for debt at Holyrood. — ^J. G. LocK- 
 
 HAKT.]
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 MR. CHRYSTAL CROFTANGRY's ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. 
 
 Sic itur ad astra — " This is the path to Heaven." Such 
 is the ancient motto attached to the armorial bearings of the 
 Canongate, and which is inscribed, with greater or less propriety, 
 upon all the public buildings, from the church to the pillory, in 
 the ancient quarter of Edinburgh, which bears, or rather once 
 bore, the same relation to the Good Town that Westminster does 
 to London, being still possessed of the palace of the sovereign, 
 as it formerly was dignified by the residence of the principal 
 nobility and gentry. I may, therefore, with some propriety, 
 put the same motto at the head of the literary undertaking by 
 which I hope to illustrate the hitherto undistinguished name of 
 Chrystal Croftangry. 
 
 The public may desire to know something of an author who 
 pitches at such height his ambitious expectations. The gentle 
 reader, therefore — for I am much of Captain Bobadil's humor, 
 and could to no other extend myself so far — the gentle reader, 
 then, will be pleased to understand, that I am a Scottish gentle- 
 man of the old school, with a fortune, temper, and person, rather 
 the worse for wear, I have known the world for these forty 
 years, having written myself man nearly since that period — and 
 I do not think it is much mended. But this is an opinion which 
 I keep to myself when I am among younger folk, for I recollect, 
 x'n my youth, quizzing the Sexagenarians wlio carried back their 
 ideas of a perfect state of society to the days of laced coats and 
 triple ruffles, and some of them to the blood and blows of the 
 Forty-five : therefore I am cautious in exercising the right of 
 censorship, which is sujDposed to be acquired by men arrived at,
 
 jg CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE, 
 
 or approaching, the mysterious period of life, when the numbers 
 of seven and nine multiplied into each other, form what sages 
 have termed the Grand Climacteric. 
 
 Of the earlier part of m}' life it is only necessary to say, that 
 I swept the boards of the Parliament House with the skirts o/ 
 my gown for the usual number of years during which young 
 Lairds were in my time expected to keep term — got no fees- 
 laughed, and made others laugh — drank claret at Bayle's, For- 
 tune'r raid Walker's, — and ate oysters in the Covenant Ckse 
 
 liecoming my own master, I flung my gown at the bar-keeper, 
 and commenced gay man on my own account. In Edinburgh, I 
 ran into all the expensive society which the place then afforded. 
 When I went to my house in the shire of Lanark, I emulated 
 to the utmost the expenses of men of large fortune, and had my 
 hunters, my first-rate pointers, my game-cocks, and feeders. I 
 can more easily forgive myself for these follies, than for others 
 of a still more blamable kind, so indifferently cloaked over, that 
 my poor mother thought herself oblige to leave my habitation, 
 and betake herself to a small inconvenient jointure-house, which 
 she occupied till her death. I think, however, I was not ex- 
 clusively to blame in this separation, and I believe my mother 
 afterward condemned herself for being too hasty. Thank God, 
 the adversity which destroyed the means of continuing my dissi- 
 pation restored me to the affections of my surviving parent. 
 
 My course of life could not last. I ran too fast to run long; 
 and when I would have checked my career, I was perhaps too 
 near the brink of the precipice. Some mishaps I prepared by 
 my own folly, others came upon me unawares. I put my estate 
 out to nurse to a fat man of business, who smothered the babe 
 he should have brought back to me in health and strength, and, 
 in dispute with this honest gentleman, I found, like a skilful 
 general, that my position would be most judiciously assumed, 
 by taking it up near the Abbey of Holyrood.* It was then I 
 first became acquainted with the quarter, which my little work 
 will, I hope, render immortal, and grew familiar with those 
 magnificent wilds, through which the Kings of Scotland once 
 chased the dark -brown deer, but which were chiefly recommended 
 to me in those days, by their being inaccessible to those meta- 
 physical persons, whom the law of the neighboring country 
 terms John Doe and Richard Roe. In short, the precincts of 
 the palace are now best known as being a place of refuge at a^.y 
 time from all pursuit for civil debt. 
 
 Dire was the strife betwixt my quondam doer and mys'^V ; 
 
 * Note A, S;iiictu:iry of Holyrood
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. ^ 
 
 during which my motions were circumscribed, like those of 
 some conjured demon, within a circle, which, " beginning at the 
 nortliern gate of the King's Park, thence running northways, is 
 bounded on the left by the King's garden wall, and the gutter, 
 or kennel, in a line wherewith it crosses the High Street to the 
 Watergate, and passing through the sewer, is bounded by the 
 walls of the Tennis Court and physic Garden, etc. It then 
 follows the walls of the churchyard, joins the north-west wall of 
 St. Ann's Yards, and going east to the clack mill house, turns 
 southward to the turnstile in the King's Park wall, and includes 
 the whole King's Park within the Sanctuary." 
 
 " These Hmits, which I abridge from the accurate Maitland, 
 once marked the Girth or Asylum belonging to the Abbey of 
 Holyrood, and which, being still an appendage to the royal 
 palace, has retained the privilege of an asylum for civil debt. 
 One would think the space sufificently extensive for a man to 
 stretch his limbs in, as, besides a reasonable proportion of leve- 
 ground (considering that the scene lies in Scotland), it includes 
 within its precincts the mountain of Arthur's Seat, and the rocks 
 and pasture land called Salisbury Crags. But yet it is inexpres- 
 sible how after a certain time had elapsed, I used to long for 
 Sunday, which permitted me to extend my walk without limita- 
 tion. During the other six days of the week I felt a sickness 
 of heart, which, but for the speedy approach of the hebdomadal 
 da}'' of liberty, I could hardly have endured. I experienced the 
 impatience of a mastiff, who tugs in vain to extend the limits 
 which his chain permits. 
 
 Day after day I walked by the side of the kennel which 
 divides the Sanctuary from the unprivileged part of the Canon- 
 gate ; and though the month was July, and the scene the old 
 town of fxlinburgh, I preferred it to the fresh air and verdant 
 turf which I might have enjoyed in the King's Park, or to the 
 cool and solemn gloom of the portico which surrounds the 
 palace. To an indifferent person either side of the gutter would 
 have seemed much the same — the houses equally mean, the 
 children as ragged and dirty, the carmen as brutal, the whole 
 forming the same picture of low life in a deserted and impov- 
 erished quarter of a large city. But to me the gutter or kennel 
 was what the brook Kedron was to Shimei ; death was denounced 
 against him should he cross it, doubtless because it was known 
 to his wisdom who pronounced the doom, that from the time 
 the crossing the stream was debarred, the devoted man's desire 
 to transgress the precept would become irresistible, and he would 
 be sure to draw down on his head the penally which he had 
 already justly incurred by cursing the anointed of God. Fot
 
 4' CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 my part, all Elysium seemed opening on the other side of the 
 kennel, and I envied the little blackguards, who, stopping the 
 current with their little damdikes of mud, had a right to stand 
 on either side of the nasty puddle which best pleased them. I 
 was so childish as even to make an occasional excursion across, 
 were it only for a few yards, and felt the triumph of a school- 
 boy, who, trespassing in an orchard, hurries back again with 
 a fluttering sensation of joy and terror, betwixt the pleasure 
 of having executed his purpose, and the fear of being taken or 
 discovered. 
 
 I have sometimes asked myself, what I should have done in 
 case of actual Imprisonment, since I could not bear without 
 impatience a restriction which is comparatively a mere trifle ; 
 but I really could never answer the question to my own satis- 
 faction. I have all my life hated those treacherous expedients 
 called 7nezzo-tcrmini, and it is possible with this disposition I 
 might have endured more patiently an absolute privation of 
 liberty, than the more modified restrictions to whish my resi- 
 dence in the Sanctuary at this period subjected me. If, however, 
 the feelings I then experienced were to increase in intensity 
 according to the difference between a jail and my actual con- 
 dition, I must have hanged myself, or pined to death ; there 
 could have been no other alternative. 
 
 Amongst many companions who forgot and neglected me of 
 course, when my difficulties seemed to be inextricable, I had one 
 true friend ; and that friend was a barrister, who knew the lavv's 
 of his country well, and tracing them up to the spirit of equity 
 and justice in which they originate, had repeatedly prevented, 
 by his benevolent and manly exertions, the triumphs of selfish 
 cunning over simplicity and folly. He undertook my cause, 
 with the assistance of a solicitor of a character similar to his 
 own. My quondam doer had ensconced himself chin-deep among 
 legal trenches, hornworks and covered ways ; but my two pro- 
 tectors shelled him out of his defences, and I was at length a 
 free man, at liberty to go or stay wheresoever my mind listed. 
 
 I left my lodgings as hastily as if it had been a pest-house ; 
 I did not even stop to receive some change that was due to me 
 on settling with my landlady, and I saw the poor woman stand 
 at her door looking after my precipitate flight, and shaking her 
 head as she wrapped the silver which she was counting for me 
 in a separate piece of paper apart from the store in her own 
 moleskin purse. An honest Highland woman was Janet Mac- 
 Evoy, and deserved a greater remuneration, had I possessd the 
 power of bestowing it. But my eagerness of delight was too 
 extreme to pause for explanation with Janet. On I pushed
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONG ATE. g 
 
 through the groups of children, of whose sports I had been so 
 often a lazy lounging spectator. I sprung over the gutter as if 
 it had been the fatal Styx, and I a ghost, which, eluding Pluto's 
 authority, was making its escape from Limbo lake. ]\Iy friend 
 had difficulty to restrain me from running like a madman up 
 the street ; and in spite of his kindness and hospitality, which 
 soothed me for a day or two, I was not quite happy until I found 
 myself aboard of a Leith smack, and, standing down the Firth 
 with a fair wind, might snap my fingers at the retreating outline 
 of Arthur's Seat, to the vicinity of which I had been so long 
 confined. 
 
 It is not my purpose to trace my future progress though life. 
 I had extricated myself, or rather had been freed by my friends, 
 from the brambles and thickets of the law, but, as befell the 
 sheep in the fable, a great part of my fleece was left behind me. 
 Something remained, however; I was in the season for exertion, 
 and as my good mother used to say, there was always life for 
 living folk. Stern necessity gave my manhood that prudence 
 which my youth was a stranger to. I faced danger, I endured 
 fatigue, I sought foreign climates, and proved that I belonged 
 to the nation which is proverbially patient of labor and prodigal 
 of life. Independence, like liberty to Virgil's shepherd, came 
 late, but came at last, with no great affluence in its train, but 
 bringing enough to support a decent appearance for the rest of 
 my life, and to induce cousins to be civil, and gossips to say, 
 "I wonder who old Croft will make his heir.? he must have 
 picked up something, and I should not be surprised if it prove 
 more than folk think of," 
 
 My first impulse when I returned home was to rush to the 
 house of my benefactor, the only man who had in my distress 
 interested himself in my behalf. He was a snuff-taker, and it 
 had been the pride of my heart to save the ipsa corpora of the 
 first score of guineas I could hoard, and to have them converted 
 into as tasteful a snuff-box as Rundell and Bridge could devise. 
 This I had thrust for security into the breast of my waistcoat, 
 while, impatient to transfer it to the person for whom it was 
 destined, I hastened to his house in Brown's Square. When 
 the front of the house became visible, a feeling of ahirm checked 
 me, I had been long absent from Scotland, my friend was 
 some years older than I ; he might have been called to the 
 congregation of the just. I paused, and gazed on the house, 
 as if I had hoped to form some conjecture from the outward 
 appearance concerning the state of the family within. I know 
 not how it was, but the lower windows being all closed and no 
 one stirring, my sinister forebodings were rather strengthened.
 
 6 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE, 
 
 I regretted now that I had not made inquiry before I left the 
 inn where I alighted from the mail-coach. But it was too late; 
 so I hurried on, eager to know the best or the worst which I 
 could learn. 
 
 The brass plate bearing my friend's name and designation 
 was still on the door, and when it was opened, the old domestic 
 appeared a good deal older, I thought, than he ought naturally 
 to have looked considering the period of my absence. " Is Mr 
 Sommerville at home ? " said I, pressing forward. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said John, placing himself in opposition to my 
 entrance, " he is at home, but " 
 
 " But he is not in," said I. " I remember your phrase of 
 old, John. Come, I will step into his room, and leave a line for 
 him." 
 
 John was obviously embarrassed by my familiarity. I was 
 some one, he saw, whom he ought to recollect, at the same time 
 it was evident he remembered nothing about me. 
 
 " Ay, sir, my master is in, and in his own room, but " 
 
 I would not hear him out, but passed before him toward 
 the well-known apartment. A young lady came out of the 
 room a little disturbed, as it seemed, and said, " John, what is 
 the matter ? " 
 
 " A gentleman, Miss Nelly, that insists on seeing my 
 master." 
 
 " A very old and deeply indebted friend," said I, " that ven- 
 tures to press myself on my much-respected benefactor on my 
 return from abroad." 
 
 "Alas, sir," replied she, " my uncle would be happy to see 
 you, but " 
 
 At this moment, something was heard within the apartment 
 like the falling of a plate, or glass, and immediately after my 
 friend's voice called angrily and eagerly for his niece. She en- 
 tered the room hastily, and so did I. But it was to see a 
 spectacle, compared with which that of my benefactor stretched 
 on his bier would have been a happy one. 
 
 The easy chair filled with cushions, the extended limbs 
 swathed in flannel, the wide wrapping-gown and night-cap, 
 showed illness ; but the dimmed eye, once so replete with liv- 
 ing fire, the blabber lip, whose dilation and compression used 
 to give such character to his animated countenance, — the stam- 
 mering tongue, that once poured forth such floods of masculine 
 eloquence, and had often swayed the opinion of the sages whom 
 he addressed, — all these sad symptoms evinced that my friend 
 w^as in the melancholy condition of those, in whom the principle 
 of animal life has unfortunately survived that of mental intelli-
 
 CHROmCLES OF THE CANONGATE. ij 
 
 gence. He gazed a moment at me, but then seemed insensible; 
 of my presence, and went on — he, once the most courteous and 
 well-bred ! — to babble unintelligible but violent reproaches 
 against his niece and sen-ant, because he himself had dropped 
 a teacup in attempting to place it on a table at his elbow. His 
 eyes caught a momentary fire from his irritation ; but he strug- 
 gled in vain for words to express himself adequately, as looking 
 from his servant to his niece, and then to the table, he labored 
 to explain that they had placed it (though it touched his chair) 
 at too great a distance from him. 
 
 The young person, who had naturally a resigned Madonna- 
 like expression of countenance, listened to his impatient chid- 
 ing with the most humble submission, checked the servant, 
 whose less delicate feelings would have entered on his justifica- 
 tion, and gradually, by the sweet and soft tone of her voice, 
 soothed to rest the spirit of causeless irritation. 
 
 She then cast a look toward me, which expressed, " You see 
 all that remains of him whom you call friend." It seemed also 
 to sav, " Your longer presence here can only be distressing to 
 us all" 
 
 "Forgive me, young lady," I said, as well as tears would 
 permit; " I am a person deeply obliged to your uncle. My 
 name is Croftangry." 
 
 " Lord ! and that I should not hae minded ye, Maister Croft- 
 angry," said the servant. " Ay, I mind my master had muckle 
 fash about your job. I hae heard him order in fresh candles as 
 midnight chappit, and till't again. Indeed, ye had aye his gude 
 word, Mr. Croftangry, for a' that folks said about you." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, John," said the lady, somewhat angrily ; 
 and then continued, addressing herself to me, " I am sure, sir, 
 you must be sorry to see my uncle in this state. I know you 
 are his friend. I have heard him mention your name, and 
 wonder he never heard from you." A new cut this, and it 
 went to my heart. But she continued, " I really do not know 
 if it is right that any should — I f my uncle should know you, 
 which I scarce think possible, he would be much affected, and 
 
 the doctor says that any agitation But here comes Dr. ■ 
 
 to give his own opinion." 
 
 Dr. entered, I had left him a middle-aged man ; he 
 
 was now an elderly one ; but still the same benevolent Samari- 
 tan, who went about doing good, and thought the blessings of 
 the poor as good a recompense of his professional skill as the 
 gold of the rich. 
 
 He looked at me with surj^rise, but the young lady said a 
 word of introduction, and I, who was known to the doctor for-
 
 8 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGA TE. 
 
 merly, hastened to complete it. He recollected me perfectly, 
 and intimated that he was well acquainted with the reasons 1 
 had for being deeply interested in the fate of his patient. He 
 gave me a very melancholy account of my poor friend, drawing 
 me for that purpose a liiile apart from the lady. "The light 
 of life," he said, "was trembling in the socket; he scarcely ex- 
 pected it would ever leap up even into a momentary flash, but 
 more was impossible." He then stepped toward his patient and 
 put some questions, to which the poor invalid, though he seemed 
 to recognize the friendly and familiar voice, answered only in a 
 faltering and uncertain manner. 
 
 The young, lady, in her turn, had drawn back when the doctor 
 approached his patient. " You see how it is with him," 
 said the doctor, addressing me ; " I have heard our poor friend 
 in one of the most eloquent of his pleadings, give a description 
 of this very disease, which he compared to tlie tortures inflicted 
 by Mezentius, when he chained the dead to the living. The 
 soul, he said, is imprisoned in its dungeon of flesh, and though 
 retaining its natural and inalienable properties, can no more 
 exert them than the captive enclosed within a prison-house can 
 act as a free agent. Alas ! to see /lim, who could so well de- 
 scribe what this malady was in others, a prey himself to its in- 
 firmities ! I shall never forget the solemn tone of expression 
 with which he summed up the incapacities of the paralytic, — ■ 
 the deafened ear, the dimmed eye, the crippled limbs, — in the 
 noble words of Juvenal — ■ 
 
 Membroruin damno major, dementia, quae nee 
 Nomina servoriun, nee vultum agnoscit amici.' " 
 
 As the physician repeated these lines, a flash of intelligenct 
 seemed to revive in the invalid's eyes — sunk again — again 
 struggled, and he spoke more intelligibly than before, and in 
 the tone of one eager to say something which he felt would 
 ascape him unless said instantly. " A question of deathbed, a 
 question of deathbed, doctor — a reduction es- capite Iccti — 
 Withering against Wilibus — about the morbus sonfkus. I 
 pleaded the cause for the pursuer — I, and — and — Why, I shall 
 forget my own Tiame — I, and — he that was the wittiest and the 
 best-humored man living " 
 
 The description enabled the doctor to fill up the blank, and 
 the patient joyfully repeated the name suggested. " Ay, ay," 
 
 he said, "just he — Harry — poor Harry " The light in his 
 
 eye died awa}', and he sunk back in his easy chair. 
 
 " You have now seen more of our poor friend, Mr. Croft
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGA TE. 
 
 9 
 
 angry," said the physician, " than I dared venture to promise 
 you, and now I must take my professional authority on me, 
 and ask you to retire. Miss Sommerville will, I am sure, let 
 you know if a moment should by any chance occur when her 
 uncle can see you." 
 
 What could I do ? I gave my card to the young lady, and, 
 taking my offering from my bosom — " If my poor friend," J 
 said, with accents as broken ahnost as his own, " should ask 
 where this came from, name me; and say from the most obliged 
 and most grateful man alive. Say. the gold of which it is com- 
 posed was saved by grains at a time, and was hoarded with as 
 much avarice as ever was a miser's : — to bring it here I have 
 come a thousand miles, and now, alas, I find him thus ! " 
 
 I laid the box on the table, and was retiring with a linger- 
 ing step. The eye of the invalid was caught by it, as that of 
 a child by a glittering toy, and with infantine impatience he 
 faltered out inquiries of his niece. With gentle mildness she 
 repeated again and again who I was, and why I came, etc. I 
 was about to turn, and hasten from a scene so painful, when the 
 physician laid his hand on my sleeve — "Stop," he said, "there 
 is a change." 
 
 There was indeed, and a marked one. A faint glow sf^read 
 over his pallid features — they seemed to gain the look of intel- 
 ligence which belongs to vitality — his eye once more kindled — 
 his lip colored — and drawing himself up out of the listless 
 posture he had hitherto maintained, he rose without assistance. 
 The doctor and the servant ran to give him their support. He 
 waved them aside, and they were contented to place themselves 
 in such a position behind as might ensure against accident, 
 should his newly acquired strength decay as suddenly as it had 
 revived. 
 
 " My dear Croftangry," he said, in the tone of kindness of 
 other days, " I am glad to see you returned — You find me but 
 
 poorly — but my little niece here and Dr. are very kind — 
 
 God bless you, my dear friend ! we shall not meet again till we 
 meet in a better world." 
 
 I pressed his extended hand to my lips — I pressed it to my 
 bosom — I would fain have flung myself on my knees ; but the 
 doctor, leaving the patient to tlie young lady and the servant, 
 who wheeled forward his chair, and were replacing him in it, 
 hurried me out of the room. "My dear sir," he said, "you 
 ought te be satisfied ; you have seen our poor invalid more like 
 his former self than he has been for months, or than he may 
 be perhaps again until all is over. The whole Faculty could not 
 have assured such an interval — I must see whether anything
 
 lO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 can be derived from it to improve the general health — Pray, 
 begone." The last argument luirried me from the spoi, agitated 
 by a crowd of feelings, all of them painful. 
 
 When I had overcome the shock of this great disappointment, 
 I renewed gradually my acquaintance with one or two old com- 
 panions, who, though of infinitely less interest to my feelings 
 than my unfortunaie friend, served to relieve the pressure of 
 actual solitude, and who were not perhaps the less open to my 
 advances, that I was a bachelor somewhat stricken in j'ears, 
 newly arrived from foreign parts, and certainly independent, if 
 not wealthy. 
 
 I was considered as a tolerable subject of speculation by some, 
 and I could not be burdensome to any ; I was therefore, accord- 
 ing to the ordinary rule of Edinburgh hospitality, a welcome 
 guest in several respectable families ; but I found no one who 
 could replace the loss I had sustained in my best friend and 
 benefactor. I wanted something more than mere companion- 
 ship could give me, and where was I to look for it ? — among 
 the scattered remnants of those that had been my gay friends 
 of yore ? — alas ! 
 
 Many a lad I loved was dead, 
 And many a lass grown old. 
 
 Besides nil community of ties between us had ceased to exist, 
 and such of former friends as were still in the world, held their 
 life in a different tenor from what I did. 
 
 Some had become misers, and were as eager in saving six- 
 pence as ever they had been in spending a guinea. Some had 
 turned agriculturists — their talk was of oxen, and they were 
 only fit companions for graziers. Some stuck to cards, and 
 though no longer deep gamblers, rather played small game than 
 sat out. This I particularly despised. The strong impulse of 
 gaming, alas ! I had felt in my time — it is as intense as it is 
 criminal ; but it produces excitation and interest, and I can 
 conceive how it should become a passion with strong and 
 powerful minds. But to dribble away life in exchanging bits 
 of painted pasteboard round a green table, for the piddling 
 concern of a few shillings, can only be excused in folly or 
 superannuntion. It is like riding on a rocking-horse, where 
 your utmost exertion never carries you a foot forward ; it is a 
 kind of mental treadmill, where you are perpetually climbing, 
 but can never rise an inch. From these hints, my readers 
 will perceive I am incapacitated for one of the pleasures of old 
 age, which, though not mentioned by Cicero, is not the least
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. n 
 
 frequent resource in the present day, — the ckib-room, and the 
 snug hand at whist. 
 
 To return to my old companions : Some frequented public 
 assemblies, like the ghost of Beau Nash, or any other beau of 
 half-a-century back, thrust aside by tittering youth, and pitied 
 by those of their own age. In fine, some went into devotion, 
 as the French term it, and others, I fear, went to the devil ; a 
 few found resources in science and letters ; one or two turned 
 philosophers in a small way, peeped into microscopes, and be- 
 came familiar with the fashionable experiments of the day, 
 Some took to reading, and I was one of them. 
 
 Some grains of repulsion toward the society around me — 
 some painful recollections of early faults and follies — some 
 touch of displeasure with living mankind, inclined me rather to 
 a study of antiquities, and particularly those of my own country. 
 The reader, if I can prevail on myself to continue the present 
 work, will probably be able to judge, in the course of it, whether 
 I have made any useful progress in the study of the olden 
 times. 
 
 I owed this turn of study, in part, to the conversation of my 
 kind man of business, Mr. Fairscribe, whom I mentioned as 
 having seconded the efforts of my invaluable friend, in bringing 
 the cause on which my liberty and the remnant of my property 
 depended, to a favorable decision. He had given me a most 
 kind reception on my return. He was too much engaged in 
 his profession for me to intrude on him often, and perhaps his 
 mind was too much trammeled with its details to permit his 
 being willingly withdrawn from them. In short, he was not a 
 person of my poor friend Sommerville's expanded spirit, and 
 rather a lawyer of the ordinary class of formalists ; but a most 
 able and excellent man. When my estate was sold, he retained 
 some of the older title-deeds, arguing, from his own feelings, 
 that they would be of more consequence to the heir of the old 
 family than to the new purchaser. And when I returned to 
 Edinburgh, and found him still in the exercise of the profession 
 to which he was an honor, he sent to my lodgings the old family 
 Bible, which lay always on my father's table, two or three other 
 mouldy volumes, and a couple of sheep-skin bags, full of 
 parchment and papers whose appearance was by no means 
 inviting. 
 
 The next time I shared Mr. Fairscribe's hospitable dinner, 
 T failed not to return him due thanks for his kindness, which 
 acknowledgment, indeed, I proportioned rather to the idea 
 which I knew he entertained of the value of such things, than 
 to the interest with which I myself regarded them. But the
 
 12 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 conversation turning on my family, who were old proprietors 
 in the Upper Ward of Clydesdale, gradually excited some in- 
 terest in my mind; and when I retired to my solitary parlor, 
 the first tiling I did was to look for a pedigree, or a sort of his- 
 tory of the family, or House of Croftangry, once of that Ilk, 
 latterly of Glentanner. The discoveries which I made shall 
 enrich the next chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 IN WHICH MR. CROFTANGRY CONTINUES HIS STORY. 
 
 " What's property, dear Swift ? I see it alter 
 From you to me, from me to Peter Waiter." 
 
 Pope. 
 
 "Croftangry — Croftangrew — Croftanridge — Croftandgrey 
 — for sa mony wise hath the name been spellit — is weel known 
 to be ane house of grit antiquity ; and it is said that King Mil- 
 columb, or Malcolm, being the first of our Scottish princes quha 
 removit across the Firth of Forth, did reside and occupy ane 
 palace at Edinburgh, and had there ane valziant man, who did 
 him man-service, by keeping the croft, or corn land, which was 
 tilled for the convenience of the King's household, and was 
 thence callet Croft-an-righ, that is to ^z.\\ the King his croft ; 
 quhilk place, though now coverit with biggins, is to this day 
 called Croftangry, and lyeth near to the royal palace. And 
 whereas that some of those who bear this auld and honorable 
 name may take scorn that it ariseth from the tilling of the ground, 
 quhilk men account a slavish occupation, yet we ought to honor 
 the pleugh and spade, seeing we all derive our being from our 
 father Adam, whose lot it became to cultivate the earth, in re- 
 spect of his fall and transgression. 
 
 " Also we have witness, as weel in holy writt as in profane 
 history, of the honor in quhilk husbandrie was held of old, 
 and how prophets have been taken from the pleugh, and great 
 captains raised up to defend their ain countries, sic as Cincin- 
 natus, and the like, who fought not the common enemy with 
 the less valiancy that their arms had been exercised in balding 
 the stilts of the pleugh, and their billicose skill in driving of 
 yauds and owsen. 
 
 *' Likewise there are sindry honorable families, quhilk are
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 13 
 
 now of our native Scottish nobility, and have clombe higher up 
 the brae of preferment than what this house of Croftangry hath 
 done, quhilk shame not to carry in their warHke shield and in- 
 signia of dignity, the tools and implements the quhilk their 
 first forefathers exercised in laboring the croft-rig, or, as the 
 poet Virgilius calleth it eloquently, in subduing the soil. And 
 no doubt this ancient house of Croftangry, while it continued to 
 be called of that Ilk, produced many worshipful and famous 
 patriots, of quhom I now praetermit the names ; it being my 
 purpose, if God shall spare me life for sic an pious ofhcium, or 
 duty to resume the first part of my narrative touching the 
 house of Croftangry, when I can set down at length the evi- 
 dents, and historical witness anent the facts which I shall allege, 
 seeing that words, when they are unsupported by proofs, are 
 like seed sown on the naked rocks, or like an house biggit on 
 the flitting and faithless sands." 
 
 Here I stopped to draw breath ; for the style of my grandsire, 
 the inditer of this goodly matter, was rather lengthy, as our 
 American friends say. Indeed, I reserve the rest of the piece 
 until I can obtain admission to the Bannatyne Club,* when I 
 propose to throw off an edition, limited according to the rules 
 of that erudite Society, with a facsimile of the manuscript, 
 emblazonry of the family arms, surrounded by their quartering, 
 and a handsome disclamation of family pride, with Hcec Jios 
 ?iovitnus esse nihil, or Vix ea nostra voco. 
 
 In the meantime, to speak truth, I cannot but suspect, that 
 though my worthy ancestor puffed vigorously to swell up the 
 dignity of his family, we have never, in fact, risen above the 
 rank of middling proprietors. The estate of Glantanner came 
 to us by the intermarriage of my ancestor with Tib Sommeril, 
 termed by the Southrons Sommerville,t a daughter of that noble 
 house, but I fear on what my great-grandsire calls " the wrong 
 side of the blanket." Her husband, Gilbert, was killed fight- 
 
 * This Club of which the Author of Waverley has the honor to be Pres- 
 ident, was instituted in February 1823, for the purpose of printing and 
 pubhshing works illustrative of the history, literature, and antiquities of 
 Scotland. It continues to prosper, and has already rescued from oblivion 
 many curious materials of Scottish Histo.y. [The Bannatyne Club was 
 dissolved in 1861. See the volume of " Adversaria," presented in 1867 to 
 the members by Mr. Laing, the secretary.] 
 
 t The ancient Norman family of the Sommervilles came into this island 
 with William the Conqueror, and established one branch in Cloucestershire, 
 another in Scotland. After the lapse of 700 years, the remaining posses- 
 sions of these two branches were united in the person of the late Lord 
 Sommerville, on the death of his English kinsman, the well-known author 
 of " The Chase."
 
 J 4 CHRONICLES OF THE C AMONG ATE. 
 
 ing as the Inquisitio post 7nortem has it, " sub vexillo regis^ 
 apiid prceliian jnxta Branxto/i, lie F/oddenJieldJ' 
 
 We had our share in other national misfortunes — were for- 
 feited, Hke Sir John Colville of the Dale, for following oui 
 betters to the field of Langside ; and, in the contentious times 
 of the last Stewarts, we were severely fined for harboring and 
 resetting intercommuned ministers ; and narrowly escaped 
 giving a martyr to the Calendar of the Covenant, in the person 
 of the father of our family historian. He " took the sheaf 
 from the mare," however, as the MS. expresses it, and agreed 
 to accept of the tenns of pardon offered by government, and 
 sign the bond, in evidence he would give no further ground of 
 offence. My grandsire glosses over his father's backsliding as 
 smoothly as he can, and comforts himself with ascribing his 
 want of resolution to his unwillingness to wreck the ancient 
 name and family, and to permit his lands and lineage to fall 
 under a doom of forfeiture. 
 
 " And indeed," said the venerable compiler, " as, praised 
 be God, we seldom meet in Scotland with these belly-gods and 
 voluptuaries, whilk are unnatural enough to devour their patri- 
 mony bequeathed to them by their forbears in chambering and 
 wantonness, so that they come, with the prodigal son, to the 
 husks and the swine-trough ; and as I have the less to dreid 
 the existence of such unnatural Neroes in mine own family to 
 devour the substance of their own house like brute beasts out 
 of mere gluttonie and Epicurishnesse, so I need only warn mine 
 descendants against over hastily meddling with the mutations 
 in state and in religion, which have been near-hand to the 
 bringing this poor house of Croftangry to perdition, as we have 
 shown more than once. And albeit I would not that my suc- 
 cessors sat still altogether when called on by their duty to 
 Kirk and King ; yet I would have them wait till stronger and 
 wealthier men than themselves were up, so that either they 
 may have the better chance of getting through the day ; or, 
 failing of that, the conquering party having some fatter quarry 
 to live upon, like gorged hawks, spare the smaller game." 
 
 There was something in this conclusion which at first read- 
 ing piqued me extremely, and I was so unnatural as to curse 
 the whole concern, as poor, bald, pitiful trash, in which a silly 
 old man was saying a great deal about nothing at all. Nay, my 
 first impression was to thrust it into the fire, the rather that it re- 
 minded me, in no very flattering manner, of the loss of the 
 family property, to which the compiler of the history was so 
 much attached, in the very manner which he most severely rep- 
 robated. It even seemed to my aggrieved feelings, that his
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANOXGATE. %■! 
 
 unprescient gaze on futurity, in wliich he could not anticipate 
 the folly of one of his descendants, who should throw away the 
 whole inheritance in a few years of idle expense and folly, was 
 meant as a personal incivility to myself, though written fifty or 
 sixty years before I was born. 
 
 A little reflection made me ashamed of this feeling of impa- 
 tience, and as I looked at the even, concise, yet tremulous hand 
 in which the manuscript was written, I could not help think- 
 ing, according to an opinion I have heard seriously maintained, 
 that something of a man's character may be conjectured from 
 his handwriting. That neat, but crowded and constrained 
 small hand, argued a man of a good conscience, well-regulated 
 passions, and, to use his own phrase, an upright walk in life ; 
 but it also indicated narrowness of spirit, inveterate prejudice, 
 and hinted at some degree of intolerance, which, though not 
 natural to the disposition, had arisen out of a limited educa- 
 tion. The passages from Scripture and the classics, rather 
 profusely than happily introduced, and written in a half-text 
 character to mark their importance, illustrated that peculiar 
 sort of pedantry, which always considered the argument as 
 gained, if secured by a quotation. Then the flourished capital 
 letters, which ornamented the commencement of each para- 
 graph, and the name of his family and of his ancestors, 
 whenever these occurred in the page, do they not express 
 forcibly the pride and sense of importance with which the 
 author undertook and accomplished his task ? I persuaded 
 myself, the whole was so complete a portrait of the man, 
 that it would not have been a more undutiful act to have de- 
 faced his picture, or even to have disturbed his bones in his 
 cofhn, than to destroy his manuscript. I thought, for a moment, 
 of presenting it to Mr. Fairscribe ; but that confounded passage 
 about the prodigal and swine-trough — I settled at last it was as 
 well to lock it up in my own bureau, with the Intention to look 
 at it no more. 
 
 But I do not know how it was, that the subject began to sit 
 nearer my heart than I was aware of, and I found myself re- 
 peatedly engaged in reading descriptions of farms which were 
 no longer mine, and boundaries which marked the property 
 of others. A love of the tiatale solum, if Swift be right in trans- 
 lating these words " family estate," began to awaken in my 
 bosom ; the recollections of my own youth adding little to it, 
 save what was connected with field-sports. A career of pleasure 
 is unfavorable for acquiring a taste for natural beauty, and 
 still more so for forming associations of a sentimental kind, 
 connecting us with the inanimate objects around us.
 
 i6 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATR. 
 
 I had thought Utile about my estate, while I possessed and 
 was wasting it, unless as affording the rude materials out of 
 which a certain inferior race of creatures, called tenants, were 
 bound to produce (in a greater quantity than they actually did) 
 a certain return called rent, which was destined to supply my 
 expenses. This was my general view of the matter. Of par- 
 ticular places, I recollected that Garval Hill was a famous piece 
 of rough upland pasture, for rearing young colts, and teaching 
 them to throw their feet — that Minion Burn had the finest yellow 
 trout in the country, — that Seggycleugh was unequaled for 
 woodcocks — that Bengibbert Moors afforded excellent moorfowl- 
 shooting, and that the clear bubbling fountain called the Harper's 
 Well was the best recipe in the world on a morning after a 
 Hard-go with my neighbor fox-hunters. Still these ideas re- 
 called, by degrees, pictures, of which I had since learned to appre- 
 ciate the merit — scenes of silent loneliness, where extensive 
 moors, undulating into wild hills, were only disturbed by the 
 whistle of the plover, or the crow of the heath-cock ; wild ravines 
 creeping up into mountains, filled with natural wood, and 
 ^vhich, when traced downward along the path formed by 
 shepherds and nutters, were found gradually to enlarge and 
 deepen, as each formed a channel to its own brook, sometimes 
 bordered by steep banks of earth, often with the more romantic 
 boundary of naked rocks or cliffs, crested with oak, mountain- 
 ash, and hazel, — all gratifying the eye the more that the scenery 
 was, from the bare nature of the country around, totally 
 unexpected, 
 
 I had recollections, too, of fair and fertile holms, or level 
 plains, extending between the wooded banks and the bold 
 stream of the Clyde, which, colored like pure amber, or rather 
 having the hue of the pebbles called Cairngorm, rushes over 
 sheets of rock and beds of gravel, inspiring a species of awe 
 from the few and faithless fords which it presents, and the 
 frequency of fatal accidents, now diminished by the number of 
 bridges. These alluvial holms were frequently bordered by triple 
 and quadruple rows of large trees, which gracefully marked 
 their boundary, and dipped their long arms into the foaming 
 stream of the river. Other places I remembered, which had 
 been described by the old huntsman as the lodge of tremendous 
 wild-cats, or the spot where tradition stated the mighty stag to 
 have been brought to bay, or where heroes, whose might was 
 now as much forgotten, were said to have been slain by surprise. 
 or in battle. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that these finished landscapes 
 became visible before the eyes of my imagination, as the scenery
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE C AMONG ATE. 
 
 17 
 
 of the stage is disclosed by the rising of the curtain. I have said, 
 that I had looked upon the country around me, during the hurried 
 and dissipated period of my life, with the eyes indeed of my 
 body, but without those of my understanding. It was piece 
 by piece, as a child picks out its lesson, that I began to recol- 
 lect the beauties of nature which had once surrounded me in 
 the home of my forefathers. A natural taste for them must 
 have lurked at the bottom of my heart, which awakened when 
 I was in foreign countries, and becoming by degrees a favorite 
 passion, gradually turned its eyes inward, and ransacked the 
 neglected stores which my memory had involuntarily recorded, 
 and when excited, exerted herself to collect and to complete. 
 
 I began now to regret more bitterly than ever the having 
 fooled away my family property, the care and improvement of 
 which, I saw, might have afforded an agreeable employment 
 for my leisure, which only went to brood on past misfortunes, 
 and increase useless repining. " Had but a single farm been 
 reserved, however small," said I, one day to Mr. Fairscribe, " I 
 should have had a place I could call my home, and something 
 that I could call business." 
 
 "It might have been managed," answered Fairscribe ; " and 
 for my part I inclined to keep the mansion-house, mains, and 
 
 some of the old family acres together ; but both Mr. and 
 
 you were of opinion that the money would be more useful." 
 
 " True, true, my good friend," said I, " I was a fool then, 
 and did not think I could incline to be Glentanner with ^200 
 OJ* ;^3oo a-year, instead of Glentanner with as many thousands. 
 I was then a haughty, pettish, ignorant, dissipated, broken-down 
 Scottish laird ; and thinking my imaginary consequence alto- 
 gether ruined, I cared not how soon, or how absolutely, I was 
 rid of everything that recalled it to my own memory, or that of 
 others." 
 
 And now it is like you have changed your mind 1 " said 
 Fairscribe. " Well, fortune is apt to circumduce the term 
 upon us ; but I think she may allow you to revise your conde- 
 scendence." 
 
 " How do you mean, my good friend ? " 
 
 " Nay," said Fairscribe, " there is ill luck in averring till 
 one is sure of his facts. I will look back on a file of news- 
 papers, and to-morrow you shall hear from me ; come, help your- 
 self — I have seen you fill your glass higher." 
 
 "And shall see it again," said I, pouring out what remained 
 of our bottle of claret ; " the wine is capital, and so shall our 
 toast be — To your fireside, my good friend. And now we shall
 
 1 8 CHRONICLES OF THE CANO.XGATE, 
 
 go beg a Scots song, without foreign graces, from my little siren 
 Miss Katie." 
 
 The next day accordingly I received a parcel from Mr. 
 Fairscribe with a newspaper enclosed, among the advertise- 
 ments of which, one was marked with a cross as requiring my 
 attention. I read to my surprise — 
 
 " DESIRABLE ESTATE FOR SALE. 
 
 " By order of the Lords of Council and Session, will be 
 exposed to sale in the New Sessions House of Edinburgh, on 
 Wednesday, the 25th November 18 — , all and whole the lands 
 and barony of Glentanner, now called Castle Treddles, lying in 
 the Middle Ward of Clydesdale, and shire of Lanark, with the 
 teinds, parsonage and vicarage, fishings in the Clyde, woods, 
 mosses, moors, and pasturages," etc. etc. 
 
 The advertisement went on to set forth the advantages of 
 the soil, situation, natural beauties, and capabilities of improve- 
 ment, not forgetting its being a freehold estate, with the par- 
 ticular polypus capacity of being sliced up into two, three, or, 
 with a little assistance, four freehold qualifications, and a hint 
 that the county was likely to be eagerly contested between two 
 great families. The upset price at which " the said lands and 
 barony and others " were to be exposed was thirty years' pur- 
 chase of the proven rental, which was about a fourth more than 
 the property had fetched at the last sale. This, which was 
 mentioned, I suppose, to show the improvable character of the 
 land, would have given another some pain ; but let me speak 
 truth of myself in good as in evil — it pained not me. I was 
 only angry that Fairscribe, who knew something generally of 
 the extent of my funds, should have tantalized me by sending 
 me information that my family property was in the market, 
 since he must have known that the price was far out of my 
 reach. 
 
 But a letter dropped from the parcel on the floor, which 
 attracted my eye, and explained the riddle. A client of Mr. 
 Fairscribe's, a moneyed man, thought of buying Glentanner, 
 merely as an investment of money — it was even unlikely he 
 would ever see it; and so, the price of the whole being some 
 thousand pounds beyond what cash he had on hand, this 
 accommodating Dives would gladly take a partner in the sale 
 for any detached farm, and would make no objection to its in- 
 cluding the most desirable part of the estate in point of beauty, 
 nrovided the price was made adequate. Mr. Fairscribe would 
 take care I was not imposed on in the matter, and said in his
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. ig 
 
 card, he believed, if I really wished to make such a purchase, I 
 had better go out and look at the premises, advising me, at the 
 same time, to keep a strict incognito; an advice somewhat 
 superfluous, since I am naturally of a reserved disposition. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 MR. CROFTANGRY, INTER ALIA, REVISITS GLENTANNER. 
 
 Then sing of stage-coaches, 
 And fear no reproaches 
 
 For riding in one; 
 But daily be jogging. 
 Whilst, whistling and flogging, 
 Whilst, whistling and flogging, 
 
 The coachman drives on, 
 
 Farquhar. 
 
 Disguised in a gray surtout which had seen service, a white 
 castor on my head, aud a stout Indian cane in my hand, the 
 next week saw me on the top of a mail-coach driving to the 
 westward, 
 
 I like mail-coaches, and I hate them, I like them for my 
 convenience, but I detest them for setting the whole world 
 a-gadding instead of sitting quietly still minding their own busi- 
 ness, and preserving the stamp of originality of character which 
 nature or education may have impressed on them. Off they go, 
 jingling against each other in the rattling vehicle till they have 
 no more variety of stamp in them than so many smooth shillings 
 — the save even in their Welsh wigs and great-coats, each with- 
 out more individuality than belongs to a partner of the company, 
 as the waiter calls them, of the North coach. 
 
 Worthy Mr. Piper, best of contractors who ever furnished 
 four frampal jades for public use, I bless you when I set out on 
 a journey myself ; the neat coaches under your contract render 
 the intercourse, from Johnnie Groat's House to Ladykirk and 
 Cornhill Bridge, safe, pleasant, and cheap. But, Mr. Piper, 
 you who are a shrewd ariilimetician, did it never occur to you 
 to calculate how many fools' heads, which might have produced 
 an idea or two in the year, if suffered to remain in quiet, get 
 effectually addled by jolting to and fro in these flying chariots of 
 yours ; how many decent countrymen become conceited bump- 
 kins after a cattle-show dinner in the capital, which they could
 
 20 CHRONICLES OF THE C AMONG ATE. 
 
 not have attended save for your means ; how many decent 
 country parsons return critics and spouters by way of import- 
 ing the newest taste from Edinburgh ? And how will your con- 
 science answer one day for carrying so many bonny lasses to 
 barter modesty for conceit and levity at the Metropolitan Vanity 
 Fair ? 
 
 Consider, too, the low rate to which you reduce human intel- 
 lect. I do not believe your habitual customers have their ideas 
 more enlarged than one of your coach-horses. They kfiows the 
 road, like the English postilion, and they know nothing beside. 
 They date, like the carriers at Gadshill, from the death of John 
 Ostler ; * the succession of guards forms a dynasty in their eyes ; 
 coachmen are their ministers of state, and an upset is to them 
 a greater incident than a change of administration. Their only 
 point of interest on the road is to save the time, and see whether 
 the coach keeps the hour. This is surely a miserable degrada- 
 tion of human intellect. Take my advice, my good sir, and disin- 
 terestedly contrive that once or twice a-quarter your most dex- 
 terous whip shall overturn a coachful of the superfluous travel- 
 ers, in terror em to those who, as Horace says, " delight in the 
 dust raised by your chariots." 
 
 Your current and customary mail-coach passenger, too, gets 
 abominably selfish, schemes successfully for the best seat, the 
 freshest egg, the right cut of the sirloin. The mode of travel- 
 ing is death to all the courtesies and kindnesses of life, and 
 goes a great way to demoralize the character, and cause it to 
 retrograde to barbarism. You allow us excellent dinners, but 
 only twenty minutes to eat them ; and what is the consequence ? 
 Bashful beauty sits on the one side of us, timid childhood on 
 the other ; respectable, yet somewhat feeble old age is placed 
 on our front ; and all require those acts of politeness which 
 ought to put every degree upon a level at the convivial board. 
 But have we time — we the strong and active of the party — to 
 perform the duties of the table to the more retired and bashful, 
 to whom these little attentions are due ? The lady should be 
 pressed to her chicken — the old man helped to his favorite 
 and tender slice — the child to his tart. But not a fraction of a 
 minute have we to bestow on any other person than ourselves ; 
 and t\iQ prut-prut — tut-tut of the guard's discordant note, sum- 
 mons us to the coach, the weaker party having gone without 
 their dinner, and the able-bodied and active threatened with 
 indigestion, from having swallowed victuals like a Lei'stershire 
 clown bolting bacon. 
 
 * See the opening scene of the first part of Shakspeare's Henry JV.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. n 
 
 On the memorable occasion I am speaking of I lost my 
 breaclfast, sheerly from obeying the commands of a respectable- 
 looking old lady, who once required me to ring the bell, and 
 another time to help the tea-kettle. I have some reason to 
 think she was literally an oM Slai^er, who laughed in her sleeve 
 at my complaisance ; so that I have sworn in my secret soul re- 
 venge upon her sex, and all such errant damsels of whatever age 
 and degree, whom I may encounter in my travels. I mean aJl 
 this without the least ill-will to my friend the contractor, who, 
 1 think, has approached as near as any one is like to do toward 
 accomplishing the modest wish of the Amatus and Amataof the 
 Peri Bathous, 
 
 Ye gods, annihilate but time and space, 
 And make two lovers happy 
 
 I intend to give Mr. P. his full revenge when I come to dis- 
 cuss the more recent enormity of steamboats , meanwhile I shall 
 only say of both these modes of conveyance, that 
 
 There is no living with them or without them. 
 
 I am perhaps more critical on the mail-coach on this 
 
 particular occasion, that I did not meet all the respect from the 
 worshipful company in his Majesty's carriage that 1 think 1 was 
 entitled to. I must say it for myself, that I bear, in my own 
 opinion at least, not a vulgar point about me. My face has 
 seen service, but there is still a good set of teeth, an aquiline 
 nose, and a quick gray eye, set a little too deep under the eye- 
 brow ; and a cue of the kind once called military, may serve to 
 show that my civil occupations have been sometimes mixed with 
 those of war. Nevertheless, two idle young fellows in the 
 vehicle, or rather on the top of it, were so much amused with 
 the deliberation which I used in ascending to the same place 
 of eminence, that I thought I should have been obliged to pull 
 them up a little. And I was in no good humor, at an unsup- 
 pressed laugh following my descent, when set down at the angle^ 
 where a cross road, striking off from the main one, led. me 
 toward Glentanner, from which I was still nearly five miles 
 distant. 
 
 It was old-fashioned road, which, preferring ascents to 
 sloughs, was led in a straight line over height and hollow, 
 through moor and dale. Every object around me, as I passed 
 them in succession, reminded me of old days, and at the same 
 time formed the strongest contrast with them possible. Unat- 
 tended, on foot, with a small bundle in my hand, deemed scarce
 
 22 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGA TE. 
 
 sufficient good company for the two shabby genteels with whom 
 I had been lately perched on the top of a mail-coach, I did not 
 seem to be the same person with the young prodigal who lived 
 with the noblest and gayest in the land, and who, thirty years 
 before, would, in the same country, have been on the back of a 
 horse that had been victor for a plate, or smoking along in his 
 traveling chaise-and-four. My sentiments were not less changed 
 than my condition. I could quite well remember, that my rul- 
 ing sensation in the days of heady youth, was a mere school- 
 boy's eagerness to get furthest forward in the race in which I had 
 
 engaged ; to drink as many bottles as ; to be thought as 
 
 good a judge of a horse as ; to have the knowing cut of 
 
 's jacket. These were thy gods, O Israel ! 
 
 Now I was a mere looker-on ; seldom an unmoved, and 
 sometimes an angry spectator, but still a spectator only, of the 
 pursuits of mankind. I felt how little my opinion was valued 
 by those engaged in the busy turmoil, yet I exercised it with 
 the profusion of an old lawyer retired from his profession, who 
 thrusts himself into his neighbor's affairs, and gives advice 
 where it is not wanted, merely under pretence of loving the 
 crack of the whip. 
 
 I came amid these reflections to the brow of a hill, from 
 which I expected to see Glentanner ; a modest-looking yet 
 comfortable house, its walls covered with the most productive 
 fruit-trees in that part of the country, and screened from the 
 most stormy quarters of the horizon by a deep and ancient 
 wood which overhung the neighboring hill. The house was 
 gone ; a great part of the wood was felled ; and instead of the 
 gentleman-like mansion, shrouded and embosomed among its 
 old hereditary trees, stood Castle Treddles, a huge lumping 
 four-square pile of freestone, as bare as my nail, except for a 
 paltry edging of decayed and lingering exotic-s, with an im- 
 poverished lawn stretched before it, which, instead of boasting 
 deep green tapestry, enameled with daisies, and with crow's- 
 foot and cowslips, showed an extent of nakedness, riked in- 
 deed, and leveled, but where the sown grasses had failed with 
 drought, and the earth, retaining its natural coniplexion, 
 seemed nearly as brown and bare as when it was newly dug 
 
 The house was a large fabric, which pretended to its name 
 of Castle only from the front windows being finished in acute 
 Gothic arches ( being by the way, the v&xy reverse of the cas- 
 telated style), and each angle graced with a turret about the 
 size of a pepper-box. In every other respect it resembled a 
 large town-house, which, like a fat burgess, had taken a walk
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 23 
 
 to the country on a holiday, and climbed to the top of an emi- 
 nence to look around it. The bright red color of the freestone, 
 the size of the building, the formality of its shape, and awk- 
 wardness of its position, harmonized as ill with the sweeping 
 Clyde in front, and a bubbling brook which danced down on 
 the right, as the fat civic form, with bushy wig, gold-headed 
 cane, maroon-colored coat, and mottled silk stockings, would 
 have accorded with the wild and magnificent scenery of Core- 
 house Linn. 
 
 I went up to the house. It was in that state of desertion 
 which is perhaps the most unpleasant to look on, for the place 
 was going to decay, without having been inhabited. There 
 were about the mansion, though deserted, none of the slow 
 mouldering touches of time, which communicate to buildings, 
 as to the human frame, a sort of reverence, while depriving 
 them of beauty and of strength. The disconcerted schemes of the 
 Laird of Castle Treddles had resembled fruit that becomes de- 
 cayed without ever having ripened. Some windows broken, 
 others patched, others blocked up with deals, gave a discon- 
 solate air to all around, and seemed to say, " There Vanity had 
 purposed to fix her seat, but was anticipated by Poverty." 
 
 To the inside, after many a vain summons, I was at length 
 admitted by an old laborer. The house contained every con- 
 trivance for luxury and accommodation; — the kitchens were a 
 model, and there were hot closets on the office staircase, that 
 the dishes might not cool, as our Scottish phrase goes, between 
 the kitchen and the hall. But instead of the genial smell of 
 good cheer, these temples of Comus emitted the damp odor of 
 sepulchral vaults, and the large cabinets of cast-iron looked like 
 the cages of some feudal Bastile. The eating-room and draw- 
 ing-room, with an interior boudoir, were magnificent apartments, 
 the ceilings fretted and adorned with stucco-work, which already 
 was broken in many places, and looked in others damp and 
 mouldering ; the wood paneling was shrunk and warped, and 
 cracked ; the doors, which had not been hung for more than 
 two years, were, nevertheless, already swinging loose from their 
 hinges. Desolation, in short, was where enjoyment had never 
 been; and the want of all the usual means to preserve was fast 
 performing the work of decay. 
 
 The story was a common one, and told in a few words. Mr. 
 Treddles senior, who bought the estate, was a cautious money 
 making person ; his son, still embarked in commercial specula- 
 tions, desired at the same time to enjoy his opulence and to in- 
 crease it. He n)curred great expenses, amongst which this 
 idifice was to be numbered. To support this he speculated
 
 24 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 boldly, and unfortunately ; and thus the whole history is told, 
 which may serve for more places than Glentanner. 
 
 Strange and various feelings ran through my bosom, as I 
 loitered in these deserted apartments, scarce hearing what my 
 guide said to me about the size and destination of each room. 
 The first sentiment, I am ashamed to say, was one of gratified 
 spite. My patrician pride was pleased, that the mechanic, who 
 had not thought the house of the Croftangrys sufficiently good 
 for him, had now experienced a fall in his turn. My next 
 thought was as mean, though not so malicious. " I have had 
 the better of this fellow," thought I ; " if I lost the estate, I at 
 least spent the price ; and Mr. Treddles has lost his among 
 paltry commercial engagements." 
 
 " Wretch ! " said the secret voice within, " darest thou exult 
 in thy shame .-' Recollect how thy youth and fortune were 
 wasted in those years, and triumph not in the enjoyment of an 
 existence which leveled thee with the beasts that perish. Be- 
 think thee how this poor man's vanity gave at least bread to the 
 laborer, peasant, and citizen ; and his profuse expenditure, like 
 water spilt on the ground, refreshed the lovely herbs and plants 
 where it fell. But thou ! whom hast thou enriched, during thy 
 career of extravagance, save those brokers of the devil, vintners, 
 panders, gamblers, and horse-jockeys ? " The anguish produced 
 by this self-reproof was so strong, that I put my hand suddenly 
 to my forehead, and was obliged to allege a sudden megrim to 
 my attendant, in apology for the action, and a slight groan with 
 which it w'as accompanied. 
 
 I then made an effort to turn my thoughts into a more 
 philosophical current, and muttered half aloud, as a charm to 
 lull any more painful thoughts to rest — 
 
 Nunc ager Umbreni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli 
 Dktus, erit nulli proprius ; sed cedit in usum 
 Nunc mihi, nunc alii. Quocirca vivite fortes, 
 Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus.* 
 
 * Horace, Sat. II. Lib. 2. The meaning will be best conveyed to the 
 English reader in Pope's imitation : — 
 
 What's property, dear Swift ? you see it alter 
 From you to me, from me to Peter Walter ; 
 Or in a mortgage prove a lawyer's share 
 
 Or in a jointure vanish from the heir. 
 
 • • « • 
 
 Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford, 
 
 Become the portion of a booby lord; 
 
 And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, 
 
 Slides to a scrivener and city knight. 
 
 Let lands and houses have what loids they will, 
 
 I.^t US be fix'd, and our own pasters still.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE, 
 
 n 
 
 In my anxiety to fix the philosophical precept in my mind, I 
 recited the last line aloud, which, joined to my previous agita- 
 tion, I afterward found became the cause of a report, that a 
 mad schoolmaster had come from Edinburgh, with the idea in 
 his head of buying Castle Treddles. 
 
 As I saw my companion was desirous of getting rid of me, 
 I asked where I was to find the person in whose hands were 
 left the map of the estate and other particulars connected with 
 the sale. The agent who had this in possession, I was told, 
 
 lived at the town of ; which I was informed, and indeed 
 
 knew well, was distant five miles and a bittock, which may pass 
 in a country where they are less lavish of their land, for two or 
 three more. Being somewhat afraid of the fatigue of walking 
 so far, I inquired if a horse, or any sort of a carriage was to be 
 had, and was answered in the negative. 
 
 "But," said my cicerone, "you may halt a blink till next 
 morning at the Treddles Arms, a very decent house, scarce a 
 mile of¥. 
 
 " A new house, I suppose ? " replied I. 
 
 " Na, it's a new public, but it's an auld house ; it was aye 
 the Leddy's jointure-house in the Croftangry-folk's time ; but 
 Mr. Treddles has fitted it up for the convenience of the coun- 
 try. Poor man, he was a public-spirited man when he had the 
 means." 
 
 " Duntarkin a public house ! " I exclaimed. 
 
 " Ay," said the fellow, surprised at my naming the place by 
 its former title; "ye'll hae been in this coiintry before, I'm 
 thinking.?" 
 
 " Long since," I replied — " and there is good accommoda- 
 tion at the what-d'ye-call-'em arms, and a civil landlord } " 
 This I said by way of saying something, for the man stared 
 very hard at me. 
 
 "Very decent accommodation. Ye'll no be for fashing wi' 
 wine, I'm thinking, and there's walth o' porter, ale, and a drap 
 gude whisky" — (in an undertone) — " Fairntosh, if you can 
 get on the lee-side of the gudewife — for there is nae gudeman 
 — They ca' her Christie Steele." 
 
 I almost started at the sound. Christie Steele ! Christie 
 Steele was my mother's body servant, her very right hand, and, 
 between ourselves, something like a viceroy over her. I rec- 
 ollected her perfectly ; and though she had in former times 
 been no favorite of mine, her name now sounded in my ear like 
 that of a friend, and was the first word I had heard somewhat 
 in unison with the associations around me. I sallied from 
 Castle Treddles, determined to make the best of my way to
 
 26 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATR. 
 
 Duntarkin, and my cicerone hung by me for a little way, giving 
 loose to his love of talking; an opportunity which, situated as 
 he was, the seneschal of a deserted castle, was not likely lo 
 occur frequently, 
 
 " Some folk think," said my companion, " that Mr. Treddles 
 might as weel have put my wife as Christie Steele into the 
 Treddles Arms, for Christie had been aye in service, and never 
 in the public line, and so it's like she is ganging back in the 
 world, as I hear — now, my wife had keepit a victualing office." 
 
 "That would have been an advantage certainly," I replied. 
 
 " But I am no sure that I wad ha' looten Eppie take it, if 
 they had put it in her offer." 
 
 " That's a different consideration." 
 
 " Ony way, I wadna ha' liked to have offended Mr. Tred- 
 dles ; he was a wee toustie when you rubbed him again the hair 
 — but a kind, weel-meaning man." 
 
 I wanted to get rid of this species of chat, and finding my- 
 self near the entrance of a footpath which made a short cut to 
 Duntarkin, I put half-a-crown into my guide's hand, bade him 
 good-evening, and plunged into the woods. 
 
 " Hout, sir — fie, sir — no from the like of you — stay, sir, ye 
 wunna find the way that gate — Odd's mercy, he maun ken the 
 gate as weel as I do myself — weel, I wad like to ken wha the 
 chield is." 
 
 Such were the last words of my guide's drowsy, uninterest- 
 ing tone of voice ; and, glad to be rid of him, I strode out 
 stoutly, in despite of large stones, briers, and bad steps, which 
 abounded in the road I had chosen. In the interim, I tried as 
 much as I could, with verses from Horace and Prior, and all 
 who have lauded the mixture of literary with rural life, to call 
 back the visions of last night and this morning, imagining my- 
 self settled in some detached farm of the estate of Glentanner, 
 
 Which sloping hills around enclose — 
 Where many a birch and brown oak grows; 
 
 when I should have a cottage with a small library, a small cel- 
 lar, a spare bed for a friend, and live more happy and more 
 honored than when I had the whole barony. But the sight of 
 Castle Treddles had disturbed all my own castles in the air. 
 The realities of the matter, like a stone plashed into a limpid 
 fountain, had destroved the reflection of the objects around, 
 which, till this act of violence, lay slumbering on the crystal 
 surface, and I tried in vain to re-establish the picture which 
 had been so rudely broken. Well, then, I would try it another 
 way ; I would tr)' to get Christie Steele out of her public^ sioce
 
 CHROXICLES OF THE CAA^OXGATE. 27 
 
 she was not thriving in it, and she who had been my mother's 
 governante should be mine. I knew all her faults, and I told 
 her history over to myself. 
 
 She was a grand-daughter, I believe, at least some relative, 
 of the famous Covenanter of the name, whom Dean Swift's 
 friend Captain Creichton, shot on his own staircase in the 
 times of the persecutions,* and had perhaps derived from her 
 native stock much both of its good and evil properties. No 
 one could say of her that she was the life and spirit of the 
 family, though, in my mother's time, she directed all family 
 affairs ; her look was austere and gloomy and when she was 
 not displeased with you, you could only find it out by her 
 silence. If there was cause for complaint, real or imagi- 
 nar}', Christie was loud enough. She loved my mother with 
 the devoted attachment of a younger sister, but she was as 
 jealous of her favor to any one else as if she had been the 
 aged husband of a coquetish wife, and as severe in her repre- 
 hensions as an abbess over her nuns. The command which she 
 exercised over her, was that, I fear, of a strong and determined 
 over a feeble and more nervous disposition ; and though it was 
 used with rigor, yet, to the best of Christie Steele's belief, she 
 was urging her mistress to her test and most becoming course, 
 and would have died rather than have recommended any other. 
 The attachment of this woman was limited to the family of 
 Croftangr)', for she had few relations ; and a dissolute cousin, 
 whom late in life she had taken as a husband, had long left her 
 a widow. 
 
 To me she had ever a strong dislike. Even from my early 
 childhood she was jealous, strange as it may seem, of my 
 interest in my mother's affections ; she saw my foibles and 
 vices with abhorrence, and without a grain of allowance ; nor 
 did she pardon the weakness of maternal affection, even when, 
 by the death of two brothers, I came to be the only child of a 
 widowed parent. At the time my disorderly conduct induced my 
 mother to leave Glentanner, and retreat to her jointure-house, 
 I always blamed Christie Steele for having influenced her 
 resentment, and prevented her from listening to my vows of 
 amendment, which at times were real and serious, and might, 
 perhaps, have accelerated that change of disposition which has 
 since, I trust, taken place. But Christie regarded me as alto- 
 gether a doomed and predestinated child of perdition, who was 
 sure to hold on my course, and drag downward whosoever 
 might attempt to afford me support. 
 
 * Note B. Steele, the Covenanter.
 
 28 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 Still, though I knew such had been Christie's prejudices 
 against me in other days, yet I thought enough of time had 
 since passed away to destroy all of them. I knew that when, 
 through the disorder of my affairs, my mother underwent some 
 temporary inconvenience about money matters, Christie, as a 
 thing of course, stood in the gap, and having sold a small 
 inheritance, which had descended to her, brought the purchase- 
 money to her mistress, with a sense of devotion as deep as that 
 which inspired the Christians of the first age, when they sold 
 all they had, and followed the apostle of the church. I there- 
 fore thought that we might, in old Scottish phrase, " let 
 byganes be byganes," and begin upon a new account. Yet I 
 resolved, like a skilful general, to reconnoitre a little before 
 laying down any precise scheme of proceeding, and in the 
 interim I determined to preserve my incognito. 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 MR. CROFTANGRY BIDS ADIEU TO CLYDESDALE. 
 
 Alas, how changed from what it had once been I 
 ' Twas now degraded to a common inn. 
 
 Gay. 
 
 An hour's brisk walking, or thereabouts, placed me in front 
 of Duntarkin, which had also, I found, undergone considerable 
 alterations, though it had not been altogether demolished like 
 the principal mansion. An inn-yard extended before the door 
 of the decent little jointure-house, even amidst the remnants of 
 the holly hedges which had screened the lady's garden. Then 
 a broad, raw-looking, new-made road intruded itself up the 
 little glen, instead of the old horseway, so seldom used that it 
 was almost entirely covered with grass. It is a great enormity 
 of which gentlemen trustees on the highway are sometimes 
 guilty, in adopting the breadth necessary for an avenue to the 
 metropolis, where all that is required is an access to some 
 sequestered and unpopulous district. I do not say anything of 
 the expense ; that the trustees and their constituents may settle 
 as they please. But the destruction of sylvan beauty is great, 
 when the breadth of the road is more than proportioned to the 
 vale through which it runs, and lowers of course the conse- 
 quence of any objects of wood or water, or broken and varied 
 ground, which might otherwise attract notice, and give pleasure,
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 29 
 
 A bubbling runnel by the side of one of those modern Appian 
 or Flaminian highways, is but like a kennel, — the little hill is 
 diminished to a hillock, — the romantic hillock to a mole-hill, 
 almost too small for sight. 
 
 Such an enormity, however, had destroyed the quiet loneli- 
 ness of Duntarkin,* and intruded its breadth of dust and 
 gravel, and its associations of pochays and mail-coaches, upon 
 one of the most sequestered spots in the Middle Ward of 
 Clydesdale. The house was old and dilapidated, and looked 
 sorry for itself, as if sensible of a derogation ; but the sign was 
 strong and new, and brightly painted, displaying a heraldic 
 shield, three shuttles in a field diaprd, a web partly unfolded 
 for crest, and two stout giants for supporters, each one holding 
 a weaver's beam proper. To have displayed this monstrous 
 emblem on the front of the house might have hazarded bringing 
 down the wall, but for certain would have blocked up one or 
 two windows. It was therefore established independent of the 
 mansion, being displayed in an iron framework, and suspended 
 upon two posts, with as much wood and iron about it as would 
 have builded a brig ; and there it hung, creaking, groaning, and 
 screaming in every blast of wind, and frightening for five 
 miles' distance, for aught I know, the nests of thrushes and 
 linnets, the ancient denizens of the little glen. 
 
 When I entered the place I was received by Christie Steele 
 herself, who seemed uncertain whether to drop me in the 
 kitchen, or usher me into a separate apartment. As I called 
 for tea, with something rather more substantial than bread and 
 butter, and spoke of supping and sleeping, Christie at last 
 inducted me into the room where she herself had been sitting, 
 probably the only one which had a fire, though the month was 
 October. This answered my plan ; and, as she was about to 
 remove her spinning-wheel, I begged she would have the good- 
 ness to remain and make my tea, adding, that I liked the sound 
 of the wheel, and desired not to disturb her housewife-thrift in 
 the least. 
 
 " I dinna ken, sir," — she replied in a dry reiicche tone, which 
 carried me back twenty years ; " I am nane of thae heartsome 
 landleddies that can tell country cracks, and make themsells 
 agreeable ; and I was ganging to pit on a fire for you in the 
 Red Room ; but if it is your will to stay here, he that pays the 
 lawing maun choose the lodging." 
 
 I endeavored to engage her in conversation ; but, though 
 she answered with a kind of stiff civility, I could get her into 
 
 * [Mr. Lockhart informs us that this demesne is sketched from that of 
 C^rmichael, the ancient mansion of the noble family 9f Hyncjford.1
 
 30 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGA TE. 
 
 r\o freedom of discourse, and she began to look at her wheel 
 and at the door more than once, as if she meditated a retreat. 
 I was obliged, therefore, to proceed to some special questions 
 that might have interest for a person, whose ideas were prob- 
 ably of a very bounded description. 
 
 I looked round the apartment, being the same in which I 
 had last seen my poor mother. The author of the family 
 history, formerly mentioned, had taken great credit to himself 
 for the improvements he had made in this same jointure-house 
 of Duntarkin, and how, upon his marriage, when his mother 
 took possession of the same as her jointure-house, *' to his 
 great charges and expenses he caused box the walls of the 
 great parlor " (in which I was now sitting), " empanel the same, 
 and plaster the roof, finishing the apartment with ane concave 
 chimney, and decorating the same with pictures, and a barom- 
 eter and thermometer." And in particular, which his good 
 mother used to say she prized above all the rest, he had caused 
 his own portraiture be limned over the mantelpiece by a 
 skilful hand. And, in good faith, there he remained still, — 
 having much the visage which I was disposed to ascribe to him 
 on the evidence of his handwriting, — grim and austere, yet 
 not without a cast of shrewdness and determination ; in armor, 
 though he never wore it, I fancy; one hand on an open book, 
 and one resting on the hilt of his sword, though, I dare say, 
 his head never ached with reading nor his limbs with fencing. 
 
 "That picture is painted on the wood, madam?" said I. 
 
 '* Ay, sir, or it's like it would not have been left there. They 
 took a' they could." 
 
 " Mr. Treddlcs's creditors, you mean ? " said I. 
 
 " Na," replied she, dryly, " the creditors of another family, 
 that sweepit cleaner than this poor man's, because, I fancy, 
 there was less to gather." 
 
 " An older family, perhaps, and probably more remembered 
 and regretted than later possessors ? " 
 
 Christie here settled herself in her seat, and pulled her 
 •wheel toward her. I had given her something interesting for 
 her thoughts to dwell upon, and her wheel was a mechanical 
 accompaniment on such occasions, the revolutions of which 
 assisted her in the explanation of her ideas. 
 
 " Mair regretted — mair missed ? — I liked ane of the auld 
 family very weel, but I winna say that for them a'. How 
 should they be mair missed than the Treddleses ? The cotton 
 mill was such a thing for the country ! The mair bairns a 
 cottar body had the better ; they would make their awn keep 
 frae the time they were five years auld ; and a widow, wi'
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 3» 
 
 three or four bairns, was a wealthy woman in the time of the 
 Treddleses." 
 
 "But the health of these poor chMdren, my good friend-^ 
 their education and religious instruction " 
 
 "For health," said Christie, looking gloomily at me, "ye 
 maun ken little of the warld, sir, if ye dinna ken that the 
 health of the poor man's body, as weel. as his youth and his 
 strength, are all at the command of the rich man's purse. 
 There never was a trade so unhealthy yet, but men would 
 fight to get wark at it for twa pennies a-day aboon the common 
 wage. But the bairns were reasonably weel cared for, in the 
 way of air and exercise, and a very responsible youth heard 
 them their carritch, and gied them lessons in Reediemadeasy.* 
 Now, what did they ever get before ? Maybe on a winter day 
 they wad be called out to beat the wood for cocks or sicklilce, 
 and then the starving weans would maybe get a bite of broken 
 bread and maybe no, just as the butler was in humor — that 
 was a' they got." 
 
 " They were not, then, a very kind family to the poor, these 
 old possessors ? " said I, somewhat bitterly ; for I had expected 
 to hear my ancestors' praises recorded, though I certainly de- 
 spaired of being regaled with my own. 
 
 "They werena ill to them, sir, and that is aye something. 
 They were just decent bien bodies ; — ony poor creature that 
 had face to beg, got an awmous and welcome ; they that were 
 shamefaced gaed by, and twice as welcome. But they keepit 
 an honest walk before God and man, the Croftangrys, and as I 
 said before, if they did little good, they did as little ill. They 
 lifted their rents and spent them, called in their kain and ate 
 them ; gaed to the kirk of a Sunday, bowed civilly if folk took 
 aff their bannets as they gaed by, and lookit as black as sin at 
 them that keepit them on." 
 
 "These are their arms that you have on the sign ? " 
 
 "What ! on the painted board that is skirling and groaning 
 at the door ? — Na, these are Mr. Treddles's arms — though they 
 look as like legs as arms — ill pleased I was at the fule thing, 
 that cost as muckle as would hae repaired the house from the 
 wa' stane to the riggin-tree. But if I am to bide here, I'll hae 
 a decent board wi' a punch-bowl on it." 
 
 " Is there a doubt of your staying here, Mrs. Steele ? " 
 
 " Dinna Mistress me," said the cross old woman, whose 
 fingers were now plying their thrift in a manner which indi- 
 cated nervous irritation — " there was nae luck in the land since 
 Luckje turned Mistress, and Mistress my Leddy ; and as fci 
 ? " Reading made Easy," usually so pronounced in Scotland.
 
 32 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANOXGA TE. 
 
 Staying here, if it concerns you to ken, I may stay if I can pay 
 a hundred pund sterling for the lease, and I may flit if I canna; 
 and so gude-e'en to you, Christie," — and round went the wheel 
 with much activity. 
 
 "And you like the trade of keeping a public house ? " 
 
 " I can scarce say that,'" she replied. " But worthy Mr. 
 Prendergast is clear of its lawfulness, and I hae gotten used to 
 it, and made a decent living, though I never make out a fause 
 reckoning, or give ony ane the means to disorder reason, in my 
 house." 
 
 " Indeed ? " said I ; "in that case, there is no wonder you 
 have not made up the hundred pounds to purchase the lease." 
 
 " How do you ken," said she sharply, " that I might not 
 have had a hundred punds of my ain fee ? If I have it not, I 
 am sure it is my ain faut ; and 1 wunna ca' it faut neither, for 
 it gaed to her wha was weel entitled to a' my service." Again 
 she pulled stoutly at the flax, and the wheel went smartly 
 round. 
 
 " This old gentleman," said I, fixing my eye on the painted 
 panel, " seems to have had his arms painted as well as 
 Mr. Treddles — that is, if that painting in the corner be a 
 scutcheon." 
 
 " Ay, ay, — cushion just sae, they maun a' hae their cushions ; 
 there's sma' gentry without that ; and so the arms, as they ca' 
 them, of the house of Glentanner may be seen on an auld 
 stane in the west end of the house. But to do them justice, 
 they didna propale sae muckle about them as poor Mr. Tred- 
 dles did ; — it's like they were better used to them." 
 
 " Very likely — Are there any of the old family in life, good- 
 wife ! " 
 
 " No," she replied ; then added, after a moment's hesitation 
 — " not that I know of," — and the wheel, which had intermitted, 
 began again to revolve. 
 
 " Gone abroad, perhaps ? " I suggested. 
 
 She now looked up, and faced me — " No, sir. There were 
 three sons of the last Laird of Glentanner, as he was then 
 called ; John and William were hopeful young gentlemen, but 
 they died early — one of a decline, brought on by the mizzles, 
 the other lost his life in a fever. It would hae been lucky for 
 mony ane that Chrystal had gane the same gate." 
 
 " Oh — he must have been the young spendthrift that sold the 
 property? Well, but you should not have such an ill-will against 
 him : remember necessity has no law ; and then, goodwife, he 
 v/as not more culpable than Mr. Treddles, whom you are so 
 sorry for,"
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 33 
 
 " I wish I could think sae, sir, for his mother's sake ; but 
 Mr. Tredclles was in trade, and though he had no preceese right 
 to do so, yet there was some warrant for a man being expen- 
 sive that imagined he w^as making a mint of money. But this 
 unhappy lad devoured his patrimony, when he kenned that he 
 was living like a ratten in a Dunlap cheese, and diminishing 
 his means at a' hands — I canna bide to think on't." With 
 this she broke out into a snatch of a ballad ; but little of mirth 
 was there either in the tone or the expression : — 
 
 " For he did spend, and make an end 
 Of gear that his forefathers wan ; 
 Of land and ware he made him bare, 
 
 So speak nae mair of the auld gudeman." 
 
 " Come, dame," said I, "it is a long lane that has no turn- 
 ing. I will not keep from you that I have heard something of 
 this poor fellow, Chrystal Croftangry. He has sown his wild 
 oats, as they say, and has settled into a steady respectable 
 man." 
 
 " And wha tell'd ye that tidings .-' " said she, looking sharply 
 at me. 
 
 " Not perhaps the best judge in the world of his character, 
 for it was himself, dame." 
 
 " And if he tell'd you truth, it was a virtue he did not aye 
 use to practice," said Christie. 
 
 " The devil ! " said I, considerably nettled ; " all the world 
 held him to be a man of honor." 
 
 '* A}'', ay, he would hae shot ony body wi* his pistols and his 
 guns, that had evened him to be a liar. But if he promised to 
 pay an honest tradesman the next term day, did he keep his 
 word then .-' And if he promised a puir silly lass to make gude 
 her shame, did he speak truth then ? And what is that, but 
 being a liar, and a black-hearted deceitful liar to boot ? " 
 
 My indignation was rising, but I strove to suppress it ; in- 
 deed, I should only have afforded my tormentor a triumph by 
 an angry reply. I partly suspected she began to recognize me ; 
 yet she testified so little emotion, that I could not think my 
 suspicion well founded. I went on therefore, to say, in a tone 
 as indifferent as I could command, " Well, goodwife, I see you 
 will believe no good of this Chrystal of yours, till he comes 
 back and buys a good farm on the estate, and makes you his 
 housekeeper." 
 
 The old woman dropped her thread, folded her hands, as 
 she looked up to heaven with a face of apprehension. " The 
 Lord," she exclaimed, "forbiri i The Lord in his mercy forbid 1
 
 34 CBRON/ClES of 7V/E CANONGATE. 
 
 Oh, sir, if you really know this unlucky man, persuade him to 
 settle where folk ken the good that you say he has come to, 
 and dinna ken the evil of his former days. He used to be 
 proud enough — Oh, dinna let him come here, even for his own 
 sake. — He used ance to have some pride." 
 
 Here she once more drew the wheel close to her, and began 
 to pull at the flax with both hands — " Dinna let him come 
 here, to be looked down upon by ony that may be left of his 
 auld reiving companions, and to see the decent folk that he 
 looked over his nose at look over their noses at him, baith at 
 kirk and market. Dinna let him come to his ain country to 
 be made a tale about when ony neighbor points him out to 
 another, and tells what he is, and what he was, and how he 
 wrecked a dainty estate, and brought harlots to the door-cheek 
 of his father's house, till he made it nae residence for his 
 mother ; and how it had been foretauld by a servant of his ain 
 house, that he was a ne'er-do-weel, and a child of perdition, and 
 how her words were made good, and " 
 
 " Stop there, goodwife, if you please," said I ; " you have 
 said as much as I can well remember, and more than it may be 
 safe to repeat. I can use a great deal of freedom with the 
 gentleman we speak of ; but I think were any other person to 
 carry him half of your message, I would scarce ensure his per- 
 sonal safety. And now, as I see the night is settled to be a 
 fine one, I will walk on to , where I must meet a coach to- 
 morrow, as it passes to Edinburgh." 
 
 So saying, I paid my moderate reckoning, and took my 
 leave, without being able to discover whether the prejudiced 
 and hard-hearted old woman did, or did not, suspect the iden- 
 tity of her guest with the Chrystal Croftangry against whom she 
 harbored so much dislike. 
 
 The night was fine and frosty, though, when I pretended to 
 see what its character was, it might have rained like the deluge. 
 I only made the excuse to escape from old Christie Steele. 
 The horses which run races in the Corso at Rome without any 
 riders, in order to stimulate their exertion, carry each his own 
 spurs, namely, small balls of steel, with sharp projecting spikes, 
 which are attached to loose straps of leather, and flying about 
 in the violence of the agitation, keep the horse to his speed by 
 pricking him as thev strike against his flanks. The old woman's 
 reproaches had the same effect on me, and urged me to a rapid 
 pace, as if it had been possible to escape from my own recol- 
 lections. In the best days of my life, when I won one or two 
 hard walking matches, I doubt if I ever walked so fast as I did 
 betwixt the Treddles Arms and the borough town for which I
 
 ClfRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 3$ 
 
 was bound. Though the night was cold, I was warm enough 
 by the time I got to my inn; and it required a refreshing 
 draught of porter, with half-an-hour's repose, ere I could deter- 
 mine to give no further thought to Christie and her opinions, 
 than those of any other vulgar prejudiced old woman. I re- 
 solved at last to treat the thing en ImgateHe, and calling for 
 writing materials, I folded up a check for ^loo, with these 
 lines on the envelope : — 
 
 " Chrystal, the ne'er-do-weel, 
 Child destined to tlie deil, 
 Sends this to Christie Steele." 
 
 And I was so much pleased with this new mode of viewing the 
 subject, that I regretted the lateness of the hour prevented my 
 finding a person to carry the letter express to its destination. 
 
 " But with the morning cool reflection came." 
 
 I considered that the money, and probably more, was actually 
 due by me on my mother's account to Christie, who had lent 
 it in a moment of great necessity, and that the returning it in 
 a light or ludicrous manner was not unlikely to prevent so 
 touchy and punctilious a person from accepting a debt which 
 was most justly her due, and which it became me particularly 
 to see satisfied. Sacrificing then my triad M'ith little regret 
 (for it looked better by candle-light, and through the medium 
 of a pot of porter, than it did by daylight, and with bohea for 
 a menstruum), I determined to employ Mr. Fairscribe's media- 
 tion in buying up the lease of the little inn, and conferring it 
 upon Christie in the way which should make it most accepta- 
 ble to her feelings. It is only necessary to add, that my plan 
 succeeded, and that Widow Steele even yet keeps the Treddles 
 Arms. Do not say, therefore, that I have been disingenuous 
 with you, reader ; since, if I have not told all the ill of myself 
 I might have done, I have indicated to you a person able and 
 willing to supply the blank by relating all my delinquencies, as 
 well as my misfortunes. 
 
 In the meantime, I totally abandoned the idea of redeeming 
 any part of my paternal propertv, and resolved to take Christie 
 Steele's advice, as young Norval does Glenalvon's, " although 
 it sounded harshly."
 
 36 CHROmCLES OF THE CANONGATE, 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 MR. CROFTANGRY SETTLES IN THE CANONGATE. 
 
 If you will know my house, 
 
 'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by. 
 
 As You Like It. 
 
 By a revolution of humor which I am unable to account for, 
 I changed my nunc! entirely on my plans of life, in consequence 
 of the disappointment, the history of which fills the last chapter. 
 I began to discover that the country would not at all suit me : 
 for I had relinquished field-sports, and felt no inclination what- 
 ever to farming, the ordinary vocation of country gentlemen ; 
 besides that, I had no talent for assisting either candidate, in 
 case of an expected election, and saw no amusement in the 
 duties of a road-trustee, a commissioner of supply, or even in 
 the magisterial functions of the bench. I had begun to take 
 some taste for reading ; and a domiciliation in the country must 
 remove me from the use of books, except the small subscrip- 
 tion library, in which the very book which you want is uniformly 
 sure to be engaged. 
 
 I resolved therefore to make the Scottish metropolis my 
 regular resting-place, reserving to myself to take occasionally 
 those excursions, which, spite of all I have said against mail- 
 coaches, Mr. Piper has rendered so easy. Friend of our life 
 and of our leisure, he secures by despatch against loss of time, 
 and by the best of coaches, cattle, and the steadiest of drivers, 
 against hazard of limb, and wafts us, as well as our letters, from 
 Edinburgh to Cape Wrath, in the penning of a paragraph. 
 
 When my mind was quite made up to make Auld Reekie 
 my head-quarters, reserving the privilege of exploring in all 
 directions, I began to explore in good earnest for the purpose 
 of discovering a suitable habitation. " And whare trew ye I 
 gaed 1 " as Sir Pertinax says. Not to George's Square — nor to 
 Charlotte Square — nor to the old New Town — nor to the new 
 New Town — nor to the Calton Hill ; I went to the Canongate, 
 and to the very portion of the Canongate in which I had for- 
 merly been immured, like the errant knight, prisoner in some 
 enchanted castle, where spells have made the ambient air im- 
 pervious to tlie unhappy captive, although the organs of sight 
 encountered no obstacle to his free passage.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 37 
 
 Why I should have thought of pitching my tent here I 
 cannot tell. Perhaps it was to enjoy the pleasures of freedom, 
 where I had so long endured the bitterness of restraint ; on the 
 principle of the officer, who, after he had retired from the army, 
 ordered his servant to continue to call him at the hour of 
 parade, simply that he might have the pleasure of saying — 
 " D — n the parade ! " and turning to the other side to enjoy 
 his slumbers. Or perhaps I expected to find in the vicinity 
 some little old-fashioned house, having somewhat of the riis in 
 urbe, which I was ambitious of enjoying. Enough, I went as 
 aforesaid to the Canongate. 
 
 I stood by the kennel, of which I have formerly spoken, 
 and, my mind being at ease, my bodily organs were more deli- 
 cate. I was more sensible than heretofore, that, like the trade 
 
 of Pompey in Measure for Measure — it did in some sort 
 
 pah — an ounce of civet, good apothecary ! — Turning from 
 thence, my steps naturally directed themselves to my own 
 humble apartment, where my little Highland landlady, as dap- 
 per and as tight as ever (for old women wear a hundred times 
 better than the hard-wrought seniors of the masculine sex), 
 stood at the door teedli?ig to herself a Highland song as she 
 shook a table napkin over the forestair, and then proceeded to 
 fold it up neatly for future service. 
 
 " How do you, Janet ? " 
 
 "Thank ye, good sir,"answered my old friend, without look- 
 ing at me ; " but ye might as weel say Mrs. MacEvoy, for she 
 is na a'body's Shanet — umph." 
 
 *' You must be my Janet, though, for all that — have you 
 forgot me ? — Do you not remember Chrystal Croftangry.? " 
 
 The light, kind-hearted creature threw her napkin into the 
 open door, skipped down the stair like a fairy, three steps at 
 once, seized me by the hands, — both hands, — jumped up, and 
 actually kissed me. I was a little ashamed ; but what swain, 
 of somewhere inclining to sixty, could resist the advances of a 
 fair contemporary? So we allowed the full degree of kindness 
 to the meeting. — honi salt qui inal y paise, — and then Janet 
 entered instantly upon business. " An' ye'U gae in, man, and 
 see your auld lodgings, nae doubt, and Shanet will pay ye the 
 fifteen shillings of change that ye ran away without, and with- 
 out bidding Shanet good-day. — But never mind " (nodding 
 good-humoredly), " Shsnet saw you were carried for the 
 time." 
 
 By this time we were in my old quarters, and Janet, with 
 her bottle of cordial in one hand and the glass in the other, 
 had forced on me a dram of usquebaugh, distilled with saffroq
 
 38 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 and other herbs, after some old-fashioned Highland receipt 
 Then was unfolded, out of many a little scrap of paper, the 
 reserved sum of fifteen shillings, which Janet had treasured for 
 twenty years and upward. 
 
 " Here they are," she said, in honest triumph, " just the same 
 1 was holding out to ye when ye ran as if ye had been fey. 
 Shanet has had siller, and Shanet has wanted siller, mony a 
 time since that — and the ganger has come, and the factor has 
 come, and the butcher and baker — Cot bless us — just like to 
 tear poor auld Shanet to pieces ; but she took good care of Mr. 
 Croftangry's fifteen shillings." 
 
 " But what if I had never come back, Janet ? " 
 
 " Och, if Shanet had heard you were dead, she would hae 
 gien it to the poor of the chapel, to pray for Mr. Croftangry," 
 said Janet, crossing herself, for she was a Catholic ; — " you 
 maybe do not think it would do you cood, but the blessing of 
 the poor can never do no harm." 
 
 I heartily agree in Janet's conclusion ; and, as to have 
 desired her to consider the hoard as her own property, would 
 have been an indelicate return to her for the uprightness of her 
 conduct, I requested her to dispose of it as she had proposed 
 to do in the event of my death, that is, if she knew any poor 
 people of merit to whom it might be useful. 
 
 "Ower mony of them," raising the corner of her checked 
 apron to her eyes, "e'en ower money of them, Mr. Croftangry — 
 Och, ay — there is the puir Highland creatures frae Glenshee, 
 that cam down for the harvest, and are lying wi' the fever — five 
 shillings to them, and half-a-crown to Bessie MacEvoy, whose 
 eoodman puir creature, died of the frost, being a shairman, for 
 a' the whisky he could drink to keep it out o' his stomach — 
 and " 
 
 But she suddenly interrupted the bead-roll of her proposed 
 charities, and assuming a very sage look, and primming up her 
 little chattering mouth, she went on in a different tone — " But, 
 och, Mr. Croftangry, bethink ye whether ye will not need a' 
 this siller yoursell, and maybe look back and think long for 
 ha'en kiven it away, whilk is a creat sin to forthink a wark o' 
 charit}', and also is unlucky, and, moreover, is not the thought 
 of a shentleman's son like yoursell, dear. And I say this, that 
 ye may think a bit ; for your mother's son kens that ye are no 
 so careful as you should be of the gear, and I hae tauld ye of 
 it before, jewel." 
 
 I assured her I could easily spare the money, without risk 
 of future repentance ; and she went on to infer, that, in such a 
 case, " Mr. Croftangry had growh a rich man in foreign partS|
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 39 
 
 and was free of his troubles with messengers and sheriff-officers, 
 and sicUke scum of the earth, and Shanet MacEvoy's mother's 
 daughter be a blithe woman to hear it. But if Mr. Croftangry 
 was in trouble, there was his room, and his ped, and Shanet to 
 wait on him, and tak payment when it was quite convenient." 
 
 I explained to Janet my situation, in which she expressed 
 unqualified delight. 1 then proceeded to inquire into her own 
 circumstances, and, though she spoke cheerfully and content- 
 edly, I could see they were precarious. I had paid more than 
 was due ; other lodgers fell into an opposite error, and forgot 
 to pay Janet at all. Then, Janet being ignorant of all indirect 
 modes of screwing money out of her lodgers, others in the 
 same line of life, who were sharper than the poor simple High- 
 land woman, were enabled to let their apartments cheaper in 
 appearance, though the inmates usually found them twice as 
 dear in the long-run. 
 
 As I had already destined my old landlady to be my house- 
 keeper and governante, knowing her honesty, good-nature, and, 
 although a Scotchwoman, her cleanliness and excellent temper 
 (saving the short and hasty expressions of anger which High- 
 landers call a fuff)-, I now proposed the plan to her in such a 
 way as was likely to make it most acceptable. Very acceptable 
 as the proposal was, as I could plainly see, Janet, however, 
 took a day to consider upon it ; and her reflections against our 
 next meeting had suggested only one objection, which was 
 singular enough. 
 
 " My honor," so she now termed me, " would pe for biding 
 in some fine street about the town ; now Shanet wad ill like to 
 live in a place where polish, and sheriffs, and bailiffs, and sic 
 thieves and trash of the world, could tak puir shentlemen by 
 the throat, just because they wanted a wheen dollars in the 
 sporran. She had lived in the bonny glen of Tomanthoulick — ■ 
 Cot, an ony of the vermint had come there, her father wad hae 
 wared a shot on them, and he could hit a buck within as mony 
 measured yards as e'er a man of his clan. And the place here 
 was sae quiet frae them, they durstna put their nose ower the 
 gutter, Shanet owed nobody a bodle, but she couldna pide to 
 see honest folk and pretty shentlemen forced away to prison 
 whether they would or no ; and then if Shanet was to lay her 
 tangs ower ane of the ragamuffins' heads, it would be, maybe, 
 that the law would gie't a hard name." 
 
 One thing I have learned in life, — never to speak sense when 
 nonsense will answer the purpose as well. I should have had 
 great difficulty to convince this practical and disinterested 
 admirer and vindicator of liberty, that arrests seldom or never
 
 4° 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANOAgATE. 
 
 were to be seen in the streets of Edinburgh, and to satisfy hei 
 of their justice and necessity, would have been as difficult as to 
 convert her to the Protestant faith, I therefore assured her my 
 intention, if I could get a suitable habitation, was to remain in 
 the quarter where she at present dwelt. Janet gave three skips 
 on the floor, and uttered as many short shrill yells of joy ; yet 
 doubt almost instantly returned, and she insisted on knowing 
 what possible reason I could have for making my residence 
 where few lived, save those whose misfortunes drove them 
 thither. It occurred to me to answer her by recounting the 
 legend of the rise of my family, and of our deriving our name 
 from a particular place near Holyrood Palace. This, which 
 would have appeared to most people a very absurd reason for 
 choosing a residence, was entirely satisfactory to Janet Mac- 
 Evoy. 
 
 " Och, nae doubt ! if it was the land of her fathers, there 
 was nae mair to be said. Put it was queer that her family 
 estate should just lie at the town tail, and covered with houses, 
 where the King's cows. Cot bless them hide and horn, used to 
 craze upon. It was strange changes." — She mused a little, 
 and then added, " Put it is something better wi' Croftangrv 
 when the changes is frae the field to the habitated place, and 
 not from the place of habitation to the desert ; for Shanet, her 
 nainsell, kent a glen where there were men as weel as there 
 may be in Croftangry, and if there werena altogether sae mony 
 of them, they were as cood men in their tartan as the others 
 in their broadcloth. And there were houses too ; and if they 
 were not biggit with stane and lime, and lofted like the houses 
 at Croftangry, yet they served the purpose of them that lived 
 there ; and mony a braw bonnet, and mony a silken snood, and 
 comely white curch, would come out to gang to kirk or chapel 
 on the Lord's day, and little bairns toddling after ; and now, — 
 Och, Och, Ohellany, Ohonari ! the glen is desolate, and the 
 braw snoods and bonnets are gane, and the Saxon's house 
 stands dull and lonely, like the single bare-breasted rock that 
 the falcon builds on — the falcon that drives the heathbird frae 
 the glen." 
 
 Janet, like many Highlanders was full of imagination ; and, 
 when melancholy themes came upon her, expressed herself 
 almost poetically, owing to the genius of the Celtic language in 
 which she thought, and in which doubtless, she would have 
 spoken, had I understood Gaelic. In two minutes the shade of 
 gloom and regret had passed from her good-humored features, 
 and she was again the little busy prating, important old woman, 
 undisputed owner of one flat of a small tenement in the Abbey
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE ChNONGATE. 4J 
 
 yard, and about to be promoted to be housekeeper to an elderly 
 bachelor gentleman, Chrystal Croftangry, Esq. 
 
 It was not long before Janet's local researches found out 
 exactly the sort of place I wanted, and there we settled. Janet 
 was afraid I would not be satisfied, because it is not exactly 
 part of Croftangry; but I stopped her doubts, by assuring her 
 it had been part and pendicle thereof in my forefathers' time, 
 which passed very well. 
 
 I do not intend to possess any one with an exact knowledge 
 of my lodging ; though, as Bobadil says, " I care not who knows 
 it, since the cabin is convenient." But I may state in general, 
 that it is a house " within itself," or according to a newer 
 phraseology in advertisements, self-contamcd, has a garden of 
 near half-an-acre, and a patch of ground with trees in front. It 
 boasts five rooms, and servants' apartments — looks in front upon 
 the palace, and from behind toward the hill and crags of the 
 King's Park. Fortunately the place had a name, which, with 
 a little improvement, served to countenance the legend which I 
 had imposed on Janet, and would not perhaps have been sorry 
 if I had been able to imposed on myself. It was called Little- 
 croft ; we have dubbed it Little Croftangry, and the men of 
 letters belonging to the Post Office have sanctioned the change, 
 and deliver letters so addressed. Thus I am, to all intents and 
 purposes, Chrystal Croftangry of that Ilk. 
 
 My establishment consists of Janet, an under maid-servant, 
 and a Highland wench for Janet to exercise her Gaelic upon, 
 with a handy lad who can lay the cloth, and take care besides 
 of a pony, on which I find my way to Portobello sands, espe- 
 cially when the cavalry have a drill ; for, like an old fool as I 
 am, I have not altogether become indifferent to the tramp of 
 horses and the flash of weapons, of which, though no profes- 
 sional soldier, it has been my fate to see something in my youth. 
 For wet mornings, I have my book — is it fine weather, I visit, 
 or I wander on the Crags, as the humor dictates. My dinner 
 is indeed solitary, yet not quite sc neither ; for though Andrews 
 waits, Janet, — or, as she is to all the world but her master, 
 and certain old Highland gossips, — Mrs. MacEvoy, attends, 
 bustles about, and desires to see everything is in first-rate order, 
 and to tell me, Cot pless us, the wonderful news of the Palace 
 for the day. When the cloth is removed, and I light my cigar, 
 and being to husband a pint of port or a glass of old whisky 
 and water, it is the rule of the house that Janet takes a chair at 
 some distance, and nods or works her stocking, as she may be 
 disposed ; ready to speak if I am in the talking humor, and 
 sitting quiet as a mouse if I am rather inclined to study a
 
 42 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CAxWONGATE. 
 
 book or the newspaper. At six precisely she makes my tea, 
 and leaves me to drink it ; and then occurs an interval of time 
 which most old bachelors find heavy on their hands. The 
 theatre is a good occasional resource, especially if Will Murray* 
 acts, or a bright star of eminence shines forth ; but it is distant, 
 and so are one or two public societies to which I belong ; be- 
 sides, these evening walks are all incompatible with the elbow- 
 chair feeling, which desires some employment that may divert 
 the mind without fatiguing the body. 
 
 Under the influence of these impressions, I have sometimes 
 thought of this literary undertaking. I must have been the 
 Bonassus himself to have mistaken myself for a genius, yet I 
 have leisure and reflection like my neighbors. I am a borderer 
 also between two generations, and can point out more perhaps 
 than others of those fading traces of antiquity which are daily 
 vanishing ; and I know many a modern instance and many an 
 old tradition, and therefore I ask — 
 
 What ails me, 1 may not, as well as they, 
 
 Rake up some threadbare tales, that mouldering lay 
 
 In chimney corners, wont by Christmas fires 
 
 To read and rock to sleep our ancient sires ? 
 
 No man his threshold better knows than I 
 
 Brute's first arrival and first victory. 
 
 Saint George's sorrel and his cross of blood. 
 
 Arthur's round board and Caledonian wood. 
 
 No shop is so easily set up as an antiquary's. Like those of 
 the lowest order of pawnbrokers, a commodity of rusty iron, 
 a bag or two of hobnails, a few old shoebuckles, cashiered kail- 
 pots, and fire-irons declared incapable of service, are quite 
 sufficient to set him up. If he add a sheaf or two of penny 
 ballads and broadsides, he is a great man — an extensive trader. 
 And then — like the pawnbrokers aforesaid, if the author under- 
 stands a little legerdemain, he ma}', by dint of a little picking 
 and stealing, make the inside of his shop a great deal richer 
 than the out, and be able to show you things which cause those 
 who do not understand the antiquarian trick of clean convey- 
 ance, to wonder how the devil he came by them. 
 
 It may be said that antiquarian articles interest but few 
 customers, and that we may bawl ourselves as rusty as 
 the wares we deal in without any one asking the price of our 
 merchandise. But I do not rest my hopes upon this depart- 
 ment of my labors only. I propose also to have a corresponding 
 shop for Sentiment, and Dialogues, and Disquisition, which 
 
 * [Late manager of the Edinburgh theatre. See Appendix.]
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 43 
 
 may captivate the fancy of those who have no reUsh, as the 
 estabhshed phrase goes, for pure antiquity ; — a sort of green- 
 grocer's stall erected in front of my ironmongery wares, gar- 
 landing the rusty memorials of ancient times, with cresses, 
 cabbages, leeks, and water purpy. 
 
 As I have some idea that I am writing too well to be under- 
 stood, I humble myself to ordinary language, and aver, with 
 becoming modesty, that I do think myself capable of sustaining 
 a publication of a miscellaneous nature, as hke to the Specta- 
 tor or the Guardian, the Mirror or the Lounger, as my poor 
 abilities may be able to accomplish. Not that I have any pur- 
 pose of imitating Johnson, whose general power of learning and 
 expression I do not deny, but many of whose Ramblers are 
 little better than a sort of pageant, where trite and obvious 
 maxims are made to swagger in lofty and mystic language, and 
 get some credit only because they are not easily understood. 
 There are some of the great Moralist's papers which I cannot 
 peruse without thinking on a second-rate masquerade, where 
 the best-known and least-esteemed characters in town march in 
 as heroes, and sultans, and so forth, and, by dint of tawdry 
 dresses, get some consideration until they are found out. It is 
 not, however, prudent to commence with throwing stones, just 
 when I am striking out windows of my own. 
 
 I think even the local situation of Little Croftangry may be 
 considered as favorable to my undertaking. A nobler contrast 
 there can hardly exist than that of the huge city, dark with 
 the smoke of ages, and groaning with the various sounds of 
 active industry or idle revel, and the lofty and craggy hill, silent 
 and solitary as the grave ; one exhibiting the full tide of 
 existence, pressing and precipitating itself forward with the 
 force of an inundation ; the other resembling some time-worn 
 anchorite, whose life passes as silent and unobserved as the 
 slender rill which escapes unheard, and scarce seen, from the 
 fountain of his patron saint. The city resembles the busy 
 temple where the modern Comus and Mammon hold their 
 court, and thousands sacrifice ease, independence, and virtue 
 itself, at their shrine ; the misty and lonely mountain seems as a 
 throne to the majestic but terrible Genius of feudal times, 
 when the same divinities dispensed coronets and domains to 
 those who had heads to devise, and arms to execute, bold 
 enterprises. 
 
 I have, as it were, the two extremities of the moral world at 
 my threshold. From the front door, a few minutes' walk brings 
 me into the heart of a wealthy and populous city ; as many 
 paces from my opposite entrance, place me in a solitude as com-
 
 44 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 plete as Zimmerman could have desired. Surely, with such aids 
 to my imagination, I may write better than if I were in a lodging 
 in the New Town, or a garret in the old. As the Spaniard says, 
 " Viamos — Caracco I " 
 
 I have not chosen to publish periodically, my reason for which 
 was twofold. In the first place, I don't like to be hurried, and 
 have had enough of duns in an early part of my life, to make 
 me reluctant to hear of, or see one, even in the less awful shape 
 of a printer's devil. But, secondly, a periodical paper is not 
 easily extended in circulation beyond the quarter in which it is 
 published. This work, if published in fugitive numbers, would 
 scarce, without a high pressure on the part of the bookseller, 
 be raised above the Netherbow, and never could be expected to 
 ascend to the level of Princes SLreet. Now, I am ambitious 
 that my compositions, though having their origin in this Valley 
 of Holyrood, should not only be extended into those exalted 
 regions I have mentioned, but also that they should cross the 
 Forth, astonish the long town of Kirkcaldy, enchant the skippers 
 and colliers of the East of Fife, venture even into the classic 
 arcades of St. Andrews, and travel as much further to the north 
 as the breath of applause will carry their sails. As for a south- 
 ward direction, it is not to be hoped for in my fondest dreams. 
 I am informed that Scottish literature, like Scottish whisky, will 
 be presently laid under a prohibitory duty. But enough of this. 
 If any reader is dull enough not to comprehend the advantages 
 which, in point of circulation, a compact book has over a collec- 
 tion of fugitive numbers, let him try the range of a gun loaded 
 with hail-shot, against that of the same piece charged with an 
 equal weight of lead consolidated in a single bullet. 
 
 Besides, it was of less consequence that I should have pub- 
 lished periodically, since I did not mean to solicit or accept of 
 the contributions of friends, or the criticisms of those who may 
 be less kindly disposed. Notwithstanding the excellent exam- 
 ples which might be quoted, I will establish no begging-box, 
 either under the name of a lion's head or an ass's. What is good 
 or ill shall be mine own, or the contribution of friends to whom 
 I may have private access. Many of my voluntary assistants 
 might be cleverer than myself, and then I should have a brilliant 
 article appear among my chiller effusions, like a patch of lace on 
 a Scottish cloak of Galashiels gray. Some might be worse, and 
 then I must reject them, to the injury of the feelings of the 
 writer, or else insert them, to make my own darkness yet more 
 opaque and palpable. " Let every herring," says our old-fashion- 
 proverb, " hang by his own head." 
 
 One person, however, I may distinguish, as she is now no
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 45 
 
 more, who, living to the utmost term of human life, honored me 
 with a great share of her friendship, as indeed we were blood re- 
 latives in the Scottish sense — Heaven knows how many degrees 
 removed — and friends in the sense of Old England. I mean the 
 late excellent and regretted Mrs. Bethune Baliol. But as I 
 design this admirable picture of the olden time for a principal 
 character in my work, I will only say here that she knew and 
 approv^ed of my present purpose ; and though she declined to 
 contribute to it while she lived, from a sense of dignified retire- 
 ment, which she thought became her age, sex, and condition in 
 life, she left me some materials for carrying on my proposed 
 work, which I coveted when I heard her detail them in conver- 
 sation, and which now, when I have their substance in her own 
 handwriting, I account far more valuable than anything I have 
 myself to offer. I hope the mentioning her name in conjunction 
 with my own, will give no offence to any of her numerous friends, 
 as it was her own express pleasure that I should employ the 
 manuscripts, which she did me the honor to bequeath me, in 
 the manner in which I have now used them. It must be added, 
 however, that in most cases I have disguised names, and in some 
 have added shading and coloring to bring out the narrative. 
 
 Much of my materials, besides these, arc derived from friends, 
 living or dead. The accuracy of some of these may be doubtful, 
 in which case I shall be happy to receive, from sufficient author- 
 ity, the correction of the errors which must creep into traditional 
 documents. The object of the whole publication is, to throw 
 some light on the manners of Scotland, as they were, and to 
 contrast them occasionally with those of the present day. My 
 own opinions are in favor of our own times, in many respects, 
 but not in so far as affords means for exercising the imagination, 
 or exciting the interest which attaches to other times. I am 
 glad to be a writer or a reader in 1826, but I would be most 
 interested in reading or relating what happened from half-a 
 century to a century before. We have the best of it. Scenes 
 in which our ancestors thought deeply, acted fiercely, and died 
 desperately, are to us tales to divert the tedium of a winter's 
 evening, when we are engaged to no party, or beguile a summer's 
 morning, when it is too scorching to ride or walk. 
 
 Yet I do not mean that my essays and narratives should be 
 limited to Scotland. I pledge myself to no particular line of 
 subjects • but on the contrary, say with Burns, 
 
 Perhaps it may turn out a sang, 
 Perhaps turn out a sermon. 
 
 I have only to add, by way of postscript to these preliminat^'
 
 ^6 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONCATE. 
 
 chapters, that I have had recourse to Moliere's recipe, and read 
 my manuscript over to my old woman, Janet MacEvoy. 
 
 The dignity of being consulted delighted Janet ; and Wilkie, 
 or Allan, would have made a capital sketch of her, as she sat 
 upright in her chair, instead of her ordinary lounging posture, 
 knitting her stocking systematically, as if she meant every twist 
 of her thread, and inclination of the wires, to bear burden to 
 the cadence of my voice. I am afraid, too, that I myself felt 
 more delight than I ought to have done in my own composition, 
 and read a little more oratorically than I should have ventured 
 to do before an auditor, of whose applause I was not secure. 
 And the result did not entirely encourage my plan of censor- 
 ship. Janet did indeed seriously incline to the account of my 
 previous life, and bestowed some Highland maledictions more 
 emphatic than courteous on Christie Steele's reception of a 
 "shentlemans in distress," and of her own mistress's house, too. 
 I omitted, for certain reasons, or greatly abridged, what related 
 to herself. But when I came to treat of my general views in 
 publication, I saw poor Janet was entirely thrown out, though, 
 like a jaded hunter, panting, puffing, and short of wind, she 
 endeavored at least to keep up with the chase. Or rather her 
 perplexity made her look all the while like a deaf person 
 ashamed of his infirmity, who does not understand a word you 
 are saying, yet desires you to believe that he does understand 
 you, and who is extremely jealous that you suspect his incapac- 
 ity. When she saw that some remark was necessary, she re- 
 sembled exactly in her criticism the devotee who pitched on 
 the " sweet word Mesopotamia," as the most edifying note 
 which she could bring away from a sermon. She indeed hast- 
 ened to bestow general praise on what she said was all " very 
 fine ; " but chiefly dwelt on what I had said about Mr. Timmer- 
 man, as she was pleased to call the German philosopher, and 
 supposed he must be of the same descent with the Highland 
 clan of M'Intyre, which signifies Son of the Carpenter. " And 
 a fery honorable name too — Shanet's own mither was a 
 M'Intyre." 
 
 In short, it was plain the latter part of my introduction was 
 altogether lost on poor Janet, and so, to have acted up to Mo- 
 liere's system, I should have canceled the whole, and written 
 it anew. But I do not know how it is ; I retained, I suppose, 
 some tolerable opinion of my own composition, though Janet 
 did not comprehend it, and felt loath to retrench those delilahs 
 of the imagination, as Dryden calls them, the tropes and figures 
 of which are caviar to the multitude. Besides, I hate re-writing, 
 as much as Falstaif did paying back — it is a double labor. So
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 47 
 
 I determined with myself to consult Janet, in future, only on 
 such things as were within the limits of her comprehension, and 
 hazard my arguments and my rhetoric on the public without 
 her imprimatur. I am pretty sure she will " applaud it done." 
 And in such narratives as come within her range of thought 
 and feeling, I shall, as I first intended, take the benefit of her 
 unsophisticated judgment, and attend to it deferentially — that 
 is, when it happens not to be in peculiar opposition to my own; 
 for, after all, I say, with Almanzor — 
 
 Know that I alone am king of me. 
 
 The reader has now my who and my whereabout, the pur- 
 pose of the work, and the circumstances under which it is un- 
 dertaken. He has also a specimen of the author's talents, and 
 may judge for himself, and proceed or send back the volume 
 to the bookseller, as his own taste shall determine. 
 
 CHAPTER SIXTH. 
 
 MR. CROFTANGRY's ACCOUNT OF MRS. BETHUNE BALIOL. 
 The moon, were she earthly, no nobler. 
 
 CORIOLANUS. 
 
 When we set out on the jolly voyage of life, what a brave 
 fleet there is around us, as stretching our fresh canvas to the 
 breeze, all " shipshape and Bristol fashion," pennons flying, 
 music playing, cheering each other as we pass, we are rather 
 amused than alarmed when some awkward comrade goes right 
 ashore for want of pilotage ! — Alas ! when the voyage is well 
 spent, and we look about us, toil-worn mariners, how few of our 
 ancient consorts still remain in sight, and they, how torn and 
 wasted, and, like ourselves struggling to keep as long as pos- 
 sible off the fatal shore, against which we are all finally drifting ! 
 
 I felt this very trite but melancholy truth in all its force the 
 other day, when a packet with a black seal arrived, containing 
 a letter addressed to me by my late excellent friend Mrs. Mar- 
 tha Bethune Baliol, and miarked with the fatal indorsation "To 
 be delivered according to address, after I shall be no more.'' 
 A letter from her executors accompanied the packet, mention- 
 ing that they had found in her will a bequest to me of a paint- 
 ing of some value, which she stated would just fit the space
 
 48 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 above my cupboard, and fifty guineas to buy a ring. And thus 
 1 separated, with all the kindness which we had maintained for 
 many years, from a friend, who, though old enough to have 
 been the companion of my mother, was yet, in gayety of 
 spirits, and admirable sweetness of temper, capable of being 
 agreeable, and even animating society, for those who write 
 themselves in the vaward of youth ; an advantage which I have 
 lost for these fivc-and-thirty years. The contents of the packet 
 I had no difficulty in guessing, and have partly hinted at them 
 in the last chapter. But, to instruct the reader in the partic- 
 ulars, and at the same time to indulge myself with recalling the 
 virtues and agreeable qualities of my late friend, I will give a 
 short sketch of her manners and habits. 
 
 Mrs. Martha Bethune Baliol was a person of quality and 
 fortune, as these are esteemed in Scotland. Her family was 
 ancient, and her connections honorable. She was not fond of 
 specially indicating her exact age, but her juvenile recollec- 
 tions stretched backward till before the eventful year 1745 ; 
 and she remembered the Highland clans being in possession of 
 the Scottish capital, though probably only as an indistinct 
 vision. Her fortune, independent by her father's bequest was 
 rendered opulent by the death of more than one brave brother, 
 who fell successively in the service of their country ; so that 
 the family estates became vested in the only surviving child of 
 the ancient house of Bethune Baliol. My intimacy was formed 
 with the excellent lady after this event, and when she was 
 already something advanced in age. 
 
 She inhabited, when in Edinburgh, where she regularly 
 spent the winter season, one of those old hotels, which, till of 
 late, w-ere to be found in the neighborhood of the Canongate, 
 and of the Palace of Holyrood House, and which, separated 
 from the street, now dirty and vulgar, by paved courts, and 
 gardens of some extent, made amends for an indifferent access 
 by showing something of aristocratic state and seclusion, when 
 you were once admitted within their precincts. They have 
 pulled her house down ; for, indeed, betwixt .building and burn- 
 ing, every ancient monument of the Scottish capital is now 
 likely to be utterly demolished. I pause on the recollections 
 of the place, however; and since nature has denied a pencil 
 when she placed a pen in my hand, I will endeavor to make 
 words answer the purpose of delineation. 
 
 Baliol's Lodging, so was the mansion named, reared its high 
 Stack of chimneys, among which were seen a turret or two, and 
 one of those small projecting ]~il:Uforins, called bartizans, above 
 the mean and modern buildings which line the south side of
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 49 
 
 the Canongate, toward the lower end of that street, and not 
 distant from the Palace, h. parte cochhr, having a wicket for 
 foot-passengers, was upon due occasion, unfolded by a lame old 
 man, tall, grave, and thin, who tenanted a hovel beside the 
 gate, and acted as porter. To this office he had been promoted 
 by my friend's charitable feelings for an old soldier, and partly 
 by an idea, that his head, which was a very fine one, bore some 
 resemblance to that of Garrick in the character of Lusignan. 
 He was a man saturnine, silent, and slow in his proceedings, 
 and would never open \.h.e. parte cockere to a hackney coach ; 
 indicating the wicket with his finger, as the proper passage for 
 all who came in that obscure vehicle, which was not permitted 
 to degrade with its ticketed presence the dignity of Baliol's 
 Lodging. I do not think this peculiarity would have met 
 with his lady's approbation, any more than the occasional 
 partiality of Lusignan, or, as mortals called him, Archy 
 Macready, to a dram. But Mrs. Martha Bethune Baliol, 
 conscious that, in case of conviction, she could never have 
 prevailed upon herself to dethrone the King of Palestine from 
 the stone bench on which he sat for hours knitting his stocking, 
 refused, by accrediting the intelligence, even to put him upon 
 his trial ; well judging that he would observe more wholesome 
 caution if he conceived his character unsuspected, than if he 
 were detected, and suffered to pass unpunished. For after all 
 she said, it would be cruel to dismiss an old Highland soldiei 
 for a peccadillo so appropriate to his country and profession. 
 
 The stately gate for carriages, or the humble accommodation 
 for foot-passengers, admitted into a narrow and short passage, 
 running between two rows of lime-trees, whose green foliage 
 during the spring, contrasted strangely with the swart com- 
 plexion of the two walls by the side of which they grew. This 
 access led to the front of the house, which was formed by two 
 gable ends, notched, and having their windows adorned with 
 heavy architectural ornaments ; they joined each other at right 
 angles ; and a half circular tower, which contained the entrance 
 and the staircase, occupied the point of junction, and rounded 
 the acute angle. One of other two sides of the little court, in 
 which there was just sufficient room to turn a carriage, was 
 occupied by some low buildings answering the purpose of 
 offices ; the other, by a parapet surrounded by a highly-orna- 
 mented iron railing, twined round with honeysuckle and other 
 parasitical shrubs, which permitted the eye to peep into a pretty 
 suburban garden, extending down to the road called the South 
 Back of the Canongate, and boasting a number of old trees, 
 many flowers, and even some fruit. We must not forget t*
 
 50 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 State, that the extreme cleanliness of the courtyard was such 
 as intimated that mop and pail had done their utmost in that 
 favored spot, to atone for the general dirt and dinginess of the 
 quarter where the premises were situated. 
 
 Over the doorway were the arms of Bethune and Baliol, with 
 various other devices carved in stone ; the door itself was 
 studded with iron nails, and formed of black oak ; an iron 
 rasp,* as it was called, was placed on it, instead of a knocker, 
 for the purpose of summoning the attendants. He who usually 
 appeared at the summons was a smart lad, in a handsome 
 livery, the son of Mrs. Martha's gardener at Mount Baliol. 
 Now and then a servant girl, nicely but plainly dressed, and 
 fully accoutred with stockings and shoes, would perform this 
 duty ; and twice or thrice I remember being admitted by 
 Beauffet himself, whose exterior looked as much like that of a 
 clergyman of rank as the butler of a gentleman's family. He 
 had been valet-de-chambre to the last Sir Richard Bethune 
 Baliol, and was a person highly trusted by the present lady. A 
 full stand, as it is called in Scotland, of garments of a dark 
 color, gold buckles in his shoes, and at the knees of his 
 breeches, with his hair regularly dressed and powdered, an- 
 nounced him to be a domestic of trust and importance. His 
 mistress used to say of him, 
 
 He's sad and civil, 
 And suits well for a servant with my fortunes. 
 
 As no one can escape scandal, some said that Beauffet made 
 a rather better thing of the place than the modesty of his old- 
 fashioned wages would, unassisted, have amounted to. But the 
 man was always very civil to me. He had been long in the 
 family ; had enjoyed legacies, and laid by a something of his 
 own, upon which he now enjoys ease with dignity, in as far as 
 his newly-married wife, Tibbie Shortacrcs, will permit him. 
 
 The Lodging — Dearest reader, if you are tired, pray pass 
 over the next four or five pages — was not by any means so 
 large as its external appearance led people to conjecture. The 
 interior accommodation was much cut up by cross walls and 
 long passages, and that neglect of economizing space which 
 characterizes old Scottish architecture. But there was far more 
 room than my old friend required, even when she had, as was 
 often the case, four or five young cousins under her protection ; 
 and I believe much of the house was unoccupied. Mrs. Bethune 
 Baliol never, in my presence, showed herself so much offended, 
 
 * Note C. Iron rasp.
 
 CHRONICLES OF TffE CANOXGATE. 
 
 s» 
 
 as once with a meddUng person who advised her to have the 
 windows of these supernumerary apartments built up, to save 
 the tax. She said in ire, that, while she lived, the light of God 
 should visit the house of her fathers ; and while she had a penny, 
 king and country should have their due. Indeed, she was 
 punctiliously loyal, even in that most staggering test of loyalty, 
 the payment of imports. Mr. Beauffet told me he was ordered 
 to offer a glass of wine to the person who collected the income- 
 tax, and that the poor man was so overcome by a reception 
 so unwontedly generous, that he had well-nigh fainted on the 
 spot. 
 
 You entered by a matted anteroom into the eating parlor, 
 filled with old-fashioned furniture, and hung with family por- 
 traits, which, excepting one of Sir Bernard Bethune, in James 
 the Sixth's time, said to be by Jameson, were exceedingly 
 frightful. A saloon, as it was called, a long narrow chamber, 
 led out of the dining parlor, and served for a drawing-room. 
 It was a pleasant apartment, looking out upon the south flank 
 of Holyrood House, the gigantic slope of Arthur Seat, and the 
 girdle of lofty rocks called Salisbury Crags ;* objects so rudely 
 wild that the mind can hardly conceive them to exist in the 
 vicinage of a populous metropolis. The paintings of the saloon 
 came from abroad, and had some of them much merit. To 
 see the best of them, however, you must be admitted into the 
 very penetralia of the temple, and allowed to draw the tapestry 
 at the upper end of the saloon, and enter Mrs. Martha's own 
 special dressing-room. This was a charming apartment, of 
 which it would be difficult to describe the form, it had so many 
 recesses, which were filled up with shelves of ebony, and cabi- 
 nets of japan and ^r ;//(?/?/ ; some for holding books, of which 
 Mrs. Martha had an admirable collection, some for a display 
 of ornamental china, others for shells and similar curiosities. 
 In a little niche, half screened by a curtain of crimson silk, was 
 disposed a suit of tilting armor of bright steel, inlaid with silver, 
 which had been worn on some memorable occasion by Sir 
 Bernard Bethune, already mentioned ; while over the canopy 
 Df the niche hung the broadsword with which her father had 
 attempted to change the fortunes of Britain in 17 15, and the 
 spontoon which her elder brother bore when he was leading on 
 a company of the Black Watch f at Fontenoy. 
 
 * The Rev. Mr. Bowles derives the name of these crags, as of the EpJs* 
 copal city in the west of England, from the same root ; both, in his opinion, 
 which he very ably defends and illustrates, having been the sites of druid- 
 ical temples. 
 
 t The well-known original designation of the gallant 42d Regiment.
 
 52 
 
 CHROXICLES OF THE CANOA'GATE. 
 
 There were some Italian and Flemish pictures of admitted 
 authenticity, a few genuine bronzes and other objects of curios- 
 ity, which her brothers or herself had picked up while abroad. 
 In short, it was a place where the idle were tempted to become 
 studious, the studious to grow idle — where the grave might find 
 matter to make them gay, and the gay subjects for gravity. 
 
 That it might maintain some title to its name, I must not 
 forget to say, that the lady's dressing-room exhibited a superb 
 mirror, framed in silver filigree work ; a beautiful toilet, the 
 cover of which was of Flanders lace ; and a set of boxes 
 corresponding in materials and work to the frame of the mir- 
 ror. 
 
 This dressing apparatus, however, was mere matter of parade: 
 Mrs. Martha Bethune Baliol always went through the actual 
 duties of the toilet in an inner apartment, which corresponded 
 with her sleeping room by a small detached staircase. There 
 were, I believe, more than one of those turnpike stairs, as they 
 were called, about the house, by which the public rooms, all of 
 which entered from each other, were accommodated with sepa- 
 rate and independent modes of access. In the little boudoir 
 we have described, Mrs. Martha Baliol had her choicest meet- 
 ings. She kept early hours ; and if )'ou went in the morning, 
 you must not reckon that space of day as extending beyond 
 three o'clock, or four at the utmost. These vigilant habits 
 were attended with some restraint on her visitors, but they 
 were indemnified by your always finding the best society, and 
 the best information, which was to be had for the day in the 
 Scottish capital. Without at all affecting the blue stocking, 
 she liked books — they amused her — and if the authors were 
 persons of character, she thought she owed them a debt of 
 civility, which she loved to discharge by personal kindness. 
 When she gave a dinner to a small party, which she did now 
 and then, she had the good nature to look for, and the good 
 luck to discover, what sort of people suited each other best, 
 and chose her company as Duke Theseus did his hounds, 
 
 matched in mouth like bells, 
 
 Each under each,* 
 
 SO that every guest could take his part in the cry ; instead of 
 one mighty Tom of a fellow, like Dr. Johnson, silencing all 
 
 Being the first corps raised for the roval service in the Highlands, and al- 
 lowed to retain their national garb, thev were thus named from the con- 
 trast which their dark tartans furnished to the scarlet and white of the 
 Other regiments. 
 
 * 3hakspearc's Midsummer Ni^hi's Dream. Act IV. Sc, I,
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 53 
 
 besides, by the tremendous depth of his diapason. On such 
 occasions she 2&o\^^^ chere exquise ; ?LnA every now and then 
 there was some dish of French, or even Scottish derivation, 
 which, as well as the numerous assortment oivins extraordinaire^ 
 produced by Mr. Beauffet, gave a sort of antique and foreign air 
 to the entertainment, which rendered it more interesting. 
 
 It was a great thing to be asked to such parties ; and not 
 less so to be invited to the early eonversazione, which, in spite 
 of fashion, by dint of the best coffee, the finest tea, and chasse 
 cqf/ thzt would have called the dead to life, she contrived now 
 and then to assemble in her saloon already mentioned at the 
 unnatural hour of eight in the evening. At such times, the 
 cheerful old lady seemed to enjoy herself so much in the happi- 
 ness of her guests, that they exerted themselves, in turn, to 
 prolong her amusement and their own ; and a certain charm 
 was excited around, seldom to be met with in parties of 
 pleasure, and which was founded on the general desire of 
 every one present to contribute something to the common 
 amusement. 
 
 But, although it was a great privilege to be admitted to wait 
 on my excellent friend in the morning, or be invited to her 
 dinner or evening parties, I prized still higher the right which I 
 had acquired, by old acquaintance, of visiting Baliol's Lodging, 
 upon the chance of finding its venerable inhabitant preparing 
 for tea, just about six o'clock in the evening. It was only to 
 two or three old friends that she permitted this freedom, nor was 
 this sort of chance party ever allowed to extend itself beyond 
 five in number. The answer to those who came later, announced 
 that the company was filled up for the evening ; which had the 
 double effect, of making those who waited on Mrs. Bethune 
 Baliol in this unceremonious manner punctual in observing her 
 hour, and of adding the zest of a little difficulty to the enjoy- 
 ment of the party. 
 
 It more frequently happened that only one or two persons 
 partook of this refreshment on the same evening ; or, supposing 
 the case of a single gentleman, Mrs. Martha, though she did 
 not hesitate to admit him to her boudoir, after the privilege of 
 the French and the old Scottish school, took care, as she used 
 to say, to preserve all possible propriety, by commanding the 
 attendance of her principal female attendant, Mrs. Alice 
 Lambskin, who might, from the gravity and dignity of her 
 appearance, have sufficed to matronize a whole boarding school, 
 instead of one maiden lady of eighty and upward. As the 
 weather permitted, Mrs. Alice sat duly remote from the com- 
 pany in a./aufeui/ behind the projecting chimney-piece, or in
 
 54 
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CAXONGATR. 
 
 the embrasure of a window, and prosecuted in Carthusian 
 silence, with indefatigable zeal, a piece of embroider}', which 
 seemed no bad emblem of eternity. 
 
 But 1 have neglected all this while to introduce my friend 
 herself to the reader, at least so far as words can convey the 
 peculiarities by which her appearance and conversation were dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 A little woman, with ordinary features, and an ordinary form, 
 and hair, which in youth had no decided color, we may believe 
 Mrs. jNIartha, when she said of herself that she was never remark- 
 able for personal charms ; a modest admission, which was readily 
 confirmed by certain old ladies, her contemporaries, who, what- 
 ever might have been the useful advantages which they more 
 than hinted had been formerly their own share, were now in 
 personal appearance, as well as in everything else, far inferior to 
 my accomplished friend. Mrs. Martha's features had been of a 
 kind which might be said to wear well ; their irregularity was 
 now of little consequence, animated as they were by the vivacity 
 of her conversation ; her teeth were excellent, and her eyes, al- 
 though inclining to gray, were lively, laughing, and undimmed 
 by time. A slight shade of complexion, more brilliant than her 
 years promised, subjected my friend, amongst strangers, to the 
 suspicion of having stretched her foreign habits as far as the 
 prudent touch of the rouge. But it was a calumny ; for when 
 telling or listening to an interesting and affecting story, I have 
 seen her color come and go as if it played on the cheek of 
 eighteen. 
 
 Her hair, whatever its former deficiencies, was now the most 
 beautiful white that time could bleach, and was disposed with 
 some degree of pretension, though in the simplest manner pos- 
 sible, so as to appear neatly smootlied under a cap of Flanders 
 lace, of an old-fashioned, but, as I thought, of a very handsome 
 form, which undoubtedly has a name, and I would endeavor to 
 recur to it, if I thought it would make my description a bit more 
 intelligible. I think I have heard her say these favorite caps 
 had been her mother's, and had come in fashion with a peculiar 
 kind of wig used by the gentleman about the time of the battle 
 of Raniillies. The rest of her dress was always rather costly 
 and distinguished, especially in the evening. A silk or satin 
 gown, of some color becoming her age, and of a form which, 
 though complying to a certain degree with the present fashion, 
 had alvvavs a reference to some more distant period, was gar- 
 nished with triple ruffles; her shoes had diamond buckles, and 
 were raised a little at heel, an advantage which, possessed in 
 her youth, she alleged her size would not permit her to forego
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 55 
 
 in her old age. .S'c always wore rings, bracelets, and other 
 ornaments of value, either for the materials or the workman- 
 ship ; nay, perhai^s she was a little profuse in this species of 
 display. But she wore them as subordinate matters, to which 
 the habit of being constantly in high life rendered her indiffer- 
 ent. She wore them because her rank required it ; and thought 
 no more of them as articles of finery, than a gentleman dressed 
 for dinner thinks of his clean linen and well-brushed coat, 
 the consciousness of which embarrasses the rustic beau on a 
 Sunday. 
 
 Now and then, however, if a gem or ornament chanced to 
 be noticed for its beauty or singularity, the observation usually 
 led the way to an entertaining account of the manner i.i which 
 it had been acquired, or the person from whom it had de- 
 scended to its present possessor. On such and similar occa- 
 sions my old friend spoke willingly, which is not uncommon ; 
 but she also, which is more rare, spoke remarkably well, and 
 had in her little narratives concerning foreign parts, or former 
 days, which formed an interesting part of her conversation, the 
 singular art of dismissing all the usual protracted tautology re- 
 specting time, place, and circumstances, which is apt to settle 
 like a mist upon the cold and languid tales of age, and at the 
 same time of bringing forward, dwelling upon, and illustrating, 
 those incidents and characters which give point and interest to 
 the story. 
 
 She had, as we have hinted, traveled a good deal in foreign 
 countries : for a brother, to whom she was much attached, had 
 been sent upon various missions of national importance to the 
 Continent, and she had more than once embraced the oppor- 
 tunity of accompanying hJm. This furnished a great addition 
 to the information which she could supply, especially during 
 the last war, when the Continent was for so many years her- 
 metically sealed against the English nation. But, besides, Mrs. 
 Bethune Baliol visited distant countries, not in the modern 
 fashion, when English people travel in carav-ans together, and 
 see in France and Italy little besides the same society which 
 they might have enjoyed at home. On the contrary, she min- 
 gled, when abroad, with the natives of those countries she 
 visited, and enjoyed at once the advantage of their society, and 
 the pleasure of comparing it with that of Britain. 
 
 In the course of her becoming habituated with foreign man- 
 ners, Mrs. Bethune Baliol had, perhaps, acquired some slight 
 tincture of them herself. Yet I was always persuaded, that the 
 peculiar vivacity of look and manner — tlie pointed and appro- 
 priate action — with which she accompanied what she said — the
 
 1^6 CHRONICLES OF THE CAA'ONGATE. 
 
 use of the gold and gemmed tahatiere, or rather I should say 
 bonbofuticre (for she took no snufif, and the little box contained 
 only a few pieces of candied angelica, or some such lady-like 
 sweetmeat), were of real old-fashioned Scottish growth, and such 
 as might have graced the tea-table of Susannah, Countess of Eg- 
 linton,* the patroness of Allan Ramsay, or of the Hon. Mrs. 
 Colonel Ogilvy, who was another mirror by whom the maidens 
 of Auld Reekie were required to dress themselves. Although 
 well acquainted with the customs of other countries, her man- 
 ners had been chiefly formed in her own, at a time when great 
 folk lived within little space, and when the distinguished name 
 of the highest society gave to Edinburgh the c'clat^ which we 
 now endeavor to derive from the unbounded expense and ex- 
 tended circle of our pleasures. 
 
 I was more confirmed in this opinion, by the peculiarity of 
 the dialect which Mrs. Baliol used. It was Scottish, decidedly 
 Scottish, often containing phrases and words little used in the 
 present day. But then her tone and mode of pronunciation were 
 as different from the usual accent of the ordinary Scotch /r/Zt'/j, 
 as the accent of St. James's is from that of Billingsgate. The 
 vowels were not pronounced much broader than in the Italian 
 I'.anguage, and there was none of the disagreeable drawl which 
 is so offensive to southern ears. In short it seemed to be the 
 Scottish as spoken by the ancient court of Scotland, to which 
 no idea of vulgarity could be attached ; and the lively manner 
 and gestures with which it was accompanied, were so completely 
 in accord with the sound of the voice and the style of talking, 
 that I cannot assign them a different origin. In long derivation, 
 perhaps, the manners of the Scottish court might have been or- 
 iginally formed on that of France, to which it had certainly some 
 affinity ; but I will live and die in the belief that those of Mrs. 
 Baliol, as pleasing as they were peculiar, came to her by direct 
 descent from the high dames who anciently adorned with their 
 presence the royal halls of Holyrood. 
 
 * Susannah Kennedy, daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy of Colyeen, 
 Bart., by Elizabeth Lesly, daughter of David Lord Newark, third wife c\ 
 Alexander 9th Karl of Eglinton, and mother of the loth and nth Earls. 
 She survived her husband, who died 1729, no less than fifty-seven years, 
 and died March 1780, in her 91st year. Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd, 
 published 1726, is dedicated to her, in verse, by Hamilton of Bangour. 
 
 An interesting account of this distinguished lady will be found in Bo» 
 well's Life of Johnson by Mr. Croker.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 57 
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTH. 
 
 MRS. BALIOL ASSISTS CROFTANGRY IN HIS LITERARY 
 
 SPECULATIONS. 
 
 Such as I have described Mrs. Bethune Baliol, the reader 
 will easily believe that when I thought of the miscellaneous 
 nature of my work, I rested upon the information she possessed, 
 and her communicative disposition, as one of the principal sup- 
 ports of my enterprise. Indeed, she by no means disapproved 
 of my proposed publication, though expressing herself very 
 doubtful how far she could personally assist it — a doubt which 
 might be perhaps set down to a little lady-like coquetry, which 
 required to be sued for the boon she was not unwilling to grant. 
 Or, perhaps, the good old lady, conscious that her unusual term 
 of years must soon draw to a close, preferred bequeathing the 
 materials in the shape of a legacy, to subjecting them to the 
 judgment of a critical public during her lifetime. 
 
 Many a time I used, in our conversations of the Canongate, 
 to resume my request of assistance, from a sense that my friend 
 was the most valuable depositary of Scottish traditions that 
 was probably now to be found. This was a subject on which 
 my mind was so much made up, that when I heard her carry 
 her description of manners so far back beyond her own time, 
 and describe how Fletcher of Salton spoke, how Graham of 
 Claverhouse danced, what were the jewels worn by the famous 
 Duchess of Lauderdale, and how she came by them, I could 
 not help telling her I thought her some fairy, who cheated us 
 by retaining the appearance of a mortal of our own day, when, 
 in fact, she had witnessed the revolutions of centuries. She 
 was much diverted when I required her to take some solemn 
 oath that she had not danced at the balls given by Mary of 
 Este, when her unhappy husband * occupied Holyrood in a 
 species of honorable banishment ; — or asked, whether she could 
 not recollect Charles the Second, when he came to Scotland in 
 1650, and did not possess somt slight recollections of the bold 
 usurper who drove him beyond the Forth. 
 
 * The Duke of York, afterward James II., frequently resided in Holy- 
 rood House, when his religion rendered him an object of suspicion to the 
 English Parliament.
 
 5$ CimOAVCLES OF THE CANOHGATB. 
 
 ^^Beau cousi?i,'' she said, laughing, " none of these do 1 
 remember personally ; but you must know there has been 
 wonderfully little change on my natural temper from youth to 
 age. From which it follows, cousin, that being even now some 
 thing too young in spirit for the years which Time has marked 
 me in his calendar, I was, when a girl, a little too old for those 
 of my own standing, and as much inclined at that period to 
 keep the society of elder persons, as I am now disposed to 
 admit the company of gay young fellows of fifty or sixty like 
 yourself, rather than collect about me all the octogenarians. 
 Now, although I do not actually come from Elfland, and there- 
 fore cannot boast any personal knowledge of the great person- 
 ages you inquire about, yet I have seen and heard those who 
 knew them well, and who have given me as distinct an account 
 of them as I could give you myself of the Empress Queen, or 
 Frederic of Prussia ; and I will frankly add," said she, laugh- 
 ing and offering her /'(w/^w/z/wr, " that ///<?7r heard so much 
 of the years which immediately succeeded the Revolution, that 
 I sometimes am apt to confuse the vivid descriptions fixed on 
 my memory by the frequent and animated recitation of others, 
 for things which I myself have actually witnessed. I caught 
 
 myself but yesterday describing to Lord M the riding ot 
 
 the last Scottish Parliament, with as much minuteness as if I 
 had seen it, as ray mother did, from the balcony in front of 
 Lord Moray's Lodging in the Canongate." 
 
 " I am sure you must have given Lord M a high treat." 
 
 " I treated him with a hearty laugh, I believe," she replied ; 
 "but it is you, you vile seducer of youth, who lead me into such 
 follies. But I will be on my guard against my own weakness. 
 I do not well know if the wandering Jew is supposed to have a 
 wife, but I should be sorry a decent middle-aged Scottish 
 gentlewoman should be suspected of identity with such a super- 
 natural person." 
 
 " For all that, I must torture you a little more, fna belle 
 cousine, with my interrogatories ; for how shall I ever turn 
 author unless on the strength of the information w'hich you 
 have so often procured me on the ancient state of manners .-• " 
 
 " Stay, I cannot allow you to give your points of inquiry a 
 name so very venerable, if I am expected to answer them. 
 Ancient is a term for antediluvians. You may catechize me 
 about the battle of Flodden, or ask particulars about Bruce and 
 Wallace, under pretext of curiosity after ancient manners ; and 
 that last subject would wake my Baliol blood, you know." 
 
 Well. but. Mrs. Baliol, suppose we settle our era: — you do
 
 cnnomcLES of the canon-gate. 
 
 5^ 
 
 not call the accession of James the Sixth to the kingdom of 
 Britain very ancient ? " 
 
 " Umph ! no cousin — I think I could tell you more of that 
 than folk no\v-a-days remember, — for instance, that as James 
 was trooping toward England, bag and baggage, his journey 
 was stopped near Cockenzie by meeting the funeral of the Earl 
 of Winton, the old and faithful servant and follower of his ill- 
 fated mother, poor Mary. It was an ill omen for the infafe 
 and so was seen of it, cousin." * 
 
 I did not choose to prosecute this subject, well knowing 
 Mrs. Bethune Baliol did not like to be much pressed on the 
 subject of the Stuarts, whose misfortunes she pitied, the rather 
 that her father had espoused their cause. And yet her attach- 
 ment to the present dynasty being very sincere, and even 
 ardent, more especially as her family had served his late 
 Majesty both in peace and war, she experienced a little embar- 
 rassment in reconciling her opinions respecting the exiled 
 family, with those she entertained for the present. In fact, like 
 many an old Jacobite, she was contented to be somewhat in- 
 consistent on the subject, comforting herself, that now every- 
 thing stood as it ought to do, and that there was no use in 
 looking back narrowly on the right or wrong of the matter half- 
 a-century ago. 
 
 "The Highlands," I suggested, "should furnish you with 
 ample subjects of recollection. You have witnessed the com- 
 plete change of that primeval country, and have seen a race 
 not far removed from the earliest period of society, melted 
 down into the great mass of civilization ; and that could not 
 happen without incidents striking in themselves, and curious as 
 chapters in the history of the human race." 
 
 " It is very true," said Mrs. Baliol ; " one would think it 
 should have struck the observers greatly, and yet it scarcely 
 did so. For me, I was no Highlander myself, and the High- 
 land chiefs of old, of whom I certainly knew several, had little 
 in their manners to distinguish them from the Lowland gentry, 
 when they mixed in society in Edinburgh, and assumed the 
 Lowland dress. Their peculiar character was for the clansmeri 
 at home ; and you must not imagine that they swaggered about 
 in plaids and broadswords at the Cross, or came to the Assemr 
 bly Rooms in bonnets and kilts." 
 
 " I remember," said I, " that Swift, in his journal, tells 
 Stella he had dined in the house of a Scots nobleman, with two 
 
 ♦ Note D. Earl of Winton.
 
 6o CHROmCLES OF THE CAKONGATE. 
 
 Highland chiefs, whom he had found as well-bred men as he 
 had ever met with."* 
 
 "Very likely," said my friend. "The extremes of society 
 approach much more closely to each other than perhaps the 
 Dean of Saint Patrick's expected. The savage is always to a 
 certain degree polite. Besides, going always armed, and hav- 
 ing a very punctilious idea of their own gentility and conse- 
 quence, they usually behaved to each other and to the Low- 
 landers, with a good deal of formal politeness, which some- 
 times even procured them the character of insincerity." 
 
 " Falsehood belongs to an early period of society, as well as 
 the differential forms which we style politeness," I replied. 
 "A child does not see the least moral beauty in truth, until he 
 has been flogged half-a-dozen times. It is so easy, and appa- 
 rently so natural, to deny what you cannot be easily convicted 
 of, that a savage as w-ell as a child lies to excuse himself, 
 almost as instinctively as he raises his hand to protect his 
 head. The old saying, ' confess and be hanged,' carries much 
 argument in it. I observed a remark the other day in old 
 Birrell. He mentions that M'Gregor of Glenstrae and some of 
 his people had surrendered themselves to one of the Earls of 
 Argyle, upon the express condition that they should be conve}ed 
 safe into England. The MacAllum More of the day kept the 
 word of promise, but it was only to the ear. He indeed sent 
 his captives to Berwick, where they had an airing on the other 
 side of the Tweed, but it was under the custody of a strong 
 guard, by whom they were brought back to Edinburgh, and 
 delivered to the executioner. This, Birrell calls keeping a 
 Highlandman's promise." f 
 
 "Well," replied Mrs. Baliol, "I might add, that many of the 
 Highland chiefs whom I know in former days had been brought 
 up in France, which might improve their politeness, though 
 perhaps it did not amend their sincerity. But considering, that, 
 belonging to the depressed and defeated faction in the state, 
 they were compelled sometimes to use dissimulation, you must 
 set their uniform fidelity to their friends against their occasional 
 falsehood to their enemies, and then you will not judge poor 
 John Highlandman too severely. They were in a state of 
 society where bright lights are stronglv contrasted with deep 
 shadows." 
 
 " It is to that Doint I would bring you, via belle cousine, — 
 
 •Extract of Journal to Stella. — "I dined to-day (12th March 
 1712) with Lord Treasurer and two gentlemen of the Highlands of Scotland, 
 yet very polite men." — Swift's IVorks, vol. iii. p. 7. Edin. 1824. 
 
 t Note E. M'Gregor of Glenstrae.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 6l 
 
 and therefore they are most proper subjects for composi- 
 tion." 
 
 " And you want to turn composer, my good friend, and set 
 my old tales to some popular tune ? But there have been too 
 many composers, if that be the word, in the field before. The 
 Highlands ivere indeed a rich mine ; but they have, I think, 
 been fairly wrought out, as a good tune is grinded into vul- 
 garity when it descends to the hurdy-gurdy and the barrel- 
 organ." 
 
 " If it be really tune," I replied, " it will recover its better 
 qualities when it gets into the hands of better artists." 
 
 " Umph ! " said Mrs. Baliol, tapping her box, " we are happy 
 in our own good opinion this evening, ]\Ir. Croftangry. And 
 so you think you can restore the gloss to the tartan, which it 
 has lost by being dragged through so many fingers ? " 
 
 " With your assistance to procure materials, my dear lady, 
 much, I think, may be done," 
 
 *' Well — -I must do my best, I suppose ; though all I know 
 about the Gael is but of little consequence — indeed, I gathered 
 it chiefly from Donald MacLeish." 
 
 " And who might Donald MacLeish be ? " 
 
 " Neither bard nor sennachie, I assure you ; nor monk, nor 
 hermit, the approved authorities for old traditions. Donald 
 was as good a postilion as ever drove a chaise and pair between 
 Glencroe and Inverary. I assure you, when I give you my 
 Highland anecdotes, you will hear much of Donald MacLeish. 
 He was Alice Lambskin's beau and mine through a long High- 
 land tour." 
 
 " But when am I to possess these anecdotes ? — You answer 
 me as Harley did poor Prior — 
 
 Let tliat l)e done which Mat doth say. 
 * Yea,' quoth the Earl, ' but not to-day.' " 
 
 " Well, mon beau cousin, if you begin to remind me of my 
 cruelty, I must remind you it has struck nine on the Abbey 
 clock, and it is time you were going home to Little Croft, 
 angry. — For my ]')romise to assist your antiquarian researches, 
 be assured, I will one day keep it to the utmost extent. It 
 shall not be a Highlandman's promise, as your old citizen calls 
 it." 
 
 I, by this time, suspected the purpose of my friend's procras- 
 tination ; and it saddened my heart to reflect that I was not to 
 get the information which I desired, excepting in the shape of 
 a legacy. I found, accordingly, in the packet transmitted to
 
 62 CHRONICLES OF THE CAXOXGA TE. 
 
 me after the excellent lady's death, several anecdotes respect- 
 ing the Highlands, from which I have selected that which 
 follows, chiefly on account of its possessing great power over the 
 feelings of my critical housekeeper, Janet MacEvoy, who wept 
 most bitterly when I read it to her. 
 
 It is, however, but a very simple tale, and may have no 
 interest for persons beyond Janet's rank of life or understand- 
 ing.
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 It wound as near as near could be, 
 
 But what it is she cannot tell ; 
 
 On the other side it seem'd to be, 
 
 Of the huge broad-breasted old oak- tree. 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 Mrs. Bethune Baliol's Memorandum begins thus : — 
 
 It is five-and-thirty, or perhaps nearer forty years ago, since, 
 to relieve the dejection of spirits occasioned by a great family 
 loss sustained two or three months before, I vindertook what 
 was called the short Highland tour. This had become in seme 
 degree fashionable ; but though the military roads were excel- 
 lent, yet the accommodation was so indifferent, that it was reck- 
 oned a little adventure to accomplish it. Tesides, the High- 
 lands, though now as peaceable as any part of King George's 
 dominions, was a sound which still carried terror, while so 
 many survived who had witnessed the insurrection of 1745 ; 
 and a vague idea of fear was impressed on many, as they looked 
 from the towers of Stirling northward to the huge chain of 
 mountains, which rises like a dusky rampart to conceal in its 
 recesses a people, whose dress, manners, and language, diffeied 
 still very much from those of their Lowland countrymen. For 
 my part, I come of a race not greatly subject to apprehensions 
 arising from imagination only. I had some Highland relatives, 
 knew several of their families of distinction ; and, though only 
 having the company of my bower-maiden, Mrs. Alice Lambskin, 
 I went on my journey fearless. 
 
 But then I had a guide and cicerone, almost equal to Great- 
 heart in the Pilgrim's Progress, in no less a person than Donald 
 MacLeish, the postilion whom I hired at Stirling, with a paii
 
 64 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 of able-bodied horses, as steady as Donald himself, to drag my 
 carriage, my duenna, and myself, wheresoever it was my pleas- 
 ure to go. 
 
 Donald MacLeish was one of a race of post-boys, whom, I 
 suppose, mail-coaches and steamboats have put out of fashion. 
 They were to be found chiefly at Perth, Stirling, or Glasgow, 
 where they and their horses were usually hired by travelers, 
 or tourists, to accomplish such journeys of business or pleasure 
 as they might have to perform in the land of the Gael. This 
 class of persons approached to the character of what is called 
 abroad a condiicteur ; or might be compared to the sailing-master 
 on board a British ship of war, who follows out after his own 
 manner the course which the captain commands him to observe. 
 You explained to your postilion the length of your tour, and 
 the objects you were desirous it should embrace ; and you found 
 him perfectly competent to fix the places of rest or refreshment, 
 with due attention that those should be chosen with reference 
 to your convenience, and to any points of interest which you 
 might desire to visit. 
 
 The qualifications of such a person were necessarily much 
 superior to those of the "first ready," who gallops thrice a-day 
 over the same ten miles. Donald MacLeish, besides being quite 
 alert at repairing all ordinary accidents to his horse and carriage, 
 and in making shift to support them, where forage was scarce, 
 with such substitutes as bannocks and cakes, was likewise a 
 man of intellectual resources. He had acquired a general 
 knowledge of the traditional stories of the country which he 
 had traversed so often; and, if encouraged (for Donald was a 
 man of the most decorous reserve), he would willingly point 
 out to you the site of the principal clan-battles, and recount the 
 most remarkable legends by which the road, and the objects 
 which occurred in traveling it, had been distinguished. There 
 was some originality in the man's habits of thinking and express 
 ing himself, his turn for legendary lore strangly contrasting 
 with a portion of the knowing shrewdness belonging to his 
 actual occupation, which made his conversation amuse the way 
 well enough. 
 
 Add to this, Donald knew all his peculiar duties in the countrj;' 
 which he traversed so frequently. He could tell, to a day, when 
 they would " be killing " lamb at Tyndrum or Glenuilt ; so that 
 the stranger would have some chance of being fed like a Chrisi 
 tian ; and knew to a mile the last village where it was possible to 
 procure a wheatcn loaf, for the guidance of those who were little 
 familiar with the Tand of Cakes. He was acquainted with the 
 road every mile, and could tell to an inch which side of a High-
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 65 
 
 land bridge was passable, which decidedly dangerous.* In short, 
 Donald MacLeish was not only our faithful attendant and steady 
 servant, but our humble and obliging friend ; and though I have 
 known the half-classical cicerone of Italy, the talkative French 
 valet-de-place, and even the muleteer of Spain, who piques 
 himself on being a maize-eater, and whose honor is not to be 
 questioned without danger, I do not think I ever had so sensible 
 and intelligent a guide. 
 
 Our motions were of course under Donald's direction ; and 
 it frequently happened, when the weather was serene, that we 
 preferred halting to rest his horses even where there was no 
 established stage, and taking our refreshment under a crag, 
 from which leaped a waterfall, or beside the verge of a fountain 
 enameled with verdant turf and wild-flowers. Donald had an 
 eye for such spots, and though he had. I dare say, never read 
 Gil Bias or Don Quixote, yet he chose such halting-places as 
 Le Sage or Cervantes would have described. Very often, as he 
 observed the pleasure I took in conversing with the country 
 people, he would manage to fix our place of rest near a cottage 
 where there was some old Gael, whose broadsword had blazed 
 at Falkirk or Preston, and who seemed the frail yet faithful 
 record of times which had passed away. Or he would contrive 
 to quarter us, as far as a cup of tea went, upon the hospitality of 
 some parish minister of worth and intelligence, or some country 
 family of the better class, who mingled with the wild simplicity 
 of their original manners, and their ready and hospitable welcome, 
 a sort of courtesy belonging to a people, the lowest of whom are 
 accustomed to consider themselves as being, according to the 
 Spanish phrase, " as good gentlemen as the king, only not quite 
 so rich." 
 
 To all such persons Donald MacLeish was well known, and 
 his introduction passed as current as if we had brought letters 
 from some high chief of the country. 
 
 Sometimes it happened that the Highland hospitality which 
 welcomed us with all the variety of mountain fare, preparations 
 of milk and eggs, and gridle-cakes of various kinds, as well as 
 more substantial dainties, according to the inhabitant's means 
 of regaling the passenger, descended rather too exuberantly on 
 Donald MacLeish in the shape of mountain dew. Poor Donald ) 
 he was on such occasions, like Gideon's fleece, moist with the 
 noble element, which, of course, fell not on us. But it was his 
 
 * This is, or was at least, a necessary accomplishment. In one of the 
 most beautiful districts of the Highlands was, not many years since, a 
 bridge bearing this startling caution, " Keep to tlic right side, the left bci 
 ing dangerous."
 
 66 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 only fault, and when pressed to drink doch-an-dorroch to my 
 ladyship's good health, it would have been ill taken to have 
 refused the pledge, nor was he willing to do such discourtesy. 
 It was, I repeat, his only fault, nor had we any great right to 
 complain ; for if it rendered him a liitle more talkative, it 
 augmented his ordinary share of punciilious civility, and he 
 only drove slower, and tallied longer and more pompously than 
 when he had not come by a drop of usquebaugh. It was, we 
 remarked, only on such occasions that Donald talked with an 
 air of importance of the family of MacLeish ; and w^e had no 
 title to be scrupulous in censuring a foible, the consequences of 
 which were confined within such innocent limits. 
 
 We became so much accustomed to Donald's mode of manag- 
 ing us, that we observed with some interest the art which he 
 used to produce a little agreeable surprise, by concealing from 
 us the spot where he proposed our halt to be made, when it was 
 of an unusual and interesting character. This was so much his 
 wont, that when he made apologies at setting off, for being 
 obliged to slop in some strange solitary place, till the horses 
 should eat the corn which he brought on with them for that 
 purpose, our imagination used to be on the stretch to guess what 
 romantic retreat he had secretly fixed upon for our noontide 
 baiting-place. 
 
 We had spent the greater part of the morning at the delight- 
 ful village of Dalmally, and had gone upon the lake under the 
 guidance of the excellent clergyman who was then incumbent at 
 Glenorquhy,* and had heard a hundred legends of the stern chiefs 
 of Loch Awe, Duncan with the thrum bonnet, and the other 
 lords of the now mouldering towers of Kilchurn.f Thus it was 
 later than usual when we set out on our journey, after a hint or 
 two from Donald concerning the length of the way to the next 
 stage, as there was no good halting-place between Dalmally 
 and Oban. 
 
 Having bid adieu to our venerable and kind cicerone, we 
 proceeded on our tour, winding round the tremendous moun- 
 tain called Cruachan Ben, which rushes down in all its majesty 
 of rocks and wilderness on the lake, leaving only a pass, in 
 which, notwithstanding its extreme strength, the warlike clan 
 of IvIacDougal of Lorn were almost destroyed by the sagacious 
 Robert Bruce. That King, the Wellington of his day, had 
 accomplished, by a forced march, the unexpected manoeuvre of 
 
 * This venerable and hospitable gentleman's name was Maclntyre. 
 » An admirable account of Loch Awe will be found in the Notes to th£ 
 Bridal of Caolchairn.
 
 THE HIGIILAN-D IVTDOW. 6^ 
 
 forcing a body of troops round the other side of the mountain, 
 and thus placed him in the flank and in the rear of the men of 
 Lorn, whom at the same time he attacked in front. The great 
 number of cairns yet visible, as you descend the pass on the 
 westward side, shows the extent of the vengeance which Bruce 
 exhausted on his inveterate and personal enemies. I am, you 
 know, the sister of soldiers, and it has since struck me forcibly 
 that the manoeuvre which Donald described, resembled those 
 of Wellington or of Bonaparte. He was a great man Robert 
 Bruce, even a Baiiol must admit that ; although it begins now 
 to be allowed that his title to the crown was scarce so good as 
 that of the unfortunate family with whom he contended — But 
 let that pass. — The slaughter had been the greater, as the deep 
 and rapid river Awe is disgorged from the lake, just in the rear 
 of the fugitives, and encircles the base of the tremendous 
 mountain ; so that the retreat of the unfortunate flyers was in- 
 tercepted on all sides by the inaccessible character of the 
 country, which had seemed to promise them defence and pro- 
 tection.* 
 
 Musing, like the Irish lady in the song, " upon things which 
 are long enough a-gone," f we felt no impatience at the slow, 
 and almost creeping pace, with which our conductor proceeded 
 along General Wade's military road, which never or rarely 
 condescends to turn aside from the steepest ascent, but pro- 
 ceeds right up and down hill, with the indifference to height 
 and hollow, steep or level, indicated by the old Roman en- 
 gineers. Still, however, the substantial excellence of these 
 great works — for such are the military highways in the High- 
 lands — deserved the compliment of the poet, who, whether he 
 came from our sister kingdom, and spoke in his own dialect, or 
 whether he supposed those whom he addressed might have 
 some national pretension to the second sight, produced the 
 celebrated couplet — 
 
 Had you but seen these roads before they were made, 
 You would hold up your hands, and bless (ieneral Wade. 
 
 Nothing indeed can be more wonderful than to see these wil- 
 dernesses penetrated and pervious in every quarter by broad 
 accesses of the best possible construction, and so superior to 
 what the country could have demanded for many centuries for 
 
 * Vide Tytler's Life of Bruce. 
 
 t This is a line from a very pathetic ballad which I heard sung by one 
 of the young ladies of Edgeworthstown in 1825. I do not know that it has 
 been printed.
 
 58 THE HIGIILAND WIDOW. 
 
 any pacific purpose of commercial intercourse. Thus the traces 
 of war are sometimes happily accommodated to the purposes 
 of peace. The victories of Bonaparte have been without 
 results ; but his road over the Simplon will long be the com- 
 munication betwixt peaceful countries, who will apply to the 
 ends of commerce and friendly intercourse that gigantic work, 
 which was formed for the ambitious purpose of warlike in- 
 vasion. 
 
 While we were thus stealing along, we gradually turned 
 round the shoulder of Ben Cruachan, and, descending the 
 course of the foaming and rapid Awe, left behind us the ex- 
 panse of the majestic lake which gives birth to that impetuous 
 river. The rocks and precipices which stooped down perpen- 
 dicularly on our path on the right hand, exhibited a few 
 remains of the wood which once clothed them, but which had, 
 in latter times, been felled to supply, Donald MacLeish in 
 formed us, the iron-foundries at the Bunawe. This made us 
 fix our eyes with interest on one large oak, which grew on the 
 left hand toward the river. It seemed a tree of extraordmary 
 magnitude and picturesque beauty, and stood just where there 
 appeared to be a few roods of open ground lying among huge 
 stones, which had rolled down from the mountain. To add to 
 the romance of the situation, the spot of clear ground extended 
 round the foot of a proud-browed rock, from the summit of 
 which leaped a mountain stream in a fall of sixty feet, in which 
 it was dissolved into foam and dew. At the bottom of the fall 
 the rivulet with difficulty collected, like a routed general, its 
 dispersed forces, and, as if tamed by its descent, found a 
 noiseless passage through the heath to join the Awe. 
 
 I was much struck with the tree and waterfall, and wished 
 myself nearer them ; not that I thought of sketch-book or port- 
 folio, — for, in my younger days, Misses were not accustomed to 
 black lead pencils, unless they could use them to some good 
 purpose, — but merely to indulge myself with a closer view. 
 Donald immediately opened the chase-door, but observed it was 
 rough walking down the brae, and that I would see the tree 
 better by keeping the road for a hundred yards further, when 
 it passed closer to the spot, for which he seemed, however, to 
 have no predilection. " He knew," he said, " a far bigger tree 
 than that nearer Bunawe, and it was a place where there was 
 flat ground for the carriage to stand, which it could jimply do 
 on these braes ; — but just as my leddyship liked." 
 
 My ladyship did choose rather to look at the fine tree before 
 me, than to pass it by in hopes of a finer; so we walked beside 
 the carriage till we should come to a point, from which, Donald
 
 THE HIGHLAXD WIDOW. 69 
 
 assured us, we might, without scrambling, go as near the tree 
 as we chose, "though he wadna advise us to go nearer than the 
 hi-h-road." 
 
 There was something grave and mysterious in Donald's sun- 
 browned countenance when he gave us this intimatioUj and his 
 manner was so different from his usual frankness, that my female 
 curiosity was set in motion. We walked on the whilst, and I 
 found the tree, of which we had now lost sight by the interven- 
 tion of some rising ground, was really more distant than I had 
 at first supposed. " I could have sworn now," said I to my 
 cicerone, " that yon tree and waterfall was the very place where 
 you intended to make a stop to-dav." 
 
 " The Lord forbid ! " said Donald, hastily. 
 
 " And for what, Donald .-' why should you be willing to pass 
 such a pleasant spot ? " 
 
 " It's ower near Dalmally, my leddy, to corn the beasts — it 
 would bring their dinner oucr near their breakfast, poor things : 
 — an', besides, the place is not canny." 
 
 " Oh ! then the mystery is out. There is a bogle or a brownie, 
 a witch or a gyrecarlin, a bodach or a fairy, in the case ?" 
 
 " The ne'er a bit, my leddy — you are clean afif the road, as I 
 may say. But if your leddyship will just hae patience, and 
 wait till we're by the place and out of the glen, I'll tell ye all 
 about it. There is no much luck in speaking of such things in 
 the place they chanced in." 
 
 I was obliged to suspend my curiosity, observing, that if I 
 persisted in twisting the discourse one way while Donald was 
 twining it another, I should make his objection, like a hempen- 
 cord, just so much the tougher. At length the promised turn 
 of the road brought us within fifty paces of the tree which I 
 desired to admire, and I now saw, to my surprise, that there 
 was a human habitation among the cliffs which surrounded it. 
 It was a hut of the least dimensions, and most miserable de- 
 scription, that I ever saw even in the Highlands. The walls of 
 sod or, divot, as the Scotch call it, were not four feet high — the 
 roof was of turf, repaired with reeds and sedges — the chimney 
 was composed of clay, bound round by straw ropes — and the 
 whole walls, roof, and chimney, were alike covered with the 
 vegetation of house-leek, rye-grass and moss, common to de- 
 cayed cottages formed of such materials. There was not the 
 slightest vestige of a kale-yard, the usual accompaniment of the 
 very worst huts; and of living things we saw nothing, save a 
 kid which was browsing on the roof of the hut, and a goat, its 
 mother, at some distance, feeding betwixt the oak and the riv^r 
 Awe.
 
 ^t) THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 "What man," I could not help exclaiming, "can have conv 
 mitted sin deep enough to deserve such a miserable dwelling?" 
 
 " Sin enough," said Donald MacLeish, with a half-suppressed 
 groan ; " and God he knovveth, misery enough too ; — and it is 
 no man's dwelling neither, but a woman's." 
 
 " A woman's I " I repeated, " and in so lonely a place— 
 What sort of a woman can she be ? " 
 
 " Come this way, my leddy, and you may judge that for your- 
 self," said Donald. And by advancing a few steps, and making 
 a sharp turn to the left, we gained a sight of the side of the 
 great broad-breasted oak, in the direction opposed to that in 
 which we had hitherto seen it. 
 
 " If she keeps her old wont, she will be there at this hour 
 of the day," said Donald ; but immediately became silent, and 
 pointed with his finger, as one afraid of being overheard. I 
 looked, and beheld, not without some sense of awe, a female 
 form seated by the stem of the oak, with her head drooping, 
 her hands clasped, and a dark-colored mantle drawn over her 
 head, exactly as Judah is represented in the Syrian medals as 
 seated under her palm-tree. I was infected with the fear and 
 reverence which my guide seemed to entertain toward this 
 solitary being, nor did I think of advancing toward her to 
 obtain a nearer view until I had cast an inquiring look on 
 Donald ; to which he replied in a half whisper — " She has been 
 a fearfu' bad woman, my leddy." 
 
 " Mad woman, said you } " replied I, hearing him imperfect- 
 ly ; " then she is perhaps dangerous ? " 
 
 " No — she is not mad," replied Donald ; " for then it may 
 be she would be happier than she is ; though when she thinks 
 on what she has done, and caused to be done, rather than yield 
 up a hair-breadth of her ain wicked will, it is not likely she 
 can be very well settled. But she neither is mad nor mis- 
 chievous ; and yet, my leddy, I think you had best not go 
 nearer to her." And then, in a few hurried words, he made me 
 acquainted with the storv which I am now to tell more in detail. 
 I heard the narrative with a mixture of horror and sympathy, 
 which at once impelled me to approach the sufterer, and speak 
 to her the words of comfort, or rather of pit}-, and at the same 
 time made me afraid to do so. 
 
 This indeed was the feeling with which she was regarded by 
 the Highlanders in the neighborhood, who looked upon Elspat 
 MacTavish, or the Woman of the Tree, as they called her, as 
 the Greeks considered those who were pursued by the Furies, 
 and endured the mental torment consequent on great criminal 
 actions. They regarded such unhappy beings as Orestes and
 
 THE IIIGflLAN-D IVIDOW. yj 
 
 CEdipus, as being less the voluntary perpetrators of their crimes, 
 than as the passive instruments by which the terrible decrees 
 of Destiny tiad been accomplished ; and the fear with which 
 they beheld them was not unmingled with veneration. 
 
 I also learned further from Donald MacLeish, that there was 
 some apprehension of ill luck attending those who had the bold- 
 ness to approach too near, or disturb the awful solitude of a being 
 so unutterably miserable ; that it was supposed that whosoever 
 approached her must experience in some respect the contagion 
 of her wretchedness. 
 
 It was therefore with some reluctance that Donald saw 
 me prepare to obtain a nearer view of the sufferer, and that 
 he himself followed to assist me in the descent down a very 
 rough path. I believe his regard for me conquered some 
 ominous feelings in his own breast, which connected his duty 
 on this occasion with the presaging fear of lame horses, lost 
 linch-pins, overturns, and other perilous chances of the oostilion's 
 life. 
 
 I am not sure if my own courage would have carried me so 
 close to P^lspat, had he not followed. There was in her counte- 
 nance the stern abstraction of hopeless and overpowering sor- 
 row, mixed with the contending feelings of remorse, and of the 
 pride w-hich struggled to conceal it. She guessed, perhaps, that 
 it was curiosity, arising out of her uncommon story, which 
 induced me to intrude on her solitude — and she could not be 
 pleased that a fate like hers had been the theme of a traveler's 
 amusement. Yet the look with which she regarded me was one 
 of scorn instead of embarrassment. The opinion of the world 
 and all its children could not add or take an iota from her load 
 of misery ; and, save from the half smile that seemed to inti- 
 mate the contempt of a being rapt by the very intensity of her 
 affliction above the sphere of ordinary humanities, she seemed 
 as indifferent to my gaze as if she had been a dead corpse or a 
 marble statue. 
 
 Elspat was above the middle stature ; her hair, now grizzled, 
 was still profuse, and it had been of the most decided black. 
 So were her eyes, in which, contradicting the stern and rigid 
 features of her countenance, there shone the wild and troubled 
 light that indicates an unsettled mind. Her hair was wrapt 
 round a bilver bodkin with some attention to neatness, and 
 her dark mantle was disposed around her with a degree of taste, 
 though the materials were of the most ordinary sort. 
 
 After gazing on this victim of guilt and calamity till I was 
 ashamed to remain silent, though uncertain how I ought to 
 address her, I began to express my surprise at her choosing such
 
 72 
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 a desert and deplorable dwelling. She cut short these expres- 
 sions of sympathy, by answering in a stern voice, without the 
 least change of countenance or posture — " Daughter of the 
 stranger, he has told you my story." I was silenced at once, 
 and felt how little all earthly accommodation must seem to the 
 mind which had such subjects as hers for rumination. With- 
 out again attempting to open the conversation, I took a piece 
 of gold from my purse (for Donald had intimated she lived 
 on alms), expecting she would at least stretch her hand to 
 receive it. But she neither accepted nor rejected the gift — she 
 did not even seem to notice it, though twenty times as valuable, 
 probably, as was usually offered. I was obliged to place it on 
 her knee, saying involuntarily, as I did so, " May God pardon 
 you, and relieve you ! " I shall never forget the look which she 
 cast up to Heaven, nor the tone in which she exclaimed, in the 
 very words of my old friend, John Home — 
 
 " My beautiful — my brave ! " 
 
 It was the language of nature, and arose from the heart of 
 the deprived mother, as it did from that gifted imaginative 
 poet, while furnishing with appropriate expressions the ideal 
 grief of Lady Randolph. 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 Oh, I'm come to the Low Country, 
 
 Och, och, ohonochie, 
 Without a penny in my pouch 
 
 To buy a meal for me. 
 T was the proudest of my clan, 
 
 Long, long niav I repine ; 
 And Donald was the bravest man, 
 
 And Donald he was mine. 
 
 Old Song. 
 
 Elspat had enjoyed happy days, though her age had sunk 
 into hopeless and inconsolable sorrow and distress. She was 
 once the beautiful and happy wife of Hamish MacTavish, for 
 whoui his strength and feats of prowess had gained the title of 
 MacTavish Mhor. His life was turbulent and dangerous, his 
 habits being of the old Highland stamp, which esteemed it 
 shame to want anything that could be had for the taking. 
 Those in the Lowland line, who lay near him, and desired to
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 n 
 
 enjoy their lives and property in quiet, were contented to pay 
 him a small composition, in the name of protection money, and 
 comforted themselves with the old proverb, that it was better 
 to " fleech the deil than fight him." Others, who accounted 
 such composition dishonorable, were often surprised by Mac- 
 Tavish Mhor, and his associates and followers, who usually 
 inflicted an adequate penalty, either in person or property, or 
 both. The creagh is yet remembered, in which he swept one 
 hundred and fifty cows from Monteith in one drove ; and how 
 he placed the Laird of Ballybught naked in a slough, for having 
 threatened to send for a party of the Highland Watch to pro- 
 tect his property. 
 
 Whatever were occasionally the triumphs of this daring 
 cateran, they were often exchanged for reverses ; and his nar- 
 row escapes, rapid flights, and the ingenious stratagems with 
 which he extricated himself from eminent danger, were no less 
 remembered and admired than the exploits in which he had 
 been successful. In weal or woe, through every species of 
 fatigue, difficulty, and danger, Elspat was his faithful companion. 
 She enjoyed with him the fits of occasional prosperity; and 
 when adversity pressed them hard, her strength of mind, readi- 
 ness of wit, and courageous endurance of danger and toil, are 
 said often to have stimulated the exertions of her husband. 
 
 Their morality was of the old Highland cast, faithful friends 
 and fierce enemies ; the Lowland herds and harvests they ac- 
 counted their own, whenever they had the means of driving oil 
 the one, or of seizing upon the other; nor did the least scruple 
 on the right of property interfere on such occasions. Hamish 
 Mhor argued like the old Cretan warrior : — 
 
 My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield, 
 
 They make me lord of all below; 
 For he who dreads the lance to wield, 
 
 Before my shaggy shield must bow. 
 His lands, his vineyards must resign, 
 And all that cowards have is mine. 
 
 But those days of perilous, though frequently successful 
 depredation, began to be abridged, after the failure of the 
 expedition of Prince Charles Edward. MacTavish Mhor had 
 not sat still on that occasion, and he was outlawed, both as a 
 traitor to the state, and as a robber and cateran. Garrisons 
 were now settled in many places where a red-coat had never 
 before been seen, and the Saxon war-drum resounded among 
 the most hidden recesses of the Highland mountains. The 
 fftte of MacTavish became every day more inevitable ; and it
 
 74 
 
 THE IJJGIJLAND WIDOW. 
 
 was the more difficult for him to make his exertions for defence 
 or escape, that Elspat, amid his evil days, had increased his 
 family with an infant child, which was a considerable encum- 
 brance upon the necessary rapidity of their motions. 
 
 At length the fatal day arrived. In a strong pass on the 
 skirts of Ben Cruachan, the celebrated MacTavish Mhor was 
 surprised by a detachment of the Sidier Roy.* His wife assisted 
 him heroically, charging his piece from time to time ; and as they 
 were in possession of a post that was nearly unassailable, he 
 might have perhaps escaped if his amn\unition had lasted. 
 But at length his balls were expended, although it was not 
 until he had fired oft most of the silver buttons from his waist- 
 coat, and the soldiers, no longer deterred by fear of the unerr- 
 ing marksman, who had slain three, and wounded more of their 
 number, approached his stronghold, and, unable to take him 
 alive, slew him, after a most desperate resistance. 
 
 All this Elspat witnessed and survived, for she had, in the 
 child which relied on her for support, a motive for strength and 
 exertion. In what manner she maintained herself it is not easy 
 to say. Her only ostensible means of support were a flock of 
 three or four goats, which she fed wherever she pleased on the 
 mountain pastures, no one challenging the intrusion. In the 
 general distress of the country, her ancient acquaintances had 
 little to bestow ; but what they could part with from their own 
 necessities, they willingly devoted to the relief of others. From 
 Lowlanders she sometimes demanded tribute, rather than re- 
 quested alms. She had not forgotten she was the widow of 
 MacTavish Mhor, or that the child who trotted by her knee, 
 might, such were her imaginations, emulate one day the fame 
 of his father, and command the same influence which he had 
 once exerted without control. She associated so little with 
 others, went so seldom and so unwillingly from the wildest 
 recesses of the mountains, where she usually dwelt with her 
 goats, that she was quite unconscious of the great change which 
 had taken place in the country around her. the substitution of 
 civil order for military violence, and the strength gained by the 
 law and its adherents over those who were called in Gaelic song, 
 "the stormy sons of the sword." Her own diminished conse- 
 quence and straitened circumstances she indeed felt, but for 
 this the death of MacTavish Mhor was, in her apprehension, a 
 sufficing reason ; and she doubted not that she should rise to 
 her former state of importance, when Hamish Baen (or Fair- 
 haired James) should be able to wield the arms of his father, 
 
 * The Red Soldier.
 
 THE HIGHLAND IVIDOW. 
 
 7S 
 
 If, then, Elspat was repelled rudely when she demanded any- 
 thing necessary for her wants, or the accommodation of her 
 little flock, by a churlish farmer, her threats of vengeance, 
 obscurely expressed, yet terrible in their tenor, used frequently 
 to extort, through fear of her maledictions, the relief which was 
 denied to her necessities ; and the trembling goodwife, who 
 gave meal or money to the widow of MacTavish Mhor, wished 
 in her heart that the stern old carlin had been burnt on the 
 day her husband had his due. 
 
 Years thus ran on, and Hamish Baen grew up, not indeed 
 to be of his father's size or strength, but to become an active, 
 high-spirited, fair-haired youth, with a ruddy cheek, and eye 
 like an eagle, and all the agility, if not all the strength, of his 
 formidable father, upon whose history and achievements his 
 mother dwelt, in order to form her son's mind to a similar 
 course of adventures. But the young see the present state of 
 this changeful world more keenly than the old. Much at- 
 tached to his mother, and disposed to do all in his power for 
 her support, Hamish yet perceived, when he mixed with the 
 world, that the trade of the cateran was now alike dangerous 
 and discreditable, and that if he were to emulate his father's 
 prowess, it must be in some other line of warfare, more conso- 
 nant to the opinions of the present day. 
 
 As the faculties of mind and body began to expand, he be- 
 came more sensible of the precarious nature of his situation, 
 of the erroneous views of his mother, and her ignorance respect- 
 ing the changes of the society with which she mingled so little. 
 In visiting friends and neighbors, he became aware of the 
 extremely reduced scale to which his parent was limited, and 
 learned that she possessed little or nothing more than the abso- 
 lute necessaries of life, and that these were sometimes on the 
 point of failing. At times his success in fishing and the chase 
 was able to add something to her subsistence ; but he saw no 
 regular means of contributing to her support, unless by stoop- 
 ing to servile labor, which, if he himself could have endured 
 it, would, he knew, have been like a death's-wound to the 
 pride of his mother. 
 
 Elspat, meanwhile, saw with surprise, that Hamish Baen, 
 although now tall and fit for the field, showed no disposition 
 to enter on his father's scene of action. There was something 
 of the mother at her heart, which prevented her from urging 
 him in plain terms to take the field as a cateran, for the fear 
 occurred of the perils into which the trade must conduct him ; 
 and when she would have spoken to him on the subject, it 
 seemed to her heated imagination as if the ghost of her hus*
 
 ^6 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 band arose between them in his bloody tartans, and, laying his 
 finger on his lips, appeared to prohibit the topic. Yet she 
 wondered at what seemed his want of spirit, siglied as she saw 
 him from day to day lounging about in the long-skirted Low- 
 land coat, which the legislature had imposed upon the Gael in- 
 stead of their own romantic garb, and thought how much neaici 
 he would have resembled her husband, had he been clad in the 
 belted plaid, and short hose, with his polished arms gleaming 
 at his side. 
 
 Besides these subjects for anxiety, Elspat had others arising 
 from the engrossing impetuosity of her temper. Her love of 
 MacTavish Mhor had been qualified by respect and sometimes 
 even by fear; for the cateran was not the species of man who 
 submits to female government ; but over his son she had ex- 
 erted, at first during childhood, and afterward in early youth, 
 an imperious authority, which gave her maternal love a char- 
 acter of jealousy. She could not bear, when Hamish, with 
 advancing life, made repeated steps toward independence, ab- 
 sented himself from her cottage at such season, and for such 
 length of time as he chose, and seemed to consider, although 
 maintaining toward her every possible degree of respect and 
 kindness, that the control and responsibility of his actions 
 rested on himself alone. This would have been of little conse- 
 quence, could she have concealed her feelings within her own 
 bosom ; but the ardor and impatience of her passions made 
 her frequently show her son that she conceived herself neg- 
 lected and ill-used. When he was absent for any length of 
 time from her cottage, without giving intimation of his purpose, 
 her resentment on his return used to be so unreasonable, that 
 it naturally suggested to a young man, fond of independence, 
 and desirous to amend his situation in the world, to leave her, 
 even for the very purpose of enabling him to provide for the 
 parent whose egotistical demands on his filial attention tended 
 to confine him to a desert, in which both were starving in 
 hopeless and helpless indigence. 
 
 Upon one occasion, the son having been guilty of some in- 
 dependent excursion, by which the mother felt herself affronted 
 and disobliged, she had been more than usually violent on his 
 return, and awakened in Hamish a sense of displeasure, which 
 clouded his b:> 'W and cheek. At length, as she persevered in 
 her unreasonable resentment, his patience became exhausted, 
 and taking his gun from the chimney corner, and muttering to 
 himself the reply which his respect for his mother prevented 
 him from speaking aloud, he was about to leave the hut which 
 be had but barely entered.
 
 THR HIGHLAN-D WTDOW. yy 
 
 *' Hamish," said his mother, "are you again about to leave 
 me ? " But Hamish only replied by looking at and rubbing the 
 lock of his gun. 
 
 " Ay, rub the lock of your gun," said his parent, bitterly ; 
 " I am glad you have courage enough to fire it, though it be 
 but at a roe-deer." Hamish started at this undeserved taunt, 
 and cast a look of anger at her in reply. She saw that she had 
 found the means of giving him pain. 
 
 " Yes," she said, "look fierce as you will at an old woman, 
 and your mother ; it would be long ere you bent your brow on 
 the angry countenance of a bearded man." 
 
 " Be silent, mother, or speak of what you understand," said 
 Hamish, much irritated, " and that is of the distaff and the 
 spindle." 
 
 " And was it of spindle and distaff that I was thinking when 
 I bore you away on my back through the fire of six of the 
 Saxon soldiers, and you a wailing child ? I tell you, Hamish, 
 I know a hundred-fold more of swords and guns than ever you 
 will ; and you will never learn so much of noble war by your- 
 self, as you have seen when you were wrapt up in my plaid." 
 
 " You are determined at least to allow me no peace at home, 
 mother; but this shall have an end," said Hamish, as, resum- 
 ing his purpose of leaving the hut, he rose and went toward 
 the door. 
 
 " Stay, I command you," said his mother ; " stay, or may 
 the gun you carry be the means of your ruin — may the road 
 you are going be the track of your funeral ! " 
 
 " What makes you use such words, mother ? " said the young 
 man, turning a little back — " they are not good, and good can- 
 not come of them. Farewell just now ; we are too angry to 
 speak together — farewell ; it will be long ere you see mc again." 
 And he departed, his mother, in the first burst of her impa- 
 tience, showering after him her maledictions, and in the next 
 invoking them on her own head, so that they might spare her 
 son's. She passed that day and the next in all the vehemence 
 of impotent and yet unrestrained passion, now entreating 
 Heaven, and such powers as were familiar to her by rude tra- 
 dition, to restore her dear son, " the calf of her heart ; " now 
 in impatient resentment, meditating with what bitter terms she 
 should rebuke his filial, disobedience upon his return, and now 
 studying the most tender language to attach him to the cottage, 
 which, when her boy was present, she would not, in the rapture 
 of her affection, have exchanged for the apartments of Tay- 
 mouth Castle. 
 
 Two days passed, during which, neglecting even the slender
 
 yg THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 means of supporting nature which her situation afTordeu, noth- 
 ing but the strength of a frame accustomed to hardships and 
 privations of every kind, could have kept her in existence, not- 
 withstanding the anguish of her mind prevented her being sen- 
 sible of her personal weakness. Her dwelling, at this period, 
 was the same cottage near which I had found her, but then 
 more habitable by the exertions of Hamish, by whom it had 
 been in a great measure built and repaired. 
 
 It was on the third day after her son had disappeared, as 
 she sat at the door rocking herself, after the fashion of her 
 countr}'\vomen when in distress or in pain, that the then un- 
 wonted circumstance occurred of a passenger being seen on the 
 highroad above the cottage. She cast but one glance at him 
 — he was on horseback, so that it could not be Hamish, and 
 Elspat cared not enough for any other being on earth to make 
 her turn her eyes toward him a second time. The stranger, 
 however, paused opposite to her cottage, and dismounting from 
 his pony, led it down the steep and broken path which conduct- 
 ed to the door. 
 
 " God bless you, Elspat MacTavish ! " — She looked at the 
 man as he addressed her in her native language, with the dis- 
 pleased air of one whose reverie is interrupted ; but the trav- 
 eler went on to say, " I bring you tidings of your son Hamish." 
 At once from being the most uninteresting object, in respect to 
 Elspat, that could exist, the form of the stranger became awful 
 in her eyes, as that of a messenger descended from Heaven, ex- 
 pressly to pronounce upon her death or life. She started from 
 her seat, and with hands convulsively clasped toge;her, and 
 held up to Heaven, eyes fixed on the stranger's countenance, 
 and person stooping forward to him, she looked those inquiries, 
 which her faltering tongue could not articulate. " Your son 
 sends you his dutiful remembrance and this," said the messen- 
 ger, putting into Elspat's hand a small purse containing four or 
 five dollars. 
 
 " He is gone he is gone ! " exclaimed Elspat ; " he has sold 
 himself to be the servant of the Saxons, and 1 shall never more 
 behold him! Tell me, Miles MacPhadraick, for now I know 
 you, is it the price of the son's blood that you have put into the 
 mother's hand ? " 
 
 "Now, God forbid!" answered MacPhadraick, who was a 
 tacksman, and had possession of a considerable tract of ground 
 under his CI "ef, a proprietor who lived about twentv miles off — 
 " God forbid I should do wrong, or say wrong, to you, or to the 
 son of MacTavish Mhor ! I swear to you by the hand of my 
 Chief, that your son is well, and will soon see you, and the rest
 
 THE mCffLAN-D WIDOW. 
 
 79 
 
 he will tell you himself." So saying, MacPhadiaick hastened 
 back up the pathway, gained the road, mounted his pony, and 
 rode upon his way. 
 
 CHAPTER THIRD. 
 
 Elspat Mactavish remained gazing on the money, as if the 
 impress of the coin could have conveyed information how it was 
 procured. 
 
 " I love not this MacPhadraick," she said to herself ; ** it 
 was his race of whom the Bard hath spoken, saying. Fear them 
 not when their words are loud as the winter's wind, but fear 
 them when they fall on you like the sound of the thrush's song. 
 And yet this riddle can be read but one way : My son hath 
 taken the sword, to win that with strength like a man, which 
 churls would keep him from with the swords that frighten 
 children." This idea, when once it occurred to her, seemed the 
 more reasonable, that MacPhadraick, as she well knew, himself 
 a cautious man, had so far encouraged her husband's practices, 
 as occasionally to buy cattle of MacTavish, although he must 
 have well known now they were come by, taking care, however, 
 that the transaction was so made, as to be accompained with 
 great profit and absolute safety. Who so likely as MacPhadraick 
 to indicate to a young cateran the glen in which he could com- 
 mence his perilous trade with most prospect of success? who so 
 likely to convert his booty into money ? The feelings which 
 another might have experienced on believing that an only son 
 had rushed forward on the same path in which his father had 
 perished, were scarce known to the Highland mothers of that 
 day. She thought of the death of MacTavish Mhor as that of 
 a hero who had fallen in his proper trade of war, and who had 
 not fallen unavenged. She feared less for her son's life than 
 for his dishonor. She dreaded on his account the subjection to 
 strangers, and the death-sleep of the soul which is brought on 
 by what she regarded as slavery. 
 
 The moral principle which so naturally and so justly occurs 
 to the mind of those who have been educated under a settled 
 government of laws that protect the property of the weak against 
 the incursions of the strong, was to poor Elspat a book sealed 
 and a fountain closed. She had been taught to consider those 
 whom they called Saxons as a race with whom the Gael were 
 constantly at war, and she regarded every settlement of theirs
 
 8o THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 within the reach of Highland incursion, as affording a legitimate 
 object of attack and plunder. Her feelings on this point had 
 been strengthened and confirmed, not only by the desire of 
 revenge for the death of her husband, but by the sense of 
 general indignation entertained, not unjustly, through the High- 
 lands of Scotland, on account of the barbarous and violent 
 conduct of the victors after the battle of Culloden. Other 
 Highland clans, too, she regarded as the fair objects of plunder 
 when that was possible, upon the score of ancient enmities and 
 deadly feuds. 
 
 The prudence that might have weighed the slender means 
 which the times afforded for resisting the efforts of a combined 
 government, which had, in its less compact and established 
 authority, been unable to put down the ravages of such lawless 
 caterans as MacTavish Mhor, was unknown to a solitary woman, 
 whose ideas still dwelt upon her own early times. She imagined 
 that her son had only to proclaim himself his father's successor 
 in adventure and enterprise, and that a force of men as gallant 
 as those who had followed his father's banner would crowd 
 around to support it when again displayed. To her, Hamish 
 was the eagle who had only to soar aloft and resume his native 
 place in the skies, without her being able to comprehend how 
 many additional eyes would have watched his flight, how many 
 additional bullets would have been directed at his bosom. To 
 be brief, Elspat was one who viewed the present state of 
 society with the same feelings with which she regarded the 
 times that had passed away. She had been indigent, neglected, 
 oppressed, since the days that her husband had no longer been 
 feared and powerful, and she thought that the term of her as- 
 cendence would return vvhen her son had determined to play 
 the part of his father. If she permitted her eye to glance further 
 into futurity, it was but to anticipate that she must be for many a 
 day cold in the grave, with the coronach of her tribe cried duly 
 over her, before her fair-haired Hamish could, according to her 
 calculation, die with his hand on the basket-hilt of the red clay- 
 more. His father's hair was gray, ere, after a hundred dangers, 
 he had fallen with his arms in his hands. That she should have 
 seen and survived the sight, was a natural consequence of the 
 manners of that age. And better it was — such was her proud 
 thought — that she had seen him so die, than to have witnessed 
 his departure from life in a smoky hovel — on a bed of rotten 
 straw, like an over-worn hound, or a bullock which died of 
 disease. But the hour of her young, her brave Hamish. was 
 yet far distant. He must succeed — he must conquer, like his 
 father. And when he fell at length, — for she anticipated foi
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 8l 
 
 him no bloodless death, — Elspat would ere then have lain long 
 in the grave, and could neither see his death-struggle, nor mourn 
 over his grave-sod. 
 
 With such wild notions working in her brain, the spirit of 
 Elspat rose to its usual pitch, or rather to one which seemed 
 higher. In the emphatic language of Scripture, which in that 
 idiom does not greatly differ from her own, she arose, she washed 
 and changed her apparel, and ate bread, and was refreshed. 
 
 She longed eagerly for the return of her son, but she now 
 longed not with the bitter anxiety of doubt and apprehension. 
 She said to herself, that much must be done ere he could, in 
 these times, arise to be an eminent and dreaded leader. Yet 
 when she saw him again, she almost expected him at the head 
 of a daring band, with pipes playing, and banners flying, the 
 noble tartans fluttering free in the wind, in spite of the laws 
 which had suppressed, under severe penalties, the use of the 
 national garb, and all the appurtenances of Highland Chivalry. 
 For all this, her eager imagination was content only to allow the 
 interval of some days. 
 
 From the moment this opinion had taken deep and serious 
 possession of her mind, her thoughts were bent upon receiving 
 her son at the head of his adherents, in the manner in which she 
 used to adorn her hut for the return of his father. 
 
 The substantial means of subsistence she had not the power 
 of providing, nor did she consider that of importance. The 
 successful caterans would bring with them herds and flocks. 
 But the interior of her hut was arranged for their reception — 
 the usquebaugh was brewed, or distilled, in a larger quantity than 
 it could have been supposed one lone woman could have made 
 ready. Her hut was put into such order as might, in some 
 degree, give it the appearance of a day of rejoicing. It was 
 swept, and decorated with boughs of various kinds, like the 
 house of a Jewess, upon what is termed the Feast of the 
 Tabernacles. The produce of the milk of her little flock was 
 prepared in as great variety of forms as her skill admitted, to 
 entertain her son and his associates, whom she expected to re- 
 ceive along with him. 
 
 But the principal decoration, which she sought with the great- 
 est toil, was the cloud-berry, a scarlet fruit, which is only found 
 on very high hills, and there only in very small quantities. 
 Her husband, or perhaps one of his forefathers, had chosen 
 this as the emblem of his family, because it seemed at once to 
 imply by its scarcity the smallness of their clan, and by the 
 places in which it was found, the ambitious height of their pre- 
 tensions.
 
 S2 THE HIGH LA XD WIDOW. 
 
 For the time that these simple preparations for welcome en- 
 dured, Elspat was in a state of troubled happiness. In fact, 
 her only anxiety was, that she might be able to complete all 
 that she could do to welcome Hamish and the friends who she 
 supposed must have attached themselves to his band before 
 they should arrive, and find her unprovided for their recep- 
 tion. 
 
 But when such efforts as she could make had been accom- 
 plished, she once more had nothing left to engage her save the 
 trifling care of her goats ; and when these had been attended 
 to, she had only to review her little preparations, renew such 
 as were of a transitory^ nature, replace decayed branches, and 
 fading boughs, and then to sit down at her cottage door and 
 watch the road, as it ascended on the one side from the banks 
 of the Awe, and on the other wound round the heights of the 
 mountain, with such a degree of accommodation to hill and 
 level as the plan of the military engineer permitted. While so 
 occupied, her imagination, anticipating the future from recollec- 
 tions of the past, formed out of the morning-mist, or the evening- 
 cloud, the wild forms of an advancing band, which were then 
 called " Sidier Dhu," — dark soldiers — dressed in their native 
 tartan, and so named to distinguish them from the scarlet rankj 
 of the British army. In this occupation she spent many houn 
 of each morning and evening. 
 
 CHAPTER FOURTH. 
 
 It was in vain that Elspat's eyes surveyed the distant path 
 by the earliest light of the dawn and the latest glimmer of the 
 twilight. No rising dust awakened the expectation of nodding 
 plumes or flashing arms ; the solitary traveler trudged list- 
 lessly along in his brown lowland great-coat, his tartans dyed 
 black or purple, to comply with, or evade, the law, which pro- 
 hibited their being worn in their variegated hues. The spirit 
 of the Gael, sunk and broken by the severe though perhaps nec- 
 essary laws that proscribed the dress and arms which he con- 
 sidered as his birthright, was intimated by his drooping head 
 and dejected appearance. Not in such depressed wanderers 
 did Elspat recognize the light and free step of her son, nov/, as 
 she concluded, regenerated from every sign of Saxon thraldom. 
 Night by night, as darkness came, she removed from her un- 
 closed door to throw herself on her restless pallet, not to sleep.
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 83 
 
 but to watch. The brave and the terrible, she said, walk by 
 night — their steps are heard in darkness, when all is silent save 
 the whirlwind and the cataract — the timid deer comes only forth 
 when the sun is upon the mountain's peak ; but the bold wolf 
 walks in the red light of the harvest-moon. She reasoned in 
 vain — her son's expected summons did not call her from the 
 lowly couch, where she lay dreaming of his approach. Hamish 
 came not. 
 
 *' Hope deferred," saith the royal sage, "maketh the heart 
 sick ; " and strong as was Elspat's constitution, she began to 
 experience that it was unequal to the toils to which her anxious 
 and immoderate affection subjected her, when early one morning 
 the appearance of a traveler on the lonely mountain-road re- 
 vived hopes which had begun to sink into listless despair. There 
 was no sign of Saxon subjugation about the stranger. At a 
 distance she could see the flutter of the belted-plaid, that drooped 
 in graceful folds behind him, and the plume that, placed in 
 the bonnet, showed rank and gentle birth. He carried a gun 
 over his shoulder, the claymore was swinging by his side, with its 
 usual appendages, the dirk, the pistol, and the sporran moUach* 
 Ere yet her eye had scanned all these particulars, the light step 
 of the traveler was hastened, his arm was waved in token of 
 recognition — a moment more, and Elspat held in her arms her 
 darling son, dressed in the garb of his ancestors, and looking, 
 in her maternate eyes, the fairest among ten thousand ! 
 
 The first outpouring of affection it would be impossible to 
 describe. Blessings mingled with the most endearing epithets 
 which her energetic language affords, in striving to express the 
 wild rapture of Elspat's jo}'. Her board was heaped hastily 
 with all she had to offer ; and the mother watched the young 
 soldier as he partook of the refreshment, with feelings how 
 similar to, yet how different from, those with which she had 
 seen him draw his first sustenance from her bosom ! 
 
 When the tumult of joy was appeased, Elspat became anxi- 
 ous to know her son's acK'cntures since they parted, and could 
 not help greatly censuring his rashness for traversing the hills 
 in the Highland dress in the broad sunshine, when the penalty 
 was so heavy, and so many red soldiers were abroad in the 
 country. 
 
 " Fear not for me, mother," said Hamish, in atone designed 
 to relieve her anxietv, and yet somewhat embarrassed ; " I 
 may wear the hreacan t at the gate of Fort-Augustus, if I like 
 it."' 
 
 *The goat-skin pouch, worn by the Highlanders round their waistc 
 t That which is variegated, i.e, the tartan.
 
 84 THE ///G/ILA.VD U'lDOlK 
 
 " Oh, be not too daring, my beloved Hamish, though it be 
 the fault which best becomes thy father's son — yet be not too 
 daring ! Alas, they fight not now as in former days, with fair 
 weajoons, and on equal terms, but take odds of numbers and of 
 arms, so that the feeble and the strong are alike leveled by the 
 shot of a bo}'. And do not think me unworthy to be called 
 your father's widow, and your mother, because I speak thus ; 
 for God knoweth, tliat, man to man, I would peril thee against 
 the best in Breadalbane, and broad Lorn beside?." 
 
 " I assure you, my dearest mother,'' replied Hamish, " that 
 I am in no danger. But have you seen MacPhadraick, mother, 
 and what has he said to you on my account ? " 
 
 " Silver he left me in plenty, Hamish ; but the best of his 
 comfort was, that you were well, and would see me soon. But 
 beware of I\IacPhadraick, my son ; for when he called himself 
 the friend of your father, he better loved the most worthless 
 stirk in his herd than he did the life-blood of MacTavish 
 Alhor. Use his services, therefore, and pay him for them — for 
 it is thus we should deal with the unworthy ; but take my 
 counsel, and trust him not." 
 
 Hamish could not suppress a sigh, which seemed to Elspat 
 to intimate that the caution came too late. "What have you 
 done with him," she continued, eager and alarmed. "I had 
 money of him, and he gi\es not that without value — he is none 
 of those who exchange barley for chaff. Oh, if you repent you 
 of your bargain, and if it be one which you may break off with- 
 out disgrace to your truth or your manhood, take back his 
 silver, and trust not to his fair words." 
 
 " It may not be, mother," said Hamish ; "I do not repent 
 my engagement, unless that it must make me leave you soon." 
 
 " Leave me ! how leave me ? Silly bo}', think you 1 know 
 not what duty belongs to the wife or mother of a daring man ? 
 Thou art but a boy yet ; and when thy father had been the 
 dread of the country for twenty years, he did not despise my 
 company and assistance, but often said my help was worth that 
 of two strong gillies." 
 
 " It is not on that score, mother ; but since I must leave 
 the country " 
 
 '* Leave the country ! " replied the mother, interrupting 
 him ; " and think you that I am like a bush, that is rooted to 
 rne soil where it grows, and must die if carried elsewhere ? I 
 have breathed other winds than these of Ben Cruachan — I have 
 followed your father to the wilds of Ross, and the impenetra- 
 ble deserts of Y Mac Y Mhor — Tush, man, my limbs, old as
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 85 
 
 they are, will bear me as far as your young feet can trace the 
 way." 
 
 " Alas, mother," said the young man, with a faltering ac- 
 cent, " but to cross the sea " 
 
 "The sea! who am I that I should fear the sea! Have I 
 never been in a birling in my life — never known the Sound of 
 Mull, the Isles of Treshornish, and the rough rocks of Harris ? '* 
 
 " Alas, mother, I go far, far from all of these — I am en- 
 listed in one of the new regiments, and we go against the 
 French in America." 
 
 " Enlisted ! " uttered the astonished mother — " against my 
 will — without my consent — you could not, — you would not,"' — 
 then rising up, and assuming a posture of almost imperial com- 
 mand, " Hamish, you dared not ! " 
 
 " Despair, mother, dares everything," answered Hamish, in a 
 tone of melancholy resolution. *' What should I do here, where 
 I can scarce get bread for myself and you, and when the times 
 are growing daily worse ? Would you but sit down and listen, 
 I would convince you I have acted for the best." 
 
 With a bitter smile Elspat sat down, and the same severe 
 ironical expression was on her features, as, with her lips firmly 
 closed, she listened to his vindication. 
 
 Hamish went on, without being disconcerted by her expected 
 displeasure. " When I left you, dearest mother, it was to go to 
 MacPhadraick's house ; for although I knew he is crafty and 
 worldly, after the fashion of the Sassenach, yet he is wise, and 
 I thought how he would teach me, as it would cost him nothing, 
 in which way I could mend our estate in the world." 
 
 " Our estate in the world I " said Elspat, losing patience at 
 the word ; " and went you to a base fellow, with a soul no 
 better than that of a cowherd, to ask counsel about your con- 
 duct ? Your father asked none, save of his courage and his 
 sword." 
 
 " Dearest mother," answered Hamish, " how shall I convince 
 you that you live in this land of our fathers, as if our fathers 
 were yet living .-' You walk as it were in a dream, surrounded 
 by the phantoms of those who have been long with the dead. 
 When my father lived and fought, the gieat respected the man 
 of the strong right hand, and the rich feared him. He had 
 protection from MacAllum More, and from Caberfae,* and 
 tribute from meaner men. That is ended, and his son would 
 only earn a disgraceful and unpitied death, by the practices 
 which gave his father credit and power among those who wear 
 
 * Caberfae — AtigHce. the Stag's he.id, — the Celtic designation foi the 
 arms of the famiiy uf the high Chief of Seaforth | Mackenzie).
 
 86 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 the breacan. The land is conquered — its lights are quenched— 
 Glengary, Lochiel, Perth, Lord Lewis, all the high chiefs are 
 dead or in exile — We may mourn for it, but we cannot help it. 
 Bonnet, broadsword, and sporran — power, strength, and wealth, 
 were all lost on Drummossie Muir." * 
 
 *' It is false ! " said Elspat, fiercely ; " you, and such like 
 dastardly spirits, are quelled by your own faint hearts, not by the 
 strength of the enemy ; you are like the fearful waterfowl, to 
 whom the least cloud in the sky seems the shadow of the 
 eagle." 
 
 " Mother," said Hamish, proudly, " lay not faint heart to my 
 charge. I go where men are wanted who have strong arms and 
 bold hearts too. I leave a desert for a land where I may gather 
 fame." 
 
 " And you leave your mother to perish in want, age, and 
 solitude," said Elspat, essaying successively every means of mov- 
 ing a resolution, which slie began to see was more deeply rooted 
 than she had at first thought. 
 
 *' Not so, neither," he answered ; " I leave you to comfort 
 and certainty, which you have yet never known. Barcaldine's 
 son is made a leader, and with him I have enrolled myself ; 
 MacPhadraick acts for him, and raises men, and finds his own 
 in doing it." 
 
 " That is the truest word of the tale, were all the rest as 
 false as hell," said the old woman, bitterly. 
 
 " But we are to find our good in it also," continued Hamisn ; 
 " for Barcaldine is to give you a shieling in his wood of LettsJV- 
 findreight, with grass for your goats, and a cow, when you pleacyj 
 to have one, on the common ; and my own pay, dearest motlwr, 
 thougli I am far away, will do more than provide you wic'/x 
 meal and with all else you can want. Do not fear for me. \ 
 enter a private gentleman ; but I will return, if hard fighting 
 and regular duty can deserve it, an officer, and with half-a-dollai 
 a-day." 
 
 " Poor child ! " — replied Elspat, in a tone of pity mingled 
 with contempt, " and you trust MacPhadraick ? " 
 
 " I might, mother," — said Hamish, the dark red color ol 
 his race crossing his forehead and cheeks, " for MacPhadraick 
 knows the blood which flows in my veins, and is aware, that 
 should he break trust with you, he might count the days which 
 could bring Hamish back to Breadalbane; and number those of 
 his life within three suns more. I would kill him at his own 
 hearth did he break his word with me — I would, by the gre,it 
 Being who made us both ! " 
 
 * [The battle-field of CuUoden.]
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 87 
 
 The look and atiilude of the young soldier for a moment 
 overawed Elspat ; she was unused to see him express a deep 
 and bitter mood, which reminded her so strongly of his father, 
 but she resumed her remonstrances in the same taunting manner 
 in which she had commenced them. 
 
 " Poor boy ! " she said ; " and you think that at the distance 
 of half the world your threats will be heard or thought of ! 
 But, go — go — place your neck under him of Hanover's yoke 
 against whom every true Gael fought to the death. — Go, dis 
 own the royal Stuart, for whom your father, and his fathers, 
 and your mother's fathers, have crimsoned many a field with 
 their blood. — Go, put your head under the belt of one of the 
 race of Dermid, whose children murdered — yes," the added 
 with a wild shriek, " murdered your mother's fathers in their 
 peaceful dwellings in Glencoe ! — Yes," she again exclaimed, 
 with a wilder and shriller scream, " I was then unborn, but my 
 mother has told me — and I attended to the voice of wj' mother 
 — Well I remember her words ! — They came in peace, and were 
 received in friendship, and blood and fire arose, and screams, 
 and murder ! " * 
 
 " Mother," answered Hamish, mournfully, but with a decid- 
 ed tone, "all that I have thought over — there is not a drop of 
 the blood of Glencoe on the noble hand of Barcaldine — with 
 the unhappy house of Glenlyon the curse remains, and on them 
 God hath avenged it." 
 
 " You speak like the Saxon priest already," replied his 
 mother; "will you not better stay, and ask a kirk from Mac- 
 Allum More, that you may preach forgiveness to the race of 
 Dermid?" 
 
 " Yesterday was yesterday," answered Hamish, " and to-day 
 is to-day. When the clans are crushed and confounded to- 
 gether, it is well and wise that their hatreds and their feuds 
 should not survive their independence and their j^ower. He 
 that cannot execute vengeance like a man should not harbor 
 useless enmity like a craven. Mother, young Barcaldine is true 
 and brave ; I know that MacPhadraick counseled him, that he 
 should not let me take leave of you, lest you dissuaded me 
 from my purpose ; but he said, ' Hamish MacTavish is the son 
 of a brave man, and he will not break his word.' Mother, 
 Barcaldine leads an hundred of the bravest of the sons of the 
 Gael in their native dress, and with their fathers' arms — heart 
 to heart — shoulder to shoulder. I have sworn to go with him 
 — He has trusted me, and I will trust him." 
 
 * [A succinct account of the Massacre of Glencoe will be found io 
 Scott's Poetical Works.\
 
 88 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 At this reply, so firmly and resolvedly pronounced, Elspaf 
 remained like one thunderstruck, and sunk in despair. The 
 arguments which she had considered so irresistibly conclusive, 
 had recoiled like a wave from a rock. After a long pause, sue 
 filled her son's quaigh, and presented it to him with an air of 
 dejected deference and submission. 
 
 " Drink," she said, " to thy father's roof-tree, ere you leave 
 it for ever ; and tell me, since the chains of a new King, and 
 of a new Chief, whom your fathers knew not save as mortal 
 enemies, are fastened upon the limbs of your father's son, — tell 
 me how many links you count upon them .' " 
 
 Hamish took the cup, but looked at her as if uncertain of 
 her meaning. She proceeded in a raised voice, " Tell me," 
 she said, " for I have a right to know, for how many days the 
 will of those you have made your masters permits me to look 
 upon you i* — In other words, how many are the days of my life 
 — for when you leave me, the earth has nought besides worth 
 living for ! " 
 
 " Mother," replied Hamish MacTavish, " for six days I may 
 remain with you, and if you will set out with me on the fifth, I 
 will conduct you in safety to your new dwelling. But if you 
 remain here, then I will depart on the seventh by daybreak — 
 then, as at the last moment, I must set out for Dumbarton, for 
 if I appear not on the eighth day, I am subject to punishment 
 as a deserter, and dishonored as a soldier and a gentleman." 
 
 "Your father's foot," she answered, " was free as the wind 
 on the heath — it were as vain to say to him, where goest thou, 
 as to ask that viewless driver of the clouds, wherefore blowest 
 thou ? Tell me under what penalty thou must — since go thou 
 must, and go thou wilt — return to thy thraldom ? " 
 
 " Call it not thraldom, mother, it is the service of an honor- 
 able soldier — the only service which is now open to the son of 
 MacTavish Mhor." 
 
 *' Yet say what is the penalty if thou shouldst not return ! " 
 replied Elspat. 
 
 "Military punishment as a deserter," answered Hamish; 
 writhing, however, as his mother failed not to observe, under 
 some internal feelings, which she resolved to probe to the utter- 
 most. 
 
 " And that," she said, with assumed calmness, which her 
 glancing eye disowned, " is the punishment of a disobedient 
 hound, is it not ? " 
 
 " Ask me no more, mother," said Hamish ; "the punishment 
 is nothing to one who will never deserve it." 
 
 *' To me it i§ something," replied Elspat, " since I know
 
 TirE niGiiLAiXD jvrnoiv. 89 
 
 better than thou, that where there is power to inflict, there is 
 often the will to do so without cause. I would pray for thee, 
 Hamish, and I must know against what evils I shouM beseech 
 Him who leaves none unguarded, to protect thy youth and sim- 
 plicity." 
 
 " Mother," said Hamish, " it signifies little to what a criminal 
 may be exposed, if a man is determined not to be such. Our 
 Highland chiefs used also to punish their vassals, and, as I 
 have heard, severely. — Was it not Lachlan Maclan, whom we 
 remember of old, whose head was struck off by order of his 
 chieftain for shooting at the stag before him ? " 
 
 " Ay," said Elspat, " and right he had to lose it, since he 
 dishonored the father of the people even in the face of the 
 assembled clan. But the chiefs were noble in their ire — they 
 punished with the sharp blade, and not with the baton. Their 
 punishments drew blood, but they did not infer dishonor. Canst 
 thou say the same for the laws under whose yoke thou hast 
 placed thy freeborn neck ? " 
 
 " I cannot — mother — I cannot," said Hamish, mournfully. 
 " I saw them punish a Sassenach for deserting, as they called 
 it, his banner. He was scourged — I own it — scourged like a 
 hound who has offended an imperious master. I was sick at 
 the sight — I confess it. But the punishment of dogs is only 
 for those worse than clogs, who know not how to keep their 
 faith." 
 
 " To this infamy, however, thou hast subjected thyself, 
 Hamish," replied Elspat, "if thou shouldst give, or thy officers 
 take measures of offence against thee. — I speak no more to 
 thee on thy purpose. — Were the sixth day from this morning's 
 sun my dying day, and thou wert to stay to close mine eyes, 
 thou wouldst run the risk of being lashed like a dog at a post — 
 yes ! unless thou hadst the gallant heart to leave me to die alone, 
 and upon my desolate hearth, the last spark of thy father's fire, 
 and of thy forsaken mother's life, to be extinguished together ! " 
 — Hamish traversed the hut with an impatient and angry pace. 
 
 "Mother," he said at length, "concern not yourself about 
 such things. I cannot be subjected to such infamy, for never 
 will I deserv^e it ; and were I threatened with it, I should know 
 how to die before I was so far dishonored." 
 
 " There spoke the son of the husband of my heart ! " replied 
 Elspat ; and she changed the discourse, and seemed to listen in 
 melancholy acquiescence, when her son reminded her how short 
 the time was which they were permitted to pass in each other's 
 society, and entreated that it might be spent without useless
 
 9d 
 
 THE HIGHLAXD WIDOW. 
 
 and unpleasant recollections respecting the circumstances under 
 which they must soon be separated. 
 
 Elspat was now satisfied that her son, with some of his 
 father's other properties, preserved the haughty masculine spixit 
 which rendered it impossible to divert him from a resolution 
 which he had deliberately adopted. She assumed, therefore, an 
 exterior of apparent submission to their inevitable separation ; 
 and if she now and then broke out into complaints and murmurs, 
 it was either that she could not altogether suppress the natural 
 impetuosity of her temper, or because she had the wit to con- 
 sider, that a total and unreserved acquiescence might have 
 seemed to her son constrained and suspicious, and induced him 
 to watch and defeat the means by which she still hoped to pre- 
 vent his leaving her. Her ardent, though selfish affection for 
 her son, incapable of being qualified by a regard for the true in- 
 terests of the unfortunate object of her attachment, resembled 
 the instinctive fondness of the animal race for their offspring ; 
 and, diving little further into futurity than one of the inferior 
 creatures, she only felt, that to be separated from Hamish was 
 to die. 
 
 In the brief interval ]:)ermitted them, Elspat exhausted every 
 art which affection could devise, to render agreeable to him the 
 space which they were apparently to spend with each other. 
 Her memory carried her far back into former days, and her 
 stores of legendary history, which furnish at all times a principal 
 amusement of the Highlander in his moments of repose, were 
 augmented by an unusual acquaintance with the songs of ancient 
 bards, and traditions of the most approved Seannachies and 
 tellers of tales. Her officious attentions to her son's accommo- 
 dation, indeed, were so unremitted as almost to give him pain ; 
 and he endeavored quietly to prevent her from taking so much 
 personal toil in selecting the blooming heath for his bed, or pre- 
 paring the meal for his refreshment. " Let me alone, Hamish," 
 she would reply on such occasions ; " you follow your own will 
 in departing from your mother, let your mother have hers in 
 doing what gives her pleasure while you remain." 
 
 So much she seemed to be reconciled to the arrangements 
 which he had made in her behalf, that she could hear him speak 
 to her of her removing to the lands of Green Colin, as the gentle- 
 man was called, on whose estate he had provided her an asylum. 
 In truth, however, nothing could be further from her thoughts. 
 From what he had said during their first violent dispute, 
 Elspat had gathered, that if Hamish returned not by the 
 appointed time permitted by his furlough, he would incur the 
 hazard of corporal punishment. Were he placed within the
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 91 
 
 risk of being thus dishonored, she was well ware that he would 
 never submit to the disgrace by return to the regiment where 
 it might be inflicted. Whether she looked to any further prob- 
 able consequences of her unhappy scheme, cannot be known ; 
 but the partner of MacTavish Mhor, in all his perils and wan^ 
 derings, was familiar with a hundred instances of resistance or 
 escape, by which one brave man, amidst a land of rocks, lakes, 
 and mountains, dangerous passes, and dark forests, might 
 baffle the pursuit of hundreds. For the future, therefore, she 
 feared nothing ; her sole engrossing object was to prevent her 
 son from keeping his word with his commanding officer. 
 
 With this secret purpose, she evaded the proposal which 
 Hamish repeatedly made, that they should set out together to 
 take possession of her new abode ; and she resisted it upon 
 grounds apparently so natural to her character, that her son 
 was neither alarmed nor displeased. " Let me not," she said, 
 " in the same short week, bid farewell to my only son, and to 
 the glen in which I have so long dwelt. Let my eye, when 
 dimmed with weeping for thee, still look around, for a while at 
 least, upon Loch Awe and on Ben Cruachan." 
 
 Hamish yielded the more willingly to his mother's humor in 
 this particular, that one or two persons who resided in a neigh- 
 boring glen, and had given their sons to Barcaldine's levy, 
 were also to be provided for on the estate of the chieftain, and 
 it was apparently settled that Elspat was to take her journey 
 along with them when they should remove to their new resi- 
 dence. Thus, Hamish believed that he had at once indulged 
 his mother's humor, and ensured her safety and accommoda- 
 tion. But she nourished in her mind very different thoughts 
 and projects ! 
 
 The period of Hamish's leave of absence was fast approach- 
 ing, and more than once he proposed to depart, in such a time 
 as to ensure his gaining easily and early Dumbarton, the town 
 where were the head-quarters of his regiment. But still his 
 mother's entreaties, his own natural disposition to linger among 
 scenes long dear to him, and above all, his firm reliance in his 
 speed and activity, induced him to protract his departure till 
 the sixth day, being the very last which he could possibly afford 
 to spend with his mother, if indeed he meant to comply with 
 the conditions of his furlough.
 
 52 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 CHAPTER FIFTH. 
 
 But, for your son, — believe it, oh, believe it^ 
 Most dangerously you have with him prevailed, 
 If not most mortal to him. — 
 
 CORIOLANUS. 
 
 On the evening which preceded his proposed departure, 
 Hamish walked down to the river with his fishing-rod, to prac- 
 tice in the Awe, for the last time, a sport in which he excelled, 
 and to find, at the same time, the means for making one social 
 meal with his mother, on something better than their ordinary 
 cheer. He was as successful as usual, and soon killed a fine 
 salmon. On his return homeward, an incident befell him, 
 which he afterward related as ominous, though probably his 
 heated imagination, joined to the universal turn of his country- 
 men for the marvelous, exaggerated into superstitious import- 
 ance some very ordinary and accidental circumstance. 
 
 In the path which he pursued homeward, he was surprised 
 to observe a person, who, like himself, was dressed and armed 
 after the old Highland fashion. The first idea that struck him 
 was, that the passenger belonged to his own corps, who, levied 
 by government, and bearing arms under royal authority, were 
 not amenable for breach of the statutes against the use of 
 the Highland garb or weapons. But he was struck on perceiv- 
 ing, as he mended his pace to make up to his supposed comrade, 
 meaning to request his company for the next day's journey, that 
 the stranger wore a white cockade, the fatal badge which was 
 proscribed in the Highlands. The stature of the man was tall, 
 and there was something shadowy in the outline, which, added to 
 his size and his mode of motion, which rather resembled gliding 
 than walking, impressed Hamish with sui:)erstitious fears con- 
 cerning the character of the being which thus passed before him 
 in the twilight. He no longer strove to make up to the stranger, 
 but contented himself with keeping him in view, under the super- 
 stition, common to the Highlanders, that you ought neither to 
 intrude yourself on such supernatural apparitions as you may 
 witness, nor avoid their presence, but leave it to themselves to 
 withhold or extend their communication, as their power may 
 permit, or the purpose of their commission require. 
 
 Upon an elevated knoll by the side of the road, just where 
 »iie pathway turned down to Elspat's hut, the stranger made a
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 93 
 
 pause, and seemed to await Hamish's coming up. Hamish, on 
 his part, seeing it was necessary he should pass the object of 
 his suspicion, mustered up his courage, and approached the 
 spot where the stranger had placed himself ; who first pointed 
 to Elspat's hut, and made, with arm and head, a gesture pro- 
 hibiting Hamish to approach it, then stretched his hand to the 
 road which led to the southward, with a motion which seemed 
 to enjoin his instant departure in that direction. In a moment 
 afterward the plaided form was gone — Hamish did not exactly 
 say vanished, because there were rocks and stunted trees 
 enough to have concealed him ; but it was his own opinion that 
 he had seen the spirit of MacTavish Mhor, warning him to 
 commence his instant journey to Dumbarton, without waiting 
 till morning, or again visiting his mother's hut. 
 
 In fact, so many accidents might arise to delay his journey, 
 especially where there were many ferries, that it became his 
 settled purpose, though he could not depart without bidding his 
 mother adieu, that he neither could nor would abide longer 
 than for that object ; and that the first glimpse of next day's 
 sun should see him many miles advanced toward Dumbarton. 
 He descended the path, therefore, and entering the cottage, he 
 communicated, in a hasty and troubled voice, which indicated 
 mental agitation, his determination to take his instant depart- 
 ure. Somewhat to his surprise Elspat appeared not to combat 
 his purpose, but she urged him to take some refreshment ere 
 he left her forever. He did so hastily, and in silence, think- 
 ing on the approaching separation, and scarce yet believing it 
 would take place without a final struggle with his mother's 
 fondness. To his surprise she filled the quaigh with liquor for 
 his parting cup. 
 
 " Go," she said, " my son, since such is thy settled purpose ; 
 but first stand once more on thy mother's hearth, the flame on 
 which will be extinguished long ere thy foot shall again be 
 placed there." 
 
 "To your health, mother!" said Hamish, "and may we 
 meet again in happiness, in spite of your ominous words." 
 
 " It were better not to part," said his mother, watching him 
 as he quaffed the liquor, of which he would have held it omi- 
 nous to have left a drop. 
 
 "And now," she said, muttering the words to herself, "go 
 — if thou canst go." 
 
 " Mother," said Hamish, as he replaced on the table the 
 empty quaigh, " thy drink is pleasant to the taste, but it takes 
 away the strength which it ought to give." 
 
 *• Such is its first effect, my son," replied Elspat ; " but \\q^
 
 94 
 
 THE HICHLAiVD IVIDOIV. 
 
 down upon that soft heather couch, shut your eyes but for a 
 moment, and, in the sleep of an hour, you shall have more re- 
 freshment than in the ordinary repose of three wh,ole nights, 
 could they be blended into one." 
 
 *' Mother," said Hamish, upon whose brain the potion was 
 now taking rapid effect, " give me my bonnet — I must kiss 
 you and begone — yet it seems as if my feet were nailed to the 
 floor." 
 
 " Indeed," said his mother, " you will be instantly well, if 
 you will sitdown for half-an-hour — but half-an-hour ; it is eight 
 hours to dawn, and dawn were time enough for your father's 
 son to begin such a journey." 
 
 " I must obey, you mother — I feel I must," said Hamish 
 inaticulately ; " but call me when the moon rises." 
 
 He sat down on the bed — reclined back, and almost instantly 
 was fast asleep. With the throbbing glee of one who has brought 
 to an end a difficult and troublesome enterprise, Elspat proceeded 
 tenderly to arrange the plaid of the unconscious slumberer, to 
 whom her extravagant affection was doomed to be so fatal, ex- 
 pressing, while busied in her office, her delight, in tones of 
 mingled tenderness and triumph. " Yes," she said, " calf of my 
 heart, the moon shall arise and set to thee, and so shall the sun, 
 but not to light thee from the land of thy fathers, or tempt 
 thee to serve the foreign prince or the feudal enemy ! To no 
 son of Dermid shall I be delivered, to be fed like a bondswoman, 
 but he who is my pleasure and my pride shall be my guard and 
 my protector. They say the Highlands are changed ; but I see 
 Ben Cruachan rear his crest as high as ever into the evening 
 sky — no one hath yet herded his kine on the depth of Loch Awe 
 — and yonder oak does not yet bend like a willow. The children 
 of the mountains will be such as their fathers, until the moun- 
 tains themselves shall be leveled with the strath. In these 
 wild forests, which used to support thousands of the brave 
 there is still surely subsistence and refuge left for one aged 
 woman, and one gallant youth, of the ancient race and the 
 ancient manners," 
 
 While the misjudging mother thus exulted in the success of 
 her stratagem, we may mention to the reader, that it was founded 
 on the acquaintance with drugs and simples, which Elspat, ac- 
 complished in all things belonging to the wild life which she 
 had led, possessed in an uncommon degree, and which she 
 exercised for various purposes. With the herbs, which she 
 knew how to select as well as how to distil, she could relieve 
 more diseases than a regular medical person could easily be- 
 lieve. She applied some to dye the bright colors of the tartan
 
 THE HIGHLAXD WIDOW. 
 
 95 
 
 ■ — from others she compounded draughts of various powers, 
 and unhappily possessed the secret of one which was strongly 
 soporific. Upon the effects of this last concoction, as the 
 reader doubtless has anticipated, she reckoned with security on 
 delaying Haniish beyond the period for which his return was 
 appointed ; and she trusted to his horror for the apprehended 
 punishment to which he was thus rendered liable, to prevent 
 him from returning at all. 
 
 Sound and deep, beyond natural rest, was the sleep of 
 Hamish McTavish on that eventful evening, but not such the 
 repose of his mother. Scarce did she close her eyes from time 
 to time, but she awakened again with a start, in the terror that 
 her son had arisen and departed ; and it was only on approach- 
 ing his couch, and hearing his deep-drawn and regular breath- 
 ing, that she reassured herself of the security of the repose in 
 which he was plunged. 
 
 Still, dawning, she feared, might awaken him, notwithstand- 
 ing the unusual strength of the potion with which she had 
 drugged his cup. If there remained a hope of mortal man 
 accomplishing the journey, she was aware that Hamish would 
 attempt it, though he were to die from fatigue upon the road. 
 Animated by this new fear, she studied to exclude the light by 
 stopping all the crannies and crevices through which, rather 
 than through any regular entrance, the morning beams might 
 find access to her miserable dwelling ; and this in order to de- 
 tain amid its wants and wretchedness the being, on whom, if 
 the world itself had been at her disposal, she would have joy- 
 fully conferred it. 
 
 Her pains were bestowed unnecessarily. The sun rose high 
 above the heavens, and not the fleetest stag in Breadalbane, 
 were the hounds at his heels, could have sped to save his life, 
 so fast as would have been necessary to keep Hamish's appoint- 
 ment. Her purpose was fully attained — her son's return within 
 the period assigned was impossible. She deemed it equally 
 impossible, that he would ever dream of returning, standing, as 
 he must now do, in the danger of an infamous punishment. 
 By degrees, and at different times, she had gained from him a 
 full acquaintance with the predicament in which he would be 
 placed by failing to appear on the dav appointed, and the very 
 small hope he could entertain of being treated with lenitv. It 
 is well-known that the great and wise Earl of Chatham prided 
 himself on the scheme, by which he drew together, for the 
 defence of the colonies, those hardy Highlanders, who, until his 
 time, had been the objects of doubt, fear, and suspicion, on the 
 part of each successive administration. But some obstacles
 
 ^6 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 occurred, from the peculiar habits and temper of this people, to 
 the execution of his patriotic project. By nature and habit, 
 every Highlander was accustomed to the use of arms, but at the 
 same time totally unaccustomed to, and impatient of, the le- 
 straints imposed by discipline upon regular troops. They were 
 a species of militia, who had no conception of a camp as their 
 only home. If a battle was lost, they dispersed to save them 
 selves, and look out for the safety of their families ; if won. 
 they went back to their glens to hoard up their booty, and 
 attend to their cattle and their farms. This privilege of going 
 and coming at pleasure, they would not be deprived of even by 
 their Chiefs, whose authority was in most other respects so 
 despotic. It followed as a matter of course, that the new-levied 
 Highland recruits could scarce be made to comprehend the 
 nature of a military engagement, which compelled a man to ser^'e 
 in the army longer than he pleased ; and perhaps, in many in- 
 stances, sufficient care was not taken at enlisting to explain to 
 them the permanency of the engagement which they came under, 
 lest such a disclosure should induce them to change their mind. 
 Desertions were therefore become numerous from the newly- 
 raised regiment, and the veteran General who commanded at 
 Dumbarton saw no better way of checking them than by causing 
 an unusually severe example to be made of a deserter from an 
 English corps. The young Highland regiment was obliged to 
 attend upon the punishment, which struck a people peculiarly 
 jealous of personal honor, with equal horror and disgust, and 
 not unnaturally indisposed some of them to the service. The 
 old General, however, who had been regularly bred in the 
 German wars, stuck to his own opinion, and gave out in orders 
 that the first Highlander who might either desert or fail to 
 appear at the expiry of his furlough, should be brought to the 
 halberds and punished like the culprit whom they had seen in 
 
 that condition. No man doubted that General would 
 
 keep his word rigorously whenever severity was required, and 
 Elspat, therefore, knew that her son, when he perceived that 
 due compliance with his orders was impossible, must at the same 
 time consider the degrading punishment denounced against his 
 defection as inevitable, should he place himself within the 
 General's power.* 
 
 When noon was well passed, new apprehensions came on the 
 mind of the lonely woman. Her son still slept under the in- 
 fluence of the draught ; but what if, being stronger than she had 
 ever known it administered, his health or his reason should be 
 
 • Note F. Fidelity of the Highlanders.
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 97 
 
 affected by its potency ! For the first time, likewise, notwith- 
 standing her high ideas on the subject of paternal authority, 
 she began to dread the resentment of her son, whom her heart 
 told her she had wronged. Of late, she had obser\'ed that his 
 temper was less docile, and his determinations, especially upon 
 this late occasion of his enlistment, independently formed, and 
 then boldly carried through. She remembered the stern wil- 
 fulness of his father when he accounted himself ill-used, and 
 began to dread that Hamish, upon finding the deceit she had put 
 upon him, might resent it even to the extent of casting her off, 
 and pursuing his own course . through the world alone. Such 
 were the alarming and yet the reasonable apprehensions which 
 began to crowd upon the unfortunate woman, after the apparent 
 success of her ill-advised stratagem. 
 
 It was near evening when Hamish first awoke, and then he 
 was far from being in the full possession either of his mental or 
 bodily powers. From his vague expressions and disordered 
 pulse, Elspat at first experienced much apprehension ; but she 
 used such expedients as her medical knowledge suggested ; and 
 in the course of the night, she had the satisfaction to see him 
 sink once more into a deep sleep, which probably carried off the 
 greater part of the effects of the drug, for about sunrising she 
 heard him arise, and call to her for his bonnet. This she had 
 purposely removed, from a fear that he might awaken and depart 
 in the night-time, without her knowledge. 
 
 " My bonnet — my bonnet," cried Hamish, " it is time to take 
 farewell. Mother, your drink was too strong^the sun is up — 
 but with the next morning I will still see the double summit of 
 the ancient Dun. My bonnet — my bonnet ! mother, I must be 
 instant in my departure." These expressions made it plain that 
 poor Hamish was unconscious that two nights and a day had 
 passed since he had drained the fatal quaigh, and Elsj^at had 
 now to venture on what she felt as the almost perilous, as 
 well as painful task, of explaining her machinations. 
 
 " Forgive me, my son," she said, approaching Hamish, and 
 taking him by the hand with an air of deferential awe, which 
 perhaps she had not always used to his father, even when in his 
 moody fits. 
 
 " Forgive you, mother — for what ? " said Hamish, laughing ; 
 " for giving me a dram that was too strong, and which my head 
 still feels this morning, or for hiding my bonnet to keep me an 
 instant longer ? Nay, do you forgive me. Give me the bonnet, 
 and let that be done which now must be done. Give me my 
 bonnet, or I go without it ; surely I am not to be delayed by so 
 trifling a want as that — I, who have gone for years with only a
 
 9S 
 
 TJIE JUG HL AND WIDOW. 
 
 strap of deer's hide to tie back my hair. Trifle not, but give il 
 me, or I must go bareheaded, since to stay is impossible." 
 
 " My son," said Elspat, keeping fast hold of his hand, " what 
 is done cannot be recalled ; could you borrow the wings of 
 yonder eagle, you would arrive at the Dun too late for what you 
 purpose, — too soon for what awaits you there. You believe you 
 see the sun rising for the first time since you have seen him set, 
 but yesterday beheld him climb Ben Cruachan, though your eyes 
 were closed to his light." 
 
 Hamish cast upon his mother a wild glance of extreme terror, 
 then, instantly recovering himself, said — " I am no child to be 
 cheated out of my purpose by such tricks as these — Farewell, 
 mother, each moment is worth a lifetime." 
 
 " Stay," she said, " my dear — my deceived son ! rush not on 
 infamy and ruin — Yonder I see the priest upon the highroad on 
 his white horse — ask him the day of the month and week — let 
 him decide between us." 
 
 With the speed of an eagle, Hamish darted up the acclivity 
 and stood by the minister of Glenorquhy, who was pacing out 
 thus early to administer consolation to a distressed family near 
 Bunawe. 
 
 The good man was somewhat startled to behold an armed 
 Highlander — then so unusual a sight, and apparently much 
 agitated — stop his horse by the bridle, and ask him with a falter- 
 ing voice the day of the week and month. " Had you been 
 where you should have been yesterday, young man," replied the 
 clergyman, " you would have known that it was God's Sabbath ; 
 and that this is Monday, the second day of the week, and twenty- 
 first of the month." 
 
 " And is this true ? " said Hamish. 
 
 " As true," answered the surprised minister, " as that I yes- 
 terday preached the word of God to this parish. — ^What ails you, 
 young man ? — are you sick ? — are you in your right mind ? " 
 
 Hamish made no answer, only repeated to himself the first 
 expression of the clergyman — " Had you been where you 
 should have been yesterday ; " and so saying, he let go the 
 bridle, turned from the road, and descended the path toward 
 the hut, with the look and pace of one who was going to 
 execution. The minister looked after him with surprise ; but 
 although he knew the inhabitant of the hovel, the character of 
 Elspat had not invited him to open any communication with 
 her, because she was generally reputed a Papist, or rather 
 one indifferent to all religion, except some superstitious ob- 
 servances which had been handed down from her parents. 
 On Hamish the Reverend Mr. Tyrie had bestowed instruo
 
 THE mcHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 99 
 
 tions when he was occasionally thrown in his way, and if the 
 seed fell among the brambles and thorns of a wild and un- 
 cultivated disposition, it had not yet been entirely checked or 
 destroyed. There was something so ghastly in the present 
 expression of the youth's features, that the good man was 
 tempted to go down to the hovel, and inquire whether any dis- 
 tress had befallen the inhabitants, in which his presence might 
 be consoling, and his ministry useful. Unhappily he did not 
 persevere in this resolution, which might have saved a great 
 misfortune, as he would have probably become a mediator for 
 the unfortunate young man ; but a recollection of the wild 
 moods of such Highlanders as had been educated after the old 
 fashion of the country, prevented his interesting himself in the 
 widow and son of the far-dreaded robber, MacTavish Mhor ; 
 and he thus missed an opportunity, which he afterward sorely 
 repented, of doing much good. 
 
 When Haniish MacTavish entered his mother's hut, it was 
 only to throw himself on the bed he had left, and exclaiming, 
 " Undone, undone ; " to give vent, in cries of grief and anger, to 
 his deep sense of the deceit which had been practiced on him, 
 and of the cruel predicament to which he was reduced. 
 
 Elspat was prepared for the first explosion of her son's 
 passion, and said to herself, " It is but the mountain torrent, 
 swelled by the thunder shower. Let us sit and rest us by the 
 bank ; for all its present tumult, the time will soon come 
 when we may pass it dryshod." She suffered his complaints 
 and his reproaches, which were, even in the midst of his agony, 
 respectful and affectionate, to die away without returning any 
 answer ; and when, at length, having exhausted all the ex- 
 clamations of sorrow which his language, copious in expressing 
 the feelings of the heart, affords to the sufferer, he sunk into a 
 gloomy silence, she suffered the interval to continue near an 
 hour ere she approached her son's couch. 
 
 " And now," she said at length, with a voice in which the 
 authority of the mother was qualified by her tenderness, " have 
 you exhausted your idle sorrows, and are you able to place 
 what you have gained against what you have lost .'' Is the 
 false son of Dermid your brother, or the father of your tribe, 
 that you weep because you cannot bind yourself to his belt, 
 and become one of those who must do his bidding .-' Could you 
 find in yonder distant country the lakes and the mountains 
 that you leave behind you here ? Can you hunt the deer of 
 Breadalbane in the forests of America, or will the ocean afford 
 you the silver-scaled salmon of the Awe ? Consider then,
 
 100 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 what is your loss, and, like a wise man, set it against what you 
 have won." 
 
 " I have lost all, mother," replied Hamish, " since I liave 
 broken my word and lost my honor. I might tell my tale, bat 
 who, oh, who would believe me ? " The unfortunate young 
 man again clasped his hands together, and pressing them to his 
 forehead, hid his face upon the bed. 
 
 Elspat was now really alarmed, and perhaps wished the fatal 
 deceit had been left unattempted. She had no hope or refuge 
 saving in the eloquence of persuasion, of which she possessed 
 no small share, though her total ignorance of the world, as it 
 actually existed, rendered its energy unavailing. She urged 
 her son, by every tender epithet w^hich a parent could bestow, 
 to take care for his own safety. 
 
 " Leave me," she said, " to baffle your pursuers. I will save 
 your life — I will save your honor — I will tell them that my 
 fair-haired Hamish fell from the Corrie dhu (black precipice) 
 into the gulf, of which human eye never beheld the bottom, 
 I will tell them this, and I will fling your plaid on the thorns 
 which grow on the brink of the precipice, that they may believe 
 my words. They will believe, and they will return to the Dun 
 of the double-crest ; for though the Saxon drum can call the 
 living to die, it cannot recall the dead to their slavish standard. 
 Then will we travel together far northward to the salt lakes of 
 Kintail, and place glens and mountains betwixt us and the sons 
 of Dermid. We will visit the shores of the dark lake, and my 
 kinsmen — (for was not my mother of the children of Kenneth, 
 and will they not remember us with the old love .'') — my kins- 
 men will receive us with the affection of the olden time, which 
 lives in those distant glens, where the Gael still dwell in their 
 nobleness, unmingled with the churl Saxons, or with the base 
 brood that are their tools and their slaves." 
 
 The energy of the language, somewhat allied to hyperbole, 
 even in its most ordinary expressions, now seemed almost too 
 weak to afford Elspat the means of bringing out the splendid 
 picture which she presented to her son of the land in which she 
 proposed to him to take refuge. Yet the colors were few with 
 which she could paint her Highland paradise. " The hills," 
 she said, " were higher and more magnificent than those of 
 Breadalbane — Ben Cruachan was but a dwarf to Skooroora. 
 The lakes were broader and larger, and bounded not only with 
 fish, but with the enchanted and amphibious animal which 
 gives oil to the lamp.* The deer were larger and more numer- 
 
 * The seals are considered by the Highlanders as enchanted princes.
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. lOi 
 
 ous — the white-tusked boar, the chase of which the brave loved 
 best, was yet to be roused in those western solitudes — the men 
 were nobler, wiser, and stronger, than the degenerate brood 
 who lived under the Saxon banner. The daughters of the land 
 were beautiful, with blue eyes and fair hair, and bosoms of 
 snow, and out of these she would choose a wife for Hamish, of 
 blameless descent, spotless fame, fixed and true affection, who 
 should be in their summer bothy as a beam of the sun, and in 
 their winter abode as the warmth of the needful fire. 
 
 Such were the topics with which Elspat strove to soothe the 
 despair of her son, and to determine him, if possible, to leave 
 the fatal spot, on which he seemed resolved to linger. The 
 style of her rhetoric was poetical, but in other respects 
 resembled that which, like other fond mothers, she had lavished 
 on Hamish, while a child or a boy, in order to gain his consent 
 to do something he had no mind to ; and she spoke louder, 
 quicker, and more earnestly, in proportion as she began to de- 
 spair of her words carrying conviction. 
 
 On the mind of Hamish her eloquence made no impression. 
 He knew far better than she did the actual situation of the 
 country, and was sensible, that, though it might be possible to 
 hide himself as a fugitive among more distant mountains, there 
 was now no corner in the Highlands in which his father's pro- 
 fession could be practiced, even if he had not adopted, from the 
 improved ideas of the time when he lived, the opinion, that the 
 trade of the cateran was no longer the road to honor and dis- 
 tinction. Her words were therefore poured into regardless ears, 
 and she exhausted herself in vain in the attempt to paint the 
 regions of her mother's kinsmen in such terms as might tempt 
 Hamish to accompany her thither. She spoke for hours, but 
 she spoke in vain. She could extort no answer, save groans, 
 and sighs, and ejaculations, expressing the extremity of despair. 
 
 At length, starting on her feet, and changing the monoton- 
 ous tone in which she had chanted, as it were, the praises of the 
 province of refuge, into the short, stern language of eager pas- 
 sion — " I am a fool," she said, " to spend my words upon an 
 idle, poor-spirited, unintelligent boy, who crouches like a hound 
 to the lash. Wait here, and receive your taskmasters, and abide 
 your chastisement at their hands ; but do not think your mother's 
 eyes will behold it. I could not see it and live. My eyes have 
 looked often upon death, but never upon dishonor. Farewell, 
 Hamish ! — We never meet again." 
 
 She dashed from the hut like a lapwing, and perhaps for the 
 moment actually entertained the purpose which she expressed 
 of parting with her son forever. A fearful sight she would
 
 102 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 have been that evening to any who might have met her wan 
 deling through the wilderness hke a restless spirit, and speak- 
 ing to herself in language which will endure no translation. 
 She rambled for hours, seeking rather than shunning the niost 
 dangerous paths. The precarious track through the morass, 
 the dizzy path along the edge of the precipice, or by the banks 
 of the gulfing river, were the roads which, far from avoiding, 
 she sought with eagerness, and traversed with reckless haste. 
 But the courage arising from despair was the means of saving 
 the life, which (though deliberate suicide was rarely practiced 
 in the Highlands) she was perhaps desirous of terminating. 
 Her step on the verge of the precipice was firm as that of the 
 wild goat. Her eye, in that state of excitation, was so keen as 
 to discern, even amid darkness, the perils which noon would 
 not have enabled a stranger to avoid. 
 
 Elspat's course was not directly forward, else she had soon 
 been far from the bothy in which she had left her son. It was 
 circuitous, for that hut was the centre to which her heartstrings 
 were chained, and though she wandered around it, she felt it 
 impossible to leave the vicinity. With the first beams of 
 morning, she returned to the hut. A while she paused at the 
 wattled door, as if ashamed that lingering fondness should 
 have brought her back to the spot which she had left with the 
 purpose of never returning; but there was yet more of fear and 
 anxiety in her hesitation — of anxiety, lest her fair-haired son 
 had suffered from the effects of her potion — of fear lest his 
 enemies had come upon him in the night. She opened the 
 door of the hut gently, and entered with noiseless step. Ex- 
 hausted with his sorrow and anxiety, and not entirely relieved 
 perhaps from the influence of the powerful opiate, Hamish Baen 
 again slept the stern sound sleep, by which the Indians are 
 said to be overcome during the interval of their torments. His 
 mother was scarcely sure that she actually discerned his form 
 on the bed, scarce certain that her ear caught the sound of his 
 breathing. With a throbbing heart, Elspat went to the fire- 
 place in the centre of the hut, where slumbered, covered with a 
 piece of turf, the glimmering embers of the fire, never ex- 
 tinguished on a Scottish hearih until the indwellers leave the 
 mansion forever, 
 
 "Feeble greishogh,"* she said, as she lighted, by the help 
 of a match, a splinter of bog pine which was to serve the place 
 of a candle ; " weak greishogh, soon shalt thou be put out for- 
 ever, and may Heaven grant that the life of Elspat MacTavish 
 have no longer duration than thine ! " 
 
 * Greishogh, a glowing ember.
 
 THE iJTGHLAMt) WIDOW. 
 
 103 
 
 While she spoke she raised the blazing light toward the 
 bed, on which still lay the prostrate limbs of her son, in a 
 posture that left it doubtful whether he slept or swooned. As 
 she advanced toward him, the light flashed upon his eyes — he 
 started up in an instant, made a stride forward with his naked 
 dirk in his hand, like a man armed to meet a mortal enemy, 
 and exclaimed, " Stand off! — on thy life, stand off! " 
 
 " It is the word and the action of my husband," answered 
 Elspat ; " and I know by his speech and his step the son of 
 MacTavish Mhor." 
 
 " Mother," said Hamish, relapsing from his tone of des- 
 perate firmness into one of melancholy expostulation ; " oh, 
 dearest mother, wherefore have you returned hither ? " 
 
 "Ask why the hind comes back to the fawn," said Elspat ; 
 " why the cat of the mountain returns to her lodge and her 
 young. Know you, Hamish, that the heart of the mother only 
 lives in the bosom of the child." 
 
 " Then will it soon cease to throb," said Hamish, " unless it 
 can beat within a bosom that lies beneath the turf. — Mother, 
 do not blam.e me ; if I weep, it is not for myself, but for you, 
 
 for my sufferings will soon be over ; but yours Oh, who but 
 
 Heaven shall set a boundary to them ! " 
 
 Elspat shuddered and stepped backward, but almost in- 
 stantly resumed her firm and upright position, and her daunt- 
 less bearing. 
 
 " 1 thought thou wert a man but even now," she said, " and 
 thou art again a child. Hearken to me yet, and let us leave 
 this place together. Have I done thee wrong or injury t if so, 
 yet do not avenge it so cruelly — See, Elspat MacTavish, who 
 never kneeled before even to a priest, falls prostrate before her 
 son, and craves his forgiveness." And at once she threw 
 herself on her knees before the young man, seized on his hand, 
 and kissing it a hundred times, repeated as often, in heart- 
 breaking accents, the most earnest entreaties for forgiveness. 
 " Pardon," she exclaimed, " pardon, for the sake of your 
 father's ashes — pardon, for the sake of the pain with which I 
 bore thee, the care with which I nurtured thee ! — Hear it, 
 Heaven, and behold it. Earth — the mother asks pardon of her 
 child, and she is refused ! " 
 
 It was in vain that Hamish endeavored to stem this tide of 
 passion, by assuring his mother, with the most solemn asseve- 
 rations, that he forgave entirely the fatal deceit which she had 
 practiced upon him. 
 
 " Empty words," she said ; " idle protestations, which are 
 but used to hide the obduracy of your resentment. Would }ou
 
 104 
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 have me believe you, then leave the hut this instant, and retire 
 from a country which every hour renders more dangerous — Do 
 this, and I may think you have forgiven me — refuse it, and again 
 I call on moon and stars, heaven and earth, to witness the 
 unrelenting resentment with which you prosecute your mother 
 for a fault, which, if it be one, arose out of love to you," 
 
 " Mother," said Hamish, " on this subject you move me not. 
 I will fly before no man. If Barcaldine should send every Gael 
 that is under his banner, here, and in this place, will I abide 
 them ; and when you bid me fly, you may as well command 
 yonder mountain to be loosened from its foundations. Had I 
 been sure of the road by which they are coming hither, I had 
 spared them the pains of seeking me ; but I might go by the 
 mountain, while they perchance came by the lake. Here I will 
 abide my fate ; nor is there in Scotland a voice of power enough 
 to bid me stir from hence, and be obeyed." 
 
 " Here, then, I also stay," said Elspat, rising up and speak- 
 ing with assumed composure. " I have seen my husband's 
 death — my eyelids shall not grieve to look on the fall of my son. 
 But MacTavish Mhor died as became the brave, with his good 
 sword in his right hand ; my son will perish like the bullock 
 that is driven to the shambles by the Saxon owner, who has 
 bought him for a price." 
 
 " Mother," said the unhappy young man, " you have taken 
 my life ; to that you have a right, for you gave it ; but touch 
 not my honor ! It came to me from a brave train of ancestors 
 and should be sullied neither by man's deed nor woman's 
 speech. What I shall do, perhaps I myself yet know not ; 
 but tempt me no further by reproachful words ; you have already 
 made wounds more than you can ever heal." 
 
 " It is well, my son," said Elspat, in reply. " Expect neither 
 further complaint nor remonstrance from me ; but let us be 
 silent, and wait the chance which Heaven shall send us.'' 
 
 The sun arose on the next morning, and found the bothy 
 silent as the grave. The mother and son had arisen, and were 
 engaged each in their separate task — Hamish in preparing and 
 cleaning his arms with the greatest accuracy, but with an air of 
 deep dejection. Elspat, more restless in her agony of spirit, 
 employed herself in making ready the food which the distress 
 of yesterday had induced them both to dispense with for an un- 
 usual number of hours. She placed it on the board before hex 
 son so soon as it was prepared, with the words of a Gaelic poet, 
 " Without daily food, the husbandman's ploughshare stands still 
 in the furrow ; without daily food, the sword of the warrior is 
 too heavy for his hand. Our bodies are our slaves, yet they
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 1 05 
 
 must be fed if we would have their service. So spake, in ancient 
 days, the Blind Bard to the warriors of Fion." 
 
 The young man made no reply, but he fed on what was 
 placed before him, as if to gather strength for the scene which 
 he was to undergo. When his mother saw that he had eaten 
 what sufficed him, she again filled the fatal quaigh, and proffered 
 it as the conclusion of the repast. But he started aside with a 
 convulsive gesture, expressive at once of fear and abhor- 
 rence. 
 
 " Nay, my son," she said ; " this time, surely, thou hast no 
 cause of fear." 
 
 "Urge me not, mother," answered Hamish ; "or put the 
 leprous toad into the flagon, and I will drink ; but from that 
 accursed cup, and of that mind destroying potion, never will I 
 taste more ! " 
 
 " At your pleasure, my son," said Elspat, haughtily; and 
 began, with much apparent assiduity, the various domestic tasks 
 which had been interrupted during the preceding day. What- 
 ever was at her heart, all anxiety seemed banished from her 
 looks and demeanor. It was but from an over-activity of bus- 
 tling exertion that it might have been perceived, by a close 
 observer, that her actions were spurred by some internal cause 
 of painful excitement ; and such a spectator, too, might also 
 have observed how often she broke off the snatches of songs or 
 tunes which she hummed, apparently without knowing what she 
 was doing, in order to cast a hasty glance from the door of the 
 hut. Whatever might be in the mind of Hamish, his demeanor 
 was directly the reverse of that adopted by his mother. Hav- 
 ing finished the task of cleaning and preparing his arms which 
 he arranged within the hut, he sat himself down before the 
 door of the bothy, and watched the opposite hill, like the 
 fixed sentinel who expects the approach of an enemy. Noon 
 found him in the same unchanged posture, and it was an hour 
 after that period, when his mother, standing beside him, laid 
 her hand on his shoulder, and said, in a tone indifferent, as if 
 she had been talking of some friendly visit, " When dost thou 
 expect them ? " 
 
 " They cannot be here till the shadows fall long to the east- 
 ward," replied Hamish ; " that is, even supposing the nearest 
 party, commanded by Sergeant Allan Breack Cameron, has been 
 commanded hither by express from Dumbarton, as it is most 
 likely they will." 
 
 " Then enter beneath your mother's roof once more ; partake 
 the last time of the food which she has prepared ; after this, let 
 them come, and thou shalt see if thy mother is a useless en-
 
 io6 THE HIGHLAXD WIDOW. 
 
 cumbrance in the clay of strife. Thy hand, practiced as it is, 
 cannot fire these arms so fast as I can load them ; nay, if it is 
 necessary, I do not myself fear the flash or the report, and my 
 aim has been held fatal." 
 
 " In the name of Heaven, mother, meddle not with this 
 matter! " said Hamish, " Allan Breack is a wise man and a 
 kindon«, and comes of a good stem. It may be, he can promise 
 for our officers, that they will touch me with no infamous pun- 
 ishment ; and if they offer me continement in the dungeon, or 
 death by the musket, to that I may not object." 
 
 " Alas ! and wilt thou trust to their word, my fooli-sh child ? 
 Remember the race of Dermid were ever fair and false, and no 
 sooner shall they have gyves on thy hands, than they will strip 
 thy shoulders for the scourge." 
 
 " Save your advice, mother," said Hamish sternly ; " for me, 
 my mind is made up." 
 
 But though he spoke thus, to escape the almost persecuting 
 urgency of his mother, Hamish would have found it, at that 
 moment, impossible to say upon what course of conduct he had 
 thus fixed. On one point alone he was determined, namely, to 
 abide his destiny, be what it might, and not to add to the breach 
 of his word, of which he had been involuntarily rendered guilty, 
 by attempting to escape from punishment. This act of self- 
 devotion he conceived to be due to his own honor and that of 
 his countrymen. Which of his comrades would in future be 
 trusted, if he should be considered as having broken his word, 
 and betrayed the confidence of his officers .-' and whom but 
 Hamish Baen ISIacTavish would the Gael accuse, for having veri- 
 fied and confirmed the suspicions which the Saxon general was 
 well known to entertain against the good faith of the High- 
 landers ? He was, therefore, bent firmly to abide his fate. But 
 whether his intention was to yield himself peaceably into the 
 hands of the party who should come to apprehend him, or 
 whether he purposed, by a show of resistance, to provoke them 
 to kill him on the spot, was a question which he could not him- 
 self have answered. His desire to see Barcaldine, and explain 
 the cause of his absence at the appointed time, urged him to 
 the one course ; his fear of the' degrading punishment, and of 
 his mother's bitter upbraidings, strongly instigated the latter and 
 the more dangerous purpose. He left it to chance to decide 
 when the crisis should arrive ; nor did he tarry long in expec- 
 tation of the catastrophe. 
 
 Evening approached, the gigantic shadows of the mountains 
 streamed in darkness toward the east, while their western 
 peaks were still glowing with crimson and gold. The road which
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 107 
 
 winds round Ben Cruachan was fully visible from the door of 
 the bothy, when a party of five Highland soldiers, whose arms 
 glanced in the sun, wheeled suddenly into sight from the most 
 distant extremity where the highway is hidden behind the 
 mountain. One of the party walked a little before the other 
 four, who marched regularly and in files, according to the rules 
 of military discipline. There was no dispute, from the firelocks 
 which they carried, and the plaids and bonnets which they 
 wore, that they were a party of Hamish's regiment, under a 
 non-commissioned officer ; and there could be as little doubt of 
 the purpose of their appearance on the banks of Loch Awe. 
 
 " They come briskly forward," said the widow of MacTavish 
 Mhor, — " I wonder how fast or how slow some of them will 
 return again ! But they are five, and it is too much odds for a 
 fair field. Step back, within the hut, my son, and shoot from 
 the loophole beside the door. Two you may bring down ere 
 they quit the high-road for the footpath — there will remain but 
 three ; and your father, with my aid, has often stood against 
 that number," 
 
 Hamish Baen took the gun which his mother offered, but 
 did not stir from the door of the hut. He was soon visible to the 
 party on the high-road, as was evident from their increasing their 
 pace to a run ; the files, however, still keeping together, like 
 coupled greyhounds, and advancing with great rapidity. In far 
 less time than would have been accomplished by men less ac- 
 customed to the mountains, they had left the high-road tra- 
 versed the narrow path, and approached within pistol-shot of 
 the bothy, at the door of which stood Hamish, fixed like a 
 statue of stone, with his firelock in his hand, while his mother, 
 placed behind him, and almost driven to frenzy by the violence 
 of her passions, reproached him in the strongest terms which 
 despair could invent, for his want of resolution and faintness 
 of heart. Her words increased the bitter gall which was arising 
 in the young man's own spirit, as he observed the unfriendly 
 speed with which his late comrades were eagerly making tow- 
 ard him like hounds toward the stag when he is at bay. The 
 untamed and angry passions which he inherited from father 
 and mother, were awakened by the supposed hostility of those 
 who pursued him ; and the restraint under v>hich these passions 
 had been hitherto held by his sober judgment, began gradually 
 to give way. The sergeant now called to hmi, " Hamish Baen 
 MacTavish, lay down your arms, and surrender." 
 
 "Do^w/ stand, Allan Breack Cameron, and command your 
 men to stand, or it will be the worse for us all." 
 
 *' Halt men ! " — said the sergeant, but continuing himself
 
 Io8 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 to advance. " Hamish, think what you do, and give up your 
 gun ; you may spill blood, but you cannot escape punish- 
 ment." 
 
 " The scourge — the scourge ! — My son, beware of tha 
 scourge ; " whispered his mother. 
 
 " Take heed, Allan Breack," said Hamish. " I would no? 
 hurt you willingly, — but I will not be taken unless you car. 
 assure me against the Saxon lash." 
 
 " Fool ! " answered Cameron, "you know I cannot; yet 1 
 will do all I can. I will say I met you on your return, and the 
 punishment will be light — But give up your musket — Come on, 
 men." 
 
 Instantly he rushed forward, extending his arm as if to push 
 aside the young man's leveled firelock. Elspat exclaimed, 
 " Now, spare not your father's blood to defend your father's 
 hearth ! " Hamish fired his piece, and Cameron dropped dead. 
 — All these things happened, it might be said, in the same 
 moment of time. The soldiers rushed forward and seized 
 Hamish, who, seeming petrified with what he had done, offered 
 not the least resistance. Not so his mother ; who, seeing the 
 men about to put handcuffs on her son, threw herself on the 
 soldiers with such fury, that it required two of them to hold her, 
 while the rest secured the prisoner. 
 
 " Are you not an accursed creature," said one of the men 
 to Hamish, " to have slain your best friend, who was contriv- 
 ing, during the whole march, how he could find some way of 
 getting you off without punishment for your desertion ?" 
 
 " Do you hear that, mother ? " said Hamish, turning him- 
 self as much toward her as his bonds would permit — but the 
 mother heard nothing, and saw nothing. She had fainted on 
 the floor of her hut. Without waiting for her recovery, the 
 party almost immediately began their homeward march toward 
 Dunbarton, leading along with them their prisoner. They 
 thought it necessary however, to stay for a little space at th^ 
 village of Dalnially, from which they despatched a party of the 
 inhabitants to bring away the body of their unfortunate leader, 
 while they themselves repaired to a magistrate to state what 
 had happened, and require his instructions as to the further 
 course to be pursued. The crime being of a military character, 
 they were instructed to march the prisoner to Dumbarton with- 
 out delay. 
 
 The swoon of the mother of Hamish lasted for a length of 
 time ; the longer perhaps that her constitution, strong as it was, 
 must have been much exhausted by her previous agitation of 
 three days' endurance. She was roused from her stupor at
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 109 
 
 length by female voices, which cried the coronach, or lament 
 for the dead, with clapping of hands and loud exclamations; 
 while the melancholy note of a lament, appropriate to the clan 
 Cameron, played on the bagpipe, was heard from time to 
 time. 
 
 Elspat started up like one awakened from the dead, and 
 without any accurate recollection of the scene which had 
 passed before her eyes. There were females in the hut who 
 were swathing the corpse in its bloody plaid before carrying it 
 from the fatal spot. " Women," she said, starting up and inter- 
 rupting their chant at once and their labor — "Tell me, women, 
 why sing -^^on the dirge of MacDhonuil Dhu in the house of 
 MacTavish Mhor ? " 
 
 " She-wolf, be silent with thine ill-omened yell," answered 
 one of the females, a relation of the deceased, " and let us do 
 our duty to our beloved kinsman ! There shall never be coro- 
 nach cried, or dirge played, for thee or thy bloody wolf-burd,* 
 The ravens shall eat him from the gibbet, and the foxes and 
 wild-cats shall tear thy corpse upon the hill. Cursed be he 
 that would sain your bones, or add a stone to your cairn ! " 
 
 " Daughter of a foolish mother," answered the widow of 
 MacTavish Mhor, " know that the gibbet, with which you 
 threaten us, is no portion of our inheritance. For thirty years 
 the Black Tree of the Law, whose apples are dead men's bodies, 
 hungered after the beloved husband of my heart ; but he died 
 like a brave man, with his sword in his hand, and defrauded it 
 of its hopes and its fruit." 
 
 " So shall it not be with thy child, bloody sorceress," replied 
 the female mourner, whose passions were as violent as those of 
 Elspat herself. " The ravens shall tear his fair hair to line their 
 nests, before the sun sinks beneath the Treshornish islands." 
 
 These words recalled to Elspat's mind the whole history of 
 the last three dreadful days. At first, she stood fixed as if the 
 extremity of distress had converted her into stone ; but in a 
 minute, the pride and violence of her temper, outbraved as she 
 thought herself on her own threshold, enabled her to reply — ■ 
 "Yes, insulting hag, my fair-haired boy may die, but it will not 
 be with a white hand — it has been dyed in the blood of his 
 enemy, in the best blood of a Cameron — remember that ; and 
 when you lay your dead in his grave, let it be his best epitaph, 
 that he was killed by Haniish Baen for essaying to lay hands 
 on the son of MacTavish Mhor on his old threshold. Farewell 
 — the shame of defeat, loss, and slaughter, remain with the 
 clan that has endured it." 
 
 * Wolf-brood, i.e. wolf-cub.
 
 116 TME niGIILAND IVIbOW. 
 
 The relative of the slaughtered Cameron raised her voice in 
 reply ; but Elspat, disdaining to continue the objurgation, or 
 perhaps feeling her grief likely to overmaster her power of ex- 
 pressing her resentment, had left the hut, and was walking 
 fortli in the bright moonshine. 
 
 The females who were arranging the corpse of the slaugh- 
 tered man liurried from their melancholy labor to look after 
 her tall figure as it glided away among the cliffs. " I am glad 
 she is gone," said one of the younger persons who assisted. " I 
 would as soon dress a corpse when the great Fiend himself — 
 God sain us — stood visibly before us, as when Elspat of the 
 Tree is amongst us. — Ay — ay, even overmuch intercourse hath 
 she had with the Enemy in her day." 
 
 " Silly woman," answered the female who had maintained the 
 dialogue with the departed Elspat, " thinkest thou that there is 
 a worse fiend on earth, or beneath it, than the pride and fury 
 of an offended woman, like yonder bloody-minded hag ? Know 
 that blood has been as familiar to her as the dew to the moun- 
 tain daisy. Many and many a brave man has she caused to 
 breathe their last for little wrong they had done to her or hers. 
 But her hough-sinews are cut, now that herwolf-burd must, like 
 a murderer as he is, make a murderer's end." 
 
 Whilst the women thus discoursed together, as they watched 
 the corpse of Allan Breack Cameron, the unhappy cause of his 
 death pursued her lonely way across the mountain. While she 
 remained within sight of the bothy, she put a strong constraint 
 on herself, that by no alteration of pace or gesture, she might 
 afford to her enemies the triumph of calculating the excess of 
 her mental agitation, nay, despair. She stalked, therefore, 
 with a slow rather than a swift step, and, holding herself up- 
 right, seemed at once to endure with firmness that woe which 
 was passed, and bid defiance to that which was about to come. 
 But when she was beyond the sight of those who remained in 
 the hut, she could no longer suppress the extremity of her agi- 
 tation. Drawing her mantle wildly round her, she stopped at 
 the first knoll, and climbing to its summit, extended her arms 
 up to the bright moon, as if accusing heaven and earth for her 
 misfortunes, and uttered scream on scream, like those of an 
 eagle whose nest has been plundered of her brood. Awhile 
 she vented her grief in these inarticulate cries, then rushed on 
 her way with a hasty and unequal step, in the vain hope of 
 overtaking the party which was conveying her son a prisoner 
 to Dumbarton. But her strength, superhuman as it seemed, 
 failed her in the trial, nor was it possible for her, with her ut- 
 most efforts, to accomplish her purpose.
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. lU 
 
 Yet she pressed onward, with all the speed which her ex- 
 hausted frame could exert. When food became indispensable, 
 she entered the first cottage : — " Give me to eat," she said ; " I 
 am the widow of MacTavish Mhor — I am the mother of Hamish 
 MacTavish Baen, — give me to eat, that I may once more see 
 my fair-haired son." Her demand was never refused, though 
 granted in many cases with a kind of struggle between com- 
 passion and aversion in some of those to whom she applied which, 
 was in others qualified by fear. The share she had had in oc- 
 casioning the death of Allan Breack Cameron, which must prob- 
 ably involve that of her own son, was not accurately known ; 
 but, from a knowledge of her violent passions and former 
 habits of life, no one doubted that in one way or other she 
 had been the cause of the catastrophe ; and Hamish Baen 
 was considered, in the slaughter which he had committed, 
 rather as the instrument than as the accomplice of his 
 mother. 
 
 This general opinion of his countrymen was of little service 
 to the unfortunate Hamish. As his captain. Green Colin, un- 
 derstood the manners and habits of his country, he had no diffi- 
 culty in collecting from Hamish the particulars accompanying 
 his supposed desertion, and the subsequent death of the non- 
 commissioned officer. He felt the utmost compassion for a 
 youth who had thus fallen a victim to the extravagant and 
 fatal fondness of a parent. But he had no excuse to plead 
 which could rescue his unhappy recruit from the doom, which 
 military discipline and the award of a court-martial denounced 
 against him for the crime he had committed. 
 
 No time had been lost in their proceedings, and as little 
 
 was interposed betwixt sentence and execution. General 
 
 had determined to make a severe example of the first deserter 
 who should fall into his power, and here was one who had de- 
 fended himself by main force, and had slain in the affray the 
 officer sent to take him into custody. A fitter subject for 
 punishment could not have occurred, and Hamish was sentenced 
 to immediate execution. All which the interference of his cai> 
 tain in his favor could procure, was that he should die a sol- 
 dier's death ; for there had been a purpose of executing him 
 upon the gibbet. 
 
 The worthy clergyman of Glenorquhy chanced to be at 
 Dumbarton, in attendance upon some church courts, at the 
 time of this catastrophe. He visited his unfortunate parishioner 
 in his dungeon, found him ignorant indeed, but not obstinate, 
 and the answers which he received from him, when conversing 
 on religious topics, were such as induced him doubly to regret
 
 112 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 that a mind naturally pure and noble should have remained un- 
 happily so wild and uncultivated. 
 
 When he ascertained the real character and disposition of 
 the young man, the worthy pastor made deep and painful re- 
 flections on his own shyness and timidity, which, arising out 
 of the evil fame that attached to the lineage of Hamish, had 
 restrained him from charitably endeavoring to bring this straved 
 sheep within the great fold. While the good minister blamed 
 his cowardice in times past, which had deterred him from risk- 
 ing his person, to save perhaps, an immortal soul, he resolved 
 no longer to be governed by such timid counsels, but to en- 
 deavor, by application to his officers, to obtain a reprieve, at 
 least, if not a pardon, for the criminal, in whom he felt so un- 
 usually interested, at once from his docility of temper and his 
 generosity of disposition. 
 
 Accordingly, the divine sought out Captain Campbell at the 
 barracks within the garrison. There was a gloomy melan- 
 choly on the brow of Green Colin, which was not lessened, 
 but increased, when the clergyman stated his name, quality, 
 and errand. 
 
 " You cannot tell me better of the young man than 1 am 
 disposed to believe," answered the Highland officer ; " you can- 
 not ask me to do more in his behalf than I am of myself in- 
 clined, and have already endeavored to do. But it is all in 
 
 vain. General is half a Lowlander, half an Englishman. 
 
 He has no idea of the high and enthusiastic character which, 
 in these mountains, often brings exalted virtues in contact with 
 great crimes, which, however, are less offences of the heart 
 than errors of the understanding. I have gone so far as to tell 
 him, that, in this young man, he was putting to death the best 
 and the bravest of my company, where all, or almost all, are 
 good and brave, I explained to him by what strange delusion 
 the culprit's apparent desertion was occasioned, and how little 
 his heart was accessory to the crime which his hand unhappily 
 committed. His answer was, 'These are Highland visions, 
 Captain Campbell, as unsatisfactory and vain as those of the 
 second sight. An act of gross desertion may, in any case, be 
 palliated under the plea of intoxication ; the murder of an offi- 
 cer may be as easily colored over with that of temporary in- 
 sanity. The example must be made ; and if it has fallen on a 
 man otherwise a good recruit, it will have the greater effect.' — 
 Such being the general's unalterable purpose," continued 
 Captain Campbell, with a sigh, " be it your care, reverend sir, 
 that your penitent prepare, by break of day to-morrow, foi
 
 THE IHGHLAXD WIDOW. 
 
 "3 
 
 that great change which we shall all one day be subjected 
 to." 
 
 " And for which," said the clergyman, " may God prepare 
 us all, as I in my duty will not be wanting to this poor youth." 
 
 Next morning as the very earliest beams of sunrise saluted 
 the gray towers which crown the summit of that singular and 
 tremendous rock, the soldiers of the new Highland regiment 
 appeared on the parade, within the Castle of Dumbarton, and 
 having fallen into order, began to move downward by steep stair- 
 cases and narrow passages toward the external barrier-gate, 
 which is at the very bottom of the rock. The wild wailings of 
 the pibroch were heard at times, interchanged with the drums 
 and fifes which beat the Dead March. 
 
 The unhappy criminal's fate did not, at first, excite that 
 general sympathy in the regiment which would probably have 
 arisen had he been executed for desertion alone. The slaughter 
 of the unfortunate Allan Breack had given a different color 
 to Hamish's offence ; for the deceased was much beloved, and 
 besides belonged to a numerous and powerful clan, of whom 
 there were many in the ranks. The unfortunate criminal, on 
 the contrar)', was little known to, and scarcely connected with, 
 any of his regimental companions. His father had been, indeed, 
 distinguished for his strength and manhood, but he was of a 
 broken clan, as those names were called who had no chief to 
 lead them to battle. 
 
 It would almost have been impossible, in another case, to 
 have turned out of the ranks of the regiment the party neces- 
 sary for execution of the sentence ; but the six individuals 
 selected for that purpose were friends of the deceased, de- 
 scended, like him, from the race of MacDhonuil Dhu ; and while 
 they prepared for the dismal task which their duty imposed, it 
 was not without a stern feeling of gratified revenge. The leading 
 company of the regiment began now to defile from the barrier- 
 gate, and was followed by the others, each successively moving 
 and halting according to the orders of the Adjutant, so as to form 
 three sides of an oblong square, with the ranks faced inward. 
 The fourth, or blank side of the square, was closed up by the 
 huge and lofty precipice on which the Castle rises. About the 
 centre of the procession, bare-headed, disarmed, and with his 
 hands bound, came the unfortunate victim of military law. He 
 was deadly pale, but his step was firm and his eye as bright as 
 ever. The clergyman walked by his side — the coffin, which 
 was to receive his mortal remains, was borne before him. The 
 looks of his comrades were still, composed, and solemn. They 
 felt for the youth, whose handsome form, and manly yet sub-
 
 114 
 
 THE niGIII.AA-D WIDOW. 
 
 missive deportment, had, as soon as he was distinctly visible to 
 them, softened the hearts of many, even of some who had been 
 actuated by vindictive feelings. 
 
 The coffm destined for the yet living body of Hamish 
 Baen was placed at the bottom of the hollow square, about two 
 yards distant from the foot of the precipice, which rises in that 
 place as steep as a stone wall to the height of three or four 
 hundred feet. Thither the prisoner was also led, the clergyman 
 still continuing by his side, pouring forth exhortations of 
 courage and consolation, to which the youth appeared to listen 
 with respectful devotion. With slow and, it seemed, almost un- 
 willing steps, the firing party entered the square, and were drawn 
 up facing the prisoner, about ten yards distant. The clergyman 
 was now about to retire — "Think, my son," he said, " on what 
 I have told you, and let your hope be rested on the anchor which 
 I have given. You will then exchange a short and miserable 
 existence here for a life in which you will experience neither 
 sorrow nor pain. — Is there aught else which you can intrust to 
 me to execute for you ? " 
 
 The youth looked at his sleeve-buttons. They were of gold, 
 booty perhaps which his father had taken from some English 
 officer during the civil wars. The clergyman disengaged them 
 from his sleeves. 
 
 " My mother ! " he said with some effort, " give them to my 
 poor mother ! — See her, good father, and teach her what she 
 should think of all this. Tell her Hamish Baen is more glad to 
 die then ever he was to rest after the longest day's hunting. 
 Farewell, sir — Farewell ! " 
 
 The good man could scarce retire from the fatal spot. An 
 officer afforded him the support of his arm. At his last look 
 toward Hamish, he beheld him alive and kneeling on the coffin; 
 the few that were around him had all withdrawn. The fatal 
 word was given, the rock rung sharp to the sound of the 
 discharge, and Hamish, falling forward with a groan, died, it 
 may be supposed, without almost a sense of the passing agony. 
 
 Ten or twelve of his own companv then came forward, and 
 laid with solemn reverence the remains of their comrade in the 
 coffin, while the dead march was again struck up, and the several 
 companies, marching in single files, passed the coffin one by one, 
 in order that all might receive from the awful spectacle, the 
 warning which it was peculiarly intended to afford. The regi- 
 ment was then marched off the ground, and re-ascended the 
 ancient cliff, their music, as usual on such occasions, striking 
 lively strains, as if sorrow, or even deep thought, should as short 
 a while as possible be the tenant of the soldier's bosom.
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 "S 
 
 At the same time t'ne small party, which we "before mentioned, 
 bore the bier of the ill-fated Hamish to his humble grave, in a 
 corner of the churchyard of Dumbarton, usually assigned to 
 criminals. Here, among the dust of the guilty, lies a youth, 
 whose name, had he survived the ruin of the fatal events by 
 which he was hurried into crime, might have adorned the annals 
 of the brave. 
 
 The minister of Glenorquhy left Dumbarton immediately 
 after he had witnessed the last scene of this melancholy catas- 
 trophe. His reason acquiesced in the justice of the sentence, 
 which required blood for blood, and he acknowledged that the 
 vindictiv^e character of his countrymen required to be power- 
 fully restrained by the strong curb of social law. But still he 
 mourned over the individual victim. Who may arraign the 
 bolt of Heaven when it bursts among the sons of the forest ; 
 yet who can refrain from mourning, when it selects for the 
 object of its blighting aim the fair stem of a young oak, that 
 promised to be the pride of the dell in which it flourished } 
 Musing on these melancholy events, noon found him engaged 
 in the mountain passes, by which he was to return to his still 
 distant home. 
 
 Confident in his knowledge of the country, the clergyman had 
 left the main road, to seek one of those shorter paths, which 
 are only used by pedestrians, or by men, like the minister, 
 mounted on the small, but sure-footed, hardy, and sagacious 
 horses of the country. The place which he now traversed 
 was in itself gloomy and desolate, and tradition had added to 
 it the terror of superstition, by affirming it was haunted by an 
 evil spirit, termed Cloght-dearg, that is, Redmantle, who at all 
 times, but especially at noon and at midnight, traversed the 
 glen, in enmity both to man and the inferior creation, did such 
 evil as her power was permitted to extend to, and afflicted with 
 ghastly terrors those whom she had not license otherwise to 
 hurt. 
 
 The minister of Glenorquhy had set his face in opposition 
 to many of these superstitions, which he justly thought were 
 derived from the dark ages of Popery, perhaps even from those 
 of Paganism, and unfit to be entertained or believed by the 
 Christians of an enlischtened agfe. Some of his more attached 
 parishioners considered him as too rash in opposing the ancient 
 faith of their fathers ; and though they honorecl the moral 
 intrepidity of their pastor, they could not avoid entertaining 
 and expressing fears that he would one day fall a victim to his 
 temerity, and be torn to pieces in the glen of the Cloght-dearg, 
 or some of those other haunted wilds, which he appeared rather
 
 ji6 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 to have a pride and pleasure in traversing alone, on the days 
 and hours when the wicked spirits were supposed to have 
 especial power over man and beast. 
 
 These legends came across the mind of the clergyman ; and, 
 solitary as he was, a melancholy smile shaded his cheek, as he 
 thought of the inconsistency of human nature, and reflected 
 how many brave men, whom the yell of the pibroch would 
 have sent headlong against fixed bayonets, as the wild bull 
 rushes on his enemy, might have yet feared to encounter those 
 visionary terrors, which he himself, a man of peace, and in ordi- 
 nary perils no way remarkable for the firmness of his nerves, 
 was now risking without hesitation. 
 
 As he looked around the scene of desolation, he could not 
 but acknowledge, in his own mind, that it was not ill chosen 
 for the haunt of those spirits, which are said to delight in soli- 
 tude and desolation. The glen was so steep and narrow, that 
 there was but just room for the meridian sun to dart a few 
 scattered rays upon the gloomy and precarious stream which 
 stole through its recesses, for the most part in silence, but 
 occasionally murmuring sullenly against the rocks and large 
 stones, which seemed determined to bar its further progress. 
 In winter, or in the rainy season, this small stream was a foam- 
 ing torrent of the most formidable magnitude, and it was at 
 such periods that it had torn open and laid bare the broad- 
 faced and huge fragments of rock, which at the season of which 
 we speak, hid its course from the eye, and seemed disposed totally 
 to interrupt its course. " Undoubtedly," thought the clergyman, 
 " this mountain rivulet, suddenly swelled by a water-spout, or 
 thunder-storm, has often been the cause of those accidents, which 
 happening in the glen called by her name, have been ascribed 
 to the agency of the Cloght-dearg. " 
 
 Just as this idea crossed his mind, he heard a female 
 voice exclaim in a wild and thrilling accent," Michael Tyrie — 
 Michael Tyrie ! " He looked round in astonishment, and not 
 without some fear. It seemed for an instant, as if the Evil 
 Being, whose existence he had disowned, was about to app>ear 
 for the punishment of his incredulity. This alarm did not hold 
 him more than an instant, not did it prevent his replying in a 
 firm voice, " Who calls and where are you ? " 
 
 " One who journeys in wretchedness, between life and death," 
 answered the voice ; and the speaker, a tall female, appeared 
 from amono: the fragments of rocks which had concealed her 
 from view. 
 
 As she approached more closely, her mantle of bright tartan, 
 in which the red color much predominated, her stature, the
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. H^ 
 
 long stride with which she advanced, and the writhen features 
 and wild eyes which were visible from under her curch, would 
 have made her no inadequate representative of the spirit which 
 gave name to the valley. But Mr. Tyrie instantly knew her as 
 the Woman of the Tree, the widow of MacTavish Mhor, the now 
 childless mother of flamish Baen. I am not sure whether the 
 minister would not have endured the visitation of the Cloght 
 dearg herself, rather than the shock of Elspat's presence, con- 
 sidering her crime and her misery. He drew up his horse in- 
 stinctively, and stood endeavoring to collect his ideas, while a 
 few paces brought her up to his horse's head. 
 
 " Michael Tyrie," said she, " the foolish women of the 
 Clachan * hold thee as a god — be one to me, and say that my 
 son lives. Say this, and I too will be of thy worship — I will 
 bend my knees on the seventh day in thy house of worship, and 
 thy God shall be my God." 
 
 " Unhappy woman," replied the clergyman, " man forms not 
 pactions with his Maker as with a creature of clay like himself. 
 Thinkest thou to chaffer with Him, who formed the earth, and 
 spread out the heavens, or that thou canst offer aught of homage 
 or devotion that can be worth acceptance in his eyes ? He 
 hath asked obedience, not sacrifice, patience under the trials 
 with which he afllicts us, instead of vain bribes, such as man 
 offers to his changeful brother of clay, that he may be moved 
 from his purpose." 
 
 " Be silent, priest ! " answered the desperate woman ; " speak 
 not to me the words of thy white book. Elspat's kindred were 
 of those who crossed themselves and knelt when the sacring 
 bell was rung ; and she knows that atonement can be made on 
 the altar for deeds done in the field. Elspat had once flocks 
 and herds, goats upon the cliffs, and cattle in the strath. She 
 wore gold around her neck and on her hair — thick twists as 
 those worn by the heroes of old. All these would she have 
 resigned to the priest — all these ; and if he wished for the 
 ornaments of a gentle lady, or the sporran of a high chief, 
 though they had been great as MacAllum More himself, Mac- 
 Tavish Mhor would have procured them if Elspat had promised 
 them. Elspat is now poor, and has nothing to give. Rut 
 the Black Abbot of Inchaffray would have bidden her scourge 
 her shoulders, and macerate her feet by pilgrimage, and he 
 would have granted his pardon to her when he saw that her 
 blood had flowed, and that her flesh had been torn. These 
 were the priests who had indeed power even with the most 
 powerful — they threatened the great men of the earth with the 
 *%.£., The village, literally the stones.
 
 jiS THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 word of their mouth, the sentence of their book, the blaze of 
 their torch, the sound of their sacring bell. The mighty bent 
 to their will, unloosed at the word of the priests those whom 
 they had bound in their wrath, and set at liberty, unharmed, 
 him whom they had sentenced to death, and for whose blood 
 they had thirsted. These were a powerful race, and might 
 well ask the poor to kneel, since their power could humble the 
 proud. But you ! — against whom are ye strong, but against 
 women who have been guilty of folly, and men who never wore 
 sword .-' The priests of old were like the winter torrent which 
 fills this hollow valley, and rolls these massive rocks against 
 each other as easily as the boy plays with the ball which he 
 casts before him — But you ! you do but resemble the summer- 
 stricken stream, which is turned aside by the rushes, and 
 stemmed by a bush of sedges — Woe worth you, for there is no 
 help in you ! " 
 
 The clergyman was at no loss to conceive that Elspat had 
 lost the Roman Catholic faith without gaining any other, and 
 that she still retained a vague and confused idea of the com- 
 position with the priesthood by confession, alms, and penance, 
 and of their extensive power, which, according to her notion, 
 was adequate, if duly propitiated, even to effecting her son's 
 safety. Compassionating her situation, and allowing for her 
 errors and ignorance, he answered her with mildness. 
 
 " Alas, unhappy v.-oman ! Would to God I could convince 
 thee as easily where thou oughtest to seek, and art sure to find 
 consolation, as I can assure you with a single word, that were 
 Rome and all her priesthood once more in the plenitude of their 
 power, they could not, for largesse or penance, afford to thy 
 misery an atom of aid or comfort. — Elspat MacTavish, I grieve 
 to tell you the news." 
 
 " I know them without thy speech," said the unhappy woman 
 — " My son is doomed to die." 
 
 " Elspat," resumed the clergyman, " he was doomed, and the 
 sentence has been executed." The hapless mother threw her 
 eyes up to heaven, and uttered a shriek so unlike the voice of a 
 human being, that the eagle which soared in middle air answered 
 it as she would have done the call of her mate. 
 
 " It is impossible ! " she exclaimed, " it is impossible ! Men 
 do not condemn and kill on the same day ! Thou art deceiving 
 me. — The people call thee holy — hast thou the heart to tell a 
 mother she has murdered her only child 1 " 
 
 " God knows," said the priest, the tears falling fast from his 
 eyes, "that, were it in my power, I would gladly tell better 
 tidings — but these which I bear are as certain as they are fatal
 
 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. iig 
 
 — My own ears heard the death-shot, my own eyes beheld thy 
 son's death — thy son's funeral. — My tongue bears witness to 
 what my ears heard and my eyes saw." 
 
 The wretched female clasped her hands close together, and 
 held them up toward heaven like a sibyl announcing war and 
 desolation ; while, in impotent yet frightful rage, she poured 
 forth a tide of the deepest imprecations. — " Base Saxon churl ! ' 
 she exclaimed, " vile hypocritical juggler ! May the eyes that 
 looked tamely on the death of my fair-haired boy be melied in 
 their sockets with ceaseless tears, shed for those that are nearest 
 and most dear to thee ! May the ears that heard his death- 
 knell be dead hereafter to all other sounds save the screech of 
 the raven, and the hissing of the adder ! May the tongue that 
 tells me of his death, and of my own crime, be withered in thy 
 mouth — or, better, when thou wouldst pray \vith thy people, 
 may the Evil One guide it, and give voice to blasphemies instead 
 of blessings, until men shall fly in terror from thy presence, and 
 the thunder of heaven be launched against thy head, and stop 
 forever thy cursing and accursed voice ! — Begone with this 
 malison ! Elspat will never, never again bestow so many words 
 upon living man." 
 
 She kept her word. From that day the world was to her a 
 wilderness, in which she remained, without thought, care, or 
 interest, absorbed in her own grief — indifferent to everything 
 else. 
 
 With her mode of life, or rather of existence, the reader is 
 already as far acquainted as I have the power of making him. 
 Of her death, I can tell him nothing. It is supposed to have 
 happened several years after she had attracted the attention of 
 my excellent friend Mrs. Bethune Baliol. Her benevolence, 
 which was never satisfied with dropping a sentimental tear 
 when there was room for the operation of effective charity, 
 induced her to make various attempts to alleviate the condition 
 of this most wretched woman. But all her exertions could only 
 render Elspat's means of subsistence less precarious — a circum< 
 stance which, though generally interesting even to the most 
 wretched outcasts, seemed to her a matter of total indifference. 
 Every attempt to place any person in her hut to take charge of 
 her miscarried, through the extreme resentment with which she 
 regarded all intrusion on her solitude, or by the tniiidity of those 
 who had been pitched upon to be inmates with the terrible 
 Woman of the Tree. At length, when Elspat became totally 
 unable (in appearance at least) to turn herself on the wretched 
 settle which served her for a couch, the humanity of Mr. Tyrie's 
 successor sent two women to attend upon the last moments of
 
 120 THE HIGHLAND WIDOW. 
 
 the solitary, which could not, it was judged, be far distant, and 
 to avert the possibility that she might perish for want of assist- 
 ance or food, before she sunk under the effects of extreme age, 
 or mortal malady. 
 
 It was on a November evening, that the two women, appointed 
 for this melancholy purpose, arrived at the miserable cottage 
 which we have already described. Its wretched inmate lay 
 stretched upon the bed, and seemed almost already a lifeless 
 corpse, save for the wandering of the fierce dark eyes, w-hich 
 rolled in their sockets in a manner terrible to look upon, and 
 seemed to watch, with surprise and indignation, the motions of 
 the strangers, as persons whose presence was alike unexpected 
 and unwelcome. They were frightened at her looks ; but, 
 assured in each other's company, they kindled afire, lighted a 
 candle, prepared food, and made other arrangements for the 
 discharge of the duty assigned them. 
 
 The assistants agreed they should watch the bedside of the 
 sick person by turns ; but about midnight, overcome by fatigue 
 (for they had walked far that morning), both of them fell fast 
 asleep. — When they awoke, which was not till after the interval 
 of some hours, the hut was empty, and the patient gone. They 
 rose in terror, and went to the door of the cottage, which was 
 latched as it had been at night. They looked out into the 
 darkness, and called upon their charge by her name. The 
 night-raven screamed from the old oak-tree ; the fox howled on 
 the hill ; the hoarse waterfall replied with its echoes ; but there 
 was no human answer. The terrified women did not dare to 
 make further search till morning should appear; for the sudden 
 disappearance of a creature so frail as Elspat, together w'ith the 
 wild tenor of her history intimidated them from stirring from 
 the hut. They remained, therefore, in dreadful terror, some- 
 times thinking they heard her voice without, and at other times, 
 that sounds of a different description were mingled with the 
 mournful sigh of tne night breeze or the dash of the cascade. 
 Sometimes, too, the latch rattled, as if some frail and impotent 
 hand were in vain attempting to lift it, and ever and anon they 
 expected the entrance of their terrible patient, animated by 
 supernatural strength, and in the company, perhaps, of some 
 being more dreadful tlian herself. Morning came at length. 
 They sought brake, rock, and thicket, in vain. Two hours after 
 daylight the minister himself appeared ; and, on the report 
 the watchers, caused the country to be alarmed, and a general 
 and exact search to be made through the whole neighborhood 
 of the cottage, and the oak-tree. But it was all in vain. Els- 
 pat MacTavish was never found, whether dead or alive ; nor
 
 THE HTGHLAND WIDOW. 121 
 
 could there ever be traced the slightest circumstance to indicate 
 her fate. 
 
 The neighborhood was divided concerning the cause of 
 her disappearance. The credulous thought that the Evil Spirit, 
 under whose influence she seemed to have acted, had carried 
 her away in the body ; and there are many who are still un- 
 willing, at untimely hours, to pass the oak-tree, beneath which, 
 as they allege, she may still be seen seated according to her 
 wont. Others less superstitious supposed that had it been possi- 
 ble to search the gulf of the Corrie Dhu, the profound depths of 
 the lake, or the whelming eddies of the river, the remains of 
 Elspat MacTavish might have been discovered ; as nothing 
 was more natural, considering her state of body and mind, 
 than that she should have fallen in by accident, or precipitated 
 herself intentionally into one or other of those places of sure 
 destruction. The clergyman entertained an opinion of his 
 own. He thought that, impatient of the watch which was placed 
 over her, this unhappy woman's instinct had taught her, as it 
 directs various domestic animals, to withdraw herself from the 
 sight of her own race, that the death struggle might take place 
 in some secret den, where, in all probability, her mortal relics 
 would never meet the eyes of mortals. This species of instinc- 
 nve feeling seemed to him of a tenor with the whole course of 
 her unhappy life, and most likely to influence her, when it drew 
 to a conclusion.
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATK 
 
 SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. 
 
 MR. CROFTANGRY INTRODUCES ANOTHER TALE. 
 
 Together both on the high lawns appear'd. 
 Under the opening eyelids of the morn 
 They drove afield. 
 
 Elegy on Lycidas. 
 
 I HAVE sometimes wondered why all the favorite occupa- 
 tions and pastimes of mankind go to the disturbance of that 
 happy state of tranquility, that Oim?7i, as Horace terms it, 
 which he says is the object of all men's prayers, whether pre- 
 ferred from sea or land ; and that the undisturbed repose, of 
 which we are so tenacious, when duty or necessity compels us 
 to abandon it, is precisely what we long to exchange for a state 
 of excitation, as soon as we may prolong it at our own pleasure. 
 Briefly, you have only to say to a man, " remain at rest," and 
 you instantly inspire the love of labor. The sportsman toils 
 like his gamekeeper, the master of the pack takes as severe 
 exercise as his whipper-in, the statesman or politician drudges 
 more than the professional lawyer ; and to come to my own 
 case, the volunteer author subjects himself to the risk of pain- 
 ful criticism, and the assured certainty of mental and manual 
 labor, just as completely as his needy brother, whose neces- 
 sities compel him to assume the pen. 
 
 These reflections have been suggested by an annunciation 
 on the part of Janet, " that the little Gillie-whitefoot was come 
 from the printing-office." 
 
 " Gillie-blackfoot you should call him, Janet," was my re- 
 sponse, " for he is neither more nor less than an imp of the 
 devil, come to torment me for copy, for so the printers call a 
 supply of manuscript for the press."
 
 124 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE, 
 
 " Now, Cot forgie your honor," said Janet ; " for it is no 
 like your ainsell to give sucli names to a faitherless bairn." 
 
 " I have got nothing else to give him, Janet — he must wait 
 a little." 
 
 "Then I have got some breakfast to give the bit gillie," 
 said Janet ; " and he can wait by the fireside in the kitchen, 
 till your honor's ready; and cood enough for the like of him, 
 if he was to wait your honor's pleasure all day." 
 
 " But, Janet," said I to my little active superintendent, on 
 her return to the parlor, after having made her hospitable 
 arrangements, " I begin to find this writing our Chronicles is 
 rather more tiresome than I expected, for here comes this little 
 fellow to ask for manuscript — that is, for something to print — 
 and I have got none to give him." 
 
 *' Your honor can be at nae loss ; I have seen you write 
 fast and fast enough ; and for subjects, you have the whole 
 Highlands to write about, and I am sure you know a hundred 
 tales better than that about Hamish McTavish, for it was but 
 about a young cateran and an auld carline, when all's done ; 
 and if they had burned the rudas quean for a witch, I am 
 thinking, may be, they would not have tyned their coals — and 
 her to gar her neer-do-weel son shoot a gentleman Cameron ! 
 I am third cousin to the Camerons mysell — my blood warms to 
 them — And if you want to write about deserters, I am sure 
 there were deserters enough on the top of Arthur's Seat, when 
 the MacRaas broke out, and on that woeful day beside Leitb 
 Pier — Ohonaree ! " 
 
 Here Janet began to weep, and to wipe her eyes with her 
 apron. For my part, the idea I wanted was supplied, but I 
 hesitated to make use of it. Topics, like times, are apt to be- 
 come common by frequent use. It is only an ass like Justice 
 Shallow, who would pitch upon the over-scutched tunes, which 
 the carmen whistled, and try to pass them off as \i\% faficies and 
 his good-niglds. Now, the Highlands, though formerly a rich 
 mine for original matter, are, as my friend Mrs. Bethune Baliol 
 warned me, in some degree worn out by the incessant labor of 
 modern romancers and novelists, who, finding in those remote 
 regions primitive habits and manners, have vainly imagined that 
 the public can never tire of them; and so kilted Highlanders 
 are to be found as frequently, and nearly of as genuine descent, 
 on the shelves of a circulating library, as at a Caledonian ball. 
 Much might have been made at an earlier time out of the his- 
 tory of a Highland regiment, and the singular revolution of 
 ideas which must have taken place in the minds of those who 
 composed it, when exchanging their native hills for the battle-
 
 CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE. 
 
 "5 
 
 fields of the Continent, and their simple, and sometimes indo- 
 lent domestic habits, for the regular exertions demanded by 
 modern discipline. But the market is forestalled. There is 
 Mrs. Grant of Laggan, has drawn the manners, customs, and 
 superstitions of the mountains in their natural unsophisticated 
 state;* and my friend, General Stewart of Garth, f in giving 
 the real history of the Highland regiments, has rendered any 
 attempt to fill up the sketch with fancy-coloring extremely rash 
 and precarious. Yet I, too, have still a lingering fancy to add 
 a stone to the cairn ; and without calling in imagination to aid 
 the impressions of juvenile recollection, I may just attempt to 
 embody one or two scenes illustrative of the Highland character, 
 and which belong peculiarly to the Chronicles of the Canon- 
 gate, to the gray-headed eld of whom they are as familiar as to 
 Chrystal Croftangry. Yet I will not go back to the days of 
 clanship and claymores. Have at you, gentle reader, with a 
 tale of Two Drovers. An oyster may be crossed in love, says 
 the gentle Tilburina — and a drover may be touched on a point 
 of honor, says the Chronicler of the Canongate. 
 
 * Letters from the A/ojuitaitis, 3 vols. — Essays on the Superstitious of the 
 Highla72ders — The Highlanders, and other Poems, etc. 
 
 t The gallant and amiable author of the History of the Highland Regi- 
 ments, in whose glorious services his own share had been great, went out 
 Governor of St. Lucia in 1S28, and died in that island on the iSth of 
 December, 1S29 — no man more regretted, or perhaps, by a wider circle of 
 friends and acquaintance.
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 CHAPTER FIRST. 
 
 It was the day after Doune Fair when m)^ story commences. 
 It had been a brisk martcet ; several dealers had attended from 
 the northern and midland counties in England, and English 
 money had flown so merrily about as to gladden the hearts of 
 the Highland farmers. Many large droves were about to set 
 off for England, under the protection of their owners, or of the 
 topsmen whom they employed in the tedious, laborious, and 
 responsible office of driving the cattle for many hundred miles, 
 from the market where they had been purchased, to the fields 
 or farmyards where they were to be fattened for the shambles. 
 
 The Highlanders, in particular, are masters of this difficult 
 trade of driving, which seems to suit them as well as the trade 
 of war. It affords exercise for all their habits of patient endur- 
 ance and active exertion. They are required to know perfectly 
 the drove-roads, which lie over the wildest tracks of the country, 
 and to avoid as much as possible the highways, which distress 
 the feet of the bullocks, and the turnpikes, which annoy the 
 spirit of the drover ; whereas on the broad green or gray track, 
 which leads across the pathless moor, the herd not only move 
 at ease and without taxation, but, if they mind their business, 
 may pick up a mouthful of food by the way. At night, the 
 drovers usually sleep along with their cattle, let the weather be 
 what it will ; and many of these hardy men do not once rest 
 under a roof during a journey on foot from Lochaber to Lincoln- 
 shire. They are paid very highly, for the trust reposed is of the 
 last importance, as it depends on their prudence, vigilance, and 
 honesty, whether the cattle reach the final market in good order, 
 and afford a profit to the grazier. But as they maintain them- 
 selves at their own expense, they are especially economical in
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 127 
 
 that particular. At the period we speak of, a Highland drover 
 was victualed for his long and toilsome journey with a few hand- 
 fuls of oatmeal, and two or three onions, renewed from time to 
 time, and a ram's horn filled with whisky, which he used regularly 
 but sparingly, every night and morning. His dirk, or skene-dhu 
 {i.e. black-knife), so worn as to be concealed beneath the arm, 
 or by the folds of the plaid, was his only weapon, excepting the 
 cudgel with which he directed the movements of the cattle. A 
 Highlander was never so happy as on these occasions. There 
 was a variety in the whole journey, which exercised the Celt's 
 natural curiosity and love of motion ; there were the constant 
 change of place and scene, the petty adventures incidental to the 
 traffic, and the intercourse with the various farmers, graziers, 
 and traders, intermingled with occasional merry-makings, not 
 the less acceptable to Donald that they were void of expense ; 
 — and there was the consciousness of superior skill ; for the 
 Highlander, a child amongst flocks, is a prince amongst herds, 
 and his natural habits induce him to disdain the shepherd's 
 slothful life, so that he feels himself nowhere more at home than 
 when following a gallant drove of his country cattle in the char- 
 acter of their guardian. 
 
 Of the number who left Doune in the morning, and with the 
 purpose we described, not a Glunamie of them all cocked his 
 bonnet more briskly, or gartered his tartan hose under knee 
 over a pair of more promising spiogs (legs), than did Robin Gig 
 M'Combich, called familiarly Robin Oig, that is. Young, or the 
 Lesser, Robin. Though small of stature, as the epithet Oig 
 implies, and not very strongly limbed, he was as light and alert 
 as one of the deer of his mountains. He had an elasticity of 
 step, which, in the course of a long march, made many a stout 
 fellow envy him ; and the manner in which he busked his plaid 
 and adjusted his bonnet, argued a consciousness that so smart 
 a John Highlandman as himself would not pass unnoticed 
 among the Lowland lasses. The ruddy cheek, red lips, and 
 white teeth, set off a countenance which had gained by exposure 
 to the weather a healthful and hardy rather than a rugged hue. 
 If Robin Oig did not laugh, or even smile frequently, as indeed 
 is not the practice among his countrymen, his bright eyes usually 
 gleamed from under his bonnet with an expression of cheerful- 
 ness ready to be turned into mirth. 
 
 The departure of Robin Oig was an incident in the little 
 town, in and near which he had many friends, male and 
 female. 
 
 He was a topping person in his way, transacted considerable 
 business on his own behalf, and was intrusted by the best
 
 128 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 farmers in the Highlands, in preference to any other drover in 
 that district. He might have increased his business to any ex- 
 tent had he condescended to manage it by deputy ; but except 
 a lad or two, sister's sons of his own, Robin rejected the idea 
 of assistance, conscious, perhaps, how much his reputation de- 
 pended upon his attending in person to the practical discharge 
 of his duty in ever}' instance. He remained, therefore, contented 
 with the highest premium given to persons of his description, 
 and comforted himself v.ith the hopes that a few journeys to 
 England might enable him to conduct business on his own 
 account, in a manner becoming his birth. For Robin Oig's 
 father, Lachlan M'Combich {ox son of my friend, his actual clan- 
 surname being M'Gregor), had been so called by the celebrated 
 Rob Roy, because of the particular friendship which had sub- 
 sisted between the grandsire of Robin and that renowned cateran. 
 Some people even say, that Robin Oig derived his Christian 
 name from one as renowned in the wilds of Lochlomond as ever 
 was his namesake Robin Hood in the precincts of merry Sher- 
 wood. " Of such ancestry," as James Boswell says, " who would 
 not be proud ? " Robin Oig was proud accordingly ; but his 
 frequent visits to England and to the Lowlands had given him 
 tact enough to know that pretensions, which still gave him a 
 little right to distinction in his own lonely glen, might be both 
 obnoxious and ridiculous if preferred elsewhere. The pride of 
 birth, therefore, was like the miser's treasure, the secret subject 
 of his contemplation, but never exhibited to strangers as a sub- 
 ject of boasting. 
 
 Many were the words of gratulation and good luck which 
 were bestowed on Robin Oig. The judges commended his 
 drove, especially Robin's own property, which were the best of 
 them. Some thrust out their snuff-mulls for the parting pinch 
 — others tendered the doch-an-dorrach, or parting cup. All 
 cried — " Good-luck travel out with you and come home with 
 you. — Give you luck in the Saxon market — brave notes in the 
 ieabJiar-dhu" (black pocketbook), "and plenty of English 
 gold in the sporran " (pouch of goat-skin). 
 
 The bonny lasses made their adieus more modestly, and more 
 than one, it was said, would have given her best brooch to be 
 certain that it was upon her that his eye last rested as he 
 turned toward the road. 
 
 Robin Oig had just given the preliminary '■'■ Hoo-hoo I ^^ to 
 urge forward the loiterers of the drove, when there was a cry 
 behind him. 
 
 "Stay, Robin — bide a blink. Here is Janet of Tomahou* 
 rich — auld Janet, your father's sister."
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 129 
 
 "Plague on her, for an auld Highland witch and spaewife," 
 said a farmer from the carse of Stirling; "she'll cast some of 
 her cantrips on the cattle." 
 
 " She canna do that," said another sapient of the same pro- 
 fession — " Robin Oig is no the lad to leave any of them, with- 
 out tying Saint Mungo's knot on their tails, and that will put 
 to her speed the best witch that ever flew over Dimayet upon a 
 broomstick." 
 
 It may not be indifferent to the reader to know, that the 
 Highland cattle are peculiarly liable to be taken, or infected, 
 by spells and witchcraft ; which judicious people guard against, 
 by knitting knots of peculiar complexity on the tuft of hair 
 which terminates the animal's tail. 
 
 But the old woman who was the object of the farmer's sus 
 picion, seemed only busied about the drover, without paying 
 any attention to the drove. Robin, on the contrary, appeared 
 rather impatient of her presence. 
 
 "What auld-world fancy," he said, "has brought you so 
 early from the ingle-side this morning, Muhme 1 I am sure I 
 bid you good-even, and had your God-speed, last night." 
 
 " And left me more siller than the useless old woman will 
 use till you come back again, bird of my bosom," said the 
 sibyl. "But it is little I would care for the food that nourishes 
 me, or the fire that warms me, or for God's blessed sun itself, 
 if aught but weel should happen to the grandson of my father. 
 So let me walk the deasil round you, that you may go safe out 
 into the foreign land, and come safe home." 
 
 Robin Oig stopped, half embarrassed, half laughing, and 
 signing to those near that he only complied with the old woman 
 to soothe her humor. In the meantime, she traced around 
 him, with wavering steps, the propitiation, which some have 
 thought has been derived from the Druidical mythology. It 
 consists, as is well known, in the person who makes the deasil 
 walking three times round the person who is the object of the 
 ceremony, taking care to move according to the course of the 
 sun. At once, however, she stopped short, and exclaimed, in 
 a voice of alarm and horror, " Grandson of my father, there is 
 blood on your hand." 
 
 "Hush, for God's sake, aunt," said Robin Oig; "you will 
 bring more trouble on yourself with this Taishataragh " (second 
 sight) "than you will be able to get out of for many a day." 
 
 The old woman only repeated, with a ghastly look, " There 
 is blood on your hand, and it is English blood. The blood of 
 the Gael is richer and redder. Let us see — let us " 
 
 Ere R.obin Oig could prevent her, which, indeed, could only
 
 130 THE TWO D ROVERS. 
 
 have been done by positive violence, so hasty and peremptory 
 were her proceedings, she had drawn from his side the dirk 
 which lodged in the folds of his plaid, and held it up, exclaim- 
 ing, although the weapon gleamed clear and bright in the suii, 
 " Blood, blood— Saxon blood again, Robin Oig M'Combich, 
 go not this day to England ! " 
 
 " Prutt trutt," answered Robin Oig, " that will never do 
 neither — it would be next thing to running the country. For 
 shame, Muhme — give me the dirk. You cannot tell by the 
 color the difference betwixt the blood of a black bullock and a 
 white one, and you speak of knowing Saxon from Gaelic blood. 
 All men have their blood from Adam, Muhme. Give me my 
 skene-dhu, and let me go on my road. I should have been 
 half-way to Stirling Brig by this time. — Give me my dirk, and 
 let me go." 
 
 " Never will I give it to you," said the old woman — " Never 
 will I quit my hold on your plaid, unless you promise me not 
 to wear that unhappy weapon." 
 
 The women around him urged him also, saying few of his 
 aunt's words fell to the ground ; and as the Lowland farmers 
 continued to look moodily on the scene, Robin Oig determined 
 to close it at any sacrifice. 
 
 " Well, then," said the young drover, giving the scabbard of 
 the weapon to Hugh Morrison, "you Lowlanders care nothing 
 for these freats. Keep my dirk for me. I cannot give it to 
 you, because it was my father's ; but your drove follows cure, 
 and I am content it should be in your keeping, not in mine. — • 
 Will this do, Muhme ? " 
 
 " It must," said the old woman — " that is, if the Lowlander 
 is mad enough to carry the knife." 
 
 The strong westlandman laughed aloud. 
 
 " Goodwife," said he, " I am Hugh Morrison from Glenae, 
 come of the Manly Morrisons of auld langsyne, that never took 
 < short weapon against a man in their lives. And neither needed 
 they. They had their broadswords, and I have this bit supple," 
 showing a formidable cudgel — "for dirking ower the board, I 
 leave that to John Highlandman — Ye needna snort, none of you 
 Highlanders, and you in especial Robin. I'll keep the bit knife, 
 if you are feared for the auld spaewife's tale, and give it back 
 to you whenever you want it." 
 
 Robin was not particularly pleased with some part of Hugh 
 Morrison's speech ; but he had learned in his travels more 
 patience than belonged to his Highland constitution originally, 
 and he accepted the service of the descendant of the Manly
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 131 
 
 Morrisons without finding fault with the rather depreciating 
 manner in which it was offered. 
 
 " If he had not had his morning in his head, and been but a 
 Dumfriesshire hog into the boot, he would have spoken more 
 like a gentleman. But you cannot have more of a sow than a 
 grumph. It's shame my father's knife should ever slash a hag- 
 gis for the like of him." 
 
 Thus saying (but saying it in Gaelic), Robin drove on his 
 cattle, and waved farewell to all behind him. He was in the 
 greater haste, because he expected to join at Falkirk a comrade 
 and brother in profession, with whom he proposed to travel in 
 company. 
 
 Robin Oig's chosen friend was a young Englishman, Harry 
 Wakefield by name, well known at every northern market, and 
 in his way as much famed and honored as our Highland driver 
 of bullocks. He was nearly six feet high, gallantly formed to 
 keep the rounds at Smithfield, or maintain the ring at a wrest- 
 ling match ; and although he might have been overmatched per- 
 haps, among the regular professors of the Fancy, yet, as a yokel, 
 or rustic, or a chance customer, he was able to give a bellyful 
 to any amateur of the pugilistic art. Doncaster races saw him 
 in his glory, betting his guinea, and generally successfully ; nor 
 was there a main fought in Yorkshire, the feeders being persons 
 of celebrity, at which he was not to be seen, if business permitted. 
 But though a sprack lad, and fond of pleasure and its haunts, 
 Harry Wakefield was steady, and not the cautious Robin Oig 
 M'Combich himself was more attentive to the main chance. His 
 holidays were holidays indeed ; but his days of work were dedi- 
 cated to steady and persevering labor. In countenance and 
 temper, Wakefield was the model of old England's merry yeomen, 
 whose clothyard shafts, in so many hundred battles, asserted her 
 superiority over the nations, and whose good sabres, in our own 
 time, are her cheapest and most assured defence. His mirth 
 was read'ly excited ; for, strong in limb and constitution, and 
 fortunate in circumstances, he was disposed to be pleased with 
 everything about him ; and such difficulties as he might occa- 
 sionally encounter, were, to a man of his energy, rather matter 
 of amusement than serious annoyance. With all the merits of 
 a sanguine temper, our young English drover was not without 
 his defects. He was irascible, sometimes to the verge of being 
 quarrelsome ; and perhaps not the less inclined to bring his 
 disputes to a pugilistic decision, because he found few antag- 
 onists able to stand up to him in the boxing ring. 
 
 It is difficult to say how Harry Wakefield and Robin Oig 
 first became intimates ; but it is certain a close acquaintance
 
 132 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 had taken place betwixt them, although they had apparently 
 few common subjects of conversation or of interest, so soon as 
 their talk ceased to be of bullocks. Robin Oig, indeed, spoke 
 the English language rather imperfectly upon any other topics 
 but stots and kyloes, and Harry Wakefield could never bring 
 his broad Yorkshire tongue to utter a single word of Gaelic. 
 It was in vain Robin spent a whole morning, during a walk 
 over Minch Moor, in attempting to teach his companion to utter, 
 with true precision, the shibboleth Llhii, which is the Gaelic for 
 a calf. From Traquair to Murder- cairn, the hill rang with the 
 discordant attempts of the Saxon upon the unmanageable mono- 
 svllable, and the heartfelt laugh which followed every failure. 
 They had, however, better modes of awakening the echoes ; for 
 Wakefield could sing many a ditty to the praise of Moll, Susan, 
 and Cicely, and Robin Oig had a particular gift at whistling 
 interminable pibrochs through all their involutions, and what 
 was more agreeable to his companion's southern ear, knew many 
 of the northern airs, both lively and pathetic, to which Wake- 
 field learned to pipe a bass. Thus, though Robin could hardly 
 have comprehended his companion's stories about horse-racing, 
 and cock-fighting, or fox-hunting, and although his own legends 
 of clan-fights and creaghs, vai!^^ with talk of Highland goblins 
 and fairy folk, would have been caviare to his companion, they 
 contrived nevertheless to find a degree of pleasure in each 
 other's company, which had for three years back induced therri 
 to join company and travel together, when the direction of 
 their journey permitted. Each, indeed, found his advantage 
 in this companionship ; for where could the Englishman have 
 found a guide through the Western Highlands like Robin Oig 
 M'Combich ? and when they were on what Harry called the 
 .right side of the border, his patronage, which was extensive, 
 and his purse, which was heavy, were at all times at the services 
 of his Highland friend, and on many occasions his liberality 
 did him genuine yeoman's service.
 
 THE TWO DROVERS, 13 j 
 
 CHAPTER SECOND. 
 
 Were ever two such loving friends I— 
 
 How could they disagree ? 
 Oh, thus it was, he loved him dear, 
 
 And thought how to requite him, 
 And having no friend left but he, 
 
 He did resolve to fight him. 
 
 Duke upon Duke. 
 
 The pair of friends had traversed with their usual cordiality 
 the grassy wilds of Liddesdale, and crossed the opposite part of 
 Cumberland, emphatically called The Waste, In these solitary 
 regions, the cattle under the charge of our drovers derived their 
 subistence chiefly by picking their food as they went along the 
 drove road or sometimes by the tempting opportunity of 2i start 
 and owerloup, or invasion of the neighboring pasture, where an 
 occasion presented itself. But now the scene changed before 
 them ; they were descending toward a fertile and enclosed 
 country, where no such liberties could be taken with impunity, 
 or without a previous arrangement and bargain with the pos- 
 sessor of the ground. This was more especially the case, as a 
 great northern fair was upon the eve of taking place, where both 
 the Scotch and English drover expected to dispose of a part of 
 their cattle, which it was desirable to produce in the market 
 rested and in good order. Fields were therefore difficult to be 
 obtained, and only upon high terms. This necessity occasioned 
 a temporary separation betwixt the two friends, who went to 
 bargain, each as he could, for the separate accommodation of 
 his herd. Unhappily it chanced that both of them, unknown to 
 each other, thought of bargaining for the ground they wanted 
 on the property of a country gentleman of some fortune, whose 
 estate lay in the neighborhood. The English drover applied to 
 the bailiff on the property, who was known to him. It chanced 
 that the Cumbrian Squire, who had entertained some suspicions 
 of his manager's honesty, was taking occasional measures to 
 ascertain how far they were well-founded, and had desired that 
 any inquiries about his enclosures, with a view to occupy them 
 for a temporary purpose, should be referred to himself. As, 
 however, Mr. Ireby had gone the day before upon a journey of 
 some miles distance to the northward, the bailiff chose to con- 
 sider the check upon his full powers as for the time removed 
 and concluded that he should best consult his master's interest,
 
 13; THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 and perhaps his own, in making an agreement with Harry 
 Wakefield. Meanwhile, ignorant of what his comrade was 
 doing, Robin Oig, on his side, chanced to be overtaken by a 
 good-looking smart little man upon a pony, most knowingly 
 hogged and cropped, as was then the fashion, the rider wearing 
 tight leather breeches, and long-necked bright spurs. This 
 cavalier asked one or two pertinent questions about markets 
 and the price of stock. So Robin, seeing him a well-judging 
 civil gentleman, took the freedom to ask him whether he 
 could let him know if there was any grass land to be let in 
 that neighborhood, for the temporary accommodation of his 
 drove. He could not have put the question to more willing 
 ears. The gentleman of the buckskin was the proprietor, with 
 whose bailiff Harry Wakefield had dealt, or was in the act of 
 dealing. 
 
 " Thou art in good luck, my canny Scot," said Mr. Ireby, 
 " to have spoken to me, for I see thy cattle have done their 
 day's work, and I have at my disposal the only field within 
 three miles that is to be let in these parts." 
 
 " The drove can pe gang two, three, four miles very pratty 
 weel indeed," said the cautious Highlander; " put what would 
 his honor be axing for the peasts, pe the head, if she was to 
 tak the park for twa or three days ? " 
 
 " We won't differ, Sawney, if you let me have six stots for 
 ■winterers, in the way of reason." 
 
 " And which peasts wad your honor pe for having? " 
 
 " Why — let me see — the two black — the dun one — yon doddy 
 — him with the twisted horn — the brocket — How much by the 
 head .? " 
 
 "Ah," said Robin, "your honor is a shudge — a real shudge 
 — I couldna have set off the pest six peasts petter mysell, me 
 that ken them as if they were my pairns, puir things." 
 
 " Well, how much per head, Sawney ? " continued Mr. 
 Ireby. 
 
 " It was high markets at Doune and Falkirk," answered 
 Robin. 
 
 And thus the conversation proceeded, until they had agreed 
 on ih&frix Juste for the bullocks, the Squire throwing in the 
 temporar)- accommodation of the enclosure for the cattle into 
 the boot, and Robin making, as he thought, a very good 
 bargain, provided the grass was but tolerable. The squire 
 walked his pony alongside of the drove, partly to show him the 
 way, and see him put into possession of the field, and partly to 
 learn the latest news of the northern markets. 
 
 They arrived at the field, and the pasture seemed excellent.
 
 THE TWO DROVERS, 1 35 
 
 But what was their surprise when they saw the bailifl: quietly 
 inducting the cattle of Harry Wakefield into the grassy Goshen 
 which had just been assigned to those of Robin Oig M'Comb- 
 ich by the proprietor himself ! Squire Ireby set spurs to his 
 horse, dashed up to his servant, and learning what had passed 
 between the parties, briefly informed the English drover that 
 his bailiff had let the ground without his authority, and that he 
 might seek grass for his cattle wherever he would, since he was 
 to get none there. At the same time he rebuked his servant 
 severely for having transgressed his commands, and ordered 
 him instantly to assist in ejecting the hungry and weary cattle 
 of Harry Wakefield, which were just beginning to enjoy a meal 
 of unusual plenty, and to introduce those of his comrade, whom 
 the English drover now began to consider as a rival. 
 
 The feelings which arose in Wakefield's mind would have 
 induced him to resist Mr. Ireby's decision ; but every English- 
 man has a tolerably accurate sense of law and justice, and John 
 Fleecebumpkin, the bailiff, having acknowledged that he had 
 exceeded his commission, Wakefield saw nothing else for it than 
 to collect his hungry and disappointed charge, and drive them 
 on to seek quarters elsewhere. Robin Oig saw what had 
 happened with regret, and hastened to ofiferto his English friend 
 to share with him the disputed possession. But Wakefield's 
 pride was severely hurt, and he answered disdainfully, " Take 
 it all, man — take it all — never make two bites of a cherry — 
 thou canst talk over the gentry, and blear a plain man's eye — 
 Out upon you, man — I would not kiss any man's dirty latchets 
 for leave to bake in his oven." 
 
 Robin Oig, sorry but not surprised at his comrade's dis- 
 pleasure, hastened to entreat his friend to wait but an hour till 
 he had gone to the Squire's house to receive payment for the 
 cattle he had sold, and he would come back and help him to 
 drive the cattle into some convenient place of rest, and explain 
 to him the whole mistake they had both of them fallen into 
 But the Englishman continued indignant : " Thou hast been 
 selling, hast thou? Ay, ay — thou is a cunning lad for kenning 
 the hours of bargaining. Go to the devil with thyself, for I 
 will ne'er see thy fause loon's visage again — thou should be 
 ashamed to look me in the face." 
 
 *' I am ashamed to look no man in the face," said Robin 
 Oig, something moved ; " and, moreover, I will look you in the 
 face this blessed day, if you will bide at the clachan down 
 yonder." 
 
 " Mayhap you had as well keep away," said his comrade ; 
 ^nd, turning his back on his former friend, he collected his
 
 136. THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 unwilling associates, assisted by the bailiff, who took Srsme real 
 and some affected interest in seeing Wakefield accommodated. 
 
 After spending some time in negotiating with more than one 
 of the neighboring farmers, who could not, or would not, afford 
 the accommodation desired, Henry Wakefield at last, and in his 
 necessity, accomplished his point by means of the landlord of the 
 alehouse at which Robin Oig and he had agreed to pass the 
 night, when they first separated from each other. Mine host 
 was content to let him turn his cattle on a piece of barren moor, 
 at a price little less than the bailiff" had asked for the disputed 
 enclosure ; and the wretchedness of the pasture, as well as the 
 price paid for it, were set down as exaggerations of the breach of 
 faith and friendship of his Scottish crony. This turn of Wake- 
 field's passions was encouraged by the bailiff (who had his own 
 reasons for being offended against poor Robin, as having been 
 the unwitting cause of his falling into disgrace with his master), 
 as well as by the innkeeper, and two or three chance guests, who 
 stimulated the drover in his resentment against his quondam 
 associate, — some from the ancient grudge against the Scots, 
 which, when it exis's anywhere, is to be found lurking in the 
 Border counties, and some from the general love of mischief 
 which characterizes mankind in all ranks of life, to the honor 
 of Adam's children be it spoken. Good John Barleycorn also, 
 who always heightens and exaggerates the prevailing passions, 
 be they angry or kindly, was not wanting in his offices on this 
 occasion ; and confusion to false friends and hard masters was 
 pledged in more than one tankard. 
 
 In the meanwhile Mr. Ireby found some amusement in de- 
 taining the northern drover at his ancient hall. He caused a 
 cold round of beef to be placed before the Scot in the butler's 
 pantry, together with a foaming tankard of home-brewed, and 
 took pleasure in seeing the hearty appetite with which these 
 unwonted edibles were discussed by Robin Oig M'Combich, 
 The squire himself lighting his pipe, compounded between his 
 patrician dignity and his love of agricultural gossip, by walking 
 up and down while he conversed with his guest. 
 
 " I passed another drove," said the Squire, " with one of 
 your countrymen behind them — they were something less beasts 
 than your drove, doddies most of them — a big man was with 
 them — none of your kilts though, but a decent pair of breeches 
 — D'ye know who he may be ? " 
 
 " Hout ay — that might, could, and would be Hughie Morrison 
 — I didna think he could hae peen sae weel up. He has made 
 a day on us ; but his Argyleshires will have wearied shanks^ 
 How far was he pehind .'' "
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 137 
 
 " I think about six or seven miles," answered the Squire," 
 "for I passed them at the Christenbury Crag, and I overtook 
 you at the Hollan Bush. If his beasts be leg-weary, he will 
 maybe be selling bargains." 
 
 " Na, na, Hughie Morrison is no the man for pargains — ye 
 maun come to some Highland body like Robin Oig hersell for 
 the like of these — put I maun pe wishing you goot night, and 
 twenty of them let alane ane, and I maun down to the Clachan 
 to see if the lad Harry Waakfelt is out of his humdudgeons 
 yet." 
 
 The party at the alehouse were still in full talk, and the 
 treachery of Robin Oig still the theme of conversation, when 
 the supposed culprit entered the apartment. His arrival, as 
 usually happens in such a case, put an instant stop to the dis- 
 cussion of which he had furnished the subject, and he was 
 received by the company assembled with that chilling silence, 
 which, more than a thousand exclamations, tells an intruder 
 that he is unwelcome. Surprised and offended, but not appalled 
 by the reception which he experienced, Robin entered with an 
 undaunted and even a haughty air, attempted no greeting, as 
 he saw he was received with none, and placed himself by the 
 side of the fire, a little apart from a table at which Harry Wake- 
 field, the bailiff, and two or three other persons, were seated. 
 The ample Cumbrian kitchen would have afforded plenty of 
 room even for a larger separation. 
 
 Robin, thus seated, proceeded to light his pipe, and call for 
 a pint of twopenny. 
 
 " We have no twopence ale," answered Ralph Heskett, the 
 landlord ; " but as thou find'st thy own tobacco, it's like thou 
 may'st find thy own liquor too — it's the wont of thy country, I 
 wot." 
 
 " Shame, goodman," said the landlady, a blithe bustling 
 housewife, hastening herself to supply the guest with liquor — 
 *' Thou knowest well enow what the strange man wants, and it's 
 thy trade to be civil, man. Thou shouldst know, that if the 
 Scot likes a small pot, he pays a sure penny." 
 
 Without taking any notice of this nuptial dialogue, the 
 Highlander took the flagon in his hand, and addressing the 
 company generally, drank the interesting toast of " Good 
 Markets," to the party assembled. 
 
 " The better that the wind blew fewer dealers from the north," 
 said one of the farmers, " and fewer Highland runts to eat up 
 the English meadows." 
 
 " Saul of my pody, put you are wrang there, my friend," an-
 
 J 38 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 swered Robin, with composure ; ii is your fat Englishmen that 
 eat up our Scots cattle, puir things." 
 
 " I wish there was a summat to eat up their drovers," said 
 another; "a plain Englishman canna make bread within 3 
 kenning of them." 
 
 " Or an honest servant keep his master's favor, but they 
 will come sliding in between him and the sunshine," said the 
 bailiff. 
 
 " If these pe jokes," said Robin Oig. with the same composure, 
 " there is ower mony jokes upon one man." 
 
 * It is no joke, but downright earnest," said the bailiff. 
 " Harkye, IMr. Robin Ogg, or whatever is your name, it's right 
 we should tell you that we are all of one opinion, and that is, 
 that you, Mr. Robin Ogg, have behaved to our friend, Mr. 
 Harry Wakefield here, like a raff and a blackguard." 
 
 " Nae doubt, nae doubt," answered Robin, with great com- 
 posure ; " and you are a set of very pretty judges, for whose 
 prains or pehavior I wad not gie a pinch of sneeshing. If Mr. 
 Harry Waakfelt kens where he is wranged, he kens where he 
 may be righted." 
 
 " He speaks truth," said Wakefield, who had listened to 
 what passed divided between the offence which he had taken at 
 Robin's late behavior, and the revival of his habitual feelings 
 of regard. 
 
 He now arose, and went toward Robin, who got up from 
 his seat as he approached, and held out his hand. 
 
 " That's right, Harry — go it — serve him out," resounded on 
 all sides — "tip him the nailer — show him the mill." 
 
 " Hold your peace all of you, and be ," said Wakefield ; 
 
 and then addressing his comrade, he took him by the extended 
 hand, with something alike of respect and defiance, ''Robin," he 
 said, " thou hast used me ill enough this day ; but if you mean, 
 like a frank fellow, to shake hands, and make a tussle for love 
 on the sod, why I'll forgie thee, man, and we shall be better 
 friends than ever." 
 
 "And would it not pe petter to pe cood friends without 
 more of the matter ?" said Robin ; " we will be much petter 
 friendships with our panes hale than proken." 
 
 Harry Wakefield dropped the hand of his friend, or rather 
 threw it from him. 
 
 " I did not think I had been keeping company for three 
 years with a coward." 
 
 " Coward pelongs to none of my name," said Robin, whose 
 eyes began to kindle, but keeping the command of his temper. 
 "It was no coward's legs or hands, Harry Waakfelt, that
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 139 
 
 drew you out of the fords of Frew, when you was drifting ower 
 the plack rock, and every eel in the river expected his share 
 of you." 
 
 " And that is true enough, too, "said the Englishman, struck 
 by the appeal. 
 
 "Adzooks ! " exclaimed the bailiff — " sure Harry Wakefield, 
 the nattiest lad at Whitson Tryste, Wooler Fair, Carlisle Sands, 
 or Stagshaw Bank, is not going to show white feather ? Ah, this 
 comes of living so long with kilts and bonnets — men forget the 
 use of their daddies." 
 
 "I may teach you, Master Fleecebumpkin, that I have not 
 lost the use of mine," said Wakefield, and then went on. " This 
 will never do, Robin. We must have a turn-up, or we shall be 
 the talk of the country-side. I'll be d — d if I hurt thee — I'll put 
 on the gloves gin thou like. Come, stand forward like a man." 
 
 To pe peaten like a dog," said Robin ; " is there any reason 
 in that ? if you think I have done you wrong I'll go before 
 your shudge, though I neither know his law nor his language." 
 
 A general cry of " No, no — no law, no lawyer ! a bellyful 
 and be friends," was echoed by the bystanders. 
 
 " But," continued Robin, " if I am to fight, I've no skill to 
 fight like a jackanapes, with hands and nails." 
 
 " How would you fight then ? " said his antagonist ; *' though 
 I am thinking it would be hard to bring you to the scratch any 
 how." 
 
 " I would fight with proadswords, and sink point on the first 
 plood drawn — like a gentlemans." 
 
 A loud shout of laughter followed the proposal, which in- 
 deed had rather escaped from poor Robin's swelling heart, than 
 been the dictate of his sober judgment. 
 
 " Gentleman, quotha ! " was echoed on all sides, with a shout 
 of unextinguishable laughter; "a very pretty gentleman, God 
 wot — Canst get two swords for the gentleman to fight with, 
 Ralph Heskett ? " 
 
 " No, but I can send to the armory at Carlisle, and lend them 
 two forks, to be making shift with in the meantime." 
 
 "Tush, man," said another, " the bonny Scots come into the 
 world with the blue bonnet on their heads, and dirk and pistol 
 at their belt." 
 
 " Best send post," said Mr. Fleecebumpkin, " to the Squire 
 of Corby Castle, to come and stand second to the gejitleman." 
 
 In the midst of this torrent of general ridicule, the High- 
 lander instinctively griped beneath the folds of his plaid. 
 
 "But it's better not," he said in his own language. "A
 
 r40 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 hundred curses on the swine-eaters, who know neither decency 
 
 nor civility ! " 
 
 " Make room, the pack of you," he said, advancing to the 
 door. 
 
 But his former friend interposed his sturdy bulk, and opposed 
 his leaving the house; and when Robin Oig attempted to make 
 his way by force, he hit him down on the floor, with as much 
 ease as a boy bowls down a nine-pin, 
 
 " A ring, a ring! " was now shouted until the dark rafters, 
 and the hams that hung on them, trembled again, and the very 
 platters on the bink clattered against each other. "Well done, 
 Harry," — " Give it him home, Harry," — " take care of him 
 now, — he sees his own blood ! " 
 
 Such were the exclamations, while the Highlander, starting 
 from the ground, all his coldness and caution lost in frantic 
 rage, sprung at his antagonist with the fury, the activity, and 
 the vindictive purpose, of an incensed tiger-cat. But when 
 could rage encounter science and temper ? Robin Oig again 
 went down in the unequal contest ; and as the blow was neces- 
 sarily a severe one, he lay motionless on the floor of the kitchen. 
 The landlady ran to offer some aid, but Mr. Fleecebumpkin 
 would not permit her to approach. 
 
 " Let him alone," he said, " he will come to within time, 
 and come up to the scratch again. He has not got half his 
 broth yet." 
 
 " He has got all I mean to give him, though," said his an- 
 tagonist, whose heart began to relent toward his old associate ; 
 " and I would rather by half give the rest to yourself, Mr. 
 Fleecebumpkin, for you pretend to know a thing or two, and 
 Robin had not art enough even to peel before setting to, but 
 fought with his plaid dangling about him. — Stand up, Robin, my 
 man ! all friends now; and let me hear the man that will speak 
 a word against you, or your country, for your sake." 
 
 Robin Oig was still under the dominion of his passion, and 
 eager to renew the onset; but being withheld on the one side 
 by the peace-making Dame Heskett, and on the other, aware 
 that Wakefield no longer meant to renew the combat, his fury 
 sunk into gloomy sullenness. 
 
 " Come, come, never grudge so much at it, man," said the 
 brave-spirited Knglishman, with the placability of his country; 
 *' shake hands, and we \\\\\ be better friends than ever." 
 
 "Friends ! " exclaimed Robin Oig, with strong emphasis — 
 "friends! — Never. Look to yourself, Harry Waakfelt." 
 
 " Then the curse of Cromwell on your proud Scots stomach, 
 as the man says in the play, and you may do your worst, and
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 \^^ 
 
 be d — d ! for one man can say nothing more to another after a 
 tussle, than that he is sorry for it." 
 
 On these terms the friends parted ; Robin Oig drew out, in 
 silence, a piece of money, threw it on the table, and then left 
 the alehouse. But turning at the door, he shook his hand at 
 Wakefield, pointing with his forefinger upward, in a manner 
 which might imply either a threat or a caution. He then dis 
 appeared in the moonlight. 
 
 Some words passed after his departure, between the bailiff, 
 who piqued himself on being a little of a bully, and Harry 
 Wakefield, who, with generous inconsistency, was now not in- 
 disposed to begin a new combat in defence of Robin Oig's 
 reputation, " although he could not use his daddies like an 
 Englishman, as it did not come natural to him." But Dame 
 Heskett prevented this second quarrel from coming to a head 
 by her peremptory interference. '• There should be no more 
 fighting in her house," she said ; " there had been too much 
 already. — And you. Mi*. Wakefield, may live to learn," she 
 added, " what it is to make a deadly enemy out of a good 
 friend." 
 
 " Pshaw, dame ! Robin Oig is an honest fellow, and will 
 never keep malice." 
 
 " Do not trust to that — you do not know the dour temper of 
 the Scots, though you have dealt with them so often. I have a 
 right to know them, my mother being a Scot." 
 
 " And so is well seen on her daughter," said Ralph 
 Heskett. 
 
 This nuptial sarcasm gave the discourse another turn ; fresh 
 customers entered the tap-room or kitchen, and others left it. 
 The conversation turned on the expected markets, and the 
 report of prices from different parts both of Scotland and Eng- 
 land — treaties were commenced, and Harry Wakefield was 
 lucky enough to find a chap for a part of his drove, and at a 
 very considerable profit ; an event of consequence more than 
 sufficient to blot out all remembrances of the unpleasant scuffie 
 in the earlier part of the day. But there remained one party 
 from whose mind that recollection could not have been wiped 
 away by the possession of every head of cattle betwixt Esk and 
 Eden. 
 
 This was Robin Oig M'Combich — " That I should have 
 had no weapon," he said, " and for the first time in my life ! — • 
 Blighted be the tongue that bids the Highlander part with the 
 dirk — the dirk — ha ! the English blood ! — My Muhme's word— « 
 when did her word fall to the ground ? "
 
 t42 THE TWO D ROVERS. 
 
 The recollection of the fatal prophecy confirmed the deadly 
 intention which instantly sprung up in his mind. 
 
 " Ha ! Morrison cannot be many miles behind ; and if it 
 were a hundred, what then ? " 
 
 His impetuous spirit had now a fixed purpose and motive of 
 action, and he turned the light foot of his country toward the 
 wilds, through which he knew, by Mr. Ireby's report, that Mor- 
 rison was advancing. His mind was wholly engrossed by the 
 sense of injury — injury sustained from a friend ; and by the 
 desire of vengeance on one whom he now accounted his most 
 bitter enemy. The treasured ideas of self-importance and 
 self-opinion — of ideal birth and quality, had become more 
 precious to him, like the hoard to the miser, because he could 
 only enjoy them in secret. But that hoard was pillaged, the 
 idols which he had secretly worshipped had been desecrated 
 and profaned. Insulted, abused, and beaten, he was no longer 
 worthy, in his own opinion, of the name he bore, or the lineage 
 which he belonged to — nothing was left to him — nothing but 
 revenge ; and, as the reflection added a galling spur to every 
 step, he determined it should be as sudden and signal as the 
 offence. 
 
 When Robin Oig left the door of the alehouse, seven or eight 
 English miles at least lay betwixt Morrison and him. The 
 advance of the former was slow, limited by the sluggish pace 
 of his cattle ; the last left behind him stubble-field and hedge- 
 row, crag and dark heath, all glittering with frost-rime in the 
 broad November moonlight, at the rate of six miles an hour. 
 And now the distant lowing of Morrison's cattle is heard ; and 
 now they are seen creeping like moles in size and slowness of 
 motion on the broad face of the moor ; and now he meets them 
 — passes them, and stops their conductor. 
 
 " May good betide us," said the Southlander — '' Is this you, 
 Robin M'Combich, or your wraith .<* " 
 
 " It is Robin Oig M'Combich," answered the Highlander, 
 " and it is not. — But never mind that, put pe giving me the 
 skene-dhu." 
 
 " What ! you are for back to the Highlands — The devil ! — 
 Have you selt all off before the fair .-' This beats all for quick 
 markets ! " 
 
 " I have not sold — I am not going north — May pe I will 
 never go north again. — Give me pack my dirk, Hugh Morrison, 
 or there will pe words petween us." 
 
 " Indeed, Robin, I'll be better advised before I gie it back 
 to you — it is a wanchancy weapon in a Highlandman's hand, 
 and I am thinking you will be about some barns-breaking,"
 
 THE TWO DROVERS, 14- 
 
 " Prutt, trutt ! let me have my weapon," said Robin Oig, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " Hooly and fairly," said his well-meaning friend. " I'll tell 
 you what will do better then these dirking doings — Ye ken High- 
 lander, and Lowlander, and Border-men, are a' ae man's bairns 
 Vvhen you are over the Scots dyke. See, the Eskdale callauts, 
 and fighting Charlie of Liddesdale, and the Lockerby lads, and 
 the four Dandies of Lustruther, and a wheen mair gray plaids, 
 are coming up behind, and if you are wranged, there is the 
 hand of a Manly Morrison, we'll see you righted, if Carlisle 
 and Stanwix baith took up the feud." 
 
 " To tell you the truth," said Robin Oig, desirous of eluding 
 the suspicions of his friend, " I have enlisted wjth a party of the 
 Black Watch, and must march off to-morrow uiorning." 
 
 " Enlisted ! Were you mad or drunk t — You must buy your- 
 self off — I can lend you twenty notes, and twenty to that, if the 
 drove sell." 
 
 " I thank you — thank ye, Hughie ; but I go with good will 
 the gate that I am going, — so the dirk — the dirk ! " 
 
 " There it is for you then, since less wunna serve. But 
 think on what I was saying. — Waes me, it will be sair news in 
 the Braes of Balquidder, that Robin Oig M'Combich should 
 have run an ill gate, and ta'en on." 
 
 " III news in Balquidder, indeed ! " echoed poor Robin. 
 " But Cot speed you, Hughie, and send you good marcats. Ye 
 winna meet with Robin Oig again, either at tryste or fair." 
 
 So saying, he shook hastily the hand of his acquaintance, 
 and set out in the direction from which he had advanced, with 
 the spirit of his former pace. 
 
 " There is something wrang with the lad," muttered the 
 Morrison to himself ; " but we'll maybe see better into it the 
 morn's morning." 
 
 But long ere the morning dawned, the catastrophe of our tale 
 had taken place. It was two or three hours after the affray Jiad 
 happened, and it was totally forgotten by almost every one, when 
 Robin Oig returned to Heskett's inn. The place was filled at 
 once by various sorts of men, and with noises corresponding to 
 their character. There were the grave low sounds of men en- 
 gaged in busy traffic, with the laugh, the song, and the riotous 
 jest of those who had nothing to do but to enjoy themselves. 
 Among the last was Harry Wakefield, who, amidst a grinning 
 group of smock-frocks, hobnailed shoes, and jolly English 
 physiognomies, was trolling forth the old ditty, 
 
 ** What tlKHinh my name lie l\i)gcr, 
 Who drives the plough and cart"—
 
 144 
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 when he was interrupted by a well-known voice saying in a 
 high and stern tone, marked by the sharp Highland accent, 
 " Harry Waakfelt — if you be a man, stand up ! " 
 
 " What is the matter ? — what is it ? " the guests demanded 
 of each other. 
 
 " It is only a d — d Scotsman," said Fleecebumpkin, who 
 was by this time very drunk, " whom Harry Wakefield helped 
 to his broth the day, who is now come to have his cauld kail 
 het again." 
 
 " Harry Waakfelt," repeated the same ominous summons, 
 " stand up, if you be a man ! " 
 
 There is something in the tone of deep and concentrated 
 passion, which attracts attention and imposes awe, even by the 
 very sound. The guests shrunk back on every side, and gazed 
 at the Highlander as he stood in the middle of them, his brows 
 bent, and his features rigid with resolution. 
 
 " I will stand up with all my heart, Robin, my boy, but it 
 shall be to shake hands with you, and drink down all unkind- 
 ness. It is not the fault of your heart, man, that you don't 
 know how to clench your hands." 
 
 By this time he stood opposite to his antagonist ; his open 
 and unsuspecting look strangely contrasted with the stern pur- 
 pose, whicn gleamed wild, dark, and vindictive in the eyes of 
 the Highlander. 
 
 " 'Tis not thy fault, man, that, not having the luck to be an 
 Englishman, thou canst not fight more than a school-girl." 
 
 " I can fight," answered Robin Oig sternly, but calmly, 
 " and you shall know it. You, Harry Waakfelt, showed me 
 to-day how the Saxon churls fight — I show you now how the 
 Highland Dunnife-wassel fights." 
 
 He seconded the word with the action, and plunged the 
 dagger, which he suddenly displayed, into the broad breast of 
 the English yeoman, with such fatal certainty and force, that 
 the hilt made a hollow sound against the breast-bone, and the 
 double-edged point split the very heart of his victim. Harry 
 Wakefield fell and expired with a single groan. His assassin 
 next seized the bailiff by the collar, and offered the bloody 
 poniard to his throat, whilst dread and surprise rendered the 
 man incapable of defence. 
 
 "It were very just to lay you beside him," he said, "but 
 the blood of a base pick-thank shall never mix on my father's 
 dirk with that of a brave man." 
 
 As he spoke, he cast the man from him with so much force 
 that he fell on the fioor, while Robin, with his other hand, 
 threw the fatal weapon into the blazing turf-fire.
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 US 
 
 ** There," he said, "take me who hkes — and let fire cleanse 
 blood if it can." 
 
 The pause of astonishment still continuing, Robin Oig 
 asked for a peace-officer; and a constable having stepped out, 
 he surrendered himself to his custody. 
 
 " A bloody night's work you have made of it," said the con- 
 stable. 
 
 " Your own fault," said the Highlander. " Had you kept 
 his hands off me twa hours since he would have been now as 
 well and merry as he was twa minutes since." 
 
 " It must be sorely answered," said the peace-officer. 
 
 " Never you mind that — death pays all debts ; it will pay 
 that too." 
 
 The horror of the bystanders began now to give way to indig- 
 nation ; and the sight of a favorite companion murdered in the 
 midst of them, the provocation being, in their opinion, so utterly 
 inadequate to the excess of vengeance, might have induced them 
 to kill the perpetrator of the deed even upon the very spot. 
 The constable, however, did his duty on this occasion, and, with 
 the assistance of some of the more reasonable persons present, 
 procured horses to guard the prisoner to Carlisle, to abide his 
 doom at the next assizes. While the escort was preparing, the 
 prisoner neither expressed the least interest nor attempted the 
 slightest reply. Only before he w^as carried from the fatal apart- 
 ment, he desired to look at the dead body, which, raised from the 
 floor, had been deposited upon the large table (at the head of 
 which Harry Wakefield had presided but a few minutes be- 
 fore, full of life, vigor, and animation) until the surgeons 
 should examine the mortal wound. The face of the corpse was 
 decently covered with a napkin. To the surprise and horror of 
 the bystanders, which displayed itself in a general Ah ! drawn 
 through clenched teeth and half-shut lips, Robin Oig removed 
 the cloth, and gazed with a mournful but steady eye on the 
 lifeless visage, which had been so lately animated, that the smile 
 of good-humored confidence in his own strength, of conciliation 
 at once, and contempt toward his enemy, still curled his lip. 
 While those present expected that the wound, which had so 
 lately flooded the apartment with gore, would send forth fresh 
 streams at the touch of the homicide, Robin Oig replaced the 
 covering, with the brief exclamation — " He was a pretty man ! " 
 
 My story is nearly ended. The unfortunate Highlander 
 stood his trial at Carlisle. I was myself present, and as a young 
 Scottish lawyer, or barrister at least, and reputed a man of some 
 quality, the politeness of the Sheriff of Cumberland offered me a 
 place on the bench. The facts of the case were proved in the
 
 ,^6 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 manner I have related them ; and whatever might be at first 
 the prejudice of the audience against a crime so un-English as 
 that of assassination from revenge, yet when the rooted national 
 prejudices of the prisoner had been explained, which made him 
 consider himself as stained with indelible dishonor, when 
 subjected to personal violence ; when his previous patience, 
 moderation, and endurance, were considered, the generosity of 
 the English audience was inclined to regard his crime as the 
 wayward aberration of a false idea of honor rather than as 
 flowing from a heart naturally savage, or perverted by habitual 
 vice. I shall never forget the charge of the venerable Judge to 
 the jury, although not at that time liable to be much affected 
 either by that which was eloquent or pathetic. 
 
 " We have had," he said, " in the previous part of our duty " 
 (alluding to some former trials), " to discuss crimes which infer 
 disgust and abhorrence, while they call down the well-merited 
 vengeance of the law. It is now our still more melancholy 
 task to apply its salutary though severe enactments to a case of 
 a very singular character, in which the crime (for a crime it is, 
 and a deep one) arose less out of the malevolence of the heart, 
 than the error of the understanding — less from any idea of 
 committing wrong, than from an unhappily perverted notion of 
 that which is right. Here we have two men, highly esteemed, 
 it has been stated, in their rank of life, and attached, it seems, 
 to each other as friends, one of whose lives has been already 
 sacrificed to a punctilio, and the other is about to prove the 
 vengeance of the offended laws ; and yet both may claim our 
 commiseration at least, as men acting in ignorance of each 
 other's national prejudices, and unhappily misguided rather 
 than voluntarily erring from the path of right conduct. 
 
 " In the original cause of the misunderstanding, we must in 
 justice give the right to the prisoner at the bar. He had 
 acquired possession of the enclosure, which was the object of 
 competition, by a legal contract with the proprietor, Mr. Ireby ; 
 and yet, when accosted with reproaches undeserved in them.- 
 selves, and galling doubtless to a temper at least sufficiently 
 susceptible of passion, he offered notwithstanding to yield up 
 half his acquisition, for the sake of peace and good neighbor- 
 hood, and his amicable proposal was rejected with scorn. Then 
 follows the scene at Mr. Heskett the publican's, and you will 
 observe how the stranger was treated by the deceased, and, 1 
 am sorry to observe, by those around, who seemed to have urged 
 him in a manner which was aggravating in the highest degree. 
 While he asked for peace and for composition, and offered 
 submission to a magistrate, or to a mutual arbiter, the prisoner
 
 < 
 
 I
 
 THE TWO DROVe'j^S. 1 47 
 
 was insulted by a whole company, who seem on this occasion 
 to have forgotten the national maxim of ' fair play '; and while 
 attempting to escape from the place in peace, he was intercepted, 
 struck down, and beaten to the effusion of his blood. 
 
 "Gentlemen of the Jurj^, it was with some impatience that 
 I heard my learned brother, who opened the case for the crown, 
 give an unfavorable turn to the prisoner's conduct on this 
 occasion. He said the prisoner was afraid to encounter his 
 antagonist in fair fight, or to submit to the laws of the ring ; 
 and that, therefore, like a cowardly Italian, he had recourse to 
 his fatal stiletto, to murder the man whom he dared not meet 
 in manly encounter. I observed the prisoner shrink from this 
 part of the accusation with the abhorrence natural to a brave 
 man ; and as I would wish to make my words impressive, when 
 I point his real crime, I must secure his opinion of my im- 
 partiality, by rebutting everything that seems to me a false 
 accusation. There can be no doubt that the prisoner is a man 
 of resolution — too much resolution — I wish to Heaven that 
 he had less, or rather that he had had a better education to reg- 
 ulate it. 
 
 " Gentlemen, as to the laws my brother talks of, they may 
 be known in the Bull-ring, or the Bear-garden, or the Cockpit, 
 but they are not known here. • Or, if they should be so far 
 admitted as furnishing a species of proof that no malice was 
 intended in this sort of combat, from which fatal accidents do 
 sometimes arise, it can only be so admitted when both parties 
 are in pari ccrsu, equally acquainted with, and equally willing 
 to refer themselves to, that species of arbitrament. But will it 
 be contended that a man of superior rank and education is to 
 be subjected, or is obliged to subject himself, to this coarse and 
 brutal strife, perhaps in opposition to a younger, stronger, or 
 more skilful opponent. Certainly even the pugilistic code, if 
 founded upon the fair play of Merry Old England, as mv 
 brother alleges it to be, can contain nothing so preposterous. 
 And, gentlemen of the jury, if the laws would support an 
 English gentleman, wearing, we will suppose, his sword, in 
 defending himself by force against a violent personal aggression 
 of the nature offered to this prisoner, they will not less protect 
 a foreigner and a stranger, involved in the same unpleasing 
 circumstances. If, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, when thus 
 pressed by a vis major, the object of obloquy to a whole com- 
 pany, and of direct violence from one at least, and, as he 
 might reasonably apprehend, from more, the panel had pro- 
 duced the weapon which his countrymen, as we are informed,
 
 ,48 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 generally carry about their persons, and the same unhappy 
 circumstance had ensued which you have heard detailed in 
 evidence, I could not in my conscience have asked from you a 
 verdict of murder. The prisoner's personal defence might, 
 indeed, even in that case, have gone more or less beyond the 
 Moderamen inculpatce tutehe, spoken of by lawyers, but the 
 punishment incurred would have been that of manslaughter, 
 not of murder. I beg leave to add, that I should have thought 
 this milder species of charge was demanded in the case sup- 
 posed, notwithstanding the statute of James I. cap. 8, which 
 takes the case of slaughter by stabbing with a short weapon, 
 even without malice prepense, out of the benefit of clergy. For 
 this statute of stabbing, as it is termed, arose out of a temporary 
 cause ; and as the real guilt is the same, whether the slaughter 
 be committed by the dagger, or by sword or pistol, the be- 
 nignity of the modern law places them all on the same, or 
 nearly the same footing. 
 
 " But, gentlemen of the jury, the pinch of the case lies in 
 the interval of two hours interposed betwixt the reception of 
 the injury and the fatal retaliation. In the heat of affray and 
 chamie inelee, law, compassionating the infirmities of humanity, 
 makes allowance for the passions which rule such a stormy 
 moment — for the sense of present pain, for the apprehension 
 of further injury, for the difficulty of ascertaining with due 
 accuracy the precise degree of violence which is necessary to 
 protect the person of the individual, without annoying or in- 
 juring the assailant more than is absolutely requisite. But the 
 time necessary to walk twelve miles, however speedily per- 
 formed, was an interval sufficient for the prisoner to have 
 recollected himself ; and the violence with which he carried his 
 purpose into effect, with so many circumstances of deliberate 
 determination, could neither be induced by the passion of anger, 
 nor that of fear. It was the purpose and the act of predeter- 
 mined revenge, for which law neither can, will, nor ought, to 
 have sympathy or allowance. 
 
 " It is true, we may repeat to ourselves, in alleviation of this 
 poor man's unhappy action, that his case is a very peculiar one. 
 The country which he inhabits, was in the days of many now 
 alive, inaccessible to the laws, not only of England, which have 
 not even yet penetrated thither, but to those to which our 
 neighbors of Scotland are subjected, and which must be sup- 
 posed to be, and no doubt actually are, founded upon the 
 general principles of justice and equity which pervade every 
 civilized country. Amongst their mountains, as among the 
 
 J
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. I49 
 
 North American Indians, tiie various tribes were wont to make 
 war upon each other, so that each man was obliged to go armed 
 for his own protection. These men, from the ideas which they 
 entertained of their own descent and of their own consequence, 
 regarded tliemselves as so many cavaliers or men-at-arms, 
 rather than as the peasantry of a peaceful country. Those laws 
 of the ring, as my brother terms them, were unknown to the 
 race oi warlike mountaineers ; that decision of quarrels by no 
 other weapons than those which nature has given every man, 
 must to them have seemed as vulgar and as preposterous as to 
 the Noblesse of France. Revenge, on the other hand, must 
 have been as familiar to their habits of society as to those of 
 the Cherokees or Mohawks. It is indeed, as described by 
 Bacon, at bottom, a kind of wild untutored justice ; for the 
 fear of retaliation must withhold the hands of the oppressor 
 where there is no regular law to check daring violence. But 
 though all this may be granted, and though we may allow that, 
 such having been the case of the Highlands in the days of the 
 prisoner's fathers, many of the opinions and sentiments must 
 still continue to influence the present generation, it cannot, 
 and ought not, even in this most painful case, to alter the ad- 
 ministration of the law, either in your hands, gentlemen of the 
 jury, or in mine. The first object of civilization is to place the 
 general protection of the law, equally administered, in the 
 room of that wild justice, which every man cut and carved for 
 himself, according to the length of his sword and the strength 
 of his arm. The law says to the subjects, with a voice only 
 inferior to that of the Deity, 'Vengeance is mine.' The instant 
 that there is time for passion to cool, and reason to interpose, 
 an injured party must become aware, that the law assumes the 
 exclusive cognizance of the right and wrong betwixt the parties, 
 and opposes her .inviolable buckler to every attempt of the pri- 
 vate party to right himself. I repeat, that this unhappy man ought 
 personally to be the object rather of our pity than our abhor- 
 rence, for he failed in his ignorance, and from mistaken notions 
 of honor. But his crime is not the less that of murder, gentle- 
 men, and in your high and important office, it is your duty so 
 to find. Englishmen have their angry passions as well as Scots ; 
 and should this man's action remain unpunished, you may 
 unsheath, under various pretences, a thousand daggers betwixt 
 the Land's-end and the Orkneys." 
 
 The venerable Judge thus ended w^hat, to judge by his 
 apparent emotion, and by the tears which filled his eyes, was 
 really a painful task. The jury, according to his instructions,
 
 ISO 
 
 THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 brought in a verdict of Guilty ; and Robin Oig M'Combich, 
 alias M'Gregor, was sentenced to death, and left for execution, 
 which took place accordingly. He met his fate with great 
 firmness, and acknowledged the justice of his sentence. But 
 he repelled indignantly the observations of those who accused 
 him of attacking an unarmed man. " I give a life for the life 
 I took," he said, " and what can I do more ? " * 
 
 * Note. Robert Donn's poem&
 
 NOTES TO CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATF. 
 
 Note A, p. 2. — Sanctuary of Holyrood 
 
 The reader may be gratified with Hector Boece's narrative of the origi- 
 nal foundation of the famous Abbey of Holyrood, or the Holy Cross, as 
 given in Bellenden's translation: — 
 
 " Eftir death of Alexander the first, his brothir David come out of Ing- 
 land, and wes crownit at Scone, the yeir of God Mcxxiv yeiris, and did 
 gret justice eftir his corination, in all partis of his realme. He had na 
 weris during the time of King Hary ; and wes so pietuous, that he sat day- 
 lie in judgment, to caus his pure commonis to have justice; and causit the 
 actionis of his noblis to be decidit be his othir jugis. He gart ilk juge re- 
 dres the skaithis that come to the party be his wrang sentence ; throw quhilk 
 he decorit his realm with mony nobil actis, and ejeckit the vennomus custome 
 of riotus cheir, quhilk wes inducit afore be Inglismen, quhen they com 
 with Quene Margaret; for the samin was noisum toal gud maneris, makand 
 his pepil tender and effeminat. 
 
 " In the fourt yeir of his regne, this nobill prince come to visie the 
 madin Castell of Edinburgh. At this time, all the boundis of Scotland were 
 ful of woddis, lesouris, and medois; for the countre wes more gevin to store 
 of bestiall than ony production of cornis; and about this castell was ane 
 gret forest, full of haris, hindis, toddis, and sicklike maner of bcistis. Now 
 was the Rude Day cumin, called the Exaltation of the Croce ; and, becaus 
 the samin was ane hie solempne day, the king past to his contem])lation. 
 Eftir the messis wer done with maist solemptnitie and reverence, comperit 
 afore him mony young and insolen baronis of Scotland, richt desirus to haif 
 some plesur and solace, be chace of hundis in the said forest. At this time 
 wes with the king ane man of singulare and devoit life, namit Alkwine, 
 channon eftir the ordour of Sanct Aagustine, quhilk wes lang time confcs- 
 soure, afore, to King David in Ingland, the time that he was Erie of Ilunt- 
 ingtoun and Northumbirlaiid. This religious man dissuadit the King, be 
 mony reasonis, to pas to this huntis ; and allegit the day was so solempne, 
 be reverence of the haly croce, that lie suld gif him erar, for that day, to 
 contemplation, than ony othir exersition. Wochthcles, his dissuasion is 
 littill avalit ; for the king wes finallie so provokit, be importune solicita- 
 tioun of his baronis, that he past, nochtwithstanding the solcmpnite of this 
 day, to his hountis. At last, quhen he was cumin throw the vail that lyis 
 to the gret eist fra the said castell, quhare now lyis the C.inongait, the staik 
 past throw the wod with sic noyis and din of rachis and bugillis, that all 
 the bestis were rasit fra thair detniis. Now wes the king cumin to the fute 
 of the crag, and all his nobilis scverit, heir and thair, fra him, at thair game 
 and solace ; quhen suddenlie apperit to his sicht, the fairist hart that evir
 
 >52 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 wes sene afore with levand creature. The noyis and din of this hart 
 rinnand, as apperit, with awful and braid tindis, maid the kingis hors so ef- 
 frayit, that na renzeis niiclit hald him ; but ran, iJcrforcc, ouir mire and 
 mossis, away with the l^ing. Nochthclcs, the hart followit so fast, that lie 
 dang baith the king and his horse to the ground. Than the king kest abak 
 his handis betwixt the tindis of this hart, to haif savit him fra the straik 
 thairof ; and the haly croce siaid, incontinent, in his handis. The hart fled 
 away with gret violence, and evanist in the same place qiihare now springis 
 the Rude Well. The pejjil richt affrayitly, rcturnit to him out of a 1 partis 
 of the wod, to comfort him eftir his trubill; and fell on kneis, devotly 
 adoring the haly croce; for it was not cumin but some hevinly providence. 
 ab Weill apperis : for thair is na man can schaw of quhat mater it is of, metel 
 or tre. Sone eftir, the king returnit to his castell, ; and in the nicht fol- 
 lowing, he was admonist, be ane vision in his sleip, to big ane abbay of 
 channonis regular in the same place quhare he gat the croce. Als sone as 
 he was awalkinnit, he schew his visione to Alkwine, his confessoure ; and 
 he na thing suspended his gud mind, bot erar inflammit him with maist 
 fervent devotion thairto. The king, incontinent, send his traist scrvandis 
 in France and Flanderis, and brocht richt crafty masonis to big this abbay; 
 syne dedicat it in the honor of this haly croce. The croce remanit contine- 
 wally in the said abbay, to the time of King David Bruce ; quhilk was 
 unhappily tane with it at Durame, quhare it is haldin yit in gret venera- 
 tion." — BoECE, book 12, ch. [6. 
 
 It is by no means clear what Scottish prince first built a palace, properly 
 so called, in the precincts of this renowned seat of sanctity. The abbey, 
 endowed by successive sovereigns and many powerful nobles with munifi- 
 cent gifts of lands and tithes, came, in process of time, to be one of the most 
 important of the ecclesiastical corporations of Scotland; anJ as early as the 
 days of Robert Bruce, parliaments were held occasionally within its build- 
 ings. We have evidence that James IV. h.ul a royal lodging adjoining to 
 the cloister; but it is generally agreed that the first considerable edifice 
 for the accommodation of the roval family erected here was that of 
 James V., anno 1525, great part of wiiich still remains, and forms the north- 
 western side of the existing palace. The more modern buildings which 
 complete the quadrangle were erected by King Charles II. The nave of 
 the old conventual church was used as the parish church oi the Canongate 
 from the ])eriod of the Reformation, until James II. claimed it for his 
 chapel royal, and h.id it fitted up accordingly in a style of splendor which 
 grievously outraged the feelings of his Presbvterian subjects. The roof of 
 this fragment of a once magnificent church fell in the year 1768, and it has 
 remained ever since in a state of desolation. — For fuller particulars, see the 
 Provincial Antiquities of Scotland, or the History of Holy rood, by Mr. 
 Ch.'VRLES Mackie. 
 
 The greater part of this ancient palace is now again occupied by his 
 Majesty Charles the Tenth of France, and the rest of that illustrious family 
 which, in former ages so closely connected by marriage and alliance with 
 the House of Stuart, seems to have been destined to run a similar career 
 of misfortune. Kequiescat in pace ! [Since the date of the above note, the 
 Palace of Holyrood has on several occasions been honored by Queen 
 Victoria, as well as by George IV. on his visit to Scotland in 1822. J 
 
 Note B, p. 27. — Steele, the Covenanter. 
 
 The following extract from Swift's Life ofCreichton gives the particulars 
 of the bloody scene alluded to in the text: — 
 
 " Having drank hard one night, I (Creichton) dreamed that I had found
 
 NOTES. 153 
 
 Captain David Steele, a notorious rebel, in one of the five farmers' houses 
 on a mountain in the shire of Clydesdale, and parish of Lismahago, within 
 eight miles of Hamilton, a place that I was well acquainted with. This 
 man was head of the rebels since the affair of Airs-moss ; having succeeded 
 to Hackston, who had been there taken, and afterwards hanged, as the 
 reader has already heard; for, as to Robert Hamilton, who was then Com- 
 mander-in-Chief at Bothwell Bridge, he appeared no more among them, 
 but fled, as it was believed, to Holland. 
 
 " Steele, and his father before him, held a farm in the estate of Hamil- 
 ton, within two or three miles of that town. When he betook himself to 
 arms, the farm lay waste, and the Duke could find no other person who 
 would venture to take it: whereupon his Grace sent several messages to 
 Steele to know the reason why he kept the farm waste. The Duke re- 
 ceived no other answer than that he would keep it waste, in spite of him 
 and the king too ; whereupon his Grace, at whose table I had always the 
 honor to be a welcome guest, desired I would use my endeavors to destroy 
 that rogue, and I would oblige him forever. 
 
 " I return to my story. When I awaked out of my dream, as I had 
 done before in the affair of Wilson (and I desire the same apology I made 
 in the introduction to these Memoirs may serve for both) I presently rose 
 and ordered thirty-six dragoons to be at the place appointed by break of 
 day. When we arrived thither, I sent a party to each of the five farmers' 
 houses. This villain Steele had murdered above forty of the king's subjects 
 in cold blood ; and, as I was informed, had often laid snares to entrap me; 
 but it happened, that although he usually kept a gang to attend him, yet 
 at this time he had none, when he stood in the greatest need. One of the 
 party found him in one of the farmers' houses, just as I happened to dream. 
 The dragoons first searched all the rooms below without success, till two 
 of thcTU hearing somebody stirring over their heads, went up a pair of turn- 
 pike stairs. Steele had put on his clothes while the search was making 
 below; the chamber where he lay was called the chamber of Deese, which 
 is the name given to a room where the laird lies when he comes to a 
 tenant's house. Steele, suddenly opening a door, fired a blunderbuss down 
 at the two dragoons as they were coming up the stairs; but the bullets 
 grazing against the side of the turnpike, only wounded, and did not kill 
 them. Then Steele violently threw himself down the stairs among them, 
 and made toward the door to save his life, but lost it upon the spot ; for 
 the dragoons who guarded the house despatched him with their broad- 
 swords. I was not with the party when he was killed, being at that time 
 employed in searching at one of the other houses, but I soon found what 
 had happened, by hearing the noise of the shot made with the blunderbuss; 
 from whence I returned straight to Lanark, and immediately sent one of 
 the dragoous express to General Drummond at Edinburgh." — Swikt's 
 Woi-ks, vol. xii. (Memoirs of Captain John Creichton), pages 57-59, Edit. 
 Edinb. 1824. 
 
 Wodrow gives a different account of this exploit — " In December this 
 year (16S6), David Steil, in the parish of Lismahagnw, was surprised in the 
 fields by Lieutenant Creichton, and after his surrender of himself on 
 quarters, he was in a very little time most barbarously shot, and lies buried 
 in the churchyard there.'' 
 
 Note C, p. 50. — Iron Rasp. 
 
 The ingenious Mr. R. Chambers, in his Traditions 0/ Edinburgh, givti 
 the following account of the forgotten rasp or risp : —
 
 1 54 NOTES. 
 
 " This house had a/m or risp at the door, instead of the more modern 
 convenience, a knocker. The pin. rendered interesting by the figure which 
 it makes in Scottish song, was formed of a small rod of iron, twisted or 
 notched, which was placed perpendicularly, starting out a little from the 
 door, and bore a small ring of the same metal, which an applicant for ad- 
 mittance drew rapidly up and down the nicks, so as to produce a grating 
 sonnd. Sometimes the rod was simply stretched across the vizzyhig hole, 
 a convenient aperture through which the porter could take cognizance of 
 the person applying; in which case it acted also as a stanchion. These 
 were almost all disused about sixty years ago, when knockers were gener- 
 ally substituted as more genteel. But knockers at that time did not long 
 remain in repute, though they have never been altogether superseded, even 
 by bells, in the Old Town. The comparative merit of knockers and pins 
 was for a long time a subject of doubt, and many knockers got their heads 
 twisted off in the course of the dispute." — Traditions of Edinburgh. 
 
 Note D, p. 59.— Earl of Winton. 
 
 The incident here alluded to is thus narrated in Nichols' Progresses of 
 James /., vol, iii. p. 306. 
 
 " The family " (of Winton) " owed its first elevation to the union of Sir 
 Christopher Seton with a sister of King Robert Bruce. With King James 
 V. they acquired great favor, who, having created his brother Earl of Dum- 
 fermline in 1599, made Robert, seventh Lord Seton, Earl of Wintoa in 
 1600. Before tlie King's accession to the English throne, his Majesty and 
 the Queen were frequently at Seton, where the Earl kept a very hospitable 
 table, at which all foreigners of quality were entertained on their visits to 
 Scotland. His Lordship died in 1603, and was buried on the 5th of April, 
 on the very day the King left Edinburgh for England. His Majesty, we 
 are told, was pleased to rest himself at the south-west round of the orchard 
 of Seton, on the Highway, till the funeral was over, that he might not with- 
 draw the noble company ; and he said that he had lost a good, faithful, and 
 loyal subject." — Nichols' Progresses of K. James,, vol. iii. p. 306. 
 
 Note E, p. 60. — M'GitEGOR of Glenstrae. 
 
 "The 2 of Octr: (1603) Allaster MacGregor of Glen=;trae tane be the 
 laird Arkynles, bot escapit againe ; bot after taken be the Earle of Argyll 
 the 4 of Januarii, and brought to Edr: the 9 of Januar: 1604, wt: i8 mae 
 of hes frcndes MacGregors. He was convoyit to Berwick be the gaird, 
 conform to the Earle's promes; for he promesit to put him out of Scottis 
 grund: Sua he keii)it an Hielandman's promes in respect he sent the gaird 
 to convoy him out of Scottis grund ; bot yai wer not directit to pairt wt: 
 him, bot to fetche him bak againe. The 18 of Januar, he came at evin 
 againe to Edinburghe ; and upone the 20 day, he was hangit at the crosse, 
 and ij of his friendes and name, upon ane gallows : himself being chieff, he 
 was hangit his awin hight above the rest of his friendis." — Birrell's Diary 
 (in Dalzell's Fragments of Scottish History), pp. 60, 61. 
 
 Note F, p. 96. — Fidelity of the Highlanders. 
 
 Of tlie strong undeviating attachment of the Highlanders to the person, 
 and their deference to the will or commands of their chiefs and superiors — 
 their rigid adherence to duty and principle — and their chivalrous acts of 
 Self-devotion to these in the face of dan<7er and death — there are many 
 instances recorded in General Stewart of Garth's interesting Sketches of the
 
 NOl'ES. 155 
 
 Highlanders and Highland Regiments, which might not inaptly supply 
 parallels to the deeds of the Romans themselves, at the era when Rome 
 svas in her glory. The following instances of such are worthy of being here 
 quoted: — 
 
 " In the year 1795, ^ serious disturbance broke out in Glasgow, among 
 the Breadalbane P'encibles. Several men, having been confined and 
 threatened with corporal punishment, considerable discontent and irritation 
 were excited among their comrades, which increased to such violence, that 
 when some men were confined in the guard-house, a great proportion of 
 the regiment rushed out and forcibly released the prisoners. This viola- 
 tion of military discipline was not to be passed over, and accordingly meas- 
 ures were immediately taken to secure the ringleaders. But so many were 
 equally concerned, that it was difficult, if not impossible, to fix the crime 
 on any, as being more prominently guilty. And here was shown a trait of 
 character worthy of a better cause, and which originated fiom a feeling 
 alive to the disgrace of a degrading punishment. The soldiers being made 
 sensible of the nature of their misconduct, and the consequent necessity of 
 public example, sez'eral nicii voluntarily offered themselves to stand trial, and 
 suffer the sentence of the law as an atonem.ent for the whole. These men 
 were accordingly marched to Edinburgh Castle, tried, and four condemned 
 to be shot. Three of them were afterward reprieved, and the fourth, 
 Alexander Sutherland, was shot at Musselburgh Sands. 
 
 " The following demi-official account of this unfortunate misunderstand- 
 ing was published at the time : — 
 
 •"During the afternoon of Monday, when a private of the light company 
 of the Breadalbane Fencibles, who had been confined for a 7nilitary offence 
 was released by that company, and some ether companies who had assembled 
 in a tumultuous manner before the guard-house, no person whatever was 
 hurt, and no violence offered ; and however unjustifiable the jiroceedings, 
 it originated not from any disrespect or ill-will to their officers, but from a 
 mistaken point of hoTior, in a particular set of men in the battalion, who 
 thought themselves disgraced by the impending punishment of one of their 
 number. The men have, in every respect, since that period conducted 
 themselves with the greatest regularity, and strict subordination. The 
 whole of the battalion seemed extremely sensible of the improper conduct 
 of such as were concerned, whatever regret they might feel for the fate of 
 the few individuals who had so readily given themselves up as prisoners, 
 to be tried for their own and others' misconduct.' 
 
 " On the march to Edinburgh, a ciicumstance occurred, the more worthy 
 of notice, as it shows a strong principle of honor and fidelity to his word 
 and to his officer in a common Highland soldier. One of the men stated 
 to the officer commanding the party, that he knew what his fate would be, 
 but that he had left business of the utmost importance to a friend in 
 Glasgow, which he wished to transact before his death ; that, as to himself, 
 he was fully prepared to meet his fate ; but with regard to his friend, he 
 could not die in ])eace unless the business was settled, and that, if the officer 
 would suffer him to return to Glasgow, a few hours there would be sufficient, 
 and he would join him before he reached luiinburgh, and march as a 
 prisoner with the party. The soldier added, ' Vou have known me since 
 I was a child; you know my co\iiitry and kindred, and vou mnv believe I 
 shall never bring you to any blame by a breach of the promise I now m;ike, 
 to be with you in full time to be delivered up in the Castle.' 'J'his was a 
 startling proposal to the officer, who was a judicious, humane man, and 
 knew perfectly his risk and responsibility in yielding to such an extra- 
 ordinary application. However, his confidence was such, that he complied 
 with the request of the prisoner, who returned to Glasgow at night, settled 
 his business, and left the town before daylight to redeem his pledge. He
 
 156 NOTES. 
 
 took a long circuit to avoki being seen, apprehended as a deserter, and 
 sent back to Glasgow, as probably his account of his officer's indulgence 
 would not have been credited. In consequence of this caution, and the 
 lengthened march through woods and over hills by an unfrequented route, 
 there was no appearance of him at the hour appointed. The perplexity of 
 the officer when he reached the neighborhood of Edinburgh may be easily 
 imagined. He moved forward slowly indeed, but no soldier appeared ; 
 and unable to delay any longer, he marched up to the Castle, and as he 
 was delivering over the prisoners, but before any report was given in, Mac- 
 martin, the absent soldier, rushed in among his fellow-prisoners, all pale 
 with anxiety and fatigue, and breathless with apprehension of the conse- 
 quences in which his delay might have involved his benefactor. 
 
 " In whatever light the conduct of the officer (my respectable friend, 
 Major Colin Campbell) may be considered, either by military men or others 
 in this memorable exemplification of the characteristic principle of his 
 countrymen, fidelity to their word, it cannot but be wished that the soldier's 
 magnanimous self-devotion had been taken as an atonement for his own 
 misconduct and that of the whole, who also had made a high sacrifice, in 
 the voluntary offer of their lives for the conduct of their brother soldiers. 
 Are these a people to be treated as malefactors, without regard to their 
 feelings and principles .'' and might not a discipline, somewhat different 
 from the usual mode, be, with advantage, applied to them.-"' — Vol. ii., 
 PP- 4 1 3-41 5' 3d Edit. 
 
 " A soldier of this regiment (The Argyleshire Highlanders), deserted, 
 and emigrated to America, where he settled. Several years after his deser- 
 tion, a letter was received from him, with a sum of money for the purpose 
 of procuring one or two men to supply his place in the regiment, as the 
 only recompense he could make for ' breaking his oath to his God and his 
 allegiance to his King, which preved on his conscience in such a manner, 
 that he had no rest night nor day.' 
 
 " This man had had good principles early instilled into his mind, and 
 the disgrace which he had been originally taught to believe would attach 
 to a breach of faith now operated with full effect. The soldier who deserted 
 from the 42d Regiment at Gibraltar, in 1797, exhibited the same remorse 
 of conscience after he had violated his allegiance. In countries where such 
 principles prevail, and regulate the character of a people, the mass of the 
 population may, on occasions of trial, be reckoned on as sound and trust- 
 worthy." — Vol. ii., p. 218, 3d Edit. 
 
 The late James Menzies of Cuklares, having engaged in the rebellion 
 of 1715, and been taken at Preston, in Lancashire, was carried to London, 
 where he was tried and condemned, but afterward reprieved. Grateful 
 for this clemency, he remained at home in 1745, but, retaining a predelic- 
 tion for the old cause, he sent a handsome charger as a present to Prince 
 Charles, when advancing through England. The servant who led and 
 delivered the horse was taken prisoner, and carried to Carlisle, where he 
 was tried and condemned. To extort a discovery of the person who sent 
 the horse, threats of immediate execution in case of refusal, and offers of 
 pardon on his giving information, were held out ineffectually to the faithful 
 messenger. He knew, he said, what the consequence of a disclosure would 
 be to his master, and his own life was nothing in the comparison; when 
 brought out for execution he was again pressed to inform on his master. 
 He asked if they were serious in supposing him such a villain. If he did 
 what they desired, and forgot his master and his trust, he could not return 
 to his native country, for Glenlyon would be no home or country for him, 
 as he would be despised and hunted out of the Glen. Accordingly, he kept 
 Steady to his trust, and was executed. This trusty servant's name was
 
 NOTES. 
 
 157 
 
 John MacNaughton, from Glenlyon, in Perthshire ; he deserves to be men- 
 tioned, both on account of his incorruptible fidelity, and of his testimony 
 to the honorable principles of the people, and to their detestation of a 
 breach of trust to a kind and honorable master, however great might be the 
 risk, or however fatal the consequences to the individual himself " — Vol. 
 i-, PP- 52, 53, 3d Edit.
 
 APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It has been suggested to the Author that it might be well to reprint here a 
 detailed account of the Public Dinner alluded to in the foregoing Intro- 
 duction, as given in the newspapers of the time ; and the reader is ac- 
 cordingly presented with the following extract from the EDINBURGH 
 Weekly Journal for Wednesday, 2yth February 1827. 
 
 THEATEICAL FUND DINNER. 
 
 Before proceeding with our account of this very interesting festival — for 
 so it may be termed — it is our duty to present to our readers the following 
 letter, which we have received from the President: — 
 
 TO THE editor OF THE EDINBURGH WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
 
 Sir — I am extremely sorry I have not leisure to correct the copy you 
 sent me of what I am stated to have said at the dinner for the Theatrical 
 Fund I am no orator; and upon such occasions as are alluded to, I say 
 as well as I can what the time requires. 
 
 However, I hope vour reporter has been more accurate in other instan- 
 ces than in mine. I have corrected one passage, in which I am made to 
 speak with great impropriety and petulance respecting the opinions of those 
 who did not approve of dramatic entertainments. I have restored what I 
 said, which was meant to be respectful, as every objection founded in con- 
 science is, in mv opinion, entitled to be so treated. Other errors I left as I 
 found them, it being of little consequence whether I spoke sense or non- 
 sense in what was merely intended for the purpose of the hour. 
 1 am, Sir, 
 
 Vour obedient Servant, 
 
 Walter Scott. 
 
 Edinburgh, Monday. 
 
 The Theatrical Fund Dinner, which took place on Friday (February 23, 
 1827,) in the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, was conducted with admirable 
 spirit. The Chairman, Sir Walter Scott, among his other great qualifi 
 cations, is well fitted to enliven such an entertainment. His manners are 
 extremely easy, and his style of speaking simple and natural, yet full of 
 vivacity and point; and he has the art, if it be art, of relaxing into a certain 
 homeliness of m:inner, without losing one i:)article of his dignity. He thus 
 takes off some of that solemn formality which belongs to such meetings, 
 and, by his easy and graceful familiarity, imparts to them somewhat of th«
 
 KGTES. T59 
 
 pleasing character of a private entertainment. Near Sir W, Scott sat the 
 Earl of Fife, Lord Meadowbank, Sir John Hope of Pinkie, Bart., Adinirai 
 Adam, Baron Clerk Rattray, Gilbert Innes, Esq., J.-'.mes Walker, Esq., 
 FCobert Dundas, Esq., Alexander Smith, Esq., etc. 
 
 The cloth being removed, " Non Nobis Domine " was sung by Mesirs. 
 Thome, Swift, Collier, and Hartley, after which the following toasts were 
 given from the chair : — 
 
 " The King " — all the honors. 
 
 " The Duke of Clarence and the Royal Family." 
 
 The Chairman, in proposing the next toast, which he wished to be 
 drunk in solemn silence, said, it was to the memory of a regretted prince, 
 whom we had lately lost. Every individual would at once conjecture to 
 whom he alluded. He had no intention to dwell on his military merits. 
 They had been told in the senate; they had been repeated in the cottage; 
 and whenever a soldier was the theme, his name was never far distant. But 
 it was chiefly in connection with the business of this meeting, which his late 
 Royal Highness had condescended in a particular manner to patronize, that 
 they were called on to drink to his memory. To that charity he had often 
 sacrificed his time, and had given up the little leisure which he had from 
 important business. He was always ready to attend on every occasion of 
 this kind; and it was in that view that he proposed to drink to the memory 
 of his late Royal Highness the Duke of York. — Drunk in solemn silence. 
 
 The Chairman then requested that gentlemen would fill a bumper as 
 full as it would hold, while he would say only a few words. He was in the 
 habit of hearing speeches, and he knew the feeling with which long ones 
 were regarded. He was sure that it was perfectly unnecessary for him to 
 enter into any vindication of the dramatic art, which they had come here to 
 support. This, however, he considered to be the proper time and proper 
 occasion for him to say a few words on that love of representation which was 
 an innate feeling in human nature. It was the first amusement that the 
 child had — it grew greater as he grew up; and, even in the decline of life, 
 nothing amused so much as when a common tale is told with appropriate 
 personification. The first thing a child does is to ape his schoolmaster, by 
 flogging a chair. The assuming a character ourselves, or the seeing others 
 assume an imaginary character, is an enjoyment natural to humanity. It 
 was implanted in our verv nature, to take pleasure from such representa- 
 tions, at proper times and on proper occasions. In all ages the theatrical 
 art had kept pace with tlie improvement of mankind, and with the progress 
 of letters and the fine arts. As man has advanced from the ruder stages 
 of society, the love of dramatic representations has increased, and all works 
 of this nature have been improved in character and in structure. They 
 had only to turn their eyes to the history of ancient Greece, although he 
 did not pretend to be very deeply versed in its ancient drama. Its first 
 tragic poet commanded a body of troops at the battle of Marathon. Sopho- 
 cles and Euripides were men of rank in Athens when Athens was in its 
 highest renown. They shook Athens with their discourses, as their theatrical 
 works shook the theatre itself. If they turned to France in the time of 
 Louis the Fourteenth, that era which is the classical history of that country, 
 they would find that it was referred to by all Frenchmen as the golden age 
 of the drama tl ere. And also in lOngland, in the time of Quocn I'llizabeth, 
 the drama was at its highest pitch, when the nation began to mingle 
 deeply and wisely in the general j^olitics of luirope, not only not receiv- 
 ing laws from others, but giving laws to the world, and vindic;iting the 
 rights of mankind. (Cheers.) There have been various times when the 
 dramatic art subscciuentlv fell into disrepute. Its professors have been 
 stigmatized ; and laws have been passed against them, less dishonorable
 
 f6o NOTES. f 
 
 to them than to the statesman by whom they were proposed, and to the 
 legislators by whom they were adopted. What were the times in which 
 these laws were passed? Was it not when virtue was seldom inculcated 
 as a moral duty, that we were required to relinquish the most rational of 
 all our amusements, when the clergy were enjoined celibacy, and when the 
 laity were denied the right to read their Bibles? He thought that it must 
 have been from a notion of penance that they erected the drama into an 
 ideal place of profaneness, and spoke of the theatre as of the tents of sin. 
 He did not mean to dispute that there were many excellent persoi.s who 
 thought differently from him, and he disclaimed the slightest idea of charg- 
 ing them with bigotry or hypocrisy on that account. He gave them full 
 credit for their tender consciences, in making these objections, although 
 they did not appear relevant to him. But to these persons, being, as he 
 believed them, men of worth and piety, he was sure the purpose of this 
 meeting would furnish some apology for an error, if there be any, in the 
 opinions of those who attend. They would approve the gift, although they 
 mght differ in other points. Such might not approve of going to the 
 theatre, but at least could not deny that they might give away from their 
 superfluity, what was required for the relief of the sick, the support of the 
 aged, and the comfort of the afflicted. These were duties enjoined by our 
 religion itself. (Loud cheers.) 
 
 The performers are in a particular manner entitled to the support or 
 regard, when in old age or distress, of those who had partaken of the 
 amusement of these places which they render an ornament to society. 
 Tlieir art was of a peculiarly delicate and precarious nature. They had to 
 serve a long apprenticeship. It ,vas very long before even the first-rate 
 geniuses could acquire the mechanical knowledge of the stage business. 
 They must languish long in obscurity before they can avail themselves of 
 their natural talents; and after that, they have but a short space of time, 
 during wliich they are fortunate if they can provide the means of comfort 
 in the decline of life. That comes late, and lasts but a short time; after 
 which they are left dependent. Their limits fail — their teeth are loosened 
 — their voice is lost — and they are left, after giving happiness to others, 
 in a most disconsolate state. The public were liberal and generous to those 
 tleserving their protection. It was a sad thing to be dejiendent on the 
 favor, or, he might say. in plain terms, on the caprice, of the public; and 
 this more particularly for a class of persons, of whom extreme prudence is 
 not the character. There might be instances of opportunities being neg- 
 lected; but let each gentleman tax himself and consider the opjxirtunities 
 //icy had neglected, and the sums of money i//cj' had wasted ; let every 
 gentleman look into his own bosom and say whether these were circumstan- 
 ces which would soften his own feelings, were he to be plunged into distress. 
 lie put it to every generous bosom — to every better feeling — to say what 
 consolation was it to old age to be told that vou might have made provision 
 at a time which had been neglected — (loud cheers)— and to find it objected, 
 that if you had pleased you might have been wealthy. He had hitherto been 
 speaking of what, in the.ntrical language, was called stars, but they were 
 Sometimes falling ones. 'J'here was another class of sufferers naturally and 
 necessarily connected with the theatre, without whom it was impossible to 
 go on. The sailors have a saying, every man cannot be a boatswain. If 
 there must be a great actor to act Hamlet, there must also be people to act 
 Laertes, the King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, otherwise a drama can- 
 not go on. If even Garrick himself were to rise from the dead, he could 
 not act Hamlet alone. There must be generals, colonels, commanding- 
 officers, subalterns. But what are the private soldiers to do : Many have 
 mistaken their own talents, and have been driven in early youth to try thf
 
 NOTES. 161 
 
 stage, to which they are not competent. He would know what to say to 
 the indifferent poet and to the bad artist. He would say that it was foolish; 
 and he would recommend to the poet to become a scribe, and the artist to 
 paint sign-posts — (loud laughter). — But you could not send the player 
 adrift, fur if he cannot play Hamlet, he must play Guildenstern. Where 
 there are many laborers, wages must be low. and no man in such a situation 
 can decently support a wife and family, and save something out of his in- 
 come for old age. What is this man to do in latter life .'' Are you to cast 
 him off like an old hinge, or a piece of useless machinery, which has done 
 its work } To a person who has contributed to our amusement, this 
 ■would be unkind, ungrateful, and unchristian. His wants are not of his 
 own making, but arise from the natural sources of sickness and old age. 
 It cannot be denied that there is one class of sufferers to whom no impru- 
 dence can be ascribed, except on first entering on the profession. After 
 putting his hand to the dramatic plough, he cannot draw back ; but must 
 continue at it, and toil, till death release him from want; or charity, by its 
 milder influence, steps in to render that want more tolerable. He had little 
 more to say, except that he sincerely hoped that the collection to-day, from 
 the number of respectable gentlemen present, would meet the views enter- 
 tained by the patrons. He hoped it would do so. They should not be 
 disheartened. Though they could not do a great deal, they might do some- 
 thing. They had this consolation, that everything they parted with from 
 their superfluity would do some good. They would sleep the better them- 
 selves when they have been the means of giving sleep to others. It was 
 ungrateful and unkind, that those who had sacrificed their youth to our 
 amusement should not receive the reward due to them, but should be re- 
 duced to hard fare in their old age. We cannot think of poor Falstaff 
 going to bed without his cup of sack, or Macbeth fed on bones as marrow- 
 less as those of Banquo. (Loud cheers and laughter.) As he believed 
 that they were all as fond of the dramatic art as he was in his younger days, 
 he would propose that they should drink " The Theatrical Fund," with 
 three times three. 
 
 Mr. Mackay rose, on behalf of his brethren, to return their thanks for 
 the toast just drunk. Many of the gentlemen present, he said, were per- 
 haps not fully acquainted with the nature and intention of the institution, 
 and it might not be amiss to enter into some explanation on the subject. 
 With whomsoever the idea of a Theatrical Fund might have originated 
 (and it had been disputed by the surviving relatives of two or three indi- 
 viduals), certain it was, that the first legally constituted Theatrical Fund 
 owed its origin to one of the brightest ornaments to the profession, the late 
 David Garrick. That eminent actor conceived that, by a weekly subscrip- 
 tion in the Theatre, a fund might be raised among its members, from which 
 a portion might be given to those of his less fortunate brethren, and thus 
 an opportunity would be offered for prudence to provide what fortune had 
 denied — a comfortable provision for the winter of life. With the welfare 
 of his profession constantly at heart, the zeal with which he labored to up- 
 hold its rcspectabilitv, and to impress upon the minds of his brethren, not 
 only the necessitv, but the blessing of independence, the Fund became his 
 peculiar care. He drew up a form of laws for its government, procured, 
 at his own expense, the passing of an Act of Parliament for its confirma- 
 tion, bequeathed to it a handsome legacy, and thus became the Father of 
 the Drury-Lane Fund. So constant was his attachment to this infant es- 
 tablishment, that he chose to grace the close of the brightest theatrical life 
 on record, by the last display of his transcendent talent, on the occasion of 
 a benefit to this child of his adoption, which ever since h.as gone by the 
 pame of the Garrick Fund. In imitation of his noble example, Funds had
 
 l62 NOTES. 
 
 been established in several provincial theatres in England; but it remained 
 for Mrs. Henry Siddons and Mr. William Murray to become the founders 
 of the first Theatrical Fund in Scotland. (Cheers.) This Fund commenced 
 under the most favorable auspices; it was liberally supported by the man- 
 agement, and highly patronized by the public. Notwithstanding, it fell 
 short in the acconii.lishment of Us intentions. What those intentions were, 
 he (Mr. Mackay) need not recajjitulate, but they failed; and he did not 
 hesitate to confess that a want of energy on the part of the performers was 
 the ]>robable cause. A new set of Rules and Regulations were lately drawn 
 up, submitted to and approved of at a general meeting of the members of 
 the Theatre; and accordingly the Fund was remodeled on the first of 
 January last. And here he thought he did but echo the feelings of his 
 brethren, hw publicly acknowledging the obligations they were under to tlie 
 management for the aid given, and the warm interest they had all along 
 taken in the welfare of t'.e Fund. (Cheers.) The nature and object of the 
 profession had been so well treated of by the President, that he would say 
 nothing ; but of the numerous offspring of science and genius that court 
 precarious fame, the Actor boasts the slenderest claim of all ; the sport of 
 fortune, the creatures of fashion, and the victims of caprice — they are seen, 
 heard, and admired, but to be forgot — they leave no trace, no memorial of 
 their existence — they " come like shadows, so depart." (Cheers.) Yet 
 humble though their pretensions be, there was no profession, trade, or 
 calling, where such a combination of requisites, mental and bodily, were 
 indispensable. In all others the principal may practice after he has been 
 visited by the afflicting hand of Providence — some by the loss of limb — 
 some of voice — and many, when the faculty of the mind is on the wane, 
 may be assisted by dutiful children, or devoted servants. Not so the Actor 
 — he must retain all he ever did possess, or sink dejected to a mournful 
 home. (Applause.) Yet while they are toiling for ephemeral theatric fame 
 how very few ever possess the means of hoarding in their youth that which 
 would give bread in old age ! But now a brighter prospect dawned upon 
 them, and to the success of this their infant establishment they looked 
 with hope, as to a comfortable and peaceful home in their declining years. 
 He concluded by tendering to the meeting in the name of his brethren and 
 sisters, their unfeigned thanks for their liberal support, and begged to pro- 
 pose " the health of the Patrons of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund." 
 (Cheers.) 
 
 Lord MeadowbanK said, that by desire of his Hon. Friend in the chair 
 and of his Noble Friend at bis right hand, he begged leave to return thanks 
 for the honor which had been conferred on the Patrons of this excellent 
 Institution. He could answer for himself — he could answer for them all 
 — that thev were deeply impressed with the meritorious objects which it ha.s 
 in view, and of their anxious wish to promote its interests. For himself, 
 he might be permitted to say, that he was rather surprised at finding his 
 own name, as one of the Patrons, associated with so many individuals of 
 high rank and powerful influence. But it was an excuse for those who had 
 placed him in a situation so honorable and so distinguished, that when 
 this charitv was instituted he happened to hold a high and re<;ponsibIe 
 station under the Crown, when he might have been of use in ass'sting and 
 promoting its olijccts. His Lordship much feared that he cmld have little 
 expectation, situated as he now was, of doing cither; but he could confi- 
 dently assert, that few things would give him greater gratification than 
 being able to contribute to its prosperitv and support; and, indeed, when 
 one recollects the pleasure which at all periods of life he has received from 
 the exhibitions of the stage, and the exertions of the meritorious individ- 
 uals for whose aid this Fund has been established, he must be divested both
 
 NOTES. i6j 
 
 of gratitude and feeling who would not give his best endeavors to promote 
 its welfare. And now, that he might in some measure repay the gratifi- 
 cation, which has been afforded himself, he would beg leave to propose a 
 toast, the health of one of the Patrons — a great and distinguished individ- 
 ual, whose name must always stand by itself, and which, in an assembly 
 such as this, or in any other assembly of Scotsmen, can never be received, 
 not, he would say, with ordinary feelings of pleasure or of delight, but with 
 those of rapture or enthusiasm. In doing so he teit that he stood in a 
 somewhat new situation. Whoever had been called upon to propose the 
 health of his Hon. Friend to whom he alluded, some lime ago, would have 
 found himself enabled, from the mystery in which certain matters were 
 involved, to gratify himself and his auditors by allusions which found a 
 responding chord in their own feelings, and to deal in the language, the 
 sincere language of panegyric, without intruding on the modesty of the 
 great individual to whom he referred. But it was no longer possible, con- 
 sistently with the respect to one's auditors, to use upon this subject terms 
 either of mystification, or of obscure or indirect allusion. The clouds have 
 been dispelled — the darkness visible has been cleared away — and the Great 
 Unknown — the minstrel of our native land — the mighty magician who has 
 rolled back the current of time, and conjured up before our living senses 
 the men and manners of days which have long passed away, stands re- 
 vealed to the hearts and the eyes of his affectionate and admiring country- 
 men. If he himself were capable of imagining all that belonged to this 
 mighty subject — were he even able to give utterance to all that, as a friend, 
 as a man, and as a Scotsman, he must feel regarding it; yet, knowing, as 
 he well did, that this illustrious individual was not more distinguished for 
 his towering talents than for those feelings which rendered such allusions 
 ungrateful to himself, however sparingly introduced, he would, on that 
 account, still refrain from doing that which would otherwise be no less 
 pleasing to him than to his audience. But this, his Lordship hoped he 
 would be allowed to say (his auditors would not pardon him were he to 
 say less) we owe him, as a people, a large and heavy debt of gratitude. He 
 it is who has opened to foreigners the grand and characteristic beauties of 
 our country. It is to him that we owe that our gallant ancestors, and the 
 struggles of our illustrious patriots — who fought and bled in order to obtain 
 and secure that independence and that liberty we now enjoy — have obtained 
 a fame no longer confined to the boundaries of a remote and comparatively 
 obscure nation, and who has called down upon their struggles for glory and 
 freedom the admiration of foreign countries. He it is w^ho has conferred a 
 new reputation on our national character, and bestowed on Scotland an im- 
 perishable name, were it only by her having given birth to himself. (Loud 
 and rapturous applause.) 
 
 Sir Waltkr Scott certainly did not think that, in coming here to-day, 
 he would have the task of acknowledging, before three hundred gentlemen, 
 a secret which, considering that it was communicated to more than twenty 
 people, had been remarkably well ke]")t. He was now before the bar of his 
 country, and might be understood to be on trial liefore Lord Meadowbank 
 as an offender; yet he was sure that every imjjartial jury would bring in a 
 verdict of Not Proven. He did not now think it necessary to enter into 
 the reasons of his long silence. Perhaps caprice might have a considerable 
 share in it. He had now to sav, however, that the merits of these works 
 if they had any, and their faults, were entirely imputable to himself. (Long 
 and loud cheering.) He was afraid to think on what he had done — " look 
 on't again T dare not." He had thus far unbosomed himself, and he knew 
 that it would be reported to the public. He meant, then, seriously to state, 
 that when he said he was the author, he was the total and undivided author.
 
 1 64 NOTES. 
 
 With the exc-eption of quotations, there was not a single word that was not 
 derived from himself, or suggested in the course of his reading. The wand 
 was now bruken, and the book buried. You will allow me further to sav, 
 with Prospero, it is your breath that has tilled my sails, and to crave one 
 single toast in the capacity of the author of these novels; and he would 
 dedicate a bumper to the health of one who has represented some of those 
 characters, of which he had endeavored to give the skeleton, with a degree 
 of liveliness which rendered him grateful. He would propose the health 
 of his friend Bailie Nicol Jarvie (loud applause) — and he was sure that, 
 when the Author of Waverley and Rob Roy drinks to Nicol Jarvie, it would 
 be received with that degree of applause to which that gentleman hasalwavs 
 been accustomed, and that they would take care that on the present occa- 
 sion it should be prodigious! (Long and vehement applause.) 
 
 Mr. Mackay, who here spoke with great humor in the character of 
 Bailie Jarvie. — My conscience ! my worthy father the deacon could not 
 have believed that his son could hae had sic a compliment paid to him by 
 the Great Unknown ! 
 
 Sir Walter Scott. — The Small Known now, Mr. Bailie. 
 
 Mr. Mackay. — He had been long identified with the Bailie, and he was 
 Tain of the cognomen which he had now worn for eight years ; and he 
 questioned if any of his brethren in the Council had given such universal 
 satisfaction. (Loud laughter and applause.) Before he sat down, he 
 begged to propose " The Lord Provost, and the City of Edinburgh." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott apologized for the absence of the Lord Provost, who 
 had gone to London on public business. 
 
 Tune — " Within a mile of Edinburgh town." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott gave " The Duke of Wellington and the Army. 
 
 Glee — " How merrily we live." 
 
 " Lord Melville and the Navy, that fought till they left nobody to fight 
 with, like an arch sportsman who clears all and goes after the game." 
 
 Mr. Pat. Robertson. — They had heard this evening a toast, which had 
 been received with intense delight, which will be published in every news- 
 paper, and will be hailed with joy by all Europe. He had one toast 
 assigned him, which he had great pleasure in giving. He was sure that 
 the stage had in all ages a great effect on the morals and manners of the 
 people. It was very desirable that the stage should be well regulated; and 
 there was no criterion by which its regulation could be better determined 
 than by the moral character and personal respectability of the performers. 
 He was not one of those stern moralists who objected to the Theatre. 
 The most fastidious mtjralist could not possibly apprehend anv injurv from 
 the stage of Edinburgh, as it was presently managed, and so long as it was 
 adorned by that illustrious individual Mrs. Henry Siddons, whose public 
 exhibitions were not more remarkable for feminine grace and delicacy, than 
 was her private character for every virtue which could be admired in 
 domestic life. He would conclude with reciting a few words from -Shake- 
 speare, in a spirit not of contradiction, to those stern moralists who disliked 
 the Theatre, but of meekness — '• Good, my lord, will you see the i)layers 
 well bestowed } do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract 
 and brief chronicles of the time." He then gave "Mrs. Henry Siddons, 
 and success to the Theatre Royal of lidinburgh." 
 
 Mr. Mi'RRAY. — Gentlemen, I rise to return thanks for the honor you 
 have done Mrs. Siddons, in doing which I am somewhat difiiculted, from 
 the extreme delicacy which attends a brother's expatiating upon a sister's 
 claims of honors publicly paid — (hear, hear) — yet, gentlemen, your kind- 
 ness emboldens me to say, that were I to give utterence to all a brother's 
 <telings, I should not exaggerate these clalir.s. (Loud applause.) I there-
 
 NOTES. 165 
 
 fore, Gentlemen, thank you most cordially for the honor you have done 
 her, and shall now request permission to make an observation on the establish- 
 ment of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund, Mr. Mackay has done Mrs. Henry 
 Siddons and myself the honor to ascribe the establishment to us ; but no, 
 Gentlemen, it owes its origin to a higher source — the publication of the 
 novel of Rob Roy — the unprecedented success of the opera adapted from 
 that popular production. (Hear, hear.) It was that success which relieved 
 the Edinburgh Theatre from its difficulties, and enabled Mrs. Siddons to 
 carry into effect the establishment of a fund she had long desired, but was 
 prevented from effecting, from the unsettled state of her theatrical concerns. 
 I therefore hope that in future years, when the aged and infirm actor de- 
 rives relief from this Fund, he will, in the language of the gallant High- 
 lander " Cast his eye to good old Scotland, and not forget Rob Roy." 
 (Loud applause.) 
 
 Sir Walter Scott here stated, that Mrs. Siddons wanted the means 
 but not the will of beginning the Theatrical Fund. He here alluded to the 
 great merits of Mr. Murray's management, and to his merits as an actor, 
 which was of the first order, and of which every person who attends the 
 Theatre must be sensible ; and after alluding to the embarrassment with 
 which the Theatre had been at one period threatened, he concluded by 
 giving the health of Mr. Murray, which was drunk with three times 
 three. 
 
 Mr. Murray. — Gentlemen, I wish I could believe, that, in any degree 
 I merited the compliments with which it has pleased Sir Walter Scott to 
 preface the proposal of my health, or the very flattering manner in which 
 you have done me the honor to receive it. The approbation of such an 
 assembly is most gratifying to me, and might encourage feelings of vanity, 
 were not such feelings crushed by my conviction, that no man holding the 
 situation I have so long held in Edinburgh, could have failed, placed in the 
 peculiar circumstances in which I have been placed. Gentlemen, I shall 
 not insult your good taste by eulogiums upon your judgment or kindly 
 feeling ; though to the first I owe any improvement I may have made as an 
 actor, and certainly my success as a Manager to the second. (Applause.) 
 When, upon the death of my dear brother, tlie late Mr. Siddons, it was 
 proposed that I should undertake the management of the Edinburgh 
 Theatre, I confess I drew back, doubting my capability to free it from the 
 load of debt and difficulty with which it was surrounded. In this state of 
 anxiety, I solicited the advice of one who had ever honored me with his 
 kindest regard, and whose name no member of my profession can pronounce 
 without feelings of the deepest respect and gratitude — I allude to the late 
 Mr. John Kemble. (Great applause.) To him I applied ; and with the 
 repetition of his advice I shall cease to trespass upon your time — (hear, 
 hear), — "My dear William, fear not; integrity and assiduity must prove 
 an overmatch for all difficulty ; and though I approve not your indulging 
 a vain confidence in your own aliility, and viewing with respectful appre- 
 hension the judgment of the audience you have to act before, yet be assured 
 the judgment will ever be tempered by the feeling that you are acting for 
 the widow and the fatherless." (Loud applause.) Gentlemen, those words 
 have never passed from my mind ; and I feel convinced that you have 
 pardoned my many errors, from the feeling that I was striving for the 
 widow and the fatherless. (Long and enthusiastic applause followed Mr. 
 Murray's address.) 
 
 Sir Walter Scott gave the health of the Stewards. 
 Mr. Vanderhokk. — Mr. President and Gentlemen, the honor conferred 
 upon the Stewards, in the very flattering compliment you have just paid us, 
 rails forth our warmest acknowledgments. In tendering you our thanks
 
 i66 NOTES. 
 
 for the approbation j'ou have been pleased to express of our humble exer- 
 tions, I would beg leave to advert to the cause in which we have been 
 engaged. Yet, surrounded as I am by the genius — the eloquence of thia 
 enlightened city, I cannot but feel the presumption which ventures to 
 address you on so interesting a subject. Accustomed to speak ii: the 
 language of others, I feel quite at a loss for terms wherein to clothe the 
 sentiments excited by the present occasion. (Applause.) The nature of 
 the Institution which has sought your fostering patronage, and the objects 
 which it contemplates, have been fully explained to you, liut, gentlemen, 
 the relief which it proposes is not a gratuitous relief — but to be purchase-.l 
 by the individual contribution of its members toward the general good. 
 This Fund lends no encouragement to idleness or improvidence ; but it of- 
 fers an opportunity to prudence, in vigor and youth, to make provision 
 against the evening of life and its attendant infirmity. A period is fixed 
 at which we admit the plea of age as an exemption from professional labor. 
 It is painful to behold the veteran on the stage (compelled by nccessitv) 
 contending against physical decay, mocking the joyousness of mirth with 
 the feebleness of age, when the energies decline, when the memory fails, 
 and " the big manly voice, turning again toward childish treble, pipes and 
 whistles in the sound." We would remove him from the mimic scene, 
 where fiction constitutes the charm; we would not view old age caricatur- 
 ing itself. (Applause.) But as our means may be found, in time of need, 
 inadequate to the fulfilment of our wishes — fearful of raising expectations 
 which we may be unable to gratify — desirous not •' to keep the word of 
 promise to the ear, and break it to the hope " — we have presumed to court 
 the assistance of the friends of the drama to strengthen our infant institu- 
 tion. Our appeal has been successful beyond our most sanguine expecta- 
 tions. The distinguished patronage conferred on us by your presence on 
 this occasion, and the substantial support which your benevolence has so 
 liberally afforded to our institution, must impress every member of the 
 Fund with the most grateful sentiments — sentiments which no language 
 can express, no time obliterate. (Applause.) I will not trespass longer on 
 your attention. I would the task of acknowledging our obligation had fallen 
 into abler hands. (Hear, hear.) In the name of the Stewards, I most re- 
 spectfully and cordially thank you for the honor you have done us, v/hich 
 greatly overpays our poor endeavors. (Applause.) 
 
 [This speech, though rather inadequately reported, was one of the best 
 delivered on this occasion. That it was creditable to Mr. Vandenhoff's 
 taste and feelings the preceding sketch will show; but how much it was so, 
 it does ;/('/ show.] 
 
 Mr. J. Cay gave " ProfessorWilson and the University of Edinburgh, 
 of which he was one of the brightest ornaments.'' 
 
 Lord MEAnowH.^NK, after a suitable eulogium, gave " the Earl of Fife,'" 
 which was drunk with three times three. 
 
 TilK Eari. of Fii-e expressed his high gratification at the honor con 
 i'erred on him. He intimated his approbation of the institution, and his 
 readiness to promote its success by every means in his power. He con- 
 cluded with giving " the health of the Company of Edinburgh." 
 
 Mr. jONES, on rising to return thanks, being received with considerable 
 applause, said, he was trulv grateful for the kind encouragement he had 
 experienced, but the noveUv of the situation in which he now was, renewed 
 all the feelings he ex])erience(l when he first saw himself announced in the 
 bills as a young gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage. (Laugh- 
 ter and applau.se. ) Although in the presence of those whose indulgence 
 had, in another sphere, so often shielded him from the penalties of inability, 
 ie was unable to execute the task which had so unexpectedly devolved
 
 NOTES. 167 
 
 upon him in behnlf of his brethren and himself. He therefore begged the 
 company to imagine all that grateful hearts could prompt the most eloquent 
 to utter, and that would be a copy of their feelings. (Applause.) lit 
 begged to trespass another moment on their attention, for the purpose of 
 expressing the thanks of the members of the Fund to the Gentlemen of the 
 Edinburgh Professional Society of Musicians, who, finding that this meelir.g 
 was appointed to take place on the same evening with their concert, had in 
 the handsomest manner agreed to postpone it. Although it was his duty 
 thus to preface the toast he had to propose, he was certain the meelir.g 
 required no further inducement than the recollection of the pleasure the 
 exertions of those gentlemen had often afforded them within those walls, to 
 join heartily in drinking " Health and prosperity to the Edinburgh Profes- 
 sional Society of Musicians." (Applause.) 
 
 Mr. Pat. Robertson proposed " the health of Mr. Jeffrey," whose 
 absence was owing to indisposition. The public was well aware that he 
 was the most distinguished advocate at the bar ; he was like distinguished 
 for the kindness, frankness, and cordial manner in which he communicated 
 with the junior members of the profession to the esteem of whom his splen- 
 did talents would always entitle him. 
 
 Mr. J. Maconochie gave " the health of Mrs. Siddons, senior — the 
 most distinguished ornament of the stage." 
 
 Sir W. Scott said, that if anything could reconcile him to old age, it 
 was the reflection that he had seen the rising as well as the tosetting sun 
 Mrs. Siddons. He remembered well their breakfasting near to the Theatre 
 — waiting the whole day — the crushing at the doors at six o'clock — and 
 their going in and counting their fingers till seven o'clock. But the very 
 first step — the very first word which she uttered, was sufficient to overpay 
 him for all his labors. The house was literally electrified ; and it was only 
 from witnessing the effects of her genius, that he could guess to what a 
 pitch theatrical excellence could be carried. Those young gentlemen who 
 have only seen the setting sun of this distinguished performer, beautiful and 
 serene as that was, must give us old fellows, who have seen its rise and its 
 meridian, leave to hold our heads a little higher. 
 
 Mr. Duxdas gave "The memory of Home, the author of Douglas." 
 
 Mr. Mackay here announced that the subscription for the night 
 amounted to ;i^28o; and he expressed gratitude for the substantial proof of 
 their kindness. [We are happy to state that subscriptions have since 
 flowed in very liberally.] 
 
 Mr. Mackay here entertained the company with a pathetic song. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott apologized for having so long forgotten their native 
 land. He would now give " Scotland, the Land of Cakes." He would 
 give every river, every loch, every hill, from Tweed to Johnnie Groat's House 
 ' — every lass in her cottage and countess in her castle ; and may her sons 
 stand by her, as their fathers did before them, and he who would not drink 
 a bumper to his toast, may he never drink whisky more ! 
 
 Sir Walter Scott here gave Lord Meadowbank, who returned thanks. 
 
 Mr. H. Glassford Bell said tiiat he should not have ventured to in- 
 trude himself upon the attention of the assembly, did not feel confident that 
 the toast he begged to have the honor to propose would make amends for 
 the very imperfect manner in which he might express his sentiments regard- 
 ing it. It had been said, that notwithstanding the mental supremacy of the 
 present age, notwithstanding that the page of our history was studded with 
 names destined also for the page of immortality, that the genius of Shake- 
 speare was extinct, and the fountain of his inspiration dried up. It might 
 be that these observations were unfortunately correct, or it might be that 
 we were bewildered with a name, not disappointed of the reality — for
 
 i6g NOTES. 
 
 though Shakespeare had brought a Hamlet, an Othello, and a ^Tacbeth, an 
 Ariel, a fuliet, and a Rosalhul, iijjon the stage, were there not auth(jrs living 
 who had brought as varied, as exquisitely painted, and as undying a range ol 
 characters into our hearts ? The shape of the mere mould into which genius 
 poured its golden treasures was surely a matter of little moment — let i^ be 
 called a Tragedy, a Comedy, or a Waverley Novel. But even among the 
 dramatic autliors of the present day, he was unwilling to allow that there 
 was a great and palpable decline from the glory of preceding ages, and his 
 toast alone would bear him out in denying the truth of the proposition. 
 After eulogizing the names of liaillic, P.yron, Coleridge, Maturin, and others 
 he begged to have the honor of proposing " the health of James Sheridan 
 Knowles." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott. — Gentlemen, I crave a bumper all over. The 
 last toast reminds me of a neglect of dut}'. Unaccustomed to a public duty 
 of this kind, errors in conducting the ceremonial of it may be excused, and 
 omissions pardoned. Perhaps I have made one or two omissions in the 
 course of the evening, for which I trust you will grant me your pardon and 
 indulgence. One thing in particular I have omitted, and I would now wish 
 to make amends for it. by a libation of reverence and respect to the memory 
 of Shakespeare. He was a man of universal genius, and from a ]:)eriod 
 soon after his own era to the present day, he has been universally idolized. 
 When I come to his honored name, I am like the sick man who hung up 
 his crutches at the shrine, and was obliged to confess that he did not walk 
 better than before. It is indeed difficult, gentlemen, to compare him to 
 any other individual. The only one to whom I can at all compare him, is the 
 wonderful Arabian dervise, who dived into the body of each, and in this way 
 became familiar with the thoughts and secrets of their hearts. He was a 
 man of obscure origin, and, as a player, limited in his acquirements, but he 
 was born evidently with a universal genius. His eyes glanced at all the 
 varied aspects of life, and his fancy portrayed with equal talents the king on 
 the throne, and the clown who crackles his chestnuts at a Christmas fire. 
 Whatever note he takes, he strikes it just and true, and awakens a corre- 
 sponding chord in our own bosoms. Gentlemen, 1 propose " the memory 
 of William .Shakespeare." 
 
 Glee — " Lightly tread, 'tis hallowed ground." 
 
 After the glee, SirWalter rose, and begged to propose as a toast the 
 health of a lady, whose living merit is not a little honorable to Scotland. 
 The toast (he said) is also flattering to the national vanity of a Scotchman, 
 as the lady whom I intend to propose is a native of this country. From 
 the public her works have met with the most favorable reception. One 
 piece of hers, in particular, was often acted here of late years, and gave 
 pleasure of no mean kind to many brilliant and fashionable audiences. In 
 her private character she (he begged leave to say) is as remarkable, as in a 
 public sense she is for her genius. In short, he would in one word name — ■ 
 " Joanna Baillie." 
 
 This health being drunk, Mr. Thorne was called on for a song, and sung, 
 with great taste and feeling, " The Anchor's weighed." 
 
 W. Menzies, Esq., Advocate, rose to propose the health of a gentleman 
 for many years connectctl at intervals with the dramatic art in Scotland. 
 Whether we look at the range of characters he performs, or at the capacity 
 which he evinces in executing those which he undertakes, he is equally to 
 be admired. In all his parts he is unrivaled. The individual to whom he 
 alluded is (said he) well known to the gentlemen present, in the characters 
 of Malvolio, Lord Ogleby, and the Green Man; and, in addition to his 
 other qualities, he merits, for his perfection in these characters, the grate- 
 ful sense of this meeting. He would wish, in the first place, to drink hifl
 
 NOTES. 169 
 
 health as an actor ; but he was not less estimable in domestic life, and as a 
 private gentleman; and when he announced him as one whom the Chair- 
 man had honored with his friendship^ he was sure that all present would cor- 
 dially join him in drinking " The health of Mr. Terry." 
 
 Mr. William Allan, banker, said, that he did not rise with the ir.teu 
 tion of making a speech. He merely wished to contribute in a few words 
 to the mirth of the evening — an evening which certainly had not passed ofi 
 without some blunders. It had been understood — at least he had learnt or 
 supposed, from the expressions of Mr. Pritchard — that it would be sufficient 
 to put a paper, with the name of the contributor, into the box, and that the 
 gentleman thus contributing would be called on for the money next morn- 
 ing. He, for his part, had committed a blunder, but it may serve as a 
 caution to those who may be present at the dinner of next year. He had 
 merely put in his name, written on a slip of paper, without the money. But 
 he would recommend that, as some of the gentlemen might be in the same 
 situation, the box should again be sent round, and he was confident that 
 they, as well as he, would redeem their error. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott said, that the meeting was somewhat in the situa- 
 tion of Mrs. Anne Page, who had ;r^300 and possibilities. We have already 
 got, said he, ^280, but I should like", I confess, to have the;^30o. He would 
 gratify himself by projjosing the health of an honorable person, the Lord 
 Chief-Baron, whom England has sent to us, and connecting with it that of 
 his " yoke-fellow on the bench," as Shakespeare says, Mr. Baron Clerk — 
 The Court of Exchequer. 
 
 Mr. Baron Clerk regretted the absence of his learned brother. None, 
 he was sure, could be more generous in his nature, or more ready to help a 
 Scottish purpose. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott. — There is one who ought to be remembered on 
 this occasion. He is, indeed, well entitled to our grateful recollection — one, 
 in short, to whom the drama in this city owes much. He succeeded, not 
 without trouble, and perhaps at some considerable sacrifice, in establishing 
 a theatre. The younger part of the company may r.ot recollect the theatre 
 to which I allude ; but there are some with me who may remember by name 
 a place called Carrubber's Close. There Allan Ramsay established his 
 little theatre. His own pastoral was not fit for the stage, but it has its ad- 
 mirers in those who love the Doric language in which it is written ; and it 
 is not without merit of a verv peculiar kind. But, laying aside all considera- 
 tions of his literary merit, Allan was a good jovial honest fellow, who could 
 crack abottle with the best. — " The memory of Allan Ramsay." 
 
 Mr Murray, on being requested, sung, " 'Twas merry in the hall," and 
 at the conclusion was greeted with repeated rounds of applause. 
 
 Mr. Jones. — One omission I conceive has been made. The cause of 
 the Fund has been ably advocated, but it is still susceptible, in my opinion 
 of an additional charm — 
 
 Without the smile, from partial beauty won. 
 Oh, what were man ? — a world without a sun I 
 
 And there would not be a darker spot in poetry than would be the corner 
 in Shakespeare Square, if, like its fellow, the Register Office, the Theatre 
 were deserted by the ladies. They arc, in fad, our most attractive stars. — 
 " The Patronesses of the Theatre — the Ladies of the city of Edinburgh." 
 The toast I ask leave to drink with all the honors which conviviality can 
 confer. 
 
 Mu. P.'VTKiCK Rohertson would be the last man willingly to introduce 
 any topic calculated to interrupt the harmony of the evening; yet he feU
 
 l^o .VOTES. < 
 
 himself treading upon ticklish ground when he approached the region of the 
 Nor' Loch. He assured the company, however, that he was not about to 
 enter on the subject of the Improvement Bill. They all knew, that if the 
 public were unanimous — if the consent of all parlies were obtained — if the 
 rights and interests of evervbody were therein attended to, saved, reserved, 
 respected and excej^ed — if everybody agreed to it — and finally, a most 
 essential point, if nobody opposed it — then, and in that case, and provided 
 also that due intimation were given — the bill in question might pass — would 
 pass — or might, could, would, or should pass — all exjicnses being defrayed 
 ■ — (Laughter.). — He was the advocate of neither champion, and would nci 
 ther avail himself of the absence of the Right Hon. the Lord Provost, nor 
 take advantage of the non-appearance of his friend, Mr. Cockburn. — 
 (Laughter.) — But in the midst of these civic broils, there had been elicited 
 a ray of hope, that at some future period, in Beresford Park, or some other 
 place, if all parties were consulted and satisfied, and if intimation were 
 duly made at the Kirk doors of all parishes in Scotland, in terms of the 
 statute in that behalf provided — the people of Edinburgh might by possi- 
 bility get a new theatre. — (Cheers and laughter.) — But wherever the bel- 
 ligerent powers might be pleased to set down this new theatre, he was sure 
 they all hoped to meet the Old Company in it. — He should therefore pro- 
 pose — " Better accommodation to the Old Company in the New Theatre, 
 site unknown." — Mr. Robertson's speech was most humorously given, and 
 he sat down amidst loud cheers and laughter. 
 
 Sir Walter Scoit. — Wherever the new theatre is built, I hope it will 
 not be large. There are two errors which we commonly commit — the one 
 arising from our pride, the other from our poverty. If there are twelve 
 plans, it is odds but the largest, without any regard to comfort, or an eye 
 to the probable expense, is adopted. There was the College projected on 
 this scale, and undertaken in the same manner, and who shall see the end of 
 it ? It has been building all my life, and may probably last during the lives 
 of my children and my children's children. Let not the same prophetic 
 hvmn be sung, when we commence a new theatre, which was performed 
 on the occasion of laying the foundation-stone of a certain edifice, "Behold 
 the endless work begun." Play-going folk should attend somewhat to con- 
 venience. The new theatre should, in the first place, be such as may be 
 finished in eighteen months or two years ; and, in the second place, it 
 should be one in which we can hear our old friends with comfort. It is 
 better that a moderate-sized house should be crowded now and then, than 
 to have a large theatre with benches continually empty, to the discourage- 
 ment of the actors, and the discomfort of the spectators. — (Applause.) He 
 then commented in flattering terms on the genius of Mackenzie and his 
 private worth, and concluded by proposing " The health of Henry Mac- 
 kenzie, Esq." 
 
 Immediately afterward he said: Gentlemen, — It is now wearing late, 
 and I shall request permission to retire. Like Partridge I may say, '* fion 
 sum qjialls eramy At my time of day, I can agree with Lord Ogleby as to 
 his rheumatism, and say, " There's a twinge." I hope, therefore, you will 
 excuse me for leaving the chair. — (The worthy Baronet then retired amidst 
 loud, long, and rapturous cheering.) 
 
 Mr. Patrick Robertson was then called to the chair by common ac- 
 clamation. 
 
 Gentlemen, said Mr. Robertson, I take the liberty of asking you to 
 fill a bumper to the very brim. There is not one of us who will not re- 
 member while he lives being j^resent at this day's festival, and the declara- 
 tion made this night by the gentleman who has just left the chair. That 
 declaration has rent the veil from the features of the Great Unknown—
 
 NOTES. 
 
 171 
 
 a name which must now merge in the name of the Great Known It will 
 be henceforth coupled with the name of Scott, which will become famil- 
 iar like a household word. We have heard this confession from his own 
 immortal lips — (cheering) — and we cannot dwell with too much, or too 
 fervent praise, on the merits of the greatest man whom Scotland has 
 produced. 
 
 After which, several other toasts were given, and Mr. Robertson left the 
 room about half-past eleven. A few choice spirits, however, rallied round 
 Captain ISroadhead. of the 7th Hussars, who was called to the chair, and 
 the festivity was prolonged till an early hour on Saturday morning. 
 
 The band of the Theatre occupied the gallery, and that of the 7th 
 Hussars the end of the room, opposite the chair, whose performances 
 were greatly admired. It is but justice to Mr. Gibb to state, that the 
 dinner was very handsome (though slowly served in) and the wines good. 
 The attention of the stewards was exemplary. Mr. Murray and Mr. 
 Vandenhoff with great good taste, attended on Sir Walter Scott's right 
 and left, and we know that he has expressed himself much gratified by 
 lti\eir anxious politeness and sedulity.
 
 NOTE TO THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 Note, p. 150. — Robert Bonn's Poems. 
 
 I cannot dismiss this story without resting attention for a moment on the 
 light which has been thrown on the character of the Highland Drover since 
 the time of its first appearance, by the account of a drover poet, by name 
 Robert Mackay, or, as he was commonly called, Rob Donn, /. ^.' brown 
 Robert, and certain specimens of his talents, published in the 90th Number 
 of the Quarterly Review. The picture which that paper gives of the habits 
 and feelings of a class of persons with which the general reader would be 
 apt to associate no ideas but those of wild superstition and rude manners, is 
 in the highest degree interesting; and I cannot resist the temptation of 
 quoting two of the songs of this hitherto unheard-of poet of humble life. 
 They are thus introduced by the reviewer : — 
 
 " Upon one occasion, it seems, Rob's attendance upon his master's 
 cattle business detained him a whole year from home, and at his return he 
 found that a fair maiden, to whom his troth had been plighted of yore, had 
 lost sight of her vows, and was on the eve of being married to a rival (a 
 carpenter by trade), who had profited by the young drover's absence. The 
 following song was composed during a sleepless night, in the neighborhood 
 of Crieff, in Perthshire, and the home sickness which it expresses appears 
 to be almost as much that of the deer-hunter as of the loving swain : — 
 
 ' Easy is my bed, it is easy. 
 
 But it is not to sleep that I incline ; 
 The wind whistles northwards, northwards^ 
 
 And my thonghts moz'e with it. 
 More pleasant were it to be with thee 
 
 In the little glen of calves, 
 
 Than to be counting of droves 
 
 In the enclosures of Crieff. 
 
 Easy is my bed, etc, 
 
 • Great is my esteem of the maiden. 
 
 Towards whose dwelling the north wind blows; 
 She is ever cheerful, sportive, kindly, 
 
 Without follv, without vanity, without pride. 
 True is her heart — were I under hiding. 
 
 And fifty men in pursuit of my footsteps, 
 I should find protection, when they surrounded me most closefyj 
 In the secret recess of that shieling. 
 
 Easy is my bed, etc.
 
 NOTES TO THE TWO DROVERS. 173 
 
 ' Oh for the day for turning my face homeward, 
 
 That I may see the maiden of beauty: — 
 Joyful will it be to me to be with thee, 
 
 Fair girl with the long heavy locks 1 — 
 Choice of all places for deer hunting 
 
 Are the brindled rock and the ridge ! 
 How sweet at evening to be dragging the slain deer 
 Downward along the piper's cairn I 
 
 Easy is my bed, etc. 
 
 •Great is my esteem for the maiden 
 
 Who parted from me by the west side of the enclosed field* 
 Late yet again will she linger in that fold, 
 
 Long after the kine are assembled. 
 It is I myself who have taken no dislike to thee, 
 
 Though far away from thee am I now. 
 It is for the thought of thee that sleep flies from me; 
 Great is the profit to me of thy parting kiss ! 
 Easy is tny bed, etc. 
 
 'Dear to me are the boundaries of the forest; 
 Far from Crieff is my heart ; 
 My remembrance is of the hillocks of sheep, 
 
 And the heath of many knolls. 
 Oh for the red streaked fissures of the rock, 
 
 Where in spring time the fawns leap; 
 Oh for the crags towards which the wind is blowing — 
 Cheap would be my bed to be there I 
 
 Easy is my bed, etc. 
 
 " The following describes Rob's feelings on the first discovery of his 
 damsel's infidelity. The airs of both these pieces are his own, and, the 
 Highland ladies say, very beautiful. 
 
 Heavy to me is the shieling, and the hum that is in it. 
 Since the ear that was wont to listen is now no more on the watch. 
 Where is Isabel, the courteous, the conversable, a sister in kindness ? 
 Where is Anne, the slender-browed, the turret-breasted, whose glossy hair 
 
 pleased me when yet a boy ? 
 Heich ! what an hour was my retnrning, 
 Pain such as that sunset brought, zuhat availeth 7ne to tell it ? 
 
 I traversed the fold, and upward among the trees — 
 
 Each place, far and near, wherein I was wont to salute my love. 
 
 When I looked down from the crag, and beheld the fair-haired stranger 
 
 dallying with his bride, 
 I wished that I had never revisited the glen of my dreams. 
 Such things came into my heart as that sun was going down, 
 A pain of which I shall never be rid, what availeth me to tell it ? 
 
 Since it hath been heard that the carpenter hath persuaded thee, 
 My sleep is disturbed — busy is foolishness within me at midnight. 
 The kindness that has been between us, — I cannot shake off that memory 
 
 in visions ; 
 Thou callest me not to thy side ; but love is to me for a messenger. 
 There is strife within me, and I toss to be at liberty ; 
 And ever the closer it clings, and the delusion is growing to me as a tree.
 
 tfi NOISES TO THE TWO DROVERS. 
 
 ' Anne, yclIow-haircd daughter of Donald, surely thou knowest not how it 
 
 is with me — 
 That it is old love, unrepaid, which has worn down from me my strength; 
 That when far from thee, beyond many mountains, the wound in m) heart 
 
 was throbbing, 
 Stirring and searching forever, as when I sat beside thee on the turf. 
 A^mu, theii, hear me this once, iffom'er I am to be without thee. 
 My spirit is bruken — give vie one kiss ere I leave this land I 
 
 ' Haughtily and scornfully the maiden looked upon me ; 
 
 Never will it be work for thy fingers to unloose the band from my curls; 
 
 Thou hast been absent a twelvemonth, and six were seeking me dili- 
 gently; 
 
 Was thy superiority so high, that there should be no end of abiding for 
 thee ? 
 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! — hast thou at last become sick ? 
 
 Is it love that is to give death to thee I surely the enemy has been in no haste. 
 
 * But how shall I hate thee, even though toward me thou hast become 
 cold? 
 When my discourse is most angry concerning thy name in thine absence. 
 Of a sudden thine image, with its old dearness comes visibly into my 
 
 mind ; 
 And a secret voice whispers that love will yet prevail I 
 And I become surety for it anew, darling, 
 And it springs up at that hour lofty as a tower.' 
 
 " Rude and bald as these things appear in a verbal translation, and 
 rough as they might possibly appear, even were the originals intelligible, we 
 confess we are disposed to think they would of themselves justify Dr. 
 Mackay (their Editor) in placing this herdsman-lover among the true sons 
 of song." — Qtiarterly P^yj^-u No. XC, July 1831.
 
 GLOSSARY TO THE CHRONICLES. 
 
 Ad GrvECas kalendas, at the Greek Ca- 
 lends (an indefinite period). 
 
 Aught, possession, property. 
 
 Ave Regina C^eli, hail, Mother of 
 Heaven ! 
 
 AwMous, alms. 
 
 Bauld, bold. 
 
 BiEN, frugal. 
 
 BiGGiNG, building. 
 
 Bon gre, mal gre, good grace, bad grace. 
 
 Carritch, catechism. 
 
 Chappit, struck. 
 
 Chere exquise, exquisite cheer. 
 
 CONJURO vos omnes, spiritus maligni, 
 MAGNi et parvi, I coHJure you, spirits of 
 evil, great and small. 
 
 Cracks, gossip. 
 
 Craw, an intoxicating drink. 
 
 Deus voBiscuM, God be with you. 
 
 Dbvoir, duty, service. 
 
 Do VENiAM, I give pardoner leave. 
 
 Elbvb, scholar or cadet. 
 
 Es SPUKT, it is a spirit. 
 
 Ex capite lecti, from the head of the 
 bed. 
 
 Ex CATHEDRA, from the chair. 
 
 Fabliaux, fables. 
 
 Fash, trouble. 
 
 Fauteuil, arm-chair. 
 
 FiANCAiLLES, espousals. 
 
 Forbears, ancestors. 
 
 Grew, greyhound. 
 
 HX-C NOS NOVIMUS ESSE NIHIL, this We 
 
 understood to be nothing. 
 HiNX iLL.« LACHRVMiE, hence these tears. 
 Ipsa corpora, the very pieces. 
 JONGLERiE, jugglery. 
 
 Kain, a tax payable to the landlord in kind. 
 Lai, lay, ditty. 
 
 MeMBRORUM DAMNO OMNI MAJOR, DIMEN- 
 TIA, QUM NEC NOMINA SERVORUM, NEC 
 VULTUM, AGNOSOT AMICORUM, with the 
 loss of all his members, and worse, the 
 loss of mind| which prevents him recogniz- 
 
 ing either the names of his servants or the 
 
 faces of his friends. 
 Mezzo termini, half limits. 
 Morbus sonticus, a noisome disease. 
 NoMiNis UMBRA, Under the shade of a 
 
 name. 
 NoN audet, ni.si qvje dedicit, dare quod 
 
 MEDICORUM EST ; PROMITTUNT MEDICI, 
 
 tractant fabrilia fabri, no one 
 dares to prescribe medicine who has not 
 studied that science ; physicians promise 
 what comes within their skill, and arti- 
 ficers mind only their own craft. 
 
 OwER, over. 
 
 Persona standi in judicio, personal power 
 to prosecute. 
 
 Pokte-cocherh, carriage-entrance- 
 
 Qui jurat proximo et non decipit, ' who 
 hath not sworn deceitfully.' 
 
 Ratten, a rat. 
 
 Reiving, roving. 
 
 Reveche, tart. 
 
 Row, roll. 
 
 Rus in urbe, the country in the town. 
 
 Sang froid, coolly. 
 
 Satis est mi fili, enough, my son. 
 
 ScHELM, rascal. 
 
 Skirl, screech. 
 
 SoCTETAs MATER DiscoRDiAM, partnership, 
 the mother of discord. 
 
 Sporran, a purse. 
 
 Sub vexillo regis apud pr.«lium juxta 
 Branxton, under the royal standard in 
 the battle near Branxton. 
 
 Tod, a fox. 
 
 Tremor cordis, a quaking of the heart. 
 
 Vis unita fortior, united strength is 
 stronger. 
 
 Vix EA nostra voco, I declare this hardly 
 our own. 
 
 Volenti non fit injuria, to the willing 
 there is no injury done. 
 
 Wean, an infant 
 
 Wheen, a few.
 
 ijS 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 MacLeish, Donald, the postilion, xviii. 
 Guides Mrs. Baliol into the Highlands, 64. 
 
 MacTavish. Kispat, the Highland Widow, 
 70. Grief of the enlistment of her son, 85. 
 Incites him to desert, 87. Drugs him, 94. 
 Kneels to him for pardon, 103. Blames 
 Heaven, no. Hears of her son's execu- 
 tion, 118. Disappears, 120. 
 
 MacTavish, Hamish, 72. 
 
 MacTavish, Hamish Baen, 74. Enlists, 78. 
 Visit to his mother, 83. Horror of tlie 
 lash, 89. Sees his father's ghost, 92. 
 Drinks the drugged potion, 94. Awakens 
 too late, 97- Shoots Sergeant Cameron, 
 108. Arrest, 108. Executed, 114. 
 
 Mail-coaches, dislike to, 19. 
 
 Meadowbank, Lord, speech on the Author, 
 162. 
 
 Menzies, Mr. W., speech at Theatre Fund 
 Dinner, 168. 
 
 Morrison, Hugh, the drover, 130. Gives 
 back the dirk to Robin, 143. 
 
 Mottoes, Author's explanation of, xiii. 
 
 Murray, William, speech at Theatre Fund 
 Dinner, 164. 
 
 Oldbuck, Jonathan, prototype of, x. 
 Old Mortality, Mr. Tram's notes on, viii. 
 
 Paralytic, the, 6. 
 
 Pastimes, 123. 
 
 Paterson, Robert, Mr. Train's notes on, vi. 
 
 Perodicals, advantages of, 44. 
 
 Postilions, 63. 
 
 Rasp iron, note en, 124. 
 
 Revenge, predetermined, 148. 
 
 Robin Oig M'Combich, the drover, 127. 
 Gives up his dirk, 130. Wakefield's cattle 
 torned out for his, 135. Quarrel in the 
 
 alehouse, 138. Gets back his dirk, i4|. 
 
 And stabs VVakefield to death, 144. Judg?9 
 charge to the jury, 146. And execution, 3 18. 
 Robertson, Patrick, speeches at the Theatre 
 Fund Dinner, 164. 
 
 Sanxtuarv of Holyrood, note, 122. 
 Scotch dialect, difference in, 56. 
 Sic itur ad astra, i. 
 Sommerviile, a paralytic, 6. 
 .Sonimervilles, family of, 13. 
 Steele. See Christie. 
 Steele the Covenanter, note, 152. 
 Stewart of Inveraahyle, x. 
 
 Talbot, Colonel, protype, x. 
 Theatre, Author's speech on the, 130. 
 Theatrical Fund Dinner, note, 158. 
 Train, Joseph, assistance to the Author, yii. 
 Treddles, Mr., senior, 23. 
 Two Drovers, Author's explanation, xviii. 
 Two Drovers, tale of, 126. 
 Tyrie, Rev. Michael, communicates her son's 
 execution to the Highland Widow, 118. 
 
 Vandenhoff, Mr., speech at Theatre Fund 
 Dinner, 165. 
 
 Watik's Highland roads, 67. 
 
 Wakefield, Harry, the English drover, 
 131. His beasts turned out for Robin's, 
 I35' Quarrel in the alehouse, 138. Stabbed 
 to death by Robin, 144. 
 
 Waverley and Talbot, explanation of, x. 
 
 Whitefoord, Colonel, xi. 
 
 Winton, Earl of, note on, 125. 
 
 Wolfs Hope, prototype of, xiii. 
 
 Writing, man's character told from, 15
 
 INDEX TO CHRONICLES. 
 
 Age, tautology of, $$■ 
 
 Allan, Mr. W., speech at Theatre Fund 
 Dinner, i5g. 
 
 Anonymous position of the Author, motives 
 of, xiv. 
 
 Antiquary's shop, easily established, 42. 
 
 Arlechino, Author's likeness to, v. 
 
 Author drops hit mask, iii. Financial mis- 
 fortunes, iii. Late cf beginning to 
 publish, xiv. Motives of concealment, xv. 
 Avowal at Theatrical Fund Dinner, 163. 
 
 Authors, habits of jealousy, 163. 
 
 Baliol, Mrs. Bethune, prototype of, xviii, 
 description of, 44. Her lodging in the 
 Canongate, 48. Reminiscences of Scot- 
 land, 58 Her story of the Highland 
 Widow, 63. 
 
 Beauffet the butler, 50. 
 
 Bell, Mr. Glassford, speech at Theatre Fund 
 Dinner, 167. 
 
 Black Watch, 51. 
 
 Bride of Lammermoor, Author's explana- 
 tion, ix. 
 
 Cameron, Sergeant Allan, shot by Mac- 
 Tavish, 108. 
 
 Campbell, Captain of the Black Watch, 
 112. 
 
 Canongate of Edinburgh, i. 
 
 Castle Treddles, 22. 
 
 Cattle-driving, 126. 
 
 Chalmers, James, x. 
 
 Characters of the novels. Author's explana- 
 tion, ix. 
 
 Chatham, Earl, schemes of raising Highland 
 regiments, 95 
 
 Christie Steele, 27. Defames Croftangry's 
 character, 33. 
 
 Chronicles of the Canongate, Author's plan 
 of, xvii. 
 
 Chronicles of the Canongate, continuation, 
 123. 
 
 Cloght-dearg, 115. 
 
 Clydesdale, vale of, 29. 
 
 Cotton-mills useful to the country, 30. 
 
 Croftangry, Chrystal, Author's explanation, 
 xviii. Enters the sanctuary of Holyrood, 
 2. Revisits his paralytic friead, 5. His 
 pedigree, 33. Revisits Glentanner, 19. 
 Christie Steele defames him, 33, Settles 
 in the Canongate with Janet MacEvoy, 37. 
 
 groposes to publish, 43. Visits Mrs. 
 ialiol, 44. 
 Croftangry introduces another ta'p, 1.-13. 
 
 Dbskstion, military punishment uj" 88. 
 
 Donn's poems, note on, 169. 
 Drama, Author's speech on, 159. 
 Drovers, Highland, 126. 
 Duntarkin, 29. 
 
 Eglinton, Countess, noie, 56. 
 Elspat. See MacTavish. 
 
 Fairscribe, Mr., 11. 
 Fleecebumpkin, the bailiff, 133. 
 
 Gambling, small, 10. 
 
 Glentanner, estate of, 13. Advertisement 
 
 of sale, 18. Revisited, 23. 
 Goldie, Mrs., assistance to the Author, viiL 
 Grand climacteric, 2. 
 
 Hamish Baen. See MacTavish. 
 Heskett, Ralph, the innkeeper, 136. 
 Highland chiefs, good manners of, 60. 
 Highland regiments, when first raised, 95. 
 Highland Widow, tale of, 63. See also 
 
 MacTavish. 
 Highlanders becoming common, 124. Good 
 
 cattle-drivers, 126. 
 Highlanders, fideUty of, note on, 154. 
 Holyrood asylum for debt, 3. Note, 151, 
 
 Income-tax, extreme loyalty in paying, 51. 
 Ireby, the squire, 133. 
 
 Jeanie Deans, Mrs. Goldie's notes on, viii. 
 
 Janet. See MacEvoy. 
 
 Janet of Tomahourich, 128. 
 
 Jones, Mr., speech at Theatre Fund Dinner, 
 
 166. 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, maxims of, 43. 
 
 Keith Murray, Mrs., xvii, xviii. 
 Kennedy, Susannah, fiote, 56. 
 Kinedder, Lord, xii. 
 
 Lambskin, Mrs. Alice, 53. 
 Legend of Montrose, note on, xiL 
 Loch Awe, 66. 
 Loyalty, staggering test of, 51. 
 
 M'AuLAY, Allan, note on, xiL 
 
 M'Combich. See Robin. 
 
 MacCready, Archy, 49. 
 
 MacDougal of Lorn, battle with Bruce, 66. 
 
 MacEvoy, Janet, receives Croftangry back 
 
 to the Canongate, 37. 
 MacGregor of Glenstrae, note on, 154. 
 Mackay, Mr., speeches at Theatre Fvmd 
 
 Dinner, 161,
 
 S3 1 7 
 157 
 
 • /*> /^ 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 Series 9482
 
 3 1205 02089 7623 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A A 001 424 105 3 
 
 n
 
 li j^ 
 
 1