without a certain stiffness and embarrassment of manner, handed the
young lady to the upper end of the apartment, her father remained
standing more near to the door, as if about to disengage himself from
his hat and cloak. At this moment the clang of the portal was heard, a
sound at which the stranger started, stepped hastily to the window, and
looked with an air of alarm at Ravenswood, when he saw that the gate of
the court was shut, and his domestics excluded.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XI.

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

Love’s Pilgrimage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XII.

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

CHAUCER, Sumner’s Tale.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XIII.

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

Wit without Money.

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

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

“I dinna ken,” said the boy.

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

“I dinna ken,” blubbered the astonished declarant.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I stand reproved,” said the cooper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And friends wi’ Ravenswood?”

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

“And Peter Puncheon’s dead?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XIV.

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

ANONYMOUS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XV.

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

New Way to Pay Old Debts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lord Keeper answered with a deep sigh, “That these mutations were
no new sights in Scotland, and had been witnessed long before the time
of the satirical author he had quoted. It was many a long year,” he
said, “since Fordun had quoted as an ancient proverb, ‘_Neque dives,
neque fortis, sed nec sapiens Scotus, prædominante invidia, diu durabit
in terra_.’”

“And be assured, my esteemed friend,” was the answer, “that even your
long services to the state, or deep legal knowledge, will not save you,
or render your estate stable, if the Marquis of A—— comes in with a
party in the British Parliament. You know that the deceased Lord
Ravenswood was his near ally, his lady being fifth in descent from the
Knight of Tillibardine; and I am well assured that he will take young
Ravenswood by the hand, and be his very good lord and kinsman. Why
should he not? The Master is an active and stirring young fellow, able
to help himself with tongue and hands; and it is such as he that finds
friends among their kindred, and not those unarmed and unable
Mephibosheths that are sure to be a burden to every one that takes them
up. And so, if these Ravenswood cases be called over the coals in the
House of Peers, you will find that the Marquis will have a crow to
pluck with you.”

“That would be an evil requital,” said the Lord Keeper, “for my long
services to the state, and the ancient respect in which I have held his
lordship’s honourable family and person.”

“Ay, but,” rejoined the agent of the Marquis, “it is in vain to look
back on past service and auld respect, my lord; it will be present
service and immediate proofs of regard which, in these sliddery times,
will be expected by a man like the Marquis.”

The Lord Keeper now saw the full drift of his friend’s argument, but he
was too cautious to return any positive answer.

“He knew not,” he said, “the service which the Lord Marquis could
expect from one of his limited abilities, that had not always stood at
his command, still saving and reserving his duty to his king and
country.”

Having thus said nothing, while he seemed to say everything, for the
exception was calculated to cover whatever he might afterwards think
proper to bring under it, Sir William Ashton changed the conversation,
nor did he again permit the same topic to be introduced. His guest
departed, without having brought the wily old statesman the length of
committing himself, or of pledging himself to any future line of
conduct, but with the certainty that he had alarmed his fears in a most
sensible point, and laid a foundation for future and farther treaty.

When he rendered an account of his negotiation to the Marquis, they
both agreed that the Keeper ought not to be permitted to relapse into
security, and that he should be plied with new subjects of alarm,
especially during the absence of his lady. They were well aware that
her proud, vindictive, and predominating spirit would be likely to
supply him with the courage in which he was deficient; that she was
immovably attached to the party now in power, with whom she maintained
a close correspondence and alliance; and that she hated, without
fearing, the Ravenswood family (whose more ancient dignity threw
discredit on the newly acquired grandeur of her husband) to such a
degree that she would have perilled the interest of her own house to
have the prospect of altogether crushing that of her enemy.

But Lady Ashton was now absent. The business which had long detained
her in Edinburgh had afterwards induced her to travel to London, not
without the hope that she might contribute her share to disconcert the
intrigues of the Marquis at court; for she stood high in favour with
the celebrated Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, to whom, in point of
character, she bore considerable resemblance. It was necessary to press
her husband hard before her return; and, as a preparatory step, the
Marquis wrote to the Master of Ravenswood the letter which we rehearsed
in a former chapter. It was cautiously worded, so as to leave it in the
power of the writer hereafter to take as deep or as slight an interest
in the fortunes of his kinsmen as the progress of his own schemes might
require. But however unwilling, as a statesman, the Marquis might be to
commit himself, or assume the character of a patron, while he had
nothing to give away, it must be said to his honour that he felt a
strong inclination effectually to befriend the Master of Ravenswood, as
well as to use his name as a means of alarming the terrors of the Lord
Keeper.

As the messenger who carried this letter was to pass near the house of
the Lord Keeper, he had it in direction that, in the village adjoining
to the park-gate of the castle, his horse should lose a shoe, and that,
while it was replaced by the smith of the place, he should express the
utmost regret for the necessary loss of time, and in the vehemence of
his impatience give it to be understood that he was bearing a message
from the Marquis of A—— to the Master of Ravenswood upon a matter of
life and death.

This news, with exaggerations, was speedily carried from various
quarters to the ears of the Lord Keeper, and each reporter dwelt upon
the extreme impatience of the courier, and the surprising short time in
which he had executed his journey. The anxious statesman heard in
silence; but in private Lockhard received orders to watch the courier
on his return, to waylay him in the village, to ply him with liquor, if
possible, and to use all means, fair or foul, to learn the contents of
the letter of which he was the bearer. But as this plot had been
foreseen, the messenger returned by a different and distant road, and
thus escaped the snare that was laid for him.

After he had been in vain expected for some time, Mr. Dingwall had
orders to made especial inquiry among his clients of Wolf’s Hope,
whether such a domestic belonging to the Marquis of A——had actually
arrived at the neighbouring castle. This was easily ascertained; for
Caleb had been in the village one morning by five o’clock, to borrow
“twa chappins of ale and a kipper” for the messenger’s refreshment, and
the poor fellow had been ill for twenty-four hours at Luckie
Sma’trash’s, in consequence of dining upon “saut saumon and sour
drink.” So that the existence of a correspondence betwixt the Marquis
and his distressed kinsman, which Sir William Ashton had sometimes
treated as a bugbear, was proved beyond the possibility of further
doubt.

The alarm of the Lord Keeper became very serious; since the Claim of
Right, the power of appealing from the decisions of the civil court to
the Estates of Parliament, which had formerly been held incompetent,
had in many instances been claimed, and in some allowed, and he had no
small reason to apprehend the issue, if the English House of Lords
should be disposed to act upon an appeal from the Master of Ravenswood
“for remeid in law.” It would resolve into an equitable claim, and be
decided, perhaps, upon the broad principles of justice, which were not
quite so favourable to the Lord Keeper as those of strict law. Besides,
judging, though most inaccurately, from courts which he had himself
known in the unhappy times preceding the Scottish Union, the Keeper
might have too much right to think that, in the House to which his
lawsuits were to be transferred, the old maxim might prevail which was
too well recognised in Scotland in former times: “Show me the man, and
I’ll show you the law.” The high and unbiased character of English
judicial proceedings was then little known in Scotland, and the
extension of them to that country was one of the most valuable
advantages which it gained by the Union. But this was a blessing which
the Lord Keeper, who had lived under another system, could not have the
means of foreseeing. In the loss of his political consequence, he
anticipated the loss of his lawsuit. Meanwhile, every report which
reached him served to render the success of the Marquis’s intrigues the
more probable, and the Lord Keeper began to think it indispensable that
he should look round for some kind of protection against the coming
storm. The timidity of his temper induced him to adopt measures of
compromise and conciliation. The affair of the wild bull, properly
managed, might, he thought, be made to facilitate a personal
communication and reconciliation betwixt the Master and himself. He
would then learn, if possible, what his own ideas were of the extent of
his rights, and the means of enforcing them; and perhaps matters might
be brought to a compromise, where one party was wealthy and the other
so very poor. A reconciliation with Ravenswood was likely to give him
an opportunity to play his own game with the Marquis of A——. “And
besides,” said he to himself, “it will be an act of generosity to raise
up the heir of this distressed family; and if he is to be warmly and
effectually befriended by the new government, who knows but my virtue
may prove its own reward?”

Thus thought Sir William Ashton, covering with no unusual self-delusion
his interested views with a hue of virtue; and having attained this
point, his fancy strayed still farther. He began to bethink himself,
“That if Ravenswood was to have a distinguished place of power and
trust, and if such a union would sopite the heavier part of his
unadjusted claims, there might be worse matches for his daughter Lucy:
the Master might be reponed against the attainder. Lord Ravenswood was
an ancient title, and the alliance would, in some measure, legitimate
his own possession of the greater part of the Master’s spoils, and make
the surrender of the rest a subject of less bitter regret.”

With these mingled and multifarious plans occupying his head, the Lord
Keeper availed himself of my Lord Bittlebrains’s repeated invitation to
his residence, and thus came within a very few miles of Wolf’s Crag.
Here he found the lord of the mansion absent, but was courteously
received by the lady, who expected her husband’s immediate return. She
expressed her particular delight at seeing Miss Ashton, and appointed
the hounds to be taken out for the Lord Keeper’s special amusement. He
readily entered into the proposal, as giving him an opportunity to
reconnoitre Wolf’s Crag, and perhaps to make some acquaintance with the
owner, if he should be tempted from his desolate mansion by the chase.
Lockhard had his orders to endeavour on his part to make some
acquaintance with the inmates of the castle, and we have seen how he
played his part.

The accidental storm did more to further the Lord Keeper’s plan of
forming a personal acquaintance with young Ravenswood than his most
sanguine expectations could have anticipated. His fear of the young
nobleman’s personal resentment had greatly decreased since he
considered him as formidable from his legal claims and the means he
might have of enforcing them. But although he thought, not
unreasonably, that only desperate circumstances drove men on desperate
measures, it was not without a secret terror, which shook his heart
within him, that he first felt himself inclosed within the desolate
Tower of Wolf’s Crag; a place so well fitted, from solitude and
strength, to be a scene of violence and vengeance. The stern reception
at first given to them by the Master of Ravenswood, and the difficulty
he felt in explaining to that injured nobleman what guests were under
the shelter of his roof, did not soothe these alarms; so that when Sir
William Ashton heard the door of the courtyard shut behind him with
violence, the words of Alice rung in his ears, “That he had drawn on
matters too hardly with so fierce a race as those of Ravenswood, and
that they would bide their time to be avenged.”

The subsequent frankness of the Master’s hospitality, as their
acquaintance increased, abated the apprehensions these recollections
were calculated to excite; and it did not escape Sir William Ashton,
that it was to Lucy’s grace and beauty he owed the change in their
host’s behavior.

All these thoughts thronged upon him when he took possession of the
secret chamber. The iron lamp, the unfurnished apartment, more
resembling a prison than a place of ordinary repose, the hoarse and
ceaseless sound of the waves rushing against the base of the rock on
which the castle was founded, saddened and perplexed his mind. To his
own successful machinations, the ruin of the family had been in a great
measure owing, but his disposition was crafty, and not cruel; so that
actually to witness the desolation and distress he had himself
occasioned was as painful to him as it would be to the humane mistress
of a family to superintend in person the execution of the lambs and
poultry which are killed by her own directions. At the same time, when
he thought of the alternative of restoring to Ravenswood a large
proportion of his spoils, or of adopting, as an ally and member of his
own family, the heir of this impoverished house, he felt as the spider
may be supposed to do when his whole web, the intricacies of which had
been planned with so much art, is destroyed by the chance sweep of a
broom. And then, if he should commit himself too far in this matter, it
gave rise to a perilous question, which many a good husband, when under
temptation to act as a free agent, has asked himself without being able
to return a satisfactory answer: “What will my wife—what will Lady
Ashton say?” On the whole, he came at length to the resolution in which
minds of a weaker cast so often take refuge. He resolved to watch
events, to take advantage of circumstances as they occurred, and
regulate his conduct accordingly. In this spirit of temporising policy,
he at length composed his mind to rest.

CHAPTER XVI.

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

King and no King.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As he pronounced these words, in a firm yet melancholy tone, he raised
his eyes, and suddenly encountered those of Lucy Ashton, who had stolen
unawares on their interview, and observed her looks fastened on them
with an expression of enthusiastic interest and admiration, which had
wrapt her for the moment beyond the fear of discovery. The noble form
and fine features of Ravenswood, fired with the pride of birth and
sense of internal dignity, the mellow and expressive tones of his
voice, the desolate state of his fortunes, and the indifference with
which he seemed to endure and to dare the worst that might befall,
rendered him a dangerous object of contemplation for a maiden already
too much disposed to dwell upon recollections connected with him. When
their eyes encountered each other, both blushed deeply, conscious of
some strong internal emotion, and shunned again to meet each other’s
looks.

Sir William Ashton had, of course, closely watched the expression of
their countenances. “I need fear,” said he internally, “neither
Parliament nor protestation; I have an effectual mode of reconciling
myself with this hot-tempered young fellow, in case he shall become
formidable. The present object is, at all events, to avoid committing
ourselves. The hook is fixed; we will not strain the line too soon: it
is as well to reserve the privilege of slipping it loose, if we do not
find the fish worth landing.”

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

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

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

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

“Does he wish to speak with me, Caleb?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Craigengelt is the fellow’s name,” said the Master, “at least that by
which he passes at present.”

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XVII.

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

ANONYMOUS.

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

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

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

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

“I do not understand,” said Ravenswood, “how a consciousness of
innocence can be, in any case, accounted presumptuous.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am obliged to my honourable friend; and yet,” shaking the Lord
Keeper’s hand—“and yet I am still more obliged to my honourable enemy.”

“_Inimicus amicissimus_,” said the Lord Keeper, returning the pressure;
“but this gentleman—this Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw—I am afraid the poor
young man—I heard the fellow mention his name—is under very bad
guidance.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XVIII.

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

The French Courtezan.

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

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

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

“And why, Caleb?” said his master—“why should the mercy of Heaven
forbid my returning the Lord Keeper’s visit?”

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

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

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

“Why, now, you go father than I do, Caleb,” said the Master, drowning a
certain degree of consciousness in a forced laugh; “you are for
marrying me into a family that you will not allow me to visit, how
this? and you look as pale as death besides.”

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

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

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

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

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

“When the last Laird of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride,