affianced, and proceeded to Cauldshouthers, to report to Grizelda what
he had achieved. In a short time, accordingly, the marriage was
solemnized; and a very suitable display was made in the mansion of
Cauldshouthers, where there were invited many of the neighbouring
aristocrats. There were the Bogends, and the Hallmyres, and the
Glenmucks, and others, some of whom, though they had asserted a
superiority over the Geddeses, and turned up their noses at the match
with a burgher widow with five thousand pounds, made by the vulgar
operation of cotton-spinning, yet could not refuse the boon of their
presence at the wedding of one of their own sect of exclusives. Miss
Grizelda acted as mistress of the ceremonies, and contrived, by proper
training, to make the bride go through the aristocratic drill with much
eclat. She had correct opinions, as well as good practice, in this
department. It is only the degenerate modern town-elite, among the
exclusives, who pretend that _easiness_ of manners--meaning thereby the
total absence of all dignified _stiffness_--is the true test of
aristocratic breeding. The older and truer stock of the country--such as
the Geddeses--despise this beggarly town-born maxim: with them nothing
can be too stiff; buckram-attitudes and dresses are the very staple of
their calling. And why not? Any graceful snab or snip, of good spirits,
when freed from the stool or board, may be as free and frisky as a
kitten; but to carry out a legitimate and consistent stiffness of the
godlike machine with an according costiveness of speech and loftiness of
sentiment, can belong only to those who have been born great; and so, to
be sure, these were the maxims on which Grizelda acted in qualifying the
bride to appear in a becoming manner before the Tweeddale grandees.
Everything went off well. The dame was given out as a Duckpool; and it
must have been fairly admitted, even by the proud Bogends, that she
could not have acted her part better though she had been in reality
descended from that house, so favoured by the fifth James, at the very
time that he brought Drumelzier to his knees at Glenwhappen.
And it may thus be augured, that the Thane of Cauldshouthers was
satisfied. The manners imparted to Mrs. Geddes by the sister, seemed to
adhere to her; and though the Glenmucks alleged that her dignified
rigidity was nothing but burgher awkwardness, it was not believed by
those who knew that gentle blood hath in it some seeds of spleen.
"She performs her pairt wi' native dignity," was Gilbert's opinion
expressed to his sister; "and seems to feel as if she had been born to
sustain the important character she has to play, as the wife o' ane o'
the auldest heritors o' Tweeddale. But ye maun keep at her, Girz; and,
while you are improving her, I'll be busy with the bogs. We'll mak a'
arable that will be arable."
And straightway, accordingly, he set about disposing of a part of his
wife's tocher, in planting, and draining, and hedging, and ditching,
with a view to impart some heat to Cauldshouthers, in return for the
warmth which the fleeces of coarse wool had yielded to him and others.
Meanwhile, the training within doors went on. Tea-parties were good
discipline; and at one of these, the mistress of Bogend and her two
daughters, and the mistress of Hallmyre and her daughter and nephew, and
a number of others, witnessed the improvement of their new married
neighbour. Pedigrees were always the favourite topic at Cauldshouthers.
"I maun hae Mrs Geddes's reduced to paper," said the laird, "for the
satisfaction o' ye a'. I like a tree--there's a certainty about it that
defies a' envy. There's few o' us, I wot, that can count sae far back as
the Bertrams."
"Mrs. Geddes might tell us off hand," said the mistress of Bogend,
piqued of course. "I could gie the Bogends from the first to the last."
"And I hae a' the Ha'myres on my tongue's end," said she of that old
family.
"And I could gie the Geddeses, stock and stem," added Grizelda.
"But it doesna follow that Mrs. Geddes has just the same extent o'
memory," said the laird, as a cover to his half-marrow.
"Indeed, my memory is very poor on family descents," said the wife; "and
there is now none of our family left to assist my recollections."
"Ah, Janet," cried a voice from the door, which had opened in the
meantime and let in a stout huckster-looking dame and two children. "I
am right glad to see you sae weel settled," she continued, as she
bustled forward and seized the mistress of the house by the hand. "But
it wasna friendly, it wasna like a sister, woman, no to write and tell
me o' yer marriage. Heigh! but I am tired after that lang ride frae
Glasgow. Sit down, childer; it's yer aunty's house, and, by my faith,
it's nae sma affair; but oh, it has an awfu name."
The speaker had it all to herself, save for a whisper from the lady of
Bogend, who asked her of Hallmyres if this would be another of the
Duckpools. The others were dumb from amazement; and the new-comer
gloried in the silence.
"Wasna that a lucky affair--that siller left us by the cotton spinner?"
she rattled forth with increasing volubility. "Be quiet, childer. Faith,
lass, if we hadna got our legacy just in the nick as it were, our John,
wha was only makin six shillings a week at the heckling, wad hae gi'en
up the ghaist a'thegither."
The laird was getting fidgetty, and looked round for the servant;
Grizelda was still dumb; the Bogends and Hallmyres were all curiosity;
and Mrs. Geddes looked as if she could not help it. All was still an
open field for the speaker.
"But, dear me, lass," again cried the visiter, "we never heard o'
Serjeant Shirley's death."
"If ye're ony friend o' Mrs. Geddes's," said the laird, recovering
himself, "you had better step ben to the parlour, and she'll see you
there."
"Ou, I'm brawly where I am, sir," replied she of St. Mungo's. "There's
nae use for ceremony wi' friends. Ye'll be Janet's husband, I fancy?
Keep aff the back o' yer uncle's chair, ye ill-mannered brat."
"There is a woman in the parlour wishes to see yon, Mrs. Geddes," said
the servant.
"What like is she?" cried the Glasgow friend. "Is she a weel-faured
woman, wi' a bairn at her foot?"
"Yes," was the reply.
"Just bring her in here, then," continued the speaker. "It's our sister
Betty. I asked her to meet me here the day, and she was to get a cast o'
a cart as far as Linton. She was to hae brocht Saunders wi' her, but
there's some great folk dead about Lithgow, and he's been sae thrang wi'
their mournings that I fancy he couldna win."
"Are these your sisters, Mrs. Geddes?" said the lady of Bogend, who
probably enjoyed secretly the perplexity around her.
"I can answer for mysel," replied the visiter; "and whether this be
Betty or no, I'll soon tell ye;" and she rose to waddle to the door to
satisfy the inquiry of the lady of Bogend. "The truth is, madam," she
said, by way of favoured intelligence, as she passed the chair of the
latter, "we're a' sisters; but, if we had been on the richt side o' the
blanket--ye ken what I mean, if our faither and mither had been
married--the siller left us by our uncle the cotton-spinner wad hae been
twice as muckle. Is that you, Betty?" she bawled at the door. "Come in,
woman."
"Save us!--save us!--the honour o' the Geddeses is gane for ever,"
groaned Gilbert.
"It's just me, Peggy," responded another voice from the passage; and the
heavy tread of a weary traveller, mixed with the cries of a child,
announced an approach. The two entered. The woman was dressed like the
wife of a man of her husband's profession, who had got a recent legacy.
"Saunders is coming, after a," cried Betty, as she entered. "He got done
with the mournings on Wednesday. He's in the public-house, alang the
road there, taking a dram wi' a friend, and will be here immediately.
John, I fancy, couldna win. Ye're weel set doon, Janet," she continued,
as she stood and stared at the room, turning round and round. "My troth,
lass, ye hae fa'n on yer feet at last. It was just as weel the sergeant
de'ed. Sit ye there, Geordie, and see if ye can learn manners enough to
haud yer tongue."
The little cousins, Geordie, Johnny, and Jessie, entered instantly into
a clattering of friendly recognizances; and the two mothers bustled
forward to chairs alongside of their sister, the lady of the house,
whose colour had come and gone twenty times, and all power of speech had
been taken away from her by a discovery as sudden as it was unpleasant.
Yet what was to be done? Was the aristocratic Grizelda to sit and see
tea filled out for the wives and weans of a dresser of yarns, and an
artificer of garments? Was the honour of the Geddeses of Cauldshouthers
to be scuttled by a needle and a hackle-tooth? But matters were not
destined to remain even upon the poise of these pivots. The little
nephew of Hallmyres, annoyed by the burgher-bairns, struck one of them a
blow in the face, which the spruce scion of the Lithgow tailor returned
with far more gallantry than might have been expected from one of his
degenerate caste. The cousin Johnny took the part of his relative; and
matters were fast progressing towards hostilities, when the lady of
Hallmyres rose to quell the incipient affair.
"Aff hands, my woman," cried Peggy, suddenly leaving her chair.
"Ay, ay," added Betty, "we hae at least a right to civility in the house
o' our sister. We come kindly and friendly, as may be seen frae what's
in my bundle--a gude bacon ham, and a gude cassimir waistcoat, sewed by
Saunders' ain hands, for the guidman o' Cauldshouthers, and a' we want
is something like friendliness in return. Just let the bairns alane.
They'll gree fine when better acquaint."
"Mrs. Geddes," said Grizelda, with a puckered face and a starched
manner, "ye'll better tak yer friends ben the house."
"Awa wi' them!" added the laird. "We maun hae a reckoning about a'
this."
"There's no the sma'est occasion for't," responded Betty. "The bairns
will agree fine. Just let them play themselves while we're taking our
tea. Saunders will be here immediately."
"A guid advice," added Peggy; "but wha are our friends, Janet? Canna ye
speak, woman? This will be Mr. Geddes, my brither-in-law, I fancy; and
this will be Girzie, my gude-sister; but as for the ithers, I ken nae
mair about them than I do o' the brothers and sisters o' the sergeant,
wham I never saw."
"And here comes Saunders, at last," cried Betty, rising, and running to
the window. "I will gang and let him in."
Bustling to the door, she executed her purpose, and straightway appeared
again, ushering in, with a face that told her pride in her husband, a
Crispinite, wonderfully _bien fait_, dressed in a suit of glossy black,
clean shaven, and as pale as any sprig of nobility.
"Mr. Geddes, I presume," said he, rubbing his hands, which retained the
marks of the needle, if not the dye of the mournings.
"Here's a chair for ye, Saunders," cried Betty. "Ye'll no be caring for
tea, after the gill ye had wi' yer auld foreman, at the sign o' the
'Harrow,' yonder. Had ye ony mair after I left ye? I'm no sure about yer
e'e. There's mair glamour in't than there should be. Sit ye down, and
I'll bring the bundle with the ham and the waistcoat."
Grizelda held up her hands in amazement.
"For the love o' heaven, leave us, good leddies," she said to her
friends.
"Oh ay," added the laird, "leave us, leave us, for mercy's sake."
"You have got into a duckpool," whispered the lady of Hallmyres, as she
rose, followed by the others; "and I wish you fair out of it. Good
by--good by."
BON GUALTIER'S TALES.
COUNTRY QUARTERS.
A pleasanter little town than Potterwell does not exist in that part of
her Majesty's dominions called Scotland. On one side, the hand of
cultivation has covered a genial soil with richness and fertility. The
stately mansion, "bosomed high in tufted trees," occasionally invites
the eye, as it wanders over the landscape; while here and there, the
river Wimpledown may be seen peeping out amid the luxuriant verdure of
wood and plain, and seeming to concentrate on itself all the radiance of
any little sunshine that may be going. On the other side, again, are
nothing but impracticable mountains--fine bluff old fellows--that
evidently have an extensive and invincible contempt for Time, and, like
other great ones of the earth, never carry any _change_ about them. Look
beyond these, and the prospect is indeed a fine one--a little
monotonous, perhaps, but still a fine one--peak receding behind peak in
endless series, a multitudinous sea of mountain tops, with noses as blue
as a disappointed man's face, or Miss Harriet Martineau's stockings.
With a situation presenting such allurements for the devotees of the
picturesque, is it wonderful that Potterwell became a favourite resort?
By the best of good fortune, too, a spring, close by, of a peculiarly
nauseous character, had, a few years before the period we write of,
attracted attention by throwing into violent convulsions sundry cows
that had been so far left to themselves as to drink of it, besides
carrying off an occasional little boy or so, as a sort of just
retribution for so far suppressing his natural tastes as to admit it
within his lips. Dr. Scammony, however, had taken the mineral water
under his patronage; and his celebrated pamphlet upon the medicinal
properties of the Potterwell Mephitic Assafoetida Waters at once fixed
their reputation, while it materially augmented his own. A general
subscription was projected, with a view to the erection of a pump-room.
The plan took amazingly; and, from being left to work its way out, as
best it might, through the diseased and miserable weeds with which it
was overgrown, the spring all at once found itself established in a
handsome apartment, fitted up with a most benevolent attention to the
wants of such persons as might repair thither with the probable
chance--however little they might be conscious of the fact--of dying by
a watery death.
It was a bright sparkling morning in August, and there was an
exhilarating freshness in the air, that caused the heart to leap up, and
make the spirit as unclouded as the blue sky overhead. The pump-room was
thronged, and every one congratulated his neighbour on the beauty of the
morning.
"At your post as usual, Stukeley!" said a smartly-dressed young man,
stepping up to Mr. Stukeley--a well-known frequenter of the wells since
their first celebrity--and shaking him warmly by the hand. "I do believe
you are retained as a check upon the pump woman, that you keep such a
strict look out after her customers. How many doses has she administered
to-day? Come now, out with your note-book, and let me see."
"Oh, my dear Frank, if you really want to know, I am the man for
you--Old Cotton of Dundee, four and a-half, and his daughter took off
the balance of the six. What do you think I heard him whisper to
her?--'Hoot, lassie, tak it aff, it's a' paid for;' and she, poor soul,
was forced to gulp it down, that he might have the satisfaction of
knowing that full value had been given for his penny. Then there was
Runrig the farmer from Mid-Lothian, half-a-dozen; the man has a frame of
iron, and a cheek as fresh as new-mown hay; but somebody had told him
the water would do him good, and he has accordingly taken enough to make
him ill for a fortnight. Then, there was Deacon Dobie's rich widow--fat,
fair, and forty--she got pretty well through the seventh tumbler; but,
it's a way with her, when she begins drinking, not to know when to stop;
which, by the way, may account for her having been, for some time, as
she elegantly expresses it, 'gey an nervish ways, whiles.' After her
came"----And Stukeley was going on to enumerate the different visiters
of the morning, checking them off upon his fingers as he proceeded, when
his friend, Frank Preston, stopped him.
"For Heaven's sake, have done; and tell me, if you can, who those two
fops of fellows are at the foot of the room? They only came a week ago;
and, though nobody knows who they are, they have made the acquaintance
of half the people here."
"I see nothing very odd in that. I know nothing of the men; but they
dress well, and are moderately good-looking, and have just sufficient
assurance to pass off upon the uninitiated for ease of manner and
fashionable breeding. A pair of parvenus, no doubt; but what is your
motive for asking so particularly about them?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing! Only, I am to meet them at the Cheeshams
to-night, and I wished to know something of them."
"So, so! sets the wind in that quarter? A rival, Master Frank? It is
there the shoe pinches, is it?"
"A rival--nonsense! What should I care whether the puppies are attentive
to Emily Cheesham or not?"
"Why more to her than to her sister Fanny? I mentioned no names. Ha!
Master Frank, you see I have caught you. Come, come, tell me what it is
annoys you?"
"Well," stammered out Frank Preston,--"well, the fact is--the fact is,
one of them has been rather particular in his attentions to Emily, and
I am half-inclined to think she gives him encouragement."
"And, suppose she does, I see nothing in that but the harmless vanity of
a girl, pleased to have another dangler under her spell."
"That is all very well, but I don't like it a bit. It may be so, and it
may not. Her encouragement to him is very marked, and I don't feel easy
under it at all, I don't."
"Why, Frank, you must both have a very poor opinion of Miss Emily, and
be especially soft yourself, to give yourself any concern in the matter.
If you have deemed her worthy of your regards, and she has given you
warrant for thinking you have a claim upon them, and yet she now throws
you off to make way for this newer lover, your course is a clear one.
Turn from her at once, and fortify yourself with old Withers' lines--
'If she be not made for me
What care I for whom she be.'"
"Excellent philosophy, if one could but act upon it. But what annoys me
about the business is, that I am sure these fellows are a pair of snobs,
and are playing themselves off for something greater than they are."
"Very possibly; but that is just a stronger reason for taking my advice.
If Miss Emily can be gratified with the attentions of such persons,
leave her to the full enjoyment of them. Don't make yourself miserable
for her folly."
"Oh, I don't make myself miserable at all, not in the least; only, I
should like to find out who the fellows are."
The young men, of whom Preston and Stukeley had been speaking, and who
now lounged up the room, describing semicircles with their legs at every
step they took, were certainly never meant for the ordinary tear and
wear of the hard-working every-day world. Their dress had too fine a
gloss upon it for that, their hair much too gracefully disposed. They
were both rather below the middle size, both dark in the complexion,
but one of them much more so than the other. The darker slip of humanity
had cultivated the growth of his hair with singular success. It fell
away in masses from his forehead and temples, and curled, like the rings
of the young vine, over the velvet collar that capped a coat of
symmetrical proportions. Circling round the cheeks, and below the chin,
it somewhat obtruded upon the space which is generally occupied by the
face, so that his head might truly be said to be a mass of hair,
slightly interspersed with features. His friend, again, to avoid
monotony, had varied the style of his upper works, and his locks were
allowed to droop in long, lanky, melancholy tangles down his sallow
cheeks; while, perched upon either lip, might be seen a feathery-looking
object, not to be accounted for, but on the supposition that it was
intended to seduce the public into a belief of its being a moustache.
Both were showily dressed. Both had stocks terminating in a cataract of
satin that emptied itself into tartan velvet waistcoats, worn probably
in honour of the country; both had gold chains innumerable, twisting in
a multiplicity of convolutions across these waistcoats; both had on
yellow kid gloves of unimpeachable purity, and both carried minute canes
of imitation ebony, with which, at intervals, they flogged, one the
right and the other the left leg, with the most painful ferocity. They
were a noble pair; alike, yet, oh, how different!
"Eugene, my boy," said the darker of the two, in a tone of voice loud
enough to let half the room hear the interesting communication, "we must
see what sort of stuff this here water is--we must, positively."
"Roost eggs, Adolph, whisked in bilge-water, with a rusty tenpenny nail.
Faugh! I'm smashed if I taste it."
"Not so bad that for you," returned Adolph, smiling faintly; "but you
must really pay your respects to the waters."
"'Pon my soul, I shawn't. I had enough of that so't of thing in Jummany,
the time I was ova with Ned Hoxham."
"That was the time, wasn't it, that you brought me over that choice lot
of cigaws?"
"I believe it was," responded Eugene, with the most impressive
indifference, as if he wished it to be understood that he had been so
often there that he could not recall the particulars of any one visit.
"I know something of Seidlitz and Seltzer myself," resumed the darker
Adonis, "and Soda water too, by Jove, for that matter, and they're not
bad things either, when one's been making a night of it, so I'll have a
try at this Potterwell fluid, and see how it does for a change."
In this manner the two friends proceeded, to the infinite enlightenment
of those about them, who, being greatly struck with their easy and
facetious manners, stood admiringly by with looks of evident delight!
The young men saw the impression they were making, and, desirous of
keeping it up, went on to ask the priestess of the spring, how often,
and in what quantities she found it necessary to doctor it with Glauber
salts, brimstone, and assafoetida. The joke took immensely. Such of
the bystanders as could laugh--for the internal agitation produced by
the cathartic properties of their morning draught, made that a somewhat
difficult and dangerous experiment--did so; and various young men, of no
very definite character, but who seemed to support the disguise of
gentlemen with considerable pain to themselves, sidled up, and
endeavoured to strike into conversation with our Nisus and Euryalus,
thinking to share by contact the glory which they had won. All they got
for their pains, however, was a stare of cool indifference. The friends
were as great adepts in the art and mystery of _cutting_, as the most
fashionable tailor could be; and, after volunteering a few ineffectual
efforts at sprightliness, these awkward aspirants to fame were forced to
fall back, abashed and crest-fallen, into the natural insignificance of
their character.
These proceedings did not pass unnoticed by Preston and his elderly
friend, who made their own observations upon them, but were prevented
from saying anything on the subject to each other by the entrance of a
party, which diverted their attention in a different direction. These
were no other than Mrs. Cheesham and her two accomplished daughters,
Miss Emily and Miss Fanny Cheesham. Mrs. Cheesham's personal appearance
may be passed over very briefly; as no one, so far as is known, ever
cared about it but herself. She was vain, vulgar, and affected; fond of
finery and display; and the one dominant passion of her life was to
insinuate herself and her family into fashionable society, and secure a
brilliant match for her daughters. They, again, were a pair of
attractive showy girls; Emily flippant, sparkling, lively; Fanny,
demure, reserved, and cold. Emily's eyes were dark and lustrous--you saw
the best of them at once; and her look, alert and wicked. These
corresponded well with a well-rounded figure, a rosy complexion, and
full pouting lips, that were "ruddier than the cherry." Fanny was tall
and "stately in her going;" pale, but without that look of sickliness
which generally accompanies such a complexion, and her eyes, beautiful
as they were when brought into play, were generally shrouded by the
drooping of her eyelids, like those of one who is accustomed to be
frequently self-inwrapt. With Emily you might sport in jest and raillery
by the hour; but with Fanny you always felt, as it were, bound to be
upon your best behaviour. They passed up the room, distributing nods of
recognition, and occasionally stopping to allow Mrs. Cheesham to give
her invitations to a _soiree musicale_ which she intended to get up that
evening.
"Your servant, ladies," said old Stukeley, raising his hat, while his
friend followed his example. "You are late. I was afraid we were not to
have the pleasure of seeing you this morning. Pray, Miss Emily, what new
novel or poem was it that kept you awake so late last night that you
have lost half this glorious morning? Tell me the author's name, that I
may punish the delinquent, by cutting up his book, in the next number of
our review?"
"Cut it up, and you will do more than I could; for I found myself
nodding over the second page, and I feel the drowsiness about me still."
"The opiate--the opiate, Miss Emily? Who was its compounder? He must be
a charmer indeed."
"Himself and his printer knows. Only some unhappy bard, who dubs us
women 'The angels of life,' and misuses us vilely through a dozen cantos
of halting verse. The poor man has forgot the story