Doctor's lodgings, his attention was successively occupied by the
various personages whom he met, and pointed out to the notice of his
companion.
“Do you see that fellow with the red bonnet, the blue jerkin, and the
great rough baton in his hand?--I believe that clown hath the strength
of a tower--he has lived fifty years in the world, and never encouraged
the liberal sciences by buying one penny-worth of medicaments.--But see
you that man with the _facies hippocratica_?” said he, pointing out
a thin peasant, with swelled legs, and a most cadaverous countenance;
“that I call one of the worthiest men in the barony--he breakfasts,
luncheons, dines, and sups by my advice, and not without my medicine;
and, for his own single part, will go farther to clear out a moderate
stock of pharmaceutics, than half the country besides.--How do you,
my honest friend?” said he to the party in question, with a tone of
condolence.
“Very weakly, sir, since I took the electuary,” answered the patient;
“it neighboured ill with the two spoonfuls of pease-porridge and the
kirnmilk.”
“Pease-porridge and kirnmilk! Have you been under medicine these ten
years, and keep your diet so ill?--the next morning take the electuary
by itself, and touch nothing for six hours.”--The poor object bowed, and
limped off.
The next whom the Doctor deigned to take notice of, was a lame fellow,
by whom the honour was altogether undeserved, for at sight of the
mediciner, he began to shuffle away in the crowd as fast as his
infirmities would permit.
“There is an ungrateful hound for you,” said Doctor Lundin; “I cured
him of the gout in his feet, and now he talks of the chargeableness of
medicine, and makes the first use of his restored legs to fly from his
physician. His _podagra_ hath become a _chiragra_, as honest Martial
hath it--the gout has got into his fingers, and he cannot draw his
purse. Old saying and true,
Praemia cum poscit medicus, Sathan est.
We are angels when we come to cure--devils when we ask payment--but I
will administer a purgation to his purse I warrant him. There is his
brother too, a sordid chuff.--So ho, there! Saunders Darlet! you have
been ill, I hear?”
“Just got the turn, as I was thinking to send to your honour, and I am
brawly now again--it was nae great thing that ailed me.”
“Hark you, sirrah,” said the Doctor, “I trust you remember you are owing
to the laird four stones of barleymeal, and a bow of oats; and I would
have you send no more such kain-fowls as you sent last season, that
looked as wretchedly as patients just dismissed from a plague-hospital;
and there is hard money owing besides.”
“I was thinking, sir,” said the man, _more Scotico_, that is, returning
no direct answer on the subject on which he was addressed, “my best way
would be to come down to your honour, and take your advice yet, in case
my trouble should come back.”
“Do so, then, knave,” replied Lundin, “and remember what Ecclesiasticus
saith--'Give place to the physician-let him not go from thee, for thou
hast need of him.'”
His exhortation was interrupted by an apparition, which seemed to strike
the doctor with as much horror and surprise, as his own visage inflicted
upon sundry of those persons whom he had addressed.
The figure which produced this effect on the Esculapius of the village,
was that of a tall old woman, who wore a high-crowned hat and muffler.
The first of these habiliments added apparently to her stature, and
the other served to conceal the lower part of her face, and as the hat
itself was slouched, little could be seen besides two brown cheek-bones,
and the eyes of swarthy fire, that gleamed from under two shaggy gray
eyebrows. She was dressed in a long dark-coloured robe of unusual
fashion, bordered at the skirts, and on the stomacher, with a sort of
white trimming resembling the Jewish phylacteries, on which were wrought
the characters of some unknown language. She held in her hand a walking
staff of black ebony.
“By the soul of Celsus,” said Doctor Luke Lundin, “it is old Mother
Nicneven herself--she hath come to beard me within mine own bounds, and
in the very execution of mine office! Have at thy coat, Old Woman, as
the song says--Hob Anster, let her presently be seized and committed to
the tolbooth; and if there are any zealous brethren here who would give
the hag her deserts, and duck her, as a witch, in the loch, I pray let
them in no way be hindered.”
But the myrmidons of Dr. Lundin showed in this case no alacrity to do
his bidding. Hob Anster even ventured to remonstrate in the name of
himself and his brethren. “To be sure he was to do his honour's bidding;
and for a' that folks said about the skill and witcheries of Mother
Nicneven, he would put his trust in God, and his hand on her collar,
without dreadour. But she was no common spaewife, this Mother Nicneven,
like Jean Jopp that lived in the Bricrie-baulk. She had lords and lairds
that would ruffle for her. There was Moncrieff of Tippermalloch, that
was Popish, and the laird of Carslogie, a kend Queen's man, were in the
fair, with wha kend how mony swords and bucklers at their back; and they
would be sure to make a break-out if the officers meddled with the auld
Popish witch-wife, who was sae weel friended; mair especially as the
laird's best men, such as were not in the castle, were in Edinburgh with
him, and he doubted his honour the Doctor would find ower few to make a
good backing, if blades were bare.”
The doctor listened unwillingly to this prudential counsel, and was only
comforted by the faithful promise of his satellite, that “the old
woman should,” as he expressed it, “be ta'en canny the next time she
trespassed on the bounds.”
“And in that event,” said the Doctor to his companion, “fire and fagot
shall be the best of her welcome.”
This he spoke in hearing of the dame herself, who even then, and in
passing the Doctor, shot towards him from under her gray eyebrows a look
of the most insulting and contemptuous superiority.
“This way,” continued the physician, “this way,” marshalling his guest
into his lodging,--“take care you stumble not over a retort, for it is
hazardous for the ignorant to walk in the ways of art.”
The page found all reason for the caution; for besides stuffed birds,
and lizards, and snakes bottled up, and bundles of simples made up, and
other parcels spread out to dry, and all the confusion, not to mention
the mingled and sickening smells, incidental to a druggist's stock in
trade, he had also to avoid heaps of charcoal crucibles, bolt-heads,
stoves, and the other furniture of a chemical laboratory.
Amongst his other philosophical qualities, Doctor Lundin failed not to
be a confused sloven, and his old dame housekeeper, whose life, as she
said, was spent in “redding him up,” had trotted off to the mart of
gaiety with other and younger folks. Much chattering and jangling
therefore there was among jars, and bottles, and vials, ere the Doctor
produced the salutiferous potion which he recommended so strongly, and
a search equally long and noisy followed, among broken cans and cracked
pipkins, ere he could bring forth a cup out of which to drink it. Both
matters being at length achieved, the Doctor set the example to his
guest, by quaffing off a cup of the cordial, and smacking his lips with
approbation as it descended his gullet.--Roland, in turn, submitted to
swallow the potion which his host so earnestly recommended, but which
he found so insufferably bitter, that he became eager to escape from the
laboratory in search of a draught of fair water to expel the taste. In
spite of his efforts, he was nevertheless detained by the garrulity of
his host, till he gave him some account of Mother Nicneven.
“I care not to speak of her,” said the Doctor, “in the open air, and
among the throng of people; not for fright, like yon cowardly dog
Anster, but because I would give no occasion for a fray, having no
leisure to look to stabs, slashes, and broken bones. Men call the old
hag a prophetess--I do scarce believe she could foretell when a brood
of chickens will chip the shell--Men say she reads the heavens--my black
bitch knows as much of them when she sits baying the moon--Men pretend
the ancient wretch is a sorceress, a witch, and, what not--_Inter nos_,
I will never contradict a rumour which may bring her to the stake which
she so justly deserves; but neither will I believe that the tales of
witches which they din into our ears are aught but knavery, cozenage,
and old women's fables.”
“In the name of Heaven, what is she then,” said the page, “that you make
such a stir about her?”
“She is one of those cursed old women,” replied the Doctor, “who take
currently and impudently upon themselves to act as advisers and curers
of the sick, on the strength of some trash of herbs, some rhyme of
spells, some julap or diet, drink or cordial.”
“Nay, go no farther,” said the page; “if they brew cordials, evil be
their lot and all their partakers!”
“You say well, young man,” said Dr. Lundin; “for mine own part, I know
no such pests to the commonwealth as these old incarnate devils, who
haunt the chambers of the brain-sick patients, that are mad enough to
suffer them to interfere with, disturb, and let, the regular process of
a learned and artificial cure, with their sirups, and their julaps, and
diascordium, and mithridate, and my Lady What-shall-call'um's powder,
and worthy Dame Trashem's pill; and thus make widows and orphans, and
cheat the regular and well-studied physician, in order to get the
name of wise women and skeely neighbours, and so forth. But no more
on't--Mother Nicneven [Footnote: This was the name given to the grand
Mother Witch, the very Hecate of Scottish popular superstition. Her name
was bestowed, in one or two instances, upon sorceresses, who were held
to resemble her by their superior skill in “Hell's black grammar.”] and
I will meet one day, and she shall know there is danger in dealing with
the Doctor.”
“It is a true word, and many have found it,” said the page; “but under
your favour, I would fain walk abroad for a little, and see these
sports.”
“It is well moved,” said the Doctor, “and I too should be showing myself
abroad. Moreover the play waits us, young man-to-day, _totus mundus
agit histrionem_.”--And they sallied forth accordingly into the mirthful
scene.
Chapter the Twenty-Seventh.
See on yon verdant lawn, the gathering crowd
Thickens amain; the buxom nymphs advance,
Usher'd by jolly clowns; distinctions cease,
Lost in the common joy, and the bold slave
Leans on his wealthy master unreproved.
_Rural Games_.--SOMERVILLLE.
The re-appearance of the dignified Chamberlain on the street of the
village was eagerly hailed by the revellers, as a pledge that the
play, or dramatic representation, which had been postponed owing to his
absence, was now full surely to commence. Any thing like an approach
to this most interesting of all amusements, was of recent origin in
Scotland, and engaged public attention in proportion. All other sports
were discontinued. The dance around the Maypole was arrested--the ring
broken up and dispersed, while the dancers, each leading his partner by
the hand, tripped, off to the silvan theatre. A truce was in like
manner achieved betwixt a huge brown bear and certain mastiffs, who
were tugging and pulling at his shaggy coat, under the mediation of the
bear-ward and half a dozen butchers and yeomen, who, by dint of _staving
and tailing_, as it was technically termed, separated the unfortunate
animals, whose fury had for an hour past been their chief amusement.
The itinerant minstrel found himself deserted by the audience he had
collected, even in the most interesting passage of the romance which he
recited, and just as he was sending about his boy, with bonnet in hand,
to collect their oblations. He indignantly stopped short in the midst
of _Rosewal and Lilian_, and, replacing his three-stringed fiddle, or
rebeck, in its leathern case, followed the crowd, with no good-will, to
the exhibition which had superseded his own. The juggler had ceased his
exertions of emitting flame and smoke, and was content to respire in the
manner of ordinary mortals, rather than to play gratuitously the part
of a fiery dragon. In short, all other sports were suspended, so eagerly
did the revellers throng towards the place of representation.
They would err greatly, who should regulate their ideas of this dramatic
exhibition upon those derived from a modern theatre; for the rude shows
of Thespis were far less different from those exhibited by Euripides on
the stage of Athens, with all its magnificent decorations and pomp of
dresses and of scenery. In the present case, there were no scenes, no
stage, no machinery, no pit, box, and gallery, no box-lobby; and, what
might in poor Scotland be some consolation for other negations, there
was no taking of money at the door. As in the devices of the magnanimous
Bottom, the actors had a greensward plot for a stage, and a hawthorn
bush for a greenroom and tiring-house; the spectators being accommodated
with seats on the artificial bank which had been raised around
three-fourths of the playground, the remainder being left open for the
entrance and exit of the performers. Here sate the uncritical audience,
the Chamberlain in the centre, as the person highest in office, all
alive to enjoyment and admiration, and all therefore dead to criticism.
The characters which appeared and disappeared before the amused and
interested audience, were those which fill the earlier stage in all
nations--old men, cheated by their wives and daughters, pillaged by
their sons, and imposed on by their domestics, a braggadocia captain,
a knavish pardoner or quaestionary, a country bumpkin and a wanton city
dame. Amid all these, and more acceptable than almost the whole put
together, was the all-licensed fool, the Gracioso of the Spanish drama,
who, with his cap fashioned into the resemblance of a coxcomb, and his
bauble, a truncheon terminated by a carved figure wearing a fool's cap,
in his hand, went, came, and returned, mingling in every scene of the
piece, and interrupting the business, without having any share himself
in the action, and ever and anon transferring his gibes from the actors
on the stage to the audience who sate around, prompt to applaud the
whole.
The wit of the piece, which was not of the most polished kind, was
chiefly directed against the superstitious practices of the Catholic
religion; and the stage artillery had on this occasion been levelled
by no less a person than Doctor Lundin, who had not only commanded the
manager of the entertainment to select one of the numerous satires which
had been written against the Papists, (several of which were cast in a
dramatic form,) but had even, like the Prince of Denmark, caused them to
insert, or according to his own phrase, to infuse here and there, a
few pleasantries of his own penning, on the same inexhaustible subject,
hoping thereby to mollify the rigour of the Lady of Lochleven towards
pastimes of this description. He failed not to jog Roland's elbow,
who was sitting in state behind him, and recommend to his particular
attention those favourite passages. As for the page, to whom, the very
idea of such an exhibition, simple as it was, was entirely new, he
beheld it with the undiminished and ecstatic delight with which men
of all ranks look for the first time on dramatic representation, and
laughed, shouted, and clapped his hands as the performance proceeded. An
incident at length took place, which effectually broke off his interest
in the business of the scene.
One of the principal personages in the comic part of the drama was,
as we have already said, a quaestionary or pardoner, one of those
itinerants who hawked about from place to place relics, real or
pretended, with which he excited the devotion at once, and the charity
of the populace, and generally deceived both the one and the other. The
hypocrisy, impudence, and profligacy of these clerical wanderers, had
made them the subject of satire from the time of Chaucer down to that of
Heywood. Their present representative failed not to follow the same line
of humour, exhibiting pig's bones for relics, and boasting the virtues
of small tin crosses, which had been shaken in the holy porringer at
Loretto, and of cockleshells, which had been brought from the shrine
of Saint James of Compostella, all which he disposed of to the devout
Catholics at nearly as high a price as antiquaries are now willing
to pay for baubles of similar intrinsic value. At length the pardoner
pulled from his scrip a small phial of clear water, of which he vaunted
the quality in the following verses:--
Listneth, gode people, everiche one
For in the londe of Babylone,
Far eastward I wot it lyeth,
And is the first londe the sonne espieth,
Ther, as he cometh fro out the sé;
In this ilk londe, as thinketh me,
Right as holie legendes tell.
Snottreth from a roke a well,
And falleth into ane bath of ston,
Where chaste Susanne, in times long gon,
Wax wont to wash her bodie and lim
Mickle vertue hath that streme,
As ye shall se er that ye pas,
Ensample by this little glas--
Through nightés cold and dayés hote
Hiderward I have it brought;
Hath a wife made slip or side,
Or a maiden stepp'd aside,
Putteth this water under her nese,
Wold she nold she, she shall snese.
The jest, as the reader skilful in the antique language of the drama
must at once perceive, turned on the same pivot as in the old minstrel
tales of the Drinking Horn of King Arthur, and the Mantle made Amiss.
But the audience were neither learned nor critical enough to challenge
its want of originality. The potent relic was, after such grimace and
buffoonery as befitted the subject, presented successively to each
of the female personages of the drama, not one of whom sustained
the supposed test of discretion; but, to the infinite delight of the
audience, sneezed much louder and longer than perhaps they themselves
had counted on. The jest seemed at last worn threadbare, and the
pardoner was passing on to some new pleasantry, when the jester or clown
of the drama, possessing himself secretly of the phial which contained
the wondrous liquor, applied it suddenly to the nose of a young woman,
who, with her black silk muffler, or screen drawn over her face, was
sitting in the foremost rank of the spectators, intent apparently upon
the business of the stage. The contents of the phial, well calculated to
sustain the credit of the pardoner's legend, set the damsel a-sneezing
violently, an admission of frailty which was received with shouts
of rapture by the audience. These were soon, however, renewed at the
expense of the jester himself, when the insulted maiden extricated, ere
the paroxysm was well over, one hand from the folds of her mantle, and
bestowed on the wag a buffet, which made him reel fully his own
length from the pardoner, and then acknowledge the favour by instant
prostration.
No one pities a jester overcome in his vocation, and the clown met with
little sympathy, when, rising from the ground, and whimpering forth his
complaints of harsh treatment, he invoked the assistance and sympathy
of the audience. But the Chamberlain, feeling his own dignity insulted,
ordered two of his halberdiers to bring the culprit before him. When
these official persons first approached the virago, she threw herself
into an attitude of firm defiance, as if determined to resist their
authority; and from the sample of strength and spirit which she
had already displayed, they showed no alacrity at executing their
commission. But on half a minute's reflection, the damsel changed
totally her attitude and manner, folded her cloak around her arms in
modest and maiden-like fashion, and walked of her own accord to the
presence of the great man, followed and guarded by the two manful
satellites. As she moved across the vacant space, and more especially
as she stood at the footstool of the Doctor's judgment-seat, the maiden
discovered that lightness and elasticity of step, and natural grace of
manner, which connoisseurs in female beauty know to be seldom divided
from it. Moreover, her neat russet-coloured jacket, and short petticoat
of the same colour, displayed a handsome form and a pretty leg. Her
features were concealed by the screen; but the Doctor, whose gravity did
not prevent his pretensions to be a connoisseur of the school we have
hinted at, saw enough to judge favourably of the piece by the sample.
He began, however, with considerable austerity of manner.--“And how now,
saucy quean!” said the medical man of office; “what have you to say why
I should not order you to be ducked in the loch, for lifting your hand
to the man in my presence?”
“Marry,” replied the culprit, “because I judge that your honour will not
think the cold bath necessary for my complaints.”
“A pestilent jade,” said the Doctor, whispering to Roland Graeme; “and
I'll warrant her a good one--her voice is as sweet as sirup.--But,
my pretty maiden,” said he, “you show us wonderful little of that
countenance of yours--be pleased to throw aside your muffler.”
“I trust your honour will excuse me till we are more private,” answered
the maiden; “for I have acquaintance, and I should like ill to be known
in the country as the poor girl whom that scurvy knave put his jest
upon.”
“Fear nothing for thy good name, my sweet little modicum of candied
manna,” replied the Doctor, “for I protest to you, as I am Chamberlain
of Lochleven, Kinross, and so forth, that the chaste Susanna herself
could not have snuffed that elixir without sternutation, being in truth
a curious distillation of rectified _acetum_, or vinegar of the sun,
prepared by mine own hands--Wherefore, as thou sayest thou wilt come to
me in private, and express thy contrition for the offence whereof thou
hast been guilty, I command that all for the present go forward as if no
such interruption of the prescribed course had taken place.”
The damsel curtsied and tripped back to her place. The play proceeded,
but it no longer attracted the attention of Roland Graeme.
The voice, the figure, and what the veil permitted to be seen of the
neck and tresses of the village damsel, bore so strong a resemblance to
those of Catherine Seyton, that he felt like one bewildered in the
mazes of a changeful and stupifying dream. The memorable scene of
the hostelrie rushed on his recollection, with all its doubtful and
marvellous circumstances. Were the tales of enchantment which he
had read in romances realized in this extraordinary girl? Could she
transport herself from the walled and guarded Castle of Lochleven,
moated with its broad lake, (towards which he cast back a look as if to
ascertain it was still in existence,) and watched with such scrupulous
care as the safety of a nation demanded?--Could she surmount all these
obstacles, and make such careless and dangerous use of her liberty, as
to engage herself publicly in a quarrel in a village fair? Roland was
unable to determine whether the exertions which it must have cost her
to gain her freedom or the use to which she had put it, rendered her the
most unaccountable creature.