knight, with an assumption of dignified superiority and composure, “I
have the pleasure to inform you, that the name of my ancestor, Gamelyn
de Guardover, Miles, is written fairly with his own hand in the earliest
copy of the Ragman-roll.”
“Which only serves to show that he was one of the earliest who set the
mean example of submitting to Edward I. What have, you to say for the
stainless loyalty of your family, Sir Arthur, after such a backsliding
as that?”
“It’s enough, sir,” said Sir Arthur, starting up fiercely, and pushing
back his chair; “I shall hereafter take care how I honour with my
company one who shows himself so ungrateful for my condescension.”
“In that you will do as you find most agreeable, Sir Arthur;--I hope,
that as I was not aware of the extent of the obligation which you have
done me by visiting my poor house, I may be excused for not having
carried my gratitude to the extent of servility.”
“Mighty well--mighty well, Mr. Oldbuck--I wish you a good evening--Mr.
a--a--a--Shovel--I wish you a very good evening.”
Out of the parlour door flounced the incensed Sir Arthur, as if the
spirit of the whole Round Table inflamed his single bosom, and traversed
with long strides the labyrinth of passages which conducted to the
drawing-room.
“Did you ever hear such an old tup-headed ass?” said Oldbuck, briefly
apostrophizing Lovel. “But I must not let him go in this mad-like way
neither.”
So saying, he pushed off after the retreating Baronet, whom he traced
by the clang of several doors which he opened in search of the apartment
for tea, and slammed with force behind him at every disappointment.
“You’ll do yourself a mischief,” roared the Antiquary; “Qui ambulat in
tenebris, nescit quo vadit--You’ll tumble down the back-stair.”
Sir Arthur had now got involved in darkness, of which the sedative
effect is well known to nurses and governesses who have to deal with
pettish children. It retarded the pace of the irritated Baronet, if it
did not abate his resentment, and Mr. Oldbuck, better acquainted with
the locale, got up with him as he had got his grasp upon the handle of
the drawing-room door.
“Stay a minute, Sir Arthur,” said Oldbuck, opposing his abrupt entrance;
“don’t be quite so hasty, my good old friend. I was a little too rude
with you about Sir Gamelyn--why, he is an old acquaintance of mine, man,
and a favourite; he kept company with Bruce and Wallace--and, I’ll be
sworn on a black-letter Bible, only subscribed the Ragman-roll with
the legitimate and justifiable intention of circumventing the false
Southern--‘twas right Scottish craft, my good knight--hundreds did it.
Come, come, forget and forgive--confess we have given the young fellow
here a right to think us two testy old fools.”
“Speak for yourself, Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck,” said Sir Arthur with much
majesty.
“A-well, a-well--a wilful man must have his way.”
With that the door opened, and into the drawing-room marched the
tall gaunt form of Sir Arthur, followed by Lovel and Mr. Oldbuck, the
countenances of all the three a little discomposed.
“I have been waiting for you, sir,” said Miss Wardour, “to propose we
should walk forward to meet the carriage, as the evening is so fine.”
Sir Arthur readily assented to this proposal, which suited the angry
mood in which he found himself; and having, agreeable to the established
custom in cases of pet, refused the refreshment of tea and coffee, he
tucked his daughter under his arm; and after taking a ceremonious leave
of the ladies, and a very dry one of Oldbuck--off he marched.
“I think Sir Arthur has got the black dog on his back again,” said Miss
Oldbuck.
“Black dog!--black devil!--he’s more absurd than womankind--What say you,
Lovel?--Why, the lad’s gone too.”
“He took his leave, uncle, while Miss Wardour was putting on her things;
but I don’t think you observed him.”
“The devil’s in the people! This is all one gets by fussing and
bustling, and putting one’s self out of one’s way in order to give
dinners, besides all the charges they are put to!--O Seged, Emperor of
Ethiopia!” said he, taking up a cup of tea in the one hand, and a volume
of the Rambler in the other,--for it was his regular custom to read while
he was eating or drinking in presence of his sister, being a practice
which served at once to evince his contempt for the society of
womankind, and his resolution to lose no moment of instruction,--“O
Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia! well hast thou spoken--No man should presume
to say, This shall be a day of happiness.”
Oldbuck proceeded in his studies for the best part of an hour,
uninterrupted by the ladies, who each, in profound silence, pursued some
female employment. At length, a light and modest tap was heard at the
parlour door. “Is that you, Caxon?--come in, come in, man.”
The old man opened the door, and thrusting in his meagre face, thatched
with thin grey locks, and one sleeve of his white coat, said in a
subdued and mysterious tone of voice, “I was wanting to speak to you,
sir.”
“Come in then, you old fool, and say what you have got to say.”
“I’ll maybe frighten the ladies,” said the ex-friseur.
“Frighten!” answered the Antiquary,--“what do you mean?--never mind the
ladies. Have you seen another ghaist at the Humlock-knowe?”
“Na, sir--it’s no a ghaist this turn,” replied Caxton;--“but I’m no easy
in my mind.”
“Did you ever hear of any body that was?” answered Oldbuck;--“what reason
has an old battered powder-puff like you to be easy in your mind, more
than all the rest of the world besides?”
“It’s no for mysell, sir; but it threatens an awfu’ night; and Sir
Arthur, and Miss Wardour, poor thing”--
“Why, man, they must have met the carriage at the head of the loaning,
or thereabouts; they must be home long ago.”
“Na, sir; they didna gang the road by the turnpike to meet the carriage,
they gaed by the sands.”
The word operated like electricity on Oldbuck. “The sands!” he
exclaimed; “impossible!”
“Ou, sir, that’s what I said to the gardener; but he says he saw them
turn down by the Mussel-craig. In troth, says I to him, an that be the
case, Davie, I am misdoubting”--
“An almanac! an almanac!” said Oldbuck, starting up in great alarm--“not
that bauble!” flinging away a little pocket almanac which his niece
offered him.--“Great God! my poor dear Miss Isabella!--Fetch me instantly
the Fairport Almanac.”--It was brought, consulted, and added greatly to
his agitation. “I’ll go myself--call the gardener and ploughman--bid them
bring ropes and ladders--bid them raise more help as they come along--keep
the top of the cliffs, and halloo down to them--I’ll go myself.”
“What is the matter?” inquired Miss Oldbuck and Miss M’Intyre.
“The tide!--the tide!” answered the alarmed Antiquary.
“Had not Jenny better--but no, I’ll run myself,” said the younger lady,
partaking in all her uncle’s terrors--“I’ll run myself to Saunders
Mucklebackit, and make him get out his boat.”
“Thank you, my dear, that’s the wisest word that has been spoken
yet--Run! run!--To go by the sands!” seizing his hat and cane; “was there
ever such madness heard of!”
CHAPTER SEVENTH.
--Pleased awhile to view
The watery waste, the prospect wild and new;
The now receding waters gave them space,
On either side, the growing shores to trace
And then returning, they contract the scene,
Till small and smaller grows the walk between.
Crabbe.
The information of Davie Dibble, which had spread such general alarm at
Monkbarns, proved to be strictly correct. Sir Arthur and his
daughter had set out, according to their first proposal, to return to
Knockwinnock by the turnpike road; but when they reached the head of the
loaning, as it was called, or great lane, which on one side made a sort
of avenue to the house of Monkbarns, they discerned, a little way
before them, Lovel, who seemed to linger on the way as if to give him
an opportunity to join them. Miss Wardour immediately proposed to her
father that they should take another direction; and, as the weather
was fine, walk home by the sands, which, stretching below a picturesque
ridge of rocks, afforded at almost all times a pleasanter passage
between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns than the high-road.
[Illustration: Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour]
Sir Arthur acquiesced willingly. “It would be unpleasant,” he said, “to
be joined by that young fellow, whom Mr. Oldbuck had taken the freedom
to introduce them to.” And his old-fashioned politeness had none of the
ease of the present day which permits you, if you have a mind, to cut
the person you have associated with for a week, the instant you feel or
suppose yourself in a situation which makes it disagreeable to own him.
Sir Arthur only stipulated, that a little ragged boy, for the guerdon
of one penny sterling, should run to meet his coachman, and turn his
equipage back to Knockwinnock.
When this was arranged, and the emissary despatched, the knight and his
daughter left the high-road, and following a wandering path among sandy
hillocks, partly grown over with furze and the long grass called bent,
soon attained the side of the ocean. The tide was by no means so far out
as they had computed but this gave them no alarm;--there were seldom ten
days in the year when it approached so near the cliffs as not to leave a
dry passage. But, nevertheless, at periods of spring-tide, or even
when the ordinary flood was accelerated by high winds, this road was
altogether covered by the sea; and tradition had recorded several fatal
accidents which had happened on such occasions. Still, such dangers
were considered as remote and improbable; and rather served, with other
legends, to amuse the hamlet fireside, than to prevent any one from
going between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns by the sands.
As Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour paced along, enjoying the pleasant
footing afforded by the cool moist hard sand, Miss Wardour could not
help observing that the last tide had risen considerably above the
usual water-mark. Sir Arthur made the same observation, but without its
occurring to either of them to be alarmed at the circumstance. The sun
was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level ocean,
and gilded the accumulation of towering clouds through which he had
travelled the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, like
misfortunes and disasters around a sinking empire and falling monarch.
Still, however, his dying splendour gave a sombre magnificence to the
massive congregation of vapours, forming out of their unsubstantial
gloom the show of pyramids and towers, some touched with gold, some with
purple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched
beneath this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay almost portentously still,
reflecting back the dazzling and level beams of the descending luminary,
and the splendid colouring of the clouds amidst which he was setting.
Nearer to the beach the tide rippled onward in waves of sparkling
silver, that imperceptibly, yet rapidly, gained upon the sand.
With a mind employed in admiration of the romantic scene, or perhaps
on some more agitating topic, Miss Wardour advanced in silence by her
father’s side, whose recently offended dignity did not stoop to open
any conversation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed
one projecting point of headland or rock after another, and now found
themselves under a huge and continued extent of the precipices by which
that iron-bound coast is in most places defended. Long projecting reefs
of rock, extending under water and only evincing their existence by here
and there a peak entirely bare, or by the breakers which foamed over
those that were partially covered, rendered Knockwinnock bay dreaded by
pilots and ship-masters. The crags which rose between the beach and the
mainland, to the height of two or three hundred feet, afforded in
their crevices shelter for unnumbered sea-fowl, in situations seemingly
secured by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these
wild tribes, with the instinct which sends them to seek the land before
a storm arises, were now winging towards their nests with the shrill and
dissonant clang which announces disquietude and fear. The disk of the
sun became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether sunk below the
horizon, and an early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the serene
twilight of a summer evening. The wind began next to arise; but its
wild and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its effects became
visible on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on shore. The
mass of waters, now dark and threatening, began to lift itself in larger
ridges, and sink in deeper furrows, forming waves that rose high in
foam upon the breakers, or burst upon the beach with a sound resembling
distant thunder.
Appalled by this sudden change of weather, Miss Wardour drew close to
her father, and held his arm fast. “I wish,” at length she said,
but almost in a whisper, as if ashamed to express her increasing
apprehensions, “I wish we had kept the road we intended, or waited at
Monkbarns for the carriage.”
Sir Arthur looked round, but did not see, or would not acknowledge, any
signs of an immediate storm. They would reach Knockwinnock, he said,
long before the tempest began. But the speed with which he walked, and
with which Isabella could hardly keep pace, indicated a feeling that
some exertion was necessary to accomplish his consolatory prediction.
They were now near the centre of a deep but narrow bay or recess, formed
by two projecting capes of high and inaccessible rock, which shot out
into the sea like the horns of a crescent;--and neither durst communicate
the apprehension which each began to entertain, that, from the unusually
rapid advance of the tide, they might be deprived of the power of
proceeding by doubling the promontory which lay before them, or of
retreating by the road which brought them thither.
As they thus pressed forward, longing doubtless to exchange the easy
curving line, which the sinuosities of the bay compelled them to adopt,
for a straighter and more expeditious path, Sir Arthur observed a human
figure on the beach advancing to meet them. “Thank God,” he exclaimed,
“we shall get round Halket-head!--that person must have passed it;” thus
giving vent to the feeling of hope, though he had suppressed that of
apprehension.
“Thank God, indeed!” echoed his daughter, half audibly, half internally,
as expressing the gratitude which she strongly felt.
The figure which advanced to meet them made many signs, which the
haze of the atmosphere, now disturbed by wind and by a drizzling rain,
prevented them from seeing or comprehending distinctly.--Some time before
they met, Sir Arthur could recognise the old blue-gowned beggar, Edie
Ochiltree. It is said that even the brute creation lay aside their
animosities and antipathies when pressed by an instant and common
danger. The beach under Halket-head, rapidly diminishing in extent by
the encroachments of a spring-tide and a north-west wind, was in like
manner a neutral field, where even a justice of peace and a strolling
mendicant might meet upon terms of mutual forbearance.
“Turn back! turn back!” exclaimed the vagrant; “why did ye not turn when
I waved to you?”
“We thought,” replied Sir Arthur, in great agitation, “we thought we
could get round Halket-head.”
“Halket-head!--the tide will be running on Halket-head by this time like
the Fall of Fyers!--it was a’ I could do to get round it twenty minutes
since--it was coming in three feet abreast. We will maybe get back by
Bally-burgh Ness Point yet. The Lord help us!--it’s our only chance. We
can but try.”
“My God, my child!”--“My father! my dear father!” exclaimed the parent
and daughter, as, fear lending them strength and speed, they turned to
retrace their steps, and endeavoured to double the point, the projection
of which formed the southern extremity of the bay.
“I heard ye were here frae the bit callant ye sent to meet your
carriage,” said the beggar, as he trudged stoutly on a step or two
behind Miss Wardour; “and I couldna bide to think o’ the dainty young
leddy’s peril, that has aye been kind to ilka forlorn heart that cam
near her. Sae I lookit at the lift and the rin o’ the tide, till I
settled it that if I could get down time eneugh to gie you warning, we
wad do weel yet. But I doubt, I doubt, I have been beguiled! for what
mortal ee ever saw sic a race as the tide is risening e’en now? See,
yonder’s the Ratton’s Skerry--he aye held his neb abune the water in my
day--but he’s aneath it now.”
Sir Arthur cast a look in the direction in which the old man pointed. A
huge rock, which in general, even in spring-tides, displayed a hulk like
the keel of a large vessel, was now quite under water, and its place
only indicated by the boiling and breaking of the eddying waves which
encountered its submarine resistance.
“Mak haste, mak haste, my bonny leddy,” continued the old man--“mak
haste, and we may do yet! Take haud o’ my arm--an auld and frail arm it’s
now, but it’s been in as sair stress as this is yet. Take haud o’ my
arm, my winsome leddy! D’ye see yon wee black speck amang the wallowing
waves yonder? This morning it was as high as the mast o’ a brig--it’s
sma’ eneugh now--but, while I see as muckle black about it as the crown
o’ my hat, I winna believe but we’ll get round the Ballyburgh Ness, for
a’ that’s come and gane yet.”
Isabella, in silence, accepted from the old man the assistance which Sir
Arthur was less able to afford her. The waves had now encroached so much
upon the beach, that the firm and smooth footing which they had hitherto
had on the sand must be exchanged for a rougher path close to the foot
of the precipice, and in some places even raised upon its lower ledges.
It would have been utterly impossible for Sir Arthur Wardour, or his
daughter, to have found their way along these shelves without the
guidance and encouragement of the beggar, who had been there before in
high tides, though never, he acknowledged, “in sae awsome a night as
this.”
It was indeed a dreadful evening. The howling of the storm mingled with
the shrieks of the sea-fowl, and sounded like the dirge of the three
devoted beings, who, pent between two of the most magnificent, yet
most dreadful objects of nature--a raging tide and an insurmountable
precipice--toiled along their painful and dangerous path, often lashed by
the spray of some giant billow, which threw itself higher on the beach
than those that had preceded it. Each minute did their enemy gain ground
perceptibly upon them! Still, however, loth to relinquish the last
hopes of life, they bent their eyes on the black rock pointed out
by Ochiltree. It was yet distinctly visible among the breakers, and
continued to be so, until they came to a turn in their precarious
path, where an intervening projection of rock hid it from their sight.
Deprived of the view of the beacon on which they had relied, they now
experienced the double agony of terror and suspense. They struggled
forward, however; but, when they arrived at the point from which they
ought to have seen the crag, it was no longer visible: the signal of
safety was lost among a thousand white breakers, which, dashing upon
the point of the promontory, rose in prodigious sheets of snowy foam,
as high as the mast of a first-rate man-of-war, against the dark brow of
the precipice.
The countenance of the old man fell. Isabella gave a faint shriek,
and, “God have mercy upon us!” which her guide solemnly uttered, was
piteously echoed by Sir Arthur--“My child! my child!--to die such a
death!”
“My father! my dear father!” his daughter exclaimed, clinging to
him--“and you too, who have lost your own life in endeavouring to save
ours!”
“That’s not worth the counting,” said the old man. “I hae lived to be
weary o’ life; and here or yonder--at the back o’ a dyke, in a wreath o’
snaw, or in the wame o’ a wave, what signifies how the auld gaberlunzie
dies?”
“Good man,” said Sir Arthur, “can you think of nothing?--of no help?--I’ll
make you rich--I’ll give you a farm--I’ll”--
“Our riches will be soon equal,” said the beggar, looking out upon the
strife of the waters--“they are sae already; for I hae nae land, and you
would give your fair bounds and barony for a square yard of rock that
would be dry for twal hours.”
While they exchanged these words, they paused upon the highest ledge of
rock to which they could attain; for it seemed that any further attempt
to move forward could only serve to anticipate their fate. Here, then,
they were to await the sure though slow progress of the raging element,
something in the situation of the martyrs of the early church, who,
exposed by heathen tyrants to be slain by wild beasts, were compelled
for a time to witness the impatience and rage by which the animals
were agitated, while awaiting the signal for undoing their grates, and
letting them loose upon the victims.
Yet even this fearful pause gave Isabella time to collect the powers of
a mind naturally strong and courageous, and which rallied itself at this
terrible juncture. “Must we yield life,” she said, “without a struggle?
Is there no path, however dreadful, by which we could climb the crag, or
at least attain some height above the tide, where we could remain till
morning, or till help comes? They must be aware of our situation, and
will raise the country to relieve us.”
Sir Arthur, who heard, but scarcely comprehended, his daughter’s
question, turned, nevertheless, instinctively and eagerly to the old
man, as if their lives were in his gift. Ochiltree paused--“I was a
bauld craigsman,” he said, “ance in my life, and mony a kittywake’s and
lungie’s nest hae I harried up amang thae very black rocks; but it’s
lang, lang syne, and nae mortal could speel them without a rope--and if
I had ane, my ee-sight, and my footstep, and my hand-grip, hae a’ failed
mony a day sinsyne--And then, how could I save you? But there was a path
here ance, though maybe, if we could see it, ye would rather bide where
we are--His name be praised!” he ejaculated suddenly, “there’s ane coming
down the crag e’en now!”--Then, exalting his voice, he hilloa’d out to
the daring adventurer such instructions as his former practice, and
the remembrance of local circumstances, suddenly forced upon his
mind:--“Ye’re right!--ye’re right!--that gate--that gate!--fasten the rope
weel round Crummies-horn, that’s the muckle black stane--cast twa plies
round it--that’s it!--now, weize yoursell a wee easel-ward--a wee mair yet
to that ither stane--we ca’d it the Cat’s-lug--there used to be the root
o’ an aik tree there--that will do!--canny now, lad--canny now--tak tent and
tak time--Lord bless ye, tak time--Vera weel!--Now ye maun get to Bessy’s
apron, that’s the muckle braid flat blue stane--and then, I think, wi’
your help and the tow thegither, I’ll win at ye, and then we’ll be able
to get up the young leddy and Sir Arthur.”
The adventurer, following the directions of old Edie, flung him down
the end of the rope, which he secured around Miss Wardour, wrapping her
previously in his own blue gown, to preserve her as much as possible
from injury. Then, availing himself of the rope, which was made fast at
the other end, he began to ascend the face of the crag--a most precarious
and dizzy undertaking, which, however, after one or two perilous
escapes, placed him safe on the broad flat stone beside our friend
Lovel. Their joint strength was able to raise Isabella to the place of
safety which they had attained. Lovel then descended in order to assist
Sir Arthur, around whom he adjusted the rope; and again mounting to
their place of refuge, with the assistance of old Ochiltree, and such
aid as Sir Arthur himself could afford, he raised himself beyond the
reach of the billows.
[Illustration: The Rescue of Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour]