occupied by the event of the Countess’s death; “she was a hard-hearted
woman, but she’s gaen to account for it a’, and His mercy is infinite--
God grant she may find it sae!” And she relapsed into silence, which she
did not break again during the rest of the evening.
“I wonder what that auld daft beggar carle and our son Steenie can be
doing out in sic a nicht as this,” said Maggie Mucklebackit; and her
expression of surprise was echoed by her visitor. “Gang awa, ane o’ ye,
hinnies, up to the heugh head, and gie them a cry in case they’re within
hearing; the car-cakes will be burnt to a cinder.”
The little emissary departed, but in a few minutes came running back
with the loud exclamation, “Eh, Minnie! eh, grannie! there’s a white
bogle chasing twa black anes down the heugh.”
A noise of footsteps followed this singular annunciation, and young
Steenie Mucklebackit, closely followed by Edie Ochiltree, bounced into
the hut. They were panting and out of breath. The first thing Steenie
did was to look for the bar of the door, which his mother reminded him
had been broken up for fire-wood in the hard winter three years ago;
“for what use,” she said, “had the like o’ them for bars?”
“There’s naebody chasing us,” said the beggar, after he had taken his
breath: “we’re e’en like the wicked, that flee when no one pursueth.”
“Troth, but we were chased,” said Steenie, “by a spirit or something
little better.”
“It was a man in white on horseback,” said Edie, “for the soft grund
that wadna bear the beast, flung him about, I wot that weel; but I didna
think my auld legs could have brought me aff as fast; I ran amaist as
fast as if I had been at Prestonpans.” *
* [This refers to the flight of the government forces at the battle of
Prestonpans, 1745.]
“Hout, ye daft gowks!” said Luckie Mucklebackit, “it will hae been some
o’ the riders at the Countess’s burial.”
“What!” said Edie, “is the auld Countess buried the night at St. Ruth’s?
Ou, that wad be the lights and the noise that scarr’d us awa; I wish I
had ken’d--I wad hae stude them, and no left the man yonder--but they’ll
take care o’ him. Ye strike ower hard, Steenie I doubt ye foundered the
chield.”
“Neer a bit,” said Steenie, laughing; “he has braw broad shouthers, and
I just took measure o’ them wi’ the stang. Od, if I hadna been something
short wi’ him, he wad hae knockit your auld hams out, lad.”
“Weel, an I win clear o’ this scrape,” said Edie, “I’se tempt Providence
nae mair. But I canna think it an unlawfu’ thing to pit a bit trick on
sic a landlouping scoundrel, that just lives by tricking honester folk.”
“But what are we to do with this?” said Steenie, producing a
pocket-book.
“Od guide us, man,” said Edie in great alarm, “what garr’d ye touch the
gear? a very leaf o’ that pocket-book wad be eneugh to hang us baith.”
“I dinna ken,” said Steenie; “the book had fa’en out o’ his pocket, I
fancy, for I fand it amang my feet when I was graping about to set him
on his logs again, and I just pat it in my pouch to keep it safe; and
then came the tramp of horse, and you cried, Rin, rin,’ and I had nae
mair thought o’ the book.”
“We maun get it back to the loon some gait or other; ye had better take
it yoursell, I think, wi’ peep o’ light, up to Ringan Aikwood’s. I wadna
for a hundred pounds it was fund in our hands.”
Steenie undertook to do as he was directed.
“A bonny night ye hae made o’t, Mr. Steenie,” said Jenny Rintherout,
who, impatient of remaining so long unnoticed, now presented herself to
the young fisherman--“A bonny night ye hae made o’t, tramping about wi’
gaberlunzies, and getting yoursell hunted wi’ worricows, when ye suld be
sleeping in your bed, like your father, honest man.”
This attack called forth a suitable response of rustic raillery from
the young fisherman. An attack was now commenced upon the car-cakes and
smoked fish, and sustained with great perseverance by assistance of a
bicker or two of twopenny ale and a bottle of gin. The mendicant then
retired to the straw of an out-house adjoining,--the children had one
by one crept into their nests,--the old grandmother was deposited in
her flock-bed,--Steenie, notwithstanding his preceding fatigue, had the
gallantry to accompany Miss Rintherout to her own mansion, and at what
hour he returned the story saith not,--and the matron of the family,
having laid the gathering-coal upon the fire, and put things in some
sort of order, retired to rest the last of the family.
CHAPTER SIXTH.
--Many great ones
Would part with half their states, to have the plan
And credit to beg in the first style.
Beggar’s Bush.
Old Edie was stirring with the lark, and his first inquiry was after
Steenie and the pocket-book. The young fisherman had been under the
necessity of attending his father before daybreak, to avail themselves
of the tide, but he had promised that, immediately on his return, the
pocket-book, with all its contents, carefully wrapped up in a piece
of sail-cloth, should be delivered by him to Ringan Aikwood, for
Dousterswivel, the owner.
The matron had prepared the morning meal for the family, and,
shouldering her basket of fish, tramped sturdily away towards Fairport.
The children were idling round the door, for the day was fair and
sun-shiney. The ancient grandame, again seated on her wicker-chair by
the fire, had resumed her eternal spindle, wholly unmoved by the yelling
and screaming of the children, and the scolding of the mother, which
had preceded the dispersion of the family. Edie had arranged his various
bags, and was bound for the renewal of his wandering life, but first
advanced with due courtesy to take his leave of the ancient crone.
“Gude day to ye, cummer, and mony ane o’ them. I will be back about the
fore-end o’har’st, and I trust to find ye baith haill and fere.”
“Pray that ye may find me in my quiet grave,” said the old woman, in
a hollow and sepulchral voice, but without the agitation of a single
feature.
“Ye’re auld, cummer, and sae am I mysell; but we maun abide His will--
we’ll no be forgotten in His good time.”
“Nor our deeds neither,” said the crone: “what’s dune in the body maun
be answered in the spirit.”
“I wot that’s true; and I may weel tak the tale hame to mysell, that hae
led a misruled and roving life. But ye were aye a canny wife. We’re a’
frail--but ye canna hae sae muckle to bow ye down.”
“Less than I might have had--but mair, O far mair, than wad sink the
stoutest brig e’er sailed out o’ Fairport harbour!--Didna somebody say
yestreen--at least sae it is borne in on my mind, but auld folk hae weak
fancies--did not somebody say that Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, was
departed frae life?”
“They said the truth whaever said it,” answered old Edie; “she was
buried yestreen by torch-light at St. Ruth’s, and I, like a fule, gat a
gliff wi’ seeing the lights and the riders.”
“It was their fashion since the days of the Great Earl that was killed
at Harlaw;--they did it to show scorn that they should die and be buried
like other mortals; the wives o’ the house of Glenallan wailed nae wail
for the husband, nor the sister for the brother.--But is she e’en ca’d to
the lang account?”
“As sure,” answered Edie, “as we maun a’ abide it.”
“Then I’ll unlade my mind, come o’t what will.”
This she spoke with more alacrity than usually attended her expressions,
and accompanied her words with an attitude of the hand, as if throwing
something from her. She then raised up her form, once tall, and still
retaining the appearance of having been so, though bent with age and
rheumatism, and stood before the beggar like a mummy animated by some
wandering spirit into a temporary resurrection. Her light-blue eyes
wandered to and fro, as if she occasionally forgot and again remembered
the purpose for which her long and withered hand was searching among the
miscellaneous contents of an ample old-fashioned pocket. At length she
pulled out a small chip-box, and opening it, took out a handsome ring,
in which was set a braid of hair, composed of two different colours,
black and light brown, twined together, encircled with brilliants of
considerable value.
“Gudeman,” she said to Ochiltree, “as ye wad e’er deserve mercy, ye maun
gang my errand to the house of Glenallan, and ask for the Earl.”
“The Earl of Glenallan, cummer! ou, he winna see ony o’ the gentles o’
the country, and what likelihood is there that he wad see the like o’ an
auld gaberlunzie?”
“Gang your ways and try;--and tell him that Elspeth o’ the
Craigburnfoot--he’ll mind me best by that name--maun see him or she be
relieved frae her lang pilgrimage, and that she sends him that ring in
token of the business she wad speak o’.”
Ochiltree looked on the ring with some admiration of its apparent value,
and then carefully replacing it in the box, and wrapping it in an old
ragged handkerchief, he deposited the token in his bosom.
“Weel, gudewife,” he said, “I’se do your bidding, or it’s no be my
fault. But surely there was never sic a braw propine as this sent to
a yerl by an auld fishwife, and through the hands of a gaberlunzie
beggar.”
With this reflection, Edie took up his pike-staff, put on his
broad-brimmed bonnet, and set forth upon his pilgrimage. The old woman
remained for some time standing in a fixed posture, her eyes directed
to the door through which her ambassador had departed. The appearance
of excitation, which the conversation had occasioned, gradually left
her features; she sank down upon her accustomed seat, and resumed her
mechanical labour of the distaff and spindle, with her wonted air of
apathy.
Edie Ochiltree meanwhile advanced on his journey. The distance to
Glenallan was ten miles, a march which the old soldier accomplished in
about four hours. With the curiosity belonging to his idle trade and
animated character, he tortured himself the whole way to consider
what could be the meaning of this mysterious errand with which he was
entrusted, or what connection the proud, wealthy, and powerful Earl
of Glenallan could have with the crimes or penitence of an old doting
woman, whose rank in life did not greatly exceed that of her messenger.
He endeavoured to call to memory all that he had ever known or heard of
the Glenallan family, yet, having done so, remained altogether unable
to form a conjecture on the subject. He knew that the whole extensive
estate of this ancient and powerful family had descended to the
Countess, lately deceased, who inherited, in a most remarkable degree,
the stern, fierce, and unbending character which had distinguished the
house of Glenallan since they first figured in Scottish annals. Like
the rest of her ancestors, she adhered zealously to the Roman Catholic
faith, and was married to an English gentleman of the same communion,
and of large fortune, who did not survive their union two years. The
Countess was, therefore, left an early widow, with the uncontrolled
management of the large estates of her two sons. The elder, Lord
Geraldin, who was to succeed to the title and fortune of Glenallan, was
totally dependent on his mother during her life. The second, when
he came of age, assumed the name and arms of his father, and took
possession of his estate, according to the provisions of the Countess’s
marriage-settlement. After this period, he chiefly resided in England,
and paid very few and brief visits to his mother and brother; and these
at length were altogether dispensed with, in consequence of his becoming
a convert to the reformed religion.
But even before this mortal offence was given to its mistress, his
residence at Glenallan offered few inducements to a gay young man like
Edward Geraldin Neville, though its gloom and seclusion seemed to suit
the retired and melancholy habits of his elder brother. Lord Geraldin,
in the outset of life, had been a young man of accomplishment and hopes.
Those who knew him upon his travels entertained the highest expectations
of his future career. But such fair dawns are often strangely overcast.
The young nobleman returned to Scotland, and after living about a year
in his mother’s society at Glenallan House, he seemed to have adopted
all the stern gloom and melancholy of her character. Excluded from
politics by the incapacities attached to those of his religion, and
from all lighter avocationas by choice, Lord Geraldin led a life of the
strictest retirement. His ordinary society was composed of the clergyman
of his communion, who occasionally visited his mansion; and very rarely,
upon stated occasions of high festival, one or two families who still
professed the Catholic religion were formally entertained at Glenallan
House. But this was all; their heretic neighbours knew nothing of
the family whatever; and even the Catholics saw little more than the
sumptuous entertainment and solemn parade which was exhibited on those
formal occasions, from which all returned without knowing whether most
to wonder at the stern and stately demeanour of the Countess, or the
deep and gloomy dejection which never ceased for a moment to cloud the
features of her son. The late event had put him in possession of his
fortune and title, and the neighbourhood had already begun to conjecture
whether gaiety would revive with independence, when those who had some
occasional acquaintance with the interior of the family spread abroad
a report, that the Earl’s constitution was undermined by religious
austerities, and that in all probability he would soon follow his mother
to the grave. This event was the more probable, as his brother had died
of a lingering complaint, which, in the latter years of his life,
had affected at once his frame and his spirits; so that heralds and
genealogists were already looking back into their records to discover
the heir of this ill-fated family, and lawyers were talking with
gleesome anticipation, of the probability of a “great Glenallan cause.”
As Edie Ochiltree approached the front of Glenallan House,* an ancient
building of great extent, the most modern part of which had been
designed by the celebrated Inigo Jones, he began to consider in what
way he should be most likely to gain access for delivery of his message;
and, after much consideration, resolved to send the token to the Earl by
one of the domestics.
* [Supposed to represent Glammis Castle, in Forfarshire, with which the
Author was well acquainted.]
With this purpose he stopped at a cottage, where he obtained the means
of making up the ring in a sealed packet like a petition, addressed,
Forr his hounor the Yerl of Glenllan--These. But being aware that
missives delivered at the doors of great houses by such persons as
himself, do not always make their way according to address, Edie
determined, like an old soldier, to reconnoitre the ground before
he made his final attack. As he approached the porter’s lodge, he
discovered, by the number of poor ranked before it, some of them being
indigent persons in the vicinity, and others itinerants of his own
begging profession,--that there was about to be a general dole or
distribution of charity.
“A good turn,” said Edie to himself, “never goes unrewarded--I’ll maybe
get a good awmous that I wad hae missed but for trotting on this auld
wife’s errand.”
Accordingly, he ranked up with the rest of this ragged regiment,
assuming a station as near the front as possible,--a distinction due, as
he conceived, to his blue gown and badge, no less than to his years and
experience; but he soon found there was another principle of precedence
in this assembly, to which he had not adverted.
“Are ye a triple man, friend, that ye press forward sae bauldly?--I’m
thinking no, for there’s nae Catholics wear that badge.”
“Na, na, I am no a Roman,” said Edie.
“Then shank yoursell awa to the double folk, or single folk, that’s the
Episcopals or Presbyterians yonder: it’s a shame to see a heretic hae
sic a lang white beard, that would do credit to a hermit.”
Ochiltree, thus rejected from the society of the Catholic mendicants,
or those who called themselves such, went to station himself with the
paupers of the communion of the church of England, to whom the noble
donor allotted a double portion of his charity. But never was a
poor occasional conformist more roughly rejected by a High-church
congregation, even when that matter was furiously agitated in the days
of good Queen Anne.
“See to him wi’ his badge!” they said;--“he hears ane o’ the king’s
Presbyterian chaplains sough out a sermon on the morning of every
birth-day, and now he would pass himsell for ane o’ the Episcopal
church! Na, na!--we’ll take care o’ that.”
Edie, thus rejected by Rome and Prelacy, was fain to shelter himself
from the laughter of his brethren among the thin group of Presbyterians,
who had either disdained to disguise their religious opinions for the
sake of an augmented dole, or perhaps knew they could not attempt the
imposition without a certainty of detection.
The same degree of precedence was observed in the mode of distributing
the charity, which consisted in bread, beef, and a piece of money, to
each individual of all the three classes. The almoner, an ecclesiastic
of grave appearance and demeanour, superintended in person the
accommodation of the Catholic mendicants, asking a question or two of
each as he delivered the charity, and recommending to their prayers
the soul of Joscelind, late Countess of Glenallan, mother of their
benefactor. The porter, distinguished by his long staff headed with
silver, and by the black gown tufted with lace of the same colour, which
he had assumed upon the general mourning in the family, overlooked
the distribution of the dole among the prelatists. The less-favoured
kirk-folk were committed to the charge of an aged domestic.
As this last discussed some disputed point with the porter, his name, as
it chanced to be occasionally mentioned, and then his features, struck
Ochiltree, and awakened recollections of former times. The rest of the
assembly were now retiring, when the domestic, again approaching the
place where Edie still lingered, said, in a strong Aberdeenshire accent,
“Fat is the auld feel-body deeing, that he canna gang avay, now that
he’s gotten baith meat and siller?”
“Francis Macraw,” answered Edie Ochiltree, “d’ye no mind Fontenoy, and
keep thegither front and rear?’”
“Ohon! ohon!” cried Francie, with a true north-country yell of
recognition, “naebody could hae said that word but my auld front-rank
man, Edie Ochiltree! But I’m sorry to see ye in sic a peer state, man.”
“No sae ill aff as ye may think, Francis. But I’m laith to leave this
place without a crack wi’ you, and I kenna when I may see you again, for
your folk dinna mak Protestants welcome, and that’s ae reason that I hae
never been here before.”
“Fusht, fusht,” said Francie, “let that flee stick i’ the wa’--when the
dirt’s dry it will rub out;--and come you awa wi’ me, and I’ll gie ye
something better thau that beef bane, man.”
Having then spoke a confidential word with the porter (probably to
request his connivance), and having waited until the almoner had
returned into the house with slow and solemn steps, Francie Macraw
introduced his old comrade into the court of Glenallan House, the gloomy
gateway of which was surmounted by a huge scutcheon, in which the herald
and undertaker had mingled, as usual, the emblems of human pride and of
human nothingness,--the Countess’s hereditary coat-of-arms, with all
its numerous quarterings, disposed in a lozenge, and surrounded by the
separate shields of her paternal and maternal ancestry, intermingled
with scythes, hour glasses, skulls, and other symbols of that mortality
which levels all distinctions. Conducting his friend as speedily as
possible along the large paved court, Macraw led the way through a
side-door to a small apartment near the servants’ hall, which, in virtue
of his personal attendance upon the Earl of Glenallan, he was entitled
to call his own. To produce cold meat of various kinds, strong beer,
and even a glass of spirits, was no difficulty to a person of Francis’s
importance, who had not lost, in his sense of conscious dignity, the
keen northern prudence which recommended a good understanding with the
butler. Our mendicant envoy drank ale, and talked over old stories
with his comrade, until, no other topic of conversation occurring, he
resolved to take up the theme of his embassy, which had for some time
escaped his memory.
“He had a petition to present to the Earl,” he said;--for he judged
it prudent to say nothing of the ring, not knowing, as he afterwards
observed, how far the manners of a single soldier* might have been
corrupted by service in a great house.
* A single soldier means, in Scotch, a private soldier.
“Hout, tout, man,” said Francie, “the Earl will look at nae petitions--
but I can gie’t to the almoner.”
“But it relates to some secret, that maybe my lord wad like best to
see’t himsell.”
“I’m jeedging that’s the very reason that the almoner will be for seeing
it the first and foremost.”
“But I hae come a’ this way on purpose to deliver it, Francis, and ye
really maun help me at a pinch.”
“Neer speed then if I dinna,” answered the Aberdeenshire man: “let them
be as cankered as they like, they can but turn me awa, and I was
just thinking to ask my discharge, and gang down to end my days at
Inverurie.”
With this doughty resolution of serving his friend at all ventures,
since none was to be encountered which could much inconvenience himself,
Francie Macraw left the apartment. It was long before he returned, and
when he did, his manner indicated wonder and agitation.
“I am nae seer gin ye be Edie Ochiltree o’ Carrick’s company in the
Forty-twa, or gin ye be the deil in his likeness!”
“And what makes ye speak in that gait?” demanded the astonished
mendicant.
“Because my lord has been in sic a distress and surpreese as I neer saw
a man in my life. But he’ll see you--I got that job cookit. He was like a
man awa frae himsell for mony minutes, and I thought he wad hae swarv’t
a’thegither,--and fan he cam to himsell, he asked fae brought the
packet--and fat trow ye I said?”
“An auld soger,” says Edie--“that does likeliest at a gentle’s door; at
a farmer’s it’s best to say ye’re an auld tinkler, if ye need ony
quarters, for maybe the gudewife will hae something to souther.”
“But I said neer ane o’ the twa,” answered Francis; “my lord cares
as little about the tane as the tother--for he’s best to them that can
souther up our sins. Sae I e’en said the bit paper was brought by an
auld man wi’ a long fite beard--he might be a capeechin freer for fat I
ken’d, for he was dressed like an auld palmer. Sae ye’ll be sent up for
fanever he can find mettle to face ye.”
“I wish I was weel through this business,” thought Edie to himself;
“mony folk surmise that the Earl’s no very right in the judgment, and
wha can say how far he may be offended wi’ me for taking upon me sae
muckle?”
But there was now no room for retreat--a bell sounded from a distant part
of the mansion, and Macraw said, with a smothered accent, as if already
in his master’s presence, “That’s my lord’s bell!--follow me, and step
lightly and cannily, Edie.”