LATIMER’S JOURNAL, IN CONTINUATION
I spent more than an hour, after returning to the apartment which I may
call my prison, in reducing to writing the singular circumstances which
I had just witnessed. Methought I could now form some guess at the
character of Mr. Herries, upon whose name and situation the late
scene had thrown considerable light--one of those fanatical Jacobites,
doubtless, whose arms, not twenty years since, had shaken the British
throne, and some of whom, though their party daily diminished in
numbers, energy, and power, retained still an inclination to renew the
attempt they had found so desperate. He was indeed perfectly different
from the sort of zealous Jacobites whom it had been my luck hitherto to
meet with. Old ladies of family over their hyson, and grey-haired lairds
over their punch, I had often heard utter a little harmless treason;
while the former remembered having led down a dance with the Chevalier,
and the latter recounted the feats they had performed at Preston,
Clifton, and Falkirk.
The disaffection of such persons was too unimportant to excite the
attention of government. I had heard, however, that there still
existed partisans of the Stuart family of a more daring and dangerous
description; men who, furnished with gold from Rome, moved, secretly and
in disguise, through the various classes of society, and endeavoured to
keep alive the expiring zeal of their party.
I had no difficulty in assigning an important post among this class of
persons, whose agency and exertion are only doubted by those who look
on the surface of things, to this Mr. Herries, whose mental energies, as
well as his personal strength and activity, seemed to qualify him
well to act so dangerous a part; and I knew that all along the Western
Border, both in England and Scotland, there are so many nonjurors, that
such a person may reside there with absolute safety, unless it becomes,
in a very especial degree, the object of the government to secure his
person; and which purpose, even then, might be disappointed by early
intelligence, or, as in the case of Mr. Foxley, by the unwillingness
of provincial magistrates to interfere in what is now considered an
invidious pursuit of the unfortunate.
There have, however, been rumours lately, as if the present state of the
nation or at least of some discontented provinces, agitated by a
variety of causes but particularly by the unpopularity of the present
administration, may seem to this species of agitators a favourable
period for recommencing their intrigues; while, on the other hand,
government may not, at such a crisis, be inclined to look upon them
with the contempt which a few years ago would have been their most
appropriate punishment.
That men should be found rash enough to throw away their services and
lives in a desperate cause, is nothing new in history, which abounds
with instances of similar devotion--that Mr. Herries is such an
enthusiast is no less evident; but all this explains not his conduct
towards me. Had he sought to make me a proselyte to his ruined cause,
violence and compulsion were arguments very unlikely to prevail with any
generous spirit. But even if such were his object, of what use to him
could be the acquisition of a single reluctant partisan, who could bring
only his own person to support any quarrel which he might adopt? He had
claimed over me the rights of a guardian; he had more than hinted that
I was in a state of mind which could not dispense with the authority of
such a person. Was this man, so sternly desperate in his purpose--he
who seemed willing to take on his own shoulders the entire support of
a cause which had been ruinous to thousands--was he the person that had
the power of deciding on my fate? Was it from him those dangers flowed,
to secure me against which I had been educated under such circumstances
of secrecy and precaution?
And if this was so, of what nature was the claim which he asserted?--Was
it that of propinquity? And did I share the blood, perhaps the features,
of this singular being?--Strange as it may seem, a thrill of awe, which
shot across my mind at that instant, was not unmingled with a wild and
mysterious feeling of wonder, almost amounting to pleasure. I remembered
the reflection of my own face in the mirror at one striking moment
during the singular interview of the day, and I hastened to the outward
apartment to consult a glass which hung there, whether it were possible
for my countenance to be again contorted into the peculiar frown which
so much resembled the terrific look of Herries. But I folded my brows
in vain into a thousand complicated wrinkles, and I was obliged to
conclude, either that the supposed mark on my brow was altogether
imaginary, or that it could not be called forth by voluntary effort; or,
in fine, what seemed most likely, that it was such a resemblance as the
imagination traces in the embers of a wood fire, or among the varied
veins of marble, distinct at one time, and obscure or invisible at
another, according as the combination of lines strikes the eye or
impresses the fancy.
While I was moulding my visage like a mad player, the door suddenly
opened, and the girl of the house entered. Angry and ashamed at being
detected in my singular occupation, I turned round sharply, and, I
suppose, chance produced the change on my features which I had been in
vain labouring to call forth.
The girl started back, with her ‘Don’t ya look so now--don’t ye, for
love’s sake--you be as like the ould squoire as--But here a comes,’ she
said, huddling away out of the room; ‘and if you want a third, there is
none but ould Harry, as I know of, that can match ye for a brent broo!’
As the girl muttered this exclamation, and hastened out of the room,
Herries entered. He stopped on observing that I had looked again to the
mirror, anxious to trace the look by which the wench had undoubtedly
been terrified. He seemed to guess what was passing in my mind, for, as
I turned towards him, he observed, ‘Doubt not that it is stamped on your
forehead--the fatal mark of our race; though it is not now so apparent
as it will become when age and sorrow, and the traces of stormy passions
and of bitter penitence, shall have drawn their furrows on your brow.’
‘Mysterious man,’ I replied, ‘I know not of what you speak; your
language is as dark as your purposes!’
‘Sit down, then,’ he said, ‘and listen; thus far, at least, must the
veil of which you complain be raised. When withdrawn, it will only
display guilt and sorrow--guilt followed by strange penalty, and sorrow
which Providence has entailed upon the posterity of the mourners.’
He paused a moment, and commenced his narrative, which he told with the
air of one, who, remote as the events were which he recited, took
still the deepest interest in them. The tone of his voice, which I have
already described as rich and powerful, aided by its inflections the
effects of his story, which I will endeavour to write down, as nearly as
possible, in the very words which he used.
‘It was not of late years that the English learned that their best
chance of conquering their independent neighbours must be by introducing
amongst them division and civil war. You need not be reminded of the
state of thraldom to which Scotland was reduced by the unhappy wars
betwixt the domestic factions of Bruce and Baliol, nor how, after
Scotland had been emancipated from a foreign yoke by the conduct and
valour of the immortal Bruce, the whole fruits of the triumphs of
Bannockburn were lost in the dreadful defeats of Dupplin and Halidon;
and Edward Baliol, the minion and feudatory of his namesake of England,
seemed, for a brief season, in safe and uncontested possession of the
throne so lately occupied by the greatest general and wisest prince in
Europe. But the experience of Bruce had not died with him. There
were many who had shared his martial labours, and all remembered the
successful efforts by which, under circumstances as disadvantageous as
those of his son, he had achieved the liberation of Scotland.
‘The usurper, Edward Baliol, was feasting with a few of his favourite
retainers in the castle of Annan, when he was suddenly surprised by a
chosen band of insurgent patriots. Their chiefs were, Douglas, Randolph,
the young Earl of Moray, and Sir Simon Fraser; and their success was so
complete, that Baliol was obliged to fly for his life scarcely
clothed, and on a horse which there was no leisure to saddle. It was of
importance to seize his person, if possible, and his flight was closely
pursued by a valiant knight of Norman descent, whose family had been
long settled in the marches of Dumfriesshire. Their Norman appellation
was Fitz-Aldin, but this knight, from the great slaughter which he had
made of the Southron, and the reluctance which he had shown to admit
them to quarter during the former war of that bloody period, had
acquired the name of Redgauntlet, which he transmitted to his
posterity’--
‘Redgauntlet!’ I involuntarily repeated.
‘Yes, Redgauntlet,’ said my alleged guardian, looking at me keenly;
‘does that name recall any associations to your mind?’
‘No,’ I replied, ‘except that I had lately heard it given to the hero of
a supernatural legend.’
‘There are many such current concerning the family,’ he answered; and
then proceeded in his narrative.
‘Alberick Redgauntlet, the first of his house so termed, was, as may be
supposed from his name, of a stern and implacable disposition, which
had been rendered more so by family discord. An only son, now a youth
of eighteen, shared so much the haughty spirit of his father, that he
became impatient of domestic control, resisted paternal authority, and
finally fled from his father’s house, renounced his political opinions,
and awakened his mortal displeasure by joining the adherents of Baliol.
It was said that his father cursed, in his wrath, his degenerate
offspring, and swore that if they met he should perish by his hand.
Meantime, circumstances seemed to promise atonement for this great
deprivation. The lady of Alberick Redgauntlet was again, after many
years, in a situation which afforded her husband the hope of a more
dutiful heir.
‘But the delicacy and deep interest of his wife’s condition did not
prevent Alberick from engaging in the undertaking of Douglas and Moray.
He had been the most forward in the attack of the castle, and was now
foremost in the pursuit of Baliol, eagerly engaged in dispersing or
cutting down the few daring followers who endeavoured to protect the
usurper in his flight.
‘As these were successively routed or slain, the formidable Redgauntlet,
the mortal enemy of the House of Baliol, was within two lances’ length
of the fugitive Edward Baliol, in a narrow pass, when a youth, one of
the last who attended the usurper in his flight, threw himself
between them, received the shock of the pursuer, and was unhorsed and
overthrown. The helmet rolled from his head, and the beams of the sun,
then rising over the Solway, showed Redgauntlet the features of his
disobedient son, in the livery, and wearing the cognizance, of the
usurper.
‘Redgauntlet beheld his son lying before his horse’s feet; but he also
saw Baliol, the usurper of the Scottish crown, still, as it seemed,
within his grasp, and separated from him only by the prostrate body of
his overthrown adherent. Without pausing to inquire whether young Edward
was wounded, he dashed his spurs into his horse, meaning to leap over
him, but was unhappily frustrated in his purpose. The steed made indeed
a bound forward, but was unable to clear the body of the youth, and
with its hind foot struck him in the forehead, as he was in the act of
rising. The blow was mortal. It is needless to add, that the pursuit was
checked, and Baliol escaped.
‘Redgauntlet, ferocious as he is described, was yet overwhelmed with the
thoughts of the crime he had committed. When he returned to his castle,
it was to encounter new domestic sorrows. His wife had been prematurely
seized with the pangs of labour upon hearing the dreadful catastrophe
which had taken place. The birth of an infant boy cost her her life.
Redgauntlet sat by her corpse for more than twenty-four hours without
changing either feature or posture, so far as his terrified domestics
could observe. The Abbot of Dundrennan preached consolation to him in
vain. Douglas, who came to visit in his affliction a patriot of such
distinguished zeal, was more successful in rousing his attention. He
caused the trumpets to sound an English point of war in the courtyard,
and Redgauntlet at once sprang to his arms, and seemed restored to the
recollection which had been lost in the extent of his misery.
‘From that moment, whatever he might feel inwardly, he gave way to no
outward emotion. Douglas caused his infant to be brought; but even the
iron-hearted soldiers were struck with horror to observe that, by the
mysterious law of nature, the cause of his mother’s death, and the
evidence of his father’s guilt, was stamped on the innocent face of the
babe, whose brow was distinctly marked by the miniature resemblance of a
horseshoe. Redgauntlet himself pointed it out to Douglas, saying, with a
ghastly smile, “It should have been bloody.”
‘Moved, as he was, to compassion for his brother-in-arms, and steeled
against all softer feelings by the habits of civil war, Douglas
shuddered at this sight, and displayed a desire to leave the house which
was doomed to be the scene of such horrors. As his parting advice, he
exhorted Alberick Redgauntlet to make a pilgrimage to Saint Ninian’s of
Whiteherne, then esteemed a shrine of great sanctity; and departed with
a precipitation which might have aggravated, had that been possible,
the forlorn state of his unhappy friend. But that seems to have been
incapable of admitting any addition. Sir Alberick caused the bodies
of his slaughtered son and the mother to be laid side by side in the
ancient chapel of his house, after he had used the skill of a celebrated
surgeon of that time to embalm them; and it was said that for many weeks
he spent; some hours nightly in the vault where they reposed.
‘At length he undertook the proposed pilgrimage to Whiteherne, where
he confessed himself for the first time since his misfortune, and was
shrived by an aged monk, who afterwards died in the odour of sanctity.
It is said that it was then foretold to the Redgauntlet, that on account
of his unshaken patriotism his family should continue to be powerful
amid the changes of future times; but that, in detestation of his
unrelenting cruelty to his own issue, Heaven had decreed that the valour
of his race should always be fruitless, and that the cause which they
espoused should never prosper.
‘Submitting to such penance as was there imposed, Sir Alberick went,
it is thought, on a pilgrimage either to Rome, or to the Holy Sepulchre
itself. He was universally considered as dead; and it was not till
thirteen years afterwards, that in the great battle of Durham, fought
between David Bruce and Queen Philippa of England, a knight, bearing
a horseshoe for his crest, appeared in the van of the Scottish army,
distinguishing himself by his reckless and desperate valour; who being
at length overpowered and slain, was finally discovered to be the brave
and unhappy Sir Alberick Redgauntlet.’
‘And has the fatal sign,’ said I, when Herries had ended his narrative,
‘descended on all the posterity of this unhappy house?’
‘It has been so handed down from antiquity, and is still believed,’ said
Herries. ‘But perhaps there is, in the popular evidence, something of
that fancy which creates what it sees. Certainly, as other families have
peculiarities by which they are distinguished, this of Redgauntlet is
marked in most individuals by a singular indenture of the forehead,
supposed to be derived from the son of Alberick, their ancestor, and
brother to the unfortunate Edward, who had perished in so piteous a
manner. It is certain there seems to have been a fate upon the House of
Redgauntlet, which has been on the losing side in almost all the civil
broils which have divided the kingdom of Scotland from David Bruce’s
days, till the late valiant and unsuccessful attempt of the Chevalier
Charles Edward.’
He concluded with a deep sigh, as one whom the subject had involved in a
train of painful reflections.
‘And am I then,’ I exclaimed, ‘descended from this unhappy race? Do you
belong to it? And if so, why do I sustain restraint and hard usage at
the hands of a relation?’
‘Inquire no further for the present,’ he said. ‘The line of conduct
which I am pursuing towards you is dictated, not by choice but by
necessity. You were withdrawn from the bosom of your family and the
care of your legal guardian, by the timidity and ignorance of a doting
mother, who was incapable of estimating the arguments or feelings of
those who prefer honour and principle to fortune, and even to life. The
young hawk, accustomed only to the fostering care of its dam, must be
tamed by darkness and sleeplessness, ere it is trusted on the wing for
the purposes of the falconer.’
I was appalled at this declaration, which seemed to threaten a long
continuance, and a dangerous termination, of my captivity. I deemed it
best, however, to show some spirit, and at the same time to mingle a
tone of conciliation. ‘Mr. Herries,’ I said ‘(if I call you rightly by
that name), let us speak upon this matter without the tone of mystery
and fear in which you seem inclined to envelop it. I have been long,
alas! deprived of the care of that affectionate mother to whom you
allude--long under the charge of strangers--and compelled to form my
own resolutions upon the reasoning of my own mind. Misfortune--early
deprivation--has given me the privilege of acting for myself; and
constraint shall not deprive me of an Englishman’s best privilege.’
‘The true cant of the day,’ said Herries, in a tone of scorn. ‘The
privilege of free action belongs to no mortal--we are tied down by
the fetters of duty--our mortal path is limited by the regulations
of honour--our most indifferent actions are but meshes of the web of
destiny by which we are all surrounded.’
He paced the room rapidly, and proceeded in a tone of enthusiasm
which, joined to some other parts of his conduct, seems to intimate an
over-excited imagination, were it not contradicted by the general tenor
of his speech and conduct.
‘Nothing,’ he said, in an earnest yet melancholy voice--‘nothing is the
work of chance--nothing is the consequence of free-will--the liberty of
which the Englishman boasts gives as little real freedom to its owner as
the despotism, of an Eastern sultan permits to his slave. The usurper,
William of Nassau, went forth to hunt, and thought, doubtless, that it
was by an act of his own royal pleasure that the horse of his murdered
victim was prepared for his kingly sport. But Heaven had other views;
and before the sun was high, a stumble of that very animal over an
obstacle so inconsiderable as a mole-hillock, cost the haughty rider
his life and his usurped crown, Do you think an inclination of the rein
could have avoided that trifling impediment? I tell you, it crossed his
way as inevitably as all the long chain of Caucasus could have done.
Yes, young man, in doing and suffering, we play but the part allotted by
Destiny, the manager of this strange drama, stand bound to act no more
than is prescribed, to say no more than is set down for us; and yet we
mouth about free-will and freedom of thought and action, as if Richard
must not die, or Richmond conquer, exactly where the Author has decreed
it shall be so!’
He continued to pace the room after this speech, with folded arms and
downcast looks; and the sound of his steps and tone of his voice brought
to my remembrance, that I had heard this singular person, when I met him
on a former occasion, uttering such soliloquies in his solitary chamber.
I observed that, like other Jacobites, in his inveteracy against the
memory of King William, he had adopted the party opinion, that the
monarch, on the day he had his fatal accident, rode upon a horse once
the property of the unfortunate Sir John Friend, executed for high
treason in 1698.
It was not my business to aggravate, but, if possible, rather to soothe
him in whose power I was so singularly placed. When I conceived that the
keenness of his feelings had in some degree subsided, I answered him
as follows:--‘I will not--indeed I feel myself incompetent to argue
a question of such metaphysical subtlety, as that which involves the
limits betwixt free-will and predestination. Let us hope we may live
honestly and die hopefully, without being obliged to form a decided
opinion upon a point so far beyond our comprehension.’
‘Wisely resolved,’ he interrupted, with a sneer--‘there came a note from
some Geneva, sermon.’
‘But,’ I proceeded, ‘I call your attention to the fact that I, as well
as you, am acted upon by impulses, the result either of my own free
will, or the consequences of the part which is assigned to me by
destiny. These may be--nay, at present they are--in direct contradiction
to those by which you are actuated; and how shall we decide which
shall have precedence?--YOU perhaps feel yourself destined to act as my
jailer. I feel myself, on the contrary, destined to attempt and effect
my escape. One of us must be wrong, but who can say which errs till the
event has decided betwixt us?’
‘I shall feel myself destined to have recourse to severe modes of
restraint,’ said he, in the same tone of half jest, half earnest which I
had used.
‘In that case,’ I answered, ‘it will be my destiny to attempt everything
for my freedom.’
‘And it may be mine, young man,’ he replied, in a deep and stern tone,
‘to take care that you should rather die than attain your purpose.’
This was speaking out indeed, and I did not allow him to go unanswered.
‘You threaten me in vain,’ said I; ‘the laws of my country will protect
me; or whom they cannot protect, they will avenge.’
I spoke this firmly, and he seemed for a moment silenced; and the scorn
with which he at last answered me, had something of affectation in it.
‘The laws!’ he said; ‘and what, stripling, do you know of the laws of
your country? Could you learn jurisprudence under a base-born blotter
of parchment, such as Saunders Fairford; or from the empty pedantic
coxcomb, his son, who now, forsooth, writer himself advocate? When
Scotland was herself, and had her own king and legislature, such
plebeian cubs, instead of being called to the bar of her supreme courts,
would scarce have been admitted to the honour of bearing a sheepskin
process-bag.’
Alan, I could not bear this, but answered indignantly, that he knew not
the worth and honour from which he was detracting.
‘I know as much of these Fairfords as I do of you,’ he replied.
‘As much,’ said I, ‘and as little; for you can neither estimate their
real worth nor mine. I know you saw them when last in Edinburgh.’
‘Ha!’ he exclaimed, and turned on me an inquisitive look.
‘It is true,’ said I; ‘you cannot deny it; and having thus shown you
that I know something of your motions, let me warn you I have modes of
communication with which you are not acquainted. Oblige me not to use
them to your prejudice.’
‘Prejudice me!’ he replied. ‘Young man, I smile at, and forgive your
folly. Nay, I will tell you that of which you are not aware, namely,
that it was from letters received from these Fairfords that I first
suspected, what the result of my visit to them confirmed, that you were
the person whom I had sought for years.’
‘If you learned this,’ said I, ‘from the papers which were about my
person on the night when I was under the necessity of becoming your
guest at Brokenburn, I do not envy your indifference to the means of
acquiring information. It was dishonourable to’--
‘Peace, young man,’ said Herries, more calmly than I might have
expected; ‘the word dishonour must not be mentioned as in conjunction
with my name. Your pocket-book was in the pocket of your coat, and did
not escape the curiosity of another, though it would have been sacred
from mine, My servant, Cristal Nixon, brought me the intelligence after
you were gone. I was displeased with the manner in which he had acquired
his information; but it was not the less my duty to ascertain its truth,
and for that purpose I went to Edinburgh. I was in hopes to persuade
Mr. Fairford to have entered into my views; but I found him too much
prejudiced to permit me to trust him. He is a wretched, yet a timid
slave of the present government, under which our unhappy country is
dishonourably enthralled; and it would have been altogether unfit and
unsafe to have entrusted him with the secret either of the right which
I possess to direct your actions, or of the manner in which I purpose to
exercise it.’
I was determined to take advantage of his communicative humour, and
obtain, if possible, more light upon his purpose. He seemed most
accessible to being piqued on the point of honour, and I resolved to
avail myself, but with caution, of his sensibility upon that topic. ‘You
say,’ I replied, ‘that you are not friendly to indirect practices, and
disapprove of the means by which your domestic obtained information
of my name and quality--Is it honourable to avail yourself of that
knowledge which is dishonourably obtained?’
‘It is boldly asked,’ he replied; ‘but, within certain necessary
limits, I dislike not boldness of expostulation. You have, in this short
conference, displayed more character and energy than I was prepared to
expect. You will, I trust, resemble a forest plant, which has indeed,
by some accident, been brought up in the greenhouse, and thus rendered
delicate and effeminate, but which regains its native firmness and
tenacity when exposed for a season to the winter air. I will answer
your question plainly. In business, as in war, spies and informers are
necessary evils, which all good men detest; but which yet all prudent
men must use, unless they mean to fight and act blindfold. But nothing
can justify the use of falsehood and treachery in our own person.’
‘You said to the elder Mr. Fairford,’ continued I, with the same
boldness, which I began to find was my best game, ‘that I was the son of
Ralph Latimer of Langcote Hall? How do you reconcile this with your late
assertion that my name is not Latimer?’
He coloured as he replied, ‘The doting old fool lied; or perhaps mistook
my meaning. I said, that gentleman might be your father. To say truth,
I wished you to visit England, your native country; because, when you
might do so, my rights over you would revive.’
This speech fully led me to understand a caution which had been often
impressed upon me, that, if I regarded my safety, I should not cross
the southern Border; and I cursed my own folly, which kept me fluttering
like a moth around the candle, until I was betrayed into the calamity
with which I had dallied. ‘What are those rights,’ I said, ‘which you
claim over me? To what end do you propose to turn them?’
‘To a weighty one, you may be certain,’ answered Mr. Herries; ‘but I do
not, at present, mean to communicate to you either its nature or extent.
You may judge of its importance, when, in order entirely to possess
myself of your person, I condescended to mix myself with the fellows who
destroyed the fishing station of yon wretched Quaker. That I held him in
contempt, and was displeased at the greedy devices with which he ruined
a manly sport, is true enough; but, unless as it favoured my designs on
you, he might have, for me, maintained his stake-nets till Solway should
cease to ebb and flow.’
‘Alas!’ I said, ‘it doubles my regret to have been the unwilling cause
of misfortune to an honest and friendly man.’
‘Do not grieve for that,’ said Herries; ‘honest Joshua is one of
those who, by dint of long prayers, can possess themselves of widow’s
houses--he will quickly repair his losses. When he sustains any mishap,
he and the other canters set it down as a debt against Heaven, and, by
way of set-off, practise rogueries without compunction, till the they
make the balance even, or incline it to the winning side. Enough of this
for the present.--I must immediately shift my quarters; for, although I
do not fear the over-zeal of Mr. Justice Foxley or his clerk will
lead them to any extreme measure, yet that mad scoundrel’s unhappy
recognition of me may make it more serious for them to connive at me,
and I must not put their patience to an over severe trial. You must
prepare to attend me, either as a captive or a companion; if as the
latter, you must give your parole of honour to attempt no escape. Should
you be so ill advised as to break your word once pledged, be assured
that I will blow your brains out without a moment’s scruple.’
‘I am ignorant of your plans and purposes,’ I replied, ‘and cannot but
hold them dangerous. I do not mean to aggravate my present situation by
any unavailing resistance to the superior force which detains me; but
I will not renounce the right of asserting my natural freedom should it
favourable opportunity occur. I will, therefore, rather be your prisoner
than your confederate.’
‘That is spoken fairly,’ he said; ‘and yet not without the canny caution
of one brought up in the Gude Town of Edinburgh. On my part, I will
impose no unnecessary hardship upon you; but, on the contrary, your
journey shall be made as easy as is consistent with your being kept
safely. Do you feel strong enough to ride on horseback as yet, or would
you prefer a carriage? The former mode of travelling is best adapted to
the country through which we are to travel, but you are at liberty to
choose between them.’
I said, ‘I felt my strength gradually returning, and that I should much
prefer travelling on horseback. A carriage,’ I added, ‘is so close’--
‘And so easily guarded,’ replied Herries, with a look as if he would
have penetrated my very thoughts,--‘that, doubtless, you think horseback
better calculated for an escape.’
‘My thoughts are my own,’ I answered; ‘and though you keep my person
prisoner, these are beyond your control.’
‘Oh, I can read the book,’ he said, ‘without opening the leaves. But I
would recommend to you to make no rash attempt, and it will be my
care to see that you have no power to make any that is likely to
be effectual. Linen, and all other necessaries for one in your
circumstances, are amply provided, Cristal Nixon will act as your
valet,--I should rather, perhaps, say, your FEMME DE CHAMBRE. Your
travelling dress you may perhaps consider as singular; but it is such
as the circumstances require; and, if you object to use the articles
prepared for your use, your mode of journeying will be as personally
unpleasant as that which conducted you hither.--Adieu--We now know each
other better than we did--it will not be my fault if the consequences of
further intimacy be not a more favourable mutual opinion.’
He then left me, with a civil good night, to my own reflections,
and only turned back to say that we should proceed on our journey
at daybreak next morning, at furthest; perhaps earlier, he said; but
complimented me by supposing that, as I was a sportsman, I must always
be ready for a sudden start.
We are then at issue, this singular man and myself. His personal views
are to a certain point explained. He has chosen an antiquated and
desperate line of politics, and he claims, from some pretended tie of
guardianship or relationship, which he does not deign to explain but
which he seems to have been able to pass current on a silly country
Justice and his knavish clerk, a right to direct and to control my
motions. The danger which awaited me in England, and which I might have
escaped had I remained in Scotland, was doubtless occasioned by the
authority of this man. But what my poor mother might fear for me as a
child--what my English friend, Samuel Griffiths, endeavoured to guard
against during my youth and nonage, is now, it seems, come upon me;
and, under a legal pretext, I am detained in what must be a most illegal
manner, by a person, foe, whose own political immunities have been
forfeited by his conduct. It matters not--my mind is made up neither
persuasion nor threats shall force me into the desperate designs which
this man meditates. Whether I am of the trifling consequence which my
life hitherto seems to intimate, or whether I have (as would appear from
my adversary’s conduct) such importance, by birth or fortune, as may
make me a desirable acquisition to a political faction, my resolution
is taken in either case. Those who read this journal, if it shall be
perused by impartial eyes, shall judge of me truly; and if they consider
me as a fool in encountering danger unnecessarily, they shall have no
reason to believe me a coward or a turncoat, when I find myself engaged
in it. I have been bred in sentiments of attachment to the family on the
throne and in these sentiments I will live and die. I have, indeed, some
idea that Mr. Herries has already discovered that I am made of different
and more unmalleable metal than he had at first believed. There were
letters from my dear Alan Fairford, giving a ludicrous account of my
instability of temper, in the same pocket-book, which, according to the
admission of my pretended guardian, fell under the investigation of
his domestic during the night I passed at Brokenburn, where, as I now
recollect, my wet clothes, with the contents of my pockets, were, with
the thoughtlessness of a young traveller, committed too rashly to the
care of a strange servant. And my kind friend and hospitable landlord,
Mr. Alexander Fairford, may also, and with justice, have spoken of my
levities to this man. But he shall find he has made a false estimate
upon these plausible grounds, since--
I must break off for the present.