NARRATIVE OF DARSIE LATIMER, CONTINUED
Joe Crackenthorp’s public-house had never, since it first reared
its chimneys on the banks of the Solway, been frequented by such a
miscellaneous group of visitors as had that morning become its guests.
Several of them were persons whose quality seemed much superior to
their dresses and modes of travelling. The servants who attended them
contradicted the inferences to be drawn from the garb of their masters,
and, according to the custom of the knights of the rainbow, gave many
hints that they were not people to serve any but men of first-rate
consequence. These gentlemen, who had come thither chiefly for the
purpose of meeting with Mr. Redgauntlet, seemed moody and anxious,
conversed and walked together apparently in deep conversation, and
avoided any communication with the chance travellers whom accident
brought that morning to the same place of resort.
As if Fate had set herself to confound the plans of the Jacobite
conspirators, the number of travellers was unusually great, their
appearance respectable, and they filled the public tap-room of the inn,
where the political guests had already occupied most of the private
apartments.
Amongst others, honest Joshua Geddes had arrived, travelling, as he
said, in the sorrow of the soul, and mourning for the fate of Darsie
Latimer as he would for his first-born child. He had skirted the whole
coast of the Solway, besides making various trips into the interior,
not shunning, on such occasions, to expose himself to the laugh of the
scorner, nay, even to serious personal risk, by frequenting the haunts
of smugglers, horse-jockeys, and other irregular persons, who looked
on his intrusion with jealous eyes, and were apt to consider him as
an exciseman in the disguise of a Quaker. All this labour and peril,
however, had been undergone in vain. No search he could make obtained
the least intelligence of Latimer, so that he began to fear the poor lad
had been spirited abroad--for the practice of kidnapping was then not
infrequent, especially on the western coasts of Britain--if indeed he
had escaped a briefer and more bloody fate.
With a heavy heart, he delivered his horse, even Solomon, into the hands
of the ostler, and walking into the inn, demanded from the landlord
breakfast and a private room. Quakers, and such hosts as old Father
Crackenthorp, are no congenial spirits; the latter looked askew over his
shoulder, and replied, ‘If you would have breakfast here, friend, you
are like to eat it where other folk eat theirs.’
‘And wherefore can I not,’ said the Quaker, ‘have an apartment to
myself, for my money?’
‘Because, Master Jonathan, you must wait till your betters be served, or
else eat with your equals.’
Joshua Geddes argued the point no further, but sitting quietly down on
the seat which Crackenthorp indicated to him, and calling for a pint
of ale, with some bread, butter, and Dutch cheese, began to satisfy the
appetite which the morning air had rendered unusually alert.
While the honest Quaker was thus employed, another stranger entered the
apartment, and sat down near to the table on which his victuals were
placed. He looked repeatedly at Joshua, licked his parched and chopped
lips as he saw the good Quaker masticate his bread and cheese, and
sucked up his thin chops when Mr. Geddes applied the tankard to his
mouth, as if the discharge of these bodily functions by another had
awakened his sympathies in an uncontrollable degree. At last, being
apparently unable to withstand his longings, he asked, in a faltering
tone, the huge landlord, who was tramping through the room in all
corpulent impatience, whether he could have a plack-pie?’
‘Never heard of such a thing, master,’ said the landlord, and was about
to trudge onward; when the guest, detaining him, said, in a strong
Scottish tone, ‘Ya will maybe have nae whey then, nor buttermilk, nor ye
couldna exhibit a souter’s clod?’
‘Can’t tell what ye are talking about, master,’ said Crackenthorp.
‘Then ye will have nae breakfast that will come within ‘the compass of a
shilling Scots?’
‘Which is a penny sterling,’ answered Crackenthorp, with a sneer. ‘Why,
no, Sawney, I can’t say as we have--we can’t afford it; But you shall
have a bellyful for love, as we say in the bull-ring.’
‘I shall never refuse a fair offer,’ said the poverty-stricken guest;
‘and I will say that for the English, if they were deils, that they are
a ceeveleesed people to gentlemen that are under a cloud.’
‘Gentlemen!--humph!’ said Crackenthorp--‘not a blue-cap among them but
halts upon that foot.’ Then seizing on a dish which still contained a
huge cantle of what had been once a princely mutton pasty, he placed
it on the table before the stranger, saying, ‘There, master gentleman;
there is what is worth all the black pies, as you call them, that were
ever made of sheep’s head.’
‘Sheep’s head is a gude thing, for a’ that,’ replied the guest; but
not being spoken so loud as to offend his hospitable entertainer, the
interjection might pass for a private protest against the scandal thrown
out against the standing dish of Caledonia.
This premised, he immediately began to transfer the mutton and
pie-crust from his plate to his lips, in such huge gobbets, as if he was
refreshing after a three days’ fast, and laying in provisions against a
whole Lent to come.
Joshua Geddes in his turn gazed on him with surprise, having never, he
thought, beheld such a gaunt expression of hunger in the act of eating.
‘Friend,’ he said, after watching him for some minutes, ‘if thou gorgest
thyself in this fashion, thou wilt assuredly choke. Wilt thou not take a
draught out of my cup to help down all that dry meat?’
‘Troth,’ said the stranger, stopping and looking at the friendly
propounder, ‘that’s nae bad overture, as they say in the General
Assembly. I have heard waur motions than that frae wiser counsel.’
Mr. Geddes ordered a quart of home-brewed to be placed before our friend
Peter Peebles; for the reader must have already conceived that this
unfortunate litigant was the wanderer in question.
The victim of Themis had no sooner seen the flagon, than he seized
it with the same energy which he had displayed in operating upon the
pie--puffed off the froth with such emphasis, that some of it lighted on
Mr. Geddes’s head--and then said, as if with it sudden recollection of
what was due to civility, ‘Here’s to ye, friend. What! are ye ower grand
to give me an answer, or are ye dull o’ hearing?’
‘I prithee drink thy liquor, friend,’ said the good Quaker; ‘thou
meanest it in civility, but we care not for these idle fashions.’
‘What! ye are a Quaker, are ye?’ said Peter; and without further
ceremony reared the flagon to his head, from which he withdrew it not
while a single drop of ‘barley-broo’ remained. ‘That’s done you and
me muckle gude,’ he said, sighing as he set down his pot; ‘but twa
mutchkins o’ yill between twa folk is a drappie ower little measure.
What say ye to anither pot? or shall we cry in a blithe Scots pint at
ance? The yill is no amiss.’
‘Thou mayst call for what thou wilt on thine own charges, friend,’ said
Geddes; ‘for myself, I willingly contribute to the quenching of thy
natural thirst; but I fear it were no such easy matter to relieve thy
acquired and artificial drought.’
‘That is to say, in plain terms, ye are for withdrawing your caution
with the folk of the house? You Quaker folk are but fause comforters;
but since ye have garred me drink sae muckle cauld yill--me that am no
used to the like of it in the forenoon--I think ye might as weel have
offered me a glass of brandy or usquabae--I’m nae nice body--I can drink
onything that’s wet and toothsome.’
‘Not a drop at my cost, friend,’ quoth Geddes. ‘Thou art an old man, and
hast perchance a heavy and long journey before thee. Thou art, moreover,
my countryman, as I judge from thy tongue; and I will not give thee the
means of dishonouring thy grey hairs in a strange land.’
‘Grey hairs, neighbour!’ said Peter, with a wink to the bystanders, whom
this dialogue began to interest, and who were in hopes of seeing the
Quaker played off by the crazed beggar, for such Peter Peebles appeared
to be. ‘Grey hairs! The Lord mend your eyesight, neighbour, that disna
ken grey hairs frae a tow wig!’
This jest procured a shout of laughter, and, what was still more
acceptable than dry applause, a man who stood beside called out, ‘Father
Crackenthorp, bring a nipperkin of brandy. I’ll bestow a dram on this
fellow, were it but for that very word.’
The brandy was immediately brought by a wench who acted as barmaid; and
Peter, with a grin of delight, filled a glass, quaffed it off, and then
saying, ‘God bless me! I was so unmannerly as not to drink to ye--I
think the Quaker has smitten me wi’ his ill-bred havings,’--he was about
to fill another, when his hand was arrested by his new friend; who said
at the same time, ‘No, no, friend--fair play’s a jewel--time about, if
you please.’ And filling a glass for himself, emptied it as gallantly
as Peter could have done. ‘What say you to that, friend?’ he continued,
addressing the Quaker.
‘Nay, friend,’ answered Joshua, ‘it went down thy throat, not mine; and
I have nothing to say about what concerns me not; but if thou art a
man of humanity, thou wilt not give this poor creature the means of
debauchery. Bethink thee that they will spurn him from the door, as
they would do a houseless and masterless dog, and that he may die on the
sands or on the common. And if he has through thy means been rendered
incapable of helping himself, thou shalt not be innocent of his blood.’
‘Faith, Broadbrim, I believe thou art right, and the old gentleman in
the flaxen jazy shall have no more of the comforter. Besides, we have
business in hand to-day, and this fellow, for as mad as he looks, may
have a nose on his face after all. Hark ye, father,--what is your name,
and what brings you into such an out-of-the-way corner?’
‘I am not just free to condescend on my name,’ said Peter; ‘and as for
my business--there is a wee dribble of brandy in the stoup--it would be
wrang to leave it to the lass--it is learning her bad usages.’
‘Well, thou shalt have the brandy, and be d--d to thee, if thou wilt
tell me what you are making here.’
‘Seeking a young advocate chap that they ca’ Alan Fairford, that has
played me a slippery trick, and ye maun ken a’ about the cause,’ said
Peter.
‘An advocate, man!’ answered the captain of the JUMPING JENNY--for it
was he, and no other, who had taken compassion on Peter’s drought;
‘why, Lord help thee, thou art on the wrong side of the Firth to seek
advocates, whom I take to be Scottish lawyers, not English.’
‘English lawyers, man!’ exclaimed Peter, ‘the deil a lawyer’s in a’
England.’
‘I wish from my soul it were true,’ said Ewart; ‘but what the devil put
that in your head?’
‘Lord, man, I got a grip of ane of their attorneys in Carlisle, and he
tauld me that there wasna a lawyer in England ony mair than himsell that
kend the nature of a multiple-poinding! And when I told him how this
loopy lad, Alan Fairford, had served me, he said I might bring an action
on the case--just as if the case hadna as mony actions already as one
case can weel carry. By my word, it is a gude case, and muckle has it
borne, in its day, of various procedure--but it’s the barley-pickle
breaks the naig’s back, and wi’ my consent it shall not hae ony mair
burden laid upon it.’
‘But this Alan Fairford?’ said Nanty--‘come--sip up the drop of brandy,
man, and tell me some more about him, and whether you are seeking him
for good or for harm.’
‘For my ain gude, and for his harm, to be sure,’ said Peter. ‘Think of
his having left my cause in the dead-thraw between the tyneing and
the winning, and capering off into Cumberland here, after a wild
loup-the-tether lad they ca’ Darsie Latimer.’
‘Darsie Latimer!’ said Mr. Geddes, hastily; ‘do you know anything of
Darsie Latimer?’
‘Maybe I do, and maybe I do not,’ answered Peter; ‘I am no free to
answer every body’s interrogatory, unless it is put judicially, and by
form of law--specially where folk think so much of a caup of sour yill,
or a thimblefu’ of brandy. But as for this gentleman, that has shown
himself a gentleman at breakfast, and will show himself a gentleman at
the meridian, I am free to condescend upon any points in the cause that
may appear to bear upon the question at issue.’
‘Why, all I want to know from you, my friend, is, whether you are
seeking to do this Mr. Alan Fairford good or harm; because if you come
to do him good, I think you could maybe get speech of him--and if to do
him harm, I will take the liberty to give you a cast across the Firth,
with fair warning not to come back on such an errand, lest worse come of
it.’
The manner and language of Ewart were such that Joshua Geddes resolved
to keep cautious silence, till he could more plainly discover whether he
was likely to aid or impede him in his researches after Darsie Latimer.
He therefore determined to listen attentively to what should pass
between Peter and the seaman, and to watch for an opportunity of
questioning the former, so soon as he should be separated from his new
acquaintance.
‘I wad by no means,’ said Peter Peebles, ‘do any substantial harm to the
poor lad Fairford, who has had mony a gowd guinea of mine, as weel as
his father before him; but I wad hae him brought back to the minding of
my business and his ain; and maybe I wadna insist further in my action
of damages against him, than for refunding the fees, and for some annual
rent on the principal sum due frae the day on which he should have
recovered it for me, plack and bawbee, at the great advising; for ye
are aware, that is the least that I can ask NOMINE DAMNI; and I have nae
thought to break down the lad bodily a’thegither--we maun live and let
live--forgie and forget.’
‘The deuce take me, friend Broadbrim,’ said Nanty Ewart, looking to the
Quaker, ‘if I can make out what this old scarecrow means. If I thought
it was fitting that Master Fairford should see him, why perhaps it is
a matter that could be managed. Do you know anything about the old
fellow?--you seemed to take some charge of him just now.’
‘No more than I should have done by any one in distress,’ said Geddes,
not sorry to be appealed to; ‘but I will try what I can do to find out
who he is, and what he is about in this country. But are we not a little
too public in this open room?’
‘It’s well thought of,’ said Nanty; and at his command the barmaid
ushered the party into a side-booth, Peter attending them in the
instinctive hope that there would be more liquor drunk among them before
parting. They had scarce sat down in their new apartment, when the sound
of a violin was heard in the room which they had just left.
‘I’ll awa back yonder,’ said Peter, rising up again; ‘yon’s the sound of
a fiddle, and when there is music, there’s ay something ganging to eat
or drink.’
‘I am just going to order something here,’ said the Quaker; ‘but in the
meantime, have you any objection, my good friend, to tell us your name?’
‘None in the world, if you are wanting to drink to me by name and
surname,’ answered Peebles; ‘but, otherwise, I would rather evite your
interrogatories.’
‘Friend,’ said the Quaker, ‘it is not for thine own health, seeing thou
hast drunk enough already--however--here, handmaiden--bring me a gill of
sherry.’
‘Sherry’s but shilpit drink, and a gill’s a sma’ measure for twa
gentlemen to crack ower at their first acquaintance. But let us see your
sneaking gill of sherry,’ said Poor Peter, thrusting forth his huge
hand to seize on the diminutive pewter measure, which, according to the
fashion of the time, contained the generous liquor freshly drawn from
the butt.
‘Nay, hold, friend,’ said Joshua, ‘thou hast not yet told me what name
and surname I am to call thee by.’
‘D--d sly in the Quaker,’ said Nanty, apart, ‘to make him pay for his
liquor before he gives it him. Now, I am such a fool, that I should have
let him get too drunk to open his mouth, before I thought of asking him
a question.’
‘My name is Peter Peebles, then,’ said the litigant, rather sulkily,
as one who thought his liquor too sparingly meted out to him; ‘and what
have you to say to that?’
‘Peter Peebles?’ repeated Nanty Ewart and seemed to muse upon something
which the words brought to his remembrance, while the Quaker pursued his
examination.
‘But I prithee, Peter Peebles, what is thy further designation? Thou
knowest, in our country, that some men are distinguished by their craft
and calling, as cordwainers, fishers, weavers, or the like, and some by
their titles as proprietors of land (which savours of vanity)--now, how
may you be distinguished from others of the same name?’
‘As Peter Peebles of the great plea of Poor Peter Peebles against
Plainstanes, ET PER CONTRA--if I am laird of naething else, I am ay a
DOMINUS LITIS.’
‘It’s but a poor lairdship, I doubt,’ said Joshua.
‘Pray, Mr. Peebles,’ said Nanty, interrupting the conversation abruptly,
‘were not you once a burgess of Edinburgh?’
‘WAS I a burgess!’ said Peter indignantly, ‘and AM I not a burgess even
now? I have done nothing to forfeit my right, I trow--once provost and
ay my lord.’
‘Well, Mr. Burgess, tell me further, have you not some property in the
Gude Town?’ continued Ewart.
‘Troth have I--that is, before my misfortunes, I had twa or three bonny
bits of mailings amang the closes and wynds, forby the shop and the
story abune it. But Plainstanes has put me to the causeway now. Never
mind though, I will be upsides with him yet.’
‘Had not you once a tenement in the Covenant Close?’ again demanded
Nanty.
‘You have hit it, lad, though ye look not like a Covenanter,’ said
Peter; ‘we’ll drink to its memory--(Hout! the heart’s at the mouth o’
that ill-faur’d bit stoup already!)--it brought a rent, reckoning from
the crawstep to the groundsill, that ye might ca’ fourteen punds a year,
forby the laigh cellar that was let to Lucky Littleworth.’
‘And do you not remember that you had a poor old lady for your tenant,
Mrs. Cantrips of Kittlebasket?’ said Nanty, suppressing his emotion with
difficulty.
‘Remember! G--d, I have gude cause to remember her,’ said Peter, ‘for
she turned a dyvour on my hands, the auld besom! and after a’ that the
law could do to make me satisfied and paid, in the way of poinding and
distrenzieing and sae forth, as the law will, she ran awa to the charity
workhouse, a matter of twenty punds Scots in my debt--it’s a great shame
and oppression that charity workhouse, taking in bankrupt dyvours that
canna, pay their honest creditors.’
‘Methinks, friend,’ said the Quaker, ‘thine own rags might teach thee
compassion for other people’s nakedness.’
‘Rags!’ said Peter, taking Joshua’s words literally; ‘does ony wise body
put on their best coat when they are travelling, and keeping company
with Quakers, and such other cattle as the road affords?’
‘The old lady DIED, I have heard,’ said Nanty, affecting a moderation
which was belied by accents that faltered with passion.
‘She might live or die, for what I care,’ answered Peter the Cruel;
‘what business have folk to do to live that canna live as law will, and
satisfy their just and lawful creditors?’
‘And you--you that are now yourself trodden down in the very kennel,
are you not sorry for what you have done? Do you not repent having
occasioned the poor widow woman’s death?’
‘What for should I repent?’ said Peter; ‘the law was on my side--a
decreet of the bailies, followed by poinding, and an act of warding--a
suspension intented, and the letters found orderly proceeded. I followed
the auld rudas through twa courts--she cost me mair money than her lugs
were worth.’
‘Now, by Heaven!’ said Nanty, ‘I would give a thousand guineas, if I had
them, to have you worth my beating! Had you said you repented, it had
been between God and your conscience; but to hear you boast of your
villany--Do you think it little to have reduced the aged to famine, and
the young to infamy--to have caused the death of one woman, the ruin of
another, and to have driven a man to exile and despair? By Him that made
me, I can scarce keep hands off you!
‘Off me? I defy ye!’ said Peter. ‘I take this honest man to witness that
if ye stir the neck of my collar, I will have my action for stouthreif,
spulzie, oppression, assault and battery. Here’s a bra’ din, indeed,
about an auld wife gaun to the grave, a young limmer to the close-heads
and causeway, and a sticket stibbler [A student of divinity who has not
been able to complete his studies on theology.] to the sea instead of
the gallows!’
‘Now, by my soul,’ said Nanty, ‘this is too much! and since you can feel
no otherwise, I will try if I cannot beat some humanity into your head
and shoulders.’
He drew his hanger as he spoke, and although Joshua, who had in vain
endeavoured to interrupt the dialogue to which he foresaw a violent
termination, now threw himself between Nanty and the old litigant, he
could not prevent the latter from receiving two or three sound slaps
over the shoulder with the flat side of the weapon.
Poor Peter Peebles, as inglorious in his extremity as he had been
presumptuous in bringing it on, now ran and roared, and bolted out of
the apartment and house itself, pursued by Nanty, whose passion became
high in proportion to his giving way to its dictates, and by Joshua, who
still interfered at every risk, calling upon Nanty to reflect on the
age and miserable circumstances of the offender, and upon Poor Peter
to stand and place himself under his protection. In front of the house,
however, Peter Peebles found a more efficient protector than the worthy
Quaker.