Give me a cup of sack, to make mine eyes look red. For I must
speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein.
--Henry IV, part I.
Mannering, with Sampson for his companion, lost no time in his journey
to Edinburgh. They travelled in the Colonel's post-chariot, who,
knowing his companion's habits of abstraction, did not choose to lose
him out of his own sight, far less to trust him on horseback, where, in
all probability, a knavish stable-boy might with little address have
contrived to mount him with his face to the tail. Accordingly, with the
aid of his valet, who attended on horseback, he contrived to bring Mr.
Sampson safe to an inn in Edinburgh--for hotels in those days there
were none--without any other accident than arose from his straying
twice upon the road. On one occasion he was recovered by Barnes, who
understood his humour, when, after engaging in close colloquy with the
schoolmaster of Moffat respecting a disputed quantity in Horace's 7th
Ode, Book II, the dispute led on to another controversy concerning the
exact meaning of the word malobathro in that lyric effusion. His second
escapade was made for the purpose of visiting the field of Rullion
Green, which was dear to his Presbyterian predilections. Having got out
of the carriage for an instant, he saw the sepulchral monument of the
slain at the distance of about a mile, and was arrested by Barnes in
his progress up the Pentland Hills, having on both occasions forgot his
friend, patron, and fellow-traveller as completely as if he had been in
the East Indies. On being reminded that Colonel Mannering was waiting
for him, he uttered his usual ejaculation of 'Prodigious! I was
oblivious,' and then strode back to his post. Barnes was surprised at
his master's patience on both occasions, knowing by experience how
little he brooked neglect or delay; but the Dominie was in every
respect a privileged person. His patron and he were never for a moment
in each other's way, and it seemed obvious that they were formed to be
companions through life. If Mannering wanted a particular book, the
Dominie could bring it; if he wished to have accounts summed up or
checked, his assistance was equally ready; if he desired to recall a
particular passage in the classics, he could have recourse to the
Dominie as to a dictionary; and all the while this walking statue was
neither presuming when noticed nor sulky when left to himself. To a
proud, shy, reserved man, and such in many respects was Mannering, this
sort of living catalogue and animated automaton had all the advantages
of a literary dumb-waiter.
As soon as they arrived in Edinburgh, and were established at the
George Inn, near Bristo Port, then kept by old Cockburn (I love to be
particular), the Colonel desired the waiter to procure him a guide to
Mr. Pleydell's, the advocate, for whom he had a letter of introduction
from Mr. Mac-Morlan. He then commanded Barnes to have an eye to the
Dominie, and walked forth with a chairman, who was to usher him to the
man of law.
The period was near the end of the American war. The desire of room, of
air, and of decent accommodation had not as yet made very much progress
in the capital of Scotland. Some efforts had been made on the south
side of the town towards building houses WITHIN THEMSELVES, as they are
emphatically termed; and the New Town on the north, since so much
extended, was then just commenced. But the great bulk of the better
classes, and particularly those connected with the law, still lived in
flats or dungeons of the Old Town. The manners also of some of the
veterans of the law had not admitted innovation. One or two eminent
lawyers still saw their clients in taverns, as was the general custom
fifty years before; and although their habits were already considered
as old-fashioned by the younger barristers, yet the custom of mixing
wine and revelry with serious business was still maintained by those
senior counsellors who loved the old road, either because it was such
or because they had got too well used to it to travel any other. Among
those praisers of the past time, who with ostentatious obstinacy
affected the manners of a former generation, was this same Paulus
Pleydell, Esq., otherwise a good scholar, an excellent lawyer, and a
worthy man.
Under the guidance of his trusty attendant, Colonel Mannering, after
threading a dark lane or two, reached the High Street, then clanging
with the voices of oyster-women and the bells of pye-men; for it had,
as his guide assured him, just' chappit eight upon the Tron.' It was
long since Mannering had been in the street of a crowded metropolis,
which, with its noise and clamour, its sounds of trade, of revelry, and
of license, its variety of lights, and the eternally changing bustle of
its hundred groups, offers, by night especially, a spectacle which,
though composed of the most vulgar materials when they are separately
considered, has, when they are combined, a striking and powerful effect
on the imagination. The extraordinary height of the houses was marked
by lights, which, glimmering irregularly along their front, ascended so
high among the attics that they seemed at length to twinkle in the
middle sky. This coup d'aeil, which still subsists in a certain degree,
was then more imposing, owing to the uninterrupted range of buildings
on each side, which, broken only at the space where the North Bridge
joins the main street, formed a superb and uniform place, extending
from the front of the Lucken-booths to the head of the Canongate, and
corresponding in breadth and length to the uncommon height of the
buildings on either side.
Mannering had not much time to look and to admire. His conductor
hurried him across this striking scene, and suddenly dived with him
into a very steep paved lane. Turning to the right, they entered a
scale staircase, as it is called, the state of which, so far as it
could be judged of by one of his senses, annoyed Mannering's delicacy
not a little. When they had ascended cautiously to a considerable
height, they heard a heavy rap at a door, still two stories above them.
The door opened, and immediately ensued the sharp and worrying bark of
a dog, the squalling of a woman, the screams of an assaulted cat, and
the hoarse voice of a man, who cried in a most imperative tone, 'Will
ye, Mustard? Will ye? down, sir, down!'
'Lord preserve us!' said the female voice, 'an he had worried our cat,
Mr. Pleydell would ne'er hae forgi'en me!'
'Aweel, my doo, the cat's no a prin the waur. So he's no in, ye say?'
'Na, Mr. Pleydell's ne'er in the house on Saturday at e'en,' answered
the female voice.
'And the morn's Sabbath too,' said the querist. 'I dinna ken what will
be done.'
By this time Mannering appeared, and found a tall, strong countryman,
clad in a coat of pepper-and-salt-coloured mixture, with huge metal
buttons, a glazed hat and boots, and a large horsewhip beneath his arm,
in colloquy with a slipshod damsel, who had in one hand the lock of the
door, and in the other a pail of whiting, or camstane, as it is called,
mixed with water--a circumstance which indicates Saturday night in
Edinburgh.
'So Mr. Pleydell is not at home, my good girl?' said Mannering.
'Ay, sir, he's at hame, but he's no in the house; he's aye out on
Saturday at e'en.'
'But, my good girl, I am a stranger, and my business express. Will you
tell me where I can find him?'
'His honour,' said the chairman, 'will be at Clerihugh's about this
time. Hersell could hae tell'd ye that, but she thought ye wanted to
see his house.'
'Well, then, show me to this tavern. I suppose he will see me, as I
come on business of some consequence?'
'I dinna ken, sir,' said the girl; 'he disna like to be disturbed on
Saturdays wi' business; but he's aye civil to strangers.'
'I'll gang to the tavern too,' said our friend Dinmont, 'for I am a
stranger also, and on business e'en sic like.'
'Na,' said the handmaiden, 'an he see the gentleman, he'll see the
simple body too; but, Lord's sake, dinna say it was me sent ye there!'
'Atweel, I am a simple body, that's true, hinny, but I am no come to
steal ony o' his skeel for naething,' said the farmer in his honest
pride, and strutted away downstairs, followed by Mannering and the
cadie. Mannering could not help admiring the determined stride with
which the stranger who preceded them divided the press, shouldering
from him, by the mere weight and impetus of his motion, both drunk and
sober passengers. 'He'll be a Teviotdale tup tat ane,' said the
chairman, 'tat's for keeping ta crown o' ta causeway tat gate; he 'll
no gang far or he 'll get somebody to bell ta cat wi' him.'
His shrewd augury, however, was not fulfilled. Those who recoiled from
the colossal weight of Dinmont, on looking up at his size and strength,
apparently judged him too heavy metal to be rashly encountered, and
suffered him to pursue his course unchallenged. Following in the wake
of this first-rate, Mannering proceeded till the farmer made a pause,
and, looking back to the chairman, said, 'I'm thinking this will be the
close, friend.'
'Ay, ay,' replied Donald, 'tat's ta close.'
Dinmont descended confidently, then turned into a dark alley, then up a
dark stair, and then into an open door. While he was whistling shrilly
for the waiter, as if he had been one of his collie dogs, Mannering
looked round him, and could hardly conceive how a gentleman of a
liberal profession and good society should choose such a scene for
social indulgence. Besides the miserable entrance, the house itself
seemed paltry and half ruinous. The passage in which they stood had a
window to the close, which admitted a little light during the daytime,
and a villainous compound of smells at all times, but more especially
towards evening. Corresponding to this window was a borrowed light on
the other side of the passage, looking into the kitchen, which had no
direct communication with the free air, but received in the daytime, at
second hand, such straggling and obscure light as found its way from
the lane through the window opposite. At present the interior of the
kitchen was visible by its own huge fires--a sort of Pandemonium, where
men and women, half undressed, were busied in baking, broiling,
roasting oysters, and preparing devils on the gridiron; the mistress of
the place, with her shoes slipshod, and her hair straggling like that
of Megaera from under a round-eared cap, toiling, scolding, receiving
orders, giving them, and obeying them all at once, seemed the presiding
enchantress of that gloomy and fiery region.
Loud and repeated bursts of laughter from different quarters of the
house proved that her labours were acceptable, and not unrewarded by a
generous public. With some difficulty a waiter was prevailed upon to
show Colonel Mannering and Dinmont the room where their friend learned
in the law held his hebdomadal carousals. The scene which it exhibited,
and particularly the attitude of the counsellor himself, the principal
figure therein, struck his two clients with amazement.
Mr. Pleydell was a lively, sharp-looking gentleman, with a professional
shrewdness in his eye, and, generally speaking, a professional
formality in his manners. But this, like his three-tailed wig and black
coat, he could slip off on a Saturday evening, when surrounded by a
party of jolly companions, and disposed for what he called his
altitudes. On the present occasion the revel had lasted since four
o'clock, and at length, under the direction of a venerable compotator,
who had shared the sports and festivity of three generations, the
frolicsome company had begun to practise the ancient and now forgotten
pastime of HIGH JINKS. This game was played in several different ways.
Most frequently the dice were thrown by the company, and those upon
whom the lot fell were obliged to assume and maintain for a time a
certain fictitious character, or to repeat a certain number of
fescennine verses in a particular order. If they departed from the
characters assigned, or if their memory proved treacherous in the
repetition, they incurred forfeits, which were either compounded for by
swallowing an additional bumper or by paying a small sum towards the
reckoning. At this sport the jovial company were closely engaged when
Mannering entered the room.
Mr. Counsellor Pleydell, such as we have described him, was enthroned
as a monarch in an elbow-chair placed on the dining-table, his scratch
wig on one side, his head crowned with a bottle-slider, his eye leering
with an expression betwixt fun and the effects of wine, while his court
around him resounded with such crambo scraps of verse as these:--
Where is Gerunto now? and what's become of him?
Gerunto's drowned because he could not swim, etc., etc.
Such, O Themis, were anciently the sports of thy Scottish children!
Dinmont was first in the room. He stood aghast a moment, and then
exclaimed, 'It's him, sure enough. Deil o' the like o' that ever I saw!'
At the sound of 'Mr. Dinmont and Colonel Mannering wanting to speak to
you, sir,' Pleydell turned his head, and blushed a little when he saw
the very genteel figure of the English stranger. He was, however, of
the opinion of Falstaff, 'Out, ye villains, play out the play!' wisely
judging it the better way to appear totally unconcerned. 'Where be our
guards?' exclaimed this second Justinian; 'see ye not a stranger knight
from foreign parts arrived at this our court of Holyrood, with our bold
yeoman Andrew Dinmont, who has succeeded to the keeping of our royal
flocks within the forest of Jedwood, where, thanks to our royal care in
the administration of justice, they feed as safe as if they were within
the bounds of Fife? Where be our heralds, our pursuivants, our Lyon,
our Marchmount, our Carrick, and our Snowdown? Let the strangers be
placed at our board, and regaled as beseemeth their quality and this
our high holiday; to-morrow we will hear their tidings.'
'So please you, my liege, to-morrow's Sunday,' said one of the company.
'Sunday, is it? then we will give no offence to the assembly of the
kirk; on Monday shall be their audience.'
Mannering, who had stood at first uncertain whether to advance or
retreat, now resolved to enter for the moment into the whim of the
scene, though internally fretting at Mac-Morlan for sending him to
consult with a crack-brained humourist. He therefore advanced with
three profound congees, and craved permission to lay his credentials at
the feet of the Scottish monarch, in order to be perused at his best
leisure. The gravity with which he accommodated himself to the humour
of the moment, and the deep and humble inclination with which he at
first declined, and then accepted, a seat presented by the master of
the ceremonies, procured him three rounds of applause.
'Deil hae me, if they arena a' mad thegither!' said Dinmont, occupying
with less ceremony a seat at the bottom of the table; 'or else they hae
taen Yule before it comes, and are gaun a-guisarding.'
A large glass of claret was offered to Mannering, who drank it to the
health of the reigning prince. 'You are, I presume to guess,' said the
monarch, 'that celebrated Sir Miles Mannering, so renowned in the
French wars, and may well pronounce to us if the wines of Gascony lose
their flavour in our more northern realm.'
Mannering, agreeably flattered by this allusion to the fame of his
celebrated ancestor, replied by professing himself only a distant
relation of the preux chevalier, and added, 'that in his opinion the
wine was superlatively good.'
'It's ower cauld for my stamach,' said Dinmont, setting down the
glass--empty however.
'We will correct that quality,' answered King Paulus, the first of the
name; 'we have not forgotten that the moist and humid air of our valley
of Liddel inclines to stronger potations. Seneschal, let our faithful
yeoman have a cup of brandy; it will be more germain to the matter.'
'And now,' said Mannering, 'since we have unwarily intruded upon your
majesty at a moment of mirthful retirement, be pleased to say when you
will indulge a stranger with an audience on those affairs of weight
which have brought him to your northern capital.'
The monarch opened Mac-Morlan's letter, and, running it hastily over,
exclaimed with his natural voice and manner, 'Lucy Bertram of
Ellangowan, poor dear lassie!'
'A forfeit! a forfeit!' exclaimed a dozen voices; 'his majesty has
forgot his kingly character.'
'Not a whit! not a whit!' replied the king; 'I'll be judged by this
courteous knight. May not a monarch love a maid of low degree? Is not
King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid an adjudged case in point?'
'Professional! professional! another forfeit,' exclaimed the tumultuary
nobility.
'Had not our royal predecessors,' continued the monarch, exalting his
sovereign voice to drown these disaffected clamours,--'had they not
their Jean Logies, their Bessie Carmichaels, their Oliphants, their
Sandilands, and their Weirs, and shall it be denied to us even to name
a maiden whom we delight to honour? Nay, then, sink state and perish
sovereignty! for, like a second Charles V, we will abdicate, and seek
in the private shades of life those pleasures which are denied to a
throne.'
So saying, he flung away his crown, and sprung from his exalted station
with more agility than could have been expected from his age, ordered
lights and a wash-hand basin and towel, with a cup of green tea, into
another room, and made a sign to Mannering to accompany him. In less
than two minutes he washed his face and hands, settled his wig in the
glass, and, to Mannering's great surprise, looked quite a different man
from the childish Bacchanal he had seen a moment before.
'There are folks,' he said, 'Mr. Mannering, before whom one should take
care how they play the fool, because they have either too much malice
or too little wit, as the poet says. The best compliment I can pay
Colonel Mannering is to show I am not ashamed to expose myself before
him; and truly I think it is a compliment I have not spared to-night on
your good-nature. But what's that great strong fellow wanting?'
Dinmont, who had pushed after Mannering into the room, began with a
scrape with his foot and a scratch of his head in unison. 'I am Dandie
Dinmont, sir, of the Charlie's Hope--the Liddesdale lad; ye'll mind me?
It was for me ye won yon grand plea.'
'What plea, you loggerhead?' said the lawyer. 'D'ye think I can
remember all the fools that come to plague me?'
'Lord, sir, it was the grand plea about the grazing o' the Langtae
Head!' said the farmer.
'Well, curse thee, never mind; give me the memorial and come to me on
Monday at ten,' replied the learned counsel.
'But, sir, I haena got ony distinct memorial.'
'No memorial, man?' said Pleydell.
'Na, sir, nae memorial,' answered Dandie; 'for your honour said before,
Mr. Pleydell, ye'll mind, that ye liked best to hear us hill-folk tell
our ain tale by word o' mouth.'
'Beshrew my tongue, that said so!' answered the counsellor; 'it will
cost my ears a dinning. Well, say in two words what you've got to say.
You see the gentleman waits.'
'Ou, sir, if the gentleman likes he may play his ain spring first; it's
a' ane to Dandie.'
'Now, you looby,' said the lawyer, 'cannot you conceive that your
business can be nothing to Colonel Mannering, but that he may not
choose to have these great ears of thine regaled with his matters?'
'Aweel, sir, just as you and he like, so ye see to my business,' said
Dandie, not a whit disconcerted by the roughness of this reception.
'We're at the auld wark o' the marches again, Jock o' Dawston Cleugh
and me. Ye see we march on the tap o' Touthop-rigg after we pass the
Pomoragrains; for the Pomoragrains, and Slackenspool, and Bloodylaws,
they come in there, and they belang to the Peel; but after ye pass
Pomoragrains at a muckle great saucer-headed cutlugged stane that they
ca' Charlie's Chuckie, there Dawston Cleugh and Charlie's Hope they
march. Now, I say the march rins on the tap o' the hill where the wind
and water shears; but Jock o' Dawston Cleugh again, he contravenes
that, and says that it bauds down by the auld drove-road that gaes awa
by the Knot o' the Gate ower to Keeldar Ward; and that makes an unco
difference.'
'And what difference does it make, friend?' said Pleydell. 'How many
sheep will it feed?'
'Ou, no mony,' said Dandie, scratching his head; 'it's lying high and
exposed: it may feed a hog, or aiblins twa in a good year.'
'And for this grazing, which may be worth about five shillings a year,
you are willing to throw away a hundred pound or two?'
'Na, sir, it's no for the value of the grass,' replied Dinmont; 'it's
for justice.'
'My good friend,' said Pleydell, 'justice, like charity, should begin
at home. Do you justice to your wife and family, and think no more
about the matter.'
Dinmont still lingered, twisting his hat in his hand. 'It's no for
that, sir; but I would like ill to be bragged wi' him; he threeps he'll
bring a score o' witnesses and mair, and I'm sure there's as mony will
swear for me as for him, folk that lived a' their days upon the
Charlie's Hope, and wadna like to see the land lose its right.'
'Zounds, man, if it be a point of honour,' said the lawyer, 'why don't
your landlords take it up?'
'I dinna ken, sir (scratching his head again); there's been nae
election-dusts lately, and the lairds are unco neighbourly, and Jock
and me canna get them to yoke thegither about it a' that we can say;
but if ye thought we might keep up the rent--'
'No! no! that will never do,' said Pleydell. 'Confound you, why don't
you take good cudgels and settle it?'
'Odd, sir,' answered the farmer, 'we tried that three times already,
that's twice on the land and ance at Lockerby Fair. But I dinna ken;
we're baith gey good at single-stick, and it couldna weel be judged.'
'Then take broadswords, and be d--d to you, as your fathers did before
you,' said the counsel learned in the law.
'Aweel, sir, if ye think it wadna be again the law, it's a' ane to
Dandie.'
'Hold! hold!' exclaimed Pleydell, 'we shall have another Lord Soulis'
mistake. Pr'ythee, man, comprehend me; I wish you to consider how very
trifling and foolish a lawsuit you wish to engage in.'
'Ay, sir?' said Dandie, in a disappointed tone. 'So ye winna take on
wi' me, I'm doubting?'
'Me! not I. Go home, go home, take a pint and agree.' Dandie looked but
half contented, and still remained stationary. 'Anything more, my
friend?'
'Only, sir, about the succession of this leddy that's dead, auld Miss
Margaret Bertram o' Singleside.'
'Ay, what about her?' said the counsellor, rather surprised.
'Ou, we have nae connexion at a' wi' the Bertrams,' said Dandie; 'they
were grand folk by the like o' us; but Jean Liltup, that was auld
Singleside's housekeeper, and the mother of these twa young ladies that
are gane--the last o' them's dead at a ripe age, I trow--Jean Liltup
came out o' Liddel water, and she was as near our connexion as second
cousin to my mother's half-sister. She drew up wi' Singleside, nae
doubt, when she was his housekeeper, and it was a sair vex and grief to
a' her kith and kin. But he acknowledged a marriage, and satisfied the
kirk; and now I wad ken frae you if we hae not some claim by law?'
'Not the shadow of a claim.'
'Aweel, we're nae puirer,' said Dandie; 'but she may hae thought on us
if she was minded to make a testament. Weel, sir, I've said my say;
I'se e'en wish you good-night, and--' putting his hand in his pocket.
'No, no, my friend; I never take fees on Saturday nights, or without a
memorial. Away with you, Dandie.' And Dandie made his reverence and
departed accordingly.