A STATESMAN OF 1688.
Call you these news? You might as well have told me,
That old King Coil is dead, and graved at Kylesfield.
I'll help thee out----.
AYRSHIRE TRAGEDY, ACT II.
Some weeks after this, at a late hour one night, Lord Clermistonlee
was seated by the capacious fireplace in his chamber-of-dais. He was
alone. A supper of Crail capons and roasted crabs, a white loaf, and
wine posset, had just been discussed; and he was resorting to his
favourite tankard of burnt sack, when a loud knocking was heard at
the outer gate.
His lordship was decidedly in a bad humour: satiated with a long
career of gaiety, he had resolved to give this night to retirement,
to reverie, and to maturing his plans against Lilian, whose beauty
and manner in the last interview had inspired him with something like
a real passion for her. He remembered with pain the hatred and the
horror expressed in her parting glance. The memory of it had sunk
deeply in his heart; and he bitterly repented the destruction of her
favourite pigeon; for he felt that this cruel act had increased the
gulf between them.
The knocking at the gate recalled his thoughts.
"'Sdeath!" said he, "who dares to knock so loud and late? Ha! it may
be a macer of council; we have had no news from London for these
fourteen days past. Now, by all the devils, who can this be?"
A person was heard ascending the stair, and singing in a very cracked
voice the Old Hundredth Psalm. Clermistonlee started, and looked
around for a cane, marvelling who dared to insult him in his own
house. A psalm! he could hardly believe his ears.
"Pshaw!" said he, recognising the voice, as Juden ushered in Lord
Mersington, who entered unsteadily, balancing himself on each leg
alternately: his broad hat was awry, and his wig gone; but a silk
handkerchief tied round his head supplied its place. The learned
senator was in one of his usual altitudes.
"How now, gossip!" said Clermistonlee, impatiently; "whence this
unwonted piety?"
"Out upon thee, son of Belial! Dost not see that the Spirit is
strong within me?"
"Rather too plainly; but sit down, man--thy tankard of burnt sack
hath grown cold. Juden prepares it nightly quite as a matter of
course. Any news from our army yet?"
"None--none," replied the other, shaking his head with tipsy
solemnity; "but if matters go on as they seem likely to do, I maun
een change, Randal, or the grassy holms and bonnie mains o'
Mersington will gang to the deil before me; and I'll hae my canting
hizzie o' a wife back frae the west country to deave me wi' ranting
psalms and declaring against the crying sin o' the Mass, Papacy,
Prelacy, Arianism, and a' the rest o't." A glance of deep meaning
accompanied this.
"And I, to mend my fortune, must fly my hawks more surely. _Bongré,
malgré_, Lilian Napier must become Lady Clermistonlee, or my lord of
that ilk must boune him for another land."
"Hee, hee!--and you are fairly tired o' following mad Mally
Charteris, Maud o' Madertie, and my Lady Jean Gordon--hee, hee!"
"Stuff!--name them not. I am sick to death of all damsels who owe
their beauty to sweet pomade, cream of Venice, Naples' dew, and the
devil's philters. Ah! the blooming glow of health and loveliness
that renders so radiant the gentle Lilian arises from none of those."
"Ou' aye, ou' aye!" muttered Mersington, as he buried his weason face
in the tankard. "You have been an awfu' chiel in your time, Randal,
and would restore the auld acts o' King Eugene III. gif the Council
would let ye--hee, hee!"
"By all the devils, I would!" laughed the roué, curling his
mustachios, as he lounged in his well-cushioned chair; "thou knowest,
good gossip, that the great horned head of the law always gave me a
strong _goût_ for vice."
"But Eugene's law would matter little to you, Randal--hee, hee! Ye
have but few women married within your fief or barony now."
Clermistonlee bit his lip as he replied:
"You taunt me with my poverty, gossip; but remember, that though I
have lost my manor of Drumsheugh, I consider that of Bruntisfield as
being nearly mine. Sir Archibald was an old cavalier, and staunch
high Churchman; and if the current of affairs (here his voice sank to
a whisper) goes against the King, we may easily prevail upon the
Council to forfeit these lands to the State for ancient misdemeanors."
"And for the leal service done to the cause of Grace in 1670, I would
move that the Council bestow upon my noble friend, the Lord
Clermistonlee--hee, hee!--the haill in free heritage and free barony
for ever, with all the meithes and marches thereof, (as the form in
law sayeth,) auld and divided as the same lie in length and breadth,
in houses, biggings, mills, multures, &c., hawking, hunting, fishing,
eel-arks, &c., with court, plaint, and herezeld, and with furk, fok,
sack, sock, thole, thame, vert, wraik, waith, ware, venison,
outfangthief, infangthief, pit and gallows, and sae forth, with the
tower, fortilace, or manor place thereof, and the couthie wee dame
hersel into the bargain."
"By Jove, thou art mad!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, who had listened
with no little impatience and surprise to this rhapsody which the law
lord brought out all at a breath.
"Hee, hee! the haill barony o' Bruntisfield is a braw tocher!--think
o' its pertinents, forbye the lands o' Puddockdub, whilk yield o'
clear rental ten thousand merks after paying Kirk and King!"
"King and Kirk, you mean."
"I say Kirk and King--hee, hee! The times are changing, and we maun
change wi' them."
"Zounds! I believe the old fool is too drunk to hear me. Harkee!
gossip Mersington, you know I lost a thousand pounds to that
addlepate, Holsterlee, on our race at Leith, where my boasted mare
failed so devilishly."
"Had ye tar-barrelled the carlin Elshender, it would hae been another
story," grumbled Juden, as he replenished the tankards.
"A drowning man will cling to straws. By all the devils, on that
race hung the partial retrieval or utter ruin of my fortune! 'Tis a
debt of honour--the money is unpaid, and must be discharged with
others, even should I turn footpad to raise the testers."
"'Tis an auld song, Randal--the fag-end of a career o' wickedness and
depravity--birling the wine-cup, and flaunting wi' bona robas,"
replied Mersington, practising his now snuffling tone, and shaking
his head with solemn but tipsy gravity in the new character his
cunning led him to assume. "A just retribution on the crying sins,
blasphemies, and enormities, anent whilk see the act (damn the act!)
committed in the days o' your dolefu' backsliding. I doubt you'll
hae to take a turn wi' the Scots' Dutch, like Jock the Laird's
brother."
"My drivelling gossip," said Clermistonlee, with considerable
hauteur, "you forget that it beseems not a Baron to be so roughly
schooled by the mere Goodman of Mersington."
"Byde ye there, billy," exclaimed the other. "Gudeman, quotha! we
hold our fief by knight's service, of the Scottish crown; and ken ye,
Randal, that such as hold their lands of the King direct are styled
Lairds; but such as held their tacks of a subject were styled
gudemen; a custom hath lately gone into disuse, as Rosehaugh saith in
his folio on Precedence."
"Laird or Lord, I care not a brass bodle. No man shall assume the
part of monitor to me! Again and again I have told thee, Mersington,
that my whole soul, for this year past, has been bent upon the
possession of Lilian Napier, and her acres of wood and wold; and dost
think, gossip, that I, who have subdued so many fine women (yea, and
some deuced haughty ones, too), shall be baffled by a little moppet
like this? Come, good gossip, assist me with thy advice. I have
ever found your invention fertile, your advice able, your cunning
matchless. Canst think of no new plan, by which to----Hah! who the
devil can that be, now?" he exclaimed, as another furious knocking at
the outer gate cut short his adjuration; and he listened anxiously,
muttering, "'Tis long past midnight; some drunken mudlark, I warrant."
"A macer o' council, my Lord," exclaimed Juden, entering hurriedly,
and laying a square note before his master, who let fall his wine-cup
as he examined the seal, which bore the coronet and collared
sleuth-hound of Perth. A red glow suffused the dark cheek, and
sparkled in the eyes of Clermistonlee, as he deliberately opened a
billet which he previously knew to be of the most vital importance to
himself and to the nation. It was addressed "ffor ye Right
Honourable my very good friend the Lord Clermistounlee," and ran
thus:--
"Dear Gossip,
"There is the devil to pay in the south--_all is lost_!
Craigdarroch, a trooper of the Guards, hath brought intelligence that
our army, like the English (God's murrain on the false knaves!) hath
_en masse_ joined the invader--that James has fled, and William
reached London. Meet us at the Laigh Council Chamber without delay.
"Yr assured friend,
"PERTH, _Cancellarius_."
Overwhelmed with consternation, Clermistonlee stood for a moment like
a statue; then, crushing his hat upon his head, he stuck a pair of
pistols in his belt, snatched his cloak and sword, and tossing the
note to Mersington, to read and follow as he chose, rushed away in
silence with his usual impetuosity.
Mersington, who had regarded his actions with a stare of tipsy
wonder, took up the note, and contrived to decypher its contents. As
he did so, his features underwent a rapid change; fear, wrath, and
cunning by turns contracted his hard visage, and completely sobered
him. At last, a sinister leer of deep meaning twinkled in his
bleared eyes; he quietly burned the note, brushed his large hat with
his sleeve, adjusted it on his head, and assuming his gold-headed
cane, departed for the Board of the Privy Council.
From that hour his Lordship was a true-blue Presbyterian.