Well, lord, we have not got that which we have;
’Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,
Being opposites of such repairing nature.
Henry VI. Part II.
In the gorge of a pass or mountain glen, ascending from the fertile
plains of East Lothian, there stood in former times an extensive
castle, of which only the ruins are now visible. Its ancient
proprietors were a race of powerful and warlike barons, who bore the
same name with the castle itself, which was Ravenswood. Their line
extended to a remote period of antiquity, and they had intermarried
with the Douglasses, Humes, Swintons, Hays, and other families of power
and distinction in the same country. Their history was frequently
involved in that of Scotland itself, in whose annals their feats are
recorded. The Castle of Ravenswood, occupying, and in some measure
commanding, a pass betweixt Berwickshire, or the Merse, as the
southeastern province of Scotland is termed, and the Lothians, was of
importance both in times of foreign war and domestic discord. It was
frequently beseiged with ardour, and defended with obstinacy, and, of
course, its owners played a conspicuous part in story. But their house
had its revolutions, like all sublunary things: it became greatly
declined from its splendour about the middle of the 17th century; and
towards the period of the Revolution, the last proprietor of Ravenswood
Castle saw himself compelled to part with the ancient family seat, and
to remove himself to a lonely and sea-beaten tower, which, situated on
the bleak shores between St. Abb’s Head and the village of Eyemouth,
looked out on the lonely and boisterous German Ocean. A black domain of
wild pasture-land surrounded their new residence, and formed the
remains of their property.
Lord Ravenswood, the heir of this ruined family, was far from bending
his mind to his new condition of life. In the civil war of 1689 he had
espoused the sinking side, and although he had escaped without the
forfeiture of life or land, his blood had been attainted, and his title
abolished. He was now called Lord Ravenswood only in courtesy.
This forfeited nobleman inherited the pride and turbulence, though not
the fortune, of his house, and, as he imputed the final declension of
his family to a particular individual, he honoured that person with his
full portion of hatred. This was the very man who had now become, by
purchase, proprietor of Ravenswood, and the domains of which the heir
of the house now stood dispossessed. He was descended of a family much
less ancient than that of Lord Ravenswood, and which had only risen to
wealth and political importance during the great civil wars. He himself
had been bred to the bar, and had held high offices in the state,
maintaining through life the character of a skilful fisher in the
troubled waters of a state divided by factions, and governed by
delegated authority; and of one who contrived to amass considerable
sums of money in a country where there was but little to be gathered,
and who equally knew the value of wealth and the various means of
augmenting it and using it as an engine of increasing his power and
influence.
Thus qualified and gifted, he was a dangerous antagonist to the fierce
and imprudent Ravenswood. Whether he had given him good cause for the
enmity with which the Baron regarded him, was a point on which men
spoke differently. Some said the quarrel arose merely from the
vindictive spirit and envy of Lord Ravenswood, who could not patiently
behold another, though by just and fair purchase, become the proprietor
of the estate and castle of his forefathers. But the greater part of
the public, prone to slander the wealthy in their absence as to flatter
them in their presence, held a less charitable opinion. They said that
the Lord Keeper (for to this height Sir William Ashton had ascended)
had, previous to the final purchase of the estate of Ravenswood, been
concerned in extensive pecuniary transactions with the former
proprietor; and, rather intimating what was probable than affirming
anything positively, they asked which party was likely to have the
advantage in stating and enforcing the claims arising out of these
complicated affairs, and more than hinted the advantages which the cool
lawyer and able politician must necessarily possess over the hot,
fiery, and imprudent character whom he had involved in legal toils and
pecuniary snares.
The character of the times aggravated these suspicions. “In those days
there was no king in Israel.” Since the departure of James VI. to
assume the richer and more powerful crown of England, there had existed
in Scotland contending parties, formed among the aristocracy, by whom,
as their intrigues at the court of St. James’s chanced to prevail, the
delegated powers of sovereignty were alternately swayed. The evils
attending upon this system of government resembled those which afflict
the tenants of an Irish estate, the property of an absentee. There was
no supreme power, claiming and possessing a general interest with the
community at large, to whom the oppressed might appeal from subordinate
tyranny, either for justice or for mercy. Let a monarch be as indolent,
as selfish, as much disposed to arbitrary power as he will, still, in a
free country, his own interests are so clearly connected with those of
the public at large, and the evil consequences to his own authority are
so obvious and imminent when a different course is pursued, that common
policy, as well as common feeling, point to the equal distribution of
justice, and to the establishment of the throne in righteousness. Thus,
even sovereigns remarkable for usurpation and tyranny have been found
rigorous in the administration of justice among their subjects, in
cases where their own power and passions were not compromised.
It is very different when the powers of sovereignty are delegated to
the head of an aristocratic faction, rivalled and pressed closely in
the race of ambition by an adverse leader. His brief and precarious
enjoyment of power must be employed in rewarding his partizans, in
extending his influence, in oppressing and crushing his adversaries.
Even Abou Hassan, the most disinterested of all viceroys, forgot not,
during his caliphate of one day, to send a douceur of one thousand
pieces of gold to his own household; and the Scottish vicegerents,
raised to power by the strength of their faction, failed not to embrace
the same means of rewarding them.
The administration of justice, in particular, was infected by the most
gross partiality. A case of importance scarcely occurred in which there
was not some ground for bias or partiality on the part of the judges,
who were so little able to withstand the temptation that the adage,
“Show me the man, and I will show you the law,” became as prevalent as
it was scandalous. One corruption led the way to others still more
gross and profligate. The judge who lent his sacred authority in one
case to support a friend, and in another to crush an enemy, and whose
decisions were founded on family connexions or political relations,
could not be supposed inaccessible to direct personal motives; and the
purse of the wealthy was too often believed to be thrown into the scale
to weigh down the cause of the poor litigant. The subordinate officers
of the law affected little scruple concerning bribery. Pieces of plate
and bags of money were sent in presents to the king’s counsel, to
influence their conduct, and poured forth, says a contemporary writer,
like billets of wood upon their floors, without even the decency of
concealment.
In such times, it was not over uncharitable to suppose that the
statesman, practised in courts of law, and a powerful member of a
triumphant cabal, might find and use means of advantage over his less
skilful and less favoured adversary; and if it had been supposed that
Sir William Ashton’s conscience had been too delicate to profit by
these advantages, it was believed that his ambition and desire of
extending his wealth and consequence found as strong a stimulus in the
exhortations of his lady as the daring aim of Macbeth in the days of
yore.
Lady Ashton was of a family more distinguished than that of her lord,
an advantage which she did not fail to use to the uttermost, in
maintaining and extending her husband’s influence over others, and,
unless she was greatly belied, her own over him. She had been
beautiful, and was stately and majestic in her appearance. Endowed by
nature with strong powers and violent passions, experience had taught
her to employ the one, and to conceal, if not to moderate, the other.
She was a severe and strict observer of the external forms, at least,
of devotion; her hospitality was splendid, even to ostentation; her
address and manners, agreeable to the pattern most valued in Scotland
at the period, were grave, dignified, and severely regulated by the
rules of etiquette. Her character had always been beyond the breath of
slander. And yet, with all these qualities to excite respect, Lady
Ashton was seldom mentioned in the terms of love or affection.
Interest—the interest of her family, if not her own—seemed too
obviously the motive of her actions; and where this is the case, the
sharp-judging and malignant public are not easily imposed upon by
outward show. It was seen and ascertained that, in her most graceful
courtesies and compliments, Lady Ashton no more lost sight of her
object than the falcon in his airy wheel turns his quick eyes from his
destined quarry; and hence, something of doubt and suspicion qualified
the feelings with which her equals received her attentions. With her
inferiors these feelings were mingled with fear; an impression useful
to her purposes, so far as it enforced ready compliance with her
requests and implicit obedience to her commands, but detrimental,
because it cannot exist with affection or regard.
Even her husband, it is said, upon whose fortunes her talents and
address had produced such emphatic influence, regarded her with
respectful awe rather than confiding attachment; and report said, there
were times when he considered his grandeur as dearly purchased at the
expense of domestic thraldom. Of this, however, much might be
suspected, but little could be accurately known: Lady Ashton regarded
the honour of her husband as her own, and was well aware how much that
would suffer in the public eye should he appear a vassal to his wife.
In all her arguments his opinion was quoted as infallible; his taste
was appealed to, and his sentiments received, with the air of deference
which a dutiful wife might seem to owe to a husband of Sir William
Ashton’s rank and character. But there was something under all this
which rung false and hollow; and to those who watched this couple with
close, and perhaps malicious, scrutiny it seemed evident that, in the
haughtiness of a firmer character, higher birth, and more decided views
of aggrandisement, the lady looked with some contempt on her husband,
and that he regarded her with jealous fear, rather than with love or
admiration.
Still, however, the leading and favourite interests of Sir William
Ashton and his lady were the same, and they failed not to work in
concert, although without cordiality, and to testify, in all exterior
circumstances, that respect for each other which they were aware was
necessary to secure that of the public.
Their union was crowned with several children, of whom three survived.
One, the eldest son, was absent on his travels; the second, a girl of
seventeen, and the third, a boy about three years younger, resided with
their parents in Edinburgh during the sessions of the Scottish
Parliament and Privy Council, at other times in the old Gothic castle
of Ravenswood, to which the Lord Keeper had made large additions in the
style of the 17th century.
Allan Lord Ravenswood, the late proprietor of that ancient mansion and
the large estate annexed to it, continued for some time to wage
ineffectual war with his successor concerning various points to which
their former transactions had given rise, and which were successively
determined in favour of the wealthy and powerful competitor, until
death closed the litigation, by summoning Ravenswood to a higher bar.
The thread of life, which had been long wasting, gave way during a fit
of violent and impotent fury with which he was assailed on receiving
the news of the loss of a cause, founded, perhaps, rather in equity
than in law, the last which he had maintained against his powerful
antagonist. His son witnessed his dying agonies, and heard the curses
which he breathed against his adversary, as if they had conveyed to him
a legacy of vengeance. Other circumstances happened to exasperate a
passion which was, and had long been, a prevalent vice in the Scottish
disposition.
It was a November morning, and the cliffs which overlooked the ocean
were hung with thick and heavy mist, when the portals of the ancient
and half-ruinous tower, in which Lord Ravenswood had spent the last and
troubled years of his life, opened, that his mortal remains might pass
forward to an abode yet more dreary and lonely. The pomp of attendance,
to which the deceased had, in his latter years, been a stranger, was
revived as he was about to be consigned to the realms of forgetfulness.
Banner after banner, with the various devices and coats of this ancient
family and its connexions, followed each other in mournful procession
from under the low-browed archway of the courtyard. The principal
gentry of the country attended in the deepest mourning, and tempered
the pace of their long train of horses to the solemn march befitting
the occasion. Trumpets, with banners of crape attached to them, sent
forth their long and melancholy notes to regulate the movements of the
procession. An immense train of inferior mourners and menials closed
the rear, which had not yet issued from the castle gate when the van
had reached the chapel where the body was to be deposited.
Contrary to the custom, and even to the law, of the time, the body was
met by a priest of the Scottish Episcopal communion, arrayed in his
surplice, and prepared to read over the coffin of the deceased the
funeral service of the church. Such had been the desire of Lord
Ravenswood in his last illness, and it was readily complied with by the
Tory gentlemen, or Cavaliers, as they affected to style themselves, in
which faction most of his kinsmen were enrolled. The Presbyterian
Church judicatory of the bounds, considering the ceremony as a
bravading insult upon their authority, had applied to the Lord Keeper,
as the nearest privy councillor, for a warrant to prevent its being
carried into effect; so that, when the clergyman had opened his
prayer-book, an officer of the law, supported by some armed men,
commanded him to be silent. An insult which fired the whole assembly
with indignation was particularly and instantly resented by the only
son of the deceased, Edgar, popularly called the Master of Ravenswood,
a youth of about twenty years of age. He clapped his hand on his sword,
and bidding the official person to desist at his peril from farther
interruption, commanded the clergyman to proceed. The man attempted to
enforce his commission; but as an hundred swords at once glittered in
the air, he contented himself with protesting against the violence
which had been offered to him in the execution of his duty, and stood
aloof, a sullen and moody spectator of the ceremonial, muttering as one
who should say: “You’ll rue the day that clogs me with this answer.”
The scene was worthy of an artist’s pencil. Under the very arch of the
house of death, the clergyman, affrighted at the scene, and trembling
for his own safety, hastily and unwillingly rehearsed the solemn
service of the church, and spoke “dust to dust and ashes to ashes,”
over ruined pride and decayed prosperity. Around stood the relations of
the deceased, their countenances more in anger than in sorrow, and the
drawn swords which they brandished forming a violent contrast with
their deep mourning habits. In the countenance of the young man alone,
resentment seemed for the moment overpowered by the deep agony with
which he beheld his nearest, and almost his only, friend consigned to
the tomb of his ancestry. A relative observed him turn deadly pale,
when, all rites being now duly observed, it became the duty of the
chief mourner to lower down into the charnel vault, where mouldering
coffins showed their tattered velvet and decayed plating, the head of
the corpse which was to be their partner in corruption. He stept to the
youth and offered his assistance, which, by a mute motion, Edgar
Ravenswood rejected. Firmly, and without a tear, he performed that last
duty. The stone was laid on the sepulchre, the door of the aisle was
locked, and the youth took possession of its massive key.
As the crowd left the chapel, he paused on the steps which led to its
Gothic chancel. “Gentlemen and friends,” he said, “you have this day
done no common duty to the body of your deceased kinsman. The rites of
due observance, which, in other countries, are allowed as the due of
the meanest Christian, would this day have been denied to the body of
your relative—not certainly sprung of the meanest house in Scotland—had
it not been assured to him by your courage. Others bury their dead in
sorrow and tears, in silence and in reverence; our funeral rites are
marred by the intrusion of bailiffs and ruffians, and our grief—the
grief due to our departed friend—is chased from our cheeks by the glow
of just indignation. But it is well that I know from what quiver this
arrow has come forth. It was only he that dug the grave who could have
the mean cruelty to disturb the obsequies; and Heaven do as much to me
and more, if I requite not to this man and his house the ruin and
disgrace he has brought on me and mine!”
A numerous part of the assembly applauded this speech, as the spirited
expression of just resentment; but the more cool and judicious
regretted that it had been uttered. The fortunes of the heir of
Ravenswood were too low to brave the farther hostility which they
imagined these open expressions of resentment must necessarily provoke.
Their apprehensions, however, proved groundless, at least in the
immediate consequences of this affair.
The mourners returned to the tower, there, according to a custom but
recently abolished in Scotland, to carouse deep healths to the memory
of the deceased, to make the house of sorrow ring with sounds of
joviality and debauch, and to diminish, by the expense of a large and
profuse entertainment, the limited revenues of the heir of him whose
funeral they thus strangely honoured. It was the custom, however, and
on the present occasion it was fully observed. The tables swam in wine,
the populace feasted in the courtyard, the yeomen in the kitchen and
buttery; and two years’ rent of Ravenswood’s remaining property hardly
defrayed the charge of the funeral revel. The wine did its office on
all but the Master of Ravenswood, a title which he still retained,
though forfeiture had attached to that of his father. He, while passing
around the cup which he himself did not taste, soon listened to a
thousand exclamations against the Lord Keeper, and passionate
protestations of attachment to himself, and to the honour of his house.
He listened with dark and sullen brow to ebullitions which he
considered justly as equally evanescent with the crimson bubbles on the
brink of the goblet, or at least with the vapours which its contents
excited in the brains of the revellers around him.
When the last flask was emptied, they took their leave with deep
protestations—to be forgotten on the morrow, if, indeed, those who made
them should not think it necessary for their safety to make a more
solemn retractation.
Accepting their adieus with an air of contempt which he could scarce
conceal, Ravenswood at length beheld his ruinous habitation cleared of
this confluence of riotous guests, and returned to the deserted hall,
which now appeared doubly lonely from the cessation of that clamour to
which it had so lately echoed. But its space was peopled by phantoms
which the imagination of the young heir conjured up before him—the
tarnished honour and degraded fortunes of his house, the destruction of
his own hopes, and the triumph of that family by whom they had been
ruined. To a mind naturally of a gloomy cast here was ample room for
meditation, and the musings of young Ravenswood were deep and
unwitnessed.
The peasant who shows the ruins of the tower, which still crown the
beetling cliff and behold the war of the waves, though no more tenanted
saved by the sea-mew and cormorant, even yet affirms that on this fatal
night the Master of Ravenswood, by the bitter exclamations of his
despair, evoked some evil fiend, under whose malignant influence the
future tissue of incidents was woven. Alas! what fiend can suggest more
desperate counsels than those adopted under the guidance of our own
violent and unresisted passions?