Through tops of the high trees she did descry
A little smoke, whose vapour, thin and light,
Reeking aloft, uprolled to the sky,
Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight,
That in the same did wonne some living wight.
SPENSER.
Lucy acted as her father’s guide, for he was too much engrossed with
his political labours, or with society, to be perfectly acquainted with
his own extensive domains, and, moreover, was generally an inhabitant
of the city of Edinburgh; and she, on the other hand, had, with her
mother, resided the whole summer in Ravenswood, and, partly from taste,
partly from want of any other amusement, had, by her frequent rambles,
learned to know each lane, alley, dingle, or bushy dell,
And every bosky bourne from side to side.
We have said that the Lord Keeper was not indifferent to the beauties
of nature; and we add, in justice to him, that he felt them doubly when
pointed out by the beautiful, simple, and interesting girl who, hanging
on his arm with filial kindness, now called him to admire the size of
some ancient oak, and now the unexpected turn where the path,
developing its maze from glen or dingle, suddenly reached an eminence
commanding an extensive view of the plains beneath them, and then
gradually glided away from the prospect to lose itself among rocks and
thickets, and guide to scenes of deeper seclusion.
It was when pausing on one of those points of extensive and commanding
view that Lucy told her father they were close by the cottage of her
blind protégée; and on turning from the little hill, a path which led
around it, worn by the daily steps of the infirm inmate, brought them
in sight of the hut, which, embosomed in a deep and obscure dell,
seemed to have been so situated purposely to bear a correspondence with
the darkened state of its inhabitant.
The cottage was situated immediately under a tall rock, which in some
measure beetled over it, as if threatening to drop some detached
fragment from its brow on the frail tenement beneath. The hut itself
was constructed of turf and stones, and rudely roofed over with thatch,
much of which was in a dilapidated condition. The thin blue smoke rose
from it in a light column, and curled upward along the white face of
the incumbent rock, giving the scene a tint of exquisite softness. In a
small and rude garden, surrounded by straggling elder-bushes, which
formed a sort of imperfect hedge, sat near to the beehives, by the
produce of which she lived, that “woman old” whom Lucy had brought her
father hither to visit.
Whatever there had been which was disastrous in her fortune, whatever
there was miserable in her dwelling, it was easy to judge by the first
glance that neither years, poverty, misfortune, nor infirmity had
broken the spirit of this remarkable woman.
She occupied a turf seat, placed under a weeping birch of unusual
magnitude and age, as Judah is represented sitting under her palm-tree,
with an air at once of majesty and of dejection. Her figure was tall,
commanding, and but little bent by the infirmities of old age. Her
dress, though that of a peasant, was uncommonly clean, forming in that
particular a strong contrast to most of her rank, and was disposed with
an attention to neatness, and even to taste, equally unusual. But it
was her expression of countenance which chiefly struck the spectator,
and induced most persons to address her with a degree of deference and
civility very inconsistent with the miserable state of her dwelling,
and which, nevertheless, she received with that easy composure which
showed she felt it to be her due. She had once been beautiful, but her
beauty had been of a bold and masculine cast, such as does not survive
the bloom of youth; yet her features continued to express strong sense,
deep reflection, and a character of sober pride, which, as we have
already said of her dress, appeared to argue a conscious superiority to
those of her own rank. It scarce seemed possible that a face, deprived
of the advantage of sight, could have expressed character so strongly;
but her eyes, which were almost totally closed, did not, by the display
of their sightless orbs, mar the countenance to which they could add
nothing. She seemed in a ruminating posture, soothed, perhaps, by the
murmurs of the busy tribe around her to abstraction, though not to
slumber.
Lucy undid the latch of the little garden gate, and solicited the old
woman’s attention. “My father, Alice, is come to see you.”
“He is welcome, Miss Ashton, and so are you,” said the old woman,
turning and inclining her head towards her visitors.
“This is a fine morning for your beehives, mother,” said the Lord
Keeper, who, struck with the outward appearance of Alice, was somewhat
curious to know if her conversation would correspond with it.
“I believe so, my lord,” she replied; “I feel the air breathe milder
than of late.”
“You do not,” resumed the statesman, “take charge of these bees
yourself, mother? How do you manage them?”
“By delegates, as kings do their subjects,” resumed Alice; “and I am
fortunate in a prime minister. Here, Babie.”
She whistled on a small silver call which hung around her neck, and
which at that time was sometimes used to summon domestics, and Babie, a
girl of fifteen, made her appearance from the hut, not altogether so
cleanly arrayed as she would probably have been had Alice had the use
of her eyes, but with a greater air of neatness than was upon the whole
to have been expected.
“Babie,” said her mistress, “offer some bread and honey to the Lord
Keeper and Miss Ashton; they will excuse your awkwardness if you use
cleanliness and despatch.”
Babie performed her mistress’s command with the grace which was
naturally to have been expected, moving to and fro with a lobster-like
gesture, her feet and legs tending one way, while her head, turned in a
different direction, was fixed in wonder upon the laird, who was more
frequently heard of than seen by his tenants and dependants. The bread
and honey, however, deposited on a plantain leaf, was offered and
accepted in all due courtesy. The Lord Keeper, still retaining the
place which he had occupied on the decayed trunk of a fallen tree,
looked as if he wished to prolong the interview, but was at a loss how
to introduce a suitable subject.
“You have been long a resident on this property?” he said, after a
pause.
“It is now nearly sixty years since I first knew Ravenswood,” answered
the old dame, whose conversation, though perfectly civil and
respectful, seemed cautiously limited to the unavoidable and necessary
task of replying to Sir William.
“You are not, I should judge by your accent, of this country
originally?” said the Lord Keeper, in continuation.
“No; I am by birth an Englishwoman.”
“Yet you seem attached to this country as if it were your own.”
“It is here,” replied the blind woman, “that I have drank the cup of
joy and of sorrow which Heaven destined for me. I was here the wife of
an upright and affectionate husband for more than twenty years; I was
here the mother of six promising children; it was here that God
deprived me of all these blessings; it was here they died, and yonder,
by yon ruined chapel, they lie all buried. I had no country but theirs
while they lived; I have none but theirs now they are no more.”
“But your house,” said the Lord Keeper, looking at it, “is miserably
ruinous?”
“Do, my dear father,” said Lucy, eagerly, yet bashfully, catching at
the hint, “give orders to make it better; that is, if you think it
proper.”
“It will last my time, my dear Miss Lucy,” said the blind woman; “I
would not have my lord give himself the least trouble about it.”
“But,” said Lucy, “you once had a much better house, and were rich, and
now in your old age to live in this hovel!”
“It is as good as I deserve, Miss Lucy; if my heart has not broke with
what I have suffered, and seen others suffer, it must have been strong
enough, and the rest of this old frame has no right to call itself
weaker.”
“You have probably witnessed many changes,” said the Lord Keeper; “but
your experience must have taught you to expect them.”
“It has taught me to endure them, my lord,” was the reply.
“Yet you knew that they must needs arrive in the course of years?” said
the statesman.
“Ay; as I knew that the stump, on or beside which you sit, once a tall
and lofty tree, must needs one day fall by decay, or by the axe; yet I
hoped my eyes might not witness the downfall of the tree which
overshadowed my dwelling.”
“Do not suppose,” said the Lord Keeper, “that you will lose any
interest with me for looking back with regret to the days when another
family possessed my estates. You had reason, doubtless, to love them,
and I respect your gratitude. I will order some repairs in your
cottage, and I hope we shall live to be friends when we know each other
better.”
“Those of my age,” returned the dame, “make no new friends. I thank you
for your bounty, it is well intended undoubtedly; but I have all I
want, and I cannot accept more at your lordship’s hand.”
“Well, then,” continued the Lord Keeper, “at least allow me to say,
that I look upon you as a woman of sense and education beyond your
appearance, and that I hope you will continue to reside on this
property of mine rent-free for your life.”
“I hope I shall,” said the old dame, composedly; “I believe that was
made an article in the sale of Ravenswood to your lordship, though such
a trifling circumstance may have escaped your recollection.”
“I remember—I recollect,” said his lordship, somewhat confused. “I
perceive you are too much attached to your old friends to accept any
benefit from their successor.”
“Far from it, my lord; I am grateful for the benefits which I decline,
and I wish I could pay you for offering them, better than what I am now
about to say.” The Lord Keeper looked at her in some surprise, but said
not a word. “My lord,” she continued, in an impressive and solemn tone,
“take care what you do; you are on the brink of a precipice.”
“Indeed?” said the Lord Keeper, his mind reverting to the political
circumstances of the country. “Has anything come to your knowledge—any
plot or conspiracy?”
“No, my lord; those who traffic in such commodities do not call to
their councils the old, blind, and infirm. My warning is of another
kind. You have driven matters hard with the house of Ravenswood.
Believe a true tale: they are a fierce house, and there is danger in
dealing with men when they become desperate.”
“Tush,” answered the Keeper; “what has been between us has been the
work of the law, not my doing; and to the law they must look, if they
would impugn my proceedings.”
“Ay, but they may think otherwise, and take the law into their own
hand, when they fail of other means of redress.”
“What mean you?” said the Lord Keeper. “Young Ravenswood would not have
recourse to personal violence?”
“God forbid I should say so! I know nothing of the youth but what is
honourable and open. Honourable and open, said I? I should have added,
free, generous, noble. But he is still a Ravenswood, and may bide his
time. Remember the fate of Sir George Lockhart.”
The Lord Keeper started as she called to his recollection a tragedy so
deep and so recent. The old woman proceeded: “Chiesley, who did the
deed, was a relative of Lord Ravenswood. In the hall of Ravenswood, in
my presence and in that of others, he avowed publicly his determination
to do the cruelty which he afterwards committed. I could not keep
silence, though to speak it ill became my station. ‘You are devising a
dreadful crime,’ I said, ‘for which you must reckon before the judgment
seat.’ Never shall I forget his look, as he replied, ‘I must reckon
then for many things, and will reckon for this also.’ Therefore I may
well say, beware of pressing a desperate man with the hand of
authority. There is blood of Chiesley in the veins of Ravenswood, and
one drop of it were enough to fire him in the circumstances in which he
is placed. I say, beware of him.”
The old dame had, either intentionally or by accident, harped aright
the fear of the Lord Keeper. The desperate and dark resource of private
assassination, so familiar to a Scottish baron in former times, had
even in the present age been too frequently resorted to under the
pressure of unusual temptation, or where the mind of the actor was
prepared for such a crime. Sir William Ashton was aware of this; as
also that young Ravenswood had received injuries sufficient to prompt
him to that sort of revenge, which becomes a frequent though fearful
consequence of the partial administration of justice. He endeavoured to
disguise from Alice the nature of the apprehensions which he
entertained; but so ineffectually, that a person even of less
penetration than nature had endowed her with must necessarily have been
aware that the subject lay near his bosom. His voice was changed in its
accent as he replied to her, “That the Master of Ravenswood was a man
of honour; and, were it otherwise, that the fate of Chiesley of Dalry
was a sufficient warning to any one who should dare to assume the
office of avenger of his own imaginary wrongs.” And having hastily
uttered these expressions, he rose and left the place without waiting
for a reply.