Now, Billy Berwick, keep good heart,
And of thy talking let me be;
But if thou art a man, as I am sure thou art,
Come over the dike and fight with me.
Old Ballad.
The Master of Ravenswood had mounted the ambling hackney which he
before rode, on finding the accident which had happened to his led
horse, and, for the animal’s ease, was proceeding at a slow pace from
the Tod’s Den towards his old tower of Wolf’s Crag, when he heard the
galloping of a horse behind him, and, looking back, perceived that he
was pursued by young Bucklaw, who had been delayed a few minutes in the
pursuit by the irresistable temptation of giving the hostler at the
Tod’s Den some recipe for treating the lame horse. This brief delay he
had made up by hard galloping, and now overtook the Master where the
road traversed a waste moor. “Halt, sir,” cried Bucklaw; “I am no
political agent—no Captain Craigengelt, whose life is too important to
be hazarded in defence of his honour. I am Frank Hayston of Bucklaw,
and no man injures me by word, deed, sign, or look, but he must render
me an account of it.”
“This is all very well, Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw,” replied the Master of
Ravenswood, in a tone the most calm and indifferent; “but I have no
quarrel with you, and desire to have none. Our roads homeward, as well
as our roads through life, lie in different directions; there is no
occasion for us crossing each other.”
“Is there not?” said Bucklaw, impetuously. “By Heaven! but I say that
there is, though: you called us intriguing adventurers.”
“Be correct in your recollection, Mr. Hayston; it was to your companion
only I applied that epithet, and you know him to be no better.”
“And what then? He was my companion for the time, and no man shall
insult my companion, right or wrong, while he is in my company.”
“Then, Mr. Hayston,” replied Ravenswood, with the same composure, “you
should choose your society better, or you are like to have much work in
your capacity of their champion. Go home, sir; sleep, and have more
reason in your wrath to-morrow.”
“Not so, Master, you have mistaken your man; high airs and wise saws
shall not carry it off thus. Besides, you termed me bully, and you
shall retract the word before we part.”
“Faith, scarcely,” said Ravenswood, “unless you show me better reason
for thinking myself mistaken than you are now producing.”
“Then, Master,” said Bucklaw, “though I should be sorry to offer it to
a man of your quality, if you will not justify your incivility, or
retract it, or name a place of meeting, you must here undergo the hard
word and the hard blow.”
“Neither will be necessary,” said Ravenswood; “I am satisfied with what
I have done to avoid an affair with you. If you are serious, this place
will serve as well as another.”
“Dismount then, and draw,” said Bucklaw, setting him an example. “I
always thought and said you were a pretty man; I should be sorry to
report you otherwise.”
“You shall have no reason, sir,” said Ravenswood, alighting, and
putting himself into a posture of defence.
Their swords crossed, and the combat commenced with great spirit on the
part of Bucklaw, who was well accustomed to affairs of the kind, and
distinguished by address and dexterity at his weapon. In the present
case, however, he did not use his skill to advantage; for, having lost
temper at the cool and contemptuous manner in which the Master of
Ravenswood had long refused, and at length granted, him satisfaction,
and urged by his impatience, he adopted the part of an assailant with
inconsiderate eagerness. The Master, with equal skill, and much greater
composure, remained chiefly on the defensive, and even declined to
avail himself of one or two advantages afforded him by the eagerness of
his adversary. At length, in a desperate lunge, which he followed with
an attempt to close, Bucklaw’s foot slipped, and he fell on the short
grassy turf on which they were fighting. “Take your life, sir,” said
the Master of Ravenswood, “and mend it if you can.”
“It would be but a cobbled piece of work, I fear,” said Bucklaw, rising
slowly and gathering up his sword, much less disconcerted with the
issue of the combat than could have been expected from the impetuosity
of his temper. “I thank you for my life, Master,” he pursued. “There is
my hand; I bear no ill-will to you, either for my bad luck or your
better swordsmanship.”
The Master looked steadily at him for an instant, then extended his
hand to him. “Bucklaw,” he said, “you are a generous fellow, and I have
done you wrong. I heartily ask your pardon for the expression which
offended you; it was hastily and incautiously uttered, and I am
convinced it is totally misapplied.”
“Are you indeed, Master?” said Bucklaw, his face resuming at once its
natural expression of light-hearted carelessness and audacity; “that is
more than I expected of you; for, Master, men say you are not ready to
retract your opinion and your language.”
“Not when I have well considered them,” said the Master.
“Then you are a little wiser than I am, for I always give my friend
satisfaction first, and explanation afterwards. If one of us falls, all
accounts are settled; if not, men are never so ready for peace as after
war. But what does that bawling brat of a boy want?” said Bucklaw. “I
wish to Heaven he had come a few minutes sooner! and yet it must have
been ended some time, and perhaps this way is as well as any other.”
As he spoke, the boy he mentioned came up, cudgelling an ass, on which
he was mounted, to the top of its speed, and sending, like one of
Ossian’s heroes, his voice before him: “Gentlemen—gentlemen, save
yourselves! for the gudewife bade us tell ye there were folk in her
house had taen Captain Craigengelt, and were seeking for Bucklaw, and
that ye behoved to ride for it.”
“By my faith, and that’s very true, my man” said Bucklaw; “and there’s
a silver sixpence for your news, and I would give any man twice as much
would tell me which way I should ride.”
“That will I, Bucklaw,” said Ravenswood; “ride home to Wolf’s Crag with
me. There are places in the old tower where you might lie hid, were a
thousand men to seek you.”
“But that will bring you into trouble yourself, Master; and unless you
be in the Jacobite scrape already, it is quite needless for me to drag
you in.”
“Not a whit; I have nothing to fear.”
“Then I will ride with you blythely, for, to say the truth, I do not
know the rendezvous that Craigie was to guide us to this night; and I
am sure that, if he is taken, he will tell all the truth of me, and
twenty lies of you, in order to save himself from the withie.”
They mounted and rode off in company accordingly, striking off the
ordinary road, and holding their way by wild moorish unfrequented
paths, with which the gentlemen were well acquainted from the exercise
of the chase, but through which others would have had much difficulty
in tracing their course. They rode for some time in silence, making
such haste as the condition of Ravenswood’s horse permitted, until
night having gradually closed around them, they discontinued their
speed, both from the difficulty of discovering their path, and from the
hope that they were beyond the reach of pursuit or observation.
“And now that we have drawn bridle a bit,” said Bucklaw, “I would fain
ask you a question, Master.”
“Ask and welcome,” said Ravenswood, “but forgive not answering it,
unless I think proper.”
“Well, it is simply this,” answered his late antagonist “What, in the
name of old Sathan, could make you, who stand so highly on your
reputation, think for a moment of drawing up with such a rogue as
Craigengelt, and such a scapegrace as folk call Bucklaw?”
“Simply, because I was desperate, and sought desperate associates.”
“And what made you break off from us at the nearest?” again demanded
Bucklaw.
“Because I had changed my mind,” said the Master, “and renounced my
enterprise, at least for the present. And now that I have answered your
questions fairly and frankly, tell me what makes you associate with
Craigengelt, so much beneath you both in birth and in spirit?”
“In plain terms,” answered Bucklaw, “because I am a fool, who have
gambled away my land in these times. My grand-aunt, Lady Girnington,
has taen a new tack of life, I think, and I could only hope to get
something by a change of government. Craigie was a sort of gambling
acquaintance; he saw my condition, and, as the devil is always at one’s
elbow, told me fifty lies about his credentials from Versailles, and
his interest at Saint Germains, promised me a captain’s commission at
Paris, and I have been ass enough to put my thumb under his belt. I
dare say, by this time, he has told a dozen pretty stories of me to the
government. And this is what I have got by wine, women, and dice,
cocks, dogs, and horses.”
“Yes, Bucklaw,” said the Master, “you have indeed nourished in your
bosom the snakes that are now stinging you.”
“That’s home as well as true, Master,” replied his companion; “but, by
your leave, you have nursed in your bosom one great goodly snake that
has swallowed all the rest, and is as sure to devour you as my
half-dozen are to make a meal on all that’s left of Bucklaw, which is
but what lies between bonnet and boot-heel.”
“I must not,” answered the Master of Ravenswood, “challenge the freedom
of speech in which I have set example. What, to speak without a
metaphor, do you call this monstrous passion which you charge me with
fostering?”
“Revenge, my good sir—revenge; which, if it be as gentle manlike a sin
as wine and wassail, with their _et cæteras_, is equally unchristian,
and not so bloodless. It is better breaking a park-pale to watch a doe
or damsel than to shoot an old man.”
“I deny the purpose,” said the Master of Ravenswood. “On my soul, I had
no such intention; I meant but to confront the oppressor ere I left my
native land, and upbraid him with his tyranny and its consequences. I
would have stated my wrongs so that they would have shaken his soul
within him.”
“Yes,” answered Bucklaw, “and he would have collared you, and cried
‘help,’ and then you would have shaken the soul _out_ of him, I
suppose. Your very look and manner would have frightened the old man to
death.”
“Consider the provocation,” answered Ravenswood—“consider the ruin and
death procured and caused by his hard-hearted cruelty—an ancient house
destroyed, an affectionate father murdered! Why, in our old Scottish
days, he that sat quiet under such wrongs would have been held neither
fit to back a friend nor face a foe.”
“Well, Master, I am glad to see that the devil deals as cunningly with
other folk as he deals with me; for whenever I am about to commit any
folly, he persuades me it is the most necessary, gallant, gentlemanlike
thing on earth, and I am up to saddlegirths in the bog before I see
that the ground is soft. And you, Master, might have turned out a
murd——a homicide, just out of pure respect for your father’s memory.”
“There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw,” replied the Master,
“than might have been expected from your conduct. It is too true, our
vices steal upon us in forms outwardly as fair as those of the demons
whom the superstitious represent as intriguing with the human race, and
are not discovered in their native hideousness until we have clasped
them in our arms.”
“But we may throw them from us, though,” said Bucklaw, “and that is
what I shall think of doing one of these days—that is, when old Lady
Girnington dies.”
“Did you ever hear the expression of the English divine?” said
Ravenswood—“‘Hell is paved with good intentions,’—as much as to say,
they are more often formed than executed.”
“Well,” replied Bucklaw, “but I will begin this blessed night, and have
determined not to drink above one quart of wine, unless your claret be
of extraordinary quality.”
“You will find little to tempt you at Wolf’s Crag,” said the Master. “I
know not that I can promise you more than the shelter of my roof; all,
and more than all, our stock of wine and provisions was exhausted at
the late occasion.”
“Long may it be ere provision is needed for the like purpose,” answered
Bucklaw; “but you should not drink up the last flask at a dirge; there
is ill luck in that.”
“There is ill luck, I think, in whatever belongs to me,” said
Ravenswood. “But yonder is Wolf’s Crag, and whatever it still contains
is at your service.”
The roar of the sea had long announced their approach to the cliffs, on
the summit of which, like the nest of some sea-eagle, the founder of
the fortalice had perched his eyrie. The pale moon, which had hitherto
been contending with flitting clouds, now shone out, and gave them a
view of the solitary and naked tower, situated on a projecting cliff
that beetled on the German Ocean. On three sides the rock was
precipitous; on the fourth, which was that towards the land, it had
been originally fenced by an artificial ditch and drawbridge, but the
latter was broken down and ruinous, and the former had been in part
filled up, so as to allow passage for a horseman into the narrow
courtyard, encircled on two sides with low offices and stables, partly
ruinous, and closed on the landward front by a low embattled wall,
while the remaining side of the quadrangle was occupied by the tower
itself, which, tall and narrow, and built of a greyish stone, stood
glimmering in the moonlight, like the sheeted spectre of some huge
giant. A wilder or more disconsolate dwelling it was perhaps difficult
to conceive. The sombrous and heavy sound of the billows, successively
dashing against the rocky beach at a profound distance beneath, was to
the ear what the landscape was to the eye—a symbol of unvaried and
monotonous melancholy, not unmingled with horror.
Although the night was not far advanced, there was no sign of living
inhabitant about this forlorn abode, excepting that one, and only one,
of the narrow and stanchelled windows which appeared at irregular
heights and distances in the walls of the building showed a small
glimmer of light.
“There,” said Ravenswood, “sits the only male domestic that remains to
the house of Ravenswood; and it is well that he does remain there,
since otherwise we had little hope to find either light or fire. But
follow me cautiously; the road is narrow, and admits only one horse in
front.”
In effect, the path led along a kind of isthmus, at the peninsular
extremity of which the tower was situated, with that exclusive
attention to strength and security, in preference to every
circumstances of convenience, which dictated to the Scottish barons the
choice of their situations, as well as their style of building.
By adopting the cautious mode of approach recommended by the proprietor
of this wild hold, they entered the courtyard in safety. But it was
long ere the efforts of Ravenswood, though loudly exerted by knocking
at the low-browed entrance, and repeated shouts to Caleb to open the
gate and admit them, received any answer.
“The old man must be departed,” he began to say, “or fallen into some
fit; for the noise I have made would have waked the seven sleepers.”
At length a timid and hesitating voice replied: “Master—Master of
Ravenswood, is it you?”
“Yes, it is I, Caleb; open the door quickly.”
“But it is you in very blood and body? For I would sooner face fifty
deevils as my master’s ghaist, or even his wraith; wherefore, aroint
ye, if ye were ten times my master, unless ye come in bodily shape,
lith and limb.”
“It is I, you old fool,” answered Ravenswood, “in bodily shape and
alive, save that I am half dead with cold.”
The light at the upper window disappeared, and glancing from loophole
to loophole in slow succession, gave intimation that the bearer was in
the act of descending, with great deliberation, a winding staircase
occupying one of the turrets which graced the angles of the old tower.
The tardiness of his descent extracted some exclamations of impatience
from Ravenswood, and several oaths from his less patient and more
mecurial companion. Caleb again paused ere he unbolted the door, and
once more asked if they were men of mould that demanded entrance at
this time of night.
“Were I near you, you old fool,” said Bucklaw, “I would give you
sufficient proofs of _my_ bodily condition.”
“Open the gate, Caleb,” said his master, in a more soothing tone,
partly from his regard to the ancient and faithful seneschal, partly
perhaps because he thought that angry words would be thrown away, so
long as Caleb had a stout iron-clenched oaken door betwixt his person
and the speakers.
At length Caleb, with a trembling hand, undid the bars, opened the
heavy door, and stood before them, exhibiting his thin grey hairs, bald
forehead, and sharp high features, illuminated by a quivering lamp
which he held in one hand, while he shaded and protected its flame with
the other. The timorous, courteous glance which he threw around him,
the effect of the partial light upon his white hair and illumined
features, might have made a good painting; but our travellers were too
impatient for security against the rising storm to permit them to
indulge themselves in studying the picturesque. “Is it you, my dear
master?—is it you yourself, indeed?” exclaimed the old domestic. “I am
wae ye suld hae stude waiting at your ain gate; but wha wad hae thought
o’ seeing ye sae sune, and a strange gentleman with a—(Here he
exclaimed apart, as it were, and to some inmate of the tower, in a
voice not meant to be heard by those in the court)—Mysie—Mysie, woman!
stir for dear life, and get the fire mended; take the auld three-legged
stool, or ony thing that’s readiest that will make a lowe. I doubt we
are but puirly provided, no expecting ye this some months, when
doubtless ye was hae been received conform till your rank, as gude
right is; but natheless——”
“Natheless, Caleb,” said the Master, “we must have our horses put up,
and ourselves too, the best way we can. I hope you are not sorry to see
me sooner than you expected?”
“Sorry, my lord! I am sure ye sall aye be my lord wi’ honest folk, as
your noble ancestors hae been these three hundred years, and never
asked a Whig’s leave. Sorry to see the Lord of Ravenswood at ane o’ his
ain castles! (Then again apart to his unseen associate behind the
screen) Mysie, kill the brood-hen without thinking twice on it; let
them care that come ahint. No to say it’s our best dwelling,” he added,
turning to Bucklaw; “but just a strength for the Lord of Ravenswood to
flee until—that is, no to _flee_, but to retreat until in troublous
times, like the present, when it was ill convenient for him to live
farther in the country in ony of his better and mair principal manors;
but, for its antiquity, maist folk think that the outside of Wolf’s
Crag is worthy of a large perusal.”
“And you are determined we shall have time to make it,” said
Ravenswood, somewhat amused with the shifts the old man used to detain
them without doors until his confederate Mysie had made her
preparations within.
“Oh, never mind the outside of the house, my good friend,” said
Bucklaw; “let’s see the inside, and let our horses see the stable,
that’s all.”
“Oh yes, sir—ay, sir—unquestionably, sir—my lord and ony of his
honourable companions——”
“But our horses, my friend—our horses; they will be dead-founded by
standing here in the cold after riding hard, and mine is too good to be
spoiled; therefore, once more, our horses!” exclaimed Bucklaw.
“True—ay—your horses—yes—I will call the grooms”; and sturdily did
Caleb roar till the old tower rang again: “John—William—Saunders! The
lads are gane out, or sleeping,” he observed, after pausing for an
answer, which he knew that he had no human chance of receiving. “A’
gaes wrang when the Master’s out-bye; but I’ll take care o’ your cattle
mysell.”
“I think you had better,” said Ravenswood, “otherwise I see little
chance of their being attended to at all.”
“Whisht, my lord—whisht, for God’s sake,” said Caleb, in an imploring
tone, and apart to his master; “if ye dinna regard your ain credit,
think on mine; we’ll hae hard eneugh wark to make a decent night o’t,
wi’ a’ the lees I can tell.”
“Well, well, never mind,” said his master; “go to the stable. There is
hay and corn, I trust?”
“Ou ay, plenty of hay and corn”; this was uttered boldly and aloud,
and, in a lower tone, “there was some half fous o’ aits, and some taits
o’ meadow-hay, left after the burial.”
“Very well,” said Ravenswood, taking the lamp from his domestic’s
unwilling hand, “I will show the stranger upstairs myself.”
“I canna think o’ that, my lord; if ye wad but have five minutes, or
ten minutes, or, at maist, a quarter of an hour’s patience, and look at
the fine moonlight prospect of the Bass and North Berwick Law till I
sort the horses, I would marshal ye up, as reason is ye suld be
marshalled, your lordship and your honourable visitor. And I hae lockit
up the siller candlesticks, and the lamp is not fit——”
“It will do very well in the mean time,” said Ravenswood, “and you will
have no difficulty for want of light in the stable, for, if I
recollect, half the roof is off.”
“Very true, my lord,” replied the trusty adherent, and with ready wit
instantly added, “and the lazy sclater loons have never come to put it
on a’ this while, your lordship.”
“If I were disposed to jest at the calamities of my house,” said
Ravenswood, as he led the way upstairs, “poor old Caleb would furnish
me with ample means. His passion consists in representing things about
our miserable _menage_, not as they are, but as, in his opinion, they
ought to be; and, to say the truth, I have been often diverted with the
poor wretch’s expedients to supply what he thought was essential for
the credit of the family, and his still more generous apologies for the
want of those articles for which his ingenuity could discover no
substitute. But though the tower is none of the largest, I shall have
some trouble without him to find the apartment in which there is a
fire.”
As he spoke thus, he opened the door of the hall. “Here, at least,” he
said, “there is neither hearth nor harbour.”
It was indeed a scene of desolation. A large vaulted room, the beams of
which, combined like those of Westminster Hall, were rudely carved at
the extremities, remained nearly in the situation in which it had been
left after the entertainment at Allan Lord Ravenswood’s funeral.
Overturned pitchers, and black-jacks, and pewter stoups, and flagons
still cumbered the large oaken table; glasses, those more perishable
implements of conviviality, many of which had been voluntarily
sacrificed by the guests in their enthusiastic pledges to favourite
toasts, strewed the stone floor with their fragments. As for the
articles of plate, lent for the purpose by friends and kinsfolk, those
had been carefully withdrawn so soon as the ostentatious display of
festivity, equally unnecessary and strangely timed, had been made and
ended. Nothing, in short, remained that indicated wealth; all the signs
were those of recent wastefulness and present desolation. The black
cloth hangings, which, on the late mournful occasion, replaced the
tattered moth-eaten tapestries, had been partly pulled down, and,
dangling from the wall in irregular festoons, disclosed the rough
stonework of the building, unsmoothed either by plaster or the chisel.
The seats thrown down, or left in disorder, intimated the careless
confusion which had concluded the mournful revel. “This room,” said
Ravenswood, holding up the lamp—“this room, Mr. Hayston, was riotous
when it should have been sad; it is a just retribution that it should
now be sad when it ought to be cheerful.”
They left this disconsolate apartment, and went upstairs, where, after
opening one or two doors in vain, Ravenswood led the way into a little
matted ante-room, in which, to their great joy, they found a tolerably
good fire, which Mysie, by some such expedient as Caleb had suggested,
had supplied with a reasonable quantity of fuel. Glad at the heart to
see more of comfort than the castle had yet seemed to offer, Bucklaw
rubbed his hands heartily over the fire, and now listened with more
complacency to the apologies which the Master of Ravenswood offered.
“Comfort,” he said, “I cannot provide for you, for I have it not for
myself; it is long since these walls have known it, if, indeed, they
were ever acquainted with it. Shelter and safety, I think, I can
promise you.”
“Excellent matters, Master,” replied Bucklaw, “and, with a mouthful of
food and wine, positively all I can require to-night.”
“I fear,” said the Master, “your supper will be a poor one; I hear the
matter in discussion betwixt Caleb and Mysie. Poor Balderstone is
something deaf, amongst his other accomplishments, so that much of what
he means should be spoken aside is overheard by the whole audience, and
especially by those from whom he is most anxious to conceal his private
manœuvres. Hark!”
They listened, and heard the old domestic’s voice in conversation with
Mysie to the following effect:
“Just mak the best o’t—make the besto’t, woman; it’s easy to put a fair
face on ony thing.”
“But the auld brood-hen? She’ll be as teugh as bow-strings and
bend-leather!”
“Say ye made a mistake—say ye made a mistake, Mysie,” replied the
faithful seneschal, in a soothing and undertoned voice; “tak it a’ on
yoursell; never let the credit o’ the house suffer.”
“But the brood-hen,” remonstrated Mysie—“ou, she’s sitting some gate
aneath the dais in the hall, and I am feared to gae in in the dark for
the bogle; and if I didna see the bogle, I could as ill see the hen,
for it’s pit-mirk, and there’s no another light in the house, save that
very blessed lamp whilk the Master has in his ain hand. And if I had
the hen, she’s to pu’, and to draw, and to dress; how can I do that,
and them sitting by the only fire we have?”
“Weel, weel, Mysie,” said the butler, “bide ye there a wee, and I’ll
try to get the lamp wiled away frae them.”
Accordingly, Caleb Balderstone entered the apartment, little aware that
so much of his by-play had been audible there. “Well, Caleb, my old
friend, is there any chance of supper?” said the Master of Ravenswood.
“_Chance_ of supper, your lordship?” said Caleb, with an emphasis of
strong scorn at the implied doubt. “How should there be ony question of
that, and us in your lordship’s house? Chance of supper, indeed! But
ye’ll no be for butcher-meat? There’s walth o’ fat poultry, ready
either for spit or brander. The fat capon, Mysie!” he added, calling
out as boldly as if such a thing had been in existence.
“Quite unnecessary,” said Bucklaw, who deemed himself bound in courtesy
to relieve some part of the anxious butler’s perplexity, “if you have
anything cold, or a morsel of bread.”
“The best of bannocks!” exclaimed Caleb, much relieved; “and, for cauld
meat, a’ that we hae is cauld eneugh,—how-beit, maist of the cauld meat
and pastry was gien to the poor folk after the ceremony of interment,
as gude reason was; nevertheless——”
“Come, Caleb,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “I must cut this matter
short. This is the young Laird of Bucklaw; he is under hiding, and
therefore, you know——”
“He’ll be nae nicer than your lordship’s honour, I’se warrant,”
answered Caleb, cheerfully, with a nod of intelligence; “I am sorry
that the gentleman is under distress, but I am blythe that he canna say
muckle agane our housekeeping, for I believe his ain pinches may match
ours; no that we are pinched, thank God,” he added, retracting the
admission which he had made in his first burst of joy, “but nae doubt
we are waur aff than we hae been, or suld be. And for eating—what
signifies telling a lee? there’s just the hinder end of the mutton-ham
that has been but three times on the table, and the nearer the bane the
sweeter, as your honours weel ken; and—there’s the heel of the ewe-milk
kebbuck, wi’ a bit of nice butter, and—and—that’s a’ that’s to trust
to.” And with great alacrity he produced his slender stock of
provisions, and placed them with much formality upon a small round
table betwixt the two gentlemen, who were not deterred either by the
homely quality or limited quantity of the repast from doing it full
justice. Caleb in the mean while waited on them with grave
officiousness, as if anxious to make up, by his own respectful
assiduity, for the want of all other attendance.
But, alas! how little on such occasions can form, however anxiously and
scrupulously observed, supply the lack of substantial fare! Bucklaw,
who had eagerly eaten a considerable portion of the thrice-sacked
mutton-ham, now began to demand ale.
“I wanda just presume to recommend our ale,” said Caleb; “the maut was
ill made, and there was awfu’ thunner last week; but siccan water as
the Tower well has ye’ll seldome see, Bucklaw, and that I’se engage
for.”
“But if your ale is bad, you can let us have some wine,” said Bucklaw,
making a grimace at the mention of the pure element which Caleb so
earnestly recommended.
“Wine!” answered Caleb, undauntedly, “eneugh of wine! It was but twa
days syne—wae’s me for the cause—there was as much wine drunk in this
house as would have floated a pinnace. There never was lack of wine at
Wolf’s Crag.”
“Do fetch us some then,” said the master, “instead of talking about
it.” And Caleb boldly departed.
Every expended butt in the old cellar did he set a-tilt, and shake with
the desperate expectation of collecting enough of the grounds of claret
to fill the large pewter measure which he carried in his hand. Alas!
each had been too devoutly drained; and, with all the squeezing and
manoeuvring which his craft as a butler suggested, he could only
collect about half a quart that seemed presentable. Still, however,
Caleb was too good a general to renounce the field without a strategem
to cover his retreat. He undauntedly threw down an empty flagon, as if
he had stumbled at the entrance of the apartment, called upon Mysie to
wipe up the wine that had never been spilt, and placing the other
vessel on the table, hoped there was still enough left for their
honours. There was indeed; for even Bucklaw, a sworn friend to the
grape, found no encouragement to renew his first attack upon the
vintage of Wolf’s Crag, but contented himself, however reluctantly,
with a draught of fair water. Arrangements were now made for his
repose; and as the secret chamber was assigned for this purpose, it
furnished Caleb with a first-rate and most plausible apology for all
deficiencies of furniture, bedding, etc.
“For wha,” said he, “would have thought of the secret chaumer being
needed? It has not been used since the time of the Gowrie Conspiracy,
and I durst never let a woman ken of the entrance to it, or your honour
will allow that it wad not hae been a secret chaumer lang.”