With throat unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard him call;
Gramercy they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they had been drinking all!
COLERIDGE’S Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Hayston of Bucklaw was one of the thoughtless class who never hesitate
between their friend and their jest. When it was announced that the
principal persons of the chase had taken their route towards Wolf’s
Crag, the huntsmen, as a point of civility, offered to transfer the
venison to that mansion; a proffer which was readily accepted by
Bucklaw, who thought much of the astonishment which their arrival in
full body would occasion poor old Caleb Balderstone, and very little of
the dilemma to which he was about to expose his friend the Master, so
ill circumstanced to receive such a party. But in old Caleb he had to
do with a crafty and alert antagonist, prompt at supplying, upon all
emergencies, evasions and excuses suitable, as he thought, to the
dignity of the family.
“Praise be blest!” said Caleb to himself, “ae leaf of the muckle gate
has been swung to wi’ yestreen’s wind, and I think I can manage to shut
the ither.”
But he was desirous, like a prudent governor, at the same time to get
rid, if possible, of the internal enemy, in which light he considered
almost every one who eat and drank, ere he took measures to exclude
those whom their jocund noise now pronounced to be near at hand. He
waited, therefore, with impatience until his master had shown his two
principal guests into the Tower, and then commenced his operations.
“I think,” he said to the stranger menials, “that, as they are bringing
the stag’s head to the castle in all honour, we, who are indwellers,
should receive them at the gate.”
The unwary grooms had no sooner hurried out, in compliance with this
insidious hint, than, one folding-door of the ancient gate being
already closed by the wind, as has been already intimated, honest Caleb
lost no time in shutting the other with a clang, which resounded from
donjon-vault to battlement. Having thus secured the pass, he forthwith
indulged the excluded huntsmen in brief parley, from a small projecting
window, or shot-hole, through which, in former days, the warders were
wont to reconnoitre those who presented themselves before the gates. He
gave them to understand, in a short and pity speech, that the gate of
the castle was never on any account opened during meal-times; that his
honour, the Master of Ravenswood, and some guests of quality, had just
sat down to dinner; that there was excellent brandy at the
hostler-wife’s at Wolf’s Hope down below; and he held out some obscure
hint that the reckoning would be discharged by the Master; but this was
uttered in a very dubious and oracular strain, for, like Louis XIV.,
Caleb Balderstone hesitated to carry finesse so far as direct
falsehood, and was content to deceive, if possible, without directly
lying.
This annunciation was received with surprise by some, with laughter by
others, and with dismay by the expelled lackeys, who endeavoured to
demonstrate that their right of readmission, for the purpose of waiting
upon their master and mistress, was at least indisputable. But Caleb
was not in a humour to understand or admit any distinctions. He stuck
to his original proposition with that dogged but convenient pertinacity
which is armed against all conviction, and deaf to all reasoning.
Bucklaw now came from the rear of the party, and demanded admittance in
a very angry tone. But the resolution of Caleb was immovable.
“If the king on the throne were at the gate,” he declared, “his ten
fingers should never open it contrair to the established use and wont
of the family of Ravenswood, and his duty as their head-servant.”
Bucklaw was now extremely incensed, and with more oaths and curses than
we care to repeat, declared himself most unworthily treated, and
demanded peremptorily to speak with the Master of Ravenswood himself.
But to this also Caleb turned a deaf ear. “He’s as soon a-bleeze as a
tap of tow, the lad Bucklaw,” he said; “but the deil of ony master’s
face he shall see till he has sleepit and waken’d on’t. He’ll ken
himsell better the morn’s morning. It sets the like o’ him, to be
bringing a crew of drunken hunters here, when he kens there is but
little preparation to sloken his ain drought.” And he disappeared from
the window, leaving them all to digest their exclusion as they best
might.
But another person, of whose presence Caleb, in the animation of the
debate, was not aware, had listened in silence to its progress. This
was the principal domestic of the stranger—a man of trust and
consequence—the same who, in the hunting-field, had accommodated
Bucklaw with the use of his horse. He was in the stable when Caleb had
contrived the expulsion of his fellow-servants, and thus avoided
sharing the same fate, from which his personal importance would
certainly not have otherwise saved him.
This personage perceived the manœuvre of Caleb, easily appreciated the
motive of his conduct, and knowing his master’s intentions towards the
family of Ravenswood, had no difficulty as to the line of conduct he
ought to adopt. He took the place of Caleb (unperceived by the latter)
at the post of audience which he had just left, and announced to the
assembled domestics, “That it was his master’s pleasure that Lord
Bittlebrain’s retinue and his own should go down to the adjacent
change-house and call for what refreshments they might have occasion
for, and he should take care to discharge the lawing.”
The jolly troop of huntsmen retired from the inhospitable gate of
Wolf’s Crag, execrating, as they descended the steep pathway, the
niggard and unworthy disposition of the proprietor, and damning, with
more than silvan license, both the castle and its inhabitants. Bucklaw,
with many qualities which would have made him a man of worth and
judgment in more favourable circumstances, had been so utterly
neglected in point of education, that he was apt to think and feel
according to the ideas of the companions of his pleasures. The praises
which had recently been heaped upon himself he contrasted with the
general abuse now levelled against Ravenswood; he recalled to his mind
the dull and monotonous days he had spent in the Tower of Wolf’s Crag,
compared with the joviality of his usual life; he felt with great
indignation his exclusion from the castle, which he considered as a
gross affront, and every mingled feeling led him to break off the union
which he had formed with the Master of Ravenswood.
On arriving at the change-house of the village of Wolf’s Hope, he
unexpectedly met with an acquaintance just alighting from his horse.
This was no other than the very respectable Captain Craigengelt, who
immediately came up to him, and, without appearing to retain any
recollection of the indifferent terms on which they had parted, shook
him by the hand in the warmest manner possible. A warm grasp of the
hand was what Bucklaw could never help returning with cordiality, and
no sooner had Craigengelt felt the pressure of his fingers than he knew
the terms on which he stood with him.
“Long life to you, Bucklaw!” he exclaimed; “there’s life for honest
folk in this bad world yet!”
The Jacobites at this period, with what propriety I know not, used, it
must be noticed, the term of _honest men_ as peculiarly descriptive of
their own party.
“Ay, and for others besides, it seems,” answered Bucklaw; “otherways,
how came you to venture hither, noble Captain?”
“Who—I? I am as free as the wind at Martinmas, that pays neither
land-rent nor annual; all is explained—all settled with the honest old
drivellers yonder of Auld Reekie. Pooh! pooh! they dared not keep me a
week of days in durance. A certain person has better friends among them
than you wot of, and can serve a friend when it is least likely.”
“Pshaw!” answered Hayston, who perfectly knew and thoroughly despised
the character of this man, “none of your cogging gibberish; tell me
truly, are you at liberty and in safety?”
“Free and safe as a Whig bailie on the causeway of his own borough, or
a canting Presbyterian minister in his own pulpit; and I came to tell
you that you need not remain in hiding any longer.”
“Then I suppose you call yourself my friend, Captain Craigengelt?” said
Bucklaw.
“Friend!” replied Craigengelt, “my cock of the pit! why, I am thy very
Achates, man, as I have heard scholars say—hand and glove—bark and
tree—thine to life and death!”
“I’ll try that in a moment,” answered Bucklaw. “Thou art never without
money, however thou comest by it. Lend me two pieces to wash the dust
out of these honest fellows’ throats in the first place, and then——”
“Two pieces! Twenty are at thy service, my lad, and twenty to back
them.”
“Ay, say you so?” said Bucklaw, pausing, for his natural penetration
led him to suspect some extraordinary motive lay couched under an
excess of generosity. “Craigengelt, you are either an honest fellow in
right good earnest, and I scarce know how to believe that; or you are
cleverer than I took you for, and I scarce know how to believe that
either.”
“_L’un n’empeche pas l’autre_,” said Craigengelt. “Touch and try; the
gold is good as ever was weighed.”
He put a quantity of gold pieces into Bucklaw’s hand, which he thrust
into his pocket without either counting or looking at them, only
observing, “That he was so circumstanced that he must enlist, though
the devil offered the press-money”; and then turning to the huntsmen,
he called out, “Come along, my lads; all is at my cost.”
“Long life to Bucklaw!” shouted the men of the chase.
“And confusion to him that takes his share of the sport, and leaves the
hunters as dry as a drumhead,” added another, by way of corollary.
“The house of Ravenswood was ance a gude and an honourable house in
this land,” said an old man; “but it’s lost its credit this day, and
the Master has shown himself no better than a greedy cullion.”
And with this conclusion, which was unanimously agreed to by all who
heard it, they rushed tumultuously into the house of entertainment,
where they revelled till a late hour. The jovial temper of Bucklaw
seldom permitted him to be nice in the choice of his associates; and on
the present occasion, when his joyous debauch received additional zest
from the intervention of an unusual space of sobriety, and almost
abstinence, he was as happy in leading the revels as if his comrades
had been sons of princes. Craigengelt had his own purposes in fooling
him up to the top of his bent; and having some low humour, much
impudence, and the power of singing a good song, understanding besides
thoroughly the disposition of his regained associate, he headily
succeeded in involving him bumper-deep in the festivity of the meeting.
A very different scene was in the mean time passing in the Tower of
Wolf’s Crag. When the Master of Ravenswood left the courtyard, too much
busied with his own perplexed reflections to pay attention to the
manœuvre of Caleb, he ushered his guests into the great hall of the
castle.
The indefatigable Balderstone, who, from choice or habit, worked on
from morning to night, had by degrees cleared this desolate apartment
of the confused relics of the funeral banquet, and restored it to some
order. But not all his skill and labour, in disposing to advantage the
little furniture which remained, could remove the dark and disconsolate
appearance of those ancient and disfurnished walls. The narrow windows,
flanked by deep indentures into the walls, seemed formed rather to
exclude than to admit the cheerful light; and the heavy and gloomy
appearance of the thunder-sky added still farther to the obscurity.
As Ravenswood, with the grace of a gallant of that period, but not
without a certain stiffness and embarrassment of manner, handed the
young lady to the upper end of the apartment, her father remained
standing more near to the door, as if about to disengage himself from
his hat and cloak. At this moment the clang of the portal was heard, a
sound at which the stranger started, stepped hastily to the window, and
looked with an air of alarm at Ravenswood, when he saw that the gate of
the court was shut, and his domestics excluded.
“You have nothing to fear, sir,” said Ravenswood, gravely; “this roof
retains the means of giving protection, though not welcome. Methinks,”
he added, “it is time that I should know who they are that have thus
highly honoured my ruined dwelling!” The young lady remained silent and
motionless, and the father, to whom the question was more directly
addressed, seemed in the situation of a performer who has ventured to
take upon himself a part which he finds himself unable to present, and
who comes to a pause when it is most to be expected that he should
speak. While he endeavoured to cover his embarrassment with the
exterior ceremonials of a well-bred demeanour, it was obvious that, in
making his bow, one foot shuffled forward, as if to advance, the other
backward, as if with the purpose of escape; and as he undid the cape of
his coat, and raised his beaver from his face, his fingers fumbled as
if the one had been linked with rusted iron, or the other had weighed
equal with a stone of lead. The darkness of the sky seemed to increase,
as if to supply the want of those mufflings which he laid aside with
such evident reluctance. The impatience of Ravenswood increased also in
proportion to the delay of the stranger, and he appeared to struggle
under agitation, though probably from a very different cause. He
laboured to restrain his desire to speak, while the stranger, to all
appearance, was at a loss for words to express what he felt necessary
to say.
At length Ravenswood’s impatience broke the bounds he had imposed upon
it. “I perceive,” he said, “that Sir William Ashton is unwilling to
announced himself in the Castle of Wolf’s Crag.”
“I had hoped it was unnecessary,” said the Lord Keeper, relieved from
his silence, as a spectre by the voice of the exorcist, “and I am
obliged to you, Master of Ravenswood, for breaking the ice at once,
where circumstances—unhappy circumstances, let me call them—rendered
self-introduction peculiarly awkward.”
“And I am not then,” said the Master of Ravenswood, gravely, “to
consider the honour of this visit as purely accidental?”
“Let us distinguish a little,” said the Keeper, assuming an appearance
of ease which perhaps his heart was a stranger to; “this is an honour
which I have eagerly desired for some time, but which I might never
have obtained, save for the accident of the storm. My daughter and I
are alike grateful for this opportunity of thanking the brave man to
whom she owes her life and I mine.”
The hatred which divided the great families in the feudal times had
lost little of its bitterness, though it no longer expressed itself in
deeds of open violence. Not the feelings which Ravenswood had begun to
entertain towards Lucy Ashton, not the hospitality due to his guests,
were able entirely to subdue, though they warmly combated, the deep
passions which arose within him at beholding his father’s foe standing
in the hall of the family of which he had in a great measure
accelerated the ruin. His looks glanced from the father to the daughter
with an irresolution of which Sir William Ashton did not think it
proper to await the conclusion. He had now disembarrassed himself of
his riding-dress, and walking up to his daughter, he undid the
fastening of her mask.
“Lucy, my love,” he said, raising her and leading her towards
Ravenswood, “lay aside your mask, and let us express our gratitude to
the Master openly and barefaced.”
“If he will condescend to accept it,” was all that Lucy uttered; but in
a tone so sweetly modulated, and which seemed to imply at once a
feeling and a forgiving of the cold reception to which they were
exposed, that, coming from a creature so innocent and so beautiful, her
words cut Ravenswood to the very heart for his harshness. He muttered
something of surprise, something of confusion, and, ending with a warm
and eager expression of his happiness at being able to afford her
shelter under his roof, he saluted her, as the ceremonial of the time
enjoined upon such occasions. Their cheeks had touched and were
withdrawn from each other; Ravenswood had not quitted the hand which he
had taken in kindly courtesy; a blush, which attached more consequence
by far than was usual to such ceremony, still mantled on Lucy Ashton’s
beautiful cheek, when the apartment was suddenly illuminated by a flash
of lightning, which seemed absolutely to swallow the darkness of the
hall. Every object might have been for an instant seen distinctly. The
slight and half-sinking form of Lucy Ashton; the well-proportioned and
stately figure of Ravenswood, his dark features, and the fiery yet
irresolute expression of his eyes; the old arms and scutcheons which
hung on the walls of the apartment, were for an instant distinctly
visible to the Keeper by a strong red brilliant glare of light. Its
disappearance was almost instantly followed by a burst of thunder, for
the storm-cloud was very near the castle; and the peal was so sudden
and dreadful, that the old tower rocked to its foundation, and every
inmate concluded it was falling upon them. The soot, which had not been
disturbed for centuries, showered down the huge tunnelled chimneys;
lime and dust flew in clouds from the wall; and, whether the lightning
had actually struck the castle or whether through the violent
concussion of the air, several heavy stones were hurled from the
mouldering battlements into the roaring sea beneath. It might seem as
if the ancient founder of the castle were bestriding the thunderstorm,
and proclaiming his displeasure at the reconciliation of his descendant
with the enemy of his house.
The consternation was general, and it required the efforts of both the
Lord Keeper and Ravenswood to keep Lucy from fainting. Thus was the
Master a second time engaged in the most delicate and dangerous of all
tasks, that of affording support and assistance to a beautiful and
helpless being, who, as seen before in a similar situation, had already
become a favourite of his imagination, both when awake and when
slumbering. If the genius of the house really condemned a union betwixt
the Master and his fair guest, the means by which he expressed his
sentiments were as unhappily chosen as if he had been a mere mortal.
The train of little attentions, absolutely necessary to soothe the
young lady’s mind, and aid her in composing her spirits, necessarily
threw the Master of Ravenswood into such an intercourse with her father
as was calculated, for the moment at least, to break down the barrier
of feudal enmity which divided them. To express himself churlishly, or
even coldly, towards an old man whose daughter (and _such_ a daughter)
lay before them, overpowered with natural terror—and all this under his
own roof, the thing was impossible; and by the time that Lucy,
extending a hand to each, was able to thank them for their kindness,
the Master felt that his sentiments of hostility towards the Lord
Keeper were by no means those most predominant in his bosom.
The weather, her state of health, the absence of her attendants, all
prevented the possibility of Lucy Ashton renewing her journey to
Bittlebrains House, which was full five miles distant; and the Master
of Ravenswood could not but, in common courtesy, offer the shelter of
his roof for the rest of the day and for the night. But a flush of less
soft expression, a look much more habitual to his features, resumed
predominance when he mentioned how meanly he was provided for the
entertainment of his guests.
“Do not mention deficiencies,” said the Lord Keeper, eager to interrupt
him and prevent his resuming an alarming topic; “you are preparing to
set out for the Continent, and your house is probably for the present
unfurnished. All this we understand; but if you mention inconvenience,
you will oblige us to seek accommodations in the hamlet.”
As the Master of Ravenswood was about to reply, the door of the hall
opened, and Caleb Balderstone rushed in.