_Hamlet._ Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings at grave
making.
_Horatio._ Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
_Hamlet._ ’Tis e’en so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier
sense.
Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1.
The sleep of Ravenswood was broken by ghastly and agitating visions,
and his waking intervals disturbed by melancholy reflections on the
past and painful anticipations of the future. He was perhaps the only
traveller who ever slept in that miserable kennel without complaining
of his lodgings, or feeling inconvenience from their deficiencies. It
is when “the mind is free the body’s delicate.” Morning, however, found
the Master an early riser, in hopes that the fresh air of the dawn
might afford the refreshment which night had refused him. He took his
way towards the solitary burial-ground, which lay about half a mile
from the inn.
The thin blue smoke, which already began to curl upward, and to
distinguish the cottage of the living from the habitation of the dead,
apprised him that its inmate had returned and was stirring.
Accordingly, on entering the little churchyard, he saw the old man
labouring in a half-made grave. “My destiny,” thought Ravenswood,
“seems to lead me to scenes of fate and of death; but these are
childish thoughts, and they shall not master me. I will not again
suffer my imagination to beguile my senses.” The old man rested on his
spade as the Master approached him, as if to receive his commands; and
as he did not immediately speak, the sexton opened the discourse in his
own way.
“Ye will be a wedding customer, sir, I’se warrant?”
“What makes you think so, friend?” replied the Master.
“I live by twa trades, sir,” replied the blythe old man—“fiddle, sir,
and spade; filling the world, and emptying of it; and I suld ken baith
cast of customers by head-mark in thirty years’ practice.”
“You are mistaken, however, this morning,” replied Ravenswood.
“Am I?” said the old man, looking keenly at him, “troth and it may be;
since, for as brent as your brow is, there is something sitting upon it
this day that is as near akin to death as to wedlock. Weel—weel; the
pick and shovel are as ready to your order as bow and fiddle.”
“I wish you,” said Ravenswood, “to look after the decent interment of
an old woman, Alice Gray, who lived at the Graig-foot in Ravenswood
Park.”
“Alice Gray!—blind Alice!” said the sexton; “and is she gane at last?
that’s another jow of the bell to bid me be ready. I mind when Habbie
Gray brought her down to this land; a likely lass she was then, and
looked ower her southland nose at us a’. I trow her pride got a
downcome. And is she e’en gane?”
“She died yesterday,” said Ravenswood; “and desired to be buried here
beside her husband; you know where he lies, no doubt?”
“Ken where he lies!” answered the sexton, with national indirection of
response. “I ken whar a’body lies, that lies here. But ye were speaking
o’ her grave? Lord help us, it’s no an ordinar grave that will haud her
in, if a’s true that folk said of Alice in her auld days; and if I gae
to six feet deep—and a warlock’s grave shouldna be an inch mair ebb, or
her ain witch cummers would soon whirl her out of her shroud for a’
their auld acquaintance—and be’t six feet, or be’t three, wha’s to pay
the making o’t, I pray ye?”
“I will pay that, my friend, and all other reasonable charges.”
“Reasonable charges!” said the sexton; “ou, there’s grundmail—and
bell-siller, though the bell’s broken, nae doubt—and the kist—and my
day’s wark—and my bit fee—and some brandy and yill to the dirgie, I am
no thinking that you can inter her, to ca’ decently, under saxteen pund
Scots.”
“There is the money, my friend,” said Ravenswood, “and something over.
Be sure you know the grave.”
“Ye’ll be ane o’ her English relations, I’se warrant,” said the hoary
man of skulls; “I hae heard she married far below her station. It was
very right to let her bite on the bridle when she was living, and it’s
very right to gie her a decent burial now she’s dead, for that’s a
matter o’ credit to yoursell rather than to her. Folk may let their
kindred shift for themsells when they are alive, and can bear the
burden of their ain misdoings; but it’s an unnatural thing to let them
be buried like dogs, when a’ the discredit gangs to the kindred. What
kens the dead corpse about it?”
“You would not have people neglect their relations on a bridal occasion
neither?” said Ravenswood, who was amused with the professional
limitation of the grave-digger’s philanthropy.
The old man cast up his sharp grey eyes with a shrewd smile, as if he
understood the jest, but instantly continued, with his former gravity:
“Bridals—wha wad neglect bridals that had ony regard for plenishing the
earth? To be sure, they suld be celebrated with all manner of good
cheer, and meeting of friends, and musical instruments—harp, sackbut,
and psaltery; or gude fiddle and pipes, when these auld-warld
instruments of melody are hard to be compassed.”
“The presence of the fiddle, I dare say,” replied Ravenswood, “would
atone for the absence of all the others.”
The sexton again looked sharply up at him, as he answered. “Nae
doubt—nae doubt, if it were weel played; but yonder,” he said, as if to
change the discourse, “is Halbert Gray’s lang hame, that ye were
speering after, just the third bourock beyond the muckle through-stane
that stands on sax legs yonder, abune some ane of the Ravenswoods; for
there is mony of their kin and followers here, deil lift them! though
it isna just their main burial-place.”
“They are no favourites, then, of yours, these Ravenswoods?” said the
Master, not much pleased with the passing benediction which was thus
bestowed on his family and name.
“I kenna wha should favour them,” said the grave-digger; “when they had
lands and power, they were ill guides of them baith, and now their
head’s down, there’s few care how lang they may be of lifting it
again.”
“Indeed!” said Ravenswood; “I never heard that this unhappy family
deserved ill-will at the hands of their country. I grant their poverty,
if that renders them contemptible.”
“It will gang a far way till’t” said the sexton of Hermitage, “ye may
tak my word for that; at least, I ken naething else that suld mak
myself contemptible, and folk are far frae respecting me as they wad do
if I lived in a twa-lofted sclated house. But as for the Ravenswoods, I
hae seen three generations of them, and deil ane to mend other.”
“I thought they had enjoyed a fair character in the country,” said
their descendant.
“Character! Ou, ye see, sir,” said the sexton, “as for the auld
gudesire body of a lord, I lived on his land when I was a swanking
young chield, and could hae blawn the trumpet wi’ ony body, for I had
wind eneugh then; and touching this trumpeter Marine that I have heard
play afore the lords of the circuit, I wad hae made nae mair o’ him
than of a bairn and a bawbee whistle. I defy him to hae played ‘Boot
and saddle,’ or ‘Horse and away,’ or ‘Gallants, come trot,’ with me; he
handa the tones.”
“But what is all this to old Lord Ravenswood, my friend?” said the
Master, who, with an anxiety not unnatural in his circumstances, was
desirous of prosecuting the musician’s first topic—“what had his memory
to do with the degeneracy of the trumpet music?”
“Just this, sir,” answered the sexton, “that I lost my wind in his
service. Ye see I was trumpeter at the castle, and had allowance for
blawing at break of day, and at dinner time, and other whiles when
there was company about, and it pleased my lord; and when he raised his
militia to caper awa’ to Bothwell Brig against the wrang-headed
westland Whigs, I behoved, reason or name, to munt a horse and caper
awa’ wi’ them.”
“And very reasonable,” said Ravenswood; “you were his servant and
vassal.”
“Servitor, say ye?” replied the sexton, “and so I was; but it was to
blaw folk to their warm dinner, or at the warst to a decent kirkyard,
and no to skirl them awa’ to a bluidy braeside, where there was deil a
bedral but the hooded craw. But bide ye, ye shall hear what cam o’t,
and how far I am bund to be bedesman to the Ravenswoods. Till’t, ye
see, we gaed on a braw simmer morning, twenty-fourth of June, saxteen
hundred and se’enty-nine, of a’ the days of the month and year—drums
beat, guns rattled, horses kicked and trampled. Hackstoun of Rathillet
keepit the brig wi’ mustket and carabine and pike, sword and scythe for
what I ken, and we horsemen were ordered down to cross at the ford,—I
hate fords at a’ times, let abee when there’s thousands of armed men on
the other side. There was auld Ravenswood brandishing his Andrew
Ferrara at the head, and crying to us to come and buckle to, as if we
had been gaun to a fair; there was Caleb Balderstone, that is living
yet, flourishing in the rear, and swearing Gog and Magog, he would put
steel through the guts of ony man that turned bridle; there was young
Allan Ravenswood, that was then Master, wi’ a bended pistol in his
hand—it was a mercy it gaed na aff!—crying to me, that had scarce as
much wind left as serve the necessary purpose of my ain lungs, ‘Sound,
you poltroon!—sound, you damned cowardly villain, or I will blow your
brains out!’ and, to be sure, I blew sic points of war that the scraugh
of a clockin-hen was music to them.”
“Well, sir, cut all this short,” said Ravenswood.
“Short! I had like to hae been cut short mysell, in the flower of my
youth, as Scripture says; and that’s the very thing that I compleen o’.
Weel! in to the water we behoved a’ to splash, heels ower head, sit or
fa’—ae horse driving on anither, as is the way of brute beasts, and
riders that hae as little sense; the very bushes on the ither side were
a-bleeze wi’ the flashes of the Whig guns; and my horse had just taen
the grund, when a blackavised westland carle—I wad mind the face o’ him
a hundred years yet—an ee like a wild falcon’s, and a beard as broad as
my shovel—clapped the end o’ his lang black gun within a quarter’s
length of my lug! By the grace o’ Mercy, the horse swarved round, and I
fell aff at the tae side as the ball whistled by at the tither, and the
fell auld lord took the Whig such a swauk wi’ his broadsword that he
made twa pieces o’ his head, and down fell the lurdance wi’ a’ his bouk
abune me.”
“You were rather obliged to the old lord, I think,” said Ravenswood.
“Was I? my sartie! first for bringing me into jeopardy, would I nould
I, and then for whomling a chield on the tap o’ me that dang the very
wind out of my body? I hae been short-breathed ever since, and canna
gang twenty yards without peghing like a miller’s aiver.”
“You lost, then, your place as trumpeter?” said Ravenswood.
“Lost it! to be sure I lost it,” replied the sexton, “for I couldna hae
played pew upon a dry hemlock; but I might hae dune weel eneugh, for I
keepit the wage and the free house, and little to do but play on the
fiddle to them, but for Allan, last Lord Ravenswood, that was far waur
than ever his father was.”
“What,” said the Master, “did my father—I mean, did his father’s
son—this last Lord Ravenswood, deprive you of what the bounty of his
father allowed you?”
“Ay, troth did he,” answered the old man; “for he loot his affairs gang
to the dogs, and let in this Sir William Ashton on us, that will gie
naething for naething, and just removed me and a’ the puir creatures
that had bite and soup at the castle, and a hole to put our heads in,
when things were in the auld way.”
“If Lord Ravenswood protected his people, my friend, while he had the
means of doing so, I think they might spare his memory,” replied the
Master.
“Ye are welcome to your ain opinion, sir,” said the sexton; “but ye
winna persuade me that he did his duty, either to himsell or to huz
puir dependent creatures, in guiding us the gate he has done; he might
hae gien us life-rent tacks of our bits o’ houses and yards; and me,
that’s an auld man, living in yon miserable cabin, that’s fitter for
the dead than the quick, and killed wi’ rheumatise, and John Smith in
my dainty bit mailing, and his window glazen, and a’ because Ravenswood
guided his gear like a fule!”
“It is but too true,” said Ravenswood, conscience-struck; “the
penalties of extravagance extend far beyond the prodigal’s own
sufferings.”
“However,” said the sexton, “this young man Edgar is like to avenge my
wrangs on the haill of his kindred.”
“Indeed?” said Ravenswood; “why should you suppose so?”
“They say he is about to marry the daughter of Leddy Ashton; and let
her leddyship get his head ance under her oxter, and see you if she
winna gie his neck a thraw. Sorra a bit, if I were him! Let her alane
for hauding a’thing in het water that draws near her. Sae the warst
wish I shall wish the lad is, that he may take his ain creditable gate
o’t, and ally himsell wi’ his father’s enemies, that have taken his
broad lands and my bonny kail-yard from the lawful owners thereof.”
Cervantes acutely remarks, that flattery is pleasing even from the
mouth of a madman; and censure, as well as praise, often affects us,
while we despise the opinions and motives on which it is founded and
expressed. Ravenswood, abruptly reiterating his command that Alice’s
funeral should be attended to, flung away from the sexton, under the
painful impression that the great as well as the small vulgar would
think of his engagement with Lucy like this ignorant and selfish
peasant.
“And I have stooped to subject myself to these calumnies, and am
rejected notwithstanding! Lucy, your faith must be true and perfect as
the diamond to compensate for the dishonour which men’s opinions, and
the conduct of your mother, attach to the heir of Ravenswood!”
As he raised his eyes, he beheld the Marquis of A——, who, having
arrived at the Tod’s Hole, had walked forth to look for his kinsman.
After mutual greetings, he made some apology to the Master for not
coming forward on the preceding evening. “It was his wish,” he said,
“to have done so, but he had come to the knowledge of some matters
which induced him to delay his purpose. I find,” he proceeded, “there
has been a love affair here, kinsman; and though I might blame you for
not having communicated with me, as being in some degree the chief of
your family——”
“With your lordship’s permission,” said Ravenswood, “I am deeply
grateful for the interest you are pleased to take in me, but _I_ am the
chief and head of my family.”
“I know it—I know it,” said the Marquis; “in a strict heraldic and
genealogical sense, you certainly are so; what I mean is, that being in
some measure under my guardianship——”
“I must take the liberty to say, my lord——” answered Ravenswood, and
the tone in which he interrupted the Marquis boded no long duration to
the friendship of the noble relatives, when he himself was interrupted
by the little sexton, who came puffing after them, to ask if their
honours would choose music at the change-house to make up for short
cheer.
“We want no music,” said the Master, abruptly.
“Your honour disna ken what ye’re refusing, then,” said the fiddler,
with the impertinent freedom of his profession. “I can play, ‘Wilt thou
do’t again,’ and ‘The Auld Man’s Mear’s Dead,’ sax times better than
ever Patie Birnie. I’ll get my fiddle in the turning of a
coffin-screw.”
“Take yourself away, sir,” said the Marquis.
“And if your honour be a north-country gentleman,” said the persevering
minstrel, “whilk I wad judge from your tongue, I can play ‘Liggeram
Cosh,’ and ‘Mullin Dhu,’ and ‘The Cummers of Athole.’”
“Take yourself away, friend; you interrupt our conversation.”
“Or if, under your honour’s favour, ye should happen to be a thought
honest, I can play (this in a low and confidential tone)
‘Killiecrankie,’ and ‘The King shall hae his ain,’ and ‘The Auld
Stuarts back again’; and the wife at the change-house is a decent,
discreet body, neither kens nor cares what toasts are drucken, and what
tunes are played, in her house: she’s deaf to a’thing but the clink o’
the siller.”
The Marquis, who was sometimes suspected of Jacobitism, could not help
laughing as he threw the fellow a dollar, and bid him go play to the
servants if he had a mind, and leave them at peace.
“Aweel, gentlemen,” said he, “I am wishing your honours gude day. I’ll
be a’ the better of the dollar, and ye’ll be the waur of wanting music,
I’se tell ye. But I’se gang hame, and finish the grave in the tuning o’
a fiddle-string, lay by my spade, and then get my tother bread-winner,
and awa’ to your folk, and see if they hae better lugs than their
masters.”