True love, an thou be true,
Thou has ane kittle part to play;
For fortune, fashion, fancy, and thou,
Maun strive for many a day.
I’ve kend by mony a friend’s tale,
Far better by this heart of mine,
What time and change of fancy avail
A true-love knot to untwine.
HENDERSOUN.
“I wished to tell you, my good kinsman,” said the Marquis, “now that we
are quit of that impertinent fiddler, that I had tried to discuss this
love affair of yours with Sir William Ashton’s daughter. I never saw
the young lady but for a few minutes to-day; so, being a stranger to
her personal merits, I pay a compliment to you, and offer her no
offence, in saying you might do better.”
“My lord, I am much indebted for the interest you have taken in my
affairs,” said Ravenswood. “I did not intend to have troubled you in
any matter concerning Miss Ashton. As my engagement with that young
lady has reached your lordship, I can only say, that you must
necessarily suppose that I was aware of the objections to my marrying
into her father’s family, and of course must have been completely
satisfied with the reasons by which these objections are overbalanced,
since I have proceeded so far in the matter.”
“Nay, Master, if you had heard me out,” said his noble relation, “you
might have spared that observation; for, without questioning that you
had reasons which seemed to you to counterbalance every other obstacle,
I set myself, by every means that it became me to use towards the
Ashtons, to persuade them to meet your views.”
“I am obliged to your lordship for your unsolicited intercession,” said
Ravenswood; “especially as I am sure your lordship would never carry it
beyond the bounds which it became me to use.”
“Of that,” said the Marquis, “you may be confident; I myself felt the
delicacy of the matter too much to place a gentleman nearly connected
with my house in a degrading or dubious situation with these Ashtons.
But I pointed out all the advantages of their marrying their daughter
into a house so honourable, and so nearly related with the first of
Scotland; I explained the exact degree of relationship in which the
Ravenswoods stand to ourselves; and I even hinted how political matters
were like to turn, and what cards would be trumps next Parliament. I
said I regarded you as a son—or a nephew, or so—rather than as a more
distant relation; and that I made your affair entirely my own.”
“And what was the issue of your lordship’s explanation?” said
Ravenswood, in some doubt whether he should resent or express gratitude
for his interference.
“Why, the Lord Keeper would have listened to reason,” said the Marquis;
“he is rather unwilling to leave his place, which, in the present view
of a change, must be vacated; and, to say truth, he seemed to have a
liking for you, and to be sensible of the general advantages to be
attained by such a match. But his lady, who is tongue of the trump,
Master——”
“What of Lady Ashton, my lord?” said Ravenswood; “let me know the issue
of this extraordinary conference: I can bear it.”
“I am glad of that, kinsman,” said the Marquis, “for I am ashamed to
tell you half what she said. It is enough—her mind is made up, and the
mistress of a first-rate boarding-school could not have rejected with
more haughty indifference the suit of a half-pay Irish officer,
beseeching permission to wait upon the heiress of a West India planter,
than Lady Ashton spurned every proposal of mediation which it could at
all become me to offer in behalf of you, my good kinsman. I cannot
guess what she means. A more honourable connexion she could not form,
that’s certain. As for money and land, that used to be her husband’s
business rather than hers; I really think she hates you for having the
rank which her husband has not, and perhaps for not having the lands
that her goodman has. But I should only vex you to say more about
it—here we are at the change-house.”
The Master of Ravenswood paused as he entered the cottage, which reeked
through all its crevices, and they were not few, from the exertions of
the Marquis’s travelling-cooks to supply good cheer, and spread, as it
were, a table in the wilderness.
“My Lord Marquis,” said Ravenswood, “I already mentioned that accident
has put your lordship in possession of a secret which, with my consent,
should have remained one even to you, my kinsman, for some time. Since
the secret was to part from my own custody, and that of the only person
besides who was interested in it, I am not sorry it should have reached
your lordship’s ears, as being fully aware that you are my noble
kinsman and friend.”
“You may believe it is safely lodged with me, Master of Ravenswood,”
said the Marquis; “but I should like well to hear you say that you
renounced the idea of an alliance which you can hardly pursue without a
certain degree of degradation.”
“Of that, my lord, I shall judge,” answered Ravenswood, “and I hope
with delicacy as sensitive as any of my friends. But I have no
engagement with Sir William and Lady Ashton. It is with Miss Ashton
alone that I have entered upon the subject, and my conduct in the
matter shall be entirely ruled by hers. If she continues to prefer me
in my poverty to the wealthier suitors whom her friends recommend, I
may well make some sacrifice to her sincere affection: I may well
surrender to her the less tangible and less palpable advantages of
birth, and the deep-rooted prejudices of family hatred. If Miss Lucy
Ashton should change her mind on a subject of such delicacy, I trust my
friends will be silent on my disappointment, and I shall know how to
make my enemies so.”
“Spoke like a gallant young nobleman,” said the Marquis; “for my part,
I have that regard for you, that I should be sorry the thing went on.
This Sir William Ashton was a pretty enough pettifogging kind of a
lawyer twenty years ago, and betwixt battling at the bar and leading in
committees of Parliament he has got well on; the Darien matter lent him
a lift, for he had good intelligence and sound views, and sold out in
time; but the best work is had out of him. No government will take him
at his own, or rather his wife’s extravagant, valuation; and betwixt
his indecision and her insolence, from all I can guess, he will outsit
his market, and be had cheap when no one will bid for him. I say
nothing of Miss Ashton; but I assure you, a connexion with her father
will be neither useful nor ornamental, beyond that part of your
father’s spoils which he may be prevailed upon to disgorge by way of
tocher-good; and take my word for it, you will get more if you have
spirit to bell the cat with him in the House of Peers. And I will be
the man, cousin,” continued his lordship, “will course the fox for you,
and make him rue the day that ever he refused a composition too
honourable for him, and proposed by me on the behalf of a kinsman.”
There was something in all this that, as it were, overshot the mark.
Ravenswood could not disguise from himself that his noble kinsman had
more reasons for taking offence at the reception of his suit than
regarded his interest and honour, yet he could neither complain nor be
surprised that it should be so. He contented himself, therefore, with
repeating, that his attachment was to Miss Ashton personally; that he
desired neither wealth nor aggrandisement from her father’s means and
influence; and that nothing should prevent his keeping his engagement,
excepting her own express desire that it should be relinquished; and he
requested as a favour that the matter might be no more mentioned
betwixt them at present, assuring the Marquis of A——that he should be
his confidant in its progress or its interruption.
The Marquis soon had more agreeable, as well as more interesting,
subjects on which to converse. A foot-post, who had followed him from
Edinburgh to Ravenswood Castle, and had traced his steps to the Tod’s
Hole, brought him a packet laden with good news. The political
calculations of the Marquis had proved just, both in London and at
Edinburgh, and he saw almost within his grasp the pre-eminence for
which he had panted. The refreshments which the servants had prepared
were now put on the table, and an epicure would perhaps have enjoyed
them with additional zest from the contrast which such fare afforded to
the miserable cabin in which it was served up.
The turn of conversation corresponded with and added to the social
feelings of the company. The Marquis expanded with pleasure on the
power which probably incidents were likely to assign to him, and on the
use which he hoped to make of it in serving his kinsman Ravenswood.
Ravenswood could but repeat the gratitude which he really felt, even
when he considered the topic as too long dwelt upon. The wine was
excellent, notwithstanding its having been brought in a runlet from
Edinburgh; and the habits of the Marquis, when engaged with such good
cheer, were somewhat sedentary. And so it fell out that they delayed
their journey two hours later than was their original purpose.
“But what of that, my good young friend?” said the Marquis. “Your
Castle of Wolf’s Crag is at but five or six miles’ distance, and will
afford the same hospitality to your kinsman of A——that it gave to this
same Sir William Ashton.”
“Sir William took the castle by storm,” said Ravenswood, “and, like
many a victor, had little reason to congratulate himself on his
conquest.”
“Well—well!” said Lord A——, whose dignity was something relaxed by the
wine he had drunk, “I see I must bribe you to harbour me. Come, pledge
me in a bumper health to the last young lady that slept at Wolf’s Crag,
and liked her quarters. My bones are not so tender as hers, and I am
resolved to occupy her apartment to-night, that I may judge how hard
the couch is that love can soften.”
“Your lordship may choose what penance you please,” said Ravenswood;
“but I assure you, I should expect my old servant to hang himself, or
throw himself from the battlements, should your lordship visit him so
unexpectedly. I do assure you, we are totally and literally
unprovided.”
But his declaration only brought from his noble patron an assurance of
his own total indifference as to every species of accommodation, and
his determination to see the Tower of Wolf’s Crag. His ancestor, he
said, had been feasted there, when he went forward with the then Lord
Ravenswood to the fatal battle of Flodden, in which they both fell.
Thus hard pressed, the Master offered to ride forward to get matters
put in such preparation as time and circumstances admitted; but the
Marquis protested his kinsman must afford him his company, and would
only consent that an avant-courier should carry to the desinted
Seneschal, Caleb Balderstone, the unexpected news of this invasion.
The Master of Ravenswood soon after accompanied the Marquis in his
carriage, as the latter had proposed; and when they became better
acquainted in the progress of the journey, his noble relation explained
the very liberal views which he entertained for his relation’s
preferment, in case of the success of his own political schemes. They
related to a secret and highly important commission beyond sea, which
could only be entrusted to a person of rank, talent, and perfect
confidence, and which, as it required great trust and reliance on the
envoy employed, could but not prove both honourable and advantageous to
him. We need not enter into the nature and purpose of this commission,
farther than to acquaint our readers that the charge was in prospect
highly acceptable to the Master of Ravenswood, who hailed with pleasure
the hope of emerging from his present state of indigence and inaction
into independence and honourable exertion.
While he listened thus eagerly to the details with which the Marquis
now thought it necessary to entrust him, the messenger who had been
despatched to the Tower of Wolf’s Crag returned with Caleb
Balderstone’s humble duty, and an assurance that “a’ should be in
seemly order, sic as the hurry of time permitted, to receive their
lordships as it behoved.”
Ravenswood was too well accustomed to his seneschal’s mode of acting
and speaking to hope much from this confident assurance. He knew that
Caleb acted upon the principle of the Spanish generals, in the campaign
of ——, who, much to the perplexity of the Prince of Orange, their
commander-in-chief, used to report their troops as full in number, and
possessed of all necessary points of equipment, not considering it
consistent with their dignity, or the honour of Spain, to confess any
deficiency either in men or munition, until the want of both was
unavoidably discovered in the day of battle. Accordingly, Ravenswood
thought it necessary to give the Marquis some hint that the fair
assurance which they had just received from Caleb did not by any means
ensure them against a very indifferent reception.
“You do yourself injustice, Master,” said the Marquis, “or you wish to
surprise me agreeably. From this window I see a great light in the
direction where, if I remember aright, Wolf’s Crag lies; and, to judge
from the splendour which the old Tower sheds around it, the
preparations for our reception must be of no ordinary description. I
remember your father putting the same deception on me, when we went to
the Tower for a few days’ hawking, about twenty years since, and yet we
spent our time as jollily at Wolf’s Crag as we could have done at my
own hunting seat at B——.”
“Your lordship, I fear, will experience that the faculty of the present
proprietor to entertain his friends is greatly abridged,” said
Ravenswood; “the will, I need hardly say, remains the same. But I am as
much at a loss as your lordship to account for so strong and brilliant
a light as is now above Wolf’s Crag; the windows of the Tower are few
and narrow, and those of the lower story are hidden from us by the
walls of the court. I cannot conceive that any illumination of an
ordinary nature could afford such a blaze of light.”
[Illustration]
The mystery was soon explained; for the cavalcade almost instantly
halted, and the voice of Caleb Balderstone was heard at the coach
window, exclaiming, in accents broken by grief and fear, “Och,
gentlemen! Och, my gude lords! Och, haud to the right! Wolf’s Crag is
burning, bower and ha’—a’ the rich plenishing outside and inside—a’ the
fine graith, pictures, tapestries, needle-wark, hangings, and other
decorements—a’ in a bleeze, as if they were nae mair than sae mony
peats, or as muckle pease-strae! Haud to the right, gentlemen, I
implore ye; there is some sma’ provision making at Luckie Sma’trash’s;
but oh, wae for this night, and wae for me that lives to see it!”
Ravenswood was first stunned by this new and unexpected calamity; but
after a moment’s recollection he sprang from the carriage, and hastily
bidding his noble kinsman goodnight, was about to ascend the hill
towards the castle, the broad and full conflagration of which now flung
forth a high column of red light, that flickered far to seaward upon
the dashing waves of the ocean.
“Take a horse, Master,” exclaimed the Marquis, greatly affected by this
additional misfortune, so unexpectedly heaped upon his young protege;
“and give me my ambling palfrey; and haste forward, you knaves, to see
what can be done to save the furniture, or to extinguish the fire—ride,
you knaves, for your lives!”
The attendants bustled together, and began to strike their horses with
the spur, and call upon Caleb to show them the road. But the voice of
that careful seneschal was heard above the tumult, “Oh, stop sirs,
stop—turn bridle, for the luve of Mercy; add not loss of lives to the
loss of warld’s gean! Thirty barrels of powther, landed out of a
Dunkirk dogger in the auld lord’s time—a’ in the vau’ts of the auld
tower,—the fire canna be far off it, I trow. Lord’s sake, to the right,
lads—to the right; let’s pit the hill atween us and peril,—a wap wi’ a
corner-stane o’ Wolf’s Crag wad defy the doctor!”
It will readily be supposed that this annunciation hurried the Marquis
and his attendants into the route which Caleb prescribed, dragging
Ravenswood along with them, although there was much in the matter which
he could not possibly comprehend. “Gunpowder!” he exclaimed, laying
hold of Caleb, who in vain endeavoured to escape from him; “what
gunpowder? How any quantity of powder could be in Wolf’s Crag without
my knowledge, I cannot possibly comprehend.”
“But I can,” interrupted the Marquis, whispering him, “I can comprehend
it thoroughly; for God’s sake, ask him no more questions at present.”
“There it is, now,” said Caleb, extricating himself from his master,
and adjusting his dress, “your honour will believe his lordship’s
honourable testimony. His lordship minds weel how, in the year that him
they ca’d King Willie died——”
“Hush! hush, my good friend!” said the Marquis; “I shall satisfy your
master upon that subject.”
“And the people at Wolf’s Hope,” said Ravenswood, “did none of them
come to your assistance before the flame got so high?”
“Ay did they, mony ane of them, the rapscallions!” said Caleb; “but
truly I was in nae hurry to let them into the Tower, where there were
so much plate and valuables.”
“Confound you for an impudent liar!” said Ravenswood, in uncontrollable
ire, “there was not a single ounce of——”
“Forbye,” said the butler, most irreverently raising his voice to a
pitch which drowned his master’s, “the fire made fast on us, owing to
the store of tapestry and carved timmer in the banqueting-ha’, and the
loons ran like scaulded rats sae sune as they heard of the gunpouther.”
“I do entreat,” said the Marquis to Ravenswood, “you will ask him no
more questions.”
“Only one, my lord. What has become of poor Mysie?”
“Mysie!” said Caleb, “I had nae time to look about ony Mysie; she’s in
the Tower, I’se warrant, biding her awful doom.”
“By heaven,” said Ravenswood, “I do not understand all this! The life
of a faithful old creature is at stake; my lord, I will be withheld no
longer; I will at least ride up, and see whether the danger is as
imminent as this old fool pretends.”
“Weel, then, as I live by bread,” said Caleb, “Mysie is weel and safe.
I saw her out of the castle before I left it mysell. Was I ganging to
forget an auld fellow-servant?”
“What made you tell me the contrary this moment?” said his master.
“Did I tell you the contrary?” said Caleb; “then I maun hae been
dreaming surely, or this awsome night has turned my judgment; but safe
she is, and ne’er a living soul in the castle, a’ the better for them:
they wau have gotten an unco heezy.”
The Master of Ravenswood, upon this assurance being solemnly
reiterated, and notwithstanding his extreme wish to witness the last
explosion, which was to ruin to the ground the mansion of his fathers,
suffered himself to be dragged onward towards the village of Wolf’s
Hope, where not only the change-house, but that of our well-known
friend the cooper, were all prepared for reception of himself and his
noble guest, with a liberality of provision which requires some
explanation.
We omitted to mention in its place, that Lockhard having fished out the
truth concerning the mode by which Caleb had obtained the supplies for
his banquet, the Lord Keeper, amused with the incident, and desirous at
the time to gratify Ravenswood, had recommended the cooper of Wolf’s
Hope to the official situation under government the prospect of which
had reconciled him to the loss of his wild-fowl. Mr. Girder’s
preferment had occasioned a pleasing surprise to old Caleb; for when,
some days after his master’s departure, he found himself absolutely
compelled, by some necessary business, to visit the fishing hamlet, and
was gliding like a ghost past the door of the cooper, for fear of being
summoned to give some account of the progress of the solicitation in
his favour, or, more probably that the inmates might upbraid him with
the false hope he had held out upon the subject, he heard himself, not
without some apprehension, summoned at once in treble, tenor, and
bass—a trio performed by the voices of Mrs. Girder, old Dame
Loup-the-Dyke, and the goodman of the dwelling—“Mr. Caleb!—Mr. Caleb
Balderstone! I hope ye arena ganging dry-lipped by our door, and we sae
muckle indebted to you?”
This might be said ironically as well as in earnest. Caleb augured the
worst, turned a deaf ear to the trio aforesaid, and was moving doggedly
on, his ancient castor pulled over his brows, and his eyes bent on the
ground, as if to count the flinty pebbles with which the rude pathway
was causewayed. But on a sudden he found himself surrounded in his
progress, like a stately merchantman in the Gut of Gibraltar (I hope
the ladies will excuse the tarpaulin phrase) by three Algerine galleys.
“Gude guide us, Mr. Balderstone!” said Mrs. Girder. “Wha wad hae
thought it of an auld and kenn’d friend!” said the mother.
“And no sae muckle as stay to receive our thanks,” said the cooper
himself, “and frae the like o’ me that seldom offers them! I am sure I
hope there’s nae ill seed sawn between us, Mr. Balderstone. Ony man
that has said to ye I am no gratefu’ for the situation of Queen’s
cooper, let me hae a whample at him wi’ mine eatche, that’s a’.”
“My good friends—my dear friends,” said Caleb, still doubting how the
certainty of the matter might stand, “what needs a’ this ceremony? Ane
tries to serve their friends, and sometimes they may happen to prosper,
and sometimes to misgie. Naething I care to be fashed wi’ less than
thanks; I never could bide them.”
“Faith, Mr. Balderstone, ye suld hae been fashed wi’ few o’ mine,” said
the downright man of staves and hoops, “if I had only your gude-will to
thank ye for: I suld e’en hae set the guse, and the wild deukes, and
the runlet of sack to balance that account. Gude-will, man, is a
geizen’d tub, that hauds in nae liquor; but gude deed’s like the cask,
tight, round, and sound, that will haud liquor for the king.”
“Have ye no heard of our letter,” said the mother-in-law, “making our
John [Gibbie] the Queen’s cooper for certain? and scarce a chield that
had ever hammered gird upon tub but was applying for it?”
“Have I heard!!!” said Caleb, who now found how the wind set, with an
accent of exceeding contempt, at the doubt expressed—“have I heard,
quo’she!!!” and as he spoke he changed his shambling, skulking, dodging
pace into a manly and authoritative step, readjusted his cocked hat,
and suffered his brow to emerge from under it in all the pride of
aristocracy, like the sun from behind a cloud.
“To be sure, he canna but hae heard,” said the good woman.
“Ay, to be sure it’s impossible but I should,” said Caleb; “and sae
I’ll be the first to kiss ye, joe, and wish you, cooper, much joy of
your preferment, naething doubting but ye ken wha are your friends, and
_have_ helped ye, and _can_ help ye. I thought it right to look a wee
strange upon it at first,” added Caleb, “just to see if ye were made of
the right mettle; but ye ring true, lad—ye ring true!”
So saying, with a most lordly air he kissed the women, and abandoned
his hand, with an air of serene patronage, to the hearty shake of Mr.
Girder’s horn-hard palm. Upon this complete, and to Caleb most
satisfactory, information he did not, it may readily be believed,
hesitate to accept an invitation to a solemn feast, to which were
invited, not only all the _notables_ of the village, but even his
ancient antagonist, Mr. Dingwall, himself. At this festivity he was, of
course, the most welcome and most honoured guest; and so well did he
ply the company with stories of what he could do with his master, his
master with the Lord Keeper, the Lord Keeper with the council, and the
council with the king [queen], that before the company dismissed (which
was, indeed, rather at an early hour than a late one), every man of
note in the village was ascending to the top-gallant of some ideal
preferment by the ladder of ropes which Caleb had presented to their
imagination. Nay, the cunning butler regained in that moment not only
all the influence he possessed formerly over the villagers, when the
baronial family which he served were at the proudest, but acquired even
an accession of importance. The writer—the very attorney himself, such
is the thirst of preferment—felt the force of the attraction, and
taking an opportunity to draw Caleb into a corner, spoke, with
affectionate regret, of the declining health of the sheriff-clerk of
the county.
“An excellent man—a most valuable man, Mr. Caleb; but fat sall I say!
we are peer feckless bodies, here the day and awa’ by cock-screech the
morn; and if he failyies, there maun be somebody in his place; and gif
that ye could airt it my way, I sall be thankful, man—a gluve stuffed
wi gowd nobles; an’ hark ye, man something canny till yoursell, and the
Wolf’s Hope carles to settle kindly wi’ the Master of Ravenswood—that
is, Lord Ravenswood—God bless his lordship!”
A smile, and a hearty squeeze by the hand, was the suitable answer to
this overture; and Caleb made his escape from the jovial party, in
order to avoid committing himself by any special promises.
“The Lord be gude to me,” said Caleb, when he found himself in the open
air, and at liberty to give vent to the self-exultation with which he
was, as it were, distended; “did ever ony man see sic a set of
green-gaislings? The very pickmaws and solan-geese out-bye yonder at
the Bass hae ten times their sense! God, an I had been the Lord High
Commissioner to the Estates o’ Parliament, they couldna hae beflumm’d
me mair; and, to speak Heaven’s truth, I could hardly hae beflumm’d
them better neither! But the writer—ha! ha! ha!—ah, ha! ha! ha! mercy
on me, that I suld live in my auld days to gie the ganag-bye to the
very writer! Sheriff-clerk!!! But I hae an auld account to settle wi’
the carle; and to make amends for bye-ganes, the office shall just cost
him as much time-serving and tide-serving as if he were to get it in
gude earnest, of whilk there is sma’ appearance, unless the Master
learns mair the ways of this warld, whilk it is muckle to be doubted
that he never will do.”