Can no rest find me, no private place secure me,
But still my miseries like bloodhounds haunt me?
Unfortunate young man, which way now guides thee,
Guides thee from death? The country’s laid around for thee.
Women Pleased.
Our narrative now recalls us for a moment to the period when young
Hazlewood received his wound. That accident had no sooner happened than
the consequences to Miss Mannering and to himself rushed upon Brown’s
mind. From the manner in which the muzzle of the piece was pointed when
it went off, he had no great fear that the consequences would be fatal.
But an arrest in a strange country, and while he was unprovided with any
means of establishing his rank and character, was at least to be avoided.
He therefore resolved to escape for the present to the neighbouring coast
of England, and to remain concealed there, if possible, until he should
receive letters from his regimental friends, and remittances from his
agent; and then to resume his own character, and offer to young Hazlewood
and his friends any explanation or satisfaction they might desire. With
this purpose he walked stoutly forward, after leaving the spot where the
accident had happened, and reached without adventure the village which we
have called Portanferry (but which the reader will in vain seek for under
that name in the county map). A large open boat was just about to leave
the quay, bound for the little seaport of Allonby, in Cumberland. In this
vessel Brown embarked, and resolved to make that place his temporary
abode, until he should receive letters and money from England.
In the course of their short voyage he entered into some conversation
with the steersman, who was also owner of the boat, a jolly old man, who
had occasionally been engaged in the smuggling trade, like most fishers
on the coast. After talking about objects of less interest, Brown
endeavoured to turn the discourse toward the Mannering family. The sailor
had heard of the attack upon the house at Woodbourne, but disapproved of
the smugglers’ proceedings.
‘Hands off is fair play; zounds, they’ll bring the whole country down
upon them. Na, na! when I was in that way I played at giff-gaff with the
officers: here a cargo taen--vera weel, that was their luck; there
another carried clean through, that was mine; na, na! hawks shouldna pike
out hawks’ een.’
‘And this Colonel Mannering?’ said Brown.
‘Troth, he’s nae wise man neither, to interfere; no that I blame him for
saving the gangers’ lives, that was very right; but it wasna like a
gentleman to be righting about the poor folk’s pocks o’ tea and brandy
kegs. However, he’s a grand man and an officer man, and they do what they
like wi’ the like o’ us.’
‘And his daughter,’ said Brown, with a throbbing heart, ‘is going to be
married into a great family too, as I have heard?’
‘What, into the Hazlewoods’?’ said the pilot. ‘Na, na, that’s but idle
clashes; every Sabbath day, as regularly as it came round, did the young
man ride hame wi’ the daughter of the late Ellangowan; and my daughter
Peggy’s in the service up at Woodbourne, and she says she’s sure young
Hazlewood thinks nae mair of Miss Mannering than you do.’
Bitterly censuring his own precipitate adoption of a contrary belief,
Brown yet heard with delight that the suspicions of Julia’s fidelity,
upon which he had so rashly acted, were probably void of foundation. How
must he in the meantime be suffering in her opinion? or what could she
suppose of conduct which must have made him appear to her regardless
alike of her peace of mind and of the interests of their affection? The
old man’s connexion with the family at Woodbourne seemed to offer a safe
mode of communication, of which he determined to avail himself.
‘Your daughter is a maid-servant at Woodbourne? I knew Miss Mannering in
India, and, though I am at present in an inferior rank of life, I have
great reason to hope she would interest herself in my favour. I had a
quarrel unfortunately with her father, who was my commanding officer, and
I am sure the young lady would endeavour to reconcile him to me. Perhaps
your daughter could deliver a letter to her upon the subject, without
making mischief between her father and her?’
The old man, a friend to smuggling of every kind, readily answered for
the letter’s being faithfully and secretly delivered; and, accordingly,
as soon as they arrived at Allonby Brown wrote to Miss Mannering, stating
the utmost contrition for what had happened through his rashness, and
conjuring her to let him have an opportunity of pleading his own cause,
and obtaining forgiveness for his indiscretion. He did not judge it safe
to go into any detail concerning the circumstances by which he had been
misled, and upon the whole endeavoured to express himself with such
ambiguity that, if the letter should fall into wrong hands, it would be
difficult either to understand its real purport or to trace the writer.
This letter the old man undertook faithfully to deliver to his daughter
at Woodbourne; and, as his trade would speedily again bring him or his
boat to Allonby, he promised farther to take charge of any answer with
which the young lady might entrust him.
And now our persecuted traveller landed at Allonby, and sought for such
accommodations as might at once suit his temporary poverty and his desire
of remaining as much unobserved as possible. With this view he assumed
the name and profession of his friend Dudley, having command enough of
the pencil to verify his pretended character to his host of Allonby. His
baggage he pretended to expect from Wigton; and keeping himself as much
within doors as possible, awaited the return of the letters which he had
sent to his agent, to Delaserre, and to his lieutenant-colonel. From the
first he requested a supply of money; he conjured Delaserre, if possible,
to join him in Scotland; and from the lieutenant-colonel he required such
testimony of his rank and conduct in the regiment as should place his
character as a gentleman and officer beyond the power of question. The
inconvenience of being run short in his finances struck him so strongly
that he wrote to Dinmont on that subject, requesting a small temporary
loan, having no doubt that, being within sixty or seventy miles of his
residence, he should receive a speedy as well as favourable answer to his
request of pecuniary accommodation, which was owing, as he stated, to his
having been robbed after their parting. And then, with impatience enough,
though without any serious apprehension, he waited the answers of these
various letters.
It must be observed, in excuse of his correspondents, that the post was
then much more tardy than since Mr. Palmer’s ingenious invention has
taken place; and with respect to honest Dinmont in particular, as he
rarely received above one letter a quarter (unless during the time of his
being engaged in a law-suit, when he regularly sent to the post-town),
his correspondence usually remained for a month or two sticking in the
postmaster’s window among pamphlets, gingerbread, rolls, or ballads,
according to the trade which the said postmaster exercised. Besides,
there was then a custom, not yet wholly obsolete, of causing a letter
from one town to another, perhaps within the distance of thirty miles,
perform a circuit of two hundred miles before delivery; which had the
combined advantage of airing the epistle thoroughly, of adding some pence
to the revenue of the post-office, and of exercising the patience of the
correspondents. Owing to these circumstances Brown remained several days
in Allonby without any answers whatever, and his stock of money, though
husbanded with the utmost economy, began to wear very low, when he
received by the hands of a young fisherman the following letter:--
‘You have acted with the most cruel indiscretion; you have shown how
little I can trust to your declarations that my peace and happiness are
dear to you; and your rashness has nearly occasioned the death of a young
man of the highest worth and honour. Must I say more? must I add that I
have been myself very ill in consequence of your violence and its
effects? And, alas! need I say still farther, that I have thought
anxiously upon them as they are likely to affect you, although you have
given me such slight cause to do so? The C. is gone from home for several
days, Mr. H. is almost quite recovered, and I have reason to think that
the blame is laid in a quarter different from that where it is deserved.
Yet do not think of venturing here. Our fate has been crossed by
accidents of a nature too violent and terrible to permit me to think of
renewing a correspondence which has so often threatened the most dreadful
catastrophe. Farewell, therefore, and believe that no one can wish your
happiness more sincerely than
‘J. M.’
This letter contained that species of advice which is frequently given
for the precise purpose that it may lead to a directly opposite conduct
from that which it recommends. At least so thought Brown, who immediately
asked the young fisherman if he came from Portanferry.
‘Ay,’ said the lad; ‘I am auld Willie Johnstone’s son, and I got that
letter frae my sister Peggy, that’s laundry maid at Woodbourne.’
‘My good friend, when do you sail?’
‘With the tide this evening.’
‘I’ll return with you; but, as I do not desire to go to Portanferry, I
wish you could put me on shore somewhere on the coast.’
‘We can easily do that,’ said the lad.
Although the price of provisions, etc., was then very moderate, the
discharging his lodgings, and the expense of his living, together with
that of a change of dress, which safety as well as a proper regard to his
external appearance rendered necessary, brought Brown’s purse to a very
low ebb. He left directions at the post-office that his letters should be
forwarded to Kippletringan, whither he resolved to proceed and reclaim
the treasure which he had deposited in the hands of Mrs. MacCandlish. He
also felt it would be his duty to assume his proper character as soon as
he should receive the necessary evidence for supporting it, and, as an
officer in the king’s service, give and receive every explanation which
might be necessary with young Hazlewood. ‘If he is not very wrong-headed
indeed,’ he thought, ‘he must allow the manner in which I acted to have
been the necessary consequence of his own overbearing conduct.’
And now we must suppose him once more embarked on the Solway Firth. The
wind was adverse, attended by some rain, and they struggled against it
without much assistance from the tide. The boat was heavily laden with
goods (part of which were probably contraband), and laboured deep in the
sea. Brown, who had been bred a sailor, and was indeed skilled in most
athletic exercises, gave his powerful and effectual assistance in rowing,
or occasionally in steering the boat, and his advice in the management,
which became the more delicate as the wind increased, and, being opposed
to the very rapid tides of that coast, made the voyage perilous. At
length, after spending the whole night upon the firth, they were at
morning within sight of a beautiful bay upon the Scottish coast. The
weather was now more mild. The snow, which had been for some time waning,
had given way entirely under the fresh gale of the preceding night. The
more distant hills, indeed, retained their snowy mantle, but all the open
country was cleared, unless where a few white patches indicated that it
had been drifted to an uncommon depth. Even under its wintry appearance
the shore was highly interesting. The line of sea-coast, with all its
varied curves, indentures, and embayments, swept away from the sight on
either hand, in that varied, intricate, yet graceful and easy line which
the eye loves so well to pursue. And it was no less relieved and varied
in elevation than in outline by the different forms of the shore, the
beach in some places being edged by steep rocks, and in others rising
smoothly from the sands in easy and swelling slopes. Buildings of
different kinds caught and reflected the wintry sunbeams of a December
morning, and the woods, though now leafless, gave relief and variety to
the landscape. Brown felt that lively and awakening interest which taste
and sensibility always derive from the beauties of nature when opening
suddenly to the eye after the dulness and gloom of a night voyage.
Perhaps--for who can presume to analyse that inexplicable feeling which
binds the person born in a mountainous country to, his native
hills--perhaps some early associations, retaining their effect long after
the cause was forgotten, mingled in the feelings of pleasure with which
he regarded the scene before him.
‘And what,’ said Brown to the boatman, ‘is the name of that fine cape
that stretches into the sea with its sloping banks and hillocks of wood,
and forms the right side of the bay?’
‘Warroch Point,’ answered the lad.
‘And that old castle, my friend, with the modern house situated just
beneath it? It seems at this distance a very large building.’
‘That’s the Auld Place, sir; and that’s the New Place below it. We’ll
land you there if you like.’
‘I should like it of all things. I must visit that ruin before I continue
my journey.’
‘Ay, it’s a queer auld bit,’ said the fisherman; ‘and that highest tower
is a gude landmark as far as Ramsay in Man and the Point of Ayr; there
was muckle fighting about the place lang syne.’
Brown would have inquired into farther particulars, but a fisherman is
seldom an antiquary. His boatman’s local knowledge was summed up in the
information already given, ‘that it was a grand landmark, and that there
had been muckle fighting about the bit lang syne.’
‘I shall learn more of it,’ said Brown to himself, ‘when I get ashore.’
The boat continued its course close under the point upon which the castle
was situated, which frowned from the summit of its rocky site upon the
still agitated waves of the bay beneath. ‘I believe,’ said the steersman,
‘ye’ll get ashore here as dry as ony gate. There’s a place where their
berlins and galleys, as they ca’d them, used to lie in lang syne, but
it’s no used now, because it’s ill carrying gudes up the narrow stairs or
ower the rocks. Whiles of a moonlight night I have landed articles there,
though.’
While he thus spoke they pulled round a point of rock, and found a very
small harbour, partly formed by nature, partly by the indefatigable
labour of the ancient inhabitants of the castle, who, as the fisherman
observed, had found it essential for the protection of their boats and
small craft, though it could not receive vessels of any burden. The two
points of rock which formed the access approached each other so nearly
that only one boat could enter at a time. On each side were still
remaining two immense iron rings, deeply morticed into the solid rock.
Through these, according to tradition, there was nightly drawn a huge
chain, secured by an immense padlock, for the protection of the haven and
the armada which it contained. A ledge of rock had, by the assistance of
the chisel and pickaxe, been formed into a sort of quay. The rock was of
extremely hard consistence, and the task so difficult that, according to
the fisherman, a labourer who wrought at the work might in the evening
have carried home in his bonnet all the shivers which he had struck from
the mass in the course of the day. This little quay communicated with a
rude staircase, already repeatedly mentioned, which descended from the
old castle. There was also a communication between the beach and the
quay, by scrambling over the rocks.
‘Ye had better land here,’ said the lad, ‘for the surf’s running high at
the Shellicoat Stane, and there will no be a dry thread amang us or we
get the cargo out. Na! na! (in answer to an offer of money) ye have
wrought for your passage, and wrought far better than ony o’ us. Gude day
to ye; I wuss ye weel.’
So saying, he pushed oil in order to land his cargo on the opposite side
of the bay; and Brown, with a small bundle in his hand, containing the
trifling stock of necessaries which he had been obliged to purchase at
Allonby, was left on the rocks beneath the ruin.
And thus, unconscious as the most absolute stranger, and in circumstances
which, if not destitute, were for the present highly embarrassing,
without the countenance of a friend within the circle of several hundred
miles, accused of a heavy crime, and, what was as bad as all the rest,
being nearly penniless, did the harassed wanderer for the first time
after the interval of so many years approach the remains of the castle
where his ancestors had exercised all but regal dominion.