Guy Mannering Or the Astrologer Part 4

'Why, then, good-morning to you, for business must be minded- unless ye'll go aboard and take schnaps; you shall have a pouch- full of tea ash.o.r.e. Dirk Hatteraick knows how to be civil.'

There was a mixture of impudence, hardihood, and suspicious fear about this man which was inexpressibly disgusting. His manners were those of a ruffian, conscious of the suspicion attending his character, yet aiming to bear it down by the affectation of a careless and hardy familiarity. Mannering briefly rejected his proffered civilities; and, after a surly good-morning, Hatteraick retired with the gipsy to that part of the ruins from which he had first made his appearance. A very narrow staircase here went down to the beach, intended probably for the convenience of the garrison during a siege. By this stair the couple, equally amiable in appearance and respectable by profession, descended to the sea- side. The soi-disant captain embarked in a small boat with two men, who appeared to wait for him, and the gipsy remained on the sh.o.r.e, reciting or singing, and gesticulating with great vehemence.

CHAPTER V

You have fed upon my seignories, Dispark'd my parks, and fell'd my forest woods, From mine own windows torn my household coat, Razed out my impress, leaving me no sign, Save men's opinions and my living blood, To show the world I am a gentleman.

Richard II.

When the boat which carried the worthy captain on board his vessel had accomplished that task, the sails began to ascend, and the ship was got under way. She fired three guns as a salute to the house of Ellangowan, and then shot away rapidly before the wind, which blew off sh.o.r.e, under all the sail she could crowd.

'Ay, ay,' said the Laird, who had sought Mannering for some time, and now joined him, 'there they go-there go the free-traders- there go Captain Dirk Hatteraick and the Yungfrauw Hagenslaapen, half Manks, half Dutchman, half devil! run out the boltsprit, up mainsail, top and top-gallant sails, royals, and skysc.r.a.pers, and away-follow who can! That fellow, Mr. Mannering, is the terror of all the excise and custom-house cruisers; they can make nothing of him; he drubs them, or he distances them;-and, speaking of excise, I come to bring you to breakfast; and you shall have some tea, that-'

Mannering by this time was aware that one thought linked strangely on to another in the concatenation of worthy Mr. Bertram's ideas,

Like orient pearls at random strung;

and therefore, before the current of his a.s.sociations had drifted farther from the point he had left, he brought him back by some inquiry about Dirk Hatteraick.

'O he's a-a-gude sort of blackguard fellow eneugh; naebody cares to trouble him-smuggler, when his guns are in ballast-privateer, or pirate, faith, when he gets them mounted. He has done more mischief to the revenue folk than ony rogue that ever came out of Ramsay.'

'But, my good sir, such being his character, I wonder he has any protection and encouragement on this coast.'

'Why, Mr. Mannering, people must have brandy and tea, and there's none in the country but what comes this way; and then there's short accounts, and maybe a keg or two, or a dozen pounds, left at your stable-door, instead of a d-d lang account at Christmas from Duncan Robb, the grocer at Kippletringan, who has aye a sum to make up, and either wants ready money or a short-dated bill. Now, Hatteraick will take wood, or he'll take bark, or he'll take barley, or he'll take just what's convenient at the time. I'll tell you a gude story about that. There was ance a laird-that's Macfie of Gudgeonford,-he had a great number of kain hens- that's hens that the tenant pays to the landlord, like a sort of rent in kind. They aye feed mine very ill; Luckie Finniston sent up three that were a shame to be seen only last week, and yet she has twelve bows sowing of victual; indeed her goodman, Duncan Finniston-that's him that's gone-(we must all die, Mr. Mannering, that's ower true)-and, speaking of that, let us live in the meanwhile, for here's breakfast on the table, and the Dominie ready to say the grace.'

The Dominie did accordingly p.r.o.nounce a benediction, that exceeded in length any speech which Mannering had yet heard him utter. The tea, which of course belonged to the n.o.ble Captain Hatteraick's trade, was p.r.o.nounced excellent. Still Mannering hinted, though with due delicacy, at the risk of encouraging such desperate characters. 'Were it but in justice to the revenue, I should have supposed-'

'Ah, the revenue lads'-for Mr. Bertram never embraced a general or abstract idea, and his notion of the revenue was personified in the commissioners, surveyors, comptrollers, and riding officers whom he happened to know-'the revenue lads can look sharp eneugh out for themselves, no ane needs to help them; and they have a' the soldiers to a.s.sist them besides; and as to justice-you 'll be surprised to hear it, Mr. Mannering, but I am not a justice of peace!'

Mannering a.s.sumed the expected look of surprise, but thought within himself that the worshipful bench suffered no great deprivation from wanting the a.s.sistance of his good-humoured landlord. Mr. Bertram had now hit upon one of the few subjects on which he felt sore, and went on with some energy.

'No, sir, the name of G.o.dfrey Bertram of Ellangowan is not in the last commission, though there's scarce a carle in the country that has a plough-gate of land, but what he must ride to quarter- sessions and write J.P. after his name. I ken fu' weel whom I am obliged to-Sir Thomas Kittlecourt as good as tell'd me he would sit in my skirts if he had not my interest at the last election; and because I chose to go with my own blood and third cousin, the Laird of Balruddery, they keepit me off the roll of freeholders; and now there comes a new nomination of justices, and I am left out! And whereas they pretend it was because I let David Mac- Guffog, the constable, draw the warrants, and manage the business his ain gate, as if I had been a nose o' wax, it's a main untruth; for I granted but seven warrants in my life, and the Dominie wrote every one of them-and if it had not been that unlucky business of Sandy Mac-Gruthar's, that the constables should have keepit twa or three days up yonder at the auld castle, just till they could get conveniency to send him to the county jail-and that cost me eneugh o' siller. But I ken what Sir Thomas wants very weel-it was just sic and siclike about the seat in the kirk o' Kilmagirdle-was I not ent.i.tled to have the front gallery facing the minister, rather than Mac-Crosskie of Creochstone, the son of Deacon Mac-Crosskie, the Dumfries weaver?'

Mannering expressed his acquiescence in the justice of these various complaints.

'And then, Mr. Mannering, there was the story about the road and the fauld-dike. I ken Sir Thomas was behind there, and I said plainly to the clerk to the trustees that I saw the cloven foot, let them take that as they like. Would any gentleman, or set of gentlemen, go and drive a road right through the corner of a fauld-dike and take away, as my agent observed to them, like twa roods of gude moorland pasture? And there was the story about choosing the collector of the cess-'

'Certainly, sir, it is hard you should meet with any neglect in a country where, to judge from the extent of their residence, your ancestors must have made a very important figure.'

'Very true, Mr. Mannering; I am a plain man and do not dwell on these things, and I must needs say I have little memory for them; but I wish ye could have heard my father's stories about the auld fights of the Mac-Dingawaies-that's the Bertrams that now is-wi' the Irish and wi' the Highlanders that came here in their berlings from Ilay and Cantire; and how they went to the Holy Land-that is, to Jerusalem and Jericho, wi' a' their clan at their heels- they had better have gaen to Jamaica, like Sir Thomas Kittlecourt's uncle-and how they brought hame relics like those that Catholics have, and a flag that's up yonder in the garret. If they had been casks of muscavado and puncheons of rum it would have been better for the estate at this day; but there's little comparison between the auld keep at Kittlecourt and the castle o' Ellangowan; I doubt if the keep's forty feet of front. But ye make no breakfast, Mr. Mannering; ye're no eating your meat; allow me to recommend some of the kipper. It was John Hay that catcht it, Sat.u.r.day was three weeks, down at the stream below Hempseed ford,' etc. etc. etc.

The Laird, whose indignation had for some time kept him pretty steady to one topic, now launched forth into his usual roving style of conversation, which gave Mannering ample time to reflect upon the disadvantages attending the situation which an hour before he had thought worthy of so much envy. Here was a country gentleman, whose most estimable quality seemed his perfect good- nature, secretly fretting himself and murmuring against others for causes which, compared with any real evil in life, must weigh like dust in the balance. But such is the equal distribution of Providence. To those who lie out of the road of great afflictions are a.s.signed petty vexations which answer all the purpose of disturbing their serenity; and every reader must have observed that neither natural apathy nor acquired philosophy can render country gentlemen insensible to the grievances which occur at elections, quarter-sessions, and meetings of trustees.

Curious to investigate the manners of the country, Mannering took the advantage of a pause in good Mr. Bertram's string of stories to inquire what Captain Hatteraick so earnestly wanted with the gipsy woman.

'O, to bless his ship, I suppose. You must know, Mr. Mannering, that these free-traders, whom the law calls smugglers, having no religion, make it all up in superst.i.tion; and they have as many spells and charms and nonsense-'

' Vanity and waur!' said the Dominie;' it is a trafficking with the Evil One. Spells, periapts, and charms are of his device- choice arrows out of Apollyon's quiver.'

'Hold your peace, Dominie; ye're speaking for ever'-by the way, they were the first words the poor man had uttered that morning, excepting that he said grace and returned thanks-'Mr. Mannering cannot get in a word for ye! And so, Mr. Mannering, talking of astronomy and spells and these matters, have ye been so kind as to consider what we were speaking about last night?'

'I begin to think, Mr. Bertram, with your worthy friend here, that I have been rather jesting with edge-tools; and although neither you nor I, nor any sensible man, can put faith in the predictions of astrology, yet, as it has sometimes happened that inquiries into futurity, undertaken in jest, have in their results produced serious and unpleasant effects both upon actions and characters, I really wish you would dispense with my replying to your question.'

It was easy to see that this evasive answer only rendered the Laird's curiosity more uncontrollable. Mannering, however, was determined in his own mind not to expose the infant to the inconveniences which might have arisen from his being supposed the object of evil prediction. He therefore delivered the paper into Mr. Bertram's hand, and requested him to keep it for five years with the seal unbroken, until the month of November was expired. After that date had intervened he left him at liberty to examine the writing, trusting that, the first fatal period being then safely overpa.s.sed, no credit would be paid to its farther contents. This Mr. Bertram was content to promise, and Mannering, to ensure his fidelity, hinted at misfortunes which would certainly take place if his injunctions were neglected. The rest of the day, which Mannering, by Mr. Bertram's invitation, spent at Ellangowan, pa.s.sed over without anything remarkable; and on the morning of that which followed the traveller mounted his palfrey, bade a courteous adieu to his hospitable landlord and to his clerical attendant, repeated his good wishes for the prosperity of the family, and then, turning his horse's head towards England, disappeared from the sight of the inmates of Ellangowan. He must also disappear from that of our readers, for it is to another and later period of his life that the present narrative relates.

CHAPTER VI

Next, the Justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances- And so he plays his part -As You Like It

When Mrs. Bertram of Ellangowan was able to hear the news of what had pa.s.sed during her confinement, her apartment rung with all manner of gossiping respecting the handsome young student from Oxford who had told such a fortune by the stars to the young Laird, 'blessings on his dainty face.' The form, accent, and manners of the stranger were expatiated upon. His horse, bridle, saddle, and stirrups did not remain unnoticed. All this made a great impression upon the mind of Mrs. Bertram, for the good lady had no small store of superst.i.tion.

Her first employment, when she became capable of a little work, was to make a small velvet bag for the scheme of nativity which she had obtained from her husband. Her fingers itched to break the seal, but credulity proved stronger than curiosity; and she had the firmness to inclose it, in all its integrity, within two slips of parchment, which she sewed round it to prevent its being chafed. The whole was then put into the velvet bag aforesaid, and hung as a charm round the neck of the infant, where his mother resolved it should remain until the period for the legitimate satisfaction of her curiosity should arrive.

The father also resolved to do his part by the child in securing him a good education; and, with the view that it should commence with the first dawnings of reason, Dominie Sampson was easily induced to renounce his public profession of parish schoolmaster, make his constant residence at the Place, and, in consideration of a sum not quite equal to the wages of a footman even at that time, to undertake to communicate to the future Laird of Ellangowan all the erudition which he had, and all the graces and accomplishments which-he had not indeed, but which he had never discovered that he wanted. In this arrangement the Laird found also his private advantage, securing the constant benefit of a patient auditor, to whom he told his stories when they were alone, and at whose expense he could break a sly jest when he had company.

About four years after this time a great commotion took place in the county where Ellangowan is situated.

Those who watched the signs of the times had long been of opinion that a change of ministry was about to take place; and at length, after a due proportion of hopes, fears, and delays, rumours from good authority and bad authority, and no authority at all; after some clubs had drank Up with this statesman and others Down with him; after riding, and running, and posting, and addressing, and counter-addressing, and proffers of lives and fortunes, the blow was at length struck, the administration of the day was dissolved, and parliament, as a natural consequence, was dissolved also.

Sir Thomas Kittlecourt, like other members in the same situation, posted down to his county, and met but an indifferent reception. He was a partizan of the old administration; and the friends of the new had already set about an active canva.s.s in behalf of John Featherhead, Esq., who kept the best hounds and hunters in the shire. Among others who joined the standard of revolt was Gilbert Glossin, writer in-, agent for the Laird of Ellangowan. This honest gentleman had either been refused some favour by the old member, or, what is as probable, he had got all that he had the most distant pretension to ask, and could only look to the other side for fresh advancement. Mr. Glossin had a vote upon Ellangowan's property; and he was now determined that his patron should have one also, there being no doubt which side Mr. Bertram would embrace in the contest. He easily persuaded Ellangowan that it would be creditable to him to take the field at the head of as strong a party as possible; and immediately went to work, making votes, as every Scotch lawyer knows how, by splitting and subdividing the superiorities upon this ancient and once powerful barony. These were so extensive that, by dint of clipping and paring here, adding and eking there, and creating over-lords upon all the estate which Bertram held of the crown, they advanced at the day of contest at the head of ten as good men of parchment as ever took the oath of trust and possession. This strong reinforcement turned the dubious day of battle. The princ.i.p.al and his agent divided the honour; the reward fell to the latter exclusively. Mr. Gilbert Glossin was made clerk of the peace, and G.o.dfrey Bertram had his name inserted in a new commission of justices, issued immediately upon the sitting of the parliament.

This had been the summit of Mr. Bertram's ambition; not that he liked either the trouble or the responsibility of the office, but he thought it was a dignity to which he was well ent.i.tled, and that it had been withheld from him by malice prepense. But there is an old and true Scotch proverb, 'Fools should not have chapping sticks'; that is, weapons of offence. Mr. Bertram was no sooner possessed of the judicial authority which he had so much longed for than he began to exercise it with more severity than mercy, and totally belied all the opinions which had hitherto been formed of his inert good-nature. We have read somewhere of a justice of peace who, on being nominated in the commission, wrote a letter to a bookseller for the statutes respecting his official duty in the following orthography-'Please send the ax relating to a gustus pease.' No doubt, when this learned gentleman had possessed himself of the axe, he hewed the laws with it to some purpose. Mr. Bertram was not quite so ignorant of English grammar as his worshipful predecessor; but Augustus Pease himself could not have used more indiscriminately the weapon unwarily put into his hand.

In good earnest, he considered the commission with which he had been entrusted as a personal mark of favour from his sovereign; forgetting that he had formerly thought his being deprived of a privilege, or honour, common to those of his rank was the result of mere party cabal. He commanded his trusty aid-de-camp, Dominie Sampson, to read aloud the commission; and at the first words, 'The King has been pleased to appoint'-'Pleased!' he exclaimed in a transport of grat.i.tude; 'honest gentleman! I'm sure he cannot be better pleased than I am.'

Accordingly, unwilling to confine his grat.i.tude to mere feelings or verbal expressions, he gave full current to the new-born zeal of office, and endeavoured to express his sense of the honour conferred upon him by an unmitigated activity in the discharge of his duty. New brooms, it is said, sweep clean; and I myself can bear witness that, on the arrival of a new housemaid, the ancient, hereditary, and domestic spiders who have spun their webs over the lower division of my bookshelves (consisting chiefly of law and divinity) during the peaceful reign of her predecessor, fly at full speed before the probationary inroads of the new mercenary. Even so the Laird of Ellangowan ruthlessly commenced his magisterial reform, at the expense of various established and superannuated pickers and stealers who had been his neighbours for half a century. He wrought his miracles like a second Duke Humphrey; and by the influence of the beadle's rod caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, and the palsied to labour. He detected poachers, black-fishers, orchard-breakers, and pigeon-shooters; had the applause of the bench for his reward, and the public credit of an active magistrate.

All this good had its rateable proportion of evil. Even an admitted nuisance of ancient standing should not be abated without some caution. The zeal of our worthy friend now involved in great distress sundry personages whose idle and mendicant habits his own lachesse had contributed to foster, until these habits had become irreclaimable, or whose real incapacity for exertion rendered them fit objects, in their own phrase, for the charity of all well- disposed Christians. The 'long-remembered beggar,' who for twenty years had made his regular rounds within the neighbourhood, received rather as an humble friend than as an object of charity, was sent to the neighbouring workhouse. The decrepit dame, who travelled round the parish upon a hand-barrow, circulating from house to house like a bad shilling, which every one is in haste to pa.s.s to his neighbour,-she, who used to call for her bearers as loud, or louder, than a traveller demands post-horses,-even she shared the same disastrous fate. The 'daft Jock,' who, half knave, half idiot, had been the sport of each succeeding race of village children for a good part of a century, was remitted to the county bridewell, where, secluded from free air and sunshine, the only advantages he was capable of enjoying, he pined and died in the course of six months. The old sailor, who had so long rejoiced the smoky rafters of every kitchen in the country by singing 'Captain Ward' and 'Bold Admiral Benbow,' was banished from the county for no better reason than that he was supposed to speak with a strong Irish accent. Even the annual rounds of the pedlar were abolished by the Justice, in his hasty zeal for the administration of rural police.

These things did not pa.s.s without notice and censure. We are not made of wood or stone, and the things which connect themselves with our hearts and habits cannot, like bark or lichen, be rent away without our missing them. The farmer's dame lacked her usual share of intelligence, perhaps also the self-applause which she had felt while distributing the awmous (alms), in shape of a gowpen (handful) of oatmeal, to the mendicant who brought the news. The cottage felt inconvenience from interruption of the petty trade carried on by the itinerant dealers. The children lacked their supply of sugarplums and toys; the young women wanted pins, ribbons, combs, and ballads; and the old could no longer barter their eggs for salt, snuff, and tobacco. All these circ.u.mstances brought the busy Laird of Ellangowan into discredit, which was the more general on account of his former popularity. Even his lineage was brought up in judgment against him. They thought 'naething of what the like of Greenside, or Burnville, or Viewforth might do, that were strangers in the country; but Ellangowan! that had been a name amang them since the Mirk Monanday, and lang before-HIM to be grinding the puir at that rate! They ca'd his grandfather the Wicked Laird; but, though he was whiles fractious aneuch, when he got into roving company and had ta'en the drap drink, he would have scorned to gang on at this gate. Na, na, the muckle chumlay in the Auld Place reeked like a killogie in his time, and there were as mony puir folk riving at the banes in the court, and about the door, as there were gentles in the ha'. And the leddy, on ilka Christmas night as it came round, gae twelve siller pennies to ilka puir body about, in honour of the twelve apostles like. They were fond to ca' it papistrie; but I think our great folk might take a lesson frae the papists whiles. They gie another sort o' help to puir folk than just dinging down a saxpence in the brod on the Sabbath, and kilting, and scourging, and drumming them a' the sax days o' the week besides.'

Such was the gossip over the good twopenny in every ale-house within three or four miles of Ellangowan, that being about the diameter of the orbit in which our friend G.o.dfrey Bertram, Esq., J. P., must be considered as the princ.i.p.al luminary. Still greater scope was given to evil tongues by the removal of a colony of gipsies, with one of whom our reader is somewhat acquainted, and who had for a great many years enjoyed their chief settlement upon the estate of Ellangowan.

CHAPTER VII

Come, princes of the ragged regiment, You of the blood! PRIGS, my most upright lord, And these, what name or t.i.tle e'er they bear, JARKMAN, or PATRICO, CRANKE or CLAPPER-DUDGEON, PRATER or ABRAM-MAN-I speak of all.

Beggar's Bush.

Although the character of those gipsy tribes which formerly inundated most of the nations of Europe, and which in some degree still subsist among them as a distinct people, is generally understood, the reader will pardon my saying a few words respecting their situation in Scotland.