Old Friends Part 3

DEAR LEt.i.tIA,-My hand trembles so with indignation that I can hardly direct my pen. Pray _burn_ my letter of July 17 at once, if you have not already done so. {60b} We have been _deceived_ in that woman! She is a brazenfaced, painted daughter of Heth, and has no more right to the t.i.tle of Lady Crawley than _you_ have. I am told that she was at one time the paramour of Lord Steyne, and that her conduct made it impossible for her husband to live with her. And this is the woman who has come within the gates of the palace of a Christian prelate; nay, more, who has secured his signature to a cheque of very considerable value. I think my suspicions were first excited by the disappearance of the brandy in the liqueur-stand, and by meeting "her ladyship's" maid carrying the bottle up to her room! I spoke to the Bishop, but he would not listen to me-quite unlike himself; and even turned on me in her defence.

Entering his study hastily on the following day, I found her kneeling at his feet, her yellow hair (dyed, no doubt, for she must be sixty if she is a day) about her shoulders, doing what do you suppose-? _Confessing herself to the Bishop of Barchester_!

And he was listening to her "confession" with an appearance of interest, and with one of her hands in his.

"Serpent!" I said-and her green eyes glittered just like one-"unhand his lordship!" She gave a little laugh and said, "Dear Mrs. Proudie, do not let me monopolise the Bishop's time. Perhaps I am in the way?"

"And you shall go out of it," I said. "You are one of those who cause Israel to sin. You bring the Confessional, for it is no better, into the house of a Prelate of the Protestant Church of England!" Would you believe that she had the a.s.surance to answer me with a pa.s.sage from the Prayer Book, which I have often felt certain must be _mistranslated_?

"Pack, madam," said I; "we know who can quote Scripture for his own ends!"

And I pretty soon saw her out of the house, though _not in time_; for the infatuated Bishop had already given her a cheque for a sum which I cannot bring myself to tell you, for the Funds of the Dest.i.tute Orange-Girls.

Not a penny of it will they ever see; nor do I approve of such ostentatious alms in any case.-Yours in haste,

EMILY BARNUM.

P.S.-I have heard from Lady Courtney all her history. It is _abominable_.

VII.

_From Robert Surtees_, _Esq._, _of Mainsforth_, _to Jonathan Oldbuck_, _Esq._, _of Monkbarns_.

It is well known that Mr. Surtees of Mainsforth not only palmed off on Sir Waiter Scott several ballads of his own manufacture, but also invented and pretended to have found in a doc.u.ment (since burned) the story of the duel with the spectre knight which occurs in Marmion. In the following letter this ingenious antiquary plays the same game with Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck, of Monkbarns, the celebrated antiquary. A note on the subject is published in the Appendix.

Mainsforth, May 9, 1815.

DEAR SIR,-I am something of the Mussulman's humour, as you know, and never willingly pa.s.s by a sc.r.a.p of printed paper, however it comes in my way. I cannot, indeed, like the "Spectator," "mention a paper kite from which I have received great improvement," nor "a hat-case which I would not exchange for all the beavers in Great Britain." It is in a less unlikely place that I have made a little discovery which will interest you, I hope; for as it chances, not only has a lost ballad been at least partially recovered, but . . . however, I will keep your learned patience on the tenterhooks for a while.

Business taking me to Newcastle of late, I found myself in Bell's little shop on the quay. {65} You know the man by report at least; he is more a collector than a bookseller, though poor; and I verily believe that he would sell all his children-Douglas Bell, Percy Bell, Hobbie Bell, and Kinmont Bell-"for a song." Ballads are his foible, and he can hardly be made to part with one of the broadsides in his broken portfolios. Well, _semel insanivimus omnes_ (by the way, did it ever strike you that the Roman "cribbed" that line, as the vulgar say, from an epigram in the Anthology?), and you and I will scarce throw the first stone at the poor man's folly. However, I am delaying your natural eagerness. So now for the story of my great discovery. As our friend Bell would scarce let his dusty broadsheet lumber out of his hands, I was turning to leave him in no very good humour, when I noticed a small and rather long octavo, in dirty and crumpled vellum, lying on the top of a heap of rubbish, Boston's "Crook in the Lot," "The Pilgrim's Progress," and other chap-book trumpery. I do not know what good angel that watches over us collectors made me take up the thing, which I found to be nothing less than a copy of old Guillaume Coquillart. It was not Galliot du Pre's edition, in _lettres rondes_, but, still more precious had it only been complete, an example in black letter. I give you the whole t.i.tle. First the motto, in the frieze of an architectural design, ?G?T? ????. Then, in small capitals-

LES UVRES MAISTRE GVIL LAUME COQUIL LART EN SON VI VANT OFFICIAL DE REIMS. NOV VELLEMENT RE VEVES ET CORRI GEES.

M. D. x.x.xV.

On les vend a Lyon en la Maison de Francoys Juste, Demourant devant nostre Dame de Confort.

By bad (or good) luck this rare piece was imperfect-the back gaping and three sheets gone. But, in turning over the leaves, I saw something that brought my heart, as they say, into my mouth. So, beating down Bell from his upset price of fourpence to six bawbees, I pushed the treasure carelessly in my pocket, and never stopped till I was in a lonely place by Tyne-side and secure from observation. Then, with my knife, I very carefully uncased Maistre Guillaume, and extracted the sheet of parchment, printed in black letter with red capitals, that had been used to line the binding. A corner of it had crept out, through the injuries of time, and on that, in Bell's "crame" (for it is more a crame than a shop), I had caught the mystic words Runjt macht Gunjt.

And now, I think, Monkbarns, you p.r.i.c.k up your ears and wipe your spectacles. That is the motto, as every one of the learned family of antiquaries is well aware, and, as you have often told me, of your great forbear, the venerable and praiseworthy Aldobrand Oldenbuck the Typographer, who fled from the Low Countries during the tyrannical attempt of Philip II. to suppress at once civil and religious liberty.

As all the world knows, he withdrew from Nuremberg to Scotland, and set up his Penates and (what you may not hitherto have been aware of) his Printing Press at Fairport, and under your ancestral roof of Monkbarns.

But, what will surprise you yet more, the parchment sheet which bears Aldobrand's motto in German contains printed matter in good Scots! This excellent and enterprising man must have set himself to ply his n.o.ble art in his new home, and in our unfamiliar tongue.

Yet, even now, we are not at the end of this most fortunate discovery.

It would appear that there was little demand for works of learning and religion in Scotland, or at least at Fairport; for the parchment sheet contains fragments of a Ballad in the Scots tongue. None but a poor and struggling printer would then have lent his types to such work, and fortunate for us has been the poverty of your great ancestor. Here we have the very earliest printed ballad in the world, and, though fragmentary, it is the more precious as the style proves to demonstration, and against the frantic scepticism even of a Ritson, the antique and venerable character of those compositions. I send you a copy of the Ballad, with the gaps (where the tooth of time or of the worm, _edax rerum_, hath impaired it) filled up with conjectural restorations of my own. But how far do they fall short of the original simplicity!

_Non cuivis contingit_. As the t.i.tle is lacking, as well as the imprint, I have styled it

THE FRAGMENT OF THE FAUSE LOVER AND THE DEAD LEMAN.

O Willie rade, and Willie gaed Atween the sh.o.r.e and sea, And still it was his dead Lady That kept him company.

O Willie rade, and Willie gaed Atween the [loch and heather], And still it was his dead Lady That [held his stirrup leather].

"O Willie, tak' me up by ye, Sae far it is I gang; O tak' me on your saddle bow, Or [your day shall not be lang]."

"Gae back, gae back, ye fause ill wife, To the grave wherein ye lie, It never was seen that a dead leman Kept lover's company!

"Gae back, gae back frae me," he said, "For this day maun I wed, And how can I kiss a living la.s.s, When ye come frae the dead?

"If ye maun haunt a living man, Your brither haunt," says he, "For it was never my knife, but his That [twined thy life and thee!]"

We are to understand, I make no doubt, that Willie had been too fortunate a lover, and that in his absence-the frailty of his lady becoming conspicuous-her brother had avenged the family honour according to that old law of Scotland which the courteous Ariosto styles "l' aspra legge di Scozia, empia e severa."

Pray let me know, at your leisure, what you think of this _trouvaille_.

It is, of course, entirely at your service, if you think it worthy of a place in a new edition of the "Minstrelsy." I have no room to inflict more ballads or legends on you; and remain, most faithfully yours,

R. SURTEES.

_From Jonathan Oldbuck_, _Esq._, _of Monkbarns_, _to Robert Surtees_, _Esq._, _Mainsforth_.

Monkbarns, June 1.

MY DEAR SIR,-How kind hath Fortune been to you, and, in a secondary degree, to myself. Your letter must dispel the unreasoning and I fear envious scepticism of MacCribb, who has put forth a plaunflet (I love that old spelling) in which he derides the history of Aldobrand Oldenbuck as a fable. The Ballad shall, indeed, have an honoured place in my poor Collection whenever the public taste calls for a new edition. But the original, what would I not give to have it in my hands, to touch the very parchment which came from the press of my revered ancestor, and, gloating on the crabbed letters, confute MacCribb to his face _ipso visu et tactu_ of so inestimable a rarity. Exchanges-or "swaps," as the vulgar call them-are not unknown among our fraternity. Ask what you will for this treasure, to the half of my kingdom: my gold Aurelius (found at Bermuckety, on the very limits of Roman Caledonia), my "Complaynte of Scotland" (the only perfect copy known),

My copperplate, with almanacks Engrav'd upon't, and other knacks; My moon-dial, with Napier's bones And several constellation stones.

Make your choice, in fact, of all my Gabions, as honest old George Ruthven called them.

Nay, excuse the covetousness of an Antiquary, my dear sir; I well know that nothing I could offer were worth a t.i.the of your priceless discovery, the oldest printed Scots Ballad extant. It shall suffice for me to look on it, under the roof of Mainsforth, when next I make a raid across the Border. I have conquered my pa.s.sions, and can obey the last of the Commandments. _Haud equiden invideo_, _minor magis_. I need not bid you be watchful of your booty.-Yours most faithfully,

JONATHAN OLDBUCK.

_From Robert Surtees_, _Esq._, _to Jonathan Oldbuck_, _Esq._

June 11.

MY DEAR SIR,-Alas, your warning comes too late. An accursed example of womankind, fit descendant of that unhappy Betty Barnes, cook to Mr.

Warburton, who destroyed his ancient ma.n.u.script plays, hath invaded my sanctum, and the original black-letter text of the ballad has gone to join Shakspeare's "Stephen" and "Henry II." She hath lit with it my study fire, and it is fortunate indeed that I had made the copy of the ballad for you. But the volume of Coquillart is alive to testify to the authenticity of the poem; which, after all, is needless evidence, as not even Ritson could suspect of either the skill or the malice of such a forgery, Yours most faithfully,

ROBERT SURTEES.