Old Mortality Part 10

However, I am to obey commands.--There comes the liquor; put it down, my good old lady."

He decanted about one-half of a quart bottle of claret into a wooden quaigh or bicker, and took it off at a draught.

"You did your good wine injustice, my friend;--it's better than your brandy, though that's good too. Will you pledge me to the king's health?"

"With pleasure," said Milnwood, "in ale,--but I never drink claret, and keep only a very little for some honoured friends."

"Like me, I suppose," said Bothwell; and then, pushing the bottle to Henry, he said, "Here, young man, pledge you the king's health."

Henry filled a moderate gla.s.s in silence, regardless of the hints and pushes of his uncle, which seemed to indicate that he ought to have followed his example, in preferring beer to wine.

"Well," said Bothwell, "have ye all drank the toast?--What is that old wife about? Give her a gla.s.s of brandy, she shall drink the king's health, by"--"If your honour pleases," said Cuddie, with great stolidity of aspect, "this is my mither, stir; and she's as deaf as Corra-linn; we canna mak her hear day nor door; but if your honour pleases, I am ready to drink the king's health for her in as mony gla.s.ses of brandy as ye think neshessary."

"I dare swear you are," answered Bothwell; "you look like a fellow that would stick to brandy--help thyself, man; all's free where'er I come.-- Tom, help the maid to a comfortable cup, though she's but a dirty jilt neither. Fill round once more--Here's to our n.o.ble commander, Colonel Graham of Claverhouse!--What the devil is the old woman groaning for? She looks as very a whig as ever sate on a hill-side--Do you renounce the Covenant, good woman?"

"Whilk Covenant is your honour meaning? Is it the Covenant of Works, or the Covenant of Grace?" said Cuddie, interposing.

"Any covenant; all covenants that ever were hatched," answered the trooper.

"Mither," cried Cuddie, affecting to speak as to a deaf person, "the gentleman wants to ken if ye will renunce the Covenant of Works?"

"With all my heart, Cuddie," said Mause, "and pray that my feet may be delivered from the snare thereof."

"Come," said Bothwell, "the old dame has come more frankly off than I expected. Another cup round, and then we'll proceed to business.--You have all heard, I suppose, of the horrid and barbarous murder committed upon the person of the Archbishop of St Andrews, by ten or eleven armed fanatics?"

All started and looked at each other; at length Milnwood himself answered, "They had heard of some such misfortune, but were in hopes it had not been true."

"There is the relation published by government, old gentleman; what do you think of it?"

"Think, sir? Wh--wh--whatever the council please to think of it,"

stammered Milnwood.

"I desire to have your opinion more explicitly, my friend," said the dragoon, authoritatively.

Milnwood's eyes hastily glanced through the paper to pick out the strongest expressions of censure with which it abounded, in gleaning which he was greatly aided by their being printed in italics.

"I think it a--b.l.o.o.d.y and execrable--murder and parricide--devised by h.e.l.lish and implacable cruelty--utterly abominable, and a scandal to the land."

"Well said, old gentleman!" said the querist--"Here's to thee, and I wish you joy of your good principles. You owe me a cup of thanks for having taught you them; nay, thou shalt pledge me in thine own sack--sour ale sits ill upon a loyal stomach.--Now comes your turn, young man; what think you of the matter in hand?"

"I should have little objection to answer you," said Henry, "if I knew what right you had to put the question."

"The Lord preserve us!" said the old housekeeper, "to ask the like o'

that at a trooper, when a' folk ken they do whatever they like through the haill country wi' man and woman, beast and body."

The old gentleman exclaimed, in the same horror at his nephew's audacity, "Hold your peace, sir, or answer the gentleman discreetly. Do you mean to affront the king's authority in the person of a sergeant of the Life-Guards?"

"Silence, all of you!" exclaimed Bothwell, striking his hand fiercely on the table--"Silence, every one of you, and hear me!--You ask me for my right to examine you, sir (to Henry); my c.o.c.kade and my broadsword are my commission, and a better one than ever Old Nol gave to his roundheads; and if you want to know more about it, you may look at the act of council empowering his majesty's officers and soldiers to search for, examine, and apprehend suspicious persons; and, therefore, once more, I ask you your opinion of the death of Archbishop Sharpe--it's a new touch-stone we have got for trying people's metal."

Henry had, by this time, reflected upon the useless risk to which he would expose the family by resisting the tyrannical power which was delegated to such rude hands; he therefore read the narrative over, and replied, composedly, "I have no hesitation to say, that the perpetrators of this a.s.sa.s.sination have committed, in my opinion, a rash and wicked action, which I regret the more, as I foresee it will be made the cause of proceedings against many who are both innocent of the deed, and as far from approving it as myself."

While Henry thus expressed himself, Bothwell, who bent his eyes keenly upon him, seemed suddenly to recollect his features.

"Aha! my friend Captain Popinjay, I think I have seen you before, and in very suspicious company."

"I saw you once," answered Henry, "in the public-house of the town of--."

"And with whom did you leave that public-house, youngster?--Was it not with John Balfour of Burley, one of the murderers of the Archbishop?"

"I did leave the house with the person you have named," answered Henry, "I scorn to deny it; but, so far from knowing him to be a murderer of the primate, I did not even know at the time that such a crime had been committed."

"Lord have mercy on me, I am ruined!--utterly ruined and undone!"

exclaimed Milnwood. "That callant's tongue will rin the head aff his ain shoulders, and waste my gudes to the very grey cloak on my back!"

"But you knew Burley," continued Bothwell, still addressing Henry, and regardless of his uncle's interruption, "to be an intercommuned rebel and traitor, and you knew the prohibition to deal with such persons. You knew, that, as a loyal subject, you were prohibited to reset, supply, or intercommune with this attainted traitor, to correspond with him by word, writ, or message, or to supply him with meat, drink, house, harbour, or victual, under the highest pains--you knew all this, and yet you broke the law." (Henry was silent.) "Where did you part from him?" continued Bothwell; "was it in the highway, or did you give him harbourage in this very house?"

"In this house!" said his uncle; "he dared not for his neck bring ony traitor into a house of mine."

"Dare he deny that he did so?" said Bothwell.

"As you charge it to me as a crime," said Henry, "you will excuse my saying any thing that will criminate myself."

"O, the lands of Milnwood!--the bonny lands of Milnwood, that have been in the name of Morton twa hundred years!" exclaimed his uncle; "they are barking and fleeing, outfield and infield, haugh and holme!"

"No, sir," said Henry, "you shall not suffer on my account.--I own," he continued, addressing Bothwell, "I did give this man a night's lodging, as to an old military comrade of my father. But it was not only without my uncle's knowledge, but contrary to his express general orders. I trust, if my evidence is considered as good against myself, it will have some weight in proving my uncle's innocence."

"Come, young man," said the soldier, in a somewhat milder tone, "you're a smart spark enough, and I am sorry for you; and your uncle here is a fine old Trojan, kinder, I see, to his guests than himself, for he gives us wine and drinks his own thin ale--tell me all you know about this Burley, what he said when you parted from him, where he went, and where he is likely now to be found; and, d--n it, I'll wink as hard on your share of the business as my duty will permit. There's a thousand merks on the murdering whigamore's head, an I could but light on it--Come, out with it--where did you part with him?"

"You will excuse my answering that question, sir," said Morton; "the same cogent reasons which induced me to afford him hospitality at considerable risk to myself and my friends, would command me to respect his secret, if, indeed, he had trusted me with any."

"So you refuse to give me an answer?" said Bothwell.

"I have none to give," returned Henry.

"Perhaps I could teach you to find one, by tying a piece of lighted match betwixt your fingers," answered Bothwell.

"O, for pity's sake, sir," said old Alison apart to her master, "gie them siller--it's siller they're seeking--they'll murder Mr Henry, and yoursell next!"

Milnwood groaned in perplexity and bitterness of spirit, and, with a tone as if he was giving up the ghost, exclaimed, "If twenty p--p--punds would make up this unhappy matter"--"My master," insinuated Alison to the sergeant, "would gie twenty punds sterling"--"Punds Scotch, ye b--h!"

interrupted Milnwood; for the agony of his avarice overcame alike his puritanic precision and the habitual respect he entertained for his housekeeper.

"Punds sterling," insisted the housekeeper, "if ye wad hae the gudeness to look ower the lad's misconduct; he's that dour ye might tear him to pieces, and ye wad ne'er get a word out o' him; and it wad do ye little gude, I'm sure, to burn his bonny fingerends."

"Why," said Bothwell, hesitating, "I don't know--most of my cloth would have the money, and take off the prisoner too; but I bear a conscience, and if your master will stand to your offer, and enter into a bond to produce his nephew, and if all in the house will take the test-oath, I do not know but"--"O ay, ay, sir," cried Mrs Wilson, "ony test, ony oaths ye please!" And then aside to her master, "Haste ye away, sir, and get the siller, or they will burn the house about our lugs."

Old Milnwood cast a rueful look upon his adviser, and moved off, like a piece of Dutch clockwork, to set at liberty his imprisoned angels in this dire emergency. Meanwhile, Sergeant Bothwell began to put the test-oath with such a degree of solemn reverence as might have been expected, being just about the same which is used to this day in his majesty's custom-house.

"You--what's your name, woman?"