Redgauntlet Part 13

He drowned the latter part of the verse by playing, with much emphasis, Kind Robin loes me.

Of this, though I ran over the verses of the song in my mind, I could make nothing; and before I could contrive any mode of intimating my uncertainty, a cry arose in the courtyard that Cristal Nixon was coming. My faithful Willie was obliged to retreat; but not before he had half played, half hummed, by way of farewell, Leave thee--leave thee, lad-- I'll never leave thee; The stars shall gae withershins Ere I will leave thee.

I am thus, I think, secure of one trusty adherent in my misfortunes; and, however whimsical it may be to rely much on a man of his idle profession and deprived of sight withal, it is deeply impressed on my mind that his services may be both useful and necessary. There is another quarter from which I look for succour, and which I have indicated to thee, Alan, in more than one pa.s.sage of my journal. Twice, at the early hour of daybreak, I have seen the individual alluded to in the court of the farm, and twice she made signs of recognition in answer to the gestures by which I endeavoured to make her comprehend my situation; but on both occasions she pressed her finger on her lips, as expressive of silence and secrecy.

The manner in which G.M. entered upon the scene for the first time, seems to a.s.sure me of her goodwill, so far as her power may reach; and I have many reasons to believe it is considerable. Yet she seemed hurried and frightened during the very transitory moments of our interview, and I think was, upon the last occasion, startled by the entrance of some one into the farmyard, just as she was on the point of addressing me. You must not ask whether I am an early riser, since such objects are only to be seen at daybreak; and although I have never again seen her, yet I have reason to think she is not distant. It was but three nights ago, that, worn out by the uniformity of my confinement, I had manifested more symptoms of despondence than I had before exhibited, which I conceive may have attracted the attention of the domestics, through whom the circ.u.mstance might transpire. On the next morning, the following lines lay on my table; but how conveyed there, I cannot tell. The hand in which they were written is a beautiful Italian ma.n.u.script:-- As lords their labourers' hire delay, Fate quits our toil with hopes to come, Which, if far short of present pay, Still, owns a debt and names a sum.

Quit not the pledge, frail sufferer, then, Although a distant date be given; Despair is treason towards man, And blasphemy to Heaven.

That these lines were written with the friendly purpose of inducing me to keep up my spirits, I cannot doubt; and I trust the manner in which I shall conduct myself may show that the pledge is accepted.

The dress is arrived in which it seems to be my self-elected guardian's pleasure that I shall travel; and what does it prove to be?--A skirt, or upper-petticoat of camlet, like those worn by country ladies of moderate rank when on horseback, with such a riding-mask as they frequently use on journeys to preserve their eyes and complexion from the sun and dust, and sometimes, it is suspected, to enable then to play off a little coquetry. From the gayer mode of employing the mask, however, I suspect I shall be precluded; for instead of being only pasteboard, covered with black velvet, I observe with anxiety that mine is thickened with a plate of steel, which, like Quixote's visor, serves to render it more strong and durable.

This apparatus, together with a steel clasp for securing the mask behind me with a padlock, gave me fearful recollections of the unfortunate being, who, never being permitted to lay aside such a visor, acquired the well-known historical epithet of the Man in the Iron Mask. I hesitated a moment whether I should, so far submit to the acts of oppression designed against me as to a.s.sume this disguise, which was, of course, contrived to aid their purposes. But when I remembered Mr. Herries's threat, that I should be kept close prisoner in a carriage, unless I a.s.sumed the dress which should be appointed for me; and I considered the comparative degree of freedom which I might purchase by wearing the mask and female dress as easily and advantageously purchased. Here, therefore, I must pause for the present, and await what the morning may bring forth.

[To carry on the story from the doc.u.ments before us, we think it proper here to drop the journal of the captive Darsie Latimer, and adopt, instead, a narrative of the proceedings of Alan Fairford in pursuit of his friend, which forms another series in this history.]

CHAPTER X.

NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD.

The reader ought, by this time, to have formed some idea of the character of Alan Fairford. He had a warmth of heart which the study of the law and of the world could not chill, and talents which they had rendered unusually acute. Deprived of the personal patronage enjoyed by most of his contemporaries, who a.s.sumed the gown under the protection of their aristocratic alliances and descents, he early saw that he should have that to achieve for himself which fell to them as a right of birth. He laboured hard in silence and solitude, and his labours were crowned with success. But Alan doted on his friend Darsie, even more than he loved his profession, and, as we have seen, threw everything aside when he thought Latimer in danger; forgetting fame and fortune, and hazarding even the serious displeasure of his father, to rescue him whom he loved with an elder brother's affection. Darsie, though his parts were more quick and brilliant than those of his friend, seemed always to the latter a being under his peculiar charge, whom he was called upon to cherish and protect in cases where the youth's own experience was unequal to the exigency; and now, when, the fate of Latimer seeming worse than doubtful, Alan's whole prudence and energy were to be exerted in his behalf, an adventure which might have seemed perilous to most youths of his age had no terrors for him. He was well acquainted with the laws of his country, and knew how to appeal to them; and, besides his professional confidence, his natural disposition was steady, sedate, persevering, and undaunted. With these requisites he undertook a quest which, at that time, was not unattended with actual danger, and had much in it to appal a more timid disposition.

Fairford's first inquiry concerning his friend was of the chief magistrate of Dumfries, Provost Crosbie, who had sent the information of Darsie's disappearance. On his first application, he thought he discerned in the honest dignitary a desire to get rid of the subject. The provost spoke of the riot at the fishing station as an 'outbreak among those lawless loons the fishermen, which concerned the sheriff,' he said, 'more than us poor town council bodies, that have enough to do to keep peace within burgh, amongst such a set of commoners as the town are plagued with.'

'But this is not all, Provost Crosbie,' said Mr. Alan Fairford; 'A young gentleman of rank and fortune has disappeared amongst their hands--you know him. My father gave him a letter to you-- Mr. Darsie Latimer.'

'Lack-a-day, yes! lack-a-day, yes!' said the provost; 'Mr. Darsie Latimer--he dined at my house--I hope he is well?'

'I hope so too,' said Alan, rather indignantly; 'but I desire more certainty on that point. You yourself wrote my father that he had disappeared.'

'Troth, yes, and that is true,' said the provost. 'But did he not go back to his friends in Scotland? it was not natural to think he would stay here.'

'Not unless he is under restraint,' said Fairford, surprised at the coolness with which the provost seemed to take up the matter.

'Rely on it, sir,' said Mr. Crosbie, 'that if he has not returned to his friends in Scotland, he must have gone to his friends in England.'

'I will rely on no such thing,' said Alan; 'if there is law or justice in Scotland, I will have the thing cleared to the very bottom.'

'Reasonable, reasonable,' said the provost, 'so far as is possible; but you know I have no power beyond the ports of the burgh.'

'But you are in the commission besides, Mr. Crosbie; a justice of peace for the county.'

'True, very true--that is,' said the cautious magistrate, 'I will not say but my name may stand on the list, but I cannot remember that I have ever qualified.' [By taking the oaths to government.]

'Why, in that case,' said young Fairford, 'there are ill-natured people might doubt your attachment to the Protestant line, Mr. Crosbie.'

'G.o.d forbid, Mr. Fairford! I who have done and suffered in the Forty-five. I reckon the Highlandmen did me damage to the amount of 100l. Scots, forby all they ate and drank--no, no, sir, I stand beyond challenge; but as for plaguing myself with county business, let them that aught the mare shoe the mare. The commissioners of supply would see my back broken before they would help me in the burgh's work, and all the world kens the difference of the weight between public business in burgh and landward. What are their riots to me? have we not riots enough of our own?--But I must be getting ready, for the council meets this forenoon. I am blithe to see your father's son on the causeway of our ancient burgh, Mr. Alan Fairford. Were you a twelve-month aulder, we would make a burgess of you, man. I hope you will come and dine with me before you go away. What think you of to-day at two o'clock--just a roasted chucky and a drappit egg?'

Alan Fairford resolved that his friend's hospitality should not, as it seemed the inviter intended, put a stop to his queries. 'I must delay you for a moment,' he said, 'Mr. Crosbie; this is a serious affair; a young gentleman of high hopes, my own dearest friend, is missing--you cannot think it will be pa.s.sed over slightly, if a man of your high character and known zeal for the government do not make some active inquiry. Mr. Crosbie, you are my father's friend, and I respect you as such--but to others it will have a bad appearance.'

The withers of the provost were not unwrung; he paced the room in much tribulation, repeating, 'But what can I do, Mr. Fairford? I warrant your friend casts up again--he will come back again, like the ill shilling--he is not the sort of gear that tynes--a h.e.l.licat boy, running through the country with a blind fiddler and playing the fiddle to a parcel of blackguards, who can tell where the like of him may have scampered to?'

'There are persons apprehended, and in the jail of the town, as I understand from the sheriff-subst.i.tute,' said Mr. Fairford; 'you must call them before you, and inquire what they know of this young gentleman.'

'Aye, aye--the sheriff-depute did commit some poor creatures, I believe--wretched ignorant fishermen bodies, that had been quarrelling with Quaker Geddes and his stake-nets, whilk, under favour of your gown be it spoken, Mr. Fairford, are not over and above lawful, and the town clerk thinks that they may be lawfully removed VIA FACTI--but that is by the by. But, sir, the creatures were a' dismissed for want of evidence; the Quaker would not swear to them, and what could the sheriff and me do but just let them loose? Come awa, cheer up, Master Alan, and take a walk till dinner-time--I must really go to the council.'

'Stop a moment, provost,' said Alan; 'I lodge a complaint before you as a magistrate, and you will find it serious to slight it over. You must have these men apprehended again.'

'Aye, aye--easy said; but catch them that can,' answered the provost; 'they are ower the march by this time, or by the point of Cairn.--Lord help ye! they are a kind of amphibious deevils, neither land nor water beasts neither English nor Scots--neither county nor stewartry, as we say--they are dispersed like so much quicksilver. You may as well try to whistle a sealgh out of the Solway, as to get hold of one of them till all the fray is over.'

'Mr. Crosbie, this will not do,' answered the young counsellor; 'there is a person of more importance than such wretches as you describe concerned in this unhappy business--I must name to you a certain Mr. Herries.'

He kept his eye on the provost as he uttered the name, which he did rather at a venture, and from the connexion which that gentleman, and his real or supposed niece, seemed to have with the fate of Darsie Latimer, than from any distinct cause of suspicion which he entertained. He thought the provost seemed embarra.s.sed, though he showed much desire to a.s.sume an appearance of indifference, in which he partly succeeded.

'Herries!' he said--'What Herries?--There are many of that name --not so many as formerly, for the old stocks are wearing out; but there is Herries of Heathgill, and Herries of Auchintulloch, and Herries'-- 'To save you further trouble, this person's designation is Herries of Birrenswork.'

'Of Birrenswork?' said Mr. Crosbie; 'I have you now, Mr. Alan. Could you not as well have said, the Laird of Redgauntlet?'

Fairford was too wary to testify any surprise at this identification of names, however unexpected. 'I thought,' said he, 'he was more generally known by the name of Herries. I have seen and been in company with him under that name, I am sure.'

'Oh aye; in Edinburgh, belike. You know Redgauntlet was unfortunate a great while ago, and though he was maybe not deeper in the mire than other folk, yet, for some reason or other, he did not get so easily out.'

'He was attainted, I understand; and has no remission,' said Fairford.

The cautious provost only nodded, and said, 'You may guess, therefore, why it is so convenient he should hold his mother's name, which is also partly his own, when he is about Edinburgh. To bear his proper name might be accounted a kind of flying in the face of government, ye understand. But he has been long connived at--the story is an old story--and the gentleman has many excellent qualities, and is of a very ancient and honourable house--has cousins among the great folk--counts kin with the advocate and with the sheriff--hawks, you know, Mr. Alan, will not pike out hawks' een--he is widely connected--my wife is a fourth cousin of Redgauntlet's.'

HINC ILLAE LACHRYMAE! thought Alan Fairford to himself; but the hint presently determined him to proceed by soft means and with caution. 'I beg you to understand,' said Fairford, 'that in the investigation I am about to make, I design no harm to Mr. Herries, or Redgauntlet--call him what you will. All I wish is, to ascertain the safety of my friend. I know that he was rather foolish in once going upon a mere frolic, in disguise, to the neighbourhood of this same gentleman's house. In his circ.u.mstances, Mr. Redgauntlet may have misinterpreted the motives, and considered Darsie Latimer as a spy. His influence, I believe, is great among the disorderly people you spoke of but now?'

The provost answered with another sagacious shake of his head, that would have done honour to Lord Burleigh in the CRITIC.

'Well, then,' continued Fairford,' is it not possible that, in the mistaken belief that Mr. Latimer was a spy, he may, upon such suspicion, have caused him to be carried off and confined somewhere? Such things are done at elections, and on occasions less pressing than when men think their lives are in danger from an informer.'

'Mr. Fairford,' said the provost, very earnestly, 'I scarce think such a mistake possible; or if, by any extraordinary chance, it should have taken place, Redgauntlet, whom I cannot but know well, being as I have said my wife's first cousin (fourth cousin, I should say) is altogether incapable of doing anything harsh to the young gentleman--he might send him ower to Ailsay for a night or two, or maybe land him on the north coast of Ireland, or in Islay, or some of the Hebrides; but depend upon it, he is incapable of harming a hair of his head.'

'I am determined not to trust to that, provost,' answered Fairford firmly; 'and I am a good deal surprised at your way of talking so lightly of such an aggression on the liberty of the subject. You are to consider, and Mr. Herries or Mr. Redgauntlet's friends would do very well also to consider, how it would sound in the ears of an English Secretary of State, that an attainted traitor (for such is this gentleman) has not only ventured to take up his abode in this realm--against the king of which he has been in arms--but is suspected of having proceeded, by open force and violence, against the person of one of the lieges, a young man who is neither without friends nor property to secure his being righted.'

The provost looked at the young counsellor with a face in which distrust, alarm, and vexation seemed mingled. 'A fashious job,' he said at last, 'a fashious job; and it will be dangerous meddling with it. I should like ill to see your father's son turn informer against an unfortunate gentleman.'

'Neither do I mean it,' answered Alan, 'provided that unfortunate gentleman and his friends give me a quiet opportunity of securing my friend's safety. If I could speak with Mr. Redgauntlet, and hear his own explanation, I should probably be satisfied. If I am forced, to denounce him to government, it will be in his new capacity of a kidnapper. I may not be able, nor is it my business, to prevent his being recognized in his former character of an attainted person, excepted from the general pardon.'

'Master Fairford,' said the provost, 'would ye ruin the poor innocent gentleman on an idle suspicion?'

'Say no more of it, Mr. Crosbie; my line of conduct is determined--unless that suspicion is removed.'

'Weel, sir,' said the provost, 'since so it be, and since you say that you do not seek to harm Redgauntlet personally, I'll ask a man to dine with us to-day that kens as much about his matters as most folk. You must think, Mr. Alan Fairford, though Redgauntlet be my wife's near relative, and though, doubtless, I wish him weel, yet I am not the person who is like to be intrusted with his incomings and outgoings. I am not a man for that--I keep the kirk, and I abhor Popery--I have stood up for the House of Hanover, and for liberty and property--I carried arms, sir, against the Pretender, when three of the Highlandmen's baggage- carts were stopped at Ecclefechan; and I had an especial loss of a hundred pounds'-- 'Scots,' interrupted Fairford. 'You forget you told me all this before.'

'Scots or English, it was too much for me to lose,' said the provost; so you see I am not a person to pack or peel with Jacobites, and such unfreemen as poor Redgauntlet.'

'Granted, granted, Mr. Crosbie; and what then?' said Alan Fairford.

'Why, then, it follows, that if I am to help you at this pinch, if cannot be by and through my ain personal knowledge, but through some fitting agent or third person.'

'Granted again,' said Fairford. 'And pray who may this third person be?'

'Wha but Pate Maxwell of Summertrees--him they call Pate-in- Peril.'

'An old Forty-five man, of course?' said Fairford.

'Ye may swear that,' replied the provost--'as black a Jacobite as the auld leaven can make him; but a sonsy, merry companion, that none of us think it worth while to break wi' for all his brags and his clavers. You would have thought, if he had had but his own way at Derby, he would have marched Charlie Stuart through between Wade and the Duke, as a thread goes through the needle's ee, and seated him in Saint James's before you could have said haud your hand. But though he is a windy body when he gets on his auld-warld stories, he has mair gumption in him than most people--knows business, Mr. Alan, being bred to the law; but never took the gown, because of the oaths, which kept more folk out then than they do now--the more's the pity.'

'What! are you sorry, provost, that Jacobitism is upon the decline?' said Fairford.

'No, no,' answered the provost--'I am only sorry for folks losing the tenderness of conscience which they used to have. I have a son breeding to the bar, Mr. Fairford; and, no doubt, considering my services and sufferings, I might have looked for some bit postie to him; but if the muckle tykes come in--I mean a' these Maxwells, and Johnstones, and great lairds, that the oaths used to keep out lang syne--the bits o' messan doggies, like my son, and maybe like your father's son, Mr. Alan, will be sair put to the wall.'

'But to return to the subject, Mr. Crosbie,' said Fairford, 'do you really think it likely that this Mr. Maxwell will be of service in this matter?'

'It's very like he may be, for he is the tongue of the trump to the whole squad of them,' said the provost; 'and Redgauntlet, though he will not stick at times to call him a fool, takes more of his counsel than any man's else that I am aware of. If Fate can bring him to a communing, the business is done. He's a sharp chield, Pate-in-Peril.'

'Pate-in-Peril!' repeated Alan; 'a very singular name.'

'Aye, and it was in as queer a way he got it; but I'll say naething about that,' said the provost, 'for fear of forestalling his market; for ye are sure to hear it once at least, however oftener, before the punch-bowl gives place to the teapot.--And now, fare ye weel; for there is the council-bell clinking in earnest; and if I am not there before it jows in, Bailie Laurie will be trying some of his manoeuvres.'

The provost, repeating his expectation of seeing Mr. Fairford at two o'clock, at length effected his escape from the young counsellor, and left him at a considerable loss how to proceed. The sheriff, it seems, had returned to Edinburgh, and he feared to find the visible repugnance of the provost to interfere with this Laird of Birrenswork, or Redgauntlet, much stronger amongst the country gentlemen, many of whom were Catholics as well as Jacobites, and most others unwilling to quarrel with kinsmen and friends, by prosecuting with severity political offences which had almost run a prescription.

To collect all the information in his power, and not to have recourse to the higher authorities until he could give all the light of which the case was capable, seemed the wiser proceeding in a choice of difficulties. He had some conversation with the procurator-fiscal, who, as well as the provost, was an old correspondent of his father. Alan expressed to that officer a purpose of visiting Brokenburn, but was a.s.sured by him, that it would be a step attended with much danger to his own person, and altogether fruitless; that the individuals who had been ringleaders in the riot were long since safely sheltered in their various lurking-holes in the Isle of Man, c.u.mberland, and elsewhere; and that those who might remain would undoubtedly commit violence on any who visited their settlement with the purpose of inquiring into the late disturbances.

There were not the same objections to his hastening to Mount Sharon, where he expected to find the latest news of his friend; and there was time enough to do so, before the hour appointed for the provost's dinner. Upon the road, he congratulated himself on having obtained one point of almost certain information. The person who had in a manner forced himself upon his father's hospitality, and had appeared desirous to induce Darsie Latimer to visit England, against whom, too, a sort of warning had been received from an individual connected with and residing in his own family, proved to be a promoter of the disturbance in which Darsie had disappeared.

What could be the cause of such an attempt on the liberty of an inoffensive and amiable man? It was impossible it could be merely owing to Redgauntlet's mistaking Darsie for a spy; for though that was the solution which Fairford had offered to the provost, he well knew that, in point of fact, he himself had been warned by his singular visitor of some danger to which his friend was exposed, before such suspicion could have been entertained; and the injunctions received by Latimer from his guardian, or him who acted as such, Mr. Griffiths of London, pointed to the same thing. He was rather glad, however, that he had not let Provost Crosbie into his secret further than was absolutely necessary; since it was plain that the connexion of his wife with the suspected party was likely to affect his impartiality as a magistrate.

When Alan Fairford arrived at Mount Sharon, Rachel Geddes hastened to meet him, almost before the servant could open the door. She drew back in disappointment when she beheld a stranger, and said, to excuse her precipitation, that 'she had thought it was her brother Joshua returned from c.u.mberland.'

'Mr. Geddes is then absent from home?' said Fairford, much disappointed in his turn.

'He hath been gone since yesterday, friend,' answered Rachel, once more composed to the quietude which characterizes her sect, but her pale cheek and red eye giving contradiction to her a.s.sumed equanimity.

'I am,' said Fairford, hastily, 'the particular friend of a young man not unknown to you, Miss Geddes--the friend of Darsie Latimer--and am come hither in the utmost anxiety, having understood from Provost Crosbie, that he had disappeared in the night when a destructive attack was made upon the fishing-station of Mr. Geddes.'

'Thou dost afflict me, friend, by thy inquiries,' said Rachel, more affected than before; 'for although the youth was like those of the worldly generation, wise in his own conceit, and lightly to be moved by the breath of vanity, yet Joshua loved him, and his heart clave to him as if he had been his own son. And when he himself escaped from the sons of Belial, which was not until they had tired themselves with reviling, and with idle reproach, and the jests of the scoffer, Joshua, my brother, returned to them once and again, to give ransom for the youth called Darsie Latimer, with offers of money and with promise of remission, but they would not hearken to him. Also, he went before the head judge, whom men call the sheriff, and would have told him of the youth's peril; but he would in no way hearken to him unless he would swear unto the truth of his words, which thing he might not do without sin, seeing it is written, Swear not at all--also, that our conversation shall be yea or nay. Therefore, Joshua returned to me disconsolate, and said, "Sister Rachel, this youth hath run into peril for my sake; a.s.suredly I shall not be guiltless if a hair of his head be harmed, seeing I have sinned in permitting him to go with me to the fishing station when such evil was to be feared. Therefore, I will take my horse, even Solomon, and ride swiftly into c.u.mberland, and I will make myself friends with Mammon of Unrighteousness, among the magistrates of the Gentiles, and among their mighty men; and it shall come to pa.s.s that Darsie Latimer shall be delivered, even if it were at the expense of half my substance." And I said, "Nay, my brother, go not, for they will but scoff at and revile thee; but hire with thy silver one of the scribes, who are eager as hunters in pursuing their prey, and he shall free Darsie Latimer from the men of violence by his cunning, and thy soul shall be guiltless of evil towards the lad." But he answered and said, "I will not be controlled in this matter." And he is gone forth and hath not returned, and I fear me that he may never return; for though he be peaceful, as becometh one who holds all violence as offence against his own soul, yet neither the floods of water, nor the fear of the snare, nor the drawn sword of the adversary brandished in the path, will overcome his purpose. Wherefore the Solway may swallow him up, or the sword of the enemy may devour him--nevertheless, my hope is better in Him who directeth all things, and ruleth over the waves of the sea, and overruleth the devices of the wicked, and who can redeem us even as a bird from the fowler's net.'

This was all that Fairford could learn from Miss Geddes; but he heard with pleasure that the good Quaker, her brother, had many friends among those of his own profession in c.u.mberland, and without exposing himself to so much danger as his sister seemed to apprehend, he trusted he might be able to discover some traces of Darsie Latimer. He himself rode back to Dumfries, having left with Miss Geddes his direction in that place, and an earnest request that she would forward thither whatever information she might obtain from her brother.

On Fairford's return to Dumfries, he employed the brief interval which remained before dinner-time, in writing an account of what had befallen Latimer and of the present uncertainty of his condition, to Mr. Samuel Griffiths, through whose hands the remittances for his friend's service had been regularly made, desiring he would instantly acquaint him with such parts of his history as might direct him in the search which he was about to inst.i.tute through the border counties, and which he pledged himself not; to give up until he had obtained news of his friend, alive or dead, The young lawyer's mind felt easier when he had dispatched this letter. He could not conceive any reason why his friend's life should be aimed at; he knew Darsie had done nothing by which his liberty could be legally affected; and although, even of late years, there had been singular histories of men, and women also, who had been trepanned, and concealed in solitudes and distant islands in order to serve some temporary purpose, such violences had been chiefly practised by the rich on the poor, and by the strong on the feeble; whereas, in the present case, this Mr. Herries, or Redgauntlet, being amenable, for more reasons than one, to the censure of the law, must be the weakest in any struggle in which it could be appealed to. It is true, that his friendly anxiety whispered that the very cause which rendered this oppressor less formidable, might make him more desperate. Still, recalling his language, so strikingly that of the gentleman, and even of the man of honour, Alan Fairford concluded, that though, in his feudal pride, Redgauntlet might venture on the deeds of violence exercised by the aristocracy in other times, he could not be capable of any action of deliberate atrocity. And in these convictions he went to dine with Provost Crosbie, with a heart more at ease than might have been expected. [See Note 7.]

CHAPTER XI.

NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD, CONTINUED.

Five minutes had elapsed after the town clock struck two, before Alan Fairford, who had made a small detour to put his letter into the post-house, reached the mansion of Mr. Provost Crosbie, and was at once greeted by the voice of that civic dignitary, and the rural dignitary his visitor, as by the voices of men impatient for their dinner.

'Come away, Mr. Fairford--the Edinburgh time is later than ours,' said the provost.

And, 'Come away, young gentleman,' said the laird; 'I remember your father weel at the Cross thirty years ago--I reckon you are as late in Edinburgh as at London, four o'clock hours--eh?'

'Not quite so degenerate,' replied Fairford; 'but certainly many Edinburgh people are so ill-advised as to postpone their dinner till three, that they may have full time to answer their London correspondents.'

'London correspondents!' said Mr. Maxwell; 'and pray what the devil have the people of Auld Reekie to do with London correspondents?' [Not much in those days, for within my recollection the London post; was brought north in a small mail- cart; and men are yet as live who recollect when it came down with only one single letter for Edinburgh, addressed to the manager of the British Linen Company.]

'The tradesmen must have their goods,' said Fairford.

'Can they not buy our own Scottish manufactures, and pick their customers pockets in a more patriotic manner?'

'Then the ladies must have fashions,' said Fairford.

'Can they not busk the plaid over their heads, as their mothers did? A tartan screen, and once a year a new c.o.c.kernony from Paris, should serve a countess. But ye have not many of them left, I think--Mareschal, Airley, Winton, Vemyss, Balmerino, all pa.s.sed and gone--aye, aye, the countesses and ladies of quality will scarce take up too much of your ball-room floor with their quality hoops nowadays.'

'There is no want of crowding, however, sir,' said Fairford; 'they begin to talk of a new a.s.sembly room.'

'A new a.s.sembly room!' said the old Jacobite laird--'Umph--I mind quartering three hundred men in the old a.s.sembly room [I remember hearing this identical answer given by an old Highland gentleman of the Forty-Five, when he heard of the opening of the New a.s.sembly Rooms in George Street.]--But come, come--I'll ask no more questions--the answers all smell of new lords new lands, and do but spoil my appet.i.te, which were a pity, since here comes Mrs. Crosbie to say our mutton's ready.'

It was even so. Mrs. Crosbie had been absent, like Eve, 'on hospitable cares intent,' a duty which she did not conceive herself exempted from, either by the dignity of her husband's rank in the munic.i.p.ality, or the splendour of her Brussels silk gown, or even by the more highly prized l.u.s.tre of her birth; for she was born a Maxwell, and allied, as her husband often informed his friends, to several of the first families in the county. She had been handsome, and was still a portly, good-looking woman of her years; and though her peep into the kitchen had somewhat heightened her complexion, it was no more than a modest touch of rouge might have done.

The provost was certainly proud of his lady, nay, some said he was afraid of her; for of the females of the Redgauntlet family there went a rumour, that, ally where they would, there was a grey mare as surely in the stables of their husbands, as there is a white horse in Wouvermans' pictures. The good dame, too, was supposed to have brought a spice of politics into Mr. Crosbie's household along with her; and the provost's enemies at the council-table of the burgh used to observe that he uttered there many a bold harangue against the Pretender, and in favour of King George and government, of which he dared not have p.r.o.nounced a syllable in his own bedchamber; and that, in fact, his wife's predominating influence had now and then occasioned his acting, or forbearing to act, in a manner very different from his general professions of zeal for Revolution principles. If this was in any respect true, it was certain, on the other hand, that Mrs. Crosbie, in all external points, seemed to acknowledge the 'lawful sway and right supremacy' of the head of the house, and if she did not in truth reverence her husband, she at least seemed to do so.

This stately dame received Mr. Maxwell (a cousin of course) with cordiality, and Fairford with civility; answering at the same time with respect, to the magisterial complaints of the provost, that dinner was just coming up. 'But since you changed poor Peter MacAlpin, that used to take care of the town-clock, my dear, it has never gone well a single day.'

'Peter MacAlpin, my dear,' said the provost,' made himself too busy for a person in office, and drunk healths and so forth, which it became no man to drink or to pledge, far less one that is in point of office a servant of the public, I understand that he lost the music bells in Edinburgh, for playing "Ower the Water to Charlie," upon the tenth of June. He is a black sheep, and deserves no encouragement.'

'Not a bad tune though, after all,' said Summertrees; and, turning to the window, he half hummed, half whistled, the air in question, then sang the last verse aloud: 'Oh I loe weel my Charlie's name, Though some there be that abhor him; But oh to see the deil gang hame Wi' a' the Whigs before him! Over the water, and over the sea, And over the water to Charlie; Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, And live or die with Charlie.'

Mrs. Crosbie smiled furtively on the laird, wearing an aspect at the same time of deep submission; while the provost, not choosing to hear his visitor's ditty, took a turn through the room, in unquestioned dignity and independence of authority.