Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume IV Part 11

BON GUALTIER'S TALES.

COUNTRY QUARTERS.

A pleasanter little town than Potterwell does not exist in that part of her Majesty's dominions called Scotland. On one side, the hand of cultivation has covered a genial soil with richness and fertility. The stately mansion, "bosomed high in tufted trees," occasionally invites the eye, as it wanders over the landscape; while here and there, the river Wimpledown may be seen peeping out amid the luxuriant verdure of wood and plain, and seeming to concentrate on itself all the radiance of any little sunshine that may be going. On the other side, again, are nothing but impracticable mountains--fine bluff old fellows--that evidently have an extensive and invincible contempt for Time, and, like other great ones of the earth, never carry any _change_ about them. Look beyond these, and the prospect is indeed a fine one--a little monotonous, perhaps, but still a fine one--peak receding behind peak in endless series, a mult.i.tudinous sea of mountain tops, with noses as blue as a disappointed man's face, or Miss Harriet Martineau's stockings.

With a situation presenting such allurements for the devotees of the picturesque, is it wonderful that Potterwell became a favourite resort?

By the best of good fortune, too, a spring, close by, of a peculiarly nauseous character, had, a few years before the period we write of, attracted attention by throwing into violent convulsions sundry cows that had been so far left to themselves as to drink of it, besides carrying off an occasional little boy or so, as a sort of just retribution for so far suppressing his natural tastes as to admit it within his lips. Dr. Scammony, however, had taken the mineral water under his patronage; and his celebrated pamphlet upon the medicinal properties of the Potterwell Mephitic a.s.safoetida Waters at once fixed their reputation, while it materially augmented his own. A general subscription was projected, with a view to the erection of a pump-room.

The plan took amazingly; and, from being left to work its way out, as best it might, through the diseased and miserable weeds with which it was overgrown, the spring all at once found itself established in a handsome apartment, fitted up with a most benevolent attention to the wants of such persons as might repair thither with the probable chance--however little they might be conscious of the fact--of dying by a watery death.

It was a bright sparkling morning in August, and there was an exhilarating freshness in the air, that caused the heart to leap up, and make the spirit as unclouded as the blue sky overhead. The pump-room was thronged, and every one congratulated his neighbour on the beauty of the morning.

"At your post as usual, Stukeley!" said a smartly-dressed young man, stepping up to Mr. Stukeley--a well-known frequenter of the wells since their first celebrity--and shaking him warmly by the hand. "I do believe you are retained as a check upon the pump woman, that you keep such a strict look out after her customers. How many doses has she administered to-day? Come now, out with your note-book, and let me see."

"Oh, my dear Frank, if you really want to know, I am the man for you--Old Cotton of Dundee, four and a-half, and his daughter took off the balance of the six. What do you think I heard him whisper to her?--'Hoot, la.s.sie, tak it aff, it's a' paid for;' and she, poor soul, was forced to gulp it down, that he might have the satisfaction of knowing that full value had been given for his penny. Then there was Runrig the farmer from Mid-Lothian, half-a-dozen; the man has a frame of iron, and a cheek as fresh as new-mown hay; but somebody had told him the water would do him good, and he has accordingly taken enough to make him ill for a fortnight. Then, there was Deacon Dobie's rich widow--fat, fair, and forty--she got pretty well through the seventh tumbler; but, it's a way with her, when she begins drinking, not to know when to stop; which, by the way, may account for her having been, for some time, as she elegantly expresses it, 'gey an nervish ways, whiles.' After her came"----And Stukeley was going on to enumerate the different visiters of the morning, checking them off upon his fingers as he proceeded, when his friend, Frank Preston, stopped him.

"For Heaven's sake, have done; and tell me, if you can, who those two fops of fellows are at the foot of the room? They only came a week ago; and, though n.o.body knows who they are, they have made the acquaintance of half the people here."

"I see nothing very odd in that. I know nothing of the men; but they dress well, and are moderately good-looking, and have just sufficient a.s.surance to pa.s.s off upon the uninitiated for ease of manner and fashionable breeding. A pair of parvenus, no doubt; but what is your motive for asking so particularly about them?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing! Only, I am to meet them at the Cheeshams to-night, and I wished to know something of them."

"So, so! sets the wind in that quarter? A rival, Master Frank? It is there the shoe pinches, is it?"

"A rival--nonsense! What should I care whether the puppies are attentive to Emily Cheesham or not?"

"Why more to her than to her sister f.a.n.n.y? I mentioned no names. Ha!

Master Frank, you see I have caught you. Come, come, tell me what it is annoys you?"

"Well," stammered out Frank Preston,--"well, the fact is--the fact is, one of them has been rather particular in his attentions to Emily, and I am half-inclined to think she gives him encouragement."

"And, suppose she does, I see nothing in that but the harmless vanity of a girl, pleased to have another dangler under her spell."

"That is all very well, but I don't like it a bit. It may be so, and it may not. Her encouragement to him is very marked, and I don't feel easy under it at all, I don't."

"Why, Frank, you must both have a very poor opinion of Miss Emily, and be especially soft yourself, to give yourself any concern in the matter.

If you have deemed her worthy of your regards, and she has given you warrant for thinking you have a claim upon them, and yet she now throws you off to make way for this newer lover, your course is a clear one.

Turn from her at once, and fortify yourself with old Withers' lines--

'If she be not made for me What care I for whom she be.'"

"Excellent philosophy, if one could but act upon it. But what annoys me about the business is, that I am sure these fellows are a pair of sn.o.bs, and are playing themselves off for something greater than they are."

"Very possibly; but that is just a stronger reason for taking my advice.

If Miss Emily can be gratified with the attentions of such persons, leave her to the full enjoyment of them. Don't make yourself miserable for her folly."

"Oh, I don't make myself miserable at all, not in the least; only, I should like to find out who the fellows are."

The young men, of whom Preston and Stukeley had been speaking, and who now lounged up the room, describing semicircles with their legs at every step they took, were certainly never meant for the ordinary tear and wear of the hard-working every-day world. Their dress had too fine a gloss upon it for that, their hair much too gracefully disposed. They were both rather below the middle size, both dark in the complexion, but one of them much more so than the other. The darker slip of humanity had cultivated the growth of his hair with singular success. It fell away in ma.s.ses from his forehead and temples, and curled, like the rings of the young vine, over the velvet collar that capped a coat of symmetrical proportions. Circling round the cheeks, and below the chin, it somewhat obtruded upon the s.p.a.ce which is generally occupied by the face, so that his head might truly be said to be a ma.s.s of hair, slightly interspersed with features. His friend, again, to avoid monotony, had varied the style of his upper works, and his locks were allowed to droop in long, lanky, melancholy tangles down his sallow cheeks; while, perched upon either lip, might be seen a feathery-looking object, not to be accounted for, but on the supposition that it was intended to seduce the public into a belief of its being a moustache.

Both were showily dressed. Both had stocks terminating in a cataract of satin that emptied itself into tartan velvet waistcoats, worn probably in honour of the country; both had gold chains innumerable, twisting in a multiplicity of convolutions across these waistcoats; both had on yellow kid gloves of unimpeachable purity, and both carried minute canes of imitation ebony, with which, at intervals, they flogged, one the right and the other the left leg, with the most painful ferocity. They were a n.o.ble pair; alike, yet, oh, how different!

"Eugene, my boy," said the darker of the two, in a tone of voice loud enough to let half the room hear the interesting communication, "we must see what sort of stuff this here water is--we must, positively."

"Roost eggs, Adolph, whisked in bilge-water, with a rusty tenpenny nail.

Faugh! I'm smashed if I taste it."

"Not so bad that for you," returned Adolph, smiling faintly; "but you must really pay your respects to the waters."

"'Pon my soul, I shawn't. I had enough of that so't of thing in Jummany, the time I was ova with Ned Hoxham."

"That was the time, wasn't it, that you brought me over that choice lot of cigaws?"

"I believe it was," responded Eugene, with the most impressive indifference, as if he wished it to be understood that he had been so often there that he could not recall the particulars of any one visit.

"I know something of Seidlitz and Seltzer myself," resumed the darker Adonis, "and Soda water too, by Jove, for that matter, and they're not bad things either, when one's been making a night of it, so I'll have a try at this Potterwell fluid, and see how it does for a change."

In this manner the two friends proceeded, to the infinite enlightenment of those about them, who, being greatly struck with their easy and facetious manners, stood admiringly by with looks of evident delight!

The young men saw the impression they were making, and, desirous of keeping it up, went on to ask the priestess of the spring, how often, and in what quant.i.ties she found it necessary to doctor it with Glauber salts, brimstone, and a.s.safoetida. The joke took immensely. Such of the bystanders as could laugh--for the internal agitation produced by the cathartic properties of their morning draught, made that a somewhat difficult and dangerous experiment--did so; and various young men, of no very definite character, but who seemed to support the disguise of gentlemen with considerable pain to themselves, sidled up, and endeavoured to strike into conversation with our Nisus and Euryalus, thinking to share by contact the glory which they had won. All they got for their pains, however, was a stare of cool indifference. The friends were as great adepts in the art and mystery of _cutting_, as the most fashionable tailor could be; and, after volunteering a few ineffectual efforts at sprightliness, these awkward aspirants to fame were forced to fall back, abashed and crest-fallen, into the natural insignificance of their character.

These proceedings did not pa.s.s unnoticed by Preston and his elderly friend, who made their own observations upon them, but were prevented from saying anything on the subject to each other by the entrance of a party, which diverted their attention in a different direction. These were no other than Mrs. Cheesham and her two accomplished daughters, Miss Emily and Miss f.a.n.n.y Cheesham. Mrs. Cheesham's personal appearance may be pa.s.sed over very briefly; as no one, so far as is known, ever cared about it but herself. She was vain, vulgar, and affected; fond of finery and display; and the one dominant pa.s.sion of her life was to insinuate herself and her family into fashionable society, and secure a brilliant match for her daughters. They, again, were a pair of attractive showy girls; Emily flippant, sparkling, lively; f.a.n.n.y, demure, reserved, and cold. Emily's eyes were dark and l.u.s.trous--you saw the best of them at once; and her look, alert and wicked. These corresponded well with a well-rounded figure, a rosy complexion, and full pouting lips, that were "ruddier than the cherry." f.a.n.n.y was tall and "stately in her going;" pale, but without that look of sickliness which generally accompanies such a complexion, and her eyes, beautiful as they were when brought into play, were generally shrouded by the drooping of her eyelids, like those of one who is accustomed to be frequently self-inwrapt. With Emily you might sport in jest and raillery by the hour; but with f.a.n.n.y you always felt, as it were, bound to be upon your best behaviour. They pa.s.sed up the room, distributing nods of recognition, and occasionally stopping to allow Mrs. Cheesham to give her invitations to a _soiree musicale_ which she intended to get up that evening.

"Your servant, ladies," said old Stukeley, raising his hat, while his friend followed his example. "You are late. I was afraid we were not to have the pleasure of seeing you this morning. Pray, Miss Emily, what new novel or poem was it that kept you awake so late last night that you have lost half this glorious morning? Tell me the author's name, that I may punish the delinquent, by cutting up his book, in the next number of our review?"

"Cut it up, and you will do more than I could; for I found myself nodding over the second page, and I feel the drowsiness about me still."

"The opiate--the opiate, Miss Emily? Who was its compounder? He must be a charmer indeed."

"Himself and his printer knows. Only some unhappy bard, who dubs us women 'The angels of life,' and misuses us vilely through a dozen cantos of halting verse. The poor man has forgot the story

'Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and all our woe,'

or he would have christened us daughters of Eve by a very different name."

"O you little rogue! you are too hard upon this devotee to your dear deluding s.e.x. It is only his excess of politeness that has made him forget his historical reading."

"His politeness! Fiddlestick! I would as soon have a troop of boys inflict the intolerable tediousness of their calf-love upon me as endure the rhapsodies of a b.o.o.by, who strips us of our good flesh and blood, frailties and all, to etherealize us into an incomprehensible compound of tears, sighs, moonshine, music, love, flowers, and hysterics."

"Emily, how you run on!" broke in Mrs. Cheesham. "My dear Mr. Stukeley, really you must not encourage the girl in her nonsense. I declare, I sometimes think her tongue runs away with her wits."

"Better that, I'm sure, madam, than have it run away without them,"

responded Stukeley, in a deprecating tone, which threw Mrs. Cheesham, whose intellect was none of the acutest, completely out.

"Girls, there are Mr. Blowze and Mr. Lilylipz," said Mrs. Cheesham, looking in the direction of the friends, Adolph and Eugene; "you had better arrange with them about coming this evening."

Emily advanced, with her sister, to the engaging pair, who received them with that peculiar contortion of the body, between a jerk and a shuffle, which young men are in the habit of mistaking for a bow, and was soon deep in the heart of a flirtation with Adolph, while f.a.n.n.y stood listening to the vapid nothings of Eugene, a very model of pa.s.sive endurance. Frank Preston was anything but an easy spectator of this movement; nor was Emily blind to this; but, like a wilful woman, she could not forbear playing the petty tyrant, and exercising freely the power to torment which she saw that she possessed.