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 924 075 867 030 
 
REDGAUNTLET 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART, 
 
1 
 
REDGAUNTLET 
 
 A TALE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart. 
 
 Master, go on ; and I will follow thee, 
 To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. 
 
 As You Like It. 
 
 WITH STEEL PLATES FROM DESIGNS BY 
 
 GEORGE CRUIKSHANK AND OTHER ARTISTS 
 
 NEW EDITION, WITH THE AUTHOR'S NOTES 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS 
 1876 
 
LONDON 
 BHADDUiiV, AGNEW, & CO., i'KINTERS, WIIITEFRIARS 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Jacobite enthusiasm of the eighteenth century, particularly 
 during the rebelHon of 1745, afforded a theme, perhaps the finest 
 that could be selected, for fictitious composition, founded upon 
 real or probable incident. This civil war, and its remarkable 
 events, were remembered by the existing generation without any 
 degree of the bitterness of spirit which seldom fails to attend 
 internal dissension. The Highlanders, who formed the principal 
 strength of Charles Edward's army, were an ancient and high- 
 spirited race, peculiar in their habits of war and of peace, brave to 
 romance, and exhibiting a character turning upon points more 
 adapted to poetry than to the prose of real life. Their Prince, 
 young, valiant, patient of fatigue, and despising danger, heading 
 his army on foot in the most toilsome marches, and defeating a 
 regular force in three battles, — all these were circumstances fasci- 
 nating to the imagination, and might well be supposed to seduce 
 young and enthusiastic minds to the cause in which they were 
 found united, although, wisdom and reason frowned upon the 
 enterprise. 
 
 The adventurous Prince, as is well known, proved to be one of 
 those personages who distinguish themselves during some single 
 and extraordinarily brilliant period of their lives, like the course of 
 a shooting star, at which men wonder, as well on account of the 
 briefness, as the brilliancy of its splendour. A long trace of dark- 
 ness overshadowed the subsequent life of a man, who, in his youth, 
 showed himself so capable of great undertakings ; and, without the 
 painful task of tracing his course further, we may say the latter 
 pursuits and habits of this unhappy Prince, are those painfully 
 evincing a broken heart, which seeks refuge from its own thoughts 
 in sordid enjoyments. 
 
 Still, however, it was long ere Charles Edward appeared to be, 
 perhaps it was long ere he altogether became, so much degraded 
 
6 INTRODUCTION TO REDGAUNTLET, 
 
 from his original self; as he enjoyed for a time the lustre attending 
 the progress and termination of his enterprise. Those who thought 
 they discerned in his subsequent conduct an insensibility to the 
 distresses of his followers, coupled with that egotistical attention 
 to his own interests, which has been often attributed to the Stewart 
 Family, and which is the natural effect of the principles of divine 
 right in which they were brought up, were now generally con- 
 sidered as dissatisfied and splenetic persons, who, displeased with 
 the issue of their adventure, and finding themselves involved in the 
 ruins of a falling cause, indulged themselves in undeserved re- 
 proaches against their leader. Indeed, such censures were by no 
 means frequent among those of his followers, who. If what was 
 alleged had been just, had the best right to complain. Far the 
 greater number of those unfortunate gentlemen suffered with the 
 most dignified patience, and were either too proud to take notice 
 of ill treatment on the part of their Prince, or so prudent as to be 
 aware their complaints would meet with little sympathy from the 
 world. It may be added, that the greater part of the banished 
 Jacobites, and those of high rank and consequence, were not much 
 within reach of the influence of the Prince's character and conduct, 
 whether well regulated or otherwise. 
 
 In the meantime, that great Jacobite conspiracy, of which the 
 insurrection of 1745-6 was but a small part, precipitated into action 
 on the failure of a far more general scheme, was resumed and again 
 put into motion by the Jacobites of England, whose force ,had 
 never been broken, as they had prudently avoided bringing it into 
 the field. The surprising effect which had been produced by small 
 means, in 1745-6, animated their hopes for more important suc- 
 cesses, when the whole nonjuring interest of Britain, identified as 
 it then was with great part of the landed gentlemen, should come 
 forward to finish what had been gallantly attempted by a few 
 Highland chiefs. 
 
 It is probable, indeed, that the Jacobites of the day were inca- 
 pable of considering that the very small scale on which the effort 
 was made, was in one great measure the cause of its unexpected 
 success. The remarkable speed with which the insurgents marched, 
 the singularly good discipline which they preserved, the union and 
 unanimity which for some time animated their councils, were all in 
 a considerable degree produced by the smallness of their numbers. 
 Notwithstanding the discomfiture of Charles Edward, the non- 
 jurors of the period long continued to nurse unlawful schemes, and 
 to drink treasonable toasts, until age stole upon them. Another 
 generation arose, who did not share the sentiments which they 
 cherished ; and at length the sparkles of disaffection, which had 
 
INTRODUCTION TO REDGAUNTLET. 7 
 
 long smouldered, but had never been heated enough to burst into 
 actual flame, became entirely extinguished. But in proportion as 
 the political enthusiasm died gradually away among men of ordi- 
 nary temperament, it influenced those of warm imaginations and 
 weak understandings, and hence wild schemes were formed, as 
 desperate as they were adventurous. 
 
 Thus a young Scotchman of rank is said to have stooped so low 
 as to plot the surprisal of St. James's palace, and the assassination 
 of the royal family. While these ill-digested and desperate con- 
 spiracies were agitated among the few Jacobites who still adhered 
 with more obstinacy to their purpose, there is no question but that 
 other plots might have been brought to an open explosion, had it 
 not suited the policy of Sir Robert Walpole, rather to prevent or 
 disable the conspirators in their projects, than to promulgate the 
 tale of danger, which might thus have been believed to be more 
 widely diffused than was really the case. 
 
 In one instance alone this very prudential and humane line of 
 conduct was departed from, and the event seemed to confirm the 
 policy of the general course. Doctor Archibald Cameron, brother 
 of the celebrated Donald Cameron of Lochiel, attainted for the 
 rebellion of 1745, was found by a party of soldiers lurking with a 
 comrade in the wilds of Loch Katrine, five or six years after the 
 battle of Culloden, and was there seized. There were circum- 
 stances in his case, so far as was made known to the public, which 
 attracted much compassion, and gave to the judicial proceedings 
 against him an appearance of cold-blooded revenge on the part of 
 government ; and the following argument of a zealous Jacobite in 
 his favour was received as conclusive by Dr. Johnson, and other 
 persons who might pretend to impartiality. Dr. Cameron had 
 never borne arms, although engaged in the Rebellion, but used his 
 medical skill for the service, indifferently, of the wounded of both 
 parties. His return to Scotland was ascribed exclusively to family 
 affairs. His behaviour at the bar was decent, firm, and respectful. 
 His wife threwherself, on three different occasions, before George H. 
 and the members of his family, was rudely repulsed from their 
 presence, and at length placed, it was said, in the same prison with 
 her husband, and confined with unmanly severity. 
 
 Dr. Cameron was finally executed, with all the severities of the 
 law of treason ; and his death remains in popular estimation a 
 dark blot upon the memory of George II., being almost publicly 
 imputed to a mean and personal hatred of Donald Cameron of 
 Lochiel, the sufferer's heroic brother. 
 
 Yet the fact was, that whether the execution of Archibald 
 Cameron was political or otherwise, it might certainly have been 
 
8 INTRODUCTION TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 justified, had the King's ministers so pleased, upon reasons of a 
 public nature. The unfortunate sufferer had not come to the 
 Highlands solely upon his private affairs, as was the general belief; 
 but it was not judged prudent by the English ministry to let it be 
 generally loiown that he came to enquire about a considerable 
 sum of money which had been remitted from France to the friends 
 of the exiled family. He had also a commission to hold inter- 
 course with the well-known M'Pherson of Cluny, chief of the clan 
 Vourich, whom the Chevalier had left behind at his departure 
 from Scotland in 1746, and who remained during ten years of pro- 
 scription and danger, skulking from place to place in the Highlands, 
 and maintaining an uninterrupted correspondence between Charles 
 and his friends. That Dr. Cameron should have held a commis- 
 sion to assist this chief in raking together the dispersed embers, of 
 disaffection, is in itself sufficiently natural, and, considering his 
 political principles, in no respect dishonourable to his memory. 
 But neither ought it to be imputed to George IL, that he suffered 
 the laws to be enforced against a person taken in the act of break- 
 ing them. When he lost his hazardous game, Dr. Cameron only 
 paid the forfeit which he must have calculated upon. The minis- 
 ters, however, thought it proper to leave Dr. Cameron's new 
 schemes in concealment, lest by divulging them they had indicated 
 . the channel of communication which, it is now well known, they 
 possessed to all the plots of Charles Edward. But it was equally 
 ill advised and ungenerous to sacrifice the character of the king to 
 the policy of the administration. Both points might have been 
 gained by sparing the life of Dr. Cameron after conviction, and 
 limiting his punishment to perpetual exi,le. 
 
 These repeated and successive Jacobite plots rose and burst like 
 bubbles on a fountain ; and one of them, at least, the Chevalier 
 judged of importance enough to induce him to risk himself within 
 the dangerous precincts of the British capital. This appears from 
 Dr. King's Anecdotes of his Own Times. 
 
 " September, 1750.— I received a note from my Lady Primrose, 
 who desired to see me immediately. As soon as I waited on her, 
 
 she led me into her dressing-room, and presented me to ," 
 
 [the Chevalier, doubtless]. " If I was surprised to find him there, 
 I was still more astonished when he acquainted me with the 
 motives which had induced him to hazard a journey to England at 
 this juncture. The impatience of his friends Who were in exile, 
 had formed a scheme which was impracticable ; but although it 
 had been as feasible as they had represented it to him, yet no pre- 
 paration had been made, nor was any thing ready to carry it into 
 execution. He was soon convinced that he had been deceived; 
 
INTRODUCTION TO REDGAUNTLET. 9 
 
 and, therefore, after a stay in London .of five days only, he returned 
 to the place from whence he came." Dr. King was in 1750 a keen 
 Jacobite, as may be inferred from the visit made by him to the 
 Prince under such circumstances, and from his being one of that 
 unfortunate person's chosen correspondents. He, as well as other 
 men of sense and observation, began to despair of making their 
 fortune in the party which they had chosen. It was indeed suffi- 
 ciently dangerous ; for, during the short visit just described, one 
 of Dr. King's servants remarked the stranger's likeness to Prince 
 Charles, whom he recognised from the common busts. 
 
 The occasion taken for breaking up the Stewart interest, we 
 shall tell in Dr. King's own words ; — " When he (Charles Edward) 
 was in Scotland, he had a mistress whose name was Walkinshaw, 
 and whoso sister was at that time, and is still, housekeeper at 
 Leicester House. Some years after he was released from his 
 prison, and conducted out of France, he sent for this girl, who soon 
 acquired such a dominion over him, that she was acquainted with 
 all his schemes, and trusted with his most secret correspondence. 
 As soon as [this was known in England, all those persons of dis- 
 tinction who were attached to him were greatly alarmed : they 
 imagined that this wench had been placed in his family by the 
 English ministers ; and, considering her sister's situation, they 
 seemed to have some ground for their suspicion ; wherefore, they 
 dispatched a gentleman to Paris, where the Prince then was, who 
 had instructions to insist that Mrs. Walkinshaw should be removed 
 to a convent for a certain term ; but her gallant absolutely refused 
 to comply with this demand ; and although Mr. M'Namara, the 
 gentleman who was sent to him, who has a natural eloquence, and 
 an excellent understanding, urged the most cogent reasons, and 
 used all the arts of persuasion, to induce him to part with his 
 mistress, and even proceeded so far as to assure him, according to 
 his instructions, that an immediate interruption of all corre- 
 spondence with his most powerful friends in England, and, in 
 short, that the ruin of his interest, which was now daily increasing, 
 would be the infallible cons'equence of his refusal ; yet he continued 
 inflexible, and all M'Namara's entreaties and remonstrances were 
 ineffectual. M'Namara staid in Paris some days beyond the time 
 prescribed him, endeavouring^ to reason the Prince into a better 
 temper ; but finding him obstinately persevere in his first answer, 
 he took his leave with concern and indignation, saying, as he 
 passed out, ' What has your family done, sir, thus to draw down 
 the vengeance of Heaven on every branch of it, through so many 
 ages ? ' It is worthy of remark, that in all the conferences which 
 M'Namara had with the Prince on this occasion, the latter declared 
 
10 INTRODUCTION TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 that it was not a violent passion, or indeed any particular regard, 
 which attached him to Mrs. Walkinshaw, and that he could see 
 her removed from him without any concern ; but he would not 
 receive directions, in respect to his private conduct, from any man 
 alive. When M'Namara returned to London, and reported the 
 Prince's answer to the gentlemen who had employed him, they 
 were astonished and confounded. However, they soon resolved 
 on the measures which they were to pursue for the future, and 
 determined no longer to serve a man who could not be persuaded 
 to serve himself, and chose rather to endanger the lives of his best 
 and most faithful friends, than part with an harlot, whom, as he 
 often declared, he neither loved nor esteemed." 
 
 From this anecdote, the general truth of which is indubitable, 
 the principal fault of Charles Edward's temper is sufficiently obvi- 
 ous. It was a high sense of his own importance, and an obstinate 
 adherence to what he had once determined on — qualities which, if 
 he had succeeded in his bold attempt, gave the nation little room 
 to hope that he would have been found free from the love of pre- 
 rogative and desire of arbitrary power, which characterised his 
 unhappy grandfather. He gave a notable instance how far this 
 was the leading feature of his character, when, for no reasonable 
 cause that can be assigned, he placed his own single will in oppo- 
 sition to the necessities of France, which, in order to purchase a 
 peace become necessary to the kingdom, was reduced to gratify 
 Britain by prohibiting the residence of Charles within any part of 
 the French dominions. It was in vain that France endeavoured 
 to lessen the disgrace of this step by making the most flattering 
 offers, in hopes to induce the Prince of himself to anticipate this 
 disagreeable alternative, which, if seriously enforced, as it was 
 likely to be, he had no means whatever of resisting, by leaving the 
 kingdom as of his own free-will. Inspired, however, by the spirit 
 of hereditary obstinacy, Charles preferred a useless resistance to a 
 dignified submission, and by a series of idle bravadoes, laid the 
 French court under the necessity of arresting their late ally, and 
 sending him to close confinement in the Bastile, from which he was 
 afterwards sent out of the French dominions, much in the manner 
 in which a convict is transported to the place of his destination. 
 
 In addition to these repeated instances of a rash and inflexible 
 temper, Dr. King also adds faults alleged to belong to the Prince's 
 character, of a kind less consonant with his noble birth and high 
 pretensions. He is said by this author to have been avaricious, or 
 parsimonious at least, to such a degree of meanness, as to fail, even 
 when he had ample means, in relieving the sufferers who had lost 
 their fortune, and sacrificed their all in his ill-fated attempt.* We 
 
INTRODUCTION TO REDGAUNTLET. ii 
 
 must receive, however, with some degree of jealousy what is said 
 by Dr. King on this subject, recollecting that he had left at least, 
 if he did not desert, the standard of the unfortunate Prince, and 
 was not therefore a person who was lilcely to form the fairest esti- 
 mate of his virtues and faults. We must also remember, that if 
 the exiled Prince gave little, he had but little to give, especially 
 considering how late he nourished the scheme of another expedi- 
 tion to Scotland, for which he was long endeavouring to hoard 
 money. 
 
 The case, also, of Charles Edward must be allowed to have been 
 a difficult one. He had to satisfy numerous persons, who, having 
 lost their all in his cause, had, with that all, seen the extinction of 
 hopes which they accounted nearly as good as certainties ; some of 
 these were perhaps clamorous in their applications, and certainly 
 ill pleased with their want of success. Other parts of the Cheva- 
 lier's conduct may have afforded grounds for charging him with 
 coldness to the sufferings of his devoted followers. One of these 
 was a sentiment which has nothing in it that is generous, but it was 
 certainly a principle in which the young Prince was trained, and 
 which may be too probably denominated peculiar to his family, 
 educated in all the high notions ©f passive obedience and non- 
 resistance. If the unhappy Prince gave implicit faith to the pro- 
 fessions of statesmen holding such notions, which is implied by his 
 whole conduct, it must have led to the natural, though ungracious 
 inference, that the services of a subject could not, to whatever 
 degree of ruin they might bring the individual, create a debt against 
 his sovereign. Such a person could only boast that he had done 
 his duty ; nor was he entitled to be a claimant for a greater reward 
 than it was convenient for the Prince to bestow, or to hold his 
 sovereign his debtor for losses which he had sustained through his 
 loyalty. To a certain extent the Jacobite principles inevitably led 
 to this cold and egotistical mode of reasoning on the part- of the 
 sovereign ; nor, with all our natural pity for the situation of royalty 
 in distress, do we feel entitled to affirm that Charles did not use 
 this opiate to his feelings, on viewing the misery of his followers, 
 while he certainly possessed, though in no great degree, the means 
 of affording them more relief than he practised. His own history, 
 after leaving France, is brief and melancholy. For a time he 
 seems to have held the firm belief that Providence, which had borne 
 him through so many hazards, still reserved him for some distant 
 occasion, in which he should be empowered to vindicate the 
 honours of his birth. But opportunity after opportunity slipt by 
 unimproved, and the death of his father gave him the fatal proof 
 that none of the principal powers of Europe were, after that event. 
 
12 INTRODUCTION TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 likely to interest themselves in his quarrel. They refused to 
 acknowledge him under the title of the King of England, and, 
 on his part, he declined to be then recognised as the Prince of 
 Wales. 
 
 Family discord came to add its sting to those of disappointed 
 ambition ; and, though a humiliating circumstance, it is generally 
 acknowledged, that Charles Edward, the adventurous, the gallant, 
 and the handsome, the leader of a race of pristine valour, whose 
 romantic qualities may be said to have died along with him, had, in 
 his latter days, yielded to those humiliating habits of intoxication, 
 in which the meanest mortals seek to drown the recollection of 
 their disappointments and miseries. Under such circumstances, 
 the unhappy Prince lost the friendship even of those faithful 
 followers who had most devoted "themselves to his misfortunes, and 
 was surrounded, with some honourable exceptions, by men of a 
 lower description, regardless of the character which he was himself 
 no longer able to protect. 
 
 It is a fact consistent with the author's knowledge, that persons 
 totally unentitled to, and unfitted for, such a distinction, were pre- 
 sented to the unfortunate Prince in moments unfit for presentation 
 of any kind. Amid these clouds was at length extinguished the 
 torch which once shook itself over Britain with such terrific glare, 
 and at last sunk in its own ashes, scarce remembered and scarce 
 noted 
 
 Meantime, while the life of Charles Edward was gradually 
 wasting in disappointed solitude, the number of those who had 
 shared his misfortunes and dangers had shrunk into a small hand- 
 ful of veterans, the heroes of a tale which had been told. Most 
 Scottish readers who can count the number of sixty years, must re- 
 collect many respected acquaintances of their youth, who, as the 
 established phrase gently worded it, had been out in the Forty-five, 
 It may be said, that their political principles and plans no longer 
 either gained proselytes or attracted terror, — those who held them 
 had ceased to be the subjects either of fear or opposition. Jaco- 
 bites were looked upon in society as .men who had proved their 
 sincerity by sacrificing their interest to their principles ; and in 
 well-regulated companies, it was held a piece of ill-breeding to 
 injure their feelings or ridicule the compromises by which they 
 endeavoured to keep themselves abreast of the current of the day. 
 Such, for example, was the evasion of a gentleman of fortune in 
 Perthshire, who, in having the newspapers read to him, caused the 
 King and Queen to be designated by the initial letters of K. and 
 Q., as if, by naming the full word, he might imply an acquiescence 
 in the usurpation of the family of Hanover. George III., having 
 
INTRODUCTION TO REDGAUNTLIiT, 13 
 
 heard of this gentleman's custom in the above and other par- 
 ticulars, commissioned the member for Perthshire to carry his 
 compliments to the steady Jacobite — " that is," said the excellent 
 old King, " not the compliments of the King of England, but 
 those of the Elector of Hanover, and tell him how much I respect 
 him for the steadiness of his principles." 
 
 Those who remember such old men, will probably agree that 
 the progress of time, which has withdrawn all of them from the 
 field, has removed, at the same time, a peculiar and striking 
 feature of ancient manners. Their love of past times, their tales 
 of bloody battles fought against romantic odds, were all dear to 
 the imagination, and their little idolatry of locks of hair, pictures, 
 rings, ribbons, and other memorials of the time in which they 
 still seemed to live, was an interesting enthusiasm ; and although 
 their political principles, had they existed in the relation of 
 fathers, might have rendered them dangerous to the existing 
 dynasty, yet, as we now recollect them, there could not be on the 
 earth supposed to exist persons better qualified to sustain the 
 capacity of innocuous and respectable grandsires. 
 
 It was while reflecting on these things that the novel of Red- 
 gauntlet was undertaken. But various circumstances in the com- 
 position induced the author to alter its purport considerably, as 
 it passed through his hands, and to carry the action to that point 
 of time when the Chevalier Charles Edward, though fallen into the 
 sere and yellow leaf, was yet meditating a second attempt, which 
 could scarcely have been more hopeless than his first ; although 
 one, to which, as we have seen, the unfortunate Prince, at least as 
 late as seventeen hundred and fifty-three, still looked with hope 
 and expectation. 
 
 1st April, 1832. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 DARSIE LATIMER TO ALAN FAIRFORD, 
 
 Dumfries. 
 
 Cur me exanimas querdis tuisf — In plain English, Why do 
 you deafen me with your croaking? The disconsolate tone in 
 which you bade me farewell at Noble-House,* and mounted your 
 miserable hack to return to your law drudgery, still sounds in my 
 ears. It seemed to say, " Happy dog ! you can ramble at pleasure 
 over hill and dale, pursue every object of curiosity that presents 
 itself, and relinquisli the chase when it loses interest ; while I, 
 your senior and your better, must, in this brilliant season, return 
 to my narrow chamber and my musty books." 
 
 Such was the import of the reflections with which you saddened 
 our parting bottle of claret, and thus I must needs interpret the 
 terms of your melancholy adieu. 
 
 And why should this be so, Alan ? Why the deuce should you 
 not be sitting precisely opposite to me at this moment, in the same 
 comfortable George Inn ; thy heels oh the fender, and thy juridical 
 brow expanding its plications as a pun rose in your fancy ? Above 
 all, why, when I fill this very glass of wine, cannot I push the 
 bottle to you, and say, " Fairford, you are chased I " Why, I say, 
 should not all this be, except because Alan Fairford has not the 
 same true sense of friendship as Darsie Latimer, and will not 
 regard our purses as common as well as our sentiments .■' 
 
 I am alone in the world ; my only guardian writes to me of a 
 large fortune, which will be mine when I reach the age of twenty- 
 five complete ; my present income is, thou knowest, more than 
 sufficient for all my wants ; and yet thou — traitor as thou art to the 
 cause of friendship — dost deprive me of the pleasure of thy society, 
 and submittest, besides, to self-denial on thine own part, rather 
 than my wanderings should cost me a few guineas more ! Is this 
 
i6 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 regard for my purse, or for thine own pride ? Is it not equally[ 
 absurd and unreasonable, whichever source it springs from ? For 
 myself, I tell thee, I have, and shall have, more than enough for 
 both. This same methodical Samuel Griffiths, of IronmeageT^ 
 Lane, Guildhall, London, whose letter arrives as duly as quarter- 
 day, has sent me, as I told thee, double allowance for this my 
 twenty-first birthday, and an assurance, in his brief fashion, that 
 it will be again doubled for the succeeding years, until I enter into 
 possession of my own property. Still I am to refrain from visiting 
 England until my twenty -fifth year expires ; and it is recommended 
 that I shall forbear all enquiries concerning my family, and so 
 forth, for the present. 
 
 Were it not that I recollect my poor mother in her deep widow's 
 weeds, with a countenance that never smiled but when she looked 
 on me — and then, in such wan and woful sort, as the sun when he 
 glances through an April cloud— were it not, I say, that her mild 
 and matron-like form and countenance forbid such a suspicion, I 
 might think myself the son of some Indian director, or rich citizen, 
 who had more wealth than grace, and a handful of hypocrisy to 
 boot, and who was breeding up privately, and obscurely enriching, 
 one of whose existence' he had some reason to be ashamed. But, 
 as I said before, I think on my mother, and am convinced as much 
 as of the existence of my- own soul, that no touch of shame could 
 arise from aught in which she was implicated. Meantime, I am . 
 wealthy, and I am alone, and why does my friend scruple to share 
 my wealth ? 
 
 Are you not my only friend ? and have you not acquired a right 
 to share my wealth ? Answer me that, Alan Fairford. When I 
 was brought from the solitude of my mother's dwelling into the 
 tumult of the Gaits' Class at the High School — when I was tnocked 
 for my English accent — salted with snow as a S outhern — rolled in 
 the gutter for a Saxon pock-pudding,-^who, with stout arguments, 
 and stouter blows, stood forth my defende;^?— why, Alan Fairford. 
 Who beat me soundly when I brought the arrogance of an only 
 son, and of course a spoiled urchin, to the forms of the little 
 republic ?— why, Alan. And who taught me to smoke a cobbler, 
 pin a losen, head a bicker, and hold the bannets?*— Alan, once 
 more. If I became the pride of the Yards,. and the dread of the 
 hucksters in the High-School Wynd, it was under thy patronage ; 
 and, but for thee, I had been contented with humbly passing 
 through the Cowgate-Port, without climbing over the top of it, and 
 had never seen the Kittle nine-steps * nearer than from Bareford's 
 Parks. You taught me to keep my fingers off the weak, and to 
 clench my fist against the strong— to carry no tales out of school— 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 17 
 
 to stand forth like a true man — obey the stern order of a Pande 
 matiuiii, and endure my pawmies without wincing, like one that is 
 determined not to be the better for them. In a word, before I 
 knew thee, I knew nothing. 
 
 At College it was the same. When I was incorrigibly idle, your 
 example and encouragement roused me to mental exertion, and 
 showed me the way to intellectual enjoyment. You made me an 
 historian, a metaphysician, (invita Minerva^ — nay, by Heaven '. 
 you had almost made an advocate of me, as well as of yourself. 
 Yes, rather than part with you, Alan, I attended a weary season at 
 the Scotch Law Class ; a wearier at the Civil ; and with what 
 excellent advantage, my note-book filled with caricatures of the 
 professors and my fellow-students, is it not yet extant to testify ? 
 
 " Thus far have I held on with thee untired ;'' 
 
 and, to say truth, purely and solely that I might travel the same 
 road with thee. But it will not do, Alan. By my faith, man, 
 I could as soon think of being one of those ingenious traders who 
 cheat little Master Jackies on the outside of the partition with tops, 
 balls, bats, and battledores, as a member of the long-robed frater- 
 nity within, who impose on grown country gentlemen with bouncing 
 brocards of law.* Now, don't you read this to your worthy father, 
 Alan — ^he loves me well enough, I know, of a Saturday night ; but 
 he thinks me but idle company for any other day of the week. 
 And here, I suspect, lies your real objection to taking a ramble 
 with me through the southern counties in this delicious weather. I 
 know the good gentleman has hard thoughts of me for being so 
 unsettled as to leave Edinburgh before the Session rises ; perhaps, 
 too, he quarrels a little — I will not say, with my want of ancestry, 
 but with my want of connexions. He reckons me a lone thing in 
 this world, Alan, and so in good truth I am ; and it seems a reason 
 to him why you should not attach yourself to me, that I can claim 
 no interest in the general herd. 
 
 Do not suppose I forget what I owe him, fbr permitting me to 
 shelter for four years under his roof : My obligations to him are not 
 the less, but the greater, if he never heartily loved me. He is angry, 
 too, that I will not, or cannot, be a lawyer, and, with reference to 
 you, considers my disinclination that way as pessimi exempli, as he 
 might say. 
 
 But he need not be afraid that a lad of your steadiness will be 
 influenced by such a reed shaken by the winds as I am. You will 
 go on doubting with Dirleton, and resolving those doubts with 
 Stewart,* until the cramp speech * has been spoken more solito 
 
 c 
 
18 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 from the comer of the bench, and with covered head— until you 
 have sworn to defend the Hberties an4 privileges of the College of 
 Justice— until the black gown is hung on your shoulders, and you 
 are free as any of the Faculty to sue or defend. Then will I step 
 forth, Alan, and in a character which even your father will allow 
 may be more useful to. you than had I shared this splendid termi- 
 nation of your legal studies. In a word, if I cannot be a counsel, 
 I am determined to be a client, a sort of person without whom a 
 lawsuit would be as dull as a supposed case. Yes, I am determined 
 to give you your first fee. One can easily, I am assured, get into a 
 lawsuit— it is only the getting out which is sometimes found trouble- 
 some ;— and, with your kind father for an agent, and you for my 
 counsel learned in the law, and the worshipful Master Samuel 
 Griffiths to back me, a few sessions shall not tire my patience.- In 
 short, I will make my way into Court, even if it shoidd cost me 
 the committing a delict, or at least a quasi delict. — ^You see all .is 
 not lost of what Erskine wrote, and Wallace taught. 
 
 Thus far I have fooled it off well enough ; and yet, Alan, all is 
 not at ease within me. I am affected with a sense of loneliness, 
 the more depressing, that it seems to me to be a solitude peculiarly 
 my own. In a country where all the world have a circle of con- 
 sanguinity, extending to sixth cousins at least, I am a solitary 
 individual, having only one kind heart to throb in unison with my 
 own. If I were condemned to labour for my bread, methinks I 
 should less regard this peculiar species of deprivation. The neces- 
 sary communication of master and servant would be at least a tie 
 which would attach me to the rest of my kind — as it is, my very 
 independence seems to enhance the peculiarity of my situation. 
 I am in the world as a stranger in the crowded coffeehouse, where 
 he enters, calls for what refreshments he wants, pays his bill, and 
 is forgotten as soon as the waiter's mouth has pronounced his 
 " Thank ye, sir." 
 
 I know your good father would term this, sinnhtg my mercies^ 
 and ask how I should feel if, instead of being able to throw down 
 my reckoning, I were obliged to deprecate the resentment of the 
 landlord for consuming that which I could not pay for. I cannot 
 tell how it is ; but, though this very reasonable reflection comes 
 across me, and though I do confess that four hundred a year in 
 possession, eight hundred in near prospect, and the L — d knows 
 how many hundreds more in the distance, are very pretty and com- 
 fortable things, yet I would freely give one half of them to call 
 your father father, though he should scold me for my idleness 
 every hour of the day, and to call you brother, though a brother 
 whose merits would throw my own so completely into the shade. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. ig 
 
 The faint, yet not improbable belief often has come across me, 
 that your father knows something more about my birth and natural 
 condition than he is willing to communicate ; it is so unlikely that 
 I should have been left in Edinburgh at six years old, without any 
 other recommendation than the regular payment of my board to 
 
 old M * of the High School. Before that time, as I have often 
 
 told you, I have but a recollection of unbounded indulgence on my 
 mother's part, and the most tyrannical exertion of caprice on my 
 own. I remember still how bitterly she sighed, how vainly she 
 strove to soothe me, while, in the full energy of despotism, I roared 
 like ten bull calves, for something which it was impossible to pro- 
 cure for me. She is dead, that kind, that ill-rewarded mother ! I 
 remember the long faces — the darkened room — the black hangings 
 — the mysterious impression made upon my mind by the hearse 
 and mourning coaches, and the difficulty which I had to reconcile 
 all this to the disappearance of my mother. I do not think I had 
 before this event formed any idea of death, or that I had even 
 heard of that final consummation of all that lives. The first 
 acquaintance which I formed with it deprived me of my only 
 relation. 
 
 A clergyman of venerable appearance, our only visitor, was my 
 guide and companion in a journey of considerable length ; and in 
 the charge of another elderly man, substituted in his place, I know 
 not how or why, I completed my journey to Scotland — and this is 
 all I recollect. 
 
 I repeat the little history now, as I have a hundred times done 
 before, merely because I would wring some sense out of it. Turn, 
 then, thy sharp, wire-drawing, lawyer-like ingenuity to the same 
 task — make up my history as though thou wert shaping the blunder- 
 ing allegations of some blue-bonneted, hard-headed client, into a 
 condescendence of facts and circumstances, and thou shalt be, not 
 my ApoUo — g'uid tibi cum lyra ? — but my Lord Stair.* Meanwhile, 
 I have written myself out of my melancholy and blue devils, merely 
 by prosing about them ; so I will now converse half an hour with 
 Roan Robin in his stall — the rascal knows me already, and snickers 
 whenever I cross the threshold of the stable. 
 
 The black which you bestrode yesterday morning, promises to be 
 an admirable roadster, and ambled as easily with Sam and the 
 portmanteau, as with you and your load of law-learning. Sam 
 promises to be steady, and has hitherto been so. No long trial, 
 you will say. He lays the blame of former inaccuracies on evil 
 company— the people who were at the livery-stable were too seduc- 
 tive, I suppose— he denies he ever did the horse injustice— would 
 rather have wanted his own dinner, he says. In this I believe him, 
 
 C 2 
 
20 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 as Roan Robin's ribs and coat show no marks of contradiction. 
 However, as he will meet with no saints in the inns we frequent, 
 and as oats are sometimes as speedily converted into ale as John 
 Barleycorn himself, I shall keep a look-out after Master Sam. 
 Stupid fellow ! had he not abused my good-nature, I might have 
 chatted to him to keep my tongue in exercise ; whereas now, I 
 must keep him at a distance. 
 
 Do you remember what Mr. Fairford said to me on this subject, 
 it did not become my father's son to speak in that manner to Sam's 
 father's son ? I asked you what your father could possibly know 
 of mine ; and you answered, "As much, you supposed, as he knew 
 of Sam's— it was a proverbial expression." This did not quite 
 satisfy me, though I am sure I cannot tell why it should not. But 
 I am returning to a fruitless and exhausted subject. Do not be 
 afraid that I shall come back on this well-trodden yet pathless field 
 of conjecture. I know nothing so useless, so utterly feeble and 
 contemptible, as the groaning forth one's helpless lamentations into 
 the ears of our friends. 
 
 I would fain promise you that my letters shall be as entertaining, 
 as I am determined they shall be regular and well filled. We have 
 an advantage over the dear friends of old, every pair of them. 
 Neither David and Jonathan, nor Orestes and Pylades, nor Damon 
 and Pythias— although, in the latter case particularly, a letter by 
 post would have been very acceptable — ever corresponded together ; 
 for they probably could not write, and certainly had neither posts 
 nor franks to speed their effusions to each other ; whereas yours, 
 which you had from the old peer, being handled gently, and opened 
 with precaution, may be returned to me again, and serve to make 
 us free of his Majesty's post-office, during the whole time of my 
 proposed tour.* Mercy upon us, Alan ! what letters I shall have 
 to send you, with an account of all that I can collect, of pleasant or 
 rare, in this wildgoose jaunt of mine ! All I stipulate is, that you 
 do not communicate them to the Scots Magazine ; for though you 
 used, in a left-handed way, to compliment me on my attainments 
 in the lighter branches of literature, at the expense of my deficiency 
 in the weightier matters of the law, I am not yet audacious enough 
 to enter the portal which the learned Ruddiman so kindly opened 
 for the acolytes of the Muses.— Vale, sis, memor met. 
 
 D. L. 
 
 P.S.— Direct to the Post Office here. I shall leave orders to 
 forward your letters wherever I may travel. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 21 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 ALAN FAIRFORD TO DARSIE LATIMER. 
 
 Negatur, my dear Darsie— yoti have logic and law enough to 
 understand the word of denial. I deny your conclusion. The 
 premises I admit, namely, that when I mounted on that infernal 
 hack, I might utter what seemed a sigh, although I deemed it lost 
 amid the puffs and groans of the broken-winded brute, matchless 
 in the complication of her complaints by any save she, the poor 
 man's mare, renowned in song, that died 
 
 " A mile aboon Dundee," * 
 
 But credit me, Darsie, the sigh which escaped me, concerned thee 
 more than myself, and regarded neither the superior mettle of your 
 cavalry, nor your greater command of the means of travelling. I 
 could certainly have cheerfully ridden on with you for a few days ; 
 and assure yourself I would not have hesitated to tax your better- 
 filled purse for our joint expenses. But you know my father con- 
 siders every moment taken from the law as a step down hill ; and 
 I owe much to his anxiety on my account, although its effects are 
 sometimes troublesome. For example. 
 
 I found, on my arrival at the shop in Brown's Square, that the 
 old gentleman had returned that very evening, impatient, it seems, 
 of remaining a night out of the guardianship of the domestic Lares. 
 Having this information from James, whose brow wore rather an 
 anxious look on the occasion, I dispatched a Highland chairman to 
 the livery stable with my Bucephalus, and slunk, with as little noise 
 as might be, into my own den, where I began to mumble certain 
 half-gnawed and not half-digested doctrines of our municipal code. 
 I was not long seated, when my father's visage was thrust, in a 
 .peering sort of way, through the half-opened door ; and withdrawn, 
 on seeing my occupation, with a half-articulated hu7nph ! which 
 seemed to convey a doubt of the seriousness of my application. If 
 it were so, I cannot condemn him ; for recollection of thee occupied 
 me so entirely during an hour's reading, that although Stair lay 
 before me, and notwithstanding that I turned over three or four 
 pages, the sense of his lordship's clear and perspicuous style so far 
 escaped me, that I had the mortification to find my labour was 
 utterly in vain. 
 
 Ere I had brought up my lee-way, James appeared with his 
 summons to our frugal supper — radishes, cheese, and a bottle of 
 the old ale— only two plates though— and no chair set for Mr. 
 
22 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Darsie, by the attentive James Wilkinson. Said James, with his 
 long face, lank hair, and vfery long pigtail in its leathern strap, was 
 placed, as usual, at the back of my father's chair, upright as a 
 wooden sentinel at the door of a puppet-show. "You may go 
 down, James," said my father ; and exit Wilkinson.— What is to 
 come next ? thought I ; for the weather is not clear on the paternal 
 brow. 
 
 My boots encountered his first glance of displeasure, and he 
 asked me, with a sneer, which way I had been riding. He expected 
 me to answer, " Nowhere," and would then have been at me with 
 ' his usual sarcasm, touching the humour of walking in shoes at 
 twenty shillings a pair. But I answered with composure, that I 
 had ridden out to dinner as far as Noble-House. He started, (you 
 know his way,) as if I had said that I had dined at Jericho ; and 
 as I did not choose to seem to observe his surprise, but continued 
 munching my radishes in tranquillity, he broke forth in ire. 
 
 " To Noble-House, sir ! and what had you to do at Noble- 
 House, sir? — Do you remember you are studying law, sir? — that 
 your Scots law trials are coming on, sir? — that every moment 
 of your time just now is worth hours at another time ? — and have 
 you leisure to go to Noble-House, sir ? — and to throw your books 
 behind you for so many hours ? — Had it been a turn in the Mea- 
 dows, or even a game at golf — but Noble-House, sir ! " 
 
 " I went so far with Darsie Latimer, sir, to see him begin his 
 journey." 
 
 " Darsie Latimer ? " he replied in a softened tone — " Humph ! — 
 Well, I do riot blame you for being kind to Darsie Latimer ; but it 
 would have done as much good if you had walked with him as far 
 as the toll-bar, and then made your farewells — it would have saved 
 horse-hire — and your reckoning, too, at dinner." 
 
 " Latimer paid that, sir," I replied, thinking to soften the matter; 
 but I had much better have left i£ unspoken. 
 
 " The reckoning, sir ? " replied my father. " And did you sponge 
 upon any man for a reckoning? Sir, no man should enter the door 
 of a public-house without paying his lawing." 
 
 •' I admit the general rule, sir," I replied ; " but this was a part- 
 ing-cup between Darsie and me ; and I should' conceive it fell 
 under the exception of Dock an dorroch," 
 
 "You think yourself a wit," said my father, with as near an 
 approach to a smile as ever he permits to gild the solemnity of his 
 features ; " But I reckon you did not eat your dinner standing, like 
 the Jews at their Passover ? and it was decided in a case before the 
 town-bailies of Cupar-Angus, when Luckie Simpson's cow had 
 drunk up Luckie Jameson's browst of ale, while it stood in the door 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 23 
 
 to cool, that there was no damage to pay, because the crummie 
 drank without sitting down ; such being the very circumstance 
 constituting Doch an dorroch, which is a standing drink, for which 
 no reckoning is paid. Ha, sir ! what says your advocateship {fieri) 
 to that? Exceptio firmat regiilam — But come, fill your glass, 
 Alan ; I am not sorry ye have shown this attention to Darsie 
 Latimer, who is a good lad, as times go ; and having now lived 
 under my roof since he left ,the school, why, there is really no great 
 matter in coming under this small obligation to him." 
 
 As I saw my father's scruples were much softened by the con- 
 sciousness of his superiority in the legal argument, I took care to 
 accept my pardon as a matter of grace, rather than of justice ; and 
 only replied, we should feel ourselves duller of an evening, now 
 that you were absent. I will give you my father's exact words in 
 reply, Darsie. You know him so well, that they will not offend 
 you ; and you are also aware, that there mingles with the good 
 man's preciseness and formality, a fund of shrewd observation and 
 practical good sense. 
 
 " It is very true," he said ; " Darsie was a pleasant companion — 
 but over waggish, over waggish, Alan, and somewhat scatter- 
 brained. — By the way, Wilkinson must get our ale bottled in 
 English pints now, for a quart bottle is too much, night after night, 
 for you and me, without his assistance. — But Darsie, as I was 
 saying, is an arch lad, and somewhat light in the upper story — I 
 wish him well through the world ; but he has little solidity, Alan, 
 little solidity." 
 
 I scorn to desert an absent friend, Darsie, so I said for you a 
 little more than my conscience warranted : but your defection from 
 your legal studies had driven you far to leeward in my fatheifs 
 good opinion. 
 
 " Unstable as water, he shall not excel," said my father ; " or, as 
 the Septuagint hath it, Effusa est sicut aqua—non crescat. He 
 goeth to dancing-houses, and readeth novels — sat est." 
 
 I endeavoured to parry these texts by observing, that the dancing- 
 houses amounted only to one night at La Pique's ball — the novels 
 (so far as matter of notoriety, Darsie) to an odd volume of Tom 
 Jones. 
 
 " But he danced from night to morning," repUed my father, "and 
 he read the idle trash, which the author should have been scourged 
 for, at least twenty times over. It was never out of his hand." 
 
 I then hinted, that in all probability your fortune was now so 
 easy as to dispense with y«ur prosecuting the law any farther than 
 you had done ; and therefore you might think you had some title 
 to amuse yourself. This was the least palatable argument of all. 
 
84 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " If he cannot amuse himself with the law," said my father, 
 snappishly, " it is the worse for him. If he needs not law to teach 
 him to make a fortune, I am sure he needs it to teach him how to 
 keep one ; and it would better become him to be learning this, than 
 to be scouring the country like a landlouper, going he knows not 
 where, to see he knows not what, and giving treats at Noble-House 
 to fools like himself," (an angry glance at poor me.) " Noble- 
 House, indeed ! " he repeated, with elevated voice and sneering 
 tone, as if there were something offensive to him in the very name, 
 though I will venture to say that any place in which you had been 
 extravagant enough to spend five shillings, would have stood as 
 deep in his reprobation 
 
 Mindful of your idea, that my father knows more of your real 
 situation than he thinks proper to mention, I thought I would 
 hazard a fishing observation. " I did not see," I said, " how the 
 Scottish law would be useful to a young gentleman whose fortune 
 would seem to be vested in England." — I really thought my father 
 would have beat me. 
 
 "D'ye mean to come round me, sir, per ambages, as Counsellor 
 Pest says ? What is it to you where Darsie Latimer's fortune is 
 vested, or whether he hath any fortune, ay or no ? — And what ill 
 would the Scottish law do to him, though he had as much ©f it as 
 either Stair or Bankton, sir ? Is not the foundation of our muni- 
 cipal law the ancient code of the Roman Empire, devised at a time 
 when it was so much renowned for its civil polity, sir, and wisdom ? 
 Go to your bed, sir, after your expedition to Noble-House, and see 
 that your lamp be burning, and your book before you, ere the sun 
 peeps. Ars longa, vita brevis, — were it not a sin to call the divine 
 science of the law by the inferior name of art." 
 
 So my lamp did burn, dear Darsie, the next mo-=^mg, though the 
 owner took the risk of a domiciliary visitation, and lay snug in bed, 
 trusting its glimmer might, without farther enquiry, be received as 
 sufficient evidence of his vigilance. And now, upon this the third 
 morning after your departure, things are but little better j for 
 though the lamp burns in my den, and Voet on the Pandects hath 
 his wisdom spread open before me, yet as I only use him as a read- 
 ing-desk on which to scribble this sheet of nonsense to Darsie 
 Latimer, it is probable the vicinity will be of little furtherance to 
 my studies. 
 
 And now, methinks, I hear thee call me an affected hypocritical 
 varlet, who, living under such a system of distrust and restraint as 
 my father chooses to govern by, nevertheless pretends not to envy 
 you your freedom and independence. 
 
 Latimer, I will tell you no lies. I wish my father would allow 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 25 
 
 me a little more exercise of my free will, were it but that I might 
 feel the pleasure of doing what would please him of my own 
 accord. A little more spare time, and a little more money to enjoy 
 it, would, besides, neither misbecome my age nor my condition ; 
 and it is, I own, provoking to see so many in the same situation 
 winging the air at freedom, while I sit here, caged up like a cob- 
 bler's linnet, to chant the same unvaried lesson from sunrise to 
 sunset, not to mention the listening to so many lectures against 
 idleness, as if I enjoyed or was making use of the means of amuse- 
 ment ! But then I cannot at heart blame either the motive or the 
 object of this severity. For the motive, it is and can only be my 
 father's anxious, devoted, and unremitting affection and zeal for 
 my improvement, with a laudable sense of the honour of the pro- 
 fession to which he has trained me. 
 
 As we have no near relations, the tie betwixt us is of even 
 unusual closeness, though in itself one of the strongest which 
 nature can form. I am, and have all along been, the exclusive 
 object of my father's anxious hopes, and his still more anxious 
 and engrossing fears ; so what title have I to complain, although 
 now and then these fears and hopes lead him to take a trouble- 
 some and incessant charge of all my motions ? Besides, I ought 
 to recollect, and, Darsie, I do recollect, that my father, upon 
 various important occasions, has shown that he can be indulgent 
 as well as strict. The leaving his old apartments in the tucken- 
 booths was to him like divorcing the soul from the body ; yet Dr. 
 
 R did but hint that the better dir of this new district was more 
 
 favourable to my health, as I was then suffering under the penalties 
 of too rapid a growth, when he exchanged his old and beloved 
 quarters, adjacent to the very Heart of Mid-Lothian, for one of 
 those new tenements [entire within themselves] which modern taste 
 has so lately introduced. — Instance also the inestimable favour 
 which he conferred on me by receiving you into his house, when 
 you had only the unpleasant alternative of remaining, though a 
 grown-up lad, in the society of mere boys.* This was a thing so 
 contrary to all my father's ideas of seclusion, of economy, and of 
 the safety to my morals and industry, which he wished to attain, 
 by preserving me from the society of other young people, that, 
 upon my word, I am always rather astonished how I should have 
 had the impudence to make the request, than that he should have 
 complied with it. 
 
 Then for the object of his solicitude — Do not laugh, or hold up 
 your hands, my good Darsie ; but upon my word I like the pro- 
 fession to which I am in the course of being educated, and am serious 
 in prosecuting the preliminary studies. The law is my vocation — 
 
26 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 in an especial, and, I may say, in an hereditary way, my vocation ; 
 for although I have not the honour to belong to any of the great 
 families who form in Scotland, as in France, the noblesse of the 
 robe, and with us, at least, carry their heads as high, or rather 
 higher, than the noblesse of the sword, — for the former consist more 
 frequently of the " first-born of Egypt," — yet my grandfather, who, 
 I dare say, was a most excellent person, had the honour to sign a 
 bitter protest against the Union, in the respectable character of 
 town-clerk to the ancient Borough of Birlthegroat ; and there is 
 some reason — shall I say to hope, or to suspect ? — that he may have 
 been a natural son of a first cousin of the then Fairford of that 
 Ilk, who had been long numbered among the minor barons. Now 
 my father mounted a step higher on the ladder of legal promotion, 
 being, as you know as well as I do, an eminent and respected 
 Writer to his Majesty's Signet ; and I myself am destined to mount 
 a round higher still, and wear the honoured robe which is sometimes 
 supposed, like Charity, to cover a multitude of sins. I have, there- 
 fore, no choice but to climb upwards, since we have mounted thus 
 high, or else to fall down at the imminent risk of my neck. So that 
 I reconcile myself to my destiny ; and while you are looking from 
 mountain peaks at distant lakes and friths, I am, de apicibus juris, 
 consoling myself with visions of crimson and scarlet gowns — with 
 the appendages of handsome cowls, well lined with salary. 
 
 You smile, Darsie, more tuo, and seem to say it is little worth 
 while to cozen one's self with such vulgar dreams : yoiirs being, on 
 the contrary, of a high and heroic character, bearing the same 
 resemblance to mine, that a bench, covered with purple cloth, and 
 plentifully loaded with session papers, does to some Gothic throne, 
 rough with Barbaric pearl and gold. But what would you have ? — 
 Sua quemque trahit voluptas. ' And my visions of preferment, 
 though they may be as unsubstantial at present, are nevertheless 
 more capable of being reaUzed, than your aspirations after the 
 Lord knows what. What says my father's proverb .■' " Look to a 
 gown of gold, and you will at least get a sleeve of it." Such is 
 my pursuit ; but what dost thou look to ? The chance that the 
 mystery, as you call it, which at present overclouds your birth and 
 connexions, will clear up into something inexpressibly and incon- 
 ceivably brilliant ; and this without any effort or exertion of your 
 own, but purely by the good-will of Fortune. I know the pride 
 and naughtiness of thy heart, and sincerely do I wish that thou 
 hadst more beatings to thank me for, than those which thou dost 
 acknowledge so gratefully. Then had I thumped these Quixotical 
 expectations out of thee, and thou hadst not, as now, conceived 
 thyself to be the hero of some romantic history, and converted, in 
 
REDOAUNTLET. 37 
 
 thy vain imagination, honest Griffiths, citizen and broker, who 
 never bestows more than the needful upon his quarterly epistles, 
 into some wise Alcander or sage Alquife, the mystical and magical 
 protector of thy peerless destiny. But I know not how it was, thy 
 skull got harder, 1 think, and my knuckles became softer ; not to 
 mention that at length thou didst begin to show about thee a spark 
 of something dangerous, which I was bound to respect at least, if 
 I did not fear it. 
 
 And while I speak of this, it is not much amiss to advise thee to 
 correct a little this cock-a-hoop courage of thine. I fear much 
 that, like a hot-mettled horse, it will carry the owner into some 
 scrape, out of which he will find it difficult to extricate himself, 
 especially if the daring spirit which bore thee thither should chance 
 to fail thee at a pinch. Remember, Darsie, thou art not naturally 
 courageous ; on the contrary, we have long since agreed, that, 
 quiet as I am, I have the advantage in this important particular. 
 My courage consists, I think, in strength of nerves and constitu- 
 tional indifference to danger ; which, though it never pushes me on 
 adventure, secures me in full use of my recollection, and tolerably 
 complete self-possession, when danger actually arrives. Now, thine 
 seems more what may be called intellectual courage ; highness of 
 spirit, and desire of distinction ; impulses which render thee alive 
 to the love of fame, and deaf to the apprehension of danger, until 
 it forces itself suddenly upon thee. I own that whether it is from 
 my having caught my father's apprehensions, or that I have reason 
 to entertain doubts of my own, I often think that this wildfire chase, 
 of romantic situation and adventure, may lead thee into some mis- 
 chief; and then what would become of Alan Fairford? They 
 might make whom they pleased Lord- Advocate, or Solicitor-General, 
 I should never have the heart to strive for it. All my exertions are 
 intended to vindicate myself one day in your eyes ; and I think I 
 should not care a farthing for the embroidered silk gown, more than 
 for an old woman's apron, unless I had hopes that thou shouldst be 
 walking the boards to admire, and perhaps to envy me. 
 
 That tliis may be the case, I prithee— beware ! See not a Dul- 
 cinea in every slipshod girl, who, with blue eyes, fair hair, a tattered 
 plaid, and a willow-wand in her gripe, drives out the village cows 
 to the loaning. Do not think you will meet a gallant Valentine in 
 every English rider, or an Orson in every Highland drover. View 
 things as they are, and not as they may be magnified through thy 
 teeming fancy. I have seen thee look at an old gravel pit, till 
 thou madest out capes, and bays, and inlets, crags, and precipices, 
 and the whole stupendous scenery of the isle of Feroe, in what was 
 to all ordinary eyes a mere horsepond. Besides, did I not once 
 
28 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 find thee gazing with respect at a lizard, in the attitude of one who 
 looks upon a crocodile ? Now this is, doubtless, so far a harmless 
 exercise of your imagination, for the puddle cannot drown you, nor 
 the Lilliputian alligator eat you up. But it is different in society, 
 where you cannot mistake the character of those you converse 
 with, or suffer your fancy to exaggerate their qualities, good or bad, 
 without exposing yourself not only to ridicule, but to great and 
 serious inconveniencies. Keep guard, therefore, on your imagina- 
 tion, my dear Darsie ; and let your old friend assure you, it is the 
 point of your character most pregnant with peril to its good and 
 generous owner. Adieu ! let not the franks of the worthy peer 
 remain unemployed ; above all, Sis memor met. 
 
 A. F. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 DARSIE LATIMER TO ALAN FAIRFORD. 
 
 Shepherd's Bush. 
 
 I HAVE received thine absurd and most conceited epistle. It is 
 well for thee that, Lovelace and Belford like, we came under a 
 convention to pardon every species of liberty which we may take 
 with each other ; since, upon my word, there are some reflections 
 in your last, which would otherwise have obliged me to return forth- 
 with to Edinburgh, merely to show you I was not what you took 
 me for. 
 
 Why, what a pair of prigs hast thou made of us !— I plunging 
 into scrapes, without having courage to get out of them— thy saga- 
 cious self, afraid to put one foot before the other, lest it should run 
 away from its companion ; and so standing still like a post, out of 
 mere faintness and coldness of heart, while all the world were 
 driving full speed past thee. Thou a portrait-painter ! — I tell 
 thee, Alan, I have seen a better seated on the fourth round of a 
 ladder, and painting a bare-breeched Highlander, holding a pint- 
 stoup as big as himself, and a booted Lowlander, in a bobwig, sup- 
 porting a glass of like dimensions ; the whole being designed to 
 represent the sign of the Salutation. 
 
 How hadst thou the heart to represent thine own individual self, 
 with all thy motions, like those of a great Dutch doll, depending on 
 the pressure of certain Springs, as duty, reflection, and the like ; 
 without the impulse of which, thou wouldst doubtless have me 
 believe thou wouldst not budge an inch? But have I not seen 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 29 
 
 Gravity out of his bed at midnight ? and must I, in plain terms, 
 remind thee of certain mad pranks ? Thou hadst ever, with the 
 gravest sentiments in thy mouth, and the most starched reserve in 
 thy manner, a kind of lumbering proclivity towards mischief, 
 although with more inclination to set it a-going, than address to 
 carry it through ; and I cannot but chuckle internally, when I 
 think of having seen my most venerable monitor, the future 
 President of some high Scottish Court, puffing, blowing, and 
 floundering, like a clumsy cart-horse in a bog, where his efforts to 
 extricate himself only plunged him deeper at every awkward 
 struggle, till some one — I myself, for example — took compassion on 
 the moaning monster, and dragged him out by mane and tail. 
 
 As for me, my portrait is, if possible, even more scandalously 
 caricatured. I fail or quail in spirit at the upcome ! Where canst 
 thou show me the least symptom of the recreant temper with which 
 thou hast invested me, (as I trust,) merely to set off the solid and 
 impassible dignity of thine own stupid indifference ? If you ever 
 saw me tremble, be assured that my flesh, like that of the old 
 Spanish general, only quaked at the dangers into which my spirit 
 was about to lead it. Seriously, Alan, this imputed poverty of 
 spirit is a shabby charge to bring against your friend. I have 
 examined myself as closely as I can, being, in very truth, a little 
 hurt at your having such hard thoughts of me, and on my life I can 
 see no reason for them. I allow you have, perhaps, some advantage 
 of me in the steadiness and indifference of your temper; but I 
 should depise myself, if I were conscious of the deficiency in 
 courage which you seem willing enough to impute tome. However, 
 I suppose this ungracious hint proceeds from sincere anxiety for my 
 safety ; and so viewing it, I swallow it as I would do medicine from 
 a friendly doctor, although I believed in my heart he had mistaken 
 my complaint. 
 
 This offensive insinuation disposed of, I thank thee, Alan, for the 
 rest of thy epistle. I thought I heard your good father pronouncing 
 the word Noble-House, with a mixture of contempt and displeasure, 
 as if the very name of the poor little hamlet were Odious to him, or, 
 as if you had selected, out of all Scotland, the very place' at which 
 you had no call to dine. But if he had had any particular aversion 
 to that blameless village, and very sorry inn, is it not his own fault 
 that I did not accept the invitation of the Laird of Glengallacher, 
 to shoot a buck in what he emphatically calls his "country?" 
 Truth is, I had a strong desire to have complied with his Lairdship's 
 invitation. To shoot a buck ! Think how magnificent an idea to 
 one who never shot any thing but hedge-sparrows, and that with a 
 horse-pistol, purchased at a broker's stand in the Cowgate ! — You, 
 
30 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 who Stand upon your courage, may remember that I took the risk 
 of firing the said pistol for the first time, while you stood at twenty 
 yards' distance ; and that, when you were persuaded it would go off 
 without bursting, forgetting all law but that of the biggest and 
 strongest, you possessed yourself of it exclusively for the rest of the 
 holydays. Such a day's sport was no complete introduction to the 
 noble art of deer-stalking, as it is practised in the Highlands ; but 
 I should not have scrupled to accept honest Glengallacher's in- 
 vitation, at the risk of firing a rifle for the first time, had it not been 
 for the outcry which your father made at my proposal, in the full 
 ardour of his zeal for King George, the Hanover succession, and 
 the Presbyterian faith. I wish I had stood out, since I have gained 
 so little upon his good opinion by submission. All his impressions 
 concerning the Highlanders are taken from the recollections of the 
 Forty-five, when he retreated from the West-Port with his brother 
 volunteers, each to the fortalice of his own separate dwelling, so 
 soon as they heard the Adventurer was arrived with his clans as 
 near them as Kirkliston. The flight of Falkirk— parma non bene 
 selecta — in which I think your sire had his share with the undaunted 
 western regiment, does not seem to have improved his taste for 
 the company of the Highlanders ; (quaere, Alan, dost thou derive 
 the courage thou makest such boast of from an hereditary source?) 
 — and stories of Rob Roy Macgregor, and Sergeant Alan Mhor 
 Cameron,* have served to paint them in still more sable colours to 
 his imagination. 
 
 Now, from all I can understand, these ideas, as applied to the 
 present state of the country, are absolutely chimerical. The 
 Pretender is no more remembered in the Highlands, than if the 
 poor gentleman were gathered to his hundred and eight fathers, 
 whose portraits adorn the ancient walls of Holyrood ; the broad- 
 swords have passed into other hands ; the targets are used to cover 
 the butter-churns ; and the race has sunk, or is fast sinking, from 
 ruffling bullies into tame cheaters. Indeed, it was partly my con- 
 viction that there is little to be seen in the north, which, arriving 
 at your father's conclusion, though from different premises, inclined 
 my course in this direction, where perhaps I shall see as little. 
 
 One thing, however, I have seen ; and it was with pleasure the 
 more indescribable, that I was debarred from treading the land 
 which my eyes were permitted to gaze upon, like those of the dying 
 prophet from the top of Mount Pisgah,— I have seen, in a word, the 
 fruitful shores of merry England ; merry England ! of which I 
 boast myself a native, and on which I gaze, even while raging floods 
 and unstable quicksands divide us, with the filial affection of a 
 dutiful son, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 3t 
 
 Thou canst not have forgotten, Alan — for when didst thou ever 
 forget what was interesting to thy friend? — that the same letter 
 fipom my friend Griffiths, which doubled my income, and placed my 
 motions at my own free disposal, contained a prohibitory clause, by 
 which, reason none assigned, I was interdicted, as I respected my 
 present safety and future fortunes, from visiting England ; every 
 other part of the British dominions, and a tour, if I pleased, on the 
 continent, being left to my own choice. — Where is the tale, Alan, of 
 a covered dish in the midst of a royal banquet, upon which the 
 eyes of every guest were immediately fixed, neglecting all the 
 dainties with which the table was loaded ? This clause of banish- 
 ment from England — from my native country — from the land of the 
 brave, and the wise, and the firee — affects me more than I am 
 rejoiced by the freedom and independence assigned to me in all 
 other respects. Thus, in seeking this extreme boundary of the 
 country which I am forbidden to tread, I resemble the poor 
 tethered horse, which, you may have observed, is always grazing 
 on the very verge of the circle to which it is Umited by its halter. 
 
 Do not accuse me of romance for obeying this impulse towards 
 the South ; nor suppose that, to gratify the imaginary longing of an 
 idle curiosity, I am in any danger of risking the solid comforts of 
 my present condition. Whoever has hitherto taken charge of my 
 motions, has shown me, by convincing proofs, more weighty than 
 the assurances which they have withheld, that my real advantage 
 is their principal object. I should be, therefore, worse than a fool 
 did I object to their authority, even when it seems somewhat 
 capriciously exercised ; for assuredly, at my age, I might — ^in- 
 trusted as I am with the care and management of myself in every 
 other particular — expect that the cause of excluding me from 
 England should be frankly and fairly stated for my own considera- 
 tion and guidance. However, I wiU not grumble about the matter. 
 I shall know the whole story one day. 1 suppose ; and perhaps, as 
 you sometimes surmise, I shall not find there is any mighty matter 
 in it after aU. 
 
 Yet one cannot help wondering — but, plague on it, if I wonder 
 any longer, my letter wiU be as fiill of wonders as one of Katter- 
 felto's advertisements. I have a month's mind, instead of this 
 damnable iteration of guesses and forebodings, to give thee the 
 history of a little adventure which befell me yesterday ; thou^ I 
 am sure you wiU, as usual, turn the opposite end of the spy-glass 
 on my poor narrative, and reduce, tnore tuo, to the most petty 
 trivialities, the circumstances to which thou accusest me of giving 
 undue consequence. Hang thee, Alan, thou art as unfit a confidant 
 for a youthful gallant with some spice of imagination, as the old 
 
32 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 taciturn secretary of Facardin of Trebizond. Nevertheless, we must 
 each perform our separate destinies. I am doomed to see, act, and 
 tell :— thou, like a Dutchman, enclosed in the same Diligence with 
 a Gascon, to hear, and shrug thy shoulders. 
 
 Of Dumfries, the capital town of this county, I have but little to 
 say, and will not abuse your patience by reminding you, that it is 
 built on the gallant river Nith, and that its churchyard, the highest 
 place of the whole town, commands an extensive and fine prospect. 
 Neither will I take the traveller's privilege of inflicting upon you 
 the whole history of Bruce poniarding the Red Comyn in the 
 Church of the Dominicans at this place, and becoming a king and 
 patriot, because he had been a church-breaker and a murderer. 
 The present Dumfriezers remember and justify the deed, observing, 
 it was only a papist church — in evidence whereof, its walls have 
 been so completely demolished, that no vestiges of them remain. 
 They are a sturdy set of true-blue Presbyterians, these burghers of 
 Dumfries ; men after your father's own heart, zealous for the 
 Protestant succession — the rather that many of the great families 
 around are suspected to be of a different way of thinking, and 
 shared, a great many of them, in the insurrection of the Fifteen, 
 and some in the more recent business of the Forty-five. The town 
 itself suffered in the latter era ; for Lord Elcho, with a large party 
 of the rebels, levied a severe contribution upon Dumfries, on 
 account of the citizens having annoyed the rear of the Chevalier 
 during his march into England. 
 
 Many of these particulars I learned from Provost C r, who, 
 
 happening to see me in the market-place, remembered that I was 
 an intimate of your father's, and very kindly asked me to dinner. 
 Pray tell your father that the effects of his kindness to me follow me 
 every where. I became tired, however, of this pretty town in the 
 course of twenty-four hours, and crept along the coast eastwards, 
 amusing myself with looking out for objects of antiquity, and 
 sometimes making, or attempting to make, use of my new angling- 
 rod. By the way, old Cotton's instructions, by which I hoped to 
 quahfy myself for one of the gentle society of anglers, are not worth 
 a farthing for this meridian. I learned this by mere accident, after 
 I had waited four mortal hours. I shall never forget an impudent 
 urchin, a cowherd about twelve years old, ^yithout either brogue or 
 bonnet, barelegged, and with a very indifferent pair of breeches 
 —how the villain grinned in scorn at my landing-net, my plummet, 
 and the gorgeous jury of flies which I had assembled to destroy all 
 the fish in the river. I was induced at last to lend the rod to the 
 sneering scoundrel, to see what he would make of it ; and he not 
 only half filled my basket in an hour, but literally taught me to kill 
 

 ^. 
 
REDGAUNTLKT. 33 
 
 two trouts with my own ..and. This, and Sam having found the 
 hay and oats, not forgetting the ale, very good at this small inn, 
 first made me take the fancy of resting here for a day or two ; and 
 I have got my grinning blackguard of a Piscator leave to attend on 
 me, by paying sixpence a-day for a herd-boy in his stead. 
 
 A notably clean Englishwoman keeps this small house, and my 
 bedroom is sweetened with lavender, has a clean sash-window, and 
 the walls arc, moreover, adorned with ballads of Fair Rosamond 
 and Cruel Barbara Allan. The woman's accent, though uncouth 
 enough, sounds 5'et kindly in my ear ; for I have never yet for- 
 gotten the desolate effect produced on my infant organs, when I 
 heard on all sides your slow and broad northern pronunciation, 
 which was to me the tone of a foreign land. I am sensible I myself 
 have since that time acquired Scotch in perfection, and many a 
 Scotticism withal. Still the sound of the English accentuation 
 comes to my ears as the tones of a friend ; and even when heard from 
 the mouth of some wandering beggar, it has seldom failed to 
 charm forth my mite. You Scotch, who are so proud of your own 
 nationality, must make due allowance for that of other folks. 
 
 On the next morning I was about to set forth to the stream 
 where I had commenced angler the night before, but was pre- 
 vented, by a heavy shower of rain, from stirring abroad the whole 
 forenoon ; during all which time I heard my varlet of a guide as 
 loud with his blackguard jokes in the kitchen, as a footman in the 
 shilling gallery ; — so little are modesty and innocence the insepar- 
 able companions of rusticity and seclusion. 
 
 When after dinner the day cleared, and we at length sallied out 
 to the river side, I found myself subjected to a new trick on the 
 part of my accomplished preceptor. Apparently, he liked fishing 
 himself better than the trouble of instructing an awkward novice, 
 such as I ; and in hojies of exhausting my patience, and inducing 
 me to resign the rod, as I had done on the preceding day, my 
 friend contrived to keep me thrashing the water more than an 
 hour with a pointless hook. I detected this trick at last, by 
 observing the rogue grinning with delight when he saw a large 
 trout rise and dash harmless away from the angle. I gave him a 
 sound cuff, Alan ; but the next moment was sorry, and, to make 
 amends, yielded possession of the fishing-rdd for the rest of the 
 evening, he undertaking to bring me home a dish of trouts for my 
 supper, in atonement for his offences. 
 
 Having thus got honourably rid of the trouble of amusirtg 
 myself in a way I cared not for, I turned my steps towards the 
 sea, or rather the Solway Frith, which here separates the two 
 sister kingdoms, and which lay at about a mile's distance, by a 
 
 D 
 
34 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 pleasant walkover sandy knolls, covered with short herbage, which 
 you call Links, and we English, Downs. 
 
 But the rest of my adventure would weary out my fingers, and 
 must be deferred until to-morrow, when you shall hear from me by 
 way of continuation ; and, in the meanwhile, to prevent overhasty 
 conclusions, I must just hint to you, we are but yet on the verge of 
 the adventure which it is my purpose to communicate. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 Shepherd's Bush. 
 
 I MENTIONED in my last, that having abandoned my fishing-rod 
 as an unprofitable implement, I crossed over the open downs which 
 divided me from the margin of the Solway. When I reached the 
 banks of the great estuary, which are here very bare and exposed, 
 the waters had receded from the large and level space of sand, 
 through which a stream, now feeble and fordable, found its way 
 to the ocean. The whole was illuminated by the beams of the low 
 and setting sun, who showed his ruddy front, like a warrior prepared 
 for defence, over a huge battlemented and turreted wall of crimson 
 and black clouds, which appeared like an immense Gothic fortress, 
 into which the lord of day was descending. His setting rays 
 glimmered bright upon the wet surface of the sands, and the 
 numberless pools of water by which it was covered, where the 
 inequality of the ground had occasioned their being left by the 
 tide. 
 
 The scene was animated by the exertions of a number of horse- 
 men, who were actually employed in hunting salmon. Ay, Alan, 
 lift up your hands and eyes as you will, I can give their mode of 
 fishing no name so appropriate ; for they chased the fish at full 
 gallop, and struck them with their barbed spears, as you see 
 hunters spearing boars in the old tapestry. The salmon, to be 
 sure, take the thing more quietly than the boars ; but they are so 
 swift in their own element, that to pursue and strike them is the 
 task of a good horseman, with a quick eye, a determined hand, 
 and full command both of his horse and weapon. The shouts of 
 the fellows as they galloped up and down in the animating exer- 
 cise — their loud bursts of laughter when any of their number 
 caught a fall— and still louder acclamations when any of the 
 party made a capital stroke with his lance— gave so much 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 35 
 
 animation to the whole scene, that I caught the enthusiasm of the 
 sport, and ventured forward a considerable space on the sands. 
 The feats of one horseman, in particular, called forth so repeatedly 
 the clamorous applause of his companions, that the very banks 
 rang again with their shouts. He was a tall man, well mounted 
 on a strong black horse, which he caused to turn and wind like a 
 bird in the air, carried a longer spear than the others, and wore a 
 sort of fur cap or bonnet, with a short feather in it, which gave 
 him on the whole rather a superior appearance to the other fisher- 
 men. He seemed to hold some sort of authority among them, 
 and occasionally directed their motions both by voice and hand ; 
 at which times I thought his gestures were striking, and his voice 
 uncommonly sonorous and commanding. 
 
 The riders began to make for the shore, and the interest of the 
 scene was almost over, while I lingered on the sands, with my 
 looks turned to the shores of England, still gilded by the sun's 
 last rays, and, as it seemed, scarce distant a mile from me. The 
 anxious thoughts which haunt me began to muster in my bosom 
 and my feet slowly and insensibly approached the river which 
 divided me from the forbidden precincts, though without any 
 formed intention, when my steps were arrested by the sound of a 
 horse galloping ; and as I turned, the rider (the same fisherman 
 whom I had formerly distinguished) called out to me, in an abrupt 
 manner, " Soho, brother ! you are too late for Bowness to-night — 
 the tide will make presently." 
 
 I turned my head and looked at him without answering ; for, 
 to my thinking, his sudden appearance (or rather, I should say, his 
 unexpected approach) had, amidst the gathering shadows and 
 lingering light, something in it which was wild and ominous. 
 
 " Are you deaf ? " he added — " or are you mad ? — or have you a 
 mind for the next world? " 
 
 " I am a stranger," I answered, " and had no other purpose than 
 looking on at the fishing — I am about to return to the side I 
 came from." 
 
 " Best make haste then," said he. " He that dreams on the bed 
 of the Solway, may wake in the next world. The sky threatens a 
 blast that wiE bring in the waves three feet a-breast." 
 
 So saying, he turned his horse and rode off, while I began to 
 walk back towards the Scottish shore, a little alarmed at what I 
 had heard ; for the tide advances with such rapidity upon these 
 fatal sands, that well-mounted horsemen lay aside hopes of safety, 
 if they see its white surge advancing while they are yet at a distance 
 from the bank. 
 
 These recollections grew more agitating, and instead of walking 
 
 D 2 
 
36 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 deliberately, I began a race as fast as I could, feeling, or thinking 
 I felt, each pool of salt water through which I splashed, grow deeper 
 and deeper. At length the surface of the sand did seem consider- 
 ably more intersected with pools and channels full of water— either 
 that the tide was really beginning to influence the bed of the 
 estuary, or, as I must own is equally probable, that I had, in the 
 hurry and confusion of my retreat, inyolved myself in difficulties 
 which I had avoided in my more deliberate advance. Either way, 
 it was rather an unpromising state of affairs, for the sands at the 
 same time turned softer, and my footsteps, so soon as I had passed, 
 were instantly filled with water. I began to have odd recollections 
 concerning the snugness of your father's parlour, and the secure 
 footing afforded by the pavement of Brown's Square and Scot's 
 close, when my better genius, the tall fisherman, appeared once 
 more close to my side, he and his sable horse looming gigantic in 
 the now darkening twilight. 
 
 " Are you mad ? " he said, in the same deep tone which had before 
 thrilled on my ear, " or are you weary of your life ? — You will be 
 presently amongst the quicksands." — I professed my ignorance of 
 the way, to which he only repUed, " There is no time for prating— 
 get up behind me." 
 
 He probably expected me to spring from the ground with the 
 activity which these Borderers have, by constant practice, acquired 
 in every thing relating to horsemanship ; but as I stood irresolute, 
 he extended his hand, and grasping mine, bid me place my foot on 
 the toe of his boot, and thus raised me in a trice to the croupe of 
 his horse. I was scarce securely seated, ere he shook the reins of bis 
 horse, who instantly sprung forward ; but annoyed, doubtless, by 
 the unusual burden, treated us to two or three bounds, accompanied 
 by as many flourishes of his hind heels. The rider sat like a tower, 
 notwithstanding that the unexpected plunging of the animal threw 
 me forward upon him. The horse was soon compelled to submit 
 to the discipline of the spur and bridle, and went off at a steady 
 hand gallop ; thus shortening the devious, for it was by no means 
 a direct path, by which the rider, avoiding the loose quicksands, 
 made for the northern bank. 
 
 My friend, perhaps I may call him my preserver, — for, to a 
 stranger, my situation was fraught with real danger,— continued to 
 press on at the same speedy spa:ce, but in jierfect silence, and I 
 was under too much anxiety of mind to disturb him with any 
 questions. At length we arrived at a part of the shore with which 
 I was utterly unacquainted, when I ahghted and began to return, 
 in the best fashion I could, my thanks for the important service 
 which he had just rendered me. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 37 
 
 The stranger only replied by an impatient " pshaw ! " and was 
 about to ride off, and leave me to my own resources, when I 
 implored him to complete his work of kindness, by directing me to 
 Shepherd's Bush, which was, as I informed him, my home for the 
 present. 
 
 " To Shepherd's Bush ? " he said ; " it is but three miles, but if 
 you know not the land better than the sand, you may break your 
 neck before you get there ; for it is no road for a moping boy in a 
 dark night ; and, besides, there are the brook and the fens to 
 cross." 
 
 I was a little dismayed at this communication of such difficulties 
 as my habits have not called on me to contend with. Once more 
 the idea of thy father's fireside came across me ; and I could have 
 been well contented to have swop'd the romance of my situation, 
 together with the glorious independence of control which I pos- 
 sessed at the moment, for the comforts of the chimney-comer, 
 though I were obliged to keep my eyes chained to Erskine's Larger 
 Institutes. 
 
 I asked my new friend whether he could not direct me to any 
 house of public entertainment for the night ; arid, supposing it 
 probable he was himself a poor man, I added, with the conscious 
 dignity of a well-filled pocketbook, that I could make it worth any 
 man's- whUe to oblige me. The fisherman making no answer, I 
 turned away from him with as gallant an appearance of indifference 
 as I could command, and began to take, as I thought, the path 
 which he had pointed out to me. 
 
 His deep voice immediately sounded after me to recall me. 
 " Stay, young man, stay — you have mistaken the road already. — I 
 wonder your friends send out such an inconsiderate youth, without 
 some one wiser than himself to take care of him." 
 
 " Perhaps they might not have done so," said I, "if I had any 
 friends who cared about the matter." 
 
 " Well, sir," he said, " it is not my custom to open my house to 
 strangers, but your pinch is like to be a smart one ; for, besides the 
 risk from bad roads, fords, and broken ground, and the night, which 
 looks both black and gloomy, there is bad company on the road 
 sometimes — at least it has a bad name, and some have come to harm ; 
 so that I think I must for once make my rule give way to your 
 necessity, and give you a night's lodging in my cottage." 
 
 Why was it, Alan, that I could not help giving an involuntary 
 shudder at receiving an invitation so seasonable in itself, and so 
 suitable to my naturally inquisitive disposition ? I easily suppressed 
 this untimely sensation ; and, as I returned thanks, and expressed 
 my hope that I should not disarrange his family, I once more 
 
gg REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 dropped a hint of my' desire to make compensation for any trouble 
 I might occasion. The man answered very coldly, " Your presence 
 -will no doubt give me trouble, sir, but it is of a kind which your 
 purse cannot compensate ; in a word, although I am content to 
 receive you as my guest, I am no publican to call a reckoning." 
 
 I begged his pardon, and, at his instance, once more seated myself 
 behind him upon the good horse, which went forth steady as before 
 — the moon, whenever she could penetrate the clouds, throwing the 
 huge shadow of the animal, with its double burden, on the wild and 
 bare ground over which we passed. 
 
 Thou mayst laugh till thou lettest the letter fall if thou wilt, but 
 it reminded me of the Magician Atlantes on his hippogriff, with a 
 knight trussed up behind him, in the manner Ariosto has depicted 
 that matter. Thou art, I know, matter-of-fact enough to affect 
 contempt of that fascinating and delicious poem ; but think not 
 that, to conform with thy bad taste, I shall forbear any suitable' 
 illustration which now or hereafter may occur to me. 
 
 On we went, the sky blackening around us, and the wind begin- 
 ning to pipe such a wild and melancholy tune as best suited the 
 hollow sounds of the advancing tide, which I could hear at a 
 distance, like the roar of some immense monster defrauded of its 
 prey. 
 
 At length, our course was crossed by a deep' dell or dingle, such 
 as they call in some parts of Scotland a den, and in others a cleuch, 
 or narrow glen. It seemed, by the broken glances which the moon 
 continued to throw upon it, to be steep, precipitous, and full of trees, 
 which are, generally speaking, rather scarce upon these shores. 
 The descent by which we plunged into this dell was both steep and 
 rugged, with two or three abrupt turnings ; but neither danger nor 
 darkness impeded the motion of the black horse, who seemed rather 
 to slide upon his haunches, then to gallop down the pass, throwing 
 me again on the shoulders of the athletic rider, who, sustaining no 
 inconvenience by the circumstance, continued to press the horse 
 forward with his heel, steadily supporting him at the same time by 
 raising his bridle-hand, until we stood in safety at the bottom of the 
 steep— not a little to my consolation, as, friend Alan, thou mayst 
 easily conceive. 
 
 A very short advance up the glen, the bottom of which we had 
 attained by this ugly dfescent, brought us in front of two or three 
 cottages, one of which another blink of moonshine enabled me to 
 rate as rather better than those of the Scottish peasantry in this 
 part of the world ; for the sashes seemed glazed, and there were 
 what are called storm-windows in the roof, giving symptoms of the 
 magnificence of a second story., The scene around was very in- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 39 
 
 teresting ; for the cottages, and the yards or crofts annexed to them, 
 occupied a haugh, or holm, of two acres, which a brook of some 
 consequence (to judge from its roar) had left upon one side of the 
 little glen while finding its course close to the further bank, and 
 which appeared to be covered and darkened with trees, while the 
 level space beneath enjoyed such stormy smiles as the moon had 
 that night to bestow. 
 
 I had Uttle time for observation, for my companion's loud whistle, 
 seconded by an equally loud haUoo, speedily brought to the door of 
 the principal cottage a man and a woman, together with two large 
 Newfoundland dogs, the deep baying of which I had for some time 
 heard. A yelping terrier or two, which had joined the concert, were 
 silent at the presence of my conductor, and began to whine, jump 
 up, and fawn upon him. The female drew back when she beheld a 
 stranger; the man, who had a lighted lantern, advanced, and 
 without any observation, received the horse from my host, and led 
 him, doubtless, to stable, while I followed my conductor into the 
 house. When we had passed the kalian,* we entered a well-sized 
 apartment, with a clean brick floor, where a fire blazed (much to my 
 contentment) in the ordinary projecting sort of chimney, common 
 in Scottish houses. There were stone seats within the chimney ; 
 and ordinary utensils, mixed with fishing-spears, nets, and similar 
 implements of sport, were hung around the walls of the place. The 
 female who had first appeared at the door, had now retreated into 
 a side apartment. She was presently followed by my guide, after 
 he had silently motioned me to a seat j and their place was supplied 
 by an elderly woman, in a grey stuff gown, with a check apron and 
 toy, obviously a menial, though neater in her dress than is usual in 
 her apparent rank — an advantage which was counterbalanced by 
 a very forbidding aspect. But the most singular part of her attire, 
 in this very Protestant country, was a rosary, in which the smaller 
 beads were black oak, and those indicating Xht pater-noster of silver, 
 with a crucifix of the same metal. 
 
 This person made preparations for supper, by spreading a clean 
 though coarse cloth over a large oaken table, placing trenchers and 
 salt upon it, and arranging the fire to receive a gridiron. I observed 
 her motions in silence ; for she took no sort of notice of me, and 
 as her looks were singularly forbidding, I felt no disposition to 
 commence conversation. 
 
 When this duenna had made all preliminary arrangements, she 
 took from the weU-filled pouch of my conductor, which he had hung 
 up by the door, one or two salmon, or grilses, as the smaller sort 
 are termed, and selecting that which seemed best, and in highest 
 ceason, began to cut it into shces, and to prepare a grilladej the 
 
40 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 savoury smell of which affected me so powerfully, that I began sin- 
 cerely to hope that no delay would intervene between the platter and 
 the lip. 
 
 As this thought came across me, the man who had conducted the 
 horse to the stable entered the apartment, and discovered to me a 
 countenance yet more uninviting than that of the old crone who 
 was performing with such dexterity the office of cook to the party. 
 He was perhaps sixty years old ; yet his brow was not much fur- 
 rowed, and his jet black hair was only grizzled, not whitened, by the 
 advance of age. All his motions spoke strength unabated ; and, 
 though rather undersized, he had very broad shoulders, was square- 
 made, thin-flanked, and apparently combined in his frame muscular 
 strength and activity ; the last somewhat impaired perhaps by 
 years, but the first remaining in full vigour. A hard and harsh 
 countenance — eyes far sunk under projecting eyebrows, which were 
 grizzled like his hair — a wide mouth, furnished from ear to ear with 
 a range of unimpaired teeth, of uncommon whiteness, and a size and 
 breadth which might have become the jaws of an ogre, completed 
 this dehghtful portrait. He was clad like a fisherman, in jacket and 
 trowsers of the blue cloth commonly -used by seamen, and had a 
 Dutch case-knife, like that of a Hamburgh skipper, stuck into a 
 broad buff belt, which seemed as if it might occasionally sustain 
 weapons of a description still less equivocally calculated for 
 violence. 
 
 This man gave me an inquisitive, and, as I thought, a sinister 
 look, upon entering the apartment ; but without any farther notice 
 of me, took up the office of arranging the table, which the old lady 
 had abandoned for that of cooking the fish, and, with more address 
 than I expected from a person of his coarse appearance, placed two 
 chairs at the head of the table, and two stools below ; accommodat- 
 ing each seat to a cover, beside which he placed an allowance of 
 barley-bread, and a small jug, which he replenished with ale from 
 a large black jack. Three of these jugs were of ordinary earthen- 
 ware, but the fourth, which he placed by the right-hand cover at the 
 upper end of the table, was a flagon of silver, and displayed armorial 
 bearings. Beside this flagon he placed a saltcellar of silver, hand- 
 somely wrought, containing salt of exquisite whiteness, with pepper 
 and other spices. A sliced lemon was also presented on a small 
 silver salver. The two large water-dogs, who seemed perfectly to 
 understand the nature of the preparations, seated themselves one 
 on each side of the table, to be ready to receive their portion of the 
 entertainment. I never saw finer animals, or which seemed to be 
 more influenced by a sense of decorum, excepting that they slob- 
 bered a little as the rich scent from the chimney was wafted past 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 4' 
 
 their noses. The small dogs ensconced themselves beneath the 
 table. 
 
 I am aware that I am dwelling upon trivial and ordinary circum- 
 stances, and that perhaps I may weaiy out your patience in doing 
 so. But conceive me alone in this strange place, which seemed, 
 from the universal silence, to be the very temple of Harpocrates — 
 remember that this is my first excursion from home — forget not that 
 the manner in which I had been brought hither had the dignity of 
 danger and something the air of an adventure, and that there was 
 a mysterious incongruity in all I had hitherto witnessed ; and you 
 will not, I think, be surprised that these circumstances, though 
 trifling, should force themselves on my notice at the time, and dwell 
 in my memory afterwards. 
 
 That a fisher, who pursued the sport perhaps for his amusement 
 as well as profit, should be well mounted and better lodged than the 
 lower class of peasantry, had in it nothing surprising ;' but there was 
 something about all that I saw which seemed to intimate, that I was 
 rather in the abode of a decayed gentleman, who clung to a few of 
 the forms and observances of former rank, than in that of a common 
 peasant, raised above his fellows by comparative opulence. 
 
 Besides the articles of plate which I have already noticed, the 
 old man now lighted and placed on the table a silver lamp, or 
 cruisie, as the Scottish term it, fiUed with very pure oil, which in 
 burning diffused an aromatic fragrance, and gave me a more perfect 
 view of the cottage walls, which I had hitherto only seen dimly by 
 the light of the fire. The bink* with its usual arrangement of 
 pewter and earthen-ware, which was most strictly and critically 
 clean, glanced back the flame of the lamp merrily from one side of 
 the apartment. In a recess, formed by the small bow of a latticed 
 window, was a large writing-desk of walnut-tree wood, curiously 
 carved, above which arose shelves of the same, which supported a 
 few books and papers. The opposite side of the recess contained 
 (as far as I could discern, for it lay in shadow, and I could at any 
 rate have seen it but imperfectly from the place where I was seated) 
 one or two guns, together with swords, pistols, and other arms — a 
 collection which, in a poor cottage, and in a country so peaceful, 
 appeared singular at least, if not even somewhat suspicious. 
 
 All these observations, you maysuppose, were made much sooner 
 than I have recorded, or you (if you have not skipped) have been 
 able to read them. They were already finished, and I was con- 
 sidering how I should open some communication with the mute 
 inhabitants of the mansion, when my conductor re-entered from the 
 side-door by which he had made his exit. 
 
 He had now thrown off his rough riding-cap, and his coarse 
 
42 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 jockey-coat, and stood before me in a grey jerkin trimmed with 
 black, which sat close to, and set off, his large and sinewy frame, 
 and a pair of trowsers of a lighter colour, cut as close to the body 
 as they are used by Highlandmen. His whole dress was of finer 
 cloth than that of the old man ; and his linen, so minute .was my 
 observation, clean and unsullied. His shirt was without ruffles, and 
 tied at the collar with a black riband, which showed his strong and 
 muscular neck rising from it, like that of an ancient Hercules. His 
 head was small, with a large forehead, and well-formed ears. He 
 wore neither peruke nor hair-powder ; and his chestnut locks, 
 curling close to his head, like those of an antique statue, showed 
 not the least touch of time, though the owner must have been at 
 least fifty. His features were high and prominent in such a degree, 
 that one knew not whether to term them harsh or handsome. In 
 either case, the sparkling grey eye, aquiline nose, and well-formed 
 mouth, combined to render his physiognomy noble and expressive. 
 An air of sadness, or severity, or of both, seemed to indicate a 
 melancholy, and, at the same time, a haughty temper. I could not 
 help running mentally over the ancient heroes, to whom I might 
 assimilate the noble form and countenance before me. He was too 
 young, and evinced too little resignation to his fate,' to resemble 
 Belisarius. Coriolanus, standing by the hearth of Tullus Aufidius, 
 came nearer the mark ; yet the gloomy and haughty look of the 
 stranger had, perhaps, still more of Marius, seated among the ruins 
 of Carthage. 
 
 While I was lost in these imaginations, my host stood by the 
 fire, gazing on me with the same attention which I paid to him, 
 until, embarrassed by his look, I was about to break silence at all 
 hazards. But the supper, now placed upon the table, reminded 
 me, by its appearance, of those wants which I had almost forgotten 
 while I was gazing on the fine form of my conductor. He spoke 
 at length, and I almost started at the deep rich tone of his 
 voice, though what he said was but to invite me to sit down to 
 the table. He himself assumed the seat of honour, beside which 
 the. silver flagon was placed, and beckoned to me to sit beside 
 him. 
 
 Thou knowest thy father's strict and excellent domestic discip- 
 line has trained me to hear the invocation of a blessing before we 
 -break the daily bread, for which we are taught to pray — I paused 
 a moment, and, without designing to do so, I suppose my manner 
 made him, sensible of what I expected. The two domestics, or 
 inferiors, as I should have before observed, were already seated at 
 the bottom of the tabic, when iny host shot a glance of a very 
 peculiar expression towards the old man, observing, with some- 
 
1 
 
 ■"J 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 43 
 
 thing approaching to a sneer, " Cristal Nixon, say grace — the 
 gentleman expects one." 
 
 " The foul fiend shall be clerk, and say amen, when I turn chap- 
 lain," growled out the party addressed, in tones which might have 
 become the condition of a dying bear ; " if the gentleman is a 
 whig, he may please himself with his own mummery. My faith 
 is neither in word nor writ, but in barley bread and brown ale." 
 
 " Mabel Moffat," said my guide, looking at the old woman, and 
 raising his sonorous voice, probably because she was hard of hear- 
 ing, " canst thou ask a blessing upon our victuals ? " 
 
 The old woman shook her head, kissed the cross which hung 
 from her rosary, and was silent. 
 
 " Mabel wiU say grace for no heretic," said the master of the 
 house, with the same latent sneer on his brow and in his accent. 
 
 At the same moment, the side-door already mentioned opened, 
 and the young woman (so she proved) whom I had first seen at the 
 door of the cottage, advanced a little way into the room, then 
 stopped bashfully, as if she had observed that I was looking at her, 
 and asked the master of the house, " if he had called ? " 
 
 " Not louder than to make old Mabel hear me," he replied ; 
 " and yet," he added, as she turned to retire, " it is a shame a 
 stranger should see a house where not one of the family can or will 
 say a grace, — do thou be our chaplain." 
 
 The girl, who was really pretty, came forward with timid 
 modesty, and apparently unconscious that she was doing any 
 thing uncommon, pronounced the benediction in a silver-toned 
 voice, and with affecting simplicity — her cheek colouring just so 
 much as to show, that, on a less solemn occasion, she would 
 have felt more embarrassed. 
 
 Now, if thou expectest a fine description of this young woman, 
 Alan Fairford, in order to entitle thee to taunt me with having 
 found a Dulcinea in the inhabitant of a fisherman's cottage on 
 the Solway Frith, thou shalt be disappointed ; for, "having said 
 she seemed very pretty, and that she was a sweet and gentle- 
 speaking creature, I have said all concerning her that I can tell 
 thee. She vanished when the benediction was spoken. 
 
 My host, with a muttered remark on the cold of our ride, and 
 the keen air of the Solway Sands, to which he did not seem to 
 wish an answer, loaded my plate from Mabel's grillade, which, 
 with a large wooden bowl of potatoes, formed our whole meal. 
 A sprinkling from the lemon gave a much higher zest than the 
 usual condiment of vinegar ; and I promise you that whatever 
 I might hitherto have felt, either of curiosity or suspicion, did 
 not prevent me from making a most excellent supper, during 
 
44 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 which little passed betwixt me and my entertainer, imlesS that 
 he did the usual honours of the table with courtesy, indeed, but 
 without even the affectation of hearty hospitality, which those in 
 his (apparent) condition generally affect on such occasions, even 
 when they do not actually feel it. On the contrary, his manner 
 seemed that of a polished landlord towards an unexpected and 
 unwelcome guest, whom, for the sake of his own credit, he receives 
 with civility, but without either good-will or cheerfulness. 
 
 If you ask how I learned all this, I cannot tell you ; nor, 
 were I to write down at length the insignificant intercourse which 
 took place between us, would it perhaps serve to justify these 
 observations. It is sufficient to say, that in helping his dogs, 
 which he did from time to time with great hberaUty, he seemed 
 to discharge a duty much more pleasing to himself, than when 
 he paid the same attention to his guest. Upon the whole, the 
 result on my mind was as I tell it you. 
 
 When supper was over, a small case-bottle of brandy, in a 
 curious frame of silver filigree, circulated to the guests. I had 
 already taken a small glass of the liquor, and, when it had passed 
 to Mabel and to Crystal, and was again returned to the upper 
 end of the table, I could not help taking the bottle in my hand, 
 to look more at the armorial bearings, which were chased with 
 considerable taste on the silver framework Encountering the 
 eye of my entertainer, I instantly saw that my curiosity was 
 highly distasteful ; he frowned, bit his lip, and showed such un- 
 controllable signs of impatience, that, setting the bottle imme- 
 diately down, I attempted some apology. To this he did not 
 deign either to reply, or even to listen ; and Cristal, at a signal 
 from his master, removed the object of my curiosity, as well as 
 the cup, upon which the same arms were engraved. 
 
 There ensued an awkward pause, which I endeavoured to break 
 by observing, that " I feared my intrusion upon his hospitality had 
 put his family to some inconvenience." 
 
 " I hope you see no appearance of it, sir," he replied, with cold 
 civility. " What inconvenience a family so retiring as ours may 
 suffer from receiving an unexpected guest, is like to be trifling, 
 in comparison of what the visitor himself sustains from want of 
 his accustomed comforts. So far, therefore, as our connexion stands, 
 our accounts stand clear." 
 
 Notwithstanding this discouraging reply, I blundered on, as is 
 usual in such cases, wishing to appear civil, and being, perhaps, in 
 reality the very reverse. " I was afraid," I said, " that my presence 
 had banished one of the family" (looking at the side-door) "from 
 his table." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 45 
 
 " If," he coldly replied, " I meant the young woman whom I had 
 seen in the apartment, he bid me observe that there was room 
 enough at the table for her to have seated herself, and meat 
 enough, such as it was, for her supper. I might, therefore, be 
 assured, if she had chosen it, she would have supped with us." 
 
 There was no dwelling on this or any other topic longer ; for my 
 entertainer, taking up the lamp, observed, that " my wet clothes 
 might reconcile me for the night to their custom of keeping early 
 hours; that he was under the necessity of going abroad by peep 
 of day to-morrow morning, and would call me up at the same time, 
 to point out the way by which I was to return to the Shepherd's 
 Bush." 
 
 This left no opening for farther explanation ; nor was there room 
 for it on the usual terms of civility ; for, as he neither asked my 
 name, nor expressed the least interest concerning my condition, I 
 — the obliged person — had no pretence to trouble him with such 
 enquiries on my part. 
 
 He took up the lamp, and led me through the side-door into a 
 very small room, where a bed had been hastily arranged for my 
 accommodation, and, putting down the lamp, directed me to leave 
 my wet clothes on the outside of the door, that they might be ex- 
 posed to the fire during the night. He then left me, having muttered 
 something which was meant to pass for good- night. 
 
 I obeyed his directions with respect to my clothes, the rather 
 that, in despite of the spirits which I had drank, I felt my teeth 
 begin to chatter, and received various hints from my aguish feeling, 
 that a town-bred youth, like myself, could not at once rush into all 
 the hardihood of country sports with impunity. But my bed, 
 though coarse and hard, was dry and clean ; and I soon was so 
 little occupied with my heats and tremors, as to listen with interest 
 to a heavy foot which seemed to be that of my landlord, traversing 
 the boards (there was no ceiling, as you may believe) which roofed 
 my apartment. Light glancing through these rude planks, became 
 visible as soon as my lamp was extinguished ; and as the noise of 
 the slow, solemn, and regular step continued, and 1 could distin- 
 guish that the person turned and returned as he reached the end of 
 the apartment, it seemed clear to me that the walker was engaged 
 in no domestic occupation, but merely pacing to and fro for his 
 own pleasure. " An odd amusement this," I thought, " for one 
 who had been engaged at least a part of the preceding day in 
 violent exercise, and who talked of rising by the peep of dawn on 
 the ensuing morning." 
 
 Meantime I heard the storm, which had been brewing during 
 the evening, begin to descend with a vengeance ; sounds, as of 
 
45 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 distant thunder, (the noise oi tne more distant waves, doubtless, on 
 the shore,) minghng with the roaring of the neighbouring torrent, 
 and with the crashing, groaning, and even screaming of the trees 
 in the glen, whose boughs were tormented by the gale. Within 
 the house, windows clattered, and doors clapped, and the walls, 
 though sufficiently substantial for a building of the kind, seemed to 
 me to totter in the tempest. 
 
 But still the heavy steps perambulating the apartment over my 
 head, were distinctly heard amid the roar and fury of the elements. 
 I thought more than once I even heard a groan ; but I frankly 
 own, that, placed in this unusual situation, my fancy may have 
 misled me. I was tempted several times to call aloud, and ask 
 whether the turmoil around us did not threaten danger to the 
 building which we inhabited ; but when I thought of the secluded 
 and unsocial master of the dwelling, who seemed to avoid human 
 society, and to remain unperturbed amid the elemental war, it 
 seemed to speak to him at that moment, would have been to 
 address the spirit of the tempest himself, since no other being, I 
 thought, could have remained calm and tranquil while winds and 
 waters were thus raging around. 
 
 In process of time, fatigue prevailed over anxiety and curiosity. 
 The storm abated, or my senses became deadened to its terrors, 
 and I fell asleep ere yet the mysterious paces of my host had 
 ceased to shake the flooring over my head. 
 
 It might have been expected that the novelty of my situation, 
 although it did not prevent my slumbers, would have at least 
 diminished their profoundness, and shortened their duration. It 
 proved otherwise, however ; for I never slept ^nore soundly in my 
 life, and only awoke when, at morning dawn, my landlord shook 
 me by the shoulder, and dispelled some dream, of which, fortu- 
 nately for you, I have no recollection, otherwise you would have 
 been favoured with it, in hopes you might have proved a second 
 Daniel upon the occasion. 
 
 " You sleep sound " — said his full deep voice ; " ere five years 
 have rolled over your head, your slumbers will be lighter— unless 
 ere then you are wrapped in the sleep which is never broken." 
 
 " How ! " said I, starting up in the bed ; " do you know any 
 thing of me — of my prospects — of my views in life? " 
 
 " Nothing," he answered, with a grim smile ; " but it is evident 
 you are entering upon the world young, inexperienced, and full of 
 hopes, and I do but prophesy to you what I would to any one in 
 your condition. — But come ; there lie your clothes — a brown crust 
 and a draught of milk wait you, if you choose to break your fast ; 
 but you must make haste." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 47 
 
 " I must first," I said, " take the freedom to spend a few minutes 
 alone, before beginning the ordinary worlds of the day." 
 
 " Oh ! — humph !— I cry your devotion's pardon," he replied, and 
 left the apartment. 
 
 Alan, there is something terrible about this man. 
 
 I joined him, as I had promised, in the kitchen where we had 
 supped over night, where I found the articles which he had offered 
 me for breakfast, without butter or any other addition. 
 
 He walked up and down while I partook of the bread and. milk ; 
 and the slow measured weighty step seemed identified with those 
 which I had heard last night. His pace, from its funereal slow- 
 ness, seemed to keep time with some current of internal passion, 
 dark, slow, and unchanged. — " We run and leap by the side of a 
 lively and bubbling brook," thought I, internally, " as if we could 
 run a race with it ; but beside waters deep, slow, and lonely, our 
 pace is sullen and silent as their course. What thoughts may be 
 now corresponding with that furrowed brow, and beating time With 
 that heavy step ! " 
 
 " If you have finished," said he, looking up to me with a glance 
 of impatience, as he observed that I ate no longer, but remained 
 with my eyes fixed upon him, " I wait to show you the way." 
 
 We went out together, no individual of the family having been 
 visible excepting my landlord. I was disappointed of the oppor- 
 tunity which I watched for of giving some gratuity to the domes- 
 tics, as they seemed to be. As for offering any recompense to the 
 Master of the Household, it seemed to me impossible to have 
 attempted it. 
 
 What would I have given for a share of thy composure, who 
 wouldst have thrust half-a-crovvn into a man's hand whose necessi- 
 ties seemed to crave it, conscious that you did right in making the 
 proffer, and not caring sixpence whether you hurt the feelings of 
 him whom you meant to serve ! I saw thee once give a penny to 
 a man with a long beard, who, from the dignity of his exterior, 
 might have represented Solon. I had not thy courage, and there- 
 fore I made no tender to my mysterious host, although, notwith- 
 standing his display of silver utensils, all around the house bespoke 
 narrow circumstances, if not actual poverty. 
 
 We left the place together. But I hear thee murmur thy very 
 new and appropriate ejaculation, Ohe,jam satis 1 — The rest for 
 another time. Perhaps I may delay farther communication till I 
 learn how my favours are valued. 
 
48 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 ALAN FAIRFORD TO DARSIE LATIMER. 
 
 I HAVE thy two last epistles, my dear Darsie, and, expecting the 
 third, have been in no hurry to answer them. Do not think my 
 silence ought to be ascribed to my failing to take interest in them, 
 ,for, truly, they excel (though the task was difficult) thy usual 
 excellings. Since the moon-calf who earliest discovered the Pan- 
 demonium of Milton in an expiring wood-fire— since the first 
 ingenious urchin who blew bubbles out of soap and water, thou, my 
 best of friends, hast the highest knack at making histories out of 
 nothing. Wert thou to plant the bean in the nursery-tale, thou 
 wouldst make out, so soon as it began to germinate, that the castle 
 of the giant was about to elevate its battlements on the top of it. 
 All that happens to thee gets a touch of the wonderful and the 
 sublime from thy own rich imagination. Didst ever see what 
 artists call a Claude Lorraine glass, which spreads its own par- 
 ticular hue over the whole landscape which you see through it ? — 
 thou beholdest ordinary events just through such a medium. 
 
 I have looked carefully at the facts of thy last long letter, and 
 they are just such as might have befallen any little truant of the 
 High School, who had got down to Leith Sands, gone beyond the 
 jprawn-dub, wet his hose and shoon, and, finally, had been carried 
 home, in compassion, by some high-kilted fishwife, cursing all the 
 while the trouble which the brat occasioned her. 
 
 I admire the figure which thou must have made, clinging for 
 dear life behind the old fellow's back — thy jaws chattering with 
 fear, thy muscles cramped with anxiety. Thy execrable supper of 
 broiled salmon, which was enough to ensure the night-mare's 
 regular visits for a twelvemonth, may be termed a real affliction ; 
 but as for the storm of Thursday last, (such, I observe, was the 
 date,) it roared, whistled, howled, and bellowed, as fearfully amongst 
 the old chimney-heads in the Candlemaker-row, as it could on the 
 Solway shore, for the very wind of it — teste me per totam noctem 
 vigilante. And then in the morning again, when — Lord help you 
 — in your sentimental delicacy you bid the poor man adieu, without 
 even tendering him half-a-crown for supper and lodging ! 
 
 You laugh at me for giving a penny (to be accurate, though, 
 thou shouldst have said sixpence) to an old fellow, whom thou, in 
 thy high flight, wouldst have sent home supperless, because he was 
 like Solon or Belisarius. But you forget that the affront descended 
 like a benediction into the pouch of the old gaberlunzie, who over- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 49- 
 
 flowed in blessings upon the generous donor— Long ere he wouid 
 have thanked thee, Darsie, for thy barren veneration of his beard 
 and his bearing. Then you laugh at my good father's retreat from 
 Falkirk, just as if it were not time for a man to trudge when three 
 or four mountain knaves, with naked claymores, and heels as light 
 as their fingers, were scampering after him, cxy'vciz^fufinish. You 
 remember what he said himself when the Laird op Bucklivat told 
 him that furinish signified " stay a while." " What the devil," he 
 said, surprised out of his Presbyterian correctness by the unreason- 
 ableness of such a request under the circumstances, " would the 
 scoundrels have had me stop to have my head cut off? " 
 
 Imagine such a train at your own heels, Darsie, and ask your- 
 self whether you would not exert your legs as fast as you did in 
 flying from the Solway tide. And yet you impeach my father's 
 courage ! I tell you he has courage enough to do what is right, 
 and to spurn what is wrong — courage enough to defend a righteous 
 cause with hand and purse, and to take the part of the poor man 
 against his oppressor, without fear of the consequences to himself. 
 This is civil courage, Darsie ; and it is of little consequence to 
 most men in this age and country, whether they ever possess 
 military courage or no. 
 
 Do not think I am angry with you, though I thus attempt to 
 rectify your opinions on my father's account. I am well aware 
 that, upon the whole, he is scarce regarded with more respect by 
 me than by thee. And while I am in a serious humour, which it is 
 difficult to preserve with one who is perpetually tempting me to 
 laugh at him, pray, dearest Darsie, let not thy ardour for adven- 
 ture carry thee into more such scrapes as that of the Solway Sands. 
 The rest of the story is a mere imagination ; but that stormy 
 evening might have proved, as the clown says to Lear, a " naughty 
 night to swim in." 
 
 As for the rest, if you can work mysterious and romantic heroes 
 out of old crossgrained fishermen, why, I for one wiU reap some 
 amusement by the metamorphosis. Yet hold ! even there, there is 
 some need of caution. This same female chaplain — thou sayest so 
 little of her, and so much of every one else, that it excites some 
 doubt in my mind. Very pretty ^t\s, it seems — and that is all 
 thy discretion informs me of. There are cases in which silence 
 imphes other things than consent. Wert thou ashamed or afraid, 
 Darsie, to trust thyself with the praises of the very pretty grace- 
 sayer ? — As I live, thou blushest ! Why, do I not know thee an 
 inveterate Squire of Dames ? and have I not been in thy confi- 
 dence ? An elegant elbow, displayed when the rest of the figure 
 was muffled in a cardinal, or a neat well-turned ankle and instep, 
 
 F, 
 
JO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 seen by chance as its owner tripped up the Old Assembly Close * 
 turned thy brain' for eight days. Thou wert once caught, if I 
 remember rightly, with a single glance of a single matchless eye, 
 which, when the fair owner withdrew her veil, proved to be single 
 in the literal sense of the word. And, besides, were you not 
 another time enamoured of a voice— a mere voice, that mingled in 
 the psalmody at the Old Greyfriars' Church— until yoTi discovered 
 the proprietor of that dulcet organ to be Miss Dolly Maclzzard, 
 who is both "back and breast," as our saying goes? 
 
 All these things considered, and contrasted with thy artful 
 silence on the subject of this grace-saying Nereid of thine, I must 
 beg thee to be more explicit upon that subject in thy next, unless 
 thou wouldst have me form the conclusion that thou thinkest more 
 of her than thou carest to talk of. 
 
 You will not expect much news from this quarter, as you know 
 the monotony of my life, and are aware it must at present be 
 devoted to uninterrupted study. You have said a thousand times, 
 that I am only qualified to make my way by dint of plodding, and 
 therefore plod I must. 
 
 My father seems to be more impatient of your absence than he 
 was after your first departure. He is sensible, I believe, that our 
 solitary meals want the light which your gay humour was wont to 
 throw over them, and feels melancholy, as men do when the light 
 of the sun is no longer upon the landscape. If it is thus with him, 
 thou mayst imagine it is much more so with me, and canst con- 
 ceive how heartily I wish that thy frolic were ended, and thou once 
 more our inmate. 
 
 I resume my pen, after a few hours' interval, to say that an inci- 
 dent has occurred, on which you will yourself be building a hundred 
 castles in the air, and which even I, jealous as I am of such base- 
 less fabrics, cannot but own affords ground for singular conjecture. 
 
 My father has of late taken me frequently along with him when 
 he attends the Courts, in his anxiety to see me properly initiated 
 into the practical forms of business. I own I feel something on 
 his account and my own from this oveir-anxiety, which, I dare say, 
 renders us both ridiculous. But what signifies my repugnance ! 
 my father drags me up to his counsel learned in the law, — " Are 
 you quite ready to come on to-day, Mr. Crossbite ? — This is my 
 son, designed for the bar — I take the liberty to bring him with me 
 to-day to the consultation, merely that he may see how these things 
 are managed." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 51 
 
 Mr. Crossbite smiles and bows, as a lawyer smiles on the 
 solicitor who employs him, and I dare say, thrusts his tongue into 
 his cheek, and whispers into the first great wig that passes him, 
 " What the d — 1 does old Fairford mean by letting loose his whelp 
 on me ? " 
 
 As I stood beside them, too much vexed at the childish part I 
 was made to play to derive much information from the valuable 
 arguments of Mr. Crossbite, I observed a rather elderly man, who 
 stood with his eyes firmly bent on my father, as if he only waited 
 an end of the business in which he was engaged, to address him. 
 There was something, I thought, in the gentleman's appearance, 
 which commanded attention. Yet his dress was not in the present 
 taste, and though it had once been magnificent, was now anti- 
 quated and unfashionable. His coat was of branched velvet, with 
 a satin lining, a waistcoat of violet-coloured silk, much embroidered ; 
 his breeches the same stuff as the coat. He wore square-toed 
 shoes, with fore-tops, as they are called ; and his silk stockings 
 were rolled up over his knee, as you may have seen in pictures, and 
 here and there on some of those originals who seem to pique them- 
 selves on dressing after the mode of Methuselah. A chapeau bras 
 and sword necessarily completed his equipment, which, though out 
 of date, showed that it belonged to a man of distinction. 
 
 The instant Mr. Crossbite had ended what he had to say, this 
 gentleman walked up to my father, with, " Your servant, Mr. Fair- 
 ford — it is long since you and I met." 
 
 My father, whose politeness, you know, is exact and formal, 
 bowed, and hemmed, and was confused, and at length professed 
 that the distance since they had met was, so great, that though he 
 remembered the face perfectly, the name, he was sorry to say, had 
 — really — somehow — escaped his memory. 
 
 " Have you forgot Herries of Birrenswork ? " said the gentleman, 
 and my father bowed even more profoundly than before ; though I 
 think his reception of his old friend seemed to lose some of the 
 respectful civility which he bestowed on him while his name was 
 yet unknown. It now seemed to be something like the lip courtesy 
 which the heart would have denied had ceremony permitted. 
 
 My father, however, again bowed low, and hoped he saw him 
 well. 
 
 " So well, my good Mr. Fairford, that I come hither determined 
 to renew my acquaintance with one or two old friends, and with 
 you in the first place. — I halt at my old resting-place — you must 
 dine with me to-day at Paterson's, at the head of the Horse Wynd 
 — it is near your new fashionable dwelling, and I have business 
 with you." 
 
 E 2 
 
58 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " My father axcused himself respectfully, and not without em- 
 barrassment — " he wa? particularly engaged at home." 
 
 " Then I will dine with you, man," said Mr. Herries of Birrens- 
 work ; " the few minutes you can spare me after dinner will suffice for 
 my business ; and I will not prevent you a moment from minding 
 your own — I am no bottle-man." 
 
 You have often remarked that my father, though a scrupulous 
 observer of the rites of hospitality, seems to exercise them rather 
 as a duty than as a pleasure ; indeed, but for a conscientious wish 
 to feed the hungry and receive the stranger, his doors would open 
 to guests much seldomer than is the case. I never saw so strong 
 an example of this peculiarity, (which I should otherwise have said 
 is caricatured in your description,) as in his mode of homologating 
 the self-given invitation of Mr. Herries. The embarrassed brow, 
 and the attempt at a smile which accompanied his " We will 
 expect the honour of seeing you in Brown Square at three o'clock," 
 could not deceive any one, and did not impose upon the old Laird. 
 It was with a look of scorn that he replied, " I will relieve you then 
 till that hour, Mr. Fairford ; " and his whole manner seemed to say, 
 " It is my pleasure to dine with you, and I care not whether I am 
 welcome or no." 
 
 When he turned away, I asked my father who he was. 
 
 " An unfortunate gentleman," was the reply. 
 
 " He looks pretty well on his misfortunes," replied I. " I should 
 not have suspected that so gay an outside was lacking a dinner." 
 
 "Who told you that he does ?" replied my father ; "he is omni 
 suspicione major, so far as worldly circumstances are concerned- 
 It is to be hoped he makes a good use of them ; though, if he does, 
 it will be for the first time in his life." 
 
 " He has then been an irregular liver ? " insinuated I. 
 
 My father replied by that famous brocard with which he silences 
 all unacceptable queries, turning in the slightest degree upon the 
 failings of our neighbours,—" If we mend our own faults, Alan, we 
 shall all of us have enough to do, without sitting in judgment upon 
 other folks." 
 
 Here I was again at fault ; but rallying once more, I observed, he 
 had the air of a man of high rank and family. 
 
 " He is well entitled," said my father, " representing Herries of 
 Birrenswork ; a br.anch of that great and once powerful family of 
 Herries, the elder branch whereof merged in the house of Nithes- 
 dale at the death of Lord Robin the Philosopher, Anno Domini 
 sixteen hundred and sixty-seven." 
 
 " Has he still," said I, " his patrimonial estate of Birrenswork ? " 
 
 "No,"repned my father; "so far back as his father's time, it 
 
REDGAUNTLET. S3 
 
 was a mere designation— the property being forfeited by Herbert 
 Herries following his kinsman the Earl of Derwentwater, to the 
 Preston affair in 17 15. But they keep up the designation, thinking, 
 doubtless, that their claims may be revived in more favourable times 
 for Jacobites and for Popery ; and folks who in no way partake of 
 their fantastic capriccios, do yet allow it to pass unchallenged, ex 
 comitate, if not ex misericordia. — But were he the Pope and the 
 Pretender both, we must get some dinner ready for him, since he 
 has thought fit to offer himself. So hasten home, my lad, and tell 
 Hannah, Cook Epps, and James Wilkinson, to do their best ; 
 and do thou look out a pint or two of Maxwell's best— it is in the 
 fifth bin — there are the keys of the wine-cellar. — Do not leave them 
 in the lock — you know poor James's faiUng, though he is an honest 
 creature under all other temptations — and I have but two bottles of 
 the old brandy left — we must keep it for medicine, Alan." 
 
 Away went I — made my preparations — the hour of dinner came, 
 and so did Mr. Herries of Birrenswork, 
 
 If I had thy power of imagination and description, Darsie, I 
 could make out a fine, dark, mysterious, Rembrandt-looking portrait 
 of this same stranger, which should be as far superior to thy fisher- 
 man, as a shirt of chain-mail is to a herring-net. I can assure you 
 there is some matter for description about him; but knowing my 
 own imperfections, I can only say, I thought him eminently dis- 
 agreeable and ill-bred. — No, ill-bred is not the proper word ; on 
 the contrary, he appeared to know the rules of good-breeding per- 
 fectly, and only to think that the rank of the company did not 
 require that he should attend to them— a view of the matter in- 
 finitely more offensive than if his behaviour had been that of un- 
 educated and proper rudeness. While my father said grace, the 
 Laird did all but whistle aloud ; and when I, at my father's desire, 
 returned thanks, he used his tooth-pick, as if he had waited that 
 moment for its exercise. 
 
 So much for Kirk — with King, matters went even worse. My 
 father, thou knowest, is particularly full of deference to his guests ; 
 and in the present case, he seemed more than usually desirous to 
 escape every cause of dispute. He so far compromised his loyalty, 
 as to announce merely " The King," as his first toast after dinner, 
 instead of the emphatic " King George," which is his usual formula. 
 Our guest made a motion with his glass, so as to pass it over the 
 water-decanter which stood beside him, and added, " Over the 
 water." 
 
 My father coloured, but would not seem to hear this. Much 
 more there was of careless and disrespectful in the stranger's 
 manner and tone of conversation ; so that though I know my 
 
S4 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 father's prejudices in favour of rank and birth, and though I am 
 aware his otherwise masculine understanding has never entirely 
 shaken off the slavish awe of the great, which in his earlier days 
 they had so many modes of commanding, still I could hardly 
 excuse him for enduring so much insolence — such it seemed to be 
 — as this self-invited guest was dispose to offer to him at his own 
 table. 
 
 One can endure a traveller in the same carriage, if he treads 
 upon your togs by accident, or even through negligence ; but it is 
 very different when, knowing that they are rather of a tender 
 description, he continues to pound away at them with his hoofs. 
 In my poor opinion — and I am a man of peace— you can, in that 
 case, hardly avoid a declaration of war. 
 
 I believe my father read my thoughts in my eye ; for, pulling out 
 his watch, he said, " Half past four, Alan — you should be in your 
 own room by this time — Birrenswork will excuse you." 
 
 Our visitor nodded carelessly, and I had no longer any pretence 
 to remain. But as I left the room I heard this Magnate of 
 Nithesdale distinctly mention the name of Latimer. I lingered ; 
 but at length a direct hint from my father obliged me to withdraw ; 
 and when, an hour afterwards, I was summoned to partake of a 
 cup of tea, our guest had departed. He had business that evening 
 in the High Street, and could not spare time even to drink tea. 
 I could not help saying, I considered his departure as a relief 
 from incivility. "What business has he to upbraid us," I said, 
 " with the change of our dwelling from a more inconvenient to a 
 better quarter of the town ? What was it to him if we chose to 
 imitate some of the conveniences or luxuries of an English 
 dwelling-house, instead of living piled up above each other in 
 flats ? Have his patrician birth and aristocratic fortunes given 
 him any right to censure those who dispose of the fruits of their 
 own industry, according to their own pleasure ? " 
 
 My father took a long pinch of snuff, and replied, " Very well, 
 Alan ; very well indeed. I wish Mr. Crossbite or Counsellor 
 Pest had heard you ; they must have acknowledged that you have 
 a talent for forensic elocution ; and it may not be amiss to try a 
 little declamation at home now and then, to gather audacity and 
 keep yourself in breath. But touching the subject of this parafifle 
 of words, it's not worth a pinch of tobacco. D'ye think that I 
 care for Mr. Herries of Birrenswork more than any other gentle- 
 man who comes here about business, although I do not care to 
 go tilting at his throat, because he speaks like a grey goose as 
 he is? But to say no more about him, I want to have Darsie 
 Latimer's present direction ; for it is possible I may have to 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 55 
 
 write the lad a line with my own hand— and yet I do not well 
 know— but give me the direction at all events." 
 
 I did so, and if you have heard from my father accordingly, you 
 know more, probably, about the subject of this letter than I who 
 write it. But if you have not, then shall I have discharged a 
 friend's duty, in letting you know that there certainly is something 
 afloat between this disagreeable Laird aad my father, in which you 
 are considerably interested. 
 
 Adieu ! and although I have given thee a subject for waking 
 dreams, beware of building a castle too heavy for the foundation ; 
 which, in the present instance, is barely the word Latimer occur- 
 ring in a conversation betwixt a gentleman of Dumfries-shire and a 
 W.S. of Edinburgh — Ccetera prorsus ignoro. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 DARSIE LATIMER TO ALAN FAIRFORD. 
 
 [In continuation of Letters IIL and IV.] 
 
 I TOLD thee I walked out into the open air with my grave and 
 stern landlord. I could now see more perfectly than on the preced- 
 ing night the secluded glen, in which stood the two or three 
 cottages which appeared to be the abode of him and his family. 
 
 It was so narrow, in proportion to its depth, that no ray of the 
 morning sun was likely to reach it till it should rise high in the 
 horizon. Looking up the dell, you saw a brawling brook issuing in 
 foamy haste from a covert of underwood, like a racehorse impatient 
 to arrive at the goal j and, if you gazed yet more earnestly, you 
 might observe part of a high waterfall glimmering through the 
 foliage, and giving occasion, doubtless, to the precipitate speed of 
 the brook. Lower down, the stream became more placid, and 
 opened into a quiet piece of water, which afforded a rude haven to 
 two or three fishermen's boats, then lying high and dry on the sand, 
 the tide being out. Two or three miserable huts could be seen 
 beside this little haven, inhabited probably by the owners of the 
 boats, but inferior in every respect to the establishment of mine 
 host, though that was miserable enough. 
 
 I had but a minute or two to make these observations, yet during 
 that space my companion showed , symptoms of impatience, and 
 more than once shouted " Cristal — Cristal Nixon," until the old 
 man of the preceding evening appeared at the door of one of the 
 
S6 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 neighbouring cottages or outhouses, leading the strong black horse 
 which I before commemorated, ready bridled and saddled. My 
 conductor made Cristal a sign with his finger, and, tifrning from the 
 cottage door, led the way up the steep path or ravine which con- 
 nected the sequestered dell with the open country. 
 
 Had I been perfectly aware of the character of the road down 
 which I had been hurried with so much impetuosity on the preced- 
 ing evening, I greatly question if I should have ventured the de- 
 scent ; for it deserved no better name than the channel of a torrent, 
 now in a good measure filled with water that dashed in foam and 
 fury into the dell, being swelled with the rains of the preceding 
 night. I ascended this ugly path with some difficulty, although on 
 foot, and felt dizzy when I observed, from such traces as the rains 
 had not obliterated, that the horse seemed almost to have slid down 
 it upon his hauches the evening before. 
 
 My host threw himself on his horse's back, without placing a 
 foot in the stirrup — passed me in the perilous ascent, against which 
 he pressed his steed as if the animal had had the footing of a wild cat. 
 The water and mud splashed from his heels in his reckless course, 
 and a few bounds placed him on the top of the bank, where I pre- 
 sently joined him, and found the horse and rider standing still as a 
 statue ; the former panting and expanding his broad nostrils to the 
 morning wind, the latter motionless, with his eye fixed on the first 
 beams of the rising sun, which already began to peer above the 
 eastern horizon, and gild the distant mountains of Cumberland and 
 Liddesdale. 
 
 He seemed in a reverie, from which he started at my approach, 
 and puttirjg his horse in motion, led the way at a leisurely pace, 
 through a broken and sandy road, which traversed a waste, level, 
 and uncultivated tract of downs, intermixed with morass, much 
 like that in the neighbourhood of my quarters at Shepherd's Bush. 
 Indeed the whole open ground of this district, where it approaches 
 the sea, has, except in a few favoured spots, the same uniform and 
 dreary character. 
 
 Advancing about a hundred yards from the brink of the glen, 
 we gained a still more extensive command of this desolate pro- 
 spect, which seemed even more dreary, as contrasted with the 
 opposite shores of Cumberland, crossed and. intersected by ten 
 thousand lines of trees growing in hedge-rows, shaded with groves 
 and woods of considerable extent, and animated by hamlets and 
 villas, from which thin clouds of smoke already gave sign of human 
 life and human industry. 
 
 My conductor had extended his arm, and was pointing the road 
 to Shepherd's Bush, when the step of a horse was heard approach- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 57 
 
 ing us. He looked sharply around, and having observed who was 
 approaching, proceeded in his instructions to me, planting himself 
 at the same time in the very middle of the path, which, at the 
 place where we halted, had a slough on the one side and a sand- 
 bank on the other. 
 
 I observed that the rider who approached us slackened his horse's 
 pace from a slow trot to a walk, as if desirous to suffer us to pro- 
 ceed, or at least to avoid passing us at a spot where the difficulty 
 of doing so must have brought us very close to each other. You 
 know my old faihng, Alan, and that I am always willing to attend 
 to any thing in preference to the individual who has for the time 
 possession of the conversation. 
 
 Agreeably to this amiable propensity, I was internally speculating 
 concerning the cause of the rider keeping aloof from us, when my 
 companion, elevating his deep voice so suddenly and so sternly, as at 
 once to recall my wandering thoughts, exclaimed, " In the name of 
 the devil, young man, do you think that others have no better use 
 for their time than you have, that you oblige me to repeat the same 
 thing to you three times over ? — Do you see, I say, yonder thing at 
 a mile's distance, that looks like a finger-post, or rather like a gal- 
 lows ? — I would it had a dreaming fool hanging upon it, as an 
 example to all meditative moon-calves ! — Yon gibbet-looking pole 
 wiU guide you to the bridge, where you must pass the large brook ; 
 then proceed straight forwards, till several roads divide at a cairn. 
 — Plague on thee, thou art wandering again ! " 
 
 It is indeed quite true, that at this moment the horseman ap- 
 proached us, and my attention was again called to him as I made 
 way to let him pass. His whole exterior at once showed that he 
 belonged to the Society of Friends, or, as the world and the world's 
 law call them, Quakers. A strong and useful iron-grey galloway 
 showed, by its sleek and good condition, that the merciful man 
 was merciful to his beast. His accoutrements were in the usual 
 unostentatious, but clean and serviceable order, which characterises 
 these sectaries. His long surtout of dark-grey superfine cloth de- 
 scended down to the middle of his leg, and was buttoned up to his 
 chin, to defend him against the morning air. As usual, his ample 
 beaver hung down without button or loop, and shaded a comely 
 and placid countenance, the gravity of which appeared to contain 
 some seasoning of humour, and had nothing in common with the 
 pinched puritanical air affected by devotees in general. The brow 
 was open and free from wrinkles, whether of age or hypocrisy. The 
 eye was clear, calm, and considerate, yet appeared to be disturbed 
 by apprehension, not to say fear, as, pronouncing the usual saluta- 
 tion of " I wish thee a good morrow, friend," he indicated, by 
 
S8 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 turning his palfrey close to one side of the path, a wish to glide 
 past us with as little trouble as possible— just as a traveller would 
 choose to pass a mastiff of whose peaceable intentions he is by no 
 means confident. 
 
 But my friend, not meaning, perhaps, that he should get off so 
 easily, put his horse quite across the path, so that, without plunging 
 into the slough, or scrambhng up the bank, the Quaker coiald not 
 have passed him. Neither of these was an experiment without 
 hazard greajer than the passenger seemed willing to incur. He 
 halted, therefore, as if waiting till my companion should make way 
 for him ; and, as they sat fronting each other, I could not help 
 thinking that they might have formed no bad emblem of Peace 
 and War ; for although my conductor was unarmed, yet the whole 
 of his manner, his stern look, and his upright seat on horseback, 
 were entirely those of a soldier in undress. He accosted the 
 Quaker in these words, — " So ho ! friend Joshua — thou art early 
 to the road this morning. Has the spirit moved thee and thy 
 righteous brethren to act with some honesty, and pull down yonder 
 tide-nets that keep the fish from coming up the river ? " 
 
 " Surely, friend, not so," answered Joshua, firmly, but good- 
 humouredly at the same time ; " thou canst not expect that our 
 own hands should pull down what our own purses established. 
 Thou killest the fish with spear, line, and coble-net ; and we, with 
 SHares and with nets, which work by the ebb and the flow of the 
 tide. Each doth what seems best in his eyes to secure a share of 
 the blessing which Providence hath bestowed on the river, and 
 that within his own bounds. I prithee seek no quarrel against us, 
 for thou shalt have no wrong at our hand." 
 
 " Be assured I will take none at the hand of any man, whether 
 his hat be cocked or broad-brimmed," answered the fisherman. 
 " I tell you in fair terms, Joshua Geddes, that you and your part- 
 ners are using unlawful craft to destroy the fish in the Solway by 
 stake-nets and wears ; and that we, who fish fairly, and like men, 
 as our fathers did, have daily and yearly less sport and less profit. 
 Do not think gravity or hypocrisy can carry it off as you have 
 done. The world knows you, and we know you. You will destroy 
 the salmon which make the livelihood of fifty poor families, and 
 then wipe your mouth, and go to make a speech at Meeting. But 
 do not hope it will la.st thus. I give you fair warning, we will 
 be Upon you one morning soon, when we will not leave a stake 
 standing in the pools of the Solway ; and down the tide they 
 shall every one go, and well if we do not send a lessee along with 
 them." 
 
 " Friend," rephed Joshua, with a constrained smile. " but that I 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 59 
 
 know thou dost not mean as thou say'st, I would tell thee we are 
 under the protection of this country's laws ; nor do we the less 
 trust to obtain their protection, that our principles permit us not, 
 by any act of violent resistance, to protect ourselves." 
 
 " All villainous cant and cowardice," exclaimed the fisherman, 
 " and assumed merely as a cloak to your hypocritical avarice." 
 
 " Nay, say not cowardice, my friend," answered the Quaker, 
 " since thou knowest there may be as much courage in enduring as 
 in acting ; and I will be judged by this youth, or by any one else, 
 whether there is not more xowardice — even in the opinion of that 
 world whose thoughts are the breath in thy nostrils — in the armed 
 oppressor, who doth injury, than in the defenceless and patient 
 sufferer, who endureth it with constancy." 
 
 " I will change no more words with you on the subject," said the . 
 fisherman, who, as if something moved at the last argument which 
 Mr. Geddes had used, now made room for him to pass forward on 
 his journey. — " Do not forget, however," he added, " that you have 
 had fair warning, nor suppose that we will accept of fair words in 
 apology for foul play. These nets of yours are unlawful — they spoil 
 our fishings — and we will have them down at all risks and hazards. 
 I am a man of my word, friend Joshua." 
 
 " I trust thou art," said the Quaker ; " but thou art the rather 
 bound to be cautious in rashly affirming what thou wilt never exe- 
 cute. For I tell thee, friend, that though there is as great a 
 difference between thee and one of our people, as there is between 
 a lion and a sheep, yet I know and believe thou hast so much of 
 the lion in thee, that thou wouldst scarce employ thy strength 
 and thy rage upon that which professeth no means of resistance. 
 Report says so much good of thee, at least, if it says little 
 more." 
 
 " Time will try," answered the fisherman ; " and hark thee, 
 Joshua, before we part I will put thee in the way of doing one good 
 deed, which, credit me, is better than twenty moral speeches. Here 
 is a stranger youth, whom heaven has so scantily gifted with brains, 
 that he will bewilder himself in the Sands, as he did last night, 
 unless thou wilt kindly show him the way to Shepherd's Bush ; for 
 I have been in vain endeavouring to make him comprehend the 
 road thither— Hast thou so much charity under thy simplicity, 
 Quaker, as to do this good turn ? " 
 
 " Nay, it is thou, friend," answered Joshua, " that dost lack 
 charity, to suppose any one unwilling to do so simple a kindness." 
 " Thou art right— I should have remembered it can cost thee 
 nothing.— Young gentleman, this pious pattern of primitive sim- 
 plicity will teach thee the right way to the Shepherd's Bush— ay. 
 
6o REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 and will himself shear thee like a sheep, if you come to buying and 
 selling with him." 
 
 He then abruptly asked me, how long I intended to remain at 
 Shepherd's Bush. 
 
 I replied I was at present uncertain — as long, probably as I could 
 amuse myself in the neighbourhood. 
 
 " You are fond of sport ? " he added, in the same tone of brief 
 enquiry. 
 
 I answered in the affirmative, but added, I was totally inexpe- 
 rienced. 
 
 " Perhaps if you reside here for some days," he said, " we may 
 meet again, and I may have the chance of giving you a lesson." 
 
 Ere I could express either thanks or assent, he turned short 
 round with a wave of his hand, by way of adieu, and Kode back to 
 the verge of the dell from which we had emerged together ; and as 
 he remained standing upon the banks, I could long hear his voice 
 while he shouted down to those within its recesses. 
 
 Meanwhile the Quaker and I proceeded on our journey for some 
 time in silence ; he restraining his sober-minded steed to a pace 
 which might have suited a much less active walker than myself, 
 and looking on me from time to time with an expression of curiosity, 
 mingled with benignity. For my part, I cared not to speak first. 
 It happened I had never before been in company with one of this 
 particular sect, and, afraid that in addressing him, I might unwit- 
 tingly infringe upon some of their prejudices or peculiarities, I 
 patiently remained silent. At length he asked me, whether I had 
 been long in the service of the Laird, as men called him. 
 
 I repeated the words " in his service ? " with such an accent of 
 surprise, as induced him to say, "Nay, but, friend, I mean no 
 offence ; perhaps I should have said in his society — an inmate, I 
 mean, in his house ? " 
 
 " I am totally unknown to the person from whom we have just 
 parted," said I, " and our connexion is only temporary — He had 
 the charity to give me his guidance from the Sands, and a night's 
 harbourage from the tempest. So our acquaintance began, and 
 there it is likely to end ; for you may observe that our friend is by 
 no means apt to encourage familiarity ." 
 
 "So little so," answered my companion, "that thy case is, I 
 think, the first in which I ever heard of his receiving any one into 
 his house ; that is, if thou hast really spent the night there." 
 
 " Why should you doubt it ? " replied I ; " there is no motive I 
 can have to decei^ce you, nor is the object worth it." 
 
 " Be not angry with me," said the Quaker ; " but tnou knowest 
 that thine own people do not, as we humbly endeavour to do, con- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 6i 
 
 fine themselves within the simplicity of truth, but employ the lan- 
 guage of falsehood, not only for profit, but for compliment, and 
 sometimes for mere diversion. I have heard various stories of my 
 neighbour ; of most of which I only believe a small part, and even 
 then they are difficult to reconcile with each other. But this being 
 the first time I ever heard of his receiving a stranger within his 
 dwelling, made me express some doubts. I pray thee let them not 
 offend thee." 
 
 " He does not," said I, " appear to possess in much abundance, 
 the means of exercising hospitality, and so may be excused from 
 offering it in ordinary cases." 
 
 " That is to say, friend," replied Joshua, " thou hast supped ill, 
 and perhaps breakfasted worse. Now my small tenement, called 
 Mount Sharon, is nearer to us by two miles than thine inn ; and 
 although going thither may prolong thy walk, as taking thee off the 
 straighter road to Shepherd's Bush, yet methinks exercise will suit 
 thy youthful limbs, as well as a good plain meal thy youthful 
 appetite. What say'st thou, my young acquaintance ?" 
 
 " If it puts you not to inconvenience," I replied ; for the invita- 
 tion was cordially given, and my bread and milk had been hastily 
 swallowed,- and in small quantity. 
 
 " Nay," said Joshua, " use not the language of compHment with 
 those who renounce it. Had this poor courtesy been very incon- 
 venient, perhaps I had not offered it." 
 
 " I accept the invi' 'on, then," said I, " in the same good spirit 
 in which -you give it. 
 
 The Quaker smiled, reached me his hand, I shook it, and we 
 travelled on in great cordiality with each other. The fact is, I was 
 much entertained by contrasting in my own mind, the open manner 
 of the kind-hearted Joshua Geddes, with the abrupt, dark, and lofty 
 demeanour of my entertainer on the preceding evening. Both were 
 blunt and unceremonious ; but the plainness of the Quaker had the 
 character of devotional simplicity, and was mingled with the more 
 real kindness, as if honest Joshua was desirous of atoning, by his 
 sincerity, for the lack of external courtesy. On the contrary, the 
 manners of the fisherman were those of one to whom the rules of 
 good behaviour might be familiar, but who, either from pride or 
 misanthropy, scorned to observe them. Still I thought of him with 
 interest and curiosity, notwithstanding so much about him that was 
 repulsive ; and I promised myself, in the course of my conversation 
 with the Quaker, to learn all that he knew on the subject. He 
 turned the conversation, however, into a different channel, and 
 enquired into my own contoion of life, and views in visiting this 
 remote frontier. 
 
62 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 I only thought it necessary to mention my name, and add, that I 
 had been educated to the law, but finding myself possessed of some 
 independence, I had of late permitted myself some relaxation, and 
 was residing at Shepherd's Bush to enjoy the pleasure of angling. 
 
 " I do thee no harm, young man," said my new friend, " in wish- 
 ing thee a better employment for thy grave hours, and a more 
 humane amusement (if amusement thou must have) for those of a 
 lighter character." 
 
 " You are severe, sir," I replied. " I heard you but a moment 
 since refer yourself to the protection of the laws of the country— if 
 there be laws, there must be lawyers to explain, and judges to 
 administer them." 
 
 Joshua smiled, and pointed to the sheep which were grazing on 
 the downs over which we were travelling. — " Were a wolf," he said, 
 " to come eveii now upon yonder flocks, they would crowd for pro- 
 tection, doubtless, around the shepherd and his dogs ; yet they are 
 bitten and harassed daily by the one, shorn, and finally killed and 
 eaten by the other. But I say not this to shock you ; for, though 
 laws and lawyers are evils, yet they are necessary evils in this pro- 
 bationary state of society, till man shall learn to render unto his 
 fellows that which is their due, according to the light of his own 
 conscience, and through no other compulsion. Meanwhile, I have 
 known many righteous men who have followed thy intended pro- 
 fession in honesty and uprightness of walk. The greater their merit, 
 who walk erect in a path which so many find slippery." 
 
 " And angling," — said I, " you object to that also as an amuse- 
 ment, you who, if I understood rightly what passed between you 
 and my late landlord, are yourself a proprietor of fisheries ? " 
 
 " Not a proprietor," he replied, ", I am only, in copartnery with 
 others, a tacksman or lessee of some valuable salmon-fisheries a 
 little down the coast. But mistake me not. The evil of angling, 
 with which I class all sports, as they are called, which have the 
 sufferings of animals for their end and object, does not consist in 
 the mere catching and killing those animals with which the bounty 
 of Providence hath stocked the earth for the good of man, but in 
 making their protracted agony a principle of delight and enjoyment. 
 I do indeed cause these fisheries to be conducted for the necessary 
 taking, killing, and selling the fish ; and, in the same way, were I a 
 farmer, I should send my lambs to market. But I should as soon 
 think of contriving myself a sport and amusement out of the trade 
 of the butcher as out of that of the fisher." 
 
 We argued this point no farther ; for though I thought his argu- 
 ments a little too high-strained, yet as my mind acquitted me of 
 having taken delight in aught but the theory of field-sports, I did 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 63 
 
 not think myself called upon stubbornly to advocate a practice 
 which had afforded me so little pleasure. 
 
 We had by this time arrived at the remains of an old finger-post, 
 which my host had formerly pointed out as a landmark. Here, a 
 ruinous wooden bridge, supported by long posts resembling crutches, 
 served me to get across the water, while my new friend sought a 
 ford a good way higher up, for the stream was considerably 
 swelled. 
 
 As I paused for his rejoining me, I observed an angler at a little 
 distance, pouching trout after trout, as fast almost as he could cast 
 his line ; and I own, in spite of Joshua's lecture on humanity, I 
 could not but envy his adroitness and success, — so natural is the 
 love of sport to our minds, or so easily are we taught to assimilate 
 success in field-sports with ideas of pleasure, and with the praise 
 due to address and agility. I soon recognised in the successful 
 angler little Benjie, who had been my guide and tutor in that gentle 
 art, as you have learned from my former letters. I called — I 
 whistled — the rascal recognised me, and, starting like a guilty 
 thing, seemed hesitating whether to approach or to run away ; and 
 when he determined on the former, it was to assail me with a loud, 
 clamorous, and exaggerated report of the anxiety of all at the Shep- 
 herd's Bush for my personal safety ; how my landlady had wept, 
 how Sam and the ostler had not the heart to go to bed, but sat up 
 all night drinking — and how he himself had been up long before 
 daybreak to go in quest of me. 
 
 " And you were switching the water, I suppose,'' said I, " to dis- 
 cover my dead body ? " 
 
 This observation produced a long " Na — a — a " of acknowledged 
 detection ; but, with his natural impudence, and confidence in my 
 good-nature, he immediately added, " that he thought I would like 
 a fresh trout or twa for breakfast, and the water being in such rare 
 trim for the saumon raun,* he couldna help taking a cast." 
 
 While we were engaged in this discussion, the honest Quaker 
 returned to the farther end of the wooden bridge to tell me he 
 could not venture to cross the brook in its present state, but would 
 be under the necessity to ride round by the stone bridge, which 
 was a mile and a half higher up than his own house. He was about 
 to give me directions how to proceed without him, and enquire for 
 his sister, when I suggested to him, that if he pleased to trust his 
 horse to little Benjie, the boy might carry him round by the bridge, 
 while we walked the shorter and more pleasant road. 
 
 Joshua shook his head, for he was well acquainted with Benjie, 
 who, he said, was the naughtiest varlet in the whole neighbourhood, 
 Nevertheless, rather than part company, he agreed to put the pony 
 
64 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 under his charge for a short season, with many injunctions that he 
 should not attempt to mount, but lead the pony (even Solomon) by 
 the bridle, under the assurances of sixpence in case of proper de- 
 meanour, and penalty that if he transgressed the orders given him, 
 " verily he should be scourged." 
 
 Promises cost Benjie nothing, and he showered them out whole- 
 sale ; till the Quaker at length yielded up the bridle to him, repeat- 
 ing his charges, and enforcing them by holding up his forefinger. 
 On my part, I called to Benjie to leave the fish he had taken at 
 Mount Sharon, making, at the same time, an apologetic counte- 
 nance to my new friend, not being quite aware whether the compli- 
 ment would be agreeable to such a condemner of field sports. 
 
 He understood me at once, and reminded me of the practical 
 distinction betwixt catching the animals as an object of cruel and 
 wanton sport, and eating them as lawful and gratifying articles of 
 food after they were killed. On the latter point he had no scruples ; 
 but, on the contrary, assured me, that this brook contained the real 
 red trout, so highly esteemed by all connoisseurs, and that, when 
 eaten within an hour of their being caught, they had a peculiar, 
 firmness of substance and delicacy of flavour, which rendered them 
 an agreeable addition to a morning meal, especially when earned, 
 like ours, by early rising, and an hour or two's wholesome exercise. 
 
 But to thy alarm be it spoken, Alan, we did not come so far as 
 the frying of our fish without farther adventure. So it is only to 
 spare thy patience, and mine own eyes, that I pull up for the pre- 
 sent, and send thee the rest of my story in a subsequent letter. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 [In continuation.] 
 
 Little Benjie, with tjie pony, having been sent off on the left 
 side of the brook, the Quaker and I sauntered on, like the cavalry 
 and infantry of the same army occupying the opposite banks of a 
 river, and observing the same line of march. But, while my worthy 
 companion was assuring me of a pleasant greensward walk to his 
 mansion, little Benjie, who had been charged to keep in sight, chose 
 to deviate from the path assigned him, and, turning to the right, 
 led his charge, Solomon, out of our vision. 
 
REDGAU NTLKT. 6S 
 
 " The villain means to mount him ! " cried Joshua, with more 
 vivacity than was consistent with his profession of passive endur- 
 ance. 
 
 I endeavoured to appease his apprehensions, as he pushed on, 
 wiping his brow with vexation, assuring him, that if the boy did 
 mount, he would, for his own sake, ride gently. 
 
 " You do not know him," said Joshua, rejecting all consolation ; 
 " he do any thing gently !— no, he will gallop Solomon— he will 
 misuse the sober patience of the poor animal who has borne me sa 
 long ! Yes, I was given over to my own devices when I ever let 
 him touch the bridle, for such a little miscreant iJhere never was 
 before him in this country 1 " 
 
 He then proceeded to expatiate on every sort of rustic enormity 
 of which he accused Benjie. He had been suspected of snaring 
 partridges — was detected by Joshua himself in liming singing birds 
 ■ — stood fully charged with having worried several cats, by aid of a 
 lurcher which attended him, and which was as lean, and ragged, 
 and mischievous, as his master. Finally, Benjie stood accused of 
 having stolen a duck, to hunt it with the said lurcher, which was 
 as dexterous on water as on land. I chimed in with my friend, in 
 order to avoid giving him farther irritation, and declared, I should 
 be disposed, from my own experience, to give up Benjie as one of 
 Satan's imps. Joshua Geddes began to censure the phrase as too 
 much exaggerated, and otherwise unbecoming the mouth of a 
 reflecting person ; and, just as; I was apologizing for it, as being a 
 term of common parlance, we heard certain sounds on the opposite 
 side of the brook, which seemed to indicate that Solomon and 
 Benjie were at issue together. The sand-hills behind which Benjie 
 seemed to take his course, had concealed from us, as doubtless he 
 meant they should, his ascent into the forbidden saddle, and, 
 putting Solomon to his mettle, which he was seldom called upon to 
 exert, they had cantered away together in great amity, till they 
 came near to the ford from which the palfrey's legitimate owner had 
 already turned back. 
 
 Here a contest of opinions took place between the horse and his 
 rider. The latter, according to his instructions, attempted to direct 
 Solomon towards the distant bridge of stone ; but Solomon opined 
 that the ford was the shortest way to his own stable. The point 
 was sharply contested, and we heard Benjie gee-hupping, tchek- 
 tcheking, and, above all, flogging in great style ; while Solomon, 
 who, docile in his general habits, was now stirred beyond his 
 patience, made a great trampling and recalcitration ; and it was 
 their joIul noise which we heard, without being able to see, though 
 Joshua might too well guess, the cause of it. 
 
 F 
 
66 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Alarmed at these indications, the Quaker began to shout out, 
 "Benjie — thou varlet !— Solomon— thou fool!" when the couple 
 presented themselves in full drive, Solomon having now decidedly 
 obtained the better of the conflict, and bringing his unwilling rider 
 in high career down to the ford. Never was there anger changed 
 so fast into humane fear, as that of my good companion. " The 
 varlet will be drowned ! " he exclaimed — " a widow's son ! — her 
 
 only son ! — and drowned ! — let me go " And he struggled with 
 
 me stoutly as I hung upon him, to prevent him from plunging into 
 the ford. 
 
 I had no fear whatever for Benjie ; for the blackguard vermin, 
 though he could not manage the refractory horse, stuck on his seat 
 like a monkey. Solomon and Benjie scrambled through the ford 
 with little inconvenience, and resumed their gallop on the other side. 
 
 It was impossible to guess whether on this last occasion Benjie 
 was running off with Solomon, or Solomon with Benjie; but, 
 judging from character and motives, I rather suspected the former. 
 I could not help laughing as the rascal passed me, grinning betwixt 
 terror and delight, perched on the very pommel of the saddle, and 
 holding with extended arms by bridle and mane ; while Solomon, 
 the bit secured between his teeth, and his head bored down betwixt 
 his fore-legs, passed his master in this unwonted guise as hard as 
 he could pelt. 
 
 " The mischievous bastard ! " exclaimed the Quaker, terrified 
 out of his usual moderation of speech — " the doomed gallows-bird ! 
 — he will break Solomon's wind to a certainty.'" 
 
 I prayed him to be comforted — assured him a brushing gallop 
 would do his favourite no harm — and reminded him of the censure 
 he had bestowed on me a minute before, for applying a harsh epithet 
 to the boy. . 
 
 But Joshua was not without his answer ; — " Friend youth," he 
 said, " thou didst speak of the lad's soul, which thou didst affirm 
 belonged to the enemy, and of that thou couldst say nothing of 
 thine own knowledge ; on the contrary, I did but speak of his out- 
 ward man, which will assuredly be suspended by a cord, if he 
 mendeth not his manners. Men say that, young as he is, he is 
 one of the Laird's gang." 
 
 " Of the Laird's gang ! " said I, repeating the words in surprise 
 —"Do you mean the person with whom I slept last night.' — I 
 heard you call him the Laird — Is he at the head of a gang ? " 
 
 "Nay, I meant not precisely a gang," said the Quaker, who 
 appeared in his haste to have spoken more than he intended— " a 
 company, or party, I should have said ; but thus it is, friend 
 Latimer, with the wisest men, when they permit themselves to be 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 67 
 
 perturbed with passion, and speak as in a fever, or as with the 
 tongue of the foolish and the forward. And although thou hast 
 been hasty to m^rk my infimiity, yet I grieve not that thou hast 
 been a witness to it, seeing that the stumbles of the wise may be 
 no less a caution to youth and inexperience than is the fall of the 
 foolish." 
 
 This was a sort of acknowledgment of what I had already begun 
 to suspect — that my new friend's real goodness of disposition, joined 
 to the acquired quietism of his religious sect, had been unable en- 
 tirely to check the effervesence of a temper naturally warm and 
 hasty. 
 
 Upon the present occasion, as if sensible he had displayed a 
 greater degree of emotion than became his character, Joshua 
 avoided farther allusion to Benjie and Solomon, and proceeded to 
 solicit my attention to the natural objects around us, which increased 
 in beauty and interest, as, still conducted by the meanders of the 
 brook, we left the common behind us, and entered a more culti- 
 vated and enclosed country, where arable and pasture ground was 
 agreeably varied with groves and hedges. Descending now almost 
 close to the stream, our course- lay through a little gate, into a 
 pathway, kept with great neatness, the sides of which were deco- 
 rated with trees and flowering shrubs of the hardier species ; until, 
 ascending by a gentle slope, we issued from the grove, and stood 
 almost at once in front of a low but very neat building, of an 
 irregular form ; and my guide, shaking me cordially by the hand, 
 made we welcome to Mount Sharon.- 
 
 The wood through which we had approached this little mansion 
 was thrown around it both on the north and north-west, but, break- 
 'ing off into different directions, was intersected by a few fields, well 
 watered and sheltered. The house fronted to the south-east, and 
 from thence the pleasure-ground, or, I should rather say, the gar- 
 dens, sloped down to the water. I afterwards understood that tlfe 
 father of the presept proprietor had a considerable taste for horti- 
 culture, which had been inherited by his son, and had formed these 
 gardens, which, with their shaven turf, pleached alleys, wildernesses, 
 and exotic trees and shrubs, greatly excelled any 'thing of the kind 
 which had been attempted in the neighbourhood. 
 
 If there was a little vanity in the complacent smile with which 
 Joshua Geddes saw me gaze with delight on a scene so different 
 from the naked waste we had that ' day traversed in company, it 
 might surely be permitted to one, who, CHltivating and improving 
 the beauties of nature, had found therein, as he said, bodily health 
 and a pleasing relaxation for the mind. At the bottom of the ex- 
 tended gardens the brook wheeled round in a wide semicircle, and 
 
 F 2 
 
68 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 was itself their boundary. Tlie opposite side was no part of 
 Joshua's domain, but the brook was there skirted by a precipitous 
 rock of limestone, which seemed a barrier of Nature's own erecting 
 around his little Eden of beauty, comfort, and peace. 
 
 " But I must not let thee forget," said the kind Quaker, " amidst 
 thy admiration of these beauties of our little inheritance, that thy 
 breakfast has been a light one." 
 
 So saying, Joshua conducted me to a small sashed door, opening 
 under a porch amply mantled by honeysuclde and clematis, into a 
 parlour of moderate size ; the furniture of which, in plainness and 
 excessive cleanliness, bore the characteristic marks of the sect to 
 which the owner belonged. 
 
 Thy father's Hannah is generally allowed to be an exception to 
 all Scottish housekeepers, and stands unparalleled for cleanliness 
 among the women of Auld Reekie ; but the cleanliness of Hannah 
 is sluttishness, compared to the scrupulous purifications of these 
 people, who seem to carry into the minor decencies of life that con- 
 scientious rigour which they affect in their morals. 
 
 The parlour would have been gloomy, for the windows were small 
 and the ceiling low ; but the present proprietor had rendered it 
 more cheerful by opening one end into a small conservatory, roofed 
 with glass, and divided from the parlour by a partition of the same. 
 I have never before seen this very pleasing manner of uniting the 
 comforts of an apartment with the beauties of a garden, and I 
 wonder it- is not more practised by the great. Something of the 
 kind is hinted at in a paper of the Spectator. 
 
 As I walked towards the conservatory to view it more closely, the 
 parlour chimney engaged my attention. It was a pile of massive 
 stone, entirely out of proportion to the size of the apartment. On 
 the front had once been an armorial scutcheon ; for the hammer, 
 or chisel, which had been employed to deface the shield and crest, 
 had left uninjured the scroll beneath, which bore the pious motto, 
 " Trust in God." Black-letter, you know, was my early passion, 
 and the tombstones in the Greyfriars' Churchyard early yielded up 
 to my knowledge as a decipherer what little they could tell of the 
 forgotten dead. 
 
 Joshua Geddes paused when he saw my eye fixed on this relic of 
 antiquity. " Thou canst read it ?" he said. 
 
 I repeated the motto, and added, there seemed vestiges of a date. 
 
 " It should be i537,"said he ; " for so long ago, at the least com- 
 putation, did my ancestors, in the blinded times of Papistry, pos- 
 sess these lands, and in that year did they build their house." 
 
 " It is an ancient descent," said 1, looking with respect upon the 
 monument. " 1 am sorry the arms have been defaced." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 69 
 
 It was perhaps impossible for my friend, Quaker as he was, to 
 seem altogether void of respect for the pedigreewhich he began to 
 recount to me, disclaiming all the while the vanity usually connected 
 with the subject ; in short, with the air of mingled melancholy, 
 regret, and conscious dignity, with which Jack Fawkes used to tell 
 us, at College, of his ancestor's unfortunate connexion with the 
 Gunpowder-Plot. 
 
 " Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher," — thus harangued Joshua 
 Geddes of Mount Sharon ; — " if we ourselves jire nothing in the 
 sight of Heaven, how much less than nothing must be our derivation 
 from rotten bones and mouldering dust, whose immortal spirits have 
 long since gone to their private account ! Yes, friend Latimer, my 
 ancestors were renowned among the ravenous and bloodthirsty men 
 who then dwelt in this vexed country ; and so much were they 
 famed for successful freeboting, robbery, and bloodshed, that they 
 are said to have been called Geddes, as likening them to the fish 
 called a Jack, Pike, or Luce, and in our country tongue, a Ged — a 
 goodly distinction truly for Christian men ! Yet did they paint this 
 shark of the fresh waters upon their shields, and these profane 
 priests of a wicked idolatry, the empty boasters called heralds, who 
 make engraven images of fishes, fowls, and fourfooted beasts, that 
 men may fall down and worship them, assigned the Ged for the 
 device and escutcheon of my fathers, and hewed it over their chim- 
 neys, and placed it above their tombs ; and the men were elated in 
 mind, and became yet more Ged-like, slaying, leading into captivity, 
 and dividing the spoil, until the place where they dwelt obtained the 
 name of Sharing-Knowe, from the booty which was there divided 
 amongst them and their accomplices. But a better judgment was 
 given to my father's father, Philip Geddes, who, after trying to light 
 his candle at some of the vain wildfires then held aloft at different 
 meetings and steeple-houses, at length obtained a spark from the 
 lamp of the blessed George Fox, who came into Scotland spreading 
 light among darkness, as he himself hath written, as plentifully as 
 fly the sparkles from the hoof of the horse which gallops swiftly 
 along the stony road." — Here the good Quaker interrupted himself 
 with, " And that is very true, I must go speedily to see after the 
 condition of Solomon." 
 
 A Quaker servant here entered the room with a tray, and inclin- 
 ing his head towards his master, but not after the manner of one 
 who bows, said composedly, " Thou art welcome home, friend 
 Joshua, we expected thee not so early ; but what hath befallen 
 Solomon thy horse ?" 
 
 "What hath befallen him, indeed !" said my friend; "hath he 
 not been returned hither by the child whom they call Benjie ?" 
 
70 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 « He hath," said his domestic, " but it was after a strange fashion ; 
 for he came hither at a swift and furious pace, and flung the child 
 Benjie from his back, upon the heap of dung which is in the stable- 
 yard." 
 
 " I am glad of it," said Joshua, hastily,—" glad of it, with all my 
 heart and spirit !— But stay, he is the child of the widow— hath the 
 boy any hurt ?" 
 
 " Not so," answered the servant, " for he rose and fled swiftly." 
 
 Joshua muttered something about a scourge, and then enquired 
 after Solomon's present condition. 
 
 " He seetheth like a steaming caldrtm," answered the servant ; 
 " and Bauldie, the lad, walketh him about the yard with a halter, 
 lest he take cold." 
 
 Mr. Geddes hastened to the stable-yard to view personally the 
 condition of his favourite, and I followed, to offer my counsel as a 
 jockey — Don't laugh, Alan ; sure I h^ve jockeyship enough to assist 
 a Quaker — in this unpleasing predicament. 
 
 The lad who was leading the horse seemed to be no Quaker, 
 though his intercourse with the family had given him a touch of 
 their prim sobriety of look and manner. He assured Joshua that 
 his horse had received no injury, and I even hinted that the exercise 
 would be of service to him. Solomon himself neighed towards his 
 master, and rubbed his head against the good Quaker's shoulder, as 
 if to assure him of his being quite well ; so that Joshua returned.in 
 comfort to his parlour, where breakfast was ^low about to be dis- 
 played. 
 
 I have since learned that the affection of Joshua for his pony is 
 considered as inordinate by some of his own sect ; and that he has 
 been much blamed for permitting it to be called by the name of 
 Solomon, or any other name whatever ; but he has gained so much 
 respect and influence among them that they overlook these foibles. 
 
 I learned from him (whilst the old servant, Jehoiachim, entering 
 and re-entering, seemed to make no end of the materials which he 
 brought in for breakfast) that his grandfather Philip, the convert of 
 George Fox, had suffered much from the persecution to which these 
 harmless devotees were subjected on all sides during that intolerant 
 period, and much of their family estate had been dilapidated. But 
 better days dawned on Joshua's father, who, connecting himself by 
 marriage with a wealthy family of Quakers in Lancashire, engaged 
 successfully in various branches of commerce, and redeemed the 
 remnants of the property, changing its name in sense, without much 
 alteration of sound, from the Border appellation of Sharing-Knowe, 
 to the evangelical appellation of Mount Sharon. 
 This Philip Geddes, as I before hinted, had imbibed the taste for 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 71 
 
 horticulture and the pursuits of the florist, which are not uncommon 
 among the peaceful sect he belongs to. He had destroyed the rem- 
 nants of the old peel-house, substituting the modern mansion in its 
 place ; and while he reserved the hearth of his ancestors, in 
 memory of their hospitality, as also the pious motto which they had 
 chanced to assume, he failed not to obliterate the worldly and 
 military emblems displayed upon the shield and helmet, together 
 with all their blazonry. 
 
 In a few minutes after Mr. Geddes had concluded the account of 
 himself and his family, his sister Rachel, the only surviving member 
 of it, entered the room. Her appearance is remarkably pleasing, 
 and although her age is certainly thirty at least, she still retains the 
 shape and motion of an earlier period. The absence of every thing 
 like fashion or ornament was, as usual, atoned for by the most per- 
 fect neatness and cleanliness of her dress ; and her simple close cap 
 was particularly suited to eyes which had the softness and simplicity 
 of the dove's. Her features were also extremely agreeable, but had 
 suffered a little through the ravages of that professed enemy to 
 beauty, the small-pox ; a disadvantage which was in part counter- 
 balanced by a well-formed mouth, teeth like pearls, and a pleasing 
 sobriety of smile, that seemed to wish good here and hereafter to 
 every one she spoke to. You cannot make any of your vile inferences 
 here, Alan, for I have given a full-length picture of Rachel Geddes ; 
 so that you cannot say in this case, as in the letter I have just 
 received, that she was passed over as a subject on which I feared 
 to dilate. More of this anon. 
 
 Well, we settled to our breakfast after a blessing, or rather an 
 extempore prayer, which Joshua made upon the occasion, and 
 which the spirit moved him to prolong rather more than I felt 
 altogether agreeable. Then, Alan, there was such a dispatching of 
 the good things of the morning, as you have not witnessed since 
 you have seen Darsie Latimer at breakfast. Tea and chocolate, 
 eggs, ham, and pastry, not forgetting the broiled fish^ disappeared 
 with a celerity which seemed to astonish the good-humoured 
 Quakers^ who kept loading my plate with supplies, as if desirous of 
 seeing whether they could by any possibility tire me out. One hint, 
 however, I received, which put me in mind where I was. Miss 
 Geddes had offered me some sweet-cake, which, at the moment, I 
 declined ; but presently afterwards, seeing it within my reach, I 
 naturally enough helped myself to a slice, and had just deposited it 
 beside my plate, when Joshua, mine host, not with the authoritative 
 air of Sancho's doctor, Tirtea, Fuera, but in a very calm and quiet 
 manner, lifted it away and replaced it on the dish, observing only, 
 " Thou didst refuse it before, friend Latimer." 
 
72 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 These good folks, Alan, make no allowance for what your father 
 calls the Aberdeen-man's privilege of " taking his word again ; " or 
 what the wise call second thoughts. 
 
 Bating this slight hint, that I was among a precise generation, 
 there was nothing in my reception that was peculiar — unless, indeed, 
 I were to notice the solicitous and uniform kindness with which all 
 the attentions of my new friends were seasoned, as if they were 
 anxious to assure me that the neglect of worldly compliments inter- 
 dicted by their sect, only served to render their hospitahty more 
 sincere. At length my hunger was satisfied, and the worthy Quaker, 
 who, with looks of great good-nature, had watched my progress, 
 thus addressed his sister : — 
 
 " This young man, Rachel, hath last night sojourned in the tents 
 of our neighbour, whom men call the Laird. I am sorry I had not 
 met him the evening before, for our neighbour's hospitality is too 
 unfrequently exercised to be well prepared with the means of wel- 
 come." 
 
 " Nay, but, Joshua,'' said Rachel, " if our neighbour hath done a 
 kindness, thou shouldst not grudge him the opportunity ; and if our 
 young friend hath fared ill for a night, he will the better relish what 
 Providence may send him of better provisions." 
 
 "And that he may do so at leisure," said Joshua, "we will pray 
 him, Rachel, to tarry a day or twain with us : he is young, and is 
 but now entering upon the world, and our habitation may, if he will, 
 be like a resting-place, from which he may look abroad upon the 
 .pilgrimage which he must make, and the path which he- has to 
 travel — What sayest thou, friend Latimer? We constrain not our 
 friends to our ways, and thou art, I think, too wise to quarrel with 
 us for following our own fashions ; and if we should even give thee 
 a word of advice, thou wilt not, I think, be angry, so that it is 
 spoken in season." 
 
 You know, Alan, how easily I am determined by any thing 
 resembling cordiality — and so, though a little afraid of the formaHty 
 of my host and hostess, I accepted their invitation, provided I could 
 get some messenger to send to Shepherd's Bush for my servant and 
 portmanteau. 
 
 " Why, truly, friend," said Joshua, " thine outward frame would 
 be improved by cleaner garments ; but I will do thine errand myself 
 to the Widow Gregson's house of reception, and send thy lad hither 
 with thy clothes. Meanwhile, Rachel will show thee these little 
 gardens, and then will put thee in some way of spending thy time 
 usefully, till our meal calls us together at the second hour afternoon. 
 I bid thee farewell for the present, having some space to walk, 
 seeing I must leave the animal Solomon to his refreshing rest." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 73 
 
 With these words, Mr. Joshua Geddes withdrew. Some ladies 
 we have known would have felt, or at least affected, reserve or 
 embarrassment, at being left to do the honours of the grounds to — 
 (it will be out, Alan) — a smart young fellow — an entire stranger. 
 She went out for a few minutes, and returned in her plain cloak and 
 bonnet, with her beaver-gloves, prepared to act as my guide, with 
 as much simplicity as if she had been to wait upon thy father. So 
 forth I sallied with my fair Quaker. 
 
 If the house at Mount Sharon be merely a plain and convenient 
 dwelling, of moderate size, and small pretensions, the gardens and 
 offices, though not extensive, might rival an earl's in point of care 
 and expense. Rachel carried me first to her own favourite resort, 
 a poultry-yard, stocked with a variety of domestic fowls, of the more 
 rare as well as the more ordinary kinds, furnished with every 
 accommodation which may suit their various habits. A rivulet 
 which spread into a pond for the convenience of the aquatic birds, 
 trickled over gravel as it passed through the yards dedicated to the 
 land poultry, which were thus amply supplied with the means they 
 use for digestion. 
 
 All these creatures seemed to recognise the presence of their 
 mistress, and some especial favourites hastened to her feet, and 
 continued to follow her as far as their limits permitted. She pointed 
 out their peculiarities and qualities, with the discrimination of one 
 who had made natural history her study ; and I own I never looked 
 on barn-door fowls with so much interest before — at least until they 
 were boiled or roasted. I could not help asking the trying question, 
 how she could order the execution of any of the creatures of which 
 she seemed so careful. 
 
 " It was painful," she said, " but it was according to the law of 
 their being. They must die ; but they knew not when death was 
 approaching ; and in making them comfortable while they lived, 
 we contributed to their happiness as much as the conditions of 
 their existence permitted to us." 
 
 I am not quite of her mind, Alan. I do not believe either pigs 
 or poultry would admit that the chief end of their being was to be 
 killed and eaten. However, I did not press the argument, from 
 which my Quaker seemed rather desirous to escape ; for, conduct- 
 ing me to file greenhouse, which was extensive, and filled with the 
 choicest plants, she pointed out an aviary which occupied the 
 farther end, where, she said, she employed herself with attending 
 the inhabitants, without being disturbed with any painful recollec- 
 tions concerning their future destination. 
 
 I will not trouble you with any account of the various hothouses 
 and gardens,, -and their contents. No small sum of money must 
 
74 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 have been expended in erecting and maintaining them in the ex- 
 quisite degree of good order which they exhibited. The family, I 
 understood, were connected with that of the celebrated Millar, and 
 had imbibed his taste for flowers and for horticulture. But instead 
 of murdering botanical names, I will rather conduct you to the 
 policy, or pleasure -garden, which the taste of Joshua or his father 
 had extended on the banks betwixt the house and river. This 
 also, in contradistinction to the prevailing simplicity, was orna- 
 mented in an unusual degree. There were various compartments, 
 the connexion of which was well managed, and although the whole 
 ground did not exceed five -or six acres, it was so much varied as 
 to seem four times larger. The space contained close alleys and 
 open walks ; a very pretty artificial waterfall ; a fountain also, con- 
 sisting of a considerable jet-d'eau, whose streams glittered in the 
 sun-beams, and exhibited a continual rainbow. There was a 
 cabinet of verdure, as the French call it, to cool the summer heat, 
 and there was a terrace sheltered from the north-east by a noble 
 holly hedge, with all its glittering spears, where you might have 
 the full advantage of the sun in the clear frosty days of winter. 
 
 I know that you, Alan, will condemn all this as bad and anti- 
 quated ; for, ever since Dodsley has described the Leasowes, and 
 talked of Brown's imitation^ of nature, and Horace Walpole's late 
 Essay on Gardening, you are all for simple nature — condemn 
 walking up and down stairs in the open air, and declare for wood 
 -and wilderness. But ne quid nimis. I would not deface a scene 
 of natural grandeur or beauty, by the introduction of crowded 
 artificial decorations ; yet such may, I think, be very interesting, 
 where the situation, in its natural state, otherwise has no particular 
 charms. 
 
 So that when I have a country-house, (who can say how soon ?) 
 you may look for grottoes, and cascades, and foimtains ; nay, if 
 you vex me by contradiction, perhaps I may go the length of a 
 temple — so provoke me not, for you see of what enormities I am 
 capable. 
 
 At any rate, Alan, had you condemned as artificial the rest of 
 Friend Geddes's grounds, there is a willow walk by the very verge 
 of the stream, so sad, so solemn, and so silent, that it must have 
 commanded your admiration. The brook, restrained at the ulti- 
 mate boundary of the grounds by a natural dam-dike or ledge of 
 rocks, seemed, even in its present swoln state, scarcely to glide 
 along ; and the pale willow-trees, dropping their long branches 
 into the stream, gathered around them little coronals of the foam 
 that floated down from the more rapid stream above. The high 
 rock, which formed the opposite bank of the brook, was seen 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 7S 
 
 dimly through the branches, and its pale and splintered front, gar- 
 landed with long streamers of briers and other creeping plants, 
 seemed a barrier between the quiet path which we trode, and the 
 toiling and bustling world beyond. The path itself, following the 
 sweep of the stream, made a very gentle curve ; enough, however, 
 served by its inflectiori completely to hide the end of the walk, 
 until you arrived at it. A deep and sullen sound, which increased 
 as you proceeded, prepared you for this termination, which was 
 indeed only a plain root-seat, from which you looked on a fall of 
 about six Or seven feet, where the brook flung itself over the ledge 
 of natural rock I have already mentioned, which there crossed its 
 course. 
 
 The quiet and twilight seclusion of this walk rendered it a fit 
 scene for confidential communing ; and having nothing more inter- 
 esting to say to my fair Quaker, I took the liberty of questioning 
 her about the Laird ; for you are, or ought to be, aware, that next 
 to discussing the affairs of the heart, the fair sex are most inter- 
 ested in those of their neighbours. 
 
 I did not conceal either my curiosity, or the check which it had 
 received from Joshua, and I saw that my companion answered 
 with embarrassment. " I must not speak otherwise than truly," 
 she said ; " and therefore I tell thee, that my brother dishkes, and 
 that I fear, the man of whom thou hast asked me. Perhaps we are 
 both wrong— but he is a man of violence, and hath great influence 
 over many, who, following the trade of sailors and fishermen, 
 become as rude as the elements with, which they contend. He 
 hath no certain name among them, which is not unusual, their rude 
 fashion being to distinguish each other by nicknames ; and they 
 have called him the Laird of the Lakes, (not remembering there 
 should be no one called Lord, save one only,) in idle derision ; the 
 pools of salt water left by the tide among the sands being called 
 the Lakes of Solway." 
 
 " Has he no other revenue than he derives from these sands ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 "That I cannot answer," replied Rachel; "men say that he 
 wants not money, though he lives like an ordinary fisherman, and 
 that he imparts freely of his means to the poor around him. They 
 intimate that he is a man of consequence, once deeply engaged in 
 the unhappy affair of the rebellion, and even still too much in 
 danger from the government to assume his own name. He is 
 often absent from his cottage at Broken-burn-cliffs, for. weeks and 
 months." 
 
 " I should have thought," said I, " that the government would 
 scarce, ai this time of day, be likely to proceed against any one 
 
76 ' REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 even of the most obnoxious rebels. Many years have passed 
 away" 
 
 " It is true," she replied ; " yet such persons may understand 
 that their being connived at depends on their living in obscurity. 
 But indeed there can nothing certain be known among these rude 
 people. The truth is not in them — most of them participate in the 
 unlawful trade betwixt these parts and the neighbouring shore of 
 England ; and they are familiar with every species of falsehood 
 and deceit." 
 
 " It is a pity," I remarked, " that your brother should have 
 neighbours of such a description, especially as I understand he is 
 at some variance with them." 
 
 "Where, when, and about what matter?" answered Miss 
 Geddes, with an eager and timorous anxiety, which made me 
 regret having touched on the subject. 
 
 I told her, in a way as little alarming as I could devise, the 
 purport of what had passed betwixt this Laird of the Lakes and 
 her brother, at their morning's interview. 
 
 " You affright me much," answered she ; " it is this very circum- 
 stance which has scared me in the watches of the night. When 
 my brother Joshua withdrew from an active share in the commer- 
 cial concerns of my father, being satisfied with the portion of 
 woirldly substance which he already possessed, there were one or 
 two undertakings in which he retained an interest, either because 
 his withdrawing might have been prejudicial to friends, or because 
 he wished to retain some mode of occupying his time. Amongst 
 the more important of these, is a fishing station on the coast, where, 
 by certain improved modes of erecting snares, opening at the ad- 
 vance of the tide, and shutting at the reflux, many more fish are 
 taken than can be destroyed by those who, like the men of Broken- 
 burn, use only the boat-net and spear,^ or fishing-rod. They com- 
 plain of these tide-nets, as men call them, as an innovation, and 
 pretend to a right to remove and destroy them by the strong hand. 
 I fear me, this man of violence, whom they call the Laird, will 
 execute these his threats, which cannot be without both loss and 
 danger to my brother." 
 
 " Mr. Geddes," said I, " ought to apply to the civil magistrate ; 
 there are soldiers at Dumfries who would be detached for his 
 protection." 
 
 " Thou speakest, friend Latimer," answered the lady, " as one 
 who is still in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. God 
 forbid that we should endeavour to preserve nets of flax and 
 stakes of wood, or the Mammon of gain which they procure for 
 us, by the hands of men of vrsr, and at the risk of spilling 
 human blood ! " 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 77 
 
 " I respect your scruples," I replied ; " but since such is your 
 way of thinking, your brother ought to avert the danger by com- 
 promise or submission." 
 
 " Perhaps it would be best," answered Rachel ; " but what 
 can T say? Even in the best- trained temper there may remain 
 some leaven of the old Adam ; and I know not whether it is 
 this or a better spirit that maketh my brother Joshua determine, 
 that though he will not resist force by force, neither will he 
 yield up his right to mere threats, or encourage wrong to others 
 by yielding to menaces. His partners, he says, confide in his 
 steadiness ; and that he must not disappoint them by yielding 
 up their right for the fear of the threats of man, whose breath 
 is in his nostrils." 
 
 This observation convined me that the spirit of the old sharers 
 of the spoil was not utterly departed even from the bosom of 
 the peaceful Quaker ; and I could not help confessing internally 
 that Joshua had the right, when he averred that there was as 
 much courage in sufferance as in exertion. 
 
 As wc; approached the further end of the willow walk, the 
 sullen and continuous sound of the dashing waters became still 
 more and more audible, and at length rendered it difficult for 
 us to communicate with each other. The conversation dropped, 
 but apparently my companion continued to dwell upon the ap- 
 prehensions which it had excited. At the bottom of the walk, 
 we obtained a view of the cascade, where the swoln brook flung 
 itself in foam and tumult over the natural barrier of rock, which 
 seemed in vain to attempt to bar its course. I gazed with delight, 
 and, turning to express my sentiments to my companion, I ob- 
 served that she had folded her hands in an attitude of sorrowful 
 resignation, which showed her thoughts were far from the scene 
 which lay before her. When she saw that her abstraction was 
 observed, she resumed her former placidity of manner ; and having 
 given me sufficient time to admire this termination of our sober 
 and secluded walk, proposed that we should return to the house 
 through her brother's farm. " Even we Quakers, as we are called, 
 have our little pride," she said; ''and my brother Joshua would 
 not forgive me, were I not to show thee the fields which he taketh 
 delight to cultivate, after the newest and best fashion ; for which, I 
 promise thee, he hath received much praise from good judges, as 
 well as some ridicule from those who think it folly to improve on 
 the customs of our ancestors." 
 
 As she spoke, she opened a low door, leading through a moss 
 and ivy-covered wall, the boundary of the pleasure-ground, into the 
 open fields ; through which we moved by a convenient path, lead- 
 
78 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 ing, with good taste and simplicity, by stile and hedge-row, through 
 pasturage, and arable, and woodland ; so that, in all ordinary 
 weather, the good man might, without even soiling his shoes, per- 
 form his perambulation round the farm. There were seats also, on 
 which to rest ; and though not adorned with inscriptions, nor quite 
 so frequent in occurrence as those mentioned in the account of the 
 Leasowes, their situation was always chosen with respect to some 
 distant prospect to be commanded, or some home-view to be 
 enjoyed. 
 
 But what struck me most in Joshua's domain, was the quantity 
 and the tameness of the game. The hen partridge scarce aban- 
 doned the roost at the foot of the hedge where she had assembled 
 her covey, though the path went close beside her j and the hare, 
 remaining on her form, gazed at us as we passed, with her full 
 dark eye, or, rising lazily and hopping to a little distance, stood 
 erect to look at us with more curiosity than apprehension. I ob- 
 served to Miss Geddes the extreme tameness of these timid and 
 shy animals, and she informed me that their confidence arose from 
 protection in the summer, and relief during the winter. 
 
 " They are pets," she said, " of my brother, who considers them 
 as the better entitled to this kindness that they are a race perse- 
 cuted by the world in general. He denieth himself," she said, 
 " even the company of a dog, that these creatures may here at 
 least enjoy undisturbed security. Yet this harmless or humane 
 propensity, or humour, hath given offence," she added, " to our 
 dangerous neighbour." 
 
 She explained this, by telling me that my host of the preceding- 
 night was remarkable for his attachment to field sports, which he 
 pursued without much regard to the wishes of the individuals over 
 whose property he followed them. The undefined mixture of 
 respect and fear with which he was generally regarded, induced 
 most of the neighbouring landholders to connive at what they 
 would perhaps in another have punished as a trespass ; but Joshua 
 Geddes would not permit the intrusion of any one upon his 
 premises, and as he had before offended several country neighbours, 
 who, because he would neither shoot himself nor permit others to 
 do so, compared him to the dog in the manger, so he now aggra- 
 vated the displeasiire which the Laird of the Lakes had already 
 conceived against him, by positively debarring him from pursuing 
 his sport over his grounds—" So that," said Rachel Geddes, " I 
 sometimes wish our lot had been cast elsewhere than in these 
 pleasant borders, where, if we had less of beauty around us, we 
 might have had a neighbourhood of peace and good-will." 
 
 We at length returned to the house, where Miss Geddes showed 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 79 
 
 me a small study, containing a little collection of books, in two 
 separate presses. 
 
 " These," said she, pointing to the smaller press, " will, if thou 
 bestowest thy leisure upon them, do thee good ; and these," point- 
 ing to the other and larger cabinet, " can, I believe, do thee little 
 harm. Some of our people do indeed hold, that every writer who 
 is not with us is against us ; but brother Joshua is mitigated in his 
 opinions, and correspondeth with our friend John Scott of Amwell, 
 who hath himself constructed verses well approved of even in the 
 world. — I wish thee many good thoughts till our family meet at the 
 hour of dinner." 
 
 Left alone, I tried both collections ; the first consisted entirely 
 of religious and controversial tracts, and the latter formed a small 
 selection of history, and of moral writers, both in prose and 
 verse. 
 
 Neither collection promising much amusement, thou hast in 
 these close pages, the fruits of my tediousness ; and truly, I think, 
 viriting history (one's self being the subject) is as amusing as read- 
 ing that of foreign countries, at any time. 
 
 Sam, still more drunk than sober, arrived in due time with my 
 portmanteau, and enabled . me to put my dress into order, better 
 befitting this temple of cleanliness and decorum, where (to conclude) 
 1 believe I shall be a sojourner for more days than one.* 
 
 P.S. — I have noted your adventure, as you home-bred youths 
 may perhaps term it, concerning the visit of your doughty Laird. 
 We travellers hold such an incident of no great consequence, 
 though it may serve to embellish the uniform life of Brown's 
 Square. But art thou not ashamed to attempt to interest one who 
 is seeing the world at large, and studying human nature on a large 
 scale, by so bald a narrative ? Why, what does it amount to, after 
 all, but that a Tory Laird dined with a Whig Lawyer ? no very 
 uncommon matter, especially as you state Mr. Herries to have 
 lost the estate, though retaining the designation. The Laird 
 behaves with haughtiness and impertinence — nothing out of 
 character in that : Is not kicked down stairs, as he ought to have 
 been, were Alan Fairford half the man that he would wish his 
 friends to think him. — Ay, but then, as the young lawyer, instead 
 of showing his friend the door, chose to make use of it himself, he 
 overheard the Laird aforesaid ask the old lawyer concerning Darsie 
 Latimer — no doubt earnestly enquiring after the handsome, accom- 
 plished inmate of his family, who has so lately made Themis his 
 bow, and declined the honour of following her farther. You laugh 
 at me for my air-drawn castles ; but confess, have they not surer 
 
8o REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 footing, in general, than two words spoken by such a man as 
 Herries ? And yet — and yet — I would rally the matter off, Alan ; 
 but in dark nights, even the glow-worm becomes an object of 
 lustre, and to one plunged in my uncertainty and ignorance, the 
 slightest gleam that promises intelligence, is interesting. My life 
 is Hke the subterranean river in the Peak of Derby, visible only 
 where it crosses the celebrated cavern. I am here, and this much 
 I know ; but where I have sprung from, or whither my course of 
 life is like to tend, who shall tell me? Your father, too, seemed in- 
 terested and alarmed, and talked of writing ; would to Heaven he 
 may !— I send daily to the post-town for letters. 
 
 LETTER Vlir. 
 
 ALAN FAIRFORD TO DARSIE LATIMER. 
 
 Thou mayst clap thy wings and crow as thou pleasest. You go 
 in search of adventures, but adventures come to me unsought for ; 
 and oh ! in what a pleasing shape came mine, since it arrived in 
 the form of a client— and a fair cHent to boot ! What think you 
 of that, Dasrie, you who are such a sworn squire of dames .■' Will 
 this not match my adventures with thine, that hunt salmon on 
 horseback, and will it not besides, eclipse the history of a whole 
 tribe of Broadbrims ? — But I must proceed methodically. 
 
 When I returned to-day from the College, L was surpised to see 
 a broad grin distending the adust countenance of the faithful 
 James Wilkinson, which, as the circumstance seldom happens 
 above once a-year, was matter of some surprise. Moreover, he had 
 a knowing glance with his,eye, which I should have as soon ex- 
 pected from a dumb-waiter— -an article of furniture to which James, 
 in his usual state, maybe happily assimilated. "What the devil 
 is the matter, James ? " 
 
 " The devil may be in the matter, for aught I ken," said James, 
 with another provoking grin ; " for here has-been a woman calling 
 for you Maister Alan." 
 
 " A woman calling for me ? " said I in surprise ; for you know 
 well, that excepting old Aunt Peggy, who comes to dinner of a 
 Sunday, and the still older Lady Bedrooket, who calls ten times a- 
 year, for the quarterly payment of her jointure of four hundred 
 merks, a female scarce approaches our threshold, as my father visits 
 all his female clients at their own lodgings. James protested, how- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 8i 
 
 ever, that there had been a lady calling, and for me. " As bonny a 
 lass as I have seen," added James, " since I was in the Fusileers, 
 and kept company with Peg Baxter." Thou knowest all James's , 
 gay recollections go back to the period of his military service, the 
 years he has spent in ours having probably been dull enough. 
 
 " Did the lady leave no name nor place of address ? " 
 
 " No," replied James ; '• but she asked when you wad be at 
 hame, and I appointed her for twelve o'clock, when the house 
 wad be quiet, and your father at the Bank." 
 
 " For shame, James ! how can you think my father's being at 
 home or abroad could be of consequence ? — The lady is of course a 
 decent person ? " 
 
 " I'se uphaud her that, sir — she is nane of your — whew " — [Here 
 James supplied a blank with a low whistle] — " buf I didna ken — 
 my maister makes an unco wark if a woman comes here." 
 
 I passed into my own room, not ill-pleased that my father was 
 absent, notwithstanding I had thought it proper to rebuke James 
 for having so contrived it. I disarranged my books, to give them 
 the appearance of a graceful confusion on the table, and laying my 
 foils (useless since your departure) across the mantelpiece, that 
 the lady might see I was iam Marts quam Mercurio — I endeavoured 
 to dispose my dress so as to resemble an elegant morning dis- 
 habille — gave my hair the general shade of powder which marks 
 the gentleman — laid my watch and seals on the table, to hint that I 
 understood the value of time ; — and when I had made all these 
 arrangements — of which I am a little ashamed when I think of 
 them — I had nothing better to do than to watch the dial-plate till 
 the index pointed to noon. Five minutes elapsed, which I allowed 
 for variation of clocks — five minutes more rendered me anxious and 
 doubtful — and five minutes more would have made me impatient. 
 
 Laugh as thou wilt ; but remember, Darsie, I was a lawyer, 
 expecting his first client — a young man, how strictly bred up I need 
 not remind you, expecting a private interview with a young and 
 beautiful woman. But ere the third term of five minutes had 
 elapsed, the door-bell was heard to tinkle low and modestly, as if 
 touched by some timid hand. 
 
 James Wilkinson, swift in nothing, is, as thou knowest, peculiarly 
 slow in answering the door-bell ; and I reckoned on five minutes 
 good, ere his solemn step should have ascended the stair. Time 
 enough, thought I, for a peep through the blinds, and was hastening 
 to the window accordingly. But I reckoned without my host ; 
 for James, who had his own curiosity as well as I, was \y\n%f)erdu 
 in the lobby, ready to open at the first tinkle ; and there was, 
 " This way, ma'am — Yes, ma'am— The lady, Mr. Alan," before I 
 
 G 
 
82 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 could get to the chair in which I proposed to be discovered, seated 
 in all legal dignity. The consciousness of being half caught in the 
 act of peeping, joined to that native air of awkward bashfulness of 
 which I am told the law will soon free me, kept me standing on the 
 floor in some confusion ; while the lady, disconcerted on her part, 
 remained on the threshold of the room. James Wilkinson, who had 
 his senses most about him, and was perhaps willing to prolong his 
 stay in "the apartment, busied himself in setting a chair for the lady, 
 and recalled me to my good breeding by-the hint. I invited her 
 to take possession of it, and bid James withdraw. 
 
 My visitor was undeniably a lady, and probably considerably 
 above the ordinary rank— very modest, too, judging from the 
 mixture of grace and timidity with which she moved, and at my 
 entreaty sat down. Her dress was, I should suppose, both hand- 
 some and fashionable ; but it was much concealed by a walking- 
 cloak of green silk, fancifully embroidered; in which, though 
 heavy for the season, her person was enveloped, and which, more- 
 over, was furnished with a hood. 
 
 The devil take that hood, Darsie ! for I was just able to dis- 
 tinguish that, pulled as it was over the face, it concealed from me, 
 as I was convinced, one of the prettiest countenances I have seen, 
 and which, from a sense of embarrassment, seemed to be crimsoned 
 with a deep blush. I could see her complexion was beautiful — her 
 chin finely turned — her lips coral — and her teeth rivals to ivory. 
 But further the deponent sayeth not ; for a clasp of gold, orna- 
 mented with a sapphire, closed the envious mantle under the 
 incognita's throat, and the cursed hood concealed entirely the 
 upper part of the face. 
 
 I ought to have spoke first, that is certain ; but ere I could get 
 my phrases well arranged, the young lady, rendered desperate, I 
 suppose, by my hesitation, opened the conversation herself. 
 
 " I fear I am an intruder, sir— I expected to meet an elderly gen- 
 tleman." 
 
 This brought me to myself. " My father, madam, perhaps. 
 But you enquired for Alan Fairford — ^my father's name is 
 Alexander." 
 
 " It is Mr. Alan Fairford, undoubtedly, with whom I wished to 
 speak," she said, with greater confusion ; " but I was told that he 
 was advanced in life." 
 
 " Some mistake, madam, I presume, betwixt my father and myself 
 — our Christian names have the same initials, though the termina- 
 tions are different. — I — I — I would esteem it a most fortunate mis- 
 take if I could have the honour of supplying my father's place in 
 any thing that could be of service to you." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 83 
 
 " You are very obliging, sir." A pause, during which she seemed 
 undetermined whether to rise or sit still. 
 
 " I am just about to be called to the bar, madam," said I, in 
 hopes to remove her scruples to open her case to me ; " and if 
 my advice or opinion could be of the slightest use, although I 
 cannot presume to say that they are much to be depended upon, 
 yet " 
 
 The lady arose. " I am truly sensible of your kindness, sir ; 
 and I have no doubt of your talents. I will be very plain with 
 you — it is you whom I came to visit ; although, now that we 
 have met, I find it will be much better that I should commit my 
 communication to writing." 
 
 " I hope, madam, you will not be so cruel — so tantalizing, I would 
 say. Consider, you are my first client — your business my first con- 
 sultation — do not do me the displeasure of withdrawing your confi- 
 dence because I am a few years younger than you seem to have 
 expected — My attention shall make amends for my want of expe- 
 rience." 
 
 " I have no doubt of either," said the lady, in a grave tone, 
 calculated to restrain the air of gallantry with which I had 
 endeavoured to address her. " But when you have received my 
 letter, you will find good reasons assigned why a written com- 
 munication will best suit my purpose. I wish you, sir, a good 
 morning." And she left the apartment, her poor baffled counsel 
 scraping, and bowing, and apologizing for any thing that might 
 have been disagreeable to her, although the front of my offence 
 seems to be my having been discovered to be younger than my 
 father. 
 
 The door was opened— out she went — walked along the pave- 
 ment, turned down the close, and put the sun, I believe, into her 
 pocket when she disappeared, so suddenly did dulness and dark- 
 ness sink down on the square, when she was no longer visible. 
 I stood for a moment as if I had been senseless, not recollect- 
 ing what a fund of entertainment I must have supplied to our 
 watchful friends on the other side of the green. Then it darted 
 on my mind that I might dog her, and ascertain at least who or 
 what she was. Off I set — ran down the close where she was no 
 longer to be seen, and demanded of one of the dyer's lads whether 
 he had seen a lady go down the close, or had observed which way 
 she turned. 
 
 "A leddy!" — said the dyer, staring at me with his rainbow 
 countenance. " IVIr. Alan, what takes you out, rinning like daft, 
 without your hat ? " 
 
 " The devil take my hat ! " answered I, running back, however, 
 
 G 2 
 
84 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 in quest of it ; snatched it up, and again sallied forth. But as I 
 reached the head of the close once more, I had sense enough to 
 recollect that all pursuit would be now in vain. Besides, I saw 
 my friend, the journeyman dyer, in close confabulation with a 
 pea-green personage of his own profession, and was conscious, 
 like Scrub, that they talked of me, because they laughed con- 
 sumedly. - I had no mind, by a second sudden appearance, to 
 confirm the report that Advocate Fairford was " gaen daft," which 
 had probably spread from Campbell's close-foot to the Mealmarkel 
 Stairs ; and so slunk back within my own hole again. 
 
 My first employment was to remove all traces of that elegant 
 and fanciful disposition of my effects, from which I had hoped 
 for so much credit ; for I was now ashamed and angry at 
 having thought an instant upon the mode of receiving a visit 
 which had commenced so agreeably, but terminated in a manner 
 so uns~atisfactory. I put my folios in their places — threw the 
 foils into the dressing-closet — tormenting myself all the while 
 with the fruitless doubt, whether I had missed an opportunity or 
 escaped a stratagem, or whether the young person had been 
 really startled, as she seemed to intimate, by the extreme youth 
 of her intended legal adviser. The mirror was not unnaturally 
 called in to aid ; and that cabinet-counsellor pronounced me 
 rather short, thick-set, with a cast of features fitter, I trust, for 
 the bar than the ball — not handsome enough for blushing virgins 
 to pine for my sake, or even to invent sham cases to bring them to 
 my chambers — yet not ugly enough, either, to scare those away who 
 came on real business — dark, to be sure, but nigri sunt hyacinthi — 
 there are pretty things to be said in favour of that complexion. 
 
 At length — as common sense will get the better in all cases, 
 when a man will but give it fair play — 1 began to stand con- 
 victed in my own mind, as an ass before the interview, for 
 having expected too much — an ass during the interview, for 
 having failed to extract the lady's real purpose — and an especial 
 ass, now that it was over, for thinking so much about it. But I 
 can think of nothing else, and therefore I am determined to think 
 of this to some good purpose. 
 
 You remember Murtough O'Hara's defence of the Catholic 
 doctrine of confession ; because, " by his soul, his sins were al- 
 ways a great burden to his mind, till he had told them to the 
 priest ; and once confessed, he never thought more about them." 
 I have tried his receipt, therefore ; and having poured my secret 
 mortification into thy trusty ear, I will think no more about this 
 maid of the mist, 
 
 " Who, with no face, as 'twere, outfaced me." 
 
UEDGAUNTLET. 83 
 
 Four o'clock. 
 
 Plague on her green mantle, she can be nothing better than a 
 fairy ; she keeps possession of my head yet ! All during dinner- 
 time I was terribly absent ; but, luckily, my father gave the whole 
 credit of my reverie to the abstract nature of the doctrine, Vtnco 
 vincentem, ergo vinco tej upon which brocard of law the Professor 
 this morning lectured. So I got an early dismissal to my own 
 crib, and here am I studying, in one sense, vincere vincentem, to 
 get the better of the silly passion of curiosity — I think — I think it 
 amounts to nothing else — which has taken such possession of my 
 imagination, and is perpetually worrying me with the question — 
 will she write or no ? She will not — she will not ! So says Reason, 
 and adds, Why should she take the trouble to enter into corre- 
 spondence with one, who, instead of a bold, alert, prompt, gallant, 
 proved a chicken-hearted boy, and left her the whole awkwardness 
 of explanation, which he should have met half-way? But then, 
 says Fancy, she will write, for she was not a bit that sort of 
 person whom you, Mr. Reason, in your wisdom, take her to be. 
 She was disconcerted enough, without my adding to her distress 
 by any impudent conduct on my part. And she will write, 
 for 
 
 By Heaven, she has written, Darsie, and with a vengeance !— 
 Here is her letter, thrown into the kitchen by a cadie, too faithful 
 to be bribed, either by money or whisky, to say more than that he 
 received it, with sixpence, from an ordinary-looking woman, as he 
 was plying on his station near the Cross. 
 
 " for alan fairford, esquire, barrister. 
 " Sir, 
 
 " Excuse my mistake of to-day. I had accidentally learned that 
 Mr. Darsie Latimer had an intimate friend and associate in a Mr. 
 A. Fairford. When I enquired for such a person, he was pointed 
 out to me at the Cross, (as I think the Exchange of your city is 
 called,) in the character of a respectable elderly man — your father, 
 as I now understand. On enquiry at Brown's Square, where I 
 understood he resided, I used the full name of Alan, which natu- 
 rally occasioned you the trouble of this day's visit. Upon further 
 enquiry, I am led to believe that you are likely to be the person 
 most active in the matter to which I am now about to direct your 
 attention ; and I regret much that circumstances, arising out of 
 my own particular situation, prevent my communicating to you 
 personally what I now apprise you of in this manner. 
 
 " Your friend, Mr. Darsie Latimer, is in a situation of consider- 
 able danger. You are doubtless aware, that he has been cautioned 
 
86 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 not to trust himself in England— Now, if he has not absolutely 
 transgressed this friendly injunction, he has at least approached as 
 nearly to the menaced danger as he could do, consistently with 
 the letter of the prohibition. He has chosen his abode in a neigh- 
 bourhood very perilous to him ; and it is only by a speedy return 
 to Edinburgh, or at least by a removal to some more remote part 
 of Scotland, that he can escape the machinations of those whose 
 enmity he has to fear. I must speak in mystery, but my words are 
 not the less certain ; and, I believe, you know enough of your 
 friend's fortunes to be aware, that I could not write this much 
 without being even more intimate with them than you are. 
 
 " If he cannot, or will not, take the advice here given, it is my 
 opinion that you should join him, if possible, without delay, and 
 urge, by your personal presence and entreaty, the arguments which 
 may prove ineffectual in writing. One word more, and I implore 
 of your candour to take it as it is meant. No one supposes that 
 Mr. Fairford's zeal in his friend's service, needs to be quickened 
 by mercenary motives. But report says that Mr. Alan Fairford 
 not having yet entered on his professional career, may, in such 
 a case as this, want the means, though he cannot want the 
 inclination, to act with promptitude. The enclosed note, Mr. 
 Alan Fairford must be pleased to consider- as his first profes- 
 sional emolument ; and she who sends it hopes it will be the 
 omen of unbounded success, though the fee comes from a hand 
 so unknown as that of 
 
 " Green Mantle." 
 
 A bank note of 20/. was the enclosure, and the whole incident 
 left me speechless with astonishment. I am not able to read over 
 the beginning of my own letter, which forms the introduction to this 
 extraordinary communication. I only know that, though mixed with 
 a quantity of foolery, (God knows, very much different from my 
 present feelings,) it gives an account sufficiently accurate, of the 
 mysterious person from whom this letter comes, and that I have 
 neither time nor patience to separate the absurd commentary from 
 the text, which it is so necessary you should know. 
 
 Combine this warning, so strangely conveyed, with the caution 
 impressed on you by your London correspondent, Griffiths, against 
 your visiting England — with the character of your Laird of tha 
 Solway Lakes — ^with the lawless habits of the people on that 'frontier 
 country, where warrants are not easily executed, owing to the 
 jealousy entertained by either country of the legal interference of the 
 other ; remember, that even Sir John Fielding said to my father, 
 that he could never trace a rogue beyond the Briggend of Dumfries 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 87 
 
 —think that the distinctions of Whig and Tory, Papist and Pro- 
 testant, still keep that country in a loose and comparatively lawless 
 state — think of all this, my dearest Darsie, and remember that, 
 while at this Mount Sharon of yours, you are residing with a family 
 actually menaced with forcible interference, and who, while their 
 obstinacy provokes violence, are by principle bound to abstain from 
 resistance. 
 
 Nay, let me tell you, professionally, that the legality of the mode 
 of fishing practised by your friend Joshua, is greatly doubted by 
 our best lawyers ; and that, if the stake-nets be considered as 
 actually an unlawful obstruction raised in the channel of the 
 estuary, an assembly of persons who shall proceed, via facti, to 
 pull down and destroy them, would not, in the eye of the law, be 
 esteemed guilty of a riot. So, by remaining where you are, you 
 are likely to be engaged in a quarrel with which you have nothing 
 to do, and thus to enable your enemies, whoever these may be, to 
 execute, amid the confusion of a general hubbub, whatever designs 
 they may have against your personal safety. Black-fishers, poachers, 
 and smugglers, are a sort of gentry that will not be much checked, 
 either by your Quaker's texts, or by your chivalry. If you are Don 
 Quixote enough to lay lance in rest, in defence of those of the stake- 
 net, and of the sad-coloured garment, I pronounce you but a lost 
 knight ; for, as I said before, I doubt if these potent redressers of 
 wrongs, the justices and constables, will hold themselves warranted 
 to interfere. In a word, return, my dear Amadis ; the adventure of 
 the Solway-nets is not reserved for your worship. Come back, and 
 I will be your faithful Sancho Panza upon a more hopeful quest. 
 We will beat about together, in search of this Urganda, the Un- 
 known She of the Green Mantle, who can read this, the riddle of thy 
 fate, better than wise Eppie of Buckhaven,* or Cassandra herself. 
 
 I would fain trifle, Darsie ; for in debating with you, jests will 
 sometimes go farther than arguments ; but I am sick at heart, and 
 cannot keep the ball up. If you have a moment's regard for the 
 friendship we have so often vowed to each other, let my wishes for 
 once prevail over your own venturous and romantic temper. I am 
 quite serious in thinking, that the information communicated to my 
 father by this Mr. Herries, and the admonitory letter of the young 
 lady, bear upon each other ; and that, were you here, you might 
 learn something from one or other, or from both, that might throw 
 light on your birth and parentage. You will not, surely, prefer an 
 idle whim to the prospect which is thus held out to you ? 
 
 I would, agreeably to the hint I have received in the young lady's 
 letter, (for I am confident that such is her condition,) have ere 
 now been with you to urge these things, instead of pouring them 
 
'66 REDGAUNtLEf. 
 
 out upon paper. But you know that the day for my trial is ap- 
 pointed ; I have already gone through the form of being introduced 
 to the examinators, and have gotten my titles assigned me. All 
 this should not keep me at home, but my father would view any 
 irregularity upon this occasion as a mortal blow to the hopes which 
 he has cherished most fondly during his life ; viz. my being called 
 to the bar with some credit. For my own part, I know there is no 
 great difficulty in passing these formal examinations, else how have 
 some of our acquaintance got through them ? But, to my father, 
 these formalities compose an august and serious solemnity, to which 
 he has long looked forward, and my absenting myself at this 
 moment would wellnigh drive him distracted. Yet I shall go 
 altogether distracted myself, if I have not an instant assurance 
 from you that you are hastening hither — Meanwhile I have desired 
 Hannah to get your little crib into the bejt order possible. I 
 cannot learn that my father has yet written to you ; nor has he 
 spoken more of his communication with Birrenswork ; but when I 
 let him have some inkling of the dangers you are at present in- 
 curring, I know my request that you will return immediately, will 
 have his cordial support. 
 
 Another reason yet — I must give a dinner, as usual, upon my 
 admission, to our friends ; and my father, laying aside all his usual 
 considerations of economy, has desired it may be in the best style 
 possible. Come hither then, dear Darsie ! or, I protest to you, I 
 shall send examination, admission-dinner, and guests, to the devil, 
 and come, in person, to fetch you with a vengeance. Thine, in 
 much anxiety, 
 
 A. F. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 alexander fairford, w.s., to mr. darsie latimer. 
 
 Dear Mr. Darsie, 
 Having been your factor loco tictoris, or rather, I ought to say, 
 in correctness, (since I acted without warrant from the Court,) your 
 negotioruni gestor; that connexion occasions my present writing. 
 And although having rendered an account of my intromissions, 
 which have been regularly approved of, not only by yourself, (whom 
 I could not prevail upon to look at more than the docket and sum 
 total,) but also by the worthy Mr. Samuel Griffiths of London, 
 being the hand through whom the remittances were made, I may, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 89 
 
 in some sense, he considered as to ya\x functus officio; yet, to speak 
 facetiously, I trust you will not hold me accountable as a vicious 
 intromitter, should I still consider myself as occasionally interested 
 in your welfare. My motives for writing, at this time, are two- 
 fold. 
 
 I have met with a Mr. Herries of Birrenswork, a gentleman of 
 very ancient descent, but who hath in time past been in difficulties, 
 nor do I know if his affairs are yet well redd. Birrenswork says, that 
 he believes he was very famihar with your father, whom he states to 
 have been called Ralph Latimer of Langcote-Hall, in Westmoreland ; 
 and he mentioned family affairs, which it may be of the highest im- 
 portance to you to be acquainted with ; but as he seemed to 
 decline communicating them to me, I could not civilly urge 
 liim thereanent. Thus much I know, that Mr. Herries had his 
 own share in the late desperate and unhappy matter of 1745, and 
 was in trouble about it, although that is probably now over. More- 
 over, although he did not profess the Popish religion openly, he had 
 an eye that way. And both of these are reasons why I have 
 hesitated to recommend him to a youth who maybe hath not 
 altogether so well founded his opinions concerning Kirk and State, 
 that they might not be changed by some sudden wind of doctrine. 
 For I have observed ye. Master Darsie, to be rather tinctured with 
 the old leaven of prelacy — this under your leave ; and although 
 God forbid that you should be in any manner disaffected to the 
 Protestant Hanoverian line, yet ye have ever loved to hear the 
 blawing, bleezing stories which the Hieland gentlemen tell of those 
 troublous times, which, if it were their will, they had better pre- 
 termit, as tending rather to shame than to honour. It is come to 
 me also by a side-wind, as I may say, that you have been neigh- 
 bouring more than was needful among some of the pestilent sect of 
 Quakers — a people who own neither priest, nor king, nor civil 
 magistrate, nor the fabric of our law, and will not depone either in 
 civilibus or criminalibus, be the loss to the lieges what it may. 
 Anent which heresies, it were good ye read "the Snake in the 
 Grass," or " the Foot out of the Snare," being both well-approved 
 tracts touching these doctrines. 
 
 Now, Mr. Darsie, ye are to judge for yourself whether ye can 
 safely to your soul's weal remain longer among these Papists and 
 Quakers, — these defections on the right hand, and fallings away on 
 the left ; and truly if you can confidently resist these evil examples 
 of doctrine, I think ye may as well tarry in the bounds where ye 
 are, until you see Mr. Herries of Birrenswork, who does assuredly 
 know more of your matters than I thought had been communicated 
 to any man in Scotland. I would fain have precognosced him 
 
go REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 myself on these affairs, but found him unwilling to speak out, as I 
 have partly intimated before. 
 
 To call a new cause — I have the' pleasure to tell you, that Alan 
 has passed his private Scots Law examinations with good appro- 
 bation — a great relief to my mind ; especially as worthy Mr. Pest 
 told me in my ear there was no fear of the "callant," as he 
 familiarly called him, which gives me great heart. His public 
 trials, which are nothing in comparison save a mere form, are to 
 take place, by order of the Honourable Dean of Faculty, on 
 Wednesday first ; and on Friday he puts on the gown, and gives 
 a bit chack of dinner to his friends and acquaintances, as is, you 
 know, the custpm. Your company will be wished for there. Master 
 Darsie, by more than him, which I regret to think is impossible to 
 have, as well by your engagements, as that our cousin, Peter 
 Fairford, comes from the west on purpose, and we have no place to 
 offer him but your chamber in the wall. And, to be plain with 
 you, after my use and wont. Master Darsie, it may be as well that 
 Alan and you do not meet till he is hefted as it were to his new 
 calling. You are a pleasant gentleman, and full of daffing, which 
 may well become you, as you have enough (as I understand) to 
 uphold your merry humour. If you regard the matter wisely, you 
 would perchance consider that a man of substance should have a 
 douce and staid demeanour ; yet you are so far from growing 
 grave and considerate with the increase of your annual income, 
 that the richer you become, the merrier I think you grow. But 
 this must be at your own pleasure, so far as you are concerned. 
 Alan, however, (overpassing my small -savings,) has the world to 
 win ; and louping and laughing, as you and he were wont to do, 
 would soon make the powder flee out of his wig, and the pence out 
 of his pocket. Neve¥theless, I trust you will meet when you return 
 from your rambles ; for there is a time, as the wise man sayeth, 
 for gathering, and a time for casting away ; it is always the part of 
 a man of sense to take the gathering time first. I remain, dear sir, 
 your well-wishing friend, and obedient to command, 
 
 Alexander Fairford. 
 
 P.S. — Alan's Thesis is upon the title De periculo et commodo rei 
 vendita, and is a very pretty piece of Latinity. — Ross-House, in 
 our neighbourhood, is nearly finished, and is thought to excel Duff- 
 House in ornature. 
 
REnGAUNTLET. 91 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 DARSIE LATIMER TO ALAN FAIRFORD. 
 
 The plot thickens, Alan. I have your letter, and also one from 
 your father. The last makes it impossible for me to comply with 
 the kind request which the former urges. No— I cannot be with 
 you, Alan ; and that, for the best of all reasons— I cannot and ought 
 not to counteract your father's anxious wishes. I do not take it 
 ■Unkind of him that he desires my absence. It is natural that he 
 should wish for his son, what his son so well deserves — the advan^ 
 tage of a wiser and steadier companion than I seem to him. And 
 yet I am sure I have often laboured hard enough to acquire that 
 decency of demeanour which can no more be suspected of breaking 
 bounds, than an owl of catching a butterfly. 
 
 But it was in vain that I have knitted my brows till I had the 
 headach, in order to acquire the reputation of a grave, solid, and 
 well-judging youth. Your father always has discovered, or thought 
 that he discovered, a hairbrained eccentricity lying folded among 
 the wrinkles of my forehead, which rendered me a perilous associate 
 for the future counsellor and ultimate judge. Well, Corporal Nym's 
 philosophy must be my comfort — "Things must be as they may." — 
 I cannot come to your father's house, where he wishes not to see 
 rpe ; and as to your coming hither, — by all that is dear to me, I vow 
 Bhat if you are guilty of such a piece of reckless folly — not to say 
 undutiful cruelty, considering your father's thoughts and wishes — I 
 will never speak to you again as long as I live ! I am perfectly 
 serious. And besides, your father, while he in a manner prohibits 
 me from returning to Edinburgh, gives me the strongest reasons for 
 continuing a little while longer in this country, by holding out the 
 hope that I may receive from your old friend, Mr. Herries of Bir- 
 renswork, some particulars concerning my origin, with which that 
 ancient recusant seems to be acquainted. 
 
 That gentleman mentioned the name of a family in Westmore- 
 land, with which he supposes me connected. My enquiries here 
 after such a family have been ineffectual, for the borderers, on either 
 side, know little of each other. But I shall doubtless find some 
 English person of whom to make enquiries, since the confounded 
 fetterlock clapped on my movements by old Griffiths, prevents me 
 repairing to England in person. At least, the prospect of obtaining 
 some information is greater here than elsewhere ; it will be an 
 apology for my making a longer stay in this neighbourhood, a line 
 
92 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 of conduct which seems to have your father's sanction, whose 
 opinion must be sounder than tliat of your wandering damoiselle. 
 
 If the road were paved with dangers which leads to such a dis- 
 covery, I cannot for a moment hesitate to tread it. But in fact 
 there is no peril in the case. If the Tritons of the Solway shall 
 proceed to pull down honest Joshua's tide-nets, I am neither 
 Quixote enough in disposition, nor Goliath enough in person, to 
 attempt their protection. I have no idea of attempting to prop a 
 falling house, by putting my shoulders against it. And indeed 
 Joshua gave me a hint, that the company which he belongs to, 
 injured in the way threatened, (some of them being men who thought 
 after the fashion of the world,) would pursue the rioters at law, and 
 recover damages, in which probably his own ideas of non-resistance 
 will not prevent his participating. Therefore the whole affair will 
 take its course as law will, as I only mean to interfere when it may 
 be necessary to direct the course of the plaintiffs to thy chambers ; 
 and I request they may find thee intimate with all the Scottish 
 statutes concerning salmon-fisheries, from the LexAquarum, down- 
 ward. 
 
 As for the Lady of the Mantle, I will iay a wager that the sun so 
 bedazzled thine eyes on that memorable morning, that every thing 
 thou didst look upon seemed green ; and notwithstanding James 
 Wilkinson's experience in the Fusileers, as well as his negative 
 whistle, I will venture to hold a crown that she is but a what-shall- 
 call-'um after all. Let not even the gold persuade you to the con- 
 trary. She may rnake a shift ' to cause you to disgorge that, and 
 (immense spoil !) a session's fees to boot, if you look not all the 
 sharper about ^ou. Or if it should be otherwise, and if indeed there 
 lurk some mystery under this visitation, credit me, it is one which 
 thou canst not penetrate, nor can I as yet even attempt to explain 
 it ; since, if I prove mistaken, and mistaken I may easily be, I would 
 be fain to creep into Phalaris's bull, were it standing before me 
 ready heated, rather than be roasted with thy raillery. Do not tax 
 me with want of confidence ; for the instant I can throw any light 
 on the matter thou shalt have it ; but while I am only blundering 
 about in the dark, I do not choose to call wise folks to see me, per- 
 chance, break my nose against a post. So if you marvel at this, 
 
 " E'en marvel on till time makes all things plain." 
 
 In the meantime, kind Alan, let me proceed in my diurnal. 
 
 On the third or fourth day after my arrival at Mount Sharon, 
 Time, that bald sexton to whom I have just referred you, did 
 certainly limp more heavily along with me than he had done at first. 
 The quaint morality of Joshua, and Huguenot simplicity of his sister, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 93 
 
 began to lose much of their raciness with their noveUy, and my 
 mode of hfe, by dint of being very quiet, began to feel abominably 
 dull. It was, as thou say'st, as if the Quakers had put the sun in 
 their pockets — all around was soft and mild, and even pleasant ; 
 but there was, in the whole routine, a uniformity, a want of interest, 
 a helpless and hopeless languor, which rendered life insipid. No 
 doubt, my worthy host and hostess felt none of this void, this want 
 of excitation, which was becoming oppressive to their guest. They 
 had their little round of occupations, charities, and pleasures'; 
 Rachel had her poultry-yard and conservatory, and Joshua his 
 garden. Besides this, they enjoyed, doubtless, their devotional 
 meditations ; and, on the whole, time glided softly and imperceptibly 
 on with them, though to me, who long for stream and cataract, it 
 seemed absolutely to stand still. I meditated returning to Shepherd's 
 Bush, and began to think, with some hankering, after little Benjie 
 and the rod. The imp has ventured hither, and hovers about to 
 catch a peep of me now and then ; I suppose the little sharper is 
 angling for a few more sixpences. But this would have been, in 
 Joshua's eyes, a return of the washed sow to wallowing in the mire, 
 and I resolved, while I remained his guest, to spare him so violent 
 a shock to his prejudices. The next point was, to shorten the time 
 of my proposed stay ; but, alas ! that I felt to be equally impossible. 
 I had named a week ; and however rashly my promise had been 
 pledged, it must be held sacred, even according to the letter, from 
 which the Friends permit no deviation. 
 
 All these considerations wrought me up to a kind of impatience 
 yesterday evening ; so that I snatched up my hat, and prepared for 
 a sally beyond the cultivated farm and ornamented grounds of 
 Mount Sharon, just as if I were desirous to escape from the realms 
 of art, into those of free and unconstrained nature. 
 
 I was scarcely more delighted when I first entered this peaceful 
 demesne, than I now was — such is the instability and inconsistency 
 of human nature ! — when I escaped from it to the open downs, which 
 had formerly seemed so waste and dreary. The air I breathed felt 
 purer and more bracing. The clouds, riding high upon a summer 
 breeze, drove, in gay succession, over my head, now obscuring the 
 sun, now letting its rays stream in transient flashes upon various 
 parts of the landscape, and especially upon the broad mirror of the 
 distant Frith of Solway. 
 
 I advanced on the scene with the light step of a liberated captive; 
 and, like John Bunyan's Pilgrim, could have found in my heart to 
 sing as I went on my way. It seemed as if my gaiety had accu 
 mulated while suppressed, and that I was, in my present joyous 
 mood, entitled to expend the savings of the previous week. But 
 
94 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 just as I was about to uplift a merry stave, I heard, to my joyful 
 surprise, the voices of three or more choristers, singing, with con- 
 siderable success, the lively old catch, 
 
 " For all our men were very very merry, 
 
 And all our men were drinking : 
 There were two men of mine, 
 Three men of thine, 
 
 And three that belong'd to old Sir Thorn o' Lyne ; 
 As fhey went to the ferry, they were very very merry, 
 
 And all our men were drinking."* 
 
 ' As the chorus ended, there followed a loud and hearty laugh by 
 way of cheers. Attracted by sounds which were so congenial to my 
 present feelings, I made towards the spot from which they came — 
 cautiously however, for the downs, as had been repeatedly hinted to 
 me, had no good name ; and the attraction of the music, without 
 rivalling that of the Syrens in melody, might have been followed 
 by similarly inconvenient consequences to an incautious amateur. 
 
 I crept on, therefore, trusting that the sinuosities of the ground, 
 broken as it was into knolls and sand-pits, would permit me to 
 obtain a sight of the musicians before I should be observed by them. 
 As I advanced, the old ditty was again raised. The voices seemed 
 those of a man and two boys ; they were rough, but kept good time, 
 and were managed with too much skill to belong to the ordinary 
 country people. 
 
 " Jack look'd at the sun, ana cried. Fire, nre, fire ; 
 Jem stabled his keffel in Birkendale mire ; 
 Tom startled a calf, and halloo'd for a stag ; 
 Will mounted a gate-post instead of his nag ; 
 For all our men were very very merry, 
 
 And all our men were drinking ; 
 There were two men of mine, 
 Three men of thine. 
 
 And three that belong'd to old Sir Thorn o' Lyne; 
 As they went to the ferry they were very very merry, 
 
 For all our men were drinking." 
 
 The voices, as they mixed in their several parts, and ran through 
 them, untwisting and again entwining all the links of the merry old 
 catch, seemed to have a little touch of the bacchanalian spirit which 
 they celebrated, and showed plainly that the musicians were engaged 
 in the same joyous revel as the menyie of old Sir Thom o' Lyne. 
 At length I came within sight of them, three in number, where they 
 sat cosily niched into what you might c'sSiTi. bunker, a little sand-pit, 
 dry and snug, and surrounded by its banks, and a screen of whins 
 in full bloom. 
 
REDGAUNTLKT. 95 
 
 The only one of the trio whom I recognised as a personal acquain- 
 tance was the notorious little Benjie, who, having just finished his 
 stave, was cramming a huge luncheon of pie-crust into his mouth 
 with one hand, while in the other he held a foaming tankard, his 
 eyes dancing with all the glee of a forbidden revel ; and his features, 
 which have at all times a mischievous archness of expression, con- 
 fessing the full sweetness of stolen waters, and bread eaten in 
 secret. 
 
 There was no mistaking the profession of the male and female, 
 who were partners with Benjie in these merry doings. The man's 
 long loose-bodied great-coat, (wrap-rascal as the vulgar term it,) 
 the fiddle-case, with its straps, which lay beside him, and a small 
 knapsack which might contain his few necessaries ; a clear grey 
 eye ; features which, in contending with many a storm, had not lost 
 a wild and careless expression of glee, animated at present, when 
 he was exercising for his own pleasure the arts which he usually 
 practised for bread, — all announced one of those peripatetic followers 
 of Orpheus, whom the vulgar call a strolling fiddler. Gazing more 
 attentively, I easily discovered that though the poor musician's eyes 
 were open, their sense was shut, and that the ecstasy with which he 
 turned them up to Heaven, only derived its apparent expression 
 from his own internal emotions, but received no assistance from the 
 visible objects around. Beside him sat his female companion, in 
 a man's hat, a blue coat, which seemed also to have been an article 
 of male apparel, and a red petticoat. She was cleaner, in person 
 and in clothes, than such itinerants generally are ; and, having been 
 in her day a strapping bona roba, she did not even yet neglect some 
 attention to her appearance ; wore a large amber necklace, and 
 silver ear-rings, and had her plaid fastened across her breast with 
 a brooch of the same metal. 
 
 The man also looked clean, notwithstanding the meanness of his 
 attire, and had a decent silk handkerchief well knotted about his 
 throat, under which peeped a clean owrelay. His beard, also, 
 instead of displaying a grizzly stubble, unmowed for several days 
 flowed in thick and comely abundance over the breast, to the 
 length of six inches, and mingled with his hair, which was but 
 beginning to exhibit a touch of age. To sum up his appearance, 
 the loose garment which I.have described, was secured around him 
 by a large old-fashioned belt, with brass studs, in which hung a 
 dirk, with a knife and fork, its usual accompaniments. Altogether, 
 there was something more wild and adventurous-looking about the 
 man, than I could have expected to see in an ordinary modern 
 crowder; and the bow which he now and then drew across the 
 violin, to direct his little choir, was decidedly that of no ordinary 
 performer. 
 
96 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 You must understand, that many of these observations were the 
 fruits of after remark ; for I had scarce approached so near as to 
 get a distinct view of the party, when my friend Benjie's lurching 
 attendant, which he calls by the appropriate name of Hemp, 
 began to cock his tail and ears, and, sensible of my presence, 
 flew, barking like a fury, to the place where I had meant to lie 
 concealed till I heard another song. I was obliged, however, to 
 jump on my feet, and intimidate Hemp, who would otherwise have 
 bit me, by two sound kicks on the ribs, which sent him howling back 
 to his master. 
 
 Little Benjie seemed somewhat dismayed at my appearance ; 
 but, calculating on my placability, and remembering, perhaps, that 
 the ill-used Solomon was no palfrey of mine, he speedily affected 
 great glee, and almost in one breath assured the itinerants that I 
 was a " grand gentleman, and had plenty of money, and was very 
 kind to poor folk ; " and informed me that this was " Willie 
 Steenson — ^Wandering Willie — the best fiddler that ever kittled 
 thairm with horse-hair." 
 
 The woman rose and curtsied ; and Wandering Willie sanctioned 
 his own praises with a nod, and the ejaculation, " All is true that 
 the little boy says." 
 
 I asked him if he was of this country. 
 
 " This country ! " replied the blind man — " I am of every country 
 in broad Scotland, and a wee bit of England to the boot. But yet 
 I am, in some sense, of this country ; for I was born within hearing 
 of the roar of Solway. Will I give your honour a touch of the auld 
 bread-winner ? " 
 
 He preluded as he spoke, in a manner which really excited my 
 curiosity; and then taking the old tune of Galashiels for his 
 theme, he graced it with a number of wild, compUcated, and 
 beautiful variations ; during which, it was wonderful to observe 
 how his sightless face was lighted up under the conscious pride 
 and heartfelt delight in the exercise of his own very considerable 
 powers. 
 
 " What think you of that, now, for threescore and twa ? " 
 
 I expressed my surprise and pleasure. 
 
 " A rant, man— an auld rant," said Willie ; " naething like the 
 music ye hae in your ball-houses and your playhouses in Edin- 
 bro' ; but it's weel aneugh anes in a way at a dike-side. — Here's 
 another— it's no a Scots tune, but it passes for ane — Oswald made 
 it himsell, I reckon— he has cheated mony ane, but he canna cheat 
 Wandering Willie." 
 
 He then played your favourite air of Roslin Castle, with a 
 number of beautiful variations, some of which I am certain were 
 almost extempore. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 97 
 
 "You have another fiddle there, my friend," said I — " Have you 
 a comrade ? " But Willie's ears were deaf, or his attention was 
 still busied with the tune. 
 
 The female replied in his stead. " ay, sir — troth we have a 
 partner — a gangrell body like oursells. No but my hinny might 
 have been better if he had liked ; for mony a bein nook in 
 mony a braw house has been offered to my hinny Willie, if he 
 wad but just bide still and play to the gentles." 
 
 " Whisht, woman ! whisht ! " said the blind man, angrily, shak- 
 ing his locks ; " dinna deave the gentleman wi' your havers. 
 Stay in a house and play to the gentles ! — strike up when my 
 leddy pleases, and lay down the bow when my lord bids ! Na, 
 na, that's nae life for Willie. — Look out, Maggie — peer out, woman, 
 and see if ye can see Robin coming. — Deil be in him ! he has got 
 to the lee-side of some smuggler's punch-bowl, and he wunna budge 
 the night, I doubt." 
 
 " That is your consort's instrument," said I — " Will you give me 
 leave to try my skill ? " I slipoed at the same time a shilling into 
 the woman's hand. 
 
 " I dinna ken whether I dare trust Robin's fiddle to ye,",said 
 Willie, bluntly. His wifS gave him a twitch. " Hout awa, 
 Maggie," he said, in contempt of the hint ; " though the gentle- 
 man may hae gien ye siller, he may have nae bow-hand for a' that, 
 and I'll no trust Robin's fiddle wi' an ignoramus. — But that's no 
 sae muckle amiss," he added, as I began to touch the instrument ; 
 " I am thinking ye have some skill o' the craft." 
 
 To confirm him in this favourable opinion, I began to execute 
 such a complicated flourish as I thought must have turned Crow- 
 dero into a pillar of stone with envy and wonder. I scaled the top 
 of the finger-board, to dive at once to the bottom — skipped with 
 flying fingers, like Timotheus, from shift to shift — struck arpeggios 
 and harmonic tones, but without exciting any of the astonishment 
 which I had expected. 
 
 Willie indeed listened to me with considerable attention ; but I 
 was no sooner finished, than he immediately mimicked on his own 
 instrument the fantastic complication of tones which I had pro- 
 duced, and made so whimsical a parody of my performance, that, 
 although somewhat angry, I could not help laughing heartily, in 
 which I was joined by Benjie, whose reverence for me held him 
 under no restraint ; while the poor dame, fearful, doubtless, of my 
 taking offence at this familiarity, seemed divided betwixt her con- 
 jugal reverence for her Willie, and her desire to give him a hint for 
 his guidance. 
 
 At length the old man stopped of his own accord, and, as if he 
 
 H 
 
98 teDGAU^JTLET. 
 
 had sufficiently rebuked, me by his mimicry, he said, " But for a' 
 that, ye will play very weel wi' a little practice and some gude 
 teaching. But ye maun learn to put the heart into it, man— to put 
 the heart into it." 
 
 I played an air in simpler taste, and received more decided 
 approbation. 
 " That's something like it, man. Od, ye are a clever birkie ! " 
 The woman touched his coat again. " The gentleman is a gen- 
 tleman, Willie — ye maunna speak that gate to him, hinny." 
 
 " The deevil I maunna ! " said Willie ; " and what for maunna 
 I ? — If he was ten gentles, he canna draw a bow like me, can 
 he?" 
 
 " Indeed I cannot, my honest friend," said I ; " and if you will 
 go with me to a house hard by, I would be glad to have a night 
 with you." 
 
 Here I looked round, and observed Benjie smothering a laugh, 
 which I was sure had mischief in it. I seized him suddenly by the 
 ear, and made him confess that he was laughing at the thoughts of 
 the reception which a fiddler was likely to get from the Quakers at 
 Mount Sharon. I chucked him from me, not sorry that his mirth • 
 had reminded me in time of what 1 had for the moment forgotten ; 
 and invited the itinerant to go with me to Shepherd's Bush, from 
 which I proposed to send word to Mr. Geddes that I should not 
 return home that evening. But the minstrel declined this invita- 
 tion also. He was engaged for the night, he said, to a dance in the 
 neighbourhood, and vented a round execration on the laziness or 
 drunkenness of his comrade, who had not appeared at the place of 
 rendezvous. 
 
 " I will go with you instead of him,'' said I, in a sudden 
 whim ; " and I will give you a crown to introduce me as your 
 comrade." 
 
 " You gang instead of Rob the Rambler ! My certie, freend, ye 
 are no blate ! " answered Wandering Willie, in a tone which an- 
 nounced death to my frolic. 
 
 But Maggie, whom the offer of the crown had not escaped, 
 began to open on that scent with a maundering sort of lecture. 
 " O Willie ! hinny Willie, whan will ye learn to be wise ? There's 
 a crown to be win for naething but saying ae man's name instead 
 of anither. And, wae's me ! 1 hae just a shilling of this gentle- 
 man's gieing, and a bodle of my ain ; and ye wunna bend your 
 will sae muckle as to take up the siller that's flung at your 
 feet ! Ye will die the death of a cadger's powney in a wreath of 
 drift ' and what can I do better than lie doun and die wi' you ? 
 for ye winna let me win siller to keep either you or mysell leevin." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 99 
 
 " Haud your nonsense tongue, woman," said Willie, but less abso- 
 lutely than before. " Is he a real gentleman, or ane of the player- 
 men ? " 
 
 " I'se uphaud him a real gentleman,'' said the woman. 
 
 " I'se uphaud ye ken little of the matter," said Willie ; " let us see 
 haud of your hand, neebor, gin ye like." 
 
 I gave him my hand. He said to himself, " Ay, ay, here are 
 fingers that have seen canny service." Then running his hand 
 over my hair, my face, and my dress, he went on with his so- 
 liloquy ; " Ay, ay, muisted hair, braid-claith o' the best, and seen- 
 teen hundred linen on his back, at the least o' it. — And how do you 
 think, my braw biikie, that ye are to pass for a tramping fiddler ? " 
 
 " My dress is plain," said I, — indeed I had chosen my most 
 ordinary suit, out of compliment to my Quaker friends, — " and I 
 can easily pass for a young farmer out upon a frolic. Come, I will 
 double the crown I promised you." 
 
 " Damn your crowns ! " said the disinterested man of music. " I 
 would like to have a round wi' you, that's certain ; — but a farmer, 
 and with a hand that never held pleugh-stilt or pettle, that will 
 never do. Ye may pass for a trades-lad from Dumfries, or a student 
 upon the ramble, or the like o' that. — But hark ye, lad ; if ye expect 
 to be ranting amang the queans o' lasses where ye are gaun, ye will 
 come by the waur, I can tell ye ; for the fishers are wild chaps, and 
 will bide nae taunts." 
 
 I promised to be civil and cautious ; and, to smooth the good 
 woman, I slipped the promised piece into her hand. The acute 
 organs of the blind man detected this little manoeuvre. 
 
 "Are ye at it again wi' the siller, ye jaud? I'll be sworn ye 
 wad rather hear ae twalpenny clink against another, than have a 
 spring from Rory Dall,* if he was coming alive again, anes errand. 
 Gang doun the gate to Lucky Gregson's and get the things ye want, 
 and bide there till ele'en hours in the morn ; and if ye see Robin, 
 send him on to me." 
 
 " Am I no gaun to the ploy, then ? " said Maggie, in a disap- 
 pointed tone. 
 
 " And what for should ye ?" said her lord and master ; " to dance 
 a' night, I'se warrant, and no to be fit to walk your tae's-length 
 the morn, and we have ten Scots miles afore us? Na, na. 
 Stable the steed, a;nd pit your wife to bed, when there's night wark 
 to do." 
 
 " Aweel, aweel, Willie hinnie, ye ken best ; but O, take an unco 
 care o' yoursell, and mind ye hae nae the blessing o' sight." 
 
 " Your tongue gars me whiles tire of the blessing of hearing, 
 woman," replied Willie, in answer to this tender exhortation. 
 
 H 2 
 
loo REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 But now I put in for my interest. " Hollo, good folks, remembe 
 that I am to send the boy to Mount Sharon, and if you go to th 
 Shepherd's Bush, honest woman, how the deuce am I to guide th 
 blind man where he is going ? I know little or nothing of th 
 country." 
 
 " An ye ken mickle less of my hinnie, sir," replied Maggie, " tha 
 think he needs ony guiding ; he's the best guide himsell, that ye'l 
 find between Criffell and Carlisle. Horse-road and footpath, parish 
 road and kirk-road, high-road and cross-road, he kens ilka foot c 
 ground in Nithsdale." 
 
 "Ay, ye might have said in braid Scotland, gudewife," addet 
 the fiddler. " But gang your ways, Maggie, that's the first wis( 
 word ye hae spoke the day. I wish it was dark night, and rain 
 and wind, for the gentleman's sake, that I might show him then 
 is whiles when ane had better want een than have them ; for I an 
 as true a guide by darkness as by daylight." 
 
 Internally as well pleased that my companion was not put tc 
 give me this last proof of his skill, I wrote a note with a pencil 
 desiring Samuel to bring my horses at midnight, when I though 
 my frolic would be wellnigh over, to the place to which the bearei 
 should direct him, and I sent little Benjie with an apology to the 
 worthy Quakers. 
 
 As we parted in different directions, the good woman said, " Oh 
 sir, if ye wad but ask Willie to tell ye ane of his tales to shorten the 
 gate ! He can speak like ony minister frae the pu'pit, and he mighl 
 have been a minister himsell, but " 
 
 " Haud your tongue, you fule ! " said Willie,—" But stay, Meg— 
 gie me a kiss, we maunna part in anger, neither." — And thtl6 oui 
 society separated.* 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 _ You are now to conceive us proceeding in our different direc- 
 tions across the bare downs. Yonder flies little Benjie to the 
 northward, with Hemp scampering at his heels, both running as il 
 for dear life, so long as the rogue is within sight of his employer, 
 and certain to take the walk very easy, so soon as he is out of ken! 
 Stepping westward, you see Maggie's taU form and high-cfowned 
 hat, relieved by the fluttering of her plaid upon the left shoulder, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. iDi 
 
 darkening as the distance diminishes her size, and as the level 
 sunbeams begin to sink upon the sea. She is taking her quiet 
 journey to the Shepherd's Bush. 
 
 Then, stoutly striding over the lea, you have a full view of Darsie 
 Latimer, with his new acquaintance, Wandering Willie, who, bating 
 that he touched the ground now and then with his staff, not in a 
 doubtful groping manner, but with the confident air of an ex- 
 perienced pilot, heaving the lead when he has the soundings by 
 heart, walks as firmly and boldly as if he possessed the eyes of 
 Argus. There they go, each with his violin slung at his back, but 
 one of them at least totally ignorant whither their course is 
 directed. 
 
 And wherefore did you enter so keenly into such a mad frolic ? 
 says my wise counsellor — Why, I think, upon the whole, ' that as a 
 sense of loneliness, and a longing for that kindness which is inter- 
 changed in society, led me to take up my temporary residence at 
 Mount Sharon, the monotony of my life there, the quiet simplicity 
 of the conversation of the Geddeses, and the uniformity of their 
 amusements and employments, wearied out my impatient temper, 
 and prepared me for the first escapade which chance might throw 
 in my way. 
 
 What would I have given that I could have procured that solemn 
 grave visage of thine, to dignify this joke, as it has done full many 
 a one of thine own ! Thou hast so happy a knack of doing the 
 most foolish things in the wisest manner, that thou mightst pass 
 thy extravagancies for rational actions, even in the eyes of prudence 
 herself. 
 
 From the direction which my guide observed, I began to suspect 
 tnat the dell at Brokenburn was our probable destination ; and it 
 became important to me to consider whether I could, with pro- 
 priety, or even perfect safety, intrude myself again upon the hos- 
 pitality of my former host. I therefore asked Willie, whether we 
 were bound for the Laird's, a'S folk called him. 
 
 " Do you ken the Laird?" said Willie, interrupting a sonata of 
 Corelli, of which he had whistled several bars with great pre- 
 cision. 
 
 " 1 know the Laird a little," said I ; " and therefore, I was 
 doubting whether I ought to go to his town in disguise." 
 
 " And I should doubt, not a little only, but a great deal, before I 
 took ye there, my chap," said Wandering Willie ; " for I am think- 
 ing it wad be worth little less than broken banes baith to you and 
 me. Na, na, chap, we are no ganging to the Laird's, but to a 
 blithe birling at the Brokenburn-foot, where there will be mony a 
 braw lad and lass ; and maybe there may be some of the Laird's 
 
102 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 folk, for he never comes to sic splores himsell. He is all for 
 fowling-piece and salmon spear, now that pike and musket are out 
 of the question." 
 
 " He has been a soldier, then?" said I. 
 
 " I'se warrant him a soger," answered Willie ; " but take my 
 advice, and speer as little about him as he does about you. Best 
 to let sleeping dogs he. Better say naething about the Laird, my 
 man, and tell me instead, what sort of a chap ye are, that are sae 
 ready to cleik in with an auld gaberlunzie fiddler ? Maggie says 
 ye're gentle, but a shilling maks a' the difference that Meggie kens, 
 between a gentle and a semple, and your crowns wad mak ye a 
 prince of the blood in her een. But I am ana that kens full weel 
 that ye may wear good claithes, and have a saft hand, and yet that 
 may come of idleness as weel as gentrice." 
 
 I told him my name, with the same addition I had formerly 
 given to Mr. Joshua Geddes ; that I was a law-student, tired of 
 my studies, and rambling about for exercise and amusement. 
 
 " And are ye in the wont of drawing up wi' a' the gangrel bodies 
 that ye meet on the high-road, or find cowering in a saijd-bunker 
 upon the links ? * demanded Willie. 
 
 " Oh no ; only with honest folks like yourself, Willie," was my 
 reply. 
 
 " Honest folks like me ! — How do ye ken whether I am honest, 
 or what I am ? — I may be the deevil himsell for what ye ken ; for 
 he has power to come disguised like an angel of light ; and besides, 
 he is a prime fiddler. He played a sonata to Corelli, ye ken." 
 
 There was something odd in this speech, and the tone in which 
 it was said. It seemed as if my companion was not always in his 
 constant mind, or that he was willing to try if he could frighten me. 
 I laughed at the extravagance of his language, however, and asked 
 him in reply, if he was fool enough to believe that the foul fiend 
 would play so silly a masquerade. 
 
 " Ye ken little about it — little about it," said the old man, shaking 
 his head and beard, and knitting his brows — " I could tell ye 
 something about that." 
 
 /hat his wife mentioned of his being a tale-teller, as well as a 
 musician, now occurred to me ; and as you know I like tales of 
 superstition, I begged to have a specimen of his talent as we went 
 along. 
 
 " It is very true," said the blind man, " that when I am tired of 
 scraping thairm or singing ballants, I whiles make a tale serve the 
 turn among the country bodies ; and I have some fearsome anes, 
 that make the auld carlines shake on the settle, and the bits o' 
 bairns skirl on their minnies out frae their beds. But this that I 
 
REDGAUNTI.ET. 103 
 
 am gaun to tell you was a thing that befell in our ain house in my 
 father's time — that is, my father was then a hafflins callant ; and I 
 tell it to you, that it may be a lesson to you, that are but a young, 
 thoughtless chap, wha ye draw up wi' on a lonely road ; for muckle 
 was the dool and care that came o't to my gudesire." 
 
 He commenced his tale accordingly, in a distinct narrative tone 
 of voice, which he raised and depressed with considerable skill ; 
 at times sinking almost into a whisper, and turning his clear but 
 sightless eyeballs upon my face, as if it had been possible for him 
 to witness the impression which his narrative made upon my 
 features. I will not spare you a syllable of it, although it be of 
 the longest ; so I make a dash and begin 
 
 Ye maun have heard of Sir Robert Redgauntlet of that Ilk, who 
 lived in these parts before the dear years. The country will lang 
 mind him ; and our fathers used to draw breath thick if ever they 
 heard him named. He was out wi' the Hielandmen in Montrose s 
 time ; and again he was in the hills wi' Glencairn in the saxteen 
 hundred and fifty-twa ; and sae when King Charles the Second 
 came in, wha was in sic favour as the Laird of Redgauntlet? He 
 was knighted at Lonon court, wi' the King's ain sword ; and being 
 a redhot prelatist, he came down here, rampauging like a lion, with 
 commissions of lieutenancy, (and of lunacy, for what I ken,) to put 
 down a' the Whigs and Covenanters in the country. Wild wark 
 they made of it ; for the Whigs were as dour as the Cavaliers were 
 fierce, and it was which should first tire the other. Redgauntlet 
 was aye for the strong hand ; and his name is kend as wide in the 
 country as Claverhouse's or Tam Dalyell's. Glen, nor dargle, nor 
 mountain, nor cave, could hide the puir hill-folk when Redgauntlet 
 was out with bugle and bloodhound after them, as if they had been 
 sae mony deer. And troth when they fand them, they didna mak 
 muckle mair ceremony than a Hielandman wi' a roebuck — It was 
 just, "Will ye tak the test?"— if not, "Make ready— present- 
 fire ! " — and there lay the recusant. 
 
 Far and wide was Sir Robert hated and feared. Men thought 
 he had a direct compact with Satan — that he was proof against 
 steel — and that bullets happed aff his buff-coat like hg,ilstanes 
 from a hearth — that he had a mear that would turn a hare on the 
 side of Carrifra-gawns* — and muckle to the same purpose, of whilk 
 mair anon. The best blessing they wared on him was, " Deil 
 scowp wi' Redgauntlet ! " He wasna a bad maister to his ain folk 
 though, and was weel aneugh liked by his tenants ; and as for the 
 
104 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 lackies and troopers that raid out wi' him to the persecutions, as 
 the Whigs caa'd those killing times, they wad hae drunken them- 
 sells blind to his health at ony time. 
 
 Now you are to ken that my gudesire lived on Redgauntlet's 
 grund— they ca' the place Primrose- Knowe. We had lived on the 
 grund, and under the Redgauntlets, since the riding days, and lang 
 before. It was a pleasant bit ; and I think the air is callerer and 
 fresher there than ony where else in the country. It's a' deserted 
 now ; and I sat on the broken door-cheek three days since, and 
 was glad I couldna see the plight the place was in ; but that's a' 
 wide o' the mark. There dwelt my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, a 
 rambling, rattling chiel he had been in his young days, and could 
 play weel on the pipes ; he was famous at " Hoopers and Girders" 
 — a' Cumberland couldna touch him at " Jockie Lattin" — and he 
 had the finest finger for the back-lilt between Berwick and Carlisle. 
 The like o' Steenie wasna the sort that they made Whigs o'. And 
 so he became a Tory, as they ca' it, which we now ca' Jacobites, 
 just out of a kind of needcessity, that he might belang to some side 
 or other. He had nae ill-will to the Whig bodies, and liked little 
 to see the blude rin, though, being obliged to follow Sir Robert in 
 hunting and hosting, watching and warding, he saw muckle mis- 
 chief, and maybe did some, that he couldna avoid. 
 
 Now Steenie was a kind of favourite with his master, and kend 
 a' the folks about the castle, and was often sent for to play the 
 pipes when they were at their merriment. Auld Dougal Mac- 
 Callum, the butler, that had followed Sir Robert through gude and 
 ill, thick and thin, pool and stream, was specially fond of the pipes, 
 and aye gae my gudesire his gude word wi' the Laird ; for Dougaj 
 could turn his master round his finger. 
 
 Wecl, round came the Revolution, and it had like to have broken 
 the hearts baith of Dougal and his master. But the change was 
 not a'thegether sac great as they feared, and other folk thought for. 
 The Whigs made an unco crawing what they wad do with their 
 auld enemies, and in special wi' Sir Robert Redgauntlet. But 
 there were ower mony great folks dipped in the same doings, to 
 mak a spick and span new warld. So parliament passed it a' ower 
 easy ; and Sir Robert, bating that he was held to hunting foxes 
 instead of Covenanters, remained just the man he was. His revel 
 was as loud, and his hall as weel lighted, as ever it had been, 
 though maybe he lacked the fines of the non-conformists, that 
 used to come to stock his larder and cellar ; for it is certain he 
 began to be keener about the rents than his tenants used to find 
 him before, and they behoved to be prompt to the rent-day, or else 
 the Laird wasna pleased. And he was sie an awsome body, that 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 105 
 
 riaebody cared to anger him ; for the oaths he swore, and the rage 
 that he used to get into, and the looks that he put on, made men 
 sometimes think him a devil incarnate.* 
 
 Weal, my gudesire was nae manager — no that he was a very great 
 misguider — but he hadna the saving gift, and he got twa terms' 
 rent in arrear. He got the first brash at Whitsunday put ower wi' 
 fair word and piping ; but when Martinmas came, there was a. 
 summons from the grand-officer to come wi' the rent on a day 
 preceese, or else Steenie behoved to flit. Sair wark he had to get 
 the siller ; but he was weel-freended, and at last he got the haill 
 scraped thegither — a thousand merks— the maist of it was from a 
 neighbour they caa'd Laurie Lapraik — a sly tod. Laurie had walth 
 o' gear — could hunt wi' the hound and rin wi' the hare — and be 
 Whig or Tory, saunt or sinner, as the wind stood. He was a pro- 
 fessor in this Revolution warld, but he liked an orra sough of this 
 warld ; and a tune on the pipes weal aneugh at a bytime, and 
 abune a', he thought he had gude security for the siller he lent 
 my gudesire ower the stocking at Primrose- Knowe. 
 
 Away trots my gudesire to Redgauntlet Castle, wi' a heavy purse 
 and a light heart, glad to be out of the Laird's danger. Weel, the 
 first thing he learned at the Castle was, that Sir Robert had fretted 
 himself into a fit of the gout, because he did not appear before 
 twelve o'clock. It wasna a'thegether for the sake of the money, 
 Dougal thought ; but because he didna like to part wi' my gudesire 
 aff the grund. Dougal was glad to see Steenie, and brought him 
 into the great oak parlour, and there sat the Laird his leesome lane, 
 excepting that he had. beside him a great, ill-favoured jackanape, 
 that was a special pet of his ; a cankered beast it was, and mony 
 an ill-natured trick it played — ill to please it was, and easily angered 
 — ran about the haill castle, chattering and yowling, and pinching 
 and biting folk, especially before ill weather, or disturbances in the 
 state. Sir Robert caa'd it Major Weir, after the warlock that was 
 burnt ; * and few folk liked either the name or the conditions of 
 the creature — they thought there was something in it by ordinar — 
 and my gudesire was not just easy in his mind when the door shut 
 on him, and he saw himself in the room wi' naebody but the Laird, 
 Dougal MacCallum, and the Major, a thing that hadna chanced to 
 him before. 
 
 Sir Robert sat, or, I should say, lay, in a great armed chair, 
 wi' his grand velvet gown, and his feet on a cradle ; for he had 
 baith gout and gravel, and his face looked as gash and ghastly as 
 Satan's. Major Weir sat opposite to him, in a red laced coat, and 
 the Laird's wig on his head; and aye as Sir Robert girned wi'pain, 
 the jackanape girned too, like a sheep's-head between a pair of 
 
lo6 R'EDGAUNTLET. 
 
 tangs— an ill-faured, fearsome couple they were. The Laird's buff- 
 coat was hung on a pin behind him, and his broadsword and 
 pistols within reach ; for he keepit up the auld fashion of having 
 the weapons ready, and a horse saddled day and night, just as he 
 used to do when he was able to loup on horseback, and away after 
 ony of the hill-folk he could get speerings of Some said it was 
 for fear of the Whigs taking vengeance, but I judge it was just his 
 auld custom — he wasna gien to fear ony thing. The rental-book, 
 wi' its black cover and brass clasps, was lying beside him ; and a 
 book of sculduddry sangs was put betwixt the leaves, to keep it 
 open at the place where it bore evidence against the Goodman of 
 Primrose-Knowe, as behind the hand with his mails and duties. 
 Sir Robert gave my gudesire a look, as if he would have withered 
 his heart in his bosom. Ye maun ken he had a way of bending his 
 brows, that men saw the visible mark of a horse-shoe in his fore- 
 head, deep-dinted, as if it had been stamped there. 
 
 " Are ye come light-handed, ye son of a toom whistle ? " said Sir 
 Robert. " Zounds ! if you are " 
 
 My gudesire, with as gude a countenance as he could put on, 
 made a leg, an'd placed the bag of money on the table wi' a dash, 
 like a man that does something clever. The Laird drew it to him 
 hastily — " Is it all here, Steenie, man ?" 
 
 " Your honour will find it right," said my gudesire. 
 
 " Here, Dougal," said the Laird, "gie Steenie a tass of brandy 
 down stairs, till I count the siller and write the receipt." 
 
 But they werena weel out of the room, when Sir Robert gied a 
 yelloch that garr'd the Castle rock ! Back ran Dougal — in flew the 
 livery-men — yell on yell gied the Laird, ilk ane mair awfu' than the 
 ither. My gudesire knew not whether to stand or flee, but he 
 ventured back into the parlour, where a' was gaun hirdy-girdie — 
 naebody to say ' come in,' or ' gae out.' Terribly the Laird roared 
 for cauld water to his feet, and wine to cool his throat ; and hell, 
 hell, hell, and its flames, was aye the word in his mouth. They 
 brought him water, and when they plunged his swoln feet into the 
 tub, he cried out it was burning ; and folk say that it did bubble 
 and sparkle like a seething cauldron. He flung the cup at Dougal's 
 head, and said he had given him blood instead of Burgundy ;' and, 
 sure aneugh, the lass washed clotted blood affthe carpet the neist 
 day. The jackanape they caa'd Major Weir, it jibbered and cried 
 as if it was mocking its master ; my gudesire's head was like 
 to turn — ^he forgot baith siller and receipt, and down stairs he 
 banged ; but as he ran, the shrieks came faint and fainter ; there 
 was a deep-drawn shivering groan, and word gaed through the 
 Castle, that the Laird was dead, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 107 
 
 Weel, away came my gudesire, wi' his finger in his mouth, and 
 his best hope was, that Dougal had seen the money-bag, and heard 
 the Laird speak of writing the receipt. The young Laird, now Sir 
 John, came from Edinburgh, to see things put to rights. Sir John 
 and his father never gree'd well. Sir John bad been bred an advocate, 
 and afterwards sat in the last Scots Parliament and voted for the 
 Union, having gotten, it was thought, a rug of the compensations — 
 if his father could have come out of his grave, he would have 
 brained him for it on his awn hearthstane. Some thought it 
 was easier counting with the auld rough Knight than the fair- 
 spoken young ane— but mair of that anon. 
 
 Dougal MacCallum, poor body, neither grat nor graned, but 
 gaed about the house looking like a corpse, but directing, as was 
 his duty, a' the order of the grand funeral. Now, Dougal looked 
 aye waur and waur when night was coming, and was aye the last to 
 gang to his bed, whilk was in a little round just opposite the 
 chamber of dais, whilk his master occupied while he was living, and 
 where he now lay in state, as they caa'd it, weel-a-day ! The night 
 before the funeral, Dougal could keep his awn counsel nae langer ; 
 he came doun with his proud spirit, and fairly asked auld Hutcheon 
 to sit in his room with him for an hour. When they were in the 
 round, Dougal took ae tass of brandy to himseU, and gave another 
 to Hutcheon, and wished him all health and lang life, and said that, 
 for himsell, he wasna lang for this world ; for that, every night 
 since Sir Robert's death, his silver call had sounded from the state 
 chamber, just as it used to do at nights in his lifetime, to call 
 Dougal to help to turn him in his bed. Dougal said, that being 
 alone with the dead on that floor of the tower, (for naebody cared to 
 wake Sir Robert Redgauntlet like another corpse,) he had never 
 daured to answer the call, but that now his conscience checked 
 him for neglecting his duty ; for, " though death breaks service," 
 said MacCuUum, " it shall never break my service to Sir Robert ; 
 and I will answer his next whistle, so be you will stand by me, 
 Hutcheon." 
 
 Hutcheon had nae will to the wark, but he had stood by Dougal 
 in battle and broil, and he wad not fail him at this pinch ; so down 
 the carles sat ower a stoup of brandy, and Hutcheon, who was some- 
 thing of a clerk, would have read a chapter of the Bible ; but Dougal 
 would hear naething but a blaud of Davie Lindsay, whilk was the 
 waur preparation. 
 
 When midnight came, and the house was quiet as the grave, sure 
 aneugh the silver whistle sounded as sharp and shrill as if Sir 
 Robert was blowing it, and up gat the twa auld serving-men, and 
 tottered into the room where the dead man lay. Hutcheon saw 
 
loS REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 aneugh at the first glance ; for there were torches in the room, 
 which showed him 'the foul fiend in his ain shape, sitting on the 
 Laird's coffin ! Over he cowped as-if he had been dead. He could 
 not tell how lang he lay in a trance at the door, but when he 
 gathered himself, he cried on his neighbour, and getting nae answer, 
 raised the house, when Dougal was found lying dead within twa 
 steps of the bed where his master's coffin was placed. As for the 
 whistle, it was gaen anes and aye ; but mony a time it was 
 heard at the top of the house on the bartizan, and amang the auld 
 chimneys and turrets, where the howlets have their nests. Sir John 
 hushed the matter up, and the funeral passed over without mair 
 bogle-wark. 
 
 But when a' was ower, and the Lair4 was beginning to settle his 
 affairs, every tenant was called up for his arrears, and my gudesire 
 for the full sum that stood against him in the rental-book. Weel, 
 away he trots to the Castle, to tell his story, and there he is in- 
 troduced to Sir John, sitting in his father's chair, in deep mourning, 
 with weepers and hanging cravat, and a small walking rapier by 
 his side, instead of the auld broadsword that had a hundred-weight 
 of steel about it, what with blade, chape, and basket-hilt. I have 
 heard their communing so often tauld ower, that I almost think I 
 was there mysell, though I couldna be born at the time. ' (In fact 
 Alan, my companion mimicked, with a good deal of humour, the 
 flattering, conciliatory tone of the tenant's address, and the hypo- 
 critical melancholy of the Laird's reply. His grandfather, he said, 
 had, while he spoke, his eye fixed on the rental-book, as if it were 
 a mastiff dog that he was afraid would spring up and bite him.) 
 
 " I wuss ye joy, sir, of the head seat, and the white loaf, and the 
 braid lairdship. Your father was a kind man to friends and 
 followers ; muckle grace to you, Sir John, to fill his shoon — his 
 boots, I suld say, for he seldom wore shoon, unless it were muils 
 when he had the gout." 
 
 " Ay, Steenie," quoth the Laird, sighing deeply, and putting his 
 napkin to his een, " his was a sudden call, and he will be missed in 
 the country ; jio time to set his house in order — weel prepared 
 Godward, no doubt, which is the root of the matter — but left us 
 behind a tangled hesp to wind, Steenie. — Hem ! hem ! We maun 
 go to business, Steenie ; much to do, and little time to do it in." 
 
 Here he opened the fatal volume. I have heard of a thing they 
 call Doomsday-book — I am clear it has been a rental of back- 
 ganging tenants. 
 
 " Stephen," said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of 
 voice — " Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a 
 year's rent behind the hand — due at last term." 
 
13 |i 
 
 
 
 /J 
 
 
REDGAUNTLET. log 
 
 Stephen. " Please your honour, Sir John, I paid it to your 
 father." 
 
 Sir JoAn. "Ye took a receipt then, doubtless, Stephen; and 
 can produce it ? " 
 
 Stephen. " Indeed I hadna time, an it like your honour ; for nae 
 sooner had I set doun the siller, and just as his honour Sir Robert, 
 that's gaen, drew it till him to count it, and write out the receipt, he 
 was ta'en wi' the pains that removed him." 
 
 "That was unlucky," said Sir John, after a pause. "But ye 
 maybe paid it in the presence of somebody. I want but a talis 
 qualis evidence, Stephen. I would go ower strictly to work with no 
 poor man." 
 
 Stephen. " Troth, Sir John, there was naebody in the room but 
 Dougal MacCullum, the butler. But, as your honour, kens, he has 
 e'en followed his auld master." 
 
 "Very unlucky again, Stephen," said Sir John, without altering 
 his voice a single note. " The man to whom ye paid the money is 
 dead — and the man who witnessed the payment is dead too — and 
 the siller, which should have been to the fore, is neither seen nor 
 heard tell of in the repositories. How am 1 to believe a' this ? " 
 
 Stephen. " I dinna ken-, your honour ; but there is a bit 
 memorandum note of the very coins ; for, God help me t I had to 
 borrow out of twenty purses ; and I am sure that ilka man there 
 set down will take his grit oath for what 'Purpose I borrowed the 
 money." 
 
 Sir yohn. " I have little doubt ye borrowed the money, Steenie, 
 It is the payinent to my father that I want to have some prooi 
 of." 
 
 Stephen. " The siller maun be about the house. Sir John. And 
 since your honour never got it, and his honour that was canna 
 have ta'en it wi' him, maybe some of the family may have seen it." 
 
 Sir John. " We will examine the servants, Stepken ; that is but 
 reasonable." 
 
 But lackey and lass, and page and groom, all denied stoutly that 
 they had ever seen such a bag of money as my gudesire described. 
 What was waur, he had unluckily not mentioned to any living 
 soul of them his purpose of paying his rent. Ae quean had noticed 
 something imder his arm, but she took it for the pipes. 
 
 Sir John Redgauntlet ordered the servants out of the room, and 
 then said to my gudesire, " Now, Steenie, ye seq you have fair 
 play ; and, as I have little doubt ye ken better where to find the 
 siller than any other body, I beg, in fair terms, and for your own 
 sake, that you will end this fasherie ; for, Stephen, ye maun pay or 
 flit." 
 
no REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " The Lord forgie your opinion," said Stephen, driven almost to 
 his wit's end—" I am an honest man." 
 
 " So am I, Stephen," said his honour ; " and so are all the folks 
 in the house, I hope. But if there be a knave amongst us, it must 
 be he that tells the story he cannot prove." He paused, and then 
 added, mair sternly, " If I understand your trick, sir, you want to 
 take advantage of some malicious reports concerning things in this 
 family, and particularly respecting my father's sudden death, 
 thereby to cheat me out of the money, and perhaps take away my 
 character, by insinuating that I have received the rent I am de- 
 manding. — Where do you suppose this money to be? — I insist 
 upon knowing." 
 
 My gudesire saw every thing look sae muckle against him that 
 he grew nearly desperate — however, he shifted from one foot to 
 another, looked to every corner of the room, and made no answer. 
 
 " Speak out, sirrah," said the Laird, assuming a look of his 
 father's, a very particular ane, which he had when he was angry — 
 it seemed as if the wrinkles of his frown made that selfsame fearful 
 shape of a horse's shoe in the middle of his brow ; — " Speak out, 
 sir ! I will know your thoughts ; — do you suppose that I have this 
 money ? " 
 
 " Far be it frae me to say so," said Stephen. 
 
 " Do you charge any of my people with having taken it ? " 
 
 " I wad be laith to charge them that may be innocent," said 
 my gudesire ; " and if there be any one that is guilty, I have nae 
 proof." 
 
 " Somewhere the money must be, if there is a word of truth in 
 your story," said Sir John ; " I ask where you think it is— and 
 demand a correct answer ? " 
 
 " In hell, if you will have my thoughts of it," said my gudesire, 
 driven to extremity,—" in hell I with your father, his jackanape, 
 and his silver whistle." 
 
 Down the stairs he ran, (for the parlour was nae place for him 
 after such a word,) and he heard the Laird swearing blood and 
 wounds behind him, as fast as ever did Sir Robert, and roaring for 
 the bailie and the baron-officer. 
 
 Away jode my gudesire to his chief creditor, (him they caa'd 
 Laurie Lapraik,) to try if he could make ony thing out of him ; but 
 when he tauld his story, he got but the warst word in his wame— 
 thief, beggar, and dyvour, were the saftest terms ; and to the boot 
 of these hard terms, Laurie brought up the auld story of his dipping 
 his hand in the blood of God's saunts, just as if a tenant could 
 have helped riding with the Laird, and that a laird like Sir Robert 
 Redgauntlet, My gudesire was, by this time, far beyond the 
 
REDGAUNTLET. iii 
 
 bounds of patience, and while he and Laurie were at deil speed the 
 liars, he was wanchancie aneugh to abuse Lapraik's doctrine as 
 weel as the man, and said things that garr'd folk's flesh grue that 
 heard them ; — he wasna just himsell, and he had lived wi' a wild 
 set in his day. 
 
 At last they parted, and my gudesire was to ride hame through 
 the wood of Pitmurkie, that is a' fou of black firs, as they say. — I 
 ken the wood, but the firs may be black or white for what I can 
 tell.— At the entry of the wood there is a wild common, and on the 
 edge of the common, a little lonely change-house, that was keepit 
 then by an ostler-wife, they suld hae caa'd her Tibbie Faw, and 
 there puir Steenie cried for a mutchkin of brandy, for he had had 
 no refreshment the haill day. Tibbie was earnest wi' him to take 
 a bite of meat, but he couldna think o't, nor would he take his foot 
 out of the stirrup, and took off the brandy wholely at twa draughts, 
 and named a toast at each : — the first was, the memory of Sir 
 Robert Redgauntlet, and might he never lie quiet in his grave till 
 he had righted his poor bond-tenant ; and the second was, a health 
 to Man's Enemy, if he would but get him back the pock of siller, 
 or tell him what came o't, for he saw the haill world was like to 
 regard him as a thief and a cheat, and he took that waur than 
 even the ruin of his house and hauld. 
 
 On he rode, little caring where. It was a dark night turned, and 
 the trees made it yet darker, and he let the beast take its ain road 
 through the wood ; when, all of a sudden, from tired and wearied 
 that it was- before, the nag began to spring, and flee, and stend, 
 that my gudesire could hardly keep the saddle— Upon the whilk, a 
 horseman, suddenly riding up beside him, said, " That's a mettle 
 beast of yours, freend ; will you sell him?" — So saying, he touched 
 the horse's neck with his riding- wand, and it fell into its auld 
 heigh-ho of a stumbling-trot. " But his spunk's soon out of him, I 
 think," continued the stranger, "and that is like mony a man's 
 courage, that thinks he wad do great things till he come to the proof." 
 
 My gudesire scarce listened to this, but spurred his horse, with 
 " Gude e'en to you, freend." 
 
 But it's like the stranger was ane that doesna lightly yield his 
 point ; for, ride as Steenie liked, he was aye beside him at the self- 
 same pace. At last my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, grew half 
 angry ; and, to say the truth,, half feared. 
 
 " What is it that ye want with me, freend ?" he said. " If ye be 
 a robber, I have nae money ; if ye be a leal man, wanting com- 
 pany, I have nae heart to mirth or speaking ; and if ye want to 
 ken the road, I scarce ken it mysell." 
 
 " If you will tell me your grief," said the stranger, " I am one 
 
112 REDGAUNTLET, 
 
 that, though I have been sair miscaa'd in the world, am the only 
 hand for helping my freends." 
 
 So my gudesire, to ease his abi heart, mair than from any hope 
 of help, told him the story from beginning to end. 
 
 " It's a hard pinch," said the stranger ; " but I think I can help 
 you.' 
 
 " If you could lend the money, sir, and take a lang day— I ken 
 nae other help on earth," said my gudesire. 
 
 " But there may be some under the earth," said the stranger. 
 " Come, I'll be frank wi' you ; I could lend you the money on 
 bond, but you would maybe scruple my terms. Now, I can tell 
 you, that your auld Laird is disturbed in his grave by your curses, 
 and the wailing of your family, and if ye daur venture to go to see 
 him, he will give you the receipt." 
 
 My gudesire's hair stood on end at this proposal, but he thought 
 his companion might be some humorsome chield that was trying 
 to frighten him, and might end with lending him the money. 
 Besides, he was bauld wi' brandy, and desperate wi' distress j and 
 he said, he had courage to go to the gate of hell, and a step farther, 
 for that receipt. — The stranger laughed. 
 
 Weel, they rode on through the thickest of the wood, when, all 
 of a sudden, the horse stopped at the door of a great house ; and, 
 but that he knew the place was ten miles off, my father would have 
 thought he was at Redgauntlet Castle. They rode into the outer 
 pourt-yard, through the muckle faulding yetts, and aneath the auld 
 portcullis ; and the whole front of the house was lighted, and there 
 were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray within as 
 used to be in Sir Robert's house at Pace and Yule, and such high 
 seasons. They lap off, and my gudesire, as seemed to him,i'astened 
 his horse to the very ring he had tied him to that morning, when 
 he gaed to wait on the young Sir John. 
 
 "God!" said my gudesire, "if Sir Robert's death be but a 
 dream ! " 
 
 He knocked at the ha' door just as he was wont, and his auld 
 acquaintance, Dougal MacCallum,— just after his wont, too,— 
 came to open the door, and said, " Piper Steenie, are ye there, 
 lad ? Sir Robert has been crying for you." 
 
 My gudesire was like a man in a dream— he looked for the 
 stranger, but he was gane for the time. At last he just tried to 
 say, "Ha! Dougal Driveower, are ye living? I thought ye had 
 been dead." 
 
 " Never fash yoursell wi' me," said Dougal, "but look to your- 
 sell ; and see yc tak naething frae onybody here, neither meat, 
 drnik, or siller, except just the receipt that is your ain." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. H3 
 
 So saying, he led the way out through halls and trances that 
 were weel kend to my gudesire, and into the auld oak parlour ; 
 and there waa as much singing of profane sangs, and birling of 
 red wine, and speaking blasphemy and sculduddry, as bad ever 
 been in Redgauntlet Castle when it was at the blithest. 
 
 But, Lord take us in keeping ! what a set of ghastly revellers 
 they were that sat round that table I— My gudesire kend mony that 
 had long before gane to their place, for often had he piped to the 
 most part in the hall of Redgauntlet. There was the fierce Mid- 
 dleton, and the dissolute Rothes, and the crafty Lauderdale ; and 
 Dalyell, with his bald head and a beard to his girdle ; and 
 Earlshall, with Cameron's blude on his hand ; and wild Bonshaw, 
 that tied blessed Mr. Cargill's limbs till the blude sprung ; and 
 Dumbarton Douglas, the twice-turned traitor baith to countiy and 
 king. There was the bluidy Advocate MacKenzie, who, for his 
 worldly wit and wisdom, had been to the rest as a god. And 
 there was Claverhouse, as beautiful as when he lived, with his long, 
 dark, curled locks, streaming down over his laced bufif-coat, 
 and his left hand always on his right spule-blade, to hide the wound 
 that the silver bullet had made.* He sat apart from them all, and 
 looked at them with a melancholy, haughty countenance ; while 
 the rest hallooed, and sung, and laughed, that the room rang. But 
 their smiles were fearfully contorted from time to time ; and their 
 laughter passed into such wild sounds, as made my gudesire's very 
 nails grow blue, and chilled the marrow in his banes. 
 
 ' They that waited at the table were just the wicked serving-men 
 and troopers, that had done their work and cruel bidding on earth. 
 There was the Lang Lad of the Nethertown, that helped to take 
 Argyle ; and the Bishop's summoner, that they called the Deil's 
 Rattle-bag ; and the wicked guardsmen, in their laced coats ; and 
 the savage Highland Amorites, that shed blood like water; and 
 many a proud serving-man. haugnty of heart and bloody of hand, 
 cringing to the rich, and making them wickeder than they would 
 be ; grinding the poor to powdei, when the rich had broken them 
 to fragments. And mony, mony mair were coming and ganging, 
 a' as busy in their vocation as if they had been alive. 
 
 Sir Robert Redgauntlet, in the midst of a' this fearful riot, cried, 
 wi' a voice like thunder, on Steenie Piper, to come to the board- 
 head where he was sitting ; his legs stretched out before him, and 
 swathed up with flannel, with his holster pistols aside him, while 
 the great broadsword rested against his chair, just as my gudesire 
 had seen him the last time upon earth — the very cushion for the 
 jackanape was close to him, but the creature itsell was not there — 
 it wasna its hour, it's likely ; for he heard them say as he came 
 
114 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 forward, "Is not the Major come yet?" And another answered, 
 " The jackanape will be here betimes the morn." And when my 
 gudesire came forward, Sir Robert, or his ghaist, or the deevil in his 
 likeness, said, " Weel, piper, hae ye settled wi' my son for the 
 year's rent ? " 
 
 With much ado my father gat breath to say, that Sir John would 
 not settle without his honour's receipt. 
 
 " Ye shall hae that for a tune of the pipes, Steenie,'' said the 
 appearance of Sir Robert — " Play us up, ' Weel hoddled, Luckie.' " 
 
 Now this was a tune my gudesire learned frae a warlock, that 
 heard it when they were worshipping Satan at their meetings; and 
 my gudesire had sometimes played it at the ranting suppers in Red- 
 gauntlet Castle, but never very willingly ; and now he grew cauld at 
 the very name of it, and said, for excuse, he hadna his pipes wi' 
 him. 
 
 " MacCallum, ye limb of Beelzebub,'' said the fearfu' Sir 
 Robert, "bring Steenie the pipes that I am keeping for him ! " 
 
 MacCallum brought a pair of pipes might have served the piper 
 of Donald of the Isles. But he gave my gudesire a nudge as he 
 offered them ; and looking secretly and closely, Steenie saw that 
 the chanter was of steel, and heated to a white heat ; so he had 
 fair warning not to trust his fingers with it. So he excused himself 
 again, and said, he was faint and frightened, and had not wind 
 aneugh to fill the bag. 
 
 ' Then ye maun eat and drink, Steenie," said the figure ; " for 
 we do little else here ; and it's ill speaking between a fou man and 
 a fasting." 
 
 Now these were the very words that the bloody Earl of Douglas 
 said to keep the King's messenger in hand, while he cut the head 
 off MacLellan of Bombie, at the Threave Castle ; * and that put 
 Steenie mair and mair on his guard. So he spoke up like a man, 
 and said he came neither to eat, or drink, or make minstrelsy,; but 
 simply for his ain— to ken what was come o' the money he had 
 paid, and to get a discharge for it ; and he was so stout-hearted by 
 this time, that he charged Sir Robert for conscience-sake— (he 
 had no power to say the holy name)— and as he hoped for peace 
 and rest, to spread no snares for him, but just to give him his 
 ain. 
 
 The appearance gnashed his teeth and laughed, but it took from 
 a large pocketbook the receipt, and handed it to Steenie. " There 
 is your receipt, ye pitiful cur ; and for the money, my dog-whelp of • 
 a son may go look for it in the Cat's Cradle." 
 
 My gudesire uttered mony thanks, and was about to retire, when- 
 Sir Robert roared aloud, " Stop though, thou sack-doudling son of 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 113 
 
 a whore ! I am not done with thee. Here we do nothing for 
 nothing ; and you must return on this very day twelvemonth, to 
 pay your master the homage that you owe me for my protection." 
 
 My father's tongue was loosed of a suddenty, and he said aloud, 
 " I refer mysell to God's pleasure, and not to yours." 
 
 He had no sooner uttered the word than all was dark around 
 him ; and he sunk on the earth with such a sudden shock, that he 
 lost iDoth breath and sense. 
 
 How lang Steenie lay there, he could not tell ; but when he 
 came to himsell, he was lying in the auld kirkyard of Redgauntlet 
 parochine, just at the door of the family aisle, and the scutcheon of 
 the auld knight. Sir Robert, hanging over his head. There was a 
 deep morning fog on grass and gravestane around him, and his 
 horse was feeding quietly beside the minister's twa cows. Steenie 
 would have thought the whole was a dream, but he had the 
 receipt in his hand, fairly written and signed by the auld Laird ; 
 only the two last letters of his name were a little disorderly, written 
 like one seized with sudden pain. 
 
 Sorely troubled in his mind, he left that dreary place, rode 
 through the mist to Redgauntlet Castle, and with much ado he 
 got speech of the Laird. 
 
 "Well, you dyvour bankrupt," was the first word, "have you 
 brought me my rent ? " 
 
 " No," answered my gudesire, " I have not ; " but I have brought 
 your honour Sir Robert's receipt for it." 
 
 " How, sirrah ?— Sir Robert's receipt !— You told me he had not 
 given you one." 
 
 " Will your honour please to see if that bit line is right ? " 
 
 Sir John looked at every line, and at every letter, with much 
 attention ; and at last, at the date, which my gudesire had not 
 observed,— " From my appointed place," he read, " this twenty-fifth 
 of November."—" What !— that is yesterday !— ViUain, thou must 
 have gone to hell for this ! " 
 
 « I got it from your honour's father— whether ne be in heaven or 
 hell, 1 know not," said Steenie. 
 
 " I will delate you for a warlock to the Privy Council ! " said Sir 
 John. " I will send you to your master, the devil, with the help of 
 a tar-barrel and a torch ! " , . , ^ . <- ■, 
 
 « I intend to delate mysell to the Presbytery," said Steenie, and 
 tell them all I have seen last night, whilk are things fitter for them 
 to judge of than a borrel man like me." 
 
 Sir John paused, composed himsell, and desired to hear the fuU 
 history; and my gudesire told it him from point to point, as I have 
 told it you— word for word, neither more ncr less. 
 
Ii5 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Sir John was silent again for a long time, and at last he said, 
 very composedly, " Steenie, this story of yours concerns the honour 
 of many a noble family besides mine ; and if it be a leasing- 
 making, to keep yourself out of my danger, the least you can 
 expect is to have a redhot iron driven through your tongue, and 
 that will be as bad as scauding your fingers with a redhot chanter. 
 But yet it may be true, Steenie ; and if the money cast up, I shall 
 not know what to think of it. — But where shall we find the Cat's 
 Cradle ? There are cats enough about the old house, but I think 
 they kitten without the ceremony of bed or cradle." 
 
 " We were best ask Hutcheon," said my gudesire ; " he kens a' 
 the odd corners about as weel as — another serving-man that is 
 now gane, and that I wad not like to name." 
 
 Aweel, Hutcheon, when he was asked, told them, that a runious 
 turret, lang disused, next to the clock-house, only accessible by a 
 ladder, for the opening was on the outside, and far above the 
 battlements, was called of old the Cat's Cradle. 
 
 " There will I go immediately," said Sir John ; and he took 
 (with what purpose, Heaven kens) one of his father's pistols from 
 the hall-table, where they had lain since the night he died, and 
 hastened to the battlements. 
 
 It was a dangerous place to climb, for the fadder was auld and 
 frail, and wanted ane or twa rounds. However, up got Sir John, 
 and entered at the turret door, where his body stopped the only 
 little light that was in the bit turret. Something flees -at him wi' 
 a vengeance, maist dang him back ower— bang gaed the knight's 
 pistol, and Hutcheon, that held the ladder, and my gudesire that 
 stood beside him, hears a loud skelloch. A minute after. Sir 
 John flings the body of the jackanape down to them, and cries 
 that the siller is fund, and that they should come up and help him. 
 And there was the bag of siller sure aneugh, and mony orra 
 things besides, that had been missing for mony a day. And 
 Sir John, when he had riped the turret weel, led my gudesire 
 into the dining-parlour, and took him by the hand, and spoke 
 kindly to him, and said he was sorry he should have doubted his 
 word, and that he would hereafter be a good master to him, to 
 make amends. 
 
 " And now, Steenie," said Sir John, " although this vision of 
 yours tends, on the whole, to my father's credit, as an honest 
 man, that he should, even after his death, desire to see justice 
 done to a poor man like you, yet you are sensible that ill-dispo- 
 sitioned men might make bad constructions upon it, concerning 
 his soul's health. So, I think, we had better lay the haill dirdum 
 on that ill-deedie creature, Major Weir, and sae naething about 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 117 
 
 your dream in the wood of Pitmurkie. You had taken ower 
 muckle brandy to be very certain about ony thing ; and, Steenie, 
 this receipt," (his hand shook while he held it out)—" its but a 
 queer kind of document, and we will do best, I think, to put it 
 quietly in the fire." 
 
 " Od, but for as queer as it is, it's a' the voucher I have for my 
 rent," said my gudesire, who was afraid, it may be, of losing the 
 benefit of Sir Robert's discharge. 
 
 " I will bear the contents to your credit in the rental-book, and 
 give you a discharge under my own hand," said Sir John, "and 
 that on the spot. And, Steenie, if you can hold your tongue about 
 this matter, you shall sit, from this term downward, at an easier 
 rent." 
 
 " Mony thanks to your honour," said Steenie, who saw easily 
 in what corner the wind was ; " doubtless I will be conformable to 
 all your honour's commands ; only I would willingly speak wi' 
 some powerful minister on the subject, for I do not like the sort of 
 
 soumons of appointment whilk your honour's father " 
 
 "Do not call the phantom my father ! " said Sir John, interrupting 
 him. 
 
 " Weel, then, the thing that was so like him," — said my gudesire ; 
 " he spoke of my coming back to him this time twelvemonth, and 
 it's a weight on my conscience." 
 
 " Aweel, then," said Sir John, " if you be so much distressed in 
 mind, you may speak to our minister of the parish ; he is a douce 
 man, regards the honour of our family, and the mair that he may 
 look for some patronage frotn me." 
 
 Wi' that my gudesire readily agreed that the receipt should be 
 burnt, and the Laird threw it into the chimney with his ain hand. 
 Burn it would not for them, though ; but away it flew up the lum, 
 wi' a lang train of sparks at its tail, and a hissing noise like a 
 squib. 
 
 My gudesire gaed down to the manse, and the minister, when he 
 had heard the story, said, it was his real opinion, that though my 
 gudesire had gaen very far in tampering with dangerous matters, 
 yet, as he had refused the devil's arles, (for such was the offer of 
 meat and drink,) and had refused to do homage by piping at his 
 bidding, he hoped, that if he held a circumspect walk hereafter, Satan 
 could take little advantage by what was come and gane. And, 
 indeed, my gudesire, of his ain accord, lang forswore baith the 
 pipes and the brandy — it was not even till the year was out, and the 
 fatal day passed, that he would so much as take the fiddle, or drink 
 usquebaugh or tippenny. 
 Sir John made u£ his story about the jackanape as he liked 
 
jj8 redgauntlet. 
 
 himseU ; and some believe till this day there was no more in the 
 matter than the filching nature of the brute. Indeed, yell no 
 hinder some to threap, that it was nane o' the Auld Enemy that 
 Dougal and my gudesire saw in the Laird's room, but only that 
 wanchancy creature, the Major, capering on the coffin ; and that 
 as to the blawing on the Laird's whistle that was heard after he 
 was dead, the filthy brute could do that as weel as the Laird 
 himsell, if no better. But Heaven kens the truth, whilk first came 
 out by the minister's wife, after Sir John and her ain gudeman 
 were baith in the moulds. And then, my gudesire, wha was failed 
 in his limbs, but not in his judgment or memory— at least nothing 
 to speak of— was obliged to tell the real narrative to his freends,for 
 the credit of his good name. He might else have been charged for 
 a warlock.* 
 
 The shades of evening were growing thicker around us as my 
 conductor finished his long narrative with this moral—" Ye see, 
 birkie, it is nae chancy thing to tak a stranger traveller for a guide, 
 when ye are in an uncouth land." 
 
 " I should not have made that inference," said I. " Your grand- 
 father's adventure was fortunate for himself, whom it saved from 
 ruin and distress ; and fortunate for his landlord also, whom it pre- 
 vented from committing a gross act of injustice." 
 
 " Ay, but they had baith to sup the sauce o't sooner or later," 
 said Wandering Willie — " What was fristed wasna forgiven. Sir 
 John died before he was much over threescore ; and it was just like 
 of a moment's illness. And for my gudesire, though he departed in 
 fulness of years, yet there was my father, a yauld man of forty-five, 
 fell down betwixt the stilts of his pleugh, and raise never again, 
 and left nae bairn but me, a puir sightless, fatnerless, motherless 
 creature, could neither work nor want. Things gaed weel aneugh 
 at first ; for Sir Redwald Redgauntlet, the only son of Sir John, 
 and the oye of auld Sir Robert, and, waes me ! the last of the 
 honourable house, took the farm off our Jhands, and brought me into 
 his household to have care of me. He liked music, and I had the 
 best teachers baith England and Scotland could gie me. Mony a 
 merry year was I wi' him ; but waes me ! he gaed out with other 
 pretty men in the forty-five — I'll say nae mair about it — My head 
 never settled weel since I lost him ; and if I say another word 
 about it, deil a bar will I have the heart to play tlie night. — Look 
 out, my gentle chap," he resumed in a different tone, " ye should 
 see the lights in Drokenburn Glen by this time." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 115 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 THE SAME TO THE SAME. 
 
 Tam Luter was their minstrel meet, 
 
 Gude Lord as he could lance, 
 He played sae shrill and sang sac sweet. 
 
 Till Towsic took a trance. 
 Auld Lightfoot there he did forlcet, 
 
 And counterfeited France ; 
 He used himself as man discreet, 
 
 And took up Morrice danse 
 
 Sae loud, 
 
 At Christ's Kirk on the Green that day. 
 
 King James I. 
 
 I CONTINUE to scribble at length, though the subject may seem 
 somewhat deficient in interest. Let the grace of the narrative, 
 therefore, and the concern we take in each other's matters, make 
 amends for its tenuity. We fools of fancy, who suffer ourselves, 
 like Malvolio, to be cheated with our own visions, have, never- 
 theless, this advantage over the wise ones of the earth, that we have 
 our whole stock of enjoyments under our own command, and can 
 dish for ourselves an intellectual banquet with most moderate 
 assistance from external objects. It is, to be sure, something like 
 the feast which the Barmecide served up to Alnaschar ; and we 
 cannot be expected to get fat upon such diet. But then, neither is 
 there repletion nor nausea, which often succeed the grosser and 
 more material revel. On the whole, I still pray, with the Ode to 
 Castle Building — 
 
 " Give me thy hope which sickens not the heart ; 
 
 Give me thy wealth which has no wings to fly ; 
 Giv-e me the bliss thy visions can impart ; 
 
 Thy friendship give me, warm in poverty !" 
 
 And so, despite thy solemn smile and sapient shake of the head, I 
 will go on picking such interest as I can out of my trivial adven- 
 tures, even though that interest should be the creation of my own 
 fancy ; nor will I cease to inflict on thy devoted eyes the labour of 
 perusing the scrolls in which I shall record my narrative. 
 
 My last broKe off as we were on the point of descending into the 
 glen at Brokenburn, by the dangerous track which I had first 
 travelled en croupe, behind a furious horseman, and was now again 
 to brave under the precarious guidance of a blind man. 
 
1^6 RfiDGAUNTLET. 
 
 It was now getting dark ; but this was no , inconvenience to my 
 guide, who moved on, as formerly, with instinctive security of step, 
 so that we soon reached the bottom, and I could see lights twink- 
 ling in the cottage which had been my place of refuge on a former 
 occasion. It was not thither, however, that our course was directed. 
 We left the habitation of the Laird to the left, and turning down the 
 brook, soon approached the small hamlet which had been erected 
 at the mouth of the stream, probably on account of the convenience 
 which it afforded as a harbour to the fishing-boats. A large low 
 cottage, full in our front, seemed highly illuminated ; for the light 
 not only glanced from every window and aperture in its frail walls, 
 but was even visible from rents and fractures in the roof, composed 
 of tarred shingles, repaired in part by thatch and divot. 
 
 While these appearances engaged my attention, that of my com- 
 panion was attracted by a regular succession of sounds, like a 
 bouncing on the floor, mixed with a very faint noise of music, which 
 Willie's acute organs at once recognised and accounted for, while 
 to me it was almost inaudible. The old man struck the earth with 
 his staff in a violent passion. " The whoreson fisher rabble ! 
 They have brolight another violer upon my walk ! They are such 
 smuggling blackguards, that they must run in their very music j 
 but I'll sort them waur than ony gauger in the country.— Stay — 
 hark— it's no a fiddle neither — it's the pipe and tabor bastard, 
 Simon of Sowport, frae tLe Nicol Forest ; but I'll pipe and tabor 
 him ! — Let me hae ance my left hand on his cravat, and ye shall 
 see what my right will do. Come away, chap— come away, gentle 
 chap— nae time to be picking and waling your steps." And on he 
 passed with long and determined strides, dragging me along with 
 him. 
 
 I was not quite easy in his company ; for, now that his minstrel 
 pride was hurt, the man had changed from the quiet, decorous, I 
 might almost say respectable person, which he seemed while he 
 told his tale, into the appearance of a fierce, brawling, dissolute 
 stroller. So that when he entered the large hut, where a great 
 number of fishers, witl\ their wives and daughters, were engaged in 
 eating, drinking, and dancing, I was somewhat afraid that "the 
 impatient violence of my companion might procure us an indifferent 
 reception. 
 
 But the universal shout of welcome with which Wandering Willie 
 was received— the hearty congratulation — the repeated "Here's 
 t'ye, Willie !"— " Whare hae ye been, ye blind deevil?" and the 
 call upon him to pledge them— above all, the speed with which the 
 obnoxious pipe and tabor were put to silence, gave the old man 
 such effectual assurance of undiminished popularity and importance. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 121 
 
 as at once put his jealousy to rest, and changed his tone of offended 
 dignity, into one better fitted to receive such cordial greetings. 
 Young men and women crowded round, to tell how much they were 
 afraid some mischance had detained him, and how two or three 
 young fellows had set out in quest of him. 
 
 " It was nae mischance, praised be Heaven," said Willie, " but 
 the absence of the lazy loon Rob the Rambler, my comrade, that 
 didna come to meet me on the Links ; but I hae gotten a braw 
 consort in his stead, worth a dozen of him, the unhanged black- 
 guard." 
 
 " And wha is't tou's gotten, WuUie, lad ?" said half a score of 
 voices, while all eyes were turned on your humble servant, who 
 kept the best countenance he could, though not quite easy at 
 becoming the centre to which all eyes were pointed. 
 
 " I ken him by his hemmed cravat," said one fellow ; " it's Gil 
 Hobson, the souple tailor frae Burgh. — Ye are welcome to Scotland, 
 ye prick-the-clout loon," he said, thrusting forth a paw much the 
 colour of a badger's back, and of most portehtous dimensions. 
 
 "Gil Hobson? Gil whoreson!" exclaimed Wandering Willie; 
 " it's a gentle chap that I judge to be an apprentice wi' auld Joshua 
 Geddes, to the quaker-trade." 
 
 " What trade he's that, man ?" said he of the badger-coloured 
 fist. 
 
 " Canting and lying," — said Willie, which produced a thundering 
 laugh ; " but I am teaching the callant a better trade, and that is 
 feasting and fiddling." 
 
 WiUie's conduct in thus announcing something like my real 
 character, was contrary to compact ; and yet I was rather glad he 
 did so, for the consequence of putting a trick upon these rude and 
 ferocious men, might, in case of discovery, hqve been dangerous to 
 us both, and I was at the same time delivered from the painful effort 
 to support a fictitious character. The good company, except per- 
 haps one or two of the young women, whose looks expressed some 
 desire for better acquaintance, gave themselves no farther trouble 
 about me ; but, while the seniors resumed their places near an 
 immense bowl, or rather reeking caldron of brandy-punch, the 
 younger arranged themselves on the floor, and called loudly on 
 Willie to strike up. 
 
 With a brief caution to me, to " mind my Credit, for fishers have 
 ears, though fish have none," Willie led off in capital style, and I 
 followed, certainly not so as to disgrace my companion, who, every 
 now and then, gave me a nod of approbation. The dances were, 
 of course, the Scottish jigs, and reels, and "twasome dances," with 
 a strathspey or hornpipe for interlude ; and the want of grace, on 
 
122 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 the part of the performers, was amply supplied by truth of ear, 
 vigour and decision of step, and the agility proper to the northern 
 performers. My own spirits rose with the mirth around me, and 
 with old Willie's admirable execution, and frequent " weel dune, 
 gentle chap, yet ! "—and, to confess the truth, I felt a great deal 
 more pleasure in this rustic revel, than I have done at the more 
 formal balls and concerts in your famed city, to which I have some- 
 times made my way. Perhaps this was, because I was a person of 
 more importance to the presiding matron of Brokenburn-foot, than 
 I had the means of rendering myself to the far-famed Miss Nickie 
 Murray, the patroness of your Edinburgh assemblies. The person 
 I mean was a buxom dame of about thirty, her fingers loaded with 
 many a silver ring, and three or four of gold ; her ankles liberally 
 displayed from under her numerous blue, white, and scarlet short 
 petticoats, and attired in hose of the finest and whitest lamb's-wool, 
 which arose from shoes of Spanish cordwain, fastened with silver 
 buckles. She took the lead in my favour, and declared, " that the 
 brave young gentleman should not weary himself to death wi' 
 playing, but take the floor for a dance or twa." 
 
 " And what's to come of me, Dame Martin ?"' said Willie. 
 
 " Come o' thee ?" said the dame ; " mischanter on the auld beard 
 o' ye ! ye could play for twenty hours on end, and tire out the haill 
 country-side wi' dancing before ye laid down your bow, saving for 
 a by-drink or the like o' that." 
 
 " In troth, dame," answered Willie, " ye are nae sae far wrang ; 
 sae if my comrade is to take his dance, ye maun gie me my drink, 
 and then bob it away like Madge of Middlebie." 
 
 The drink was soon brought; but while Willie was partaking of 
 it, a party entered the hut, which arrested my attention at once, and 
 intercepted the intended gallantry with which I had proposed to 
 present my hand to the fresh-coloured, well-made, white-ankled 
 Thetis, who had obtained me m'anumissioai from my musical task. 
 
 This was nothing less than the sudden appearance of the old 
 woman whom the Laird had termed Mabel ; Cristal Nixon, his 
 male attendant ; and the young person who had said grace to us 
 when I supped with him. 
 
 This young person — Alan, thou art in thy way a bit of a conjurer 
 — this young person whom I did not describe, and whom you, for 
 that very reason, suspected was not an indifferent object to me— is, 
 I am sorry to say it, in very fact not so much so as in prudence she 
 ought. I will not use the name of love on this occasion ; for I have 
 applied it too often to transient whims and fancies to escape your 
 satire, should I venture to apply it now. For it is a phrase, I must 
 confess, which I have used — a romancer would say, profaned— a 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 123 
 
 little too often, considering how few years have passed over my 
 head. But seriously, the fair chaplain of Brokenburn has been often 
 in my head when she had no business there ; and if this can give 
 thee any clew for explaining my motives in lingering about the 
 country, and assuming the character of Willie's companion, why, 
 hang thee, thou art welcome to make use of it — a permission for 
 which thou need'st not thank me much, as thou wouldst not have 
 failed to assume it, whether it were given or no. 
 
 Such being nly feelings, conceive how they must have been 
 excited, when, like a beam upon a cloud, I saw this uncomonly 
 beautiful girl enter the apartment in which they were dancing ; not, 
 however, with the air of an equal, but that of a superior, come to 
 grace with her presence the festival of her dependents. The old 
 man and woman attended, with looks as sinister as hers were 
 lovely, like two of the worst winter months waiting upon the bright- 
 eyed May. 
 
 When she entered — wonder if thou wilt — ^htvioxe a green mantk, 
 such as thou hast described as the garb of thy fair client, and 
 confirmed what I had partly guessed from thy personal description, 
 that my chaplain and thy visitor were the same person. There was 
 an alteration on her brow the instant she recognised me. She gave 
 her cloak to her female attendant, and, after a momentary hesita- 
 tion, as if uncertain whether to advance or retire, she walked into 
 the room with dignity and composure, all making way, the men 
 unbonneting, and the women curtsying respectfully, as she assumed 
 a chair which was reverently placed for her accommodation, apart 
 from others. 
 
 There was then a pause, until the bustling mistress of the 
 ceremonies, with awkward, but kindly courtesy, offered the young 
 lady a glass of wine, which was at first declined, and at length only 
 thus far accepted, that, bowing round to the festive company, the fair 
 visitor wished them all health and mirth, and, just touching the 
 brim with her lip, replaced it on the salver. There was another 
 pause ; and I did not immediately recollect, confused as I was by this 
 ■ unexpected apparition, that it belonged to me to break it. At length 
 a murmur was heard around me, being expected to exhibit, — nay, 
 to lead down the dance, — in consequence of the previous con- 
 versation. 
 
 " Deil's in the fiddler lad," was muttered from more quarters than 
 one — " saw folk ever sic a thing as a shamefaced fiddler before ? " 
 
 At length a venerable Triton, seconding his remonstrances with 
 a hearty thump on my shoulder, " To the floor — to the floor, and let 
 us see how ye can fling — the lasses are a' waiting." 
 
 Up I jumped, sprung from the elevated station which constituted 
 
124 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 our orchestra, and, arranging my ideas as rapidly as I could, 
 advanced to the head of the room, and, instead of offering my hand 
 to the white-footed Thetis aforesaid, I venturously made the same 
 proposal to her of the Green Mantle. 
 
 The nymph's lovely eyes seemed to open with astonishment at 
 the audacity of this offer; and, from the murmurs I heard around me, 
 I also understood that it surprised, and perhaps offended, the by- 
 standers. But after the first moment's emotion, she wreathed her 
 neck, and drawing herself haughtily up, like one who was willing to 
 show that she was sensible of the full extent of her own condescen- 
 sion, extended her hand towards me, like a princess gracing a 
 squire of low degree. 
 
 There is affectation in all this, thought I to myself, if the Green 
 Mantle has borne true evidence — for young ladies do not make 
 visits, or write letters to counsel learned in the law, to interfere in 
 the motions of those whom they hold as cheap as this nymph seems 
 to do me ; and if I am cheated by a resemblance of cloaks, still I 
 am interested to show myself, in some degree, worthy of the favour 
 she has granted with so much state and reserve. — The dance 
 to be performed was the old Scots Jig, in which you are aware I 
 used to play no sorry figure at La Pique's, when thy clumsy move- 
 ments used to be rebuked by raps over the knuckles with that great 
 professor's fiddlestick. The choice of the tune was left to my 
 comrade Willie, who, having finished his drink, feloniously struck 
 up to the well-known and popular measure, 
 
 " Merrily danced the Quaker's wife. 
 And merrily danced the Quaker." 
 
 An astounding laugh arose at my expense, and 1 should have been 
 annihilated, but that the smile which mantled on the lip of my 
 partner, had a different expression from that of ridicule, and seemed 
 to say, " Do not take this to heart." And I did not, Alan. My 
 partner danced admirably, and I like one who was determined, if 
 outshone, which I could not help, not to be altogether thrown into 
 the shade. 
 
 I assure you our performance, as well as Willie's music, deserved 
 more polished spectators and auditors ; but we could not then have 
 been greeted with such enthusiastic shouts of applause as attended 
 while I handed my partner to her seat, and took my place by her side, 
 as one who had a right to offer the attentions usual on such an 
 occasion. She was visibly embarrassed, but I was determined not 
 to observe her confusion, and to avail myself of the opportunity of 
 learning whether this beautiful creature's mind was worthy of the 
 casket in which Nature had lodged it. 
 
REDGAUNTI.ET. 125 
 
 Nevertheless, however courageously I formed this resolution, 
 you cannot but too well guess the difficulties I must needs have 
 felt in carrying it into execution ; since want of habitual intercourse 
 with the charmers of the other sex has rendered me a sheepish cur, 
 only one grain less awkward than thyself. Then she was so very 
 beautiful, and assumed an air of so much dignity, that I was like to 
 fall under the fatal error of supposing she should only be addressed 
 with something very clever ; and in the hasty racking which my 
 brains underwent in this persuasion, not a single idea occurred that 
 common sense did not reject as fustian on the one hand, or weary, 
 flat, and stale triticism on the other. I felt as if my understanding 
 were no longer my own, but was alternately under the dominion of 
 Aldiborontiphoscophornio, and that of his facetious friend Rigdum- 
 Funnidos. How did I envy at that moment our friend Jack Oliver, 
 who produces with such happy complacence his fardel of small 
 talk, and who, as he never doubts his own powers of affording 
 amusement, passes them current with every pretty woman he 
 approaches, and fills up the intervals of chat by his complete 
 acquaintance with the exercise of the fan, the J?a(on, and the other 
 duties of the Cavaliere Serviente. 8ome of these I attempted, but 
 I suppose it was awkwardly ; at least the Lady Greenmantle 
 received them as a princess accepts the homage of a clown. 
 
 Meantime the floor remained empty, and as the mirth of the 
 good meeting was somewhat checked, I ventured, as a dernier 
 resort, to propose a minuet. She thanked me, and told me 
 haughtily enough, " she was here to encourage the harmless 
 pleasures of these good folks, but was not disposed to make an 
 exhibition of her own indifferent dancing for their amusement." 
 
 She paused a moment, as if she expected me to suggest some- 
 thing ; and as I remained silent and rebuked, she bowed her head 
 more graciously, and said, " Not to affront you, however, a country- 
 dance, if you please." 
 
 What an ass was I, Alan, not to have anticipated her wishes ! 
 Should I not have observed that the ill-favoured couple, Mabel and 
 Crista], had placed themselves on each side of her seat, like the 
 supporters of the royal arms ? the man, thick, short, shaggy, and 
 hirsute, as the lion ; the female, skin-dried, tight-laced, long, lean, 
 and hungry-faced, like the unicorn. I ought to have recollected, 
 that under the close inspection of two such watchful salvages, 
 our communication, while in repose, could not have been easy ; 
 that the period of dancing a minuet was not the very choicest time 
 for conversation ; but that the noise, the exercise, and the mazy 
 confusion of a country-dance, where the inexperienced performers 
 were every now and then running against each other, and com- 
 
126 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 pelling the other couples to stand still for a minute at a time, 
 besides the more regular repose afforded by the interval? of the 
 dance itself, gave thtf best possible openings for a word or two 
 spoken in season, and without being liable to observation. 
 
 We had but just led down, when an opportunity of the kind 
 occurred, and my partner said, with great gentleness and modesty, 
 " It is not perhaps very proper in me to acknowledge an ac- 
 quaintance that is not claimed ; but I believe I speak to Mr. Darsie 
 Latimer ? " 
 
 " Darsie Latimer was indeed the person that had now the honour 
 and happiness " 
 
 I would have gone on in the false gallop of compliment, but 
 she cut me short. " And why," she said, " is Mr. Latimer here, 
 and in disguise, or at least assuming an office unworthy of a man 
 of education ?— I beg pardon," she continued, — " I would not give 
 you pain, but surely making an associate of a person of that 
 description " 
 
 She looked towards my friend WiUie, and was silent. I felt 
 heartily ashamed of myself, and hastened to say it was an idle 
 frolic, which want of occupation had suggested, and which I could 
 not regret, since it had procured me the pleasure I at present enjoyed. 
 
 Without seeming to notice my compliment, she took the next 
 opportunity to say, " Will Mr. Latimer permit a stranger who wishes 
 him well to ask, whether it is right that, at his active age, he should 
 be so far void of occupation, as to be ready to adopt low society for 
 the sake of idle amusement ? " 
 
 " You are severe, madam," I answered ; " but I cannot think 
 myself degraded by mixing with any society where I meet " 
 
 Here I stopped short, conscious that I was giving my answer an 
 unhandsome turn. The argmnentum ad hominem, the last to which 
 a pohte man has recourse, may, however, be justified by circum- 
 stances, but seldom or never the argumentum ad fceminam. 
 
 She filled up the blank herself which I had left. "Where you 
 meet me, I suppose you would say ? But the case is different. I am, 
 from my unhappy fate, obliged to move by the will of others, and 
 to be in places which I would by my own will gladly avoid. 
 Besides,'! am, except for these few minutes, no participator of the 
 revels— a spectator only, and attended by my servants. Your 
 situation is different— you are here by choice, the partaker and 
 minister of the pleasures of a class below you in education, birth, 
 and fortunes.— If I speak harshly, Mr. Latimer," she added, with 
 much sweetness of manner, " I mean kindly." 
 
 I was confounded by her speech, " severe in youthful wisdom ; " 
 all of naive or lively, suitable to such a dialogue, vanished from my 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 127 
 
 recollection, and I answered, with gravity like her own, " I am, 
 indeed, better educated than these poor people ; but you, madam, 
 whose kind admonition I am grateful for, must know more of my 
 condition than I do myself — I dare not say I am their superior in 
 birth, since I know nothing of my own, or in fortunes, over which 
 hangs an impenetrable cloud." 
 
 " And why should your ignorance on these points drive you into 
 low society and idle habits ? " answered my female monitor. " Is it 
 manly to wait till fortune cast her beams upon you, when by exertion 
 of your own energy you might distinguish yourself?— Do not the 
 pursuits of learning lie open to you — of manly ambition — of war ? — 
 But no — not of war, that has already cost you too dear." 
 
 " I will be what you wish me to be," I replied with eagerness — 
 " You have but to choose my path, and you shall see if I do not 
 pursue it with energy, were it only because you command me." 
 
 " Not because I command you," said the maiden, " but because 
 reason, common sense, manhood, and, in one word, regard for your 
 own safety, give the same counsel." 
 
 " At least permit me to reply, that reason and sense never assumed 
 a fairer form — of persuasion," I hastily added ; for she turned from 
 me — nor did she give me another opportunity of continuing what 
 I had to say till the next pause of the dance, when, determined to 
 bring our dialogue to a point, I said, " You mentioned manhood 
 also, madam, and, in the same breath, personal danger. My ideas 
 of manhood suggest that it is cowardice to retreat before dangers of 
 a doubtful character. You, who appear to know so much of my 
 fortunes that I might call you my guardian angel, tell me what these 
 dangers are, that I may judge whether manhood calls on me to 
 face or to fly them." 
 
 She was evidently perplexed by this appeal. 
 
 " You make me pay dearly for acting as your humane adviser," 
 she replied at last : " I acknowledge an interest in your fate, and 
 yet I dare not tell you whence it arises ; neither am I at liberty to 
 say why, or from whom, you are in danger ; but it is not less true 
 that danger is near and imminent. Ask me no more, but, for your 
 own sake, begone from this country. Elsewhere you are safe— here 
 you do but invite your fate." 
 
 " But, am I doomed to bid thus farewell to almost the only human 
 being who has showed an interest in my welfare ?— Do not say so 
 —say that we shall meet again, and the hope shall be the leading 
 star to regulate my course ! " 
 
 " It is more than probable," she said—" much more than pro- 
 bable, that we may never meet again. The help which I now 
 render you is all that may be in my power ; it is such as I should 
 
138 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 render to a blind man whom I might observe approaching the verge 
 of a precipice ; it ought to excite no surprise, and requires no 
 gratitude." 
 
 So saying, she again turned from me, nor did she address me 
 until the dance was on the point of ending, when she said, " Do 
 not attempt to speak to, or approach me again in the course of 
 the night ; leave the company as soon as you can, but not abruptly, 
 and God be with you." 
 
 I handed her to her seat, and did not quit the fair palm I held, 
 without expressing my feelings by a gentle pressure. She coloured 
 slightly, and withdrew her hand, but not angrily. Seeing the eyes 
 of Cristal and Mabel sternly fixed on me, I bowed deeply, and 
 withdrew from her ; my heart saddening, and my eyes becoming 
 dim in spite of me, as the shifting crowd hid us from each 
 other. 
 
 It was my intention to have crept back to my comrade Willie, 
 and resumed my bow with such spirit as I might, although at the 
 moment I would have given half my income for an instant's soli- 
 tude. But my retreat was cut off by Dame Martin, with the frank- 
 ness—if it is not an inconsistent phrase— of rustic coquetry, that 
 goes straight up to the point. 
 
 " Ay, lad, ye seem unca sune weary, to dance sae lightly ? Better 
 the nag that ambles a' the day, than him that makes a brattle for a 
 mile, and then's dune wi' the road." 
 
 This was a fair challenge, and I could not decline accepting it. 
 Besides, I could see Dame Martin was queen of the revels ; and so 
 many were the rude and singular figures about me, that I was by 
 no means certai;i whether I might not need some protection. I 
 seized on her willing hand, and we took our places in the dance, 
 where, if I did not acquit myself with all the accuracy of step and 
 movement which I had before attempted, I at least came up to 
 the expectations of my partner, who said, and almost swore, " I 
 was prinae at it ;" while, stimulated to her utmost exertions, she 
 herself frisked like a kid^ snapped her fingers like castanets, 
 whooped like a Bacchanal, and bounded from the floor like a 
 tennis-ball, — ay, till the colour of her garters was no particular 
 mystery. She made the less secret of this, perhaps, that they were 
 sky-blue, and fringed with silver. 
 
 The time has been that this would have been special fun ; or 
 rather, last night was the only time I can recollect these four years 
 when it would not have been so ; yet, at this moment, I cannot tell 
 you how 1 longed to be rid of Dame Martin. I almost wished she 
 would sprain one of those " many -twinkling " ankles, which served 
 her so alertly ; and when, in the midst of her exuberant caprioling, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 129 
 
 I saw my former partner leaving the apartment, and with eyes, as 
 I thought, turning towards me, this unwillingness to carry on the 
 dance increased to such a point, that I was almost about to feign 
 a sprain or a dislocation myself, in order to put an end to the per- 
 formance. But there were around me scores of old women, all 
 of whom looked as if they might have some sovereign recipe for 
 such an accident ; and, remembering Gil Bias and his pretended 
 disorder in the robbers' cavern, I thought it as wise to play Dame 
 Martin fair, and dance till she thought proper to dismiss me. 
 What I did I resolved to do strenuously, and in the latter part of 
 the exhibition, I cut and sprang from the floor as high and as per- 
 pendicularly as Dame Martin herself; and received, I promise 
 you, thunders of applause, for the common people always prefer 
 exertion and agiUty to grace. At length Dame Martin could dance 
 no more, and, rejoicing at my release, I led her to a seat, and took 
 the privilege of a partner to attend her. 
 
 " Hegh, sirs," exclaimed Dame Martin, " I am sair forfoughen 1 
 Troth, callant, I think ye hae been amaist the death o' me." 
 
 I could only atone for the alleged offence by fetching her some 
 refreshment, of which she readily partook. 
 
 " I have been lucky in my partners," I said, " first that pretty 
 young lady, and then you, Mrs. Martin." 
 
 " Hout wi' your fleeching," said Dame Martin. " Gae wa — gae 
 wa, lad; dinna blaw in folk's lugs that gate; me and Miss Lilias 
 even'd thegither ! Na, na, lad — od, she is maybe four or five 
 years younger than the like o' me, — by and attour her gentle 
 havings." 
 
 "She is the Laird's daughter?" said I, in as careless a tone of 
 enquiry as I could assume. 
 
 " His daughter, man ? Na, na, only his niece— and sib aneugh 
 to him, I think." 
 
 " Ay, indeed," I replied ; " I thought she had borne his name ? " 
 
 " She bears her ain name, and that's Lilias." 
 
 " And has she no other name ? " asked L 
 
 " What needs she another till she gets a gudeman ?" answered 
 my Thetis, a little miffed perhaps — to use the women's phrase- 
 that I turned the conversation upon my former partner, rather 
 than addressed it to herself. 
 
 There was a short pause, which was interrupted by Dame Mar- 
 tin observing, " They are standing up again." 
 
 " True," said I, having no mind to renew my late violent capriole, 
 '' and I must go help old Willie." 
 
 Ere I could extricate myself, I heard poor Thetis address her- 
 self to a sort of Mer-man in a jacket of seaman's blue, and a pair 
 
 K 
 
130 REDGAUNTLET, 
 
 of trowsers, (whose hand, by the way, she had rejected at an earlier 
 part of the evening,) and intimate that she was now disposed to 
 take a trip. 
 
 " Trip away then, dearie," said the vindictive man of the waters, 
 without offering his hand ; " there," pointing to the floor, " is a 
 roomy berth for you." 
 
 Certain I had made one enemy, and perhaps two, I hastened 
 to my original seat beside Willie, and began to handle my bow. 
 But I could see that my conduct had made an unfavourable im- 
 pression ; the words, " flory conceited chap," — " hafflins gentle," 
 and at length, the still more alarming epithet of " spy," began to 
 be buzzed about, and I was heartily glad when the apparition of 
 Sam's visage at the door, who was already possessed of and drain- 
 ing a can of punch, gave me assurance that my means of retreat 
 were at hand. I intimated as much to Willie, who probably had 
 heard more of the murmurs of the company than I had, for he 
 whispered, " Ay, ay— awa wi' ye — ower lang here — slide out canny 
 — dinna let them see ye are on the tramp." 
 
 I slipped half-a-guinea into the old man's hand, who answered, 
 " Truts ! pruts ! nonsense ! but I'se no refuse, trusting ye can 
 afford it. — Awa wi' ye — and if ony body stops ye, cry on me." 
 
 I gUded, by his advice, along the room as if looking for a 
 partner, joined Sam, whom I disengaged with some difficulty from 
 his can, and we left the cottage together in a manner to attract the 
 least possible observation. The horses were tied in a neighbour- 
 ing shed, and as the moon was up and I was now familiar with 
 the road, broken and complicated as it is, we soon reached the 
 Shepherd's Bush, where the old landlady was sitting up waiting for 
 us, under some anxiety of mind, to account for which she did not 
 hesitate to tell me that some folks had gone to Brokenburn from 
 her house, or neighbouring towns, that did not come so safe back 
 again. " Wandering Willie," she said, " was doubtless s- kind of 
 protection." 
 
 Here Willie's wife, who was smoking in the chimney-corner, 
 took up the praises of her " hinnie," as she called him, and endea- 
 voured to awaken my generosity afresh, by describing the dangers 
 from which, as she was pleased to allege, her husband's counte- 
 nance had assuredly been the means of preserving me. I was not, 
 however, to be fooled out of more money at this time, and went to 
 bed in haste, full of various cogitations. 
 
 I have since spent a couple of days betwixt Mount Sharon and 
 this place, and betwixt reading, writing to thee this momentous his- 
 tory, forming plans for seeing the lovely Lilias, and— partly, I 
 think, for the sake of contradiction— angling a little in spite of 
 
REoaAUNrmr. 131 
 
 Joshua's scruples — though I am rather liking the amusement better 
 as I begin to have some success in it. 
 
 And now, my dearest Alan, you are in full possession of my 
 secret — let me as frankly into the recesses of your bosom. How 
 do you feel towards this fair ignis fatuus, this lily of the desert ? 
 Tell me honestly ; for however the recollection of her may haunt 
 my own mind, my love for Alan Fairford surpasses the love of 
 woman. I know, too, that when you do love, it will be to 
 
 " Love once and love no more." 
 
 A deep-consuming passion, once kindled in a breast so steady as 
 yours, would never be extinguished but with life. I am of another 
 and more volatile temper, and though I shall open your next with a 
 trembling hand, and uncertain heart, yet let it bring a frank con- 
 fession that this fair unknown has made a deeper impression on 
 your gravity than you reckoned for, and you will see I can tear the 
 arrow from my own wound, barb and all. In the meantime, though 
 I have formed schemes once more to see her, I wiU, you may rely 
 on it, take no step for putting them into practice. I have refrained 
 from this hitherto, and I give you my word of honour, I shall con- 
 tinue to do so ; yet why should you need any further assurance 
 from one who is so entirely yours as 
 
 D. L. 
 
 P.S. — I shall be on thorns till I receive your answer. I read, 
 and re-read your letter, and cannot for my soul discover what your 
 real sentiments are. Sometimes I think you write of her as one 
 in jest — and sometimes I think that cannot be. Put me at ease as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 ALAN FAIRFORD TO DARSIE LATIMER. 
 
 I WRITE on the instant, as you direct ; and -in a tragi-comic 
 humour, for I have a tear in my eye, and a smile on my cheek. 
 Dearest Darsie, sure never a being but yourself could be so generous 
 
 sure never a being but yourself could be so absurd ! I remember 
 
 when you were a boy you wished to make your fine new whip a 
 present to old aunt Peggy, merely because she admired it ; and 
 now, with like unreflecting and unappropriate liberality, you would 
 resi'^n your beloved to a smoke-dried young sophister, who cares 
 ° K 2 
 
138 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 not one of the hairs which it is his occupation to split, for all the 
 daughters of Eve. I in love with your Lilias — your greenmantle — 
 your unknown enchantress ! — why I scarce saw her for five minutes, 
 and even then only the tip of her chin was distinctly visible. She 
 was well made, and the tip of her chin was of a most promising cast 
 for the rest of the face ; but, Heaven save you I she came upon 
 business ! and for a lawyer to fall in love with a pretty client on a 
 single consultation, would be as wise as if he became enamoured of 
 a particularly bright sunbeam which chanced for a moment to gild 
 his bar-wig. I give you my word I am heart-whole ; and, more- 
 over, I assure you, that before I suffer a woman to sit near my 
 heart's core, I must see her full face, without mask or mantle, ay, 
 and know a good deal of her mind into the bargain. So never fret 
 yourself on my account, my kind and generous Darsie ; but, for 
 your own sake, have a care, and let not an idle attachment, so 
 lightly taken up, lead you into serious danger. 
 
 On this subject I feel so apprehensive, that now when I am 
 decorated with the honours of the gown, I should have abandoned 
 my career at the very starting to come to you, but for my father 
 having contrived to clog my heels with fetters of a professional 
 nature. I will tell you the matter at length, for it is comical enough ; 
 and why should not you list to my juridical adventures, as well as I 
 to those of your fiddling knight-errantry .■' 
 
 It was after dinner, and I was considering how I might best in- 
 troduce to my father the private resolution I had formed to set off 
 for Dumfries-shire, or whether I had not better run away at once, 
 and plead my excuse by letter, when, assuming the peculiar look 
 with which he communicates any of his intentions respecting me, 
 that he suspects may not be altogether acceptable, "Alan," he said, 
 " ye now wear a gown— ye have opened shop, as we would say of a 
 more mechanical profession ; and, doubtless, ye think the floor of 
 the courts is strewed with guineas, and that ye have only to stoop 
 down to gather them .?" 
 
 " I hope I am sensible, sir," I replied, " that I have some know- 
 ledge and practice to acquire, and must stoop for that in the first 
 place. 
 
 " It is well said," answered my father ; and, always afraid to give 
 too much encouragement, added, "Very well said, if it be well acted 
 up to— Stoop to get knowledge and practice is the very word. Ye 
 know very well, Alan, that in the other faculty who study the Ars 
 medendi, before the young doctor gets to the bedsides of palaces, 
 he must, as they call it, walk the hospitals ; and cure Lazarus of 
 his sores, before he be admitted to prescribe for Dives, when he ha<; 
 gout or indigestion " 
 
REDGAUNTLET. X33 
 
 " I am aware, sir, that " 
 
 " Whisht — do not interrupt the court — Well — also the chirurgeons 
 have an useful practice, by which they put their apprentices and 
 ty roues to work upon senseless dead bodies, to which, as they can 
 do no good, so they certainly can do as little harm ; while at the 
 same time the tyro, or apprentice, gains experience, and becomes 
 fit to whip off a leg or arm from a living subject, as cleanly as ye 
 would slice an onion." 
 
 " I believe I guess your meaning, sir,'' answered I ; " and were it 
 not for a very particular engagement " 
 
 " Do not speak to me of engagements ; but whisht — there is a 
 good lad — and do not interrupt the court. 
 
 My father, you know, is apt — be it said with all filial duty — to be 
 a little prolix in his harangues. I had nothing for it but to lean 
 back and listen. 
 
 " Maybe you think, Alan, because I have, doubtless, the manage- 
 ment of some actions in dependence, whilk my worthy clients have 
 intrusted me with, that I may think of airting them your way 
 instantcr; and so setting you up in practice, so far as my small 
 business or influence may go ; and, doubtless, Alan, that is a day 
 whilk I hope may come round. But then, before I give, as the pro- 
 verb hath it, ' My own fish-guts to my own sea-maws,' I must, for 
 the sake of my own character, be very sure that my sea-maw can 
 pick them to some purpose. What say ye?" 
 
 " I am so far," answered I, " from wishing to get early into prac- 
 tice, sir, that I would willingly bestow a few days " 
 
 " In farther study, ye would say, Alan. But that is not the way 
 either — ye must walk the hospitals — ye must cure Lazarus — ^ye must 
 cut and carve on a departed subject, to show your skill." 
 
 " I am sure," I replied, " I will undertake the cause of any poor 
 man with pleasure, and bestow as much pains upon it as if it were 
 a duke's ; but for the next two or three days " 
 
 " They must be devoted to close study, Alan — very ©lose study 
 indeed ; for ye must stand primed for a hearing, in presetrtia 
 Domtnorum, upon Tuesday next.' 
 
 " I, sir ! " I replied in astonishment — " I have not opened ray 
 mouth in the Outer-House yet !" 
 
 " Never mind the Court of the Gentiles, man," said my father ; 
 " we will have you into the Sanctuary at once — over shoes, over 
 boots." 
 
 "But, sir, I should really spoil any cause thrust on me so 
 hastily." 
 
 " Ye cannot spoil it, Alan," said my father, rubbing his hands 
 with much complacency ; " that is the very cream of the business, 
 
134 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 man— it is just, as I said before, a subject upon whilk all the tyrones 
 have been trying their whittles for fifteen years ; and as there have 
 been about ten or a dozen agents concerned, and each took his own 
 way, the case is come to that pass, that Stair or Arniston could not 
 mend it ; and I do not think even you, Alan, can do it much harm 
 —ye may get credit by it, but ye can lose none." 
 
 "And pray what is the name of my happy client, sir?" said I, 
 ungraciously enough, I believe. 
 
 " It is a well-known name in the Parliament-House," replied my 
 father. " To say the truth, I expect him every moment ; it is Peter 
 Peebles."* 
 
 " Peter Peebles !" exclaimed I, in astonishment ; " he is an insane 
 beggar — as poor as Job, and as mad as a March hare ! " 
 
 " He has been pleaing in the court for fifteen years," said my 
 father, in a tone of commiseration, which seemed to acknowledge 
 that this fact was enough to account for the poor man's condition 
 both in mind and circumstances. 
 
 " Besides, sir," I added, "he is on the Poor's Roll ; and you know 
 there are advocates regularly appointed to manage those cases ; 
 and for me to presume to interfere" 
 
 " Whisht, Alan !— never interrupt the court — all that is managed 
 for ye like a tee'd ball ; " (my father sometimes draws his similes 
 from his once favourite game of golf ;) — " you must know, Alan, 
 that Peter's cause was to have been opened by young Dumtoustie — 
 ye may ken the lad, a son of Dumtoustie of that ilk, member of 
 
 Parliament for the county of , and a nephew of' the Laird's 
 
 younger brother, worthy Lord Bladderskate, whilk ye are aware 
 sounds as like being akin to a peatship* and a sheriffdom, as a 
 sieve is sib to a riddle. Now, Saunders Drudgeit, my lord's clerk, 
 came to me this morning in the House, like ane bereft of his wits ; 
 for it seems that young Dumtoustie is ane of the Poor's Lawyers, 
 and Peter Peebles's process had teen remitted to him of course. 
 But so soon as the harebrained goose saw tlic pokes,* (as, indeed, 
 Alan, they are none of the least,) he took fright, called for his nag, 
 lap on, and away to the country is he gone ; and so, said Saunders, 
 my lord is at his wit's end wi' vexation and shame, to see his nevoy 
 treak off the course at the very starting. ' I'll tell you, Saunders,' 
 said I, ' were I my lord, and a friend or kinsman of mine should 
 leave the town while the court was sitting, that kinsman, or be he 
 what he liked, should never darken my door again.' And then, 
 Alan, I thought to turn the ball our own way ; and I said that you 
 were a gey sharp birkie, just off the irons, and if it would oblige my 
 lord, and so forth, you would open Peter's cause on Tuesday, and 
 make some handsome apology for the necessary absence of your 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 135 
 
 learned friend, and the loss which your client and the court had 
 sustained, and so forth. Saunders lap at the proposition, like a cock 
 at a grossart ; for, he said, the only chance was to get a new hand, 
 that did not ken the charge he was taking upon him ; for there was 
 not a lad of two Sessions' standing that was not dead-sick of Peter 
 Peebles and his cause ; and he advised me to ireak the matter 
 gently to you at the first ; but I told him you were a good bairn, 
 Alan, and had no will and pleasure in these matters but mine. 
 
 What could I say, Darsie, in answer to this arrangement, so very 
 well meant — so very vexatious at the same time ? — To imitate the 
 defection and flight of young Dumtoustie, was at once to destroy 
 my father's hopes of me for ever ; nay, such is the keenness with 
 which he regards all connected with his profession, it might have 
 been a step to breaking his heart. I was obliged, therefore, to bow 
 in sad acquiescence, when my father called to James Wilkinson to 
 bring the two bits of pokes he would find on his table. 
 
 Exit James, and presently re-enters, bending under the load of 
 two huge leathern bags, full of papers to the brim, and labelled on 
 the greasy backs with the magic impress of the clerks of court, and 
 the title, Peebles against Plainstanes. This huge mass was deposited 
 on the table, and my father, with no ordinary glee in his counte- 
 nance, began to draw out the various bundles of papers, secured by 
 none of your red tape or whipcord, but stout, substantial casts of 
 tarred rope, such as might have held small craft at their moorings. 
 
 I made a last and desperate effort to get rid of the impending job. 
 " I am really afraid, sir, that this case seems so much complicated, 
 and there is so little time to prepare, that, we had better move the 
 Court to supersede it till next Session." 
 
 " How, sir.? — how, Alan?" said my father — "Would you appro- 
 bate and reprobate, sir? — You have accepted the poor man's cause, 
 and if you have not his fee in your pockety it is because he has none 
 to give you ; and now would you approbate and reprobate in the 
 same breath of your mouth ? — Think of your oath of office, Alan, 
 and your duty to your father, my dear boy." 
 
 Once more, what could I say ?— I saw, from my father's hurried 
 and alarmed manner, that nothing could vex him so much as failing 
 in the point he had determined to carry, and once more intimated 
 my readiness to do my best, under every disadvantage. 
 
 " Well, well, my boy," said my father, " the Lord will make your 
 days long in the land, for the honour you have given to your father's 
 grey hairs. You may find wiser advisers, Alan, but none that can 
 wish you better." 
 
 My father, you know, does not usually give way to expressions of 
 affection, and they are interesting in proportion to their rarity. My 
 
136 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 eyes began to fill at seeing his glisten ; and my delight at having 
 given him such sensible gratification would have been unmixed, but 
 for the thoughts of you. These out of the question, I could have 
 grappled with the bags, had they been as large as corn-sacks. 
 But, to turn what was grave into farce, the door opened, and 
 Wilkinson ushered in Peter Peebles. 
 
 You must have seen this original, Darsie, who, like others in the 
 same predicament, continues to haunt the courts of justice, where 
 he has made shipwreck of time, means, and understanding. Such 
 insane paupers have sometimes seemed to me to resemble wrecks 
 lying upon the shoals on the Goodwin Sands, or in Yarmouth 
 Roads, warning other vessels to keep aloof from the banks on 
 which they have been lost ; or rather such ruined clients are like 
 scarecrows and potatoe-bogles, distributed through the courts to 
 scare away fools from the scene of litigation. 
 
 The identical Peter wears a huge great-coat, threadbare and 
 patched itself, yet carefully so disposed and secured by what buttons 
 remain, and many supplementary pins, as to conceal the still more 
 infirm state of his under garments. The shoes and stockings of a 
 ploughman were, however, seen to meet at his knees, with a pair of 
 brownish, blackish breeches ; a rusty-coloured handkerchief, that 
 has been black in its day, surrounded his throat, and was an 
 apology for linen. His hair, half grey, half black, escaped in elf- 
 locks around a huge wig, made of tow, as it seemed to me, and so 
 much shrunk, that it stood up on the very top of his head ; above 
 which he plants, when covered, an immense cocked hat, which, 
 like the chieftain's banner in an ancient battle, may be seen any 
 sederunt day betwixt nine and ten, high towering above all the 
 fluctuating and changeful scene in the Outer-House, where his 
 eccentricities often make him the centre of a group of petulant and 
 teasing boys, who exercise upon him every art of ingenious torture. 
 His countenance, originally that of a portly, comely burgess, is now 
 emaciated with poverty and anxiety, and rendered wild by an 
 insane lightness about the eyes ; a withered and blighted skin and 
 complexion ; features begrimed with snuff, charged with the self- 
 importance peculiar to insanity ; and a habit of perpetually speak- 
 ing to himself. Such was my unfortunate client ; and I must 
 allow, Darsie, that my profession had need to do a great deal of 
 good, if, as is much to be feared, it brings many individuals to such 
 a pass. 
 
 After we had been, with a good deal of form, presented to each 
 other, at which time I easily saw by my father's manner that he 
 was desirous of supporting Peter's character in my eyes, as much 
 as circumstances would permit, "Alan," he said, "this is the gen- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 13? 
 
 tleman who has agreed to accept of you as his counsel, in place of 
 young Dumtoustie." 
 
 " Entirely out of favour to my old acquaintance your father," 
 said Peter, with a benign and patronising countenance, " out of 
 respect to your father, and my old intimacy with Lord Bladder- 
 skate. Otherwise, by the Regiam Majestatem! I would have 
 presented a petition and complaint against Daniel Dumtoustie, 
 Advocate, by name and surname — I would, by all the practiques ! 
 — I know the forms of process ; and I am not to be trifled with." 
 
 My father here interrupted my client, and reminded him that 
 there was a good deal of business to do, as he proposed to give the 
 young counsel an outline of the state of the conjoined process, with 
 a view to letting him into the merits of the cause, disencumbered 
 from the points of form. " I have made a short abbrevfate, Mr. 
 Peebles," said he ; " having sat up late last night, and employed 
 much of this morning in wading through these papers, to save 
 Alan some trouble, and I am now about to state the result." 
 
 " I will state it myself," said Peter, breaking in without reverence 
 upon his solicitor. 
 
 " No, by no means," said my father ; " I am your agent for the 
 time." 
 
 " Mine eleventh in number," said Peter ; " I have a new one 
 every year ; I wish I could get a new coat as regularly." 
 
 " Your agent for the time," resumed my father ;. " and you, who 
 are acquainted with the forms, know that the client states the 
 cause to the agent — the agent to the counsel" 
 
 " The counsel to the Lord Ordinary," continued Peter, once set 
 a-going, like the peal of an alarm clock, " the Ordinary to the Inner- 
 House, the President to the Bench. It is just like the rope to the 
 man, the man to the axe, the axe to the ox, the ox to the water, 
 the water to the fire" 
 
 " Hush, for Heaven's sake, Mr. Peebles," said my father, cutting 
 his recitation short ; " time wears on-^we must get to business — 
 you must not interrupt the court, you know. — Hem, hem ! From 
 this abbreviate it appears" 
 
 " Before you begin," said Peter Peebles, " I'll thank you to order 
 me a morsel of bread and cheese, or some cauld meat, or broth, or 
 the like alimentary provision ; I was so anxious to see your son, 
 that I could not eat a mouthful of dinner." 
 
 Heartily glad, I believe, to have so good a chance of stopping 
 his client's mouth effectually, my father ordered some cold meat ; 
 to which James Wilkinson, for the honour of the house, was about 
 to add the brandy bottle, which remained on the sideboard, but, at 
 a wink from my father, supplied its place with small beer. Peter 
 
138 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 charged the provisions with the rapacity of a famished lion ; and 
 so well did the diversion engage him, that though, while my father 
 stated the case, he looked at him repeatedly, as if he meant to 
 interrupt his statement, yet he always found more agreeable em- 
 ployment for his mouth, and returned to the cold beef with an 
 avidity which convinced me he had not had such an opportunity 
 for many a day of satiating his appetite. Omitting much formal 
 phraseology, and many legal details, I will endeavour to give you, 
 in exchange for your fiddler's tale, the history of a litigant, or 
 rather, the history of his lawsuit. 
 
 " Peter Peebles and Paul Plainstanes,'' said my father, " entered 
 
 into partnership, in the year , as mercers and linendrapers, in 
 
 the Luckenbooths, and carried on a great line of business to mutual 
 advantage. But the learned counsel needeth not to be told, societas 
 est mater discordiarum, partnership oft makes pleaship. The com- 
 pany being dissolved by mutual consent, in the year , the 
 
 affairs had to be wound up, and after certain attempts to settle the 
 matter extrajudicially, it was at last brought into the Court, and 
 has branched out into several distinct processes, most of whilk 
 have been conjoined by the Ordinary. It is to the state of these 
 processes that counsel's attention is particularly directed. There 
 is the original action of Peebles v. Plainstanes, convening, him for 
 payment of L.3000, less or more, as alleged balance due by Plain- 
 stanes. 2dly, There is a counter action, in which Plainstanes is 
 pursuer and Peebles defender, for L.2500, less or more, being 
 balance alleged per contra, to be due by Peebles. 3dly, Mr. 
 Peeble's seventh agent advised an action of Compt and Reckoning 
 at his instance, wherein what balance should prove due on either 
 side might be fairly struck and ascertained. 4thly, To meet the 
 hypothetical case, that Peebles might be found liable in a balance 
 to Plainstanes, Mr. Wildgoose, Mr. Peebles's eighth agent, recom- 
 mended a Multiplepoinding, to bring all parties concerned into the 
 field." 
 
 My brain was like to turn at this account of lawsuit within law- 
 suit, like a nest of chip-boxes, with all of which I was expected to 
 make myself acquainted. 
 
 " I understand," I said, " that Mr. Peebles claims a sum cf 
 money from Plainstanes — how then can he be his debtor 1 and if 
 not his debtor, how can he bring a Multiplepoinding, the very 
 summons of which sets forth, that the pursuer does owe certain 
 monies, which he is desirous to pay by warrant of a judge ?"* 
 
 " Ye know little of the matter, I doubt, friend," said Mr. Peebles ; 
 " a Multiplepoinding is the safest remedium juris in the whole 
 form of process. I haA'e known it conjoined with a declarator of 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 139 
 
 marriage. — Your beef is excellent," he said to my father, who in 
 vain endeavoured to resume his legal disquisition ; "but something 
 highly powdered — and the twopenny is undeniable ; but it is small 
 swipes— small swipes — more of hop than malt — with your leave I'll 
 try your black bottle.'' 
 
 My father started to help him with his own hand, and in due 
 measure ; but, infinitely to my amusement, Peter got possession of 
 the bottle by the neck, and my father's ideas of hospitality were far 
 too scrupulous to permit his attempting, by any direct means, to 
 redeem it ; so that Peter returned to the table triumphant, with his 
 prey in his clutch. 
 
 " Better have a wine-glass, Mr. Peebles," said my father, in an 
 admonitory tone, " you will find it pretty strong." 
 
 " If the kirk is' ower muckle, we can sing mass in the quire," said 
 Peter, helping himself in the goblet out of which he had been 
 drinking the small beer. " What is it, usquebaugh ? — brandy, as 
 I am an honest man ! I had almost forgotten the name and taste 
 of brandy. — Mr. Fairford elder, your good health," (a mouthful of 
 brandy) — " Mr. Alan Fairford, wishing you well through your 
 arduous undertaking," (another go-down of the comfortable liquor.) 
 " And now, though you have given a tolerable breviate of this great 
 lawsuit, of whilk every body has heard something that has walked 
 the boards in the Outer-House, (here's to ye again, by way of 
 interim decreet,) yet ye have omitted to speak a word of the 
 arrestments." 
 
 " I was just coming to that point, Mr. Peebles.'' 
 
 " Or of the action of suspension of the charge on the bill." 
 
 " I was just coming to that." 
 
 " Or the advocation of the Sheriff-Court process." 
 
 " I was just coming to it." 
 
 " As Tweed comes to Melrose, I think," said the litigant ; and 
 then filling his goblet about a quarter full of brandy, as if in 
 absence of mind, " Oh, Mr. Alan Fairford, ye are a lucky man to 
 buckle to such a cause as mine at the very outset ! it is like a 
 specimen of all causes, man. By the Regiam, there is not a 
 remedium juris in the practiques but ye'll find a spice o't. Here's 
 to your getting weel through with it — Pshut — I am drinking naked 
 spirits, I think. But if the heathen be ower strong, we'll christen 
 him with the brewer," (here he added a little small beer to his 
 beverage, paused, rolled his eyes, winked, and proceeded,)—" Mr. 
 Fairford— the action of assault and battery, Mr. Fairford, when I 
 compelled the villain Plainstanes to pull my nose within two steps 
 of King Charles's statue, in the Parliament Close— there I had him 
 in a hose-net. Never man could tell me how to shape that process 
 
I40 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 —no counsel that ever sailed wind could condescend and say 
 whether it were best to proceed by way of petition and complaint, 
 ad vindictam publicam, with consent of his Majesty's advocate, or 
 by action on the statute for haXtery, pendente lite, whilk would be 
 the winning my plea at once, and so getting a back-door out of 
 Court. — By the Regiam, that beef and brandy is unco het at my 
 heart — I maun try the ale again," (sipped a little beer) ; " and the 
 ale's but cauld, I maun e'en put in the rest of the brandy." 
 
 He was as good as his word, and proceeded in so loud and 
 animated a style of elocution, thumping the table, drinking and 
 snuffing alternately, that my father, abandoning all attempts to 
 interrupt him, sat silent and ashamed, suffering and anxious for the 
 conclusion of the scene. 
 
 " And then to come back to my pet process of all — my battery 
 and assault process, when I had the good luck to provoke him to 
 pull my nose at the very threshold of the Court, whilk was the very 
 thing I wanted — Mr. Pest, ye ken him, Daddie Fairford? Old 
 Pest was for making it out hamesucken, for he said the Court 
 might be said — said — ugh ! — to be my dwelling-place. I dwell 
 mair there than any gate else, and the essence of hamesucken is to 
 strike a man in his dwelling-place— mind that, young advocate— 
 and so there's hope Piainstanes may be hanged, as many has for a 
 less matter ; for, my Lords, — will Pest say to the Justiciary bodies, 
 —my Lords, the Parliament House is Peebles's place of dwelling, 
 says he — being commute forum, and commime forum est commune 
 domicilmm—\.z.%s, fetch another glass of whisky, and score it- 
 time to gae hame— by the practiques, I cannot find the jug— yet 
 there's twa of them, I think. By the Regiam, Fairford— Daddie 
 Fairford— lend us twal pennies to buy sneeshing, mine is done— 
 Macer, call another cause." 
 
 The box fell from his hands, and his body would at the same time 
 have fallen from the chair, had I not supported him. 
 
 " This is intolerable," said my father — " Call a chairman, 
 James Wilkinson, to carry this degraded, worthless, drunken beast 
 home." 
 
 When Peter Peebles was removed from this memorable consul- 
 tation, under the care of an able-bodied Celt, my father hastily 
 bundled up the papers, as a showman, whose exhibition has mis- 
 carried, hastes to remove his booth, " Here are my memoranda, 
 Alan," he said, in a hurried way ; " look them carefully over-^ 
 compare them with the processes, and turn it in your head before 
 Tuesday. Many a good speech has been made for a beast of a 
 client ; and hark ye, lad, hark ye — I never intended to cheat you 
 of your fee when all was done, though I would have liked to have 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 141 
 
 heard the speech first ; but there is nothing hke corning the horses 
 before the journey. Here are five goud guineas in a silk purse — 
 of your poor mother's netting, Alan — she would have been a blithe 
 woman to have seen her young son with a gown on his back 
 —but no more of that— be a good boy, and to the work like a 
 tiger." 
 
 I did set to work, Darsie ; for who could resist such motives ? 
 ^^'ith my father's assistance, I have mastered the details, confused 
 as they are ; and on Tuesday, I shall plead as well for Peter 
 Peebles, as I could for a duke. Indeed, I feel my head so clear on 
 the subject, as to be able to write this long letter to you ; into 
 which, however, Peter and his lawsuit have insinuated themselves 
 so far, as to show you how much they at present occupy my thoughts. 
 Once more, be careful of yourself, and mindful of me, who am ever 
 thine, while 
 
 Alan Fairford. 
 
 From circumstances, to be hereafter mentioned, it was long ere 
 this letter reached the person to whom it was addressed. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 NARRATIVE. 
 
 The advantage of laying before the reader, in the words of the 
 actors themselves, the adventures which we must otherwise have 
 narrated in our own, has given great popularity to the publication 
 of epistolary correspondence, as practised by various great authors, 
 and by ourselves in the preceding chapters. Nevertheless, a 
 genuine correspondence of this kind (and Heaven forbid it should 
 be in any respect sophisticated by interpolations of our own !) can 
 seldom be found to contain all in which it is necessary to instruct 
 the reader for his full comprehension of the story. Also it must 
 often happen that various prolixities and redundancies occur in the 
 course of an interchange of letters, which must hang as a dead 
 weight on the progress of the narrative. To avoid this dilemma, 
 some biographers have used the letters of the personages con- 
 cerned, or liberal extracts from them, to describe particular inci- 
 dents, or express the sentiments which they entertained ; while 
 they connect them occasionally with such portions of narrative, as 
 may serve to carry on the thread of the story. 
 
142 REnGAUNTLET. 
 
 It is thus that the adventurous travellers who explore the summit 
 of Mont Blanc, now move on through the crumbling snow-drift so 
 slowly, that their progress is almost imperceptible, and anon 
 abridge their journey by springing over the intervening chasms 
 vchich cross their path, with the assistance of their pilgrim-staves. 
 Or, to make a briefer simile, the course of story-telling which we 
 have for the present adopted, resembles the original discipline of 
 the dragoons, who were trained to. serve either on foot or horse- 
 bade, as the emergencies of the service required. With this expla- 
 nation, we shall proceed to narrate some circumstances which Alan 
 Fairford did not, and could not, write to his correspondent. 
 
 Our reader, we trust, has formed somewhat approaching to a 
 distinct idea of the principal characters who have appeared before 
 him during our narrative ; but in case our good opinion of his 
 sagacity has been exaggerated, and in order to satisfy such as are 
 addicted to the laudable practice of skipping, (with whom we have 
 at times a strong fellow-feeling,) the following particulars may not 
 be superfluous. 
 
 Mr. Saunders Fairford, as he was usually called, was a man of 
 business of the old school, moderate in his charges, economical 
 and even niggardly in his expenditure, strictly honest in conducting 
 his own affairs, and those of his clients, but taught by long expe- 
 rience to be wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. 
 Punctual as the clocli of Saint Giles tolled nine, the neat dapper 
 form of the little hale old gentleman was seen at the threshold of 
 the Court hall, or at farthest, at the head of the Back Stairs, 
 trimly dressed in a complete suit of snuff-coloured brown, with 
 stockings of silk or woollen, as suited the weather ; a bobwig, and 
 a small cocked hat ; shoes blacked as Warren would have blacked 
 them ; silver shoe-buckles, and a gold stock-buckle. A nosegay in 
 summer, and a sprig of holly in winter, completed his well-known 
 dress and appearance. His manners corresponded with his attire, 
 for they were scrupulously civil, and not a little formal. He was 
 an elder of the kirk, and, of course, zealous for King George and 
 the government even to slaying, as he had showed by taking up 
 arms in their cause. But then, as Tie had clients and connexions 
 of business among families of opposite political tenets, he was par- 
 ticularly cautious to use all the conventional phrases which the 
 civility of the time had devised, as an admissible mode of language 
 betwixt the two parties. Thus he spoke sometimes of the Cheva- 
 lier, but never either of the Prince, which would have been sacri- 
 ficing his own principles, or of the Pretender, which would have 
 been offensive to those of others. Again, he usually designated 
 the Rebellion as the affair of 1745, and spoke of any one engaged 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 143 
 
 in it as a person who had been out at a certain period.* So that, 
 on the wliole, Mr. Fairford was a man much Hked and respected 
 on all sides, though his friends would not have been sorry if he 
 had given a dinner more frequently, as his little Cellar contained 
 some choice old wine, of which, on such rare occasions, he was no 
 niggard. 
 
 The whole pleasure of this good old-fashioned man of method, 
 besides that which he really felt in the discharge of his daily 
 business, was the hope to see his son Alan, the only fruit of a union 
 which death early dissolved, attain what in the father's eyes was 
 the proudest of all distinctions — the rank and fame of a well- 
 employed lawyer. 
 
 Every profession has its pecuhar honours, and Mr. Fairford's 
 mind was constructed upon so limited and exclusive a plan, that he 
 valued nothing, save the objects of ambition which his own pre- 
 sented. He would have shuddered at Alan's acquiring the renown 
 of a hero, and laughed with scorn at the equally barren laurels of 
 literature ; it was by the path of the law alone that he was desirous 
 to see him rise to eminence, and the probabilities of success or dis- 
 appointment were the thoughts of his father by day, and his dream 
 by night. 
 
 The disposition of Alan Fairford, as well as his talents, were 
 such as to encourage his father's expectations. He had acuteness 
 of intellect, joined to habits of long and patient study, improved 
 no doubt by the discipline of his father's house ; to which, generally 
 speaking, he conformed with the utmost docility, expressing no 
 wish for greater or more frequent relaxation than consisted with 
 his father's anxious and severe restrictions. When he did indulge 
 in any juvenile frolios, his father had the candour to lay the whole 
 blame upon his more mercurial companion, Darsie Latimer. 
 
 This youth, as the reader must be aware, had been received as 
 an inmate into the family of Mr. Fairford, senior, at a time when 
 some of the delicacy of constitution which had abridged the life of 
 his consort, began to show itself in the son, and when the father 
 was, of course, peculiarly disposed to indulge his slightest wish. 
 That the young Englishman was able to pay a considerable board, 
 was a matter of no importance to Mr. Fairford ; it was enough 
 that his presence seemed to make his son cheerful and happy. He 
 was compelled to allow that " Darsie was a fine lad, though 
 unsettled," and he would have had some difficulty in getting rid of 
 him, and the apprehensions which his levities excited, had it not 
 been for the voluntary excursion which gave rise to the preceding 
 correspondence, and in which Mr. Fairford secretly rejoiced, as 
 affording the means of separating Alan from his gay companion, 
 
144 Kiiuun u i> 1 t<ii I • 
 
 at least until he should have assumed, and become accustomed to, 
 the duties of his dry and laborious profession. 
 
 But the absence of Darsie was far from promoting the end which 
 the elder Mr. Fairford had expected and desired. The young men 
 were united by the closest bonds of intimacy ; and the more so, 
 that neither of them sought nor desired to admit any others into 
 their society. Alan Fairford was averse to general company, from 
 a disposition naturally reserved, and Darsie Latimer from a painful 
 sense of his own unknown origin, pecuharly afflicting in a country 
 where high and low are professed genealogists. The young men 
 were all in all to each other ; it is no wonder, therefore, that their 
 separation was painful, and that its effects upon Al^n Fairford, 
 joined to the anxiety occasioned by the tenor of his friend's letters, 
 greatly exceeded what the senior had anticipated. The young man 
 went through his usual duties, his studies, and the examinations to 
 which he was subjected, but with nothing hke the zeal and assiduity 
 which he had formerly displayed ; and his anxious and observant 
 father saw but too plainly that his heart was with his absent 
 comrade. 
 
 A philosopher would have given way to this tide of feeling, in 
 hopes to have diminished its excess, and permitted the youths to 
 have been some time together, that their intimacy might have been 
 broken off by degrees ; but Mr. Fairford only saw the more direct 
 mode of continued restraint, which, however, he was desirous of 
 veiling under some plausible pretext. In the anxiety which he felt 
 on this occasion, he had held communication with an old acquaint- 
 ance, Peter Drudgeit, with whom the reader is partly acquainted. 
 " Alan," he said, " was ance wud, and aye waur ; and he was ex- 
 pecting every moment when he would start off in a wildgoose-chase 
 after the callant Latimer ; Will Sampson, the horse-hirer in Candle- 
 maker Row, had given him a hint that Alan had been looking for a 
 good hack, to go to the country for a few days. And then to oppose 
 him downright — he could not but think on the way his poor mother 
 was removed — Would to Heaven he was yoked to some tight piece 
 of business, no matter whether well or ill paid, but some job that 
 would hamshackle him at least until the Courts rose, if it were but 
 for decency's sake." 
 
 Peter Drudgeit sympathized, for Peter had a son, who, reason or 
 none, would needs exchange the torn and inky fustian sleeves for 
 the blue jacket and white lapelle ; and he suggested, as the reader 
 knows, the engaging our friend Alan in the matter of Poor Peter 
 Peebles, just opened by the desertion of young Dumtoustie, whose 
 defection would be at the same time concealed ; and this, Drudgeit 
 said. " would be felling two dogs with one stone." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 143 
 
 With these explanations, the reader will hold a man of the elder 
 Fairford's sense and experience free from the hazardous and im- 
 patient curiosity with wHich boys fling a puppy into a deep pond, 
 merely to see if the creature can swim. However confident in his 
 son's talents, which were really considerable, he would have been 
 very sorry to have involved him in the duty of pleading a compli- 
 cated and difficult case, upon his very first appearance at the bar, 
 had he not resorted to it as an effectual way to prevent the young 
 man from taking a step, which his habits of thinking represented 
 as a most fatal one at his outset of life. 
 
 Betwixt two evils, Mr. Fairford chose that which was in his own 
 apprehension the least ; and, like a brave officer sending forth his 
 son to battle, rather chose he should die upon the breach, than 
 desert the conflict with dishonour. Neither did he leave him to his 
 own unassisted energies. Like Alpheus preceding Hercules, he 
 himself encountered the Augean mass of Peter Peebles's law- 
 matters. It was to the old man a labour of love to place in a clear 
 and undistorted view the real merits of this case, which the care- 
 lessness and blunders of Peter's former solicitors had converted 
 into a huge chaotic mass of unintelligible technicality ; and such 
 was his skill and industry, that he was able, after the severe toil of 
 two or three days, to present to the consideration of the young 
 counsel the principal facts of the case, in a light equally simple 
 and comprehensible. With the assistance of a solicitor so affec- 
 tionate and indefatigable, Alan Fairford was enabled, when the day 
 of trial arrived, to walk towards the Court, attended by his anxious 
 yet encouraging parent, with some degree of confidence that he 
 would lose no reputation upon this arduous occasion. 
 
 They were met at the door of the Court by Poor Peter Peebles, 
 in his usual plenitude of wig and celsitude of hat. He seized on 
 the young pleader like a lion on his prey. " How is a' wi' you, Mr. 
 Alan — ^how is a' wi' you, man ? — The awfu' day is come at last — a 
 day that will be lang minded in this house. Poor Peter Peebles 
 against Plainstanes — conjoined processes — Hearing in presence — 
 stands for the Short Roll for this day — I have not been able to sleep 
 for a week for thinking of it, and, I dare to say, neither has the Lord 
 President himsell— for such a cause ! ! But your father garr'd me 
 tak a wee drap ower muckle of his pint bottle the other night ; 
 it's no right to mix brandy wi' business, Mr. Fairford. I would 
 have been the waur o' liquor if I would have drank as muckle as 
 you twa would have had me. But there's a time for a' things, and 
 if ye will dine with me after the case is heard, or, whilk is the same, 
 or maybe better, /'// gang my ways hame wi' you, and I winna ob- 
 ject to a cheerfu' glass within the bounds of moderation." 
 
 L 
 
146 REDGAtJNTLET. 
 
 Old Fairford shrugged his shoulders and hurried past the client, 
 saw his son wrapt in the sable bombazine, which, in his eyes, was 
 more venerable than an archbishop's lawn, and could not help 
 fondly patting his shoulder, and whispering to him to take courage, 
 and show he was worthy to wear it. The party entered the Outer 
 Hall of the Court, once the place of meeting of the ancient Scottish 
 Parliament, and which corresponds to the use of Westminster Hall 
 in England, serving as a vestibule to the Inner-House, as it is 
 termed, and a place of dominion to certain sedentary personages 
 called Lords Ordinary. 
 
 The earlier part of the morning was spent by old Fairford in 
 reiterating his instructions to Alan, and in running from one person 
 to another, from whom he thought he could still glean some grains 
 of information, either concerning the point at issue, or collateral 
 cases. Meantime Poor Peter Peebles, whose shallow brain was 
 altogether unable to bear the importance of the moment, kept as 
 close to his young counsefas shadow to substance, affected now to 
 speak loud, now to whisper in his ear, nOw to deck his ghastly 
 countenance with wreathed smiles, now to cloud it wiih a shade" of 
 deep and solemn importance, and anon to contort it with the sneer 
 of scorn and derision. These moods of the client's mind were 
 accompanied with singular "mopings and mowings," fantastic 
 gestures, which the man of rags and litigation deemed appropriate 
 to his changes of countenance. Now he brandished his arm aloft, 
 now thrust his fist straight out, as if to knock his opponent down. 
 Now he laid his open palm on his bosom, and now flinging it 
 abroad, he gallantly snapped his fingers in the air. 
 
 These demonstrations, and the obvious shame and embarrass- 
 ment of Alan Fairford, did not escape the observation of the 
 juvenile idlers in the hall. They did not, indeed, approach Peter with 
 their usual familarity, from sonie feeling of deference towards Fair- 
 ford, though many accused him of conceit in presuming to under- 
 take at this early stage of his practice a case of considerable 
 difficulty. But Alan, notwithstanding this forbearance, was not 
 the less sensible that he and his companion were the subjects of 
 many a passing jest, and many a shout of laughter, with which - 
 that region at all times abounds. 
 
 At length the young counsel's patience gave way, and as it 
 threatened to carry his presence of mind and recollection along 
 with it, Alan frankly told his father, that unless he was relieved 
 from the infliction of his chent's personal presence and instructions, 
 he must necessarily throw up his brief, and decline pleading the 
 case. 
 
 " Hush, hush, my dear Alan," said the old gentleman, almost at 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 147 
 
 his own wit's end upon hearing this dilemma ; " dinna mind the 
 silly ne'er-do-weel ; we cannot keep the man from hearing his o\vn 
 cause, though he be not quite right in the head." 
 
 " On my life, sir," answered Alan, " I shall be unable to go on, 
 he drives every thing out of my remembrance ; and if I attempt to 
 speak seriously of the injuries he has sustained, and the con- 
 dition he is reduced to, how can I expect but that the very 
 appearance of such an absurd scarecrow will turn it all into 
 ridicule ? " 
 
 " There is something in that," said Saunders Fairford, glancing 
 a look at Poor Peter, and then cautiously inserting his forefinger 
 under his bob- wig, in order to rub his temple and aid his inven- 
 tion ; " he is no figure for the fore-bar to see without laughing ; 
 but how to get rid of him ? To speak sense, or anything like it, 
 is the last thing he will listen to. — Stay, ay — Alan, my darUng, 
 hae patience ; I'U get him off on the instant, like a go^vff ba'." 
 
 So saying, he hastened to his ally, Peter Drudgeit, who, on see- 
 ing him with marks of haste in his gait, and care upon his coun- 
 tenance, clapped his pen behind his ear, with "What's the stir 
 now, Mr. Saunders ? — Is there aught wrang ? " 
 
 " Here's a dollar, man," said Mr. Saunders ; " now, or never, 
 Peter, do me a good turn. Yonder's your namesake, Peter 
 Peebles, wiU drive the swine through our bonny hanks of yarn ;* 
 get him over to John's Coffee-house, man — gie him his meridian — 
 keep him there, drunk or sober, tiU the hearing is ower." 
 
 " Eneugh said," quoth Peter Drudgeit, no way displeased with 
 his own share in the service required, — " We'se do your bidding." 
 
 Accordingly, the scribe was presently seen whispering in the 
 ear of Peter Peebles, whose responses came forth in the following 
 broken form : — 
 
 "Leave the Court for ae minute on this great day of judg- 
 ment ?— not I, by the Reg Eh ! what ? Brandy, did ye say- 
 French Brandy ?—couldna ye fetch a stoup to the bar under 
 your coat, man ?— Impossible ? Na, if it's clean impossible, and 
 if we have an hour good till they get through the single bills 
 and the summar-roll, I carena if I cross the close wi' you ; I am 
 sure I need something to keep my heart up this a^vful day ; but 
 I'll no stay above an instant — not above a minute of time — nor 
 drink aboon a single gill." 
 
 In a few minutes afterwards, the two Peters were seen moving 
 through the Parliament Close, (which newfangled affectation has 
 termed a Square,) the triumphant Drudgeit leading captive the 
 passive Peebles, whose legs conducted him towai-ds the dram- 
 shop, while his reverted eyes were fixed upon the Court. They 
 
 L 2 
 
148 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 dived into the Cimmerian abysses of John's Coffee-house,* for- 
 merly the favourite rendezvous of the classical and genial Dr. 
 Pitcairn, and were for the present seen no more. 
 
 Relieved from his tormentor, Alan Fairford had time to rally 
 his recollections, which, in the irritation of his spirits, had nearly 
 escaped him, and to prepare himself for a task, the successful 
 discharge or failure in which must, he was aware, have the deepest 
 influence upon his fortunes. He had pride, was not without a 
 consciousness of talent, and the sense of his father's feelings upon 
 the subject impelled him to the utmost exertion. Above all, he 
 had that sort of self-command which is essential to success in 
 every arduous undertaking, and he was constitutionally free from 
 that feverish irritability, by which those whose over-active imagi- 
 nations exaggerate difficulties, render themselves incapable of en- 
 countering such when they arrive. 
 
 Having collected all the scattered and broken associations which 
 were necessary, Alan's thoughts reverted to Dumfries-shire, and the 
 precarious situation in which he feared his beloved friend had 
 placed himself ; and once and again he consulted his watch, eager 
 to have his present task commenced and ended, that he might 
 hasten to Darsie's assistance. The hour and moment at length 
 arrived. , The Macer shouted, with all his well-remembered brazen 
 strength of lungs, " Poor Peter Peebles versus Plainstanes, per 
 Dumtoustie et Tough :— Maister Da-a-niel Dumtoustie 1 " Dum- 
 toustie answered not the summons, which, deep and swelling as it 
 was, could not reach across the Queensferry ; but our Maister Alan 
 Fairford appeared in his place. 
 
 The Court was very much crowded ; for much amusement had 
 been received on former occasions when Peter had volunteered his 
 own oratory, and had been completely successful in routing the 
 gravity of the whole procedure, and putting to silence, not indeed 
 the counsel of the opposite party, but his own. 
 
 Both bench and audience seemed considerably surprised at the 
 juvenile appearance of the young man who appeared in the room 
 of Dumtoustie, for the purpose of opening this complicated and 
 long depending process, and the common herd were disappointed 
 at theabsence of Peter the client, the Punchinello of the expected 
 entertainment. The Judges looked with a very favourable counte- 
 nance,on our friend Alan, most of them being acquainted, more or 
 less, with so old a practitioner as his father, and all, or almost all, 
 affording, from civihty, the same fair play to the first pleading of a 
 counsel, which the House of Commons yields to the maiden speech 
 of one of its members. 
 
 Lord Bladderskate was an exception to this general expression 
 
REDCAU.N'TLET. 149 
 
 of benevolence. He scowled upon Alan from beneath his large, 
 shaggy, grey ejebrows, just as if the young lawyer had been 
 usurping his nephew's honours, instead of covering his disgrace ; 
 and, from feelings which did his lordship little honour, he privately 
 hoped the young man would not succeed in the cause which his 
 kinsman had abandoned 
 
 Even Lord Bladderskate, however, was, in spite of himself, 
 pleased with the judicious and modest tone in which Alan began 
 his address to the Court, apologizing for his own presumption, 
 and excusing it by the sudden illness of his learned brother, for 
 whom the labour of opening a cause of some difficulty and im- 
 portance had been much more worthily designed. He spoke of 
 himself as he really was, and of young Dumtoustie as what he 
 ought to have been, taking care not to dwell on either topic a 
 moment longer than was necessary. The old Judge's looks be- 
 came benign ; his family pride was propitiated, and, pleased 
 equally with the modesty and civility of the young man whom he 
 had thought forward and officious, he relaxed the scorn of his 
 features into an expression of profound attention ; the highest 
 compliment, and the greatest encouragement, which a judge can 
 render to the counsel addressing him. 
 
 Having succeeded in securing the favourable attention of the 
 Court, the young lawyer, using the lights which his father's 
 experience and knowledge of business had afforded him, pro- 
 ceeded with an address and clearness, unexpected from one 
 of his years, to remove from the case itself those complicated 
 formalities with which it had been loaded, as a surgeon strips from 
 a wound the dressings which have been hastily wrapped round it, 
 in order to proceed to his cure seaindutn artem. Developed of the 
 cumbrous and complicaled technicalities of litigation, with which the 
 perverse obstinacy of the client, the inconsiderate haste or ignorance 
 of his agents, and the evasions of a subtle adversai-y,had invested the 
 process, the cause of Poor Peter Peebles, standing upon its simple 
 merits, was no bad subject for the declamation of a yoijng counsel, 
 nor did our friend Alan fail to avail himself of its strong points. 
 
 He exhibited his client as a simple-hearted, honest, well-meaning 
 man, who, during a copartnership of twelve years, had gradually 
 become impoverished, while his partner, (his former clerk,) having 
 no funds but his share of -the same business, into which he had 
 been admitted without any advance of stock, had become gradually 
 more and more wealthy. 
 
 " Their association," said Alan, and the little flight was received 
 with some applause, " resembled the ancient story of the fruit which 
 was carved with a knife poisoned on one side of the blade only, so 
 
tjo REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 that the individual to whom the envenomed portion was served, 
 drew decay and death from what afforded savour and sustenance 
 to the consumer of the other moiety." He then plunged boldly 
 into the mare magnum of accompts between the parties ; he 
 pursued each false statement from the waste-book to the day-book, 
 from the day-book to the bill-book, from the bill-book to the ledger ; 
 placed the artful interpolations and insertions of the fallacious 
 Plainestanes in array against each other, and against the fact ; and, 
 availing himself to the utmost of his father's previous labours, and 
 his own knowledge of accompts, in which he had been sedulously 
 trained, he laid before the Court a clear and intelligible statement 
 of the affairs of the copartnery, showing, with precision, that a 
 large balance must, at the dissolution, have been due to his client, 
 sufficient to have enabled him to have carried on business on his 
 own account, and thus to have retained his situation in society, as 
 an independent and industrious tradesman. " But, instead of this 
 justice being vountarily rendered by the former clerk to his former 
 master, — by the party obliged to his benefactor, — by one honest 
 man to another, — his wretched client had been compelled to follow 
 his quondam clerk, his present debtor, from Court to Court ; had 
 found his just claims met with well-invented but unfounded counter- 
 claims ; had seen his party shift his character of pursuer or defender, 
 as often as Harlequin effects his transformations, till, in a chase so 
 varied and so long, the unhappy litigant had lost substance, reputa- 
 tion, and almost the use of reason itself, and came before their 
 Lordships an object of thoughtless derision to the unreflecting, of 
 compassion to the better-hearted, and of awful meditation to every 
 one, who considered that, in a country where excellent laws were 
 administered by upright aiid incorruptible judges, a man might 
 pursue an almost indisputable claim through all the mazes of 
 litigation ; lose fortune, reputation, and reason itself in the chase, 
 and at length come before the Supreme Court of his country in the 
 wretched condition of his unhappy client, a victim to protracted 
 justice, and to that hope delayed which sickens the heart." 
 
 The force of this appeal to feeling made as much impression on 
 the Bench as had been previously effected by the clearness of Alan's 
 argument. The absurd fprm of Peter himself, with his tow-wig, 
 was fortunately not present to excite any ludicrous emotion, and 
 the pause that took place when the young lawyer had concluded 
 his speech, was followed by a murmur of approbation, which the 
 ears of his father drank in as the sweetest sounds that had ever 
 entered them. Many a hand of gratulation was thrust out to his 
 grasp, trembling as it was with anxiety, and finally with delight j 
 
REDGAUNTLET. igt 
 
 his voice faltering, as he replied, "Ay, ay, I kend Alan was the lad 
 to make a spoon or spoil a horn." * 
 
 The counsel on the other side arose, an old practitioner, who had 
 noted too closely the impression made by Alan's pleading, not to 
 fear the consequences of an immediate decision. He paid the 
 highest compliments to his very young brother— "the Benjamin, as 
 he would presume to call him, of the learned Faculty— said the 
 alleged hardships of Mr. Peebles were compensated, by his being 
 placed in a situation where the Ijenevolence of their Lordships 
 h?d assigned him gratuitously such assistance as he might not 
 otherwise have obtained at a high price— and allowed his young 
 brother had put many things in such a new point of view, that, 
 although he was quite certain of his ability to refute them, he was 
 honestly desirous of having a few hours to arrange his answer, in 
 order to be able to follow Mr. Fairford from point to point. He had 
 further to observe, there was one point of the case to which his 
 brother, whose attention had been otherwise so wonderfully com- 
 prehensive, had not given the consideration which he expected ; it 
 was founded on the interpretation of certain correspondence which 
 had passed betwixt the parties, soon after the dissolution of the 
 copartnery." 
 
 The Court having heard Mr. Tough, readily allowed him two 
 days for preparing himself, hinting, at the same time, that he might 
 find his task difficult, and affording the young counsel, with high 
 encomiums upon the mode in which he had acquitted himself, the 
 choice of speaking, either now or at next calling of the cause, upon 
 the point which Plainstaine's lawyer had adverted to. 
 
 AJan modestly apologised for what in fact had been an omission 
 very pardonable in so complicated a case, and professed himself 
 instantly ready to go through that correspondence, and prove that 
 it was in form and substance exactly applicable to the view of the 
 case he had submitted to their lordships. He applied to his 
 father, who sat behind hinj, to hand him, from time to time, the 
 letters, in the order in which he meant to read and comment upon 
 them. 
 
 Old Counsellor Tough had probably formed an ingenious enough 
 scheme to blunt the effect of the young lawyer's reasoning, by 
 thus obliging him to follow up a process of reasoning, clear and 
 complete in itself, by a hasty and extemporary appendix. If so, 
 Jie seemed likely to be disappointed ; for Alan was well prepared 
 on this, as on other parts of the cause, and recommenced his 
 pleading with a degree of animation and spirit, which added force 
 even to° what he had formerly stated, and might perhaps have 
 occasioned the old genleman to regret his having again called him 
 
152 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 up ; when his father, as he handed him the letters, put one into his 
 hand which produced a singular effect on the pleader. 
 
 At the first glance, he saw that the paper had no reference to the 
 affairs of Peter Peebles ; but the first glance also showed him, what, 
 even at that time, and in that presence, he could not help reading ; 
 and which, being read, seemed totally to disconcert his ideas. He 
 stopped short in his harangue — gazed on the paper with a look of 
 surprise and horror— uttered an exclamation, and, flinging down 
 he brief which he had in his hand, hurried out of Court without 
 returning a single word of answer to the various cjuestions, " What 
 was the matter?" — "Was he taken unwell?" — "Should not a 
 chair be called ? " &c. &c. &c. 
 
 The elder Mr. Fairford, who remained seated, and looking as 
 senseless as if he had been made of stone, was at length recalled to 
 himself by the anxious enquiries of the judges and the counsel after 
 his son's health. He then rose with an air, in which was mingled 
 the deep habitual reverence in which he held the Court, with some 
 internal cause of agitation, and with difficulty mentioned something 
 of a mistake — a piece of bad news — Alan, he hoped, would be well 
 enough to-morrow. But unable to proceed farther, he clasped his 
 hands together, exclaiming, " My son ! my son ! " and left the 
 Court hastily, as if in pursuit of him. 
 
 " What's the matter with the auld bitch next ?"* said an acute 
 metaphysical judge, though somewhat coarse in his manners, aside 
 to his brethren. "-This is a daft cause, Bladderskate— first, it drives 
 the poor man mad that aught it— then your nevoy goes daft with 
 fright, and flies the pit— then this smart young hopeful is aff the 
 hooks with too hard study, I fancy — and now auld Saunders 
 Fairford is as lunatic as the best of them. What say ye till't, ye 
 bitch ? " 
 
 " Nothing, my lord," answered Bladderskate, much too formal to 
 admire the levities in which his philosophical brother sometimes 
 indulged—" I say nothing, but pray to Heaven to keep our own 
 wits." 
 
 " Amen, amen," answered his learned brother ; " for some of us 
 have but few to spare." 
 
 The Court then arose, and the audience departed, greatly wonder- 
 ing at the talent displayed by Alan Fairford, at his first appearance, 
 in a case so difficult and so complicated, and assigning an hundred 
 conjectural causes, each different from the others, for the singular 
 interruption which had clouded his day of success. The worst of 
 the whole was, that six agents, who had each come to the separate 
 resolution of thrusting a retaining fee into Alan's hand as he left 
 the court, shook their heads as they returned the money into their 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 153 
 
 leathern pouches, and said, " that the lad was clever, but they would 
 like to see more of him before they engaged him in the way of 
 business— they did not like his lowping away like a flea in a 
 blankLt." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Had our friend Alexander Fairford known the consequences of 
 his son's abrupt retreat from the Court, which are mentioned in the 
 end of the last chapter, it might have accomplished the prediction 
 of the lively old judge, and driven him utterly distracted. As it was, 
 he was miserable enough. His son had risen ten degrees higher in 
 his estimation than ever, by "his display of juridical talents, which 
 seemed to assure him that the applause of the judges and professors 
 of the law, which, in his estimation, was worth that of all mankind 
 besides, authorized tp the fullest extent the advantageous estimate 
 which even his parental partiality had been induced to form of 
 Alan's powers. On the other hand, he felt that he was himself a 
 little humbled, from a disguise which he had practised towards 
 this son ,of his hopes and wishes. 
 
 The truth was, that on the morning of this eventful day, Mr. 
 Alexander Fairford had received from his correspondent and friend. 
 Provost Crosbie of Dumfries, a letter of the following tenor : — 
 
 "Dear Sir, 
 
 " Your respected favour of 25th ultimo, per favour of Mr. 
 Darsie Latimer, reached me in safety, and I showed to the young 
 gentleman such attentions as he was pleased to accept of. The object 
 of my present writing is twofold. First, the council are of opinion 
 that you should now begin to stir in the thirlage cause ; and they 
 think they will be able, from evidence noviter reperttmi, to enable 
 you to amend your condescendence upon the use and wont of the 
 burgh, touching the grana invecta et illata. So you will please 
 consider yourself as authorized to speak to Mr. Pest, and lay before 
 him the papers which you will receive by the coach. The council 
 think that a fee of two guineas may be sufficient on this occasion, 
 as Mr. Pest had three for drawing the original condescendence. 
 
 " I take the opportunity of adding, that there has been a great 
 riot among the Solway fishermen, who have destroyed, in a masterful 
 manner, the stake-nets set up near the mouth of this river ; and 
 have besides attacked the house of Quaker Geddes, one of the prin- 
 cipal partners of the Tide-net Fishing Company, and done a great 
 
154 REUGAUNTLET. 
 
 deal of damage. Am sorry to add, young Master Latimer was in 
 the fray, and has not since been heard of. Murder is spoke of, but 
 that may be a word of course. As the young gentleman has behaved 
 rather oddly while in these parts, as in decUning to dine with me 
 more than once, and going about the country with strolling fiddlers 
 and such like, I rather hope that his present absence is only occa- 
 sioned by a froUc ; but as his servant has been making enquiries of 
 me respecting his master, I thought it best to acquaint you in course 
 of post. I have only to add, that our sheriff has taken a precogni- 
 tion, and committed one or two of the rioters. If I can be useful 
 in this matter, either by advertising for Mr. Latimer as missing, 
 publishing a reward, or otherwise, I will obey your respected 
 instructions, being your most obedient to command, 
 
 "William Crosbie." 
 
 When Mr. Fairford received this letter, and had read it to an 
 end, his first idea was to communicate it to his son, that an express 
 might be instantly dispatched, or a King's messenger sent with 
 proper authority to search after his late guest. 
 
 The habits of the fishers were rude, as he well knew, though not 
 absolutely sanguinary or ferocious ; and there had been instances 
 of their transporting persons who had interfered in their smuggling 
 trade to the Isle of Man, and elsewhere, and keeping them under 
 restraint for many weeks. On this account Mr. Fairford was 
 naturally led to feel anxiety concerning the fate of his late inmate ; 
 and, at a less interesting moment, would certainly have set out 
 himself, or licensed his son to go in pursuit of his friend. 
 
 But, alas ! he was both a father and an agent. In the one 
 capacity, he looked on his son as dearer to him than all the world 
 besides ; in the other, the lawsuit which he conducted was to him. 
 like an infant to its nurse, and the case of Poor Peter Peebles against 
 Plainstanes was, he saw, adjourned, perhaps sine die, should this 
 document reach the hands of his son. The mutual and enthusiastical 
 affection betwixt the young men was well known to him ; and he 
 concluded, that if the precarious state of Latimer were made known 
 to Alan Fairford, it would render him not only unwilling, but 
 totally unfit, to discharge the duty of the day, to which the old 
 gentleman attached such ideas of importance. 
 
 On mature reflection, therefore, he resolved, though not without 
 some feelings of compunction, to delay communicating to his son 
 the disagreeable intelligence which he had received, until the Jjusi- 
 ness of the day should be ended. The delay, he persuaded himself, 
 could be of little consequence to Darsie Latimer, whose folly, he 
 idared to say, had led him into some scrape which would meet an 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 155 
 
 appropriate punishment, in some accidental restraint, which would 
 be thus prolonged for only a few hours longer. Besides, he would 
 have time to speak to the Sheriff of the county — perhaps to the 
 King's Advocate — and set about the matter in a regular manner, or, 
 as he termed it, as summing up the duties of a solicitor, to ag^ as 
 accords* 
 
 The scheme, as we have seen, was partially siiccessful, and was 
 only ultimately defeated, as he confessed to himself with shame, by 
 his own very unbusiness-like mistake of shuffling the Provost's 
 etter, in the hurry and anxiety of the morning, among some papers 
 belonging to Peter Peebles's affairs, and then handing it to his son, 
 without observing the blunder. He used to protest, even till the 
 day of his death, that he never had been guilty of such an inaccuracy 
 as giving a paper out of his hand without looking at the docketing, 
 except on that unhappy occasion, when, of all others, he had such 
 particular reason to regret his-negligence. 
 
 Disturbed by these reflections, the old gentleman had, for the first 
 time in his life, some disinchnation, arising from shame and vexa- 
 tion, to face his own son ; so that to protract for a little the meeting 
 which he feared would be a painful one, he went to wait upon the 
 Sheriff-depute, who he found had set off for Dumfries, in great haste, 
 to superintend in person the investigation which had been set on 
 foot by his Substitute. This gentleman's clerk could say little on 
 the subject of the riot, excepting that it had been serious, mucli 
 damage done to property, and some personal violence offered to 
 individuals ; but, as far as he had yet heard, no lives lost on the 
 spot. 
 
 Mr. Fairford was compelled to return home with this intelligence ; 
 and on enquiring at James Wilkinson where his son was, received 
 for answer, that " Maister Alan was in his own room, and very busy." 
 
 " We must have our explanation over," said Saunders Fairford 
 to himself " Better a finger off, as aye wagging ;" and going to 
 the door of his son's apartment he knocked at first gently— then 
 more loudly — but received no answer. Somewhat alarmed at this 
 silence, he opened the door of the chamber— it was empty— clothes 
 lay mixed in confusion with the law-books and papers, as if the 
 inmate had been engaged in hastily packing for a journey. As Mr. 
 Fairford looked around in alarm, his eye was arrested by a sealed 
 letter lying upon his son's writing-table, and addressed to himself. 
 It contained the following words :— 
 
 " My Dearest Father, 
 " You will not, I trust, be surprised, nor perhaps very much 
 displeased, to learn that I am now on my way to Dumfries-shire, to 
 
156 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 learn, by my own personal investigation, the present state of my 
 dear friend, and afford him such relief as may be in my power, and 
 which, I trust, will be effectual. I do not presume to reflect upon 
 you, dearest sir, for concealing from me information of so much 
 consequence to my peace of mind and happiness ; but I hope your 
 having done so will be, if not an excuse, at least some mitigation of 
 my present offence, in taking a step of consequence without con- 
 sulting your pleasure ; and, I must further own, under circumstances 
 which perhaps might lead to your disapprobation of my purpose. 
 I can only say, in further apology, that if any thing unhappy, which 
 Heaven forbid ! shall have occurred to the person who, next to 
 yourself, is dearest to me in this world, I shall have on my heart, 
 as a subject of eternal regret, that being in a certain degree warned 
 of his danger, and furnished with the means of obviating it, I did 
 not instantly hasten to his assistance, but preferred giving my 
 attention to the business of this unlucky morning. No view of 
 personal distinction, nothing, indeed, short of your earnest and often 
 expressed wishes, could have detained me in town till this day ; and 
 having made this sacrifice to filial duty, I trust you will hold me 
 excused, if I now obey the calls of friendship and humanity. Do 
 not be in the least anxious on my account ; I shall know, I trust, 
 how to conduct myself with due caution in any emergence which 
 may occur, otherwise my legal studies for so many years have been 
 to little purpose. I am fully provided with money, and also with 
 arms, in case of need ; but you may rely on my prudence in avoiding 
 all occasions of using the latter, short of the last necessity. God 
 Almighty bless you, my dearest father ! and grant that you may 
 forgive the first, and, I trust, the last act approaching towards pre- 
 meditated disobedience, of which I either have now, or shall 
 hereafter have, to accuse myself. I remain, till death, your dutiful 
 and affectionate son, 
 
 " Alan Fairford. 
 
 "P.S. — I shall write with the utmost regularity, acquainting you 
 with my motions, and requesting your advice. I trust my stay wiU 
 be very short, and I think it possible that 1 may bring back Darsie 
 along with me." 
 
 The paper dropped from the old man's hand ^vhen he was thus 
 assured of the misfortune which he apprehended. His first idea 
 was to get a postchaise and- pursue the fugitive ; but he recollected, 
 that, upon the very rare occasions when Alan had shown himself 
 indocile to the patria potestas, his natural ease and gentleness of 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 157 
 
 disposition seemed havdened into obstinacy, and that now, entitled, 
 as arrived at the years of majority, and a metnber of the learned 
 Faculty, to direct his own motions, there was great doubt, whether, 
 in the event of his overtaking his son, he might be able to prevail 
 upon him to return back. In such a risk of failure, he thought it 
 wiser to desist from his purpose, especially as even his success in 
 such a pursuit would give a ridiculous dclat to the whole affair, 
 which could not be otherwise than prejudicial to his son's rising 
 character. 
 
 Bitter, however, were Saunders Fairford's reflections, as, again 
 picking up the fatal scroll, he threw himself into his son's leathern 
 easy-chair, and bestowed upon it a disjointed commentary. " Bring 
 back Darsie ? little doubt of that — the bad shilling is sure enough 
 to come back again. I wish Darsie no worse ill than that he were 
 carried where the silly fool Alan should never see him again. It 
 was an ill hour that he darkened my doors in, for, ever since that, 
 Alan, has given up his ain old-fashioned mother-wit, for the 
 t'other's capernoited maggots and nonsense. — Provided with money.'' 
 you inust have more than I know of, then, my friend, for I trow I 
 kept you pretty short for your own good. — Can he have gotten more 
 fees ? or, does he think five guineas has neither beginning nor end? 
 — Arms ! What would he do with arms, or what would, any man 
 do with them that is not a regular soldier under government, or else 
 a thief-taker? I have had enough of arms, I trow, although I 
 carried them for King George and the government. But this is a 
 worse strait than Falkirk-field yet !— God guide us, we are poor 
 inconsistent creatures ! To think the lad should have made so 
 able an appearance, and then bolted off this gate, after a glaiket 
 ne'er-do-weel, like a hound upon a false scent !— Las-a-day ! it's a 
 sore thing to see a stunkard cow kick down the pail when it's ream- 
 ing fou.— But, after all, it's an ill bird that defiles its ain nest. I 
 must cover up the scandal as well as I can.— What's the matter 
 now, James ?" 
 
 "A message, sir," said James Wilkinson, "from my Lord Pre- 
 sident ; and he hopes Mr. Alan is not seriously indisposed." 
 
 " From the Lord President? the Lord preserve us !— I'll send an 
 answer this instant ; bid the lad sit down, and ask him to drink, 
 James.— Let me see," continued he, taking a sheet of gilt paper, 
 " how we are to draw our answers." 
 
 Ere his pen had touched the paper, James was in the room 
 again. 
 
 " What now, James ?" 
 
 " Lord Bladderskate's lad is come to ask how Mr. Alan is, as he 
 left the Court" 
 
iS8 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 "Ay, ay, ay," answered Saunders, bitterly ; " he has e'en made a 
 moonlight flitting, like my lord's ain nevoy." 
 
 " Shall I say sae, sir ?" said James, who, as an old soldier, was 
 literal in all things touching t"he service. 
 
 " The devil ! no, no !— Bid the lad sit down and taste our ale. I 
 will write his lordship an answer." 
 
 Once more the gilt paper was resumed, and once more the door 
 was opened by James. 
 
 " Lord sends his servitor to ask after Mr. Alan.[' 
 
 " Oh, the deevil take their civility !" said poor Saunders. " Set 
 him down to drink too — I will write to his lordship." 
 
 " The lads will bide your pleasure, sir, as lang as I keep the 
 bicker fou ; but this ringing is like to wear out the bell, I think ; 
 there are they at it again." 
 
 He answered the fresh summons accordingly, and came back to 
 inform Mr. Fairford, that the Dean of Faculty was below, enquiring 
 for Mr. Alan. — " Will I set him down to drink, too ?" said James. 
 
 " Will you be an idiot, sir ?" said Mr. Fairford, " Show Mr. Dean 
 into the parlour." 
 
 In going slowly down stairs, step by step, the perplexed man of 
 business had time enough to reflect, that if it be possible to put a 
 fair gloss upon a true story, the verity always serves the purpose 
 better than any substitute which ingenuity can devise. He there- 
 fore told his learned visitor, that although his son had been 
 incommoded by the heat of the court, and the long train of hard 
 study, by day and night, preceding his exertions, yet he had 
 fortunately so far recovered, as to be in condition to obey upon the 
 instant a sudden summons which had called him to the country, on 
 a matter of life and death. 
 
 "It should be a serious matter indeed that takes my young friend 
 away at this moment," said the good-natured Dean. " I wish he 
 had staid to finish his pleading, and put down old Tough. Without 
 compliment, Mr. Fairford, it was as fine a first appearance as I ever 
 heard. I should be sorry your son did not follow it up in a reply. 
 Nothing like striking while the iron is hot." 
 
 Mr. Saunders Fairford made a bitter grimace as he acquiesced 
 in an opinion which was indeed decidedly his own ; but he thought 
 it most prudent to reply, " that the affair which rendered his son 
 Alan's presence in the country absolutely necessary, regarded the 
 affairs of a young gentleman of great fortune, who was a particular 
 friend of Alan's, and who never took any material step in his affairs, 
 without consulting his counsel learned in the law." 
 
 "Well, well, Mr. Fairford, you know best," answered the learned 
 Dean ; " if there be death or marriage in the case, a will or a 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 159 
 
 wedding is to be preferred to all other business. I am happy Mr. 
 Alan is so much recovered as to be able for travel, and wish you a 
 very good morning." 
 
 Having thus taken his ground to the Dean of Faculty, Mr. 
 Fairford hastily wrote cards in answer to the enquiry of the three 
 judges, accounting for Alan's absence in the same manner. These, 
 being properly sealed and addressed, he delivered to James, with 
 directions to dismiss the parti-coloured gentry, who, in the mean- 
 while, had consumed a gallon of twopenny ale, while discussing 
 points of law, and addressing each other by their masters' titles.* 
 
 The exertion which these matters demanded, and the interest 
 which so many persons of legal distinction appeared to have taken 
 in his son, greatly relieved the oppressed spirit of Saunders Fair- 
 ford, who continued to talk mysteriously of the very important 
 business which had interfered with his son's attendance during the 
 brief remainder of the session. He endeavoured to lay the same 
 unction to his own heart ; but here the application was less fortu- 
 nate, for his conscience told him, that no end, however important, 
 which could be achieved in Darsie Latimer's affairs, could be 
 balanced against the reputation which Alan was like to forfeit, by 
 deserting the cause of Poor Peter Peebles. 
 
 In the meanwhile, although the haze which surrounded the cause, 
 or causes, of that unfortunate litigant had been for a time dispelled 
 by Alan's eloquence, like a fog by the thunder of artillery, yet it 
 seemed once more to settle down upon the mass of litigation, thick 
 as the palpable darkness of Egypt, at the very sound of Mr. Tough's 
 voice, who on the second day after Alan's departure, was heard in 
 answer to the opening counsel. Deep-mouthed, long-breathed, 
 and pertinacious, taking a pinch of snuff betwixt every sentence, 
 which otherwise seemed interminable— the veteran pleader prosed 
 over all the themes which had been treated so luminously by Fair- 
 ford ; he quietly and imperceptibly replaced all the rubbish which 
 the other had cleared away ; and succeeded in restoring the veil 
 of obscurity and unintelligibility which had for many years darkened 
 the case of Peebles against Plainstanes ; and the matter was once 
 more hung up by a remit to an accountant, with instruction to 
 report before answer. So different a result from that which the 
 public had been led to expect from Alan's speech, gave rise to 
 various speculations. 
 
 The client himself opined that it was entirely owing, first, to his 
 own absence during the first day's pleading, being, as he said, d-e- 
 boshed with brandy, usquebaugh, and other strong waters, at John's 
 Coffee-house, fier ambages of Peter Drudgeit, employed to that 
 effect by and through the device, counsel, and covyne of Saunders 
 
i6o REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Fairford, his agent, or pretended agent. Secondly, by the flight 
 and voluntary desertion of the younger Fairford, the advocate ; on 
 account of which he served both father and son with a petition and 
 complaint against them, for malversation in office. vSo that the 
 apparent and most probable issue of this cause seemed to menace 
 the melancholy Mr. Saunders Fairford with additional subject for 
 plague and mortification ; which was the more galling, as his con- 
 science told him that the case was really given away, and that a 
 very brief resumption of the former argument, with reference to 
 the necessary authorities and points of evidence, would have 
 enabled Alan, by the mere breath, as it were, of his mouth, to blow 
 away th'e various cobwebs with which ^Ir. Tough had again in- 
 vested the proceedings. But it went, he said, just like a decreet in 
 absence, and was lost for want of a contradictor. 
 
 In the meantime, nearly a week passed over without Mr. Fairford 
 hearing a word directly from his son. He learned, indeed, by a 
 letter from Mr. Crosbie, that the young coun sellor had safely reached 
 Dumfries, but had left that town upon some ulterior researches, 
 the purpose of which he had not communicated. The old man, 
 thus left to suspense, and to mortifying recollections, deprived also 
 of the domestic society to which he had been habituated, began to 
 suffer in body as well as in mind. He had formed the determina- 
 tion of setting out in person for Dumfries-shire, when, after having 
 been dogged, peevish, and snappish to his clerks and domestics, to 
 an unusual and almost intolerable degree, the acrimonious humours 
 settled in a hissing-hot fit of the gout, which is a well-known tamer 
 of the most froward spirits, and under whose discipline we shall, 
 for the present, leave him, as the continuation of this history 
 assumes, with the next division, a form somewhat different from 
 direct narrative and epistolary correspondence, though partaking of 
 the character of both. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 JOURNAL OF DARSIE LATIMER. 
 
 [The following Address is written on the inside of the envelope 
 which contained the Journal.] 
 
 Into what hands soever these leaves may fall, they will instruct 
 him, during a certain time at least, in the history of the life of an 
 unfortunate young man, who, in the heart of a free country, and 
 
JiEDGAUNTLET. i6l 
 
 without any crime being laid to his charge, has been, and is, sub- 
 jected to a course of unlawful and violent restraint. He who opens 
 this letter, is therefore conjured to apply to the nearest magistrate, 
 and, following such indications as the papers may afford, to exert 
 himself for the relief of one, who, while he possesses every claim 
 to assistance which oppressed innocence can give, has, at the same 
 time, both the inclination and the means of being grateful to his 
 deliverers. Or, if the person tfbtaining these letters shall want 
 courage or means to effect the writer's release, he is, in that case, 
 conjured, by every duty of a man to his fellow-mortals, and of a 
 Christian towards one who professes the same holy faith, to take 
 the earliest measures for conveying them with speed and safety to 
 the hands of Alan Fairford, Esq., Advocate, residing in the family 
 of his father, Alexander Fairford, Esq., Writer to the Signet, 
 Brown's Square, Edinburgh. He may be assured of a hberal 
 reward, besides the consciousness of having discharged a real duty 
 to humanity. 
 
 My Dearest Alan, 
 
 Feeling as warmly towards you in doubt and in distress, as I 
 ever did in the brightest days of our intimacy, it is to you whom I 
 address a history which may perhaps lall into very different hands. 
 A portion of my former spirit descends to my pen, when I write 
 your name, and indulging the happy thought that you may be my 
 dehverer from my present uncomfortable and alarming situation, 
 as you have been my guide and counsellor on every former occa- 
 sion, I will subdue the dejection which would otherwise overwhelm 
 me. ' Therefore, as. Heaven knows, I have time enough to write, I 
 will endeavour to pour my thoughts out, as fully and freely as of 
 old, though probably without the same gay and happy levity. 
 
 If the papers should reach other hands than yours, still I will 
 not regret this exposure of my feelings ; for, allowing for an ample 
 share of the folly incidental to youth and inexperience, I fear not 
 that I have much to be ashamed of in my narrative ; nay, I even 
 hope, that the open simplicity and frankness with which I am 
 about to relate every singular and distressing circumstance, may 
 prepossess even a stranger in my favour ; and that, amid the multi- 
 tude of seemingly trivial circumstances which I detailed at length, 
 a clew may be found to effect my liberation. 
 
 Another chance certainly remains-fhe Journal, as I may call it, 
 may never reach the hands, either of the dear friend to whom it is 
 addressed, or those of an indifferent stranger, but may become the 
 
 M 
 
i62 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 prey of the persons by whom I am at present treated as a prisoner. 
 Let it be so— they will learn from it little but what they already 
 know ; that, as a man, and an Englishman, my soul revolts at the 
 usage which I have received ; that I am determined to essay every 
 possible means to obtain my freedom ; that captivity has not broken 
 my spirit, and that, although they may doubtless complete their 
 oppression by murder, I am still willing to bequeath my cause to 
 the justice of my country. Undeterred, therefore, by the proba- 
 bility that my papers may be torn from me, and subjected to the 
 inspection of one in particular, who, causelessly my enemy already, 
 may be yet farther incensed at me for recording the history of my 
 wrongs, I proceed to resume the history of events which have 
 befallen me since the conclusion of my last letter to my dear Alan 
 Fairford, dated, if I mistake not, on the 5th day of this still current 
 month of August. 
 
 Upon the night preceding the date of that letter, I had been 
 present, for the purpose of an idle frolic, at a dancing party at the 
 village of Brokenburn, about six miles from Dumfries ; many per- 
 sons must have seen me there, should the fact appear of impor- 
 tance sufficient to require investigation. I danced, played on the 
 violin, and took part in the festivity, till about midnight, when my 
 servant, Samuel Owen, brought me my horses, and I rode back to 
 a small inn called Shepherd's Bush, kept by Mrs. Gregson, which 
 had been occasionally my residence for about a fortnight past. I 
 spent the earlier part of the forenoon in writing a letter, which I have 
 already mentioned, to you, my dear Alan, and which, I think, you 
 must have received in safety. Why did I not follow your advice, 
 so often given me ? Why did I linger in the neighbourhood of a 
 danger, of which a kind voice had warned me ? These are now 
 unavailing questions. I was blinded by a fatality, and remained 
 fluttering like a moth around the candle, until I have been scorched 
 to some purpose. 
 
 The greater part of the day had passed, and time hung heavy on 
 my hands. I ought, perhaps, to blush at recollecting what has 
 been often objected to me by the dear friend to whom this letter is 
 addressed, viz. the facility with which I have, in moments of indo- 
 lence, suffered my motions to be directed by any person who chanced 
 to be near me, instead of taking the labour of thinking or deciding 
 for myself. I had employed for some time, as a sort of guide and 
 errand-boy, a lad named Benjamin, the son of one widow Coltherd, 
 who lives near the Shepherd's Bush, and I cannot but remember 
 that, upon several occasions, I had of late suffered him to possess 
 more influence over my motions, than at all became the difference 
 of our age and condition. At present he exerted himself to per- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 163 
 
 suade me that it was the finest possible sport to see the fish taken 
 out from the nets placed in the Solway at the reflux of the tide, 
 and urged my going thither this evening so much, that, looking 
 back on the whole circumstances, I cannot but think he had some 
 especial motive for his conduct. These particulars I have men- 
 tioned, that if these papers fall into friendly hands, the boy may be 
 sought after and submitted to examination. 
 
 His eloquence being unable to persuade me that I should take 
 any pleasure in seeing the fruitless struggles of the fish when left 
 in the nets and deserted by the tide, he artfully suggested, that Mr. 
 and Miss Geddes, a respectable Quaker family well known in the 
 neighbourhood, and with whom I had contracted habits of inti- 
 macy, would possibly be offended if I did not make them an early 
 visit. Both, he said, had been particularly enquiring the reasons 
 of my leaving their house rather suddenly on the previous day. I 
 resolved, therefore, to walk up to Mount Sharon and make my 
 apologies ; and I agreed to permit the boy to attend upon me, and 
 wait my return from the house, that I might fish on my way home- 
 ward to Shepherd's Bush, for which amusement, he assured me, I 
 would find the evening most favourable. I mention this minute 
 circumstance, because I strongly suspect that this boy had a pre- 
 sentiment how the evening was to terminate with me, and enter- 
 tained the selfish though childish wish of securing to himself an 
 angling-rod which he had often admired, as a part of my spoils. I 
 may do the boy wrong, but I had before remarked in him the 
 peculiar art of pursuing the trifling objects of cupidity proper to 
 his age, with the systematic address of much riper years. 
 
 When we had commenced our walk, I upbraided him with the 
 coolness of the evening, considering the season, the easterly wind, 
 and other circumstances, unfavourable for angling. He persisted 
 in his own story, and made a few casts, as if to convince me of my 
 error, but caught no fish ; and, indeed, as I am now convinced, was 
 much more intent on watching my motions, than on taking any. 
 When I ridiculed him once more on his fruitless endeavours, he 
 answered with a sneering smile, that " the trouts would not rise, 
 because there was thimder in the air ;" an intimation which, in one 
 sense, I have found too true. 
 
 I arrived at Mount Sharon ; was received by my friends there 
 with their wonted kindness ; and after being a little rallied on my 
 having suddenly left them on the preceding evening, I agreed to 
 make atonement by staying all night, and dismissed the lad who 
 attended with my fishing-rod, to carry that information to Shep- 
 herd's Bush. It may be doubted whether he went thither, or in a 
 
 different direction. 
 
 M 2 
 
i64 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Betwixt eight and nine o'clock, when it began to become dark, 
 we walked on the terrace to enjoy the appearance of the firmament, 
 glittering with ten million of stars ; to which a slight touch of 
 early frost gave tenfold lustre. As we gazed on this splendid scene, 
 Miss Geddes, I think, was the first to point out to our admiration 
 a shooting or falling star, which, she said, drew a long train after 
 it. Looking to the part of the heavens which she pointed out, I 
 distinctly observed two successive sky-rockets arise, and burst in 
 the sky. 
 
 " These meteors," said Mr. Geddes, in answer to his sister's ob- 
 servation, " are not formed in heaven, nor do they bode any good 
 to the dwellers upon earth." 
 
 As he spoke, I looked to another quarter of the sky, and a 
 rocket, as if a signal in answer to those which had already ap- 
 peared, rose high from the earth, and burst apparently among the 
 stars. 
 
 Mr. Geddes seemed very thoughtful for some minutes, and then 
 said to his sister, " Rachel, though it waxes late, I must go down 
 to the fishing station, and pass the night in the overseer's room 
 there." 
 
 " Nay, then," replied the lady, " I am but too well assured that 
 the sons of Belial are menacing these nets and devices. Joshua, 
 art thou a man of peace, and wilt thou willingly and wittingly 
 thrust thyself, where thou mayst be tempted by the old man Adam 
 within thee, to enter into debate and strife ?" 
 
 " I am a man of peace, Rachel," answered Mr. Geddes, " even 
 to the utmost extent which our friends can demand of humanity ; 
 and neither have I ever used, nor, with the help of God, will I at 
 any future time employ, the arm of flesh to repel or to revenge 
 injuries. But if I can, by mild reasons and firm conduct, save 
 those rude men from committing a crime, and the property belong- 
 ing to myself and others from sustaining damage, surely I do but 
 the duty of a man and a Christian." 
 
 With these words, he ordered his horse instantly ; and his sister 
 ceasing to argue with him, folded her arms upon her bosom, and 
 looked up to heaven with a resigned and yet sorrowful counte- 
 nance. 
 
 These particulars may appear trivial ; but it is better, in my pre- 
 sent condition, to exert my faculties in recollecting the past, and in 
 recording it, than waste them in vain and anxious anticipations of 
 the future. 
 
 It would have been scarcely proper in me to remain in the 
 house, from which the mister was thus suddenly summoned away ; 
 and I therefore begged permission to attend him to the fishing 
 
REDGAUiMJ.h,!. f^3 
 
 Station, assuring his sister that 1 would be a guarantee for his 
 
 safety. 
 
 ^ The proposal seemed to give much pleasure to Miss Geddes. 
 
 " Let be so, brother," she said ; " and let the young man have the 
 
 desire of his heart, that there may be a faithful witness to stand by 
 
 thee in the hour of need, and to report how it shall fare with 
 
 thee." 
 
 " No, Rachel," said the worthy'man, " thou art to blame in this, 
 that, to quiet thy apprehensions on my account, thou shouldst 
 thrust into danger— if danger it shall prove to be— this youth, our 
 guest ; for whom, doubtless, in case of mishap, as many hearts will 
 ache as may be afflicted on our account." 
 
 " Nay, my good friend," said I, taking Mr. Geddes's hand, " I 
 am not so happy as you suppose me. Were my span to be con- 
 cluded this evening, few would so much as know that such a being 
 had existed for twenty years on the face of the earth ; and of these 
 few, only one would sincerely regret me. Do not, therefore, refuse 
 me the privilege of attending you ; and of showing, by so trifling 
 an act of kindness, that if I have few friends, I am at least desirous 
 to serve them." 
 
 " Thou hast a kind heart, I warrant thee," said Joshua Geddes, 
 returning the pressure of my hand. " Rachel, the young man 
 shall go with me. Why should he not face danger, in order to do 
 justice, and preserve peace ? There is that within me," he added, 
 looking upwards, and with a passing enthusiasm which I had not 
 before observed, and the absence of which perhaps rather belonged 
 to the sect than to his own personal character—" I say, I have that 
 within which assures me, that though the ungodly may rage even 
 like the storm of the ocean, they shall not have freedom to prevail 
 against us." 
 
 Having spoken thus, Mr. Geddes appointed a pony to be saddled 
 for my use ; and having taken a basket with some provisions, and a 
 servant to carry back the horses, for which there was no accommo- 
 dation at the fishing station, we set off about nine o'clock at night, 
 and after three quarters of an hour's riding, arrived at our place of 
 destination. 
 
 The station consists, or then consisted, of huts for four or five 
 fishermen, a cooperage and sheds, and a better sort of cottage, at 
 which the superintendent resided. We gave our horses to the 
 servant, to be carried back to Mount Sharon ; my companion 
 expressing himself humanely anxious for their safety — and knocked 
 at the door, of the house. At first we only heard a barking of dogs ; 
 but these animals became quiet on snuffing beneath the door, and 
 acknowledging the presence of friends. A hoarse voice then 
 
iC6 REDGAUNTLET, 
 
 demanded, in rather unfriendly accents, who we were, and what we 
 wanted ; and it was not until Joshua named himself, and called 
 upon his superintendent to open, that the latter appeared at the 
 door of the hut, attended by three large dogs of the Newfoundland 
 breed. He had a flambeau in his hand, and two large heavy ship- 
 pistols stuck into bis belt. He was a stout, elderly man, who had 
 been a sailor, as I learned, during the earlier part of his Ufe,and 
 was now much confided in by the Fishing Company, whose con- 
 cerns he directed under the orders of Mr. Geddes. 
 
 " Thou didst not expect me to-night, friend Davies ? " said my 
 friend to the old man, who was arranging seats for us by the 
 fire. 
 
 " No, Master Geddes," answered he, " I did not expect you, nor, 
 to speak the truth, did I wish for you either." 
 
 " These are plain terms, John Davies," answered Mr. Geddes. 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir, I know your worship loves no holiday speeches." 
 
 " Thou dost guess, I suppose, what brings us here so late, John 
 Davies ? " said Mr. Geddes. 
 
 " I do suppose, sir," answered the superintendent, " that it was 
 because these d — d smuggling wreckers on the coast are showing 
 their lights to gather their forces as they did the night before they 
 broke down the dam-dike and wears up the country ; but if that 
 same be the case, I wish once more you had staid away, for your 
 worship carries no fighting tackle aboard, I think ; and there will 
 be work for such ere morning, your worship." 
 
 " Worship is due to Heaven only, John Davies," said Geddes. 
 " I have often desired thee to desist from using that phrase to 
 me." 
 
 " I won't then," said John ; " no offence meant : But how the 
 devil can a man stand picking his words, when he is just going to 
 come to blows ? " 
 
 " I hope not, John Davies," said Joshua Geddes. " Call in the 
 rest of the men, that I may give them their instructions." 
 
 " I may cry till doomsday. Master Geddes, ere a soul answers — 
 the cowardly lubbers have all made sail — the cooper, and all the 
 rest of them, so soon as they heard the enemy were at sea. They 
 have all taken to the long-boat, and left the ship among the breakers, 
 except little Phil and myself— they have, by ! " 
 
 " Swear riot at all, John Davies— thou art an honest man ; and 
 I believe, without an oath, that thy comrades love their own bones 
 better than my goods and chattels. And so thou hast no assistanca 
 but little Phil against a hundred men or two ? " 
 
 " Why there are the dogs, your honour knows, Neptune and 
 Thetis— and the puppy may do something ; and then though your 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 167 
 
 worship— I beg pardon— though your honour be no great fighter, 
 this young gentleman may bear a hand." 
 
 "Ay, and I see you are provided with arms," said Mr. Geddes ; 
 " let me see them." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir ; here be a pair of buffers will bite as well as bark 
 — these will make sure of two rogues at least. It would be a 
 shame to strike without firing a shot. — Take care, your honour, 
 they are double-shotted." 
 
 " Ay, John Davies, I will take care of them," throwing the pistols 
 into a tub of water beside him ; " and I wish I could render the 
 whole generation of them useless at the same moment." 
 
 A deep shade of displeasure passed over John Davies's weather- 
 beaten countenance. " Belike your honour is going to take the 
 command yourself, then ? " he said, after a pause. " Why, I can 
 be of little use now ; and since your worship, or your honour, or 
 whatever you are, means to strike quietly, I believe you will do it 
 better without me than with me, for I am like enough to make 
 mischief, I admit ; but I'll never leave my post without orders." 
 
 " Then you have mine, John Davies, to go to Mount Sharon 
 directly, and take the boy Phil with you. Where is he ? " 
 
 " He is on the outlook for these scums of the earth," answered 
 Davies ; " but it is to no purpose to know when they come, if we 
 are not to stand to our weapons." 
 
 " We will use none but those of sense and reason, John." 
 
 " And you may just as well cast chaff against the wind, as speak 
 sense and reason to the like of them." 
 
 " Well, well, be it so," said Joshua ; " and now, John Davies, I 
 know thou art what the world calls a brave fellow, and I have ever 
 found thee an honest one. And now I command you to go to 
 Mount Sharon, and let Phil lie on the bank-side— see the poor boy 
 hath a sea-cloak, though— and watch what happens here, and let 
 him bring you the news ; and if any violence shall be offered to 
 the property there, I trust to your fidelity to carry my sister to 
 Dumfries, to the house of our friends the Corsacks, and inform the 
 civil authorities of what mischief hath befallen." 
 
 The old seaman paused a moment. " It is hard lines for me," 
 he said, " to leave your honour in tribulation ; and yet, staying 
 here, I am only like to make bad worse ; and your honour's sister, 
 Miss Rachel, must be looked to, that's certain ; for if the rogues 
 once get their hand to mischief, they will come to Mount Sharon 
 after they have wasted and destroyed this here snug little road- 
 stead, where I tho ight to ride at anchor for life." 
 
 "Right, right, John Davies," said Joshua Geddes; "and best 
 call the dogs with you." 
 
i68 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 "Ay, ay, sir," said the veteran, " for they are something of my 
 mind, and would not keep quiet if they saw mischief doing ; so 
 maybe they might come to mischief, poor dumb creatures. So 
 God bless your honour— I mean your worship— I cannot bring my 
 mouth to say fare you well. — Here, Neptune, Thetis ! come, dogs, 
 come." 
 
 So saying, and with a very crestfallen countenance, John Davies 
 left the hut. 
 
 " Now there goes one of the best and most faithful creatures that 
 ever was born," said Mr. Geddes, as the superintendent shut the 
 door of the cottage. " Nature made him with a heart that would 
 not have suffered him to harm a fly; but thou seest, friend Latimer, 
 that as men arm their bull-dogs with spiked collars, and their game 
 cocks with steel spurs, to aid them in fight, so they corrupt, by 
 education, the best and mildest natures, until fortitude and spirit 
 become stubbornness and ferocity. Believe me, friend Latimer, I 
 would as soon expose my faithful household dog to a vain combat 
 with a herd of wolves, as yon trusty creature to the violence of the 
 enraged multitude. But I need say little on this subject to thee, 
 friend Latimer, who, I doubt not, art trained to believe that courage 
 is displayed and honour attained, not by doing and suffering, as 
 becomes a man, that which fate calls us to suffer, and justice com- 
 mands us to do, but because thou art ready to retort violence for 
 violence, and considerest the lightest insult as a sufficient cause for 
 the spilling of blood, nay, the taking of hfe. — But, leaving these 
 points of controversy to a more fit season, let us see what our 
 basket of provision contains ; for in truth, friend Latimer, I am 
 one of those whom neither fear nor anxiety deprives of their ordinary 
 appetite." 
 
 We found the means of good cheer accordingly, which Mr. 
 Geddes seemed to enjoy as much as if it had been eaten in a situa- 
 tion of perfect safety ; nay, his conversation appeared to be rather 
 more gay than on ordinary occasions. After eating our supper we 
 left the hut together, and walked for a few minutes on the banks of 
 the sea. It was high water, and the ebb had not yet commenced. 
 The moon shone broad and bright upon the placid face of the 
 Solway Frith, and showed a slight ripple upon the stakes, the tops 
 of which were just visible above the waves, and on the dark- 
 coloured buoys which marked the upper edge of the enclosure of 
 nets. At much .greater distance, — for the estuary is here very 
 wide, — the line of the English coast was seen on the verge of the 
 water, resembling one of those fog-banks on which mariners are 
 said to gaze, uncertain -whether it be land or atmospherical 
 delusion. 
 
f 
 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 169 
 
 " We shall be undisturbed for some hours/' said Mr. Geddcs ; 
 " they will not come down upon us till the state of the tide per- 
 mits them to destroy the tide-nets. Is it not strange to think 
 that human passions will so soon transform such a tranquil scene 
 as this, into one of devastation and confusion ? " 
 
 It was indeed a scene of exquisite stillness ; so much so, that 
 the restless waves of the Sol way seemed, if not absolutely to sleep, 
 at least to slumber ; — on the shore no night-bird was heard— the 
 cock had not sung his first matins, and we ourselves walked more 
 lightly than by day, as if to suit the sound of our own paces to the 
 serene tranquillity around us. At length, the plaintive cry of a dog 
 broke the silence, and on our return to the cottage, we found that 
 the younger of the three animals which had gone along with John 
 Davies, unaccustomed, perhaps, to distant journeys, and the duty 
 of following to heel, had strayed from the party, and, unable to 
 rejoin them, had wandered back to the place of its birth. 
 
 "Another feeble addition to our feeble garrison," said Mr. 
 Geddes, as he caressed the dog, and admitted it into the cottage. 
 " Poor thing ! as thou art incapable of doing any mischief, I hope 
 thou wilt sustain none. At least thou mayst do us the good service 
 of a sentinel, and permit us to enjoy a quiet repose, under the cer- 
 tainty that thou wilt alarm us when the enemy is at hand." 
 
 There were two beds in the superintendent's room, upon which 
 we threw ourselves. Mr. Geddes, with his happy equanimity of 
 temper, was asleep in the first five minutes. I lay for some time 
 in doubtful and -anxious thoughts, watching the fire and the motions 
 of the restless dog, which, disturbed probably at the absence of 
 John Davies, wandered from the hearth to the door and back 
 again, then came to the bedside, and licked my hands and face, 
 and at length, experiencing no repulse to its advances, established 
 itself at my feet, and went to sleep, an example which I soon after- 
 wards followed. 
 
 The rage of narration, my dear Alan— for I will never relinquish 
 the hope that what I am writing may one day reach your hands — 
 has not forsaken me even in my confinement, and the extensive 
 though unimportant details into which I have been hurried, render 
 it necessary that I commence another sheet. Fortunately, my 
 pigmy characters comprehend a great many words within a small 
 space of paper. 
 
170 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DARSIE LATIMER'S JOURNAL, IN CONTINUATION. 
 
 The morning was dawning, and Mr. Geddes and I myself were 
 still sleeping soundly, when the alarm was given , by my canine 
 bedfellow, who first growled deeply at intervals, and at length bore 
 more decided testimony to the approach of some enemy. I opened 
 the door of the cottage, and perceived, at the distance of about two 
 hundred yards, a small but close column of men, which I would 
 have taken for a dark hedge, but that I could perceive it was 
 advancing rapidly and in silence. 
 
 The dog flew towards them, but instantly ran howling back to 
 me, having probably been chastised by a stick or a stone. Uncer- 
 tain as to the plan of tactics or of treaty which Mr. Geddes might 
 think proper to adopt,! was about to retire into the cottage, when 
 he suddenly joined me at the door, and, slipping his arm through 
 mine, said, " Let us go to meet them manfully ; we have done 
 nothing to be ashamed of. — Friends," he said, raising his voice 
 as we approached them, " who and what are you, and with what 
 purpose are you here on my property ? " 
 
 A loud cheer was the answer returned, and a brace of fiddlers 
 who occupied the front of the march immediately struck up the 
 insulting air, the words of which begin, 
 
 " Merrily danced the Quaker's wife, 
 And merrily danced the Quaker." 
 
 'Even at that moment of alarm, I think I recognised the tones of 
 the blind fiddler, known by the name of Wandering Willie, from 
 his itinerant habits. They continued to advance swiftly and in 
 great order, in their front 
 
 " The fiery fiddlers playing martial airs ;" 
 
 when, coming close up, they surrounded us by a single movement, 
 and there was a universal cry, " Whoop, Quaker — whoop, Quaker 1 
 Here have we them both, the wet Quaker and the dry one." 
 
 " Hang up the wet Quaker to dry, and wet the dry one with a 
 ducking," answered another voice. 
 
 " Where is the sea-otter, John Davies, that destroyed more fish 
 than any sealch upon Ailsay Craig? " exclaimed a third voice. " I 
 have an old crow to pluck with him, and a pock to put the 
 feathers in." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 171 
 
 We stood perfectly passive; for, to have attempted resistance 
 against more than a hundred men, armed with "guns, fish-spears, 
 iron-crows, spades, and bludgeons, would have been an act of 
 utter insanity. Mr. Geddes, with his strong sonorous voice, an- 
 swered the question about the superintendent in a manner, the 
 manly indifference of which compelled them to attend to him. 
 
 " John Davies," he said, " will, I trust, soon be at Dumfries" 
 
 " To fetch down redcoats and dragoons against us, you canting 
 old villain ! " 
 
 A blow was, at the same time, levelled at my friend, which I 
 parried by interposing the stick I had in my hand. I was instantly 
 struck down, and have a faint recollection of hearing some crying, 
 " Kill the young spy ! " and others, as I thought, interposing on my 
 behalf. But a second blow on the head, received in the scuffle, 
 soon deprived me of sense and consciousness, and threw me into a 
 state of insensibility, from which I did not recover immediately. 
 When I did come to myself, I was lying on the bed from which I 
 had just risen before the fray, and my poor companion, the New- 
 foundland puppy, its courage entirely cowed by the tumult of the 
 riot, had crept as close to me as it could, and lay trembling and 
 whining, as if under the most dreadful terror. I doubted at first 
 whether I had not dreamed of the. tumult, until, as I attempted to 
 rise, a feeling of pain and dizziness assured me that the injury I 
 had sustained was but too real. I gathered together my senses — ■ 
 listened — and heard at a distance the shouts of the rioters, busy, 
 doubtless, in their work of devastation. I made a second effort to 
 rise, or at least to turn myself, for I lay with my face to the wall of 
 the cottage, but I found that my limbs were secured, and my 
 motions effectually prevented — not indeed by cords, but by linen or" 
 cloth bandages swathed around my ankles, and securing my arms 
 to my sides. Aware of my utterly captive condition, I groaned 
 betwixt bodily pain and mental distress. • 
 
 A voice by my bedside whispered, in a whining tone, " Whisht 
 a-ye, hinnie — whisht, a-ye ; haud your tongue, like a gude bairn — 
 ye have cost us dear aneugh already. My hinnie's clean gane 
 now." 
 
 Knowing, as I thought, the phraseology of the wife of the 
 itinerant musician, I asked her where her husband was, and whether 
 he had been hurt. 
 
 "Broken," answered the dame, "all broken to pieces; fit for 
 nought but to be made spunks of— the best blood that was in 
 Scotland." 
 
 " Broken ? — blood .' — is your husband wounded ; has there been 
 bloodshed— broken limbs ? " 
 
172 REDGA'UNTLET. 
 
 " Broken limbs ? — I wish," answered the beldam, " that my hinnie 
 had broken the best bane in his body, before he had broken his 
 fiddle, that was the best blood in Scotland— it was a cremony, for 
 aught that I ken." 
 
 " Pshaw — only his fiddle ? " said I. 
 
 " I dinna ken what waur your honour could have wished him to 
 do, unless he had broken his neck ; and this is muckle the same to 
 my hinnie Willie and me. Chaw, indeed ! It is easy to say chaw, 
 but wha is to gie us ony thing to chaw ? — the bread-winner's gane, 
 and we may e'en sit down and starve." 
 
 " No, no," I said, " I will pay you for twenty such fiddles." 
 
 " Twenty such ! is that a' ye ken about it .■' the country hadna 
 the like o't. But if your honour were to pay us, as nae doubt wad 
 be to your credit here and hereafter, where are ye to get the siller ?" 
 
 " I have enough of money," said I, attempting to reach my hand 
 towards my side-pocket ; " unloose these bandages, and I will pay 
 you on the spot." 
 
 This hint appeared to move her, and she was approaching the 
 bedside, as I hoped, to liberate me from my bonds, when a nearer 
 and more desperate shout was heard, as if the rioters were close by 
 the hut. 
 
 " I daurna— I daurna," said the poor woman, " they would 
 murder me and my hinnie Willie baith, and they have misguided 
 us aneugh already ;— but if there is any thing worldly I could do 
 for your honour, leave out loosing ye ? " 
 
 What she said recalled me to my bodily suffering. Agitation, 
 and the effects of the usage I had received, had produced a burning 
 thirst. I asked for a drink of water. 
 
 " Heaven Almighty forbid that Epps Ainslie should gie ony sick 
 gentleman cauld well-water, and him in a fever. Na, na, hinnie, 
 let me alane, I'll do better for ye than the like of that." 
 
 " Give nie what you will," I replied ; "let it but be hquid and 
 cool." 
 
 The woman gave me a large horn accordingly, filled with spirits 
 and water, which, without minute enquiry concerning the nature of 
 its contents, I drained at a draught. Either the spirits taken in 
 such a manner, acted more suddenly than usual on my brain, or 
 else there was some drug mixed with the beverage. I remember 
 little after drinking it off, only that the appearance of things around 
 me became indistinct ; that the woman's form seemed to multiply 
 itself, and to flit in various figures around me, bearing the same 
 lineaments as she herself did. I remember also that the discordant 
 noises and cries of those without the cottage seemed to die away 
 in a hum like that with which a nurse hushes her babe. At length 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 173 
 
 I fell into a deep sound sleep, or rather, a state of absolute insen- 
 sibility. 
 
 I have reason to think this species of trance lasted for many 
 hours ; indeed, for the whole subsequent day and part of the night. 
 It was not uniformly so profound, for my recollection of it is che- 
 quered with many dreams, all of a painful nature, but too faint and 
 too indistinct to be remembered. At length the moment of waking 
 came, and my sensations were horrible. 
 
 A deep sound, which, in the confusion of my senses, I identified 
 with the cries of the rioters, was the first thing of which I wa;. 
 sensible ; next, I became conscious that I was carried violently 
 forward in some conveyance, with an unequal motion, which gave 
 me much pain. My position was horizontal, and when I attempted 
 to stretch my hands in order to find some mode of securing myself 
 against this species of suffering, I found I was bound as before, and 
 the horrible reality rushed on my mind, that I was in the hands of 
 those who had lately committed a great outrage on property, and 
 were now about to kidnap, if not to murder me. I opened my 
 eyes, it was to no purpose — all around me was dark, for a day had 
 passed over during my captivity. A dispiriting sickness oppressed 
 my head — my heart seemed on fire, while my feet and hands were 
 chilled and benumbed with want of circulation. It was with the 
 utmost difficulty that I at length, and gradually, recovered in a 
 sufficient degree the power of observing external sounds and circum- 
 stances ; and when I did so, they presented nothing consolatory. 
 
 Groping with my hands, as far as the bandages would permit, 
 and receiving the assistance of some occasional glances of the 
 moonlight, I became aware that the carriage in which I was 
 transported was one of the light carts of the country, called tumblers, 
 and that a little attention had been paid to my accommodation, as 
 I was laid upon some sacks covered with matting, and filled with 
 straw. Without these, my condition would have been still more 
 intolerable, for the vehicle, sinking now on one side, and now on 
 the other, sometimes sticking absolutely fast, and requiring the 
 utmost exertions of the animal which drew it to put it once more 
 in motion, was subjected to jolts in all directions, which were very 
 severe. At other times it rolled silently and smoothly over what 
 seemed to be wet sand ; and, as 1 heard the distant roar of the 
 tide, I had little doubt that we were engaged in passing the formi- 
 dable estuary which divides the two kingdoms. 
 
 There seemed to be at least five or six people about the cart, 
 some on foot, others on horseback ; the former lent assistance 
 whenever it was in danger of upsetting, or sticking fast in the 
 quicksand ; the others rode before and acted as guideS) often 
 
174 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 changing the direction of the vehicle as the precarious state of the 
 passage required. 
 
 I addressed myself to the men around the cart, and endeavoured 
 to move their compassion. I had harmed, I said, no one, and for 
 no action in my life had deserved such cruel treatment. I had no 
 concern whatever in the fishing station which had incurred their 
 displeasure, and my acquaintance with Mr. Geddes was of a very 
 late date. Lastly, and as my strongest argument, I endeavoured 
 to excite their fears, by informing them that my rank in life would 
 not permit me to be either murdered or secreted with impunity ; 
 and to interest their avarice, by the promises I made them of 
 reward, if they would effect my deliverance. I only received a 
 scornful laugh in reply to my threats ; my promises might have 
 done more, for the fellows were whispering together as if in hesita- 
 tion, and I began to reiterate and increase my offers, when the 
 voice of one of the horsemen, who had suddenly come up, enjoined 
 silence to the men on foot, and, approaching the side of the cart, 
 said to me, with a strong and determined voice, "Young man, 
 there is no personal harm designed to you. If you remain silent 
 and quiet, you may reckon on good treatment ; but if you endeavour 
 to tamper with these men in the execution of their duty, I will take 
 such measures for silencing you, as you shall remember the longest 
 day you have to live." 
 
 I thought I knew the voice which uttered these threats ; but, in 
 such a situation, my perceptions could not be supposed to be per- 
 fectly accurate. I was contented to reply, " Whoever you are that 
 speak to me, I entreat the benefit of the meanest prisoner, who is 
 not to be subjected legally to greater hardship than is necessary 
 for the restraint of his person. I entreat that these bonds, which 
 hurt me so cruelly, may be slackened at least, if not removed 
 altogether." 
 
 " I will slacken the belts," said the former speaker; "nay, I will 
 altogether remove them, and allow you to pursue your journey in a 
 more convenient manner, provided you will give me your word of 
 honour that you will not attempt an escape." 
 
 "iVi?z/^r/" I answered, with an energy of which despair alone 
 could have rendered me capable—" I will never submit to loss of 
 freedom a moment longer than I am subjected to it by force." 
 
 " Enough," he replied ; " the sentiment is natural ; but do not 
 on your side complain that I, who am carrying on an important 
 undertaking, use the only means in my power for ensuring its 
 success." 
 
 I entreated to know what it was designed to do with me ; but my 
 conductor, in a voice of menacing autl.ority, desired me to be silent 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 175 
 
 on my peril ; and my strength and spirits were too much exhausted 
 to permit my continuing a dialogue so singular, even if I could 
 have promised myself any good result by doing so. 
 
 It is proper here to add, that, from my recollections at the time, 
 and from what has since taken place, I have the strongest possible 
 belief that the man with whom I held the expostulation, was the 
 singular person residing at Brokenburn, in Dumfries-shire, and 
 called by the fishers of that hamlet, the Laird of the Solway Lochs. 
 The cause for his inveterate persecution I cannot pretend even to 
 guess at. 
 
 In the meantime, the cart was dragged heavily and wearily on, 
 until the nearer roar of the advancing tide excited the apprehension 
 of another danger. I could not mistake the sound, which I had 
 heard upon another occasion, when it was only the speed of a fleet 
 horse which saved me from perishing in the quicksands. Thou, 
 my dear Alan, canst not but remember the former circumstances ; 
 and now, wonderful contrast ! the very man, to the best of my 
 belief, who then saved me from peril, was the leader of the lawless 
 band who had deprived me of my liberty. I conjectured that the 
 danger grew imminent ; for I heard some words and circumstances 
 which made me aware that a rider hastily fastened his own horse 
 to the shafts of the cart, in order to assist the exhausted animal 
 which drew it, and the vehicle was now pulled forward at a faster 
 pace, which the horses were urged to maintain by blows and curses. 
 The men, however, were inhabitants of the neighbourhood ; and I 
 had strong personal reason to believe, that one of them, at least, 
 was intimately acquainted with all the ;iepths and shallows of the 
 perilous paths in which we were engaged. But they were in immi- 
 nent danger themselves ; and if so, as from the whispering and 
 exertions, to push on with the cart, was much to be apprehended, 
 there was little doubt that I should be left behind as a useless 
 encumbrance, and that while I was in a condition which rendered 
 every chance of escape impracticable. These were awful appre- 
 hensions ; but it pleased Providence to increase them to a point 
 which my brain was scarcely able to endure. 
 
 As we approached very near to a black line, which, dimly visible 
 as it was, I could make out to be the shore, we heard two or three 
 sounds, which appeared to be the report of fire-arms. Imme- 
 diately all was bustle among our party to get forward. Presently 
 a fellow galloped up to us, crying out, " Ware hawk ! ware hawk ! 
 the land-sharks are out from Burgh, and Allonby Tom will lose 
 his cargo if you do not bear a hand." 
 
 Most of my conipany seemed to make hastily for the shore on 
 receiving this intelligence. A driver was left. with the cart ; but at 
 
176 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 length, when, after repeated and hair-breadth escapes, it actually- 
 stuck fast in a slough or quicksand, the fellow with an oath cut the 
 harness, and, as I presume, departed with the horses, whose feet I 
 heard splashing over the wet sand, and through the shallows, as 
 he galloped off. 
 
 The dropping sound of fire-arms was still continued, but lost 
 almost entirely in the thunder of the advancing surge. By a des- 
 perate effort I raised myself in the cart, and attained a sitting 
 posture, which served only to show me the extent of my danger. 
 There lay my native land — my own England — the land where I 
 was born, and to which my wishes, since my earliest age, had 
 turned with all the prejudices of national feeling— there it lay, 
 within a furlong of the place where I yet was ; that furlong which 
 an infant would have raced over in a minute, was yet a barrier 
 effectual to divide me for ever from England and from life. I soon 
 not only heard the roar of this dreadful torrent, but saw, by the 
 fitful moonlight, the foamy crests of the devouring waves, as they 
 advanced with the speed and fury of a pack of hungry wolves. 
 
 The consciousness that the slightest ray of hope, or power of 
 struggling, was not left me, quite overcame the constancy which I 
 had hitherto maintained. My eyes began to swim — my head grew 
 giddy and mad with fear— I chattered and howled to the howling 
 and roaring sea. One or two great waves already reached the cart, 
 when the conductor of the party whom I have mentioned so often, 
 was, as if by magic, at my side. He sprang from his horse into the 
 vehicle, cut the ligatures which restrained me, and bade me get up 
 and mount in the fiend's name.' 
 
 Seeing I was incapable of obeying, he seized me, as if I had been 
 a child of six months old, threw me across the horse, sprung on 
 behind, supporting me with one hand, while he directed the animal 
 with the other. In my helpless and painful posture, I was unconscious 
 of the degree of danger which we incurred ; but I believe at one 
 time the horse was swimming, or nearly so ; and that it was with 
 difficulty that my stern and powerful assistant kept my head above 
 water. I remember particularly the shock which I felt when the 
 animal, endeavouring to gain the bank, reared, and very nearly 
 fell back on his burden. The time during which I continued in 
 this dreadful condition did not probably exceed two or three 
 minutes, yet so strongly were they marked with horror and agony, 
 that they seem to my recollection a much more considerable space 
 of time. 
 
 When I had been thus snatched from destruction, I had only 
 power to say to my protector,— or oppressor,— for he merited either 
 name at my hand, " You do not, then, design to murder me ? " 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 177 
 
 He laughed as he rephed, but it was a sort of laughter which I 
 scarce desire to hear again, — " Else you think I had let the waves 
 do their work? But remember, the shepherd saves his sheep from 
 the torrent — is it to preserve its life ? — Be silent, however, with 
 questions or entreaties. What I mean to do, thou canst no more 
 discover or prevent, than a man, with his bare palm, can scoop 
 dry the Solway." 
 
 I was too much exhausted to continue the argument ; and, still 
 numbed and torpid in all my limbs, permitted myself without 
 reluctance to be placed on a horse brought for the purpose. My 
 formidable conductor rode on the one side, and another person on 
 the other, keeping me upright in the saddle. In this manner we 
 travelled forward at a considerable rate, and by by-roads, with 
 which my attendant seemed as familiar as v/ith the perilous 
 passages of the Solway. 
 
 At length, after stumbling through a labyrinth of dark and deep 
 lanes, and crossing more than one rough and barren heath, we 
 found ourselves on the edge of a high-road, where a chaise and 
 four awaited, as it appeared, our arrival. To my great relief, we 
 now changed our mode of conveyance ; for my dizziness and 
 headache had returned in so strong a degree, that I should other- 
 wise have been totally unable to keep my seat on horseback, even 
 with the support which I received. 
 
 My doubted and dangerous companion signed to me to enter the 
 carriage — the man who had ridden on the left side of my horse 
 stepped in after me, and, drawing up the blinds of the vehicle, gave 
 the signal for instant departure. 
 
 I had obtained a glimpse of the countenance of my new com- 
 panion, as by the aid of a dark lantern the drivers opened the 
 carriage door, and I was wellnigh persuaded that I recognised in 
 him the domestic of the leader of this party, whom I had seen at 
 his house in Brokenbum on a former occasion. To ascertain the 
 truth of my suspicion, I asked him whether his name was not Crista' 
 Nixon. 
 
 "What is other folk's names to you," he replied, gruffly, "who 
 cannot tell your own father and mother ? " 
 
 " You know them, perhaps ? " I exclaimed eagerly. " You know 
 them ! and with that secret is connected the treatment which I am 
 now receiving ? It must be so, for in my life have I never injured 
 any one. TeU me the cause of my misfortunes, or rather, help me 
 to my liberty, and I will reward you richly." 
 
 " Ay, ay," replied my keeper-; " but what use to give you liberty, 
 who know nothing how to use it like a gentleman, but spend your 
 time with Quakers and fiddlers, and such-like raff? If I w^as your 
 — ^hem, hem, hem ! " N 
 
178 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Here Cristal stopped short, just on the point, as it appeared, when 
 some information was likely to escape him. I urged him once 
 more to be my friend, and promised him all the stock of money 
 which I had about me, and it was not inconsiderable, if he would 
 assist in my escape. 
 
 He listened, as if to a proposition which had some interest, and 
 replied, but in a voice rather softer than before, " Ay, but men do 
 not catch old birds with chaff, my master. Where have you got 
 the rhino you are so flush of .'' " 
 
 " I will give you earnest directly, and that in bank-notes," said I ; 
 but, thrusting my hand into my side-pocket, I found my pocket- 
 book was gone. I would have persuaded myself that it was only 
 the numbness of my hands which prevented my finding it ; but 
 Cristal Nixon, who bears in his countenance that cynicism which 
 is especially entertained with human misery, no longer suppressed 
 his laughter. 
 
 "Oh, ho ! my young master," he said ; "we have taken good 
 enough care you have not kept the means of bribing poor folk's 
 fidelity. What, man, they have souls as well as other people, and 
 to make them break trust is a deadly sin. And as for me, young 
 gentleman, if you would fill Saint Mary's Kirk with gold, Cristal 
 Nixon would mind it no more than so many chucky-stones." 
 
 I would have persisted, were it but in hopes of his letting drop 
 that which it concerned me to know, but he cut off further com- 
 munication, by desiring me to lean back in the corner and go to 
 sleep. 
 
 " Thou art cockbrained enough already," he added, " and we shall 
 have thy young pate addled entirely, if you do not take some 
 natural rest." 
 
 I did indeed require repose, if not slumber ; the draught which I 
 had taken continued to operate, and satisfied in my own mind that 
 no attempt on my life was designed, the fear of instant death no 
 longer combated the torpor which crept over me — I slept, and slept 
 soundly, but still without refreshment. 
 
 When I awoke, I found myself extremely indisposed ; images of 
 the past, and anticipations of the future, floated confusedly through 
 my israin. I perceived, however, that ray situation was changed, 
 greatly for the better. I was in a good bed, with the curtains 
 drawn round it ; I heard the lowered voice and cautious step of 
 attendants, who seemed to respect my repose ; it appeared as if 
 I was in the hands either of, friends, or of such as meant me no 
 personal harm. 
 
 I can give but an indistinct account of two or three broken and 
 feverish days which succeeded, but if they were chequered with 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 179 
 
 dreams and visions of terror, other and more agreeable objects were 
 also sometimes presented. Alan Fairford will understand me when 
 I say, I am convinced I saw G. M. during this interval of oblivion. 
 I had medical attendance, and was bled more than once. I also 
 remember a painful operation performed on my head, where I had 
 received a severe blow on the night of the riot. My hair was cut 
 short, and the bone of the skull examined, to discover if the 
 cranium had received any injury 
 
 On seeing the physician, it would have been natural to have 
 appealed to him on the subject of my confinement, and I remember 
 more than once attempting to do so. But the fever lay like a spell 
 upon my tongue, and when I would have implored the doctor's 
 assistance, I rambled from the subject, and spoke I know not 
 what — nonsensS. Some power, which I was unable to resist, 
 seemed to impel me into a different course of conversation from 
 what I intended, and though conscious, in some degree, of the 
 failure, I could not mend it ; and resolved, therefore, to be patient, 
 until my capacity of steady thought and expression was restored 
 to me with my ordinary health, which had sustained a severe shock 
 from the vicissitudes to which I had been exposed.* 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DARSIE LATIMER'S JOURNAL, IN CONTINUATION. 
 
 Two or three days, perhaps more, perhaps less, had been spent 
 in bed, where I was carefully attended, and treated, I believe, with 
 as much judgment as the case required, and I was at length allowed 
 to quit my bed, though not the chamber. I was now more able to 
 make some observation on the place of my confinement. 
 
 The room, in appearance and furniture, resembled the best 
 apartment in a farmer's house ; and the window, two stories high, 
 looked into a back yard, or court, filled with poultry. There were 
 the usual domestic offices about this yard. I could distinguish the 
 brewhouse and the barn, and I heard, from a more remote building, 
 the lowing of the cattle and other rural sounds, announcing a large 
 and well-stocked farm. These were sights and sounds qualified to 
 dispel any apprehension of immediate violence. Yet the building 
 seemed ancient and strong, a part of the roof was battlemented, 
 and the walls were of great thickness ; lastly, I observed with 
 some unpleasant sensations, that the windows of my chamber had 
 N 2 
 
,8o REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 been lately secured with iron stanchions, and that the servants who 
 brought me victuals, or visited my apartment to render other menial 
 offices, always locked the door when they retired. 
 
 The comfort and cleanliness of my chamber were of true English 
 growth, and such as I had rarely seen on the other side of the 
 Tweed ; the very old wainscot, which composed the floor and the 
 panelling of the room, was scrubbed with a degree of labour 
 which the Scottish housewife rarely bestows on her most costly 
 furniture. 
 
 The whole apartments appropriated to my use consisted of the 
 bedroom, a small parlour adjacent, within which was a still smaller 
 closet, having a narrow window, which seemed anciently to have 
 been used as a shot-hole, admitting, indeed, a very moderate por- 
 tion of light and air, but without its being possible to see any thing 
 from it except the blue sky, and that only by mounting on a chair. 
 There were appearances of a separate entrance into this cabinet, 
 besides that which communicated with the parlour, but it had been 
 recently built up, as I discovered, by removing a piece of tapestry 
 which covered the fresh mason-work. I found some of my clothes 
 here, with linen and other articles, as well as my writing case, con- 
 taining pen, ink, and paper, which enables me, at my leisure, 
 (which, God knows, is undisturbed enough,) to make this record oi 
 my confinement. It may be well believed, however, that I do not 
 trust to the security of the bureau, but carry the written sheets 
 about my person, so that I can only be deprived of them by actual 
 violence. I also am cautious to write in the little cabinet only, so 
 that I can hear any person approach me through the other apart- 
 ments, and have time enough to put aside my journal before they 
 come upon me. 
 
 The servants, a stout country fellow, and a very pretty milkmaid- 
 looking lass, by whom I am attended, seem of the true Joan and 
 Hodge school, thinking of little, and desiring nothing, beyond the 
 very limited sphere of their own duties or enjoyments, and having 
 no curiosity whatever about the affairs of others. Their behaviour 
 to me, in particular, is, at the same time, very kind and very pro- 
 voking. My table is abundantly supplied, and they seem anxious 
 to comply with my taste in that department. But whenever I make 
 enquiries beyond " what's for dinner," the brute of a lad baffles 
 me by his anan, and his dunna knaw, and, if hard pressed, turns 
 his back on me composedly, and leaves the room. The girl, too, 
 pretends to be as simple as he j but an arch grin, which she cannot 
 always suppress, seems to acknowledge that she understands per- 
 fectly well the game which she is playing, and is determined to 
 keep me in ignorance. Both of them, and the wench in particular, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. i8i 
 
 treat me as they would do a spoiled child, and never directly refuse 
 me any thing 'which I ask, taking care, at the same time, not to 
 make their words good by effectually granting my request. Thus, 
 if I desire to go out, I am promised by Dorcas that I shall walk in 
 the park at night and see the cows milked, just as she would pro- 
 pose such an amusement to a child. But she takes care never to 
 keep her word, if it is in her power to do so. 
 
 In the meantime, there has stolen on me insensibly an indiffer- 
 ence to my freedom — a carelessness about my situation, for which 
 I am unable to account, unless it be the consequence of weakness 
 and loss of blood. I have read of men who, immured as I am, 
 have surprised the world by the address with which they have 
 successfully overcome the most formidable obstacles to their 
 escape ; and when I have heard such anecdotes, I have said to 
 myself, that no one who is possessed only of a fragment of free- 
 stone, or a rusty nail, to grind down rivets and to pick locks, having 
 his full leisure to employ in the task, need continue the inhabitant 
 of a prison. Here, however, I sit, day after day, without a single 
 effort to effect my liberation. 
 
 Yet my inactivity is not the result of despondency, but arises, in 
 part at least, from feelings of a very different cast. My story, long 
 a mysterious one, seems now upon the verge of some strange 
 development ; and I feel a solemn impression that I ought to 
 wait the course of events, to struggle against which is opposing my 
 feeble efforts to the high will of fate. Thou, my Alan, wilt treat as 
 timiditj' this passive acquiescence, which has sunk down on me 
 like a benumbing torpor ; but if thou hast»remembered by what 
 visions my couch was haunted, and dost but think of the proba- 
 bility that I am in the vicinity, perhaps under the same roof with 
 G. M., thou wilt acknowledge that other feelings than pusillanimity 
 have tended in some degree to reconcile me to my fate. 
 
 Still I own it is unmanly to submit with patience to this oppres- 
 sive confinement. My heart rises against it, especially when I sit 
 down to record my sufferings in this Journal; and I am deter- 
 mined, as the first step to my deliverance, to have my letters sent 
 to the post-house. 
 
 I am disappointed. When the girl Dorcas, upon whom I had 
 fixed for a messenger, heard me talk of sending a letter, she 
 willingly offered her services, and received the crown which I gave 
 her, (for my purse had not taken flight with the more valuable con- 
 tents of my pocketbook,) with a smile which showed her whole set 
 of white teeth. 
 
I82 REDGAUNTLET, 
 
 But when, with the purpose of gaining some intelligence respecting 
 my present place of abode, I asked, to which post-town she was to 
 send or carry the letter, a stolid " Anafi " showed me she was 
 either ignorant of the nature of a post-office, or that, for the 
 present, she chose to seem so.-^" Simpleton ! " I said, with some 
 sharpness. 
 
 " O Lord, sir ! " answered the girl, turning pale, which they 
 always do when I show any sparks of anger, — " Don't put yourself 
 in a passion ! — I'll put the letter in the post." 
 
 " What ! and not know the name of the post-town ? " said I, out 
 of patience. " How on earth do you propose to manage that ?" 
 
 " La you there, good master. What need you frighten a poor 
 girl that is no schoUard, bating what she learned at the Charity- 
 School of Saint Bees?" 
 
 " Is Saint Bees far from this place, Dorcas ? — Do you send your 
 letters there ? " said I, in a manner as insinuating, and yet careless, 
 as I could assume. 
 
 " Saint Bees ! — La, who but a madman — begging your honour's 
 pardon— it's a matter of twenty years since fader lived at Saint 
 Bees, which is twenty, or forty, or I dunna know not how many 
 miles from this part, to the West, on the coast-side ; and I would 
 not have left Saint Bees, but that fader " 
 
 " Oh, the devil take your father ! " replied I. 
 
 To which she answered, " Nay, but thof your honour be a little 
 how-come-so, you shouldn't damn folk's faders ; and I won't stand 
 to it, for one." 
 
 " Oh, I beg you a thousand pardons — I wish your father no ill 
 in the world — he was a very honest man in his way." 
 
 " Was an honest man ! " she exclaimed ; for the Cumbrians are, 
 it would seem, like their neighbours the Scotch, ticklish on the point 
 of ancestry, — " He is a very honest man, as ever led nag with 
 halter on head to Staneshaw-Banli Fair — Honest ! — He is a horse- 
 couper. 
 
 " Right, right," I replied ; " I know it— I have heard of your 
 father— as honest as any horse-couper of them all. Why, Dorcas, 
 I mean to buy a horse of him." 
 
 " Ah, your honour," sighed Dorcas, " he is the man to serve 
 your honour well— if ever you should get round again— or, thof you 
 were a bit off the hooks, he would no more cheat you than " 
 
 " Well, well, we will deal, my girl, you may depend on't. But 
 tell me now, were I to give you a letter, what would you do to get it 
 forward ? " 
 
 " Why, put it into Squire's own bag that hangs in hall," answered 
 poor Dorcas, " Wli:tt else could I do ? He sends it to Brampton, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 183 
 
 or to Carloisle, or where it pleases him, once a-week, and that 
 gate." 
 
 " Ah ! " said I ; " and I suppose your sweetheart John carries 
 it?" 
 
 " Noa — disn't now — and Jan is no sweetheart of mine, ever since 
 he danced at his mother's feast with Kitty Rutledge, and let me sit 
 still ; that a did." 
 
 " It was most abominable in Jan, and what I could never have- 
 thought of him," I replied. 
 
 " O, but a did though — a let me sit still on my seat, a did." 
 
 " Well, well, my pretty May, you will get a handsomer fellow than 
 Jan — Jan's not the fellow for you, I see that." 
 
 " Noa, noa," answered the damsel ; " but he is weel aneugh for a' 
 that, mon. But I carena a button for him ; for there is the miller's 
 son, that suitored me last Appleby Fair, when I went wi' oncle, is a 
 gway canny lad as you will see in the sunshine." 
 
 " Ay, a fine stout fellow — Do you think he would carry my letter 
 to Carlisle?" 
 
 " To Carloisle ! 'T would be all his hfe is worth ; he maun wait 
 on clap and hopper, as they say. Odd, his father would brain him 
 if he went to Carloisle, bating to wrestling for the belt, or sic loike. 
 But I ha' more bachelors than him ; there is the school-master can 
 write almaist as weel as tou canst, mon." 
 
 " Then he is the very man to take charge of a letter ; he knows 
 the trouble of writing one." 
 
 " Ay, marry does he, an tou comest to that, mon ; only it takes 
 him four hours to write as mony lines. Tan, it is a great round 
 hand loike, that one can read easily, and not loike your honour's, 
 that are like midge's taes. But for ganging to Carloisle, he's dead 
 foundered, man, as cripple as Eckie's mear." 
 
 " In the name of God," said I, " how is it that you propose to 
 get my letter to the post ? " 
 
 " Why, just to put it into Squire's bag loike," reiterated Dorcas ; 
 " he sends it by Cristal Nixon to postj as you call it, when such is 
 his pleasure." 
 
 Here I was then, not much edified by having obtained a list of 
 Dorcas's bachelors ; and by finding myself with respect to any 
 information which I desired, just exactly at the point where I set 
 out. It was of consequence to me, however, to accustom the girl 
 to converse with me familiarly. If she did so, she could not always 
 be on her guard, and something, I thought, might drop from hef 
 which I could turn to advantage. 
 
 " Does not the Squire usually look into his letter-bag, Dorcas ? " 
 said I, with as much indifference as I could assume. 
 
i84 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 ' That a does," said Dorcas ; " and a threw out a letter of mine 
 to Raff Miller, because a said" 
 
 " Well, well, 1 won't trouble him with mine," said I, " Dorcas ; 
 but, instead, I will write to himself, Dorcas. But how shall I 
 address him ? " 
 
 " Anan ? " was again Dorcas's resource. 
 
 " I mean how is he called ? — What is his name ? " 
 
 " Sure your honour should know best," said Dorcas. 
 
 " I know ? — The devil ! — You drive me beyond patience." 
 
 "Noa, noa ! donna your honour go beyond patience — donna ye 
 now," implored the wench. " And for his neame, they say he has 
 mair nor ane in Westmoreland and on the Scottish side. But he 
 is but seldom wi' us, excepting in the cocking season ; and then we 
 just call him Squoire loike ; and so do my measter and dame." 
 
 " And is he here at present ? " said I. 
 
 " Not he, not he ; he is a buck-hoonting, as they tell me, some- 
 where up the Patterdale way ; but he comes and gangs like a flap 
 of a whirlwind, or sic loike." 
 
 I broke off the conversation, after forcing on Dorcas a little 
 silver to buy ribbons, with which she was so much delighted, that 
 she exclaimed, "God! Cristal Nixon may say his worst on thee; 
 but thou art a civil gentleman for all him ; and a quoit man wi' 
 woman folk loike." 
 
 There is no sense in being too quiet with women folk, so I added 
 a kiss with my crown piece ; and I cannot help thinking, that I 
 have secured a partisan in Dorcas. At least she blushed, and 
 pocketed her little compliment with one hand, while, with the other, 
 she adjusted her cherry-coloured ribbons, a little disordered by the 
 struggle it cost me to attain the honour of a salute. 
 
 As she unlocked the door to leave the apartment, she turned 
 back, and looking on me with a strong expression of compassion, 
 added the remarkable words, " La — be'st mad or no, thou'se a 
 mettled lad, after all." 
 
 There was something very ominous in the sound of these fare- 
 well words, which seemed to afford me a clue to the pretext under 
 which I was detained in confinement. My demeanour was probably 
 insane enough, while I was agitated at once by the frenzy incident 
 to the fever, and the anxiety arising from my extraordinary situa- 
 tion. But is it possible they can now establish any cause for con- 
 fining me, arising out of the state of my^mind ? 
 
 If this be really the pretext under whicfi i am restrained from my 
 liberty, nothing . but the sedate correctness of my conduct can 
 remove the prejudices which these circumstances may have excited 
 in the minds of all who have approached me during my illness. I 
 
REDGAUNTLKT. 183 
 
 have heard — dreadful thought !— of men who, for various reasons, 
 have been trepanned into the custody of the keepers of private 
 madhouses, and whose brain, after years of misery,, became at 
 length unsettled, through irresistible sympathy with the wretched 
 beings among whom they were classed. This shall not be my case, 
 if, by strong internal resolution, it is in human nature to avoid the 
 action of exterior and contagious sympathies. 
 
 Meantime I sat down to compose and arrange my thoughts, for 
 my purposed appeal to my jailer — so I must call him — whom I 
 addressed in the following manner ; having at length, and after 
 making several copies, found language to qualify the sense of 
 resentment which burned in the first draughts of my letter, and 
 endeavoured to assume a tone more conciliating. I mentioned the 
 two occasions on which he had certainly saved my life, when at the 
 utmost peril ; and I added, that whatever was the purpose of the 
 restraint now practised on me, as I was given to understand, by his 
 authority, it could not certainly be with any view to ultimately 
 injuring me. He might, I said, have mistaken me for sojne other 
 person ; and I gave him what account I could of my situation and 
 education, to correct such an error. I supposed it next possible, 
 that he might think me too weak for travelling, and not capable of 
 taking care of myself; and I begged to assure him, that I was 
 restored to perfect health, and quite able to endure the fatigue of a 
 journey. Lastly, I reminded him in firm though measured terms, 
 that the restraint which I sustained was an illegal one, and highly 
 punishable by the laws which protect the liberties of the subject. 
 I ended by demanding, that he would take me before a magistrate ; 
 or, at least, that he would favour me with a personal interview, and 
 explain his meaning with regard to me. 
 
 Perhaps this letter was expressed in a tone too humble for the 
 situation of an injured man, and I am inclined to think so when I 
 again recapitulate its tenor. But what could I do ? I was in the 
 power of one whose passions seem as violent as his means of grati- 
 fying them appear unbounded. I had reason, too, to believe [this 
 to thee, Alan] that all his family did not approve of the violence of 
 his conduct towards me ; my object, in fine, was freedom, and who 
 would not sacrifice much to attain it ? 
 
 I had no means of addressing my letter excepting, " For the 
 Squire's own hand." He could be at no great distance, for in the 
 course of twenty-four hours I received an answer. It was addressed 
 to Darsie Latimer, and contained these words : — " You have de- 
 manded an interview with me. -You have required to be carried 
 before a magistrate. Your first wish shall be granted— perhaps the 
 second also. Meanwhile, be assured that you are a prisoner for 
 
186 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 the time, by competent authority, and that such authority is sup- 
 ported by adequate power. Beware, therefore, of struggling with 
 a force sufificient to crush you, but abandon yourself to that train 
 of events by which we are both swept along, and which it is impos- 
 sible that either of us can resist." 
 
 These mysterious words were without signature of any kind, and 
 left me nothing more important to do than to prepare myself for 
 the meeting which they promised. For that purpose I must now 
 break off, and make sure of the manuscript, — so far as I can, in 
 my present condition, be sure of any thing,— by concealing it 
 within the lining of my coat, s(j as not to be found without strict 
 search. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LATIMER'S JOURNAL, IN CONTINUATION. 
 
 The important interview expected at the conclusion of my last 
 took place sooner than I had calculated ; for the very day I received 
 the letter, and just when my dinner was finished, the Squire, or 
 whatever he is called, entered the room so suddenly, that I almost 
 thought I beheld an apparition. The figure of this man is pecu- 
 liarly noble and stately, and his voice has that deep fulness of 
 accent which implies unresisted authority, I had risen involuntarily 
 as he entered ; we gazed on each other for a moment in silence, 
 which was at length broken by my visitor. 
 
 "You have desired to see me," he said. "I am here; if you 
 have aught to say, let me hear it ; my time is too brief to be con- 
 sumed in childish dumb-show." 
 
 " I would ask of you," said I, "by what authority I am detained 
 in this place of confinement, and for What purpose ? " 
 
 " I have told you already," said he, " that my authority is suffi- 
 cient, and my power equal to it ; this is all which it is necessary 
 for you at present to know." 
 
 " Every British subject has a right to know why he suffers re- 
 straint," I replied ; " nor can he be deprived of liberty without a 
 legal warrant — Show me that by which you confine me thus." 
 
 " You shall see more," he said ; " you shall see the magistrate 
 by whom it is granted, and that without a moment's delay." 
 
 This sudden proposal fluttered and alarmed me ; I felt, never- 
 theless, that I had the right cause, and resolved to plead it boldly, 
 although I could well have desired a little further time for prepara- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 187 
 
 tion. He turned, however, threw open the door of the apartment, 
 and commanded me to follow him. I felt some inclination, when I 
 crossed the threshold of my prison-chamber, to have turned and 
 run for it ; but I knew not where to find the stairs — had reason to 
 think the outer-doors would be secured — and, to conclude, so soon 
 as 1 had quitted the room to follow the proud step of my con- 
 ductor, I observed that I was dogged by Cristal Nixon, who sud- 
 denly appeared within two paces of me, and with whose great 
 personal strength, independent of the assistance he might have 
 received from his master, I saw no chance of contending. I there- 
 fore followed, unresistingly, and in silence, along one or two 
 passages of much greater length than consisted with the ideas I 
 had previously entertained of the size of the house. At length a 
 door was flung open, and we entered a large, old-fashioned parlour, 
 having coloured glass in the windows, oaken panelling on the wall, 
 a huge grate, in which a large fagot or two smoked under an arched 
 chimnejfpiece of stone, which bore some armorial device, whilst 
 the walls were adorned with the usual number of heroes in armour, 
 with large wigs instead of helmets, and ladies in sacques, smelling 
 to nosegays. 
 
 Behind a long table, on which were several books, sat a smart 
 underbred-looking man, wearing his own hair tied in a club, and 
 who, from the quire of paper laid before him, and the pen which he 
 handled at my entrance, seemed prepared to officiate as clerk. As 
 I wish to describe these persons as accurately as possible, I may 
 add, he wore a dark-coloured coat, corduroy breeches, and spatter- 
 dashes. At the upper end of the same table, in an ample easy- 
 chair, covered with black leather, reposed a fat personage, about 
 fifty years old, who either was actually a country justice, or was 
 well selected to represent such a character. His leathern breeches 
 were faultless in make, his jockey boots spotless in the varnish, and 
 a handsome and flourishing pair of boot-garters, as they are called, 
 united the one part of his garments to the other ; in fine, a richly- 
 laced scarlet waistcoat, and a purple coat, set off the neat though 
 corpulent figure of the little man, and threw an additional bloom 
 upon his plethoric aspect. I suppose he had dined, for it was two 
 hours past noon, and he was amusing himself, and aiding digestion, 
 with a pipe of tobacco. There was an air of importance in his 
 manner which corresponded to the rural dignity of his exterior, and 
 a habit which he had of throwing out a number of interjectional 
 sounds, uttered with a strange variety of intonation, running from 
 bass up to treble in a very extraordinary manner, or breaking off 
 his sentences with a whiff of his pipe, seemed adopted to give an 
 air of thought and mature deliberation to his opinions and deci- 
 
i88 REnOAUNTLET. 
 
 sions. Notwithstanding all this, Alan, it might be dooted, as our 
 old Professor used to say, whether the Justice was any thing more 
 than an ass. Certainly, besides a great deference for the legal 
 opinion of his clerk, which might be quite according to the order 
 of things, he seemed to be wonderfully under the command of his 
 brother Squire, if squire either of them were, and indeed much 
 more than was consistent with so much assumed consequence of 
 his own. 
 
 " Ho — ha — ay — so — so — Hum — humph — this is the young man, 
 I suppose — Hum — ay — seems sickly^Young gentleman, you may 
 sit down." 
 
 I used the permission given, for I had been much more reduced 
 by my illness than I was aware of, and felt myself really fatigued, 
 even by the few paces I had walked, joined to the agitation I 
 suffered. 
 
 " And your name, young man, is — humph — ay — ha — what is it .' " 
 
 " Darsie Latimer." 
 
 " Right — ay — humph — very right. Darsie Latimer is the very 
 thing— ha— ay — where do you come from ? " 
 
 " From Scotland, sir," I replied. 
 
 " A native of Scotland — a — humph — eh — how is it ? " 
 
 " I am an Englishman by birth, sir.'' 
 
 " Right — ay — ^yes, you are so. But pray, Mr. Darsie Latimer, 
 have you always been called by that name, or have you any other ? 
 — Nick, write down his answers, Nick." 
 
 " As far as I remember, I never bore any other," was my 
 answer. 
 
 " How, no ? — well I should not have thought so — Hey, neighbour, 
 would you ? " 
 
 Here he looked towards the other Squire, who had thrown him- 
 self into a chair ; and, with his legs stretched out before him, and 
 his arms folded on his bosom, seemed carelessly attending to what 
 was going forward. He answered the appeal of the Justice by 
 saying, that perhaps the young man's memory did not go back to 
 a very early period 
 
 " Ah— eh— ha— you hear the gentleman— Pray, how far may your 
 memory be pleased to run back to ? — umph ? " 
 
 " Perhaps, sir, to the age of three years, or a little farther." 
 
 " And will you presume to say, sir," said the Squire, drawing 
 himself suddenly erect in his seat, and exerting the strength of 
 his powerful voice, " that you then Ijore your present name ? " 
 
 I was startled at the confidence with which this question was 
 put, and in vain rummaged my memory for the means of replying. 
 " At least," I said, " I always remember being called Darsie ; 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 189 
 
 cliildren, at that early age, seldom get more than their Christian 
 name." 
 
 " Oh, I thought so," he replied, and again stretched himself on 
 his seat, in the same lounging posture as before. 
 
 " So you were called Darsie in your infancy," said the Justice ; 
 " and hum — ay — when did you first take the name of Latimer ?" 
 
 " I did not take it, sir ; it was given to me." 
 
 " I ask you," said the lord-of the mansion, but with less severity 
 in his voice than formerly, " whether you can remember that you 
 were ever called Latimer, until you had that name given you in 
 Scotland ? " 
 
 " I will be candid ; I cannot recollect an instance that I was so 
 called when in England, but neither can I recollect when the name 
 was first given me ; and if any thing is to be founded on these 
 queries and my answers, I desire my early childhood may be taken 
 into consideration." 
 
 "Hum — ay — yes," said the Justice; "all that requires con- 
 sideration shall be duly considered. Young man — eh — I beg to 
 know the name of your father and mother ? " 
 
 This was galling a wound that has festered for years, and I did 
 not endure the question so patiently as those which preceded it ; 
 but replied, " I demand, in my turn, to know if I am before an 
 English Justice of the Peace ? " 
 
 " His worship Squire Foxley, of Foxley Hall, has been of the 
 quorum these twenty years," said Master Nicholas. 
 
 " Then he ought to know, or you, sir, as his clerk, should inform 
 him," said I, " that I am the complainer in this case, and that my 
 complaint ought to be heard before I am subjected to cross-exami- 
 nation." 
 
 "Humph — hoy — what, ay — there is something in that, neigh- 
 bour," said the poor Justice, who, blown about by every wind of 
 doctrine, seemed desirous to attain the sanction of his brother 
 Squire. 
 
 " I wonder at you, Foxley," said his firm-minded acquaintance ; 
 " how can you render the young man justice unless you know who 
 he is?" 
 
 "Ha— yes— egad that's true," said Mr. Justice Foxley; "and 
 now— looking into the matter more closely— there is, eh, upon the 
 whole — nothing at all in what he says— so, sir, you must tell your 
 father's name, and surname." 
 
 " It is out of my power, sir ; they are not known to me, since 
 you must needs know so much of my private affairs." 
 
 The Justice collected a great afflatus in his cheeks, which puffed 
 them up like those of a Dutch cherub, while his eyes seemed flying 
 
igo REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 out of his head, from flie effort with which he retained his breath. 
 He then blew it forth with,— "Whew !— Hoom— poof— ha !— not 
 know your parents, youngster ?— Then I must commit you for a 
 vagrant, I warrant you. Omne ignotum pro terribili, as we used 
 to say at Appleby school ; that is, every one that is not known to 
 the Justice, is a rogue and a vagabond. Ha !— ay, you may sneer, 
 sir ; but I question if you would have known the meaning of that 
 Latin unless I had told you." 
 
 I acknowledged myself obliged for a new edition of the adage, 
 and an interpretation which I could never have reached alone and 
 unassisted. I then proceeded to state my case with greater con- 
 fidence. The Justice was an ass, that was clear ; but it was 
 scarcely possible he could be so utterly ignorant as not to know 
 what was necessary in so plain a case as mine. I therefore in- 
 formed him of the riot which had been committed on the Scottish 
 side of the Solway Frith ; explained how I came to, be placed in my 
 present situation ; and requested of his worship to set me at liberty. 
 I pleaded my cause with as much earnestness as I could, casting 
 an eye from time to time upon the opposite party, who seemed 
 entirely indifferent to all the animation with which I accused him. 
 
 As for the Justice, when at length I had ceased, as really not 
 knowing what more to say in a case sO very plain, he replied, "Ho 
 — ay-^ay — yes — wonderful ! and so this is all the gratitude you 
 show to this good gentleman for the great charge and trouble he 
 hath had with respect to and concerning of you ? " 
 
 " He saved my life, sir, I acknowledge, on one occasion certainly, 
 and most probably on two ; but his having done so gives him no 
 right over my person, I am not, however, asking for any punish- 
 ment or revenge ; on the contrary, I am content to part friends 
 with the gentleman, whose motives I am unwilling to suppose are 
 bad, though his actions have been, towards me, unauthorized and 
 violent." 
 
 This moderation, Alan, thou wilt comprehend, was not entirely 
 dictated by my feelings towards the individual of whom I com- 
 plained ; there were other reasons, in which regard for him had 
 little share. It seemed, however, as if the mildness with which I 
 pleaded my cause had more effect upon him than anything I had 
 yet said. He was moved to the point of. being almost out of coun- 
 tenance ; and took snuff repeatedly, as if to gain time to stifle some 
 degree of emotion. 
 
 But on Justice Foxley, on whom my eloquence was particularly 
 designed to make impression, the result was much less favourable. 
 He consulted in a whisper with Mr. Nicholas his clerk— pshawed, 
 "hemmed, and elevated his eyebrows, as if in scorn of my supplica- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 191 
 
 tion. At length, having apparently made up his mind, he leaned 
 back in his chair, and smoked his pipe with great energy, with a 
 look of defiance, designed to make me aware that all my reasoning 
 was lost on him. 
 
 At length, when I stopped, more from lack of breath than want 
 of argument, he opened his oracular jaws, and made the following 
 reply, interrupted by his usual interjectional ejaculations, and by 
 long volumes of smoke : — " Hem — ay — eh — poof— And, youngster, 
 do you think Matthew Foxley, who has been one of the quorum for 
 these twenty years, is to be come over with such trash as would 
 hardly cheat an apple-woman ?— Poof — poof— eh ! Why, man — 
 eh — dOst thou not know the charge is not a bailable matter — and 
 that — hum — ay — the greatest man — poof^the Baron of Graystock 
 himself, must stand committed ? and yet you pretend to have been 
 kidnapped by this gentleman, and robbed of property, and what 
 not ; and — eh — poof — you would persuade me all you want is to 
 get away from him ? — I do believe — eh — that it is all you want. 
 Therefore, as you are a sort of a slip-string gentleman, and— ay — 
 hum — a kind of idle apprentice, and something cockbrained withal, 
 as the honest folk of the house tell me — why, you must e'en remain 
 under custody of your guardian, till your coming of age, or my 
 Lord Chancellor's warrant, sliall give you the management of your 
 own affairs, which, if you can gather your brains again, you will 
 even then not be — ay— hem — poof— in particular haste to assume." 
 
 The time occupied by his worship's hums, and haws, and puffs 
 of tobacco smoke, together with the slow and pompous manner in 
 which he spoke, gave me a minute's space to collect my ideas, 
 dispersed as they were by the extraordinary purport of this 
 annunciation. 
 
 " I cannot conceive, sir," I replied, " by what singular tenure 
 this person claims my obedience as a guardian ; it is a barefaced 
 imposture — I never in my life saw him, until I came unhappily to 
 this country, about four weeks since." 
 
 "Ay, sir — we — eh — know, and are aware — that — poof— you do 
 'not like to hear some folk's names ; and that — eh — you understand 
 me — there are things, and sounds, and matters, conversation about 
 names, and such like, which put you off the hooks— which I have 
 no humour to witness. Nevertheless, Mr. Darsie— or — poof — Mr. 
 Darsie Latimer — or— poof, poof— eh— ay, Mr. Darsie without the 
 Latimer — you have acknowledged as much to-day as assures me you 
 will best be disposed of under the honourable care of my friend 
 here — all your confessions— besides that — poof^eh— I know him 
 to be a most responsible person — a — hay — ay — most responsible 
 and honourable person — Can you deny this ? " 
 
192 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " I know nothing of him," I repeated ; " not even his name ; 
 and I have not, as I told you, seen him in the course of my whole 
 life, till a few weeks since." 
 
 " Will you swear to that ? " said the singular man, who seemed 
 to await the result of this debate, secure as a rattlesnake is of the 
 prey which has once felt its fascination. And while he said these 
 words in a deep under-tone, he withdrew his chair a little behind 
 that of the Justice, so as to be unseen by him or his clerk, who sat 
 upon the same side ; while he bent on me a frowft so portentous, 
 that no one who has witnessed the look can forget it during the 
 whole of his life. The furrows of the brow above the eyes became 
 livid and almost black, and were bent into a semicircular, or 
 rather elliptical form, above the junction of the eyebrows. I had 
 heard such a look described in an old tale of diablerie, which it 
 was my chance to be entertained with not long since ; when this 
 deep and gloomy contortion of the frontal muscles was not 
 unaptly described, as forming the representation of a small 
 horseshoe. 
 
 The tale, when told, awaked a dreadful vision of infancy, which 
 the withering and blighting look now fixed on me again forced on 
 my recollection, but with much more vivacity. Indeed I was so 
 much surprised, and, I must add, terrified, at the vague ideas 
 which were awakened in my mind by this fearful sign, that I kept 
 my eyes fixed on the face in which it was exhibited, as on a fright- 
 ful vision ; until, passing his handkerchief a moment across his 
 countenance, this mysterious man relaxed at once the look which 
 had for me something so appalling. " The young man will no 
 longer deny that he has seen me before," said he to the Justice, in 
 a tone of complacency; "and I trust he will now be reconciled 
 to my temporary guardianship,' which may end better for him than 
 he expects." 
 
 " Whatever I expect," I replied, summoning my scattered re- 
 collections together, " I see I am neither to expect justice nor 
 protection from this gentleman, whose office it is to render both to 
 the lieges. For you, sir, how strangely you have wrought yourself 
 into the fate of an unhappy young man, or what interest you can 
 pretend in me, you yourself only can explain. That I have seen 
 you before, is certain : for none can forget the look with which 
 you seem to have the power of blighting those upon whom you 
 cast it." 
 
 The Justice seemed not very easy under this hint. " Ho !— 
 ay," he said ; " it is time to be going, neighbour. I have a many 
 miles to ride, and I care not to ride darkling in these parts.— You 
 and I, Mr. Nicholas, must be jogging." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 193 
 
 The Justice fumbled with his gloves, in endeavouring to draw 
 them on hastily, and Mr. Nicholas bustled to get his great-coat 
 and whip. Their landlord endeavoured to detain them, and spoke 
 of supper and beds. Both pouring forth many thanks for his 
 invitation, seemed as if they would much rather not; and Mr. 
 Justice Foxley was making a score of apologies, with at least a 
 hundred cautionary hems and eh-ehs, when the girl Dorcas burst 
 into the room, and announced a gentleman on justice business. 
 
 " What gentleman ? — and whom does he want ? " 
 
 " He is cuome post on his ten toes," said the wench ; "and on 
 justice business to his worship loike. I'se uphald him a gentle- 
 man, for he speaks as good Latin as the schulemeaster ; but, 
 lack-a-day ! he has gotten a queer mop of a wig." 
 
 The gentleman, thus announced and described, bounced into the 
 room. But I have already written as much as fills a sheet of my 
 paper, and my singular embarrassments press so hard on me, that 
 I have matter to fill another from what followed the intrusion of— 
 my dear Alan — your crazy client — Poor Peter Peebles ! 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Latimer's journal, in continuation 
 Sheet 3. 
 
 I HAVE ra-rely in my life, till the last alarming days, knowft what 
 it was to sustain a moment's real sorrow. What I called such, 
 was, I am now well convinced, only the weariness of mind, which, 
 having nothing actually present to complain of, turns upon itself, 
 and becomes anxious about the past and the future ; those periods 
 with which human life has so little connexion, that Scripture itself 
 hath said, " Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." 
 
 If, therefore, I have sometimes abused prosperity, by murmuring 
 at my unknown birth and uncertain rank in society, I will make 
 amends by bearing my present real adversity with patience and 
 Courage, and, if I can, even with gaiety. What can they— dare 
 they, do to me? — Foxley, I am persuaded, is a real Justice of Peace, 
 and country gentleman of estate, though (wonderful to tell !) he is 
 an ass notwithstanding ; and his functionary in the drab coat must 
 have a shrewd guess at the consequences of being accessary to an 
 act of murder or kidnapping. Men invite not such witnesses to 
 deeds of darkness. I have also— Alan, I have hopes, arising out of 
 the family of the oppressor himself. I am encouraged to bdieva 
 
 O 
 
194 
 
 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 that G. M. is likely again to enter on the field. More I dare not 
 here say ; nor must I drop a hint which another eye than thine 
 might be able to construe. Enough, my feelings are lighter than 
 they have been ; and though fear and wonder are still around me, 
 they are unable entirely to overcloud the horizon. 
 
 Even when I saw the spectral form of the old scarecrow of the 
 Parliament-House rush into the apartment where I had undergone 
 so singular an examination, I thought of thy connexion with him, 
 and could almost have parodied Lear — 
 
 " Death !— nothing could have thus subdued nature 
 To such a lowness, but his 'learned lawyers.'" 
 
 He was e'en as we have seen him of yore, Alan, when, rather to 
 keep thee company than to follow my own bent, I formerly fre- 
 quented the halls of justice. The only addition to his dress, in the 
 capacity of a traveller, was a pair of boots, that seemed as if they 
 might have seen the field of Sheriffmoor ; so large and heavy, that, 
 tied as they were to the creature's wearied hams with large bunches 
 of worsted tape of various colours, they looked as if he had been 
 dragging them along, either for a wager, or by way of penance. 
 
 Regardless of the surprised looks of the party on whom he thus 
 intruded himself, Peter blundered into the middle of the apartment, 
 with his head charged like a ram's in the act of butting, and 
 saluted them thus : — 
 
 " Gude day to ye, gude day to your honours — Is't here they sell 
 the fugie warrants ? " 
 
 I observed that, on his entrance, my friend — or enemy — drew 
 himself back, and placed himself as if he would rather avoid attract- 
 ing the observation of the new-comer. I did the same myself, as 
 far as I was able ; for I thought it likely that Mr. Peebles might 
 recognise me, as indeed I was too frequently among the group of 
 young juridical aspirants who used to amuse themselves by putting 
 cases for Peter's solution, a-nd playing him worse tricks ; yet I was 
 uncertain whether I had better avail myself of our acquaintance to 
 have the advantage, such as it might be, of his evidence before the 
 magistrate, or whether to make him, if possible, bearer of a letter 
 which might procure me more effectual assistance. I resolved, 
 therefore, to be guided by circumstances, and to watch carefully 
 that nothing might escape me. I drew back as far as I could, and 
 even reconnoitred the door and passage, to consider whether 
 absolute escape might not be practicable. But there paraded Cristal 
 Nixon, whose little black eyes, sharp as those of a basilisk, seemed, 
 the instant when they encountered mine, to penetrate my purpose; 
 
 I sat down, as much out of sight of all parties as I could, and 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 195 
 
 listened to the dialogue which followed— a dia.ogue how much more 
 interesting to me than any I could have conceived, in which Peter 
 Peebles was to be one of the Dramatis Persona: 
 
 " Is it here where ye sell the warrants?— the fugles, ye ken?" said 
 Peter. 
 
 " He> — eh— what !" said Justice Foxley ; "what the dexil does 
 the fellow mean ?— What would you have a warrant for ?" 
 
 " It is to apprehend a young lawyer that is in mcditatione ftiga: ; 
 for he has ta'en my memorial and pleaded my cause, and a good 
 fee I gave him, and as muckle brandy as he could drink that day at 
 his father's house — he loes the brandy ower weel for sae youthful a 
 creature." 
 
 " And what has this drunken young dog of a lawyer done to you, 
 that you are come to me— eh — ha? Has he robbed you? Not 
 unlikely, if he be a la->v)-er— eh — Nick — ha?" said Justice Foxley. 
 
 " He has robbed me of himself, sir," answered Peter; "of his 
 help, comfort, aid, maintenance, and assistance, whilk, as a counsel 
 to a client, he is bound to yield me ratione officii — that is it, ye see. 
 He has pouched my fee, and drucken a mutchldn of brandy, and 
 now he's ower the march, and left my cause, half won half lost — as 
 dead a heat as e'er was run ower the back-sands. Now, I was 
 advised by some cunning laddies that are used to crack a Ijit law 
 wi' me in the House, that the best thing I could do was to take 
 heart o' grace and set out after him ; so I have taken post on my 
 ain shanks, forby a cast in a cart, or the like. I got wind of him in 
 Dumfries, and now I have run him ower to the English side, and 1 
 want a fugie warrant against him." 
 
 How did my heart throb at this information, dearest Alan ! 
 Thou art near me then, and I well know with what kind purpose ; 
 thou hast abandoned all to fly to my assistance ; and no wonder 
 that, knowing thy friendship and faith, thy sound sagacity and per- 
 severing disposition, " my bosom's lord should now sit lightly on 
 his throne ;" that gaiety should almost involuntarily hover on my 
 pen ; and that my heart should beat like that of a general, respon- 
 sive to the drums of his advancing ally, OTthout whose help the 
 battle must have been lost. 
 
 I did not suffer myself to be startled by this joyous surprise, -but 
 continued to bend my strictest attention to what followed among 
 this singular party. That Poor Peter Peebles had been put upon 
 this wildgoose chase, by some of his juvenile advisers in the Par- 
 liament House, he himself had intimated ; but he spoke with much 
 confidence, and the Justice, who seemed to have some secret appre- 
 hension of being put to trouble in the matter, and, as sometimes 
 occurs on the English frontier, a jealousy lest the superior acuteness 
 
 O 2 
 
196 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 of their northern neighbours might overreach their own simplicity, 
 turned to his clerk with a perplexed countenance. 
 
 "Eh— oh — Nick— d— n thee— Hast thou got nothing to say? 
 This is more Scots law, I take it, and more Scotsmen." (Here he 
 cast a side-glance at the owner of the mansion, and winked to his 
 clerk.) " I would Solway were as deep as it is wide, and we had 
 then some chance of keeping of them out." 
 
 Nicholas conversed an instant aside with the supplicant, and 
 then reported ; — 
 
 " The man wants a border-warrant, I think ; but they are only 
 granted for debt — now he wants one to catch a lawyer." 
 
 " And what for no ?" answered Peter Peebles, doggedly ; " what 
 for no, I would be glad to ken ? If a day-labourer refuses to work, 
 ye'll grant a warrant to gar him do out his daurg — if a wench quean 
 rin away from her hairst, ye'll send her back to her heuck again — 
 if sae mickle as a collier or a Salter make a moonlight flitting, ye 
 will cleek him by the back-spaul in a minute of time, — and yet the 
 damage canna amount to mair than a creelfu' of coals, and a forpit 
 or twa of saut ; and here is a chield taks leg from his engagement, 
 and damages me to the tune of sax thousand punds sterling ; that 
 is, three thousand that I should win, and three thousand mair that 
 I am like to lose ; and you that ca' yoursell a justice canna help a 
 poor man to catch the rinaway ? A bonny like justice I am like to 
 get amang ye ! " 
 
 " The fellow must be drunk," said the clerk. 
 
 "Black-fasting from all but sin," replied the supplicant; "I 
 havena had mair than a mouthful of cauld water since I passed the 
 Border, and deil a ane of ye is like to say to me, ' Dog, will ye 
 drink?'" 
 
 The Justice seemed moved by this appeal. " Hem — tush, man," 
 replied he ; " thou speak'st to us as if thou wert in presence of one 
 of thine own beggarly justices— get down stairs— get something to 
 eat, man, (with permission of my friend to make so free in his house,) 
 and a mouthful to drink, and I will warrant we get ye such justice 
 as will please ye." 
 
 " I winna refuse your neighbourly offer," said Poor Peter Peebles, 
 making his bow ; " muckle grace be wi' your honour, and wisdom 
 to guide ye in this extraordinary cause." 
 
 When I saw Peter Peebles about to retire from the room, I could 
 not forbear an effort to obtain from him such evidence as might 
 give me some credit with the Justice. 1 stepped forward, therefore, 
 and, saluting him, asked him if he remembered me ? 
 
 After a stare or two, and along pinch of snuff, recollection seemed 
 suddenly to dawn on Peter Peebles. "Recollect ye I" he said; 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 197 
 
 " by my troth do I.— Haud him a grip, gentlemen .'—constables, 
 keep him fast ! where that ill-deedyhempy is, ye are sure that Alan 
 Fairford is not far off. — Haud him fast, Master Constable ; I charge 
 ye wi' him, for I am mista'en if he is not at the bottom of this 
 rinaway business. He was aye getting the silly callant Alan awa 
 wi' gigs, and horse, and the like of that, to Roslin, and Prestonpans, 
 and a' the idle gates he could think of. He's a rinaway apprentice, 
 that ane." 
 
 " Mr. Peebles," I said, " do not do me wrong. I am sure you 
 can say no harm of me justly, but can satisfy these gentlemen, if 
 you will, that I am a student of law in Edinburgh — Darsie Latimer 
 by name." 
 
 " Me satisfy ! how can I satisfy the gentlemen," answered Peter, 
 " that am sae far from being satisfied mysell ? I ken naething 
 about your name, and can only testify, nihil novit in causa." 
 
 " A pretty witness you have brought forward in your favour," said 
 Mr. Foxley. " But — ha — ay — I'll ask him a question or two. — 
 Pray, friend, will you take your oath to this youth being a runaway 
 apprentice ?' 
 
 " Sir," said Peter, " I will make oath to ony thing in reason ; 
 when a case comes to my oath it's a won cause : But I am in some 
 haste to prie your worship's good cheer ;" for Peter had become much 
 more respectful in his demeanour towards the Justice, since he had 
 heard some intimation of dinner. 
 
 " You shall have — eh — hum — ay — a bellyful, if it be possible to 
 fill it. First let me know if this young man be really what he pre- 
 tends. — Nick, make his affidavit." 
 
 " Ou, he is just a wud harum-scarum creature, that wad never 
 take to his studies ; daft, sir, clean daft." 
 
 " Deft !" said the Justice ; " what d'ye mean by deft — eh ?" 
 
 " Just Fifish," repUed Peter ; " wowf— a wee bit by the East-Nook 
 or sae ; it's a common case — the tae half of the warld thinks the 
 tither daft. I have met with folk in my day, that thought I was daft 
 mysell ; and, for my part, I think our Court of Session clean daft, 
 that have had the great cause of Peebles against Plainstanes before 
 them for this score of years, and have never been able to ding the 
 bottom out of it yet." 
 
 " I cannot make out a word of his cursed brogue," said the Cum- 
 brian justice ; " can you, neighbour — eh ? What can he mean by 
 deft?" 
 
 " He means mad" said the party appealed to, thrown off his 
 guard by impatience of this protracted discussion. 
 
 " Ye have it— ye have it," said Peter ; " that is, not clean skivie, 
 but" 
 
igS REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Here he stopped, and fixed his eye on the person he addressed 
 with an air of joyful recognition.—" Ay, ay, Mr. Herries of Birrens- 
 work, is this your ainsell in blood and bane ? I thought ye had been 
 hanged at Kennington Common, or Hairiebie, or some of these 
 places, after the bonny ploy ye made in the forty-five." 
 
 " I believe you are mistaken, friend," said Herries, sternly, with 
 whose name and designation I was thus made unexpectedly 
 acquainted. 
 
 « The deil a bit," answered the undaunted Peter Peebles ; " I mind 
 ye weel, for ye lodged in my house the great year of forty-five, for 
 a great year it was ; the Grand Rebellion broke out, and my cause 
 — the great cause— Peebles against Plainstanes, ct per contra— wt\.s 
 called in the beginning of the winter Session, and would have been 
 heard, but that there was a surcease of justice, with your plaids, 
 and your piping, and your nonsense." 
 
 " I tell you, fellow," said Herries, yet more fiercely, " you have 
 confused me with some of the other furniture of your crazy pate." 
 
 " Speak like a gentleman, sir," answered Peebles ; " these are not 
 legal phrases, Mr. Herries of Birrenswork. Speak in form of law, 
 or I sail bid ye gude-day, sir. I have nae pleasure in speaking to 
 proud folk, though I am willing to answer ony thing in a legal way ; 
 so if you are for a crack about auld langsyne, and the splores that 
 you and Captain Redgimlet used to breed in my house, and the 
 girded cask of brandy that ye drank and ne'er thought'of paying for 
 it, (not that I minded it muckle in thae days, though I have felt a 
 lack of it sinsyne,) why I will waste an hour on ye at ony time. — 
 And where is Captain Redgimlet now ? he was a wild chap, like 
 yoursell, though they are nae sae keen after you poor bodies for 
 these some years bygane ; the heading and hanging is weel ower 
 now — awful job— awful job— will ye try my sneeshing ?" 
 
 He concluded his desultory speech by thrusting out his large 
 bony paw, filled with a Scottish mull of huge dimensions, which 
 Herries, who had been standing like one petrified by the assurance 
 of this unexpeeted address, rejected with a contemptuous motion of 
 his hand, which spilled some of the contents of the box. 
 
 " Aweel, aweel," said Peter Peebles, totally unabashed by the 
 repulse, " e'en as ye like, a wilful man maun hae his way ; but," he 
 added, stooping down, and endeavouring to gather the spilt snuff 
 from the polished floor, " I canna afford to lose' my sneeshing for a' 
 that ye are gumple-foisted wi' me." 
 
 My attention had been keenly awakened, during this extraordinary 
 and unexpected scene. I watched, with as much attention as my 
 own agitation permitted me to command, the effect produced on 
 the parties concerned. It was evident that our friend, Peter Peebles, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 193 
 
 had unwarily let out something which altered the sentiments of 
 Justice Foxley and his clerk towards Mr. Herries, with whom, until 
 he was known and acknowledged under that name, they had ap- 
 peared to be so intimate. They talked with each other aside, looked 
 at a paper or two which the clerk selected from the contents of a 
 huge black pocketbook, and seemed, under the influence of fear 
 and uncertainty, totally at a loss what line of conduct to adopt. 
 
 Herries made a different and a far more interesting figure. 
 However little Peter Peebles might resemble the angel Ithuriel, the 
 appearance of Herries, his high and scornful demeanour, vexed at 
 what seemed detection, yet fearless of the consequences, and regard- 
 ing the whispering magistrate and his clerk with looks in which 
 contempt predominated over anger or anxiety, bore, in my opinion, 
 no shght resemblance to 
 
 " the regal port 
 
 And faded splendour wan " 
 
 with which the poet has invested the detected King of the Powers 
 of the Air. 
 
 As he glanced round, with a look which he had endeavoured to 
 compose to haughty indifference, his eye encountered mine, and, I 
 thought, at the first glance sunk beneath it. But he instantly rallied 
 his natural spirit, and returned me one of those extraordinary looks, 
 by which he conld contort so strangely the wrinkles on his forehead. 
 I started ; but, angry at myself for my pusillanimity, I answered him 
 by a look of the same kind, and, catching the reflection of my 
 countenance in a large antique mirror which stood before me, I 
 started again at the real or imaginary resemblance which my 
 countenance, at that moment, bore to that of Herries. Surely my 
 fate is somehow strangely interwoven with that of this mysterious 
 individual. I had no time at present to speculate upon the subject, 
 for the subsequent conversation demanded all my attention. 
 
 The.Justice addressed Herries, after a pause of about five minutes, 
 in which all parties seemed at some loss how to proceed. He spoke 
 with embarrassment, and his faltering voice, and the long intervals 
 which divided his sentences, seemed to indicate fear of him whom 
 he addressed. 
 
 " Neighbour," he said, " I could not have thought this ; or, if / 
 — eh — (itci think — in a corner of my own mind as it were — that you, 
 I say — that you might have unluckily engaged in — eh— the matter 
 of the forty-five— there was still time to have forgot all that." 
 
 " And is it so singular that a man should have been out in the 
 forty-five ?" said Herries, with contemptuous composure ;— " your 
 
aoo REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 father, I think, Mr. Foxley, was out with Derwentwater in the 
 fifteen." 
 
 " And lost half of his estate,'' answered Foxley, with more rapidity 
 than usual; " and was very near— hem— being hanged into the boot. 
 But this is— another guess job— for— eh— fifteen is not forty-five j 
 and my father had a remission, and you, I take it, have none." 
 
 " Perhaps I have," said Horries, indifferently; " or, if I have not, 
 I am but in the case of half a dozen others whom government do 
 not think worth looking after at this time of day, so they give no 
 offence or disturbance." 
 
 " But you have given both, sir," said Nicholas Faggot, the clerk, 
 who, having some petty provincial situation, as I have since under- 
 stood, deemed himself bound to be zealous for government. " Mr. 
 Justice Foxley cannot be answerable for letting you pass free, now 
 your name and surname have been spoken plainly out. There are 
 warrants out against you from the Secretary of State's office." 
 
 " A proper allegation, Mr. Attorney ! that, at the distance of so 
 many years, the Secretary of State should trouble himself about the 
 unfortunate relics of a ruined cause ! " answered Mr. Merries. 
 
 " But if it be so," said the clerk, who seemed to assume more 
 confidence upon the composure of Herries's demeanour ; " and if 
 cause has been given by the conduct of a gentleman himself, who 
 hath been, it is alleged, raking up old matters, and mixing them 
 with new subjects of disaffection — I say, if it be so, I should advise 
 the party, in his wisdom, to surrender himself quietly into the law- 
 ful custody of the next Justice of Peace — Mr. Foxley, suppose — 
 where, and by whom, the matter should be regularly enquired into. 
 I am only putting a case," he added, watching with apprehension 
 the effect which his words were likely to produce upon the party to 
 whom they were addressed. 
 
 " And were I to receive such advice," said Herries, with the same 
 composure as before — "putting the case, as you say, Mr. Faggot — 
 I should request to see the warrant which countenanced such a 
 scandalous proceeding," 
 
 Mr. Nicholas, by way of answer, placed in his hand a paper, and 
 seemed anxiously to expect the consequences which were to ensue. 
 Mr. Herries looked it over with the same equanimity as before, and 
 then continued, " And were such a scrawl as this presented to me 
 in my own house, I would throw it into the chimney, and Mr. 
 Faggot upon the top of it." 
 
 Accordingly, seconding the word with the action, he flung the 
 warrant into the fire with one hand, and fixed the other, with a stern 
 and irresistible gripe, on the breast of the attorney, who, totally 
 unable to contend with him, in either personal strength or mental 
 
REnGAUNTLET. 201 
 
 energy, trembled like a chicken in the raven's clutch. He got off, 
 however, for the fright ; for Herries, having probably made him 
 fully sensible of the strength of his grasp, released him, with a 
 scornful laugh. 
 
 " Deforcement— spulzie—stouthrief— masterful rescue!" ex- 
 claimed Peter Peebles, scandalized at the resistance offered to the 
 law in the person of Nicholas Faggot. But his shrill exclamations 
 were drowned in the thundering voice of Herries, who, calling upon 
 Cristal Nixon, ordered him to take the bawling fool down stairs, fill 
 his belly, and then give him a guinea, and thrust him out of doors. 
 Under such injunctions, Peter easily suffered himself to be with- 
 drawn from the scene. 
 
 Herries then turned to the Justice, whose visage, wholly aban- 
 doned by the rubicund hue which so lately beamed upon it, hung 
 out the same pale livery as that of his dismayed clerk. "Old 
 friend and acquaintance," he said, " you came here at my request, 
 on a friendly errand, to convince this silly young man of the right 
 which I have over his person for the present. I trust you do not 
 intend to make your visit the pretext of disquieting me about other 
 matters ? All the world knows that I have been living at large, in 
 these northern counties, for some months, not to say years, and 
 might have been apprehended at any time, had the necessities of 
 the state required, or my own behaviour desei-ved it. But no English 
 magistrate has been ungenerous enough to trouble a gentleman 
 under misfortune, on account of political opinions and disputes, 
 which have been long ended by the success of the reigning powers. 
 I trust, my good friend, you will not endanger yourself, by taking 
 any other view of the subject than you have done ever since we 
 were acquainted ?" 
 
 The Justice answered with more readiness, as well as more spirit 
 than usual, " Neighbour Ingoldsby — what you say — is — eh — in some 
 sort true ; and when you were coming and going at markets, horse- 
 races, and cock-fights, fairs, hunts, and such like— it was — eh — 
 neither my business nor my wish to dispel — I say — to enquire into 
 and dispel the mysteries which hung about you ; for while you were 
 a good companion in the field, and over a bottle now and then- -I 
 did not — eh — think it necessary to ask — into your private affairs. 
 And if I thought you were — ahem — somewhat unfortunate in former 
 undertakings, and enterprises, and connexions, which might cause 
 you to live unsettledly and more private, I could have — eh — very 
 little pleasure — to aggravate your case by interfering, or requiring 
 explanations, which are often more easily asked than given. But 
 when there are warrants and witnesses to names — and those names, 
 christian and surname, belong to— eh— an attainted pers on— charged 
 
202 REDGAUNTL-ET. 
 
 — I trust falsely — with— ahem — taking advantage of modern broils 
 and heart-burnings to renew our civil disturbances, the case is 
 altered ; and I must — ahem — do my duty." 
 
 The Justice got on his feet as he concluded this speech, and 
 looked as bold as he could, I drew close beside him and his clerk, 
 Mr. Faggot, thinking the moment favourable for my own liberation, 
 and intimated to Mr. Foxley my determination to stand by him. 
 But Mr. Herries only laughed at the menacing posture which we 
 assumed. " My good neighbour," said he, "you talk of a witness — 
 Is yon crazy beggar a fit witness in an affair of this nature ?" 
 
 " But you do not deny that you are Mr. Herries of Bi^renswork, 
 mentioned in the Secretary of State's warrant ? " said Mr. Foxley. 
 
 " How can I deny or own any thing about it ? " said Herries, with 
 a sneer. " There is no such warrant in existence now ; its ashes, 
 like the poor traitor whose doom it threatened, have been dispersed 
 to the four winds of heaven. There is now no warrant in the 
 world." 
 
 " But you will not deny,'" said the Justice, " that you were the 
 person named in it ; and that— eh — your own act destroyed it ? " 
 
 " I will neither deny my name nor my actions, Justice," replied 
 Mr. Herries, " when called upon by competent authority to avow 
 or defend them. But I will resist all impertinent attempts either 
 to intrude into my private motives, or to control my person. I am 
 quite well prepared to do so ; and I trust that you, my good neigh- 
 bour and brother sportsman, in your expostulation, and my friend 
 Mr. Nicholas Faggot here, in his humble advice and petition that 
 I should surrendei myself, will consider yourselves as having amply 
 discharged your duty to King George and Government." 
 
 The cold and ironical tone in which he made this declaration ; 
 the look and attitude, so nobly expressive of absolute confidence in 
 his own superior strength and energy, seemed to complete the inde- 
 cision which had already shown itself on the side of those whom he 
 addressed. 
 
 The Justice looked to the Herk— the Clerk to the Justice ; the 
 former hdd, eh'd, without bringing forth an articulate syllable ; 
 the latter only said, " As the warrant is destroyed, Mr. Justice, I 
 presume you do not mean to proceed with the arrest ?" 
 
 " Hum— ay— why no— Nicholas— it would not be quite advisable 
 —and as the Forty-five was an old affair— and— hem— as my friend 
 here will, I hope, see his error— that is, if he has not seen it already 
 —and renounce the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender— I mean 
 no harm, neighbour — I think we — as we have no posse, or constables, 
 or the like— should order our horses— and, in one word, look the 
 matter over." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 203 
 
 "Judiciously resolved," said the person whom this decision 
 affected ; " but before you go, I trust you will drink and be 
 friends." 
 
 " Why," said the Justice, rubbing his brow, " our business has 
 been — hem — rather a thirsty one." 
 
 " Crista! Nixon," said Mr. Herries, "let us have a cool tankard 
 instantly, large enough to quench the thirst of the whole com- 
 mission." 
 
 While Cristal was absent on this genial errand, there was a 
 pause, of which I endeavoured to avail myself, by bringing back 
 the discourse to my own concerns. " Sir," I said to Justice Foxley, 
 " I have no direct business with your late discussion with Mr. 
 Herries, only just thus far — You leave me, a loyal subject of King 
 George, an unwilling prisoner in the hands of a person whom 
 you have reason to believe unfriendly to the King's cause. I 
 humbly submit that this is contrary to your duty as a magis- 
 trate, and that you ought to make Mr. Herries aware of the ille- 
 gality of his proceedings, and take steps for my rescue, either upon 
 the spot, or, at least, as soon as possible after you have left this 
 case " 
 
 " Young man," said Mr. Justice Foxley, " I would have you 
 remember you are under the power, the lawful power — ahem — of 
 your guardian." 
 
 " He calls himself so, indeed," I replied ; " but he has shown no 
 evidence to establish so absurd a claim ; and if he had, his cir- 
 cumstances, as an attainted traitor excepted from pardon, would 
 void such a right, if it existed. I do therefore desire you, Mr. 
 Justice, and you, his clerk, to consider my situation, and afford me 
 relief at your peril." 
 
 " Here is a young fellow now," said the Justice, with much 
 embarrassed looks, "thinks that I carry the whole statute law 
 of England in my head, and a -posse comitatus to execute them 
 in my pocket.' Why, what good would my interference do? — 
 but — hum — eh — I will speak to your guardian in your favour." 
 
 He took Mr. Herries aside, and seemed indeed to urge some- 
 thing upon him with much earnestness ; and perhaps such a 
 species of intercession was all which, in the circumstances, I was 
 entitled to expect from him. 
 
 They often looked at me as they spoke together ; and as Cristal 
 Nixon entered with a huge four-pottle tankard, filled with the 
 beverage his master had demanded, Herries turned away from 
 Mr. Foxley somewhat impatiently, saying with emphasis, " I give 
 you my word of honour, that you have not the slightest reason 
 to apprehend any thing on his account." He then took up the 
 
204 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 tankard, and saying aloud in Gaelic, " Slaintan /J^j/," * just tasted 
 the liquor, and handed the tankard to Justice Foxley, who,to avoid 
 the dilemma of pledging him to what might be the Pretender's 
 health, drank to Mr. Herries's own, with much pointed solemnity, 
 but in a draught far less moderate. 
 
 The clerk imitated the example of his principal, and I was fain 
 to follow their example, for anxiety and fear are at least as thirsty 
 as sorrow is said to be. In a word, we exhausted the composition 
 of ale, sherry, lemon-juice, nutmeg, and other good things, stranded 
 upon the silver bottom of the tankard, the huge toast, as well as 
 the roasted orange, which had whilome floated joUily upon the 
 brim, and rendered legible Dr. Byrom's celebrated lines engraved 
 thereon — 
 
 " God bless the King ! — God bless the Faith's defender ! 
 God bless — No harm in blessing the Pretender. 
 Who that Pretender is, and who that King, — 
 God bless us all ! — is quite another thing." 
 
 I had time enough to study this effusion of the Jacobite muse, 
 while the Justice was engaged in the somewhat tedious ceremony 
 of taking leave. That of Mr. Faggot was less ceremonious ; but 
 I suspect something besides empty compliment passed betwixt 
 him and Mr. Herries ; for I remarked that the latter slipped a 
 piece of paper into the hand of the former, which might perhaps 
 be a little atonement for the rashness with which he had burnt the 
 warrant, and imposed no gentle hand on the respectable minion of 
 the law by whom it was exhibited ; and I observed that he made 
 this propitiation in such a manner as to be secret from the worthy 
 clerk's principal. 
 
 When this was arranged, the party took leave of each other, 
 with much formality on the part of Squire Foxley, amongst whose 
 adieus the following phrase was chiefly remarkable : — " I presume 
 you do not intend to stay long in these parts ? " 
 
 " Not for the present, Justice, you may be sure ; there are good 
 reasons to the contrary. But I have no doubt of arranging my 
 affairs, so that we shall speedily have sport together again." 
 
 He went to wait upon the Justice to the courtyard ; and, as he 
 did so, commanded Cristal Nixon to see that I returned into my 
 apartment. Knowing it would be to no purpose to resist or tamper 
 with that stubborn functionary, I obeyed in silence, and was once 
 more a prisoner in my former quarters. 
 
REDGAUXTLKT. 205 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LATIMER'S JOURNAL IN COXTIXUATION. 
 
 I SPENT more than an hour, after returning to the apartment 
 which I may call my prison, in reducing to writing the singular 
 circumstances which I had just witnessed. Methought I could 
 now form some guess at the character of Mr. Herries, upon whose 
 name and situation the late scene had thrown considerable light; — 
 one of those fanatical Jacobites, doubtless, whose arms, not twenty 
 years since, had shaken the British throne, and some of whom, 
 though their party dafly diminished in numbers, energy, and 
 power, retained stUl an inclination to renew the attempt they had 
 found so desperate. He was indeed perfectly different from the 
 sort of zealous Jacobites whom it had been my luck hitherto to meet 
 with. Old ladies of family over their hyson, and grey-haired lairds 
 over their punch, I had often heard utter a little harmless treason ; 
 while the former remembered having led down a dance ^th the 
 ChevaUer, and the latter recounted the feats they had performed at 
 Preston, Qifton, and Falkirk. 
 
 The disa£fection of sucTi persons was too unimportant to excite 
 the attention of government. 1 had heard, however, that there 
 still existed partisans of the Stewart family, of a more daring and 
 dangerous description ; men who, fiimished with gold from Rome, 
 moved, secretly and in disguise, through the various classes of 
 society, and endeavoured to keep alive the expiring zeal of their 
 party. 
 
 I had no diflSculty in assigning an important post among this 
 class of persons, whose agency and exertion are only doubted by 
 those who look on the surface of things, to this Mr. Herries, whose 
 mental energies, as well as his personal strength and activity, 
 seemed to qualify him well to act so dangerous a part ; and I knew 
 that, all along the Western Border, both in England and Scotland, 
 there are so many Nonjurors, that such a person may reside there 
 with absolute safety, imless it becomes, in a very especial degree, 
 the object of the government to secure his person ; and which 
 purpose, even then, might be disappointed by early intelligence, or, 
 as in the case of Mr. Foxley, by the um\"illingness of provincial 
 magistrates to interfere in what is now considered an invidious 
 pursuit of the unfortunate. 
 
 There have, however, been rumours lately, as if the present state 
 of the nation, or at least of some discontented provinces, agitated 
 by a varietj- of causes, but particularly by the unpopularity of the 
 
ao6 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 present administration, may seem to this species of agitators a 
 favourable period for recommencing their intrigues ; while, on the 
 other hand, government may not, at such a crisis, be inclined to 
 look upon them with the contempt which a few years ago would 
 have been their most appropriate punishment 
 
 That men should be found rash enough to throw away their ser- 
 vices and lives in a desperate cause, is nothing new in history, 
 which abounds with instances of similar devotion— that Mr. Herries 
 is such an enthusiast, is no less evident ; but all this explains not 
 his conduct towards me. Had he sought to make me a proselyte 
 to his ruined cause, violence and compulsion were arguments very 
 unhkely to prevail with any generous spirit. But even if such were 
 his object, of what use to him could be the acquisition of a single 
 reluctant partisan, who could bring only his own person to support 
 any quarrel which he might adopt ? He had claimed over me the 
 rights of a guardian ; he had more than hinted that I was in a 
 state of mind which could not dispense with the authority of such 
 a person. Was this man, so sternly desperate in his purpose, — he 
 who seemed willing to take on his own shoulders the entire support 
 of a cause which had been ruinous to thousands, — was he the 
 person that had the power of deciding on my fate ? Was it from 
 him those dangers flowed, to secure me "against which I had been 
 educated under such circumstances of secrecy and precaution ? 
 
 And if this was so, of what nature was the claim which he 
 asserted ?— Was it that of propinquity ?— And did I share the blood, 
 perhaps the features, of this singular being ?— Strange as it may 
 seem, a thrill of awe, which shot across my mind at that instant, 
 was not unmingled with a wild mysterious feeling of wonder, 
 almost amounting to pleasure. I remembered the reflection of my 
 own face in the mirror, at one striking mom ent during the singular 
 interview of the day, and I hastened to the outward apartment to 
 consult a glass which hung there, whether it were possible for my 
 countenance to be again contorted into the peculiar frown which so 
 much resembled the terrific look of Herries. But I folded my 
 brows in vain into a thousand complicated wrinkles, and I was 
 obliged to conclude, either that the supposed mark on my brow 
 was altogether imaginary, or that it could not be called forth by 
 voluntary effort ; or, in fine, what seemed most likely, that it was 
 such a resemblance as the imagination traces in the embers of a 
 wood fire, or among the varied veins of marble, distinct at one 
 time, and obscure or invisible at another, according as the com- 
 bination of lines strikes the eye, or impresses the fancy. 
 
 While I was moulding my visage like a mad player, the door 
 suddenly opened, and the girl of the house entered. Angry and 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 207 
 
 ashamed at being detected in my singular occupation, I turned 
 round sharply, and, I suppose, chance produced the change on mj 
 features which I had been in vain labouring to call forth. 
 
 The girl started back, with her " Don't ye look so now — don't ye, 
 for love's sake — you be as like the ould Squoire as — But here a 
 comes," said she, huddling away out of the room ; ",and if you 
 want a third, there is none but ould Harry, as I know of, that can 
 match ye for a brent broo ! "' 
 
 As the girl muttered this exclamation, and hastened out of the 
 room, Herries entered. He stopped on observing that I had 
 looked again to the mirror ; anxious to trace the look by which 
 the wench had undoubtedly been terrified. He seemed to guess 
 what was passing in my mind, for, as I turned towards him, he 
 observed, " Doubt not that it is stamped on your forehead — the 
 fatal mark of our race ; though it is not now so apparent as it will 
 become when age and sorrow, and the traces of stormy passions, 
 and of bitter penitence, shaU have drawn their furrows on your 
 brow." 
 
 " ^lysterious man," I replied, " I know not of what you speak ; 
 your language is as dark as your purposes." 
 
 " Sit down, then," he said, " and listen ; thus far, at least, must 
 the veil of which you complain be raised. When withdrawn, it 
 will only display guilt and sorrow — guilt, followed by strange 
 penalty, and sorrow, which Providence has entailed upon the 
 posterity of the mourners." 
 
 He paused a moment, and commenced his narrative, which he 
 told with the air of one, who, remote as the events were which he 
 recited, took still the deepest interest in them. The tone of his 
 voice, which I have already described as rich and powerful, aided 
 by its inflections the effects of his story, which I will endeavour to 
 write down, as nearly as possible, in the very words which he 
 used. 
 
 "It was not of late years that the English nation learned, that 
 their best chance of conquering their independent neighbours must 
 be by introducing amongst them division and civU war. You need 
 not be reminded of the state of thraldom to which Scotland was 
 reduced by the unhappy wars betwixt the domestic factions of 
 Bruce and Baliol ; nor how, after Scotland had been emancipated 
 from a foreign yoke, by the conduct and valour of the immortal 
 Bruce, the whole fruits of the triumphs of Bannockbum were lost 
 in the dreadful defeats of Dupplin and Halidon; and Edward 
 BaUol, the minion and feudatory of his namesake of England; 
 seemed, for a brief season, in safe and uncontested possession of 
 the throne, so lately occupied by the greatest general and wisest 
 
2o8 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 prince in Europe. But the experience of Bruce had not died with 
 him. There were many who had shared his martial labours, and 
 all remembered the successful efforts by which, under circum- 
 stances as disadvantageous as those of his son, he had achieved 
 the liberation of Scotland. 
 
 " The usurper, Edward Baliol, was feasting with a few of his 
 favourite retainers in the Castle of Annan, when he was suddenly 
 surprised by a chosen band of insurgent patriots. Their chiefs 
 were, Douglas, Randolph, the young Earl of Moray, and Sir Simon 
 Eraser ; and their success was so complete, that Baliol was obliged 
 to fly for his life, scarcely clothed, and on a horse which there was 
 no leisure to saddle. It was of importance to seize his person, if 
 possible, and his flight was closely pursued by a valiant knight of 
 Norman descent, whose family had been long settled in the marshes 
 of Dumfries-shire. Their Norman appellation was Fitz-Aldin, but 
 this knight, from the great slaughter which he had made of the 
 Southron, and the reluctance which he had shown to admit them 
 to quarter during the former wars of that bloody period, had 
 acquired the name of Redgauntlet, which he transmitted to his 
 posterity" . 
 
 " Redgauntlet ! " I involuntarily repeated. 
 
 " Yes, Redgauntlet," said my alleged guardian, looking at me 
 keenly ; " does that name recall any associations to your mind ? " 
 
 " No," I replied, " except that I lately heard it given to the hero 
 of a supernatural legend." 
 
 " There are many such current concerning the family," he an- 
 swered ; and then proceeded in his narrative." 
 
 " Alberick Redgauntlet, the first of his house so termed, was, as 
 may be supposed from his name, of a stern and implacable dispo- 
 sition, which had been rendered more so by family discord. An 
 only son, now a youth of eighteen, shared so much the haughty 
 spirit of his father, that he became impatient of domestic control, 
 resisted paternal authority, and finally fled from his father's house, 
 renounced his political opinions, and awakened his mortal dis- 
 pleasure by joining the adherents of Baliol. It was said that his 
 father cursed in his wrath his degenerate offspring, and swore 
 that, if they met, he should perish by his hand. Meantime, circum- 
 stances seemed to promise atonement for this great deprivation. 
 The lady of Alberick Redgauntlet was again, after many years, in 
 a situation which afforded her husband the hope of a more dutiful 
 heir. 
 
 " But the delicacy and deep interest of his wife's condition did 
 not prevent Alberick from engaging in the undertaking of Douglas 
 and Moray. He had been the most forward in the attack of the 
 
REDGAUNTI.ET. 209 
 
 castle, and was now foremost in the pursuit of Baliol, eagerly 
 engaged in dispersing or cutting down the few daring followers 
 who endeavoured to protect the usurper in his flight 
 
 "As these were successively routed or slain, the formidable Rsd- 
 gauntlet, the mortal enemy of the House of Baliol, was within two 
 lances' length of the fugitive Edward Baliol, in a narrow pass, when 
 a youth, one of the last who attended the usurper in his flight, 
 threw himself between them, received the shock of the pursuer, 
 and was unhorsed and overthrown. The helmet rolled from his 
 head, and the beams of the sun, then rising over the Solwa)', 
 showed Redgauntlet the features of his disobedient son, in the 
 livery, and wearing the cognizance, of the usurper. 
 
 " Redgauntlet beheld his son lying before his horse's feet ; but 
 he also saw Baliol, the usurper of the Scottish crown, still, as it 
 seemed, within his grasp, and separated from him only by the pro- 
 strate body of his overthrown adherent. Without pausing to 
 enquire whether young Edward was wounded, he dashed his spurs 
 into his horse, meaning to leap over him, but was unhappily frus- 
 trated in his purpose. The steed made indeed a bound foru ard, 
 but was unable to clear the body of the youth, and with its hind 
 foot struck him in the forehead, as he was in the act of rising. 
 The bltiw was mortal. It is needless to add, that the pursuit was 
 checked, and Baliol escaped. 
 
 " Redgauntlet, ferocious as he is described, was yet overwhelmed 
 with the thoughts of the crime he had committed. When he 
 returned to his castle, it was to encounter new domestic sorrows. 
 His wife had been prematurely seized with the pangs of labour, 
 upon hearing the dreadful catastrophe which had taken place. The 
 birth of an infant boy cost her her life. Redgauntlet sat by her 
 corpse for more than twenty-four hours without changing either 
 feature or posture, so far as his terrified domestics could observe. 
 The Abbot of Dundrennan preached consolation to him in vain. 
 Douglas, who came to visit in his affliction a patriot of such dis- 
 tinguished zeal, was more successful in rousing his attention. He 
 caused the trumpets to sound an English point of war in the 
 court-yard, and Redgauntlet at once sprung to his arms, and seemed 
 restored to the recollection, which had been lost in the extent of 
 misery. 
 
 " From that moment, whatever he might feel inwardly, he gave 
 way to no outward emotion. Douglas caused his infant to be 
 brought ; but even the iron-hearted soldiers were struck with horror 
 to observe, that, by the mysterious law of nature, the cause of his 
 mother's death, and the evidence of his father^s guilt, was stamped 
 on the innocent face of the babe, whose brow was distinctly marked 
 
210 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 by the miniature resemblance of a horseshoe. Redgauntlet himself 
 pointed it out to Douglas, saying, with a ghastly smile, ' It should 
 have been bloody.' 
 
 " Moved, as he was, to compassion for his brother-in-arms, and 
 steeled against all softer feelings by the habits of civil war, Douglas 
 shuddered at this sight, and displayed a desire to leave the house 
 which was doomed to be the scene of such horroi's. As his parting 
 advice, he exhorted Alberick Redgauntlet to make a pilgrimage to 
 Saint Ninian's of Whiteherne, then esteemed a shrine of great 
 sanctity; and departed with a precipitation, which might have 
 aggravated, had that been possible, the forlorn state of his unhappy 
 friend. But that seems to have been incapable of admitting any 
 addition. Sir Alberick caused the bodies of his slaughtered son 
 andTiis mother to be laid side by side in the ancient chapel of his 
 house, after he had used the skill of a celebrated surgeon of that 
 time to embalm them ; and it was said, that for many weeks he 
 spent some hours nightly in the vault where they reposed. 
 
 " At length he undertook the proposed pilgrimage to Whiteherne, 
 where he confessed himself for the first time since his misfortune, 
 and was shrived by an aged monk, who afterwards died in the 
 odour of sanctity. It is said, that it was then foretold to the Red- 
 gauntlet, that on account of his unshaken patriotism, his family 
 sh6uld continue to be powerful amid the changes of future times ; 
 but that, in detestation of his unrelenting cruelty to his own 
 issue, Heaven had decreed that the valour of his race should 
 always be fruitless, and that the cause which they espoused 
 should never prosper. 
 
 " Submitting to such penance as was there imposed, Sir 
 Alberick went, it is thought, on a pilgrimage either to Rome, or 
 to the Holy Sepulchre itself. He was universally considered as 
 dead; and it was not till thirteen years afterwards, that, in the 
 great battle of Durham, fought between David Bruce and Queen 
 Philippa of England, a knight, bearing a horseshoe for his crest, 
 appeared in the van of the Scottish army, distinguishing himself 
 by his reckless and desperate valour ; who being at length over- 
 powered and slain, was finally discovered to be the brave and 
 unhappy Sir Alberick Redgauntlet." 
 
 "And has the fatal sign," said I, when Herries had ended 
 his narrative, "descended on all the posterity of this unhappy 
 house?" 
 
 "It has been so handed down from antiquity, and is still 
 believed," said Herries. " But perhaps there is, in the popular 
 evidence, something of that fancy which creates what it sees. 
 Certainly, as other families have peculiarities by which they are 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 21, 
 
 distinguished, this of Redgauntlet is marked in most individua.s 
 by a singular indenture of the forehead, supposed to be derived 
 from the son of Alberick, their ancestor, and. brother to the un- 
 fortunate Edward, who had perished in so piteous a manner. 
 It is certain there seems to have been a fate upon the House of 
 Redgauntlet, which has been on the losing side in almost all the 
 civil broils which have divided the kingdom of Scotland, from 
 David Bruce's days, till the late valiant and unsuccessful attempt 
 of the Chevalier Charles Edward." 
 
 He concluded with a deep sigh, as one whom the subject had 
 involved in a train of painful reflections. 
 
 " And am I then," I exclaimed, " descended from this unhappy 
 race ?— Do you too belong to it ?— And if so, why do I sustain 
 restraint and hard usage at the hands of a relation ? " 
 
 " Enquire no farther for the present," he said. " The line of 
 conduct which I am pursuing towards you, is dictated not by 
 choice, but by necessity. You were withdrawn from the bosom of 
 your family, and the care of your legal guardian, by the timidity 
 and ignorance of a doting mother, who was incapable of esti- 
 mating the arguments or feelings of those who prefer honour 
 and principle to fortune, and even to life. The young hawk, 
 accustomed only to the fostering care of its dam, must be tamed 
 by darkness and sleeplessness, ere it is trusted on the wing-for 
 the purposes of the falconer." 
 
 I was appalled at this declaration, which seemed to threaten 
 a long continuance, and a dangerous termination, of my cap- 
 tivity. I deemed it best, however, to show some spirit, and at 
 the same time to mingle a tone of conciliation. " Mr. Herries," 
 I said, "(if I call you rightly by that name,) let us speak upon 
 this matter without the tone of mystery and fear in which you 
 seem inclined to envelope it. I have been long, alas ! deprived 
 of the care of that affectionate mother to whom you allude — long, 
 under the charge of strangers— and compelled to form my own 
 resolutions upon the reasoning of my own mind. Misfortune — 
 early deprivation — has given me the privilege of acting for myself; 
 and constraint shall not deprive me of an Englishman's best 
 privilege." 
 
 " The true cant of the day," said Herries, in a tone of scorn. 
 " The privilege of free action belongs to no mortal — we are tied 
 do^vn by the fetters of duty — our moral path is limited by the 
 regulations of honour — our most indifferent actions are but meshes 
 of the web of destiny by which we are all surrounded." 
 
 He paced the room rapidly, and proceeded in a tone of enthu- 
 siasm which, joined to some other parts of his conduct, seems to 
 
 P 3 
 
213 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 intimate an over-excited imagination, were it not contradicted by 
 the general tenor of his speecli and conduct. 
 
 " Nothing," he said, in an earnest yet melancholy voice— 
 " nothing is the work of chance — nothing is the consequence of 
 free-will — the liberty of which the Englishman boasts, gives as 
 little real freedom to -its owner, as the despotism of an Eastern 
 Sultan permits to his slave. The usurper, William of Nassau, 
 went forth to hunt, and thought, doubtless, it was by an act 
 of his own royal pleasure that the horse of his murdered 
 victim was prepared for his kingly sport. But Heaven had 
 other views ; and before the sun was high, a stumble of that 
 very animal over an obstacle so inconsiderable as a mole-hillock, 
 cost the haughty rider his hfe and his usurped crown. Do you 
 think an inclination of the rein could have avoided that trifling 
 impediment? — I tell you, it crossed his way as inevitably as 
 all the long chain of Caucasus could have done. Yes, young 
 man, in doing and suffering, we play but the part allotted by 
 Destiny, the manager of this strange drama, stand bound to act 
 no more than is prescribed, to say no more than is set down for 
 us ; and yet we mouth about free-will, and freedom of thought and 
 action, as if Richard must not die, or Richmond conquer, exactly 
 where the Author has decreed it shall be so ! " 
 
 He continued to pace the room after this speech, with folded 
 arms and downcast looks ; and the sound of his steps and tone of 
 his voice brought to my remembrance, that I had heard this singu- ~ 
 lar person, when I met him on a former occasion, uttering such 
 soliloquies in his solitary chamber. I observed, that, like other 
 Jacobites, in his inveteracy against the memory of King William, 
 he had adopted the party opinion, that the monarch, on the day he 
 had his fatal accident, rode upon a horse once the property of 
 the unfortunate Sir John Friend, executed for High Treason in 
 1696 
 
 It was not my business to aggravate, but, if possible, rather to 
 soothe him in whose power I was so singularly placed. When I 
 conceived that the keenness of his feelings had in some degree 
 subsided, I answered him as follows : — "-I will not — Indeed I feel 
 myself incompetent to argue a question of such metaphysical 
 subtlety, as that which involves the limits betwixt free-will and 
 predestination. Let us hope we may live honestly and die hope- 
 fully, without being obliged to form a decided opinion upon a point 
 so far beyond our comprehension." 
 
 " Wisely resolved," he interrupted, with a sneer—" there came a 
 note from some Geneva sermon." 
 
 " But," I proceeded, " I call your attention to the fact, that I, as 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 213 
 
 well as you, am acted upon by impulses, the result either of my 
 own free-will, or the consequences of the part which is assigned to 
 me by destiny. These may be— nay, at present they are — in direct 
 contradiction to those by which you are actuated ; and how shall 
 ■we decide which shall have precedence ? — Yoti perhaps feel yourself 
 destined to act as ray jailer. 1 feel myself, on the contrary, destined 
 to attempt and effect my escape. One of us must be wrong, but 
 ■who can say which errs till the event has decided betwixt us?" 
 
 " I shall feel myself destined to have recourse to severe modes 
 of restraint," said he, in the same tone of half jest, half earnest, 
 which I had used. 
 
 " In that case," I answered, " it will be my destiny to attempt 
 every thing for my freedom." 
 
 " And it may be mine, young man," he replied, in a deep and 
 stern tone, " to take care that you should rather die than attain 
 your purpose." 
 
 This was speaking out indeed, and I did not allow hiiii to go 
 unanswered. " You threaten me in vain," said I ; " the laws of 
 my country will protect me; or whom they cannot protect, they 
 will avenge." 
 
 I spoke this firmly, and he seemed for a moment silenced ; and 
 the scorn with which he at last answered me, had something of 
 affectation in it. 
 
 "I'he laws ! " he said ; " and what, stripling, do you know of the 
 laws of your country .? — Could you learn jurisprudence under a 
 base-born blotter of parchment, such as Saunders Faii-ford ; or 
 from the empty pedantic coxcomb, his son, who now, forsooth, 
 writes himself advocate ? — When Scotland was herself, and had 
 her own King and Legislature, such plebeian cubs, instead of being 
 called to the bar of her Supreme Courts, would scarce have been 
 admitted to the hoi'ujur of bearing a sheepskin process-bag." 
 
 Alan, I could not bear this, but answered indignantly, that he 
 knew not the worth and honour from which he was detracting. 
 
 " I know as much of these Fairfords as I do of you," he re- 
 plied. 
 
 "As much," said I, "and as little ; for you can neither estimate 
 their real worth nor mine. I know you saw them when last in 
 Edinburgh." 
 
 " Hal " he exclaimed, and turned on me an inquisitive look. 
 
 " It is true," said I ; "you cannot deny it; and having thus 
 shown you that I know something of your motions, let me warn 
 you I have modes of communication with which you are not 
 acquainted. Oblige me not to use them to your prejudice." 
 
 " Prejudice 7ne ! " he replied. " Young man, I smile at, and for- 
 
214 RKDGAUNTLET. 
 
 give your folly. Nay, I will tell you that of which you are not 
 aware, namely, that it was from letters received from these Fair- 
 fords that I iirst suspected, what the result of my visit to them 
 confirmed, that you were the person whom I had sought for 
 years." 
 
 " If you learned this,'' said I, " from the papers which were 
 about my person on the night when I was under the necessity of 
 becoming your guest at Brokenburn, I do not envy your indiffer- 
 ence to the means of acquiring information. It was dishonourable 
 to " 
 
 " Peace, young man," said Herries, more calmly than I might 
 have expected ; " the word dishonour must not be mentioned as in 
 conjunction with my name. Your pocketbook was in the pocket of 
 your coat, and did not escape the curiosity of another, though it 
 would have been sacred from mine. My servant, Cristal Nixon, 
 brought me the intelligence after you were gone. I was displeased 
 with the manner in which he had acquired his information ; but it 
 was not the less my duty to ascertain its truth, and for that purpose 
 I went to Edinburgh. I was in hopes to persuade Mr. Fairford to 
 have entered into my views ; but I found him too much prejudiced 
 to permit me to trust him. He is a wretched, yet a timid slave of 
 the present government, under which our unhappy country is dis- 
 honourably enthralled ; and it would have been altogther unfit and 
 unsafe to have intrusted him with the secret either of the right 
 which I possess to direct your actions, or of the manner in which 
 I purpose to exercise it." 
 
 I was determined to take advantage of his communicative 
 humour, and obtain, if possible, more light upon his purpose. He 
 seemed most accessible to being piqued on the point of honour, 
 and I resolved to avail myself, but with caution, of his sensibility 
 upon that topic. " You say," I replied, " that you are not friendly 
 to indirect practices, and disapprove of the means by which your 
 domestic obtained information of my name and quality — Is it 
 honourable to avail yourself of that knowledge which is dishonour- 
 ably obtained ? " 
 
 " It is boldly asked," he replied ; " but, within certain necessary 
 limits, I dislike not boldness of expostulation. You have, in this 
 short conference, displayed more character and energy than I was 
 prepared to expect. You will, I trust, resemble a forest plant, which 
 has indeed, by some accident, been brought up in the greenhouse, 
 and thus rendered delicate and effeminate, but which regains its 
 native firmness and tenacity, when exposed for a season to the 
 winter air. I will answer your question plainly. In business, as 
 in war, spies and informers are necessary evils, which all good men 
 
REDGAUNTLET, aig 
 
 detest ; but which yet all prudent men must use, unless they mean 
 to fight and act blindfold. But nothing can justify the use of false- 
 hood and treachery in our own person." 
 
 " You said to the elder Mr. Fairford," continued I, with the same 
 boldness, which I began to find was my best game, " that I was 
 the son of Ralph Latimer of Langcote-Hall ? — How do you recon- 
 cile this with your late assertion that my name is not Latimer ? " 
 
 He coloured as he replied, " The doting old fool lied ; or per- 
 haps mistook my meaning. I said, that gentleman might be your 
 father. To say truth, I wished you to visit England, your native 
 country ; because, when you might do so, my rights over you would 
 revive." 
 
 This speech fully led me to understand a caution which had been 
 often impressed upon me, that if I regarded my safety, I should 
 not cross the southern Border ; and I cursed my own folly, which 
 kept me fluttering like a moth around the candle, until I was 
 betrayed into the calamity with which I had dallied. " What are 
 those rights," I said, " which you claim over me ? — To what end 
 do you propose to turn them ? " 
 
 " To a weighty one, you may be certain," answered Mr. Herries ; 
 " but I do not, at present, mean to communicate to you either its 
 nature or extent. You may judge of its importance, when, in order 
 entirely to possess myself of your person, I condescended to mix 
 myself with the fellows who destroyed the fishing station of yon 
 wretched Quaker. That I held him in contempt, and was displeased 
 at the greedy devices with which he ruined a manly sport, is true 
 enough; but, unless as it favoured my designs on you, he might 
 have, for me, maintained his stake-nets till Solway should cease to 
 ebb and flow." 
 
 " Alas !" I said, "it doubles my regret to have been the unwilling 
 cause of misfortune to an honest and friendly man." 
 
 " Do not grieve for that," said Herries ; " honest Joshua is one 
 of those who, by dint of long prayers, can possess themselves of 
 widows' houses — he will quickly repair his losses. When he sus- 
 tains any mishap, he and the other canters set it down as a debt 
 against Heaven, and, by way of set-off, practise rogueries without 
 compunction, till they make the balance even, or incline it to the 
 winning side. Enough of this for the present. — I must imme- 
 diately shift my quarters ; for although I do not fear the over-zeal 
 of Mr. Justice Foxley or his clerk -will lead them to any extreme 
 measure, yet that mad scoundrel's unhappy recognition of me may 
 make it more serious for them to connive at me, and I must not 
 put their patience to an over severe trial. You must prepare to 
 attend me, either as a captive or a companion ; if as the latter. 
 
2i6 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 you must give your parole of honour to attempt "no escape. Should 
 you be so ill advised as to break your word once pledged, be 
 assured that I will blow your brains out, without a moment's 
 scruple." 
 
 " I am ignorant of your plans and purposes," I replied, " and 
 cannot but hold them dangerous. I do not mean to aggravate my 
 present situation by any unavailing resistance to the superior force 
 which detains me ; but I will not renounce the right of asserting 
 my natural freedom should a favourable opportunity occur. I will, 
 therefore, rather be your prisoner than your confederate." 
 
 " That is spoken fairly," he said ; "and yet not without the canny 
 caution of one brought up in the Gude Town of Edinburgh. On 
 my part, I will impose no unnecessary hardship upon you ; but, on 
 the contrary, your journey shall be made as easy as is consistent 
 with your being kept safely. Do you feel strong enough to ride on 
 horseback as yet, or would you prefer a carriage? The former 
 mode of travelling is best adapted to the country through which 
 we are to travel,- but you are at liberty to choose between them." 
 
 I said, " I felt my strength gradually returning, and that I should 
 much prefer travelling on horseback. A carriage," I added, "is 
 so close " — — 
 
 " And so easily guarded," replied Herries, with a look as if he 
 would have penetrated my very thoughts, — " that, doubtless, you 
 think horseback better calculated for an escape." 
 
 " My thoughts are my own," I answered ; " and though you 
 keep my person prisoner, these are beyond your control." 
 
 " O, I can read the book," he said, "without opening the leaves. 
 But I would recommend to you to make no rash attempt, and it 
 will be my care to see that you have no power to make any that is 
 likely to be effectual. Linen, and all other necessaries for one in 
 your circumstances, are amply provided. Cristal Nixon will act 
 as your valet, — I should rather, perhaps, say, your femiite de 
 chambre. Your travelling dress you may perhaps, consider as sin- 
 gular ; but it is such as the circumstances require ; and, if you 
 object to use the articles prepared for your use, your mode of 
 journeying will be as personally unpleasant as that which conducted 
 you hither. — Adieu — We now know each other better than we did 
 — it will not be my fault if the consequences of farther intimacy be 
 not a more favourable mutual opinion." 
 
 He then left me, with a civil good-night, to my own reflections, 
 and only turned back to say, that we should proceed on our journey 
 at daybreak next morning, at farthest ; perh.nps earlier, he said ; 
 but complimented me by supposing tlinl, as 1 was a sportsman, I 
 must always be ready for a sudden start. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 217 
 
 We are then at issue, this singular man and myself. His per- 
 sonal views are to a certain point explained. He has chosen an 
 antiquated anc( .desperate line of politics, and he claims, from some 
 pretended tie of guardianship, or relationship, which he does not 
 deign to explain, but which he seems to have been able to pass 
 current on a silly country Justice apd his knavish clerk, a right to 
 direct and to control my motions. The danger which awaited me 
 in England, and which I might have escaped had I remained in 
 Scotland, was doubtless occasioned by the authority of this man. 
 But what my poor mother might fear for me as a child — what my 
 English friend, Samuel Griffiths, endeavoured to guard against 
 during my youth and nonage, is now, it seems, come upon me ; 
 and, under a legal pretext, I am detained in what must be a most 
 illegal manner, by a person, too, whose own political immunities 
 have been forfeited by his conduct. It matters not — my mind is 
 made up — neither persuasion nor threats shall force me into the 
 desperate designs which this man meditates. Whether I am of 
 the trifling consequence which my life hitherto seems to intimate, 
 or whether I have (as would appear from my adversary's conduct) 
 such importance, by birth or fortune, as may make me a desirable 
 acquisition to a political faction, my resolution is taken in either 
 case. Those who read this Journal, if it shall be perused by 
 impartial eyes, shall judge of roe truly ; and if they consider me 
 as a fool in encountering danger unnecessarily, they shall have 
 no reason to believe me a coward or a turncoat, when I find 
 myself engaged in it. I have been bred in sentiments of attach- 
 ment to the family on the throne, and in these sentiments I will 
 live and die. I have, indeed, some idea that Mr. Herries has 
 already discovered that I am made of different and more unmal- 
 leable metal than he had at first believed. There were letters 
 from my dear Alan Fairford, giving a ludicrous account of my 
 instability of temper, in the same pocketbook, which, according 
 to the admission of my pretended guardian, fell under the inves- 
 tigation of his domestic, during the night I passed at Broken- 
 burn, where, as I now recollect, my wet clothes, with the contents 
 of my pockets, were, with the thoughtlessness of a young traveller, 
 committed too rashly to the care of a strange servant. And my 
 kind friend and hospitable landlord, Mr. Alexander Fairford, may 
 also, and with justice, have spoken of my levities to this man. 
 But he shall find he has made a false estimate upon these plausible 
 grounds, since 
 
 But I must break off for the present. 
 
2i8 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LATIMER'S JOURNAL, IN CONTINUATION. 
 
 There is at length a halt — at length I have gained so much 
 privacy as to enable me to continue my Journal. It has become a 
 sort of task of duty to me, without the discharge of which I do not 
 feel that the business of the day is performed. True, no friendly 
 eye may ever look upon these labours, which have amused the 
 solitary hours of an unhappy prisoner. Yet, in the meanwhile, the 
 exercise of the pen seems to act as a sedative upon my own agi- 
 tated thoughts and tumultuous passions. I never lay it down but 
 I rise stronger in resolution, more ardent in hope. A thousand 
 vague fears, wild expectations, and indigested schemes, hurry 
 through one's thoughts in seasons of doubt and of danger. But 
 by arresting them as they flit across the mind, by throwing them 
 on paper, and even by that mechanical act compelling ourselves to 
 consider them with scrupulous and minute attention, we may per- 
 haps escape becoming the dupes of our own excited imagination ; 
 just as a young horse is cured of the vice of starting, by being 
 made to stand still and look for some time without any interruption 
 at the cause of its terror. 
 
 There remains but one risk, which is that of discovery. But, 
 besides the small characters in which my residence in Mr. Fair- 
 ford's house enabled me to excel, for the purpose of transferring as 
 many scroll sheets as possible to a huge sheet of stamped paper, I 
 have, as I have elsewhere intimated, had hitherto the comfortable 
 reflection, that if the record of my misfortunes should fall into the 
 hands of him by whom they are caused, they would, without harm- 
 ing any one, show him the real character and disposition of the 
 person who has become his prisoner — perhaps his victim. Now, 
 however, that other names, and other characters, are to be mingled 
 with the register of my own sentiments, I must take additional care 
 of these papers, and keep them in such a manner that, in case of 
 the least hazard of detection, I may be able to destroy them at a 
 moment's notice. I shall not soon or easily forget the lesson I 
 have been taught, by the prying disposition which Cristal Nixon, 
 this man's agent and confederate, manifested at Brokenburn, and 
 which proved the original cause of my sufferings. 
 
 My laying aside the last sheet of my Journal hastily, was occa- 
 sioned by the unwonted sound of a violin, in the farm-yard beneath 
 my windows. It will not appear surprising to those who have 
 made music their study, that, after listening to a few notes, I 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 219 
 
 became at once assured that the musician was no other than the 
 itinerant, formerly mentioned as present at the destruction of 
 Joshua Geddes's stake-nets, the superior delicacy and force of 
 ^^■llose execution would enable me to swear to his bow amongst a 
 whole orchestra. I had the less reason to doubt his identity, 
 because he played twice over the beautiful Scottish air called 
 Wandering Willie ; and I could not help concluding that he did 
 so for the purpose of intimating his own presence, since what the 
 French call the nom de guerre of the performer was described by 
 the tune. 
 
 Hope will catch at the most feeble twig for support in extremity. 
 I knew this man, though deprived of sight, to be bold, ingenious, 
 and perfectly capable of acting as a guide. I believed I had won 
 his good-will, by having, in a frolic, assumed the character of his 
 partner ; and I remembered that, in a wild, wandering, and dis- 
 orderly course of life, men, as they become loosened from the 
 ordinary bonds of civil society, hold those of comradeship more 
 closely sacred ; so that honour is sometimes found among thieves, 
 and faith and attachment in such as the law has termed vagrants. 
 The history of Richard Coeur de Lion and his minstrel, Blondel, 
 rushed, at the same time, on my mind, though I could not even 
 then suppress a smile at the dignity of the example, when applied 
 to a blind fiddler and myself. Still there was something in all this 
 to awaken a hope, that if I could open a correspondence with this 
 poor violer, he might be useful in extricating me from my present 
 situation. 
 
 His profession furnished me with some hope that this desired 
 communication might be attained ; since it is well known that, in 
 Scotland, where there is so much national music, the words and 
 airs of which are generally known, there is a kind of free-masonry 
 amongst performers, by which they can, by the mere choice of a 
 tune, express a great deal to the hearers. Personal allusions are 
 often made in this manner, with much point and pleasantry ; and 
 nothing is more usual at public festivals, than that the air played 
 to accompany a particular health or toast, is made the vehicle of 
 compliment, of wit, and sometimes of satire.* 
 
 While these things passed through my mind rapidly, I heard my 
 friend beneath recommence, for the third time, the air from which 
 his own name had been probably adopted, when he was interrupted 
 by his rustic auditors. 
 
 " If thou canst play no other spring but that, mon, ho hadstbest 
 put up ho's pipes and be jogging. Squoire will be back anon, or 
 Master Nixon, and we'll see who will pay poiper then." 
 
 Oho, thought I, if I have no sharper ears than those of my 
 
220 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 friends Jan and Dorcas to encounter, I m?j/ venture an experiment 
 upon them ; and, as most expressive of my state of captivity, I 
 sung two or three lines of the 137th Psalm — 
 
 " By Babel's streams we sat and wept." 
 
 The country people listened with attention, and when I ceased, I 
 heard them whisper together in tones of commiseration, " Lack-a- 
 day, poor soul ! so pretty a man to be beside his wits ! " 
 
 "An he be that gate," said Wandering Willie, in a tone cal- 
 culated to reach my ears, " I ken naething will raise his spirits 
 like a spring." And he struck up with great vigour and spirit, 
 the lively Scottish air, the words of which instantly occurred to 
 me, — 
 
 " O whistle and I'll come t'ye, my lad, 
 
 Oh whistle and I'll come t'ye, my lad ; 
 
 Though father and mother and a' should gae mad. 
 
 Oh whistle and I'll come t'ye, my lad." 
 
 I soon heard a clattering noise of feet in the courtyard, which I 
 concluded to. be Jan and Dorcas dancing a jig in their Cumberland 
 wooden clogs. Under cover of this din, I endeavoured to answer 
 Willie's signal by whistling, as loud as I could, 
 
 " Come back again and loe me 
 When a' the lave are gane." 
 
 He instantly threw the dancers out, by changing his air to 
 
 " There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile thee." 
 
 I no longer doubted that a communication betwixt us was hap- 
 pily established, and that, if I had an opportunity of speaking to 
 the poor musician, I should find him willing to take my letter to 
 the post, to invoke the assistance of some active magistrate, or of 
 the commanding officer of Carlisle Castle, or, in short, to do what- 
 ever else I could point out, in the compass of his power, to contri- 
 bute to my liberation. But to obtain speech of him, I must have 
 run the risk of alarming the suspicions of Dorcas, if not of her yet 
 more stupid Corydon. My ally's blindness prevented his receiving 
 any communication by signs from the window — even if I could 
 have ventured to make them, consistently with prudence — so that, 
 notwithstanding the mode of intercourse we had adopted was both 
 circuitous and peculiarly liable to misapprehension, I saw nothing ' 
 I could do better than to continue it, trusting my own and my cor- 
 respondent's acuteness, in applying to the airs the ineaning they 
 
REDGAUXTI.ET. czi 
 
 were intended to convc)'. I thought of singing the words them- 
 selves of some significant song, but feared I might, by doing so, 
 attract suspicion. I endeavoured, therefore, to intimate my speedy 
 departure from my present place of residence, by whistling the well- 
 known air with which festive parlies in Scotland usually conclude 
 the dance. — 
 
 " Good-night and joy be wi' ye a', 
 
 For here nae langer maun I stay ; 
 
 There's neither friend nor foe of mine 
 
 But \\ ishes that I were away." 
 
 It appeai'ed that Willie's powers of intelligence were much more 
 active than mine, and that, like a deaf person, accustomed to be 
 spoken to by signs, he comprehended, from the very first notes, the 
 whole meaning I intended to convey ; and he accompanied me in 
 the air with his violin, in such a manner as at once to show he 
 understood my meaning, and to prevent my whistling fiom being 
 attended to. 
 
 His reply was almost immediate, and was conveyed in the old 
 martial air of " Hey, Johnnie lad, cock up your beaver." I ran 
 over the words, and fi.xed on the following stanza, as most appli- 
 cable to my circumstances :— 
 
 '•' Cock up your beaver, and cock it fu' sprush, 
 We'll over the Border and give them a brush ; 
 There's somebody there we'll teach better behaviour — 
 Hey, Johnnie lad, cock up your beaver." 
 
 If these sounds alluded, as I hope they do, to any chance of 
 assistance from my Scottish friends, I may indeed consider that 
 a door is open to hope and freedom. I immediately replied with, 
 
 " My heart's in the Highlands, my- heart is not here ; 
 My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer ; 
 A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe ; 
 My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go. 
 
 " Farewell to the Highlands ! farewell to the North ! 
 The birthplace of valour, the cradle of worth ; 
 Wherever I v.ander, wherever I rove. 
 The hills of the Higlilands for ever I love." 
 
 Willie instantly played, with a degree of spirit which might have 
 awakened hope in Despair herself, if Despair could be supposed to 
 understand Scotch music, the fine old Jacobite air, 
 
 '•For a' that, and a' that. 
 And twice as much as a' that." 
 
222 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 I next endeavoured to intimate my wish to send notice of my 
 condition to my friends ; and, despairing to find an air sufficiently 
 expressive of my purpose, I ventured to sing a verse, which, in 
 various forms, occurs so frequently in old ballads — 
 
 " Whare will I get a bonny boy 
 
 That will win hose and shoon ; 
 That will gac down to Durisdeer, 
 
 And bid my merry-men come ? " 
 
 He drowned the latter part of the verse by playing, with much 
 emphasis, 
 
 " Kind Robin Ices 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 court-yard that 
 Crista! 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 misfor- 
 tunes ; 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 suc- 
 cour, and which I have indicated to thee, Alan, in more than one 
 passage 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 explressive 
 of silence and secrecy. 
 
 The manner in which G. M. entered upon the scene for the first 
 time, seems to assure me of her good-will, so far as her power may 
 reach ; and I have many reasons to believe it is considerable. Yet 
 she seemed hurried and frightened during tlie very transitory 
 moments of our interview, and I think was, upon the last occasion, 
 startled by the entrance of some one into the farm-yard, 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 day- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 223 
 
 break ; 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 circumstance might transpire. On the next morning, 
 the following lines lay on my table ; but how conveyed there, I 
 cannot teU. The hand in which they are written is a beautiful 
 Italian manuscript : — 
 
 " 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 in treason towards man. 
 
 And blasphemy to Heaven." 
 
 That these lines are 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 them 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 un- 
 fortunate 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 assume this disguise, 
 which was, of course, contrived to aid their purposes. But then I 
 remembered Mr. Herries's threat, that I should be kept close 
 prisoner in a carriage, unless I assumed 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 
 
224 RJiDGAUNJLET. 
 
 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 documents 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 assumed 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' every thing 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 expe- 
 rience was unequal to the exigency ; and now, ^hen the fate of 
 Latimer seemed worse than doubtful, and 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 con- 
 fidence, 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 enquiry concerning his friend was of the chief 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 223 
 
 magistrate of Dumfries, Provost Crosbie, who had sent the informa- 
 tion of Darsie's disappearance. On his first apphcation, 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 pos- 
 sible ; 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."* 
 
 " Why, in that case," said young Fairford, " there are ill-natured 
 people might doubt your attachment to the Protestant line, Mr. 
 Crosbie." 
 
 " God forbid, Mr. Fairford ! I who have done and' suffered in 
 the Forty-five ! I reckon the Highlandmen did jne damage to the 
 amount of ;£ioo Scots, forby aU 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 Com- 
 
 Q 
 
226 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 missioners 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 Jather's son on the causeway of our ancient 
 burgh, Mr. Alan Fairford. Were yotx a twelvemonth 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 passed over slightly, if a man 
 of your high character and known zeal for the government, do not 
 make some active enquiry. 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 hellicat 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-Substitute," said Mr. Fairford ; "you 
 must call them before you, and enquire what they know of this young 
 gentleman." 
 
 " Ay, ay — the Sheriff-Depute did commit some poor creatures, I 
 believe — wretched, ignorant fishermen bodies, that had been quar- 
 relling 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 they may be lawfully removed 
 ■via/acti—hvA that is by the by. But, sir, the creatures were a' dis- 
 missed 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." 
 
 " Ay, ay — easy said ; but catch them that can," answered the 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 227 
 
 Provost ; " they are owcr 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 lilce so much 
 quicksilver. You may as well try to whistle a scaigh 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 gentle- 
 man, 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 embarrassed, 
 though he showed much desire to assume an appearance of indif- 
 ference, 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 AuchintuUoch, 
 and Herries " 
 
 " To save you farther 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 Redgaunt- 
 let?" 
 
 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." 
 
 " O ay ; in Edinburgh, belike. You know Redgauntlet was un- 
 fortunate 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 oniy 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 
 coimived at — the story is an old story — and the gentleman has 
 many excellent qualities, and is of a very ancient and bonour- 
 able house — has cousins among the great folk — counts kin with 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 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 nice lachryma ! 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 which 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 
 circumstances, 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 beUef that Mr. Latimer was a spy, he may, upon such 
 suspicion, have caused him to be carried off and confined some- 
 where ? — 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 any thing 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 Fair- 
 ford, 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. Redgaunt- 
 let's friends would do very well also to consider, how it will 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." 
 
REDGAUNTLliT. 229 
 
 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 unfor- 
 tunate gentleman and his friends give me a quiet opportunity of 
 securing my friend's safety. If I could speak with Mr. Redgaunt- 
 let, 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 
 pre\ent his being recognised 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 deter- 
 mined—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 Red- 
 gauntlet 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 fojget 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, it 
 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. 
 
230 REDGAUNTI,ET. 
 
 " 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 Stewart 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, con- 
 ' sidering my services and sufferings, I might have looked for some 
 bit postie to him ;_but if the muckle tikes come in — I mean a' these 
 Maxwells, and Johnstones, and great lairds, that the oaths used to 
 keep out lang syne— the bifs o' messan dogics, 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 Pate 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." 
 
 " Ay, 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 tea-pot.— 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 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 231 
 
 repugnance of the Provost to interfere with this Laird of Binens- 
 work, or Redgauntlet, much stronger amongst the country gentle- 
 men, many of whom were Catholics as well as Jacobites, and most 
 others unwilling to quarrel with kinsmen and friends, by prose- 
 cuting with severity political offences which had almost run a 
 prescription. 
 
 To collect all the infontiation 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 Procu- 
 rator-Fiscal, who, as well as the Provost, was an old correspon- 
 dent of his father. Alan expressed to that officer a purpose of 
 visiting Brokenburn, but was assured 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 sihce safely sheltered in their various lurking-holes 
 in the Isle of Man, Cumberland, and elsewhere ; and that those 
 who might remain would undoubtedly commit violence on any 
 who visited their settlement with the purpose of enquiring 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 him- 
 self 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, farther 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. 
 
232 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 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 Cumberland." 
 
 "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 characterises her sect, 
 but her pale cheek and red eye giving contradiction to her assumed 
 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 under- 
 stood 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 enquiries," said Rachel, 
 more affected than before ; " for although the youth was like those 
 of the worldly generation, wise in his own conceit, and hghtly 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 disconso- 
 late, and said, ' Sister Rachel, this youth hath run into peril for my 
 sake ; assuredly 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 Cumber- 
 land, and I will make myself friends with Mammon of Unrighteous- 
 ness, among the magistrates of the Gentiles, and among their 
 mighty men ; and it shall come to pass 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 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 233 
 
 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 adver- 
 sary brandished in the path, will overcome his purpose. Where- 
 fore 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 over- 
 ruleth 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 irom Miss Geddes ; but 
 he heard with pleasure, that the good Quaker, her brother, had 
 many friends among those of his own profession in Cumberland, 
 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 informa- 
 tion 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 con- 
 dition, to Mr. Samuel Griffiths, through whose hands the remit- 
 tances 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 institute 
 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 whis- 
 
234 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 pered, 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 exer- 
 cised 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.* 
 
 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 dig- 
 nitary, 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 
 our?," said the Provost. 
 
 And, " Come away, young gentleman," said the Laird ; " I re- 
 member 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 ? "* 
 
 " 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 cockernony from 
 Paris, should serve a Countess. But ye have not many of them 
 left, I think — Mareschal, Airley, Winton, Wemyss, Balmerino, all 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 23S 
 
 passed and gone — ay, ay, the countesses and ladies of quality will 
 scarce take up too much of your ball-room floor with their quality 
 hoops now-a-days." 
 
 " There is no want of crowding, Itowever, sir,'' said Fairford ; 
 " they begin to talk of a new Assembly-Room." 
 
 " A new Assembly-Room ! " said the old Jacobite Laird — " Umph 
 — I mind quartering three hundred men in the old Assembly- 
 Room* — But come, come — I'll ask no more questions — the answers 
 all smell of new lords new lands, and do but spoil my appetite, 
 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 
 municipality, or the splendour of her Biaissels silk gown, or even 
 by the more highly prized lustre of her birtli ; for she was bom 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 ^\■as 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 rtmiour, 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 VVouvermans' pictures. The good dame, too, was sup- 
 posed to have brought a spice of politics into Mr. Crosbie's house- 
 hold 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 pronounced 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) 
 witli' 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 
 
236 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Peter MacAlpin, that used to take cave 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 qf 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 unques- 
 tioned dignity and independence of authority. 
 
 " Aweel, aweel, my dear," said the lady, with a quiet smile of 
 submission, "ye ken these matters best, and you will do your plea- 
 sure — they are far above my hand — only, I doubt if ever the town- 
 clock will go right, or your meals be got. up so regular as 1 should 
 wish, till Peter MacAlpin gets his office back again. The body's 
 auld, and can neither work nor want, but he is the only hand to 
 set a clock." 
 
 It may be noticed in passing, that, notwithstanding this predic- 
 tion, which, probably, the fair Cassandra had the full means of 
 accomplishing, it was not till the second council-day thereafter that 
 the misdemeanours of the Jacobite clock-keeper were passed over, 
 and he was once more restored to his occupation of fixing the 
 town's time, and the Provost's dinner-hour. 
 
 Upon the present occasion the dinner passed pleasantly away. 
 Summertrees talked and jested with the easy indifference of a man 
 who holds himself superior to his company. He was indeed an 
 important person, as was testified by his portly appearance ; his 
 hat laced \fi\h. poittt d'Espagne j his coat and waistcoat once richly 
 embroidered, though now almost threadbare ; the splendour of his 
 solitaire, and laced ruffles, though the first was sorely creased, and 
 
KEDUAUN'JLEi: 237 
 
 the other sullied ; not to forget the length of his silver-hilted rapier. 
 His wit, or rather humour, bordered on the sarcastic, and intimated 
 a discontented man ; and although he showed no displeasure when 
 (he Provost attempted a repartee, yet it seemed that he permitted 
 it upon mere sufferance, as a fencing-master, engaged with a pupil, 
 will sometimes permit the tyro to hit him, solely by way of encou- 
 ragement. The Laird's own jests, in the meanwhile, were emi- 
 nently successful, not only with the Provost and his lady, but with 
 the red-cheeked and red-ribboned servant-maid who waited at 
 table, and who could scarce perform her duty with propriety, so 
 effectual were the explosions of Summertrees. Alan Fairford alone 
 was unmoved among all this mirth ; which was the less wonderful, 
 that, besides the important subject which occupied his thoughts, 
 most of the Laird's good things consisted in sly allusions to little 
 parochial or family incidents, with which the Edinburgh visitor was 
 totally unacquainted ; so that the laughter of the party sounded in 
 his ear like the idle crackling of thorns under the pot, with this 
 difference, that they did not accompany or second any such useful 
 operation as the boiling thereof. 
 
 Fairford was glad when the cloth was withdrawn ; and when 
 Provost Crosbie (not without some points of advice from his lady, 
 touching the precise mixture of the ingredients) had accomplished 
 the compounding of a noble bowl of punch, at which the old 
 Jacobite's eyes seemed to glisten, the glasses were pushed round it, 
 filled, and withdrawn each by its owner, when the Provost empha- 
 tically named the toast, " The King," with an important look to 
 Fairford, which seemed to say, You can have no doubt whom I 
 mean, and therefore there is no occasion to particularize the 
 individual. 
 
 Summertrees repeated the toast with a sly wink to the lady, while 
 Fairford drank his glass in silence. 
 
 " Well, young advocate," said the landed proprietor, " I am glad 
 to see there is some shame, if there is little honesty, left in the 
 Faculty. Some of your black-gowns, now-a-days, have as little of 
 the one as of the other." 
 
 " At least, sir," replied Mr. Fairford, " I am so much of a lawyer 
 as not willingly to enter into disputes which I am not retained 
 to support — it would be but throwing away both time and argu- 
 ment." 
 
 " Come, come," said the lady, " we will have no argument in this 
 house about Whig or Tory — the Provost kens what he maun say, 
 and I ken what he should think j and for a' that has come and gane 
 yet, there may be a time coming when honest men may say what 
 they think, whether they be Provosts or not." 
 
E58 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " D'ye hear that, Provost ? " said Summertrees ; " your wife's a 
 witch, man ; you should nail a horse-shoe on your chamber door 
 —Ha, ha, ha!" 
 
 This sally did not take quite so well as former efforts of the 
 Laird's wit. The lady drew up, and the Provost said, half aside, 
 " The sooth bourd is nae bourd.* You will find the horseshoe 
 hissing hot, Summertrees." 
 
 " You can speak from experience, doubtless, Provost," answered 
 the Laird ; " iDut I crave pardon — I need not tell Mrs. Crosbie 
 that I have all respect for the auld and honourable House of Red- 
 gauntlet." 
 
 " And good reason ye have, that are sae sib to them," quoth the 
 lady ; " and kend weel baith them that are here, and them that are 
 gane." 
 
 " In troth, and ye may say sae, madam," answered the Laird ; 
 " for poor Harry Redgauntlet that suffered at Carlisle, was hand 
 and glove with me ; and yet we parted on short leave-taking.'' 
 
 "Ay, Summertrees," said the Provost; "that was when you 
 played Cheat-the-woodie, and gat the by-name of Pate-in-Peril. I 
 wish you would tell the story to my young friend here. He likes 
 weel to hear of a sharp trick, as most lawyers do." 
 
 "I wonder at your want of circumspection. Provost," said the 
 Laird,— much after the manner of a singer, when declining to sing 
 the song that is quivering upon his tongue's very end. "Ye 
 should mind there are some auld stories that cannot be ripped up 
 again with entire safety to all concerned. Tace is Latin for a 
 candle." 
 
 " I hope," said the lady, " you are not afraid of any thing being 
 said out of this house to your prejudice, Summertrees ? I have 
 heard the story before ; but the oftener I hear it, the more won- 
 derful I think it." 
 
 " Yes, madam ; but it has been now a wonder of more than nine 
 days, and it is time it should be ended," answered Maxwell. 
 
 Fairford now thought it civil to say, " that he had often heard of 
 Mr. Maxwell's wonderful escape, and that nothing could be more 
 agreeable to him than to hear the right version of it." 
 
 But Summertrees was obdurate, and refused to take up the time 
 of the company with such " auld warld nonsense." 
 
 " Weel, weel," said the Provost, " a wilful man maun hae his 
 way.— What do your folk in the country think about the distur- 
 bances that are beginning to spunk out in the colonies ?" 
 
 " Excellent, sir, excellent. When things come to the worst they 
 will mend ; and to the worst they are coming. — But as to that non- 
 sense ploy of mine, if ye insist on hearing the particulars,"— said 
 
REDGAUNTLET. C39 
 
 the Laird, who began to be sensible that the period of telling his 
 story gracefully was gliding fast away. 
 
 " Nay," said the Provost, " it was not for myself, but this young 
 gentleman." 
 
 " Aweel, what for should I not pleasure the young gentleman ? 
 — I'll just drink the honest folk at hame and abroad, and deil 
 ane else. And then— but you have heard it before Mrs. 
 Crosbie ? " 
 
 " Not so often as to think it tiresome, I assure ye," said the lady ; 
 and without further preliminaries, the Laird addressed Alan Fair- 
 ford. 
 
 " Ye have heard of a year they call the forty-Jive, young gentle- 
 man ; when the Southron's heads made their last acquaintance with 
 Scottish claymores t There was a set of rampauging chields in 
 the country then that they called rebels — I never could find out what 
 for — Some men should have been wi' them that never came, Pro- 
 vost— Skye and the Bush aboon- Traquair for that, ye ken— Weel, 
 the job was settled at last. Cloured crowns were plenty, and raxed 
 necks came into fashion. I dinna mind very weel what I was doing, 
 swaggering about the country with dirt and pistol at my belt for 
 five or six months, or thereaway ; but I had a weary waking out of 
 a wild dream. Then did I find myself on foot in a misty morning, 
 with my hand, just for fear of going astray, linked into a handcuff, 
 as they call it, with poor Harry Redgauntlet's fastened into the 
 other ; and there we were, trudging along, with about a score more 
 that had thrust their horns ower deep in the bog, just like ourselves, 
 and a sergeant's guard of redcoats, with twa file of dragoons, to 
 keep all quiet, and give us heart to the road. Now, if this mode of 
 travelling was not very pleasant, the object did not particularly 
 recommend it ; for you understand, young man, that they did not 
 trust these poor rebel bodies to be tried by juries of their aiii kindly 
 countrymen, though ane would have thought they would have 
 found Whigs enough in Scotland to hang us all ; but they behoved 
 to trounce us away to be tried at Carlisle, where the folk had been 
 so frightened, that had you brought a whole Highland clan at once 
 into the court, they would have put their hands upon their een, and 
 cried, ' hang them a',' just to be quit of them." 
 
 "Ay, ay," said the Provost, " that was a snell law I grant ye." 
 
 " Snell ! " said his wife, " snell ! I wish they that passed it had 
 the jury I would recommend them to ! " 
 
 " I suppose the young lawyer thinks it all very right," said Sum- 
 mertrees, looking at Fairford — " an old lawyer might have thought 
 otherwise. However, the cudgel was to be found to beat the dog, 
 and they chose a heavy one. Well, I kept my spirits better than 
 
240 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 my companion, poor fellow ; for I had the luck to have neither 
 wife nor child to think about, and Harry Redgauntlet had both 
 one and t'other. — You have seen Harry, Mrs. Crosbie ?" 
 
 " In troth have I," said she, with the sigh which we give to early 
 recollections, of which the object is no more. " He was not so tall 
 as his brother, and a gentler lad every way. After he married the 
 great English fortune, folk called him less of a Scotchman than 
 Edward." 
 
 " Folk lee'd, then," said Summertrees ; " poor Harry was none 
 of your bold-speaking, ranting reivars, that talk about what they 
 did yesterday, or what they will do to-morrow : it was when some- 
 thing was to do at the moment that you should have looked at 
 Harry Redgauntlet. I saw him at CuUoden, when all was lost, 
 doing more than twenty of these bleezing braggarts, till the very 
 soldiers that took him, cried not to hurt him — for all somebody's 
 orders. Provost— for he was the bravest fellow of them all. 
 Weel, as I went by the side of Harry, and felt him raise my hand 
 up in the mist of the morning, as if he wished to wipe his eye — 
 for he had not that freedom without my leave — my very heart was 
 like to break for him, poor fellow. In the meanwhile, I had been 
 trying and trying to make my hand as fine as a lady's, to see if I 
 could slip it out of my iron wristband. You may think," he said, 
 laying his broad bony hand on the table, " I had work enough 
 with such a shoulder-of-mutton fist ; but if you observe, the shakle- 
 bones are of the largest, and so they were obliged to keep the 
 handcuff wide ; at length I got my hand slipped out, and slipped 
 in again : and poor Harry was sae deep in his ain thoughts,! could 
 not make him sensible what I was doing." 
 
 "Why not?" said Alan Fairford, for whom the tale began to 
 have some interest. 
 
 "Because there was an unchancy beast of "a dragoon riding 
 close beside us on the other side ; and if I had let him into my 
 confidence as well as Harry, it would not have been long before 
 a pistol-ball slapped through my bonnet. — Well, I had little for it 
 but to do the best I could for myself ; and, by my conscience, it 
 was time, when the gallows was staring me in the face. We were 
 to halt for breakfast at Moffat. Well did I know the moors we 
 were marching over, having hunted and hawked on every acre of 
 ground in very different times. So I waited, you see, till I was on 
 the edge of Errickstane brae — Ye ken the place they call the 
 Marquis's Beef-stand, because the Annandale loons used to put 
 their stolen cattle in there ? " 
 
 Fairford intimated his. ignorance. 
 
 " Ye must have seen it as yc cam this way ; it looks as if four 
 
REDGAUNTLET. S4I: 
 
 hills were laying their heads together, to shut out daylight from 
 the dark hollow space between them. A d— d deep, blark, black- 
 guard-looking abyss of a hole it is, and goes straight down from 
 the road-side, as perpendicular as it can do, to be a heathery brae. 
 At the bottom, there is a small bit of a brook, that you would think 
 could hardly find its way out from the hills that are so closely 
 jammed round it." 
 
 " A bad pass indeed," said Alan. 
 
 " You may say that," continued the Laird. " Bad as it was, sir, 
 it was my only chance ; and though my very flesh creeped when I 
 thought what a rumble I was going to get, yet I kept my heart up 
 all the same. And so just when we came on the edge of this Beef- 
 stand of the Johnstones, I slipped out my hand from the handcuff, 
 cried to Harry Gauntlet, ' Follow me ! ' — whisked under the belly 
 of the dragoon horse — flung my plaid round me with the speed of 
 lightning — threw myself on my side, for there was no keeping my 
 feet, and down the brae hurled I, over heather and fern, and black- 
 berries, like a barrel down Chalmers's Close, in Auld Reekie. G— , 
 sir, I never could help laughing when I think how the scoundrel 
 redcoats must have been bumbazed ; for the mist being, as I 
 said, thick, they had little notion, I take it, that they were on 
 the verge of such a dilemma. I was half way down — for rowing 
 is faster wark than rinning — ere they could get at their arms ; 
 and then it was flash, flash, flash — rap, rap, rap — from the edge of 
 the road ; but my head was too jumbled to think any thing either 
 of that or the hard knocks I got among the stones. I kept my 
 senses thegither, whilk has been thought wonderful by all that 
 ever saw the place ; and I helped myself with my hands as gal- 
 lantly as I could, and to the bottom I came. There I lay for half 
 a moment ; but the thoughts of a gallows is worth all the salts 
 and scent-bottles in the world, for bringing a man to himself. 
 Up I sprung, like a four-year-auld colt. All the hills were spinning 
 round with me, like so many great big humming-tops. But there 
 was nae time to think of that neither ; more especially as the mist 
 bad risen a little with the firing. I could see the villains, like sac 
 mony craws on the edge of the brae ; and I reckon that they saw 
 me ; for some of the loons were beginning to crawl down the 
 hill, but liker auld wives in -their red-cloaks, coming frae a field- 
 preaching, than such a souple lad as I was. Accordingly, they 
 soon began to stop and load their pieces. Good-e'en to you, gen- 
 tlemen, thought I, if that is to be the gate of it. If you have any 
 further word with me, you maun come as far as Carriefraw-gauns. 
 And so off I set, and never buck went faster ower the braes than I 
 did ; and I never stopped till I had put three waters, reasonably 
 
242 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 deep, as the season was rainy, half-a-dozen mountains, and a few 
 thousand acres of the worst moss and Ung in Scotland, betwixt me 
 and my friends the redcoats." 
 
 " It was that job which got you the name of Pate-in-Peril," said 
 the Provost, filling the glasses, and exclaiming with great em- 
 phasis, while his guest, much animated with the recollections which 
 the exploit excited, looked round with an air of triumph for sym- 
 pathy and applause, — " Here is to your good health ; and may you 
 never put your neck in such a venture again." * 
 
 " Humph ! — I do not know," answered Summertrees. " I am 
 not like to be tempted with another opportunity* — Yet 'who knows ?" 
 And then he made a deep pause. 
 
 " Mav I ask what became of your friend, sir?" said Alan Fair- 
 ford. 
 
 " Ah, poor Harry ! " said Summertrees. " I'll tell you what, sir, 
 it takes time to make up one's mind to such a venture, as my friend 
 the Provost ca41s it ; and I was told by Neil Maclean, — who was 
 next file to us, but had the luck to escape the gallows by some 
 slight-of-hand trick or other, — that, upon my breaking off, poor 
 Harry stood like one motionless, although all our brethren in 
 captivity made as much tumult as they could, to distract the atten- 
 tion of the soldiers. And run he did at last ; but he did not know 
 the ground, and either from confusion, or because he judged the 
 descent altogether perpendicular, he fled up the hill to the left, 
 instead of going down at once, and so was easily pursued and 
 taken. If he had followed my example, he would have found 
 enough among the shepherds to hide him, and feed him, as they 
 did me, on bearmeal scones and braxy mutton,* till better days 
 came round again." 
 
 " He suffered then for his share in the insurrection ? " said Alan. 
 
 " You may swear that," said Summertrees. " His blood was too 
 red to be spared when that sort of paint was in request. He 
 suffered, sir, as you call it — that is, he was murdered in cold blood, 
 with many a pretty fellow besides. — Well, we may have our day 
 next — what is fristed is not forgiven — they think us all dead and 
 
 buried — but " Here he filled his glass, and muttering some 
 
 indistinct denunciations, drank it off, and assumed his usual man- 
 ner, which had been a little disturbed towards the end of the 
 narrative. 
 
 " What became of Mr. Redgauntlet's child ? " said Fairford. 
 
 " Mister Redgauntlet ! — He was Sir Henry Redgauntlet, as his 
 son, if the child now lives, will be Sir Arthur — I called him Harry 
 from intimacy, and Redgauntlet, as the chief of his name — His 
 proper style was Sir Henry Redgauntlet." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 243 
 
 " His son, therefore, is dead ? " said Alan Fairford, " It is a pity 
 so brave a line should draw to a close." 
 
 " He has left a brother," said Summertrees, " Edward Hugh 
 Redgauntlet, who has now the representation of the family. And 
 well it is ; for though he be unfortunate in many respects, he will 
 keep up the honour of the house better than a boy bred up amongst 
 these bitter Whigs, the relations of his elder brother Sir Henry's 
 lady. Then they are on no good terms with the Redgauntlet line — 
 bitter Whigs they are, in every sense. It was a runaway match 
 betwixt Sir Henry and his lady. Poor thing, they would not allow 
 her to see him when in confinement — they had even the meanness 
 to leave him without pecuniary assistance ; and as all his own 
 property was seized upon and plundered, he would have wanted 
 common necessaries, but for the attachment of a fellow who was 
 a famous fiddler — a blind man — I have seen him with Sir Henry 
 myself, both before the affair broke out and while it was going on. 
 I have heard that he fiddled in the streets of Carlisle, and carried 
 what money he got to his master, while he was confined in the 
 castle." 
 
 " I do not believe a word of it," said Mrs. Crosbie, kindling with 
 indignation " A Redgauntlet would have died twenty times before 
 he had touched a fiddler's wages." 
 
 " Hout fye — hout fye— all nonsense and pride," said the Laird of 
 Summertrees. " Scornful dogs will eat dirty puddings, cousin 
 Crosbie — ye little ken what some of your friends were obliged to 
 do yon time for a sowp of brose, or a bit of bannock. — G — d, I 
 carried a cutler's wheel for several weeks, partly for need, and 
 partly for disguise — there I went bizz — bizz — whizz — zizz, at every 
 auld wife's door ; and if ever you want your shears sharpened, 
 Mrs. Crosbie, I am the lad to do it for you, if my wheel was but in 
 order." 
 
 " You must ask my leave first," said the Provost ; " for I have 
 been told you had some queer fashions of taking a kiss instead of 
 a penny, if you liked your customer." 
 
 " Come, come. Provost," said the lady, rising, " if the maut gets 
 abune the meal with you, it is time for me to take myself away — 
 And you will come to my room, gentlemen, when you want a cup 
 of tea." 
 
 Alan Fairford was not sorry for the lady's departure. She 
 seemed too much alive to the honour of the house of Redgauntlet, 
 though only a fourth cousin, not to be alarmed by the enquiries 
 which he proposed to make after the whereabout of its present 
 head. Strange confused suspicions arose in his mind, from his 
 imperfect recollection of the tale of Wandering Willie, and the 
 
244 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 idea forced itself upon him, that his friend Darsie Latimer might 
 be the son of the unfortunate Sir Henry. But before indulging in 
 such speculations, the point was, to discover what had actually- 
 become of him. If he were in the hands of his uncle, might there 
 not exist some rivalry in fortune, or rank, which might induce so 
 stern a man as Redgauntlet to use unfair measures towards a youth 
 whom he would find himself unable to mould to his purpose? He 
 considered these points- in silence, during several revolutions of the 
 glasses as they wheeled in galaxy round the bowl, waiting until the 
 Provost, agreeably to his own proposal, should mention the subject, 
 for which he had expressly introduced him to Mr. Maxwell of 
 Summertrees. 
 
 Apparently the Provost had forgot his promise, or at least was in 
 no great haste to fulfil it. He debated with great earnestness upon 
 the stamp act, which was then impending over the American 
 colonies, and upon other political subjects of the day, but said not 
 a word of Redgauntlet. Alan soon saw that the investigation he 
 meditated must advance, if at all, on his own special motion, and 
 determined to proceed accordingly. 
 
 Acting upon this resolution, he took the first opportunity afforded 
 by a pause in the discussion of colonial politics, to say, " I must 
 remind you. Provost Crosbie, of your kind promise to procure 
 some intelligence upon the subject I am so anxious about." 
 
 " Gadso ! " said the Provost, after a moment's hesitation, " it is 
 veiry true. — Mr. Maxwell, we wish to consult you on a piece of 
 important business. You must know — indeed I think you must 
 have heard, that the fishermen at Brokenburn, and higher up the 
 Solway, have made a raid upon Quaker Geddes's stake-nets, and 
 levelled all with the sands." 
 ~ " In troth I heard it. Provost, and I was glad to hear the scoun- 
 drels had so much pluck left, as to right themselves against a 
 fashion which would make the upper heritors a sort of clocking- 
 hens, to hatch the fish that folk below them were to catch and eat." 
 
 " Well, sir," said Alan, " that is not the present point. But a 
 young friend of mine was with Mr. Geddes at the time this 
 violent procedure took place, and he has not since been heard of. 
 Now, our friend, the Provost, thinks that you may be able to 
 advise " 
 
 Here he was interrupted by the Provost and Summertrees speak- 
 ing out both at once, the first endeavouring to disclaim all interest 
 in the qcrestion, and the last to evade giving an answer. 
 
 " Me think ! " said the Provost ; " I never thought twice about 
 it, Mr. Fairford ; it was neither fish, nor flesh, nor salt herring 
 of mine." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 2^3 
 
 " And I able to advise ! " said Mr. Maxwell of Summeitrecs ; 
 " what the devil can I advise you to do, excepting to send the 
 bellman through the town to cry your lost sheep, as tliey do spaniel 
 dogs or stray ponies ? " 
 
 " With your pardon," said Alan, calmly, but resolutely, " I must 
 ask a more serious answer." 
 
 " Why, Mr. Advocate," answered Summertrees, " I thought it 
 was your business to give advice to the lieges, and not to take it 
 from poor stupid country gentlemen." 
 
 " If not exactly advice, it is sometimes our duty to ask questions, 
 Mr. Maxwell." 
 
 " Ay, sir, when you have your bag-wig and your gown on, we 
 must allow you the usual privilege of both gown and petticoat, to 
 ask what questions you please. But when you are out of your 
 canonicals the case is altered. How come you, sir, to suppose that 
 I have any business with this riotous proceeding, or should know 
 more than you do what happened there ? The question proceeds 
 on an uncivil supposition;" 
 
 " I will explain," said Alan, determined to give Mr. Maxwell no 
 opportunity of breaking off the conversation. " You are an intimate 
 of Mr. Redgauntlet— he is accused of having been engaged in 
 this affray, and of having placed under forcible restraint the person 
 of my friend, Darsie Latimer, a young man of property and con- 
 sequence, whose fate I am here for the express purpose of investi- 
 gating. This is the plain state of the case ; and all parties con- 
 cerned, — your friend, in particular, — will have reason to be thankful 
 for the temperate manner in which it is my purpose to conduct the 
 matter, if I am treated with proportionate frankness." 
 
 "You have misunderstood me," said Maxwell, with a tome 
 changed to more composure ; " I told you I was the friend of 
 the late Sir Henry Redgauntlet, who was executed, in 1745, at 
 Hairibie, near Carlisle, but I know no one who at present bears 
 the name of Redgauntlet." 
 
 "You know Mr. Herries of Birrenswork," said Alan, smiling, 
 " to whom the name of Redgauntlet belongs ? " 
 
 Maxwell darted a keen reproachful look towards the Provost, but 
 instantly smoothed his brow, and changed his tone to that of con- 
 fidence and candour. 
 
 " You must not be angry, Mr. Fairford, that the poor persecuted 
 nonjurors are a little upon the qui vive when such clever young 
 men as you are making enquiries after us. I myself now, though 
 I am quite out of the scrape, and may cock my hat at the Cross as 
 I best like, sunshine or moonshine, have been yet so much accus- 
 tomed to V, alk with the lap of my cloak cast over my face, that. 
 
246 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 faith, if a redcoat walk suddenly up to me, I wish for my wheel 
 and whetstone again for a moment. Now Redgauntlet, poor 
 fellow, is far worse off— be is, you may have heard, still under the 
 lash of the law, — the mark of the beast is still on his forehead, 
 poor gentleman, — and that makes us cautious— very cautious — 
 which I am sure there is no occasion to be towards you, as no one 
 of your appearance and manners would wish to trepan a gentleman 
 under misfortune." 
 
 " 0%the contrary, sir,'' said Fairford, " I wish to afford Mr. Red- 
 gauntlet's friends an opportunity to get him out of the scrape, by 
 procuring the instant liberation of my friend Darsie Latimer. I 
 will engage, that if he has sustained no greater bodily harm than a 
 short confinement, the matter may be.passed over quietly, without 
 enquiry ; but to attain this end, so desirable for the man who has 
 committed a great and recent infraction of the laws, which he had 
 before grievously offended, very speedy reparation of the wrong 
 must be rendered." 
 
 Maxwell seemed lost in reflection, and exchanged a glance or 
 two, not of the most comfortable or congratulatory kind, with his 
 host the Provost. Fairford rose and walked about the room, to 
 allow them an opportunity of conversing together ; for he was in 
 hopes that the impression he had visibly made upon Summertrees 
 was likely to ripen into something favourable to his. purpose. 
 They took the opportunity, and engaged in whispers to each other, 
 ■eagerly and reproachfully on the part of the Laird, while the 
 Provost answered in an embarrassed and apologetical tone. Some 
 broken words of the conversation reached Fairford, whose pre- 
 sence they seemed to forget, as he stood at the bottom of the room, 
 apparently intent upon examining the figures upon a fine Indian 
 screen, a present to the Provost from his brother, captain of a 
 vessel in the Company's service. What he overheard made it 
 evident that his errand, and the obstinacy with which he pursued 
 it, occasioned altercation between the whisperers. 
 
 Maxwell at length let out the words, " A good fright ; and so 
 send him home with his tail scalded, like a dog that has come a 
 privateering on strange premises." 
 
 The Provost's negative was strongly interposed — " Not to be 
 thought of" — " making bad worse " — " my situation "— " my utility" 
 — " you cannot conceive how obstinate — just like his father." 
 
 They then whispered more closely, and at length the Provost 
 raised his drooping crest, and spoke in a cheerful tone. " Come, 
 sit down to your glass, Mr. Fairford ; we have laid our heads the- 
 gither, and you shall see it will not be our fault if you are not quite 
 pleased, and Mr. Darsie Latimer let loose to take his fiddle under 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 247 
 
 his neck again. But Summertrees thinks it will require you to put 
 yourself into some bodily risk, which maybe you may not be so 
 keen of." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said FaMord, " I will not certainly shun any risk 
 by which my object may be accomplished ; but I bind it on your 
 consciences— on yours, Mr. Maxwell, as a man of honour and a 
 gentleman ; and on yours, Provost, as a magistrate and a loyal 
 subject, that you do not mislead me in this matter." 
 
 " Nay, as for me," said Summertrees, " I will tell you the truth at 
 once, and fairly own that I can certainly find you the means of 
 seeing Redgauntlet, poor man ; and that I will do, if you require 
 it, and conjure him also to treat you as your errand requires ; but 
 poor Redgauntlet is much changed — indeed, to say truth, his 
 temper never was the best in the world ; however, I will warrant 
 you from any very great danger." 
 
 " I will warrant myself from such," said Fairford, " by carrying 
 a proper force with me." 
 
 " Indeed," said Summertrees, " you will do no such thing ; for, 
 in the first place, do you think that we will deliver up the poor 
 fellow into the hands of the Philistines, when, on the contrary, my 
 only reason for furnishing you with the clew I am to put into your 
 hands, is to settle the matter amicably on all sides ? And secondly, 
 his intelligence is so good, that were you coming near him with 
 soldiers, or constables, or the like, I shall answer for it, you will 
 never lay salt on his tail." 
 
 Fairford mused for a moment. He considered, that to gain 
 sight of this man, and knowledge of his friend's condition, were 
 advantages to be purchased at every personal risk ; and he saw 
 plainly, that were he to take the course most safe for himself, and 
 call in the assistance of the law, it was clear he would either be 
 deprived of the intelligence necessary to guide him, or that Red- 
 gauntlet would be apprized of his danger, and might probably 
 leave the country, carrying his captive along with him. He there- 
 fore repeated, " I put myself on your honour, Mr. Maxwell ; and I 
 will go alone to visit your friend. I have little doubt I shall find 
 him amenable to reason ; and that I shall receive from him a satis- 
 factory account of Mr. Latimer." 
 
 " I have little doubt that you will," said Mr. Maxwell of Summer- 
 trees ; " but still I think it will be only in the long run, and afTel- 
 having sustained some delay and inconvenience. My warrandice 
 goes no farther." 
 
 " I will take it as it is given," said Alan Fairford. " But let me 
 ask, would it not be better, since you value your friend's safety so 
 highly, and surely would not willingly compromise mine, that the. 
 
248 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Provost or you should go with me to this man, if he is within any 
 reasonable distance, and try to make him hear reason ? " 
 
 " Me !— I will not go my foot's length," said the Provost ; " and 
 that, Mr. Alan, you may be well assured of. Mr. Redgauntlet is 
 my wife's fourth cousin, that is undeniable ; but were he the last of 
 her kin and mine both, it would ill befit my office to be communing 
 with rebels." 
 
 " Ay, or drinking with nonjurors," said Maxwell, filling his glass. 
 " I would as soon expect to have met Claverhouse at a field-preach- 
 ing. And as for myself, Mr. Fairford, I cannot go, for just the 
 opposite reason. It would be infra die;, in the Provost of this 
 most flourishing and loyal town to associate with Redgauntlet ; 
 and for me, it would be noscitir a socio. There would be post 
 to London, with the tidings that two such Jacobites as Red- 
 gauntlet and I had met on a braeside — the Habeas Corpus would 
 be suspended — fame would sound a charge from Carlisle to the 
 Land's-End — and who knows but the very wind of the rumour 
 might blow my estate from between my fingers, and my body 
 over Errickstane-brae again ? No, no ; bide a gliff — I will go 
 into the Provost's closet, and write a letter to Redgauntlet, and 
 direct you how to deliver it." 
 
 " There is pen and ink in the office," said the Provost, pointing 
 to the door of an inner apartment, in which he had his walnut- 
 tree desk, and east-country cabinet. 
 
 " A pen that can write, I hope ?" said^;he old Laird.^ 
 
 "It can write and spell baith, — in right hands," answered the 
 Provost, as the Laird retired and shut the door behind him. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD, CONTINUED. 
 
 The room was no sooner deprived of Mr. Maxwell of Summer- 
 trees's presence, than the Provost looked very warily above, 
 beneath, and around the apartment, hitched his chair towards 
 that of his remaining guest, and began to speak ■ in a whisper 
 which could not have startled " the . smallest mouse that creeps 
 on floor." 
 
 " Mr. Fairford," said he, '' you are a good lad ; and, what is 
 more, you are my auld friend your father's son. Your father has 
 been agent for this burgh for years, and has a good deal to say 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 249 
 
 with ihe council ; so there have been a sort of obligations be- 
 tween him and me ; it may have been now on this side and 
 now on that ; but obligations there have been. I am but a plain 
 man, Mr. Fairford ; but I hope you understand me ? " 
 
 " I believe you mean me well, Provost ; and I am sure,'' replied 
 Fairford, " you can never better show your kindness than on this 
 occasion." 
 
 "That's it— that's the very point I would be at, Mr. Alan," 
 replied the Provost ; " besides, I am, as becomes well my situa- 
 tion, a stanch friend to Kirk and King, meaning this present 
 establishment in church and state ; and so, as I was saying, you 
 may command my best— advice." 
 
 " I hope for your assistance and co-operation also," said the 
 youth." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly," said the wary magistrate. " Well, now, 
 you see one may love the Kirk, and yet not ride on the rigging of 
 it ; and one may love the King, and yet .not be cramming him 
 eternally down the throat of the unhappy folk that may chance to 
 like another King better. I have friends and connexions among 
 them, Mr. Fairford, as your father may have clients — they are 
 flesh and blood like ourselves, these poor Jacobite bodies — sons of 
 Adam and Eve, after all ; and therefore — I hope you understand 
 me ? — I am a plain-spoken man." 
 
 " I am afraid I do not quite understand you," said Fairford ; 
 " and if you have any thing to say to me in private, my dear Pro- 
 vost, you had better come quickly out with it, for the Laird of 
 Summertrees must finish his letter in a minute or two." 
 
 " Not a bit, man — Pate is a lang-headed fellow, but his pen does 
 not clear the paper as his greyhound does the Tinwald-furs. I gave 
 him a wipe about that, if you noticed ; I can say any thing to Pate- 
 in-Peril — Indeed, he is my wife's near kinsman." 
 
 " But your advice. Provost," said Alan, who perceived that, like a 
 shy horse, the worthy magistrate always started off from his own 
 purpose just when he seemed approaching to it. 
 
 " Weel, you shall have it in plain terms, for I am a plain man. — 
 Ye see, we will suppose that any friend like yourself were in the 
 deepest hole of the Nith, and making a sprattle for your life. Now, 
 you see, such being the case, I have little chance of helping you, 
 being a fat, short-armed man, and no swimmer, and what would be 
 the use of my jumping in after you ?" — 
 
 " I understand you, I think," said Alan Fairford. " You think 
 that Darsie Latimer is in danger of his life." 
 
 " Me ! — I think nothing about it, Mr. Alan ; but if he were, as I 
 trust he is not, he is nae drap's blood akin to you, Mr. Alan," 
 
2SO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 "But here your friend, Summertrees,'' said the young lawyer, 
 " offers me a letter to this Redgauntlet of yours — What say you 
 io that ?" 
 
 " Me !" ejaculated the Provost, "me, Mr. Alan? I say neither 
 buff nor stye to it — But ye dinna ken what it is to look a Red- 
 gauntlet in the face ; — ^better try my wife, who is but a fourth cousin, 
 before ye venture on the Laird himself— just say something about 
 the Revolution, and see what a look she can gie you." 
 
 " I shall leave you to stand all the shots from that battery, Pro* 
 vost," replied Fairford. " But speak out hke a man — Do you think 
 Summertrees means fairly by me ?" 
 
 " Fairly — he is just coming — fairly ? I am a plain man, Mr. 
 Fairford — but ye said Fairly f" 
 
 " I do so," replied Alan, " and it is of importance to me to know, 
 and to you to tell me if such is the case ; for if you do not, you may 
 be an accomplice to murder before the fact, and that under circum- 
 stances which may bring it near to murder under trust." 
 
 " Murder !— who spoke of murder?" said the Provost; "no 
 danger of that, Mr. Alan — only, if I were you — to speak my plain 
 mind " — Here he approached his mouth to the ear of the young- 
 lawyer, and, after another acute pang of travail, was safely delivered 
 of his advice in the following abrupt words : — " Take a keek into 
 Pate's letter before ye deliver it." 
 
 Fairford started, looked the Provost hard in the face, and was 
 silent ; while Mr. Crosbie, with the self-approbation of one who has 
 at length brought himself to the discharge of a great duty, at the, 
 expense of a considerable sacrifice, nodded and winked to Alan, as 
 if enforcing his advice ; and then swallowing a large glass of punch, 
 concluded, with the sigh of a man released from a heavy burden, 
 " I am a plain man, Mr. Fairford." 
 
 "A plain man?" said Maxwell, who entered the room at that 
 moment, with the letter in his hand, — " Provost, I never heard you 
 make use of the word, but when you had some sly turn of your own 
 to work out." 
 
 The Provost looked silly enough, and the Laird of Summertrees 
 directed a keen and suspicious glance upon Alan Fairford, who sus- 
 tained it with professional intrepidity. — There was a moment's 
 pause. 
 
 " I was trying," said the Provost, " to dissuade our young friend 
 from his wildgoose expedition." 
 
 " And I," said Fairford, " am determined to go through, with it. 
 Trusting myself to you, Mr. Maxwell, I conceive that I rely, as I 
 before said, on the word of a gentleman." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 251 
 
 " I will warrant you," said Maxwell, " from all serious con- 
 sequences — some inconveniences you must look to suffer." 
 
 " To these I shall be resigned," said I'^airford, " and stand pre- 
 pared to run my risk." 
 
 " Well then," said Summertrees, "you must go " 
 
 " I will leave you to yourselves, gentlemen," said the Provost, 
 rising ; " when you have done with your crack, you will find me at 
 my wife's tea-taljle." 
 
 " And a more accomplished old woman never drank cat-lap," said 
 Maxwell, as he shut the door ; " the last word has him, speak it 
 who will — and yet because he is a whilly-whaw body, and has a 
 plausible tongue of his own, and is well enough connected, and 
 especially because nobody could ever find out whether he is Whig 
 or Tory, this is the third time they have made him Provost !— But 
 to the matter in hand. This letter, Mr. Fairford," putting a sealed 
 
 one into his hand, " is addressed, you observe, to Mr. H of 
 
 B , and contains your credentials for that gentleman, who is also 
 
 known by his family name of Redgauntlet, but less frequently 
 addressed by it, because it is mentioned something invidiously in a 
 certain act of Parliament. I have little doubt he will assure you of 
 your friend's safety, and in a short time'place him at freedom — that 
 is, supposing him under present restraint. But the point is, to dis- 
 cover where he is — and, before you are made acquainted with this 
 necessary part of the business, you must give me your assurance of 
 honour that you will acquaint no one, either by word or letter, with 
 the expedition which you now propose to yourself." 
 
 "How, sir.'" answered Alan ; "can you expect that I will not 
 take the precaution of informing some person of the route I am 
 about to take, that in case of accident it may be known where I am, 
 and with what purpose I have gone thither?" 
 
 " And can you expect," answered Maxwell, in the same tone, 
 " that I am to place my friend's safety, not merely in your hands, 
 but in those of any person you may choose to confide in, and who 
 may use the knowledge to his destruction? — Na — na — I have 
 pledged my word for your safety, and you must give me yours to be 
 private in the matter— giff-gaff — you know." 
 
 Alan Fairford could not help thinking that this obligation to 
 secrecy gave a new and suspicious colouring to the whole transac- 
 tion ; but, considering that his friend's release might depend upon 
 his accepting the condition, he gave it in the terms proposed, and 
 with the resolution of abiding by it. 
 
 " And now, sir," he said, " whither am I to proceed with this 
 letter? Is Mr. Herries at Brokenburn?" 
 
 " He is not : I do not think he will come thither again, until the 
 
253 
 
 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 business of the stake-nets be hushed up, nor would I advise him to 
 do so — the Quakers, with all their demureness, can bear malice as 
 long as other folk ; and though I have not the prudence of Mr. 
 Provost, who refuses to ken where his friends are concealed during 
 adversity, lest, perchance, he should be asked to contribute to their 
 relief, yet I do not think it necessary or prudent to enquire into 
 Redgauntlet's wanderings, poor man, but wish to remain at perfect 
 freedom to answer, if asked at, that I ken nothing of the matter. 
 You must, then, go to old Tom Trumbull's, at Annan — Tam Turn- 
 pennj', as they call him, — and he is sure either to know where 
 Redgauntlet is himself, or to find some one who can give a shrewd 
 guess. But you must attend that old Turnpenny will answer no 
 question on such a subject without you give him the password, 
 which at present you must do, by asking him the age of the moon ; 
 if he answers, ' Not light enough to land a cargo,' you are to answer, 
 ' Then plague on Aberdeen Almanacks,' and upon that he will hold 
 free intercourse with you. — And now, I would advise you to lose no 
 time, for the parole is often changed — and take care of yourself 
 among these moonlight lads, for laws and lawyers do not stand very 
 high in their favour." 
 
 " I will set out this instant," said the young barrister ; " I will 
 but bid the Provost and Mrs. Crosbie farewell, and then get on 
 horseback so soon as the hostler of the George Inn can saddle him ; 
 — as for the smugglers, I am neither gauger nor supervisor, and, 
 like the man who met the devil, if they have nothing to say to me, 
 I have nothing to say to them." 
 
 " You are a mettled young man," said Summertrees, evidently 
 with increasing good-will, on observing an alertness and contempt 
 of danger, which perhaps he did not expect from Alan's appearance 
 and profession, — " a very mettled young fellow indeed ! and it is 
 almost a pity" — — Here he stopped short. 
 
 " What is a pity?" said Fairford. 
 
 " It is almost a pity that I cannot go with you myself, or at least 
 send a trusty guide." 
 
 They walked together to the bedchamber of Mrs. Crosbie, for it 
 was in that asylum that the ladies of the period dispensed their tea, 
 when the parlour was occupied by the punch-bowl. 
 
 "You have been good bairns to-night, gentlemen," said Mrs. 
 Crosbie : " I am afraid, Summertrees, that the Provost has given 
 you a bad browst ; you are not used to quit the lee-side of the 
 punch-bowl in such a hurry. I say nothing to you, Mr. Fairford, 
 for you are too young a man yet for stoup and bicker ; but I hope 
 you will not tell the Edinburgh fine folk that the Provost has 
 scrimped you of your cogie, as the sang says?" 
 
REbGAUNTLET. 2S3 
 
 "I am much obliged for the Provost's kindness, and yours, 
 madam," replied Alan ; " but the truth is, I have still a long ride 
 before me this evening, and the sooner I am on horsebacli the 
 better." 
 
 "This evening?" said the Provost, anxiously; "had you not 
 better take daylight with you to-morrow morning?" 
 
 " Mr. Fairford will ride as well in the cool of the evening," sai^ 
 Summertrees, taking the word out of Alan's mouth. 
 
 The Provost «aid no more, nor did his wife ask any questions, 
 nor testify any surprise at the suddenness of their guest's depar- 
 ture. 
 
 Havmg drank tea, Alan Fairford took leave with the usual cere- 
 mony. The Laird of Summertrees seemed studious to prevent any 
 further communication between him and the Provost, and remained 
 lounging on the landing-place of the stair while they made their 
 adieus — heard the Provost ask if Alan proposed a speedy return, 
 and the latter reply, that his stay was uncertain, and witnessed the 
 parting shake of the hand, which, with a pressure more warm than 
 usual, and a tremulous, "God bless and prosper you !" Mr. Crosbie 
 bestowed on his young friend. Maxwell even strolled with Fairford 
 as far as the George, although resisting all his attempts at further 
 enquiry into the affairs of Redgauntlet, and referring him to Tom 
 Trumbull, alias Turnpenny, for the particulars which he might find 
 it necessary to enquire into. 
 
 At length Alan's hack was produced ; an animal long in neck, 
 and high in bone, accoutred with a pair of saddle-bags containing 
 the rider's travelling wardrobe. Proudly surmounting his small 
 stock of necessaries, and no way ashamed of a mode of travelling 
 which a modern Mr. Silvertongue would consider as the last of 
 degradations, Alan Fairford took leave of the old Jacobite, Pate-in- 
 Peril, and set forward on the road to the royal burgh of Annan. 
 His reflections during his ride were none of the most pleasant. He 
 could not disguise from himself that he was venturing rather too 
 rashly into the power of outlawed and desperate persons ; for with 
 such only, a man in the situation of Redgauntlet could be supposed 
 to associate. There were other grounds for apprehension. Several 
 marks of intelligence betwixt Mrs. Crosbie and the Laird of Sum- 
 mertrees had not escaped Alan's acute observation ; and it was 
 plain that the Provost's inclinations towards him, which he believed 
 to be sincere and good, were not firm enough to withstand the 
 influence of this league between his wife and friend. The Provost's 
 adieus, like Macbeth's amen, had stuck in his throat, and seemed 
 to intimate that he apprehended more than he dared give utterance 
 to. 
 
£5+- REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Laying all these matters together, Alan thought, with no little 
 anxiety, on the celebrated lines of ShakspeareJ 
 
 " A drop. 
 
 That in the ocean seeks another drop," &c. 
 
 But pertinacity was a strong feature in the young lawyer's character. 
 He was, and always had been, totally unlike the " horse hot at 
 hand," who tires before noon through his own over eager exertions 
 in the beginning of the day. On the contrary, his first efforts 
 seemed frequently inadequate to accomplishing his purpose, what- 
 ever that for the time might be ; and it was only as the difficulties 
 of the task increased, that his mind seemed to acquire the energy 
 necessary to combat and subdue them. If, therefore, he went 
 anxiously forward upon his uncertain and perilous expedition, the 
 reader must acquit him of all idea, even in a passing thought, of 
 the possibility of abandoning his search, and resigning Darsie 
 Latimer to his destiny. 
 
 A couple of hours' riding brought him to the little town of Annan, 
 situated on the shores of the Solway, between eight and nine 
 o'clock. The sun had set, but the day was not yet ended ; and 
 when he had ahghted and seen his horse properly cared for at the 
 principal inn of the place, he was readily directed to Mr. Maxwell's 
 friend, old Tom Trumbull, with whom every body seemed well 
 acquainted. He endeavoured to fish out from the lad that acted as 
 a guide, something of this man's situation and profession ; but the 
 general expressions of " a very decent man " — " a very honest body" 
 — " weel to pass in the world," and such like, were all that could be 
 extracted from him ; and while Fairford was following up the 
 investigation with closer interrogatories, the lad put an end to them 
 by knocking at the door of Mr. Trumbull, whose decent dwelling 
 vvas a little distance from the town, and considerably nearer to the 
 sea. It was one of a little row of houses running down to the 
 waterside, and having gardens and other accommodations behind. 
 There was heard within the uplifting of a Scottish psalm ; and 
 the boy saying, " They are at exercise, sir," gave intimation they 
 might not be admitted till prayers were over. 
 
 When, however, Fairford repeated the summons with the end of 
 his whip, the singing ceased, and Mr. Trumbull himself, with his 
 psalm-book in his hand, kept open by the insertion of his forefinger 
 between the leaves, came to demand the meaning of this unseason- 
 able interruption. 
 
 Nothing could be more different than his whole appearance 
 seemed to be from the confidant of a desperate man, and the asso- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 255 
 
 ciate of outlaws in their unlawful enterprises. He was a tall, thin, 
 bony figure, with white hair combed straight down on each side of 
 his face, and an iron-grey hue of complexion ; where the lines, or 
 rather, as Quin said of Macklin, the cordage, of his countenance 
 were so sternly adapted to a devotional and even ascetic expression, 
 that they left no room for any indication of reckless daring, or sly 
 dissimulation. In short, Trumbull appeared a perfect specimen of 
 the rigid old Covenanter, who said only what he thought right, 
 acted on no other principle Ijut that of duty, and, if he committed 
 errors, did so under the full impression that he was serving God 
 rather than man. 
 
 " Do you want me, sir ? " he said to Fairford, whose guide had 
 slunk to the rear, as if to escape the rebuke of the severe old man, 
 — " We were engaged, and it is the Saturday night." 
 
 Alan Fairford's preconceptions were so much deranged by this 
 man's appearance and manner, that he stood for a moment bewil- 
 dered, and would as soon have thought of giving a cant pass-word 
 to a clergyman descending from the pulpit, as to the respectable 
 father of a family just interrupted in his prayers for and with the 
 objects of his care. Hastily concluding Mr. Maxwell had passed 
 some idle jest on him, or rather that he had mistaken the person 
 to whom he was directed, he asked if he spoke to Mr. Trumbull. 
 
 "To Thomas Trumbull," answered the old man — "What may 
 be your business, sir?" And he glanced his eye to the book he 
 held in his hand, with a sigh like that of a saint desirous of 
 dissolution. 
 
 " Do you know Mr. Maxwell of Summertrees ? " said Fairford. 
 
 " I have heard of such a gentleman in the country-side, but have 
 no acquaintance with him," answered Mr. Trumbull ; " he is, as I 
 have heard, a Papist ; for the whore that sitteth on the seven hills 
 ceaseth not yet to pour forth the cup of her abomination on these 
 parts." 
 
 " Yet he directed me hither, my good friend," said Alan. " Is 
 there another of your name in this town of Annan ? " 
 
 " None," replied Mr. Trumbull, " since my worthy father was 
 removed ; he was indeed a shining light. — I wish you good-even, 
 sir." 
 
 " Stay one single instant," said Fairford; "this is a matter of life 
 and death." 
 
 " Not more than the casting the burden of our sins where they 
 should be laid," said Thomas Trumbull, about to shut the door in 
 the enquirer's face. 
 
 " Do you know," said Alan Fairford, " the Laird of Redgaunt- 
 let?" 
 
256 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 "Now Heaven defend me from treason and rebellion!" ex- 
 claimed Trumbull. " Young gentleman, you are importunate. I 
 live here among my own people, and do not consort with Jacobites 
 and mass-mongers." 
 
 He seemed about to shut the door, but did noi'shut it, a circum- 
 stance which did not escape Alan's notice. 
 
 " Mr. Redgauntlet is sometimes," he said, " called Herries of 
 Birrenswork ; perhaps you may know, him under that name." 
 
 " Friend, you are uncivil," answered Mr. Trumbull ; " honest 
 men have enough to do to keep one name undefiled. I ken nothing 
 about those who have two. Good-even to you, friend." 
 
 He was now about to slam the door in his visitor's face without 
 further ceremony, when Alan, who had observed symptoms that 
 the name of Redgauntlet did not seem altogether so indifferent to 
 him as he pretended, arrested his purpose by saying, in a low voice, 
 " At least you can tell me what age the moon is ? " 
 
 The old man started, as if from a trance, and, before answering, 
 surveyed the querist with a keen penetrating glance, which seemed 
 to say, " Are you really in possession of this key to my confidence, 
 or do you speak from mere accident ?" 
 
 To this keen look of scrutiny, Fairford replied by a sinile of 
 intelligence. 
 
 The iron muscles of the old man's face did not, however, relax, 
 as he dropped, in a careless manner, the countersign, " Not light 
 enough to land a cargo." 
 
 " Then plague of all Aberdeen Almanacks ! " 
 
 " And plague of all fools that waste time," said Thomas Trum- 
 bull. " Could you not have said as much at first .' — And standing 
 wasting time, and encouraging lookers-on, in the open street too ? 
 Come in by — in by." 
 
 He drew his visitor into the dark entrance of the house, and shut 
 the door carefully ; then putting his head into an apartment which 
 the murmurs within announced to be filled with the family, he said 
 aloud, " A work of necessity and mercy — Malachi, take the book— 
 you will sing six double verses of the hundred and nineteen— and 
 you may lecture out of the Lamentations. And, Malachi," — this he 
 said in an undertone, — " see you give them a screed of doctrine 
 that will last them till I come back ; or else these inconsiderate 
 lads will be out of the house, and away to the publics, wasting their 
 precious time, and, it may be, putting themselves in the way of 
 missing the morning tide." 
 
 An inarticulate answer from within intimated Malachi's acquies- 
 cence in the commands imposed ; and Mr. Trumbull, shutting the 
 door, muttered something about fast bind, fast find, turned the key, 
 
REDGAUNTLET 257 
 
 and put it into his pocket ; and then bidding his visitor have a care 
 of his steps, and make no noise, he led him through the house, 
 and out at a back-door, into a little garden. Here a plaited alley- 
 conducted them, without the possibility of their being seen by any 
 neighbour, to a door in the garden-wall, which being opened, 
 proved to be a private entrance into a three-stalled stable ; in one 
 of which was a horse, that whinnied on their entrance. " Hush, 
 hush ! " cried the old man, and presently seconded his exhor- 
 tations to silence by throwing a handful of corn into the manger, 
 and the horse soon converted his acknowledgment Of their 
 presence into the usual sound of ihunching and grinding his pro- 
 vender. 
 
 As the light was now failing fast, the old man, with much more 
 alertness than might have been expected from the rigidity of his 
 figure, closed the window-shutters in an instant, produced phos- 
 phorus and matches, and lighted a stable-lantern, which he placed 
 on the corn bin, and then addressed Fairford. " We are private 
 here, young man ; and as some time has been wasted already, you 
 will be so kind as to tell me what is your errand. Is it about the 
 way of business, or the other job ? " 
 
 " My business with you, Mr. Trumbull, is to request you will find 
 me the means of delivering this letter, from Mr. Maxwell of Sum- 
 mertrees to the Laird of Redgauntlet." 
 
 " Humph — fashions job ! — Pate Maxwell will still be the auld 
 man — always Pate-in-Peril — Craig-in-Peril, for what I know. Let 
 me see the letter from him." 
 
 He examined it with much care, turning it up and down, and 
 looking at the seal very attentively. " AU's right, I see ; it has the 
 private mark for haste and speed. I bless my Maker that I am no 
 great man, or great man's fellow ; and so I think no more of these 
 passages than just to help them forward in the way of business. 
 You are an utter stranger in these parts, I warrant ? " 
 
 Fairford answered in the affirmative. 
 
 " Ay — I never saw them make a wiser choice — I must call some 
 one to direct you what to do — Stay, we must go to him, I believe. 
 You are well recommended to me, friend, and doubtless trusty ; 
 otherwise you may see more than I would like to show, or am in 
 "fce use of showing in the common line of business." 
 
 Saying this, he placed his lantern on, the ground,' beside the 
 post of one of the empty stalls, drew up a small spring-bolt which 
 secured it to the floor, and then forcing the post to one side, 
 discovered a small trap-door. " Follow me," he said, and dived 
 into the subterranean descent to which this secret aperture gave 
 
358 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Fairford plunged after him, not without apprehensions of more 
 kinds than one, but still resolved to prosecute the adventure. 
 
 The descent, which was not above six feet, led to a very narrow 
 passage, which seemed to have been constructed for the precise 
 purpose of excluding every one who chanced to be an inch more 
 in girth than was his conductor. A small vaulted room, of about 
 eight feet square, received them at the end of this lane. Here Mr. 
 Trumbull left Fairford alone, and returned for an instant, as he 
 said, to shut his concealed trapdoor. ' 
 
 Fairford liked not his departure, as it left him in utter darkness ; 
 besides that his breathing was much affected by a strong and 
 stifling smell of spirits, and other articles of a savour more power- 
 ful than agreeable to the lungs. He was very glad, therefore, when 
 he heard the returning steps of Mr. Trumbull, who, when once 
 more by his side, opened a strong though narrow door in' the wall, 
 and conveyed Fairford into an immense magazine of spirit-casks, 
 and other articles of contraband trade. 
 
 There was a small light at the end of this range of well-stocked 
 subterranean vaults, which, upon a low whistle, began to flicker 
 and move towards them. An undefined figure, holding a dark 
 lantern, with the light averted, approached them, whom Mr. Trum- 
 bull thus addressed : — " Why were you not at worship. Job ; and 
 this Saturday at e'en ? " 
 
 " Swanston was loading the Jenny, sir ; and I stayed to serve 
 out the article." 
 
 " True — a work of necessity, and in the way of business. Does 
 the Jumping Jenny sail this tide ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir ; she sails for " 
 
 " I did not ask you where she sailed for, Job," said the pld gen- 
 tleman, interrupting him. *' I thank my Maker, I know nothing 
 of their incomings or outgoings. I sell my article fairly and in 
 the ordinary way of business ; and I wash my hands of every 
 thing else. But what I wished to know is, whether the gentleman 
 called the Laird of the Solway Lakes is on the other side of the 
 Border even how ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay," said Job, " the Laird is something in my own line, you 
 know — a little contraband or so. There is a statute for him — But 
 no matter ; he took the sands after the splore at the Quaker's fish- 
 traps yonder ; for he has a leal heart the Laird, and is always true 
 to the country-side. But avast — is all snug here ? " 
 
 So saying, he suddenly turned on Alan Fairford the light side of 
 the lantern he carried, who, by the transient gleam which it threw 
 in passing on the man who bore it, saw a huge figure, upwards of 
 six feet high, with a rough hairy cap on his head, and a set of 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 2S9 
 
 features corresponding to his bulky frame. He thought also he 
 observed pistols at his belt. 
 
 " I will answer for this gentleman," said Mr. Trumbull ; " he 
 must be brought to speech of the Laird." 
 
 « That will be kittle steering," said the subordinate personage ; 
 " for I understood that the Laird and his folk were no sooner on 
 the other side than the land-sharks were on them, and some 
 mounted lobsters Irom Carlisle ; and so they were obliged to split 
 and squander. There are new brooms out to sweep the country of 
 them they say ; for the brush was a hard one ; and they say there 
 was a lad drowned ;— he was not one of the Laird's gang, so there 
 was the less matter." 
 
 " Peace ! prithee, peace. Job Rutledge," said honest, pacific Mr, 
 Trumbull. " I wish thou couldst remember, man, that I desire to 
 know nothing of your roars and splores, your brooms and brushes. 
 I dwell here among my own people ; and I sell my commodity to 
 him who comes in the way of business ; and so wash my hands of 
 all consequences, as becomes a quiet subject and an honest man, 
 I never take payment, save in ready money." 
 
 "Ay, ay," muttered he with the lantern, "your worship, Mr, 
 Trumbull, understands that in the way of business." 
 
 " Well, I hope you will one day know, Job," answered Mr. Trum- 
 bull,—" the comfort of a conscience void of offence, and that fears 
 neither gauger nor collector, neither excise nor customs. The 
 business is to pass this gentleman to Cumberland upon earnest 
 business, and to procure him speech with the Laird of the Solway 
 Lakes — I suppose that can be done ? Now I think Nanty Ewart, 
 if he sails with the brig this morning tide, is the man to set him 
 forward." 
 
 " Ay, ay, truly is he," said Job ; " never man knew the Border, 
 dale and fell, pasture and ploughland, better than Nanty ; and he 
 can always bring him to the Laird, too, if you are sure the gentle- 
 man's right. But indeed that's his own look-out ; for were he the 
 best man in Scotland, and the chairman of the d — d Board to boot, 
 and had fifty men at his back, he were as well not visit the Laird, 
 for any thing but good. As for Nanty, he is word and blow, a d — d 
 deal fiercer than Cristie Nixon that they keep such a din aboui. 
 I have seen them both tried, by ." 
 
 Fairford now found himself called upon to say something ; yet 
 his feelings, upon finding himself thus completely in the power of 
 a canting hypocrite, and of his retainer, who had so much the air 
 of a determined ruffian, joined to the strong and abominable fume 
 which they snuffed up with indifference, while it almost deprived 
 him of respiration, combined to render utterance difficult. He 
 
 S 2 
 
26o REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Stated, however, that he had no evil intentions towards the 
 Laird, as they called him, but was only the bearer of a letter 
 to him on particular business, from Mr. Maxwell of Summer- 
 trees. 
 
 " Ay, ay," said Job, " that may be well enough ; and if Mr. Trum- 
 bull is satisfied that the scrive is right, why, we will give you a cast 
 in the Jumping Jenny this tide, and Nanty Ewart will put you on a 
 way of finding the Laird, I warrant you." 
 
 " I may for the present return, I presume, to the inn where I 
 have left my horse ? " said Fairford. 
 
 " With pardon," replied Mr. Trumbull, " you have been ower far 
 ben with us for that ; but Job will take you to a place where you 
 may sleep rough till he calls you. I will bring you what little bag- 
 gage you can need — for those who go on such errands must not be 
 dainty. I will myself see after your horse, for a merciful man is 
 merciful to his beast — a matter too often forgotten in our way of 
 business." 
 
 " Why, Master Trumbull," replied Job, " you know that when we 
 are chased, it's no time to shorten sail, and so the boys do ride 
 
 whip and spur " : He stopped in his speech, observing the old 
 
 man had vanished through the door by which he had entered — 
 " That's always the way with old Turnpenny," he said to Fairford ; 
 "he cares for nothing of the trade but the profit — now, d — me, if I 
 don't think the fun of it is better worth while. But come along, 
 my fine chap ; I must stow you away in safety until it is time to go 
 aboard." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD, CONTINUED. 
 
 Fairford followed his gruff guide among a labyrinth of barrels 
 and puncheons, on which he had more than once like to have 
 broken his nose, and from thence into what, by the glimpse of the 
 passing lantern upon a desk and writing materials, seemed to be a 
 small office for the dispatch of business! Here there appeared no 
 exit ; but the smuggler, or smuggler's ally, availing himself of a 
 ladder, seven feet from the ground, and Fairford, still following 
 Job, was involved in another tortuous and dark passage, which in- 
 voluntarily reminded him of Peter Peebles's lawsuit. At the end 
 of this labyrinth, when he had little guess where he had been con- 
 ductedj and was, according to the French phrase, totally d^sorimti, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 261 
 
 Job suddenly set down the lantern, and availing himself of the 
 flame to light two candles which stood on the table, asked if Alan 
 would choose any thing to eat, recommending, at all events, a slug 
 of brandy to keep out the night air. Fairford declined both, but 
 enquired after his baggage. 
 
 " The old master will take care of that himself," said Job Rut- 
 ledge ; and drawing back in the direction in which he had entered, 
 he vanished from the further end of the apartment, by a mode 
 which the candles, still shedding an imperfect light, gave Alan no 
 means of ascertaining. Thus the adventurous young lawyer was 
 left alone in the apartment to which he had been conducted by so 
 singular a passage. 
 
 In this condition, it was Alan's first employment to survey, with 
 some accuracy, the place where he was ; and accordingly, having 
 trimmed the lights, he walked slowly round the apartment, examin- 
 ing its appearance and dimensions. It seemed to be such a small 
 dining-parlour as is usually found in the house of the better class 
 of artisans, shopkeepers, and such persons, having a recess at the 
 upper end, and the usual furniture of an ordinary description. He 
 found a door, which he endeavoured to open, but it was locked on 
 the outside. A corresponding door on the same side of the apart- 
 ment admitted him into a closet, upon the front shelves of which 
 were punch-bowls, glasses, tea-cups, and the like, while on one side 
 was hung a horseman's great-coat of the coarsest materials, with 
 two great horse-pistols peeping out of the pocket, and on the floor 
 stood a pair of well-spattered jack-boots, the usual equipment of 
 the time, at least for long journeys. 
 
 Not greatly liking the contents of the closet, Alan Fairford shut 
 the door, and resumed his scrutiny round the walls of the apart- 
 ment, in order to discover the mode of Job Rutledge's retreat. The 
 secret passage was, however, too artificially concealed, and the 
 young lawyer had nothing better to do than to meditate on the 
 singularity of his present situation. He had long known that the 
 excise laws had occasioned an active contraband trade betwixt 
 Scotland and England, which then, as now, existed, and will con- 
 tinue to exist, until the utter abohtion of the wretched system 
 which establishes an inequality of duties betwixt the different parts 
 of the same kingdom ; a system, be it said in passing, mightily 
 resembling the conduct of a pugilist, who should tie up one arm 
 that he might fight the better with the other. But Fairford was 
 unprepared for the expensive and regular establishments by which 
 the illicit traffic was carried on, and could not have conceived that 
 the capital employed in it should have been adequate to the erec- 
 tion of these extensive buildings, with all their contrivances for 
 
262 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 secrecy ol communication. He was musing on these circum- 
 stances, not without some anxiety for the progress of his own 
 journey, when suddenly, as he lifted his eyes, he discovered old 
 Mr. Trumbull at the upper end of the apartment, bearing in one 
 hand a small bundle, in the other his dark lantern, the light of 
 which, as he advanced, he directed full upon Fairford's counten- 
 ance. 
 
 Though such an apparition was exactly what he expected, yet 
 he did not see the grim, stern old man present himself thus sud- 
 denly without emotion ; especially when he recollected, what to a 
 youth of his pious education was peculiarly shocking, that the 
 grizzled hypocrite was probably that instant arisen from his knees 
 to Heaven, for the purpose of engaging in the mysterious trans- 
 actions of a desperate and illegal trade. 
 
 The old man, accustomed to judge with ready sharpness of the 
 physiognomy of those with whom he had business, did not fail to 
 remark something like agitation in Fairford's demeanour. " Have 
 ye taken the rue ? " said he. " Will ye take the sheaf from the 
 mare, and give up the venture ? " 
 
 " Never ! " said Fairford, firmly, stimulated at once by his 
 natural spirit, and the recollection of his friend ; " never, while I 
 have life and strength to follow it out ! " 
 
 " I have brought you," said Trumbull, " a clean shirt and some 
 stockings, which is all the baggage you can conveniently carry, 
 and I will cause one of the lads lend you a horseman's coat, for it 
 is ill sailing or riding without one ; and, touching your valise, it 
 will be as safe in my poor house, were it full of the gold of Ophir, 
 as if it were in the depth of the mine." 
 
 " I have no doubt of it," said Fairford. 
 
 " And now," said Trumbull, again, •' I pray you to tell me by 
 what name I am to name you lo Nanty [which is Antony] 
 Ewart?" 
 
 " By the name of Alan Fairford," answered the young lawyer. 
 
 " But that," said Mr. Trumbull, in reply, " is your own proper 
 name and surname." 
 
 " And what other should I give ? " said the young man ; " do 
 you think I have any occasion for an alias ? And, besides, Mr. 
 Trumbull," added Alan, thinking a little raillery might intimate 
 confidence of spirit, "you blessed yourself, but a little while 
 since, that you had no acquaintance with those who defiled their 
 names so far as to be obliged to change them." 
 
 "True, very true," said Mr. Trumbull; "nevertheless, young 
 man, my grey hairs stand unreproved in this matter ; for, in my 
 line of business, when I sit under my vine and my fig-tree, ex- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 263 
 
 changing the strong waters of the north for the gold which is the 
 price thereof, I have, I thank Heaven, no disguises to keep with 
 any man, and wear my own name of Thomas Trumbull, without 
 any chance that the same may be polluted. Whereas, thou, who 
 art to journey in miry ways, and amongst a strange people, mayst 
 do well to have two names, as thou hast two shirts, the one to keep 
 the other clean." 
 
 Here he emitted a chuckling grunt, which lasted for two vibra- 
 tions of the pendulum exactly, and was the only approach towards 
 laughter in which old Turnpenny, as he was nicknamed, was ever 
 known to indulge. 
 
 " You are witty, Mr. Trumbull," said Fairford ; " but jests are no 
 arguments — I shall keep my own name." 
 
 " At your own pleasure," said the merchant ; " there is but one 
 name which," &c. &c. &c. 
 
 We will not follow the hypocrite through the impious cant which 
 he added, in order to close the subject. 
 
 Alan followed him, in silent abhorrence, to the recess in which 
 the beaufet was placed, and which was so artificially made as to 
 conceal another of those traps with which the whole building 
 abounded. This concealment admitted them to the same winding 
 passage by which the young lawyer had 'been brought thither. 
 The path which they now took amid these mazes, differed from the 
 direction in which he had been guided by Rutledge. It led upwards, 
 and terminated beneath a garret window. Trumbull opened it, 
 and with more agility than his age promised, clambered out upon 
 the leads. If Fairford's journey had been hitherto in a stifled and 
 subterranean atmosphere, it was now open, lofty, and airy enough ; 
 for he had to follow his guide over leads and slates, which the old 
 smuggler traversed with the dexterity of a cat. It is true his course 
 was facilitated by knowing exactly where certain stepping-places 
 and holdfasts were placed, of which Fairford could not so readily 
 avail himself; but, after a difficult and somewhat perilous progress 
 along the roofs of two or three houses, they at length descended by 
 a skylight into a garret room, and from thence by the stairs into a 
 public-house ; for such it appeared by the ringing of bells, whistling 
 for waiters and attendance, bawling of "House, house, here!" 
 chorus of sea songs, and the like noises. 
 
 Having descended to the. second story, and entered a room 
 there, in which there was a light, old Mr. Trumbull rung the bell 
 of the apartment thrice, with an interval betwixt each, during 
 which, he told deliberately the number twenty. Immediately after 
 the third ringing the landlord appeared, with stealthy step, and an 
 appearance of mystery on his buxom visage. He greeted Mr. 
 
264 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Trumbull, who was his landlord as it proved, with great respect, 
 and expressed some surprise at seeing him so late, as he termed it, 
 " on Saturday at e'en." 
 
 " And I, Robin Hastie," said the landlord to the tenant, " am 
 more surprised than pleased, to hear sac muckle din in your house, 
 Robie, so near the honourable Sabbath ; and I must mind you, 
 that it is contravening the terms of your tack, whilk stipulate, that 
 you should shut your public on Saturday at nine o'clock, at latest." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Robin Hastie, no way alarmed at the gravity of 
 the rebuke, " but you must take tent that I have admitted naebody 
 but you, Mr. Trumbull, (who, by the way, admitted yoursell,) since 
 nine o'clock j for the most of the folk have been here for several 
 hours about the lading, and so on, of the brig. It is not full tide 
 yet, and I cannot put the men out into the street. If I did, they 
 would go to some other public, and their souls would be nane the 
 better, and my purse muckle the waur ; for how am I to pay the 
 rent, if I do not sell the liquor ? " 
 
 "Nay, then," said Thomas Trumbull, " if it is a work of neces- 
 sity, and in the honest independent way of business, no doubt 
 there is balm in Gilead. But prithee, Robin, wilt thou see if 
 Nanty Ewart be, as is most likely, amongst these unhappy topers j 
 and if so, let him step this way cannily, and speak to me and this 
 young gentleman. And it's dry talking, Robin — you must minister 
 to us a bowl of punch — ye ken my gage." 
 
 " From a mutchkin to a gallon, I ken your honour's taste, Mr. 
 Thomas Trumbull," said mine host ; " and ye shall hang me over 
 the sign-post if there be a drap mair lemon or a curn less sugar 
 than just suits you. There are three of you — you will be for the 
 auld Scots peremptory pint-stoup* for the success of the vOyage ? " 
 
 " Better pray for it than drink for it, Robin," said Mr. Trumbull. 
 " Yours is a dangerous trade, Robin ; it hurts mony a ane— baith 
 host and guest. But ye will get the blue bowl, Robin— the blue 
 bowl — that will sloken all their drouth, and prevent the sinful 
 repetition of whipping for an eke of a Saturday at e'en. Ay, Robin, 
 it is a pity of Nanty Ewart — Nanty likes the turning up of his 
 little finger unco weel, and we maunna stint him, Robin, so as we 
 leave him sense-to 'steer by." 
 
 " Nanty Ewart could steer through the Pentland Frith though 
 he were as drunk as the Baltic Ocean," said Robin Hastie ; and 
 instantly tripping down stairs, he speedily returned with the ma- 
 terials for what he called his browst, which consisted of two 
 English quarts of spirits, in a huge blue bowl, with all the ingre- 
 dients for punch, in the same formidable proportion. At the same 
 time he introduced Mr. Antony or Nanty Ewart, whose person, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 265 
 
 although he was a good deal flustered with liquor, was different 
 from what Fairford expected. His dress was what is emphatically 
 termed the shabby genteel — a frock with tarnished lace — a small 
 cocked-hat, ornamented in a similar way — a scarlet waistcoat, with 
 faded embroidery, breeches of the same, with silver knee-bands, 
 and he wore a smart hanger and a pair of pistols in a sullied 
 sword-belt. 
 
 " Here I come, patron," he said, shaking hands with Mr. Trum- 
 bull. " Well, I see you have got some grog aboard." 
 
 " It is not my custom, Mr. Ewart," said the old gentleman, " as 
 you well know, to become a chamberer or carousal thus late on 
 Saturday at e'en ; but I wanted to recommend to your attention a 
 young friend of ours, that is going upon a something particular 
 j Hirney, with a letter to our friend the Laird, from Pate-in-Peril, as 
 they call him." 
 
 " Ay — indeed ? — ^he must be in high trust for so young a gentle- 
 man. — I wish you joy, sir," bowing to Fairford. " By'r lady, as 
 Shakspeare says, you are bringing up a neck to a fair end. — Come, 
 patron, we will drink to Mr. What-shall-call-um — What is his 
 name?— Did you tell me? — And have I forgot it already?" 
 
 " Mr. Alan Fairford," said Trumbull. 
 
 " Ay, Mr. Alan Fairford — a good name for a fair trader — Mr. 
 Alan Fairford ; and may he be long withheld from the topmost 
 round of ambition, which I take to be the highest round of a 
 certain ladder." 
 
 While he spoke, he seized the punch ladle, and began to fill the 
 glasses. But Mr. Trumbull arrested his hand, until he had, as he 
 expressed himself, sanctified the liquor by a long grace ; during 
 the pronunciation of which, he shut indeed his eyes, but his nostrils 
 became dilated, as if he were snuffing up the fragrant beverage 
 with peculiar complacency. 
 
 When the grace was at length over, the three friends sat down to 
 their beverage, and invited Alan Fairford to partake. Anxious 
 about his situation, and disgusted as he was with his company, he 
 craved, and with difficiilty obtained permission, under the allega- 
 tion of being fatigued, heated, and the like, to stretch himself on a 
 couch which was in the apartment, and attempted at least to 
 procure some rest before high water, when the vessel was to sail. 
 
 He was at length permitted to use his freedom, and stretched 
 himself on the couch, having his eyes for some time fixed on the 
 jovial party he had left, and straining his ears to catch if possible a 
 little of their conversation. This he soon found was to no purpose ; 
 for what did actually reach his ears was disguised so completely by 
 the use of cant words, and the thieves- Latin called slang, that even 
 
265 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 when he caught the words, he found himself as far as ever from 
 the sense of their conversation. At length he fell asleep. 
 
 .It was after Alan had slumbered for three or four hours, that he 
 was wakened by voices bidding him rise up and prepare to be 
 jogging. He started up accordingly, and found himself in presence 
 of the same party of boon companions, who had just dispatched 
 their huge bowl of punch. To Alan's surprise, the liquor had made 
 but little innovation on the brains of men, who were accustomed to 
 drink at all hours, and in the most inordinate quantities. The 
 landlord indeed spoke a little thick, and the texts of Mr. Thomas 
 Trumbull stumbled on his tongue ; but Nanty was one of those 
 topers, who, becoming early what bon vivants term flustered, 
 remain whole nights and days at the same point of intoxication ; 
 and, in fact, as they are seldom entirely sober, can be as rarely 
 seen absolutely drunk. Indeed, Fairford, had he not known how 
 Ewart had been engaged whilst he himself was asleep, would almost 
 have sworn when he awoke, that the man was more sober than 
 when he first entered the room. 
 
 He was confirmed in this opinion when they descended below, 
 where two or three sailors and ruffian-looking fellows awaited their 
 commands. Ewart took the whole direction upon himself, gave his 
 orders with briefness and precision, and looked to their being 
 executed with the silence and celerity which that peculiar crisis 
 required. All were now dismissed for the brig, which lay, as Fair- 
 ford was given to understand, a little farther down the river, which 
 is navigable lor vessels of light burden, till almost within a mile of 
 the town. 
 
 When they issued from the inn, the landlord bid them good-by. 
 Old Trumbull walked a little way with them, but the air had pro- 
 bably considerable effect on the state of his brain ; for, after 
 reminding Alan Fairford that the next day was the honourable 
 Sabbath, he became extremely excursive in an attempt to exhort 
 him to keep it holy. At length, being perhaps sensible that he was 
 becoming unintelligible, he thrust a volume into Fairford's hand — 
 hiccupping at the same time — " Good book — good book — fine 
 hymn-book — fit for the honourable Sabbath, whilk awaits us to- 
 morrow morning." — Here the iron tongue of time told five from the 
 town steeple of Annan, to the further confusion of Mr. Trumbull's 
 already disordered ideas. "Ay? is Sunday come and gone 
 already ? — Heaven be praised ! Only it is a marvel the afternoon 
 is sae dark for the time of the year — Sabbath has slipped ower 
 quietly, but we have reason to bless oursells it has not been 
 altogether misemployed. I tieard little of the preaching— a cauld 
 moralist, I doubt, served that out— but, eh— the prayer — I mind it 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 267 
 
 as if I had said the words myself. — Here he repeated one or two 
 petitions, which were probably a part of his family devotions, 
 before he was summoned forth to what he called the way of busi- 
 ness. " I never remember a Sabbath pass so cannily off in my 
 life." — Then he recollected himself a little, and said to Alan, " You 
 may read that book, Mr. Fairford, to-morrow, all the same, though 
 it be Monday ; for, you see, it was Saturday when we were the- 
 gether, and now it's Sunday, and it's dark night — so the Sabbath 
 has slipped clean away through our fingers, Uke water through a 
 sieve, which abideth not ; and we have to b^in again to-morrow 
 morning, in the weariful, base, mean, earthly employments, whilk 
 are unworthy of an immortal spirit — always excepting the way of 
 business." 
 
 Three of the fellows were now returning to the town, and, at 
 Ewarfs command, they cut short the patriarch's exhortation, by 
 leading him back to his own residence. The rest of the party 
 then proceeded to the brig, which only waited their arrival to get 
 under weigh and drop down the river. Nanty Ewart betook him- 
 self to steering the brig, and the very touch of the helm seemed to 
 dispel the remaining influence of the liquor which he had drunk, 
 since, through a troublesome and intricate channel, he was able to 
 direct the course of his little vessel with the most perfect accuracy 
 and safety. 
 
 Alan Fairford, for some time, availed himself of the clearness of 
 the summer morning to gaze on the dimly seen shores betwixt 
 which they glided, becoming less and less distinct as they receded 
 from each other, vmtil at length, having adjusted his Uttle bundle 
 by way of piUow, and wrapt around him the great-coat with which 
 old Trumbull had equipped him, he stretched himself on the deck, 
 to try to recover the slumber out of which he had been awakened. 
 Sleep had scarce begun to settle on his eyes, ere he found some- 
 thing stirring about his person. With ready presence of mind he 
 recollected his situation, and resolved to show no alarm until the 
 purpose of this became obvious ; but he was soon relieved from 
 his anxiety, by finding it was only the result of Nant/s attention 
 to his comfort, who was wrapping around him, as softly as he 
 could, a great boat-cloak, in order to defend him from the morning 
 air. 
 
 " Thou art but a cockerel," he muttered, " but 'twere pity thou 
 uert knocked off the perch before seeing a little more of the 
 sweet and sour of this world — though, faith, if thou hast the usual 
 luck of it, the best way were to leave thee to the chance of a 
 seasoning fever." 
 
 These words, and the awkward courtesy with which the skipper 
 
208 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 of the little brig tucked the sea-coat round Fairford, gave him a 
 confidence of safety which he had not yet thoroughly possessed. 
 He stretched himself in more security on the hard planks, and 
 was speedily asleep, though his slumbers were feverish and unre- 
 freshing. 
 
 It has been elsewhere intimated that Alan Fairford inherited 
 from his mother a delicate constitution, with a tendency to con- 
 sumption ; and, being an only child, with such a cause for appre- 
 hension, care, to the verge of effeminacy, was taken to preserve 
 him from damp beds, wet feet, and those various emergencies, to 
 which the Caledonian boys of much higher birth, but more active 
 habits, are generally accustomed. In man, the spirit sustains the 
 constitutional weakness, as in the winged tribes the feathers bear 
 aloft the body. But there is a bound to these supporting qualities; 
 and as the pinions of the bird must at length grow weary, so the 
 vis animi of the human struggler becomes broken down by con- 
 tinued fatigue. 
 
 When the voyager was awakened by the light of the sun now 
 riding high in Heaven, he found himself under the influence of an 
 almost intolerable headach, with heat, thirst, shootings across the 
 back and loins, and other symptoms intimating violent cold, 
 accompanied with fever. The manner in which he had passed 
 the preceding day and night, though perhaps it might have been 
 of little consequence to most young men, was to him, delicate in 
 constitution and nurture, attended with bad and even perilous 
 consequences. He felt this was the case, yet would fain have 
 combated the syfnptoms of indisposition, which, indeed, he im- 
 puted chiefly to sea-sickness. He sat up on deck, and looked on the 
 scene around, as the little vessel, having borne down the Solway 
 Frith, was beginning, with a favourable northerly breeze, to bear 
 away to the southward, crossing the entrance of the Wampool 
 river, and preparing to double the most northerly point of Cumber- 
 land. 
 
 But Fairford felt annoyed with deadly sickness, as well as by 
 pain of a distressing and oppressive character ; and neither Criffel, 
 rising in majesty on the one hand, nor the distant yet more 
 picturesque outline of Skiddaw and Glaramara upon the other, 
 could attract his attention in the manner in which it was usually 
 fixed by beautiful scenery, and especially that which had in it 
 something new as well as striking. Yet it was not in Alan 
 Fairford's nature to give way to despondence, even when seconded 
 by pain. He had recourse, in the first place, to his pocket ; but 
 instead of the little Sallust he had brought with him, that the 
 perusal of a favourite classical author might help to pass away a 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 269 
 
 heavy hour, he pulled out the supposed hymn-book with which he 
 had been presented a few hours before, by that temperate and 
 scrupulous person, Mr. Thomas Trumbull, alias Turnpenny. The 
 volume was bound in sable, and its exterior might have become a 
 psalter. But what was Alan's astonishment to read on the title- 
 page the following words : — " Merry Thoughts for Merry Men ; or, 
 Mother Midnight's Miscellany for the Small Hours ; " and, turn- 
 ing over the leaves, he was disgusted with profligate tales, and 
 more profligate songs, ornamented with figures corresponding in 
 infamy with the letterpress. 
 
 " Good God ! " he thought, " and did this hoary reprobate sum- 
 mon his family together, and, with such a disgraceful pledge of 
 infamy in his bosom, venture to approach the throne of his 
 Creator ? It must be so ; the book is bound after the manner 
 of those dedicated to devotional subjects, and doubtless, the 
 wretch, in his intoxication, confounded the books he carried with 
 him, as he did the days of the week." — Seized with the disgust 
 with which the young and generous usually regard the vices of 
 advanced life, Alan, having turned the leaves of the book over in 
 hasty disdain, flung it from him, as far as he could, into the sea. 
 He then had recourse to the Sallust, which he had at first 
 sought for in vain. As he opened the book, Nanty Ewart, who 
 had been looking over his shoulder, made his own opinion heard. 
 
 " I think now, brother, if you are so much scandalized at a little 
 piece of sculduddery, which, after all, does nobody any harm, you 
 had better have given it to me than have flung it into the Sqlway." 
 
 " I hope, sir," answered Fairford, civilly, " you are in the habit 
 of reading better books." 
 
 " Faith," answered Nanty, " with help of a little Geneva text, I 
 could read my Sallust as well as you can ; " and snatching the 
 book from Alan's hand, he began to read, in the Scottish ac- 
 cent : — " ' Igitur ex divitiis juventutem liixttria aigue avaritia 
 cum superbiA invasire : rapere, consumers j sua parvi pendere, 
 aliena cupere ; pudorem, amicitiam, ptidicitiam, divina atque 
 humana promiscua, nihil pensi neque moderati habere.' * — There 
 is a slap in the face now, for an honest fellow that has been 
 buccaniering ! Never could keep a groat of what he got, or hold 
 his fingers from what belonged to another, said you? Fie, fie, 
 friend Crispus, thy morals are as crabbed and austere as thy 
 style — the one has as little mercy as the other has grace. By 
 my soul, it is unhandsome to make personal reflections on an old 
 acquaintance, who seeks a little civil intercourse with you after nigh 
 twenty years' separation. On my soul, Master Sallust deserves to 
 float on the Solway better than Mother Midnight herself." 
 
270 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " Perhaps, in some respects, he may merit better usage at our 
 hands," said Alan ; " for if he has described vice plainly, it seems 
 to have been for the purpose of rendering it generally abhorred." 
 
 " Well," said the seaman, " I have heard of the Sortes Vir- 
 giliana:, and I dare say the Sortes Sallustianae are as true every 
 tittle. I have consulted honest Crispus on my own account, and 
 have had a cuff for my pains. But now see, I open the book 
 on your behalf, and behold what occurs first to my eye ! — Lo you 
 there — ' Catilina . . . omnium flagitiosorum atque facinorosoruvi 
 circum se habebat.' And then again — ' Etiam si qtds d, ciilpd 
 vacuus in amicitiam ejus inciderat, quotidiano usu par similisque 
 ccetens effidebatur.'* That is what I call plain speaking on the 
 part of the old Roman, Mr. Fairford. By the way, that is a 
 capital name for a lawyer." 
 
 " Lawyer as I am," said Fairford, " I do not understand your 
 innuendo." 
 
 " Nay, then," said Ewart, " I can try it another way, as well as 
 the hypocritical old rascal Turnpenny himself could do. I would 
 have you to know that I am well acquainted with my Bible-book, 
 as well as with my friend Sallust." He then, in a snuffling and 
 canting tone, began to repeat the Scripture text — " ' David there- 
 fore departed thence, and went to the cave of Adullam, Ana 
 every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, 
 and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves together 
 tmto him, and he became a captain over them' What think you 
 of that ? " he said, suddenly changing his manner. " Have I 
 touched you now, sir ? " 
 
 " You are as far ofif as ever," replied Fairford. 
 
 " What the devil ! and you a repeating frigate between Summer- 
 irees and the Laird ! Tell that to the marines — the sailors won't 
 beUeve it. But you are right to be cautious, since you can't say 
 who are right, who not. — But you look ill j it's but the cold morning 
 air — ^Will you have a can of flip, or a jorum of hot rumbo ?— or will 
 you splice the main-brace" — (showing a spirit-flask) — ^"Will you 
 have a quid— or a pipe— or a cigar? — a pinch of snuff, at least, to 
 clear your brains and sharpen your apprehension." 
 
 Fairford rejected all these friendly propositions. 
 
 " Why, then," continued Ewart, " if you will do nothing for the 
 free trade, I must patronise it myself." 
 
 So saying, he took a large glass of brandy. 
 
 " A hair of the dog that bit me," he continued,—" of the dog 
 that will worry me one day soon ; and yet, and be d— d to me for 
 an idiot, I must always have him at my throat. But, says the old 
 catch "—Here he sung, and sung well— 
 
KEDGAUNTLET. 071 
 
 " ' Let's drink — let's drink — while life we have ; 
 
 We'll find but cold drinking, cold drinking in the grave.' 
 
 All this," he continued, " is no charm against the headach. I wish 
 I had any thing that could do you good. — Faith, and we have tea 
 and coffee aboard ! I'll open a chest or a bag, and let you have 
 some in an instant. You are at the age to like such catlap better 
 than better stuff." 
 
 Fairford thanked him, and accepted his offer of tea. 
 
 Nanty Ewart was soon heard calling about, " Break open yon 
 chest — take out your capful, you bastard of a powder-monkey; 
 we may want it again. — No sugar ?— all used up for grog, say you ? 
 — knock another loaf to pieces, can't ye ? — and get the kettle boiling, 
 ye hell's baby, in no time at all ! " 
 
 By dint of these energetic proceedings, he was in a short time 
 able to return to the place where his passenger lay sick and 
 exhausted, with a cup, or rather a canful, of tea ; for every thing 
 was on a large scale on board of the Jumping Jenny. Alan drank 
 it eagerly, and with so much appearance of being refreshed, that 
 Nanty Ewart swore he would have some too, and only laced it, as 
 his phrase went, with a .single glass of brandy.* 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD, CONTINUED. 
 
 We left Alan Fairford on the deck of the little smuggling brig, 
 in that disconsolate situation, when sickness and nausea attacked 
 a heated and fevered frame, and an anxious mind. His share of 
 sea-sickness, however, was not so great as to engross his sensa- 
 tions entirely, or altogether to divert his attention from what was 
 passing around. If he could not delight in the swiftness and 
 agility with which the "little frigate" walked the waves, or amuse 
 himself by noticing the beauty of the sea-views around him, where 
 the distant Skiddaw raised his brow, as if in defiance of the 
 clouded eminence; of Criffel, which lorded it over the Scottish side 
 of the estuary, he had spirits and composure enough to pay parti- 
 cular attention to the master of the vessel, on whose character his 
 own safety in all probability was dependent. 
 
 Nanty Ewart had now given the helm to one of his people, a 
 bald-pated, grizzled old fellow, whose whole life had been spent in 
 evading the revenue laws, with now and then the relaxation of a 
 
272 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 few months' imprisonment, for deforcing officers, resisting seizures, 
 and the like offences. 
 
 Nanty himself sat down by Fairford, helped him to his tea, with 
 such other refreshments as he could think of, and seemed in his 
 way sincerely desirous to make his situation as comfortable as 
 things admitted. Fairford had thus an opportunity to study his 
 countenance and manners more closely. 
 
 It was plain, Ewart, though a good seaman, had not been bred 
 upon that element. He was a reasonably good scholar, and seemed 
 fond of showing it, by recurring to the subject of Sallust and 
 Juvenal ; while, on the other hand, sea-phrases seldom chequered 
 his conversation. He had been in person what is called a'smart 
 little man ; but the tropical sun had burnt his originally fair com- 
 plexion to a dusty red ; and the bile which was diffused through 
 his system, had stained it with a yellowish black — what ought to 
 have been the white part of his eyes, in particular, had a hue as 
 deep as the topaz. He was very thin, or rather emaciated, and 
 his countenance, though still indicating alertness and activity, 
 showed a constitution exhausted with excessive use of his favourite 
 stimulus. 
 
 " I see you look at me hard," said he to Fairford. " Had you 
 been an officer of the d — d customs, my terriers' backs would haye 
 been up." He opened his br-east, and showed Alan a pair of pistols 
 disposed between his waistcoat and jacket, placing his finger at the 
 same time upon the cock of one of them. " But come, you are an 
 honest fellow, though you're a close one. I dare say you think me 
 a queer customer ; but I can tell you, they that see the ship leave 
 harbour, know little of the seas she is to sail through. My father, 
 honest old gentleman, never would have thought to see me master 
 of the Jumping Jenny." 
 
 Fairford said, it seemed very clear indeed that Mr. Ewart's edu- 
 cation was far superior to the line he at present occupied. 
 
 " O, Criffel to Solway Moss ! " said the other. " Why, man, I 
 should have been an expounder of the word, with a wig like a snow- 
 wreath, and a stipend like — like — like a hundred pounds a-year, I 
 suppose. I can spend thrice as much as that, though, being such as 
 I am." Here he sung a scrap of an old Northumbrian ditty, mimick- 
 ing the burr of the natives of that county : — 
 
 " Willy Foster's gone to sea, 
 Siller buckles at his knee. 
 He'll come back and marry me — 
 Canny Willy Foster." 
 
 " I have no doubt," said Fairford, " your present occupation is 
 
REDGAUNTLET, 273 
 
 more lucrative ; but I should have thought the church might have 
 been more " 
 
 He stopped, recollecting that it was not his business to say any 
 thing disagreeable. 
 
 " More respectable, you mean, I suppose ? " said Ewart, with a 
 sneer, and squirting the tobacco-juice through his front teeth ; then 
 was silent for a moment, and proceeded in a tone of candour which 
 some internal touch of conscience dictated. " And so it would, 
 Mr. Fairford — and happier, too, by a thousand degrees — though I 
 have had my pleasures too. But there was my father, (God bless 
 the old man !) a true chip of the old Presbyterian block, walked 
 his parish like a captain on the quarterdeck, and was always ready 
 to do good to rich and poor — Off went the laird's hat to the 
 minister, as fast as the poor man's bonnet. When the eye saw him 
 — Pshaw ! what have I to do with that now .'' — Yes, he was, as 
 Virgil hath it, ' Vir sapientia et pietate gravis.' But he might have 
 been the wiser man, had he kept me at home, when he sent me at 
 nineteen to study Divinity at the head of the highest stair in the 
 Covenant-Close. It was a cursed mistake in the old gentleman. 
 What though Mrs. Cantrips of Kittlebasket (for she wrote herself 
 no less) was our cousin five times removed, and took me on that 
 account to board and lodging, at six shillings, instead of seven 
 shillings a-week ? it was a d — d bad saving, as the case proved. 
 Yet her very dignity might have kept me in order ; for she never 
 read a chapter excepting out of a Cambridge Bible, printed by 
 Daniel, and bound in embroidered velvet. I think I see it at this 
 moment ! And on Sundays, when we had a quart of twopenny 
 ale, instead of buttermilk, to our porridge, it was always served up 
 in a silver posset-dish. Also she used silver-mounted spectacles, 
 whereas even my father's were cased in mere horn. These things 
 had their impression at first, but we get used to grandeur by 
 degrees. Well, sir ; — Gad, I can scare get on with my story — it 
 sticks in my throat — must take a trifle to wash it down. — Well, 
 this dame had a daughter — Jess Cantrips, a black-eyed, bouncing 
 wench — and, as the devil would have it, there was the d — d five- 
 story stair — her foot was never from it, whether I went out or came 
 home from the Divinity Hall. I would have eschewed her, sir — I 
 would, on my soul ; for I was as innocent a lad as ever came from 
 Lammermuir ; but there was no possibility of escape, retreat, or 
 flight, unless I could have got a pair of wings, or made use of a 
 ladder seven stories high, to scale the window of my attic. It sig- 
 nifies little talking — you may suppose how all this was to end — I 
 would have married the girl, and taken my chance — I would, by 
 Heaven ! for she was a pretty girl, and a good girl, till she and I 
 
 X 
 
274 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 met ; but you know the old song, ' Kirk would not let us be.' A 
 gentleman, in my case, would have settled the matter with the 
 Kirk-treasurer for a small sum of money ; but the poor stibblcr, 
 the penniless dominie, having married his cousin of Kiftlebasket, 
 must next have proclaimed her frailty to the whole parish, by 
 mounting the throne, of Presbyterian penance, and proving, as 
 Othello says, ' his love a whore,' in face of the whole congregation. 
 
 " In this extremity I dared not stay where I was, and so thought 
 to go home to my father. But first I got Jack Hadaway, a lad 
 from the same parish, and who lived in the same infernal stair, to 
 make some enquiries how the old gentleman had taken tlie matter. 
 I soon, by way of answer, learned, to the great increase of my 
 comfortable reflections, that the good old man made as much 
 clamour, as if such a thing as a man's eating his wedding dinner 
 without saying grace had never happened since Adam's time. , He 
 did nothing for six days but cry out, ' Ichabod, Ichabod, the glory 
 is departed from my house ! ' and on the seventh he preached a 
 sermon, in which he enlarged on this incident as illustrative of one 
 of the great occasions for humiliation, and causes of national defec- 
 tion. I hope the course he took comforted himself — I am sure it 
 made me ashamed to show my nose at home. So I went down to 
 Leith, and, exchanging my hoddin grey coat of my mother's 
 spinning for such a jacket as this, I entered my name at the ren- 
 dezvous as an able-bodied landsman, and sailed with the tender 
 round to Plymouth, where they were fitting out a squadron for the 
 West Indies. There I was put aboard the Fearnought, Captain 
 Daredevil— among whose crew I soon learned to fear Satan, (the 
 terror of my early youth,) as little as the toughest Jack on board. 
 I had some qualms at first, but I took the remedy " (tapping the 
 case-bottle) " which I recommended to you, being as good for sick- 
 ness of the soul as for sickness of the stomach— What, you won't ? 
 very well, I must, then— hear is to ye." 
 
 " You would, I am afraid, find your education of little use in 
 your new condition ? " said Fairford. 
 
 " Pardon me, sir," resumed the Captain of the Jumping Jenny ; 
 " my handful of Latin, and small pinch of Greek, were as useless 
 as old junk, to be sure ; but my reading, writing, and accompting, 
 stood me in good stead, and brought me forward. I might have 
 been schoolmaster— ay, and master, in time ; but that valiant 
 liquor, rum, made a conquest of me rather too often, and so, make 
 what sail I could, I always went to leeward. Wc were four ^ears 
 broiling in that blasted climate, and I came back at last with a 
 little prize-money.— I always had thoughts of putting things to 
 rights in the Covenant-Close, and reconciling myself to my father. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 273 
 
 I found out Jack Hadaway, who was Tup-towing away with a 
 dozen of wretched boys, and a fine string of stories he had ready 
 to regale my ears withal. My father had lectured on what he 
 called ' my falling away,' for seven Sabbaths, when, just as his 
 parishioners began to hope that the course was at an end, he was 
 found dead in his bed on the eighth Sunday morning. Jack Hada- 
 way assured me, that if I wished to atone for my errors, by under- 
 going the fate of the first martyr, I had" only to go to my native 
 village, where the very stones of the street would rise up against 
 me as my father's murderer. Here was a pretty item— well, my 
 tongue clove to my mouth for an hour, and was only able at last to 
 utter the name of Mrs. Cantrips. O, this was a new theme for my 
 Job's comforter. My sudden departure — my father's no less sudden 
 death — had prevented the payment of the arrears of my board and 
 lodging — the landlord was a haberdasher, with a heart as rotten as 
 the muslin wares he dealt in. Without respect to her age, or 
 gentle kin, my Lady Kittlebasket was ejected from her airy habita- 
 tion — her porridge-pot, silver posset-dish, silver-mounted spectacles, 
 and Daniel's Cambridge Bible, sold, at the Cross of Edinburgh, to 
 the cadie who would bid highest for them, and she herself driven 
 to the workhouse, where she got in with difficulty, but was easily 
 enough lifted out, at the end of the month, as dead as her friends 
 could desire. Merry tidings this to me, who had been the d — d" 
 (he paused a moment) " origo mali—GzA, I think my confession 
 would sound better in Latin than in English ! 
 
 " But the best jest was behind — I had just power to stammer out 
 something about Jess — by my faith he had an answer ! I had 
 taught Jess one trade, and, like a prudent girl, she had found out 
 another for herself; unluckily, they were both contraband, and 
 Jess Cantrips, daughter of the Lady Kittlebasket, had the honour 
 to be transported to the plantations, for street-walking and pocket- 
 picking, about six months before I touched shore." 
 
 He changed the bitter tone of affected pleasantry into an attempt 
 to laugh ; then drew his swarthy hand across his swarthy eyes, and 
 said in a more natural accent, " Poor Jess ! 
 
 There was a pause— until Fairford, pitying the poor man's state 
 of mind, and believing he saw something in him that, but for 
 early error and subsequent profligacy, might have been excellent 
 and noble, helped on the conversation by asking, in a tone of 
 commiseration, how he had been able to endure such a load of 
 calamity. 
 
 " Why, very well," answered the seaman ; " exceedingly well — 
 like a tight ship in a brisk gale. — Let me recollect. — I remember 
 thanking Jack, very composedly, for the interesting and agreeable 
 
 T 2 
 
276 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 communication; I then pulled out my canvass poucli, with my 
 hoard of moidores, and taking out two pieces, 1 bid Jaclt keep the 
 rest till I came back, as I was for a cruise about Auld Reekie. The 
 poor devil looked anxiously, but I shook him by the hand and ran 
 down stairs, in such confusion of mind, that, notwithstanding what 
 I had heard, I expected to meet Jess at every turning. 
 
 "It was market-day, and the usual number of rogues and fools 
 were assembled at the Cross. I observed every body looked strange 
 on me, and I thought some laughed. I fancy I had been making 
 queer faces enough, and perhaps talking to myself. When I saw 
 myself used in this manner, I held out my clenched fists straight 
 before me, stooped my head, and, like a ram when he makes his 
 race, darted off right down the street, scattering groups of weather- 
 beaten lairds and periwigged burgesses, and bearing down all 
 before me. I heard the cry of ' Seize the madman ! ' echoed, in 
 Celtic sounds, from the City Guard, with ' Ceaze ta matman ! '—but 
 pursuit and opposition were in vain. I pursued my career ; the 
 smell of the sea, I suppose, led me to Leith, where, soon after, I 
 found myself walking very quietly, on the shore, admiring the tough 
 round and sound cordage of the vessels, and thinking how a loop, 
 with a man at the end of one of them, would look, by way of 
 tassal. 
 
 " I was opposite to the rendezvous, formerly my place of refuge 
 —in I bolted — found one or two old acquaintances, made half-a- 
 dozen new ones — drank for two days — was put aboard the tender 
 — off to Portsmouth — then landed at the Haslaar hospital in a fine 
 hissing-hot fever. Never mind— I got better — nothing can kill mc 
 — the West Indies were my lot again, for since I did not go where 
 I deserved in the next world, I had something as like such quarters 
 as can be had in this —black devils for inhabitants — flames and 
 earthquakes, and so forth, for your element. Well, brother, some- 
 thing or other I did or said — I can't tell what — How the devil 
 should I when I was as drunk as David's sow, you know ? — But I 
 was punished, my lad — made to kiss the wench that never speaks 
 but when she scolds, and that's the gunner's daughter, comrade. 
 Yes, the minister's son of — no matter where — has the cat's scratch 
 on his back ! This roused me — and when we were ashore with the 
 boat, I gave three inches of the dirk, after a stout tussle, to the 
 fellow I blamed most, and so took the bush for it. There were 
 plenty of wild lads then along shore — and, I don't care who knows 
 — I went on the account, look you— sailed under the black flag and 
 marrow-bones— was a good friend to the sea, and an enemy to all 
 that sailed on it." 
 
 Fairfordj though uneasy in his mind at finding himself, a lawyer, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. '.^^ 
 
 SO close to a character so lawless, thought it best, nevertheless, to 
 put a good face on the matter, and asked Mr. Ewart, with as much 
 unconcern as he could assume, " whether he was fortunate as a 
 rover?" 
 
 " No, no — d — n it, no," replied Nanty ; " the devil a crumb of 
 butter was ever churned that would stick upon my bread. There 
 was no order among us — he that was captain to-day, was swabber 
 to-morrow ; and as for plunder — they say old Avery, and one or 
 two close hunks, made money ; but in my time, all went as it came : 
 and reason good, for if a fellow had saved five dollars, his throat 
 would have been cut in his hammock — And then it was a cruel, 
 bloody work — Pah — we'U say no more about it. I broke with them, 
 at last, for what they did on board of a bit of a snow — no matter 
 what it was — bad enough, since it frightened me — I took French 
 leave, and came in upon the proclamation, so I am free of all that 
 business. And here I sit, the skipper of the Jumping Jenny — a 
 nutshell of a thing, but goes through the water like a dolphin. If 
 it were not for yon hypocritical scoundrel at Annan, who has the 
 best end of the profit, and takes none of the risk, I should be well 
 enough — as well as I want to be. Here is no lack of my best 
 friend," — touching his case-bottle ;—" but, to tell you a secret, he 
 and I have got so used to each other, I begin to think he is like a 
 professed joker, that makes your sides sore with laughing, if you 
 see him but now and then ; but if you take up house with him, he 
 can only make your head stupid. But I warrant the old fellow is 
 doing the best he can for me, after all." 
 
 "And what may that be?" said Fairford. 
 
 " He is KILLING me," replied Nanty Ewart ; " and I am only 
 sorry he is so long about it." 
 
 So saying he jumped on his feet, and tripping up and down the 
 deck, gave his orders with his usual clearness and decision, notwith- 
 standing the considerable quantity of spirits which he had contrived 
 to swallow while recounting his history. 
 
 Although far from feeling well, Fairford endeavoured to rouse 
 himself and walk to the head of the brig, to enjoy the beautiful 
 prospect, as well as to take some note of the course which the vessel 
 held. To his great surprise, instead of standing across to the 
 opposite shore from which she had departed, the brig was going 
 down the Frith, and apparently steering into the Irish sea. He 
 called to Nanty Ewart, and expressed his surprise at the course they 
 were pursuing, and asked why they did not stand straight across 
 the Frith for some port in Cumberland. 
 
 " Why, this is what I call a reasonable question, now," answered 
 Nanty ; " as if a ship could go as straight to its port, as a horse to 
 
278 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 the stable, or a free-trader could sail the Solway as securely as a 
 King's cutter ! Why, I'll tell ye, brother— if I do not sec a smoke 
 on Bowness, that is the village upon the headland yonder, I must 
 stand out to sea for twenty-four hours at least, for we must keep 
 the weathergage if there are hawks abroad." 
 
 " And if you do see the signal of safety. Master Ewart, what is to 
 be done then?" 
 
 " Why then, and in that case, I must keep off till night, and then 
 run you, with the kegs and the rest of the lumber, ashore at Skin- 
 burness." 
 
 " And then I am to meet with this same Laird whom I have the 
 letter for ?" continued Fairford. 
 
 " That," said Ewart, " is thereafter as it may be : the ship has its 
 course — the fair-trader has his port — but it is not so easy to say 
 where the Laird may be found. But he will be within twenty 
 miles of us, off or on— and it will be my business to guide you to 
 -him." 
 
 Fairford could not withstand the passing impulse of terror which 
 crossed him, when thus reminded that he was so absolutely in the 
 power of a man, who, by his own account, had been a pirate, and 
 who was at present, in all probability, an outlaw as well as a con- 
 traband trader. Nanty Ewart guessed the cause of his involuntary 
 shuddering. 
 
 " What the devil should I gain," he said, " by passing so poor a 
 card as you are ? — Have I not had ace of trumps in my hand, and 
 did I not play it fairly ?— Ay, I say the Jumping Jenny can run in 
 other ware as well as kegs. Put s/^»ta and iau to Ewart, and sec 
 how that will spell — D'ye take me now ?" 
 
 " No indeed," said Fairford ; " I am utterly ignorant of what you 
 allude to." 
 
 " Now, by Jove !" said Nanty Ewart, "thou art either the deepest 
 or the shallowest fellow I ever met with— or you are not right after 
 all. I wonder where Summertrees could pick up such a tender 
 along-shore. Will you let me see his letter?" 
 
 Fairford did not hesitate to gratify his wish, which,'he was aware, 
 he could not easily resist. The master of the Jumping Jenny looked 
 at the direction very attentively, then turned the letter to and fro, 
 and examined each flourish of the pen, as if he were judging of a 
 piece of ornamented manuscript j then handed it back to Fairford, 
 without a single word of remark. 
 
 "Am I right now?" said the young lawyer. 
 
 " Why, for that matter," answered Nanty, " the letter is right, 
 sure enough ; but whether you are right or not, is your own busi- 
 ness, rathci'than mine.''— And, striking upon a flint with the back 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 27c, 
 
 of a knife, he kindled a cigar as thick as his finger, and began to 
 smoke away with great perseverance. 
 
 Alan Fairford continued to regard him with a melancholy feelipg 
 divided betwixt the interest he took in the unhappy man, and a not 
 unnatural apprehension for the issue of his own adventure. 
 
 Ewart, notwithstanding the stupifying nature of his pastime, 
 seemed to guess what was working in his passenger's mind ; for, 
 after they had remained some time engaged in silently observing 
 each other, he suddenly dashed his cigar on the deck, and said to 
 him, " Well then, if you are sorry for me, I am sorry for you. 
 D — n me, if I have cared a button for man or mother's son, since 
 two years since, when I had another peep of Jack Hadaway. The 
 fellow was got as fat as a Nonvay whale — maiTied to a great Dutch- 
 built quean that had brought him six children. I believe he did 
 not know me, and thought I was come to rob his house ; however, 
 I made up a poor face, and told him who I was. Poor Jack would 
 have given me shelter and clothes, and began to tell me of the 
 moidores that were in bank, when I wanted them. Egad, he 
 changed his note when I told him what my life had been, and only 
 wanted to pay me my cash and get rid of me. I never saw so ter- 
 rified a visage. I burst out a-laughing in his face, told him it was 
 all a'humbug, and that the moidores were all his own, henceforth 
 and for ever, and so ran off. I caused one of our people send him 
 a bag of tea and a keg of brandy, before I left — poor Jack ! I think 
 you are the second person these ten years, that has cared a tobacco- 
 stopper for Nanty Ewart." 
 
 " Perhaps, Mr. Ewart," said Fairford, "you live chiefly with men 
 too deeply interested for their own immediate safety, to think much 
 upon the distress of others ?" 
 
 "And with whom do you yourself consort, I pray?" replied 
 Nanty, smartly. " Why with plotters, that can make no plot to 
 better purpose than their own hanging ; and incendiaries, that are 
 snapping the flint upon wet tinder. You'll as soon raise the dead 
 as raise the Highlands — you'll as soon get a grunt from a dead sow 
 as any comfort from Wales or Cheshire. You think because the 
 pot is boiling, that no scum but yours can come uppermost — I know 
 
 better, by . All these rackets and riots that you thiiik are 
 
 trending your way, have no relation at all to your interest ; and the 
 best way to make the whole kingdom friends again at once, would 
 be the alarm of such an undertaking as these mad old feUows are 
 trying to launch into." 
 
 " I really am not in such secrets as you seem to allude to,'' said 
 Fairford ; and, determined at the same time to avail himself as far 
 as possible of Nanty's communicative disposition, he added, with a 
 
aSo REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 smile, "And if I were, I should not hold it prudent to make them 
 much the subject of conversation. But I am sure, so sensible men 
 as Summertrees and the Laird may correspond together without 
 offence to the state." 
 
 " I take you, friend— I take you," said Nanty Ewart, upon whom, 
 at length, the liquor and tobacco-smoke began to make considerable 
 innovation. " As to what gentlemen may or may not correspond 
 about, why we may pretermit the question, as the old Professor 
 used to say at the Hall ; and as to Summertrees, I will say nothing, 
 knowing him to be an old fox. But I say that this fellow the Laird 
 is a firebrand in the country ; that he is stirring up all the honest 
 fellows who should be drinldng their brandy quietly, by telling them 
 stories about their ancestors and the forty-iive ; and that he is trying 
 to turn all waters into his own mill-dam, and to set his sails to all 
 winds. And because the London people are roaring about for some 
 pinches of their own, he thinks to win them to his turn with a wet 
 finger. And he gets encouragement from some, because they want 
 a spell of money from him ; and from others, because they fought 
 for the cause once, and are ashamed to go back ; and others, 
 because they have nothing to lose ; and others, because they 
 are discontented fools, But if he has brought you, or any 
 one, I say not whom, into this scrape, with the hope of doing 
 any good, he's a d — d decoy-duck, and that's all I can say for him ; 
 and you are geese, which is worse than being decoy-duCks, or 
 lame-ducks either. And so here is to the prosperity of King George 
 the Third, and the true Presbyterian religion, and confusion to the 
 Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender !— I'll tell you what, Mr. Fair- 
 bairn, I am but tenth owner of this bit of a craft, the Jumping 
 Jenny— but tenth owner — and must sail her by my owners' direc- 
 tions. But if I were whole owner, I would not have the brig be 
 made a ferry-boat for your jacobitical, old-fashioned Popish riff-raff, 
 Mr. Fairport — I would not, by my soul ; they should walk the 
 plank, by the gods, as I have seen better men do when I sailed 
 under the What-d'ye callum colours. But being contraband goods, 
 and on board my vessel, and I with my sailing orders in my hand, 
 why, I am to forward them as directed— I say, John Roberts, keep 
 her up a bit with the helm.— And so, Mr. Fairweather, what I do is 
 — as the d — d villain Turnpenny says — all in the way of business," 
 
 He had been speaking with difficulty for the last five minutes, 
 and now at length dropped on the deck, fairly silenced by the 
 quantity of spirits which he had swallowed, but without having 
 shown any glimpse of the gaiety, or even of the extravagance, of 
 intoxication. 
 
 The old sailor stepped forward and flung a sea-cloak over the 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 281 
 
 slumberer's shoulders, and added, looking at Fairford, " Pity of him 
 he should have this fault ; for without it, he would have been as 
 clever a fellow as ever trode a plank with ox leather." 
 
 " And what are we to do now ?" said Fairford. 
 
 " Stand off and on, to be sure, till we see the signal, and then 
 obey orders." 
 
 So saying, the old man turned to his duty, and left the passenger 
 to amuse himself with his own meditations. Presently afterward a 
 light column of smoke was seen rising from the little headland. 
 
 " I can tell you what we are to do now, master," said the sailor. 
 " We'll stand out to sea, and then run in again with the evening 
 tide, and make Skinburness ; or, if there's not light, we can run 
 into the Wampool river, and put you ashore about Kirkbride or 
 Leaths, with the long-boat." 
 
 Fairford, unwell before, felt this destination condemned him to 
 an agony of many hours, which his disordered stomach and aching 
 head were ill able to endure. There was no remedy, however, but 
 patience, and the recollection that he was suffering in the cause of 
 friendship. As the sun rose high, he became worse ; his sense of 
 smell appeared to acquire a morbid degree of acuteness, for the 
 mere purpose of inhaling and distinguishing all the various odours 
 with which he was surrounded, from that of pitch, to all the com- 
 plicated smells of the hold. His heart, too, throbbed under the 
 heat, and he felt as if in full progress towards a high fever. 
 
 The seamen, who were civil and attentive, considering tneir 
 calling, observed his distress, and one contrived to make an awning 
 out of an old sail, while another compounded some lemonade, the 
 only liquor which their passenger could be prevailed upon to touch. 
 After drinking it off, he obtained, but could not be said to enjoy, a 
 few hours of troubled slumber. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD, CONTINUED. 
 
 Alan Fairford'S spirit was more ready to encounter labour 
 than his frame was adequate to support it. In spite of his exer- 
 tions, when he awoke, after five or six hours' slumber, he found 
 that he was so much disabled by dizziness in his head, and pains 
 in his limbs, that he could not raise himself without assistance. 
 He heard with some pleasure that they were now running right 
 for the Wampool river, and that he would be put on shore in a 
 very short time. The vessel accordingly lay to, and presently 
 
282 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 showed a weft in her ensign, which was hastily answered by 
 signals from on shore. Men and horses were seen to come down 
 the broken path which leads to the shore ; the latter all properly 
 tackled for carrying their loading. Twenty fishing barks were 
 pushed afloat at once, and crowded round the brig with much 
 clamour, laughter, cursing, and jesting. Amidst all this apparent 
 confusion there was the essential regularity. Nanty Ewart again 
 walked his quarterdeck as if he had never tasted spirits in his 
 life, issued the necessary orders with precision, and saw them 
 executed with punctuality. In half an hour the loading of the 
 brig was in a great measure disposed in the boats ; in a quarter 
 of an hour more, it was landed on the beach, and another in- 
 terval of about the same duration was sufficient to distribute it 
 on the various strings of packhorses which waited for that pur- 
 pose, and which instantly dispersed, each on its own proper 
 adventure. More mystery was observed in loading the ship's 
 boat with a quantity of small barrels, which seemed to contain 
 ammunition. This was not done until the commercial customers 
 had been dismissed ; and it was not until this was performed 
 that Ewart proposed to Alan, as he lay stunned with pain and 
 noise, to accompany him ashore. 
 
 It was with difficulty that Fairford could get over the side of 
 the vessel, and he could not seat himself on the stern of the 
 boat without assistance from the captain and his people. Nanty 
 Ewart, who saw nothing in this worse than an ordinary fit of sea- 
 sickness, applied the usual topics of consolation. He assured his 
 passenger that he would be quite well by and by, when he had 
 been half an hour on terra firma, and that he hoped to drink a can 
 and smoke a pipe with him at Father Crackenthorp's, for all that 
 he felt a little out of the way for riding the wooden horse. 
 
 " Who is Father Crackenthorp ? " said Fairford, though scarcely 
 able to articulate the question. 
 
 " As honest a fellow as is of a thousand," answered Nanty. 
 " Ah, how much good brandy he and I have made little of in our 
 day ! By my soul, Mr. Fairbird, he is the prince of skinkers, and 
 the father of the free trad'e — not a stingy hypocritical devil like old 
 Turnpenny Skinflint, that drinks drunk on other folk's cost, and 
 thinks it sin when he has to pay for it — but a real hearty old cock ; 
 — the sharks have been at and about him this many a day, but 
 Father Crackenthorp knows how to trim his sails — never a warrant 
 but he hears of it before the ink's dry. He is bonus sociits with 
 headborough and constable. The King's Exchequer could not 
 bribe a man to inform against him. If any such rascal were to 
 cast up, why, he would miss his ears next morning, or be sent to 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 383 
 
 seek them in the Solway. He is a statesman,* though he keeps a 
 public ; but, indeed, that is only for convenience, and to excuse his 
 having cellarage and folk about him ; his wife's a canny woman — 
 and his daughter Doll too. Gad, you'll be in port there till you get 
 round again ; and I'll keep my word with you, and bring you to 
 speech of the Laird. Gad, the only trouble 1 shall have is to get 
 you out of the house ; for Doll is a rare wench, and my dame a 
 funny old one, and Father Crackenthorp the rarest companion 
 He'll drink you a bottle of rum or brandy without starting, but 
 never wet his lips with that nasty Scottish stuff that the canting 
 old scoundrel Turnpenny has brought into fashion. He is a gentle- 
 man, every inch of him, old Crackenthorp ; in his own way, that 
 is ; and besides, he has a share in the Jumping Jenny, and many a 
 a moonlight outfit besides. He can give Doll a pretty penny, 
 if he likes the tight fellow that would turn in with her for life." 
 
 In the midst of this prolonged panegyric on Father Cracken- 
 thorp, the boat touched the beach, the rowers backed their oars to 
 keep her afloat, whilst the other fellows jumped into the surf, and, 
 with the most rapid dexterity, began to hand the barrels ashore. 
 
 " Up with them higher on the beach, my hearties," exclaimed 
 Nanty Ewart — " High and dry — high and dry — this gear will not 
 stand wetting. Now, out with our spare hand here — high and dry 
 with him too. What's that ? — the galloping of horse ! Oh, I hear 
 the jingle of the packsaddles — they are our own folk." 
 
 By this time all the boat's load was ashore, consisting of the 
 little barrels ; and the boat's crew standing to their arms, ranged 
 themselves in front, waiting the advance of the horses which came 
 clattering along the beach. A man, overgrown with corpulence, 
 who might be distinguished in the moonlight, panting with his own 
 exertions, appeared at the head of the cavalcade, which consisted 
 of horses linked together, and accommodated with packsaddles, 
 and chains for securing the kegs, which made a dreadful 
 clattering. 
 
 "How now, Father Crackenthorp?" said Ewart — "Why this 
 hurry with your horses ? — We mean to stay a night with you, and 
 taste your old brandy, and my dame's home-brewed. The signal 
 is up, man, and all is right." 
 
 " All is wrong. Captain Naiity," cried the man to whom he spoke ; 
 "and you are the lad that is like to find -it so, unless you bundle 
 off— there are new brooms bought at Carlisle yesterday to sweep 
 the country of you and the like of you — so you were better be 
 jogging inland. 
 
 " How many rogues are the officers ! — If not more than ten, I 
 will make fight." 
 
284 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " The devil you will ! " answered Crackenthorp. " You were 
 better not, for they have the bloody-backed dragoons from Carlisle 
 with them." 
 
 " Nay, then," said Nanty, "we must make sail.— Come, Master 
 Fairlord, you must mount and ride. — He does not hear me — he 
 has fainted, I believe— What the devil shall I do ? — Father Crack- 
 enthorp, I must leave this young fellow with you till the gale blows 
 out — hark ye — goes between the Laird and the t'other old one ; he 
 can neither ride nor walk — I must send him up to you." 
 
 " Send him up to the gallows ! " said Crackenthorp ; " there is 
 Quartermaster Thwacker, with twenty men, up yonder ; an he had 
 not some kindness for Doll, I had never got hither for a start — but 
 you must get off, or they will be here to seek us, for his orders are 
 woundy particular ; and these kegs contain worse than whisky — a 
 hanging matter, I take it." 
 
 " I wish they were at the bottom of Wampool river, with them 
 they belong to," said Nanty Ewart. " But they are part of cargo ; 
 and what to do with the poor young fellow " 
 
 " Why, many a better fellow has roughed it on the grass, with a 
 cloak o'er him," said Crackenthorp. " If he hath a fever, nothing 
 is so cooling as the night air." 
 
 "Yes, he would be cold enough in the morning, no doubt ; but 
 it's a kind heart, and shall not cool so soon, if I can help it," 
 answered the Captain of the Jumping Jenny. 
 
 '' Well, Captain, an ye will risk your neck for another man's, 
 why not take him to the old girls at Fairladies ? " 
 
 " What, the Miss Arthurets ! — The Papist jades ! But never 
 mind ; it will do — I have known them take in a whole sloop's crew 
 that were stranded on the sands." 
 
 " You may run some risk, though, by turning up to Fairladies ; 
 for I tell you they are all up through the country." 
 
 " Never mind — I may_ chance to put some of them down again," 
 said Nanty, cheerfully. — " Come, lads, bustle to your tackle. Are 
 you all loaded ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay, Captain ; we will be ready in a jiify," answered the 
 gang. 
 
 " D — n your captains ! — Have you a mind to have me hanged if 
 I am taken ? — All's hail-fellow, here." 
 
 "A sup at parting," said Father Crackenthorp, extending a 
 flask to Nanty Ewart. 
 
 " Not the twentieth part of a drop," said Nanty. " No Dutch 
 courage for me — my heart is always high enough when there's a 
 chance of fighting ;'besides, if I live drunk, I should like to die 
 sober.— Here, old Jephson — you are the best-natured brute amongst 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 285 
 
 them— get the lad between us on a quiet horse, and we will keep 
 him upright, I warrant." 
 
 As they raised Fairford from the ground, he groaned heavily, 
 and asked faintly where they were taking him to. 
 
 " To a place where you will be as snug and quiet as a mouse 
 in his hole," said Nanty, " if so be that we can get you there 
 safely. — Good by, Father Crackenthorp — poison the quarter- 
 master, if you can." 
 
 The loaded horses then sprang forward at a hard trot, following 
 each other in a line, and every second horse being mounted by a 
 stout fellow in a smock-frock, which served to conceal the arms 
 with which most of these desperate men were provided. Ewart 
 followed in the rear of the line, and, with the occasional assistance 
 of old Jephson, kept his young charge erect in the saddle. He 
 groaned heavily from time to time ; and Ewart, more moved with 
 compassion for his situation than might have been expected from his 
 own habits, .endeavoured to amuse him and comfort him, by some 
 account of the place to which they were conveying him — his words 
 of consolation being, however, frequently interrupted by the neces- 
 sity of calling to his people, and many of them being lost amongst 
 the rattling of the barrels, and clinking of the tackle and small 
 chains by which they are secured on such occasions. 
 
 "And you see, brother, you will be in safe quarters at Fairladies 
 — good old scrambling house — good old maids enough, if they 
 were not Papists. — Hollo, you Jack Lowther ; keep the line, can't 
 
 ye, and shut your rattle-trap, you broth of a ! And so, being 
 
 of a good family, and having enough, the old lasses have turned a 
 kind of saints, and nuns, and so forth. The place they live in was 
 some sort of nun-shop long ago, as they have them still in Flanders ; 
 so folk call them the Vestals of Fairladies — that may be or. may 
 not be ; and I care not whether it be or no. — Blinkinsop, hold your 
 tongue, and be d — d ! — And so, betwixt great arms and good 
 dinners, they are well thought of by_ rich and poor, and their 
 truckling with Papists is looked over. There are plenty of priests, 
 and stout young scholars, and such like, about the house — it's a 
 hive of them — More shame that government send dragoons out 
 after a few honest fellows that bring the old women of England a 
 drop of brandy, and let these ragamuffins smuggle in as much 
 papistry and — Hark ! — was that a whistle ? — No, it's only a plover, 
 Yoji, Jem Collier, keep a look-out a-head — we'll meet them at the 
 High Whins, or Brotthole bottom, or nowhere. Go a furlong 
 a-head, I say, and look sharp. — These Miss Arthurets feed the 
 hungry, and clothe the naked, and such like acts — which my poor 
 father used to say were filthy rags, but he dressed himself out with 
 
zi6 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 as many of them as most folk. — D — n that stumbling horse ! 
 Father Crackenthorp should be d— d himself for putting an honest 
 fellow's neck in such jeopardy." 
 
 Thus, and with much more to the same purpose, Nanty ran on, 
 increasing, by his well-intended annoyance, the agony of Alan 
 Fairford, who, tormented by racking pain along the back and 
 loins, which made the rough trot of the horse torture to him, had 
 his aching head still further rented and split by the hoarse voice 
 of the sailor, close to his ear. Perfectly passive, however, he did 
 not even essay to give any answer ; and indeed his own bodily 
 distress was now so great and engrossing, that to think of his 
 situation was impossible, even if he could have mended it by 
 doing so. 
 
 Their course was inland ; but in what direction Alan had no 
 means of ascertaining. They passed at first over heaths and sandy 
 downs ; they crossed more than one brook, or 6eci, as they are 
 called in that country — some of them of considerable depth — and 
 at length reached a cultivated country, divided, according to the 
 English fashion of agriculture, into very small fields or closes, by 
 high banks, overgrown with underwood, and surmounted by hedge- 
 row trees, amongst which winded a number of impracticable and 
 complicated lanes, where the boughs projecting from the em- 
 bankments on each side^ intercepted the light of the moon, and 
 endangered the safety of the horsemen. But through this labyrinth 
 the experience of the guides conducted them without a blunder, 
 and without even the slackening of their pace. In many places, 
 however, it was impossible for three men to ride abreast ; and 
 therefore the burden of supporting Alan Fairford fell alternately 
 to old Jephson, and to Nanty ; and it was with much difficulty that 
 they could keep him upright in his saddle. 
 
 At length when his powers of sufferance were quite worn out, 
 and he was about to implore them to leave him to his fate in the 
 first cottage or shed — or under a haystack or a hedge — or any- 
 where, so he was left at ease. Collier, who rod6 a-head, passed back 
 the word that they were at the avenue to' Fairladies — " Was he to 
 turn up ?" 
 
 Committing the charge of Fau'ford to -Jephson, Nanty dashed 
 up to the head of the troop, and gave his orders. — " Who knows 
 the house best ? " 
 
 " Sam Skelton's a Catholic,'' said Lowther. 
 
 "A d— d bad religion," said Nanty, of whose Presbyterian 
 education, a hatred of Popery seemed to be the only remnant. 
 " But I am glad there is one amongst us, any how.— You, Sam, 
 being a Papist, know Fa-irladies, and the old maidens, I dare say ; 
 
REtDGAUlStTLKT. 28; 
 
 so do you fall out of the line, and wait here with me ; and do you, 
 Collier, carry on to Walinfovd bottom, then turn down the beck till 
 you come to the old mill, and Goodman Grist the Miller, or old 
 Peel-the-Causeway, will tell you where to stow ; but I will be up 
 with you before that." 
 
 The string of loaded horses then struck forward at their former 
 pace, while Nanty, with Sam Skelton, waited by the road-side till 
 the rear came up, when Jephson and Fairford joined them, and, to 
 the great relief of the latter, they began to proceed at an easier 
 pace than formerly, suffering the gang to precede them~, till the 
 clatter and clang attending their progress began to die away in the 
 distance. They had not proceeded a pistol-shot from the place 
 where they parted, when a short turning brought them in front of 
 an old mouldering gateway, whose heavy pinnacles were decorated 
 in the style of the seventeenth century, with clumsy architectural 
 ornaments ; several of which had fallen down from decay, and lay 
 scattered about, no further care having been taken than just to 
 remove them out of the direct approach to the avenue. The great 
 stone pillars, glimmering white in the moonlight, had some fanciful 
 resemblance to supernatural apparitions, and the air of neglect all 
 around, gave an uncomfortable idea of the habitation to those who 
 passed its avenue. 
 
 " There used to be no gate here,'' said Skelton, finding their way 
 unexpectedly stopped. 
 
 " But there is a gate now, and a porter too," said a rough voice 
 from within. " Who be you, and what do you want at this time of 
 night?" 
 
 "We want to come to speech of the ladies^of the Miss 
 Arthurets," said Nanty ; " and to ask lodging for a sick man." 
 
 " There is no speech to be had of the Miss Arthurets at this time 
 of night, and you may carry your sick man to the doctor," an- 
 swered the fellow from within, gruffly ; " for as sure as there is 
 savour in salt, and scent in rosemary, you will get no entrance — 
 put your pipes up and be jogging on." 
 
 " Why, Dick Gardener," said Skelton, " be thou then turned 
 porter ?" 
 
 " What, do you know who I am ? " said the domestic sharply. 
 
 " I know you, by your by-word," answered the other ; " What, 
 have you forgot little Sam Skelton, and the brock in the barrel .■' " 
 
 " No, I have not forgotten you," answered the acquaintance of 
 Sam Skelton ; " but my orders are peremptory to let no one up the 
 avenue this night, and therefore " 
 
 " But we are armed, and will not be kept back," said Nanty. 
 " Hark ye, fellow, were it not better for you to take a guinea and 
 
288 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 let US in, than to have us break the door first, and thy pate after- 
 wards ? for I won't see my comrade die at your door— be assured 
 of that." 
 
 " Why, I dunna know," said the fellow ; " but what cattle were 
 those that rode by in such hurry ? " 
 
 "Why, some of our folk from Bowness, Stoniecultrum, and 
 thereby," answered Skelton ; " Jack Lowther, and old Jephson, and 
 broad Will Lamplugh, and such like." 
 
 " Well," said Dick Gardener, " as sure as there is savour in salt, 
 and scent in rosemary, I thought it had been the troopers from 
 Carlisle and Wigton, and the sound brought my heart to my 
 mouth." 
 
 •" Had thought thou wouldst have known the clatter of a cask 
 from the clash of a broadsword, as well as e'er a quaffer in Cum- 
 berland," answered Skelton. 
 
 " Come, brother, less of your jaw, and more of your legs, if you 
 please," said Nanty ; " every moment we stay is a moment lost. 
 Go to the ladies, and tell them that Nanty Ewart, of the Jumping 
 Jenny, has brought a young gentleman, charged with letters from 
 Scotland, to a certain gentleman of consequence in Cumberland^ 
 that the soldiers are out, and the gentleman is very ill, and if he is 
 not received at Fairladies, he must be left either to die at the 
 gate, or to be taken, with all his papers about him, by the red- 
 coats." 
 
 Away ran Dick Gardener with this message ; and, in a few 
 minutes, lights were seen to flit about, which convinced Fairford, 
 who was now, in consequence of the halt, a little restored to self- 
 possession, that they were traversing the front of a tolerably large 
 mansion-house. 
 
 "What if thy friend, Dick Gardener, comes not back again?" 
 said Jephson to Skelton. 
 
 " Why, then," said the person addressed, " I shall owe him Just 
 such a licking as thou, old Jephson, hadst from Dan Cooke, and 
 will pay as duly and truly as he did." 
 
 The old man was about to make an angry reply, when his doubts 
 were silenced by the return of Dick Gardener, who announced 
 that Miss Arthuret was coming herself as far as the gateway to 
 speak with them. 
 
 Nanty Ewart cursed, in a low tone, the suspicion of old maids 
 and the churlish scruples of Catholics, that made so many ob- 
 stacles to helping a fellow-creature, and wished Miss Arthuret a 
 hearty rheumatism or toothach as the reward of her excursion ; 
 but the lady presently appeared, to cut short farther grumbling. 
 She was attended by a waiting-maid with a lantern, by means of 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 289 
 
 which she examined the party on the outside, as closely as th» 
 imperfect light, and the spars of the newly-erected gate, would 
 permit. 
 
 " I am sorry we have disturbed you so late, Madam Arthuret," 
 said Nanty ; " but the case is this " 
 
 " Holy Virgin," said she, " why do you speak so loud ? Pray, 
 are you not the Captain of the Sainte Genevieve?" 
 
 " Why, ay, ma'am," answered Ewart, " they call the brig so at 
 Dunkirk, sure enough ; but along shore here, they call her the 
 Jumping Jenny." 
 
 " You brought over the holy Father Buonaventure, did you 
 not?" 
 
 "Ay, ay, madam, I have thought over enough of them black 
 cattle," answered Nanty. 
 
 " Fie ! fie ! friend," said Miss Arthuret ; " it is a pity that the 
 saints should commit these good men to a heretic's care." 
 
 " Why, no more they would, ma'am," answered Nanty, " could 
 they find a Papish lubber that knew the coast as I do ; then I am 
 trusty as steel to owners, and always look after cargo— live lumber, 
 or dead flesh, or spirits, all is one to me ; and your Catholics have 
 such d — d large hoods, with pardon, ma'am, that they can some- 
 times hide two faces under them. But here is a gentleman dying, 
 with letters about him from the Laird of Summertrees to the Laird 
 of the Lochs, as they call him, along Solway, and every minute he 
 lies here is a nail in his coffin." 
 
 "Saint Mary! what shall we do?" said Miss Arthuret; "we 
 must admit him, I think, at all risks. — You, Richard Gardener, help 
 OnE of these men to carry the gentleman up to the Place ; and you, 
 Selby, see him lodged at the end of the long gallery. — You are a 
 heretic, Captain, but I think you are trusty, and I know you have 
 been trusted — but if you are imposing on me " 
 
 " Not I, madam— never attempt to impose upon ladies of your 
 experience — my practice that way has been all among the young 
 ones. — Come, cheerly, Mr. Fairford — you will be taken good care 
 of— try to walk." 
 
 Alan did so ; and, refreshed by his halt, declared himself able to 
 walk to the house with the sole assistance of the gardener. 
 
 " Why, that's hearty. Thank thee, Dick, for lending him thine 
 arm," — and Nanty slipped into his hand the guinea he had pro- 
 mised. — " Farewell then, Mr. Fairford, and farewell. Madam 
 Arthuret, for I have been too long here." 
 
 So saying, he and his two companions threw themselves on horse- 
 back, and went off at a gallop. Yet, even above the clatter of their 
 hoofs did the incorrigible Nanty hollo out the old ballad — 
 
 U 
 
290 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " A lovely lass to a friar came, 
 To confession a-morning early ; — 
 
 ' In what, my dear, are you to blame ? 
 Come tell me most sincerely ? ' 
 
 * Alas ! my fault 1 dare not name — 
 But my lad he loved me dearly.' " 
 
 " Holy Virgin ! " exclaimed Miss Seraphina, as the unhallowed 
 sounds reached her ears ; " what profane heathens, be these men, 
 and what frights and pinches we be put to among them ! The 
 saints be good to us, what a night has this been ! — the like never 
 seen at Fairladies. — Help me to make fast the gate, Richard, and 
 thou shalt come down again to wait on it, lest there come more un- 
 welcome visitors — Not that you are unwelcome, young gentleman, 
 for it is sufficient that you need such assistance as we can give you, 
 to make you welconie to Fairladies — only, another time would have 
 done as well — but, hem ! I dare say it is all for the best. The 
 avenue is none of the smoothest, sir, look to your feet. Richard 
 Gardener should have had it mown and levelled, but he was 
 obliged to go on a pilgrimage to St. Winifred's Well, in Wales." — 
 (Here Dick gave a short dry cough, which, as if he had found it 
 betrayed some internal feeling a little at variance with what the 
 ady said, he converted into a muttered Sancta Winifreda, ora pro 
 nobis. Miss Arthuret, meantime, proceeded) — "We never inter- 
 fere with our servants' vows or penances. Master Fairford — I know 
 a very worthy father of your name, perhaps a relation — I say, we 
 never interfere with our servants' vows. Our Lady forbid they 
 should not know some difference between our service and a 
 heretic's. — Take care, sir, you will fall if you have not a care, 
 Alas ! by night and day there are many stumbling-blocks in our 
 paths ! " 
 
 With more talk to the same purpose, all of which tended to show 
 a charitable, and somewhat silly woman, with a strong inclina- 
 tion to her superstitious devotion, Miss Arthuret entertained her 
 new guest, as, stumbling at every obstacle which the devotion of 
 his guide, Richard, had left in the path, he at last, by ascending 
 some stone steps decorated on the side with griffins, or som.e 
 such heraldic anomalies, attained a terrace extending in front of 
 the Place of Fairladies ; an old-fashioned gentleman's house of 
 some consequence, with its range of notched gable-ends and 
 narrow windo\ys, relieved by here and there an old turret about 
 the size of a pepper-box. The door was locked, during the brief 
 absence of the mistress ; a dim light glimmered through the 
 sashed door of the hall, which opened beneath a huge stone 
 porch, loaded with jessamine and other creepers. All the windows 
 were dark as pitch. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 231 
 
 Mrs. Arthuret tapped at the door. " Sister, sister Angelica ! " 
 
 " Who is there .' " was answered from within ; " is it you, sister 
 Seraphina ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, undo the door ; do you not know my voice ? " 
 
 " No doubt, sister," said Angelica, undoing bolt and bar ; " but 
 you know our charge, and the enemy is watchful to surprise us 
 — incedit sicut ho varans, saith the breviary. — Whom have you 
 brought here ? Oh, sister, what have you done ! " 
 
 " It is a young man," said Seraphina, hastening to interrupt her 
 sister's remonstrances, '' a relation, I believe, of our worthy Father 
 Fairford ; left at the gate by the Captain of that blessed vessel the 
 Sainte Genevieve — almost dead — and charged with dispatches 
 to" 
 
 She lowered her voice as she mumbled over the last words. 
 
 " Nay, then, there is no help," said Angelica ; " but it is 
 unlucky." 
 
 During this dialogue between the vestals of Fairladies, Dick 
 Gardener deposited his burden in a chair, where the young lady, 
 after a moment of hesitation, expressing a becoming reluctance to 
 touch the hand of a stranger, put her finger and thumb upon 
 Fairford's wrist, and counted his pulse. 
 
 " There is fever here, sister," she said ; " Richard must call 
 Ambrose, and we must send some of the febrifuge." 
 
 Ambrose arrived presently, a plausible and respectable-looking 
 old servant, bred in the family, and who had risen from rank to 
 rank in the Arthuret service, till he was become half-physician, 
 half-almoner, half-butler, and entire governor ; that is, when the 
 Father Confessor, who frequently eased him of the toils of govern- 
 ment, chanced to be abroad. Under the direction, and with the 
 assistance, of this venerable personage, the unlucky Alan Fair- 
 ford was conveyed to a decent apartment at the end of a Iqng 
 gallery, and, to his inexpressible relief, consigned to a comfortable 
 bed. He did not attempt to resist the prescription of Mr. Ambrose, 
 who not only presented him with the proposed draught, but pro- 
 ceeded so far as to take a considerable quantity of blood from 
 him, by which last operation he probably did his patient much 
 service. 
 
 U 2 
 
292 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF ALLAN FAIRFORD, CONTINUED, 
 
 On the next morning, when Fairford awoke, after no very re- 
 freshing slumbers, in which were mingled many wild dreams of his 
 father, and of Darsie Latimer, — of the damsel in the green mantle, 
 and the vestals of Fairladies, — of drinking small beer with Nanty 
 Ewart, and being immersed in the Solway with the Jumping 
 Jenny, — he found himself in no condition to dispute the order of 
 Mr. Ambrose, that he should keep his bed, from which, indeed, 
 he could not have raised himself without assistance. He became 
 sensible that his anxiety, and his constant efforts for some days 
 past, had been too much for his health, and that, whatever might 
 be his impatience, he could not proceed in his undertaking until 
 his strength was re-established. 
 
 In the meanwhile, no better quarters could have been found for 
 an invalid. The attendants spoke under their breath, and moved 
 only on tiptoe — nothing was done urA&ss par ordonnance du medecin 
 — Esculapius reigned paramount in the premises at Fairladies. 
 Once a-day, the ladies came in great state to wait upon him, and 
 enquire after his health, and it was then that Alan's natural civility, 
 and the thankfulness which he expressed for their timely and charit- 
 able assistance, raised him considerably in their esteem. He was 
 on the third day removed to a better apartment than that in which 
 he had been at first accommodated. When he was permitted to 
 drink a glass of wine, it was of the first quality ; one of those 
 curious old-fashioned cobwebbed bottles being produced on the 
 occasion, which are only to be found in the crypts of old country 
 seats, where they may have lurked undisturbed for more than half 
 a century. 
 
 But however delightful a residence for an invalid, Fairladies, as 
 its present inmate became soon aware, was not so agreeable to a 
 convalescent. When he dragged himself to the window so soon as 
 he could crawl from bed, behold it was closely grated, and com- 
 manded no view except of a little paved court. This was nothing 
 remarkable, most old Border-houses having their windows so 
 secured ; but then Fairford observed, that whoever entered or left 
 the room, always locked the door with great care and circumspec- 
 tion ; and some proposals which he made to take a walk in the 
 gallery, or even in the garden, were so coldly received, both by the 
 ladies and their prime minister, Mr. Ambrose, that he saw plainly 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 293 
 
 such an extension of his privileges as a guest would not be per- 
 mitted. 
 
 Anxious to ascertain whether this excessive hospitality would 
 permit him his proper privilege of free-agency, he announced to 
 this important functionary, with grateful thanks for the care with 
 which he had been attended, his purpose to leave Fairladies next 
 morning, requesting only, as a continuance of the favours with which 
 he had been loaded, the loan of a horse to the next town ; and, 
 assuring Mr. Ambrose that his gratitude would not be limited by 
 such a trifle, he slipped three guineas into his hand, by way of 
 seconding his proposal. The fingers of that worthy domestic closed 
 as naturally upon the honorarium, as if a degree in the learned 
 ■faculty had given him a right to clutch it ; but his answer concern- 
 ing Alan's proposed departure was at first evasive, and when he 
 was pushed, it amounted to a peremptory assurance that he could 
 not be permitted to depart to-morrow ; it was as much as his life 
 was worth, and his ladies would not authorize it. 
 
 " I know best what my own life is worth," said Alan ; " and I do 
 not value it in comparison to the business which requires my 
 instant attention." 
 
 Receiving still no satisfactory answer from Mr. Ambrose, Fair- 
 ford thought it best to state his resolution to the ladies themselves, 
 in the most measured, respectful, and grateful terms ; but still such 
 as expressed a firm determination to depart on the morrow, or next 
 day at farthest. After some attempts to induce him to stay, on the 
 alleged score of health, which were so expressed that he was con- 
 vinced they were only used to delay his departure, Fairford plainly 
 told them that he was intrusted with dispatches of consequence to 
 the gentleman known by the name of Herrics, Redgauntlet, and 
 the Laird of the Lochs ; and that it was matter of life and death to 
 deliver them early. 
 
 "I dare say. Sister Angelica," said the elder Miss Arthuret, 
 " that the gentleman is honest ; and if he is really a relation of 
 Father Fairford, we' can run no risk." 
 
 "Jesu Maria ["exclaimed the younger. "Ohfie, Sister Seraphina ! 
 Fie, fie ! — Vade retro — get thee behind me ! 
 
 " Well, well ; but sister — Sister Angelica — let me speak with you 
 in the galleiy." 
 
 So out the ladies rustled in their silks and tissues, and it was a 
 good half hour ere they rustled in again, with importance and awe 
 on their countenances. 
 
 " To tell you the truth, Mr. Fairford, the cause of our desire to 
 delay you is — there is a religious gentleman in this bouse at 
 present " 
 
294 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " A most excellent person indeed " — said the sister Angelica. 
 
 "An anointed of his Master!" echoed Seraphina, — "and we 
 should be glad that, for conscience' sake, you would hold some 
 discourse with him before your departure." 
 
 " Oho !" thought Fairford, " the murder is outr— here is a design 
 of conversion ! — I must not affront the good old ladies, but I shall 
 soon send off the priest, I think." — He then answered aloud, " that 
 he should be happy to converse with any friend of theirs — that in 
 religious matters he had the greatest respect for every modification 
 of Christianity, though, he must say, his belief was made up to that 
 in which he had been educated ; nevertheless, if his seeing the 
 religious person they recommended could in the least show his 
 respect" 
 
 " It is not quite that," said Sister Seraphina, " although I am sure 
 the day is too short to hear him — Father Buonaventure, I mean — 
 speak upon the concerns of our souls ; but" 
 
 " Come, come, sister Seraphina," said the younger, " it is needless 
 to talk so much about it. His — his Eminence — I mean Father 
 Buonaventure — will himself explain what he wants this gentleman 
 to know." 
 
 "His Eminence," said Fairford, surprised— "Is this gentleman 
 so high in the Catholic Church? — The title is given only to 
 Cardinals, I think." 
 
 " He is not a Cardinal as yet," answered Seraphina ; "but I assure 
 you, Mr. Fairford, he is as high in rank as he is eminently endowed 
 with good gifts, and " 
 
 " Come away," said Sister Angelica. " Holy Virgin, how you do 
 talk ! — What has Mr. Fairford to, do with Father Buonaventure's 
 rank? — Only, sir, you will remember that the Father has been 
 always accustomed to be treated with the most profound deference ; 
 — indeed" ~- 
 
 " Come away, sister," said Sister Seraphina, in her turn ; " who 
 talks now, I pray you ? Mr. Fairford will know how to comport 
 himself." 
 
 " And we had best both leave the room," said the younger lady, 
 " for here his Eminence comes." 
 
 She lowered her voice to a whisper as she pronounced the last 
 words ; and as Fairford was about to reply, by assuring her that 
 any friend of hers should be treated by him with all the ceremony 
 he could expect, she imposed silence on him, by holding up her 
 finger. 
 
 A solemn and stately step was now heard in the gallery ; it 
 might have proclaimed the approach not merely of a bishop or 
 cardinal, but of the Sovereign Pontiff himself. Nor could the sound 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 29s 
 
 have been more respectfully listened to by the two ladies, had it 
 announced that the Head of the Church was approaching in person. 
 They drew themselves, like sentinels on duty, one on each side of 
 the door by which the long gallery communicated with Fairford's 
 apartment, and stood there immovable, and with countenances 
 expressive of the deepest reverence. 
 
 The approach of Father Buonaventure was so slow, that Fairford 
 had time to notice all this, and to marvel in his mind what wily and 
 ambitious priest could have contrived to subject his worthy but 
 simple-minded hostesses to such superstitious trammels. Father 
 Buonaventure's entralnce and appearance in some degree accounted 
 for the whole. 
 
 He was a man of middle life, about forty or upwards ; but either 
 care, or fatigue, or indulgence, had brought on the appearance of 
 premature old age, and given to his fine features a cast of serious- 
 ness or even sadness. A noble countenance, however, still remained ; 
 and though his complexion was altered, and wrinkles stamped upon 
 his brow in many a melancholy fold, still the lofty forehead, the full 
 and well-opened eye, and the well-formed nose, showed how hand- 
 some in better days he must have been. He was tall, but lost the 
 advantage of his height by stooping ; and the cane which he wore 
 always in his hand, and occasionally used, as well as his slow though 
 majestic gait, seemed to intimate that his form and limbs felt already 
 some touch of infirmity. The colour of his hair could not be dis- 
 covered, as, according to the fashion, he wore a periwig. He was 
 handsomely, though gravely dressed in a secular habit, and had a 
 cockade in his hat ; circumstances which did not surprise Fairford, 
 who knew that a military disguise ~was very often assumed by the 
 seminary priests, whose visits to England, or residence there, 
 subjected them to legal penalties. 
 
 As this stately person entered the apartment, the two ladies facing 
 inward, like soldiers on their post when about to salute a superior 
 officer, dropped on either hand of the Father a courtesy so profound, 
 that the hoop petticoats which performed the feat seemed to sink 
 down to the very floor, nay, through it, as if a trapdoor had opened 
 for the descent of the dames who performed this act of reverence. 
 
 The Father seemed accustomed to such homage, profound as it 
 was ; he turned his person a little way first towards one sister, and 
 then towards the other, while, with a gracious inclination of his 
 person, which certainly did not amount to a bow, he acknowledged 
 their courtesy. But he passed forward without addressing them, and 
 seemed by doing so, to intimate that their presence in the apartment 
 was unnecessary. 
 
 They accordingly glided out of the room, retreating backwards, 
 
sge REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 with hands clasped and eyes cast upwards, as if imploring blessings 
 on the religious man whom they venerated so highly. The door of 
 the apartment was shut after them, but not before Fairford had per- 
 ceived that there were one or two men in the gallery, and that, 
 contrary to what he had before observed, the door, though shut,' 
 was not locked on the outside. 
 
 " Can the good souls apprehend danger from me to this god of 
 their idolatry ? " thought Fairford. But he had no time to make 
 farther observations, for the stranger had already reached the 
 middle of the apartment. 
 
 Fairford rose to receive him respectfully, but as he fixed his eyes 
 on the visitor, he thought that the Father avoided his looks. His 
 reasons for remaining incognito were cogent enough to account for 
 this, and Fairford hastened to relieve him, by looking downwards 
 in his turn ; but when again he raised his face, he found the broad 
 light eye of the stranger so fixed on him, that he was almost put 
 out of countenance by the steadiness of his gaze. During this time 
 they remained standing. 
 
 " Take your seat, sir," said the Father ; " you have been an 
 invalid." 
 
 He spoke with the tone of one who desires an inferior to be 
 seated in his presence, and his voice was full and melodious. 
 
 Fairford, somewhat surprised to find himself overawed by the 
 airs of superiority, which could be only properly exercised towards 
 one over whom religion gave the speaker influence, sat down at 
 his bidding, as if moved by springs, and was at a loss how to 
 assert the footing of equality on which he felt that they ought 
 to stand. The stranger kept the advantage which he had ob- 
 tained. 
 
 " Your name, sir, I am informed, is Fairford ? " said the Father. 
 
 Alan answered by a bow. 
 
 " Called to the Scottish bar," continued his visitor. " There is, 
 I believe, in the West, a family of birth and rank called Fairford 
 of Fairford." 
 
 Alan thought this a strange observation from a foreign eccle- 
 siastic, as his name intimated Father Buonaventure to be ; but 
 only answered, he believed there was such a family. 
 
 " Do you count kindred with them, Mr. Fairford?" continued the 
 enquirer. 
 
 " I have not the honour to lay such a claim," said Fairford. 
 " My father's industry has raised his family from a low and obscure 
 situation— I have no hereditary claim to distinction of any kind. — 
 May I ask the cause of these enquiries ? " 
 
 "You will learn it presently," said Father Buonaventure, who had 
 
REDGAUNTLfiT. 297 
 
 given a dry and dissatisfied hem at the young man's acknowledging 
 a plebeian descent. He then motioned to him to be silent, and 
 proceeded with his queries. 
 
 " Although not of condition, you are, doubtless, by sentiments 
 and education, a man of honour and a gentleman ? " 
 
 " I hope so, sir," said Alan, colouring with displeasure. " I have 
 not been accustomed to have it questioned." 
 
 " Patience, young man," said the unperturbed querist — " we are 
 on serious business, and no idle etiquette must prevent its being 
 discussed seriously. — You are probably aware, that you speak to a 
 person proscribed by the severe and unjust laws of the present 
 government ? " 
 
 " I am aware of the statute 1700, chapter 3," said Alan, "banish- 
 ing from the realm Priests and trafficking Papists, and punishing 
 by death, on summary conviction, any such person who being so 
 banished may return. The English law, I believe, is equally 
 severe. But I have no means of knowing you, sir, to be one of 
 those persons ; and I think your prudence may recommend to you 
 to keep your own counsel." 
 
 " It is sufficient, sir ; and I have no apprehensions of disagree- 
 able consequences from your having seen me in this house," said 
 the Priest. 
 
 "Assuredly no," said Alan. " I consider myself as indebted for 
 my life to the Mistresses of Fairladies j and it would be a vile 
 requital on my part to pry into or make known what I may have 
 seen or heard under this hospitable roof. If I were to meet the 
 Pretender himself in such a situation, he should, even at the risk 
 of a little stretch to my loyalty, be free from any danger from my 
 indiscretion." 
 
 " The Pretender ! " said the Priest, with some angry emphasis ; 
 but immediately softened his tone and added, " No doubt, how- 
 ever, that person is a pretender ; and some people think his pre- 
 tensions are not ill founded. But before running into politics, give 
 me leave to say, that I am surprised to find a gentleman of your 
 opinions in habits of intimacy with Mr. Maxwell of Summertrees 
 and Mr. Redgauntlet, and the medium of conducting the inter- 
 course betwixt them." 
 
 " Pardon me, sir," replied Alan Fairford ; " I do not aspire to 
 the honour of being reputed their confidant or go-between. My 
 concern with those gentlemen is hmited to one matter of business, 
 dearly interesting to me, because it concerns the safety — perhaps 
 the life — of my dearest friend." 
 
 " Would you have any objections to intrust me with the cause of 
 your journey ? " said Father Buonaventure. " My advice may be 
 
sgS REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 of service to you, and my influence with one or both these gentle- 
 men is considerable." 
 
 Fairford hesitated a moment, and hastily revolving all circum- 
 stances, concluded that he might perhaps receive some advantage 
 from propitiating this personage ; vifhile, on the other hand, he 
 endangered nothing by communicating to him the occasion of -his 
 journey. He, therefore, after stating shortly, that he hoped Mr. 
 Buonaventure would render him the same confidence which he 
 required on his part, gave a short account of Darsie Latimer — of 
 the mystery which hung over his family — and of the disaster which 
 had befallen him. Finally, of his own resolution to seek for his 
 friend, and to deliver him, at the peril of his own life. 
 
 The Catholic Priest, whose manner it seemed to be to avoid all 
 conversation which did not arise from his own express motion, 
 made no remarks upon what he had heard, but only asked one or 
 two abrupt questions, where Alan's narrative appeared less clear to 
 him ; then rising from his seat, he took two turns through the 
 apartment, muttering between his teeth, with emphasis, the word 
 " Madman ! " But apparently he was in the habit of keeping all 
 violent emotions under restraint ; for he presently addressed Fair- 
 ford with the most perfect indifference. 
 
 " If," said he, "you thought you could do so without breach of 
 confidence, I wish you would have the goodness to show me the 
 letter of Mr. Maxwell of Summertrees. I desire to look particu- 
 larly at the address." 
 
 Seeing no cause to decline this extension of his confidence, Alan, 
 without hesitation, put the letter into his hand. H3.ving turned it 
 round as old Trumbull and Nanty Ewart had formerly done, and, 
 like them, having examined the address with much minuteness, he 
 asked whether he had observed these words, pointing to a pencil- 
 writing upon the under side of the letter. Fairford answered in the 
 negative, and, looking at the letter, read with surprise, " Cave ne 
 literas BelleropJpontis adferresj" a caution which coincided so 
 exactly with the Provost's admonition, that he would do well to 
 inspect the letter of which he was bearer, that he was about to 
 spring up and attempt an escape, he knew not wherefore or from 
 whom. 
 
 " Sit still, young man," said the Father, with the same tone of 
 authority which reigned in his whole manner, although mingled 
 with stately courtesy. " You are in no danger — my character shall 
 be a pledge for your safety. — By whom do you suppose these words 
 have been written ? " 
 
 Fairford could have answered, " by Nanty Ewart," for he re- 
 niembered seeing that person scribble something with a pencil, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 299 
 
 although he was not well enough to observe with accuracy where, 
 or upon what. But not knowing what suspicions, or what worse 
 consequences, the seaman's interest in his affairs might draw upon 
 him, he judged it best to answer that he knew not the hand. 
 
 Father Buonaventure was again silent for a moment or two, 
 which he employed in surveying the letter with the strictest atten- 
 tion ; ■ then stepped to the window, as if to examine the address and 
 writing of the envelope with the assistance of a stronger light, and 
 Alan Fairford beheld him, with no less amazement than high dis- 
 pleasure, coolly and deliberately break the seal, open the letter, and 
 peruse the contents. 
 
 " Stop, sir, hold ! " he exclaimed, so soon as his astonishment 
 permitted him to express his resentment in words : " by what right 
 do you dare " 
 
 " Peace, young gentleman," said the Father, repelling him with a 
 wave of his hand ; " be assured I do not act without warrant — 
 nothing can pass betwixt Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Redgauntlet that I 
 am not fully entitled to know." 
 
 " It may be so," said Alan, extremely angry ; " but though you 
 may be these gentlemen's father confessor, you are not mine ; and 
 in breaking the seal of a letter intrusted to my care, you have done 
 me" 
 
 "No injury, I assure you,'' answered the unperturbed priest ; 
 " on the contrary, it may be a service." 
 
 " I desire no advantage at such a rate, or to be obtained in such 
 a manner," answered Fairford ; " restore me the letter instantly, 
 or" 
 
 " As you regard your own safety," said the priest, " forbear all 
 injurious expressions, and all menacing gestures. I am not one 
 who can be threatened or insulted with impunity ; and there are 
 enough within hearing to chastise any injury or affront offered to 
 me, in case I may think it unbecoming to protect or avenge myself 
 with my own hand." 
 
 In saying this, the Father assumed an air of such fearlessness 
 and calm authority, that the young lawyer, surprised and over- 
 awed, forbore, as he had intended, to snatch the letter from his 
 hand, and confined himself to bitter complaints of the impropriety 
 of his conduct, and of the light in which he himself must be placed 
 to Redgauntlet, should he present him a letter with a broken seal. 
 
 " That," said Father Buonaventure, "shall be fully cared for. I 
 will myself write to Redgauntlet, and enclose Maxwell's letter, 
 provided always you continue to desire to deliver it, after perusing 
 the contents." 
 
 He then restored the letter to Fairford, and, observing that he 
 
300 REDGAUNTLfiT. 
 
 hesitated to peruse it, said emphatically, " Read it, for it concerns 
 you." 
 
 This recommendation, joined to what Provost Crosbie had for- 
 merly recommended, and to the warning, which he doubted not 
 that Nanty intended to convey by his classical allusion, decided 
 Fairford's resolution. " If these correspondents," he thought, " are 
 gonspiring against my person, I have a right to counterplot them ; 
 self-preservation, as well as my friend's safety, require that I should 
 not be too scrupulous." 
 
 So thinking, he read the letter, which was in. the following 
 words ; — 
 
 " Dear Ruggkd and Dangerous, 
 " Will you never cease meriting your old nick-name .' You 
 have springed your dottrel, I find, and what is the consequence ? — 
 why, that there will be hue and cry after you presently. The 
 bearer is a pert young lawyer, who has brought a formal complaint 
 against you, which, luckily, he has preferred in a friendly court. 
 Yet, favourable as the judge was disposed to be, it was with the 
 utmost difficulty that cousin Jenny and I could keep him to his 
 tackle. He begins to be timid,, suspicious, and intractable, and I 
 fear Jenny will soon bend her brows on him in vain. I know not 
 what to advise — the lad who carries this is a good lad — active for 
 his friend — and I have pledged my honour he shall have no per- 
 ssnal ill-usage — Pledged my honour, remark these words, and 
 remember I can be rugged and dangerous as well as my neigh- 
 bours. But I have not ensured him against a short captivity, and 
 as he is a stirring active fellow, I see no remedy but keeping him 
 
 out of the way till this business of the good Father B is safely 
 
 blown over, which God send it were ! — Always thine, even should 
 Ibe once more 
 
 " Craig-in-Peril." 
 
 "What think you, young man, of the danger you have been 
 about to encounter so willingly ? " 
 
 " As strangely," replied Alan Fairford, " as of the extraordinary 
 means which you have been at present pleased to use for the dis- 
 covery of Mr. Maxwell's purpose."- 
 
 " Trouble not yourself to account for my conduct," said the 
 Father ; " I have a warrant for what I do, and fear no responsi- 
 bility. But tell me what is your present purpose." 
 
 " I should not perhaps name it to you, whose own safety may be 
 implicated." 
 
 " I understand you," answered the Father ; " you would appeal 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 301 
 
 to the existing government ? — That can at no rate be permitted — ■ 
 we will rather detain you at Fairladies by compulsion." 
 
 " You will probably," said Fairford, " first weigh the risk of such 
 a proceeding in a free country." 
 
 " I have incurred more formidable hazard," said the priest, 
 smiling ; " yet I am willing to find a milder expedient. Come ; let 
 us bring the matter to a compromise." — And he assumed a con- 
 ciliating graciousness of manner, which struck Fairford as being 
 rather too condescending for the occasion ; " I presume you will 
 be satisfied to remain here in seclusion for a day or two longer, 
 provided I pass my solemn word to you, that you shall meet with 
 the person whom you seek after — meet with him in perfect safety, 
 and, I trust, in good health, and be afterwards both at liberty to 
 return to Scotland, or dispose of yourselves as each of you may be 
 minded .' " 
 
 " I respect the verbum sacerdotis as much as can reasonably be 
 expected from a Protestant," answered Fairford ; " but, methinks, 
 you can scarce expect me to repose so much confidence in the 
 word of an unknown person, as is implied in the guarantee which 
 you offer me." 
 
 " I am not accustomed, sir," said the Father, in a very haughty 
 tone, " to have my word disputed. But," he added, while the angry 
 hue passed from his cheek, after a moment's reflection, " you know 
 me not, and ought to be excused. I will repose more confidence 
 in your honour than you seem willing to rest upon mine ; and since 
 we are so situated that one must rely upon the other's faith, I will 
 cause you to be set presently at liberty, and furnished with the 
 means of delivering your letter as addressed, provided that now, 
 knowing the contents, you think it safe for yourself to execute the 
 commission." 
 
 Alan Fairford paused. " I cannot see," he at length replied, 
 "how I can proceed with respect to the accomplishment of my 
 sole purpose, which is the liberation of my friend, without appeal- 
 ing to the law, and obtaining the assistance of a magistrate. If I 
 present this singular letter of Mr. Maxwell, with the contents of 
 which I have become so unexpectedly acquainted, I shall only 
 share his captivity." 
 
 " And if you apply to a magistrate, young man, you will bring 
 ruin on these hospitable ladies, to whom, in all human probability, 
 you owe your life. You cannot obtain a warrant for your purpose, 
 without giving a clear detail of all the late scenes through which 
 you have passed. A magistrate would oblige you to give a com- 
 plete account of yourself, before arming you with his authority 
 against a third party ; and in giving such an account, the safety of 
 
302 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 these ladies will necessarily be compromised. A hundred spies 
 have had, and still have, their eyes upon this mansion ; but God 
 will protect his own." — He crossed himself devoutly, and then pro- 
 ceeded. — " You can take an hour to think of your best plan, and I 
 will pledge myself to forward it thus far, provided it be not asking 
 you to rely more on my word than your prudence can warrant. 
 You shall go to Redgauntlet,— I name him plainly, to show my 
 confidence in you, — and you shall deliver him this letter of Mr. 
 Maxwell's, with one from me, in which I will enjoin him to set 
 your friend at liberty, or at least to make no attempts upon your 
 own person, either by detention or otherwise. If you can trust me 
 thus far," he said, with a proud emphasis on the words, " I will on 
 my side see you depart from this place with the most perfect con- 
 fidence that you will not return armed with powers to drag its 
 inmates to destruction. You are young and inexperienced — bred 
 to a profession also which sharpens suspicion, and gives false 
 views of human nature. I have seen much of the world, and have 
 known better than most men, how far mutual confidence is requi- 
 site in managing affairs of consequence.. 
 
 He spoke with an air of superiority, even of authority, by which 
 Fairford, notwithstanding his own internal struggles, was silenced 
 and overawed so much, that it was not till the Father had turned to 
 leave the apartment that he found words to ask him what the con- 
 sequences would be, should he decline to depart on the terms 
 proposed. 
 
 " You must tnen, for the safety of all parties, remain for some 
 days an inhabitant of Fairladies, where we have the means of 
 detaining you, which self-preservation will in that case compel us 
 to make use of. Your captivity will be short ; for matters cannot 
 long remain as they are — The cloud must soon rise, or it must 
 sink upon us for ever. — Benedicite ! " 
 
 With these words he left the apartment. 
 
 Fairford, upon his departure, felt himself much at a loss what 
 course to pursue. His line of education, as well as his father's 
 tenets in matters of church and state, had taught him a holy horror 
 for Papists, and a devout belief in whatever had been said of the 
 punic faith of Jesuits, and of the expedients of mental reservation, 
 by which the Catholic priests in general were supposed to evade 
 keeping faith with heretics. Yet there was something of majesty, 
 depressed indeed, and overclouded, but still grand and imposing, 
 in the manner and words of Father Buonaventure, which it was 
 difficult to reconcile with those preconceived opinions which im- 
 puted subtlety and fraud to his sect and order. Above all, Alan 
 was aware, that if he accepted not his freedom upon the terms 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 303 
 
 offered him, he was likely to be detained by force ; so that, in 
 every point of view, he was a gainer by adopting them. 
 
 A qualm, indeed, came across him, when he considered, as 
 a lawyer, that this Father was probably, in the eye of law, a 
 traitor ; and that there was an ugly crime on the Statute Book, 
 called Misprision of Treason. On the other hand, whatever he 
 might think or suspect, he could not take upon him to say that the 
 man was a priest, whom he had never seen in the dress of his 
 order, or in the act of celebrating mass ; so that he felt himself at 
 liberty to doubt of that, respecting which he possessed no legal 
 proof. He therefore arrived at the conclusion, that he would do 
 well to accept his liberty, and proceed to Redgauntlet under the 
 guarantee of Father Buonaventure, which he scarce doubted would 
 be sufficient to save him from personal inconvenience. Should he 
 once obtain speech of that gentleman, he felt the same confidence 
 as formerly, that he might be able to convince him of the rashness 
 of his conduct, should he not consent to liberate Darsie Latimer. 
 At all events, he should learn where his friend was, and how 
 circumstanced. 
 
 Having thus made up his mind, Alan waited anxiously for the 
 expiration of the hour which had been allowed him for delibera- 
 tion. He was not kept on the tenter-hooks of impatience an 
 instant longer than the appointed moment arrived, for, even as the 
 clock struck, Ambrose appeared at the door of the gallery, and 
 made a sign that Alan should follow him. He did so, and after 
 passing through some of the intricate avenues common in old 
 houses, was ushered into a small apartment, commodiously fitted 
 up, in which he found Father Buonaventure reclining on a couch, in 
 the attitude of a man exhausted by fatigue or indisposition. On a 
 smjdl table beside him, a silver embossed salver sustained a 
 Catholic book of prayer, a small flask of medicine, a cordial, and 
 a little tea-cup of old china. Ambrose did not enter the room — ^he 
 only bowed profoundly, and closed the door with the least possible 
 noise, so soon as Fairford had entered. 
 
 " Sit down, young man," said the Father, with the same air of 
 condescension which had before surprised, and rather offended 
 Fairford. " You have been ill, and I know too well by my own 
 case, that indisposition requires indulgence. — Have you," he con- 
 tinued, so soon as he saw him seated, " resolved to remain, or to 
 depart ? " 
 
 "To depart," said Alan, "under the agreement that you will 
 guarantee my safety with the extraordinary person who has con- 
 ducted himself in such a lawless manner towards my friend, Darsie 
 Latimer." 
 
304 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " Do not judge hastily, young man," replied the Father. " Red- 
 gauntlet has the claims of a guardian over his ward, in respect to 
 the young gentleman, and a right to dictate his place of residence, 
 although he may have been injudicious in selecting the means by 
 which he thinks to enforce his authority." 
 
 " His situation as an attainted person abrogates such rights," 
 said Fairford, hastily. 
 
 " Surely," replied the priest, smiling at the young lawyer's readi- 
 ness, " in the eye of those who acknowledge the justice of the 
 attainder — but that do not I. However, sir, here is the guar- 
 antee — look at its contents, and do not again carry the letters of 
 Uriah." 
 
 Fairford read these words : — 
 
 "Good Friend, 
 " We send you hither a young man desirous to know the situa- 
 tion of your ward, since he came under your paternal authority, 
 and hopeful of dealing with you for having your relative put at 
 large. This we recommend to your prudence, highly disapproving, 
 at the same time, of any force or coercion, when such can be 
 avoided, and wishing, therefore, that the bearer's negotiation may 
 be successful. At all rates, however, the bearer hath our pledged 
 word for his safety and freedom, which, therefore, you are to see 
 strictly observed, as you value our honour and your own. We 
 farther wisli to converse with you, with as small loss of time as 
 may be, having matters of the utmost confidence to impart. For 
 this purpose we desire you to repair hither with all haste, and 
 thereupon we bid you heartily farewell. 
 
 "P. B." 
 
 " You will understand, sir," said the Father, when he saw that 
 Alan had perused his letter, " that, by accepting charge of this 
 missive, you bind yourself to try the efifect of it before having 
 recourse to any legal means, as you term them, for your friend's 
 release." 
 
 " There are a few ciphers added to this letter," said Fairford, when 
 he had perused the paper attentively, — " may I enquire what their 
 import is ? " 
 
 " They respect my- own affairs," answered the Father, briefly ; 
 " and have no concern whatever with yours." 
 
 "It seems to me, however," replied Alan, "natural to sup- 
 pose " 
 
 " Nothing must be supposed incompatible with my honour," 
 repUed the priest, interrupting him ; " when such as I am coafet 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 303 
 
 favours, we expect that they shall be accepted with gratitude, 
 or declined with thankful respect — not questioned or discussed." 
 
 " I will accept your letter, then," said Fairford, after a minute's 
 consideration, " and the thanks you expect shall be most liberally 
 paid, if the result answer what you teach me to expect." 
 
 "God only commands the issue," said Father Buonaventure. 
 " Man uses means. — You understand that, by accepting this com- 
 mission, you engage yourself in honour to try the effect of my 
 letter upon Mr. Redgauntlet, before you have recourse to informa- 
 tions or legal warrants ? " 
 
 " I hold myself bound, as a man of good faith and honour, to do 
 so," said Fairford. 
 
 " Well, I trust you," said the Father. " I will now tell you, that 
 an express, dispatched by me last night, has, I hope, brought Red- 
 gauntlet to a spot many miles nearer this place, where he will not 
 find it safe to attempt any violence on your friend, should he be 
 rash enqugh to follow the advice of Mr. Maxwell of Summertrees 
 rather than my commands. We now understand each other." 
 
 He extended his hand towards Allan, who was about to pledge 
 his faith in the usual form by grasping it with his own, when the 
 Father drew back hastily. Ere Alan had time to comment upon 
 this repulse, a small side-door, covered with tapestry, was opened ; 
 the hangings were drawn aside, and a lady, as if by sudden appari- 
 tion, glided into the apartment. It was neither of the Miss Ar- 
 thurets, but a woman in the prime of life, and in the full-blown 
 expansion of female beauty, tall, fair, arid commanding in her 
 aspect. Her locks, of paly gold, were taught to fall over a brow, 
 which, with the stately glance of the large, open, blue eyes, might 
 have become Juno herself ; her neck and bosom were admirably 
 formed, and of a dazzling whiteness. She was rather inclined to 
 embonpoint, but not more than became her age, of apparently 
 thirty years. Her step was that of a queen, but it was of Queen 
 Vashti, not Queen Esther— the bold and commanding, not the 
 retiring beauty. 
 
 Father Buonaventure raised himself on the couch, angrily, as if 
 displeased by this intrusion. " How now, madam," he said, with 
 some sternness ; " why have we the honour of your company ? " 
 
 " Because it is my pleasure," answered the lady, composedly. 
 
 " Your pleasure, madam ! " he repeated in the same angry tone. 
 
 " My pleasure, sir," she continued, " which always keeps exact 
 pace with my duty. I had heard you were unwell — let me hope it 
 is only business which produces this seclusion." 
 
 " I am well," he replied ; "perfectly well, and I thank you for 
 your care — but we are not alone, and this young man " 
 
 X 
 
3o6 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 « That young man ?" she said, bending her large and serious eye 
 on Alan Fairford, as if she had been for the first time aware of his 
 presence—" may I ask who he his ? " 
 
 " Another time, madam ; you shall learn his history after he is 
 gone. His presence renders it impossible for me to explain 
 farther." 
 
 " After he is gone may be too late," said the lady ; " and what 
 is his presence to me, when your safety is at stake ? He is the 
 heretic lawyer whom those silly fools, the Arthurets, admitted into 
 this house, at a time when they should let their own father knock 
 at the door in vain, though the night had been a wild one. You 
 will not surely dismiss him ? " 
 
 " Your own impatience can alone make that step perilous," said 
 the Father ; " I have resolved to take it — do not let your indiscreet 
 zeal, however excellent its motive, add any unnecessary risk to the 
 transaction." 
 
 " Even so ? " said the lady, in a tone of reproach, yet mingled 
 with respect and apprehension. " And thus you will still go for- 
 ward, like a stag upon the hunter's snares, with undoubting confi- 
 dence, after all that has happened ? " 
 
 "Peace, madam," said Father Buonaventure, rising up; "be 
 silent, or quit the apartment ; my designs do not admit of female 
 criticism." 
 
 To this peremptory command the lady seemed about to make 
 a sharp reply ; but she checked herself, and pressing her lips 
 strongly together, as if to secure the words from bursting from 
 them which were already formed upon her tongue, she made a deep 
 reverence, partly as it seemed in reproach, partly in respect, and 
 left the room as suddenly as she had entered it. 
 
 The Father looked disturbed at this incident, which he seemed 
 sensible could not but fill Fairford's imagination with an additional 
 throng of bewildering suspicions ; he bit his lip, and muttered 
 something to himself ag he walked through the apartment ; then 
 suddenly turned to his visitor with a smile of much sweetness, and 
 a countenance in which every rougher expression was exchanged 
 for those of courtesy and kindness. 
 
 " The visit we have been just honoured with, my young friend, 
 has given you," he said, " more secrets to keep than I would have 
 wished you burdened with. The lady is a person of condition — 
 of rank and fortune — but nevertheless, is so circumstanced, that the 
 mere fact of her being known to be in this country, would occasion 
 many evils. I should wish you to observe secrecy on this subject, 
 even to Redgauntlet or Maxwell, however much I trust them in all 
 that concerns my own affairs." 
 
REDGAUN'I'LE'I'. 307 
 
 " I can have no occasion," replied Fairford, " for holding any 
 discussion with these gentlemen, or with any others, on the cir- 
 cumstance which I have just witnessed — it could only have become 
 the subject of my conversation by mere accident, and I will now 
 take care to avoid the subject entirely." 
 
 " You will do well, sir, and I thank you,'' said the Father, throw- 
 ing much dignity into the expression of obligation which he meant 
 to convey. " The time may perhaps come when you will learn 
 what it is to have obliged one of my condition. As to the lady, she 
 has the highest merit, and nothing can be said of her justly which 
 would not redound to her praise. Nevertheless — in short, sir, we 
 wander at present as in a morning mist — the sun will, I trust, soon 
 rise and dispel it, when all that now seems mysterious will be fully 
 revealed — or it will sink into rain," he added, in a solemn tone, " and 
 then explanation will be of little consequence. — Adieu, sir ; I wish 
 you well." 
 
 He made a graceful obeisance, and vanished through the same 
 side-door by which the lady had entered ; and Alan thought he 
 heard their voices high in dispute in the adjoining apartment. 
 
 Presently afterwards, Ambrose entered, and told him that a 
 horse and guide waited him beneath the terrace. 
 
 " The good Father Buonaventure," added the butler, " has been 
 graciously pleased to consider your situation, and desired me to 
 enquire whether you have any occasion for a supply of money ? " 
 
 " Make my respects to his reverence," answered Fairford, " and 
 assure him I am provided in that particular. I beg you also to 
 make my acknowledgments to the Miss Arthurets, and assure them 
 that their kind hospitality, to which I probably owe my life, shall 
 be remembered with gratitude as long as that life lasts. You yourself 
 yourself, Mr. Ambrose, must accept of my kindest thanks for your 
 skill. and attention." 
 
 Mid these acknowledgments they left the house, descended the 
 terrace, and reached the spot where the gardener, Fairford's old 
 acquaintance, waited for him, mounted upon one horse, and leading 
 another. 
 
 Bidding adieu to Ambrose, our young lawyer mounted, and rode 
 down the avenue, often looking back to the melancholy and 
 neglected dwelling in which he had witnessed such strange scenes, 
 and musing upon the character of its mysterious inmates, especially 
 the noble and almost regal seeming priest, and the beautiful but 
 capricious dame, who, if she was really Father Buonaventure's 
 penitent, seemed less docile to the authority of the church, than, as 
 Alan conceived, the Catholic discipline permitted. He could not 
 indeed help being sensible that the whole deportment of these persons 
 
3o8 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 differed much from his preconceived notions of a priest and devotee. 
 Father Buonaventure, in particular, had more natural dignity and 
 less art and affectation in his manner, than accorded with the idea 
 which Calvinists were taught to entertain of that wily and formidable 
 person, a Jesuitical missionary. 
 
 While reflecting on these things, he looked back so frequently at 
 the house, that Dick Gardener, a forward, talkative fellow, who 
 began to tire of silence, at length said to him, " I think you will 
 know Fairladies when you see it again, sir ? " 
 
 " I daresay I shall, Richard," answered Fairford, good-humouredly. 
 " I wish I knew as well where I am to go next. But you can tell me, 
 perhaps ? " 
 
 " Your worship should know better than I," said Dick Gardener ; 
 " nevertheless, I have a notion you are going where all you Scots- 
 men should be sent, whether you will or no." 
 
 " Not to the devil, I hope, good Dick ?" said Fairfprd. 
 
 "Why, no. That is a road which you may travel as heretics ; 
 but as Scotsmen, I would only send you three-fourths of the way — 
 and that is back to Scotland again — always craving your honour's 
 pardon." 
 
 " Does our journey lie that way ? " said Fairford. 
 
 " As far as the water side," said Richard. " I am to carry you to 
 old Father Crackenthorp's, and then you are within a spit and a 
 stride of Scotland, as the saying is. But mayhap you may think 
 twice of going thither, for all that ; for Old England is fat feeding- 
 grOund for north-country cattle." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF DARSIE LATIMER. 
 
 Our history must now, as the old romancers wont to say, " leave 
 to tell " of the quest of Alan Fairford, and instruct our readers 
 of the adventured which befell Darsie Latimer, left as he was in the 
 precarious custody of his self-named tutor, the Laird of the Lochs 
 of Solway, to whose arbitrary pleasure he found it necessary for 
 the present to conform himself. 
 
 In consequence of this prudent resolution, and although he did 
 not assume such a disguise without some sensations of shame and 
 degradation, Darsie permitted Crystal Nixon to place over his face, 
 and secure by a string, one of those silk masks which ladies frequently 
 virore to preserve their complexions, when exposed to the air during 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 309 
 
 long journeys on horseback. He remonstrated somewhat more 
 vehemently against the long riding-skirt, which converted his 
 person from the waist into the female guise, but was obliged to 
 concede this point also. 
 
 The metamorphosis was then complete ; for the fair reader must 
 be informed, that in those rude times, the ladies, when they 
 honoured the masculine dress by assuming any part of it, wore just 
 such hats, coats, and waistcoats, as the male animals themselves 
 made use of, and had no notion of the elegant compromise betwixt 
 male and female attire, which has now acquired, par excellence, the 
 name of a habit. TroUoping things our mothers must have looked, 
 with long square-cut coats, lacking collars, and with waistcoats 
 plentifully supplied with a length of pocket, which hung far down- 
 wards from the middle. But then they had some advantage from 
 the splendid colours, lace, and gay embroidery, which masculine 
 attire then exhibited ; and, as happens in many similar instances, 
 the finery of the materials made amends for the want of symmetry 
 and grace of form in the garments themselves. But this is a 
 digression. 
 
 In the court of the old mansion, half manor-place, half farm- 
 house, or rather a decayed manor-house, converted into an abode 
 for a Cumberland tenant, stood several saddled horses. Four or 
 five of them were mounted by servants or inferior retainers, all of 
 whom were well-armed with sword, pistol, and carabine. But 
 two had riding furniture for the use of females — the one being 
 accoutred with a side saddle, the other with a pillion attached 
 to the saddle. 
 
 Darsie's heart beat quicker within him ; he easily comprehended 
 that one of these was intended for his own use ; and his hopes 
 suggested that the other was designed for that of the fair Green- 
 Mantle, whom, according to his established practice, he had 
 adopted for the queen of his affections, although his opportunities 
 of holding communication with her had not exceeded the length of 
 a silent supper on one occasion, and the going down a country- 
 dance on another. This, however, was no unwonted mood of passion 
 with Darsie Latimer, upon whom Cupid was used to triumph only 
 in the degree of a Mahratta conqueror, who overruns a province 
 with the rapidity of lightning, but finds it impossible to retain it 
 beyond a very brief space. Yet this new love was rather more serious 
 than the scarce skinned-up wounds which his friend Fairford used 
 to ridicule. The damsel had shown a sincere interest in his behalf ; 
 and the air of mystery with which that interest was veiled, gave her, 
 to his lively imagination, the character of a benevolent and pro- 
 tecting spirit, as much as that of a beautiful female. 
 
310 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 At former times, the romance attending his short-lived attach- 
 ments had been of his own creating, and had disappeared soon as 
 ever he approached more closely to the object with which he had 
 invested it. On the present occasion, it really flowed from external 
 circumstances, which might have interested less susceptible feelings, 
 and an imagination less lively than that of Darsie Latimer, young, 
 inexperienced, and enthusiastic as he was. 
 
 He watched, therefore, anxiously to whose service the palfrey 
 bearing the lady's saddle was destined. But ere any female 
 appeared to occupy it, he was himself summoned to take his seat 
 on the pillion behind Cristal Nixon, amid the grins of his old 
 acquaintance Jan, who helped him to horse, and the unrestrained 
 laughter of Cicely, who displayed on the occasion a case of teeth 
 which might have rivalled ivory. , 
 
 Latimer was at an age when being an object of general ridicule 
 even to clowns and milkmaids, was not a matter of indifference, and 
 he longed heartily to have laid his horsewhip across Jan's shoulders. 
 That, however, was a solacement of his feelings which was not at 
 the moment to be thought of; and Cristal Nixon presently put an 
 end to his unpleasant situation, by ordering the riders to go on. 
 He himself kept the centre of the troop, two men riding before and 
 two behind him, always, as it seemed to Darsie, having their eye 
 upon him, to prevent any attempt to escape. He could see from 
 time to time, when the straight line of the road, or the advantage of 
 an ascent permitted him, that another troop of three or four riders 
 followed them at about a quarter of a mile's distance, amongst whom 
 he could discover the tall form of Redgauntlet, and the powerful 
 action of his gallant black horse. He had little doubt that Green- 
 Mantle made one of the party, though he was unable to distinguish 
 her from the others. 
 
 In this manner they travelled from six in the morning until nearly 
 ten of the clock, without Darsie's exchanging a word with any one ; 
 for he loathed the very idea of entering into conversation with 
 Cristal Nixon, against whom he seemed to feel an instinctive 
 aversion ; nor was that domestic's saturnine and sullen disposition 
 such as to have encouraged advances, had he thought of making 
 them. 
 
 At length the party halted for the purpose of refreshment ; but 
 as they had hitherto avoided all villages and inhabited places 
 upon their route, so they now stopped at one of those large ruinous 
 Dutch barns, which are sometimes found in the. fields, at a distance 
 from the farm-houses to which they belong. Yet in this desolate 
 place some preparations had been made for their reception. There 
 were in the end of the barn, racks filled with provender for the 
 
RKDGAUNTLET. 3" 
 
 horses, and plenty of provisions for the party were drawn from the 
 trusses of straw, under which the baskets that contained them had 
 been deposited. The choicest of these were selected and arranged 
 apart by Crystal Nixon, while the men of the party threw them' 
 selves upon the rest, which he abandoned to their discretion. In 
 a few minutes afterwards the rearward party arrived and dis- 
 mounted, and Redgauntlet himself entered the barn with the 
 green-mantled maiden by his side. He presented her to Darsie 
 with these words.: — 
 
 " It is time you two should know each other better. I promised 
 you my confidence, Darsie, and the time is come for reposing it. 
 But first we will have our breakfast ; and then, when once more in 
 the saddle, I will tell you that which it is necessary that you should 
 know. Salute Lilias, Darsie." 
 
 The command was sudden, and surprised Latimer, whose con- 
 fusion was increased by the perfect ease and frankness with whjch 
 Lilias offered at once her cheek and her hand, and pressing his, as 
 she rather took it than gave her own, said very frankly, " Dearest 
 Darsie, how rejoiced I am that our uncle has at last permitted us 
 to become acquainted ! " 
 
 Darsie's head turned round ; and it was perhaps well that Red- 
 gauntlet called upon him to sit down, as even that movement 
 served to hide his confusion. There is an old song which says — ■ 
 
 " when ladies are willing, 
 
 A man can but look like a fool ; " 
 
 And on the same principle Darsie Latimer's looks at this un- 
 expected frankness of reception, would have formed an admirable 
 vignette for illustrating the passage. " Dearest Darsie," and such a 
 ready, nay, eager salute of lip and hand ! — It was aU very gracious, 
 no doubt — and ought to have been received with much gratitude ; 
 but, constituted as our friend's temper was, nothing could be more 
 inconsistent with his tone of feeling. If a hermit had proposed to 
 him to club for a pot of beer, the illusion of his reverend sanctity 
 could not have been dispelled more effectually than the divind 
 quaUties of Green-Mantle faded upon the ill-imagined frank- 
 heartedness of poor Lilias. Vexed with her forwardness, and 
 affronted at having once more cheated himself, Darsie could hardly 
 help muttering two lines of the song we have already quoted : 
 
 " The fruit that must fall without shaking 
 Is rather too mellow for me." 
 
 And yet it was pity of her too— she was a very pretty young 
 
313 REDGAUNTLET. - _. 
 
 woman — ^his fancy had scarce over-rated her in that respect — 
 and the slight derangement of the beautiful brown locks which 
 escaped in natural ringlets from under her riding-hat, with the 
 bloom which exercise had brought into her cheek, made her even 
 more than usually fascinating. Redgauntlet modified the stern- 
 ness of his look when it was turned towards her, and, in address- 
 ing her, used a softer tone than his usual deep bass. Even the 
 grim features of Cristal Nixon relaxed when he attended on her, 
 and it was then, if ever, that his misanthropical visage expressed 
 some sympathy with the rest of humanity. 
 
 " How can she," thought Latimer, " look so like an angel, yet 
 be so mere a mortal after all? — How could so much seeming 
 modesty have so much forwardness of manner, when she ought 
 to have been most reserved? How can her conduct be recon- 
 ciled to the grace and ease of her general deportment ? " 
 
 The confusion of thoughts which occupied Darsie's imagina- 
 tion, gave to his looks a disordered appearance, and his in- 
 attention to the food which was placed before him, together with 
 -his silence and absence of mind, induced Lilias solicitously to 
 enquire, whether he did not feel some return of the disorder 
 under which he had suffered so lately. This led Mr. Redgauntlet, 
 who seemed also lost in his own contemplations, to raise his 
 eyes, and join in the same inquiry with some appearance of 
 interest. Latimer explained to both, that he was perfectly well. 
 
 " It is well it is so," answered Redgauntlet ; " for we have that 
 before us which will brook no delay from indisposition — we have 
 not, as Hotspur says, leisure to be sick." 
 
 Lilias, on her part, endeavoured to prevail upon Darsie to par- 
 take of the food which she offered him, with a kindly and 
 affectionate courtesy, corresponding to the warmth of the interest 
 she had displayed at their meeting ; but so very natural, innocent, 
 and pure in its character, that it would have been impossible for 
 the vainest coxcomb to have mistaken it for coquetry, or a desire of 
 captivating a prize so valuable as his affections. Darsie, with no 
 more than the reasonable share of self-opinion common to mosi 
 youths when they approach twenty-one, knew not how to explain 
 her conduct. 
 
 Sometimes he was tempted to think that his own merits had, 
 even during the short intervals when they had seen each other, 
 secured such a hold of the affections of a young person, who had 
 probably been bred up in ignorance of the world and its forms, 
 that she was unable to conceal her partiality. Sometimes he sus- 
 pected that she acted by her guardian's order, who, aware that he, 
 Darsie, was entitled to a considerable fortune, might have taken 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 313 
 
 this bold stroke to bring about a marriage betwixt him and so near 
 a relative. 
 
 But neither of these suppositions was applicable to the character 
 of the parties. Miss Lilias's manners, however soft and natural, 
 displayed in their ease and versatility considerable acquaintance 
 with the habits of the world, and in the few words she said during 
 the morning repast, there were mingled a shrewdness and good 
 sense, which could scarce belong to a Miss capable of playing 
 the silly part of a love-smitten maiden so broadly. As for Red- 
 gauntlet, with his stately bearing, his fatal frown, his eye of threat 
 and of command, it was impossible, Darsie thought, to suspect 
 him of a scheme having private advantage for its object ; — he 
 could as soon have imagined Cassius picking Csesar's pocket, 
 instead of drawing his poniard on the Dictator. 
 
 While he thus mused, unable either to eat, drink, or answer to 
 the courtesy of Lilias, she soon ceased to speak to him, and sat 
 silent as himself. 
 
 They had remained nearly an hour in their halting-place, when 
 Redgauntlet said aloud, " Look out, Cristal Nixon. If we hear 
 nothing from Fairladies, we must continue our journey." 
 
 Cristal went to the door, and presently returned and said to his 
 master, in a voice as harsh as his features, " Gilbert Gregson is 
 coming, his horse as white with foam as if a fiend had ridden 
 him." 
 
 Redgauntlet threw from him the plate on which he had been 
 eating, and hastened towards the door of the barn, which the 
 courier at that moment entered ; a smart jockey with a black velvet 
 hunting cap, and a broad belt drawn tight round his waist, to which 
 was secured his express-bag. The variety of mud with which he 
 was splashed from cap to spur, showed he had had a rough and 
 rapid ride. He delivered a letter to Mr. Redgauntlet, with an 
 obeisance, and then retired to the end of the barn, where the other 
 attendants were sitting or lying upon the straw, in order to get 
 some refreshment. 
 
 Redgauntlet broke the letter open with haste, and read it with 
 anxious and discomposed looks. On a second perusal, his dis- 
 pleasure seemed to increase, his brow darkened, and was distinctly 
 marked with the fatal sign peculiar to his family and house. Darsie 
 had never before observed his frown bear such a close resemblance 
 to the shape which tradition assigned it. 
 
 Redgauntlet held out the open letter with one hand, and struck 
 it with the forefinger of the other, as, in a suppressed and displeased 
 tone, he said to Cristal Nixon, " Countermanded—ordered north- 
 ward once more ! — Northward, when all our hopes lie to the south 
 
314 
 
 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 — a second Derby direction, when we turned our back on glory, 
 and marched in quest of ruin ! " 
 
 Cristal Nixon took the letter and ran it over, then returned it to 
 his master with the cold observation, "a female influence pre- 
 dominates." 
 
 " But it shall predominate no longer," said Redgauntlet ; " it shall 
 wane as ours rises in the horizon. Meanwhile, I will on before — 
 and you, Cristal, will bring the party to the place assigned in the 
 letter. You may now permit the young persons to have unreserved 
 communication together ; only mark that you watch the young 
 man closely enough to prevent his escape, if he should be idiot 
 enough to attempt it, but not approaching so close as to watch 
 their free conversation." 
 
 " I care nought about their conversation," said Nixon, surlily. 
 
 " You hear my commands, Lilias," said the Laird, turning to the 
 young lady. " You may use my permission and authority, to ex- 
 plain so much of our family matters as you yourself know. At our 
 next meeting I will complete the task of disclosure, and I trust I 
 shall restore one Redgauntlet more to the bosom of our ancient 
 family. Let Latimer, as he calls himself, have a horse to himself; 
 he must for some time retain his disguise. — My horse — my 
 horse!" 
 
 In two minutes they heard him ride off from the door of the 
 barn, followed at speed by two of the armed men of his party. / 
 
 The commands of Cristal Nixon, in the meanwhile, put all the 
 remainder of the party in motion, but the Laird himself was long 
 out of sight ere they were in readiness to resume their journey. 
 When at length they set out, Darsie was accommodated with a 
 horse and side-saddle, instead of being obliged to resume his place 
 on the pillion behind the detestable Nixon. He was obliged, how- 
 ever, to retain his riding-skirt, and to reassume his mask. Yet 
 notwithstanding this disagreeable circumstance, and although he 
 observed that they gave him the heaviest and slowest horse of the 
 party, and that, as a farther precaution against escape, he was 
 closely watched on every side, yet riding in company with the 
 pretty Lilias was an advantage which overbalanced these incon- 
 veniences. 
 
 It is true, that this society, to which that very morning he would 
 have looked forward as a glimpse of heaven, had, now that it was 
 thus unexpectedly indulged, something much less rapturous than 
 he had expected. 
 
 It was in vain that, in order to avail himself of a situation so 
 favourable for indulging his romantic disposition, he endeavoured 
 to coax back, if I may so express myself, that delightful dream of 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 31S 
 
 ardent and tender passion ; he felt only such a confusion of ideas 
 at the difference between the being whom he had imagined, and 
 her with whom he was now in contact, that it seemed to him like 
 the effect of witchcraft. What most surprised him was, that this 
 sudden flame should have died away so rapidly, notwithstanding 
 that the maiden's personal beauty was even greater than he had 
 expected — her demeanour, unless it should be deemed over kind 
 towards himself, as graceful and becoming as he could have fancied 
 it, even in his gayest dreams. It were judging hardly of him to 
 suppose that the mere belief of his having attracted her affections 
 more easily than he expected, was the cause of his ungratefully 
 undervaluing a prize too lightly won, or that his transient passion 
 played around his heart with the flitting radiance of a wintry sun- 
 beam flashing against an icicle, which may brighten it for a mo- 
 ment, but cannot melt it. Neither of these was precisely the case, 
 though such fickleness of disposition might also have some influence 
 in the change. 
 
 The truth is, perhaps, that the lover's pleasure, like that of the 
 hunter, is in the chase ; and that the brightest beauty loses half its 
 merit, as the fairest flower its perfume, when the willing hand can 
 reach it too easily. There must be doubt — there must be danger — 
 there must be difficulty ; and if, as the poet says, the course of 
 ardent affection never does run smooth, it is perhaps because, 
 without some intervening obstacle, that which is called the romantic 
 passion of love, in its high poetical character and colouring, can 
 hardly have an existence ; — any ihore than there can be a current 
 in a river, without the stream being narrowed by steep banks, or 
 checked by opposing rocks. 
 
 Let not those, however, who enter into a union for life without 
 those embarrassments which delight a Darsie Latimer, or a Lydia 
 Languish, and which are perhaps necessary to excite an enthusiastic 
 passion in breasts more firm than theirs, augur worse of their future 
 happiness, because their own alliance is formed under calmer 
 auspices. IVlutual esteem, an intimate knowledge of each other's 
 character, seen, as in their case, undisguised by the mists of too 
 partial passion— a suitable proportion of parties in rank and for- 
 tune, in taste and pursuits — are more frequently found in a marriage 
 of reason, than in a union of romantic attachment ; where the 
 imagination, which probably created the virtues and accomplish- 
 ments with which it invested the beloved object, is frequently after- 
 wards employed in magnifying the mortifying consequences of its 
 own delusion, and exasperating all the stings of disappointment. 
 Those who follow the banners of Reason are like the well-disci- 
 plined battalion, which, wearing a more sober uniform, and making 
 
3i5 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 a less dazzling show, than the light troops commanded by Imagi- 
 nation, enjoy more safety, and even more honour, in the conflicts of 
 human life. All this, however, is foreign to our present purpose. 
 
 Uncertain in what mariner to address her whom he had been 
 lately so anxious to meet with, and embarrassed by a tHe-a-tHe to 
 which his own timid inexperience gave some awkwardness, the 
 party had proceeded more than a hundred yards before Darsie 
 assumed courage to accost, or even to look at, his companion. 
 Sensible, however, of the impropriety of his silence, he turned 
 to speak to her ; and observing that, although she wore her 
 mask, there' was something hke disappointment and dejection 
 in her manner, he was moved by self-reproach for his own cold- 
 ness, and hastened to address her in the kindest tone he could 
 assume. 
 
 " You must think me cruelly deficient in gratitude, Miss Lilias, 
 that I have been thus long in your company, without thanking you 
 for the interest which you have deigned to take in my unfortunate 
 affairs?" 
 
 " I am glad you have at length spoken," she said, " though I own 
 it is more coldly than I expected. — Miss Lilias ! Deign to take 
 interest — In whom, dear Darsie, can I take interest but in you ? 
 and why do you put this barrier of ceremony betwixt us, whom 
 adverse circumstances have already separated for such a length of 
 time?" 
 
 Darsie was again confounded at the extra candour, if we may 
 use the term, of this frank avowal — " One must love partridge very 
 well," thought he, " to accept it when thrown in one's face — if this 
 is not plain speaking, there is no such place as downright Dun- 
 stable in being ! " 
 
 Embarrassed with these reflections, and himself of a nature 
 fancifully, almost fastidiously, delicate, he could only in reply 
 stammer forth an acknowledgment of his companion's goodness, 
 and his own gratitude. She answered in. a tone partly sorrowful 
 and partly impatient, repeating, with displeased emphasis, the only 
 distinct words he had been able to bring forth — " Goodness — 
 gratitude !— O Darsie, should these be the phrases between you 
 and me ? — Alas ! I am too sure you are displeased with me, though 
 J cannot even guess on what account. Perhaps you think I have 
 been too free in venturing upon my visit to your friend. But then 
 remember it was in your behalf, and that I knew no better way to 
 put you on your guard against the misfortunes and restraint which 
 you have been subjected to, and are still enduring." 
 
 " Dear lady " — said Darsie, rallying his recollection, and 
 suspicious of some error in apprehension,— -a suspicion which his 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 317 
 
 mode of address seemed at once to communicate to Lilias, for she 
 interrupted him, — 
 
 " Lady ! dear lady ! — For whom, or for what, in Heaven's name, 
 do you take me, that you address me so formally ? " 
 
 Had the question been asked in that enchanted hall in Fairy- 
 land, where all interrogations must be answei-ed with absolute 
 sincerity, Darsie had certainly replied, that he took her for the 
 most frank-hearted and ultra-liberal lass that had ever lived since 
 Mother Eve eat the pippin without paring. But as he was still 
 on middle-earth, and free to avail himself of a little polite deceit, 
 he barely answered, that he believed he had the honour of speaking 
 to the niece of Mr. Redgauntlet. 
 
 " Surely," she replied ; " but were it not as easy for you to have 
 said, to your own only sister ? " 
 
 Darsie started in his saddle, as if he had received a pistol-shot. 
 
 " My sister ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " And you did not know it, then ? " said she. " I thought your 
 reception of me was cold and indifferent ! " 
 
 A kind and cordial embrace took place betwixt the relatives ; and 
 so light was Darsie's spirit, that he really felt himself more relieved, 
 by getting quit of the embarrassments of the last half hour, during 
 which he conceived himself in danger of being persecuted by the 
 attachment of a forward girl, than disappointed by the vanishing of 
 so many day-dreams as he had been in the habit of encouraging 
 during the time when the green-mantled maiden was goddess of his 
 idolatry. He had been already flung from his romantic Pegasus, 
 and was too happy at length to find himself with bones unbroken, 
 though with his back on the ground. He was, besides, with all his 
 whims and follies, a generous, kind-hearted youth, and was delighted 
 to acknowledge so beautiful and amiable a relative, and to assure 
 her in the warmest terms of his immediate affection and future 
 protection, so soon as they should be extricated from their present 
 situation. Smiles and tears mingled on Lilias's cheeks, like showers 
 and sunshine in April weather. 
 
 " Out on me," she said, " that I should be so childish as to cry 
 at what makes me so sincerely happy ! since, God knows, family- 
 love is what my heart has most longed after, and to which it has 
 been most a stranger. My uncle says that you and I, Darsie, are 
 but half Redgauntlets, and that the metal of which cur father's 
 family was made, has been softened to effeminacy in our mother's 
 offspring." 
 
 " Alas ! " said Darsie, " I know so little of our family story, that 
 1 almost doubted that I belonged to the House of Redgauntlet, 
 although the chief of the family himself intimated so much to me." 
 
3i8 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " The Chief of the family ! " said Lilias. " You must know little 
 of your own descent indeed, if you mean my uncle by that ex- 
 pression. You yourself, my dear Darsie, are the heir and repre- 
 sentative of our ancient House, for our father was the elder brother 
 — that brave and unhappy Sir Henry Darsie Redgauntlet, who 
 suffered at Carlisle in the year 1746. He took the name of Darsie, 
 in conjunction with his own, from our mother, heiress to a Cumber- 
 land family of great wealth and antiquity, of whose large estates 
 you are the undeniable heir, although those of your father have been 
 involved in the general doom of forfeiture. But all this must 
 be necessarily unknown to you." 
 " Indeed I hear it for the first time in my life," answered Darsie. 
 "And you knew not that I was your sister?" said Lilias. " No 
 wonder you received me so coldly. What a strange, wild, forward 
 young person you must have thought me — ^mixing myself in the 
 fortunes of a stranger whom I had only once spoken to — cor- 
 responding with him by signs — Good Heaven ! what can you 
 have supposed me ? " 
 
 " And how should I have come to the knowledge of our con- 
 nexion? " said Darsie. "You are aware I was not acquainted with 
 it when we danced together at Brokenburn." 
 ' " I saw that with concern, and fain I would have warned you," 
 answered Lilias ; " but I was closely watched, and before I could 
 find or make an opportunity of coming to a full explanation with 
 you on a subject so agitating, I was forced to leave the room. What 
 I did say was, you may remember, a caution to leave the southern 
 border, for I foresaw what has since happened. But since my 
 uncle has had you in his power, I never doubted he had communi- 
 cated to you our whole family history." 
 
 " He has left me to learn it from you, Lilias ; and assure yourself 
 that I will hear it with more pleasure from your lips than from his. 
 I have no reason to be pleased with his conduct towards me." 
 
 " Of that," said Lilias, "you will judge better when you have 
 heard what I have to tell you ; " and she began her communication 
 in the following manner. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 319 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF DARSIE LATIMER, CONTINUED. 
 
 " The House of Redgauntlet," said the young lady, " has for 
 centuries been supposed to lie under a doom, which has rendered 
 vain their courage, their talents, their ambition, and their wisdom. 
 Often making a figure in history, they have been ever in the 
 situation of men striving against both wind and tide, who dis- 
 tinguish themselves by their desperate exertions of strength, and 
 their persevering endurance of toil, but without being able to 
 advance themselves upon their course, by either vigour or resolution. 
 They pretend to trace this fatality to a legendary history, which I 
 may tell you at a less busy moment." 
 
 Darsie intimated, that he had already heard the tragic story of 
 Sir Alberick Redgauntlet. 
 
 " I need only say, then," proceeded Lihas, " that our father and 
 uncle felt the family doom in its full extent. They were both 
 possessed of considerable property, which was largely increased by 
 our father's marriage, and were both devoted to the service of the 
 unhappy House of Stewart ; but (as our mother at least supposed) 
 family considerations might have withheld her husband from 
 joining openly in the affair of 1745, had not the high influence 
 which the younger brother possessed over the elder, from his more 
 decided energy of character, hurried him along with himself into 
 that undertaking. 
 
 " When, therefore, the enterprise came to the fatal conclusion, 
 which bereaved our father of his life, and consigned his brqther to 
 exile, Lady Redgauntlet fled from the north of England, determined 
 to break off all communication with her late husband's family, 
 particularly his brother, whom she regarded as having, by their 
 insane political enthusiasm, been the means of his untimely death ; 
 and determined that you, my brother, an infant, and that I, to whom 
 she had just given birth, should be brought up as adherents of the 
 present dynasty. Perhaps she was too hasty in this determination 
 — too timidly anxious to exclude, if possible, from the knowledge of 
 the very spot where we existed, a relation so nearly connected with 
 us as our father's only brother. But you must make allowance for 
 what she had suffered. See, brothef," she said, pulling her glove 
 off, " these five blood-specks on my arm are a mark by which 
 mysterious Nature has impressed, on an unborn infant, a record of 
 its father's violent death and its mother's miseries."* 
 
320 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 "You were not, then, born when my father suffered?" said 
 Darsie. 
 
 " Alas, no ! " she replied ; " nor were you a twelvemonth old. 
 It was no wonder that my mother, after going through such scenes 
 of agony, became irresistibly anxious for the sake of her children 
 — of her son in particular ; the more especially as the late Sir 
 Henry, her husband, had, by a settlement of his affairs, confided 
 the custody of the persons of her children, as well as the estates 
 which descended to them, independently of those which fell under 
 his forfeiture, to his brother Hugh, in whom he placed unlimited 
 confidence." 
 
 " But my mother had no reason to feel the operation of such a 
 deed, conceived in favour of an attainted man," said Darsie. 
 
 " True," replied Lilias ; " but our uncle's attainder might have 
 been reversed, like that of so many other persons, and our mother, 
 who both feared and hated him, lived in continual terror that this 
 would be the case, and tha,t she should see the author, as she 
 thought him, of her husband's death, come armed with legal powers, 
 and in a capacity to use them, for the purpose of tearing her children 
 from her protection. Besides, she feared, even in his incapacitated 
 condition, the adventurous and pertinacious spirit of her brother- 
 in-law, Hugh Redgauntlet, and felt assured that he would make 
 some attempt to posess himself of the persons of the children. On 
 the other hand, our uncle, whose proud disposition might, perhaps, 
 have been soothed by the offer of her confi^dence, revolted against 
 the distrustful and suspicious manner in which Lady Darsie Red- 
 gauntlet acted towards him. She basely abused, he said, the un- 
 happy circumstances in which he was placed, in order to deprive 
 him of his natural privilege of protecting and educating the infants, 
 whom nature and law, and the will of their father, had committed 
 to his charge, and he swore solemnly he would not submit to such 
 an injurj-. Report of his threats was made to Lady Redgauntlet, 
 and tended to increase those fears which proved but too well 
 founded. While you and I, children at that time of two or three 
 years old, were playing together in a walled orchard, adjacent to 
 our mother's residence, which she had fixed somewhere in Devon- 
 shire, my uncle suddenly scaled the wall with several men, and I 
 was snatched up and carried off to a boat which waited for them. 
 My mother, however, flew to your rescue, and as she seized on and 
 held you fast, my uncle could not, as he has since told me, possess 
 himself of your person, without using unmanly violence to his 
 brother's widow. Of this he was incapable ; and, as people began 
 to assemble upon my mother's screaming, he withdrew, after 
 darting upon you and her one of those fearful looks, which, it is 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 321 
 
 said, remain with our family, as a fatal bequest of Sir Alberick, 
 our ancestor." 
 
 " I have some recollection of the scuffle which you mention," said 
 Darsie ; " and I think it was my uncle himself (since my uncle he 
 is) who recalled the circumstance to my mind on a late occasion. 
 I can now account for the guarded seclusion under which my poor 
 mother lived — for her frequent tears, her starts of hysterical alarm, 
 and her constant and deep melancholy. Poor lady ! what a lot was 
 hers, and what must have been her feelings when it approached to 
 a close ! " 
 
 " It was then that she adopted," said Lilias, " every precaution 
 her ingenuity could suggest, to keep your very existence concealed 
 from the person whom she feared — nay, from yourself; for she 
 dreaded, as she is said often to have expressed herself, that the 
 wildfire blood of Redgauntlet would urge you to unite your fortunes 
 to those of your uncle, who was well known still to carry on 
 political intrigues, which most other persons had considered as 
 desperate. It was also possible that he, as well as others, might 
 get his pardon, as government showed every year more lenity 
 towards the remnant of the Jacobites, and then he might claim 
 the custody of your person, as your legal guardian. Either of 
 these events she considered as the direct road to your destruc- 
 tion." / 
 
 " I wonder she had not claimed the protection of Chancery for 
 me," said Darsie ; " or confided me to the care of some powerful 
 friend." 
 
 " She was on indifferent terms with her relations, on account of 
 her marriage with our father," said Lilias, " and trusted more to 
 secreting you from your uncle's attempts, than to any protection 
 which law might afford against them. Perhaps she judged un- 
 wisely, but surely not unnaturally, for one rendered irritable by so 
 many misfortunes and so many alarms. Samuel Griffiths, an 
 eminent banker, and a worthy clergyman now dead, were, I believe, 
 the only persons whom she intrusted with the execution of her last 
 will ; and my uncle believes that she made them both swear to 
 observe profound secrecy concerning your birth and pretensions, 
 until you should come to the age of majority, and, in the mean- 
 time, to breed you up in the most private way possible, and 
 that which was most likely to withdraw you from my uncle's 
 observation." 
 
 " And I have no doubt," said Darsie, " that, betwixt change of 
 name and habitation, they might have succeeded perfectly, but for 
 the accident, lucky or unlucky, I know not which to term it — 
 which brought me to Brokenburn, and into contact with Mr. 
 
322 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Redgauntlet. I see also why I was warned against England, for 
 in England " 
 
 " In England, alone, if I understand rightly," said Miss Red- 
 gauntlet, " the claims of your uncle to the custody of your person 
 could have been enforced, in case of his being replaced in the 
 ordinary rights of citizenship, either by the lenity of the government 
 or by some change in it. In Scotland, where you possess no 
 property, I understand his authority might have been resisted, and 
 measures taken to put you under the protection of the law. But, 
 pray, think it not unlucky tha.t you have taken the step of visiting 
 Brokenburn — I feel confident that the consequences must be 
 ultimately fortunate, for, have they not already brought us into 
 contact with each other ? " 
 
 So saying, she held out her hand to her brother, who grasped it 
 with a fondness of pressure very different from the manner in 
 which they first clasped hands that morning. There was a 
 moment's pause, while the hearts of both were overflowing with a 
 feeling of natural affection, to which circumstances had hitherto 
 rendered them strangers. 
 
 At length Darsie broke silence : "I am ashamed," he said "my 
 dearest Lilias, that I have suffered you to talk so long about 
 matters concerning myself only, while I remain ignorant of your 
 story, and your present situation." 
 
 " The former is none of the most interesting, nor the latter the 
 most safe or agreeable," answered Lilias ; " but now, my dearest 
 brother, I shall have the inestimable support of your countenance 
 and affection ; and were I but sure that we could weather the 
 formidable crisis which I find so close at hand, I should have 
 little apprehensions for the future." 
 
 "Let me know," said Darsie, "what our present situation is; 
 and rely upon my utmost exertions both in your defence and my 
 own. For what reason can iiiy uncle desire to detain me a 
 prisoner ? — If in mere opposition to the will of my mother, she has 
 long been no more ; and I see not why he should wish, at so much 
 trouble and risk, to interfere with the free will of one, to whom a 
 few months will give a privilege of acting for himself, with which 
 he will have no longer any pretence to interfere." 
 
 " My dearest Arthur," answered Lilias — " for that name, as well 
 as Darsie, properly belongs to you— it is the'leading feature in my 
 uncle's character, that he has applied every energy of his powerful 
 mind to the service of the exiled family of Stewart. The death 
 of his brother, the dilapidation of his own fortunes, have only added 
 to his hereditary zeal for the House of Stewart, a deep and almost 
 personal hatred against the present reigning family. He is, in short, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 3=3 
 
 a political enthusiast of the most dangerous character, and proceeds 
 in his agency with as much confidence, as if he felt himself the 
 very Atlas, who is alone capable of supporting a sinking cause." 
 
 " And where, or how did you, my Lilias, educated doubtless, under 
 his auspices, learn to have a different view of such subjects ? " 
 
 " By a singular chance," replied Lilias, "in the nunnery where 
 my uncle placed mo. Although the Abbess was a person exactly 
 after his own heart, my education as a pensioner devolved much 
 on an excellent old mother who had adopted the tenets of the 
 Jansenists, with perhaps a still further tendency towards the 
 reformed doctrines, than those of Porte-Royale. The mysterious 
 secrecy with which she inculcated these tenets, gave them charms 
 to my young mind, and I embraced them the rather that they were 
 in direct opposition to the doctrines of the Abbess, whom I hated 
 so much for her severity, that I felt a childish delight in setting her 
 control at defiance, and contradicting in my secret soul all that 
 I was openly obliged to listen to with reverence. Freedom of 
 religious opinion brings on, I suppose, freedom of political creed ; 
 for I had no sooner renounced the Pope's infallibility, than I began 
 to question the doctrine of hereditary and indefeasible right. In 
 short, strange as it may seem, I came out of a Parisian convent, 
 not indeed an instructed Whig and Protestant, but with as much 
 inclination to be so as if I had been bred up, like you, within the 
 presbyterian sound of Saint Giles's chimes." 
 
 " More so, perhaps," rephed Darsie ; " for the nearer the church 
 
 the proverb is somewhat musty. But how did these liberal 
 
 opinions of yours agree with the very opposite prejudices of my 
 uncle ? " 
 
 " They would have agreed like fire and water," answered Lilias, 
 " had I suffered mine to become visible ; but as that would have 
 subjected me to constant reproach and upbraiding, or worse, I took 
 great care to keep my own secret ; so that occasional censures for 
 coldness, and lack of zeal for the good cause, were the worst I had 
 to undergo ; and these were bad enough." 
 
 " I applaud your caution," said Darsie. 
 
 " You have reason," replied his sister ; " but I got so terrible a 
 specimen of my uncle's determination of character, before I had 
 been acquainted with him fqr much more than a week, that it 
 taught me at what risk I should contradict his humour. I will tell 
 you the circumstances ; for it will better teach you to appreciate the 
 romantic and resolved nature of his character, than any thing which 
 I could state of his rashness and enthusiasm." 
 
 "After I had been many a long year at the convent, I was 
 removed from thence, and placed with a meagre old Scottish lady 
 
324 
 
 REDGAUNTL-ET. 
 
 of high rank, the daughter of an unfortunate person, whose head 
 had in the year 1715 been placed on Temple-bar. She subsisted on 
 a small pension from the French Court, aided by an occasional 
 gratuity from the Stewarts ; to which the annuity paid for my board 
 formed a desirable addition. She was not ill-tempered, nor very 
 covetous — neither beat me nor starved me — but she was so com- 
 pletely trammelled by rank and prejudices, so awfully profound in 
 genealogy, and so bitterly keen, poor lady, in British politics, that 
 I sometimes thought it pity that the Hanoverians, who murdered, 
 as she used to tell me, her poor dear father, had left his dear 
 daughter in the land of the living. Delighted, therefore, was I, when 
 my uncle made his appearance, and abruptly announced his pur- 
 pose of conveying me to England. My extravagant joy at the idea 
 of leaving Lady Rachel Rougedragon was somewhat qualified by 
 observing the melancholy look, lofty demeanour, and commanding 
 tone of my near relative. He held more communication with me 
 on the journey, however, than consisted with his taciturn demean- 
 our in general, and seemed anxious to ascertain my tone of char- 
 acter, and particularly in point of courage. Now, though I am a 
 tamed Redgauntlet, yet I have still so much of our family spirit as 
 enables me to be as composed in danger as most of my sex ; and 
 upon two occasions in the course of our journey — a threatened 
 attack by banditti, and the overturn of our carriage — I had the for- 
 tune so to conduct myself, as to convey to my uncle a very favour- 
 able idea of my intrepidity. Probably this encouraged him to put 
 in execution the singular scheme which he had in agitation. 
 
 ■"Ere we reached London we changed our means of conveyance, 
 and altered the route by which we approached the city, more than 
 once ; then, like a hare which doubles repeatedly at some distance 
 from the seat she means to occupy, and at last leaps into her form 
 from a distance as great as she can clear by a spring, we made a 
 forced march, and landed in private and obscure lodgings in a little 
 old street in Westminster, not far distant from the Cloistera 
 
 " On the morning of the day on which we arrived my uncle went 
 abroad, and did not return for some hours. Meantime I had no 
 other amusement than to listen to the tumult of noises which suc- 
 ceeded each other, or reigned in confusion together, during the 
 whole morning. Paris I had thought the most noisy capital in the 
 world, but Paris seemed midnight silence compared to London. 
 Cannon thundered near and at a distance — drums, trumpets, and 
 military music of every kind, rolled, flourished, and pierced the 
 clouds, almost without intermission. To fill up the concert, bells 
 pealed incessantly from a hundred steeples. The acclamations of 
 an immense multitude were heard from time to time, like the 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 323 
 
 roaring of a mighty ocean, and all this without my being able to 
 glean the least idea of what was going on, for the windows of our 
 apartment looked upon a waste back-yard, which seemed totally 
 deserted. My curiosity became extreme, for I was satisfied, at 
 length, that it must be some festival of the highest order which 
 called forth these incessant sounds. 
 
 " My uncle at length returned, and with him a man of an exterior 
 singularly unprepossessing. I need not describe him to you, for — 
 do not look round — he rides behind us at this moment." 
 
 " That respectable person, Mr. Cristal Nixon, I suppose ? " said 
 Darsie. 
 
 " The same," answered Lilias ; " make no gestures that may inti- 
 mate we are speaking of him." 
 
 Darsie signified that he understood her, and she pursued her 
 relation. 
 
 " They were both in full dress, and my uncle, taking a bundle 
 from Nixon, said to me, ' Lilias, I am come to carry you to see a 
 grand ceremony — put on as hastily as you can the dress you will 
 find in that parcel, and prepare to attend me.' I found a female 
 dress, splendid and elegant, but somewhat bordering upon the 
 antique fashion. It might be that of England, I thought, and I 
 went to my apartment full of curiosity, and dressed myself with all 
 speed. 
 
 " My uncle surveyed me with attention — ' She may pass for one 
 of the flower-girls,' he said to Nixon, who only answered with a 
 nod. 
 
 " We left the house together, and such was their knowledge of 
 the lanes, courts, and bypaths, that though there was the roar of a 
 multitude in the broad streets, those which we traversed were silent 
 and deserted ; and the strollers whom we met, tired of gazing upon 
 gayer figures, scarcely honoured us with a passing look, although 
 at any other time, we should, among these vulgar suburbs, have 
 attracted a troublesome share of observation. We crossed at 
 length a broad street, where many soldiers were on guard, while 
 others, exhausted with previous duty, were eating, drinking, 
 smoking, and sleeping beside their piled arms. 
 
 "'One day, Nixon,' whispered my uncle, 'we will make these 
 redcoated gentry stand to their muskets more watchfully.' 
 
 " ' Or it will be the worse for them,' answered his attendant, in a 
 voice as unpleasant as his physiognomy. 
 
 " Unquestioned and unchallenged by any one, we crossed among 
 the guards, and Nixon tapped thrice at a small postern door in a, 
 huge ancient building which was straight before us. It opened, 
 and we entered without my perceiving by whom we were admitted. 
 
325 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 A few dark and narrow passages at length conveyed us into an im- 
 mense Gothic hall, the magnificence of which baffles my powers of 
 description. 
 
 It was illuminated by ten thousand wax lights, whose splendour 
 at first dazzled my eyes, coming as we did from these dark and 
 secret avenues. But when my sight began to become steady, how 
 shall I describe what I beheld ! Beneath were huge ranges of 
 tables, occupied by princes and nobles in their robes of state — high 
 officers of the crown, wearing their dresses and badges of authority 
 / — reverend prelates and judges, the sages of the church and law, in 
 their more sombre, yet not less awful robes— with others whose 
 antique and striking costume announced their importance, though 
 I could not even guess who they might be. But at length the truth 
 burst on me at once — it was, and the murmurs around confirmed 
 it, the Coronation Feast. At a table above the rest, and extending 
 across the upper end of the hall, sat enthroned the youthful 
 Sovereign himself, surrounded by the princes of th& blood, and 
 other dignitaries, and receiving the suit and homage of his subjects. 
 Heralds and pursuivants, blazing in their fantastic yet splendid 
 armorial habits, and pages of honour, gorgeously arrayed in the 
 garb of other days, waited upon the princely banqueters. In the 
 galleries with which this spacious hall was surrounded, shone all, 
 and more than all, that my poor imagination could conceive, of what 
 was briUiant in riches, or captivating in beauty. Countless rows of 
 ladies, whose diamonds, jewels, and splendid attire, were their least 
 powerful charms, looked down from their lofty seats on the rich 
 scene beneath, themselves forming a show as dazzling and as beau- 
 tiful as that of which they were spectators. Under these galleries, 
 and behind the banqueting tables, were a multitude of gentlemen, 
 dressed as if to attend a court, but whose garb, although rich 
 enough to havE adorned a royal drawing-room, could not distinguish 
 them in such a high scene as this. Amongst these we wandered for 
 a few minutes, undistinguished and unregarded. I saw several 
 young persons dressed as I was, so was undei* no embarrassment 
 from the singularity of my habit, and only rejoiced, as I hung on 
 rny uncle's arm, at the magical splendour of such a scene, and at 
 his goodness for procuring me the pleasure of beholding it. 
 
 " By and by, I perceived that my uncle had acquaintances among 
 those who were under the galleries, and seemed, like ourselves, to 
 be mere spectators of the solemnity. They recognised each other 
 with a single word, sometimes only with a gripe of the hand- 
 exchanged some private signs, doubtless— and gradually formed -a 
 little group, in the centre of which we were placed. 
 
 "'Is it not a grand sight, Lilias 2' said my uncle. 'All the 
 
RfinoAUNTLET. 3^7 
 
 noble, and all the wise, and all the wealthy of Britain, are there 
 assembled.' 
 
 " ' It is indeed,' said I, ' all that my mind could have fancied of 
 regal power and splendour.' 
 
 " ' Girl,' he whispered, — and my uncle can make his whispers as 
 terribly emphatic as his thundering voice or his blighting look, — 
 ' all that is noble and worthy in this fair land are there assembled— 
 but it is to bend like slaves and sycophants before the throne of a 
 new usurper.' 
 
 " I looked at him, and the dark hereditary frown of our unhappy 
 ancestor was black upon his brow. 
 
 " ' For God's sake,' I whispered, ' consider where we are.' 
 
 " ' Fear nothing,' he said ; ' we are surrounded by friends.' — As he 
 proceeded, his strong and muscular frame shook with suppressed 
 agitation. — ' See,' he said, ' yonder bends Norfolk, renegade to his 
 
 Catholic faith ; there stoops the Bishop of , traitor to the 
 
 Church of England ; and, — shame of shames ! yonder the gigantic 
 form of Errol bows his head before the grandson of his father's 
 murderer ! But a sign shall be seen this night amongst them — 
 Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin, shall be read on these walls, as dis- 
 tinctly as the spectral handwriting made them visible on those of 
 Belshazzar ! ' 
 
 " ' For God's sake,' said I, dreadfully alarmed, ' it is impossible 
 you can meditate violence in %uch a presence ! ' 
 
 " ' None is intended, fool,' he answered, ' nor can the slightest 
 mischance happen, provided you will rally your boasted courage, 
 and obey my directions. But do it coolly and quickly, for there are 
 an hundred lives at stake.' 
 
 " 'Alas ! what can I do ? ' I asked in the utmost terror. 
 
 " ' Only be prompt to execute my bidding,' said he ; 'it is but to 
 lift a glove — Here, hold this in your hand — throw the train of your 
 dress over it, be firm, compose ' and ready — or, at all events, I step 
 forward myself.' 
 
 " ' If there is no violence designed,' I said, taking, mechanically, 
 the iron glove he put into my hand. 
 
 " I could not conceive his meaning ; but, in the excited state of 
 mind in which I beheld him, I was convinced that disobedience on 
 my part would lead to some wild explosion. I felt, from the emer- 
 gency of the occasion, a sudden presence of mind, and resolved to 
 do any thing that might avert violence and bloodshed. I was not 
 long held in suspense. A loud flourish of trumpets, and the voice 
 of heralds, were mixed with the clatter of horses' hoofs, while a 
 champion armed at all points, like those I had read of in romances, 
 attended by squires,' pages, and the whole retinue of chivalry, 
 
328 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 pranced forward, mounted upon a barbed steed. His challenge, in 
 defiance of all who dared impeach the title of the new sovereign, 
 was recited aloud — once and again. 
 
 " ' Rush in at the the third sounding,' said my uncle to me ; 
 ' bring me the parader's gage, and leave mine in lieu of it.' 
 
 " I could not see how this was to be done, as we were surrounded 
 by people on all sides. But, at the third sounding of the trumpets, 
 a lane opened as if by word of command, betwixt me and the cham- 
 pion, and my uncle's voice said, ' Now, Lilias, now !' 
 
 " With a swift and yet steady step, and with a presence of mind 
 for which I have never since been able to account, I discharged 
 the perilous commission. I was hardly seen, I believe, as I ex- 
 changed the pledges of battle, and in an instant retired. ' Nobly 
 done, my girl!' said my uncle, at whose side I found myself, 
 shrouded as I was before, by the interposition of the bystanders. 
 ' Cover our retreat, gentlemen,' he whispered to those around him. 
 
 " Room was made for us to approach the wall, which seemed to 
 open, and we were again involved in the dark passages through 
 which we had formerly passed. In a small ante-room, my uncle 
 stopped, and hastily muffling me in a mantle which was lying there, 
 we passed the guards — threaded the labyrinth of empty streets and 
 courts, and reached our retired lodgings without attracting the least 
 attention." 
 
 " I have often heard," said Darsie, " that a female, supposed to 
 be a man in disguise, — and yet, Lilias, you do not look very mas- 
 culine, — had taken up the champion's gauntlet at the present King's 
 Coronation, and left in its place a gage of battle, with a paper, offer- 
 ing to accept the combat, provided a fair field should be allowed 
 for it. I have hitherto considered it as an idle tale. I little thought 
 how nearly I was interested in the actors of a scene so daring—' 
 !fIow could you have courage to go through with it ? " * 
 
 " Had I had leasure for reflection," answered his sister, " I 
 should have refused, from a mixture of principle and of fear. But, 
 like many people who do daring actions, I went on because I had 
 not time to think of retreating. The matter was little known, and 
 it is said the King had commanded that it should not be farther 
 enquired into ; — from prudence, as I suppose, and lenity, though 
 my uncle chooses to ascribe the forbearance of the Elector of 
 Hanover, as he calls him, sometimes to pusillanimity, and some- 
 times to a presumptuous scorn of the faction who opposes his 
 title." 
 
 " And have your subsequent agencies under this frantic enthu- 
 siast," said Darsie, " equalled this in danger ? " 
 
 " No — nor in importance," replied Lilias ; " though I have wit- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 3^9 
 
 nessed much of the strange and desperate machinations, by which, 
 in spite of every obstacle, and in contempt of every danger, he en- 
 deavours to awaken the courage of a broken party. I have traversed, 
 in his company, all England and Scotland, and have visited the 
 most extraordinary and contrasted scenes ; now lodging at the 
 eastles of the proud gentry of Cheshire and Wales, where the retired 
 aristocrats, with opinions as antiquated as their dwellings and their 
 manners, still continue to nourish Jacobitical principles ; and the 
 next week, perhaps, spent among outlawed smugglers or Highland 
 banditti. I have known my uncle often act the part of a hero, and 
 sometimes that of a mere vulgar conspirator, and turn himself, with 
 the most surprising flexibility, into all sorts of shapes to attract pro- 
 selytes to his cause." 
 
 " Which, in the present day," said Darsie, " he finds, I presume, 
 no easy task." , 
 
 " So difficult," said Lilias, "that I believe, he has, at different 
 times, disgusted with the total falling away of some friends, and the 
 coldness of others, been almost on the point of resigning his under- 
 taking. How often have I known him affect an open brow and a 
 jovial manner, joining in the games of the gentry, and even in the 
 sports of the common peopie, in order to invest himself with a tem- 
 porary degree of popularity ; while, in fact, his heart was bursting 
 to witness what he called the degeneracy of the times, the decay of 
 activity among the aged, and the want of zeal in the rising genera- 
 tion. After the day has been passed in the hardest exercise, he 
 has spent the night in pacing his solitary chamber, bewailing the 
 downfall of the cause, and wishing for the bullet of Dundee, or the 
 axe of Balmerino." 
 
 " A strange delusion," said Darsie ; "and it is wonderful that it 
 does not yield to the force of reality." 
 
 " Ah, but," replied Lilias, " realities of late have seemed to flatter 
 his hopes. The general dissatisfaction with the peace — the unpo- 
 pularity of the minister, which has extended itself even to the person 
 of his master — the various uproars which have disturbed the quiet 
 of the metropolis, and a general state of disgust and dissatisfaction, 
 which seems to affect the body of the nation, have given unwonted 
 encouragement to the expiring hopes of the Jacobites, and induced 
 many, both at the Court of Rome, and, if it can be called so, of the 
 Pretender, to lend a more favourable ear than they had hitherto 
 done to the insinuations of those, who, like my uncle, hope, when 
 hope is lost to all but themselves. Nay, I really believe that at this 
 moment they meditate some desperate effort. My uncle has been 
 doing all in his power, of late, to conciliate the affections of thosfe 
 wild communities that dwell on the Solway, over whom our family 
 
330 REDGAITNTLET. 
 
 possessed a seigniorial interest before the forfeiture, and amongst 
 whom, on the occasion of 1745, our unhappy father's interest, with 
 his own, raised a considerable body of men. But they are no longer 
 willing to obey his summons ; and, as one apology among others, 
 they allege your absence as their natural head and leader. This 
 has increased his desire to obtain possession of your person, and, if 
 he possibly can, to influence your mind, so as to obtain your autho- 
 rity to his proceedings.' 
 
 " That he shall never obtain," answered Darsie ; " my principles 
 and my prudence alike forbid such a step. Besides, it would be 
 totally unavailing to his purpose. Whatever these people may pre- 
 tend, to evade your uncle's importunities, they cannot, at this time 
 of day, think of subjecting their necks again to the feudal yoke, 
 which was effectually broken by the act of 1748, abolishing vassal- 
 age and hereditary jurisdictions." 
 
 " Ay, but that my uncle considers as the act of a usurping govern- 
 ment," said Lilias. 
 
 " Like enough he may think so," answered her brother, " for he 
 is a superior, and loses his authority by the enactment. But the 
 question is, what the vassals will think of it, who have gained their 
 freedom from feudal slavery, and have now enjoyed that freedom 
 for many years ? However, to cut the matter short, if five hundred 
 men would rise at the wagging of my finger, that finger should not 
 be raised in a cause which I disapprove of, and upon that my uncle 
 may reckon." 
 
 " But you may temporize," said Lilias, upon whom the idea of her 
 uncle's displeasure made evidently a strong impression, — "you 
 may temporize, as most of the gentry in this country do, and let the 
 bubble burst of itself ; for it is singular how few of them venture to 
 oppose my uncle directly. I entreat you to avoid direct collision 
 with him. To hear you, the head of the House of Redgauntlet, 
 declare against the family of Stewart, would either break his heart, 
 or drive him to some act of desperation." 
 
 " Yes, but, Lilias, you forget that the consequences of such an 
 act of complaisance might be, that the House of Redgauntlet and 
 I might lose both our heads at one blow." 
 
 " Alas ! " said she, " I had forgotten that danger. I have grown 
 famiUar with perilous intrigues, as the nurses in a pest-house are 
 said to become accustomed to the air around them, till they forget 
 even that it is noisome." 
 
 " And yet," said Darsie, " if T could free myself from him without 
 coniing to an open rupture — Tell me, Lilias, do you think it pos- 
 sible that he can have any immediate attempt in view ? " 
 
 " To confess the truth," answered Lilias, " I cannot doubt that he 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 33i 
 
 has. There has been an unusual bustle among the Jacobites of 
 late. They have hopes, as I told you, from circumstances uncon- 
 nected with their own strength. Just before you came to the coun- 
 try, my uncle's desire to find you out, became, if possible, more 
 eager than ever — he talked of men to be presently brought together, 
 and of your name and influence for raising them. At this very time, 
 your first visit to Brokenburn took place. A suspicion arose in my 
 uncle's mind, that you might be the youth he sought, and it was 
 strengthened by papers and letters which the rascal Nixon did not 
 hesitate to take from your pocket. Yet a mistake might have occa- 
 sioned a fatal explosion ; and my uncle therefore posted to Edin- 
 burgh to follow out the clue he had obtained, and fished enough of 
 information from old Mr. Fairford to make him certain that you 
 were the person he sought. Meanwhile, and at the expense of 
 some personal, and perhaps too bold exertion, I endeavoured, 
 through your friend young Fairford, to put you on your guard." 
 
 " Without success," said Darsie, blushing under his mask, when 
 he recollected how he had mistaken his sister's meaning. 
 
 " I do not wonder that my warning was fruitless," said she ; " the 
 thing was doomed to be. Besides; your escape would have been 
 difficult. You were dogged the whole time you were at the Shep- 
 herd's Bush and at Mount Sharon, by a spy who scarcely ever left 
 you." 
 
 " The wretch little Benjie ! " exclaimed Darsie. " I will wring 
 the monkey's neck round, the first time we meet." 
 
 " It was he indeed who gave constant information of your motions 
 to Cristal Nixon," said Lilias. 
 
 " And Cristal Nixon — I owe him, too, a day's work in harvest," 
 said Darsie ; " for I am mistaken if he is not the person that struck 
 me down when I was made prisoner among the rioters." 
 
 " Like enough ; for he has a head and hand for any villany. My 
 uncle was very angry about it ; for though the riot was made to 
 have an opportunity of carrying you off in the confusion, as well as 
 to put the fishermen at variance with the public law, it would have 
 been his last thought to have injured a hair of your head. But 
 Nixon has insinuated himself into all my uncle's secrets, and some of 
 these are so dark and dangerous, that though there are few things 
 he would not dare, I doubt if he dare quarrel with him. — And yet I 
 know that of Cristal, would move my uncle to pass his sword 
 through his body." 
 
 " What is it, for Heaven's sake ? " said Darsie, " I have a parti- 
 cular desire for wishing to know." 
 
 " The old brutal desperado, whose face and mind are a libel upon 
 human nature, has had the insolence to speak to his master's niece 
 
332 REnGAUNTLET. 
 
 as one whom he was at liberty to admire ; and when I turned on 
 him with the anger and contempt he merited, the wretch grumbled 
 out something, as if he held the destiny of our family in his 
 hand." 
 
 " I thank you, Lilias," said Darsie, eagerly,—" I thank you with 
 all my heart for this communication. I have blamed myself as a 
 Christian man for the indescribable longing I felt from the first 
 moment I saw that rascal, to send a bullet through his head ; and 
 now you have perfectly accounted for and justified this very laud- 
 able wish. I wonder my uncle, with the powerful sense you de- 
 scribe him to be possessed of, does not see through such a villain." 
 
 " I believe he knows him to be capable of much evil," answered 
 Lilias—" selfish, obdurate, brutal, and a man-hater. But then he 
 conceives him to possess the qualities most requisite for a conspira- 
 tor — undaunted courage, imperturbable coolness and address, and 
 inviolable fidelity. In the last particular he may be mistaken. I 
 have heard Nixon blamed for the manner in which our poor father 
 was taken after CuUoden." 
 
 " Another reason for my innate aversion,'' said Darsie ; " but I 
 will be on my guard with him. 
 
 " See, he observes us closely," said Lilias. " What a thing is 
 conscience ! — He knows we are now speaking of him, though he 
 cannot have heard a word that we have said." 
 
 It seemed as if she had guessed truly ; for Crista! Nixon at that 
 moment rode up to them, and said, with an affectation of jocularity, 
 which sat very ill upon his sullen features, " Come, young ladies, 
 you have had time enough for your chat this morning, and your 
 tongues, I think, must be tired. We are going to pass a village, 
 and I must beg you to separate — you. Miss Lilias, to ride a little 
 behind— and you, Mrs. or Miss, or Master, whichever you choose 
 to be called, to be jogging a little bit before." 
 
 Lilias checked her horse without speaking, but not until she had 
 given her brother an expressive look, recommending caution ; to 
 which he replied by a signal, indicating that he understood and 
 would comply with her request. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 333 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF DARSIE LATIMER, CONTINUED. 
 
 Left to his solitary meditations, Darsie (for we will still term 
 Sir Arthur Darsie Redgauntlet of that Ilk, by the name to which 
 the reader is habituated) was surprised not only at the alteration of 
 his own state and condition, but at the equanimity with which he 
 felt himself disposed to view all these vicissitudes. 
 
 His fever-fit 6f love had departed like a morning's dream, and 
 left nothing behind but a painful sense of shame, and a resolution 
 to be more cautious ere he again indulged in such romantic visions. 
 His station in society was changed from that of a wandering, un- 
 owned youth, in whom none appeared to take an interest, excepting 
 the strangers by whom he had been educated, to the heir of a noble 
 house, possessed of such influence and such property, that it seemed 
 as if the progress or arrest of unportant political events were likely 
 to depend upon his resolution. Even this sudden elevation, the 
 more than fulfilment of those wishes which had haunted him ever 
 since he was able to form a wish on the subject, was contemplated 
 by Darsie, volatile as his disposition was, without more than a few 
 thrills of gratified vanity. 
 
 It is true, there were circumstances in his present situation to 
 counterbalance such high advantages. To be a prisoner in the 
 hands of a man so determined as his uncle, was no agreeable con- 
 sideration, when he was calculating how he might best dispute his 
 pleasure, and refuse to join him in the perilous enterprise which he 
 seemed to meditate. Outlawed and desperate himself, Darsie could 
 not doubt that his uncle was surrounded by men capable of any- 
 thing — that he was restrained by no personal considerations — and 
 therefore what degree of compulsion he might apply to his brother's 
 son, or in what manner he might feel at liberty to punish his con- 
 tumacy, should he disavow the Jacobite cause, must depend entirely 
 upon the limits of his own conscience ; and who was to answer for 
 the conscience of a heated enthusiast, who considers opposition to 
 the party he has espoused, as treason to the welfare of his country ? 
 After a short interval, Cristal Nixon was pleased to throw some 
 light upon the subject which agitated him. 
 
 When that grim satellite rode up without ceremony close to 
 Darsie's side, the latter felt his very flesh creep with abhorrence, so 
 little was he able to endure his presence, since the story of Lilias 
 had added to his instinctive hatred of the man. His voice, too, 
 
334 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 sounded like that of a screech-owl, as he said, " So, my young cock 
 of the north, you now know it all, and no doubt are blessing your 
 uncle for stirring you up to such an honourable action." 
 
 " I will acquaint my uncle with my sentiments on the subject, 
 before I make them known to any one else," said Darsie, scarcely 
 prevailing on his tongue to utter even these few words in a civil 
 manner.. 
 
 " Umph," murmured Cristal between his teeth. " Close as wax, 
 I see ; and perhaps not quite so pliable. — But take care, my pretty 
 youth," he added, scornfully ; " Hugh Redgauntlet will prove a 
 rough colt-breaker— he will neither spare whipcord nor spur-rowel, 
 I promise you." 
 
 " I have already said, Mr. Nixon," answered Darsie, " that I will 
 canvass those matters of which my sister has informed me, with my 
 uncle himself, and with no other person." 
 
 " Nay, but a word of friendly advice would do you no harm, young 
 master," replied Nixon. " Old Redgauntlet is apter at a blow than 
 a word — likely to bite before he barks — the true man for giving 
 Scarborough warning, first knock you down, then bid you stand. — 
 So, methinks, a little kind warning as to consequences were not 
 amiss, lest they come upon you unawares." 
 
 " If the warning is really kind, Mr. Nixon,'' said the young man, 
 " I will hear it thankfully; and indeed, if otherwise, I must listen to 
 it whether I will or no, since I have at present no choice of com- 
 pany or of conversation." 
 
 " Nay, I have but little to say," said Nixon, affecting to give to 
 his sullen and dogged manner the appearance of an honest blunt- 
 ness ; " I am as little apt to throw away words as any one. But 
 here is the question — Will you join heart and hand with your uncle, 
 or no ? " 
 
 " What if I should say Ay ?" said Darsie, determined, if possible, 
 to conceal his resolution from this man. 
 
 " Why, then," said Nixon, somewhat surprised at the readiness 
 of his answer, " all will go smooth, of course — ^you will take share 
 in this noble undertaking, and, when it succeeds, you will exchange 
 your open helmet for an Earl's coronet perhaps." 
 
 " And how if it fails ?" said Darsie. 
 
 " Thereafter as it may be," said Nixon ; " they who play at bowls 
 must meet with rubbers." 
 
 " Well, but suppose, then, I have some foolish tenderness for my 
 windpipe, and that, when my uncle proposes the adventure to me, I 
 should'say No — how then, Mr. Nixon ? " 
 
 "Why, then, I would have you look to yourself, young master — 
 There are sharp laws in France against refractory pupils — lettrei 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 335 
 
 de cachet are easily come by, when such men as we are concerned 
 with interest themselves in the matter." 
 
 " But we are not in France," said poor Darsie, through whose 
 blood ran a cold shivering at the idea of a French prison. 
 
 " A fast-sailing lugger will soon bring you there though, snug 
 stowed under hatches, like a cask of moonlight." 
 
 " But the French are at peace with us," said Darsie, '' and would 
 not dare " 
 
 "Why, who would ever hear of you ?" interrupted Nixon ; '' do 
 you imagine that a foreign Court would call you up for judgment, 
 and put the sentence of imprisonment in the Courier de V Europe, 
 as they do at the Old Bailey? — No, no, young gentleman — the gates 
 of the Bastile, and of Mont Saint Michel, and the Castle of Vin- 
 cennes, move on d — d easy hinges when they let folk in — not the 
 least jar is heard. There are cool cells there for hot heads — as 
 calm, and quiet, and dark, as you could wish in Bedlam — and the 
 dismissal comes when the carpenter brings the prisoner's coffin, 
 and not sooner." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Nixon," said Darsie, affecting a cheerfulness which 
 he was far from feeling, "mine is a hard case — a sort of hanging 
 choice, you will allow — since I must either offend our own govern- 
 ment here, and run the risk of my life for doing so, or be doomed 
 to the dungeons of another country, whose laws I have never 
 offended, since I have never trod its soil — Tell me what you would 
 do if you were in my place." 
 
 " I'll tell you that when I mn there," said Nixon, and, checking 
 his horse, fell back to the rear of the little party. 
 
 " It is evident," thought the young man, " that the villain believes 
 me completely noosed, and perhaps has the ineffable impudence to 
 suppose that my sister must eventually succeed to the possessions 
 which have occasioned my loss of freedom, and that his own influ- 
 ence over the destinies of our unhappy family may secure him pos- 
 session of the heiress ; but he shall perish by my hand first ! — I 
 must now be on the alert to make my escape, if possible, before I 
 am forced on shipboard— Blind WiUie will not, I think, desert me 
 without an effort on my behalf, especially if he has learned that I 
 am the son of his late unhappy patron.— What a change is mine ! 
 Whilst I possessed neither rank nor fortune, I lived safely and 
 unknown, under the protection of the kind and respectable friends 
 whose hearts heaven had moved towards me— Now that I am the 
 head of an honourable house, and that enterprises of the most 
 daring character wait my decision, and retainers and vassals seem 
 ready to rise at my beck, my safety consists chiefly in the attach- 
 ment of a blind stroller ! " 
 
356 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 While he was revolving these things in his mind, and' preparing 
 himself for the interview with his uncle, which could not but be a 
 stormy one, he saw Hugh Redgauntlet come riding slowly back to 
 meet them, without any attendants. Cristal Nixon rode up as he 
 approached, and, as they met, fixed on him a look of enquiry. 
 
 " The fool, Crackenthorp," said Redgauntlet, " has let strangers 
 into his house. Some of his smuggling comrades, I believe ; we 
 must ride slowly, to give him time to send them packing." 
 
 " Did you see any of your friends ?" said Cristal. 
 
 " Three, and have letters from many more. They are unanimous 
 on the subject you wot of — and the point must be conceded to 
 them, or, far as the matter has gone, it will go no farther." 
 
 " You will hardly bring the Father to stoop to his flock,'' said 
 Cristal, with a sneer. 
 
 " He must, and shall ! " answered Redgauntlet, briefly. " Go to 
 the front, Cristal — I would speak with my nephew. — I trust, Sir 
 Arthur Redgauntlet, you are satisfied with the manner in which I 
 have discharged my duty to your sister ? " 
 
 " There can be no fault found to her manners or sentiments," 
 answered Darsie ; " I am happy in knowing a relative so amiable." 
 
 " I am glad of it," answered Mr. Redgauntlet. " I am no nice 
 judge of woman's qualifications, and my life has been dedicated to 
 one great object ; so that since she left France she has had but 
 little opportunity of improvement. I have subjected her, however, 
 as little as possible to the inconveniences and privations of my 
 wandering and dangerous life. From time to time she has resided 
 for weeks and months with families of honour and respectability, 
 and I am glad that she has, in your opinion, tKe manners and beha- 
 viour which become her birth." 
 
 Darsie expressed himself perfectly satisfied, and there was a little 
 pause, which Redgauntlet broke by solemnly addressing his 
 nephew. 
 
 " For you, my nephew, I also hoped to have done much. The 
 weakness and timidity of your mother sequestered you from my 
 care, or it would have been my pride and happiness to have trained 
 up the son of my unhappy brother in those paths of honour in which 
 our ancestors have always trod." 
 
 " Now comes the storm," thought Darsie to himself, and began 
 to collect his thoughts, as the cautious master of a vessel furls his 
 sails, and makes his ship snug, when he discerns the approaching 
 squall. 
 
 " My mother's conduct, in respect to me, might be misjudged," 
 he said, " but it was founded on the most anxious affection." 
 
 " Assuredly," said his uncle, " and I have no wish to reflect on 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 337 
 
 her memory, though her mistrust has done so much injury, I will 
 not say to me, but to the cause of my unhappy country. Her 
 scheme was, I think, to have made you that wretched pettifogging 
 being, which they still continue to call in derision by the once 
 respectable name of a Scottish Advocate ; one of those mongrel 
 things, that must creep to learn the ultimate decision of his causes 
 to the bar of a foreign Court, instead of pleading before the inde- 
 pendent and august Parliament of his own native kingdom." 
 
 " I did prosecute the study of law for a year or two," said Darsie, 
 " but I found I had neither taste nor talents for the science." 
 
 " And left it with scorn, doubtless," said Mr. Redgauntlet. " Well, 
 I now hold up to you, my dearest nephew, a more worthy object of 
 ambition. Look eastward — do you see a monument standing on 
 yonder plain, near a hamlet ? " 
 
 Darsie replied that he did. 
 
 " The hamlet is called Burgh-upon-sands, and yonder monument 
 is erected to the memory of the tyrant Edward I. The just hand 
 of Providence overtook him on that spot, as he was leading his 
 bands to complete the subjugation of Scotland, whose civil dissen- 
 sions began under his accursed policy. The glorious career of 
 Bruce might have been stopped in its outset ; the field of Bannock- 
 burn might have remained a bloodless turf, if God had not removed, 
 in the very crisis, the crafty and bold tyrant who had so long been 
 Scotland's scourge. Edward's grave is the cradle of our national 
 freedom. It is within sight of that great landmark of our liberty 
 that I have to propose to you an undertaking, second in honour and 
 importance to none since the immortal Bruce stabbed the Red 
 Comyn, and grasped, with his yet bloody hand, the independent 
 crown of Scotland." 
 
 He paused for an answer ; but Darsie, overawed by the energy of 
 his manner, and unwilling to commit himself by a hasty explanation, 
 remained silent. 
 
 " I will not suppose," said Hugh Redgauntlet, after a pause, " that 
 you are either so dull as not to comprehend the import of my words 
 — or so dastardly as to be dismayed by my proposal — or so utterly 
 degenerate from the blood and sentiments of your ancestors, as not 
 to feel my summons as the horse hears the war-trumpet." 
 
 " I will not pretend to misunderstand you, sir," said Darsie, "but 
 an enterprise directed against a dynasty now established for three 
 reigns requires strong arguments, both in point of justice and of 
 expediency, to recommend it to men of conscience and prudence." 
 
 " I will not," said Redgauntlet, while his eyes sparkled with 
 anger, — " I will not hear you speak a word against the justice of 
 that enterprise, for which your oppressed country calls with the 
 
33S REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 voice of a parent, entreating her children for aid— Or against that 
 noble revenge which your father's bleed demands from his dis- 
 honoured grave. His skull is yet standing over the Rikargate * and 
 even its bleak and mouldered jaws command you to be a man. I 
 ask you, in the name of God, and of your country, will you draw 
 your sword, and go with me to CarUsle, were it but to lay your 
 father's head, now the perch of the obscene owl and carrion crow, 
 and the scoff of every ribald clown, in consecrated earth, as befits 
 his long ancestry ? " 
 
 Darsie, unprepared to answer an appeal urged with so much pas- 
 sion, and not doubting a direct refusal would cost him his liberty 
 or life, was again silent. 
 
 " I see," said his uncle, in a more composed tone, " that it is not 
 deficiency of spirit, but the grovelling habits of a confined educa- 
 tion, among the poor-spirited class you were condemned to herd 
 with, that keeps y6u silent. You scarce yet beUeve yourself a Red- 
 . gauntlet ; your pulse has not yet learned the genuine throb that 
 answers to the summons of honour and of patriotism." 
 
 " I trust," replied Darsie, at last, " that I shall naver be found 
 indifferent to the call of either ; but to answer them with effect — 
 even were I convinced that they now sounded in my ear — I must 
 see some reasonable hope of success in the desperate enterprise in 
 which you would involve me. I look around me, and I see a settled 
 government — an established authority — a born Briton on the 
 throne — the very Highland mountaineers, upon whom alone the 
 trust of the exiled family reposed, assembled into regiments, which 
 act under the orders of the existing dynasty.* France has been 
 utterly dismayed by the tremendous lessons of the" last war, and 
 will hardly provoke another. All without and within the kingdom 
 is adverse to encountering a hopeless struggle, and you alone, sir, 
 seem willing to undertake a desperate enterprise." 
 
 " And would undertake it were it ten times more desperate ; and 
 have agitated it when ten times the obstacles were interposed. — 
 Have I forgot my brother's blood ?— Can I — dare I even now repeat 
 the Pater Noster, since my enemies and the murderers remain un- 
 forgiven? — Is there an art I have not practised — a privation to 
 which I have not submitted, to bring on the crisis which I now be- 
 hold arrived ? — Have I not been a vowed and a devoted man, fore- 
 going every comfort of social life, renouncing even the exercise of 
 devotion unless when I might name in prayer my prince and coun- 
 try, submitting to everything to make converts to this noble 
 cause ? — Have I done all this, and shall I now stop short ? " — Darsie 
 was about to interrupt him, but he pressed his hand affectionately 
 upon his shoulder, and enjoining, or rather imploring silence, — 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 339 
 
 " Peace," he said, " heir of my ancestors' fame — ^heir of all my hopes 
 3.nd wishes — Peace, son of my slaughtered brother ! I have sought 
 for thee, and mourned for thee, as a mother for an only child. Do 
 not let me again lose you in the moment when you are restored to 
 my hopes. Believe me, I distrust so much my own impatient tem- 
 per, that I entreat you, as the dearest boon, do nought to awaken it 
 at this crisis." 
 
 Darsie was not sorry to reply, that his respect for the person of 
 his relation would induce him to listen to all which he had to ap- 
 prize him of, before he formed any definite resolution upon the 
 weighty subjects of deliberation which he proposed to him. 
 
 " Deliberation ! " repeated Redgauntlet, impatiently ; " and yet it 
 is not ill said. — I wish there had been more warmth in thy reply, 
 Arthur ; but I must recollect were an eagle bred in a falcon's mew, 
 and hooded like a reclaimed hawk, he could not at first gaze steadily 
 on the sun. Listen to me, my dearest Arthur. The state of this 
 nation no more implies prosperity, than the florid colour of a 
 feverish patient is a symptom of health. All is false and hollow — 
 the apparent success of Chatham's administration has plunged the 
 country deeper in debt than all the barren acres of Canada are 
 worth, were they as fertile as Yorkshire — the dazzUng lustre of the 
 victories of Minden and Quebec have been dimmed iDy the disgrace 
 of the hasty peace— by the war, England, at immense expense, 
 gained nothing but honour, and that she has gratuitously resigned. 
 Many eyes, formerly cold and indifferent, are now looking towards 
 the line of our ancient and rightful monarchs, as the only refuge in 
 the approaching storm — the rich are alarmed — the nobles are dis- 
 gusted — the populace are inflamed — and a band of patriots, whose 
 measures are more safe that their numbers are few, have resolved 
 to set up King Charles's standard." 
 
 " But the military," said Darsie — " how can you, with a body of 
 unarmed and disorderly insurgents, propose to encounter a regular 
 army ? The Highlanders are now totally disarmed." 
 
 " In a great measure, perhaps," answered Redgauntlet ; " but the 
 pohcy which raised the Highland regiments has provided for that. 
 We have already friends in these corps ; nor can we doubt for a 
 moment what their conduct will be, when the white cockade is once 
 more mounted. The rest of the standing army has been greatly re- 
 duced since the peace ; and we reckon confidently on our standard 
 being joined by thousands of the disbanded troops." 
 
 " Alas ! " said Darsie, " and is it upon such vague hopes as these, 
 the inconstant humour of a crowd, or of a disbanded soldiery, that 
 men of honour are invited to risk their families, their property, their 
 life?" 
 
 Z 2 
 
340 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " Men of honour, boy," said Redgauntlet, his eyes glancing with 
 impatience, " set life, property, family, and all at stake, when that 
 honour commands it ? We are not now weaker than when seven 
 men, landing in the wilds of Moidart, shook the throne of the 
 usurper till it tottered — won two pitched fields, besides overrun- 
 ning one kingdom and the half of another, and, but for treachery, 
 would have achieved what their venturous successors are now to 
 attempt in their turn." 
 
 " And will such an attempt be made in serious earnest ?" said 
 Darsie. " Excuse me, my uncle, if I can scarce believe a fact so 
 extraordinary. Will there really be found men of rank and conse- 
 quence sufficient to renew the adventure of 1745 ? " 
 
 " I will not give you my confidence by halves, Sir Arthur," 
 
 ■ replied his uncle — " Look at that scroll — what say you to these 
 
 names ? — Are they not the flower of the Western shires — of Wales 
 
 —of Scotland?" 
 
 " The paper contains indeed the names of many that are great 
 
 and noble," replied Darsie, after perusing it ; " but " 
 
 "But what?" asked his uncle, impatiently; " do you doubt the 
 ability of those nobles and gentlemen to furnish the aid in men and 
 money, at which they are rated ? " 
 
 " Not their ability certainly," said Darsie, " for of that I am no 
 competent judge ; — but I see in this scroll the name of Sir Arthur 
 Darsie Redgauntlet of that Ilk, rated at an hundred and upwards 
 — I certainly am ignorant how he is to redeem that pledge." 
 " I will be responsible for the men," replied Hugh Redgauntlet. 
 " But, my dear uncle," added Darsie, " I hope for your sake, 
 that the other individuals, whose names are here written, have had 
 more acquaintance with your plan than I have been indulged 
 with." 
 
 " For thee and thine I can be myself responsible," said Red- 
 gauntlet ; " for if thou hast not the courage to head the force of thy 
 house, the leading shall pass to other hands, and thine inheritance 
 shall depart from thee, like vigour and verdure from a rotten 
 branch. For these honourable persons, a slight condition there is 
 which they annex to their friendship — something so trifling that it 
 is scarce worthy of mention. This boon granted to them by him 
 who is most interested, there is no question they will take the field 
 in the manner there stated." 
 
 Again Darsie perused the paper, and felt himself still less inclined 
 to believe that so many men of family and fortune were likely to 
 embark in an enterprise so fatal. It seemed as if some rash 
 plotter had put down at a venture the names of all whom common 
 report tainted with Jacobit'ism ; or if it was really the act of the 
 
REDGAUNTLET. ' 341 
 
 individuals named, he suspected they must be aware of some mode 
 of excusing themselves from compliance with its purport. It was 
 impossible, he thought, that Englishmen, of large fortune, who had 
 failed to join Charles when he broke into England at the head of a 
 victorious army, should have the least thoughts of encouraging a 
 descent when circumstances were so much less propitious. He 
 therefore concluded the enterprise would fall to pieces of itself, and 
 that his best way was, in the meantime, to remain silent, unless the 
 actual approach of a crisis (which might, however, never arrive) 
 should compel him to give a downright refusal to his uncle's propo- 
 sition ; and if, in the interim, some door for escape should be 
 opened, he resolved within himself not to omit availing himself 
 of it. 
 
 Hugh Redgauntlet watched his nephew's looks for some time, 
 and then, as if arriving from some other process of reasoning at 
 the same conclusion, he said, " I have told you, Sir Arthur, that I 
 do not urge your immediate accession to my proposal ; indeed the 
 consequences of a refusal would be so dreadful to yourself, so des- 
 tructive to all the hopes which I have nursed, that I would not 
 risk, by a moment's impatience, the object of my whole life. Yes, 
 Arthur, I have been a self-denying hermit at one time— at another, 
 the apparent associate of outlaws and desparadoes — at another, the 
 subordinate agent of men whom I felt every way my inferiors — not 
 for any selfish purpose of my own, no, not even to win for myself 
 the renown of being the principal instrument in restoring my King 
 and freeing my country. My first wish on earth is for that restora- 
 tion and that freedom — my next, that my nephew, the representative 
 of my house, and of the brother of my love, may have the advan- 
 tage and the credit of all my efforts in the good cause. But," he 
 added, darting on Darsie one of his withering frowns, " if Scotland 
 and my father's House cannot stand and flourish together, then 
 perish the very name of Redgauntlet ! perish the son of my brother, 
 with every recollection of the glories of my family, of the affections 
 of my youth, rather than my country's cause should be injured in 
 the tithing of a barleycorn ! The spirit of Sir Alberick is alive 
 within me at this moment," he continued, drawing up his stately 
 form, and sitting erect in his saddle, while he pressed his finger 
 against his forehead ; " and if you yourself crossed my path in 
 opposition, I swear, by the mark that darkens my brow, that a new 
 deed should be done — a new doom should be deserved ! " 
 
 He was silent, and his threats were uttered in a tone of voice so 
 deeply resolute, that Darsie's heart sunk within him, when he 
 reflected on the storm of passion which he must encounter, if he 
 declined to join his uncle in a project to which prudence and 
 
342 
 
 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 principle made him equally adverse. He had scarce any hope left 
 but in temporizing until he could make his escape, and resolved to 
 avail himself for that purpose of the delay which his uncle seemed 
 not unwilling to grant. The stern, gloomy look of his companion 
 became relaxed by degrees, and presently afterwards he made a 
 sign to Miss Redgauntlet to join the party, and began a forced con- 
 versation on ordinary topics ; in the course of which Darsie 
 observed that his sister seemed to speak under the most cautious 
 restraint, weighing every word before she uttered it, and always 
 permitting her uncle to give the tone to the conversation, though 
 of the most trifling kind. This seemed to him (such an opinion 
 had he already entertained of his sister's good sense and firmness) 
 the strongest proof he had yet received of his uncle's peremptory 
 character, since he saw it observed with so much deference by a 
 young person, whose sex might have given her privileges, and who 
 seemed by no means deficient either in spirit or firmness. 
 
 The little cavalcade was now approaching the house of Father 
 Crackenthorp, situated, as the reader knows, by the side of the 
 Solway, and not far distant from a rude pier, near which lay sevieral 
 fishing-boats, which frequently acted in a different capacity. The 
 house of the worthy publican was also adapted to the various occu- 
 pations which he carried on, being a large scranibling assemblage 
 of cottages attached to a house of two stories, roofed with flags of 
 sandstone — the original mansion, to which the extension of Master 
 Crackenthorp's trade had occasioned his making many additions. 
 Instead of the single long watering-trough, which usually dis- 
 tinguishes the front of the English public-house of the second- 
 class, there were three conveniences of that kind, for the use, as 
 the landlord used to say, of the troop-horses, when the soldiers 
 came to search his house ; while a knowing leer and a nod let you 
 imderstand what species of troops he was thinking of. A huge 
 ash-tree before the door, which had reared itself to a great size and 
 height, in spite of the blasts from the neighbouring Solway, over- 
 shadowed, as usual, the ale-bench, as our ancestors called it, where, 
 though it was still early in the day, several fellows, who seemed to 
 be gentlemen's servants, were drinking beer and smoking. One or 
 two of them wore liveries, which seemed known to Mr. Redgauntlet, 
 for he muttered between his teeth, " Fools, fools ! were they on a 
 march to hell, they must have their rascals in livery with them, 
 that the whole world might know who were going to be damned." 
 
 As he thus muttered, he drew bridle before the door of the place, 
 from which several other lounging guests began to issue, to look 
 with indolent curiosity, as usual, upon an arrival. 
 
 Redgauntlet sprung from his horse, and assisted his niece to 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 343 
 
 dismount ; but, forgetting, perhaps, his nephew's disguise, he did 
 not pay him the attention which his female dress demanded. 
 
 The situation of Darsie was indeed something awkward ; for 
 Cristal Nixon, out of caution perhaps to prevent escape, had 
 muffled the extreme folds of the riding-skirt with which he was 
 accoutred, round his ankles and under his feet, and there secured 
 it with large corking-pins. We presume that gentleman-cavaliers 
 may sometimes cast their eyes to that part of the person of the 
 fair equestrians whom they chance occasionally to escort ; and if 
 they will conceive their own feet, like Darsie's, muffled in such a 
 labyrinth of folds and amplitude of robe, as modesty doubtless 
 induces the fair creatures to assume upon such occasions, they will 
 allow that, on a first attempt, they might find some awkwardness in 
 dismounting. Darsie, at least, was in such a predicament, for, not 
 receiving adroit assistance from the attendant of Mr. Redgauntlet, 
 he stumbled as he dismounted from the horse, and might have had 
 a bad fall, had it not been broken by the gallant interposition of a 
 gentleman, who probably was, on his part, a little surprised at the 
 solid weight of the distressed fair one whom he had the honour to 
 receive in his embrace. But what was his surprise to that of 
 Darsie's, when the hurry of the moment, and of the accident, 
 permitted him to see that it was his friend Alan Fairford in whose 
 arms he found himself! A thousand apprehensions rushed on 
 him, mingled with the full career of hope and joy, inspired by the 
 unexpected appearance of his beloved friend, at the very crisis, it 
 seemed, of his fate. > 
 
 He was about to whisper in his ear, cautioning him at the same 
 time to be silent ; yet he hesitated for a second or two to effect his 
 purpose, since, should Redgauntlet take the alarm from any sudden 
 exclamation on the part of Alan, there was no saying what conse- 
 quences might ensue. 
 
 Ere he could decide what was to be done, Redgauntlet, who 
 had entered the house, returned hastily, followed by Cristal Nixon. 
 " I'll release you of the charge of this young lady, sir ; " he said, 
 haughtily, to Alan Fairford, whom he probably did not recognise. 
 
 " I had no desire to intrude, sir," replied Alan ; " the lady's 
 situation seemed to require assistance— and — but have I not the 
 honour to speak to IVIr. Herries of Birrenswork ? " 
 
 " You are mistaken, sir," said Redgauntlet, turning short off, and 
 making a sign with his hand to Cristal, who hurried Darsie, how- 
 ever unwillingly, into the house, whispering in his ear, " Come, 
 miss, let us have no making of acquaintance from the windows. 
 Ladies of fashion must be private, Show ijs a room, Father 
 Crackenthorp." 
 
344 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 So saying, he conducted Darsie into the house, interposing at 
 the same time his person betwixt the supposed young lady and the 
 stranger of whom he was suspicious, so as to make communication 
 by signs impossible. As they entered, they heard the sound of a 
 fiddle in the stona-floored and well-sanded kitchen, through which 
 they were about to follow their corpulent host, and where several 
 people seemed engaged in dancing to its strains. 
 
 " D — n thee," said Nixon to Crackenthorp, "would you have the 
 lady go through all the mob of the parish .'—Hast thou no more 
 private way to our sitting-room ? " 
 
 " None that is fit for my travelling," answered the landlord, laying 
 his hand on his portly stomach. " I am not Tom Turnpenny, to 
 creep like a lizard through keyholes." 
 
 So saying, he kept moving on through the revellers in the 
 kitchen ; and Nixon holding Darsie by his arm, as if to offer the 
 lady support, but in all probability to frustrate any effort at escape, 
 moved through the crowd, which presented a very motley appear- 
 ance, consisting of domestic servants, country fellows, seamen, and 
 other idlers, whom Wandering Willie was regaling with his music. 
 
 To pass another friend without intimation of his presence would 
 have been actual pusillanimity ; and just when they were passing the 
 blind man's elevated seat, Darsie asked him, with some emphasis, 
 whether he could not play a Scottish air ? — The man's face 
 had been the instant before devoid of all sort of expression, going 
 through his performance like a clown through a beautiful country, 
 too much accustomed to consider it as a task, to take any interest 
 in the performance, and, in fact, scarce seeming to hear the noise 
 that he was creating. In a word, he might at the time have 
 made a companion to my friend Wilkie's inimitable blind crowder. 
 But with Wandering Willie this was only an occasional, and a rare 
 fit of dulness, such as will at times creep over all the professors of 
 the fine arts, arising either from fatigue, or contempt of the present 
 audience, or that caprice which so often tempts painters and 
 musicians, and great actors, in the phrase of the latter, to walk 
 through their part, instead of exerting themselves with the energy 
 which acquired their fame. But when the performer heard the 
 voice of Darsie, his countenance became at once illuminated, and 
 showed the complete mistake of those who suppose that the prin- 
 cipal point of expression depends upon the eyes. With his face 
 turned to the point from which the soupd came, his upper lip a 
 little curved, and quivering with agitation, and with a colour which 
 surprise and pleasure had brought at once into his faded cheek, 
 he exchanged the humdrum hornpipe which he had been sawing 
 out with reluctant and lazy bow, for the fine Scottish air, 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 345 
 
 " You're welcome, Charlie Stewart," 
 which flew from his strings as if by inspiration, and after a breath- 
 less pause of admiration among the audience, was received with a 
 clamour of applause, which seemed to show that the name and ten- 
 dency, as well as the execution of the tune, was in the highest 
 degree acceptable to all the party assembled. 
 
 In the meantime, Cristal Nixon, still keeping hold of Darsie, and 
 following the landlord, forced his way with some difficulty through 
 the crowded kitchen, and entered a small apartment on the other 
 side of it, where they found Lilias Redgauntlet already seated. 
 Here Nixon gave way to his suppressed resentment, and turning 
 sternly on Crackenthorp, threatened him with his master's severest 
 displeasure, because things were in such bad order to receive his 
 family, when he had given such special advice that he desired to 
 be private. But Father Crackenthorp was not a man to be brow- 
 beaten 
 
 " Why, brother Nixon, thou art angiy this morning," he replied ; 
 " hast risen from thy wrong side, I think. You know, as well as I, 
 that most of this mob is of the Squire's own making — gentlemen that 
 come with their servants, and so forth, to meet him in the way of 
 business, as old Tom Turnpenny says — the very last that came was 
 sent down with Dick Gardener from Fairladies." 
 
 "But the blind scraping scoundrel yonder," said Nixon, "how 
 dared you take such a rascal as that across your threshold at such 
 a time as this ? — If the Squire should dream you have a thought 
 of peaching — I am only speaking for your good, Father Cracken- 
 thorp." 
 
 " Why, look ye, brother Nixon," said Crackenthorp, turning his 
 quid with great composure, " tlie Squire is a very worthy gentle- 
 man, and I'll never deny it ; but I am neither his servant nor his 
 tenant, and so he need send me none of his orders till he hears I 
 have put on his livery. As for turning away folk from my door, I 
 might as well plug up the ale-tap, and pull down the sign — and as 
 for peaching, and such like, the Squire will find the folk here are 
 as honest to the full as those he brings with him." 
 
 " How, you impudent lump of tallow," said Nixon, " what do you 
 mean by that ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Crackenthorp, " but that I can tour out as well 
 as another — you understand me — keep good lights in my upper 
 story — know a thing or two more than most folk in this country. If 
 folk will come to my house on dangerous errands, egad they shall 
 not find Joe Crakenthorp a cat's-paw. I'll keep myself clear, you 
 may depend on it, and let every man answer for his own actions — 
 that's my way — Anything wanted, Master Nixon?" 
 
346 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " No — Yes — begone ! " said Nixon, who seemed embarrassed 
 with the landlord's contumacy, yet desirous to conceal the effect it 
 produced on him. 
 
 The door was no sooner closed on Crackenthorp, than Miss Red- 
 gauntlet, addressing Nixon, commanded him to leave the room, and 
 go to his proper place. 
 
 " How, madam ? " said the fellow sullenly, yet with an air of 
 respect, " Would you have your uncle pistol me for disobeying his 
 orders ? " 
 
 " He may perhaps pistol you for some other reason, if you do not 
 obey mine," said Lilias, composedly. 
 
 " You abuse your advantage over me, madam — I really dare not 
 go — I am on guard over this other Miss here ; and if I should 
 desert my post, my life were not worth five minutes' purchase." 
 
 " Then know your post, sir," said Lilias, " and watch on the out- 
 side of the door. You have no commission to listen to our private 
 conversation, I suppose ? Begone, sir, without "further speech or 
 remonstrance, or I will tell my uncle that which you would have 
 reason to repent he should know." 
 
 The fellow looked at her with a singular expression of spite, 
 mixed with deference. " You abuse your advantages, madam," he 
 said, " and act as foolishly in doing so, as I did in affording you 
 such a hank over me. But you are a tyrant ; and tyrants have 
 commonly short reigns." 
 
 So saying, he left the apartment. 
 
 "The wretch's unparalleled insolence," said Lilias to her brother, 
 " has given me one great advantage over him. For, knowing that 
 my uncle would shoot him with as little remorse as a woodcock, if 
 he but guessed at his brazen-faced assurance towards me, he dares 
 not since that time assume, so far as I am concerned, the air of inso- 
 lent domination which the possession of my uncle's secrets, and the 
 knowledge of his most secret plans, have led him to exert over 
 others of his family." 
 
 " In the meantime," said Darsie, " I am happy to see that the 
 landlord of the house does not seem so devoted to him as I appre- 
 hended ; and this aids the hope of escape which I am nourishing 
 for you and for myself. O, Lilias ! the truest of friends, Alan Fair- 
 ford, is in pursuit of me, and is here at this moment. Another 
 humble, but, I think, faithful friend, is also within these dangerous 
 walls." 
 
 Lilias laid her finger on her lips, and pointed to the door. 
 Darsie took the hint, lowered his voice, and informed her in whis- 
 pers of the arrival of Fairford, and that he believed he had opened 
 a communication with Wandering Willie. She listened with the 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 347 
 
 Utmost interest, and had just began to reply, when a loud noise was 
 heard in the kitchen, caused by several contending voices, amongst 
 which Darsie thought he could distinguish that of Alan Fairford. 
 
 Forgetting how little his own condition permitted him to become 
 the assistant of another, Darsie flew to the door of the room, and 
 finding it locked and bolted on the outside, rushed against it with 
 all bis force, and made the most desperate efforts to burst it open, 
 notwithstanding the entreaties of his sister that he would compose 
 himself, and recollect the condition in which he was placed. But 
 the door, framed to withstand attacks from excisemen, constables, 
 and other personages, considered as worthy to use what are called 
 the King's keys,* " and therewith to make lockfast places open and 
 patent," set his efforts at defiance. Meantime the noise continued 
 without, and we are to give an account of its origin in our next 
 chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF DARSIE LATIMER, CONTINUED. 
 
 Joe CRACKENTHORP'S public-house had never, since it first 
 reared its chimneys on the banks of the Solway, been frequented 
 by such a miscellaneous group of visitors as had that morning 
 become its guests. Several of them were persons whose quality 
 seemed much superior to their dresses and modes of travelling. 
 The servants who attended them contradicted the inferences to be 
 drawn from the garb of their masters, and, according to the custom 
 of the knights of the rainbow, gave many hints that they were not 
 people to serve any but men of first-rate consequence. These 
 gentlemen, who hkd come thither chiefly for the purpose of meeting 
 with Mr. Redgauntlet, seemed moody and anxious, conversed and 
 walked together, apparently in deep conversation, and avoided any 
 communication with the chance travellers whom accident brought 
 that morning to the same place of resort. 
 
 As if Fate had set herself to confound the plans of the Jacobite 
 conspirators, the number of travellers was unusually great, their 
 appearance respectable, and they filled the public tap-room of the 
 inn, where the political guests had already occupied most of the 
 private apartments. 
 
 Amongst others, honest Joshua Geddes had arrived, traveUing, 
 as he said, in the sorrow of the soul, and mourning for the fate of 
 Darsie Latimer as he would for his first-born child. He had skirted 
 the whole coast of the Solway, besides making various trips into 
 
348 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 the interior, not shunning, on such occasions, to expose himself to 
 the laugh of the scorner, nay, even to serious personal risk, by fre- 
 quenting the haunts of smugglers, horse-jockeys, and other irregular 
 persons, who looked on his intrusion with jealous eyes, and were 
 apt to consider him as an exciseman in the disguise of a Quaker. 
 All this labour and peril, however, had been undergone in vain. 
 No search he could make obtained the least intelligence of Latimer, 
 so that he began to fear the poor lad had been spirited abroad ; for 
 the practice of kidnapping was then not infrequent, especially on 
 the western coasts of Britain, if indeed he had escaped a briefer and 
 more bloody fate. 
 
 With a heavy heart, he delivered his horse, even Solomon, into 
 the hands of the hostler, and .walking into the inn, demanded from 
 the landlord breakfast and a private room. Quakers, and such 
 hosts as old Father Crackenthorp, are no congenial spirits ; the 
 latter looked askew over his shoulder, and replied, " If you would 
 have breakfast here, friend, you are like to eat it where other folk 
 eat theirs." 
 
 " And wherefore can I not," said the Quaker, "have an apart- 
 ment to myself, for my money ? " 
 
 " Because, Master Jonathan, you must wait till your betters be 
 served, or else eat with your equals." 
 
 Joshua Geddes argued the point no further, but sitting quietly 
 down on the seat which Crackenthorp indicated to him, and calling 
 for a pint of ale, with some bread, butter, and Dutch cheese, began 
 to satisfy the appetite which the morning air had rendered unusu- 
 ally alert. 
 
 While the honest Quaker was thus employed, another stranger 
 entered the apartment, and sat down near to the table on which his 
 victuals were placed. He looked repeatedly at Joshua, licked his 
 parched and chopped lips as he saw the good Quaker masticate 
 his bread and cheese, and sucked up his thin chops when Mr. 
 Geddes applied the tankard to his mouth, as if the discharge of 
 these bodily functions by another had awakened his sympathies in 
 an uncontrollable degree. At last, being apparently unable to with- 
 stand his longings, he asked, in a faltering tone, the huge landlord, 
 who was tramping through the room in all corpulent impatience, 
 " whether he could have a plack-pie ? " 
 
 " Never heard of such a thing, master," said the landlord, and 
 was about to trudge onward ; when the guest, detaining him, said, 
 in a strong Scottish tone, " Ye will maybe have nae whey then, nor 
 buttermilk, nor ye couldna exhibit a souter's clod? " 
 
 " Can't tell what ye are talking about, master,'' said Cracken- 
 thorp. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 349 
 
 "Then ye will have nae breakfast that will come within the 
 compass of a shilling Scots ?" 
 
 "Which is a penny sterling," answered Crackenthorp, with a 
 sneer. "Why, no, Sawney, I can't say as we have — we can't afford 
 it ; but you shall have a bellyful for love, as we say in the bull- 
 ring. 
 
 " I shall never refuse a fair offer," said the poverty-stricken guest ; 
 " and I will say that for the English, if they were deils, that they 
 are a ceeveleesed people to gentlemen that are under a cloud." 
 
 "Gentlemen! — humph!" said Crackenthorp — "not a bluecap 
 among them but halts upon that foot." Then seizing on a dish 
 which still contained a huge cantle of what had been once a princely 
 mutton pasty, he placed it on the table before the stranger, saying, 
 " There, master gentleman ; there is what is worth all the black 
 pies, as you call them, that were ever made of sheep's head." 
 
 " Sheep's head is a gude thing, for a' that," replied the guest ; 
 but not being spoken so loud as to offend his hospitable entertainer, 
 the interjection might pass for a private protest against the scandal 
 thrown out against the standing dish of Caledonia. 
 
 This premised, he immediately began to transfer the mutton and 
 pie-crust from his plate to his lips, in such huge gobbets, as if he 
 was refreshing after a three days' fast, and laying in provisions 
 against a whole Lent to come. 
 
 Joshua Geddes in his turn gazed on him with surprise, having 
 never, he thought, beheld such a gaunt expression of hunger in the 
 act of eating. "Friend," he said, after watching him for- some 
 minutes, " if thou gorgest thyself in this fashion, thou wilt assuredly 
 choke. Wilt thou not take a draught out of my cup to help down 
 all that dry meat ? " 
 
 " Troth," said the stranger, stopping and looking at the friendly 
 propounder, " that's nae^ bad overture, as they say in the General 
 Assembly. I have heard waur motions than that frae wiser counsel.'' 
 
 Mr. Geddes ordered a quart of home-brewed to be placed before 
 our friend Peter Peebles ; for the reader must have already con- 
 ceived that this unfortunate litigant was the wanderer in question. 
 
 The victim of Themis had no sooner seen the flagon than he 
 seized it with the same energy which he had displayed in operating 
 upon the pie — puffed off the froth with such emphasis, that some of 
 it lighted on Mr. Geddes's head— and then said, as if with a sudden 
 recollection of what was due to civility, " Here's to ye, friend. — 
 What ! are ye ower grand to give me an answer, or are ye dull 
 o' hearing ? " 
 
 " I prithee drink thy liquor, friend," said the good Quaker ; " thou 
 meanest it in civility, but we care not for these idle fashions." 
 
35° 
 
 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 "What! ye are a Quaker, are ye?" said Peter; and without 
 further ceremony reared the flagon to his head, from which he 
 withdrew it not while a single drop of " barley-broo " remained. — 
 *' That's done you and me muckle gude," he said, sighing as he set 
 down his pot ; " but twa mutchkins o' yill between twa folk is a 
 drappie ower little measure. What say ye to anither pot ? or shall 
 we cry in a blithe Scots pint at ance ? — The yill is no amiss." 
 
 "Thou mayst call for what thou wilt on thine own charges, 
 friend," said Geddes ; " for myself, I willingly contribute to the 
 quenching of thy natural thirst ; but I fear it were no such easy 
 matter to relieve thy acquired and artificial drouth." 
 
 " That is to say, in plain terms, ye are for withdrawing your 
 caution with the folk of the house ? You Quaker folk are but fause 
 comforters ; but since ye have garred me drink sae muckle cauld 
 yill — me that am no used to the like of it in the forenoon — 1 think 
 ye might as weel have offered me a glass of brandy or usquabae — 
 I'm nae nice body — I can drink ony thing that's wet and tooth- 
 some." 
 
 " Not a drop at my cost, friend," quoth Geddes. "Thou art an 
 old man, and hast, perchance, a heavy and long journey before 
 thee. Thou art, moreover, my countryman, as I judge from thy 
 tongue ; and I will not give thee the means of dishonouring thy 
 grey hairs in a strange land." 
 
 " Grey hairs, neighbour ! " said Peter, with a wink to the by- 
 standers, — whom this dialogue began to interest, and who were in 
 hopes of seeing the Quaker played off by the crazed beggar, for such 
 Peter Peebles appeared to be, — " Grey hairs ! The Lord mend 
 your eyesight, neighbour, that disna ken grey hairs frae a tow wig ! " 
 
 This jest procured a shout of laughter, and, what was still more 
 acceptable than dry applause, a man who stood beside called out, 
 " Father Crackenthorp, bring a nipperkin of brandy. I'll bestow 
 a dram on this fellow, were it but for that very word." 
 
 The brandy was immediately brought by a wench who acted as 
 bar-maid ; and Peter, with a grin of delight, filled a glass, quaffed 
 it off, and then saying, " God bless me ! I was so unmannerly as not 
 to drink to ye — I think the Quaker has smitten me wi' his ill-bred 
 havings," — he was about to fill another, when his hand was arrested 
 by his new friend ; who said at the same time, " No, no, friend — 
 fair play's a jewel — time about, if you please." And filling a glass 
 for himself, emptied it as gallantly as Peter could have done. 
 "What say you to that, friend?" he continued, addressing the 
 Quaker. 
 
 " Nay, friend," answered Joshua, " it went down thy throat, not 
 mine ; and I have nothing to say about what concerns me not ; but 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 351 
 
 if thou art a man of humanity, thou wilt not give this poor creature 
 the means of debauchery. Bethink thee that they will spurn him 
 from the door, as they would do a houseless and masterless dog, 
 and that he may die on the sands or on the common. And if he 
 has through thy means been rendered incapable of helping himself, 
 thou shall not be innocent of his blood." 
 
 " Faith, Broadbrim, I believe thou art right, and the old gentle- 
 man in the flaxen jazy shall have no more of the comforter — Besides, 
 we have business in hand to-day, and this fellow, for as mad as he 
 loe\s, may have a nose on his face after all. — Hark ye, father, — 
 wliat is your name, and what brings you into such an out-of-the-way 
 corner ? " 
 
 " I am not just free to condescend on my name," said Peter; 
 " and as for my business — there is a wee dribble of brandy in the 
 stoup — it would be wrang to leave it to the lass — it is learning her 
 bad usages." 
 
 " Well, thou shalt have the brandy, and be d — d to thee, if thou 
 wilt tell me what you are making here." 
 
 " Seeking a young advocate chap that they ca' Alan Fairford, 
 that has played me a slippery trick, an ye maun ken a' about the 
 cause," said Peter. 
 
 " An advocate, man ! " answered the Captain of the Jumping 
 Jenny — for it was he, and no other, who had taken compassion on 
 Peter's drought ; " why, Lord help thee, thou art on the wrong side 
 of the Frith to seek advocates, whom I take to be Scottish lawyers, 
 not English." 
 
 " Enghsh lawyers, man ! " exclaimed Peter, " the deil a lawyer's 
 in a' England." 
 
 " I wish from my soul it were true," said Ewart ; " but what the 
 devil put that in your head ? " 
 
 " Lord, man, I got a grip of ane of their attorneys in Carlisle, and 
 he tauld me that there wasna a lawyer in England, ony mair than 
 himsell, that kend the nature of a multiplepoinding ! And when I 
 tauld him how this loopy lad, Alan Fairford, had served me, he 
 said I might bring an action on the case — just as if the case hadna 
 as mony actions already as one case can weel carry. By my word, 
 it is a gude case, and muckle has it borne, in its day, of various 
 procedure — but it's the barley-pickle breaks the naig's back, and 
 wi' my consent it shall not hae ony mair burden laid upon it." 
 
 " But this Alan Fairford ? " said Nanty — " come — sip up the drop 
 of brandy, man, and tell me some more about him, and , whether 
 you are seeking him for good or for harm." 
 
 " For my ain gude, and for his harm, to be sure," said Peter. 
 " Think of his having left my cause in the dead-thraw between the 
 
352 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 tyneing and the winning, and capering off into Cumberland here, 
 after a wild loup-the-tether lad they ca' Darsie Latimer." 
 
 " Darsie Latimer ! " said Mr. Geddes, hastily ; " do you know 
 any thing of Darsie Latimer ? " 
 
 " Maybe I do, and maybe I do not," answered Peter ; " I am no 
 free to answer every body's interrogatory, unless it is put judicially, 
 and by form of law — specially where folk think so much of a caup 
 of sour yill, or a thimblefu' of brandy. But as for this gentleman, 
 that has shown himself a gentleman at breakfast, and will show 
 himself a gentleman at the meridian, I am free to condescend upon 
 any points in the cause that may appear to bear upon the question 
 at issue." 
 
 " Why, all I want to know from you, my friend, is, whether you 
 are seeking to do this Mr. Alan Fairford good or harm ; because if 
 you come to do him good, I think you could maybe get speech of 
 him — and if to do him harm, I will take the liberty to give you a 
 cast across the Frith, with fair warning not to come back on such 
 an errand, lest worse come of it." 
 
 The manner and language of Ewart was such, that Joshua Geddes 
 resolved to keep cautious silence, till he could more plainly dis- 
 cover whether he was likely to aid or impede him in his researches 
 after Darsie Latimer. He therefore determined to listen attentively 
 to what should pass between Peter and the seaman, and to watch 
 for an opportunity of questioning the former, so soon as he should 
 be separated from his new acquaintance. 
 
 " I wad by no means," said Peter Peebles, " do any substantial 
 harm to the poor lad Fairford, who has had mony a gowd guinea 
 of mine, as weel as his father before him ; but I wad hae him 
 brought back to the minding' of my business and his ain ; and may- 
 be I wadna insist farther in my action of damages against him, than 
 for refounding the fees, and for some annual rent on the principal 
 sum, due frae the day on which he should have recovered it for me, 
 plack and bawbee, at the great advising ; for, ye are aware, that is 
 the least that I can ask nomine damnij and I have nae thought to 
 break down the lad bodily a' thegither — we maun live and let live 
 — forgie and forget." 
 
 " The deuce take me, friend Broadbrim," said Nanty Ewart, 
 looking to the Quaker, " if I can make out what this old scarecrow 
 means. If I thought it was fitting that Master Fairford should see 
 him, why perhaps it is a matter that could be managed. Do you 
 know any thing about the old fellow ? — you seemed to take some 
 charge of him just now." 
 
 " No more than I should have done by any one in distress," said 
 Geddes, not sorry to be appealed to ; " but I will try what I can do 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 353 
 
 to find out who he is, and what he is about in this country— But are 
 we not a little too public in this open room ? " 
 
 " It's well thought of," said Nanty ; and at his command the bar- 
 maid ushered the party into a side-booth, Peter attending them, in 
 the instinctive hope that there would be more liquor drank among 
 them before parting. They had scarce sat down in their new apart- 
 ment, when the sound of a violin was heard in the room which they 
 had just left. 
 
 " I'll awa back yonder,'' said Peter, rising up again ; " yon's the 
 sound of a fiddle, and when there is music, there's aye something 
 ganging to eat or drink." 
 
 " I am just going to order something here," said the Quaker ; 
 " but, in the meantime, have you any objection, my good friend, to 
 tell us your name ? " 
 
 " None in the world, if you are wanting to drink to me by name 
 and surname," answered Peebles ; " but, otherwise, I would rather 
 evite your interrogatories." 
 
 " Friend," said the Quaker, " it is not for thine own health, seeing 
 thou hast drunk enough already — however — Here, handmaiden — 
 bring me a gill of sherry." 
 
 " Sherr/s but shilpit drink, and a gill's a sma' measure for twa 
 gentlemen to crack ower at their first acquaintance. — But let us see 
 your sneaking gill of sherry," said Poor Peter, thrusting forth his 
 huge hand to seize on the diminutive pewter measure, which, ac- 
 cording to the fashion of the time, contained the generous liquor 
 freshly drawn from the butt. 
 
 " Nay, hold, friend," said Joshua, " thou hast not yet told me what 
 name and surname I am to call thee by." 
 
 " D — d sly in the Quaker," said Nanty, apart, " to make him pay 
 for his liquor before he gives it him. Now, I am such a fool, that I 
 should have let him get too drunk to open his mouth, before I 
 thought of asking him a question." 
 
 " My name is Peter Peebles, then," said the litigant, rather sulkily, 
 as one who thought his liquor too sparingly meted out to him ; 
 " and what have you to say to that ? " 
 
 " Peter Peebles ? " repeated Nanty Ewart, and seemed to muse 
 upon something which the words brought to his remembrance, while 
 the Quaker pursued his examination. 
 
 " But I prithee, Peter Peebles, what is thy further designation ? — 
 Thou knowest, in our country, that some men are distinguished by 
 their craft and calling, as cordwainers, fishers, weavers, or the like, 
 and some by their titles as proprietors of land, (which savours of 
 vanity) — Now, how may you be distinguished from others of the 
 same name ? " 
 
 \ A A 
 
3S4 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " As Peter Peebles of the great plea of Poor Peter Peebles against 
 Plainstanes, et per contra— \i I am laird of naething else, I am aye 
 a domiiius litis!' 
 
 " It's but a poor lairdship, I doubt," said Joshua. 
 
 " Pray, Mr. Peebles," said Nanty, interrupting the conversation 
 abruptly, " were not you once a burgess of Edinburgh ? " 
 
 " Was I a burgess ! " said Peter, indignantly, " and am I not a 
 burgess even now ? I have done nothing to forfeit my right, I trow 
 — once provost and aye my lord." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Burgess, tell me farther, have you not some property 
 in the Gude Town ? " continued Ewart. 
 
 '■ Troth have I — that is, before my misfortunes, I had twa or 
 three bonny bits of mailings amang^ the closes and wynds, forby 
 the shop and the story abune it. But Plainstanes has put me to 
 the causeway now. Never mind though, I will be up-sides with 
 him yet." 
 
 " Had not you once a tenement in the Covenant Close ? " again 
 demanded Nanty, 
 
 " You have hit it, lad, though ye look not like a Covenanter," said 
 Peter ; " we'll drink to its memory — [Hout ! the heart's at the mouth 
 o' that ill-faur'd bit stoup already !] — it brought a rent, reckoning 
 from the crawstep to the groundsill, that ye might ca' fourteen 
 punds a-year, forby the laigh cellar that was let to Lucky Little- 
 worth." 
 
 " And do you not remember that you had a poor old lady for your 
 tenant, Mrs. Cantrips of Kittlebasket ? " said Nanty, suppressing his 
 emotion with difficulty. 
 
 " Remember 1 G — d, I have gude cause to remember her," said 
 Peter, " for she turned a dyvour on my hands, the auld besom ! and, 
 after a' that the law could do to make me satisfied and paid, in the 
 way of poinding and distrenzieing, and sae forth, as the law will, 
 she ran awa to the Charity Workhouse, a matter of twenty punds 
 Scots in my debt — it's a great shame and oppression that Charity 
 Workhouse, taking in bankrupt dyvours that canna pay their honest 
 creditors." 
 
 " Methinks, friend," said the Quaker, " thine own rags might 
 teach thee compassion for other people's nakedness." 
 
 " Rags ! " said Peter, taking Joshua's words literally ; " does ony 
 wise body put on their best coat when they are travelUng, and 
 keeping company with Quakers, and such other cattle as the road 
 affords?" 
 
 " The old lady died, I have heard," said Nanty, affecting a mode- 
 ration which was belied by accents that faltered with passion. 
 
 " She might live or die, for what I care," answered Peter the 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 3SS 
 
 Cruel ; " what business have folk to do to live, that canna live as 
 law will, and satisfy their just and lawful creditors ? " 
 
 " And you — you that are now yourself trodden down in the very 
 kennel, are you not sorry for what you have done ? Do you not 
 repent having occasioned the poor widow- woman's death ? " 
 
 " What for should I repent ? " said Peter ; " the law was on my 
 side — a decreet of the Bailies' followed by poinding, and an act of 
 warding — a suspension intented, and the letters found orderly pro- 
 ceeded. — I followed the auld rudas through twa Courts — she cost 
 me mair money than her lugs were worth." 
 
 " Now, by Heaven ! " said Nanty, " I would give a thousand 
 guineas, if I had them, to have you worth my beating ! Had you 
 said you repented, it had been between God and your conscience ; 
 but to hear you boast of your villainy — Do you think it little to have 
 reduced the aged to famine, and the young to infamy — to have 
 caused the death of one woman, the ruin of another, and to have 
 driven a man to exile and despair ? By Him that made me, I can 
 scarce keep hands off you !" 
 
 " Off me .'' — I defy ye ! " said Peter. " I take this honest man to 
 witness, that if ye stir the neck of my collar, I will have my action 
 for stouthreif, spulzie, oppression, assault and battery. Here's a 
 bra' din, indeed, about an auld wife gaun to the grave, a young 
 limmer to the close-heads and causeway, and a sticket stibbler* to 
 the sea instead of the gallows ! " 
 
 " Now, by my soul," said Nanty, " this is too much ! and since 
 you can feel no otherwise, I will try if I canriot beat some humanity 
 into your head and shoulders." 
 
 He drew his hanger as he spoke, and although Joshua, who had 
 in vain endeavoured to interrupt the dialogue, to which he foresaw 
 a violent termination, now threw himself between Nanty and the old 
 litigant, he could not prevent the latter from receiving two or three 
 sound slaps over the shoulder with the flat side of the weapon. 
 
 Poor Peter Peebles, as inglorious in his extremity as he had been 
 presumptuous in bringing it on, now ran and roared, and bolted out 
 of the apartment and house itself, pursued by Nanty, whose passion 
 became high in proportion to his giving way to its dictates, and by 
 Joshua, who still interfered at every' risk, calling upon Nanty to 
 reflect on the age and miserable circumstances of the offender, and 
 upon Poor Peter to stand and place himself under his protection. 
 In front of the house, however, Peter Peebles found a more efficient 
 protector than the worthy Quaker. , 
 
 A A 2 
 
3S6 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD. 
 
 Our readers may recollect, that Fairford had been conducted by 
 Dick Gardener from the House of Fairladies, to the inn of old 
 Father Crackenthorp, in order, as he had been informed by the 
 mysterious Father Buonaventure, that he might have the meeting 
 which he desired with Mr. Redgauntlet, to treat with him for the 
 liberty of his friend Darsie. His guide, by the special direction of 
 Mr. Ambrose, had introduced him into the public-house by a back- 
 door, and recommended to the landlord to accommodate him with 
 a private apartment, and to treat him with all civility ; but in other 
 respects to keep his eye on him, and even to secure his person, if 
 he saw any reason to suspect him to be a spy. He was not, how- 
 ever, subjected to any direct restraint, but was ushered into an 
 apartment, where he was requested to await the arrival of the 
 gentleman with whom he wished to have an interview, and who, as 
 Crackenthorp assured him with a significant nod, would be cer- 
 tainly there in the course of an hour. In the meanwhile, he 
 recommended to him, with another significant sign, to keep his 
 apartment, " as there were people in the house who were apt to 
 busy themselves about other folk's matters." 
 
 Alan Fairford complied with the recommendation, so long as he 
 thought it reasonable ; but when, among a large party riding up to 
 the house, he discerned Redgauntlet, whom he had seen under the 
 name of Mr. Herries of Birrenswork, and whom, by his height and 
 strength, he easily distinguished from the rest, he thought it proper 
 to go down to the front of the house, in hopes that, by more closely 
 reconnoitring the party, he might discover if his friend Darsie was 
 among them. 
 
 The reader is aware that, by doing so, he had an opportunity of 
 breaking Darsie's fall from his side-saddle, although his disguise 
 and mask prevented his recognising his friend. It may be also 
 recollected, that while Nixon hurried Miss Redgauntlet and her 
 brother into the house, their uncle, somewhat chafed at an unex- 
 pected and inconvenient interruption, remained himself in parley 
 with Fairford, who had already successively addressed him by the 
 names of Herries and Redgauntlet j neither of which, any more 
 than the acquaintance of the young lawyer, he seemed at the 
 moment willing to acknowledge, though an air of haughty indiffer- 
 ence, which he assumed, could not conceal his vexation and embar- 
 rassment. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 317 
 
 " If we must needs be acquainted, sir," he said at last — " for 
 which I am unable to see any necessity, especially as 1 am now 
 particularly disposed to be private — I must entreat you will tell me 
 at once what you have to say, and permit me to attend to matters 
 of more importance." 
 
 " My introduction," said Fairford, " is contained in this letter," 
 — (delivering that of Maxwell.) — " I am convinced that, under 
 whatever name it may be your pleasure for the present to be known, 
 it is into your hands, and yours only, that it should be delivered." 
 
 Redgauntlet turned the letter in his hand — then read the con- 
 tents — then again looked upon the letter, and sternly observed, 
 " The seal of the letter has been broken. Was this the case, sir, 
 when it was delivered into your hand ? " 
 
 Fairford despised a falsehood as much as any man, unless, per- 
 haps, as Tom Turnpenny might have said, "inthe way of business.'' 
 He answered readily and firmly, " The seal was whole when the 
 letter was delivered to me by Mr. Maxwell of Summertrees." 
 
 " And did you dar«> sir, to break the seal of a letter addressed 
 to me ? " said Redgauntlet, not sorry, perhaps, to pick a quarrel 
 upon a point foreign to the tenor of the epistle. 
 
 " I have never broken the seal of any letter committed to my 
 charge," said Alan ; " not from fear of those to whom such letter 
 might be addressed, but from respect to myself." 
 
 " That is well worded," said Redgauntlet ; " and yet, young Mr. 
 Counsellor, I doubt whether your delicacy prevented your reading 
 my letter, or listening to the contents as read by some other person 
 after it was opened." 
 
 " I certainly did hear the contents read over," said Fairford ; 
 " and they were such as to surprise me a good deal." 
 
 " Now that," said Redgauntlet, " I hold to be pretty much the same, 
 inforo conscientia, as if you had broken the seal yourself. I shall 
 hold myself excused from entering upon farther discourse with a 
 messenger so faithless ; and you may thank yourself if your journey 
 has been fruitless." 
 
 " Stay, sir," said Fairford ; " and know that I became acquainted 
 with the contents of the paper without my consent — I may even 
 say against my will ; for Mr. Buonaventure " 
 
 "Who ?" demanded Redgauntlet, in a wild and alarmed manner 
 — " Whom was it you named ? " 
 
 " Father Buonaventure," said Alan, — " a Catholic priest, as I 
 apprehend, whom I saw at the Miss Arthurets' house, called Fair- 
 ladies." 
 
 " Miss Arthurets I — Fairladies ! — A Catholic priest ! — Father 
 Buonaventure ! " said Redgauntlet, repeating the words of Alan 
 
3S8 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 with astonishment, — " Is it possible that human rashness can reach 
 such a point of infatuation ? — Tell me the truth, I conjure you, sir 
 — I have the deepest interest to know whether this is more than an 
 idle legend, picked up from hearsay about the country. You are a 
 lawyer, and know the risk incurred by the Catholic clergy, whom 
 the discharge of their duty sends to these bloody shores." 
 
 " I am a lawyer, certainly," said Fairford ; "but my holding such 
 a respectable condition in life warrants that I am neither an informer 
 nor a spy. Here is sufficient evidence that I have seen Father 
 Buonaventure." 
 
 He put Buonaventure's letter into Redgauntlet's hand, and 
 watched his looks closely while he read it. " Double-dyed infatua- 
 tion ! " he muttered, with looks in which sorrow, displeasure, and 
 anxiety were mingled. " ' Save me from the indiscretion of my 
 friends,' says the Spaniard ; ' I can save myself from the hostility 
 of my enemies.'" 
 
 He then read the letter attentively, and for two or three minutes 
 was lost in thought, while some purpose of importance seemed to 
 have gathered and sit brooding upon his countenance. He held 
 up his finger towards his satellite, Cristal Nixon, who replied to his 
 signal with a prompt nod ; and with one or two of the attendants 
 approached Fairford in such a manner as to make him apprehen- 
 sive they were about to lay hold of him. 
 
 At this moment a noise was heard from within-side of the house, 
 and presently rushed forth Peter Peebles, pursued by Nanty Ewart 
 with his drawn hanger, and the worthy Quaker, who was endea- 
 vouring to prevent mischief to others, at some risk of bringing it 
 on himself. 
 
 A wilder and yet a more absurd figure can hardly be imagined, 
 than that of 'Poor Peter clattering along as fast as his huge boots 
 would permit him, and resembling nothing so much as a flying 
 scarecrow ; while the thin emaciated form of Nanty Ewart, with 
 the hue of death on his cheek, and the fire of vengeance glancing 
 from his eye, formed a ghastly contrast with the ridiculous object 
 of his pursuit. 
 
 Redgauntlet threw himself between them. " What extravagant 
 folly is this ? " he said. " Put up your weapon. Captain. Is this a 
 time to indulge in drunken brawls, or is such a miserable object as 
 that a fitting antagonist for a man of courage ? " 
 
 " I beg pardon," said the Captain, sheathing his weapon—" I 
 was a Httle bit out of the way, to be sure ; but to know the provo- 
 cation, a man must read my heart, and that I hardly dare to do 
 myself. But the wretch is safe from me. Heaven has done its own 
 vengeance on us both." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 3SS 
 
 While he spoke in this manner, Peter Peebles, who had at first 
 crept behind Redgauntlet in boldily fear, began now to reassume 
 his spirits. Pulling his protector by the sleeve, " Mr. Herries— 
 Mr. Herries," he whispered, eagerly, " ye have done me mair than 
 ae gude turn, and if ye will but do me anither at this dead pinch, 
 I'll forgie the girded keg'of brandy that you and Captain Sir Harry 
 Redgimlet drank out yon time. Ye sail hae an ample discharge 
 and renunciation, and, though I should see you walking at the 
 Cross of Edinburgh, or standing at the bar of the Court of Justi- 
 ciary, no the very thumbikins themselves should bring to my 
 memory that ever I saw you in arms yon day." 
 
 He aecompanied this promise by pulling so hard at Redgauntlet's 
 cloak, that he at last turned round. " Idiot ! speak in a word what 
 you want." 
 
 " Aweel, aweel. In a word then,'' said Peter Pee?jles, " I have 
 a warrant on me to apprehend that man that stands there, Alan 
 Fairford by name, and advocate by calling. I bought it from 
 Maister Justice Foxley's clerk, Maister Nicholas Faggot, wi' the 
 guinea that you gied me." 
 
 " Ha 1 " said Redgauntlet, " hast thou really such a warrant ? 
 let me see it. — Look sharp that no one escape, Cristal Nixon." 
 
 Peter produced a huge, greasy, leathern pocket-book, too dirty 
 to permit its original colour to be visible, filled with scrolls of notes, 
 memorials to counsel, and Heaven knows what besides. From 
 amongst this precious mass he culled forth a paper, and placed it 
 in the hands of Redgauntlet or Herries, as he continued to call 
 him, saying, at the same time, " It's a formal and binding warrant, 
 proceeding on my affidavy made, that the said Alan Fairford, being 
 lawfully engaged in my service, had slipped the tether and fled 
 over the Border, and was now lurking there and thereabouts, to 
 elude and evite the discharge of his bounden duty to me ; and 
 therefore granting warrant to constables and others, to seek for, 
 take, and apprehend him, that he may be brought before the 
 Honourable Justice Foxley for examination, and, if necessary, for 
 commitment. Now, though a' this be fairly set down as I tell ye, 
 yet where am I to get an officer to execute this warrant in sic a 
 country as this, where swords and pistols flee out at a word's 
 speaking, and folk care as little for the peace of King George, as 
 the peace of Auld King Coul ? — There's that drunken skipper, and 
 that wet Quaker, enticed me into the public this morning, and 
 because I wadna gie them as much brandy as wad have made them 
 blind-drunk, they baith fell on me, and were in the way of guiding 
 me very ill." 
 
 While Peter went on in this manner, Redgauntlet glanced his 
 
36o REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 eye over the warrant, and immediately saw that it must be a trick 
 passed by Nicholas Faggot, to cheat the poor insane wretch out of 
 his solitary guinea. But the Justice had actually subscribed it, as 
 he did whatever his clerk presented to him, and Redgauntlet resolved 
 to use it for his own purposes. 
 
 Without making any direct answer, therefore, to Peter Peebles, 
 he walked up gravely to Fairford, who had waited quietly for the 
 termination of a scene, in which he was not a little surprised to 
 find his client, Mr. Peebles, a conspicuous actor. 
 
 " Mr. Fairford," said Redgauntlet, " there are many reasons 
 which might induce me to comply with the request, or rather the 
 injunctions, of the excellent Father Buonaventure, that I should 
 communicate with you upon the present condition of my ward, 
 whom you know under the name of Darsie Latimer ; but no man 
 is better aware than you that the law must be obeyed, even in con- 
 tradiction to our own feelings ; now, this poor man has obtained a 
 warrant for carrying you before a magistrate, and, I am afraid, 
 there is a necessity of your yielding to it, although to the postpone- 
 ment of the business which you may have with me." 
 
 " A warrant against me ! " said Alan, indignantly ; " and at that 
 poor miserable wretch's instance ? — why, this is a trick, a mere and 
 most palpable trick ! " 
 
 "It may be so," replied Redgauntlet, with great equanimity; 
 " doubtless you know best ; only the writ appears regular, and with 
 that respect for the law which has been," he said, with hypocritical 
 formality, " a leading feature of my character through life, I cannot 
 dispense with giving my poor aid to th€ support of a legal 
 warrant. Look at it yourself, and be satisfied it is no trick of 
 mine." 
 
 Fairford ran over the affidavit and the warrant, and then ex- 
 claimed once more, that it was an impudent imposition, and that 
 he would hold those who acted upon such a warrant liable in the 
 highest damages. " I guess at your motive, Mr. Redgauntlet," he 
 said, "for acquiescing in so ridiculous a proceeding. But be 
 assured you will find that, in this country, one act of illegal violence 
 will not be covered or atoned for by practising another. You can- 
 not, as a man of sense and honour, pretend to say you regard this 
 as a legal warrant." 
 
 " I am no lawyer, sir," said Redgauntlet ; " and pretend not to 
 know what is or is not law— the warrant is quite formal, and that 
 is enough for me." 
 
 " Did ever any one hear,'' said Fairford, " of an advocate being 
 compelled to return to his task, like a collier or a Salter* who has 
 deserted his master ? " 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 361 
 
 " I see no reason why he should not," said Redgauntlet, dryly, 
 " unless on the ground that the services of the lawyer are the most 
 expensive and least useful of the two." 
 
 " You cannot mean this in earnest," said Fairford ; " you cannot 
 really mean to avail yourself of so poor a contrivance, to evade the 
 word pledged by your friend, your ghostly father, in my behalf. I 
 may have been a fool for trusting it too easily, but think what you 
 must be if you can abuse my confidence in this manner. I entreat 
 you to reflect that this usage releases me from all promises of 
 secrecy or connivance at what I am apt to think are very dangerous 
 practices, and that " 
 
 " Hark ye, Mr. Fairford," said Redgauntlet ; " I must here 
 interrupt you for your own sake. One word of betraying what you 
 miy have seen, or what you may have suspected, and your seclusion 
 is like to have either a very distant or a very brief termination ; in 
 either case a most undesirable one. At present, you are sure of 
 being at liberty in a very few days — perhaps much sooner." 
 
 " And my friend," said Alan Fairford, " for whose sake I have 
 run myself into this danger, what is to become of him ? — Dark and 
 dangerous man I" he exclaimed, raising his vsiice, " I will not be 
 again cajoled by deceitful promises " 
 
 " I give you my honour that your friend is well," interrupted Red- 
 gauntlet ; " perhaps I may permit you to see him, if you wiU but 
 submit with patience to a fate which is inevitable." 
 
 But Alan Fairford, considering his confidence as having been 
 abused, first by Maxwell, and next by the Priest, raised his voice, 
 and appealed to all the King's lieges within hearing, against the 
 violence with which he was threatened. He was instantly seized 
 on by Nixon and two assistants, who, holding down his arms, and 
 endeavouring to stop his mouth, were about to hurry him away. 
 
 The honest Quaker, who had kept out of Redgauntlet's presence, 
 now came boldly forward. 
 
 " Friend," said he, " thou dost more than thou canst answer. 
 Thou knowest me well, and thou art aware, that in me thou hast 3 
 deeply injured neighbour, who was dweUing beside thee in the 
 honesty and simplicity of his heart." 
 
 " Tush, Jonathan," said Redgauntlet ; " talk not to me, man ; it 
 is neither the craft of a young lawyer, nor the simplicity of an old 
 hypocrite, can drive me from my purpose." 
 
 " By my faith," said the Captain, coming forward in his turn, 
 "this is hardly fair. General; and* I doubt," he added, "whether 
 the will of my owners can make me a party to such proceedings. — 
 Nay, never fumble with your sword-hilt, but out with it like a man, 
 if you are for a tilting." — He unsheathed his hanger, and continued. 
 
362 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " I will neither see my comrade Fairford, nor the old Quaker, 
 abused. D — n all warrants, false or true — curse the justice — con- 
 found the constable ! — and here stands little Nanty Ewart to make 
 good what he says against gentle and simple, in spite of horseshoe 
 or horseradish either." 
 
 The cry of " Down with all warrants !" was popi:lar in the ears 
 of the militia of the inn, and Nanty Ewart was no less so. Fishers, 
 ostlers, seamen, smugglers, began to crowd to the spot. Crack- 
 enthorp endeavoured in vain to mediate. The attendants of Red- 
 gauntlet began to handle their firearms ; but their master shouted 
 to them to forbear, and, unsheathing his sword as quick as lightning, 
 he rushed on Ewart in the midst of his bravade, and struck his 
 weapon from his hand with such address and force, that it flew three 
 yards from him. Closing with him at the same moment, he gave 
 him a severe fall, and waved his sword over his head, to show he 
 was absolutely at his mercy. 
 
 " There, you drunken vagabond," he said, " I give you your life — 
 you are no bad fellow, if you could keep from brawling among your 
 friends. — But we all know Nanty Ewart," he said to the crowd 
 around, with a forgiving laugh, which, joined to the awe his 
 prowess had inspired', entirely confirmed their wavering allegiance. 
 
 They shouted, " The Laird for ever !" while poor Nanty, rising 
 from the earth, on whose lap he had been stretched so rudely, went 
 in quest of his hanger, lifted it, wiped it, and, as he returned the 
 weapon to the scabbard, muttered between his teeth, " It is true 
 they say of him, and the devil will stand his friend till his hour 
 come ; I will cross him no more." 
 
 So saying, he slunk from the crowd, cowed and disheartened by 
 his defeat. 
 
 " For you, Joshua Geddes," said Redgauntlet, approaching the 
 Quaker, who, with lifted hands and eyes, had beheld the scene of 
 violence, " I shall take the liberty to arrest thee for a breach of the 
 peace, altogether unbecoming thy pretended principles ; and I be- 
 lieve it will go hard with thee both in a Court of Justice and among 
 thine own Society of Friends, as they call themselves, who will be 
 but indifferently pleased to see the quiet tenor of their iypocrisy 
 insulted by such violent proceedings." 
 
 "/violent !" said Joshua ; " /do aught unbecoming the principles 
 of the Friends ! I defy thee, man, and I charge thee, as a Christian, 
 to forbear vexing my soul with such charges : it is grievous enough 
 to me to have seen violences which I was unable to prevent." 
 
 " Oh, Joshua, Joshua !" said Redgauntlet, with a sardonic smile; 
 "thou light of the faithful in the town of Dumfries and the places 
 adjacent, wilt thou thus fall away from the truth? Hast thou not. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 36,1 
 
 before us all, attempted to rescue a man from the warrant of law ? 
 Didst thou not encourage that drunken fellow to draw his weapon — 
 and didst thou not thyself flourish thy cudgel in the cause? 
 Think'st thou that the oaths of the injured Peter Peebles, and the 
 conscientious Cristal Nixon, besides those of such gentlemen as 
 look on this strange scene, who not only put on swearing as a 
 garment, but to whom, in Custom-House matters, oaths are literally 
 meat and drink, — dost thou not think, I say, that these men's oaths 
 will go farther than thy Yea and Nay in this matter ?" 
 
 "I will swear to anything," said Peter. "All is fair when it 
 comes to an oath ad litem." 
 
 " You do me foul wrong," said the Quaker, undismayed by the 
 general laugh. " I encouraged no drawing of weapons, though I 
 attempted to move an unjust man by some use of argument — I 
 brandished no cudgel, although it may be that the ancient Adam 
 struggled within me, and caused my hand to grasp mine oaken staff 
 firmer than usual, when I saw innocence borne down with violence. 
 — But why talk I what is true and just to thee, who hast been a man 
 of violence from thy youth upwards ? Let me rather speak to thee 
 such language as thou canst comprehend. Deliver these young 
 men up to me," he said, when he had led Redgauntlet a little apart 
 from the crowd, "and I will not only free thee from the heavy 
 charge of damages which thou hast incurred by thine outrage upon 
 my property, but I will add ransom for them and for myself. What 
 would it profit thee to do the youths wrong, by detaining them in 
 captivity ?" 
 
 " Mr. Geddes," said Redgauntlet, in a tone more respectful than 
 he had hitherto used to the Quaker, "your language is disinterested, 
 and I respect the fidelity of your friendship. Perhaps we have mis- 
 taken each other's principles and motives ; but if so, we have not 
 at present time for explanation. Make yourself easy. I hope to 
 raise your friend Darsie Latimer to a pitch of eminence which you 
 will witness with pleasure ; — nay, do not attempt to answer me. The 
 other young man shall suffer restraint a few days, probably only a 
 few hours, — it is not more than due for his pragmatical interference 
 in what concerned him not. Do you, Mr. Geddes, be so prudent 
 as to take your horse and leave this place, which is growing every 
 moment more unfit for the abode of a man of peace. You may 
 wait the event in safety at Mount Sharon." 
 
 " Friend," replied Joshua, " I cannot comply with thy advice ; I 
 will remain here, even as thy prisoner, as thou didst but now 
 threaten, rather than leave the youth, who hath suffered by and 
 through me and my misfortunes, in his present state of doubtful 
 safety. ' Wherefore I will not mount my steed Solomon ; neither 
 
364 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 will I turn his head towards Mount Sharon, until I see an end of 
 this matter." 
 
 " A prisoner, then, you must be,'' said Redgauntlet. " I have no 
 time to dispute the matter farther with you. — But tell me for what 
 you fix your eyes so attentively on yonder people of mine ? " 
 
 " To speak the truth," said the Quaker, " I admire to behold 
 among them a little wretch of a boy called Benjie, to whom I think 
 Satan has given the power of transporting himself wheresoever mis- 
 chief is going forward ; so that it may be truly said, there is no evil 
 in this land wherein he hath not a finger, if not a whole, hand." 
 
 The boy, who saw their eyes fixed on him as they spoke, seemed 
 embarrassed, and rather desirous of making his escape ; but at a 
 signal from Redgauntlet he advanced, assuming the sheepish look 
 and rustic manner with which the jackanapes covered much acute- 
 ness and roguery. 
 
 " How long have you been with the party, sirrah? "said Red- 
 gauntlet. 
 
 " Since the raid on the stake-flets," said Benjie, with his finger in 
 his mouth. 
 
 " And what made you follow us ?" 
 
 " I dauredna stay at hame for the constables," replied the boy. 
 
 "And what have you been doing all this time?" 
 
 "Doing, sir?— I dinna ken what ye ca' doing — I have been doing 
 naething," said Benjie ; then seeing something in Redgauntlet's eye 
 which was not to be trifled with, he added, " Naething but waiting 
 on Maister Cristal Nixon." 
 
 "Hum! — ay — indeed?" muttered Redgauntlet. "Must Master 
 Nixon bring his own retinue into the field ? — This must be seen 
 to." 
 
 He was about to pursue his enquiry, when Nixon himself came 
 to him with looks of anxious haste. " The Father is come," he 
 whispered, " and the gentlemen are getting together in the largest 
 room of the house, and they desire to see you. Yonder is your 
 nephew, too, making a noise like a man in Bedlam." 
 
 " I will look to it all instantly," said Redgauntlet. "Is the Father 
 lodged as I directed?" 
 
 Cristal nodded. 
 
 " Now, then, for the final trial," said Redgauntlet. Refolded his 
 hands — looked upwards — crossed himself — and after this act of 
 devotion, (almost the first which any one had observed him make 
 use of,) he commanded Nixon to keep good watch — ^have his horses 
 and men ready for every emergence — look after the safe custody of 
 the prisoners — but treat them at the same time well and civilly. 
 And these orders given, he darted hastily into the house. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 365 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 NARRATIVE CONTINUED. 
 
 RedgAUNTLET's first course was to the chamber of his nephew. 
 He unlocked the door, entered the apartment, and asked what he 
 wanted, that he made so much noise. 
 
 " I want my liberty," said Darsie, who had wrought himself up 
 to a pitch of passion in which his uncle's wrath had lost its terrors. 
 " I desire my liberty, and to be assured of the safety of my beloved 
 friend, Alan Fairford, whose voice I heard but now." 
 
 "Your liberty shall be your own within half an hour from this 
 period — your friend shall be also set at freedom in due time — and 
 you yourself be permitted to have access to his place of confine- 
 ment." 
 
 " This does not satisfy me," said Darsie ; " I must see my friend 
 instantly ; he is here, and he is here endangered on my account 
 only— I have heard violent exclamations — the clash of swords. 
 You will gain no point with me unless I have ocular demonstra- 
 tion of his safety." 
 
 " Arthur — dearest nephew," answered Redgauntlet, " drive me 
 not mad ! Thine own fate— that of thy house — that of thousands — 
 that of Britain herself, are at this moment in the scales ; and you 
 are only occupied about the safety of a poor insignificant petti- 
 fogger!" 
 
 "He has sustained injury at your hands, then?" said Darsie, 
 fiercely. " I know he has ; but if so, not even our relationship 
 shall protect you." 
 
 " Peace, ungrateful and obstinate fool ! " said Redgauntlet. " Yet 
 stay — Will you be satisfied if you see this Alan Fairford, the bundle 
 of bombazine — this precious friend of yours — well and sound ? — 
 Will you, I say, be satisfied with seeing him in perfect safety, 
 without attempting to speak to or converse with him?" — Darsie 
 signified his assent. " Take hold of my arm, then," said Red- 
 gauntlet ; " and do you, niece Lilias, take the other ; and beware, 
 Sir Arthur, how you bear yourself." 
 
 Darsie was compelled to acquiesce, sufficiently aware that his 
 uncle would permit him no interview with a friend whose influence 
 would certainly be used against his present earnest wishes, and in 
 some measure contented with the assurance of Fairford's personal 
 safety. 
 
 Redgauntlet le»l them through one or two passages, (for the house, 
 
366 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 as we have before said, was very irregular, and Tauilt at different 
 times), until they entered an apartment, where a man with 
 shouldered carabine kept watch at the door, but readily turned the 
 key for their reception. In this room they found Alan Fairford and 
 the Quaker, apparently in deep conversation with each other. They 
 looked up as Redgauntlet and his party entered ; and Alan pulled 
 off his hat and made a profound reverence, which the young lady, 
 who recognised him, — though, masked as she was, he could not 
 know her, — returned with some embarrassment, arising probably 
 from the recollection of the bold step she had taken in visiting him. 
 
 Darsie longed to speak, but dared not. His uncle only said, 
 " Gentlemen, I know you are as anxious on Mr. Darsie Latimer's 
 account as he is upon yours. I am commissioned by him to 
 inform you, that he is as well as you are — I trust you will all 
 meet soon. Meantime, although I cannot suffer you to be at large, 
 you shall be as well treated as is possible under your* temporary 
 confinement." 
 
 He passed on, without pausing to hear the answers which the 
 lawyer and the Quaker were hastening to prefer ; and only waving 
 his hand by way of adieu, made his exit, with the real and the 
 seeming lady whom he had under his charge, through a door at 
 the upper end of the apartment, which was fastened and guarded 
 like that by which they entered. 
 
 Redgauntlet next led the way into a very small room ; adjoining 
 which, but divided by a partition, was one of apparently larger 
 dimensions ; for they heard the trampling of the heavy boots of the 
 period, as if several persons were walking to and fro, and convers- 
 ing in low and anxious whispers. 
 
 " Here," said Redgauntlet to his nephew, as he disencumbered 
 him from the riding-skirt and the mask, " I restore you to yourself, 
 and trust you will lay aside all effeminate thoughts with this 
 feminine dress. Do not blush at having worn a disguise to which 
 kings and heroes have been reduced. It is when female craft or 
 female cowardice find their way into a manly bosom, that he who 
 entertains these sentiments should take eternal shame to himself 
 for thus having resembled womankind. Follow me, while Lilias 
 remains here. I will introduce you to those whom I hope to see 
 associated with you in the most glorious cause that hand ever drew 
 sword in." 
 
 Darsie paused. " Uncle," he said, " my person is in your hands ; 
 but remember, my will is my own. I will not be hurried into any 
 resolution of importance. Remember what I have already said — 
 what I now repeat — that I will take no step of importance but 
 upon conviction." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 3^7 
 
 " But canst thou be convinced, thou foolish boy, without hearing 
 and understanding the grounds on which we act ? " 
 
 So saying, he took Darsie by the arm, and walked with him to 
 the next room— a large apartment, partly filled with miscellaneous 
 articles of commerce, chiefly connected with contraband trade; 
 where, among bales and barrels, sat, or walked to and fro, several 
 gentlemen, whose manners and looks seemed superior to the plain 
 riding-dresses which they wore. 
 
 There was a grave and stern anxiety upon their countenances, 
 when, on Redgauntlet's entrance, they drew from their separate 
 coteries into one group around him, and saluted him with a for- 
 mality, which had something in it of ominous melancholy. As 
 Darsie looked around the circle, he thought he could discern in it 
 few traces of that adventurous hope which urges men upon des- 
 perate enterprises ; and began to believe that the conspiracy would 
 dissolve of itself, without the necessity of his placing himself in 
 direct opposition to so violent a character as his uncle, and 
 incurring the hazard with which such opposition must needs be 
 attended. 
 
 Mr. Redgauntlet, however, did not, or would not, see any 
 such marks of depression of spirit amongst his coadjutors, but met 
 them with cheerful countenance, and a warm greeting of welcome. 
 " Happy to meet you here, my lord," he said, bowing low to a 
 slender young man. " I trust you come with the pledges of your 
 
 noble father, of B , and all that loyal house. — Sir Richard, what 
 
 news in the west ? I am told you had two hundred men on foot to 
 have joined when the fatal retreat from Derby was commenced. 
 When the White Standard is.again displayed, it shall not be turned 
 back so easily, either by the force of its enemies, or the falsehood 
 of its friends. — Doctor Grumball, I bow to the representative of 
 Oxford, the mother of learning and loyalty. — Pengwinion, you 
 Cornish chough, has this good wind blown you north ? — Ah, 
 my brave Cambro-Britons, when was Wales last in the race of 
 honour ! " 
 
 Such and such-like compliments he dealt around, which were in 
 general answered by silent bows ; but when he saluted one of his 
 own countrymen by the name of MacKellar, and greeted Maxwell 
 of Summertrees by that of Pate-in-Peril, the latter replied, " that 
 if Pate were not a fool, he would be Pate-in-Safety ;" and the 
 former, a thin old gentleman, in tarnished embroidery, said bluntly, 
 " Ay, troth, Redgauntlet, I am here just like yourself ; I have little 
 to lose— they that took my land the last time, may take my life 
 this ; and that is all I care about it." 
 
 The English gentlemen, who were still in possession of their 
 
368 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 paternal estates, looked doubtfully on each other, and there was 
 something whispered among them of the fox which had lost his 
 tail. 
 
 Redgauntlet hastened to address them. " I think, my lords and 
 gentlemen," he said, " that I can account for something like sadness 
 which has crept upon an assembly gathered together for so noble a 
 purpose. Our numbers seem, when thus assembled, too small and 
 inconsiderable to shake the firm-seated usurpation of a half century. 
 But do not count us by what we are in thewe and muscle, but by 
 what our summons can do among our countrymen. In this small 
 party are those who have power to raise battalions, and those who 
 have wealth to pay them. And do not believe our friends who are 
 absent are cold or indifferent to the cause. Let us once light the 
 signal, and it will be hailed by all who retain love for the Stewart, 
 and by all — a more numerous body — who hate the Elector. Here 
 I have letters from" 
 
 Sir Richard Glendale interrupted the speaker. " We all confide, 
 Redgauntlet, in your valour and skill — we admire your persever- 
 ance ; and probably nothing short of your strenuous exertions, and 
 the emulation awakened by your noble and disinterested conduct, 
 could have brought so many of us, the scattered remnant of a 
 disheartened party, to meet together once again in solemn consul- 
 tation ; — for I take it, gentlemen," he said, looking round, " this is 
 only a consultation." 
 
 " Nothing more,""said the young lord. 
 
 " Nothing more," said Doctor Grumball, shaking his large aca- 
 demical peruke. 
 
 And " Only a consultation," was echoed by the others. 
 
 Redgauntlet bit his lip. " I had hopes," he said, " that the dis- 
 courses I have held with most of you, from time to time, had 
 ripened into more maturity than your words imply, and that we 
 were here to execute as well as to deliberate ; and for this wc stand 
 prepared. I can raise five hundred men with my whistle." 
 
 " Five hundred men ! " said one of the Welsh squires, " Cot 
 bless us ! and, pray you, what cood five hundred men do ? " 
 
 "All that the priming does for the cannon, Mr. Meredith," 
 answered Redgauntlet ; " it will enable us to seize Carlisle, and 
 you know what our friends have engaged for in that case." 
 
 " Yes— but," said the young nobleman, " you must not hurry us 
 on too fast, Mr. Redgauntlet ; we are all, I believe, as sincere and 
 truehearted in this business as you are, but we will not be driven 
 forward blindfold. We owe caution to ourselves and our families, 
 as well as to those whom we are empowered to represent on this 
 occasion." 
 
REDGAUNTLET 369 
 
 " Who hurries you, my lord ?, Who is it that would drive this 
 meeting forward blindfold ? I do not understand your lordship," 
 said Redgauntlet, 
 
 " Nay," said Sir Richard Glendale, " at least do not let us fall 
 under our old reproach of disagreeing among ourselves. What my 
 lord means, Redgauntlet, is, that we have this morning heard it is 
 uncertain whether you could even bring that body of men whom 
 you count upon ; your countryman, Mr. MacKellar, seemed, just 
 before you came in, to doubt yiheiher your people would rise in any 
 force, unless you could produce the authority of your nephew." 
 
 " I might ask," said Redgauntlet, " what right MacKellar, or any 
 one, has to doubt my being able to accomplish what I stand 
 pledged for ? — But our hopes consist in our unity. — Here stands 
 my nephew. — Gentlemen, I present to you my kinsman, Sir Arthur 
 Darsie Redgauntlet of that Ilk." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Darsie, with a throbbing bosom, for he felt 
 the crisis a very painful one, " Allow me to say, that I suspend 
 expressing my sentiments on the important subject under discus- 
 sion, until I have heard those of the present meeting." 
 
 " Proceed in your deliberations, gentlemen," said Redgauntlet ; 
 " I will show my nephew such reasons for acquiescing in the result, 
 as will entirely remove any scruples which may hang around his 
 mind." 
 
 Dr. Grumball now coughed, " shook his ambrosial curls," and 
 addressed the assembly. 
 
 " The principles of Oxford," he said, " are well understood, since 
 she was the last to resign herself to the Arch-Usurper — since she 
 has condemned, by her sovereign authority, the blasphemous, 
 atheistical, and anarchical tenets of Locke, and other deluders 
 of the public mind. Oxford will give men, money, and counte- 
 nance, to the cause of the rightful monarch. But we have been 
 often deluded by foreign powers, who have availed themselves 
 of our zeal to stir up civil dissensions in Britain, not for the 
 advantage of our blessed though banished monarch, but to en- 
 gender disturbances by which they might profit, while we, their 
 tools, are sure to be ruined. Oxford, therefore, will not rise, 
 unless our Sovereign comes in person to claim our allegiance, 
 in which case, God forbid we should refuse him our best obedi- 
 ence." 
 
 " It is a very cood advice " said Mr. Meredith. 
 
 " In troth," said Richard Glendale, " it is the very keystone of 
 our enterprise, and the only condition upon which I myself and 
 others could ever have dreamt of taking up arms. No insurrection 
 which has not Charles Edward himself at its head, will ever last 
 
 B B 
 
370 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 longer than till a single fbot-company of redcoats march to 
 disperse it." 
 
 "This is my own opinion, and that of all my family,'' said the young 
 nobleman already mentioned ; " and I own I am somewhat sur- 
 prised at being summoned to attend a dangerous rendezvous such 
 as this, before something certain could have been stated to us on 
 this most important preliminary point." 
 
 " Pardon me, my lord," said Redgauntlet ; " I have not been 
 so unjust either to myself or my friends — I had no means of 
 communicating to our distant confederates (without the greatest 
 risk of discovery) what is known to some of my honourable 
 friends. As courageous, and as resolved, as when, twenty years 
 since, he threw himself into the wilds of Moidart, Charles Edward 
 has instantly complied with the wishes of his faithful subjects. 
 Charles Edward is in this country — Charles Edward is in this 
 house! — Charles Edward waits but your present decision, to 
 receive the homage of those who have ever called themselves his 
 loyal liegemen. He that would now turn his coat, and change 
 his note, must do so under the eye of his sovereign." 
 
 There, was a deep pause. Those among the conspirators whom 
 mere habit, or a desire of preserving consistency, had engaged 
 - in the affair, now saw with terror their retreat cut off ; and 
 others, who at a distance had- regarded the proposed enterprise 
 as hopeful, trembled when the moment of actually embarking in 
 it was thus unexpectedly and almost inevitably precipitated. 
 
 " How now, my lords and gentlemen ! " said Redgauntlet ; " Is 
 it delight and rapture that keep you thus silent? where are the 
 eager welcomes that should be paid your rightful King, who a 
 second time confides his person to the care of his subjects, un- 
 deterred by the hairbreadth escapes and severe privations of his 
 former expedition ? I hope there is no gentleman here that is 
 not ready to redeem, in his prince's presence, the pledge of 
 fidelity which he offered in his absence ? " 
 
 "I, at least," said the young nobleman, resolutely, and laying 
 his hand on his sword, " will not be that coward. If Chailes is 
 come to these shores, I will be the first to give him welcome 
 and to devote my life and fortune to his service." 
 
 " Before Cot," said Mr. Meredith, " I do not see that Mr. Red- 
 cantlet has left us any thing else to do." 
 
 " Stay," said Summertrees, " there is yet one other question. 
 Has he brought any of those Irish rapparees with him, who broke 
 the neck of our last glorious affair ? " 
 
 " Not a man of them," said Redgauntlet. 
 
 " I trust," said Dr. Grumball, " that there are no Catholic priests 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 37i 
 
 in his company? I would not intrude on the private conscience of 
 my Sovereign, but, as an unworthy son of the Church of England, 
 it is my duty to consider her security." 
 
 " Not a Popish dog or cat is there, to bark or mew about his 
 Majesty," said Redgauntlet. " Old Shaftesbury himself could not 
 wish a prince's person more secure from Popery — which may not 
 be the worst religion in the world, notwithstanding.— Any more 
 doubts, gentlemen ? can no more plausible reasons be discovered 
 for postponing the payment of our dutyj and discharge of our 
 oaths and engagements ? Meantime your King waits your decla- 
 ration — ^by my faith he hath but a frozen reception ! " 
 
 " Redgauntlet," said Sir Richard Glendale, calmly, " your re- 
 proaches shall not goad me into any thing of which my reason 
 disapproves. That I respect my engagement as much as you do, 
 is evident, since I am here, ready to support it with the best blood 
 in my veins. But has the King really come hither entirely un- 
 attended ? " 
 
 " He has no man with him but young , as aid-de-camp, and 
 
 a single valet-de-chambre." 
 
 " No man J — but, Redgauntlet, as you are a gentleman, has he 
 no woman with him ? " 
 
 Redgauntlet cast his eyes on the ground and replied, " I am 
 sorry to say — he has." 
 
 The company looked at each other, and remained silent for a 
 moment. At length Sir Richard proceeded. " I need not repeat 
 to you, Mr. Redgauntlet, what is the well-grounded opinion of his 
 Majesty's friends concerning that most unhappy connexion ; there 
 is but one sense and feeling amongst us upon the subject. I must 
 conclude that our humble remonstrances were communicated by 
 you, sir, to the King ? " 
 
 " In the same strong terms in which they were couched," replied 
 Redgauntlet. " I love his Majesty's cause more than I fear his 
 displeasure." 
 
 "But, apparently, our humble expostulation has produced no 
 effect. This lady, who has crept into his bosom, has a sister in 
 the Elector of Hanover's Court, and yet we are well assured that 
 every point of our most private communication is placed in her 
 keeping." 
 
 " Varium et mutabile semper femina'' said Dr. Grumball. 
 
 " She puts his secrets into her work-bag," said Maxwell ; " and 
 out they fly whenever she opens it. If I must hang, I would wish 
 it to be in somewhat a better rope than the string of a lady's hussey." 
 
 " Are you, too, turning dastard, Maxwell ? " said Redgauntlet, in 
 a whisper. 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " Not I," said Maxwell ; "let us fight for it, and let them win 
 and wear us ; but to be betrayed by a brimstone like that " 
 
 " Be temperate, gentlemen," said Redgauntlet ; " the foible of 
 which you complain so heavily has always been that of kings 
 and heroes ; which I feel strongly confident the King will sur- 
 mount, upon the humble entreaty of his best servants, and when 
 he sees them ready to peril their all in his cause, upon the 
 slight condition of his resigning the society of a female favourite, 
 of whom I have seen reason to think he hath been himself for 
 some time wearied. But let us not press upon him rashly with 
 our well-meant zeal. He has a princely will, as becomes his 
 princely birth, and we, gentlemen, who are royalists, should be 
 the last to take advantage of circumstances to limit its exercise. 
 I am as much surprised and hurt as you can be, to find that he 
 has made her the companion of this journey, increasing every 
 chance of treachery and detection. But do not let us insist upon 
 a sacrifice so humiliating, while he has scarce placed a foot upon 
 the beach of his kingdom. Let us a€t generously by our Sove- 
 reign ; and when we have shown what we will do for him, we shall 
 be able, with better face, to state what it is we expect him to 
 concede." 
 
 "Indeed, I think it is but a pity," said MacKellar, ," when so 
 many pretty gentlemen are got together, that they should part 
 without the flash of si sword among them." 
 
 "I should be of that gentleman's opinion," said Lord , 
 
 " had I nothing to lose but my life ; but I frankly own, that the 
 conditions on which our family agreed to join having been, in 
 this instance, left unfulfilled, I will not peril the whole fortunes 
 of our house on the doubtful fidelity of an artful woman." 
 
 " I am sorry to see your lordship," said Redgauntlet, " take a 
 course which is more likely to secure your house's wealth than to 
 augment its honours." 
 
 " How am I to understand your language, sir ? " said the young 
 nobleman, haughtily. 
 
 " Nay, gentlemen," said Dr. Grumball, interposing, "^do not let 
 friends quarrel ; we are all zealous for the cause— bu? truly, al- 
 though I know the license claimed by the great in sucfe matters, 
 and can, I hope, make due allowance, there is, I may say, an 
 indecorum in a prince who comes to claim the allegiance of the 
 Church of England, arriving on such an errand with such a com- 
 panion — si non casti, caiiti,tamen." 
 
 " I wonder how the Church of England came to be so heartily 
 attached to his merry old namesake," said Redgauntlet. 
 
 Sir Richard Glendale then took up the question, as one whose 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 373 
 
 authority and experience gave him right to speak with much 
 weight. 
 
 "We have no leisure for hesitation," he said; "it is full time 
 that we decide what course we are to hold. I feel as much as 
 you, Mr. Redgauntlet, the delicacy of capitulating with our Sove- 
 reign in his present condition. But I must also think of the total 
 ruin of the cause, the confiscation and bloodshed which will take 
 place among his adherents, and all through the infatuation with 
 which he adheres to a woman who is the pensionary of the present 
 minister, as she was for years Sir Robert Walpole's. Let his 
 Majesty send her back to the continent, and the sword on which I 
 now lay my hand shall instantly be unsheathed, and, I trust, many 
 hundred others at the same moment." 
 
 The other persons present testified their unanimous acquiescence 
 in what Sir Richard Glendale had said. 
 
 " I see you have taken your resolutions, gentlemen," said Red- 
 gauntlet ; " unwisely, I think, because I believe that, by softer and 
 more generous proceedings, you would have been more likely to 
 carry a point which I think as desirable as you do. But what is to 
 be done ,if Charles should refuse, with the inflexibility of his grand- 
 father, to comply with this request of yours ? Do you mean to 
 abandon him to his fate ? " 
 
 "God forbid!" said Sir Richard, hastily; "and God forgive 
 you, Mr. Redgauntlet, for breathing such a thought. No ! I for 
 one will, with all duty and humility, see him safe back to his 
 vessel, and defend him with my life against whoever shall assail 
 him. But when I have seen his sails spread my next act will be to 
 secure, if I can, my own safety, by retiring to my house ; or, if I 
 find our engagement, as is too probable, has taken windj by 
 surrendering myself to the next Justice of Peace, and giving se- 
 curity that hereafter I shall live quiet, and submit to the ruling 
 powers." 
 
 Again the rest of the persons present intimated their agreement 
 in opinion with the speaker. 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," said Redgauntlet, "it is not for me to 
 oppose the opinion of every one ; and I must do you the justice 
 to say, that the King has, in the present instance, neglected a 
 condition of your agreement, which was laid before him in very 
 distinct terms. The question now is, who is to acquaint him with 
 the result of this conference ? for I presume you would not wait on 
 him in a body to make the proposal, that he should dismiss a 
 person from his family as the price of your allegiance." 
 
 " I think Mr. Redgauntlet should make the explanation," said 
 Lord . "As he has, doubtless, done justice to our remon- 
 
374 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Stances by communicating them to the King, no one can, with 
 such propriety and force, state the natural and inevitable conse-' 
 quence of their being neglected." 
 
 "Now, I think," said Redgauntlet, "that those who make the 
 objection should state it ; for I am confident the King will hardly 
 beheve, on less authority than that of the heir of the loyal House 
 
 of B , that he is the first to seek an evasion of his pledge to join 
 
 him." 
 
 "An evasion, sir!"' repeated Lord , fiercely. "I have 
 
 borne too ihuch from you already, and this I will not endure. 
 Favour me with your company to the downs yonder." 
 
 Redgauntlet laughed scornfully, and was about to follow the 
 fiery young man, when Sir Richard again interposed. "Are we 
 to exhibit," he said, " the last symptoms of the dissolutioa of our 
 party, by turning our swords against each other? — Be patient. 
 
 Lord ; in such conferences as this,much must pass unquestioned 
 
 which might brook challenge elsewhere. There is a privilege of 
 party as of parliament — men cannot, in emergency, stand upon 
 picking phrases. — Gentlemen, if you will extend your confidence in 
 
 me so far, I will wait upon his Majesty, and I hope my Lord 
 
 and Mr. Redgauntlet will accompany me. I trust the explanation 
 of this unpleasant matter will prove entirely satisfactory, and that 
 we shall find ourselves at liberty to render our homage to our 
 Sovereign without reserve, when I for one will be the first to peril 
 all in his just quarrel." 
 
 Redgauntlet at once stepped forward. " My lord," he said, " if 
 my zeal made me say any thing in the slightest degree offensive, I 
 wish it unsaid, and ask your pardon. A gentleman can do no more." 
 
 " I could not have asked Mr. Redgauntlet to do so much," said 
 the young nobleman, willingly accepting the hand which Red- 
 gauntlet offered. " I know no man living from whom I could 
 take so much reproof without a sense of degradation as from 
 himself." 
 
 " Let me then, hope, my lord, that you will go with Sir Richard 
 and me to the presence. Your warm blood will heat our zeal — 
 our colder resolves will temper yours." 
 
 The young lord smiled, and shook his head. " Alas ! Mr. Red- 
 gauntlet," he said, " I am ashamed to say, that in zeal you surpass 
 us all. But I will not refuse this mission, provided you will permit 
 Sir Arthur, your nephew, also to accompany us." 
 
 " My nephew ? " said Redgauntlet, and seemed to hesitate, then 
 added, " Most certainly. — I trust," he said, looking at Darsie, "he 
 will bring to his Prince's presence such sentiments as fit the occa- 
 sion," 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 375 
 
 It seemed hbwever to Darsie, that his uncle would rather have 
 left him behind, had he not feared that he might in that case have 
 been influenced by, or might perhaps himself influence, the unre- 
 solved confederates with whom he must have associated during his 
 absence. 
 
 " I will go,'' said Redgauntlet, " and request admission." 
 
 In a moment after he returned, and without speaking, motioned 
 for the young nobleman to advance. He did so, followed by Sir 
 Richard Glendale and Darsie, Redgauntlet himself bringing up 
 the rear. A short passage and a few steps brought them to the 
 door of the temporary presence-chamber, in which the Royal 
 Wanderer was to receive their homage. It was the upper loft of 
 one of those cottages which made additions to the Old Inn, 
 poorly furnished, dusty, and in disorder ; for rash as the enter- 
 prise might be considered, they had been still careful not to 
 draw the attention of strangers by any particular attentions to 
 the personal accommodation of the Prince. He was seated, 
 when the deputies, as they might be termed, of his remaining 
 adherents, entered ; and as he rose, and came forward and 
 bowed in acceptance of their salutation, it was with a dignified 
 courtesy which at once supplied whatever was deficient in external 
 pomp, and converted the wretched garret into a saloon worthy of 
 the occasion. 
 
 It is needless to add, that he was the same personage already 
 introduced in the character of Father Buonaventure, by which 
 name he was distinguished at Fairladies. His dress was not 
 different from what he then wore, excepting that he had a loose 
 riding-coat of camlet, under which he carried an efficient cut-and- 
 thrust sword, instead of his walking rapier, and also a pair of 
 pistols. 
 
 Redgauntlet presented to him successively the young Lord , 
 
 and his kinsman, Sir Arthur Darsie Redgauntlet, who trembled as, 
 bowing and kissing his hand, he found himself surprised into what 
 might be construed an act of high treason, which yet he saw no 
 safe means to avoid. 
 
 Sir Richard Glendale seemed personally known to Charles 
 Edward, who received him with a mixture of dignity and affection, 
 and seemed to sympathise with the tears which rushed into that 
 gentleman's eyes as he bid his Majesty welcome to his native 
 kingdom. 
 
 " Yes, my good Sir Richard," said the unfortunate Prince, in a 
 tone melancholy, yet resolved, " Charles Edward is with his faithful 
 friends once more — not, perhaps, with his former gay hopes which 
 undervalued danger, but with the same determined contempt of 
 
375 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 the worst which can befall him, in claiming his own rights and 
 those of his country." 
 
 " I rejoice, sire — and yet, alas ! I must also grieve, to see you 
 once more on the British shores," said Sir Richard Glendale, and 
 stopped short — a tumult of contradictory feelings preventing his 
 farther utterance. 
 
 " It is the call of my faithful and suffering people which alone 
 could have induced me to take once more the sword in my hand. 
 For my own part, Sir Richard, when I have reflected how many 
 of my loyal and devoted friends perished by the sword and by 
 proscription, or died indigent and neglected in a foreign land, I have 
 often sworn that no view to my personal aggrandizement should 
 again induce me to agitate a title which has cost my followers so 
 dear. But since so many men of worth and honour conceive the 
 cause of England and Scotland to be linked with that of Charles 
 Stewart, I must follow their brave example, and, laying aside all 
 other considerations, once more stand forward as their deliverer. 
 I am, however, come hither upon your invitation ; and as you are 
 so completely acquainted with circumstances to which, my absence 
 must necessarily have rendered me a stranger, I must be a mere 
 tool in the hands of my friends. I know well I never can refer 
 myself implicitly to more loyal hearts or wiser heads, than Herries 
 Redgauntlet, and Sir Richard Glendale. Give me your advice, 
 then, how we are to proceed, and decide upon the fate of Charles 
 Edward." 
 
 Redgauntlet looked at Sir Richard, as if to say, " Can you press 
 an additional or unpleasant condition at a moment like this .' " 
 And the other shook his head and looked down, as if his resolu- 
 tion was unaltered, and yet as feeling £ill the delicacy of the 
 situation. 
 
 There was a silence, which was broken by the unfortunate 
 representative of an unhappy dynasty, with some appearance of 
 irritation. " This is strange, gentlemen," he said ; " you have sent 
 for me from the bosom of my family, to head an adventure of 
 doubt and danger j and when I come, your own minds seem to be 
 still irresolute, I had not expected this on the part of two §uch 
 men." 
 
 " For me, sire," said Redgauntlet, " the steel of my sword is not 
 tru6r than the temper of my mind." 
 
 " My Lord ^"s and mine are equally so," said Sir Richard ; 
 
 " but you had in charge, Mr. Redgauntlet, to convey our request to 
 his Majesty, coupled with certain conditions." 
 
 " And I discharged my duty to his Majesty and to you," said 
 Redgauntlet. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 377 
 
 " I looked at no condition, gentlemen," said their King, with 
 dignity, " save that which called me here to assert my rights in 
 person. That I have fulfilled at no common risk. Here I stand 
 to keep my word, and I expect of you to be true to yours." 
 
 '? There was, or should have been, something more than that in 
 our proposal, please your Majesty," said Sir Richard. " There was 
 a condition annexed to it." 
 
 " I saw it not," said Charles, interrupting him. " Out of tender- 
 ness towards the noble hearts of whom I think so highly, I would 
 neither see nor read any thing which could lessen them in my love 
 and my esteem. Conditions can have no "art betwixt Prince and 
 subject." 
 
 " Sire,'' said Redgauntlet, kneeling on one knee, " I see from Sir 
 Richard's countenance he deems it my fault that your Majesty 
 seems ignorant of what your subjects desired that I should com- 
 municate to your Majesty. For Heaven's sake ! for the sake of 
 all my past services and sufferings, leave not such a stain upon 
 my honour ! The note, Number D., of which this is a copy, referred 
 to the painful subject to which Sir Richard again directs your 
 attention." 
 
 "You press upon me, gentlemen," said the Prince, colouring 
 highly, " recollections, which, as I hold them most alien to your 
 character, I would willingly have banished from my memory. I 
 did not suppose that my loyal subjects would think so poorly of 
 me, as to use my depressed circumstances as a reason for forcing 
 themselves into my domestic privacies, and stipulating arrange- 
 ments with their King regarding matters, in which the meanest 
 hinds claim the privilege of thinking for themselves. In affairs of 
 state and public policy, I will ever be guided as becomes a prince, 
 by the advice of my wisest counsellors ; in those which regard my 
 private affections, and my domestic arrangements, I claim the same 
 freedom of will which I allow to all my subjects, and without which 
 a crown were less worth wearing than a beggar's bonnet." 
 
 " May it please your Majesty," said Sir Richard Glendale, " I 
 see it must be my lot to speak unwilling truths ; but believe me, I 
 do so with as much profound respect as deep regret. It is true, we 
 have called you to head a mighty undertaking, and that your 
 Majesty, preferring honour to safety, and the love of your country to 
 your own ease, has condescended to become our leader. But we 
 also pointed out as a necessary and indispensable preparatory step 
 to the achievement of our purpose — and, I must say, as a positive 
 condition of our engaging in it — that an individual, supposed, — I 
 presume not to guess how truly, — to have your Majesty's more 
 intimate confidence, and believed, I will not say on absolute proof, 
 
378 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 but upon the most pregnant suspicion, to be capable of betraying 
 that confidence to the Elector of Hanover, should be removed from 
 your royal household and society." 
 
 " This is too insolent. Sir Richard ! " said Charles Edward. 
 " Have you inveigled me into your power to bait me in this un- 
 seemly manner ? — And you, Redgauntlet, why did you suffer matters 
 to come to such a point as this, without making me more distinctly 
 aware what insults were to be practised on me ? " 
 
 "My gracious Prince," said Redgauntlet, " I am so far to blame 
 in this, that I did not think so slight an impediment as that of a 
 woman's society could have really interrupted an undertaking of 
 this magnitude. I am a plain man, sire, and speak but bluntly ; 
 I could not have dreamt but what, within the first five minutes of 
 this interview, either Sir Richard and his friends would have ceased 
 to insist upon a condition so ungrateful to your Majesty, or that 
 your Majesty would have sacrificed this unhappy attachment to the 
 sound advice, or even to the over-anxious suspicions, of so many 
 faithful subjects. I saw no entanglement in such a difficulty, which 
 on either side might not have been broken through like a cobweb." 
 
 " You were mistaken, sir," said Charles Edward, " entirely mis- 
 taken — as much so as you are at this moment, when you think in 
 your heart my refusal to comply with this insolent proposition is 
 dictated by a childish and romantic passion for an individual. I 
 ,tell you, sir, I could part with that person to-morrow, "without an 
 instant's regret — that I have had thoughts of dismissing her from 
 my court, for reasons known to myself ; but that I will never betray 
 my rights as a sovereign and a man, by taking this step to secure 
 the favour of any one, or to purchase that allegiance, which, if you 
 owe it to me at all, is due to me as my birthright." 
 
 " I am sorry for this," said Redgauntlet ; " I hope both your 
 Majesty and Sir Richard will reconsider your resolutions, or forbear 
 this discussion in a conjuncture so pressing. I trust your Majesty 
 will recollect that you are on hostile ground ; that our preparations 
 cannot have so far escaped notice as to permit us now with safety to 
 retreat from our purpose ; insomuch, that it is with the deepest 
 anxiety of heart I foresee even danger to your own royal person, 
 unless you can generously give your subjects the satisfaction, 
 which Sir Richard seems to think they are obstinate in de- 
 manding.'' 
 
 " And deep indeed your anxiety ought to be," said the Prince. 
 " Is it in these circumstances of personal danger in which you 
 expect to overcome a resolution, which is founded on a sense of 
 what is due to me as a man or a prince ? If the axe and scaffold 
 were ready before the windows of Whitehall, I would rather tread 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 379 
 
 the same path with my great-grandfather, than concede the 
 slightest point in which my honour is concerned." 
 
 He spoke these words with a determined accent, and looked 
 around him on the company, all of whom (excepting Darsie, who 
 saw, he thought, a fair period to a most perilous enterprise) seemed 
 in deep anxiety and confusion. At length, Sir Richard spoke in a 
 solemn and melancholy tone. 
 
 " If the safety," he said, " of poor Richard Glendale were alone 
 concerned in this matter, I have never valued my life enough to 
 weigh it against the slightest point of your Majesty's service. But 
 I am only a messenger — a commissioner, who must execute my 
 trust, and upon whom a thousand voices will cry Curse and woe, if 
 I do it not with fidelity. All of your adherents, even Redgauntlet 
 himself, see certain ruin to this enterprise — the greatest danger to 
 your Majesty's person — the utter destruction of all your party and 
 friends, if they insist not on. the point, which, unfortunately, your 
 Majesty is so unwilling to concede. I speak it with a heart full of 
 anguish — with a tongue unable to utter my emotions — but it must 
 be spoken — the fatal truth — that if your royal goodness cannot 
 yield to us a boon which we hold necessary to our security and 
 your own, your Majesty with one word disarms ten thousand men, 
 ready to draw their swords in your behalf; or, to speak yet more 
 plainly, you annihilate even the semblance of a royal party in Great 
 Britain." 
 
 " And why do you not add," said the Prince, scornfully, " that 
 the men who have been ready to assume arms in my behalf, will 
 atone for their treason to the Elector, by delivering me up to the 
 fate for which so many proclamations have destined me .■' Carry 
 my head to St. James's, gentlemen ; you will do a more acceptable 
 and a more honourable action, than, having inveigled me into a 
 situation which places me so completely in your power, to dis- 
 honour yourselves by propositions which dishonour me." 
 
 " My God, sire ! " exclaimed Sir Richard, clasping his hands 
 together, in impatience, " of what great and inexpiable crime can 
 your Majesty's ancestors have been guilty, that they have been 
 punished by the infliction of judicial blindness, on their whole 
 generation ! — Come, my Lord , we must to our friends." 
 
 " By your leave. Sir Richard," said the young nobleman, " not 
 till we have learned what measures can be taken for his Majesty's 
 personal safety." 
 
 " Care not for me, young man," said Charles Edward ; " when I 
 was in the society of Highland robbers and cattle-drovers, I was 
 safer than I now hold myself among the representatives of the best 
 blood in England. — Farewell, gentlemen — I will shift for myself." 
 
38o REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " This must never be," said Redgauntlet. " Let me that brought 
 you to the point of danger, at least provide for your safe retreat." 
 
 So saying, he hastily left the apartment, followed by his nephew. 
 
 The Wanderer, averting his eyes from Lord and Sir Richard 
 
 Glendale, threw himself into a seat at the upper end of the apart- 
 ment, while they, in much anxiety, stood together at a distance 
 from him, and conversed in whispers. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 NARRATIVE CONTINUED. 
 
 When Redgauntlet left the room, in haste and discomposure, 
 the first person he met on the stair, and indeed so close by the 
 door of the apartment that Darsie thought he must have been 
 listening there, was his attendant Nixon. 
 
 " What the devil do you here ? " he said, abruptly and sternly. 
 
 " I wait your orders," said Nixon. " I hope all's right ? — excuse 
 my zeal." ' '^ 
 
 " All is wrong, sir — Where is the seafaring fellow — Ewart — what 
 do you call him ? " 
 
 " Nanty Ewart, sir — I will carry your commands," said Nixon. 
 
 " I wUl deliver them myself to him," said Redgauntlet : " call 
 him hither." 
 
 " But should your honour leave the presence ? " said Nixon, still 
 lingering." 
 
 " 'Sdeath, sir, do you p^ate to me ? " said Redgauntlet, bending 
 his brows. " I, sir, transact my own business ; you, I am told, act 
 by a ragged deputy." 
 
 Without farther answer, Nixon departed, rather disconcerted, as 
 it seemed to Darsie. 
 
 " That dog turns insolent and lazy," said Redgauntlet ; " but I 
 must bear with him for a while." 
 
 A moment after, Nixon returned with Ewart. 
 
 " Is this the smuggUng fellow ?" demanded Redgauntlet. 
 
 Nixon nodded. 
 
 " Is he sober now ? — he was brawling anon." 
 
 " Sober enough for business," said Nixon. 
 
 "Well, then, hark ye, Ewart— man your boat with your best 
 hands, and have her by the pier — get your other fellows on board 
 the brig— if you have any cargo left, throw it overboard ; it shall be 
 
REDGAUNTI:ET. 381 
 
 all paid, five times over— and be ready for a start to Wales or the 
 Hebrides, or perhaps for Sweden or Norway." 
 
 Ewart answered sullenly enough, " Ay, ay, sir." 
 
 " Go with him, Nixon," said Redgauntlet, forcing himself to speak 
 with some appearance of cordiality to the servant with whom he 
 was offended ; " see he does his duty." 
 
 Ewart left the house sullenly, followed by Nixon. The sailor 
 was just in that species of drunken humour which made him jealous, 
 passionate, and troublesome, without showing any other disorder 
 than that of irritability. As he walked towards the beach he kept 
 muttering to himself, but in such a tone that his companion lost not 
 a word, " Smuggling fellow — Ay, smuggler — and, start your cargo 
 into the sea — and be ready to start for the Hebrides, or Sweden— 
 or the devil, I suppose. — Well, and what if I said in answer — Rebel, 
 Jacobite — traitor — I'll make you and your d — d confederates walk 
 the plank — I have seen better men do it — half-a-score of a morning 
 ■ — when I was across the Line." 
 
 " D — d unhandsome terms thos" Redgauntlet used to you, 
 brother," said Nixon. 
 
 " Which do you mean," said Ewart, starting, and recollecting 
 himself. " I have been at my old trade of thinking aloud, have I ? " 
 
 " No matter," answered Nixon, " none but a friend heard you. 
 You cannot have forgotten how Redgauntlet disarmed you this 
 morning?" 
 
 " Why, I would bear no malice about that — only he is so cursedly 
 high and saucy," said Ewart. 
 
 "And then," said Nixon, "I know you for a truehearted 
 Protestant." 
 
 "That I am, by G— ," said Ewart. " No, the Spaniards could 
 never get my religion from me." 
 
 " And a friend to King George, and the Hanover line of succes- 
 sion," said Nixon, still walking and speaking very slow. 
 
 " You may swear I am, excepting in the way of business, as 
 Turnpenny says. I like King George, but I can't afford to pay 
 duties." 
 
 "You are outlawed, I believe ? " said Nixon. 
 
 "Am I ? — faith, I believe I am," said Ewart. " I wish I were 
 inlawed again with all my heart — But come along, we must get all 
 ready for our peremptory gentleman, I suppose." 
 
 " I will teach you a better trick," said Nixon. " There is a 
 bloody pack of rebels yonder." 
 
 " Ay, we all know that," said the smuggler ; " but the snowball's 
 melting, I think." 
 
 " There is some one yonder, whose head is worth— thirty — 
 
382 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 thousand — pounds — of sterling money," said Nixon, pausing 
 between each word, as if to enforce the magnificence of the 
 sum. 
 
 " And what of that ? " said Ewart, quickly. 
 
 " Only that if, instead of lying by the pier with your men on 
 their oars, if you will just carry your boat on board just now, and 
 take no notice of any signal from the shore, by G — d, Nanty Ewart, 
 I will iriakea man of you for life ! " 
 
 " Oh, ho ! then the Jacobite gentry are not so safe as they think 
 themselves ? " said Nanty. 
 
 " In an hour or two," replied Nixon, " they will be made safer in 
 Carlisle Castle." 
 
 " The devil they will ! " said Ewart ; " and you have been the 
 informer, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I have been ill paid for my service among the Red- 
 gauntlets — have scarce got dog's wages — and been treated worse 
 than ever dog was used. I have the old fox and his cubs in the 
 same trap now, Nanty ; and we'll see how a certain young lady 
 will look then. You see I am frank with you, Nanty." 
 
 ",And I will be as frank with you," said the smuggler. "You 
 are a d — d old scoundrel — traitor to the man whose bread you eat ! 
 Me help to betray poor devils, that have been so often betrayed 
 myself! — Not if they were a hundred Popes, Devils, and Pre- 
 tenders. I will back and tell them their danger — they are part of 
 cargo — regularly invoiced — put under my charge by the owners — 
 I'll back " 
 
 "You are not stark mad?" said Nixon, who now saw he had 
 miscalculated in supposing Narit/s wild ideas of honour and 
 fidelity could be shaken even by resentment, or by his Protestant 
 partialities. " You shall not go back — it is all a joke." ■ ' 
 
 " I'll back to Redgauntlet, and see whether it is a joke he will 
 laugh at." 
 
 " My life is lost if you do,'' said Nixon—" hear reason.'' 
 
 They were in a clump or cluster of tall furze at the moment 
 they were speaking, about half way between the pier and the 
 house, but not in a direct line, from which Nixon, whose object it 
 was to gain time, had induced Ewart to diverge insensibly. 
 
 He now saw the necessity of taking a desperate resolution. 
 " Hear reason," he said ; and added, as Nanty still endeavoured 
 to pass him, " Or else hear this ! " discharging-a pocket-pistol into 
 the unfortunate man's body. 
 
 Nanty staggered, but kept his feet. " It has cut' my back-bone 
 asunder," he said ; " you have done me the last good office, and I 
 will not die ungrateful." 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 383 
 
 As he uttered the last words, he collected his remaining strength, 
 stood firm for an instant, drew his hanger, and fetching a stroke 
 with both hands, cut Cristal Nixon down. The blow, struck with 
 all the energy of a desperate and dying man, exhibited a force to 
 which Ewart's exhausted frame might have seemed inadequate ; — 
 it cleft the hat which the wretch wore, though secured by a plate of 
 iron within the lining, bit deep into his skull, and there left 
 a fragment of the weapon, which was broke by the fury of the 
 blow. 
 
 One of the seamen of the lugger, who strolled up, attracted by 
 the firing of the pistol, though, being a small one, the report was 
 very trifling, found both the unfortunate men stark dead. Alarmed 
 at what he saw, which he conceived to have been the consequence 
 of some unsuccessful fengagement betwixt his late commander and 
 a revenue officer, (for Nixon chanced not to be personally known 
 to him,) the sailor hastened back to the boat, in order to apprize 
 his comrades of Nanty's fate, and to advise them to take off them- 
 selves and the vessel. 
 
 Meantime Redgauntlet, having, as we have seen, dispatched 
 Nixon for the purpose of securing a retreat for the unfortunate 
 Charles in case of extremity, returned to the apartment where he 
 had left the Wanderer. He now found him alone. 
 
 " Sir Richard Glendale," said the unfortunate Prince, " with his 
 young friend, has gone to consult their adherents now in the house. 
 Redgauntlet, my friend, I will not blame you for the circumstances 
 in which I find myself, though I am at once placed in danger, and 
 rendered contemptible. But you ought to have stated to me more 
 strongly the weight which these gentlemen attached to their inso- 
 lent proposition. You should have told me that no compromise 
 would have any effect — that they desired, not a Prince to govern 
 them, but one, on the contrary, over whom they were to exercise 
 restraint on all occasions, from the highest affairs of the state, 
 down to the most intimate and closest concerns of his own privacy, 
 which the most ordinary men desire to keep secret, and sacred 
 from interference." 
 
 " God knows," said Redgauntlet, in much agitation, " I acted for 
 the best when I pressed your Majesty to come hither — I never 
 thought that your Majesty, at such a crisis, would have scrupled, 
 when a kingdom was in view, to sacrifice an attachment, 
 which " 
 
 " Peace, sir ! " said Charles ; " it is not for you to estimate my 
 feelings upon such a subject." 
 
 Redgauntlet coloured high, and bowed profoundly. " At least," 
 he resumed, " I hoped that some middle way might be found, and 
 
384 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 it shall — and must — Come with me, nephew. We will to these 
 gentlemen, and I am confident I shall bring back heart-stirring 
 tidings." 
 
 " I will do much to comply with them, Redgauntlet. I am loath, 
 having again set my foot on British land, to quit it without a blow 
 for my right. But this which they demand of me is a degradation, 
 and Compliance is impossible." 
 
 Redgauntlet, followed by his nephew, the unwilling spectator of 
 this extraordinary scene, left once more the apartment of the 
 adventurous Wanderer, and was met on the top of the stairs by 
 Joe Crackenthorp. " Where are the other gentlemen ? " he said. 
 
 " Yonder, in the west barrack," answered Joe ; " but, Master 
 Ingoldsby," — that was the name by which Redgauntlet was most 
 generally known in Cumberland, — " I wished to say to you that I 
 must put yonder folk together in one room." 
 " What folk?" said Redgauntlet, impatiently. 
 " Why, them prisoner stranger folk, as you bid Cristal Nixon 
 look after. Lord love you ! this is a large house enow, but we 
 cannot have separate lock-ups for folk, as they have in Newgate or 
 in Bedlam. Yonder's a mad beggar, that is to be a great man 
 when he ■^ins a lawsuit. Lord help him ! — Yonder's a Quaker and. 
 a lawyer charged with a riot ; and, ecod, I must make one key and 
 one lock keep them, for we are chokeful, and you have sent off old 
 Nixon, that could have given one some help in this confusion. 
 Besides, they take up every one a room, and call for noughts on 
 earth, — excepting the old man, who calls lustily enough, — but he 
 has not a penny to pay shot. 
 
 " Do as thou wilt with them," said Redgauntlet, who had listened 
 impatiently to his statement ; " so thou dost but keep them from 
 getting out and making some alarm in the country, I care not." 
 
 " A Quaker and a lawyer ! " said Darsie. " This must be Fair- 
 ford and Geddes. — Uncle, I must request of you " 
 
 " N ay, nephew,'' interrupted Redgauntlet, " this is no time for 
 asking questions. You shall yourself decide upon their fate in the 
 course of an hour — no harm whatever is designed them." 
 
 So saying, he hurried towards the place where the Jacobite gen- 
 tlemen were holding their council, and Darsie followed him, in the 
 hope that the obstacle which had arisen to the prosecution of their 
 desperate adventure would prove unsurmountable, and spare him 
 the necessity of a dangerous and violent rupture with his uncle. 
 The discussions among them were very eager ; the more daring 
 part of the conspirators, who had little but life to lose, .being 
 desirous to proceed at all hazards ; while the others, whom a sense 
 of honour and a hesitation to disavow long-cherished principles 
 
RKDGAUNTLET. 383 
 
 had brought forward, were perhaps not ill satisfied to have a fair 
 apology for declining an adventure, into which they had entered 
 with more of reluctance than zeal. 
 
 Meanwhile Joe Crackenthorp, availing himself of the liasty per- 
 mission attained from Redgauntlet, proceeded to assemble in one 
 apartment those whose safe custody had been thought necessary ; 
 and without much considering the propriety of the matter,he selected 
 for the common place of confinement, the room which Lilias had 
 since her brother's departure occupied alone. It had a strong lock, 
 and was double-hinged, which probably led to the preference 
 assigned to it as a place of security. 
 
 Into this Joe, with little ceremony, and a good deal of noise, in- 
 troduced the Quaker and Fairford ; the first descanting on the 
 immorality, the other on the illegality, of his, proceeding ; and he 
 turning a deaf ear both to the one and the other. Next he pushed 
 in, almost in headlong fashion, the unfortunate litigant, who having 
 made some resistance at the threshold, had received a violent thrust 
 in consequence, and came rushing forward, like a ram in the act 
 of charging, with such impetus, as must have carried him to the 
 top of the a 00m, and struck he cocked hat which sat perched on 
 the top of his tow wig against Miss Redgauntlet's person, had not 
 the honest Quaker interrupted his career by seizing him by the 
 collar, and bringing him to a stand. " Friend," said he, with the 
 real good-breeding which so often subsists. independently of cere- 
 monial, " thou art no company for that young person ; she is, thou 
 seest, frightened at our being so suddenly thrust in hither ; and 
 although that be no fault of ours, yet it will become us to behave 
 civilly towards, her. Wherefore come thou with me to this window, 
 and I will tell thee what it concerns thee to know." 
 
 " And what for should I no speak to the leddy, friend ? " said 
 Peter, who was now about half seas over. " I have spoke to leddies 
 before now, man — What for should she be frightened at me ? — I am 
 nae bogle, I ween. — What are ye pooin' me that gate for ? — Ye will 
 rive my coat, and I will have a good action for having myself made 
 sarftim atque tectum at your expenses." 
 
 Notwithstanding this threat, Mr. Geddes, whose muscles were as 
 strong as his judgment was sound and his temper sedate, led Poor 
 Peter, under the sense of a control against which he could not 
 struggle, to the farther corner of the apartment, where, placing 
 him, whether he would or no, in. a chair, he sat down beside him, 
 and effectually prevented his annoying the young lady, upon whom 
 he had seemed bent on 'conferring the delights of his society. 
 
 If Peter had immediately recognised his counsel learned in the 
 law, it is probable that not even the benevolent efforts of the 
 
 c c 
 
386 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Quaker could have kept him in a state of restraint ; but Fairford's 
 back was turned towards his client, whose optics, besides being 
 somewhat dazzled with ale and brandy, were speedily engaged in 
 contemplating a half-crown which Joshua held between his finger 
 and his thumb, saying, at the same time, " Friend, thou art indi- 
 gent and improvident. This will, well employed, procure thee 
 sustentation of nature for more than a single day ; and I will bestow 
 it on thee if thou wilt sit here and keep me company ; for neither 
 thou nor I, friend, are fit company for ladies." 
 
 " Speak for yourself, friend," said Peter, scornfully ; " I was aye 
 kend to be agreeable to the fair sex ; and when I was in business I 
 served the leddies wi' anither sort of decorum than Plainstanes, the 
 d — d awkward scoundrel ! It was one of the articles of dittay 
 between us." 
 
 " Well, but, friend," said the Quaker, who observed that the 
 young lady still seemed to fear Peter's intrusion, " I wish to hear 
 thee speak about this great lawsuit of thine, which has been matter 
 of such celebrity." 
 
 " Celebrity? — Ye may swear that," said Peter, for the string was 
 touched to which his crazy imagination always vibrated. " And I 
 dinna wonder that folk that judge things by their outward grandeur, 
 should think me something worth their envying. It's very true 
 that it is grandeur upon earth to hear ane's name thunnered out 
 along the long-arched roof of the Outer-House, — '■Poor Peter 
 Peebles against Plainstanes, et per contra j ' a' the best lawyers in 
 the house fleeing like eagles to the prey ; some because they are in 
 the cause, and some because they want to be thought engaged (for 
 there are tricks in other trades by selling muslins) — to see the 
 reporters mending their pens to take down the debate — the Lords 
 themselves pooin' in their chairs, like folk sitting down to a gude 
 dinner, and crying on the clerks for parts and pendicles of the 
 process, who, puir bodies, can do little mair than cry on their 
 closet-keepers to help them. To see a' this," continued Peter, in a 
 tone of sustained rapture, " and to ken that naething will be said 
 or dune amang a' thae grand folk, for maybe the feck of three 
 hours, saving what concerns you and your business — O, man, nae 
 wonder that ye judge this to be earthly glory ! — And yet, neigh- 
 bour, as I was saying, there be unco drawbacks — I whiles think of 
 my bit house, where dinner, and supper, and breakfast, used to 
 come without the crying for, just as if fairies had brought it — and 
 the gude bed at e'en — and the needfu' penny in the pouch. — And 
 then to see a' ane's warldly substance capering in the air in a pair 
 of weigh-bauks, now up, now down, as the breath of judge or 
 counsel inclines it for pursuer or defender, — troth, man, there' are 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 387 
 
 times I rue having ever begun the plea wark, though, maybe, when 
 ye consider the renown and credit I have by it, ye will hardly 
 believe what I am saying." 
 
 " Indeed, friend," said Joshua, with a sigh, " I am glad thou hast 
 found any thing in the legal contention which compensates thee for 
 poverty and hunger ; but I believe, were other human objects of 
 ambition looked upon as closely, their advantages would be found 
 as chimerical as those attending thy protracted litigation." 
 
 "But never mind, friend," said Peter, " I'll tell you the exact 
 state of the conjunct processes, and make you sensible that I can 
 bring mysell round with a wet finger, now I have my finger and my 
 thumb on this loup-the-dike loon, the lad Fairford." 
 
 Alan Fairford was in the act of speaking to the masked lady, (for 
 Miss Redgauntlet had retained her riding vizard,) endeavouring to 
 assure her, as he perceived her anxiety, of such protection as he 
 could afford, when his own name, pronounced in a loud tone, 
 attracted his attention. He looked round, and, seeing Peter 
 Peebles, as hastily turned to avoid his notice, in which he suc- 
 ceeded, so earnest was Peter upon his colloquy with one of the 
 most respectable auditors whose attention he had ever been able 
 to engage. And by this little motion, momentary as it was, Alan 
 gained an unexpected advantage ; for while he looked round, Miss 
 LiUas, I could never ascertain why, took the moment to adjust her 
 mask, and did it so awkwardly, that when her companion again 
 turned his head, he recognised as much of her features as autho- 
 rized him to address her as his fair client, and to press his offers 
 of protection and assistance with the boldness of a former ac- 
 quaintance. 
 
 Lilias Redgauntlet withdrew the mask from her crimsoned cheek. 
 " Mr. Fairford," she said, in a voice almost inaudible, " you have 
 the character of a young gentleman of sense and generosity ; but 
 we have already met in one situation which you must think sin- 
 gular ; and I must be exposed to misconstruction, at least, for my 
 forwardness, were it not in a cause in which my dearest affections 
 were concerned." 
 
 " Any interest in my beloved friend Darsie Latimer," said Fair- 
 ford, stepping a little back, and putting a marked restraint upon 
 
 his former advances, " gives me a double right to be useful to " . 
 
 He stopped short. 
 
 " To his sister, your goodness would say," answered Lilias. 
 
 " His sister, madam ! '' replied Alan, in the extremity of astonish- 
 ment — " Sister, I presume, in affection only ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; my dear brother Darsie and I are connected by the 
 
 C C 2 
 
388 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 bonds of actual relationship ; and I am not sorry to be the first to 
 tell this to the friend he most values." 
 
 Fairford's first thought was on the violent passion which Darsie 
 had expressed towards the fair unlinown. " Good God ! " he 
 exclaimed, " how did he bear the discovery ? " 
 
 " With resignation, I hope," said Lilias, smiling. " A more 
 accomplished sister he might easily have come by, but scarcely 
 could have found one who could love him more than I do." 
 
 " I meant — I only meant to say," said the young counsellor, his 
 presence of mind failing him for an instant — " that is, I meant to 
 ask where Darsie Latimer is at this moment." 
 
 " In this very house, and under the guardianship of his uncle, 
 whom I believe you _ knew as a visitor of your father, under the 
 name of Mr. Herries of Birrenswork." 
 
 " Let me hasten to him," said Fairford ; " I have sought him 
 through difficulties and dangers — I must see him instantly." 
 
 " You forget you are a prisoner," said the young lady. 
 
 " True — true ; but I cannot be long detained— the cause alleged 
 is too ridiculous." 
 
 "Alas ! " said Lilias, "our fate— my brother's and mine, at least 
 — must turn on the deliberations perhaps of less than an hour. — 
 For you, sir, I believe and apprehend nothing but some restraint ; 
 my uncle is neither cruel nor unjust, though few will go farther in 
 the cause which he has adopted." 
 
 " Which is that of the Pretend—" 
 
 " For God's sake speak lower ! " said Lilias, approaching her 
 hand, as if to stop him. " The word may cost you your life. You 
 do not know — indeed you do not — the terrors of the situation in 
 which we at present stand, and in which I fear you also are 
 involved by your friendship for my brother." 
 
 " I do not indeed know the particulars of our situation," said 
 Fairford ; " but, be the danger what it may, I shall not grudge my 
 share of it for the sake of my friend ; or," he added, with more 
 timidity, " of my friend's sister. Let me hope," he said, " my dear 
 Miss Latimer, that my presence may be of some use to you ; and 
 that it may be so, let me entreat a share of your confidence, which 
 I am conscious I have otherwise no right to ask." 
 
 He led her, as he spoke, towards the recess of the farther window 
 of the room, and observing to her that, unhappily, he was particu- 
 larly exposed to interruption from the mad old man whose entrance 
 had alarmed her, he disposed of Darsie Latimer's riding-skirt, which 
 had been left in the apartment, over the back of two chairs, form- 
 ing thus a sort of screen, behind which he ensconced himself with 
 the maiden of the green mantle ; feeling at the moment, that the 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 389 
 
 danger in which he was placed was ahnost compensated by the 
 intelligence which permitted those feelings towards her to revive, 
 which justice to his friend had induced him to stifle in the birth. 
 
 The relative situation of adviser and advised, of protector and 
 protected, is so peculiarly suited to the respective condition of man 
 and woman, that great progress towards intimacy is often made in 
 very short space ; for the circumstances call for confidence on the 
 part of the gentleman, and forbid coyness on that of the lady, so 
 that the usual barriers against easy intercourse are at once thrown 
 down. 
 
 Under these circumstances, securing themselves as far as possible 
 from observation, conversing in whispers,, and seated in a corner, 
 where they were brought into so close contact that their faces 
 nearly touched each other, Fairford heard from I.ihas Redgauntlet 
 the history of her family, particularly of her uncle ; his views upon 
 her brother, and the agony which she felt, lest at that very moment 
 he might succeed in engaging Darsie in some desperate scheme, 
 fatal to his fortune, and perhaps to his life. 
 
 Alan Fairford's acute understanding instantly connected what 
 he had heard with the circumstances he had witnessed at Fairladies. 
 His first thought was, to attempt, at all risks, his instant escape, 
 and procure assistance powerful enough to crush, in the very cradle, 
 a conspiracy of such a determined character. This he did not con- 
 sider as difficult ; for, though the door was guarded on the outside, 
 the window, which was not above ten feet from the ground, was 
 open for escape, the common on which it looked was unenclosed, 
 and profusely covered with furze. There would, he thought, be 
 little difficulty in effecting his liberty, and in concealing his course 
 after he had gained it. 
 
 But Lilias exclaimed against this scheme. Her uncle, she said, 
 was a man, who, in his moments of enthusiasm, knew neither 
 remorse nor fear. He was capable of visiting upon Darsie any 
 injury which he might conceive Fairford had rendered him — ^he was 
 her near kinsman also, and not an unkind one, and she deprecated 
 any effort, even in her brother's favour, by which his life must be 
 exposed to danger. Fairford himself remembered Father Buona- 
 venture, and made little question but that he was one of the sons 
 of the old Chevalier de Saint George ; and with feelings which, 
 although contradictory of his public duty, can hardly be much 
 censured, his heart recoiled from being the agent by whom the last 
 scion of such a long line of Scottish Princes should be rooted up. 
 He then thought of obtaining an audience, if possible, of this 
 devoted person, and explaining to him the utter hopelessness of his 
 undertaking, which he judged it likely that the ardour of his par 
 
390 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 tisans might have concealed from him. But he relinquished this 
 design as soon as formed. He had no doubt, that any light which 
 he could throw on the state of the country, would come too late to 
 be serviceable to one who was always reported to have his own full 
 share of the hereditary obstinacy which had cost his ancestors so 
 dear, and who, in drawing the sword, must have thrown from him 
 the scabbard. 
 
 Lilias suggested the advice which, of all others, seemed most 
 suited to the occasion, that yielding, namely, to the circumstances 
 of their situation, they should watch carefully when Darsie should 
 obtain any degree of freedom, and endeavour to open a communi- 
 cation with him, in which case their joint flight might be effected, 
 and without endangering the safety of any one. 
 
 Their youthful deliberation had nearly fixed in this point, when 
 Fairford, who was listening to the low sweet whispering tones of 
 Lilias Redgauntlet, rendered yet more interesting by some slight 
 touch of foreign accent, was startled by a heavy hand which 
 descended with full weight on his shoulder, while the discordant 
 voice of Peter Peebles, who had at length broken loose from the 
 well-meaning Quaker, exclaimed in the ear of his truant counsel — 
 " Aha, lad ! I think ye are catched — An' so ye are turned chamber- 
 counsel, are ye ? — And ye have drawn up wi' clients in scarfs and 
 hoods ? But bide a wee, billie, and see if I dinna sort ye when my 
 petition and complaint comes to be discussed, with or without 
 answers, under certification." 
 
 Alan Fairford had never more difficulty in his life to subdue a 
 first emotion, than he had to refrain from knocking down the crazy 
 blockhead who had broke in upon him at such a moment. But the 
 length of Peter's address gave him time, fortunately perhaps for 
 both parties, to reflect on the extreme irregularity of such a pro- 
 ceeding. He stood silent, however, with vexation, while Peter 
 went on. 
 
 " Weel, my bonnie man, I see ye are thinking shame o' yoursell, 
 and nae great wonder. Ye maun leave this quean — the like of her 
 is ower light company for you. I have heard honest Mr. Pest say, 
 that the gown grees ill wi' the petticoat. But come awa hame to 
 your puir father, and I'll take care of you the haill gate, and keep 
 you company, and deil a word we will speak about, but just the 
 state of the conjoined processes of the great cause of Poor Peebles 
 against Plainstanes." 
 
 " If thou canst endure to hear as much of that suit, friend," said 
 the Quaker, " as I have heard out of mere compassion for thee, I 
 think verily thou wilt soon be at the bottom of the matter, unless 
 it be altogether bottomless." 
 
redgauntlet. 391 
 
 Fairford shook off, rather indignantly, the large bony hand which 
 Peter had imposed upon his shoulder, and was about to say some- 
 thing peevish, upon so' unpleasant and msolent a mode of inter- 
 ruption, when the door opened, a treble voice saying to the sentinel, 
 " I tell you I maun be in, to see if Mr. Nixon's here ; " and Little 
 Benjie thrust in his mophead and keen black eyes. Ere he could 
 withdraw it, Peter Peebles sprang to the door, seized on the boy 
 by the collar, and dragged him forward into the room. 
 
 " Let me see it," he said, " ye ne'er-do-weel limb of Satan — I'll gar 
 you satisfy the production, I trow — I'll hae first and second 
 diligence against you, ye deevil's buckie ! " 
 
 " What dost thou want ? " said the Quaker, interfering j " why 
 dost thou frighten the boy, friend Peebles ? " 
 
 " I gave the bastard a penny to buy me snuff," said the pauper, 
 " and he has rendered no account of his intromissions ; but I'll gar 
 him as gude." 
 
 So saying, he proceeded forcibly to rifle the pockets of Benjie's 
 ragged jacket, of one or two snares for game, marbles, a half-bitten 
 apple, two stolen eggs, (one of which Peter broke in the eagerness 
 of his research,) and various other unconsidered trifles, which had 
 not the air of being very honestly come by. The little rascal, under 
 this discipline, bit and struggled like a fox-cub, but, like that ver- 
 min, uttered neither cry nor complaint, till a note, which Peter 
 tore from his bosom, flew as far as Lilias Redgauntlet, and fell at 
 her feet. It was addressed to C. N. 
 
 " It is for the villain Nixon," she said to Alan Fairford ; " open 
 it without scruple ; that boy is his emissary ; we shall now see what 
 the miscreant is driving at." 
 
 Little Benjie now gave up all farther struggle, and suffered 
 Peebles to take from him, without resistance, a shilling, out of 
 which Peter declared he would pay himself principal and interest, 
 and account for the balance. The boy, whose attention seemed 
 fixed on something very different, only said, " Maister Nixon will 
 murder me ! " 
 
 Alan Fairford did not hesitate to read the little scrap of paper, 
 on which was written, " All is prepared — keep them in play until I 
 come up — You may depend on your reward. — C. C." 
 
 " Alas, my uncle — my poor uncle ! " said Lilias ; " this is the 
 result of his coniidence ! Methinks, to give him instant notice of 
 his confidant's treachery, is now the best service we can render all 
 concerned — if they break up their undertaking, as they must now 
 do, Darsie will be at liberty." 
 
 In the same breath, they were both at the half-opened door of 
 the room, Fairford entreating to speak with the Father Buona- 
 
392 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 venture, and Lilias, equally vehemently, requesting a moment's 
 interview with her uncle. While the sentinel hesitated what to do, 
 his attention was called to a loud noise at the door, where a crowd 
 had been assembled in consequence of the appalling cry, that the 
 enemy were upon them, occasioned, as it afterwards proved, by 
 some stragglers having at length discovered the dead bodies of 
 Nanty Ewart and of Nixon. 
 
 Amid the confusion occasioned by this alarming incident, the 
 sentinel ceased to attend to his duty ; and, accepting Alan Fair- 
 ford's arm, Lilias found no opposition in penetrating even to the 
 inner apartment, where the principal persons in the enterprise, 
 whose conclave had been disturbed by this alarming incident, were 
 now assembled in great confusion, and had been joined by the 
 Chevalier himself. 
 
 " Only a mutiny among these smuggling scoundrels,'' said 
 Redgauntlet. 
 
 ''■Only a mutiny, do you say?" said Sir 'Richard Glendale ; 
 " and the lugger, the last hope of escape for " — he looked towards 
 Charles, — ""stands out to sea under a press of sail ! " 
 
 "Do not concern yourself about me," said the unfortunate 
 Prince ; " this is not the worst emergency in which it has been my 
 lot to stand ; and if it were, I fear it not. Shift for yourselves, my 
 lords and gentlemen." 
 
 " No, never !" said the young Lord — . " Our only hope now 
 is in an honourable resistance." 
 
 " Most true," said Redgauntlet ; " let despair renew the union 
 amongst us which accident disturbed. I give my voice for display- 
 ing the royal banner instantly, and How now ! " he concluded, 
 
 sternly, as Lilias, first soliciting his attention by pulling his cloak, 
 put into his hand the scroll, and added, it was designed for that of 
 Nixon. 
 
 Redgauntlet read — and, dropping it on the ground, continued to 
 stare upon the spot where it fell, with raised hand and fixed eyes. 
 Sir Richard Glendale lifted the fatal paper, read it, and saying, 
 " Now all is indeed over," handed it to Maxwell, who said aloud, 
 " Black Colin Campbell, by G — d ! I heard he had come post from 
 London last night." 
 
 As if in echo to his thoughts, the violin of the blind man was 
 heard, playing with spirit, "The Campbells are coming," a 
 celebrated clan-march. 
 
 " The Campbells are coming in earnest," said MacKellar ; " they 
 are upon us with the whole battalion from Carlisle." 
 
 There was a silence of dismay, and two or three of the company 
 began to drop out of the room. 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 393 
 
 Lord spoke with the generous spirit of a young English 
 
 nobleman. " If we have been fools, do not let us be cowards. 
 We have one here more precious than us all, and come hither on 
 our warrantry — let us save him at least." 
 
 " True, most true," answered Sir Richard Glendale. " Let the 
 King be first cared for." 
 
 " That shall be my business," said Redgauntlet ; " if we have but 
 time to bring back the brig, all will be well — I will instantly dis- 
 patch a party in a fishing skiff to bring her to." — He gave his 
 commands to two or three of the most active among his followers. 
 — " Let him be once on board," he said, " and there are enough of 
 us to stand to arms and cover his retreat." 
 
 " R'ight, right," said Sir Richard, " and I will look to points which 
 can be made defensible ; and the old powder-plot boys could not 
 have made a more desperate resistance than we shall. — Redgaunt- 
 let," continued he, " I see some of our friends are looking pale ; 
 but methinks your nephew has more mettle in his eye now than 
 when we were in cold deliberation, with danger at a distance." 
 
 " It is the way of our house," said Redgauntlet ; " our courage 
 ever kindles highest on the losing side. I, too, feel that the 
 catastrophe I have brought on must not be survived by its author. 
 Let me first," he said, addressing Charles, "see your Majesty's 
 sacred person in such safety as cari now be provided for it, and 
 then" ■ 
 
 " You may spare all considerations concerning me, gentlemen," 
 again repeated Charles ; " yon i^ountain of Criffel shall fly as 
 soon as I will." 
 
 Most threw themselves at his feet with weeping and entreaty ; 
 some one or two slunk in confusion from the , apartment, and 
 were heard riding off. Unnoticed in such a scene, Darsie, his 
 - sister, and Fairford, drew together, and held each other by the 
 hands, as those who, when a vessel i? about to founder in the 
 storm, determine to take their chance of life and death altogether. 
 
 Amid this scene of confusion, a gentleman, plainly dressed in 
 a riding-habit, with a black cockade in his hat, but without any 
 arms except a couteau-de-ckasse, walked into the apartment with- 
 out ceremony. He was a tall, thin, gentlemanly man, with a 
 look and bearing decidedly military. He had passed through 
 their guards, if in the confusion they now maintained any, with- 
 out stop or question, and now stood, almost unarmed, among 
 armed men, who, nevertheless, gazed on him as on the angel of 
 destruction. 
 
 You look coldly on me, gentlemen," he said. " Sir Richard 
 Glendale — my Lord r, we were not always such strangers. .Ha, 
 
394 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Pate-in-Peril, how is it with you ? and you, too, Ingoldsby — I must 
 not call you by any other name — why do you receive an old friend 
 so coldly ? But you guess my errand." 
 
 " And are prepared for it, General," said Redgauntlet ; " we 
 are not men to be penned up like sheep for the slaughter." 
 
 " Pshaw ! you take it too seriously — let me speak but one word 
 with you." 
 
 "No words can shake our purpose," said Redgauntlet, " were 
 your whole command, as I suppose is the case, drawn round the 
 house." 
 
 "I am certainly not unsupported," said the General; "but if 
 you would hear me " 
 
 " Hear me, sir," said the Wanderer, stepping forword ; " I sup- 
 pose I am the mark you aim at — I surrender myself willingly, to 
 save these gentlemen's danger— let this at least avail in their 
 favour." . 
 
 An exclamation of " Never, never ! " broke from the little body 
 of partisans, who threw themselves around the unfortunate Prince, 
 and would have seized or struck down Campbell, had it not been 
 that he remained with his arms folded, and a look, rather indi- 
 cating impatience because they would not hear him, than the least 
 apprehension of violence at their hand. 
 
 At length he obtained a moment's silence. " I do not," he said, 
 "know this gentleman" — (Making a profound bow to the un- 
 fortunate Prince) — " I do not wish to know him ; it is a knowledge 
 which would suit neither of us." 
 
 " Our ancestors, nevertheless, have been well acquainted," said 
 Charles, unable to suppress, even in that hour of dread and danger, 
 the painful recollections of fallen royalty. 
 
 " In one word. General Campbell," said Redgauntlet, "is it to be 
 peace or war ? — You are a man of honour, and we can trust you." 
 
 " I thank you, sir," said the General ; " and I reply that the 
 answer to your question rests with yourself. Come, do not be 
 fools, gentlemen; there was perhaps no great harm meant or 
 intended by your gathering together in this obscure comer, for a 
 bear-bait or a cock-fight, or whatever other amusement you may 
 have intended ; but it was a little imprudent, considering how you 
 stand with government, and it has occasioned some anxiety. Ex- 
 aggerated accounts of your purpose have been laid before govern- 
 ment by the information of a traitor in your own counsels ; and I 
 was sent down post to take the command of a sufficient number of 
 troops, in case these calumnies should be found to have any real 
 foundation. I have come here, of course, sufficiently supported 
 both with cavalry and infantry, to do whatever might be necessary; 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 39S 
 
 but my commands are — and I am sure they agree with my inclina- 
 tion — to make no arrests, nay, to make no farther enquiries of any 
 kind, if this good assembly will consider their own interest so far 
 as to give up their immediate purpose, and return quietly home to 
 their own houses." 
 
 "What!— all? "exclaimed Sir Richard Glendale— " all, without 
 exception ? " 
 
 " All, without one single exception," said the General ; " such 
 are my orders. If you accept my terms, say so, and make haste ; 
 for things may happen to interfere with his Majesty's kind purposes 
 towards you all." 
 
 " His Majesty's kind purposes ! " said the Wanderer. " Do I 
 hear you aright, sir ? " 
 
 " I speak the King's very words, from his very lips," replied the 
 General. " ' I will,' said his Majesty, ' deserve the confidence of 
 my subjects by reposing my security in the fidelity of the millions 
 who acknowledge my title — in the good sense and prudence of the 
 few who continue, from the errors of education, to disown it.' — His 
 Majesty will not even believe that the most zealous Jacobites who 
 yet remain can nourish a thought of exciting a civil war, which 
 must be fatal to their families and themselves, besides spreading 
 bloodshed and ruin through a peaceful land. He cannot even 
 believe of his kinsman, that he would engage brave and generous, 
 though mistaken men, in an attempt which must ruin all who have 
 escaped former calamities ; and he is convinced, that, did curiosity 
 or any other motive lead that person to visit this country, he would 
 soon see it was his wisest course to return to the continent ; and 
 his Majesty compassionates his situation too much to offer any 
 obstacle to his doing so." 
 
 " Is this real ? " said Redgauntlet. " Can you mean this ? — Am 
 I — are all, are any of these gentlemen at liberty, without interrup- 
 tion, to embark in yonder brig, which, I see, is now again approach- 
 ing the shore ? " 
 
 " You, sir— all — any of the gentlemen present," said the General,— 
 " all whom the vessel can contain, are at liberty to embark unin- 
 terrupted by me ; but I advise none to go off who have not power- 
 ful reasons, unconnected with the present meeting, for this will be 
 remembered against no one." 
 
 "Then, gentlemen," said Redgauntlet, clasping his hands to- 
 gether as the words burst from him, " the cause is lost for ever ! " 
 
 General Campbell turned away to the window, as if to avoid 
 hearing what they said. Their consultation was but moinentary ; 
 for the door of escape which thus opened was as unexpected as the 
 exigence was threatening. 
 
396 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " We have ) our word of honour for our protection," said Sir 
 Richard Glendale, " if we dissolve our meeting in obedience to 
 your summons ? " 
 
 " You have, Sir Richard," answered the General. 
 
 " And I also have your promise," said Redgauntlet, " that I may 
 go on board yonder vessel, with any friend whom I may choose to 
 accompany me ? " 
 
 " Not only that, Mr. Ingoldsby— or I will call you Redgauntlet 
 once more — you may stay in the ofifing for a tide, until you are 
 joined by any person who may remain at Fairladies. After that, 
 there will be a sloop of war on the station, and I need not say your 
 condition will then become perilous." 
 
 " Perilous it should not be. General Campbell," said Redgauntlet, 
 " or more perilous to others than to us, if others thought as I do 
 even in this extremity." 
 
 " You forget yourself, my friend," said the unhappy Adventurer ; 
 " you forget that the arrival of this gentleman only puts the cope- 
 stone on our already adopted resolution to abandon our bull-fight, 
 or by whatever other wild name this headlong enterprise may be 
 termed. I bid you farewell, unfriendly friends — I bid you fare- 
 wellj" (bowing to the General,) "my friendly foe — I leave this 
 strand as I landed upon it, alone, and to return no more ! " 
 
 "Not alone," said Redgauntlet, "while there is blood in the 
 veins of my father's son." 
 
 " Not alone," said the other gentlemen present, stung with feel- 
 ings which almost overpowered the better reasons under which 
 they had acted. " We will not disown our principles, or see your 
 person endangered." 
 
 " If it be only your purpose to see the gentleman to the beach," 
 said General Campbell, " I will myself go with you. My presence 
 among you, unarmed, and in your power, will be a pledge of my 
 friendly intentions, and will overawe, should such be offered, any 
 interruption on the part of officious persons." 
 
 " Be it so," said the Adventurer, with the air of a Prince to a 
 subject ; not of one who complied with the request of an enemy 
 too powerful to be resisted. 
 
 They left the apartment — they left the house — an unauthenti- 
 cated and dubious, but appalling, sensation of terror had already 
 spread itself among the inferior retainers, who had so short time 
 before strutted, and bustled, and thronged the doorway and the 
 passages. A report had arisen, of which the origin could not be 
 traced, of troops advancing towards the spot in considerable num- 
 bers ; and men who, for one reason or other, were most of them 
 amenable to the arm of power, had either shrunk into stables or 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 397 
 
 corners, or fled the place entirely. There was solitude on the 
 landscape, excepting the small party which now moved towards 
 the rude pier, where a boat lay manned, agreeably to Redgauntlet's 
 orders previously given. 
 
 The last heir of the Stewarts leant on Redgauntlet's arm as they 
 walked towards the beach ; for the ground was rough, and he no 
 longer possessed the elasticity of limb and of spirit which had, 
 twenty years before, carried him over many a Highland hill, as 
 light as one of their native deer. His adherents followed, looking 
 on the ground, their feelings struggling against the dictates of their 
 reason. 
 
 General Campbell accompanied them with an air of apparent 
 ease and indifference, but watching, at the same time, and no 
 doubt with some anxiety, the changing features of those who acted 
 in this extraordinary scene. 
 
 Darsie and his sister naturally followed their uncle, whose vio- 
 lence they no longer feared, while his character attracted their 
 respect ; and Alan Fairford accompanied them from interest in 
 their fate, unnoticed in a party where all were too much occupied 
 with their own thoughts and feelings, as well as with the impend- 
 ing crisis, to attend to his presence. 
 
 Half way betwixt the house and the beach, they saw the bodies 
 of Nanty Ewart and Cristal Nixon blackening in the sun. 
 
 "That was your informer.'"' said'Redgauntlet, looking back to 
 General Campbell, who only nodded his assent. 
 
 " Caitiff wretch ! " exclaimed Redgauntlet ; — " and yet the name 
 were better bestowed on the fool who could be misled by thee." 
 
 " That sound broadsword cut," said the General, " has saved us 
 the shame of rewarding a traitor." 
 
 They arrived at the place of embarkation. The Prince stood a 
 moment with folded arms, and looked around him in deep silence. 
 A paper was then slipped into his hands — he looked at it, and 
 said, " I find the two friends I have left at Fairladies are apprized 
 of my destination, and propose to embark from Bowness., I pre- 
 sume this will not be an infringement of the conditions under which 
 you have acted ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," answered General Campbell ; " they shall have 
 all facility to join you." 
 
 " I wish, then," said Charles, " only another companion. — Red- 
 gauntlet, the air of this country is as hostile to you as it is to me. 
 These gentlemen have made their peace, or rather they have done 
 nothing to break it. But you — come you, and share my home 
 where chance shall cast it. We shall never see these shores again ; 
 but we will talk of them, and of our disconcerted bull-fight." 
 
398 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 " I follow you, Sire, through life,'' said Redgauntlet, " as I would 
 have followed you to death. Permit me one moment." 
 
 The Prince then looked round, and seeing the abashed counte- 
 nances of his other adherents bent upon the ground, he hastened 
 to say, " Do not think that you, gentlemen, have obliged me less 
 because your zeal was mingled with prudence, entertained, I am 
 sure, more on my own account, and on that of your country, than 
 from selfish apprehensions." 
 
 He stepped from one to another, and, amid sobs and bursting 
 tears, received the adieus of the last remnant which had hitherto 
 supported his lofty pretensions, and addressed them individually 
 with accents of tenderness and affection. 
 
 The General drew a little aloof, and signed to Redgauntlet to 
 speak with him while this scene proceeded. " It is now all over," 
 he said, " and Jacobite will be henceforward no longer a party 
 name. When you tire of foreign parts, and wish to make your 
 peace, let me know. Your restless zeal alone has impeded your 
 pardon hitherto." 
 
 " And now I shall not need it," said Redgauntlet. " I leave 
 England for ever ; but I am not displeased that you should hear 
 my family adieus. — Nephew, come hither. In presence of General 
 Campbell, I tell you, that though to breed you up in my own 
 political opinions has been for many years my anxious wish, I am 
 now glad that it could not be accomplished. You pass under the 
 service of the reigning Monarch without the necessity of changing 
 your allegiance — a change, however," he added, looking around 
 him, " which sits more easy on honourable men than I could have 
 anticipated; but some wear the badge of their loyalty on the 
 sleeve, and others in the heart. — ^You will, from henceforth, be un- 
 controlled master of all the property of which forfeiture could not 
 deprive your father — of all that belonged to him — excepting this, 
 his good sword," (laying his hand on the weapon he wore,) " which 
 shall never fight for the House of Hanover ; and as my hand will 
 never draw weapon more, I shall sink it forty fathoms deep in the 
 wide ocean. Bless you, young man ! If I have dealt harshly with 
 you, forgive me. I had set my whole desires on one point, — God 
 knows, with no selfish purpose ; and I am justly punished by this 
 final termination of my views, for having been too little scrupulous 
 in the means by which I pursued them. Niece, farewell, and may 
 God bless you also ! " 
 
 " No, sir," said Lilias, seizing his hand eagerly. " You have 
 been hitherto my protector, — you are now in sorrow, let me be 
 your attendant and your comforter in exile 1 " 
 
 " I thank you, my girl, for your unmerited affection ; but it can- 
 
REDGAUNTLET. 399 
 
 not and must not be. The curtain here falls between us, I go to 
 the house of another— If I leave it before I quit the earth, it shall 
 be only for the House of God. Once more, farewell both ! — The 
 fatal doom," he said, with a melancholy smile, " will, I trust, now 
 depart from the House of Redgauntlet, since its present repre- 
 sentative has adhered to the winning side. I am convinced he 
 will not change it, should it in turn become the losing one." 
 
 The unfortunate Charles Edward had now given his last adieus 
 to his downcast adherents. He made a sign with his hand to 
 Redgauntlet, who came to assist him into the skiff. General 
 Campbell also offered his assistance ; the rest appearing too much 
 affected by the scene which had taken place to prevent him. 
 
 " You are not sorry. General, to do me this last act of courtesy," 
 said the Chevalier ; " and, on my part, I thank you for it. You 
 have taught me the principle on which men on the scaffold feel 
 forgiveness and kindness even for their executioner. — Farewell 1 " 
 
 They were seated in the boat, which presently pulled off from 
 the land. The Oxford divine broke out into a loud benediction, in 
 terms which General Campbell was too generous to criticise at the 
 time, or to remember afterwards ; — nay, it is said that. Whig and 
 Campbell as he was, he could not help joining in the universal 
 Amen ! which resounded from the shore. 
 
 CONCLUSION, 
 By Dr. DRYASDUST, 
 
 IN A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY. 
 
 I AM truly sorry, my worthy and much-respected sir, that my 
 anxious researches have neither, in the form of letters, nor of 
 diaries, or other memoranda, been able to discover more than I 
 have hitherto transmitted, of the history of the Redgauntlet family. 
 But I observe in an old newspaper called the Whitehall Gazette, of 
 which I fortunately possess a file for several years, that Sir Arthur 
 Darsie Redgauntlet was presented to his late Majesty at the 
 drawingroom, by Lieut.-General Campbell — upon which the Editor 
 observes, in the way of comment, that we were going, remis atque 
 veils, into the interests of the Pretender, since a Scot had pre- 
 sented a Jacobite at Court. I am sorry I have not room (the frank 
 being only uncial) for his farther observations, tending to show the 
 apprehensions entertained by many well-instructed persons of the 
 
400 REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 period, that the young King might himself be induced to become 
 one of the Stewarts' faction, — a catastrophe from which it has 
 pleased Heaven to preserve these kingdoms. 
 
 I perceive also, by a marriage contract in the family reposi- 
 tories, that Miss Lilias Redgauntlet of Redgauntlet, about eighteen 
 months after the transactions you have commemorated, inter- 
 married with Alan Fairford, Esq. Advocate, of ClinkdoUar, who, 
 I think, we may not unreasonably conclude to be ~ the same 
 person whose name occurs so frequently in the pages of your 
 narration. In my last excursion to Edinburgh, I was fortunate 
 enough to discover an old cadie, from whom, at the expense of 
 a bottle of whisky, and half a pound of tobacco, I extracted the 
 important information, that he knew Peter Peebles very well, 
 and had drunk many a mutchkin with him in Cadie Eraser's 
 time. He said that he lived ten years after King George's ac- 
 cession, in the momentary expectation of winning his cause 
 every day in the Session time, and every hour of the day, and 
 at last fell down dead, in what my informer called a " Per- 
 plexity fit," upon a proposal for a composition being" made to 
 him in the Outer-House. I have chosen to retain my informer's 
 phrase, not being able justly to determine whether it is a cor- 
 ruption of the word apoplexy, as my friend Mr. Oldbuck sup- 
 poses, or the name of some peculiar disorder incidental to those 
 who have concern in the Courts of Law, as many caUings and 
 conditions of men have diseases appropriate to themselves.^ The 
 same cadie also remembered Bhnd Willie Stevenson, who was 
 called Wandering Willie, and who ended his days " unco beinly, 
 in Sir Arthur Redgauntlet's ha' neuk." " He had done the family 
 some good turn," he said, " specially when ane of the Argyle gen- 
 tlemen was coming down on a wheen of them that had the ' auld 
 leaven' about them, and wad hae taen every man of them, and nae 
 less nor headed and hanged them. But Willie, and a friend they 
 had, called Robin the Rambler, gae them warning, by playing 
 tunes such as, ' the Campbells are coming,' and the like, whereby 
 they got timeous warning to take the wing." I need not point out 
 to your acuteness, my worthy sir, that this seems to refer to some 
 inaccurate account of the transactions in which you seem so much 
 interested. 
 
 Respecting Redgauntlet, about whose subsequent history you are 
 more particularly inquisitive, I have learned from an excellent 
 person who was a priest in the Scottish Monastery of Ratisbon, 
 before its suppression, that he remained for two or three years in 
 the family of the Chevalier, and only left it at last in consequence 
 of some discords in that melancholy household. As he had hinted 
 
ReDgauntlet. 401 
 
 to General Campbell, he exchanged his residence for -the cloister, 
 and displayed in the latter part of his life a strong sense of the 
 duties of religion, which in his earlier days he had too much 
 neglected, being altogether engaged in political speculations and 
 intrigues. He rose to the situation of Prior, in the house which he 
 belonged to, and which was of a very strict order of religion. He 
 sometimes received his countrymen, whom accident brought to 
 
 Ratisbon, and curiosity induced to visit the Monastery [of . 
 
 But it was remarked, that though he listened with interest and 
 attention, when Britain, or particularly Scotland, became the 
 subject of conversation, yet he never either introduced or prolonged 
 the subject, never used the English language, never enquired about 
 English affairs, and, above all, never mentioned his own family. 
 His strict observation of the rules of his order gave him, at the 
 time of his death, some pretensions to be chosen a saint, and the 
 
 brethren of the Monastery of made great efforts for that effect, 
 
 and brought forward some plausible proofs of miracles. But there 
 was a circumstance which threw a doubt over the subject, and pre- 
 vented the consistory from acceding to the wishes of the worthy 
 brethren. Under his habit, and secured in a small silver box, he 
 had worn perpetually around his neck a lock of hair, which the 
 fathers avouched to be a relic. But the Avocato del Diablo, in 
 combating (as was his official duty)the pretensions of the candidate 
 for sanctity, made it at least equally probable that the supposed 
 relic was taken from the head of a brother of the deceased Prior, 
 who had been executed for adherence to the Stewart family in 
 1745-6 ; and the motto, Haud obliviscendum, seemed to intimate a 
 tone of mundane feeling and recollection of injuries, which made it 
 at least doubtful whether, even in the quiet and gloom of the 
 cloister, Father Hugo had forgotten the sufferings and injuries of 
 the House of Redgauntlet. 
 
 3D D 
 
NOTES TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 * p. 10. — The reproach is thus ex- 
 pressed by Dr. King, who brings the 
 charge : — " But the most odious part 
 of his character is his love of money, a 
 vice which I do not remember to have 
 been imputed by our historians to any 
 of his ancestors, and is thecertain index 
 of a base and little mind. I know it 
 may be urged in his vindication, that 
 a Prince in exile ought to be an econo- 
 mist. And so he ought ; but, ijever- 
 theles.'!, his purse should be always 
 open as long as there is any thing in 
 it, to relieve the necessities of his 
 friends and adherents. King Charles 
 II., during his banishment, would 
 have shared the last pistole in his 
 pocltet with his little family. But I 
 have known this gentleman with two 
 thousand louis-d'ors in his strong-box, 
 pretend he was in great distress, and 
 borrow money from a lady in Paris 
 who was not in affluent circumstances. 
 His most faithful servants, who had 
 closely attended him in all his diffi- 
 culties, ^were ill rewarded." — King's 
 Memoirs. 
 
 * P. 15. — The first stage on the road 
 from Edinburgh to Dumfries, vih 
 Moffat. 
 
 * P. 16. — Break a window, head a skir- 
 mish with stones, and hold the bonnet 
 or handkerchief, which used to divide 
 high-school boys when fighting. 
 
 * P. 16. — A pass on the very brink of 
 the Castle-rock to the north, by which 
 it is just possible for a goat, or a high- 
 school boy, to turn the comer of the 
 building where it rises from the edge 
 of the precipice. This was so favoiurite 
 a feat with the "hell and neck boys" 
 of the higher classes, that at one time 
 sentinels were posted to prevent its 
 repetition. One of the nine-steps was 
 rendered more secure because the 
 climber could take hold of the root of 
 ^ nettle, so precarious were the means 
 of passing this celebrated spot. The 
 manning the Cowgate Port, especially 
 
 in snow-ball time, was also a choice 
 amusement, as it offered aninaccessible 
 station for the boys who used these 
 missiles to the annoyance of the pas- 
 sengers. The gateway is now demo- 
 lished ; and probably most of its 
 garrison lie as low as the fortress. To 
 recollect that the author himself, how- 
 ever naturally disqualified, was one of 
 those juvenile dreadnoughts, is a sad 
 reflection to one who cannot now step 
 over a brook without assistance. 
 
 * P. 17.— The Hall of the Parliament 
 House of Edinburgh was, in former 
 days, divided into two unequal portions 
 by a partition, the inner side of which 
 was consecrated to the use of the Courts 
 of Justice and the gentlemen of the 
 law ; while the outer division was 
 occupied by the stalls of stationers, 
 toymen, and the like, as in a modern 
 bazaar. From the old play of the 
 Plain Dealer, it seems such was for- 
 merly the case with Westminster-Hall. 
 Minos has now purified his courts in 
 both cities from all traffic but his own. 
 
 * P. 17.— "Sir John Nisbett of Dirle- 
 ton's Doubts and Questions upon the 
 Law, especially of Scotland ;" and, 
 ' ' Sir James Stewart's Dirleton's Doubts 
 and Questions on the Law of Scotland 
 resolved and answered," are works of 
 authority in Scottish jurisprudence. 
 As is generally the case, the Doubts 
 are held more in respect tlian the 
 solution. 
 
 * P. 17. — Till of late years, every 
 advocate who entered at the Scottish 
 bar made a Latin address to the Court, 
 faculty, and audience, in set terms, and 
 said a few words upon a text of the 
 civil law, to show his Latinity and 
 jurisprudence. He also wore his hat 
 for a minute, in order to vindicate his 
 right of being covered before the court, 
 which is said to have originated from 
 the celebrated lawyer. Sir Thomas 
 Hope, having two sons on the Bench 
 while he himself remained at the bar. 
 
464 
 
 NOTES TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Of late this ceremony has been dis- 
 pensed with, as occupying the time of 
 the court unnecessarily. The entrant 
 lawyer merely takes the oaths to 
 government, and swears to maintain 
 the rules and privileges of his order. 
 
 * P. i8. — A pecuhar Scottish phrase, 
 expressive of ingratitude for the 
 favours of Providence. 
 
 * P. 19. — Probably Mathieson, the pre- 
 decessor of Dr. Adams, to whose 
 memory the author and his contem- 
 poraries owe a deep debt of gratitude. 
 
 * P. 19. — Celebrated as a Scottish 
 lawyer. ♦ 
 
 * P. 20. — It is well known and remem- 
 bered, that when Members of Parlia- 
 ment enjoyed the unlimited privilege 
 of franking by the mere vmting the 
 name on the cover, it was extended to 
 the most extraordinary occasions. 
 One noble lord, to express his regard 
 for a particular regiment, franked a 
 letter for every rank and file. It was 
 customary also to save the covers and 
 return them, in order that the corre- 
 spondence might be carried on as long 
 as the envelopes could hold together. 
 
 * P. 21. — Alluding, as all Scotsmen 
 know, to the humorous old song : — 
 
 " The auld man's mare's dead, 
 The puir man's mare's dead. 
 The auld man's mare's dead, 
 A mile aboon Dundee." 
 
 * P. 25. — The diminutive and obscure 
 place called Brown'sSquare, was hailed 
 about the time of its erection as an 
 extremely elegant improvement upon 
 the style of designing and erecting 
 Edinburgh residences. Each house 
 was, in the phrase used by appraisers, 
 " finished within itself," or, in the still 
 newer phraseology, "self-contained." 
 It was built about the year 1763-4 ; 
 and the old part of the city being near 
 andaccessible, thissquaresoonreceived 
 many inhabitants, who ventured to 
 remove to so moderate a distance from 
 the High Street. ' 
 
 * P. 30. — Of Rob Roy we have had 
 more than enough. Alan Cameron, 
 commonly called Sergeant Mhor, a 
 freebooter of the same period, was 
 equally remarkable for strength, 
 courage, and generosity. 
 
 * P. 39.— The partition which divides 
 a Scottish cottage. 
 
 * P. 41.— The frame of wooden shelves 
 
 placed in a Scottish kitchen for holding 
 
 plates. 
 
 ' P. so.— Of old this almost deserted 
 
 alley formed the most common access 
 
 betwixt the High Street and the 
 
 southern suburbs. 
 
 * P. 63. — ^The bait made of salmon-roe 
 salted and preserved. In a swollen 
 river, and about the month of October, 
 it is a most deadly bait. 
 
 * P. 79. — In explanation of this circum- 
 stance, I cannot help adding a note 
 not very necessary for, the reader, 
 which yet I record with pleasure, from 
 recollection of the kindness which it 
 evinces. In early youth I resided for 
 a considerable time in the vicinity of 
 the beautiful village of Kelso, where 
 my life passed in a very solitary man- 
 ner. I had few acquaintances, scarce 
 any companions, and books, which 
 were at the time almost essential to my 
 happiness, were difficult to come by. 
 It was then that I was particularly in- 
 debted to the liberality and friendship 
 of an old lady of the Society of Friends, 
 eminent for her benevolence and 
 charity. Her deceased husband had 
 been a medical man of eminence, and 
 left her, with other valuable property, 
 a small and well-selected library. This 
 the kind old lady permitted me to 
 rummage at pleasure, and carry home 
 what volumes I chose, on condition 
 that I should take, at the same time, 
 some of the tracts printed for encourag- 
 ing and extending the doctrines of her 
 own sect. She did not even exact any 
 assurance that I would read these per- 
 formances, being too justly afraid of 
 involving me in a breach of promise, 
 but was merely desirous that I should 
 have the chance of instruction vrithin 
 my reach, in case whim, curiosity, or 
 accident, might induce me to have 
 recourse to it. 
 
 * P. 87. — Well knovm in the Chap- 
 Book, called the History of Buck- 
 haven. 
 
 * P. 94. — The original of this catch 
 is to be found in Cowley's witty comedy 
 of the Guardian, the first edition. It 
 does not exist in the second and revised 
 edition, called the Cutter of Coleman 
 Street. 
 
 "Captain Blade. Ha, ha, boys 
 another catch. 
 And all our men were very very 
 merry 
 
NOTES TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 40S 
 
 And all our men were drinking. 
 
 Cutter. One man of mine. 
 
 DoGREL. Tzuo men of mine. 
 
 Blade. Three men of mine. 
 
 Cutter. And one man of mine. 
 
 Omnes, As we went by the way 
 we were drunk, drunk, 
 damnably drunk. 
 And all our men were very 
 very merry, 5fo." 
 
 Such are the words, which are some- 
 what altered and amplified in the text. 
 The play was acted in presence of 
 Charles II. , then Prince of Wales, in 
 1641. The catch in the text has been 
 happily set to music. 
 
 * P. 99. — Blind Rorie, a famous per- 
 former, according to tradition. 
 
 * P. 100. — It is certain that in many 
 cases the blind have, by constant 
 exercise of their other organs, learned 
 to overcome a defect which one would 
 think incapable of being supplied. 
 Every reader must remember the 
 celebrated Blind Jack of Knares- 
 borough, who lived by laying out 
 roads. 
 
 * P. 103. — A precipitous side of a 
 mountain in Moffatdale. 
 
 * P. 105 — .The caution and modera- 
 tion of King Wilham III., and his 
 principles of unlimited toleration, de- 
 prived the Cameronians of the oppor- 
 tunity they ardently desired, to retaliate 
 the injuries which they had received 
 during the reign of prelacy, and purify 
 the land, as they called it, from the 
 pollution of blood. They esteemed 
 the Revolution, therefore, only a half 
 measure, which neither comprehended 
 the rebuilding the Kirk in its full 
 splendour, nor the revenge of the death 
 of the Saints on their persecutors. 
 
 * P. 105. — ^Acelebratedwizard.executed 
 at Edinburgh for sorcery and other 
 crimes. 
 
 * P. 113, — The personages here men- 
 tioned are most of them characters of 
 historical fame ; but those less known 
 and remembered may be found in the 
 tract entitled, " The Judgment and 
 Justice of God Exemplified, or, a 
 Brief Historical Account of some of 
 the Wicked Lives and Miserable 
 Deaths of some of the mostremarkable 
 Apostates and Bloody Persecutors, 
 trom the Reformation till after the 
 Revolution." This constitutes a sort 
 of postscript or appendix to John 
 
 Howie of Lochgoin's "Account of 
 the Lives of the rnost eminent Scots 
 Worthies." The author has, with 
 considerable ingenuity, reversed his 
 reasoning upon the inference to be 
 drawn from the prosperity or misfor- 
 tunes which befall individuals in this 
 world, either in the course of their 
 hves or in the hour of death. In the 
 account of the martyrs' sufferings, such 
 inflictions are mentioned only as trials 
 permitted by Providence, for the better 
 and brighter display of their faith, and 
 constancy of principle. But when 
 similar afflictions befell the opposite 
 party, they are imputed to the direct 
 vengeance of Heaven upon their im- 
 piety. If, indeed, the life of any person 
 obnoxious to the historian's censures 
 happened to have passed in unusual 
 prosperity, the mere fact of its being 
 finally concluded by death, is assumed 
 as an undeniable token of the judgment 
 of Heaven, and, to render the con- 
 clusion inevitable, his last scene is 
 generally garnished with some singular 
 circumstances. Thus the Duke of 
 Lauderdale is said, through old age 
 but immense corpulence, to have be- 
 come so sunk in spirits, "that his 
 heart was not the bigness of a wal- 
 nut." •- ' 
 
 * P. 114. — The reader is referred for 
 particulars to Pitscottie's History of 
 Scotland. 
 
 * P. 118. — I have heard in my youth 
 some such wild tale as that placed in 
 the mouth of the blind fiddler, of which , 
 I think,' the hero was Sir Robert 
 Grierson of I^agg, the famous perse- 
 cutor. But the belief was general 
 throughout Scotland, that the excessive 
 lamentation over .the loss cf friends 
 disturbed the repose of the dead, and 
 broke even the rest of the grave. 
 There are several instances of this in 
 tradition, but one struck me particu- 
 larly, as I heard it from the iips of one 
 who professed receiving it from those 
 of a ghost-seer. This was a Highland 
 
 lady, named Mrs. C of B , 
 
 who probably believed firmly in the 
 truth of an apparition, which seems to 
 have originated in the weakness of her 
 nerves and strength of her imagination. 
 She had been lately left a widow by 
 her husband, with the office of guardian 
 to their only child. The young man 
 added to the difficulties of his charge 
 by an extreme propensity for a miUtary 
 
4o6 
 
 NOTES TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 life, which his mother was unwilling to 
 give way to, while she found it impos- 
 sible to repress it. About this time the 
 Independent Companies, formed for 
 the preservation of the peace of the 
 Highlands, were in the course of being 
 levied; and as a gentleman named 
 Cameron, nearly connected with Mrs 
 C- , commanded one of those com- 
 panies, she was at length persuaded to 
 compromise the matter with her son, 
 by permitting him to enter this com- 
 pany in the capacity of a cadet ; thus 
 gratifying his love of a military life 
 without the dangers of foreign service, 
 to which no one then thought these 
 troops were at all liable to be exposed, 
 while even their active service at home 
 was not likely to be attended with 
 much danger. She readily obtained a 
 promise from her relative that he would 
 be particular in his attention to her son, 
 and therefore concluded she had ac- 
 commodated matters between her son's 
 wishes and his safety in a way suffi- 
 ciently attentive to both. She set oif 
 to Edinburgh to getwhatwas awanting 
 for his outfit, and shortly afterwards 
 received melancholy news from the 
 Highlands. The Independent Com- 
 pany into which her son was to enter 
 had a skirmish vrithaparty of catherans 
 engaged in some act of spoil, and her 
 friend the Captain being wounded, and 
 out of the reach of medical assistance, 
 died in consequence. This news was 
 a thunderbolt to the poor mother, who 
 was at once deprived of her kinsman's 
 advice and assistance, and instructed 
 by his fate of the unexpected danger to 
 which her son's new calling exposed 
 him. She remained also in great sor- 
 row for her relative, whom she loved 
 with sisterly affection. These conflict- 
 ing causes of anxiety, together with 
 her uncertainty whether to continue or 
 change her son's destination, were 
 terminated in the following man- 
 ner: — 
 
 The house in which Mrs. C re- 
 sided in the old town of Edinburgh, 
 was a flat or story of a land, accessible, 
 as was then universal, by a common 
 stair. The family who occupied the 
 story beneath were her acquaintances, 
 and she was in the habit of drinlsing 
 tea with them every evening. It was 
 accordingly about six o'clock, when, 
 recovering herself from a deep fit of 
 anxious reflection, she was about to 
 
 leave the parlour in which she sat in 
 order to attend this engagement. Th 
 door through which she was to pass 
 opened, as was very common in Edin- 
 burgh, into a dark passage. In this 
 passage, and within a yard of her when 
 she opened the door, stood the appa- 
 rition of her kinsman, the deceased 
 officer, in his full tartans, and wearing 
 his bonnet. Terrified at what she saw, 
 or thought she saw, she closed the 
 4 door hastily, and, sinking on her knees 
 by a chair, prayed to be delivered from 
 the horrors of thevision. She remained ' 
 in that posture till her friends below 
 tapped on the floor to intimate that 
 tea was ready. Recalled to herself by 
 the signal, she arose, and, on opening 
 the apartment door, again was con- 
 fronted by the visionary Highlander, 
 whose bloody brow bore token, on this 
 second appearance, to the death he 
 had died. Unable to endure this 
 
 repetition of her terrors, Mrs. C 
 
 sunk on the floor in a swoon. Her 
 friends below, startled with the noise, 
 came up stairs, and, alarmed at the 
 situation in which they found her, in- 
 sisted on her going to bed and taking 
 some medicine, in order to compose 
 what they took for a nervous attack. 
 They had no sooner left her in quiet, 
 than the apparition of the soldier was 
 once more visible in the apartment. 
 This time she took courage and said, 
 "In the name of God, Donald, why 
 do you haunt one who respected and 
 loved you when living ?" To which 
 he answered readily, in Gaelic, ' ' Cousin, 
 why did you not speak sooner ? My 
 rest is disturbed by your unnecessary 
 lamentation — your tears scald me in 
 my shroud. I come to tell you that 
 my untimely death ought to make no 
 difference in your views for your son ; 
 God will raise patrons to supply my 
 place, and he will live to the fuhiess of 
 years, and die honoured and at peace." 
 The lady of course followed her kins- 
 man's advice ; and as she was ac- 
 counted a person of strict veracity, we 
 may conclude the first apparition an 
 illusion of the fancy, the final one a 
 lively dream suggested by the other 
 two. 
 
 • P. 134. — ^This unfortunate litigant 
 (for a person named Peter Peebles 
 actually flourished) frequented the 
 courts of justice in Scotland about the 
 year 1792, and the sketch of his 
 
NOTKS TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 A°7 
 
 appearance is given from recollection. 
 The author is of opinion that he him- 
 self had at one time the honour to 
 be counsel for Peter Peebles, whose 
 voluminous course of litigation served 
 as a sort of assay-pieces to most young 
 men who were called to the bar. The 
 scene of the consultation is entirely 
 imaginary. 
 
 * P. 134. — Formerly, a lawyer, sup- 
 posed to bemiderthepeculiarpatronage 
 of any particular judge, was invidiously 
 termed his peat qx pet. 
 
 * P. 134. — Process-bags. 
 
 * P. 138. — Multiplepoinding is, I be- 
 lieve, equivalent to what is called in 
 England a case of Double Distress. 
 
 *■ P. 143. — Old-fashioned Scottish 
 Civility. — Such were literally the 
 points of politeness observed in general 
 society during the author's youth, 
 where it was by no means unusual in 
 a company assembled by chance, to 
 find individuals who had borne arms 
 on one side or other in the civil broils 
 of 1745. .Nothing, according to my 
 recollection, could be more gentle and 
 decorous than the respect these old 
 enemies paid to each other's prejudices. 
 But in this T speak generally. I have 
 witnessed one or two explosions. 
 
 * P. 147. — The simile is obvious, from 
 -the old manufacture of Scotland, when 
 the guidwife's thrift, as the yam 
 wrought in the winter was called, when 
 laid down to bleach by the bum-side, 
 was peculiarly exposed to the inroads 
 of the pigs, seldom well-regulated 
 about a Scottish farm-house. 
 
 * P. 148. — This small dark coffeehouse, 
 now burnt down, was the resort of 
 such writers and clerks belonging to 
 the Parliament House above thirty 
 years ago, as retained the ancient Scot- 
 tish custom of a meridian, as it was 
 called, or noontide dram of spirits. If 
 their proceedings were watched, they 
 might be seen to turn fidgety about 
 the hour of noon, and exchange looks 
 with each other from their separate 
 desks, till at length some one of formal 
 and dignified presence assumed the 
 honour of leading the band, when away 
 they went, threading the crowd like a 
 string of wild-fowl, crossed the square 
 or close, and following each other into 
 the coffeehouse, received in turn from 
 the hand ,of the waiter, the meridian, 
 which was placed ready at the bar. 
 This they did, day by day : and though 
 
 they did not speak to each other, they 
 seemed to attach a certain degree of 
 sociability to performing the ceremony 
 in company. 
 
 * P. 151. — Said of an adventurous gipsy, 
 who resolves at all risks to convert a 
 sheep's horn into a spoon. 
 
 * P. 152.— Tradition ascribesthiswhim- 
 sical style of language to the ingenious 
 and philosophical Lord Kaimes. 
 
 * P. 155. — A Scots law phrase of no 
 very determinate import, meaning, 
 generally, to do what is fitting. 
 
 * P. 159. — ^The Scottish Judges are dis- 
 tingtiished by the title of lord prefixed 
 to their own temporal designation. As 
 the ladies of these official dignitaries 
 do not bear any share in their hus- 
 band's honours, they are distinguished 
 only by their lords' family name. 
 They were not always contented with 
 this species of Salique law, which cer- 
 tainly is somewhat inconsistent. But 
 their pretensions to title are said to 
 have been long since repelled by James 
 v., the Sovereign who founded the 
 College of Justice. "I," said he, 
 " made the carles lords, but who the 
 devil made the carlines ladies?" 
 
 * P. 179.— Riotous Attack upon 
 THE Dam-dike op Sir James 
 Geaham of Netherby. — It may be 
 here mentioned, that a violent and 
 popular attack upon what the country 
 people of this district considered as an 
 invasion of their fishing right, is by no 
 means an improbable fiction. Shortly 
 after the close of the American war, 
 Sir James Graham of Netherby con- 
 structed a dam-dike, or cauld, across 
 the Esk, at a place where it flowed 
 through his estate, though it has its 
 origin, and the principal part of its 
 course, in Scotland. The new barrier 
 at Netherby was considered as an 
 encroachment calculated to prevent the 
 salmon from ascending into Scotland ; 
 and the right of erecting it being an 
 international question of law betwixt 
 the sister kingdoms, there was no court 
 in either competent to its decision. In 
 this dilemma, the Scots people assem- 
 bled in numbers by signal of rocket 
 lights, and, rudely armed with fowling- 
 pieces, fishspears, and such rustic 
 weapons, marched to the banks of the 
 river for the purpose of pulling down 
 the dam-dike objected to. Sir James 
 Graham armed many of his own 
 people to protect his property, and had 
 
4o8 
 
 NOTES TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 some military from Carlisle for the 
 same purpose. A renewal of the Bor- 
 der wars had nearly taken place in the 
 eighteenth century, when prudence 
 and moderation on both sides saved 
 much tumult, and perhaps some blood- 
 shed. The English proprietor con- 
 sented that a breach should be made 
 in his dam-dike sufficient for the pas- 
 sage of the fish, and thus removed the 
 Scottish grievance. I believe the river 
 has since that time taken the matter 
 into its own disposal, and entirely 
 swept away the dam-dike in question. 
 
 * P. 204. — The King's health. 
 
 * P. 219. — Every one must remember 
 instances of this festive custom, in 
 which the adaptation of the tune to 
 the toast was remfirkably felicitous. 
 Old Niel Gow, and his son Nathaniel, 
 were peculiarly happy on such occa- 
 sions. 
 
 * P. 225. — By taking the oaths to Go- 
 vernment. 
 
 * P. 234. — Scotland, in its half civil- 
 iied state, exhibited too many ex- 
 amples of the exertion of arbitrary 
 force and violence, rendered easy by 
 the dominion which lairds exerted 
 over their tenants, and chiefs over 
 their clans. The captivity of Lady 
 Grange, in the desolate cliffs of Saint 
 Kilda, is in the recollection of every 
 one. At the supposed date of the 
 novel also, a man of the name of 
 Merrilees, a tanner in Leith, ab- 
 sconded from his countrjr to escape 
 his creditors ; and after having slain his 
 own mastiff dog, and put a bit of red 
 cloth in its mouth, as if it had died in a 
 contest with soldiers, and involved his 
 own existence in as much mystery as 
 possible, made his escape into York- 
 shire. Here he was detected by per- 
 sons sent in search of him, to whom 
 he gave a portentous account of his 
 having been carried off and concealed 
 in various places. Mr. Merrilees was, 
 in short, a kind of male Elizabeth 
 Canning, but did not trespass on the 
 public credulity quite so long. 
 
 * P. 234. — Not much in those days, 
 for within my recollection tlie London 
 post was brought north in a small 
 mail-cart ; and men are yet alive who 
 recollect when it came down with only 
 one single letter for Edinburgh, ad- 
 dressed to the manager of the British 
 Linen Company. 
 
 * P. 235. — I remember hearing this 
 
 identical answer given by an old 
 Highland gentleman of the Forty- 
 Five, when he heard of the opening 
 of theNewAssembly-Roomsin George 
 Street. 
 
 * P. 238. — The true joke is no joke. 
 
 * P. 242.— EscapeofPate-in-Peril. 
 — The escape of a Jacobite gentleman 
 while on the road to Carlisle to take 
 his trial for his share in the affair of 
 1745, took place at Errickstane-brae, 
 in the singular manner ascribed to the 
 Laird of Summertrees in the text. The 
 author has seen in his youth the gen- 
 tleman to whom the adventure actually 
 happened. The distance of time makes 
 some indistinctness of recollection, but 
 it is believed the real name was Mac- 
 Ewen, or MacMillan. 
 
 * P. 242. — An old gentleman of the 
 author's name was engaged in the 
 affair of 1715, and with some difficulty 
 was saved from the gallows, by the 
 intercession of the Duchess of Buc- 
 cleuch and Monmouth. Her Grace, 
 who maintained a good deal of au- 
 thority over her clan, sent for the 
 object of her intercession, and warning 
 him of the risk which he had run, and 
 the trouble she had taken on his ac- 
 count, wound up her lecture by inti- 
 mating, that in case of such disloyalty 
 again, he was not to expect her inter- 
 est in his favour. " An it please your 
 Grace," said the stout old Tory, "I 
 fear I am too old to see another op- 
 portunity." 
 
 * P. 242. — Braxy Mutton. — The 
 flesh of sheep that has died of dis- 
 ease, not by the hand of the butcher. 
 In pastoral countries it is used as food 
 with little scruple. 
 
 * P. 264. — ^The Scottish pint of liquid 
 measure comprehends foiu: English 
 measures of the same denomination. 
 The jest is well known of my poor 
 countryman, who, driven to extremity 
 by the raillery of the Southern, on the 
 small denomination of the Scottish 
 coin, at length answered, " Ay, ay ! 
 But the deil tak them that has the 
 least piiit-stoup." 
 
 * P. 269. — The translation of the pas- 
 sage is thus given by Sir Henry 
 Steuart of AUanton. — "The youth, 
 taught to look up to riches as the 
 sovereign good, became apt pupils in 
 the school of Luxury. Rapacity and 
 profusion went hand in hand. Care- 
 less of their own fortunes, and eager 
 
NOTES TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 409 
 
 to possess those of others, shame and 
 remorse, modesty and moderation, 
 every principle gave way." — Works of 
 Sallust, with Original Essays, vol. ii. 
 p. 17. 
 
 * P. 270. — After enumerating the evil 
 qualities of Catiline's associates, the 
 author adds, " If it happened that any 
 as yet uncontaminated by vice were 
 fatally drawn into his friendship, the 
 effects of intercourse and snares art- 
 fully spread, subdued every scruple, 
 and early assimilated them to their 
 conductors." — Ibidem, p. 19. 
 
 * P. 271. — Concealments FOR Theft 
 AND Smuggling. — I am sorry to say, 
 that the modes of concealment de- 
 scribed in the imaginary premises of 
 Mr. Trumbull, are of a kind which 
 have been common on the frontiers of 
 late years. The neighbourhood of 
 two nations having different laws, 
 though united in government, still 
 leads to a multitude of transgressions 
 on the Border, and extreme difficulty 
 in apprehending delinquents. About 
 twenty years since, as far as my 
 recollection serves, there was along 
 the frontier an organized gang of 
 coiners, forgers, smugglers, and other 
 malefactors, whose operations were 
 conducted on a scale not inferior to 
 what is here described. The chief of 
 the party was one Richard Mendham, 
 a carpenter, who rose to opulence, 
 although ignorant even of the arts of 
 reading and writing. But he had 
 found a short road to wealth, and 
 had taken singular measures for con- 
 ducting his operations. Amongst 
 these, he found means to build, in a 
 suburb of Berwick, called Spittal, a 
 street of small houses, as if for the 
 investment of property. He himself 
 inhabited one of these j another, a 
 species of public-house, was open to 
 his confederates, who held secret and 
 unsuspected communication with him 
 by crossing the roofs of the interven- 
 ing houses, and descending by a trap- 
 stair, which admitted them into the 
 alcove of the diningroom of Dick 
 Mendham's private mansion. A vault, 
 too, beneath Mendham's stable, was 
 accessible in the manner mentioned in 
 the novel. The post of one of the 
 stalls turned round on a bolt being 
 withdrawn, and gave admittance to a 
 subterranean place of concealment for 
 contraband and stolen goods, to a 
 
 great extent. Richard Mendham, the 
 head of this very formidable con- 
 spiracy, which involved malefactors 
 of every kind, was tried and executed 
 at Jedburgh, where the author was 
 present as Sheriff of Selkirkshire. 
 Mendham had previously been tried, 
 but escaped by want of proof and the 
 ingenuity of his counsel. 
 
 * P. 283. — A small landed proprietor. 
 
 * P. 319. — Several persons have brought 
 down to these days the impressions 
 which Nature had thus recorded, 
 when they were yet babes unborn. 
 One lady of quahty, whose father was 
 long under sentence of death, previous 
 to the rebellion, was marked on the 
 back of the neck by the sign of a 
 broad axe. Another, whose kinsmen 
 had been slain in battle, and died on 
 the scaffold to the number of seven, 
 bore a child spattered on the right 
 shoulder, and down the arm, with 
 scarlet drops, as if of blood. Many 
 other instances might be quoted. 
 
 * P. 328.— Coronation of George 
 III. — The particulars here given are 
 of course entirely imaginary ; that is, 
 they have no other foundation than 
 what might be supposed probable, 
 had such a circumstance actually 
 taken place. Yet a report to such an 
 effect was long and generally current, 
 though now having wholly lost its 
 lingering credit ; those who gave it 
 currency, if they did not originate it, 
 being, with the tradition itself, now 
 mouldered in the dust. The attach- 
 ment to the unfortunate house of 
 Stewart among its adherents, con- 
 tinued to exist and to be fondly 
 cherished, longer perhaps than in any 
 similar case in any other country ; and 
 when reason was bafSed, and all hope 
 destroyed, by repeated frustration, the 
 mere dreams of imagination were 
 summoned in to fill up the dreary 
 blank, left in so many hearts. Of the 
 many reports set on foot and circu- 
 lated from this cause, the tradition 
 in question, though amongst the least 
 authenticated, is not theleast striking ; 
 and, in excuse of what may be consi- 
 dered as a violent infraction of proba- 
 bility in the foregoing chapter, the 
 author is under the necessity of quoting 
 it. It was always said, though with 
 very little appearance of truth, that 
 upon the Coronation of George III,, 
 when the Champion of England, 
 
410 
 
 NOTES TO REDGAUNTLET. 
 
 Dymock, or his representative, ap- 
 peared in Westminster Hall, and, in the 
 language of chivalry, solemnly wagered 
 his body to defend in single combat 
 the right of the young King to the 
 crown of these realms, at the moment 
 when he flung down his gauntlet as 
 the .gage of battle, an unknown fe- 
 male stepped from the crowd and 
 lifted the pledge, leaving another gage 
 in room of it, with a paper expressing, 
 that if a fair field of combat should be 
 allowed, a chamjjion of rank and birth 
 would appear with equal arms to 
 dispute the claim of King George to 
 the British kingdoms. The story, as 
 we have said, is probably one of the 
 numerous fictions which were circu- 
 lated to keep up the spirits of a sink- 
 ing faction. The incident was, how- 
 ever, possible, if it could be supposed 
 to be attended by any motive ade- 
 quate to the risk, and might be ima- 
 gined to occur to a person of Red- 
 gauntlet's enthusiastic character. 
 
 * P. 338. — ^The northern gate of Car- 
 lisle was long garnished with the 
 heads of the Scottish rebels executed 
 in 1746. 
 
 * P. 338. — The Highland regiments 
 were first employed by the celebrated 
 Earl of Chatham, who assumed to 
 himself no' small degree of praise for 
 
 having called forth to the support of 
 the country and the government, the 
 valour which had been too often di- 
 rected against both. 
 
 * P. 347. — In common parlance, • a 
 crowbar and hatchet. 
 
 * P- 3SS'~"A student of divinity who 
 has not been able to complete his 
 
 . studies on theology. 
 
 * P. 360. — Collier and Salter.— 
 The persons engaged in these occu- 
 pations were at this time bondsmen ; 
 and in case they left the ground of the 
 farm to which they belonged, and as 
 pertaining to which their services were 
 bought or sold, they were liable to be 
 brought back by a summary process. 
 The existence of this species of slavery 
 being thought irreconcilable with the 
 spirit of Mberty, colliers and salters 
 were declared free, and put upon the 
 same footing with other servants, by the 
 Act IS Geo. ni. chapter 28th. They 
 were so far from desiring or prizing 
 the blessing conferred on them, that 
 they esteemed the interest taken in 
 their freedom to be a mere decree on 
 the part of the proprietors to get rid 
 of what they called head and harigald 
 money, payable to them when a fe- 
 male of their number, by bearing a 
 child, made an addition to the Uve 
 stock of their master's property. 
 
 THE END, 
 
 BRAUBURV, A13NEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 DEPT. OF PRES. & CONSERVATION 
 
 Job* 
 
 Treated by 
 
 Treatment done ^^ CAS£. 
 
 UAW.'.U.'AW.WM'.M.M.'.''.'.;.' 
 
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