Bride of Lammermoor

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> Bride of Lammermoor


"I think," he said, "the Master has treated me unlike a gentleman, and
I see no right he had to send me back a cavalier answer when I demanded
the satisfaction of one. But he gave me my life once; and, in looking
the matter over at present, I put myself but on equal terms with him.
Should he cross me again, I shall consider the old accompt as balanced,
and his Mastership will do well to look to himself."

"That he should," re-echoed Craigengelt; "for when you are in practice,
Bucklaw, I would bet a magnum you are through him before the third
pass."

"Then you know nothing of the matter," said Bucklaw, "and you never saw
him fence."

"And I know nothing of the matter?" said the dependant--"a good jest, I
promise you! And though I never saw Ravenswood fence, have I not been at
Monsieur Sagoon's school, who was the first maitre d'armes at Paris;
and have I not been at Signor Poco's at Florence, and Meinheer
Durchstossen's at Vienna, and have I not seen all their play?"

"I don't know whether you have or not," said Bucklaw; "but what about
it, though you had?"

"Only that I will be d--d if ever I saw French, Italian, or
High-Dutchman ever make foot, hand, and eye keep time half so well as
you, Bucklaw."

"I believe you lie, Craigie," said Bucklaw; "however, I can hold my own,
both with single rapier, backsword, sword and dagger, broadsword, or
case of falchions--and that's as much as any gentleman need know of the
matter."

"And the doubt of what ninety-nine out of a hundred know," said
Craigengelt; "they learn to change a few thrusts with the small sword,
and then, forsooth, they understand the noble art of defence! Now, when
I was at Rouen in the year 1695, there was a Chevalier de Chapon and I
went to the opera, where we found three bits of English birkies----" "Is
it a long story you are going to tell?" said Bucklaw, interrupting him
without ceremony.

"Just as you like," answered the parasite, "for we made short work of
it."

"Then I like it short," said Bucklaw. "Is it serious or merry?"

"Devilish serious, I assure you, and so they found it; for the Chevalier
and I----"

"Then I don't like it at all," said Bucklaw; "so fill a brimmer of
my auld auntie's claret, rest her heart! And, as the Hielandman says,
Skioch doch na skiall."

"That was what tough old Sir Even Dhu used to say to me when I was out
with the metall'd lads in 1689. 'Craigengelt,' he used to say, 'you
are as pretty a fellow as ever held steel in his grip, but you have one
fault.'"

"If he had known you as long as I have don," said Bucklaw, "he would
have found out some twenty more; but hand long stories, give us your
toast, man."

Craigengelt rose, went a-tiptoe to the door, peeped out, shut it
carefully, came back again, clapped his tarnished gold-laced hat on one
side of his head, took his glass in one hand, and touching the hilt of
his hanger with the other, named, "The King over the water."

"I tell you what it is, Captain Craigengelt," said Bucklaw; "I shall
keep my mind to myself on thse subjects, having too much respect for the
memory of my venerable Aunt Girnington to put her lands and tenements
in the way of committing treason against established authority. Bring me
King James to Edinburgh, Captain, with thirty thousand men at his back,
and I'll tell you what I think about his title; but as for running my
neck into a noose, and my good broad lands into the statutory penalties,
'in that case made and provided,' rely upon it, you will find me no such
fool. So, when you mean to vapour with your hanger and your dram-cup
in support of treasonable toasts, you must find your liquor and company
elsewhere."

"Well, then," said Craigengelt, "name the toast yourself, and be it what
it like, I'll pledge you, were it a mile to the bottom."

"And I'll give you a toast that deserves it, my boy," said Bucklaw;
"what say you to Miss Lucy Ashton?"

"Up with it," said the Captain, as he tossed off his brimmer, "the
bonniest lass in Lothian! What a pity the old sneckdrawing Whigamore,
her father, is about to throw her away upon that rag of pride and
beggary, the Master of Ravenswood!"

"That's not quite so clear," said Bucklaw, in a tone which, though it
seemed indifferent, excited his companion's eager curiosity; and not
that only, but also his hope of working himself into soem sort of
confidence, which might make him necessary to his patron, being by no
means satisfied to rest on mere sufferance, if he could form by art or
industry a more permanent title to his favour.

"I thought," said he, after a moment's pause, "that was a settled
matter; they are continually together, and nothing else is spoken of
betwixt Lammer Law and Traprain."

"They may say what they please," replied his patron, "but I know better;
and I'll give you Miss Lucy Ashton's health again, my boy."

"And I woul drink it on my knee," said Craigengelt, "if I thought the
girl had the spirit to jilt that d--d son of a Spaniard."

"I am to request you will not use the word 'jilt' and Miss Ashton's name
together," said Bucklaw, gravely.

"Jilt, did I say? Discard, my lad of acres--by Jove, I meant to
discard," replied Craigengelt; "and I hope she'll discard him like
a small card at piquet, and take in the king of hearts, my boy! But
yet----"

"But what?" said his patron.

"But yet I know for certain they are hours together alone, and in the
woods and the fields."

"That's her foolish father's dotage; that will be soon put out of the
lass's head, if it ever gets into it," answered Bucklaw. "And now fill
your glass again, Captain; I am going to make you happy; I am going to
let you into a secret--a plot--a noosing plot--only the noose is but
typical."

"A marrying matter?" said Craigengelt, and his jaw fell as he asked the
question, for he suspected that matrimony would render his situation
at Girnington much more precarious than during the jolly days of his
patron's bachelorhood.

"Ay, a marriage, man," said Bucklaw; "but wherefore droops they might
spirit, and why grow the rubies on they cheek so pale? The board will
have a corner, and the corner will have a trencher, and the trencher
will have a glass beside it; and the board-end shall be filled, and
the trencher and the glass shall be replenished for thee, if all the
petticoats in Lothian had sworn the contrary. What, man! I am not the
boy to put myself into leading-strings."

"So says many an honest fellow," said Craigengelt, "and some of my
special friends; but, curse me if I know the reason, the women could
never bear me, and always contrived to trundle me out of favour before
the honeymoon was over."

"If you could have kept your ground till that was over, you might have
made a good year's pension," said Bucklaw.

"But I never could," answered the dejected parasite. "There was my Lord
Castle-Cuddy--we were hand and glove: I rode his horses, borrowed money
both for him and from him, trained his hawks, and taught him how to lay
his bets; and when he took a fancy of marrying, I married him to Katie
Glegg, whom I thought myself as sure of as man could be of woman. Egad,
she had me out of the house, as if I had run on wheels, within the first
fortnight!"

"Well!" replied Bucklaw, "I think I have nothing of Castle-Cuddy about
me, or Lucy of Katie Glegg. But you see the thing will go on whether you
like it or no; the only question is, will you be useful?"

"Useful!" exclaimed the Captain, "and to thee, my lad of lands, my
darling boy, whom I would tramp barefooted through the world for! Name
time, place, mode, and circumstances, and see if I will not be useful in
all uses that can be devised."

"Why, then, you must ride two hundred miles for me," said the patron.

"A thousand, and call them a flea's leap," answered the dependant; "I'll
cause saddle my horse directly."

"Better stay till you know where you are to go, and what you are to
do," quoth Bucklaw. "You know I have a kinswoman in Northumberland, Lady
Blenkensop by name, whose old acquaintance I had the misfortune to lose
in the period of my poverty, but the light of whose countenance shone
forth upon me when the sun of my prosperity began to arise."

"D--n all such double-faced jades!" exclaimed Craigengelt, heroically;
"this I will say for John Craigengelt, that he is his friend's friend
through good report and bad report, poverty and riches; and you know
something of that yourself, Bucklaw."

"I have not forgot your merits," said his patron; "I do remember that,
in my extremities, you had a mind to CRIMP me for the service of the
French king, or of the Pretender; and, moreover, that you afterwards
lent me a score of pieces, when, as I firmly believe, you had heard the
news that old Lady Girnington had a touch of the dead palsy. But don't
be downcast, John; I believe, after all, you like me very well in your
way, and it is my misfortune to have no better counsellor at present.
To return to this Lady Blenkensop, you must know, she is a close
confederate of Duchess Sarah."

"What! of Sall Jennings?" exclaimed Craigengelt; "then she must be a
good one."

"Hold your tongue, and keep your Tory rants to yourself, if it be
possible," said Bucklaw. "I tell you, that through the Duchess of
Marlborough has this Northumbrian cousin of mine become a crony of Lady
Ashton, the Keeper's wife, or, I may say, the Lord Keeper's Lady Keeper,
and she has favoured Lady Blenkensop with a visit on her return from
London, and is just now at her old mansion-house on the banks fo the
Wansbeck. Now, sir, as it has been the use and wont of these ladies to
consider their husbands as of no importance in the management of their
own families, it has been their present pleasure, without consulting
Sir William Ashton, to put on the tapis a matrimonial alliance, to be
concluded between Lucy Ashton and my own right honourable self, Lady
Ashton acting as self-constituted plenipotentiary on the part of her
daughter and husband, and Mother Blenkensop, equally unaccredited, doing
me the honour to be my representative. You may suppose I was a little
astonished when I found that a treaty, in which I was so considerably
interested, had advanced a good way before I was even consulted."

"Capot me! if I think that was according to the rules of the game," said
his confidant; "and pray, what answer did you return?"

"Why, my first thought was to send the treaty to the devil, and the
negotiators along with it, for a couple of meddling old women; my next
was to laugh very hearily; and my third and last was a settled opinion
that the thing was reasonable, and would suit me well enough."

"Why, I thought you had never seen the wench but once, and then she had
her riding-mask on; I am sure you told me so."

"Ay, but I liked her very well then. And Ravenswood's dirty usage of
me--shutting me out of doors to dine with the lackeys, because he
had the Lord Keeper, forsooth, and his daughter, to be guests in his
beggarly castle of starvation,--d--n me, Craigengelt, if I ever forgive
him till I play him as good a trick!"

"No more you should, if you are a lad of mettle," said Craigengelt, the
matter now taking a turn in which he could sympathise; "and if you carry
this wench from him, it will break his heart."

"That it will not," said Bucklaw; "his heart is all steeled over with
reason and philosophy, things that you, Craigie, know nothing about
more than myself, God help me. But it will break his pride, though, and
that's what I'm driving at."

"Distance me!" said Craigengelt, "but I know the reason now of his
unmannerly behaviour at his old tumble-down tower yonder. Ashamed of
your company?--no, no! Gad, he was afraid you would cut in and carry off
the girl."

"Eh! Craigengelt?" said Bucklaw, "do you really think so? but no, no!
he is a devilish deal prettier man than I am." "Who--he?" exclaimed the
parasite. "He's as black as the crook; and for his size--he's a tall
fellow, to be sure, but give me a light, stout, middle-sized----"

"Plague on thee!" said Bucklaw, interrupting him, "and on me for
listening to you! You would say as much if I were hunch-backed. But as
to Ravenswood--he has kept no terms with me, I'll keep none with him; if
I CAN win this girl from him, I WILL win her."

"Win her! 'sblood, you SHALL win her, point, quint, and quatorze, my
king of trumps; you shall pique, repique, and capot him."

"Prithee, stop thy gambling cant for one instant," said Bucklaw.
"Things have come thus far, that I have entertained the proposal of my
kinswoman, agreed to the terms of jointure, amount of fortune, and so
forth, and that the affair is to go forward when Lady Ashton comes down,
for she takes her daughter and her son in her own hand. Now they want me
to send up a confidential person with some writings."

"By this good win, I'll ride to the end of the world--the very gates of
Jericho, and the judgment-seat of Prester John, for thee!" ejaculated
the Captain.

"Why, I believe you would do something for me, and a great deal for
yourself. Now, any one could carry the writings; but you will have a
little more to do. You must contrive to drop out before my Lady Ashton,
just as if it were a matter of little consequence, the residence of
Ravenswood at her husband's house, and his close intercourse with Miss
Ashton; and you may tell her that all the country talks of a visit from
the Marquis of A----, as it is supposed, to make up the match betwixt
Ravenswood and her daughter. I should like to hear what she says to all
this; for, rat me! if I have any idea of starting for the plate at all
if Ravenswood is to win the race, and he has odds against me already."

"Never a bit; the wench has too much sense, and in that belief I drink
her health a third time; and, were time and place fitting, I would drink
it on bended knees, and he that would not pledge me, I would make his
guts garter his stockings."

"Hark ye, Craigengelt; as you are going into the society of women of
rank," said Bucklaw, "I'll thank you to forget your strange blackguard
oaths and 'damme's.' I'll write to them, though, that you are a blunt,
untaught fellow."

"Ay, ay," replied Craigengelt--"a plain, blunt, honest, downright
soldier."

"Not too honest, not too much of the soldier neither; but such as thou
art, it is my luck to need thee, for I must have spurs put to Lady
Ashton's motions." "I'll dash them up to the rowel-heads," said
Craigengelt; "she shall come here at the gallop, like a cow chased by a
whole nest of hornets, and her tail over her rump like a corkscrew."

"And hear ye, Craigie," said Bucklaw; "your boots and doublet are good
enough to drink in, as the man says in the play, but they are somewhat
too greasy for tea-table service; prithee, get thyself a little better
rigged out, and here is to pay all charges."

"Nay, Bucklaw; on my soul, man, you use me ill. However," added
Craigengelt, pocketing the money, "if you will have me so far indebted
to you, I must be conforming."

"Well, horse and away!" said the patron, "so soon as you have got your
riding livery in trim. You may ride the black crop-ear; and, hark ye,
I'll make you a present of him to boot."

"I drink to the good luck of my mission," answered the ambassador, "in a
half-pint bumper."

"I thank ye, Craigie, and pledge you; I see nothing against it but the
father or the girl taking a tantrum, and I am told the mother can wind
them both round her little finger. Take care not to affront her with any
of your Jacobite jargon."

"Oh, ay, true--she is a Whig, and a friend of old Sall of Marlborough;
thank my stars, I can hoist any colours at a pinch! I have fought as
hard under John Churchill as ever I did under Dundee or the Duke of
Berwick."

"I verily believe you, Craigie," said the lord of the mansion; "but,
Craigie, do you, pray, step down to the cellar, and fetch us up a bottle
of the Burgundy, 1678; it is in the fourth bin from the right-hand turn.
And I say, Craigie, you may fetch up half a dozen whilst you are about
it. Egad, we'll make a night on't!"




CHAPTER XXII.

And soon they spied the merry-men green,
And eke the coach and four.

Duke upon Duke.

CRAIGENGELT set forth on his mission so soon as his equipage was
complete, prosecuted his journey with all diligence, and accomplished
his commission with all the dexterity for which bucklaw had given him
credit. As he arrived with credentials from Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw, he
was extremely welcome to both ladies; and those who are prejudiced
in favour of a new acquaintance can, for a time at least, discover
excellencies in his very faults and perfections in his deficiencies.
Although both ladies were accustomed to good society, yet, being
pre-determined to find out an agreeable and well-behaved gentleman
in Mr. Hayston's friend, they succeeded wonderfully in imposing on
themselves. It is true that Craigengelt was now handsomely dressed, and
that was a point of no small consequence. But, independent of outward
show, his blackguard impudence of address was construed into honourable
bluntness becoming his supposed military profession; his hectoring
passed for courage, and his sauciness for wit. Lest, however, any one
should think this a violation of probability, we must add, in fairness
to the two ladies, that their discernment was greatly blinded, and their
favour propitiated, by the opportune arrival of Captain Craigengelt in
the moment when they were longing for a third hand to make a party at
tredrille, in which, as in all games, whether of chance or skill, that
worthy person was a great proficient.

When he found himself established in favour, his next point was how
best to use it for the furtherance of his patron's views. He found
Lady Ashton prepossessed strongly in favour of the motion which Lady
Blenkensop, partly from regard to her kinswoman, partly from the spirit
of match-making, had not hesitated to propose to her; so that his task
was an easy one. Bucklaw, reformed from his prodigality, was just
the sort of husband which she desired to have for her Shepherdess of
Lammermoor; and while the marriage gave her an easy fortune, and a
respectable country gentleman for her husband, Lady Ashton was
of opinion that her destinies would be fully and most favourably
accomplished. It so chanced, also, that Bucklaw, among his new
acquisitions, had gained the management of a little political interest
in a neighbouring county where the Douglas family originally held large
possessions. It was one of the bosom-hopes of Lady Ashton that her
eldest son, Sholto, should represent this county in the British
Parliament, and she saw this alliance with Bucklaw as a circumstance
which might be highly favourable to her wishes.

Craigengelt, who, in his way, by no means wanted sagacity, no sooner
discovered in what quarter the wind of Lady Ashton's wishes sate, than
he trimmed his course accordingly. "There was little to prevent Bucklaw
himself from sitting for the county; he must carry the heat--must walk
the course. Two cousins-german, six more distant kinsmen, his factor and
his chamberlain, were all hollow votes; and the Girnington interest had
always carried, betwixt love and fear, about as many more. But Bucklaw
cared no more about riding the first horse, and that sort of thing, than
he, Craigengelt, did about a game at birkie: it was a pity his interest
was not in good guidance."

All this Lady Ashton drank in with willing and attentive ears, resolving
internally to be herself the person who should take the management of
the political influence of her destined son-in-law, for the benefit of
her eldest-born, Sholto, and all other parties concerned.

When he found her ladyship thus favourably disposed, the Captain
proceeded, to use his employer's phrase, to set spurs to her resolution,
by hinting at the situation of matters at Ravenswood Castle, the long
residence which the heir of that family had made with the Lord Keeper,
and the reports which--though he would be d--d ere he gave credit to any
of them--had been idly circulated in the neighbourhood. It was not the
Captain's cue to appear himself to be uneasy on the subject of these
rumours; but he easily saw from Lady Ashton's flushed cheek, hesitating
voice, and flashing eye, that she had caught the alarm which he intended
to communicate. She had not heard from her husband so often or so
regularly as she though him bound in duty to have written, and of this
very interesting intelligence concerning his visit to the Tower of
Wolf's Crag, and the guest whom, with such cordiality, he had received
at Ravenswsood Castle, he had suffered his lady to remain altogether
ignorant, until she now learned it by the chance information of a
stranger. Such concealment approached, in her apprehension, to a
misprision, at last, of treason, if not to actual rebellion against
her matrimonial authority; and in her inward soul she did vow to take
vengeance on the Lord Keeper, as on a subject detected in meditating
revolt. Her indignation burned the more fiercely as she found herself
obliged to suppress it in presence of Lady Blenkensop, the kinswoman,
and of Craigengelt, the confidential friend, of Bucklaw, of whose
alliance she now became trebly desirous, since it occurred to her
alarmed imagination that her husband might, in his policy or timidity,
prefer that of Ravenswood.

The Captain was engineer enough to discover that the train was fired;
and therefore heard, in the course of the same day, without the least
surprise, that Lady Ashton had resolved to abridge her visit to Lady
Blenkensop, and set forth with the peep of morning on her return to
Scotland, using all the despatch which the state of the roads and the
mode of travelling would possibly permit.

Unhappy Lord Keeper! little was he aware what a storm was travelling
towards him in all the speed with which an old-fashioned coach and six
could possibly achieve its journey. He, like Don Gayferos, "forgot his
lady fair and true," and was only anxious about the expected visit
of the Marquis of A----. Soothfast tidings had assured him that this
nobleman was at length, and without fail, to honour his castle at one
in the afternoon, being a late dinner-hour; and much was the bustle in
consequence of the annunciation. The Lord Keeper traversed the chambers,
held consultation with the butler in the cellars, and even ventured, at
the risk of a demele with a cook of a spirit lofty enough to scorn the
admonitions of Lady Ashton herself, to peep into the kitchen. Satisfied,
at length, that everything was in as active a train of preparation as
was possible, he summoned Ravenswood and his daughter to walk upon the
terrace, for the purpose of watching, from that commanding position,
the earliest symptoms of his lordship's approach. For this purpose, with
slow and idle step, he paraded the terrace, which, flanked with a heavy
stone battlement, stretched in front of the castle upon a level with the
first story; while visitors found access to the court by a projecting
gateway, the bartizan or flat-leaded roof of which was accessible from
the terrace by an easy flight of low and broad steps. The whole bore a
resemblance partly to a castle, partly to a nobleman's seat; and though
calculated, in some respects, for defence, evinced that it had been
constructed under a sense of the power and security of the ancient Lords
of Ravenswood.

This pleasant walk commanded a beautiful and extensive view. But what
was most to our present purpose, there were seen from the terrace two
roads, one leading from the east, and one from the westward, which,
crossing a ridge opposed to the eminence on which the castle stood, at
different angles, gradually approached each other, until they joined not
far from the gate of the avenue. It was to the westward approach that
the Lord Keeper, from a sort of fidgeting anxiety, his daughter, from
complaisance to him, and Ravenswood, though feeling some symptoms of
internal impatience, out of complaisance to his daughter, directed their
eyes to see the precursors of the Marquis's approach.

These were not long of presenting themselves. Two running footmen,
dressed in white, with black jockey-caps, and long staffs in their
hands, headed the train; and such was their agility, that they found
no difficulty in keeping the necessary advance, which the etiquette of
their station required, before the carriage and horsemen. Onward
they came at a long swinging trot, arguing unwearied speed in their
long-breathed calling. Such running footmen are often alluded to in old
plays (I would particularly instance Middleton's Mad World, my Masters),
and perhaps may be still remembered by some old persons in Scotland,
as part of the retinue of the ancient nobility when travelling in full
ceremony. Behind these glancing meteors, who footed it as if the Avenger
of Blood had been behind them, came a cloud of dust, raised by riders
who preceded, attended, or followed the state-carriage of the Marquis.

The privilege of nobility, in those days, had something in it impressive
on the imagination. The dresses and liveries and number of their
attendants, their style of travelling, the imposing, and almost warlike,
air of the armed men who surrounded them, place them far above the
laird, who travelled with his brace of footmen; and as to rivalry from
the mercantile part of the community, these would as soon have thought
of imitating the state equipage of the Sovereign. At present it
is different; and I myself, Peter Pattieson, in a late journey to
Edinburgh, had the honour, in the mail-coach phrase to "change a leg"
with a peer of the realm. It was not so in the days of which I write;
and the Marquis's approach, so long expected in vain, now took place
in the full pomp of ancient aristocracy. Sir William Ashton was so
much interested in what he beheld, and in considering the ceremonial
of reception, in case any circumstance had been omitted, that he scarce
heard his son Henry exclaim: "There is another coach and six coming down
the east road, papa; can they both belong to the Marquis of A----?"