Bride of Lammermoor

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> Bride of Lammermoor


But if Bucklaw could not offer any satisfactory objections to the delay
of the Master in leaving Scotland, he did not the less suffer with
impatience the state of inaction to which it confined him; and it was
only the ascendency which his new companion had acquired over him that
induced him to submit to a course of life so alien to his habits and
inclinations.

"You were wont to be thought a stirring active young fellow, Master,"
was his frequent remonstrance; "yet here you seem determined to live
on and on like a rat in a hole, with this trifling difference, that the
wiser vermin chooses a hermitage where he can find food at least; but as
for us, Caleb's excuses become longer as his diet turns more spare, and
I fear we shall realise the stories they tell of the slother: we have
almost eat up the last green leaf on the plant, and have nothing left
for it but to drop from the tree and break our necks."

"Do not fear it," said Ravenswood; "there is a fate watches for us, and
we too have a stake in the revolution that is now impending, and which
already has alarmed many a bosom."

"What fate--what revolution?" inquired his companion. "We have had one
revolution too much already, I think."

Ravenswood interrupted him by putting into his hands a letter.

"Oh," answered Bucklaw, "my dream's out. I thought I heard Caleb this
morning pressing some unfortunate fellow to a drink of cold water, and
assuring him it was better for his stomach in the morning than ale or
brandy."

"It was my Lord of A----'s courier," said Ravenswood, "who was doomed to
experience his ostentatious hospitality, which I believe ended in sour
beer and herrings. Read, and you will see the news he has brought us."
"I will as fast as I can," said Bucklaw; "but I am no great clerk, nor
does his lordship seem to be the first of scribes."

The reader will peruse in, a few seconds, by the aid our friend
Ballantyne's types, what took Bucklaw a good half hour in perusal,
though assisted by the Master of Ravenswood. The tenor was as follows:


"RIGHT HONOURABLE OUR COUSIN:

"Our hearty commendations premised, these come to assure you of the
interest which we take in your welfare, and in your purpose towards its
augmentation. If we have been less active in showing forth our effective
good-will towards you than, as a loving kinsman and blood-relative, we
would willingly have desired, we request that you will impute it to lack
fo opportunity to show our good-liking, not to any coldness of our will.
Touching your resolution to travel in foreign parts, as at this time we
hold the same little advisable, in respect that your ill-willers may,
according to the custom of such persons, impute motives for your
journey, whereof, although we know and believe you to be as clear as
ourselves, yet natheless their words may find credence in places where
the belief in them may much prejudice you, and which we should see with
more unwillingness and displeasure than with means of remedy.

"Having thus, as becometh our kindred, given you our poor mind on the
subject of your journeying forth of Scotland, we would willingly
add reasons of weight, which might materially advantage you and your
father's house, thereby to determine you to abide at Wolf's Crag, until
this harvest season shall be passed over. But what sayeth the proverb,
verbum sapienti--a word is more to him that hath wisdom than a sermon to
a fool. And albeit we have written this poor scroll with our own hand,
and are well assured of the fidelity of our messenger, as him that is
many ways bounden to us, yet so it is, that sliddery ways crave wary
walking, and that we may not peril upon paper matters which we would
gladly impart to you by word of mouth. Wherefore, it was our purpose to
have prayed you heartily to come to this our barren Highland country to
kill a stag, and to treat of the matters which we are now more painfully
inditing to you anent. But commodity does not serve at present for such
our meeting, which, therefore, shall be deferred until sic time as we
may in all mirth rehearse those things whereof we now keep silence.
Meantime, we pray you to think that we are, and will still be, your good
kinsman and well-wisher, waiting but for times of whilk we do, as it
were, entertain a twilight prospect, and appear and hope to be also your
effectual well-doer. And in which hope we heartily write ourself,

"Right Honourable,

"Your loving cousin,

"A----.
"Given from our poor house of B----," etc.


Superscribed--"For the right honourable, and our honoured kinsman, the
Master of Ravenswood--These, with haste, haste, post haste--ride and run
until these be delivered."

"What think you of this epistle, Bucklaw?" said the Master, when his
companion had hammered out all the sense, and almost all the words of
which it consisted.

"Truly, that the Marquis's meaning is as great a riddle as his
manuscript. He is really in much need of _Wit's Interpreter_, or the
_Complete Letter-Writer_, and were I you, I would send him a copy by the
bearer. He writes you very kindly to remain wasting your time and
your money in this vile, stupid, oppressed country, without so much as
offering you the countenance and shelter of his house. In my opinion, he
has some scheme in view in which he supposes you can be useful, and he
wishes to keep you at hand, to make use of you when it ripens,
reserving the power of turning you adrift, should his plot fail in the
concoction."

"His plot! Then you suppose it is a treasonable business," answered
Ravenswood.

"What else can it be?" replied Bucklaw; "the Marquis has been long
suspected to have an eye to Saint Germains."

"He should not engage me rashly in such an adventure," said Ravenswood;
"when I recollect the times of the first and second Charles, and of the
last James, truly I see little reason that, as a man or a patriot, I
should draw my sword for their descendants."

"Humph!" replied Bucklaw; "so you have set yourself down to mourn over
the crop-eared dogs whom honest Claver'se treated as they deserved?"

"They first gave the dogs an ill name, and then hanged them," replied
Ravenswood. "I hope to see the day when justice shall be open to Whig
and Tory, and when these nicknames shall only be used among coffee-house
politicians, as 'slut' and 'jade' are among apple-women, as cant terms
of idle spite and rancour."

"That will nto be in our days, Master: the iron has entered too deeply
into our sides and our souls."

"It will be, however, one day," replied the Master; "men will not always
start at these nicknames as at a trumpet-sound. As social life is better
protected, its comforts will become too dear to be hazarded without some
better reasons than speculative politics."

"It is fine talking," answered Bucklaw; "but my heart is with the old
song--

To see good corn upon the rigs,
And a gallow built to hang the Whigs,
And the right restored where the right should be.
Oh, that is the thing that would wanton me."

"You may sing as loudly as you will, cantabit vacuus----," answered the
Master; "but I believe the Marquis is too wise, at least too wary, to
join you in such a burden. I suspect he alludes to a revolution in the
Scottish privy council, rather than in the British kingdoms."

"Oh, confusion to your state tricks!" exclaimed Bucklaw--"your cold
calculating manoeuvres, which old gentlemen in wrought nightcaps
and furred gowns execute like so many games at chess, and displace a
treasurer or lord commissioner as they would take a rook or a pawn.
Tennis for my sport, and battle for my earnest! And you, Master, so dep
and considerate as you would seem, you have that within you makes
the blood boil faster than suits your present humour of moralising on
political truths. You are one of those wise men who see everything with
great composure till their blood is up, and then--woe to any one who
should put them in mind of their own prudential maxims!" "Perhaps," said
Ravenswood, "you read me more rightly than I can myself. But to think
justly will certainly go some length in helping me to act so. But hark!
I hear Caleb tolling the dinner-bell."

"Which he always does with the more sonorous grace in proportion to the
meagreness of the cheer which he has provided," said Bucklaw; "as if
that infernal clang and jangle, which will one day bring the belfry
down the cliff, could convert a starved hen into a fat capon, and a
blade-bone of mutton into a haunch of venison."

"I wish we may be so well off as your worst conjectures surmise,
Bucklaw, from the extreme solemnity and ceremony with which Caleb seems
to place on the table that solitary covered dish."

"Uncover, Caleb! uncover, for Heaven's sake!" said Bucklaw; "let us have
what you can give us without preface. Why, it stands well enough, man,"
he continued, addressing impatiently the ancient butler, who, without
reply, kept shifting the dish, until he had at length placed it with
mathematical precision in the very midst of the table.

"What have we got here, Caleb?" inquired the Master in his turn.

"Ahem! sir, ye suld have known before; but his honour the Laird of
Bucklaw is so impatient," answered Caleb, still holding the dish with
one hand and the cover with the other, with evident reluctance to
disclose the contents.

"But what is it, a God's name--not a pair of clean spurs, I hope, in the
Border fashion of old times?"

"Ahem! ahem!" reiterated Caleb, "your honour is pleased to be facetious;
natheless, I might presume to say it was a convenient fashion, and used,
as I have heard, in an honourable and thriving family. But touching your
present dinner, I judged that this being St. Magdalen's [Margaret's]
Eve, who was a worthy queen of Scotland in her day, your honours might
judge it decorous, if not altogether to fast, yet only to sustain nature
with some slight refection, as ane saulted herring or the like." And,
uncovering the dish, he displayed four of the savoury fishes which he
mentioned, adding, in a subdued tone, "that they were no just common
herring neither, being every ane melters, and sauted with uncommon care
by the housekeeper (poor Mysie) for his honour's especial use."

"Out upon all apologies!" said the Master, "let us eat the herrings,
since there is nothing better to be had; but I begin to think with you,
Bucklaw, that we are consuming the last green leaf, and that, in spite
of the Marquis's political machinations, we must positively shift camp
for want of forage, without waiting the issue of them."




CHAPTER IX.

Ay, and when huntsmen wind the merry horn,
And from its covert starts the fearful prey,
Who, warm'd with youth's blood in his swelling veins,
Would, like a lifeless clod, outstretched lie,
Shut out from all the fair creation offers?

Ethwald, Act I. Scene 1.

LIGHT meals procure light slumbers; and therefore it is not surprising
that, considering the fare which Caleb's conscience, or his necessity,
assuming, as will sometimes happen, that disguise, had assigned to the
guests of Wolf's Crag, their slumbers should have been short.

In the morning Bucklaw rushed into his host's apartment with a loud
halloo, which might have awaked the dead.

"Up! up! in the name of Heaven! The hunters are out, the only piece of
sport I have seen this month; and you lie here, Master, on a bed that
has little to recommend it, except that it may be something softer than
the stone floor of your ancestor's vault."

"I wish," said Ravenswood, raising his head peevishly, "you had forborne
so early a jest, Mr. Hayston; it is really no pleasure to lose the very
short repose which I had just begun to enjoy, after a night spent in
thoughts upon fortune far harder than my couch, Bucklaw."

"Pschaw, pshaw!" replied his guest; "get up--get up; the hounds are
abroad. I have saddled the horses myself, for old Caleb was calling for
grooms and lackeys, and would never have proceeded without two hours'
apology for the absence of men that were a hundred miles off. Get up,
Master; I say the hounds are out--get up, I say; the hunt is up." And
off ran Bucklaw.

"And I say," said the Master, rising slowly, "that nothing can concern
me less. Whose hounds come so near to us?"

"The Honourable Lord Brittlebrains's," answered Caleb, who had followed
the impatient Laird of Bucklaw into his master's bedroom, "and truly I
ken nae title they have to be yowling and howling within the freedoms
and immunities of your lordship's right of free forestry."

"Nor I, Caleb," replied Ravenswood, "excepting that they have bought
both the lands and the right of forestry, and may think themselves
entitled to exercise the rights they have paid their money for."

"It may be sae, my lord," replied Caleb; "but it's no gentleman's deed
of them to come here and exercise such-like right, and your lordship
living at your ain castle of Wolf's Crag. Lord Brittlebrains would weel
to remember what his folk have been."

"And what we now are," said the Master, with suppressed bitterness of
feeling. "But reach me my cloak, Caleb, and I will indulge Bucklaw with
a sight of this chase. It is selfish to sacrifice my guest's pleasure to
my own."

"Sacrifice!" echoed Caleb, in a tone which seemed to imply the total
absurdity of his master making the least concession in deference to any
one--"sacrifice, indeed!--but I crave your honour's pardon, and whilk
doublet is it your pleasure to wear?"

"Any one you will, Caleb; my wardrobe, I suppose, is not very
extensive."

"Not extensive!" echoed his assistant; "when there is the grey and
silver that your lordship bestowed on Hew Hildebrand, your outrider;
and the French velvet that went with my lord your father--be gracious
to him!--my lord your father's auld wardrobe to the puir friends of the
family; and the drap-de-Berry----"

"Which I gave to you, Caleb, and which, I suppose, is the only dress we
have any chance to come at, except that I wore yesterday; pray, hand me
that, and say no more about it."

"If your honour has a fancy," replied Caleb, "and doubtless it's a
sad-coloured suit, and you are in mourning; nevertheless, I have never
tried on the drap-de-Berry--ill wad it become me--and your honour having
no change of claiths at this present--and it's weel brushed, and as
there are leddies down yonder----"

"Ladies!" said Ravenswood; "and what ladies, pray?"

"What do I ken, your lordship? Looking down at them from the Warden's
Tower, I could but see them glent by wi' their bridles ringing and their
feathers fluttering, like the court of Elfland."

"Well, well, Caleb," replied the Master, "help me on with my cloak, and
hand me my sword-belt. What clatter is that in the courtyard?"

"Just Bucklaw bringing out the horses," said Caleb, after a glance
through the window, "as if there werena men eneugh in the castle, or as
if I couldna serve the turn of ony o' them that are out o' the gate."

"Alas! Caleb, we should want little if your ability were equal to your
will," replied the Master.

"And I hope your lordship disna want that muckle," said Caleb; "for,
considering a' things, I trust we support the credit of the family as
weel as things will permit of,--only Bucklaw is aye sae frank and sae
forward. And there he has brought out your lordship's palfrey, without
the saddle being decored wi' the broidered sumpter-cloth! and I could
have brushed it in a minute."

"It is all very well," said his master, escaping from him and descending
the narrow and steep winding staircase which led to the courtyard.

"It MAY be a' very weel," said Caleb, somewhat peevishly; "but if your
lordship wad tarry a bit, I will tell you what will NOT be very weel."

"And what is that?" said Ravenswood, impatiently, but stopping at the
same time.

"Why, just that ye suld speer ony gentleman hame to dinner; for I canna
mak anither fast on a feast day, as when I cam ower Bucklaw wi' Queen
Margaret; and, to speak truth, if your lordship wad but please to cast
yoursell in the way of dining wi' Lord Bittlebrains, I'se warrand I wad
cast about brawly for the morn; or if, stead o' that, ye wad but dine
wi' them at the change-house, ye might mak your shift for the awing: ye
might say ye had forgot your purse, or that the carline awed ye rent,
and that ye wad allow it in the settlement."

"Or any other lie that cam uppermost, I suppose?" said his master.
"Good-bye, Caleb; I commend your care for the honour of the family."
And, throwing himself on his horse, he followed Bucklaw, who, at the
manifest risk of his neck, had begun to gallop down the steep path which
led from the Tower as soon as he saw Ravenswood have his foot in the
stirrup.

Caleb Balderstone looked anxiously after them, and shook his thin grey
locks: "And I trust they will come to no evil; but they have reached
the plain, and folk cannot say but that the horse are hearty and in
spirits." Animated by the natural impetuosity and fire of his temper,
young Bucklaw rushed on with the careless speed of a whirlwind.
Ravenswood was scarce more moderate in his pace, for his was a mind
unwillingly roused from contemplative inactivity, but which, when once
put into motion, acquired a spirit of forcible and violent progression.
Neither was his eagerness proportioned in all cases to the motive of
impulse, but might be compared to the sped of a stone, which rushes with
like fury down the hill whether it was first put in motion by the arm of
a giant or the hand of a boy. He felt, therefore, in no ordinary degree,
the headlong impulse of the chase, a pastime so natural to youth of
all ranks, that it seems rather to be an inherent passion in our animal
nature, which levels all differences of rank and education, than an
acquired habit of rapid exercise.

The repeated bursts of the French horn, which was then always used for
the encouragement and direction of the hounds; the deep, though distant
baying of the pack; the half-heard cries of the huntsmen; the half-seen
forms which were discovered, now emerging from glens which crossed the
moor, now sweeping over its surface, now picking their way where it
was impeded by morasses; and, above all, the feeling of his own rapid
motion, animated the Master of Ravenswood, at last for the moment, above
the recollections of a more painful nature by which he was surrounded.
The first thing which recalled him to those unpleasing circumstances
was feeling that his horse, notwithstanding all the advantages which he
received from his rider's knowledge of the country, was unable to keep
up with the chase. As he drew his bridle up with the bitter feeling
that his poverty excluded him from the favourite recreation of his
forefathers, and indeed their sole employment when not engaged in
military pursuits, he was accosted by a well-mounted stranger, who,
unobserved, had kept near him during the earlier part of his career.

"Your horse is blown," said the man, with a complaisance seldom used in
a hunting-field. "Might I crave your honour to make use of mine?"

"Sir," said Ravenswood, more surprised than pleased at such a proposal.
"I really do not know how I have merited such a favour at a stranger's
hands."

"Never ask a question about it, Master," said Bucklaw, who, with great
unwillingness, had hitherto reined in his own gallant steed, not to
outride his host and entertainer. "Take the goods the gods provide you,
as the great John Dryden says; or stay--here, my friend, lend me that
horse; I see you have been puzzled to rein him up this half-hour. I'll
take the devil out of him for you. Now, Master, do you ride mine, which
will carry you like an eagle."

And throwing the rein of his own horse to the Master of Ravenswood, he
sprung upon that which the stranger resigned to him, and continued
his career at full speed. "Was ever so thoughtless a being!" said the
Master; "and you, my friend, how could you trust him with your horse?"

"The horse," said the man, "belongs to a person who will make your
honour, or any of your honourable friends, most welcome to him, flesh
and fell."

"And the owner's name is----?" asked Ravenswood.

"Your honour must excuse me, you will learn that from himself. If you
please to take your friend's horse, and leave me your galloway, I will
meet you after the fall of the stag, for I hear they are blowing him at
bay."

"I believe, my friend, it will be the best way to recover your good
horse for you," answered Ravenswood; and mounting the nag of his friend
Bucklaw, he made all the haste in his power to the spot where the blast
of the horn announced that the stag's career was nearly terminated.

These jovial sounds were intermixed with the huntsmen's shouts of "Hyke
a Talbot! Hyke a Teviot! now, boys, now!" and similar cheering halloos
of the olden hunting-field, to which the impatient yelling of the
hounds, now close of the object of their pursuit, gave a lively and
unremitting chorus. The straggling riders began now to rally towards the
scene of action, collecting from different points as to a common centre.

Bucklaw kept the start which he had gotten, and arrived first at the
spot, where the stag, incapable of sustaining a more prolonged flight,
had turned upon the hounds, and, in the hunter's phrase, was at bay.
With his stately head bent down, his sides white with foam, his eyes
strained betwixt rage and terror, the hunted animal had now in his turn
become an object of intimidation to his pursuers. The hunters came
up one by one, and watched an opportunity to assail him with some
advantage, which, in such circumstances, can only be done with caution.
The dogs stood aloof and bayed loudly, intimating at once eagerness and
fear, and each of the sportsmen seemed to expect that his comrade would
take upon him the perilous task of assaulting and disabling the animal.
The ground, which was a hollow in the common or moor, afforded little
advantage for approaching the stag unobserved; and general was the shout
of triumph when Bucklaw, with the dexterity proper to an accomplished
cavalier of the day, sprang from his horse, and dashing suddenly and
swiftly at the stag, brought him to the ground by a cut on the hind leg
with his short hunting-sword. The pack, rushing in upon their disabled
enemy, soon ended his painful struggles, and solemnised his fall with
their clamour; the hunters, with their horns and voices, whooping and
blowing a mort, or death-note, which resounded far over the billows of
the adjacent ocean.

The huntsman then withdrew the hounds from the throttled stag, and on
his knee presented his knife to a fair female form, on a white palfrey,
whose terror, or perhaps her compassion, had till then kept her at some
distance. She wore a black silk riding-mask, which was then a common
fashion, as well for preserving the complexion from the sun and rain, as
from an idea of decorum, which did not permit a lady to appear barefaced
while engaged in a boisterous sport, and attended by a promiscuous
company. The richness of her dress, however, as well as the mettle and
form of her palfrey, together with the silvan compliment paid to her by
the huntsman, pointed her out to Bucklaw as the principal person in
the field. It was not without a feeling of pity, approaching even
to contempt, that this enthusiastic hunter observed her refuse the
huntsman's knife, presented to her for the purpose of making the first
incision in the stag's breast, and thereby discovering the venison. He
felt more than half inclined to pay his compliments to her; but it had
been Bucklaw's misfortune, that his habits of life had not rendered
him familiarly acquainted with the higher and better classes of female
society, so that, with all his natural audacity, he felt sheepish and
bashful when it became necessary to address a lady of distinction.

Taking unto himself heart of grace (to use his own phrase), he did at
length summon up resolution enough to give the fair huntress good time
of the day, and trust that her sport had answered her expectation. Her
answer was very courteously and modestly expressed, and testified some
gratitude to the gallant cavalier, whose exploit had terminated the
chase so adroitly, when the hounds and huntsmen seemed somewhat at a
stand.

"Uds daggers and scabbard, madam," said Bucklaw, whom this observation
brought at once upon his own ground, "there is no difficulty or merit in
that matter at all, so that a fellow is not too much afraid of having a
pair of antlers in his guts. I have hunted at force five hundred times,
madam; and I never yet saw the stag at bay, by land or water, but I
durst have gone roundly in on him. It is all use and wont, madam; and
I'll tell you, madam, for all that, it must be done with good heed and
caution; and you will do well, madam, to have your hunting-sword right
sharp and double-edged, that you may strike either fore-handed or
back-handed, as you see reason, for a hurt with a buck's horn is a
perilous ad somewhat venomous matter."

"I am afraid, sir," said the young lady, and her smile was scarce
concealed by her vizard, "I shall have little use for such careful
preparation."