Both gentlemen answered at once. "My kinsman is incapable----" said the
Lord Marquis.

"I am confident that my daughter Lucy is still more incapable----" said
the Lord Keeper.

Lady Ashton at once interrupted and replied to them both: "My Lord
Marquis, your kinsman, if Mr. Ravenswood has the honour to be so, has
made the attempt privately to secure the affections of this young and
inexperienced girl. Sir William Ashton, your daughter has been simple
enough to give more encouragement than she ought to have done to so very
improper a suitor."

"And I think, madam," said the Lord Keeper, losing his accustomed temper
and patience, "that if you had nothing better to tell us, you had better
have kept this family secret to yourself also."

"You will pardon me, Sir William," said the lady, calmly; "the noble
Marquis has a right to know the cause of the treatment I have found it
necessary to use to a gentleman whom he calls his blood-relation."

"It is a cause," muttered the Lord Keeper, "which has emerged since the
effect has taken place; for, if it exists at all, I am sure she knew
nothing of it when her letter to Ravenswood was written."

"It is the first time that I have heard of this," said the Marquis;
"but, since your ladyship has tabled a subject so delicate, permit me
to say, that my kinsman's birth and connexions entitled him to a patient
hearing, and at least a civil refusal, even in case of his being so
ambitious as to raise his eyes to the daughter of Sir William Ashton."

"You will recollect, my lord, of what blood Miss Lucy Ashton is come by
the mother's side," said the lady.

"I do remember your descent--from a younger branch of the house of
Angus," said the Marquis; "and your ladyship--forgive me, lady--ought
not to forget that the Ravenswoods have thrice intermarried with the
main stem. Come, madam, I know how matters stand--old and long-fostered
prejudices are difficult to get over, I make every allowance for them; I
ought not, and I would not, otherwise have suffered my kinsman to depart
alone, expelled, in a manner, from this house, but I had hopes of being
a mediator. I am still unwilling to leave you in anger, and shall not
set forward till after noon, as I rejoin the Master of Ravenswood upon
the road a few miles from hence. Let us talk over this matter more
coolly."

"It is what I anxiously desire, my lord," said Sir William Ashton,
eagerly. "Lady Ashton, we will not permit my Lord of A---- to leave us
in displeasure. We must compel him to tarry dinner at the castle."

"The castle," said the lady, "and all that it contains, are at the
command of the Marquis, so long as he chooses to honour it with his
residence; but touching the farther discussion of this disagreeable
topic----"

"Pardon me, good madam," said the Marquis; "but I cannot allow you to
express any hasty resolution on a subject so important. I see that more
company is arriving; and, since I have the good fortune to renew my
former acquaintance with Lady Ashton, I hope she will give me leave to
avoid perilling what I prize so highly upon any disagreeable subject of
discussion--at least till we have talked over more pleasant topics."

The lady smiled, courtesied, and gave her hand to the Marquis, by whom,
with all the formal gallantry of the time, which did not permit the
guest to tuck the lady of the house under the arm, as a rustic does his
sweetheart at a wake, she was ushered to the eating-room.

Here they were joined by Bucklaw, Craigengelt, and other neighbours,
whom the Lord Keeper had previously invited to meet the Marquis of
A----. An apology, founded upon a slight indisposition, was alleged
as an excuse for the absence of Miss Ashton, whose seat appeared
unoccupied. The entertainment was splendid to profusion, and was
protracted till a late hour.




CHAPTER XXIII.

     Such was our fallen father's fate,
     Yet better than mine own;
     He shared his exile with his mate,
     I'm banish'd forth alone.

     WALLER

I WILL not attempt to describe the mixture of indignation and regret
with which Ravenswood left the seat which had belonged to his ancestors.
The terms in which Lady Ashton's billet was couched rendered it
impossible for him, without being deficient in that spirit of which he
perhaps had too much, to remain an instant longer within its walls.
The Marquis, who had his share in the affront, was, nevertheless, still
willing to make some efforts at conciliation. He therefore suffered his
kinsman to depart alone, making him promise, however, that he would wait
for him at the small inn called the Tod's Hole, situated, as our readers
may be pleased to recollect, half-way betwixt Ravenswood Castle and
Wolf's Crag, and about five Scottish miles distant from each. Here the
Marquis proposed to join the Master of Ravenswood, either that night or
the next morning. His own feelings would have induced him to have left
the castle directly, but he was loth to forfeit, without at least one
effort, the advantages which he had proposed from his visit to the Lord
Keeper; and the Master of Ravenswood was, even in the very heat of his
resentment, unwilling to foreclose any chance of reconciliation which
might arise out of the partiality which Sir William Ashton had shown
towards him, as well as the intercessory arguments of his noble kinsman.
He himself departed without a moment's delay, farther than was necessary
to make this arrangement.

At first he spurred his horse at a quick pace through an avenue of the
park, as if, by rapidity of motion, he could stupify the confusion of
feelings with which he was assailed. But as the road grew wilder and
more sequestered, and when the trees had hidden the turrets of the
castle, he gradually slackened his pace, as if to indulge the painful
reflections which he had in vain endeavoured to repress. The path in
which he found himself led him to the Mermaiden's Fountain, and to the
cottage of Alice; and the fatal influence which superstitious belief
attached to the former spot, as well as the admonitions which had
been in vain offered to him by the inhabitant of the latter, forced
themselves upon his memory. "Old saws speak truth," he said to himself,
"and the Mermaiden's Well has indeed witnessed the last act of rashness
of the heir of Ravenswood. Alice spoke well," he continued, "and I am
in the situation which she foretold; or rather, I am more deeply
dishonoured--not the dependant and ally of the destroyer of my father's
house, as the old sibyl presaged, but the degraded wretch who has
aspired to hold that subordinate character, and has been rejected with
disdain."

We are bound to tell the tale as we have received it; and, considering
the distance of the time, and propensity of those through whose mouths
it has passed to the marvellous, this could not be called a Scottish
story unless it manifested a tinge of Scottish superstition. As
Ravenswood approached the solitary fountain, he is said to have met with
the following singular adventure: His horse, which was moving slowly
forward, suddenly interrupted its steady and composed pace, snorted,
reared, and, though urged by the spur, refused to proceed, as if some
object of terror had suddenly presented itself. On looking to the
fountain, Ravenswood discerned a female figure, dressed in a white, or
rather greyish, mantle, placed on the very spot on which Lucy Ashton
had reclined while listening to the fatal tale of love. His immediate
impression was that she had conjectured by which path he would traverse
the park on his departure, and placed herself at this well-known and
sequestered place of rendezvous, to indulge her own sorrow and his
parting interview. In this belief he jumped from his horse, and,
making its bridle fast to a tree, walked hastily towards the
fountain, pronouncing eagerly, yet under his breath, the words, "Miss
Ashton!--Lucy!"

The figure turned as he addressed it, and displayed to his wondering
eyes the features, not of Lucy Ashton, but of old blind Alice. The
singularity of her dress, which rather resembled a shroud than the
garment of a living woman; the appearance of her person, larger, as
it struck him, than it usually seemed to be; above all, the strange
circumstance of a blind, infirm, and decrepit person being found alone
and at a distance from her habitation (considerable, if her infirmities
be taken into account), combined to impress him with a feeling of wonder
approaching to fear. As he approached, she arose slowly from her seat,
held her shrivelled hand up as if to prevent his coming more near,
and her withered lips moved fast, although no sound issued from them.
Ravenswood stopped; and as, after a moment's pause, he again advanced
towards her, Alice, or her apparition, moved or glided backwards towards
the thicket, still keeping her face turned towards him. The trees soon
hid the form from his sight; and, yielding to the strong and terrific
impression that the being which he had seen was not of this world, the
Master of Ravenswood remained rooted to the ground whereon he had
stood when he caught his last view of her. At length, summoning up his
courage, he advanced to the spot on which the figure had seemed to
be seated; but neither was there pressure of the grass nor any other
circumstance to induce him to believe that what he had seen was real and
substantial.

Full of those strange thoughts and confused apprehensions which awake
in the bosom of one who conceives he has witnessed some preternatural
appearance, the Master of Ravenswood walked back towards his horse,
frequently, however, looking behind him, not without apprehension, as if
expecting that the vision would reappear. But the apparition, whether
it was real or whether it was the creation of a heated and agitated
imagination, returned not again; and he found his horse sweating and
terrified, as if experiencing that agony of fear with which the presence
of a supernatural being is supposed to agitate the brute creation. The
Master mounted, and rode slowly forward, soothing his steed from time
to time, while the animal seemed internally to shrink and shudder, as
if expecting some new object of fear at the opening of every glade.
The rider, after a moment's consideration, resolved to investigate the
matter further. "Can my eyes have deceived me," he said, "and deceived
me for such a space of time? Or are this woman's infirmities but
feigned, in order to excite compassion? And even then, her motion
resembled not that of a living and existing person. Must I adopt the
popular creed, and think that the unhappy being has formed a league with
the powers of darkness? I am determined to be resolved; I will not brook
imposition even from my own eyes."

In this uncertainty he rode up to the little wicket of Alice's garden.
Her seat beneath the birch-tree was vacant, though the day was pleasant
and the sun was high. He approached the hut, and heard from within the
sobs and wailing of a female. No answer was returned when he knocked,
so that, after a moment's pause, he lifted the latch and entered. It
was indeed a house of solitude and sorrow. Stretched upon her miserable
pallet lay the corpse of the last retainer of the house of Ravenswood
who still abode on their paternal domains! Life had but shortly
departed; and the little girl by whom she had been attended in her last
moments was wringing her hands and sobbing, betwixt childish fear and
sorrow, over the body of her mistress.

The Master of Ravenswood had some difficulty to compose the terrors
of the poor child, whom his unexpected appearance had at first rather
appalled than comforted; and when he succeeded, the first expression
which the girl used intimated that "he had come too late." Upon
inquiring the meaning of this expression, he learned that the deceased,
upon the first attack of the mortal agony, had sent a peasant to the
castle to beseech an interview of the Master of Ravenswood, and had
expressed the utmost impatience for his return. But the messengers of
the poor are tardy and negligent: the fellow had not reached the castle,
as was afterwards learned, until Ravenswood had left it, and had then
found too much amusement among the retinue of the strangers to return in
any haste to the cottage of Alice. Meantime her anxiety of mind seemed
to increase with the agony of her body; and, to use the phrase of
Babie, her only attendant, "she prayed powerfully that she might see
her master's son once more, and renew her warning." She died just as the
clock in the distant village tolled one; and Ravenswood remembered, with
internal shuddering, that he had heard the chime sound through the wood
just before he had seen what he was now much disposed to consider as the
spectre of the deceased.

It was necessary, as well from his respect to the departed as in common
humanity to her terrified attendant, that he should take some measures
to relieve the girl from her distressing situation. The deceased,
he understood, had expressed a desire to be buried in a solitary
churchyard, near the little inn of the Tod's Hole, called the Hermitage,
or more commonly Armitage, in which lay interred some of the Ravenswood
family, and many of their followers. Ravenswood conceived it his duty
to gratify this predilection, commonly found to exist among the Scottish
peasantry, and despatched Babie to the neighbouring village to procure
the assistance of some females, assuring her that, in the mean while, he
would himself remain with the dead body, which, as in Thessaly of old,
it is accounted highly unfit to leave without a watch.

Thus, in the course of a quarter of an hour or little more, he found
himself sitting a solitary guard over the inanimate corpse of her whose
dismissed spirit, unless his eyes had strangely deceived him, had so
recently manifested itself before him. Notwithstanding his natural
courage, the Master was considerably affected by a concurrence of
circumstances so extraordinary. "She died expressing her eager desire
to see me. Can it be, then," was his natural course of reflection--"can
strong and earnest wishes, formed during the last agony of nature,
survive its catastrophe, surmount the awful bounds of the spiritual
world, and place before us its inhabitants in the hues and colouring of
life? And why was that manifested to the eye which could not unfold its
tale to the ear? and wherefore should a breach be made in the laws
of nature, yet its purpose remain unknown? Vain questions, which only
death, when it shall make me like the pale and withered form before me,
can ever resolve."

He laid a cloth, as he spoke, over the lifeless face, upon whose
features he felt unwilling any longer to dwell. He then took his place
in an old carved oaken chair, ornamented with his own armorial bearings,
which Alice had contrived to appropriate to her own use in the pillage
which took place among creditors, officers, domestics, and messengers of
the law when his father left Ravenswood Castle for the last time. Thus
seated, he banished, as much as he could, the superstitious feelings
which the late incident naturally inspired. His own were sad enough,
without the exaggeration of supernatural terror, since he found himself
transferred from the situation of a successful lover of Lucy Ashton, and
an honoured and respected friend of her father, into the melancholy
and solitary guardian of the abandoned and forsaken corpse of a common
pauper.

He was relieved, however, from his sad office sooner that he could
reasonably have expected, considering the distance betwixt the hut of
the deceased and the village, and the age and infirmities of three old
women who came from thence, in military phrase, to relieve guard upon
the body of the defunct. On any other occasion the speed of these
reverend sibyls would have been much more moderate, for the first was
eighty years of age and upwards, the second was paralytic, and the third
lame of a leg from some accident. But the burial duties rendered to the
deceased are, to the Scottish peasant of either sex, a labour of love.
I know not whether it is from the temper of the people, grave and
enthusiastic as it certainly is, or from the recollection of the ancient
Catholic opinions, when the funeral rites were always considered as a
period of festival to the living; but feasting, good cheer, and even
inebriety, were, and are, the frequent accompaniments of a Scottish
old-fashioned burial. What the funeral feast, or "dirgie," as it is
called, was to the men, the gloomy preparations of the dead body for the
coffin were to the women. To straight the contorted limbs upon a board
used for that melancholy purpose, to array the corpse in clean linen,
and over that in its woollen shroad, were operations committed always to
the old matrons of the village, and in which they found a singular and
gloomy delight.

The old women paid the Master their salutations with a ghastly smile,
which reminded him of the meeting betwixt Macbeth and the witches on
the blasted heath of Forres. He gave them some money, and recommended to
them the charge of the dead body of their contemporary, an office which
they willingly undertook; intimating to him at the same time that
he must leave the hut, in order that they might begin their mournful
duties. Ravenswood readily agreed to depart, only tarrying to recommend
to them due attention to the body, and to receive information where
he was to find the sexton, or beadle, who had in charge the deserted
churchyard of the Armitage, in order to prepare matters for the
reception of Old Alice in the place of repose which she had selected for
herself.

"Ye'll no be pinched to find out Johnie Mortsheugh," said the elder
sibyl, and still her withered cheek bore a grisly smile; "he dwells near
the Tod's Hole, an house of entertainment where there has been mony a
blythe birling, for death and drink-draining are near neighbours to ane
anither."

"Ay! and that's e'en true, cummer," said the lame hag, propping herself
with a crutch which supported the shortness of her left leg, "for I mind
when the father of this Master of Ravenswood that is now standing before
us sticked young Blackhall with his whinger, for a wrang word said ower
their wine, or brandy, or what not: he gaed in as light as a lark, and
he came out wi' his feet foremost. I was at the winding of the corpse;
and when the bluid was washed off, he was a bonny bouk of man's body."
It may be easily believed that this ill-timed anecdote hastened the
Master's purpose of quitting a company so evil-omened and so odious.
Yet, while walking to the tree to which his horse was tied, and busying
himself with adjusting the girths of the saddle, he could not avoid
hearing, through the hedge of the little garden, a conversation
respecting himself, betwixt the lame woman and the octogenarian sibyl.
The pair had hobbled into the garden to gather rosemary, southernwood,
rue, and other plants proper to be strewed upon the body, and burned by
way of fumigation in the chimney of the cottage. The paralytic wretch,
almost exhausted by the journey, was left guard upon the corpse, lest
witches or fiends might play their sport with it.

The following law, croaking dialogue was necessarily overheard by the
Master of Ravenswood:

"That's a fresh and full-grown hemlock, Annie Winnie; mony a cummer lang
syne wad hae sought nae better horse to flee over hill and how, through
mist and moonlight, and light down in the the King of France's cellar."

"Ay, cummer! but the very deil has turned as hard-hearted now as the
Lord Keeper and the grit folk, that hae breasts like whinstane. They
prick us and they pine us, and they pit us on the pinnywinkles for
witches; and, if I say my prayers backwards ten times ower, Satan will
never gie me amends o' them."

"Did ye ever see the foul thief?" asked her neighbour.

"Na!" replied the other spokeswoman; "but I trow I hae dreamed of him
mony a time, and I think the day will come they will burn me for't. But
ne'er mind, cummer! we hae this dollar of the Master's, and we'll send
doun for bread and for yill, and tobacco, and a drap brandy to burn, and
a wee pickle saft sugar; and be there deil, or nae deil, lass, we'll hae
a merry night o't."

Here her leathern chops uttered a sort of cackling, ghastly laugh,
resembling, to a certain degree, the cry of the screech-owl.

"He's a frank man, and a free-handed man, the Master," said Annie
Winnie, "and a comely personage--broad in the shouthers, and narrow
around the lunyies. He wad mak a bonny corpse; I wad like to hae the
streiking and winding o' him."

"It is written on his brow, Annie Winnie," returned the octogenarian,
her companion, "that hand of woman, or of man either, will never
straught him: dead-deal will never be laid on his back, make you your
market of that, for I hae it frae a sure hand."

"Will it be his lot to die on the battle-ground then, Ailsie Gourlay?
Will he die by the sword or the ball, as his forbears had dune before
him, mony ane o' them?" "Ask nae mair questions about it--he'll no be
graced sae far," replied the sage.

"I ken ye are wiser than ither folk, Aislie Gourlay. But wha tell'd ye
this?" "Fashna your thumb about that, Annie Winnie," answered the sibyl,
"I hae it frae a hand sure eneugh."

"But ye said ye never saw the foul thief," reiterated her inquisitive
companion.

"I hae it frae as sure a hand," said Ailsie, "and frae them that spaed
his fortune before the sark gaed ower his head."

"Hark! I hear his horse's feet riding aff," said the other; "they dinna
sound as if good luck was wi' them."

"Mak haste, sirs," cried the paralytic hag from the cottage, "and let
us do what is needfu', and say what is fitting; for, if the dead corpse
binna straughted, it will girn and thraw, and that will fear the best o'
us."

Ravenswood was now out of hearing. He despised most of the ordinary
prejudices about witchcraft, omens, and vaticination, to which his age
and country still gave such implicit credit that to express a doubt of
them was accounted a crime equal to the unbelief of Jews or Saracens; he
knew also that the prevailing belief, concerning witches, operating
upon the hypochondriac habits of those whom age, infirmity, and poverty
rendered liable to suspicion, and enforced by the fear of death and the
pangs of the most cruel tortures, often extorted those confessions which
encumber and disgrace the criminal records of Scotland during the 17th
century. But the vision of that morning, whether real or imaginary,
had impressed his mind with a superstitious feeling which he in vain
endeavoured to shake off. The nature of the business which awaited him
at the little inn, called Tod's Hole, where he soon after arrived, was
not of a kind to restore his spirits.

It was necessary he should see Mortsheugh, the sexton of the old
burial-ground at Armitage, to arrange matters for the funeral of Alice;
and, as the man dwelt near the place of her late residence, the Master,
after a slight refreshment, walked towards the place where the body of
Alice was to be deposited. It was situated in the nook formed by the
eddying sweep of a stream, which issued from the adjoining hills. A rude
cavern in an adjacent rock, which, in the interior, was cut into the
shape of a cross, formed the hermitage, where some Saxon saint had in
ancient times done penance, and given name to the place. The rich
Abbey of Coldinghame had, in latter days, established a chapel in
the neighbourhood, of which no vestige was now visible, though the
churchyard which surrounded it was still, as upon the present occasion,
used for the interment of particular persons. One or two shattered
yew-trees still grew within the precincts of that which had once been
holy ground. Warriors and barons had been buried there of old, but
their names were forgotten, and their monuments demolished. The only
sepulchral memorials which remained were the upright headstones which
mark the graves of persons of inferior rank. The abode of the sexton was
a solitary cottage adjacent to the ruined wall of the cemetery, but so
low that, with its thatch, which nearly reached the ground, covered with
a thick crop of grass, fog, and house-leeks, it resembled an overgrown
grave. On inquiry, however, Ravenswood found that the man of the last
mattock was absent at a bridal, being fiddler as well as grave-digger to
the vicinity. He therefore retired to the little inn, leaving a message
that early next morning he would again call for the person whose double
occupation connected him at once with the house of mourning and the
house of feasting.

An outrider of the Marquis arrived at Tod's Hole shortly after, with a
message, intimating that his master would join Ravenswood at that place
on the following morning; and the Master, who would otherwise have
proceeded to his old retreat at Wolf's Crag, remained there accordingly
to give meeting to his noble kinsman.




CHAPTER XXIV.

     Hamlet:  Has this fellow no feeling of his business? he sings
     at grave making.
     Horatio:   Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.
     Hamlet:  'Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the
     daintier sense.

     Hamlet, Act V. Scene 1.

THE sleep of Ravenswood was broken by ghastly and agitating visions, and
his waking intervals disturbed by melancholy reflections on the past and
painful anticipations of the future. He was perhaps the only traveller
who ever slept in that miserable kennel without complaining of his
lodgings, or feeling inconvenience from their deficiencies. It is when
"the mind is free the body's delicate." Morning, however, found the
Master an early riser, in hopes that the fresh air of the dawn might
afford the refreshment which night had refused him. He took his way
towards the solitary burial-ground, which lay about half a mile from the
inn.

The thin blue smoke, which already began to curl upward, and to
distinguish the cottage of the living from the habitation of the dead,
apprised him that its inmate had returned and was stirring. Accordingly,
on entering the little churchyard, he saw the old man labouring in a
half-made grave. "My destiny," thought Ravenswood, "seems to lead me to
scenes of fate and of death; but these are childish thoughts, and they
shall not master me. I will not again suffer my imagination to beguile
my senses." The old man rested on his spade as the Master approached
him, as if to receive his commands; and as he did not immediately speak,
the sexton opened the discourse in his own way.

"Ye will be a wedding customer, sir, I'se warrant?"

"What makes you think so, friend?" replied the Master.

"I live by twa trades, sir," replied the blythe old man--"fiddle, sir,
and spade; filling the world, and emptying of it; and I suld ken baith
cast of customers by head-mark in thirty years' practice."

"You are mistaken, however, this morning," replied Ravenswood.

"Am I?" said the old man, looking keenly at him, "troth and it may be;
since, for as brent as your brow is, there is something sitting upon it
this day that is as near akin to death as to wedlock. Weel--weel; the
pick and shovel are as ready to your order as bow and fiddle."

"I wish you," said Ravenswood, "to look after the descent interment
of an old woman, Alice Gray, who lived at the Graigfoot in Ravenswood
Park."

"Alice Gray!--blind Alice!" said the sexton; "and is she gane at last?
that's another jow of the bell to bid me be ready. I mind when Habbie
Gray brought her down to this land; a likely lass she was then,
and looked ower her southland nose at us a'. I trow her pride got a
downcome. And is she e'en gane?"

"She died yesterday," said Ravenswood; "and desired to be buried here
beside her husband; you know where he lies, no doubt?"

"Ken where he lies!" answered the sexton, with national indirection of
response. "I ken whar a'body lies, that lies here. But ye were speaking
o' her grave? Lord help us, it's no an ordinar grave that will haud her
in, if a's true that folk said of Alice in her auld days; and if I gae
to six feet deep--and a warlock's grave shouldna be an inch mair ebb,
or her ain witch cummers would soon whirl her out of her shroud for a'
their auld acquaintance--and be't six feet, or be't three, wha's to pay
the making o't, I pray ye?"

"I will pay that, my friend, and all other reasonable charges."

"Reasonable charges!" said the sexton; "ou, there's grundmail--and
bell-siller, though the bell's broken, nae doubt--and the kist--and my
day's wark--and my bit fee--and some brandy and yill to the dirgie, I am
no thinking that you can inter her, to ca' decently, under saxteen pund
Scots."

"There is the money, my friend," said Ravenswood, "and something over.
Be sure you know the grave."

"Ye'll be ane o' her English relations, I'se warrant," said the hoary
man of skulls; "I hae heard she married far below her station. It was
very right to let her bite on the bridle when she was living, and it's
very right to gie her a secent burial now she's dead, for that's a
matter o' credit to yoursell rather than to her. Folk may let their
kindred shift for themsells when they are alive, and can bear the burden
fo their ain misdoings; but it's an unnatural thing to let them be
buried like dogs, when a' the discredit gangs to the kindred. What kens
the dead corpse about it?"

"You would not have people neglect their relations on a bridal occasion
neither?" said Ravenswood, who was amused with the professional
limitation of the grave-digger's philanthropy.

The old man cast up his sharp grey eyes with a shrewd smile, as if he
understood the jest, but instantly continued, with his former gravity:
"Bridals--wha wad neglect bridals that had ony regard for plenishing
the earth? To be sure, they suld be celebrated with all manner of good
cheer, and meeting of friends, and musical instruments--harp,
sackbut, and psaltery; or gude fiddle and pipes, when these auld-warld
instruments of melody are hard to be compassed."

"The presence of the fiddle, I dare say," replied Ravenswood, "would
atone for the absence of all the others."

The sexton again looked sharply up at him, as he answered. "Nae
doubt--nae doubt, if it were weel played; but yonder," he said, as if
to change the discourse, "is Halbert Gray's lang hame, that ye were
speering after, just the third bourock beyond the muckle through-stane
that stands on sax legs yonder, abune some ane of the Ravenswoods; for
there is mony of their kin and followers here, deil lift them! though it
isna just their main burial-place."

"They are no favourites, then, of yours, these Ravenswoods?" said the
Master, no much pleased with the passing benediction which was thus
bestowed on his family and name.

"I kenna wha should favour them," said the grave-digger; "when they
had lands and power, they were ill guides of them baith, and now their
head's down, there's few care how lang they may be of lifting it again."

"Indeed!" said Ravenswood; "I never heard that this unhappy family
deserved ill-will at the hands of their country. I grant their poverty,
if that renders them contemptible."

"It will gang a far way till't" said the sexton of Hermitage, "ye may
tak my word for that; at least, I ken naething else that suld mak myself
contemptible, and folk are far frae respecting me as they wad do if I
lived in a twa-lofted sclated house. But as for the Ravenswoods, I hae
seen three generations of them, and deil ane to mend other."

"I thought they had enjoyed a fair character in the country," said their
descendant.

"Character! Ou, ye see, sir," said the sexton, "as for the auld gudesire
body of a lord, I lived on his land when I was a swanking young chield,
and could hae blawn the trumpet wi' ony body, for I had wind eneugh
then; and touching this trumpeter Marine that I have heard play afore
the lords of the circuit, I wad hae made nae mair o' him than of a bairn
and a bawbee whistle. I defy him to hae played 'Boot and saddle,'
or 'Horse and away,' or 'Gallants, come trot,' with me; he hadna the
tones."

"But what is all this to old Lord Ravenswood, my friend?" said the
Master, who, with an anxiety not unnatural in his circumstances, was
desirous of prosecuting the musician's first topic--"what had his memory
to do with the degeneracy of the trumpet music?"

"Just this, sir," answered the sexton, "that I lost my wind in his
service. Ye see I was trumpeter at the castle, and had allowance for
blawing at break of day, and at dinner time, and other whiles when
there was company about, and it pleased my lord; and when he raised his
militia to caper awa' to Bothwell Brig against the wrang-headed westland
Whigs, I behoved, reason or name, to munt a horse and caper awa' wi'
them."

"And very reasonable," said Ravenswood; "you were his servant and
vassal."

"Servitor, say ye?" replied the sexton, "and so I was; but it was to
blaw folk to their warm dinner, or at the warst to a decent kirkyard,
and no to skirl them awa' to a bluidy braeside, where there was deil a
bedral but the hooded craw. But bide ye, ye shall hear what cam o't, and
how far I am bund to be bedesman to the Ravenswoods. Till't, ye see, we
gaed on a braw simmer morning, twenty-fourth of June, saxteen hundred
and se'enty-nine, of a' the days of the month and year--drums beat, guns
rattled, horses kicked and trampled. Hackstoun of Rathillet keepit the
brig wi' mustket and carabine and pike, sword and scythe for what I ken,
and we horsemen were ordered down to cross at the ford,--I hate fords
at a' times, let abee when there's thousands of armed men on the other
side. There was auld Ravenswood brandishing his Andrew Ferrara at the
head, and crying to us to come and buckle to, as if we had been gaun to
a fair; there was Caleb Balderstone, that is living yet, flourishing in
the rear, and swearing Gog and Magog, he would put steel through the gus
of ony man that turned bridle; there was young Allan Ravenswood, that
was then Master, wi' a bended pistol in his hand--it was a mercy it gaed
na aff!--crying to me, that had scarce as much wind left as serve the
necessary purpose of my ain lungs, 'Sound, you poltroon!--sound, you
damned cowardly villain, or I will blow your brains out!' and, to be
sure, I blew sic points of war that the scraugh of a clockin-hen was
music to them."

"Well, sir, cut all this short," said Ravenswood.

"Short! I had like to hae been cut short mysell, in the flower of my
youth, as Scripture says; and that's the very thing that I compleen o'.
Weel! in to the water we behoved a' to splash, heels ower head, sit or
fa'--ae horse driving on anither, as is the way of brute beasts, and
riders that hae as little sense; the very bushes on the ither side were
ableeze wi' the flashes of the Whig guns; and my horse had just taen the
grund, when a blackavised westland carle--I wad mind the face o' him a
hundred years yet--an ee like a wild falcon's, and a beard as broad
as my shovel--clapped the end o' his lang black gun within a quarter's
length of my lug! By the grace o' Mercy, the horse swarved round, and I
fell aff at the tae side as the ball whistled by at the tither, and the
fell auld lord took the Whig such a swauk wi' his broadsword that he
made twa pieces o' his head, and down fell the lurdance wi' a' his bouk
abune me."

"You were rather obliged to the old lord, I think," said Ravenswood.

"Was I? my sartie! first for bringing me into jeopardy, would I nould I,
and then for whomling a chield on the tap o' me that dang the very wind
out of my body? I hae been short-breathed ever since, and canna gang
twenty yards without peghing like a miller's aiver."

"You lost, then, your place as trumpeter?" said Ravenswood.

"Lost it! to be sure I lost it," replied the sexton, "for I couldna hae
played pew upon a dry hemlock; but I might hae dune weel eneugh, for
I keepit the wage and the free house, and little to do but play on the
fiddle to them, but for Allan, last Lord Ravenswood, that was far waur
than ever his father was."

"What," said the Master, "did my father--I mean, did his father's
son--this last Lord Ravenswood, deprive you of what the bounty of his
father allowed you?"

"Ay, troth did he," answered the old man; "for he loot his affairs gang
to the dogs, and let in this Sir William Ashton on us, that will gie
naething for naething, and just removed me and a' the puir creatures
that had bite and soup at the castle, and a hole to put our heads in,
when things were in the auld way."

"If Lord Ravenswood protected his people, my friend, while he had the
means of doing so, I think they might spare his memory," replied the
Master.

"Ye are welcome to your ain opinion, sir," said the sexton; "but ye
winna persuade me that he did his duty, either to himsell or to huz puir
dependent creatures, in guiding us the gate he has done; he might hae
gien us life-rent tacks of our bits o' houses and yards; and me, that's
an auld man, living in you miserable cabin, that's fitter for the dead
than the quick, and killed wi' rheumatise, and John Smith in my dainty
bit mailing, and his window glazen, and a' because Ravenswood guided his
gear like a fule!"

"It is but too true," said Ravenswood, conscience-struck; "the penalties
of extravagance extend far beyond the prodigal's own sufferings."
"However," said the sexton, "this young man Edgar is like to avenge my
wrangs on the haill of his kindred." "Indeed?" said Ravenswood; "why
should you suppose so?"

"They say he is about to marry the daughter of Leddy Ashton; and let her
leddyship get his head ance under her oxter, and see you if she winna
gie his neck a thraw. Sorra a bit, if I were him! Let her alane for
hauding a'thing in het water that draws near her. Sae the warst wish I
shall wish the lad is, that he may take his ain creditable gate o't, and
ally himsell wi' his father's enemies, that have taken his broad lands
and my bonny kail-yard from the lawful owners thereof."

Cervantes acutely remarks, that flattery is pleasing even from the mouth
of a madman; and censure, as well as praise, often affects us, while we
despise the opinions and motives on which it is founded and expressed.
Ravenswood, abruptly reiterating his command that Alice's funeral should
be attended to, flung away from the sexton, under the painful impression
that the great as well as the small vulgar would think of his engagement
with Lucy like this ignorant and selfish peasant.

"And I have stooped to subject myself to these calumnies, and am
rejected notwithstanding! Lucy, your faith must be true and perfect as
the diamond to compensate for the dishonour which men's opinions, and
the conduct of your mother, attach to the heir of Ravenswood!"

As he raised his eyes, he beheld the Marquis of A----, who, having
arrived at the Tod's Hole, had walked forth to look for his kinsman.

After mutual greetings, he made some apology to the Master for not
coming forward on the preceding evening. "It was his wish," he said,
"to have done so, but he had come to the knowledge of some matters which
induced him to delay his purpose. I find," he proceeded, "there has been
a love affair here, kinsman; and though I might blame you for not
having communicated with me, as being in some degree the chief of your
family----"

"With your lordship's permission," said Ravenswood, "I am deeply
grateful for the interest you are pleased to take in me, but _I_ am the
chief and head of my family."

"I know it--I know it," said the Marquis; "in a strict heraldic and
genealogical sense, you certainly are so; what I mean is, that being in
some measure under my guardianship----"

"I must take the liberty to say, my lord----" answered Ravenswood, and
the tone in which he interrupted the Marquis boded no long duration to
the friendship of the noble relatives, when he himself was interrupted
by the little sexton, who cam puffing after them, to ask if their
honours would choose music at the change-house to make up for short
cheer.

"We want no music," said the Master, abruptly.

"Your honour disna ken what ye're refusing, then," said the fiddler,
with the impertinent freedom of his profession. "I can play, 'Wilt thou
do't again,' and 'The Auld Man's Mear's Dead,' sax times better than
ever Patie Birnie. I'll get my fiddle in the turning of a coffin-screw."

"Take yourself away, sir," said the Marquis.

"And if your honour be a north-country gentleman," said the persevering
minstrel, "whilk I wad judge from your tongue, I can play 'Liggeram
Cosh,' and 'Mullin Dhu,' and 'The Cummers of Athole.'"

"Take yourself away, friend; you interrupt our conversation."

"Or if, under your honour's favour, ye should happen to be a
thought honest, I can play (this in a low and confidential tone)
'Killiecrankie,' and 'The King shall hae his ain,' and 'The Auld Stuarts
back again'; and the wife at the change-house is a decent, discreet
body, neither kens nor cares what toasts are drucken, and what tunes
are played, in her house: she's deaf to a'thing but the clink o' the
siller."

The Marquis, who was sometimes suspected of Jacobitism, could not help
laughing as he threw the fellow a dollar, and bid him go play to the
servants if he had a mind, and leave them at peace.

"Aweel, gentlemen," said he, "I am wishing your honours gude day. I'll
be a' the better of the dollar, and ye'll be the waur of wanting music,
I'se tell ye. But I'se gang hame, and finish the grave in the tuning o'
a fiddle-string, lay by my spade, and then get my tother bread-winner,
and awa' to your folk, and see if they hae better lugs than their
masters."




CHAPTER XXV.

     True love, an thou be true,
     Thou has ane kittle part to play;
     For fortune, fashion, fancy, and thou,
     Maun strive for many a day.

     I've kend by mony a friend's tale,
     Far better by this heart of mine,
     What time and change of fancy avail
     A true-love knot to untwine.

     HENDERSOUN.

"I WISHED to tell you, my good kinsman," said the Marquis, "now that we
are quit of that impertinent fiddler, that I had tried to discuss this
love affair of yours with Sir William Ashton's daughter. I never saw
the young lady but for a few minutes to-day; so, being a stranger to her
personal merits, I pay a compliment to you, and offer her no offence, in
saying you might do better."

"My lord, I am much indebted for the interest you have taken in my
affairs," said Ravenswood. "I did not intend to have troubled you in any
matter concerning Miss Ashton. As my engagement with that young lady has
reached your lordship, I can only say, that you must necessarily suppose
that I was aware of the objections to my marrying into her father's
family, and of course must have been completely satisfied with the
reasons by which these objections are overbalanced, since I have
proceeded so far in the matter."

"Nay, Master, if you had heard me out," said his noble relation, "you
might have spared that observation; for, withotu questioning that you
had reasons which seemed to you to counterbalance every other obstacle,
I set myself, by every means that it became me to use towards the
Ashtons, to persuade them to meet your views."

"I am obliged to your lordship for your unsolicited intercession," said
Ravenswood; "especially as I am sure your lordship would never carry it
beyond the bounds which it became me to use."

"Of that," said the Marquis, "you may be confident; I myself felt the
delicacy of the matter too much to place a gentleman nearly connected
with my house in a degrading or dubious situation with these Ashtons.
But I pointed out all the advantages of their marrying their daughter
into a house so honourable, and so nearly related with the first of
Scotland; I explained the exact degree of relationship in which the
Ravenswoods stand to ourselves; and I even hinted how political matters
were like to turn, and what cards would be trumps next Parliament. I
said I regarded you as a son--or a nephew, or so--rather than as a more
distant relation; and that I made your affair entirely my own."

"And what was the issue of your lordship's explanation?" said
Ravenswood, in some doubt whether he should resent or express gratitude
for his interference.

"Why, the Lord Keeper would have listened to reason," said the Marquis;
"he is rather unwilling to leave his place, which, in the present view
of a change, must be vacated; and, to say truth, he seemed to have
a liking for you, and to be sensible of the general advantages to be
attained by such a match. But his lady, who is tongue of the trump,
Master----"

"What of Lady Ashton, my lord?" said Ravenswood; "let me know the issue
of this extraordinary conference: I can bear it."

"I am glad of that, kinsman," said the Marquis, "for I am ashamed to
tell you half what she said. It is enough--her mind is made up, and the
mistress of a first-rate boarding-school could not have rejected
with more haughty indifference the suit of a half-pay Irish officer,
beseeching permission to wait upon the heiress of a West India planter,
than Lady Ashton spurned every proposal of mediation which it could at
all become me to offer in behalf of you, my good kinsman. I cannot guess
what she means. A more honourable connexion she could not form, that's
certain. As for money and land, that used to be her husband's business
rather than hers; I really think she hates you for having the rank
which her husband has not, and perhaps for not having the lands that her
goodman has. But I should only vex you to say more about it--here we are
at the change-house."

The Master of Ravenswood paused as he entered the cottage, which reeked
through all its crevices, and they were not few, from the exertions of
the Marquis's travelling-cooks to supply good cheer, and spread, as it
were, a table in the wilderness.

"My Lord Marquis," said Ravenswood, "I already mentioned that accident
has put your lordship in possession of a secret which, with my consent,
should have remained one even to you, my kinsman, for some time. Since
the secret was to part from my own custody, and that of the only person
besides who was interested in it, I am not sorry it should have reached
your lordship's ears, as being fully aware that you are my noble kinsman
and friend."

"You may believe it is safely lodged with me, Master of Ravenswood,"
said the Marquis; "but I should like well to hear you say that you
renounced the idea of an alliance which you can hardly pursue without a
certain degree of degradation."

"Of that, my lord, I shall judge," answered Ravenswood, "and I hope with
delicacy as sensitive as any of my friends. But I have no engagement
with Sir William and Lady Ashton. It is with Miss Ashton alone that I
have entered upon the subject, and my conduct in the matter shall be
entirely ruled by hers. If she continues to prefer me in my poverty to
the wealthier suitors whom her friends recommend, I may well make some
sacrifice to her sincere affection: I may well surrender to her the
less tangible and less palpable advantages of birth, and the deep-rooted
prejudices of family hatred. If Miss Lucy Ashton should change her mind
on a subject of such delicacy, I trust my friends will be silent on my
disappointment, and I shall know how to make my enemies so."

"Spoke like a gallant young nobleman," said the Marquis; "for my part, I
have that regard for you, that I should be sorry the thing went on. This
Sir William Ashton was a pretty enough pettifogging kind of a lawyer
twenty years ago, and betwixt battling at the bar and leading in
committees of Parliament he has got well on; the Darien matter lent him
a lift, for he had good intelligence and sound views, and sold out in
time; but the best work is had out of him. No government will take him
at his own, or rather his wife's extravagant, valuation; and betwixt his
indecision and her insolence, from all I can guess, he will outsit his
market, and be had cheap when no one will bid for him. I say nothing
of Miss Ashton; but I assure you, a connexion with her father will be
neither useful nor ornamental, beyond that part of your father's spoils
which he may be prevailed upon to disgorge by way of tocher-good; and
take my word for it, you will get more if you have spirit to bell the
cat with him in the House of Peers. And I will be the man, cousin,"
continued his lordship, "will course the fox for you, and make him rue
the day that ever he refused a composition too honourable for him, and
proposed by me on the behalf of a kinsman."

There was something in all this that, as it were, overshot the mark.
Ravenswood could not disguise from himself that his noble kinsman
had more reasons for taking offence at the reception of his suit than
regarded his interest and honour, yet he could neither complain nor be
surprised that it should be so. He contented himself, therefore, with
repeating, that his attachment was to Miss Ashton personally; that he
desired neither wealth nor aggrandisement from her father's means and
influence; and that nothing should prevent his keeping his engagement,
excepting her own express desire that it should be relinquished; and he
requested as a favour that the matter might be no more mentioned betwixt
them at present, assuring the Marquis of A----that he should be his
confidant or its interruption.

The Marquis soon had more agreeable, as well as more interesting,
subjects on which to converse. A foot-post, who had followed him from
Edinburgh to Ravenswood Castle, and had traced his steps to the
Tod's Hole, brought him a packet laden with good news. The political
calculations of the Marquis had proved just, both in London and at
Edinburgh, and he saw almost within his grasp the pre-eminence for which
he had panted. The refreshments which the servants had prepared were now
put on the table, and an epicure would perhaps have enjoyed them with
additional zest from the contrast which such fare afforded to the
miserable cabin in which it was served up.

The turn of conversation corresponded with and added to the social
feelings of the company. The Marquis expanded with pleasure on the power
which probably incidents were likely to assign to him, and on the
use which eh hoped to make of it in serving his kinsman Ravenswood.
Ravenswood could but repeat the gratitude which he really felt, even
when he considered the topic as too long dwelt upon. The wine was
excellent, notwithstanding its having been brought in a runlet from
Edinburgh; and the habits of the Marquis, when engaged with such good
cheer, were somewhat sedentary. And so it fell out that they delayed
their journey two hours later than was their original purpose.