On arriving at the change-house of the village of Wolf's Hope, he
unexpectedly met with an acquaintance just alighting from his horse.
This was no other than the very respectable Captain Craigengelt,
who immediately came up to him, and, without appearing to retain any
recollection of the indifferent terms on which they had parted, shook
him by the hand in the warmest manner possible. A warm grasp of the
hand was what Bucklaw could never help returning with cordiality, and no
sooner had Craigengelt felt the pressure of his fingers than he knew the
terms on which he stood with him.

"Long life to you, Bucklaw!" he exclaimed; "there's life for honest folk
in this bad world yet!"

The Jacobites at this period, with what propriety I know not, used, it
must be noticed, the term of HONEST MEN as peculiarly descriptive of
their own party.

"Ay, and for others besides, it seems," answered Bucklaw; "otherways,
how came you to venture hither, noble Captain?"

"Who--I? I am as free as the wind at Martinmas, that pays neither
land-rent nor annual; all is explained--all settled with the honest old
drivellers yonder of Auld Reekie. Pooh! pooh! they dared not keep me a
week of days in durance. A certain person has better friends among them
than you wot of, and can serve a friend when it is least likely."

"Pshaw!" answered Hayston, who perfectly knew and thoroughly despised
the character of this man, "none of your cogging gibberish; tell me
truly, are you at liberty and in safety?"

"Free and safe as a Whig bailie on the causeway of his own borough, or a
canting Presbyterian minister in his own pulpit; and I came to tell you
that you need not remain in hiding any longer."

"Then I suppose you call yourself my friend, Captain Craigengelt?" said
Bucklaw.

"Friend!" replied Craigengelt, "my cock of the pit! why, I am thy very
Achates, man, as I have heard scholars say--hand and glove--bark and
tree--thine to life and death!"

"I'll try that in a moment," answered Bucklaw. "Thou art never without
money, however thou comest by it. Lend me two pieces to wash the dust
out of these honest fellows' throats in the first place, and then----"

"Two pieces! Twenty are at thy service, my lad, and twenty to back
them."

"Ay, say you so?" said Bucklaw, pausing, for his natural penetration led
him to suspect some extraordinary motive lay couched under an excess of
generosity. "Craigengelt, you are either an honest fellow in right good
earnest, and I scarce know how to believe that; or you are cleverer than
I took you for, and I scarce know how to believe that either."

"L'un n'empeche pas l'autre," said Craigengelt. "Touch and try; the gold
is good as ever was weighed."

He put a quantity of gold pieces into Bucklaw's hand, which he thrust
into his pocket without either counting or looking at them, only
observing, "That he was so circumstanced that he must enlist, though
the devil offered the press-money"; and then turning to the huntsmen, he
called out, "Come along, my lads; all is at my cost."

"Long life to Bucklaw!" shouted the men of the chase.

"And confusion to him that takes his share of the sport, and leaves the
hunters as dry as a drumhead," added another, by way of corollary.

"The house of Ravenswood was ance a gude and an honourable house in
this land," said an old man; "but it's lost its credit this day, and the
Master has shown himself no better than a greedy cullion."

And with this conclusion, which was unanimously agreed to by all who
heard it, they rushed tumultuously into the house of entertainment,
where they revelled till a late hour. The jovial temper of Bucklaw
seldom permitted him to be nice in the choice of his associates; and on
the present occasion, when his joyous debauch received additional
zest from the intervention of an unusual space of sobriety, and almost
abstinence, he was as happy in leading the revels as if his comrades had
been sons of princes. Craigengelt had his own purposes in fooling him up
to the top of his bent; and having some low humour, much impudence, and
the power of singing a good song, understanding besides thoroughly the
disposition of his regained associate, he headily succeeded in involving
him bumper-deep in the festivity of the meeting.


A very different scene was in the mean time passing in the Tower of
Wolf's Crag. When the Master of Ravenswood left the courtyard, too
much busied with his own perplexed reflections to pay attention to the
manoeuvre of Caleb, he ushered his guests into the great hall of the
castle.

The indefatigable Balderstone, who, from choice or habit, worked on from
morning to night, had by degrees cleared this desolate apartment of the
confused relics of the funeral banquet, and restored it to some order.
But not all his skill and labour, in disposing to advantage the little
furniture which remained, could remove the dark and disconsolate
appearance of those ancient and disfurnished walls. The narrow windows,
flanked by deep indentures into the walls, seemed formed rather to
exclude than to admit the cheerful light; and the heavy and gloomy
appearance of the thunder-sky added still farther to the obscurity.

As Ravenswood, with the grace of a gallant of that period, but not
without a certain stiffness and embarrassment of manner, handed the
young lady to the upper end of the apartment, her father remained
standing more near to the door, as if about to disengage himself from
his hat and cloak. At this moment the clang of the portal was heard, a
sound at which the stranger started, stepped hastily to the window, and
looked with an air of alarm at Ravenswood, when he saw that the gate of
the court was shut, and his domestics excluded.

"You have nothing to fear, sir," said Ravenswood, gravely; "this roof
retains the means of giving protection, though not welcome. Methinks,"
he added, "it is time that I should know who they are that have thus
highly honoured my ruined dwelling!" The young lady remained silent
and motionless, and the father, to whom the question was more directly
addressed, seemed in the situation of a performer who has ventured to
take upon himself a part which he finds himself unable to present,
and who comes to a pause when it is most to be expected that he should
speak. While he endeavoured to cover his embarrassment with the exterior
ceremonials of a well-bred demeanour, it was obvious that, in making his
bow, one foot shuffled forward, as if to advance, the other backward, as
if with the purpose of escape; and as he undid the cape of his coat, and
raised his beaver from his face, his fingers fumbled as if the one had
been linked with rusted iron, or the other had weighed equal with a
stone of lead. The darkness of the sky seemed to increase, as if to
supply the want of those mufflings which he laid aside with such evident
reluctance. The impatience of Ravenswood increased also in proportion to
the delay of the stranger, and he appeared to struggle under agitation,
though probably from a very different cause. He laboured to restrain his
desire to speak, while the stranger, to all appearance, was at a loss
for words to express what he felt necessary to say.

At length Ravenswood's impatience broke the bounds he had imposed upon
it. "I perceive," he said, "that Sir William Ashton is unwilling to
announced himself in the Castle of Wolf's Crag."

"I had hoped it was unnecessary," said the Lord Keeper, relieved from
his silence, as a spectre by the voice of the exorcist, "and I am
obliged to you, Master of Ravenswood, for breaking the ice at once,
where circumstances--unhappy circumstances, let me call them--rendered
self-introduction peculiarly awkward."

"And I am not then," said the Master of Ravenswood, gravely, "to
consider the honour of this visit as purely accidental?"

"Let us distinguish a little," said the Keeper, assuming an appearance
of ease which perhaps his heart was a stranger to; "this is an honour
which I have eagerly desired for some time, but which I might never
have obtained, save for the accident of the storm. My daughter and I are
alike grateful for this opportunity of thanking the brave man to whom
she owes her life and I mine."

The hatred which divided the great families in the feudal times had lost
little of its bitterness, though it no longer expressed itself in
deeds of open violence. Not the feelings which Ravenswood had begun to
entertain towards Lucy Ashton, not the hospitality due to his guests,
were able entirely to subdue, though they warmly combated, the deep
passions which arose within him at beholding his father's foe standing
in the hall of the family of which he had in a great measure accelerated
the ruin. His looks glanced from the father to the daughter with an
irresolution of which Sir William Ashton did not think it proper
to await the conclusion. He had now disembarrassed himself of his
riding-dress, and walking up to his daughter, he undid the fastening of
her mask.

"Lucy, my love," he said, raising her and leading her towards
Ravenswood, "lay aside your mask, and let us express our gratitude to
the Master openly and barefaced."

"If he will condescend to accept it," was all that Lucy uttered; but in
a tone so sweetly modulated, and which seemed to imply at once a feeling
and a forgiving of the cold reception to which they were exposed,
that, coming from a creature so innocent and so beautiful, her words cut
Ravenswood to the very heart for his harshness. He muttered something
of surprise, something of confusion, and, ending with a warm and eager
expression of his happiness at being able to afford her shelter under
his roof, he saluted her, as the ceremonial of the time enjoined upon
such occasions. Their cheeks had touched and were withdrawn from each
other; Ravenswood had not quitted the hand which he had taken in kindly
courtesy; a blush, which attached more consequence by far than was usual
to such ceremony, still mantled on Lucy Ashton's beautiful cheek, when
the apartment was suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning, which
seemed absolutely to swallow the darkness of the hall. Every object
might have been for an instant seen distinctly. The slight and
half-sinking form of Lucy Ashton; the well-proportioned and stately
figure of Ravenswood, his dark features, and the fiery yet irresolute
expression of his eyes; the old arms and scutcheons which hung on the
walls of the apartment, were for an instant distinctly visible to the
Keeper by a strong red brilliant glare of light. Its disappearance was
almost instantly followed by a burst of thunder, for the storm-cloud was
very near the castle; and the peal was so sudden and dreadful, that the
old tower rocked to its foundation, and every inmate concluded it was
falling upon them. The soot, which had not been disturbed for centuries,
showered down the huge tunnelled chimneys; lime and dust flew in clouds
from the wall; and, whether the lightning had actually struck the castle
or whether through the violent concussion of the air, several heavy
stones were hurled from the mouldering battlements into the roaring
sea beneath. It might seem as if the ancient founder of the castle were
bestriding the thunderstorm, and proclaiming his displeasure at the
reconciliation of his descendant with the enemy of his house.

The consternation was general, and it required the efforts of both the
Lord Keeper and Ravenswood to keep Lucy from fainting. Thus was the
Master a second time engaged in the most delicate and dangerous of
all tasks, that of affording support and assistance to a beautiful and
helpless being, who, as seen before in a similar situation, had
already become a favourite of his imagination, both when awake and when
slumbering. If the genius of the house really condemned a union betwixt
the Master and his fair guest, the means by which he expressed his
sentiments were as unhappily chosen as if he had been a mere mortal.
The train of little attentions, absolutely necessary to soothe the young
lady's mind, and aid her in composing her spirits, necessarily threw
the Master of Ravenswood into such an intercourse with her father as was
calculated, for the moment at least, to break down the barrier of feudal
enmity which divided them. To express himself churlishly, or even
coldly, towards an old man whose daughter (and SUCH a daughter) lay
before them, overpowered with natural terror--and all this under his own
roof, the thing was impossible; and by the time that Lucy, extending a
hand to each, was able to thank them for their kindness, the Master
felt that his sentiments of hostility towards the Lord Keeper were by no
means those most predominant in his bosom.

The weather, her state of health, the absence of her attendants,
all prevented the possibility of Lucy Ashton renewing her journey to
Bittlebrains House, which was full five miles distant; and the Master of
Ravenswood could not but, in common courtesy, offer the shelter of his
roof for the rest of the day and for the night. But a flush of less
soft expression, a look much more habitual to his features, resumed
predominance when he mentioned how meanly he was provided for the
entertainment of his guests.

"Do not mention deficiencies," said the Lord Keeper, eager to interrupt
him and prevent his resuming an alarming topic; "you are preparing to
set out for the Continent, and your house is probably for the present
unfurnished. All this we understand; but if you mention inconvenience,
you will oblige us to seek accommodations in the hamlet."

As the Master of Ravenswood was about to reply, the door of the hall
opened, and Caleb Balderstone rushed in.




CHAPTER XI.

     Let them have meat enough, woman--half a hen;
     There be old rotten pilchards--put them off too;
     'Tis but a little new anointing of them,
     And a strong onion, that confounds the savour.

     Love's Pilgrimage.

THE thunderbolt, which had stunned all who were within hearing of it,
had only served to awaken the bold and inventive genius of the flower of
majors-domo. Almost before the clatter had ceased, and while there was
yet scarce an assurance whether the castle was standing or falling,
Caleb exclaimed, "Heaven be praised! this comes to hand like the boul of
a pint-stoup." He then barred the kitchen door in the face of the Lord
Keeper's servant, whom he perceived returning from the party at the
gate, and muttering, "How the deil cam he in?--but deil may care. Mysie,
what are ye sitting shaking and greeting in the chimney-neuk for? Come
here--or stay where ye are, and skirl as loud as ye can; it's a' ye're
gude for. I say, ye auld deevil, skirl--skirl--louder--louder, woman;
gar the gentles hear ye in the ha'. I have heard ye as far off as the
Bass for a less matter. And stay--down wi' that crockery----"

And with a sweeping blow, he threw down from a shelf some articles of
pewter and earthenware. He exalted his voice amid the clatter, shouting
and roaring in a manner which changed Mysie's hysterical terrors of the
thunder into fears that her old fellow-servant was gone distracted. "He
has dung down a' the bits o' pigs, too--the only thing we had left
to haud a soup milk--and he has spilt the hatted hit that was for the
Master's dinner. Mercy save us, the auld man's gaen clean and clear wud
wi' the thunner!"

"Haud your tongue, ye b----!" said Caleb, in the impetuous and
overbearing triumph of successful invention, "a's provided now--dinner
and a'thing; the thunner's done a' in a clap of a hand!"

"Puir man, he's muckle astray," said Mysie, looking at him with a
mixture of pity and alarm; "I wish he may ever come come hame to himsell
again."

"Here, ye auld doited deevil," said Caleb, still exulting
in his extrication from a dilemma which had seemed insurmountable;
"keep the strange man out of the kitchen; swear the thunner
came down the chimney and spoiled the best dinner ye ever
dressed--beef--bacon--kid--lark--leveret--wild-fowl--venison, and what
not. Lay it on thick, and never mind expenses. I'll awa' up to the
la'. Make a' the confusion ye can; but be sure ye keep out the strange
servant."

With these charges to his ally, Caleb posted up to the hall, but
stopping to reconnoitre through an aperture, which time, for the
convenience of many a domestic in succession, had made in the door, and
perceiving the situation of Miss Ashton, he had prudence enough to
make a pause, both to avoid adding to her alarm and in order to secure
attention to his account of the disastrous effects of the thunder.

But when he perceived that the lady was recovered, and heard the
conversation turn upon the accommodation and refreshment which the
castle afforded, he thought it time to burst into the room in the manner
announced in the last chapter.

"Willawins!--willawins! Such a misfortune to befa' the house of
Ravenswood, and I to live to see it."

"What is the matter, Caleb?" said his master, somewhat alarmed in his
turn; "has any part of the castle fallen?"

"Castle fa'an! na, but the sute's fa'an, and the thunner's come right
down the kitchen-lum, and the things are a' lying here awa', there awa',
like the Laird o' Hotchpotch's lands; and wi' brave guests of honour
and quality to entertain (a low bow here to Sir William Ashton and his
daughter), and naething left in the house fit to present for dinner, or
for supper either, for aught that I can see!"

"I very believe you, Caleb," said Ravenswood, drily. Balderstone here
turned to his master a half-upbraiding, half-imploring countenance,
and edged towards him as he repeated, "It was nae great matter of
preparation; but just something added to your honour's ordinary course
of fare--petty cover, as they say at the Louvre--three courses and the
fruit."

"Keep your intolerable nonsense to yourself, you old fool!" said
Ravenswood, mortified at his officiousness, yet not knowing how to
contradict him, without the risk of giving rise to scenes yet more
ridiculous.

Caleb saw his advantage, and resolved to improve it. But first,
observing that the Lord Keeper's servant entered the apartment and spoke
apart with his master, he took the same opportunity to whisper a few
words into Ravenswood's ear: "Haud your tongue, for heaven's sake, sir;
if it's my pleasure to hazard my soul in telling lees for the honour
of the family, it's nae business o' yours; and if ye let me gang on
quietly, I'se be moderate in my banquet; but if ye contradict me, deil
but I dress ye a dinner fit for a duke!"

Ravenswood, in fact, thought it would be best to let his officious
butler run on, who proceeded to enumerate upon his fingers--"No muckle
provision--might hae served four persons of honour,--first course,
capons in white broth--roast kid--bacon with reverence; second course,
roasted leveret--butter crabs--a veal florentine; third course,
blackcock--it's black eneugh now wi' the sute--plumdamas--a tart--a
flam--and some nonsense sweet things, adn comfits--and that's a',"
he said, seeing the impatience of his master--"that's just a' was
o't--forbye the apples and pears."

Miss Ashton had by degrees gathered her spirits, so far as to pay some
attention to what was going on; and observing the restrained impatience
of Ravenswood, contrasted with the peculiar determination of manner with
which Caleb detailed his imaginary banquet, the whole struck her as so
ridiculous that, despite every effort to the contrary, she burst into a
fit of incontrollable laughter, in which she was joined by her father,
though with more moderation, and finally by the Master of Ravenswood
himself, though conscious that the jest was at his own expense. Their
mirth--for a scene which we read with little emotion often appears
extremely ludicrous to the spectators--made the old vault ring again.
They ceased--they renewed--they ceased--they renewed again their shouts
of laughter! Caleb, in the mean time, stood his ground with a grave,
angry, and scornful dignity, which greatly enhanced the ridicule of the
scene and mirth of the spectators.

At length, when the voices, and nearly the strength, of the laughers
were exhausted, he exclaimed, with very little ceremony: "The deil's in
the gentles! they breakfast sae lordly, that the loss of the best dinner
ever cook pat fingers to makes them as merry as if it were the best
jeest in a' George Buchanan. If there was as little in your honours'
wames as there is in Caleb Balderstone's, less caickling wad serve ye on
sic a gravaminous subject."

Caleb's blunt expression of resentment again awakened the mirth of the
company, which, by the way, he regarded not only as an aggression upon
the dignity of the family, but a special contempt of the eloquence with
which he himself had summed up the extent of their supposed losses. "A
description of a dinner," as he said afterwards to Mysie, "that wad hae
made a fu' man hungry, and them to sit there laughing at it!"

"But," said Miss Ashton, composing her countenance as well as she could,
"are all these delicacies so totally destroyed that no scrap can be
collected?"

"Collected, my leddy! what wad ye collect out of the sute and the ass?
Ye may gang down yoursell, and look into our kitchen--the cookmaid in
the trembling exies--the gude vivers lying a' about--beef, capons, and
white broth--florentine and flams--bacon wi' reverence--and a' the sweet
confections and whim-whams--ye'll see them a', my leddy--that is," said
he, correcting himself, "ye'll no see ony of them now, for the cook
has soopit them up, as was weel her part; but ye'll see the white broth
where it was spilt. I pat my fingers in it, and it tastes as like sour
milk as ony thing else; if that isna the effect of thunner, I kenna what
is. This gentleman here couldna but hear the clash of our haill dishes,
china and silver thegither?"

The Lord Keeper's domestic, though a statesman's attendant, and of
course trained to command his countenance upon all occasions, was
somewhat discomposed by this appeal, to which he only answered by a bow.

"I think, Mr. Butler," said the Lord Keeper, who began to be afraid lest
the prolongation of this scene should at length displease Ravenswood--"I
think that, were you to retire with my servant Lockhard--he has
travelled, and is quite accustomed to accidents and contingencies of
every kind, and I hope betwixt you, you may find out some mode of supply
at this emergency."

"His honour kens," said Caleb, who, however hopeless of himself
of accomplishing what was desirable, would, like the high-spirited
elephant, rather have died in the effort than brooked the aid of a
brother in commission--"his honour kens weel I need nae counsellor, when
the honour of the house is concerned."

"I should be unjust if I denied it, Caleb," said his master; "but your
art lies chiefly in making apologies, upon which we can no more dine
than upon the bill of fare of our thunder-blasted dinner. Now, possibly
Mr. Lockhard's talent may consist in finding some substitute for that
which certainly is not, and has in all probability never been."

"Your honour is pleased to be facetious," said Caleb, "but I am sure
that, for the warst, for a walk as far as Wolf's Hope, I could dine
forty men--no that the folk there deserve your honour's custom. They hae
been ill advised in the matter of the duty eggs and butter, I winna deny
that."

"Do go consult together," said the Master; "go down to the village,
and do the best you can. We must not let our guests remain without
refreshment, to save the honour of a ruined family. And here, Caleb,
take my purse; I believe that will prove your best ally."

"Purse! purse, indeed!" quoth Caleb, indignantly flinging out of the
room; "what suld I do wi' your honour's purse, on your ain grund? I
trust we are no to pay for our ain?"

The servants left the hall; and the door was no sooner shut than the
Lord Keeper began to apologise for the rudeness of his mirth; and Lucy
to hope she had given no pain or offence to the kind-hearted faithful
old man.

"Caleb and I must both learn, madam, to undergo with good humour, or at
least with patience, the ridicule which everywhere attaches itself to
poverty."

"You do yourself injustice, Master of Ravenswood, on my word of honour,"
answered his elder guest. "I believe I know more of your affairs than
you do yourself, and I hope to show you that I am interested in them;
and that--in short, that your prospects are better than you apprehend.
In the mean time, I can conceive nothing so respectable as the spirit
which rises above misfortune, and prefers honourable privations to debt
or dependence."

Whether from fear of offending the delicacy or awakening the pride of
the Master, the Lord Keeper made these allusions with an appearance
of fearful and hesitating reserve, and seemed to be afraid that he was
intruding too far, in venturing to touch, however lightly, upon such a
topic, even when the Master had led to it. In short, he appeared at once
pushed on by his desire of appearing friendly, and held back by the fear
of intrusion. It was no wonder that the Master of Ravenswood, little
acquainted as he then was with life, should have given this consummate
courtier credit for more sincerity than was probably to be found in
a score of his cast. He answered, however, with reserve, that he was
indebted to all who might think well of him; and, apologising to his
guests, he left the hall, in order to make such arrangements for their
entertainment as circumstances admitted.

Upon consulting with old Mysie, the accommodations for the night were
easily completed, as indeed they admitted of little choice. The Master
surrendered his apartment for the use of Miss Ashton, and Mysie, once a
person of consequence, dressed in a black satin gown which had belonged
of yore to the Master's grandmother, and had figured in the court-balls
of Henrietta Maria, went to attend her as lady's-maid. He next inquired
after Bucklaw, and understanding he was at the change-house with the
huntsmen and some companions, he desired Caleb to call there, and
acquaint him how he was circumstanced at Wolf's Crag; to intimate to him
that it would be most convenient if he could find a bed in the hamlet,
as the elder guest must necessarily be quartered in the secret chamber,
the only spare bedroom which could be made fit to receive him. The
Master saw no hardship in passing the night by the hall fire, wrapt in
his campaign-cloak; and to Scottish domestics of the day, even of the
highest rank, nay, to young men of family or fashion, on any pinch,
clean straw, or a dry hayloft, was always held good night-quarters.

For the rest, Lockhard had his master's orders to bring some venison
from the inn, and Caleb was to trust to his wits for the honour of his
family. The Master, indeed, a second time held out his purse; but, as it
was in sight of the strange servant, the butler thought himself obliged
to decline what his fingers itched to clutch. "Couldna he hae slippit it
gently into my hand?" said Caleb; "but his honour will never learn how
to bear himsell in siccan cases."

Mysie, in the mean time, according to a uniform custom in remote places
in Scotland, offered the strangers the produce of her little dairy,
"while better meat was getting ready." And according to another custom,
not yet wholly in desuetude, as the storm was now drifting off to
leeward, the Master carried the Keeper to the top of his highest
tower to admire a wide and waste extent of view, and to "weary for his
dinner."




CHAPTER XII.

     "Now dame," quoth he, "Je vous dis sans doute,
     Had I nought of a capon but the liver,
     And of your white bread nought but a shiver,
     And after that a roasted pigge's head
     (But I ne wold for me no beast were dead),
     Then had I with you homely sufferaunce."

     CHAUCER, Summer's Tale.

IT was not without some secret misgivings that Caleb set out upon
his exploratory expedition. In fact, it was attended with a treble
difficulty. He dared not tell his mast the offence which he had that
morning given to Bucklaw, just for the honour of the family; he dared
not acknowledge he had been too hasty in refusing the purse; and,
thirdly, he was somewhat apprehensive of unpleasant consequences upon
his meeting Hayston under the impression of an affront, and probably by
this time under the influence also of no small quantity of brandy.

Caleb, to do him justice, was as bold as any lion where the honour of
the family of Ravenswood was concerned; but his was that considerate
valour which does not delight in unnecessary risks. This, however, was a
secondary consideration; the main point was to veil the indigence of
the housekeeping at the castle, and to make good his vaunt of the cheer
which his resources could procure, without Lockhard's assistance, and
without supplies from his master. This was as prime a point of honour
with him as with the generous elephant with whom we have already
compared him, who, being overtasked, broke his skull through the
desperate exertions which he made to discharge his duty, when he
perceived they were bringing up another to his assistance.

The village which they now approached had frequently afforded the
distressed butler resources upon similar emergencies; but his relations
with it had been of late much altered.

It was a little hamlet which straggled along the side of a creek formed
by the discharge of a small brook into the sea, and was hidden from
the castle, to which it had been in former times an appendage, by the
intervention of the shoulder of a hill forming a projecting headland.
It was called Wolf's Hope (i.e. Wolf's Haven), and the few inhabitants
gained a precarious subsistence by manning two or three fishing-boats
in the herring season, and smuggling gin and brandy during the
winter months. They paid a kind of hereditary respect to the Lords
of Ravenswood; but, in the difficulties of the family, most of the
inhabitants of Wolf's Hope had contrived to get feu-rights to their
little possessions, their huts, kail-yards, and rights of commonty, so
that they were emancipated from the chains of feudal dependence,
and free from the various exactions with which, under every possible
pretext, or without any pretext at all, the Scottish landlords of the
period, themselves in great poverty, were wont to harass their still
poorer tenants at will. They might be, on the whole, termed independent,
a circumstance peculiarly galling to Caleb, who had been wont to
exercise over them the same sweeping authority in levying contributions
which was exercised in former times in England, when "the royal
purveyors, sallying forth from under the Gothic portcullis to purchase
provisions with power and prerogative, instead of money, brought home
the plunder of an hundred markets, and all that could be seized from
a flying and hiding country, and deposited their spoil in an hundred
caverns."

Caleb loved the memory and resented the downfall of that authority,
which mimicked, on a petty scale, the grand contributions exacted by
the feudal sovereigns. And as he fondly flattered himself that the awful
rule and right supremacy, which assigned to the Barons of Ravenswood the
first and most effective interest in all productions of nature within
five miles of their castle, only slumbered, and was not departed
for ever, he used every now and then to give the recollection of the
inhabitants a little jog by some petty exaction. These were at first
submitted to, with more or less readiness, by the inhabitants of the
hamlet; for they had been so long used to consider the wants of the
Baron and his family as having a title to be preferred to their own,
that their actual independence did not convey to them an immediate sense
of freedom. They resembled a man that has been long fettered, who,
even at liberty, feels in imagination the grasp of the handcuffs still
binding his wrists. But the exercise of freedom is quickly followed with
the natural consciousness of its immunities, as the enlarged prisoner,
by the free use of his limbs, soon dispels the cramped feeling they had
acquired when bound.

The inhabitants of Wolf's Hope began to grumble, to resist, and at
length positively to refuse compliance with the exactions of Caleb
Balderstone. It was in vain he reminded them, that when the eleventh
Lord Ravenswood, called the Skipper, from his delight in naval matters,
had encouraged the trade of their port by building the pier (a bulwark
of stones rudely piled together), which protected the fishing-boats from
the weather, it had been matter of understanding that he was to have
the first stone of butter after the calving of every cow within the
barony, and the first egg, thence called the Monday's egg, laid by every
hen on every Monday in the year.

The feuars heard and scratched their heads, coughed, sneezed, and being
pressed for answer, rejoined with one voice, "They could not say"--the
universal refuge of a Scottish peasant when pressed to admit a claim
which his conscience owns, or perhaps his feelings, and his interest
inclines him to deny.

Caleb, however, furnished the notables of Wolf's Hope with a note of
the requisition of butter and eggs, which he claimed as arrears of the
aforesaid subsidy, or kindly aid, payable as above mentioned; and having
intimated that he would not be averse to compound the same for goods or
money, if it was inconvenient to them to pay in kind, left them, as he
hoped, to debate the mode of assessing themselves for that purpose.
On the contrary, they met with a determined purpose of resisting the
exaction, and were only undecided as to the mode of grounding
their opposition, when the cooper, a very important person on a
fishing-station, and one of the conscript fathers of the village,
observed, "That their hens had caickled mony a day for the Lords of
Ravenswood, and it was time they suld caickle for those that gave
them roosts and barley." An unanimous grin intimated the assent of the
assembly. "And," continued the orator, "if it's your wull, I'll just tak
a step as far as Dunse for Davie Dingwall, the writer, that's come frae
the North to settle amang us, and he'll pit this job to rights, I'se
warrant him."

A day was accordingly fixed for holding a grand palaver at Wolf's Hope
on the subject of Caleb's requisitions, and he was invited to attend at
the hamlet for that purpose.

He went with open hands and empty stomach, trusting to fill the one on
his master's account and the other on his own score, at the expense of
the feuars of Wolf's Hope. But, death to his hopes! as he entered the
eastern end of the straggling village, the awful form of Davie Dingwall,
a sly, dry, hard-fisted, shrewd country attorney, who had already acted
against the family of Ravenswood, and was a principal agent of Sir
William Ashton, trotted in at the western extremity, bestriding a
leathern portmanteau stuffed with the feu-charters of the hamlet, and
hoping he had not kept Mr. Balderstone waiting, "as he was instructed
and fully empowered to pay or receive, compound or compensate, and,
in fine, to age as accords respecting all mutual and unsettled claims
whatsoever, belonging or competent to the Honourable Edgar Ravenswood,
commonly called the Master of Ravenswood----"

"The RIGHT Honourable Edgar LORD RAVENSWOOD," said Caleb, with great
emphasis; for, though conscious he had little chance of advantage in the
conflict to ensue, he was resolved not to sacrifice one jot of honour.

"Lord Ravenswood, then," said the man of business--"we shall not quarrel
with you about titles of courtesy--commonly called Lord Ravenswood, or
Master of Ravenswood, heritable proprietor of the lands and barony of
Wolf's Crag, on othe ne part, and to John Whitefish and others, feuars
in the town of Wolf's Hope, within the barony aforesaid, on the other
part."

Caleb was conscious, from sad experience, that he would wage a very
different strife with this mercenary champion than with the individual
feuars themselves, upon whose old recollections, predilections,
and habits of thinking he might have wrought by an hundred indirect
arguments, to which their deputy-representative was totally insensible.
The issue of the debate proved the reality of his apprehensions. It was
in vain he strained his eloquence and ingenuity, and collected into one
mass all arguments arising from antique custom and hereditary respect,
from the good deeds done by the Lords of Ravenswood to the community of
Wolf's Hope in former days, and from what might be expected from them in
future. The writer stuck to the contents of his feu-charters; he could
not see it: 'twas not in the bond. And when Caleb, determined to try
what a little spirit would do, deprecated the consequences of Lord
Ravenswood's withdrawing his protection from the burgh, and even hinted
in his using active measures of resentment, the man of law sneered in
his face.

"His clients," he said, "had determined to do the best they could for
their own town, and he thought Lord Ravenswood, since he was a lord,
might have enough to do to look after his own castle. As to any threats
of stouthrief oppression, by rule of thumb, or via facti, as the law
termed it, he would have Mr. Balderstone recollect, that new times were
not as old times; that they lived on the south of the Forth, and far
from the Highlands; that his clients thought they were able to protect
themselves; but should they find themselves mistaken, they would apply
to the government for the protection of a corporal and four red-coats,
who," said Mr. Dingwall, with a grin, "would be perfectly able to secure
them against Lord Ravenswood, and all that he or his followers could do
by the strong hand."

If Caleb could have concentrated all the lightnings of aristocracy in
his eye, to have struck dead this contemner of allegiance and privilege,
he would have launched them at his head, without respect to the
consequences. As it was, he was compelled to turn his course backward
to the castle; and there he remained for full half a day invisible and
inaccessible even to Mysie, sequestered in his own peculiar dungeon,
where he sat burnishing a single pewter plate and whistling "Maggie
Lauder" six hours without intermission.

The issue of this unfortunate requisition had shut against Caleb all
resources which could be derived from Wolf's Hope and its purlieus, the
El Dorado, or Peru, from which, in all former cases of exigence, he had
been able to extract some assistance. He had, indeed, in a manner vowed
that the deil should have him, if ever he put the print of his foot
within its causeway again. He had hitherto kept his word; and, strange
to tell, this secession had, as he intended, in some degree, the effect
of a punishment upon the refractory feuars. Mr. Balderstone had been a
person in their eyes connected with a superior order of beings, whose
presence used to grace their little festivities, whose advice they found
useful on many occasions, and whose communications gave a sort of credit
to their village. The place, they acknowledged, "didna look as it used
to do, and should do, since Mr. Caleb keepit the castle sae closely;
but doubtless, touching the eggs and butter, it was a most unreasonable
demand, as Mr. Dingwall had justly made manifest."

Thus stood matters betwixt the parties, when the old butler, though it
was gall and wormwood to him, found himself obliged either to ackowledge
before a strange man of quality, and, what was much worse, before that
stranger's servant, the total inability of Wolf's Crag to produce a
dinner, or he must trust to the compassion of the feuars of Wofl's Hope.
It was a dreadful degradation; but necessity was equally imperious and
lawless. With these feelings he entered the street of the village.

Willing to shake himself from his companion as soon as possible, he
directed Mr. Lockhard to Luckie Sma-trash's change-house, where a din,
proceeding from the revels of Bucklaw, Craigengelt, and their party,
sounded half-way down the street, while the red glare from the window
overpowered the grey twilight which was now settling down, and glimmered
against a parcel of old tubs, kegs, and barrels, piled up in the
cooper's yard, on the other side of the way.

"If you, Mr. Lockhard," said the old butler to his companion, "will be
pleased to step to the change-house where that light comes from, and
where, as I judge, they are now singing 'Cauld Kail in Aberdeen,' ye
may do your master's errand about the venison, and I will do mine about
Bucklaw's bed, as I return frae getting the rest of the vivers. It's no
that the venison is actually needfu'," he added, detaining his colleague
by the button, "to make up the dinner; but as a compliment to the
hunters, ye ken; and, Mr. Lockhard, if they offer ye a drink o' yill, or
a cup o' wine, or a glass o' brandy, ye'll be a wise man to take it,
in case the thunner should hae soured ours at the castle, whilk is ower
muckle to be dreaded."

He then permitted Lockhard to depart; and with foot heavy as lead, and
yet far lighter than his heart, stepped on through the unequal street
of the straggling village, meditating on whom he ought to make his
first attack. It was necessary he should find some one with whom old
acknowledged greatness should weigh more than recent independence, and
to whom his application might appear an act of high dignity, relenting
at once and soothing. But he could not recollect an inhabitant of a mind
so constructed. "Our kail is like to be cauld eneugh too," he reflected,
as the chorus of "Cauld Kail in Aberdeen" again reached his ears. The
minister--he had got his presentation from the late lord, but they had
quarrelled about teinds; the brewster's wife--she had trusted long, and
the bill was aye scored up, and unless the dignity of the family should
actually require it, it would be a sin to distress a widow woman.
None was so able--but, on the other hand, none was likely to be less
willing--to stand his friend upon the present occasion, than Gibbie
Girder, the man of tubs and barrels already mentioned, who had headed
the insurrection in the matter of the egg and butter subsidy. "But
a' comes o' taking folk on the right side, I trow," quoted Caleb to
himself; "and I had ance the ill hap to say he was but a Johnny New-come
in our town, and the carle bore the family an ill-will ever since.
But he married a bonny young quean, Jean Lightbody, auld Lightbody's
daughter, him that was in the steading of Loup-the-Dyke; and auld
Lightbody was married himsell to Marion, that was about my lady in
the family forty years syne. I hae had mony a day's daffing wi' Jean's
mither, and they say she bides on wi' them. The carle has Jacobuses and
Georgiuses baith, an ane could get at them; and sure I am, it's doing
him an honour him or his never deserved at our hand, the ungracious
sumph; and if he loses by us a'thegither, he is e'en cheap o't: he can
spare it brawly." Shaking off irresolution, therefore, and turning at
once upon his heel, Caleb walked hastily back to the cooper's house,
lifted the latch withotu ceremony, and, in a moment, found himself
behind the "hallan," or partition, from which position he could, himself
unseen, reconnoitre the interior of the "but," or kitchen apartment, of
the mansion.

Reverse of the sad menage at the Castle of Wolf's Crag, a bickering
fire roared up the cooper's chimney. His wife, on the one side, in
her pearlings and pudding-sleeves, put the last finishing touch to
her holiday's apparel, while she contemplated a very handsome and
good-humoured face in a broken mirror, raised upon the "bink" (the
shelves on which the plates are disposed) for her special accommodation.
Her mother, old Luckie Loup-the-Dyke, "a canty carline" as was within
twenty miles of her, according to the unanimous report of the "cummers,"
or gossips, sat by the fire in the full glory of a grogram gown, lammer
beads, and a clean cockernony, whiffing a snug pipe of tobacco, and
superintending the affairs of the kitchen; for--sight more interesting
to the anxious heart and craving entrails of the desponding seneschal
than either buxom dame or canty cummer--there bubbled on the aforesaid
bickering fire a huge pot, or rather cauldron, steaming with beef and
brewis; while before it revolved two spits, turned each by one of the
cooper's apprentices, seated in the opposite corners of the chimney, the
one loaded with a quarter of mutton, while the other was graced with a
fat goose and a brace of wild ducks. The sight and scent of such a
land of plenty almost wholly overcame the drooping spirits of Caleb. He
turned, for a moment's space to reconnoitre the "ben," or parlour end
of the house, and there saw a sight scarce less affecting to his
feelings--a large round table, covered for ten or twelve persons,
decored (according to his own favourite terms) with napery as white as
snow, grand flagons of pewter, intermixed with one or two silver cups,
containing, as was probable, something worthy the brilliancy of their
outward appearance, clean trenchers, cutty spoons, knives and forks,
sharp, burnished, and prompt for action, which lay all displayed as for
an especial festival.

"The devil's in the peddling tub-coopering carl!" muttered Caleb, in all
the envy of astonishment; "it's a shame to see the like o' them gusting
their gabs at sic a rate. But if some o' that gude cheer does not find
its way to Wolf's Crag this night, my name is not Caleb Balderstone."

So resolving, he entered the apartment, and, in all courteous greeting,
saluted both the mother and the daughter. Wolf's Crag was the court of
the barony, Caleb prime minister at Wolf's Crag; and it has ever been
remarked that, though the masculine subject who pays the taxes sometimes
growls at the courtiers by whom they are imposed, the said courtiers
continue, nevertheless, welcome to the fair sex, to whom they furnish
the newest small-talk and the earliest fashions. Both the dames were,
therefore, at once about old Caleb's neck, setting up their throats
together by way of welcome.

"Ay, sirs, Mr. Balderstone, and is this you? A sight of you is gude for
sair een. Sit down--sit down; the gudeman will be blythe to see you--ye
nar saw him sae cadgy in your life; but we are to christen our bit wean
the night, as ye will hae heard, and doubtless ye will stay and see the
ordinance. We hae killed a wether, and ane o' our lads has been out wi'
his gun at the moss; ye used to like wild-fowl."

"Na, na, gudewife," said Caleb; "I just keekit in to wish ye joy, and I
wad be glad to hae spoken wi' the gudeman, but----" moving, as if to go
away.

"The ne'er a fit ye's gang," said the elder dame, laughing and holding
him fast, with a freedom which belonged to their old acquaintance;
"wha kens what ill it may bring to the bairn, if ye owerlook it in that
gate?"

"But I'm in a preceese hurry, gudewife," said the butler, suffering
himself to be dragged to a seat without much resistance; "and as to
eating," for he observed the mistress of the dwelling bustling about to
place a trencher for him--"as for eating--lack-a-day, we are just killed
up yonder wi' eating frae morning to night! It's shamefu' epicurism; but
that's what we hae gotten frae the English pock-puddings." "Hout,
never mind the English pock-puddings," said Luckie Lightbody; "try our
puddings, Mr. Balderstone; there is black pudding and white-hass; try
whilk ye like best."

"Baith gude--baith excellent--canna be better; but the very smell is
eneugh for me that hae dined sae lately (the faithful wretch had fasted
since daybreak). But I wadna affront your housewifeskep, gudewife; and,
with your permission, I'se e'en pit them in my napkin, and eat them to
my supper at e'en, for I am wearied of Mysie's pastry and nonsense; ye
ken landward dainties aye pleased me best, Marion, and landward lasses
too (looking at the cooper's wife). Ne'er a bit but she looks far better
than when she married Gilbert, and then she was the bonniest lass in our
parochine and the neist till't. But gawsie cow, goodly calf."

The women smiled at the compliment each to herself, and they smiled
again to each other as Caleb wrapt up the puddings in a towel which he
had brought with him, as a dragoon carries his foraging bag to receive
what my fall in his way.

"And what news at the castle?" quo' the gudewife.

"News! The bravest news ye ever heard--the Lord Keeper's up yonder wi'
his fair daughter, just ready to fling her at my lord's head, if he
winna tak her out o' his arms; and I'se warrant he'll stitch our auld
lands of Ravenswood to her petticoat tail."

"Eh! sirs--ay!--and will hae her? and is she weel-favoured? and what's
the colour o' her hair? and does she wear a habit or a railly?" were the
questions which the females showered upon the butler.

"Hout tout! it wad tak a man a day to answer a' your questions, and I
hae hardly a minute. Where's the gudeman?"

"Awa' to fetch the minister," said Mrs. Girder, "precious Mr. Peter
Bide-the-Bent, frae the Mosshead; the honest man has the rheumatism wi'
lying in the hills in the persecution."

"Ay! Whig and a mountain-man, nae less!" said Caleb, with a peevishness
he could not suppress. "I hae seen the day, Luckie, when worthy Mr.
Cuffcushion and the service-book would hae served your turn (to the
elder dame), or ony honest woman in like circumstances."

"And that's true too," said Mrs. Lightbody, "but what can a body do?
Jean maun baith sing her psalms and busk her cockernony the gate the
gudeman likes, and nae ither gate; for he's maister and mair at hame, I
can tell ye, Mr. Balderstone."

"Ay, ay, and does he guide the gear too?" said Caleb, to whose projects
masculine rule boded little good. "Ilka penny on't; but he'll dress her
as dink as a daisy, as ye see; sae she has little reason to complain:
where there's ane better aff there's ten waur."

"Aweel, gudewife," said Caleb, crestfallen, but not beaten off, "that
wasna the way ye guided your gudeman; bt ilka land has its ain lauch.
I maun be ganging. I just wanted to round in the gudeman's lug, that I
heard them say up-bye yonder that Peter Puncheon, that was cooper to the
Queen's stores at the Timmer Burse at Leith, is dead; sae I though that
maybe a word frae my lord to the Lord Keeper might hae served Gilbert;
but since he's frae hame----"