Mannering had not much time to look and to admire. His conductor hurried
him across this striking scene, and suddenly dived with him into a very
steep paved lane. Turning to the right, they entered a scale staircase,
as it is called, the state of which, so far as it could be judged of by
one of his senses, annoyed Mannering's delicacy not a little. When they
had ascended cautiously to a considerable height, they heard a heavy rap
at a door, still two stories above them. The door opened, and immediately
ensued the sharp and worrying bark of a dog, the squalling of a woman,
the screams of an assaulted cat, and the hoarse voice of a man, who cried
in a most imperative tone, 'Will ye, Mustard? Will ye? down, sir, down!'

'Lord preserve us!' said the female voice, 'an he had worried our cat,
Mr. Pleydell would ne'er hae forgi'en me!'

'Aweel, my doo, the cat's no a prin the waur. So he's no in, ye say?'

'Na, Mr. Pleydell's ne'er in the house on Saturday at e'en,' answered the
female voice.

'And the morn's Sabbath too,' said the querist. 'I dinna ken what will be
done.'

By this time Mannering appeared, and found a tall, strong countryman,
clad in a coat of pepper-and-salt-coloured mixture, with huge metal
buttons, a glazed hat and boots, and a large horsewhip beneath his arm,
in colloquy with a slipshod damsel, who had in one hand the lock of the
door, and in the other a pail of whiting, or camstane, as it is called,
mixed with water--a circumstance which indicates Saturday night in
Edinburgh.

'So Mr. Pleydell is not at home, my good girl?' said Mannering.

'Ay, sir, he's at hame, but he's no in the house; he's aye out on
Saturday at e'en.'

'But, my good girl, I am a stranger, and my business express. Will you
tell me where I can find him?'

'His honour,' said the chairman, 'will be at Clerihugh's about this time.
Hersell could hae tell'd ye that, but she thought ye wanted to see his
house.'

'Well, then, show me to this tavern. I suppose he will see me, as I come
on business of some consequence?'

'I dinna ken, sir,' said the girl; 'he disna like to be disturbed on
Saturdays wi' business; but he's aye civil to strangers.'

'I'll gang to the tavern too,' said our friend Dinmont, 'for I am a
stranger also, and on business e'en sic like.'

'Na,' said the handmaiden, 'an he see the gentleman, he'll see the simple
body too; but, Lord's sake, dinna say it was me sent ye there!'

'Atweel, I am a simple body, that's true, hinny, but I am no come to
steal ony o' his skeel for naething,' said the farmer in his honest
pride, and strutted away downstairs, followed by Mannering and the cadie.
Mannering could not help admiring the determined stride with which the
stranger who preceded them divided the press, shouldering from him, by
the mere weight and impetus of his motion, both drunk and sober
passengers. 'He'll be a Teviotdale tup tat ane,' said the chairman,
'tat's for keeping ta crown o' ta causeway tat gate; he 'll no gang far
or he 'll get somebody to bell ta cat wi' him.'

His shrewd augury, however, was not fulfilled. Those who recoiled from
the colossal weight of Dinmont, on looking up at his size and strength,
apparently judged him too heavy metal to be rashly encountered, and
suffered him to pursue his course unchallenged. Following in the wake of
this first-rate, Mannering proceeded till the farmer made a pause, and,
looking back to the chairman, said, 'I'm thinking this will be the close,
friend.'

'Ay, ay,' replied Donald, 'tat's ta close.'

Dinmont descended confidently, then turned into a dark alley, then up a
dark stair, and then into an open door. While he was whistling shrilly
for the waiter, as if he had been one of his collie dogs, Mannering
looked round him, and could hardly conceive how a gentleman of a liberal
profession and good society should choose such a scene for social
indulgence. Besides the miserable entrance, the house itself seemed
paltry and half ruinous. The passage in which they stood had a window to
the close, which admitted a little light during the daytime, and a
villainous compound of smells at all times, but more especially towards
evening. Corresponding to this window was a borrowed light on the other
side of the passage, looking into the kitchen, which had no direct
communication with the free air, but received in the daytime, at second
hand, such straggling and obscure light as found its way from the lane
through the window opposite. At present the interior of the kitchen was
visible by its own huge fires--a sort of Pandemonium, where men and
women, half undressed, were busied in baking, broiling, roasting oysters,
and preparing devils on the gridiron; the mistress of the place, with her
shoes slipshod, and her hair straggling like that of Megaera from under a
round-eared cap, toiling, scolding, receiving orders, giving them, and
obeying them all at once, seemed the presiding enchantress of that gloomy
and fiery region.







Loud and repeated bursts of laughter from different quarters of the house
proved that her labours were acceptable, and not unrewarded by a generous
public. With some difficulty a waiter was prevailed upon to show Colonel
Mannering and Dinmont the room where their friend learned in the law held
his hebdomadal carousals. The scene which it exhibited, and particularly
the attitude of the counsellor himself, the principal figure therein,
struck his two clients with amazement.

Mr. Pleydell was a lively, sharp-looking gentleman, with a professional
shrewdness in his eye, and, generally speaking, a professional formality
in his manners. But this, like his three-tailed wig and black coat, he
could slip off on a Saturday evening, when surrounded by a party of jolly
companions, and disposed for what he called his altitudes. On the present
occasion the revel had lasted since four o'clock, and at length, under
the direction of a venerable compotator, who had shared the sports and
festivity of three generations, the frolicsome company had begun to
practise the ancient and now forgotten pastime of HIGH JINKS. This game
was played in several different ways. Most frequently the dice were
thrown by the company, and those upon whom the lot fell were obliged to
assume and maintain for a time a certain fictitious character, or to
repeat a certain number of fescennine verses in a particular order. If
they departed from the characters assigned, or if their memory proved
treacherous in the repetition, they incurred forfeits, which were either
compounded for by swallowing an additional bumper or by paying a small
sum towards the reckoning. At this sport the jovial company were closely
engaged when Mannering entered the room.

Mr. Counsellor Pleydell, such as we have described him, was enthroned as
a monarch in an elbow-chair placed on the dining-table, his scratch wig
on one side, his head crowned with a bottle-slider, his eye leering with
an expression betwixt fun and the effects of wine, while his court around
him resounded with such crambo scraps of verse as these:--

Where is Gerunto now? and what's become of him? Gerunto's drowned because
he could not swim, etc., etc.

Such, O Themis, were anciently the sports of thy Scottish children!
Dinmont was first in the room. He stood aghast a moment, and then
exclaimed, 'It's him, sure enough. Deil o' the like o' that ever I saw!'

At the sound of 'Mr. Dinmont and Colonel Mannering wanting to speak to
you, sir,' Pleydell turned his head, and blushed a little when he saw the
very genteel figure of the English stranger. He was, however, of the
opinion of Falstaff, 'Out, ye villains, play out the play!' wisely
judging it the better way to appear totally unconcerned. 'Where be our
guards?' exclaimed this second Justinian; 'see ye not a stranger knight
from foreign parts arrived at this our court of Holyrood, with our bold
yeoman Andrew Dinmont, who has succeeded to the keeping of our royal
flocks within the forest of Jedwood, where, thanks to our royal care in
the administration of justice, they feed as safe as if they were within
the bounds of Fife? Where be our heralds, our pursuivants, our Lyon, our
Marchmount, our Carrick, and our Snowdown? Let the strangers be placed at
our board, and regaled as beseemeth their quality and this our high
holiday; to-morrow we will hear their tidings.'

'So please you, my liege, to-morrow's Sunday,' said one of the company.

'Sunday, is it? then we will give no offence to the assembly of the kirk;
on Monday shall be their audience.'

Mannering, who had stood at first uncertain whether to advance or
retreat, now resolved to enter for the moment into the whim of the scene,
though internally fretting at Mac-Morlan for sending him to consult with
a crack-brained humourist. He therefore advanced with three profound
congees, and craved permission to lay his credentials at the feet of the
Scottish monarch, in order to be perused at his best leisure. The gravity
with which he accommodated himself to the humour of the moment, and the
deep and humble inclination with which he at first declined, and then
accepted, a seat presented by the master of the ceremonies, procured him
three rounds of applause.

'Deil hae me, if they arena a' mad thegither!' said Dinmont, occupying
with less ceremony a seat at the bottom of the table; 'or else they hae
taen Yule before it comes, and are gaun a-guisarding.'

A large glass of claret was offered to Mannering, who drank it to the
health of the reigning prince. 'You are, I presume to guess,' said the
monarch, 'that celebrated Sir Miles Mannering, so renowned in the French
wars, and may well pronounce to us if the wines of Gascony lose their
flavour in our more northern realm.'

Mannering, agreeably flattered by this allusion to the fame of his
celebrated ancestor, replied by professing himself only a distant
relation of the preux chevalier, and added, 'that in his opinion the wine
was superlatively good.'

'It's ower cauld for my stamach,' said Dinmont, setting down the
glass--empty however.

'We will correct that quality,' answered King Paulus, the first of the
name; 'we have not forgotten that the moist and humid air of our valley
of Liddel inclines to stronger potations. Seneschal, let our faithful
yeoman have a cup of brandy; it will be more germain to the matter.'

'And now,' said Mannering, 'since we have unwarily intruded upon your
majesty at a moment of mirthful retirement, be pleased to say when you
will indulge a stranger with an audience on those affairs of weight which
have brought him to your northern capital.'

The monarch opened Mac-Morlan's letter, and, running it hastily over,
exclaimed with his natural voice and manner, 'Lucy Bertram of Ellangowan,
poor dear lassie!'

'A forfeit! a forfeit!' exclaimed a dozen voices; 'his majesty has forgot
his kingly character.'

'Not a whit! not a whit!' replied the king; 'I'll be judged by this
courteous knight. May not a monarch love a maid of low degree? Is not
King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid an adjudged case in point?'

'Professional! professional! another forfeit,' exclaimed the tumultuary
nobility.

'Had not our royal predecessors,' continued the monarch, exalting his
sovereign voice to drown these disaffected clamours,--'had they not their
Jean Logies, their Bessie Carmichaels, their Oliphants, their Sandilands,
and their Weirs, and shall it be denied to us even to name a maiden whom
we delight to honour? Nay, then, sink state and perish sovereignty! for,
like a second Charles V, we will abdicate, and seek in the private shades
of life those pleasures which are denied to a throne.'

So saying, he flung away his crown, and sprung from his exalted station
with more agility than could have been expected from his age, ordered
lights and a wash-hand basin and towel, with a cup of green tea, into
another room, and made a sign to Mannering to accompany him. In less than
two minutes he washed his face and hands, settled his wig in the glass,
and, to Mannering's great surprise, looked quite a different man from the
childish Bacchanal he had seen a moment before.

'There are folks,' he said, 'Mr. Mannering, before whom one should take
care how they play the fool, because they have either too much malice or
too little wit, as the poet says. The best compliment I can pay Colonel
Mannering is to show I am not ashamed to expose myself before him; and
truly I think it is a compliment I have not spared to-night on your
good-nature. But what's that great strong fellow wanting?'

Dinmont, who had pushed after Mannering into the room, began with a
scrape with his foot and a scratch of his head in unison. 'I am Dandie
Dinmont, sir, of the Charlie's Hope--the Liddesdale lad; ye'll mind me?
It was for me ye won yon grand plea.'

'What plea, you loggerhead?' said the lawyer. 'D'ye think I can remember
all the fools that come to plague me?'

'Lord, sir, it was the grand plea about the grazing o' the Langtae Head!'
said the farmer.

'Well, curse thee, never mind; give me the memorial and come to me on
Monday at ten,' replied the learned counsel.

'But, sir, I haena got ony distinct memorial.'

'No memorial, man?' said Pleydell.

'Na, sir, nae memorial,' answered Dandie; 'for your honour said before,
Mr. Pleydell, ye'll mind, that ye liked best to hear us hill-folk tell
our ain tale by word o' mouth.'

'Beshrew my tongue, that said so!' answered the counsellor; 'it will cost
my ears a dinning. Well, say in two words what you've got to say. You see
the gentleman waits.'

'Ou, sir, if the gentleman likes he may play his ain spring first; it's
a' ane to Dandie.'

'Now, you looby,' said the lawyer, 'cannot you conceive that your
business can be nothing to Colonel Mannering, but that he may not choose
to have these great ears of thine regaled with his matters?'

'Aweel, sir, just as you and he like, so ye see to my business,' said
Dandie, not a whit disconcerted by the roughness of this reception.
'We're at the auld wark o' the marches again, Jock o' Dawston Cleugh and
me. Ye see we march on the tap o' Touthop-rigg after we pass the
Pomoragrains; for the Pomoragrains, and Slackenspool, and Bloodylaws,
they come in there, and they belang to the Peel; but after ye pass
Pomoragrains at a muckle great saucer-headed cutlugged stane that they
ca' Charlie's Chuckie, there Dawston Cleugh and Charlie's Hope they
march. Now, I say the march rins on the tap o' the hill where the wind
and water shears; but Jock o' Dawston Cleugh again, he contravenes that,
and says that it bauds down by the auld drove-road that gaes awa by the
Knot o' the Gate ower to Keeldar Ward; and that makes an unco
difference.'

'And what difference does it make, friend?' said Pleydell. 'How many
sheep will it feed?'

'Ou, no mony,' said Dandie, scratching his head; 'it's lying high and
exposed: it may feed a hog, or aiblins twa in a good year.'

'And for this grazing, which may be worth about five shillings a year,
you are willing to throw away a hundred pound or two?'

'Na, sir, it's no for the value of the grass,' replied Dinmont; 'it's for
justice.'

'My good friend,' said Pleydell, 'justice, like charity, should begin at
home. Do you justice to your wife and family, and think no more about the
matter.'

Dinmont still lingered, twisting his hat in his hand. 'It's no for that,
sir; but I would like ill to be bragged wi' him; he threeps he'll bring a
score o' witnesses and mair, and I'm sure there's as mony will swear for
me as for him, folk that lived a' their days upon the Charlie's Hope, and
wadna like to see the land lose its right.'

'Zounds, man, if it be a point of honour,' said the lawyer, 'why don't
your landlords take it up?'

'I dinna ken, sir (scratching his head again); there's been nae
election-dusts lately, and the lairds are unco neighbourly, and Jock and
me canna get them to yoke thegither about it a' that we can say; but if
ye thought we might keep up the rent--'

'No! no! that will never do,' said Pleydell. 'Confound you, why don't you
take good cudgels and settle it?'

'Odd, sir,' answered the farmer, 'we tried that three times already,
that's twice on the land and ance at Lockerby Fair. But I dinna ken;
we're baith gey good at single-stick, and it couldna weel be judged.'

'Then take broadswords, and be d--d to you, as your fathers did before
you,' said the counsel learned in the law.

'Aweel, sir, if ye think it wadna be again the law, it's a' ane to
Dandie.'

'Hold! hold!' exclaimed Pleydell, 'we shall have another Lord Soulis'
mistake. Pr'ythee, man, comprehend me; I wish you to consider how very
trifling and foolish a lawsuit you wish to engage in.'

'Ay, sir?' said Dandie, in a disappointed tone. 'So ye winna take on wi'
me, I'm doubting?'

'Me! not I. Go home, go home, take a pint and agree.' Dandie looked but
half contented, and still remained stationary. 'Anything more, my
friend?'

'Only, sir, about the succession of this leddy that's dead, auld Miss
Margaret Bertram o' Singleside.'

'Ay, what about her?' said the counsellor, rather surprised.

'Ou, we have nae connexion at a' wi' the Bertrams,' said Dandie; 'they
were grand folk by the like o' us; but Jean Liltup, that was auld
Singleside's housekeeper, and the mother of these twa young ladies that
are gane--the last o' them's dead at a ripe age, I trow--Jean Liltup came
out o' Liddel water, and she was as near our connexion as second cousin
to my mother's half-sister. She drew up wi' Singleside, nae doubt, when
she was his housekeeper, and it was a sair vex and grief to a' her kith
and kin. But he acknowledged a marriage, and satisfied the kirk; and now
I wad ken frae you if we hae not some claim by law?'

'Not the shadow of a claim.'

'Aweel, we're nae puirer,' said Dandie; 'but she may hae thought on us if
she was minded to make a testament. Weel, sir, I've said my say; I'se
e'en wish you good-night, and--' putting his hand in his pocket.

'No, no, my friend; I never take fees on Saturday nights, or without a
memorial. Away with you, Dandie.' And Dandie made his reverence and
departed accordingly.






CHAPTER VIII
     But this poor farce has neither truth nor art
     To please the fancy or to touch the heart
     Dark but not awful dismal but yet mean,
     With anxious bustle moves the cumbrous scene,
     Presents no objects tender or profound,
     But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around

          Parish Register


'Your majesty,' said Mannering, laughing, 'has solemnised your abdication
by an act of mercy and charity. That fellow will scarce think of going to
law.'

'O, you are quite wrong,' said the experienced lawyer. 'The only
difference is, I have lost my client and my fee. He'll never rest till he
finds somebody to encourage him to commit the folly he has predetermined.
No! no! I have only shown you another weakness of my character: I always
speak truth of a Saturday night.'

'And sometimes through the week, I should think,' said Mannering,
continuing the same tone.

'Why, yes; as far as my vocation will permit. I am, as Hamlet says,
indifferent honest, when my clients and their solicitors do not make me
the medium of conveying their double-distilled lies to the bench. But
oportet vivere! it is a sad thing. And now to our business. I am glad my
old friend Mac-Morlan has sent you to me; he is an active, honest, and
intelligent man, long sheriff-substitute of the county of--under me, and
still holds the office. He knows I have a regard for that unfortunate
family of Ellangowan, and for poor Lucy. I have not seen her since she
was twelve years old, and she was then a sweet pretty girl, under the
management of a very silly father. But my interest in her is of an early
date. I was called upon, Mr. Mannering, being then sheriff of that
county, to investigate the particulars of a murder which had been
committed near Ellangowan the day on which this poor child was born; and
which, by a strange combination that I was unhappily not able to trace,
involved the death or abstraction of her only brother, a boy of about
five years old. No, Colonel, I shall never forget the misery of the house
of Ellangowan that morning! the father half-distracted--the mother dead
in premature travail--the helpless infant, with scarce any one to attend
it, coming wawling and crying into this miserable world at such a moment
of unutterable misery. We lawyers are not of iron, sir, or of brass, any
more than you soldiers are of steel. We are conversant with the crimes
and distresses of civil society, as you are with those that occur in a
state of war, and to do our duty in either case a little apathy is
perhaps necessary. But the devil take a soldier whose heart can be as
hard as his sword, and his dam catch the lawyer who bronzes his bosom
instead of his forehead! But come, I am losing my Saturday at e'en. Will
you have the kindness to trust me with these papers which relate to Miss
Bertram's business? and stay--to-morrow you'll take a bachelor's dinner
with an old lawyer,--I insist upon it--at three precisely, and come an
hour sooner. The old lady is to be buried on Monday; it is the orphan's
cause, and we'll borrow an hour from the Sunday to talk over this
business, although I fear nothing can be done if she has altered her
settlement, unless perhaps it occurs within the sixty days, and then, if
Miss Bertram can show that she possesses the character of heir-at-law,
why--But, hark! my lieges are impatient of their interregnum. I do not
invite you to rejoin us, Colonel; it would be a trespass on your
complaisance, unless you had begun the day with us, and gradually glided
on from wisdom to mirth, and from mirth to-to-to--extravagance.
Good-night. Harry, go home with Mr. Mannering to his lodging. Colonel, I
expect you at a little past two to-morrow.'

The Colonel returned to his inn, equally surprised at the childish
frolics in which he had found his learned counsellor engaged, at the
candour and sound sense which he had in a moment summoned up to meet the
exigencies of his profession, and at the tone of feeling which he
displayed when he spoke of the friendless orphan.

In the morning, while the Colonel and his most quiet and silent of all
retainers, Dominie Sampson, were finishing the breakfast which Barnes had
made and poured out, after the Dominie had scalded himself in the
attempt, Mr. Pleydell was suddenly ushered in. A nicely dressed bob-wig,
upon every hair of which a zealous and careful barber had bestowed its
proper allowance of powder; a well-brushed black suit, with very clean
shoes and gold buckles and stock-buckle; a manner rather reserved and
formal than intrusive, but withal showing only the formality of manner,
by no means that of awkwardness; a countenance, the expressive and
somewhat comic features of which were in complete repose--all showed a
being perfectly different from the choice spirit of the evening before. A
glance of shrewd and piercing fire in his eye was the only marked
expression which recalled the man of 'Saturday at e'en.'

'I am come,' said he, with a very polite address, 'to use my regal
authority in your behalf in spirituals as well as temporals; can I
accompany you to the Presbyterian kirk, or Episcopal meeting-house? Tros
Tyriusve, a lawyer, you know, is of both religions, or rather I should
say of both forms;--or can I assist in passing the fore-noon otherwise?
You'll excuse my old-fashioned importunity, I was born in a time when a
Scotchman was thought inhospitable if he left a guest alone a moment,
except when he slept; but I trust you will tell me at once if I intrude.'

'Not at all, my dear sir,' answered Colonel Mannering. 'I am delighted to
put myself under your pilotage. I should wish much to hear some of your
Scottish preachers whose talents have done such honour to your
country--your Blair, your Robertson, or your Henry; and I embrace your
kind offer with all my heart. Only,' drawing the lawyer a little aside,
and turning his eye towards Sampson, 'my worthy friend there in the
reverie is a little helpless and abstracted, and my servant, Barnes, who
is his pilot in ordinary, cannot well assist him here, especially as he
has expressed his determination of going to some of your darker and more
remote places of worship.'

The lawyer's eye glanced at Dominie Sampson. 'A curiosity worth
preserving; and I'll find you a fit custodier. Here you, sir (to the
waiter), go to Luckie Finlayson's in the Cowgate for Miles Macfin the
cadie, he'll be there about this time, and tell him I wish to speak to
him.'

The person wanted soon arrived. 'I will commit your friend to this man's
charge,' said Pleydell; 'he'll attend him, or conduct him, wherever he
chooses to go, with a happy indifference as to kirk or market, meeting or
court of justice, or any other place whatever; and bring him safe home at
whatever hour you appoint; so that Mr. Barnes there may be left to the
freedom of his own will.'

This was easily arranged, and the Colonel committed the Dominie to the
charge of this man while they should remain in Edinburgh.

'And now, sir, if you please, we shall go to the Grey-friars church, to
hear our historian of Scotland, of the Continent, and of America.'

They were disappointed: he did not preach that morning. 'Never mind,'
said the Counsellor, 'have a moment's patience and we shall do very
well.'

The colleague of Dr. Robertson ascended the pulpit. [Footnote: This was
the celebrated Doctor Erskine, a distinguished clergyman, and a most
excellent man.] His external appearance was not prepossessing. A
remarkably fair complexion, strangely contrasted with a black wig without
a grain of powder; a narrow chest and a stooping posture; hands which,
placed like props on either side of the pulpit, seemed necessary rather
to support the person than to assist the gesticulation of the preacher;
no gown, not even that of Geneva, a tumbled band, and a gesture which
seemed scarce voluntary, were the first circumstances which struck a
stranger. 'The preacher seems a very ungainly person,' whispered
Mannering to his new friend.

'Never fear, he's the son of an excellent Scottish lawyer; [Footnote: The
father of Doctor Erskine was an eminent lawyer, and his Institutes of the
Law of Scotland are to this day the text-book of students of that
science.] he'll show blood, I'll warrant him.'

The learned Counsellor predicted truly. A lecture was delivered, fraught
with new, striking, and entertaining views of Scripture history, a sermon
in which the Calvinism of the Kirk of Scotland was ably supported, yet
made the basis of a sound system of practical morals, which should
neither shelter the sinner under the cloak of speculative faith or of
peculiarity of opinion, nor leave him loose to the waves of unbelief and
schism. Something there was of an antiquated turn of argument and
metaphor, but it only served to give zest and peculiarity to the style of
elocution. The sermon was not read: a scrap of paper containing the heads
of the discourse was occasionally referred to, and the enunciation, which
at first seemed imperfect and embarrassed, became, as the preacher warmed
in his progress, animated and distinct; and although the discourse could
not be quoted as a correct specimen of pulpit eloquence, yet Mannering
had seldom heard so much learning, metaphysical acuteness, and energy of
argument brought into the service of Christianity.

'Such,' he said, going out of the church, 'must have been the preachers
to whose unfearing minds, and acute though sometimes rudely exercised
talents, we owe the Reformation.'

'And yet that reverend gentleman,' said Pleydell, 'whom I love for his
father's sake and his own, has nothing of the sour or pharisaical pride
which has been imputed to some of the early fathers of the Calvinistic
Kirk of Scotland. His colleague and he differ, and head different parties
in the kirk, about particular points of church discipline; but without
for a moment losing personal regard or respect for each other, or
suffering malignity to interfere in an opposition steady, constant, and
apparently conscientious on both sides.'

'And you, Mr. Pleydell, what do you think of their points of difference?'

'Why, I hope, Colonel, a plain man may go to heaven without thinking
about them at all; besides, inter nos, I am a member of the suffering and
Episcopal Church of Scotland--the shadow of a shade now, and fortunately
so; but I love to pray where my fathers prayed before me, without
thinking worse of the Presbyterian forms because they do not affect me
with the same associations.' And with this remark they parted until
dinner-time.

From the awkward access to the lawyer's mansion, Mannering was induced to
form very moderate expectations of the entertainment which he was to
receive. The approach looked even more dismal by daylight than on the
preceding evening. The houses on each side of the lane were so close that
the neighbours might have shaken hands with each other from the different
sides, and occasionally the space between was traversed by wooden
galleries, and thus entirely closed up. The stair, the scale-stair, was
not well cleaned; and on entering the house Mannering was struck with the
narrowness and meanness of the wainscotted passage. But the library, into
which he was shown by an elderly, respectable-looking man-servant, was a
complete contrast to these unpromising appearances. It was a
well-proportioned room, hung with a portrait or two of Scottish
characters of eminence, by Jamieson, the Caledonian Vandyke, and
surrounded with books, the best editions of the best authors, and in
particular an admirable collection of classics.

'These,' said Pleydell, 'are my tools of trade. A lawyer without history
or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some
knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.'

But Mannering was chiefly delighted with the view from the windows, which
commanded that incomparable prospect of the ground between Edinburgh and
the sea--the Firth of Forth, with its islands, the embayment which is
terminated by the Law of North Berwick, and the varied shores of Fife to
the northward, indenting with a hilly outline the clear blue horizon.

When Mr. Pleydell had sufficiently enjoyed the surprise of his guest, he
called his attention to Miss Bertram's affairs. 'I was in hopes,' he
said, 'though but faint, to have discovered some means of ascertaining
her indefeasible right to this property of Singleside; but my researches
have been in vain. The old lady was certainly absolute fiar, and might
dispose of it in full right of property. All that we have to hope is,
that the devil may not have tempted her to alter this very proper
settlement. You must attend the old girl's funeral to-morrow, to which
you will receive an invitation, for I have acquainted her agent with your
being here on Miss Bertram's part; and I will meet you afterwards at the
house she inhabited, and be present to see fair play at the opening of
the settlement. The old cat had a little girl, the orphan of some
relation, who lived with her as a kind of slavish companion. I hope she
has had the conscience to make her independent, in consideration of the
peine forte et dure to which she subjected her during her lifetime.'

Three gentlemen now appeared, and were introduced to the stranger. They
were men of good sense, gaiety, and general information, so that the day
passed very pleasantly over; and Colonel Mannering assisted, about eight
o'clock at night, in discussing the landlord's bottle, which was, of
course, a magnum. Upon his return to the inn he found a card inviting him
to the funeral of Miss Margaret Bertram, late of Singleside, which was to
proceed from her own house to the place of interment in the Greyfriars
churchyard at one o'clock afternoon.

At the appointed hour Mannering went to a small house in the suburbs to
the southward of the city, where he found the place of mourning
indicated, as usual in Scotland, by two rueful figures with long black
cloaks, white crapes and hat-bands, holding in their hands poles, adorned
with melancholy streamers of the same description. By two other mutes,
who, from their visages, seemed suffering under the pressure of some
strange calamity, he was ushered into the dining-parlour of the defunct,
where the company were assembled for the funeral.

In Scotland the custom, now disused in England, of inviting the relations
of the deceased to the interment is universally retained. On many
occasions this has a singular and striking effect, but it degenerates
into mere empty form and grimace in cases where the defunct has had the
misfortune to live unbeloved and die unlamented. The English service for
the dead, one of the most beautiful and impressive parts of the ritual of
the church, would have in such cases the effect of fixing the attention,
and uniting the thoughts and feelings of the audience present in an
exercise of devotion so peculiarly adapted to such an occasion. But
according to the Scottish custom, if there be not real feeling among the
assistants, there is nothing to supply the deficiency, and exalt or rouse
the attention; so that a sense of tedious form, and almost hypocritical
restraint, is too apt to pervade the company assembled for the mournful
solemnity. Mrs. Margaret Bertram was unluckily one of those whose good
qualities had attached no general friendship. She had no near relations
who might have mourned from natural affection, and therefore her funeral
exhibited merely the exterior trappings of sorrow.

Mannering, therefore, stood among this lugubrious company of cousins in
the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth degree, composing his countenance to
the decent solemnity of all who were around him, and looking as much
concerned on Mrs. Margaret Bertram's account as if the deceased lady of
Singleside had been his own sister or mother. After a deep and awful
pause, the company began to talk aside, under their breaths, however, and
as if in the chamber of a dying person.

'Our poor friend,' said one grave gentleman, scarcely opening his mouth,
for fear of deranging the necessary solemnity of his features, and
sliding his whisper from between his lips, which were as little unclosed
as possible--'our poor friend has died well to pass in the world.'

'Nae doubt,' answered the person addressed, with half-closed eyes; 'poor
Mrs. Margaret was aye careful of the gear.'

'Any news to-day, Colonel Mannering?' said one of the gentlemen whom he
had dined with the day before, but in a tone which might, for its
impressive gravity, have communicated the death of his whole generation.

'Nothing particular, I believe, sir,' said Mannering, in the cadence
which was, he observed, appropriated to the house of mourning.

'I understand,' continued the first speaker, emphatically, and with the
air of one who is well informed--'I understand there IS a settlement.'

'And what does little Jenny Gibson get?'

'A hundred, and the auld repeater.'

'That's but sma' gear, puir thing; she had a sair time o't with the auld
leddy. But it's ill waiting for dead folk's shoon.'

'I am afraid,' said the politician, who was close by Mannering, 'we have
not done with your old friend Tippoo Sahib yet, I doubt he'll give the
Company more plague; and I am told, but you'll know for certain, that
East India Stock is not rising.'

'I trust it will, sir, soon.'

'Mrs. Margaret,' said another person, mingling in the conversation, 'had
some India bonds. I know that, for I drew the interest for her; it would
be desirable now for the trustees and legatees to have the Colonel's
advice about the time and mode of converting them into money. For my part
I think--but there's Mr. Mortcloke to tell us they are gaun to lift.'

Mr. Mortcloke the undertaker did accordingly, with a visage of
professional length and most grievous solemnity, distribute among the
pall-bearers little cards, assigning their respective situations in
attendance upon the coffin. As this precedence is supposed to be
regulated by propinquity to the defunct, the undertaker, however skilful
a master of these lugubrious ceremonies, did not escape giving some
offence. To be related to Mrs. Bertram was to be of kin to the lands of
Singleside, and was a propinquity of which each relative present at that
moment was particularly jealous. Some murmurs there were on the occasion,
and our friend Dinmont gave more open offence, being unable either to
repress his discontent or to utter it in the key properly modulated to
the solemnity. 'I think ye might hae at least gi'en me a leg o' her to
carry,' he exclaimed, in a voice considerably louder than propriety
admitted. 'God! an it hadna been for the rigs o' land, I would hae gotten
her a' to carry mysell, for as mony gentles as are here.'

A score of frowning and reproving brows were bent upon the unappalled
yeoman, who, having given vent to his displeasure, stalked sturdily
downstairs with the rest of the company, totally disregarding the
censures of those whom his remarks had scandalised.

And then the funeral pomp set forth; saulies with their batons and
gumphions of tarnished white crape, in honour of the well-preserved
maiden fame of Mrs. Margaret Bertram. Six starved horses, themselves the
very emblems of mortality, well cloaked and plumed, lugging along the
hearse with its dismal emblazonry, crept in slow state towards the place
of interment, preceded by Jamie Duff, an idiot, who, with weepers and
cravat made of white paper, attended on every funeral, and followed by
six mourning coaches, filled with the company. Many of these now gave
more free loose to their tongues, and discussed with unrestrained
earnestness the amount of the succession, and the probability of its
destination. The principal expectants, however, kept a prudent silence,
indeed ashamed to express hopes which might prove fallacious; and the
agent or man of business, who alone knew exactly how matters stood,
maintained a countenance of mysterious importance, as if determined to
preserve the full interest of anxiety and suspense.

At length they arrived at the churchyard gates, and from thence, amid the
gaping of two or three dozen of idle women with infants in their arms,
and accompanied by some twenty children, who ran gambolling and screaming
alongside of the sable procession, they finally arrived at the
burial-place of the Singleside family. This was a square enclosure in the
Greyfriars churchyard, guarded on one side by a veteran angel without a
nose, and having only one wing, who had the merit of having maintained
his post for a century, while his comrade cherub, who had stood sentinel
on the corresponding pedestal, lay a broken trunk among the hemlock,
burdock, and nettles which grew in gigantic luxuriance around the walls
of the mausoleum. A moss-grown and broken inscription informed the reader
that in the year 1650 Captain Andrew Bertram, first of Singleside,
descended of the very ancient and honourable house of Ellangowan, had
caused this monument to be erected for himself and his descendants. A
reasonable number of scythes and hour-glasses, and death's heads and
cross-bones, garnished the following sprig of sepulchral poetry to the
memory of the founder of the mausoleum:--

Nathaniel's heart, Bezaleel's hand If ever any had, These boldly do I say
had he, Who lieth in this bed.

Here, then, amid the deep black fat loam into which her ancestors were
now resolved, they deposited the body of Mrs. Margaret Bertram; and, like
soldiers returning from a military funeral, the nearest relations who
might be interested in the settlements of the lady urged the dog-cattle
of the hackney coaches to all the speed of which they were capable, in
order to put an end to farther suspense on that interesting topic.






CHAPTER IX
     Die and endow a college or a cat.

          POPE.


There is a fable told by Lucian, that while a troop of monkeys, well
drilled by an intelligent manager, were performing a tragedy with great
applause, the decorum of the whole scene was at once destroyed, and the
natural passions of the actors called forth into very indecent and active
emulation, by a wag who threw a handful of nuts upon the stage. In like
manner, the approaching crisis stirred up among the expectants feelings
of a nature very different from those of which, under the superintendence
of Mr. Mortcloke, they had but now been endeavouring to imitate the
expression. Those eyes which were lately devoutly cast up to heaven, or
with greater humility bent solemnly upon earth, were now sharply and
alertly darting their glances through shuttles, and trunks, and drawers,
and cabinets, and all the odd corners of an old maiden lady's
repositories. Nor was their search without interest, though they did not
find the will of which they were in quest.

Here was a promissory note for 20 Pounds by the minister of the nonjuring
chapel, interest marked as paid to Martinmas last, carefully folded up in
a new set of words to the old tune of 'Over the Water to Charlie'; there
was a curious love correspondence between the deceased and a certain
Lieutenant O'Kean of a marching regiment of foot; and tied up with the
letters was a document which at once explained to the relatives why a
connexion that boded them little good had been suddenly broken off, being
the Lieutenant's bond for two hundred pounds, upon which NO interest
whatever appeared to have been paid. Other bills and bonds to a larger
amount, and signed by better names (I mean commercially) than those of
the worthy divine and gallant soldier, also occurred in the course of
their researches, besides a hoard of coins of every size and
denomination, and scraps of broken gold and silver, old earrings, hinges
of cracked, snuff-boxes, mountings of spectacles, etc. etc. etc. Still no
will made its appearance, and Colonel Mannering began full well to hope
that the settlement which he had obtained from Glossin contained the
ultimate arrangement of the old lady's affairs. But his friend Pleydell,
who now came into the room, cautioned him against entertaining this
belief.

'I am well acquainted with the gentleman,' he said, 'who is conducting
the search, and I guess from his manner that he knows something more of
the matter than any of us.'

Meantime, while the search proceeds, let us take a brief glance at one or
two of the company who seem most interested.

Of Dinmont, who, with his large hunting-whip under his arm, stood poking
his great round face over the shoulder of the homme d'affaires, it is
unnecessary to say anything. That thin-looking oldish person, in a most
correct and gentleman-like suit of mourning, is Mac-Casquil, formerly of
Drumquag, who was ruined by having a legacy bequeathed to him of two
shares in the Ayr bank. His hopes on the present occasion are founded on
a very distant relationship, upon his sitting in the same pew with the
deceased every Sunday, and upon his playing at cribbage with her
regularly on the Saturday evenings, taking great care never to come off a
winner. That other coarse-looking man, wearing his own greasy hair tied
in a leathern cue more greasy still, is a tobacconist, a relation of Mrs.
Bertram's mother, who, having a good stock in trade when the colonial war
broke out, trebled the price of his commodity to all the world, Mrs.
Bertram alone excepted, whose tortoise-shell snuff-box was weekly filled
with the best rappee at the old prices, because the maid brought it to
the shop with Mrs. Bertram's respects to her cousin Mr. Quid. That young
fellow, who has not had the decency to put off his boots and buckskins,
might have stood as forward as most of them in the graces of the old
lady, who loved to look upon a comely young man; but it is thought he has
forfeited the moment of fortune by sometimes neglecting her tea-table
when solemnly invited, sometimes appearing there when he had been dining
with blyther company, twice treading upon her cat's tail, and once
affronting her parrot.

To Mannering the most interesting of the group was the poor girl who had
been a sort of humble companion of the deceased, as a subject upon whom
she could at all times expectorate her bad humour. She was for form's
sake dragged into the room by the deceased's favourite female attendant,
where, shrinking into a>corner as soon as possible, she saw with wonder
and affright the intrusive researches of the strangers amongst those
recesses to which from childhood she had looked with awful veneration.
This girl was regarded with an unfavourable eye by all the competitors,
honest Dinmont only excepted; the rest conceived they should find in her
a formidable competitor, whose claims might at least encumber and
diminish their chance of succession. Yet she was the only person present
who seemed really to feel sorrow for the deceased. Mrs. Bertram had been
her protectress, although from selfish motives, and her capricious
tyranny was forgotten at the moment, while the tears followed each other
fast down the cheeks of her frightened and friendless dependent. 'There's
ower muckle saut water there, Drumquag,' said the tobacconist to the
ex-proprietor, 'to bode ither folk muckle gude. Folk seldom greet that
gate but they ken what it's for.' Mr. Mac-Casquil only replied with a
nod, feeling the propriety of asserting his superior gentry in presence
of Mr. Pleydell and Colonel Mannering.

'Very queer if there suld be nae will after a', friend,' said Dinmont,
who began to grow impatient, to the man of business.

'A moment's patience, if you please. She was a good and prudent woman,
Mrs. Margaret Bertram--a good and prudent and well-judging woman, and
knew how to choose friends and depositaries; she may have put her last
will and testament, or rather her mortis causa settlement, as it relates
to heritage, into the hands of some safe friend.'

'I'll bet a rump and dozen,' said Pleydell, whispering to the Colonel,
'he has got it in his own pocket.' Then addressing the man of law, 'Come,
sir, we'll cut this short, if you please: here is a settlement of the
estate of Singleside, executed several years ago, in favour of Miss Lucy
Bertram of Ellangowan.' The company stared fearfully wild. 'You, I
presume, Mr. Protocol, can inform us if there is a later deed?'

'Please to favour me, Mr. Pleydell'; and so saying, he took the deed out
of the learned counsel's hand, and glanced his eye over the contents.

'Too cool,' said Pleydell, 'too cool by half; he has another deed in his
pocket still.'

'Why does he not show it then, and be d-d to him!' said the military
gentleman, whose patience began to wax threadbare.

'Why, how should I know?' answered the barrister; 'why does a cat not
kill a mouse when she takes him? The consciousness of power and the love
of teasing, I suppose. Well, Mr. Protocol, what say you to that deed?'

'Why, Mr. Pleydell, the deed is a well-drawn deed, properly authenticated
and tested in forms of the statute.'

'But recalled or superseded by another of posterior date in your
possession, eh?' said the Counsellor.

'Something of the sort, I confess, Mr. Pleydell,' rejoined the man of
business, producing a bundle tied with tape, and sealed at each fold and
ligation with black wax. 'That deed, Mr. Pleydell, which you produce and
found upon, is dated 1st June 17--; but this (breaking the seals and
unfolding the document slowly) is dated the 20th--no, I see it is the
21st--of April of this present year, being ten years posterior.'

'Marry, hang her, brock!' said the Counsellor, borrowing an exclamation
from Sir Toby Belch; 'just the month in which Ellangowan's distresses
became generally public. But let us hear what she has done.'

Mr. Protocol accordingly, having required silence, began to read the
settlement aloud in a slow, steady, business-like tone. The group around,
in whose eyes hope alternately awakened and faded, and who were straining
their apprehensions to get at the drift of the testator's meaning through
the mist of technical language in which the conveyance had involved it,
might have made a study for Hogarth.

The deed was of an unexpected nature. It set forth with conveying and
disponing all and whole the estate and lands of Singleside and others,
with the lands of Loverless, Liealone, Spinster's Knowe, and heaven knows
what beside, 'to and in favours of (here the reader softened his voice to
a gentle and modest piano) Peter Protocol, clerk to the signet, having
the fullest confidence in his capacity and integrity--these are the very
words which my worthy deceased friend insisted upon my inserting--but in
TRUST always (here the reader recovered his voice and style, and the
visages of several of the hearers, which had attained a longitude that
Mr. Mortcloke might have envied, were perceptibly shortened)--in TRUST
always, and for the uses, ends, and purposes hereinafter mentioned.'

In these 'uses, ends, and purposes' lay the cream of the affair. The
first was introduced by a preamble setting forth that the testatrix was
lineally descended from the ancient house of Ellangowan, her respected
great-grandfather, Andrew Bertram, first of Singleside, of happy memory,
having been second son to Allan Bertram, fifteenth Baron of Ellangowan.
It proceeded to state that Henry Bertram, son and heir of Godfrey
Bertram, now of Ellangowan, had been stolen from his parents in infancy,
but that she, the testatrix, WAS WELL ASSURED THAT HE WAS YET ALIVE IN
FOREIGN PARTS, AND BY THE PROVIDENCE OF HEAVEN WOULD BE RESTORED TO THE
POSSESSIONS OF HIS ANCESTORS, in which case the said Peter Protocol was
bound and obliged, like as he bound and obliged himself, by acceptance of
these presents, to denude himself of the said lands of Singleside and
others, and of all the other effects thereby conveyed (excepting always a
proper gratification for his own trouble), to and in favour of the said
Henry Bertram, upon his return to his native country. And during the time
of his residing in foreign parts, or in case of his never again returning
to Scotland, Mr. Peter Protocol, the trustee, was directed to distribute
the rents of the land, and interest of the other funds (deducting always
a proper gratification for his trouble in the premises), in equal
portions, among four charitable establishments pointed out in the will.
The power of management, of letting leases, of raising and lending out
money, in short, the full authority of a proprietor, was vested in this
confidential trustee, and, in the event of his death, went to certain
official persons named in the deed. There were only two legacies; one of
a hundred pounds to a favourite waiting-maid, another of the like sum to
Janet Gibson (whom the deed stated to have been supported by the charity
of the testatrix), for the purpose of binding her an apprentice to some
honest trade.