The fishers had brought with them the mast of a boat, and as half of the
country fellows about had now appeared, either out of zeal or curiosity,
it was soon sunk in the ground, and sufficiently secured. A yard across
the upright mast, and a rope stretched along it, and reeved through a
block at each end, formed an extempore crane, which afforded the means of
lowering an arm-chair, well secured and fastened, down to the flat shelf
on which the sufferers had roosted. Their joy at hearing the preparations
going on for their deliverance was considerably qualified when they
beheld the precarious vehicle by means of which they were to be conveyed
to upper air. It swung about a yard free of the spot which they occupied,
obeying each impulse of the tempest, the empty air all around it, and
depending upon the security of a rope, which, in the increasing darkness,
had dwindled to an almost imperceptible thread. Besides the hazard of
committing a human being to the vacant atmosphere in such a slight means
of conveyance, there was the fearful danger of the chair and its occupant
being dashed, either by the wind or the vibrations of the cord, against
the rugged face of the precipice. But to diminish the risk as much as
possible, the experienced seaman had let down with the chair another
line, which, being attached to it, and held by the persons beneath, might
serve by way of _gy,_ as Mucklebackit expressed it, to render its descent
in some measure steady and regular. Still, to commit one's self in such a
vehicle, through a howling tempest of wind and rain, with a beetling
precipice above and a raging abyss below, required that courage which
despair alone can inspire. Yet, wild as the sounds and sights of danger
were, both above, beneath, and around, and doubtful and dangerous as the
mode of escaping appeared to be, Lovel and the old mendicant agreed,
after a moment's consultation, and after the former, by a sudden strong
pull, had, at his own imminent risk, ascertained the security of the
rope, that it would be best to secure Miss Wardour in the chair, and
trust to the tenderness and care of those above for her being safely
craned up to the top of the crag.
"Let my father go first," exclaimed Isabella; "for God's sake, my
friends, place him first in safety!"
"It cannot be, Miss Wardour," said Lovel;--"your life must be first
secured--the rope which bears your weight may"--
"I will not listen to a reason so selfish!"
"But ye maun listen to it, my bonnie lassie," said Ochiltree, "for a' our
lives depend on it--besides, when ye get on the tap o' the heugh yonder,
ye can gie them a round guess o' what's ganging on in this Patmos o'
ours--and Sir Arthur's far by that, as I'm thinking."
Struck with the truth of this reasoning, she exclaimed, "True, most true;
I am ready and willing to undertake the first risk--What shall I say to
our friends above?"
"Just to look that their tackle does not graze on the face o' the crag,
and to let the chair down and draw it up hooly and fairly;--we will
halloo when we are ready."
With the sedulous attention of a parent to a child, Lovel bound Miss
Wardour with his handkerchief, neckcloth, and the mendicant's leathern
belt, to the back and arms of the chair, ascertaining accurately the
security of each knot, while Ochiltree kept Sir Arthur quiet. "What are
ye doing wi' my bairn?--what are ye doing?--She shall not be separated
from me--Isabel, stay with me, I command you!"
"Lordsake, Sir Arthur, haud your tongue, and be thankful to God that
there's wiser folk than you to manage this job," cried the beggar, worn
out by the unreasonable exclamations of the poor Baronet.
"Farewell, my father!" murmured Isabella--"farewell, my--my friends!" and
shutting her eyes, as Edie's experience recommended, she gave the signal
to Lovel, and he to those who were above. She rose, while the chair in
which she sate was kept steady by the line which Lovel managed beneath.
With a beating heart he watched the flutter of her white dress, until the
vehicle was on a level with the brink of the precipice.
"Canny now, lads, canny now!" exclaimed old Mucklebackit, who acted as
commodore; "swerve the yard a bit--Now--there! there she sits safe on dry
land."
A loud shout announced the successful experiment to her fellow-sufferers
beneath, who replied with a ready and cheerful halloo. Monkbarns, in his
ecstasy of joy, stripped his great-coat to wrap up the young lady, and
would have pulled off his coat and waistcoat for the same purpose, had he
not been withheld by the cautious Caxon. "Haud a care o' us! your honour
will be killed wi' the hoast--ye'll no get out o'your night-cowl this
fortnight--and that will suit us unco ill.--Na, na--there's the chariot
down by; let twa o' the folk carry the young leddy there."
"You're right," said the Antiquary, readjusting the sleeves and collar of
his coat, "you're right, Caxon; this is a naughty night to swim in.--Miss
Wardour, let me convey you to the chariot."
"Not for worlds till I see my father safe."
In a few distinct words, evincing how much her resolution had surmounted
even the mortal fear of so agitating a hazard, she explained the nature
of the situation beneath, and the wishes of Lovel and Ochiltree.
"Right, right, that's right too--I should like to see the son of Sir
Gamelyn de Guardover on dry land myself--I have a notion he would sign
the abjuration oath, and the Ragman-roll to boot, and acknowledge Queen
Mary to be nothing better than she should be, to get alongside my bottle
of old port that he ran away from, and left scarce begun. But he's safe
now, and here a' comes"--(for the chair was again lowered, and Sir Arthur
made fast in it, without much consciousness on his own part)--"here a'
comes--Bowse away, my boys! canny wi' him--a pedigree of a hundred links
is hanging on a tenpenny tow--the whole barony of Knockwinnock depends on
three plies of hemp--_respice finem, respice funem_--look to your end
--look to a rope's end.--Welcome, welcome, my good old friend, to firm
land, though I cannot say to warm land or to dry land. A cord for ever
against fifty fathom of water, though not in the sense of the base
proverb--a fico for the phrase,--better _sus. per funem,_ than _sus. per
coll._"
While Oldbuck ran on in this way, Sir Arthur was safely wrapped in the
close embraces of his daughter, who, assuming that authority which the
circumstances demanded, ordered some of the assistants to convey him to
the chariot, promising to follow in a few minutes, She lingered on the
cliff, holding an old countryman's arm, to witness probably the safety of
those whose dangers she had shared.
"What have we here?" said Oldbuck, as the vehicle once more ascended
--"what patched and weather-beaten matter is this?" Then as the torches
illumed the rough face and grey hairs of old Ochiltree,--"What! is it
thou?--Come, old Mocker, I must needs be friends with thee--but who the
devil makes up your party besides?"
"Ane that's weel worth ony twa o' us, Monkbarns;--it's the young stranger
lad they ca' Lovel--and he's behaved this blessed night as if he had
three lives to rely on, and was willing to waste them a' rather than
endanger ither folk's. Ca' hooly, sirs, as ye, wad win an auld man's
blessing!--mind there's naebody below now to haud the gy--Hae a care o'
the Cat's-lug corner--bide weel aff Crummie's-horn!"
"Have a care indeed," echoed Oldbuck. "What! is it my _rara avis_--my
black swan--my phoenix of companions in a post-chaise?--take care of
him, Mucklebackit."
"As muckle care as if he were a graybeard o' brandy; and I canna take
mair if his hair were like John Harlowe's.--Yo ho, my hearts! bowse away
with him!"
Lovel did, in fact, run a much greater risk than any of his precursors.
His weight was not sufficient to render his ascent steady amid such a
storm of wind, and he swung like an agitated pendulum at the mortal risk
of being dashed against the rocks. But he was young, bold, and active,
and, with the assistance of the beggar's stout piked staff, which he had
retained by advice of the proprietor, contrived to bear himself from the
face of the precipice, and the yet more hazardous projecting cliffs which
varied its surface. Tossed in empty space, like an idle and unsubstantial
feather, with a motion that agitated the brain at once with fear and with
dizziness, he retained his alertness of exertion and presence of mind;
and it was not until he was safely grounded upon the summit of the cliff,
that he felt temporary and giddy sickness. As he recovered from a sort of
half swoon, he cast his eyes eagerly around. The object which they would
most willingly have sought, was already in the act of vanishing. Her
white garment was just discernible as she followed on the path which her
father had taken. She had lingered till she saw the last of their company
rescued from danger, and until she had been assured by the hoarse voice
of Mucklebackit, that "the callant had come off wi' unbrizzed banes, and
that he was but in a kind of dwam." But Lovel was not aware that she had
expressed in his fate even this degree of interest,--which, though
nothing more than was due to a stranger who had assisted her in such an
hour of peril, he would have gladly purchased by braving even more
imminent danger than he had that evening been exposed to. The beggar she
had already commanded to come to Knockwinnock that night. He made an
excuse.--"Then to-morrow let me see you."
The old man promised to obey. Oldbuck thrust something into his hand
--Ochiltree looked at it by the torchlight, and returned it--"Na, na! I
never tak gowd--besides, Monkbarns, ye wad maybe be rueing it the morn."
Then turning to the group of fishermen and peasants--"Now, sirs, wha will
gie me a supper and some clean pease-strae?"
"I," "and I," "and I," answered many a ready voice.
"Aweel, since sae it is, and I can only sleep in ae barn at ance, I'll
gae down with Saunders Mucklebackit--he has aye a soup o' something
comfortable about his begging--and, bairns, I'll maybe live to put ilka
ane o' ye in mind some ither night that ye hae promised me quarters and
my awmous;" and away he went with the fisherman.
Oldbuck laid the band of strong possession on Lovel--"Deil a stride ye's
go to Fairport this night, young man--you must go home with me to
Monkbarns. Why, man, you have been a hero--a perfect Sir William Wallace,
by all accounts. Come, my good lad, take hold of my arm;--I am not a
prime support in such a wind--but Caxon shall help us out--Here, you old
idiot, come on the other side of me.--And how the deil got you down to
that infernal Bessy's-apron, as they call it? Bess, said they? Why, curse
her, she has spread out that vile pennon or banner of womankind, like all
the rest of her sex, to allure her votaries to death and headlong ruin."
"I have been pretty well accustomed to climbing, and I have long observed
fowlers practise that pass down the cliff."
"But how, in the name of all that is wonderful, came you to discover the
danger of the pettish Baronet and his far more deserving daughter?"
"I saw them from the verge of the precipice."
"From the verge!--umph--And what possessed you _dumosa pendere procul de
rupe?_--though _dumosa_ is not the appropriate epithet--what the deil,
man, tempted ye to the verge of the craig?"
"Why--I like to see the gathering and growling of a coming storm--or, in
your own classical language, Mr. Oldbuck, _suave est mari magno_--and so
forth--but here we reach the turn to Fairport. I must wish you
good-night."
"Not a step, not a pace, not an inch, not a shathmont, as I may say,--the
meaning of which word has puzzled many that think themselves antiquaries.
I am clear we should read _salmon-length_ for _shathmont's-length._ You
are aware that the space allotted for the passage of a salmon through a
dam, dike, or weir, by statute, is the length within which a full-grown
pig can turn himself round. Now I have a scheme to prove, that, as
terrestrial objects were thus appealed to for ascertaining submarine
measurement, so it must be supposed that the productions of the water
were established as gauges of the extent of land.--Shathmont--salmont
--you see the close alliance of the sounds; dropping out two _h_'s, and a
_t,_ and assuming an _l,_ makes the whole difference--I wish to heaven no
antiquarian derivation had demanded heavier concessions."
"But, my dear sir, I really must go home--I am wet to the skin."
"Shalt have my night-gown, man, and slippers, and catch the antiquarian
fever as men do the plague, by wearing infected garments. Nay, I know
what you would be at--you are afraid to put the old bachelor to charges.
But is there not the remains of that glorious chicken-pie--which, _meo
arbitrio,_ is better cold than hot--and that bottle of my oldest port,
out of which the silly brain-sick Baronet (whom I cannot pardon, since he
has escaped breaking his neck) had just taken one glass, when his infirm
noddle went a wool-gathering after Gamelyn de Guardover?"
So saying he dragged Lovel forward, till the Palmer's-port of Monkbarns
received them. Never, perhaps, had it admitted two pedestrians more
needing rest for Monkbarns's fatigue had been in a degree very contrary
to his usual habits, and his more young and robust companion had that
evening undergone agitation of mind which had harassed and wearied him
even more than his extraordinary exertions of body.
CHAPTER NINTH.
"Be brave," she cried, "you yet may be our guest,
Our haunted room was ever held the best.
If, then, your valour can the sight sustain
Of rustling curtains and the clinking chain
If your courageous tongue have powers to talk,
When round your bed the horrid ghost shall walk
If you dare ask it why it leaves its tomb,
I'll see your sheets well air'd, and show the Room."
True Story.
The reached the room in which they had dined, and were clamorously
welcomed by Miss Oldbuck.
"Where's the younger womankind?" said the Antiquary.
"Indeed, brother, amang a' the steery, Maria wadna be guided by me she
set away to the Halket-craig-head--I wonder ye didna see her."
"Eh!--what--what's that you say, sister?--did the girl go out in a night
like this to the Halket-head?--Good God! the misery of the night is not
ended yet!"
"But ye winna wait, Monkbarns--ye are so imperative and impatient"--
"Tittle-tattle, woman," said the impatient and agitated Antiquary, "where
is my dear Mary?"
"Just where ye suld be yoursell, Monkbarns--up-stairs, and in her warm
bed."
"I could have sworn it," said Oldbuck laughing, but obviously much
relieved--"I could have sworn it;--the lazy monkey did not care if we
were all drowned together. Why did you say she went out?"
"But ye wadna wait to hear out my tale, Monkbarns--she gaed out, and she
came in again with the gardener sae sune as she saw that nane o' ye were
clodded ower the Craig, and that Miss Wardour was safe in the chariot;
she was hame a quarter of an hour syne, for it's now ganging ten--sair
droukit was she, puir thing, sae I e'en put a glass o' sherry in her
water-gruel."
"Right, Grizel, right--let womankind alone for coddling each other. But
hear me, my venerable sister--start not at the word venerable; it implies
many praiseworthy qualities besides age; though that too is honourable,
albeit it is the last quality for which womankind would wish to be
honoured--But perpend my words: let Lovel and me have forthwith the
relics of the chicken-pie, and the reversion of the port."
"The chicken-pie! the port!--ou dear! brother--there was but a wheen
banes, and scarce a drap o' the wine."
The Antiquary's countenance became clouded, though he was too well bred
to give way, in the presence of a stranger, to his displeased surprise at
the, disappearance of the viands on which he had reckoned with absolute
certainty. But his sister understood these looks of ire. "Ou dear!
Monkbarns, what's the use of making a wark?"
"I make no wark, as ye call it, woman."
"But what's the use o' looking sae glum and glunch about a pickle banes?
--an ye will hae the truth, ye maun ken the minister came in, worthy man
--sair distressed he was, nae doubt, about your precarious situation, as
he ca'd it (for ye ken how weel he's gifted wi' words), and here he wad
bide till he could hear wi' certainty how the matter was likely to gang
wi' ye a'--He said fine things on the duty of resignation to Providence's
will, worthy man! that did he."
Oldbuck replied, catching the same tone, "Worthy man!--he cared not how
soon Monkbarns had devolved on an heir-female, I've a notion;--and while
he was occupied in this Christian office of consolation against impending
evil, I reckon that the chicken-pie and my good port disappeared?"
"Dear brother, how can you speak of sic frivolities, when you have had
sic an escape from the craig?"
"Better than my supper has had from the minister's _craig,_ Grizzle--it's
all discussed, I suppose?"
"Hout, Monkbarns, ye speak as if there was nae mair meat in the house
--wad ye not have had me offer the honest man some slight refreshment
after his walk frae the manse?"
Oldbuck half-whistled, half-hummed, the end of the old Scottish ditty,
O, first they eated the white puddings,
And then they eated the black, O,
And thought the gudeman unto himsell,
The deil clink down wi' that, O!
His sister hastened to silence his murmurs, by proposing some of the
relies of the dinner. He spoke of another bottle of wine, but recommended
in preference a glass of brandy which was really excellent. As no
entreaties could prevail on Lovel to indue the velvet night-cap and
branched morning-gown of his host, Oldbuck, who pretended to a little
knowledge of the medical art, insisted on his going to bed as soon as
possible, and proposed to despatch a messenger (the indefatigable Caxon)
to Fairport early in the morning, to procure him a change of clothes.
This was the first intimation Miss Oldbuck had received that the young
stranger was to be their guest for the night; and such was the surprise
with which she was struck by a proposal so uncommon, that, had the
superincumbent weight of her bead-dress, such as we before described,
been less preponderant, her grey locks must have started up on end, and
hurled it from its position.
"Lord haud a care o' us!" exclaimed the astounded maiden.
"What's the matter now, Grizel?"
"Wad ye but just speak a moment, Monkbarns?"
"Speak!--what should I speak about? I want to get to my bed--and this
poor young fellow--let a bed be made ready for him instantly."
"A bed?--The Lord preserve us!" again ejaculated Grizel.
"Why, what's the matter now?--are there not beds and rooms enough in the
house?--was it not an ancient _hospitium,_ in which, I am warranted to
say, beds were nightly made down for a score of pilgrims?"
"O dear, Monkbarns! wha kens what they might do lang syne?--but in our
time--beds--ay, troth, there's beds enow sic as they are--and rooms enow
too--but ye ken yoursell the beds haena been sleepit in, Lord kens the
time, nor the rooms aired.--If I had kenn'd, Mary and me might hae gaen
down to the manse--Miss Beckie is aye fond to see us--(and sae is the
minister, brother)--But now, gude save us!"--
"Is there not the Green Room, Grizel?"
"Troth is there, and it is in decent order too, though naebody has
sleepit there since Dr. Heavysterne, and"--
"And what?"
"And what! I am sure ye ken yoursell what a night he had--ye wadna expose
the young gentleman to the like o' that, wad ye?"
Lovel interfered upon hearing this altercation, and protested he would
far rather walk home than put them to the least inconvenience--that the
exercise would be of service to him--that he knew the road perfectly, by
night or day, to Fairport--that the storm was abating, and so forth
--adding all that civility could suggest as an excuse for escaping from
a hospitality which seemed more inconvenient to his host than he could
possibly have anticipated. But the howling of the wind, and the pattering
of the rain against the windows, with his knowledge of the preceding
fatigues of the evening, must have prohibited Oldbuck, even had he
entertained less regard for his young friend than he really felt, from
permitting him to depart. Besides, he was piqued in honour to show that
he himself was not governed by womankind--"Sit ye down, sit ye down, sit
ye down, man," he reiterated;--"an ye part so, I would I might never draw
a cork again, and here comes out one from a prime bottle of--strong ale
--right _anno domini_--none of your Wassia Quassia decoctions, but brewed
of Monkbarns barley--John of the Girnel never drew a better flagon to
entertain a wandering minstrel, or palmer, with the freshest news from
Palestine.--And to remove from your mind the slightest wish to depart,
know, that if you do so, your character as a gallant knight is gone for
ever. Why, 'tis an adventure, man, to sleep in the Green Room at
Monkbarns.--Sister, pray see it got ready--And, although the bold
adventurer, Heavysterne, dree'd pain and dolour in that charmed
apartment, it is no reason why a gallant knight like you, nearly twice as
tall, and not half so heavy, should not encounter and break the spell."
"What! a haunted apartment, I suppose?"
"To be sure, to be sure--every mansion in this country of the slightest
antiquity has its ghosts and its haunted chamber, and you must not
suppose us worse off than our neighbours. They are going, indeed,
somewhat out of fashion. I have seen the day, when if you had doubted the
reality of a ghost in an old manor-house you ran the risk of being made a
ghost yourself, as Hamlet says.--Yes, if you had challenged the existence
of Redcowl in the Castle of Glenstirym, old Sir Peter Pepperbrand would
have had ye out to his court-yard, made you betake yourself to your
weapon, and if your trick of fence were not the better, would have
sticked you like a paddock, on his own baronial midden-stead. I once
narrowly escaped such an affray--but I humbled myself, and apologised to
Redcowl; for, even in my younger days, I was no friend to the
_monomachia,_ or duel, and would rather walk with Sir Priest than with
Sir Knight--I care not who knows so much of my valour. Thank God, I am
old now, and can indulge my irritabilities without the necessity of
supporting them by cold steel."
Here Miss Oldbuck re-entered, with a singularly sage expression of
countenance.--"Mr. Lovel's bed's ready, brother--clean sheets--weel aired
--a spunk of fire in the chimney--I am sure, Mr. Lovel," (addressing
him), "it's no for the trouble--and I hope you will have a good night's
rest--But"--
"You are resolved," said the Antiquary, "to do what you can to prevent
it."
"Me?--I am sure I have said naething, Monkbarns."
"My dear madam," said Lovel, "allow me to ask you the meaning of your
obliging anxiety on my account."
"Ou, Monkbarns does not like to hear of it--but he kens himsell that the
room has an ill name. It's weel minded that it was there auld Rab Tull
the town-clerk was sleeping when he had that marvellous communication
about the grand law-plea between us and the feuars at the Mussel-craig.
--It had cost a hantle siller, Mr. Lovel; for law-pleas were no carried on
without siller lang syne mair than they are now--and the Monkbarns of
that day--our gudesire, Mr. Lovel, as I said before--was like to be
waured afore the Session for want of a paper--Monkbarns there kens weel
what paper it was, but I'se warrant he'll no help me out wi' my tale--but
it was a paper of great significance to the plea, and we were to be
waured for want o't. Aweel, the cause was to come on before the fifteen
--in presence, as they ca't--and auld Rab Tull, the town-clerk, he cam ower
to make a last search for the paper that was wanting, before our gudesire
gaed into Edinburgh to look after his plea--so there was little time to
come and gang on. He was but a doited snuffy body, Rab, as I've heard
--but then he was the town-clerk of Fairport, and the Monkbarns heritors
aye employed him on account of their connection wi' the burgh, ye ken."
"Sister Grizel, this is abominable," interrupted Oldbuck; "I vow to
Heaven ye might have raised the ghosts of every abbot of Trotcosey, since
the days of Waldimir, in the time you have been detailing the
introduction to this single spectre.--Learn to be succinct in your
narrative.--Imitate the concise style of old Aubrey, an experienced
ghost-seer, who entered his memoranda on these subjects in a terse
business-like manner; _exempli gratia_--At Cirencester, 5th March, 1670,
was an apparition.--Being demanded whether good spirit or bad, made no
answer, but instantly disappeared with a curious perfume, and a melodious
twang'--_Vide_ his Miscellanies, p. eighteen, as well as I can remember,
and near the middle of the page."
"O, Monkbarns, man! do ye think everybody is as book-learned as
yoursell?--But ye like to gar folk look like fools--ye can do that to Sir
Arthur, and the minister his very sell."
"Nature has been beforehand with me, Grizel, in both these instances, and
in another which shall be nameless--but take a glass of ale, Grizel, and
proceed with your story, for it waxes late."
"Jenny's just warming your bed, Monkbarns, and ye maun e'en wait till
she's done.--Weel, I was at the search that our gudesire, Monkbarns that
then was, made wi' auld Rab Tull's assistance;--but ne'er-be-licket could
they find that was to their purpose. Aud sae, after they bad touzled out
mony a leather poke-full o' papers, the town-clerk had his drap punch at
e'en to wash the dust out of his throat--we never were glass-breakers in
this house, Mr. Lovel, but the body bad got sic a trick of sippling and
tippling wi' the bailies and deacons when they met (which was amaist ilka
night) concerning the common gude o' the burgh, that he couldna weel
sleep without it--But his punch he gat, and to bed he gaed; and in the
middle of the night he got a fearfu' wakening!--he was never just himsell
after it, and he was strucken wi' the dead palsy that very day four
years. He thought, Mr. Lovel, that he heard the curtains o' his bed
fissil, and out he lookit, fancying, puir man, it might hae been the cat
--But he saw--God hae a care o' us! it gars my flesh aye creep, though I
hae tauld the story twenty times--he saw a weel-fa'ard auld gentleman
standing by his bedside, in the moonlight, in a queer-fashioned dress,
wi' mony a button and band-string about it, and that part o' his garments
which it does not become a leddy to particulareeze, was baith side and
wide, and as mony plies o't as of ony Hamburgh skipper's--He had a beard
too, and whiskers turned upwards on his upper-lip, as lang as baudrons'
--and mony mair particulars there were that Rab Tull tauld o', but they are
forgotten now--it's an auld story. Aweel, Rab was a just-living man for a
country writer--and he was less feared than maybe might just hae been
expected; and he asked in the name o' goodness what the apparition
wanted--and the spirit answered in an unknown tongue. Then Rab said he
tried him wi' Erse, for he cam in his youth frae the braes of Glenlivat
--but it wadna do. Aweel, in this strait, he bethought him of the twa or
three words o' Latin that he used in making out the town's deeds, and he
had nae sooner tried the spirit wi' that, than out cam sic a blatter o'
Latin about his lugs, that poor Rab Tull, wha was nae great scholar, was
clean overwhelmed. Od, but he was a bauld body, and he minded the Latin
name for the deed that he was wanting. It was something about a cart, I
fancy, for the ghaist cried aye, _Carter, carter_--"
"_Carta,_ you transformer of languages!" cried Oldbuck;--"if my ancestor
had learned no other language in the other world, at least he would not
forget the Latinity for which he was so famous while in this."
"Weel, weel, _carta_ be it then, but they ca'd it _carter_ that tell'd me
the story. It cried aye _carta,_ if sae be that it was _carta,_ and made
a sign to Rab to follow it. Rab Tull keepit a Highland heart, and banged
out o' bed, and till some of his readiest claes--and he did follow the
thing up stairs and down stairs to the place we ca' the high dow-cot--(a
sort of a little tower in the corner of the auld house, where there was a
Tickle o' useless boxes and trunks)--and there the ghaist gae Rab a kick
wi' the tae foot, and a kick wi' the tother, to that very auld
east-country tabernacle of a cabinet that my brother has standing beside
his library table, and then disappeared like a fuff o' tobacco, leaving
Rab in a very pitiful condition."
"_Tenues secessit in auras,_" quoth Oldbuck. "Marry, sir, _mansit odor_
--But, sure enough, the deed was there found in a drawer of this forgotten
repository, which contained many other curious old papers, now properly
labelled and arranged, and which seemed to have belonged to my ancestor,
the first possessor of Monkbarns. The deed, thus strangely recovered, was
the original Charter of Erection of the Abbey, Abbey Lands, and so forth,
of Trotcosey, comprehending Monkbarns and others, into a Lordship of
Regality in favour of the first Earl of Glengibber, a favourite of James
the Sixth. It is subscribed by the King at Westminster, the seventeenth
day of January, A. D. one thousand six hundred and twelve--thirteen. It's
not worth while to repeat the witnesses' names."
"I would rather," said Lovel with awakened curiosity, "I would rather
hear your opinion of the way in which the deed was discovered."
"Why, if I wanted a patron for my legend, I could find no less a one than
Saint Augustine, who tells the story of a deceased person appearing to
his son, when sued for a debt which had been paid, and directing him
where, to find the discharge.*
*Note D. Mr. Rutherford's dream.
But I rather opine with Lord Bacon, who says that imagination is much
akin to miracle-working faith. There was always some idle story of the
room being haunted by the spirit of Aldobrand Oldenbuck, my
great-great-great-grandfather--it's a shame to the English language that,
we have not a less clumsy way of expressing a relationship of which we
have occasion to think and speak so frequently. He was a foreigner, and
wore his national dress, of which tradition had preserved an accurate
description; and indeed there is a print of him, supposed to be by
Reginald Elstracke, pulling the press with his own hand, as it works off
the sheets of his scarce edition of the Augsburg Confession. He was a
chemist as well as a good mechanic, and either of these qualities in this
country was at that time sufficient to constitute a white witch at least.
This superstitious old writer had heard all this, and probably believed
it, and in his sleep the image and idea of my ancestor recalled that of
his cabinet, which, with the grateful attention to antiquities and the
memory of our ancestors not unusually met with, had been pushed into the
pigeon-house to be out of the way--Add a _quantum sufficit_ of
exaggeration, and you have a key to the whole mystery."
"O brother! brother! but Dr. Heavysterne, brother--whose sleep was so
sore broken, that he declared he wadna pass another night in the Green
Room to get all Monkbarns, so that Mary and I were forced to yield our"--
"Why, Grizel, the doctor is a good, honest, pudding-headed German, of
much merit in his own way, but fond of the mystical, like many of his
countrymen. You and he had a traffic the whole evening in which you
received tales of Mesmer, Shropfer, Cagliostro, and other modern
pretenders to the mystery of raising spirits, discovering hidden
treasure, and so forth, in exchange for your legends of the green
bedchamber;--and considering that the _Illustrissimus_ ate a pound and a
half of Scotch collops to supper, smoked six pipes, and drank ale and
brandy in proportion, I am not surprised at his having a fit of the
night-mare. But everything is now ready. Permit me to light you to your
apartment, Mr. Lovel--I am sure you have need of rest--and I trust my
ancestor is too sensible of the duties of hospitality to interfere with
the repose which you have so well merited by your manly and gallant
behaviour."
So saying, the Antiquary took up a bedroom candlestick of massive silver
and antique form, which, he observed, was wrought out of the silver found
in the mines of the Harz mountains, and had been the property of the very
personage who had supplied them with a subject for conversation. And
having so said, he led the way through many a dusky and winding passage,
now ascending, and anon descending again, until he came to the apartment
destined for his young guest.
CHAPTER TENTH.
When midnight o'er the moonless skies
Her pall of transient death has spread,
When mortals sleep, when spectres rise,
And none are wakeful but the dead;
No bloodless shape my way pursues,
No sheeted ghost my couch annoys,
Visions more sad my fancy views,--
Visions of long departed joys.
W. R. Spenser.
When they reached the Green Room, as it was called, Oldbuck placed the
candle on the toilet table, before a huge mirror with a black japanned
frame, surrounded by dressing-boxes of the same, and looked around him
with something of a disturbed expression of countenance. "I am seldom in
this apartment," he said, "and never without yielding to a melancholy
feeling--not, of course, on account of the childish nonsense that Grizel
was telling you, but owing to circumstances of an early and unhappy
attachment. It is at such moments as these, Mr. Lovel, that we feel the
changes of time. The, same objects are before us--those inanimate things
which we have gazed on in wayward infancy and impetuous youth, in anxious
and scheming manhood--they are permanent and the same; but when we look
upon them in cold unfeeling old age, can we, changed in our temper, our
pursuits, our feelings--changed in our form, our limbs, and our
strength,--can we be ourselves called the same? or do we not rather look
back with a sort of wonder upon our former selves, as being separate and
distinct from what we now are? The philosopher who appealed from Philip
inflamed with wine to Philip in his hours of sobriety, did not choose a
judge so different, as if he had appealed from Philip in his youth to
Philip in his old age. I cannot but be touched with the feeling so
beautifully expressed in a poem which I have heard repeated:*
*Probably Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads had not as yet been published.
My eyes are dim with childish tears,
My heart is idly stirred,
For the same sound is in my ears
Which in those days I heard.
Thus fares it still in our decay;
And yet the wiser mind
Mourns less for what time takes away,
Than what he leaves behind.
Well, time cures every wound, and though the scar may remain and
occasionally ache, yet the earliest agony of its recent infliction is
felt no more."--So saying, he shook Lovel cordially by the hand, wished
him good-night, and took his leave.
Step after step Lovel could trace his host's retreat along the various
passages, and each door which he closed behind him fell with a sound more
distant and dead. The guest, thus separated from the living world, took
up the candle and surveyed the apartment.
The fire blazed cheerfully. Mrs. Grizel's attention had left some fresh
wood, should he choose to continue it, and the apartment had a
comfortable, though not a lively appearance. It was hung with tapestry,
which the looms of Arras had produced in the sixteenth century, and which
the learned typographer, so often mentioned, had brought with him as a
sample of the arts of the Continent. The subject was a hunting-piece; and
as the leafy boughs of the forest-trees, branching over the tapestry,
formed the predominant colour, the apartment had thence acquired its name
of the Green Chamber. Grim figures in the old Flemish dress, with slashed
doublets covered with ribbands, short cloaks, and trunk-hose, were
engaged in holding grey-hounds, or stag-hounds, in the leash, or cheering
them upon the objects of their game. Others, with boar-spears, swords,
and old-fashioned guns, were attacking stags or boars whom they had
brought to bay. The branches of the woven forest were crowded with fowls
of various kinds, each depicted with its proper plumage. It seemed as if
the prolific and rich invention of old Chaucer had animated the Flemish
artist with its profusion, and Oldbuck had accordingly caused the
following verses, from that ancient and excellent poet, to be embroidered
in Gothic letters, on a sort of border which he had added to the
tapestry:-
Lo! here be oakis grete, streight as a line,
Under the which the grass, so fresh of line,
Be'th newly sprung--at eight foot or nine.
Everich tree well from his fellow grew,
With branches broad laden with leaves new,
That sprongen out against the sonne sheene,
Some golden red and some a glad bright green.
And in another canton was the following similar legend:--
And many an hart and many an hind,
Was both before me, and behind.
Of fawns, sownders, bucks and does,
Was full the wood and many roes,
And many squirrels that ysate
High on the trees and nuts ate.
The bed was of a dark and faded green, wrought to correspond with the
tapestry, but by a more modern and less skilful hand. The large and heavy
stuff-bottomed chairs, with black ebony backs, were embroidered after the
same pattern, and a lofty mirror, over the antique chimney-piece,
corresponded in its mounting with that on the old-fashioned toilet.
"I have heard," muttered Lovel, as he took a cursory view of the room and
its furniture, "that ghosts often chose the best room in the mansion to
which they attached themselves; and I cannot disapprove of the taste of
the disembodied printer of the Augsburg Confession." But he found it so
difficult to fix his mind upon the stories which had been told him of an
apartment with which they seemed so singularly to correspond, that he
almost regretted the absence of those agitated feelings, half fear half
curiosity, which sympathise with the old legends of awe and wonder, from
which the anxious reality of his own hopeless passion at present detached
him. For he now only felt emotions like those expressed in the lines,--
Ah! cruel maid, how hast thou changed
The temper of my mind!
My heart, by thee from all estranged,
Becomes like thee unkind.
He endeavoured to conjure up something like the feelings which would, at
another time, have been congenial to his situation, but his heart had no
room for these vagaries of imagination. The recollection of Miss Wardour,
determined not to acknowledge him when compelled to endure his society,
and evincing her purpose to escape from it, would have alone occupied his
imagination exclusively. But with this were united recollections more
agitating if less painful,--her hair-breadth escape--the fortunate
assistance which he had been able to render her--Yet what was his
requital? She left the cliff while his fate was yet doubtful--while it
was uncertain whether her preserver had not lost the life which he had
exposed for her so freely. Surely gratitude, at least, called for some
little interest in his fate--But no--she could not be selfish or unjust
--it was no part of her nature. She only desired to shut the door against
hope, and, even in compassion to him, to extinguish a passion which she
could never return.
But this lover-like mode of reasoning was not likely to reconcile him to
his fate, since the more amiable his imagination presented Miss Wardour,
the more inconsolable he felt he should be rendered by the extinction of
his hopes. He was, indeed, conscious of possessing the power of removing
her prejudices on some points; but, even in extremity, he determined to
keep the original determination which he had formed, of ascertaining that
she desired an explanation, ere he intruded one upon her. And, turn the
matter as he would, he could not regard his suit as desperate. There was
something of embarrassment as well as of grave surprise in her look when
Oldbuck presented him--and, perhaps, upon second thoughts, the one was
assumed to cover the other. He would not relinquish a pursuit which had
already cost him such pains. Plans, suiting the romantic temper of the
brain that entertained them, chased each other through his head, thick
and irregular as the motes of the sun-beam, and, long after he had laid
himself to rest, continued to prevent the repose which he greatly needed.
Then, wearied by the uncertainty and difficulties with which each scheme
appeared to be attended, he bent up his mind to the strong effort of
shaking off his love, "like dew-drops from the lion's mane," and resuming
those studies and that career of life which his unrequited affection had
so long and so fruitlessly interrupted. In this last resolution he
endeavoured to fortify himself by every argument which pride, as well as
reason, could suggest. "She shall not suppose," he said, "that, presuming
on an accidental service to her or to her father, I am desirous to
intrude myself upon that notice, to which, personally, she considered me
as having no title. I will see her no more. I will return to the land
which, if it affords none fairer, has at least many as fair, and less
haughty than Miss Wardour. Tomorrow I will bid adieu to these northern
shores, and to her who is as cold and relentless as her climate." When he
had for some time brooded over this sturdy resolution, exhausted nature
at length gave way, and, despite of wrath, doubt, and anxiety, he sank
into slumber.
It is seldom that sleep, after such violent agitation, is either sound or
refreshing. Lovel's was disturbed by a thousand baseless and confused
visions. He was a bird--he was a fish--or he flew like the one, and swam
like the other,--qualities which would have been very essential to his
safety a few hours before. Then Miss Wardour was a syren, or a bird of
Paradise; her father a triton, or a sea-gull; and Oldbuck alternately a
porpoise and a cormorant. These agreeable imaginations were varied by all
the usual vagaries of a feverish dream;--the air refused to bear the
visionary, the water seemed to burn him--the rocks felt like down pillows
as he was dashed against them--whatever he undertook, failed in some
strange and unexpected manner--and whatever attracted his attention,
underwent, as he attempted to investigate it, some wild and wonderful
metamorphosis, while his mind continued all the while in some degree
conscious of the delusion, from which it in vain struggled to free itself
by awaking;--feverish symptoms all, with which those who are haunted by
the night-hag, whom the learned call Ephialtes, are but too well
acquainted. At length these crude phantasmata arranged themselves into
something more regular, if indeed the imagination of Lovel, after he
awoke (for it was by no means the faculty in which his mind was least
rich), did not gradually, insensibly, and unintentionally, arrange in
better order the scene of which his sleep presented, it may be, a less
distinct outline. Or it is possible that his feverish agitation may have
assisted him in forming the vision.
Leaving this discussion to the learned, we will say, that after a
succession of wild images, such as we have above described, our hero, for
such we must acknowledge him, so far regained a consciousness of locality
as to remember where he was, and the whole furniture of the Green Chamber
was depicted to his slumbering eye. And here, once more, let me protest,
that if there should be so much old-fashioned faith left among this
shrewd and sceptical generation, as to suppose that what follows was an
impression conveyed rather by the eye than by the imagination, I do not
impugn their doctrine. He was, then, or imagined himself, broad awake in
the Green Chamber, gazing upon the flickering and occasional flame which
the unconsumed remnants of the faggots sent forth, as, one by one, they
fell down upon the red embers, into which the principal part of the
boughs to which they belonged had crumbled away. Insensibly the legend of
Aldobrand Oldenbuck, and his mysterious visits to the inmates of the
chamber, awoke in his mind, and with it, as we often feel in dreams, an
anxious and fearful expectation, which seldom fails instantly to summon
up before our mind's eye the object of our fear. Brighter sparkles of
light flashed from the chimney, with such intense brilliancy as to
enlighten all the room. The tapestry waved wildly on the wall, till its
dusky forms seemed to become animated. The hunters blew their horns--the
stag seemed to fly, the boar to resist, and the hounds to assail the one
and pursue the other; the cry of deer, mangled by throttling dogs--the
shouts of men, and the clatter of horses' hoofs, seemed at once to
surround him--while every group pursued, with all the fury of the chase,
the employment in which the artist had represented them as engaged. Lovel
looked on this strange scene devoid of wonder (which seldom intrudes
itself upon the sleeping fancy), but with an anxious sensation of awful
fear. At length an individual figure among the tissued huntsmen, as he
gazed upon them more fixedly, seemed to leave the arras and to approach
the bed of the slumberer. As he drew near, his figure appeared to alter.
His bugle-horn became a brazen clasped volume; his hunting-cap changed to
such a furred head-gear as graces the burgomasters of Rembrandt; his
Flemish garb remained but his features, no longer agitated with the fury
of the chase, were changed to such a state of awful and stern composure,
as might best portray the first proprietor of Monkbarns, such as he had
been described to Lovel by his descendants in the course of the preceding
evening. As this metamorphosis took place, the hubbub among the other
personages in the arras disappeared from the imagination of the dreamer,
which was now exclusively bent on the single figure before him. Lovel
strove to interrogate this awful person in the form of exorcism proper
for the occasion; but his tongue, as is usual in frightful dreams,
refused its office, and clung, palsied, to the roof of his mouth.
Aldobrand held up his finger, as if to impose silence upon the guest who
had intruded on his apartment, and began deliberately to unclasp the
venerable, volume which occupied his left hand. When it was unfolded, he
turned over the leaves hastily for a short space, and then raising his
figure to its full dimensions, and holding the book aloft in his left
hand, pointed to a passage in the page which he thus displayed. Although
the language was unknown to our dreamer, his eye and attention were both
strongly caught by the line which the figure seemed thus to press upon
his notice, the words of which appeared to blaze with a supernatural
light, and remained riveted upon has memory. As the vision shut his
volume, a strain of delightful music seemed to fill the apartment--Lovel
started, and became completely awake. The music, however, was still in
his ears, nor ceased till he could distinctly follow the measure of an
old Scottish tune.
He sate up in bed, and endeavoured to clear his brain of the phantoms
which had disturbed it during this weary night. The beams of the morning
sun streamed through the half-closed shutters, and admitted a distinct
light into the apartment. He looked round upon the hangings,--but the
mixed groups of silken and worsted huntsmen were as stationary as
tenter-hooks could make them, and only trembled slightly as the early
breeze, which found its way through an open crevice of the latticed
window, glided along their surface. Lovel leapt out of bed, and, wrapping
himself in a morning-gown, that had been considerately laid by his
bedside, stepped towards the window, which commanded a view of the sea,
the roar of whose billows announced it still disquieted by the storm of
the preceding evening, although the morning was fair and serene. The
window of a turret, which projected at an angle with the wall, and thus
came to be very near Lovel's apartment, was half-open, and from that
quarter he heard again the same music which had probably broken short his
dream. With its visionary character it had lost much of its charms--it
was now nothing more than an air on the harpsichord, tolerably well
performed--such is the caprice of imagination as affecting the fine arts.
A female voice sung, with some taste and great simplicity, something
between a song and a hymn, in words to the following effect:--
"Why sitt'st thou by that ruin'd hill,
Thou aged carle so stern and grey?
Dost thou its former pride recall,
Or ponder how it passed away?
"Know'st thou not me!" the Deep Voice cried,
"So long enjoyed, so oft misused--
Alternate, in thy fickle pride,
Desired, neglected, and accused?
"Before my breath, like, blazing flax,
Man and his marvels pass away;
And changing empires wane and wax,
Are founded, flourish and decay.