Part 3

Lockhart and another domestic, who had in vain attempted to oppose his passage through the gallery or antechamber, were seen standing on the threshhold transfixt with surprize, which was instantly communicated to the whole party in the stateroom. That of Colonel Douglas Ashton was mingled with resentment; that of Bucklaw with haughty and affected indifference; the rest, even Lady Ashton herself, showed signs of fear; and Lucy seemed stiffened to stone by this unexpected apparition. Apparition it might well be termed, for Ravenswood had more the appearance of one returned from the dead than of a living visitor.

He planted himself full in the middle of the apartment, opposite to the table at which Lucy was seated, on whom, as if she had been alone in the chamber, he bent his eyes with a mingled expression of deep grief and deliberate indignation. His dark-colored riding cloak, displaced from one shoulder, hung around one side of his person in the ample folds of the Spanish mantle. The rest of his rich dress was travel-soiled, and deranged by hard riding. He had a sword by his side, and pistols in his belt. His slouched hat, which he had not yet removed at entrance, gave an additional gloom to his dark features, which, wasted by sorrow and marked by the ghastly look communicated by long illness, added to a countenance naturally somewhat stern and wild, a fierce and even savage expression. The matted and disheveled locks of hair which escaped from under his hat, together with his fixt and unmoved posture, made his head more resemble that of a marble bust than that of a living man. He said not a single word, and there was a deep silence in the company for more than two minutes.

It was broken by Lady Ashton, who in that space partly recovered her natural audacity. She demanded to know the cause of his unauthorized intrusion.

"That is a question, madam," said her son, "which I have the best right to ask; and I must request of the Master of Ravenswood to follow me where he can answer it at leisure."

Bucklaw interposed, saying, "No man on earth should usurp his previous right in demanding an explanation from the Master. Craigengelt," he added, in an undertone, "d--n ye, why do you stand staring as if you saw a ghost? fetch me my sword from the gallery."

"I will relinquish to none," said Colonel Ashton, "my right of calling to account the man who has offered this unparalleled affront to my family."

"Be patient, gentlemen," said Ravenswood, turning sternly toward them, and waving his hand as if to impose silence on their altercation. "If you are as weary of your lives as I am, I will find time and place to pledge mine against one or both; at present, I have no leisure for the dispute of triflers."

"Triflers!" cried Colonel Ashton, half unsheathing his sword, while Bucklaw laid his hand on the hilt of that which Craigengelt had just reached him.

Sir William Ashton, alarmed for his son's safety, rushed between the young men and Ravenswood, exclaiming, "My son, I command you--Bucklaw, I entreat you--keep the peace, in the name of the Queen and of the law!"

"In the name of the law of God," said Brid-the-Bent, advancing also with uplifted hands between Bucklaw, the Colonel, and the object of their resentment--"in the name of Him who brought peace on earth and good-will to mankind, I implore--I beseech--I command you to forbear violence toward each other! God hateth the bloodthirsty man; he who striketh with the sword shall perish with the sword."

"Do you take me for a dog, sir," said Colonel Ashton, turning fiercely upon him, "or something more brutally stupid, to endure this insult in my father's house? Let me go, Bucklaw! He shall account to me, or, by Heavens I will stab him where he stands!"

"You shall not touch him here," said Bucklaw; "he once gave me my life, and were the devil come to fly away with the whole house and generation, he shall have nothing but fair play."

The passions of the two young men thus counteracting each other gave Ravenswood leisure to exclaim, in a stern and steady voice, "Silence!--let him who really seeks danger take the fitting time when it is to be found; my mission here will be shortly accomplished. Is that your handwriting, madam?" he added in a softer tone, extending toward Miss Ashton her last letter.

A faltering "Yes," seemed rather to escape from her lips than to be uttered as a voluntary answer.

"And is this also your handwriting?" extending toward her the mutual engagement.

Lucy remained silent. Terror, and a yet stronger and more confused feeling, so utterly disturbed her understanding that she probably scarcely comprehended the question that was put to her.

"If you design," said Sir William Ashton, "to found any legal claim on that paper, sir, do not expect to receive any answer to an extrajudicial question."

"Sir William Ashton," said Ravenswood, "I pray you, and all who hear me, that you will not mistake my purpose. If this young lady, of her own free will desires the restoration of this contract, as her letter would seem to imply, there is not a withered leaf which this autumn wind strews on the heath that is more valueless in my eyes. But I must and will hear the truth from her own mouth; without this satisfaction I will not leave this spot. Murder me by numbers you possibly may; but I am an armed man--I am a desperate man, and I will not die without ample vengeance. This is my resolution, take it as you may. I WILL hear her determination from her own mouth; from her own mouth, alone, and without witnesses, will I hear it. Now, choose," he said drawing his sword with the right hand, and, with the left, by the same motion taking a pistol from his belt and cocking it, but turning the point of one weapon and the muzzle of the other to the ground--"choose if you will have this hall flooded with blood, or if you will grant me the decisive interview with my affianced bride which the laws of God and the country alike entitle me to demand."

II

THE DEATH OF MEG MERRILES[8]

The surgeon arrived at the same time, and was about to probe the wound; but Meg resisted the assistance of either. "It's no what man can do, that will heal my body, or save my spirit. Let me speak what I have to say, and then ye may work your will, I'se be nae hinderance. But where's Henry Bertram?" The assistants, to whom this name had been long a stranger, gazed upon each other. "Yes," she said, in a stronger and harsher tone, "I said Henry Bertram of Ellangowan. Stand from the light and let me see him."

All eyes were turned toward Bertram, who approached the wretched couch. The wounded woman took hold of his hand. "Look at him," she said, "all that ever saw his father or his grandfather, and bear witness if he is not their living image?" A murmur went through the crowd--the resemblance was too striking to be denied. "And now hear me--and let that man," pointing to Hatteraick, who was seated with his keepers on a sea-chest at some distance--"let him deny what I say, if he can. That is Henry Bertram, son to Godfrey Bertram, umquihile of Ellangowan; that young man is the very lad-bairn that Dirk Hatteraick carried off from Warroch wood the day that he murdered the gager. I was there like a wandering spirit--for I longed to see that wood or we left the country. I saved the bairn's life, and sair, sair I prigged and prayed they would leave him wi' me--but they bore him away, and he's been lang ower the sea, and now he's come for his ain, and what should withstand him? I swore to keep the secret till he was ane-an'-twenty--I kenn'd he behoved to dree his weird till that day cam--I keepit that oath which I took to them--but I made another vow to myself, and if I lived to see the day of his return, I would set him in his father's seat, if every step was on a dead man. I have keepit that oath, too;--I will be ae step mysell--he" (pointing to Hatteraick), "will soon be another, and there will me ane mair yet."

The clergyman now interposing, remarked it was a pity this deposition was not regularly taken and written down, and the surgeon urged the necessity of examining the wound, previously to exhausting her by questions. When she saw them removing Hatteraick, in order to clear the room and leave the surgeon to his operations, she called out aloud, raising herself at the same time upon the couch, "Dirk Hatteraick, you and I will never meet again until we are before the judgment seat--will you own to what I have said, or will you dare deny it?" He turned his hardened brow upon her, with a look of dumb and inflexible defiance. "Dirk Hatteraick, dare ye deny, with my blood upon your hands, one word of what my dying breath is uttering?" He looked at her with the same expression of hardihood and dogged stubbornness, and moved his lips, but uttered no sound. "Then fareweel!" she said, "and God forgive you! your hand has sealed my evidence. When I was in life, I was the mad randy gipsy, that had been scourged, and banished, and branded--that had begged from door to door, and been hounded like a stray from parish to parish--wha would hae minded her tale? But now I am a dying woman, and my words will not fall to the ground, any more than the earth will cover my blood!"

She here paused, and all left the hut except the surgeon and two or three women. After a short examination, he shook his head, and resigned his post by the dying woman's side to the clergyman.

A chaise returning empty to Kippletringan had been stopt on the high-road by a constable, who foresaw it would be necessary to convey Hatteraick to jail. The driver, understanding what was going on at Derncleugh, left his horses to the care of the blackguard boy, confiding, it is to be supposed, rather in the years and discretion of the cattle, than in those of their keeper, and set off full speed, to see, as he exprest himself, "whaten a sort o' fun was gaun on." He arrived just as the group of tenants and peasants, whose numbers increased every moment, satiated with gazing upon the rugged features of Hatteraick, had turned their attention toward Bertram. Almost all of them, especially the aged men who had seen Ellengowan in his better days, felt and acknowledged the justice of Meg Merriles's appeal. But the Scotch are a cautious people; they remembered there was another in possession of the estate, and they as yet only exprest their feelings in low whispers to each other. Our friend, Jock Jabos, the postilion, forced his way into the middle of the circle; but no sooner cast his eyes upon Bertram, than he started back in amazement, with a solemn exclamation, "As sure as there's breath in man, it's auld Ellengowan."

This public declaration of an unprejudiced witness was just the spark wanted to give fire to the popular feeling, which burst forth in three distinct shouts: "Bertram forever!" "Long life to the heir of Ellangowan!" "God send him his ain, and to live among us as his forebears did of yore!"

"I hae been seventy years on the land," said one person.

"I and mine hae been seventy and seven to that," said another; "I have a right to ken the glance of a Bertram."

"I and mine hae been three hundred years here," said another old man, "and I shall sell my last cow but I'll see the young laird placed in his right."

The women, ever delighted with the marvelous, and not less so when a handsome young man is the subject of the tale, added their shrill acclamations to the general all-hail. "Blessings on him--he's the very picture o' his father! The Bertrams were ay the wale o' the countryside!"

"Eh! that his puir mother, that died of grief and in doubt about him, had but lived to see this day!" exclaimed some female voices.

"But we'll help him to his ain, kimmers," cried others; "and before Gossin shall keep the Place of Ellangowan, we'll howk him out o't wi' our nails!"

Others crowded around Dinmont, who was nothing loath to tell what he knew of his friend, and to boast the honor which he had in contributing to the discovery. As he was known to several of the principal farmers present, his testimony afforded an additional motive to the general enthusiasm. In short, it was one of those moments of intense feeling, when the frost of the Scottish people melts like a snow-wreath, and the dissolving torrent carries dam and dike before it.

The sudden shouts interrupted the devotions of the clergyman; and Meg, who was in one of those dozing fits of stupefaction that precede the close of existence, suddenly started, "Dinna ye hear?--dinna ye hear?--he's owned!--he's owned!--I lived but for this. I am a sinful woman; but if my curse brought it down, my blessing has taen it off! And now I wad hae liked to hae said mair. But it can not be. Stay"--she continued, stretched her head toward the gleam of light that shot through the narrow slit which served for a window--"is he not there?--stand out o' the light, and let me look upon him ance mair. But the darkness is in my ain een," she said, sinking back, after an earnest gaze upon vacuity--"it's a' ended now.

'Pass breath, Come death!"

And, sinking back upon her couch of straw, she expired without a groan.

III

A VISION OF ROB ROY[9]

When, however, I recollected the circumstances in which we formerly met, I could not doubt that the billet was most probably designed for him. He had made a marked figure among those mysterious personages over whom Diana seemed to exercise an influence, and from whom she experienced an influence in her turn. It was painful to think that the fate of a being so amiable was involved in that of desperadoes of this man's description; yet it seemed impossible to doubt it. Of what use, however, could this person be to my father's affairs. I could think only of one. Rashleigh Osbaldistone had, at the instigation of Miss Vernon, certainly found means to produce Mr. Campbell when his presence was necessary to exculpate me from Morris's accusation. Was it not possible that her influence, in like manner, might prevail on Campbell to produce Rashleigh? Speaking on this supposition, I requested to know where my dangerous kinsman was, and when Mr. Campbell had seen him. The answer was indirect.

"It's a kittle cast she has gien me to play; but yet it's fair play, and I winna baulk her. Mr. Osbaldistone, I dwell not very far from hence--my kinsman can show you the way. Leave Mr. Owen to do the best he can in Glasgow--do you come and see me in the glens, and it's like I may pleasure you, and stead your father in his extremity. I am but a poor man; but wit's better than wealth--and, cousin" (turning from me to address Mr. Jarvie), "if ye daur venture sae muckle as to eat a dish of Scotch collops, and a leg o' red-deer venison wi' me, come ye wi' this Sassenach gentleman as far as Drymen or Bucklivie, or the Clachan of Aberfoil, will be better than ony o' them, and I'll hae somebody waiting to weise ye to the gate to the place where I may be for the time. What say ye, man? There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile thee."

"Na, na, Robin," said the cautious burgher, "I seldom like to leave the Gorbals, I have nae freedom to gang among your wild hills, Robin, and your kilted red-shanks--it disna become my place, man."

"The devil damn your place and you baith!" reiterated Campbell. "The only drap o' gentle bluid that's in your body was our great grand-uncle's that was justified at Dumbarton, and you set yourself up to say ye wad degrogate frae your place to visit me! Hark thee, man, I owe thee a day in harst--I'll pay up your thousan pund Scots, plack and bawbee, gin ye'll be an honest fellow for anes, and just daiker up the gate wi' this Sassenach."

"Hout awa' wi' your gentility," replied the Bailie: "carry your gentle bluid to the Cross, and see what ye'll buy wi't. But, if I were to come, wad ye really and soothfastly pay me the siller?"

"I swear to ye," said the Highlander, "upon the halidome of him that sleeps beneath the gray stane at Inche-Cailleach."

"Say nae mair, Robin--say nae mair. We'll see what may be dune. But ye maunna expect me to gang ower the Hieland line--I'll gae beyond the line at no rate. Ye maun meet me about Bucklivie or the Clachan of Aberfoil, and dinna forget the needful."

"Nae fear--nae fear," said Campbell; "I'll be as true as the steel blade that never failed its master. But I must be budging, cousin, for the air o' Glasgow tolbooth is no that ower salutary to be a Highlander's constitution."

"Troth," replied the merchant, "and if my duty were to be dune, ye couldna change your atmosphere, as the minister ca's it, this ae wee while. Ochon, that I ad ever be concerned in aiding and abetting an escape frae justice! it will be a shame and disgrace to me and mine, and my father's memory, forever."

"Hout tout, man! let that flee stick in the wa'," answered his kinsman; "when the dirt's dry it will rub out. Your father, honest man, could look over a friend's fault as weel as anither."

"Ye may be right, Robin," replied the Bailie, after a moment's reflection; "he was a considerate man the deacon; he ken'd we had a' our frailties, and he lo'ed his friends. Ye'll no hae forgotten him, Robin?" This question he put in a softened tone, conveying as much at least of the ludicrous as the pathetic.

"Forgotten him!" replied his kinsman, "what suld ail me to forget him?--a wapping weaver he was, and wrought my first pair o' hose. But come awa, kinsman,

"Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Come saddle my horses, and call up my man; Come open your gates, and let me gae free, I daurna stay langer in bonny Dundee."

"Whisht, sir," said the magistrate, in an authoritative tone--"lilting and singing sae near the latter end o' the Sabbath! This house may hear ye sing anither tune yet. Aweel, we hae a' backslidings to answer for--Stanchells, open the door."

The jailer obeyed, and we all sallied forth. Stanchells looked with some surprize at the two strangers, wondering, doubtless, how they came into these premises without his knowledge; but Mr. Jarvie's "Friends o' mine, Stanchells--friends o' mine," silenced all disposition to inquiries. We now descended into the lower vestibule, and hallooed more than once for Dougal, to which summons no answer was returned; when Campbell observed, with a sardonic smile, "That if Dougal was the lad he kent him, he would scarce wait to get thanks for his ain share of the night's wark, but was in all probability on the full trot to the pass of Ballmaha"--

"And left us--and, abune a', me mysell, locked up in the tolbooth a' night!" exclaimed the Bailie, in ire and perturbation. "Ca' for fore-hammers, sledge-hammers, pinches, and coulters; send for Deacon Yettlin, the smith, and let him ken that Bailie Jarvie's shut up in the tolbooth by a Hieland blackguard, whom he'll hang up as high as Haman"--

"When we catch him," said Campbell gravely; "but stay, the door is surely not locked."

Indeed, on examination, we found that the door was not only left open, but that Dougal in his retreat had, by carrying off the keys along with him, taken care that no one should exercise his office of porter in a hurry.

"He has glimmerings o' common sense now, that creature Dougal," said Campbell; "he ken'd an open door might hae served me at a pinch."

We were by this time in the street.

"I tell you, Robin," said the magistrate, "in my puir mind, if ye live the life ye do, ye suld hae ane o' your gillies doorkeeper in every jail of Scotland, in case o' the warst."

"Ane o' my kinsman a bailie in ilka burgh will just do as weel, Cousin Nicol. So, gude-nicht or gude-morning to ye; and forget not the Clachan of Aberfoil."

And without waiting for an answer, he sprang to the other side of the street, and was lost in darkness. Immediately on his disappearance, we heard him give a low whistle of peculiar modulation, which was instantly replied to.

"Hear to the Hieland deevils," said Mr. Jarvie; "they think themselves on the skirts of Benlomond already, where they may gang whewing, whistling about without minding Sunday or Saturday." Here he was interrupted by some thing which fell with a heavy clash on the street before us. "Gude guide us! what's this mair o't--Mattie, haud up the lantern--conscience! if it isna the keys! Weel, that's just as well--they cost the burgh siller, and there might hae been some clavers about the loss o' them--O, an Bailie Grahame were to get word o' this nicht's job, it wad be a sair hair in my neck!"

As we were still but a few steps from the tolbooth door, we carried back these implements of office, and consigned them to the head jailer, who, in lieu of the usual mode of making good his post by turning the keys, was keeping sentry in the vestibule till the arrival of some assistant whom he had summoned in order to replace Celtic fugitive Dougal.

Having discharged this piece of duty to the burgh, and my road lying the same way with the honest magistrate's, I profited by the light of his lantern, and he by my arm, to find our way through the streets, which, whatever they may now be, were then dark, uneven, and ill-paved. Age is easily propitiated by attentions from the young. The Bailie exprest himself interested in me, and added, "That since I was nane o' that play-acting and play-ganging generation, whom his saul hated, he wad eat a reisted haddock, or a fresh herring, at breakfast wi' him the morn, and meet my friend, Mr. Owen, whom, by that time, he would place at liberty."

"My dear sir," said I, when I had accepted of the invitation with thanks, "how could you possibly connect me with the stage?"

"I watna," replied Mr. Jarvie; "it was a bletherin' phrasin' chield they ca' Fairservice that cam at e'en to get an order to send the crier through the toun for ye at skreigh o' day the morn. He tell't me whae ye were, and how ye were sent frae your father's house because ye wadna be a dealer, and that ye michtna disgrace your family wi' ganging on the stage. Ane Hammorgaw, our precentor, brought him here, and said he was an auld acquaintance; but I sent them baith awa' wi' a flae in their lug for bringing me sic an errand on sic a night. But I see he's a fule-creature a' thegither and clean mista'en about ye. I like ye, man," he continued; "I like a lad that will stand by his friends in troubles--I ay did it mysell, and sae did the deacon my father, rest and bless him! But he suldna keep ower muckle company wi' Hielandmen and thae wild cattle. Can a man touch pitch and no be defiled?--aye mind that. Nae doubt, the best and wisest may err--once, twice, and thrice, have I backslidden, man, and dune three things this night--my father wadna hae believed his een if he could hae looked up and seen me do them."

He was by this time arrived at the door of his own dwelling. He paused, however, on the threshold, and went on in a solemn tone of deep contrition, "Firstly, I hae thought my ain thought on the Sabbath. Secondly, I hae gien security for an Englishman--and, in the third and last place, well a-day! I hae let an ill-doer escape from the place of imprisonment. But there's balm in Gilead, Mr. Osbaldistone--Mattie, I can let mysell in--see Mr. Osbaldistone to Luckie Flyter's, at the corner o' the wynd. Mr. Osbaldistone"--in a whisper--"ye'll offer nae incivility to Mattie--she's an honest man's daughter, and a near cousin o' the Laird o' Limmerfield's."

IV

QUEEN ELIZABETH AND AMY ROBSART AT KENILWORTH[10]