CHAPTER XV.

LOVE AND BURNT-SACK.

HORATIO. 'Tis well, sir, you are pleasant. LOTHARIO. By the joys Which my fond soul has uncontrolled pursued, I would not turn aside from my least pleasure, Though all thy force were armed to bar my way. N. HOWE.

The evening of the night described in the preceding chapter had been a glorious one. The giant shadows of the rock-built city were falling from its central hill far to the eastward, and all its myriad casements were gleaming in the light of the western sky, where amid clouds of crimson, edged with gold, the sun's bright disc seemed to rest on the dark and wooded ridge of the Corstorphine hills, from whence it poured its dazzling flood of farewell radiance on all the undulations of the wide and varied scenery. On the vast and dusky mass of the hoary city which presented all the extremes of strong light, and deep retiring shadow, on the great stone crown of St. Giles, on the cordon of towers that girt the castled rock, and the stagnant lake that washed the city's base two hundred feet below, fell full the blood-red lustre of the setting sun.

The same warm tints glared along the western slopes of those bluff craigs and hills that rise to the westward, green, silent, stern, and pillared with basalt, rent by volcanic throes into chasms and gorges; where, though darkness was gathering, the slanting sunbeams shot through, and gilded objects far beyond. The loch, the city's northern barrier, usually so reedy and so stagnant, now swollen to its utmost marge by recent rains, was dotted by wild ducks and teals, that seemed floating in liquid gold, and like a polished mirror the water reflected its banks with singular distinctness. On one side appeared the inverted city, where gable, tower, and bartizan shot up so spectral, close, and dense, that it seemed like one vast fairy castle; on the other, a lonely and grassy bank dotted with whins, alder trees, weeping willows, and grazing sheep, while the old square tower of St. Cuthbert, rising above a clump of firs at one end of the loch, was balanced by the church of the Holy Trinity and its ancient orchard at the other.

On the northern bank of this artificial sheet of water flocks of crows were wheeling in circles among the furrows, and following the slow-drawn plough; and from the thatched cottages of St. Ninians, that nestled close to the ruins of an ancient convent, the smoke arose in long steady columns, and unbroken by the faintest puff of wind soared into the evening sky, and melted away into the blue atmosphere.

The sun had set.

The last rays died away on the cathedral spire, and Arthur's round volcanic cone; the last wayfarer had been ferried across the loch, and had disappeared over the opposite hill; successively the seven barriers of the city were closed for the night, and then the evening bell from the old wooden spire of the Tron rang on the rising wind. Though this evening had been a beautiful one, and all the gayer denizens of the city had flocked to the Lawnmarket and Castle Hill (then the only and usual promenades), the tall feather and laced mantle of Lord Clermistonlee had not been seen there.

From the windows of his chamber-of-dais he had long been surveying the view before described, but in one feature of it alone he seemed most interested. It was, where to the westward above the open fields named Halkerstoun's Crofts, he saw the smokeless chimnies of his empty, dismantled, and deserted mansion of Drumsheugh, which for many a year had been abandoned to a venerable colony of rooks and owls. The broad acres of fertile land that spread around it were now no longer his. Successively haugh, holm, farm, and onsteading, mill, and field had passed away to the possession of others, and of the noble estate acquired by his ancestors, and which he had gained as a dower with his fair cousin Alison, nothing remained but the silent and dreary mansion, which was fated soon (by his pressing necessities) to pass into other hands. To Clermistonlee this was the leading feature of the landscape, and long and fixedly he surveyed its square stacks of dark old chimnies that rose above the bare and leafless woods.

The expression of his face was fierce and unsettled; his cheek was deeply flushed; but that might be attributed to the briskness with which he and his gossip Mersington had pushed the tankard between them since dinner. They were both deep drinkers, and in the old Edinburgh fashion it was no uncommon thing, for his Lordship (when he gave a dinner party) to lock the room door, and in presence of his guests send the key flying through the barred window into the Norloch, thereby intimating that there could be no egress until the last of a long array of flasks, which Juden mustered on the buffet, was drained to the bottom; after which the door was unhinged, and all the guests were carried home by their servants in chairs or shoulder high.

One hand was thrust under the ample skirt of his shag dressing-gown; the other drummed on the window panes; but a stern expression gathered on his broad and lofty brow, and sparkled in his deep-set hazel eyes.

Mersington sat near the cheerful fire. His weazel-like visage was radiant at times with a malicious smile, which briefly gave way for one of sincere pleasure, each time he applied to his thin and ever thirsty lips the tankard of burnt sack, which his affectionate hand never quitted for a moment. His mighty senatorial wig--the badge of his wisdom and power--hung on the chair-knob behind him, and his bald pate shone like a varnished ball in the evening twilight. His pale grey eyes wore their usual expression, by which it was impossible to detect whether he was drunk or sober; but they often wandered to a panel opposite, where the following was chalked in a bold irregular hand.

_His honor the Laird of Holsterlee bets the Right Honourable Lord Clermistonlee_ £10,000 _of gude Scots monie payable at Whitsuntide--his mear Meg against Fleur de Lysy or Royal Charles. To be run at Easter on the sandis of Leith, God willing._

CLERMISTONLEE. HOLSTERLEE, Scots Guards.

"Forsooth! you are a proper man to start from the board, and turn your back on a guest thus," said Mersington. "Whistle a bar o' that oure again.

"There was a clocker, it dabbit at a man, And he dee'd wi' fear, And he dee'd wi' fear----"

"he--he, it seems to gie you as mickle comfort as the burnt sack."

"Perdition, man!" exclaimed the other, wheeling so briskly round, that he startled his guest in the act of taking another long deep draught. "How can you jest with my distress? I tell thee, friend Mersington, if the lands of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes, on which I have built my hopes, slip through my fingers thus, I may yet come to the husks and the swine-trough, like the prodigal of old. Behold my manor of Drumsheugh on the brae yonder; for these ten years a puff of smoke hath not curled from its chimneys; the moss is on its hearths, and cobwebs obscure the gilding of its galleries and chambers: the long grass waves in the avenue as it doth in the stable-court, where my good and careful father mustered eighty troopers in jack and plate the night before Dunbar was fought and won by Cromwell. My ancient tower of Clermiston is in the same condition, and both are mortgaged to that prince of scribes and scoundrels, Grasper, the Writer in Mauchin's Close. This match with Holsterlee, too! S'blood! Juden says the mare is elfshotten, and our best jockies opine that I can never win against Holster's racers, which have won the city purse these five years consecutively."

"As for the race--he, he! to be off wi' the Laird, swear your mare hath been bewitched, and burn some auld carlin in proof o't."

"D--nation! I am a ruined and impoverished man!"

"He, he! the auld gossips of Blackfriars' Wynd tell another story."

"What do they say?"

"That Clermistonlee can never come to want, as his friend the de'il has given him a braw purse, with moudieworts' feet on't, and sae lang as he preserves it, he shall never lack siller."

"I wish to God he had! but where got ye this precious information?"

"At the tea-board o' my Leddy Drumsturdy, nae further gane than yesterday."

"Stuff and nonsense!"

"I hope sae, for just sic a purse brought the learned Doctor Fian to stake in 1590. I've read the ditty against him--he, he! but to come to the swine-trough, that would be an unco pity, you have such a braw taste for getting up dinners and suppers, that his grace the gourmand o' Lauderdale was just naething to ye."

"Say rather Juden Stenton, my ground baillie, major domo, squire of the body, and everything."

"Then your burnt sack is just perfection; but alake! you now begin to see the end o' chambering, dicing, drinking, racing, and wantonness. And puir Alison Gifford--faith, you made her tocher flee fast enough!'

"This admonitory tone becomes _thee_ well!" said Clermistonlee, with scornful emphasis; "and truly, thou art like one of Job's comforters."

"He, he!" chuckled the senator, who had a strange fancy for maliciously stinging his companion. "This is the end o' spending puir Alison's money among horse-coupers, vintners, panders, de'ils-buckies, and bona-robas----"

"Hold, Mersington! I beg you will hear me with gravity. My good cousin and gossip, at times I have found your advice of the first value. You know how immensely fond I am of Lilian Napier, and having been pretty fortunate with the sex in my time (crush me! like What-is-his-name, I might say, _Veni, vidi, vici_,) I made the little minx an offer of marriage, and, would'st believe it? she really had the impudence to reject me."

"A braw buckie like you, Randal? For what?"

"Forsooth, only because I was a matter of some twenty years older than herself."

"Pest upon the gypsy! but then there is that plaguy entail--"

"Pshaw! I could soon have that broken. Lady Grisel hath the life-rent, and after her death (which cannot be far off), and failing the captain, the Lands go entire to Lilian. Now her cousin, this gay spark in the service of their Mightinesses, the States-General, by his leaguing and intriguing with that Dutch intromitter, Orange William and our rascally recusants, hath made the entail null--a dead letter--ha!"

"Faith, Randal, if you get your claws laid on the Bruntisfield barony, the rents thereof will puff your purse out brawly for a time. But alake! it's like a sieve that aye rins out--ever filling, but never full. Bethink ye, man, there is the auld mansion having the right of dungeon, pit and dule-tree, wi' the grange, mains, yards, orchards, stables, doo-cot, bake and brewhouses pertaining thereunto (o'd I've the haill inventory by heart). The four merk land o' auld extent named Nether Durdie bounded by the Burghloch--the fishings o' that water, the rigs, rowme and holm o' Drumdryan, wi' the farm-toun to the eastward thereof holden o' the city for ane crown-bowl o' punch yearly, and ane armed man's service, and whilk payeth 57 bolls o' wheat, twa firlots o' barley, forty and aught o' aitmeal, 64 gude fat capons, and sae forth--my certie! by twa women being relaxit frae the horn you have lost a' that, and deil kens how mickle mair."

"Fool--fool! this croaking maddens me!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, starting a second time from the table, and pacing about the room.

"Come--come, my Lord," said Mersington, putting on his wig; "he--he! ye may huff and hector at Juden as ye please, but these are hard words for a Swinton to swallow."

"I crave your pardon, gossip, but why torture me thus? I must have some signal and terrible revenge on Dunbarton for his interfering with me in this matter. Could we not bring him under suspicion of the Council?"

"A moral and physical impossibility."

"Juden would give him the contents of a carbine if I gave him a hint anent it."

"It would be wiser to let him alone. You would have his chief, the Marquis of Douglas, and every one of the name on ye like a nest o' hornets, for they are a proud and thrawart race, that winna thole steering. Ye maun train your hawks at other lures. Od's fish, man! his mad musqueteers would sack and slaughter the haill city."

"And Fenton!" continued the Lord, grinding his teeth, "I would travel to Jericho to have him within reach of my rapier--I would, d--n me--to pull his nose off! What a ravelled hesp is my fortune! My wounded hand, too----"

"Hee, hee! how can you expect it to heal, when the haill blude in your body is turning into burnt sack and sugared brandy?"

"It has kept me from prosecuting this affair. But I am getting desperate, Mersington; between love of the girl, lack of her lands, and fear of poverty, nothing now can save me but a dash."

"Spoken like yoursel--like the wild Randal Clermont o' 1670. But what do ye propose?"

"To carry off Lilian and make a Highland wedding of it--ha, ha!"

"Hee, hee! abduction, reif, and felony, anent whilk see the acts of the seventh parliament of James V. and James VI. Parliament twenty-first, chapter fourth--hee, hee! these would bear hard on your case, my birkie."

"Pshaw! am not I, too, a Lord of the Parliament? so, friend Mersington, reserve this musty jargon for the Hall of the Tolbooth. How often hath a Scottish baron with his band ridden to its threshold with jack and spear, and while his trumpets blew defiance at the Cross, laughed the fulminations of the three estates to scorn!"

"Ye mean mad Bothwell, with his thousand spears; but Clermistonlee, wi' his man Juden, would cut a sorry figure riding up the gate on the same errand."

"But the mere abduction of a girl?"

"It canna be sae bad in law, as abducting that dour auld carle, Durie the Lord President, whom a mosstrooping loon, by orders o' Traquair, carried off bodily, across his saddlebow, frae the dreary Figget whins, and warded for sax calendar months in the vault o' a Border peel. For my part, I have hated the name o' womankind since my Lady Mersington had me fined a thousand merks Scots, for that damned conventicle whilk, in my absence, she held on my lands. But Gude be thanked, I had my vengeance, by having her banished the liberties of the city, for hearing that Recusant runion Ichabod Bummel preach, whilk rid me and a' Bess Wynd o' her eternal clack. Faith, Clermistonlee, ye are welcome to abduct _her_, gif ye please, he, he!"

"I thank you, gossip, but beg to decline," said Clermistonlee, draining his tankard of sack; "but to show thee, most learned senator, the value and veneration I bear those acts you have just cited, I shall this very night carry off Lilian Napier, whom, my spies inform me to be concealed somewhere to the south of the town. O, by all the devils, I'll easily find the place. My blood's up; I will make my fortune to-night, or mar it for ever."

His sallow cheek glowed, his dark eye flashed, and taking a very handsome pair of pistols from the mantelpiece, he began to load them with great deliberation having previously summoned his faithful rascal Juden, by furiously ringing a handbell.

"What's in the wind now, my Lord?" he asked, rubbing his eyes, having been abruptly summoned from an afternoon nap.

"You will learn ere long," said his lord with a sternness that made the bluff butler's eyes to dilate with surprise; "but see that you are as prompt to act as to ask questions. You must bear a message from me to the Place."

"Eh? to Drumsheugh--at this time?"

"To Beatrix Gilruth."

"My Lord--I--I--" stammered Juden.

"Saddle a horse, ride round the loch, and tell her that the young lass she wots of will be there to-night, and that she must have some of the old rooms in the north wing, those that overlook the rocks, prepared for her reception."

"Where the gipsy was put, that we harled awa frae the west country?"

"What, the wench whom Holsterlee took off my hands, the same. You stare oddly--dost hear me fellow--art thou sober?"

"As a judge, my Lord."

"Then hear me and obey. Desire this hag, Beatrix, to have all prepared for my fair one's reception--fires lit and tapestry brushed, and, on peril of thine own life, be speedy and secret. Tarry neither there nor by the way, as I will want thee when the town drum beats at ten o'clock."

"She's an uncanny body, Lucky Gilruth, though I mind the time when there was not a bonnier lass in a' the Lowdens," said Juden, scratching his rough chin with undisguised perplexity; "but now, the auld wrinkled hizzie, she deserves the tar barrel as weel as lucky Elshendder."

"What the devil is all this to me?"

"It is a lonesome and eerie road across Halkerstoun's crofts by the lang gate, and on such an errand to such a woman, with the mirk night coming on----"

"Blockhead! thou hast been guzzling in the wine cellar. Begone, or I will beat thee; but first have the mare saddled as well as the horse, and procure a good link, and fail not when the drum beats. I will ride the Duke, 'tis a strong old trooper, and used to carrying double--hah! Away, away, and on peril of thy life, speak of this to no man."

"You will find me as of auld, Clermistonlee, a hawk of the right nest."

"Look well to Meg's girths."

"Ay, my Lord, a fidging mear should be weel girded--now then hoe! for the Place."

Juden drained a wine cup that his master handed him, and in five minutes more, the mare's hoofs rang on the causeway of the steep wynd, and died away as he descended into the deep gorge; under Neil's Craigs, wheeled through the Beggar's Row, and ascended the opposite bank.