CHAPTER XV.

A STATESMAN OF 1688.

Call you these news? You might as well have told me, That old King Coil is dead, and graved at Kylesfield. I'll help thee out----. AYRSHIRE TRAGEDY, ACT II.

Some weeks after this, at a late hour one night, Lord Clermistonlee was seated by the capacious fireplace in his chamber-of-dais. He was alone. A supper of Crail capons and roasted crabs, a white loaf, and wine posset, had just been discussed; and he was resorting to his favourite tankard of burnt sack, when a loud knocking was heard at the outer gate.

His lordship was decidedly in a bad humour: satiated with a long career of gaiety, he had resolved to give this night to retirement, to reverie, and to maturing his plans against Lilian, whose beauty and manner in the last interview had inspired him with something like a real passion for her. He remembered with pain the hatred and the horror expressed in her parting glance. The memory of it had sunk deeply in his heart; and he bitterly repented the destruction of her favourite pigeon; for he felt that this cruel act had increased the gulf between them.

The knocking at the gate recalled his thoughts.

"'Sdeath!" said he, "who dares to knock so loud and late? Ha! it may be a macer of council; we have had no news from London for these fourteen days past. Now, by all the devils, who can this be?"

A person was heard ascending the stair, and singing in a very cracked voice the Old Hundredth Psalm. Clermistonlee started, and looked around for a cane, marvelling who dared to insult him in his own house. A psalm! he could hardly believe his ears.

"Pshaw!" said he, recognising the voice, as Juden ushered in Lord Mersington, who entered unsteadily, balancing himself on each leg alternately: his broad hat was awry, and his wig gone; but a silk handkerchief tied round his head supplied its place. The learned senator was in one of his usual altitudes.

"How now, gossip!" said Clermistonlee, impatiently; "whence this unwonted piety?"

"Out upon thee, son of Belial! Dost not see that the Spirit is strong within me?"

"Rather too plainly; but sit down, man--thy tankard of burnt sack hath grown cold. Juden prepares it nightly quite as a matter of course. Any news from our army yet?"

"None--none," replied the other, shaking his head with tipsy solemnity; "but if matters go on as they seem likely to do, I maun een change, Randal, or the grassy holms and bonnie mains o' Mersington will gang to the deil before me; and I'll hae my canting hizzie o' a wife back frae the west country to deave me wi' ranting psalms and declaring against the crying sin o' the Mass, Papacy, Prelacy, Arianism, and a' the rest o't." A glance of deep meaning accompanied this.

"And I, to mend my fortune, must fly my hawks more surely. _Bongré, malgré_, Lilian Napier must become Lady Clermistonlee, or my lord of that ilk must boune him for another land."

"Hee, hee!--and you are fairly tired o' following mad Mally Charteris, Maud o' Madertie, and my Lady Jean Gordon--hee, hee!"

"Stuff!--name them not. I am sick to death of all damsels who owe their beauty to sweet pomade, cream of Venice, Naples' dew, and the devil's philters. Ah! the blooming glow of health and loveliness that renders so radiant the gentle Lilian arises from none of those."

"Ou' aye, ou' aye!" muttered Mersington, as he buried his weason face in the tankard. "You have been an awfu' chiel in your time, Randal, and would restore the auld acts o' King Eugene III. gif the Council would let ye--hee, hee!"

"By all the devils, I would!" laughed the roué, curling his mustachios, as he lounged in his well-cushioned chair; "thou knowest, good gossip, that the great horned head of the law always gave me a strong _goût_ for vice."

"But Eugene's law would matter little to you, Randal--hee, hee! Ye have but few women married within your fief or barony now."

Clermistonlee bit his lip as he replied:

"You taunt me with my poverty, gossip; but remember, that though I have lost my manor of Drumsheugh, I consider that of Bruntisfield as being nearly mine. Sir Archibald was an old cavalier, and staunch high Churchman; and if the current of affairs (here his voice sank to a whisper) goes against the King, we may easily prevail upon the Council to forfeit these lands to the State for ancient misdemeanors."

"And for the leal service done to the cause of Grace in 1670, I would move that the Council bestow upon my noble friend, the Lord Clermistonlee--hee, hee!--the haill in free heritage and free barony for ever, with all the meithes and marches thereof, (as the form in law sayeth,) auld and divided as the same lie in length and breadth, in houses, biggings, mills, multures, &c., hawking, hunting, fishing, eel-arks, &c., with court, plaint, and herezeld, and with furk, fok, sack, sock, thole, thame, vert, wraik, waith, ware, venison, outfangthief, infangthief, pit and gallows, and sae forth, with the tower, fortilace, or manor place thereof, and the couthie wee dame hersel into the bargain."

"By Jove, thou art mad!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, who had listened with no little impatience and surprise to this rhapsody which the law lord brought out all at a breath.

"Hee, hee! the haill barony o' Bruntisfield is a braw tocher!--think o' its pertinents, forbye the lands o' Puddockdub, whilk yield o' clear rental ten thousand merks after paying Kirk and King!"

"King and Kirk, you mean."

"I say Kirk and King--hee, hee! The times are changing, and we maun change wi' them."

"Zounds! I believe the old fool is too drunk to hear me. Harkee! gossip Mersington, you know I lost a thousand pounds to that addlepate, Holsterlee, on our race at Leith, where my boasted mare failed so devilishly."

"Had ye tar-barrelled the carlin Elshender, it would hae been another story," grumbled Juden, as he replenished the tankards.

"A drowning man will cling to straws. By all the devils, on that race hung the partial retrieval or utter ruin of my fortune! 'Tis a debt of honour--the money is unpaid, and must be discharged with others, even should I turn footpad to raise the testers."

"'Tis an auld song, Randal--the fag-end of a career o' wickedness and depravity--birling the wine-cup, and flaunting wi' bona robas," replied Mersington, practising his now snuffling tone, and shaking his head with solemn but tipsy gravity in the new character his cunning led him to assume. "A just retribution on the crying sins, blasphemies, and enormities, anent whilk see the act (damn the act!) committed in the days o' your dolefu' backsliding. I doubt you'll hae to take a turn wi' the Scots' Dutch, like Jock the Laird's brother."

"My drivelling gossip," said Clermistonlee, with considerable hauteur, "you forget that it beseems not a Baron to be so roughly schooled by the mere Goodman of Mersington."

"Byde ye there, billy," exclaimed the other. "Gudeman, quotha! we hold our fief by knight's service, of the Scottish crown; and ken ye, Randal, that such as hold their lands of the King direct are styled Lairds; but such as held their tacks of a subject were styled gudemen; a custom hath lately gone into disuse, as Rosehaugh saith in his folio on Precedence."

"Laird or Lord, I care not a brass bodle. No man shall assume the part of monitor to me! Again and again I have told thee, Mersington, that my whole soul, for this year past, has been bent upon the possession of Lilian Napier, and her acres of wood and wold; and dost think, gossip, that I, who have subdued so many fine women (yea, and some deuced haughty ones, too), shall be baffled by a little moppet like this? Come, good gossip, assist me with thy advice. I have ever found your invention fertile, your advice able, your cunning matchless. Canst think of no new plan, by which to----Hah! who the devil can that be, now?" he exclaimed, as another furious knocking at the outer gate cut short his adjuration; and he listened anxiously, muttering, "'Tis long past midnight; some drunken mudlark, I warrant."

"A macer o' council, my Lord," exclaimed Juden, entering hurriedly, and laying a square note before his master, who let fall his wine-cup as he examined the seal, which bore the coronet and collared sleuth-hound of Perth. A red glow suffused the dark cheek, and sparkled in the eyes of Clermistonlee, as he deliberately opened a billet which he previously knew to be of the most vital importance to himself and to the nation. It was addressed "ffor ye Right Honourable my very good friend the Lord Clermistounlee," and ran thus:--

"Dear Gossip,

"There is the devil to pay in the south--_all is lost_! Craigdarroch, a trooper of the Guards, hath brought intelligence that our army, like the English (God's murrain on the false knaves!) hath _en masse_ joined the invader--that James has fled, and William reached London. Meet us at the Laigh Council Chamber without delay.

"Yr assured friend, "PERTH, _Cancellarius_."

Overwhelmed with consternation, Clermistonlee stood for a moment like a statue; then, crushing his hat upon his head, he stuck a pair of pistols in his belt, snatched his cloak and sword, and tossing the note to Mersington, to read and follow as he chose, rushed away in silence with his usual impetuosity.

Mersington, who had regarded his actions with a stare of tipsy wonder, took up the note, and contrived to decypher its contents. As he did so, his features underwent a rapid change; fear, wrath, and cunning by turns contracted his hard visage, and completely sobered him. At last, a sinister leer of deep meaning twinkled in his bleared eyes; he quietly burned the note, brushed his large hat with his sleeve, adjusted it on his head, and assuming his gold-headed cane, departed for the Board of the Privy Council.

From that hour his Lordship was a true-blue Presbyterian.