The Bride of Lammermoor

“Why,” replied Bucklaw, “if the Lord Keeper should have met with a mischance, which for my part I cannot suppose, for the Master is not the lad to shoot an old and unarmed man – but IF there should have been a fray at the Castle, you are neither art not part in it, you know, so have nothing to fear.”

“True, true,” answered the other, with embarrassment; “but consider my commission from Saint Germains.”

“Which many men think is a commission of your own making, noble Captain. Well, if you will not give him your horse, why, d – n it, he must have mine.”

“Yours?” said Craigengelt.

“Ay, mine,” repeated Bucklaw; “it shall never be said that I agreed to back a gentleman in a little affair of honour, and neither helped him on with it nor off from it.”

“You will give him your horse? and have you considered the loss?”

“Loss! why, Grey Gilbert cost me twenty Jacobuses, that’s true; but then his hackney is worth something, and his Black Moor is worth twice as much were he sound, and I know how to handle him. Take a fat sucking mastiff whelp, flay and bowel him, stuff the body full of black and grey snails, roast a reasonable time, and baste with oil of spikenard, saffron, cinnamon, and honey, anoint with the dripping, working it in – ”

“Yes, Bucklaw; but in the mean while, before the sprain is cured, nay, before the whelp is roasted, you will be caught and hung. Depend on it, the chase will be hard after Ravenswood. I wish we had made our place of rendezvous nearer to the coast.”

“On my faith, then,” said Bucklaw, “I had best go off just now, and leave my horse for him. Stay – stay, he comes: I hear a horse’s feet.”

“Are you sure there is only one?” said Craigengelt. “I fear there is a chase; I think I hear three or four galloping together. I am sure I hear more horses than one.”

“Pooh, pooh, it is the wench of the house clattering to the well in her pattens. By my faith, Captain, you should give up both your captainship and your secret service, for you are as easily scared as a wild goose. But here comes the Master alone, and looking as gloomy as a night in November.”

The Master of Ravenswood entered the room accordingly, his cloak muffled around him, his arms folded, his looks stern, and at the same time dejected. He flung his cloak from him as he entered, threw himself upon a chair, and appeared sunk in a profound reverie.

“What has happened? What have you done?” was hastily demanded by Craigengelt and Bucklaw in the same moment.

“Nothing!” was the short and sullen answer.

“Nothing! and left us, determined to call the old villain to account for all the injuries that you, we, and the country have received at his hand? Have you seen him?” “I have,” replied the Master of Ravenswood.

“Seen him – and come away without settling scores which have been so long due?” said Bucklaw; “I would not have expected that at the hand of the Master of Ravenswood.”

“No matter what you expected,” replied Ravenswood; “it is not to you, sir, that I shall be disposed to render any reason for my conduct.”

“Patience, Bucklaw,” said Craigengelt, interrupting his companion, who seemed about to make an angry reply. “The Master has been interrupted in his purpose by some accident; but he must excuse the anxious curiosity of friends who are devoted to his cause like you and me.”

“Friends, Captain Craigengelt!” retorted Ravenswood, haughtily; “I am ignorant what familiarity passed betwixt us to entitle you to use that expression. I think our friendship amounts to this, that we agreed to leave Scotland together so soon as I should have visited the alienated mansion of my fathers, and had an interview with its present possessor – I will not call him proprietor.”

“Very true, Master,” answered Bucklaw; “and as we thought you had in mind to do something to put your neck in jeopardy, Craigie and I very courteously agreed to tarry for you, although ours might run some risk in consequence. As to Craigie, indeed, it does not very much signify: he had gallows written on his brow in the hour of his birth; but I should not like to discredit my parentage by coming to such an end in another man’s cause.”

“Gentlemen,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “I am sorry if I have occasioned you any inconvenience, but I must claim the right of judging what is best for my own affairs, without rendering explanations to any one. I have altered my mind, and do not design to leave the country this season.”

“Not to leave the country, Master!” exclaimed Craigengelt. “Not to go over, after all the trouble and expense I have incurred – after all the risk of discovery, and the expense of freight and demurrage!”

“Sir,” replied the Master of Ravenswood, “when I designed to leave this country in this haste, I made use of your obliging offer to procure me means of conveyance; but I do not recollect that I pledged myself to go off, if I found occasion to alter my mind. For your trouble on my account, I am sorry, and I thank you; your expense,” he added, putting his hand into his pocket, “admits a more solid compensation: freight and demurrage are matters with which I am unacquainted, Captain Craigengelt, but take my purse and pay yourself according to your own conscience.” And accordingly he tendered a purse with some gold in it to the soi-disant captain.

But here Bucklaw interposed in his turn. “Your fingers, Craigie, seem to itch for that same piece of green network,” said he; “but I make my vow to God, that if they offer to close upon it, I will chop them off with my whinger. Since the Master has changed his mind, I suppose we need stay here no longer; but in the first place I beg leave to tell him – ”

“Tell him anything you will,” said Craigengelt, “if you will first allow me to state the inconveniences to which he will expose himself by quitting our society, to remind him of the obstacles to his remaining here, and of the difficulties attending his proper introduction at Versailles and Saint Germains without the countenance of those who have established useful connexions.”

“Besides forfeiting the friendship,” said Bucklaw, “of at least one man of spirit and honour.”

“Gentlemen,” said Ravenswood, “permit me once more to assure you that you have been pleased to attach to our temporary connexion more importance than I ever meant that it should have. When I repair to foreign courts, I shall not need the introduction of an intriguing adventurer, nor is it necessary for me to set value on the friendship of a hot-headed bully.” With these words, and without waiting for an answer, he left the apartment, remounted his horse, and was heard to ride off.

“Mortbleu!” said Captain Craigengelt, “my recruit is lost!”

“Ay, Captain,” said Bucklaw, “the salmon is off with hook and all. But I will after him, for I have had more of his insolence than I can well digest.”

Craigengelt offered to accompany him; but Bucklaw replied: “No, no, Captain, keep you the check of the chimney-nook till I come back; it’s good sleeping in a haill skin.

     Little kens the auld wife that sits by the fire,How cauld the wind blaws in hurle-burle swire.”

And singing as he went, he left the apartment.

CHAPTER VII

     Now, Billy Berwick, keep good heart,And of they talking let me be;But if thou art a man, as I am sure thou art,Come over the dike and fight with me.Old Ballad.

THE Master of Ravenswood had mounted the ambling hackney which he before rode, on finding the accident which had happened to his led horse, and, for the animal’s ease, was proceeding at a slow pace from the Tod’s Den towards his old tower of Wolf’s Crag, when he heard the galloping of a horse behind him, and, looking back, perceived that he was pursued by young Bucklaw, who had been delayed a few minutes in the pursuit by the irresistable temptation of giving the hostler at the Tod’s Den some recipe for treating the lame horse. This brief delay he had made up by hard galloping, and now overtook the Master where the road traversed a waste moor. “Halt, sir,” cried Bucklaw; “I am no political agent – no Captain Craigengelt, whose life is too important to be hazarded in defence of his honour. I am Frank Hayston of Bucklaw, and no man injures me by word, deed, sign, or look, but he must render me an account of it.”

“This is all very well, Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw,” replied the Master of Ravenswood, in a tone the most calm and indifferent; “but I have no quarrel with you, and desire to have none. Our roads homeward, as well as our roads through life, lie in different directions; there is no occasion for us crossing each other.”

“Is there not?” said Bucklaw, impetuously. “By Heaven! but I say that there is, though: you called us intriguing adventurers.”

“Be correct in your recollection, Mr. Hayston; it was to your companion only I applied that epithet, and you know him to be no better.”

“And what then? He was my companion for the time, and no man shall insult my companion, right or wrong, while he is in my company.”

“Then, Mr. Hayston,” replied Ravenswood, with the same composure, “you should choose your society better, or you are like to have much work in your capacity of their champion. Go home, sir; sleep, and have more reason in your wrath to-morrow.”

“Not so, Master, you have mistaken your man; high airs and wise saws shall not carry it off thus. Besides, you termed me bully, and you shall retract the word before we part.”

“Faith, scarcely,” said Ravenswood, “unless you show me better reason for thinking myself mistaken than you are now producing.”

“Then, Master,” said Bucklaw, “though I should be sorry to offer it to a man of your quality, if you will not justify your incivility, or retract it, or name a place of meeting, you must here undergo the hard word and the hard blow.”

“Neither will be necessary,” said Ravenswood; “I am satisfied with what I have done to avoid an affair with you. If you are serious, this place will serve as well as another.”

“Dismount then, and draw,” said Bucklaw, setting him an example. “I always thought and said you were a pretty man; I should be sorry to report you otherwise.”

“You shall have no reason, sir,” said Ravenswood, alighting, and putting himself into a posture of defence.

Their swords crossed, and the combat commenced with great spirit on the part of Bucklaw, who was well accustomed to affairs of the kind, and distinguished by address and dexterity at his weapon. In the present case, however, he did not use his skill to advantage; for, having lost temper at the cool and contemptuous manner in which the Master of Ravenswood had long refused, and at length granted, him satisfaction, and urged by his impatience, he adopted the part of an assailant with inconsiderate eagerness. The Master, with equal skill, and much greater composure, remained chiefly on the defensive, and even declined to avail himself of one or two advantages afforded him by the eagerness of his adversary. At length, in a desperate lunge, which he followed with an attempt to close, Bucklaw’s foot slipped, and he fell on the short grassy turf on which they were fighting. “Take your life, sir,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “and mend it if you can.”

“It would be but a cobbled piece of work, I fear,” said Bucklaw, rising slowly and gathering up his sword, much less disconcerted with the issue of the combat than could have been expected from the impetuosity of his temper. “I thank you for my life, Master,” he pursued. “There is my hand; I bear no ill-will to you, either for my bad luck or your better swordsmanship.”

The Master looked steadily at him for an instant, then extended his hand to him. “Bucklaw,” he said, “you are a generous fellow, and I have done you wrong. I heartily ask your pardon for the expression which offended you; it was hastily and incautiously uttered, and I am convinced it is totally misapplied.”

“Are you indeed, Master?” said Bucklaw, his face resuming at once its natural expression of light-hearted carelessness and audacity; “that is more than I expected of you; for, Master, men say you are not ready to retract your opinion and your language.”

“Not when I have well considered them,” said the Master.

“Then you are a little wiser than I am, for I always give my friend satisfaction first, and explanation afterwards. If one of us falls, all accounts are settled; if not, men are never so ready for peace as after war. But what does that bawling brat of a boy want?” said Bucklaw. “I wish to Heaven he had come a few minutes sooner! and yet it must have been ended some time, and perhaps this way is as well as any other.”

As he spoke, the boy he mentioned came up, cudgelling an ass, on which he was mounted, to the top of its speed, and sending, like one of Ossian’s heroes, his voice before him: “Gentlemen – gentlemen, save yourselves! for the gudewife bade us tell ye there were folk in her house had taen Captain Craigengelt, and were seeking for Bucklaw, and that ye behoved to ride for it.” “By my faith, and that’s very true, my man” said Bucklaw; “and there’s a silver sixpence for your news, and I would give any man twice as much would tell me which way I should ride.”

“That will I, Bucklaw,” said Ravenswood; “ride home to Wolf’s Crag with me. There are places in the old tower where you might lie hid, were a thousand men to seek you.”

“But that will bring you into trouble yourself, Master; and unless you be in the Jacobite scrape already, it is quite needless for me to drag you in.”

“Not a whit; I have nothing to fear.”

“Then I will ride with you blythely, for, to say the truth, I do not know the rendezvous that Craigie was to guide us to this night; and I am sure that, if he is taken, he will tell all the truth of me, and twenty lies of you, in order to save himself from the withie.”

They mounted and rode off in company accordingly, striking off the ordinary road, and holding their way by wild moorish unfrequented paths, with which the gentlemen were well acquainted from the exercise of the chase, but through which others would have had much difficulty in tracing their course. They rode for some time in silence, making such haste as the condition of Ravenswood’s horse permitted, until night having gradually closed around them, they discontinued their speed, both from the difficulty of discovering their path, and from the hope that they were beyond the reach of pursuit or observation.

“And now that we have drawn bridle a bit,” said Bucklaw, “I would fain ask you a question, Master.”

“Ask and welcome,” said Ravenswood, “but forgive not answering it, unless I think proper.”

“Well, it is simply this,” answered his late antagonist “What, in the name of old Sathan, could make you, who stand so highly on your reputation, think for a moment of drawing up with such a rogue as Craigengelt, and such a scapegrace as folk call Bucklaw?”

“Simply, because I was desperate, and sought desperate associates.”

“And what made you break off from us at the nearest?” again demanded Bucklaw.

“Because I had changed my mind,” said the Master, “and renounced my enterprise, at least for the present. And now that I have answered your questions fairly and frankly, tell me what makes you associate with Craigengelt, so much beneath you both in birth and in spirit?”

“In plain terms,” answered Bucklaw, “because I am a fool, who have gambled away my land in thse times. My grand-aunt, Lady Girnington, has taen a new tack of life, I think, and I could only hope to get something by a change of government. Craigie was a sort of gambling acquaintance; he saw my condition, and, as the devil is always at one’s elbow, told me fifty lies about his credentials from Versailles, and his interest at Saint Germains, promised me a captain’s commission at Paris, and I have been ass enough to put my thumb under his belt. I dare say, by this time, he has told a dozen pretty stories of me to the government. And this is what I have got by wine, women, and dice, cocks, dogs, and horses.”

“Yes, Bucklaw,” said the Master, “you have indeed nourished in your bosom the snakes that are now stinging you.”

“That’s home as well as true, Master,” replied his companion; “but, by your leave, you have nursed in your bosom one great goodly snake that has swallowed all the rest, and is as sure to devour you as my half-dozen are to make a meal on all that’s left of Bucklaw, which is but what lies between bonnet and boot-heel.”

“I must not,” answered the Master of Ravenswood, “challenge the freedom of speech in which I have set example. What, to speak without a metaphor, do you call this monstrous passion which you charge me with fostering?”

“Revenge, my good sir – revenge; which, if it be as gentle manlike a sin as wine and wassail, with their et coeteras, is equally unchristian, and not so bloodless. It is better breaking a park-pale to watch a doe or damsel than to shoot an old man.”

“I deny the purpose,” said the Master of Ravenswood. “On my soul, I had no such intention; I meant but to confront the oppressor ere I left my native land, and upbraid him with his tyranny and its consequences. I would have stated my wrongs so that they would have shaken his soul within him.”

“Yes,” answered Bucklaw, “and he would have collared you, and cried ‘help,’ and then you would have shaken the soul OUT of him, I suppose. Your very look and manner would have frightened the old man to death.”

“Consider the provocation,” answered Ravenswood – “consider the ruin and death procured and caused by his hard-hearted cruelty – an ancient house destroyed, an affectionate father murdered! Why, in our old Scottish days, he that sat quiet under such wrongs would have been held neither fit to back a friend nor face a foe.”

“Well, Master, I am glad to see that the devil deals as cunningly with other folk as he deals with me; for whenever I am about to commit any folly, he persuades me it is the most necessary, gallant, gentlemanlike thing on earth, and I am up to saddlegirths in the bog before I see that the ground is soft. And you, Master, might have turned out a murd – a homicide, just out of pure respect for your father’s memory.”

“There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw,” replied the Master, “than might have been expected from your conduct. It is too true, our vices steal upon us in forms outwardly as fair as those of the demons whom the superstitious represent as intriguing with the human race, and are not discovered in their native hideousness until we have clasped them in our arms.”

“But we may throw them from us, though,” said Bucklaw, “and that is what I shall think of doing one of these days – that is, when old Lady Girnington dies.”

“Did you ever hear the expression of the English divine?” said Ravenswood – “‘Hell is paved with good intentions,’ – as much as to say, they are more often formed than executed.”

“Well,” replied Bucklaw, “but I will begin this blessed night, and have determined not to drink above one quart of wine, unless your claret be of extraordinary quality.”

“You will find little to tempt you at Wolf’s Crag,” said the Master. “I know not that I can promise you more than the shelter of my roof; all, and more than all, our stock of wine and provisions was exhausted at the late occasion.”

“Long may it be ere provision is needed for the like purpose,” answered Bucklaw; “but you should not drink up the last flask at a dirge; there is ill luck in that.”

“There is ill luck, I think, in whatever belongs to me,” said Ravenswood. “But yonder is Wolf’s Crag, and whatever it still contains is at your service.”

The roar of the sea had long announced their approach to the cliffs, on the summit of which, like the nest of some sea-eagle, the founder of the fortalice had perched his eyrie. The pale moon, which had hitherto been contending with flitting clouds, now shone out, and gave them a view of the solitary and naked tower, situated on a projecting cliff that beetled on the German Ocean. On three sides the rock was precipitous; on the fourth, which was that towards the land, it had been originally fenced by an artificial ditch and drawbridge, but the latter was broken down and ruinous, and the former had been in part filled up, so as to allow passage for a horseman into the narrow courtyard, encircled on two sides with low offices and stables, partly ruinous, and closed on the landward front by a low embattled wall, while the remaining side of the quadrangle was occupied by the tower itself, which, tall and narrow, and built of a greyish stone, stood glimmering in the moonlight, like the sheeted spectre of some huge giant. A wilder or more disconsolate dwelling it was perhaps difficult to conceive. The sombrous and heavy sound of the billows, successively dashing against the rocky beach at a profound distance beneath, was to the ear what the landscape was to the eye – a symbol of unvaried and monotonous melancholy, not unmingled with horror.

Although the night was not far advanced, there was no sign of living inhabitant about this forlorn abode, excepting that one, and only one, of the narrow and stanchelled windows which appeared at irregular heights and distances in the walls of the building showed a small glimmer of light.

“There,” said Ravenswood, “sits the only male domestic that remains to the house of Ravenswood; and it is well that he does remain there, since otherwise we had little hope to find either light or fire. But follow me cautiously; the road is narrow, and admits only one horse in front.”

In effect, the path led along a kind of isthmus, at the peninsular extremity of which the tower was situated, with that exclusive attention to strength and security, in preference to every circumstances of convenience, which dictated to the Scottish barons the choice of their situations, as well as their style of building.

By adopting the cautious mode of approach recommended by the proprietor of this wild hold, they entered the courtyard in safety. But it was long ere the efforts of Ravenswood, though loudly exerted by knocking at the low-browed entrance, and repeated shouts to Caleb to open the gate and admit them, received any answer.

“The old man must be departed,” he began to say, “or fallen into some fit; for the noise I have made would have waked the seven sleepers.”

At length a timid and hesitating voice replied: “Master – Master of Ravenswood, is it you?”

“Yes, it is I, Caleb; open the door quickly.”

“But it is you in very blood and body? For I would sooner face fifty deevils as my master’s ghaist, or even his wraith; wherefore, aroint ye, if ye were ten times my master, unless ye come in bodily shape, lith and limb.” “It is I, you old fool,” answered Ravenswood, “in bodily shape and alive, save that I am half dead with cold.”

The light at the upper window disappeared, and glancing from loophole to loophole in slow succession, gave intimation that the bearer was in the act of descending, with great deliberation, a winding staircase occupying one of the turrets which graced the angles of the old tower. The tardiness of his descent extracted some exclamations of impatience from Ravenswood, and several oaths from his less patient and more mecurial companion. Caleb again paused ere he unbolted the door, and once more asked if they were men of mould that demanded entrance at this time of night.

“Were I near you, you old fool,” said Bucklaw, “I would give you sufficient proofs of MY bodily condition.”

“Open the gate, Caleb,” said his master, in a more soothing tone, partly from his regard to the ancient and faithful seneschal, partly perhaps because he thought that angry words would be thrown away, so long as Caleb had a stout iron-clenched oaken door betwixt his person and the speakers.

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