The Bride of Lammermoor

“Natheless, Caleb,” said the Master, “we must have our horses put up, and ourselves too, the best way we can. I hope you are not sorry to see me sooner than you expected?”

“Sorry, my lord! I am sure ye sall aye be my lord wi’ honest folk, as your noble ancestors hae been these three hundred years, and never asked a Whig’s leave. Sorry to see the Lord of Ravenswood at ane o’ his ain castles! (Then again apart to his unseen associate behind the screen) Mysie, kill the brood-hen without thinking twice on it; let them care that come ahint. No to say it’s our best dwelling,” he added, turning to Bucklaw; “but just a strength for the Lord of Ravenswood to flee until – that is, no to FLEE, but to retreat until in troublous times, like the present, when it was ill convenient for him to live farther in the country in ony of his better and mair principal manors; but, for its antiquity, maist folk think that the outside of Wolf’s Crag is worthy of a large perusal.”

“And you are determined we shall have time to make it,” said Ravenswood, somewhat amused with the shifts the old man used to detain them without doors until his confederate Mysie had made her preparations within.

“Oh, never mind the outside of the house, my good friend,” said Bucklaw; “let’s see the inside, and let our horses see the stable, that’s all.” “Oh yes, sir – ay, sir – unquestionably, sir – my lord and ony of his honourable companions – ”

“But our horses, my friend – our horses; they will be dead-founded by standing here in the cold after riding hard, and mine is too good to be spoiled; therefore, once more, our horses!” exclaimed Bucklaw.

“True – ay – your horses – yes – I will call the grooms”; and sturdily did Caleb roar till the old tower rang again: “John – William – Saunders! The lads are gane out, or sleeping,” he observed, after pausing for an answer, which he knew that he had no human chance of receiving. “A’ gaes wrang when the Master’s out-bye; but I’ll take care o’ your cattle mysell.”

“I think you had better,” said Ravenswood, “otherwise I see little chance of their being attended to at all.”

“Whisht, my lord – whisht, for God’s sake,” said Caleb, in an imploring tone, and apart to his master; “if ye dinna regard your ain credit, think on mine; we’ll hae hard eneugh wark to make a decent night o’t, wi’ a’ the lees I can tell.”

“Well, well, never mind,” said his master; “go to the stable. There is hay and corn, I trust?”

“Ou ay, plenty of hay and corn”; this was uttered boldly and aloud, and, in a lower tone, “there was some half fous o’ aits, and some taits o’ meadow-hay, left after the burial.”

“Very well,” said Ravenswood, taking the lamp from his domestic’s unwilling hand, “I will show the stranger upstairs myself.”

“I canna think o’ that, my lord; if ye wad but have five minutes, or ten minutes, or, at maist, a quarter of an hour’s patience, and look at the fine moonlight prospect of the Bass and North Berwick Law till I sort the horses, I would marshal ye up, as reason is ye suld be marshalled, your lordship and your honourable visitor. And I hae lockit up the siller candlesticks, and the lamp is not fit – ”

“It will do very well in the mean time,” said Ravenswood, “and you will have no difficulty for want of light in the stable, for, if I recollect, half the roof is off.”

“Very true, my lord,” replied the trusty adherent, and with ready wit instantly added, “and the lazy sclater loons have never come to put it on a’ this while, your lordship.”

“If I were disposed to jest at the calamities of my house,” said Ravenswood, as he led the way upstairs, “poor old Caleb would furnish me with ample means. His passion consists in representing things about our miserable menage, not as they are, but as, in his opinion, they ought to be; and, to say the truth, I have been often diverted with the poor wretch’s expedients to supply what he though was essential for the credit of the family, and his still more generous apologies for the want of those articles for which his ingenuity could discover no substitute. But though the tower is none of the largest, I shall have some trouble without him to find the apartment in which there is a fire.”

As he spoke thus, he opened the door of the hall. “Here, at least,” he said, “there is neither hearth nor harbour.”

It was indeed a scene of desolation. A large vaulted room, the beams of which, combined like those of Westminster Hall, were rudely carved at the extremities, remained nearly in the situation in which it had been left after the entertainment at Allan Lord Ravenswood’s funeral. Overturned pitchers, and black-jacks, and pewter stoups, and flagons still cumbered the large oaken table; glasses, those more perishable implements of conviviality, many of which had been voluntarily sacrificed by the guests in their enthusiastic pledges to favourite toasts, strewed the stone floor with their fragments. As for the articles of plate, lent for the purpose by friends and kinsfolk, those had been carefully withdrawn so soon as the ostentatious display of festivity, equally unnecessary and strangely timed, had been made and ended. Nothing, in short, remained that indicated wealth; all the signs were those of recent wastefulness and present desolation. The black cloth hangings, which, on the late mournful occasion, replaced the tattered moth-eaten tapestries, had been partly pulled down, and, dangling from the wall in irregular festoons, disclosed the rough stonework of the building, unsmoothed either by plaster or the chisel. The seats thrown down, or left in disorder, intimated the careless confusion which had concluded the mournful revel. “This room,” said Ravenswood, holding up the lamp – “this room, Mr. Hayston, was riotous when it should have been sad; it is a just retribution that it should now be sad when it ought to be cheerful.”

They left this disconsolate apartment, and went upstairs, where, after opening one or two doors in vain, Ravenswood led the way into a little matted ante-room, in which, to their great joy, they found a tolerably good fire, which Mysie, by some such expedient as Caleb had suggested, had supplied with a reasonable quantity of fuel. Glad at the heart to see more of comfort than the castle had yet seemed to offer, Bucklaw rubbed his hands heartily over the fire, and now listened with more complacency to the apologies which the Master of Ravenswood offered. “Comfort,” he said, “I cannot provide for you, for I have it not for myself; it is long since these walls have known it, if, indeed, they were ever acquainted with it. Shelter and safety, I think, I can promise you.”

“Excellent matters, Master,” replied Bucklaw, “and, with a mouthful of food and wine, positively all I can require to-night.”

“I fear,” said the Master, “your supper will be a poor one; I hear the matter in discussion betwixt Caleb and Mysie. Poor Balderstone is something deaf, amongst his other accomplishments, so that much of what he means should be spoken aside is overheard by the whole audience, and especially by those from whom he is most anxious to conceal his private manoeuvres. Hark!”

They listened, and heard the old domestic’s voice in conversation with Mysie to the following effect:

“Just mak the best o’t – make the besto’t, woman; it’s easy to put a fair face on ony thing.”

“But the auld brood-hen? She’ll be as teugh as bow-strings and bend-leather!”

“Say ye made a mistake – say ye made a mistake, Mysie,” replied the faithful seneschal, in a soothing and undertoned voice; “tak it a’ on yoursell; never let the credit o’ the house suffer.”

“But the brood-hen,” remonstrated Mysie – “ou, she’s sitting some gate aneath the dais in the hall, and I am feared to gae in in the dark for the dogle; and if I didna see the bogle, I could as ill see the hen, for it’s pit-mirk, and there’s no another light in the house, save that very blessed lamp whilk the Master has in his ain hand. And if I had the hen, she’s to pu’, and to draw, and to dress; how can I do that, and them sitting by the only fire we have?”

“Weel, weel, Mysie,” said the butler, “bide ye there a wee, and I’ll try to get the lamp wiled away frae them.”

Accordingly, Caleb Balderstone entered the apartment, little aware that so much of his by-play had been audible there. “Well, Caleb, my old friend, is there any chance of supper?” said the Master of Ravenswood.

“CHANCE of supper, your lordship?” said Caleb, with an emphasis of strong scorn at the implied doubt. “How should there be ony question of that, and us in your lordship’s house? Chance of supper, indeed! But ye’ll no be for butcher-meat? There’s walth o’ fat poultry, ready either for spit or brander. The fat capon, Mysie!” he added, calling out as boldly as if such a thing had been in existence.

“Quite unnecessary,” said Bucklaw, who deemed himself bound in courtesy to relieve some part of the anxious butler’s perplexity, “if you have anything cold, or a morsel of bread.”

“The best of bannocks!” exclaimed Caleb, much relieve; “and, for cauld meat, a’ that we hae is cauld eneugh, – how-beit, maist of the cauld meat and pastry was gien to the poor folk after the ceremony of interment, as gude reason was; nevertheless – ”

“Come, Caleb,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “I must cut this matter short. This is the young Laird of Bucklaw; he is under hiding, and therefore, you know – ”

“He’ll be nae nicer than your lordship’s honour, I’se warrant,” answered Caleb, cheerfully, with a nod of intelligence; “I am sorry that the gentleman is under distress, but I am blythe that he canna say muckle agane our housekeeping, for I believe his ain pinches may matach ours; no that we are pinched, thank God,” he added, retracting the admission which he had made in his first burst of joy, “but nae doubt we are waur aff than we hae been, or suld be. And for eating – what signifies telling a lee? there’s just the hinder end of the mutton-ham that has been but three times on the table, and the nearer the bane the sweeter, as your honours weel ken; and – there’s the heel of the ewe-milk kebbuck, wi’ a bit of nice butter, and – and – that’s a’ that’s to trust to.” And with great alacrity he produced his slender stock of provisions, and placed them with much formality upon a small round table betwixt the two gentlemen, who were not deterred either by the homely quality or limited quantity of the repast from doing it full justice. Caleb in the mean while waited on them with grave officiousness, as if anxious to make up, by his own respectful assiduity, for the want of all other attendance.

But, alas! how little on such occasions can form, however anxiously and scrupulously observed, supply the lack of substantial fare! Bucklaw, who had eagerly eaten a considerable portion of the thrice-sacked mutton-ham, now began to demand ale.

“I wadna just presume to recommend our ale,” said Caleb; “the maut was ill made, and there was awfu’ thunner last week; but siccan water as the Tower well has ye’ll seldome see, Bucklaw, and that I’se engage for.”

“But if your ale is bad, you can let us have some wine,” said Bucklaw, making a grimace at the mention of the pure element which Caleb so earnestly recommended.

“Wine!” answered Caleb, undauntedly, “eneugh of wine! It was but twa days syne – wae’s me for the cause – there was as much wine drunk in this house as would have floated a pinnace. There never was lack of wine at Wolf’s Crag.”

“Do fetch us some then,” said the master, “instead of talking about it.” And Caleb boldly departed.

Every expended butt in the old cellar did he set a-tilt, and shake with the desperate expectation of collecting enough of the grounds of claret to fill the large pewter measure which he carred in his hand. Alas! each had been too devoutly drained; and, with all the squeezing and manoeuvring which his craft as a butler suggested, he could only collect about half a quart that seemed presentable. Still, however, Caleb was too good a general to renounce the field without a strategem to cover his retreat. He undauntedly threw down an empty flagon, as if he had stumbled at the entrance of the apartment, called upon Mysie to wipe up the wine that had never been spilt, and placing the other vessel on the table, hoped there was still enough left for their honours. There was indeed; for even Bucklaw, a sworn friend to the grape, found no encouragement to renew his first attack upon the vintage of Wolf’s Crag, but contented himself, however reluctantly, with a draught of fair water. Arrangements were now made for his repose; and as the secret chamber was assigned for this purpose, it furnished Caleb with a first-rate and most plausible apology for all deficiencies of furniture, bedding, etc.

“For wha,” said he, “would have thought of the secret chaumer being needed? It has not been used since the time of the Gowrie Conspiracy, and I durst never let a woman ken of the entrance to it, or your honour will allow that it wad not hae been a secret chaumer lang.”

CHAPTER VIII

     The hearth in hall was black and dead,No board was dight in bower within,Nor merry bowl nor welcome bed;“Here’s sorry cheer,” quoth the Heir of Linne.Old Ballad

THE feelings of the prodigal Heir of Linne, as expressed in that excellent old song, when, after dissipating his whole fortune, he found himself the deserted inhabitant of “the lonely lodge,” might perhaps have some resemblance to those of the Master of Ravenswood in his deserted mansion of Wolf’s Crag. The Master, however, had this advantage over the spendthrift in the legend, that, if he was in similar distress, he could not impute it to his own imprudence. His misery had been bequeathed to him by his father, and, joined to his high blood, and to a title which the courteous might give or the churlish withhold at their pleasure, it was the whole inheritance he had derived from his ancestry. Perhaps this melancholy yet consolatory reflection crossed the mind of the unfortunate young nobleman with a breathing of comfort. Favourable to calm reflection, as well as to the Muses, the morning, while it dispelled the shades of night, had a composing and sedative effect upon the stormy passions by which the Master of Ravenswood had been agitated on the preceding day. He now felt himself able to analyse the different feelings by which he was agitated, and much resolved to combat and to subdue them. The morning, which had arisen calm and bright, gave a pleasant effect even to the waste moorland view which was seen from the castle on looking to the landward; and the glorious ocean, crisped with a thousand rippling waves of silver, extended on the other side, in awful yet complacent majesty, to the verge of the horizon. With such scenes of calm sublimity the human heart sympathises even in its most disturbed moods, and deeds of honour and virtue are inspired by their majestic influence. To seek out Bucklaw in the retreat which he had afforded him, was the first occupation of the Master, after he had performed, with a scrutiny unusually severe, the important task of self-examination. “How now, Bucklaw?” was his morning’s salutation – “how like you the couch in which the exiled Earl of Angus once slept in security, when he was pursued by the full energy of a king’s resentment?”

“Umph!” returned the sleeper awakened; “I have little to complain of where so great a man was quartered before me, only the mattress was of the hardest, the vault somewhat damp, the rats rather more mutinous than I would have expected from the state of Caleb’s larder; and if there had been shutters to that grated window, or a curtain to the bed, I should think it, upon the whole, an improvement in your accommodations.”

“It is, to be sure, forlorn enough,” said the Master, looking around the small vault; “but if you will rise and leave it, Caleb will endeavour to find you a better breakfast than your supper of last night.”

“Pray, let it be no better,” said Bucklaw, getting up, and endeavouring to dress himself as well as the obscurity of the place would permit – “let it, I say, be no better, if you mean me to preserve in my proposed reformation. The very recollection of Caleb’s beverage has done more to suppress my longing to open the day with a morning draught than twenty sermons would have done. And you, master, have you been able to give battle valiantly to your bosom-snake? You see I am in the way of smothering my vipers one by one.”

“I have commenced the battle, at least, Bucklaw, adn I have had a fair vision of an angel who descended to my assistance,” replied the Master.

“Woe’s me!” said his guest, “no vision can I expect, unless my aunt, Lady Grinington, should betake herself to the tomb; and then it would be the substance of her heritage rather than the appearance of her phantom that I should consider as the support of my good resolutions. But this same breakfast, Master – does the deer that is to make the pasty run yet on foot, as the ballad has it?”

“I will inquire into that matter,” said his entertainer; and, leaving the apartment, he went in search of Caleb, whom, after some difficulty, he found in an obscure sort of dungeon, which had been in former times the buttery of the castle. Here the old man was employed busily in the doubtful task of burnishing a pewter flagon until it should take the hue and semblance of silver-plate. “I think it may do – I think it might pass, if they winna bring it ower muckle in the light o’ the window!” were the ejaculations which he muttered from time to time, as if to encourage himself in his undertaking, when he was interrupted by the voice of his master.

“Take this,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “and get what is necessary for the family.” And with these words he gave to the old butler the purse which had on the preceding evening so narrowly escaped the fangs of Craigengelt.

The old man shook his silvery and thin locks, and looked with an expression of the most heartfelt anguish at his master as he weighed in his hand the slender treasure, and said in a sorrowful voice, “And is this a’ that’s left?”

“All that is left at present,” said the Master, affecting more cheerfulness than perhaps he really felt, “is just the green purse and the wee pickle gowd, as the old song says; but we shall do better one day, Caleb.”

“Before that day domes,” said Caleb, “I doubt there will be an end of an auld sang, and an auld serving-man to boot. But it disna become me to speak that gate to your honour, adn you looking sae pale. Tak back the purse, and keep it to be making a show before company; for if your honour would just take a bidding, adn be whiles taking it out afore folk and putting it up again, there’s naebody would refuse us trust, for a’ that’s come and gane yet.”

“But, Caleb,” said the Master, “I still intend to leave this country very soon, and desire to do so with the reputation of an honest man, leaving no debty behind me, at last of my own contracting.”

“And gude right ye suld gang away as a true man, and so ye shall; for auld Caleb can tak the wyte of whatever is taen on for the house, and then it will be a’ just ae man’s burden; and I will live just as weel in the tolbooth as out of it, and the credit of the family will be a’ safe and sound.”

The Master endeavoured, in vain, to make Caleb comprehend that the butler’s incurring the responsibility of debts in his own person would rather add to than remove the objections which he had to their being contracted. He spoke to a premier too busy in devising ways and means to puzzle himself with refuting the arguments offered against their justice or expediency.

“There’s Eppie Sma’trash will trust us for ale,” said Caleb to himself – “she has lived a’ her life under the family – and maybe wi’ a soup brandy; I canna say for wine – she is but a lone woman, and gets her claret by a runlet at a time; but I’ll work a wee drap out o’ her by fair means or foul. For doos, there’s the doocot; there will be poultry amang the tenants, though Luckie Chirnside says she has paid the kain twice ower. We’ll mak shift, an it like your honour – we’ll mak shift; keep your heart abune, for the house sall haud its credit as lang as auld Caleb is to the fore.”

The entertainment which the old man’s exertions of various kinds enabled him to present to the young gentlemen for three or four days was certainly of no splendid description, but it may readily be believed it was set before no critical guests; and even the distresses, excuses, evasions, and shifts of Caleb afforded amusement to the young men, and added a sort of interest to the scrambling and irregular style of their table. They had indeed occasion to seize on every circumstance that might serve to diversify or enliven time, which otherwise passed away so heavily.

Bucklaw, shut out from his usual field-sports and joyous carouses by the necessity of remaining concealed within the walls of the castle, became a joyless and uninteresting companion. When the Master of Ravenswood would no longer fence or play at shovel-board; when he himself had polished to the extremity the coat of his palfrey with brush, curry comb, and hair-cloth; when he had seen him eat his provender, and gently lie down in his stall, he could hardly help envying the animal’s apparent acquiescence in a life so monotonous. “The stupid brute,” he said, “thinks neither of the race-ground or the hunting-field, or his green paddock at Bucklaw, but enjoys himself as comfortably when haltered to the rack in this ruinous vault, as if he had been foaled in it; and, I who have the freedom of a prisoner at large, to range through the dungeons of this wretched old tower, can hardly, betwixt whistling and sleeping, contrive to pass away the hour till dinner-time.”

And with this disconsolate reflection, he wended his way to the bartizan or battlements of the tower, to watch what objects might appear on the distant moor, or to pelt, with pebbles and pieces of lime, the sea-mews and cormorants which established themselves incautiously within the reach of an idle young man.

Ravenswood, with a mind incalculably deeper and more powerful than that of his companion, had his own anxious subjects of reflection, which wrought for him the same unhappiness that sheer enui and want of occupation inflicted on his companion. The first sight of Lucy Ashton had been less impressive than her image proved to be upon reflection. As the depth and violence of that revengeful passion by which he had been actuated in seeking an interview with the father began to abate by degrees, he looked back on his conduct towards the daughter as harsh and unworthy towards a female of rank and beauty. Her looks of grateful acknowledgment, her words of affectionate courtesy, had been repelled with something which approached to disdain; and if the Master of Ravenswood had sustained wrongs at the hand of Sir William Ashton, his conscience told him they had been unhandsomely resented towards his daughter. When his thoughts took this turn of self-reproach, the recollection of Lucy Ashton’s beautiful features, rendered yet more interesting by the circumstances in which their meeting had taken place, made an impression upon his mind at once soothing and painful. The sweetness of her voice, the delicacy of her expressions, the vivid glow of her filial affection, embittered his regret at having repulsed her gratitude with rudeness, while, at the same time, they placed before his imagination a picture of the most seducing sweetness.

Even young Ravenswood’s strength of moral feeling and rectitude of purpose at once increased the danger of cherishing these recollections, and the propensity to entertain them. Firmly resolved as he was to subdue, if possible, the predominating vice in his character, he admitted with willingness – nay, he summoned up in his imagination – the ideas by which it could be most powerfully counteracted; and, while he did so, a sense of his own harsh conduct towards the daughter of his enemy naturally induced him, as if by way of recompense, to invest her with more of grace and beauty than perhaps she could actually claim.

Had any one at this period told the Master of Ravenswood that he had so lately vowed vengeance against the whole lineage of him whom he considered, not unjustly, as author of his father’s ruin and death, he might at first have repelled the charge as a foul calumny; yet, upon serious self-examination, he would have been compelled to admit that it had, at one period, some foundation in truth, though, according to the present tone of his sentiments, it was difficult to believe that this had really been the case.