‘Champagne and a chicken at last.’”
‘Champagne and a chicken at last.’”
“The chicken without the champagne, if you please,” said Miss Mowbray; “I have known ladies pay dear to have champagne on the board.—By the by, Lady Penelope, you have not your collection in the same order and discipline as Pidcock and Polito. There was much growling and snarling in the lower den when I passed it.”
“It was feeding-time, my love,” said Lady Penelope; “and the lower animals of every class become pugnacious at that hour—you see all our safer and well-conditioned animals are loose, and in good order.”
“Oh, yes—in the keeper's presence, you know—Well, I must venture to cross the hall again among all that growling and grumbling—I would I had the fairy prince's quarters of mutton to toss among them if they should break out—He, I mean, who fetched water from the Fountain of Lions. However, on second thoughts, I will take the back way, and avoid them.—What says honest Bottom?—
‘For if they should as lions come in strifeInto such place, 'twere pity of their life.’”
‘For if they should as lions come in strifeInto such place, 'twere pity of their life.’”
“Shall I go with you, my dear?” said Lady Penelope.
“No—I have too great a soul for that—I think some of them are lions only as far as the hide is concerned.”
“But why would you go so soon, Clara?”
“Because my errand is finished—have I not invited you and yours? and would not Lord Chesterfield himself allow I have done the polite thing?”
“But you have spoke to none of the company—how can you be so odd, my love?” said her ladyship.
“Why, I spoke to them all when I spoke to you and Lady Binks—but I am a good girl, and will do as I am bid.”
So saying, she looked round the company, and addressed each of them with an affectation of interest and politeness, which thinly concealed scorn and contempt.
“Mr. Winterblossom, I hope the gout is better—Mr. Robert Rymar—(I have escaped calling him Thomas for once)—I hope the public give encouragement to the muses—Mr. Keelavine, I trust your pencil is busy—Mr. Chatterly, I have no doubt your flock improves—Dr. Quackleben, I am sure your patients recover—These are all the especials of the worthy company I know—for the rest, health to the sick, and pleasure to the healthy!”
“You are not going in reality, my love?” said Lady Penelope; “these hasty rides agitate your nerves—they do, indeed—you should be cautious—Shall I speak to Quackleben?”
“To neither Quack nor quackle, on my account, my dear lady. It is not as you would seem to say, by your winking at Lady Binks—it is not, indeed—I shall be no Lady Clementina, to be the wonder and pity of the spring of St. Ronan's—No Ophelia neither—though I will say with her, Good-night, ladies—Good night, sweet ladies!—and now—not my coach, my coach—but my horse, my horse!”
So saying, she tripped out of the room by a side passage, leaving the ladies looking at each other significantly, and shaking their heads with an expression of much import.
“Something has ruffled the poor unhappy girl,” said Lady Penelope; “I never saw her so very odd before.”
“Were I to speak my mind,” said Lady Binks, “I think, as Mrs. Highmore says in the farce, her madness is but a poor excuse for her impertinence.”
“Oh fie! my sweet Lady Binks,” said Lady Penelope, “spare my poor favourite! You, surely, of all others, should forgive the excesses of an amiable eccentricity of temper.—Forgive me, my love, but I must defend an absent friend—My Lady Binks, I am very sure, is too generous and candid to
‘Hate for arts which caused herself to rise.’”
‘Hate for arts which caused herself to rise.’”
“Not being conscious of any high elevation, my lady,” answered Lady Binks, “I do not know any arts I have been under the necessity of practising to attain it. I suppose a Scotch lady of an ancient family may become the wife of an English baronet, and no very extraordinary great cause to wonder at it.”
“No, surely—but people in this world will, you know, wonder at nothing,” answered Lady Penelope.
“If you envy me my poor quiz, Sir Bingo, I'll get you a better, Lady Pen.”
“I don't doubt your talents, my dear, but when I want one, I will get one for myself.—But here comes the whole party of quizzes.—Joliffe, offer the gentlemen tea—then get the floor ready for the dancers, and set the card-tables in the next room.”
They draw the cork, they broach the barrel,And first they kiss, and then they quarrel.
They draw the cork, they broach the barrel,And first they kiss, and then they quarrel.
Prior.
If the reader has attended much to the manners of the canine race, he may have remarked the very different manner in which the individuals of the different sexes carry on their quarrels among each other. The females are testy, petulant, and very apt to indulge their impatient dislike of each other's presence, or the spirit of rivalry which it produces, in a sudden bark and snap, which last is generally made as much at advantage as possible. But these ebullitions of peevishness lead to no very serious or prosecuted conflict; the affair begins and ends in a moment. Not so the ire of the male dogs, which, once produced and excited by growls of mutual offence and defiance, leads generally to a fierce and obstinate contest; in which, if the parties be dogs of game, and well-matched, they grapple, throttle, tear, roll each other in the kennel, and can only be separated by choking them with their own collars, till they lose wind and hold at the same time, or by surprising them out of their wrath by sousing them with cold water.
The simile, though a currish one, will hold good in its application to the human race. While the ladies in the tea-room of the Fox Hotel were engaged in the light snappish velitation, or skirmish, which we have described, the gentlemen who remained in the parlour were more than once like to have quarrelled more seriously.
We have mentioned the weighty reasons which induced Mr. Mowbray to look upon the stranger whom a general invitation had brought into their society, with unfavourable prepossessions; and these were far from being abated by the demeanour of Tyrrel, which, though perfectly well-bred, indicated a sense of equality, which the young Laird of St. Ronan's considered as extremely presumptuous.
As for Sir Bingo, he already began to nourish the genuine hatred always entertained by a mean spirit against an antagonist, before whom it is conscious of having made a dishonourable retreat. He forgot not the manner, look, and tone, with which Tyrrel had checked his unauthorized intrusion; and though he had sunk beneath it at the moment, the recollection rankled in his heart as an affront to be avenged. As he drank his wine, courage, the want of which was, in his more sober moments, a check upon his bad temper, began to inflame his malignity, and he ventured upon several occasions to show his spleen, by contradicting Tyrrel more flatly than good manners permitted upon so short an acquaintance, and without any provocation. Tyrrel saw his ill humour and despised it, as that of an overgrown schoolboy, whom it was not worth his while to answer according to his folly.
One of the apparent causes of the Baronet's rudeness was indeed childish enough. The company were talking of shooting, the most animating topic of conversation among Scottish country gentlemen of the younger class, and Tyrrel had mentioned something of a favourite setter, an uncommonly handsome dog, from which he had been for some time separated, but which he expected would rejoin him in the course of next week.
“A setter!” retorted Sir Bingo, with a sneer; “a pointer I suppose you mean?”
“No, sir,” said Tyrrel; “I am perfectly aware of the difference betwixt a setter and a pointer, and I know the old-fashioned setter is become unfashionable among modern sportsmen. But I love my dog as a companion, as well as for his merits in the field; and a setter is more sagacious, more attached, and fitter for his place on the hearth-rug, than a pointer—not,” he added, “from any deficiency of intellects on the pointer's part, but he is generally so abused while in the management of brutal breakers and grooms, that he loses all excepting his professional accomplishments, of finding and standing steady to game.”
“And who the d——l desires he should have more?” said Sir Bingo.
“Many people, Sir Bingo,” replied Tyrrel, “have been of opinion, that both dogs and men may follow sport indifferently well, though they do happen, at the same time, to be fit for mixing in friendly intercourse in society.”
“That is for licking trenchers, and scratching copper, I suppose,” said the Baronet,sotto voce; and added, in a louder and more distinct tone,—“He never before heard that a setter was fit to follow any man's heels but a poacher's.”
“You know it now then, Sir Bingo,” answered Tyrrel; “and I hope you will not fall into so great a mistake again.”
The Peace-maker here seemed to think his interference necessary, and, surmounting his tactiturnity, made the following pithy speech:—“By Cot! and do you see, as you are looking for my opinion, I think there is no dispute in the matter—because, by Cot! it occurs to me, d'ye see, that ye are both right, by Cot! It may do fery well for my excellent friend Sir Bingo, who hath stables, and kennels, and what not, to maintain the six filthy prutes that are yelping and yowling all the tay, and all the neight too, under my window, by Cot!—And if they are yelping and yowling there, may I never die but I wish they were yelping and yowling somewhere else. But then there is many a man who may be as cood a gentleman at the bottom as my worthy friend Sir Bingo, though it may be that he is poor; and if he is poor—and as if it might be my own case, or that of this honest gentleman, Mr. Tirl—is that a reason or a law, that he is not to keep a prute of a tog, to help him to take his sports and his pleasures? and if he has not a stable or a kennel to put the crature into, must he not keep it in his pit of ped-room, or upon his parlour hearth, seeing that Luckie Dods would make the kitchen too hot for the paist—and so, if Mr. Tirl finds a setter more fitter for his purpose than a pointer, by Cot, I know no law against it, else may I never die the black death.”
If this oration appear rather long for the occasion, the reader must recollect that Captain MacTurk had in all probability the trouble of translating it from the periphrastic language of Ossian, in which it was originally conceived in his own mind.
The Man of Law replied to the Man of Peace, “Ye are mistaken for ance in your life, Captain, for there is a law against setters; and I will undertake to prove them to be the ‘lying dogs,’ which are mentioned in the auld Scots statute, and which all and sundry are discharged to keep, under a penalty of”——
Here the Captain broke in, with a very solemn mien and dignified manner—“By Cot! Master Meiklewham, and I shall be asking what you mean by talking to me of peing mistaken, and apout lying togs, sir—because I would have you to know, and to pelieve, and to very well consider, that I never was mistaken in my life, sir, unless it was when I took you for a gentleman.”
“No offence, Captain,” said Mr. Meiklewham; “dinna break the wand of peace, man, you that should be the first to keep it.—He is as cankered,” continued the Man of Law, apart to his patron, “as an auld Hieland terrier, that snaps at whatever comes near it—but I tell you ae thing, St. Ronan's, and that is on saul and conscience, that I believe this is the very lad Tirl, that I raised a summons against before the justices—him and another hempie—in your father's time, for shooting on the Spring-well-head muirs.”
“The devil you did, Mick!” replied the Lord of the Manor, also aside;—“Well, I am obliged to you for giving me some reason for the ill thoughts I had of him—I knew he was some trumpery scamp—I'll blow him, by”——
“Whisht—stop—hush—haud your tongue, St. Ronan's,—keep a calm sough—ye see, I intended the process, by your worthy father's desire, before the Quarter Sessions—but I ken na—The auld sheriff-clerk stood the lad's friend—and some of the justices thought it was but a mistake of the marches, and sae we couldna get a judgment—and your father was very ill of the gout, and I was feared to vex him, and so I was fain to let the process sleep, for fear they had been assoilzied.—Sae ye had better gang cautiously to wark, St. Ronan's, for though they were summoned, they were not convict.”
“Could you not take up the action again?” said Mr. Mowbray.
“Whew! it's been prescribed sax or seeven year syne. It is a great shame, St. Ronan's, that the game laws, whilk are the very best protection that is left to country gentlemen against the encroachment of their inferiors, rin sae short a course of prescription—a poacher may just jink ye back and forward like a flea in a blanket, (wi' pardon)—hap ye out of ae county and into anither at their pleasure, like pyots—and unless ye get your thum-nail on them in the very nick o' time, ye may dine on a dish of prescription, and sup upon an absolvitor.”
“It is a shame indeed,” said Mowbray, turning from his confident and agent, and addressing himself to the company in general, yet not without a peculiar look directed to Tyrrel.
“What is a shame, sir?” said Tyrrel, conceiving that the observation was particularly addressed to him.
“That we should have so many poachers upon our muirs, sir,” answered St. Ronan's. “I sometimes regret having countenanced the Well here, when I think how many guns it has brought on my property every season.”
“Hout fie! hout awa, St. Ronan's!” said his Man of Law; “no countenance the Waal? What would the country-side be without it, I would be glad to ken? It's the greatest improvement that has been made on this country since the year forty-five. Na, na, it's no the Waal that's to blame for the poaching and delinquencies on the game. We maun to the Aultoun for the howf of that kind of cattle. Our rules at the Waal are clear and express against trespassers on the game.”
“I can't think,” said the Squire, “what made my father sell the property of the old change-house yonder, to the hag that keeps it open out of spite, I think, and to harbour poachers and vagabonds!—I cannot conceive what made him do so foolish a thing!”
“Probably because your father wanted money, sir,” said Tyrrel, dryly; “and my worthy landlady, Mrs. Dods, had got some.—You know, I presume, sir, that I lodge there?”
“Oh, sir,” replied Mowbray, in a tone betwixt scorn and civility, “you cannot suppose the present company is alluded to; I only presumed to mention as a fact, that we have been annoyed with unqualified people shooting on our grounds, without either liberty or license. And I hope to have her sign taken down for it—that is all.—There was the same plague in my father's days, I think, Mick?”
But Mr. Meiklewham, who did not like Tyrrel's looks so well as to induce him to become approver on the occasion, replied with an inarticulate grunt, addressed to the company, and a private admonition to his patron's own ear, “to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“I can scarce forbear the fellow,” said St. Ronan's; “and yet I cannot well tell where my dislike to him lies—but it would be d——d folly to turn out with him for nothing; and so, honest Mick, I will be as quiet as I can.”
“And that you may be so,” said Meiklewham, “I think you had best take no more wine.”
“I think so too,” said the Squire; “for each glass I drink in his company gives me the heartburn—yet the man is not different from other raffs either—but there is a something about him intolerable to me.”
So saying, he pushed back his chair from the table, and—regis ad exemplar—after the pattern of the Laird, all the company arose.
Sir Bingo got up with reluctance, which he testified by two or three deep growls, as he followed the rest of the company into the outer apartment, which served as an entrance-hall, and divided the dining-parlour from the tea-room, as it was called. Here, while the party were assuming their hats, for the purpose of joining the ladies' society, (which old-fashioned folk used only to take up for that of going into the open air,) Tyrrel asked a smart footman, who stood near, to hand him the hat which lay on the table beyond.
“Call your own servant, sir,” answered the fellow, with the true insolence of a pampered menial.
“Your master,” answered Tyrrel, “ought to have taught you good manners, my friend, before bringing you here.”
“Sir Bingo Binks is my master,” said the fellow, in the same insolent tone as before.
“Now for it, Bingie,” said Mowbray, who was aware that the Baronet's pot-courage had arrived at fighting pitch.
“Yes!” said Sir Bingo aloud, and more articulately than usual—“The fellow is my servant—what has any one to say to it?”
“I at least have my mouth stopped,” answered Tyrrel, with perfect composure. “I should have been surprised to have found Sir Bingo's servant better bred than himself.”
“What d'ye mean by that, sir?” said Sir Bingo, coming up in an offensive attitude, for he was no mean pupil of the Fives-Court—“What d'ye mean by that? D——n you, sir! I'll serve you out before you can say dumpling.”
“And I, Sir Bingo, unless you presently lay aside that look and manner, will knock you down before you can cry help.”
The visitor held in his hand a slip of oak, with which he gave a flourish, that, however slight, intimated some acquaintance with the noble art of single-stick. From this demonstration Sir Bingo thought it prudent somewhat to recoil, though backed by a party of friends, who, in their zeal for his honour, would rather have seen his bones broken in conflict bold, than his honour injured by a discreditable retreat; and Tyrrel seemed to have some inclination to indulge them. But, at the very instant when his hand was raised with a motion of no doubtful import, a whispering voice, close to his ear, pronounced the emphatic words—“Are you a man?”
Not the thrilling tone with which our inimitable Siddons used to electrify the scene, when she uttered the same whisper, ever had a more powerful effect upon an auditor, than had these unexpected sounds on him,to whom they were now addressed. Tyrrel forgot every thing—his quarrel—the circumstances in which he was placed—the company. The crowd was to him at once annihilated, and life seemed to have no other object than to follow the person who had spoken. But suddenly as he turned, the disappearance of the monitor was at least equally so, for, amid the group of commonplace countenances by which he was surrounded, there was none which assorted to the tone and words, which possessed such a power over him. “Make way,” he said, to those who surrounded him; and it was in the tone of one who was prepared, if necessary, to make way for himself.
Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's stepped forward. “Come, sir,” said he, “this will not do—you have come here, a stranger among us, to assume airs and dignities, which, by G—d, would become a duke, or a prince! We must know who or what you are, before we permit you to carry your high tone any farther.”
This address seemed at once to arrest Tyrrel's anger, and his impatience to leave the company. He turned to Mowbray, collected his thoughts for an instant, and then answered him thus:—“Mr. Mowbray, I seek no quarrel with any one here—with you, in particular, I am most unwilling to have any disagreement. I came here by invitation, not certainly expecting much pleasure, but, at the same time, supposing myself secure from incivility. In the last point, I find myself mistaken, and therefore wish the company good-night. I must also make my adieus to the ladies.”
So saying, he walked several steps, yet, as it seemed, rather irresolutely, towards the door of the card-room—and then, to the increased surprise of the company, stopped suddenly, and muttering something about the “unfitness of the time,” turned on his heel, and bowing haughtily, as there was way made for him, walked in the opposite direction towards the door which led to the outer hall.
“D——me, Sir Bingo, will you let him off?” said Mowbray, who seemed to delight in pushing his friend into new scrapes—“To him, man—to him—he shows the white feather.”
Sir Bingo, thus encouraged, planted himself with a look of defiance exactly between Tyrrel and the door; upon which the retreating guest, bestowing on him most emphatically the epithet Fool, seized him by the collar, and flung him out of his way with some violence.
“I am to be found at the Old Town of St. Ronan's by whomsoever has any concern with me.”—Without waiting the issue of this aggression farther than to utter these words, Tyrrel left the hotel. He stopped in the court-yard, however, with the air of one uncertain whither he intended to go, and who was desirous to ask some question, which seemed to die upon his tongue. At length his eye fell upon a groom, who stood not far from the door of the inn, holding in his hand a handsome pony, with a side-saddle.
“Whose”——said Tyrrel—but the rest of the question he seemed unable to utter.
The man, however, replied, as if he had heard the whole interrogation.—“Miss Mowbray's, sir, of St. Ronan's—she leaves directly—and so I am walking the pony—a clever thing, sir, for a lady.”
“She returns to Shaws-Castle by the Buck-stane road?”
“I suppose so, sir,” said the groom. “It is the nighest, and Miss Clara cares little for rough roads. Zounds! She can spank it over wet and dry.”
Tyrrel turned away from the man, and hastily left the hotel—not, however, by the road which led to the Aultoun, but by a footpath among the natural copsewood, which, following the course of the brook, intersected the usual horse-road to Shaws-Castle, the seat of Mr. Mowbray, at a romantic spot called the Buck-stane.
In a small peninsula, formed by a winding of the brook, was situated, on a rising hillock, a large rough-hewn pillar of stone, said by tradition to commemorate the fall of a stag of unusual speed, size, and strength, whose flight, after having lasted through a whole summer's day, had there terminated in death, to the honour and glory of some ancient baron of St. Ronan's, and of his stanch hounds. During the periodical cuttings of the copse, which the necessities of the family of St. Ronan's brought round more frequently than Ponty would have recommended, some oaks had been spared in the neighbourhood of this massive obelisk, old enough perhaps to have heard the whoop and halloo which followed the fall of the stag, and to have witnessed the raising of the rude monument by which that great event was commemorated. These trees, with their broad spreading boughs, made a twilight even of noon-day; and, now that the sun was approaching its setting point, their shade already anticipated night. This was especially the case where three or four of them stretched their arms over a deep gully, through which winded the horse-path to Shaws-Castle, at a point about a pistol-shot distant from the Buck-stane. As the principal access to Mr. Mowbray's mansion was by a carriage-way, which passed in a different direction, the present path was left almost in a state of nature, full of large stones, and broken by gullies, delightful, from the varied character of its banks, to the picturesque traveller, and most inconvenient, nay dangerous, to him who had a stumbling horse.
The footpath to the Buck-stane, which here joined the bridle-road, had been constructed, at the expense of a subscription, under the direction of Mr. Winterblossom, who had taste enough to see the beauties of this secluded spot, which was exactly such as in earlier times might have harboured the ambush of some marauding chief. This recollection had not escaped Tyrrel, to whom the whole scenery was familiar, who now hastened to the spot, as one which peculiarly suited his present purpose. He sat down by one of the larger projecting trees, and, screened by its enormous branches from observation, was enabled to watch the road from the Hotel for a great part of its extent, while he was himself invisible to any who might travel upon it.
Meanwhile his sudden departure excited a considerable sensation among the party whom he had just left, and who were induced to form conclusions not very favourable to his character. Sir Bingo, in particular, blustered loudly and more loudly, in proportion to the increasing distance betwixt himself and his antagonist, declaring his resolution to be revenged on the scoundrel for his insolence—to drive him from the neighbourhood—and I know not what other menaces of formidable import. The devil, in the old stories ofdiàblerie, was always sure to start up at the elbow of any one who nursed diabolical purposes, and only wanted a little backingfrom the foul fiend to carry his imaginations into action. The noble Captain MacTurk had so far this property of his infernal majesty, that the least hint of an approaching quarrel drew him always to the vicinity of the party concerned. He was now at Sir Bingo's side, and was taking his own view of the matter, in his character of peace-maker.
“By Cot! and it's very exceedingly true, my goot friend, Sir Binco—and as you say, it concerns your honour, and the honour of the place, and credit and character of the whole company, by Cot! that this matter be properly looked after; for, as I think, he laid hands on your body, my excellent goot friend.”
“Hands, Captain MacTurk!” exclaimed Sir Bingo, in some confusion; “no, blast him—not so bad as that neither—if he had, I should have handedhimover the window—but, by ——, the fellow had the impudence to offer to collar me—I had just stepped back to square at him, when, curse me, the blackguard ran away.”
“Right, vara right, Sir Bingo,” said the Man of Law, “a vara perfect blackguard, a poaching sorning sort of fallow, that I will have scoured out of the country before he be three days aulder. Fash you your beard nae farther about the matter, Sir Bingo.”
“By Cot! but I can tell you, Mr. Meiklewham,” said the Man of Peace, with great solemnity of visage, “that you are scalding your lips in other folk's kale, and that it is necessary for the credit, and honour, and respect of this company, at the Well of St. Ronan's, that Sir Bingo goes by more competent advice than yours upon the present occasion, Mr. Meiklewham; for though your counsel may do very well in a small debt court, here, you see, Mr. Meiklewham, is a question of honour, which is not a thing in your line, as I take it.”
“No, before George! it is not,” answered Meiklewham; “e'en take it all to yoursell, Captain, and meikle ye are likely to make on't.”
“Then,” said the Captain, “Sir Binco, I will beg the favour of your company to the smoking room, where we may have a cigar and a glass of gin-twist; and we will consider how the honour of the company must be supported and upholden upon the present conjuncture.”
The Baronet complied with this invitation, as much, perhaps, in consequence of the medium through which the Captain intended to convey his warlike counsels, as for the pleasure with which he anticipated the result of these counsels themselves. He followed the military step of his leader, whose stride was more stiff, and his form more perpendicular, when exalted by the consciousness of an approaching quarrel, to the smoking-room, where, sighing as he lighted his cigar, Sir Bingo prepared to listen to the words of wisdom and valour, as they should flow in mingled stream from the lips of Captain MacTurk.
Meanwhile the rest of the company joined the ladies. “Here has been Clara,” said Lady Penelope to Mr. Mowbray; “here has been Miss Mowbray among us, like the ray of a sun which does but dazzle and die.”
“Ah, poor Clara,” said Mowbray; “I thought I saw her thread her way through the crowd a little while since, but I was not sure.”
“Well,” said Lady Penelope, “she has asked us all up to Shaws-Castle on Thursday, to adéjeûner à la fourchette—I trust you confirm your sister's invitation, Mr. Mowbray?”
“Certainly, Lady Penelope,” replied Mowbray; “and I am truly glad Clara has had the grace to think of it—How we shall acquit ourselves is a different question, for neither she nor I are much accustomed to play host or hostess.”
“Oh! it will be delightful, I am sure,” said Lady Penelope; “Clara has a grace in every thing she does; and you, Mr. Mowbray, can be a perfectly well-bred gentleman—when you please.”
“That qualification is severe—Well—good manners be my speed—I will certainly please to do my best, when I see your ladyship at Shaws-Castle, which has received no company this many a day.—Clara and I have lived a wild life of it, each in their own way.”
“Indeed, Mr. Mowbray,” said Lady Binks, “if I might presume to speak—I think you do suffer your sister to ride about a little too much without an attendant. I know Miss Mowbray rides as woman never rode before, but still an accident may happen.”
“An accident?” replied Mowbray—“Ah, Lady Binks! accidents happen as frequently when ladieshaveattendants as when they are without them.”
Lady Binks, who, in her maiden state, had cantered a good deal about these woods under Sir Bingo's escort, coloured, looked spiteful, and was silent.
“Besides,” said John Mowbray, more lightly, “where is the risk, after all? There are no wolves in our woods to eat up our pretty Red-Riding Hoods; and no lions either—except those of Lady Penelope's train.”
“Who draw the car of Cybele,” said Mr. Chatterly.
Lady Penelope luckily did not understand the allusion, which was indeed better intended than imagined.
“Apropos!” she said; “what have you done with the great lion of the day? I see Mr. Tyrrel nowhere—Is he finishing an additional bottle with Sir Bingo?”
“Mr. Tyrrel, madam,” said Mowbray, “has acted successively the lion rampant, and the lion passant: he has been quarrelsome, and he has run away—fled from the ire of your doughty knight, Lady Binks.”
“I am sure I hope not,” said Lady Binks; “my Chevalier's unsuccessful campaigns have been unable to overcome his taste for quarrels—a victory would make a fighting-man of him for life.”
“That inconvenience might bring its own consolations,” said Winterblossom, apart to Mowbray; “quarrellers do not usually live long.”
“No, no,” replied Mowbray, “the lady's despair, which broke out just now, even in her own despite, is quite natural—absolutely legitimate. Sir Bingo will give her no chance that way.”
Mowbray then made his bow to Lady Penelope, and in answer to her request that he would join the ball or the card-table, observed, that he had no time to lose; that the heads of the old domestics at Shaws-Castle would be by this time absolutely turned, by the apprehensions of what Thursday was to bring forth; and that as Clara would certainly give no directions for the proper arrangements, it was necessary that he should take that trouble himself.
“If you ride smartly,” said Lady Penelope, “you may save even a temporary alarm, by overtaking Clara, dear creature, ere she gets home—She sometimes suffers her pony to go at will along the lane, as slow as Betty Foy's.”
“Ah, but then,” said little Miss Digges, “Miss Mowbray sometimes gallops as if the lark was a snail to her pony—and it quite frights one to see her.”
The Doctor touched Mrs. Blower, who had approached so as to be on the verge of the genteel circle, though she did not venture within it—they exchanged sagacious looks, and a most pitiful shake of the head. Mowbray's eye happened at that moment to glance on them; and doubtless, notwithstanding their hasting to compose their countenances to a different expression, he comprehended what was passing through their minds;—and perhaps it awoke a corresponding note in his own. He took his hat, and with a cast of thought upon his countenance which it seldom wore, left the apartment. A moment afterwards his horse's feet were heard spurning the pavement, as he started off at a sharp pace.
“There is something singular about these Mowbrays to-night,” said Lady Penelope.—“Clara, poor dear angel, is always particular; but I should have thought Mowbray had too much worldly wisdom to be fanciful.—What are you consulting yoursouvenirfor with such attention, my dear Lady Binks?”
“Only for the age of the moon,” said her ladyship, putting the little tortoise-shell-bound calendar into her reticule; and having done so, she proceeded to assist Lady Penelope in the arrangements for the evening.
We meet as shadows in the land of dreams,Which speak not but in signs.
We meet as shadows in the land of dreams,Which speak not but in signs.
Anonymous.
Behind one of the old oaks which we have described in the preceding chapter, shrouding himself from observation like a hunter watching for his game, or an Indian for his enemy, but with different, very different purpose, Tyrrel lay on his breast near the Buck-stane, his eye on the horse-road which winded down the valley, and his ear alertly awake to every sound which mingled with the passing breeze, or with the ripple of the brook.
“To have met her in yonder congregated assembly of brutes and fools”—such was a part of his internal reflections,—“had been little less than an act of madness—madness almost equal in its degree to that cowardice which has hitherto prevented my approaching her, when our eventful meeting might have taken place unobserved.—But now—now—my resolution is as fixed as the place is itself favourable. I will not wait till some chance again shall throw us together, with an hundred malignant eyes to watch, and wonder, and stare, and try in vain toaccount for the expression of feelings which I might find it impossible to suppress.—Hark—hark!—I hear the tread of a horse—No—it was the changeful sound of the water rushing over the pebbles. Surely she cannot have taken the other road to Shaws-Castle!—No—the sounds become distinct—her figure is visible on the path, coming swiftly forward.—Have I the courage to show myself?—I have—the hour is come, and what must be shall be.”
Yet this resolution was scarcely formed ere it began to fluctuate, when he reflected upon the fittest manner of carrying it into execution. To show himself at a distance, might give the lady an opportunity of turning back and avoiding the interview which he had determined upon—to hide himself till the moment when her horse, in rapid motion, should pass his lurking-place, might be attended with danger to the rider—and while he hesitated which course to pursue, there was some chance of his missing the opportunity of presenting himself to Miss Mowbray at all. He was himself sensible of this, formed a hasty and desperate resolution not to suffer the present moment to escape, and, just as the ascent induced the pony to slacken its pace, Tyrrel stood in the middle of the defile, about six yards distant from the young lady.
She pulled up the reins, and stopped as if arrested by a thunderbolt.—“Clara!”—“Tyrrel!” These were the only words which were exchanged between them, until Tyrrel, moving his feet as slowly as if they had been of lead, began gradually to diminish the distance which lay betwixt them. It was then that, observing his closer approach, Miss Mowbray called out withgreat eagerness,—“No nearer—no nearer!—So long have I endured your presence, but if you approach me more closely, I shall be mad indeed!”
“What do you fear?” said Tyrrel, in a hollow voice—“What can you fear?” and he continued to draw nearer, until they were within a pace of each other.
Clara, meanwhile, dropping her bridle, clasped her hands together, and held them up towards Heaven, muttering, in a voice scarcely audible, “Great God!—If this apparition be formed by my heated fancy, let it pass away; if it be real, enable me to bear its presence!—Tell me, I conjure you, are you Francis Tyrrel in blood and body, or is this but one of those wandering visions, that have crossed my path and glared on me, but without daring to abide my steadfast glance?”
“I am Francis Tyrrel,” answered he, “in blood and body, as much as she to whom I speak is Clara Mowbray.”
“Then God have mercy on us both!” said Clara, in a tone of deep feeling.
“Amen!” said Tyrrel.—“But what avails this excess of agitation?—You saw me but now, Miss Mowbray—Your voice still rings in my ears—You saw me but now—you spoke to me—and that when I was among strangers—Why not preserve your composure, when we are where no human eye can see—no human ear can hear?”
“Is it so?” said Clara; “and was it indeed yourself whom I saw even now?—I thought so, and something I said at the time—but my brain has been but ill settled since we last met—But I am well now—quite well—I have invited all the people yonder to come to Shaws-Castle—my brother desired me to do it—I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Tyrrel there—though I think there is some old grudge between my brother and you.”
“Alas! Clara, you mistake. Your brother I have scarcely seen,” replied Tyrrel, much distressed, and apparently uncertain in what tone to address her, which might soothe, and not irritate her mental malady, of which he could now entertain no doubt.
“True—true,” she said, after a moment's reflection, “my brother was then at college. It was my father, my poor father, whom you had some quarrel with.—But you will come to Shaws-Castle on Thursday, at two o'clock?—John will be glad to see you—he can be kind when he pleases—and then we will talk of old times—I must get on, to have things ready—Good evening.”
She would have passed him, but he took gently hold of the rein of her bridle.—“I will walk with you, Clara,” he said; “the road is rough and dangerous—you ought not to ride fast.—I will walk along with you, and we will talk of former times now, more conveniently than in company.”
“True—true—very true, Mr. Tyrrel—it shall be as you say. My brother obliges me sometimes to go into company at that hateful place down yonder; and I do so because he likes it, and because the folks let me have my own way, and come and go as I list. Do you know, Tyrrel, that very often when I am there, and John has his eye on me, I can carry it on as gaily as if you and I had never met?”
“I would to God we never had,” said Tyrrel, in a trembling voice, “since this is to be the end of all!”
“And wherefore should not sorrow be the end of sin and of folly? And when did happiness come ofdisobedience?—And when did sound sleep visit a bloody pillow? That is what I say to myself, Tyrrel, and that is what you must learn to say too, and then you will bear your burden as cheerfully as I endure mine. If we have no more than our deserts, why should we complain?—You are shedding tears, I think—Is not that childish?—They say it is a relief—if so, weep on, and I will look another way.”
Tyrrel walked on by the pony's side, in vain endeavouring to compose himself so as to reply.
“Poor Tyrrel,” said Clara, after she had remained silent for some time—“Poor Frank Tyrrel!—Perhaps you will say in your turn, Poor Clara—but I am not so poor in spirit as you—the blast may bend, but it shall never break me.”
There was another long pause; for Tyrrel was unable to determine with himself in what strain he could address the unfortunate young lady, without awakening recollections equally painful to her feelings, and dangerous, when her precarious state of health was considered. At length she herself proceeded:—
“What needs all this, Tyrrel?—and indeed, why came you here?—Why did I find you but now brawling and quarrelling among the loudest of the brawlers and quarrellers of yonder idle and dissipated debauchees?—You were used to have more temper—more sense. Another person—ay, another that you and I once knew—he might have committed such a folly, and he would have acted perhaps in character.—But you, who pretend to wisdom—for shame, for shame!—And indeed, when we talk of that, what wisdom was there in coming hither atall?—or what good purpose can your remaining here serve?—Surely you need not come, either to renew your own unhappiness or to augment mine?”
“To augment yours—God forbid!” answered Tyrrel. “No—I came hither only because, after so many years of wandering, I longed to revisit the spot where all my hopes lay buried.”
“Ay—buried is the word,” she replied, “crushed down and buried when they budded fairest. I often think of it, Tyrrel; and there are times when, Heaven help me! I can think of little else.—Look at me—you remember what I was—see what grief and solitude have made me.”
She flung back the veil which surrounded her riding-hat, and which had hitherto hid her face. It was the same countenance which he had formerly known in all the bloom of early beauty; but though the beauty remained, the bloom was fled for ever. Not the agitation of exercise—not that which arose from the pain and confusion of this unexpected interview, had called to poor Clara's cheek even the momentary semblance of colour. Her complexion was marble-white, like that of the finest piece of statuary.
“Is it possible?” said Tyrrel; “can grief have made such ravages?”
“Grief,” replied Clara, “is the sickness of the mind, and its sister is the sickness of the body—they are twin-sisters, Tyrrel, and are seldom long separate. Sometimes the body's disease comes first, and dims our eyes and palsies our hands, before the fire of our mind and of our intellect is quenched. But mark me—soon after comes her cruel sister with her urn, and sprinkles cold dew on our hopes and on our loves, our memory, our recollections, and our feelings, and shows us that they cannot survive the decay of our bodily powers.”
“Alas!” said Tyrrel, “is it come to this?”
“To this,” she replied, speaking from the rapid and irregular train of her own ideas, rather than comprehending the purport of his sorrowful exclamation,—“to this it must ever come, while immortal souls are wedded to the perishable substance of which our bodies are composed. There is another state, Tyrrel, in which it will be otherwise—God grant our time of enjoying it were come!”
She fell into a melancholy pause, which Tyrrel was afraid to disturb. The quickness with which she spoke, marked but too plainly the irregular succession of thought, and he was obliged to restrain the agony of his own feelings, rendered more acute by a thousand painful recollections, lest, by giving way to his expressions of grief, he should throw her into a still more disturbed state of mind.
“I did not think,” she proceeded, “that after so horrible a separation, and so many years, I could have met you thus calmly and reasonably. But although what we were formerly to each other can never be forgotten, it is now all over, and we are only friends—Is it not so?”
Tyrrel was unable to reply.
“But I must not remain here,” she said, “till the evening grows darker on me.—We shall meet again, Tyrrel—meet as friends—nothing more—You will come up to Shaws-Castle and see me?—no need of secrecy now—my poor father is in his grave, and his prejudices sleep with him—my brother John is kind, though he is stern and severe sometimes—Indeed, Tyrrel, I believe he loves me, though he has taught me to tremble at his frown when I am in spirits, and talk too much—But he loves me, at least I think so, for I am sure I love him; and I try to go down amongst them yonder, and to endure their folly, and, all things considered, I do carry on the farce of life wonderfully well—We are but actors, you know, and the world but a stage.”
“And ours has been a sad and tragic scene,” said Tyrrel, in the bitterness of his heart, unable any longer to refrain from speech.
“It has indeed—but, Tyrrel, when was it otherwise with engagements formed in youth and in folly? You and I would, you know, become men and women, while we were yet scarcely more than children—We have run, while yet in our nonage, through the passions and adventures of youth, and therefore we are now old before our day, and the winter of our life has come on ere its summer was well begun.—O Tyrrel! often and often have I thought of this!—Thought of it often? Alas, when will the time come that I shall be able to think of any thing else!”
The poor young woman sobbed bitterly, and her tears began to flow with a freedom which they had not probably enjoyed for a length of time. Tyrrel walked on by the side of her horse, which now prosecuted its road homewards, unable to devise a proper mode of addressing the unfortunate young lady, and fearing alike to awaken her passions and his own. Whatever he might have proposed to say, was disconcerted by the plain indications that her mind was clouded, more or less slightly, with a shade of insanity, which deranged, though it had not destroyed, her powers of judgment.
At length he asked her, with as much calmness as hecould assume—if she was contented—if aught could be done to render her situation more easy—if there was aught of which she could complain which he might be able to remedy? She answered gently, that she was calm and resigned, when her brother would permit her to stay at home; but that when she was brought into society, she experienced such a change as that which the water of the brook that slumbers in a crystalline pool of the rock may be supposed to feel, when, gliding from its quiet bed, it becomes involved in the hurry of the cataract.
“But my brother Mowbray,” she said, “thinks he is right,—and perhaps he is so. There are things on which we may ponder too long;—and were he mistaken, why should I not constrain myself in order to please him—there are so few left to whom I can now give either pleasure or pain?—I am a gay girl, too, in conversation, Tyrrel—still as gay for a moment, as when you used to chide me for my folly. So, now I have told you all,—I have one question to ask on my part—one question—if I had but breath to ask it—Ishestill alive?”
“He lives,” answered Tyrrel, but in a tone so low, that nought but the eager attention which Miss Mowbray paid could possibly have caught such feeble sounds.
“Lives!” she exclaimed,—“lives!—he lives, and the blood on your hand is not then indelibly imprinted—O Tyrrel, did you but know the joy which this assurance gives to me!”
“Joy!” replied Tyrrel—“joy, that the wretch lives who has poisoned our happiness for ever?—lives, perhaps, to claim you for his own?”
“Never, never shall he—dare he do so,” replied Clara, wildly, “while water can drown, while cords can strangle, steel pierce—while there is a precipice on the hill, a pool in the river—never—never!”
“Be not thus agitated, my dearest Clara,” said Tyrrel; “I spoke I know not what—he lives indeed—but far distant, and, I trust, never again to revisit Scotland.”
He would have said more, but that, agitated with fear or passion, she struck her horse impatiently with her riding-whip. The spirited animal, thus stimulated and at the same time restrained, became intractable, and reared so much, that Tyrrel, fearful of the consequences, and trusting to Clara's skill as a horsewoman, thought he best consulted her safety in letting go the rein. The animal instantly sprung forward on the broken and hilly path at a very rapid pace, and was soon lost to Tyrrel's anxious eyes.
As he stood pondering whether he ought not to follow Miss Mowbray towards Shaws-Castle, in order to be satisfied that no accident had befallen her on the road, he heard the tread of a horse's feet advancing hastily in the same direction, leading from the hotel. Unwilling to be observed at this moment, he stepped aside under shelter of the underwood, and presently afterwards saw Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's, followed by a groom, ride hastily past his lurking-place, and pursue the same road which had been just taken by his sister. The presence of her brother seemed to assure Miss Mowbray's safety, and so removed Tyrrel's chief reason for following her. Involved in deep and melancholy reflection upon what had passed, nearly satisfied that his longer residence in Clara's vicinity could only add to her unhappiness and his own, yet unable to tear himself from that neighbourhood, or to relinquish feelings which had become entwined with his heart-strings, he returned to his lodgings in the Aultoun, in a state of mind very little to be envied.
Tyrrel, on entering his apartment, found that it was not lighted, nor were the Abigails of Mrs. Dods quite so alert as a waiter at Long's might have been, to supply him with candles. Unapt at any time to exact much personal attendance, and desirous to shun at that moment the necessity of speaking to any person whatever, even on the most trifling subject, he walked down into the kitchen to supply himself with what he wanted. He did not at first observe that Mrs. Dods herself was present in this the very centre of her empire, far less that a lofty air of indignation was seated on the worthy matron's brow. At first it only vented itself in broken soliloquy and interjections; as, for example, “Vera bonny wark this!—vera creditable wark, indeed!—a decent house to be disturbed at these hours—Keep a public—as weel keep a bedlam!”
Finding these murmurs attracted no attention, the dame placed herself betwixt her guest and the door, to which he was now retiring with his lighted candle, and demanded of him what was the meaning of such behaviour.
“Of what behaviour, madam?” said her guest, repeating her question in a tone of sternness and impatience so unusual with him, that perhaps she was sorry at the moment that she had provoked him out of his usual patient indifference; nay, she might even feel intimidated at the altercation she had provoked, for the resentment of a quiet and patient person has always in it something formidable to the professed and habitual grumbler. But her pride was too great to think of a retreat, after having sounded the signal for contest, and so she continued, though in a tone somewhat lowered.
“Maister Tirl, I wad but just ask you, that are a man of sense, whether I hae ony right to take your behaviour weel? Here have you been these ten days and mair, eating the best, and drinking the best, and taking up the best room in my house; and now to think of your gaun doun and taking up with yon idle harebrained cattle at the Waal—I maun e'en be plain wi' ye—I like nane of the fair-fashioned folk that can say My Jo and think it no; and therefore”——
“Mrs. Dods,” said Tyrrel, interrupting her, “I have no time at present for trifles. I am obliged to you for your attention while I have been in your house; but the disposal of my time, here or elsewhere, must be according to my own ideas of pleasure or business—If you are tired of me as a guest, send in your bill to-morrow.”
“My bill!” said Mrs. Dods; “my bill to-morrow! And what for no wait till Saturday, when it may be cleared atween us, plack and bawbee, as it was on Saturday last?”
“Well—we will talk of it to-morrow, Mrs. Dods—Good-night.” And he withdrew accordingly.
Luckie Dods stood ruminating for a moment. “The deil's in him,” she said, “for he winna bide being thrawn. And I think the deil's in me too for thrawing him, sic a canny lad, and sae gude a customer;—and I am judging he has something on his mind—want of siller it canna be—I am sure if I thought that, I wadna care about my small thing.—But want o' siller it canna be—he pays ower the shillings as if they were sclate stanes, and that's nothe way that folk part with their siller when there's but little on't—I ken weel eneugh how a customer looks that's near the grund of the purse.—Weel! I hope he winna mind ony thing of this nonsense the morn, and I'll try to guide my tongue something better.—Hegh, sirs! but, as the minister says, it's an unruly member—troth, I am whiles ashamed o't mysell.”