The Fair Maid of Perth; Or, St. Valentine's Day by Walter Scott (popular romance novels txt) 📗

too good for me, since I must be ashamed to think how hard you fared in Curfew Street.”

“Even too well, to use your own word,” said Conachar, “for the deserts of an idle apprentice and for the wants of a young Highlander. But yesterday, if there was, as I trust, enough of food, found you not, good glover, some lack of courteous welcome? Excuse it not—I know you did so. But I am young in authority with my people, and I must not too early draw their attention to the period of my residence in the Lowlands, which, however, I can never forget.”

“I understand the cause entirely,” said Simon; “and therefore it is unwillingly, and as it were by force, that I have made so early a visit hither.”

“Hush, father—hush! It is well you are come to see some of my Highland splendour while it yet sparkles. Return after Palm Sunday, and who knows whom or what you may find in the territories we now possess! The wildcat may have made his lodge where the banqueting bower of MacIan now stands.”

The young chief was silent, and pressed the top of the rod to his lips, as if to guard against uttering more.

“There is no fear of that, Eachin,” said Simon, in that vague way in which lukewarm comforters endeavour to turn the reflections of their friends from the consideration of inevitable danger.

“There is fear, and there is peril of utter ruin,” answered Eachin, “and there is positive certainty of great loss. I marvel my father consented to this wily proposal of Albany. I would MacGillie Chattanach would agree with me, and then, instead of wasting our best blood against each other, we would go down together to Strathmore and kill and take possession. I would rule at Perth and he at Dundee, and all the great strath should be our own to the banks of the Firth of Tay. Such is the policy I have caught from your old grey head, father Simon, when holding a trencher at thy back, and listening to thy evening talk with Bailie Craigdallie.”

“The tongue is well called an unruly member,” thought the glover. “Here have I been holding a candle to the devil, to show him the way to mischief.”

But he only said aloud: “These plans come too late.”

“Too late indeed!” answered Eachin. “The indentures of battle are signed by our marks and seals, the burning hate of the Clan Quhele and Clan Chattan is blown up to an inextinguishable flame by mutual insults and boasts. Yes, the time is passed by. But to thine own affairs, father Glover. It is religion that has brought thee hither, as I learn from Niel Booshalloch. Surely, my experience of thy prudence did not lead me to suspect thee of any quarrel with Mother Church. As for my old acquaintance, Father Clement, he is one of those who hunt after the crown of martyrdom, and think a stake, surrounded with blazing fagots, better worth embracing than a willing bride. He is a very knight errant in defence of his religious notions, and does battle wherever he comes. He hath already a quarrel with the monks of Sibyl’s Isle yonder about some point of doctrine. Hast seen him?”

“I have,” answered Simon; “but we spoke little together, the time being pressing.”

“He may have said that there is a third person—one more likely, I think, to be a true fugitive for religion than either you, a shrewd citizen, or he, a wrangling preacher—who would be right heartily welcome to share our protection? Thou art dull, man, and wilt not guess my meaning—thy daughter, Catharine.”

These last words the young chief spoke in English; and he continued the conversation in that language, as if apprehensive of being overheard, and, indeed, as if under the sense of some involuntary hesitation.

“My daughter Catharine,” said the glover, remembering what the Carthusian had told him, “is well and safe.”

“But where or with whom?” said the young chief. “And wherefore came she not with you? Think you the Clan Quhele have no cailliachs as active as old Dorothy, whose hand has warmed my haffits before now, to wait upon the daughter of their chieftain’s master?”

“Again I thank you,” said the glover, “and doubt neither your power nor your will to protect my daughter, as well as myself. But an honourable lady, the friend of Sir Patrick Charteris, hath offered her a safe place of refuge without the risk of a toilsome journey through a desolate and distracted country.”

“Oh, ay, Sir Patrick Charteris,” said Eachin, in a more reserved and distant tone; “he must be preferred to all men, without doubt. He is your friend, I think?”

Simon Glover longed to punish this affectation of a boy who had been scolded four times a day for running into the street to see Sir Patrick Charteris ride past; but he checked his spirit of repartee, and simply said:

“Sir Patrick Charteris has been provost of Perth for seven years, and it is likely is so still, since the magistrates are elected, not in Lent, but at St. Martinmas.”

“Ah, father Glover,” said the youth, in his kinder and more familiar mode of address, “you are so used to see the sumptuous shows and pageants of Perth, that you would but little relish our barbarous festival in comparison. What didst thou think of our ceremonial of yesterday?”

“It was noble and touching,” said the glover; “and to me, who knew your father, most especially so. When you rested on the sword and looked around you, methought I saw mine old friend Gilchrist MacIan arisen from the dead and renewed in years and in strength.”

“I played my part there boldly, I trust; and showed little of that paltry apprentice boy whom you used to—use just as he deserved?”

“Eachin resembles Conachar,” said the glover, “no more than a salmon resembles a gar, though men say they are the same fish in a different state, or than a butterfly resembles a grub.”

“Thinkest thou that, while I was taking upon me the power which all women love, I would have been myself an object for a maiden’s eye to rest upon? To speak plain, what would Catharine have thought of me in the ceremonial?”

“We approach the shallows now,” thought Simon Glover, “and without nice pilotage we drive right on shore.”

“Most women like show, Eachin; but I think my daughter Catharine be an exception. She would rejoice in the good fortune of her household friend and playmate; but she would not value the splendid MacIan, captain of Clan Quhele, more than the orphan Conachar.”

“She is ever generous and disinterested,” replied the young chief. “But yourself, father, have seen the world for many more years than she has done, and can better form a judgment what power and wealth do for those who enjoy them. Think, and speak sincerely, what would be your own thoughts if you saw your Catharine standing under yonder canopy, with the command over an hundred hills, and the devoted obedience of ten thousand vassals; and as the price of these advantages, her hand in that of the man who loves her the best in the world?”