Old Mortality, Complete by Walter Scott (christmas read aloud .txt) 📗

“Are the family at the house?” said the stranger, with an interrupted and broken voice.

“No, stir, they’re awa wi’ a’ the servants,—they keep only twa nowadays, and my gudewife there has the keys and the charge, though she’s no a fee’d servant. She has been born and bred in the family, and has a’ trust and management. If they were there, we behovedna to take sic freedom without their order; but when they are awa, they will be weel pleased we serve a stranger gentleman. Miss Bellenden wad help a’ the haill warld, an her power were as gude as her will; and her grandmother, Leddy Margaret, has an unto respect for the gentry, and she’s no ill to the poor bodies neither.—And now, wife, what for are ye no getting forrit wi’ the sowens?”

“Never mind, lad,” rejoined Jenny, “ye sall hae them in gude time; I ken weel that ye like your brose het.”

Cuddie fidgeted and laughed with a peculiar expression of intelligence at this repartee, which was followed by a dialogue of little consequence betwixt his wife and him, in which the stranger took no share. At length he suddenly interrupted them by the question: “Can you tell me when Lord Evandale’s marriage takes place?”

“Very soon, we expect,” answered Jenny, before it was possible for her husband to reply; “it wad hae been ower afore now, but for the death o’ auld Major Bellenden.”

“The excellent old man!” said the stranger; “I heard at Edinburgh he was no more. Was he long ill?”

“He couldna be said to haud up his head after his brother’s wife and his niece were turned out o’ their ain house; and he had himsell sair borrowing siller to stand the law,—but it was in the latter end o’ King James’s days; and Basil Olifant, who claimed the estate, turned a papist to please the managers, and then naething was to be refused him. Sae the law gaed again the leddies at last, after they had fought a weary sort o’ years about it; and, as I said before, the major ne’er held up his head again. And then cam the pitting awa o’ the Stewart line; and, though he had but little reason to like them, he couldna brook that, and it clean broke the heart o’ him; and creditors cam to Charnwood and cleaned out a’ that was there,—he was never rich, the gude auld man, for he dow’d na see onybody want.”

“He was indeed,” said the stranger, with a faltering voice, “an admirable man,—that is, I have heard that he was so. So the ladies were left without fortune, as well as without a protector?”

“They will neither want the tane nor the tother while Lord Evandale lives,” said Jenny; “he has been a true friend in their griefs. E’en to the house they live in is his lordship’s; and never man, as my auld gudemother used to say, since the days of the Patriarch Jacob, served sae lang and sae sair for a wife as gude Lord Evandale has dune.”

“And why,” said the stranger, with a voice that quivered with emotion, “why was he not sooner rewarded by the object of his attachment?”

“There was the lawsuit to be ended,” said Jenny readily, “forby many other family arrangements.”

“Na, but,” said Cuddie, “there was another reason forby; for the young leddy—”

“Whisht, hand your tongue, and sup your sowens,” said his wife; “I see the gentleman’s far frae weel, and downa eat our coarse supper. I wad kill him a chicken in an instant.”

“There is no occasion,” said the stranger; “I shall want only a glass of water, and to be left alone.”

“You’ll gie yoursell the trouble then to follow me,” said Jenny, lighting a small lantern, “and I’ll show you the way.”

Cuddie also proffered his assistance; but his wife reminded him, “That the bairns would be left to fight thegither, and coup ane anither into the fire,” so that he remained to take charge of the menage. His wife led the way up a little winding path, which, after threading some thickets of sweetbrier and honeysuckle, conducted to the back-door of a small garden. Jenny undid the latch, and they passed through an old-fashioned flower-garden, with its clipped yew hedges and formal parterres, to a glass-sashed door, which she opened with a master-key, and lighting a candle, which she placed upon a small work-table, asked pardon for leaving him there for a few minutes, until she prepared his apartment. She did not exceed five minutes in these preparations; but when she returned, was startled to find that the stranger had sunk forward with his head upon the table, in what she at first apprehended to be a swoon. As she advanced to him, however, she could discover by his short-drawn sobs that it was a paroxysm of mental agony. She prudently drew back until he raised his head, and then showing herself, without seeming to have observed his agitation, informed him that his bed was prepared. The stranger gazed at her a moment, as if to collect the sense of her words. She repeated them; and only bending his head, as an indication that he understood her, he entered the apartment, the door of which she pointed out to him. It was a small bedchamber, used, as she informed him, by Lord Evandale when a guest at Fairy Knowe, connecting, on one side, with a little china-cabinet which opened to the garden, and on the other, with a saloon, from which it was only separated by a thin wainscot partition. Having wished the stranger better health and good rest, Jenny descended as speedily as she could to her own mansion.

“Oh, Cuddie!” she exclaimed to her helpmate as she entered, “I doubt we’re ruined folk!”

“How can that be? What’s the matter wi’ ye?” returned the imperturbed Cuddie, who was one of those persons who do not easily take alarm at anything.

“Wha d’ ye think yon gentleman is? Oh that ever ye suld hae asked him to light here!” exclaimed Jenny.

“Why, wha the muckle deil d’ye say he is? There’s nae law against harbouring and intercommunicating now,” said Cuddie; “sae, Whig or Tory, what need we care wha he be?”

“Ay, but it’s ane will ding Lord Evandale’s marriage ajee yet, if it ’s no the better looked to,” said Jenny; “it’s Miss Edith’s first joe, your ain auld maister, Cuddie.”

“The deil, woman!” exclaimed Cuddie, starting up, “Crow ye that I am blind? I wad hae kend Mr. Harry Morton amang a hunder.”

“Ay, but, Cuddie lad,” replied Jenny, “though ye are no blind, ye are no sae notice-taking as I am.”

“Weel, what for needs ye cast that up to me just now; or what did ye see about the man that was like our Maister Harry?”

“I will tell ye,” said Jenny. “I jaloused his keeping his face frae us, and speaking wi’ a madelike voice, sae I e’en tried him wi’ some tales o lang syne; and when I spake o’ the brose, ye ken, he didna just laugh,—he’s ower grave for that nowadays, but he gae a gledge wi’ his ee that I kend he took up what I said. And a’ his distress is about Miss Edith’s