Redgauntlet: A Tale of the Eighteenth Century by Walter Scott (classic romance novels txt) 📗

‘Go with him, Nixon,’ said Redgauntlet, forcing himself to speak with some appearance of cordiality to the servant with whom he was offended; ‘see he does his duty.’

Ewart left the house sullenly, followed by Nixon. The sailor was just in that species of drunken humour which made him jealous, passionate, and troublesome, without showing any other disorder than that of irritability. As he walked towards the beach he kept muttering to himself, but in such a tone that his companion lost not a word, ‘Smuggling fellow—Aye, smuggler—and, start your cargo into the sea—and be ready to start for the Hebrides, or Sweden—or the devil, I suppose. Well, and what if I said in answer—Rebel, Jacobite—traitor; I’ll make you and your d——d confederates walk the plank—I have seen better men do it—half a score of a morning—when I was across the Line.’

‘D—d unhandsome terms those Redgauntlet used to you, brother.’ said Nixon.

‘Which do you mean?’ said Ewart, starting, and recollecting himself. ‘I have been at my old trade of thinking aloud, have I?’

‘No matter,’ answered Nixon, ‘none but a friend heard you. You cannot have forgotten how Redgauntlet disarmed you this morning.’

‘Why, I would bear no malice about that—only he is so cursedly high and saucy,’ said Ewart.

‘And then,’ said Nixon, ‘I know you for a true-hearted Protestant.’

‘That I am, by G—,’ said Ewart. ‘No, the Spaniards could never get my religion from me.’

‘And a friend to King George, and the Hanover line of succession,’ said Nixon, still walking and speaking very slow.

‘You may swear I am, excepting in the way of business, as Turnpenny says. I like King George, but I can’t afford to pay duties.’

‘You are outlawed, I believe,’ said Nixon.

‘Am I?—faith, I believe I am,’ said Ewart. ‘I wish I were INLAWED again with all my heart. But come along, we must get all ready for our peremptory gentleman, I suppose.’

‘I will teach you a better trick,’ said Nixon. ‘There is a bloody pack of rebels yonder.’

‘Aye, we all know that,’ said the smuggler; ‘but the snowball’s melting, I think.’

‘There is some one yonder, whose head is worth—thirty thousand—pounds—of sterling money,’ said Nixon, pausing between each word, as if to enforce the magnificence of the sum.

‘And what of that?’ said Ewart, quickly.

‘Only that, instead of lying by the pier with your men on their oars, if you will just carry your boat on board just now, and take no notice of any signal from the shore, by G—d, Nanty Ewart. I will make a man of you for life!’

‘Oh ho! then the Jacobite gentry are not so safe as they think themselves?’ said Nanty.

‘In an hour or two,’ replied Nixon, ‘they will be made safer in Carlisle Castle.’

‘The devil they will!’ said Ewart; ‘and you have been the informer, I suppose?’

‘Yes; I have been ill paid for my service among the Redgauntlets—have scarce got dog’s wages—and been treated worse than ever dog was used. I have the old fox and his cubs in the same trap now, Nanty; and we’ll see how a certain young lady will look then. You see I am frank with you, Nanty.’

‘And I will be as frank with you,’ said the smuggler. ‘You are a d—d old scoundrel—traitor to the man whose bread you eat! Me help to betray poor devils, that have been so often betrayed myself! Not if they were a hundred Popes, Devils, and Pretenders. I will back and tell them their danger—they are part of cargo—regularly invoiced—put under my charge by the owners—I’ll back’—

‘You are not stark mad?’ said Nixon, who now saw he had miscalculated in supposing Nanty’s wild ideas of honour and fidelity could be shaken even by resentment, or by his Protestant partialities. ‘You shall not go back—it is all a joke.’

‘I’ll back to Redgauntlet, and see whether it is a joke he will laugh at.’

‘My life is lost if you do,’ said Nixon—‘hear reason.’

They were in a clump or cluster of tall furze at the moment they were speaking, about half-way between the pier and the house, but not in a direct line, from which Nixon, whose object it was to gain time, had induced Ewart to diverge insensibly.

He now saw the necessity of taking a desperate resolution. ‘Hear reason,’ he said; and added, as Nanty still endeavoured to pass him, ‘Or else hear this!’ discharging a pocket-pistol into the unfortunate man’s body.

Nanty staggered, but kept his feet. ‘It has cut my back-bone asunder,’ he said; ‘you have done me the last good office, and I will not die ungrateful.’

As he uttered the last words, he collected his remaining strength, stood firm for an instant, drew his hanger, and, fetching a stroke with both hands, cut Cristal Nixon down. The blow, struck with all the energy of a desperate and dying man, exhibited a force to which Ewart’s exhausted frame might have seemed inadequate;—it cleft the hat which the wretch wore, though secured by a plate of iron within the lining, bit deep into his skull, and there left a fragment of the weapon, which was broke by the fury of the blow.

One of the seamen of the lugger, who strolled up attracted by the firing of the pistol, though being a small one the report was very trifling, found both the unfortunate men stark dead. Alarmed at what he saw, which he conceived to have been the consequence of some unsuccessful engagement betwixt his late commander and a revenue officer (for Nixon chanced not to be personally known to him) the sailor hastened back to the boat, in order to apprise his comrades of Nanty’s fate, and to advise them to take off themselves and the vessel.

Meantime Redgauntlet, having, as we have seen, dispatched Nixon for the purpose of securing a retreat for the unfortunate Charles, in case of extremity, returned to the apartment where he had left the Wanderer. He now found him alone.

‘Sir Richard Glendale,’ said the unfortunate prince, ‘with his young friend, has gone to consult their adherents now in the house. Redgauntlet, my friend, I will not blame you for the circumstances in which I find myself, though I am at once placed in danger, and rendered contemptible. But you ought to have stated to me more strongly the weight which these gentlemen attached to their insolent proposition. You should have told me that no compromise would have any effect—that they desire not a prince to govern them, but one, on the contrary, over whom they were to exercise restraint on all occasions, from the highest affairs of the state, down to the most intimate and private concerns of his own privacy, which the most ordinary men desire to keep secret and sacred from interference.’

‘God knows,’ said Redgauntlet, in much agitation, ‘I acted for