The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott (best story books to read txt) 📗

old man must be departed,” he began to say, “or fallen into some fit; for the noise I have made would have waked the seven sleepers.”

At length a timid and hesitating voice replied: “Master—Master of Ravenswood, is it you?”

“Yes, it is I, Caleb; open the door quickly.”

“But it is you in very blood and body? For I would sooner face fifty deevils as my master’s ghaist, or even his wraith; wherefore, aroint ye, if ye were ten times my master, unless ye come in bodily shape, lith and limb.”

“It is I, you old fool,” answered Ravenswood, “in bodily shape and alive, save that I am half dead with cold.”

The light at the upper window disappeared, and glancing from loophole to loophole in slow succession, gave intimation that the bearer was in the act of descending, with great deliberation, a winding staircase occupying one of the turrets which graced the angles of the old tower. The tardiness of his descent extracted some exclamations of impatience from Ravenswood, and several oaths from his less patient and more mecurial companion. Caleb again paused ere he unbolted the door, and once more asked if they were men of mould that demanded entrance at this time of night.

“Were I near you, you old fool,” said Bucklaw, “I would give you sufficient proofs of my bodily condition.”

“Open the gate, Caleb,” said his master, in a more soothing tone, partly from his regard to the ancient and faithful seneschal, partly perhaps because he thought that angry words would be thrown away, so long as Caleb had a stout iron-clenched oaken door betwixt his person and the speakers.

At length Caleb, with a trembling hand, undid the bars, opened the heavy door, and stood before them, exhibiting his thin grey hairs, bald forehead, and sharp high features, illuminated by a quivering lamp which he held in one hand, while he shaded and protected its flame with the other. The timorous, courteous glance which he threw around him, the effect of the partial light upon his white hair and illumined features, might have made a good painting; but our travellers were too impatient for security against the rising storm to permit them to indulge themselves in studying the picturesque. “Is it you, my dear master?—is it you yourself, indeed?” exclaimed the old domestic. “I am wae ye suld hae stude waiting at your ain gate; but wha wad hae thought o’ seeing ye sae sune, and a strange gentleman with a—(Here he exclaimed apart, as it were, and to some inmate of the tower, in a voice not meant to be heard by those in the court)—Mysie—Mysie, woman! stir for dear life, and get the fire mended; take the auld three-legged stool, or ony thing that’s readiest that will make a lowe. I doubt we are but puirly provided, no expecting ye this some months, when doubtless ye was hae been received conform till your rank, as gude right is; but natheless——”

“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 thought 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 manœuvres. 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 bogle; 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 relieved; “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 match ours; no that we are pinched, thank God,” he added, retracting the admission which he had