Old Mortality, Volume 2. by Walter Scott (most important books to read txt) 📗

she was desirous of excluding them on account of its contiguity to the room in which Morton slept—was not only unlocked, but absolutely ajar. Miss Bellenden was too much engaged with her own immediate subjects of reflection to take much notice of the circumstance, but, desiring the servant to open the window-shutters, walked into the room along with her friend.

"He is not yet come," she said. "What can your brother possibly mean? Why express so anxious a wish that we should meet him here? And why not come to Castle Dinnan, as he proposed? I own, my dear Emily, that, even engaged as we are to each other, and with the sanction of your presence, I do not feel that I have done quite right in indulging him."

"Evandale was never capricious," answered his sister; "I am sure he will satisfy us with his reasons, and if he does not, I will help you to scold him."

"What I chiefly fear," said Edith, "is his having engaged in some of the plots of this fluctuating and unhappy time. I know his heart is with that dreadful Claverhouse and his army, and I believe he would have joined them ere now but for my uncle's death, which gave him so much additional trouble on our account. How singular that one so rational and so deeply sensible of the errors of the exiled family should be ready to risk all for their restoration!"

"What can I say?" answered Lady Emily,—"it is a point of honour with Evandale. Our family have always been loyal; he served long in the Guards; the Viscount of Dundee was his commander and his friend for years; he is looked on with an evil eye by many of his own relations, who set down his inactivity to the score of want of spirit. You must be aware, my dear Edith, how often family connections and early predilections influence our actions more than abstract arguments. But I trust Evandale will continue quiet,—though, to tell you truth, I believe you are the only one who can keep him so."

"And how is it in my power?" said Miss Bellenden.

"You can furnish him with the Scriptural apology for not going forth with the host,—'he has married a wife, and therefore cannot come.'"

"I have promised," said Edith, in a faint voice; "but I trust I shall not be urged on the score of time."

"Nay," said Lady Emily, "I will leave Evandale (and here he comes) to plead his own cause."

"Stay, stay, for God's sake!" said Edith, endeavouring to detain her.

"Not I, not I," said the young lady, making her escape; "the third person makes a silly figure on such occasions. When you want me for breakfast, I will be found in the willow-walk by the river."

As she tripped out of the room, Lord Evandale entered. "Good-morrow, Brother, and good-by till breakfast-time," said the lively young lady; "I trust you will give Miss Bellenden some good reasons for disturbing her rest so early in the morning."

And so saying, she left them together, without waiting a reply.

"And now, my lord," said Edith, "may I desire to know the meaning of your singular request to meet you here at so early an hour?"

She was about to add that she hardly felt herself excusable in having complied with it; but upon looking at the person whom she addressed, she was struck dumb by the singular and agitated expression of his countenance, and interrupted herself to exclaim, "For God's sake, what is the matter?"

"His Majesty's faithful subjects have gained a great and most decisive victory near Blair of Athole; but, alas! my gallant friend Lord Dundee—"

"Has fallen?" said Edith, anticipating the rest of his tidings.

"True, most true: he has fallen in the arms of victory, and not a man remains of talents and influence sufficient to fill up his loss in King James's service. This, Edith, is no time for temporizing with our duty. I have given directions to raise my followers, and I must take leave of you this evening."

"Do not think of it, my lord," answered Edith; "your life is—essential to your friends,—do not throw it away in an adventure so rash. What can your single arm, and the few tenants or servants who might follow you, do against the force of almost all Scotland, the Highland clans only excepted?"

"Listen to me, Edith," said Lord Evandale. "I am not so rash as you may suppose me, nor are my present motives of such light importance as to affect only those personally dependent on myself. The Life Guards, with whom I served so long, although new-modelled and new-officered by the Prince of Orange, retain a predilection for the cause of their rightful master; and "—and here he whispered as if he feared even the walls of the apartment had ears—"when my foot is known to be in the stirrup, two regiments of cavalry have sworn to renounce the usurper's service, and fight under my orders. They delayed only till Dundee should descend into the Lowlands; but since he is no more, which of his successors dare take that decisive step, unless encouraged by the troops declaring themselves! Meantime, the zeal of the soldiers will die away. I must bring them to a decision while their hearts are glowing with the victory their old leader has obtained, and burning to avenge his untimely death."

"And will you, on the faith of such men as you know these soldiers to be," said Edith, "take a part of such dreadful moment?"

"I will," said Lord Evandale,—"I must; my honour and loyalty are both pledged for it."

"And all for the sake," continued Miss Bellenden, "of a prince whose measures, while he was on the throne, no one could condemn more than Lord Evandale?"

"Most true," replied Lord Evandale; "and as I resented, even during the plenitude of his power, his innovations on Church and State, like a freeborn subject, I am determined I will assert his real rights, when he is in adversity, like a loyal one. Let courtiers and sycophants flatter power and desert misfortune; I will neither do the one nor the other."

"And if you are determined to act what my feeble judgment must still term rashly, why give yourself the pain of this untimely meeting?"

"Were it not enough to answer," said Lord Evandale, "that, ere rushing on battle, I wished to bid adieu to my betrothed bride? Surely it is judging coldly of my feelings, and showing too plainly the indifference of your own, to question my motive for a request so natural."

"But why in this place, my lord," said Edith; and why with such peculiar circumstances of mystery?"

"Because," he replied, putting a letter into her hand, "I have yet another request, which I dare hardly proffer, even when prefaced by these credentials."

In haste and terror, Edith glanced over the letter, which was from her grandmother.

"My dearest childe," such was its tenor in style and spelling, "I never more deeply regretted the reumatizm, which disqualified me from riding on horseback, than at this present writing, when I would most have wished to be where this paper will soon be, that is at Fairy Knowe, with my poor dear Willie's only child. But it is the will of God I should not be with her, which I conclude to be the case, as much for the pain I now suffer, as because it hath now not given way either to cammomile poultices or to decoxion of wild mustard, wherewith I have often relieved others. Therefore, I must tell you, by writing instead of word of mouth, that, as my young Lord Evandale is called to the present campaign, both by his honour and his duty, he hath earnestly solicited me that the bonds of holy matrimony be knitted before his departure to the wars between you and him, in implement of the indenture formerly entered into for that effeck, whereuntill, as I see no raisonable objexion, so I trust that you, who have been always a good and obedient childe, will not devize any which has less than raison. It is trew that the contrax of our house have heretofore been celebrated in a manner more befitting our Rank, and not in private, and with few witnesses, as a thing done in a corner. But it has been Heaven's own free will, as well as those of the kingdom where we live, to take away from us our estate, and from the King his throne. Yet I trust He will yet restore the rightful heir to the throne, and turn his heart to the true Protestant Episcopal faith, which I have the better right to expect to see even with my old eyes, as I have beheld the royal family when they were struggling as sorely with masterful usurpers and rebels as they are now; that is to say, when his most sacred Majesty, Charles the Second of happy memory, honoured our poor house of Tillietudlem by taking his /disjune/ therein," etc., etc., etc.

We will not abuse the reader's patience by quoting more of Lady Margaret's prolix epistle. Suffice it to say that it closed by laying her commands on her grandchild to consent to