Bride of Lammermoor Part 11

Tennis for my sport, and battle for my earnest! And you, Master, so dep and considerate as you would seem, you have that within you makes the blood boil faster than suits your present humour of moralising on political truths. You are one of those wise men who see everything with great composure till their blood is up, and then--woe to any one who should put them in mind of their own prudential maxims!" "Perhaps," said Ravenswood, "you read me more rightly than I can myself. But to think justly will certainly go some length in helping me to act so. But hark!

I hear Caleb tolling the dinner-bell."

"Which he always does with the more sonorous grace in proportion to the meagreness of the cheer which he has provided," said Bucklaw; "as if that infernal clang and jangle, which will one day bring the belfry down the cliff, could convert a starved hen into a fat capon, and a blade-bone of mutton into a haunch of venison."

"I wish we may be so well off as your worst conjectures surmise, Bucklaw, from the extreme solemnity and ceremony with which Caleb seems to place on the table that solitary covered dish."

"Uncover, Caleb! uncover, for Heaven's sake!" said Bucklaw; "let us have what you can give us without preface. Why, it stands well enough, man,"

he continued, addressing impatiently the ancient butler, who, without reply, kept s.h.i.+fting the dish, until he had at length placed it with mathematical precision in the very midst of the table.

"What have we got here, Caleb?" inquired the Master in his turn.

"Ahem! sir, ye suld have known before; but his honour the Laird of Bucklaw is so impatient," answered Caleb, still holding the dish with one hand and the cover with the other, with evident reluctance to disclose the contents.

"But what is it, a G.o.d's name--not a pair of clean spurs, I hope, in the Border fas.h.i.+on of old times?"

"Ahem! ahem!" reiterated Caleb, "your honour is pleased to be facetious; natheless, I might presume to say it was a convenient fas.h.i.+on, and used, as I have heard, in an honourable and thriving family. But touching your present dinner, I judged that this being St. Magdalen's [Margaret's]

Eve, who was a worthy queen of Scotland in her day, your honours might judge it decorous, if not altogether to fast, yet only to sustain nature with some slight refection, as ane saulted herring or the like." And, uncovering the dish, he displayed four of the savoury fishes which he mentioned, adding, in a subdued tone, "that they were no just common herring neither, being every ane melters, and sauted with uncommon care by the housekeeper (poor Mysie) for his honour's especial use."

"Out upon all apologies!" said the Master, "let us eat the herrings, since there is nothing better to be had; but I begin to think with you, Bucklaw, that we are consuming the last green leaf, and that, in spite of the Marquis's political machinations, we must positively s.h.i.+ft camp for want of forage, without waiting the issue of them."

CHAPTER IX.

Ay, and when huntsmen wind the merry horn, And from its covert starts the fearful prey, Who, warm'd with youth's blood in his swelling veins, Would, like a lifeless clod, outstretched lie, Shut out from all the fair creation offers?

Ethwald, Act I. Scene 1.

LIGHT meals procure light slumbers; and therefore it is not surprising that, considering the fare which Caleb's conscience, or his necessity, a.s.suming, as will sometimes happen, that disguise, had a.s.signed to the guests of Wolf's Crag, their slumbers should have been short.

In the morning Bucklaw rushed into his host's apartment with a loud halloo, which might have awaked the dead.

"Up! up! in the name of Heaven! The hunters are out, the only piece of sport I have seen this month; and you lie here, Master, on a bed that has little to recommend it, except that it may be something softer than the stone floor of your ancestor's vault."

"I wish," said Ravenswood, raising his head peevishly, "you had forborne so early a jest, Mr. Hayston; it is really no pleasure to lose the very short repose which I had just begun to enjoy, after a night spent in thoughts upon fortune far harder than my couch, Bucklaw."

"Pschaw, pshaw!" replied his guest; "get up--get up; the hounds are abroad. I have saddled the horses myself, for old Caleb was calling for grooms and lackeys, and would never have proceeded without two hours'

apology for the absence of men that were a hundred miles off. Get up, Master; I say the hounds are out--get up, I say; the hunt is up." And off ran Bucklaw.

"And I say," said the Master, rising slowly, "that nothing can concern me less. Whose hounds come so near to us?"

"The Honourable Lord Brittlebrains's," answered Caleb, who had followed the impatient Laird of Bucklaw into his master's bedroom, "and truly I ken nae t.i.tle they have to be yowling and howling within the freedoms and immunities of your lords.h.i.+p's right of free forestry."

"Nor I, Caleb," replied Ravenswood, "excepting that they have bought both the lands and the right of forestry, and may think themselves ent.i.tled to exercise the rights they have paid their money for."

"It may be sae, my lord," replied Caleb; "but it's no gentleman's deed of them to come here and exercise such-like right, and your lords.h.i.+p living at your ain castle of Wolf's Crag. Lord Brittlebrains would weel to remember what his folk have been."

"And what we now are," said the Master, with suppressed bitterness of feeling. "But reach me my cloak, Caleb, and I will indulge Bucklaw with a sight of this chase. It is selfish to sacrifice my guest's pleasure to my own."

"Sacrifice!" echoed Caleb, in a tone which seemed to imply the total absurdity of his master making the least concession in deference to any one--"sacrifice, indeed!--but I crave your honour's pardon, and whilk doublet is it your pleasure to wear?"

"Any one you will, Caleb; my wardrobe, I suppose, is not very extensive."

"Not extensive!" echoed his a.s.sistant; "when there is the grey and silver that your lords.h.i.+p bestowed on Hew Hildebrand, your outrider; and the French velvet that went with my lord your father--be gracious to him!--my lord your father's auld wardrobe to the puir friends of the family; and the drap-de-Berry----"

"Which I gave to you, Caleb, and which, I suppose, is the only dress we have any chance to come at, except that I wore yesterday; pray, hand me that, and say no more about it."

"If your honour has a fancy," replied Caleb, "and doubtless it's a sad-coloured suit, and you are in mourning; nevertheless, I have never tried on the drap-de-Berry--ill wad it become me--and your honour having no change of claiths at this present--and it's weel brushed, and as there are leddies down yonder----"

"Ladies!" said Ravenswood; "and what ladies, pray?"

"What do I ken, your lords.h.i.+p? Looking down at them from the Warden's Tower, I could but see them glent by wi' their bridles ringing and their feathers fluttering, like the court of Elfland."

"Well, well, Caleb," replied the Master, "help me on with my cloak, and hand me my sword-belt. What clatter is that in the courtyard?"

"Just Bucklaw bringing out the horses," said Caleb, after a glance through the window, "as if there werena men eneugh in the castle, or as if I couldna serve the turn of ony o' them that are out o' the gate."

"Alas! Caleb, we should want little if your ability were equal to your will," replied the Master.

"And I hope your lords.h.i.+p disna want that muckle," said Caleb; "for, considering a' things, I trust we support the credit of the family as weel as things will permit of,--only Bucklaw is aye sae frank and sae forward. And there he has brought out your lords.h.i.+p's palfrey, without the saddle being decored wi' the broidered sumpter-cloth! and I could have brushed it in a minute."

"It is all very well," said his master, escaping from him and descending the narrow and steep winding staircase which led to the courtyard.

"It MAY be a' very weel," said Caleb, somewhat peevishly; "but if your lords.h.i.+p wad tarry a bit, I will tell you what will NOT be very weel."

"And what is that?" said Ravenswood, impatiently, but stopping at the same time.

"Why, just that ye suld speer ony gentleman hame to dinner; for I canna mak anither fast on a feast day, as when I cam ower Bucklaw wi' Queen Margaret; and, to speak truth, if your lords.h.i.+p wad but please to cast yoursell in the way of dining wi' Lord Bittlebrains, I'se warrand I wad cast about brawly for the morn; or if, stead o' that, ye wad but dine wi' them at the change-house, ye might mak your s.h.i.+ft for the awing: ye might say ye had forgot your purse, or that the carline awed ye rent, and that ye wad allow it in the settlement."

"Or any other lie that cam uppermost, I suppose?" said his master.

"Good-bye, Caleb; I commend your care for the honour of the family."

And, throwing himself on his horse, he followed Bucklaw, who, at the manifest risk of his neck, had begun to gallop down the steep path which led from the Tower as soon as he saw Ravenswood have his foot in the stirrup.

Caleb Balderstone looked anxiously after them, and shook his thin grey locks: "And I trust they will come to no evil; but they have reached the plain, and folk cannot say but that the horse are hearty and in spirits." Animated by the natural impetuosity and fire of his temper, young Bucklaw rushed on with the careless speed of a whirlwind.

Ravenswood was scarce more moderate in his pace, for his was a mind unwillingly roused from contemplative inactivity, but which, when once put into motion, acquired a spirit of forcible and violent progression.

Neither was his eagerness proportioned in all cases to the motive of impulse, but might be compared to the sped of a stone, which rushes with like fury down the hill whether it was first put in motion by the arm of a giant or the hand of a boy. He felt, therefore, in no ordinary degree, the headlong impulse of the chase, a pastime so natural to youth of all ranks, that it seems rather to be an inherent pa.s.sion in our animal nature, which levels all differences of rank and education, than an acquired habit of rapid exercise.

The repeated bursts of the French horn, which was then always used for the encouragement and direction of the hounds; the deep, though distant baying of the pack; the half-heard cries of the huntsmen; the half-seen forms which were discovered, now emerging from glens which crossed the moor, now sweeping over its surface, now picking their way where it was impeded by mora.s.ses; and, above all, the feeling of his own rapid motion, animated the Master of Ravenswood, at last for the moment, above the recollections of a more painful nature by which he was surrounded.

The first thing which recalled him to those unpleasing circ.u.mstances was feeling that his horse, notwithstanding all the advantages which he received from his rider's knowledge of the country, was unable to keep up with the chase. As he drew his bridle up with the bitter feeling that his poverty excluded him from the favourite recreation of his forefathers, and indeed their sole employment when not engaged in military pursuits, he was accosted by a well-mounted stranger, who, un.o.bserved, had kept near him during the earlier part of his career.

"Your horse is blown," said the man, with a complaisance seldom used in a hunting-field. "Might I crave your honour to make use of mine?"

"Sir," said Ravenswood, more surprised than pleased at such a proposal.

"I really do not know how I have merited such a favour at a stranger's hands."

"Never ask a question about it, Master," said Bucklaw, who, with great unwillingness, had hitherto reined in his own gallant steed, not to outride his host and entertainer. "Take the goods the G.o.ds provide you, as the great John Dryden says; or stay--here, my friend, lend me that horse; I see you have been puzzled to rein him up this half-hour. I'll take the devil out of him for you. Now, Master, do you ride mine, which will carry you like an eagle."

And throwing the rein of his own horse to the Master of Ravenswood, he sprung upon that which the stranger resigned to him, and continued his career at full speed. "Was ever so thoughtless a being!" said the Master; "and you, my friend, how could you trust him with your horse?"