Redgauntlet: A Tale Of The Eighteenth Century

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XX

  NARRATIVE OF DARSIE LATIMER, CONTINUED

  Joe Crackenthorp's public-house had never, since it first rearedits chimneys on the banks of the Solway, been frequented by such amiscellaneous group of visitors as had that morning become its guests.Several of them were persons whose quality seemed much superior totheir dresses and modes of travelling. The servants who attended themcontradicted the inferences to be drawn from the garb of their masters,and, according to the custom of the knights of the rainbow, gave manyhints that they were not people to serve any but men of first-rateconsequence. These gentlemen, who had come thither chiefly for thepurpose of meeting with Mr. Redgauntlet, seemed moody and anxious,conversed and walked together apparently in deep conversation, andavoided any communication with the chance travellers whom accidentbrought that morning to the same place of resort.

  As if Fate had set herself to confound the plans of the Jacobiteconspirators, the number of travellers was unusually great, theirappearance respectable, and they filled the public tap-room of the inn,where the political guests had already occupied most of the privateapartments.

  Amongst others, honest Joshua Geddes had arrived, travelling, as hesaid, in the sorrow of the soul, and mourning for the fate of DarsieLatimer as he would for his first-born child. He had skirted the wholecoast of the Solway, besides making various trips into the interior,not shunning, on such occasions, to expose himself to the laugh of thescorner, nay, even to serious personal risk, by frequenting the hauntsof smugglers, horse-jockeys, and other irregular persons, who lookedon his intrusion with jealous eyes, and were apt to consider him asan exciseman in the disguise of a Quaker. All this labour and peril,however, had been undergone in vain. No search he could make obtainedthe least intelligence of Latimer, so that he began to fear the poor ladhad been spirited abroad--for the practice of kidnapping was then notinfrequent, especially on the western coasts of Britain--if indeed hehad escaped a briefer and more bloody fate.

  With a heavy heart, he delivered his horse, even Solomon, into the handsof the ostler, and walking into the inn, demanded from the landlordbreakfast and a private room. Quakers, and such hosts as old FatherCrackenthorp, are no congenial spirits; the latter looked askew over hisshoulder, and replied, 'If you would have breakfast here, friend, youare like to eat it where other folk eat theirs.'

  'And wherefore can I not,' said the Quaker, 'have an apartment tomyself, for my money?'

  'Because, Master Jonathan, you must wait till your betters be served, orelse eat with your equals.'

  Joshua Geddes argued the point no further, but sitting quietly down onthe seat which Crackenthorp indicated to him, and calling for a pintof ale, with some bread, butter, and Dutch cheese, began to satisfy theappetite which the morning air had rendered unusually alert.

  While the honest Quaker was thus employed, another stranger entered theapartment, and sat down near to the table on which his victuals wereplaced. He looked repeatedly at Joshua, licked his parched and choppedlips as he saw the good Quaker masticate his bread and cheese, andsucked up his thin chops when Mr. Geddes applied the tankard to hismouth, as if the discharge of these bodily functions by another hadawakened his sympathies in an uncontrollable degree. At last, beingapparently unable to withstand his longings, he asked, in a falteringtone, the huge landlord, who was tramping through the room in allcorpulent impatience, whether he could have a plack-pie?'

  'Never heard of such a thing, master,' said the landlord, and was aboutto trudge onward; when the guest, detaining him, said, in a strongScottish tone, 'Ya will maybe have nae whey then, nor buttermilk, nor yecouldna exhibit a souter's clod?'

  'Can't tell what ye are talking about, master,' said Crackenthorp.

  'Then ye will have nae breakfast that will come within 'the compass of ashilling Scots?'

  'Which is a penny sterling,' answered Crackenthorp, with a sneer. 'Why,no, Sawney, I can't say as we have--we can't afford it; But you shallhave a bellyful for love, as we say in the bull-ring.'

  'I shall never refuse a fair offer,' said the poverty-stricken guest;'and I will say that for the English, if they were deils, that they area ceeveleesed people to gentlemen that are under a cloud.'

  'Gentlemen!--humph!' said Crackenthorp--'not a blue-cap among them buthalts upon that foot.' Then seizing on a dish which still contained ahuge cantle of what had been once a princely mutton pasty, he placedit on the table before the stranger, saying, 'There, master gentleman;there is what is worth all the black pies, as you call them, that wereever made of sheep's head.'

  'Sheep's head is a gude thing, for a' that,' replied the guest; butnot being spoken so loud as to offend his hospitable entertainer, theinterjection might pass for a private protest against the scandal thrownout against the standing dish of Caledonia.

  This premised, he immediately began to transfer the mutton andpie-crust from his plate to his lips, in such huge gobbets, as if he wasrefreshing after a three days' fast, and laying in provisions against awhole Lent to come.

  Joshua Geddes in his turn gazed on him with surprise, having never, hethought, beheld such a gaunt expression of hunger in the act of eating.'Friend,' he said, after watching him for some minutes, 'if thou gorgestthyself in this fashion, thou wilt assuredly choke. Wilt thou not take adraught out of my cup to help down all that dry meat?'

  'Troth,' said the stranger, stopping and looking at the friendlypropounder, 'that's nae bad overture, as they say in the GeneralAssembly. I have heard waur motions than that frae wiser counsel.'

  Mr. Geddes ordered a quart of home-brewed to be placed before our friendPeter Peebles; for the reader must have already conceived that thisunfortunate litigant was the wanderer in question.

  The victim of Themis had no sooner seen the flagon, than he seizedit with the same energy which he had displayed in operating upon thepie--puffed off the froth with such emphasis, that some of it lighted onMr. Geddes's head--and then said, as if with it sudden recollection ofwhat was due to civility, 'Here's to ye, friend. What! are ye ower grandto give me an answer, or are ye dull o' hearing?'

  'I prithee drink thy liquor, friend,' said the good Quaker; 'thoumeanest it in civility, but we care not for these idle fashions.'

  'What! ye are a Quaker, are ye?' said Peter; and without furtherceremony reared the flagon to his head, from which he withdrew it notwhile a single drop of 'barley-broo' remained. 'That's done you andme muckle gude,' he said, sighing as he set down his pot; 'but twamutchkins o' yill between twa folk is a drappie ower little measure.What say ye to anither pot? or shall we cry in a blithe Scots pint atance? The yill is no amiss.'

  'Thou mayst call for what thou wilt on thine own charges, friend,' saidGeddes; 'for myself, I willingly contribute to the quenching of thynatural thirst; but I fear it were no such easy matter to relieve thyacquired and artificial drought.'

  'That is to say, in plain terms, ye are for withdrawing your cautionwith the folk of the house? You Quaker folk are but fause comforters;but since ye have garred me drink sae muckle cauld yill--me that am noused to the like of it in the forenoon--I think ye might as weel haveoffered me a glass of brandy or usquabae--I'm nae nice body--I can drinkonything that's wet and toothsome.'

  'Not a drop at my cost, friend,' quoth Geddes. 'Thou art an old man, andhast perchance a heavy and long journey before thee. Thou art, moreover,my countryman, as I judge from thy tongue; and I will not give thee themeans of dishonouring thy grey hairs in a strange land.'

  'Grey hairs, neighbour!' said Peter, with a wink to the bystanders, whomthis dialogue began to interest, and who were in hopes of seeing theQuaker played off by the crazed beggar, for such Peter Peebles appearedto be. 'Grey hairs! The Lord mend your eyesight, neighbour, that disnaken grey hairs frae a tow wig!'

  This jest procured a shout of laughter, and, what was still moreacceptable than dry applause, a man who stood beside called out, 'FatherCrackenthorp, bring a nipperkin of brandy. I'll bestow a dram on thisfellow, were it but for that very word.'

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p; The brandy was immediately brought by a wench who acted as barmaid; andPeter, with a grin of delight, filled a glass, quaffed it off, and thensaying, 'God bless me! I was so unmannerly as not to drink to ye--Ithink the Quaker has smitten me wi' his ill-bred havings,'--he was aboutto fill another, when his hand was arrested by his new friend; who saidat the same time, 'No, no, friend--fair play's a jewel--time about, ifyou please.' And filling a glass for himself, emptied it as gallantlyas Peter could have done. 'What say you to that, friend?' he continued,addressing the Quaker.

  'Nay, friend,' answered Joshua, 'it went down thy throat, not mine; andI have nothing to say about what concerns me not; but if thou art aman of humanity, thou wilt not give this poor creature the means ofdebauchery. Bethink thee that they will spurn him from the door, asthey would do a houseless and masterless dog, and that he may die on thesands or on the common. And if he has through thy means been renderedincapable of helping himself, thou shalt not be innocent of his blood.'

  'Faith, Broadbrim, I believe thou art right, and the old gentleman inthe flaxen jazy shall have no more of the comforter. Besides, we havebusiness in hand to-day, and this fellow, for as mad as he looks, mayhave a nose on his face after all. Hark ye, father,--what is your name,and what brings you into such an out-of-the-way corner?'

  'I am not just free to condescend on my name,' said Peter; 'and as formy business--there is a wee dribble of brandy in the stoup--it would bewrang to leave it to the lass--it is learning her bad usages.'

  'Well, thou shalt have the brandy, and be d--d to thee, if thou wilttell me what you are making here.'

  'Seeking a young advocate chap that they ca' Alan Fairford, that hasplayed me a slippery trick, and ye maun ken a' about the cause,' saidPeter.

  'An advocate, man!' answered the captain of the JUMPING JENNY--for itwas he, and no other, who had taken compassion on Peter's drought;'why, Lord help thee, thou art on the wrong side of the Firth to seekadvocates, whom I take to be Scottish lawyers, not English.'

  'English lawyers, man!' exclaimed Peter, 'the deil a lawyer's in a'England.'

  'I wish from my soul it were true,' said Ewart; 'but what the devil putthat in your head?'

  'Lord, man, I got a grip of ane of their attorneys in Carlisle, and hetauld me that there wasna a lawyer in England ony mair than himsell thatkend the nature of a multiple-poinding! And when I told him how thisloopy lad, Alan Fairford, had served me, he said I might bring an actionon the case--just as if the case hadna as mony actions already as onecase can weel carry. By my word, it is a gude case, and muckle has itborne, in its day, of various procedure--but it's the barley-picklebreaks the naig's back, and wi' my consent it shall not hae ony mairburden laid upon it.'

  'But this Alan Fairford?' said Nanty--'come--sip up the drop of brandy,man, and tell me some more about him, and whether you are seeking himfor good or for harm.'

  'For my ain gude, and for his harm, to be sure,' said Peter. 'Think ofhis having left my cause in the dead-thraw between the tyneing andthe winning, and capering off into Cumberland here, after a wildloup-the-tether lad they ca' Darsie Latimer.'

  'Darsie Latimer!' said Mr. Geddes, hastily; 'do you know anything ofDarsie Latimer?'

  'Maybe I do, and maybe I do not,' answered Peter; 'I am no free toanswer every body's interrogatory, unless it is put judicially, and byform of law--specially where folk think so much of a caup of sour yill,or a thimblefu' of brandy. But as for this gentleman, that has shownhimself a gentleman at breakfast, and will show himself a gentleman atthe meridian, I am free to condescend upon any points in the cause thatmay appear to bear upon the question at issue.'

  'Why, all I want to know from you, my friend, is, whether you areseeking to do this Mr. Alan Fairford good or harm; because if you cometo do him good, I think you could maybe get speech of him--and if to dohim harm, I will take the liberty to give you a cast across the Firth,with fair warning not to come back on such an errand, lest worse come ofit.'

  The manner and language of Ewart were such that Joshua Geddes resolvedto keep cautious silence, till he could more plainly discover whether hewas likely to aid or impede him in his researches after Darsie Latimer.He therefore determined to listen attentively to what should passbetween Peter and the seaman, and to watch for an opportunity ofquestioning the former, so soon as he should be separated from his newacquaintance.

  'I wad by no means,' said Peter Peebles, 'do any substantial harm to thepoor lad Fairford, who has had mony a gowd guinea of mine, as weel ashis father before him; but I wad hae him brought back to the minding ofmy business and his ain; and maybe I wadna insist further in my actionof damages against him, than for refunding the fees, and for some annualrent on the principal sum due frae the day on which he should haverecovered it for me, plack and bawbee, at the great advising; for yeare aware, that is the least that I can ask NOMINE DAMNI; and I have naethought to break down the lad bodily a'thegither--we maun live and letlive--forgie and forget.'

  'The deuce take me, friend Broadbrim,' said Nanty Ewart, looking to theQuaker, 'if I can make out what this old scarecrow means. If I thoughtit was fitting that Master Fairford should see him, why perhaps it isa matter that could be managed. Do you know anything about the oldfellow?--you seemed to take some charge of him just now.'

  'No more than I should have done by any one in distress,' said Geddes,not sorry to be appealed to; 'but I will try what I can do to find outwho he is, and what he is about in this country. But are we not a littletoo public in this open room?'

  'It's well thought of,' said Nanty; and at his command the barmaidushered the party into a side-booth, Peter attending them in theinstinctive hope that there would be more liquor drunk among them beforeparting. They had scarce sat down in their new apartment, when the soundof a violin was heard in the room which they had just left.

  'I'll awa back yonder,' said Peter, rising up again; 'yon's the sound ofa fiddle, and when there is music, there's ay something ganging to eator drink.'

  'I am just going to order something here,' said the Quaker; 'but in themeantime, have you any objection, my good friend, to tell us your name?'

  'None in the world, if you are wanting to drink to me by name andsurname,' answered Peebles; 'but, otherwise, I would rather evite yourinterrogatories.'

  'Friend,' said the Quaker, 'it is not for thine own health, seeing thouhast drunk enough already--however--here, handmaiden--bring me a gill ofsherry.'

  'Sherry's but shilpit drink, and a gill's a sma' measure for twagentlemen to crack ower at their first acquaintance. But let us see yoursneaking gill of sherry,' said Poor Peter, thrusting forth his hugehand to seize on the diminutive pewter measure, which, according to thefashion of the time, contained the generous liquor freshly drawn fromthe butt.

  'Nay, hold, friend,' said Joshua, 'thou hast not yet told me what nameand surname I am to call thee by.'

  'D--d sly in the Quaker,' said Nanty, apart, 'to make him pay for hisliquor before he gives it him. Now, I am such a fool, that I should havelet him get too drunk to open his mouth, before I thought of asking hima question.'

  'My name is Peter Peebles, then,' said the litigant, rather sulkily,as one who thought his liquor too sparingly meted out to him; 'and whathave you to say to that?'

  'Peter Peebles?' repeated Nanty Ewart and seemed to muse upon somethingwhich the words brought to his remembrance, while the Quaker pursued hisexamination.

  'But I prithee, Peter Peebles, what is thy further designation? Thouknowest, in our country, that some men are distinguished by their craftand calling, as cordwainers, fishers, weavers, or the like, and some bytheir titles as proprietors of land (which savours of vanity)--now, howmay you be distinguished from others of the same name?'

  'As Peter Peebles of the great plea of Poor Peter Peebles againstPlainstanes, ET PER CONTRA--if I am laird of naething else, I am ay aDOMINUS LITIS.'

  'It's but a poor lairdship, I doubt,' said Joshua.

  'Pray, Mr. Peebles,' said Nanty, interrupting the conversation abruptly,'we
re not you once a burgess of Edinburgh?'

  'WAS I a burgess!' said Peter indignantly, 'and AM I not a burgess evennow? I have done nothing to forfeit my right, I trow--once provost anday my lord.'

  'Well, Mr. Burgess, tell me further, have you not some property in theGude Town?' continued Ewart.

  'Troth have I--that is, before my misfortunes, I had twa or three bonnybits of mailings amang the closes and wynds, forby the shop and thestory abune it. But Plainstanes has put me to the causeway now. Nevermind though, I will be upsides with him yet.'

  'Had not you once a tenement in the Covenant Close?' again demandedNanty.

  'You have hit it, lad, though ye look not like a Covenanter,' saidPeter; 'we'll drink to its memory--(Hout! the heart's at the mouth o'that ill-faur'd bit stoup already!)--it brought a rent, reckoning fromthe crawstep to the groundsill, that ye might ca' fourteen punds a year,forby the laigh cellar that was let to Lucky Littleworth.'

  'And do you not remember that you had a poor old lady for your tenant,Mrs. Cantrips of Kittlebasket?' said Nanty, suppressing his emotion withdifficulty.

  'Remember! G--d, I have gude cause to remember her,' said Peter, 'forshe turned a dyvour on my hands, the auld besom! and after a' that thelaw could do to make me satisfied and paid, in the way of poinding anddistrenzieing and sae forth, as the law will, she ran awa to the charityworkhouse, a matter of twenty punds Scots in my debt--it's a great shameand oppression that charity workhouse, taking in bankrupt dyvours thatcanna, pay their honest creditors.'

  'Methinks, friend,' said the Quaker, 'thine own rags might teach theecompassion for other people's nakedness.'

  'Rags!' said Peter, taking Joshua's words literally; 'does ony wise bodyput on their best coat when they are travelling, and keeping companywith Quakers, and such other cattle as the road affords?'

  'The old lady DIED, I have heard,' said Nanty, affecting a moderationwhich was belied by accents that faltered with passion.

  'She might live or die, for what I care,' answered Peter the Cruel;'what business have folk to do to live that canna live as law will, andsatisfy their just and lawful creditors?'

  'And you--you that are now yourself trodden down in the very kennel,are you not sorry for what you have done? Do you not repent havingoccasioned the poor widow woman's death?'

  'What for should I repent?' said Peter; 'the law was on my side--adecreet of the bailies, followed by poinding, and an act of warding--asuspension intented, and the letters found orderly proceeded. I followedthe auld rudas through twa courts--she cost me mair money than her lugswere worth.'

  'Now, by Heaven!' said Nanty, 'I would give a thousand guineas, if I hadthem, to have you worth my beating! Had you said you repented, it hadbeen between God and your conscience; but to hear you boast of yourvillany--Do you think it little to have reduced the aged to famine, andthe young to infamy--to have caused the death of one woman, the ruin ofanother, and to have driven a man to exile and despair? By Him that mademe, I can scarce keep hands off you!

  'Off me? I defy ye!' said Peter. 'I take this honest man to witness thatif ye stir the neck of my collar, I will have my action for stouthreif,spulzie, oppression, assault and battery. Here's a bra' din, indeed,about an auld wife gaun to the grave, a young limmer to the close-headsand causeway, and a sticket stibbler [A student of divinity who has notbeen able to complete his studies on theology.] to the sea instead ofthe gallows!'

  'Now, by my soul,' said Nanty, 'this is too much! and since you can feelno otherwise, I will try if I cannot beat some humanity into your headand shoulders.'

  He drew his hanger as he spoke, and although Joshua, who had in vainendeavoured to interrupt the dialogue to which he foresaw a violenttermination, now threw himself between Nanty and the old litigant, hecould not prevent the latter from receiving two or three sound slapsover the shoulder with the flat side of the weapon.

  Poor Peter Peebles, as inglorious in his extremity as he had beenpresumptuous in bringing it on, now ran and roared, and bolted out ofthe apartment and house itself, pursued by Nanty, whose passion becamehigh in proportion to his giving way to its dictates, and by Joshua, whostill interfered at every risk, calling upon Nanty to reflect on theage and miserable circumstances of the offender, and upon Poor Peterto stand and place himself under his protection. In front of the house,however, Peter Peebles found a more efficient protector than the worthyQuaker.