Redgauntlet

by Walter Scott

  'Good God!' he thought, 'and did this hoary reprobate summon his family together, and, with such a disgraceful pledge of infamy in his bosom, venture to approach the throne of his Creator? It must be so; the book is bound after the manner of those dedicated to devotional subjects, and doubtless the wretch, in his intoxication, confounded the books he carried with him, as he did the days of the week.' Seized with the disgust with which the young and generous usually regard the vices of advanced life, Alan, having turned the leaves of the book over in hasty disdain, flung it from him, as far as he could, into the sea. He then had recourse to the Sallust, which he had at first sought for in vain. As he opened the book, Nanty Ewart, who had been looking over his shoulder, made his own opinion heard.

  'I think now, brother, if you are so much scandalized at a little piece of sculduddery, which, after all, does nobody any harm, you had better have given it to me than have flung it into the Solway.'

  'I hope, sir,' answered Fairford, civilly, 'you are in the habit of reading better books.'

  'Faith,' answered Nanty, 'with help of a little Geneva text, I could read my Sallust as well as you can;' and snatching the book from Alan's hand, he began to read, in the Scottish accent:—"'IGITUR EX DIVITIIS JUVENTUTEM LUXURIA ATQUE AVARITIA CUM SUPERBILI INVASERE: RAPERE, CONSUMERE; SUA PARVI PENDERE, ALIENA CUPERE; PUDOREM, AMICITIAM, PUDICITIAM, DIVINA ATQUE HUMANA PROMISCUA, NIHIL PENSI NEQUE MODERATI HABERE."[48]—There is a slap in the face now, for an honest fellow that has been buccaneering! Never could keep a groat of what he got, or hold his fingers from what belonged to another, said you? Fie, fie, friend Crispus, thy morals are as crabbed and austere as thy style—the one has as little mercy as the other has grace. By my soul, it is unhandsome to make personal reflections on an old acquaintance, who seeks a little civil intercourse with you after nigh twenty years' separation. On my soul, Master Sallust deserves to float on the Solway better than Mother Midnight herself.'

  'Perhaps, in some respects, he may merit better usage at our hands,' said Alan; 'for if he has described vice plainly, it seems to have been for the purpose of rendering it generally abhorred.'

  'Well,' said the seaman, 'I have heard of the Sortes Virgilianae, and I dare say the Sortes Sallustianae are as true every tittle. I have consulted honest Crispus on my own account, and have had a cuff for my pains. But now see, I open the book on your behalf, and behold what occurs first to my eye!—Lo you there—"CATILINA ... OMNIUM FLAGITIOSORUM ATQUE FACINOROSORUM CIRCUM SE HABEBAT." And then again—"ETIAM SI QUIS A CULPA VACUUS IN AMICITIAM EJUS INCIDIDERAT QUOTIDIANO USU PAR SIMILISQUE CAETERIS EFFICIEBATUR."[49] That is what I call plain speaking on the part of the old Roman, Mr. Fairford. By the way, that is a capital name for a lawyer.

  'Lawyer as I am,' said Fairford, 'I do not understand your innuendo.'

  'Nay, then,' said Ewart, 'I can try it another way, as well as the hypocritical old rascal Turnpenny himself could do. I would have you to know that I am well acquainted with my Bible-book, as well as with my friend Sallust.' He then, in a snuffling and canting tone, began to repeat the Scriptural text—'"DAVID THEREFORE DEPARTED THENCE, AND WENT TO THE CAVE OF ADULLAM. AND EVERY ONE THAT WAS IN DISTRESS, AND EVERY ONE THAT WAS IN DEBT, AND EVERY ONE THAT WAS DISCONTENTED, GATHERED THEMSELVES TOGETHER UNTO HIM, AND HE BECAME A CAPTAIN OVER THEM." What think you of that?' he said, suddenly changing his manner. 'Have I touched you now, sir?'

  'You are as far off as ever,' replied Fairford.

  'What the devil! and you a repeating frigate between Summertrees and the laird! Tell that to the marines—the sailors won't believe it. But you are right to be cautious, since you can't say who are right, who not. But you look ill; it's but the cold morning air. Will you have a can of flip, or a jorum of hot rumbo? or will you splice the mainbrace' (showing a spirit-flask). 'Will you have a quid—or a pipe—or a cigar?—a pinch of snuff, at least, to clear your brains and sharpen your apprehension?'

  Fairford rejected all these friendly propositions.

  'Why, then,' continued Ewart, 'if you will do nothing for the free trade, I must patronize it myself.'

  So saying, he took a large glass of brandy.

  'A hair of the dog that bit me,' he continued,—'of the dog that will worry me one day soon; and yet, and be d—d to me for an idiot, I must always have hint at my throat. But, says the old catch'—Here he sang, and sang well—

  'Let's drink—let's drink—while life we have;

  We'll find but cold drinking, cold drinking in the grave.

  All this,' he continued, 'is no charm against the headache. I wish I had anything that could do you good. Faith, and we have tea and coffee aboard! I'll open a chest or a bag, and let you have some in an instant. You are at the age to like such catlap better than better stuff.'

  Fairford thanked him, and accepted his offer of tea.

  Nanty Ewart was soon heard calling about, 'Break open yon chest—take out your capful, you bastard of a powder-monkey; we may want it again. No sugar? all used up for grog, say you? knock another loaf to pieces, can't ye? and get the kettle boiling, ye hell's baby, in no time at all!'

  By dint of these energetic proceedings he was in a short time able to return to the place where his passenger lay sick and exhausted, with a cup, or rather a canful, of tea; for everything was on a large scale on board of the JUMPING JENNY. Alan drank it eagerly, and with so much appearance of being refreshed that Nanty Ewart swore he would have some too, and only laced it, as his phrase went, with a single glass of brandy. [See Note 8.]

  CHAPTER XIV

  NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAIRFORD, CONTINUED

  We left Alan Fairford on the deck of the little smuggling brig, in that disconsolate situation, when sickness and nausea, attack a heated and fevered frame, and an anxious mind. His share of sea-sickness, however, was not so great as to engross his sensations entirely, or altogether to divert his attention from what was passing around. If he could not delight in the swiftness and agility with which the 'little frigate' walked the waves, or amuse himself by noticing the beauty of the sea-views around him, where the distant Skiddaw raised his brow, as if in defiance of the clouded eminence of Criffel, which lorded it over the Scottish side of the estuary, he had spirits and composure enough to pay particular attention to the master of the vessel, on whose character his own safety in all probability was dependent.

  Nanty Ewart had now given the helm to one of his people, a bald-pated, grizzled old fellow, whose whole life had been spent in evading the revenue laws, with now and then the relaxation of a few months' imprisonment, for deforcing officers, resisting seizures, and the like offences.

  Nanty himself sat down by Fairford, helped him to his tea, with such other refreshments as he could think of, and seemed in his way sincerely desirous to make his situation as comfortable as things admitted. Fairford had thus an opportunity to study his countenance and manners more closely.

  It was plain, Ewart, though a good seaman, had not been bred upon that element. He was a reasonably good scholar, and seemed fond of showing it by recurring to the subject of Sallust and Juvenal; while, on the other hand, sea-phrases seldom chequered his conversation. He had been in person what is called a smart little man; but the tropical sun had burnt his originally fair complexion to a dusty red; and the bile which was diffused through his system, had stained it with a yellowish black—what ought to have been the white part of his eyes, in particular, had a hue as deep as the topaz. He was very thin, or rather emaciated, and his countenance, though still indicating alertness and activity, showed a constitution exhausted with excessive use of his favourite stimulus.

  'I see you look at me hard,' said he to Fairford. 'Had you been an officer of the d—d customs, my terriers' backs would have been up. He opened his breast, and showed Alan a pair of pistols disposed between his waistcoat and jacket, placing his finger at the same time upon the cock of one of them. 'But come, you are an honest fellow, though you're a close one. I dare say you think me a queer customer; but I can tell you, th
ey that see the ship leave harbour know little of the seas she is to sail through. My father, honest old gentleman, never would have thought to see me master of the JUMPING JENNY.'

  Fairford said, it seemed very clear indeed that Mr. Ewart's education was far superior to the line he at present occupied.

  'Oh, Criffel to Solway Moss!' said the other. Why, man, I should have been an expounder of the word, with a wig like a snow-wreath, and a stipend like—like—like a hundred pounds a year, I suppose. I can spend thrice as much as that, though, being such as I am. Here he sang a scrap of an old Northumbrian ditty, mimicking the burr of the natives of that county:—

  'Willy Foster's gone to sea,

  Siller buckles at his knee,

  He'll come back and marry me—

  Canny Willy Foster.'

  'I have no doubt,' said Fairford, 'your present occupation is more lucrative; 'but I should have thought the Church might have been more'—

  He stopped, recollecting that it was not his business to say anything disagreeable.

  'More respectable, you mean, I suppose?' said Ewart, with a sneer, and squirting the tobacco-juice through his front teeth; then was silent for a moment, and proceeded in a tone of candour which some internal touch of conscience dictated. 'And so it would, Mr. Fairford—and happier, too, by a thousand degrees—though I have had my pleasures too. But there was my father (God bless the old man!) a true chip of the old Presbyterian block, walked his parish like a captain on the quarterdeck, and was always ready to do good to rich and poor—Off went the laird's hat to the minister, as fast as the poor man's bonnet. When the eye saw him—Pshaw! what have I to do with that now?—Yes, he was, as Virgil hath it, "VIR SAPIENTIA ET PIETATE GRAVIS." But he might have been the wiser man, had he kept me at home, when he sent me at nineteen to study Divinity at the head of the highest stair in the Covenant Close. It was a cursed mistake in the old gentleman. What though Mrs. Cantrips of Kittlebasket (for she wrote herself no less) was our cousin five times removed, and took me on that account to board and lodging at six shillings instead of seven shillings a week? it was a d—d bad saving, as the case proved. Yet her very dignity might have kept me in order; for she never read a chapter excepting out of a Cambridge Bible, printed by Daniel, and bound in embroidered velvet. I think I see it at this moment! And on Sundays, when we had a quart of twopenny ale, instead of butter-milk, to our porridge, it was always served up in a silver posset-dish. Also she used silver-mounted spectacles, whereas even my father's were cased in mere horn. These things had their impression at first, but we get used to grandeur by degrees. Well, sir!—Gad, I can scarce get on with my story—it sticks in my throat—must take a trifle to wash it down. Well, this dame had a daughter—Jess Cantrips, a black-eyed, bouncing wench—and, as the devil would have it, there was the d—d five-story stair—her foot was never from it, whether I went out or came home from the Divinity Hall. I would have eschewed her, sir—I would, on my soul; for I was as innocent a lad as ever came from Lammermuir; but there was no possibility of escape, retreat, or flight, unless I could have got a pair of wings, or made use of a ladder seven stories high, to scale the window of my attic. It signifies little talking—you may suppose how all this was to end—I would have married the girl, and taken my chance—I would, by Heaven! for she was a pretty girl, and a good girl, till she and I met; but you know the old song, "Kirk would not let us be." A gentleman, in my case, would have settled the matter with the kirk-treasurer for a small sum of money; but the poor stibbler, the penniless dominie, having married his cousin of Kittlebasket, must next have proclaimed her frailty to the whole parish, by mounting the throne of Presbyterian penance, and proving, as Othello says, "his love a whore," in face of the whole congregation.

  'In this extremity I dared not stay where I was, and so thought to go home to my father. But first I got Jack Radaway, a lad from the same parish, and who lived in the same infernal stair, to make some inquiries how the old gentleman had taken the matter. I soon, by way of answer, learned, to the great increase of my comfortable reflections, that the good old man made as much clamour as if such a thing as a man's eating his wedding dinner without saying grace had never happened since Adam's time. He did nothing for six days but cry out, "Ichabod, Ichabod, the glory is departed from my house!" and on the seventh he preached a sermon, in which he enlarged on this incident as illustrative of one of the great occasions for humiliation, and causes of national defection. I hope the course he took comforted himself—I am sure it made me ashamed to show my nose at home. So I went down to Leith, and, exchanging my hoddin grey coat of my mother's spinning for such a jacket as this, I entered my name at the rendezvous as an able-bodied landsman, and sailed with the tender round to Plymouth, where they were fitting out a squadron for the West Indies. There I was put aboard the FEARNOUGHT, Captain Daredevil—among whose crew I soon learned to fear Satan (the terror of my early youth) as little as the toughest Jack on board. I had some qualms at first, but I took the remedy' (tapping the case-bottle) 'which I recommend to you, being as good for sickness of the soul as for sickness of the stomach—What, you won't?—very well, I must, then—here is to ye.'

  'You would, I am afraid, find your education of little use in your new condition?' said Fairford.

  'Pardon me, sir,' resumed the captain of the JUMPING JENNY; 'my handful of Latin, and small pinch of Greek, were as useless as old junk, to be sure; but my reading, writing and accompting, stood me in good stead, and brought me forward; I might have been schoolmaster—aye, and master, in time; but that valiant liquor, rum, made a conquest of me rather too often, and so, make what sail I could, I always went to leeward. We were four years broiling in that blasted climate, and I came back at last with a little prize-money. I always had thoughts of putting things to rights in the Covenant Close, and reconciling myself to my father. I found out Jack Hadaway, who was TUPTOWING away with a dozen of wretched boys, and a fine string of stories he had ready to regale my ears withal. My father had lectured on what he called "my falling away," for seven Sabbaths, when, just as his parishioners began to hope that the course was at an end, he was found dead in his bed on the eighth Sunday morning. Jack Hadaway assured me, that if I wished to atone for my errors, by undergoing the fate of the first martyr, I had only to go to my native village, where the very stones of the street would rise up against me as my father's murderer. Here was a pretty item—well, my tongue clove to my mouth for an hour, and was only able at last to utter the name of Mrs. Cantrips. Oh, this was a new theme for my Job's comforter. My sudden departure—my father's no less sudden death—had prevented the payment of the arrears of my board and lodging—the landlord was a haberdasher, with a heart as rotten as the muslin wares he dealt in. Without respect to her age or gentle kin, my Lady Kittlebasket was ejected from her airy habitation—her porridge-pot, silver posset-dish, silver-mounted spectacles, and Daniel's Cambridge Bible, sold, at the Cross of Edinburgh, to the caddie who would bid highest for them, and she herself driven to the workhouse, where she got in with difficulty, but was easily enough lifted out, at the end of the month, as dead as her friends could desire. Merry tidings this to me, who had been the d——d' (he paused a moment) 'ORIGO MALI—Gad, I think my confession would sound better in Latin than in English!

  'But the best jest was behind—I had just power to stammer out something about Jess—by my faith he HAD an answer! I had taught Jess one trade, and, like a prudent girl, she had found out another for herself; unluckily, they were both contraband, and Jess Cantrips, daughter of the Lady Kittlebasket, had the honour to be transported to the plantations, for street-walking and pocket-picking, about six months before I touched shore.'

  He changed the bitter tone of affected pleasantry into an attempt to laugh, then drew his swarthy hand across his swarthy eyes, and said in a more natural accent, 'Poor Jess!'

  There was a pause—until Fairford, pitying the poor man's state of mind, and believing he saw something in him that, but for early error and subsequent prof
ligacy, might have been excellent and noble, helped on the conversation by asking, in a tone of commiseration, how he had been able to endure such a load of calamity.

  'Why, very well,' answered the seaman; 'exceedingly well—like a tight ship in a brisk gale. Let me recollect. I remember thanking Jack, very composedly, for the interesting and agreeable communication; I then pulled out my canvas pouch, with my hoard of moidores, and taking out two pieces, I bid Jack keep the rest till I came back, as I was for a cruise about Auld Reekie. The poor devil looked anxiously, but I shook him by the hand, and ran downstairs, in such confusion of mind, that notwithstanding what I had heard, I expected to meet Jess at every turning.

  It was market-day, and the usual number of rogues and fools were assembled at the Cross. I observed everybody looked strange on me, and I thought some laughed. I fancy I had been making queer faces enough, and perhaps talking to myself, When I saw myself used in this manner, I held out my clenched fists straight before me, stooped my head, and, like a ram when he makes his race, darted off right down the street, scattering groups of weatherbeaten lairds and periwigged burgesses, and bearing down all before me. I heard the cry of "Seize the madman!" echoed, in Celtic sounds, from the City Guard, with "Ceaze ta matman!"—but pursuit and opposition were in vain. I pursued my career; the smell of the sea, I suppose, led me to Leith, where, soon after, I found myself walking very quietly on the shore, admiring the tough round and sound cordage of the vessels, and thinking how a loop, with a man at the end of one of them, would look, by way of tassel.