St. Ronan's Well

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XVI.

  THE CLERGYMAN.

  A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a-year.

  GOLDSMITH'S _Deserted Village_.

  Mrs. Dods's conviction, that her friend Tyrrel had been murdered by thesanguinary Captain MacTurk remained firm and unshaken; but someresearches for the supposed body having been found fruitless, as well asexpensive, she began to give up the matter in despair. "She had done herduty"--"she left the matter to them that had a charge anent suchthings"--and "Providence would bring the mystery to light in his ownfitting time"--such were the moralities with which the good dameconsoled herself; and, with less obstinacy than Mr. Bindloose hadexpected, she retained her opinion without changing her banker and manof business.

  Perhaps Meg's acquiescent inactivity in a matter which she hadthreatened to probe so deeply, was partly owing to the place of poorTyrrel being supplied in her blue chamber, and in her daily thoughts andcares, by her new guest, Mr. Touchwood; in possessing whom, a deserteras he was from the Well, she obtained, according to her view of thematter, a decided triumph over her rivals. It sometimes required,however, the full force of this reflection, to induce Meg, old andcrabbed as she was, to submit to the various caprices and exactions ofattention which were displayed by her new lodger. Never any man talkedso much as Touchwood, of his habitual indifference to food, andaccommodation in travelling; and probably there never was any travellerwho gave more trouble in a house of entertainment. He had his own whimsabout cookery; and when these were contradicted, especially if he feltat the same time a twinge of incipient gout, one would have thought hehad taken his lessons in the pastry-shop of Bedreddin Hassan, and wasready to renew the scene of the unhappy cream-tart, which was compoundedwithout pepper. Every now and then he started some new doctrine inculinary matters, which Mrs. Dods deemed a heresy; and then the veryhouse rang with their disputes. Again, his bed must necessarily be madeat a certain angle from the pillow to the footposts; and the slightestdeviation from this disturbed, he said, his nocturnal rest, and didcertainly ruffle his temper. He was equally whimsical about the brushingof his clothes, the arrangement of the furniture in his apartment, and athousand minutiae, which, in conversation, he seemed totally to contemn.

  It may seem singular, but such is the inconsistency of human nature,that a guest of this fanciful and capricious disposition gave much moresatisfaction to Mrs. Dods, than her quiet and indifferent friend, Mr.Tyrrel. If her present lodger could blame, he could also applaud; and noartist, conscious of such skill as Mrs. Dods possessed, is indifferentto the praises of such a connoisseur as Mr. Touchwood. The pride of artcomforted her for the additional labour; nor was it a matter unworthyof this most honest publican's consideration, that the guests who givemost trouble, are usually those who incur the largest bills, and paythem with the best grace. On this point Touchwood was a jewel of acustomer. He never denied himself the gratification of the slightestwhim, whatever expense he might himself incur, or whatever trouble hemight give to those about him; and all was done under protestation, thatthe matter in question was the most indifferent thing to him in theworld. "What the devil did he care for Burgess's sauces, he that had eathis kouscousou, spiced with nothing but the sand of the desert? only itwas a shame for Mrs. Dods to be without what every decent house, abovethe rank of an alehouse, ought to be largely provided with."

  In short, he fussed, fretted, commanded, and was obeyed; kept the housein hot water, and yet was so truly good-natured when essential matterswere in discussion, that it was impossible to bear him the leastill-will; so that Mrs. Dods, though in a moment of spleen she sometimeswished him at the top of Tintock,[I-F] always ended by singing forth hispraises. She could not, indeed, help suspecting that he was a Nabob, aswell from his conversation about foreign parts, as from his freaks ofindulgence to himself, and generosity to others,--attributes which sheunderstood to be proper to most "Men of Ind." But although the readerhas heard her testify a general dislike to this species of Fortune'sfavourites, Mrs. Dods had sense enough to know, that a Nabob living inthe neighbourhood, who raises the price of eggs and poultry upon thegood housewives around, was very different from a Nabob residing withinher own gates, drawing all his supplies from her own larder, andpaying, without hesitation or question, whatever bills her consciencepermitted her to send in. In short, to come back to the point at whichwe perhaps might have stopped some time since, landlady and guest werevery much pleased with each other.

  But Ennui finds entrance into every scene, when the gloss of novelty isover; and the fiend began to seize upon Mr. Touchwood just when he hadgot all matters to his mind in the Cleikum Inn--had instructed Dame Dodsin the mysteries of curry and mullegatawny--drilled the chambermaid intothe habit of making his bed at the angle recommended by Sir JohnSinclair--and made some progress in instructing the humpbacked postilionin the Arabian mode of grooming. Pamphlets and newspapers, sent fromLondon and from Edinburgh by loads, proved inadequate to rout thisinvader of Mr. Touchwood's comfort; and, at last, he bethought himselfof company. The natural resource would have been the Well--but thetraveller had a holy shivering of awe, which crossed him at the veryrecollection of Lady Penelope, who had worked him rather hard during hisformer brief residence; and although Lady Binks's beauty might havecharmed an Asiatic, by the plump graces of its contour, our senior waspast the thoughts of a Sultana and a haram. At length a bright ideacrossed his mind, and he suddenly demanded of Mrs. Dods, who was pouringout his tea for breakfast, into a large cup of a very particular speciesof china, of which he had presented her with a service on condition ofher rendering him this personal good office,--"Pray, Mrs. Dods, whatsort of a man is your minister?"

  "He's just a man like other men, Maister Touchwood," replied Meg; "whatsort of a man should he be?"

  "A man like other men?--ay--that is to say, he has the usual complementof legs and arms, eyes and ears--But is he a sensible man?"

  "No muckle o' that, sir," answered Dame Dods; "for if he was drinkingthis very tea that ye gat doun from London wi' the mail, he wad mistakeit for common bohea."

  "Then he has not all his organs--wants a nose, or the use of one atleast," said Mr. Touchwood; "the tea is right gunpowder--a perfectnosegay."

  "Aweel, that may be," said the landlady; "but I have gi'en the ministera dram frae my ain best bottle of real Coniac brandy, and may I neverstir frae the bit, if he didna commend my whisky when he set down theglass! There is no ane o' them in the Presbytery but himsell--ay, or inthe Synod either--but wad hae kend whisky frae brandy."

  "But what _sort_ of man is he?--Has he learning?" demanded Touchwood.

  "Learning?--eneugh o' that," answered Meg; "just dung donnart wi'learning--lets a' things about the Manse gang whilk gate they will, saethey dinna plague him upon the score. An awfu' thing it is to see sic anill-red-up house!--If I had the twa tawpies that sorn upon the honestman ae week under my drilling, I think I wad show them how to sort alodging!"

  "Does he preach well?" asked the guest.

  "Oh, weel eneugh, weel eneugh--sometimes he will fling in a lang word ora bit of learning that our farmers and bannet lairds canna sae weelfollow--But what of that, as I am aye telling them?--them that paystipend get aye the mair for their siller."

  "Does he attend to his parish?--Is he kind to the poor?"

  "Ower muckle o' that, Maister Touchwood--I am sure he makes the Wordgude, and turns not away from those that ask o' him--his very pocket ispicked by a wheen ne'er-do-weel blackguards, that gae sorning throughthe country."

  "Sorning through the country, Mrs. Dods?--what would you think if youhad seen the Fakirs, the Dervises, the Bonzes, the Imaums, the monks,and the mendicants, that I have seen?--But go on, never mind--Does thisminister of yours come much into company?"

  "Company?--gae wa'," replied Meg, "he keeps nae company at a', neitherin his ain house or ony gate else. He comes down in the morning in alang ragged nightgown, like a potato bogle, and down he sits amang hisbooks; and if they dinna
bring him something to eat, the puir dementedbody has never the heart to cry for aught, and he has been kend to sitfor ten hours thegither, black fasting, whilk is a' mere papistrie,though he does it just out o' forget."

  "Why, landlady, in that case, your parson is any thing but the ordinarykind of man you described him--Forget his dinner!--the man must bemad--he shall dine with me to-day--he shall have such a dinner as I'llbe bound he won't forget in a hurry."

  "Ye'll maybe find that easier said than dune," said Mrs. Dods; "thehonest man hasna, in a sense, the taste of his mouth--forby, he neverdines out of his ain house--that is, when he dines at a'--A drink ofmilk and a bit of bread serves his turn, or maybe a cauld potato.--It'sa heathenish fashion of him, for as good a man as he is, for surelythere is nae Christian man but loves his own bowels."

  "Why, that may be," answered Touchwood; "but I have known many who tookso much care of their own bowels, my good dame, as to have none for anyone else.--But come--bustle to the work--get us as good a dinner for twoas you can set out--have it ready at three to an instant--get the oldhock I had sent me from Cockburn--a bottle of the particular IndianSherry--and another of your own old claret--fourth bin, you know,Meg.--And stay, he is a priest, and must have port--have all ready, butdon't bring the wine into the sun, as that silly fool Beck did the otherday.--I can't go down to the larder myself, but let us have noblunders."

  "Nae fear, nae fear," said Meg, with a toss of the head, "I need naebodyto look into my larder but mysell, I trow--but it's an unco order ofwine for twa folk, and ane o' them a minister."

  "Why, you foolish person, is there not the woman up the village that hasjust brought another fool into the world, and will she not need sack andcaudle, if we leave some of our wine?"

  "A gude ale-posset wad set her better," said Meg; "however, if it's yourwill, it shall be my pleasure.--But the like of sic a gentleman asyoursell never entered my doors!"

  The traveller was gone before she had completed the sentence; and,leaving Meg to bustle and maunder at her leisure, away he marched, withthe haste that characterised all his motions when he had any new projectin his head, to form an acquaintance with the minister of St. Ronan's,whom, while he walks down the street to the Manse, we will endeavour tointroduce to the reader.

  The Rev. Josiah Cargill was the son of a small farmer in the south ofScotland; and a weak constitution, joined to the disposition for studywhich frequently accompanies infirm health, induced his parents, thoughat the expense of some sacrifices, to educate him for the ministry. Theywere the rather led to submit to the privations which were necessary tosupport this expense, because they conceived, from their familytraditions, that he had in his veins some portion of the blood of thatcelebrated Boanerges of the Covenant, Donald Cargill,[I-G] who was slainby the persecutors at the town of Queensferry, in the melancholy days ofCharles II., merely because, in the plenitude of his sacerdotal power,he had cast out of the church, and delivered over to Satan by a formalexcommunication, the King and Royal Family, with all the ministers andcourtiers thereunto belonging. But if Josiah was really derived fromthis uncompromising champion, the heat of the family spirit which hemight have inherited was qualified by the sweetness of his owndisposition, and the quiet temper of the times in which he had the goodfortune to live. He was characterised by all who knew him as a mild,gentle, and studious lover of learning, who, in the quiet prosecution ofhis own sole object, the acquisition of knowledge, and especially ofthat connected with his profession, had the utmost indulgence for allwhose pursuits were different from his own. His sole relaxations werethose of a retiring, mild, and pensive temper, and were limited to aramble, almost always solitary, among the woods and hills, in praise ofwhich, he was sometimes guilty of a sonnet, but rather because he couldnot help the attempt, than as proposing to himself the fame or therewards which attend the successful poet. Indeed, far from seeking toinsinuate his fugitive pieces into magazines and newspapers, he blushedat his poetical attempts even while alone, and, in fact, was rarely soindulgent to his vein as to commit them to paper.

  From the same maid-like modesty of disposition, our student suppressed astrong natural turn towards drawing, although he was repeatedlycomplimented upon the few sketches which he made, by some whose judgmentwas generally admitted. It was, however, this neglected talent, which,like the swift feet of the stag in the fable, was fated to render him aservice which he might in vain have expected from his worth andlearning.

  My Lord Bidmore, a distinguished connoisseur, chanced to be in search ofa private tutor for his son and heir, the Honourable Augustus Bidmore,and for this purpose had consulted the Professor of Theology, who passedbefore him in review several favourite students, any of whom heconceived well suited for the situation; but still his answer to theimportant and unlooked-for question, "Did the candidate understanddrawing?" was answered in the negative. The Professor, indeed, added hisopinion, that such an accomplishment was neither to be desired norexpected in a student of theology; but, pressed hard with this conditionas a _sine qua non_, he at length did remember a dreaming lad about theHall, who seldom could be got to speak above his breath, even whendelivering his essays, but was said to have a strong turn for drawing.This was enough for my Lord Bidmore, who contrived to obtain a sight ofsome of young Cargill's sketches, and was satisfied that, under such atutor, his son could not fail to maintain that character for hereditarytaste which his father and grandfather had acquired at the expense of aconsiderable estate, the representative value of which was now thepainted canvass in the great gallery at Bidmore-House.

  Upon following up the enquiry concerning the young man's character, hewas found to possess all the other necessary qualifications of learningand morals, in a greater degree than perhaps Lord Bidmore might haverequired; and, to the astonishment of his fellow-students, but moreespecially to his own, Josiah Cargill was promoted to the desired anddesirable situation of private tutor to the Honourable Mr. Bidmore.

  Mr. Cargill did his duty ably and conscientiously, by a spoiled thoughgood-humoured lad, of weak health and very ordinary parts. He could not,indeed, inspire into him any portion of the deep and noble enthusiasmwhich characterises the youth of genius; but his pupil made suchprogress in each branch of his studies as his capacity enabled him toattain. He understood the learned languages, and could be very profoundon the subject of various readings--he pursued science, and could classshells, pack mosses, and arrange minerals--he drew without taste, butwith much accuracy; and although he attained no commanding height in anypursuit, he knew enough of many studies, literary and scientific, tofill up his time, and divert from temptation a head, which was none ofthe strongest in point of resistance.

  Miss Augusta Bidmore, his lordship's only other child, received also theinstructions of Cargill in such branches of science as her father choseshe should acquire, and her tutor was capable to teach. But her progresswas as different from that of her brother, as the fire of heaven differsfrom that grosser element which the peasant piles upon his smoulderinghearth. Her acquirements in Italian and Spanish literature, in history,in drawing, and in all elegant learning, were such as to enchant herteacher, while at the same time it kept him on the stretch, lest, in hersuccessful career, the scholar should outstrip the master.

  Alas! such intercourse, fraught as it is with dangers arising out of thebest and kindest, as well as the most natural feelings on either side,proved in the present, as in many other instances, fatal to the peace ofthe preceptor. Every feeling heart will excuse a weakness, which weshall presently find carried with it its own severe punishment. Cadenus,indeed, believe him who will, has assured us, that, in such a perilousintercourse, he himself preserved the limits which were unhappilytransgressed by the unfortunate Vanessa, his more impassioned pupil:--

  "The innocent delight he took To see the virgin mind her book, Was but the master's secret joy, In school to hear the finest boy."

  But Josiah Cargill was less fortunate, or less cautious. He suffered hisfair pupil to become in
expressibly dear to him, before he discovered theprecipice towards which he was moving under the direction of a blind andmisplaced passion. He was indeed utterly incapable of availing himselfof the opportunities afforded by his situation, to involve his pupil inthe toils of a mutual passion. Honour and gratitude alike forbade such aline of conduct, even had it been consistent with the naturalbashfulness, simplicity, and innocence of his disposition. To sigh andsuffer in secret, to form resolutions of separating himself from asituation so fraught with danger, and to postpone from day to day theaccomplishment of a resolution so prudent, was all to which the tutorfound himself equal; and it is not improbable, that the veneration withwhich he regarded his patron's daughter, with the utter hopelessness ofthe passion which he nourished, tended to render his love yet more pureand disinterested.

  At length, the line of conduct which reason had long since recommended,could no longer be the subject of procrastination. Mr. Bidmore wasdestined to foreign travel for a twelvemonth, and Mr. Cargill receivedfrom his patron the alternative of accompanying his pupil, or retiringupon a suitable provision, the reward of his past instructions. It canhardly be doubted which he preferred; for while he was with youngBidmore, he did not seem entirely separated from his sister. He was sureto hear of Augusta frequently, and to see some part, at least, of theletters which she was to write to her brother; he might also hope to beremembered in these letters as her "good friend and tutor;" and to theseconsolations his quiet, contemplative, and yet enthusiastic disposition,clung as to a secret source of pleasure, the only one which life seemedto open to him.

  But fate had a blow in store, which he had not anticipated. The chanceof Augusta's changing her maiden condition for that of a wife, probableas her rank, beauty, and fortune rendered such an event, had never onceoccurred to him; and although he had imposed upon himself the unwaveringbelief that she could never be his, he was inexpressibly affected by theintelligence that she had become the property of another.

  The Honourable Mr. Bidmore's letters to his father soon after announcedthat poor Mr. Cargill had been seized with a nervous fever, and again,that his reconvalescence was attended with so much debility, it seemedboth of mind and body, as entirely to destroy his utility as atravelling companion. Shortly after this the travellers separated, andCargill returned to his native country alone, indulging upon the road ina melancholy abstraction of mind, which he had suffered to grow upon himsince the mental shock which he had sustained, and which in time becamethe most characteristical feature of his demeanour. His meditations werenot even disturbed by any anxiety about his future subsistence, althoughthe cessation of his employment seemed to render that precarious. Forthis, however, Lord Bidmore had made provision; for, though a coxcombwhere the fine arts were concerned, he was in other particulars a justand honourable man, who felt a sincere pride in having drawn the talentsof Cargill from obscurity, and entertained due gratitude for the mannerin which he had achieved the important task intrusted to him in hisfamily.

  His lordship had privately purchased from the Mowbray family thepatronage or advowson of the living of St. Ronan's, then held by a veryold incumbent, who died shortly afterwards; so that upon arriving inEngland Cargill found himself named to the vacant living. Soindifferent, however, did he feel himself towards this preferment, thathe might possibly not have taken the trouble to go through the necessarysteps previous to his ordination, had it not been on account of hismother, now a widow, and unprovided for, unless by the support which heafforded her. He visited her in her small retreat in the suburbs ofMarchthorn, heard her pour out her gratitude to Heaven, that she shouldhave been granted life long enough to witness her son's promotion to acharge, which in her eyes was more honourable and desirable than anEpiscopal see--heard her chalk out the life which they were to leadtogether in the humble independence which had thus fallen on him--heheard all this, and had no power to crush her hopes and her triumph bythe indulgence of his own romantic feelings. He passed almostmechanically through the usual forms, and was inducted into the livingof St. Ronan's.

  Although fanciful and romantic, it was not in Josiah Cargill's nature toyield to unavailing melancholy; yet he sought relief, not in society,but in solitary study. His seclusion was the more complete, that hismother, whose education had been as much confined as her fortunes, feltawkward under her new dignities, and willingly acquiesced in her son'ssecession from society, and spent her whole time in superintending thelittle household, and in her way providing for all emergencies, theoccurrence of which might call Josiah out of his favourite book-room. Asold age rendered her inactive, she began to regret the incapacity of herson to superintend his own household, and talked something of matrimony,and the mysteries of the muckle wheel. To these admonitions Mr. Cargillreturned only slight and evasive answers; and when the old lady slept inthe village churchyard, at a reverend old age, there was no one toperform the office of superintendent in the minister's family. Neitherdid Josiah Cargill seek for any, but patiently submitted to all theevils with which a bachelor estate is attended, and which were at leastequal to those which beset the renowned Mago-Pico during his state ofcelibacy.[I-22] His butter was ill churned, and declared by all buthimself and the quean who made it, altogether uneatable; his milk wasburnt in the pan, his fruit and vegetables were stolen, and his blackstockings mended with blue and white thread.

  For all these things the minister cared not, his mind ever bent upon fardifferent matters. Do not let my fair readers do Josiah more thanjustice, or suppose that, like Beltenebros in the desert, he remainedfor years the victim of an unfortunate and misplaced passion. No--to theshame of the male sex be it spoken, that no degree of hopeless love,however desperate and sincere, can ever continue for years to embitterlife. There must be hope--there must be uncertainty--there must bereciprocity, to enable the tyrant of the soul to secure a dominion ofvery long duration over a manly and well-constituted mind, which isitself desirous to _will_ its freedom. The memory of Augusta had longfaded from Josiah's thoughts, or was remembered only as a pleasing, butmelancholy and unsubstantial dream, while he was straining forward inpursuit of a yet nobler and coyer mistress, in a word, of Knowledgeherself.

  Every hour that he could spare from his parochial duties, which hedischarged with zeal honourable to his heart and head, was devoted tohis studies, and spent among his books. But this chase of wisdom, thoughin itself interesting and dignified, was indulged to an excess whichdiminished the respectability, nay, the utility, of the deceivedstudent; and he forgot, amid the luxury of deep and dark investigations,that society has its claims, and that the knowledge which is unimparted,is necessarily a barren talent, and is lost to society, like the miser'sconcealed hoard, by the death of the proprietor. His studies were alsounder the additional disadvantage, that, being pursued for thegratification of a desultory longing after knowledge, and directed to nodetermined object, they turned on points rather curious than useful, andwhile they served for the amusement of the student himself, promisedlittle utility to mankind at large.

  Bewildered amid abstruse researches, metaphysical and historical, Mr.Cargill, living only for himself and his books, acquired many ludicroushabits, which exposed the secluded student to the ridicule of the world,and which tinged, though they did not altogether obscure, the naturalcivility of an amiable disposition, as well as the acquired habits ofpoliteness which he had learned in the good society that frequented LordBidmore's mansion. He not only indulged in neglect of dress andappearance, and all those ungainly tricks which men are apt to acquireby living very much alone, but besides, and especially, he becameprobably the most abstracted and absent man of a profession peculiarlyliable to cherish such habits. No man fell so regularly into the painfuldilemma of mistaking, or, in Scottish phrase, _miskenning_, the personhe spoke to, or more frequently enquired of an old maid for herhusband, of a childless wife about her young people, of the distressedwidower for the spouse at whose funeral he himself had assisted but afortnight before; and none was ever more familiar with strangers who
m hehad never seen, or seemed more estranged from those who had a title tothink themselves well known to him. The worthy man perpetuallyconfounded sex, age, and calling; and when a blind beggar extended hishand for charity, he has been known to return the civility by taking offhis hat, making a low bow, and hoping his worship was well.

  Among his brethren, Mr. Cargill alternately commanded respect by thedepth of his erudition, and gave occasion to laughter from his oddpeculiarities. On the latter occasions he used abruptly to withdraw fromthe ridicule he had provoked; for notwithstanding the general mildnessof his character, his solitary habits had engendered a testy impatienceof contradiction, and a keener sense of pain arising from the satire ofothers, than was natural to his unassuming disposition. As for hisparishioners, they enjoyed, as may reasonably be supposed, many a heartylaugh at their pastor's expense, and were sometimes, as Mrs. Dodshinted, more astonished than edified by his learning; for in pursuing apoint of biblical criticism, he did not altogether remember that he wasaddressing a popular and unlearned assembly, not delivering a _concio adclerum_--a mistake, not arising from any conceit of his learning, orwish to display it, but from the same absence of mind which induced anexcellent divine, when preaching before a party of criminals condemnedto death, to break off by promising the wretches, who were to suffernext morning, "the rest of the discourse at the first properopportunity." But all the neighbourhood acknowledged Mr. Cargill'sserious and devout discharge of his ministerial duties; and the poorerparishioners forgave his innocent peculiarities, in consideration of hisunbounded charity; while the heritors, if they ridiculed theabstractions of Mr. Cargill on some subjects, had the grace to recollectthat they had prevented him from suing an augmentation of stipend,according to the fashion of the clergy around him, or from demanding attheir hands a new manse, or the repair of the old one. He once, indeed,wished that they would amend the roof of his book-room, which "rainedin"[I-23] in a very pluvious manner; but receiving no direct answer fromour friend Meiklewham, who neither relished the proposal nor saw meansof eluding it, the minister quietly made the necessary repairs at hisown expense, and gave the heritors no farther trouble on the subject.

  Such was the worthy divine whom our _bon vivant_ at the Cleikum Innhoped to conciliate by a good dinner and Cockburn's particular; anexcellent menstruum in most cases, but not likely to be very efficaciouson the present occasion.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [I-22] Note III.--Mago-Pico.

  [I-23] _Scottice_, for "admitted the rain."