St. Ronan's Well

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XVII.

  THE ACQUAINTANCE.

  'Twixt us thus the difference trims:-- Using head instead of limbs, You have read what I have seen; Using limbs instead of head, I have seen what you have read-- Which way does the balance lean?

  BUTLER.

  Our traveller, rapid in all his resolutions and motions, strode stoutlydown the street, and arrived at the Manse, which was, as we have alreadydescribed it, all but absolutely ruinous. The total desolation and wantof order about the door, would have argued the place uninhabited, had itnot been for two or three miserable tubs with suds, or such likesluttish contents, which were left there, that those who broke theirshins among them might receive a sensible proof, that "here the hand ofwoman had been." The door being half off its hinges, the entrance wasfor the time protected by a broken harrow, which must necessarily beremoved before entry could be obtained. The little garden, which mighthave given an air of comfort to the old house had it been kept in anyorder, was abandoned to a desolation, of which that of the sluggard wasonly a type; and the minister's man, an attendant always proverbial fordoing half work, and who seemed in the present instance to do none, wasseen among docks and nettles, solacing himself with the few gooseberrieswhich remained on some moss-grown bushes. To him Mr. Touchwood calledloudly, enquiring after his master; but the clown, conscious of beingtaken in flagrant delict, as the law says, fled from him like a guiltything, instead of obeying his summons, and was soon heard _hupping_ and_geeing_ to the cart, which he had left on the other side of the brokenwall.

  Disappointed in his application to the man-servant, Mr. Touchwoodknocked with his cane, at first gently, then harder, holloaed, bellowed,and shouted, in the hope of calling the attention of some one withindoors, but received not a word in reply. At length, thinking that notrespass could be committed upon so forlorn and deserted anestablishment, he removed the obstacles to entrance with such a noise ashe thought must necessarily have alarmed some one, if there was any liveperson about the house at all. All was still silent; and, entering apassage where the damp walls and broken flags corresponded to theappearance of things out of doors, he opened a door to the left, which,wonderful to say, still had a latch remaining, and found himself in theparlour, and in the presence of the person whom he came to visit.

  Amid a heap of books and other literary lumber, which had accumulatedaround him, sat, in his well-worn leathern elbow chair, the learnedminister of St. Ronan's; a thin, spare man, beyond the middle age, of adark complexion, but with eyes which, though now obscured and vacant,had been once bright, soft, and expressive, and whose features seemedinteresting, the rather that, notwithstanding the carelessness of hisdress, he was in the habit of performing his ablutions with Easternprecision; for he had forgot neatness, but not cleanliness. His hairmight have appeared much more disorderly, had it not been thinned bytime, and disposed chiefly around the sides of his countenance and theback part of his head; black stockings, ungartered, marked hisprofessional dress, and his feet were thrust into the old slipshodshoes, which served him instead of slippers. The rest of his garments,as far as visible, consisted in a plaid nightgown wrapt in long foldsround his stooping and emaciated length of body, and reaching down tothe slippers aforesaid. He was so intently engaged in studying the bookbefore him, a folio of no ordinary bulk, that he totally disregarded thenoise which Mr. Touchwood made in entering the room, as well as thecoughs and hems with which he thought it proper to announce hispresence.

  No notice being taken of these inarticulate signals, Mr. Touchwood,however great an enemy he was to ceremony, saw the necessity ofintroducing his business, as an apology for his intrusion.

  "Hem! sir--Ha, hem!--You see before you a person in some distress forwant of society, who has taken the liberty to call on you as a goodpastor, who may be, in Christian charity, willing to afford him a littleof your company, since he is tired of his own."

  Of this speech Mr. Cargill only understood the words "distress" and"charity," sounds with which he was well acquainted, and which neverfailed to produce some effect on him. He looked at his visitor withlack-lustre eye, and, without correcting the first opinion which he hadformed, although the stranger's plump and sturdy frame, as well as hisnicely-brushed coat, glancing cane, and, above all, his upright andself-satisfied manner, resembled in no respect the dress, form, orbearing of a mendicant, he quietly thrust a shilling into his hand, andrelapsed into the studious contemplation which the entrance of Touchwoodhad interrupted.

  "Upon my word, my good sir," said his visitor, surprised at a degree ofabsence of mind which he could hardly have conceived possible, "you haveentirely mistaken my object."

  "I am sorry my mite is insufficient, my friend," said the clergyman,without again raising his eyes, "it is all I have at present to bestow."

  "If you will have the kindness to look up for a moment, my good sir,"said the traveller, "you may possibly perceive that you labour under aconsiderable mistake."

  Mr. Cargill raised his head, recalled his attention, and, seeing that hehad a well-dressed, respectable-looking person before him, he exclaimedin much confusion, "Ha!--yes--on my word, I was so immersed in mybook--I believe--I think I have the pleasure to see my worthy friend,Mr. Lavender?"

  "No such thing, Mr. Cargill," replied Mr Touchwood. "I will save you thetrouble of trying to recollect me--you never saw me before.--But do notlet me disturb your studies--I am in no hurry, and my business can waityour leisure."

  "I am much obliged," said Mr. Cargill; "have the goodness to take achair, if you can find one--I have a train of thought to recover--aslight calculation to finish--and then I am at your command."

  The visitor found among the broken furniture, not without difficulty, aseat strong enough to support his weight, and sat down, resting uponhis cane, and looking attentively at his host, who very soon becametotally insensible of his presence. A long pause of total silenceensued, only disturbed by the rustling leaves of the folio from whichMr. Cargill seemed to be making extracts, and now and then by a littleexclamation of surprise and impatience, when he dipped his pen, ashappened once or twice, into his snuff-box, instead of the inkstandishwhich stood beside it. At length, just as Mr. Touchwood began to thinkthe scene as tedious as it was singular, the abstracted student raisedhis head, and spoke as if in soliloquy, "From Acon, Accor, or St. Johnd'Acre, to Jerusalem, how far?"

  "Twenty-three miles north north-west," answered his visitor, withouthesitation.

  Mr. Cargill expressed no more surprise at a question which he had put tohimself being answered by the voice of another, than if he had found thedistance on the map, and indeed, was not probably aware of the mediumthrough which his question had been solved; and it was the tenor of theanswer alone which he attended to in his reply.--"Twenty-threemiles--Ingulphus," laying his hand on the volume, "and Jeffrey Winesauf,do not agree in this."

  "They may both be d----d, then, for lying block-heads," answered thetraveller.

  "You might have contradicted their authority, sir, without using such anexpression," said the divine, gravely.

  "I cry you mercy, Doctor," said Mr. Touchwood; "but would you comparethese parchment fellows with me, that have made my legs my compassesover great part of the inhabited world?"

  "You have been in Palestine, then?" said Mr. Cargill, drawing himselfupright in his chair, and speaking with eagerness and with interest.

  "You may swear that, Doctor, and at Acre too. Why, I was there the monthafter Boney had found it too hard a nut to crack.--I dined with SirSydney's chum, old Djezzar Pacha, and an excellent dinner we had, butfor a dessert of noses and ears brought on after the last remove, whichspoiled my digestion. Old Djezzar thought it so good a joke, that youhardly saw a man in Acre whose face was not as flat as the palm of myhand--Gad, I respect my olfactory organ, and set off the next morning asfast as the most cursed hard-trotting dromedary that ever fell to poorpilgrim's lot could contrive to tramp."

  "If you have really been in the Holy Land, sir,"
said Mr. Cargill, whomthe reckless gaiety of Touchwood's manner rendered somewhat suspiciousof a trick, "you will be able materially to enlighten me on the subjectof the Crusades."

  "They happened before my time, Doctor," replied the traveller.

  "You are to understand that my curiosity refers to the geography of thecountries where these events took place," answered Mr. Cargill.

  "O! as to that matter, you are lighted on your feet," said Mr.Touchwood; "for the time present I can fit you. Turk, Arab, Copt, andDruse, I know every one of them, and can make you as well acquaintedwith them as myself. Without stirring a step beyond your threshold, youshall know Syria as well as I do.--But one good turn deservesanother--in that case, you must have the goodness to dine with me."

  "I go seldom abroad, sir," said the minister, with a good deal ofhesitation, for his habits of solitude and seclusion could not beentirely overcome, even by the expectation raised by the traveller'sdiscourse; "yet I cannot deny myself the pleasure of waiting on agentleman possessed of so much experience."

  "Well then," said Mr. Touchwood, "three be the hour--I never dine later,and always to a minute--and the place, the Cleikum Inn, up the way;where Mrs. Dods is at this moment busy in making ready such a dinner asyour learning has seldom seen, Doctor, for I brought the receipts fromthe four different quarters of the globe."

  Upon this treaty they parted; and Mr. Cargill, after musing for a shortwhile upon the singular chance which had sent a living man to answerthose doubts for which he was in vain consulting ancient authorities, atlength resumed, by degrees, the train of reflection and investigationwhich Mr. Touchwood's visit had interrupted, and in a short time lostall recollection of his episodical visitor, and of the engagement whichhe had formed.

  Not so Mr. Touchwood, who, when not occupied with business of realimportance, had the art, as the reader may have observed, to make aprodigious fuss about nothing at all. Upon the present occasion, hebustled in and out of the kitchen, till Mrs. Dods lost patience, andthreatened to pin the dish-clout to his tail; a menace which hepardoned, in consideration, that in all the countries which he hadvisited, which are sufficiently civilized to boast of cooks, theseartists, toiling in their fiery element, have a privilege to be testyand impatient. He therefore retreated from the torrid region of Mrs.Dods's microcosm, and employed his time in the usual devices ofloiterers, partly by walking for an appetite, partly by observing theprogress of his watch towards three o'clock, when he had happilysucceeded in getting an employment more serious. His table, in the blueparlour, was displayed with two covers, after the fairest fashion of theCleikum Inn; yet the landlady, with a look "civil but sly," contrived toinsinuate a doubt whether the clergyman would come, "when a' was dune."

  Mr. Touchwood scorned to listen to such an insinuation until the fatedhour arrived, and brought with it no Mr. Cargill. The impatiententertainer allowed five minutes for difference of clocks, and variationof time, and other five for the procrastination of one who went littleinto society. But no sooner were the last five minutes expended, than hedarted off for the Manse, not, indeed, much like a greyhound or a deer,but with the momentum of a corpulent and well-appetized elderlygentleman, who is in haste to secure his dinner. He bounced withoutceremony into the parlour, where he found the worthy divine clothed inthe same plaid nightgown, and seated in the very elbow-chair, in whichhe had left him five hours before. His sudden entrance recalled to Mr.Cargill, not an accurate, but something of a general, recollection, ofwhat had passed in the morning, and he hastened to apologize with"Ha!--indeed--already?--upon my word, Mr. A--a--, I mean my dearfriend--I am afraid I have used you ill--I forgot to order anydinner--but we will do our best.--Eppie--Eppie!"

  Not at the first, second, nor third call, but _ex intervallo_, as thelawyers express it, Eppie, a bare-legged, shock-headed, thick-ankled,red-armed wench, entered, and announced her presence by an emphatic"What's your wull?"

  "Have you got any thing in the house for dinner, Eppie?"

  "Naething but bread and milk, plenty o't--what should I have?"

  "You see, sir," said Mr. Cargill, "you are like to have a Pythagoreanentertainment; but you are a traveller, and have doubtless been in yourtime thankful for bread and milk."

  "But never when there was any thing better to be had," said Mr.Touchwood. "Come, Doctor, I beg your pardon, but your wits are fairlygone a wool-gathering; it was _I_ invited _you_ to dinner, up at the innyonder, and not you me."

  "On my word, and so it was," said Mr. Cargill; "I knew I was quiteright--I knew there was a dinner engagement betwixt us, I was sure ofthat, and that is the main point.--Come, sir, I wait upon you."

  "Will you not first change your dress?" said the visitor, seeing withastonishment that the divine proposed to attend him in his plaidnightgown; "why, we shall have all the boys in the village after us--youwill look like an owl in sunshine, and they will flock round you like somany hedge-sparrows."

  "I will get my clothes instantly," said the worthy clergyman; "I willget ready directly--I am really ashamed to keep you waiting, my dearMr.--eh--eh--your name has this instant escaped me."

  "It is Touchwood, sir, at your service; I do not believe you ever heardit before," answered the traveller.

  "True--right--no more I have--well, my good Mr. Touchstone, will you sitdown an instant until we see what we can do?--strange slaves we makeourselves to these bodies of ours, Mr. Touchstone--the clothing and thesustaining of them costs us much thought and leisure, which might bebetter employed in catering for the wants of our immortal spirits."

  Mr. Touchwood thought in his heart that never had Bramin or Gymnosophistless reason to reproach himself with excess in the indulgence of thetable, or of the toilet, than the sage before him; but he assented tothe doctrine, as he would have done to any minor heresy, rather thanprotract matters by farther discussing the point at present. In a shorttime the minister was dressed in his Sunday's suit, without any farthermistake than turning one of his black stockings inside out; and Mr.Touchwood, happy as was Boswell when he carried off Dr. Johnson intriumph to dine with Strahan and John Wilkes, had the pleasure ofescorting him to the Cleikum Inn.

  In the course of the afternoon they became more familiar, and thefamiliarity led to their forming a considerable estimate of each other'spowers and acquirements. It is true, the traveller thought the studenttoo pedantic, too much attached to systems, which, formed in solitude,he was unwilling to renounce, even when contradicted by the voice andtestimony of experience; and, moreover, considered his utter inattentionto the quality of what he eat and drank, as unworthy of a rational, thatis, of a cooking creature, or of a being who, as defined by Johnson,holds his dinner as the most important business of the day. Cargill didnot act up to this definition, and was, therefore, in the eyes of hisnew acquaintance, so far ignorant and uncivilized. What then? He wasstill a sensible, intelligent man, however abstemious and bookish.

  On the other hand, the divine could not help regarding his new friend assomething of an epicure or belly-god, nor could he observe in him eitherthe perfect education, or the polished bearing, which mark the gentlemanof rank, and of which, while he mingled with the world, he had become acompetent judge. Neither did it escape him, that in the catalogue of Mr.Touchwood's defects, occurred that of many travellers, a slightdisposition to exaggerate his own personal adventures, and to proseconcerning his own exploits. But then, his acquaintance with Easternmanners, existing now in the same state in which they were found duringthe time of the Crusades, formed a living commentary on the works ofWilliam of Tyre, Raymund of Saint Giles, the Moslem annals ofAbulfaragi, and other historians of the dark period, with which hisstudies were at present occupied.

  A friendship, a companionship at least, was therefore struck up hastilybetwixt these two originals; and to the astonishment of the whole parishof St. Ronan's, the minister thereof was seen once more leagued andunited with an individual of his species, generally called among themthe Cleikum Nabob. Their intercourse sometimes consisted in long walks,which
they took in company, traversing, however, as limited a space ofground, as if it had been actually roped in for their pedestrianexercise. Their parade was, according to circumstances, a low haugh atthe nether end of the ruinous hamlet, or the esplanade in the front ofthe old castle; and, in either case, the direct longitude of theirpromenade never exceeded a hundred yards. Sometimes, but rarely, thedivine took share of Mr. Touchwood's meal, though less splendidly setforth than when he was first invited to partake of it; for, like theowner of the gold cup in Parnell's Hermit, when cured of hisostentation,

  ----"Still he welcomed, but with less of cost."

  On these occasions, the conversation was not of the regular andcompacted nature, which passes betwixt men, as they are ordinarilytermed, of this world. On the contrary, the one party was often thinkingof Saladin and Coeur de Lion, when the other was haranguing on HyderAli and Sir Eyre Coote. Still, however, the one spoke, and the otherseemed to listen; and, perhaps, the lighter intercourse of society,where amusement is the sole object, can scarcely rest on a safer andmore secure basis.

  It was on one of the evenings when the learned divine had taken hisplace at Mr. Touchwood's social board, or rather at Mrs. Dods's,--for acup of excellent tea, the only luxury which Mr. Cargill continued topartake of with some complacence, was the regale before them,--that acard was delivered to the Nabob.

  "Mr. and Miss Mowbray see company at Shaws-Castle on the twentieth current, at two o'clock--a _dejeuner_--dresses in character admitted--A dramatic picture."

  "See company? the more fools they," he continued by way of comment. "Seecompany?--choice phrases are ever commendable--and this piece ofpasteboard is to intimate that one may go and meet all the fools of theparish, if they have a mind--in my time they asked the honour, or thepleasure, of a stranger's company. I suppose, by and by, we shall havein this country the ceremonial of a Bedouin's tent, where every raggedHadgi, with his green turban, comes in slap without leave asked, and hashis black paw among the rice, with no other apology than SalamAlicum.--'Dresses in character--Dramatic picture'--what new tomfoolerycan that be?--but it does not signify.--Doctor! I say Doctor!--but he isin the seventh heaven--I say, Mother Dods, you who know all the news--Isthis the feast that was put off until Miss Mowbray should be better?"

  "Troth is it, Maister Touchwood--they are no in the way of giving twaentertainments in one season--no very wise to gie ane maybe--but theyken best."

  "I say, Doctor, Doctor!--Bless his five wits, he is charging theMoslemah with stout King Richard--I say, Doctor, do you know any thingof these Mowbrays?"

  "Nothing extremely particular," answered Mr. Cargill, after a pause; "itis an ordinary tale of greatness, which blazes in one century, and isextinguished in the next. I think Camden says, that Thomas Mowbray, whowas Grand-Marshal of England, succeeded to that high office, as well asto the Dukedom of Norfolk, as grandson of Roger Bigot, in 1301."

  "Pshaw, man, you are back into the 14th century--I mean these Mowbraysof St. Ronan's--now, don't fall asleep again until you have answered myquestion--and don't look so like a startled hare--I am speaking notreason."

  The clergyman floundered a moment, as is usual with an absent man who isrecovering the train of his ideas, or a somnambulist when he is suddenlyawakened, and then answered, still with hesitation,--

  "Mowbray of St. Ronan's?--ha--eh--I know--that is--I did know thefamily."

  "Here they are going to give a masquerade, a _bal pare_, privatetheatricals, I think, and what not," handing him the card.

  "I saw something of this a fortnight ago," said Mr. Cargill; "indeed, Ieither had a ticket myself, or I saw such a one as that."

  "Are you sure you did not attend the party, Doctor?" said the Nabob.

  "Who attend? I? you are jesting, Mr. Touchwood."

  "But are you quite positive?" demanded Mr. Touchwood, who had observed,to his infinite amusement, that the learned and abstracted scholar wasso conscious of his own peculiarities, as never to be very sure on anysuch subject.

  "Positive!" he repeated with embarrassment; "my memory is so wretchedthat I never like to be positive--but had I done any thing so far out ofmy usual way, I must have remembered it, one would think--and--I _am_positive I was not there."

  "Neither could you, Doctor," said the Nabob, laughing at the process bywhich his friend reasoned himself into confidence, "for it did not takeplace--it was adjourned, and this is the second invitation--there willbe one for you, as you had a card to the former.--Come, Doctor, you mustgo--you and I will go together--I as an Imaum--I can say my Bismillahwith any Hadgi of them all--You as a cardinal, or what you like best."

  "Who, I?--it is unbecoming my station, Mr. Touchwood," said theclergyman--"a folly altogether inconsistent with my habits."

  "All the better--you shall change your habits."

  "You had better gang up and see them, Mr. Cargill," said Mrs. Dods; "forit's maybe the last sight ye may see of Miss Mowbray--they say she is tobe married and off to England ane of thae odd-come-shortlies, wi' someof the gowks about the Waal down-by."

  "Married!" said the clergyman; "it is impossible!"

  "But where's the impossibility, Mr. Cargill, when ye see folk marryevery day, and buckle them yoursell into the bargain?--Maybe ye thinkthe puir lassie has a bee in her bannet; but ye ken yoursell if naebodybut wise folk were to marry, the warld wad be ill peopled. I think it'sthe wise folk that keep single, like yoursell and me, Mr. Cargill.--Gudeguide us!--are ye weel?--will ye taste a drap o' something?"

  "Sniff at my ottar of roses," said Mr. Touchwood; "the scent wouldrevive the dead--why, what in the devil's name is the meaning ofthis?--you were quite well just now."

  "A sudden qualm," said Mr. Cargill, recovering himself.

  "Oh! Mr. Cargill," said Dame Dods, "this comes of your lang fasts."

  "Right, dame," subjoined Mr. Touchwood; "and of breaking them with sourmilk and pease bannock--the least morsel of Christian food is rejectedby stomach, just as a small gentleman refuses the visit of a creditableneighbour, lest he see the nakedness of the land--ha! ha!"

  "And there is really a talk of Miss Mowbray of St Ronan's beingmarried?" said the clergyman.

  "Troth is there," said the dame; "it's Trotting Nelly's news; and thoughshe likes a drappie, I dinna think she would invent a lee or carryane--at least to me, that am a gude customer."

  "This must be looked to," said Mr. Cargill, as if speaking to himself.

  "In troth, and so it should," said Dame Dods; "it's a sin and a shame ifthey should employ the tinkling cymbal they ca' Chatterly, and sic aPresbyterian trumpet as yoursell in the land, Mr. Cargill; and if yewill take a fule's advice, ye winna let the multure be ta'en by your ainmill, Mr. Cargill."

  "True, true, good Mother Dods," said the Nabob; "gloves and hatbands arethings to be looked after, and Mr. Cargill had better go down to thiscursed festivity with me, in order to see after his own interest."

  "I must speak with the young lady," said the clergyman, still in a brownstudy.

  "Right, right, my boy of black-letter," said the Nabob; "with me youshall go, and we'll bring them to submission to mother-church, I warrantyou--Why, the idea of being cheated in such a way, would scare a Santonout of his trance.--What dress will you wear?"

  "My own, to be sure," said the divine, starting from his reverie.

  "True, thou art right again--they may want to knit the knot on the spot,and who would be married by a parson in masquerade?--We go to theentertainment though--it is a done thing."

  The clergyman assented, provided he should receive an invitation; and asthat was found at the Manse, he had no excuse for retracting, even if hehad seemed to desire one.