Guy Mannering or The Astrologer

by Walter Scott

  From the awkward access to the lawyer's mansion, Mannering was induced to form very moderate expectations of the entertainment which he was to receive. The approach looked even more dismal by daylight than on the preceding evening. The houses on each side of the lane were so close that the neighbours might have shaken hands with each other from the different sides, and occasionally the space between was traversed by wooden galleries, and thus entirely closed up. The stair, the scale-stair, was not well cleaned; and on entering the house Mannering was struck with the narrowness and meanness of the wainscotted passage. But the library, into which he was shown by an elderly, respectable-looking man-servant, was a complete contrast to these unpromising appearances. It was a well-proportioned room, hung with a portrait or two of Scottish characters of eminence, by Jamieson, the Caledonian Vandyke, and surrounded with books, the best editions of the best authors, and in particular an admirable collection of classics.

  'These,' said Pleydell, 'are my tools of trade. A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.'

  But Mannering was chiefly delighted with the view from the windows, which commanded that incomparable prospect of the ground between Edinburgh and the sea―the Firth of Forth, with its islands, the embayment which is terminated by the Law of North Berwick, and the varied shores of Fife to the northward, indenting with a hilly outline the clear blue horizon.

  When Mr. Pleydell had sufficiently enjoyed the surprise of his guest, he called his attention to Miss Bertram's affairs. 'I was in hopes,' he said, 'though but faint, to have discovered some means of ascertaining her indefeasible right to this property of Singleside; but my researches have been in vain. The old lady was certainly absolute fiar, and might dispose of it in full right of property. All that we have to hope is, that the devil may not have tempted her to alter this very proper settlement. You must attend the old girl's funeral to-morrow, to which you will receive an invitation, for I have acquainted her agent with your being here on Miss Bertram's part; and I will meet you afterwards at the house she inhabited, and be present to see fair play at the opening of the settlement. The old cat had a little girl, the orphan of some relation, who lived with her as a kind of slavish companion. I hope she has had the conscience to make her independent, in consideration of the peine forte et dure to which she subjected her during her lifetime.'

  Three gentlemen now appeared, and were introduced to the stranger. They were men of good sense, gaiety, and general information, so that the day passed very pleasantly over; and Colonel Mannering assisted, about eight o'clock at night, in discussing the landlord's bottle, which was, of course, a magnum. Upon his return to the inn he found a card inviting him to the funeral of Miss Margaret Bertram, late of Singleside, which was to proceed from her own house to the place of interment in the Greyfriars churchyard at one o'clock afternoon.

  At the appointed hour Mannering went to a small house in the suburbs to the southward of the city, where he found the place of mourning indicated, as usual in Scotland, by two rueful figures with long black cloaks, white crapes and hat-bands, holding in their hands poles, adorned with melancholy streamers of the same description. By two other mutes, who, from their visages, seemed suffering under the pressure of some strange calamity, he was ushered into the dining-parlour of the defunct, where the company were assembled for the funeral.

  In Scotland the custom, now disused in England, of inviting the relations of the deceased to the interment is universally retained. On many occasions this has a singular and striking effect, but it degenerates into mere empty form and grimace in cases where the defunct has had the misfortune to live unbeloved and die unlamented. The English service for the dead, one of the most beautiful and impressive parts of the ritual of the church, would have in such cases the effect of fixing the attention, and uniting the thoughts and feelings of the audience present in an exercise of devotion so peculiarly adapted to such an occasion. But according to the Scottish custom, if there be not real feeling among the assistants, there is nothing to supply the deficiency, and exalt or rouse the attention; so that a sense of tedious form, and almost hypocritical restraint, is too apt to pervade the company assembled for the mournful solemnity. Mrs. Margaret Bertram was unluckily one of those whose good qualities had attached no general friendship. She had no near relations who might have mourned from natural affection, and therefore her funeral exhibited merely the exterior trappings of sorrow.

  Mannering, therefore, stood among this lugubrious company of cousins in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth degree, composing his countenance to the decent solemnity of all who were around him, and looking as much concerned on Mrs. Margaret Bertram's account as if the deceased lady of Singleside had been his own sister or mother. After a deep and awful pause, the company began to talk aside, under their breaths, however, and as if in the chamber of a dying person.

  'Our poor friend,' said one grave gentleman, scarcely opening his mouth, for fear of deranging the necessary solemnity of his features, and sliding his whisper from between his lips, which were as little unclosed as possible―'our poor friend has died well to pass in the world.'

  'Nae doubt,' answered the person addressed, with half-closed eyes; 'poor Mrs. Margaret was aye careful of the gear.'

  'Any news to-day, Colonel Mannering?' said one of the gentlemen whom he had dined with the day before, but in a tone which might, for its impressive gravity, have communicated the death of his whole generation.

  'Nothing particular, I believe, sir,' said Mannering, in the cadence which was, he observed, appropriated to the house of mourning.

  'I understand,' continued the first speaker, emphatically, and with the air of one who is well informed―'I understand there IS a settlement.'

  'And what does little Jenny Gibson get?'

  'A hundred, and the auld repeater.'

  'That's but sma' gear, puir thing; she had a sair time o't with the auld leddy. But it's ill waiting for dead folk's shoon.'

  'I am afraid,' said the politician, who was close by Mannering, 'we have not done with your old friend Tippoo Sahib yet, I doubt he'll give the Company more plague; and I am told, but you'll know for certain, that East India Stock is not rising.'

  'I trust it will, sir, soon.'

  'Mrs. Margaret,' said another person, mingling in the conversation, 'had some India bonds. I know that, for I drew the interest for her; it would be desirable now for the trustees and legatees to have the Colonel's advice about the time and mode of converting them into money. For my part I think―but there's Mr. Mortcloke to tell us they are gaun to lift.'

  Mr. Mortcloke the undertaker did accordingly, with a visage of professional length and most grievous solemnity, distribute among the pall-bearers little cards, assigning their respective situations in attendance upon the coffin. As this precedence is supposed to be regulated by propinquity to the defunct, the undertaker, however skilful a master of these lugubrious ceremonies, did not escape giving some offence. To be related to Mrs. Bertram was to be of kin to the lands of Singleside, and was a propinquity of which each relative present at that moment was particularly jealous. Some murmurs there were on the occasion, and our friend Dinmont gave more open offence, being unable either to repress his discontent or to utter it in the key properly modulated to the solemnity. 'I think ye might hae at least gi'en me a leg o' her to carry,' he exclaimed, in a voice considerably louder than propriety admitted. 'God! an it hadna been for the rigs o' land, I would hae gotten her a' to carry mysell, for as mony gentles as are here.'

  A score of frowning and reproving brows were bent upon the unappalled yeoman, who, having given vent to his displeasure, stalked sturdily downstairs with the rest of the company, totally disregarding the censures of those whom his remarks had scandalised.

  And then the funeral pomp set forth; saulies with their batons and gumphions of tarnished white crape, in honour of the well-preserved maiden fame of M
rs. Margaret Bertram. Six starved horses, themselves the very emblems of mortality, well cloaked and plumed, lugging along the hearse with its dismal emblazonry, crept in slow state towards the place of interment, preceded by Jamie Duff, an idiot, who, with weepers and cravat made of white paper, attended on every funeral, and followed by six mourning coaches, filled with the company. Many of these now gave more free loose to their tongues, and discussed with unrestrained earnestness the amount of the succession, and the probability of its destination. The principal expectants, however, kept a prudent silence, indeed ashamed to express hopes which might prove fallacious; and the agent or man of business, who alone knew exactly how matters stood, maintained a countenance of mysterious importance, as if determined to preserve the full interest of anxiety and suspense.

  At length they arrived at the churchyard gates, and from thence, amid the gaping of two or three dozen of idle women with infants in their arms, and accompanied by some twenty children, who ran gambolling and screaming alongside of the sable procession, they finally arrived at the burial-place of the Singleside family. This was a square enclosure in the Greyfriars churchyard, guarded on one side by a veteran angel without a nose, and having only one wing, who had the merit of having maintained his post for a century, while his comrade cherub, who had stood sentinel on the corresponding pedestal, lay a broken trunk among the hemlock, burdock, and nettles which grew in gigantic luxuriance around the walls of the mausoleum. A moss-grown and broken inscription informed the reader that in the year 1650 Captain Andrew Bertram, first of Singleside, descended of the very ancient and honourable house of Ellangowan, had caused this monument to be erected for himself and his descendants. A reasonable number of scythes and hour-glasses, and death's heads and cross-bones, garnished the following sprig of sepulchral poetry to the memory of the founder of the mausoleum:―

  Nathaniel's heart, Bezaleel's hand If ever any had, These boldly do I say had he, Who lieth in this bed.

  Here, then, amid the deep black fat loam into which her ancestors were now resolved, they deposited the body of Mrs. Margaret Bertram; and, like soldiers returning from a military funeral, the nearest relations who might be interested in the settlements of the lady urged the dog-cattle of the hackney coaches to all the speed of which they were capable, in order to put an end to farther suspense on that interesting topic.

  CHAPTER IX

  Die and endow a college or a cat.

  POPE.

  There is a fable told by Lucian, that while a troop of monkeys, well drilled by an intelligent manager, were performing a tragedy with great applause, the decorum of the whole scene was at once destroyed, and the natural passions of the actors called forth into very indecent and active emulation, by a wag who threw a handful of nuts upon the stage. In like manner, the approaching crisis stirred up among the expectants feelings of a nature very different from those of which, under the superintendence of Mr. Mortcloke, they had but now been endeavouring to imitate the expression. Those eyes which were lately devoutly cast up to heaven, or with greater humility bent solemnly upon earth, were now sharply and alertly darting their glances through shuttles, and trunks, and drawers, and cabinets, and all the odd corners of an old maiden lady's repositories. Nor was their search without interest, though they did not find the will of which they were in quest.

  Here was a promissory note for 20 Pounds by the minister of the nonjuring chapel, interest marked as paid to Martinmas last, carefully folded up in a new set of words to the old tune of 'Over the Water to Charlie'; there was a curious love correspondence between the deceased and a certain Lieutenant O'Kean of a marching regiment of foot; and tied up with the letters was a document which at once explained to the relatives why a connexion that boded them little good had been suddenly broken off, being the Lieutenant's bond for two hundred pounds, upon which NO interest whatever appeared to have been paid. Other bills and bonds to a larger amount, and signed by better names (I mean commercially) than those of the worthy divine and gallant soldier, also occurred in the course of their researches, besides a hoard of coins of every size and denomination, and scraps of broken gold and silver, old earrings, hinges of cracked, snuff-boxes, mountings of spectacles, etc. etc. etc. Still no will made its appearance, and Colonel Mannering began full well to hope that the settlement which he had obtained from Glossin contained the ultimate arrangement of the old lady's affairs. But his friend Pleydell, who now came into the room, cautioned him against entertaining this belief.

  'I am well acquainted with the gentleman,' he said, 'who is conducting the search, and I guess from his manner that he knows something more of the matter than any of us.'

  Meantime, while the search proceeds, let us take a brief glance at one or two of the company who seem most interested.

  Of Dinmont, who, with his large hunting-whip under his arm, stood poking his great round face over the shoulder of the homme d'affaires, it is unnecessary to say anything. That thin-looking oldish person, in a most correct and gentleman-like suit of mourning, is Mac-Casquil, formerly of Drumquag, who was ruined by having a legacy bequeathed to him of two shares in the Ayr bank. His hopes on the present occasion are founded on a very distant relationship, upon his sitting in the same pew with the deceased every Sunday, and upon his playing at cribbage with her regularly on the Saturday evenings, taking great care never to come off a winner. That other coarse-looking man, wearing his own greasy hair tied in a leathern cue more greasy still, is a tobacconist, a relation of Mrs. Bertram's mother, who, having a good stock in trade when the colonial war broke out, trebled the price of his commodity to all the world, Mrs. Bertram alone excepted, whose tortoise-shell snuff-box was weekly filled with the best rappee at the old prices, because the maid brought it to the shop with Mrs. Bertram's respects to her cousin Mr. Quid. That young fellow, who has not had the decency to put off his boots and buckskins, might have stood as forward as most of them in the graces of the old lady, who loved to look upon a comely young man; but it is thought he has forfeited the moment of fortune by sometimes neglecting her tea-table when solemnly invited, sometimes appearing there when he had been dining with blyther company, twice treading upon her cat's tail, and once affronting her parrot.

  To Mannering the most interesting of the group was the poor girl who had been a sort of humble companion of the deceased, as a subject upon whom she could at all times expectorate her bad humour. She was for form's sake dragged into the room by the deceased's favourite female attendant, where, shrinking into a>corner as soon as possible, she saw with wonder and affright the intrusive researches of the strangers amongst those recesses to which from childhood she had looked with awful veneration. This girl was regarded with an unfavourable eye by all the competitors, honest Dinmont only excepted; the rest conceived they should find in her a formidable competitor, whose claims might at least encumber and diminish their chance of succession. Yet she was the only person present who seemed really to feel sorrow for the deceased. Mrs. Bertram had been her protectress, although from selfish motives, and her capricious tyranny was forgotten at the moment, while the tears followed each other fast down the cheeks of her frightened and friendless dependent. 'There's ower muckle saut water there, Drumquag,' said the tobacconist to the ex-proprietor, 'to bode ither folk muckle gude. Folk seldom greet that gate but they ken what it's for.' Mr. Mac-Casquil only replied with a nod, feeling the propriety of asserting his superior gentry in presence of Mr. Pleydell and Colonel Mannering.

  'Very queer if there suld be nae will after a', friend,' said Dinmont, who began to grow impatient, to the man of business.

  'A moment's patience, if you please. She was a good and prudent woman, Mrs. Margaret Bertram―a good and prudent and well-judging woman, and knew how to choose friends and depositaries; she may have put her last will and testament, or rather her mortis causa settlement, as it relates to heritage, into the hands of some safe friend.'

  'I'll bet a rump and dozen,' said Pleydell, whispering to the Colonel, 'he has got it in his
own pocket.' Then addressing the man of law, 'Come, sir, we'll cut this short, if you please: here is a settlement of the estate of Singleside, executed several years ago, in favour of Miss Lucy Bertram of Ellangowan.' The company stared fearfully wild. 'You, I presume, Mr. Protocol, can inform us if there is a later deed?'

  'Please to favour me, Mr. Pleydell'; and so saying, he took the deed out of the learned counsel's hand, and glanced his eye over the contents.

  'Too cool,' said Pleydell, 'too cool by half; he has another deed in his pocket still.'

  'Why does he not show it then, and be d-d to him!' said the military gentleman, whose patience began to wax threadbare.

  'Why, how should I know?' answered the barrister; 'why does a cat not kill a mouse when she takes him? The consciousness of power and the love of teasing, I suppose. Well, Mr. Protocol, what say you to that deed?'

  'Why, Mr. Pleydell, the deed is a well-drawn deed, properly authenticated and tested in forms of the statute.'

  'But recalled or superseded by another of posterior date in your possession, eh?' said the Counsellor.

  'Something of the sort, I confess, Mr. Pleydell,' rejoined the man of business, producing a bundle tied with tape, and sealed at each fold and ligation with black wax. 'That deed, Mr. Pleydell, which you produce and found upon, is dated 1st June 17―; but this (breaking the seals and unfolding the document slowly) is dated the 20th―no, I see it is the 21st―of April of this present year, being ten years posterior.'

  'Marry, hang her, brock!' said the Counsellor, borrowing an exclamation from Sir Toby Belch; 'just the month in which Ellangowan's distresses became generally public. But let us hear what she has done.'