Guy Mannering, Or, the Astrologer — Complete, Walter Scott [best book club books txt] 📗

of distress, did it not seem to be in some degree a moment also of desertion; he wished merely to offer such services as might be in his power to Mr. Bertram and the young lady.'

He then paused at a little distance from the chair. His old acquaintance gazed at him with lack-lustre eye, that intimated no tokens of recognition; the Dominie seemed too deeply sunk in distress even to observe his presence. The young man spoke aside with Miss Bertram, who advanced timidly, and thanked Colonel Mannering for his goodness; 'but,' she said, the tears gushing fast into her eyes, 'her father, she feared, was not so much himself as to be able to remember him.'

She then retreated towards the chair, accompanied by the Colonel. 'Father,' she said, 'this is Mr. Mannering, an old friend, come to inquire after you.'

'He's very heartily welcome,' said the old man, raising himself in his chair, and attempting a gesture of courtesy, while a gleam of hospitable satisfaction seemed to pass over his faded features; 'but, Lucy, my dear, let us go down to the house; you should not keep the gentleman here in the cold. Dominie, take the key of the wine-cooler. Mr. a—a—the gentleman will surely take something after his ride.'

Mannering was unspeakably affected by the contrast which his recollection made between this reception and that with which he had been greeted by the same individual when they last met. He could not restrain his tears, and his evident emotion at once attained him the confidence of the friendless young lady.

'Alas!' she said, 'this is distressing even to a stranger; but it may be better for my poor father to be in this way than if he knew and could feel all.'

A servant in livery now came up the path, and spoke in an undertone to the young gentleman—'Mr. Charles, my lady's wanting you yonder sadly, to bid for her for the black ebony cabinet; and Lady Jean Devorgoil is wi' her an' a'; ye maun come away directly.'

'Tell them you could not find me, Tom, or, stay,—say I am looking at the horses.'

'No, no, no,' said Lucy Bertram, earnestly; 'if you would not add to the misery of this miserable moment, go to the company directly. This gentleman, I am sure, will see us to the carriage.'

'Unquestionably, madam,' said Mannering, 'your young friend may rely on my attention.'

'Farewell, then,' said young Hazlewood, and whispered a word in her ear; then ran down the steep hastily, as if not trusting his resolution at a slower pace.

'Where's Charles Hazlewood running?' said the invalid, who apparently was accustomed to his presence and attentions; 'where's Charles Hazlewood running? what takes him away now?'

'He'll return in a little while,' said Lucy, gently.

The sound of voices was now heard from the ruins. The reader may remember there was a communication between the castle and the beach, up which the speakers had ascended.

'Yes, there's a plenty of shells and seaware for manure, as you observe; and if one inclined to build a new house, which might indeed be necessary, there's a great deal of good hewn stone about this old dungeon, for the devil here—'

'Good God!' said Miss Bertram hastily to Sampson, ''t is that wretch
Glossin's voice! If my father sees him, it will kill him outright!'

Sampson wheeled perpendicularly round, and moved with long strides to confront the attorney as he issued from beneath the portal arch of the ruin. 'Avoid ye!' he said, 'avoid ye! wouldst thou kill and take possession?'

'Come, come, Master Dominie Sampson,' answered Glossin insolently, 'if ye cannot preach in the pulpit, we'll have no preaching here. We go by the law, my good friend; we leave the gospel to you.'

The very mention of this man's name had been of late a subject of the most violent irritation to the unfortunate patient. The sound of his voice now produced an instantaneous effect. Mr. Bertram started up without assistance and turned round towards him; the ghastliness of his features forming a strange contrast with the violence of his exclamations.—'Out of my sight, ye viper! ye frozen viper, that I warmed, till ye stung me! Art thou not afraid that the walls of my father's dwelling should fall and crush thee limb and bone? Are ye not afraid the very lintels of the door of Ellangowan Castle should break open and swallow you up? Were ye not friendless, houseless, penniless, when I took ye by the hand; and are ye not expelling me—me and that innocent girl—friendless, houseless, and penniless, from the house that has sheltered us and ours for a thousand years?'

Had Glossin been alone, he would probably have slunk off; but the consciousness that a stranger was present, besides the person who came with him (a sort of land-surveyor), determined him to resort to impudence. The task, however, was almost too hard even for his effrontery—'Sir—sir—Mr. Bertram, sir, you should not blame me, but your own imprudence, sir—'

The indignation of Mannering was mounting very high. 'Sir,' he said to Glossin, 'without entering into the merits of this controversy, I must inform you that you have chosen a very improper place, time, and presence for it. And you will oblige me by withdrawing without more words.'

Glossin, being a tall, strong, muscular man, was not unwilling rather to turn upon the stranger, whom he hoped to bully, than maintain his wretched cause against his injured patron.—'I do not know who you are, sir,' he said, 'and I shall permit no man to use such d—d freedom with me.'

Mannering was naturally hot-tempered: his eyes flashed a dark light; he compressed his nether lip so closely that the blood sprung, and approaching Glossin—'Look you, sir,' he said,' that you do not know me is of little consequence. I KNOW YOU; and if you do not instantly descend that bank, without uttering a single syllable, by the Heaven that is above us you shall make but one step from the top to the bottom!'

The commanding tone of rightful anger silenced at once the ferocity of the bully. He hesitated, turned on his heel, and, muttering something between his teeth about unwillingness to alarm the lady, relieved them of his hateful company.

Mrs. Mac-Candlish's postilion, who had come up in time to hear what passed, said aloud, 'If he had stuck by the way, I would have lent him a heezie, the dirty scoundrel, as willingly as ever I pitched a boddle.'

He then stepped forward to announce that his horses were in readiness for the invalid and his daughter. But they were no longer necessary. The debilitated frame of Mr. Bertram was exhausted by this last effort of indignant anger, and when he sunk again upon his chair, he expired almost without a struggle or groan. So little alteration did the extinction of the vital spark make upon his external appearance that the screams of his daughter, when she saw his eye fix and felt his pulse stop, first announced his death to the spectators.

CHAPTER XIV

     The bell strikes one. We take no note of time
     But from its loss. To give it then a tongue
     Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
     I feel the solemn sound.

YOUNG.

The moral which the poet has rather quaintly deduced from the necessary mode of measuring time may be well applied to our feelings respecting that portion of it which constitutes human life. We observe the aged, the infirm, and those engaged in occupations of immediate hazard, trembling as it were upon the very brink of non-existence, but we derive no lesson from the precariousness of their tenure until it has altogether failed. Then, for a moment at least—

          Our hopes and fears
     Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
     Look down—on what? a fathomless abyss,
     A dark eternity, how surely ours!

The crowd of assembled gazers and idlers at Ellangowan had followed the views of amusement, or what they called business, which brought them there, with little regard to the feelings of those who were suffering upon that occasion. Few, indeed, knew anything of the family. The father, betwixt seclusion, misfortune, and imbecility, had drifted, as it were, for many years out of the notice of his contemporaries; the daughter had never been known to them. But when the general murmur announced that the unfortunate Mr. Bertram had broken his heart in the effort to leave the mansion of his forefathers, there poured forth a torrent of sympathy like the waters from the rock when stricken by the wand of the prophet. The ancient descent and unblemished integrity of the family were respectfully remembered; above all, the sacred veneration due to misfortune, which in Scotland seldom demands its tribute in vain, then claimed and received it.

Mr. Mac-Morlan hastily announced that he would suspend all farther proceedings in the sale of the estate and other property, and relinquish the possession of the premises to the young lady, until she could consult with her friends and provide for the burial of her father.

Glossin had cowered for a few minutes under the general expression of sympathy, till, hardened by observing that no appearance of popular indignation was directed his way, he had the audacity to require that the sale should proceed.

'I will take it upon my own authority to adjourn it,' said the Sheriff-substitute, 'and will be responsible for the consequences. I will also give due notice when it is again to go forward. It is for the benefit of all concerned that the lands should bring the highest price the state of the market will admit, and this is surely no time to expect it. I will take the responsibility upon myself.'

Glossin left the room and the house too with secrecy and despatch; and it was probably well for him that he did so, since our friend Jock Jabos was already haranguing a numerous tribe of bare-legged boys on the propriety of pelting him off the estate.

Some of the rooms were hastily put in order for the reception of the young lady, and of her father's dead body. Mannering now found his farther interference would be unnecessary, and might be misconstrued. He observed, too, that several families connected with that of Ellangowan, and who indeed derived their principal claim of gentility from the alliance, were now disposed to pay to their trees of genealogy a tribute which the adversity of their supposed relatives had been inadequate to call forth; and that the honour of superintending the funeral rites of the dead Godfrey Bertram (as in the memorable case of Homer's birthplace) was likely to be debated by seven gentlemen of rank and fortune, none of whom had offered him an asylum while living. He therefore resolved, as his presence was altogether useless, to make a short tour of a fortnight, at the end of which period the adjourned sale of the estate of Ellangowan was to proceed.

But before he departed he solicited an interview with the Dominie. The poor man appeared, on being informed a gentleman wanted to speak to him, with some expression of surprise in his gaunt features, to which recent sorrow had given an expression yet more grisly. He made two or three profound reverences to Mannering, and then, standing erect, patiently waited an explanation of his commands.

'You are probably at a loss to guess, Mr. Sampson,' said Mannering, 'what a stranger may have to say to you?'

'Unless it were to request that I would undertake to train up some youth in polite letters and humane learning; but I cannot—I cannot; I have yet a task to perform.'

'No, Mr. Sampson, my wishes are not so ambitious. I have no son, and my only daughter, I presume, you would not consider as a fit pupil.'

'Of a surety no,' replied the simple-minded Sampson. 'Nathless, it was I who did educate Miss Lucy in all useful learning, albeit it was the housekeeper who did teach her those unprofitable exercises of hemming and shaping.'

'Well, sir,' replied Mannering, 'it is of Miss Lucy I meant to speak.
You have, I presume, no recollection of me?'

Sampson, always sufficiently absent in mind, neither remembered the astrologer of past years, nor even the stranger who had taken his patron's part against Glossin, so much had his friend's sudden death embroiled his ideas.

'Well, that does not signify,' pursued the Colonel; 'I am an old acquaintance of the late Mr. Bertram, able and willing to assist his daughter in her present circumstances. Besides, I have thoughts of making this purchase, and I should wish things kept in order about the place; will you have the goodness to apply this small sum