Old Mortality, Complete

CHAPTER XIX

The scene of explanation was hastily removed from the little kitchen to Mrs. Wilson’s own matted room,—the very same which she had occupied as housekeeper, and which she continued to retain. “It was,” she said, “better secured against sifting winds than the hall, which she had found dangerous to her rheumatisms, and it was more fitting for her use than the late Milnwood’s apartment, honest man, which gave her sad thoughts;” and as for the great oak parlour, it was never opened but to be aired, washed, and dusted, according to the invariable practice of the family, unless upon their most solemn festivals. In the matted room, therefore, they were settled, surrounded by pickle-pots and conserves of all kinds, which the ci-devant housekeeper continued to compound, out of mere habit, although neither she herself, nor any one else, ever partook of the comfits which she so regularly prepared.

Morton, adapting his narrative to the comprehension of his auditor, informed her briefly of the wreck of the vessel and the loss of all hands, excepting two or three common seamen who had early secured the skiff, and were just putting off from the vessel when he leaped from the deck into their boat, and unexpectedly, as well as contrary to their inclination, made himself partner of their voyage and of their safety. Landed at Flushing, he was fortunate enough to meet with an old officer who had been in service with his father. By his advice, he shunned going immediately to the Hague, but forwarded his letters to the court of the Stadtholder.

“Our prince,” said the veteran, “must as yet keep terms with his father-in-law and with your King Charles; and to approach him in the character of a Scottish malecontent would render it imprudent for him to distinguish you by his favour. Wait, therefore, his orders, without forcing yourself on his notice; observe the strictest prudence and retirement; assume for the present a different name; shun the company of the British exiles; and, depend upon it, you will not repent your prudence.”

The old friend of Silas Morton argued justly. After a considerable time had elapsed, the Prince of Orange, in a progress through the United States, came to the town where Morton, impatient at his situation and the incognito which he was obliged to observe, still continued, nevertheless, to be a resident. He had an hour of private interview assigned, in which the prince expressed himself highly pleased with his intelligence, his prudence, and the liberal view which he seemed to take of the factions of his native country, their motives and their purposes.

“I would gladly,” said William, “attach you to my own person; but that cannot be without giving offence in England. But I will do as much for you, as well out of respect for the sentiments you have expressed, as for the recommendations you have brought me. Here is a commission in a Swiss regiment at present in garrison in a distant province, where you will meet few or none of your countrymen. Continue to be Captain Melville, and let the name of Morton sleep till better days.”

“Thus began my fortune,” continued Morton; “and my services have, on various occasions, been distinguished by his Royal Highness, until the moment that brought him to Britain as our political deliverer. His commands must excuse my silence to my few friends in Scotland; and I wonder not at the report of my death, considering the wreck of the vessel, and that I found no occasion to use the letters of exchange with which I was furnished by the liberality of some of them,—a circumstance which must have confirmed the belief that I had perished.”

“But, dear hinny,” asked Mrs. Wilson, “did ye find nae Scotch body at the Prince of Oranger’s court that kend ye? I wad hae thought Morton o’ Milnwood was kend a’ through the country.”

“I was purposely engaged in distant service,” said Morton, “until a period when few, without as deep and kind a motive of interest as yours, Ailie, would have known the stripling Morton in Major-General Melville.”

“Malville was your mother’s name,” said Mrs. Wilson; “but Morton sounds far bonnier in my auld lugs. And when ye tak up the lairdship, ye maun tak the auld name and designation again.”

“I am like to be in no haste to do either the one or the other, Ailie, for I have some reasons for the present to conceal my being alive from every one but you; and as for the lairdship of Milnwood, it is in as good hands.”

“As gude hands, hinny!” re-echoed Ailie; “I’m hopefu’ ye are no meaning mine? The rents and the lands are but a sair fash to me. And I’m ower failed to tak a helpmate, though Wylie Mactrickit the writer was very pressing, and spak very civilly; but I ‘m ower auld a cat to draw that strae before me. He canna whilliwhaw me as he’s dune mony a ane. And then I thought aye ye wad come back, and I wad get my pickle meal and my soup milk, and keep a’ things right about ye as I used to do in your puir uncle’s time, and it wad be just pleasure eneugh for me to see ye thrive and guide the gear canny. Ye’ll hae learned that in Holland, I’se warrant, for they’re thrifty folk there, as I hear tell.—But ye’ll be for keeping rather a mair house than puir auld Milnwood that’s gave; and, indeed, I would approve o’ your eating butchermeat maybe as aften as three times a-week,—it keeps the wind out o’ the stamack.”

“We will talk of all this another time,” said Morton, surprised at the generosity upon a large scale which mingled in Ailie’s thoughts and actions with habitual and sordid parsimony, and at the odd contrast between her love of saving and indifference to self-acquisition. “You must know,” he continued, “that I am in this country only for a few days on some special business of importance to the Government, and therefore, Ailie, not a word of having seen me. At some other time I will acquaint you fully with my motives and intentions.”

“E’en be it sae, my jo,” replied Ailie, “I can keep a secret like my neighbours; and weel auld Milnwood kend it, honest man, for he tauld me where he keepit his gear, and that’s what maist folk like to hae as private as possibly may be.—But come awa wi’ me, hinny, till I show ye the oak-parlour how grandly it’s keepit, just as if ye had been expected haine every day,—I loot naebody sort it but my ain hands. It was a kind o’ divertisement to me, though whiles the tear wan into my ee, and I said to mysell, What needs I fash wi’ grates and carpets and cushions and the muckle brass candlesticks ony mair? for they’ll ne’er come hame that aught it rightfully.”

With these words she hauled him away to this sanctum sanctorum, the scrubbing and cleaning whereof was her daily employment, as its high state of good order constituted the very pride of her heart. Morton, as he followed her into the room, underwent a rebuke for not “dighting his shune,” which showed that Ailie had not relinquished her habits of authority. On entering the oak-parlour he could not but recollect the feelings of solemn awe with which, when a boy, he had been affected at his occasional and rare admission to an apartment which he then supposed had not its equal save in the halls of princes. It may be readily supposed that the worked-worsted chairs, with their short ebony legs and long upright backs, had lost much of their influence over his mind; that the large brass andirons seemed diminished in splendour; that the green worsted tapestry appeared no masterpiece of the Arras loom; and that the room looked, on the whole, dark, gloomy, and disconsolate. Yet there were two objects, “The counterfeit presentment of two brothers,” which, dissimilar as those described by Hamlet, affected his mind with a variety of sensations. One full-length portrait represented his father in complete armour, with a countenance indicating his masculine and determined character; and the other set forth his uncle, in velvet and brocade, looking as if he were ashamed of his own finery, though entirely indebted for it to the liberality of the painter.

“It was an idle fancy,” Ailie said, “to dress the honest auld man in thae expensive fal-lalls that he ne’er wore in his life, instead o’ his douce Raploch grey, and his band wi’ the narrow edging.”

In private, Morton could not help being much of her opinion; for anything approaching to the dress of a gentleman sate as ill on the ungainly person of his relative as an open or generous expression would have done on his mean and money-making features. He now extricated himself from Ailie to visit some of his haunts in the neighbouring wood, while her own hands made an addition to the dinner she was preparing,—an incident no otherwise remarkable than as it cost the life of a fowl, which, for any event of less importance than the arrival of Henry Morton, might have cackled on to a good old age ere Ailie could have been guilty of the extravagance of killing and dressing it. The meal was seasoned by talk of old times and by the plans which Ailie laid out for futurity, in which she assigned her young master all the prudential habits of her old one, and planned out the dexterity with which she was to exercise her duty as governante. Morton let the old woman enjoy her day-dreams and castle-building during moments of such pleasure, and deferred till some fitter occasion the communication of his purpose again to return and spend his life upon the Continent.

His next care was to lay aside his military dress, which he considered likely to render more difficult his researches after Burley. He exchanged it—for a grey doublet and cloak, formerly his usual attire at Milnwood, and which Mrs. Wilson produced from a chest of walnut-tree, wherein she had laid them aside, without forgetting carefully to brush and air them from time to time. Morton retained his sword and fire-arms, without which few persons travelled in those unsettled times. When he appeared in his new attire, Mrs. Wilson was first thankful “that they fitted him sae decently, since, though he was nae fatter, yet he looked mair manly than when he was taen frae Milnwood.”

Next she enlarged on the advantage of saving old clothes to be what she called “beet-masters to the new,” and was far advanced in the history of a velvet cloak belonging to the late Milnwood, which had first been converted to a velvet doublet, and then into a pair of breeches, and appeared each time as good as new, when Morton interrupted her account of its transmigration to bid her good-by.

He gave, indeed, a sufficient shock to her feelings, by expressing the necessity he was under of proceeding on his journey that evening.

“And where are ye gaun? And what wad ye do that for? And whar wad ye sleep but in your ain house, after ye hae been sae mony years frae hame?”

“I feel all the unkindness of it, Ailie, but it must be so; and that was the reason that I attempted to conceal myself from you, as I suspected you would not let me part from you so easily.”

“But whar are ye gaun, then?” said Ailie, once more. “Saw e’er mortal een the like o’ you, just to come ae moment, and flee awa like an arrow out of a bow the neist?”

“I must go down,” replied Morton, “to Niel Blane the Piper’s Howff; he can give me a bed, I suppose?”

“A bed? I’se warrant can he,” replied Ailie, “and gar ye pay weel for ‘t into the bargain. Laddie, I daresay ye hae lost your wits in thae foreign parts, to gang and gie siller for a supper and a bed, and might hae baith for naething, and thanks t’ ye for accepting them.”

“I assure you, Ailie,” said Morton, desirous to silence her remonstrances, “that this is a business of great importance, in which I may be a great gainer, and cannot possibly be a loser.”

“I dinna see how that can be, if ye begin by gieing maybe the feck o’ twal shillings Scots for your supper; but young folks are aye venturesome, and think to get siller that way. My puir auld master took a surer gate, and never parted wi’ it when he had anes gotten ‘t.”

Persevering in his desperate resolution, Morton took leave of Ailie, and mounted his horse to proceed to the little town, after exacting a solemn promise that she would conceal his return until she again saw or heard from him.

“I am not very extravagant,” was his natural reflection, as he trotted slowly towards the town; “but were Ailie and I to set up house together, as she proposes, I think my profusion would break the good old creature’s heart before a week were out.”

CHAPTER XX

Morton reached the borough town without meeting with any remarkable adventure, and alighted at the little inn. It had occurred to him more than once, while upon his journey, that his resumption of the dress which he had worn while a youth, although favourable to his views in other respects, might render it more difficult for him to remain incognito. But a few years of campaigns and wandering had so changed his appearance that he had great confidence that in the grown man, whose brows exhibited the traces of resolution and considerate thought, none would recognise the raw and bashful stripling who won the game of the popinjay. The only chance was that here and there some Whig, whom he had led to battle, might remember the Captain of the Milnwood Marksmen; but the risk, if there was any, could not be guarded against.

The Howff seemed full and frequented as if possessed of all its old celebrity. The person and demeanour of Niel Blane, more fat and less civil than of yore, intimated that he had increased as well in purse as in corpulence; for in Scotland a landlord’s complaisance for his guests decreases in exact proportion to his rise in the world. His daughter had acquired the air of a dexterous barmaid, undisturbed by the circumstances of love and war, so apt to perplex her in the exercise of her vocation. Both showed Morton the degree of attention which could have been expected by a stranger travelling without attendants, at a time when they were particularly the badges of distinction. He took upon himself exactly the character his appearance presented, went to the stable and saw his horse accommodated, then returned to the house, and seating himself in the public room (for to request one to himself would, in those days, have been thought an overweening degree of conceit), he found himself in the very apartment in which he had some years before celebrated his victory at the game of the popinjay,—a jocular preferment which led to so many serious consequences.

He felt himself, as may well be supposed, a much changed man since that festivity; and yet, to look around him, the groups assembled in the Howff seemed not dissimilar to those which the same scene had formerly presented. Two or three burghers husbanded their “dribbles o’ brandy;” two or three dragoons lounged over their muddy ale, and cursed the inactive times that allowed them no better cheer. Their cornet did not, indeed, play at backgammon with the curate in his cassock, but he drank a little modicum of aqua mirabilis with the grey-cloaked Presbyterian minister. The scene was another, and yet the same, differing only in persons, but corresponding in general character.

Let the tide of the world wax or wane as it will, Morton thought as he looked around him, enough will be found to fill the places which chance renders vacant; and in the usual occupations and amusements of life, human beings will succeed each other as leaves upon the same tree, with the same individual difference and the same general resemblance.

After pausing a few minutes, Morton, whose experience had taught him the readiest mode of securing attention, ordered a pint of claret; and as the smiling landlord appeared with the pewter measure foaming fresh from the tap (for bottling wine was not then in fashion), he asked him to sit down and take a share of the good cheer. This invitation was peculiarly acceptable to Niel Blane, who, if he did not positively expect it from every guest not provided with better company, yet received it from many, and was not a whit abashed or surprised at the summons. He sat down, along with his guest, in a secluded nook near the chimney; and while he received encouragement to drink by far the greater share of the liquor before them, he entered at length, as a part of his expected functions, upon the news of the country,—the births, deaths, and marriages; the change of property; the downfall of old families, and the rise of new. But politics, now the fertile source of eloquence, mine host did not care to mingle in his theme; and it was only in answer to a question of Morton that he replied, with an air of indifference, “Um! ay! we aye hae sodgers amang us, mair or less. There’s a wheen German horse down at Glasgow yonder; they ca’ their commander Wittybody, or some sic name, though he’s as grave and grewsome an auld Dutchman as e’er I saw.”

“Wittenbold, perhaps?” said Morton,—“an old man, with grey hair and short black moustaches; speaks seldom?”

“And smokes for ever,” replied Niel Blane. “I see your honour kens the man. He may be a very gude man too, for aught I see,—that is, considering he is a sodger and a Dutchman; but if he were ten generals, and as mony Wittybodies, he has nae skill in the pipes; he gar’d me stop in the middle of Torphichen’s Rant,—the best piece o’ music that ever bag gae wind to.”

“But these fellows,” said Morton, glancing his eye towards the soldiers “that were in the apartment, are not of his corps?”

“Na, na, these are Scotch dragoons,” said mine host,—“our ain auld caterpillars; these were Claver’se’s lads a while syne, and wad be again, maybe, if he had the lang ten in his hand.”

“Is there not a report of his death?” inquired Morton.

“Troth is there,” said the landlord; “your honour is right,—there is sic a fleeing rumour; but, in my puir opinion, it’s lang or the deil die. I wad hae the folks here look to themsells. If he makes an outbreak, he’ll be doun frae the Hielands or I could drink this glass,—and whare are they then? A’ thae hell-rakers o’ dragoons wad be at his whistle in a moment. Nae doubt they’re Willie’s men e’en now, as they were James’s a while syne; and reason good,—they fight for their pay; what else hae they to fight for? They hae neither lands nor houses, I trow. There’s ae gude thing o’ the change, or the Revolution, as they ca’ it,—folks may speak out afore thae birkies now, and nae fear o’ being hauled awa to the guard-house, or having the thumikins screwed on your finger-ends, just as I wad drive the screw through a cork.”

There was a little pause, when Morton, feeling confident in the progress he had made in mine host’s familiarity, asked, though with the hesitation proper to one who puts a question on the answer to which rests something of importance, “Whether Blane knew a woman in that neighbourhood called Elizabeth Maclure?”

“Whether I ken Bessie Maclure?” answered the landlord, with a landlord’s laugh,—“How can I but ken my ain wife’s (haly be her rest!)—my ain wife’s first gudeman’s sister, Bessie Maclure? An honest wife she is, but sair she’s been trysted wi’ misfortunes,—the loss o’ twa decent lads o’ sons, in the time o’ the persecution, as they ca’ it nowadays; and doucely and decently she has borne her burden, blaming nane and condemning nane. If there’s an honest woman in the world, it’s Bessie Maclure. And to lose her twa sons, as I was saying, and to hae dragoons clinked down on her for a month bypast,—for, be Whig or Tory uppermost, they aye quarter thae loons on victuallers,—to lose, as I was saying—”

“This woman keeps an inn, then?” interrupted Morton.

“A public, in a puir way,” replied Blane, looking round at his own superior accommodations,—“a sour browst o’ sma’ ale that she sells to folk that are over drouthy wi’ travel to be nice; but naething to ca’ a stirring trade or a thriving changehouse.”

“Can you get me a guide there?” said Morton.

“Your honour will rest here a’ the night? Ye’ll hardly get accommodation at Bessie’s,” said Niel, whose regard for his deceased wife’s relative by no means extended to sending company from his own house to hers.

“There is a friend,” answered Morton, “whom I am to meet with there, and I only called here to take a stirrup-cup and inquire the way.”

“Your honour had better,” answerd the landlord, with the perseverance of his calling, “send some ane to warn your friend to come on here.”

“I tell you, landlord,” answered Morton, impatiently, “that will not serve my purpose; I must go straight to this woman Maclure’s house, and I desire you to find me a guide.”

“Aweel, sir, ye’ll choose for yoursell, to be sure,” said Niel Blane, somewhat disconcerted; “but deil a guide ye’ll need if ye gae doun the water for twa mile or sae, as gin ye were bound for Milnwoodhouse, and then tak the first broken disjasked-looking road that makes for the hills,—ye’ll ken ‘t by a broken ash-tree that stands at the side o’ a burn just where the roads meet; and then travel out the path,—ye canna miss Widow Maclure’s public, for deil another house or hauld is on the road for ten lang Scots miles, and that’s worth twenty English. I am sorry your honour would think o’ gaun out o’ my house the night. But my wife’s gude-sister is a decent woman, and it’s no lost that a friend gets.”

Morton accordingly paid his reckoning and departed. The sunset of the summer day placed him at the ash-tree, where the path led up towards the moors.

“Here,” he said to himself, “my misfortunes commenced; for just here, when Burley and I were about to separate on the first night we ever met, he was alarmed by the intelligence that the passes were secured by soldiers lying in wait for him. Beneath that very ash sate the old woman who apprised him of his danger. How strange that my whole fortunes should have become inseparably interwoven with that man’s, without anything more on my part than the discharge of an ordinary duty of humanity! Would to Heaven it were possible I could find my humble quiet and tranquillity of mind upon the spot where I lost them!”

Thus arranging his reflections betwixt speech and thought, he turned his horse’s head up the path.