Was ever woman in this humor wooed? Was ever woman in this humour won? I'll
have her.
Richard III.
TWELVE months had passed away since the Master of Ravenswood's departure for
the continent, and, although his return to Scotland had been expected in a much
shorter space, yet the affairs of his mission, or, according to a prevailing
report, others of a nature personal to himself, still detained him abroad. In
the mean time, the altered state of affairs in Sir William Ashton's family may
be gathered from the following conversation which took place betwixt Bucklaw and
his confidential bottle companion and dependant, the noted Captain Craigengelt.
They were seated on either side of the huge sepulchral-looking freestone chimney
in the low hall at Girnington. A wood fire blazed merrily in the grate; a round
oaken table, placed between them, supported a stoup of excellent claret, two
rummer glasses, and other good cheer; and yet, with all these appliances and
means to boot, the countenance of the patron was dubious, doubtful, and
unsatisfied, while the invention of his dependant was taxed to the utmost to
parry what he most dreaded, a fit, as he called it, of the sullens, on the part
of his protector. After a long pause, only interrupted by the devil's tattoo,
which Bucklaw kept beating against the hearth with the toe of his boot,
Craigengelt at last ventured to break silence. "May I be double distanced," said
he, "if ever I saw a man in my life have less the air of a bridegroom! Cut me
out of feather, if you have not more the look of a man condemned to be hanged!"
"My kind thanks for the compliment," replied Bucklaw; "but I suppose you
think upon the predicament in which you yourself are most likely to be placed;
and pray, Captain Craigengelt, if it please your worship, why should I look
merry, when I'm sad, and devilish sad too?"
"And that's what vexes me," said Craigengelt. "Here is this match, the best
in the whole country, andwhich were so anxious about, is on the point of being
concluded, and you are as sulky as a bear that has lost its whelps."
"I do not know," answered the Laird, doggedly, "whether I should conclude or
not, if it was not that I am too far forwards to leap back."
"Leap back!" exclaimed Craigengelt, with a well-assumed air of astonishment,
"that would be playing the back-game with a witness! Leap back! Why, is not the
girl's fortune----"
"The young lady's, if you please," said Hayston, interrupting him.
"Well--well, no disrespect meant. Will Miss Ashton's tocher not weigh against
any in Lothian?"
"Granted," answered Bucklaw; "but I care not a penny for her tocher; I have
enough of my own."
"And the mother, that loves you like her own child?"
"Better than some of her children, I believe," said Bucklaw, "or there would
be little love wared on the matter."
"And Colonel Sholto Douglas Ashton, who desires the marriage above all
earthly things?"
"Because," said Bucklaw, "he expects to carry the county of ---- through my
interest."
"And the father, who is as keen to see the match concluded as ever I have
been to win a main?"
"Ay," said Bucklaw, in the same disparaging manner, "it lies with Sir
William's policy to secure the next best match, since he cannot barter his child
to save the great Ravenswood estate, which the English House of Lords are about
to wrench out of his clutches."
"What say you to the young lady herself?" said Craigengelt; "the finest young
woman in all Scotland, one that you used to be so fond of when she was cross,
and now she consents to have you, and gives up her engagement with Ravenswood,
you are for jibbing. I must say, the devil's in ye, when ye neither know what
you would have nor what you would want."
"I'll tell you my meaning in a word," answered Bucklaw, getting up and
walking through the room; "I want to know what the devil is the cause of Miss
Ashton's changing her mind so suddenly?"
"And what need you care," said Craigengelt, "since the change is in your
favour?"
"I'll tell you what it is," returned his patron, "I never knew much of that
sort of fine ladies, and I believe they may be as capricious as the devil; but
there is something in Miss Ashton's change a devilish deal too sudden and too
serious for a mere flisk of her own. I'll be bound, Lady Ashton understands
every machine for breaking in the human mind, and there are as many as there are
cannon-bit, martingales, and cavessons for young colts."
"And if that were not the case," said Craigengelt, "how the devil should we
ever get them into training at all?"
"And that's true too," said Bucklaw, suspending his march through the
dining-room, and leaning upon the back of a chair. "And besides, here's
Ravenswood in the way still, do you think he'll give up Lucy's engagement?"
"To be sure he will," answered Craigengelt; "what good can it do him to
refuse, since he wishes to marry another woman and she another man?"
"And you believe seriously," said Bucklaw, "that he is going to marry the
foreign lady we heard of?"
"You heard yourself," answered Craigengelt, "what Captain Westenho said about
it, and the great preparation made for their blythesome bridal."
"Captain Westenho," replied Bucklaw, "has rather too much of your own cast
about, Craigie, to make what Sir William would call a 'famous witness.' He
drinks deep, plays deep, swears deep, and I suspect can lie and cheat a little
into the bargain; useful qualities, Craigie, if kept in their proper sphere, but
which have a little too much of the freebooter to make a figure in a court of
evidence."
"Well, then," said Craigengelt, "will you believe Colonel Douglas Ashton, who
heard the Marquis of A---- say in a public circle, but not aware that he was
within ear-shot, that his kinsman had made a better arrangement for himself than
to give his father's land for the pale-cheeked daughter of a broken-down
fanatic, and that Bucklaw was welcome to the wearing of Ravenswood's shaughled
shoes."
"Did he say so, by heavens!" cried Bucklaw, breaking out into one of those
incontrollable fits of passion to which he was constitutionally subject; "if I
had heard him, I would have torn the tongue out of his throat before all his
peats and minions, and Highland bullies into the bargain. Why did not Ashton run
him through the body?"
"Capot me if I know," said the Captain. "He deserved it sure enough; but he
is an old man, and a minister of state, and there would be more risk than credit
in meddling with him. You had more need to think of making up to Miss Lucy
Ashton the disgrace that's like to fall upon her than of interfering with a man
too old to fight, and on too high a tool for your hand to reach him."
"It SHALL reach him, though, one day," said Bucklaw, "and his kinsman
Ravenswood to boot. In the mean time, I'll take care Miss Ashton receives no
discredit for the slight they have put upon her. It's an awkward job, however,
and I wish it were ended; I scarce know how to talk to her,--but fill a bumper,
Craigie, and we'll drink her health. It grows late, and a night- cowl of good
claret is worth all the considering-caps in Europe."
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