James Hogg: Collected Novels, Scottish Mystery Tales & Fantasy Stories. James Hogg

room in the house, opening the windows as he went, and scrutinizing every bed and every corner. He came into the hall where the wedding festival had been held; and as he opened the various windowboards, loving couples flew off like hares surprised too late in the morning among the early braird. “Hoo-boo! Fie, be frightened!” cried the laird. “Fie, rin like fools, as if ye were caught in an ill-turn!” His bride was not among them; so he was obliged to betake himself to further search. “She will be praying in some corner, poor woman,” said he to himself. “It is an unlucky thing this praying. But, for my part, I fear I have behaved very ill; and I must endeavour to make amends.”

      The laird continued his search, and at length found his beloved in the same bed with her Glasgow cousin who had acted as bridesmaid. “You sly and malevolent imp,” said the laird; “you have played me such a trick when I was fast asleep! I have not known a frolic so clever, and, at the same time, so severe. Come along, you baggage you!”

      “Sir, I will let you know that I detest your principles and your person alike,” said she. “It shall never be said, Sir, that my person was at the control of a heathenish man of Belial—a dangler among the daughters of women—a promiscuous dancer—and a player of unlawful games. Forgo your rudeness, Sir, I say, and depart away from my presence and that of my kinswoman.

      “Come along, I say, my charming Rab. If you were the pink of all puritans, and the saint of all saints, you are my wife, and must do as I command you.”

      “Sir, I will sooner lay down my life than be subjected to your godless will; therefore I say, desist, and begone with you.”

      But the laird regarded none of these testy sayings: he rolled her in a blanket, and bore her triumphantly away to his chamber, taking care to keep a fold or two of the blanket always rather near to her mouth, in case of any outrageous forthcoming of noise.

      The next day at breakfast the bride was long in making her appearance. Her maid asked to see her; but George did not choose that anybody should see her but himself. He paid her several visits, and always turned the key as he came out. At length breakfast was served; and during the time of refreshment the laird tried to break several jokes; but it was remarked that they wanted their accustomed brilliancy, and that his nose was particularly red at the top.

      Matters, without all doubt, had been very bad between the new-married couple; for in the course of the day the lady deserted her quarters, and returned to her father’s house in Glasgow, after having been a night on the road; stage-coaches and steam-boats having then no existence in that quarter.

      Though Baillie Orde had acquiesced in his wife’s asseveration regarding the likeness of their only daughter to her father, he never loved or admired her greatly; therefore this behaviour nothing astounded him. He questioned her strictly as to the grievous offence committed against her, and could discover nothing that warranted a procedure so fraught with disagreeable consequences. So, after mature deliberation, the baillie addressed her as follows:

      “Aye, aye, Raby! An’ sae I find that Dalcastle has actually refused to say prayers with you when you ordered him; an’ has guidit you in a rude indelicate manner, outstepping the respect due to my daughter—as my daughter. But, wi’ regard to what is due to his own wife, of that he’s a better judge nor me. However, since he has behaved in that manner to MY DAUGHTER, I shall be revenged on him for aince; for I shall return the obligation to ane nearer to him: that is, I shall take pennyworths of his wife—an’ let him lick at that.”

      “What do you mean, Sir?” said the astonished damsel.

      “I mean to be revenged on that villain Dalcastle,” said he, “for what he has done to my daughter. Come hither, Mrs. Colwan, you shall pay for this.”

      So saying, the baillie began to inflict corporal punishment on the runaway wife. His strokes were not indeed very deadly, but he made a mighty flourish in the infliction, pretending to be in a great rage only at the Laird of Dalcastle. “Villain that he is!” exclaimed he, “I shall teach him to behave in such a manner to a child of mine, be she as she may; since I cannot get at himself, I shall lounder her that is nearest to him in life. Take you that, and that, Mrs. Colwan, for your husband’s impertinence!”

      The poor afflicted woman wept and prayed, but the baillie would not abate aught of his severity. After fuming and beating her with many stripes, far drawn, and lightly laid down, he took her up to her chamber, five stories high, locked her in, and there he fed her on bread and water, all to be revenged on the presumptuous Laird of Dalcastle; but ever and anon, as the baillie came down the stair from carrying his daughter’s meal, he said to himself: “I shall make the sight of the laird the blithest she ever saw in her life.”

      Lady Dalcastle got plenty of time to read, and pray, and meditate; but she was at a great loss for one to dispute with about religious tenets; for she found that, without this advantage, about which there was a perfect rage at that time, the reading and learning of Scripture texts, and sentences of intricate doctrine, availed her naught; so she was often driven to sit at her casement and look out for the approach of the heathenish Laird of Dalcastle.

      That hero, after a considerable lapse of time, at length made his appearance. Matters were not hard to adjust; for his lady found that there was no refuge for her in her father’s house; and so, after some sighs and tears, she accompanied her husband home. For all that had passed, things went on no better. She WOULD convert the laird in spite of his teeth: the laird would not be converted. She WOULD have the laird to say family prayers, both morning and evening: the laird would neither pray morning nor evening. He would not even sing psalms, and kneel beside her while she performed the exercise; neither would he converse at all times, and in all places, about the sacred mysteries of religion, although his lady took occasion to contradict flatly every assertion that he made, in order that she might spiritualize him by drawing him into argument.

      The laird kept his temper a long while, but at length his patience wore out; he cut her short in all her futile attempts at spiritualization, and mocked at her wire-drawn degrees of faith, hope, and repentance. He also dared to doubt of the great standard doctrine of absolute predestination, which put the crown on the lady’s Christian resentment. She declared her helpmate to be a limb of Antichrist, and one with whom no regenerated person could associate. She therefore bespoke a separate establishment, and, before the expiry of the first six months, the arrangements of the separation were amicably adjusted. The upper, or third, story of the old mansion-house was awarded to the lady for her residence. She had a separate door, a separate stair, a separate garden, and walks that in no instance intersected the laird’s; so that one would have thought the separation complete. They had each their own parties, selected from their own sort of people; and, though the laird never once chafed himself about the lady’s companies, it was not long before she began to intermeddle about some of his.

      “Who is that fat bouncing dame that visits the laird so often, and always by herself?” said she to her maid Martha one day.

      “Oh dear, mem, how can I ken? We’re banished frae our acquaintances here, as weel as frae the sweet gospel ordinances.”

      “Find me out who that jolly dame is, Martha. You, who hold communion with the household of this ungodly man, can be at no loss to attain this information. I observe that she always casts her eye up toward our windows, both in coming and going; and I suspect that she seldom departs from the house emptyhanded.”

      That same evening Martha came with the information that this august visitor was a Miss Logan, an old an intimate acquaintance of the laird’s, and a very worthy respectable lady, of good connections, whose parents had lost their patrimony in the civil wars.

      “Ha! very well!” said the lady; “very well, Martha! But, nevertheless, go thou and watch this respectable lady’s motions and behaviour the next time she comes to visit the laird—and the next after that. You will not, I see, lack opportunities.”

      Martha’s information turned out of that nature that prayers were said in the uppermost story of Dalcastle house against the Canaanitish woman, every night and every morning; and great discontent prevailed there, even to anathemas and tears. Letter after letter was dispatched to Glasgow; and at length, to the lady’s great