Redgauntlet (Unabridged). Walter Scott

though, thou shouldst have said sixpence) to an old fellow, whom thou, in thy high flight, wouldst have sent home supperless, because he was like Solon or Belisarius. But you forget that the affront descended like a benediction into the pouch of the old gaberlunzie, who overflowed in blessings upon the generous donor — long ere he would have thanked thee, Darsie, for thy barren veneration of his beard and his bearing. Then you laugh at my good father’s retreat from Falkirk, just as if it were not time for a man to trudge when three or four mountain knaves, with naked claymores, and heels as light as their fingers, were scampering after him, crying FURINISH. You remember what he said himself when the Laird of Bucklivat told him that FURINISH signified ‘stay a while’. ‘What the devil,’ he said, surprised out of his Presbyterian correctness by the unreasonableness of such a request under the circumstances, ‘would the, scoundrels have had me stop to have my head cut off?’

      Imagine such a train at your own heels, Darsie, and ask yourself whether you would not exert your legs as fast as you did in flying from the Solway tide. And yet you impeach my father’s courage. I tell you he has courage enough to do what is right, and to spurn what is wrong — courage enough to defend a righteous cause with hand and purse, and to take the part of the poor man against his oppressor, without fear of the consequences to himself. This is civil courage, Darsie; and it is of little consequence to most men in this age and country whether they ever possess military courage or no.

      Do not think I am angry with you, though I thus attempt to rectify your opinions on my father’s account. I am well aware that, upon the whole, he is scarce regarded with more respect by me than by thee. And, while I am in a serious humour, which it is difficult to preserve with one who is perpetually tempting me to laugh at him, pray, dearest Darsie, let not thy ardour for adventure carry thee into more such scrapes as that of the Solway Sands. The rest of the story is a mere imagination; but that stormy evening might have proved, as the clown says to Lear, ‘a naughty night to swim in.’

      As for the rest, if you can work mysterious and romantic heroes out of old crossgrained fishermen, why, I for one will reap some amusement by the metamorphosis. Yet hold! even there, there is some need of caution. This same female chaplain — thou sayest so little of her, and so much of every one else, that it excites some doubt in my mind. VERY PRETTY she is, it seems — and that is all thy discretion informs me of. There are cases in which silence implies other things than consent. Wert thou ashamed or afraid, Darsie, to trust thyself with the praises of the very pretty grace-sayer? — As I live, thou blushest! Why, do I not know thee an inveterate squire of dames? and have I not been in thy confidence? An elegant elbow, displayed when the rest of the figure was muffled in a cardinal, or a neat well-turned ankle and instep, seen by chance as its owner tripped up the Old Assembly Close, [Of old this almost deserted alley formed the most common access betwixt the High Street and the southern suburbs.] turned thy brain for eight days. Thou wert once caught if I remember rightly, with a single glance of a single matchless eye, which, when the fair owner withdrew her veil, proved to be single in the literal sense of the word. And, besides, were you not another time enamoured of a voice — a mere voice, that mingled in the psalmody at the Old Greyfriars’ Church — until you discovered the proprietor of that dulcet organ to be Miss Dolly MacIzzard, who is both ‘back and breast’, as our saying goes?

      All these things considered, and contrasted with thy artful silence on the subject of this grace-saying Nereid of thine, I must beg thee to be more explicit upon that subject in thy next, unless thou wouldst have me form the conclusion that thou thinkest more of her than thou carest to talk of.

      You will not expect much news from this quarter, as you know the monotony of my life, and are aware it must at present be devoted to uninterrupted study. You have said a thousand times that I am only qualified to make my way by dint of plodding, and therefore plod I must.

      My father seems to be more impatient of your absence than he was after your first departure. He is sensible, I believe, that our solitary meals want the light which your gay humour was wont to throw over them, and feels melancholy as men do when the light of the sun is no longer upon the landscape. If it is thus with him, thou mayst imagine it is much more so with me, and canst conceive how heartily I wish that thy frolic were ended, and thou once more our inmate.

      —

      I resume my pen, after a few hours’ interval, to say that an incident has occurred on which you will yourself be building a hundred castles in the air, and which even I, jealous as I am of such baseless fabrics, cannot but own affords ground for singular conjecture.

      My father has of late taken me frequently along with him when he attends the courts, in his anxiety to see me properly initiated into the practical forms of business. I own I feel something on his account and my own from this over-anxiety, which, I dare say, renders us both ridiculous. But what signifies my repugnance? my father drags me up to his counsel learned in the law, — ‘Are you quite ready to come on to-day, Mr. Crossbite? — This is my son, designed for the bar — I take the liberty to bring him with me to-day to the consultation, merely that he may see how these things are managed.’

      Mr. Crossbite smiles and bows; as a lawyer smiles on the solicitor who employs him, and I dare say, thrusts his tongue into his cheek, and whispers into the first great wig that passes him, ‘What the d — l does old Fairford mean by letting loose his whelp on me?’

      As I stood beside them, too much vexed at the childish part I was made to play to derive much information from the valuable arguments of Mr. Crossbite, I observed a rather elderly man, who stood with his eyes firmly bent on my father, as if he only waited an end of the business in which he was engaged, to address him. There was something, I thought, in the gentleman’s appearance which commanded attention. Yet his dress was not in the present taste, and though it had once been magnificent, was now antiquated and unfashionable. His coat was of branched velvet, with a satin lining, a waistcoat of violet-coloured silk, much embroidered; his breeches the same stuff as the coat. He wore square-toed shoes, with foretops, as they are called; and his silk stockings were rolled up over his knee, as you may have seen in pictures, and here and there on some of those originals who seem to pique themselves on dressing after the mode of Methuselah. A CHAPEAU BRAS and sword necessarily completed his equipment, which, though out of date, showed that it belonged to a man of distinction.

      The instant Mr. Crossbite had ended what he had to say, this gentleman walked up to my father, with, ‘Your servant, Mr. Fairford — it is long since you and I met.’

      My father, whose politeness, you know, is exact and formal, bowed, and hemmed, and was confused, and at length professed that the distance since they had met was so great, that though he remembered the face perfectly, the name, he was sorry to any, had — really — somehow — escaped his memory.

      ‘Have you forgot Herries of Birrenswork?’ said the gentleman, and my father bowed even more profoundly than before; though I think his reception of his old friend seemed to lose some of the respectful civility which he bestowed on him while his name was yet unknown. It now seemed to be something like the lip-courtesy which the heart would have denied had ceremony permitted.

      My father, however, again bowed low, and hoped he saw him well.

      ‘So well, my good Mr. Fairford, that I come hither determined to renew my acquaintance with one or two old friends, and with you in the first place. I halt at my old resting place — you must dine with me to-day, at Paterson’s, at the head of the Horse Wynd — it is near your new fashionable dwelling, and I have business with you.’

      My father excused himself respectfully, and not without embarrassment — ‘he was particularly engaged at home.’

      ‘Then I will dine with you, man,’ said Mr. Herries of Birrenswork; ‘the few minutes you can spare me after dinner will suffice for my business; and I will not prevent you a moment from minding your own — I am no bottle-man.’

      You have often remarked that my father, though a scrupulous ohserver of the rites of hospitality, seems to exercise them rather as a duty than as a pleasure; indeed, but for a conscientious wish to feed the hungry and receive the stranger, his doors would open to guests much seldomer than is the case. I never saw so strong an example of this peculiarity (which I should otherwise have