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CHAPTER XXIX

 
To sum the whole-the close of all.
 

          DEAN SWIFT.

As Glossin died without heirs, and without payment of the price, the estate of Ellangowan was again thrown upon the hands of Mr. Godfrey Bertram’s creditors, the right of most of whom was, however, defeasible in case Henry Bertram should establish his character of heir of entail. This young gentleman put his affairs into the hands of Mr. Pleydell and Mr. Mac-Morlan, with one single proviso, that, though he himself should be obliged again to go to India, every debt justly and honourably due by his father should be made good to the claimant. Mannering, who heard this declaration, grasped him kindly by the hand, and from that moment might be dated a thorough understanding between them.

The hoards of Miss Margaret Bertram, and the liberal assistance of the Colonel, easily enabled the heir to make provision for payment of the just creditors of his father, while the ingenuity and research of his law friends detected, especially in the accounts of Glossin, so many overcharges as greatly diminished the total amount. In these circumstances the creditors did not hesitate to recognise Bertram’s right, and to surrender to him the house and property of his ancestors. All the party repaired from Woodbourne to take possession, amid the shouts of the tenantry and the neighbourhood; and so eager was Colonel Mannering to superintend certain improvements which he had recommended to Bertram, that he removed with his family from Woodbourne to Ellangowan, although at present containing much less and much inferior accommodation.

The poor Dominie’s brain was almost turned with joy on returning to his old habitation. He posted upstairs, taking three steps at once, to a little shabby attic, his cell and dormitory in former days, and which the possession of his much superior apartment at Woodbourne had never banished from his memory. Here one sad thought suddenly struck the honest man-the books! no three rooms in Ellangowan were capable to contain them. While this qualifying reflection was passing through his mind, he was suddenly summoned by Mannering to assist in calculating some proportions relating to a large and splendid house which was to be built on the site of the New Place of Ellangowan, in a style corresponding to the magnificence of the ruins in its vicinity. Among the various rooms in the plan, the Dominie observed that one of the largest was entitled THE LIBRARY; and close beside was a snug, well-proportioned chamber, entitled Mr. SAMPSON’S APARTMENT. ‘Prodigious, prodigious, pro-di-gi-ous!’ shouted the enraptured Dominie.

Mr. Pleydell had left the party for some time; but he returned, according to promise, during the Christmas recess of the courts. He drove up to Ellangowan when all the family were abroad but the Colonel, who was busy with plans of buildings and pleasure-grounds, in which he was well skilled, and took great delight.

‘Ah ha!’ said the Counsellor, ‘so here you are! Where are the ladies? where is the fair Julia?’

‘Walking out with young Hazlewood, Bertram, and Captain Delaserre, a friend of his, who is with us just now. They are gone to plan out a cottage at Derncleugh. Well, have you carried through your law business?’

‘With a wet finger,’ answered the lawyer; ‘got our youngster’s special service retoured into Chancery. We had him served heir before the macers.’

‘Macers? who are they?’

‘Why, it is a kind of judicial Saturnalia. You must know, that one of the requisites to be a macer, or officer in attendance upon our supreme court, is, that they shall be men of no knowledge.’

‘Very well!’

‘Now, our Scottish legislature, for the joke’s sake I suppose, have constituted those men of no knowledge into a peculiar court for trying questions of relationship and descent, such as this business of Bertram, which often involve the most nice and complicated questions of evidence.’

‘The devil they have! I should think that rather inconvenient,’ said Mannering.

‘O, we have a practical remedy for the theoretical absurdity. One or two of the judges act upon such occasions as prompters and assessors to their own doorkeepers. But you know what Cujacius says, “Multa sunt in moribus dissentanea, multa sine ratione.” [Footnote: The singular inconsistency hinted at is now, in a great degree, removed.] However, this Saturnalian court has done our business; and a glorious batch of claret we had afterwards at Walker’s. Mac-Morlan will stare when he sees the bill.’

‘Never fear,’ said the Colonel, ‘we’ll face the shock, and entertain the county at my friend Mrs. Mac-Candlish’s to boot.’

‘And choose Jock Jabos for your master of horse?’ replied the lawyer.

‘Perhaps I may.’

‘And where is Dandie, the redoubted Lord of Liddesdale?’ demanded the advocate.

‘Returned to his mountains; but he has promised Julia to make a descent in summer, with the goodwife, as he calls her, and I don’t know how many children.’

‘O, the curly-headed varlets! I must come to play at Blind Harry and Hy Spy with them. But what is all this?’ added Pleydell, taking up the plans. ‘Tower in the centre to be an imitation of the Eagle Tower at Caernarvon-corps de logis-the devil! Wings-wings! Why, the house will take the estate of Ellangowan on its back and fly away with it!’

‘Why, then, we must ballast it with a few bags of sicca rupees,’ replied the Colonel.

‘Aha! sits the wind there? Then I suppose the young dog carries off my mistress Julia?’

‘Even so, Counsellor.’

‘These rascals, the post-nati, get the better of us of the old school at every turn,’ said Mr. Pleydell. ‘But she must convey and make over her interest in me to Lucy.’

‘To tell you the truth, I am afraid your flank will be turned there too,’ replied the Colonel.

‘Indeed?’

‘Here has been Sir Robert Hazlewood,’ said Mannering, ‘upon a visit to Bertram, thinking and deeming and opining-’

‘O Lord! pray spare me the worthy Baronet’s triads!’

‘Well, sir,’ continued Mannering, ‘to make short, he conceived that, as the property of Singleside lay like a wedge between two farms of his, and was four or five miles separated from Ellangowan, something like a sale or exchange or arrangement might take place, to the mutual convenience of both parties.’

‘Well, and Bertram-’

‘Why, Bertram replied, that he considered the original settlement of Mrs. Margaret Bertram as the arrangement most proper in the circumstances of the family, and that therefore the estate of Singleside was the property of his sister.’

‘The rascal!’ said Pleydell, wiping his spectacles. ‘He’ll steal my heart as well as my mistress. Et puis?’

‘And then Sir Robert retired, after many gracious speeches; but last week he again took the field in force, with his coach and six horses, his laced scarlet waistcoat, and best bob-wig-all very grand, as the good-boy books say.’

‘Ay! and what was his overture?’

‘Why, he talked with great form of an attachment on the part of Charles Hazlewood to Miss Bertram.’

‘Ay, ay; he respected the little god Cupid when he saw him perched on the Dun of Singleside. And is poor Lucy to keep house with that old fool and his wife, who is just the knight himself in petticoats?’

‘No; we parried that. Singleside House is to be repaired for the young people, and to be called hereafter Mount Hazlewood.’

‘And do you yourself, Colonel, propose to continue at Woodbourne?’

‘Only till we carry these plans into effect. See, here’s the plan of my bungalow, with all convenience for being separate and sulky when I please.’

‘And, being situated, as I see, next door to the old castle, you may repair Donagild’s tower for the nocturnal contemplation of the celestial bodies? Bravo, Colonel!’

‘No, no, my dear Counsellor! Here ends THE ASTROLOGER.’

THE END

NOTES TO VOLUME I

NOTE 1, p. 25

The groaning malt mentioned in the text was the ale brewed for the purpose of being drunk after the lady or goodwife’s safe delivery. The ken-no has a more ancient source, and perhaps the custom may be derived from the secret rites of the Bona Dea. A large and rich cheese was made by the women of the family, with great affectation of secrecy, for the refreshment of the gossips who were to attend at the ‘canny’ minute. This was the ken-no, so called because its existence was secret (that is, presumed to be so) from all the males of the family, but especially from the husband and master. He was accordingly expected to conduct himself as if he knew of no such preparation, to act as if desirous to press the female guests to refreshments, and to seem surprised at their obstinate refusal. But the instant his back was turned the ken-no was produced; and after all had eaten their fill, with a proper accompaniment of the groaning malt, the remainder was divided among the gossips, each carrying a large portion home with the same affectation of great secrecy.

NOTE 2, p. 198

It is fitting to explain to the reader the locality described in chapter xxii. There is, or rather I should say there WAS, a little inn called Mumps’s Hall, that is, being interpreted, Beggar’s Hotel, near to Gilsland, which had not then attained its present fame as a Spa. It was a hedge alehouse, where the Border farmers of either country often stopped to refresh themselves and their nags, in their way to and from the fairs and trysts in Cumberland, and especially those who came from or went to Scotland, through a barren and lonely district, without either road or pathway, emphatically called the Waste of Bewcastle. At the period when the adventures described in the novel are supposed to have taken place, there were many instances of attacks by freebooters on those who travelled through this wild district, and Mumps’s Ha’ had a bad reputation for harbouring the banditti who committed such depredations.

An old and sturdy yeoman belonging to the Scottish side, by surname an Armstrong or Elliot, but well known by his soubriquet of Fighting Charlie of Liddesdale, and still remembered for the courage he displayed in the frequent frays which took place on the Border fifty or sixty years since, had the following adventure in the Waste, which suggested the idea of the scene in the text: -

Charlie had been at Stagshawbank Fair, had sold his sheep or cattle, or whatever he had brought to market, and was on his return to Liddesdale. There were then no country banks where cash could be deposited and bills received instead, which greatly encouraged robbery in that wild country, as the objects of plunder were usually fraught with gold. The robbers had spies in the fair, by means of whom they generally knew whose purse was best stocked, and who took a lonely and desolate road homeward, – those, in short, who were best worth robbing and likely to be most easily robbed.

All this Charlie knew full well; but he had a pair of excellent pistols and a dauntless heart. He stopped at Mumps’s Ha’, notwithstanding the evil character of the place. His horse was accommodated where it might have the necessary rest and feed of corn; and Charlie himself, a dashing fellow, grew gracious with the landlady, a buxom quean, who used all the influence in her power to induce him to stop all night. The landlord was from home, she said, and it was ill passing the Waste, as twilight must needs descend on him before he gained the Scottish side, which was reckoned the safest. But Fighting Charlie, though he suffered himself to be detained later than was prudent, did not account Mumps’s Ha’ a safe place to quarter in during the night. He tore himself away, therefore, from Meg’s good fare and kind words, and mounted his nag, having first examined his pistols, and tried by the ramrod whether the charge remained in them.

He proceeded a mile or two at a round trot, when, as the Waste stretched black before him, apprehensions began to awaken in his mind, partly arising out of Meg’s unusual kindness, which he could not help thinking had rather a suspicious appearance. He therefore resolved to reload his pistols, lest the powder had become damp; but what was his surprise, when he drew the charge, to find neither powder nor ball, while each barrel had been carefully filled with TOW, up to the space which the loading had occupied! and, the priming of the weapons being left untouched, nothing but actually drawing and examining the charge could have discovered the inefficiency of his arms till the fatal minute arrived when their services were required. Charlie bestowed a hearty Liddesdale curse on his landlady, and reloaded his pistols with care and accuracy, having now no doubt that he was to be waylaid and assaulted. He was not far engaged in the Waste, which was then, and is now, traversed only by such routes as are described in the text, when two or three fellows, disguised and variously armed, started from a moss-hag, while by a glance behind him (for, marching, as the Spaniard says, with his beard on his shoulder, he reconnoitred in every direction) Charlie instantly saw retreat was impossible, as other two stout men appeared behind him at some distance. The Borderer lost not a moment in taking his resolution, and boldly trotted against his enemies in front, who called loudly on him to stand and deliver; Charlie spurred on, and presented his pistol. ‘D-n your pistol,’ said the foremost robber, whom Charlie to his dying day protested he believed to have been the landlord of Mumps’s Ha’, ‘d-n your pistol! I care not a curse for it.’ ‘Ay, lad,’ said the deep voice of Fighting Charlie, ‘but the TOW’S out now.’ He had no occasion to utter another word; the rogues, surprised at finding a man of redoubted courage well armed, instead of being defenceless, took to the moss in every direction, and he passed on his way without farther molestation.

The author has heard this story told by persons who received it from Fighting Charlie himself; he has also heard that Mumps’s Ha’ was afterwards the scene of some other atrocious villainy, for which the people of the house suffered. But these are all tales of at least half a century old, and the Waste has been for many years as safe as any place in the kingdom.

NOTE 3, p. 213

The author may here remark that the character of Dandie Dinmont was drawn from no individual. A dozen, at least, of stout Liddesdale yeomen with whom he has been acquainted, and whose hospitality he has shared in his rambles through that wild country, at a time when it was totally inaccessible save in the manner described in the text, might lay claim to be the prototype of the rough, but faithful, hospitable, and generous farmer. But one circumstance occasioned the name to be fixed upon a most respectable individual of this class, now no more. Mr. James Davidson of Hindlee, a tenant of Lord Douglas, besides the points of blunt honesty, personal strength, and hardihood designed to be expressed in the character of Dandie Dinmont, had the humour of naming a celebrated race of terriers which he possessed by the generic names of Mustard and Pepper (according as their colour was yellow or greyish-black), without any other individual distinction except as according to the nomenclature in the text. Mr. Davidson resided at Hindlee, a wild farm on the very edge of the Teviotdale mountains, and bordering close on Liddesdale, where the rivers and brooks divide as they take their course to the Eastern and Western seas. His passion for the chase in all its forms, but especially for fox-hunting, as followed in the fashion described in chapter xxv, in conducting which he was skilful beyond most men in the South Highlands, was the distinguishing point in his character.

When the tale on which these comments are written became rather popular, the name of Dandie Dinmont was generally given to him, which Mr. Davidson received with great good-humour, only saying, while he distinguished the author by the name applied to him in the country, where his own is so common-’that the Sheriff had not written about him mair than about other folk, but only about his dogs.’ An English lady of high rank and fashion, being desirous to possess a brace of the celebrated Mustard and Pepper terriers, expressed her wishes in a letter which was literally addressed to Dandie Dinmont, under which very general direction it reached Mr. Davidson, who was justly proud of the application, and failed not to comply with a request which did him and his favourite attendants so much honour.

I trust I shall not be considered as offending the memory of a kind and worthy man, if I mention a little trait of character which occurred in Mr. Davidson’s last illness. I use the words of the excellent clergyman who attended him, who gave the account to a reverend gentleman of the same persuasion: -

‘I read to Mr. Davidson the very suitable and interesting truths you addressed to him. He listened to them with great seriousness, and has uniformly displayed a deep concern about his soul’s salvation. He died on the first Sabbath of the year (1820); an apoplectic stroke deprived him in an instant of all sensation, but happily his brother was at his bedside, for he had detained him from the meeting-house that day to be near him, although he felt himself not much worse than usual. So you have got the last little Mustard that the hand of Dandie Dinmont bestowed.

‘His ruling passion was strong even on the eve of death. Mr. Baillie’s fox-hounds had started a fox opposite to his window a few weeks ago, and as soon as he heard the sound of the dogs his eyes glistened; he insisted on getting out of bed, and with much difficulty got to the window and there enjoyed the fun, as he called it. When I came down to ask for him, he said, “he had seen Reynard, but had not seen his death. If it had been the will of Providence,” he added, “I would have liked to have been after him; but I am glad that I got to the window, and am thankful for what I saw, for it has done me a great deal of good.” Notwithstanding these eccentricities (adds the sensible and liberal clergyman), I sincerely hope and believe he has gone to a better world, and better company and enjoyments.’

If some part of this little narrative may excite a smile, it is one which is consistent with the most perfect respect for the simple-minded invalid and his kind and judicious religious instructor, who, we hope, will not be displeased with our giving, we trust, a correct edition of an anecdote which has been pretty generally circulated. The race of Pepper and Mustard are in the highest estimation at this day, not only for vermin-killing, but for intelligence and fidelity. Those who, like the author, possess a brace of them, consider them as very desirable companions.

NOTE 4, p. 232

The cleek here intimated is the iron hook, or hooks, depending from the chimney of a Scottish cottage, on which the pot is suspended when boiling. The same appendage is often called the crook. The salmon is usually dried by hanging it up, after being split and rubbed with salt, in the smoke of the turf fire above the cleeks, where it is said to ‘reist,’ that preparation being so termed. The salmon thus preserved is eaten as a delicacy, under the name of kipper, a luxury to which Dr. Redgill has given his sanction as an ingredient of the Scottish breakfast. – See the excellent novel entitled MARRIAGE.

NOTE 5, p. 234

The distinction of individuals by nicknames when they possess no property is still common on the Border, and indeed necessary, from the number of persons having the same name. In the small village of Lustruther, in Roxburghshire, there dwelt, in the memory of man, four inhabitants called Andrew, or Dandie, Oliver. They were distinguished as Dandie Eassil-gate, Dandie Wassilgate, Dandie Thumbie, and Dandie Dumbie. The two first had their names from living eastward and westward in the street of the village; the third from something peculiar in the conformation of his thumb; the fourth from his taciturn habits.

It is told as a well-known jest, that a beggar woman, repulsed from door to door as she solicited quarters through a village of Annandale, asked, in her despair, if there were no Christians in the place. To which the hearers, concluding that she inquired for some persons so surnamed, answered, ‘Na, na, there are nae Christians here; we are a’ Johnstones and Jardines.’

NOTE 6, p. 244

The mysterious rites in which Meg Merrilies is described as engaging belong to her character as a queen of her race. All know that gipsies in every country claim acquaintance with the gift of fortune-telling; but, as is often the case, they are liable to the superstitions of which they avail themselves in others. The correspondent of Blackwood, quoted in the Introduction to this Tale, gives us some information on the subject of their credulity.

‘I have ever understood,’ he says, speaking of the Yetholm gipsies,’ that they are extremely superstitious, carefully noticing the formation of the clouds, the flight of particular birds, and the soughing of the winds, before attempting any enterprise. They have been known for several successive days to turn back with their loaded carts, asses, and children, upon meeting with persons whom they considered of unlucky aspect; nor do they ever proceed on their summer peregrinations without some propitious omen of their fortunate return. They also burn the clothes of their dead, not so much from any apprehension of infection being communicated by them, as the conviction that the very circumstance of wearing them would shorten the days of their living. They likewise carefully watch the corpse by night and day till the time of interment, and conceive that “the deil tinkles at the lyke-wake” of those who felt in their dead-thraw the agonies and terrors of remorse.’

These notions are not peculiar to the gipsies; but, having been once generally entertained among the Scottish common people, are now only found among those who are the most rude in their habits and most devoid of instruction. The popular idea, that the protracted struggle between life and death is painfully prolonged by keeping the door of the apartment shut, was received as certain by the superstitious eld of Scotland. But neither was it to be thrown wide open. To leave the door ajar was the plan adopted by the old crones who understood the mysteries of deathbeds and lykewakes. In that case there was room for the imprisoned spirit to escape; and yet an obstacle, we have been assured, was offered to the entrance of any frightful form which might otherwise intrude itself. The threshold of a habitation was in some sort a sacred limit, and the subject of much superstition. A bride, even to this day, is always lifted over it, a rule derived apparently from the Romans.