The Bride of Lammermoor/Volume 1/Chapter 8
Aye, and when huntsmen wind the merry horn,
And from its covert starts the fearful prey,
Who, warm'd with youth's blood in his swelling veins,
Would like a lifeless clod outstretched lie,
Shut out from all the fair creation offers?
Ethwald, Act I. Scene I.
Light meals procure light slumbers; and therefore it is not surprising, that, considering the fare which Caleb's conscience, or his necessity, assuming, as will sometimes happen, that disguise, had assigned to the guests of Wolf's Crag, their slumbers should have been short.
In the morning Bucklaw rushed into his host's apartment with a loud halloo, which might have awaked the dead.
"Up! up! in the name of Heaven—the hunters are out, the only piece of sport I have seen this month; and you lie here, Master, on a bed that has little to recommend it, except that it may be something softer than the stone floor of your ancestors' vault."
"I wish," said Ravenswood, raising his head peevishly, "you had forborne so early a jest, Mr Hayston—it is really no pleasure to lose the very short repose which I had just begun to enjoy, after a night spent in thoughts upon fortune far harder than my couch, Bucklaw."
"Pshaw! pshaw!" replied his guest, "get up—get up—the hounds are abroad—I have saddled the horses myself, for old Caleb was calling for grooms and lacqueys, and would never have proceeded without two hour's apology, for the absence of men that were a hundred miles off—get up, Master—I say the hounds are out—get up, I say—the hunt is up." And off ran Bucklaw.
"And I say," said the Master, rising slowly, "that nothing can concern me less—Whose hounds come so near us?"
"The Honourable Lord Bittlebrain's," answered Caleb, who had followed the impatient Laird of Bucklaw into his master's bed-room, "and truly I ken nae title they have to be yowling and howling within the freedoms and immunities of your lordship's right of free-forestry."
"Nor I, Caleb," replied Ravenswood, "excepting that they have bought both the lands and the right of forestry, and may think themselves entitled to exercise the rights they have paid their money for."
"It may be sae, my lord," replied Caleb; "but its no gentleman's deed of them to come here and exercise such like right, and your lordship living at your ain castle of Wolf's Crag. Lord Bittlebrain would do weel to remember what his folks have been."
"And we what we now are," said the Master, with suppressed bitterness of feeling. "But reach me my cloak, Caleb, and I will indulge Bucklaw with a sight of this chase. It is selfish to sacrifice my guest's pleasure to my own."
"Sacrifice?" echoed Caleb, in a tone which seemed to imply the total absurdity of his master making the least concession in deference to any one—"Sacrifice indeed?—but I crave your honour's pardon—and whilk doublet is it your pleasure to wear?"
"Any one you will, Caleb—my wardrobe, I suppose, is not very extensive."
"Not extensive?" echoed his assistant; "when there is the grey and silver that your lordship bestowed on Hew Hildebrand, your out-rider—and the French velvet that went with my lord your father (be gracious to him)—my lord your father's auld wardrope to the puir friends of the family, and the drap-de-berry"—
"Which I gave to you, Caleb, and which, I suppose, is the only dress we have any chance to come at, except that I wore yesterday—pray, hand me that, and say no more about it."
"If your honour has a fancy," replied Caleb, "and doubtless it's a sad-coloured suit, and you are in mourning—nevertheless I have never try'd on the drap-de-berry—ill wad it become me—and your honour having no change of claiths at this present—and it's weel brushed, and as there are leddies down yonder"—
"Ladies?" said Ravenswood; "and what ladies?"
"What do I ken, your lordship?—looking down at them from the Warden's Tower, I could but see them glent by wi' their bridles ringing, and their feathers fluttering, like the court of Elfland."
"Well, well, Caleb," replied the Master, "help me on with my cloak, and hand me my sword-belt.—What clatter is that in the court-yard?"
"Just Bucklaw bringing out the horses," said Caleb, after a glance through the window, "as if there werena men aneugh in the castle, or as if I couldna serve the turn of ony o' them that are out o' the gate."
"Alas! Caleb, we should want little, if your ability were equal to your will," replied his master.
"And I hope your lordship disna want that muckle," said Caleb; "for considering a' things, I trust we support the credit of the family as weel as things will permit of. Only Bucklaw is aye sae frank and sae forward, and there he has brought out your lordship's palfrey without the saddle, being decored wi' the broidered sumpter-cloth, and I could have brushed it in a minute."
"It is all very well," said his master, escaping from him, and descending the narrow and steep winding stair-case, which led to the court-yard.
"It may be a' very weel," said Caleb, somewhat peevishly; "but if your lordship wad tarry a bit, I will tell you what will not be very weel."
"And what is that?" said Ravenswood impatiently, but stopping at the same time.
"Why, just that ye suld speer ony gentleman hame to dinner; for I canna mak anither fast on a feast day, as when I cam ower Bucklaw wi' Queen Margaret—and, to speak truth, if your lordship wad but please to cast yoursell in the way of dining wi' Lord Bittlebrains, I'se warrand I wad cast about brawly for the morn; or if, stead o' that, ye wad but dine wi' them at the Change-house, ye might mak your shift for the lawing; ye might say ye had forgot your purse—or that the carline awed you rent, and that ye wad allow it in the settlement."
"Or any other lie that came uppermost, I suppose," said his master. "Good bye, Caleb; I commend your care for the honour of the family." And, throwing himself on his horse, he followed Bucklaw, who, at the manifest risk of his neck, had begun to gallop down the steep path which led to the Tower, as soon as he saw Ravenswood have his foot in the stirrup.
Caleb Balderstone looked anxiously after them, and shook his thin grey locks—"And I trust they will come to no evil—but they have reached the plain, and folks cannot say but that the horse are hearty and in spirits."
Animated by the natural impetuosity and fire of his temper, young Bucklaw rushed on with the careless speed of a whirlwind. Ravenswood was scarce more moderate in his pace, for his was a mind unwillingly roused from contemplative inactivity, but which, when once put into motion, acquired a spirit of forcible and violent progression. Neither was his eagerness proportioned in all cases to the motive of impulse, but might be compared to the speed of a stone, which rushes with like fury down the hill, whether it was first put in motion by the arm of a giant or the hand of a boy. He felt, therefore, in no ordinary degree, the headlong impulse of the chase, a pastime so natural to youth of all ranks, that it seems rather to be an inherent passion in our animal nature, which levels all differences of rank and education, than an acquired habit of rapid exercise.
The repeated bursts of the French horn, which were then always used for the encouragement and direction of the hounds—the deep, though distant baying of the pack—the half-heard cries of the huntsmen—the half-seen forms which were discovered now emerging from glens which crossed the moor, now sweeping over its surface, now picking their way where it was impeded by morasses, and, above all, the feeling of his own rapid motion, animated the Master of Ravenswood, at least for the moment, above the recollections of a more painful nature by which he was surrounded. The first thing which recalled him to those unpleasing circumstances was feeling that his horse, notwithstanding all the advantages which he received from his rider's knowledge of the country, was unable to keep up with the chace. As he drew his bridle up with the bitter feeling that his poverty excluded him from the favourite recreation of his forefathers, and indeed their sole employment when not engaged in military pursuits, he was accosted by a well-mounted stranger, who, unobserved, had kept near him during the earlier part of his career.
"Your horse is blown," said the man, with a complaisance seldom used in a hunting-field; "Might I crave your honour to make use of mine?"
"Sir," said Ravenswood, more surprised than pleased at such a proposal, "I really do not know how I have merited such a favour at a stranger's hands."
"Never ask a question about it, Master," said Bucklaw, who, with great unwillingness, had hitherto reined in his own gallant steed, not to outride his host and entertainer. "Take the goods the gods provide you, as the great John Dryden says—or stay—here, my friend, lend me that horse; I see you have been puzzled to rein him up this half hour. I'll take the devil out of him for you.—Now, Master, do you ride mine, which will carry you like an eagle."
And throwing the rein of his own horse to the Master of Ravenswood, he sprung upon that which the stranger resigned to him, and continued his career at full speed.
"Was ever so thoughtless a being," said the Master; "and you, my friend, how could you trust him with your horse?"
"The horse," said the man, "belongs to a person who will make your honour, or any of your honourable friends, most welcome to him, flesh and fell."
"And the owner's name is?" asked Ravenswood.
"Your honour must excuse me, you will learn that from himself—if you please to take your friend's horse, and leave me your galloway, I will meet you after the fall of the stag, for I hear they are blowing him at bay."
"I believe, my friend, it will be the best way to recover your good horse for you," answered Ravenswood; and mounting the nag of his friend Bucklaw, he made all the haste in his power to the spot where the blast of the horn announced that the stag's career was nearly terminated.
These jovial shouts were intermixed with the huntsmen's shouts of "Hyke a Talbot! Hyke a Teviot! now, boys, now!" and similar cheering halloos of the olden hunting field, to which the impatient yelling of the hounds, now close on the object of their pursuit, gave a lively and unremitting chorus. The straggling riders began now to rally towards the scene of action, collecting from different points as to a common centre.
Bucklaw kept the start which he had gotten, and arrived first at the spot, where the stag, incapable of sustaining a more prolonged flight, had turned upon the hounds, and, in the hunter's phrase, was at bay. With his stately head bent down, his sides white with foam, his eyes strained betwixt rage and terror, the hunted animal had now in his turn become an object of intimidation to his pursuers. The hunters came up one by one, and watched an opportunity to assail him with some advantage, which, in such circumstances, can only be done with caution. The dogs stood aloof and bayed loudly, intimating at once eagerness and fear, and each of the sportsmen seemed to expect that his comrade would take upon him the perilous task of assaulting and disabling the animal. The ground, which was a hollow in the common or moor, afforded little advantage for approaching the stag unobserved, and general was the shout of triumph when Bucklaw, with the dexterity proper to an accomplished cavalier of the day, sprang from his horse, and dashing suddenly and swiftly at the stag, brought him to the ground by a cut on the hind leg, with his short hunting sword. The pack rushing in upon their disabled enemy, soon ended his painful struggles, and solemnized his fall with their clamour—the hunters with their horns and voices whooping and blowing a mort, or death-note, which resounded far over the billows of the adjacent ocean.
The huntsman then withdrew the hounds from the throttled stag, and on his knee presented his knife to a fair female form, on a white palfrey, whose terror, or perhaps her compassion, had till then kept her at some distance. She wore a black silk riding mask, which was then a common fashion, as well for preserving the complexion from sun and rain, as from an idea of decorum, which did not permit a lady to appear bare-faced while engaged in a boisterous sport, and attended by a promiscuous company. The richness of her dress, however, as well as the mettle and form of her palfrey, together with the sylvan compliment paid to her by the huntsman, pointed her out to Bucklaw as the principal person in the field. It was not without a feeling of pity, approaching even to contempt, that this enthusiastic hunter observed her refuse the huntsman's knife, presented to her for the purpose of making the first incision in the stag's breast, and thereby discovering the quality of the venison. He felt more than half inclined to pay his compliments to her; but it had been Bucklaw's misfortune, that his habits of life had not rendered him familiarly acquainted with the higher and better classes of female society, so that, with all his natural audacity, he felt sheepish and bashful when it became necessary to address a lady of distinction.
Taking unto himself heart of grace (to use his own phrase,) he did at length summon up resolution enough to give the fair huntress good time of the day, and trust that her sport had answered her expectation. Her answer was very courteously and modestly expressed, and testified some gratitude to the gallant cavalier, whose exploit had terminated the chase so adroitly, when the hounds and huntsmen seemed somewhat at a stand.
"Uds daggers and scabbard, madam," said Bucklaw, whom this observation brought at once upon his own ground, "there is no difficulty or merit in that matter at all, so that a fellow is not too much afraid of having a pair of antlers in his guts. I have hunted at force five hundred times, madam; and I never yet saw the stag at bay, by land or water, but I durst have gone roundly in on him. It is all use and wont, madam; and I'll tell you, madam, for all that, it must be done with good heed and caution; and you will do well, madam, to have your hunting-sword both right sharp and double-edged, that you may strike either fore-handed or back-handed, as you see reason, for a hurt with a buck's horn is a perilous and somewhat venomous matter."
"I am afraid, sir," said the young lady, and her smile was scarce concealed by her vizard, "I shall have little use for such careful preparation."
"But the gentleman says very right for all that, my lady," said an old huntsman, who had listened to Bucklaw's harangue with no small edification; "and I have heard my father say, who was a forester at the Cabrach, that a wild-boar's gaunch is more easily healed than a hurt from the deer's-horn, for so says the old woodsman's rhyme,
"If thou be hurt with horn of hart, it brings thee to thy bier;
But tusk of boar shall leeches heal—thereof have lesser fear."
"An I might advise," continued Bucklaw, who was now in his element, and desirous of assuming the whole management, "as the hounds are surbated and weary, the head of the stag should be cabaged in order to reward them; and if I may presume to speak, the huntsman, who is to break up the stag, ought to drink to your good ladyship's health a good lusty bicker of ale, or a tass of brandy; for if he breaks him up without drinking, the venison will not keep well."
This very agreeable prescription received, as will be readily believed, all acceptation from the huntsman, who in requital offered to Bucklaw the compliment of his knife, which the young lady had declined. This polite proffer was seconded by his mistress.
"I believe, sir," said she, withdrawing herself from the circle, "that my father, for whose amusement Lord Bittlebrain's hounds have been out to-day, will readily surrender all care of these matters to a gentleman of your experience."
Then, bending gracefully from her horse, she wished him good morning; and attended by one or two domestics, who seemed immediately attached to her service, retired from the scene of action, to which Bucklaw, too much delighted with an opportunity of displaying his wood-craft to care about man or woman either, paid little attention; but was soon stript to his doublet, with tucked-up sleeves, and naked arms up to the elbows in blood and grease, slashing, cutting, hacking, and hewing, with the precision of Sir Tristrem himself, and wrangling and disputing with all around him concerning nombles, briskets, flankards, and raven-bones, then usual terms of the art of hunting, or of butchery, whichever the reader chuses to call it, which are now probably antiquated.
When Ravenswood, who followed a short space behind his friend, saw that the stag had fallen, his temporary ardour for the chace gave way to that feeling of reluctance which he felt, at encountering in his fallen fortunes the gaze whether of equals or inferiors. He reined up his horse on the top of a gentle eminence, from which he observed the busy and gay scene beneath him, and heard the whoops of the huntsmen gaily mingled with the cry of the dogs, and the neighing and trampling of the horses. But these jovial sounds fell sadly on the ear of the ruined nobleman. The chace, with all its train of excitations, has ever since feudal times been accounted the almost exclusive privilege of the aristocracy, and was anciently their chief employment in times of peace. The sense that he was excluded by his situation from enjoying the sylvan sport, which his rank assigned to him as a special prerogative, and the feeling that new men were now exercising it over the downs, which had been jealously reserved by his ancestors for their own amusement, while he, the heir of the domain, was fain to hold himself at a distance from their party, awakened reflections calculated to depress deeply a mind like Ravenswood's, which was naturally contemplative and melancholy. His pride, however, soon shook off this feeling of dejection, and it gave way to impatience upon finding that his volatile friend Bucklaw seemed in no hurry to return with his borrowed steed, which Ravenswood, before leaving the field, wished to see restored to the obliging owner. As he was about to move towards the groupe of assembled huntsmen, he was joined by a horseman, who like himself had kept aloof during the fall of the deer.
This personage seemed stricken in years. He wore a scarlet cloak, buttoning high upon his face, and his hat was unlooped and slouched, probably by way of defence against the weather. His horse, a strong and steady palfrey, was calculated for a rider who proposed to witness the sport of the day, rather than to share it. An attendant waited at some distance, and the whole equipment was that of an elderly gentleman of rank and fashion. He accosted Ravenswood very politely, but not without some embarrassment. "You seem a gallant young gentleman, sir," he said, "and yet appear as indifferent to this brave sport as if you had my load of years on your shoulders."
"I have followed the sport with more spirit on other occasions," replied the Master; "at present late events in my family must be my apology—and besides," he added, "I was but indifferently mounted at the beginning of the sport."
"I think," said the stranger, "one of my attendants had the sense to accommodate your friend with a horse."
"I was much indebted to his politeness and yours," replied Ravenswood. "My friend is Mr Hayston of Bucklaw, whom I dare say you will be sure to find in the thick of the keenest sportsmen. He will return your servant's horse, and take my poney in exchange—and will add," he concluded, turning his horse's head from the stranger, "his best acknowledgments to mine for the accommodation."
The Master of Ravenswood having thus expressed himself, began to move homeward, with the manner of one who has taken leave of his company. But the stranger was not so to be shaken off. He turned his horse at the same time, and rode in the same direction so near to the Master, that, without out-riding him, which the formal civility of the time, and the respect due to the stranger's age and recent civility, would have rendered improper, he could not easily escape from his company.
The stranger did not long remain silent. "This then," he said, "is the ancient Castle of Wolf's Crag, often mentioned in the Scottish records," looking to the old tower then darkening under the influence of a stormy cloud, that formed its back ground; for at the distance of a short mile, the chace having been circuitous had brought the hunters back nearly to the point which they had attained when Ravenswood and Bucklaw set forth to join them.
Ravenswood answered this observation with a cold and distant assent.
"It was, as I have heard," continued the stranger, unabashed by his coldness, "one of the most early possessions of the honourable family of Ravenswood."
"Their earliest possession," answered the Master, "and probably their latest."
"I—I—I should hope not, sir," answered the stranger, clearing his voice with more than one cough, and making an effort to overcome a certain degree of hesitation,—"Scotland knows what she owes to this ancient family, and remembers their frequent and honourable achievements. I have little doubt, that, were it properly represented to her majesty that so ancient and noble a family were subjected to dilapidation—I mean to decay—means might be found, ad re-ædificandam antiquam domum"
"I will save you the trouble, sir, of discussing this point farther," said the Master haughtily. "I am the heir of that unfortunate House—I am the Master of Ravenswood—and you, sir, who seem to be a gentleman of fashion and education, must be sensible, that the next mortification after being unhappy, is the being loaded with undesired commiseration."
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the elder horseman—"I did not know—I am sensible I ought not to have mentioned—nothing could be farther from my thoughts than to suppose"
"There are no apologies necessary, sir," answered Ravenswood, "for here, I suppose, our roads separate, and I assure you that we part in perfect equanimity on my side."
As speaking these words, he directed his horse's head towards a narrow causeway, the ancient approach to Wolf's Crag, of which it might be truly said, in the words of the Bard of Hope, that
"Frequented by few was the grass-cover'd road,
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode,
To his hills that encircle the sea."
But ere he could disengage himself from his companion, the young lady we have already mentioned came up to join the stranger, followed by her servants.
"Daughter," said the stranger to the masked damsel, "this is the Master of Ravenswood."
It would have been natural that the gentleman should have replied to this introduction; but there was something in the graceful form and retiring modesty of the female to whom he was thus presented, which not only prevented him from enquiring to whom, and by whom, the annunciation had been made, but which even for the time struck him absolutely mute. At this moment the cloud which had long lowered above the height on which Wolf's Crag is situated, and which now, as it advanced, spread itself in darker and denser folds both over land and sea, hiding the distant objects and obscuring those which were nearer, turning the sea to a leaden complexion, and the heath to a darker brown, began now, by one or two distant peals, to announce the thunders with which it was fraught; while two flashes of lightning, following each other very closely, shewed in the distance the grey turrets of Wolf's Crag, and, more nearly, the rolling billows of the sea, crested suddenly with red and dazzling light.
The horse of the fair huntress shewed symptoms of impatience and restiveness, and it became impossible for Ravenswood, as a man or a gentleman, to leave her abruptly to the care of an aged father or her menial attendants. He was, or believed himself, obliged in courtesy to take hold of her bridle, and assist her in managing the unruly animal. While he was thus engaged, the old gentleman observed that the storm seemed to increase—that they were far from Lord Bittlebrain's, whose guests they were for the present—and that he would be obliged to the Master of Ravenswood to point him the way to the nearest place of refuge from the storm. At the same time he cast a wistful and embarrassed look towards the Tower of Wolf's Crag, which seemed to render it almost impossible for the owner to avoid offering an old man and a lady, in such an emergency, the temporary use of his house. Indeed, the condition of the young huntress rendered this courtesy indispensable; for, in the course of the services which he rendered, he could not but perceive that she trembled much, and was extremely agitated, from her apprehensions, doubtless, of the coming storm.
I know not if the Master of Ravenswood shared her terrors, but he was not entirely free from something like a similar disorder of nerves, as he observed, "The Tower of Wolf's Crag has nothing to offer beyond the shelter of its roof, but if that can be acceptable at such a moment"—he paused, as if the rest of the invitation stuck in his throat. But the old gentleman, his self-constituted companion, did not allow him to recede from the invitation, which he had rather suffered to be implied than directly expressed.
"The storm," said the stranger, "must be an apology for waiving ceremony—his daughter's health was weak—she had suffered much from a recent alarm—he trusted their intrusion on the Master of Ravenswood's hospitality would not be altogether unpardonable in the circumstances of the case—his child's safety must be dearer to him than ceremony."
There was no room to retreat. The Master of Ravenswood led the way, continuing to keep hold of the lady's bridle to prevent her horse from starting at some unexpected explosion of thunder. He was not so bewildered in his own hurried reflections, but what he remarked, that the deadly paleness which had occupied her neck and temples, and such of her features as the riding-mask left exposed, gave place to a deep and rosy suffusion; and he felt with embarrassment that a flush was by tacit sympathy excited in his own cheeks. The stranger, with watchfulness which he disguised under apprehensions for the safety of his daughter, continued to observe the expression of the Master's countenance as they ascended the hill to Wolf's Crag. When they stood in front of that ancient fortress, Ravenswood's emotions were of a very complicated description; and as he led the way into the rude court-yard, and halloo'd to Caleb to give attendance, there was a tone of sternness, almost of fierceness, which seemed somewhat alien from the courtesies of one who is receiving honoured guests.
Caleb came, and not the paleness of the fair stranger at the first approach of the thunder, nor the paleness of any other person, in any other circumstances whatsoever, equalled that which overcame the thin cheeks of the disconsolate seneschal, when he beheld this accession of guests to the castle, and reflected that the dinner hour was fast approaching. "Is he daft?" he muttered to himself,—"is he clean daft a'thegither, to bring lords and leddies, and a host of folks behint them, and twal-o'clock chappit?" Then approaching the Master, he craved pardon for having permitted the rest of his people to go out to see the hunt, observing, that "they wad never think of his lordship coming back till mirk night, and that he dreaded they might play the truant."
"Silence, Balderstone!" said Ravenswood sternly; "your folly is unseasonable.—Sir and madam," he said, turning to his guests, "this old man, and a yet older and more imbecile female domestic, form my whole retinue. Our means of refreshing you are more scanty than even so miserable a retinue, and a dwelling so dilapidated, might seem to promise you; but, such as they may chance to be, you may command them."
The elder stranger, struck with the ruined and even savage appearance of the tower, rendered still more disconsolate by the lowering and gloomy sky, and perhaps not altogether unmoved by the grave and determined voice in which their host addressed them, looked round him anxiously, as if he half repented the readiness with which he had accepted the offered hospitality. But there was now no opportunity of receding from the situation in which he had placed himself.
As for Caleb, he was so utterly stunned by his master's public and unqualified acknowledgment of the nakedness of the land, that for two minutes he could only mutter within his hebdomadal beard, which had not felt the razor for six days, "He's daft—clean daft—red wud, and awa' wl't! But de'il hae Caleb Balderstone," said he, collecting his powers of invention and resource, "if the family shall lose credit, if he were as mad as the seven wise masters." He then boldly advanced, and in spite of his master's frowns and impatience, gravely asked, "if he should not serve up some slight refection for the young leddy, and a glass of tokay, or old sack—or"—
"Truce to this ill-timed foolery," said the Master, sternly—"put the horses into the stable, and interrupt us no more with your absurdities."
"Your honour's pleasure is to be obeyed aboon a' things," said Caleb; "nevertheless, as for the sack and tokay which it is not your noble guest's pleasure to accept"—
But here the voice of Bucklaw, heard even above the clattering of hoofs and braying of horns with which it mingled, announced that he was scaling the pathway to the tower at the head of the greater part of the gallant hunting train.
"The de'il be in me," said Caleb, taking heart in spite of this new invasion of Philistines, "if they shall beat me yet. The hellicat ne'er-do-weel!—to bring such a crew here, that will expect to find brandy as plenty as ditch-water, and he kenning sae absolutely the case in whilk we stand for the present. But I trow, could I get rid of these gaping gowks of flunkies that hae won into the court-yard at the back of their betters, as mony a man gets preferment, I could make a' right yet."
The measures which he took to execute this dauntless resolution, the reader shall learn in the next chapter.