Part 22 (2/2)
”Ou, he just stared at the young leddies very keen like, and asked if it was for certain that the marriage was to be between Miss Mannering and young Hazlewood--and I answered him that it was for positive and absolute certain, as I had an undoubted right to say sae--for my third cousin Jean Clavers (she's a relation o' your ain, Mr. Glossin, ye wad ken Jean lang syne?), she's sib [*Related] to the housekeeper at Woodbourne, and she's tell'd me mair than ance that there was naething could be mair likely.”
”And what did the stranger say when you told him all this?” said Glossin.
”Say?” echoed the postilion, ”he said naething at a'--he just stared at them as they walked round the loch upon the ice, as if he could have eaten them, and he never took his ee aff them, or said another word, or gave another glance at the Bonspiel, [*playing match] though there was the finest fun amang the curlers ever was seen--and he turned round and gaed aff the loch by the kirk-stile through Woodbourne fir-plantings, and we saw nae mair o' him.”
”Only think,” said Mrs. Mac-Candlish, ”what a hard heart he maun hae had, to think o' hurting the poor young gentleman in the very presence of the leddy he was to be married to!”
”Oh, Mrs. Mac-Candlish,' said Glossin, ”there's been many cases such as that on the record--,doubtless he was seeking revenge where it would be deepest and sweetest.”
”G.o.d pity us!” said Deacon Bearcliff, ”we're puir frail creatures when left to oursells!--ay, he forgot wha said, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay it.”'
”Weel, aweel, sirs,” said Jabos, whose hard-headed and uncultivated shrewdness seemed sometimes to start the game when others beat the bush--”Weel, weel, ye may be a' mista'en yet--I'll never believe that a man would lay a plan to shoot another wi' his ain gun. Lord help me, I was the keeper's a.s.sistant down at the Isle mysell, and I'll uphaud it, the biggest man in Scotland shouldna take a gun frae me or I had weized the slugs through him, though I'm but sic a little f.e.c.kless [*Spiritless] body, fit for naething but the outside o' a saddle and the fore-end o' a poschay--na, na, nae living man wad venture on that. I'll wad ma best buckskins, and they were new coft [*Bought] at Kirkcudbright fair, it's been a chance job after a'. But if ye hae naething mair to say to me, I am thinking I maun gang and see my beasts fed.” And he departed accordingly.
The hostler, who had accompanied him, gave evidence to the same purpose. He and Mrs. MacCandlish were then re-interrogated, whether Brown had no arms with him on that unhappy morning. ”None,”
they said, ”but an ordinary bit cutla.s.s or hanger by his side.”
”Now,” said the Deacon, taking Glossin by the b.u.t.ton (for, in considering this intricate subject, he had forgot Glossin's new accession of rank)--”this is but doubtfu' after a', Maister Gilbert--for it was not Sae dooms [*Absolutely] likely that he would go down into battle wi' sic sma' means.”
Glossin extricated himself from the Deacon's grasp, and from the discussion, though not with rudeness; for it was his present interest to buy golden opinions from all sorts of people. He inquired the price of tea and sugar, and spoke of providing himself for the year; he gave Mrs. Mac-Candlish directions to have a handsome entertainment in readiness for a party of five friends, whom he intended to invite to dine with him at the Gordon Arms next Sat.u.r.day week; and, lastly, he gave a half-crown to Jock Jabos, whom the hostler had deputed to hold his steed.
”Weel,” said the Deacon to Mrs. Mac-Candlish, as he accepted her offer of a gla.s.s of bitters at the bar, ”the deil's no sae ill as he's ca'd. It's pleasant to see a gentleman pay the regard to the business o' the county that Mr. Glossin does.”
”Ay, 'deed is't, Deacon,” answered the landlady and yet I wonder our gentry leave their ain wark to the like o' him. --But as lang as silver's current, Deacon, folk maunna look ower nicely at what king's head's on't.”
”I doubt Glossin will prove but shand [*Cant expression for base coin] after a', mistress,” said Jabos, as he pa.s.sed through the little lobby beside the bar; ”but this is a gude half-crown ony way.”
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.
A man that apprehends death to be no more dreadful but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what's past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal.
Measure for Measure.
Glossin had made careful minutes of the information derived from these examinations. They threw little light upon the story, so far as he understood its purport; but the better informed reader has received, through means of this investigation, an account of Brown's proceedings, between the moment when we left him upon his walk to Kippletringan, the time when, stung, by jealousy, he so rashly and unhappily presented himself before Julia Mannering, and well-nigh brought to a fatal termination the quarrel which his appearance occasioned.
Glossin rode slowly back to Ellangowan, pondering on what he had heard, and more and more convinced that the active and successful prosecution of this mysterious business was an opportunity of ingratiating himself with Hazlewood and Mannering to be on no account neglected. Perhaps, also, he felt his professional acuteness interested in bringing it to a successful close. It was, therefore, with great pleasure that, on his return to his house from Kippletringan, he heard his servants announce hastily, ”that Mac-Guffog, the thief-taker, and twa or three concurrents, had a man in hands in the kitchen waiting for his honour.”
He instantly jumped from horseback, and hastened into the house.
”Send my clerk here directly; ye'll find him copying the survey of the estate in the little green parlour. Set things to rights in my study, and wheel the great leathem chair up to the writing-table--set a stool for Mr. Scrow. --Scrow (to the clerk, as he entered the presence-chamber), hand down Sir George Mackenzie on Crimes; open it at the section Vis Publica et Privata, and fold down a leaf at the pa.s.sage 'anent the bearing of unlawful weapons.'
Now lend me a hand off with my muckle-coat, and hang it up in the lobby, and bid them bring up the prisoner--I trow I'll sort him-- but stay, first send up Mac-Guffog.--Now, Mac-Guffog, where did ye find this chield?”
Mac-Guffog, a stout bandy-legged fellow, with a neck like a bull, a face like a--firebrand, and a most portentous squint of the left eye, began, after various contortions by way of courtesy to the justice, to tell his story, eking it out by sundry sly nods and knowing winks, which appeared to bespeak an intimate correspondence of ideas between the narrator and his princ.i.p.al auditor. ”Your honour sees I went down to yon place that your honour spoke o', that's kept by her that your honour kens o', by the sea-side.-- So, says she, what are you wanting here? Ye'll be come wi' a broom in your pocket frae Ellangowan?--So, says I, deil a broom will come frae there awa, for ye ken, says I, his honour Ellangowan himself in former times--”
”Well, well,” said Glossin, ”no occasion to be particular, tell the essentials.”
”Weel, so we sat niffering [*Bargaining] about some brandy that I said I wanted, till he came in.”
”Who?”
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