Part 28 (1/2)
Following in the wake of this first-rate, Mannering proceeded till the farmer made a pause, and, looking back to the chairman, said, ”I'm thinking this will be the close, friend?”
”Ay, ay,” replied Donald, ”tat's ta close.”
Dinmont descended confidently, then turned into a dark alley-- then up a dark stair--and then into an open door. While he was whistling shrilly for the waiter, as if he had been one of his collie dogs, Mannering looked round him, and could hardly conceive how a gentleman of a liberal profession, and good society, should choose such a scene for social indulgence. Besides the miserable entrance, the house itself seemed paltry and half ruinous. The pa.s.sage in which they stood had a window to the close, which admitted a little light during the daytime, and a villainous compound of smells at all times, but more especially towards evening. Corresponding to this window was a borrowed light on the other side of the pa.s.sage, looking into the kitchen, which had no direct communication with the free air, but received in the daytime, at second hand, such straggling and obscure light as found its way from the lane through the window opposite. At present, the interior of the kitchen was visible by its own huge fires--a sort of Pandemonium, where men and women, half undressed, were busied in baking, broiling, roasting oysters, and preparing devils on the gridiron; the mistress of the place, with her shoes slipshod, and her hair straggling like that of Megaera from under a round-eared cap, toiling, scolding, receiving orders, giving them, and obeying them all at once, seemed the presiding enchantress of that gloomy and fiery region.
Loud and repeated bursts of laughter, from different quarters of the house, proved that her labours were acceptable, and not unrewarded by a generous public. With some difficulty a waiter was prevailed upon to show Colonel Mannering and Dinmont the room where their friend, learned in the law, held his hebdomadal carousals.
The scene which it exhibited, and particularly the att.i.tude of the counsellor himself, the princ.i.p.al figure therein, struck his two clients with amazement.
Mr. Pleydell was a lively, sharp-looking gentleman, with a professional shrewdness in his eye, and, generally speaking, a professional formality in his manners. But this, like his three-tailed wig and black coat, he could slip off on a Sat.u.r.day evening, when surrounded by a party of jolly companions, and disposed for what he called his alt.i.tudes. On the present occasion, the revel had lasted since four o'clock, and, at length, under the direction of a venerable compotater, who had shared the sports and festivity of three generations, the frolicsome company had begun to practise the ancient and now forgotten pastime of High-jinks. This game was played in several different ways. Most frequently the dice were thrown by the company, and those upon whom the lot fell were obliged to a.s.sume and maintain, for a time, a certain fict.i.tious character, or to repeat a certain number of fescennine verses in a particular order. If they departed from the characters a.s.signed, or if their memory proved treacherous in the repet.i.tion, they incurred forfeits, which were either compounded for by swallowing an additional b.u.mper, or by paying a small sum towards the reckoning. At this sport the jovial company were closely engaged, when Mannering entered the room.
Mr. Counsellor Pleydell, such as we have described him, was enthroned as a monarch, in an elbow-chair, placed, on the dining-table, his scratch wig on one side, his head crowned with a bottle-slider, his eye leering with an expression betwixt fun and the effects of wine, while his court around him resounded with such crambo sc.r.a.ps of verse as these .
Where is Gerunto now? and what's become of him?
Gerunto's drowned because he could not swim, etc. etc.
Such, O Themis, were anciently the sports of thy Scottish children!
Dinmont was first in the room. He stood aghast a moment,--and then exclaimed, ”It's him, sure enough-Deil o' the like o' that ever saw!”
At the sound of ”Mr. Dinmont and Colonel Mannering wanted to speak to you, sir,” Pleydell turned his head, and blushed a little when he saw the very genteel figure of the English stranger. He was, however, of the opinion of Falstaff, ”Out, ye villains, play out the play!” wisely judging it the better way to appear totally unconcerned. ”Where be our guards?” exclaimed this second Justinian; ”see ye not a stranger knight from foreign parts arrived at this our court of Holyrood--with our bold yeoman Andrew Dinmont, who has succeeded to the keeping of our royal flocks within the forest of Jedwood, where, thanks to our royal care in the administration of justice, they feed as safe as if they were within the bounds of Fife? Where be our heralds, our pursuivants, our Lyon, our Marchmount, our Carrick, and our Snowdown? Let the strangers be placed at our board, and regaled as beseemeth their quality, and this our high holiday--to-morrow we will hear their tidings.”
”So please you, my liege, to-morrow's Sunday,” said one of the company.
”Sunday, is it? then we will give no offence to the a.s.sembly of the kirk--on Monday shall be. their audience.”
Mannering, who had stood at first uncertain whether to advance or retreat, now resolved to enter for the moment into the whim of the scene, though internally fretting at Mac-Morlan for sending him to consult with a crack-brained humorist. He therefore advanced with three profound congees, and craved permission to lay his credentials at the feet of the Scottish monarch, in order to be perused at his best leisure. The gravity with which he accommodated himself to the humour of the moment, and the deep and humble inclination with which he at first declined, and then accepted, a seat presented by the master of the ceremonies, procured him three rounds of applause.
”Deil hae me, if they arena a' mad thegither!” said Dinmont, occupying with less ceremony a seat at the bottom of the table, ”or else they hae taen Yule before it comes, and are gaun a-guisarding.”
A large gla.s.s of claret was offered to Mannering, who drank it to the health of the reigning prince. ”You are, I presume to guess,”
said the monarch, ”that celebrated Sir Miles Mannering, so renowned in the French wars, and may well p.r.o.nounce to us if the wines of Gascony lose their flavour in our more northern realm.”
Mannering, agreeably flattered by this allusion to the fame of his celebrated ancestor, replied, by professing himself only a distant relation of the preux chevalier, and added, ”that in his opinion the wine was superlatively good.”
”It's owre cauld for my stamach,” said Dinmont, setting down the gla.s.s (empty, however).
”We will correct that quality,” answered King Paulus, the first of the name; ”we have not forgotten that the moist and humid air of our valley of Liddel inclines to stronger potations.--Seneschal, let our faithful yeoman have a cup of brandy; it will be more germain to the matter.”
”And now,” said Mannering, ”since we have unwarily intruded upon your majesty at a moment of mirthful retirement, be pleased to say when you will indulge a stranger with an audience on those affairs of weight which have brought him to your northern capital.”
The monarch opened Mac-Morlan's letter, and, running it hastily over, exclaimed, with his natural voice and. manner, ”Lucy Bertram of Ellangowan, poor dear la.s.sie!”
”A forfeit! a forfeit!” exclaimed a dozen voices; his majesty has forgot his kingly character.”
”Not a whit! not a whit!” replied the king; ”I'll be judged by this courteous knight. May not a monarch love a maid of low degree? Is not King Cophetua and the Beggar-maid, an adjudged case in point?”
”Professional! professional!--another forfeit,” exclaimed the tumultuary n.o.bility.
”Had not our royal predecessors,” continued the monarch, exalting his sovereign voice to drown these disaffected clamours,--”Had they not their Jean Logies, their Bessie Carmichaels, their Oliphants, their Sandilands, and their Weirs, and shall it be denied to us even to name a maiden whom we delight to honour? Nay, then, sink state and perish sovereignty! for, like a second Charles V., we will abdicate, and seek in the private shades of life those pleasures which are denied to a throne.”