Part 42 (1/2)

”And we will antic.i.p.ate our usual hour of supper,” said the Colonel.

”With all my heart,” said Pleydell, ”providing I do not lose the ladies' company a moment the sooner. I am of counsel with my old friend Burnet; [*See Note VIII. Lord Monboddo.] I love the caena, the supper of the ancients, the pleasant meal and social gla.s.s that wash out of one's mind the cobwebs that business or gloom have been spinning in our brains all day.' ”

Mr. Pleydell's look and manner, and the quietness with which he made himself at home on the subject of his little Epicurean comforts, amused the ladies, but particularly Miss Mannering, who immediately gave the counsellor a great deal of flattering attention; and more pretty things were said on both sides during the service of the tea-table than we have leisure to repeat.

As soon as this was over, Mannering led the counsellor by the arm into a small study which opened from the saloon, and where, according to the custom of the family, there were always lights and a good fire in the evening.

”I see,” said Mr. Pleydell, ”you have got something to tell me about the Ellangowan business--Is it terrestrial or celestial? What says my military Alb.u.mazar? Have you calculated the course of futurity? have you consulted your Ephemerides, your Almochoden, your Almuten?”

”No, truly, counsellor,” replied Mannering, ”you are the only Ptolemy I intend to resort to upon the present occasion--a second Prospero, I have broken my staff, and drowned my book far beyond plummet depth. But I have great news notwithstanding. Meg Merrilies, our Egyptian sibyl, has appeared to the Dominie this very day, and, as I conjecture, has frightened the honest man not a little.”

”Indeed?”

”Ay, and she has done me the honour to open a correspondence with me, supposing me to be as deep in astrological mysteries as when we first met. Here is her scroll, delivered to me by the Dominie.”

Pleydell put on his spectacles. ”A vile greasy scrawl, indeed--and the letters are uncial or semi-uncial, as somebody calls your large text hand, and in size and perpendicularity resemble the ribs of a roasted pig--I can hardly make it out.”

”I will try,” answered the lawyer. ”' You are a good seeker, but a bad finder; you set yourself to prop a falling house, but had a gey guess it would rise again. Lend your hand to the wark that's near, as you lent your ee to the weird [*Destiny] that was far. Have a carriage This night by ten o'clock, at the end of the Crooked d.y.k.es at Portanferry, and let it bring the folk to Woodbourne that shall ask them, if they be there IN G.o.d'S NAME.'-Stay, here follows some poetry- Dark shall be light, And wrong done to right, When Bertram's right and Bertram's might Shall meet on Ellangowan's height.' A most mystic epistle truly, and closes in a vein of poetry worthy of the c.u.maean sibyl--and what have you done?”

”Why,” said Mannering, rather reluctantly, ”I was loth to risk any opportunity of throwing light on this business. The woman is perhaps crazed, and these effusions may arise only from visions of her imagination;--but you were of opinion that she knew more of that strange story than she ever told. ”

”And so,” said Pleydell, ”you sent a carriage to the place named?”

”You will laugh at me if I own I did,” replied the Colonel.

”Who, I?” replied the advocate. ”No, truly, I think it was the wisest thing you could do.”

”Yes,” answered Mannering, well pleased to have escaped the ridicule he apprehended; ”you know the worst is paying the chaise-hire--I sent a post-chaise and four from Kippletringan, with instructions corresponding to the letter--the horses will have a long and cold station on the outposts to-night if our intelligence be false.”

”Ay, but I think it will prove otherwise,” said the lawyer. ”This woman has played a part till she believes it; or, if she be a thorough-paced impostor, without a single grain of self-delusion to qualify her knavery, still she may think herself bound to act in character-this I know, that I could get nothing out of her by the common modes of interrogation, and the wisest thing we can do is to give her an opportunity of making the discovery her own way. And now have you more to say, or shall we go to the ladies?”

”Why, my mind is uncommonly agitated,” answered the Colonel, ”and--but I really have no more to say--only I shall count the minutes till the carriage returns; but you cannot be expected to be so anxious.”

”Why, no--use is all in all,” said the more experienced lawyer,--”I am much interested certainly, but I think I shall be able to survive the interval, if the ladies will afford us some music.”

”And with the a.s.sistance of the wild-ducks, by and by?” suggested Mannering.

”True, Colonel; a lawyer's anxiety about the fate of the most interesting cause has seldom spoiled either his sleep or digestion. [*Note IX Lawyers' Sleepless Nights.] And yet I shall be very eager to hear the rattle of these wheels on their return, notwithstanding.”

So saying, he rose and led the way into the next room, where Miss Mannering, at his request, took her seat at the harpsichord. Lucy Bertram, who sung her native melodies very sweetly, was accompanied by her friend upon the instrument, and Julia afterwards performed some of Scarlatti's sonatas with great brilliancy. The old lawyer, sc.r.a.ping a little upon the violoncello, and being a member of the gentlemen's concert in Edinburgh, was so greatly delighted with this mode of spending the evening, that I doubt if he once thought of the wild-ducks until Barnes informed the company that supper was ready.

”Tell Mrs. Allan to have something in readiness,” said the Colonel--”I expect--that is, I hope--perhaps some company may be here to-night; and let the men sit up, and do not lock the upper gate on the lawn until I desire you.”

”Lord, sir,” said Julia, ”whom can you possibly expect to-night?”

”Why, some persons, strangers to me, talked of calling in the evening on business,” answered her father, not without embarra.s.sment, for he would have little brooked a disappointment which might have thrown ridicule on his judgment; ”it is quite uncertain.”

”Well, we shall not pardon them for disturbing our party,”

said Julia, ”unless they bring as much good-humour, and as susceptible hearts, as my friend and admirer, for so he has dubbed himself, Mr. Pleydell.”

”Ah, Miss Julia,” said Pleydell, offering his arm with an air of gallantry to conduct her into the eating-room, ”the time has been--when I returned from Utrecht in the year i738--”