第77章
Sir, stay at home and take an old man's counsel;Seek not to bask you by a stranger's hearth;
Our own blue smoke is warmer than their fire.
Domestic food is wholesome, though 'tis homely, And foreign dainties poisonous, though tasteful.
The French Courtezan.
THE Master of Ravenswood took an opportunity to leave his guests to prepare for their departure, while he himself made the brief arrangements necessary previous to his absence from Wolf's Crag for a day or two. It was necessary to communicate with Caleb on this occasion, and he found that faithful servitor in his sooty and ruinous den, greatly delighted with the departure of their visitors, and computing how long, with good management, the provisions which had been unexpended might furnish the Master's table. "He's nae belly god, that's ae blessing; and Bucklaw's gane, that could have eaten a horse behind the saddle. Cresses or water-purpie, and a bit ait-cake, can serve the Master for breakfast as weel as Caleb. Then for dinner--there's no muckle left on the spule-bane; it will brander, though--it will brander very weel."His triumphant calculations were interrupted by the Master, who communicated to him, not without some hesitation, his purpose to ride with the Lord Keeper as far as Ravenswood Castle, and to remain there for a day or two.
"The mercy of Heaven forbid!" said the old serving-man, turning as pal as the table-cloth which he was folding up.
"And why, Caleb?" said his master--"why should the mercy of Heaven forbid my returning the Lord Keeper's visit?""Oh, sir!" replied Caleb--"oh, Mr. Edgar! I am your servant, and it ill becomes me to speak; but I am an auld servant--have served baith your father and gudesire, and mind to have seen Lord Randal, your great-grandfather, but that was when I was a bairn.""And what of all this, Balderstone?" said the Master; "what can it possibly have to do with my paying some ordinary civility to a neighbour.""Oh, Mr. Edgar,--that is, my lord!" answered the butler, "your ain conscience tells you it isna for your father's son to be neighbouring wi' the like o' him; it isna for the credit of the family. An he were ance come to terms, and to gie ye back your ain, e'en though ye suld honour his house wi' your alliance, Isuldna say na; for the young leddy is a winsome sweet creature.
But keep your ain state wi' them--I ken the race o' them weel--they will think the mair o' ye."
"Why, now, you go father than I do, Caleb," said the Master, drowning a certain degree of consciousness in a forced laugh;"you are for marrying me into a family that you will nto allow me to visit, how this? and you look as pale as death besides.""Oh, sir," repeated Caleb again, "you would but laugh if I tauld it; but Thomas the Rhymer, whose tongue couldna be fause, spoke the word of your house that will e'en prove ower true if you go to Ravenswood this day. Oh, that it should e'er have been fulfilled in my time!""And what is it, Caleb?" said Ravenswood, wishing to soothe the fears of his old servant.
Caleb replied: "He had never repeated the lines to living mortal; they were told to him by an auld priest that had been confessor to Lord Allan's father when the family were Catholic.
But mony a time," he said, "I hae soughed thae dark words ower to myself, and, well-a-day! little did I think of their coming round this day.""Truce with your nonsense, and let me hear the doggerel which has put it into your head," said the Master, impatiently.
With a quivering voice, and a cheek pale with apprehension, Caleb faltered out the following lines:
"When the last Laird of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride, And woo a dead maiden to be his bride, He shall stable his steed in the Kelpie's flow, And his name shall be lost for evermoe!""I know the Kelpie's flow well enough," said the Master; "Isuppose, at least, you mean the quicksand betwixt this tower and Wolf's Hope; but why any man in his senses should stable a steed there----""Oh, ever speer ony thing about that, sir--God forbid we should ken what the prophecy means--but just bide you at hame, and let the strangers ride to Ravenswood by themselves. We have done eneugh for them; and to do mair would be mair against the credit of the family than in its favour.""Well, Caleb," said the Master, "I give you the best possible credit for your good advice on this occasion; but as Ido not go to Ravenswood to seek a bride, dead or alive, I hope Ishall choose a better stable for my horse than the Kelpie's quicksand, and especially as I have always had a particular dread of it since the patrol of dragoons were lost there ten years since. My father and I saw them from the tower struggling against the advancing tide, and they were lost long before any help could reach them.""And they deserved it weel, the southern loons!" said Caleb;"what had they ado capering on our sands, and hindering a wheen honest folk frae bringing on shore a drap brandy? I hae seen them that busy, that I wad hae fired the auld culverin or the demi-saker that's on the south bartizan at them, only I was feared they might burst in the ganging aff."Caleb's brain was now fully engaged with abuse of the English soldiery and excisemen, so that his master found no great difficulty in escaping from him and rejoining his guests. All was now ready for their departure; and one of the Lord Keeper's grooms having saddled the Master's steed, they mounted in the courtyard.
Caleb had, with much toil, opened the double doors of the outward gate, and thereat stationed himself, endeavouring, by the reverential, and at the same time consequential, air which he assumed, to supply, by his own gaunt, wasted, and thin person, the absence of a whole baronial establishment of porters, warders, and liveried menials.