Old Mortality, Complete by Walter Scott (ereader android TXT) 📕

CHAPTER XI. At last comes the troop, by the word of command Drawn up in our court, where the Captain cries, Stand! Swift

Major Bellenden’s ancient valet, Gideon Pike as he adjusted his master’s clothes by his bedside, preparatory to the worthy veteran’s toilet, acquainted him, as an apology for disturbing him an hour earlier than his usual time of rising, that there was an express from Tillietudlem.

“From Tillietudlem?” said the old gentleman, rising hastily in his bed, and sitting bolt upright,—“Open the shutters, Pike—I hope my sister-in-law is well—furl up the bed-curtain.—What have we all here?” (glancing at Edith’s note.) “The gout? why, she knows I have not had a fit since Candlemas.—The wappen-schaw? I told her a month since I was not to be there.—Paduasoy and hanging sleeves? why, hang the gipsy herself!—Grand Cyrus and Philipdastus?—Philip Devil!—is the wench gone crazy all at once? was it worth while to send an express and wake me at five in the morning for all this trash?—But what says her postscriptum?—Mercy on us!” he exclaimed on perusing it,—“Pike, saddle old Kilsythe instantly, and another horse for yourself.”

“I hope nae ill news frae the Tower, sir?” said Pike, astonished at his master’s sudden emotion.

“Yes—no—yes—that is, I must meet Claverhouse there on some express business; so boot and saddle, Pike, as fast as you can.—O, Lord! what times are these!—the poor lad—my old cronie’s son!—and the silly wench sticks it into her postscriptum, as she calls it, at the tail of all this trumpery about old gowns and new romances!”

In a few minutes the good old officer was fully equipped; and having mounted upon his arm-gaunt charger as soberly as Mark Antony himself could have done, he paced forth his way to the Tower of Tillietudlem.

On the road he formed the prudent resolution to say nothing to the old lady (whose dislike to presbyterians of all kinds he knew to be inveterate) of the quality and rank of the prisoner detained within her walls, but to try his own influence with Claverhouse to obtain Morton’s liberation.

“Being so loyal as he is, he must do something for so old a cavalier as I am,” said the veteran to himself; “and if he is so good a soldier as the world speaks of, why, he will be glad to serve an old soldier’s son. I never knew a real soldier that was not a frank-hearted, honest fellow; and I think the execution of the laws (though it’s a pity they find it necessary to make them so severe) may be a thousand times better intrusted with them than with peddling lawyers and thick-skulled country gentlemen.”

Such were the ruminations of Major Miles Bellenden, which were terminated by John Gudyill (not more than half-drunk) taking hold of his bridle, and assisting him to dismount in the roughpaved court of Tillietudlem.

“Why, John,” said the veteran, “what devil of a discipline is this you have been keeping? You have been reading Geneva print this morning already.”

“I have been reading the Litany,” said John, shaking his head with a look of drunken gravity, and having only caught one word of the Major’s address to him; “life is short, sir; we are flowers of the field, sir—hiccup—and lilies of the valley.”

“Flowers and lilies? Why, man, such carles as thou and I can hardly be called better than old hemlocks, decayed nettles, or withered rag-weed; but I suppose you think that we are still worth watering.”

“I am an old soldier, sir, I thank Heaven—hiccup”—

“An old skinker, you mean, John. But come, never mind, show me the way to your mistress, old lad.”

John Gudyill led the way to the stone hall, where Lady Margaret was fidgeting about, superintending, arranging, and re-forming the preparations made for the reception of the celebrated Claverhouse, whom one party honoured and extolled as a hero, and another execrated as a bloodthirsty oppressor.

“Did I not tell you,” said Lady Margaret to her principal female attendant—“did I not tell you, Mysie, that it was my especial pleasure on this occasion to have every thing in the precise order wherein it was upon that famous morning when his most sacred majesty partook of his disjune at Tillietudlem?”

“Doubtless, such were your leddyship’s commands, and to the best of my remembrance”—was Mysie answering, when her ladyship broke in with, “Then wherefore is the venison pasty placed on the left side of the throne, and the stoup of claret upon the right, when ye may right weel remember, Mysie, that his most sacred majesty with his ain hand shifted the pasty to the same side with the flagon, and said they were too good friends to be parted?”

“I mind that weel, madam,” said Mysie; “and if I had forgot, I have heard your leddyship often speak about that grand morning sin’ syne; but I thought every thing was to be placed just as it was when his majesty, God bless him, came into this room, looking mair like an angel than a man, if he hadna been sae black-a-vised.”

“Then ye thought nonsense, Mysie; for in whatever way his most sacred majesty ordered