Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer — Complete by Walter Scott (reading an ebook .txt) 📕

spirit which had left his mistress.

‘But about what?’ said Glossin.

‘Ou, just about the folk that was playing at the curling, and about auld Jock Stevenson that was at the cock, and about the leddies, and sic like.’

‘What ladies? and what did he ask about them, Jock?’ said the interrogator.

‘What leddies? Ou, it was Miss Jowlia Mannering and Miss Lucy Bertram, that ye ken fu’ weel yoursell, Mr. Glossin; they were walking wi’ the young Laird of Hazlewood upon the ice.’

‘And what did you tell him about them?’ demanded Glossin.

‘Tut, we just said that was Miss Lucy Bertram of Ellangowan, that should ance have had a great estate in the country; and that was Miss Jowlia Mannering, that was to be married to young Hazlewood, see as she was hinging on his arm. We just spoke about our country clashes like; he was a very frank man.’

‘Well, and what did he say in answer?’

‘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 to the houskeeper 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, though there was the finest fun amang the curlers ever was seen; and he turned round and gaed aff the loch by the kirkstile 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!’

‘O, 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.’

‘God 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 ye, I was the keeper’s assistant 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 feckless 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 my best buckskins, and they were new coft 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. Mac-Candlish were then reinterrogated whether Brown had no arms with him on that unhappy morning. ‘None,’ they said, ‘but an ordinary bit cutlass or hanger by his side.’

‘Now,’ said the Deacon, taking Glossin by the button (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 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 Saturday 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 glass 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 siller’s current, Deacon, folk maunna look ower nicely at what king’s head’s on’t.’

‘I doubt Glossin will prove but shand after a’, mistress,’ said Jabos, as he passed through the little lobby beside the bar; ‘but this is a gude half-crown ony way.’

CHAPTER IV

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 and 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 leathern 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 passage “anent the bearing of unlawful weapons.” Now lend me