Redgauntlet: A Tale of the Eighteenth Century by Walter Scott (classic novels .TXT) 📕

The reader ought, by this time, to have formed some idea of the character of Alan Fairford. He had a warmth of heart which the study of the law and of the world could not chill, and talents which they had rendered unusually acute. Deprived of the personal patronage enjoyed by most of his contemporaries, who assumed the gown under the protection of their aristocratic alliances and descents, he early saw that he should have that to achieve for himself which fell to them as a right of birth. He laboured hard in silence and solitude, and his labours were crowned with success. But Alan doted on his friend Darsie, even more than he loved his profession, and, as we have seen, threw everything aside when he thought Latimer in danger; forgetting fame and fortune, and hazarding even the serious displeasure of his father, to rescue him whom he loved with an elder brother’s affection. Darsie, though his parts were more quick and brilliant than those of his friend, seemed always to the latter a being under his peculiar charge, whom he was called upon to cherish and protect in cases where the youth’s own experience was unequal to the exigency; and now, when, the fate of Latimer seeming worse than doubtful, Alan’s whole prudence and energy were to be exerted in his behalf, an adventure which might have seemed perilous to most youths of his age had no terrors for him. He was well acquainted with the laws of his country, and knew how to appeal to them; and, besides his professional confidence, his natural disposition was steady, sedate, persevering, and undaunted. With these requisites he undertook a quest which, at that time, was not unattended with actual danger, and had much in it to appal a more timid disposition.

Fairford’s first inquiry concerning his friend was of the chief magistrate of Dumfries, Provost Crosbie, who had sent the information of Darsie’s disappearance. On his first application, he thought he discerned in the honest dignitary a desire to get rid of the subject. The provost spoke of the riot at the fishing station as an ‘outbreak among those lawless loons the fishermen, which concerned the sheriff,’ he said, ‘more than us poor town council bodies, that have enough to do to keep peace within burgh, amongst such a set of commoners as the town are plagued with.’

‘But this is not all, Provost Crosbie,’ said Mr. Alan Fairford; ‘A young gentleman of rank and fortune has disappeared amongst their hands—you know him. My father gave him a letter to you—Mr. Darsie Latimer.’

‘Lack-a-day, yes! lack-a-day, yes!’ said the provost; ‘Mr. Darsie Latimer—he dined at my house—I hope he is well?’

‘I hope so too,’ said Alan, rather indignantly; ‘but I desire more certainty on that point. You yourself wrote my father that he had disappeared.’

‘Troth, yes, and that is true,’ said the provost. ‘But did he not go back to his friends in Scotland? it was not natural to think he would stay here.’

‘Not unless he is under restraint,’ said Fairford, surprised at the coolness with which the provost seemed to take up the matter.

‘Rely on it, sir,’ said Mr. Crosbie, ‘that if he has not returned to his friends in Scotland, he must have gone to his friends in England.’

‘I will rely on no such thing,’ said Alan; ‘if there is law or justice in Scotland, I will have the thing cleared to the very bottom.’

‘Reasonable, reasonable,’ said the provost, ‘so far as is possible; but you know I have no power beyond the ports of the burgh.’

‘But you are in the commission besides, Mr. Crosbie; a justice of peace for the county.’

‘True, very true—that is,’ said the cautious magistrate, ‘I will not say but my name may stand on the list, but I cannot remember that I have ever qualified.’ [By taking the oaths to government.]

‘Why, in that case,’ said young Fairford, ‘there are ill-natured people might doubt your attachment to the Protestant line, Mr. Crosbie.’

‘God forbid, Mr. Fairford! I who have done and suffered in the Forty-five. I reckon the Highlandmen did me damage to the amount of 100l. Scots, forby all they ate and drank—no, no, sir, I stand beyond challenge; but as for plaguing myself with county business, let them that aught the mare shoe the mare. The commissioners of supply would see my back broken before they would help me in the burgh’s work, and all the world kens the difference of the weight between public business in burgh and landward. What are their riots to me? have we not riots enough of our own?—But I must be getting ready, for the council meets this forenoon. I am blithe to see your father’s son on the causeway of our ancient burgh, Mr. Alan Fairford. Were you a twelve-month aulder, we would make a burgess of you, man. I hope you will come and dine with me before you go away. What think you of to-day at two o’clock—just a roasted chucky and a drappit egg?’

Alan Fairford resolved that his friend’s hospitality should not, as it seemed the inviter intended, put a stop to his queries. ‘I must delay you for a moment,’ he said, ‘Mr. Crosbie; this is a serious affair; a young gentleman of high hopes, my own dearest friend, is missing—you cannot think it will be passed over slightly, if a man of your high character and known zeal for the government do not make some active inquiry. Mr. Crosbie, you are my father’s friend, and I respect you as such—but to others it will have a bad appearance.’

The withers of the provost were not unwrung; he paced the room in much tribulation, repeating, ‘But what can I do, Mr. Fairford? I warrant your friend casts up again—he will come back again, like the ill shilling—he is not the sort of gear that tynes—a hellicat boy, running through the country with a blind fiddler and playing the fiddle to a parcel of blackguards, who can tell where the like of him may have scampered to?’

‘There are persons apprehended, and in the jail of the town, as I understand from the sheriff-substitute,’ said Mr. Fairford; ‘you must call them before you, and inquire what they know of this young gentleman.’

‘Aye, aye—the sheriff-depute did commit some poor creatures, I