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

We left Alan Fairford on the deck of the little smuggling brig, in that disconsolate situation, when sickness and nausea, attack a heated and fevered frame, and an anxious mind. His share of sea-sickness, however, was not so great as to engross his sensations entirely, or altogether to divert his attention from what was passing around. If he could not delight in the swiftness and agility with which the ‘little frigate’ walked the waves, or amuse himself by noticing the beauty of the sea-views around him, where the distant Skiddaw raised his brow, as if in defiance of the clouded eminence of Criffel, which lorded it over the Scottish side of the estuary, he had spirits and composure enough to pay particular attention to the master of the vessel, on whose character his own safety in all probability was dependent.

Nanty Ewart had now given the helm to one of his people, a bald-pated, grizzled old fellow, whose whole life had been spent in evading the revenue laws, with now and then the relaxation of a few months’ imprisonment, for deforcing officers, resisting seizures, and the like offences.

Nanty himself sat down by Fairford, helped him to his tea, with such other refreshments as he could think of, and seemed in his way sincerely desirous to make his situation as comfortable as things admitted. Fairford had thus an opportunity to study his countenance and manners more closely.

It was plain, Ewart, though a good seaman, had not been bred upon that element. He was a reasonably good scholar, and seemed fond of showing it by recurring to the subject of Sallust and Juvenal; while, on the other hand, sea-phrases seldom chequered his conversation. He had been in person what is called a smart little man; but the tropical sun had burnt his originally fair complexion to a dusty red; and the bile which was diffused through his system, had stained it with a yellowish black—what ought to have been the white part of his eyes, in particular, had a hue as deep as the topaz. He was very thin, or rather emaciated, and his countenance, though still indicating alertness and activity, showed a constitution exhausted with excessive use of his favourite stimulus.

‘I see you look at me hard,’ said he to Fairford. ‘Had you been an officer of the d—d customs, my terriers’ backs would have been up. He opened his breast, and showed Alan a pair of pistols disposed between his waistcoat and jacket, placing his finger at the same time upon the cock of one of them. ‘But come, you are an honest fellow, though you’re a close one. I dare say you think me a queer customer; but I can tell you, they that see the ship leave harbour know little of the seas she is to sail through. My father, honest old gentleman, never would have thought to see me master of the JUMPING JENNY.’

Fairford said, it seemed very clear indeed that Mr. Ewart’s education was far superior to the line he at present occupied.

‘Oh, Criffel to Solway Moss!’ said the other. Why, man, I should have been an expounder of the word, with a wig like a snow-wreath, and a stipend like—like—like a hundred pounds a year, I suppose. I can spend thrice as much as that, though, being such as I am. Here he sang a scrap of an old Northumbrian ditty, mimicking the burr of the natives of that county:—

‘I have no doubt,’ said Fairford, ‘your present occupation is more lucrative; ‘but I should have thought the Church might have been more’—

He stopped, recollecting that it was not his business to say anything disagreeable.

‘More respectable, you mean, I suppose?’ said Ewart, with a sneer, and squirting the tobacco-juice through his front teeth; then was silent for a moment, and proceeded in a tone of candour which some internal touch of conscience dictated. ‘And so it would, Mr. Fairford—and happier, too, by a thousand degrees—though I have had my pleasures too. But there was my father (God bless the old man!) a true chip of the old Presbyterian block, walked his parish like a captain on the quarterdeck, and was always ready to do good to rich and poor—Off went the laird’s hat to the minister, as fast as the poor man’s bonnet. When the eye saw him—Pshaw! what have I to do with that now?—Yes, he was, as Virgil hath it, “VIR SAPIENTIA ET PIETATE GRAVIS.” But he might have been the wiser man, had he kept me at home, when he sent me at nineteen to study Divinity at the head of the highest stair in the Covenant Close. It was a cursed mistake in the old gentleman. What though Mrs. Cantrips of Kittlebasket (for she wrote herself no less) was our cousin five times removed, and took me on that account to board and lodging at six shillings instead of seven shillings a week? it was a d—d bad saving, as the case proved. Yet her very dignity might have kept me in order; for she never read a chapter excepting out of a Cambridge Bible, printed by Daniel, and bound in embroidered velvet. I think I see it at this moment! And on Sundays, when we had a quart of twopenny ale, instead of butter-milk, to our porridge, it was always served up in a silver posset-dish. Also she used silver-mounted spectacles, whereas even my father’s were cased in mere horn. These things had their impression at first, but we get used to grandeur by degrees. Well, sir!—Gad, I can scarce get on with my story—it