Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer — Complete by Walter Scott (essential books to read .txt) 📖

act, and ye ken yoursell they used to put their run goods into the Auld Place of Ellangowan up by there.’

‘Oh dear, Mr. Bertram, and what the waur were the wa’s and the vault o’ the auld castle for having a whin kegs o’ brandy in them at an orra time? I am sure ye were not obliged to ken ony thing about it; and what the waur was the King that the lairds here got a soup o’ drink and the ladies their drap o’ tea at a reasonable rate?--it’s a shame to them to pit such taxes on them!--and was na I much the better of these Flanders head and pinners that Dirk Hatteraick sent me a’ the way from Antwerp? It will be lang or the King sends me ony thing, or Frank Kennedy either. And then ye would quarrel with these gipsies too! I expect every day to hear the barnyard’s in a low.’

‘I tell you once more, my dear, you don’t understand these things--and there’s Frank Kennedy coming galloping up the avenue.’

‘Aweel! aweel! Ellangowan,’ said the lady, raising her voice as the Laird left the room, ‘I wish ye may understand them yoursell, that’s a’!’

From this nuptial dialogue the Laird joyfully escaped to meet his faithful friend, Mr. Kennedy, who arrived in high spirits. ‘For the love of life, Ellangowan,’ he said, ‘get up to the castle! you’ll see that old fox Dirk Hatteraick, and his Majesty’s hounds in full cry after him.’ So saying, he flung his horse’s bridle to a boy, and ran up the ascent to the old castle, followed by the Laird, and indeed by several others of the family, alarmed by the sound of guns from the sea, now distinctly heard.

On gaining that part of the ruins which commanded the most extensive outlook, they saw a lugger, with all her canvass crowded, standing across the bay, closely pursued by a sloop of war, that kept firing upon the chase from her bows, which the lugger returned with her stern-chasers. ‘They’re but at long bowls yet,’ cried Kennedy, in great exultation, ‘but they will be closer by and by. D--n him, he’s starting his cargo! I see the good Nantz pitching overboard, keg after keg! That’s a d--d ungenteel thing of Mr. Hatteraick, as I shall let him know by and by. Now, now! they’ve got the wind of him! that’s it, that’s it! Hark to him! hark to him! Now, my dogs! now, my dogs! Hark to Ranger, hark!’

‘I think,’ said the old gardener to one of the maids, ‘the ganger’s fie,’ by which word the common people express those violent spirits which they think a presage of death.

Meantime the chase continued. The lugger, being piloted with great ability, and using every nautical shift to make her escape, had now reached, and was about to double, the headland which formed the extreme point of land on the left side of the bay, when a ball having hit the yard in the slings, the mainsail fell upon the deck. The consequence of this accident appeared inevitable, but could not be seen by the spectators; for the vessel, which had just doubled the headland, lost steerage, and fell out of their sight behind the promontory. The sloop of war crowded all sail to pursue, but she had stood too close upon the cape, so that they were obliged to wear the vessel for fear of going ashore, and to make a large tack back into the bay, in order to recover sea-room enough to double the headland.

‘They ‘ll lose her, by--, cargo and lugger, one or both,’ said Kennedy; ‘I must gallop away to the Point of Warroch (this was the headland so often mentioned), and make them a signal where she has drifted to on the other side. Good-bye for an hour, Ellangowan; get out the gallon punch-bowl and plenty of lemons. I’ll stand for the French article by the time I come back, and we’ll drink the young Laird’s health in a bowl that would swim the collector’s yawl.’ So saying, he mounted his horse and galloped off.

About a mile from the house, and upon the verge of the woods, which, as we have said, covered a promontory terminating in the cape called the Point of Warroch, Kennedy met young Harry Bertram, attended by his tutor, Dominie Sampson. He had often promised the child a ride upon his galloway; and, from singing, dancing, and playing Punch for his amusement, was a particular favourite. He no sooner came scampering up the path, than the boy loudly claimed his promise; and Kennedy, who saw no risk, in indulging him, and wished to tease the Dominie, in whose visage he read a remonstrance, caught up Harry from the ground, placed him before him, and continued his route; Sampson’s ‘Peradventure, Master Kennedy-’ being lost in the clatter of his horse’s feet. The pedagogue hesitated a moment whether he should go after them; but Kennedy being a person in full confidence of the family, and with whom he himself had no delight in associating, ‘being that he was addicted unto profane and scurrilous jests,’ he continued his own walk at his own pace, till he reached the Place of Ellangowan.

The spectators from the ruined walls of the castle were still watching the sloop of war, which at length, but not without the loss of considerable time, recovered sea-room enough to weather the Point of Warroch, and was lost to their sight behind that wooded promontory. Some time afterwards the discharges of several cannon were heard at a distance, and, after an interval, a still louder explosion, as of a vessel blown up, and a cloud of smoke rose above the trees and mingled with the blue sky. All then separated on their different occasions, auguring variously upon the fate of the smuggler, but the majority insisting that her capture was inevitable, if she had not already gone to the bottom.

‘It is near our dinner-time, my dear,’ said Mrs. Bertram to her husband; ‘will it be lang before Mr. Kennedy comes back?’

‘I expect him every moment, my dear,’ said the Laird; ‘perhaps he is bringing some of the officers of the sloop with him.’

‘My stars, Mr. Bertram! why did not ye tell me this before, that we might have had the large round table? And then, they’re a’ tired o’ saut meat, and, to tell you the plain truth, a rump o’ beef is the best part of your dinner. And then I wad have put on another gown, and ye wadna have been the waur o’ a clean neck-cloth yoursell. But ye delight in surprising and hurrying one. I am sure I am no to baud out for ever against this sort of going on; but when folk’s missed, then they are moaned.’

‘Pshaw, pshaw! deuce take the beef, and the gown, and table, and the neck-cloth! we shall do all very well. Where’s the Dominie, John? (to a servant who was busy about the table) where’s the Dominie and little Harry?’

‘Mr. Sampson’s been at hame these twa hours and mair, but I dinna think Mr. Harry cam hame wi’ him.’

‘Not come hame wi’ him?’ said the lady; ‘desire Mr. Sampson to step this way directly.’

‘Mr. Sampson,’ said she, upon his entrance, ‘is it not the most extraordinary thing in this world wide, that you, that have free up-putting--bed, board, and washing--and twelve pounds sterling a year, just to look after that boy, should let him out of your sight for twa or three hours?’

Sampson made a bow of humble acknowledgment at each pause which the angry lady made in her enumeration of the advantages of his situation, in order to give more weight to her remonstrance, and then, in words which we will