Guy Mannering, Or, the Astrologer — Complete by Walter Scott (best novels to read for students TXT) 📖

and under the custody of the proper officers. The man made his escape, and I have no doubt my own character for attention and circumspection as a magistrate has in some degree suffered. I only hint this: I will join in any step you, Sir Robert, think most advisable.' But Mr. Glossin was well aware that such a hint was of power sufficient to decide the motions of his self-important but not self-relying colleague. So that Sir Robert Hazlewood summed up the business in the following speech, which proceeded partly upon the supposition of the prisoner being really a gentleman, and partly upon the opposite belief that he was a villain and an assassin:—

'Sir, Mr. Vanbeest Brown—I would call you Captain Brown if there was the least reason or cause or grounds to suppose that you are a captain, or had a troop in the very respectable corps you mention, or indeed in any other corps in his Majesty's service, as to which circumstance I beg to be understood to give no positive, settled, or unalterable judgment, declaration, or opinion,—I say, therefore, sir, Mr. Brown, we have determined, considering the unpleasant predicament in which you now stand, having been robbed, as you say, an assertion as to which I suspend my opinion, and being possessed of much and valuable treasure, and of a brass-handled cutlass besides, as to your obtaining which you will favour us with no explanation,—I say, sir, we have determined and resolved and made up our minds to commit you to jail, or rather to assign you an apartment therein, in order that you may be forthcoming upon Colonel Mannering's return from Edinburgh.'

'With humble submission, Sir Robert,' said Glossin, 'may I inquire if it is your purpose to send this young gentleman to the county jail? For if that were not your settled intention, I would take the liberty to hint that there would be less hardship in sending him to the bridewell at Portanferry, where he can be secured without public exposure, a circumstance which, on the mere chance of his story being really true, is much to be avoided.'

'Why, there is a guard of soldiers at Portanferry, to be sure, for protection of the goods in the custom-house; and upon the whole, considering everything, and that the place is comfortable for such a place, I say, all things considered, we will commit this person, I would rather say authorise him to be detained, in the workhouse at Portanferry.'

The warrant was made out accordingly, and Bertram was informed he was next morning to be removed to his place of confinement, as Sir Robert had determined he should not be taken there under cloud of night, for fear of rescue. He was during the interval to be detained at Hazlewood House.

'It cannot be so hard as my imprisonment by the looties in India,' he thought; 'nor can it last so long. But the deuce take the old formal dunderhead, and his more sly associate, who speaks always under his breath; they cannot understand a plain man's story when it is told them.'

In the meanwhile Glossin took leave of the Baronet with a thousand respectful bows and cringing apologies for not accepting his invitation to dinner, and venturing to hope he might be pardoned in paying his respects to him, Lady Hazlewood, and young Mr. Hazlewood on some future occasion.

'Certainly, sir,' said the Baronet, very graciously. 'I hope our family was never at any time deficient in civility to our neighbours; and when I ride that way, good Mr. Glossin, I will convince you of this by calling at your house as familiarly as is consistent—that is, as can be hoped or expected.'

'And now,' said Glossin to himself, 'to find Dirk Hatteraick and his people, to get the guard sent off from the custom-house; and then for the grand cast of the dice. Everything must depend upon speed. How lucky that Mannering has betaken himself to Edinburgh! His knowledge of this young fellow is a most perilous addition to my dangers.' Here he suffered his horse to slacken his pace. 'What if I should try to compound with the heir? It's likely he might be brought to pay a round sum for restitution, and I could give up Hatteraick. But no, no, no! there were too many eyes on me—Hatteraick himself, and the gipsy sailor, and that old hag. No, no! I must stick to my original plan.' And with that he struck his spurs against his horse's flanks, and rode forward at a hard trot to put his machines in motion.

CHAPTER XLIV

     A prison is a house of care,
     A place where none can thrive,
     A touchstone true to try a friend,
     A grave for one alive
     Sometimes a place of right,
     Sometimes a place of wrong,
     Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves,
     And honest men among

Inscription on Edinburgh Tolbooth

Early on the following morning the carriage which had brought Bertram to Hazlewood House was, with his two silent and surly attendants, appointed to convey him to his place of confinement at Portanferry. This building adjoined to the custom-house established at that little seaport, and both were situated so close to the sea-beach that it was necessary to defend the back part with a large and strong rampart or bulwark of huge stones, disposed in a slope towards the surf, which often reached and broke upon them. The front was surrounded by a high wall, enclosing a small courtyard, within which the miserable inmates of the mansion were occasionally permitted to take exercise and air. The prison was used as a house of correction, and sometimes as a chapel of ease to the county jail, which was old, and far from being conveniently situated with reference to the Kippletringan district of the county. Mac-Guffog, the officer by whom Bertram had at first been apprehended, and who was now in attendance upon him, was keeper of this palace of little-ease. He caused the carriage to be drawn close up to the outer gate, and got out himself to summon the warders. The noise of his rap alarmed some twenty or thirty ragged boys, who left off sailing their mimic sloops and frigates in the little pools of salt water left by the receding tide, and hastily crowded round the vehicle to see what luckless being was to be delivered to the prison-house out of 'Glossin's braw new carriage.' The door of the courtyard, after the heavy clanking of many chains and bars, was opened by Mrs. Mac-Guffog—an awful spectacle, being a woman for strength and resolution capable of maintaining order among her riotous inmates, and of administering the discipline of the house, as it was called, during the absence of her husband, or when he chanced to have taken an overdose of the creature. The growling voice of this Amazon, which rivalled in harshness the crashing music of her own bolts and bars, soon dispersed in every direction the little varlets who had thronged around her threshold, and she next addressed her amiable helpmate:—

'Be sharp, man, and get out the swell, canst thou not?'

'Hold your tongue and be d-d, you—,' answered her loving husband, with two additional epithets of great energy, but which we beg to be excused from repeating. Then addressing Bertram—'Come, will you get out, my handy lad, or must we lend you a lift?'

Bertram came out of the carriage, and, collared by the constable as he put his foot on the ground, was dragged, though he offered no resistance, across the threshold, amid the continued shouts of the little sansculottes, who looked on at such distance as their fear of Mrs. Mac-Guffog permitted. The instant his foot had crossed the fatal porch, the portress again dropped her chains, drew her bolts, and, turning with both hands an immense key, took it from the lock and thrust it into a huge side-pocket of red cloth.

Bertram was now in the small court already mentioned. Two or three prisoners were sauntering along the pavement, and deriving as it were a feeling of refreshment from the momentary glimpse with which the opening door had extended their prospect to the other side of a dirty street. Nor can this be thought surprising, when it is considered that, unless on such occasions, their view was confined to the grated front of their prison, the high and sable walls of the courtyard, the heaven above them, and the pavement beneath their feet—a sameness of landscape which, to use the poet's expression, 'lay like a load on the wearied eye,' and had fostered in some a callous and dull misanthropy, in others that sickness of the heart which induces him who is immured already in a living grave to wish for a sepulchre yet more calm and sequestered.

Mac-Guffog, when they entered the courtyard, suffered Bertram to pause for a minute and look upon his companions in affliction. When he had cast his eye around on faces on which guilt and despondence and low excess had fixed their stigma—upon the spendthrift, and the swindler, and the thief, the bankrupt debtor, the 'moping idiot, and the madman gay,' whom a paltry spirit of economy congregated to share this dismal habitation, he felt his heart recoil with inexpressible loathing from enduring the contamination of their society even for a moment.

'I hope, sir,' he said to the keeper, 'you intend to assign me a place of confinement apart?'

'And what should I be the better of that?'

'Why, sir, I can but be detained here a day or two, and it would be very disagreeable to me to mix in the sort of company this place affords.'

'And what do I care for that?'

'Why then, sir, to speak to your feelings,' said Bertram, 'I shall be willing to make you a handsome compliment for this indulgence.'

'Ay, but when, Captain? when and how? that's the question, or rather the twa questions,' said the jailor.

'When I am delivered, and get my remittances from England,' answered the prisoner.

Mac-Guffog shook his head incredulously.

'Why, friend, you do not pretend to believe that I am really a malefactor?' said Bertram.

'Why, I no ken,' said the fellow; 'but if you ARE on the account, ye're nae sharp ane, that's the daylight o't.'

'And why do you say I am no sharp one?'

'Why, wha but a crack-brained greenhorn wad hae let them keep up the siller that ye left at the Gordon Arms?' said the constable. 'Deil fetch me, but I wad have had it out o' their wames! Ye had nae right to be strippit o' your money and sent to jail without a mark to pay your fees; they might have keepit the rest o' the articles for evidence. But why, for a blind bottle-head, did not ye ask the guineas? and I kept winking and nodding a' the time, and the donnert deevil wad never ance look my way!'

'Well, sir,' replied Bertram, 'if I have a title to have that property delivered up to me, I shall apply for it; and there is a good deal more than enough to pay any demand you can set up.'

'I dinna ken a bit about that,' said Mac-Guffog; 'ye may be here lang eneugh. And then the gieing credit maun be considered in the fees. But, however, as ye DO seem to be a chap by common, though my wife says I lose by my good-nature, if ye gie me an order for my fees upon that money I daresay Glossin will make it forthcoming; I ken something about an escape from Ellangowan. Ay, ay, he'll be glad to carry me through, and be neighbour-like.'

'Well, sir,' replied Bertram, 'if I am not furnished in a day or two otherwise, you shall have such an order.'

'Weel, weel, then ye shall be put up like a prince,' said Mac-Guffog. 'But mark ye me, friend, that we may have nae colly-shangie afterhend, these are the fees that I always charge a swell that must have his lib-ken to himsell:—Thirty shillings a week for lodgings, and a guinea for garnish; half a guinea a week for a single bed; and I dinna get the whole of it, for I must gie half a crown out of it to Donald Laider that's in for sheep-stealing, that should sleep with you by rule, and he'll expect clean strae, and maybe some whisky beside. So I make little upon that.'

'Well, sir, go on.'

'Then for meat and liquor, ye may have the best, and I never charge abune twenty per cent ower tavern price for pleasing a gentleman that way; and that's little eneugh for sending in and sending out, and wearing the lassie's shoon out. And then if ye're