St. Ronan's Well by Walter Scott (top books to read .TXT) 📖

He entered unobserved, just as Lady Penelope had finished reading some verses, and was commenting upon them with all the alacrity of a femme savante, in possession of something which no one is to hear repeated oftener than once.

“Copy—no indeed!” these were the snatches which reached Lord Etherington's ear, from the group of which her ladyship formed the centre—“honour bright—I must not betray poor Chatterly—besides, his lordship is my friend, and a person of rank, you know—so one would not—You have not got the book, Mr. Pott?—you have not got Statius?—you never have any thing one longs to see.”

“Very sorry, my lady—quite out of copies at present—I expect some in my next monthly parcel.”

“Good lack, Mr. Pott, that is your never-failing[Pg 183] answer,” said Lady Penelope; “I believe if I were to ask you for the last new edition of the Alkoran, you would tell me it was coming down in your next monthly parcel.”

“Can't say, my lady, really,” answered Mr. Pott; “have not seen the work advertised yet; but I have no doubt, if it is likely to take, there will be copies in my next monthly parcel.”

“Mr. Pott's supplies are always in the paullo post futurum tense,” said Mr. Chatterly, who was just entering the shop.

“Ah! Mr. Chatterly, are you there?” said Lady Penelope; “I lay my death at your door—I cannot find this Thebaid, where Polynices and his brother”——

“Hush, my lady!—hush, for Heaven's sake!” said the poetical divine, and looked towards Lord Etherington. Lady Penelope took the hint, and was silent; but she had said enough to call up the traveller Touchwood, who raised his head from the newspaper which he was studying, and, without addressing his discourse to any one in particular, ejaculated, as if in scorn of Lady Penelope's geography—

“Polynices?—Polly Peachum.—There is no such place in the Thebais—the Thebais is in Egypt—the mummies come from the Thebais—I have been in the catacombs—caves very curious indeed—we were lapidated by the natives—pebbled to some purpose, I give you my word. My janizary thrashed a whole village by way of retaliation.”

While he was thus proceeding, Lord Etherington, as if in a listless mood, was looking at the letters which stood ranged on the chimney-piece, and carrying on a languid dialogue with Mrs. Pott,[Pg 184] whose person and manners were not ill adapted to her situation, for she was good-looking, and vastly fine and affected.

“Number of letters here which don't seem to find owners, Mrs. Pott?”

“Great number, indeed, my lord—it is a great vexation, for we are obliged to return them to the post-office, and the postage is charged against us if they are lost; and how can one keep sight of them all?”

“Any love-letters among them, Mrs. Pott?” said his lordship, lowering his tone.

“Oh, fie! my lord, how should I know?” answered Mrs. Pott, dropping her voice to the same cadence.

“Oh! every one can tell a love-letter—that has ever received one, that is—one knows them without opening—they are always folded hurriedly and sealed carefully—and the direction manifests a kind of tremulous agitation, that marks the state of the writer's nerves—that now,”—pointing with his switch to a letter upon the chimney-piece, “that must be a love-letter.”

“He, he, he!” giggled Mrs. Pott, “I beg pardon for laughing, my lord—but—he, he, he!—that is a letter from one Bindloose, the banker body, to the old woman Luckie Dods, as they call her, at the change-house in the Aultoun.”

“Depend upon it then, Mrs. Pott, that your neighbour, Mrs. Dods, has got a lover in Mr. Bindloose—unless the banker has been shaking hands with the palsy. Why do you not forward her letter?—you are very cruel to keep it in durance here.”

“Me forward!” answered Mrs. Pott; “the cap[Pg 185]pernoity, old, girning alewife, may wait long enough or I forward it—She'll not loose the letters that come to her by the King's post, and she must go on troking wi' the old carrier, as if there was no post-house in the neighbourhood. But the solicitor will be about wi' her one of these days.”

“Oh! you are too cruel—you really should send the love-letter; consider, the older she is, the poor soul has the less time to lose.”

But this was a topic on which Mrs. Pott understood no jesting. She was well aware of our matron's inveteracy against her and her establishment, and she resented it as a placeman resents the efforts of a radical. She answered something sulkily, “That they that loosed letters should have letters; and neither Luckie Dods, nor any of her lodgers, should ever see the scrape of a pen from the St. Ronan's office, that they did not call for and pay for.”

It is probable that this declaration contained the essence of the information which Lord Etherington had designed to extract by his momentary flirtation with Mrs. Pott; for when, retreating as it were from this sore subject, she asked him, in a pretty mincing tone, to try his skill in pointing out another love-letter, he only answered carelessly, “that in order to do that he must write her one;” and leaving his confidential station by her little throne, he lounged through the narrow shop, bowed slightly to Lady Penelope as he passed, and issued forth upon the parade, where he saw a spectacle which might well have appalled a man of less self-possession than himself.

Just as he left the shop, little Miss Digges entered almost breathless, with the emotion of[Pg 186] impatience and of curiosity. “Oh la! my lady, what do you stay here for?—Mr. Tyrrel has just entered the other end of the parade this moment, and Lord Etherington is walking that way—they must meet each other.—O lord! come, come away, and see them meet!—I wonder if they'll speak—I hope they won't fight—Oh la! do come, my lady!”

“I must go with you, I find,” said Lady Penelope; “it is the strangest thing, my love, that curiosity of yours about other folk's matters—I wonder what your mamma will say to it.”

“Oh! never mind mamma—nobody minds her—papa, nor nobody—Do come, dearest Lady Pen, or I will run away by myself.—Mr. Chatterly, do make her come!”

“I must come, it seems,” said Lady Penelope, “or I shall have a pretty account of you.”

But, notwithstanding this rebuke, and forgetting, at the same time, that people of quality ought never to seem in a hurry, Lady Penelope, with such of her satellites as she could hastily collect around her, tripped along the parade with unusual haste, in sympathy, doubtless, with Miss Digges's curiosity, as her ladyship declared she had none of her own.

Our friend, the traveller, had also caught up Miss Digges's information; and, breaking off abruptly an account of the Great Pyramid, which had been naturally introduced by the mention of the Thebais, and echoing the fair alarmist's words, “hope they won't fight,” he rushed upon the parade, and bustled along as hard as his sturdy supporters could carry him. If the gravity of the traveller, and the delicacy of Lady Penelope, were surprised into unwonted haste from their eagerness to witness the meeting of Tyrrel and Lord Etherington, it may be well sup[Pg 187]posed that the decorum of the rest of the company was a slender restraint on their curiosity, and that they hurried to be present at the expected scene, with the alacrity of gentlemen of the fancy hastening to a set-to.

In truth, though the meeting afforded little sport to those who expected dire conclusions, it was, nevertheless, sufficiently interesting to those spectators who are accustomed to read the language of suppressed passion betraying itself at the moment when the parties are most desirous to conceal it.

Tyrrel had been followed by several loiterers so soon as he entered the public walk; and their number was now so much reinforced, that he saw himself with pain and displeasure the centre of a sort of crowd who watched his motions. Sir Bingo and Captain MacTurk were the first to bustle through it, and to address him with as much politeness as they could command.

“Servant, sir,” mumbled Sir Bingo, extending the right hand of fellowship and reconciliation, ungloved. “Servant—sorry that anything should have happened between us—very sorry, on my word.”

“No more need be said, sir,” replied Tyrrel; “the whole is forgotten.”

“Very handsome, indeed—quite the civil thing—hope to meet you often, sir.”—And here the knight was silent.

Meanwhile, the more verbose Captain proceeded, “Och, py Cot, and it was an awfu' mistake, and I could draw the penknife across my finger for having written the word.—By my sowl, and I scratched it till I scratched a hole in the paper.—Och! that I should live to do an uncivil thing by a gentleman[Pg 188] that had got himself hit in an honourable affair! But you should have written, my dear; for how the devil could we guess that you were so well provided in quarrels, that you had to settle two in one day!”

“I was hurt in an unexpected—an accidental manner, Captain MacTurk. I did not write, because there was something, in my circumstances at the moment which required secrecy; but I was resolved, the instant I recovered, to put myself to rights in your good opinion.”

“Och! and you have done that,” said the Captain, nodding sagaciously; “for Captain Jekyl, who is a fine child, has put us all up to your honourable conduct. They are pretty boys, these guardsmen, though they may play a little fine sometimes, and think more of themselves than peradventure they need for to do, in comparison with us of the line.—But he let us know all about it—and, though he said not a word of a certain fine lord, with his footpad, and his hurt, and what not, yet we all knew how to lay that and that together.—And if the law would not right you, and there were bad words between you, why should not two gentlemen right themselves? And as to your being kinsmen, why should not kinsmen behave to each other like men of honour? Only, some say you are father's sons, and that is something too near.—I had once thoughts of calling out my uncle Dougal myself, for there is no saying where the line should be drawn; but I thought, on the whole, there should be no fighting, as there is no marriage, within the forbidden degrees. As for first cousins—Wheugh!—that's all fair—fire away, Flanigan!—But here is my lord, just upon us, like a stag of the first head, and the whole herd behind him.”[Pg 189]

Tyrrel stepped forward a little before his officious companions, his complexion rapidly changing into various shades, like that of one who forces himself to approach and touch some animal or reptile for which he entertains that deep disgust and abhorrence which was anciently ascribed to constitutional antipathy. This appearance of constraint put upon himself, with the changes which it produced on his face, was calculated to prejudice him somewhat in the opinion of the spectators, when compared with the steady, stately, yet, at the same time, easy demeanour of the Earl of Etherington, who was equal to any man in England in the difficult art of putting a good countenance on a bad cause. He met Tyrrel with an air as unembarrassed, as it was cold; and, while he paid the courtesy of a formal and distant salutation, he said aloud, “I presume, Mr. Tyrrel de Martigny, that, since you have not thought fit to avoid this awkward meeting, you are disposed to remember our family connexion so far as to avoid making sport for the good company?”

“You have nothing to apprehend from my passion, Mr. Bulmer,” replied Tyrrel, “if you can assure yourself against the consequences of your own.”

“I am glad of that,” said the Earl, with the same composure, but sinking his voice so as only to be heard by Tyrrel; “and as we may not again in a hurry hold any communication together, I take the freedom to remind you, that I sent you a proposal of accommodation by my friend, Mr. Jekyl.”

“It was inadmissible,” said Tyrrel—“altogether inadmissible—both from reasons which you may guess, and others which it is needless to detail.—I sent you a proposition, think of it well.”[Pg 190]

“I will,” replied Lord Etherington, “when I shall see it supported by those alleged proofs, which I do not believe ever had existence.”

“Your conscience holds another language from your tongue,” said Tyrrel; “but I disclaim reproaches, and decline altercation. I will let Captain Jekyl know when I have received the papers, which, you say, are essential to your forming an opinion on my proposal.—In the meanwhile, do not think to deceive me. I am here for the very purpose of watching and defeating your machinations; and, while I live, be assured they shall never succeed.—And now, sir—or my lord—for the titles are in your choice—fare you well.”

“Hold a little,” said Lord Etherington. “Since we are condemned to shock each other's eyes, it is fit the good company should know what they are to think of us. You are a philosopher, and do not value the opinion of the public—a poor worldling like me is desirous to stand fair with it.—Gentlemen,” he continued, raising his voice, “Mr. Winterblossom, Captain MacTurk, Mr.—what is his name, Jekyl?—Ay, Micklehen—You have, I believe, all some notion, that this gentleman, my near relation, and I, have some undecided claims on each other, which prevent our living upon good