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

could not guess what, that might affect the Mowbrays in their honour or fortunes. The latter soon prevailed, and she entered, followed by Lord Etherington. The lady, like other comforters of the cabins of the poor, proceeded to rebuke the grumbling old woman for want of order and cleanliness—censured the food which was provided for the patient, and enquired particularly after the wine which she had left to make caudle with. The crone was not so dazzled with Lady Penelope's dignity or bounty as to endure her reprimand with patience. “They that had their bread to won wi' ae arm,” she said, for the other hung powerless by her side, “had mair to do than to soop hooses; if her leddyship wad let her ain idle quean of a lass take the besom, she might make the house as clean as she liked; and madam wad be a' the better of the exercise, and wad hae done, at least, ae turn of wark at the week's end.”

“Do you hear the old hag, my lord?” said Lady Penelope. “Well, the poor are horrid ungrateful wretches—And the wine, dame—the wine?”

“The wine!—there was hardly half a mutchkin, and puir, thin, fusionless skink it was—the wine was drank out, ye may swear—we didna fling it ower our shouther—if ever we were to get good[Pg 208] o't, it was by taking it naked, and no wi' your sugar and your slaisters—I wish, for ane, I had ne'er kend the sour smack o't. If the bedral hadna gien me a drap of usquebaugh, I might e'en hae died of your leddyship's liquor, for”——

Lord Etherington here interrupted the grumbling crone, thrusting some silver into her grasp, and at the same time begging her to be silent. The hag weighed the crown-piece in her hand, and crawled to her chimney-corner, muttering as she went,—“This is something like—this is something like—no like rinning into the house and out of the house, and geeing orders, like mistress and mair, and than a puir shilling again Saturday at e'en.”

So saying, she sat down to her wheel, and seized, while she spun, her jet-black cutty pipe, from which she soon sent such clouds of vile mundungus vapour as must have cleared the premises of Lady Penelope, had she not been strong in purpose to share the expected confession of the invalid. As for Miss Digges, she coughed, sneezed, retched, and finally ran out of the cottage, declaring she could not live in such a smoke, if it were to hear twenty sick women's last speeches; and that, besides, she was sure to know all about it from Lady Penelope, if it was ever so little worth telling over again.

Lord Etherington was now standing beside the miserable flock-bed, in which lay the poor patient, distracted, in what seemed to be her dying moments, with the peevish clamour of the elder infant, to which she could only reply by low moans, turning her looks as well as she could from its ceaseless whine to the other side of her wretched couch, where lay the unlucky creature to which she had last given birth; its shivering limbs imperfectly[Pg 209] covered with a blanket, its little features already swollen and bloated, and its eyes scarce open, apparently insensible to the evils of a state from which it seemed about to be speedily released.

“You are very ill, poor woman,” said Lord Etherington; “I am told you desire a magistrate.”

“It was Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's, whom I desired to see—John Mowbray of St. Ronan's—the lady promised to bring him here.”

“I am not Mowbray of St. Ronan's,” said Lord Etherington; “but I am a justice of peace, and a member of the legislature—I am, moreover, Mr. Mowbray's particular friend, if I can be of use to you in any of these capacities.”

The poor woman remained long silent, and when she spoke it was doubtfully.

“Is my Lady Penelope Penfeather there?” she said, straining her darkened eyes.

“Her ladyship is present, and within hearing,” said Lord Etherington.

“My case is the worse,” answered the dying woman, for so she seemed, “if I must communicate such a secret as mine to a man of whom I know nothing, and a woman of whom I only know that she wants discretion.”

“I—I want discretion!” said Lady Penelope; but at a signal from Lord Etherington she seemed to restrain herself; nor did the sick woman, whose powers of observation were greatly impaired, seem to be aware of the interruption. She spoke, notwithstanding her situation, with an intelligible and even emphatic voice; her manner in a great measure betraying the influence of the fever, and her tone and language seeming much superior to her most miserable condition.[Pg 210]

“I am not the abject creature which I seem,” she said; “at least, I was not born to be so. I wish I were that utter abject! I wish I were a wretched pauper of the lowest class—a starving vagabond—a wifeless mother—ignorance and insensibility would make me bear my lot like the outcast animal that dies patiently on the side of the common, where it has been half-starved during its life. But I—but I—born and bred to better things, have not lost the memory of them, and they make my present condition—my shame—my poverty—my infamy—the sight of my dying babes—the sense that my own death is coming fast on—they make these things a foretaste of hell!”

Lady Penelope's self-conceit and affectation were broken down by this fearful exordium. She sobbed, shuddered, and, for once perhaps in her life, felt the real, not the assumed necessity, of putting her handkerchief to her eyes. Lord Etherington also was moved.

“Good woman,” he said, “as far as relieving your personal wants can mitigate your distress, I will see that that is fully performed, and that your poor children are attended to.”

“May God bless you!” said the poor woman, with a glance at the wretched forms beside her; “and may you,” she added, after a momentary pause, “deserve the blessing of God, for it is bestowed in vain on those who are unworthy of it!”

Lord Etherington felt, perhaps, a twinge of conscience; for he said, something hastily, “Pray go on, good woman, if you really have any thing to communicate to me as a magistrate—it is time your condition was somewhat mended, and I will cause you to be cared for directly.”[Pg 211]

“Stop yet a moment,” she said; “let me unload my conscience before I go hence, for no earthly relief will long avail to prolong my time here.—I was well born, the more my present shame! well educated, the greater my present guilt!—I was always, indeed, poor, but I felt not of the ills of poverty. I only thought of it when my vanity demanded idle and expensive gratifications, for real wants I knew none. I was companion of a young lady of higher rank than my own, my relative however, and one of such exquisite kindness of disposition, that she treated me as a sister, and would have shared with me all that she had on earth——I scarce think I can go farther with my story!—something rises to my throat when I recollect how I rewarded her sisterly love!—I was elder than Clara—I should have directed her reading, and confirmed her understanding; but my own bent led me to peruse only works, which, though they burlesque nature, are seductive to the imagination. We read these follies together, until we had fashioned out for ourselves a little world of romance, and prepared ourselves for a maze of adventures. Clara's imaginations were as pure as those of angels; mine were—but it is unnecessary to tell them. The fiend, always watchful, presented a tempter at the moment when it was most dangerous.”

She paused here, as if she found difficulty in expressing herself; and Lord Etherington, turning, with great appearance of interest, to Lady Penelope, began to enquire, “Whether it were quite agreeable to her ladyship to remain any longer an ear-witness of this unfortunate's confession?—it seems to be verging on some things—things that it might be unpleasant for your ladyship to hear.”[Pg 212]

“I was just forming the same opinion, my lord; and, to say truth, was about to propose to your lordship to withdraw, and leave me alone with the poor woman. My sex will make her necessary communications more frank in your lordship's absence.”

“True, madam; but then I am called here in my capacity of a magistrate.”

“Hush!” said Lady Penelope; “she speaks.”

“They say every woman that yields, makes herself a slave to her seducer; but I sold my liberty not to a man, but a demon! He made me serve him in his vile schemes against my friend and patroness—and oh! he found in me an agent too willing, from mere envy, to destroy the virtue which I had lost myself. Do not listen to me any more—Go, and leave me to my fate! I am the most detestable wretch that ever lived—detestable to myself worst of all, because even in my penitence there is a secret whisper that tells me, that were I as I have been, I would again act over all the wickedness I have done, and much worse. Oh! for Heaven's assistance, to crush the wicked thought!”

She closed her eyes, folded her emaciated hands, and held them upwards in the attitude of one who prays internally; presently the hands separated, and fell gently down on the miserable couch; but her eyes did not open, nor was there the slightest sign of motion in the features. Lady Penelope shrieked faintly, hid her eyes, and hurried back from the bed, while Lord Etherington, his looks darkening with a complication of feelings, remained gazing on the poor woman, as if eager to discern whether the spark of life was totally extinct. Her grim old assistant hurried to the bedside, with some spirits in a broken glass.[Pg 213]

“Have ye no had pennyworths for your charity?” she said, in spiteful scorn. “Ye buy the very life o' us wi' your shillings and sixpences, your groats and your boddles—ye hae garr'd the puir wretch speak till she swarfs, and now ye stand as if ye never saw a woman in a dwam before? Let me till her wi' the dram—mony words mickle drought, ye ken—Stand out o' my gate, my leddy, if sae be that ye are a leddy; there is little use of the like of you when there is death in the pot.”

Lady Penelope, half affronted, but still more frightened by the manners of the old hag, now gladly embraced Lord Etherington's renewed offer to escort her from the hut. He left it not, however, without bestowing an additional gratuity on the old woman, who received it with a whining benediction.

“The Almighty guide your course through the troubles of this wicked warld—and the muckle deevil blaw wind in your sails,” she added, in her natural tone, as the guests vanished from her miserable threshold. “A wheen cork-headed, barmy-brained gowks! that wunna let puir folk sae muckle as die in quiet, wi' their sossings and their soopings.”[10]

“This poor creature's declaration,” said Lord Etherington to Lady Penelope, “seems to refer to matters which the law has nothing to do with, and which, perhaps, as they seem to implicate the peace of a family of respectability, and the character of a young lady, we ought to enquire no farther after.”

“I differ from your lordship,” said Lady Penelope;[Pg 214] “I differ extremely—I suppose you guess whom her discourse touched upon?”

“Indeed, your ladyship does my acuteness too much honour.”

“Did she not mention a Christian name?” said Lady Penelope; “your lordship is strangely dull this morning!”

“A Christian name?—No, none that I heard—yes, she said something about—a Catherine, I think it was.”

“Catherine!” answered the lady; “No, my lord, it was Clara—rather a rare name in this country, and belonging, I think, to a young lady of whom your lordship should know something, unless your evening flirtations with Lady Binks have blotted entirely out of your memory your morning visits to Shaws-Castle. You are a bold man, my lord. I would advise you to include Mrs. Blower among the objects of your attention, and then you will have maid, wife, and widow upon your list.”

“Upon my honour, your ladyship is too severe,” said Lord Etherington; “you surround yourself every evening with all that is clever and accomplished among the people here, and then you ridicule a poor secluded monster, who dare not approach your charmed circle, because he seeks for some amusement elsewhere. This is to tyrannize and not to reign—it is Turkish despotism!”

“Ah! my lord, I know you well, my lord,” said Lady Penelope—“Sorry would your lordship be, had you not power to render yourself welcome to any circle which you may please to approach.”

“That is to say,” answered the lord, “you will pardon me if I intrude on your ladyship's coterie this evening?”[Pg 215]

“There is no society which Lord Etherington can think of frequenting, where he will not be a welcome guest.”

“I will plead then at once my pardon and privilege this evening—And now,” (speaking as if he had succeeded in establishing some confidence with her ladyship,) “what do you really think of this blind story?”

“O, I must believe it concerns Miss Mowbray. She was always an odd girl—something about her I could never endure—a sort of effrontery—that is, perhaps, a harsh word, but