Old Mortality, Complete by Walter Scott (my reading book .txt) 📖

therewithal, he hummed a stanza:

‘And what though winter will pinch severe Through locks of grey and a cloak that’s old? Yet keep up thy heart, bold cavalier, For a cup of sack shall fence the cold.’

“I must be your guest here to-day, sister. I wish to hear the issue of this gathering on Loudon-hill, though I cannot conceive their standing a body of horse appointed like our guests this morning.—Woe’s me, the time has been that I would have liked ill to have sate in biggit wa’s waiting for the news of a skirmish to be fought within ten miles of me! But, as the old song goes,

‘For time will rust the brightest blade, And years will break the strongest bow; Was ever wight so starkly made, But time and years would overthrow?’”

“We are well pleased you will stay, brother,” said Lady Margaret; “I will take my old privilege to look after my household, whom this collation has thrown into some disorder, although it is uncivil to leave you alone.”

“O, I hate ceremony as I hate a stumbling horse,” replied the Major. “Besides, your person would be with me, and your mind with the cold meat and reversionary pasties.—Where is Edith?”

“Gone to her room a little evil-disposed, I am informed, and laid down in her bed for a gliff,” said her grandmother; “as soon as she wakes, she shall take some drops.”

“Pooh! pooh! she’s only sick of the soldiers,” answered Major Bellenden. “She’s not accustomed to see one acquaintance led out to be shot, and another marching off to actual service, with some chance of not finding his way back again. She would soon be used to it, if the civil war were to break out again.”

“God forbid, brother!” said Lady Margaret.

“Ay, Heaven forbid, as you say—and, in the meantime, I’ll take a hit at trick-track with Harrison.”

“He has ridden out, sir,” said Gudyill, “to try if he can hear any tidings of the battle.”

“D—n the battle,” said the Major; “it puts this family as much out of order as if there had never been such a thing in the country before—and yet there was such a place as Kilsythe, John.”

“Ay, and as Tippermuir, your honour,” replied Gudyill, “where I was his honour my late master’s rear-rank man.”

“And Alford, John,” pursued the Major, “where I commanded the horse; and Innerlochy, where I was the Great Marquis’s aid-de-camp; and Auld Earn, and Brig o’ Dee.”

“And Philiphaugh, your honour,” said John.

“Umph!” replied the Major; “the less, John, we say about that matter, the better.”

However, being once fairly embarked on the subject of Montrose’s campaigns, the Major and John Gudyill carried on the war so stoutly, as for a considerable time to keep at bay the formidable enemy called Time, with whom retired veterans, during the quiet close of a bustling life, usually wage an unceasing hostility.

It has been frequently remarked, that the tidings of important events fly with a celerity almost beyond the power of credibility, and that reports, correct in the general point, though inaccurate in details, precede the certain intelligence, as if carried by the birds of the air. Such rumours anticipate the reality, not unlike to the “shadows of coming events,” which occupy the imagination of the Highland Seer. Harrison, in his ride, encountered some such report concerning the event of the battle, and turned his horse back to Tillietudlem in great dismay. He made it his first business to seek out the Major, and interrupted him in the midst of a prolix account of the siege and storm of Dundee, with the ejaculation, “Heaven send, Major, that we do not see a siege of Tillietudlem before we are many days older!”

“How is that, Harrison?—what the devil do you mean?” exclaimed the astonished veteran.

“Troth, sir, there is strong and increasing belief that Claver’se is clean broken, some say killed; that the soldiers are all dispersed, and that the rebels are hastening this way, threatening death and devastation to a’ that will not take the Covenant.”

“I will never believe that,” said the Major, starting on his feet—“I will never believe that the Life-Guards would retreat before rebels;—and yet why need I say that,” he continued, checking himself, “when I have seen such sights myself?—Send out Pike, and one or two of the servants, for intelligence, and let all the men in the Castle and in the village that can be trusted take up arms. This old tower may hold them play a bit, if it were but victualled and garrisoned, and it commands the pass between the high and low countries.—It’s lucky I chanced to be here.—Go, muster men, Harrison.—You, Gudyill, look what provisions you have, or can get brought in, and be ready, if the news be confirmed, to knock down as many bullocks as you have salt for.—The well never goes dry.—There are some old-fashioned guns on the battlements; if we had but ammunition, we should do well enough.”

“The soldiers left some casks of ammunition at the Grange this morning, to bide their return,” said Harrison.

“Hasten, then,” said the Major, “and bring it into the Castle, with every pike, sword, pistol, or gun, that is within our reach; don’t leave so much as a bodkin—Lucky that I was here!—I will speak to my sister instantly.”

Lady Margaret Bellenden was astounded at intelligence so unexpected and so alarming. It had seemed to her that the imposing force which had that morning left her walls, was sufficient to have routed all the disaffected in Scotland, if collected in a body; and now her first reflection was upon the inadequacy of their own means of resistance, to an army strong enough to have defeated Claverhouse and such select troops. “Woe’s me! woe’s me!” said she; “what will all that we can do avail us, brother?— What will resistance do but bring sure destruction on the house, and on the bairn Edith! for, God knows, I thinkna on my ain auld life.”

“Come, sister,” said the Major, “you must not be cast down; the place is strong, the rebels ignorant and ill-provided: my brother’s house shall not be made a den of thieves and rebels while old Miles Bellenden is in it. My hand is weaker than it was, but I thank my old grey hairs that I have some knowledge of war yet. Here comes Pike with intelligence.—What news, Pike? Another Philiphaugh job, eh?”

“Ay, ay,” said Pike, composedly; “a total scattering.—I thought this morning little gude would come of their newfangled gate of slinging their carabines.”

“Whom did you see?—Who gave you the news?” asked the Major.

“O, mair than half-a-dozen dragoon fellows that are a’ on the spur whilk to get first to Hamilton. They’ll win the race, I warrant them, win the battle wha like.”

“Continue your preparations, Harrison,” said the alert veteran; “get your ammunition in, and the cattle killed. Send down to the borough-town for what meal you can gather.