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

a hand off with my muckle-coat, and hang it up in the lobby, and bid them bring up the prisoner; I trow I’ll sort him; but stay, first send up Mac-Guffog. Now, Mac-Guffog, where did ye find this chield?’

Mac-Guffog, a stout, bandy-legged fellow, with a neck like a bull, a face like a firebrand, and a most portentous squint of the left eye, began, after various contortions by way of courtesy to the Justice, to tell his story, eking it out by sundry sly nods and knowing winks, which appeared to bespeak an intimate correspondence of ideas between the narrator and his principal auditor. ‘Your honour sees I went down to yon place that your honour spoke o’, that’s kept by her that your honour kens o’, by the sea-side. So says she, “What are you wanting here? ye’ll be come wi’ a broom in your pocket frae Ellangowan?"--So says I, “Deil a broom will come frae there awa, for ye ken,” says I, “his honour Ellangowan himsell in former times--”’

‘Well, well,’ said Glossin, ‘no occasion to be particular, tell the essentials.’

‘Weel, so we sat niffering about some brandy that I said I wanted, till he came in.’

‘Who?’

‘He!’ pointing with his thumb inverted to the kitchen, where the prisoner was in custody. ‘So he had his griego wrapped close round him, and I judged he was not dry-handed; so I thought it was best to speak proper, and so he believed I was a Manks man, and I kept ay between him and her, for fear she had whistled. And then we began to drink about, and then I betted he would not drink out a quartern of Hollands without drawing breath, and then he tried it, and just then Slounging Jock and Dick Spur’em came in, and we clinked the darbies on him, took him as quiet as a lamb; and now he’s had his bit sleep out, and is as fresh as a May gowan, to answer what your honour likes to speir.’ This narrative, delivered with a wonderful quantity of gesture and grimace, received at the conclusion the thanks and praises which the narrator expected.

‘Had he no arms?’ asked the Justice.

‘Ay, ay, they are never without barkers and slashers.’

‘Any papers?’

‘This bundle,’ delivering a dirty pocket-book.

‘Go downstairs then, Mac-Guffog, and be in waiting.’ The officer left the room.

The clink of irons was immediately afterwards heard upon the stair, and in two or three minutes a man was introduced, handcuffed and fettered. He was thick, brawny, and muscular, and although his shagged and grizzled hair marked an age somewhat advanced, and his stature was rather low, he appeared, nevertheless, a person whom few would have chosen to cope with in personal conflict. His coarse and savage features were still flushed, and his eye still reeled under the influence of the strong potation which had proved the immediate cause of his seizure. But the sleep, though short, which Mac-Guffog had allowed him, and still more a sense of the peril of his situation, had restored to him the full use of his faculties. The worthy judge and the no less estimable captive looked at each other steadily for a long time without speaking. Glossin apparently recognised his prisoner, but seemed at a loss how to proceed with his investigation. At length he broke silence.--’Soh, Captain, this is you? you have been a stranger on this coast for some years.’

‘Stranger?’ replied the other. ‘Strange enough, I think; for hold me der deyvil, if I been ever here before.’

‘That won’t pass, Mr. Captain.’

‘That MUST pass, Mr. Justice, sapperment!’

‘And who will you be pleased to call yourself, then, for the present,’ said Glossin, ‘just until I shall bring some other folks to refresh your memory concerning who you are, or at least who you have been?’

‘What bin I? donner and blitzen! I bin Jans Jansen, from Cuxhaven; what sall Ich bin?’

Glossin took from a case which was in the apartment a pair of small pocket pistols, which he loaded with ostentatious care. ‘You may retire,’ said he to his clerk, ‘and carry the people with you, Scrow; but wait in the lobby within call.’

The clerk would have offered some remonstrances to his patron on the danger of remaining alone with such a desperate character, although ironed beyond the possibility of active exertion, but Glossin waved him off impatiently. When he had left the room the Justice took two short turns through the apartment, then drew his chair opposite to the prisoner, so as to confront him fully, placed the pistols before him in readiness, and said in a steady voice, ‘You are Dirk Hatteraick of Flushing, are you not?’

The prisoner turned his eye instinctively to the door, as if he apprehended some one was listening. Glossin rose, opened the door, so that from the chair in which his prisoner sate he might satisfy himself there was no eavesdropper within hearing, then shut it, resumed his seat, and repeated his question, ‘You are Dirk Hatteraick, formerly of the Yungfrauw Haagenslaapen, are you not?’

‘Tousand deyvils! and if you know that, why ask me?’ said the prisoner.

‘Because I am surprised to see you in the very last place where you ought to be, if you regard your safety,’ observed Glossin, coolly.

‘Der deyvil! no man regards his own safety that speaks so to me!’

‘What? unarmed, and in irons! well said, Captain!’ replied Glossin, ironically. ‘But, Captain, bullying won’t do; you’ll hardly get out of this country without accounting for a little accident that happened at Warroch Point a few years ago.’

Hatteraick’s looks grew black as midnight.

‘For my part,’ continued Glossin, ‘I have no particular wish to be hard upon an old acquaintance; but I must do my duty. I shall send you off to Edinburgh in a post-chaise and four this very day.’

‘Poz donner! you would not do that?’ said Hatteraick, in a lower and more humbled tone; ‘why, you had the matter of half a cargo in bills on Vanbeest and Vanbruggen.’

‘It is so long since, Captain Hatteraick,’ answered Glossin, superciliously, ‘that I really forget how I was recompensed for my trouble.’

‘Your trouble? your silence, you mean.’

‘It was an affair in the course of business,’ said Glossin, ‘and I have retired from business for some time.’

‘Ay, but I have a notion that I could make you go steady about and try the old course again,’ answered Dirk Hatteraick. ‘Why, man, hold me der deyvil, but I meant to visit you and tell you something that concerns you.’

‘Of the boy?’ said Glossin, eagerly.

‘Yaw, Mynheer,’ replied the Captain, coolly.

‘He does not live, does he?’

‘As lifelich as you or I,’ said Hatteraick.

‘Good God! But in India?’ exclaimed Glossin.

‘No, tousand deyvils, here! on this dirty coast of yours,’ rejoined the prisoner.