Redgauntlet: A Tale of the Eighteenth Century by Walter Scott (books for students to read .txt) 📖

sticks in my throat—must take a trifle to wash it down. Well, this dame had a daughter—Jess Cantrips, a black-eyed, bouncing wench—and, as the devil would have it, there was the d—d five-story stair—her foot was never from it, whether I went out or came home from the Divinity Hall. I would have eschewed her, sir—I would, on my soul; for I was as innocent a lad as ever came from Lammermuir; but there was no possibility of escape, retreat, or flight, unless I could have got a pair of wings, or made use of a ladder seven stories high, to scale the window of my attic. It signifies little talking—you may suppose how all this was to end—I would have married the girl, and taken my chance—I would, by Heaven! for she was a pretty girl, and a good girl, till she and I met; but you know the old song, “Kirk would not let us be.” A gentleman, in my case, would have settled the matter with the kirk-treasurer for a small sum of money; but the poor stibbler, the penniless dominie, having married his cousin of Kittlebasket, must next have proclaimed her frailty to the whole parish, by mounting the throne of Presbyterian penance, and proving, as Othello says, “his love a whore,” in face of the whole congregation.

‘In this extremity I dared not stay where I was, and so thought to go home to my father. But first I got Jack Radaway, a lad from the same parish, and who lived in the same infernal stair, to make some inquiries how the old gentleman had taken the matter. I soon, by way of answer, learned, to the great increase of my comfortable reflections, that the good old man made as much clamour as if such a thing as a man’s eating his wedding dinner without saying grace had never happened since Adam’s time. He did nothing for six days but cry out, “Ichabod, Ichabod, the glory is departed from my house!” and on the seventh he preached a sermon, in which he enlarged on this incident as illustrative of one of the great occasions for humiliation, and causes of national defection. I hope the course he took comforted himself—I am sure it made me ashamed to show my nose at home. So I went down to Leith, and, exchanging my hoddin grey coat of my mother’s spinning for such a jacket as this, I entered my name at the rendezvous as an able-bodied landsman, and sailed with the tender round to Plymouth, where they were fitting out a squadron for the West Indies. There I was put aboard the FEARNOUGHT, Captain Daredevil—among whose crew I soon learned to fear Satan (the terror of my early youth) as little as the toughest Jack on board. I had some qualms at first, but I took the remedy’ (tapping the case-bottle) ‘which I recommend to you, being as good for sickness of the soul as for sickness of the stomach—What, you won’t?—very well, I must, then—here is to ye.’

‘You would, I am afraid, find your education of little use in your new condition?’ said Fairford.

‘Pardon me, sir,’ resumed the captain of the JUMPING JENNY; ‘my handful of Latin, and small pinch of Greek, were as useless as old junk, to be sure; but my reading, writing and accompting, stood me in good stead, and brought me forward; I might have been schoolmaster—aye, and master, in time; but that valiant liquor, rum, made a conquest of me rather too often, and so, make what sail I could, I always went to leeward. We were four years broiling in that blasted climate, and I came back at last with a little prize-money. I always had thoughts of putting things to rights in the Covenant Close, and reconciling myself to my father. I found out Jack Hadaway, who was TUPTOWING away with a dozen of wretched boys, and a fine string of stories he had ready to regale my ears withal. My father had lectured on what he called “my falling away,” for seven Sabbaths, when, just as his parishioners began to hope that the course was at an end, he was found dead in his bed on the eighth Sunday morning. Jack Hadaway assured me, that if I wished to atone for my errors, by undergoing the fate of the first martyr, I had only to go to my native village, where the very stones of the street would rise up against me as my father’s murderer. Here was a pretty item—well, my tongue clove to my mouth for an hour, and was only able at last to utter the name of Mrs. Cantrips. Oh, this was a new theme for my Job’s comforter. My sudden departure—my father’s no less sudden death—had prevented the payment of the arrears of my board and lodging—the landlord was a haberdasher, with a heart as rotten as the muslin wares he dealt in. Without respect to her age or gentle kin, my Lady Kittlebasket was ejected from her airy habitation—her porridge-pot, silver posset-dish, silver-mounted spectacles, and Daniel’s Cambridge Bible, sold, at the Cross of Edinburgh, to the caddie who would bid highest for them, and she herself driven to the workhouse, where she got in with difficulty, but was easily enough lifted out, at the end of the month, as dead as her friends could desire. Merry tidings this to me, who had been the d——d’ (he paused a moment) ‘ORIGO MALI—Gad, I think my confession would sound better in Latin than in English!

‘But the best jest was behind—I had just power to stammer out something about Jess—by my faith he HAD an answer! I had taught Jess one trade, and, like a prudent girl, she had found out another for herself; unluckily, they were both contraband, and Jess Cantrips, daughter of the Lady Kittlebasket, had the honour to be transported to the plantations, for street-walking and pocket-picking, about six months before I touched shore.’

He changed the bitter tone of affected pleasantry into an attempt to laugh, then drew his swarthy hand across his swarthy eyes, and said in a more natural accent, ‘Poor Jess!’

There was a pause—until Fairford, pitying the poor man’s state of mind, and believing he saw something in him that, but for early error and subsequent profligacy, might have been excellent and noble, helped on the conversation by asking, in a tone of commiseration, how he had been able to endure such a load of calamity.

‘Why, very well,’ answered the seaman; ‘exceedingly well—like a tight ship in a brisk gale. Let me recollect. I remember thanking Jack, very composedly, for the interesting and agreeable communication; I then pulled out my canvas pouch, with my hoard of moidores, and taking out two pieces, I bid Jack keep the rest till I came back, as I was for a cruise about Auld Reekie. The poor devil looked anxiously, but I shook him by the hand, and ran downstairs, in such confusion of mind, that notwithstanding what I had heard, I expected to meet Jess at every turning.

It was market-day, and the usual number of rogues and fools were assembled at the Cross. I observed everybody looked strange on me, and I thought some laughed. I fancy I had been making queer faces enough, and perhaps talking to myself, When I saw myself used in this manner, I held out my clenched fists straight before me, stooped my head, and, like a ram when he makes his race, darted off right down the street, scattering groups of weatherbeaten lairds and periwigged burgesses, and bearing down all before me. I heard the cry of “Seize the madman!” echoed, in Celtic sounds, from the City Guard, with “Ceaze ta matman!”—but pursuit and opposition were in vain. I pursued my career; the smell of the sea, I suppose, led me to Leith, where, soon after, I found myself walking very quietly on the shore, admiring the tough round and sound cordage of the vessels, and thinking how a loop, with a man at the end of one of them, would look, by way of tassel.

‘I was opposite to