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

dashed his cigar on the deck, and said to him, ‘Well then, if you are sorry for me, I am sorry for you. D—n me, if I have cared a button for man or mother’s son, since two years since when I had another peep of Jack Hadaway. ‘The fellow was got as fat as a Norway whale—married to a great Dutch-built quean that had brought him six children. I believe he did not know me, and thought I was come to rob his house; however, I made up a poor face, and told him who I was. Poor Jack would have given me shelter and clothes, and began to tell me of the moidores that were in bank, when I wanted them. Egad, he changed his note when I told him what my life had been, and only wanted to pay me my cash and get rid of me. I never saw so terrified a visage. I burst out a-laughing in his face, told him it was all a humbug, and that the moidores were all his own, henceforth and for ever, and so ran off. I caused one of our people send him a bag of tea and a keg of brandy, before I left—poor Jack! I think you are the second person these ten years, that has cared a tobacco-stopper for Nanty Ewart.’

‘Perhaps, Mr. Ewart,’ said Fairford, ‘you live chiefly with men too deeply interested for their own immediate safety, to think much upon the distress of others?’

‘And with whom do you yourself consort, I pray?’ replied Nanty, smartly. ‘Why, with plotters, that can make no plot to better purpose than their own hanging; and incendiaries, that are snapping the flint upon wet tinder. You’ll as soon raise the dead as raise the Highlands—you’ll as soon get a grunt from a dead sow as any comfort from Wales or Cheshire. You think because the pot is boiling, that no scum but yours can come uppermost—I know better, by—. All these rackets and riots that you think are trending your way have no relation at all to your interest; and the best way to make the whole kingdom friends again at once, would be the alarm of such an undertaking as these mad old fellows are trying to launch into.

‘I really am not in such secrets as you seem to allude to,’ said Fairford; and, determined at the same time to avail himself as far as possible of Nanty’s communicative disposition, he added, with a smile,’ And if I were, I should not hold it prudent to make them much the subject of conversation. But I am sure, so sensible a man as Summertrees and the laird may correspond together without offence to the state.’

‘I take you, friend—I take you,’ said Nanty Ewart, upon whom, at length, the liquor and tobacco-smoke began to make considerable innovation. ‘As to what gentlemen may or may not correspond about, why we may pretermit the question, as the old professor used to say at the Hall; and as to Summertrees, I will say nothing, knowing him to be an old fox. But I say that this fellow the laird is a firebrand in the country; that he is stirring up all the honest fellows who should be drinking their brandy quietly, by telling them stories about their ancestors and the Forty-five; and that he is trying to turn all waters into his own mill-dam, and to set his sails to all winds. And because the London people are roaring about for some pinches of their own, he thinks to win them to his turn with a wet finger. And he gets encouragement from some, because they want a spell of money from him; and from others, because they fought for the cause once and are ashamed to go back; and others, because they have nothing to lose; and others, because they are discontented fools. But if he has brought you, or any one, I say not whom, into this scrape, with the hope of doing any good, he’s a d—d decoy-duck, and that’s all I can say for him; and you are geese, which is worse than being decoy-ducks, or lame-ducks either. And so here is to the prosperity of King George the Third, and the true Presbyterian religion, and confusion to the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender! I’ll tell you what, Mr. Fairbairn, I am but tenth owner of this bit of a craft, the JUMPING JENNY—but tenth owner and must sail her by my owners’ directions. But if I were whole owner, I would not have the brig be made a ferry-boat for your Jacobitical, old-fashioned Popish riff-raff, Mr. Fairport—I would not, by my soul; they should walk the plank, by the gods, as I have seen better men do when I sailed under the What-d’ye-callum colours. But being contraband goods, and on board my vessel, and I with my sailing orders in my hand, why, I am to forward them as directed—I say, John Roberts, keep her up a bit with the helm.—and so, Mr. Fairweather, what I do is—as the d—d villain Turnpenny says—all in the way of business.’

He had been speaking with difficulty for the last five minutes, and now at length dropped on the deck, fairly silenced by the quantity of spirits which he had swallowed, but without having showed any glimpse of the gaiety, or even of the extravagance, of intoxication.

The old sailor stepped forward and flung a sea-cloak over the slumberer’s shoulders, and added, looking at Fairford, ‘Pity of him he should have this fault; for without it, he would have been as clever a fellow as ever trod a plank with ox leather.’

‘And what are we to do now?’ said Fairford.

‘Stand off and on, to be sure, till we see the signal, and then obey orders.’

So saying, the old man turned to his duty, and left the passenger to amuse himself with his own meditations. Presently afterward a light column of smoke was seen rising from the little headland.

‘I can tell you what we are to do now, master,’ said the sailor. ‘We’ll stand out to sea, and then run in again with the evening tide, and make Skinburness; or, if there’s not light, we can run into the Wampool river, and put you ashore about Kirkbride or Leaths, with the long-boat.’

Fairford, unwell before, felt this destination condemned him to an agony of many hours, which his disordered stomach and aching head were ill able to endure. There was no remedy, however, but patience, and the recollection that he was suffering in the cause of friendship. As the sun rose high, he became worse; his sense of smell appeared to acquire a morbid degree of acuteness, for the mere purpose of inhaling and distinguishing all the various odours with which he was surrounded, from that of pitch to all the complicated smells of the hold. His heart, too, throbbed under the heat, and he felt as if in full progress towards a high fever.

The seamen, who were civil and attentive considering their calling, observed his distress, and one contrived to make an awning out of an old sail, while another compounded some lemonade, the only liquor which their passenger could be prevailed upon to touch. After drinking it off, he obtained, but could not be said to enjoy, a few hours of troubled slumber.