Rob Roy Page 13

  ‘Of which, doubtless, there might be many,’ said Rashleigh, continuing in the same tone—‘In short, my theory shows why this man, hoping for no advantage, and afraid of some inconvenience, might require a degree of persuasion ere he could be prevailed on to give his testimony in favour of Mr. Osbaldistone.’

  ‘It seems surprising to me,’ I observed, ‘that during the glance I cast over the declaration, or whatever it is termed, of Mr. Morris, he should never have mentioned that Campbell was in his company when he met the marauders.’

  ‘I understood from Campbell, that he had taken his solemn promise not to mention that circumstance,’ replied Rashleigh; ‘his reason for exacting such an engagement you may guess from what I have hinted—he wished to get back to his own country undelayed and unembarrassed by any of the judicial enquiries which he would have been under the necessity of attending, had the fact of his being present at the robbery taken air while he was on this side of the Border. But let him once be as distant as the Forth, Morris will, I warrant you, come forth with all he knows about him, and, it may be, a good deal more. Besides, Campbell is a very extensive dealer in cattle, and has often occasion to send great droves into Northumberland; and, when driving such a trade, he would be a great fool to embroil himself with our Northumbrian thieves, than whom no men who live are more vindictive.’

  ‘I dare be sworn of that,’ said Miss Vernon, with a tone which implied something more than a simple acquiescence in the proposition.

  ‘Still,’ said I, resuming the subject, ‘allowing the force of the reasons which Campbell might have for desiring that Morris should be silent with regard to his promise when the robbery was committed, I cannot yet see how he could attain such an influence over the man, as to make him suppress his evidence in that particular, at the manifest risk of subjecting his story to discredit.’

  Rashleigh agreed with me, that it was very extraordinary, and seemed to regret that he had not questioned the Scotchman more closely on the subject, which he allowed looked extremely mysterious. ‘But,’ he asked, immediately after this acquiesence, ‘are you very sure the circumstances of Morris’s being accompanied by Campbell, is really not alluded to in his examination?’

  ‘I read the paper over hastily,’ said I; ‘but it is my strong impression, that no such circumstance is mentioned; at least it must have been touched on very slightly, since it failed to catch my attention.’

  ‘True, true,’ answered Rashleigh, forming his own inference while he adopted my words; ‘I incline to think with you, that the circumstance must in reality have been mentioned, but so slightly, that it failed to attract your attention. And then, as to Campbell’s interest with Morris, I incline to suppose that it must have been gained by playing upon his fears. This chicken-hearted fellow, Morris, is bound, I understand, for Scotland, destined for some little employment under government; and, possessing the courage of the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse, he may have been afraid to encounter the ill-will of such a kill-cow as Campbell, whose very appearance would be enough to fright him out of his little wits. You observed that Mr. Campbell has at times a keen and animated manner—something of a martial cast in his tone and bearing.’

  ‘I own,’ I replied, ‘that his expression struck me as being occasionally fierce and sinister, and little adapted to his peaceable professions. Has he served in the army?’

  ‘Yes—no—not, strictly speaking, served; but he has been, I believe, like most of his countrymen, trained to arms. Indeed, among the hills, they carry them from boyhood to the grave. So, if you know any thing of your fellow-traveller, you will easily judge, that, going to such a country, he will take care to avoid a quarrel, if he can help it, with any of the natives.—But, come, I see you decline your wine—and I too am a degenerate Osbaldistone, so far as respects the circulation of the bottle. If you will go to my room, I will hold you a hand at piquet.’

  We rose to take leave of Miss Vernon, who had from time to time suppressed, apparently with difficulty, a strong temptation to break in upon Rashleigh’s details. As we were about to leave the room, the smothered fire broke forth.

  ‘Mr. Osbaldistone,’ she said, ‘your own observation will enable you to verify the justice, or injustice, of Rashleigh’s suggestions concerning such individuals as Mr. Campbell and Mr. Morris. But, in slandering Scotland, he has borne false witness against a whole country; and I request you will allow no weight to his evidence.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I answered, ‘I may find it somewhat difficult to obey your injunction, Miss Vernon; for I must own I was bred up with no favourable idea of our northern neighbours.’

  ‘Distrust that part of your education, sir,’ she replied, ‘and let the daughter of a Scotchwoman pray you to respect the land which gave her parent birth, until your own observation has proved them to be unworthy of your good opinion. Preserve your hatred and contempt for dissimulation, baseness, and falsehood, wheresoever they are to be met with. You will find enough of all without leaving England.—Adieu, gentlemen,—I wish you good evening.’

  And she signed to the door, with the manner of a princess dismissing her train.

  We retired to Rashleigh’s apartment, where a servant brought us coffee and cards. I had formed my resolution to press Rashleigh no farther on the events of the day. A mystery, and, as I thought, not a favourable complexion, appeared to hang over his conduct; and to ascertain if my suspicions were just, it was necessary to throw him off his guard. We cut for the deal, and were soon earnestly engaged in our play. I thought I perceived in this trifling for amusement (for the stake which Rashleigh proposed was a mere trifle) something of a fierce and ambitious temper. He seemed pefectly to understand the beautiful game at which he played, but preferred, as it were on principle, the risking bold and precarious strokes to the ordinary rules of play; and neglecting the minor and better balanced chances of the game, he hazarded every thing for the chance of piqueing, repiqueing, or capotting his adversary. So soon as the intervention of a game or two at piquet, like the music between the acts of a drama, had completely interrupted our previous course of conversation, Rashleigh appeared to tire of the game, and the cards were superseded by discourse, in which he assumed the lead.

  More learned than soundly wise—better acquainted with men’s minds than with the moral principles that ought to regulate them, he had still powers of conversation which I have rarely seen equalled, never excelled. Of this his manner implied some consciousness; at least, it appeared to me that he had studied hard to improve his natural advantages of a melodious voice, fluent and happy expression, apt language, and fervid imagination. He was never loud, never overbearing, never so much occupied with his own thoughts, as to outrun either the patience or the comprehension of those he conversed with. His ideas succeeded each other with the gentle but unintermitting flow of a plentiful and bounteous spring; while I have heard those of others, who aimed at distinction in conversation, rush along like the turbid gush from the sluice of a mill-pond, as hurried, and as easily exhausted. It was late at night ere I could part from a companion so fascinating; and when I gained my own apartment, it cost me no small effort to recall to mind the character of Rashleigh, such as I had pictured him previous to this tête-à-tête.

  So effectual, my dear Tresham, does the sense of being pleased and amused blunt our faculties of perception and discrimination of character, that I can only compare it to the taste of certain fruits, at once luscious and poignant, which renders our palate totally unfit for relishing or distinguishing the viands which are subsequently subjected to its criticisms.

  CHAPTER XI

  What gars ye gaunt, my merrymen a’?

  What gars ye look sae dreary?

  What gars ye hing your head sae sair

  In the castle of Balwearie?

  Old Scotch Ballad

  THE next morning chanced to be Sunday, a day peculiarly hard to be got rid of at Osbaldistone Hall; for after the formal religious service of the morning had been performed, at whic
h all the family regularly attended, it was hard to say upon which individual, Rashleigh and Miss Vernon excepted, the fiend of ennui descended with the most abundant outpouring of his spirit. To speak of my yesterday’s embarrassment amused Sir Hildebrand for several minutes, and he congratulated me on my deliverance from Morpeth or Hexham jail, as he would have done if I had fallen in attempting to clear a five-barred gate, and got up without hurting myself.

  ‘Hast had a lucky turn, lad; but do na be over venturous again. What, man! the king’s road is free to all men, be they Whigs, be they Tories.’

  ‘On my word, sir, I am innocent of interrupting it; and it is the most provoking thing on earth, that every person will take it for granted that I am accessory to a crime which I despise and detest, and which would, moreover, deservedly forfeit my life to the laws of my country.’

  ‘Well, well, lad; even so be it; I ask no questions—no man bound to tell on himsell—that’s fair play, or the devil’s in’t.’

  Rashleigh here came to my assistance; but I could not help thinking that his arguments were calculated rather as hints to his father to put on a show of acquiescence in my declaration of innocence, than fully to establish it.

  ‘In your own house, my dear sir—and your own nephew—you will not surely persist in hurting his feelings, by seeming to discredit what he is so strongly interested in affirming. No doubt, you are fully deserving of all his confidence, and I am sure, were there any thing you could do to assist him in this strange affair, he would have recourse to your goodness. But my cousin Frank has been dismissed as an innocent man, and no one is entitled to suppose him otherwise. For my part, I have not the least doubt of his innocence; and our family honour, I conceive, requires that we should maintain it with tongue and sword against the whole country.’

  ‘Rashleigh,’ said his father, looking fixedly at him, ‘thou art a sly loon—thou hast ever been too cunning for me, and too cunning for most folks. Have a care thou provena too cunning for thysell—two faces under one hood is no true heraldry.—And since we talk of heraldry, I’ll go and read Gwillym.’

  This resolution he intimated with a yawn, resistless as that of the Goddess in the Dunciad, which was responsively echoed by his giant sons, as they dispersed in quest of the pastimes to which their minds severally inclined them—Percie to discuss a pot of March beer with the steward in the buttery,—Thorncliff to cut a pair of cudgels, and fix them in their wicker hilts,—John to dress Mayflies,—Dickon to play at pitch and toss by himself, his right hand against his left,—and Wilfred to bite his thumbs, and hum himself into a slumber which should last till dinner time, if possible. Miss Vernon had retired to the library.

  Rashleigh and I were left alone in the old hall, from which the servants, with their usual bustle and awkwardness, had at length contrived to hurry the remains of our substantial breakfast. I took the opportunity to upbraid him with the manner in which he had spoken of my affair to his father, which I frankly stated was highly offensive to me, as it seemed rather to exhort Sir Hildebrand to conceal his suspicions, than to root them out.

  ‘Why, what can I do, my dear friend?’ replied Rashleigh; ‘my father’s disposition is so tenacious of suspicions of all kinds, when once they take root, which, to do him justice, does not easily happen, that I have always found it the best way to silence him upon such subjects, instead of arguing with him. Thus I get the better of the weeds which I cannot eradicate, by cutting them over as often as they appear, until at length they die away of themselves. There is neither wisdom nor profit in disputing with such a mind as Sir Hildebrand’s, which hardens itself against conviction, and believes in its own inspirations as firmly as we good Catholics do in those of the Holy Father of Rome.’

  ‘It is very hard, though, that I should live in the house of a man, and he a near relation too, who will persist in believing me guilty of a highway robbery.’

  ‘My father’s foolish opinion, if one may give that epithet to any opinion of my father’s, does not affect your real innocence; and as to the disgrace of the fact, depend on it, that, considered in all its bearings, political as well as moral, Sir Hildebrand regards it as a meritorious action—a weakening of the enemy—a spoiling of the Amalekites,—and you will stand the higher in his regard for your supposed accession to it.’

  ‘I desire no man’s regard, Mr. Rashleigh, on such terms as must sink me in my own; and I think these injurious suspicions will afford a very good reason for quitting Osbaldistone Hall, which I shall do whenever I can communicate on the subject with my father.’

  The dark countenance of Rashleigh, though little accustomed to betray its master’s feelings, exhibited a suppressed smile, which he instantly chastened by a sigh.

  ‘You are a happy man, Frank—you go and come, as the wind bloweth where it listeth. With your address, taste, and talents, you will soon find circles where they will be more valued, than amid the dull inmates of this mansion; while I ——’ he paused.

  ‘And what is there in your lot that can make you or any one envy mine,—an outcast, as I may almost term myself, from my father’s house and favour?’

  ‘Ay, but,’ answered Rashleigh, ‘consider the gratified sense of independence which you must have attained by a very temporary sacrifice, for such I am sure yours will prove to be—consider the power of acting as a free agent, of cultivating your own talents in the way to which your taste determines you, and in which you are well qualified to distinguish yourself—Fame and freedom are cheaply purchased by a few weeks’ residence in the North, even though your place of exile be Osbaldistone Hall.—A second Ovid in Thrace, you have not his reasons for writing Tristia.’

  ‘I do not know,’ said I, blushing as became a young scribbler, ‘how you should be so well acquainted with my truant studies.’

  ‘There was an emissary of your father’s here some time since, a young coxcomb, one Twineall, who informed me concerning your secret sacrifices to the muses, and added, that some of your verses had been greatly admired by the best judges.’

  Tresham, I believe you are guiltless of having ever essayed to build the lofty rhyme; but you must have known in your day many an apprentice and fellow-craft, if not some of the master-masons, in the temple of Apollo. Vanity is their universal foible, from him who decorated the shades of Twickenham, to the veriest scribbler whom he has lashed in his Dunciad. I had my own share of this common failing, and without considering how little likely this young fellow Twineall was, by taste and habits, either to be acquainted with one or two little pieces of poetry, which I had at times insinuated into Button’s coffee-house, or to report the opinion of the critics who frequented that resort of wit and literature, I almost instantly gorged the bait; which Rashleigh perceiving, improved his opportunity by a diffident, yet apparently very anxious request, to be permitted to see some of my manuscript productions.

  ‘You shall give me an evening in my own apartment,’ he continued; ‘for I must soon lose the charms of literary society for the drudgery of commerce, and the coarse everyday avocations of the world. I repeat it, that my compliance with my father’s wishes for the advantage of my family, is indeed a sacrifice, especially considering the calm and peaceful profession to which my education destined me.’

  I was vain, but not a fool, and this hypocrisy was too strong for me to swallow—‘You would not persuade me,’ I replied, ‘that you really regret to change the situation of an obscure Catholic priest, with all its privations, for wealth and society, and the pleasures of the world?’

  Rashleigh saw that he had coloured his affectation of moderation too highly, and, after a second’s pause, during which, I suppose, he calculated the degree of candour which it was necessary to use with me, (that being a quality of which he was never needlessly profuse,) he answered with a smile,—‘At my age, to be condemned, as you say, to wealth and the world, does not, indeed, sound so alarming as perhaps it ought to do. But, with pardon be it spoken, you have mistaken my destination—a Catholic priest, if you wil
l, but not an obscure one—No, sir, Rashleigh Osbaldistone will be more obscure, should he rise to be the richest citizen in London, than he might have been as a member of a church, whose ministers, as some one says, “set their sandall’d feet on princes.”—My family interest at a certain exiled court is high, and the weight which that court ought to possess, and does possess, at Rome, is yet higher—my talents not altogether inferior to the education I have received. In sober judgment, I might have looked forward to high eminence in the church—in the dream of fancy, to the very highest—Why might not,’ (he added, laughing, for it was part of his manner to keep much of his discourse apparently betwixt jest and earnest,)—‘why might not Cardinal Osbaldistone have swayed the fortunes of empires, well-born and well-connected, as well as the low-born Mazarin, or Alberoni, the son of an Italian gardener?’

  ‘Nay, I can give you no reason to the contrary; but in your place I should not much regret losing the chance of such precarious and invidious elevation.’

  ‘Neither would I,’ he replied, ‘were I sure that my present establishment was more certain; but that must depend upon circumstances, which I can only learn by experience—the disposition of your father, for example.’

  ‘Confess the truth without finesse, Rashleigh; you would willingly know something of him from me?’

  ‘since, like Die Vernon, you make a point of following the banner of the good knight Sincerity, I reply—certainly.’

  ‘Well, then, you will find in my father a man who has followed the paths of thriving more for the exercise they afforded to his talents, than for the love of the gold with which they are strewed. His active mind would have been happy in any situation which gave it scope for exertion, though that exertion had been its sole reward. But his wealth has accumulated, because, moderate and frugal in his habits, no new sources of expense have occurred to dispose of his increasing income. He is a man who hates dissimulation in others; never practises it himself; and is peculiarly alert in discovering motives through the colouring of language. Himself silent by habit, he is really disgusted by great talkers; the rather, that the circumstances by which he is most interested afford no great scope for conversation. He is severely strict in the duties of religion; but you have no reason to fear his interference with yours, for he regards toleration as a sacred principle of political economy. But if you have any Jacobitical partialities, as is naturally to be supposed, you will do well to suppress them in his presence, as well as the least tendency to the high-flying or Tory principles; for he holds both in utter detestation. For the rest, his word is his own bond, and must be the law of all who act under him. He will fail in his duty to no one, and will permit no one to fail towards him; to cultivate his favour, you must execute his commands, instead of echoing his sentiments. His greatest failings arise out of prejudices connected with his own profession, or rather his exclusive devotion to it, which makes him see little worthy of praise or attention, unless it be in some measure connected with commerce.’