CHAPTER XXXI.
In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weeds, And wilful want, all careless of her deeds; So choosing solitary to abide, Far from all neighbours, that her devilish deeds And hellish arts from people she might hide, And hurt far off, unknown, whome'er she envied.
Faerie Queene.
THE health of Lucy Ashton soon required the assistance of a person moreskilful in the office of a sick-nurse than the female domestics of thefamily. Ailsie Gourlay, sometimes called the Wise Woman of Bowden, wasthe person whom, for her own strong reasons, Lady Ashton selected as anattendant upon her daughter.
This woman had acquired a considerable reputation among the ignorant bythe pretended cures which she performed, especially in "oncomes," asthe Scotch call them, or mysterious diseases, which baffle the regularphysician. Her pharmacopoeia consisted partly of herbs selected inplanetary hours, partly of words, signs, and charms, which sometimes,perhaps, produced a favourable influence upon the imagination of herpatients. Such was the avowed profession of Luckie Gourlay, which, asmay well be supposed, was looked upon with a suspicious eye, not onlyby her neighbours, but even by the clergy of the district. Inprivate, however, she traded more deeply in the occult sciences; for,notwithstanding the dreadful punishments inflicted upon the supposedcrime of witchcraft, there wanted not those who, steeled by want andbitterness of spirit, were willing to adopt the hateful and dangerouscharacter, for the sake of the influence which its terrors enabled themto exercise in the vicinity, and the wretched emolument which they couldextract by the practice of their supposed art.
Ailsie Gourlay was not indeed fool enough to acknowledge a compact withthe Evil One, which would have been a swift and ready road to the stakeand tar-barrel. Her fairy, she said, like Caliban's, was a harmlessfairy. Nevertheless, she "spaed fortunes," read dreams, composedphiltres, discovered stolen goods, and made and dissolved matches assuccessfully as if, according to the belief of the whole neighbourhood,she had been aided in those arts by Beelzebub himself. The worst of thepretenders to these sciences was, that they were generally persons who,feeling themselves odious to humanity, were careless of what they didto deserve the public hatred. Real crimes were often committed underpretence of magical imposture; and it somewhat relieves the disgustwith which we read, in the criminal records, the conviction ofthese wretches, to be aware that many of them merited, as poisoners,suborners, and diabolical agents in secret domestic crimes, the severefate to which they were condemned for the imaginary guilt of witchcraft.
Such was Aislie Gourlay, whom, in order to attain the absolutesubjugation of Lucy Ashton's mind, her mother thought it fitting toplace near her person. A woman of less consequence than Lady Ashtonhad not dared to take such a step; but her high rank and strength ofcharacter set her above the censure of the world, and she was allowed tohave selected for her daughter's attendant the best and most experiencedsick-nurse and "mediciner" in the neighbourhood, where an inferiorperson would have fallen under the reproach of calling in the assistanceof a partner and ally of the great Enemy of mankind.
The beldam caught her cue readily and by innuendo, without givingLady Ashton the pain of distinct explanation. She was in many respectsqualified for the part she played, which indeed could not be efficientlyassumed without some knowledge of the human heart and passions. DameGourlay perceived that Lucy shuddered at her external appearance, whichwe have already described when we found her in the death-chamber ofblind Alice; and while internally she hated the poor girl for theinvoluntary horror with which she saw she was regarded, she commencedher operations by endeavouring to efface or overcome those prejudiceswhich, in her heart, she resented as mortal offences. This was easilydone, for the hag's external ugliness was soon balanced by a show ofkindness and interest, to which Lucy had of late been little accustomed;her attentive services and real skill gained her the ear, if not theconfidence, of her patient; and under pretence of diverting the solitudeof a sick-room, she soon led her attention captive by the legends inwhich she was well skilled, and to which Lucy's habit of reading andreflection induced her to "lend an attentive ear." Dame Gourlay's taleswere at first of a mild and interesting character--
Of fays that nightly dance upon the wold, And lovers doom'd to wander and to weep, And castles high, where wicked wizards keep Their captive thralls.
Gradually, however, they assumed a darker and more mysterious character,and became such as, told by the midnight lamp, and enforced by thetremulous tone, the quivering and livid lip, the uplifted skinnyforefinger, and the shaking head of the blue-eyed hag, might haveappalled a less credulous imagination in an age more hard of belief. Theold Sycorax saw her advantage, and gradually narrowed her magic circlearound the devoted victim on whose spirit she practised. Her legendsbegan to relate to the fortunes of the Ravenswood family, whose ancientgrandeur and portentous authority credulity had graced with so manysuperstitious attributes. The story of the fatal fountain was narratedat full length, and with formidable additions, by the ancient sibyl. Theprophecy, quoted by Caleb, concerning the dead bride who was to be wonby the last of the Ravenswoods, had its own mysterious commentary;and the singular circumstance of the apparition seen by the Master ofRavenswood in the forest, having partly transpired through hishasty inquiries in the cottage of Old Alice, formed a theme for manyexaggerations.
Lucy might have despised these tales if they had been related concerninganother family, or if her own situation had been less despondent. Butcircumstanced as she was, the idea that an evil fate hung over herattachment became predominant over her other feelings; and the gloomof superstition darkened a mind already sufficiently weakened bysorrow, distress, uncertainty, and an oppressive sense of desertion anddesolation. Stories were told by her attendant so closely resembling herown in their circumstances, that she was gradually led to converse uponsuch tragic and mystical subjects with the beldam, and to repose a sortof confidence in the sibyl, whom she still regarded with involuntaryshuddering. Dame Gourlay knew how to avail herself of this imperfectconfidence. She directed Lucy's thoughts to the means of inquiring intofuturity--the surest mode perhaps, of shaking the understanding anddestroying the spirits. Omens were expounded, dreams were interpreted,and other tricks of jugglery perhaps resorted to, by which the pretendedadepts of the period deceived and fascinated their deluded followers. Ifind it mentioned in the articles of distay against Ailsie Gourlay--forit is some comfort to know that the old hag was tried, condemned, andburned on the top of North Berwick Law, by sentence of a commissionfrom the privy council--I find, I say, it was charged against her, amongother offences, that she had, by the aid and delusions of Satan, shownto a young person of quality, in a mirror glass, a gentleman thenabroad, to whom the said young person was betrothed, and who appeared inthe vision to be in the act of bestowing his hand upon another lady. Butthis and some other parts of the record appear to have been studiouslyleft imperfect in names and dates, probably out of regard to the honourof the families concerned. If Dame Gourlay was able actually to playoff such a piece of jugglery, it is clear she must have had betterassistance to practise the deception than her own skill or funds couldsupply. Meanwhile, this mysterious visionary traffic had its usualeffect in unsettling Miss Ashton's mind. Her temper became unequal,her health decayed daily, her manners grew moping, melancholy,and uncertain. Her father, guessing partly at the cause of theseappearances, made a point of banishing Dame Gourlay from the castle;but the arrow was shot, and was rankling barb-deep in the side of thewounded deer.
It was shortly after the departure of this woman, that Lucy Ashton,urged by her parents, announced to them, with a vivacity by which theywere startled, "That she was conscious heaven and earth and hell had setthemselves against her union with Ravenswood; still her contract," shesaid, "was a binding contract, and she neither would nor could resignit without the consent of Ravenswood. Let me be assured," she concluded,"that he will free me from my engagement, and dispose of me as youplease, I care not how. W
hen the diamonds are gone, what signifies thecasket?"
The tone of obstinacy with which this was said, her eyes flashingwith unnatural light, and her hands firmly clenched, precluded thepossibility of dispute; and the utmost length which Lady Ashton's artcould attain, only got her the privilege of dictating the letter, bywhich her daughter required to know of Ravenswood whether he intended toabide by or to surrender what she termed "their unfortunate engagement."Of this advantage Lady Ashton so far and so ingeniously availed herselfthat, according to the wording of the letter, the reader would havesupposed Lucy was calling upon her lover to renounce a contract whichwas contrary to the interests and inclinations of both. Not trustingeven to this point of deception, Lady Ashton finally determined tosuppress the letter altogether, in hopes that Lucy's impatience wouldinduce her to condemn Ravenswood unheard and in absence. In this she wasdisappointed. The time, indeed, had long elapsed when an answer shouldhave been received from the continent. The faint ray of hope which stillglimmered in Lucy's mind was well nigh extinguished. But the idea neverforsook her that her letter might not have been duly forwarded. One ofher mother's new machinations unexpectedly furnished her with the meansof ascertaining what she most desired to know.
The female agent of hell having been dismissed from the castle, LadyAshton, who wrought by all variety of means, resolved to employ, forworking the same end on Lucy's mind, an agent of a very differentcharacter. This was no other than the Reverent Mr. Bide-the-Bent, apresbyterian clergyman, formerly mentioned, of the very strictestorder and the most rigid orthodoxy, whose aid she called in, upon theprinciple of the tyrant in the in the tragedy:
I'll have a priest shall preach her from her faith, And make it sin not to renounce that vow Which I'd have broken.
But Lady Ashton was mistaken in the agent she had selected. Hisprejudices, indeed, were easily enlisted on her side, and it was nodifficult matter to make him regard with horror the prospect of a unionbetwixt the daughter of a God-fearing, professing, and Presbyterianfamily of distinction and the heir of a bloodthirsty prelatist andpersecutor, the hands of whose fathers had been dyed to the wrists inthe blood of God's saints. This resembled, in the divine's opinion, theunion of a Moabitish stranger with a daughter of Zion. But with allthe more severe prejudices and principles of his sect, Bide-the-Bentpossessed a sound judgment, and had learnt sympathy even in that veryschool of persecution where the heart is so frequently hardened. In aprivate interview with Miss Ashton, he was deeply moved by her distress,and could not but admit the justice of her request to be permitted adirect communication with Ravenswood upon the subject of their solemncontract. When she urged to him the great uncertainty under which shelaboured whether her letter had been ever forwarded, the old man pacedthe room with long steps, shook his grey head, rested repeatedly for aspace on his ivory-headed staff, and, after much hesitation, confessedthat he thought her doubts so reasonable that he would himself aid inthe removal of them.
"I cannot but opine, Miss Lucy," he said, "that your worshipful ladymother hath in this matter an eagerness whilk, although it arisethdoubtless from love to your best interests here and hereafter, for theman is of persecuting blood, and himself a persecutor, a Cavalieror Malignant, and a scoffer, who hath no inheritance in Jesse;nevertheless, we are commanded to do justice unto all, and to fulfilour bond and covenant, as well to the stranger as to him who is inbrotherhood with us. Wherefore myself, even I myself, will be aidingunto the delivery of your letter to the man Edgar Ravenswood, trustingthat the issue thereof may be your deliverance from the nets in which hehath sinfully engaged you. And that I may do in this neither more norless than hath been warranted by your honourable parents, I pray youto transcribe, without increment or subtraction, the letter formerlyexpeded under the dictation of your right honourable mother; and I shallput it into such sure course of being delivered, that if, honourableyoung madam, you shall receive no answer, it will be necessary thatyou conclude that the man meaneth in silence to abandon that naughtycontract, which, peradventure, he may be unwilling directly to restore."
Lucy eagerly embraced the expedient of the worthy divine. A new letterwas written in the precise terms of the former, and consigned by Mr.Bide-the-Bent to the charge of Saunders Moonshine, a zealous elder ofthe church when on shore, and when on board his brig as bold a smuggleras ever ran out a sliding bowsprit to the winds that blow betwixtCampvere and the east coast of Scotland. At the recommendation of hispastor, Saunders readily undertook that the letter should be securelyconveyed to the Master of Ravenswood at the court where he now resided.
This retrospect became necessary to explain the conference betwixt MissAshton, her mother, and Bucklaw which we have detailed in a precedingchapter.
Lucy was now like the sailor who, while drifting through a tempestuousocean, clings for safety to a single plank, his powers of grasping itbecoming every moment more feeble, and the deep darkness of the nightonly checkered by the flashes of lightning, hissing as they show thewhite tops of the billows, in which he is soon to be engulfed.
Week crept away after week, and day after day. St. Jude's day arrived,the last and protracted term to which Lucy had limited herself, andthere was neither letter nor news of Ravenswood.