CHAPTER VI
Next, the Justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances-- And so he plays his part
--As You Like It
When Mrs. Bertram of Ellangowan was able to hear the news of what hadpassed during her confinement, her apartment rung with all manner ofgossiping respecting the handsome young student from Oxford who had toldsuch a fortune by the stars to the young Laird, 'blessings on his daintyface.' The form, accent, and manners of the stranger were expatiatedupon. His horse, bridle, saddle, and stirrups did not remain unnoticed.All this made a great impression upon the mind of Mrs. Bertram, for thegood lady had no small store of superstition.
Her first employment, when she became capable of a little work, was tomake a small velvet bag for the scheme of nativity which she had obtainedfrom her husband. Her fingers itched to break the seal, but credulityproved stronger than curiosity; and she had the firmness to inclose it,in all its integrity, within two slips of parchment, which she sewedround it to prevent its being chafed. The whole was then put into thevelvet bag aforesaid, and hung as a charm round the neck of the infant,where his mother resolved it should remain until the period for thelegitimate satisfaction of her curiosity should arrive.
The father also resolved to do his part by the child in securing him agood education; and, with the view that it should commence with the firstdawnings of reason, Dominie Sampson was easily induced to renounce hispublic profession of parish schoolmaster, make his constant residence atthe Place, and, in consideration of a sum not quite equal to the wages ofa footman even at that time, to undertake to communicate to the futureLaird of Ellangowan all the erudition which he had, and all the gracesand accomplishments which--he had not indeed, but which he had neverdiscovered that he wanted. In this arrangement the Laird found also hisprivate advantage, securing the constant benefit of a patient auditor, towhom he told his stories when they were alone, and at whose expense hecould break a sly jest when he had company.
About four years after this time a great commotion took place in thecounty where Ellangowan is situated.
Those who watched the signs of the times had long been of opinion that achange of ministry was about to take place; and at length, after a dueproportion of hopes, fears, and delays, rumours from good authority andbad authority, and no authority at all; after some clubs had drank Upwith this statesman and others Down with him; after riding, and running,and posting, and addressing, and counter-addressing, and proffers oflives and fortunes, the blow was at length struck, the administration ofthe day was dissolved, and parliament, as a natural consequence, wasdissolved also.
Sir Thomas Kittlecourt, like other members in the same situation, posteddown to his county, and met but an indifferent reception. He was apartizan of the old administration; and the friends of the new hadalready set about an active canvass in behalf of John Featherhead, Esq.,who kept the best hounds and hunters in the shire. Among others whojoined the standard of revolt was Gilbert Glossin, writer in--, agent forthe Laird of Ellangowan. This honest gentleman had either been refusedsome favour by the old member, or, what is as probable, he had got allthat he had the most distant pretension to ask, and could only look tothe other side for fresh advancement. Mr. Glossin had a vote uponEllangowan's property; and he was now determined that his patron shouldhave one also, there being no doubt which side Mr. Bertram would embracein the contest. He easily persuaded Ellangowan that it would becreditable to him to take the field at the head of as strong a party aspossible; and immediately went to work, making votes, as every Scotchlawyer knows how, by splitting and subdividing the superiorities uponthis ancient and once powerful barony. These were so extensive that, bydint of clipping and paring here, adding and eking there, and creatingover-lords upon all the estate which Bertram held of the crown, theyadvanced at the day of contest at the head of ten as good men ofparchment as ever took the oath of trust and possession. This strongreinforcement turned the dubious day of battle. The principal and hisagent divided the honour; the reward fell to the latter exclusively. Mr.Gilbert Glossin was made clerk of the peace, and Godfrey Bertram had hisname inserted in a new commission of justices, issued immediately uponthe sitting of the parliament.
This had been the summit of Mr. Bertram's ambition; not that he likedeither the trouble or the responsibility of the office, but he thought itwas a dignity to which he was well entitled, and that it had beenwithheld from him by malice prepense. But there is an old and true Scotchproverb, 'Fools should not have chapping sticks'; that is, weapons ofoffence. Mr. Bertram was no sooner possessed of the judicial authoritywhich he had so much longed for than he began to exercise it with moreseverity than mercy, and totally belied all the opinions which hadhitherto been formed of his inert good-nature. We have read somewhere ofa justice of peace who, on being nominated in the commission, wrote aletter to a bookseller for the statutes respecting his official duty inthe following orthography--'Please send the ax relating to a gustuspease.' No doubt, when this learned gentleman had possessed himself ofthe axe, he hewed the laws with it to some purpose. Mr. Bertram was notquite so ignorant of English grammar as his worshipful predecessor; butAugustus Pease himself could not have used more indiscriminately theweapon unwarily put into his hand.
In good earnest, he considered the commission with which he had beenentrusted as a personal mark of favour from his sovereign; forgettingthat he had formerly thought his being deprived of a privilege, orhonour, common to those of his rank was the result of mere party cabal.He commanded his trusty aid-de-camp, Dominie Sampson, to read aloud thecommission; and at the first words, 'The King has been pleased toappoint'--'Pleased!' he exclaimed in a transport of gratitude; 'honestgentleman! I'm sure he cannot be better pleased than I am.'
Accordingly, unwilling to confine his gratitude to mere feelings orverbal expressions, he gave full current to the new-born zeal of office,and endeavoured to express his sense of the honour conferred upon him byan unmitigated activity in the discharge of his duty. New brooms, it issaid, sweep clean; and I myself can bear witness that, on the arrival ofa new housemaid, the ancient, hereditary, and domestic spiders who havespun their webs over the lower division of my bookshelves (consistingchiefly of law and divinity) during the peaceful reign of herpredecessor, fly at full speed before the probationary inroads of the newmercenary. Even so the Laird of Ellangowan ruthlessly commenced hismagisterial reform, at the expense of various established andsuperannuated pickers and stealers who had been his neighbours for half acentury. He wrought his miracles like a second Duke Humphrey; and by theinfluence of the beadle's rod caused the lame to walk, the blind to see,and the palsied to labour. He detected poachers, black-fishers,orchard-breakers, and pigeon-shooters; had the applause of the bench forhis reward, and the public credit of an active magistrate.
All this good had its rateable proportion of evil. Even an admittednuisance of ancient standing should not be abated without some caution.The zeal of our worthy friend now involved in great distress sundrypersonages whose idle and mendicant habits his own lachesse hadcontributed to foster, until these habits had become irreclaimable, orwhose real incapacity for exertion rendered them fit objects, in theirown phrase, for the charity of all well-disposed Christians. The'long-remembered beggar,' who for twenty years had made his regularrounds within the neighbourhood, received rather as an humble friend thanas an object of charity, was sent to the neighbouring workhouse. Thedecrepit dame, who travelled round the parish upon a hand-barrow,circulating from house to house like a bad shilling, which every one isin haste to pass to his neighbour,--she, who used to call for her bearersas loud, or louder, than a traveller demands post-horses,--even sheshared the same disastrous fate. The 'daft Jock,' who, half knave, halfidiot, had been the sport of each succeeding race of village children fora good part of a century, was remitted to the county bridewell, where,secluded from free air and sunshine, the only advantages he was capableof enjoy
ing, he pined and died in the course of six months. The oldsailor, who had so long rejoiced the smoky rafters of every kitchen inthe country by singing 'Captain Ward' and 'Bold Admiral Benbow,' wasbanished from the county for no better reason than that he was supposedto speak with a strong Irish accent. Even the annual rounds of the pedlarwere abolished by the Justice, in his hasty zeal for the administrationof rural police.
These things did not pass without notice and censure. We are not made ofwood or stone, and the things which connect themselves with our heartsand habits cannot, like bark or lichen, be rent away without our missingthem. The farmer's dame lacked her usual share of intelligence, perhapsalso the self-applause which she had felt while distributing the awmous(alms), in shape of a gowpen (handful) of oatmeal, to the mendicant whobrought the news. The cottage felt inconvenience from interruption of thepetty trade carried on by the itinerant dealers. The children lackedtheir supply of sugarplums and toys; the young women wanted pins,ribbons, combs, and ballads; and the old could no longer barter theireggs for salt, snuff, and tobacco. All these circumstances brought thebusy Laird of Ellangowan into discredit, which was the more general onaccount of his former popularity. Even his lineage was brought up injudgment against him. They thought 'naething of what the like ofGreenside, or Burnville, or Viewforth might do, that were strangers inthe country; but Ellangowan! that had been a name amang them since theMirk Monanday, and lang before--HIM to be grinding the puir at that rate!They ca'd his grandfather the Wicked Laird; but, though he was whilesfractious aneuch, when he got into roving company and had ta'en the drapdrink, he would have scorned to gang on at this gate. Na, na, the mucklechumlay in the Auld Place reeked like a killogie in his time, and therewere as mony puir folk riving at the banes in the court, and about thedoor, as there were gentles in the ha'. And the leddy, on ilka Christmasnight as it came round, gae twelve siller pennies to ilka puir bodyabout, in honour of the twelve apostles like. They were fond to ca' itpapistrie; but I think our great folk might take a lesson frae thepapists whiles. They gie another sort o' help to puir folk than justdinging down a saxpence in the brod on the Sabbath, and kilting, andscourging, and drumming them a' the sax days o' the week besides.'
Such was the gossip over the good twopenny in every ale-house withinthree or four miles of Ellangowan, that being about the diameter of theorbit in which our friend Godfrey Bertram, Esq., J. P., must beconsidered as the principal luminary. Still greater scope was given toevil tongues by the removal of a colony of gipsies, with one of whom ourreader is somewhat acquainted, and who had for a great many years enjoyedtheir chief settlement upon the estate of Ellangowan.