CHAPTER IX Die and endow a college or a cat.
POPE.
There is a fable told by Lucian, that while a troop of monkeys, welldrilled by an intelligent manager, were performing a tragedy with greatapplause, the decorum of the whole scene was at once destroyed, and thenatural passions of the actors called forth into very indecent and activeemulation, by a wag who threw a handful of nuts upon the stage. In likemanner, the approaching crisis stirred up among the expectants feelingsof a nature very different from those of which, under the superintendenceof Mr. Mortcloke, they had but now been endeavouring to imitate theexpression. Those eyes which were lately devoutly cast up to heaven, orwith greater humility bent solemnly upon earth, were now sharply andalertly darting their glances through shuttles, and trunks, and drawers,and cabinets, and all the odd corners of an old maiden lady'srepositories. Nor was their search without interest, though they did notfind the will of which they were in quest.
Here was a promissory note for 20 Pounds by the minister of the nonjuringchapel, interest marked as paid to Martinmas last, carefully folded up ina new set of words to the old tune of 'Over the Water to Charlie'; therewas a curious love correspondence between the deceased and a certainLieutenant O'Kean of a marching regiment of foot; and tied up with theletters was a document which at once explained to the relatives why aconnexion that boded them little good had been suddenly broken off, beingthe Lieutenant's bond for two hundred pounds, upon which NO interestwhatever appeared to have been paid. Other bills and bonds to a largeramount, and signed by better names (I mean commercially) than those ofthe worthy divine and gallant soldier, also occurred in the course oftheir researches, besides a hoard of coins of every size anddenomination, and scraps of broken gold and silver, old earrings, hingesof cracked, snuff-boxes, mountings of spectacles, etc. etc. etc. Still nowill made its appearance, and Colonel Mannering began full well to hopethat the settlement which he had obtained from Glossin contained theultimate arrangement of the old lady's affairs. But his friend Pleydell,who now came into the room, cautioned him against entertaining thisbelief.
'I am well acquainted with the gentleman,' he said, 'who is conductingthe search, and I guess from his manner that he knows something more ofthe matter than any of us.'
Meantime, while the search proceeds, let us take a brief glance at one ortwo of the company who seem most interested.
Of Dinmont, who, with his large hunting-whip under his arm, stood pokinghis great round face over the shoulder of the homme d'affaires, it isunnecessary to say anything. That thin-looking oldish person, in a mostcorrect and gentleman-like suit of mourning, is Mac-Casquil, formerly ofDrumquag, who was ruined by having a legacy bequeathed to him of twoshares in the Ayr bank. His hopes on the present occasion are founded ona very distant relationship, upon his sitting in the same pew with thedeceased every Sunday, and upon his playing at cribbage with herregularly on the Saturday evenings, taking great care never to come off awinner. That other coarse-looking man, wearing his own greasy hair tiedin a leathern cue more greasy still, is a tobacconist, a relation of Mrs.Bertram's mother, who, having a good stock in trade when the colonial warbroke out, trebled the price of his commodity to all the world, Mrs.Bertram alone excepted, whose tortoise-shell snuff-box was weekly filledwith the best rappee at the old prices, because the maid brought it tothe shop with Mrs. Bertram's respects to her cousin Mr. Quid. That youngfellow, who has not had the decency to put off his boots and buckskins,might have stood as forward as most of them in the graces of the oldlady, who loved to look upon a comely young man; but it is thought he hasforfeited the moment of fortune by sometimes neglecting her tea-tablewhen solemnly invited, sometimes appearing there when he had been diningwith blyther company, twice treading upon her cat's tail, and onceaffronting her parrot.
To Mannering the most interesting of the group was the poor girl who hadbeen a sort of humble companion of the deceased, as a subject upon whomshe could at all times expectorate her bad humour. She was for form'ssake dragged into the room by the deceased's favourite female attendant,where, shrinking into a>corner as soon as possible, she saw with wonderand affright the intrusive researches of the strangers amongst thoserecesses to which from childhood she had looked with awful veneration.This girl was regarded with an unfavourable eye by all the competitors,honest Dinmont only excepted; the rest conceived they should find in hera formidable competitor, whose claims might at least encumber anddiminish their chance of succession. Yet she was the only person presentwho seemed really to feel sorrow for the deceased. Mrs. Bertram had beenher protectress, although from selfish motives, and her capricioustyranny was forgotten at the moment, while the tears followed each otherfast down the cheeks of her frightened and friendless dependent. 'There'sower muckle saut water there, Drumquag,' said the tobacconist to theex-proprietor, 'to bode ither folk muckle gude. Folk seldom greet thatgate but they ken what it's for.' Mr. Mac-Casquil only replied with anod, feeling the propriety of asserting his superior gentry in presenceof Mr. Pleydell and Colonel Mannering.
'Very queer if there suld be nae will after a', friend,' said Dinmont,who began to grow impatient, to the man of business.
'A moment's patience, if you please. She was a good and prudent woman,Mrs. Margaret Bertram--a good and prudent and well-judging woman, andknew how to choose friends and depositaries; she may have put her lastwill and testament, or rather her mortis causa settlement, as it relatesto heritage, into the hands of some safe friend.'
'I'll bet a rump and dozen,' said Pleydell, whispering to the Colonel,'he has got it in his own pocket.' Then addressing the man of law, 'Come,sir, we'll cut this short, if you please: here is a settlement of theestate of Singleside, executed several years ago, in favour of Miss LucyBertram of Ellangowan.' The company stared fearfully wild. 'You, Ipresume, Mr. Protocol, can inform us if there is a later deed?'
'Please to favour me, Mr. Pleydell'; and so saying, he took the deed outof the learned counsel's hand, and glanced his eye over the contents.
'Too cool,' said Pleydell, 'too cool by half; he has another deed in hispocket still.'
'Why does he not show it then, and be d-d to him!' said the militarygentleman, whose patience began to wax threadbare.
'Why, how should I know?' answered the barrister; 'why does a cat notkill a mouse when she takes him? The consciousness of power and the loveof teasing, I suppose. Well, Mr. Protocol, what say you to that deed?'
'Why, Mr. Pleydell, the deed is a well-drawn deed, properly authenticatedand tested in forms of the statute.'
'But recalled or superseded by another of posterior date in yourpossession, eh?' said the Counsellor.
'Something of the sort, I confess, Mr. Pleydell,' rejoined the man ofbusiness, producing a bundle tied with tape, and sealed at each fold andligation with black wax. 'That deed, Mr. Pleydell, which you produce andfound upon, is dated 1st June 17--; but this (breaking the seals andunfolding the document slowly) is dated the 20th--no, I see it is the21st--of April of this present year, being ten years posterior.'
'Marry, hang her, brock!' said the Counsellor, borrowing an exclamationfrom Sir Toby Belch; 'just the month in which Ellangowan's distressesbecame generally public. But let us hear what she has done.'
Mr. Protocol accordingly, having required silence, began to read thesettlement aloud in a slow, steady, business-like tone. The group around,in whose eyes hope alternately awakened and faded, and who were strainingtheir apprehensions to get at the drift of the testator's meaning throughthe mist of technical language in which the conveyance had involved it,might have made a study for Hogarth.
The deed was of an unexpected nature. It set forth with conveying anddisponing all and whole the estate and lands of Singleside and others,with the lands of Loverless, Liealone, Spinster's Knowe, and heaven knowswhat beside, 'to and in favours of (here the reader softened his voice toa gentle and modest piano) Peter Protocol, clerk to the signet, havingthe fullest confidence in his capacity and integrity--these are the verywords w
hich my worthy deceased friend insisted upon my inserting--but inTRUST always (here the reader recovered his voice and style, and thevisages of several of the hearers, which had attained a longitude thatMr. Mortcloke might have envied, were perceptibly shortened)--in TRUSTalways, and for the uses, ends, and purposes hereinafter mentioned.'
In these 'uses, ends, and purposes' lay the cream of the affair. Thefirst was introduced by a preamble setting forth that the testatrix waslineally descended from the ancient house of Ellangowan, her respectedgreat-grandfather, Andrew Bertram, first of Singleside, of happy memory,having been second son to Allan Bertram, fifteenth Baron of Ellangowan.It proceeded to state that Henry Bertram, son and heir of GodfreyBertram, now of Ellangowan, had been stolen from his parents in infancy,but that she, the testatrix, WAS WELL ASSURED THAT HE WAS YET ALIVE INFOREIGN PARTS, AND BY THE PROVIDENCE OF HEAVEN WOULD BE RESTORED TO THEPOSSESSIONS OF HIS ANCESTORS, in which case the said Peter Protocol wasbound and obliged, like as he bound and obliged himself, by acceptance ofthese presents, to denude himself of the said lands of Singleside andothers, and of all the other effects thereby conveyed (excepting always aproper gratification for his own trouble), to and in favour of the saidHenry Bertram, upon his return to his native country. And during the timeof his residing in foreign parts, or in case of his never again returningto Scotland, Mr. Peter Protocol, the trustee, was directed to distributethe rents of the land, and interest of the other funds (deducting alwaysa proper gratification for his trouble in the premises), in equalportions, among four charitable establishments pointed out in the will.The power of management, of letting leases, of raising and lending outmoney, in short, the full authority of a proprietor, was vested in thisconfidential trustee, and, in the event of his death, went to certainofficial persons named in the deed. There were only two legacies; one ofa hundred pounds to a favourite waiting-maid, another of the like sum toJanet Gibson (whom the deed stated to have been supported by the charityof the testatrix), for the purpose of binding her an apprentice to somehonest trade.
A settlement in mortmain is in Scotland termed a mortification, and inone great borough (Aberdeen, if I remember rightly) there is a municipalofficer who takes care of these public endowments, and is thence calledthe Master of Mortifications. One would almost presume that the term hadits origin in the effect which such settlements usually produce upon thekinsmen of those by whom they are executed. Heavy at least was themortification which befell the audience who, in the late Mrs. MargaretBertram's parlour, had listened to this unexpected destination of thelands of Singleside. There was a profound silence after the deed had beenread over.
Mr. Pleydell was the first to speak. He begged to look at the deed, and,having satisfied himself that it was correctly drawn and executed, hereturned it without any observation, only saying aside to Mannering,'Protocol is not worse than other people, I believe; but this old ladyhas determined that, if he do not turn rogue, it shall not be for want oftemptation.'
'I really think,' said Mr. Mac-Casquil of Drumquag, who, having gulpeddown one half of his vexation, determined to give vent to the rest--'Ireally think this is an extraordinary case! I should like now to knowfrom Mr. Protocol, who, being sole and unlimited trustee, must have beenconsulted upon this occasion--I should like, I say, to know how Mrs.Bertram could possibly believe in the existence of a boy that a' theworld kens was murdered many a year since?'
'Really, sir,' said Mr. Protocol, 'I do not conceive it is possible forme to explain her motives more than she has done herself. Our excellentdeceased friend was a good woman, sir--a pious woman--and might havegrounds for confidence in the boy's safety which are not accessible tous, sir.'
'Hout,' said the tobacconist, 'I ken very weel what were her grounds forconfidence. There's Mrs. Rebecca (the maid) sitting there has tell'd me ahundred times in my ain shop, there was nae kenning how her leddy wadsettle her affairs, for an auld gipsy witch wife at Gilsland hadpossessed her with a notion that the callant--Harry Bertram ca's shehim?--would come alive again some day after a'. Ye'll no deny that, Mrs.Rebecca? though I dare to say ye forgot to put your mistress in mind ofwhat ye promised to say when I gied ye mony a half-crown. But ye'll nodeny what I am saying now, lass?'
'I ken naething at a' about it,' answered Rebecca, doggedly, and lookingstraight forward with the firm countenance of one not disposed to becompelled to remember more than was agreeable to her.
'Weel said, Rebecca! ye're satisfied wi' your ain share ony way,'rejoined the tobacconist.
The buck of the second-head, for a buck of the first-head he was not, hadhitherto been slapping his boots with his switch-whip, and looking like aspoiled child that has lost its supper. His murmurs, however, were allvented inwardly, or at most in a soliloquy such as this--'I am sorry, byG-d, I ever plagued myself about her. I came here, by G-d, one night todrink tea, and I left King and the Duke's rider Will Hack. They weretoasting a round of running horses; by G-d, I might have got leave towear the jacket as well as other folk if I had carried it on with them;and she has not so much as left me that hundred!'
'We'll make the payment of the note quite agreeable,' said Mr. Protocol,who had no wish to increase at that moment the odium attached to hisoffice. 'And now, gentlemen, I fancy we have no more to wait for here,and I shall put the settlement of my excellent and worthy friend onrecord to-morrow, that every gentleman may examine the contents, and havefree access to take an extract; and'--he proceeded to lock up therepositories of the deceased with more speed than he had openedthem--'Mrs. Rebecca, ye'll be so kind as to keep all right here until wecan let the house; I had an offer from a tenant this morning, if such athing should be, and if I was to have any management.'
Our friend Dinmont, having had his hopes as well as another, had hithertosate sulky enough in the armchair formerly appropriated to the deceased,and in which she would have been not a little scandalised to have seenthis colossal specimen of the masculine gender lolling at length. Hisemployment had been rolling up into the form of a coiled snake the longlash of his horse-whip, and then by a jerk causing it to unroll itselfinto the middle of the floor. The first words he said when he haddigested the shock contained a magnanimous declaration, which he probablywas not conscious of having uttered aloud--'Weel, blude's thicker thanwater; she's welcome to the cheeses and the hams just the same.' But whenthe trustee had made the above-mentioned motion for the mourners todepart, and talked of the house being immediately let, honest Dinmont gotupon his feet and stunned the company with this blunt question, 'Andwhat's to come o' this poor lassie then, Jenny Gibson? Sae mony o'us asthought oursells sib to the family when the gear was parting, we may dosomething for her amang us surely.'
This proposal seemed to dispose most of the assembly instantly toevacuate the premises, although upon Mr. Protocol's motion they hadlingered as if around the grave of their disappointed hopes. Drumquagsaid, or rather muttered, something of having a family of his own, andtook precedence, in virtue of his gentle blood, to depart as fast aspossible. The tobacconist sturdily stood forward and scouted themotion--'A little huzzie like that was weel eneugh provided for already;and Mr. Protocol at ony rate was the proper person to take direction ofher, as he had charge of her legacy'; and after uttering such his opinionin a steady and decisive tone of voice, he also left the place. The buckmade a stupid and brutal attempt at a jest upon Mrs. Bertram'srecommendation that the poor girl should be taught some honest trade; butencountered a scowl from Colonel Mannering's darkening eye (to whom, inhis ignorance of the tone of good society, he had looked for applause)that made him ache to the very backbone. He shuffled downstairs,therefore, as fast as possible.
Protocol, who was really a good sort of man, next expressed his intentionto take a temporary charge of the young lady, under protest always thathis so doing should be considered as merely eleemosynary; when Dinmont atlength got up, and, having shaken his huge dreadnought great-coat, as aNewfoundland dog does his shaggy hide when he comes out of the water,ejaculated, 'Weel, deil hae me then, if ye
hae ony fash wi' her, Mr.Protocol, if she likes to gang hame wi' me, that is. Ye see, Ailie and mewe're weel to pass, and we would like the lassies to hae a wee bit mairlair than oursells, and to be neighbour-like, that wad we. And ye seeJenny canna miss but to ken manners, and the like o' reading books, andsewing seams, having lived sae lang wi' a grand lady like LadySingleside; or, if she disna ken ony thing about it, I'm jealous that ourbairns will like her a' the better. And I'll take care o' the bits o'claes, and what spending siller she maun hae, so the hundred pound mayrin on in your hands, Mr. Protocol, and I'll be adding something till't,till she'll maybe get a Liddesdale joe that wants something to help tobuy the hirsel. What d'ye say to that, hinny? I'll take out a ticket forye in the fly to Jethart; od, but ye maun take a powny after that o'erthe Limestane Rig, deil a wheeled carriage ever gaed into Liddesdale.[Footnote: See Note I.] And I'll be very glad if Mrs. Rebecca comes wi'you, hinny, and stays a month or twa while ye're stranger like.'
While Mrs. Rebecca was curtsying, and endeavouring to make the poororphan girl curtsy instead of crying, and while Dandie, in his rough way,was encouraging them both, old Pleydell had recourse to his snuff-box.'It's meat and drink to me now, Colonel,' he said, as he recoveredhimself, 'to see a clown like this. I must gratify him in his own way,must assist him to ruin himself; there's no help for it. Here, youLiddesdale--Dandie--Charlie's Hope--what do they call you?'
The farmer turned, infinitely gratified even by this sort of notice; forin his heart, next to his own landlord, he honoured a lawyer in highpractice.
'So you will not be advised against trying that question about yourmarches?'
'No, no, sir; naebody likes to lose their right, and to be laughed atdown the haill water. But since your honour's no agreeable, and is maybea friend to the other side like, we maun try some other advocate.'
'There, I told you so, Colonel Mannering! Well, sir, if you must needs bea fool, the business is to give you the luxury of a lawsuit at the leastpossible expense, and to bring you off conqueror if possible. Let Mr.Protocol send me your papers, and I will advise him how to conduct yourcause. I don't see, after all, why you should not have your lawsuits too,and your feuds in the Court of Session, as well as your forefathers hadtheir manslaughters and fire-raisings.'
'Very natural, to be sure, sir. We wad just take the auld gate asreadily, if it werena for the law. And as the law binds us, the lawshould loose us. Besides, a man's aye the better thought o' in ourcountry for having been afore the Feifteen.'
'Excellently argued, my friend! Away with you, and send your papers tome. Come, Colonel, we have no more to do here.'
'God, we'll ding Jock o' Dawston Cleugh now after a'!' said Dinmont,slapping his thigh in great exultation.