THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ excited. On the valiant Laird of Louponheight he looked with indescribable contempt, and amused himself with pointing out to the burgh dancing-master, who acted pro tempore as one of the band, the frolicsome bounds and pirouettes, in which that worthy displayed a great deal more of vigour than of grace.

      “But ye shouldna laugh sae loud, Master Dick,” said the master of capers; “he hasna had the advantage of a real gracefu’ teacher, as ye have had; and troth, if he listed to tak some lessons, I think I could make some hand of his feet, for he is a souple chield, and has a gallant instep of his ain; and sic a laced hat hasna been seen on the causeway of Middlemas this mony a day.—Ye are standing laughing there, Dick Middlemas; I would have you be sure he does not cut you out with your bonny partner yonder.”

      “He be–-!” Middlemas was beginning a sentence which he could not have concluded with strict attention to propriety, when the master of the band summoned McFittoch to his post, by the following ireful expostulation:—”What are ye about, sir? Mind your bowhand. How the deil d’ye think three fiddles is to keep down a bass, if yin o’ them stands girning and gabbling as ye’re doing? Play up, sir!”

      Dick Middlemas, thus reduced to silence, continued, from his lofty station, like one of the gods of the Epicureans, to survey what passed below, without the gaieties which he witnessed being able to excite more than a smile, which seemed, however, rather to indicate a good-humoured contempt for what was passing, than a benevolent sympathy with the pleasures of others.

Chapter IV

       Table of Contents

      Now hold thy tongue, Billy Bewick, he said,

       Of peaceful talking: let me be;

       But if thou art a man, as I think thou art,

       Come ower the dyke and fight with me.

      BORDER MINSTRELSY.

      On the morning after this gay evening, the two young men were labouring together in a plot of ground behind Stevenlaw’s Land, which the Doctor had converted into a garden, where he raised, with a view to pharmacy as well as botany, some rare plants, which obtained the place from the vulgar the sounding name of the Physic Garden. [Footnote: The Botanic Garden is so termed by the vulgar of Edinburgh.] Mr. Gray’s pupils readily complied with his wishes, that they would take some care of this favourite spot, to which both contributed their labours, after which Hartley used to devote himself to the cultivation of the kitchen garden, which he had raised into this respectability from a spot not excelling a common kailyard, while Richard Middleman did his utmost to decorate with flowers and shrubs a sort of arbour, usually called Miss Menie’s bower.

      At present they were both in the botanic patch of the garden, when Dick Middlemas asked Hartley why he had left the ball so soon the evening before?

      “I should rather ask you,” said Hartley, “what pleasure you felt in staying there?—I tell you, Dick, it is a shabby low place this Middlemas of ours. In the smallest burgh in England, every decent freeholder would have been asked if the Member gave a ball.”

      “What, Hartley!” said his companion, “are you, of all men, a candidate for the honour of mixing with the firstborn of the earth? Mercy on us! How will canny Northumberland [throwing a true northern accent on the letter R] acquit himself? Methinks I see thee in thy pea-green suit, dancing a jig with the honourable Miss Maddie MacFudgeon, while chiefs and thanes around laugh as they would do at a hog in armour!”

      “You don’t, or perhaps you won’t, understand me.” said Hartley. “I am not such a fool as to desire to be hail-fellow-well-met with these fine folks—I care as little for them as they do for me. But as they do not choose to ask us to dance, I don’t see what business they have with our partners.”

      “Partners, said you!” answered Middlemas; “I don’t think Menie is very often yours.”

      “As often as I ask her,” answered Hartley, rather haughtily.

      “Ay? Indeed?—I did not think that.—And hang me, if I think so yet.” said Middlemas, with the same sarcastic tone. “I tell thee, Adam, I will bet you a bowl of punch, that Miss Gray will not dance with you the next time you ask her. All I stipulate, is to know the day.”

      “I will lay no bets about Miss Gray,” said Hartley; “her father is my master, and I am obliged to him—I think I should act very scurvily, if I were to make her the subject of any idle debate betwixt you and me.”

      “Very right,” replied Middlemas; “you should finish one quarrel before you begin another. Pray, saddle your pony, ride up to the gate of Louponheight Castle, and defy the Baron to mortal combat, for having presumed to touch the fair hand of Menie Gray.”

      “I wish you would leave Miss Gray’s name out of the question, and take your defiances to your fine folks in your own name, and see what they will say to the surgeon’s apprentice.”

      “Speak for yourself, if you please, Mr. Adam Hartley. I was not born a clown like some folks, and should care little, if I saw it fit, to talk to the best of them at the ordinary, and make myself understood too.”

      “Very likely,” answered Hartley, losing patience: “you are one of themselves, you know—Middlemas of that Ilk.”

      “You scoundrel!” said Richard, advancing on him in fury, his taunting humour entirely changed into rage.

      “Stand back,” said Hartley, “or you will come by the worst; if you will break rude jests, you must put up with rough answers.”

      “I will have satisfaction for this insult, by Heaven!”

      “Why so you shall, if you insist on it,” said Hartley; “but better, I think, to say no more about the matter. We have both spoken what would have been better left unsaid. I was in the wrong to say what I said to you, although you did provoke me. And now I have given you as much satisfaction as a reasonable man can ask.”

      “Sir,” repeated Middlemas, “the satisfaction which I demand, is that of a gentleman—the Doctor has a pair of pistols.”.

      “And a pair of mortars also, which are heartily at your service, gentlemen,” said Mr. Gray, coming forward from behind a yew hedge, where he had listened to the whole or greater part of this dispute. “A fine story it would be of my apprentices shooting each other with my own pistols! Let me see either of you fit to treat a gunshot wound, before you think of inflicting one. Go, you are both very foolish boys, and I cannot take it kind of either of you to bring the name of my daughter into such disputes as these. Hark ye, lads, ye both owe me, I think, some portion of respect, and even of gratitude—it will be a poor return, if instead of living quietly with this poor motherless girl, like brothers with a sister, you should oblige me to increase my expense, and abridge my comfort, by sending my child from me, for the few months that you are to remain here. Let me see you shake hands, and let us have no more of this nonsense.”

      While their master spoke in this manner, both the young men stood before him in the attitude of self-convicted criminals. At the conclusion of his rebuke, Hartley turned frankly round, and, offered his hand to his companion, who accepted it, but after a moment’s hesitation. There was nothing farther passed on the subject, but the lads never resumed the same sort of intimacy which had existed betwixt them in their earlier acquaintance. On the contrary, avoiding every connexion not absolutely required by their СКАЧАТЬ