The Antiquary — Complete

'If your honour pleases,' said Edie, 'had ye not better proceed to the business that brought us a' here? I'se engage to get ye the sang ony time.'

'I believe you are right, Edie—Do manus—I submit. But how shall we manage? She sits there the very image of dotage. Speak to her, Edie—try if you can make her recollect having sent you to Glenallan House.'

Edie rose accordingly, and, crossing the floor, placed himself in the same position which he had occupied during his former conversation with her. 'I'm fain to see ye looking sae weel, cummer; the mair, that the black ox has tramped on ye since I was aneath your roof-tree.'

'Ay,' said Elspeth; but rather from a general idea of misfortune, than any exact recollection of what had happened,—'there has been distress amang us of late—I wonder how younger folk bide it—I bide it ill. I canna hear the wind whistle, and the sea roar, but I think I see the coble whombled keel up, and some o' them struggling in the waves!—Eh, sirs; sic weary dreams as folk hae between sleeping and waking, before they win to the lang sleep and the sound! I could amaist think whiles my son, or else Steenie, my oe, was dead, and that I had seen the burial. Isna that a queer dream for a daft auld carline? What for should ony o' them dee before me?—it's out o' the course o' nature, ye ken.'

'I think you'll make very little of this stupid old woman,' said Hector,—who still nourished, perhaps, some feelings of the dislike excited by the disparaging mention of his countrymen in her lay—'I think you'll make but little of her, sir; and it's wasting our time to sit here and listen to her dotage.'

'Hector,' said the Antiquary, indignantly, 'if you do not respect her misfortunes, respect at least her old age and grey hairs: this is the last stage of existence, so finely treated by the Latin poet—

—Omni
Membrorum damno major dementia, quae nec
Nomina, servorum, nec vultus agnoscit amici,
Cum queis preterita coenavit nocte, nec illos
Quos genuit, quos eduxit.'

'That's Latin!' said Elspeth, rousing herself as if she attended to the lines, which the Antiquary recited with great pomp of diction—'that's Latin!' and she cast a wild glance around her—'Has there a priest fund me out at last?'

'You see, nephew, her comprehension is almost equal to your own of that fine passage.'

'I hope you think, sir, that I knew it to be Latin as well as she did?'

'Why, as to that—But stay, she is about to speak.'

'I will have no priest—none,' said the beldam, with impotent vehemence; 'as I have lived I will die—none shall say that I betrayed my mistress, though it were to save my soul!'

'That bespoke a foul conscience,' said the mendicant;—'I wuss she wad mak a clean breast, an it were but for her sake;' and he again assailed her.

'Weel, gudewife, I did your errand to the Yerl.'

'To what Earl? I ken nae Earl;—I ken'd a Countess ance—I wish to Heaven I had never ken'd her! for by that acquaintance, neighbour, their cam,'— and she counted her withered fingers as she spoke 'first Pride, then Malice, then Revenge, then False Witness; and Murder tirl'd at the door-pin, if he camna ben. And werena thae pleasant guests, think ye, to take up their quarters in ae woman's heart? I trow there was routh o' company.'

'But, cummer,' continued the beggar, 'it wasna the Countess of Glenallan I meant, but her son, him that was Lord Geraldin.'

'I mind it now,' she said; 'I saw him no that langsyne, and we had a heavy speech thegither. Eh, sirs! the comely young lord is turned as auld and frail as I am: it's muckle that sorrow and heartbreak, and crossing of true love, will do wi' young blood. But suldna his mither hae lookit to that hersell?—we were but to do her bidding, ye ken. I am sure there's naebody can blame me—he wasna my son, and she was my mistress. Ye ken how the rhyme says—I hae maist forgotten how to sing, or else the tune's left my auld head—

'He turn'd him right and round again,
Said, Scorn na at my mither;
Light loves I may get mony a ane,
But minnie neer anither.

Then he was but of the half blude, ye ken, and her's was the right Glenallan after a'. Na, na, I maun never maen doing and suffering for the Countess Joscelin—never will I maen for that.'

Then drawing her flax from the distaff, with the dogged air of one who is resolved to confess nothing, she resumed her interrupted occupation.

'I hae heard,' said the mendicant, taking his cue from what Oldbuck had told him of the family history—'I hae heard, cummer, that some ill tongue suld hae come between the Earl, that's Lord Geraldin, and his young bride.'

'Ill tongue?' she said in hasty alarm; 'and what had she to fear frae an ill tongue?—she was gude and fair eneugh—at least a' body said sae. But had she keepit her ain tongue aff ither folk, she might hae been living like a leddy for a' that's come and gane yet.'

'But I hae heard say, gudewife,' continued Ochiltree, 'there was a clatter in the country, that her husband and her were ower sibb when they married.'

'Wha durst speak o' that?' said the old woman hastily; 'wha durst say they were married?—wha ken'd o' that?—Not the Countess—not I. If they wedded in secret, they were severed in secret—They drank of the fountains of their ain deceit.'

'No, wretched beldam!' exclaimed Oldbuck, who could keep silence no longer, 'they drank the poison that you and your wicked mistress prepared for them.'

'Ha, ha!' she replied, 'I aye thought it would come to this. It's but sitting silent when they examine me— there's nae torture in our days; and if there is, let them rend me!—It's ill o' the vassal's mouth that betrays the bread it eats.'

'Speak to her, Edie,' said the Antiquary; 'she knows your voice, and answers to it most readily.'

'We shall mak naething mair out o' her,' said Ochiltree. 'When she has clinkit hersell down that way, and faulded her arms, she winna speak a word, they say, for weeks thegither. And besides, to my thinking, her face is sair changed since we cam in. However, I'se try her ance mair to satisfy your honour.—So ye canna keep in mind, cummer, that your auld mistress, the Countess Joscelin, has been removed?'

'Removed!' she exclaimed; for that name never failed to produce its usual effect upon her; 'then we maun a' follow—a' maun ride when she is in the saddle. Tell them to let Lord Geraldin ken we're on before them. Bring my hood and scarf—ye wadna hae me gang in the carriage wi' my leddy, and my hair in this fashion?'

She raised her shrivelled arms, and seemed busied like a woman who puts on her cloak to go abroad, then dropped them slowly and stiffly; and the same idea of a journey still floating apparently through her head, she proceeded, in a hurried and interrupted manner,—'Call Miss Neville—What do you mean by Lady Geraldin? I said Eveline Neville, not Lady Geraldin— there's no Lady Geraldin; tell her that, and bid her change her wet gown, and no' look sae pale. Bairn! what should she do wi' a bairn?—maidens hae nane, I trow.—Teresa—Teresa—my lady calls us!—Bring a candle;—the grand staircase is as mirk as a Yule midnight—We are coming, my lady!'—With these words she sunk back on the settle, and from thence sidelong to the floor.