up for short cheer.
'We want no music,' said the Master, abruptly.
'Your honour disna ken what ye're refusing, then,' said the fiddler, with the impertinent freedom of his profession. 'I can play, 'Wilt thou do't again,' and 'The Auld Man's Mear's Dead,' sax times better than ever Patie Birnie. I'll get my fiddle in the turning of a coffin-screw.'
'Take yourself away, sir,' said the Marquis.
'And if your honour be a north-country gentleman,' said the persevering minstrel, 'whilk I wad judge from your tongue, I can play 'Liggeram Cosh,' and 'Mullin Dhu,' and 'The Cummers of Athole.''
'Take yourself away, friend; you interrupt our conversation.'
'Or if, under your honour's favour, ye should happen to be a thought honest, I can play (this in a low and confidential tone) 'Killiecrankie,' and 'The King shall hae his ain,' and 'The Auld Stuarts back again'; and the wife at the change-house is a decent, discreet body, neither kens nor cares what toasts are drucken, and what tunes are played, in her house: she's deaf to a'thing but the clink o' the siller.'
The Marquis, who was sometimes suspected of Jacobitism, could not help laughing as he threw the fellow a dollar, and bid him go play to the servants if he had a mind, and leave them at peace.
'Aweel, gentlemen,' said he, 'I am wishing your honours gude day. I'll be a' the better of the dollar, and ye'll be the waur of wanting music, I'se tell ye. But I'se gang hame, and finish the grave in the tuning o' a fiddle-string, lay by my spade, and then get my tother bread-winner, and awa' to your folk, and see if they hae better lugs than their masters.'
CHAPTER XXV.
'I WISHED to tell you, my good kinsman,' said the Marquis, 'now that we are quit of that impertinent fiddler, that I had tried to discuss this love affair of yours with Sir William Ashton's daughter. I never saw the young lady but for a few minutes to-day; so, being a stranger to her personal merits, I pay a compliment to you, and offer her no offence, in saying you might do better.'
'My lord, I am much indebted for the interest you have taken in my affairs,' said Ravenswood. 'I did not intend to have troubled you in any matter concerning Miss Ashton. As my engagement with that young lady has reached your lordship, I can only say, that you must necessarily suppose that I was aware of the objections to my marrying into her father's family, and of course must have been completely satisfied with the reasons by which these objections are overbalanced, since I have proceeded so far in the matter.'
'Nay, Master, if you had heard me out,' said his noble relation, 'you might have spared that observation; for, withotu questioning that you had reasons which seemed to you to counterbalance every other obstacle, I set myself, by every means that it became me to use towards the Ashtons, to persuade them to meet your views.'
'I am obliged to your lordship for your unsolicited intercession,' said Ravenswood; 'especially as I am sure your lordship would never carry it beyond the bounds which it became me to use.'
'Of that,' said the Marquis, 'you may be confident; I myself felt the delicacy of the matter too much to place a gentleman nearly connected with my house in a degrading or dubious situation with these Ashtons. But I pointed out all the advantages of their marrying their daughter into a house so honourable, and so nearly related with the first of Scotland; I explained the exact degree of relationship in which the Ravenswoods stand to ourselves; and I even hinted how political matters were like to turn, and what cards would be trumps next Parliament. I said I regarded you as a son—or a nephew, or so—rather than as a more distant relation; and that I made your affair entirely my own.'
'And what was the issue of your lordship's explanation?' said Ravenswood, in some doubt whether he should resent or express gratitude for his interference.
'Why, the Lord Keeper would have listened to reason,' said the Marquis; 'he is rather unwilling to leave his place, which, in the present view of a change, must be vacated; and, to say truth, he seemed to have a liking for you, and to be sensible of the general advantages to be attained by such a match. But his lady, who is tongue of the trump, Master——'
'What of Lady Ashton, my lord?' said Ravenswood; 'let me know the issue of this extraordinary conference: I can bear it.'
'I am glad of that, kinsman,' said the Marquis, 'for I am ashamed to tell you half what she said. It is enough—her mind is made up, and the mistress of a first-rate boarding-school could not have rejected with more haughty indifference the suit of a half-pay Irish officer, beseeching permission to wait upon the heiress of a West India planter, than Lady Ashton spurned every proposal of mediation which it could at all become me to offer in behalf of you, my good kinsman. I cannot guess what she means. A more honourable connexion she could not form, that's certain. As for money and land, that used to be her husband's business rather than hers; I really think she hates you for having the rank which her husband has not, and perhaps for not having the lands that her goodman has. But I should only vex you to say more about it—here we are at the change-house.'
The Master of Ravenswood paused as he entered the cottage, which reeked through all its crevices, and they were not few, from the exertions of the Marquis's travelling-cooks to supply good cheer, and spread, as it were, a table in the wilderness.
'My Lord Marquis,' said Ravenswood, 'I already mentioned that accident has put your lordship in possession of a secret which, with my consent, should have remained one even to you, my kinsman, for some time. Since the secret was to part from my own custody, and that of the only person besides who was interested in it, I am not sorry it should have reached your lordship's ears, as being fully aware that you are my noble kinsman and friend.'
'You may believe it is safely lodged with me, Master of Ravenswood,' said the Marquis; 'but I should like well to hear you say that you renounced the idea of an alliance which you can hardly pursue without a certain degree of degradation.'
'Of that, my lord, I shall judge,' answered Ravenswood, 'and I hope with delicacy as sensitive as any of my friends. But I have no engagement with Sir William and Lady Ashton. It is with Miss Ashton alone that I have entered upon the subject, and my conduct in the matter shall be entirely ruled by hers. If she continues to prefer me in my poverty to the wealthier suitors whom her friends recommend, I may well make some sacrifice to her sincere affection: I may well surrender to her the less tangible and less palpable advantages of birth, and the deep-rooted prejudices of family hatred. If Miss Lucy Ashton should change her mind on a subject of such delicacy, I trust my friends will be silent on my disappointment, and I shall know how to make my enemies so.'
'Spoke like a gallant young nobleman,' said the Marquis; 'for my part, I have that regard for you, that I should be sorry the thing went on. This Sir William Ashton was a pretty enough pettifogging kind of a lawyer
