Redgauntlet: A Tale Of The Eighteenth Century

‘He means MAD,’ said the party appealed to, thrown off his guard by impatience of this protracted discussion.

‘Ye have it – ye have it,’ said Peter; ‘that is, not clean skivie, but – ’

Here he stopped, and fixed his eye on the person he addressed with an air of joyful recognition. – ‘Aye, aye, Mr. Herries of Birrenswork, is this your ainsell in blood and bane? I thought ye had been hanged at Kennington Common, or Hairiebie, or some of these places, after the bonny ploy ye made in the Forty-five.’

‘I believe you are mistaken, friend,’ said Herries, sternly, with whose name and designation I was thus made unexpectedly acquainted.

‘The deil a bit,’ answered the undaunted Peter Peebles; I mind ye weel, for ye lodged in my house the great year of Forty-five, for a great year it was; the Grand Rebellion broke out, and my cause – the great cause – Peebles against Plainstanes, ET PER CONTRA – was called in the beginning of the winter session, and would have been heard, but that there was a surcease of justice, with your plaids, and your piping, and your nonsense.’

‘I tell you, fellow,’ said Herries, yet more fiercely, ‘you have confused me with some of the other furniture of your crazy pate.’

‘Speak like a gentleman, sir,’ answered Peebles; ‘these are not legal phrases, Mr. Herries of Birrenswork. Speak in form of law, or I sall bid ye gude day, sir. I have nae pleasure in speaking to proud folk, though I am willing to answer onything in a legal way; so if you are for a crack about auld langsyne, and the splores that you and Captain Redgimlet used to breed in my house, and the girded cask of brandy that ye drank and ne’er thought of paying for it (not that I minded it muckle in thae days, though I have felt a lack of it sin syne), why I will waste an hour on ye at ony time. – and where is Captain Redgimlet now? he was a wild chap, like yoursell, though they arena sae keen after you poor bodies for these some years bygane; the heading and hanging is weel ower now – awful job – awful job – will ye try my sneeshing?’

He concluded his desultory speech by thrusting out his large bony paw, filled with a Scottish mull of huge dimensions, which Herries, who had been standing like one petrified by the assurance of this unexpected address, rejected with a contemptuous motion of his hand, which spilled some of the contents of the box.

‘Aweel, aweel,’ said Peter Peebles, totally unabashed by the repulse, ‘e’en as ye like, a wilful man maun hae his way; but,’ he added, stooping down and endeavouring to gather the spilled snuff from the polished floor, ‘I canna afford to lose my sneeshing for a’ that ye are gumple-foisted wi’ me.’

My attention had been keenly awakened, during this extraordinary and unexpected scene. I watched, with as much attention as my own agitation permitted me to command, the effect produced on the parties concerned. It was evident that our friend, Peter Peebles, had unwarily let out something which altered the sentiments of Justice Foxley and his clerk towards Mr. Herries, with whom, until he was known and acknowledged under that name, they had appeared to be so intimate. They talked with each other aside, looked at a paper or two which the clerk selected from the contents of a huge black pocket-book, and seemed, under the influence of fear and uncertainty, totally at a loss what line of conduct to adopt.

Herries made a different, and far more interesting figure. However little Peter Peebles might resemble the angel Ithuriel, the appearance of Herries, his high and scornful demeanour, vexed at what seemed detection yet fearless of the consequences, and regarding the whispering magistrate and his clerk with looks in which contempt predominated over anger or anxiety, bore, in my opinion, no slight resemblance to with which the poet has invested the detected King of the powers of the air.

the regal port

And faded splendour wan

As he glanced round, with a look which he had endeavoured to compose to haughty indifference, his eye encountered mine, and, I thought, at the first glance sank beneath it. But he instantly rallied his natural spirit, and returned me one of those extraordinary looks, by which he could contort so strangely the wrinkles on his forehead. I started; but, angry at myself for my pusillanimity, I answered him by a look of the same kind, and catching the reflection of my countenance in a large antique mirror which stood before me, I started again at the real or imaginary resemblance which my countenance, at that moment, bore to that of Herries. Surely my fate is somehow strangely interwoven with that of this mysterious individual. I had no time at present to speculate upon the subject, for the subsequent conversation demanded all my attention.

The Justice addressed Herries, after a pause of about five minutes, in which, all parties seemed at some loss how to proceed. He spoke with embarrassment, and his faltering voice, and the long intervals which divided his sentences, seemed to indicate fear of him whom he addressed.

‘Neighbour,’ he said, ‘I could not have thought this; or, if I – eh – DID think – in a corner of my own mind as it were – that you, I say – that you might have unluckily engaged in – eh – the matter of the Forty-five – there was still time to have forgot all that.’

‘And is it so singular that a man should have been out in the Forty-five?’ said Herries, with contemptuous composure; – ‘your father, I think, Mr. Foxley, was out with Derwentwater in the Fifteen.’

‘And lost half of his estate,’ answered Foxley, with more rapidity than usual; ‘and was very near – hem – being hanged into the boot. But this is – another guess job – for – eh – Fifteen is not Forty-five; and my father had a remission, and you, I take it, have none.’

‘Perhaps I have,’ said Herries indifferently; ‘or if I have not, I am but in the case of half a dozen others whom government do not think worth looking after at this time of day, so they give no offence or disturbance.’

‘But you have given both, sir,’ said Nicholas Faggot, the clerk, who, having some petty provincial situation, as I have since understood, deemed himself bound to be zealous for government, ‘Mr. Justice Foxley cannot be answerable for letting you pass free, now your name and surname have been spoken plainly out. There are warrants out against you from the Secretary of State’s office.’

‘A proper allegation, Mr. Attorney! that, at the distance of so many years, the Secretary of State should trouble himself about the unfortunate relics of a ruined cause,’ answered Mr. Herries.

‘But if it be so,’ said the clerk, who seemed to assume more confidence upon the composure of Herries’s demeanour; ‘and if cause has been given by the conduct of a gentleman himself, who hath been, it is alleged, raking up old matters, and mixing them with new subjects of disaffection – I say, if it be so, I should advise the party, in his wisdom, to surrender himself quietly into the lawful custody of the next Justice of Peace – Mr. Foxley, suppose – where, and by whom, the matter should be regularly inquired into. I am only putting a case,’ he added, watching with apprehension the effect which his words were likely to produce upon the party to whom they were addressed.

‘And were I to receive such advice,’ said Herries, with the same composure as before – ‘putting the case, as you say, Mr. Faggot – I should request to see the warrant which countenanced such a scandalous proceeding.’

Mr. Nicholas, by way of answer, placed in his hand a paper, and seemed anxiously to expect the consequences which were to ensue. Mr. Herries looked it over with the same equanimity as before, and then continued, ‘And were such a scrawl as this presented to me in my own house, I would throw it into the chimney, and Mr. Faggot upon the top of it.’

Accordingly, seconding the word with the action, he flung the warrant into the fire with one hand, and fixed the other, with a stern and irresistible grip, on the breast of the attorney, who, totally unable to contend with him, in either personal strength or mental energy, trembled like a chicken in the raven’s clutch. He got off, however, for the fright; for Herries, having probably made him fully sensible of the strength of his grasp, released him, with a scornful laugh.

‘Deforcement – spulzie-stouthrief – masterful rescue!’ exclaimed Peter Peebles, scandalized at the resistance offered to the law in the person of Nicholas Faggot. But his shrill exclamations were drowned in the thundering voice of Herries, who, calling upon Cristal Nixon, ordered him to take the bawling fool downstairs, fill his belly, and then give him a guinea, and thrust him out of doors. Under such injunctions, Peter easily suffered himself to be withdrawn from the scene.

Herries then turned to the Justice, whose visage, wholly abandoned by the rubicund hue which so lately beamed upon it, hung out the same pale livery as that of his dismayed clerk. ‘Old friend and acquaintance,’ he said, ‘you came here at my request on a friendly errand, to convince this silly young man of the right which I have over his person for the present. I trust you do not intend to make your visit the pretext of disquieting me about other matters? All the world knows that I have been living at large, in these northern counties, for some months, not to say years, and might have been apprehended at any time, had the necessities of the state required, or my own behaviour deserved it. But no English magistrate has been ungenerous enough to trouble a gentleman under misfortune, on account of political opinions and disputes which have been long ended by the success of the reigning powers. I trust, my good friend, you will not endanger yourself by taking any other view of the subject than you have done ever since we were acquainted?’

The Justice answered with more readiness, as well as more spirit than usual, ‘Neighbour Ingoldsby – what you say – is – eh – in some sort true; and when you were coming and going at markets, horse-races, and cock-fights, fairs, hunts, and such-like – it was – eh – neither my business nor my wish to dispel – I say – to inquire into and dispel the mysteries which hung about you; for while you were a good companion in the field, and over a bottle now and then – I did not – eh – think it necessary to ask – into your private affairs. And if I thought you were – ahem – somewhat unfortunate in former undertakings, and enterprises, and connexions, which might cause you to live unsettledly and more private, I could have – eh – very little pleasure – to aggravate your case by interfering, or requiring explanations, which are often more easily asked than given. But when there are warrants and witnesses to names – and those names, christian and surname, belong to – eh – an attainted person – charged – I trust falsely – with – ahem-taking advantage of modern broils and heart-burnings to renew our civil disturbances, the case is altered; and I must – ahem – do my duty.’

The Justice, got on his feet as he concluded this speech, and looked as bold as he could. I drew close beside him and his clerk, Mr. Faggot, thinking the moment favourable for my own liberation, and intimated to Mr. Foxley my determination to stand by him. But Mr. Herries only laughed at the menacing posture which we assumed. ‘My good neighbour,’ said he, ‘you talk of a witness. Is yon crazy beggar a fit witness in an affair of this nature?’

‘But you do not deny that you are Mr. Herries of Birrenswork, mentioned in the Secretary of State’s warrant?’ said Mr. Foxley.

‘How can I deny or own anything about it?’ said Herries, with a sneer. ‘There is no such warrant in existence now; its ashes, like the poor traitor whose doom it threatened, have been dispersed to the four winds of heaven. There is now no warrant in the world.’

‘But you will not deny,’ said the Justice, ‘that you were the person named in it; and that – eh – your own act destroyed it?’

‘I will neither deny my name nor my actions, Justice,’ replied Mr. Herries, ‘when called upon by competent authority to avow or defend them. But I will resist all impertinent attempts either to intrude into my private motives, or to control my person. I am quite well prepared to do so; and I trust that you, my good neighbour and brother sportsman, in your expostulation, and my friend Mr. Nicholas Faggot here, in his humble advice and petition that I should surrender myself, will consider yourselves as having amply discharged your duty to King George and government.’

The cold and ironical tone in which he made this declaration; the look and attitude, so nobly expressive of absolute confidence in his own superior strength and energy, seemed to complete the indecision which had already shown itself on the side of those whom he addressed.

The Justice looked to the clerk – the clerk to the Justice; the former HA’D, EH’D, without bringing forth an articulate syllable; the latter only said, ‘As the warrant is destroyed, Mr. Justice, I presume you do not mean to proceed with the arrest?’

‘Hum – aye – why, no – Nicholas – it would not be quite advisable – and as the Forty-five was an old affair – and – hem – as my friend here will, I hope, see his error – that is, if he has not seen it already – and renounce the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender – I mean no harm, neighbour – I think we – as we have no POSSE, or constables, or the like – should order our horses – and, in one word, look the matter over.’

‘Judiciously resolved,’ said the person whom this decision affected; ‘but before you go, I trust you will drink and be friends?’

‘Why,’ said the Justice, rubbing his brow, ‘our business has been – hem – rather a thirsty one.’

‘Cristal Nixon,’ said Mr. Herries, ‘let us have a cool tankard instantly, large enough to quench the thirst of the whole commission.’

While Cristal was absent on this genial errand, there was a pause, of which I endeavoured to avail myself by bringing back the discourse to my own concerns. ‘Sir,’ I said to Justice Foxley, ‘I have no direct business with your late discussion with Mr. Herries, only just thus far – You leave me, a loyal subject of King George, an unwilling prisoner in the hands of a person whom you have reason to believe unfriendly to the king’s cause. I humbly submit that this is contrary to your duty as a magistrate, and that you ought to make Mr. Herries aware of the illegality of his proceedings, and take steps for my rescue, either upon the spot, or, at least, as soon as possible after you have left this case’ —

‘Young man,’ said Mr. Justice Foxley, ‘I would have you remember you are under the power, the lawful power – ahem – of your guardian.’

‘He calls himself so, indeed,’ I replied; ‘but he has shown no evidence to establish so absurd a claim; and if he had, his circumstances, as an attainted traitor excepted from pardon, would void such a right if it existed. I do therefore desire you, Mr. Justice, and you, his clerk, to consider my situation, and afford me relief at your peril.’

‘Here is a young fellow now,’ said the Justice, with much-embarrassed looks, ‘thinks that I carry the whole statute law of England in my head, and a POSSE COMITATUS to execute them in my pocket! Why, what good would my interference do? – but – hum – eh – I will speak to your guardian in your favour.’

He took Mr. Herries aside, and seemed indeed to urge something upon him with much earnestness; and perhaps such a species of intercession was all which, in the circumstances, I was entitled to expect from him.

They often looked at me as they spoke together; and as Cristal Nixon entered with a huge four-pottle tankard, filled with the beverage his master had demanded, Herries turned away from Mr. Foxley somewhat impatiently, saying with emphasis, ‘I give you my word of honour, that you have not the slightest reason to apprehend anything on his account.’ He then took up the tankard, and saying aloud in Gaelic, ‘SLAINT AN REY,’ [The King’s health.] just tasted the liquor, and handed the tankard to Justice Foxley, who, to avoid the dilemma of pledging him to what might be the Pretender’s health, drank to Mr. Herries’s own, with much pointed solemnity, but in a draught far less moderate.

The clerk imitated the example of his principal, and I was fain to follow their example, for anxiety and fear are at least as thirsty as sorrow is said to be. In a word, we exhausted the composition of ale, sherry, lemon-juice, nutmeg, and other good things, stranded upon the silver bottom of the tankard the huge toast, as well as the roasted orange, which had whilom floated jollily upon the brim, and rendered legible Dr. Byrom’s celebrated lines engraved thereon —

  God bless the King! – God bless the Faith’s defender!  God bless – No harm in blessing – the Pretender.  Who that Pretender is, and who that King, —  God bless us all! – is quite another thing.

I had time enough to study this effusion of the Jacobite muse, while the Justice was engaged in the somewhat tedious ceremony of taking leave. That of Mr. Faggot was less ceremonious; but I suspect something besides empty compliment passed betwixt him and Mr. Herries; for I remarked that the latter slipped a piece of paper into the hand of the former, which might perhaps be a little atonement for the rashness with which he had burnt the warrant, and imposed no gentle hand on the respectable minion of the law by whom it was exhibited; and I observed that he made this propitiation in such a manner as to be secret from the worthy clerk’s principal.

When this was arranged, the party took leave of each other with much formality on the part of Squire Foxley, amongst whose adieus the following phrase was chiefly remarkable: ‘I presume you do not intend to stay long in these parts?’

‘Not for the present, Justice, you may be sure; there are good reasons to the contrary. But I have no doubt of arranging my affairs so that we shall speedily have sport together again.’

He went to wait upon the Justice to the courtyard; and, as he did so, commanded Cristal Nixon to see that I returned into my apartment. Knowing it would be to no purpose to resist or tamper with that stubborn functionary, I obeyed in silence, and was once more a prisoner in my former quarters.

CHAPTER VIII

LATIMER’S JOURNAL, IN CONTINUATION

I spent more than an hour, after returning to the apartment which I may call my prison, in reducing to writing the singular circumstances which I had just witnessed. Methought I could now form some guess at the character of Mr. Herries, upon whose name and situation the late scene had thrown considerable light – one of those fanatical Jacobites, doubtless, whose arms, not twenty years since, had shaken the British throne, and some of whom, though their party daily diminished in numbers, energy, and power, retained still an inclination to renew the attempt they had found so desperate. He was indeed perfectly different from the sort of zealous Jacobites whom it had been my luck hitherto to meet with. Old ladies of family over their hyson, and grey-haired lairds over their punch, I had often heard utter a little harmless treason; while the former remembered having led down a dance with the Chevalier, and the latter recounted the feats they had performed at Preston, Clifton, and Falkirk.

The disaffection of such persons was too unimportant to excite the attention of government. I had heard, however, that there still existed partisans of the Stuart family of a more daring and dangerous description; men who, furnished with gold from Rome, moved, secretly and in disguise, through the various classes of society, and endeavoured to keep alive the expiring zeal of their party.

I had no difficulty in assigning an important post among this class of persons, whose agency and exertion are only doubted by those who look on the surface of things, to this Mr. Herries, whose mental energies, as well as his personal strength and activity, seemed to qualify him well to act so dangerous a part; and I knew that all along the Western Border, both in England and Scotland, there are so many nonjurors, that such a person may reside there with absolute safety, unless it becomes, in a very especial degree, the object of the government to secure his person; and which purpose, even then, might be disappointed by early intelligence, or, as in the case of Mr. Foxley, by the unwillingness of provincial magistrates to interfere in what is now considered an invidious pursuit of the unfortunate.

There have, however, been rumours lately, as if the present state of the nation or at least of some discontented provinces, agitated by a variety of causes but particularly by the unpopularity of the present administration, may seem to this species of agitators a favourable period for recommencing their intrigues; while, on the other hand, government may not, at such a crisis, be inclined to look upon them with the contempt which a few years ago would have been their most appropriate punishment.

That men should be found rash enough to throw away their services and lives in a desperate cause, is nothing new in history, which abounds with instances of similar devotion – that Mr. Herries is such an enthusiast is no less evident; but all this explains not his conduct towards me. Had he sought to make me a proselyte to his ruined cause, violence and compulsion were arguments very unlikely to prevail with any generous spirit. But even if such were his object, of what use to him could be the acquisition of a single reluctant partisan, who could bring only his own person to support any quarrel which he might adopt? He had claimed over me the rights of a guardian; he had more than hinted that I was in a state of mind which could not dispense with the authority of such a person. Was this man, so sternly desperate in his purpose – he who seemed willing to take on his own shoulders the entire support of a cause which had been ruinous to thousands – was he the person that had the power of deciding on my fate? Was it from him those dangers flowed, to secure me against which I had been educated under such circumstances of secrecy and precaution?

And if this was so, of what nature was the claim which he asserted? – Was it that of propinquity? And did I share the blood, perhaps the features, of this singular being? – Strange as it may seem, a thrill of awe, which shot across my mind at that instant, was not unmingled with a wild and mysterious feeling of wonder, almost amounting to pleasure. I remembered the reflection of my own face in the mirror at one striking moment during the singular interview of the day, and I hastened to the outward apartment to consult a glass which hung there, whether it were possible for my countenance to be again contorted into the peculiar frown which so much resembled the terrific look of Herries. But I folded my brows in vain into a thousand complicated wrinkles, and I was obliged to conclude, either that the supposed mark on my brow was altogether imaginary, or that it could not be called forth by voluntary effort; or, in fine, what seemed most likely, that it was such a resemblance as the imagination traces in the embers of a wood fire, or among the varied veins of marble, distinct at one time, and obscure or invisible at another, according as the combination of lines strikes the eye or impresses the fancy.

While I was moulding my visage like a mad player, the door suddenly opened, and the girl of the house entered. Angry and ashamed at being detected in my singular occupation, I turned round sharply, and, I suppose, chance produced the change on my features which I had been in vain labouring to call forth.

The girl started back, with her ‘Don’t ya look so now – don’t ye, for love’s sake – you be as like the ould squoire as – But here a comes,’ she said, huddling away out of the room; ‘and if you want a third, there is none but ould Harry, as I know of, that can match ye for a brent broo!’

As the girl muttered this exclamation, and hastened out of the room, Herries entered. He stopped on observing that I had looked again to the mirror, anxious to trace the look by which the wench had undoubtedly been terrified. He seemed to guess what was passing in my mind, for, as I turned towards him, he observed, ‘Doubt not that it is stamped on your forehead – the fatal mark of our race; though it is not now so apparent as it will become when age and sorrow, and the traces of stormy passions and of bitter penitence, shall have drawn their furrows on your brow.’

‘Mysterious man,’ I replied, ‘I know not of what you speak; your language is as dark as your purposes!’