by John Galt
CHAPTER XXII
When my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that Elspahad conferred with Lucky Kilfauns concerning the afflicting end andintent of her journey to St Andrews; and that decent woman sympathisingwith her sorrow, telling her of many woful things of the same sort shehad herself known, and how a cousin of her mother's, by the father'sside, had been wiled away from her home by the abbot of Melrose, andnever heard tell of for many a day, till she was discovered, in thecondition of a disconsolate nun, in a convent, far away in Nithsdale.But the great difficulty was to get access to Marion Ruet's bower, forso, from that day, was Mrs Kilspinnie called again by her sister; and,after no little communing, it was proposed by Lucky Kilfauns, that Elspashould go with her to the house of a certain Widow Dingwall, and therefor a time take up her abode, and that my grandfather, after putting onthe Prior's livery, should look about him for the gilly, his formerguide, and, through him, make a tryst, to meet the dissolute madam atthe widow's house. Accordingly the matter was so settled, and whileLucky Kilfauns, in a most motherly and pitiful manner, carried ElspaRuet to the house of the Widow Dingwall, my grandfather went back to thepriory to get the cloak and arms of the Lord James' livery.
When he was equipped, he then went fearless all about the town, and metwith no molestation; only he saw at times divers of the Archbishop'smen, who recollected him, and who, as he passed, stopped and lookedafter him, and whispered to one another and muttered fierce words. Muchhe desired to fall in with that humane Samaritan, Leonard Meldrum, theseneschal of the castle, and fain would he have gone thither to inquirefor him; but, until he had served the turn of the mournful Elspa Ruet,he would not allow any wish of his own to lead him to aught whereinthere was the hazard of any trouble that might balk her pious purpose.
After daunering from place to place, and seeing nothing of thestripling, he was obligated to give twalpennies to a stabler's lad tosearch for him, who soon brought him to the vintner's, where mygrandfather, putting on the look of a losel and roister, gave him agroat, and bade him go to the madam's dwelling, and tell her that hewould be, from the gloaming, all the night at the Widow Dingwall's,where he would rejoice exceedingly if she could come and spend an houror two.
The stripling, so fee'd, was right glad, and made himself so familiartowards my grandfather, that Lucky Kilfauns observing it, the better toconceal their plot, feigned to be most obstreperous, flyting at him withall her pith and bir, and chiding my grandfather, as being as scant o'grace as a gaberlunzie, or a novice of the Dominicans. However, theyworked so well together, that the gilly never misdoubted either her ormy grandfather, and took the errand to his mistress, from whom he sooncame with a light foot and a glaikit eye, saying she would na fail tokeep the tryst.
That this new proof of the progress she was making in guilt and sinmight be the more tenderly broken to her chaste and gentle sister, LuckyKilfauns herself undertook to tell Elspa what had been covenanted toprepare her for the meeting. My grandfather would fain have had a mildermediatrix, for the vintner's worthy wife was wroth against theconcubine, calling her offence redder than the crimson of schism, andblacker than the broth of the burning brimstone of heresy, with manyother vehement terms of indignation, none worse than the wicked womandeserved, though harsh to be heard by a sister, that grieved for herunregenerate condition far more than if she had come from Crail to StAndrews only to lay her head in the coffin.
The paction between all parties being thus covenanted, and LuckyKilfauns gone to prepare the fortitude of Elspa Ruet for the trial itwas to undergo, my grandfather walked out alone to pass the time tillthe trysted hour. It was then late in the afternoon, and as he saunteredalong he could not but observe that something was busy with the mindsand imaginations of the people. Knots of the douce and elderlyshopkeepers were seen standing in the streets with their heads laidtogether; and as he walked towards the priory he met the provost betweentwo of the bailies, with the dean of guild, coming sedately, and withvery great solemnity in their countenances, down the crown of thecausey, heavily laden with magisterial fears. He stopped to look atthem, and he remarked that they said little to one another, but whatthey did say seemed to be words of weight; and when any of their friendsand acquaintances happened to pass, they gave them a nod that betokenedmuch sadness of heart.
The cause of all this anxiety was not, in its effects and influence,meted only to the men and magistrates: the women partook of them even toa greater degree. They were seen passing from house to house, out at onedoor and into the next, and their faces were full of strange matters.One in particular, whom my grandfather noticed coming along, was oftenaddressed with brief questions, and her responses were seemingly asawful as an oracle's. She was an aged carlin, who, in her day, had beena midwife, but having in course of time waxed old, and being thensomewhat slackened in the joints of the right side by a paralytic, sheeked out the weakly remainder of her thread of life in visitations amongthe families that, in her abler years, she had assisted to increase andmultiply. She was then returning home after spending the day, as mygrandfather afterwards heard from the Widow Dingwall, with the provost'sdaughter, at whose birth she had been the howdy, and who, being marriedsome months, had sent to consult her anent a might-be occasion.
As she came toddling along, with pitty-patty steps, in a rose satinmantle that she got as a blithemeat gift when she helped the youngmaster of Elcho into the world, drawn close over her head, and leaningon a staff with her right hand, while in her left she carried a Flanderspig of strong ale, with a clout o'er the mouth to keep it from jawping,scarcely a door or entry mouth was she allowed to pass, but she wasobligated to stop and speak, and what she said appeared to be tidings ofno comfort.
All these things bred wonder and curiosity in the breast of mygrandfather, who, not being acquaint with any body that he saw, did notlike for some time to inquire; but at last his diffidence and modestywere overcome by the appearance of a strong party of the Archbishop'sarmed retainers, followed by a mob of bairns and striplings, yelling,and scoffing at them with bitter taunts and many titles of derision; andon inquiring at a laddie what had caused the consternation in the town,and the passage of so many soldiers from the castle, he was told thatthey expected John Knox the day following, and that he was mindet topreach, but the Archbishop has resolved no to let him. It was even so;for the Lord James Stuart, who possessed a deep and forecasting spirit,had, soon after my grandfather's arrival with the Reformer's answer,made the news known to try the temper of the inhabitants and burghers.But, saving this marvelling and preparation, nothing farther of a publicnature took place that night; so that, a short time before the hourappointed, my grandfather went to the house of Widow Dingwall, where hefound Elspa Ruet sitting very disconsolate in a chamber by herself,weeping bitterly at the woful account which Lucky Kilfauns had broughtof her sister's loose life, and fearing greatly that all her kindendeavours and humble prayers would be but as water spilt on the ground.