Old Mortality, Complete

by Walter Scott

  CHAPTER XIX.

  Aumerle that was, But that is gone for being Richard's friend; And, madam, you must call him Rutland now. Richard II.

  The scene of explanation was hastily removed from the little kitchen toMrs. Wilson's own matted room,--the very same which she had occupied ashousekeeper, and which she continued to retain. "It was," she said,"better secured against sifting winds than the hall, which she had founddangerous to her rheumatisms, and it was more fitting for her use thanthe late Milnwood's apartment, honest man, which gave her sad thoughts;"and as for the great oak parlour, it was never opened but to be aired,washed, and dusted, according to the invariable practice of the family,unless upon their most solemn festivals. In the matted room, therefore,they were settled, surrounded by pickle-pots and conserves of all kinds,which the ci-devant housekeeper continued to compound, out of mere habit,although neither she herself, nor any one else, ever partook of thecomfits which she so regularly prepared.

  Morton, adapting his narrative to the comprehension of his auditor,informed her briefly of the wreck of the vessel and the loss of allhands, excepting two or three common seamen who had early secured theskiff, and were just putting off from the vessel when he leaped from thedeck into their boat, and unexpectedly, as well as contrary to theirinclination, made himself partner of their voyage and of their safety.Landed at Flushing, he was fortunate enough to meet with an old officerwho had been in service with his father. By his advice, he shunned goingimmediately to the Hague, but forwarded his letters to the court of theStadtholder.

  "Our prince," said the veteran, "must as yet keep terms with hisfather-in-law and with your King Charles; and to approach him in thecharacter of a Scottish malecontent would render it imprudent for him todistinguish you by his favour. Wait, therefore, his orders, withoutforcing yourself on his notice; observe the strictest prudence andretirement; assume for the present a different name; shun the company ofthe British exiles; and, depend upon it, you will not repent yourprudence."

  The old friend of Silas Morton argued justly. After a considerable timehad elapsed, the Prince of Orange, in a progress through the UnitedStates, came to the town where Morton, impatient at his situation and theincognito which he was obliged to observe, still continued, nevertheless,to be a resident. He had an hour of private interview assigned, in whichthe prince expressed himself highly pleased with his intelligence, hisprudence, and the liberal view which he seemed to take of the factions ofhis native country, their motives and their purposes.

  "I would gladly," said William, "attach you to my own person; but thatcannot be without giving offence in England. But I will do as much foryou, as well out of respect for the sentiments you have expressed, as forthe recommendations you have brought me. Here is a commission in a Swissregiment at present in garrison in a distant province, where you willmeet few or none of your countrymen. Continue to be Captain Melville, andlet the name of Morton sleep till better days."

  "Thus began my fortune," continued Morton; "and my services have, onvarious occasions, been distinguished by his Royal Highness, until themoment that brought him to Britain as our political deliverer. Hiscommands must excuse my silence to my few friends in Scotland; and Iwonder not at the report of my death, considering the wreck of thevessel, and that I found no occasion to use the letters of exchange withwhich I was furnished by the liberality of some of them,--a circumstancewhich must have confirmed the belief that I had perished."

  "But, dear hinny," asked Mrs. Wilson, "did ye find nae Scotch body at thePrince of Oranger's court that kend ye? I wad hae thought Morton o'Milnwood was kend a' through the country."

  "I was purposely engaged in distant service," said Morton, "until aperiod when few, without as deep and kind a motive of interest as yours,Ailie, would have known the stripling Morton in Major-General Melville."

  "Malville was your mother's name," said Mrs. Wilson; "but Morton soundsfar bonnier in my auld lugs. And when ye tak up the lairdship, ye mauntak the auld name and designation again."

  "I am like to be in no haste to do either the one or the other, Ailie,for I have some reasons for the present to conceal my being alive fromevery one but you; and as for the lairdship of Milnwood, it is in as goodhands."

  "As gude hands, hinny!" re-echoed Ailie; "I'm hopefu' ye are no meaningmine? The rents and the lands are but a sair fash to me. And I'm owerfailed to tak a helpmate, though Wylie Mactrickit the writer was verypressing, and spak very civilly; but I 'm ower auld a cat to draw thatstrae before me. He canna whilliwhaw me as he's dune mony a ane. And thenI thought aye ye wad come back, and I wad get my pickle meal and my soupmilk, and keep a' things right about ye as I used to do in your puiruncle's time, and it wad be just pleasure eneugh for me to see ye thriveand guide the gear canny. Ye'll hae learned that in Holland, I'sewarrant, for they're thrifty folk there, as I hear tell.--But ye'll befor keeping rather a mair house than puir auld Milnwood that's gave; and,indeed, I would approve o' your eating butchermeat maybe as aften asthree times a-week,--it keeps the wind out o' the stamack."

  "We will talk of all this another time," said Morton, surprised at thegenerosity upon a large scale which mingled in Ailie's thoughts andactions with habitual and sordid parsimony, and at the odd contrastbetween her love of saving and indifference to self-acquisition. "Youmust know," he continued, "that I am in this country only for a few dayson some special business of importance to the Government, and therefore,Ailie, not a word of having seen me. At some other time I will acquaintyou fully with my motives and intentions."

  "E'en be it sae, my jo," replied Ailie, "I can keep a secret like myneighbours; and weel auld Milnwood kend it, honest man, for he tauld mewhere he keepit his gear, and that's what maist folk like to hae asprivate as possibly may be.--But come awa wi' me, hinny, till I show yethe oak-parlour how grandly it's keepit, just as if ye had been expectedhaine every day,--I loot naebody sort it but my ain hands. It was a kindo' divertisement to me, though whiles the tear wan into my ee, and I saidto mysell, What needs I fash wi' grates and carpets and cushions and themuckle brass candlesticks ony mair? for they'll ne'er come hame thataught it rightfully."

  With these words she hauled him away to this sanctum sanctorum, thescrubbing and cleaning whereof was her daily employment, as its highstate of good order constituted the very pride of her heart. Morton, ashe followed her into the room, underwent a rebuke for not "dighting hisshune," which showed that Ailie had not relinquished her habits ofauthority. On entering the oak-parlour he could not but recollect thefeelings of solemn awe with which, when a boy, he had been affected athis occasional and rare admission to an apartment which he then supposedhad not its equal save in the halls of princes. It may be readilysupposed that the worked-worsted chairs, with their short ebony legs andlong upright backs, had lost much of their influence over his mind; thatthe large brass andirons seemed diminished in splendour; that the greenworsted tapestry appeared no masterpiece of the Arras loom; and that theroom looked, on the whole, dark, gloomy, and disconsolate. Yet there weretwo objects, "The counterfeit presentment of two brothers," which,dissimilar as those described by Hamlet, affected his mind with a varietyof sensations. One full-length portrait represented his father incomplete armour, with a countenance indicating his masculine anddetermined character; and the other set forth his uncle, in velvet andbrocade, looking as if he were ashamed of his own finery, though entirelyindebted for it to the liberality of the painter.

  "It was an idle fancy," Ailie said, "to dress the honest auld man in thaeexpensive fal-lalls that he ne'er wore in his life, instead o' his douceRaploch grey, and his band wi' the narrow edging."

  In private, Morton could not help being much of her opinion; for anythingapproaching to the dress of a gentleman sate as ill on the ungainlyperson of his relative as an open or generous expression would have doneon his mean and money-making features. He now extricated himself fromAilie to visit some of his haunts in the neighbouring wood, w
hile her ownhands made an addition to the dinner she was preparing,--an incident nootherwise remarkable than as it cost the life of a fowl, which, for anyevent of less importance than the arrival of Henry Morton, might havecackled on to a good old age ere Ailie could have been guilty of theextravagance of killing and dressing it. The meal was seasoned by talk ofold times and by the plans which Ailie laid out for futurity, in whichshe assigned her young master all the prudential habits of her old one,and planned out the dexterity with which she was to exercise her duty asgovernante. Morton let the old woman enjoy her day-dreams andcastle-building during moments of such pleasure, and deferred till somefitter occasion the communication of his purpose again to return andspend his life upon the Continent.

  His next care was to lay aside his military dress, which he consideredlikely to render more difficult his researches after Burley. He exchangedit--for a grey doublet and cloak, formerly his usual attire at Milnwood,and which Mrs. Wilson produced from a chest of walnut-tree, wherein shehad laid them aside, without forgetting carefully to brush and air themfrom time to time. Morton retained his sword and fire-arms, without whichfew persons travelled in those unsettled times. When he appeared in hisnew attire, Mrs. Wilson was first thankful "that they fitted him saedecently, since, though he was nae fatter, yet he looked mair manly thanwhen he was taen frae Milnwood."

  Next she enlarged on the advantage of saving old clothes to be what shecalled "beet-masters to the new," and was far advanced in the history ofa velvet cloak belonging to the late Milnwood, which had first beenconverted to a velvet doublet, and then into a pair of breeches, andappeared each time as good as new, when Morton interrupted her account ofits transmigration to bid her good-by.

  He gave, indeed, a sufficient shock to her feelings, by expressing thenecessity he was under of proceeding on his journey that evening.

  "And where are ye gaun? And what wad ye do that for? And whar wad yesleep but in your ain house, after ye hae been sae mony years frae hame?"

  "I feel all the unkindness of it, Ailie, but it must be so; and that wasthe reason that I attempted to conceal myself from you, as I suspectedyou would not let me part from you so easily."

  "But whar are ye gaun, then?" said Ailie, once more. "Saw e'er mortal eenthe like o' you, just to come ae moment, and flee awa like an arrow outof a bow the neist?"

  "I must go down," replied Morton, "to Niel Blane the Piper's Howff; hecan give me a bed, I suppose?"

  "A bed? I'se warrant can he," replied Ailie, "and gar ye pay weel for 'tinto the bargain. Laddie, I daresay ye hae lost your wits in thae foreignparts, to gang and gie siller for a supper and a bed, and might hae baithfor naething, and thanks t' ye for accepting them."

  "I assure you, Ailie," said Morton, desirous to silence herremonstrances, "that this is a business of great importance, in which Imay be a great gainer, and cannot possibly be a loser."

  "I dinna see how that can be, if ye begin by gieing maybe the feck o'twal shillings Scots for your supper; but young folks are ayeventuresome, and think to get siller that way. My puir auld master tooka surer gate, and never parted wi' it when he had anes gotten 't."

  Persevering in his desperate resolution, Morton took leave of Ailie, andmounted his horse to proceed to the little town, after exacting a solemnpromise that she would conceal his return until she again saw or heardfrom him.

  "I am not very extravagant," was his natural reflection, as he trottedslowly towards the town; "but were Ailie and I to set up house together,as she proposes, I think my profusion would break the good old creature'sheart before a week were out."