She vanished as she spoke, leaving me in astonishment at the mingled character of shrewdness, audacity, and frankness, which her conversation displayed. I despair conveying to you the least idea of her manner, although I have, as nearly as I can remember, imitated her language. In fact, there was a mixture of untaught simplicity, as well as native shrewdness and haughty boldness, in her manner, and all were modified and recommended by the play of the most beautiful features I had ever beheld. It is not to be thought that, however strange and uncommon I might think her liberal and unreserved communications, a young man of two-and-twenty was likely to be severely critical on a beautiful girl of eighteen, for not observing a proper distance towards him. On the contrary, I was equally diverted and flattered by Miss Vernon's confidence, and that notwithstanding her declaration of its being conferred on me solely because I was the first auditor who occurred, of intelligence enough to comprehend it. With the presumption of my age, certainly not diminished by my residence in France, I imagined that well-formed features, and a handsome person, both which I conceived myself to possess, were not unsuitable qualifications for the confidant of a young beauty. My vanity thus enlisted in Miss Vernon's behalf, I was far from judging her with severity, merely for a frankness which I supposed was in some degree justified by my own personal merit; and the feelings of partiality, which her beauty, and the singularity of her situation, were of themselves calculated to excite, were enhanced by my opinion of her penetration and judgment in her choice of a friend.
After Miss Vernon quitted the apartment, the bottle circulated, or rather flew, around the table in unceasing revolution. My foreign education had given me a distaste to intemperance, then and yet too common a vice among my countrymen. The conversation which seasoned such orgies was as little to my taste, and if anything could render it more disgusting, it was the relationship of the company. I therefore seized a lucky opportunity, and made my escape through a side door, leading I knew not whither, rather than endure any longer the sight of father and sons practising the same degrading intemperance, and holding the same coarse and disgusting conversation. I was pursued, of course, as I had expected, to be reclaimed by force, as a deserter from the shrine of Bacchus. When I heard the whoop and hollo, and the tramp of the heavy boots of my pursuers on the winding stair which I was descending, I plainly foresaw I should be overtaken unless I could get into the open air. I therefore threw open a casement in the staircase, which looked into an old-fashioned garden, and as the height did not exceed six feet, I jumped out without hesitation, and soon heard far behind the “hey whoop! stole away! stole away!” of my baffled pursuers. I ran down one alley, walked fast up another; and then, conceiving myself out of all danger of pursuit, I slackened my pace into a quiet stroll, enjoying the cool air which the heat of the wine I had been obliged to swallow, as well as that of my rapid retreat, rendered doubly grateful.
As I sauntered on, I found the gardener hard at his evening employment, and saluted him, as I paused to look at his work.
“Good even, my friend.”
“Gude e'en—gude e'en t'ye,” answered the man, without looking up, and in a tone which at once indicated his northern extraction.
“Fine weather for your work, my friend.”
“It's no that muckle to be compleened o',” answered the man, with that limited degree of praise which gardeners and farmers usually bestow on the very best weather. Then raising his head, as if to see who spoke to him, he touched his Scotch bonnet with an air of respect, as he observed, “Eh, gude safe us!—it's a sight for sair een, to see a gold-laced jeistiecor in the Ha'garden sae late at e'en.”
“A gold-laced what, my good friend?”
“Ou, a jeistiecor*—that's a jacket like your ain, there. They
* Perhaps from the French Juste-au-corps.
hae other things to do wi' them up yonder—unbuttoning them to make room for the beef and the bag-puddings, and the claret-wine, nae doubt—that's the ordinary for evening lecture on this side the border.”
“There's no such plenty of good cheer in your country, my good friend,” I replied, “as to tempt you to sit so late at it.”
“Hout, sir, ye ken little about Scotland; it's no for want of gude vivers—the best of fish, flesh, and fowl hae we, by sybos, ingans, turneeps, and other garden fruit. But we hae mense and discretion, and are moderate of our mouths;—but here, frae the kitchen to the ha', it's fill and fetch mair, frae the tae end of the four-and-twenty till the tother. Even their fast days—they ca' it fasting when they hae the best o' sea-fish frae Hartlepool and Sunderland by land carriage, forbye trouts, grilses, salmon, and a' the lave o't, and so they make their very fasting a kind of luxury and abomination; and then the awfu' masses and matins of the puir deceived souls—But I shouldna speak about them, for your honour will be a Roman, I'se warrant, like the lave.”
“Not I, my friend; I was bred an English presbyterian, or dissenter.”
“The right hand of fellowship to your honour, then,” quoth the gardener, with as much alacrity as his hard features were capable of expressing, and, as if to show that his good-will did not rest on words, he plucked forth a huge horn snuff-box, or mull, as he called it, and proffered a pinch with a most fraternal grin.
Having accepted his courtesy, I asked him if he had been long a domestic at Osbaldistone Hall.
“I have been fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus,” said he, looking towards the building, “for the best part of these four-and-twenty years, as sure as my name's Andrew Fairservice.”
“But, my excellent friend, Andrew Fairservice, if your religion and your temperance are so much offended by Roman rituals and southern hospitality, it seems to me that you must have been putting yourself to an unnecessary penance all this while, and that you might have found a service where they eat less, and are more orthodox in their worship. I dare say it cannot be want of skill which prevented your being placed more to your satisfaction.”
“It disna become me to speak to the point of my qualifications,” said Andrew, looking round him with great complacency; “but nae doubt I should understand my trade of horticulture, seeing I was bred in the parish of Dreepdaily, where they raise lang-kale under glass, and force the early nettles for their spring kale. And, to speak truth, I hae been flitting every term these four-and-twenty years; but when the time comes, there's aye something to saw that I would like to see sawn,—or something to maw that I would like to see mawn,—or something to ripe that I would like to see ripen,—and sae I e'en daiker on wi' the family frae year's end to year's end. And I wad say for certain, that I am gaun to quit at Cannlemas, only I was just as positive on it twenty years syne, and I find mysell still turning up the mouls here, for a' that. Forbye that, to tell your honour the evendown truth, there's nae better place ever offered to Andrew. But if your honour wad wush me to ony place where I wad hear pure doctrine, and hae a free cow's grass, and a cot, and a yard, and mair than ten punds of annual fee, and where there's nae leddy about the town to count the apples, I'se hold mysell muckle indebted t'ye.”
“Bravo, Andrew! I perceive you'll lose no preferment for want of asking patronage.”
“I canna see what for I should,” replied Andrew; “it's no a generation to wait till ane's worth's discovered, I trow.”
“But you are no friend, I observe, to the ladies.”
“Na, by my troth, I keep up the first gardener's quarrel to them. They're fasheous bargains—aye crying for apricocks, pears, plums, and apples, summer and winter, without distinction o' seasons; but we hae nae slices o' the spare rib here, be praised for't! except auld Martha, and she's weel eneugh pleased wi' the freedom o' the berry-bushes to her sister's weans, when they come to drink tea in a holiday in the housekeeper's room, and wi' a wheen codlings now and then for her ain private supper.”
“You forget your young mistress.”
“What mistress do I forget?—whae's that?”
“Your young mistress, Miss Vernon.”
“What! the lassie Vernon?—She's nae mistress o' mine, man. I wish she was her ain mistress; and I wish she mayna be some other body's mistress or it's lang—She's a wild slip that.”
“Indeed!” said I, more interested than I cared to own to myself, or to show to the fellow—“why, Andrew, you know all the secrets of this family.”
“If I ken them, I can keep them,” said Andrew; “they winna work in my wame like harm in a barrel, I'se warrant ye. Miss Die is—but it's neither beef nor brose o' mine.”
And he began to dig with a great semblance of assiduity.
“What is Miss Vernon, Andrew? I am a friend of the family, and should like to know.”
“Other than a gude ane, I'm fearing,” said Andrew, closing one eye hard, and shaking his head with a grave and mysterious look—“something glee'd—your honour understands me?”
“I cannot say I do,” said I, “Andrew; but I should like to hear you explain yourself;” and therewithal I slipped a crown-piece into Andrew's horn-hard hand. The touch of the silver made him grin a ghastly smile, as he nodded slowly, and thrust it into his breeches pocket; and then, like a man who well understood that there was value to be returned, stood up, and rested his arms on his spade, with his features composed into the most important gravity, as for some serious communication.
“Ye maun ken, then, young gentleman, since it imports you to know, that Miss Vernon is”—
Here breaking off, he sucked in both his cheeks, till his lantern jaws and long chin assumed the appearance of a pair of nut-crackers; winked hard once more, frowned, shook his head, and seemed to think his physiognomy had completed the information which his tongue had not fully told.
“Good God!” said I—“so young, so beautiful, so early lost!”
“Troth ye may say sae—she's in a manner lost, body and saul; forby being a Papist, I'se uphaud her for”—and his northern caution prevailed, and he was again silent.
“For what, sir?” said I sternly. “I insist on knowing the plain meaning of all this.”
“On, just for the bitterest Jacobite in the haill shire.”
“Pshaw! a Jacobite?—is that all?”
