Tales from Blackwood Volume Vi Part 4

The fact was, that the noisy gentleman in the rooms above, as soon as he caught the tones of Mr Perkins's voice at Carey's door, had entered into the joke with exceeding gusto, well aware that the visit was really intended as a compliment to his own vocal powers. Carey's sudden bolt puzzled him rather; but as soon as he heard Mr Perkins's foot-steps take the direction of the porter's lodge, he walked softly down-stairs to the field of action, and, antic.i.p.ating in some degree what would follow, bundled up together sheets, blankets, pillow, dressing apparatus, and all other signs and tokens of occupation, and made off with them to his own rooms, sporting the oak behind him, and thus completing the mystification.

As the facts of the case were pretty sure to transpire in course of time, Horace took the safe course of getting his cousin out of college next morning, and calling on Mr Perkins with a full explanation of the circ.u.mstances, and apologies for Carey as a stranger unacquainted with the police regulations of their learned body, and the respect due thereto. Of course the man in authority was obliged to be gracious, as Leicester could not well be answerable for all the faults of his family; but there never from that time forth happened a row of any kind with which he did not in his own mind, probably unconsciously, a.s.sociate poor Horace.

Whether my readers will set down Horace Leicester as a rowing man or not, is a point which I leave to their merciful consideration: a reading man was a t.i.tle which he never aspired to. He took a very creditable degree in due season, and was placed in the fourth cla.s.s with a man who took up a very long list of books, and was supposed to have read himself stupid.

"He ought to have done a good deal more," said one of the tutors; "he had it in him." "I think he was lucky not to have been plucked, myself,"

said Mr Perkins; "he was a very noisy man."

THE EMERALD STUDS

A REMINISCENCE OF THE CIRCUIT.

BY PROFESSOR AYTOUN.

[_MAGA._ AUGUST 1847.]

CHAPTER I.

"Hallo, Tom! Are you not up yet? Why, man, the judges have gone down to the court half an hour ago, escorted by the most ragged regiment of ruffians that ever handled a Lochaberaxe."

Such was my matutinal salutation to my friend Thomas Strachan, as I entered his room on a splendid spring morning. Tom and I were early college allies. We had attended, or rather, to speak more correctly, taken out tickets for the different law cla.s.ses during the same sessions. We had fulminated together within the walls of the Juridical Society on legal topics which might have broken the heart of Erskine, and rewarded ourselves diligently thereafter with the usual relaxations of a crab and a comfortable tumbler. We had aggravated the same grinder with our deplorable exposition of the Pandects; and finally a.s.sumed, on the same day, the full-blown honours of the Advocate's wig and gown. Nor did our fraternal parallel end there: for although we had walked the boards of the Parliament House with praiseworthy diligence for a couple of sessions, neither of us had experienced the dulcet sensation which is communicated to the palm by the contact of the first professional guinea. In vain did we attempt to insinuate ourselves into the good graces of the agents, and coin our intellects into such jocular remarks as are supposed to find most favour in the eyes of facetious pract.i.tioners. In vain did I carry about with me, for a whole week, an artificial process most skilfully made up; and in vain did Tom compound and circulate a delectable ditty, ent.i.tled "The Song of the Multiplepoinding." Not a single solicitor would listen to our wooing, or even intrust us with the task of making the simplest motion. I believe they thought me too fast, and Tom too much of a genius; and, therefore, both of us were left among the ranks of the briefless army of the stove.

This would not do. Our souls burned within us with a n.o.ble thirst for legal fame and fees. We held a consultation (without an agent) at the Rainbow, and finally determined that since Edinburgh would not hear us, Jedburgh should have the privilege of monopolising our maiden eloquence at the ensuing justiciary circuit. Jedburgh presents a capital field to the ambition of a youthful advocate. Very few counsel go that way; the cases are usually trifling, and the juries easily bamboozled. It has besides this immense advantage--that should you by any accident happen to break down, n.o.body will in all probability be the wiser for it, provided you have the good sense to ingratiate yourself with the circuit-clerk.

Tom and I arrived at Jedburgh the afternoon before the circuit began. I was not acquainted with a human being within the parliamentary boundaries of that respectable borough, and therefore experienced but a slight spasm of disappointment when informed by the waiter at the inn, that no inquiries had yet been made after me, on the part of writers desirous of professional a.s.sistance. Strachan had been wiser. Somehow or other, he had got a letter of introduction to one Bailie Beerie, a notable civic dignitary of the place; and, accordingly, on presenting his credentials, was invited by that functionary to dinner, with a hint that he "might maybe see a wheen real leddies in the evening." This pointed so plainly to a white choker and dress boots, that Strachan durst not take the liberty of volunteering the attendance of his friend; and accordingly I had been left alone to wile away, as I best might, the tedium of a sluggish evening. Before starting, however, Tom pledged himself to return in time for supper; as he entertained a painful conviction that the party would be excessively slow.

So long as it was light, I amused myself pretty well by strolling along the banks of the river, and enunciating a splendid speech for the panel in an imaginary case of murder. However, before I reached the peroration (which was to consist of a vivid picture of the deathbed of a despairing jury-man, conscience-stricken by the recollection of an erroneous verdict), the shades of evening began to close in; the trouts ceased to leap in the pool, and the rooks desisted from their cawing. I returned to discuss my solitary mutton at the inn; and then, having nothing to do, sat down to a moderate libation, and an odd number of the _Temperance Magazine_, which valuable tract had been left for the reformation of the traveller by some peripatetic disciple of Father Mathew.

Nine o'clock came, but so did not Strachan. I began to wax wroth, muttered anathemas against my faithless friend, rang for the waiter, and--having ascertained the fact that a Masonic Lodge was that evening engaged in celebrating the festival of its peculiar patron--I set out for the purpose of a.s.sisting in the pious and mystic labours of the Brethren of the Jedburgh St Jeremy. At twelve, when I returned to my quarters, escorted by the junior deacon, I was informed that Strachan had not made his appearance, and accordingly I went to bed.

Next morning I found Tom, as already mentioned, in his couch. There was a fine air of negligence in the manner in which his habiliments were scattered over the room. One glazed boot lay within the fender, whilst the other had been chucked into a coal-scuttle; and there were evident marks of mud on the surface of his glossy kerseymeres. Strachan himself looked excessively pale, and the sole rejoinder he made to my preliminary remark was, a request for soda-water.

"Tom," said I, inexpressibly shocked at the implied confession of the nature of his vespers--"I wonder you are not ashamed of yourself! Have you no higher regard for the dignity of the bar you represent, than to expose yourself before a Jedburgh Bailie?"

"Dignity be hanged!" replied the incorrigible Strachan. "Bailie Beerie is a brick, and I won't hear a word against him. But, O Fred! if you only knew what you missed last night! Such a splendid woman--by Jove, sir, a thoroughbred angel. A bust like one of t.i.tian's beauties, and the voice of a lovelorn nightingale!"

"One of the Misses Beerie, I presume. Come, Tom, I think I can fill up your portrait. Hair of the auburn complexion, slightly running into the carrot--skin fair, but freckled--greenish eyes--red elbows--culpable ankles--elephantine waist--and sentiments savouring of the Secession."

"Ring the bell for the waiter, and hold your impious tongue. You never were farther from the mark in your life. The wing of the raven is not more glossy than her hair--and oh, the depth and melting l.u.s.tre of those dark unfathomable eyes! Waiter! a bottle of soda-water, and you may put in a thimbleful of cognac."

"Come, Tom!--none of your ravings. Is this an actual Armida, or a new freak of your own imagination?"

"_Bona fide_--an angel in everything, barring the wings."

"Then how the deuce did such a phenomenon happen to emerge at the Bailie's?"

"That's the very question I was asking myself during the whole time of dinner. She was clearly not a Scotswoman. When she spoke, it was in the sweet low accents of a southern clime; and she waved away the proffered haggis with an air of the prettiest disgust!"

"But the Bailie knew her?"

"Of course he did. I got the whole story out of him after dinner, and, upon my honour, I think it is the most romantic one I ever heard. About a week ago, the lady arrived here without attendants. Some say she came in the mail-coach--others in a dark travelling chariot and pair.

However, what matters it? the jewel can derive no l.u.s.tre or value from the casket!"

"Yes--but one always likes to have some kind of idea of the setting. Get on."

"She seemed in great distress, and inquired whether there were any letters at the post-office addressed to the Honourable Dorothea Percy.

No such epistle was to be found. She then interrogated the landlord, whether an elderly lady, whose appearance she minutely described, had been seen in the neighbourhood of Jedburgh; but except old Mrs Slammingham of Summertrees, who has been bed-ridden for years, there was n.o.body in the county who at all answered to the description. On hearing this, the lady seemed profoundly agitated--shut herself up in a private parlour, and refused all sustenance."

"Had she not a reticule with sandwiches, Tom?"

"Do not tempt me to commit justifiable homicide--you see I am in the act of shaving.--At last the landlady, who is a most respectable person, and who felt deeply interested at the desolate situation of the poor young lady, ventured to solicit an interview. She was admitted. There are moments when the sympathy of even the humblest friend is precious. Miss Percy felt grateful for the interest so displayed, and confided the tale of her griefs to the matronly bosom of the hostess."

"And she told you?"

"No,--but she told Bailie Beerie. That active magistrate thought it his duty to interfere. He waited upon Miss Percy, and from her lips he gathered the full particulars of her history. Percy is not her real name, but she is the daughter of an English peer of very ancient family.

Her father having married a second time, Dorothea was exposed to the persecutions of a low-minded vulgar woman, whose whole ideas were of that mean and mercenary description which characterise the Caucasian race. Naomi Shekels was the offspring of a Jew, and she hated, whilst she envied, the superior charms of the n.o.ble Norman maiden. But she had gained an enormous supremacy over the wavering intellect of the elderly Viscount; and Dorothea was commanded to receive, with submission, the addresses of a loathsome apostate, who had made a prodigious fortune in the railways."

"One of the tribe of Issachar?"

"Exactly. A miscreant whose natural function was the vending of cast habiliments. Conceive, Fred, what the fair young creature must have felt at the bare idea of such shocking spousals! She besought, prayed, implored,--but all in vain. Mammon had taken too deep a root in the paternal heart,--the old coronet had been furbished up by means of Israelitish gold, and the father could not see any degradation in forcing upon his child an alliance similar to his own."

"You interest me excessively."

"Is it not a strange tale?" continued Thomas, adjusting a false collar round his neck. "I knew you would agree with me when I came to the pathetic part. Well, Fred, the altar was decked, the ornaments ready, the Rabbi bespoke----"

"Do you mean to say, Strachan, that Lady Dorothea was to have been married after the fas.h.i.+on of the Jews?"

"I don't know exactly. I think Beerie said it was a Rabbi; but that may have been a flight of his own imagination. However, somebody was ready to have tied the nuptial knot, and all the joys of existence, and its hopes, were about to fade for ever from the vision of my poor Dorothea!"

"_Your_ Dorothea!" cried I in amazement. "Why, Tom--you don't mean to insinuate that you have gone that length already?"

"Did I say mine?" repeated Strachan, looking somewhat embarra.s.sed. "It was a mere figure of speech: you always take one up so uncommonly short.--Nothing remained for her but flight, or submission to the cruel mandate. Like a heroic girl, in whose veins the blood of the old crusaders was bounding, she preferred the former alternative. The only relation to whom she could apply in so delicate a juncture, was an aged aunt, residing somewhere in the north of Scotland. To her she wrote, beseeching her, as she regarded the memory of her buried sister, to receive her miserable child; and she appointed this town, Jedburgh, as the place of meeting."

"But where's the aunt?"

"That's just the mysterious part of the business. The crisis was so imminent that Dorothea could not wait for a reply. She disguised herself,--packed up a few jewels which had been bequeathed to her by her mother,--and, at the dead of night, escaped from her father's mansion.

Judge of her terror when, on arriving here, panting and perhaps pursued, she could obtain no trace whatever of her venerable relative. Alone, inexperienced and unfriended, I tremble to think what might have been her fate, had it not been for the kind humanity of Beerie."

"And what was the Bailie's line of conduct?"

"He behaved to her, Fred, like a parent. He supplied her wants, and invited her to make his house her home, at least until the aunt should appear. But the n.o.ble creature would not subject herself to the weight of so many obligations. She accepted, indeed, his a.s.sistance, but preferred remaining here until she could place herself beneath legitimate guardians.h.i.+p. And doubtless," continued Strachan with fervour, "her good angel is watching over her."

"And this is the whole story?"

"The whole."