Redgauntlet: A Tale Of The Eighteenth Century

‘How long have you been with the party, sirrah?’ said Redgauntlet.

‘Since the raid on the stake-nets,’ said Benjie, with his finger in his mouth.

‘And what made you follow us?’

‘I dauredna stay at hame for the constables,’ replied the boy.

‘And what have you been doing all this time?’

‘Doing, sir? I dinna ken what ye ca’ doing – I have been doing naething,’ said Benjie; then seeing something in Redgauntlet’s eye which was not to be trifled with, he added, ‘Naething but waiting on Maister Cristal Nixon.’

‘Hum! – aye – indeed?’ muttered Redgauntlet. ‘Must Master Nixon bring his own retinue into the field? This must be seen to.’

He was about to pursue his inquiry, when Nixon himself came to him with looks of anxious haste, ‘The Father is come,’ he whispered, ‘and the gentlemen are getting together in the largest room of the house, and they desire to see you. Yonder is your nephew, too, making a noise like a man in Bedlam.’

‘I will look to it all instantly,’ said Redgauntlet. ‘Is the Father lodged as I directed?’

Cristal nodded.

‘Now, then, for the final trial,’ said Redgauntlet. He folded his hands – looked upwards – crossed himself – and after this act of devotion (almost the first which any one had observed him make use of) he commanded Nixon to keep good watch – have his horses and men ready for every emergence – look after the safe custody of the prisoners – but treat them at the same time well and civilly. And, these orders given, he darted hastily into the house.

CHAPTER XXII

NARRATIVE CONTINUED

Redgauntlet’s first course was to the chamber of his nephew. He unlocked the door, entered the apartment, and asked what he wanted, that he made so much noise.

‘I want my liberty,’ said Darsie, who had wrought himself up to a pitch of passion in which his uncle’s wrath had lost its terrors. ‘I desire my liberty, and to be assured of the safety of my beloved friend, Alan Fairford, whose voice I heard but now.’

‘Your liberty shall be your own within half an hour from this period – your friend shall be also set at freedom in due time – and you yourself be permitted to have access to his place of confinement.’

‘This does not satisfy me,’ said Darsie; ‘I must see my friend instantly; he is here, and he is here endangered on my account only – I have heard violent exclamations – the clash of swords. You will gain no point with me unless I have ocular demonstration of his safety.’

‘Arthur – dearest nephew,’ answered Redgauntlet, ‘drive me not mad! Thine own fate – that of thy house – that of thousands – that of Britain herself, are at this moment in the scales; and you are only occupied about the safety of a poor insignificant pettifogger!’

‘He has sustained injury at your hands, then?’ said Darsie, fiercely. ‘I know he has; but if so, not even our relationship shall protect you.’

‘Peace, ungrateful and obstinate fool!’ said Redgauntlet. Yet stay – will you be satisfied if you see this Alan Fairford, the bundle of bombazine – this precious friend of yours – well and sound? Will you, I say, be satisfied with seeing him in perfect safety without attempting to speak to or converse with him?’ Darsie signified his assent. ‘Take hold of my arm, then,’ said Redgauntlet; ‘and do you, niece Lilias, take the other; and beware; Sir Arthur, how you bear yourself.’

Darsie was compelled to acquiesce, sufficiently aware that his uncle would permit him no interview with a friend whose influence would certainly be used against his present earnest wishes, and in some measure contented with the assurance of Fairford’s personal safety.

Redgauntlet led them through one or two passages (for the house, as we have before said, was very irregular, and built at different times) until they entered an apartment, where a man with shouldered carabine kept watch at the door, but readily turned the key for their reception. In this room they found Alan Fairford and the Quaker, apparently in deep conversation with each other. They looked up as Redgauntlet and his party entered; and Alan pulled off his hat and made a profound reverence, which the young lady, who recognized him, – though, masked as she was, he could not know her, – returned with some embarrassment, arising probably from the recollection of the bold step she had taken in visiting him.

Darsie longed to speak, but dared not. His uncle only said, ‘Gentlemen, I know you are as anxious on Mr. Darsie Latimer’s account as he is upon yours. I am commissioned by him to inform you, that he is as well as you are – I trust you will all meet soon. Meantime, although I cannot suffer you to be at large, you shall be as well treated as is possible under your temporary confinement.’

He passed on, without pausing to hear the answers which the lawyer and the Quaker were hastening to prefer; and only waving his hand by way of adieu, made his exit, with the real and the seeming lady whom he had under his charge, through a door at the upper end of the apartment, which was fastened and guarded like that by which they entered.

Redgauntlet next led the way into a very small room; adjoining which, but divided by a partition, was one of apparently larger dimensions; for they heard the trampling of the heavy boots of the period, as if several persons were walking to and fro and conversing in low and anxious whispers.

‘Here,’ said Redgauntlet to his nephew, as he disencumbered him from the riding-skirt and the mask, ‘I restore you to yourself, and trust you will lay aside all effeminate thoughts with this feminine dress. Do not blush at having worn a disguise to which kings and heroes have been reduced. It is when female craft or female cowardice find their way into a manly bosom, that he who entertains these sentiments should take eternal shame to himself for thus having resembled womankind. Follow me, while Lilias remains here. I will introduce you to those whom I hope to see associated with you in the most glorious cause that hand ever drew sword in.’

Darsie paused. ‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘my person is in your hands; but remember, my will is my own. I will not be hurried into any resolution of importance. Remember what I have already said – what I now repeat – that I will take no step of importance but upon conviction.’

‘But canst thou be convinced, thou foolish boy, without hearing and understanding the grounds on which we act?’

So saying he took Darsie by the arm, and walked with him to the next room – a large apartment, partly filled with miscellaneous articles of commerce, chiefly connected with contraband trade; where, among bales and barrels, sat, or walked to and fro, several gentlemen, whose manners and looks seemed superior to the plain riding dresses which they wore.

There was a grave and stern anxiety upon their countenances, when, on Redgauntlet’s entrance, they drew from their separate coteries into one group around him, and saluted him with a formality which had something in it of ominous melancholy. As Darsie looked around the circle, he thought he could discern in it few traces of that adventurous hope which urges men upon desperate enterprises; and began to believe that the conspiracy would dissolve of itself, without the necessity of his placing himself in direct opposition to so violent a character as his uncle, and incurring the hazard with which such opposition must be attended.

Mr. Redgauntlet, however, did not, or would not, see any such marks of depression of spirit amongst his coadjutors, but met them with cheerful countenance, and a warm greeting of welcome. ‘Happy to meet you here, my lord,’ he said, bowing low to a slender young man. ‘I trust you come with the pledges of your noble father, of B – , and all that loyal house. – Sir Richard, what news in the west? I am told you had two hundred men on foot to have joined when the fatal retreat from Derby was commenced. When the White Standard is again displayed, it shall not be turned back so easily, either by the force of its enemies, or the falsehood of its friends. – Doctor Grumball, I bow to the representative of Oxford, the mother of learning and loyalty. – Pengwinion, you Cornish chough, has this good wind blown you north? – Ah, my brave Cambro-Britons, when was Wales last in the race of honour?’

Such and such-like compliments he dealt around, which were in general answered by silent bows; but when he saluted one of his own countrymen by the name of MacKellar, and greeted Maxwell of Summertrees by that of Pate-in-Peril, the latter replied, ‘that if Pate were not a fool, he would be Pate-in-Safety;’ and the former, a thin old gentle-man, in tarnished embroidery, said bluntly, ‘Aye, troth, Redgauntlet, I am here just like yourself; I have little to lose – they that took my land the last time, may take my life this; and that is all I care about it.’

The English gentlemen, who were still in possession of their paternal estates, looked doubtfully on each other, and there was something whispered among them of the fox which had lost his tail.

Redgauntlet hastened to address them. ‘I think, my lords and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘that I can account for something like sadness which has crept upon an assembly gathered together for so noble a purpose. Our numbers seem, when thus assembled, too small and inconsiderable to shake the firm-seated usurpation of a half-century. But do not count us by what we are in thew and muscle, but by what our summons can do among our countrymen. In this small party are those who have power to raise battalions, and those who have wealth to pay them. And do not believe our friends who are absent are cold or indifferent to the cause. Let us once light the signal, and it will be hailed by all who retain love for the Stuart, and by all – a more numerous body – who hate the Elector. Here I have letters from’ —

Sir Richard Glendale interrupted the speaker. ‘We all confide, Redgauntlet, in your valour and skill – we admire your perseverance; and probably nothing short of your strenuous exertions, and the emulation awakened by your noble and disinterested conduct, could have brought so many of us, the scattered remnant of a disheartened party, to meet together once again in solemn consultation; for I take it, gentlemen,’ he said, looking round, ‘this is only a consultation.’

‘Nothing more,’ said the young lord.

‘Nothing more,’ said Doctor Grumball, shaking his large academical peruke.

And, ‘Only a consultation,’ was echoed by the others.

Redgauntlet bit his lip. ‘I had hopes,’ he said, ‘that the discourses I have held with most of you, from time to time, had ripened into more maturity than your words imply, and that we were here to execute as well as to deliberate; and for this we stand prepared. I can raise five hundred men with my whistle.’

‘Five hundred men!’ said one of the Welsh squires; ‘Cot bless us! and pray you, what cood could five hundred men do?’

‘All that the priming does for the cannon, Mr. Meredith,’ answered Redgauntlet; ‘it will enable us to seize Carlisle, and you know what our friends have engaged for in that case.’

‘Yes – but,’ said the young nobleman, ‘you must not hurry us on too fast, Mr. Redgauntlet; we are all, I believe, as sincere and truehearted in this business as you are, but we will not be driven forward blindfold. We owe caution to ourselves and our families, as well as to those whom we are empowered to represent on this occasion.’

‘Who hurries you, my lord? Who is it that would drive this meeting forward blindfold? I do not understand your lordship,’ said Redgauntlet.

‘Nay,’ said Sir Richard Glendale, ‘at least do not let us fall under our old reproach of disagreeing among ourselves. What my lord means, Redgauntlet, is, that we have this morning heard it is uncertain whether you could even bring that body of men whom you count upon; your countryman, Mr. MacKellar, seemed, just before you came in, to doubt whether your people would rise in any force, unless you could produce the authority of your nephew.’

‘I might ask,’ said Redgauntlet,’ what right MacKellar, or any one, has to doubt my being able to accomplish what I stand pledged for? But our hopes consist in our unity. Here stands my nephew. Gentlemen, I present to you my kinsman, Sir Arthur Darsie Redgauntlet of that Ilk.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Darsie, with a throbbing bosom, for he felt the crisis a very painful one, ‘Allow me to say, that I suspend expressing my sentiments on the important subject under discussion until I have heard those of the present meeting.’

‘Proceed in your deliberations, gentlemen,’ said Redgauntlet; ‘I will show my nephew such reasons for acquiescing in the result, as will entirely remove any scruples which may hang around his mind.’

Dr. Grumball now coughed, ‘shook his ambrosial curls,’ and addressed the assembly.

‘The principles of Oxford,’ he said,’ are well understood, since she was the last to resign herself to the Arch-Usurper, – since she has condemned, by her sovereign authority, the blasphemous, atheistical, and anarchical tenets of Locke, and other deluders of the public mind. Oxford will give men, money and countenance, to the cause of the rightful monarch. But we have, been often deluded by foreign powers, who have availed themselves of our zeal to stir up civil dissensions, in Britain, not for the advantage of our blessed though banished monarch, but to stir up disturbances by which they might profit, while we, their tools, are sure to be ruined. Oxford, therefore, will not rise, unless our sovereign comes in person to claim our allegiance, in which case, God forbid we should refuse him our best obedience.’

‘It is a very cood advice,’ said Mr. Meredith.