Walter Scott

“ We meet, I presume, alone?”
“Alone we meet,” said Colonel Ashton, “and alone will the survivor of us return from that place of rendezvous.”
“Then God have mercy on the soul of him who falls!” said Ravenswood.
“So be it!” said Colonel Ashton; “so far can my charity reach even for the man I hate most deadly, and with the deepest reason. Now, break off, for we shall be interrupted. The links by the sea-shore to the east of Wolf’s Hope; the hour, sunrise; our swords our only weapons.” ”

“ She was silent, and he went on with increasing vehemence: “I am still that Edgar Ravenswood who, for your affection, renounced the dear ties by which injured honour bound him to seek vengeance. I am that Ravenswood who, for your sake, forgave, nay, clasped hands in friendship with, the oppressor and pillager of his house, the traducer and murderer of his father.”
“My daughter,” answered Lady Ashton, interrupting him, “has no occasion to dispute the identity of your person; the venom of your present language is sufficient to remind her that she speaks with the mortal enemy of her father.” ”

“ It is better breaking a park-pale to watch a doe or damsel than to shoot an old man.”
“I deny the purpose,” said the Master of Ravenswood. “On my soul, I had no such intention; I meant but to confront the oppressor ere I left my native land, and upbraid him with his tyranny and its consequences. I would have stated my wrongs so that they would have shaken his soul within him.”
“Yes,” answered Bucklaw, “and he would have collared you, and cried ‘help,’ and then you would have shaken the soul out of him, I suppose. Your very look and manner would have frightened the old man to death.” ”

“ Not so Caleb Balderstone. If worldly profit could have consoled the old man, his age was better provided for than his earlier years had ever been; but life had lost to him its salt and its savour. His whole course of ideas, his feelings, whether of pride or of apprehension, of pleasure or of pain, had all arisen from its close connexion with the family which was now extinguished. He held up his head no longer, forsook all his usual haunts and occupations, and seemed only to find pleasure in moping about those apartments in the old castle which the Master of Ravenswood had last inhabited. ”

“ But so active were his doubts and fears as altogether to derange his purposed ceremonial for the reception of the Marquis.
These feelings of apprehension were not confined to Sir William Ashton. “It is my mother—it is my mother!” said Lucy, turning as pale as ashes, and clasping her hands together as she looked at Ravenswood.
“And if it be Lady Ashton,” said her lover to her in a low tone, “what can be the occasion of such alarm? Surely the return of a lady to the family from which she has been so long absent should excite other sensations than those of fear and dismay.” ”

“ Necessity is a stern but an excellent schoolmistress, and she that has lost her sight must collect her information from other sources.”
“Well, you hear a man’s step, I grant it,” said Lucy; “but why, Alice, may it not be my father’s?”
“The pace of age, my love, is timid and cautious: the foot takes leave of the earth slowly, and is planted down upon it with hesitation; it is the hasty and determined step of youth that I now hear, and—could I give credit to so strange a thought—I should say is was the step of a Ravenswood.” ”

“ My dear Lucy,” he resumed, in a tone of soothing encouragement, “you are too childishly afraid of Lady Ashton; she is a woman of family—a lady of fashion—a person who must know the world, and what is due to her husband and her husband’s guests.” Lucy shook her head; and, as if her mother, still at the distance of half a mile, could have seen and scrutinised her deportment, she withdrew herself from beside Ravenswood, and, taking her brother Henry’s arm, led him to a different part of the terrace. ”

“ Ravenswood had not quitted the hand which he had taken in kindly courtesy; a blush, which attached more consequence by far than was usual to such ceremony, still mantled on Lucy Ashton’s beautiful cheek, when the apartment was suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning, which seemed absolutely to swallow the darkness of the hall. Every object might have been for an instant seen distinctly. The slight and half-sinking form of Lucy Ashton; the well-proportioned and stately figure of Ravenswood, his dark features, and the fiery yet irresolute expression of his eyes ”

“ Poor Lucy is unfit for courts or crowded halls. Some country laird must be her husband, rich enough to supply her with every comfort, without an effort on her own part, so that she may have nothing to shed a tear for but the tender apprehension lest he may break his neck in a foxchase. It was not so, however, that our house was raised, nor is it so that it can be fortified and augmented. The Lord Keeper’s dignity is yet new; it must be borne as if we were used to its weight, worthy of it, and prompt to assert and maintain it. ”

“ You had more need to think of making up to Miss Lucy Ashton the disgrace that’s like to fall upon her than of interfering with a man too old to fight, and on too high a tool for your hand to reach him.”
“It shall reach him, though, one day,” said Bucklaw, “and his kinsman Ravenswood to boot. In the mean time, I’ll take care Miss Ashton receives no discredit for the slight they have put upon her. It’s an awkward job, however, and I wish it were ended; I scarce know how to talk to her,—but fill a bumper, Craigie, and we’ll drink her health. ”

“ When Ravenswood, who followed a short pace behind his friend, saw that the stag had fallen, his temporary ardour for the chase gave way to that feeling of reluctance which he endured at encountering in his fallen fortunes the gaze whether of equals or inferiors. He reined up his horse on the top of a gentle eminence, from which he observed the busy and gay scene beneath him, and heard the whoops of the huntsmen, gaily mingled with the cry of the dogs, and the neighing and trampling of the horses. But these jovial sounds fell sadly on the ear of the ruined nobleman. ”

“ Those from who we won our ancient possessions fell under the sword of my ancestors, and left lands and livings to the conquerors; we sink under the force of the law, now too powerful for the Scottish cavalry. Let us parley with the victors of the day, as if we had been besieged in our fortress, and without hope of relief. This man may be other than I have thought him; and his daughter—but I have resolved not to think of her.”
He wrapt his cloak around him, fell asleep, and dreamed of Lucy Ashton till daylight gleamed through the lattices. ”

“ Oh! my dear master, wait but this day; the Marquis of A—— comes to-morrow, and a’ will be remedied.”
“You have no longer a master, Caleb,” said Ravenswood, endeavouring to extricate himself; “why, old man, would you cling to a falling tower?”
“But I have a master,” cried Caleb, still holding him fast, “while the heir of Ravenswood breathes. I am but a servant; but I was born your father’s—your grandfather’s servant. I was born for the family—I have lived for them—I would die for them! Stay but at home, and all will be well!” ”

“ If the genius of the house really condemned a union betwixt the Master and his fair guest, the means by which he expressed his sentiments were as unhappily chosen as if he had been a mere mortal. The train of little attentions, absolutely necessary to soothe the young lady’s mind, and aid her in composing her spirits, necessarily threw the Master of Ravenswood into such an intercourse with her father as was calculated, for the moment at least, to break down the barrier of feudal enmity which divided them. ”

“ In those features, so simply sweet, he could trace no alliance with the pinched visage of the peak-bearded, black-capped Puritan, or his starched, withered spouse, with the craft expressed in the Lord Keeper’s countenance, or the haughtiness which predominated in that of his lady; and, while he gazed on Lucy Ashton, she seemed to be an angel descended on earth, unallied to the coarser mortals among whom she deigned to dwell for a season. Such is the power of beauty over a youthful and enthusiastic fancy. ”

“ The belted lords of Britain, her ancient peers, must decide, if it is their will that a house, not the least noble of their members, shall be stripped of their possessions, the reward of the patriotism of generations, as the pawn of a wretched mechanic becomes forfeit to the usurer the instant the hour of redemption has passed away. If they yield to the grasping severity of the creditor, and to the gnawing usury that eats into our lands as moths into a raiment, it will be of more evil consequence to them and their posterity than to Edgar Ravenswood. ”

“ It was on this ominous spot that Lucy Ashton first drew breath after her long and almost deadly swoon. Beautiful and pale as the fabulous Naiad in the last agony of separation from her lover, she was seated so as to rest with her back against a part of the ruined wall, while her mantle, dripping with the water which her protector had used profusely to recall her senses, clung to her slender and beautifully proportioned form.
The first moment of recollection brought to her mind the danger which had overpowered her senses; the next called to remembrance that of her father. She looked around ”

“ Come, pledge me in a bumper health to the last young lady that slept at Wolf’s Crag, and liked her quarters. My bones are not so tender as hers, and I am resolved to occupy her apartment to-night, that I may judge how hard the couch is that love can soften.”
“Your lordship may choose what penance you please,” said Ravenswood; “but I assure you, I should expect my old servant to hang himself, or throw himself from the battlements, should your lordship visit him so unexpectedly. I do assure you, we are totally and literally unprovided.” ”

“ Bucklaw, shut out from his usual field-sports and joyous carouses by the necessity of remaining concealed within the walls of the castle, became a joyless and uninteresting companion. When the Master of Ravenswood would no longer fence or play at shovel-board; when he himself had polished to the extremity the coat of his palfrey with brush, curry comb, and hair-cloth; when he had seen him eat his provender, and gently lie down in his stall, he could hardly help envying the animal’s apparent acquiescence in a life so monotonous. ”

“ But it was beyond her power effectually to withstand or elude the constant and unceasing persecution of Lady Ashton, who, laying every other wish aside, had bent the whole efforts of her powerful mind to break her daughter’s contract with Ravenswood, and to place a perpetual bar between the lovers, by effecting Lucy’s union with Bucklaw. Far more deeply skilled than her husband in the recesses of the human heart, she was aware that in this way she might strike a blow of deep and decisive vengeance upon one whom she esteemed as her mortal enemy ”

“ Lucy covered her face her hands, and the tears, in spite of her, forced their way between her fingers.
“Forgive me,” said Ravenswood, taking her right hand, which, after slight resistance, she yielded to him, still continuing to shade her face with the left—“I am too rude—too rough—too intractable to deal with any being so soft and gentle as you are. Forget that so stern a vision has crossed your path of life; and let me pursue mine, sure that I can meet with no worse misfortune after the moment it divides me from your side.” ”

“ As Ravenswood, with the grace of a gallant of that period, but not without a certain stiffness and embarrassment of manner, handed the young lady to the upper end of the apartment, her father remained standing more near to the door, as if about to disengage himself from his hat and cloak. At this moment the clang of the portal was heard, a sound at which the stranger started, stepped hastily to the window, and looked with an air of alarm at Ravenswood, when he saw that the gate of the court was shut, and his domestics excluded. ”

“ In a small and rude garden, surrounded by straggling elder-bushes, which formed a sort of imperfect hedge, sat near to the beehives, by the produce of which she lived, that “woman old” whom Lucy had brought her father hither to visit.
Whatever there had been which was disastrous in her fortune, whatever there was miserable in her dwelling, it was easy to judge by the first glance that neither years, poverty, misfortune, nor infirmity had broken the spirit of this remarkable woman. ”

“ Is starving or hanging better than the life I am obliged to lead, because the present fortunes of the king cannot sufficiently support his envoys?”
“Starving is honester, Craigengelt, and hanging is like to be the end on’t. But what you mean to make of this poor fellow Ravenswood, I know not. He has no money left, any more than I; his lands are all pawned and pledged, and the interest eats up the rents, and is not satisfied, and what do you hope to make by meddling in his affairs?”
“Content yourself, Bucklaw; I know my business,” replied Craigengelt. ”

“ But I have no engagement with Sir William and Lady Ashton. It is with Miss Ashton alone that I have entered upon the subject, and my conduct in the matter shall be entirely ruled by hers. If she continues to prefer me in my poverty to the wealthier suitors whom her friends recommend, I may well make some sacrifice to her sincere affection: I may well surrender to her the less tangible and less palpable advantages of birth, and the deep-rooted prejudices of family hatred. ”

“ What have you to do with Lucy Ashton? why should your steps move in the same footpath with hers? why should your voice sound in the same chord and time with those of Sir William Ashton’s daughter? Young man, he who aims at revenge by dishonourable means——”
“Be silent, woman!” said Ravenswood, sternly; “is it the devil that prompts your voice? Know that this young lady has not on earth a friend who would venture farther to save her from injury or from insult.” ”

“ Let your lot in life be determined—your station and purpose ascertained, before you address my father. I am sure he loves you—I think he will consent; but then my mother——!”
She paused, ashamed to express the doubt she felt how far her father dared to form any positive resolution on this most important subject without the consent of his lady.
“Your mother, my Lucy!” replied Ravenswood. “She is of the house of Douglas, a house that has intermarried with mine even when its glory and power were at the highest; what could your mother object to my alliance?” ”

“ She regarded what she termed her daughter’s want of spirit as a decided mark that the more plebeian blood of her father predominated in Lucy’s veins, and used to call her in derision her Lammermoor Shepherdess. To dislike so gentle and inoffensive a being was impossible; but Lady Ashton preferred her eldest son, on whom had descended a large portion of her own ambitious and undaunted disposition, to a daughter whose softness of temper seemed allied to feebleness of mind. ”

“ The honour of an ancient family, the urgent advice of my best friends, have been in vain used to sway my resolution; neither the arguments of reason nor the portents of superstition have shaken my fidelity. The very dead have arisen to warn me, and their warning has been despised. Are you prepared to pierce my heart for its fidelity with the very weapon which my rash confidence entrusted to your grasp?”
“Master of Ravenswood,” said Lady Ashton, “you have asked what questions you thought fit. You see the total incapacity of my daughter to answer you. ”