It would be but a cobbled piece of work, I fear, said Bucklaw, rising slowly and gathering up his sword, much less disconcerted with the issue of the combat than could have been expected from the impetuosity of his temper. I thank you for my life, Master, he pursued. There is my hand; I bear no ill-will to you, either for my bad luck or your better swordsmanship.
The Master looked steadily at him for an instant, then extended his hand to him. Bucklaw, he said, you are a generous fellow, and I have done you wrong. I heartily ask your pardon for the expression which offended you; it was hastily and incautiously uttered, and I am convinced it is totally misapplied.
Are you indeed, Master? said Bucklaw, his face resuming at once its natural expression of light-hearted carelessness and audacity; that is more than I expected of you; for, Master, men say you are not ready to retract your opinion and your language.
Not when I have well considered them, said the Master.
Then you are a little wiser than I am, for I always give my friend satisfaction first, and explanation afterwards. If one of us falls, all accounts are settled; if not, men are never so ready for peace as after war. But what does that bawling brat of a boy want? said Bucklaw. I wish to Heaven he had come a few minutes sooner! and yet it must have been ended some time, and perhaps this way is as well as any other.
As he spoke, the boy he mentioned came up, cudgelling an ass, on which he was mounted, to the top of its speed, and sending, like one of Ossians heroes, his voice before him: Gentlemen gentlemen, save yourselves! for the gudewife bade us tell ye there were folk in her house had taen Captain Craigengelt, and were seeking for Bucklaw, and that ye behoved to ride for it. By my faith, and thats very true, my man said Bucklaw; and theres a silver sixpence for your news, and I would give any man twice as much would tell me which way I should ride.
That will I, Bucklaw, said Ravenswood; ride home to Wolfs Crag with me. There are places in the old tower where you might lie hid, were a thousand men to seek you.
But that will bring you into trouble yourself, Master; and unless you be in the Jacobite scrape already, it is quite needless for me to drag you in.
Not a whit; I have nothing to fear.
Then I will ride with you blythely, for, to say the truth, I do not know the rendezvous that Craigie was to guide us to this night; and I am sure that, if he is taken, he will tell all the truth of me, and twenty lies of you, in order to save himself from the withie.
They mounted and rode off in company accordingly, striking off the ordinary road, and holding their way by wild moorish unfrequented paths, with which the gentlemen were well acquainted from the exercise of the chase, but through which others would have had much difficulty in tracing their course. They rode for some time in silence, making such haste as the condition of Ravenswoods horse permitted, until night having gradually closed around them, they discontinued their speed, both from the difficulty of discovering their path, and from the hope that they were beyond the reach of pursuit or observation.
And now that we have drawn bridle a bit, said Bucklaw, I would fain ask you a question, Master.
Ask and welcome, said Ravenswood, but forgive not answering it, unless I think proper.
Well, it is simply this, answered his late antagonist What, in the name of old Sathan, could make you, who stand so highly on your reputation, think for a moment of drawing up with such a rogue as Craigengelt, and such a scapegrace as folk call Bucklaw?
Simply, because I was desperate, and sought desperate associates.
And what made you break off from us at the nearest? again demanded Bucklaw.
Because I had changed my mind, said the Master, and renounced my enterprise, at least for the present. And now that I have answered your questions fairly and frankly, tell me what makes you associate with Craigengelt, so much beneath you both in birth and in spirit?
In plain terms, answered Bucklaw, because I am a fool, who have gambled away my land in thse times. My grand-aunt, Lady Girnington, has taen a new tack of life, I think, and I could only hope to get something by a change of government. Craigie was a sort of gambling acquaintance; he saw my condition, and, as the devil is always at ones elbow, told me fifty lies about his credentials from Versailles, and his interest at Saint Germains, promised me a captains commission at Paris, and I have been ass enough to put my thumb under his belt. I dare say, by this time, he has told a dozen pretty stories of me to the government. And this is what I have got by wine, women, and dice, cocks, dogs, and horses.
Yes, Bucklaw, said the Master, you have indeed nourished in your bosom the snakes that are now stinging you.
Thats home as well as true, Master, replied his companion; but, by your leave, you have nursed in your bosom one great goodly snake that has swallowed all the rest, and is as sure to devour you as my half-dozen are to make a meal on all thats left of Bucklaw, which is but what lies between bonnet and boot-heel.
I must not, answered the Master of Ravenswood, challenge the freedom of speech in which I have set example. What, to speak without a metaphor, do you call this monstrous passion which you charge me with fostering?
Revenge, my good sir revenge; which, if it be as gentle manlike a sin as wine and wassail, with their et coeteras, is equally unchristian, and not so bloodless. 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.
Consider the provocation, answered Ravenswood consider the ruin and death procured and caused by his hard-hearted cruelty an ancient house destroyed, an affectionate father murdered! Why, in our old Scottish days, he that sat quiet under such wrongs would have been held neither fit to back a friend nor face a foe.
Well, Master, I am glad to see that the devil deals as cunningly with other folk as he deals with me; for whenever I am about to commit any folly, he persuades me it is the most necessary, gallant, gentlemanlike thing on earth, and I am up to saddlegirths in the bog before I see that the ground is soft. And you, Master, might have turned out a murd a homicide, just out of pure respect for your fathers memory.
There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw, replied the Master, than might have been expected from your conduct. It is too true, our vices steal upon us in forms outwardly as fair as those of the demons whom the superstitious represent as intriguing with the human race, and are not discovered in their native hideousness until we have clasped them in our arms.
But we may throw them from us, though, said Bucklaw, and that is what I shall think of doing one of these days that is, when old Lady Girnington dies.
Did you ever hear the expression of the English divine? said Ravenswood Hell is paved with good intentions, as much as to say, they are more often formed than executed.