Вальтер Скотт - Old Mortality, Complete

“You will excuse my answering that question, sir,” said Morton; “the same cogent reasons which induced me to afford him hospitality at considerable risk to myself and my friends, would command me to respect his secret, if, indeed, he had trusted me with any.”

“So you refuse to give me an answer?” said Bothwell.

“I have none to give,” returned Henry.

“Perhaps I could teach you to find one, by tying a piece of lighted match betwixt your fingers,” answered Bothwell.

“O, for pity’s sake, sir,” said old Alison apart to her master, “gie them siller—it’s siller they’re seeking—they’ll murder Mr Henry, and yoursell next!”

Milnwood groaned in perplexity and bitterness of spirit, and, with a tone as if he was giving up the ghost, exclaimed, “If twenty p—p—punds would make up this unhappy matter”—“My master,” insinuated Alison to the sergeant, “would gie twenty punds sterling”—“Punds Scotch, ye b—h!” interrupted Milnwood; for the agony of his avarice overcame alike his puritanic precision and the habitual respect he entertained for his housekeeper.

“Punds sterling,” insisted the housekeeper, “if ye wad hae the gudeness to look ower the lad’s misconduct; he’s that dour ye might tear him to pieces, and ye wad ne’er get a word out o’ him; and it wad do ye little gude, I’m sure, to burn his bonny fingerends.”

“Why,” said Bothwell, hesitating, “I don’t know—most of my cloth would have the money, and take off the prisoner too; but I bear a conscience, and if your master will stand to your offer, and enter into a bond to produce his nephew, and if all in the house will take the test-oath, I do not know but”—“O ay, ay, sir,” cried Mrs Wilson, “ony test, ony oaths ye please!” And then aside to her master, “Haste ye away, sir, and get the siller, or they will burn the house about our lugs.”

Old Milnwood cast a rueful look upon his adviser, and moved off, like a piece of Dutch clockwork, to set at liberty his imprisoned angels in this dire emergency. Meanwhile, Sergeant Bothwell began to put the test-oath with such a degree of solemn reverence as might have been expected, being just about the same which is used to this day in his majesty’s custom-house.

“You—what’s your name, woman?”

“Alison Wilson, sir.”

“You, Alison Wilson, solemnly swear, certify, and declare, that you judge it unlawful for subjects, under pretext of reformation, or any other pretext whatsoever, to enter into Leagues and Covenants”—Here the ceremony was interrupted by a strife between Cuddie and his mother, which, long conducted in whispers, now became audible.

“Oh, whisht, mither, whisht! they’re upon a communing—Oh! whisht, and they’ll agree weel eneuch e’enow.”

“I will not whisht, Cuddie,” replied his mother, “I will uplift my voice and spare not—I will confound the man of sin, even the scarlet man, and through my voice shall Mr Henry be freed from the net of the fowler.”

“She has her leg ower the harrows now,” said Cuddie, “stop her wha can—I see her cocked up behint a dragoon on her way to the Tolbooth—I find my ain legs tied below a horse’s belly—Ay—she has just mustered up her sermon, and there—wi’ that grane—out it comes, and we are a’ruined, horse and foot!”

“And div ye think to come here,” said Mause, her withered hand shaking in concert with her keen, though wrinkled visage, animated by zealous wrath, and emancipated, by the very mention of the test, from the restraints of her own prudence, and Cuddie’s admonition—“Div ye think to come here, wi’ your soul-killing, saint-seducing, conscience-confounding oaths, and tests, and bands—your snares, and your traps, and your gins?—Surely it is in vain that a net is spread in the sight of any bird.”

“Eh! what, good dame?” said the soldier. “Here’s a whig miracle, egad! the old wife has got both her ears and tongue, and we are like to be driven deaf in our turn.—Go to, hold your peace, and remember whom you talk to, you old idiot.”

“Whae do I talk to! Eh, sirs, ower weel may the sorrowing land ken what ye are. Malignant adherents ye are to the prelates, foul props to a feeble and filthy cause, bloody beasts of prey, and burdens to the earth.”

“Upon my soul,” said Bothwell, astonished as a mastiff-dog might be should a hen-partridge fly at him in defence of her young, “this is the finest language I ever heard! Can’t you give us some more of it?”

“Gie ye some mair o’t?” said Mause, clearing her voice with a preliminary cough, “I will take up my testimony against you ance and again.– Philistines ye are, and Edomites—leopards are ye, and foxes—evening wolves, that gnaw not the bones till the morrow—wicked dogs, that compass about the chosen—thrusting kine, and pushing bulls of Bashan—piercing serpents ye are, and allied baith in name and nature with the great Red Dragon; Revelations, twalfth chapter, third and fourth verses.”

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