The Complete Tales of Sir Walter Scott. Walter Scott
drawingroom, with an interior boudoir, were magnificent apartments, the ceiling was fretted and adorned with stucco-work, which already was broken in many places, and looked in others damp and mouldering; the wood panelling was shrunk and warped, and cracked; the doors, which had not been hung for more than two years, were, nevertheless, already swinging loose from their hinges. Desolation, in short, was where enjoyment had never been; and the want of all the usual means to preserve was fast performing the work of decay.
The story was a common one, and told in a few words. Mr. Treddles, senior, who bought the estate, was a cautious, money-making person. His son, still embarked in commercial speculations, desired at the same time to enjoy his opulence and to increase it. He incurred great expenses, amongst which this edifice was to benumbered. To support these he speculated boldly, and unfortunately; and thus the whole history is told, which may serve for more places than Glentanner.
Strange and various feelings ran through my bosom as I loitered in these deserted apartments, scarce hearing what my guide said to me about the size and destination of each room. The first sentiment, I am ashamed to say, was one of gratified spite. My patrician pride was pleased that the mechanic, who had not thought the house of the Croftangrys sufficiently good for him, had now experienced a fall in his turn. My next thought was as mean, though not so malicious. “I have had the better of this fellow,” thought I. “If I lost the estate, I at least spent the price; and Mr. Treddles has lost his among paltry commercial engagements.”
“Wretch!” said the secret voice within, “darest thou exult in thy shame? Recollect how thy youth and fortune was wasted in those years, and triumph not in the enjoyment of an existence which levelled thee with the beasts that perish. Bethink thee how this poor man’s vanity gave at least bread to the labourer, peasant, and citizen; and his profuse expenditure, like water spilt on the ground, refreshed the lowly herbs and plants where it fell. But thou! Whom hast thou enriched during thy career of extravagance, save those brokers of the devil—vintners, panders, gamblers, and horse-jockeys?” The anguish produced by this self-reproof was so strong that I put my hand suddenly to my forehead, and was obliged to allege a sudden megrim to my attendant, in apology for the action, and a slight groan with which it was accompanied.
I then made an effort to turn my thoughts into a more philosophical current, and muttered half aloud, as a charm to lull any more painful thoughts to rest,—
“NUNC AGER UMBRENI SUB NOMINE, NUPER OFELLI
DICTUS ERIT NULLI PROPRIUS; SED CEDIT IN USUM
NUNC MIHI, NUNC ALII. QUOCIRCA VIVITE FORTES,
FORTIAQUE ADVERSIS OPPONITE PECTORA REBUS.”
[Horace Sat.II Lib.2. The meaning will be best conveyed to the English reader in Pope’s imitation:—
“What’s property, dear Swift? You see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or in a mortgage prove a lawyer’s share;
Or in a jointure vanish from the heir.
*
“Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;
And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham’s delight,
Slides to a scrivener and city knight.
Let lands and houses have what lords they will,
Let us be fix’d, and our own masters still.”]
In my anxiety to fix the philosophical precept in my mind, I recited the last line aloud, which, joined to my previous agitation, I afterwards found became the cause of a report that a mad schoolmaster had come from Edinburgh, with the idea in his head of buying Castle Treddles.
As I saw my companion was desirous of getting rid of me, I asked where I was to find the person in whose hands were left the map of the estate, and other particulars connected with the sale. The agent who had this in possession, I was told, lived at the town of —, which I was informed, and indeed knew well, was distant five miles and a bittock, which may pass in a country where they are less lavish of their land for two or three more. Being somewhat afraid of the fatigue of walking so far, I inquired if a horse or any sort of carriage was to be had, and was answered in the negative.
“But,” said my cicerone, “you may halt a blink till next morning at the Treddles Arms, a very decent house, scarce a mile off.”
“A new house, I suppose?” replied I.
“No, it’s a new public, but it’s an auld house; it was aye the Leddy’s jointure-house in the Croftangry folk’s time. But Mr. Treddles has fitted it up for the convenience of the country, poor man, he was a public-spirited man when he had the means.”
“Duntarkin a public-house!” I exclaimed.
“Ay!” said the fellow, surprised at my naming the place by its former title; “ye’ll hae been in this country before, I’m thinking?”
“Long since,” I replied. “And there is good accommodation at the what-d’ye-call-‘em arms, and a civil landlord?” This I said by way of saying something, for the man stared very hard at me.
“Very decent accommodation. Ye’ll no be for fashing wi’ wine, I’m thinking; and there’s walth o’ porter, ale, and a drap gude whisky” (in an undertone)—”Fairntosh—if you call get on the lee-side of the gudewife—for there is nae gudeman. They ca’ her Christie Steele.”
I almost started at the sound. Christie Steele! Christie Steele was my mother’s body-servant, her very right hand, and, between ourselves, something like a viceroy over her. I recollected her perfectly; and though she had in former times been no favourite of mine, her name now sounded in my ear like that of a friend, and was the first word I had heard somewhat in unison with the associations around me. I sallied from Castle Treddles, determined to make the best of my way to Duntarkin, and my cicerone hung by me for a little way, giving loose to his love of talking—an opportunity which, situated as he was, the seneschal of a deserted castle, was not likely to occur frequently.
“Some folk think,” said my companion, “that Mr. Treddles might as weel have put my wife as Christie Steele into the Treddles Arms; for Christie had been aye in service, and never in the public line, and so it’s like she is ganging back in the world, as I hear. Now, my wife had keepit a victualling office.”
“That would have been an advantage, certainly,” I replied.
“But I am no sure that I wad ha’ looten Eppie take it, if they had put it in her offer.”
“That’s a different consideration.”
“Ony way, I wadna ha’ liked to have offended Mr. Treddles. He was a wee toustie when you rubbed him again the hair; but a kind, weel-meaning man.”
I wanted to get rid of this species of chat, and finding myself near the entrance of a footpath which made a short cut to Duntarkin, I put half a crown into my guide’s hand, bade him good-evening, and plunged into the woods.
“Hout, sir—fie, sir—no from the like of you. Stay, sir, ye wunna find the way that gate Odd’s mercy, he maun ken the gate as weel as I do mysel’. Weel, I wad Iike to ken wha the chield is.”
Such were the last words of my guide’s drowsy, uninteresting tone of voice and glad to be rid of him, I strode out stoutly, in despite of large stones, briers, and BAD STEPS, which abounded in the road I had chosen. In the interim, I tried as much as I could, with verses from Horace and Prior, and all who have lauded the mixture of literary with rural life, to call back the visions of last night and this morning, imagining myself settled in same detached farm of the estate of Glentanner,—
“Which sloping hills around enclose—
Where many a birch and brown oak grows,”
when I should have a cottage with a small library, a small cellar, a spare bed for a friend, and live more happy and more honoured