Juden Stenton, the stout old butler, had stirred the fire and wiped the glasses for the tenth time, tasted the wine for the twentieth, and had made as many rounds of the table to snuff the candles, and re-examine everything; he was very impatient and sleepy, and listened intently with his head bent low, a practice which he had acquired in the great civil wars. The clock in the spire of the Netherbow-porte struck midnight.
"Cocksnails!" muttered Juden, "twelve o'clock and nae sign o' him yet. What's the world coming to? My certie, what would his farther the douce Laird o' Drumsheugh hae thocht o' this kind of work? He (honest man!) was aye in his nest at the first tuck o' the ten o'clock drum."
Juden was verging on sixty years of age; his figure was short and paunchy, his face full and florid; his twinkling grey eyes wore always a cunning expression, and had generally a sotted appearance about them, which made it extremely difficult to determine whether he was drunk or sober. His large round head was bald, and his chin close shaven, according to the fashion for the lower classes, few but nobles and cavaliers retaining the manly moustaches and imperial. A clean white cravat fell over his doublet of dark-green cloth, the red braiding of which was neatly curved to suit his ample paunch; breeches of dark plush, black cotton stockings and heavy shoes, the instep of each being covered by a large brass buckle, completed his attire. A scar still remained on his shining scalp to attest the dangers he had dared in his younger days.
The last of a once numerous and splendid but now diminished household, old Juden Stenton was a faithful follower of Lord Clermistonlee, for whom he would have laid down his life without a sigh of regret. He acted by turns butler and baillie, cook and valet, groom, farrier, trooper, and factotum, being the beau ideal of the staunch but unscrupulous serving-man of the day, who changed sides in religion, politics, and everything just as the Laird did, and who knew no will or law save those of his leader and master. When Clermistonlee (then Sir Randal Clermont of Drumsheugh), ruined by the mad excesses into which he had plunged at the dissipated court of Charles II., in a fit of despair joined the insurgent Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge, Juden put a blue cockade in his bonnet, "girded up his loins," as he said, "and went forth to battle for Scotland's oppressed kirk and broken covenant." But when Sir Randal's name (in consequence of mistake, or of some friendly influence in the Scottish cabinet) was omitted in the list of the attainted, and he changed sides, obtaining—none knew how or why—rank and riches under the persecutors, Juden changed too, and donning the buff coat and scarlet, became a bitter foe to "all crop-eared and psalmsinging rebels," and riding as a royalist trooper, suppressed many a harmless conventicle, and hunted and hounded, slashed and shot, or dragged to prison those who had been his former comrades, for in political matters Juden's mind was as facile and easy as that of a German.
He had too often less honourably acted the pander to his lord, in many a vile intrigue and cruel seduction; for of all the wild rakes of the time (Rochester excepted) none had rushed so furiously on the career of fashionable vice and dissipation as Clermistonlee; and even now, when forty years of age, he continued the same kind of life from mere habit, perhaps, rather than inclination.
But there was one chapter of his life which memory brought like a cloud on his gayest hours, and which riot and revel could never efface,—a sad episode of domestic mystery and unhappiness. Clermistonlee, in the prime of his youth, had been wedded to a lady of beauty and rank, of extreme gentleness of manner and softness of disposition. Like many others, the fancy passed away; repentance came, as his love cooled or changed to other objects. He took the lady to Paris, and there she died...... There were not wanting evil tongues, who said he had destroyed her. A kind of mystery enveloped her fate; and even in his most joyous moods, sad thoughts would suddenly cloud the lofty brow of Clermistonlee, a sign which his kind friends never failed to attribute to remorse. Many were the women who had trusted to his honour, and found they had believed in a phantom; until, at the era of our story, his name had become (like that of the Marquis de Laval) a bye-word in the mouths of the people for all that was wicked, irregular, and bad.
"Twelve o'clock," muttered Juden; "braw times—braw times, sirs! I warrant he'll be roistering in the change-house o' that runagate vintner, Hugh Blair, at the Pillars. A wanion on his sour Gascon and fushionless Hock! Waiting is sleepy work, and dry too. Gude claret this! My service to ye, Maister Juden Stenton," he continued, bowing to his reflection in an opposite mirror; "you're a gude and worthy servitor to ane that doesna ken your value. The members o' council maun a' be fu' as pipers by this time except Claverhouse, wha canna touch wine, and auld Binns, wham wine canna touch. Hech! here he comes; and now for a clamjamfray wi' the yett-wards."
A violent knocking at the city-gate close by announced the return of his master from a midnight ramble. The sentinel within opened the wicket of the barrier; and on demanding the usual toll required of belated citizens, a handful of pence, flung by the impatient lord, clattered about his steel cap. Clermistonlee entered, and, half dragging a little crooked man after him, rapidly ascended the flight of steps that led to the circular tower or staircase of his own house. In the low-pointed doorway, which was surmounted by an uncouth coronet, stood Juden with a candle flaring in each hand, bowing very low, though not in the best of humours.
"Od, that weary body Mersington is w' him!" he muttered. "The auld spunge—he'll drink the daylicht in!"
"Light the way there, Juden," cried his master. "My good Lord Mersington is generally short-sighted about this hour."