Presently afterwards, Ambrose entered, and told him that a horse and guide waited him beneath the terrace.
‘The good Father Buonaventure,’ added the butler, ‘has been graciously pleased to consider your situation, and desired me to inquire whether you have any occasion for a supply of money?’
‘Make my respects to his reverence,’ answered Fairford, ‘and assure him I am provided in that particular. I beg you also to make my acknowledgements to the Misses Arthuret, and assure them that their kind hospitality, to which I probably owe my life, shall be remembered with gratitude as long as that life lasts. You yourself, Mr. Ambrose, must accept of my kindest thanks for your skill and attention.’
Mid these acknowledgements they left the house, descended the terrace, and reached the spot where the gardener, Fairford’s old acquaintance, waited for him, mounted upon one horse and leading another.
Bidding adieu to Ambrose, our young lawyer mounted, and rode down the avenue, often looking back to the melancholy and neglected dwelling in which he had witnessed such strange scenes, and musing upon the character of its mysterious inmates, especially the noble and almost regal-seeming priest, and the beautiful but capricious dame, who, if she was really Father Buonaventure’s penitent, seemed less docile to the authority of the church than, as Alan conceived, the Catholic discipline permitted. He could not indeed help being sensible that the whole deportment of these persons differed much from his preconceived notions of a priest and devotee. Father Buonaventure, in particular, had more natural dignify and less art and affectation in his manner, than accorded with the idea which Calvinists were taught to entertain of that wily and formidable person, a Jesuitical missionary.
While reflecting on these things, he looked back so frequently at the house, that Dick Gardener, a forward, talkative fellow, who began to tire of silence, at length said to him, ‘I think you will know Fairladies when you see it again, sir?’
‘I dare say I shall, Richard,’ answered Fairford good-humouredly. ‘I wish I knew as well where I am to go next. But you can tell me, perhaps?’
‘Your worship should know better than I,’ said Dick Gardener; ‘nevertheless, I have a notion you are going where all you Scotsmen should be sent, whether you will or no.’
‘Not to the devil, I hope, good Dick?’ said Fairford.
‘Why, no. That is a road which you may travel as heretics; but as Scotsmen, I would only send you three-fourths of the way—and that is back to Scotland again—always craving your honour’s pardon.’