“Did I tell you the contrary?” said Caleb; “then I maun hae been dreaming surely, or this awsome night has turned my judgment; but safe she is, and ne’er a living soul in the castle, a’ the better for them: they wau have gotten an unco heezy.”
The Master of Ravenswood, upon this assurance being solemnly reiterated, and notwithstanding his extreme wish to witness the last explosion, which was to ruin to the ground the mansion of his fathers, suffered himself to be dragged onward towards the village of Wolf’s Hope, where not only the change-house, but that of our well-known friend the cooper, were all prepared for reception of himself and his noble guest, with a liberality of provision which requires some explanation.
We omitted to mention in its place, that Lockhard having fished out the truth concerning the mode by which Caleb had obtained the supplies for his banquet, the Lord Keeper, amused with the incident, and desirous at the time to gratify Ravenswood, had recommended the cooper of Wolf’s Hope to the official situation under government the prospect of which had reconciled him to the loss of his wild-fowl. Mr. Girder’s preferment had occasioned a pleasing surprise to old Caleb; for when, some days after his master’s departure, he found himself absolutely compelled, by some necessary business, to visit the fishing hamlet, and was gliding like a ghost past the door of the cooper, for fear of being summoned to give some account of the progress of the solicitation in his favour, or, more probably that the inmates might upbraid him with the false hope he had held out upon the subject, he heard himself, not without some apprehension, summoned at once in treble, tenor, and bass—a trio performed by the voices of Mrs. Girder, old Dame Loup-the-Dyke, and the goodman of the dwelling—“Mr. Caleb!—Mr. Caleb Balderstone! I hope ye arena ganging dry-lipped by our door, and we sae muckle indebted to you?”
This might be said ironically as well as in earnest. Caleb augured the worst, turned a deaf ear to the trio aforesaid, and was moving doggedly on, his ancient castor pulled over his brows, and his eyes bent on the ground, as if to count the flinty pebbles with which the rude pathway was causewayed. But on a sudden he found himself surrounded in his progress, like a stately merchantman in the Gut of Gibraltar (I hope the ladies will excuse the tarpaulin phrase) by three Algerine galleys. “Gude guide us, Mr. Balderstone!” said Mrs. Girder. “Wha wad hae thought it of an auld and kenn’d friend!” said the mother.
“And no sae muckle as stay to receive our thanks,” said the cooper himself, “and frae the like o’ me that seldom offers them! I am sure I hope there’s nae ill seed sawn between us, Mr. Balderstone. Ony man that has said to ye I am no gratefu’ for the situation of Queen’s cooper, let me hae a whample at him wi’ mine eatche, that’s a’.”
“My good friends—my dear friends,” said Caleb, still doubting how the certainty of the matter might stand, “what needs a’ this ceremony? Ane tries to serve their friends, and sometimes they may happen to prosper, and sometimes to misgie. Naething I care to be fashed wi’ less than thanks; I never could bide them.”
“Faith, Mr. Balderstone, ye suld hae been fashed wi’ few o’ mine,” said the downright man of staves and hoops, “if I had only your gude-will to thank ye for: I suld e’en hae set the guse, and the wild deukes, and the runlet of sack to balance that account. Gude-will, man, is a geizen’d tub, that hauds in nae liquor; but gude deed’s like the cask, tight, round, and sound, that will haud liquor for the king.”
“Have ye no heard of our letter,” said the mother-in-law, “making our John [Gibbie] the Queen’s cooper for certain? and scarce a chield that had ever hammered gird upon tub but was applying for it?”
“Have I heard!!!” said Caleb, who now found how the wind set, with an accent of exceeding contempt, at the doubt expressed—“have I heard, quo’she!!!” and as he spoke he changed his shambling, skulking, dodging pace into a manly and authoritative step, readjusted his cocked hat, and suffered his brow to emerge from under it in all the pride of aristocracy, like the sun from behind a cloud.
“To be sure, he canna but hae heard,” said the good woman.