“To be sure he will,” answered Craigengelt; “what good can it do him to refuse, since he wishes to marry another woman and she another man?”
“And you believe seriously,” said Bucklaw, “that he is going to marry the foreign lady we heard of?”
“You heard yourself,” answered Craigengelt, “what Captain Westenho said about it, and the great preparation made for their blythesome bridal.”
“Captain Westenho,” replied Bucklaw, “has rather too much of your own cast about, Craigie, to make what Sir William would call a ‘famous witness.’ He drinks deep, plays deep, swears deep, and I suspect can lie and cheat a little into the bargain; useful qualities, Craigie, if kept in their proper sphere, but which have a little too much of the freebooter to make a figure in a court of evidence.”
“Well, then,” said Craigengelt, “will you believe Colonel Douglas Ashton, who heard the Marquis of A—— say in a public circle, but not aware that he was within ear-shot, that his kinsman had made a better arrangement for himself than to give his father’s land for the pale-cheeked daughter of a broken-down fanatic, and that Bucklaw was welcome to the wearing of Ravenswood’s shaughled shoes.”
“Did he say so, by heavens!” cried Bucklaw, breaking out into one of those incontrollable fits of passion to which he was constitutionally subject; “if I had heard him, I would have torn the tongue out of his throat before all his peats and minions, and Highland bullies into the bargain. Why did not Ashton run him through the body?”
“Capot me if I know,” said the Captain. “He deserved it sure enough; but he is an old man, and a minister of state, and there would be more risk than credit in meddling with him. You had more need to think of making up to Miss Lucy Ashton the disgrace that’s like to fall upon her than of interfering with a man too old to fight, and on too high a tool for your hand to reach him.”
“It shall reach him, though, one day,” said Bucklaw, “and his kinsman Ravenswood to boot. In the mean time, I’ll take care Miss Ashton receives no discredit for the slight they have put upon her. It’s an awkward job, however, and I wish it were ended; I scarce know how to talk to her,—but fill a bumper, Craigie, and we’ll drink her health. It grows late, and a night-cowl of good claret is worth all the considering-caps in Europe.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
It was the copy of our conference.
In bed she slept not, for my urging it;
At board she fed not, for my urging it;
Alone, it was the subject of my theme;
In company I often glanced at it.
Comedy of Errors.