"Aha! sits the wind there? Then I suppose the young dog carries off my mistress Julia?""Even so, counsellor.""These rascals, the post-nati, get the better of us of the old school at every turn," said Mr. Pleydell. "But she must convey and make over her interest in me to Lucy.""To tell you the truth, I am afraid your flank will be turned there too," replied the Colonel.
"Indeed?"
"Here has been Sir Robert Hazlewood," said Mannering, "upon a visit to Bertram, thinking, and deeming, and opining--""O Lord I pray spare me the worthy Baronet's triads!""Well, sir," continued Mannering to make short, he conceived that as the property of Singleside lay like a wedge between two farms of his, and was four or five miles separated from Ellangowan, something like a sale, or exchange, or arrangement might take place. to the mutual convenience of both parties.""Well, and Bertram--""Why, Bertram replied, that he considered the original settlement of Mrs. Margaret Bertram as the arrangement most proper in the circumstances of the family, and that therefore the estate of Singleside was the property of his sister.""The rascal!" said Pleydell, wiping his spectacles, "he'll steal my heart as well as my mistress--Et puis?""And then, Sir Robert retired after many gracious speeches; but last week he again took the field in force, with his coach and six horses, his laced scarlet waistcoat, and best bob-wig--all very grand, as the good-boy books say.""Ay! and what was his overture?" Why, he talked with great form of an attachment on the part of Charles Hazlewood to Miss Bertram.""Ay, ay; he respected the little god Cupid when he saw him perched on the Dun of Singleside. And is poor Lucy to keep house with that old fool and his wife, who is just the knight himself in petticoats?""No--we parried that. Singieside House is to be repaired for the young people, and to be called hereafter Mount Hazlewood.""And do you yourself, Colonel, propose to continue at Woodbourne?""Only till we carry these plans into effect. See, here's the plan of my Bungalow, with all convenience for being separate and sulky when I please.""And, being situated, as I see, next door to the old castle, you may repair Donagild's tower for the nocturnal contemplation of the celestial bodies? Bravo, Colonel!""No, no, my dear counsellor! here ends THE ASTROLOGER."NOTESNote, 1.--MUMPS'S HA'.
IT is fitting to explain to the reader the locality described in this chapter. There is, or rather I should say there was, a little inn, called Mumps's Hall, that is, being interpreted, Beggar's Hotel, near to Gilsland, which had not then attained its present fame as a Spa. It was a hedge alehouse, where the Bolder farmers of either country often stopped to refresh themselves and their nags, in their way to and from the fairs and trysts in Cumberland, and especially those who came from or went to Scotland, through a barren and lonely district, without either road or pathway, emphatically called the Waste of Bewcastle. At the period when the adventures described in the novel are supposed to have taken place, there were many instances of attacks by freebooters on those who travelled through this wild, district, and Mumps's Ha' had a bad reputation for harbouring the banditti who committed such depredations.
An old and sturdy yeoman belonging to the Scottish side, by surname an Armstrong or Elliot, but known by his soubriquet of Fighting Charlie of Liddesdale, and still remembered for the courage he displayed in the frequent frays which took place on the Border fifty or sixty years since, had the following adventure in the Waste, which suggested the idea of the scene in the text .
Charlie had been at Stagshaw-bank fair, had sold his sheep or cattle, or whatever he had brought to market, and was on his return to Liddesdale. There were then no country banks where cash could be deposited, and bills received instead, which greatly encouraged robbery in that wild country, as the objects of plunder were usually fraught with gold. The robbers had spies in the fair, by means of whom they generally knew whose purse was best stocked, and who took a lonely and desolate road homeward,--those, in short, who were best worth robbing, and likely to be most easily robbed.
All this Charlie knew full well; but he had a pair of excellent pistols, and a dauntless heart. He stopped at Mumps's Ha', notwithstanding the evil character of the place. His horse was accommodated where it might have the necessary rest and feed of corn; and Charlie himself, a dashing fellow, grew gracious with the landlady, a buxom quean, who used all the influence in her power to induce him to stop all night. The landlord was from home, she said, and it was ill passing the Waste, as twilight must needs descend on him before he gained the Scottish side, which was reckoned the safest. But Fighting Charlie, though he suffered himself to be detained later than was prudent, did not account Mumps's Ha' a safe place to quarter in during the night. He tore himself away, therefore, from Meg's good fare and kind words, and mounted his nag, having first examined his pistols, and tried by the ramrod whether the charge remained in them.
He proceeded a mile or two, at a round trot, When, as the Waste stretched black before him apprehensions began to awaken in his mind, partly arising out of Meg's unusual kindness, which he could not help thinking had rather a suspicious appearance. He, therefore, resolved to reload his pistols, lest the powder had become damp; but what was his surprise, when he drew the charge, to find neither powder nor ball, while each barrel had been carefully filled with bore, up to the space which the loading had occupied!