"On n'arrete pas dans un si beau chemin," continued the gay old gentleman, and, as the Colonel presented him to Julia, took the same liberty with that fair lady's cheek. Julia laughed, coloured, and disengaged herself. "I beg a thousand pardons," said the lawyer, with a bow which was not at all professionally awkward;"age and old fashions give privileges, and I can hardly say whether I am most sorry just now at being too well entitled to claim them at all, or happy in having such an opportunity to exercise them so agreeably--""Upon my word, sir," said Miss Mannering, laughing, "If you make such flattering apologies, we shall begin to doubt whether we can admit you to shelter yourself under your alleged qualifications.""I can assure you, Julia," said the Colonel, "you are perfectly right; my friend the counsellor is a dangerous person; the last time I had the pleasure of seeing him, he was closeted with a fair lady, who, had granted him a tete-a-tete at eight in the morning.""Ay, but, Colonel," said the counsellor, "you should add, I was more indebted to my chocolate than my charms for so distinguished a favour, from a person of such propriety, of demeanour as Mrs.
Rebecca."
"And that should remind me, Mr. Pleydell," said Julia, "to offer you tea--that is, supposing you have dined.""Anything, Miss Mannering, from your hands," answered the gallant jurisconsult; "yes, I have dined-that is to say, as people dine at a Scotch inn.""And that is indifferently enough," said the Colonel, with his hand upon the bell-handle "give me leave to order something.""Why, to say truth," replied Mr. Pleydell, "I had rather not; Ihave been inquiring into that matter, for you must know I stopped an instant below to pull off my boot-hose, "a world too wide for my shrunk shanks,"' glancing down with some complacency upon limbs which looked very well for his time of life, "and I had some conversation with your Barnes, and a very intelligent person whom Ipresume to be the housekeeper; and it was settled among us--tota re perspecta--I beg Miss Mannering's pardon for my Latin--that the old lady should add to your light family-supper the more substantial refreshment of a brace of wild-ducks. I told her (always under deep submission) my poor thoughts about the sauce, which concurred exactly with her own; and, if you please, I would rather wait till they are ready before eating anything solid.""And we will anticipate our usual hour of supper," said the Colonel.
"With all my heart," said Pleydell, "providing I do not lose the ladies' company a moment the sooner. I am of counsel with my old friend Burnet; [*See Note VIII. Lord Monboddo.] I love the caena, the supper of the ancients, the pleasant meal and social glass that wash out of one's mind the cobwebs that business or gloom have been spinning in our brains all day.' "Mr. Pleydell's look and manner, and the quietness with which he made himself at home on the subject of his little Epicurean comforts, amused the ladies, but particularly Miss Mannering, who immediately gave the counsellor a great deal of flattering attention; and more pretty things were said on both sides during the service of the tea-table than we have leisure to repeat.
As soon as this was over, Mannering led the counsellor by the arm into a small study which opened from the saloon, and where, according to the custom of the family, there were always lights and a good fire in the evening.
"I see," said Mr. Pleydell, "you have got something to tell me about the Ellangowan business--Is it terrestrial or celestial? What says my military Albumazar? Have you calculated the course of futurity? have you consulted your Ephemerides, your Almochoden, your Almuten?""No, truly, counsellor," replied Mannering, "you are the only Ptolemy I intend to resort to upon the present occasion--a second Prospero, I have broken my staff, and drowned my book far beyond plummet depth. But I have great news notwithstanding. Meg Merrilies, our Egyptian sibyl, has appeared to the Dominie this very day, and, as I conjecture, has frightened the honest man not a little.""Indeed?""Ay, and she has done me the honour to open a correspondence with me, supposing me to be as deep in astrological mysteries as when we first met. Here is her scroll, delivered to me by the Dominie."Pleydell put on his spectacles. "A vile greasy scrawl, indeed--and the letters are uncial or semi-uncial, as somebody calls your large text hand, and in size and perpendicularity resemble the ribs of a roasted pig--I can hardly make it out.""I will try," answered the lawyer. "' You are a good seeker, but a bad finder; you set yourself to prop a falling house, but had a gey guess it would rise again. Lend your hand to the wark that's near, as you lent your ee to the weird [*Destiny] that was far. Have a carriage This night by ten o'clock, at the end of the Crooked Dykes at Portanferry, and let it bring the folk to Woodbourne that shall ask them, if they be there IN GOD'S NAME.'-Stay, here follows some poetry- Dark shall be light, And wrong done to right, When Bertram's right and Bertram's might Shall meet on Ellangowan's height.' A most mystic epistle truly, and closes in a vein of poetry worthy of the Cumaean sibyl--and what have you done?""Why," said Mannering, rather reluctantly, "I was loth to risk any opportunity of throwing light on this business. The woman is perhaps crazed, and these effusions may arise only from visions of her imagination;--but you were of opinion that she knew more of that strange story than she ever told. ""And so," said Pleydell, "you sent a carriage to the place named?""You will laugh at me if I own I did," replied the Colonel.
