Redgauntlet | Page 7

who had closely attended
him in all his difficulties, were ill rewarded.'--King's MEMOIRS.] We
must receive, however, with some degree of jealousy what is said by Dr.
King on this subject, recollecting that he had left at least, if he did not
desert, the standard of the unfortunate prince, and was not therefore a
person who was likely to form the fairest estimate of his virtues and
faults. We must also remember that if the exiled prince gave little, he
had but little to give, especially considering how late he nourished the
scheme of another expedition to Scotland, for which he was long
endeavouring to hoard money.
The case, also, of Charles Edward must be allowed to have been a
difficult one. He had to satisfy numerous persons, who, having lost

their all in his cause, had, with that all, seen the extinction of hopes
which they accounted nearly as good as certainties; some of these were
perhaps clamorous in their applications, and certainly ill pleased with
their want of success. Other parts of the Chevalier's conduct may have
afforded grounds for charging him with coldness to the sufferings of
his devoted followers. One of these was a sentiment which has nothing
in it that is generous, but it was certainly a principle in which the young
prince was trained, and which may be too probably denominated
peculiar to his family, educated in all the high notions of passive
obedience and non-resistance. If the unhappy prince gave implicit faith
to the professions of statesmen holding such notions, which is implied
by his whole conduct.
*
REDGAUNTLET
LETTER I
DARSIE LATIMER TO ALAN FAIRFORD
DUMFRIES.
CUR ME EXANIMAS QUERELIS TUIS? In plain English, Why do
you deafen me with your croaking? The disconsolate tone in which you
bade me farewell at Noble House, [The first stage on the road from
Edinburgh to Dumfries via Moffat.] and mounted your miserable hack
to return to your law drudgery, still sounds in my ears. It seemed to say,
'Happy dog! you can ramble at pleasure over hill and dale, pursue every
object of curiosity that presents itself, and relinquish the chase when it
loses interest; while I, your senior and your better, must, in this brilliant
season, return to my narrow chamber and my musty books.'
Such was the import of the reflections with which you saddened our
parting bottle of claret, and thus I must needs interpret the terms of
your melancholy adieu.
And why should this be so, Alan? Why the deuce should you not be

sitting precisely opposite to me at this moment, in the same
comfortable George Inn; thy heels on the fender, and thy juridical brow
expanding its plications as a pun rose in your fancy? Above all, why,
when I fill this very glass of wine, cannot I push the bottle to you, and
say, 'Fairford, you are chased!' Why, I say, should not all this be, except
because Alan Fairford has not the same true sense of friendship as
Darsie Latimer, and will not regard our purses as common, as well as
our sentiments?
I am alone in the world; my only guardian writes to me of a large
fortune which will be mine when I reach the age of twenty-five
complete; my present income is, thou knowest, more than sufficient for
all my wants; and yet thou--traitor as thou art to the cause of
friendship--dost deprive me of the pleasure of thy society, and
submittest, besides, to self-denial on thine own part, rather than my
wanderings should cost me a few guineas more! Is this regard for my
purse, or for thine own pride? Is it not equally absurd and unreasonable,
whichever source it springs from? For myself, I tell thee, I have, and
shall have, more than enough for both. This same methodical Samuel
Griffiths, of Ironmonger Lane, Guildhall, London, whose letter arrives
as duly as quarter-day, has sent me, as I told thee, double allowance for
this my twenty-first birthday, and an assurance, in his brief fashion, that
it will be again doubled for the succeeding years, until I enter into
possession of my own property. Still I am to refrain from visiting
England until my twenty-fifth year expires; and it is recommended that
I shall forbear all inquiries concerning my family, and so forth, for the
present.
Were it not that I recollect my poor mother in her deep widow's weeds,
with a countenance that never smiled but when she looked on me--and
then, in such wan and woful sort, as the sun when he glances through
an April cloud,--were it not, I say, that her mild and matron-like form
and countenance forbid such a suspicion, I might think myself the son
of some Indian director, or rich citizen, who had more wealth than
grace,