Chapter 12

"Now dame," quoth he, "Je vous dis sans doute,
Had I nought of a capon but the liver,
And of your white bread nought but a shiver,
And after that a roasted pigge's head
(But I ne wold for me no beast were dead),
Then had I with you homely sufferaunce."

CHAUCER, Summer's Tale.

IT was not without some secret misgivings that Caleb set out upon
his exploratory expedition. In fact, it was attended with a treble
difficulty. He dared not tell his mast the offence which he had that
morning given to Bucklaw, just for the honour of the family; he dared
not acknowledge he had been too hasty in refusing the purse; and,
thirdly, he was somewhat apprehensive of unpleasant consequences upon
his meeting Hayston under the impression of an affront, and probably by
this time under the influence also of no small quantity of brandy.

Caleb, to do him justice, was as bold as any lion where the honour of
the family of Ravenswood was concerned; but his was that considerate
valour which does not delight in unnecessary risks. This, however, was a
secondary consideration; the main point was to veil the indigence of
the housekeeping at the castle, and to make good his vaunt of the cheer
which his resources could procure, without Lockhard's assistance, and
without supplies from his master. This was as prime a point of honour
with him as with the generous elephant with whom we have already
compared him, who, being overtasked, broke his skull through the
desperate exertions which he made to discharge his duty, when he
perceived they were bringing up another to his assistance.

The village which they now approached had frequently afforded the
distressed butler resources upon similar emergencies; but his relations
with it had been of late much altered.

It was a little hamlet which straggled along the side of a creek formed
by the discharge of a small brook into the sea, and was hidden from
the castle, to which it had been in former times an appendage, by the
intervention of the shoulder of a hill forming a projecting headland.
It was called Wolf's Hope (i.e. Wolf's Haven), and the few inhabitants
gained a precarious subsistence by manning two or three fishing-boats
in the herring season, and smuggling gin and brandy during the
winter months. They paid a kind of hereditary respect to the Lords
of Ravenswood; but, in the difficulties of the family, most of the
inhabitants of Wolf's Hope had contrived to get feu-rights to their
little possessions, their huts, kail-yards, and rights of commonty, so
that they were emancipated from the chains of feudal dependence,
and free from the various exactions with which, under every possible
pretext, or without any pretext at all, the Scottish landlords