BY
JAMES HOGG,
AUTHOR OF “THE QUEEN’S WAKE,” &c. &c.
“What, has this thing appeared again to–night?”
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
EDINBURGH;
PRINTED FOR WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, PRINCE’S–STREET:
AND
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE–STREET, LONDON.
1818.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LADY ANNE SCOTT,
OF BUCCLEUCH.
J. H.
Eltrive Lake, April 1st, 1818.
THE BROWNIE OF BODSBECK.
“It will be a bloody night in Gemsop this,” said Walter of Chapelhope, as he sat one evening by the side of his little parlour fire, and wrung the rim of his wet bonnet into the grate. His wife sat by his side, airing a pair of clean hosen for her husband, to replace his wet ones. She looked stedfastly in his face, but uttered not a word;—it was one of those looks that cannot be described, but it bespoke the height of curiosity, mingled with a kind of indefinite terror. She loved and respected her husband, and sometimes was wont to teaze[4] or cajole him from his purpose; but one glance of his eye, or scowl of his eyebrow, was a sufficient admonition to her when she ventured to use such freedom.
The anxious stare that she bent on his face at this time was enquiry enough, what he meant by the short and mysterious sentence he had just uttered; but from the fulness of his heart he had said that which he could not recal, and had no mind to commit himself farther. His eldest son, John, was in the room too, which he had not remarked before he spoke, and therefore he took the first opportunity to change the subject. “Gudewife,” said he, tartly, “what are ye sittin glowrin like a bendit wulcat there for? Gae away and get me something to eat; I’m like to fa’ atwae wi’ sheer hunger.”
“Hunger, father!” said the lad; “I’m sure I saw ye take as much meat to the hill with you as might have served six.”
Walter looked first over the one shoulder at him, and then over the other, but, repressing[5] his wrath, he sat silent about the space of two minutes, as if he had not heard what the youth said. “Callant,” then said he, with the greatest seeming composure, “rin away to the hill, an’ see after the eild nowt; ca’ them up by the Quare Burn, an’ bide wi’ them till they lie down, gin that sudna be till twal o’clock at night—Gae away when I bid ye—What are ye mumgin at?” And saying so, he gave him such a thwack on the neck and shoulders with the wet bonnet as made him make the best of his way to the door. Whether he drove the young cattle as far as the Quare Burn, or whether he looked after them that night or not, Walter made no farther enquiry.
He sat still by his fire wrapt in deep thought, which seemed to increase his uneasy and fretful mood. Maron Linton, (for that was the goodwife of Chapelhope’s name) observing the bad humour of her husband, and knowing for certain that something disagreeable had befallen him, wisely forbore all intermeddling or teazing[6] questions respecting the cause. Long experience had taught her the danger of these. She bustled about, and set him down the best fare that the house afforded; then, taking up her tobacco pipe, she meditated an escape into the kitchen. She judged that a good hearty meal by himself might somewhat abate his chagrin; and, besides, the ominous words were still ringing in her ears—“It will be a bloody night in Gemsop this”—and she longed to sound the shepherds that were assembled around the kitchen fire, in order to find out their import. Walter, however, perceiving her drift, stopped her short with—“Gudewife, whar are ye gaun sae fast—Come back an’ sit down here, I want to speak t’ye.”
Maron trembled at the tone in which these words were spoken, but nevertheless did as she was desired, and sat down again by the fire. “Weel, Watie, what is’t?” said she, in a low and humble tone.
Walter plied his spoon for some time without deigning any reply; then turning[7] full upon her, “Has Kate been in her bed every night this week?” asked he seriously.
“Dear gudeman, whaten a question’s that to speer at me—What can hae put sic a norie i’ your head as that?”
“That’s no answerin my question, Maron, but speerin ither twa instead o’t—I axt ye gin Kate hadna been out o’ her bed for some nights bygane.”
“How sude I ken ony thing about that, gudeman?—ye may gang an’ speer at her—Out o’ her bed, quotha!—Na—there’ll nae young skempy amang them wile her out o’ her bed i’the night–time.—Dear gudeman, what has put it i’your head that our bairn stravaigs i’the night–time?”
“Na, na, Maron, there’s nae mortal soul will ever gar ye answer to the point.”
“Dear gudeman, wha heard ever tell o’ a mortal soul?—the soul’s no mortal at a’—Didna ye hear our ain worthy curate–clerk say”——
“O, Maron! Maron! ye’ll aye be the auld woman, if the warld sude turn upside–down!—Canna ye answer my question simply, ay or no, as far as ye ken, whether our daughter has been out o’ her bed at midnight for some nights bygane or no?—If ye ken that she has, canna ye tell me sae at aince, without ganging about the bush? it’s a thing that deeply concerns us baith.”
“Troth, gudeman, gin she hae been out o’ her bed, mony a honest man’s bairn has been out o’ her bed at midnight afore her, an’ nae ill in her mind nouther—the thing’s as common as the rising o’ the se’en sterns.”
Walter turned round towards his meal, after casting a look of pity and despair upon his yokefellow, who went on at great length defending the equivocal practice of young women who might deem it meet and convenient to leave their beds occasionally by night; for that, without some mode of private wooing, it was well known that no man in the country could possibly procure a wife, for that darkness rendered a promise serious, which[9] passed in open day for a mere joke, or words of course; and at length Maron Linton, with more sagacity than usual, concluded her arguments with the following home remark:—“Ye ken fu’ weel, gudeman, ye courtit me i’the howe o’ the night yoursel; an’ Him that kens the heart kens weel that I hae never had cause to rue our bits o’ trysts i’the dark—Na, na! mony’s the time an’ aft that I hae blest them, an’ thought o’ them wi’ pleasure! We had ae kind o’ happiness then, Watie, we hae another now, an’ we’ll hae another yet.”
There was something in this appeal that it would have been unnatural to have resisted. There is a tenderness in the recollection of early scenes of mutual joy and love, that invariably softens the asperity of our nature, and draws the heart by an invisible bond toward the sharer of these; but when they are at one view connected with the present and the future, the delight receives a tinge of sublimity. In[10] short, the appeal was one of the most happy that ever fell from the lips of a simple and ignorant, though a well–meaning woman. It was not lost upon Walter; who, though of a rough exterior and impatient humour, was a good man. He took his wife’s hand and squeezed it, while the pupil of his eye expanded like that of a huge mountain ram, when he turns it away from the last ray of the setting sun.
“My gude auld wife,” said he, “God bless ye!—Ye hae bits o’ queer gates whiles, but I wadna part wi’ ye, or see ane o’ yer grey hairs wranged, for a’ the ewes on the Hermon Law.”—Maron gave two or three sobs, and put the corner of her check–apron upon the eye that was next Walter.—“Fair fa’ your heart, Maron,” said he, “we’ll say nae mair about it; but, my woman, we maun crack about our bits o’ hame affairs, an’ I had the strongest reasons for coming to the truth o’ yon; however, I’ll try ither means.—But, Maron[11] Linton, there’s anither thing, that in spite o’ my heart is like to breed me muckle grief, an’ trouble, an’ shame.—Maron, has the Brownie o’ Bodsbeck been ony mair seen about the town?”
“Troth, gudeman, ye’re aye sae hard i’ the belief—wi’ a’ your kindness to me and mine, ye hae a dour, stiff, unbowsome kind o’ nature in ye—it’ll hardly souple whan steepit i’ yer ain e’esight—but I can tell ye for news, ye’ll no hae a servant about yer house, man, woman, nor boy, in less than a fortnight, if this wicked and malevolent spirit canna be put away—an’ I may say i’ the language o’ Scripture, ‘My name is Legion, for we are many.’ It’s no ae Brownie, nor twa, nor half–a–score, that’s about the house, but a great hantle—they say they’re ha’f deils ha’f fock—a thing that I dinna weel understand. But how many bannocks think ye I hae baken in our house these eight days, an’ no a crust o’ them to the fore but that wee bit on your trencher?”
[12]“I little wot, gudewife; maybe half–a–dizen o’ dizens.”
“Half–a–dizen o’ dizens, gudeman!—aye sax dizen o’ dizens!—a’ the meal girnels i’ the country wadna stand it, let abee the wee bit meal ark o’ Chapelhope.”
“Gudewife, I’m perfectly stoundit. I dinna ken what to say, or what to think, or what to do; an’ the mair sae o’ what I have heard sin’ I gaed to the hill—Auld John o’ the Muir, our herd, wha I ken wadna tell a lee for the Laird o’ Drumelzier’s estate, saw an unco sight the night afore last.”
“Mercy on us, gudeman! what mair has been seen about the town?”
“I’ll tell ye, gudewife—on Monanday night he cam yont to stop the ewes aff the hogg–fence, the wind being eissel—it was a wee after midnight, an’ the moon wasna just gane down—he was sittin i’ the scug o’ a bit cleuch–brae, when, or ever he wist, his dog Keilder fell a gurrin’ an’ gurrin’, as he had seen something that he was terrified[13] for—John took him aneath his plaid, an’ held him, thinkin it was some sheep–stealers; but or it was lang he saw a white thing an’ a black thing comin’ up the Houm close thegither; they cam by within three catloups o’ him—he grippit his cudgel firm, an’ was aince gaun to gie them strength o’ arm, but his power failed him, an’ a’ his sinnens grew like dockans; there was a kind o’ glamour cam o’er his een too, for a’ the hope an’ the heaven grew as derk as tar an’ pitch—but the settin moon shone even in their faces, and he saw them as weel as it had been fore–day. The tane was a wee bit hurklin crile of an unearthly thing, as shrinkit an’ wan as he had lien seven years i’ the grave; the tither was like a young woman—an’ what d’ye think? he says he’ll gang to death wi’t that it was outher our dochter or her wraith.”
Maron lifted up her eyes and her clasped hands toward the ceiling, and broke out with the utmost vehemence into the following[14] raving ejaculation:—“O mercy, mercy! Watie Laidlaw!—O, may Him that dwalls atween the Sherubeams be wi’ us, and preserve us and guide us, for we are undone creatures!—O, Watie Laidlaw, Watie Laidlaw! there’s the wheel within the wheel, the mystery o’ Babylon, the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth——”
“Maron Linton!—What are ye sayin?—Haud yer tongue, Maron Linton.”
“O gudeman, I thought it was the young fallows ye jaloosed her wi’—I wish it had. I wad rather hae seen her i’the black stool, in the place where repentance is to be hoped for; but now she’s i’the deil’s ain hands. I jaloosed it, Watie—I kend it—I was sure o’t lang syne—our bairn’s changed—she’s transplanted—she’s no Keaty Laidlaw now, but an unearthly creature—we might weel hae kend that flesh an’ blude cude never be sae bonny—Goodman, I hae an awsome tale to tell ye—Wha think ye was it that killed Clavers’ Highlanders?”
[15]“That, I suppose, will remain a mystery till the day when a’ secrets will be cleared up, an’ a’ the deeds o’ darkness brought to light.”
“Sae may it be, Watie! Sae may it be! But it was neither ane nor other but our ain only dochter Kate.”
“Ye’re ravin, Maron—troth, ye’re gaun daft—a bit sklendry lassie o’ aughteen kill sae mony armed Highlanders?—Hout fye! keep within bounds, Maron.”
“I heard her wi’ thir lugs it’s i’my head—Stannin on that very room floor, I heard her gie the orders to her Brownie. She was greetin whan I cam in—I listened and heard her saying, while her heart was like to loup, ‘Wae’s me! O wae’s me! or mid–day their blood will be rinning like water!—The auld an’ the young, the bonny an’ the gude, the sick an’ the woundit—That blude may cry to Heaven, but the cauld earth will drink it up; days may be better, but waur they canna be! Down wi’ the clans, Brownie, and spare nae ane.’ In less than[16] ten minutes after that, the men were found dead. Now, Watie, this is a plain an’ positive truth.”
Walter’s blood curdled within him at this relation. He was superstitious, but he always affected to disbelieve the existence of the Brownie, though the evidences were so strong as not to admit of any doubt; but this double assurance, that his only daughter, whom he loved above all the world besides, was leagued with evil spirits, utterly confounded him. He charged his wife, in the most solemn manner, never more, during her life, to mention the mysterious circumstance relating to the death of the Highland soldiers. It is not easy to conceive a pair in more consummate astonishment than Walter and his spouse were by the time the conversation had reached this point. The one knew not what to think, to reject, or believe—the other believed all, without comprehending a single iota of that she did believe; her mind endeavoured to grasp a dreadful imaginary form, but[17] the dimensions were too ample for its reasoning powers; they were soon dilated, burst, and were blown about, as it were, in a world of vision and terror.
Before proceeding with the incidents as they occurred, which is the common way of telling a story in the country, it will be necessary to explain some circumstances alluded to in the foregoing chapter.
Walter Laidlaw rented the extensive bounds of Chapelhope from the Laird of Drummelzier. He was a substantial, and even a wealthy man, as times went then, for he had a stock of 3000 sheep, cattle, and horses; and had, besides, saved considerable sums of money, which he had lent out to neighbouring farmers who were not in circumstances so independent as himself.
He had one only daughter, his darling, who was adorned with every accomplishment which the country could then afford,[19] and with every grace and beauty that a country maiden may possess. He had likewise two sons, who were younger than she, and a number of shepherds and female servants.
The time on which the incidents here recorded took place, was, I believe, in the autumn of the year 1685, the most dismal and troublous time that these districts of the south and west of Scotland ever saw, or have since seen. The persecution for religion then raged in its wildest and most unbridled fury: the Covenanters, or the whigs, as they were then called, were proscribed, imprisoned, and at last hunted down like wild beasts. Graham, Viscount of Dundee, better known by the detested name of Clavers, set loose his savage troopers upon those peaceful districts, with peremptory orders to plunder, waste, disperse, and destroy the conventiclers, wherever they might be found.
All the outer parts of the lands of Chapelhope are broken into thousands of deep[20] black ruts, called by the country people moss haggs. Each of the largest of these has a green stripe along its bottom; and in this place in particular they are so numerous, so intersected and complex in their lines, that, as a hiding–place, they are unequalled—men, foxes, and sheep, may all there find cover with equal safety from being discovered, and may hide for days and nights without being aware of one another. The neighbouring farms to the westward abound with inaccessible rocks, caverns, and ravines. To these mountains, therefore, the shattered remains of the fugitives from the field of Bothwell Bridge, as well as the broken and persecuted whigs from all the western and southern counties, fled as to their last refuge. Being unacquainted, however, with the inhabitants of the country in which they had taken shelter—with their religious principles, or the opinions which they held respecting the measures of government—they durst not trust them with[21] the secret of their retreat. They had watches set, sounds for signals, and skulked away from one hiding–place to another at the approach of the armed troop, the careless fowler, or the solitary shepherd; yea, such precautions were they obliged to use, that they often fled from the face of one another.
From the midst of that inhospitable wilderness—from those dark mosses and unfrequented caverns—the prayers of the persecuted race nightly arose to the throne of the Almighty—prayers, as all testified who heard them, fraught with the most simple pathos, as well as the most bold and vehement sublimity. In the solemn gloom of the evening, after the last rays of day had disappeared, and again in the morning before they began to streamer the east, the song of praise was sung to that Being, under whose fatherly chastisement they were patiently suffering. These psalms, always chaunted with ardour and wild melody, and borne on the light[22] breezes of the twilight, were often heard at a great distance. The heart of the peasant grew chill, and his hairs stood all on end, as he hasted home to alarm the cottage circle with a tale of horror. Lights were seen moving by night in wilds and caverns where human thing never resided, and where the foot of man seldom had trode.
The shepherds knew, or thought they knew, that no human being frequented these places; and they believed, as well they might, that whole hordes of spirits had taken possession of their remote and solitary dells. They lived in terror and consternation. Those who had no tie in the country left it, and retreated into the vales, where the habitations of men are numerous, and where the fairy, the brownie, or the walking ghost, is rarely seen. Such as had friends whom they could not leave, or sheep and cattle upon the lands, as the farmers and shepherds had, were obliged to remain, but their[23] astonishment and awe continued to increase. They knew there was but one Being to whom they could apply for protection against these unearthly visitants; family worship was begun both at evening and morning in the farmers’ hall and the most remote hamlet; and that age introduced a spirit of devotion into those regions, which one hundred and thirty years continuance of the utmost laxity and indecision in religious principles has not yet been able wholly to eradicate.
It is likewise necessary to mention here, though perfectly well known, that every corner of that distracted country was furnished with a gownsman, to instruct the inhabitants in the mild and benignant principles of prelacy, but chiefly to act as spies upon the detested whigs. In the fulfilment of this last task they were not remiss; they proved the most inveterate and incorrigible enemies that the poor covenanters had, even though heaven, earth, and hell seemed to have combined against them.
[24]The officiating priest at the kirk of Saint Mary of the Lowes had been particularly active in this part of his commission. The smallest number could not be convened for the purposes of public devotion—two or three stragglers could not be seen crossing the country, but information was instantly sent to Clavers, or some one of his officers; and, at the same time, these devotional meetings were always described to be of the most atrocious and rebellious nature. The whigs became grievously incensed against this ecclesiastic, for, in the bleakest mountain of their native land, they could not enjoy a lair in common with the foxes and the wild–goats in peace, nor worship their God without annoyance in the dens and caves of the earth. Their conventicles, though held in places ever so remote, were broke in upon and dispersed by armed troops, and their ministers and brethren carried away to prisons, to banishment, and to death. They waxed desperate; and what will not desperate men[25] do? They way–laid, and seized upon one of the priest’s emissaries by night, a young female, who was running on a message to Grierson of Lag. Overcome with fear at being in custody of such frightful–looking fellows, with their sallow cheeks and long beards, she confessed the whole, and gave up her dispatches. They were of the most aggravated nature. Forthwith two or three of the most hardy of the whigs, without the concurrence or knowledge of their brethren, posted straight to the Virgin’s chapel that very night, shot the chaplain, and buried him at a small distance from his own little solitary mansion; at the same time giving out to the country, that he was a sorcerer, an adulterer, and a character every way evil. His name has accordingly been handed down to posterity as a most horrid necromancer.
This was a rash and unpremeditated act; and, as might well have been foreseen, the cure proved worse than the disease. It[26] brought the armed troops upon them both from the east and the west. Dundee came to Traquair, and stationed companies of troops in a line across the country. The Laird of Lag placed a body of men in the narrowest pass of Moffatdale, in the only path by which these mountains are accessible. Thus all communication was cut off between the mountain–men and the western counties; for every one who went or came by that way, these soldiers took prisoner, searched, and examined; and one lad, who was coming from Moffat, carrying more bread than they thought he could well account for, they shot dead on the spot just as he had dropt on his knees to pray.
A curate, named Clerk, still remained, to keep an eye upon the whigs and pester them. He had the charge of two chapels in that vicinity; the one at a place now called Kirkhope, which was dedicated to Saint Irene, a saint of whom the narrator of this story could give no account. The[27] other was dedicated to Saint Lawrence; the remains of it are still to be seen at Chapelhope, in a small circular inclosure on the west side of the burn. Clerk was as malevolent to the full against the proscribed party as his late brother, but he wanted the abilities of the deceased; he was ignorant, superstitious, and had assumed a part of the fanaticism in religion of the adverse party, for it was the age and the country of fanaticism, and nothing else would take. By that principally he had gained some influence among his hearers, on whom he tried every stimulant to influence them against the whigs. The goodwife of Chapelhope was particularly attached to him and his tenets; he held her completely in leading–strings; her concience approved of every thing, or disapproved, merely as he directed; he flattered her for her deep knowledge in true and sound divinity and the Holy Scriptures, although of both she was grossly ignorant. But she had learned from her preceptor a[28] kind of cant—a jargon of religious terms and sentences of Scripture mixed, of which she had great pride but little understanding. She was just such a character as would have been a whig, had she ever had an opportunity of hearing or conversing with any of that sect. Nothing earthly could be so truly ludicrous as some of her exhibitions in a religious style. The family and servants were in general swayed by their mistress, who took a decided part with Clerk in all his schemes against the whigs, and constantly dispatched one of her own servants to carry his messages of information to the king’s officers. This circumstance soon became known to the mountain–men, and though they were always obliged to take refuge on the lands of Chapelhope by day, they avoided carefully all communication with the family or shepherds (for several of the shepherds on that farm lived in cottages at a great distance from one another and from the farm–house.)
Walter despised Clerk and his tenets[29] most heartily; he saw that he was a shallow, hypocritical, and selfish being, and that he knew nothing of the principles in which he pretended to instruct them; therefore he sorely regretted the influence that he had gained over his family. Neither did he approve of the rigid and rebellious principles which he believed the Covenanters professed. When he met with any man, or community of men, who believed firmly in any thing and held it sacred, Walter revered that, and held it sacred likewise; but it was rather from a deference to the belief and feelings of his fellow creatures than his own conviction. In short, Walter was an honest, conscientious, good, old–fashioned man, but he made no great fuss about religion, and many supposed that he did not care a pin who was right or who was wrong.
On the 23d of August, Clavers (I think it best to denominate him so, as he is always called by that name in the country,) dispatched nineteen men from Traquair, under[30] the command of one Copland, a gentleman volunteer in his troop, and a very brave young man, to gain intelligence concerning the murder of the curate, and use every means to bring the perpetrators to justice. Copland and his men came to the mansion of the late chaplain, where they remained all the night, and made every enquiry that they could concerning the murderers. Several witnesses were brought in and examined, and among others the very identical girl whom the whigs took prisoner, and robbed of the dispatches. She had heard the letter read by one of the gang who seized her, while the rest stood and listened. It bore, “that great numbers of the broken and rebellious traitors kenneled in the wilds around Loch–Skene, from whence they committed depredations on all the countries about; that they likewise made religious incursions into those districts, where great multitudes attended their inflammatory harangues.” It also stated, [31]“that a noted incendiary was to preach on such a day in Kirkinhope Linn, where the whole group might easily be surrounded and annihilated; that many of them were armed with guns, bludgeons, and broadswords, but that they were the most cowardly, heartless dogs alive; and that he himself, who had private and certain information of all their hiding places, would engage to rid the country of them in a few days, if Lag would allow him but one company of soldiers.”
Copland now began to suspect that his force was too small to accomplish any thing of moment; he determined, however, to make a dash into the wild next morning, and, if possible, to seize some prisoners, and thereby gain more accurate information. On the morning of the 24th, having procured two trusty guides, he proceeded on his expedition. He and nine of his followers went up by a place called Sheilhope, the other nine by Chapelhope—they were to scour the broken ground, take all those prisoners whom they found skulking,[32] fire upon such as refused to stand, and meet on a certain height at noon. Copland and his party reached the appointed place without making any reprisal; they perceived some stragglers on the heights and rocks at a great distance, who always vanished away, like beings not of this world. Three of the other party took one poor lad prisoner, who was so spent and emaciated that he had been unable to fly at the signal–sound; but so intent were they on blood that he was not ever brought before their leader, who never so much as knew of the capture.
The guide was wont to relate the circumstances of this poor man’s trial and execution, for, but for him, no such thing would ever have been known; the death of a whig, or a straggler of any kind, was then a matter of no concern—They were three Brae–mar Highlanders who took him; like the most part of his associates, he answered their questions in a surly manner, and by the most cutting retorts, which particularly enraged a Donald Farquharson,[33] one of the party, against him. “Weel, I’ll pe pitting you to ’e test, and tat fery shun, my coot freen,” said Donald; “and I’ll just pe teeling you, eince for a’, tat ye haif ne meer but tway meenets and a half to leef.”
The poor forlorn wight answered, “that he expected no better at their hands,—that he desired no longer time, and he hoped they would bear patiently with him for that short space.” He then kneeled down and prayed most fervently, while Donald, who wanted only a hair to make a tether of, as the saying is, seemed watching diligently for a word at which to quarrel. At length he spoke words to the following purport. “Father, forgive these poor misled creatures, as I forgive them; they are running blindly upon a wrong path, and without the power of thy grace they shall never gain the right one more.” Donald, who did not well understand the dialect in which the prisoner prayed, looked[34] shrewdly at his companions. “Dugald More,” said he—“Dugald More, fat’s ’e man saying?”
“He is praying,” replied the other, “that we may lose our way, and never find it more.”
“Cot t‑‑n ’e soul o’ ’e tief, is he?” said Donald, and ran him through with his bayonet.
The wounded man groaned, and cried most piteously, and even called out “murder,” but there was none to rescue or regard him. The soldiers, however, cut the matter short, by tossing him into a deep hole in the morass, where he sunk in the mire and was seen no more.
When Copland arrived at the place of rendezvous, five out of his ten associates were no where to be seen, nor did they make their appearance, although he tarried there till two in the afternoon. The guide then conducted him by the path on which those missing should have come, and on arriving at a narrow pass in Chapelhope,[35] he found the bodies of the four soldiers and their guide mangled and defaced in no ordinary way; and judging from this that he had been long enough in that neighbourhood, he hasted back to Traquair with the news of the loss. Clavers is said to have broke out into the most violent rage, and to have sworn that night by the Blessed Virgin and all the Holy Trinity, utterly to extirpate the seed of the d‑‑d whining psalm–singing race from the face of the earth, and that ere Beltein there should not be as much whig blood in Scotland as would make a dish of soup to a dog. He however concealed from the privy council the loss of these five men, nor did they ever know of it to this day.
Things were precisely in this state, when the goodman of Chapelhope, taking his plaid and staff, went out to the heights one misty day in autumn to drive off a neighbour’s flock from his pasture; but, as Walter was wont to relate the story himself, when any stranger came there on a winter evening, as long as he lived, it may haply be acceptable to the curious, and the lovers of rustic simplicity, to read it in his own words, although he drew it out to an inordinate length, and perhaps kept his own personal feelings and prowess too much in view for the fastidious or critical reader to approve.
“It was on a mirk misty day in September,”[37] said Walter, “I mind it weel, that I took my plaid about me, and a bit gay steeve aik stick in my hand, and away I sets to turn aff the Winterhopeburn sheep. The wind had been east–about a’ that harst, I hae some sma’ reason ne’er to forget it, and they had amaist gane wi’ a’ the gairs i’ our North Grain. I weel expected I wad find them a’ in the scaithe that dark day, and I was just amind to tak them hame in a drove to Aidie Andison’s door, and say, ‘Here’s yer sheep for ye, lad; ye maun outher keep them better, or else, gude faith, I’ll keep them for ye.’—I had been crost and put about wi’ them a’ that year, and I was just gaun to bring the screw to the neb o’ the mire–snipe.—Weel, off I sets—I had a special dog at my feet, and a bit gay fine stick in my hand, and I was rather cross–natured that day—‘Auld Wat’s no gaun to be o’er–trampit wi’ nane o’ them, for a’ that’s come and gane yet,’ quo’ I to mysel as I gaed up the burn.—Weel, I slings aye on wi’ a gay lang step; but, by[38] the time that I had won the Forkings, I gat collied amang the mist, sae derk, that fient a spark I could see—Stogs aye on through cleuch and gill, and a’ the gairs that they used to spounge, but, to my great mervel, I can nouther see a hair of a ewe’s tail, nor can I hear the bleat of a lamb, or the bell of a wether—No ane, outher of my ain or ither folks!—‘Ay,’ says I to mysel, ‘what can be the meaning o’ this? od, there has been somebody here afore me the day!’ I was just standin looking about me amang the lang hags that lead out frae the head o’ the North Grain, and considering what could be wort of a’ the sheep, when I noticed my dog, Reaver, gaun coursing away forrit as he had been setting a fox. What’s this, thinks I—On he gangs very angry like, cocking his tail, and setting up his birses, till he wan to the very brink of a deep hag; but when he gat there, my certy, he wasna lang in turning! Back he comes, by me, an’ away as the deil had been chasing him; as terrified a beast I[39] saw never—Od, sir, I fand the very hairs o’ my head begin to creep, and a prinkling through a’ my veins and skin like needles and preens.—‘God guide us!’ thinks I, ‘what can this be?’ The day was derk, derk; for I was in the very stamoch o’ the cludd, as it were; still it was the day time, an’ the e’e o’ Heaven was open. I was as near turned an’ run after my tike as ever I’ll miss, but I just fand a stound o’ manheid gang through my heart, an’ forrit I sets wi’ a’ the vents o’ my head open. ‘If it’s flesh an’ blude,’ thinks I, ‘or it get the owrance o’ auld Wat Laidlaw, od it sal get strength o’ arm for aince.’ It was a deep hag, as deep as the wa’s o’ this house, and a strip o’ green sward alang the bottom o’t; and when I came to the brow, what does I see but twa lang liesh chaps lying sleeping at ither’s sides, baith happit wi’ the same maud. ‘Hallo!’ cries I, wi’ a stern voice, ‘wha hae we here?’ If ye had but seen how they lookit when they[40] stertit up; od, ye wad hae thought they were twa scoundrels wakened frae the dead! I never saw twa mair hemp–looking dogs in my life.
‘What are ye feared for, lads? Whaten twa blades are ye? Or what are ye seeking in sic a place as this?’
‘This is a derk day, gudeman.’
‘This is a derk day, gudeman! That’s sic an answer as I heard never. I wish ye wad tell me something I dinna ken—and that’s wha ye are, and what ye’re seeking here?’
‘We’re seeking nought o’ yours, friend.’
‘I dinna believe a word o’t—ye’re nae folk o’ this country—I doubt ye ken o’er weel what stealing o’ sheep is—But if ye winna tell me plainly and honestly your business here, the deil be my inmate gin I winna knock your twa heads thegither.’
‘There is a gude auld say, honest man, It is best to let sleeping dogs lie, they may rise and bite you.’
[41]‘Bite me, lad!—Rise an’ bite me!—I wad like to see a dog on a’ the heights o’ Chapelhope that wad snarl at me, let be to bite!’
“I had a gay steeve dour aik stick in my hand, an’ wi’ that I begoud to heave’t up, no to strike them, but just to gi’e them a glisk o’ the coming–on that was in’t. By this time they were baith on their feet; and the ane that was neist me he gi’es the tabie of his jockey–coat a fling back, and out he pu’s a braid sword frae aneath it—an’ wi’ the same blink the ither whups a sma’ spear out o’ the heart o’ his aik stick, ‘Here’s for ye then, auld camstary,’ says they; ‘an unlucky fish gets an unlucky bait.’ Od sir, I was rather stoundit; I began to look o’er my shouther, but there was naething there but the swathes o’ mist. What wad I hae gien for twa minutes of auld John o’ the Muchrah! However, there was nae time to lose—it was come fairly to the neb o’ the mire–snipe[42] wi’ me. I never was gude when taken by surprise a’ my life—gie me a wee time, an’ I turn quite foundemental then—sae, to tell the truth, in my hurry I took the flier’s part, flang the plaid frae me, and ran off up the hag as fast as my feet could carry me, an’ a’ the gate the ragamuffian wi’ the sword was amaist close at my heels. The bottom o’ the hag was very narrow, twa could hardly rin abreast. My very bluid began to rise at being chased by twa skebels, and I thought I heard a voice within me, crying, ‘Dinna flee, Wat Laidlaw! dinna flee, auld Wat! ye hae a gude cause by the end!’ I wheeled just round in a moment, sir, and drew a desperate straik at the foremost, an’ sae little kend the haniel about fencing, that instead o’ sweeing aff my downcome wi’ his sword, he held up his sword–arm to save his head—I gart his arm just snap like a pipe–stapple, and down fell his bit whittle to the ground, and he on aboon it. The tither, wi’ his sma’ spear,[43] durstna come on, but ran for it; I followed, and was mettler o’ foot than he, but I durstna grip him, for fear he had run his bit spit through my sma–fairns i’ the struggle, for it was as sharp as a lance, but I keepit a little back till I gat the end o’ my stick just i’ the how o’ his neck, and then I gae him a push that soon gart him plew the flow with his nose. On aboon him I gets, and the first thing I did was to fling away his bit twig of a sword—I gart it shine through the air like a fiery dragon—then I took him by the cuff o’ the neck, and lugged him back to his neighbour, wha was lying graning in the hag. ‘Now, billies,’ says I, ‘ye shall answer face to face, it wad hae been as good soon as syne; tell me directly wha ye are, and what’s your business here, or, d’ye hear me, I’ll tye ye thegither like twa tikes, and tak ye to them that will gar ye speak.’
‘Ah! lack–a–day, lack–a–day!’ said the wounded man, ‘ye’re a rash, foolish, passionate man, whaever ye be.’
[44]‘Ye’re maybe no very far wrang there,’ quo’ I; ‘but for aince, I trow, I had gude reason. Ye thought to kill me wi’ your bits o’ shabbles o’ swords!’
‘In the first place then,’ said he, ‘ken that we wadna hae shed ae drap o’ your blood, nor wranged a hair o’ your head—all that we wanted was to get quit of ye, to keep ye out o’ danger an’ scaith. Ye hae made a bonny day’s wark on’t truly, we had naething in view but your ain safety—but sin’ ye will ken ye maun ken; we belang to a poor proscribed remnant, that hae fled from the face of a bloody persecution. We have left all, and lost all, for the cause of our religion, and are driven into this dismal wilderness, the only miserable retreat left us in our native land.’
‘Od, sir! he hadna weel begun to speak till the light o’ the truth began to dawn within me like the brek o’ the day–sky, an’ I grew as red too, for the devil needna hae envied me my feelings at that time. I couldna help saying to mysel, ‘Whow, whow, Wat[45] Laidlaw! but ye hae made a bonny job o’t this morning!—Here’s twa puir creatures, worn out wi’ famine and watching, come to seek a last refuge amang your hags and mosses, and ye maun fa’ to and be pelting and threshing on them like an incarnate devil as ye are.—Oh, wae’s me! wae’s me!’—Lord, sir, I thought my heart wad burst—There was a kind o’ yuke came into my een that I could hardly bruke; but at length the muckle tears wan out wi’ a sair faught, and down they came down ower my beard, dribble for dribble. The men saw the pliskie that I was in, and there was a kind o’ ruefu’ benevolence i’ their looks, I never saw ony thing like it.’
‘Dinna be wae for us, honest man,’ said they; ‘we hae learned to suffer—we hae kend nought else for this mony a lang and bloody year, an’ we look for nought else for the wee while we hae to sojourn in this weary world—we hae learned to suffer patiently, and to welcome our sufferings as mercies.’
[46]‘Ye’ve won a gude length, man,’ quo’ I; ‘but they’re mercies that I’m never very fond o’—I wish ye had suffered under ony hand but mine, sin’ it be your lot.’
‘Dinna be sorry for us, honest man; there never was an act o’ mair justice than this that ye hae inflicted. Last night there were fifteen o’ us met at evening worship—we hadna tasted meat for days and nights; to preserve our miserable lives, we stole a sheep, dressed, and ate it; and wi’ this very arm that you hae disabled, did I grip and kill that sheep. It was a great sin, nae doubt, but the necessity was also great—I am sae far punished, and I hope the Lord will forgie the rest.’
‘If he dinna,’ quo’ I, ‘he’s no what I think him.’ Then he began a lang serious harangue about the riches o’ free grace, and about the wickedness o’ our nature; and said, that we could do naething o’ oursells but sin. I said it was a hard construction, but I couldna argy the point ava wi’ him—I never was a dab at these lang–winded[47] stories. Then they cam on about prelacy and heresies, and something they ca’d the act of abjuration. I couldna follow him out at nae rate; but I says, I pit nae doubt, callants, but ye’re right, for ye hae proven to a’ the warld that ye think sae; and when a man feels conscious that he’s right, I never believe he can be far wrang in sic matters. But that’s no the point in question; let us consider what can be done for ye e’en now—Poor souls! God kens, my heart’s sair for ye; but this land’s mine, an’ a’ the sheep around ye, an’ ye’re welcome to half–a–dozen o’ the best o’ them in sic a case.’
‘Ah! lack–a–day, lack–a–day! If ye be the gudeman o’ the Chapelhope, ye’ll rue the day that ever ye saw us. If it’s kend that ye countenanced us in word or deed, ye’re a ruined man; for the blood–hounds are near at hand, and they’ll herry ye out and in, but and ben—Lack–a–day! lack–a–day! in a wee while we may gang and[48] come by the Chapelhope, and nouther see a lum reek nor hear a cock craw; for Clavers is on the one hand and Lag on the other, and they’re coming nearer and nearer us every day, and hemming us in sairer and sairer—renounce us and deny us, as ye wish to thrive.’
‘Na, na, lads, let them come—let them come their ways! Gin they should take a’ the ewes and kye on the Chapelhope, I can stock it o’er again. I dinna gie a bawbee about your leagues, and covenants, and associations, for I think aye there’s a good deal o’ faction and dourness in them; but or I’ll desert a fellow–creature that’s oppressed, if he’s an honest man, and lippens to me, od, I’ll gie them the last drap o’ my heart’s bluid.’
“When they heard that, they took me out to the tap of a knowe, and began to whistle like plovers—nae herd alive could hae kend but they were plovers—and or ever I wist, ilka hag, and den, and tod–hole[49] round about, seemed to be fu’ o’ plovers, for they fell a’ to the whistling an’ answering ane another at the same time. I had often been wondering how they staid sae lang on the heights that year, for I heard them aye whewing e’en an’ morn; but little trowed I they were a’ twa–handed plovers that I heard. In half an hour they had sic a squad gathered thegither as e’e never glimed on. There ye might hae seen auld gray–bearded ministers, lairds, weavers, and poor hinds, a’ sharing the same hard fate. They were pale, ragged, and hungry, and several o’ them lame and wounded; and they had athegither sic a haggard severity i’ their demeaner. Lord forgie me, gin I wasna feared to look at them! There was ane o’ them a doctor blade, wha soon set the poor chield’s arm; and he said, that after a’ it wasna broken, but only dislockit and sair brizzed. That doctor was the gabbiest body ever I met wi’; he spake for them a’, and I whiles feared[50] that he sclented a wee. He tried a’ that he could to make me a Cameronian, but I wadna grip; and when I was coming away to leave him, ‘Laidlaw,’ quo’ he, ‘we ken ye to be an honest, honourable man; here you see a remnant of poor, forlorn, misrepresented creatures, who have thrown themselves on your mercy; if ye betray us, it will be the worse for ye both here and hereafter; if you save and protect us, the prayers of the just win their way to Heaven, though fiends should be standing by to oppose them—Ay, there’s naething can stop their journey, Laidlaw!—The winds canna blaw them aside, the clouds canna drown them, and the lights o’ Heaven canna burn them; and your name will stand at that bar where there’s nae cruel and partial judge—What you gie to us, ye gie to your Maker, and he will repay you seven fold.’ Od, the body was like to gar me play the bairn and greet even out. Weel, I canna mind the half that he said, but he endit wi’ this:—‘We[51] have seen our friends all bound, banished, and destroyed; they have died on the field, on the scaffold, and at the stake; but the reek o’ their blood shall drive the cruel Stuarts frae the land they have disgraced, and out of it a church of truth and liberty shall spring. There is still a handfu’ remaining in Israel that have not yet bowed the knee to Baal, nor yet kissed him—That remnant has fled here to escape the cruelty of man; but a worse fate threatens us now—we are all of us perishing with famine—For these three days we have tasted nothing but the green moss, save a few wretched trouts, eels, and adders.’ ‘Ethers, man!’ quo’ I,—‘For the love o’ God take care how ye eat the ethers—ye may as weel cut your throats at aince as eat them. Na, na, lad, that’s meat that will never do.’ I said nae mair, but gae just a wave to my dog. ‘Reaver,’ quo’ I, ‘yon’s away.’—In three minutes he had ten score o’ ewes and wedders at my hand. I grippit twa o’[52] the best I could wale, and cut aff their heads wi’ my ain knife. ‘Now, doctor,’ quo’ I, ‘take these and roast them, and part them amang ye the best way ye can—ye’ll find them better than the ethers—Lord, man, it will never do to eat ethers.’”
After a hearty laugh, in which his guests generally joined, Walter concluded thus: “That meeting cost me twa or three hunder round bannocks, and mae gude ewes and wedders than I’ll say; but I never missed them, and I never rued what I did. Folk may say as they like, but I think aye the prayers out amang the hags and rash–bushes that year did me nae ill—It is as good to hae a man’s blessing as his curse, let him be what he may.”
Walter never went farther with his story straight onward than this; for it began to involve family concerns, which he did not much like to recount. He had a number of abstract stories about the Covenanters and their persecutors; but as I must now[53] proceed with the narrative as I gathered it from others, these will be interwoven in their due course.
Walter visited them next day at the time and place appointed, taking with him a dozen of bannocks and a small cheese. These he was obliged to steal out of his own pantry, for he durst not by any means trust his wife and family with the discovery he had made, knowing that he might as well have confided it with the curate himself, the sworn enemy of his motley protegees. They gathered around him with protestations of gratitude and esteem; for the deserted and oppressed generally cling to the first symptoms of friendship and protection with an ardency that too often overshoots its aim. Walter naturally felt an honest pride, not so much in that he had[55] done, as that he intended to do; but before he produced his repast, he began in a most serious way to question them relating to some late incidents already mentioned.
They all with one assent declared, and took God to witness, that they knew nothing at all about the death of the five soldiers; that it was not perpetrated by them, nor any connected with them; nor could they comprehend, in the least degree, how it was effected, if not by some supernatural agency—a judgment sent down from Heaven for their bloody intent. With regard to the murder of the priest, they were sorry that they knew so much. It was perpetrated by a few rash men of their number, but entirely without their concurrent assent, as well as knowledge; that though his death might have been necessary to the saving of a great number of valuable lives, they had, nevertheless, unanimously protested against it; that the perpetrators had retired from their body, they knew not whither; and that at that very time the[56] Rev. Messrs Alexander Shiels and James Renwick were engaged in arranging for publication a general protest against many things alleged against them by their enemies, and that among others.[1]
[57]There was a candour in this to which Walter’s heart assented. He feasted them with his plentiful and homely cheer—promised to visit them every day, and so to employ his shepherds that none of them should come into that quarter to distress them. Walter was as good as his word—He visited them every day—told them all[58] the news that he could gather of the troops that beleagured them—of the executions that were weekly and daily taking place—and of every thing else relating to the state of the country. He came loaden with food to them daily; and when he found it impossible to steal his own bread, butter, and cheese, he supplied their wants from his flock. The numbers of the persecuted increased on his hands incalculably—The gudewife of Chapelhope’s bannocks vanished by scores, and the unconscionable, insatiable Brownie of Bodsbeck was blamed for the whole.
Some time previous to this, a young vagrant, of the name of Kennedy, chanced to be out on these moors shooting grouse, which were extremely plentiful. He tarried until the twilight, for he had the art of calling the heath–fowl around him in great numbers, by imitating the cry of the hen. He took his station for this purpose in one of those moss–hags formerly described; but he had not well begun to call ere his ears[59] were saluted by the whistling of so many plovers that he could not hear his own voice. He was obliged to desist, and lay for some time listening, in expectation that they would soon cease crying. When lying thus, he heard distinctly the sound of something like human voices, that spoke in whispers hard by him; he likewise imagined that he heard the pattering of feet, which he took for those of horses, and, convinced that it was a raid of the fairies, he became mortally afraid; he crept closer to the earth, and in a short time heard a swell of the most mellifluous music that ever rose on the night. He then got up, and fled with precipitation away, as he thought, from the place whence the music seemed to arise; but ere he had proceeded above an hundred paces, he met with one of the strangest accidents that ever happened to man.
That same night, about, or a little before, the hour of midnight, two of Laidlaw’s men, who happened to be awake, imagined that[60] they heard a slight noise without; they arose, and looked cautiously out at a small hole that was in the end of the stable where they slept, and beheld to their dismay the appearance of four men, who came toward them carrying a coffin; on their coming close to the corner of the stable, where the two men stood, the latter heard one of them say distinctly, in a whisper, “Where shall we lay him?”
“We must leave him in the barn,” said another.
“I fear,” said a third, “the door of that will be locked;” and they past on.
The men were petrified; they put on their clothes, but they durst not move, until, in a short time thereafter, a dreadful bellowing and noise burst forth about the door of the farm–house. The family was alarmed, and gathered out to see what was the matter; and behold! there lay poor Kennedy in a most piteous plight, and, in fact, stark staring mad. He continued in a high fever all the night, and the next[61] morning; but a little after noon he became somewhat more calm, and related to them a most marvellous tale indeed.
He said, that by the time he arose to fly from the sound of the music, the moor was become extremely dark, and he could not see with any degree of accuracy where he was running, but that he still continued to hear the sounds, which, as he thought, came still nigher and nigher behind him. He was, however, mistaken in this conjecture; for in a short space he stumbled on a hole in the heath, into which he sunk at once, and fell into a pit which he described as being at least fifty fathom deep; that he there found himself immediately beside a multitude of hideous beings, with green clothes, and blue faces, who sat in a circle round a small golden lamp, gaping and singing with the most eldrich yells. In one instant all became dark, and he felt a weight upon his breast that seemed heavier than a mountain. They then lifted him up, and bore him away through the air for[62] hundreds of miles, amid regions of utter darkness; but on his repeating the name of Jesus three times, they brought him back, and laid him down in an insensible state at the door of Chapelhope.
The feelings depicted in the features of the auditors were widely different on the close of this wonderful relation. The beauteous Katharine appeared full of anxious and woful concern, but no marks of fear appeared in her lovely face. The servants trembled every limb, and declared with one voice, that no man about Chapelhope was now sure of his life for a moment, and that nothing less than double wages should induce them to remain there another day. The goodwife lifted up her eyes to Heaven, and cried, “O the vails! the vails!—the vails are poured, and to pour!”
Walter pretended to laugh at the whole narration; but when he did, it was with an altered countenance, for he observed, what none of them did, that Kennedy had indeed been borne through the air by some[63] means or other; for his shoes were all covered with moss, which, if he had walked, could not have been there, for the grass would have washed it off from whatever quarter he had come.
Kennedy remained several days about Chapelhope in a thoughtful, half delirious frame; but no entreaties could prevail with him at that time to accompany the men of the place to where he supposed the accident had happened, nor yet to give them any account where it was situated, for he averred that he heard a voice say to him in a solemn tone, “If you wish to live long, never tell what you have seen to–night, nor ever come this way again.” Happy had it been for him had he attended all along to this injunction. He slipped away from Chapelhope in a few days, and was no more seen until the time that Copland and his men appeared there. It was he who came as guide to that soldiers that were slain, and he fell with them[64] in the strait linn of the South Grain of Chapelhope.
These mysterious and unaccountable incidents by degrees impressed the minds of the inhabitants with terror that cannot be described; no woman or boy would go out of doors after sunset, on any account whatever, and there was scarcely a man who durst venture forth alone after the fall of evening. If they could have been sure that brownies and fairies had only power to assume the human shape, they would not have been nearly in such peril and perplexity; but there was no form of any thing animate or inanimate, save that of a lamb, that they were sure of; they were of course waylaid at every turn, and kept in continual agitation. An owl was a most dangerous and suspicious–looking fellow—a white glede made them quake, and keep a sharp look–out upon his course in the air—a hare, with her large intelligent eyes and equivocal way of walking, was an object of general[65] distrust—and a cat, squalling after dark, was the devil. Many were the ludicrous scenes that occurred, among which I cannot help mentioning those which follow, as being particularly whimsical.
Jasper, son to old John of the Muchrah, was the swiftest runner of his time; but of all those whose minds were kept in continual agitation on account of the late inundation of spirits into the country, Jasper was the chief. He was beset by them morning and evening; and even at high noon, if the day was dark, he never considered himself as quite safe. He depended entirely upon his speed in running to avoid their hellish intercourse; he essayed no other means—and many wonderful escapes he effected by this species of exertion alone. He was wont to knit stockings while tending his flock on the mountains; and happening to drop some yarn one evening, it trailed after him in a long ravelled coil along the sward. It was a little after the sun had gone down that Jasper was coming[66] whistling and singing over the shoulder of the Hermon Law, when, chancing to cast a casual glance behind him, he espied something in shape of a horrible serpent, with an unequal body, and an enormous length of tail, coming stealing along the bent after him. His heart leapt to his mouth, (as he expressed it,) and his hair bristled so that it thrust the bonnet from his head. He knew that no such monster inhabited these mountains, and it momently occurred to him that it was the Brownie of Bodsbeck come to seize him in that most questionable shape. He betook him to his old means of safety in great haste, never doubting that he was well qualified to run from any object that crawled on the ground with its belly; but, after running a considerable way, he perceived his adversary coming at full stretch along the hill after him. His speed was redoubled; and, as he noted now and then that his inveterate pursuer gained no ground on him, his exertion was beyond that of man. There were[67] two shepherds on an opposite hill who saw Jasper running without the plaid and the bonnet, and with a swiftness which they described as quite inconceivable. The cause set conjecture at defiance; but they remarked, that though he grew more and more spent, whenever he glanced behind he exerted himself anew, and strained a little harder. He continued his perseverance to the last, as any man would do who was running for bare life, until he came to a brook called the Ker Cleuch, in the crossing of which he fell down exhausted; he turned on his back to essay a last defence, and, to his joyful astonishment, perceived that the serpent likewise lay still and did not move. The truth was then discovered; but many suspected that Jasper never overcame that heat and that fright as long as he lived.
Jasper, among many encounters with the fairies and brownies, had another that terminated in a manner not quite so pleasant. The Brownie of Bodsbeck, or the Queen[68] of the Fairies, (he was not sure which of them it was,) came to him one night as he was lying alone, and wide awake, as he conceived, and proffered him many fine things, and wealth and honours in abundance, if he would go along to a very fine country, which Jasper conjectured must have been Fairyland. He resisted all these tempting offers in the most decided manner, until at length the countenance of his visitant changed from the most placid and bewitching beauty to that of a fiend. The horrible form grappled with him, laid hold of both his wrists, and began to drag him off by force; but he struggled with all the energy of a man in despair, and at length, by a violent exertion, he disengaged his right hand. The enemy still continuing, however, to haul him off with the other, he was obliged to have recourse to a desperate expedient. Although quite naked, he reached his clothes with the one hand and drew his knife; but, in endeavouring to cut off those fingers which held his wrist so immovably[69] fast, he fairly severed a piece of the thumb from his own left hand.
This was the very way that Jasper told the story to his dying day, denying stoutly that he was in a dream; and, singular as it may appear, I can vouch for the truth of it. Jasper Hay died at Gattonside at a right old age, in the year 1739; and they are yet alive who have heard him tell those stories, and seen him without the thumb of the left hand.
Things went on in this distracted and doubtful manner until the time when Walter is first introduced. On that day, at the meeting place, he found no fewer than 130 of the poor wanderers, many of them assembled to see him for the last time, and take an affectionate leave of him; for they had previously resolved to part, and scatter themselves again over the west country, even though certain death awaited them, as they could not in conscience longer remain to be the utter ruin of one who was so generous and friendly to them. They[70] saw, that not only would his whole stock be wasted, but he would himself be subjected to confiscation of goods, and imprisonment, if to nothing worse. Walter said, the case seemed hard either way; but he had been thinking, that perhaps, if they remained quiet and inoffensive in that seclusion, the violence of the government might in a little relax, and they might then retire to their respective homes in peace. Walter soon heard with vexation that they made conscience of not living in peace, but of proclaiming aloud to the world the grievous wrongs and oppression that the church of Christ in Scotland laboured under. The doctor chap, as Walter always called him, illustrated at great length the sin that would lie to their charge, should they remain quiet and passive in a time like that, when the church’s all was at stake in these realms. “We are but a remnant,” added he, “a poor despised remnant; but if none stand up for the truth of the reformed religion, how are ever our liberties, civil or[71] ecclesiastical, to be obtained? There are many who think with us, and who feel with us, who yet have not the courage to stand up for the truth; but the time must ere long come, that the kingdoms of the land will join in supporting a reformation, for the iniquity of the Amorite is wearing to the full.”
Walter did not much like disputing about these matters; but in this he felt that his reason acquiesced, and he answered thus: “Ye speak like a true man, and a clever man, Doctor; and if I had a desperate cause by the end, and wanted ane to back me in’t, the deil a step wad I gang ayont this moss hag to find him; but, Doctor, there’s a time for every thing. I wadna hae ye to fling away a gude cause, as I wad do a rotten ewe, that winna haud ony langer. But dinna ye think that a fitter time may come to mak a push? ye’ll maybe sell mae precious lives for nae end, wi’ your declarations; take care that you, and the like o’ you, haena these lives to[72] answer for.—I like nae desperate broostles—od, man, it’s like ane that’s just gaun to turn divour, taking on a’ the debt he can.”
“Dinna fear, gudeman! dinna fear! There’s nae blood shed in sic a cause that can ever be shed in vain. Na, na! that blood will argue better at the bar o’ Heaven for poor distressed Scotland than all the prayers of all the living. We hae done muckle, but we’ll do mair yet—muckle blood has been wantonly and diabolically shed, and our’s may rin wi’ the rest—we’ll no thraw’t wantonly and exultingly away; but, when our day comes, we’ll gie it cheerfully—as cheerfully, gudeman, as ever ye paid your mail to a kind landlord, even though the season had been hard and stormy. We had aince enough of this warld’s wealth, and to spare; but we hae naething now but our blood, and we’ll part wi’ that as cheerfully as the rest. And it will tell some day! and ye may live to see it yet. But enough, gudeman; we have all resolved, that, whatever the consequence[73] may be, to live no more on your bounty—therefore, do not urge it—but give us all your hand—Farewell!—and may God bless you in all your actings and undertakings!—There is little chance that we shall ever meet again—We have no reward to give but our blessing and good wishes; but, whenever a knee here present is bowed at the footstool of grace, you will be remembered.”
Walter could not bear thus to part with them, and to give them up as it were to certain destruction. He argued as well as he could on the imprudence of the step they were going to take—of the impossibility of their finding a retreat so inaccessible in all the bounds of the south of Scotland, and the prospect that there was of the persecution soon relaxing. But when he had said all that he could say, a thin spare old man, with grey dishevelled locks, and looks, Walter said, as stern as the adders that he had lately been eating, rose[74] up to address him. There was that in his manner which commanded the most intense attention.
“Dost thou talk of our rulers relaxing?” said he. “Blind and mistaken man! thou dost not know them. No; they will never relax till their blood shall be mixed with their sacrifices. That insatiate, gloomy, papistical tyrant and usurper, the Duke of York, and his commissioner, have issued laws and regulations more exterminating than ever. But yesterday we received the woeful intelligence, that, within these eight days, one hundred and fifty of our brethren have suffered by death or banishment, and nearly one–half of these have been murdered, even without the sham formality of trial or impeachment, nor had they intimation of the fate that awaited them. York hath said in full assembly, ‘that neither the realm nor the mother–church can ever be safe, until the south of Scotland is again made a hunting forest;’ and his commissioner hath sworn by the[75] living God, ‘that never a whig shall again have time or warning to prepare for Heaven, for that hell is too good for them.’ Can we hope for these men relaxing? No! The detestable and bloody Clavers, that wizard! that eater of toads! that locust of the infernal pit, hems us in closer and closer on one side, and that Muscovite beast on the other! They thirst for our blood; and our death and tortures are to them matter of great sport and amusement. My name is Mackail! I had two brave and beautiful sons, and I had but two; one of these had his brains shot out on the moss of Monyhive without a question, charge, or reply. I gathered up his brains and shattered skull with these hands, tied them in my own napkin, and buried him alone, for no one durst assist me. His murderers stood by and mocked me, cursed me for a dog, and swore if I howled any more that they would send me after him. My eldest son, my beloved Hew, was hung like a dog at the Market–cross of Edinburgh. I conversed with him,[76] I prayed with him in prison, kissed him, and bade him farewell on the scaffold! My brave, my generous, my beautiful son! I tell thee, man, thou who preachest up peace and forbearance with tyrants, should ever the profligate Charles, or his diabolical brother—should ever the murderer Clavers, or any of his hell–hounds of the north, dare set foot in Heaven, one look from the calm benignant face of my martyred son would drive them out howling!”
All this time the old man shed not a tear; his voice was wildly solemn, but his looks were mixed with madness. He had up his hand to swear, to pray, or to prophecy, Walter knew not which, but he was restrained by his associates, and led aside, so that Walter saw no more of him; but he said he could not get him out of his mind for many a day, for sic another desperate auld body he had never seen.
These harangues took up much of the time that they had to spare, but ere they parted Walter persuaded them, probably[77] by his strong homely reasoning, to remain where they were. He said, since they persisted in refusing to take more of his flock, there was an extensive common beyond the height, called Gemsope, which had been a royal forest, where many gentlemen and wealthy farmers had sheep that fed promiscuously; and considering their necessitous circumstances, he thought it no evil, and he advised them to go and take from that glen as many as would serve to support nature for a time;—that for his part he had many a good wedder and dinmont there, and was willing to run his risk, which would then fall equal on a number, and only on such as were rich and could well bear it. In this plan, after some scruples which were overborne by the majority, they at length fully and thankfully acquiesced.
That same day, on his way homeward, Walter heard the wonderful relation of the apparition of his beloved daughter in the[78] Hope at midnight; he learned that Clavers would be there in a few days, and he had sent away above 100 men to steal sheep—all these things made him thoughtful and uneasy after he had reached his home, wet and fatigued.—“It will be a bloody night in Gemsope this,” he said, sighing, not recollecting what he said or to whom he said it. He could trust his wife with any of his family concerns, but as long as she continued to be so much influenced by the curate Clerk, the sworn enemy of his poor persecuted flock, he durst not give her a hint of their retreat.
Walter became still more and more perplexed from all that he heard from his wife, as well as from every one else—he found that, in truth, there was some mysterious thing about his house—the whole family seemed convinced of it—there were many things seen, heard, and done there that he could in nowise account for in a rational way, and though he resisted the general[79] belief for a good while, that the house was haunted, circumstances at length obliged him to yield to the torrent, and he believed as faithfully in the Brownie of Bodsbeck as any of them all.
The house which Walter occupied was on the very spot where the farm–house of Chapelhope now stands, but it was twice as long; indeed, a part of the house that is still standing, or was lately so, is the very one that was built for Laidlaw when he first entered to that large farm. There was likewise an outshot from the back of the house, called the Old Room, which had a door that entered from without, as well as one from the parlour within. The end of this apartment stood close to the bottom of the steep bank behind the house, which was then thickly wooded, as was the whole of the long bank behind, so that, consequently, any one, with a little caution,[81] might easily have gone out or come in there, without being seen by any of the family. It contained a bed, in which any casual vagrant, or itinerant pedlar slept, besides a great deal of lumber; and as few entered there, it had altogether a damp, mouldy, dismal appearance. There was likewise a dark closet in one corner of it, with an old rusty lock, which none of the family had ever seen opened.
The most part of the family soon grew suspicious of this place. Sounds, either real or imaginary, were heard issuing from it, and it was carefully shunned by them all. Walter had always, as I said, mocked at the idea of the Old Room being haunted, until that very night when we began with him, and where, after many round–abouts, we have now found him again.
It will be recollected that the conversation between Walter and his wife, which is narrated in the first chapter of this book, terminated with a charge from him never more to mention the mysterious story relating[82] to their daughter and these five men that were destroyed. After this she retired about some housewife business, and left Walter by himself to muse on that he had seen and heard. He was sitting musing, and that deeply, on the strange apparition of his daughter that old John had seen, when he thought he heard something behind him making a sound as if it growled inwardly. He looked around and saw that it was his dog Reaver, who was always an inmate of every place that his master entered—he was standing in an attitude of rage, but at the same time there was a mixture of wild terror in his appearance—His eyes, that gleamed like red burning coals, were pointed directly to the door that opened from the corner of the parlour into the Old Room—Walter was astonished, for he well knew his acuteness, but he kept his eyes on him and said not a word—The dog went forward with a movement scarce perceptible, until he came close to the door, but on putting his nose and ear to the bottom[83] of it, he burst out with such a bay and howl as were truly frightful, and ran about the apartment as if mad, trying to break through the walls and window boards.—Walter was fairly overcome; there is nothing frightens a shepherd so much as the seeing of his dog frightened. The shepherd’s dog of the true breed will boldly attack any animal on earth in defence of his master, or at his command; and it is no good sign indeed when he appears terrified, for the shepherd well knows that his dog can discover spirits by the savour of the wind, when he is all unconscious that any such beings are near.
Walter fled into the kitchen with precipitation—he found all the family standing in alarm, for they had heard the hideous uproar in the room.
“What’s the matter?” said half–a–dozen at once.
“What’s the matter!” said Walter, churlishly—“nothing at all is the matter—tell[84] me who of you were in the Old Room, and what you were seeking there?”
“No—none of them had been in the Old Room—the whole of the family were present, nor had one of them been away.”
Walter’s countenance changed—he fixed his eyes on the ground for the space of a minute.
“Then I am sure,” said he, emphatically, “something worse is there.”
A breathless silence ensued; save that some groans and muttered prayers issued from the lips of the goodwife, who sat in a posture of deep humility, with her brow leaned on both hands.
“Some of you go and see,” added Walter, “what it is that is in the Old Room.”
Every eye in the house turned on another, but no one spoke or offered to move. At length Katharine, who seemed in great anxiety lest any of them should have had the courage to go, went lightly up to her father, and said, “I will go, sir, if you please.”
[85]“Do, my dear, and let some of the men go with you.”
“No, sir; none of the men shall go with me.”
“Well then, Keatie, make haste; light a candle, and I will go with you myself.”
“No—with your leave, father, if I go, I go alone; no one shall go with me.”
“And why, my love, may not I, your father, accompany you?”
“Because, should you go with me into the Old Room just now, perhaps you might never be yourself again.”
Here the goodwife uttered a smothered scream, and muttered some inarticulate ejaculations, appearing so much affected, that her daughter, dreading she would fall into a fit, flew to support her; but on this she grew ten times worse, screaming aloud, “Avoid thee, Satan! avoid thee, Satan! avoid thee, imp of darkness and despair! avoid thee! avoid thee!” And she laid about her violently with both hands. The servants, taking it for granted that she was[86] bewitched, or possessed, fled aloof; but Walter, who knew better how matters stood with her mind than they, ran across the floor to her in such haste and agitation, that they supposed he was going to give her strength of arm, (his great expedient when hardly controuled,) but in place of that, he lifted her gently in his arms, and carried her to her bed, in the further end of the house.
He then tried to sooth her by every means in his power; but she continued in violent agitation, sighing, weeping, and praying alternately, until she wrought herself into a high nervous fever. Walter, growing alarmed for her reason, which seemed verging to a dangerous precipice, kept close by her bed–side. A little before midnight she grew calm; and he, thinking she had fallen asleep, left her for a short time. Unfortunately, her daughter, drawn toward her by filial regard and affection, softly then entered the room. Maron Linton was not so sound asleep as was supposed; she[87] instantly beheld the approach of that now dreaded sorceress, and sitting up in her bed, she screamed as loud as she was able. Katharine, moved by a natural impulse, hasted forward to the couch to calm her parent; but the frenzied matron sprung from her bed, threw up the window, and endeavoured to escape; Katharine flew after her, and seized her by the waist. When Maron found that she was fairly in her grasp at such an hour, and no help at hand, she deemed all over with her, both body and soul; which certainly was a case extreme enough. She hung by the sash of the window, struggled, and yelled out, “Murder! murder! murder!—O Lord! O Lord!—save! save! save! save!—Murder! murder!” &c. At length Walter rushed in and seized her, ordering his weeping daughter instantly to bed.
Maron thanked Heaven for this wonderful and timely deliverance, and persuaded now that Providence had a special and peculiar charge over her, she became more[88] calm than she had been since the first alarm; but it was a dreadful certainty that she now possessed, that unearthly beings inhabited the mansion along with her, and that her daughter was one of the number, or in conjunction with them. She spent the night in prayer, and so fervent was she in her devotions, that she seemed at length to rest in the hope of their final accomplishment. She did not fail, however, to hint to Walter that something decisive ought to be done to their daughter. She did not actually say that she should be burnt alive at a stake, but she spake of the trial by fire—or that it might be better to throw her into the lake, to make the experiment whether she would drown or not; for she well expected, in her own mind, that when the creature found itself in such circumstances, it would fly off with an eldrich laugh and some unintelligible saying to its own clime; but she was at length persuaded by her husband to intrust the whole matter to her reverend monitor, both as to[89] the driving away the herd of Brownies, and the exorcism of her daughter.
Never was man in such a predicament as Walter now found himself with regard to his family. Katharine had never been a favourite with her mother, who doated on her boys to the detriment of the girl, but to him she was all in all. Her demeanour of late completely puzzled him—The words that she had said to him the preceding evening had no appearance of jocularity; besides, seriousness and truth formed her natural character, and she had of late become more reserved and thoughtful than she had ever been before.
The bed that she slept in faced into the parlour before mentioned; that which Walter and his spouse occupied entered from another apartment—their backs, however, were only separated by a thin wooden partition. Walter kept awake all that night, thoughtful, and listening to every sound. Every thing remained quiet till about the second crowing of the cock; he then heard[90] something that scratched like a rat, but more regularly, and in more distinct time. After the noise had been repeated three times at considerable intervals, he thought he heard his daughter rising from her bed with extraordinary softness and caution—He laid his ear to a seam, and distinctly heard the sound of words uttered in a whisper, but of their import he could make nothing. He then heard his daughter return to her bed with the same caution that she left it, utter some sighs, and fall sound asleep.
After serious deliberation, Walter thought his best expedient was to remove his daughter from home for some time; and next morning he proposed to her to go and spend a week or two with her maternal uncle, Thomas Linton, farmer at Gilmanscleuch. To this she objected on several pretences; but at length, when urged to it, positively refused to leave her father’s house at that time. He never in his life could say a harsh word to her, but that day he appeared[91] chagrined, and bade her, with some asperity, keep away from her mother’s presence, as her malady, which was a nervous complaint, required the utmost quietness. This she promised with her accustomed cheerfulness, and they parted. During the day she was absent for several hours, none knowing whither she went, or by what way she returned.
On the same day, the servants, who had spent a sleepless night, packed up bag and baggage, and went off in a body, all save one elderly woman, who had lately come to the house, and was a stranger to them all. Her name, she said, was Agnes Alexander, but she was better known by the familiar one of Nanny Elshinder; her former history and connections were doubtful, but she was of a cheerful complaisant temper, and always performed what she was ordered to do without any remarks. Walter had hired her at Moffat, in the fair called The Third Friday; and told Maron when he came home,[92] that “he had hired a wastlin auldish quean, wha, he believed, was a wee crackit i’the head, but, poor thing, she wasna like to get a place, and was sic a good soul he coudna think to leave her destitute; and whanever he begoud to parley wi’ her, od, she brought him to the neb o’ the mire–snipe directly.” Saving this good woman, all the house servants, man, woman, and boy, deserted their service, and neither promises nor threats could induce them to stay another night about the town. They said, “they might as weel bide i’ hell; they wad gang afore Gibby Moray, the king’s shirra, whanever he likit about it; or, gin he buid rather hae brawer burlymen, they wad meet him face to face in the Parliment Close.”
Walter was now obliged to bring Jasper, his young shepherd, down from the Muchrah, to assist him in the labour of the farm—the most unfit man in the world for a haunted house. He knew that the Old Room[93] was frequented by his old adversary, the Brownie of Bodsbeck. He likewise knew that his young mistress was a witch, or something worse, for the late servants had told him, so that he had now a dangerous part to act. Nevertheless, he came determined to take the bull by the horns; for as he and his father had stocks of sheep upon the farm, they could not leave their master, and he was never wont to disobey him. He had one sole dependance—his swiftness of foot—that had never yet failed him in eschewing them, save in the solitary instance of the serpent.
On the first day of his noviceship as a labourer, he and his master were putting some ropes on the dwelling–house to keep on the thatch. Jasper wanting something whereon to stand, for that purpose, and being within a few yards of the door of the Old Room, and knowing that the tubs stood there, thoughtlessly dashed into it to bring out one to stand on; but he had[94] not taken two steps within the door till he beheld a human face, and nothing but a face and a head, looking deliberately at him. One would have thought that such a man, seeing such a sight, would have cried out, fled to his master on the other side of the house, or into the kitchen to old Nanny. Jasper did none of them all. He turned round with such velocity that he fell—hasted out at the door on all fours, and took to the Piper–hill like a wild deer, praying fervently all the way. His master saw him from the ladder where he stood, and called aloud after him, but he deigned not to heed or look behind him—the head without the body, and that at an ordinary distance from the ground, was alone impressed on his mind, and refused a share to any other consideration. He came not back to the Chapelhope that night.
Katharine, the young and comely friend of the Brownie, having discovered that Jasper had been introduced to her familiar,[95] and knowing his truth and simplicity of heart, earnestly desired to sound him on the subject. She knew he would return to assist her father and brothers with the farm labour, in their present strait, by a certain hour next morning, and she waited on him by the way. He came accordingly; but he knew her and her connections better than she imagined. He tried to avoid her, first by going down into the meadow, then by climbing the hill; but seeing that she waylaid him both ways, and suspecting her intentions to be of the very worst nature, he betook him to his old expedient—fled with precipitation, and returned to the Muchrah.
Katharine could by no means comprehend this, and was particularly concerned about it at this time, as she had something she wished to reveal to him. Walter appeared gloomy and discontented all that day. The corn was ripe, but not a sheaf of it cut down;—the hay was still standing on the[96] meadow, the lint was to pull, the potatoes to raise, the tar to bring home, and the sheep to smear; and there was no one left to do all this but he and his two boys. The gudewife, who used to bustle about and do much household work, was confined to her room. His daughter’s character, her demeanour, and even her humanity, were become somewhat doubtful. Walter was truly in what he termed a pickled priminary.
Katharine, being still debarred all access to her mother, began to dread that she would be obliged to leave her father’s house; and, in case of a last extremity, she bethought her of sounding the dispositions of old Nanny. She was a character not easily to be comprehended. She spoke much to herself, but little to any other person—worked so hard that she seldom looked up, and all the while sung scraps of old songs and ballads, the import of which it was impossible to understand; but she often chaunted these with a pathos that seemed[97] to flow from the heart, and that never failed to affect the hearer. She wore a russet worsted gown, clouted shoes, and a quoif, or mutch, upon her head, that was crimped and plaited so close around her face that very little of the latter was visible. In this guise was Nanny, toiling hard and singing her mournful ditty, when Katharine came in and placed herself on a seat by her side.
“Nanny, this seems to be more than ordinary a busy day with you; pray, what is all this baking and boiling for?”
“Dear bairn, dear bairn, what do I ken—the like o’ me maun do as we’re bidden—guests are coming, my bairn—O, ay—there’s mony a braw an’ bonny lad coming this way—mony a ane that will gaur a young thing’s e’en stand i’ back water—
“Prithee go on, Nanny; let me hear what it was that reddened the water?”
“Dear bairn, wha kens; some auld thing an’ out o’ date; but yet it is sae like the days that we hae seen, ane wad think the poeter that made it had the second sight. Mony a water as weel as the Clyde has run reid wi’ blude, an’ that no sae lang sin’ syne!—ay, an’ the wild burnies too! I hae seen them mysel leave a reid strip on the sand an’ the grey stanes—but the hoody craw durstna pick there!—Dear bairn, has the Chapelhope burn itsel never had the hue?”
Here Katharine’s glance and Nanny’s[99] met each other, but were as quickly withdrawn, for they dreaded one another’s converse; but they were soon relieved from that dilemma by Nanny’s melancholy chime—
[100]“No, that’s not it—my memory is gane wi’ my last warldly hope—Hech! dear bairn, but it is a sad warld to live in, without hope or love for ony that’s in’t—I had aye some hope till now! but sic a dream as I had last night!—I saw him aince again—Yes, I saw him bodily, or may I never steer aff this bit.”—Here Nanny sobbed hard, and drew her arms across her eyes.—“Come, come,” continued she, “gie me a bit sang, dear bairn, an’ let it be an auld thing—they do ane’s heart gude thae bits o’ auld sangs.”
“Rather tell me, Nanny—for we live in ignorance in this wild place—what you think of all that blude that has been shed in our country since the killing–time began? Do you think it has been lawfully and rightfully shed?”
“Wha doubts it, dear bairn?—Wha doubts that?—But it will soon be ower now—the traitors will soon be a’ strappit and strung—ay, ay—the last o’ them will soon be hackit and hewed, an’ his bloody head[101] stannin ower the Wast Port—an’ there will be braw days than—we’ll be a’ right than.”
Katharine sat silent and thoughtful, eyeing old Nanny with fixed attention; but the muscles of her contracted face and wild unstable eye were unintelligible. She therefore, with a desponding mien, went out, and left the crazy dame to discourse and sing to herself. Nanny ceased her baking, stood upright, and listened to the maid’s departing steps, till judging her out of hearing; she then sung out, in what is now termed the true bravura style,
In the mean time, Katharine, on hearing the loud notes of the song, had returned within the door to listen, and heard the most part of the lines and names distinctly. She had heard it once before, and the singer reported it to be a new song, and the composition of a young man who had afterwards been executed in the Grass–Market. How Nanny came to sing such a[103] song, with so much seeming zest, after the violent prelatic principles which she had so lately avowed, the maid could not well comprehend, and she began to suspect that there was more in Nanny’s mind than had yet been made manifest. Struck with this thought, and ruminating upon it, she continued standing in the same position, and heard Nanny sometimes crooning, and at other times talking rapidly and fervently to herself. After much incoherent matter, lines of psalms, &c. Katharine heard with astonishment the following questions and answers, in which two distinct voices were imitated:—
“Were you at the meeting of the traitors at Lanark on the 12th of January?”
“I never was amang traitors that I was certain of till this day—Let them take that! bloody fruesome beasts.”
“Were you at Lanark on that day?”
“If you had been there you would have seen.”
[104]“D‑‑n the old b‑‑! Burn her with matches—squeeze her with pincers as long as there’s a whole piece of her together—then throw her into prison, and let her lie till she rot—the old wrinkled hag of h‑‑! Good woman, I pity you; you shall yet go free if you will tell us where you last saw Hamilton and your own goodman.”
“Ye sall hing me up by the tongue first, and cut me a’ in collops while I’m hingin.”
“Burn her in the cheek, cut baith her lugs out, and let her gae to h‑‑ her own way.”
After this strange soliloquy, the speaker sobbed aloud, spoke in a suppressed voice for some time, and then began a strain so sweet and melancholy, that it thrilled the hearer, and made her tremble where she stood. The tune was something like the Broom of Cowdenknows, the sweetest and most plaintive of the ancient Scottish airs; but it was sung so slow, as to bear with it a kind of solemnity.
The sentiments of old Nanny appeared now to her young mistress to be more doubtful than ever. Fain would she have interpreted them to be such as she wished, but the path which that young female was now obliged to tread required a circumspection[106] beyond her experience and discernment to preserve, while danger and death awaited the slightest deviation.
Next morning Clavers, with fifty dragoons, arrived at Chapelhope, where they alighted on the green; and putting their horses to forage, he and Sir Thomas Livingston, Captain Bruce, and Mr Adam Copland, before mentioned, a gentleman of Clavers’ own troop, went straight into the kitchen. Walter was absent at the hill. The goodwife was sitting lonely in the east room, brooding over her trials and woes in this life, and devising means to get rid of her daughter, and with her of all the devouring spirits that haunted Chapelhope; consequently the first and only person whom the gentlemen found in the kitchen was old Nanny. Clavers, who entered first, kept a shy and sullen distance, for he never was familiar with any one; but Bruce,[108] who was a jocular Irish gentleman, and well versed in harassing and inveigling the ignorant country people to their destruction, made two low bows (almost to the ground) to the astonished dame, and accosted her as follows: “How are you to–day, mistress?—I hope you are very well?”
“Thank ye kindly, sir,” said Nanny, curtseying in return; “deed I’m no sae weel as I hae been; I hae e’en seen better days; but I keep aye the heart aboon, although the achings and the stitches hae been sair on me the year.”
“Lack–a–day! I am so very sorry for that!—Where do they seize you? about the heart, I suppose?—Oh, dear soul! to be sure you do not know how sorry I am for your case—it must be so terribly bad! You should have the goodness to consult your physician, and get blood let.”
“Dear bairn, I hae nae blude to spare—an’ as for doctors, I haena muckle to lippen to them. To be sure, they are whiles the means, under Providence”——
“Oho!” said he, putting his finger to his nose, and turning to his associates with a wry face,—“Oho! the means under Providence!—a d‑‑d whig, by ‑‑‑‑. Tell me, my dear and beautiful Mistress Stitchaback, do you really believe in that blessed thing, Providence?”
“Do I believe in Providence!—Did ever ony body hear sic a question as that? Gae away, ye muckle gouk—d’ye think to make a fool of a puir body?”
So saying, she gave him a hearty slap on the cheek; at which his companions laughing, Bruce became somewhat nettled, and, drawing out his sword, he pointed at the recent stains of blood upon it. “Be so good as to look here, my good lady,” said he, “and take very good note of all that I say, and more; for harkee, you must either renounce Providence, and all that I bid you renounce,—and you must, beside that, answer all the questions that I shall ever be after asking,—or, do you see, I am a great doctor—this is my very elegant[110] lance—and I’ll draw the blood that shall soon ease you of all your stitches and pains.”
“I dinna like your fleem ava, man—’tis rather ower grit for an auld body’s veins. But ye’re surely some silly skemp of a fallow, to draw out your sword on a puir auld woman. Dinna think, howanabee, that I care for outher you or it. I’ll let ye see how little I mind ye; for weel I ken your comrades wadna let ye fash me, e’en though ye were sae silly as to offer. Na, na; d’ye ever think that little bonny demure–looking lad there wad suffer ye to hurt a woman?—I wat wad he no! He has mair discreation in his little finger than you hae i’ your hale bouk.—Now try me, master doctor—I’ll nouther renounce ae thing that ye bid me, nor answer ae question that ye speer at me.”
“In the first place, then, my good hearty dame, do you acknowledge or renounce the Covenant?”
[111]“Aha! he’s wise wha wats that, an’ as daft that speers.”
“Ay, or no, in a moment—No juggling with me, old Mrs Skinflint.”
“I’ll tell ye what ye do, master—if ony body speer at ye, gin auld Nanny i’ the Chapelhope renounces the Covenant, shake your head an’ say ye dinna ken.”
“And pray, my very beautiful girl, what do you keep this old tattered book for?”
“For a fancy to gar fools speer, an’ ye’re the first—Come on now, sir, wi’ your catechis—Wally–dye man! gin ye be nae better a fighter than ye’re an examiner, ye may gie up the craft.”
Bruce here bit his lip, and looked so stern that Nanny, with a hysterical laugh, ran away from him, and took shelter behind Clavers.
“You are a d‑‑d fool, Bruce,” said he, “and constantly blundering.—Our business here, mistress, is to discover, if possible, who were the murderers of an honest curate, and some of our own soldiers that[112] were slain in this neighbourhood while discharging their duty; if you can give us any information on that subject, you shall be well rewarded.”
“Ye’ll hear about the curate, sir—ye’ll hear about him—he was found out to be a warlock, and shot dead.—But ah, dear bairn! nane alive can gie you information about the soldiers!—It was nae human hand did that deed, and there was nae e’e out o’ heaven saw it done—There wasna a man that day in a’ the Hope up an’ down—that deed will never be fund out, unless a spirit rise frae the dead an’ tell o’t—Muckle fear, an’ muckle grief it has been the cause o’ here!—But the men war a’ decently buried; what mair could be done?”
“Do you say that my men were all decently buried?”
“Ay, troth, I wat weel, worthy sir, and wi’ the burial–service too.—My master and mistress are strong king’s folk.”
“So you are not the mistress of this house?”
[113]“A bonny like mistress I wad be, forsooth—Na, na, my mistress is sittin be hersel ben the house there.” With that, Nanny fell a working and singing full loud—
Anxious now to explore the rest of the house, they left Nanny singing her song, and entered the little parlour hastily, where, finding no one, and dreading that some escape might be effected, Clavers and Livingston burst into the Old Room, and Bruce and Copland into the other. In the Old Room they found the beautiful witch Katharine, with the train of her snow–white joup drawn over her head, who looked as if taken in some evil act by surprise, and[114] greatly confounded when she saw two gentlemen enter her sanctuary in splendid uniforms. As they approached, she made a slight curtsey, to which they deigned no return; but going straight up to her, Clavers seized her by both wrists. “And is it, indeed, true,” said he, “my beautiful shepherdess, that we have caught you at your prayers so early this morning?”
“And what if you have, sir?” returned she.
“Why, nothing at all, save that I earnestly desire, and long exceedingly to join with you in your devotional exercises,” laying hold of her in the rudest manner.
Katharine screamed so loud that in an instant old Nanny was at their side, with revenge gleaming from her half–shaded eyes, and heaving over her shoulder a large green–kale gully, with which she would doubtless have silenced the renowned Dundee for ever, had not Livingston sprung forward with the utmost celerity, and caught her arm just as the stroke was descending.[115] But Nanny did not spare her voice; she lifted it up with shouts on high, and never suffered one yell to lose hearing of another.
Walter, having just then returned from the hill, and hearing the hideous uproar in the Old Room, rushed into it forthwith to see what was the matter. Katharine was just sinking, when her father entered, within the grasp of the gentle and virtuous Clavers. The backs of both the knights were towards Walter as he came in, and they were so engaged amid bustle and din that neither of them perceived him, until he was close at their backs. He was at least a foot taller than any of them, and nearly as wide round the chest as them both. In one moment his immense fingers grasped both their slender necks, almost meeting behind each of their windpipes. They were rendered powerless at once—they attempted no more struggling with the women, for so completely had Walter’s gripes unnerved them, that they could scarcely lift their[116] arms from their sides; neither could they articulate a word, or utter any other sound than a kind of choaked gasping for breath. Walter wheeled them about to the light, and looked alternately at each of them, without quitting or even slackening his hold.
“Callants, wha ir ye ava?—or what’s the meanin’ o’ a’ this unmencefu’ rampaging?”
Sir Thomas gave his name in a hoarse and broken voice; but Clavers, whose nape Walter’s right hand embraced, and whose rudeness to his daughter had set his mountain–blood a–boiling, could not answer a word. Walter, slackening his hold somewhat, waited for an answer, but none coming—
“Wha ir ye, I say, ye bit useless weazel–blawn like urf that ye’re?”
The haughty and insolent Clavers was stung with rage; but seeing no immediate redress was to be had, he endeavoured to pronounce his dreaded name, but it was[117] in a whisper scarcely audible, and stuck in his throat—“Jo—o—o Graham,” said he.
“Jock Graham do they ca’ ye?—Ye’re but an unmannerly whalp, man. And ye’re baith king’s officers too!—Weel, I’ll tell ye what it is, my denty clever callants; if it warna for the blood that’s i’ your master’s veins, I wad nite your twa bits o’ pows thegither.”
He then threw them from him; the one the one way, and the other the other, and lifting his huge oak staff, he strode out at the door, saying, as he left them,—“Hech! are free men to be guidit this gate—I’ll step down to the green to your commander, an’ tell him what kind o’ chaps he keeps about him to send into fock’s houses.—Dirty unmensefu’ things!”
Clavers soon recovering his breath, and being ready to burst with rage and indignation, fell a cursing and fuming most violently; but Sir T. Livingston could scarcely[118] refrain from breaking out into a convulsion of laughter. Clavers had already determined upon ample revenge, for the violation of all the tender ties of nature was his delight, and wherever there was wealth to be obtained, or a private pique to be revenged, there never was wanting sufficient pretext in those days for cutting off individuals, or whole families, as it suited. On the very day previous to that, the Earl of Traquair had complained, in company with Clavers and his officers, of a tenant of his, in a place called Bald, who would neither cultivate his farm nor give it up. Captain Bruce asked if he prayed in his family? The Earl answered jocularly, that he believed he did nothing else. Bruce said that was enough; and the matter passed over without any farther notice. But next morning, Bruce went out with four dragoons, and shot the farmer as he was going out to his work. Instances of this kind are numerous, if either history or tradition can[119] be in aught believed; but in all the annals of that age, there is scarcely a single instance recorded of any redress having been granted to the harassed country people for injuries received. At this time, the word of Argyle’s rising had already spread, and Clavers actually traversed the country more like an exterminating angel, than a commander of a civilized army.
Such were the men with whom Walter had to do; and the worst thing of all, he was not aware of it. He had heard of such things, but he did not believe them; for he loved his king and country, and there was nothing that vexed him more than hearing of aught to their disparagement; but unluckily his notions of freedom and justice were far above what the subjects of that reign could count upon.
When Clavers and Livingstone entered the Old Room, it will be remembered that Bruce and Copland penetrated into the other. There they found the goodwife of Chapelhope, neatly dressed in her old–fashioned[120] style, and reading on her Bible, an exercise in which she gloried, and of which she was very proud.
Bruce instantly desired her “to lay that very comely and precious book on the hottest place of all the beautiful fire, that was burning so pleasantly with long crackling peat; and that then he would converse with her about things that were, to be sure, of far greater and mightier importance.”
“Hout, dear sir, ye ken that’s no consistent wi’ natural reason—Can any thing be o’ greater importance than the tidings o’ grace an’ salvation, an’ the joys o’ heaven?”
“Oho!” cried Bruce, and straddled around the room with his face turned to the joists.—“My dear Copland, did you ever hear such a thing in all the days that ever you have to live? Upon my soul, the old woman is talking of grace, and salvation, and the joys of heaven too, by Saint G‑‑! My dearest honey and darling, will you be so kind as stand up upon the soles[121] of your feet, and let me see what kind of a figure you will be in heaven. Now, by the cross of Saint Patrick, I would take a journey there to see you go swimming through Heaven in that same form, with your long waist, and plaitted quoif, and that same charming face of yours. Och! och! me! what a vile she whig we have got in this here corner!—Copland, my dear soul, I foresee that all the ewes and kine of Chapelhope will soon be rouped at the cross of Selkirk, and then what blessed lawings we shall have! Now my dear mistress Grace, you must be after renouncing the joys of heaven immediately; for upon my honour, the very sight of your face would spoil the joys of any place whatever, and the first thing you must do is to lay that delightful old book with the beautiful margin along the side of it, on the coals; but before you do that we shall sing to his praise and glory from the 7th verse of the 149th psalm.”
He then laid aside his helmet and sung[122] the psalm, giving out each line with a whine that was truly ludicrous, after which he put the Bible into the goodwife’s hand, and desired her, in a serious tone, instantly to lay it on the fire. The captain’s speech to his companions about the ewes and kine of Chapelhope was not altogether lost on the conscience of Maron Linton. It was not, as she afterwards said, like water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. “Why, dear sir,” said she, “ye ken, after a’, that the beuk’s naething but paper an’ ink, an’ three shillings an’ aughtpence will buy as gude a ane frae Geordy Dabson, the morn, an’ if there be ony sin in’t, it will lye at your door, an’ no at mine. I’ll ne’er haigel wi’ my king’s officer about three and aughtpence.”
So saying, Maron laid the Bible on the fire, which soon consumed it to ashes.
“Now, may the devil take me,” said Bruce, “if I do not believe that you are a true woman after all, and if so, my purse is lighter by one half than it was; but, my[123] dear honey, you have the very individual and genuine seeds of whiggism in your constitution—You have, I will swear, been at many a harmless and innocent conventicle.”
“Ye ken little about me, sir.—Gude forbid that ever I countenanced sic traitors to the kirk and state!”
“Amen! say I; but I prophecy and say unto thee, that the first field–meeting into which thou goest in the beauty of holiness, thou shalt be established for ever with thy one foot in Dan and the other in Beersheba, and shalt return to thy respective place of abode as rank a whig as ever swung in the Grass–Market.”
A long dialogue next ensued, in which the murder of the priest, Mass John Binram, was discussed at full length, and by which Bruce and Copland discerned, that superstitious as Maron was, she told them what she deemed to be the truth, though in a strange round–about way. Just as they were beginning to talk over the mysterious murder[124] of the soldiers, Claverhouse and Sir Thomas joined them, and Bruce, turning round to them, said, “My lord, this very honest woman assures me, that she believes the two principal murderers of the curate are lying concealed in a linn not far hence, and there seems to be little doubt but that they must likewise have been concerned in the murder of our soldiers.”
Clavers, the horrors of whose execrations are yet fresh in the memory of our peasants, burst out as follows, to the astonishment of Bruce, who was not aware of his chagrin, or of aught having befallen him.
“May the devil confound and d‑‑n them to hell!—May he make a brander of their ribs to roast their souls on!”
Maron Linton, hearing herself called a good woman, and finding that she was approven of, could not refrain from interfering here.
“Dear sir, my lord, ye sudna swear that gate, for it’s unco ill–faur’d ye ken—an’ at[125] ony rate, the deil canna damn naebody—if ye will swear, swear sense.”
The rage of the general, and the simplicity of the goodwife, was such an amusing contrast, that the three attendants laughed aloud. Clavers turned his deep grey eye upon them, which more than the eye of any human being resembled that of a serpent—offence gleamed in it.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “do you consider where you are, and what you are about? Sacre! am I always to be trysted with boys and fools?”
He then began and examined the goodwife with much feigned deference and civility, which so pleased her that she told him every thing with great readiness. She was just beginning to relate the terrible, but unfortunate story of the Brownie of Bodsbeck, and his train of officious spirits; of the meat which they devoured, and in all probability would have ended the relation with the woeful connection between the Brownie and her daughter, and the part[126] that she had taken in the murder of the soldiers, when Walter entered the room with a discomposed mien, and gave a new turn to the conversation. But that eventful scene must be left to the next chapter.
Walter, on coming to the troopers and asking for their leader, soon discovered how roughly he had treated Clavers; and it being so much the reverse of the reception he meant to have given him, he was particularly vexed about it. Still he was conscious that he had done nothing that was wrong, nor any thing that it did not behove a parent and a master of a family to have done in the same circumstances; therefore there was nothing farther from his intention than offering any apology. He entered his own room, as he supposed he had a good right to do, bluntly enough. He indeed touched the rim of his bonnet as he came in; but, seeing all the officers[128] covered, he stalked into the midst of them with that immense circle of blue woollen on his head, which moved over their helmets like a black cloud as he advanced. Bruce, who was well used to insult the peasantry with impunity, seeing Walter striding majestically by his general in this guise, with his wonted forwardness and jocularity lifted up his sword, sheathed as it was, and with the point of it kicked off Walter’s bonnet. The latter caught it again as it fell, and with his fist, he made Bruce’s helmet ring against the wall; then again fitting on his bonnet, he gave him such an indignant and reproving look, that Bruce, having no encouragement from the eye of Clavers, resented it no farther than by saying good–humouredly, “‘Pon my body and shoul, but the carle keeps his good–looking head high enough.”
“Copland,” said Clavers, “desire Serjeant Daniel Roy Macpherson, with eleven troopers, to attend.” They were instantly at the door. [129]“Seize and pinion that haughty rebel, together with all his family,” said he, “and then go and search every corner, chest, and closet in the house; for it is apparent that this is the nest and rendezvous of the murdering fanatics who infest this country. Let the rest of the soldiers guard the premises, that none escape to the mountains with tidings of our arrival. This good dame we will first examine privately, and then dispose of her as shall seem most meet.”
The command was promptly obeyed. Walter and all his family were taken into custody, pinioned, and a guard set on them; the house was ransacked; and in the meantime the general and his three associates continued the examination of the goodwife. Clavers observed that, on the entrance of Walter before, she seemed to be laid under some restraint, stopped short in her narration, and said, “But there’s the gudeman; he’ll tell ye it wi’ mair preceesion nor me;” and he had no doubt, if she were left to herself, of worming[130] as much out of her as would condemn her husband, or at least furnish a pretext sufficient for the forfeiture of his wealth. Clavers had caused to be sold, by public roup, the whole stock on the farm of Phillhope, which belonged to Walter’s brother–in–law, merely because it was proven that the farmer’s wife had once been at a conventicle.
In the present instance, however, Clavers was mistaken, and fairly overshot his mark; for poor Maron Linton was so overwhelmed with astonishment when she saw her husband and family taken prisoners and bound, that her speech lost all manner of coherence. She sobbed aloud—complained one while, entreated another; and then muttered over some ill–sorted phrases from the Scripture. When Clavers pressed his questions, she answered him, weeping, [131]“O dear sir, my lord, ye ken I canna do naething, nor think naething, nor answer naething, unless ye let Watie loose again; I find as I war naebody, nor nae soul, nor naething ava wantin’ him, but just like a vacation or a shadow. O my lord, set my twa bits o’ callants an’ my puir auld man loose again, and I’ll say ony thing that ever ye like.”
Threats and proffers proved alike in vain. Maron’s mind, which never was strong, had been of late so much unhinged by the terrors of superstition, that it wavered in its frail tenement like “the baseless fabric of a vision,” threatening to depart, and leave not a wreck behind. Clavers told her that her husband’s life depended on the promptness and sincerity of her answers, he having rendered himself amenable to justice by rescuing his daughter by force, whom they had taken prisoner on their arrival, having found her engaged in a very suspicious employment. This only increased Maron’s agony; and at length Clavers was obliged to give up the point, and ordered her into custody.
The soldiers had by this time taken old John of the Muchrah and another of Laidla[132]w’s shepherds prisoners, who had come to assist their master with the farm–work that day. All these Clavers examined separately; and their answers, as taken down in short–hand by Mr Adam Copland, are still extant, and at present in my possession. The following are some of them, as decyphered by Mr J. W. Robertson, whose acquaintance with ancient manuscripts is well known.
John Hay, shepherd in Muchrah, aged fifty–six, sworn and examined.
“Do you know such a man as the Rev. James Renwick?”
“Yes. I once heard him pray and preach for about the space of two hours.”
“Was it on your master’s farm that he preached?”
“No, it was in a linn on the Earl Hill, in the march between two lairds’ lands, that he preached that day.”
“How durst you go to an unlawful conventicle?”
“I didna ken there was a law against it[133] till after—it’s a wild place this—we never hear ony o’ the news, unless it be twice a–year frae the Moffat fairs. But as soon as I heard him praying and preaching against the king I cam aff an’ left him, an’ brought a’ my lads an’ lasses wi’ me; but my wife wadna steer her fit—there she sat, shaking her head and glooming at me; but I trow I cowed her for’t after.”
“What did he say of the king?”
“O, I canna mind—he said nae muckle gude o’ him.”
“Did he say that he was a bloody perjured tyrant?”
“Ay, he said muckle waur nor that. He said some gayan ill–farr’d things about him. But I cam away and left him; I thought he was saying mair than gude manners warrantit.”
“Were you in the Hope, as you call it; on that day that the king’s soldiers were slain?”
“Ay, that I was; I was the first wha came on them whan they war just new[134] dead, an’ a’ reeking i’ their warm blude—Gude keep us a’ frae sic sights again!—for my part, I never gat sic a confoundit gliff sin’ I was born o’ my mother.”
“Describe the place where the corpses were lying.”
“It is a deep cleuch, wi’ a sma’ sheep rodding through the linn not a foot wide; and if ye war to stite aff that, ye wad gang to the boddom o’ the linn wi’ a flaip.”
“Were the bodies then lying in the bottom of that linn?”
“Odd help ye, whar could they be lying else?—D’ye think they could lie on the Cleuch–brae? Ye might as weel think to lie on the side o’ that wa’ gin ye war dead.”
“How did it appear to you that they had been slain—were they cut with swords, or pierced with bullets?”
“I canna say, but they war sair hashed.”
“How do you mean when you say they were hashed?”
[135]“Champit like—a’ broozled and jurmummled, as it war.”
“Do you mean that they were cut, or cloven, or minced?”
“Na, na—no that ava—But they had gotten some sair doofs—They had been terribly paikit and daddit wi’ something.”
“I do not in the least conceive what you mean.”
“That’s extrordnar, man—can ye no understand folk’s mother–tongue?—I’ll mak it plain to you. Ye see, whan a thing comes on ye that gate, that’s a dadd—sit still now. Then a paik, that’s a swapp or a skelp like—when a thing comes on ye that way, that’s a paik. But a doof’s warst ava—it’s”——
“Prithee hold; I now understand it all perfectly well.—What, then, is your opinion with regard to these men’s death? How, or what way do you think they were killed?”
“O, sir, there’s naebody can say. It was some extrordnar judgment, that’s out of a’[136] doubt. There had been an unyerdly raid i’ the Hope that day.”
“What reason have you for supposing such a thing?”
“Because there wasna a leevin soul i’ the hale Hope that day but theirsels—they wadna surely hae felled ane another—It’s, by an’ attour, an awsome bit where they war killed; there hae been things baith seen and heard about it; and I saw an apparition there mysel on the very night before.”
“You saw an apparition at the place the night before, did you? And, pray, what was that apparition like?”
“It was like a man and a woman.”
“Had the figure of the woman no resemblance to any one you had ever seen before? Was it in any degree, for instance, like your master’s daughter?”
“No unlike ava.”
“Then I think I can guess what the other form was like—Had it a bonnet on its head?”
[137]“Not a bonnet certainly, but it had the shape o’ ane.”
“I weened as much—And was it a tall gigantic figure?”
“Na, na, sir; the very contrair o’ that.”
“Are you certain of that you say? Was it not taller than the apparition of the woman?”
“No half sae tall, sir.”
“Had it not some slight resemblance to your master, little as it was? Did that not strike you?”
“Na, na, it was naething like my master, nor nae yerdly creature that ever was seen; indeed it was nae creature ava.”
“What then do you suppose it was?”
“Lord kens!—A wraith, I hae little doubt. My een rins a’ wi’ water whan I think about it yet.”
“Wraiths are quite common here, are they?”
“O yes, sir!—oure common. They appear aye afore death, especially if the death be to be sudden.”
[138]“And what are they generally like?”
“Sometimes like a light—sometimes like a windin–sheet—sometimes like the body that’s to dee, gaen mad—and sometimes like a coffin made o’ moon–light.”
“Was it in the evening you saw this apparition?”
“It was a little after midnight.”
“And pray, what might be your business in such a place at that untimely hour?—Explain that fully to me if you please.”
“I sall do that, sir, as weel as I can:—Our ewes, ye see, lie up in the twa Grains an’ the Middle a’ the harst—Now, the Quave Brae again, it’s our hogg–fence, that’s the hained grund like; and whenever the wind gangs easterly about, then whan the auld luckies rise i’ the howe o’ the night to get their rug, aff they come, snouckin a’ the way to the Lang Bank, an’ the tither end o’ them round the Piper Snout, and into the Quave Brae to the hained grund; an’ very often they think naething o’ landing i’ the mids o’ the corn. Now I never mindit the[139] corn sae muckle; but for them to gang wi’ the hogg–fence, I coudna bide that ava; for ye ken, sir, how coud we turn our hand wi’ our pickle hoggs i’ winter if their bit foggage war a’ riven up by the auld raikin hypalts ere ever a smeary’s clute clattered on’t?”
Though Clavers was generally of an impatient temper, and loathed the simplicity of nature, yet he could not help smiling at this elucidation, which was much the same to him as if it had been delivered in the language of the Moguls; but seeing the shepherd perfectly sincere, he suffered him to go on to the end.
“Now, sir, ye ken the wind very often taks a swee away round to the east i’ the night–time whan the wather’s gude i’ the harst months, an’ whanever this was the case, and the moon i’ the lift, I had e’en aye obliged to rise at midnight, and gang round the hill an’ stop the auld kimmers—very little did the turn—just a bit thraw[140] yont the brae, an’ they kend my whistle, or my tike’s bark, as weel as I did mysel, still they wadna do wantin’t. Weel, ye see, sir, I gets up an’ gangs to the door—it was a bonny night—the moon was hingin o’er the derk brows o’ Hopertoody, an’ the lang black scaddaws had an eiry look—I turned my neb the tither gate, an’ I fand the air was gane to the eissel; the se’en starns had gaen oure the lum, an’ the tail o’ the king’s elwand was just pointin to the Muchrah Crags. It’s the very time, quo’ I to mysel, I needna think about lying down again—I maun leave Janet to lie doverin by hersel for an hour or twa—Keilder, my fine dog, where are ye?—He was as ready as me—he likes a play i’ the night–time brawly, for he’s aye gettin a broostle at a hare, or a tod, or a foumart, or some o’ thae beasts that gang snaikin about i’ the derk. Sae to mak a lang tale short, sir, off we sets, Keilder an’ me, an’ soon comes to the place. The ewes had been very mensefu’ that night, they[141] had just comed to the march and nae farther; sae, I says, puir things, sin’ ye hae been sae leifu’, we’ll sit down an’ rest a while, the dog an’ me, an’ let ye tak a pluck an’ fill yersels or we turn ye back up to your cauld lairs again. Sae down we sits i’ the scaddaw of a bit derksome cleuch–brae—naebody could hae seen us; and ere ever I wats, I hears by the grumblin o’ my friend, that he outher saw or smelled something mair than ordinar. I took him in aneath my plaid for fear o’ some grit brainyell of an outbrik; and whan I lookit, there was a white thing and a black thing new risen out o’ the solid yird! They cam close by me; and whan I saw the moon shinin on their cauld white faces, I lost my sight an’ swarfed clean away. Wae be to them for droichs, or ghaists, or whatever they war, for aye sin’ syne the hogg–fence o’ the Quave Brae has been harried an’ traisselled till its little better nor a drift road—I darna gang an’ stop the ewes now for the saul[142] that’s i’ my bouk, an’ little do I wat what’s to come o’ the hoggs the year.”
“Well now, you have explained this much I believe to your own satisfaction—Remember then, you are upon oath—Who do you think it was that killed these men?”
“I think it was outher God or the deil, but whilk o’ them, I coudna say.”
“And this is really your opinion?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Have you seen any strangers about your master’s house of late?”
“I saw one not long ago.”
“What sort of a man was he?”
“A douse–looking man wi’ a brown yaud; I took him for some wool–buyer.”
“Was he not rather like a preacher?”
“The man might hae preached for aught contrair till’t in his appearance—I coudna say.”
“Are you certain it was not Mr Renwick?”
“I am certain.”
[143]“Is your master a very religious man?”
“He’s weel eneugh that way—No that very reithe on’t; but the gudewife hauds his neb right sair to the grindstane about it.”
“Does he perform family worship?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is he reckoned a great and exemplary performer of that duty?”
“Na, he’s nae great gun, I trow; but he warstles away at it as weel as he can.”
“Can you repeat any part, or any particular passage of his usual prayer?”
“I’m sure I might, for he gangs often aneuch oure some o’ them. Let me see—there’s the still waters, and the green pastures, and the blood of bulls and of goats; and then there’s the gos–hawk, and the slogy riddle, and the tyrant an’ his lang neb; I hae the maist o’t i’ my head, but then I canna mouband it.”
“What does he mean by the tyrant and his long neb?”
“Aha! But that’s mair nor ever I could[144] find out yet. We whiles think he means the Kelpy—him that raises the storms an’ the floods on us, ye ken, and gars the waters an’ the burns come roarin down wi’ bracks o’ ice an’ snaw, an’ tak away our sheep. But whether it’s Kelpy, or Clavers, or the Deil, we can never be sure, for we think it applies gay an’ weel to them a’.”
“Repeat the passage as well as you can.”
“Bring down the tyrant an’ his lang neb, for he has done muckle ill this year, and gie him a cup o’ thy wrath; an’ gin he winna tak that, gie him kelty.”
“What is meant by kelty?”
“That’s double—it means twa cups—ony body kens that.”
“Does he ever mention the king in his prayer?”
“O yes: always.”
“What does he say about him?”
“Something about the sceptre of righteousness, and the standard of truth. I ken he has some rhyme about him.”
[145]“Indeed! And does he likewise make mention of the Covenant?”
“Ay, that’s after—that’s near the end, just afore the resurrection. O yes, he harls aye in the Covenant there. ‘The bond o’ the everlasting Covenant,’ as he ca’s it, weel ordered in all things, and sure.”
“Ay, that’s very well; that’s quite sufficient. Now, you have yourself confessed, that you were at an unlawful and abominable conventicle, holding fellowship with intercommuned rebels, along with your wife and family. You must be made an example of to the snarling and rebellious hounds that are lurking in these bounds; but as you have answered me with candour, though I might order you instantly to be shot, I will be so indulgent as to give you your choice, whether you will go to prison in Edinburgh, and be there tried by the Council, or submit to the judgment which I may pronounce on you here?”
“O, sir, I canna win to Edinbrough at[146] no rate—that’s impossible. What think ye wad come o’ the sheep? The hogg–fence o’ the Quave Brae is maistly ruined already; and war I to gae to the prison at Edinbrough, it wad be mair loss than a’ that I’m worth. I maun just lippen to yoursel; but ye maunna be very sair on me. I never did ony ill designedly; and as for ony rebellion against the Bruce’s blood, I wad be hangit or I wad think o’ sic a thing.”
“Take the old ignorant animal away—Burn him on the cheek, cut off his ears, and do not part with him till he pay you down a fine of two hundred merks, or value to that amount. And, do you hear, make him take all the oaths twice; and a third oath, that he is never to repent of these. By G‑‑; if either Monmouth or Argyle get him, they shall have a perjured dog of him.”
As John was dragged off to this punishment, which was executed without any mitigation, he shook his head and said, “Ah, lak–a day! I fear things are muckle waur[147] wi’ us than I had ony notion o’! I trowed aye that even down truth an’ honesty bure some respect till now—I fear our country’s a’ wrang thegither.”—Then looking back to Clavers, he added, “Gude–sooth, lad, but ye’ll mak mae whigs wherever ye show your face, than a’ the hill preachers o’ Scotland put thegither.”
It has been remarked by all the historians of that period, that the proceedings of Clavers about this time were severe in the extreme. The rising, both in the north and south at the same time, rendered the situation of affairs somewhat ticklish. Still the Lowlands were then perfectly peaceable; but he seemed determined, lest he should be called away, to destroy the Covenanters, and all that hankered after civil and religious liberty, root and branch. Certainly his behaviour at Chapelhope that morning, was sufficient to stamp his character for ever in that district, where it is still held in at least as great detestation as that of the arch–fiend himself.
When the soldiers, by his order, seized and manacled Walter, he protested vehemently against such outrage, and urged the general to prove his fidelity to his sovereign by administering to him the test oath, and the oath of abjuration; but this Clavers declined, and said to him, with a sneer, that “they had other ways of trying dogs beside that.”
When those who had been appointed to search the house came before him, and gave in their report, among other things, they said they had found as much bread new baked, and mutton newly cooked, as would be a reasonable allowance for an hundred men for at least one whole day. Clavers remarked, that in a family so few in number, this was proof positive that others were supported from that house. “But we shall disappoint the whigs of one hearty meal,” added he; and with that he ordered the meat to be brought all out and set down upon the green—bid his troopers[150] eat as much as they could—feed their horses with the bread which they left, and either destroy the remainder of the victuals or carry them away.
It was in vain that Walter told him the honest truth, that the food was provided solely for himself and his soldiers, as he knew they were to come by that road, either on that day or the one following; nay, though all the family avouched it, as they well might, he only remarked, with a look of the utmost malignity, that “he never in his life knew a whig who had not a d‑‑d lie ready on his tongue, or some kind of equivocation to save his stinking life, but that they must necessarily all be taught who they were dealing with.” He then made them all swear that they were to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and to utter the most horrid imprecations on themselves and their souls for ever, if they deviated in one single item; and beginning with old John, as[151] before related, he examined them all separately and out of hearing of one another.
The interrogations and answers are much too long to be inserted here at full length; but the only new circumstances that came to light were these two. One of the young men deponed, that, when the bodies of the soldiers were found in the Hope, their muskets were all loaded, which showed that they had not fallen in a regular skirmish; and the other boy swore, that he had lately seen eighty large thick bannocks baked in one day in his father’s house, for that he had counted them three times over as they stood cooling. This was another suspicious circumstance, and Clavers determined to search it to the bottom. He sifted the two youths backward and forward, trying to get the secret out of them by every wile in his power; and because they were unable to give him any satisfactory account who consumed all that store of bread, he caused his dragoons to take hold of the youngest and[152] gird his head with a cord, twisting it with a horse pistol, until in some places it cut him to the skull. The eldest he hung up to the beam by the thumbs until he fainted through insufferable pain; but he could get nothing more out of them, for they had at first told him all that they knew, being quite unconscious of any evil.
Still bent, as it seemed, on the full conviction and ruin of the family, he told the boys that they were two of the most consummate knaves and rebels that he had in all his life seen; and that if they had any hopes at all of going to Heaven, they should say their prayers, for in a few minutes he would order them both to be shot.
John, the eldest, who possessed a good deal of his mother’s feebleness of character, and was besides but newly recovered from a fainting fit, was seized with a stupor, appeared quite passive, and acted precisely as they bade him, without seeming to know what he did; but the youngest,[153] whose name was William, preserved an interesting firmness, in such a trial, for a considerable time. On being advised by Clavers to tell all he knew rather than die, and asked if he was not afraid of death? He answered, with the tear in his eye, “I’m nouther feared for you nor death, man. I think if fock may be guidit this way at their ain hames, the sooner they’re dead the better.” Then turning his looks to his brother, who kneeled according to the general’s order on the green beside him, he added, with convulsive sobs, “But poor Jock’s gaun to be shot too—I wonder what ye need kill him for?—What ill hae we ever done t’ye?—Jock’s a very good callant—I canna pray weel, but if ye’ll let my billy Jock gang, I’ll pray for ye as I can, and kiss ye too.”
Happy was it for the wits of poor Maron that she saw nothing of this touching scene; she, as well as Walter, being then with the rest under a strong guard in the Old Room. Clavers paid no regard to the kneeling bo[154]y’s request. He caused his troopers to draw up around them, present their firelocks, and then an executioner, who was always one of his train, tied up both their eyes. He gave the word himself, and instantly ten or twelve carabines were discharged on them at once. John fell flat on the earth; but William, with a violent start, sprung to his feet, and, being blindfolded, ran straight on the files of soldiers.
Clavers laid hold of him. “My brave little fellow,” said he, “the soldiers have all missed you, bungling beasts that they are! and since so wonderful a thing hath befallen, you shall yet have your life, though a most notorious rebel, if you will tell me what people frequent your father’s house.”
“What’s comed o’ Jock?” said the boy, “O tell me what’s comed o’ Jock, for I canna see.”
“Jock is lying dead on the green there, all bathed in his blood,” said Clavers; [155]“poor wretch! it is over with him, and unless you instantly tell me who it was that consumed all that store of bread that has been baked in your father’s house for the last month, you must be sent after him.”
William withdrew backward a few paces, and kneeling a second time down on the sward with great decency and deliberation, “Shoot again,” said he; “try me aince mair; an’ O see to airch a wee better this time. I wad rather dee a hunder times, or I saw poor Jock lying a bloody corp.”
Clavers made a sign to one of his dragoons, who unbound William, and took the bandage from his eyes. Regardless of all else, he looked wildly around in search of his brother, and seeing his only companion lying flat on his face, he at first turned away, as if wishing to escape from a scene so dismal; but his helpless and forlorn situation staring him in the face, and the idea doubtless recurring that he was never to part with his brother, but forthwith to be slaughtered and carried to the grave with him, he returned, went slowly up to the[156] body, kneeled down beside it, and pulling the napkin farther down over the face to keep the dead features from view, he clasped his arms about his brother’s neck, laid his cheek to his, and wept bitterly.
The narrator of this part of the tale was wont to say, that the scene which followed had something more touching in it than any tongue could describe, although Clavers and his troops only laughed at it. William had now quite relinquished all sensations of fear or danger, and gave full vent to a flood of passionate tenderness and despair. He clasped his brother’s neck closer and closer, steeped his cheek with his tears, and seemed to cling and grow to the body with a miserable fondness. While he was giving full scope in this manner to the affections of his young heart, his brother made a heave up with his head and shoulder, saying at the same time, like one wakening from a dream, “Little Will, is that you?—Haud aff—What ails ye?”
William raised up his head,—fixed his[157] eyes on vacancy,—the tears dried on his cheek, and his ruby lips were wide open,—the thing was beyond his comprehension, and never was seen a more beautiful statue of amazement. He durst not turn his eyes towards his brother, but he uttered in words scarcely articulate, “Lord! I believe they hae missed Jock too!”
Clavers had given private orders to his dragoons to fire over the heads of the two boys, his intent being to intimidate them so much as to eradicate every principle of firmness and power of concealment from their tender minds; a scheme of his own fertile invention, and one which he often practised upon young people with too sure effect. When William found that his brother was really alive, and that both of them were to be spared on condition that he gave up the names and marks of all the people that had of late been at Chapelhope; he set himself with great earnestness to recount them, along with every mark by[158] which he remembered them, determined that every hidden thing should be brought to light, rather than that poor Jock should be shot at again.
“Weel, ye see, first there was Geordie Skin–him–alive the flesher, him that took away the crocks and the paulies, and my brockit–lamb, and gae me a penny for setting him through atween the lochs. Then there was Hector Kennedy the tinkler, him that the bogles brought and laid down at the door i’ the night–time—he suppit twa bickerfu’s o’ paritch, an’ cleekit out a hantle o’ geds an’ perches wi’ his toum. Then there was Ned Huddersfield the woo–man, wi’ the leather bags and the skeenzie thread—him that kissed our bire–woman i’ the barn in spite o’ her teeth,—he had red cheeks and grit thees, and wasna unlike a glutton; he misca’d my father’s woo, an’ said aye, ‘Nay, it’s nane clean, howsomever,—it’s useless, that’s its warst fault.’ Then there was wee Willie the nout herd, him that had[159] the gude knife an’ the duddy breeks; but the Brownie’s put him daft, an’ his mither had to come an’ tak him away upon a cuddy.”
In this manner went he on particularizing every one he remembered, till fairly cut short with a curse. John continued perfectly stupid, and when examined, answered only Yes, or No, as their way of asking the question dictated.
“Are there not great numbers of people who frequent your father’s house during the night?”
“Yes.”
“Do you see and hear them, after you go to bed?”
“Yes.”
“What are they generally employed in when you hear them? Do they read, and pray, and sing psalms?”
“Yes.”
“Do your father and mother always join them?”
“Yes.”
[160]Here William could restrain himself no longer. “Gude faith, Jock, man,” said he, “ye’re just telling a hirsel o’ eindown lees. It canna be lees that the man wants, for that maks him nae the wiser; an’ for you to say that my father rises to pray i’ the night–time, beats a’, when ye ken my mither has baith to fleitch an’ fight or she can get him eggit on till’t i’ the Sabbath e’enings. He’s ower glad to get it foughten decently by, to rise an’ fa’ till’t again. O fye, Jock! I wad stand by the truth; an’, at ony rate, no just gaung to hell open mouth.”
When the volley of musketry went off, all the prisoners started and stared on one another; even the hundred veterans that guarded them appeared by their looks to be wholly at a loss. Macpherson alone ventured any remark on it. “Pe Cot’s life, fat she pe pluff pluffing at now? May the teal more pe her soul’s salvation, if she do not believe te man’s pe gone out of all reason.”
The women screamed; and Maron, whose[161] tongue was a mere pendulum to the workings of the heart within, went on sighing and praying; asking questions, and answering them alternately; and at every pause, looked earnestly to her husband, who leaned against the corner of the room, ashamed that his bound hands should be seen.
“Och! Aigh me!” cried Maron,—“Dear sirs, what’s the fock shootin at?—Eh?—I’m sure they hae nae battlers to fight wi’ there?—No ane—I wat, no ane. Aigh now, sirs! the lives o’ God’s creatures!—They never shoot nae callants, do they? Oh, na, na, they’ll never shoot innocent bairns, puir things! They’ll maybe hae been trying how weel they could vizy at the wild ducks; there’s a hantle o’ cleckins about the saughs o’ the lake. Hout ay, that’s a’.—He hasna forgotten to be gracious, nor is his mercy clean gane.”
Thus poor Maron went on, and though she had but little discernment left, she perceived that there was a tint of indignant madness in her husband’s looks. His lips[162] quivered—his eyes dilated—and the wrinkles on his brow rolled up to the roots of his dark grizzled hair, “Watie,” cried she, in a shrill and tremulous voice—“Watie, what ails ye—Oh! tell me what ails ye, Watie?—What’s the fock shooting at? Eh? Ye’ll no tell me what they’re shooting at, Watie?—Oh, oh, oh, oh!”
Walter uttered no word, nor did his daughter, who sat in dumb astonishment, with her head almost bent to her feet; but old Nanny joined in full chorus with her mistress, and a wild unearthly strain the couple raised, till checked by Serjeant Roy Macpherson.
“Cot’s curse be t‑‑ning you to te everlasting teal! fat too–whooing pe tat? Do you think that should the lenoch beg pe shot trou te poty, tat is te son to yourself? Do you tink, you will too–whoo him up akain?—Hay—Cot tamn, pe holding your paice.”
Upon the whole, there was no proof against Walter. Presumption was against him, but the evidence was rather in his favour. Military law, however, prevailed; and he found that there was no redress to be had of any grievance or insult, that this petty tyrant, in his caprice, thought fit to inflict. His drivers were ordered to take the whole stock from the farms of Kirkinhope, belonging to David Bryden, who lived at a distance, because it was proven, that Mr Renwick had preached and baptized some children on the bounds of that farm. That stock he caused to be taken to Selkirk, and sent orders to the sheriff to sell it by public roup, at the cross, to the highest[164] bidder; but with Walter’s stock he did not meddle at that time; so far did justice mark his proceedings. He strongly suspected him, and wished to have him convicted; and certainly would have taken all the family with him prisoners, had not the curate–clerk arrived at that critical time. Him Clavers consulted apart, and was soon given to understand the steadfast loyalty of the gudewife, daughter, and all the family, save Walter, whom, he said, he suspected of a secret connivance with the Cameronians. This was merely to serve a selfish purpose, for the clerk suspected no such thing at that time. It had the desired effect. Clavers set all the rest of the family free, but took the good man with him prisoner; put two of his best horses in requisition; mounted himself on a diminutive poney, with the thumbikins on his hands, and his feet chained below its belly. In this degrading situation, he was put under the care of Serjeant Roy[165] Macpherson and five troopers; and Clavers, with the rest of his company, hasted, with great privacy and celerity, into that inhospitable wild, which forms the boundary between Drummelzier and the Johnstons of Annandale. The greater part of the fugitives had taken shelter there at that time, it being the most inaccessible part in the south of Scotland, and that where, of all others, they had been the least troubled. No troops could subsist near them; and all that the military could do was to set watches near every pass to and from these mountains, where a few stragglers were killed, but not many in proportion to the numbers that had there sought a retreat.
The Covenanters knew that Clavers would make a sweeping and exterminating circuit about that time—incidents which were not to be overlooked, had been paving the way for it—incidents with which the main body of that people were totally unconnected. But it was usual at that time, and a very unfair practice it was, that whatever was[166] said, or perpetrated, by any intemperate fanatical individual, or any crazy wight, driven half mad by ill usage—whatever was said or done by such, was always attributed to the whole sect as a body. It is too true that the Privy Council chose, invariably, men void of all feeling or remorse to lead these troops. A man had nothing to study but to be cruel enough to rise in the army in those days; yet, because there was a Dalziel, a Graham, a Creighton, and a Bruce among the king’s troops, it would be unfair to suppose all the rest as void of every principle of feeling and forbearance as they. In like manner, because some of the Covenanters said violent and culpable things, and did worse, it is hard to blame the whole body for these; for, in the scattered prowling way in which they were driven to subsist, they had no controul over individuals.
They had been looking for the soldiers’ appearing there for several days, and that same morning had been on the watch; but[167] the day was now so far advanced that they were waxen remiss, and had retired to their dens and hiding–places. Besides, he came so suddenly upon them, that some parties, as well as several stragglers, were instantly discovered. A most determined pursuit ensued, Clavers exerted himself that day in such a manner, gallopping over precipices, and cheering on his dragoons, that all the country people who beheld him believed him to be a devil, or at least mounted on one. The marks of that infernal courser’s feet are shewn to this day on a steep, nearly perpendicular, below the Bubbly Craig, along which he is said to have ridden at full speed, in order to keep sight of a party of the flying Covenanters. At another place, called the Blue Sklidder, on the Merk side, he had far outrode all his officers and dragoons in the pursuit of five men, who fled straggling athwart the steep. He had discharged both his pistols without effect; and just as he was making ready to cleave down[168] the hindmost with his sabre, he was attacked by another party, who rolled huge stones at him from the precipice above, and obliged him to make a hasty retreat.
Tradition has preserved the whole of his route that day with the utmost minuteness. It is not easy to account for this. These minute traditions are generally founded on truth; yet though two generations have scarcely passed away since the date of this tale,[2] tradition, in this instance, relates things impossible, else Clavers must indeed have been one of the infernals. Often has the present relater of this tale stood over the deep green marks of that courser’s hoof, many of which remain on that hill, in awe and astonishment, to think that he was actually looking at the traces made[169] by the devil’s foot, or at least by a horse that once belonged to him.
Five men were slain that day; but as they were all westland men, very little is known concerning them. One of them was shot at a distance by some dragoons who were in pursuit of him, just as he was entering a morass, where he would certainly have escaped them. He is buried on a place called the Watch Knowe, a little to the south–east of Loch Skene, beside a cairn where he had often sat keeping watch for the approach of enemies, from which circumstance the height derived its name. When he fell, it being rough broken ground, they turned and rode off without ever going up to the body. Four were surprised and taken prisoners on a height called Ker–Cleuch–Ridge, who were brought to Clavers and shortly examined on a little crook in the Erne Cleuch, a little above the old steading at Hopertoudy.
Macpherson kept the high road, such as[170] it was, with his prisoner; but travelled no faster than just to keep up with the parties that were scouring the hills on each side; and seeing these unfortunate men hunted in from the hill, he rode up with his companions and charge to see the issue, remarking to Walter, that “he woolt not pe much creat deal te worse of scheeing fwat te Cot t‑‑n’d fwigs would pe getting.”
How did Walter’s heart smite him when he saw that one of them was the sensible, judicious, and honourable fellow with whom he fought, and whose arm he had dislocated by a blow with his stick! It was still hanging in a sling made of a double rash rope.
They would renounce nothing, confess nothing, nor yield, in the slightest degree, to the threats and insulting questions put by the general. They expected no mercy, and they cringed for none; but seemed all the while to regard him with pity and contempt. Walter often said that he was an ill judge of the cause for which these men[171] suffered; but whatever might be said of it, they were heroes in that cause. Their complexions were sallow, and bore marks of famine and other privations; their beards untrimmed; their apparel all in rags, and their hats slouched down about their ears with sleeping on the hills. All this they had borne with resignation and without a murmur; and, when brought to the last, before the most remorseless of the human race, they shewed no symptoms of flinching or yielding up an item of the cause they had espoused.
When asked “if they would pray for the king?”
They answered, “that they would with all their hearts;—they would pray for his forgiveness, in time and place convenient, but not when every profligate bade them, which were a loathful scurrility, and a mockery of God.”
“Would they acknowledge him as their right and lawful sovereign?”
“No, that they would never do! He[172] was a bloody and designing papist, and had usurped a prerogative that belonged not to him. To acknowledge the Duke of York for king, would be to acknowledge the divine approbation of tyranny, oppression, usurpation, and all that militates against religion or liberty, as well as justifying the abrogation of our ancient law relating to the succession; and that, besides, he had trampled on every civil and religious right, and was no king for Scotland, or any land where the inhabitants did not chuse the most abject and degrading slavery. For their parts, they would never acknowledge him; and though it was but little that their protestations and their blood could avail, they gave them freely. They had but few left to mourn for them, and these few might never know of their fate; but there was One who knew their hearts, who saw their sufferings, and in Him they trusted that the days of tyranny and oppression were wearing to a close, and that a race yet to come[173] might acknowledge that they had not shed their blood in vain.”
Clavers ordered them all to be shot. They craved time to pray, but he objected, sullenly alleging, that he had not time to spare. Mr Copland said,—“My lord, you had better grant the poor wretches that small indulgence.” On which Clavers took out his watch, and said he would grant them two minutes, provided they did not howl. When the man with the hurt arm turned round to kneel, Walter could not help crying out to him in a voice half stifled with agony—
“Ah! lak–a–day, man! is it come to this with you, and that so soon? This is a sad sight!”
The man pretended to put on a strange and astonished look towards his benefactor.
“Whoever you are,” said he, “that pities the sufferings of a hapless stranger, I thank you. May God requite you! but think of yourself, and apply for mercy where it is to[174] be found, for you are in the hands of those whose boast it is to despise it.”
Walter at first thought this was strange, but he soon perceived the policy of it, and wondered at his friend’s readiness at such an awful hour, when any acknowledgment of connection would have been so fatal to himself. They kneeled all down, clasped their hands together, turned their faces to Heaven, and prayed in a scarce audible whisper. Captain Bruce, in the mean time, kneeled behind the files, and prayed in mockery, making a long face, wiping his eyes, and speaking in such a ludicrous whine, that it was impossible for the gravest face to retain its muscles unaltered. He had more to attend to him than the miserable sufferers. When the two minutes were expired, Clavers, who held his watch all the time, made a sign to the dragoons who were drawn up, without giving any intimation to the sufferers, which, perhaps, was merciful, and in a moment all the four were launched into eternity.
[175]The soldiers, for what reason Walter never understood, stretched the bodies all in a straight line on the brae, with their faces upwards, and about a yard distant from one another, and then rode off as fast as they could to get another hunt, as they called it. These four men were afterwards carried by the fugitives, and some country people, and decently interred in Ettrick church–yard. Their graves are all in a row a few paces from the south–west corner of the present church. The goodman of Chapelhope, some years thereafter, erected a head–stone over the grave of the unfortunate sufferer whose arm he had broken, which, with its rude sculpture, is to be seen to this day. His name was Walter Biggar. A small heap of stones is raised on the place where they were shot.
The last look which Walter took of the four corpses, as they lay stretched on the brae, with the blood streaming from them, had nearly turned his brain. His heart sunk within him. For years and days they[176] never left his mind’s eye, sleeping nor waking. He always thought he saw them lying on the green sloping brae, with their pale visages, blue open lips, clasped hands, and dim stedfast eyes still fixed on the Heavens. He had heard Clavers and his officers called heroes: He wished those who believed so had been there that day to have judged who were the greatest heroes.
“There! let them take that!” said Captain Bruce, as he mounted his horse.
“Poor misled unfortunate beings!” said Copland, and mounted his.
“Huh! Cot t‑‑n!” said Roy Macpherson, in a voice that seemed to struggle for an outlet; and Walter, to his astonishment, saw a tear glistening on his rough weather–beaten cheek, as he turned to ride away!
The pursuit continued unabated for the whole of that day. There was a great deal of firing, but the hills of Polmoody were inaccessible to cavalry. There was no more blood shed. They lodged that night at a place called Kippelgill, where they put[177] every thing in requisition about the house, and killed some of the cattle. Clavers was in extremely bad humour, and Walter had no doubt that he once intended to have sacrificed him that night, but seemed to change his mind, after having again examined him. He was very stern, and threatened him with the torture, swearing that he knew him to be the supporter of that nest of miscreants that harboured around him, and that though he should keep him prisoner for a dozen years, he would have it proven on him. Walter made oath that there had never one of them been within his door, consistent with his knowledge; that he had never been at a conventicle; and proffered to take the test, and oath of abjuration, if allowed to do so. All this would not satisfy Clavers. Walter said he wondered at his discernment, for, without the least evil or disloyal intent, he found he had rendered himself liable to punishment, but how he could be aware of that he knew not.
That night Walter was confined in a cow–house, under the same guard that had conducted him from Chapelhope. The soldiers put his arms round one of the stakes for the cattle, and then screwed on the thumbikins, so that he was fastened to the stake without being much incommoded. When Macpherson came in at a late hour, (for he was obliged likewise to take up his abode in the cow–house over night), the first word he said was,—
“Cot t‑‑n, she no pe liking to schee an honest shentleman tied up to a stake, as she were peing a poollock.”
He then began to lecture Walter on the magnitude of folly it would be in him to run away, “when he took it into consideration that he had a ponny fhamily, and sheeps, and horses, and bheasts, that would all pe maide acchountable.”
Walter acknowledged the force of his reasoning; said it was sterling common sense, and that nothing would induce him to attempt such a dangerous experiment as[179] attempting to make his escape. Macpherson then loosed him altogether, and conversed with him until he fell asleep. Walter asked him, what he thought of his case with the general? Macpherson shook his head. Walter said there was not the shadow of a proof against him!
“No!” said Macpherson; “py cot’s curse but there is! There is very much deal of proof. Was not there my countrymen and scholdiers murdered on your grhounds? Was not there mhore scoans, and prochin, and muttons in your house, than would have peen eaten in a mhonth by the fhamily that pelongs to yourself. By the pode more of the auld deal, but there is more proof than would hang twenty poor peheoples.”
“That’s but sma’ comfort, man! But what think ye I should do?”
“Cot t‑‑n, if I know!—Who is it that is your Chief?”
“Chief!—What’s that?”
[180]“Tat is te head of te clan—Te pig man of your name and fhamily.”
“In troth, man, an’ there isna ane o’ my name aboon mysel.”
“Fwat? Cot’s everlasting plissing! are you te chief of te clan, M’Leadle? Then, sir, you are a shentleman indeed. Though your clan should pe never so poor, you are a shentleman; and you must pe giving me your hand; and you need not think any shame to pe giving me your hand; for hersel pe a shentleman pred and porn, and furst coosin to Cluny Macpherson’s sister–in–law. Who te deal dha more she pe this clan, M’Leadle? She must be of Macleane. She ance pe prhother to ourselves, but fell into great dishunity by the preaking off of Finlay Gorm More Machalabin Macleane of Ilanterach and Ardnamurchan.”
Walter having thus set Daniel Roy Macpherson on the top of his hobby–horse by chance, there was no end of the matter! He went on with genealogies of uncouth[181] names, and spoke of some old free–booters as the greatest of all kings. Walter had no means of stopping him, but by pretending to fall asleep, and when Macpherson weened that no one was listening farther to him, he gave up the theme, turned himself over, and uttered some fervent sentences in Gaelic, with heavy moans between.
“What’s that you are saying now,” said Walter, pretending to rouse himself up.
“Pe sad works this,” said he. “Huh! Cot in heaven aye! Hersel would be fighting te Campbells, sword in hand, for every inch of the Moor of Rhanoch; but Cot t‑‑n, if she like to pe pluffing and shooting through te podies of te poor helpless insignificant crheatures. T‑‑n’d foolish ignorant peheople! Cot t‑‑n, if she pe having the good sense and prhudence of a bheast.”
Walter commended his feeling, and again asked his advice with regard to his own conduct.
“Who is te great man tat is te laird to yourself?” asked he.
[182]“Mr Hay of Drumelzier,” was answered.
“Then lose not a mhoment in getting his very good report or security. All goes by that. It will do more ghood than any stock of innocence; and you had need to look very sharp, else he may soon cut you short. It’s a very good and a very kind man, but she pe caring no more for the lives of peoples, tan I would do for as many ptarmigans.”
Walter pondered on this hint throughout the night; and the more he did so the more he was convinced, that, as the affairs of the country were then conducted, Macpherson’s advice was of the first utility. He sent for one of the shepherds of Kippelgill next morning, charged him with an express to his family, and unable to do any thing further for himself, submitted patiently to his fate.
Clavers having been informed that night that some great conventicles had been held to the southward, he arose early, crossed the mountains by the Pennera Corse, and[183] entered that district of the south called Eskdale. He had run short of ammunition by the way, and knowing of no other supply, dispatched Bruce with 20 men by the way of Ettrick, to plunder the aisle where the ancient and noble family of the Scotts of Thirlstane were enshrined in massy leaden chests. From these he cut the lids, and otherwise damaged them, scattering the bones about in the aisle; but the Scotts of Daventon shortly after gathered up the relics of their ancestors, which they again deposited in the chests,—closed them up with wooden lids, and buried them deep under the aisle floor, that they might no more be discomposed by the hand of wanton depravity.
At a place called the Steps of Glenderg, Clavers met with Sir James Johnston of Westeraw, with fifty armed men, who gave him an exaggerated account of the district of Eskdale, telling him of such and such field–meetings, and what inflammatory discourses had there been delivered, insinuating[184] all the while that the whole dale ought to be made an example of. Clavers rejoiced in his heart at this, for the works of devastation and destruction were beginning to wear short. The Covenanters were now so sorely reduced, that scarcely durst one show his face, unless it were to the moon and stars of Heaven. A striking instance of this I may here relate by the way, as it happened on the very day to which my tale has conducted me.
A poor wanderer, named, I think, Matthew Douglas, had skulked about these mountains, chiefly in a wild glen, called the Caldron, ever since the battle of Bothwell–bridge. He had made several narrow, and, as he thought, most providential escapes, but was at length quite overcome by famine, cold, and watching; and finding his end approaching, he crept by night into a poor widow’s house at Kennelburn, whose name, if my informer is not mistaken, was Ann Hyslop. Ann was not a Cameronian, but being of a gentle and humane disposition,[185] she received the dying man kindly—watched, and even wept over him, administering to all his wants. But the vital springs of life were exhausted and dried up: He died on the second day after his arrival, and was buried with great privacy, by night, in the church–yard at Westerkirk.
Sir James Johnston had been a zealous Covenanter, and at first refused the test with great indignation; but seeing the dangerous ground on which he stood and that his hand was on the lion’s mane, he renounced these principles; and, to render his apostacy effective, became for a time a most violent distresser of his former friends. He knew at this time that Clavers was coming round; and in order to ingratiate himself with him, he had for several days been raging up and down the country like a roaring lion, as they termed it. It came to his ears what Ann Hyslop had done; whereon, pretending great rage, he went with his party to the burial ground, digged the body out of the grave, and threw it over the[186] church–yard wall for beasts of prey to devour. Forthwith he proceeded to Kennelburn—plundered the house of Ann Hyslop, and then burnt it to ashes; but herself he could not find, for she had previously absconded. Proceeding to the boundary of the county, he met and welcomed Clavers to his assistance, breathing nothing but revenge against all non–conformists, and those of his own district in particular.
Clavers knew mankind well. He perceived the moving cause of all this, and did not appear so forward and hearty in the business as Sir James expected. He resolved to ravage Eskdale, but to manage matters so that the whole blame might fall on Johnston. This he effected so completely, that he made that knight to be detested there as long as he lived, and his memory to be abhorred after his decease. He found him forward in the cause; and still the more so that he appeared to be, the more shy and backward was Clavers, appearing to consent to every thing with reluctance.[187] They condemned the stocks of sheep on Fingland and the Casways on very shallow grounds. Clavers proposed to spare them; but Sir James swore that they should not be spared, that their owners might learn the value of conventicles.
“Well, well,” said Clavers, “since you will have it so, let them be driven off.”
In this manner they proceeded down that unhappy dale, and at Craikhaugh, by sheer accident, lighted on Andrew Hyslop, son to the widow of Kennelburn above–mentioned. Johnston apprehended him, cursed, threatened, and gnashed his teeth on him with perfect rage. He was a beautiful youth, only nineteen years of age. On his examination, it appeared that he had not been at home, nor had any hand in sheltering the deceased; but he knew, he said, that his mother had done so, and in doing it, had done well; and he was satisfied that act of her’s would be approven of in the eye of the Almighty.
[188]Clavers asked, “Have you ever attended the field conventicles?”
“No.”
“Have you ever preached yourself?”
“No.”
“Do you think that you could preach?”
“I am sure I could not.”
“I’ll be d‑‑d but you can pray then,” said he.
He then proffered him his liberty if he would confess that his mother had done wrong, but this he would in no wise do; for, he said, it would be a sinful and shameful lie, he being convinced that his mother had done what was her duty, and the duty of every Christian to do towards his fellow–creatures.
Johnston swore he should be shot. Clavers hesitated, and made some objections; but the other persisting, as Clavers knew he would, the latter consented, as formerly, saying, “Well, well, since you will have it so, let it be done—his blood be on your[189] head, I am free of it.—Daniel Roy Macpherson, draw up your file, and put the sentence in execution.”
Hyslop kneeled down. They bade him put on his bonnet, and draw it over his eyes; but this he calmly refused, saying, “He had done nothing of which he was ashamed, and could look on his murderers and to Heaven without dismay.”
When Macpherson heard this, and looked at him as he kneeled on the ground with his hands pinioned, his beautiful young face turned toward the sky, and his long fair ringlets hanging waving backward, his heart melted within him, and the great tears had for sometime been hopping down his cheeks. When Clavers gave the word of command to shoot the youth, Macpherson drew up his men in a moment—wheeled them off at the side—presented arms—and then answered the order of the general as follows, in a voice that was quite choaked one while, and came forth in great vollies[190] at another—“Now, Cot t‑‑n—sh—sh—she’ll rather pe fighting Clavers and all her draghoons, pe—pe—pefore she’ll pe killing tat dear good lhad.”
Captain Bruce burst out into a horse–laugh, leaping and clapping his hands on hearing such a singular reply; even Clavers had much ado to suppress a smile, which, however, he effected by uttering a horrible curse.
“I had forgot, Sir James,” said he; “Macpherson is as brave a man as ever strode on a field of battle; but in domestic concerns, he has the heart of a chicken.”
He then ordered four of his own guards to shoot him, which they executed in a moment. Some of his acquaintances being present, they requested permission of Clavers to bury him, which he readily granted, and he was interred on the very spot where he fell. A grave stone was afterwards erected over him, which is still to be seen at Craikhaugh, near the side of the road, a little to the north of the Church of Eskdale–muir.
[191]Clavers and his prisoner lodged at Westeraw that night. Johnston wanted to have him shot; but to this Clavers objected, though rather in a jocular manner.
Walter said, he was sure if Sir James had repeated his request another time, that Clavers’ answer would have been, “Well, well, since you will have it so,” &c.; but, fortunately for Walter, he desisted just in time.
These two redoubted champions continued their progress all next day; and on the third, at evening, Clavers crossed Dryfe, with nine thousand sheep, three hundred goats, and about as many cattle and horses, in his train, taken from the people of Eskdale alone. He took care to herry Sir James’s tenants, in particular, of every thing they possessed, and apparently all by their laird’s desire, so that very little of the blame attached to the general. He was heard to say to Sir Thomas Livingston that night, “I trow, we hae left the silly turn–coat a pirn to wind.”—But we[192] must now leave them to continue their route of rapine and devastation, and return to the distressed family of Chapelhope, in order that we may watch the doings of the Brownie of Bodsbeck.
For all Maron Linton’s grievous distresses, the arrival of Clerk, the curate, proved an antidote of no small avail. It was a great comfort to her, in the midst of her afflictions; and after she had been assured by him of Walter’s perfect safety, she became apparently more happy, and certainly more loquacious, than she had been for a great while byegone. She disclosed to him the dreadful secret, that her child was possessed of an evil spirit, and implored his influence with Heaven, and his power with hell, for its removal. This he readily undertook, on condition of being locked up with the maiden for a night, or[194] two at most. She was to be left solely to his management; without the interference of any other human being; and with the help only of the Bible, the lamp, and the hour–glass, he declared that he would drive the unclean spirit from his tabernacle of clay.
To these conditions Maron Linton gladly assented; and, with grateful and fond acknowledgments, called him their benefactor and spiritual guide, their deliverer and shield; but he checked her, and said, there was still one condition more on which she behoved to condescend. It was likely that he might be under the hard necessity of using some violent measures in exorcising her, for it would be hard to drive the malignant spirit from so sweet a habitation; but whatever noises might be heard, no one was to interfere, or even listen, upon pain of being delivered up to the foul spirit, soul and body; and it was ten to one that any who was so imprudent as to intrude on these[195] awful and mysterious rites, might be torn in pieces.
Maron blest herself from all interference, and gave Nanny directions to the same purport; as for the two boys, they slept out of hearing. She likewise gave him the key, that he might lock both the doors of the Old Room in the inside, and thus prevent all intrusions, should any be offered. He said prayers in the family, to which Katharine was admitted; and then taking the lamp and the hour–glass in his hand, and the Bible below his arm, he departed into the Old Room, where, in about half an hour afterwards, the maiden was summoned to attend him. He took her respectfully by the hand, and seated her on a chair at the side of the bed, saying, that he was commissioned by her worthy mother to hold a little private conversation with her. Then locking the door, and putting the key in his pocket, he added, “You are my prisoner for this night, but be not alarmed; I have undertaken to drive an evil[196] spirit away from you, but both my exorcisms and orisons shall be adapted to the feelings of a young maiden, and as agreeable to one whom I so much admire, as it is in my power to make them.”
Katharine grew as pale as death as he uttered these words, and placed himself cordially by her side.
It is unmeet to relate the conversation that ensued; but the worthy curate soon showed off in his true colours, and with unblushing front ventured a proposal that shocked the innocent and modest Katharine so much, that she could only reply to it by holding up her hands, and uttering a loud exclamation of astonishment. His further precedure soon convinced her, that she was in the hands of a man who was determined to take every advantage of the opportunity thus unwarrantably afforded him, and to stick at no atrocity for the accomplishment of his purposes.
She neither descended to tears nor entreaties, but resisted all his approaches with[197] a firmness and dignity that he never conceived to have formed any part of her character; and, when continuing to press her hand, she said to him, “You had better keep your distance, Mass John Clerk, and consider what befits your character, and the confidence reposed in you by my unsuspecting parent; but I tell you, if you again presume to touch me, though it were but with one of your fingers, I will, in a moment, bring those out of the chink of the wall, or from under that hearth, that shall lay you motionless at my feet in the twinkling of an eye, or bear you off to any part of the creation that I shall name.”
He smiled as she said this, and was about to turn it into a jest; but on looking at her face, he perceived that there was not one trait of jocularity in it. It beamed with a mystical serenity which sent a chillness through his whole frame; and, for the first time, he deemed her deranged, or possessed in some manner, he wist not how. Staunch, however, to his honourable purpose,[198] he became so unequivocal, that she was obliged to devise some means of attaining a temporary cessation; and feigning to hesitate on his proposal, she requested a minute or two to speak.
“I am but young, Mass John,” said she, “and have no experience in the ways of the world; and it seems, from what you have advanced, that I attach more importance to some matters than they deserve. But I beg of you to give me a little time to reflect on the proposal you have made. See that hour–glass is half run out already: I only ask of you not to disturb or importune me until it run out a second time.”
“And do you then promise to do as I request?” said he.
“I do,” returned she, “provided you still continue of the same mind as you are now.”
“My mind is made up,” said he, “and my resolution taken in all that relates to you; nevertheless, it would be hard to refuse a maid so gentle and modest a request—I[199] grant it—and should you attempt to break off your engagement at the expiry of the time, it shall be the worse for you.”
“Be it so,” replied she; “in the meantime let me be undisturbed till then.” And so saying, she arose and went aside to the little table where the Bible and the lamp were placed, and began with great seriousness to search out, and peruse parts of the sacred volume.
Clerk liked not this contemplative mood, and tried every wile in his power to draw her attention from the Scriptures. He sought out parts which he desired her to read, if she would read; but from these she turned away without deigning to regard them, and gently reminded him that he had broken one of his conditions. “Maids only impose such conditions on men,” said he, “as they desire should be broken.” At this she regarded him with a look of ineffable contempt, and continued to read on in her Bible.
The hour of midnight was now passed,—the[200] sand had nearly run out for the second time since the delay had been acceded to, and Clerk had been for a while tapping the glass on the side, and shaking it, to make it empty its contents the sooner. Katharine likewise began to eye it with looks that manifested some degree of perturbation; she clasped the Bible, and sate still in one position, as if listening attentively for some sound or signal. The worthy curate at length held the hour–glass up between her eye and the burning lamp,—the last lingering pile of sand fell reluctantly out as he shook it in that position,—anxiety and suspense settled more deeply on the lovely and serene face of Katharine; but instead of a flexible timidity, it assumed an air of sternness. At that instant the cock crew,—she started,—heaved a deep sigh, like one that feels a sudden relief from pain, and a beam of joy shed its radiance over her countenance. Clerk was astonished,—he could not divine the source or cause of her emotions, but judging from his own corrupt[201] heart, he judged amiss. True however to his point, he reminded her of her promise, and claimed its fulfilment. She deigned no reply to his threats or promises, but kept her eye steadfastly fixed on another part of the room. He bade her remember that he was not to be mocked, and in spite of her exertions, he lifted her up in his arms, and carried her across the room towards the bed. She uttered a loud scream, and in a moment the outer–door that entered from the bank was opened, and a being of such unearthly dimensions entered, as you may never wholly define. It was the Brownie of Bodsbeck, sometimes mentioned before, small of stature, and its whole form utterly mis–shaped. Its beard was long and grey, while its look, and every lineament of its face, were indicative of agony—its locks were thin, dishevelled, and white, and its back hunched up behind its head. There seemed to be more of the same species of hagard beings lingering behind at the door, but this alone advanced with a slow[202] majestic pace. Mass John uttered two involuntary cries, somewhat resembling the shrill bellowings of an angry bull, mixed with inarticulate rumblings,—sunk powerless on the floor, and, with a deep shivering groan, fainted away. Katharine, stretching forth her hands, flew to meet her unearthly guardian;—“Welcome, my watchful and redoubted Brownie,” said she; “thou art well worthy to be familiar with an empress, rather than an insignificant country maiden.”
said the dwarfish spirit, and led her off in triumph.
Having bethought herself after she went out, she returned lightly, took the keys from the pocket of the forlorn priest, extinguished the lamp, and again disappeared, locking the door on the outside.
Mass John’s trance threw him into a heavy and perturbed slumber, which overpowered[203] him for a long space; and even after he awaked, it was long before he could fathom the circumstances of his case, for he imagined he had only been in a frightful and oppressive dream; till, beginning to grope about, he discovered that he was lying on the damp floor with his clothes on; and at length, without opening his eyes, he recovered by degrees his reasoning faculties, and was able to retrace the circumstances that led to his present situation. He arose in great dismay—the day–light had begun to shine into the room, and finding that both doors were locked, he deemed it unadvisable to make any noise, and threw himself upon the bed. The retrospect of his adventure was fraught with shame and astonishment. He had acted a considerable part in it, but he had dreamed of a great deal more, and with all his ingenuity he could not separate in his mind the real incidents from those that were imaginary. He arose with the sun, and rapped gently at the inner–door, which, to his still farther[204] astonishment, was opened by Katharine, in her usual neat and cleanly morning dress. He stared in her face, to mark if he could read any meaning in it—he could distinguish none that spoke a language to him either good or bad—it was a face of calm decent serenity, and wore no shade of either shame or anger—somewhat paler than it was the evening before, but still as lovely as ever. The curate seemed gasping for breath, but not having courage to address her, he walked forth to the open air.
It was a beautiful morning in September; the ground was covered with a slight hoar frost, and a cloud of light haze (or as the country people call it, the blue ouder,) slept upon the long valley of water, and reached nearly midway up the hills. The morning sun shone full upon it, making it appear like an ocean of silvery down. It vanished by imperceptible degrees into the clear blue firmament, and was succeeded by a warm sun and a southerly breeze. It was such a morning as[205] could not fail to cheer and re–animate every heart and frame, not wholly overcome by guilt and disease—Clark’s were neither—he was depraved of heart, but insensible to the evil of such a disposition; he had, moreover, been a hanger–on from his youth upward, and had an effrontery not to be outfaced. Of course, by the time he had finished a three–hour’s walk, he felt himself so much refreshed and invigorated in mind, that he resolved not to expose himself to the goodwife, who was his principal stay and support among his straggled and dissatisfied flock, by a confession of the dreadful fright he had gotten, but to weather out the storm with as lofty and saintly a deportment as he could.
He had not well gone out when the lad of Kepplegill arrived, and delivered to Katharine her father’s letter. She saw the propriety of the injunction which it bore, and that an immediate application to their laird, Drumelzier, who was then high in[206] trust and favour with the party in power, was the likeliest of all ways to procure her father’s relief, neither durst she trust the mission to any but herself. But ah! there was a concealed weight that pressed upon her spirit—a secret circumstance that compelled her to stay at home, and which could not be revealed to mortal ear. Her father’s fate was at present uncertain and ticklish, but that secret once revealed, tortures, death, and ruin were inevitable—the doom of the whole family was sealed. She knew not what to do, for she had none to advise with. There was but one on earth to whom this secret could be imparted; indeed there was but one in whose power it was to execute the trust which the circumstances of the case required, and that was old Nanny, who was crazed, fearless, and altogether inscrutable. Another trial, however, of her religious principles, and adherence to the established rules of church government in the country, was absolutely necessary; and to[207] that trial our young and mysterious heroine went with all possible haste, as well as precaution.
Whosoever readeth this must paint to themselves old Nanny, and they must paint her aright, with her thin fantastic form and antiquated dress, bustling up and down the house. Her fine stock of bannocks had been all exhausted—the troopers and their horses had left nothing in her master’s house that could either be eaten or conveniently carried away. She had been early astir, as well as her sedate and thoughtful young dame, had been busy all the morning, and the whole time her tongue never at rest. She had been singing one while, speaking to herself another, and every now and then intermixing bitter reflections on Clavers and his troops.
“Wae be to them for a pack o’ greedy gallayniels—they haena the mence of a miller’s yaud; for though she’ll stap her nose into every body’s pock, yet when she’s fou she’ll carry naething wi’ her. Heichow![208] wae’s me, that I sude hae lived to see the day! That ever I sude hae lived to see the colehood take the laverock’s place; and the stanchel and the merlin chatterin’ frae the cushat’s nest! Ah! wae’s me! will the sweet voice o’ the turtle–doo be nae mair heard in our land! There was a time when I sat on the bonny green brae an’ listened to it till the tears dreepit frae my een, an’ a’ the hairs o’ my head stood on end!—The hairs o’ my head?—Ay, that’s nae lie! They’re grey now, an’ will soon be snaw–white if heart’s care can alter them; but they will never be sae white as they anes war. I saw the siller–grey lock o’ age, an’ the manly curls o’ youth wavin’ at my side that day!—But where are they now? A’ mouled! a’ mouled!—But the druckit blood winna let them rot! I’ll see them rise fresh an’ bonny! I’ll look round to my right hand and ane will sae, ‘Mother! my dear mother, are you here with us?’ I’ll turn to my left hand, another will say, ‘Nanny! my dear and faithful wife, are you too here[209] with us?’—I’ll say, ‘Ay, John, I’m here; I was yours in life; I have been yours in death; an’ I’ll be yours in life again.’—Dear bairn, dear bairn, are you there,” continued she, observing Katharine standing close behind her; “what was I saying, or where was I at? I little wat outher what I was saying or doing.—Hout ay; I was gaun ower some auld things, but they’re a’ like a dream, an’ when I get amang them I’m hardly mysel. Dear bairn, ye maunna mind an auld crazy body’s reveries.”
There was some need for this apology, if Nanny’s frame, air, and attitude, are taken into account. She was standing with her back to the light, mixing meal with water, whereof to make bread—her mutch, or night–hussing, as she called it, was tied close down over her cheeks and brow as usual; her grey locks hanging dishevelled from under it; and as she uttered the last sentence, immediately before noticing her young mistress, her thin mealy hands were[210] stretched upwards, her head and body bent back, and her voice like one in a paroxysm. Katharine quaked, although well accustomed to scenes of no ordinary nature.
“Nanny,” said she, “there is something that preys upon your mind—some great calamity that recurs to your memory, and goes near to unhinge your tranquillity of mind, if not your reason. Will you inform me of it, good Nanny, that I may talk and sympathize with you over it?”
“Dear bairn, nae loss ava—A’ profit! a’ profit i’the main! I haena biggit a bield o’ the windlestrae, nor lippened my weight to a broken reed! Na, na, dear bairn; nae loss ava.”
“But, Nanny, I have overheard you in your most secret hours, in your prayers and self–examinations.”
At the mention of this Nanny turned about, and after a wild searching stare in her young mistress’s face, while every nerve of her frame seemed to shrink from the recollection[211] of the disclosures she feared she had made, she answered as follows, in a deep and tremulous tone:—
“That was atween God and me—There was neither language nor sound there for the ear o’ flesh!—It was unfair!—It was unfair!—Ye are mistress here, and ye keep the keys o’ the aumbry, the kitchen, the ha’, an’ the hale house; but wi’ the secret keys o’ the heart and conscience ye hae naething to do!—the keys o’ the sma’est portal that leads to heaven or hell are nane o’ yours; therefore, what ye hae done was unfair. If I chose, sinful and miserable as I am, to converse with my God about the dead as if they war living, an’ of the living as if they war dead, what’s that to you? Or if I likit to take counsel of that which exists only in my own mind, is the rackle hand o’ steelrife power to make a handle o’ that to grind the very hearts of the just and the good, or turn the poor wasted frame o’ eild and resignation on the wheel?—Lack–a–day, my dear bairn, I’m lost again! Ye[212] canna an’ ye maunna forgie me now. Walth’s dear, an’ life’s dearer—but sin’ it maun be sae, twal o’clock sanna find me aneath your roof—there shall naebody suffer for harbouring poor auld Nanny—she has seen better days, an’ she hopes to see better anes again; but it’s lang sin’ the warld’s weel an’ the warld’s wae came baith to her alike. I maun e’en bid ye fareweel, my bonny bairn, but I maun tell ye ere I gae that ye’re i’the braid way. Ye hae some good things about ye, and O, it is a pity that a dear sweet soul should be lost for want o’ light to direct! How can a dear bairn find the right way wi’ its een tied up? But I maun haud my tongue an’ leave ye—I wad fain greet, but I hae lost the gate o’t, for the fountain–head has been lang run dry—Weel, weel—it’s a’ ower!—nae mair about it—How’s this the auld sang gaes?
This Nanny sung to an air so soothing, and at the same time so melancholy, it was impossible to listen to her unaffected, especially as she herself was peculiarly so—a beam of wild delight glanced in her eye, but it was like the joy of grief, (if one may be allowed the expression,) if not actually the joy of madness. Nothing could be more interesting than her character was now to the bewildered Katharine—it arose to her eyes, and grew on her mind like a vision. She had been led previously to regard her as having been crazed from her birth, and her songs and chaunts to be mere ravings of fancy, strung in rhymes to suit favourite airs, or old scraps of ballads[214] void of meaning, that she had learned in her youth. But there was a wild elegance at times in her manner of thinking and expression—a dash of sublimity that was inconsistent with such an idea. “Is it possible,” (thus reasoned the maiden with herself,) “that this demeanour can be the effect of great worldly trouble and loss?—Perhaps she is bereft of all those who were near and dear to her in life—is left alone as it were in this world, and has lost a relish for all its concerns, while her whole hope, heart, and mind, is fixed on a home above, to which all her thoughts, dreams, and even her ravings insensibly turn, and to which the very songs and chaunts of her youthful days are modelled anew. If such is really her case, how I could sympathize with her in all her feelings!”
“Nanny,” said she, “how wofully you misapprehend me; I came to exchange burdens of heart and conscience with you—to confide in you, and love you: Why will not you do the same with me, and tell[215] me what loss it is that you seem to bewail night and day, and what affecting theme it is that thus puts you beside yourself?—If I judge not far amiss, the knowledge of this is of greater import to my peace than aught in the world beside, and will lead to a secret from me that deeply concerns us both.”
Nanny’s suspicions were aroused, not laid, by this speech; she eyed her young mistress steadfastly for a while, smiled, and shook her head.
“Sae young, sae bonny, and yet sae cunning!” said she. “Judas coudna hae sic a face, but he had nouther a fairer tongue nor a fauser heart!—A secret frae you, dear bairn! what secret can come frae you, but some bit waefu’ love story, enough to mak the pinks an’ the ewe gowans blush to the very lip? My heart’s wae for ye, ae way an’ a’ ways; but its a part of your curse—woman sinned an’ woman maun suffer—her hale life is but a succession o’ shame, degradation, and suffering, frae her cradle till her grave.”
[216]Katharine was dumb for a space, for reasoning with Nanny was out of the question.
“You may one day rue this misprision of my motives, Nanny,” rejoined she; “in the mean time, I am obliged to leave home, on an express that concerns my father’s life and fortune; be careful of my mother until my return, and of every thing about the house, for the charge of all must devolve for a space on you.”
“That I will, dear bairn—the thing that Nanny has ta’en in hand sanna be neglected, if her twa hands can do it, and her auld crazed head comprehend it.”
“But, first, tell me, and tell me seriously, Nanny, are you subject to any apprehension or terror on account of spirits?”
“Nae mair feared for them than I am for you, an’ no half sae muckle, wi’ your leave.—Spirits, quoth I!
“Ah! noble Cleland! it is like his wayward freaks an’ whimsies! Did ye never hear it, you that speaks about spirits as they war your door neighbours? It’s a clever thing; his sister sung it; I think, it rins this gate—hum! but then the dilogue comes in, and it is sae kamshachle I canna word it, though I canna say it’s misleared either.”
“Dear Nanny, that is far from my question. You say you are nothing afraid of spirits?”
“An’ why should I? If they be good spirits, they will do me nae ill; and if they be evil spirits, they hae nae power here. Thinkna ye that He that takes care o’ me throughout the day, is as able to do it by night? Na, na, dear bairn, I hae contendit wi’ the warst o’ a’ spirits face to face, hand[218] to hand, and breast to breast; ay, an’ for a’ his power, an’ a’ his might, I dang him; and packed him off baffled and shamed!—Little reason hae I to be feared for ony o’ his black emissaries.”
“Should one appear to you bodily, would you be nothing distracted or frightened?”
“In my own strength I could not stand it, but yet I would stand it.”
“That gives me joy—Then, Nanny, list to me: You will assuredly see one in my absence; and you must take good heed to my directions, and act precisely as I bid you.”
Nanny gave up her work, and listened in suspense. “Then it is a’ true that the fock says!” said she, with a long–drawn sigh. “His presence be about us!”
“How sensibly you spoke just now! Where is your faith fled already? I tell you there will one appear to you every night in my absence, precisely on the first crowing of the cock, about an hour after midnight, and you must give him every[219] thing that he asks, else it may fare the worse with you, and all about the house.”
Nanny’s limbs were unable to support her weight—they trembled under her. She sat down on a form, leaned her brow upon both hands, and recited the 63d Psalm from beginning to end in a fervent tone.
“I wasna prepared for this,” said she. “I fear, though my faith may stand it, my wits will not. Dear, dear bairn, is there nae way to get aff frae sic a trial?”
“There is only one, which is fraught with danger of another sort; but were I sure that I could trust you with it, all might be well, and you would rest free from any intercourse with that unearthly visitant, of whom it seems you are so much in terror.”
“For my own sake ye may trust me there: Ony thing but a bogle face to face at midnight, an’ me a’ my lane. It is right wonderfu’, though I ken I’ll soon be in a warld o’ spirits, an’ that I maun mingle an’ mool wi’ them for ages, how the nature[220] within me revolts at a’ communion wi’ them here. Dear bairn, gie me your other plan, an’ trust me for my own sake.”
“It is this—but if you adopt it, for your life an’ soul let no one in this place know of it but yourself:—It is to admit one or two of the fugitive whigs,—these people that skulk and pray about the mountains, privily into the house every night, until my return. If you will give me any test of your secrecy and truth, I will find ways and means of bringing them to you, which will effectually bar all intrusion of bogle or Brownie on your quiet; or should any such dare to appear, they will deal with it themselves.”
“An’ can the presence o’ ane o’ them do this?” said Nanny, starting up and speaking in a loud eldrich voice. “Then Heaven and hell acknowledges it, an’ the earth maun soon do the same! I knew it!—I knew it!—I knew it!—ha, ha, ha, I knew it!—Ah! John, thou art safe!—Ay! an’ mae than thee; an’ there will be mae yet![221] It is but a day! an’ dark an’ dismal though it be, the change will be the sweeter! Blessed, blessed be the day! None can say of thee that thou died like a fool, for thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters.” Then turning close round to Katharine, with an expression of countenance quite indescribable, she added in a quick maddened manner,—“Eh? Thou seekest a test of me, dost thou? Can blood do it?—Can martyrdom do it?—Can bonds, wounds, tortures, and mockery do it?—Can death itself do it? All these have I suffered for that cause in this same body; mark that; for there is but one half of my bone and my flesh here. But words are nothing to the misbelieving—mere air mouthed into a sound. Look at this for a test of my sincerity and truth.” So saying, she gave her hand a wild brandish in the air, darted it at her throat, and snapping the tie of her cap that she had always worn over her face, she snatched it off, and turning her cheek round to her young mistress,[222] added, “Look there for your test, and if that is not enough, I will give you more!”
Katharine was struck dumb with astonishment and horror. She saw that her ears were cut out close to the skull, and a C. R. indented on her cheek with a hot iron, as deep as the jaw–bone. She burst out a crying—clasped the old enthusiast in her arms—kissed the wound and steeped it with her tears, and without one further remark, led her away to the Old Room, that they might converse without interruption.
The sequel of this disclosure turned not out as desired; but this we must leave by the way, until we overtake it in the regular course of the narrative.
As soon as her father’s letter was put into her hands, Katharine sent off one of her brothers to Muchrah, to warn old John and his son to come instantly to Chapelhope. They both arrived while she and Nanny were consulting in the Old Room. She told them of her father’s letter, of the jeopardy he was in, and of her intended application to Drummelzier without loss of time. “One of you,” said she, “must accompany me; and I sent for you both, to learn which could, with least inconvenience, be wanted from your flocks.”
“As for me,” said John, “it’s out o’ the question to think about me winning away. The ewes wad gang wi’ the bit hog–fence[224] o’ the Quave Brae, stoup and roup. What wi’ ghaists, brownies, dead men, an’ ae mischief an’ other, it is maistly gane already; an’ what’s to come o’ the poor bits o’ plottin baggits a’ winter, is mair nor I can tell. They may pike the woo aff ane another for aught that I see.”
Katharine was grieved to hear this remonstrance, for she was desirous of having old John as a guide and protector, who well knew the way, and was besides singular for strength and courage, if kept among beings of this world. She represented to him that the hog–fence of the Quave–Brae, could not possibly be of equal importance with his master’s life, nor yet with the loss of his whole stock, both of sheep and cattle, which might be confiscated, if prompt measures were not adopted. Nothing, however, could persuade John, that ought could be of equal importance to him with that which he had the charge of, and on which his heart and attention were so much set both by day and night. He said he had lost his lugs,[225] and been brunt wi’ the king’s birn, for the hog–fence of the Quave–Brae; and when he coudna get away to the prison at Edinburgh for fear o’t, but suffered sae muckle in place o’ that, how could he win away a’ the gate to Dunse Castle?
Jasper liked not the journey more than he; for being convinced of Katharine’s power over spirits, he was very jealous of her taking undue advantages of him, but he was obliged to submit. He refused a horse, saying “it would only taigle him, but if she suffered him to gang on his feet, if he was hindmost at Dunse, he should gie her leave to cut the lugs out o’ his head too, and then he wad hae the thief’s mark on him like his father.”
Away they went; she riding on a stout shaggy poney, and Jasper running before her barefoot, but with his hose and shoon bound over his shoulder. He took the straight line for Dunse, over hill and dale, as a shepherd always does, who hates the wimples, as he calls them, of a turnpike.[226] He took such a line as an eagle would take, or a flock of wild geese journeying from the one side of the country to the other, never once reflecting on the inconvenience of riding on such a road. Of course, it was impossible his young mistress could keep up with him—indeed she had often enough to do in keeping sight of him. They met with some curious adventures by the way, particularly one near Thirlestane castle on Leader, with some stragglers of a troop of soldiers. But these things we must hurry over as extraneous matter, having nothing more to do with them than as connected with the thread of our tale. They slept that night at a farm–house in Lammermoor, which belonged to Drummelzier, and next day by noon arrived at Dunse Castle.
Drummelzier, being one of the Committee of Public Safety, was absent from home, to which he did not return for several days, to the great perplexity of Katharine, who was in the utmost distress about her father, as well as her affairs at home. She was[227] obliged, however, to wait with patience, as no one knew in what part of the country he was. The housekeeper, who was an Englishwoman, was kind to her, and bade her not be afraid, for that their master had much more power with the government than Claverhouse, the one being a moving spring, and the other only a tool.
Drummelzier was a bold and determined royalist—was, indeed, in high trust with the Privy–council, and had it in his power to have harassed the country as much, and more, than the greater part of those who did so; but, fortunately for that south–east division of Scotland, he was a gentleman of high honour, benevolence, and suavity of manners, and detested any act of injustice or oppression. He by these means contributed materially to the keeping of a large division of Scotland (though as whiggishly inclined as any part of it, Ayrshire perhaps excepted,) in perfect peace. The very first dash that Clavers made among the Covenanters, while he was as yet only[228] a captain of a company, was into this division of the country over which Drummelzier was appointed to keep an eye, and it was in consequence of his intrepid and decided behaviour there, that the Duke of York interested himself in his behalf, and procured him the command of a troop of horse. At a place called Bewly, on the confines of Roxburghshire, he surprised a large conventicle about eleven o’clock on a Sabbath morning. Having but a small band, as soon as he appeared a crowd of the hearers gathered round the preacher to defend him, or to further his escape. Clavers burst in upon them like a torrent; killed and wounded upwards of an hundred; took the preacher prisoner, and all such of the hearers as were the most respectable in appearance. He would have detained many more had his force been sufficient for his designs, for that very day, about five o’clock in the afternoon, he surprised another numerous conventicle, at a place called Helmburn–Linn, in Selkirkshire, where he acted over[229] the same scene that he had done in the morning. The people, it is true, did not get time to rally round their pastor as at the former place, for the first intelligence they had of his approach was from a volley of musketry among them from the top of the linn, which took too sure effect.
The congregation scattered in a moment; and as there were strong fastnesses near at hand, none were taken prisoners, save some old men, and a number of ladies; unfortunately all these were ladies of distinction: the preacher likewise was taken, who suffered afterwards. The soldiers related of this man, that when they came upon the crowd, and fired among them, he was in the middle of his afternoon prayer, and all the people standing uncovered around him; and that for all the shots, and the people flying and falling dead about him, he never so much as paused, nor took down his hands, nor even opened his eyes, but concluded a sentence in the same fervent tone, after they had dragged him from the tent.
[230]At one or other of these unfortunate conventicles, a part of all the chief families of the Pringles, such as Torwoodlee, Whitebank, Fairnilie, and others, were taken prisoners; as well as some of the Scotts of Harden, and the Douglasses of Cavers and Boonjeddart; rich prizes for Clavers, who bore them all in triumph prisoners to Edinburgh.
Drummelzier put his whole interest to the stretch to get these leading and respectable families freed from such a disagreeable dilemma, and succeeded in getting the greater part of them set at liberty, on giving securities. From that time forth, there existed a secret jealousy between him and Clavers; but as their jurisdiction lay on different sides of the country, they had no further interference with one another.
When Katharine informed him, that his farmer, whom he so much esteemed, was taken away a prisoner, and by whom, he bit his lip, shook his head, and seemed highly incensed. He then questioned her[231] about all the charges against him, and the evidence; requesting her, at the same time, to tell him the truth, in all its bearings, to the most minute scruple; and when he had heard all, he said, that his lordship had other motives for this capture besides these. He lost no time in setting about the most coercive measures he could think of, to procure his liberty. He sent an express to the Privy–council, and wrote to sundry other gentlemen, whom Katharine knew nothing of; but the destination of Walter being utterly unknown to either of them, the laird was at a loss how to proceed.
He gave her, moreover, a bond of security, signed with his name, and without a direction, to a great amount, for her father’s appearance at any court, to answer such charges as were brought against him; and with this she was to haste to the place where her father was a prisoner, and present it to the sheriff of the county, or chief magistrate of the burgh of such place, unless[232] it was at Edinburgh, and in that case she was to take no farther care or concern about him.
She hasted home with her wild guide, where she arrived the fourth or fifth day after her departure; and found, to her astonishment, the Chapelhope deserted by man, woman, and boy! Not a living creature remained about the steading, but her father’s dog and some poultry! The doors were locked, and the key away; and, hungry and fatigued as she was, she could find no means of admittance. At length, on looking about, she perceived that the cows were not about the house, nor any where in the corn, and concluding that some one must be herding them, she went up the side of the lake to their wonted walk, and found her two brothers attending the cattle.
They told her that the town (so they always denominate a farm–steading in that district,) had been so grievously haunted in her absence, both by Brownie and a ghost, that they were all obliged to leave[233] it; that their mother was gone all the way to Gilmanscleuch to her brother, to remain there until she saw what became of her husband; Mass John was taken away by the fairies; and old Nanny was at Riskinhope, where they were also residing and sleeping at night; that the keys of the house were to be had there, but nothing would induce Nanny to come back again to Chapelhope, or at least to remain another night under its roof.
One mischief came thus upon poor Katharine after another; and she was utterly unable to account for this piece of intelligence, having been satisfied when she went away, that she had put every thing in train to secure peace and order about the house, until her return. She rode to Riskinhope for the key, but not one would accompany her home, poor Nanny being lying moaning upon a bed. Jasper sat on the side of the hill, at a convenient distance from the house, until her return; but then took her horse from her, and put it away to the rest, refusing[234] to enter the door. Thus was she left in her father’s house all alone. Nanny came over, and assisted her in milking the kine evening and morning; and she remained the rest of the day, and every night, by herself, neither did she press any one much to bear her company. She had no one to send in search of her father, and deliver Drummelzier’s bond, at least none that any one knew of, yet it was sent, and that speedily, although to little purpose; for though Walter was sent to Dumfries Jail, he remained there but two nights; a party of prisoners, of ten men and two women, being ordered for Edinburgh, under a guard of soldiers, he was mixed indiscriminately with the rest, and sent there along with them.
He always said, that though he was disposed to think well of Clavers before he saw him, yet he never was so blithe in his life as when he got from under his jurisdiction; for there was an appearance of ferocity and wantonness of cruelty in all his[235] proceedings, during the time that he rode in his train a prisoner, that made the heart of any man, not brutified by inurement to such scenes, revolt at the principles that induced, as well as the government that warranted them. He saw him and his troopers gather the whole vale of Annandale, as a shepherd gathers his sheep in droves, pricking the inhabitants with their swords to urge their speed. When he got thus all the people of a parish, or division of a parish, driven together, he surrounded them with his soldiers, made them kneel by dozens, and take the oath of abjuration, as well as one acknowledging James Duke of York their rightful lord and sovereign; and lastly, made them renounce their right and part in Heaven, if ever they repented them of that oath. The first man of such a group, who refused or objected to compliance with this dreadful measure, he took him forthwith behind the ranks and shot him, which summary way of proceeding generally induced all the[236] people to comply. Moreover, the way in which he threatened and maltreated children, and mocked and insulted women, not to mention more brutal usage of them, proved him at once to be destitute of the behaviour and feelings becoming a man, far less those of a gentleman. He seemed to regard all the commonalty in the south and west of Scotland as things to be mocked and insulted at pleasure, as beings created only for the sport of him and his soldiers, while their mental and bodily agonies were his delight. The narrator of this tale confesses that he has taken this account of his raid through the vales of Esk and Annan solely from tradition, as well as the attack made on the two conventicles, where the Pringles, &c. were taken prisoners; but these traditions are descended from such a source, and by such a line, as amounts with him to veracity.
Far different were Walter’s feelings on parting with the commander of his guard, Serjeant Daniel Roy Macpherson, a noble[237] block from the genuine quarry of nature—rude as it was taken thence, without the mark of hammer or chisel. When he heard that his prisoner was to be taken from under his charge, he made up to him when out of the eye of his commander, and treated him with a parting speech; which, on account of its singularity, is here preserved, though, doubtless, woefully garbled by being handed from one southland generation to another.
“Now he’ll pe tahaking you away from mhe pefore as it were yesterdhay; and he’ll pe putting you into some vhile dark hole with all te low tamn pwigs that come from te hills of Gallochee and Drummochloonrich, which is a shame and a disgrhace to shut up a shentleman who is chief of a clan among such poor crhazy maniachs, who will pe filling your ears full of their rejoicings in spirit; and of Haiven! and Haiven! just as if they were all going to Haiven! Cot t‑‑n, do they suppose that Haiven is to pe filled full of such poor insignaificant[238] crheatures as they? or that Cot is not a shentleman, that he would pe falling into such cohmpany? But I’ll pe giving you advice as a friend and prhother; when you come pefore the couhnsel, or any of their commissioners, do not you pe talking of Haiven, and Haiven, and of conscience and covenants. And do not you pe pragging and poasting of one to pe your chief, or to pe of a clan that has not a friend at court; but tell them your own clan, and your claims to be its chief; and if you do not know her true descent, you had better claim Macpherson; she pe as ould and as honourable a clan as any of them all, and more.”
Walter said, he trusted still to the proofs of his own loyalty, and the want of evidence to the contrary.
“Pooh! pooh! Cot tamn!” said Macpherson; “I tell you the evidence you want is this, if any great man say you ought to live, you will live; if not, you will die.[239] Did not I was telling you that the soholdiers that were found dead in the correi, on the lands that belong to yourself, was evidence enough and more; I would not pe giving a curse for your evidence after that, for the one is much petter than te other. And py Cot, it is very well thought!” continued he, smiling grimly, “if you will pe preaking out into a rage, and pe cursing and tamning them all, you will get free in one moment.”
Walter said, that would be an easy ransom, and though it was an error he was too apt to fall into when angry, he could see no effect it could have in this case, but to irritate his prosecutors more and more against him.
“You see no effect! Cot t‑‑n, if you ever can see any effect peyond the top that is on your nose! and you will not pe advised by a man of experience, who would do more for you than he would pe commending of; and if you trust to what you can see, you will pe dancing a beautiful Highland[240] shig in the air to a saulm tune, and that will have a very good effect. I tell you, when you come again to be questioned, I know my Lord Dundee is to be there to pe adducing his proof; take you great and proud offence at some of their questions and their proofs; and you may pe making offer to fight them all one by one, or two by two, in the king’s name, and send them all to hell in one pody; you cannot pe tamning them too much sore. By the soul of Rory More Macpherson! I would almost give up this claymore to be by and see that effect. Now you are not to pe minding because I am laughing like a fool, for I’m perfectly serious; if matters should pe standing hard with you, think of the advice of an ould friend, who respects you as the chief of the clan MacLeadle, supposing it to pe as low, and as much fallen down as it may.—Farewell! she pe giving you her hearty Cot’s blessing.”
Thus parted he with Daniel Roy Macpherson, and, as he judged, an unfortunate[241] change it was for him. The wretch who now took the command of their guard had all the ignorance and rudeness of the former, without any counterbalance of high feeling and honour like him. His name was Patie Ingles, a temporary officer, the same who cut off the head of the amiable Mr White with an axe, at Kilmarnock, carried it to New–mills, and gave it to his party to play a game with at foot–ball, which they did. Ingles was drunk during the greater part of the journey, and his whole delight was in hurting, mortifying, and mimicking his prisoners. They were all bound together in pairs, and driven on in that manner like coupled dogs. This was effected by a very simple process. Their hands were fastened behind, the right and left arm of each pair being linked within one another. Walter was tied to a little spare Galloway weaver, a man wholly prone to controversy—he wanted to argue every point—on which account he was committed. Yet, when among the Cameronians, he took their principles as severely to task as he did[242] those of the other party when examined by them. He lived but to contradict. Often did he try Walter with different points of opinion regarding the Christian Church. Walter knew so little about them that the weaver was astonished. He tried him with the apologetical declaration. Walter had never heard of it. He could make nothing of his gigantic associate, and at length began a sly enquiry on what account he was committed; but even on that he received no satisfactory information.
Ingles came staggering up with them. “Weel, Master Skinflint, what say you to it the day? This is a pleasant journey, is it not? Eh?—I say, Master, what do they call you! Peal–an’–eat, answer me in this—you see—I say—Is it not delightful? Eh?”
“Certainly, sir,” said the weaver, who wished to be quit of him; “very delightful to those who feel it so.”
“Feel it so!—D‑‑n you, sirrah, what do you mean by that? Do you know who you are speaking to? Eh?—Answer me in this—What do you mean by Feel it so? Eh?”
[243]“I meant nothing,” returned the weaver, somewhat snappishly, “but that kind of respect which I always pay to gentry like you.”
“Gentry like me!—D‑‑n you, sir, if you speak such a—Eh?—Gentry like me!—I’ll spit you like a cock pheasant—Eh? Have you any of them in Galloway? Answer me in this, will you? Eh?”
“I’ll answer any reasonable thing, sir,” said the poor weaver.
“Hout! never head the creature, man,” said Walter; “it’s a poor drunken senseless beast of a thing.”
Ingles fixed his reeling unsteady eyes upon him, filled with drunken rage—walked on, spitting and looking across the way for a considerable space—“What the devil of a whig camel is this?” said he, crossing over to Walter’s side. “Drunken senseless beast of a thing! Holm, did you hear that?—Macwhinny, did you?—Eh? I’ll scorn to shoot the cusser, though I could do it—Eh? But I’ll kick him like a dog—Eh?—Take[244] that, and that, will you? Eh?” And so saying, he kicked our proud–hearted and independant Goodman of Chapelhope with his plebeian foot, staggering backward each time he struck.
Walter’s spirit could not brook this; and disregardful of all consequences, he wheeled about with his face toward him, dragging the weaver round with a jerk, as a mastiff sometimes does a spaniel that is coupled to him; and, as Ingles threw up his foot to kick him on the belly, he followed up his heel with his foot, giving him such a fling upwards as made him whirl round in the air like a reel. He fell on his back, and lay motionless; on which, several of the party of soldiers levelled their muskets at Walter. “Ay, shoot,” said he, setting up his boardly breast to them—“Shoot at me if you dare, the best o’ ye.”
The soldiers cocked their pieces.
“Your Colonel himsel durstna wrang a hair o’ my head, though fain he wad hae[245] done sae, without first gieing me ower to his betters—Let me see if a scullion amang ye a’ dare do mair than he.”
The soldiers turned their eyes, waiting for the word of command; and the weaver kept as far away from Walter as the nature of his bonds would let him. The command of the party now devolved on a Serjeant Douglas; who, perhaps nothing sorry for what had happened, stepped in between the soldiers and prisoner, and swore a great oath, that “what the prisoner said was the truth; and that all that it was their duty to do was, to take the prisoners safe to Edinburgh, as at first ordered; and there give their evidence of this transaction, which would send the lousy whig to hell at once, provided there was any chance of his otherwise escaping.”
They lifted Ingles, and held him up into the air to get breath, loosing meantime his cravat and clothes; on which he fell to vomit severely, owing to the fall he had got, and the great quantity of spirits he had[246] drunk. They waited on him for about two hours; but as he still continued unable either to speak or walk, they took him into a house called Granton, and proceeded on their destination.
This Douglas, though apparently a superior person to the former commander of the party, was still more intolerant and cruel than he. There was no indignity or inconvenience that he could fasten on his prisoners which he did not exercise to the utmost. They lodged that night at a place called Tweedshaws; and Walter used always to relate an occurrence that took place the next morning, that strongly marked the character of this petty officer, as well as the licensed cruelty of the times.
Some time previous to this, there had been a fellowship meeting, at a place called Tallo–Lins, of the wanderers that lurked about Chapelhope and the adjacent mountains. About eighty had assembled, merely to spend the night in prayer, reading the Scriptures, &c. The curate of Tweedsmuir,[247] a poor dissolute wretch, sent a flaming account of this in writing to the privy council, magnifying that simple affair to a great and dangerous meeting of armed men. The council took the alarm, raised the hue and cry, and offered a reward for the apprehending of any one who had been at the meeting of Tallo–Lins. The curate, learning that a party of the king’s troops was lodged that night in his parish and neighbourhood, came to Tweedshaws at a late hour, and requested to speak with the captain of the party. He then informed Douglas of the meeting, shewed him the council’s letter and proclamation, and finally told him that there was a man in a cottage hard by whom he strongly suspected to have formed one at the meeting alluded to in the proclamation. There being no conveniency for lodging so many people at Tweedshaws, Douglas and the curate drank together all the night, as did the soldiers in another party. A number of friends to the prisoners had given them money when[248] they left Dumfries for Edinburgh, to supply as well as they might the privations to which they would be subjected; but here the military took the greater part of it from them to supply their intemperance. About the break of day, they went and surrounded a shepherd’s cottage belonging to the farm of Corehead, having been led thither by the curate, where they found the shepherd an old man, his daughter, and one Edward M’Cane, son to a merchant in Lanarkshire, who was courting this shepherdess, a beautiful young maiden. The curate having got intelligence that a stranger was at that house, immediately suspected him to be one of the wanderers, and on this surmise the information was given. The curate acknowledged the shepherd and his daughter as parishioners, but of M’Cane, he said, he knew nothing, and had no doubt that he was one of the rebellious whigs. They fell to examine the youth, but they were all affected with the liquor they had drunk over night, and made a[249] mere farce of it, paying no regard to his answers, or, if they did, it was merely to misconstrue or mock them. He denied having been at the meeting at Tallo–Linns, and all acquaintance with the individuals whom they named as having been there present. Finding that they could make nothing of him whereon to ground a charge, Douglas made them search him for arms; for being somewhat drunk, he took it highly amiss that he should have been brought out of his way for nothing. M’Cane judged himself safe on that score, for he knew that he had neither knife, razor, bodkin, nor edged instrument of any kind about him; but as ill luck would have it, he chanced to have an old gun–flint in his waistcoat pocket. Douglas instantly pronounced this to be sufficient, and ordered him to be shot. M’Cane was speechless for some time with astonishment, and at length told his errand, and the footing on which he stood with the young girl before them, offering at the same time to bring proofs from his[250] own parish of his loyalty and conformity. He even condescended to kneel to the ruffian, to clasp his knees, and beg and beseech of him to be allowed time for a regular proof; but nothing would move him. He said, the courtship was a very clever excuse, but would not do with him, and forthwith ordered him to be shot. He would not even allow him to sing a psalm with his two friends, but cursed and swore that the devil a psalm he should sing there. He said, “It would not be singing a few verses of a psalm in a wretched and miserable style that would keep him out of hell; and if he went to heaven, he might then lilt as much at psalm–singing as he had a mind.” When the girl, his betrothed sweet–heart, saw the muskets levelled at her lover, she broke through the file, shrieking most piteously, threw herself on him, clasped his neck and kissed him, crying, like one distracted, “O Edward, take me wi’ ye—take me wi’ ye; a’ the warld sanna part us.”
“Ah! Mary,” said he, [251]“last night we looked forward to long and happy years—how joyful were our hopes! but they are all blasted at once. Be comforted, my dearest, dearest heart!—God bless you!—Farewell forever.”
The soldiers then dragged her backward, mocking her with indelicate remarks, and while she was yet scarcely two paces removed, and still stretching out her hands towards him, six balls were lodged in his heart in a moment, and he fell dead at her feet. Deformed and bloody as he was, she pressed the corpse to her bosom, moaning and sobbing in such a way as if every throb would have been her last, and in that condition the soldiers marched merrily off and left them. For this doughty and noble deed, for which Serjeant Douglas deserved to have been hanged and quartered, he shortly after got a cornetcy in Sir Thomas Livingston’s troop of horse.
Two of the prisoners made their escape that morning, owing to the drunkenness of their guards, on which account the remainder[252] being blamed, were more haughtily and cruelly treated than ever. It is necessary to mention all these, as they were afterwards canvassed at Walter’s trial, the account of which formed one of his winter evening tales as long as he lived. Indeed, all such diffuse and miscellaneous matter as is contained in this chapter, is a great incumbrance in the right onward progress of a tale; but we have done with it, and shall now haste to the end of our narrative in a direct uninterrupted line.
The sudden departure of Katharine from home, after the extraordinary adventure of the curate Clerk in the Old Room, at the crowing of the cock, was a great relief to him, as it freed him from the embarrassment of her company, and gave him an opportunity of telling his own story to the goodwife without interruption, of the success he had in freeing her daughter from the power and fellowship of evil spirits. That story was fitted admirably to suit her weak and superstitious mind; it accorded with any thing nearer than the truth, and perhaps this finished hypocrite never appeared so great a character in the eyes of Maron Linton as he did that day.[254] He spoke of going away to Henderland in the evening, but she entreated him so earnestly to stay and protect her from the power of the spirits that haunted the place, that he deemed it proper to acquiesce, for without the countenance of the family of Chapelhope he was nothing—he could not have lived in his puny cure. She depended on him, she said, to rid the town of these audacious (or, as she called them, misleared) beings altogether, for without his interference the family would be ruined. Their servants had all left them—the work remained unwrought, and every thing was going to confusion—she had given Brownie his accustomed wages again and again, and still he refused to leave the house; and without the holy man’s assistance in expelling him and his train, their prospects in life were hopeless.
The curate promised to use his highest interest with Heaven, and assured her that no further evil should come nigh unto her, at least while he remained under her roof;[255] “for were it not,” said he, “for the conjunction which they are in with one of the family, they should have been expelled long ere now. That unnatural bond, I hope, by a course of secret conferences, to be able to break asunder, but be not thou afraid, for no evil shall come nigh thy dwelling.” He talked with the goodwife in the style that pleased her; flattered her high and pure notions of religion, as well as her piety and benevolence; said evening prayers in the family with zeal and devotion; but how was he startled when informed that he was to sleep again in the Old Room! He indeed knew not that it was haunted more than any other part of the house, or that it was the favourite nightly resort of the Brownie of Bodsbeck, but the apparition that he had seen, and the unaccountable rescue that he had witnessed the night before, preyed on his mind, and he hinted to the goodwife, that he had expected to be preferred to her daughter’s room and bed that night, as she was absent; but Maron,[256] too, was selfish; for who is without that great ruling motive? She expected that Brownie would appear; that Mass John would speak to it; and thenceforward to be freed from its unwelcome intrusions. To the Old Room he was shown at a late hour, where the lamp, the Bible, and the sand–glass were placed on the little table, at the bed’s head, as usual.
It was past eleven when the curate went to sleep. Old Nanny, who was dressed more neatly than usual, sat still at the kitchen fire, expecting every minute the two covenant–men, whom her young mistress had promised to send to her privily, as her companions and protectors through the dark and silent watches of the night until her return. Still nothing of them appeared; but, confident that they would appear, she stirred the embers of the fire, and continued to keep watch with patient anxiety. When it drew towards midnight, as she judged, she heard a noise without, as of some people entering, or trying to enter,[257] by the outer door of the Old Room. Concluding that it was her expected companions, and alarmed at the wrong direction they had taken, she ran out, and round the west end of the house, to warn them of their mistake, and bring them in by the kitchen door. As she proceeded, she heard two or three loud and half–stifled howls from the interior of the Old Room. The door was shut, but, perceiving by the seam in the window–shutters that the light within was still burning, she ran to the window, which directly faced the curate’s bed; and there being a small aperture broken in one of the panes, she edged back the shutter, so as to see and hear the most part of what was going on within. She saw four or five figures standing at the bed, resembling human figures in some small degree—their backs towards her; but she saw a half–face of one that held the lamp in its hand, and it was of the hue of a smoked wall. In the midst of them stood the deformed little Brownie, that has often been mentioned[258] and described in the foregoing part of this tale. In his right hand he brandished a weapon, resembling a dirk or carving–knife. The other hand he stretched out, half–raised over the curate’s face, as if to command attention. “Peace!” said he, “thou child of the bottomless pit, and minister of unrighteousness; another such sound from these polluted lips of thine, and I plunge this weapon into thy heart. We would shed thy blood without any reluctance—nay, know thou that we would rejoice to do it, as thereby we would render our master acceptable service. Not for that intent or purpose are we now come; yet thy abominations shall not altogether pass unpunished. Thou knowest thy own heart—its hypocrisy, and licentiousness—Thou knowest, that last night, at this same hour, thou didst attempt, by brutal force, to pollute the purest and most angelic of the human race—we rescued her from thy hellish clutch, for we are her servants, and attend upon her steps. Thou knowest, that[259] still thou art cherishing the hope of succeeding in thy cursed scheme. Thou art a stain to thy profession, and a blot upon the cheek of nature, enough to make thy race and thy nation stink in the nose of their Creator!—To what thou deservest, thy doom is a lenient one—but it is fixed and irrevocable!”
There was something in that mis–shapen creature’s voice that chilled Nanny’s very soul while it spoke these words, especially its pronunciation of some of them; it sounded like something she had heard before, perhaps in a dream, but it was horrible, and not to be brooked. The rest now laid violent hold of Mass John, and she heard him mumbling in a supplicating voice, but knew not what he said. As they stooped forward, the lamp shone on the floor, and she saw the appearance of a coffin standing behind them. Nanny was astonished, but not yet overcome; for, cruel were the scenes that she had beheld, and many the trials she had undergone!—but[260] at that instant the deformed and grizly being turned round, as if looking for something that it wanted—the lamp shone full on its face, the lineaments of which when Nanny beheld, her eyes at once were darkened, and she saw no more that night. How she spent the remainder of it, or by what means she got to her bed in the kitchen, she never knew; but next morning when the goodwife and her sons arose, poor old Nanny was lying in the kitchen bed delirious, and talking of dreadful and incomprehensible things. All that could be gathered from her frenzy was, that some terrible catastrophe had happened in the Old Room, and that Clerk, the curate, was implicated in it. The goodwife, judging that her favourite had been at war with the spirits, and that Heaven had been of course triumphant, hasted to the Old Room to bless and pay the honour due to such a divine character; she called his name as she entered, but no one made answer; she hasted to the bed, but behold there was[261] no one there! The goodwife’s sole spiritual guide had vanished away.
The curate Clerk was never more seen nor heard of in these bounds; but it may not be improper here to relate a circumstance that happened some time thereafter, as it comes no more within the range of this story.
In the month of October, and the memorable year 1688, it is well known that Clavers hasted southward, with all the troops under his command, to assist King James against the Prince of Orange and the protestant party of England, or to sell himself to the latter, any of the ways that he found most convenient. In the course of this march, as he was resting his troops at a place called Ninemile–brae, near the Border, a poor emaciated and forlorn–looking wretch came to him, and desired to speak a word with him. Mr Adam Copland and he were sitting together when this happened; Clavers asked his name and his business, for none of the two recognised him—It[262] was Clerk, the curate (that had been) of Chapelhope and Kirkhope! Clavers said, as there were none present save a friend, he might say out his business. This he declined, and took Clavers a short way aside. Copland watched their motions, but could not hear what Clerk said. When he began to tell his story Clavers burst into a violent fit of laughter, but soon restrained himself, and Copland beheld him knitting his brows, and biting his lip, as he seldom failed to do when angry. When they parted, he heard him saying distinctly, “It is impossible that I can avenge your wrongs at this time, for I have matters of great import before me; but the day may come ere long when it will be in my power, and d‑‑n me if I do not do it!”
The spirits of the wild having been victorious, and the reverend curate, the goodwife’s only stay, overcome and carried off bodily, she was impatient, and on the rack every minute that she staid longer about the house. She caused one of her sons[263] take a horse, and conduct her to Gilmanscleuch that night, to her brother Thomas’s farm, determined no more to see Chapelhope till her husband’s return; and if that should never take place, to bid it adieu for ever.
Nanny went to the led farm of Riskinhope, that being the nearest house to Chapelhope, and just over against it, in order to take what care she was able of the things about the house during the day. There also the two boys remained, and herded throughout the day in a very indifferent manner; and, in short, every thing about the farm was going fast to confusion when Katharine returned from her mission to the Laird of Drummelzier. Thus it was that she found her father’s house deserted, its doors locked up, and its hearth cold.
Her anxiety to converse privately with Nanny was great; but at her first visit, when she went for the key, this was impossible without being overheard. She soon, however, found an opportunity; for that night[264] she enticed her into the byre at Chapelhope, in the gloaming, after the kine had left the lone, where a conversation took place between them in effect as follows:
“Alas, Nanny! how has all this happened? Did not the two Covenanters, for whom I sent, come to bear you company?”
“Dear bairn, if they did come I saw nae them. If they came, they were ower late, for the spirits were there afore them; an’ I hae seen sic a sight! Dear, dear bairn, dinna gar me gang owre it again—I hae seen a sight that’s enough to turn the heart o’ flesh to an iceshogle, an’ to freeze up the very springs o’ life!—Dinna gar me gang ower it again, an’ rake up the ashes o’ the honoured dead—But what need I say sae? The dead are up already! Lord in Heaven be my shield and safeguard!”
“Nanny, you affright me; but, be assured, your terrors have originated in some mistake—your sight has deceived you, and all shall yet be explained to your satisfaction.”
[265]“Say nae sae, dear bairn; my sight hasna deceived me, yet I have been deceived. The world has deceived me—hell has deceived me—and heaven has winked at the deed. Alak, an’ wae’s me, that it should sae hae been predestined afore the world began! The day was, an’ no sae lang sin’ syne, when I could hae prayed wi’ confidence, an’ sung wi’ joy; but now my mind is overturned, and I hae nouther stay on earth, nor hope in heaven! The veil of the Temple may be rent below, and the ark of the testimony thrown open above, but their forms will not be seen within the one, nor their names found written in the other! We have been counted as sheep for the slaughter; we have been killed all the day long; yet hath the Lord forgotten to be gracious, and is his mercy clean gone for ever!”
“Peace, peace, for Heaven’s sake!—You are verging on blasphemy, and know not what you say.”
[266]“Do the reprobate know what they say, or can they forbear? How then can I? I, who am in the bond of iniquity, and the jaws of death eternal?—Where can I fly? When the righteous are not saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?—Ay, dear bairn, weel may ye stare and raise up your hands that gate; but when ye hear my tale, ye winna wonder that my poor wits are uprooted. Suppose sic a case your ain—suppose you had been the bosom companion o’ ane for twenty years—had joined wi’ him in devotion, e’ening and morning, for a’ that time, and had never heard a sigh but for sin, nor a complaint but of the iniquities of the land—If ye had witnessed him follow two comely sons, your own flesh and blood, to the scaffold, and bless his God who put it in their hearts to stand and suffer for his cause, and for the crown of martyrdom he had bestowed on them, and bury the mangled bodies of other two with tears, but not with repining—If, after a’ this, he had been hunted as a partridge on[267] the mountains, and for the same dear cause, the simplicity of the truth as it is in Jesus, had laid down his life—If you knew that his grey head was hung upon the city wall for a spectacle to gaze at, and his trunk buried in the wild by strangers—Say you knew all this, and had all these dear ties in your remembrance, and yet, after long years of hope soon to join their blest society above, to see again that loved and revered form stand before your eyes on earth at midnight, shrivelled, pale, and deformed, and mixed with malevolent spirits on dire and revengeful intent, where wad your hope—where wad your confidence—or where wad your wits hae been flown?” Here she cried bitterly; and seizing the astonished Katharine’s hand with both hers, and pressing it to her brow, she continued her impassioned and frantic strain.—“Pity me, O dear bairn, pity me! For man hasna pitied me, an’ God hasna pitied me! I’m gaun down a floody water, down, down; an’ I[268] wad fain grip at something, if it were but a swoomin strae, as a last hope, or I sink a’ thegither.”
“These are the words of delirium,” said Katharine, “and I will not set them down as spoke by you. Pray the Almighty that they may never be written in his book of remembrance against you; for the veriest downfallen fiend can do no more than distrust the mercy of God in a Redeemer. I tell you, woman, that whatever you may fancy you have seen or heard in the darkness of night, when imagination forms fantasies of its own, of all those who have stood for our civil and religious liberties, who, for the sake of a good conscience, have yielded up all, and sealed their testimony with their blood, not one hair of their heads shall fall to the ground, for their names are written in the book of life, and they shall shine as stars in the kingdom of their Father. You have yourself suffered much, and have rejoiced in your sufferings—So far you[269] did well—Do not then mar so fair an eternal harvest—so blest a prospect of a happy and everlasting community, by the sin of despair, that can never be forgiven. Can you, for a moment, while in possession of your right senses, doubt of the tender mercies of your Maker and Preserver? Can you for a moment believe that he has hid his face from the tears and the blood that have been shed for his cause in Scotland? As well may you doubt that the earth bears or the sun warms you, or that he never made a revelation of his will to man.”
All the while that Katharine spoke thus, Nanny’s eyes were fixed on her, as if drinking every word she uttered into a soul that thirsted for it. A wild and unstable light beamed on her countenance, but it was still only like a sun–beam breaking through the storm, which is ready to be swallowed up by the rolling darkness within. Her head shook as with a slight paralytic affection, and she again clasped the hand which she had never quitted.
[270]“Are ye an angel o’ light,” said she, in a soft tremulous voice, “that ye gar my heart prinkle sae wi’ a joy that it never thought again to taste? It isna then a strae nor a stibble that I hae grippit at for my last hope, but the tap of a good tow–widdy saugh; an’ a young sapling though it be, it is steevely rootit in a good soil, an’ will maybe help the poor drowning wretch to the shore!—An’ hae I thought sae muckle ill o’ you? Could I deem that mild heavenly face, that’s but the reflection o’ the soul within, the image o’ sin and o’ Satan, an’ a veil o’ deceit thrawn ower a mind prone to wickedness? Forgie me, dear, dear saint, forgie me! It surely canna be condemned spirits that ye are connectit wi? Ah, ye’re dumb there!—ye darna answer me to that! Na, na! the spirits o’ the just made perfect wad never leave their abodes o’ felicity to gabble amang derksome fiends at the dead hour o’ the night, in sic a world o’ sin and sorrow as this. But I saw him, an’ heard him speak, as sure as I see your face an’[271] hear the tones o’ my ain voice; an’, if I lookit nae wrang, there were mae risen frae the dead than ane. It is an awfu’ dispensation to think o’! But there was a spirit o’ retaliation in him that often made me quake, though never sae as now. O wad ye but tell me what kind o’ spirits ye are in conjunction wi’?”
“None but the blest and the happy—None but they who have come out of great tribulation, and washed their robes white in the blood of the Lamb—None that would harbour such a thought, or utter such a doubt, as you have done to–night, for the empire of the universe—More I may not tell you at present; but stay you here with me, and I will cherish you, and introduce you to these spirits, and you shall be happier with them than ever you have been.”
“Will I sae?—Say nae mair!—I wad pit hand to my ain life the night, an’ risk the warst or I again met wi’ them face to face in the same guise as I saw them at midnight last week. Ye’re a wonderfu’ creature![272] But ye’re ayont my depth; therefore I’ll love ye, an’ fear ye, an’ keep my distance.”
Thus they parted: Katharine into her long vacant house, and Nanny over to Riskinhope. The farmer of Riskinhope (David Bryden of Eldin–hope), was ruined by the sequestration of his stock by Clavers, but the shepherds and other servants still lingered about the house for better or for worse. There was not a sheep on that large farm, save about five scores of good ewes, that Davie Tait, the herd of Whithope, had turned slyly over into the hags of the Yokeburn–head, that day the drivers took away the stock. When Clavers made his last raid up by Chapelhope, all the family of Riskinhope fled to the hills, and betook them to cover, every one by himself; and there, with beating hearts, peeped through the heath and the rash–bush, to watch the motions of that bloody persecutor. Perilous was their case that day, for had any of them been found in that situation,[273] it would have been enough; but Davie well knew it was good for him to keep out of the way, for Mr Renwick, and Mr Shields, as well as other wanderers, had been sheltered in his house many a night, and the latter wrote his Hind let Loose in a small house at the side of Winterhopeburn. Yet Davie was not a Cameronian, properly speaking, nor a very religious man neither; but the religious enthusiasm of his guests had broke him a little into their manner, and way of thinking. He had learned to make family exercise, not however to very great purpose, for the only thing very remarkable in it was the strong nasal Cameronian whine of his prayer, and its pastoral allusions; but he was grown fond of exhibiting in that line, having learned the Martyr’s tune, and the second part of the Dundee, which formed the whole range of his psalmody! Yet Davie liked a joke as well as ever he did, and perhaps as well as any part of divine worship.[274] When one remarked to him that his family music was loud enough, but very discordant,—“Ay,” quoth Davie, “but it’s a lang gate atween here an’ Heaven; a’ music’s good i’ the distance; I hae strong faith in that. I hae some hope i’ Dan’s bass too; it has great effect. I was wantin him to tak some salts an’ sinny leaf to help it a wee.”
That night after Nanny came over, Davie had prayed as usual, and among other things, had not forgot the Brownie of Bodsbeck, that “he might be skelpit wi’ the taws o’ divine wrath, an’ sent back to hell wi’ the sperks on his hips; and that the angel of presence might keep watch over their couches that night, to scare the howlaty face o’ him away, an’ learn him to keep his ain side o’ the water.”
After prayers the family were crowded round the fading ingle, and cracking of the Brownie and of Davie’s prayer. Davie had opened his waistcoat, and thrown off[275] his hose to warm his feet, and, flattered with their remarks on his abilities, began to be somewhat scurrilous on Brownie. “I think I hae cowed him the night,” said he; “he’ll fash nane o’ us—he may stay wi’ his Keatie Laidlaw yonder, an’ rin at her biddin. He has a sonsy weel–faur’d lass to bide wi’—he’s better aff than some o’ his neighbours, Maysey;” and, saying so, he cast a look to his wife that spoke unutterable things; but finding that his joke did not take, after so serious a prayer, he turned again on Brownie, and, as his own wife said, “didna leave him the likeness of a dog.” He said he had eaten sax bowes o’ good meal to the goodman, an’ a’ that he had done for’t, that ony body kend o’, was mending up an auld fail–dike round the corn ae night. In short, he said he was an unprofitable guest—a dirty droich, an’ a menseless glutton—an’ it was weak an’ silly in ony true Christian to be eiry for him. He had not said out the last words, when[276] they heard a whispering at the door, and shortly after these words distinctly uttered:
The size of every eye’s orbit was doubled in a moment, as it turned towards the door. The light of the fire was shining bright along the short entry between the beds, and they saw the appearance of a man, clothed in black, come slowly and deliberately in, walk across the entry, and go into the apartment in the other end of the house. The family were all above one another in beyond the fire in an instant, and struggling who to be undermost, and next the wall. Nanny, who was sitting on the form beyond the fire, pondering on other matters, leaning her brow on both hands, and all unconscious of what had entered, was overborne in the crush, and laid flat undermost of all.
“Dear, dear bairns, what’s asteer? Hout[277] fy! Why, troth, ye’ll crush the poor auld body as braid as a blood–kercake.”
“Ah! the Brownie!—the Brownie!—the Brownie o’ Bodsbeck!” was whispered in horror from every tongue.
Davie Tait luckily recollecting that there was a door at hand, that led to a little milk–house in the other end of the house, and still another division farther from Brownie, led the way to it on all four, at full gallop, and took shelter in the farthest corner of that. All the rest were soon above him, but Davie bore the oppressive weight with great fortitude for some time, and without a murmur. Nanny was left last; she kept hold of the Bible that she had in her lap when she fell, and had likewise the precaution to light the lamp before she followed her affrighted associates. Nothing could be more appalling than her own entry after them—never was a figure more calculated to inspire terror, than Nanny coming carrying a feeble glimmering lamp, that only served to make darkness visible, while her[278] pale raised–like features were bent over it, eager to discover her rueful compeers. The lamp was half–covered with her hand to keep it from being blown out; and her face, where only a line of light here and there was visible, was altogether horrible. Having discovered the situation, and the plight of the family, she bolted the door behind her, and advanced slowly up to them. “Dear bairns, what did ye see that has putten ye a’ this gate?”
“Lord sauf us!” cried Davie, from below, “we hae forespoke the Brownie—tak that elbow out o’ my guts a wee bit. They say, if ye speak o’ the deil, he’ll appear. ’Tis an unsonsy and dangerous thing to—Wha’s aught that knee? slack it a little. God guide us, sirs, there’s the weight of a mill–stane on aboon the links o’ my neck. If the Lord hae forsaken us, an’ winna heed our prayers, we may gie up a’ for tint thegither!—Nanny, hae ye boltit the door.”
“Ay hae I, firm an’ fast.”
“Than muve up a wee, sirs, or faith I’m[279] gane—Hech–howe! the weight o’ sin an’ mortality that’s amang ye.”
Davie’s courage, that had begun to mount on hearing that the door was bolted, soon gave way again, when he raised his head, and saw the utter dismay that was painted on each countenance. “Hout, Maysey woman, dinna just mak sic faces—ye are eneuch to fright fock, foreby aught else,” said he to his wife.
“O Davie, think what a wheen poor helpless creatures we are!—Does Brownie ever kill ony body?”
“I wish it be nae a waur thing than Brownie,” said Dan.
“Waur than Brownie? Mercy on us!—Waur than Brownie!—What was it like?” was whispered round.
“Ye mind poor Kirko, the bit Dinscore laird, that skulkit hereabouts sae lang, an’ sleepit several nights ben in that end?—Didna ye a’ think it was unco like him?”
“The very man!—the very man!—his[280] make, his gang, his claes, an’ every thing,” was echoed by all.
“An’ ye ken,” continued Dan, “that he was shot on Dumfries sands this simmer. It is his ghaist come to haunt the place whar he baid, an’ prayed sae aften.”
“Ower true! Ower true! it’s awsome to think o’,” was the general remark.
“Let us go to prayers,” said Nanny: “it isna a time to creep into nooks on aboon other, an’ gie way to despair. There is but Ane that can guard or protect us, let us apply there.”
“Something has been done that way already,” said Davie Tait; “we canna come to handygrips wi’ him, an’ force him to stand senter at our door a’ night.”
Davie’s matter was exhausted on the subject, and he did not much relish going over the same words again, which, he acknowledged, were rather kenspeckle; nor yet to venture on composing new ones out of his own head: this made him disposed to waive Nanny’s proposal.
[281]“Ay,” answered she, “but we mauna haud just wi’ saying gie us this, an’ gie us that; and than, because we dinna just get it aff loof, drap the plea an’ despair. Na, na, dear bairns, that’s nae part o’ the christian warfare! we maun plead wi’ humility, and plead again, an’ never was there mair cause for rousing to exertion than now. The times are momentous, and some great change is drawing near, for the dead are astir—I have seen them mysel’. Yes, the severed members that were scattered, and buried apart, are come thegither again—joined, an’ gaun aboon the grund, mouthing the air o’ Heaven. I saw it mysel—Can it be that the resurrection is begun? It is a far away thought for the thing itsel to be as near; but it’s a glorious ane, an’ there’s proof o’t. But then the place an’ the time are doubtfu’—had it been sun proof I wad hae likit it better. We little wot what to say or think under sic visitations. Let us apply to the only source of[282] light and direction. David, be you a mouth to us.”
“A mouth?” said Davie; but recollecting himself, added—“Hum, I understand you; but I hae mouthed mair already than has come to ony good. I like fock to pray that hae some chance to be heard; some fock may scraugh themsels hersh, and be nae the better.”
“Oh fie, David! speak wi’ some reverence,” said his wife Maysey.
“I mintit at naething else,” said he, “but I hae an unreverent kind o’ tongue that nought ever serous–like fa’s frae, let my frame o’ mind be as it will; an’ troth I haena command o’ language for a job like this. I trow the prelates hae the best way after a’, for they get prayers ready made to their hands, an’ disna need to affront their Maker wi’ blunders.”
“How can ye speak sae the night, David? or how can sic a thought hover round your heart as to flee out at random that[283] gate? If ye will read prayers, there’s a book, read them out o’ that; if the words o’ God winna suit the cases o’ his ain creatures, how can ye trow the words o’ another man can do it? But pray wi’ the heart, an’ pray in humility, and fearna being accepted.”
“That’s true; but yet ane maks but a poor figure wi’ the heart by itsel.”
“Wow, Davie, man,” quoth Maysey, his wife, “an’ ye mak but a poor figure indeed, when we’re a’ in sic a plight! Ye hear the woman speaks gude truth; an’ ye ken yoursel ye fenced us against the Brownie afore, but no against Kirky’s ghaist; tak the beuk like a man, an’ pit the fence o’ scripture faith round us for that too.”
Stupid as Maysey was, she knew the way to her husband’s heart. Davie could not resist such an appeal—he took the Bible; sung the 143d psalm, from beginning to end, at Nanny’s request; and likewise, by her direction, read the 20th of Revelations; then kneeling down on his bare knees, legs,[284] and feet, as he fled from the kitchen, on the damp miry floor of the milk–house, he essayed a strong energetic prayer as a fence against the invading ghost. But as Davie acknowledged, he had an irreverend expression naturally, that no effort could overcome, (and by the bye, there is more in this than mankind are in general aware of,) and the more he aimed at sublimity, the more ludicrous he grew, even to common ears. There is scarcely a boy in the country who cannot recite scraps of Davie Tait’s prayer; but were I to set all that is preserved of it down here, it might be construed as a mockery of that holy ordinance, than which nothing is so far from my heart or intention; but, convinced as I am that a rude exhibition in such a divine solemnity is of all things the most indecent and unbecoming, I think such should be held up to ridicule, as a warning to all Christians never to ask ignorance or absurdity to perform this sacred duty in public. The sublime part of it therefore is given, which was[285] meant as a fence against the spirit that had set up his rest so near. To such as are not acquainted with the pastoral terms, the meaning in some parts may be equivocal; to those who are, the train of thinking will be obvious.—It is part of a genuine prayer.
“But the last time we gathered oursels before thee, we left out a wing o’ the hirsel by mistake, an’ thou hast paid us hame i’ our ain coin. Thou wart sae gude than as come to the sheddin thysel, an’ clap our heads, an’ whisper i’ our lugs, ‘dinna be disheartened, my puir bits o’ waefu’ things, for though ye be the shotts o’ my hale fauld, I’ll take care o’ ye, an’ herd ye, an’ gie ye a’ that ye hae askit o’ me the night.’ It was kind, an’ thou hast done it; but we forgot a principal part, an’ maun tell thee now, that we have had another visitor sin’ ye war here, an’ ane wha’s back we wad rather see than his face. Thou kens better[286] thysel than we can tell thee what place he has made his escape frae; but we sair dread it is frae the boddomless pit, or he wadna hae ta’en possession but leave. Ye ken, that gang tried to keep vilent leasehaud o’ your ain fields, an’ your ain ha’, till ye gae them a killicoup. If he be ane o’ them, O come thysel to our help, an’ bring in thy hand a bolt o’ divine vengeance, het i’ the furnace o’ thy wrath as reed as a nailstring, an’ bizz him an’ scouder him till ye dinna leave him the likeness of a paper izel, until he be glad to creep into the worm–holes o’ the earth, never to see sun or sterns mair. But, if it be some puir dumfoundered soul that has been bumbased and stoundit at the view o’ the lang Hopes an’ the Downfa’s o’ Eternity, comed daundering away frae about the laiggen girds o’ Heaven to the waefu’ gang that he left behind, like a lost sheep that strays frae the rich pastures o’ the south, an’ comes bleating back a’ the gate to its cauld native hills, to the very gair where it was lambed and first followed[287] its minny, ane canna help haeing a fellow–feeling wi’ the puir soul after a’, but yet he’ll find himsel here like a cow in an unco loan. Therefore, O furnish him this night wi’ the wings o’ the wild gainner or the eagle, that he may swoof away back to a better hame than this, for we want nane o’ his company. An’ do thou give to the puir stray thing a weel–hained heff and a beildy lair, that he may nae mair come straggling amang a stock that’s sae unlike himsel, that they’re frightit at the very look o’ him.
“Thou hast promised in thy Word to be our shepherd, our guider an’ director; an’ thy word’s as gude as some men’s aith, an’ we’ll haud thee at it. Therefore take thy plaid about thee, thy staff in thy hand, an’ thy dog at thy fit, an’ gather us a’ in frae the cauld windy knowes o’ self–conceit—the plashy bogs an’ mires o’ sensuality, an’ the damp flows o’ worldly–mindedness, an’ wyse us a’ into the true bught o’ life, made o’ the flakes o’ forgiveness and the door o’[288] loving–kindness; an’ never do thou suffer us to be heftit e’ening or morning, but gie lashin’ meals o’ the milk o’ praise, the ream o’ thankfu’ness, an’ the butter o’ good–works. An’ do thou, in thy good time an’ way, smear us ower the hale bouk wi’ the tar o’ adversity, weel mixed up wi’ the meinging of repentance, that we may be kiver’d ower wi’ gude bouzy shake–rough fleeces o’ faith, a’ run out on the hips, an’ as brown as a tod. An’ do thou, moreover, fauld us ower–night, an’ every night, in within the true sheep–fauld o’ thy covenant, weel buggen wi’ the stanes o’ salvation, an’ caped wi’ the divots o’ grace. An’ then wi’ sic a shepherd, an’ sic a sheep–fauld, what hae wi’ to be feared for? Na, na! we’ll fear naething but sin!—We’ll never mair scare at the poolly–woolly o’ the whaup, nor swirl at the gelloch o’ the ern; for if the arm of our Shepherd be about us for good, a’ the imps, an’ a’ the powers o’ darkness, canna wrang a hair o’ our tails.”
[289]All the family arose from their knees with altered looks. Thus fenced, a new energy glowed in every breast. Poor Maysey, proud of her husband’s bold and sublime intercession, and trusting in the divine fence now raised around them, rose with the tear in her eye, seized the lamp, and led the way, followed by all the rest, to retake the apartment of Kirky’s ghost by open assault. Nanny, whose faith wont to be superior to all these things, lagged behind, dreading to see the sight that she had seen on the Saturday night before; and the bold intercessor himself kept her company, on pretence of a sleeping leg; but, in truth, his faith in his own intercession and fence did not mount very high. All the apartment was searched—every chest, corner, and hole that could be thought of—every thing was quiet, and not so much as a mouse stirring!—not a bed–cover folded down, nor the smallest remembered article missing! All the family[290] saw Kirky’s ghost enter in his own likeness, and heard him speak in his wonted tongue, except old Nanny. It was a great and wonderful victory gained. They were again in full possession of their own house, a right which they never seemed before to have duly appreciated. They felt grateful and happy; and it was hinted by Maysey, Dan, and uncle Nicholas, that Davie Tait would turn out a burning and a shining light in these dark and dismal times, and would supersede Messrs Renwick, Shields, and all the curates in the country. He had laid a visible ghost, that might be the devil for aught they knew to the contrary; and it was argued on all hands, that “Davie was nae sma’ drink.”
The whole of the simple group felt happy and grateful; and they agreed to sit another hour or two before they went to sleep, and each one read a chapter from the Bible, and recite a psalm or hymn. They did so, until it came to Nanny’s turn.
[291]She laid her hands across each other on her breast, turned in the balls of her half–closed eyes so that nothing was seen but the white, and, with her face raised upwards, and a slow rocking motion, she sung the following hymn, to a strain the most solemn that ever was heard. A scrap of this ancient melody is still preserved, and here subjoined, for without its effect the words are nothing.
This air, having a great resemblance to the tone and manner in which the old Cameronians said, or rather sung their prayers,[293] and just no more music in it, as the singer will perceive, than what renders the recitation more slow and solemn, Nanny’s hymn affected the family group in no ordinary degree; it made the hairs of their head creep, and thrilled their simple hearts, easily impressed by divine things, while their looks strongly expressed their feelings. None of them would read or recite any thing farther, but entreated Nanny to say it over again, affirming, with one voice that “it was an extrodnar thing.”
“Ah! dear, dear bairns! I dinna ken about it,” said she; “he was a good cannie lad that made it, but he mixed wi’ the scoffers, and turned to hae his doubts and his failings like mony ane, (Lord forgie us a’ for our share in them;) he seems even to have doubted o’ the Omnipresence when he penned that, which was far far wrang. I’ll rather say ye ane on that subject that he had made when in a better way o’ thinking. It is said that the Englishes sing it in their chapels.”
[294]She then attempted one in a bolder and more regular strain, but wanting the simplicity of the former, it failed in having the same effect. As it, however, closed the transactions of that momentous night at Riskinhope, we shall with it close this long chapter.
END OF VOLUME FIRST.
Edinburgh:
Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.
This curious protest is still extant, and shows the true spirit of the old Covenanters or Cameronians, as they have since been called, better than any work remaining. It is called in the title page, “An informatory Vindication of a poor, wasted, misrepresented Remnant of the suffering Anti–popish, Anti–prelatic, Anti–erastian, Anti–sectarian, true Presbyterian Church of Christ in Scotland.” It is dated at Leadhills in 1687, and is the conjoint work of Mr James Renwick, and Mr Alexander Shiels, author of The Hind let loose. The following is an extract from it, p. 107:—
“And in like manner we do hereby disclaim all unwarrantable practices committed by any few persons reputed to be of us, whereby the Lord hath been offended, his cause wronged, and we all made to endure the scourge of tongues; for which things we have desired to make conscience of mourning before the Lord, both in public and private. As the unwarrantable manner of killing that curate at the Corsephairn, though he was a man of death both by the laws of God and man, and the fact not materially murder; it being gone about contrary to our declaration, common or competent consent, (the conclusion and deed being known only to three or four persons) in a rash and not a Christian manner, and also other offences being committed at the time; which miscarriages have proven a mean to stop and retard lawful, laudable, and warrantable proceeding, both as to matter and manner.”
These other offences committed at the time, unquestionably refer to the slaughter of the Highland soldiers; about which, there was great stir and numerous conjectures in the country; although, owing to the revolution that immediately followed, the perpetrators were never taken, nor the cause tried in a court of justice, nor indeed was the incident ever generally known.
[1]One of the women baptized in the Linn of Riskinhope by Renwick that year, has several children yet alive, not very aged people.
[2]There is one page of music in the book; the html version of this file has links to a midi file ([Listen]); the musical notation ([PDF]); and and a MusicXML file ([XML]), which can be viewed in most browsers, text editors, and music notation applications.
The book has no chapter VII and two chapters XII.
A duplicate heading before chapter one (“THE BROWNIE OF BODSBECK”) has been removed.
The following are inconsistently used in the text:
Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected as follows:
Some possible errors have been left unchanged:
The transcribed text of the song is as follows: